Black Moon (5)
Someone came bolting out from inside the construction site and ran straight toward where I stood.
He was the man who had been watching everything from the moment I first arrived. Judging by his bearing, he belonged to Ren’s clan.
“Thank you so much for the help. M-may I ask who you are?”
“Ah, I… came with Ren.”
“With the clan leader? …Ah! Then are you the one who caught the clan leader’s sword with your fingers…?”
“Ah, yes…”
Hearing it said out loud was a little embarrassing.
Had I overdone the show of force? Of course, nothing demonstrated the difference in strength quite as clearly.
“I’m Ross. I mostly handle administrative work for the Deep Night Clan.”
He had a solid build for someone who claimed to do paperwork. His height was about the same as mine. Back home I’d been on the smaller side, but by the standards of the Empire I probably counted as fairly large.
“I’m Bell.”
I couldn’t offer my hand. Palm and back were both soaked in blood.
Ross, whose brown hair stuck up in spiky tufts, gave a short nod and shifted his gaze to the corpse sprawled on the ground.
It was the red-haired man who had simply stopped breathing on his own.
I explained what had happened.
“His eyes suddenly turned pitch-black, and then he just died. Do you know anything about that?”
“…No. That’s the first I’ve heard of it. We’ve run into strange things before, but…”
“You mean the way your bodies slowed down?”
“…If you already know that, then you wiped them all out even while under the same condition we were.”
Ross’s face sat somewhere between exhaustion and admiration.
I pulled my eyes away from the red-haired man who had died for no clear reason and approached the other man still standing blankly off to one side.
He was holding a small black bell, staring into empty air as if he hadn’t quite returned to reality yet.
I realized the bell in his hand was the same kind of object as the necklace I had obtained earlier.
That must have been what dulled their bodies.
Do these people have even more of these grotesque things?
I already knew from Ren that the ones who had attacked us belonged to the Black Moon Cult, a heretical order.
I didn’t like the thought, but… what if the “god” they worshipped had actually granted them this power?
The force was that unreal.
Even in the short time I watched him, the man holding the bell was visibly losing color. It seemed the thing harmed whoever carried it.
He showed no intention of putting it down of his own will. Or rather, he simply couldn’t.
I stepped in front of him and reached out. The wounds I’d taken when I first gripped the necklace had already healed during the carriage ride.
The instant my hand neared the bell, a resistance far beyond anything the necklace had produced exploded outward.
Even though I had expected the backlash, the force that shot up like black lightning still flung me back.
Is this one stronger?
Nothing else explained the reaction.
Fortunately, the shock also made the man drop the bell.
It hit the ground, yet no sound came—not even a single soft chime.
“…Is this the thing that was restricting our abilities?”
Ross had seen my hand get thrown back and clearly sensed the object was no ordinary trinket.
Just then someone approached us quietly.
It was Ren.
Unlike me, who had felt the strange aura nearby and run ahead, Ren and Pria had been coming by carriage.
That carriage had only just arrived.
Pria was probably still inside, guarding the necklace. She couldn’t carry it herself, after all.
“Clan leader…”
The moment Ross saw Ren’s face, complicated emotion rose in him; he bit down hard on his lip.
Suppressed rage, relief, or everything mixed together at once.
Ren looked at that face for a long moment before speaking. He must have sensed that something bad had happened.
“…What happened?”
“Black Moon bastards… hit us out of nowhere. We couldn’t respond properly and took heavy losses, but thankfully this man helped us…”
“The others?”
“They’re collecting the bodies right now. …A lot of people died.”
“….”
The atmosphere grew heavy, and silence settled for a while.
Ren lowered his head without a word, then slowly raised it again.
“…Thank you. You’ve already given us tremendous help.”
Ren bowed his head toward me. Even his speech had changed—not merely more formal, but far more respectful.
Ren had never been particularly expressive, yet right now his face looked more solemn than I had ever seen it.
So I said nothing else.
Ren soon shifted his gaze to the bell lying on the ground.
“…Is this also a Relic?”
“Seems that way.”
Ren glanced at the man who was still staring blankly into space.
“This one…”
“The person who was holding the bell.”
“Is he dead?”
“No… he’s still breathing.”
Without hesitation Ren stepped up to him, gripped his shoulders, and locked eyes.
“Hey. You with us?”
As if responding to the words, the man’s pupils trembled faintly, then slowly began to focus.
“Uh… uh?”
He seemed to be coming back, only to start gasping for air.
“Hah… hah…”
Sweat beaded on his pale, gaunt face and soon poured out until his whole body was drenched—as if every bit of fatigue and pain he had been suppressing had crashed down at once.
Ren waited a moment, then firmly shoved him back against a tree by the shoulders.
“You’re… a follower of the Black Moon, aren’t you?”
“Hah…”
Still panting, the man hesitated, then finally managed a weak nod.
Ren jerked his chin toward the bell on the ground.
“You know you nearly died using that thing?”
Again the man nodded. Sweat-soaked hair clung to his cheek.
“Willing to talk about what you know? If so, I’ll spare your life.”
This time he shook his head firmly, lips pressed tight even as he gasped.
Ren immediately let go of his shoulders. I thought he was giving up too easily, but Ren seemed to read my doubt.
“No matter what we try, he won’t open his mouth. Cultists are usually like that. Some of them even train for it voluntarily.”
Ren grabbed the weakening man by the collar, pulled him away from the tree, and struck the back of his neck, knocking him out cold.
“I intend to call the Luen Order. There’s no need for you to force yourself to carry this either, Lord Bell.”
“The Luen Order?”
“Yes. The order that serves the Light Goddess. It’s also the state religion of this Empire.”
Knowing I came from a remote rural village, Ren added the explanation carefully.
“The Luen Order’s influence is larger than you might think. Do you remember what I told you before about Authorities?”
“Yeah. The alien power beyond human limits that you gain once you reach the extreme of martial arts and mana.”
“Yes. Most people regard that transcendent power as a blessing from the gods.”
A blessing from the gods…
Lately I seemed to be hearing about gods more often than usual—Authorities, the Luen Order, the Black Moon Cult and their Relics.
“That’s the claim the Luen Order pushes hard. And… almost no one challenges it.”
Even the rational mages couldn’t explain Authorities with pure logic, Ren said, but more importantly, no force existed that could openly oppose the Luen Order’s doctrine.
“That’s why those who reach the realm of Grand Master are treated with great respect by the Luen Order as well. …They’ll probably know something about this object. They’ll take it away, of course.”
Ren looked at me carefully.
“Is that all right with you?”
I nodded quietly.
It didn’t matter.
I had already tried every method I could think of with the necklace and still hadn’t learned how to use it properly.
Besides… I had no desire to use something that grotesquely revived the dead and harmed its own user.
A powerful organization like that might know something about the black mana. For now, better to keep my own power hidden.
The Luen Order that served the Light Goddess.
How they would react to someone like me, who possessed a power similar to the black mana coming from a cult Relic, was impossible to predict.
“I’ll have a clan member guard this bell for now.”
Just as Ren was about to speak, I stopped him.
“Wait.”
I had no objection to calling the Luen Order, but there was something I needed to confirm first.
I bent down and reached for the bell again.
This time I didn’t simply extend my hand; I poured my will into it.
The will to defend—Su-ui, Defensive Will—wrapped my hand in a black aura different from the black mana. It was the same technique I had used when fighting the snake inside the Forbidden Zone.
In that state I brought my hand close to the bell.
Once more a fierce repulsive force erupted around it.
Crack.
A sound like the air itself tearing, and black electricity leapt up, shoving my hand back hard.
The force was far sharper and rougher than before.
But I forced my hand through, and the electricity crackled and spread across the black aura I had layered over my skin.
If I had touched it bare-handed, even my skin would have been shredded down to the bone. The energy pouring from this bell was far stronger than what the necklace had released.
Fortunately, Su-ui held until I closed my fingers around the bell.
I confirmed that Will could block even this bizarre energy.
Now, even if more objects of the same kind appeared, I had a way to counter them.
“Let’s head back to the clan building for now. I’ll go get Pria.”
At my words Ren nodded heavily.
Once we returned, he would have to face the cold corpses of his comrades.
I could understand that feeling.