A Brief Moment

Pale green shoots sprouted lightly from the tips of the branches. Dark mulberry leaves covered the blackened limbs, and birds from far away landed on one side of the branches with cries. The summer cicadas chirped so noisily that no one could sleep.

"Fanafuna—" Leichina walked toward home with a watermelon freshly picked from the field in his arms. "Sister Audriel at the church gave me a huge watermelon, Fanafuna—come quickly—"

"Boom—"

Blazing flames burned before him, and scorching smoke poured into his nostrils. Leichina found the watermelon in his hands growing heavier and heavier. The black-and-green watermelon had already turned into an amalgamation of countless corpses...

"Fanafuna..."

Leichina woke again at noon. Even after having a nightmare, he, as a zombie, could not feel any stirrings in his heart. In the past, Leichina would probably have called Fanafuna's name and sought comfort, but now he was as murky as a pool of sludge.

"Hello—new creation of the Demon King," Talatala said from nearby. "It seems you have awakened."

There was a slight echo in Talatala's voice. Perhaps slime-like monsters had no vocal cords and could only imitate human voices through the vibrations of their liquid bodies.

"I... feel something very strange..." Leichina slowly crawled out of the deep pit. Some withered weeds were piled atop the black soil around him. "Talatala, why am I here..."

"Wait... how do I know your name...? And you should be a monster too..." A strange power surged through Leichina's mind. His memories from before his death and his senses after becoming an undead monster began to intertwine.

"Hey—I want to ask you a question."

"Please do..." Talatala's tone was calm, as though speaking with a friend.

"Am I... a monster...?" Leichina softly asked as he looked at his hand.

"You brat—" Rosa raised her hand and viciously smacked him on the head.

"Fuck—" Leichina's head rolled into the deep pit with a gurgle.

"You damned old hag, what are you trying to do?!" Leichina cursed Rosa Kevin from inside the pit. "If I hadn't just woken up and my body wasn't flexible enough yet, I'd have gone up there and beaten you already!"

"You seem to have recovered quickly..." Rosa nodded. "Then that matter probably didn't affect you too much."

"What matter?" Leichina asked.

"Uh... was I too talkative?" Rosa pulled Talatala beside her and whispered, "Should we tell him what he did?"

"Well... maybe not..." Talatala whispered in agreement. "Demon King, there are already too few people under your command. Just make up an excuse to brush him off for now. Once this guy has fully grown accustomed to being a monster, we can tell him everything that happened."

"Good idea," Rosa Kevin said. "Then I'll leave the task of brushing him off to you."

"Huh??"

"What are you two talking about?" Leichina said from the pit. "Hurry up and put my head back on! It feels really awkward seeing things like this!"

"Wait, it seems to be snowing in the sky..."

Leichina: "And?"

Rosa Kevin mysteriously glanced up at the sky. After a brief silence, she kicked Leichina's body into the pit. "Bye-bye—"

Leichina: "Are you even human?"

Talatala: "Obviously it isn't, but it really is snowing in the sky..."

Leichina: "So what? Ah—I'm so pissed—this damned old hag—"

Over the ruins of Labi Village, white snowflakes finally drifted down from the gloomy sky. Most of the yellow-green decayed soil had been digested by Talatala and its kin. As the Demon King's power recovered, Labi Village would welcome a different future.

"Damn it—damn it—no matter how much I slash, I can't cut through these creatures' spider silk—" The Holy Knight Deqilai swung the blessed sword in his hand, preventing the ugly Spider Demons from approaching. His shining silver armor bore the miracle of holy protection, rendering the Spider Demons' curse magic completely useless against it.

"Humans... food..."

The Spider Demons advanced toward Deqilai, waving their clawed limbs. Gray-white venom hung from their pitch-black fangs. The two pairs of limbs extending from their shoulder blades spread out to a height of roughly three meters, while the two smaller pairs of clawed limbs at their waists and abdomens were only around one meter long.

The Spider Demons moved the clawed limbs beneath their abdomens and aimed the spinning glands inside their body cavities at Deqilai and the others. Spider silk expelled from the gray-brown glands wrapped tightly around the Holy Knights' armor like steel cables.

"Food... food..." The Spider Demons whispered among themselves. Then they drove their front clawed limbs into the ground, braced their two pairs of hind legs against the earth, gripped the silk with both hands, and slowly pulled the prey caught in it toward them.

"Clack—clack—"

One unfortunate Holy Knight slipped because of the armored boots on his feet and was dragged straight into the mass of Spider Demons. Mithril armor could resist most magic, but mithril itself was not particularly hard. The Spider Demons' fangs sank deeply into the knight's armor, siphoning pale yellow life energy into their bodies.

"These damned monsters!" Seeing his subordinates being devoured by the monsters, Deqilai immediately thrust his sword into the soil and began a solemn chant:

"In the name of the gods—we beg for Your mercy and kindness. Goddess who nourishes all things, supreme one who creates civilization and faith, one who lights bonfires in the vast night and cultivates rice seeds in the endless desert, Goddess of Agriculture—Meter, please wave Your silk handkerchief and drive away the many evil demons surrounding us—"

As the chant ended, the soil pierced by Deqilai's sword began to harden. A surge of energy passed from Deqilai into the earth, and the hardened, cracked soil transformed into a ten-meter-tall elemental giant, Golem.

As a Holy Knight who worshipped the Goddess of Agriculture, the elemental giant Golem created by Deqilai's miracle was also steeped in an agricultural air. Yellow-brown clods of mud covered Golem's body, with small amounts of wheat and cassava leaves growing from them. At Golem's center was an emblem shaped like a hoe.

"Tarimilan—" Deqilai stood atop the elemental giant's head and shouted, "Take the remaining people and retreat to Alderbu!"

"Got it—" Tarimilan responded while casting spells to clear away the spider silk wrapped around the Holy Knights one by one.

Seeing Golem appear and their chances of victory plummet, the Spider Demons waved their clawed limbs and struck the ground, trying to notify their other companions underground.

"What are these spiders trying to do?" Deqilai commanded the elemental giant to attack the Spider Demons. A fist made of earth and granite struck a Spider Demon that had failed to escape, splattering black, sour-smelling blood across the ground.

"Deqilai, be careful. These Spider Demons' blood is highly toxic..." Tarimilan warned. Then large pits appeared beneath the Holy Knights' feet.

"Everyone, be careful—" Deqilai warned.

Two Holy Knights failed to escape in time and fell straight into the mud pits. Several Spider Demons hidden underground pounced on them and took the two Holy Knights' lives.

As time passed, more and more Spider Demons gathered, gradually forming an encirclement that firmly trapped the Holy Knights within. The deep pits that appeared from time to time inside the encirclement were even more terrifying. With one careless step, the Holy Knights would fall into the Spider Demons' traps.

"Everyone—be careful—stay close together as much as possible!" Deqilai shouted.

The elemental giant created by Deqilai's miracle had an enormous body and considerable weight. If the Spider Demons forcibly dug up the soil beneath Golem's feet, the first thing to happen would certainly be the soil collapsing under the giant's weight and crushing the Spider Demons to death before the ground beneath the giant caved in. For that reason, Deqilai commanded the Holy Knights to gather beneath Golem's feet.

"Strange... strange..." Tarimilan flipped through his necromancy notebook. "...When I used to run errands for Teacher Boyabolo at Canfor's black market, I rarely saw monsters of any kind. Why did we encounter Spider Demons today, and after that massive amalgamation of the dead appeared too..."

"You have time to ramble about all that other nonsense... you might as well think of a way to contact Alderbu's defenders and have them come save us..." Deqilai shouted at Tarimilan.

"Am I not trying to find a way!?" Tarimilan replied.

"Then hurry—" Deqilai's voice gradually weakened. "I don't know how long this miracle of mine can last..."