GrM - vol7pt2

11.    A Work in Progress

They could find themselves faced with a life-or-death crisis anywhere. If they made one misstep, it would be a catastrophe. There were countless times when that had been true. It would even be fair to call it a daily occurrence.

Haruhiro was lying down, gazing into the campfire. Wrapped in a blanket made of some mystery material that he had bought from the flattened egg with arms that owned the clothing and bag shop, and using his bag as a pillow, he was pretty comfortable.

He was tired and starting to drift off, but not fully asleep yet. This sort of half-and-half state wasn’t so bad. It was one luxury he could enjoy. One he couldn’t savor without having first secured his safety.

His comrades were all already asleep. While he listened to each of them either breathing shallowly or snoring, he thought idly to himself, We all managed to make it through another day. That’s nice. Everything else aside, it’s amazing to have a tomorrow.

Yume and Merry were asleep, entwined in one another’s arms. It seemed when Yume went to sleep, she would snuggle up to anyone who was nearby. Like she was longing for the warmth of another, maybe? Merry didn’t seem to mind. Tonight, though, Shihoru was a little ways away from the two of them.

Suddenly, Shihoru got up. “Haruhiro-kun? Are you... awake?” “...Whuh?” Haruhiro pushed himself up a bit, supporting himself with his

elbows. “Uh, yeah.”

“There was something I wanted to... talk to you about. Is that okay?” “...You want to talk? Sure. Yeah, of course we can talk.”

It would be a bit awkward to do it where they were, so they walked a ways along the moat of Well Village, then crouched down side-by-side.

“So, what’s up?” Haruhiro asked. “You know, it’s kind of weird, crouching like this...”

“...Yeah. Maybe. Uh... There’re two things. The first is about what happened during the day...” Shihoru stopped, as if it was hard to talk about. “It might not be my place to say this... but, you know, it’s just... really been bothering me...”

“...Sure,” Haruhiro said. “I’ll hear you out. Talk to me.” “Haruhiro... You don’t value yourself enough, I think.” “Do... I? Huh? Is that how it looks?”

“It does,” Shihoru told him. “If it came to it, you’d try to sacrifice yourself... right?”

“Maybe? Hmm. I don’t plan on it, though... You know?”

“I wish you’d stop that.” Shihoru looked downwards, her shoulders trembling. “I’m sorry, I don’t know if I should even be saying this... but it reminds me of Manato. I don’t want you... to die on us.”

“...Yeah.” Haruhiro rubbed his forehead. “Well, I don’t want to die, either.

I mean it.”

“Then... take better care of yourself, please.”

“It’s not that I don’t value myself...” Haruhiro pinched the inner corners of his eyes. He needed to press down on them pretty hard. That was how he felt. “I probably just value everyone else more. I mean, without you guys, I couldn’t do anything. Like, the motivation to go on living? I don’t think I could find that. So, if, for instance, I had to choose between you or me, I’d probably choose to help you survive. It’s not that I’d mean to do it. It’d be just instinctual, I think. A snap decision.”

“If only one of us could survive... Haruhiro-kun, I’d rather it be you.” “It’s a real dilemma, huh,” Haruhiro said.

“What if it was between you and Ranta-kun? Which would you choose?” “Ranta,” Haruhiro answered without hesitating, then was taken aback by

it. “...Whoa. Seriously? This is Ranta we’re talking about. I don’t know that I like this...”

“...I’m glad.”

“Huh? F-For what?”

“That you’re... our leader,” Shihoru said. “Our comrade... And friend.”

“. Yeah, you’re making me want to dive into the moat right now.”

Shihoru laughed, so Haruhiro was able to laugh, too. He was glad that

Shihoru was his comrade, and his friend. He felt that way from the bottom of his heart.

“So, what was the other thing?” Haruhiro asked.

“The second thing was...” Shihoru closed her eyes, placed her hand over her chest, and took a deep breath. What was she trying to do? Shihoru was trying to do something. He could tell that much, at least.

The air was tense. Haruhiro held his breath and waited. Shihoru opened her eyes. “Elementals... come...” “Whoa!” Haruhiro fell back on his rump in surprise.

Right in front of Shihoru’s face, the was a whirling vortex of some sort. It was small. He wouldn’t have called it pea-sized, but it was thumb-sized. It didn’t have anything he’d call a concrete shape or form. There was a whirling vortex there, so he knew something had to be there.

Shihoru reached out with her right hand. She let it sit there in her palm. “Float,” Shihoru ordered, and it floated. “Fall,” she said, and it descended

back into her palm.

Shihoru repeated that raising and lowering process a number of times, with a degree of focus that would’ve been noticeably bizarre, even at a glance.

It wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to call her possessed. Shihoru was grinding her teeth. Her eyes were unblinking. Her hair swayed restlessly. As he watched her, Haruhiro got goosebumps.

“...Release,” Shihoru said, forcing the word out.

The thing suddenly let out strange noises and began to change. Like it was being pushed open from inside—it came out. This dark purple thing that was somewhere between a light and a haze appeared. No, it was struggling to appear.

It was trying to be born. That was what it looked like. That was because, depending entirely on how you looked at it, it was star-shaped, or human- shaped even, and it looked like it was kicking and struggling with both its legs and both its arms. But then it suddenly ran out of strength... and disappeared with a poof.

“...No good.” Shihoru slumped her shoulders in disappointment. “I’ve tried it a number of times, but... I just can’t get it to work.”

“To work? What—” Haruhiro rubbed his throat. He’d tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. “...What did you do? Shihoru... Was that magic? No,

but there was no chant... You didn’t draw elemental sigils, either...” “What Gogh-san said... Do you remember it? He said, ‘We set loose an

elemental, then activated an alternate power. They won’t teach you this stuff at the guild’...”

“Ohh,” Haruhiro said. “...Vaguely, but yeah.”

“I’ve been thinking about that ever since,” Shihoru said. “In the guild, we learn there are elementals in the world, magical creatures you can’t normally see with your eyes. You could say that what I learned to do there was to tame those elementals, and to use magic by subordinating them to my will.”

“Honestly, I doubt I really understand, but go on.”

“For a while now, there’s one thing I’ve had my doubts about.” “Err, what’s that?”

“Even in sweltering hot weather, you can call ice elementals and use Kanon ice magic,” said Shihoru. “Even in the middle of the day, there’s no effect on your ability to use Darsh shadow magic.”

“So, elementals are just elementals, and the real—the material world? The heat in it? And, like, light, and shadows, and stuff, too? They don’t interact directly with that... Is that it? Sort of?”

“But, the thing is, with magic you can freeze things, make them explode, and more,” said Shihoru. “So, I wondered if it’s not that they don’t interact at all... maybe. I was thinking that was strange.”

“Uh, sorry? I’m not confident I can keep up with this, but—So, what you just did, it wasn’t magic... Is that it?”

“I tried working under the theory that elementals are just elementals,” said Shihoru. “Arve, Kanon, Falz, Darsh... I thought maybe those were just something humans came up with on their own, and not the true form of the elementals. That was closer to the sense I had of them, too.”

“Magic they won’t teach you at the guild, huh...”

“I want to get better at using magic,” Shihoru said. “Everyone’s always protecting me, so I want to be able to lend them my strength.”

“No, you already are strong, you know that?”

“...Not enough, I think. But, I mean, there’s no guild in this place, right?” “Yeah... no,” Haruhiro said. “Not a chance.”

“If I can’t gain new spells... new powers without being taught... I can’t change. So... I wanted to do something about it by myself.”

You’re amazing. It was the one thing Haruhiro could think of to say.

Shihoru was truly amazing. Haruhiro was moved.

If Barbara-sensei’s not here, I’ll have to come up with something new on my own.

Had there been even a single time he had thought that? It had never even crossed his mind.

“But...” Shihoru hung her head, frowning. “There’s a thing about it that worries me. It makes me feel uncomfortable, you could say. In a way, this is like... rejecting how I’ve used magic up until now. I think it might have an effect on the magic I’ve learned from the guild, too.”

“Um, so... You’re undecided on whether to keep pushing ahead with it... is that it?”

“...Right.”

“It’ll be fine,” he assured her.

I mean, not that I’d know, but still...

Haruhiro was no mage. Even if he were, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell her anything definite. It might be irresponsible to reassure her so easily. Still, he wanted to nudge her forward, you know? He wanted to support Shihoru, who was working so hard. He thought he ought to, and it wasn’t as if he couldn’t help.

“Listen, if anything goes wrong, I’ll be there to step in and back you up,” said Haruhiro. “We all will be. It’s gonna be fine. I mean, having a goal can help motivate you. I’m sure that probably plays into it, too. I mean, this would be your own original magic, right? I wanna see it. Yeah, I’m sure it would be good for the party, too.”

“...Thanks.”

“No, no, no. I should thank you. I’ve got my energy back now. I don’t know about magic, but from here on, if anything comes up, let’s talk about it, okay? If you’re okay with talking to me, I’ll be all ears.”

“Yeah,” Shihoru said. “I’ll do that.”

“You will? Magic they won’t teach you at the guild, huh? I’ll bet it’s not limited to magic. I’ll do some thinking myself, too.”

“You’re a good leader,” Shihoru said. “Huh?”

“You are, Haruhiro-kun.” Shihoru gave him an uncharacteristic grin. “You’re the best leader we could ask for... you know that?”

“...Heh heh.” Haruhiro couldn’t help but grin, so he covered the bottom

half of his face with one hand. “C-Cut that out, would you? You’re gonna give me the wrong impression.”

“That wouldn’t happen... right? Not with you, Haruhiro-kun.”

“You think? I dunno... I’m trying to keep it from happening. I’m being careful about that, honestly. Like, there are times I get carried away. Because it’s scary.”

“That’s why we’re able to trust you.”

“Are you trying to compliment me to death?” Haruhiro asked. “It feels like it, you know? You’re making me feel ticklish...”

“Sorry.” Shihoru looked to the moat, taking a short breath. “It’s just... I wanted to tell you what I was thinking. I have to convey things as much as I can. I don’t want... to be left with regrets again.”

Haruhiro suddenly found himself unable to speak. He wanted to agree with her, so he nodded.

Side-by-side at the edge of the moat, for a short while, they crouched there together in silence.

It’s kind of mysterious, he thought. This silence isn’t awkward at all.

That’s because it’s Shihoru, huh. If I was with Merry, it might not go like this.

That was when it happened. “Haruhiro-kun... do you like Merry?”

“Huhh...?!” He pitched forward, nearly falling into the moat.

After that, obviously, Haruhiro desperately denied her suspicions. It turned out that Shihoru didn’t have much reason to believe he did, and she seemed to accept it when he told her he didn’t, but Haruhiro was going to have to be careful not to do anything that would invite misunderstandings in the future.

A misunderstanding? he thought. Was it really? I wonder...

12.    Kinuko-sama

“I’m dying! It hurts!” Ranta shouted as he used Leap Out to get in front of the enemy. “Clearly our 49th day is cursed!”

The enemy tried to turn towards Ranta. However, with excellent timing, Kuzaku pushed in with his recently-acquired shield in front of him, and prevented it from doing so.

“Grahhh!” Kuzaku shouted.

“Ngh...!” Ranta swung the black blade he had bought from the blacksmith into the enemy’s flank. “Of course, I meant it’s cursed for you, pal!”

While the lion dead one coughed and spewed blood from its terrifying maw, it wrapped its left arm around Ranta. Kuzaku was getting in the way of its right arm, so it couldn’t move quite the way it wanted to. Kuzaku wasn’t only interfering with its movements; he was shouting out and stabbing his sword into its guts, too.

Yume released her drawn bowstring. Her arrow flew. It struck the dead one in the forehead.

Nice one, Haruhiro wanted to congratulate her, but Yume cried out, “Mrrrow!” in consternation. She must have been aiming for the eyes, but missed. Still, she hadn’t been off by far.

Haruhiro kept a level head as he clung to its back, stabbing his short sword into the dead one’s neck. Its thick, stiff mane got in the way. He pulled his sword back, and stabbed again—No. He sensed it. Its body was filled with an abnormal strength.

Haruhiro let go and jumped away. “Get away from it for now!” “’Kay!” Kuzaku shouted.

“Dammit!” Ranta yelled.

Kuzaku and Ranta both immediately followed Haruhiro’s command and

pulled back. In that instant, the lion dead one let out a truly heart-chilling roar. It was a loud noise that seemed to grab everyone who heard it by the guts, messing them up inside. Even if they had been prepared, it would have been harsh. It made them want to cover their ears and scream Please, stop! In fact, Haruhiro, Kuzaku, Ranta, and Yume all cringed. Even Zodiac-kun, who was just idly floating around nearby, did. Merry did, too, but Shihoru, who was beside her with her mind keenly focused, was the only one who did not.

“Dark!” Shihoru cried.

When Shihoru called that name, the thing appeared as if coming out of a door that had opened up from an unseen world. The long, dark strings twisted into a spiral and took on a certain form. It was like a person. Just about the right size to fit in a human’s palm. Palm-sized darkness. It was an elemental.

After much trial and error, Shihoru had settled on this form. If you asked her about it, Shihoru would say it was still a work in progress, and that he must have a true form, one more appropriate for him.

Regardless, Dark had grown attached to Shihoru. That was how it looked to Haruhiro. After all, Dark appeared next to Shihoru’s face, and sat on her shoulder. That wasn’t all, either.

“Go!”

When Shihoru gave that order, Dark obeyed. He flew off of Shihoru’s shoulder with a mysterious whooshing cry, or maybe just a noise, as he hurtled towards the lion dead one.

Dark struck the lion dead one in the chest. There was no impact. He was sucked into its body. Did that do something? What had Dark caused to happen? That wasn’t absolutely clear. But, anyway, the lion dead one groaned and doubled over like it had taken a solid punch to the solar plexus, then dropped to a knee. Dark was having an effect on it.

Before Haruhiro could shout “Now!” Ranta was already charging in with Leap Out. He drew a figure-eight with his black blade and—no.

Ranta was drawing an infinity, not an eight. “Infinite... Black Purgatory Dance!”

First an infinity, then an eight. The eight was followed by another infinity.

After the infinity, an eight. He chained them. Chained and chained them.

The lion dead one wasn’t wearing any actual armor, but its body was protected with hard, dense fur, impact-absorbing fat, and thick muscles. Thanks to that, slashing attacks were practically ineffective against it. Yet

still, Ranta slashed it. Never learning his lesson, he slashed and slashed like crazy. In the end, he stumbled backwards, short of breath.

“What about that...” Kuzaku stabbed the lion dead one in the belly again, right where he himself had stabbed it before, and twisted. “...was supposed to be infinite?!”

“Nguhhhhhhh!” The lion dead one writhed around, spewing blood. “That’s Ranta for you!” Yume fired off one arrow after another.

She was using Rapid Fire. Three shots. The first shot missed, but the second landed a perfect hit on the lion dead one’s right eye, and the third shot pinged off of Kuzaku’s helmet.

“Whoa!” Kuzaku yelped. “Meow?! S-Sorry ’bout that!”

“Bwahah!” Ranta quickly shot back at her. “That’s just Yume for you!” “Shut up, stupid Ranta!”

“Ehe... It’s true, you’re too noisy... Shut up, Ranta. Forever... Ehehe...” “Zodiac-kun! You’re basically telling me to die there, aren’t you?!” Ranta

screamed.

“Auugh...!” The lion dead one tried to push Kuzaku away.

Kuzaku dug his heels in, standing his ground. He forced his longsword in even deeper, and twisted it. “Rahhh!”

Haruhiro jumped on the lion dead one from behind, stabbing his short sword into its back. He tore through the fur, flesh, and fat layers. His blade passed between its ribs—but it was no good. He didn’t reach its organs.

“Haru!” Merry called out to him, so Haruhiro decided to quietly put some distance between himself and the lion dead one. When facing an enemy of this level, a mere thief like Haruhiro was hardly ever going to be able to land a fatal blow. That was the safest assumption. If he could see that line, things would be different, but it wasn’t a thing he could see by trying to.

With a roar, the lion dead one tried using both hands and both legs to push Kuzaku away from it. Kuzaku was resisting, but the odds were against him in a test of pure strength.

“Die already!” Ranta whacked the lion dead one hard in the head with his black blade, but he still couldn’t cut it.

The lion dead one finally kicked Kuzaku, knocking him off balance. “Guh!”

The lion dead one immediately turned and ran.

“You think you can get away?!” Ranta shouted, chasing after it. No, he only pretended to. Ranta made it two, three steps and then stopped, clicking his tongue. “We missed our chance to kill it! It’s because you’re all hopeless, you know that! If we’d had another of me, we could’ve taken it out!”

“...Yeah, just keep talking.” Haruhiro looked around the area, checking that there weren’t any other dead ones, then took a deep breath.

“Kehehe... If there were two of Ranta... this world would be a nightmare...

Kehe... Kehehehe...” Zodiac-kun cackled. “Whaddaya mean by that?!” Ranta hollered. “Exactly what it sounded like,” Shihoru muttered.

“Zodiac-kun’s so kind.” Merry smiled coldly. “If anything, that was a generous assessment.”

“You peopleeeeee. What’d I ever do to youuuuuuuuu?!”

“You’ve been doin’ all sorts of stuff.” Yume puffed up her cheeks and plucked at the string on her bow. “Mrrrow. Was that a close one... You think?”

“Hard to say.” Kuzaku lifted the visor on his helmet, bending his neck. “I thought I could push through, but I couldn’t. It was like we were missing some decisive factor? Maybe?”

“But Shihoru’s magic was effective.” Haruhiro gave Shihoru a thumbs up. “You think so?” Shihoru’s neck shrunk into her body with

embarrassment. “I hope it was.”

“You were great.” Merry patted Shihoru on the back. “Creating magic in your own style. I could stand to learn from your example.”

“...Eh heh,” Shihoru giggled self-consciously.

“Thanks to me!” Ranta puffed up his chest. “It’s because I’m always showing off my freewheeling style! It was my influence! Clearly!”

“Kehe...”

“Wh-What, Zodiac-kun? If you’ve got something to say, then say it.

We’re buds. No need to hold back on me now. —Wait, you’re vanishing?! Because of that?! Hold on, Zodiac-kun, come back, okay?! If you leave like that, it’s gonna be awkward for me when I summon you again, you know?!”

The lion dead one was a troublesome enemy that sometimes appeared in the Northwest Quarter of the City of the Dead Ones. Until a little while ago, they would have had no choice but to flee the moment it attacked, but now they could fight it on even footing. They had fought it a number of times, so

they were getting used to it. However, factoring in the experience they had gained, it probably was okay to think that Haruhiro and the others were getting stronger.

In fact, their equipment had gotten better, too. Kuzaku had gotten himself a curved, trapezoidal shield—according to the blacksmith of Well Village, it was apparently called Gushtat—and, having gotten his hands on a pair of lightweight, sturdy gauntlets, Ranta had replaced his armor with a lighter, more ominous looking set. He was calling it his Death Armor. What a complete and utter moron.

As for Haruhiro, his cloak, leather armor, gloves, pants, and everything else had all gotten so ratty and tattered that they were beyond repair, so he had bought some nice, dark-colored replacements from the clothing and bag seller in Well Village. For a breastplate and such, he had gotten a matching set of leather pieces made from what, on closer inspection, seemed to be snake leather. He was quite fond of them. He’d had to have a pair of seven- fingered gloves reworked for his five-fingered hands, but he’d gotten so used to them now that they felt strangely familiar to him, and they were easy to use.

It seemed Yume had decided to increase her defense in a way that wouldn’t impede her ability to use her bow. She was wearing a number of different protectors here and there. They were probably made of bone and coated with a resin of some sort, but they really were light.

Shihoru’s hat and robe had also been badly frayed, so the girls had gone together to buy her something that looked suitable from the clothing and bag shop. They had done that, but it looked like it was a little tight in the chest area. Still, maybe the robe she’d had up until now had just been a little too loose-fitting.

Ranta whispered to Haruhiro and Ranta, quietly so that Shihoru couldn’t hear him for a change, “She wasn’t just hiding big ones. Those are some serious torpedo tits she’s rocking. I mean, man, she’s even more stacked than I thought.”

Honestly, Haruhiro agreed, but he still felt an urge to kill the guy for saying it.

As a priest, Merry had been hesitant to do it, but she’d disposed of her priest’s robe which was badly damaged. She’d looked for a white coat to replace it, but couldn’t find one, so she’d settled on a deep blue one instead.

It was a good fit for her body type, and she looked good in it. She’d also acquired a staff with a head on it that looked like it would be painful to get hit with, but that’d been loot, not something she had bought.

Incidentally, they had all bought masks or face coverings from the mask shop, making the time they spent hiding out in Well Village somewhat more comfortable. They were also buying their daily necessities as the need arose. There were now far fewer things that they felt were missing in their lives.

Other than that, the most notable thing was Shihoru’s new magic. She had given form to the elemental she’d named Dark, which she could now control.

It seemed that the reason Dark resembled a shadow elemental was because Shihoru specialized in Darsh shadow magic. Elementals fed on a mage’s magical power in order to take form, and to exert their power.

Because of that, the mage and elemental each directly influenced the other. Being a thief, Haruhiro didn’t really understand it, but it could be similar to what happened with a dread knight’s demon.

Anyway, Shihoru’s new magic, Dark, had only just been created and it was still a work in progress, so there was still all sorts of potential there.

Shihoru had chosen the path of Darsh magic, which specialized in support and interference spells, but she’d also picked up Falz magic as well in order to gain some destructive power, and she had dabbled in Kanon magic a little, too. Her path had taken a number of twists and turns. However, going from one thing to another was probably not what Shihoru had really wanted to do. She was an earnest sort, the type that would have wanted to pursue a single thing as far as she could take it.

Could Dark, perhaps, become that one thing for Shihoru? Haruhiro hoped

so.

Their 49th day in this world ended, and the 50th began.

When they went into Well Village to wash their faces and get breakfast, Haruhiro and the others encountered him again.

“Oh ho!” Ranta jumped into the air. “It’s Unjo-san!”

Wearing a braided hat, this man who was like a walking arsenal with axes, swords, crossbows, and more hanging from his hip and backpack, was sipping at a bowl of bug soup. This was only the second time they had seen him, but he was unmistakable. It was Mr. Unjo.

When Mr. Unjo finished drinking the broth, he picked out the bugs with

his fingers and ate them. Then, when the bowl was empty, he said, “Ruo keh,” returning it to the giant crab grocer before finally turning to Haruhiro and the others.

“You people, huh. Volunteer soldiers. You still live, do you?”

“Thanks to you!” Ranta rushed over and did a fist pump. “I mean, man, that City of the Dead Ones! When you told us about that place, you really helped us out! Ever since, our quality of life has been on a serious upswing! You’re the best, Unjo-san! Unjo-san for president! President...? Maybe king would be better? Well, whatever. Ehehehehehe. Would you like that, Your Excellency?! No, actually, how about Your Majesty?! You want that?! Is that what it’s gonna be?!”

“Man, you are seriously annoying...” Haruhiro fought off a pounding headache as he pushed Ranta aside and bowed his head in apology. “I’m sorry for our stupid, worthless piece of trash...”

Mr. Unjo grabbed the brim of his braided hat and pulled it down. He didn’t say a word. What did that mean? Was he angry, maybe...?

Ranta gulped audibly, and poked Haruhiro in the side. “Y-You moron.

Th-This is your fault! Everything is!” “Why...?”

“You’re the leader, damn it! That means everything’s your responsibility, you worthless chunk of smegma!”

With a glance back at Haruhiro, who was so exasperated he lacked the will to get properly angry, Mr. Unjo started walking.

Where was he going? To the general store that was beside the grocery store? Well, they called it a general store, but most of what the store had on display was junk. What was more, outside of the rare occasions when the lanky shopkeeper who dressed all in dark grey was outside, it wasn’t open for business.

The owner wasn’t around right now. The door to the building was still closed.

Once before, Ranta had said something stupid about a test of courage, or something like that, and knocked on the door. There had been no response.

The general store was the most mysterious shop in all of Well Village. For a start, Haruhiro and the others had just started calling it a general store on their own. It might not even be a store at all.

Mr. Unjo did not knock on the general store’s door. He suddenly opened

it. It was a sliding door. Mr. Unjo silently entered.

—Wait, huh? Haruhiro thought, startled. Is that okay?

“Wh-What should we do?” Ranta had taken shelter behind Haruhiro at some point.

“...What do you mean, ‘what’? For now, just get away from me.”

“Hey, man, I’m not clinging to you because I like it. Don’t get the wrong idea, moron.”

“Hmm.” Kuzaku pressed on his neck and twisted it around. “I’m interested, you know. Truth be told.”

“Yeah,” Yume said idly. “Let’s try goin’ in.”

Well, we’re inside Well Village. It’s not like we’ll get killed, reasoned Haruhiro. Probably.

The door to the general store was still open. Haruhiro first tried peeking inside. He was in for a bit of a surprise.

There wasn’t a single window, and the walls that were dimly illuminated by a lamp were covered in—Were those stone tablets? Or clay tablets, maybe? Either way, the sight of a great many rectangular tablets, large and small, with symbols and pictures carved into them, was overwhelming for Haruhiro. Were those symbols letters? Some of the pictures were even colored.

Even seated on a chair in the back, the lanky shopkeeper looked long and thin. Mr. Unjo laid that large backpack of his down on the ground. It looked like he was trying to retrieve something from inside it. It turned out to be a stone tablet.

“Wowie...” Yume crouched down at the door. “What’s all that? It’s amazin’.”

Ranta raised the visor on his helmet and looked all around, staring. “Treasure, huh...?”

“Is this all there is?” Shihoru looked around the room, then sighed. “Though, in a way, it might be a treasure...”

“This might not be a general store,” Merry said quietly. “It could be a museum, maybe?”

“The stuff looks old enough for it to be.” Kuzaku wandered inside. He started reaching out to touch one of the stone tablets, but then pulled his hand back. “Maybe touching them’s a bad idea.”

The lanky shopkeeper accepted the stone tablet from Mr. Unjo, placing it

on the desk and holding both his hands over it.

Haruhiro shuddered a bit. He’d seen something a little scary. The lanky shopkeeper’s hands. They had five fingers, but on the palms—If Haruhiro’s own eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, there were eyes there. The lanky shopkeeper was using those eyes to scrutinize the stone tablet.

Mr. Unjo turned back to Haruhiro. “Here, there are no books. No paper books. There are records left, though. On stone, on clay. On tablets. The eyehand sage, Oubu, is a researcher. He collects tablets. If a tablet is of value, he will buy it from you.”

The eyehand sage, Oubu, presumably meant the lanky shopkeeper. When the sage Oubu’s hands moved away from the tablet, the sage fished through the desk drawers and pulled out some black coins. They were big. Not small, or medium-sized. Large coins. Not just one. Two of them.

Two large coins meant 2 rou. Depending on the store they went to, or rather the person, the value of them could range anywhere from 20 to 50 ruma. It was a fortune.

Taking the two coins from the sage Oubu, Mr. Unjo stuffed them unceremoniously into his backpack. “Ruo keh.”

“Avaruu seha,” the sage Oubu responded, his hands returning to the stone tablet on the desk. With those eyehands, he was closely examining the newly- acquired tablet.

“Lumiaris and Skullhell.” Mr. Unjo suddenly mentioned two unexpected names as he pointed to one of the stone tablets. “The battle between gods is depicted.”

“Ohh...!” Ranta rushed over, pressing his face up close to the stone tablet. “He’s serious! This guy on the right, his face looks just like Skullhell’s symbol!”

“Lumiaris is always just represented by the hexagram, never drawn, but

—” Merry seemed intrigued too, and squinted at the stone tablet. “The woman on the left, that’s Lumiaris...?”

This stone tablet was oblong and rectangular. On the right-hand side was a man with a skull-like face, and on the left was a long-haired woman. The man held a large scythe in his right hand, a sword in his left, and he had only one leg. The woman was naked, with a large sphere in her right hand and a tiny sphere in her left. There was a rainbow on her back.

The right half of the background was night, and the left half was day.

There were many tiny creatures at the bottom. They were each aligned with the man or woman, and they were fighting one another. They were running each other through with swords, there were arrows flying back and forth, and many of the creatures could be seen to have collapsed. There was a bloody battle underway.

“It happened here,” Mr. Unjo said in a low voice. “Lumiaris and Skullhell were here. Here in Darunggar.”

“Darung...gar?” Haruhiro asked as he looked to the other stone and clay tablets.

“That is what those here call this place.”

“The God of Light, Lumiaris, and the Dark God, Skullhell, fought here in Darunggar...” Shihoru said cautiously. “Long ago, the people of Darunggar sided with either Lumiaris or Skullhell, and they fought... Is that it?”

“Who won... I wonder?” Kuzaku rubbed the hexagram carved into his own armor.

“Hey, man.” Ranta snorted. “Look how dark it is here. Obviously my beloved Lord Skullhell won the day, right?”

“But light magic works here, too?” Merry immediately rebutted. “If Lumiaris lost, isn’t it strange that her power still reaches here?”

“You can say that, but it goes for my dark magic, too, you know? Well, both of them feel like they’re less than half as effective as normal, though.”

“Well, then.” Yume was looking at another stone tablet. “It must’ve been a tie, don’tcha think?”

“So, now they’ve both gone to Grimgar?” Haruhiro tilted his head to the side. “...What would you call a group of gods, anyway? A band? No. A crowd? No. A party? No. Maybe a pantheon...?”

“The course of the battle remains unknown.” Mr. Unjo shouldered his backpack. “The eyehand sage, Oubu, says that he does not know. He is investigating that. Regardless, Lumiaris and Skullhell left Darunggar.

Darunggar is a godless world.”

“They left...” Haruhiro tugged the hair on the back of his head a bit. “— Wait, where’d they leave from?”

Shihoru gulped. “There’s... a path, somewhere? Without a path from Darunggar to Grimgar, they couldn’t have left... right?”

“That means one thing!” Ranta shouted. “We can get home, right?!” Kuzaku glanced at Mr. Unjo. “If we could get back, wouldn’t he have

already done so?”

“Oh, yeah.” Yume let out a deep breath. “With Konjo-san still bein’ here, that’s probably right, huh...”

“You mean Unjo-san, okay?” Haruhiro corrected her, then got back on track.

Really, he wasn’t all that shocked. He had been thinking, I wanna go home. It’d be nice if we could, but lately he had started to feel, Well, if we can’t get back, that’s fine, too.

If they became unable to find any leads on how to get back after one hundred, two hundred days of being here, they would have to start working under the assumption they were going to have to live out their lives here for real. They would put down roots in Darunggar. By starting families, for instance? Of course, that would be something they’d naturally start to consider. It was probably an important thing. Haruhiro couldn’t excuse himself from it, saying, I’m the leader. If anything, as the leader, he needed to take the initiative.

There was no guarantee he wouldn’t end up confessing.

No, that’s not likely, huh? I can’t, right? Or rather, what’s a confession?

What am I gonna confess? To whom? I don’t know what I mean.

While Haruhiro was asking those meaningless questions to himself, Mr. Unjo left the sage Oubu’s lab, which was not a general store at all. He could have said something first, but this was Mr. Unjo, so it was hard to blame him, Haruhiro supposed.

Haruhiro and the others left the lab, too, and saw Mr. Unjo was heading towards a different building. It was the largest building in Well Village, made from piled stones, with glass windows. In Haruhiro’s experience, there was always light leaking out from the glass windows. There had to be someone living there. Or so he’d always assumed, but he had never seen whoever lived there.

Mr. Unjo had entered the building last time, too. Haruhiro remembered that. He hadn’t seen anyone else going in or out.

Mr. Unjo opened the door, glancing to Haruhiro and the others. Follow me, he seemed to be saying. Having interpreted it that way, Haruhiro and the others followed Mr. Unjo into the building.

Haruhiro got goosebumps. It was a very strange feeling.

Where is this place? wondered Haruhiro.

The world called Darunggar. Well Village. It didn’t feel like either of those. This place was different.

Unlike the other buildings in Well Village, this one had a proper floor, and there was a carpet laid out. There were shelves. There was a single table. There were five chairs. It looked like there was another room in the back. On either side of the glass window, there were curtains. There were candlesticks sitting around here and there. Every one of them was lit. Four of the chairs were placed around the table. There was just one in the center of the room.

There, in the middle of it all, she was sitting.

She was human. Wearing a red dress. With white socks, black shoes, a red ribbon, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She looked like a young girl with pale skin.

That was what he thought at first. He quickly realized that wasn’t the case. “...A doll?” Haruhiro blinked and took another look.

Why had he thought she was human? She was well-made, but clearly old, and her skin was cracked here and there. Her eyes were left wide open. But her hair seemed to have been combed, and while the colors of her outfit had faded somewhat, she wasn’t torn or frayed anywhere.

“Hold on...” Ranta was speechless.

It wasn’t just that doll and the furniture. This room was overflowing with many unique and different things. On the shelves, the top of the table, and even the floor. What was more, though it wasn’t quite all of them...

This, and that, and this, and that, it’s all familiar.

The picture frame-like thing leaning up against the wall. That round thing sitting on the table. The thick, rectangular thing. The thing with two disc-like objects connected with a band-like thing. The thin, rectangular object that looked like it would fit in his hand. The board-like thing with lots of buttons on it. The object with glass on the front, which was a rectangle with rounded corners.

I’ve seen them. Probably. Most likely.

He knew he must have. And yet, his confidence was starting to waver. It rapidly diminished. He’d seen them before? Really? How could he say that for sure?

He didn’t even know. He couldn’t recall their names, or when and where he’d seen them. He couldn’t remember, but... How could he say he’d seen them before? What evidence did he have?

Still, there were things there he could firmly identify in there. There were some pairs of glasses. One was black-rimmed; one was metal-framed.

Another one had tortoise shell rims. The lenses were broken, or lost in some cases, but they were clearly glasses.

The shelves had books on them, too. However, they weren’t like the books he’d seen in Grimgar. They were thinner, and many were small. There were also cans, and clear containers. But though they were clear, they didn’t seem to be glass.

Mr. Unjo laid his backpack down on the ground and pulled something out from inside it. It was white, a small ball-like object. When Mr. Unjo laid it on the table, there was a hard sound.

The ball didn’t roll. It seemed its surface was bumpy.

“Wha... What is that thing?” Kuzaku asked. “I know it... or I feel like I should, but what is it?”

“Who knows?” Mr. Unjo slowly looked around the room. He might have been checking how far the candles had burned down. “I don’t. Not me. But they’re different, I can tell that much. The things in this room are different.”

“...Different.” Shihoru shook her head. “I feel the same way. They’re different.”

Merry pressed a hand against her chest. “Did you gather all of these?” “No,” Mr. Unjo replied immediately. “When I first came, this room was

here.”

“Meow...” Yume picked up the thin, rectangular object off the table.

When she stroked it with her finger, the dust wiped away, and it was awfully smooth. Yume tilted her head to the side and looked at it funny. “...Nwuh?” “Did the villagers start the collection, then?” Ranta looked at the doll,

seemingly creeped out. “Does no one live in this house? Other than that girl?”

Mr. Unjo gestured towards the doll with his chin. “Don’t touch Kinuko.” “Kinu...ko... Wait, you mean the doll?”

“Everyone calls her that.”

“Hmm,” Ranta said. “Well, she doesn’t look like a Kinuko to me. More of a Nancy, if anything.”

“She doesn’t feel like a Nancy,” Shihoru disagreed. “Not a chance.” “Well, what does she feel like, huh?! Speak up, torpedo tits!” “Torp...” Shihoru covered her breasts with her arms. “...M-Maybe an

Alice? Something like that...”

“Alice, huh? Hmm.” Ranta crossed his arms. “Either way, Kinuko’s right out.”

“The gods have left Darunggar.” Unjo lifted up his backpack. “She is their replacement. In this village, Kinuko is worshiped. She came from another world... they say.”

“True enough...” Haruhiro nodded. “She doesn’t look like anything from this world. Yeah. Still, that said, if you were to ask me if she was from Grimgar—”

“Not a chance.” Yume was still fiddling with the thin, rectangular object. “That’s true, but Yume, she’s got this mysterious feelin’, y’know. It’s all so nostalgic, somehow. Even though she ain’t got no clue what this thing’s supposed to be, she’s feelin’ like she knows. Weird...”

“Foreign objects are worshiped, too,” said Unjo. “If you find something out there that feels right, bring it here. Offer it to Kinuko.”

“You mean, um...” Ranta was always vulgar and without class. “For free?”

Mr. Unjo just gave a low snort and didn’t answer the question. Haruhiro bowed his head a bit. “...I’m sorry about him. Seriously.” “Huh? What’re you apologizing for, Parupiroooo? You a moron, or

something? Yeah, you’re a moron, huh.” Ranta was unrepentant. “Well, y’know, I guess it works like that. Even if there’s no money in it, he’s saying Kinuko’s a god. Maybe we can expect some sort of boon? That’d make it worth doing. Yep. Yep. If we find anything, let’s bring it back here.”

“...But still.” Kuzaku was crouched down in front of the picture frame-like object. “Why is all this stuff here? Or is ‘why’ the question to ask? What is it? I can’t say it all that well, but isn’t it weird?”

Haruhiro could understand what Kuzaku wanted to say. He understood, but couldn’t put it into words very well. It was frustrating not being able to put it into words, and he thought it was really weird.

“We’re searching for a way back to our original world.” Shima’s words came back to him.

A way back. To their original world.

Haruhiro’s head hurt. In his temples—no, deeper inside—he felt a heavy, yet sharp pain. There was something there. He couldn’t help but feel that way. But his hands couldn’t reach it. It was inside his head, after all. He

couldn’t jab a finger inside and fish around. Oh, if only he could! “Unjo-san,” Haruhiro said.

“What?”

“Unjo-san, you—Do you ever think about wanting to return to our original world, or anything like that?”

“‘Original world.’” Mr. Unjo parroted the words back at him, then fell silent.

“Wait...” Merry looked at Haruhiro from behind her mask. “By our original world, you don’t mean Grimgar?”

“...Huh?” Shihoru covered her mouth. “Not Grimgar, our original...” Yume looked up to the ceiling. “...Fwhuh?”

“Original—” Kuzaku was deep in thought. “Our original...”

“Hey, hey, hey. What do you mean, original?” Ranta tried to laugh, but stopped. “...What? We came from some other world before we were in Grimgar... Is that it?”

“If we didn’t, then where did we come from?” Merry asked, as much to herself as anyone else. “I don’t remember anything from before, but—we had to be somewhere, that much is certain. There’s no way we were just born looking like this.”

“Where did we even come from?” Shihoru’s voice was trembling a little. “By where did we come from, I mean... in my memories, I recall—I asked Haruhiro-kun, ‘Where is this place?’”

“...Um,” the girl behind him timidly asked, “where is this, do you think?” “Look, asking me isn’t going to help,” Haruhiro was pretty sure he had

answered.

“...Right, of course. Um, d-does anyone... know? Where is this place?”

Shihoru, Haruhiro remembered. That’s right. That was Shihoru. But where were we?

“We were lookin’ at Mr. Moon.” Yume clapped her hands together. “He was all red. That sure was surprisin’.”

“Ahh,” said Braids as she seemed to notice it, too. She blinked repeatedly, then chuckled. “Mr. Moon is red. That’s super pretty.”

Yume. That had been Yume. He could remember. Right. At that point, they’d noticed the moon. It had been ruby red, somewhere between a crescent and a half moon.

Why’s it red? he’d thought. A red moon had seemed weird.

Where had they been?

“...The hill?” Haruhiro murmured.

They’d been atop the hill next to Alterna. There were rows of graves, and Manato and Moguzo were buried there. They were there... and Choco, too.

Choco. Choco...? Kuzaku’s comrade. A thief. One of the junior volunteer soldiers. She’d fallen in the battle at Deadhead Watching Keep.

—Was that all? He didn’t know. Something was bugging him. Like he’d forgotten something...?

Big eyes. With bags under them. Pouty lips. A girl with a bob cut. Choco.

Kuzaku’s comrade... She’d died. He’d never see her again.

“We were there on the hill.” Haruhiro looked to his comrades. “...That’s right, isn’t it? At the very least, Shihoru, Yume, Ranta—and Manato and Moguzo were there, too. Kikkawa. Renji. Ron. Sassa. Adachi. Chibi-chan, too. They were there. On that hill. We saw the red moon. Kuzaku, Merry, how was it for you?”

“The hill...” Merry mumbled to herself absently. “...I remember it. Only vaguely, though. I think my first memory is probably of the hill next to Alterna.”

“Me too, I think.” Kuzaku nodded. “It’s sort of an... Oh, yeah, I was there.

With them. Dunno what we talked about, though...”

“What a coincidence.” Even Mr. Unjo chimed in, smiling slightly. “I, too, remember seeing the red moon on that hill. ‘The moon is red,’ I thought. ‘How creepy’...”

“...Isn’t that weird?” Haruhiro pulled back one of the chairs around the table and sat down in it. “That we appeared at that hill, I mean. I mean...

That’s strange. It really is. No matter where we were before we came to Grimgar, if I think about it normally, uh—There was a tunnel-like place. Something like that, which we must have gone through, right? Then we appeared... on the hill.”

“There was a tower.” Mr. Unjo suddenly took off his braided hat. His close-cropped hair had gone half-white. Though the lower half of his face was hidden by his scarf, everything from his eyes up was exposed. He had a pronounced forehead, and looked to be a man in his forties or fifties. Placing his braided hat on the table, Mr. Unjo took a seat, too. “If my memory is correct, it was the ‘Forbidden Tower.’”

“The tower with no entrance or exit...” Shihoru’s entire body was shivering at this point. “I never knew what it was for... I thought it was weird. For all that time...”

“Could it be—” Ranta sat down on the ground. “Maybe we came out of that tower, don’t you think?”

“Even though there’s no entrance or exit?” Merry asked, doubtfully. “Hmm...” Ranta knocked on his own head. “There it is. That’s the

problem. But, you know, it’s weird if no one can go in or out. It’s meaningless. There’s gotta be a hidden door somewhere, right?”

“Hiyomu’d probably know, don’tcha think?” Yume said. “Hiyomu, she led us from the hill to Bri-chan’s place in Alterna, y’know.”

“It was like that for me, too.” Merry nodded. “Yeah.” Kuzaku raised his hand slightly. “Me, too.”

“For me—” Mr. Unjo pressed his brow. “It was a man, I think.... ‘Call me

Saa,’ he told us. Who is this Bri-chan?”

“Let’s see,” Haruhiro answered. “He’s the office chief for Red Moon, the Alterna Frontier Army’s Volunteer Soldier Corps. His name’s Britney.”

“Britney.” Mr. Unjo’s eyes went wide. “. Was this a man who acted like a

woman? With light blue eyes.” “. You know him?”

“I know him. His real name is Shibutori.”

“Shibutori?!” Ranta exclaimed. “Bri-chan’s name is Shibutori?!” “Shibutori was from a younger generation,” Mr. Unjo said. “Compared to

me. He’s the chief of the Volunteer Soldier Corps Office now?”

“Um, Unjo-san,” Haruhiro hesitantly asked. “How long has it been since you came to Darunggar again?”

“Five thousand, six hundred and seventy-six times,” Mr. Unjo said with a far off look in his eye. “Since I started counting, that is. That is the number of times the dark night has broken, and the pale morning has come.”

“. Five thousand six hundred—”

Was the length of one day in Darunggar equal to a day in Grimgar? Was it different? That much wasn’t clear, but if they were the same—Mr. Unjo had spent a full fifteen years and two hundred and one days here in Darunggar.

“Before now, have you seen any other, um... humans like us?” Haruhiro

ventured.

“None. This is the first time. You people are the first.”

“Seriously...?” Even Ranta sounded pained by that. “That’s... That’s...

Seriously, uh, that’s gotta have been pretty tough, huh. Seriously...”

“I’ve gotten used to it.” Mr. Unjo lowered his eyes to the table. “...I was used to it. I couldn’t return, anyway. I had long since given up. Life here is not so bad. A man’s home is his castle. The things that seem strange become normal. You learn the language, too. I have acquaintances here. Your language, it is nearly foreign to me. I’ve forgotten half of it. As we speak, I remember. Like this. But, either way, I cannot return. You people prepare yourselves for that, too. That hill. The forbidden tower. None of it matters.

The hidden door. Even if it exists, you cannot find it. You cannot prove it exists. Live here. That is the only option. Until you die, live. No matter where you are, it’s the same. That is all there is for us.”

“It’s not just us.” Shihoru choked the words out. “Lala and Nono... A pair who were far more experienced and skilled than us came to Darunggar, too. Besides, it’s not like we came here directly from Grimgar.”

“Where?” Mr. Unjo jabbed his right finger into the table. “Where did you people enter Darunggar from?”

It would be hard for Haruhiro to say he remembered clearly. The distance and direction they’d traveled was kind of a blur. Even so, Haruhiro explained in as much detail as he could, but without making it needlessly complex, the sequence of events by which they had traveled from the Dusk Realm to Darunggar, and then how they had reached Well Village.

“Upstream...” Mr. Unjo laughed, as if in amazement. “You people have good luck. It’s a miracle you were all right.”

From what he told them, the forest north of Well Village was home to the yegyorns—which, according to Mr. Unjo, meant “mist moths”—a species of poisonous moth. Their poison was intensely powerful, and it took only an instant to make most living creatures faint in agony. However, a sort of weasel-like creature called a getaguna was the one exception. Those creatures had resistance to yegyorn poison, and the yegyorns wouldn’t even attack them in the first place.

Yegyorns would swarm their prey and knock them unconscious, at which point the getagunas would rush in and devour the innards. The yegyorns drank their prey’s blood, then laid their eggs in the flesh. In time, the eggs would hatch. The rotten flesh would provide them sustenance as they grew, until eventually they emerged as moths and took flight.

Yegyorns were small, only the size of the tip of your baby finger. They were fundamentally impossible to avoid in the dark forests of Darunggar, and by the time you noticed them, you’d have already been bitten.

In fact, Mr. Unjo said that the dose of poison from one of them wasn’t so big of a deal, but where there was one, you could expect there were hundreds more nearby, so you would be bit many times in quick succession.

There were yegyorns in the river to the north, too. Furthermore, along the river there were tobachi—which apparently meant “nasty,” or “hard to deal with”—a group of creatures that specialized in sneak attacks lurking all over the place, so caution was necessary. There were many types of tobachi, and it was more a collective name for the fierce, carnivorous creatures that lived along the river.

Naturally, tobachi often fell prey to the yegyorns and getagunas.

Other than that, there were ape-faced creatures called gaugai—these were probably what the party called inuzarus—which were spread out over a wide area. They were omnivorous, but their favorite meal was getaguna.

The moth forest, Adunyeg, north of Well Village, was incredibly dangerous, and people with good sense wouldn’t go in there.

The way Mr. Unjo told it, if they planned to cross the Adunyeg to return to the Dusk Realm, they had better be prepared to die trying. Whether it took three days, two days, or one day, Mr. Unjo couldn’t imagine traveling through the Adunyeg without encountering yegyorns. And if they encountered them, that would be the end. There were times when one or two yegyorns would wander into Well Village, and when that happened there was always a panic, he told them.

“W-Well, aren’t you glad we didn’t go and find out?” Ranta gulped. “Well, not that returning to the Dusk Realm’d do us any good. That place was crazy dangerous in its own way. Still, I’ll bet you Lala and Nono aren’t doing so hot, probably. I mean, I can’t imagine they’re as lucky as I am.

They’ve gotta be dead. They used us as much as they could and then threw us away, though, so I’ve gotta say they had it coming...”

“Anyway, they haven’t come to this village, right?” Kuzaku said. “Probably not.” Mr. Unjo was starting to sound pretty darn fluent. “Still,

that said, there are other villages. Or towns rather than villages.”

Naturally, it would only make sense if there were. It would be strange and unnatural if this was the only village left after the clash between Lumiaris and

Skullhell.

But Haruhiro was shocked.

“Whaa—” Haruhiro was at a loss for words. He traded glances with each of his comrades.

“Mrr.” Yume pressed her hands against both her cheeks. “So there’re towns...”

“Wh-Where’re they at?!” Ranta corrected himself. “Wh-Where, pray tell, might we locate them, good sir?!”

“...Pray tell?” Shihoru’s voice was dripping with loathing.

“I wouldn’t mind telling you people.” Mr. Unjo put on his braided hat. “The reason we can’t return to Grimgar. While I do, I can take you to the town of Herbesit, too. That is only if you wish me to, though.”

13.    Revelation

Before setting out, Haruhiro and the others heeded Mr. Unjo’s advice, or rather his instructions, and made thorough preparations.

The town of Herbesit was to the west of Well Village, and a three-day trip on foot. Along the way, they would have to camp out in the woods. There were few of the yegyorns he had mentioned in the forest to the west, but there was a colony of gaugais (inuzarus) in that area. There were also a number of different vicious carnivores and omnivores, as well as the durzoi—which apparently meant “old ones,” or something like that—a human-like race that had four arms.

According to Mr. Unjo, the durzoi were proud hunters, primarily working on their own to target large carnivorous beasts called vaguls. If a party stole their prey, they would become vengeful and dangerous enemies, but as long as their interests weren’t being harmed, they stayed largely benign. Still, the party would need to watch out for those vaguls, as well as other beasts including siddas, wepongs, and gaugais. Those beasts each used different tactics, and would be clever about exploiting any openings.

There was one method that would let them avoid most beasts, and that was a bell like the one on the charcoal burner’s wagon.

They were able to buy a beast-repelling bell at the blacksmith’s. It didn’t come cheaply. It cost a full 20 ruma, but it was apparently a necessity for getting through the forest, so it was probably worth that much.

In the western forest, they basically needed to keep ringing the beast- repelling bell at all times. Mr. Unjo naturally had a bell of his own, but he told them that it would be hard to make it through the forest alone. Having comrades would make the journey easier. When he had to lie down to rest, others could take turns ringing the bell.

Also, while they weren’t as much of a threat as yegyorns, the forest was also home to venomous insects and snakes, so it was best not to leave any skin exposed while sleeping.

Haruhiro and the others bought some thick fabric from the clothing and bag shop to make tents. They also made new undergarments out of fabric that was easy on the skin. They procured preserved food and candles at the grocery store. They also bought oil made from some plant.

Haruhiro and the others had been treating Oubu the sage’s lab as a general store, but it turned out the real general store of Well Village was the giant crab’s grocery store.

With all of that done, the party followed Mr. Unjo and departed from Well Village.

First they followed the road with the wagon tracks to the charcoal burner’s place. The path didn’t end there. Haruhiro and the others had thought about that once before. If they continued past there, where would they arrive? According to Mr. Unjo, the road eventually came to a three-fork intersection.

Mr. Unjo led the way, with his beast-repelling bell hanging from his backpack, so for now, all Haruhiro and the others had to do was follow him. As long as they had Mr. Unjo’s bell, maybe they didn’t need to have a bell themselves. That thought crossed their minds, but that would be relying too heavily on a stranger.

The charcoal burner, who looked identical to the blacksmith of Well Village, was doing some sort of work at his charcoal kiln. Mr. Unjo was apparently acquainted with the charcoal burner, too, because they had a pleasant conversation before he ordered Haruhiro and the others to rest here.

“There is no safer place in these woods,” Mr. Unjo told them. “There is no man more friendly than him past this point. Once you understand that, rest to your heart’s content.”

From the way Mr. Unjo spoke, the people of Herbesit might not necessarily be friendly.

Haruhiro was 99% filled with unease, but it was that last 1% of hope that kept him from backing down. Haruhiro and the others had to know. And not just from hearing it, they had to know firsthand. Seeing was believing. There were things they wouldn’t be able to understand until they saw and felt them for themselves. It would be wrong to act on information they had only heard

from others. If it was a decision that was going to affect their futures, all the more so.

Once they had taken a short nap, Mr. Unjo pushed for them to depart. Everything beyond the charcoal burner’s shack was a new and unknown world to Haruhiro and the others. They were tense, but Mr. Unjo was walking quickly, and nothing happened. It looked like the beast-repelling bell was doing great work.

While they were in the forest, they couldn’t see the distant ridge. The sky still brightened a little, though, so they could tell night from day.

The party arrived at the three-fork intersection that same day. Mr. Unjo chose the path leading to the southwest. He said if they went northwest, they would reach steep mountains. They could see the outline of the mountains off in the distance.

The road with the wagon tracks hadn’t been left by the charcoal burner; it was apparently something that had existed for a very long time. It was the same for the charcoal burning kiln, and there had been another charcoal burner before the current one.

According to the clay and stone tablets, even after Lumiaris and Skullhell had left, the war had raged on in Darunggar for a long time between the forces of the Light Goddess and the forces of the Dark God. In other words, between the forces of light and darkness. With Darunggar firmly divided into two camps, they had been unable to come back together even after their leaders had left.

That tragic conflict was, incredibly, still dragging on unto this day. For instance, the dead ones were descendants of Skullhell’s worshipers, and they killed and devoured one another, praying for the eventual destruction of everything. The people gathered in Well Village were descendants of those who had followed Lumiaris, and they handed down tales of the day Lumiaris would return, bringing light to the dark Darunggar. On the other hand, they thought it was merely as a legend, as was the prediction that the world would end in darkness. Their worship of the Kinuko doll and otherworldly objects might have been a manifestation of those warped feelings.

According to Mr. Unjo, having deciphered the tablets, it seemed that certain races had built kingdoms, and elements of the darkness and light factions had reconciled to form shared living spaces in the past. However, any group larger than a village or city was guaranteed to collapse under

internal or external pressures. Whenever a king who’d used his leadership to build a country died, or was killed, the land quickly devolved into civil war, and everything went to ruin.

Darunggar apparently meant something like “the land of despair.” This world hadn’t always been known by that name, though. Originally, it had been Fanangar (paradise) ruled by Enos (one god). When Enos had split into the conflicting Lumiaris and Skullhell, it had become Jidgar (field of battle). When the world had been abandoned by both gods, the heavens and earth had become enveloped by despair.

They kept following the wagon tracks through the deep forest. There was still no sign of any beasts. They were grateful to the beast-repelling bells for that. At nightfall, Haruhiro sensed someone looking at him. When he informed Mr. Unjo, he was told it was the durzoi.

“In these woods, it happens all the time,” Mr. Unjo told them. “Don’t try to search for them. You will never find them. If they become hostile, you will be targeted. No good will come of it.”

Haruhiro could probably have just done as Mr. Unjo said and not let it bother him. But, honestly, he wondered.

It had gotten late at night, so they pitched tents and slept in shifts while keeping the beast-repelling bells ringing. He didn’t feel it when he was inside the tent, but when it was his shift outside as a bell-ringer, he sometimes felt strangely restless.

The monsters made noises sometimes, too. That had to be deliberate. The durzoi hunters were choosing to make noise to see what he’d do. If Haruhiro acted in a hostile manner, an arrow might come flying his way immediately. The durzoi might be closer than he imagined. He might turn to find them right there, only to have his life snuffed out in the very next moment. He couldn’t deny it was a possibility.

Or perhaps they were having fun by intimidating the party and putting them on-guard...

Haruhiro didn’t get much in the way of proper sleep, but when morning came, he no longer sensed the durzoi’s presence.

They’re gone, huh, he thought. No, there’s no way to be sure of that. I can’t let my guard down. Or am I overthinking this, maybe?

“You keep worrying like that, and it’ll make you go bald one of these days, man.” Ranta laughed scornfully.

It pissed Haruhiro off, but giving Ranta the time of day would only make things worse, so he just said, “Yeah, yeah...” and let it slide. But then that piece of trash Ranta leaned in close to Haruhiro’s ear and whispered, “B-A- L-D, okay?”

If only Ranta could have disappeared instead of the durzoi. Actually, I wish I could trade out Ranta for a durzoi in the party.

While he was thinking that, he found his fear and unease towards the durzoi lightened. Even trash could be useful for something once in a while.

There was an incident later that day, when the sky began to darken. There was something blocking the path up ahead of them. Worse yet, whatever that thing was, it was moving. No, perhaps “writhing” would be the better word to describe it.

They were long thin creatures. There were a large number of them. An incredible number.

At first glance, they looked like... like innards. Intestines, maybe? If he were to give a more reasonable comparison, they were like worms. Intestines that were as thick as his wrist. No, worms. There was a great mass of them, and they were blocking the wagon track road.

“...What’re those?” Kuzaku asked in a hoarse voice. Surprisingly, Mr. Unjo shook his head. “Who knows.”

“Eek...” Shihoru let out a little shriek and back away. It was easy to understand why she’d feel that way.

“I-It’s gonna be fine, okay?” Yume looked to Haruhiro. “...Y’think it’ll be fine, right?”

Don’t ask me, he wanted to say, but he held it in. “...W-Well, I dunno.” “Parupiro!” Ranta slapped Haruhiro on the back. “Go! Jump over them!

You do that, and we’ll know if it’s safe or not. Do it! You’re the leader, man! Come on!”

“No, don’t be like that.” Merry was scary at times like this. “Why don’t you jump instead? We’d all be in trouble if anything happened to Haru.”

“What, and you don’t care what happens to me?! It’ll be too late for regrets once I’m gone! Did you ever think about that before you speak, huh?! Do you properly understand my greatness, how special I am, my contributions, and my future potential?!”

“Oh, yeah, you’re special all right, Ranta-kun,” Kuzaku said. “Kuzacky! Good, good, good! I thought you’d understand! You’re not

just a beanpole after all! You’ve gotta be, like, a level 2 beanpole or something! No, maybe even level 3?!”

“Not much of a compliment...”

“I’m singing your praises here. Can’t you even tell that, you moron?

Honestly, are you all height and no brains? That’s why you’re a beanpole, huh? Ahaha! Makes sense!”

“Hey.” Mr. Unjo suddenly grabbed Ranta by the collar and started dragging him.

“—Whuh?! Wh-What?! What’s going on?! Whoa, Unjo-san?! I mean, Unjo-sama?! What, what?! S-Stop it?! Whoa! That’s, wahh—”

Mr. Unjo was strong. He easily dragged Ranta along with one arm, then threw him into the middle of the mass of giant worms or moving intestines.

“Nooooooooooooooo...!” Ranta landed flat on his backside in the middle of the swarm. “Gwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...”

It happened in an instant. Ranta was engulfed by the giant worms or moving intestines, and the group lost sight of him. If Zodiac-kun were here, what sort of commentary would the demon be giving? No, now wasn’t the time to think about that...

Maybe? I guess...?

“R-Ranta...?” Haruhiro called out hesitantly. “Bwahhhhhhhhhhhh?!” Ranta leapt out from the center of the giant

worms or moving intestines. There were still worms wrapped around his neck, arms, legs, and torso, trying to pull him back in. Ranta struggled. “I’m dying! I’m dying here, save me! I’m gonna die! S-Save meeeeeeeeee!”

“If we have to...” Kuzaku muttered, reaching out with his long arm to rescue Ranta.

It was the manly thing to do. Haruhiro was impressed. But wasn’t it dangerous? Just as Haruhiro had worried, the giant worms or moving intestines attacked Kuzaku as well as Ranta.

“Wah! Oh, crap!” Kuzaku shouted.

“Dark!” Shihoru summoned the elemental named Dark, and had him plunge into the giant worms or moving intestines. That drove off a few, maybe even a few dozens of them, but it was hardly enough.

If it had just been Ranta, Haruhiro could have abandoned him, but Kuzaku was caught up in it now, too, so he had no choice but to save them. In the end, everyone but Mr. Unjo had to help pull the giant worms or moving

intestines that had captured Ranta and Kuzaku off of them one by one. They then moved away from that spot for a little while, waiting for the giant worms or moving intestines to finish crossing the wagon track road. By the time morning came, the strange wriggling objects were completely gone.

What were those things, anyway?

Thinking about it wasn’t going to yield any answers, though. Making a mental note that things like that could happen, they walked for a quarter of a day, until the forest suddenly ended.

The wagon track road continued on, on a gradual downward slope. There was a town spreading out on the other side of it. While it was half-crumbled, there was still a defensive wall around it. At a glance, it was a kilometer wide... no, more than that. It looked like a kilometer and a half on each side.

It was bright. These were the city lights. Without a doubt, there was hundreds, possibly thousands of people living in this town. They could clearly see a number of figures walking up and down the main streets. It looked like there were a lot of stone buildings. The buildings were one-floor, two-floors, three-floors, and even taller. There were a number of towers rising into the sky.

The wind suddenly blew, and the trees in the forest rustled. Shortly after that, they heard the sound of a bell. It was different from the beast-repelling bells that Mr. Unjo and Haruhiro’s party carried. It was a larger, heavier, and somehow sad sound. There was likely a belfry somewhere in town, and its bell was swaying in the wind. One of those towers might be a bell tower.

“This is the town of Herbesit.” Mr. Unjo, who was at the head of the group, removed his braided hat. “Don’t hide your face in Herbesit. But don’t make eye contact with anyone, either. It will be taken as a challenge. If you are provoked, ignore it. The people in that town love to fight. If you don’t want conflict, keep your heads down, and keep quiet. If you want to fight to the death, then that’s different. Do as you please.”

Haruhiro and the others shuddered.

Just how dangerous is this place...?

As it turned out, it was very dangerous. No sooner had they come to the end of the wagon track road and entered the town than a pair of humanoid creatures who were hunched over as far as possible, but still taller than Kuzaku, came over to pick a fight with them.

They couldn’t tell what the pair were saying, but it was clear they were

making some sort of false accusations. One jumped back and forth in front of Mr. Unjo, making taunting sounds and clapping his hands. The other kept sticking his face up close to Shihoru’s, making high-pitched, hee-haw, hee- haw sounds.

Shihoru was practically crying. Haruhiro wanted to help, but if he glared at those creatures and said, Hey, cut that out, a fight would have broken out right then and there. Shihoru would need to endure, and the others would have to put up with it.

Eventually, when it seemed the two had left, Yume let out a strange cry. “Yow!” When Haruhiro looked, she was rubbing the back of her head.

Someone had thrown a stone at her, and it had hit.

“Yume?! You okay?!” Ranta looked around the area. “Damn it! Who did that?!”

“Stop!” Merry quickly hit Ranta on the shoulder with her head staff. “It’s an obvious provocation. Don’t fall for it so easily.”

“Merry, you sure you’re not trying to provoke me?” Ranta returned. “That hurt pretty bad, just now...”

“Oh, did it?” Merry brushed him off lightly. “Yume. I know it must hurt, but bear with it. I’ll heal you later.”

“Meowwww. Thanks. This li’l thing came flyin’, and then, bam, it was just a surprise. There’s only a little bleedin’. Yume’s gonna be okay.”

“You’re bleeding a little?!” Ranta continued looking downward, clicking his tongue. “Those punks think they can mess with us. I’ll tear ’em limb from limb. Seriously...”

“He never learns...” Kuzaku wore a slight wry smile. Shihoru laughed coldly. “Of course not. It’s Ranta.”

“So what if it’s me, huh?! Well, Torpedo Tits?! I’ll grope you! No, let me grope you!”

“Man...” Haruhiro started, but decided it would be stupid to engage with him and closed his mouth.

There were frequent provocations by the residents after that, too. They would stalk and insult them, throw things at them, block the road, and that was only the least of it. There were some who would suddenly trip them, and others who would even go as far as tackling them. No matter how they ignored, dodged, and evaded them, these assailants appeared one after another. It was exhausting on both a physical and emotional level.

Had Mr. Unjo not been there, they would have fled town within a minute of entering it, or gotten into a fight.

Were Haruhiro and the others being picked on for being outsiders? It seemed that was not exactly the case. There was one-on-one, one-on-many, and many-on-many violence breaking out here and there around town, and they even heard what sounded like bloodcurdling death screams occasionally. It was hard to believe, or at least they didn’t want to believe it, but people weren’t just getting injured, they were getting killed. What was wrong with this town...?

It was in such a state of chaos that melees broke out on the main streets with considerable frequency, and the onlookers gambled on the results.

Mr. Unjo moved away from the main streets, leading Haruhiro and the others down the back streets. These back streets were a little better. On either side of the street, which was somewhat narrow at roughly two meters across, there were people of various races squatting. They said things in pathetic voices, sticking out their hands. If Haruhiro let his guard down, they would pull at his coat. From what he could see, many of them were injured. They were likely beggars. They were gloomy, depressing, and he soon got fed up with them, but it was better than the main streets where everyone was raring for a fight, and there were constant deaths.

Still, though, could they live like this? There were those who were clearly on the verge of death, or not moving at all, and the smell of something rotting hung in the air. It looked like a number of them hadn’t been able to survive like this, and were no longer among the living.

“Don’t touch anything in this town that you don’t need to. Don’t let anyone touch you, either.” Mr. Unjo avoided the hands of the beggars as he said that. “You wouldn’t want to catch something. I can’t say deadly diseases are uncommon here.”

“Yikes...” Ranta muttered. Even Ranta, who was a plague unto himself, was apparently scared of getting sick.

Naturally, Haruhiro was afraid of disease, too. Merry had learned Purify, a spell for removing poison, and it worked on some diseases, too. Some being the operative word. Ordinary colds, for instance, could not be healed with magic. If they got sick, they would have to rely on what medicine they could procure, and their own stamina and mental fortitude to get them through it.

Haruhiro was well aware that his body wasn’t especially robust, and that he

wasn’t strong-willed, either. When it came to disease, prevention was the best medicine.

While they were weaving between the beggars of the back streets, they ran straight into a tower that was not particularly tall at around five meters high. Mr. Unjo used the metal knocker on the door. Not long after, the door swung open.

A woman with almost translucent white skin wearing a brown robe came out. Her combed hair was gray. Was she human? No, she wasn’t. She looked close to being human, but her eyes had no whites. It looked like someone had pressed glass balls into her eye sockets. Besides, she had three slits on each cheek, which were opening and closing slightly. They were almost like gills.

“Unjo,” the woman said before looking to Haruhiro and the others with her glassy eyes. “Akuaba?”

“Moa worute.” Mr. Unjo gestured with his chin, as if to say, Let us in. The woman let not just Mr. Unjo, but Haruhiro and the rest, into the tower.

The ceiling was high. Was it open all the way up to the roof? The walls were almost entirely bookshelves. The shelves carried clay and stone tablets, arms and armor, some type of equipment, items that looked out of place, potted plants, and more. There were lamps left out here and there, as well as ladders and stools.

“This is Rubicia,” Mr. Unjo introduced her.

The woman pressed her hands together in front of her chest and bowed to them. That might be how they greeted people here.

“H-Hello.” Haruhiro tried imitating Rubicia. “I’m Haruhiro.”

“I’m Ranta.” Ranta crossed his arms arrogantly. “They call me Ranta- sama!”

“Kuzaku.” Kuzaku bowed his head slightly.

“Yoo-may!” Yume said in a loud voice, clearly enunciating, and then smiled. “Ehehe.”

“...I’m Shihoru.” Shihoru imitated Rubicia like Haruhiro had.

“I’m Merry.” Merry gave a proper bow. “Nice to meet you, Rubicia-san.”

Rubicia nodded slowly, exchanging a few words with Mr. Unjo before descending the stairs by the wall. There was apparently a basement room.

“It’s safe here.” Mr. Unjo laid his pack down on the floor. “If you want to rest, rest. Rubicia will bring water soon. The water is not infected, or contaminated. Don’t worry.”

“Righto!” Ranta sat down immediately. “Come on, if you’ve got yourself a nice safe house like this, say so sooner, Unjo-saaaan, sheesh. By the way, what’s up with Rubicia-san? Is she your y’know? Nah, no way...”

“Yes,” Mr. Unjo responded. “Rubicia is my wife.” Haruhiro couldn’t help but whisper, “Wow...”

14.    Dependence

Love was deep.

Maybe.

Well, not that the immature Haruhiro would really understand.

Birth, upbringing, race, none of that had anything to do with it... he supposed? Though it was questionable whether Mr. Unjo and Rubicia were really a loving husband and wife. Mr. Unjo may have simply gotten lonely, being a stranger in a strange land, and sought comfort with a woman he just happened to meet. The woman might only have been indulging him out of a sense of pity or something, too. Haruhiro wouldn’t know, but that sort of thing could happen... right? If it did, was that also a form of love? Could he call it that? Maybe? Hmm? He wondered...

The fact that Mr. Unjo and Rubicia didn’t act particularly close made something feel off. Was it because Haruhiro and the others were there? Because they were embarrassed? Did they flirt when no one else was around? Or was this just how things were in Darunggar? It was hard to imagine a couple carrying on with what Haruhiro thought of as married life here in Herbesit. Maybe just the fact that they weren’t killing each other already meant they were in a pretty good relationship? But Rubicia looked like an intellectual and quiet person—or something so close to a person that, even though she wasn’t, he wanted to think of her as one—so she didn’t fit in Herbesit to begin with. Or were there some peaceful, pacifist types living quietly here in this town, too?

With Rubicia’s tower as their base of operations, they learned a number of things as Mr. Unjo showed them around the town over the next day or two.

In the vast majority of Herbesit, the provocations, violence, and robbery went on without end. Even seemingly empty streets were sometimes the

territory of gangs of robbers, so it was important to remain cautious. The bell tower in the center of town was controlled by a faction called Garafan— which apparently meant “sharp claw”—and that area was especially dangerous. Mr. Unjo said that even he never approached the bell tower.

In the town of Herbesit there were also the Jagma (great storm), and the Skullhellgs (the children of Skullhell), two other gang-like organizations, and, naturally, there was a violent struggle between them. Painting in the broadest strokes, Central Herbesit was Garafan’s territory, Western Herbesit was Jagma’s, and Eastern Herbesit was the Skullhellgs’. If they picked a fight with any of these three groups, they were in for trouble.

However, in the Old Town of Herbesit, there were underground aqueducts, though they hardly worked anymore, as well as graveyards. The ones who ruled the underground here, the Zeran (the scholars), were an exceptional group who didn’t favor violence. That said, they weren’t against using force to keep the fighting under control, so if anyone started a quarrel underground, punishment from the Zeran would be waiting for them. They knew everything about the complicated underground, and had a sizable number of fighters, so the Zeran were by no means weak. In fact, it would be fair to say that, underground, they were incredibly strong. Not even Garafan, Jagma, and the Skullhellgs, the three big gangs of Herbesit, would try to encroach on the underground.

Now, that being the case, you might think Herbesit’s underground was a paradise, and the weak all ought to go down there to live, but there were reasons that they couldn’t. The Zeran weren’t so narrow-minded as to refuse guests, but they were elitists of a sort, and wouldn’t allow outsiders to settle in the underground. Furthermore, there were sealed districts underground that only the Zeran could enter. And in order to become one of the Zeran, one had to understand their doctrines and undergo training.

Incidentally, Rubicia was a former Zeran, and she had lived underground before, but had moved to the surface for certain reasons. While she still had connections in the underground, she was treated essentially the same as an outsider would be.

So, Haruhiro and the others tried visiting the underground. There was a market there, and they could shop with black coins. With blacksmiths, grocers, clothing stores, and more, there was a greater variety of stores, and better selection in each, than had been available in Well Village. However,

the prices were double to triple what they were in Well Village, making things pretty expensive. There was also the difference that everyone worked with base 10.

Also, even in their time there, the party got a sense of how the Zeran looked down on outsiders. Or rather, according to Mr. Unjo, when outsiders shopped in the underground market, they were charged double what the Zeran would pay. Outsiders could complain, That’s not fair, but they’d just be told, If you don’t like it, get out, and never come back, and that would be the end of it. There were a number of marketplaces on the surface, too, but the three major gangs were involved in all of them, and that didn’t create an environment where they could take their time choosing items at their leisure. They wanted to avoid trouble, so they had no choice but to use the underground market.

Furthermore, in the basement of Rubicia’s tower, there was a furnace with a smokestack reaching up to the roof, a cooking area, an incredibly deep well, and a drainage pipe leading to a sewer; all the things they would need to live. In addition, though they hadn’t noticed this at first, there were two small mezzanine floors, and Mr. Unjo’s and Rubicia’s bedrooms were on them.

They were married, but they slept in separate rooms...? Even if Haruhiro had wanted to ask about that, he couldn’t. They were already imposing on the two of them in their love nest. It would be wrong to pry needlessly on top of that.

On the third day, when they had learned a little about Herbesit and were starting to feel a little more at ease, Mr. Unjo said they would be leaving town.

“I’ll show you people the exit. The entrance to the exit, to be precise. I came to Darunggar through there. My comrades all died. I was the only survivor. I no longer have any intention of returning home. There is a path back. There is a way, but I value my life too much to take it. To live. I’ve learned that that is the one thing I desire.”

Before they set out, Rubicia held Mr. Unjo’s right hand in both of her hands, pressing it against her cheek for a short while. It was a silent bit of contact, as if it were some sort of ritual.

Mr. Unjo had said he had no intention of returning home. Was Rubicia the reason for that, perhaps? In meeting her, Mr. Unjo may have found a reason to go on living here.

When they exited Rubicia’s tower and left the town of Herbesit, they headed west, in the opposite direction of the ridge where the flame that was not the sun rose each day.

It was hilly to the west of Herbesit, and there were a number of farms, large and small, surrounded by fences. At the farms there were these creatures with rather tiny, child-like bodies turning over the dirt or pulling up these dark gray stalks that looked like weeds. There were a number of times when collared gaugais (inuzarus) on the other side of the fences barked at them.

“Never go inside the fences,” Mr. Unjo strictly ordered them. “It will cause trouble.”

He needn’t have told them that, though, as they had no intention of going inside them. It wasn’t just the tiny laborers who looked like slaves and the gaugais. The farms had lions that stood upright, and muscular humanoids with bull-like heads, too. They were armed. They kept a close eye on the laborers’ work, and also ensured that no intruders entered their farms. If they trespassed, even if the guards didn’t spot the party directly, the gaugais would bark like crazy and alert them.

Once they were past the farms, there were white things covering the gently rising and falling land. They didn’t even need to pick them up to know what they were. They were bones.

The Field of Bones, Zetesidona. According to Mr. Unjo, it was an old battlefield where the forces of Lumiaris and Skullhell had once waged an intense battle, and some great power had caused the death of tens of thousands. The dead had rotted, their possessions had been stolen, and now only bones remained. He said that even those bones were ground up and spread across the farmers’ fields, used effectively as fertilizer. Zetesidona had such a great pile of bones that, even with that, they still hadn’t run out.

When they stepped on a place where the bones were piled deep, there was a risk of them falling through and getting buried. Looking closely, there were spots where dirt peeked through the bones. Those spots were safe.

They had to watch their footing while crossing the Field of Bones. But if they kept their eyes constantly down, that would be dangerous, too.

There were birds called skards here. These carrion birds looked like large crows, but they couldn’t fly much. Their bodies were too heavy. Their leg strength had developed to make up for that, and it was a terrifying sight to see

a skard take aim from afar and then charge in a straight line to tackle its target.

If Haruhiro and the party were sent flying by one of those, and landed in the deep bones, that would be the worst. That was apparently how the skards hunted. They dropped their prey into the deep bone piles so that they couldn’t move, then pecked them from above. They were ferocious birds of prey.

By the time they reached the reddish-brown river, the Dendoro, it was already night. The Dendoro was not a large river, with the opposite bank being only ten meters away, but its current was swift, and it was by no means shallow. They couldn’t walk or swim across it. There was apparently a bridge upstream, but it was far away, so they decided to make camp by the riverside.

When the fire on the ridge set, the carrion birds of the Field of Bones cawed ominously. They could hear them all the way at the riverside, and that made it hard to sleep.

When the skards stopped cawing, the ridge in the distance began to burn. Haruhiro never did get a wink of sleep, but that was nothing new. It was no big deal to him.

They walked along the river, and the bridge came into sight after about a quarter of a day. Haruhiro had a bad feeling about this. When they got closer, the state of the bridge became apparent. The bridge’s piers were all still there, as were the girders, but the planks were gone, making it not much better than a log bridge. Haruhiro the thief might have been fine, but it would be a bit cruel to expect the heavily-armored Kuzaku or Shihoru the mage to make the crossing like that. However, Mr. Unjo said, “This is the only bridge.”

It’s either go on or go back, huh, thought Haruhiro.

It took Shihoru a long time, and there were a number of times when it looked like Kuzaku was going to fall in the river, but they made it across somehow. Mr. Unjo, of course, and the rest of their comrades including Haruhiro, made it without trouble.

There were ruins on the other side of the bridge. Or Haruhiro called them ruins, but they weren’t as intact as the City of the Dead Ones had been. It might have been better to refer to them as the ruins of ruins. However, these ruins of ruins covered a vast stretch of land.

“There was a city called Alluja here,” Mr. Unjo explained. “If you search, you’ll occasionally find tablets.”

“Huh?!” Ranta jumped, then pointed off into the distance. “H-H-H-H-H-

Hey, there, there’s something over there?!”

“Probably just a pillar or something...” Haruhiro put his hand on the hilt of his short sword just to be safe and squinted at it. In the end, whatever Ranta had pointed at didn’t move. It did look person-shaped, but he’d give good odds that it was just the wreckage of a building. —No...?

Haruhiro lowered his hips and drew his short sword. “It just moved, maybe? That thing, just now...”

“See!” Ranta held his black blade at the ready, hiding behind Mr. Unjo. “T-Take it out, Unjo-san! I’ll back you up! Totally!”

“Yeah, I’m sure you totally will...” Kuzaku got his longsword and shield ready so that he could use them at any moment, then moved up. “There’s something, right? Something here.”

“Logoks,” Mr. Unjo said. “Tree people, they’re called.” He drew the ax hanging from his hip.

The thing that had looked like the wreckage of a building was walking towards them with swaying steps. Gradually picking up speed. It was coming. Running towards them. The logok. A tree person. It certainly looked like a tree. It had a stump-like torso with leg-like and arm-like branches—no, maybe branch-like arms and legs? Anyway, it movements were awkward, but it wasn’t slow.

Kuzaku was ready to meet it head-on, but Mr. Unjo threw his ax. The ax spun through the air, then chopped off one of the logok’s legs. The logok lost its balance and tripped.

“Logoks don’t die,” Mr. Unjo calmly explained. “Smash it, and keep it from moving.”

“Roger Wilco!” Ranta sprang at the logok and chopped it up with his black blade. “Ohohohoho! Easy peasy! Gahahahahahaha!”

“Listen, man...” Haruhiro was so disgusted with Ranta that it felt horrible. “Meow!” Yume let out a strange cry. “There’re still more!”

Haruhiro had figured as much. Well, no, not actually, but it isn’t strange that there are more. Looking around, I see other humanoid figures have popped up. Popped up? Maybe that’s not the right word. Anyway, they’re probably logoks. Five, six of them. More maybe.

“They’re not strong,” Mr. Unjo said as he drew another weapon from his pack. “However, they’re numerous, and troublesome.”

“I’ll watch Shihoru!” Merry held her head staff and stood with Shihoru

behind her.

Shihoru nodded, as if to say, I have Merry here, so don’t worry about me. They’re numerous and troublesome, Haruhiro thought, remembering what

Mr. Unjo had said. It was true, there were a lot of them. To get into rough numbers, by the time they were able to take a break, they had dismantled forty of the things. Fifty, possibly.

Ranta was wheezing, exhausted, and down on all-fours. “A-Are are we gonna h-have to fight these things f-forever...?”

“No. I’ll use this.” Mr. Unjo picked up a dried branch that looked like it had once been a logok’s arm or leg. When he lit it aflame, a white smoke rose up from it and let off a bittersweet smell. It wasn’t intolerable, but it was far from pleasant.

“...Um, does the stench drive off logoks?” Haruhiro asked, trying not to breath through his nose.

“Yup.” Mr. Unjo looked around. “Just to be safe, take as much as we can.”

“Yuck,” Ranta complained, kicking around pieces of logok. “This stuff stinks. It smells nasty. —Bwuh?!” Mr. Unjo had kicked him in the butt. “I- I’m sorry! I-I-It smells lovely, right?! It’s a sweet smell, yeah?! Okay, time to pick up as much as I can!”

Well, Haruhiro didn’t think Mr. Unjo would kick any of them other than Ranta, but he didn’t want logoks swarming them everywhere they went, either, so they all worked hard to gather up pieces of logok. How long was it after they started walking again that it happened?

Haruhiro turned back. Had he imagined it? He faced forward again, and walked.

...Huh? No, there was something strange, after all.

Haruhiro raised his hand, having everyone stop. “Um, Unjo-san?” “What?”

“We’re not being followed... right?”

“It’s possible,” Mr. Unjo said like it was nothing. “The smell of logok repels logoks. However, in exchange, it draws in nivles.”

“Nipples?” Yume tilted her head to the side. “What’re those?” Mr. Unjo pulled his braided hat down. “...It’s nivles.”

“You moron.” Ranta pointed at his own chest. “If it were nipples, you’ve got a pair. Why would nipples come up here? Are you nipple-obsessed or

something, Yume?”

“...So, what is a nivle?” Shihoru ignored Ranta and asked.

“Lizards,” Mr. Unjo responded immediately. “About four meters long.” “Four!” Kuzaku let out a short, strange laugh. “...K-Kinda big, huh?” “It’s certainly...” Merry looked around. “...not small, no.”

Mr. Unjo drew the ax at his hip. “They’re less like lizards, and more like small dragons.”

“Oh, man...” Haruhiro slouched forward. His stomach hurt. “Personally, I don’t want to meet any dragons... Not here... No, not anywhere...”

“Y-Y-Yeah, w-w-well, I say I w-w-wanna meet ’em!” Ranta declared. “You’re sayin’ that, Ranta, but your voice is shakin’.”

“Y-Y-Y-Yume! Why’re you perfectly calm?! It’s a dragon, dammit! You know, a dragon?!”

“Y’think they’re cute, these drangos?” “Not drangos, dragons, you dolt!” “Yume’s not a dolt!”

“H-H-H-H-H-Here it comes...!” Haruhiro exhaled strongly.

The creature was around five meters to the rear. It had peeked out from around the corner of a ruined wall. It stood less than a meter tall, but it was big for a four-legged animal. Really big. It was a deep green lizard—or more like a crocodile? No, a dragon? It had a fleshy crest on top of its head.

“Do we... run?” Haruhiro hesitantly asked Unjo for advice.

“They’re persistent,” he said. “It’ll chase us for days. We have to take it out. It’s poisonous. If you’re bitten, it will be serious. Be careful.”

“Yes, sir...” Haruhiro responded like a kid without meaning to.

That’s no good. I need to keep it together. I’ve probably been loosening up because Mr. Unjo is with us. I’m the leader here. The leader, Haruhiro told himself. When there’s a reliable person beside me, I depend on them. I’m a weak person. It happens every time, but I still don’t like it. Yeah. I’m weak. I really am hopelessly weak, so I need to at least try to keep it together.

The nivle steadily walked towards them. Its footsteps were practically silent. It was a wonder he had noticed it before. If he hadn’t, it might have ambushed them eventually. Even if they had run their fastest and thought they’d managed to shake it, it might still be sneaking up behind them.

Mr. Unjo was right. They had to settle this here.

“Kuzaku, I’m counting on you,” Haruhiro said. “Take the head. Yume and

Ranta, the sides. Merry, stay with Shihoru. Shihoru, support us with Dark. Use whatever timing works best for you. Unjo-san, if it comes down to it, please help.”

“Very well,” Mr. Unjo responded, his voice sounding just a little bit kind. Haruhiro probably had some pretty sleepy eyes right now.

“...Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

15.    Because He Has a Reason

Alluja had once been a massive city. There were even theories that said it had been prosperous before the conflict between Lumiaris and Skullhell began.

It took a whole day to cross the ruins of Great Alluja. During that time, they took a number of breaks, and those who could manage to nap did so, but even if they could set aside their fear of logoks, they’d be afraid of nivles.

It turned out that nivles mainly fed on logoks, but humans were much more appetizing to them. If they saw, heard, or otherwise detected a human, they really would chase them to the ends of the world. Not only that, they didn’t just blindly attack; they were also nasty about finding good openings to do so.

Mr. Unjo said they were four meters long, but that varied by individual specimen, and they ranged anywhere from three meters long to close to five meters for the largest. The males were crested, while the females weren’t.

The larger and more showy their crest, the more violent a male was, but those ones would attack them head-on with confidence, making them easier to handle. Surprisingly, it was the females that were more subdued in their appearance that were dangerous. The females were calculating, and fast, too. They made fearsome opponents.

Haruhiro and the others took down seven nivles as they crossed the ruined city. Four male, three female. Every fight had been to the death. They were just fortunate that nivles didn’t hunt in groups. If they’d had to face more than one of those things at the same time, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Nivle hides apparently sold for a good price, but they were also bulky, so it didn’t feel worth lugging them along. They tried cooking and eating their meat, and it wasn’t disgusting or anything.

When they came to the end of the ruins, there was a downhill slope. The incline wasn’t particularly steep, but it went down a long way. It was like it was going all the way into the depths of the earth. It went down so far that, even during the day, it got so dark that they couldn’t see what was in front of them.

If they hadn’t had Mr. Unjo there to guide them, they would never have gone down. It was kind of scary, after all.

“Um, what’s past here...?” Haruhiro worked up the courage to ask. “Orcs,” Mr. Unjo answered, as indifferent as he always was. “Walk?” Yume repeated.

No, Yume, thought Haruhiro, that’s not it. What are you walking for?

Well, we are walking, though.

“Wait...” Merry checked with him, “By orcs, do you mean...?” “They’re similar to them, at least,” Mr. Unjo said as he descended the

slope one step at a time. “Besides, they’re called orcs here in Darunggar, too.”

“Whoa!” Ranta shuddered. “Well, damn. Now I’ve got goosebumps. It’s like, you know. In our world, orcs are the enemy, but here, I almost feel an affinity with them... Well, no, not quite, but still...”

Mr. Unjo snorted. “They’re the enemy here, too.”

“Those orcs,” Shihoru said in a voice as quiet as the buzzing of a mosquito, “could they have come from Grimgar...?”

“The entrance to the exit...” Kuzaku whispered to himself.

Mr. Unjo simply said, “Who knows?” Then, after a long silence, as if he were recalling it for the first time in a long time, he said, “This might have been their homeland.”

The hill was rocky, but it was covered in fine pebbles that were like sand.

Because of that, they had to be careful or their feet would slip.

The slope was apparently nivle-free. That was probably because the logoks they mainly preyed upon lived in Alluja.

Here and there, there were holes of about a meter in diameter. Mr. Unjo avoided them. When asked why, he said, “Because there are gujis.”

From what he told them, a guji was a creature somewhere between a monkey and a bear, and they would fight to the death to defend their dens. If you poked at their den even a little, sometimes more than ten gujis would come out, and it would turn into a huge problem. If you could catch them,

gujis were edible, but they were muscly and their meat was unusually tough, even cooked. If you stewed it until it softened, the broth was supposed to be good. Not that they were going to catch one, or stew it.

Eventually, they started to see red lights here and there. The temperature was rising, too. It was a little hot. There was steam rising all over. The word “crater” flashed through Haruhiro’s mind. Could the lights be lava... maybe? They passed by one of them soon enough. It was bubbling and steaming.

No joke, it looked like it really was lava. If they slipped and fell in, they’d get worse than just burned.

They came across a river, too. It wasn’t even knee-deep, and the water was more than just lukewarm—it was kind of hot. Not too hot, though.

“A hot spring?” Merry questioned. “Mixed bathing!” Ranta exclaimed.

“Not a chance!” Yume whacked Ranta in the back of the head.

“It’s potable, too,” Mr. Unjo said, gesturing to the hot spring river with his chin. “The taste is strange, but it won’t cause indigestion. We’ll rest here.”

The party didn’t go in for mixed bathing, obviously, but they dug a bathing hole in the side of the river, and the guys and girls took turns washing themselves. Mr. Unjo volunteered to act as a lookout, thankfully.

“I dunno what to say...” Kuzaku said once he had sunk in up to his shoulders. “Doesn’t it just make you feel glad to be alive? Is it just me? Like, I could die satisfied right now. Nah, I don’t want to die, though. Feels good...”

“I know how you feel...” Haruhiro scooped up some of the water in his hands, gently washing his face. “This is nice. I mean, damn, this is the best...”

“Whaddaya mean?” Ranta crossed his arms. “I’m disappointed in the two of you! We totally coulda gotten them to get in with us. If you two had just agreed with me, they’d have been like, ‘Well, this time, I guess we’ll have to.’ Are you morons? Just how shitty do you guys have to be?”

“...I’m kind of curious on what grounds you think there was any chance they’d have gone along with it?” Haruhiro asked.

“Huh? It’s all about feelings, man, feelings. They say when you’re traveling, you should leave your sense of shame behind, right? If everyone did that, they’d be down for some mixed bathing, don’t you think? I mean, the girls aren’t stupid.”

“Well, Yume, Shihoru, and Merry aren’t stupid like you, so they wouldn’t

think that.”

“Oh, shut up! I wanted to do some mixed bathing! I wanna bathe with some girls! I wannaaaaa!”

“You’re like some kind of mixed bathing fiend, huh?” Kuzaku sighed deeply. “Man, this feels good...”

Maybe because he’d had a good bath, or due to lack of sleep, Haruhiro slept well. Yume had to shake him awake, and he felt sorry about that.

Mr. Unjo told them that he had once survived using this Hot Spring River as his watering hole. That was apparently when he had eaten guji meat, too.

Once they crossed the Hot Spring River and continued onward, the ground leveled out. The moment they noticed, though, a steep cliff rose up in their way. It wasn’t a dead end. There were fissures in the cliff.

The fissures snaked inwards, narrowing and broadening. They couldn’t see even a few meters ahead, which made them feel incredibly uneasy. Had Mr. Unjo found this path and come through on his own?

If Haruhiro had found himself in Mr. Unjo’s position... he couldn’t have done it. He didn’t even need to think about it. It would’ve been impossible for him. He didn’t have the ability, or the attachment to life.

When he was doing something for his comrades, Haruhiro could try pretty hard. But when it came to himself, he was useless. He couldn’t bear the pain, the suffering, or even the lack of hope. For better or for worse, that was just who Haruhiro was as a person.

How about his comrades? Kuzaku, Yume, Shihoru, and Merry were probably all pretty close to Haruhiro in that regard. It might be that the only one who could have held in there for his own sake was Ranta.

This was probably a strength of the party, and also a weakness. They could all get along, with one exception, and they could cooperate, but looking at it more harshly, they were all highly codependent, and fragile when it came down to it. If even one of them died, they’d likely lose the will to put up a proper fight. It wasn’t a situation he wanted to think about, but it was something he had to think about as leader. This was enemy territory, after all.

“Whoaaaaaa...” Ranta breathed.

He sounded like an idiot. But, well, it was an incredible view, you could say.

At the end of the twisted fissure path, a majestic view appeared before them.

They could see hundreds, maybe thousands, of streams of lava rising and falling as they spread out. There were hills. There were mountains. There were boulders. There were buildings, big and small.

Yes.

Most were carved out of boulders, but they were most certainly buildings. They were reinforced and decorated with iron struts, and there was a building that looked like some sort of shrine or temple, too. There were towers.

Though they weren’t high-rises, there were some medium-sized buildings here, too.

Sandwiched between two narrow flows of lava, that road—yes, it really was a road—the road, the city streets, stretched from one to the other. There were large buildings facing onto the big streets, and rows of tiny little buildings facing onto the small ones.

The sky was already dark. It was night. But thanks to the lava, this was a town with no night.

A town.

That was a town. Or perhaps a city.

“...No way.” Kuzaku’s voice cracked as he spoke. “Is—” Haruhiro couldn’t find the words to speak.

“Is that...” Shihoru asked in a vanishingly small voice. “The orcs’ town?

All of it...?”

“Whew,” said Yume. “Sure is a big city, huh?” Yume was taking it easy. Too easy, if anything.

“Is that it?” Merry asked the question Haruhiro had wanted to. “The entrance to the exit?”

“Yes.” For some reason, there was a slight laughter in Mr. Unjo’s voice. “That is the entrance to the exit. I came through that city, Waluandin.”

“They’re our enemies, yeah?” Kuzaku rubbed his lower back. “The orcs...”

“Clearly,” Mr. Unjo declared. “The orcs won’t let anyone but their fellow orcs go. Livestock are a separate matter, however.”

“Y-Y’think we should let them raise us? Might be easier—” Ranta looked to the others, then cleared his throat. “I-I’m kidding, obviously. There’s no way I’d be serious, y-you morons.”

“Might not be a bad move.” Mr. Unjo stroked his beard. “More realistic than running through there, at least.”

“I-I-I-I know, right? Right? Heheheheheheheheheh...”

“He’s being sarcastic...” Haruhiro sighed. “Figure that much out on your own.”

“Shut up! I knew that! I was just playing stupid, you moron!” Ranta hollered.

“So...” Yume puffed up her cheeks and pointed towards the city of Waluandin. “What now? We’re already here, y’know. It’d be nice to try gettin’ closer.”

“Yume-san’s got guts...” Kuzaku looked seriously put off by what she was suggesting.

“Well, only if it’s not dangerous, y’know?” Yume said. “If it’d be dangerous, Yume thinks we’d be better off leavin’, too.”

“It’d obviously be dangerous!” Ranta stomped his feet. “You should know that much!”

“If it’s just a li’l bit dangerous, it might be might be fine!”

“It might not be...” Shihoru looked ready to collapse at any moment. “Wh-Where...” Haruhiro pressed on his throat. He had to man up. He

might be in shock, but he’d been prepared for this to a degree. Though, only to a degree. “Where did you come through? Unjo-san. I mean, like, what area?”

“I don’t remember. I was desperate.” Mr. Unjo slowly laid down his backpack, crouching next to it. “The one thing I do know for certain is that two of my comrades died in Waluandin. Iehata and Akina. They were killed by orcs, and I escaped. Alone.”

From what Mr. Unjo tersely told them after that, his party had encountered difficulties on the border of the former kingdoms of Nananka and Ishmal.

The territory of the former Kingdom of Nananka was overrun with orcs, and the former Kingdom of Ishmal was undead territory. Mr. Unjo and his comrades, back when he was still young and full of vigor, had daringly stormed into the enemy’s main base and fought evenly with powerful undead. However, one day, they’d been caught by a surprise attack, and one of their comrades, the thief Katsumi, died.

While they’d been running around in enemy territory, they’d wandered into a foggy area and gotten lost. They’d passed through a cave and come out into a dark mountainous area with rivers of lava, where they’d thought they

were safe. Although, when they’d seen the lizards leisurely swimming in those rivers, they had sensed something was off.

Fortunately, those lizards, which they’d decided should be called salamanders, hadn’t attacked them, but then a terrifying dragon had eaten the salamanders. Mr. Unjo’s party had been chased by that dark red dragon, the fire dragon.

Two of Mr. Unjo’s comrades, the paladin Ukita and the mage Matsuro, had apparently been eaten by that fire dragon. While they were being devoured, the hunter Unjo, the warrior Iehata, and the priest Akina had fled as fast as they could.

And then they’d reached Waluandin. What had awaited them there was thousands, tens of thousands of orcs.

Haruhiro tried sorting out his thoughts.

There were currently two ways out of Darunggar.

The first option was to take the route they’d come through. They would return to Well Village, then travel through the good old nest of gremlins to reach the Dusk Realm. However, the northern forest was infested with the mist moths called yegyorns. Well, they had been fine on the way here, so they could probably make it back... but that wasn’t something Haruhiro was optimistic enough to think. It was a miracle that they had made it to Well Village without encountering any yegyorns. He couldn’t expect the miracle to happen twice.

If they were going to count on a miracle to get them to the Dusk Realm, that was a huge gamble. Even if it worked out, was there any hope for them in the Dusk Realm? He couldn’t say there was none, but they would have to hunt for that seed of hope while being chased around by the cultists, the white giants, and the hydras. That didn’t sound easy. It sounded really, incredibly difficult.

The second option was to somehow get through the Fire Dragon Mountain that was on the other side of Waluandin, then somehow reach the foggy place. That was in dangerous enemy territory, but even setting that aside for the moment, Waluandin was going to be a problem. Was there no way to reach Fire Dragon Mountain without passing through Waluandin, which was packed full of orcs? Even if there was some good way of doing it, there was still the fire dragon there.

—Yeah, no.

He couldn’t see any potential there. Zero. Those were the odds, or very close to them.

What then?

It might be time to accept things as they were. They would forget Grimgar for now, and live here. Here in Darunggar. If nothing special came up, they might live out the rest of their lives in this place.

What did they have to do to manage that? They had to share their knowledge, work together, and build a stable basis for their lifestyles. Step by step. They could move forward at their own pace, without rushing things.

Could they live in such a different world without any issues? They had Mr. Unjo as a living testament to the fact it was possible. Mr. Unjo was awfully pale, probably due to a lack of sun, but he seemed healthy enough. They could live for a decade or two.

With the reality shoved in Haruhiro’s face, it finally began to set in.

Hey, it could work, right? This place is fine in its own way. I mean, Grimgar wasn’t our homeland to begin with—I’m pretty sure. When we came to, we were in Grimgar. We were forced to live there. That’s all.

This world was dark. Too dark, honestly, and it left him feeling gloomy. He didn’t know the language well, either. Besides, there were basically no humans. It was full of danger. He had a lot of concerns about the place, but they could probably be overcome. They’d get used to it eventually.

Besides, unlike Mr. Unjo, Haruhiro still had his comrades. He wasn’t alone. His circumstances weren’t as bad as Mr. Unjo’s.

Even as he realized it wasn’t like him to do this, he dared to think cheerfully and optimistically about the future.

Grimgar had been the first chapter in their story. Now, the second chapter had begun in Darunggar. There would probably be a third and fourth chapter to come. He hoped it would continue on, at least.

The next stage might be here in Darunggar, or maybe elsewhere. He’d never been able to predict where it was going before. This was the same. It was all a big unknown. Things might not always be good, but they shouldn’t always be bad, either. If there were troubles, there had to be joys to be found, too. Even in gloomy Darunggar, it wasn’t all darkness. There was light, too.

“Well.” Mr. Unjo stood up and shouldered his pack. “I think you get it now. That there’s no returning to Grimgar. You see now the reasons why. I’m going back to Herbesit. You do as you please.”

Haruhiro closed his eyes and nodded. He couldn’t stand for them to be left behind here. They would turn back, too. It wouldn’t be right to impose upon Mr. Unjo’s kindness too much, but he wanted to maintain a good relationship with the man. After all, they were fellow humans, and volunteer soldiers— no, former volunteer soldiers. Mr. Unjo was their senior in that respect.

Haruhiro wanted to be able to count on his advice and tutelage going forward.

For now, thought Haruhiro, let’s follow Mr. Unjo, doing our best not to be too much of a burden, and not to annoy him. Let’s do that.

“We’re—” Haruhiro began to say, but then his eyes went wide. “...Seriously?”

He stuck his hand down his shirt and pulled that thing out.

At a time like this? I mean, seriously?

It was a black, flat, stone-like object. But it was no rock. It vibrated, and the lower end was glowing green.

“The receiver...” Shihoru whispered.

“What’s that?” Mr. Unjo pushed up the brim of his braided hat, his eyes shining. “Is it an otherworldly item?”

“Haruhiro,” came the voice from the receiver.

“...Soma-san.” Haruhiro’s hands, and his voice, trembling and shaking even harder than the receiver.

His comrades gathered around, desperate to hear what he’d say.

“Are you listening?” Soma’s voice said. “Haruhiro. How many times have I called you now? We’re in Grimgar. Akira and Tokimune and their groups are all right, too.”

“Oh, man...” Ranta was half tearing up. “Yeah, of course... Of course they would be. Damn straight they’re all right. Man, I just... I’m so glad. Yeah.

We’re in a bad spot, but I’m glad...”

“Haruhiro. Ranta. Yume. Shihoru. Merry. Kuzaku,” Soma’s voice said. “I know you’re all out there somewhere, listening to this. I believe in you.”

“...Damn.” Kuzaku held his head. “Soma-san called me by name...” “How many times—” Merry hung her head.

How many times has he called? was probably what she meant to ask. “We’re looking forward to seeing you all again,” Soma said. “It’s not just

me. Everyone’s saying that.”

“Whew...” Yume fell flat on her butt.

“Kemuri,” Soma’s voice added.

“Hmm,” said Kemuri’s voice. “How’s it going?” “Shima.”

“Yeah,” said Shima’s voice. “...Haruhiro. Do you remember what I said?

Let’s talk about it next time.”

“Hm? What’s this about?” asked Soma. “Oh, my. Does it interest you, Soma?”

“Yeah. It does. Well, I guess it’s fine. Here, Lilia.”

“I have nothing to say to a bunch of immature kids,” said Lilia. “Just... try to be careful. Believe in yourself, and your comrades. You must always look and listen to what’s important, and turn your heart to the light, not the darkness. If you never stop walking, eventually you’ll find a path. Now, listen here. If you give up, I will never forgive you. Th-That’s all!”

“For having nothing to say, she’s sure talking a lot, huh?!” Ranta sniffled. “Ohhh, Lilia-san’s so cuuuute! I wanna see her again...”

“Pingo?” said Soma.

“Drop dead. Uheheheh... I kid. Hey, Soma... You can try to make Zenmai talk, but it won’t work. You moron... Uheheheh...”

“Oh, I see,” said Soma. “Well, it’s not just us. Akira-san, Miho-san, Gogh-san, Kayo-san, Branken, and Taro, too, they’re all worried about you. Then there’s Rock, Kajita, Moyugi, Kuro, Sakanami, Tsuga, Io, Katazu, Tasukete, Jam, Tonbe, and Gomi. You haven’t met them yet, I guess. I told them all about you guys. Everyone’s interested in you.”

“The Rocks and Io-sama’s Squad!” Ranta squirmed a little. “And wait, what kind of names are Tasukete and Gomi? That’s like being called Help Me and Trash! Well, whatever, I hear Io-sama is a total hottie. Damn, I wanna see her...”

“He never lets up...” Shihoru said coldly. “But—”

“Haruhiro.” Soma called each of their names once more, as if carving them out. “Ranta. Yume. Shihoru. Merry. Kuzaku. We’ll be waiting. See you.”

The receiver stopped vibrating, and the light on the lower end vanished. Haruhiro was still holding the receiver, unable to even breathe properly. “Akira, he said?” Mr. Unjo suddenly let out a low laugh. “And Gogh?

Preposterous. It’s impossible. No way...”

“...You know them?” Kuzaku hesitantly asked.

“I know of them—” Mr. Unjo stopped and let out a sigh. “They’re not necessarily the same people. They’re different people with the same names. Most likely...”

Akira and Gogh were the same age, and had both been volunteer soldiers for twenty years. Haruhiro didn’t know their exact ages, but he figured they were probably in their forties. Mr. Unjo had to be around there, too. It wouldn’t be strange if he did know them.

Haruhiro took a deep breath. His mind was still numbed to the core. “I think they must be Akira-san and Gogh-san.”

“Soman was sayin’ he called a buncha times,” Yume said in a fluffy, half- dreaming voice. “So why’d we never hear it before now?”

“Hold on, Soman—” Haruhiro started to correct her, but decided against

it.

The nickname’s fine, I guess, he thought. No, maybe it isn’t? I wonder. I

don’t really know anymore.

“Maybe...” Merry looked beyond Waluandin. “...it’s because we’re close?”

“That’s it!” Ranta pointed at Merry. “Merry, girl, you’re smart! Well, I’d figured that out, too, and was just about to say it, though!”

“Girl? Huh? What?” asked Merry. “I take it you never want to get healed again?”

“...Ah! Sorry, I-I got a little too chummy there. I need to be more polite, milady. My bad. No, seriously, seriously. It won’t happen again. So, forgive me! Pwease!”

“That pwease was infuriating...” Shihoru muttered. Haruhiro agreed.

But setting that aside for now...

“We’re close, huh?” Haruhiro looked down at the receiver. “I see. So we’re close. We’re close to Grimgar.”

Yume held her hand tightly against the center of her chest. “Yume, she wants to go home. Yume wants to see Master, too. If she couldn’t ever see him again, well, Yume wouldn’t like that.”

“Yeah...” Kuzaku looked up to the dark sky. “I’ve gotta agree.”

Stop it, Haruhiro thought. Please, just stop. Don’t tell me the truth like that.

Because even if that’s how you really feel, it’s just not possible. If you

were to ask if I want to go home or not, yeah, I wanna go home. I mean, I wouldn’t even joke about wanting to stay here forever. What choice do we have, though? If we try to go back, we’re guaranteed to be risking our lives. If we do risk them, there’s no guarantee it’ll pay off, and I can’t imagine it would.

I can’t be adventurous like that. I can’t let you be, either. I don’t want to lose anyone. I don’t want to let you die. We’re gonna live. All of us. That’s the best option.

“If you give up, I will never forgive you,” Lilia had said. What was that supposed to mean? That they should not give up, and they should struggle, and survive? Or...

“We’ll be waiting,” Soma had said, too.

“See you,” he’d said.

“We can’t take risks,” Haruhiro said clearly. “Not risks that are that big, no way. But what we can do is secure our safety, while taking our time to look for a way.”

“Huh?” Ranta crossed his arms and cocked his head to the side. “What’s that mean, basically?”

“...Huh?” Kuzaku asked. “Are you stupid?”

“Kuzacky! You’re mocking your super senior! I’ll throw shit at you, you jerk!”

“That’s filthy! Geez!” Yume scowled. “Basically, it means that. It means that, right? So... it’s that, right? Right...?”

“You don’t get it either!” Ranta shouted.

“We’ll do our best not to put ourselves in danger, and we’ll stay careful,” Shihoru said emphatically. “We continuously move forward with our investigation, and if someday, we reach our goal—”

“—we can go back,” Merry finished for her. She bit her lip. “To Grimgar.”

“That’s what it means, right?” Ranta said, puffing up his chest arrogantly. “I know that, you moron.”

With his pack on his back again, Mr. Unjo turned to go. “Do as you please.”

Even if he could return, Mr. Unjo wouldn’t. It might not be for a simple reason like, I have Rubicia, but he would still choose to stay in Darunggar. That was what it felt like.

Well, different strokes for different folks.

Haruhiro bowed his head deeply. “Umm... thank you so much, Unjo-san.

For everything. Really!”

Mr. Unjo stopped. He didn’t turn back. “...Don’t die, my juniors.”

16.    A Good Day to Wait for a Better Day

There was a mountain of things that needed to be considered, and a mountain of things that needed to be done.

For a start, Haruhiro decided to test how close he could actually get to Waluandin. He didn’t need his comrades for that. Or rather, Haruhiro was better off on his own. In fact, not operating solo would have been bad.

Haruhiro made use of Stealth, which Barbara-sensei had taught him, and headed towards Waluandin alone.

Waluandin seemed to have been built at the foot of Fire Dragon Mountain. There was a basin at the foot of the mountain. Haruhiro was trying to cut across the basin to reach Waluandin, but it wasn’t exactly an empty field. There were villages dotted around the basin.

The villages were made up of anywhere from ten to a few dozen igloo- like buildings, and there were hot springs welling up all over the place.

Though it was from a distance, he even managed to spot the residents.

They were humanoid and green-skinned. With smushed noses. Large tusks protruded from their mouths. They had broad, thick frames, and were tall, too. From every angle, they looked just like orcs. They couldn’t be anything else. They wore nothing but short pants, going naked up top. It wasn’t just warm here, it was kind of hot, so they probably didn’t need shirts. Their whole bodies were smooth. Did they shave, or just not grow body hair?

Incidentally, there were female orcs, too, and they wrapped cloth around their chests and heads.

The orcs in the villages were digging in the dirt, and doing some sort of work at a shelf. He was able to observe them raising large caterpillar-like creatures in pens. They were a bit like the pigworms he had seen before at the Cyrene Mines. Were they for eating, perhaps?

There were holes dug in the ground, and he was able to see that they were doing something or another inside of them. These were farming villages, possibly producing food for Waluandin.

The farmer orcs had such impressive physiques that Haruhiro grew worried. No, these were farmers, so they had grown strong by working every day, and that was why they had such muscular bodies. He wanted to think that was it.

But aren’t all of them, male or female, bigger than the ones we fought at Deadhead Watching Keep? he thought. Am I imagining that? I hope so...

The orc villagers were busy working, so they never noticed Haruhiro.

What if he hadn’t been alone, and his comrades had come with him? It was hard to say, but if he’d paid the utmost attention to their every move, it might have been manageable. Besides, the orcs probably didn’t work day in and day out. Because of the lava, it was hard to tell how bright the sky was, but, well, he figured they went home and slept at night.

Whatever the case, Haruhiro was able to slip past the orc villages without difficulty. Of course, it took a fair amount of time. If he went by his unreliable internal sense of time, it took maybe three hours. If he kept the path he took in his head, he could probably shave that down by half. The problem would be everything that came after that.

Beyond the area with the villages, there was a river of lava flowing. If they crossed it, they’d be in the city streets of Waluandin. This river was less than a meter across, there were many bridges across it, and they could probably even jump over it. It seemed like it was a simple borderline.

The city streets were lined with square-ish buildings. Based on the layout of their windows, they were all two-story, but they were awfully short for that to be the case. It looked like the first floor must be half-underground. Their doors probably all faced away from the river.

Haruhiro saw a number of orcs sitting in the doorless windows with their legs dangling down. They were awfully thin and tiny for orcs. Children.

Could he cross the river without being spotted by the orc children, and successfully enter the city? Haruhiro was cowardly, so he didn’t really feel up to it. He was sure it would be suicide to enter Waluandin from the front.

Haruhiro followed the river of magma to the left, continuing on and on.

Eventually, he started to hear a familiar sound. This was the sound of hammers. In a large workshop which was just a bunch of poles with a roof

over them, there were some way-too-muscular orcs swinging their hammers.

Waluandin’s smithy made effective use of lava. They didn’t have to light fires, just draw high-temperature lava into their furnace. It probably wasn’t just the smithy; nowhere in Waluandin would have any need for fuel. It would be incredibly dangerous if they messed up, but still convenient.

The workshop district went on for quite a ways. The orcs of Waluandin worked metal, manufacturing quite a variety of products in large quantities. Naturally, that meant that they needed raw materials.

When Haruhiro reached the end of the workshop district, the lava river came to a stop, and a rock wall appeared. He didn’t think there was any way he could climb that rock wall, but there were holes bored into it. Large holes.

The orcs went in and out of them. They were pushing wagons filled with something. It had to be ore. There was an ore pile, too. This had to be a mine.

He saw an orc who seemed to have a foreman-like role, too. That orc wore shoulder and hip guards that gave off a dim light, carried a long stick, and acted like he was important. He was also noticeably larger than the rest.

This was all just Haruhiro eyeballing things, but the orcs in the farming villages had been two meters and thirty centimeters, maybe? The orcs working the smithy hadn’t been taller, but they’d had much broader shoulders and thicker frames. The miner orcs were around the same as the farmer orcs, maybe? The foreman orc, though, looking at him, he might well be a full three meters.

There was one more thing.

Haruhiro had initially thought that the big orc was something like a foreman. But that was wrong.

There was more than one big orc. There were several. Although there was less than one of them for every ten miner orcs. It was possible that, rather than a difference in position, they belonged to a different social class.

Either way, if they were that well-built, and armed to boot, they had to be tough. The mine looked dangerous.

When he finished his investigation of Waluandin, Haruhiro headed back to where his comrades were.

Ranta asked, “Well? How was it? Huh? Huh? Huh?” and made a real pain of himself, so while Haruhiro was eating some of the less-than-delicious preserved food they’d brought with them, he quickly related what he had seen. He was a little... no, incredibly... tired, so he laid down and passed out.

When he woke, his comrades, who had been taking shifts observing the villages while Haruhiro was sleeping, had a report for him.

Yume went first. “In the night, the orcies, they go beddy-bye, like you were thinkin’.”

When Yume described them, the orcs turned into orcies, and it made them sound like adorable little creatures, but that was an illusion, of course.

“But for Waluandin, there wasn’t much of a change... I think?” Shihoru didn’t seem confident. “I do know the villages were asleep until a little while ago, though.”

“I was out like a light and didn’t see anything, got it?” Ranta announced. “Why do you sound so proud?” Merry sounded absolutely mystified.

“Because you’re off in the head? Because you’re rotten to the core? Hey, why is it? Could you tell me?”

“Excuuuuse meeee,” Ranta sneered. “Haven’t you been a bit harsh with the jabs at me lately? It wouldn’t kill you to be a bit nicer, okay?”

“I dunno about that...” Kuzaku muttered.

“Hey, Kuzacky! You’re my underling! Don’t try to get smart with me!” Today, the party decided to try slipping past the villages as a group.

Haruhiro wished he could leave just Ranta behind, but he couldn’t.

Though Haruhiro had gotten the hang of it during his solo scouting trip yesterday, he had also foreseen the difficulties involved. When they actually tried it, just having the six of them walking together made them stand out to an unusual degree. Even though there were places where he had been able to lay low when he was alone, they were often too tight for a group of six. He tried to follow the same basic route he had taken the other day, but they were almost discovered by farmer orcs on multiple occasions. It took a lot of time and effort to move forward even a little, so Haruhiro occasionally felt ready to give in and turn back.

With the exception of Ranta, his comrades were cooperative, and they followed Haruhiro’s orders obediently. But that was about all they did. If Haruhiro didn’t think, make a decision, and then tell them to do this or that, none of them would do anything. That was probably because there was nothing they could do. They had no choice. He understood that, but it still pissed him off.

There were times when he felt ready to snap. When he did, he’d take a deep breath. He couldn’t help getting emotional. He just had to make sure he

didn’t let his emotions control him. Actually, if he let his emotions swing him around, he’d get exhausted, and that could lead to mistakes.

This was just going by his internal sense of time, but it took four, maybe five hours to reach Waluandin. Even if they were to repeat the trip over and over, they weren’t likely to see any drastic reductions in that time. For Haruhiro alone, it had probably taken an hour and a half. That meant it had taken three times longer with six people. They would burn a third of a day just to go there and come back.

Hiding themselves near the lava river in front of Waluandin was hard for six people, too. Haruhiro was a thief, so even without objects to hide behind, he could lie down or crouch down and use Stealth in some cases, but that was out of the question for his comrades. If they stayed in one place, they’d be found. They had to keep moving.

The blacksmiths were to the left, and the mine was past there. Haruhiro and the others went right. Occasionally there were orc children sitting in the windows of the square-ish buildings across the river of lava. They were looking around a lot, so the party had to be careful.

“Orcies’re cute when they’re little,” Yume whispered quietly. “How?” Ranta spat distastefully. “You call them little, but they’re

probably bigger than you or me...” “Size’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

“Yeah, it does. They’ve got some pretty vicious looking mugs, too...” “They’re just lookin’ out here ’cause they’re bored,” Yume said. “Ranta,

you’re just seein’ ’em that way ’cause you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Ranta retorted. “In a fight, I could take them easy. If you think I’m lying, I don’t mind proving it. I mean, I’m not scared, after all. I’m seriously not scared.”

Thanks to this idiot (and piece of trash), Haruhiro broke into a cold sweat, worried that the orc children would detect them, but fortunately nothing like that ever happened. They did, however, come to a dead end.

When they reached the edge of the square-ish, two-story buildings, it opened up past there. That’s not to say it was an empty lot. There was an incredible number of orcs. It was noisy. With all the voices, it sounded almost like they were shouting at one another. With all those things laid out on the ground, was that one selling stuff? Was it a shop? There were carts, too. He spotted orcs who were standing or sitting as they ate and drank. It

was like a marketplace and an area for entertainment rolled into one. It looked like it was pretty chaotic. Haruhiro didn’t know what was so fun about jumping back and forth around a river of lava, but there were orcs laughing with their throaty voices, too.

It was dangerous to approach. They’d definitely be found. It would be possible to take the long way around to avoid them, but they’d have to go back into the area with the villages for that.

Taking various factors into consideration, Haruhiro decided to turn back.

For now at least, they’d go to Herbesit.

They should move forward with their investigation of Waluandin slowly and carefully. It wasn’t something they could do in a day or two. It was going to take a good deal of preparation. When it came to food, they couldn’t just acquire it on the spot. In the end, the only option was to return to town.

Even though they were just going back the way they came, Haruhiro felt keenly how helpless they were without Mr. Unjo there to guide them. Once they rested by the Hot Spring River, there were no more chances to let his guard down. Every time they encountered one of the crested crocodiles known as nivles in the ruins of Alluja, he felt like his heart was being ground down, and there were injuries, too.

They crossed the bridge over the reddish-brown Dendoro River, and were repeatedly tackled by skards in the Field of Bones, Zetesidona.

When the farms west of Herbesit came into sight, Haruhiro’s sense of tension broke despite his best efforts to maintain it, and he started to tear up. Would he ever feel like going back to Waluandin? He might not. He never wanted to go to Zetesidona or Alluja. Or see orcs, for that matter. Couldn’t they just decide to live in Darunggar now? No...?

Well, Herbesit was a pretty dangerous city itself, so he got himself back in the right mindset, and they made it to the underground somehow. Once they finished shopping there, though, he was at a loss for what to do.

They weren’t with Mr. Unjo, so it felt wrong somehow for them to visit Rubicia’s tower. Haruhiro and the others weren’t Zeran, so they couldn’t stay in the underground, either. The people above ground in Herbesit were noisy, and frightening.

What now? What should they do?

“Hey, even up top, there’re good people, like Mr. Unjo’s wife,” Ranta opined. “Maybe there’s something like an inn, where they’ll let us stay if we

just pay them? If we look, there’s probably one somewhere, don’t you think? I mean, there’s gotta be. Kuzacky. You go nip up top and find one for us real quick. We’ll be waiting down here. I’ll even be nice and wait for you, okay?” “Why’d you make it sound like you’d be doing me a favor? And wait,

why me?” Kuzaku complained.

“Because you’re the lowest ranked here, duh! I mean, you’re my gofer, right? You’re my gofer, so you’ve gotta do what I tell you, y’know?”

“I don’t really get what you’re saying.”

“Oh? Acting all rebellious now? I don’t mind. I’ll take you on anytime you want. I’ll beat your ass, though. You want that? Huh?”

“...This is the first time I’ve wanted to set that curly hair of yours on fire, Ranta-kun.”

“What? Did you just call my hair curly? You did, didn’t you?! Curly!” “It is curly, though, isn’t it?” Merry said coldly.

“...Curly.” Shihoru said it, too.

“It sure is curly, huh.” And Yume.

“You jerks! Curly, curly, curly, curly, you keep saying it! People who call me curly are the ones who are really curly! Don’t you know that?!”

“Hey, curly hair has done you no wrong, so don’t be besmirching its good name, Curly...” Haruhiro said.

He sighed as he looked around. Herbesit’s underground had originally been the aqueducts and graves, so there was only water flowing in some places, and most of it was just underground tunnels. It was dank, but there was a refreshing smell hanging in the air, too. The people here might be mixing something like mint oils in with the fuel for the lamps that were lit here and there. Maybe thanks in part to that scent, the customers who came to shop in the underground marketplace were calm, and relatively quiet. When the party made a ruckus like this, the Zeran who had shops open on either side of this tunnel looked clearly bothered by it. It seemed like it would be best to shut Ranta up, or silence him permanently, then beat a hasty retreat before they got thrown out.

After thinking over a number of options, Haruhiro and the others decided to return home. To Well Village.

They’d considered the idea of using Herbesit as their base of operations while searching the ruins of Alluja for tablets they could sell at a high price. But Herbesit was just going to be too hard to live in.

They prepared a bell, crossed the forest, and headed for the charcoal burner’s place. The charcoal burner didn’t exactly give them a warm welcome, but he didn’t try to drive Haruhiro and the others away, either. They rested in the corner of his place for a night, and when they woke, the charcoal burner was preparing to take his wagon out.

When they signaled that they were willing to help him out, he didn’t refuse, so they helped load the wagon. They accompanied the charcoal burner’s wagon back to Well Village. They didn’t have a house here or anything, but it was amazing how much it felt like they had come home.

The residents of Well Village were all taciturn, but the giant grocer crab smiled and spoke cheerfully, happy to see Haruhiro and his group again. It was hard to read the giant crab’s expression, but at the very least, he looked like he was smiling to Haruhiro, and his voice seemed happy. That’s how it sounded.

They talked about what to do next while eating in front of the grocery store, but not one of them raised the name of Waluandin. Should Haruhiro make a point of bringing it up himself? He debated that internally for a while, but ultimately didn’t.

Haste makes waste. Now is the time for patience. Let’s wait for the time to be ripe. He could think of any number of reasons, but, ultimately, he just decided to wait for a better day.

17.    Racing Past Today and Tomorrow

Even with that said, after spending ten days working in the City of the Dead Ones, Haruhiro began to wonder if things were all right like this. And it wasn’t just him; apparently everyone felt that way.

When hunting for prey in the City of the Dead Ones, there were times when they weren’t all focused properly on the task at hand. Obviously, when they were actually fighting a dead one, everyone got their butts in gear, but they were clearly having a hard time getting over it. It was the same for Haruhiro, so he understood keenly what they were going through.

It took some courage, but as the leader, he suggested that maybe it was time for them to go back. No one objected.

This time, they planned in advance for a fifteen-day trip. It might be a few days longer or shorter depending on the circumstances, so they built in some elasticity to cover for that. Once they decided it wouldn’t be a long-term stay, he suddenly felt more motivated.

That’s right, he thought. No use dragging it out. Staying focused over a short period is best.

Their second trip to Waluandin went pretty smoothly, considering they didn’t have Mr. Unjo with them.

We’ve gotten used to Darunggar, was a thing Haruhiro had to avoid thinking. Getting used to things was scary. It was probably best to jump at every little thing, and to feel the pain in his stomach.

Haruhiro scouted out Waluandin on his own. That was overwhelmingly more efficient, and it was less dangerous, too.

Past the entertainment quarter, he found an area that was packed densely with igloo-like houses similar to those he had seen in the villages. That was where the lower-class orcs lived, apparently. The slums, you could call it.

Even on the really steep hills, there were igloos built as if they were stuck onto them. He had to admit that was kind of impressive.

Fire Dragon Mountain was on the other side of Waluandin. There was a path there, somewhere, which supposedly led to Grimgar.

In broad terms, there were two ways to reach Fire Dragon Mountain. One was to make it through Waluandin. The other was to travel around Waluandin and cross the mountains.

If they were going to cross the mountains, they would have to pass along the outside of the mine or the slums. Both areas were pretty dangerous, so they’d want specialized equipment for the task.

Incidentally, if Haruhiro were asked what that specialized equipment might be, he’d have had no answer. He was no specialist, after all. Even their outdoor specialist, Yume the hunter, had no experience with climbing mountains. If they were going to try to cross the mountains, it was going to take thorough preparation. It wouldn’t be the next thing they did, but the thing after the next thing, no doubt.

If they were going to try to make it through Waluandin, they’d have to aim for a time when the orcs were less active, and choose a place the orcs weren’t likely to find them.

They knew that the orcs in the villages seemed to sleep at night, so it stood to reason that the orcs in Waluandin did the same. Making full use of Stealth to investigate on his own, Haruhiro had been able to see that the Waluandin orcs, waluos for short, made a distinction between night and day in their lives.

The entertainment quarter was bustling with waluos at all times. However, it looked there were more waluos there in the afternoon and night, and less in the early morning and before noon. For both the workshops and the mine, no one worked there at night. The slums were always kind of noisy.

Then again, at the present moment, Haruhiro only knew what he could discern from his side of the lava river that served as the city’s border. Even if they could sneak through the mine or workshop district at night, there might be obstacles past there that would prevent them from going any farther.

He wanted to infiltrate Waluandin and learn more somehow, but he really couldn’t bring his comrades for that. If he were to come out and say it bluntly, not that he would say anything at all, anyone he brought would just get in the way. This was one thing Haruhiro would have to do alone.

Now for the next task. This time, they decided not to get greedy, and when the predetermined fifteen-day period was up, Haruhiro and the others safely returned to Well Village. They spent the next day heading out to the City of the Dead Ones and earning money.

For the next day, and the next next day, and the next next next day, and the next next next next day, and the next next next next next day, and the next next next next next next day, and the next next next next next next next day, they worked hard in the City of the Dead Ones.

Hunting was a volunteer soldier’s job, but they couldn’t let it become too routine. Haruhiro and his party had earned the nickname the Goblin Slayers, so they were used to spending a stupid amount of time frequenting the same hunting grounds—they were even pretty good at it—but they also knew to be afraid of getting used to things.

“Urgh!” Kuzaku was earnestly trying to hold off a violent assault by a lion dead one.

Not just with his shield. He used his longsword for defense, too. He lowered his center of gravity while being careful not to end up in an unbalanced position, then held in there. He was holding in there.

He kept a fixed distance from the lion dead one. Kuzaku was making fine adjustments to his positioning based on how his opponent moved. He did a splendid job of staying at that range, and the lion dead one seemed to be having a hard time with it. One-on-one, Kuzaku could keep the lion dead one occupied. He’d gotten to the point where he could.

Everyone acknowledged that Kuzaku was improving as a tank. They trusted him, too. That was why Merry could move up at times like this and trip the lion dead one with her head staff.

Kuzaku would never let the lion dead one get away. If she didn’t think that, Merry wouldn’t be able to leave Shihoru’s side.

Incidentally, Merry wasn’t crazy strong or anything, but the priest’s self- defense techniques had been created to help the weak defend themselves, and developed from that starting point. Making use of centrifugal force, or something like that, she amplified her weak power into powerful blows against those who meant to harm her. If she got a clean hit in, her individual strikes could be more powerful than Ranta’s.

The lion dead one tripped. Kuzaku was quick to jump on it... or not. “Gwahaha!” It was Ranta. Ranta, who had been watching closely for his

chance, used Leap Out to jump in and assault the lion dead one. His willingness to go all in at times like this was his one praiseworthy quality. His black blade plunged through the lion dead one’s right eyeball. “Take that!”

“Get back!” shouted Haruhiro.

Ranta jumped back and away, possibly even before he heard the words. His black blade was left stuck in the thing’s eyeball. Even as it writhed in pain, the thing had tried to hug Ranta with all its love. In other words, Ranta had gotten away before he’d had his back broken by its deadly embrace.

“Eheh... Let there be curses...” Zodiac-kun, who was floating nearby, said something either auspicious or ominous, and it was hard to tell which.

The lion dead one rose up. Yume let loose an arrow, but it twisted to avoid it. Right after her, Shihoru cried, “Dark!” and sent out her elemental.

The humanoid, or more like star-shaped, elemental Dark sank into the lion dead one’s chest. It immediately began convulsing and fell to one knee.

“Hah!” Kuzaku made a big swing with his longsword and slugged the thing in the side of its head with it. He then followed that up by whacking it in the chin with his shield.

“Yeah!” Merry slammed its neck with her head staff.

“There!” Ranta leapt at the thing. He tore his black blade free, then slashed it. He slashed at it. Even if he couldn’t cut it, he slashed it like crazy. Whenever Ranta took a rest, Kuzaku and Merry gave it one or two hits, and then Ranta went back and resumed his flurry of blows.

Haruhiro watched over his comrades as they fought, paying attention to their surroundings. Yume, who was next to Shihoru, had nocked an arrow and was also on guard.

Haruhiro and the others had relocated their hunting grounds in the City of the Dead Ones from the Northwest Quarter, where the remains of the marketplace and the Warehouse District were, to a place just inside the Southwest Quarter. If they’d continued taking things in steps, the Southeast Quarter would have been the next level up after the Northwest Quarter, but the east side was mostly covered in mist.

The dead ones of the Southwest Quarter were clever and vicious, but Haruhiro and the others had found that in the area closest to the Northwest Quarter, dead ones that were comparatively easy to take down would show up.

They were mostly ones like the lion dead one they were fighting right now. There was no questioning that they were powerful enemies. Even so, if they all focused their efforts properly, they had gotten to the point where they could practically guarantee they’d be able to take one of them down.

Enemies on this level were good. Even if they wanted to relax, they couldn’t. It wasn’t impossible, but they couldn’t just defeat them in a routine manner. Instead of a moderate level of tension, it was just a bit higher than that. They had to improve themselves, adjusting things day by day, or they’d never survive. But as long as they did things right, they could manage.

“Haru-kun.” Yume gestured towards a building to the south with her chin. “Hm?” Haruhiro squinted at the building.

There was something poking its head out from the collapsed second floor section. No, it just looked like it might be. That was all.

Haruhiro shook his head. “No. It’s fine.” “Yume got it wrong, huh. Sorry ’bout that.” “Hey, it’s fine.”

“Take that! Let Skullhell embrace you!” Ranta landed the finishing blow on the lion dead one. “Bwahahahaha! I’ll drink well again tonight!”

“What are you, a mountain bandit?” Haruhiro muttered with a sigh.

Haruhiro was a thief himself, but he didn’t want to think he was in the same class as Ranta. He absolutely was not.

They hunted in the City of the Dead Ones for ten days, then left on another roughly fifteen-day expedition. When they did it like this, they could spend their days looking forward to the next one.

It wasn’t good to think too much about the future, but if they only ever had their eyes on what was directly in front of them, it became suffocating. Striking a balance was important. If all they did was charge blindly towards shining hope, they would neglect to watch their feet and fall into danger.

Likewise, if they kept looking down under the weight of despair, they would grow exhausted and unable to walk.

They couldn’t live on hard times alone, and good times were never going to last forever. It was best to cry when they felt like crying, and smile sometimes even when they didn’t feel like smiling.

In the middle of their third expedition, though Haruhiro only heard about this afterward because he was out investigating alone at the time, Ranta and the others were attacked by orcs. There were two orcs, and though they

managed to kill them somehow, Kuzaku and Yume were both wounded and things looked bad for a while.

Both of those orcs had looked thin, and young. They’d worn no armor, but carried bows and arrows, swords, and knives. They’d been outfitted like hunters. It might be that they’d headed out to hunt, and chanced across Ranta and the others.

With this event serving as a trigger, they’d changed the location where the other five stayed on standby during their fourth expedition and moved to a spot near the Hot Spring River instead. Haruhiro had Ranta and the others hunt gujis, which were like badgers, while he moved forward with his exploration of Waluandin. He’d gotten to the point where he could slip into the city at night, if he was alone.

During their fifth expedition, they found a small stone tablet in the ruins of Alluja. When they returned to Well Village and showed it to Oubu the Eyehand Sage, the sage bought it off them for a large coin, 1 rou.

When they were camping outside the village later, Ranta said, “You know...” and started talking with uncharacteristic degree of sincerity. “I can sort of understand how the people here felt, clinging to Skullhell. When it’s this dark, it’d make anyone want to be embraced by Skullhell.”

“It’s easier to understand why they clung to Lumiaris,” Merry countered. “When it’s this dark, the normal thing is to seek the light.”

“I’m sure that’s normal for you,” Ranta retorted. “But listen, you, what’s normal is different for everyone, you know that?”

“‘You’?” she repeated.

“...I am really sorry,” Ranta said without emotion. “Merry-san, please, forgive me.”

“He’s not putting his heart into it at all...” Shihoru said.

Ranta got down and performed a kowtow. “I’m so sowwy! I was wong!

Fogibe me!”

“There’s nothing more worthless than a kowtow from you,” Haruhiro said with a wry smile as he poked the fire with a stick. “...Gods, huh. It just doesn’t feel real to me. I mean, there’re actually gods. They exist. I always thought they were, like, fictional? Or something...”

“If they weren’t real, I couldn’t use light magic.” Merry showed him the palm of her hand. “But until I came here, I might not have fully believed in them myself, either.”

“Oh, yeah.” Kuzaku nodded. “I could see that. Gods are like an example for us, y’know. Or the source for one? The reason? The basis? Something like that. Like, there’s Lumiaris, and if we assume she’s always watching, we can behave righteously, maybe?”

“Elhit-chan the White God’s real.” Yume was resting her head in Shihoru’s lap, while also having Merry attached to her leg. “Elhit-chan shows up in Yume’s dreams and everything. Yume wishes she could meet Elhit- chan...”

“So, let’s talk seriously here.” Ranta disabled his kowtow mode, switched to sitting with his legs crossed, and crossed his arms cheekily. “Really, everyone’s afraid of dying and stuff, right? Since we’re alive, we don’t want to die. But still. We’re gonna die. Someday, for sure, we’re gonna bite it.

There’s no getting out of it. It’s the conclusion of our lives, you could say. When you think about that, I dunno... It feels overwhelming, right? It’s hard to deal with, maybe.”

“...Even for you?” Haruhiro asked, struck by an unexpected feeling. Ranta snorted and laughed. It was a laugh that felt forced, somehow. “I’m talking generally, man, generally. I’m above and beyond all this

stuff. Besides, dying is just a part of my life, right? Even if other people’s deaths feel, well... y’know. You’ve got to accept your own death, or you can’t live. You’re born, and then you die, and that’s life. Basically, it’s a cycle, man, a cycle.” Ranta spun his index finger around in circles. “I’m sure you people don’t get it, but Skullhell’s teachings include views on life and death like that.”

“We have that in Lumiaris’s teachings, too, of course,” Merry said quietly as she rubbed Yume’s thigh. “In the beginning, there was light. All life is born from that light, and will return to it. That’s why we see the light when we die.”

“When we die, we fall into the darkness, obviously,” Ranta snorted. “No we do not. Darkness is only a side effect produced by the light not

shining somewhere. If you avert your eyes from the light, you’ll be mired in darkness. That’s all.”

“You’re wrong. Darkness is the original, and the light came after it. I’m telling you, the root of all things is darkness.”

“This is why I can never get along with a dread knight who blindly follows Skullhell,” Merry muttered.

“I don’t need to get along with you! I don’t want anything to do with the cowardly believers of Lumiaris!”

“Don’t fight over this nonsense.” Haruhiro tried to step in as leader and mediate, but both Merry and Ranta turned to glare at him.

“Nonsense?!”

“Whaddaya mean, nonsense?!” Ranta yelled. “I... I’m sorry.”

“Both...” Shihoru helped him out. “Can’t it be both? In the beginning, there was light and darkness. I think they’re conflicting but complimentary elements...”

“Like everyone here, huh.” Yume rubbed her cheek against Shihoru’s lap, speaking in a relaxed tone. “It’s ’cause everyone’s there for her that Yume’s able to keep on livin’, y’know.”

That got everyone to settle down.

Well, since they were always together, conversations like this were bound to happen. The guys were always talking about pretty stupid stuff, but what was it like for the girls? Did they talk about love and romance, maybe?

Maybe not? Or did they? Though Haruhiro was curious, he couldn’t ask them, so that mystery was going to remain a mystery to him forever.

Ranta used the 10 rou worth of black coins that he had saved to buy a two-handed sword from the blacksmith of Well Village. It was a two-handed

sword, so the hilt was long, but the blade itself wasn’t that large, which made it surprisingly light.

Most swords had an unsharpened section just above the base of the blade called the ricasso. The ricasso on the sword Ranta had bought was long, and had a protuberance at the top of it. When he used to it strike a finishing blow, gripping the ricasso apparently made that easier for him, and there were other uses for it, too. Knowing Ranta, he would come up with all sorts of things through trial and error.

He named his sword RIPer, and bought armored gloves so he could hold the ricasso good and tight. By the way, he’d borrowed the money for those gauntlets from his comrades.

His black blade was solid and still usable, so he handed it down to Kuzaku, who performed a paladin ritual that involved carving a hexagram into the blade and marking it with blood as proof. By doing this, he could use the light magic spell Saber to bestow Lumiaris’s blessing upon the blade.

The party acquired a helm which was reminiscent of a hawk’s head in the City of the Dead Ones, and Kuzaku’s helmet just so happened to be getting really damaged at the time, so he swapped it out. Ranta named it the Hawk Helm, but Kuzaku really didn’t like that.

Yume had made the curved sword that she’d picked up in the City of the Dead Ones, which was around the same length as her machete, one of her favorite weapons. Haruhiro kept calling it a wantou, which was the word for a curved blade, so Yume had decided to nickname it Wan-chan, which was a cute word for a puppy. Honestly, Haruhiro felt that was kind of wrong.

Merry’s head staff broke, so she bought a staff with a hammer on the end from the blacksmith. That was probably because she had a lot more chances to participate in attacking now. She had clearly chosen her weapon with an eye towards its destructive power.

Though Shihoru hadn’t changed her equipment, her elemental Dark was gradually getting stronger. The more attached to Shihoru Dark got, the bigger he seemed to grow, and also... the more cutesy his form became. On top of that, he could now produce effects similar to Sleepy Shadow, Shadow Complex, and Shadow Bond. He wasn’t all-powerful, though, and Shihoru had to will just one of the impact, confusion, sleeping, or stopping effects into him, but he was still amazing.

According to Shihoru, she would eventually be able to mix and match different effects. If so, she’d be able to deal damage while stopping the enemy, or weaken them on top of dealing damage, along with a number of other possibilities. That was even more amazing.

Haruhiro ended up with a stiletto that was to be used exclusively for skewering attacks in his right hand, and a knife with a hilt guard for sweeping, slashing, and stabbing in his left hand. The former he had found in Herbesit’s underground, while the latter he had looted off a dead one.

They hadn’t seen Mr. Unjo. He was supposed to visit Well Village occasionally, but Haruhiro and the others tended to spend a lot of time away on expeditions, so they were probably just missing each other.

Every time they visited Herbesit, Rubicia’s tower crossed Haruhiro’s mind. He thought about going there someday, but never did.

One day, Ranta invited him to the grocery store in Well Village, where they drank a whole lot and got absolutely hammered. It wasn’t just Haruhiro. Everyone drank as much as they could, and they had a great banquet with the

blacksmith, the flattened egg with arms from the bag shop, the off-duty guards, and even the giant crab grocer. Ranta, Haruhiro, and Kuzaku took turns arm wrestling with the blacksmith and all lost badly, then the three of them took him on as a team and still lost. He had vague memories of all of this.

As his comrades got drunker and drunker, he recalled sitting next to Merry and they talked. What did they talk about? He felt like he’d had a good time, but he didn’t remember a word of what they’d said.

Well, as long as he hadn’t said anything weird. The next day, Merry was acting the same as ever, so it was probably fine.

It’s fine, right? he tried to convince himself.

Ever since that one time, the receiver hadn’t vibrated again. No one commented on it, but it was probably just a matter of bad timing.

That was probably all. That was what Haruhiro decided to think.

18.    Before the Festival

“...Oh. Two hundred, huh,” Haruhiro said.

While infiltrating Waluandin, he realized this had been their 200th night since coming to Darunggar. Not that that mattered particularly. Obviously. Whether it was their 200th, their 300th, or even their 666th night, that made no difference to the denizens of this world.

Regardless, there was something strange about Waluandin tonight. Or rather, it was strange even in the outlying villages.

The village orcs had a tendency to go to bed early, and then wake up early. Earlier than the Waluandin orcs, or waluos for short. Haruhiro usually crept through their villages as they slept, then entered Waluandin through the workshop district when the blacksmith orcs had left. There were many places to hide in the workshop district, so even if there were waluos there, he could get past them easily enough.

However, tonight, the village orcs were up a little late. There was light leaking out from inside their igloo-like houses, and he heard the sound of orcs talking, too. He even spotted a handful of orcs outside doing something or another. He didn’t feel like it was a threat to his ability to Stealth his way past them, but it obviously bothered him.

In the workshop district of Waluandin, work had ended for the day, as usual, and it was quiet. However, everything past there was different.

Beyond the workshop district was a mixed residential district. There weren’t many people—no, many waluos—who walked the streets at night. That was the way it had been up until now, but this time, there were boisterous waluos here, there, and everywhere. Every house was lit up.

Some waluos were inside their houses, busily moving around, while others were outside talking. It probably wasn’t just the residential area. All of

Waluandin was filled with activity. It wasn’t quite festive, but it felt almost like they were preparing for a festival or something.

There were a fair number of waluos loitering around, so it was dangerous. However, based on past experience, they didn’t seem to be even remotely on guard against outsiders. There was a sort of coliseum-like place in the entertainment quarter, and they often bet on fights there. Haruhiro had witnessed some showy fights, and the waluos loved displays of martial ability, but this city had no defenses fit to be called defenses.

They had probably never even considered the possibility that an external enemy would attack. They would never have imagined humans like the party would be inside their city. As long as Haruhiro was careful, and didn’t do anything to draw attention, he almost certainly wouldn’t be spotted.

Being the coward that he was, Haruhiro felt afraid, but he still stayed calm and looked around the residential area. On their 200th night in Darunggar, Waluandin was definitely different. What was up with that? He wanted the details. Were they preparing for a festival? Why did it feel that way to Haruhiro? He went from alley to alley, occasionally moving over the rooftops as he observed them, and he gradually figured things out.

Because of the glowing lava that flowed nearby, the darkness of night never came to Waluandin. Even so, in this city which was even brighter than usual, the waluos seemed to be building something. Many things, in fact.

For instance, the windows of their houses generally had no shutters, so it was possible to see inside them when the lights were on, and he could see there were a ton of waluo women working at looms. What was the need to work the looms so late at night? They could just do it during the day. One thing was for sure, and that was that Haruhiro had never seen these waluo women weaving late at night before.

There were a good number of the waluo men decorating the front of their houses with sticks, too. They were chatting with their neighbors, and eating while they did it, but they probably weren’t just doing it for fun. He’d never seen waluos do this before.

Haruhiro had no clue what those sticks were supposed to be, but there had to be a reason for them. Right now, they had to make them, and that was why they were doing so.

The waluo children were gathered around messing with something that looked like a cage. The older waluos were giving directions to the waluo

boys, and they were having them help with the work.

Preparations. It was clear the waluos were preparing for something. They were all producing costumes and decorations, and then they’d put them on, use them, and do something or another. It had to be a city-wide event. A ritual? A festival? An attraction? Whatever it was, Waluandin was enveloped in an atmosphere that was detached from their usual daily routines.

The center of Waluandin was dominated by one particularly large building that resembled a crouching dragon. It wasn’t clear if the waluos had a king or not, but Haruhiro had taken to calling it the palace for convenience’s sake.

The palace was surrounded by wide streets and a number of thin rivers of lava, with one main road that stretched out towards Fire Dragon Mountain.

Also, there were a lot of impressive buildings surrounding the palace, and there were always a lot of waluos going in and out, both during the day and the evening. Besides, there were armed waluos patrolling this area even late at night. That being the case, it was kind of a hard area to approach, but tonight he decided to work up the courage to try and slip inside.

It was a calculated risk, of course. Being no exception to the general rule tonight, the waluos of the palace district were hard at work preparing something. This was a district where the waluos often seemed to be out enjoying a nighttime stroll, but it was different now. Most waluos were absorbed in their work, so if Haruhiro used Stealth well, he wouldn’t be found that easily.

But... he couldn’t help but think.

They really led cultured lives here in Waluandin. Compared to this place, Well Village was the sticks, and Herbesit was lawless and far too barbaric.

Here, there was order. The waluos didn’t rob one another for the most part. They worked together on various things as they earned their keep, and lived their lives. They didn’t just eat, work, and sleep. They had leisure, too. It was a highly stratified society, but it afforded half... no, most of the waluos with a safer, and possibly more prosperous life than Haruhiro and the party had.

“An altar...?” he murmured to himself.

Up on the roof of one building that faced onto the plaza in front of the palace, Haruhiro made an effort to let the excess tension out of his body. It was the first time he’d come this far. However, he had seen the plaza from a distance before. That thing hadn’t been there before.

It was a stage that had to be around two meters square, and three meters high. There was another platform on top of it, and on that platform—there was a cage. It was a cage... probably. Just gilded, decorated, and really gaudy. Normally, cages were used for holding criminals or prisoners, but it didn’t look like that was what that one was for.

The plump waluo woman in the cage didn’t look like a prisoner. The cloth wrapped around her head and breasts and the skirt she wore around her hips were standard waluo women’s fashion, but all of her clothes were clearly high quality. They were embroidered with vibrant patterns, and they sparkled. It looked like there were gemstones woven into them. It made it so that even her green skin seemed glossy, as if it were shining. And was she wearing makeup?

From the way the waluo woman who may well have been of high-class was acting, it didn’t seem like she was a prisoner. She was calm, even dignified.

Besides, though she was in the cage, she wasn’t alone. Many waluos came up onto the stage, one after another, to greet her. They would speak to each other through the bars of the cage, and sometimes hold her hand, so maybe they were acquaintances of hers. But the woman was clearly better dressed than any of them.

Haruhiro took a closer look at the gilded cage. The decorations on the four corners were—dragons? There were dragon-based decorations scattered around the rest of the altar, too. That was also true of that waluo woman’s clothing. The pattern embroidered on her skirt was a dragon, wasn’t it? On top of her cloth-wrapped head, she was wearing something like a crown. That was dragon-y, too.

Hadn’t the decorations that the waluo men in the residential area had been putting sticks on been the same way? Dragons. They were dragons. Now that he thought about it, the palace resembled a dragon, too. Why hadn’t he noticed before? Waluandin was overflowing with dragon-based designs.

There were dragons everywhere.

Haruhiro turned his eyes towards Fire Dragon Mountain, which looked ready to erupt at any moment. Like its name suggested, there was at least one dragon there. The fire dragon.

The waluos had built their city and lived at the foot of that mountain. The fire dragon ate salamanders, and Mr. Unjo said it had eaten his comrades, too.

Could it be that orcs just didn’t taste good to it? That was hard to imagine. The fire dragon had to be a dangerous creature. Haruhiro didn’t know why, but for some reason, the waluos were living right next to that creature. Would it be too much to say they were prospering, as well?

The waluos might be worshiping the dreadful fire dragon. The fire dragon might be like a god to them. Or rather, it might be a god.

Right now, they were filling the city with dragons in preparation for something. It might be some sort of festival with a ritual involved. Then what was the woman in the cage?

“No, she couldn’t be a sacrifice... could she?” Haruhiro murmured.

The waluos kept coming to visit the woman in the cage. It looked like maybe they were saying their goodbyes. There was no air of tragedy to it, so maybe it was an honor to become a sacrifice. No, well, it wasn’t decided that she was a sacrifice yet, and there wasn’t definitive proof that they worshiped the fire dragon, either. Was Haruhiro’s imagination getting the better of him...?

He couldn’t help but think there was lots of room for thinking about different possibilities, but if he speculated too much while he was scouting, he was bound to make a careless mistake. He was going to have to leave when the night ended anyhow. This was a good time to pull out, so he did.

For his return, he left through the workshop district like he had decided in advance. On the way back, he repeated, Going in is easy, but returning is scary, in his mind. It was easy to grow hasty on the return trip, and to let his guard down as a result. It was better for him to remain overcautious.

When he crossed into the workshop district, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Haruhiro hurriedly fled inside a nearby workshop. He’d sensed something, though he couldn’t be sure what. Should he hide here and see what was up?

No... he decided to move.

Haruhiro kept his posture low and walked while keeping up his Stealth. He couldn’t hear his own footsteps, the rustling of his clothes, or even his breath. It was as if Haruhiro wasn’t there. Was anyone other than him moving? He didn’t see them. Had he imagined it? Not necessarily.

He was managing to focus. There was no issue with the way he was walking.

He sensed something.

Is there someone, something, out there? Am I being watched? Well, who cares, he decided.

If they were just watching, let them watch. If they were gonna come, let them come. If they got any closer, he was pretty sure he’d know. He’d be able to react. He had trained a lot during his solitary investigations on these expeditions. It wasn’t just for show.

Don’t get conceited, he immediately warned himself. Don’t get carried away. Don’t think that you’re doing well. Think that you’ve got to try harder. Always give it your all.

Haruhiro was already convinced. There was something out there, and it was watching Haruhiro. Following him from a distance. He could only call it a presence at this point, but he felt it. It was there constantly.

Not only that, there was more than one of them. Usually behind him, sometimes to the right, or to the left, there was a presence. The presence right behind him was unchanging. It was watching Haruhiro from a fixed distance. The other presence would close in, then move away. It vanished sometimes, too, but always eventually came back.

It wasn’t like he wasn’t disturbed by this. He was scared, too. However, they hadn’t attacked him yet. Nothing good would come from giving in to fear at this stage. He understood that, so he was keeping himself under control.

He leapt over the lava river from inside the warehouse district, leaving Waluandin behind. He stopped for a bit, then turned back.

The presences had vanished. Were they gone? No, he couldn’t be sure yet. Haruhiro had stopped, so they had, too. Because of that, it had become harder for Haruhiro to detect them. That might be all. It was too early to feel relieved.

The villages had finally gone to sleep at this point, so he took a risk and dashed through them.

Who were his pursuers? Waluos? That was highly likely. Humans had thieves like Haruhiro, so it wouldn’t be that strange for there to be orcs that specialized in sneaky stuff, too. Had a pair of thief-y waluos detected an intruder, Haruhiro, in Waluandin and so decided to tail him to discern his identity and motives? Well, it was probably something like that.

This was embarrassing. He had been worried before, when they’d killed the waluo hunters, but fortunately that had never gotten traced back to them.

But if the waluos became aware of Haruhiro’s existence, they might become more cautious. If they put proper security in place, he wouldn’t be able to go in and out of Waluandin the way he had been up until now.

It was best to assume that, if they set their minds to it, the waluos could prepare themselves to deal with enemies from outside. This was true of the orcs back in Grimgar as well, but the orcs of Waluandin were roughly as intelligent as humans. Though they were different, and there were a lot of things each side couldn’t accept about the other, it couldn’t be said that either side was superior or inferior. In Grimgar, the humans had been defeated by the Alliance of Kings, which included orcs, and had been forced to withdraw to south of the Tenryu Mountains for a time. For humans, orcs were an enemy that were more than equal to them.

He did his best not to enter the villages’ fields. It was hard to call the footing there good, so it was sure to lower his speed. That would make it hard to respond quickly. He moved quickly down the thin paths that had been created between the fields.

On the way, he felt the presences again. As expected. They had no intention of letting Haruhiro go, it seemed.

He hadn’t come up with all the details yet, but he had a general plan he’d decided on. First, he’d probe the presences while getting out of the villages as quickly as he could manage. If they attacked him, he’d have to flee immediately. Could he get away? There were too many unknown elements, honestly, and he couldn’t be sure until he tried it, but if it came down to it, he’d have to.

Ohh, this is scary.

He caught sight of moving shadows twice. He stopped sensing their presences once he entered the twisting path through the rift, but it was best not to assume they’d given up. It was incredibly difficult to keep a level head in this situation. Yeah, it wasn’t going to happen.

Still, somehow, he was managing to keep himself from panicking. That was pretty good, right? He wanted to praise himself for it. Well, no, not really. He wasn’t safe yet. He should wait before secretly singing his own praises.

He came out of the rift and into the flat lands. He was almost back to the meetup point at the Hot Spring River.

The night wasn’t over. His comrades were probably asleep with one of

them standing guard. If it had been daytime, they would be out hunting gujis, or perhaps heading out to Alluja. Those would both have made regrouping difficult, so maybe it was best to think of this as good luck within bad luck.

Was it?

My stomach hurts, Haruhiro thought. Nothing new there. Maybe I’m going to develop an ulcer? If I do, I guess we could just treat it with light magic.

Does it work on internal diseases like that? I dunno. I’ll have to ask Merry when I get the chance.

He was thinking about stuff that didn’t matter. That was proof that his concentration was breaking.

Haruhiro reapplied himself to the task at hand. He could see the spot where the others were waiting.

Who was standing guard? Shihoru, it seemed. Everyone else was lying down. Shihoru was the only one sitting.

Not good.

Haruhiro broke into a cold sweat, and he felt an unpleasant feeling rising up in his chest. Had he screwed up?

He’d practically led his pursuers back to his comrades. That might have been their aim all along. They’d discovered a suspicious individual, Haruhiro, but they’d been sure he wasn’t alone, and that others had to be out there somewhere. So, in order to catch them all in one fell swoop, or to slaughter them all, they’d tailed Haruhiro. That was why they had deliberately chosen not to attack him.

They had been letting him swim, so to speak. Now the enemy might leave Haruhiro for later and ambush all of his comrades other than Shihoru as they were sleeping.

What should he do in that case? What was he going to do? There was no time for indecision. Haruhiro dashed forward.

“Shihoru! Wake everyone! Run away!”

“Huh... Haruhiro-kun?! Ah!” In great haste, Shihoru whacked Ranta in the head with her staff. “G-Get up...!”

“Ngahh?!” Ranta jumped up. “Wh-Wh-What?! What’re you doing?!” “...Whuh?” Yume rubbed her eyes as she sat up.

“Gah?!” Kuzaku shouted as he quickly got up.

“I’m gett—” Merry tried to run as soon as she woke up, but tripped. “— Wah!”

Oh, man, Haruhiro thought frantically. That made my heart race. No, now’s not the time to be smitten with her. Honestly, I’ve got bigger concerns. I mean it. I might have bigger concerns.

Haruhiro looked in every direction, running as he shouted, “We’ve probably got enemies! Run! Don’t split up!”

“Yoink!” Yume pulled Merry to her feet, then shouldered her pack.

Merry said, “Thanks,” and picked up her own things. Shihoru was already getting out of there.

Kuzaku took the lead, while Ranta drew RIPer. “Enemies?! Where? I’ll take them—” Ranta began. Before Haruhiro could shout anything—

“Hold it!” he heard a familiar voice say.

“No...” Haruhiro came to a stop so sudden he nearly pitched over, then turned towards the voice.

Wait, what’s a no? What’s no? She’s not a no, she’s, uh, what was she again? Basically...

It came from behind him, to the right. The woman who came out of the darkness was wearing a dark cloak and a wide-brimmed hat. For some reason she immediately threw off her coat and hat, revealing herself to be—no matter where, or how you looked at her—a dominatrix.

Why did she have to accentuate her female parts, expertly exposing everything but the bits she really shouldn’t let them see? When she stuck her chest out, it was hard to look away.

She isn’t a No, she’s a La.

“...Lala-san?” Haruhiro said slowly.

“Long time no see,” Lala said with an amorous smile, licking her lips. “I’m surprised to see you alive.”

“The ones who tailed me here from Waluandin... that was you and Nono- san?”

“Well, yes,” said Lala. “Though I hadn’t expected you to notice. — Nono!”

The man appeared from the direction of the rifts. He was white-haired, with a black mask covering the lower half of his face.

Nono came up next to Lala and got down on all fours. Lala sat down on Nono’s back and crossed her legs.

“So? What were you up to in the orcish city, right before the Fire Dragon

Festival?”

“Festyfull...?” Yume cocked her head to the side in confusion.

“H-Hold on!” Ranta had nearly returned his sword to its sheathe, but he readied it again. “Haruhiro, they’re the enemies you meant, right?! Just because they’re human, and we know them, that doesn’t mean they’re on our side! These guys abandoned us once before!”

“Abandoned you?” Lala snorted. “Did we do that?”

“Y-Y-Yeah! You left us behind and took off on your own, didn’t you?! I haven’t forgotten!”

“That wasn’t our intention, but even if it was, why bring that back up now? You’re such a tight-ass. I can’t even work up the motivation to train you and expand it.”

“E-Expand it...” Shihoru stuttered.

Um, Shihoru, Haruhiro thought. Why was she, of all people, the one to react to that?

“Shut up!” Ranta was whining. “Listen, we’ve had a real hard time since then! We’ve been through a lot! We didn’t know left from right, and it was really tough!”

“It was the same for us,” said Lala.

“S-Still! I do understand what you’re saying, but still!”

“...Ranta-kun,” Kuzaku whispered to him. “Politely. You’re talking to her politely.”

“You’re imagining it, moron! Dumbass! You’re too big for your own good, damn it!”

Merry was looking at Haruhiro. What do we do now? her expression asked.

Haruhiro rubbed his lower back, subtly placing a finger on the hilt of his stiletto. “I don’t really think you abandoned us. No, not just me... none of us do. Except for the idiot. It’s probably some kind of sign that we met up again like this. I’d like to trade information.”

Of course, if for some reason Lala and Nono tried to harm Haruhiro and the party, or intended to use them, he wouldn’t stop there.

“We feel the same way, of course.” Lala narrowed her eyes, touching her own lips playfully. “You’re a strange one. Haruhiro, was it? You’ve got a good face.”

“I get told I have sleepy eyes, though.” Haruhiro had to work to keep his

expression from changing. She totally sees right through me. “So, what’s this about a Fire Dragon Festival?”

“You saw them preparing for it, didn’t you?” Lala asked. “We don’t know how often yet, but they do it relatively frequently. It’s a big ritual where they offer a sacrifice to the fire dragon. The whole city celebrates. By the way, the Fire Dragon Festival is just our name for it. It’s too bad, really? It looks like we can’t make friends with the orcs.”

“Sacrifices and rituals, you say...?” Ranta sheathed his sword and knelt down. It looked like he was getting ready in advance in case he had to kowtow. What was with that guy?

“...So, uh... basically they’re, you know,” Haruhiro said. “They’re offering the sacrifice to the fire dragon? Seriously?”

“...That’s what she said,” Shihoru said in a low voice filled with revulsion.

You can say that again, thought Haruhiro.

So was that really it? The Fire Dragon Festival. The sacrifice. The streets packed with revelers.

Maybe, just maybe, could this be it? Could it be what, exactly?

Could it be their chance... maybe? Their chance at what?

That was obvious. If they took this opportunity, it might be possible. The thought occurred to him. He’d gone and thought it now.

Everyone could charge through Waluandin and reach Fire Dragon Mountain, maybe. They’d search for the cave, then maybe they could return through it.

“Looks like you’ve got some useful information.” Lala put on a sensuous smile and motioned for Haruhiro to come closer with one finger. “Tell Lala- sama everything. You might just get a lovely reward for it, you know?”

19.    Over the Rainbow

The orcs all had decorative cloth tied over a shoulder and wore red and black body paint. The men and the women, the young and the old.

There were orcs beating on drums. There were orcs playing stringed instruments. There were orcs blowing on flutes. The orcs, children included, clapped their hands, stamped their feet, and sang in unison.

The orcs carrying sticks with dragon designs on them weren’t singing, they were saying something in loud voices instead. The way they spoke in time with the rhythm, working in hand and body gestures, made it look like they were giving a speech, or directing the instrument players and singers.

They were wonderfully lively, and though it felt like it could all fall apart at any moment, they were unified. They may have been wild, but they were by no means crude. If anything, it was highly refined. Beautiful, even. It was overwhelming to listen to.

No, Haruhiro thought, shaking his head in the shadow of a giant caterpillar enclosure’s fence. Don’t listen to them. Sure, they’re incredible. I know it’s worth hearing, too. It feels like something I have to listen to, but I can’t. This isn’t the time to be falling in love with a song.

Haruhiro poked his head out from behind the fence to get another look at the orcs celebrating in the central plaza of their village. It was actually still noon, but the adult orcs already had the alcohol flowing, and the children were worked up, too. Besides, he was more than twenty meters from the plaza here. Even during the day, they wouldn’t be able to see him this far away. There was no way they would spot him.

Haruhiro waved his hand, motioning to Ranta and the others in the rear. Then he gave the signal for Lala and Nono. There was a bit of an incident where Yume whacked Ranta, who had been staring off into the distance, in

the head, and then when he tried to complain, Merry clubbed him with the pole of her hammer staff. But everyone kept low and came this way.

In Kuzaku’s case, his armor clinked pretty loudly as he moved. But the noise of the festival covered it up, which made this a good arrangement.

Haruhiro nodded, then moved on to the next point. He confirmed it was safe, then called over his comrades plus Lala and Nono. It was boring and repetitive work, so he was a little surprised that not just his comrades, other than Ranta (that piece of trash), but Lala and Nono also did as he instructed without saying a word. There was no telling when they would turn on him, though.

Lala had a pocket watch, so they could tell time with relative precision. This raucous festival had begun three hours after the flameset. Haruhiro and the others had entered the village area one hour later, then spent an hour and a half on making their way to Waluandin.

Incidentally, according to Lala-sama, the time from sunrise, or flamerise rather, to sunset, or flameset, was roughly ten to fifteen hours, and the time from flameset to flamerise was also roughly ten to fifteen hours. There was variation in the length of the day and night, but if you added them together, they were around twenty-five hours, so that meant a day in Darunggar was one hour longer than a day in Grimgar.

Regardless, in another hour and a half, they would be out of the village area... or so he was thinking when another incident occurred.

Oh, crap, thought Haruhiro, It’s a dragon.

The dragon was coming this way from Waluandin! To be more precise, the dragon was—a model... huh...

It was over three meters high, and more than ten meters long. It was pretty huge. It was painted red and black like the orcs’ bodies, and its two eye sockets were filled with sparkling yellow gems, or something similar. Its neck, jaw, body, tail, and four limbs were all movable, and more than thirty orcs covered in black costumes were carrying it, as well as manipulating it with sticks.

When the portable dragon came, the village orcs got super excited. That was probably another part of the Fire Dragon Festival. There was singing and playing of instruments, the speaking of the ones holding the dragon sticks grew louder, and the orc children ran away in fear. The portable dragon chased them around, and some of the children were crying and wailing. The

women who were presumably the mother orcs laughed as they soothed their children.

Ranta was clearly itching to join the festivities, but obviously that was out of the question. Haruhiro moved on towards Waluandin. If things were this lively, there was no way they’d be discovered. That was their aim, and the reason they had waited for the Fire Dragon Festival to start.

The village area was noisy pretty much wherever they went, but the noise was also concentrated in certain places. All the farmer orcs from throughout the villages were gathered in a number of plaza areas with their families.

They sang, played instruments, enjoyed the portable dragon when it was brought to them, and got totally heated up. Everywhere else was deserted, and there wasn’t a person or orc in sight. Even so, Haruhiro didn’t relax. He made sure not to rush, always taking the proper steps before moving forward, and was so thorough about doing so that even he got exasperated with himself.

Waluandin was boiling over with festive spirit. However, it seemed to be a holiday, so there was no sign of waluos in the workshop district or the mine. The blacksmiths’ workshops had warehouses here and there, too. He found one that was not too big and not too small, used Picking on the lock, and decided to use it as a spot to lay low temporarily.

Ranta, Shihoru, Yume, Merry, Kuzaku, and Lala went on standby. When Haruhiro and Nono split up to do some scouting, they found the situation in Waluandin was roughly the same as in the village area. The waluos were concentrated on the main streets, singing, performing, dancing, and making a ruckus. Every waluo wore decorative cloth and body paint, and one in every twenty to thirty carried one of those dragon sticks and was in full festive attire. There was food and drink laid out everywhere, and the waluos seemed free to take any of it.

Haruhiro headed back to where his comrades were hiding, masking his footsteps and walking down the back alleyways of the residential district. There were no people, no orcs, no anyone to be seen. Every house was empty. That said, there could still be waluos who were at home for some reason. He couldn’t let his guard down. Haruhiro made sure he was on task as he entered the alley.

He gulped.

There was a waluo who was clearly very young and still thin crouching

there. The waluo was holding his head with both hands. He wore body paint, but he had taken off his cloth, and it was in a tangled mess at his feet.

What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? Haruhiro asked himself that question more than ten times in the span of a second. He found his answer. Haruhiro decided to turn back quietly. That was the precise moment the orc looked in his direction.

The waluo inhaled sharply, and tried to scream. Haruhiro’s body moved on its own, and he jumped on the orc. He pushed him to the ground and strangled him.

If he did it while standing, it was possible that he might have dangerously struck his head or some other part of his body on the wall or ground as the waluo struggled and thrashed around. If he pinned him first, well, he was more or less sure to be safe. Haruhiro’s right arm was tightly wrapped around the waluo’s neck. He was bracing that right arm with his left, so it wasn’t going to be easy to break free.

The waluo tried to scratch at Haruhiro’s face with both hands, but he managed to defend himself somehow.

I can do this, Haruhiro told himself. It looks like this will work. Okay.

...He’s out.

The waluo had passed out with his fangs bared. The strength had fully drained from his body. There was no mistaking it. This wasn’t an act; he was really out cold.

Haruhiro rolled him over and then got up. He was about to leave, but then...

No, no, no... Haruhiro shook his head. Isn’t this bad? I mean, sure, he’s unconscious. He’ll probably be out for a while. But I can’t just leave him like this, right? I have to do something. Something? Make it so he can’t move?

Tie him up? Or... make it so he never wakes back up? Like, snuff him?

“...Damn it.” Haruhiro pressed his palm to his forehead.

I don’t know what to do. I’m torn. I’m hesitating. This young waluo was all alone. Even though it’s the middle of the Fire Dragon Festival. Why was he all alone in a place like this? Was he bad with groups? A loner? Maybe he was being bullied? That could be why. None of it matters. He saw me. It’d be dangerous to let him live. I’ll kill him. Just a quick stab. Time to do it.

With that done, Haruhiro left the alley and hurried back towards their hiding place.

Don’t let it shake me up. Stealth, Stealth. Concentrate. If it happened once, it can happen again. I might encounter another waluo. It’s fine. I handled that appropriately. It’s fine. No problem. Good grief. Things like that can happen. Man, he surprised me. I’ve gotta be more careful. Of course. I’ll be careful, okay? I’m gonna be real damn careful. Obviously. That goes without saying. Geez...

Haruhiro turned and looked back. Nono was there. Standing like a corpse.

No, corpses don’t stand. Haruhiro was often told he had sleepy eyes, but Nono had the eyes of a dead man. Was he looking at Haruhiro, or wasn’t he? There was no way to tell.

Haruhiro bowed to him, and raised one hand a little. “...Hey there.”

Nono’s head twisted to the right, and then slowly back to the left. His expression didn’t change. Or rather, because of the mask, Haruhiro couldn’t read it at all.

Um, you’re kinda scary...?

“Erm... You wanna go... back?” When Haruhiro hesitantly pointed to the hiding place, Nono nodded. He knew the man didn’t talk, but Haruhiro couldn’t help but think, Say something! Maybe the harness-like mask prevented him from speaking, though.

It was strangely tense returning with Nono. When had Nono gotten behind him? Had Haruhiro turned because he’d noticed Nono’s presence then? Or was it just because he’d vaguely felt like it? He couldn’t be sure.

They finally reached their warehouse hideout. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. When they entered the warehouse, Ranta, who was sitting in the corner, jumped up and said, “Hey!”

That was when it happened.

Nono suddenly grabbed him by the neck.

It was a surprise, and he hadn’t seen it coming, so he couldn’t dodge. Even if he had been ready for it, he wasn’t sure he could have avoided it.

Nono pressed his masked mouth up close to Haruhiro’s ear. His voice was muffled, of course. It was like a groan. It was really hard to make out what he was saying, but for some reason Haruhiro knew very clearly what he meant.

When Haruhiro responded, “...Got it,” Nono let him go.

Nono walked over to Lala and immediately got down on all fours. He’d just gotten back, but he was already a chair again now. Lala gave him no words of gratitude. Instead she mercilessly sat on Nono’s back, as if that were

a perfectly normal thing to do, and crossed her legs. She seemed satisfied.

Haruhiro walked over to Ranta and the others, dragging his feet like a corpse.

“Wh-What was that... about?” Shihoru asked worriedly. “...Nah.” Haruhiro shook his head. “It’s nothing, really.”

“He say something to you?” Ranta indicated Nono with a glance. “...Hold on, can that guy even talk? Well... I guess he must be able to.”

“Don’t call him ‘that guy,’” Haruhiro corrected the piece of trash without much strength. “It’s Nono-san, okay?”

“S-Sure,” Ranta said. “Hold on, pal, are you okay? You’re acting weird, you know? Did something happen?”

“Ha ha... If even you’re worried about me, I’m probably done for...” “You’re one rude guy, you know that?” Ranta snapped. “I may not look it,

but I’m full of love, okay? I’m the Dread Knight of Love, got it?” “You love Haruhiro?” Merry asked, sounding annoyed.

“Y-Y-You moron, of course not! That’s not what I’m saying!” “It’s not just any love, it’s romantic love, huh?” Yume snickered.

“I don’t love him, romantically or otherwise, damn it! That’s obvious, you moron! Damn it!”

Kuzaku let out a short laugh. “When you’re so desperate to deny it, that actually makes me more suspicious.”

“I’ll make mincemeat out of you, Kuzacky! Seriously, seriously! Don’t make light of a dread knight!”

“Hey,” Lala-sama spoke up. “You, the monkey over there. You’re annoying. Be quiet.”

Ranta immediately stood up ramrod straight and saluted her. His mouth moved, but no voice came out. Sir, yes, sir! It looked like, at some point, he’d been fully trained by Lala.

Terrifying.

Honestly, she was terrifying. Haruhiro shuddered. It wasn’t just Lala- sama. Nono was, too. What he’d done a moment ago, that was crazy scary. This was what Nono had said to Haruhiro:

“If Lala-sama gets so much as a scratch because of you people, I’ll kill every last one of you.”

That was it.

It probably wasn’t an idle threat. Nono had been serious. Besides, the guy didn’t look normal. And he was hyper competent. If Nono decided to kill them all, he could probably do it without them managing to move so much as an eyebrow to defend themselves.

The question was, why had Nono chosen that precise moment to tell Haruhiro? It wasn’t like no ideas came to mind, but he didn’t want to think about it. It wasn’t a thing Haruhiro could do anything by thinking about anyway. He decided to forget the matter for now. There were other things that needed thinking about. Lots and lots of them.

Haruhiro and the others left the warehouse. They came out of the workshop district, and passed through the residential area beyond it. Haruhiro led the way, checking that everything was safe before calling everyone over,

the same as before. They were avoiding the festival areas, so there were few people—no, few waluos—passing by, but he had to be careful of stray ones. Even if he thought there were none, nothing was absolute. Though, that said, if he was too timid, they couldn’t move at all. If they were found, or if they found a waluo, they just had to deal with it immediately. He had to accept it. Nothing was perfect.

—Right?

His stomach hurt. He was sweating like crazy. His throat was dry. The road coming up next was kind of a big one. But when he’d scouted it earlier, it’d seemed like they could cross it.

He poked his head out just a little. No waluos. He gave the signal, then crossed the road first. His comrades, along with Lala and Nono, followed Haruhiro.

They were still in the residential area, but the slope suddenly got steeper here. It was a pretty steep uphill climb. It was hard to see up from the bottom, but there was a good view from above. He had to skillfully hide himself as he advanced.

His stomach really hurt. He was aging a year for every second that went by. He couldn’t help but feel that way.

Instead of heading straight toward Fire Dragon Mountain, he chose side streets as much as possible. No matter what kind of road it was, he made sure to check it thoroughly before entering. Even that wasn’t perfect. He had to be sure that, no matter what happened, he didn’t lose his head.

He was straining himself too much. Pushing his whole body.

Don’t force it, he told himself. Stay calm, stay calm.

No, he couldn’t do it. His heart felt like it was ready to break into a thousand pieces. He was just barely holding himself together. With guts, or stubbornness, or something like that, probably. That was the condition he was in, but Haruhiro probably had sleepy eyes and looked like he was just disinterestedly doing his job. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, he wasn’t at his limit yet.

I can manage somehow.

Since that last time, he hadn’t even seen a waluo. Maybe they were going to be able to make it through Waluandin just like this? Whenever he thought it would be easy, something bad happened. Well, his harsher predictions tended to come true, too, so maybe it would all be the same no matter which

way he leaned.

“The sound of the drums... Isn’t it kind of close?” Ranta commented.

Even before Ranta said it, Haruhiro had noticed. If even Ranta had noticed it, Lala and Nono had to be aware well ahead of him, too. Yet they’d said nothing.

Once again, Haruhiro was reminded that he couldn’t trust them. He didn’t know if they were evil or not, but Lala and Nono only ever thought about themselves. They were only accompanying Haruhiro and the others because, at the moment, they had decided it was worth using them. If that changed, they would probably abandon the party without hesitation. Using them as sacrificial pawns, if need be. They wouldn’t even feel guilty about doing it.

That said, Haruhiro and his comrades were working with them because it was beneficial to them, too. So, in that sense, they were even. Well, as for whether or not he could abandon Lala and Nono if he had to, that was another matter, or rather he’d probably have a hard time bringing himself to do it.

Was he being... naïve, maybe? He might be.

Haruhiro had the other seven wait while he clambered up on top of a nearby building. When he got a look from the rooftop, he could see columns of lights that he assumed were torches moving around Waluandin. One column was less than a hundred meters away. That was pretty close, all things considered.

What do we do?

Haruhiro came down off the roof. How should he explain it? His head wasn’t working right.

When he just stood there, Ranta rounded on him. “What’re you staring off into space for?! What’s up, man?! What’s going on?! Haruhiro! I’m asking you a question, so say something, you balding idiot!”

“...We may be in trouble.” “In trouble how?!”

“They may be searching... for us.”

“Searching for—us... Wait, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!”

“Ranta’s been talkin’ real loud for a while now, after all,” Yume said. “Shut it, Tiny Tits! Just shut up! We’re having an important conversation

here!”

“Why would they be looking for us?” Shihoru asked.

It was a perfectly reasonable question. From his comrades’ perspective, it

must have been a mystery. However, it wasn’t any mystery to Haruhiro. It wasn’t. In fact, he had it more or less figured out. He didn’t want it to be true, but he had to assume it probably was.

“First, we need to run,” Merry said as if trying to convince herself, then looked at her comrades. “Whatever the cause or the reason is, it can wait.”

“Sounds about right.” Kuzaku nodded. “We should run before we’re found.”

“Where’re we gonna run to?!” Ranta shouted. “We’re pretty deep inside Waluandin, you know?! You think there’s anywhere for us to run here?!”

“No need to run.” Lala licked her red lips, then pointed to Fire Dragon Mountain. “For the orcs of Waluandin, Fire Dragon Mountain is probably sacred land. They wouldn’t chase us there, would they?”

Nono fixed a contemptuous look on Haruhiro.

...S-Scary, Haruhiro thought. That look, he’s totally pissed. They’re on to me, damn it.

At the very least, Nono knew. Knew who it was who’d brought about this state of affairs.

Yes. That was right. It was Haruhiro’s fault. Probably. Well, almost certainly. Haruhiro would have given eight to nine out of ten odds that he was to blame.

He hadn’t killed the orc. He hadn’t been able to do it. Not that young waluo. He’d bound him hand and foot, gagged him, and then left him there.

Do I have to tell them? Haruhiro wondered. But they were short on time, right? Maybe not now? Still, why didn’t Nono condemn him for it? No matter how Haruhiro looked at it, this was a crisis. Lala was in danger, too. So why? Because Nono didn’t want to talk? He’d rather kill him first and lay blame later? He was looking for the opportunity? Whatever it was, they needed to hurry.

Merry was right. When it came to the cause or the reason for it, that could wait.

“Let’s go! To Fire Dragon Mountain!” Haruhiro directed.

The waluos beat their drums, swung their torches, and shouted as they searched for Haruhiro and the others. Even at a rough count, there were a lot of torches. Easily into the triple digits. What was more, they weren’t all necessarily carrying torches. It could be one in every few, every ten, or even less than that.

It would be best to assume there were roughly ten times as many in the search party as there were torches. It was over a thousand, and there were possibly multiple thousands of waluos out there hunting for Haruhiro and the others.

Haruhiro did what he could to try to lead the group, but Nono went on ahead of him. He’d have to follow. He couldn’t say, Leave this to me. If Haruhiro said that, Nono would probably have killed him. Besides, he felt like he’d probably mess up again.

It was best to put what happened with the young waluo out of his mind for now. He knew that, but he couldn’t just forget it. Honestly, Haruhiro couldn’t have any confidence in his decision-making ability right now. Right now?

Only now? What about in future? Was he ever going to be able to say, Okay, I’m good now? He couldn’t see it happening.

Nono advanced smoothly, sometimes going straight without hesitation, sometimes turning, and sometimes heading down alleyways. How could he keep on going without hesitation like that? Every once in a while, Lala would call out to him from the rear, saying, Right, or Left, or Straight. Was it thanks to Lala? If he was going to do the wrong thing, Lala would correct him. Was it because even if he messed up, Lala was there to cover for him? Was it the trust between them? Because he wasn’t alone? Because they were a pair?

What about Haruhiro? Did he believe in his comrades? It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in them, it was just... that—

“Stop!” Lala shouted, and he realized a band of waluos had appeared in front of them.

The waluos were over two meters tall and wearing body paint, so they were frightening even to look at. Haruhiro’s heart jumped up and down, causing a sharp and intense pain to run through his chest.

Nono attacked the lead waluo. Kuzaku readied his shield and charged in.

Ranta followed.

Nono used his right hand knife to cut open the first waluo’s neck in the blink of an eye, then sprang at another waluo. Kuzaku smashed into one with his shield, probably meaning to knock him down, but the enemy was bigger than he was and managed to hold firm. Ranta slashed at the waluo carrying the torch, but though he’d managed to drive him back, he hadn’t dealt a serious wound.

Haruhiro grabbed the hilt of his stiletto, adjusted his grip, and then held it

tight.

Oh, crap. Oh, crap. This was not good. No. He was standing bolt upright, his legs like sticks.

What was he doing? Nothing. Haruhiro was doing nothing.

He looked around. Looked, and thought. He pretended to be thinking. The truth was, he wasn’t thinking a thing.

“This way!” Lala shouted.

The moment he heard Lala shout that, he was incredibly relieved. She was pointing to an alley a little way back the way they had come.

He sent Yume, Shihoru, and Merry on ahead, then waited for Ranta, who had turned and run, and Kuzaku, who was slowly pulling back while using his shield to block a waluo’s kicks. Nono wasn’t just fast, he used martial arts techniques of varying speed along with his knife to great effect, and he was stalling the waluos. He wasn’t that big, and all he had was a short knife, but he was running circles around the big waluos. How could he pull a trick like that off?

Now wasn’t the time to stare in admiration.

Ranta went into the alley. Kuzaku wasn’t there yet. There was a waluo harassing him.

I’ve got to do something about him, thought Haruhiro. That’s right. I’ve got to. I need to do at least that much. Do it.

Haruhiro raced past Kuzaku and the waluo, then made a sudden turn and slammed a Backstab into him. He’d been aiming to hit the kidney by going through his back, but it didn’t reach the organ.

The waluo turned.

Kuzaku hit it in the jaw with Bash, then followed up with a Thrust using his black blade. There was no need for either of them to say, Let’s go. They headed for the alley together. Nono followed them, too.

To the alley.

To the alley.

It was a narrow alley, maybe only about a meter across, and Lala was there, elegantly pointing to the right. Why hadn’t Lala abandoned Haruhiro and the party yet? What was Nono thinking?

No. That didn’t matter. Not for now. He’d shut up and do as Lala said. It was his only choice. That was the best thing to do. After all, Haruhiro couldn’t handle it himself. He had no plan for getting out of this. He could

only run around blindly.

Lala was different. She showed no signs of panicking. Nono was the same way. They were calm. Like always.

I’ve gotta be like that, thought Haruhiro. He wanted to be like them, but could he? Well, that was questionable. Probably not. There was no way. He could work his whole life, and he’d never be able to be like Lala and Nono.

When they came out onto a large cobblestone road, they had a good view of Waluandin in its entirety. They were at a pretty high elevation. This was already the far edge of Waluandin. The waluos pressed in on them from the far end of the road.

“Aha!” Lala laughed. “Slowpokes! We’ve won!”

Had they really? Was she lying? Lala took the lead in racing up the big road up the hill.

Ranta shouted, “This is so damn cool!”

The waluos had totally caught Haruhiro and the others now. This big road seemed to stretch from the palace district, meandering a bit as it went all the way to Fire Dragon Mountain. How did he know that? Because he could see it. The torches clearly lit up the path of the road.

Incredible. There was a seriously incredible number of waluos.

If Kikkawa had been here, he might have called it “tally-to some-awe.” Yeah, maybe not.

Man, Haruhiro missed Kikkawa. He was supposedly all right, so would they be able to meet again? There wasn’t much hope of it. He couldn’t help but feel that way.

A muddy stream. With their body paint and decorative cloths that they wore like a sash, the waluos swinging around their dragon sticks and torches seemed to be like a muddy stream surging backwards up the road in an attempt to swallow up Haruhiro and the others. It was honestly a bit hard to tell how many meters there were between Nono at the rear of the group and the front of the line of waluos, but it was less than ten meters. Well, it was a few meters.

Nono could probably shake them if he got serious. But Shihoru and Kuzaku would have had trouble, and Merry didn’t seem like she’d have an easy time doing so, either. There was a sense in the air that it was only a matter of time now.

Weren’t they out of moves? Wasn’t this the end?

It was all Haruhiro’s fault. Haruhiro had ended it.

Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, guys. I’m really sorry. It was me. It was my fault. I’m the one to blame. All of it. Me. What can I do to get you to forgive me? Yeah, nothing, I’ll bet. Of course not. I mean, it’s my fault, after all! No one else is to blame. It’s all on me!

Haruhiro ran as fast as he could, crying and screaming despite himself. He didn’t turn back. He only looked ahead. He was just scared. He didn’t want to see anything, or to know anything.

Enough. It was over anyway. Because of Haruhiro, it was all over. They were all gonna die. They’d be beaten to a bloody pulp and brutally killed.

It was strange. No matter how much time passed, it didn’t happen. It should have been any moment now, but Haruhiro was still alive.

He passed between two stone pillars with a dragon motif. He’d finally left the city. The steep cobblestone road continued, but there were no more buildings. The rocky mountain spread out to either side. There wasn’t so much as a single tree growing here. Here and there, lava would spurt up as if from a pulsing vein, and there would be a puff of smoke.

“They’re not comin’ after us!” Yume cried, her voice full of cheer.

I see. That’s right. Haruhiro wiped the sweat, tears, snot, and saliva from his face as he turned back. The waluos were there. They hadn’t turned back. But they had stopped at the stone pillars. It was as if some invisible dam were holding them back.

Sacred land. Fire Dragon Mountain was probably sacred land to the orcs of Waluandin, so maybe they wouldn’t chase them here. That had been Lala’s read on the situation, and she had stated it clearly. In the end, it had been spot on.

Lala had won a calculated victory. Not just Nono, but Ranta, Yume, Shihoru, Merry, and Kuzaku might all have hope now. Haruhiro was the only one who didn’t.

Haruhiro was alone in his utter despair.

He’d panicked so badly that he’d lost the ability to think straight. He was embarrassed. Incredibly. He wanted to just disappear. He didn’t want to live in shame any longer.

The road turned into stone steps. It was so steep that, had they not been on a staircase, it felt like they would tumble down. When they got past that incline, it leveled out to be almost flat, and the road came to an abrupt end.

“Oofwhah..!” Ranta let out an odd exclamation. “There! There they are!

Those’re salamanders, right?! Hold on, how are they okay in that molten lava?!”

From there on, there were real ups and downs in the mountain slope, rivers of lava everywhere, and also springs of lava bubbling up. The salamanders would float in the lava, swim in it, and jump around in it.

Actually, if he were to describe them just how they looked, they were like clumps of molten lava in the shape of lizards. When they weren’t moving, they were indistinguishable from the lava. That was why, as a matter of fact, Haruhiro had no idea how many salamanders there were. It was possible that all of that lava was salamanders. Well, that was probably not true, but he couldn’t deny the possibility.

“Let’s take it a little more carefully from here,” Lala said quietly, as if they hadn’t been particularly careful up until this point.

What kind of nerves did she have? Or was she just putting up a strong front? That couldn’t be it. She just had nerves of steel.

Nono stood in the front, checking his footing as he moved forward. Lala was in second place, and behind her the line went Ranta, Kuzaku, Merry, Shihoru, Yume, and finally Haruhiro. They hadn’t discussed it beforehand; it had just ended up this way naturally. Probably because Haruhiro hadn’t done anything or said a word, everyone had assumed he’d meant to bring up the rear.

Haruhiro hadn’t actually been thinking anything, but he had no complaints. If anything, he was grateful. He was happy to be in the back; the back was great. He didn’t have to feel anyone’s eyes on him. He couldn’t take on a leadership role in this state.

“The reason we had our eyes on this place,” Lala began to explain without anyone asking her to, “was because of the presence of orcs. Because they’re in Grimgar, too. When a race exists in two different worlds, as a general rule, you can assume that those worlds are connected. Based on our experience, if that race has put down roots in a specific place, there’s usually a path between them there. Though, in many cases, there’s a reason they can’t go back and forth easily.”

“There’s a fire dragon here...” Shihoru held her hat down as she fearfully jumped across a thin stream of lava.

Immediately after she did, a salamander hopped out, nearly touching

Shihoru’s leg. “...Ohhh!”

“Y’think there really is a fire dragon?” Yume easily jumped over, and of course the salamander jumped again, too. Yume easily cleared both the lava stream and the salamander. “It’s too quiet here, after all.”

Haruhiro ran up and jumped as hard as he could, trying not to look at the stream or the salamander. He had to say something. It was strange for him to stay so quiet. But what would he say? It wasn’t like he didn’t have things he should be saying. If he said it, though, what would happen? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to imagine it.

“Y’think that’s the summit there?” Kuzaku pointed diagonally to the left in front of them.

There was definitely a dark mountainous shape in that direction. How far was it, distance-wise? A few hundred meters ahead? More, maybe?

“Hold on...” Ranta came to a sudden stop. “Haruhiro. You were saying something earlier, weren’t you, pal? Back in Waluandin. Also, man... you were crying. Was I just imagining that?”

Haruhiro just shook his head. He didn’t answer. When he tried to keep going, Ranta pushed aside their other comrades to close in on Haruhiro.

“You were saying something, something about how it was because of you.

What’d that mean? Like, you said it was all your fault. You’re acting weird, too, you know? I mean, I know you’re weird most of the time. You’ve got those sleepy eyes and all. But, even so, you’re not acting normal. Man, what’s gotten into you?”

“...Later,” Haruhiro whispered. “Huhh?”

“I’ll tell you later. I promise I will. For now... it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter.” Ranta grabbed Haruhiro by the collar. “There’s no way it doesn’t! Don’t give me that shit! Listen, man, there’s nothing I hate more than when things are kept vague like this!”

“That’s why I said I’d tell you later! Think about the situation!” “What situation? You’re not getting out of this! When I decide to do

something, I do it! I’m gonna chase you down and get the truth out of you no matter what it takes!”

“Ranta! Stop!” Yume tried to interpose herself between Haruhiro and Ranta.

That pushed Haruhiro backwards. “Ah...!” He lost his footing, and in the direction he stepped, small or not, there was a pool of lava. His foot didn’t land right in it, but his right heel brushed the lava slightly, and it sizzled and burned. “Urgh...!”

“H-Haru-kun?!” Yume cried.

“...No, I’m... fine...?” Haruhiro crouched down and rubbed his heel. He’d pulled his foot out immediately, so he didn’t think it was anything major.

That was what he hoped. He traced the outline of his boot with his fingers. How was it? The heel seemed kind of melted? Was it just the boot? What about the inside? It felt painful, and maybe hot...?

“I-I’m not gonna apologize, okay!” Ranta said arrogantly. “Th-Th-That was Yume’s fault, and your own! I’m not in the wrong here, not one insignificant bit!”

“You’re insignificant...” Shihoru murmured.

“Huh?! What was that, you rotten saggy titty bomber?!” “R-Rotten... s-saggy...?!”

“Haru! Let me look!” Merry pushed past Shihoru, Yume, and Ranta to crouch next to Haruhiro.

Lala shrugged, looking at them in utter amazement. Nono brought his face close to Lala and whispered something in her ear. He might have been pressing her to make a choice. Like, Isn’t it about time we abandoned them, maybe?

That was no good. No good at all. The party needed them to reconsider, or they’d be in trouble.

“Whoa, wai—” Haruhiro pushed Merry aside as she was trying to heal him, and stood up. The pain shot through his right heel, and he let out a bizarre little shriek of pain.

“Huh?” Kuzaku said something incredibly strange. “The summit moved?” “Mountains don’t move,” Lala said with a joyous purr in her voice for

some reason. “In other words, that’s no mountain, is it?”

“I-If it isn’t...” Ranta turned and looked up at the summit—no, the thing they had thought was the summit. “Wh-What... is that thing...?”

It shook left and right—no, not just that. This sound. It was vibrating. Or rather, the ground was shaking. The thing was approaching.

“Run!” Haruhiro shouted reflexively. “Wh-Which way?!” Ranta shouted back.

“I don’t know which—”

Which way? Where would they run? Back? The way they came? How far? Could they go down the mountain? But they couldn’t flee into Waluandin. That was obvious. What should they do? How should he know? Haruhiro naturally tried to cling to Lala and Nono.

They were gone.

They had been there until just a moment ago. No. He could see their backs. They were moving on. He’d lost sight of them for a moment when the shadow of a boulder up ahead blocked his view. That said, they were already more than fifteen meters away.

“A-After them! Follow those two! Hurry!” “Damn it! That bitch!” Ranta shouted.

“Shihoru, go on ahead!” Yume cried. “Yume’s gonna be right there behind you!”

“Y-Yeah! Got it!” “Merry-san, you go, too!”

“Okay! Haru, can you run?!”

“I-I can, yeah! Now hurry! Kuzaku, you too!” “’Kay!”

The tremors grew larger and more violent. Haruhiro desperately chased after Kuzaku’s back. When his right heel touched down, the pain shot all the way to the top of his head. All he could do was work to avoid his right heel touching the ground, running on the balls of his feet. It wasn’t easy, by any means.

Once the weight of their gear and other possessions factored in, Haruhiro was either the fastest or the second fastest runner in the party. Kuzaku was the slowest. Despite that, this was hopeless. Not only was he not catching up to Kuzaku, he was being left behind.

Kuzaku occasionally looked back, slowed down, and waited for Haruhiro.

He was so happy he could cry, but it was no solution. Even if he closed the gap a little, it quickly opened back up, and sometimes got worse.

He suddenly lost sight of Kuzaku. Had he finally given up on him? No, that couldn’t be it. He passed through a narrow gap between two boulders and came out into a more open place.

It wasn’t just Kuzaku. Everyone was there. Even Lala and Nono were there, off in the distance.

up.

Kuzaku turned back, looking at Haruhiro—and then at something further

“...!” Kuzaku let out a silent cry that was ominous, to say the least.

It might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but Haruhiro felt like he was

being told about the end of the world.

He couldn’t decide. Should he see it for himself, or was it best not to?

Before he could make a decision, his eyes were sucked towards it. He didn’t wish he hadn’t seen it, and he wasn’t glad that he had seen it. He was just dumbfounded.

He liked to think he’d encountered his fair share of creatures. Like the giant god in the Dusk Realm. Well, there was probably room for debate on whether that was a living creature or not, but it had been huge.

This thing wasn’t an order of magnitude bigger than them like the giant god had been. But there was something in the shape of its eyes that made him feel a special, deep kind of emotion. They weren’t pretty, or beautiful. It was different from that. If he were to sum it up in one word...

Terrifying. That was probably what they were, but that was certainly not all they were.

Its whole body was covered with reddish scales, or perhaps black scales with a red luster. On that point, it was similar to a reptile. In fact, it might have been fair to call it a giant lizard, but it really was different. It seemed to walk on four legs, but its front legs also seemed like they could grab things. It had hands that looked surprisingly dexterous. Its neck was pretty long, and its head was rather small. Small though it might have been, it was probably still large enough to swallow a person whole. It was a matter of relative size.

It wasn’t fat. It didn’t look slow-witted, and it seemed to move quickly for its large size. If it ran as fast as those powerful rear legs would take it, it was probably really fast. It lifted its long tail, stretching it out.

That’s a dragon.

Most likely, even if they hadn’t known that dragons existed, anyone would have been able to tell at first sight that this creature held a special position. If that person had then been told this was a dragon, they would accept it immediately. Even though they didn’t know what dragons were, they would no doubt think, Oh, I see, so that’s what a dragon is. Dragons had to be engraved in everyone’s instincts.

It was little wonder the orcs of Waluandin worshiped it. It was easy to understand why they wanted to offer it sacrifices, too.

Haruhiro trembled, of course. This fear wasn’t something he could feel normally. However, at the same time, there was something he couldn’t help but feel.

Dragons are awesome.

Honestly, it was cool. Creatures like this actually existed. In a way, it was perfect. Now it may not be clear what way that was, but it was awesome.

Dragon.

The fire dragon opened its maw, twisted its neck, and inhaled. Was it taking a deep breath? He didn’t know what was up, but Haruhiro watched it intently. It might have been more accurate to say he was entranced by it.

There were little lights flickering in the back of the fire dragon’s throat.

What are those? he wondered. That was all he thought. “Uwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” When he heard Ranta’s scream, he began to

suspect that maybe he was lacking the proper sense of crisis here. He looked and saw that his comrades were making a mad dash to get away. They were like herbivores fleeing to get away from a pack of wolves. Of course, Ranta and the others were no herbivores, and there were no wolves to be found on this mountain. There were only salamanders and the fire dragon. It looked like Ranta and the others were trying to get away from that fire dragon.

Well, yeah, of course they’re running.

Why was Haruhiro just standing there? If anything, that was the strange thing.

The fire dragon inhaled, and inhaled, and inhaled, then finally exhaled.

No, it wasn’t just breathing out. Or was that just what the fire dragon’s breath was like?

Haruhiro rolled backwards. The hot mass that assaulted him left him unable to stand.

Fire. Flames. The fire dragon had spewed fire. He thought he might have burned, too. It was hot enough he wouldn’t have been surprised if he melted away completely. That’s what it felt like.

How much time had passed? A few seconds? A few minutes? More than that? He didn’t know.

Haruhiro lay on his side like a dried-out caterpillar. He was literally dried out. Steam was rising from all over his body. He was crispy and crunchy. His

eyes, his nose, and his mouth were all dry. His skin looked ready to crack at any moment. He was scared to even blink. But if he didn’t blink and work out some tears somehow, something seriously bad was going to happen to his eyes. The same went for his mouth and nose, too. His body needed to use all of its remaining water to moisten them, or he was in serious trouble.

He didn’t seem to be on fire. That flame breath hadn’t burned him. Well, that was probably because he hadn’t taken a direct hit. Haruhiro just got hit by the aftereffects of it. Even that had been enough to leave him like this. If he’d taken it head-on, he would surely have been reduced to ash in an instant.

That meant the fire dragon hadn’t been aiming for Haruhiro with its fire breath. Then where had it aimed? What was its target?

He could hear the tremors, the fire dragon’s footsteps. He felt it. The fire dragon was on the move.

“Ranta and... the others... Merry... Yume... Shihoru... Kuzaku...” he managed.

His comrades were trying to run away. From the fire dragon, probably. Maybe from its fire breath. Was the fire dragon aiming for them? Not for Haruhiro, but his comrades? Had it spat fire at his comrades? That was why Haruhiro had been spared? Because his comrades? What was happening?

“I have... to look for them...”

That was right. What had happened wasn’t the issue. First, he had to find them.

Haruhiro used a rocky outcropping on the mountainside to pull himself to his feet. His right heel hurt so badly, he thought it might crumble. The pain was actually what saved him. He was glad for it. He wished he could faint from the pain. No such luck. He had to search.

When he went in the direction his comrades had fled, he saw the fire dragon’s back. The area where its flames burst had caved in, and there was a quagmire of molten rock at the bottom of the hole. It gave him a plain display of the flames’ power. They’d have done more than turn him to ash. If he’d taken a direct hit, there might not have been anything left of him.

That being the case, maybe he wouldn’t be able to find his comrades.

Don’t think that, he told himself. Don’t think stupid things. You can’t think. Move. Make yourself move. Get your body moving. It all starts with that.

He couldn’t convince himself that he wanted to follow right behind the

fire dragon. That was much too dangerous. Haruhiro decided to take the long way around. The fire dragon might be looking for something. Maybe his comrades had gotten away. The fire dragon might still be chasing his comrades. If he circled around in front of it, he might be able to meet up with them.

That was right. There was hope. It wasn’t hopeless.

While always keeping the fire dragon in sight, making sure not to get too close to it, or too far from it, he worked out his course. The terrain was his enemy. It was too rough, and too bumpy, after all. Lava peeked out from the places that were sunken and had looked like they might be paths he could use. There were always salamanders in the lava.

When he lost sight of the fire dragon, he fell into a sudden panic. In his feverish haste, he got burns here and there.

I should jump into the lava and end it all. He often caught himself thinking things like that.

When he caught a glimpse of the fire dragon in the distance, it gave him courage. The fire dragon was there. That relieved him, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“...They’re alive, right? All of them,” he mumbled to himself. Don’t doubt it. If you doubt it, you’ve lost. Lost? Lost to what? To myself, probably.

To the weakness of my own heart.

He didn’t think he was strong, but had he been this frail all along? He didn’t know how much he’d thought he’d grown, but what the hell was with this sad state of affairs? It was beyond awful.

Did I think I’d grown? Did I think I could do it? Did I grow? Did I expect anything from myself? How stupid. In the end, I’m just a small fry. I’m a have-not. I mean, I have no talent. I worked hard because there was nothing else I could do. I feel like I’d done what I could have. Was it not enough?

Maybe it isn’t a matter of enough or not enough. It was hopeless either way. No matter how hard I worked, gave it my best, no matter what I did, there were always going to be limits.

What, did I think I would actually be able to do something? Maybe?

That’s hilarious. Look at reality. I knew it from the very beginning. I can’t be anyone but me. I can’t be anything more than myself. I’m just myself. I’m endlessly weak, and frail, and I haven’t changed who I am. In the end, it

can’t be changed. There’s no way for me to change.

I’m small and miserable, pathetically clinging to something, and while I may still be alive for now, it won’t last long.

This is me.

I’ve had enough, it’s time to end it.

Look, the fire dragon is so far away. Get ahead of it? Like I could. It hurts. Not just my right heel. I hurt all over. I don’t want to walk. I can’t move.

I’ll just stay here.

Sit down, and stay put.

In fact, Haruhiro did sit down and hold his knees for quite a long time. “Man, I’m mediocre...” he mumbled.

What a laugh. Honestly. If I’ve given up on myself, why don’t I just give up entirely? Can’t I do that? No, of course not. I’m not that graceful. It makes me think that this is just how things are. I’m so mediocre, it makes me hate myself.

I wanted to be someone special. That’s the truth, you know? I hoped I could be. Like, geniuses, I admire them. Soma and Kemuri, or Akira-san and Miho, or even Tokimune and his team, and then there’s Renji. They’re incredible. It makes me think, “If only I could have been like that.” I just try to think about it. Because it’s impossible. What can I do about the gap between us? There’s nothing. Nothing I can do. There’s nothing that can be done about it. I know that and all, but I’m just going to die without ever, even once, becoming someone special. What is there to think about a life like that? It feels lonely, and sad. Well, I’m fine with it, though.

No matter what sort of life you have, it’s the one and only one you’ll get, so it’s special and irreplaceable, right?

There’s no need to compare myself to others. When you’re comparing yourself to others, there’s only one standard. In the end, it’s how you feel about yourself, right?

I can see where this is going, you know, even though I can’t. It feels like it’s all about to end, so, at the very least, I should give my own blessings to this insignificant life of mine.

“...Like you could, idiot,” he muttered.

I wanted to lead a life I could proudly boast about to anyone. I wanted to be someone I could be proud of. I grew timid, thinking I couldn’t do things,

and that’s why I ended up like this, but then I used that as an excuse, and acted like I was doing my best, and I tried to be satisfied with that, but in the end, you know what, this is pathetic. I haven’t done everything I could have, and it feels half-assed, and that’s no good at all, but the curtain’s probably going to fall with me still feeling dissatisfied about it.

It wasn’t like he thought, I’ll give it my all, and tried to look forward. It was just too painful to stay the way he was. He simply couldn’t sit still, and he stood up because he had no choice. That was the truth.

He couldn’t say that he’d honed his senses at the time, but he felt a stabbing presence. Without turning, he did a forward roll. Something fell down right behind him.

To avoid using his right heel, he used his left leg as an axis to turn around, drawing his stiletto as he did. His enemy had a long machete-like weapon that he’d swung down at Haruhiro.

It wasn’t that Haruhiro thought he’d get taken out if he tried to dodge, or anything like that. His body reacted on its own. Haruhiro plunged himself head first into his enemy’s lower body.

When he tried to stab the enemy with his stiletto, his enemy jumped back and evaded it. Haruhiro charged in, not stopping to ponder questions like who the enemy was or why this was happening. At some point, he found himself holding not just his stiletto, but his knife with the hilt guard was in his left hand, too.

His right heel hurt. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel the pain, but he didn’t let it bother him. He attacked.

The attack.

He was on the attack.

The enemy’s blade was about 1.2 meters long, meaning it had far more reach than Haruhiro’s weapons, and the enemy was larger than he was too, so he wasn’t going to be able to fend him off with Swat for long. Haruhiro didn’t analyze the situation and come to that conclusion; he knew it instinctively. He had to close the gap and attack.

The only thing the enemy did was run around. He had a weapon, but he was half naked. From the look of him, he seemed to be an orc. He was slender compared to the orcs of Waluandin. But he probably wasn’t just thin. His body was reminiscent of a bowstring pulled to its limits. His skin lacked greenness and was not smooth. It was raised in some places, twisted in

others.

Maybe those were burn scars. It wasn’t just part of him. It was his whole body. Those eyes. Could he see with them? Both of his eyeballs were muddy and white.

Whether he could see or not, even when he backed away, he never went near the lava. His movements were elegant. Like some sort of master martial artist. It was true, Haruhiro was pressing the attack and the orc was on the defensive. However, that didn’t mean he had him on the ropes. He had leeway to work with. Plenty of it, probably.

Haruhiro might be being forced to attack. If he didn’t attack, he’d be attacked himself. If he was attacked, it was highly likely that he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. If not for the wound on his right heel, he might have taken the risk and tried to flee, but there was no chance of it working when he couldn’t even run properly. He wished he could talk his way out of it, but that wasn’t possible, either. Even if he didn’t feel he could win, he had to do it.

There was only one result. It was kill or be killed.

It was no time to calculate odds, but even without him considering it, countless thoughts raced through his head at high speed.

His enemy’s footwork was unique. He was standing on his tiptoes. They seemed to be sinking into the ground.

His body was awfully flexible. He controlled his machete with just his right hand. His left hand wasn’t even on it.

That machete. It didn’t look like it was metal. Stone? It looked like it had been carved out of stone. That long machete made of stone might have been handmade.

Did he live here? How did he eat and drink? Was this a livable environment? He’d be attacking soon.

See, here it comes.

The orc twisted his body and pulled it diagonally. The long stone machete thrust forward.

Haruhiro didn’t fall back. He couldn’t avoid it. He put all his strength into a Swat with his knife with the hilt guard. He couldn’t handle a combo, but if it was just one strike...

It was heavy.

The orc’s strength was immense—but Haruhiro pulled it off. He deflected it and immediately went in to attack, but the orc slipped back and away from

him, scrunching up his face.

Was that a smile? Fine. Smile away. Haruhiro wouldn’t smile. He’d attack.

He got in close, striking out with his stiletto. He was always taking aim with his knife. He knew. He didn’t need to think about it, he knew. The orc was enjoying this. He might have been crazy even by orc standards. He was enjoying the fight, and trying to savor it.

The orc probably intended to force Haruhiro to give everything he had, and then once he was satisfied with what he’d seen, he’d kill him. That being the case, Haruhiro had just one small chance for victory.

Besides, he was already giving his all. He couldn’t move any faster, or swing his stiletto any harder. This was his limit, so just keeping it up was tiring, and he’d only degrade from here. He couldn’t turn this into a drawn- out battle. The more time that passed, the fewer chances he would have to attack. The orc probably knew that, too. If they fought, and fought, and fought until they were through, then luck, the situation, and a variety of other diverse factors would gradually drop off until, in the end, the strongest was guaranteed to win.

And, in this case, that wasn’t Haruhiro. It was the orc.

That was why, before it came to that ultimate stage, Haruhiro had to throw everything he had into one desperate gambit. Of course, the orc knew that, too. He was trying to egg him into it.

Bring it on, he seemed to say.

Come on, bring it, he was saying.

That line was nowhere to be seen. Haruhiro saw an invisible, narrow bridge laid out in front of him, and he had no choice but to cross it. What was more, this guy was on the other side of the bridge. He knew Haruhiro was coming, and the orc was eagerly awaiting his chance to demolish him. His odds of pulling it off might not be zero, but they were close to it. Even so, Haruhiro would cross the bridge.

Because he had no choice? Because he had to?

No.

That’s not it.

It’s because I want to live. I don’t want to die. I can’t let myself die. I’ll kill him, and live. Live. Live. Live for all I’m worth. I’ll beat him. I’m gonna win this. Now, cross the bridge.

Assault.

He had thought he was giving his all before, but maybe he was wrong.

Haruhiro surprised himself. He hadn’t known he could move this fast.

Thanks to that, in a turn of good fortune, it looked like he was able to overshoot the orc’s expectations for him, too. Haruhiro easily got in too close for him to reach. From there, all he had to do was stab like crazy with his stiletto, and slash away with his knife.

The orc quickly brought his knee up in an attempt to defend himself.

Haruhiro stabbed the hell out of it, slashed it up, and pushed in.

The orc reached out with his left hand. He tried to hug Haruhiro and seal his attacks.

Haruhiro didn’t worry about it, instead poking his stiletto through the orc’s belly and gouging him. His knife slammed in to the orc’s right armpit. He was in a position to push the orc down.

The orc wrapped both of his legs around Haruhiro and squeezed him, grabbing Haruhiro’s hair with his left hand. Then he slammed the hilt of his long stone machete into Haruhiro’s head.

Even so, Haruhiro continued twisting his stiletto around inside the orc’s guts. Moving his knife around vigorously, he tried to cut the orc’s right arm off at the shoulder. He bit the orc’s neck. He tore into his skin, meat, and blood vessels. The blood overflowed. It wasn’t just warm, it was hot.

Haruhiro bit into that open wound even more. The orc screamed. Haruhiro didn’t let out so much as a grunt.

Destroy, destroy, I’ll destroy you, destroy you, destroy you until you can’t move. Live, live, I’ll live, I’m gonna live. Win, I’ll win and live, I’ll survive.

It’s kill or be killed, live or die, I’m not the one who’s gonna die, it’s you.

Oh, wait, maybe I can stop now...?

No, not yet. He needed to do more. Haruhiro didn’t stop until the blood coming out of the orc went cool. When he was completely, absolutely certain that the orc was dead, all the strength drained from his body, and he burst into tears. He felt like he was blubbering pretty badly.

He’d won. Haruhiro had won.

His opponent had been strong. In terms of pure strength, probably stronger than Haruhiro. Far stronger, maybe.

Why had Haruhiro been able to win?

He didn’t think his opponent had been arrogant. The orc had never let his

guard down. However, if his enemy’s strength had been a ten, he’d probably assumed Haruhiro’s was a five, or maybe a four. That was about how Haruhiro had felt, too. But at the last moment, he’d been able to add just a little extra to that five. That was all that had decided the battle. Indeed, Haruhiro had truly been gambling. It had gone just as planned. In that sense, it had been a perfect victory. The weak had overcome the strong, all by himself, with only his own strength, his own ability, and seized this victory.

Haruhiro looked down at the remains of the defeated. He wanted to learn what he could about his foe.

The orc was maybe two meters and twenty centimeters tall. There was no way to weigh him, but he had to be easily over a hundred kilograms. He could be two, maybe even three hundred kilos. That was huge. He’d looked slender, but he was still massive.

There were burn marks covering his entire body. The scars went down all the way to the tips of his toes. This had to be deliberate. He must have burned himself. There was some intricate design carved into his exposed fangs. A dragon, apparently.

Haruhiro went through all the orc’s possessions. He had a belt around his waist, and there were pockets for items and a sheath on it. He had something that looked like a golden ring, four blackish scale-like objects, and a small knife. Haruhiro opted to take it all.

The orc’s eyes were open, so he closed them, and put his hands together because that seemed like the right thing to do. It was a strange thing to think, and he realized that himself, but Haruhiro felt this orc had shared his life with him, and it was thanks to him that Haruhiro was alive now. That was how he felt.

Still, Haruhiro was bruised all over, and he was in such bad shape that it would be harder to find a part of him that didn’t ache right now. The life that the orc had given him might burn out eventually. Even so, he was living on somehow. Since he was alive, there were things he ought to do, or rather there were things he really wanted to do, and things that he had no choice but to do.

He wanted to see his comrades.

He didn’t think for a second, I’m sure they’re all fine, or, I’m sure we’ll meet again, and he had no high hopes of it happening, but he wanted it to. So he decided to search. Until his life ran out, he would keep on looking.

Leaving the orc behind, Haruhiro walked off. When he turned back after going a short distance, salamanders were swarming over the orc’s corpse.

Without a hint of irony or sarcasm, Haruhiro thought it was the second most fitting end that he could have received. The most fitting probably would have been for him to challenge the fire dragon and be incinerated by its fire breath or to be devoured. He hadn’t been able to have that.

Haruhiro had no leads. Not even a direction to go in.

Whenever he occasionally saw the fire dragon off in the distance, he found it strangely encouraging, and he would naturally break into a smile.

When the pain and exhaustion made it too hard for him to walk, he accepted it and sat down to rest. He lay down sometimes, too. If he couldn’t get up again, that would be that. He could just accept it. However, that wasn’t likely to happen. If he lost consciousness, obviously there would be no helping that. However, until his time came, he was sure his wish would not fade.

I want to see my comrades.

After all I’ve been through, I’m not going to think that’s pathetic. Really, I don’t want to be left all by myself. It’s lonely.

There were a number of times when he not so much fell asleep as passed out. When he came to his senses, he was happy.

He was still alive. He could search again.

You know, like this, it feels like I’ve gone everywhere. When was the last time I thought about that?

I was riding a bicycle—Bicycle...?

I dunno what that is, but I thought I could go anywhere on it.

I felt like I could go everywhere. What was it that got me out there? Oh, right. One of those things that you see all the time. The rainbow. It was after the rain. I saw a rainbow. Where did the rainbow start, and where did it end? I thought I’d go and see. I swore I’d find it.

I gave up along the way that time. Now, I wouldn’t give up. I’d go all the way I could, and even if the rainbow vanished, I could just wait for it to appear again.

When I close my eyes, ah... I can see it clearly. The rainbow.

The bow of seven colors beyond the sky.

I’ll head towards the rainbow. I’ll head for the rainbow, and never stop

going.

He sensed a tremor and opened his eyes to find the fire dragon relatively close by. It was close enough that he could look up at it. He went to shake its hand, then stopped.

He decided to stay put. It felt like he might get stomped. If it happened, it happened, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He closed his eyes, and watched the rainbow. At some point, the fire dragon left.

He was alive. Still alive. But his body really did feel heavy. Heavy, or rather sluggish.

I guess I can rest. Yeah. I’ll take a rest.

He’d found a good place. There was a depression. For some reason, it was a little cool. A little? No, it was really cool. It was a wonder to him how the ground could be cool. It was hot everywhere here.

He slowly came to the realization that he was crawling. It was really hard walking, after all. It wasn’t easy crawling, either, but it was better than walking.

How far did this depression go? It seemed to go on for quite a ways. But maybe here was good, he thought. Here was good.

Suddenly, he was engulfed by total darkness.

On the verge of it, he had a vague memory of thinking, Maybe I’m done for. And yet, his eyes snapped open.

It looked like he was alive. Stubborn, huh. To live was to not die, after all.

He couldn’t move so much as a finger. He was having a hard enough time just breathing. He went on in that state for a long time, and he had no real hope of recovering, but suddenly, it occurred to him that he could get up, and you never know until you try, so he did, and he could.

If this kept up, dying might take him a while. Did he have to keep living until then? Well, in that case, live on he would.

Even so, when he sat with his back against the rock wall like this, all the muscles in his body relaxed themselves as if some vital core had slipped free from it.

I can’t see the rainbow.

It sure is dark, huh. This place is dark. Wait, where is this place...?

A depression.

A cool depression?

He turned to face it. That’s—a hole, isn’t it? “...Seriously?” he whispered.

It was dark and his vision was hazy, so he couldn’t see very well, but it was probably a hole. In the bottom of the depression, there was a hole that was about two meters across. It wasn’t vertical; it was on a diagonal slant. He couldn’t imagine it was just any old cave. Not with this coolness.

It was abnormal. This was a mountaintop covered with lava, after all.

Haruhiro was right in front of the hole.

It had to be the tunnel.

That hole led through to Grimgar.

“This... can’t be happening...” he whispered. He could go back.

To Grimgar.

“This is... the rainbow’s...”

A moan escaped from the deep in his throat.

—How?

How is this the beginning of the rainbow? It’s the end of the rainbow.

There is no rainbow. There never was. It’s an illusion.

It was always going to be impossible. I mean, at this point, I really can’t move anymore. Besides, what am I going to do if I make it back alone? That’s no good. I need my comrades with me.

Even if I search on my own, and I happen across the destination we were looking for, it’s meaningless, isn’t it?

Is this the conclusion that’s been waiting for me? Is this how it ends?

How worthless.

But, and this is just a probably, if even a little of my strength were to return, and I was able to move forward, I’m sure I’d search for them. My comrades. Then, at the end of it all, I’d die alone. Even if it’s pointless, painful, and unpleasant, I’ll live for something until I die. I’ll keep living on.

I still don’t know if I’ll be able to wake up again or not. I can’t bring myself to think that I hope I wake up, but if I do, I’m sure I’ll keep struggling on in vain.

For now, I’ll sleep.

I wish I had someone to sing me a lullaby. I don’t like being alone.

Someone, be with me. Someone.

...Please.

All I need is for you to be here.

“Awaken.”

A dream. It must have been a dream. That voice. He’d heard it before.

It was a man’s voice. Who was that? But he didn’t hear it just now. That was why he must have been dreaming.

His eyes were shut tight with eye mucus or something. He struggled to get them open. What did he think about that? I’m still alive, maybe? It was a wonder that he was. But was he truly alive? This wasn’t the world after death, was it? It was hard not to be a little doubtful.

He heard something. If it wasn’t an auditory illusion, those were footsteps. He was still a thief, even if he wasn’t much of one, so he could tell that much.

The footsteps were approaching. Multiple sources. It was probably five people.

“Ah...”

He heard a voice. He couldn’t help but force himself to raise his head and turn his eyes towards the direction the voice came from.

I’m alive.

“Haru...!” Merry came running. She hugged him, and touched his face all over.

Merry. She sure is beautiful, huh. I’m realizing that all over again. Yeah. I dunno. What can I say? I have no words.

Haruhiro tried to smile. He wasn’t sure if he managed it. He wasn’t confident.

“Haru-kun, Haru-kun!” Yume cried. “Haruhiro-kun...!” It was Shihoru. “Haruhiro!” Merry shouted.

“No way, damn it! Seriously, you piece of shit...”

Don’t call me a piece of shit, man, Haruhiro thought. Whatever, it’s fine. Well, no, it isn’t fine.

Not really.

“I’ll heal you right away! Haru! Can you hear me?! Hang in there! It’s going to be okay! Everyone’s here!”

Haruhiro nodded, then closed his eyes. He could see the rainbow.

Afterword

I’m not great with action games. The reason for that is that I can’t handle doing the same thing over and over.

While I’m playing, I start to see, Oh, this is what I should be doing here. I can play through once or twice like that, but I have trouble doing any more. I start feeling mischievous, and do something differently.

No, you may be thinking, that’s just a lack of practice, and I could do it right if I just kept playing again and again. That might be true, but the truth is, I’m not great at folding my laundry either, and for some reason I can never fold it all the same way. Unless I really focus on getting them all folded the same and pour all of my attention into it... Huh, that’s weird, I have ten similar-looking T-shirts all folded in completely different ways. That’s what happens.

With T-shirts, if they’re not all folded the same way, it’s inconvenient when I go to put them in my dresser. It’s the same for socks and underwear. My dresser is always a chaotic mess as a result.

Now, I think this is a matter of personality, or the way my brain is structured. My brain was just made that way for some reason. I like action RPGs, but I’m terrible at them. It’s sad.

Now, there’s still a bit of time between November 24th when I’m writing this afterword and when the anime Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash begins broadcasting, but it’s just around the corner. The other day, I was able to sit in on a dubbing session. It’s shaping up to be a wonderful anime, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s been an educational experience, too.

The manga version of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash that Ms. Mutsumi Okubashi has been serializing in Gangan Joker also follows the same fundamental outline as the novel, but the details and flavor are slightly different, making it stimulating for me.

I have to work harder as a novelist. Grimgar is just getting started, after

all.

Haruhiro and the others can never move forward more than a step at a

time, if that. The way things are going, I’m not entirely confident where they will be able to go, and whether they’ll be able to arrive wherever that is, but if they keep on moving forward, the road will surely go on.

I will say, I do have some idea in my head of where I want things to end up. It’s all up to them, though, so it’s possible they may arrive somewhere else entirely, but if that happens, it happens. For the people who haven’t had the chance to show up much yet, I plan for them to make appearances little by little, so look forward to that.

I’ve run out of pages.

To my editor, K, to Eiri Shirai, to the designers of KOMEWORKS among others, to everyone involved in production and sales of this book, and finally to all of you people now holding this book, I offer my heartfelt appreciation and all of my love. Now, I lay down my pen for today.

I hope we will meet again.

Ao Jyumonji