Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 18 - Chapter 6

6. It’s All in How You Say a Thing

Jin Mogis had Itsukushima released at once. He apparently invited the hunter to dinner right after that and even apologized. However, what he didn’t do was bow his head. Itsukushima said dining with the man made him hate the guy even more. Mogis probably didn’t care. The man was shameless.

Mogis decided to send a delegation to the Kurogane Mountain Range while the Frontier Army prepared for the campaign. One of the black cloaks, Bikki Sans, was chosen to lead them as chief delegate in the commander’s place. Itsukushima would be going too, of course. The party was ordered to join them. Oh, and Neal the scout was also going. He’d be serving as Bikki Sans’s second-in-command and also keeping an eye on Haruhiro and the party, no doubt.

Mogis had a horse prepared for each member of the delegation, brought over from the mainland. They weren’t large, but they were well-built, and their faces looked mild-tempered. They actually were obedient, and Haruhiro was told they could be used for both riding and pulling.

“You set out tomorrow. Spend your time as you please until then.”

That was what Mogis said after summoning the members of the delegation to the grand hall. He made it sound like he was a generous liege, doing his subjects a favor.

Itsukushima said he was going to take the wolf-dog he’d brought with him from the Kurogane Mountains around to visit the hunters’ guild building and some other places before meeting back up with them the next morning.

The party decided to spend the night in the volunteer soldier lodging house. It was beyond ruined, but it still had a roof, at least. There were lots of rooms there. If they just got some fuel together, they could keep warm too. They could even use the bath. It’d be a lot more relaxing than staying in Tenboro Tower.

Haruhiro was concerned about Merry, of course. But, honestly, he didn’t know what to do about it. He left his comrades at the lodging house and headed for the thieves’ guild in West Town.

Mentor Eliza was at the guild. She refused to show her face, as per usual, though. They exchanged information, and without meaning to Haruhiro told her that his memories had come back. They talked a bit about Barbara. It really hurt, losing her. Right now, he wanted Barbara-sensei here more than ever.

In addition to Eliza, there were two other surviving mentors, the brothers Fudaraku and Mosaic. They were supposed to be following the Southern Expedition, but they hadn’t come back yet. If even one of the brothers was still alive, they might try to contact Haruhiro and the party as they headed to the Kurogane Mountain Range. Just to be safe, Eliza taught Haruhiro the code to check if the person he was talking to was a mentor of the thieves’ guild.

“But I’m sure it won’t be of any use.” Eliza apparently didn’t expect much of the brothers. “If they’re alive, they’re lying low somewhere waiting for the heat to die down. That’s how those two are.”

Haruhiro returned to the volunteer soldier lodging house. They could have split up into the boys’ room and the girls’ room like they had in the past, but with Merry’s current issues to consider, they decided to each take one room for themselves.

Haruhiro chose a room with two bunk beds packed full of straw. He lit the lamp on the wall and took off his cloak, sitting on the lower bunk of a bed.

Back when they were volunteer soldier trainees, they’d rented this room for ten copper a day. It was a real trip down memory lane. Ranta had slept in the top bunk of one bed, with Moguzo on the bottom, while the other bed had been Haruhiro on top, Manato on the bottom.

“We went and peeped on the girls in the bath... I know it was Ranta’s idea, but that was pretty awful of us, huh?”

This bed, the one that Haruhiro was sitting on now, had been Manato’s. Next to it was Moguzo’s. They were both gone now.

Barbara-sensei had died too.

Come to think of it, Team Renji had also lost Sassa on the Red Continent.

Haruhiro sighed.

I wish I could just sigh away all these heavy emotions, but it’s probably not gonna happen, he thought. He wasn’t good at changing gears. He’d forgotten all this stuff, even though he hadn’t meant to. But now he’d remembered it all. Maybe everything was back to the way it should have been all along.

Someone knocked at the door. He’d heard their footsteps before that, so Haruhiro wasn’t surprised.

The door opened before he could answer.

“Heh.” It was the masked man. “Boy, that face is depressing. You’re gonna affect morale, you idiot.”

“Sorry, man. This is the face I was born with.”

“I know you can’t change that, but pull yourself together. You know what I’m trying to say here.” The masked man came in and plunked himself down on Moguzo’s bed. “You remember it all now, huh?”

“Well...” Haruhiro sighed. He felt like he was sighing a lot, but that was nothing new. He always had. “Probably, yeah.”

The masked man bared his face and sprawled himself across the bed. “You’re so noncommittal. Memories or no memories, you always have been.”

Haruhiro forced a smile. “Yeah, I guess.”

“As for Merry...” Ranta said in a low voice, “I’ve got Yume keeping a subtle eye on her.”

Normally, maybe Haruhiro should have given some directions, orders on what to do about Merry. He’d ended up leaving it to Ranta. That was an oversight on his part, but whatever. Haruhiro decided to accept it for what it was.

Did Haruhiro need to shoulder everything himself? No. He could let Ranta take some of the burden, and Yume had become so reliable she was hardly recognizable. Setora’s head was built differently from Haruhiro’s too. And as for Kuzaku, he was well above average when it came to putting his body on the line.

“Hey, Ranta.”

They’d lived a hand-to-mouth life here in this room.

Time went by.

So many things had happened. More than could ever be told.

Haruhiro and the others had changed. None of them were able to stay the same.

“Back then...”

“Huh?”

“I never would have thought things would turn out like this.”

“Yeah, I’m all-powerful,” Ranta said with a laugh, “but, sadly, I’m not all-knowing. I can’t predict the future.”

“Yeah... It’s all so hard...”

Haruhiro was venting to the wrong person. Knowing Ranta, he’d mock and insult Haruhiro.

“In the end, everything’s just a load of shit.” Ranta loosely crossed his legs, put his hands on the bed, and sat up. Uncharacteristically, he didn’t belittle Haruhiro, or make fun of him. Even though he was Ranta. “Is there that much in life that’s not shit? I mean, think about it. We started this life with the shit condition of not knowing anything but our names. But even if that weren’t the case, I’d still say it. Once you’re born, it’s eat, sleep, shit, eat, sleep, shit, eat, sleep—and so on, and so forth, until one day you kick the bucket. It’s more or less the same for every living thing. Basically, all we do is eat, shit, and sleep!”

“You don’t mince words, huh?”

Haruhiro laughed just a little. Not because it was funny, but because what could he do but laugh? It was about the only option he had.

“But that’s not all life is, is it?”

“Well, no,” Ranta was quick to admit. “There’s always more living things born before the current ones die. We’re born to give birth and die, so when you think about it that way, procreation’s important.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Hey, man, you wanna screw women too.”

“...I’m not gonna deny it.”

“Why’ve you gotta be so noncommittal? If you wanna do it, even if it’s just occasionally, what’s wrong with just saying that you do?”

“Okay, sure. I do.”

“Though, even that impulse, it’s just a system put there to make us animals leave behind offspring.”

“If you put it that way...maybe it is, yeah.”

“I’ll bet, once you’ve got a kid of your own, even a noncommittal guy like you would adore them so much it’d make me want to puke.”

“I’ve never thought about it.”

“I’ll say it definitively. You’re the shittiest of shits, and you’d adore your brat to puke-worthy levels.”

“Adoring your own child isn’t really shitty, is it?”

“It wouldn’t be, if it weren’t all a big setup to make you feel that way.”

“Oh... You’re saying, as living beings, we’re wired to adore kids who carry our blood?”

“Of course, there’s shitty parents out there who can’t love their own kids. But in general, things are set up so we care about them. If they weren’t, the whole procreation thing wouldn’t work. So, knowing it’s all a setup, doesn’t that kill your enthusiasm?”

“Nah, not really...”

“It kills mine. It’s total shit. Everything’s shit. Seriously. Seriously...”

Ranta told him about the time when he was alone in the deep forest. With no one else around. Absolutely no one. It felt like he was the only person in existence. No matter what he did, where he went, how much time passed, he never met anyone. He was sure he’d never see anyone again.

He even hoped he’d be attacked by a wild beast and devoured.

He considered not eating or drinking, just waiting to waste away.

Despite that, he made an effort so that he could escape the deep forest some day. No matter how much he yearned to, could he actually get out? He didn’t know if it was possible. It might not have been. He might be devoured by wild beasts in the forest, or wander lost until he died without anyone ever knowing.

In the endless silence, a voiceless terror strangled him.

He felt like he was going to suffocate, but he never passed out.

His feet were leaden.

His whole body felt as heavy as it possibly could.

Try as he might, he couldn’t take that one first step.

Even so, he would do what he could to eventually escape that deep, deep forest.

“It wasn’t just once. I went through that countless times.”

Ranta was smiling faintly. His eyes were half open. His lips and jaw seemed to quiver. It must have been terrifying for him to think back on it. But he didn’t intend to run from those memories. Even if he was just trying to act strong, if he could keep it up long enough, it would eventually become genuine. That was Ranta’s style.

“It was like, ‘I’m seriously all alone.’ It forced me to realize that. If I wanted someone to talk to, I had to imagine them in front of my eyes, or inside my head, and mumble to myself. It was seriously shitty. Even now, just occasionally, I have dreams about that time. Like, ‘Aw, not this again.’ Sometimes, I think that’s what dying might be like. And if so...I don’t wanna die slowly. One good, clean shot is the way to go. Man, it’s such shit. That’s ultimately just how life is.”

“I don’t really get it, but...what do you mean, that’s ultimately how life is?”

“Are you a moron? Figure it out, man!” Ranta clicked his tongue. “Listen, Parupiro. No matter how good a time you have, it’s all the same in the end. Even if you have three thousand kids with genes as incredible as mine. Either you die instantly, not knowing a thing, or you go out writhing in agony, thinking, ‘Wow, this sucks,’ but either way, you turn into a corpse that’s practically—no, that’s actually shit. That’s our life. That’s the one truth, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see it that way, though.”

“You do you. That’s your freedom. I think everything’s shit. That’s my freedom.”

“We just don’t get along, huh?”

“We’ve known that a long time, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Everyone’s shit.”

“Yume too?”

“No exceptions. I’m shit, she’s shit, living’s shit, dying’s shit. But I still want to hold her tight and treasure her until the day I die. You could say that I had an epiphany out there, alone in the forest. I figured it out. The important thing isn’t whether she’s shit or I’m shit.”

If Haruhiro were to interpret, here’s what Ranta was trying to say:

The value of everything is just for show. Everything is worthless. You have to strip the value away from everything, even the things that seem like they can’t possibly be without it. Then it’s just a matter of treasuring whatever’s left.

“Haruhiro, do you think there’s some sort of special reason that these shitty events keep on coming?”

There isn’t, was what Ranta was implying with total confidence.

“From the very beginning, it’s all been shit. You included. Of course all the events are going to be shit too. You’re shit, so don’t complain like you’re something else. Learn to live with things being shit. Because you’re shit.”

That’s a pretty awful thing to say, Haruhiro thought. But he didn’t get pissed off.

Time had gone by, and he had sensed that he was no longer his old self. So why was he still being tossed about at the mercy of every little thing life threw at him? Wasn’t there some way he could make better decisions and get them out of this awful situation? Ranta had seen Haruhiro thinking that way, so the dread knight had come to say, Don’t be conceited. Haruhiro and the gang had been like this all along, so it wouldn’t be strange if things carried on the same way forever.

I hope not, but I can’t give up either way. I’ve got to look for a way out of this deep forest. And unlike Ranta’s situation back then, I’m not alone, so I have it much better.