Aftermath of the Dead Moon
The party arrived at a border city of the Janzeri Kingdom.
The city, too, had weathered the Dead Moon. Traces of battle scarred the streets, and the acrid stench of burned undead still clung to corners and alleys.
Having crossed the Dead Moon together with their temporary companions, they exchanged farewells with the Wolf Mercenary Corps and parted ways.
Kaisent of the Wolf Mercenary Corps. I need to report the appearance of a new powerhouse.
If I sell this recording orb to the Information Guild, I should make a decent sum.
A mercenary corps with a mage of that caliber… Should I try joining them even now?
One meant to carry word of a new strongman to his superiors. Another planned to peddle the footage captured on a recording device to the Information Guild. Still another, glimpsing the Wolf Mercenary Corps' future, wanted to enlist. Each of them vanished in a different direction, carrying their own designs.
Before long, word of Kaisent would spread in every direction, and those seeking contact with him would only multiply.
"Enjoy yourselves for the whole day!"
"Drink! Drink till we drop!"
"Hahahaha! We survived the Dead Moon — if we drown in a barrel of booze and die, that'd be a sight worth seeing!"
"You can drink anytime! Women first!"
This time a massive inn had room to spare. With the carriages left in the inn's care, every mercenary could laugh and shout to his heart's content.
"Doesn't something feel off, though?"
"What does?"
"You got hit by zombies during the Dead Moon. You groaned for a bit, then you were fine."
"That's 'cause this body's life force is fucking ridiculous. And the ones who were wheezing before? They got swarmed by undead so hard it's a miracle they didn't die. I never got that close to the edge."
"Yeah, but still…"
The more sharp-sensed among the mercenaries found it strange that those struck by the undead had suffered only briefly under the poison before dusting themselves off and standing as if nothing had happened. But the idea that Kaisent — a mage who didn't even believe in the gods — had healed them with holy power was beyond imagining. They could only conclude that the survivors simply possessed extraordinary vitality, and let the matter go.
While the mercenaries scattered to celebrate in their own ways, Lillian, Frederick, and Kaisent made for the largest temple in the city.
"I am sorry. This is beyond my power."
The priest had gauged the strength of the curse that needed lifting and shaken his head. Absurd as a gender-reversal curse might sound, it carried the power to warp the soul itself — and Nozgna had taken a personal hand in it. Ordinary clergy stood no chance of breaking it.
They visited other temples after that. Every priest shook his head the same way.
"To lift this curse, you will likely need to seek a Grand Temple in a capital-class city."
"In my judgment, a simple curse-breaking will not suffice. A ritual may be required."
A ritual meant multiple casters, rare materials, and a carefully prepared formation, all brought together to unleash a spell of tremendous force. The more people and materials involved, the steeper the price.
Learning that the curse was stronger than expected, Frederick felt a new dread take root — not over money, but over the possibility that he might live forever in this body.
"Haaa…"
For now, to hide his form, Frederick wore oversized armor and a full helm that covered his face, much as Lillian did. He let out a long sigh. Even when he tried not to, the jarring, alien sensations of his own body forced the breath out of him.
"In the end, that means it can be lifted if the conditions are met. For now, let's enjoy ourselves. Brooding only breeds worse thoughts."
The three of them pushed into the tavern the corps members had chosen and joined the festival already underway. Those who had watched Kaisent's power from the closest vantage were certain their company would grow into something far greater. They had survived the Dead Moon and earned a fortune on top of it — a celebration was inevitable.
At first Frederick had sipped his beer timidly. But as the drink warmed him, that timidness curdled into rage.
"Yeah, fuck it! So what if I became a woman?! Any bastard who tries anything with me gets his dick cut off!"
And so he never noticed. He never saw the way Lillian's eyes, fixed on him, had shifted into the gaze of a hunter regarding prey.
Turn the clock back a little.
The Eastern Continent, immediately after the Dead Moon's end.
The East, no less than the West, had endured the Dead Moon, and countless people had been dragged through every kind of ordeal. The Jerico Mercenary Corps, active on the Eastern Continent, was no exception.
They had drawn the undead into a circular formation on the open plain, and now they stood amid a field of corpses that numbered easily in the thousands.
"Well? Worked out just like I said, didn't it?"
"Ah— y-yes, sir…"
Jerico forced a smile as the Eastern man — Kang Myeong-cheol — clapped him on the shoulder.
One day the man had simply appeared, announced that they were lucky, and declared he would raise them into the strongest mercenary corps alive if they took him in. Naturally, the Jerico Mercenary Corps had assumed some nobody was spouting nonsense and prepared to beat him senseless. Instead he had flattened every last one of them alone without breaking a sweat.
This is an opportunity.
A powerhouse of that caliber had sought them out for reasons unknown. They had to seize it. That was what Jerico had thought at first. As time passed, however, he had been forced to admit his judgment had been wrong.
Just like now.
"C-Captain."
"…Speak."
"Half the corps is dead…"
The Jerico Mercenary Corps had been nothing more than one of the countless companies littering the world. Unlike the Wolf Mercenary Corps — built from the ground up by educated, high-caliber talent according to long-term vision and careful design — this was a ragtag band gathered around Jerico, a commoner with a bit more brains and skill than most. The mercenaries under him were of the same stock. Too weak to land work on their own, without reliable connections, they had joined whatever company would take them simply to earn a living by the sword. People like that could never endure something as brutal as the Dead Moon.
"For crying out loud. Kids these days don't even do the basics. I told you not to fight — just hold the line. Is that so hard?"
Kang Myeong-cheol, who had single-handedly slaughtered thousands of undead, found it absurd that mercenaries had still died despite his performance. He was the one fighting. All they had to do was endure. Why the hell were they dying?
"Back in my day, even with a knife in your gut you clawed to stay alive. Whether it's the old world or this one, everyone's gone soft."
He grumbled on about why no one struggled to survive the way he did. Jerico found his fists clenching before he realized it. Whatever had brought them together, these were comrades who had eaten and lived side by side. To offer no mourning for their deaths — to instead sneer at them as cowards who couldn't even hold a line — was enough to make rage surge up his throat.
"Well, with this haul you can grow your corps several times over. Just recruit better mercenaries than those dead idiots. Everyone, gather the loot!"
He went further still. Officially Jerico was still the captain, yet Kang Myeong-cheol casually trampled the authority the man had built and ordered the spoils collected himself.
"Um… excuse me…"
"What?"
"We're exhausted. Maybe we could rest a little first…"
"Exhausted?"
They were ordinary mercenaries. Simply surviving the Dead Moon had left them drained to the bone, ready to collapse on the spot. And now they were being told to strip loot from thousands of undead corpses. One of the braver men suggested they rest first.
"Are you the only one who's tired?"
"Huh?"
"I said, are you the only one who's tired."
"No… I mean…"
To Kang Myeong-cheol, that courage sounded like the greasy excuse of a lazy man.
"I'm tired. You're tired. Everyone here is worn out and hurting! So what the hell have you done that gives you the right to whine about being tired?!"
"……"
"If you're tired, finish faster and then rest! A little hard work isn't going to kill you!"
"…I'm sorry…"
"Tch. Honestly. People who won't even do the basics sure have a lot of complaints."
Every time he told them they couldn't even manage the basics, the mercenaries felt a nervous breakdown coming on. But they could not openly defy a man strong enough to fell thousands of undead. They dragged their spent bodies and began collecting the spoils.
If Kang Myeong-cheol had helped, the work would have gone far faster. But a hero, he believed, could not waste his energy on such sordid labor — it would diminish his dignity. He found a suitable spot and rested.
"Captain…"
"…I know. But… I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do either."
A few quietly voiced their grievances to Jerico, but he had no special solution to offer. In the end the mercenaries staggered about, so unsteady it was hard to tell them from the undead.
"Tsk tsk. Their movements are limp. No discipline at all. Training these ones is going to be a real pain."
Even that displeased Kang Myeong-cheol. Behind his eyes, calculations were already turning.
Even a corps with almost no reputation is still officially registered with the guild. Raise this company's rank a few tiers, and my own standing as a mercenary under it rises automatically — high enough to take monster subjugation contracts.
It would take longer than simply accepting the lowest-grade commissions, but he would rather use this shortcut than damage his dignity by taking bottom-rung jobs like some gutter rat.
Thanks to the Dead Moon and Kang Myeong-cheol, the Jerico Mercenary Corps had obtained spoils they could never have dreamed of under ordinary circumstances. Not a single face among them showed the slightest joy.
Whoosh! Splat!
"What the hell are these bastards."
Jin Su-ah swept the blood from her twin swords and looked down at the corpses of the men who had lured her into one of the slums' most secluded corners. She had recently made a name for herself as a mercenary, but she had only ever fought monsters. In this world she had done nothing that should have earned her anyone's grudge.
"Hey. Stop playing dead and get up."
She prodded one of the attackers she had deliberately cut only lightly. He lay still, feigning death — but she had studied medicine as well, and she had sliced him with precision enough that escape was impossible.
Crack!
"Gyaaaaah!"
When he kept pretending, Jin Su-ah stomped down hard and crushed his elbow. The pain finally broke him. He screamed and glared up at her with venomous eyes.
"You fucking bitch! Do you even know who we are?!"
"Oh? Go on, then. Who are you?"
"……"
He had poured out curses readily enough, but at her demand for their identity his mouth snapped shut. That alone told her something useful.
"Ahh~ So you're a group that can't afford to be known outside. Why would a group like that attack me?"
"……"
"Keeping quiet, are we? Fine. I'll find out myself."
Thud!
"Gyaaaah!"
Jin Su-ah drove both twin swords down through his shoulders, pinning him so he could neither resist nor flee. Then she poured her inner energy into his body and began to memorize the nature of the power he carried. Anyone who used similar martial techniques and movement would likely cultivate something close to the same internal art.
Then she frowned, sensing something wrong, and tilted her head.
"Huh. That's strange. What are you? Are you even human?"
She had heard this world held non-human races. She tore open the attacker's face and clothes and checked his body, but found only human features.
"Definitely human. So how does a human carry an aura this repulsive? It's almost like…"
She paused, searching for the single word that would pin down the thought rising in her mind.
"Like you've been eating other people."
There was no other way to put it. Not mana — human life force was writhing inside the attacker's body. Even the Star-Absorbing Great Method, which drained a person's Innate Qi down to the marrow, would have been less nauseating than this.
"Kh!? Grk—!"
In that instant the interrogated attacker's body began to swell. Not only his — every attacker's body ballooned at once. Jin Su-ah's instincts screamed danger. She hurled herself clear a heartbeat before their bodies burst in a massive explosion.
"Kyaaaah!"
"Ugh!"
"Wh-what was that?!"
The sudden blast threw the slum into chaos. Before the situation could tangle further, Jin Su-ah slipped away and melted into the stream of residents fleeing the uproar.
A geas! The kind that triggers when a specific word or phrase is spoken!
Her heart hammered wildly. From shock at the unexpected turn? No — from pure, mad joy.
A secret organization operating underground where no one knows! It's just like the stories of the Founder fighting the Pacheon Society!
The murim she had lived in had been unbearably dull. Once the Jin Clan could dictate even to the Emperor, every true enemy had vanished. And now, not only had she come to a new world — a completely unknown organization was working in the shadows!
She was happy. Happy that she could unleash her full ability. Happy that she could have adventures the way the Founder had.
I have to get stronger than I am now!
Even the Founder, a peerless powerhouse with nothing left to envy, had had his dantian shattered by the Lord of the Pacheon Society and suffered a near-fatal wound. That crisis had become a blessing in disguise and carried him to higher realms — but without stacked fortune and the help of his wives, he would simply have died. Jin Su-ah had no wish to gamble on luck. She needed greater strength, and she needed comrades who would watch her back as she met countless people along the way.
The attackers' purpose, their scale — everything remained unknown. But the life-force aura that felt like cannibalism, and their reaction the moment she named it, had given her an answer.
Prana, was it? This world's equivalent of inner energy, where you absorb a crystal and rise a full stage. These attackers have clearly found a way to make those crystals out of human beings.
Anticipating whatever chaos they would unleash, Jin Su-ah forced her racing heart to settle. The smile on her face, however, she could not suppress.