Chapter 1: The Lair of the Deadly Spider

—A pile of trash.
—This is literal crap.

The newly released galgame titled "The Luminous Moon" has been widely panned across the internet, with most reviews skewing negative.

The blame lies in its punishingly difficult stages and a plot dripping with twisted, grotesque humor that manages, without fail, to hit all of the players’ sore points.

Except for a handful of eccentric enthusiasts, the general consensus among players is: “garbage,” “a complete waste of time,” “the developers must have something wrong with their heads”…

"The Luminous Moon" tells the story of an island nation in an alternate world version of the Far East.

The timeline appears to be set in the 18th century, where the Tokugawa shogunate never emerged. The narrative focuses on the battles between demon-hunting swordsmen and onmyoji against myriad monsters and spirits, along with the protagonist’s romantic entanglements with an array of beautiful, traditional Japanese heroines.

Or so it claims!

In reality, the game is riddled with pitfalls; one careless step leads to fates far more dreadful than the protagonist’s death.

There are scenarios in which a great demon leads a “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons” to destroy the capital, with countless fiends turning towns and villages into mountains of corpses and seas of blood. The game’s animated cutscenes are filled with all manner of unspeakable scenes, featuring grotesque cruelty and depravity…

Beyond that, there are internecine power struggles within the exorcist clans, plots, betrayals, assassinations, and bullying. If you fall into an enemy’s trap, your own allies might execute you as a traitor.

Moreover, the protagonist, Tsukigara Yoake, and his potential love interests—the game’s heroines—are all far from ordinary, each a yandere to the extreme, dragging the story into melodramatic, deadly love triangles…

If the “gentle” protagonist makes even the slightest misstep in his relationships, it sets off a chain reaction—death looms, and the heroines die, are maimed, or go mad…

The game’s built-in tactical system is also a complete mess. The developers clearly lacked experience; the difficulty is set far too high. It’s no wonder that frustrated players vent their anger, decrying it as “a pile of trash.”

Yet, for all this, the game has its devotees.

Luo City himself is a diehard fan.

He is obsessed with the game’s setting. Although the gameplay is difficult, he and his fellow enthusiasts find endless enjoyment in it, investing hours analyzing strategies and unraveling the story.

“Yes, I really like this game, but I never said I wanted to transmigrate into it, did I?”

Heh—do Warhammer players really long to experience the life of a Hive City underclassman firsthand?

Unless you’re a born masochist, most people would be wailing like a banshee with a stubbed toe if they found themselves in this situation.

But after Luo City’s soul ended up here, he couldn’t even cry.

Once he arrived, he learned one thing with absolute clarity: in this world, survival demands everything you have.

“I’m done for! I’m so dead this time!”

Luo City—or rather, now called “Hyakkei.”

Of course, that name is fake too. As a low-ranking ninja, a name is nothing more than a code.

Hyakkei and his three fellow junior ninjas were sprinting desperately through the jagged tunnels of the cave.

This was the so-called “Spider’s Lair,” a local nickname for a cavern as twisted and labyrinthine as a maze.

Decades, perhaps a century ago, a brood of spider demons had taken up residence here, occasionally descending to the plains to hunt humans and livestock.

Recently, the renowned exorcist clan “Kurohime Mountain” had begun a campaign to exterminate these monsters.

After careful planning, they dispatched a team to infiltrate the cave, hoping to cut down the spiders’ leader and destroy the brood.

But the demon-hunting swordsman from Kurohime Mountain who led the expedition, so confident at the outset, had vanished—three days had passed, and none returned.

Without hesitation, the clan sent a rescue party, using their subordinate ninja as the first wave of scouts.

“What scouting? They’re just using us as expendable fodder!”

Hyakkei, clad in a dark gray outfit and chainmail, with leather armor and a black fox-patterned mask, gripped his ninja blade. Alongside his three companions, he had survived the earlier chaos.

Someone had foolishly triggered an explosive, causing the cave to collapse; they became separated from the group led by a mid-ranked ninja, and now wandered like headless flies.

As they ran, one of his comrades was ambushed by a human-headed spider lurking above, its fangs and legs slicing through his throat.

“Kill it!”

A newcomer yelled, charging with his ninja blade at the spider.

“No!”

Hyakkei tried to shout a warning, but the moment his mouth opened, there was a metallic snap.

The blade broke. These ninja swords were cheap, and under the demon’s aura, the spider’s carapace was impenetrable.

The newcomer froze, and a second spider lunged, sinking its fangs into his shoulder.

He staggered a few steps before an invisible thread of spider silk snared his neck, severing his head, which flew yards away.

The young man’s head rolled into the darkness at the end of the passage.

The third ninja stared blankly after it. From the blackness, a chorus of skittering sounds echoed forth.

Just hearing it made Hyakkei’s scalp crawl.

“Run!”

He pulled his companion, fleeing down another passage.

“Don’t just stand there!”

The other ninja snapped out of it and chased after Hyakkei with all his might.

But no sooner had they moved than a flood of human-headed spiders surged from the dark after them, a tidal wave of death.

…

“In the end, I’m the only one left.”

The last companion had died.

Hyakkei scavenged his fallen comrade’s sword and charm, making his way to a safer spot.

“Damn it, you need to be at least level 30 in the game to clear ‘Spider’s Lair.’ What are a bunch of bottom-tier grunts like us supposed to do? We can’t even get intel out, can we?”

He had to wonder if the Kurohime Mountain clan’s leadership had lost their minds.

Even the mid-ranking ninja leading their group had noticed that the messenger familiars hadn’t returned.

The spider demons clearly knew of the intruders and had sealed off the entrance with webs, trapping the familiars.

“No, this doesn’t look like a safe place, either.”

Hyakkei sighed.

He took out a talisman for illumination, inscribed with a “Firefly Lamp” spell. It glowed with a faint, greenish light, allowing him to see his surroundings.

It was a large chamber, draped in dense spiderwebs like curtains. Dozens of people, limbs hacked off and faces wrapped in silk, hung from the webs—men, women, old folks, children, all trussed like flies.

“Damn it, it really is the hatching chamber.”

A chill raced down Hyakkei’s spine. He knew exactly what this place was: the nest where the great spider demon bred its young.

There were at least twenty victims here—children, young villagers, senile old men, women with their hair matted in webs, frail old crones… all likely villagers or travelers caught while passing the mountain.

Captured victims would be implanted with spider eggs. The hatchlings would later burrow from their bodies, biting through their bellies or crawling up their throats—a scene more grotesque than anything in Alien.

“They’re finished.”

Hyakkei smiled bitterly.

As much as he hated it, he couldn’t save these people.

No, he himself was hardly better off.

“…Wait.”

Suddenly, he noticed a figure caught in the webs—a long-haired boy whose face was all too familiar.

“…Tsukigara Yoake.”

The protagonist had lost? Captured by the great spider demon?

Yes, Yoake was there, along with several other exorcists from Kurohime Mountain, all hanging from the web.

In that instant, Hyakkei understood: Yoake had been among the exorcists sent three days ago.

‘He… he’s still weak at this point—probably not even level 10. No way he could face the spider demons. If he dies here…’

For a moment, Hyakkei was at a loss. But the next second, his body moved on its own.

“I have to save him.”

He knew this with absolute certainty.

Tsukigara Yoake is the fated savior of “The Luminous Moon.”

If he died here and triggered the defeat cutscene, the entire world would be doomed.

“Come on, man, you can’t die here… Without you, the main storyline collapses…”

Hyakkei gripped his ninja blade and hacked at the web. The threads were tougher than rope; he had to saw through them bit by bit.

But once he had freed Yoake from the silk, he was plunged into despair again.

“His arms and legs… they’ve been cut off. And those wounds are bad.”

He could see plainly: the protagonist’s limbs had been severed at the root, the stumps swathed in silk as if the wounds had already healed.

“The wound on his chest is deep—you can see the bone. Never mind if it’ll heal, but why are black scales starting to grow on his face… Dammit, is this the demonization route?”

Hyakkei recalled one of the bad endings, where the protagonist’s demon blood runs wild, turning him into a villain who stands against the exorcists and the imperial court.

In the end, he would join forces with the great demon and bring ruin to the nation.

“What now?”

He swallowed hard, tightening his grip on the ninja blade.

The protagonist’s lineage was complicated—he carried the blood of powerful demons and gods, a candidate for Spirit King, like in some anime.

Such innate power destined him to either turn the tide of history or bring about the world’s end.

‘If I stabbed him now, it wouldn’t kill him—instead, it might awaken his demon blood and hasten the apocalypse.’

Then, Hyakkei noticed a faintly glowing magatama at Yoake’s chest.

‘…That must be the keepsake left by his mother who vanished without a word.’

In this desperate moment, inspiration struck.

No, there was still hope.

Hyakkei made his decision. He took the magatama, shoved it into Yoake’s mouth, and poured water after it from his flask.

“Swallow it—this thing can save you.”

“…Tha…thank you…”

Yoake seemed to regain some clarity, his lips moving slightly.

“Help…the others…my companions…Tree…”

His vision blurred, and he mumbled, “Is it…is it you?”

Hyakkei didn’t catch the last part.

He could only be moved.

Even at death’s door, he still wanted to save his companions?

Fine, that’s a true “gentle” protagonist.

Hyakkei felt a grudging admiration, but could only shake his head at their predicament.

“Sorry, I can’t save so many… Besides, they’re already beyond saving.”

He glanced at the other captured exorcists and the villagers: with spider eggs inside them, they all wore vacant, deranged smiles.

The spider demon’s venom corrodes the mind. Once the eggs are implanted, victims fall into a trance, chasing fairies in flower fields—a euphoric, drugged dream that spares them the agony of the young spiders devouring their organs.

“With that look, their minds are long gone.”

Only Yoake, thanks to his willpower and bloodline, had held out this long—a miracle in itself.

‘According to the lore, swallowing the magatama can activate his divine blood—the power of a certain goddess. Next, if I can find the “Dragon Vein Pool” deep in the spider’s lair, there might be hope.’

Just as he was congratulating himself on this thought, something flashed beside him—a human-headed spider lunged, fangs and eight claws aimed straight for his throat.

In that instant, Hyakkei’s life hung by a thread!