Chapter 88
Chapter 88
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 88
Chapter Title: Lunar Eclipse (1)
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"...?"
What's happening?
Luna was watching the students fight when she blinked, and suddenly, she was somewhere else.
She looked around, but no one was there. All around her was nothing but pitch-black darkness.
"Luke? Yui?"
She called out to the two people who had been right beside her, but naturally, there was no reply.
No, was this even a different place? Could it be the same place, just feeling different? Or was she caught in some kind of illusion?
To be honest, this wasn't the first time she'd experienced something like this.
A sinister feeling, similar to the demon that had once forcibly dragged out her nightmares, pricked at her from all sides.
Only demons, she was certain, would stoop to such things and possess such foul abilities.
But.
'Luke said nothing would happen...'
Luke hadn't mentioned anything like this would occur.
And yet, something had.
Even though Luke often acted and spoke strangely, he wasn't the type to hide things or lie when asked.
That meant he didn't know about this either.
In any case, being left alone in such a dark space was far from pleasant.
What was she supposed to do?
As she was pondering this.
[What are you so worried about?]
"!"
A voice echoed from the space that had been empty just a moment ago.
Immediately after, someone emerged from the impenetrable darkness.
Despite the darkness being so thick that nothing should have been visible, the figure's form was strangely clear.
And there was another reason for Luna's shock.
The voice had sparked a suspicion, but seeing the figure made it certain.
That thing... no, *her* appearance was, by all accounts, Luna's own.
The only differences were that the whites of her eyes were black, and her irises were not silver like her own, but a deep violet.
She wondered if it was just someone who looked similar, but...
'...It's definitely me.'
How could she mistake her own face?
The figure, looking like her twin, seemed to be a perfect reflection of what she would look like if she became a Demonic Human.
[Stop thinking and just accept it. I am you.]
"!"
How did it know?
The answer to that question was...
[I am you. You think I wouldn't know what you're thinking?]
"..."
She had never been a Demonic Human, nor did she ever intend to become one. It was disgusting to hear this demon claim to be the same as her.
It was as if it was saying she was destined to become one. In any case, if it was an enemy, she just had to defeat it.
Luna immediately drew the dagger from her waist.
[Just as I thought. With our personality, long talks are unnecessary, aren't they?]
The Demonic Human smiled as if amused. She, too, drew an identical dagger.
Luna's brow furrowed as she watched.
She hated to admit it, but the resemblance was uncanny.
As she always did, Luna charged forward, enhancing her body with mana and using wind magic.
Her opponent responded in the exact same way.
The only difference was that the wind was violet.
But she paid it no mind.
All she wanted was to kill it quickly and escape this place.
So, after creating some distance, Luna charged again.
This time, she intended to engage in close-quarters combat.
Closing the distance until she was right in front of the Demonic Human, she swung her dagger.
A clang of steel rang out as their blades crossed.
[Why did you think I couldn't do what you can do?]
"Kgh...!"
When Luna slashed diagonally, the Demonic Human countered by slashing in the opposite direction.
A horizontal cut was met with an opposing one; a vertical upswing was met with a downswing.
[I don't know why you're trying so hard. It's not like you have anything left to lose. Or anything you want to gain.]
She wasn't this talkative.
Was her personality different?
The Demonic Human kept talking throughout the fight.
[Revenge? That's over. The noble who gave the order was judged, and Luke killed the mercenary.]
Luna wanted to say something, but in the end, she couldn't.
Everything the Demonic Human said was true, and arguing with a fake was pointless anyway.
Besides, to argue with a Demonic Human that looked exactly like her would mean dredging up her own trauma.
That would just be spitting into the wind.
[Now that you have no family and no reason to live, I don't see why you're trying so hard.]
Having already been tormented by nightmares before, Luna didn't fall for such a petty provocation.
She saved the energy she would have used to reply and put it into swinging her dagger one more time.
The exchange of blows continued several more times, but neither of them landed a single wound.
This was because every time she attacked, the Demonic Human countered with perfectly symmetrical angle and force.
It felt like playing rock-paper-scissors against a mirror.
No matter how many times she attacked, it was blocked. No matter how many attacks came her way, she blocked them.
As this offense and defense continued, Luna was the one at a disadvantage.
Her opponent showed no signs of fatigue, as if its stamina was infinite, but Luna's stamina was not, and her mana was limited. She was starting to get out of breath.
So, Luna deliberately created distance to catch her breath.
"Hah... hah..."
[Ah, by the way. I'll have to take back what I said about us being the same.]
As Luna stood at a distance, catching her breath, she heard a statement from the Demonic Human that was quite different from its previous claims of them being identical.
Luna, who had never thought they were the same to begin with, didn't think much of it, but...
[Because I'm stronger than you.]
"!"
The Demonic Human's preemptive strike forced her to hastily assume a defensive stance.
Her breathing, movements, techniques—everything had been identical to her own, so she tried to block it in the same way, but...
"Ugh...!"
She failed to block it, and her side was slashed.
The Demonic Human's movement was one she had never seen before, a movement she herself didn't know.
The Demonic Human, standing upside down in mid-air, had slashed Luna's side as it passed.
Could this be a well-crafted illusion? Throughout the fight, that thought had lingered in the back of her mind.
But now that she'd been cut, she knew.
This was no illusion. This was real.
If this was an illusion, then the only one capable of creating it would be the Demon God that Luke always talked about, having descended upon them.
The strongest thought currently in Luna's mind was...
'...This is absurd.'
It wasn't as if demons or Demonic Humans were ever honest, but still, after claiming to be the same as her and only showing identical movements, it was now unveiling a different technique.
A technique that she herself couldn't even use.
[Absurd? What do you think Luke would say if he heard that?]
The Demonic Human spoke as if it naturally knew her thoughts.
If it were Luke... he would surely say it was her fault for being so damn weak. He never looked for the cause of defeat elsewhere.
She thought she had gotten much stronger while traveling with him, but perhaps she had just been hunting comfortably from within the cradle that was Luke.
Maybe, as Luke had said before, her own imagination had died.
[So, are you done with the distracting thoughts?]
If the culprit behind this incident died, Luna would be the victor.
So, her opponent should have been the one in a hurry, yet the Demonic Human kept initiating conversation as if it was enjoying itself.
As if saying no one would come to save her, that no one could escape this place.
The Demonic Human's movements were unpredictable.
It stepped on the air to fly and shot down from above like someone hanging upside down from a branch.
"Ugh!"
One, two, three cuts appeared.
Red lines were drawn across her arms, legs, and face.
There wasn't an unscathed spot left on her.
She tried to block, but more attacks got through than she could parry.
Every time she tried, the number of wounds only continued to increase.
Now, there wasn't a single part of her body without a wound. If this fight continued, she felt she would die from blood loss first.
Therefore, to survive, she had to focus more.
She switched to a completely defensive stance.
It was tantamount to declaring that she was giving up on attacking.
[Are you thinking someone will save you if you just hold out? Are you hoping Luke will solve this for you again?]
She casually ignored the taunt.
Even while defending, she kept her eyes wide open, reading her opponent's blade path and the flow of the wind.
Even on the defensive, the wounds kept piling up.
Just when she thought she would really die if this continued, when she was pushed to the brink of death and her consciousness was stretched to its limit...
-Clang!
She was able to mimic that bizarre movement.
The dagger in Luna's reverse grip scraped against the one thrust by the Demonic Human.
[...]!
For the first time, the Demonic Human was flustered.
"Why did you think I couldn't do what you can do?"
Luna returned the words she had been dealt.
People awaken on the threshold of death.
Hadn't Luke always said that? That people only grow when they face the threat of death.
Truly, not a single word of his was wrong.
In the first place, the fact that the Demonic Human could use it meant that she could use it too.
She didn't have the talent to copy it after seeing it just once, so it took some time to learn, but she had somehow managed to catch up.
Leaping by creating footholds of wind in mid-air. She decided to name this new technique 'Moon Step'.
[Right. I am you, and you are me. I forgot something so obvious. But it doesn't matter! Your stamina is almost gone, and you're a wreck! In the end, I'll be the one to win!]
...That was certainly true.
Her mana was almost depleted. Her stamina was even worse. In fact, she would probably die from blood loss just by standing still.
Therefore, to turn the tables in this situation, she needed something new of her own, something the Demonic Human didn't know.
She thought about what she had endured so far.
The utter absurdity unique to demons—appearing suddenly without warning, pulling you into their domain before you could even realize it.
Therefore, what Luna herself desired was that same absurdity.
In her mind, she painted a new picture.
She envisioned creating her own space, trapping her opponent within it—a space that would be advantageous only to her and disadvantageous to her opponent.
And there was one type of magic that could make that possible.
What Luna intended to use was a barrier.
There are many types of barriers depending on their use, such as isolation barriers that control entry and exit, detection barriers like the one at the academy that search for specific targets, and combat barriers that create advantages for the user and disadvantages for the opponent.
The barrier Luna was about to create was a Mindscape.
To shape a mindscape into the form of a barrier.
Creating the barrier wasn't difficult. She just had to spread a thin film of mana.
As for the mindscape, she already had an image in mind.
From some point, a bright light began to shine down on the space where Luna stood.
What she pictured was the moon.
A full moon, to be precise.
But... something was missing.
A shadow began to fall upon the white moon that had risen behind Luna.
The shadow crept in from the left, gradually nibbling away at the moon until it reached the right edge and swallowed it whole.
Then, it began to reveal its form again from the left.
But the moon that appeared this time was not the beautiful white moon that illuminates the darkness.
It was the color of fresh blood, as if someone had painted it.
A chilling, crimson moon rose behind Luna.
[Wha... What is this?!]
The Demonic Human was flustered by the unfamiliar technique.
But Luna had no intention of answering.
She simply gripped her dagger in a reverse hold.
[Y-You must not understand! If you can do it, then I can do it too!]
That was true.
She had done the same.
Which is why she wouldn't give it time to see and understand.
What she was doing was a trick of the eye. In the darkness, the moon she created was the only source of light within the barrier.
It was a simple illusion that refracted only the moonlight shining on her, making her appear invisible to the naked eye.
This wasn't a phenomenon that could normally be created, but this was inside the barrier Luna had made. Here, the moon would move according to her will.
Luna walked silently. She was simply walking openly, yet her opponent didn't notice.
From the sound of her footsteps to the sliver of killing intent aimed at her opponent.
She erased all traces of her presence.
[If I just hold on—...]
The words were never finished.
The Demonic Human's head was already rolling on the ground, and a fountain of disgusting purple blood erupted from its neck.
"Hah..."
After the battle ended, she sheathed her dagger and collapsed, taking a moment to rest.
The tension left her with the thought that she had won.
She sat there blankly, watching the darkness crumble around her as she thought.
What should she name the technique she just used?
The deliberation wasn't long. The image she wanted to project proved it.
Lunar Eclipse.
Yes. That would be good.