Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 12 - Chapter 16

16. The One Who Landed

The east shore of the island was mostly rocky beaches, while the west coast had more sandy beaches. So while it would have been shorter to travel north along the east coast, the longer west coast route was easier to walk despite being the long way around.

There were sheer cliffs at some places along the coast, and they had to enter the forest there, but Tsiha and Mwadan were accompanying them.

The Kamushika tribe that Tsiha belonged to was large in scale, and Mwadan was a famed warrior, so he was known even by other tribes. Furthermore, Tsiha’s other brother Tanba was explaining the situation to all the other tribes for them. Thanks to that, they didn’t have to worry about being ambushed by runarukas.

Not long after they set out, it began to rain. The roughly two-day trek to the dragons’ nest was little different from going on a pleasant stroll. They even had the spare time to be excited by unusual birds, or frightened by mushrooms so bright in color that they looked poisonous.

Honey Den, whom they had brought as a guide just in case, stopped at one point and said, “From here on, it gets crazy dangerous...”

They didn’t really need him to tell them that. One look at the mountain would have made anyone hesitate.

Looking at that mountain horizontally, it was more or less a table. It had a caldera, you could say. The top had probably blown off in an eruption, and it had a considerably sunken crater. There were hardly any foothills, and the surface of the mountain had a fairly steep slope. It was reasonably tall, too, so it would be hard to climb the mountain even with specialized equipment.

If not for the narrow rift opening in the side of the slope, it was likely no one would have been able to enter this mountain. And that rift was clearly dangerous, too. It was easily wide enough to permit a person entry, but it was over a hundred meters high, maybe hundreds of meters, so it felt bizarrely narrow.

What’s more, it was pitch black beyond the rift, so they had absolutely no idea what it was like inside. On one hand, it felt like they could go in, or rather there was no question that they could, physically, go inside it. But on the other hand, it felt forbidding, like they absolutely must not go in there.

Tsiha and Mwadan made no attempt to approach the rift, and were watching over Haruhiro and the party from a distance. Either way, they had the runaruka taboo against entering the nest, so this was where they had to part ways. If anything, the party could be grateful the runarukas had come this far.

Haruhiro looked up to the rift. He felt something tightening in the general area of his stomach, and he was suffering.

“It’s a bit past noon now.” Kuzaku looked up to the sky. “Do we attack like this?”

Momohina was already a short way inside the rift, looking around busily. “Hum, hum, hum...?”

“I-I’m not going, okay?!” Honey Den sat down on the ground. “I turned back not far inside there anyway! I wouldn’t be any help!”

“I suppose we no longer need you then, do we?” Setora asked coolly.

Honey Den rapidly performed a kowtow. “Stop it! Don’t talk like that! I’m begging you!”

Incidentally, this man’s hands were still bound behind his back. The one time they’d undone them, he’d immediately made a break for it.

Merry seemed to be trying to see through the darkness as she carefully scrutinized the rift. Beside her, Yume, who was doing repeated stretches for exercise, went, “Nuuu,” with a big stretch.

Kiichi went as far as Momohina’s feet, sniffing repeatedly before making a nyaa sound.

“The dragons went out this morning.” Shihoru glanced at Haruhiro.

Haruhiro nodded, and took a breath. “Shall we go?”

Giancarlo and Jimmy had remained in Roronea. As its managing director, Giancarlo had to handle the K&K Pirate Company and keep the unruly pirates in line. Jimmy specialized in mental labor. He was more suited to assisting Giancarlo than to exploring the dragons’ nest.

Momohina took point, while Haruhiro, Kuzaku, Setora and Kiichi, Merry, Shihoru, and Yume followed her into the rift, single-file, in that order. Momohina carried a lamp, while Haruhiro held the bag that contained the dragons’ egg over his shoulder.

“So long, you little shits! I hope you rot!” The thick voice echoed from behind them, and when they turned back, Honey Den was hopping up and down with a smile.

“Why, you...” Setora broke into a run.

Honey Den let out a little shriek, and bolted like a startled hare. Perhaps he’d forgotten that, where he was going, Tsiha and Mwadan were waiting.

“Ohhh...?! Wait, stop, what are you doi—”

“Serves him right,” Merry muttered.

What would ultimately happen to Honey Den? Well, who really cared? It was best not to think about it.

They continued through the rift. It wasn’t exactly twisty, but it wasn’t perfectly straight, either. The ground was fairly flat. The air was a little cold and damp. There was no wind.

“You think he was claustrophobic or something?” Kuzaku suggested.

Haruhiro was thinking along the same lines. What had Honey Den been so scared of? Up to this point, nothing had been that dangerous.

Momohina kept pushing onward.

“Did something... fall?” Shihoru raised her voice. It was true, there had been a sound other than their footsteps.

Momohina came to a stop. “Hmm?” She turned her lamp to the rear.

Kiichi let out a sharp cry, and Shihoru gulped and clung on to Merry. Somewhere between Shihoru and Yume, there was this thin, writhing thing.

Yume backed away. “A snaaaake? Maybe...?”

“I wonder...” Haruhiro squinted. It was blackish, and resembled a snake, but it was also like a bug, too. That said, it didn’t have a large number of legs like a centipede or millipede, and he didn’t see anything resembling legs at all, in fact. Besides, it was much bigger than a millipede, and easily over a meter in length.

“It doesn’t look like a snake.” Setora readied herself, glancing upwards. “If it fell from above, that means—”

Drop, drop, drop, drop, one after another, those long, thin creatures dropped down, and their screams echoed.

Even Haruhiro went, “Whoa?!”

His head. There was a creature on his head. It was pretty heavy. It felt prickly. He hurriedly jumped up, and knocked the creature off. When he did, next one landed on his left shoulder, and his right arm. “Huaugh?!” The weird cry escaped from his mouth without his volition. What was this? They were scary, scary, scary.

Momohina shouted something even more scary. “Nyaa! They’re jam-packed in here!”

Jam-packed? What’d that mean? The lamp’s light wavered. It flickered off the rift walls.

The walls were writhing. No. Those weren’t rock, or stone, they were alive. They were jam packed with long, thin creatures clinging to them.

Honey Den had told them, “Going in there, it’s not something a sane man does.”

It makes sense now. So this was what he was talking about. Fair enough; this is pretty bad. I want to go home.

“Gyaaaah! Don’t give iiiin! Chaaaarge! Go, goooo!” Momohina hollered.

If Momohina hadn’t given the order, Haruhiro might have decided to retreat. If they’d pulled out, they’d probably never have felt like entering the rift again.

Even as he felt half ready to cry, Haruhiro pushed his comrades from behind, urging them on, and pushed forward in a half frenzied state himself.

We have to go. There’s no other choice. But even if we made it through this crazy, unpleasant area, how are we going to get back? Won’t we have to come through here again? There’s no way I want to do that.

“Gyahhhh! It went down my back!” Shihoru screamed in an incredibly terrified voice.

Haruhiro wanted to do something for her, but he had one of the creatures wrapped around his face himself. In other words, he was in a state of AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. What was AHHHHHHHHHHHHH? He didn’t even know anymore.

He tripped, and crashed into the walls. When he did, those long, thin creatures were there. The place was full of them.

Suddenly, Haruhiro felt as if he had reached enlightenment. He, too, was a living creature, so wasn’t this fine?

Hell no! Of course not. Not in any way! He wanted out. It wasn’t supposed to be like this! He hadn’t thought it through enough!

I was wrong, he thought, regretting it from the bottom of his heart. I mean, Red-Eyed Ben was a stubborn guy, but he was just a pirate, and we’re, well, you know, what? Volunteer soldiers? Or, like, experienced adventurers, you could say? He made it there and back, so, honestly, to be blunt, I can’t say I didn’t expect this to be easy. Well, I kind of did. It goes without saying, I warned myself against that. “Don’t let your guard down,” I said. “You can’t take these things lightly.” But, really, Red-Eyed Ben could do something, but we couldn’t? It wasn’t possible, right?

It was really hard to brush away that feeling, and our money situation is really tight, so I figured if this went well and we could make a fortune, it’d make me happier about our future prospects. It was true in Roronea, and it’ll be even more true at our next stop in Vele, but if we want to interact with civilization, money is a necessity. They say money makes the world go ’round. You can never have too much money. It’s a problem not having any. But, well, if I hadn’t been thinking we could handle it somehow, I’d never have volunteered to help. My comrades were surprisingly up for it, too. They probably figured we had this. I think maybe we all felt like that. I mean, no way, right? We’d never expect a trap like this was waiting for us.

It feels like we’ve been running for like fifty hours. No, it’s not that long. But it feels like it’s been more than two days, no, like I’ve been a whole lifetime? So, what, is my life over?

Haruhiro bolted towards the light, and when he leapt out the other side, it was a world of green.

Was it a forest? The trees and surface were covered with moss, or ivy, or something. It was all green.

Haruhiro was in a daze for a moment, but each time the long, thin creatures that were still wrapped around his body twitched, it was unpleasant, and prickly.

Dammit , dammit, dammit! He brushed the creatures away, freeing himself from them, and then checked that all his comrades were there.

Kuzaku was spread-eagled next to the exit to the rift, the creatures swarming around him. Was he okay? He was okay, right?

Yume and Shihoru were pulling the creatures off of each other.

Setora, who was crouched down clutching Kiichi, had another of the creatures crawling on her shoulders. When Haruhiro went over and grabbed it, throwing it away, Setora looked at him with empty eyes, and said, “...Oh. Thanks. Haru. I love you.”

Uh, sorry.

Momohina seemed totally fine. She’d climbed a tree covered in moss and ivy, and she was looking around the area.

Man, she’s really something. What goes on in that head of hers...?

The one who seemed to have taken it the worst was Shihoru. Everyone was bruised, scrapped, and cut all over, but in Shihoru’s case, the mental trauma was even worse than that. She’d said it had gone down her back. Her clothes were a mess. Most likely, she had torn them herself to get rid of the creature that gotten in there. Her clothes were in pieces. Shihoru was huddled in an indecent state, shuddering.

Haruhiro took off his cloak and draped it over Shihoru. She didn’t respond. Shihoru was here in body, but it seemed her mind was somewhere else, far away. He hoped she’d come back. But maybe expecting it right now was a little much. Yeah, probably. Of course it was...

Leaving it up to Yume and Merry to care for Shihoru, Haruhiro headed over to rescue Kuzaku. Kuzaku had more than thirty of the creatures on him, and it was difficult. While he was still in the middle of helping Kuzaku get rid of them, Setora came to help.

“Forget what I said earlier,” she said.

Right. Um, sorry...

Once everyone was in a state where they could move, Momohina came down from the tree and lead the party onward. It was green everywhere but the sky, so it was impossible to tell directions, but the further they got from the rift, the closer they had to be to the dragon’s nest. Probably.

They went on for a little while, and came to an eerily blue pond. It was intensely suspicious, so they circled around it and kept going. There they ran into a far-too-blue river. It seemed to be a river, at least, but it wasn’t flowing. It was so blue that it looked like it was painted there, which was clearly weird, so something had to be up. Still, they had to cross it to get any further. Was there no other choice?

Haruhiro volunteered and had everyone stay where they were as he went ahead and approached the blue river alone. When he was just one step away, waves formed on the river’s surface, and something blue crawled out of the water.

Haruhiro came close to screaming, but he held it in, drawing his dagger as he backed away.

“Delm, hel, en, balk, zel, arve!” Momohina immediately blew it away with the Blast spell.

That was fine, but Haruhiro ended up splattered in blue liquid, chunks of flesh, and who knew what else. It was burning hot, too. He had steam rising from his whole body.

Wait, was it melting? Could it be a powerful acid? On top of that, more and more of the blue things were coming out of the river.

“Retreat! Retreeeeaaaat! Get outta there!” Momohina was shouting.

I agree that’s the right course of action, but I’m burning here, you know?

However, Haruhiro couldn’t just sit there and burn. He desperately crawled away as his clothes smoldered and his body melted.

Once they had gone a long way and shaken the blue things, he had Merry cast Sacrament on him. Despite as hot as it had felt, he hadn’t melted as badly as he thought. Still, his clothing was full of holes.

“Ohh, sexy! Yep!” Momohina gave him a thumbs-up to try to cheer him up, but it was no consolation whatsoever.

The blue pond and river, whatever they were, seemed dangerous. They’d have to avoid them. But could they reach the dragons without crossing that river?

They investigated various possibilities, and it looked like it wouldn’t be impossible to climb into the treetops and then advance by climbing from branch to branch, tree to tree. This being an unexplored frontier, not only were the trunks of the trees thick, their branches were thick, too. Thanks to the moss, ivy and whatnot, the branches were stuck together in places, too. It didn’t look like their strength would be an issue.

That said, the treetops had their own problems. It was like walking a tightrope in some places, and there were points where they had to jump from one to the next. That, and if they fell, the blue river was below, so there were all sorts of thrills involved.

Also, they realized this a bit later, but there were a good number of monkey-like creatures here—no, creatures that were probably monkeys—and they often jumped from branch to branch. That made the branches shake, which was scary.

The ook, ook, ook sounds they made grated on the ears, too. It felt like they were mocking them, even if that wasn’t actually the case.

In the evening, Haruhiro and the rest spotted the dragons’ shadows. They had likely returned to the nest. It had gotten dark, so they decided to rest on the ground, not in the trees.

Except for Momohina. She said, “You don’t always have the chance, soooo,” and apparently wanted to sleep up in the trees.

Do what you want, thought Haruhiro.

Letting the thoroughly exhausted Shihoru and Kuzaku rest for a night, Haruhiro, Yume, Merry, and Setora and Kiichi took turns on watch.

Haruhiro took the first watch. The monkeys were chattering in the distance. Were they monkeys? He thought they were monkeys. Probably. They were noisy during the day, but were they active at night, too?

It was dark. No, more than that. It was almost completely black. If something tried to creep up on him, he was sure he wouldn’t be able to notice. This was dangerous. But their stamina was at its limit. There was no way to move forward, not in this darkness. Should they light a fire? If they did, it would be like loudly announcing that strange people were here, so he felt like it wasn’t a very good idea. He had to wait for time to pass while fighting psychological struggles like that and staying as alert as possible.

How many nights had he spent like this? He was used to it, but it was tough. It was tough, but fortunately time didn’t stop. No matter how slow it felt, it was definitely flowing.

Haruhiro stuck a hand down his collar and pulled out a flat object. It was on a chain, and he always kept it around his neck. It wasn’t shining now, of course. When was the last time it had? Before, the bottom portion had shone green.

That’s weird, he thought.

He suddenly tried shaking it. Then he tried shaking it a few more times next to his ear. Did he hear a slight sound inside?

“Could it be broken?” he murmured.

Immediately after he said that, “Haru?” someone called his name, and the double shock of that surprise nearly gave him a heart attack.

Haruhiro stuffed the receiver down his shirt in a hurry.

“Oh, you were up...?” He started to stand up, then sat back down.

Merry sat down next to him. “I have the next watch. You sleep.”

“...Yeah. That’s right. I have to wonder whether I actually can sleep, though.”

“I was able to, surprisingly. I think I must be pretty dense.”

“Nah, you were tired, I’m sure.”

“That doesn’t just go for me. Anyway, sleep. Even just lying down will make a difference.”

“Yeah,” he responded, but for some reason Haruhiro didn’t move.

Did he not want to move? He wondered. Merry was silent, not urging him to go.

When he moved, his shoulder touched Merry’s. They were that close? He was surprised. His heart was beating like crazy. He had to stay alert. Yeah. Stay alert.

“Haru,” she said quietly.

I can’t just stay put. It’s not right.

Haruhiro leaned more fully against Merry’s body. It was like he was pressing his ear to her shoulder. He was afraid she’d dodge to avoid him. She didn’t. Merry rubbed her cheek against Haruhiro’s head.

Ohh, I want to stay like this, he thought. I wish I could just go to sleep this way.

He hadn’t said a word, but as if she were agreeing to his wish, Merry nodded slightly. For some reason he recalled Setora saying, “Haru. I love you,” and his chest hurt. But he thought, I love you. Merry, I love you.

He should put it into words. That was definitely what he should do. But the moment he went to say it—

“Eeeek!” Momohina shrieked from up in the treetops.

What? Was she talking in her sleep? No. Momohina threw something down from the trees. In the area where it came down, Kuzaku cried out, “Whah?!” He jumped up, and the rest of their comrades woke one after another.

Momohina was shouting. “Look out! We may be surrounded!”

Something was attacking them. They didn’t know what. It was too dark. Even so, Haruhiro and the party fought back to the best of their ability. They were strange foes. They were probably hairy creatures, and they didn’t use their voices, bite, or claw at them. They just rammed into them. They weren’t heavy blows, and were kind of soft. It was less like a tackle, and more like they were pushing them, maybe? It wasn’t that hard to dodge, or to knock them away, to be honest. But their opponents didn’t give up. They came one after another.

Finally, Momohina lost her patience. “Nyahahh! Delm, hel, en, balk, zel, arve!”

Her Blast spell exploded. The blast revealed their enemies’ identity.

Hair. They were hair. Hair. That was all you could call them. There were hair monsters here, there, and everywhere.

The hair monsters scattered like the tide going out, but they soon rushed in again. Even when Momohina let off another Blast, they eventually came again, and there was no way to handle them.

Haruhiro tried grabbing one and stabbing it with his dagger, but stab as he might, he didn’t feel like he was hitting anything but hair. It was revolting to see the hair he cut off squirming, too.

The hair monsters pressed in on them again and again until dawn came. In the early morning, during their final attack, as the hair monsters fled, Haruhiro realized something. He had thought each of them was different. However, he spotted a phenomenon where one fleeing hair would attach to another, and then that hair monster to yet another. Ultimately, each of the wriggling hairs scattered on the ground gathered up, tangled together, and ran away from the party...

Which meant? What did it mean? While wracking his brain over it, he felt a disconcerting hypothesis coming to mind. It was time to drop it.

Because of the hair, Haruhiro hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep, but he was going to have to get to the dragons’ nest, return the egg, and get out of here already. The party rushed onward. It was painful enough that he was weirdly high strung, but so what? Think about it. Was anything not painful? Yeah, maybe. But weren’t those things few and far between? Didn’t he spend more time suffering than not? Besides, there were different types of pain. This was the type he could manage somehow. He didn’t feel like he couldn’t get through it.

In the morning, three dragons took flight. What was happening to Roronea? Now wasn’t the time to think about that.

In the morning Yume stepped on a pure white snake that was over ten meters long, and almost got swallowed whole. Kuzaku fell from a tree making the monkeys all laugh at him, and got chased around by a creature that was like a giant hermit crab. Shihoru fainted, and Kuzaku threw his back out carrying her, so Merry had to heal him. Other than that, nothing much happened.

In the afternoon, they were attacked by a swarm of meter-long butterflies, or moths, or something. They tried to climb a tree, but it was actually a mass of green cockroach-like insects. Then, when they were running away from them in a panic, Haruhiro, Kuzaku, and Yume fell down a fissure-like hole where bugs swarmed in and they ended up in real trouble.

It was a situation that forced Haruhiro to think that the day he could laugh it off saying, It never occurred to me I’d rather have a proper bath than be bathed in insects before, ha ha ha, was never going to come.

They encountered a creature that shot spear-like projectiles from its mouth, and were shocked to see it take out a monkey in the treetops. Then, as might be expected, they were attacked themselves and forced to fight it. Nothing good happened the whole day.

Even so, they managed to take little breaks here and there, and were careful not to get totally exhausted. They were used to traveling, after all. They didn’t forget the importance of that.

Before dusk, they spotted the dragons returning to the nest. They looked pretty big. That surely meant the nest was close. They didn’t know if it was exceptionally close, but they were getting closer.

It felt like the hair monsters might come again, so they kept cautiously moving forward even once the sun went down. Naturally, that necessitated lighting a lamp. They covered it, and did their best to only light the area around their feet. But after some time, they no longer needed the light. An incredible number of bugs that shone like fireflies started flying around.

Thinking, They’re bugs, right? Haruhiro tried catching one, and it vanished light, and all.

“It’s a supernatural phenomenon, huuuuh,” Momohina grinned. “Heh heh heh!”

Momohina was laughing, but Kuzaku and Shihoru looked seriously freaked out. The way the countless flickering pale blue lights dimly lit the green forest made for a mysterious and beautiful scene. It was so beautiful that it gave you goosebumps, and there was something frightening about it.

That something was what those lights were. Were they a natural phenomenon? Or supernatural like Momohina’d suggested? Were they disembodied souls? That sort of thought crossed his mind. The lights were gathering into human-like shapes, after all.

Weren’t the human-like figures kind of, like, following them? Weren’t they increasing in number? Was he just imagining that? No, right?

“Th-Th-Th-This is s-s-s-s-somewhat disconcerting, d-d-don’t you think?” It was a little surprising that Setora was scared.

If he asked if she was scared, she’d probably deny it, but her knees were shaking, so he figured she was frightened. Because of that, she was unsteady on her feet, and there were several times when she almost tripped.

“Here, it’s dangerous.” Merry tried to support her, but Setora refused.

“M-M-Mind your own business.” She immediately tripped, and Merry pulled her to her feet. From there on Setora didn’t refuse help, and they walked leaning on each other for support.

When the party stopped to rest, the masses of light stopped, too. When they began moving forward, the masses of light always came with them. What were those things...?

When the night came to an end, the countless lights and the masses of light vanished in an instant, as if they had never been there.

Looking around, the party was shocked and amazed.

The forest was no longer green. It was orange. What was more, it continued to change. As they walked on, and the sun rose higher and brighter, the trees, the ground, and everything but the clear blue sky turned yellow.

It was truly yellow. Was this possible? After the incident with the lights the night before, it felt like they’d wandered into another world.

Wait, did we die at some point, maybe? Is this not just another world, but the world after death? Haruhiro wondered.

From between the yellow trees they spotted a greenish yellow, or a yellow-green mountain, and they witnessed three dragons taking off from there one after another. That convinced Haruhiro they were still alive.

“Hold on,” he said, stopping.

The nest. The dragon’s nest was on top of that yellow-green mountain. They were already in the caldera on top of a mountain, but there was another mountain here. It was yellow-green, too. It was really pretty, though. It made them realize all over again what an unknown frontier this was. They had no idea what else might be waiting for them.

There had to be stuff even more incredible than what they’d seen. There couldn’t not be. It would be weird. Crazy.

But they went on and on, and nothing happened. Incredibly, they reached Yellow-green Mountain around noon. (It was a yellow-green mountain, so they called it Yellow-green Mountain.)

Eyeballing it, it looked to be around maybe four hundred meters high. It was small for a mountain. The slope wasn’t steep, either. They could climb a mountain like this in about two hours. If there were no accidents, that was. It was still noon, so they could climb there and back by evening. The dragons wouldn’t come back and run into them while they were in the nest. Hopefully...

They considered playing it safe, staying the night here, and heading for the mountain the next morning once the dragons took off. However, if it took an extra day, there would be that many more casualties.

The dragons might not stop their destruction even once the egg was returned to the nest, but, well, they’d cross that bridge if they came to it. They had come this far, after all. They’d do what they could as soon as possible. That was all there was to it.

The ascent of Yellow-green Mountain went smoothly. Looking out from up high, the view was nothing short of breathtaking. Here, with Yellow-green Mountain as the center, the yellow trees spread out looking like a field of flowers in full bloom, and they were surrounded by a forest so brilliantly green, it seemed unreal.

The runarukas referred to this entire area as the dragons’ nest. Even seeing such a mysterious and wonderful sight made the trip here worth it. That said, Haruhiro never wanted to come back, and he wanted to get their task done with quickly so they could go home. That didn’t mean they rushed, but it was an easy mountain to climb, so they ascended the summit in half the expected time, and they found the nest in no time, too.

The entrance to the nest, to be precise.

There was a hole open in the peak of Yellow-green Mountain. It had to be large enough for dragons to come out of, so it was probably about forty meters across. It was a slightly warped round, vertical shaft. Peering in, they could see what looked like the bottom down below.

Not clearly. It was pretty deep. Easily over a hundred meters.

They couldn’t descend from here. It wasn’t just a sheer cliff; there were places where it was worse than just being straight down. They would have to fall to reach the bottom. Of course, if they did that, they would die.

Shihoru sat down, exhausted. “What... now...” she said in a voice that sounded ready to give out.

“Hmm...” Kuzaku crossed his arms and groaned.

Setora took a breath, then shook her head. Kiichi was at her feet, batting his eyes.

Merry had a difficult look on her face, and Haruhiro nearly couldn’t stop looking at her, but he hurriedly turned away. Yume stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Momohina at the precipice, looking down into bottom of the hole.

“There’s another way.” Haruhiro said, then nodded. There couldn’t not be. Absolutely, there was one. “We’re overlooking it. Or more like we’ve never looked for it to begin with. Somewhere on the mountain slope, there’s a side path leading into the nest. Now we just have to find it.”

There was no guarantee they could pass through that side path unharmed, and not only would they have trouble on the way back, it was so dangerous that he didn’t want to think about it. But he deliberately ignored all of that. They would overcome things one at a time, moving forward step by step. That was how they’d done it all this time. They’d do it here, too.

Haruhiro would have liked to split up, but if they split into groups, they would have no way to contact each other, and there was the risk that some would wander astray. So they would fundamentally move as a group, spreading out to search as wide an area as they could manage without losing sight of one another.

Even for a little mountain like this one, it would take a long time to search every nook and cranny of it. It would have been nice to have some idea where to look. If the bottom of the nest hole were more than a hundred meters down, the side path leading to it couldn’t be that high up. It was a little hard to imagine it would be near the base, either.

First they’d do a thorough search of the middle area. In times like these, Kiichi the gray nyaa often proved more useful than any human. They let Kiichi act on his own, trusting that he’d tell them if anything looked like what they were after.

With that sorted out, as they were about to descend from the summit to get to work, there was a cute, but still quite loud cry that echoed through the area.

Pigyahhhhhh!

Haruhiro turned his eyes towards the nest hole. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t not, so he did.

Flapping its wings, it appeared from inside the nest hole. In many ways, No way, was his honest response.

Why was it here? Three of them had flown off, right? Well, even if they knew there were multiple dragons, no one had known the exact number there were. It just meant there were actually four.

Hold on, it was small. Even with its wings spread wide, it might only have a span of four, five meters. That was still large, but compared to the dragons repeatedly attacking Roronea, he couldn’t help but think, It’s tiny!

Its head seemed weirdly big, too. Like it had a child-sized body. Its flying was kind of awkward, too. It was beating its wings as hard as it could, but its ascent was slow. That said, the small emerald dragon was already looking down at Haruhiro and the party from a height of twenty, thirty meters.

“Ahh... Ahh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!” Kuzaku started screaming too late.

“Haruhiro-kun?!” Shihoru cried.

“Haru?!”

“Haru!”

“Haru-kun?!”

His comrades called his name one after another.

No, don’t ask me what to do.

He wanted to turn to Momohina for orders, but Haruhiro had his pride as a leader. Or not. He didn’t have much. But the grim fact was that he was their leader.

What now? Like, even if it was small, it was a dragon. It was flying, too. That, and if they fought it, even if they were lucky enough to win, what then? That had to be a young dragon. They had come here to return the egg and appease the dragons’ anger, so killing a young dragon was clearly not okay. There was no choice to be made. They had only one option.

“Run...! Split up!”

They all rushed down Yellow-green Mountain as one. He’d said to split up, but Haruhiro followed behind Shihoru. Everyone else would be fine. Probably.

Turning back, the young dragon cried, Pigyahhhhhhhhhhhh! It didn’t attack. The young dragon was still in about the same spot as before. It made Haruhiro want to slow his pace, but no.

The young dragon continued crying, Pigyahhhhhh, pigyahhhhhh! It cried like crazy. That voice would reach a long distance. Could it be? Just maybe, was it calling them? Was it trying to call back the three dragons? Even if it was, how long would it take them to fly here?

It was much faster to descend than to climb. Haruhiro and Shihoru brought up the rear, but they probably still took less than an hour to get down the mountain.

The young dragon was still repeating its cry of, Pigyahh, pigyahh!

Right before they dove into the yellow forest, Haruhiro saw dragons flying in from the south. Once they were in the forest, trees obstructed the view so he couldn’t confirm it, and they had been distant specks, but he was sure they’d been the dragons. Would it be best to hide somewhere? Or did they need to run much, much farther? He had to decide. Which was better? Even if they were going to hide, would there conveniently be a place for them to do it around here? Even if they were to keep running, everyone was winded. This was what having no way out felt like.

In the end, there was a tremendous roar as one dragon flew straight over the party.

Gyohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhn!

It was still above the treetops, but it still felt as if it had grazed the tops of their heads.

“It’s coming!” someone shouted.

Shihoru wasn’t moving. Had her legs gone numb with fear? Haruhiro put an arm around Shihoru and ran. He was running, but what would that do?

It was coming. Again. For real this time. From the opposite direction, behind them. Most likely, it had changed directions then done a rapid dive.

Haruhiro pushed Shihoru forward diagonally, then turned to face it. He had thought it was coming for him, but not that it was this close. It was at close range. The dragon mowed down trees as it attempted to land. It was right in front of his nose. A cloud of dust rose up, and he was blown away. Haruhiro spun once, then twice. Oh, no, it’s going to step on me! he thought, but he didn’t remember why. Whatever the case, Haruhiro was clinging to the dragon. Its rear leg, apparently. The right one, huh.

The dragon roared, Agyooooooooooooon! and thrashed around. It would shake him off in no time.

He didn’t particularly want to cling to a dragon, but he was sure he’d die in a second if he were to let go. Haruhiro instinctively drew his dagger with the flame-like blade and stabbed the polished metal into the dragon’s scales. An ordinary sword might not have stabbed through. The flame dagger was no ordinary blade. It slid in deep. He couldn’t pull it free, either.

The dragon was still stamping its feet and jumping. Haruhiro held the hilt of his flame dagger tight with his left hand, then drew his other dagger with his right hand.

This other dagger was also a product of the dwarf hole. It could do this. In theory. He stabbed.

Good, he thought. It went in. That was when it happened.

Uwah!

The dragon was bending its legs, sort of like it would do before a big jump—

Wait, is it about to fly? Should I let go?

By the time he thought that, it was too late.

The moment the dragon jumped, he felt a floating sensation. Fast. It was going damn fast. It happened in an instant.

He was already in the air. Way above the trees. It was a clear difference from that young dragon. The power it had to ascend by beating its wings was not to be underestimated.

“Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...” Haruhiro screamed despite himself.

The thought to look for his comrades occurred to him, but it was a little impossible. He was up in the sky, after all.

Flying, too.

Was he a hundred meters up by now? More, maybe?

It looked like the dragon kept its legs fixed in a slightly bent position while flying. Maybe if it moved too much while flying, that threw off its balance.

Thanks to that, as long as Haruhiro kept a firm grip on the flame dagger, it didn’t look like he’d fall. Right. For as long he was able to hang on. But that was pretty hard to do.

When he’d stabbed the flame dagger and dagger through the dragon’s scales, he’d given up on clinging to the dragon’s leg. Unlike a human leg, the dragon’s leg was as thick as a big tree trunk, so he couldn’t have clung to it for that long to begin with. Therefore, his left and right hands’ grip on the flame dagger and dagger were his only hope.

Haruhiro felt the wind on basically his whole body. The wind force was intense. He was going to be sent flying, seriously. It was a mystery to him how he hadn’t been yet. Well, he knew if he was knocked off, it’d be the end of him, so he was holding on for dear life.

High. It was so high up. How many hundreds of meters were they up now? Was it thousands? More? Incredible. He could see the whole of Emerald Island. He could see the other islands, too. This was on a whole different level from just being scary. Though, that said, it was scary, too. How long would his grip last? He wasn’t sure.

Each time the dragon moved its wings, he was tossed around. He felt like his whole body was being torn up. Not just his physical body, but his very existence.

Eventually the dragon began descending and ascending. It was too much. He really couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t rouse himself to action. He could only cry that he couldn’t do it, he was at his limit, and hang in there.

Then the dragon started whipping around and doing horizontal and vertical spins.

Are you trying to kill me? Enough already. Please. Stop it, he silently begged, but could still only hold on.

Once he lost his grip on the flame dagger with his left hand. It’s over, he resigned himself. This is the end. I’m absolutely finished.

However, when the dragon did a turn after that, his body swung majorly. He stretched his left hand out using the momentum from that, and he managed to reach the hilt of the fire dagger.

He was just a little relieved, but at the same time felt fed up. What, it wasn’t over yet? If it was going to end, it should’ve just ended. That would’ve been easier. He’d had enough.

Even when his comrades flashed though his mind, he couldn’t think, I’ll try again. Well, why was he hanging on by the skin of his teeth, then? Wasn’t this enough? He’d done what he could. More than anyone could have expected. If it ended here, he’d have no regrets.

Really?

He decided to stop thinking about it. Or rather, he stopped being able to think anymore.

He occasionally let out screams like, Wahh, or, Ohhh, or, Gweee.

There were several occasions where his left hand or his right was separated from a dagger’s hilt. How did he recover? He had no clue. The next thing he knew, both hands were always on their respective hilts.

The sea was beautiful.

So blue.

At some point, they had come out over the sea.

The dragon’s wings were still spread, its body tilted on a slight angle, and it was circling gently. It seemed to be slowly descending.

That was...

A town?

There was only one town on the island. The dragon was heading from the sea towards Roronea.

It flew over the ruined piers and wharves. There was hardly any trace left of the warehouses. Beyond them was the commercial district. That had been heavily damaged, too, and the former marketplace was nothing but scrap and rubble.

The dragon beat its wings. Its speed dropped instantly, and Haruhiro’s body was lifted up. He nearly lost his grip on his daggers’ hilts, or rather he wanted to let go of them, but he just couldn’t. His fingers, his hands, his arms... none of them would listen to him.

The impact of landing was intense. His whole body was shaken harder than ever, and he wondered if his head might pop off.

Haruhiro was currently clinging to the flame dagger and dagger which were thrust into the dragon’s leg, and hanging down from there. He was conscious of his current state, but it didn’t feel real.

Feelings. Yes. His senses weren’t there. He was cold. His whole body. It was like he was frozen.

The dragon shuddered a little, and let out a short, low vocalization. Woh!

He could tell it was trying to say something. Haruhiro nodded, breathing repeatedly. Eventually, he returned to something approaching body temperature.

They moved. His fingers. His hands. His arms. His legs, too. He could move them.

“...Hold on.”

Haruhiro wrapped both his legs around the dragon’s leg, pulling both the flame dagger and dagger free with all his might. They hadn’t come out all this time, but now they actually pulled free.

Haruhiro dropped to the ground with the flame dagger and dagger. He tried to land gracefully, but he couldn’t quite manage it, so he hit himself in a few places and it hurt. But he was alive... Right? Am I alive? he wondered.

He couldn’t be confident. He looked around. This was probably the area that had once been Roronea’s market. There should have been tens of stalls and shops here, maybe more, and the remains of them were scattered around.

Why was he here? He’d been at the dragons’ nest not long ago. This was weird. It didn’t make sense.

Haruhiro got up. He hurt all over. Dragging his leg, he staggered on.

When he suddenly turned back, the dragon had raised its head and was looking at him.

Man, it was big. Seriously.

The dragon’s mouth was closed. Its nostrils flared as it breathed in and out, and the dragons scales sparkled in time with those subtle motions. Its yellow eyes were more incredible than its scales. They were the essence of light itself. How could such a creature exist?

It struck Haruhiro’s heart. A feeling of awe, you could say.

It’s no good. No way. Something like this. This incredible creature. You can’t do something that would anger it.

Haruhiro pulled the egg from his bag and, backing away, he knelt down and placed it gently on the ground.

“Sorry. We wanted to return this. We went to give it back.”

The dragon tilted its head for just a moment, then blinked.

What did it feel? What was it thinking? He didn’t have a clue. But though it probably thought and felt completely differently from how a human did, the dragon was definitely feeling something, and probably thinking, too.

The dragon stretched its neck out. Was this where Haruhiro was going to eaten now? If it was, there was nothing he could do. Not at this distance. He couldn’t run away. Whether Haruhiro lived or died was up to the dragon. There were things he couldn’t do anything about. Haruhiro took a deep breath and stayed put.

The dragon gripped the egg in its jaws. It tilted its head back.

With the egg still in its mouth, it let out a low voice. Ohh, wao, ohh!

Haruhiro stood up. The dragon beat its wings two, three times, and took off.

Buffeted by the wind, Haruhiro fell on his backside. From there, he looked up at the dragon. It climbed and climbed.

Haruhiro fell back, looking straight up. The dragon circled Roronea once, then went off into the distance. Then, finally, he lost sight of it.

Haruhiro whispered to himself, “I’m tired...”