Chapter IV – The Village Guardian
The next night, the town gathered for a group dinner, led by the mayor himself.
"Tonight, we feast on behalf of our guest, Jin," declared the mayor.
After a toast, people helped themselves and ate wholeheartedly under the clear night sky. As soon as everyone finished eating, several people stayed to tell stories. One man dared to tell a frightening myth that intimidated most of the villagers. The children would joke about it but the adults took it rather seriously. Jin was intrigued but before the man could start telling the tale, Rena went home and did not return to the site that night. The mayor was also not around, and was probably in his room reading. The man started.
"A long time ago, a married couple lived happily in this very village. However, one night, the woman found her husband cheating on her with a very lusty woman, who came from the outer world. The wife, shocked by what she had seen, fainted and died without notice. But she left a heavy grudge on the living world and is said to haunt this village every full moon."
Jin took a second to look up into the night sky. And as he had guessed, the full moon shone. The storyteller continued.
"Ever since she died, she is said to have turned into a spirit that kills whenever there is a full moon. Men, women, children, whoever it was, she would kill just for her pleasure of killing. Many of the deaths were said to be of unknown causes and even to this day, no one is sure who or what caused it."
Chills ran down Jin's spine as the tale somehow made him flinch. The villagers, despite hearing the tale time after time, shook at the thought of the spirit haunting them. They caused so much commotion that the storyteller never finished telling it to its completion.
"But this is just a myth, right?" asked Jin through the voices.
The frightened villagers became quiet and did not answer. They feared the worst with the full moon shining down on the isolated village. At this point, Jin gave up being the least bit scared and got up from his sitting position.
"This is ridiculous," he remarked as he started to head back to his room. "Thanks for the ghost tale but I'm not buying it."
Then suddenly, a group of pale elders crawled up to Jin like a bunch of beggars.
"But it's true! We saw it with our own eyes!" they exclaimed. "It was horrible, so horrible that…!"
Jin couldn't believe the villagers' behavior. It was obvious that some of them who claimed to have seen it were hallucinating. He wanted to believe that a vengeful spirit existed but nothing really clicked in his mind. He just wanted to sleep and not think about having to square off against an enemy he cannot see.
"Alright, alright, I believe you. But I won't believe it until I see it."
"Then I ask you to guard us from the possibility of a spirit coming," begged one middle-aged woman.
"Till when?"
"Until the end of the full moon's duration," answered the storyteller. "That is, another 4 days."
Jin stood a bit uninterested with the offer. He was surprised that they even survived the past few days of the full moon. Then, with much reluctance, he accepted the guardian job. The storyteller then rose and stood next to Jin. He only reached Jin's chin but his firm hands palmed the boy's shoulder without trouble.
"Listen, boy and listen good. The spirit is no easy foe even for a warrior like you. The best way to fight it, I believe, is to…"
Suddenly, a loud scream came from the direction of the mayor's house. Immediately, Jin rushed to the scene with three healthy leaps from the dinner site to the house. He slammed the door open to witness a man covered in blood. That man was Marco, the mayor. He dropped dead and revealed Rena drenched with the mayor's blood behind where he stood. She let out another shriek as blood continued to gush out of the mayor's corpse. The rest of the villagers finally arrived at the scene and gasped at the horrendous sight. Two, maybe three women fainted and were hastily carried to their beds. As for the rest of the villagers, they all looked at Jin as their only hope of survival. Jin had seen what he was sure to be just a myth.
