Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 14 - Chapter 18

18. Sometimes You Have to be Cruel [the_cruel]

The question was how to get close to the king.

Not only did they not have the full picture of the king’s power, his magic, it was also wrapped in mystery.

Was it Narci, Doppel, or Philia? It seemed unlikely that it was Resonance, but the type was still an unknown.

For the moment, what they knew was that those crushed by the king became shadows. According to Io, her comrade, the warrior Katazu, had been made into a shadow the first time they met the king.

Katazu had been taller than Kuzaku, with a more solid build, but the king had crushed him like he might stomp on an insect. If that was true, you’d assume the king would need to be double Katazu’s size, around four meters tall.

But Alice and Ahiru said the king was large, but not that inhumanly large, and yet, despite that, when the king stomped on someone, he felt like he was not just four meters tall, but ten. That definitely had to be the effect of magic.

In addition to making people into shadows, the king could easily kill dream monsters. When he did so, he would punch them, kick them, grab them and twist, rip, and tear. There was no doubt that his power was immense.

Did that mean that, like Kuzaku, and apparently the Io-sama Squad’s dread knight, Gomi, he used self-empowering Narci? No, that wouldn’t explain his power to turn people into shadows by stepping on them.

There was no sign of anything the king kept on his person at all times. In which case, it wasn’t Philia, either. Then did that make it Doppel?

Haruhiro and the group passed through the Iron Tower of Heaven, heading towards the Scarlet Forest.

Though the shadows might leave the castle to tail the king’s vassals, they did not roam around outside it. Ahiru, as well as Io and her flunkies, had already shaken off their shadows. They didn’t need to worry about shadow surveillance until they got inside the castle, so everyone was moving together as a group. There were powerful magic users gathered together, so dream monsters didn’t even get close.

Haruhiro pondered. “If we’re talking about Doppel, there’s Suzuki-san, and...”

“Mine is this.” Merry lifted her head staff for them to look at.

“I’ve only ever seen you beating monsters to death with it, though,” Setora said.

There was a coldness in the attitude Setora, who was riding double with Enba on Kiichi’s back, was taking toward Merry. They’d never been friendly to begin with, but apparently they’d been together for the whole time they were in Parano, so it felt like they ought to have gotten maybe a little closer. Had something happened to push them further apart instead?

Merry would occasionally smile at Setora, though, so it was hard to say.

“Because you, Kiichi, and Enba protected me,” she said, smiling.

“I can’t have you relying on Enba anymore,” Setora said.

“That’s fine. Everyone is here now.” Merry suddenly turned to Haruhiro and said, “Right?” with a smile.

“Uh... Sure, well, I... guess so. Yeah...” Haruhiro got flustered.

He wanted to give Kuzaku, who was smirking next to him, a light punch. He wouldn’t, though.

No, but there really was something up with Merry, wasn’t there? Sometimes she’d act like a total stranger, then suddenly act like this. There was something wrong about it.

“By the way, Bossari.” Io, who was a little ways away from the rest of them with Gomi and Tonbe, brushed her hair back behind her ear.

“Bossari” was apparently Kuzaku. Before turning macho, Kuzaku may have seemed a bit scruffy. Still, Bossari...?

“Why are you not at the side of me, your master, but that sleepy-eyed Usuraboke?” Io demanded. That was a word that meant nitwit.

“...No, before that, could you not call my leader a nitwit?” Kuzaku said.

“He looks like an Usuraboke to me, so I’m going to call him Usuraboke. There’s clearly no problem with that!”

“Not, ‘Do you have a problem with that’? You’re jumping straight to ‘There’s no problem with that’? Seriously, that’s some personality you’ve got...”

“Heyyyyy, Bossari! You’re talking back to Io-sama! That’s unforgivable! Unforgivable!” Tonbe shouted.

“He’s right! Ya wanna get killed, Bossari?!” Gomi screamed.

Tonbe and Gomi weren’t just shouting, they seemed ready to jump into action at any moment. What a headache.

“Can we not fight?” Haruhiro asked wearily. “I mean, we’ve got bigger problems...”

“Shove off!” Tonbe hollered. “I don’t know if you’re Harumaki or Hello Miki or whatever, but we’re ready to take you down with him! Got it?”

“Don’t go messin’ with the Io-sama Squad!” Gomi added.

“No, listen, you can call me Harumaki, or whatever you want, but—”

“No, they can’t, Haruhiro! You’re Haruhiro, okay?!”

“...Kuzaku, don’t you get worked up, either,” Haruhiro sighed. “You’re just going to make things harder.”

“Ah! I didn’t mean to! Getting in your way is the one thing I don’t want to do.” Kuzaku looked chagrined.

“This is so stupid, I almost want to pour more fuel on the fire,” Alice said, chuckling.

Things were already heated enough without more fuel, so Haruhiro really hoped Alice wouldn’t.

He looked over at Ahiru and Setora, who kept on walking in silence, as if to say it was none of their business, and thought they had the right idea.

Yeah, that reaction made total sense for those two, but what about Merry? She was walking beside Kiichi, who was carrying Setora and Enba on his back, without looking this way at all. She was being kind of cold.

Besides, what was this feeling of wrongness? Something was weird, but what was it?

Well, anyway, setting that aside...

“...Right,” Haruhiro said. What was your magic, Io... -san?”

“You can’t tell?”

“No... I guess I can’t. I wouldn’t be asking if I could...”

“This beauty,” she said. “Isn’t it dead obvious?”

“Ahh, yeah, I don’t get it...”

“Your eyes aren’t just sleepy, they’re rotten, too, huh?”

“No, uh, I get that you say you’re, uh, pretty? Io... san.”

“Wrong. The prettiest in all of human history. Correct yourself.”

“You’re the prettiest in all human history, sure...” Haruhiro said in complete monotone. “But is that magic?”

“It’s possible Narci could have changed her outward appearance, isn’t it?” Alice offered in a rare show of kindness. “Kuzaku, or was it Bossari-kun? He’s changed noticeably because of it. The other possibility is Doppel, I’d say. To make it simple, Doppel lets you bring out a copy of yourself.”

“Like Suzuki-san, right?” Haruhiro asked.

“Yeah. His Doppel is a parakeet-like bird. He’s afraid of people, and can’t speak to them face to face. So his main body is always hiding somewhere.”

“So... Io... -san’s main body is—” Haruhiro looked around.

This area was a shallow marsh with mushrooms or plants, he couldn’t tell which, shaped like silver spoons growing up out of the filthy, light purple water.

There was Ahiru, there was Setora and Enba on Kiichi, there was Merry, there was Io, Tonbe, and Gomi, there was Haruhiro, there was Kuzaku, and finally there was Alice. No sign of anyone else.

“I don’t... see one.”

“There is no being out there as unique as I am, you know?” Io snorted angrily, turning her head aside.

Tonbe and Gomi loudly agreed with her.

“That girl’s magic,” Alice said, gesturing to Setora with the shovel. “It’s interesting. It got me thinking. Maybe the main body doesn’t have to be outside the Doppel. It can be inside. Like a full-body costume.”

“Th-This is stupid!” Io’s pace suddenly quickened.

While Io walked off with long strides, kicking up the purplish water, Tonbe and Gomi chased after her crying, “Io-sama! Io-sama!”

“Oh! Come to think of it—” Kuzaku began.

He went on to explain the things that, for some reason, Tonbe had blathered on about in detail during his first meeting with Io. He’d mentioned she was petite, or really, really, small, or something like that.

“Io-san’s not that short, so I was like Huh? for a moment. But Tonbe-san, he just kept rambling, so I let it slide.”

Haruhiro pondered that. “In that case, maybe the king’s magic is Doppel, too, and the real person is inside it?”

“We can’t rule it out,” Alice said, then brought up another thing about the king that was apparently bothersome. “That piece of shit, he looks like a pretty old guy, you know.”

“Yeah,” Kuzaku said. “I only saw him once, but he wore some really stylish clothes, like he was kind of a bad man.”

“Still, he calls himself a king, and he can do whatever he wants,” Alice said. “For a guy like that, you’d normally build a harem or two, right?”

“Yeah,” said Kuzaku. “You would. Uh, not me, you know? Nah, I guess I might. If I got to be a king, then mayyyybeeee. I might lose control of myself.”

“Man, you’re so honest, Kuzaku...”

“What would the point in lying to you, Haruhiro? I want to be as honest as I can in front of you, Haruhiro.”

“Please, don’t use my name so much...”

“Huh, why, Haruhiro? You’re Haruhiro, aren’t you?”

“It’s kinda embarrassing...”

“You’re popular, huh,” Alice teased him. No, more like mocked him. “Anyway, it seems like that piece of shit isn’t interested in women that way. He might kill them, but he doesn’t rape them. If that’s a Doppel, the person inside might look completely different.”

Haruhiro nodded. “Like a woman... or an old man, or maybe the opposite, a child?”

“A child, huh?” Alice whispered, then went quiet. Maybe thinking, That’s possible, too.

If they were to assume the king was a child who’d survived Parano, there were some points that were hard to figure out. The king was defending the door to heaven. If he was old and not long for this world, that would be one thing, but would a child with his whole life ahead of him do something like that? You’d think he’d open the door and try to return.

What if he was an old man, then? Imagine Haruhiro were seventy, eighty years old, and he wandered into Parano, and happened to gain a powerful magic and become a king. Would he still want to return, no matter what? If he stayed in Parano, he might be able to remain king forever, after all.

Grimgar had its own rules, and Darunggar had its own rules, too. The same went for Parano.

Parano might feel weird to Haruhiro because he’d come from Grimgar, but in this world, everyone could use magic.

But what if the rules of Parano didn’t apply in the other worlds? If heaven was another world, the king might lose the magic that had made him king.

The king was presumably either an old man or a child. He didn’t want to leave Parano because he might lose the incredible power he had as king. If he stayed in Parano, he could continue his reign.

They were getting close to Ruins No. 7.

Haruhiro could see they were approaching that warped honeycomb, that pit full of holes off in the distance which could only be described as unpleasant.

Rainbow Mole, who had dug holes all over Ruins No. 7 and now called it home, basically never appeared in front of people, but he could be called part of the old guard among the king’s vassals. This was going to require some acting ability.

“Setora... How is Enba?” Haruhiro asked.

“There don’t seem to be any problems,” Setora responded immediately, pressing her ear to Enba’s chest. She stayed put like that for a while. “Actually, it’s so quiet as to be unsettling.”

They split up into two groups, praying nothing would happen.

Haruhiro, Kuzaku, Merry, Setora, Kiichi, and Enba with Shihoru inside were going to be the vassals Io had gathered from all over. She had gone for an audience to have Kuzaku swear loyalty to the king before, so it shouldn’t have been unnatural at all.

Then Ahiru would bring Alice to the king—or make it look like he was bringing Alice, rather than having been beaten and forced to submit. He would act following the script that he was being threatened and forced to lead them inside Elephant Castle.

Incidentally, Io had also found the Leslie Camp, and come to Parano through its door. In addition to Tonbe and Gomi, she’d had comrades called Katazu, Tasukete, and Jam following her, too.

Jam the mage had been dragged off by dream monsters, then turned into a half monster like Kejiman, then subsequently put down by Io and the rest of the party.

The warrior Katazu had been turned into a shadow.

The thief Tasukete had been caught by the king and thrown in prison.

Katazu, who had been turned into a shadow, might be too far gone to help, but they wanted to save Tasukete, if that was at all possible. Io’s name for Tasukete apparently referred to the way he was always crying, “Help me!”

The prison had always been in a lower level of the castle. The king had treated Alice as a sort of jester, but after rebelling too often, having been prepared to die for it, Alice had finally been thrown in there.

How had it been possible to escape?

Well, one reason was that the king had far underestimated Alice. Alice had played the part of the princess, too powerless to do anything more than act tough, in order to make him do so. Thanks to that, the king had never even taken Alice’s shovel away.

The other reason was that the king couldn’t see down into the prison. No matter how low his guard, if Alice had tried to break out while he was watching, the king wouldn’t have allowed an escape.

Furthermore, the castle itself had been way smaller than it was in its current state, and the Scarlet Forest not as large. That was how Alice had somehow managed to get away.

After that, the dungeon had been moved into the king’s hall. The castle was also now totally different from Alice’s time in there, and the Scarlet Forest had turned into a den of incredibly ferocious dream monsters. If they didn’t pass through Ruins No. 7, Rainbow Mole’s Nest, in fact, it would be impossible for them to get inside the castle.

With Io leading Haruhiro and the rest in, they set foot in Rainbow Mole’s Nest.

The nest hole was a tunnel about three meters across. No matter where you were in it, it was always rising or falling, twisting left or right. There was no place that was level and straight.

According to Io, the nest holes led wherever Rainbow Mole decided. If Rainbow Mole decided to let someone through, they would make it to the castle, but otherwise they would keep wandering.

“Io... -san, how did you first go meet the king?” Haruhiro asked.

“It wasn’t that man called Ahiru, but we were taken there by another one of the king’s vassals. Katazu and Tasukete got uppity with the king. That was how they ended up like they did. That vassal made them take responsibility for it. They’d angered the king, so they were made into shadows. I’m going to warn you people, too. The trick to surviving here is to make the king like you. Got it?”

They didn’t know where Rainbow Mole might be listening from, so Io was playing the king’s vassal. But was she really? Io might betray them and sell Haruhiro and the rest out to the king. Haruhiro didn’t know Io well enough to say she wouldn’t.

Ahiru was suspicious, too. If he confessed the whole plan to the king, he might be given Yonaki Uguisu as a reward. Was Ahiru just deceiving Alice and Haruhiro in the hopes of that?

If he started suspecting people, there’d be no end to it, so no matter how things were going to shake out, there was only one thing for Haruhiro to do.

When they exited the long tunnel, they came out into a hall with a ceiling that was too high. The floor was marble or something. It had been polished to a shine, reflecting Haruhiro and the others like a mirror. Shadows had taken up residence here and there, squirming.

Were the shadows just loitering, or were they actually headed somewhere? It wasn’t clear. However, one shadow followed Haruhiro and the others.

Just once, Io looked towards it. Probably that one was Katazu.

We’re fine, Haruhiro thought, seeing the look in her eyes. There was no way she’d betray them. Or rather, if there was any chance to defeat the king that had done that to him, she wasn’t going to miss it.

This area was wide enough to be a meeting hall, but it was apparently just a corridor. There was a round theater up ahead. No, it had the same sort of circular leveled structure, but there were no seats for an audience, so it wasn’t a theater.

The lowest point had a flat stage-like area, but there was a round pillar standing dead in the center of it.

The inside of the pillar was an elevator. It wasn’t possible to see anything from outside, but for some reason, it was possible to see the outside once they were inside.

Setora and Enba got down off of Kiichi. It was a rather big, spacious elevator.

Even once Setora and Kiichi, Enba with Shihoru inside, Kuzaku and Merry, Io, Tonbe, Gome, and lastly Haruhiro were aboard, there was still a lot of space.

The elevator began to move. It rose steadily upwards.

“There are nothing but shadows in the castle, huh...” Haruhiro commented.

“Most of them were vassals of the king.” Io’s tone was surprisingly unaffected.

The king must have ruled all of Parano. At the very least, no one else wielded their power with impunity the way he did. Still, what exactly was the king reigning over? What meaning was there in ruling over a country of nothing but shadows?

The elevator, it turned out, was not an elevator. It eventually started moving violently in all directions, which was quite the shock, almost causing Haruhiro to fall over, but Kuzaku supported him.

“...Thanks,” said Haruhiro.

“It’s fine! I’ve done this before, you know.”

“Then warn us, man...”

“Nah, there are some things are better off left unsaid. Don’t you think?”

“How so...?”

Haruhiro subtly looked at Merry. Merry was leaning against the transparent wall, as expressionless as if she were wearing a mask made in the shape of her own face.

The thought, That’s not the real Merry, crossed his mind.

That couldn’t be right. But this was Parano.

No, even in Parano, it couldn’t happen. He couldn’t accept it, so it couldn’t be true. Did that logic hold up?

Obviously not. That was no more than wishful thinking.

Opening the door, he started to get the feeling that once they were out of Parano, everything would resolve itself. Haruhiro and the party had come to Parano through a door from Grimgar. If they went through a door in Parano, it would go to Grimgar, right?

Alice had come to Parano through some sort of mist. Not a door. So the door surely led to Grimgar. It had to.

He recalled the story of Urashima Taro that Alice had told him. It might not do any good to think about time in relation to Parano. But he felt like they’d been in Parano for an awfully long period. Despite that, it didn’t feel as if time had passed. To be more precise, he didn’t think he’d aged. He might only be convincing himself of that, though.

Like Urashima Taro, he might have actually aged while in another world, but because of magic, illusions, or some other reason, he just wasn’t able to realize that. It wasn’t that opening the treasure box had caused Urashima Taro to age. It had just broken the spell keeping him from noticing that he had become old.

Even if Haruhiro and his comrades could go home to Grimgar... should they?

The elevator that was not an elevator came to a sudden stop, and at the same time, the doors opened.

Before questioning whether they should go home... Should they get out of the elevator or not? That was the real question.

He couldn’t breathe. What in the world was this space? The far wall was pure white, but the rest was black. Maybe not all black, but everything was blackish.

There were thorn-like, or stake-like, or spear-like, or sword-like, or katana-like growths everywhere. If he got stabbed by one, he’d be in trouble. Even if he was careful to avoid stabbing himself as he walked, it was going to be incredibly difficult to approach the throne.

The throne was in front of the white wall, in an elevated position many steps up.

The door.

The king, with his back leaning against a door wrapped in many layers of chains, was sitting with legs crossed.

He had a bearded face, wore a tight-fitting black outfit made of leather, or something like it, and like Kuzaku had said, he looked like a bad man. Were it not for the crown, he wouldn’t have looked very regal. However, it was clear at a glance that that man was a supreme being.

How many meters was it to the throne? Even at a conservative estimate, thirty. It might have been fifty. Or more, maybe.

Despite that, he felt so close that their noses might touch. Such was the illusion that man’s sense of presence created. Or was it magic, maybe?

Io, Tonbe, and Gomi proceeded into the royal hall and bowed down. Kuzaku followed suit. Even Setora did. Kiichi lowered himself, like a dog, next to Setora.

The only ones left standing in the elevator that was not an elevator were Haruhiro, Merry, and Enba.

“Hey, Io.” The king’s voice echoed.

What a voice, thought Haruhiro.

He’d never heard anything like it before. Deep and soft, it made the listener tremble. It beat them down. Haruhiro stumbled out of the elevator that was not an elevator and knelt. He turned his face downward at some point, too. In fact, he didn’t think he could look any further down.

He was facing straight down, but the smiling face of the king still flitted in and out of his vision. Even though he couldn’t see it.

What was Merry doing? Or Enba? He wanted to find out. But he couldn’t.

Was this magic? This was the king’s magic.

“...Yes, Your Majesty,” Io answered, her voice as weak as a mosquito’s.

In front of the king, even the Io-sama was like this. Who could blame her? He was the king.

Alice claimed to have pushed back against him. That had to be a lie. No way. What kind of mental fortitude would that take? Or had the king’s power grown since then?

“You’ve brought me something, I see, Io,” the king said. “New recruits?”

“...Yes, sire... That they might serve you... For that is my duty as your vassal... That is why I’ve brought them before your royal presence...”

“Your intentions are as admirable as ever. However, Io...”

“Y-Yes... Wh... What is it, sire?”

“One of them is not bowing before me. What, exactly, is the meaning of this?”

Haruhiro thought his heart might explode. He whipped a look behind him.

Merry was bowing.

Enba, huh? Enba was still standing in the elevator that was not an elevator. His back was ramrod straight.

“E-Enba! Wh-What’s wrong? Come, over here...” Setora hurriedly ordered. From the way she spoke, Setora must have been convinced Enba was with her earlier.

Was Enba malfunctioning, maybe? He began to walk, his entire body trembling and shaking, but something was blatantly wrong.

His knees weren’t bent, and both arms were shaking for some reason. Why was he violently shaking his head back and forth? He looked ready to collapse at any minute.

The moment Haruhiro wondered about that, Enba dropped to the floor right behind Setora and Kiichi, as you would expect.

He was face down, so you could say he was prostrated before the king in a way. However, Enba was still spasming like before.

“How odd,” the king chuckled. He wasn’t suspicious. In fact, he seemed to be interested in Enba. This was unanticipated, but Haruhiro was able to calm down a little before panicking. Or rather, it was possible that the pressure the king was exerting dropped. Was that it? If so, this consuming sense of intimidation might come from the king’s magic, after all.

Now, thought Haruhiro. If I do it now, I can use Stealth. Time to sink. Visualize dropping my consciousness through the floor...

I’m in.

Haruhiro hadn’t moved from where he was. He’d simply Stealthed. He hadn’t even changed position. Despite that, he felt a lot more relaxed. His thinking was completely clear.

He had no more clue what kind of magic it was than before, but the king’s magic really must have been consciously applying pressure to them.

Haruhiro’s Stealth was placing him outside the king’s awareness, so that power wasn’t affecting him.

Whenever he used Stealth, his spirit was pacified. Or rather, whenever he wasn’t in a state where his heart was unshaken, he couldn’t use Stealth.

Thanks to that, when Stealthing, he was able to calmly accept things that, if he hadn’t been Stealthing, would have surprised him an awful lot.

The royal hall had changed completely.

It was like the organs of beasts had been spread out over the floor, walls, and ceiling. But, at the same time, the roots of old trees had spread through them, too.

The king had stacked several layers of box-like cells up, placed the door they were looking for on top, and set it up as a throne. Beneath the throne there was a single grillwork door, and one set of stairs.

The wall opposite them was not, in fact, pure white; it was covered in stains.

In a cage hung from the ceiling, there was one woman, trapped inside. That had to be Yonaki Uguisu.

Those things sticking out from all over weren’t thorns, or stakes, or spears, or even swords.

They were pale white, bare naked boys.

From the looks of it, they were maybe ten years old.

There were boys standing here and there around the royal hall, arched back with arms outstretched or legs spread to the front and back, or with just the upper torso tilted to the right, or crouching, or sitting with one knee up.

They all had perfect oval faces. Their eyes were clear, and their mouths a little small. They had not just practically the same face, but exactly the same, down to minuscule details. The proportions of their bodies were the same, too.

What were those boys?

Haruhiro decided to defer coming to a conclusion on that for now.

He did his best not to turn his head, moving just his eyes slightly, making use of peripheral vision to view the whole of the royal hall. When he wasn’t in Stealth, he couldn’t pull off looking around like this very well.

It seemed the king hadn’t noticed yet. The king understood Haruhiro was here, yet had lost sight of him.

The king, huh? That was the king.

The reason he had looked like a stylish middle-aged bearded man was most likely because that was what the king chose to show them. Now, all Haruhiro could see were little boys with no clothing. What was that supposed to mean? Those ten-year-old boys that he could only assume were the same person... there were tens, no, hundreds of them filling the royal hall.

One of them was the king.

No matter which it was, the king was not an old man. He was a child.

Which was the king?

If he thought about it normally, the boy sitting on the throne should have been the king. If so, were the rest Doppels? Multiple Doppels? There could be cases like that, too, huh?

The door to the elevator that was not an elevator closed. It was moving. Returning. Eventually Alice and Ahiru would come here, too.

“One can never have too many vassals,” the king spoke up.

The voice was different. His natural voice must have been high, but he was forcing it to sound low.

Who was making that voice? It didn’t seem to be the boy on the throne.

Was any boy moving his mouth? He couldn’t tell. A good number of the boys had their backs turned to Haruhiro. He couldn’t figure it out.

“If they’re useful vassals, that is,” the king went on. “If they’re interesting vassals, even better.”

“I will keep doing my best.” Io bowed her head even deeper.

Tonbe and Gomi pressed their faces against the floor, their backs trembling.

“To serve the king is Io’s... my one joy,” said Io. “From here on, too... I will gather vassals for you. So, please, my comrade...”

“You demand I return your comrade?”

“No, um... If you can... If you would allow it, sire... Despite how he is, he can be of use to you...”

“That hideous man offended me, and you tell me to release him from prison?”

“N-No, I’m saying... I know I ask too much of you, but... someday, if I might be given a reward... that would be it... That’s all...”

“I could consider it.”

“Th-Thank you! I will keep working my hardest for you, sire, so please, I beg you...”

“I’m only going to consider it, you know?” the king said.

“O-Of course, that’s fine, even if that’s all you do...”

While Io was speaking with the king, Haruhiro was able to confirm that no boy whose face was visible from his current position was moving his lips. No matter how much that allowed him to narrow it down, there were still more than a hundred candidates.

This is bad, thought Haruhiro. If he didn’t find the king’s main body, there was nothing he could do. But the plan was already in motion. No stopping it now.

“From now on, you all are my vassals.”

Just which boy was this voice coming from?

“If you work yourselves to the bone, until I am satisfied, you will be rewarded. Let us hope that you are capable vassals, like Io here.”

It’s no good, thought Haruhiro. He just couldn’t tell. Searching by voice alone was impossible.

Noise came from the elevator that was not an elevator. Had Alice and Ahiru come?

That was the moment it happened.

It was a close call.

If he hadn’t been looking all around the royal hall like that, he’d have missed it.

One of the boys turned his face towards the elevator that was not an elevator. He was in front of Haruhiro and to the right, maybe ten meters away diagonally. He was sitting on the floor, hugging his knees. Judging by his angle, until he’d turned just now, Haruhiro couldn’t have seen his face.

That boy was the king’s main body, huh?

The doors of the elevator that was not an elevator opened.

With arms bound at the back, and a belt wrapped around the neck, Alice was being dragged in by Ahiru. That was how it appeared at first glance, but Alice’s unmasked face was full of defiance. It was clearly not the look of one who’d been captured. Just what the script called for.

However, Alice soon started to grimace. Struggling, apparently. The king’s power was trying to force Alice to submit.

“Get going!” Ahiru pushed Alice from behind.

Alice stumbled forward, but did not take a knee even after having entered the royal hall.

“Hey! Kneel down, Princess!” Ahiru snapped, pulling on the belt. Alice finally fell to one knee.

“Well, well. If it isn’t our princess.”

The boy who seemed to be the king’s main body was looking at Alice. His mouth moved, too. No doubt about it. That was the king.

“Who’re you calling a princess?” Alice spat. “I’m not yours, either. Don’t make me say this stuff. You make me wanna puke.”

“What happened to that filthy shovel of yours?”

“Oh, shove off. Your face is a zillion times filthier, you know that? You make me sick.”

“Hearing it for the first time in so long, that chirping of yours is exquisitely comforting,” the king said. “I had just begun to tire of Yonaki Uguisu’s singing, too. Shall I make her a shadow, and fill my ears with only the warbling of a princess?”

“Y-Your Majesty! Wait, please!” Ahiru got down on all-fours and shouted. He was still holding the belt in his right hand, so that gesture ended up squeezing Alice’s neck.

“Guh! Hey, Ahiru, you...!”

“...Sorry.”

“What’re you apologizing for...?”

“Ah...” Ahiru covered his mouth with his left hand.

That was when the king’s main body stood up. “You two... you’re scheming something, huh?”

“No! We’re not! S-Sire, it’s not like that!” Ahiru exclaimed.

“What is it not like?”

In front of Ahiru, who was shaking his head back and forth, Alice undid the restraints on both arms, and took off the belt, as well. They’d arranged for them to be easy to remove.

“I... I was just threatened by this princess.”

“I made him bring me,” Alice said coldly. “You can guess why, right?”

“You wanted to see me, your king? It finally dawned on you that you’re happiest being kept as my pet, I see.”

“As if that would ever happen. I’m here to blow you away, you piece of shit.”

“Without that filthy shovel you were ever so proud of?”

“See, the thing about that is... I’ve still got it.”

Alice suddenly bent over, shoving a hand into her own mouth. Io and there others’ eyes went wide. Even if they knew, they couldn’t help but be surprised. After all, Alice was trying to pull that meat stick out of there.

“Urgh... blech... uhhh... blech...”

It looked downright agonizing. It was hard getting it out, but it was just as amazing that it had gone in in the first place. From the size of it, it didn’t look like it should fit inside the stomach or intestines, but the shovel wasn’t that hard, and it could shrink to a degree. In fact, the meat stick came out surprisingly easily. It was what came next that would be hard.

After the meat stick, the black skin, which was split up to be as thin as noodles or something, started to come out, too. It was incredibly long, and had a lot of volume, so how had it fit inside Alice’s body, or inside the digestive tract, to be specific? It wouldn’t fit, right?

Even the king was taken aback by this. He was watching Alice with his eyes wide.

Thanks to that, Haruhiro was able to approach the king while maintaining Stealth.

Haruhiro was diagonally behind the king. In another step, he’d be at arm’s length.

Taking two steps, he hugged him. He did it unconsciously. The feeling of, I don’t want to let him get away. I won’t let him get away, made him do it.

He was going to finish it here—no, he wanted to finish it here.

The boy’s skin was cold.

—I’m already—

“Ah...?!”

Honestly, he almost had it. In another tenth of a second, he’d have synchronized with the king.

What had he done wrong? Had he done nothing wrong? Was it just bad luck?

Whoosh! The boy seemed to get sucked into the floor. He’d escaped.

The king had slipped out of Haruhiro’s arms.

In an instant, the royal hall changed. Dark. With thorn-like, or stake-like, or spear-like, or sword-like, or katana-like growths everywhere.

It was the king’s magic. Had Haruhiro’s Stealth broken?

He’d failed. The king had noticed him.

“Me!” The king roared. His voice was no longer the voice of a boy.

The bearded man rose from the throne.

“You touched me! The king! What is that magic?!”

“You screwed it up, Haruhiro!” Alice had just finished puking up the shovel’s skin.

Wiping around the mouth area with a sleeve, Alice tried to deploy the skin, but it wasn’t going to happen.

“Ah...!” Alice suddenly landed butt-first on the ground, as if some force had been pushing down from above.

The shovel’s skin was like a withered flower. Alice might have been trying to get back up, but it wasn’t going to happen with legs that were quaking like that.

Ahiru, and Io, and Tonbe, and Gomi, and Kuzaku, and Setora, and Merry, and Kiichi, they were all huddled and shivering. Their forms blurred and he started having trouble seeing them.

It seemed that Haruhiro was crying. Why was he crying? He wasn’t sad. Was he scared? Yeah. He was scared beyond belief.

He tried to close his eyes. He didn’t want to see anything. Didn’t want to hear anything. He couldn’t take it anymore. Why were his eyes still open? It was all useless, wasn’t it? What meaning would there be in getting stubborn now? Had he always been so bad at giving up?

He probably wasn’t tenacious, or strong-willed, or anything like that, he was just afraid to end it all by shutting his eyes.

It might have been because Haruhiro was a coward, but he witnessed the miracle of Enba standing up.

Enba didn’t just get up, though.

He exploded.

Well, Haruhiro was crying like crazy, so he couldn’t see that well, but he saw Enba get erased in an instant.

“I don’t even matter,” a voice sniffled.

Shihoru.

Sparkling stuff came out of the body here and there, just everywhere, all over the place, and it sparkled so much, it hurt his eyes.

Not to be outdone by Haruhiro—no, not wanting to be outdone probably had nothing to do with it, but Shihoru was shedding sparkling tears.

“Is that your magic?!” the king shouted, the bearded man who was presumably his Doppel turning the palm of his hand towards Shihoru.

Shihoru stumbled under the king’s intimidating pressure when he did, but she withstood it somehow.

You’re amazing, Shihoru, thought Haruhiro. Those tears are amazing. It’s like a flood of sparkling tears.

“Why are you bullying meeeeeeeeeee?”

When Shihoru swung both of her arms up, those tears sparkled and flew towards the king. It was like a river of stars in the sky.

Was even the king unable to block Shihoru’s tears? When they touched the bearded man on the throne, there was a cracking, splintering sound as those parts were crushed.

It was working. It worked. The sparkling tears compressed the bearded man on the throne more and more.

It was over in no time. With each tear, the bearded man on the throne got smaller, until they couldn’t see him at all.

But what did it matter?

By that point, right next to Shihoru who was a good distance from the throne, a tall bearded man wearing a crown had appeared.

The bearded man on the throne was nothing more than the king’s Doppel. He had plenty more Doppels. Even if the one on the throne was taken out, another Doppel just had to pretend to be the king instead.

“You’ve opposed the king! I’ll make a shadow of you!” When the bearded man raised his right foot, he suddenly got big. Incredibly big. That wasn’t any human size. No, not that he was human to begin with. He was a Doppel.

Was he still keeping his calm? Haruhiro couldn’t say for sure. Were his actions rational, in the end?

Shihoru looked up at the bearded man, flinching. The tears didn’t come. She was so terrified, she couldn’t even cry.

By the time Haruhiro thought, I can’t abandon her, he might have already been acting on emotion.

“Stop...!” Haruhiro dashed.

What did he plan to do? What could he even do? Nothing, probably. But he had to save Shihoru.

No matter if she became a trickster, no matter anything, she’d still be his comrade, his friend. For Haruhiro, if someone was a comrade and a friend, they were more important than he was.

“What?” The bearded man turned his way. The moment he looked down at him, Haruhiro’s body went rigid as if he was paralyzed. “You want to be turned into a shadow first? Then let me grant your wish!”

Intimidated by the king’s magic, Haruhiro couldn’t move so much as a finger.

This is the worst, he thought. The king would stomp Haruhiro and turn him into a shadow. Then, after that, he’d probably do the same to Shihoru.

Alice couldn’t beat the king, either. If Haruhiro had been using Resonance to boost Alice, would they have been able to at least do some damage on their way out?

Either way, they’d failed. It was over.

“Go, Fatty!” Before it could all end, the long-chinned dread knight dressed all in black threw in the fat man.

Gomi and Tonbe should both have been too intimidated by the king to move, so had he launched him with magic? Did they deserve praise for pulling it off?

Tonbe, propelled by Gomi, rolled into the gap between the bearded man and Haruhiro. He was carrying his massive mirror like he was a turtle.

“For Io-sama...!”

It was a mystery. Why would Gomi and Tonbe do this? It was so unexpected, the surprise blasted all emotion out of Haruhiro, leaving only his reason to find the answer.

Oh, I get it, he thought.

Tonbe had said, “For Io-sama!”

Haruhiro’s magic was the cornerstone of this operation, and only Haruhiro could defeat the king. If they lost Haruhiro, Io would die, too. That was what Gomi and Tonbe had determined. For Io, they had no choice but to do this.

“Don’t interfere!” The bearded man’s right foot came down on Tonbe.

In that instant, Haruhiro sank his consciousness, and went into Stealth. When he Stealthed, he realized there was no bearded man anywhere. That was just an illusion. The boy playing the bearded man was just standing in front of Tonbe.

But, at this very moment, a bearded man was trying to stomp and crush Tonbe. That had to be how Tonbe felt. That was how it looked to everyone but Haruhiro and the king. In fact, Tonbe probably would become a shadow. The bearded man didn’t exist, and Tonbe wouldn’t be stomped flat. Yet, still, something the king would do was going to turn Tonbe into a shadow.

He knew this was heartless, but Haruhiro needed to watch it from beginning to end.

Was that boy in front of Tonbe, that Doppel, going to do something? No, it would most likely be the king’s main body. There were many boys in the royal hall. Which was the real one?

Whoosh! The king rose up out of the floor.

Right next to Tonbe.

He crouched down, thrusting his right hand into Tonbe’s flank.

He didn’t stomp him.

He was sucking something out.

Was it blood, or water, or perhaps some sort of life force or energy, maybe?

Tonbe became an empty shell as he watched, darkening, and being reduced to a shadow.

On the face of the king’s main body, the pale boy’s face, there was a slight smile.

Haruhiro didn’t get hasty. He wouldn’t repeat his earlier mistake.

He crept in quietly, grabbing the boy’s wrist without getting overeager.

He became the boy.