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Translator: M.S
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Psychedelic Moon
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Though the trainees still seemed to hold a grudge against me, the exchange meet concluded without any major issues.
All that remained was the graduation banquet in the grand hall of the lord’s castle.
As the golden sunset gently faded, the chandeliers in the grand hall sparkled like the ambitions of the young trainees.
“Sir Lansen! Sir Lansen! You were so cool earlier!”
The banquet hall was filled with chilled drinks and greasy food. While everyone else was clinking glasses and enjoying the boisterous atmosphere, I stood alone, my brow furrowed.
‘If something’s going to happen… it’ll be now.’
With nearly 2,000 outsiders inside the lord’s castle, this was the perfect opportunity.
If someone was planning something, today was undoubtedly the day.
That’s why I couldn’t enjoy the banquet and was on high alert…
“‘I became the Grand Duke’s disciple because of my unique constitution. Why shouldn’t I use that power?!’ Ugh… I almost cried. Thank you. I really, really mean it, Sir Lansen.”
Some kid with lime-green hair kept hovering around me.
“You… Milo, was it?”
“Yes! Sir Lansen! I’m Milo Hiasen! Wow! You spoke to me! It's an honor!”
I had only spoken to him to get rid of him, but the lime-green-haired Milo just stuck closer.
I finally lost my patience, looking down at him and growling.
“You. Why the hell are you sticking to me like this? Huh?”
Have I started secreting some kind of pheromone that attracts kids from playing with them all the time? Milo, said to be the youngest of the trainees at eighteen, hadn't left my side for a single moment since entering the banquet hall.
“Well…”
Milo hesitated to answer.
Not that I intended to hear his answer in the first place.
I was giving him a blatant hint that he was annoying, but he didn’t seem to get it and tried to answer anyway.
“Forget it…”
“It’s because! It’s because I have a unique constitution too! That’s why I want to be like you, Sir Lansen!”
Huh?
A unique constitution?
“You can manipulate mana directly too?”
“Ah, no. It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it?”
“Well…”
Milo seemed to ponder for a moment before making up his mind. He bit his small lip and took off the winter hat he always wore.
Amidst his bright, lime-green hair, a pair of ears, far too long and pointed to be human, were revealed.
“I’m… actually a half-elf.”
“A half… elf?”
My god, the elf race actually existed?
Weren’t they just another name for the fairies that appeared in founding myths?
Some dismissed them as baseless legends, while others claimed the occasional human-like fossils discovered were proof of elves…
But a living half-elf…
Though not pure-blooded, he was still half-elf, wasn’t he?
So they really existed! A race like this!
And he speaks so well!
Having revealed his identity, Milo fidgeted with his fingers and spoke.
“Humans… well, I’m human too, but… anyway, most people only communicate with sword spirits. It’s probably easier for them to communicate with things made by humans. But for me… it’s easier to communicate with the spirits of nature. That’s why I had a hard time communicating with souls dwelling in artificial objects like sword spirits.”
Spirits?
Weren’t those things from fairy tales?
This era really had all sorts of things.
“That’s why I get it! Everyone criticizes you for your unknown origins, but I completely, totally understand why you hide your past! I’d do the same.”
As he said this, Milo’s eyes were welling up with tears.
“You know how it is… If you’re even a little different from others… all sorts of bad people flock to you. Especially mages… When I was young, I was kidnapped by a wicked mage and subjected to all kinds of horrible experiments…”
Jeez… He’s been through a lot.
“Even after I barely escaped and returned to my family, my father dismissed me as an illegitimate child… A past like that… it’s better to forget it. That’s why I cut ties with everyone. The name Hiasen isn’t my father’s surname. It’s my elven mother’s.”
Ah, I get it now.
The affinity this kid felt for me was a sense of kinship.
But I felt a prick of guilt.
But that’s not it…
I don’t have a unique constitution…
Still, now that he had revealed himself so openly and was following me, I couldn’t bring myself to push him away.
This kid strangely… reminded me of the orphans the kids used to bring in.
Like Seklan and Seon.
The children’s faces kept flashing in my mind, and before I knew it, I was listening intently to his words.
“It’s actually harder for someone with a unique constitution to learn the sword, right? Because there are easier, faster ways to get strong… That’s why I want to be like you, Sir Lansen! To master a sword spirit through bone-grinding effort! Without denying the power I was born with! I want to use both sword spirits and nature spirits! Just like you, Sir Lansen!”
“Uh… is that so.”
Whatever. I give up.
I gave up on trying to get rid of him.
I just listened to him half-heartedly, my eyes scanning the banquet hall.
The ceiling of the hall had a massive roof window.
As even the sunset faded and the sky slowly darkened, the view through the window heightened the atmosphere of the grand hall even more.
‘Not yet…? Is something… actually going to happen today?’
Something had to happen today for me to find a clue about how to get home…
I tried to calm my growing impatience and maintained my vigilance.
“But… it’s embarrassing, but… it wasn't really my own power. Ah! Not that I cheated or anything… It’s just that this ‘procedure’ thing has become popular.”
As time passed, the mood in the grand hall shifted several times, but the half-elf named Milo Hiasen remained constant. He stayed glued to my side, chattering nonstop.
“After the procedure and by taking the medicine regularly… it becomes surprisingly easy to communicate with sword spirits. Most of the trainees do it these days. Ah, you didn’t have the procedure, did you, Sir Lansen? To be that strong without it…”
What… is some kind of doping trending?
Milo was starting to get drunk, and the topic of conversation was getting deeper.
But it was none of my business.
Whether the knight aspirants of 10,000 years ago were doping or having drug parties had nothing to do with me.
“Look. He had the procedure. And so did he. All the top trainees these days have had it done.”
The people Milo pointed to were all the ones Iodine had told me to keep an eye on. The rising rookies, was it?
She told me to watch them and recommend anyone I liked for the Horizon Knights.
Not that I had any intention of doing so, since I didn’t like the look in their eyes…
Ah, maybe I should recommend Milo?
*Gulp.*
Seriously, is nothing going to happen?
Then how am I supposed to get home?
*Dooong—*
Just then, a bell rang.
“Huh?”
It’s not time for a prayer of thanks, so why?
I flinched and raised my head. Milo exclaimed with a flushed face.
“Ah! I think it’s starting!”
“Starting? What is?”
“The Psychedelic Moon! Today’s the day the Psychedelic Moon appears, once a month.”
Psychedelic Moon? What’s that?
“There! Look over there!”
Milo pointed to the roof window. In the black sky visible beyond the glass… a moon I had never seen before was rising.
My body stiffened.
‘What? What is that…?’
It was truly a sight I had never witnessed in my life.
‘The moon is triangular?’
I only knew of one moon.
The Broken Moon, with one corner deeply gouged out.
According to legend, it was said to have been eaten by a giant bird. That broken moon was the only one I knew…
But this one was triangular.
And it was smaller.
It looked… like it would fit perfectly into the chunk missing from the Broken Moon.
‘How can a moon be so dazzling?’
It was as bright as the dawn, glinting with all sorts of colors.
Blue, red, yellow, lime-green.
The fluorescent moonlight poured through the roof window, painting the grand hall in a dizzying array of colors.
“Wow… It’s… really beautiful from here. The Psychedelic Moon.”
Beautiful?
To my eyes, it looked endlessly ominous…
An unpleasant feeling, like insects crawling over my skin.
Is this really the past, 10,000 years ago?
If so, what in the world is that ominous moon?
Why does a moon that exists in this era not exist in mine?
My mind was a jumble from the sudden flood of information.
And that was why.
When the ‘incident’ I had been waiting for finally occurred, my reaction was slow.
*Rumble.*
*Graaaaaah!*
It began with the cry of a beast.
‘What?’
Under the pouring fluorescent light, the trainees who had been laughing and talking just moments before were now contorting their bodies.
“Graaaaaaaaaah!”
Some of them let out full-blown roars.
*Crack! Crack!*
Their joints twisted in grotesque directions, and their bodies swelled, tearing through their clothes.
Their snouts elongated, sharp teeth sprouted, and their fingernails and toenails grew like blades, slashing at everything around them.
“Kyaaaaaah!”
“Aaaargh!”
Trainees caught by the suddenly extended claws collapsed, spewing blood.
By a rough estimate, about 300 to 400 trainees seemed to have transformed into monsters.
‘Werewolves…?’
Their forms resembled werewolves.
But they were different.
For one, they were hairless and grotesque. Their tongues were as long as if they were holding a snake in their mouths, and their tails were a mass of writhing tentacles.
“Subdue them!”
The knights guarding the banquet hall rushed in, but…
“Keok!”
“Gaaah!”
The mid-rank Expert knights were thrown aside without putting up much of a fight.
It took a high-rank Expert just to push back one or two of them.
That’s how ridiculously powerful the transformed trainees were.
And there were some particularly strong individuals mixed in.
*CRASH! BANG!*
The monsters began to run rampant in earnest.
They overturned tables and used their long, snake-like tongues to impale the normal trainees.
‘On this scale?’
Four hundred monsters close to the high-rank Sword Expert level?
I knew something would happen, but…
This was an incident on the scale of a war.
It was more than even I could handle.
First, let’s get out.
And take Milo with me.
However,
“Grrr… S-Sir Lansen… Grk… M-My body… feels strange…”
Milo was changing too.
His clothes were half-torn, and his snout had elongated. The only difference was a faint lime-green glow emanating from his entire body, setting him apart from the other monsters.
“Milo! Snap out of it.”
Had I grown fond of him in that short time?
I hesitated, unable to cut down the transforming Milo.
It was then.
*Grrrrr!*
A monster leaped over a table and charged at me.
Just as I was about to draw Vanroah and cut it down,
“Graaaaaah!”
Milo, who had been in agony, shot to his feet and lunged at the monster.
It was clearly an act to save me.
*CRUNCH!*
The monster’s teeth sank into Milo’s shoulder.
“Graaaaaaaahk!”
The half-transformed Milo let out a grotesque scream.
“Milo!”
As I rushed to save him, our gazes met.
With sorrowful eyes, he said to me,
“Sir… Lansen… I… wanted… to become a knight…”
*CRUUUNCH!*
The monster bit down on Milo like an alligator and threw him over its back.
“Grrrrrr!”
“Kyaaaaah!”
The swarming monsters, as if recognizing Milo as a traitor, all lunged at him at once.
Amidst the grayish-white monsters, Milo’s lime-green body was torn to shreds.
*Flare.*
My eyes burned.
A deep blue flame ignited in the depths of my pupils, making the whole world shimmer.
Seeing what was happening to Milo,
Rage surged, so intense it made the hair on my head stand on end.
“Milo!!”
I didn’t know what this situation was, but…
I wanted to save him.
I really wanted to.
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