Chapter 23: Moonshade: The City of Hero
The carriage rolled out before the sun had fully risen.
I took the window seat. Tessira sat across me without being told, knees together, hands in her lap, already looking outside like she’d been waiting for the world to start moving.
Sebastian rode up front.
The mansion disappeared behind us and I stopped thinking about it.
The plains came first.
I hadn’t really looked at this region since arriving. Too busy.
It was vast. The grass ran in every direction, muted green and frost-edged, broken only by low stone formations or distant tree lines marking where the land changed.
Tessira had her face nearly against the window.
A herd moved in the distance...broad, low-slung animals with grey coats.
"Plains Elk," I said.
She looked at me briefly, then back at them.
"They follow the frost line north this time of year."
She watched them until the road curved and they were gone. Then she kept looking at the place they’d been for another few seconds, like she was making sure.
I glanced at her reflection in the glass.
She was smiling.
When did that start, I thought.
I looked away.
***
The roads narrowed as we approached Moonshade.
Farmers were already out despite the hour, working the field edges in coats that had seen better winters. The buildings were modest, close together, wood and old stone.
Smoke came from most of the chimneys. Nobody here looked like they were waiting on anything.
A small countryside city ringed by rolling fields and dense forest. Quiet streets. Modest buildings. Life moved at its own unhurried pace.
Most people knew it as the birthplace of the Moonshade Hero, one of humanity’s greatest heroes and, according to the novel, one of the many who died in the war against the daemons.
The city itself was considerably less impressive than the legend attached to it.
But the city wasn’t why I’d come.
Somewhere near Moonshade lay a legacy the Hero had left behind. In the novel, the Hero’s Party didn’t find it until nearly twelve hundred Chapters later.
Which meant, right now, it was unclaimed.
And I had every intention of changing that.
Who’s waiting twelve hundred Chapters for anything.
We also needed a vehicle. In this world, automobiles were luxury items—the mana circuits inside them were complex, many of the components only obtainable from dungeons, and the refined mana crystals that powered them expensive enough to make most nobles hesitate.
Only wealthy houses and major corporations bothered owning one.
***
We checked into the hotel, which was for all practical purposes our property for the duration.
Tessira disappeared into sleep almost immediately. I gave her an hour before heading back outside.
I walked the city. She caught up to me two streets later, coat buttoned wrong on one side, still clearly half-asleep but present.
We passed a small school where children were learning basic arithmetic. They looked happy about it, which I found slightly suspicious.
Then the market.
The street widened as the stalls began grilled food first, then cloth, then the kind of general goods that didn’t fit a category. Buyers moved between them without hurrying. The smell from the nearest grill was doing something aggressive.
Tessira kept a fistful of my sleeve the whole time, eyes moving from the stall boards to the food and back.
She stopped in front of a meat skewer stall and looked at it for a long moment.
"Do you want something?"
She glanced at me. Then back at the skewers.
I bought two Moonlight Rice Cakes and held one out to her.
She looked at the rice cake. Then at the skewer stall. Then at the rice cake again.
"...You wanted the meat."
A small nod.
"...Next time."
She accepted the rice cake, making a note about this for later.
We kept walking. She ate in small, careful pieces, still watching everything around her.
***
"Young Master, everything is prepared," Sebastian said when we returned. "We are ready to depart."
"We’ll leave tomorrow morning. The main estate isn’t far from here."
"Understood. Approximately ten hours’ travel."
"Then tomorrow."
After walking Tessira back, I slipped out toward the forest, keeping clear of Sebastian’s notice.
Not that it would last. He always found out.
***
The forest was dense.
I cast a small flame to light the way and kept moving.
According to the novel, a lake sat at the center. On the night of a full moon it sparkled, and if someone poured mana into it a puzzle would appear along with the guardian spirit bound to the legacy.
The remnant of a five-star knight. Access was only granted to those blessed by the goddess, though apparently pure holy water could substitute if it came to that.
This was reckless, given I had no blessing of any kind. I wanted to see the puzzle regardless.
Hours later, I reached it.
Tiny spirit-like particles drifted through the air, catching the moonlight. The surface of the lake was completely still.
I knelt and put my hand under the surface.
Text formed on the water.
*"I have no doors, yet people enter me. I have no windows, yet light can leave me. I am not alive, yet I can die. What am I?"*
While I was still working through the riddle, the air shifted.
The spirit appeared.
But it wasn’t looking at me.
Its gaze was fixed on a point just past my left shoulder. It held there for a full second before its eyes moved to my face.
"A fool challenges the heavens because he believes they do not listen," it said. "An immortal challenges them because he knows they do."
I hadn’t done anything. The novel described him as prideful, arrogant, the kind of guardian who made challengers earn every word. There’d been no mention of him talking unprompted.
Then the air turned cold.
The spirit knelt.
"I ask for forgiveness, You Who Carry All Sins."
My steps halted.
"You Who Carry All Sins."
"...Please. Take whatever you wish."
I hadn’t even answered the riddle.
Whatever. Not my problem to question good luck.
"I want the Moonshade legacy."
A compass-shaped instrument materialized above the lake, suspended in the mist.
"Please, take it."
The hero in the novel had fought a full duel for this.
I reached out and took it.
[Legacy Acquired.]
[Moon Compass Rarity: Ancient]
[Compatible User: Confirmed.]
As I turned to leave, I caught the spirit’s gaze fixed behind my shoulder again.
I stopped.
Turned.
Trees. The mist between them. Moonlight on the water behind me.
Nothing there.
I stood still for a moment, looking at the same space the spirit had been looking at. Whatever it had seen, or thought it had seen, the forest wasn’t offering any information about it.
"You Who Carry All Sins." I started walking.
Was that the Sin System? Something else? I filed it and kept moving.
Get back before Sebastian notices I’m gone.
***
I found Tessira at the edge of the forest.
She wasn’t looking at me.
She was looking at the space just behind me, the same way the spirit had.
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