Dead Moon's First Night
Among those who had gathered to hold back the Dead Moon, some shared the Wolf Mercenary Group's long-term outlook and meant to push on toward the Zanjeri Kingdom.
Most of them were merchant caravans that had hired mercenaries. Several caravans and the sellswords escorting them were already mixed together, busy throwing up defensive formations against the undead.
The Wolf Mercenary Group had taken on new recruits and tried to find a caravan that would hire them as escorts, but the nearer routes into Zanjeri had already been claimed by other companies. What remained were contracts bound for distant nations or cities, so they had no choice but to move without a commission.
A few days' wait might have produced a decent job, but no one wanted to waste time in a place where not only food but every other price was skyrocketing and public order was collapsing.
"We'll hold this sector."
The Wolf Mercenary Group was posted on the outer ring of the formation and assigned to defend a single direction.
The protected caravans sat in the center; the mercenaries formed the outer shield. That was the system.
Somehow the talks had gone well enough that they seemed about to settle on a modest fee from the caravans plus the right to keep whatever loot the undead brought from their own sector—until a latecomer arrived.
"Hold on! What is this nonsense!"
A mercenary company that had only just heard the news stormed in to challenge the caravan masters' decision.
More precisely, it was not the company itself that objected, but a mage attached to it.
His voice and bearing carried the weight of long years, yet his skin was smooth and unlined, and his frame was solid with health.
A mage's Prana, unlike a knight's, was tuned for the handling and amplification of magic—but a healthy body still made it easier to weather a spell's backlash, so the energy strengthened the flesh to a degree.
This mage had clearly raised his Prana to a considerable height. Instead of a mage's robe he wore light armor, and his forearms were thick enough to drop an ordinary soldier with a bare fist.
"Coin is one thing—but handing them all the loot? Do you seriously think that makes sense?"
"N-no. Not all of it. Only what comes from the direction they're holding—"
"Same difference! I am the core of this entire formation! That means our company deserves the larger share of the spoils!"
The mage had not charged in over money. The real issue was the loot—specifically, his hunger for Soul Orbs.
He said "our company," but in the end it was pure politics aimed at claiming those orbs for himself.
He's the real thing.
The problem was that he was no loudmouthed fraud. He was a genuine mage.
As already noted, he looked old enough to show it, yet he carried a robust body without a single wrinkle, and a powerful current of mana flickered around him at a glance.
But he's still no match for Kaisent.
If Kaisent chose to, subduing this mage would be trivial.
The trouble was that doing so would push Kaisent's reputation far too high, far too fast.
He already had a name of sorts—but only the kind known to those who knew, or the kind that marked a talented child. Nothing more.
If excessive fame and attention poured onto him, the worst case was that high-level experts beyond their ability to handle would come hunting under the pretext of snuffing out a rising sprout before it grew.
It might sound barbaric, but people had always felt threatened by young talent climbing up behind them.
Word will get out eventually—but for Kaisent's growth, we need to buy every day we can.
Lillian, who now measured everything by Kaisent first, naturally steered herself toward supporting him—even if the mercenary group took some damage for it.
—It's all right. You can push hard.—
Just then Kaisent, who had come to see what the noise was about, reached her through messenger magic.
—Unless an Origin-level powerhouse suddenly drops out of the sky, I'm confident I won't die even if I can't win. Don't look weak on my account.—
He had learned his father's heart method and lightness skill this time. If it came down to nothing but running alone, he was sure he could escape anyone.
—I think Lillian is most beautiful when she stands tall.—
"!!"
Man or woman, everyone wanted to look good in front of the one they loved.
Thanks to her helm, no one saw Lillian's expression shift in real time. She stepped forward hard, with a look in her eyes she had never once shown even Fredrick.
"Then I'll put it plainly. Our company has no need of your magic."
"No need? You idiots! In a large-scale battle, the mere presence of a skilled mage can turn a losing field around again and again! You've only ever seen the dregs—potion-peddling trash—so of course you'd say something that stupid!"
"I can see one well enough. A mage who looks like trash."
Bolstered by Kaisent's encouragement, she dove into the contest of wills as if the break were already past caring about.
In a world where not only mercenaries but people in the same trade could end up fighting one another, this kind of dominance play mattered for keeping a company alive and growing.
No one wanted to belong to a group that bowed its head, yielded everything, and apologized for breathing.
"You—do you even know who I am?"
"There's only one mercenary mage who wears clothes marked with the Dragon Fire Magic Tower. Kaan Kel."
The Dragon Fire Magic Tower specialized in fire magic and possessed unique tower arts modeled on a dragon's breath.
Because it could drive the highly versatile fire school with real force in almost any situation, mages with aggressive temperaments often sought it out.
Kaan Kel was a product of that tower—and a rare case who had chosen the mercenary road over a stable life—so he was fairly well known.
"You know who I am and you still dare to run your mouth like that?"
"I say it because I know. How else would I tell whether the other party is trash or not?"
"You bastard—!"
Kaan Kel was an Expert of the sixth grade.
In other words, one step more and he would reach Master rank.
He had always been hot-tempered, but the impatience of standing at the threshold of Master seemed to be driving him to scrape together every coin and every material he could for Prana Crystals—and that greed was on full display now.
"Easy, easy. We're about to fight side by side as comrades. Is this really the place to sour tempers?"
Before Kaan Kel could spit more fury, a mild-faced middle-aged priest stepped between them.
"And you are?"
"A follower of Lord Torgov. My name is Chelbe."
Torgov, god of the adventurer's road, was the deity most often served by priests who had once been adventurers or mercenaries themselves.
A priest's power grew strongest when he walked the domain his god governed, and for wanderers and sellswords who roamed every direction, no god fit better.
Chelbe was both a priest and the captain of a mercenary company—an unusual career even among sellswords.
"Kaan Kel spoke roughly, but he was not wrong."
"I grant that much. But on the matter of loot, I have no intention of yielding as things stand."
"Grrraaah! If you want to play the fool and die for it, that's your business! But if your line breaks here, the damage hits us too!"
At Kaan Kel's words, the other caravan masters nodded.
Reckless courage was one thing. Reckless courage that spilled over onto them was another.
"Our company has a mage of its own. I don't care to drag this out any longer, so let's settle it cleanly. You need not support our sector at all. Our mage will handle it."
Lillian held her ground: they would refuse Kaan Kel's magical support and hold on their own, and therefore they would take all the loot from their front.
"If you still can't trust us, we'll park wagons and raise a palisade behind our camp. If we're wiped out, the wagons and fence will buy you time to prepare."
The caravan masters conferred among themselves, then nodded.
"We know the Wolf Mercenary Group is a steady company with a high success rate. Still, from our position we have to prepare for the worst."
"Fine. We'll set the wagons and the fence. In return—as I said before—if we hold the Dead Moon in good order, the loot from every undead that comes our way is ours."
"Tsk. Throwing your lives away over a scrap of loot. I heard the Wolf Mercenary Group was solid and reliable. Must have been empty talk."
Kaan Kel clicked his tongue, announced he would rest until nightfall, and stalked back to his own company.
"Kaan Kel was only trying to keep everyone alive. I hope this business does not break the unity we need."
"Understood. We have our own preparations to make, so we'll take our leave."
With the negotiations closed, Lillian returned to the camp her people had staked out.
"Hah. That went better than it might have."
"Thank you, Chelbe."
"Not at all. Survival demands that everyone work together."
He was no Medelgard—goddess of dawn and purification—but a priest was still a priest. The caravan master who had hired Chelbe, whose holy power was the single most valuable asset in a war against the undead, felt a wave of relief at the way the man had turned conflict into cooperation.
—So that one's a priest as well? Does he serve a different god?—
Kaisent, who had been watching Lillian hold the line from a distance, turned his interest on Chelbe.
She nodded, then tilted her head, unsure how one told one god from another—until messenger magic arrived again.
—The color of the thread on his head is different. It seems each god has a different thread color.—
To read a god from nothing but the color of a thread.
She found herself wondering—and hoping—what might happen if Kaisent pushed his own gifts to their limit.
A short while later, a small stir of admiration rose from the Wolf Mercenary Group's side—more precisely, from the mercenaries camped nearest them.
"Idiots."
Kaan Kel checked the noise, then clicked his tongue again.
He seemed almost sorry that they could not grasp how foolish it was for the mage in the Wolf Mercenary Group to dig earth with magic and finish their defenses in a blink.
"The holes would have been dug soon enough by the strong-backed sellswords and laborers. Burning mana on work like that… tsk tsk."
A mage who cultivated Prana could restore spent mana with refined mana potions or simple rest.
Even if this one came from another world's magic system, spent mana still had to be refilled by artificial means.
Wasting mana on petty labor instead of keeping oneself at peak condition for the fight—that was the opposite of a mage's first principle.
Time to move.
Kaan Kel announced he was going to clear his head, then slipped out of sight and made his way behind the wagons the Wolf Mercenary Group had set up.
There he buried an ominous purple crystal in the earth, fed it a light thread of mana, and watched as fine holes opened in its surface. A low purple smoke seeped out and sank into the ground.
Satisfied that every step had gone as planned, Kaan Kel smiled and returned to his private space in the camp.
You brought this on yourselves.
When the suns vanished completely, a darkness without a single point of light crashed down over them.
The only light left was the mass of torches ringed around the camp.
"Something's wrong. This feels bad. Like being swallowed by some enormous living thing."
Clint gripped the single spear he had been given and frowned at a foreboding more intense than anything he had ever known.
"Clint. It's not too late. Wait with the noncombatants—the caravan laborers and the rest."
"No. I'm fighting. When I go back to my own world I'll have to face AT again. This time I won't shake like a coward until my parents are dead."
"…All right. But the moment it looks too dangerous, you run. The higher undead that come out under a Dead Moon aren't things courage can beat."
"I'm not planning to play hero against monsters like that."
The new recruits were posted behind the palisade with spears, tasked with shoving back zombies and skeletons and holding the line.
If they held, the veteran mercenaries would finish the kills. That was how they meant to thin the undead.
Kaisent laid fire-attribute enchantments and the Mage's Armor spell on the chosen sellswords.
Those who had learned Mana Load and stood at the top of the company's skill would have to run wild if the undead numbers were to be cut down in any stable way.
He would have liked to cast on everyone, but even Kaisent felt the strain on his inner energy; he could not go that far.
Which was why the Mage's Armor he had quietly laid on Clint alone remained a secret only he knew.
"Huuu—"
"Good work, Kaisent. Rest a little and recover your mana."
"Yes, sir."
Fredrick sent Kaisent to the rear so he could restore even a fraction of his power before the full clash with the undead began.
Traps were already laid; a sudden ambush was unlikely. Everyone leaned or sat and let the time pass.
As the night deepened further, the dark itself seemed to gain weight and press down on them all.
In truth, under a Dead Moon the mana saturating the air grew so heavy with yin energy that even ordinary people felt the effect.
The yin is strong—but the mana is denser for it.
Seated in a full lotus on a wagon roof, recovering what inner energy he could, Kaisent drank in the thickened mana far faster than usual.
The yin had swollen past any natural measure, yet his father's heart method refined even that abnormal mana in a single pass and turned it into the method's own inner power.
"They're coming!"
A mercenary spotted undead by the torch he had driven near a trap.
Nearby undead had seen the light and were closing in.
Even if the fires were doused, the undead would still sense life and hunt the living, so there was no real choice.
Thud-thud-thud-thud—
Ordinary zombies and skeletons tumbled into the deep-dug pits.
Once a pit filled, the undead behind simply walked over the bodies of those who had fallen and dropped into the next trap in turn.
"Hm?"
A sharp-eyed mercenary caught something wrong.
"What is it?"
"Doesn't this feel off? Anyone have a spare torch?"
"I've got a few—why?"
"Throw one far past the undead!"
The torch-bearer glanced toward Lillian. She nodded.
The moment the torch arced out and lit the rear of the undead mass, the other mercenaries saw it too.
"Armed undead in the back ranks?"
"They're not mixed at random! They're forming lines!"
The front was bare undead, packing the pits. Behind them, equipped undead advanced in safety.
A formation with someone's will clearly woven through it.
A low, uneasy murmur spread as other companies began to notice. The whole camp stirred with a bad feeling.
Word that the vampires of the Saryeong Kingdom were breeding special undead to throw Halrot Kingdom into chaos was already half official.
The sight of undead moving with discipline planted a cold seed of fear in every mercenary's chest.