Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Lynda———

“What do you usually do around the holidays, if that’s not too much to ask?” Seems kinda fitting considering the time. Get the conversation going while we wait for the second set of orders.

“...Not much? Do people celebrate holidays nowadays outside of procrastinating indoors?” She said while scratching her head.

“I mean. People here still do. Halloween is quite a big thing here, even. Also, I’m sure you’ve seen the Christmas decor outside as well. People around here have pretty good vibes all around.” Obviously an outlier, where she’s probably from they are more afraid of random violence and such. Crime rate is at an all time high across all regions with only a few exceptions. Like a few cities and towns across the whole world don’t have devastating incidents weekly. “We even got our own mascots for Independence Day and Halloween.”

“Huh?” She muttered, sounding quite perplexed.

“Yeah. Two nutjobs who look pretty damn intimidating. I guess Halloween just passed by, why don’t I reminisce on him for a bit?” He has always been more interesting in my eyes, the other guy is just someone with a bunch of guns strapped onto him… I think? Can’t tell where the limbs started and the barrels ended. Let’s ignore him for now and talk about the other guy. “He’s a big guy with black armor, real spooky shit just for the occasion.”

And so she walked off before I could say anything back. What an odd encounter…

…Weird, didn’t I also have another reason for staying up late outdoors today? What was it about again? Something to do with… Ugh. Come on now, it’s a holiday and I should never mess up my holiday pla- Oh! Right!

It’s Halloween today. They reign in on the decor this time around due to everything… happening, but it is still a holiday. It being Halloween means one thing. Let’s go to the center of town, that guy should be roaming around there.

Hopefully there isn’t a long line waiting wherever he is, or that he doesn’t stray too far from the city center. It’s gonna be a pain trying to find the guy since he walks around a lot. Roaming around creepily and doing who-knows-what.

…Ah! There he is, find him easily enough this time around.

“Hey! Big guy! Trick or treat! Gimme the goods!” I said as I ran in front of him to get his attention. He absolutely towered over me. Over six feet tall, wore black armor, long torn dark cape, and has a carved pumpkin that lights up for a head.

…Isn’t that kinda sus now looking back in retrospect? In the past I’d think it was just some elaborate costume, but now it’s kinda different.

He could be something actually supernatural that only exists during Halloween for whatever arbitrary reason. A very tough guy who barely ever reacted to anyone trying to provoke him, and the lights that came out of that carved pumpkin doesn’t seem to make much sense unless he’s actually a dullahan or has a head that catches on fire, or if the pumpkin actually is his head somehow. What a perplexing individual.

Well since I got free candies out of him I’m not gonna complain or interrogate him. He just gave candies to anyone that greeted him. Carved pumpkin-shape candies. Spiced pumpkin taste. Five in total. Everyone gets them no matter their age or costume. Trying to squeeze an answer out of the guy looks extremely barbaric and ungrateful.

“Thanks! See you next…” Before I even finished saying my goodbyes for this year, I noticed a few people surrounding us for some reason. What the heck is going on here? “Hey, you guys, what’s with the big group? Can I please not be a part of this weird gathering?”

“Sure, just get outta here unless you want to get hurt.” A dude with big monkey ears said. Why did I have to run into him again? Wait, why is everyone armed? What are they doing?

“...Why the hell are you all armed? What do you think you are all doing?” I asked, starting to feel like they couldn’t possibly just come here for candies.

“We’re gonna rip that stupid pumpkin head is what we’re gonna do! A public menace like that is gonna get it this time around!” W-What in the world does he mean by that!?

“Public menace!? All he does is give out candies! What the hell is wrong with all of you!” I shouted while pointing at the monkey guy. “Who in their right mind goes after someone who handed out candies! All of you are sick!”

Suddenly a hand is placed on my shoulder. The pumpkin guy looked at me and simply shook his head before standing in front of me. What is he…

*ROAR*

Suddenly a mighty roar erupts and a strong pressure pushes everyone, including me, backwards.

Suddenly a giant axe appeared in his right hand, its blade so long and wide you could’ve mistaken it for a sword, the blade being red with the sharp edge being white.

“H-Hey! You think that big lump of metal will make us scared of you!? Come and get it you fat punk!” The leader of these troublemakers said before the conflict began.

*Swing* *Clank* *Swing* *Clank* *Swing* *Clank*

The fight started, but it doesn’t feel like it was much of a fight at all. The knight in black armor barely moved while the others ran in with their own weapons and tried to hit him in various spots and all of it simply bouncing off. There isn’t any visible damage on the armor at all, or even the cape and helmet. Perhaps it’s due to how dark it is right now, but it’s clear that these attacks don’t even cause him to flinch.

*Swing* *Evade*

He retaliated with a wide swing of the axe that is telegraphed and quite slow, which everyone managed to get out of the way pretty easily.

Pumpkin man here is definitely just screwing around. I felt it earlier. He let his true strength slip the moment he let out that roar. That pressure wasn’t from how loud he was, it’s from the amount of raw power he let out at that moment.

I still have no idea what this guy’s deal is. Is he even human? Why does he only show up on this specific date, what is his real purpose? I don’t know any of that.

*Swing* *Swing*

Each swing of that massive weapon seems to cause the opposing party to become more and more discouraged. If anyone gets hit by those slow attacks even once, they can kiss their life goodbye. That giant axe was not just for show.

The area is still dark and I can’t quite make out their expressions, but from their body language that I can vaguely make out, their approach is slowing down since no one wants to get hit by that massive weapon.

This doesn’t look like it could end well for them at all. It’s probably best for them to just leave and stop trying to do whatever the hell they’re doing. This idea of apprehending a guy for being a bit weird and not doing anything harmful is just ridiculous.

Did they forget last year when the cops tried to apprehend him but nothing worked? He just punches those guys out and then disappears into the night like he always does.

“Damn you bastard!” The one leading the charge screamed out while swinging his gauntlet-covered hand down onto his head.

*Bounce*

It bounced right off, absorbing all the damage.

*Grab* *Throw* *Crash*

The pumpkin man grabbed him by the neck then threw him at the others.

*Shine* *Sizz*

His head seems to glow brighter with what almost look like flames coming out of those mouth and eye holes. Seems like his patience is getting close to its end. Looks like this little skirmish is gonna end pretty soon unless they try something dirty.

*Grab* *Slam*

“Nope.” One of them tried to ambush me but I grabbed him by the neck and slammed him into the pavement. Real dirty move trying to use an onlooker.

When I turned to look at the others, the fight was already over. All of them are either slumped down from exhaustion or laid flat on the ground.

Seriously, that was never gonna work. Did they learn nothing at all during their time in school or dungeon? Everyone should’ve known how to tell what fight they should take or not. Just because you got stronger and some magic doesn’t mean others don’t have any.

“You guys really brought that upon yourselves. What a shitshow.” I said as I walked up to them. Did they learn nothing from last time?

I then turned to look at the big pumpkin man who had stored the giant weapon somewhere I can’t see. Looks like he is also done fighting.

“Sorry you have to go through that, big guy. See you next year.” I said before walking off, just to be sure I don’t have to get involved with the aftermath, whatever that may be.

I wonder if Glery already met him, because if not I might need to bring her here…

>>> Present Time

“...Have I ever told you about this? Glery?” I don’t think I have mentioned this to anyone for some reason, it kinda slipped my mind until now. She met him before I did and therefore the entire incident, which I learned after I contacted her later on about the candies, so maybe some throwaway lines were said afterward?

“Aside from saying that you’ve met him, no.” She replied flatly, not sounding too interested in the whole event. I don’t think I explained it as well as I could’ve, but I’m never one to be verbose in the first place.

“Yeah. Maybe if there was some news or internet posts or something I would’ve talked about it before now. Guess they were too embarrassed to post anything related to that shit.” Which is fair enough, not that I think they should’ve done it in the first place.

“Looks like there really is a lot going on with many people of interest in this town.” Fiss remarked.

“Well if you wanna see this particular guy, you’d need to wait until the next Halloween. At that point your house would’ve been fully repaired and you won’t even be around here anymore.” I pointed out. “Then again, since it’s a holiday, it’s not like you need to worry about school and other stuff, you can just take a ride or even run here, assuming you’re super agile. By next year there’ll probably be more people who can move around as fast as a car.”

“...How does no one have a clue about his identity? Didn’t you say that he has been around for almost a decade?” That’s the part she is hung up on?

“Yeah, but is it really that surprising? He only showed up one time a year, there’s no way anyone is gonna figure anything out in what is effectively… nine sightings.” I wouldn’t be surprised if someone does know who he is. I mean, who was the first person to go up to the guy and say the iconic Halloween phrase? I don’t really remember. I was not even ten, and I barely remember anything about myself from those times. “That’s like asking if you know a stranger you’ve caught sight of for a week straight. Kinda odd that you ran into each other, but you still don’t really know them.”

“Is that the best… nevermind.” Hey, I’m no expert at metaphors and similes and all that, cut me some slack here.

“Anyway! Some crazy characters are here aside from the usual suspects or new suspects. They showed up sometimes, but any sightings are pretty much by their own accord. Keep that in mind if people seem a bit desensitized to odd and kooky characters. There isn’t one for Christmas, so no need to look out for that.” And once I finished saying that our orders came in. What convenient timing. “Alright gang, let’s dig in.”

For some reason Glery gave me a weirdly aggressive glance when I said that.