Chapter 462: Abnormality

The uncle swayed left and right, his dance clumsy and ugly, yet a smile of genuine happiness could be seen on his face.

No one laughed at him. Everyone had completely immersed themselves in the atmosphere of the festival—singing and dancing, giving themselves over to joy—as if hoping to make the festival even livelier and draw the Goddess’s pitying gaze.

“No fire allowed... could it be some kind of custom?”

Muen rubbed his chin and thought of Cold Food ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ from his previous life.

Likewise an early-spring festival, likewise no fire allowed. Though the two festivals existed in different worlds, they coincidentally shared similarities.

For such customs, Muen could only choose to respect them.

Besides, even without a bonfire, dancing under the night sky seemed a romantic thing.

“So...”

Muen bent down with a smile and extended his hand to Anna:

“You beautiful lady, may I have this dance?”

“I’m not some noble young lady. I don’t know any fancy steps.”

Anna’s eyes curved with a teasing smile—half refusing, half yielding.

“It’s fine.”

Muen stepped forward and took her small hand himself:

“With a beauty like you, Senior, even if you just hop in place a few times, you’ll still be the most dazzling in the crowd. Why worry about steps? Just dance however.”

“Ai, with that sweet mouth of yours, who knows how many naïve young girls you’ve fooled.”

Anna feigned distress, but her feet were already moving with Muen.

Muen slipped an arm around her slender waist, held her soft little hand, and guided those clumsy steps toward familiarity.

A faint harp melody, from who knew where, became the accompaniment to their steps, lending this casual dance a touch of airy grace and poise.

Even the reveling townsfolk were drawn by their movements, gathering without meaning to, clapping and cheering for the moving dance between the handsome, dashing man and the seductive, graceful woman.

Some bold souls even joined the rhythm—grabbing nearby companions and, in comically awkward fashion, attempting a shabby version of a noble’s social dance.

One dance finished, and another began.

Night deepened bit by bit, and hazy starlight sprinkled the earth.

“Hah...”

After the satisfying whirl, their steps finally came to a halt, and Muen let out a quiet breath.

It wasn’t exactly strenuous exercise for him, but his body had warmed. He also saw a few dewdrop-like beads of sweat on Senior’s forehead.

“Good! Well danced!”

The broad-hearted, stout Lady Mayor popped up from who-knew-where, applauding them excitedly. Then she lifted a small platter and held it out.

“You must be hungry—have something to eat. This was prepared especially for the festival. Delicious!”

“Thank you.”

Muen accepted the tray. His eyes fixed on the fragrant piece of meat at the center of the porcelain plate, and he couldn’t help swallowing.

Maybe because he had just danced with abandon, he truly was hungry now.

So Muen reached out and slowly picked up the meat.

In the countryside, conditions were simple. It was impossible for them to provide silverware just for Muen. But he wasn’t the sort to be picky anyway, so he had no qualms about using his hands.

Yet the instant his fingers touched the meat—feeling its coldness and slickness—his brow tugged tight and his motion stalled.

Something... wasn’t right?

He lifted his head to take in his surroundings again, thoughts instinctively racing at high speed.

Because the Spring Radiance Festival forbade open flame, the bonfire rack they had built wouldn’t be lit—that was normal.

Because the Spring Radiance Festival forbade open flame, the dancing had gone on into the late night, and aside from dim starlight, everything was basically pitch-black—that was normal.

Because the Spring Radiance Festival forbade open flame, the meat in his hand... was raw—that was normal too.

Everything was normal.

Was anything wrong... at all?

“Looks like it’s the same as before—I’m just being too careful.”

Muen shook his head and let out a self-mocking smile.

His hand started moving again, planning to fill his stomach first and think later...

“No.”

Muen’s pupils tightened. He suddenly let go of the piece of raw meat that—by his usual standards—he would never willingly touch, its slick, greasy reek almost nauseating.

...He felt something was off, yet a closer look showed nothing amiss—wasn’t that precisely the biggest wrongness?

This was different from before. It wasn’t overcaution; it was a kind of intuition warning him!

Muen drew a long breath. His awareness snapped into focus.

His eyes shut, then snapped open again, and in the depths of those azure irises, a pitch-black flame seemed to surge up, forming a vast, majestic Black Sun!

The instant the black flame kindled in his spirit, Muen’s body shuddered; a chill shot straight to his skull.

What do you mean nothing was amiss?

From the moment he had asked why the bonfire was not lit, this whole festival had been riddled with oddities!

If open flame was forbidden, then why bother building a bonfire rack?

If open flame was forbidden, then why hold the festival at night—when, without fire, there could be no light?

If open flame was forbidden, then why not prepare some preserved foods in advance—instead of having guests like them eat raw meat?

And the strangest of all—despite so many anomalies, why had he felt everything was perfectly normal until he used the black flame?

A great, icy dread crashed through Muen’s heart. He jerked his head toward his Senior—only to find that Anna had actually reached deep thought a beat ahead of him.

“It’s that harp.”

In her writhing shadow, endless, deathly darkness seemed to brew, with hoarse whispers beyond mortal ken flowing out of it.

“The harp altered our thinking—kept us from noticing anything wrong.”

“The harp?”

Muen extended his senses outward, trying to find the source of the strings.

But at this moment, the music had stopped.

It was especially quiet.

So quiet that only the slightly grating chorus of “insects” remained.

The cheers, the singing, the applause of the townsfolk had vanished. The lively festival’s atmosphere seemed to have turned into a funeral of dead silence.

A jolt went through Muen. He looked around and finally realized, at some point, the townsfolk had ringed him and Anna in.

No joy or warmth remained on their faces—only a corpse-like gloom. They stared fixedly at Muen and Anna, eyes vicious, and spoke in a chillingly low tone:

“Eat. Why aren’t you eating.”

“It’s good. Really good.”

“Hurry and eat. If you eat, after you eat, after you eat... **then she’ll be happy.”

The crowd swayed and pressed closer. Countless faces bunched together, sharing the same expression, the same tone, repeating nearly the same words:

“Eat. Hurry and eat!”

At some point, “weapons” had appeared in their hands—either farming tools or kitchen cleavers honed sharp. It seemed that if Muen and Anna did not eat that raw meat tonight, they themselves would become the “raw meat.”

Muen’s hand had, by habit, settled on his hilt—yet he still hadn’t drawn.

“They’re just ordinary people.”

Anna’s keen gaze swept over them.

“Only controlled by some method.”

“Can you break it?”

Muen asked.

“No.”

Anna probed slightly and said:

“I can’t even sense mana—don’t even know what method of control the other side used. I can’t dispel it for now.”

“Then what do we do? We can’t actually strike these ordinary people.”

Muen’s face went dark.

They didn’t know who the enemy was, didn’t know the enemy’s goal, didn’t even know the enemy’s means.

All they knew was that the townsfolk before them were truly just innocent, pitiful people.

There was no mana on them, no other aura. They still wore those plain, mud-specked, dirty clothes, having just returned from a hard day’s work in the fields.

But precisely because of that “normalcy,” Muen now recognized the “abnormal.”

“In any case, first get clear of them without harming anyone. For such a major anomaly to occur here, the Silent Bureau’s watcher stationed in this town can’t have missed everything.”

Anna drew the darkness in her shadow back and pulled out her usual long whip:

“Break through, then rendezvous with Jinze. He should already have gathered some intel.”

“Got it. Slipping away is something I’m good at.”

Muen nodded, released the hilt, clenched his fist, shot his arm out, and let a feather-light punch land toward the encroaching crowd.

With powerful yet precise control, the surging force was forcibly muted—soft, wave-like hidden power spread outward.

Those closest to him toppled head over heels at once.

But Muen’s expression stayed grave, with no relaxation.

With his speed, shaking off ordinary people wasn’t hard; the hard part was not hurting them.

“Too many.”

Anna glanced at the tightly packed hundreds around them.

“This won’t work. Hold me—I’ll use Levitation to carry you.”

“Okay.”

Muen nodded. Flying was indeed more reliable than relying on his own speed.

But before he could move, the crowd seemed to sense they meant to slip away and suddenly grew agitated.

“Eat—eat it for me!”

In the commotion, the drunken uncle Muen had stopped earlier squeezed out of the throng, brandishing a hoe and lurching toward Muen.

Such a slow, feeble strike could not possibly harm him.

Muen frowned, slid an arm around Anna’s slim waist as she began to lift, and sidestepped with ease.

But the uncle’s movement was even stranger than Muen expected—as if his limbs didn’t coordinate, he tripped on flat ground and fell straight down.

The hoe flew from his hand into the air.

His head smashed hard against a stone on the ground.

In an instant—like a shattered watermelon—his skull cracked open.

“Screee—”

A sharp, clear, grating “insect-cry” pierced the air.

Within the oozing brain matter, finger-length black bugs wriggled through the fracture in the skull and the split flesh, darting in and out.

Dense, horrifying. They seemed to have made the man’s head their nest, until this sudden accident startled them.

Muen saw sharp mouthparts probe from the tips of the little bugs as they sucked with glee, like mosquitoes drinking blood.

“Eat... hurry and eat...”

The man was somehow still alive, staggering upright. As the bugs fed, his eyes rolled in different directions without pattern, and his limbs jerked now and then like a frog newly dead.

“This is...”

At last, Muen sensed the anomaly he should have noticed first.

—In early spring, where would such loud and clear insect cries come from?

Then... where had the “insect sounds” he’d heard just now actually come from?