Chapter 90

Chapter 90

Master of the Purple Moon

“...Was there a painting here?”

At the single sentence he uttered, Yorphang felt as if she had been struck hard on the head.

In a way, it was only natural.

As a blind man, there was no way for him to know whether there was a painting before his eyes, or whether a painting was a painting.

“Mm...”

Yorphang let out a low hum.

She had thought things might become bothersome because someone was standing in front of the painting, but if he was a blind man who did not even know there was a painting, things would become far easier.

Leaving the puzzled man beside her, Yorphang took one step toward the painting.

One thread shot out from her right hand.

The thread moved by itself and touched the painting.

The thin thread quietly lifted the painting.

It was the power of magic thread.

“It is a painting with several figures in it... It seems to be very old. Yet strangely, the colors have not faded.”

Yorphang, holding the painting before her eyes, slowly looked it over and began reciting an explanation. This was nothing more than boasting of her knowledge.

“I see.”

The man with bandages over his eyes, still thinking the painting was in front of him, stared at the empty wall before him, touched his chin, and nodded.

“Khit...”

Finding that sight quite comical, Yorphang laughed softly.

In any case, Yorphang ran her fingers over the painting and checked its material. Then she marveled.

“It is not merely a few decades old, is it?”

It was a painting made at least several hundred years ago.

It was neither cracked nor faded, but the material of the canvas was like that of ancient scrolls.

Perhaps magic had been cast on the painting itself to preserve it for a long time.

Paintings like this were not common.

Yorphang wore a faint smile and took out the subspace pouch from inside her clothes.

She spread the subspace pouch open, and the painting was sucked into the small pouch.

Then she casually threw the prepared notice down on the floor by the wall where the painting had been. The order had changed a little, but there was no one “watching,” so it held no great meaning.

Yorphang decided to brush it off, thinking this too might be considered part of the academy’s precious things.

Yorphang glanced at the man beside her.

The man seemed not to have sensed any of this process, and was still merely staring at the wall.

“Anyway... It is a nice painting.”

Throwing out those meaningless words, Yorphang was about to naturally leave the place.

At that moment, her gaze was caught by the sword at the man’s waist.

The jewel attached to the pommel, and even the embroidery of petals on the handle.

As a phantom thief, Yorphang had a keen eye for high-quality materials and luxury goods.

It had a refined design that looked, at a glance, like a treasured blade.

She could tell immediately that a great deal of money had gone into it.

In the end, Yorphang could not hold back her terrible “habit.”

“Since this is my last stop at the academy, taking one more thing as a bonus should be fine...”

As soon as she reached that thought, she took out a piece of paper and a fountain pen from inside her clothes.

She was writing the notice she would send him.

Normally, there would have been no need to reveal this process, but the person before her was blind, so she was brazenly writing the notice right in front of the person concerned.

“How many seconds would be good? Five seconds? Ten...?”

Yorphang, who was writing the notice, pressed the fountain pen to her lips and thought.

“Ten seconds sounds good.”

Soon, Yorphang had completed the notice and was neatly folding it.

The man standing beside her still said nothing.

His head had been turned toward the wall where the painting had been from earlier.

Yorphang’s gaze went once more to the bandages over his eyes.

Soon, she scratched her head.

“...Does the notice have no meaning?”

Since he could not read, was it not completely useless?

Only then reaching that simple thought, Yorphang pretended to think.

Just then, he turned his body and looked at her.

“You have been silent for a while....You are still there, yes?”

Moonlight touched the sword at his waist as he tilted his head.

The jewel on the pommel shone brilliantly.

Watching this, Yorphang made her decision.

“Right, what does it matter?”

The unlucky one is the one who gets robbed.

Yorphang recalled what could not quite be called a belief, more like a personal motto, that she had upheld ever since her days in the slums.

Even if the person himself could not confirm it, she assumed people around him would read it to him later.

“Your... tie is a little crooked. One moment...”

His tie was in a neat state without the slightest problem, but she approached him while pretending to fix it for no reason.

“...Thank you.”

When Yorphang fiddled with his tie, the man smiled at her kindness.

“Why is he so uselessly handsome when his eyes are even covered...?”

Yorphang, watching the man from very close, admired his features, and her face flushed slightly. In any case, however, she was in the middle of a “job.”

Whether he wore a sweet smile or not, Yorphang slipped the notice, useless to him, into his clothes.

“If only he were not a student...”

Soon, after finishing everything, Yorphang removed her hands from his tie and stepped back.

“All done.”

As she said that, the thread that had slipped quietly from Yorphang’s sleeve touched his sword.

Watching the man bow his head and thank her, Yorphang rejoiced inwardly, thinking it had ended cleanly.

“Then I will see you next time.”

After that brief farewell, Yorphang turned around and began counting seconds as she walked down the corridor.

Ten seconds.

Exactly ten seconds passed, and the sword, carried by the thread, was already following beside her.

Looking at the sword, she could feel that, as expected, money had been poured into it.

She did not know why a mere student like that man was wearing such an expensive sword, but since she had heard the academy gathered all sorts of people, she stopped caring.

Luckily, perhaps the owner of this uniform was a swordsman too, because there was a belt at the waist where a sword could be worn. If she wore the sword at her waist, she would be able to act like a student more naturally.

Yorphang turned around.

The man standing some distance away over there was looking at her.

...Rather than saying he was looking at her, it would be more accurate to say that his head was turned in the direction where she was.

“At this distance, he should not hear much.”

As she was reaching toward the sword to look at the blade, she arrived at one question.

“But if he did not even know there was a painting, why was he looking at the wall...?”

It was not an especially large problem, but a faint doubt did occur to her.

At the same moment, Yorphang’s hand touched the handle.

It was just as she was about to draw the sword to check the blade.

—Shing.

Together with the sound of the sword leaving its sheath,

her vision blurred for an instant.

***

Yorphang, holding her head, came to her senses.

Yorphang squeezed her eyes shut, opened them, and slowly turned her head to look around.

The first thing that caught her eye was...

“...The moon?”

A massive full moon could be seen before Yorphang.

However, it felt terribly foreign.

The moon’s position was far too close.

Especially the color of the moon blinding her eyes was unrealistic.

Purple Moon.

“A purple moon...”

...Such a thing did not exist in this world.

—Splash.

Soon, when Yorphang moved her leg without thinking, her foot touched water, and sound formed and echoed through this quiet space.

There was very shallow water on the floor.

The water filling this vast space with no end in sight was so still that it reflected the dark night sky and moon above the surface in their entirety.

It possessed an indescribably dreamlike atmosphere.

At last, Yorphang shook her head.

No, she shook it hard.

Everything was far too strange to be reality, but the sensation of water against her feet was terribly real.

As her head grew more and more hazy, Yorphang clenched her teeth and calmly began grasping the situation.

She had met some blind swordsman and stolen his sword... and the moment she drew that sword, this happened.

She had definitely been walking through a dark corridor.

—Hssssss...

Soon, a chilling wind blew from behind Yorphang, and thick purple smoke wrapped around her.

At the unidentified smoke, she hurriedly covered her mouth and nose.

“Kgh...”

Then Yorphang moved her legs, trying to escape the smoke.

However, the smoke showed no sign of letting her go, so she ran and ran again. That was the best movement Yorphang could make in this incomprehensible situation.

“Puhah...!”

At last, Yorphang somehow broke through the smoke and collapsed onto the floor, bracing herself with her hands.

She let out the breath she had held and inhaled deeply.

Immediately, Yorphang’s eyes caught her own distorted, panting reflection in the rippling water’s surface.

By what principle, and for what reason, had this happened?

Just when she could not grasp anything.

—Splash.

From over there came the sound of someone walking through water.

Yorphang hurriedly raised her head toward the source of the sound.

Standing on the water was a woman.

Around the woman, who had long ink-black hair and wore blood-red Eastern clothing, swirled ominous purple smoke.

The sight was more beautiful than any painting Yorphang had ever laid eyes on, a single Eastern-style masterpiece.

The woman slowly approached Yorphang.

Each step she took sent gentle ripples through the water, reaching the wrist of Yorphang, whose hands were on the floor.

Then the woman’s lips opened.

“You are an unexpected guest.”

A powerful yet soft voice pierced Yorphang’s ears.

Soon, the woman’s eyes, the same color as the moon floating in the sky, met Yorphang’s.

Yorphang instinctively realized it.

That she was the master and the “absolute being” of this place, this space.

“Ah...”

A dumbfounded sound burst from Yorphang’s mouth.

She was feeling “fear.”

Her body had frozen long ago and could no longer move.

Run?

Was there any path to run?

Fight back?

Such an option was not given to Yorphang in the face of this overwhelming pressure.

She could only accept her fate.

In the end, the woman came right up to Yorphang.

Yorphang, sprawled on the ground, did not even think to meet her eyes and had lowered her head deeply. But soon, the woman’s hand lifted her chin.

“Uh... uh...”

At the look in the woman’s eyes, which seemed to demand she say something, Yorphang wanted to beg for forgiveness, but not a single word or sentence could be completed.

The woman stared intently at Yorphang, whose pupils were trembling fiercely, then slowly opened her lips.

“No matter how terribly dense my ‘master’ may be... and even if he is saddled with such a wretched fate that women simply roll in to be kicked away... this was not the sort of thing I wished for.”

Yorphang could not understand the meaning of those words.

They were no more than the woman’s lament.

“How unpleasant.”

The woman’s quiet words that followed immediately lingered by Yorphang’s ear.

The woman removed the hand that had been gripping Yorphang’s chin.

“Now disappear.”

After saying that, the woman turned her back on her.

—Fwit!

And then an unknown sound brushed past Yorphang’s shoulder.

—Splash.

Something was cut away by something sharp and fell into the water.

It was Yorphang’s arm.

Blood leaked from her arm fallen on the floor and dyed the clear, transparent water red.

Yorphang wanted to scream, but her throat was cut immediately.

“...!!!”

Struck by sword blows pouring out of thin air without warning, Yorphang was chopped into pieces.

Crushed and split.

Like that, Yorphang could not even properly move the tip of a finger and let out a soundless scream at the pain rushing at her without rest.

As if she did not even want to put that sight in her eyes, the woman who had turned around stared silently at the moon.

“I shall be the ‘sword’ of one person alone...”

***

I approached Yorphang, who had collapsed while holding the cursed blade and was twitching.

Looking at Yorphang up close, her condition was rather serious.

She was foaming at the mouth, her body trembling, and she was completely wrapped in the demonic energy pouring from the cursed blade.

Her eyes were open, but she did not seem conscious.

Sierra’s demonic energy had merely been refined through the seal, not erased.

“Sierra” was bound to me.

Because she had grasped the cursed blade in that state, she had been devoured by the blade.

The moment she took hold of the sword, Sierra’s form had vanished. Yorphang had probably entered something like Sierra’s mental world.

“Kkgh... kgh...”

Yorphang barely opened her mouth and let out a groan full of despair.

Whatever was happening to her, it seemed extremely painful.

For now, I removed “Sierra” from Yorphang’s hand.

If I left things as they were, her mind might collapse completely.

Yorphang’s body, which had been trembling violently, soon grew quiet.

Then Sierra slipped smoothly out of the cursed blade.

Her mysterious purple eyes were shining especially brightly today.

As soon as Sierra came out of the cursed blade, she threw herself into my arms.

I pointed at Yorphang, who had fainted with her eyes open, and asked.

“What did you do...”

Sierra glanced between me and Yorphang, then modestly covered her mouth and answered.

[...I merely greeted her because I was glad to meet her. ]

Judging by Sierra’s narrowing eyes as she said that, this was unmistakably a lie.