The Moon Was Bright That Night
For the first time in ages, Benuda Village was in an uproar.
It had been a long while since this frontier hamlet, which had spent its days as silent as the grave, found itself swept up in a festival.
The villagers had two reasons to celebrate.
The greater of the two was hope. Knights and mercenaries had surveyed the Forest of Resentment, and if the land was judged fit for development, the Woodcutters might return. Should that come to pass, this forced frontier settlement would catch a new current of the age. Hope bloomed that they might one day live in a great city — just as a certain Woodcutter had once promised them, over and over, as if the words were a habit.
The lesser reason was the three villagers who had come back from the adventure: the Village Chief, Leto, and Messi.
The Village Chief, giddy with the joy of having returned alive, had thrown open the fortune he had been embezzling for decades and put it toward the festival — so of course the mood ran high. The villagers were far more glad that Leto and Messi had survived than that the chief had, but once he started spending, they welcomed him warmly enough.
White and gold ribbons — symbols of blessing — had been wound in crossing bands around the great trees encircling Benuda Village, and food and drink were laid out across the central square like a marketplace. Anyone could go out and eat their fill; no one would go hungry tonight. A wandering troupe of musicians had happened to stop by as well, and lively songs drifted through the air.
The cost of it all looked steep even against the Village Chief's fortune, yet his face was full of confidence. Ereb and the knights had pledged a considerable donation. In return, they had asked that a memorial stone bearing the names of the fallen knights be raised on the village outskirts.
The Village Chief snorted with delight, ready to welcome the money with open arms — but seeing that, Ereb entrusted the funds to Leto instead.
"You handle it."
"Within a month, twenty-five memorial stones will stand in Benuda Village."
"No. The knights of Ahental stand together even in death. Carve all their names into one great stone. And include the three as well — Laud, Ken, and Vlado."
"As you command."
As Leto took the disappointed Village Chief by the arm and led him away, Ereb turned to Messi as if he had been waiting for this.
"You really want me to go that far? Those three were traitors. Doesn't putting them on the same stone defile the deaths of the twenty-five who died trying to protect me?"
"You have to act as if nothing happened. If those three names are missing from the stone, the First Young Master's people will raise questions. It's better not to leave any unnecessary gaps."
"Damn it..."
It might have looked like pettiness, but it was also the worry of a man who could not bear to see the honor of the subordinates who had died in his service tarnished.
"And you need to show it to the six knights you won over. That you truly forgave them — that as far as you're concerned, nothing ever happened. That's the only way those six won't start thinking otherwise. Besides, Sir Hulan distinguished himself."
"Hah... fine."
His face was still sour, but he seemed to have understood, if only just.
Ereb asked Messi again.
"Are you ready to leave?"
"I don't have much to pack. There's nothing to prepare."
"Heh. Who said anything about luggage? I meant your attachments. You think I haven't noticed your heart is still here?"
In the roughly two weeks they had spent together, Ereb had come to realize that Messi valued this place more than he had expected. He did not know the story involving Messi's master, but there were things a person picked up just by being nearby.
Messi took in the festival scene beyond the window and murmured,
"I'm not leaving forever. I'll come back."
"Sure. Come back whenever you like. Living out your old age in peace here wouldn't be so bad. Until then, you can just enjoy wealth and glory with me."
Messi did not answer. The thoughts he carried and the future Ereb envisioned were far too different.
Looking outside, Ereb suddenly burst out laughing. It was Ramang, dancing to the music in the village square. He was dancing with a village woman who looked a good ten years younger, and every time their bodies pressed close during the vigorous steps, she startled. The greasy smile Ramang wore each time was, from a distance, impossible not to find hilarious.
Ugh. That man.
"Let's go out and enjoy ourselves. Watching Sir Ramang have all the fun by himself is making me sick. Honestly, aren't you the one who contributed the most this time?"
"Young Master. You still shouldn't say that out loud. I'd rather not have it reach the First Young Master's ears and put me on his watch list."
"Hmph. We already cut the links to the traitors. How would my brother even hear about you?"
"I wonder. Are you certain there are no traitors left?"
"...Hah. Do you have to wring me dry even on a day like this?"
Ereb shook his head and joined the festival. Messi followed with a faint smile.
Even after the sun had set, the lights of Benuda Village did not go out.
Ordinarily, the village never kept fires burning late — monsters would see the glow from afar and come down. But twenty-two knights of Ahental and a host of mercenaries were staying in the village. The residents had nothing to fear.
The sounds of strings and drums, and the laughter of people, carried far into the night.
Messi was packing lightly in his own house. The room was quiet. Kkyu wasn't there. While the party had been making their way out of the Forest of Resentment through the Ant Tunnels, she had said she would pay a brief visit to her kingdom, and had gone with the General Ant. She had promised to be back before they departed, so she would likely arrive tonight or tomorrow morning.
He was just finishing his preparations when a knock sounded.
"It's me."
"Uncle Leto?"
He opened the door, and there he was. His face was flushed — he'd had a bit to drink.
"All packed?"
"Yes. What would I even have to pack?"
"I was worried when I heard you were suddenly going off with that noble... but seeing how light your luggage is, I'm relieved."
"Why's that?"
"If the things you keep in a place are light, the attachments you leave with are light too."
Leto set a cup of the liquor he had brought in front of Messi.
"We've never even had a proper drink together."
"We've had plenty of herbal wine, haven't we?"
"That's because some of those herbs only release their medicinal properties when they're steeped in liquor. I took a sip each time I made a batch. That's not the same as this."
"Alright."
Messi downed the drink in one go. Leto sighed.
"No sense of atmosphere, this kid."
"Uncle Leto."
"Hm?"
"Thank you. For everything."
"...What for. I got plenty out of you too. You always saved me the best cuts of game, and with all the extra hides, winter outdoor work got a lot easier."
"It's still not enough compared to what you did for me. You helped me settle into the village so much."
On the day the sky had turned red, an outlander had appeared out of nowhere and thrown the village into chaos. Of all the villagers who had come running with weapons, Leto had been the only one who recognized him.
"Your master asked me often. He said if anything happened to him, he'd send you to me."
"You knew him from back when you were a washed-up mercenary, didn't you?"
"You heard that? Yeah. I knew him from back when I had a pretty rotten personality myself."
In truth, Messi knew it from the diary, but he didn't bother explaining.
"Still, I was better than your master. That man only had eyes for his little sister back then. At first I thought he was some kind of pervert."
"You mean... Madri."
"That's right. You couldn't find her body, I hear?"
"No."
Messi recalled that day. He had run through the interior of the Ancient Ruins like a madman, searching for her body — even the knights had been bewildered. They had opened the East Gate and the West Gate, searched every corner, even cleared away piles of rubble in case a body had been hidden underneath.
But she wasn't there. She had vanished like smoke.
One suspicious place remained. The gate they had never opened, to the very end: the North Gate. He didn't know what lay beyond it, but it seemed connected. Every knight had thrown themselves at the door, but it hadn't budged. Wondering if he might succeed now that Enzo Muete's power was slowly taking root in him, Messi had joined the effort to open it. It was useless.
There was, however, one peculiarity...
"Not yet. You cannot come."
The instant he laid his hand on the gate, a strange voice had spoken, and Messi had collapsed.
When he opened his eyes, he was somehow back at the Woodsman's Fortress. The moment Messi had fallen, Ereb and Ramang had panicked, gathered him up, and retreated in a hurry. As a result, they hadn't been able to cremate the Woodcutters' bodies, and Messi and some of the knights had to go back in to perform the cremations — an extra hassle.
At that time, Messi had placed his hand on the North Gate again, but the voice that had knocked him unconscious never came. Kkyu had explained that he had communed with a god through a divine artifact — the North Gate — and heard the deity's voice.
Too many unanswered questions. Madri's vanished body. The nature of the North Gate and the space beyond it... the voice of a god heard in the ruins. What the Woodcutters did with the materials they took... and even the connection between why I came to this world and the ruins themselves.
Someday he would return here and unravel those mysteries.
"...She won't be alive. Don't waste your life chasing after her on false hope."
"I think so too. If she were alive, she would have contacted Master."
Leto nodded.
"And... the same goes for avenging your master."
Messi's eyes went wide.
"You knew?"
"When your master fled the Lumberjack Alliance and came down here, I was the first person he met. Who do you think prescribed the medicine that let him live with that deadly poison in his body? My medicine bought him at least five more years."
Leto was a rather capable herbalist. He had first learned from Barcelo, but he was a man who had spent decades researching herbs and devising his own formulas.
"Thank you for helping Master."
"He was a brother and a teacher to me as well. There's nothing to thank me for. It's just... it pains me a little, watching you take on hardship again in the name of avenging him."
Leto knew why Messi was leaving the village with Ereb. If his master had urged him to live out his days in Benuda Village, Messi would have stayed here out of respect for that deep concern. Which meant that if Messi was going against his master's wishes and leaving, the reason could only be something related to his master.
"Master wanted me to be happy."
"More than anyone."
"That's why. To be happy, I can't look away from the injustice of his death."
Leto closed his eyes and said nothing. Then he let out a long sigh and, suddenly, spoke loud enough to be heard outside the door.
"I failed! I did my best, so you handle it from here!"
"...?"
Then Leto stood, collected the empty mug, and said,
"Have a pleasant night."
"Huh...? Yes. You too, Uncle."
That was a weird way to say goodbye.
Messi was tilting his head when Ayla brushed past the departing Leto and came in.
"Huh?"
"Ah, hey."
"What brings you here? Why aren't you still out celebrating? You were drinking pretty well earlier."
"You saw that?"
"You lifted an entire cask and drank from it. How was I supposed to miss that?"
Ayla's face flushed red.
"Wouldn't it be better to forget that?"
"I've got a pretty good memory."
"Ugh, always acting so clever... it's infuriating."
"You don't smell like liquor, though. More like flowers?"
Messi drew in a light breath. The faint lily-of-the-valley scent drifting from her was lovely.
"Tch. I washed up, okay?"
"Ah... right."
She could have washed anytime before bed. Why is she so embarrassed?
Messi looked at the flush climbing Ayla's collarbone and her reddened face, and then his eyes caught on her damp, reddish-blonde hair.
I want to touch it.
It was the kind of thought a man had without meaning to.
"Hey, are you going to tell me to sit down or what?"
"Sorry. Please, sit."
They sat facing each other in the chairs, the air awkward. Messi spoke first to break it.
"What was that thing Uncle Leto said just now?"
"Well, I was hanging around in front of your house when that guide fellow showed up."
"...Why were you hanging around in front of my house?"
He looked at her with a wary eye, and she flailed her hands in the air in a panic. When Messi said he was joking, she punched him hard in the shoulder.
That hurt...
"But what was it really about?"
"I wanted you to come work with the Red Fox Mercenary Group. Instead of going off with that noble."
"You came to scout me?"
"W-well, yeah. Though... that's not all of it."
Messi let out a small sigh. If Ereb hadn't been in the picture, he probably would have chosen the mercenary group. Mercenary companies were this world's equivalent of major corporations, and they guaranteed status — a useful arrangement for Messi, who would otherwise be treated as a strange outlander.
Even so, they couldn't surpass a noble house. As long as the second son of House Ahental vouched for Messi's identity, he would instantly become a member of that society, beyond anyone's interference. Moreover, a noble guaranteeing someone's status meant that to lay a hand on him was to pick a fight with the entire house. There might be people who would go after Messi because they wanted to fight House Ahental — but there would be no one who wanted to fight House Ahental just to go after Messi. That translated directly into an enormous increase in his odds of survival.
On top of that, Ereb had promised him abundant training resources, a magic instructor, and the financial support to learn spirit arts. It was the best possible choice, incomparably better than the Red Fox Mercenary Group.
Even so... life with the mercenaries would have been fun too.
Whether it was mercenary life that seemed appealing, or the woman sitting in front of him, he wasn't sure...
"I've already made a pact with the Young Master. I have to keep it, and I have reasons to."
"Shot down, huh... So, you're going to avenge that master of yours?"
She heard everything.
"I need the support to get stronger, and there's nowhere better for guaranteeing my status. And... I intend to use House Ahental's power for the revenge as well."
It wasn't something he would normally have told anyone, yet he found his tongue strangely loose. Ayla accepted it. She conceded that the Red Fox Mercenary Group fell short in every respect.
"Alright. Then there's still the second piece of business."
"...There was a second?"
"The second is... this."
Huh?
Messi thought her face had come unusually close. Close enough to feel her hot breath. Close enough to feel her lips.
As Ayla's weight pressed into him, the chair Messi had been sitting in tipped backward. But the house was so small that the bed was right behind it, and Messi's world shifted to an upward view.
That world was filled with Ayla's face. Lit by the faint candlelight, her flushed face was vividly alive, and his own face was reflected in her eyes.
"I've been a mercenary since I was a kid, so I'm not good with words. I have to do it with my body."
"...I haven't been speaking this language for very long either."
She giggled.
"Then we're good."
Unlike the clamor outside, the house was quiet. Inside, only the breathing of the two of them continued. The windowpane fogged over, and soon a heated moan slipped quietly into the air. The wooden joints of the bed creaked now and then beneath their rough movements, filling the night at a steady rhythm.
The moon in the sky that night was especially bright, and beautiful.