The Ancient Moon Temple, the Ancient Star-Gazing Terrace.
At the very center of the sacrificial altar, a young girl wearing a complex and ancient ceremonial gown stood in solitude.
Miaoyue stood barefoot on the cold, rough stone slabs, her pure black hair cascading down her back.
She tilted her head back slightly, her violet eyes reflecting the eerie red moon hanging in the sky.
“Is it time for the full moon again?”
“Shhh... shhh...”
A cold, bleak wind swept in from all directions, carrying countless tiny, shimmering silver-gray particles.
These remnants of lonely souls consumed by the moon shadow swirled and gathered in the air, finally drifting down around the barefoot girl.
The wind died down.
Miaoyue reached out her finger and gave a gentle flick in the void.
The powder began to rapidly gather, stack, and bond together.
Accompanied by a faint scratching sound, dozens of silhouettes gradually took shape before Miaoyue.
They had no facial features, no hair.
Only that familiar figure and that specific standing posture remained.
Every single one of them had been molded into the shape of the same man.
“Today, Little Yue has caught a new Teacher again.”
She tilted her head slightly, looking at the life-sized, pale powder puppets, her gaze filled with softness.
“Teacher, Teacher. You said that because Little Yue’s stats weren’t high enough, I couldn’t go on adventures with you. It was because Little Yue didn’t work hard enough...”
Miaoyue extended a trembling finger, gently tracing the stiff cheek of a powder puppet.
“Teacher, Teacher. Look at me.”
“I have become very strong now. Those pieces of trash who once put you in danger, those rats who tried to take you away with their rituals... now, I only need a single thought to turn them all into dust in the wind.”
“So... is Little Yue’s stats high enough now?”
As if receiving a command.
The puppet in front of her lowered its head.
Once, twice.
It nodded.
It agreed.
Not just that one—within the dark shadows all around, thousands of similar gray figures condensed from powder loomed into view.
Once, twice.
They nodded.
They agreed.
“That’s wonderful,” Miaoyue chirped happily.
But the fervor in her eyes gradually cooled.
She knew. None of these were him.
No matter how she reshaped them, no matter how many she molded, none of these empty shells contained that soul—the one with the teasing smile who would rub her head and call her ‘silly Little Yue.’
“They are all liars...”
“Teacher...”
She withdrew her hand. The powder puppets, losing the support of her Mana, ceased all movement and became silent, dead objects once more.
“It’s useless... no matter how high the stats are, it’s useless...”
“Even the Underworld cannot find your soul.”
A single crystalline drop slid from her violet eyes, freezing into ice mid-air before hitting the dust-covered floor and shattering into countless shards.
“Teacher, will you ever come back to see me?”
This was the six thousand, one hundred and eightieth time the moon had wept.
...
“Wait, it’s actually the year 1453 of the New Calendar?”
Sophie’s eyes widened, her face full of disbelief.
Kaila didn’t understand what she was freaking out about; sitting by the campfire nibbling on bread, she simply gave a silent nod.
Sophie slumped down beside Kaila.
How... how could this be?
You have to understand, the time he left the game was the year 938!
She had thought the current timeline was maybe five or ten years after she left the game.
But it was five hundred and fifteen years?
In the blink of an eye.
500 years had passed.
Constantinople has fallen.
The Monkey King has already crawled out from under the mountain.
Several dynasties must have risen and fallen.
Now Sophie finally understood how Miaoyue’s Trauma had reached Lv.Max.
And this also meant that all the knowledge Sophie had of the Red Moon continent was now completely obsolete.
The royalty and nobility, the rulers, the social networks, the castles and villages she was familiar with from her era... they had all likely turned to dust.
This was really not good news for her.
“So, are the Seven Pillars still around?” Sophie asked. “The holders of the Destined Crowns...”
“What are those?” Kaila asked.
“You know, beings like Miau... like that Moon Goddess from before? Deities like that?”
“Only the New Moon Sect and other Witch-following cults would call them deities.”
Kaila’s tone dropped slightly.
Though her expression didn’t change, a hint of her dissatisfaction could be felt.
Watching Kaila’s expressions is actually quite fun, like playing a game of ‘spot the difference,’ Sophie thought.
“Ah... sorry. Then could you tell me about the Witches?”
“Don’t want to talk... that much.”
Kaila showed a clear refusal to engage in long explanations.
“Then just tell me about the Moon Witch—or do you call her the New Moon Witch? Anyway, just her, since she’s our target?”
Sophie tried a different angle.
Kaila looked confused. “Didn’t you... claim earlier... that you could find her true body?”
“It’s exactly because I want to find her that I need to understand her now,” Sophie said righteously. “And I’m not very familiar with the land under our feet, so tell me about that too.”
It was very strange for a person to know nothing about the land they stood upon or the world they lived in.
If it were a stranger, Sophie definitely wouldn’t have been so direct.
But she was facing Kaila.
Are you kidding? They were practically ‘clinging partners’ now.
This was why Sophie, knowing full well Kaila hated talking, still wanted to get answers from her.
Kaila went silent.
Just as Sophie thought Kaila had run out of vocabulary and wasn’t going to elaborate.
Kaila took a deep breath.
“This is the Kingdom of Moon-Weeping in Solitude under dual-king rule it relies entirely on the two kings holding everything together this land was struck by an endless curse from the Moon Witch as long as it is a moonlit night any creature that is alone will be directly consumed by that eerie moonlight not even a scrap of bone will remain the only way to survive is to have the body heat of another living creature pressed tightly against you so the kingdom enacted its supreme law long ago which is the Companion System every citizen born in this land is forcibly assigned a Night Companion by law from the moment they leave the womb regardless of whether you want to or not being single here is an absolute death sentence a literal death sentence because being alone means being eaten by the moonlight similarly there are strict restrictions between spouses cheating or abandoning a partner results in unimaginable torture anyone entering or leaving the borders must do so in pairs even traveling merchants have to bring a donkey to make up the numbers even the bandits who kill and loot know the rules they must kill in pairs if they accidentally only kill one and leave the other alone under the moonlight that is the greatest provocation to the laws of the kingdom and they will be executed and hung on the city walls to dry as for marriage there is nothing much to say everyone huddles together just to hold each other at night and survive the function of orphanages is to provide an emergency matching system for those who are widowed or have no Night Companion as long as you pay you can take a living heater home to get through the night this is all the Moon Witch’s fault.”
Kaila finished in one breath, her cheeks turning bright red instantly. She grabbed the waterskin at her feet, pulled the plug, tilted her head back, and chugged water down her throat.
It was clear that to her, saying such a long passage was far more troublesome than dealing with cultists.
Sophie was startled by this sudden burst of High-Speed Incantation.
Kaila: ( ’へ’ )
“That’s why I said... ask someone else,” Kaila said in a low voice. “I have never been... good at talking a lot since I was little.”
“It’s okay, I understood everything,” Sophie said with a smile.
“Eh?”
“Thanks to you, Miss Kaila, I fully understand the current situation.” Sophie gave her a thumbs-up. “You explained it very clearly and did a great job.”
Is she kidding?
As a Galgame expert, High-Speed Incantation heroines were practically part of her daily diet.
She had just been momentarily dazed by the sudden wall of text.
“Ah, th... thank you.” Kaila looked somewhat flustered.
【Kaila’s Favorability +5】
But honestly, the world-view Kaila described completely exceeded Sophie’s expectations.
First, the unified Red Moon Empire from five hundred years ago was gone. The land they stood on was now the Kingdom of Moon-Weeping: Solitude.
And Miaoyue’s Trauma... just as Sophie had feared, its range wasn’t limited to a few dozen or hundreds of meters, but covered an entire kingdom.
“From then on, the moonlight was no longer a mercy bestowed upon the world by a deity; only two souls overlapping in trembling, begging for the remaining warmth in each other’s breath, could resist the consumption of the moon shadow.”
If one only looked at the text, it felt quite fateful and beautifully broken, making one feel how important they were to Little Yue.
But for the people living on this land, it was undoubtedly a curse.
A curse that forced them to be paired from birth.
Being single was a capital offense.
Birth rates had to be strictly controlled.
Orphanages were matchmaking centers.
The kings followed a dual-king rule.
Even the bandits on the road killed in even numbers.
Restrictions on cheating and the prohibition of abandoning partners.
People didn’t depend on each other because of love or other emotions; they depended on each other to stay alive, and that was all.
Sophie didn’t dare imagine how many people had died on this land because of the curse for the entire kingdom’s social structure to change this way.
And all of this.
Was simply the result of her casually grinding for achievements.
Rate on N.U.
