Chapter 52
Chapter 52
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: Nightmare (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"...na!"
It was a somewhat familiar voice.
Yet, at the same time, it was an intimate one.
Where could that voice be coming from...?
That thought didn't last long.
"Luna...!"
"......?"
"Luna, wake up! How long are you going to sleep! The sun is already high in the sky!"
As Luna, groggy and half-asleep, rubbed her eyes and forced herself awake.
Her eyes fell upon someone who shouldn't have been there.
"Mo...m...?"
A trembling voice escaped her lips.
"Hm? What's wrong?"
Seeing her mother give her that warm smile she had once known, Luna was bewildered.
Soon, her trembling eyes scanned her surroundings.
Wooden walls and floor.
In the small room was a familiar bed, upon which she was sitting.
It was a humble room, devoid of any signs of wealth, but it held the same warmth she remembered.
*...I was sure I was at an inn.*
Her last memory was of heading to an inn with Luke after finishing a request and going to sleep in their separate rooms.
But when she opened her eyes, this was the situation.
As she was lost in confusion.
Once more, the lovely lips of the woman standing before Luna parted.
"Oh, my? Look at you. Did you have a nightmare or something?"
"A dream...?"
Could everything that had happened until now really have been a dream...?
"You must have had such a scary dream for your face to be so pale..."
As the woman's hand touched Luna's cheek and her thumb caressed it, a strange warmth spread throughout her body, though it was only her face being touched.
Was it all a dream...?
Yes... this is reality.
A future where my whole family dies... that can't be real, can it?
I just had a bad dream. A very scary dream.
Thinking that everything that had happened was a dream, tears began to stream down her face.
The person she had missed so dearly, the person she thought she could never see again no matter how much she wanted to.
Was right here before her, alive and breathing.
"Mom..."
Luna threw her arms around the woman, shedding tears she had never shown in front of others.
"Sob... Mom...!"
"There, there..."
And so, Luna sobbed in the woman's embrace for a while, being gently stroked.
***
After five minutes that felt like five hours, Luna pulled away, and the woman wiped the tears from her red-rimmed eyes with her thumb.
"Are you okay now?"
"...Yes."
"Then hurry up and get ready for breakfast. Your father and Damian are already waiting."
Dad. Damian.
That's right...
In the nightmare, it wasn't just her mother who died, but her father and brother too. Her entire family.
"If you understand, then you should get up quickly, right?"
"Yes..."
The woman went downstairs first, and Luna, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed, belatedly scrambled up to change her clothes.
As she quickly descended the creaking wooden stairs to the first floor, the living room came into view.
The place she had always missed, always longed for, was filled with her precious people.
Her mother, ladling soup into bowls.
Her father, carrying the food-filled dishes to the table.
Her younger brother, setting out the spoons and chopsticks.
Luna blankly took in the scene.
Just then, Damian's gaze fell on Luna.
"Ah! Sis, what took you so long! It's not fair for you to slack off by yourself!"
Her precious little brother.
He was just as she remembered.
Letting out a small, wry chuckle, she apologized and approached the table.
"Sorry. I overslept."
"You're up?"
"Yes. Dad. Good morning."
To make up for oversleeping, Luna moved quickly to help set the table.
Breakfast was the meat soup her mother always made, a simple vegetable salad, and bread.
""Let's eat!""
As she took a spoonful of the steaming soup.
Luna almost started crying again without realizing it.
It wasn't made with fancy ingredients or rare, exotic foods.
But when she thought about the care put into it, which made such things irrelevant, and how she thought she would never be able to eat this again.
She couldn't say a word, moving her spoon as if possessed.
"Whoa... Sis, were you that hungry? You want some of mine?"
"No, it's okay. You eat a lot. That's how you'll grow taller than me."
"I was just trying to be nice, and now you're making fun of me for being short?"
It wasn't that Damian was short.
It was just that Luna was unusually tall for a girl.
"But it's true, isn't it?"
"What?"
At the common sight of their sibling squabbles, her mother, father, and brother filled the table with laughter.
After finishing their pleasant meal.
Luna, along with her father and younger brother, gathered their hunting gear, put on some simple leather armor, and stood at the entrance.
As the two of them headed for the door, they said their goodbyes.
""We're heading out.""
After the siblings said their farewells together.
"Honey. I'm heading out."
"Be careful."
With their parents' goodbyes behind them, they left the house.
What came into her view were the familiar buildings and the people she always saw.
An unnamed village, far from the Beastkin nation.
This was where Luna's family lived.
It wasn't bustling with large buildings or crowds of people, but the villagers were kind, and Luna herself was fond of the village, so she had no complaints.
"Hey~ Dael. Going hunting again today?"
The man from next door.
He was a kind man who traveled back and forth by carriage between this small village and the Beastkin nation, supplying the village with needed goods.
With his easygoing personality, he was also a close friend of her father.
""Hello, sir.""
As the siblings bowed their heads in greeting, the man welcomed them with a bright smile.
"Hey there~ Luna, Damian. Good morning to you~"
The siblings' father, Dael, spoke with the man as they passed.
"Of course. If I don't go, who's going to feed my family?"
"Is that so. Be careful out there. I've been hearing some nasty rumors lately."
"Heh heh. Look who's talking."
"Right? Nothing's funnier than a porter worrying about a hunter."
Besides him, as was typical for a close-knit village, they had frequent encounters on their way out.
"Off to hunt again today? Here, take this lunchbox and eat it when you get hungry."
"Dael, make sure to pick up some vegetables when you're done today. They're freshly picked."
"Be careful out there. If anything happens, run away immediately. Got it?"
The lady she'd known since childhood, the old woman from the house across the way who farmed, the man standing guard at the entrance.
They were all people she had left buried in the past.
And yet, they were all alive.
A smile never left Luna's lips.
Seeing the excited Luna grinning from ear to ear, Dael asked her a question.
"What's got you in such a good mood? You're beaming today."
"Hehe... I had a nightmare."
"Ah, a nightmare...?"
"Yes!"
"I-I see...?"
At the sight of Luna smiling brightly while saying she'd had a nightmare, Dael was momentarily at a loss for words.
He wondered if his daughter had perhaps gone strange.
The thought briefly crossed his mind.
"Dad! Over there!"
Just then, Damian's ears twitched, and he quietly pointed in a certain direction.
In that direction, a large bear was standing on its hind legs, holding onto a tree.
"Well done."
"Hehe..."
"Is it Damian's turn today?"
"Yes!"
Dael's profession was a hunter.
He was the only hunter in the village, making a living by hunting monsters and wild animals from the forest.
Luna and Damian were helping Dael and gradually honing their skills, taking turns hunting each day to improve their craft.
Today was Damian's turn.
Unlike his older sister Luna, Damian was a warrior who wielded a one-handed sword and a buckler.
"Bears are stronger than weak monsters like goblins, so be careful."
"Understood!"
Damian circled around to the bear's blind spot and hid among the bushes.
Then, just as Luna had done, he created a foothold with wind magic and leaped behind the bear in an instant.
-Shwwwiick—!
"Guooooooh!!"
Damian's first strike hit the bear's back, and fresh blood splattered.
The cutting power of an already sharp sword enhanced with wind was beyond imagination, but it was impossible to fell the bear in one blow with a one-handed sword.
The wounded bear immediately turned to counterattack, and Damian once again used the wind as a foothold to swiftly evade.
"Ugh... This is nerve-wracking."
"I feel the same way. My heart keeps sinking."
Damian, who wasn't much younger than Luna.
As a male, Damian had greater basic strength than Luna, but when it came to handling mana, Luna was always ahead.
Luna and Dael were ready to jump in at a moment's notice.
Fortunately, Damian succeeded in hunting the bear on his own.
However, there was still much room for improvement; Damian's shirt was soaked in sweat, and since his control over mana was still unrefined, he seemed to have used a lot of it indiscriminately.
"Damian has already finished today's share."
"How about that? I'm not falling behind you anymore, am I, Sis?"
"You've still got a long way to go."
"Tch. Would it kill you to cut me some slack?"
After that, Luna and Damian assisted Dael with his hunting, and they spent several hours hunting in the forest.
They hunted wild animals like boars and occasionally seen monsters like goblins.
After some time had passed like this.
Dael and the siblings headed back to the village.
On the way to the village.
Luna felt a sense of unease, but she dismissed it as just a feeling and pushed it out of her mind.
-BOOM!!
An explosive sound echoed as they neared the village.
At that sound, Luna remembered the source of her unease.
The beginning of the incident.
The memory she had forgotten... no, to be precise, the memory she had wanted to forget, resurfaced.
As if possessed, Luna let out a gasp.
"Ah... Aah..."
Just then, Dael, who was beside her, sensed the unspoken disaster unfolding in the village and shouted.
"Luna! Damian! I'm going on ahead! Find a place to hide!"
With those words, Dael quickly dashed towards the village.
"Ah, no!"
Watching him go, Luna tried to follow, but her brother Damian stopped her.
"W-Wait, Sis! Dad told us to hide!"
"Let go! We have to go now! If we don't help, everyone will die!"
If I don't go now, everyone will die. The same tragedy will happen all over again.
I was stupidly lost in a moment of happiness.
Even though I knew, I thought it was a dream and didn't prepare any countermeasures.
I was still just a bystander.
Shaking off Damian's arm with all her strength, Luna sprinted towards the village without looking back.
The trees reflected in her eyes blurred past her as the village came into view.
As if the peace from just a few hours ago had been the calm before the storm.
The disaster struck like a tidal wave.
The village was burning.
The guard from the entrance, fighting the invaders.
Corpses strewn everywhere.
The village, once covered in green and brown.
Was now painted over with red.
And at the edge of her vision, a familiar figure.
It was Luna's father, Dael.
Across from Dael was an invader holding her mother hostage.
Her mother, with a knife at her throat.
Even Dael, who was stronger than Luna, was helpless.
A familiar scene, a scene she could never forget no matter how much she wanted to, replayed in her mind.
The next scene followed as if it were a scripted play, a continuation of her memory.
"Luna..."
Dael, who had somehow turned around, had eyes filled with the sight of Luna.
That gaze, filled with the same sorrow and affection she had seen once in the past.
Those eyes she never wanted to see again.
Were being reenacted right now.
"Run..."
That was Dael's final line in this play.
Having surrendered for his family's sake, Dael was brutally cut down by the invaders' swords, dying right before Luna's eyes.
That wasn't all.
Luna's mother, Lunia, was also killed on the spot, the invaders claiming that an old beastkin wouldn't sell.
*Why aren't I moving!!!! WHY!!!!!!!*
Why can't I move even while watching them die before my very eyes!!
Is it because this is a play with a predetermined ending?
Is it because I'm just one of the puppets in this play?
Either way, there was nothing Luna could do.
"S-Sis..."
The voice coming from behind Luna was the final stage device.
As Luna's head creaked around, her eyes fell on Damian, his face shoved into the ground, restrained by several men.
"Damian!"
It seemed her calling out to her brother was also part of the script.
And then.
"Oh? That one's quite pretty. She'll fetch a good price."
The one who appeared to be the leader of the invaders came out and recited his line.
She could have fought if she wanted to.
But she couldn't weigh her brother's life against the lives of such trash.
In the end, Luna could do nothing but allow herself to be shackled.
But was that a mistake?
"What should we do with this one?"
"Hm? A male beastkin? Most of our clients are men, who's going to buy him? He's just baggage, so kill him."
"Understood."
The invader's cold, sharp blade touched Damian's neck.
"Siiiis...!"
"Damian!!! DAMIAN!!!!!!"
She begged them to stop, saying she would do anything, to just make her a slave instead.
She cried out desperately.
-Slice!
"Ah... Aaaah...!!"
The ending of this stage did not change.
Why did they have to suffer this?
Why were those people doing this?
She didn't bother trying to understand.
It was just so unfair.
"What did we ever do wrong!!"
Why were they tormenting us when we were just living our lives?
They were all good, kind people.
Spoken of in the past tense, they were no longer of this world.
Because everyone but her was dead.
The play was now over.
In the middle of the burning village, where time seemed to have stopped, Luna sat all alone.
As Luna sat there blankly, familiar voices echoed in her ears.
-Why are you just sitting there? Get up and avenge us....
-Sis... it hurts... make those people feel the same....
-Luna, avenge your family. Do not forgive those damn humans.
Even as she felt like giving up on everything.
A wave of disgust washed over her, and Luna clenched her teeth.
"...Don't you dare speak for my family."
Even amidst the relentless waves of nausea.
There was one clear thought.
My family would never say such things.
Who are you to arbitrarily turn my family into vengeful spirits?
I've never had such a vivid nightmare.
Someone must have induced this intentionally.
I don't know who it is, but when I wake from this nightmare, I will kill the one responsible.
Luna clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood.
Then, one by one, hairline cracks began to appear in her vision.
Before long, she heard the sound of something shattering.
***
When Luna opened her eyes, she was on the bed in the inn from her last memory.
The memory was so intense that the nightmare followed her into reality, tormenting her.
It would have been better if it were a dream she couldn't remember.
"......"
Her hollow eyes fell upon a pair of daggers resting on the bedside table.
Vowing to deliver the revenge they had asked for, Luna took the daggers and left the room.