Chapter 184
Chapter 184
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 184
Chapter Title: Get Out of Our Yard!
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"Alright, kneel here and plant your palms flat on the ground."
I herded the subdued intruders into a corner of our yard.
Even though we'd beaten them down with clubs, who knew when these shady characters might change their minds and come at us.
Kneeling, they trembled before me and Luna's clubs, whispering furtively to one another.
"What do we do?"
"I don't know, they're looking over here—!"
"From now on, only speak when I ask a question, and raise your hand first."
I tapped the end of my club on the ground, and the group flinched, finally clamping their mouths shut beneath their masks.
Soon, a chaotic but oddly satisfying silence and order settled over the yard. As expected, raw force resolved most problems.
"So, why did you come into our yard?"
When I asked, a slender girl trembling amid the crowd spoke up. Her name was Kaimi or something like that.
"I thought... I thought this was the river ferry landing.... I didn't know it was the goddess's sanctuary. Please, just forgive us this once...."
But no matter how I listened, the voice from beneath her mask made no sense.
What ferry landing?
There wasn't a river—or even a glimpse of one—anywhere nearby.
What on earth were they talking about? Just as I wanted to press further, Luna slammed her silence totem on the ground, mimicking how I'd intimidated them, and shouted.
"Since you came into my yard, you all have to pay the entry fee! You follow my rules here!"
Luna had a real knack for business, and she seemed thrilled at the chance to make some money even now.
We'd already squeezed 2 coppers out of this little girl Kaimi before. But despite Luna's growling, the intruders just hemmed and hawed, eyeing each other.
So I chimed in.
"Didn't you hear? Hand over all your money, quick! Or I'll shove this club right up your asses!"
Clink. Clink.
Only then did they start tossing copper coins onto the ground one by one, scared out of their wits.
They were all coppers made of bronze and such. About 20 coppers in total, assuming 2 per person.
I frowned as I counted them.
"This is all?"
How could so many people not have even a single silver? I was a bit disappointed by the meager haul when one of them raised a hand.
"What."
"I-I'm called Bertus. If I may speak...?"
The man's voice sounded fairly old. Probably an elder.
He'd raised his hand and spoken politely, as I'd instructed, so I softened my tone a little.
"Go ahead."
"Th-that money is what we scraped together all day today. Without it, we can't cross the river this year either...!"
"...Fine. Give it back."
"We barely managed to gather it...."
Murmurs of protest rose here and there at his words. Of course, I slammed my club down again, and they went dead silent.
"Shh. Quiet."
Anyway, if their words were true, these puny coppers—barely adding up to a silver—were somehow precious treasures to them.
Well, it made sense if this was their entire fortune. A rich man's 2 coppers weren't worth the same as a poor man's, and clearly, their sense of money differed from mine.
Back in my slave days, I'd cherished 30 silvers like my own life. They represented my freedom, after all.
So maybe these 2 coppers held some special meaning for them too?
That's why I decided to ask the masked old man who'd just spoken.
"I don't get it. Who the hell are you people? Tell me why you climbed over someone else's fence in the middle of the night."
"Well...."
At my question, the old man Bertus glanced around. His plain wooden mask, with only eye holes, swiveled as if surveying the surroundings.
He hesitated for a long moment before finally speaking from beneath the mask.
"We are the departed souls who couldn't cross the river because we lacked the 2-copper fare. We scraped together the money from the festival grounds today and came to this ferry landing...."
Beneath the mask, the old man's blue eyes met mine.
"This really isn't the ferry landing? No matter how I look, it seems just like the one to the underworld...."
The man who'd called himself a departed soul acted like he couldn't let go of that "ferry landing" keyword.
And those around him murmured too, as if utterly convinced this was where you boarded a boat.
Luna, who'd been listening, piped up.
"If you're departed souls, that means you're already dead, right?"
"Yes. We are all dead spirits. You can call us ghosts or phantoms."
Ghosts screaming from club blows.
I couldn't fathom why a bunch of guys claiming to be ghosts had barged into our yard.
Was the site cursed? Luna had said it was prime real estate.
More importantly, were these guys really ghosts?
The world had goblins, skeletons, talking piglets, elves, and even godlike beings, so ghosts weren't impossible.
Still, I felt a twinge of disappointment at the gap between the spooky ghosts in my imagination and these ones shrieking from beatings.
"You guys are really ghosts? Honestly, you don't seem much different from humans."
The polite old man Bertus answered.
"Today is the solstice, the longest day of the year. Just as bright light casts deep shadows, on nights when the power of light is strong, the power of darkness grows too. That's why we can interact with the world only today."
Swoosh.
Old man Bertus gazed at his arm emerging from beneath his black robe. He examined his wrinkled palm this way and that, then added wonderingly.
"But this year, we've become quite lifelike. No rot, no wounds. This way, we can easily fool the pursuers."
I didn't catch everything he said, but I could sense these guys were somehow different from the living.
A haunted yard crawling with ghosts.
I seriously considered moving.
As my head spun with such thoughts, Luna, who'd been listening quietly, spoke up as if summarizing.
"So, you're all dead people who want to go to the formless lands?"
"Yes. That's the gist of it. If we can't cross the river even during this year's festival, we might really get caught by the pursuers."
"What's a pursuer?"
At Luna's question, murmurs swelled everywhere. They all muttered "pursuer—pursuer—" as if terrified of the word.
"Pursuers are the monsters that devour departed souls like us. We wear masks and cover our bodies to evade their eyes. So many comrades have already been eaten...."
Bertus then bowed low to us.
"This year, we must board the boat safely.... Souls that fail to pass on grow corrupting mana, drawing the pursuers...."
Prostrated flat, Bertus continued.
"Goddess, we were wrong to enter your sanctuary rashly. Could you forgive us just this once and return our money?"
They mistook our yard for some goddess's temple and Luna for the goddess herself.
Luna was the daughter of the night goddess Nox, so it wasn't entirely wrong. There was even a statue of Nox inside the cabin.
But Luna burst out laughing beneath her mask, as if finding the situation hilarious. Well, no woman would hate being called a goddess.
For a guy, it'd be like hearing "this dick's huge." Gotta feel good.
Perhaps that's why Luna seemed delighted as she said.
"Fine, I'll send you safely to the formless lands. And I've taken your money."
"Really?"
Her words brightened the previously gloomy bunch.
Their faces were hidden by masks, but I could tell from their gaping mouths that they were all beaming with joy.
"A merciful goddess! Thank you. Thank you—!"
"Finally, my soul and spirit can rest. Is my wife waiting for me beyond the river?"
"Good thing we didn't get caught by the pursuers...."
The yard grew noisy again as they chattered.
"Shh, quiet. Now we need to focus."
Luna shushed them, then drew something in a spacious corner of the yard—a one-square-meter magic circle or spell array, I couldn't tell which.
The star-shaped pattern, dotted with points, resembled a blooming wildflower.
"I learned the Soul-Pacifying Voodoo ages ago. Communicating with spirits is Voodoo basics. Alright, one by one, step inside and stand here!"
Luna shouted, raising her silence totem. The masked group exchanged glances and words.
"Who first?"
"Bertus has reached his limit. He's been dead the longest. Let's send him first."
"Yeah, good idea. Line up by order of death."
Old man Bertus seemed slated to test Luna's Voodoo first. As the eldest?
As I thought that.
"Where do you think you're going, old timer? The boss of Dosak Mountain, this Cliff, goes first. You lot are all wimps!"
"Cl-Cliff, but the old man's been wandering the mortal world longest...."
"What, punk? Outta my way. I'm first."
A burly man rose from the crowd, shoving old Bertus aside and stepping into the magic circle.
His build matched mine, his voice boomed like thunder—not ghostly, more like a tiger.
Overpowered, the crowd muttered things like "Jerk" or "May you burn in Tartarus" under their breath.
Ignoring the agreed order. Did ghosts have their own hierarchy? Delinquent ghosts, huh.
But Luna didn't care who went first.
"Stand here!"
And so the thug Cliff or whatever stood in the magic circle. We all watched tensely, wondering what would happen.
Cliff glanced around and asked.
"Hey, goddess. What now? You're sending me to Elysium, the warriors' paradise, right? Do it quick."
"Shh, be quiet and still. Don't move!"
With that, Luna swung the silence totem at Cliff's head.
"Soul-Pacifying Voodoo!"
Whoosh, thwack—!
A skull-cracking sound echoed, and the massive ghost screamed "Gaaack!" collapsing.
He lost balance instantly, sprawling on the magic circle and thrashing wildly.
"Argh, stop! Hng, wh-what the hell!"
"Soul-Pacifying—! Voodoo!"
Thwack, splat, thwack—!
But Luna's swings showed no sign of stopping.
"Graaahk!"
The man, pulped thin beneath his black robe and mask, soon let out a final death rattle and collapsed unconscious.
The rest of us watched in silence, including me. Luna, frenzied for a while, finally halted.
Her breathing ragged, shoulders heaving—she must've tired from swinging the heavy club.
"Huh, that's weird."
Luna tilted her head.
"I must've messed up. Didn't work. Wrong incantation? But failure rate should've been zero."
She dragged the twitching, convulsing Cliff out of the circle.
Then she patched the frayed, worn spell lines before addressing the remaining souls.
"Next! This time it'll work! Straight to the underworld!"
Whoosh, whooosh—!
Swinging her massive club with the confidence of a fourth batter, anyone hit by that looked destined for the afterlife, living or dead.
But having witnessed the mad clubbing, the souls—who'd been lining up by turn—went utterly silent.
"This time I'm sure!"
She shouted with real conviction, but the souls stayed mum. Some, terrified, even sobbed openly.
So I had to ask.
"Luna, does getting hit by that really send them to the underworld?"
"...No idea!"
"I see."
"But that's what I was taught. This is Chiron’s spell array. Like the boat the underworld ferryman Chiron rows. And if you offer a sacrifice.... Ah—."
Luna stopped, as if realizing something.
"To complete the spell array, you need a sacrifice! It was such an unfamiliar ritual, I forgot. Cliff, was it? Sorry."
Had she realized her mistake? Luna apologized straightforwardly to the thug Cliff, trembling face-down on the ground.
"...."
But Cliff lacked even the strength to reply, just shuddering. Luna didn't seem to care if he accepted it.
"The sacrifice is a virgin's fresh blood. What now?"
Virgin's fresh blood as sacrifice. Felt authentically creepy.
"Luna, can't you use your blood?"
"Uh, yeah.... Probably."
Luna probably couldn't count as a virgin anymore.
She seemed well aware. But where to find virgin blood in the dead of night?
As we puzzled over it, Luna dashed into the cabin's first floor.
She returned with a small stuffed doll-like thing and fiddled with it.
"Luna, what're you doing."
"Calling Paranoya! This doll's like her clone. Tickle it like this, and she'll come."
She scratched the doll's armpit with her finger for minutes.
"Luna-nim, did you call me...? I felt like you were looking for me, so I came. My side itches so much...."
Sure enough, little nymph Paranoya appeared at the yard entrance.
Her huge mask hid her face, but that dopey demeanor screamed Paranoya.
"The festival filled all the inns, no beds left.... Could you let me stay in the cabin tonight...?"
Paranoya must not have secured a room amid the booming festival lodging.
"But you have lots of guests. May I ask what you're doing?"
"I'll tell you. We're gonna draw your blood!"
"...Farewell."
"Heehee, not so fast!"