Chapter 2: The Moonlit Radiance of Yogalora Night

At the instant the foul wind struck his face, Byaku had the presence of mind to raise his left elbow and block the humanoid spider's attack.

The blow still injured the joint of his left arm.

Fortunately, the armor on his arm, his sturdy muscles, and his bones absorbed the impact.

The spider's strength was not great; what made it troublesome was only its hard shell. But Byaku had already been prepared.

With a heavy thud, he slammed the humanoid spider against the cavern wall, and the short blade in his right hand—a ninja sword the length of a wakizashi—snapped through the creature's mouthparts and out the other side.

That single strike pierced the humanoid spider from within, and its organs were crushed by the blade's tip.

"...A minor monster, somewhere between a wild beast and a fully formed demon. Trouble enough, but someone like me, a low-ranking shinobi, can still deal with it."

What made things difficult was their numbers, and the fact that their shells and skin were strengthened by demonic aura, making them hard to cut with ordinary blades.

Unless one was highly skilled, wild swings would only get the sword knocked aside, or have the blade snapped when thrusting. But once one became practiced, many clever methods could be found.

After killing the small demon left behind to guard the place, Byaku poured some antidote powder onto the wound and gave it a simple treatment.

"...I'll use that method."

He looked again at the corpse of the humanoid spider.

In this world, the weak monsters of the hills and fields could be beaten to death even by sturdy farmers wielding their tools.

After death, the spider demon's shell had grown soft as well. Byaku slashed open its belly and took out the innards.

Especially the intestines: he smeared the foul-smelling fluid from them onto their gear, and the remainder he spread evenly over the male lead, Yomei.

"No choice... To pass through the cavern labyrinth and find the dragon vein pool, I'll have to take a bit of a detour. I can only try this method."

It was foul, yes, but it could truly save one's life.

...

"My memory really is quite good."

Byaku cut through the spider silk with his blade, fashioned a crude rope, and tied the injured male lead to his back.

Relying on the memory of how he had played the game, he wound through several branching passages, and indeed found the dragon vein pool at last.

"So these spiders depend more on smell than on sight..."

Only then did Byaku realize that the reason a large party had been discovered was not because the invisibility talismans had failed, but because there had been too many people, leaving too large a trail along the way.

Traveling alone, coated in a scent familiar to the spiders, or moving with a single invisibility talisman, would have been far safer.

When he had fled before, he had been too panicked to think straight, his mind a muddle; and because he had been dodging the spider demons, he had run wildly in every direction.

Once he had calmed down, Byaku followed the memory buried deep in his mind from when he had played the game and found the "dragon vein pool" at the very heart of the spider demon nest.

The great spider ancestor of the nest had once been a mountain god, worshiped by the original inhabitants who hid in these remote mountains. Later, that ancestor was slain, and its descendants lost their divinity and fell into demonhood.

This great spider demon sought to regain that divinity. It found the dragon vein deep within the mountain, dug out a subterranean pit, let groundwater seep in, and caused the life force of the earth veins to gather in the pool, forming an artificial "dragon cave."

The cavern where this dragon vein pool lay was filled with glittering crystals everywhere, like a crystal grotto, surely the result of the dragon vein's power.

"So this really is the dragon vein pool."

Byaku checked it and found the water glowing with a pale green sheen, containing strong spiritual energy and the pure divine aura of the earth god.

"Pity... I have no right to enjoy it. The power of the dragon vein can only benefit the land, making barren soil fertile, helping crops grow strong, and strengthening the earth deity. It brings no benefit at all to ordinary people..."

Still, though it brought him no benefit, it would work on the male lead, Yuzaro Yomei.

At some point in the future, the hero should awaken several kinds of extraordinary abilities; each one of them was formidable in its own right, and later on they would become unimaginably powerful.

The divine aura within the dragon vein could suppress his demonization, seal away hostile influences, cleanse the soul, and thereby stimulate his divine bloodline, allowing him to reshape his body.

"This was also the strategy the heroines came up with later to help him. I'm only doing the same thing, so it should work too, right?"

Muttering to himself, he stripped the clothes from Yuzaro Yomei, left him naked, and threw him into the dragon vein pool.

The hero's body, too, went "plunk" as it sank to the bottom of the pool.

There was no need to worry about him drowning; the immense dragon vein essence in the water was enough to let a person survive even under its surface.

Rather, within the dragon vein pool, Yuzaro Yomei would undergo a new evolution.

"He is rather weak right now. Once he enters the dragon vein pool, he may well awaken some new, powerful ability..."

There should have been several extraordinary powers the hero could awaken in the future. The only question was what he might gain now...

Hihihihihihihihi.

An empty laugh drifted out from the darkness deep within the hollow cavern, a laugh that was not human.

Every hair on his body stood on end, and a bone-deep chill like an electric current raced along his spine into his brain. Byaku's face was filled with shock and fear.

He snapped his head up and saw a head hanging upside down in the air.

It was the face of a little girl, suspended in midair. Most of her face was hidden in shadow, but the curve of her mouth was plainly visible, smiling—a hollow, inhuman smile.

"What do you intend to do in my nest?"

Eight furry, sharp spider legs clung to the ceiling. It was a terrifying demonic beast, like a lady spider.

Its upper half was that of a little girl in a kimono, her hair styled in a princess cut. Her features were delicate and small, with thin eyebrows, and her parted mouth was full of needlelike teeth.

The upper half was bad enough... but the lower half was nothing less than a huge spider, its body covered in bristles and a hard shell.

Byaku swallowed hard. He had no idea how this spider demon had concealed its surging demonic aura and approached him so closely—

No, in that instant, his mind was blank, his stomach churned, and his consciousness could scarcely keep pace with what was unfolding before his eyes.

At the same time, the great spider's massive body dropped.

Boom!

The moment it hit the ground, a deep bass note seemed to shake the air.

Byaku's body moved faster than his thoughts. He sprang backward, and an explosion of force burst from the ground, scattering countless shards of stone like bullets.

To avoid being caught in it, he had no choice but to lower his body, spreading his legs wide and pressing his left hand against the rubble.

Even so, the shockwave of air from the spider demon's body crash had nearly blown him away.

Byaku was flattened low to the ground like a beast in a stalking posture, blood streaking his cheeks and neck.

He was lucky not to have died on the spot.

In truth, the strength of the lower-ranking shinobi of Kurohime Mountain House amounted to little more than a trace of spiritual power beyond that of ordinary people. They had undergone some training, but it was hardly enough.

This great spider was clearly a ferocious demon beyond even fully formed demons and great demons. Crushing him would be as easy as crushing an insect.

"What do I do?"

Byaku's mind was in chaos. Faced with such an unbridgeable gulf in power, only despair remained in his heart. He even found himself wondering whether, in some next life, he might be reborn on his original Earth.

If he was going to die, so be it.

He raised his blade, determined to make one last desperate attempt.

After all, this goddamn game world was utterly vile.

"...Shadow Butterfly."

A faint voice sounded.

The great spider had vaguely sensed something, but it was already too late. Time and space stretched and warped for an instant, then were violently compressed.

Yet for the bystanders—namely the great spider present there and Byaku himself—it seemed as though there had been no beginning, no ending, and no process at all.

It was as if a second had been inserted into a video. Byaku stared in stupefaction as blood lines erupted from the great spider's body, and blood mist sprayed from every inch of its huge form.

The ferocious spider demon was torn apart, no, vivisected while still alive. Its limbs were shattered by a blade, and organs and blood spilled from the broken extremities and the severed torso, splashing noisily onto the ground.

Byaku was utterly dumbfounded. In the blink of an eye, the demon that had just been so imposing had become a sea of red flesh and blood.

"Your luck was good. If I had been a moment later, you would have been done for."

The speaker was a young girl, her long pale-silver hair falling loose, her right eye hidden by bangs so light in color they seemed almost colorless.

She was beautiful, a girl with the translucent clarity of glass. And because of that beauty, she seemed faint and unreal, even unsettling.

"...Lady Shogi, I am deeply grateful for your lifesaving aid."

Byaku did not dare look too long. On one hand, the girl wore the exorcist uniform, sleeveless and exposing her underarms, so staring would have been rude; on the other, the difference in their status was immense. He was merely a lower-ranking shinobi, of extremely low standing, and he knew well the etiquette of rank and deference.

Though his modern sensibilities found little reason to care, he had no choice now but to bend his knees and bow deeply before a girl younger than himself.

There was no helping it. In this world, the status of a lower-ranking shinobi was exceedingly humble, worse than that of a servant. And his own position in society was far beneath that of the great princess of the Kurohime Mountain clan, the young mistress of the main house.

The girl's identity was none other than the number one heroine of Moonlit Dawn, Kurohime Shogi, the strongest demon-slaying swordswoman of the clan—and the fiancée of the male lead, Yuzaro Yomei.

"By the way, where are the exorcists of the main house who were captured by the spider demon earlier?"

"Most of them have been poisoned by spider venom."

Byaku answered carefully. "I judged that alone I could not rescue them, so I had no choice but to leave them... Also, the young master of the Yuzaro family is still barely alive. I beg the young lady to devise a way to save him—"

As he spoke, the dragon vein pool behind him made a gurgling sound, the water seeming to boil.

Kurohime Shogi's gaze left him and quickly turned toward the dragon vein pool.

"...What happened?"

Her brows drawing together, she looked into the pool. Faintly, black long hair floated up from the water, and then from the pale green glow came a beautiful body slowly rising to the surface.

"...What the hell?"

The face under the black fox mask on Byaku's face began to twist—yes, he could see it clearly. The figure, hair spread out and merging with the water, had a voluptuous, snow-white body of astonishing sensuality.

No, no way... That couldn't possibly be the male lead, Yuzaro Yomei, could it?

The isekai traveler screamed "No, no, no!" in his heart. If he were to remove his mask, one would see an expression of despair like the famous face in Edvard Munch's The Scream.