Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

“Over there?” Liana tilted her head back, gazing at the moon with a puzzled expression. “Mountain Ghost, are you planning to go to the moon?”

“Farther than the moon.” The Mountain Ghost stared into the night sky and spoke softly. Her voice carried a desolate, sorrowful tone, making her seem less like the terrifying and ferocious Mountain Ghost of legend, and more like a pitiful child who had lost her way home.

“I’m very sorry. I don’t know.” Liana shook her head and said, “I’ve only heard that top-tier Saints can soar through the skies and traverse the earth, but going somewhere farther than the moon is something I’ve never even heard of.”

“…Is that so?” There was little disappointment in the Mountain Ghost’s eyes, as if this outcome was already within her expectations. “Thank you, Liana.”

“Eh… n-no, it’s really nothing at all.” Liana waved her hands in flustered embarrassment, clearly caught off guard.

“Although I’d like to repay you, I don’t have anything on me right now.” The Mountain Ghost thought for a moment, then said, “Right, what was the medicinal herb you were looking for?”

“Huh?” Liana did not react right away.

“The herb. What’s its name? Maybe I’ve heard of it.” As she spoke, the Mountain Ghost plucked another small white flower and popped it into her mouth, chewing slowly. In a place like this, it could be said to be one of her few forms of amusement.

“At the very least, I’ve slept here for several years. If you describe what it looks like, I might even have seen it.”

“That would be wonderful!” Liana snapped back to her senses and immediately grew excited. With the Mountain Ghost’s help, finding it should be easy.

“The herb is called Moonfall Flower. As for its appearance… I’m not really sure either.”

“Not really sure?” The Mountain Ghost looked at her strangely. “So you only know the name, and you just ran into this forest to blindly search around? Are you sure that was going to work?”

“Hehe, I had to at least try.” Liana scratched her head, feeling rather embarrassed, since she knew how foolish that sounded. “But come to think of it, it’s late autumn now, so there aren’t many flowers in bloom to begin with. And judging from the name, it should have something to do with the moon…”

“Flower, blooming, moon…” As she spoke, Liana’s gaze slowly drifted toward the Mountain Ghost’s mouth as she chewed. What had the Mountain Ghost just eaten? It seemed to be a small white flower. White… small flower… blooming under moonlight… The corner of Liana’s mouth gradually stiffened.

“What’s wrong? Is there something dirty on my face?” The Mountain Ghost still noticed nothing at all, chewing even more happily than before.

“A-aaaaah! That’s it!” Liana threw herself at the Mountain Ghost she had been afraid of just moments ago, grabbing her by the neck and shaking her violently as she shouted, “That flower you’re eating, Mountain Ghost! That’s it. Hurry… hurry and spit it out!”

“Ugh… let go… let go! You’re going to strangle me to death!” The Mountain Ghost’s face turned a ghastly shade as she slapped at Liana’s hands. ‘Damn it, why is this girl so strong?’

“Y-you… let go first!”

“A-ah, s-sorry.” Only then did Liana seem to realize what she was doing. She hastily released her grip, looking completely at a loss. “I… I was just too excited.”

After all, it was something she had been searching for all this time, only to discover it being treated as a casual snack. Anyone would have trouble accepting that.

“It’s just a little flower. Was it really worth getting that worked up over?” The Mountain Ghost rubbed her neck in dissatisfaction. “I’m very fragile right now, you know!”

After her rebirth, the powerful physique she had once mimicked had naturally been wiped clean. In terms of physical toughness, she was now nothing more than an ordinary, albeit beautiful, young girl.

“Honestly, it’s no big deal. I’ll just find another one for you.” With that, the Mountain Ghost began feeling around the vines where she usually picked flowers. “Huh? That’s strange.”

She groped here and there, but the white flowers that she could normally pluck with a single touch were nowhere to be found. “Could it be that they all hid themselves?”

“More like you ate them all.”

“Nonsense!” The Mountain Ghost glared at Liana, whose complexion was growing increasingly unpleasant. “I only eat a few each day. How could I possibly finish them all? Let me look again.”

After a long while, the Mountain Ghost finally twisted her body again, laboriously pulling away the vines clinging to her. She slowly crawled out from the dense tangle of greenery.

It seemed she truly had not moved much for a very long time. This body was extremely stiff, and as she moved, crisp cracking sounds occasionally came from her joints.

But the Mountain Ghost paid no mind to any of that. She carefully searched along the dense vines covering the massive boulder, trying to find once more the small white flowers that had once bloomed all over her body.

But…

Not a single one could be found.

The Mountain Ghost’s lips twitched as she lifted her head to look at the large, perfectly round moon overhead.

Could it be… that this kind of flower only bloomed under moonlight? And that meant they only grew on top of the boulder, where the moonlight fell directly, and the top of the boulder just happened to be within reach of her hands.

Then, little by little, had she really eaten them all herself?

The Mountain Ghost smacked her lips. The sweet-and-sour taste of the white flowers still lingered in her mouth. In her own perception, she had indeed only eaten a few, but this was like a child sneaking candy.

When a child said he had only eaten a few pieces, it was not necessarily a lie. It was simply that he felt he had only eaten a few. But how many had actually been eaten could probably only be known by opening the candy jar and counting.

“See? You really did eat them all.” Believing that she would probably never find Moonfall Flower again, Liana hugged her knees and began to cry in despair. “What am I supposed to do now? My mother is still waiting for me to bring it back to cure her illness.”

“…You went into the forest alone to look for this Moonfall Flower, all to treat your mother?”

“Mm. She has a terminal illness. Moonfall Flower is absolutely necessary as the medicinal catalyst. There’s none in the city, so I had no choice but to enter the Blackwater Forest myself. I never thought that just when I finally found it, it would… it would…”

Liana lifted her head and glanced at the corner of the Mountain Ghost’s mouth, where bits of flower residue still remained. She immediately cried even harder. “It would all get eaten by you.”

“……”

At once, a heavy wave of guilt pressed down on the Mountain Ghost’s heart.

“Then… how about we keep looking?”

“Where would we even look? I’ve already searched for so long. If Moonfall Flower only blooms under the moon, then wouldn’t this entire forest only have this one place where it could grow?”

The Mountain Ghost looked toward the dense thicket, so thick it seemed even water could not be poured through it, and suddenly felt that Liana’s words made a great deal of sense.

The entire forest really did seem to have only this single open clearing.

“Uuuuu… without Moonfall Flower, my mother is going to die…”

“Ah…”

Watching Liana cry so hard that tears streamed like falling pear blossoms, growing more and more distraught, with an air as though she would not go on living if her mother did not survive, the Mountain Ghost let out a soft sigh and extended her hand toward her.

“Then let’s do this. Since I ate your medicine, I’ll take responsibility and help you cure your mother.”

“R-really?” Liana lifted her head. Her reddened eyes looked at the Mountain Ghost with suspicion. “You can really cure my mother?”

“I can.”
“But there’s no Moonfall Flower.”
“I don’t need medicine to treat illnesses.”
“But—”
“There is no *but.*”

The Mountain Ghost forcefully pulled Liana up from the ground and stared straight into her eyes.

In a daze, Liana seemed to glimpse something terrifying deep within those azure-blue eyes, something she could not possibly comprehend, as though it had finally awakened from a long slumber.

Just that brief instant was enough to make one tremble to the core.

“I said I can cure her, so I can. If even I can’t cure her, then there is no one in this world who can.”