The Start of a Long Night

Master sent Azu and the others out on patrol again and stayed home.

Honestly, he was too worried to focus on work, but waiting was also part of the job.

If something happened, he'd go see for himself.

With patrols ramped up, there were more signs of people about despite it being nighttime.

Whatever had been attacking horses and animals seemed to have gone quiet, perhaps wary of the increased activity.

One day passed. Then two. The patrols turned up nothing.

No incidents was the best possible outcome, but the case was far from closed.

The lord's son seemed to be admiring the statue every day, thoroughly pleased with himself.

The Temple Knights kept flattering the lord's son.

Nothing but transparent sycophancy.

Did that Temple Knight even know the lord's son wasn't paying the Kingdom's taxes?

Day three of the reinforced patrols.

Even Master could tell the whole town was on edge.

Something was going to happen today. He could feel it.

The date of the official's arrival was drawing close as well.

All Master could do was wait.

Azu and the others made their rounds along their assigned route.

Despite it being nighttime, the air was strangely warm.

Azu could feel an unpleasant sweat trickling down her back.

The town itself had fallen asleep and was completely still.

But here and there, lights could be seen moving in the darkness.

Between the guards and the patrols, enough people had been deployed to cover the entire town.

Considering the size of the black thing they'd encountered the other day, if it moved, it would get caught somewhere.

After days of this, there was nothing left to talk about.

All three walked in silence, scanning their surroundings for anything out of the ordinary.

(Another night of nothing, I guess.)

That was the feeling Azu got.

They reached the turnaround point.

After this many patrols, she'd memorized the route even without the map.

Near the plaza.

Just to be safe, Alexia aimed her light toward the statue.

First the pedestal was illuminated, and then the statue itself should have come into view, but—

"It's gone!"

The statue was nowhere to be seen.

Azu pointed the red flare she'd been issued skyward and pulled the cord.

A burst of colored fire shot into the sky, and the half-bell on the nearest watchtower clanged in answer.

People would start converging soon.

Since nothing had been amiss when they'd raised the alarm, the statue must have disappeared from its pedestal just moments before.

Others might encounter it on their way here.

Azu scanned the area.

Other than the statue's absence, nothing seemed out of place.

But the statue was made of dark metal.

In the pitch-black night, that would serve as near-perfect camouflage.

Drawn by the alarm bell, guards and adventurers from nearby patrols began arriving at the plaza.

She'd placed a lantern on the empty pedestal, making it immediately obvious what had happened.

The crowd in the plaza grew.

But these were only the people from nearby areas.

Pulling in the entire town's forces would require a second signal.

If they couldn't locate the statue, they'd create gaps in coverage elsewhere.

A second signal was premature. Azu nodded at Alexia's reasoning.

A guard approached Azu, who had been the one to fire the signal.

"You didn't see the statue itself?"

"No. It was already gone when we arrived."

The guard let out an exaggerated sigh.

He grumbled about how, if nothing had gone wrong, he'd be home in bed by now.

We feel the same way, Azu thought to herself.

Then, on impulse, she looked to the right.

She couldn't explain why. Her right eye had twinged.

There stood the statue, its mouth gaping impossibly wide.

Right next to the guard.

The guard hadn't noticed.

"Ah—"

She needed to say something. But the words wouldn't come out in time.

Her tiny gasp made the guard look up.

He turned to follow her gaze.

What the guard saw was the inside of that massive, yawning mouth.

"Hiiieee?!"

The guard's shriek and Azu's sword came at the same instant. She struck the statue's jaw with her blade.

The gaping mouth clamped shut, just barely missing the guard.

The guard's legs gave out. He scrambled backward on his hands until his back hit the pedestal.

"Monster!"

His scream alerted everyone else in the plaza.

The statue was larger than a grown man in both height and width.

Next to it, the guard looked like a child.

The statue stroked its jaw with its left hand.

Then, the closed eyes opened.

Blue fire burned within them.

The same as the four-armed skeleton from the catacombs.

The statue's expression shifted from blank to pure rage.

Its appearance was far too sinister for any god that people worshipped.

How was this any different from a monster?

"So desperate to eat humans, are you? Mimic the form, inherit the nature, I suppose."

Elza raised her mace.

At the same time, a blessing enveloped Azu.

"Azu-chan, if we leave this thing alone, it'll hurt Master eventually. So…"

Azu nodded at Elza's words.

The guard had nearly died just moments ago.

If that had been Master—

Azu's grip tightened.

A statue coming to life was an extraordinary situation, but the adventurers present were used to danger. Each raised their weapons.

Many of the guards couldn't decide what to do. They'd be useless in a fight.

The statue raised its khakkhara.

The first to fire a spell at the statue's overwhelming pressure was Alexia.

A fireball blazed through the night air toward the statue.

The statue swung its khakkhara and scattered the fireball into nothing.

The loose rings on the khakkhara's head rang out from the impact.

As if that were the signal, the battle in the plaza began.