Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 18 - Chapter 7

7. Not So I Can Remain Myself

In the dim light of early morning, before the first bell rang, Shinohara and the members of Orion showed up in front of the north gate where the Frontier Army’s delegation was assembling to see them off. There was mist in the air, giving the whole thing an ambience like they were inside a dream as they prepared to leave. Not a good dream, though. If anything, it was a nightmare.

“Sorry to trouble you...” Haruhiro said meekly, but Shinohara laughed it off, telling him not to act so reserved.

“I wish we could join you, but unfortunately we can’t. Watch yourselves out there. I’ll be praying for your safety.”

This man had just lost his friend and confidant, Kimura, the other day. At the time, he’d been beside himself with grief in a way that felt uncharacteristic of him, but now he was just fine. There were still suspicions about him and what involvement he might have with the master of the Forbidden Tower, so the way he was acting looked kind of dodgy.

If Haruhiro were to list the senior volunteer soldiers who’d helped him out, Shinohara’s name would be at the very top. Haruhiro respected the guy, and had always thought of him as good-natured and trustworthy. Was he just a poor judge of character?

“Thank you... Well, anyway, we should be going.”

As Haruhiro bowed his head, Shinohara raised a hand.

“Orion!”

Immediately, Hayashi and the other members lifted their weapons over their heads in unison.

“Whoa! That’s so cool...” Kuzaku was honest with his emotions, and kind of a simple guy. Ranta, on the other hand, just clicked his tongue with distaste behind his mask.

“Time to go!” Bikki Sans declared loudly. He, Neal the scout, and Itsukushima were all on horseback. Haruhiro and his party hadn’t mounted up yet. They had put their luggage on the horses and were leading them by the reins.

“Poochie!” Yume called the name of Itsukushima’s wolf-dog and the animal rushed over to her. Poochie had been raised by the hunters’ guild, and it wasn’t just Itsukushima he was attached to; he was friendly with Yume as well.

The Frontier Army’s delegation—nine people, nine horses, and one wolf-dog—set off north from Alterna. By the time they entered the Quickwind Plains, the fog had totally cleared.

Soon the sun rose and it started getting warmer. There weren’t many clouds in the sky and, despite the name of the area, the wind wasn’t all that strong. The weather was just right.

Haruhiro and the others were practicing their riding so that they were prepared for anything that might come up. Yume, who had apparently been on a horse before, improved rapidly, while Haruhiro, Ranta, Merry, and Setora could handle themselves at regular speeds. Kuzaku’s horse didn’t like being ridden.

“Well, I am a big guy and all. Maybe I’m heavy?”

The horse didn’t seem to mind it when Kuzaku stroked its mane, so it wasn’t like it hated him or anything.

“To think you’d be unable to ride a horse. Useless.”

Despite his harsh words, Chief Delegate Bikki Sans, a hairy fellow with a full unibrow, proceeded to teach Kuzaku everything he needed to know. It turned out he was from a family of equestrians and had worked as a groom back in the mainland. Thanks to his careful instruction, Kuzaku was at least able to get on the horse.

“Ooh. He’s walking. Horse-kun’s walking for me. Thanks, Bikki-san.”

“Don’t thank me, thank your horse. You dolt.” Despite the insult, Bikki Sans’s face was a little red. He must have been embarrassed. A weirdly nice guy, considering he was one of the black cloaks.

If they continued for another three hundred kilometers across the Quickwind Plains, they’d come to the Shadow Forest. From there it was a hundred and fifty kilometers east to the River of Tears, the Iroto. The source of that river was in the Kurogane Mountain Range. They just had to follow it a hundred and some kilometers upstream to reach their destination. This was the simplest route, but they would have to make detours.

They would start by heading toward the Crown Mountains, a mountain range in the middle of the Quickwind Plains. Obviously, they wouldn’t be climbing them. They would travel through the foothills, heading northeast until they ran into the Iroto. Then they just had to follow the river to the Kurogane Mountain Range.

That was just the plan, though. There was no telling where they might encounter the enemy. It was going to be harder to remain undetected as a group than if Haruhiro were acting alone. There was extremely little cover in the Quickwind Plains, so you could see things from really far off. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but he’d have to respond flexibly as the situation demanded. They had Itsukushima and Yume—experts at operating in the wild—working with them. Itsukushima seemed to know the Quickwind Plains well too, so it was fair to say they had the terrain advantage.

It was apparently about three days’ travel to the Crown Mountains. And yet, even at this distance, you could see the outline of the mountains on a clear day, so they served as landmarks.

Things went well on the first day, but just after noon on the second, Yume found something.

“Fwooo. Master, hey, lookie, lookie.”

Yume was on horseback, pointing a little to the west. Itsukushima stopped his horse and squinted in that direction.

“Hrm, that’s...”

Haruhiro’s eyesight wasn’t as good as that of hunters like Yume and Itsukushima. Despite that, he could immediately tell what she was pointing at. Actually, everyone could.

“Huh?” Kuzaku muttered, cocking his head to the side as he stroked the neck of the horse he was riding. “That’s a tree, right?”

“You moron!” Ranta shouted, unmasking himself on horseback. “No tree on the Quickwind Plains grows that tall. It is pretty gangly, though...”

“It appears to be moving,” Setora noted as she deftly controlled her horse. She could make it stop and go as she pleased.

“Seriously?” Neal the scout grumbled, clicking his tongue. His horse looked left and right, flaring its nostrils. If Haruhiro recalled correctly, that was a sign it was feeling uneasy.

Looking down, he saw his own horse was twitching its ears. He’d been told saying “whoa” and petting it was supposed to help if that happened. Come to think of it, Kuzaku was already stroking his horse. Haruhiro decided to imitate him.

“There, there...”

“And?” Bikki Sans asked, sitting tall on his horse, which made him look a good fifty percent more impressive. No, make that twice as impressive. “What is that tall, thin thing?”

“A Quickwind Plains giant...” Merry mumbled.

Bikki Sans’s eyes bulged. “Did you say giant?”

Poochie the wolf-dog started howling.

“Poochie!” Itsukushima scolded him and the wolf-dog immediately stopped.

Neal blinked repeatedly. “It looks pretty far off to me... Isn’t it awfully big, considering?”

“Heh,” Ranta snorted. “They call ’em giants for a reason.”

“How big is it, actually?” Bikki Sans asked Itsukushima.

The hunter shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you exactly. I’ve seen them at a distance a number of times, but never tried getting close to one. A good ten meters, at least, I’d think.”

“So we just have to keep our distance, then.” Bikki Sans was surprisingly calm.

Itsukushima nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

For the moment, they decided to keep going and not pay too much mind to the gangly giant. It remained visible until the sun had set and darkness fell, which was unsettling, but it didn’t seem to be approaching them. The group took turns on watch as they got five or six hours of sleep. Haruhiro woke as the sky began to brighten.

“And it’s still there...” Off to the north. The gangly giant. I dunno if it’s moving or not. But it’s there. That’s for sure.

“I feel like I had a really weird dream. Was it this...?” Kuzaku said as he got up, still half asleep.

“We should set off quickly,” Itsukushima said, hurrying them all along. No one objected.

Once the sun was fully risen, the members of the delegation felt a much greater sense of urgency.

“Mew...” The first one to spot it was Yume, of course. She pointed to the northeast while skillfully controlling her horse. “It looks like there’s another one, huh?”

The northeast was the direction of the Crown Mountains, which they were heading toward. But between the mountains and the delegation stood another gangly giant-looking figure. It was a little hard to see, as it blended in with the outline of the terrain, but if he looked hard enough, even Haruhiro could make it out.

Itsukushima looked at Yume, his nose twitching.

“Yume, you can see even farther than me now, huh?”

“Is now the time to be impressed?” Ranta quipped listlessly.

Bikki Sans’s unibrow raised in a V-shape and he turned his eyes toward Neal the scout. “What do you think?”

Neal shook his head. “I dunno...”

“The issue is if it is coming toward us or not,” Setora said, stating the obvious. When people were uneasy or frightened, things that should have been obvious sometimes stopped feeling that way.

“Nuhhh...” Yume looked from one gangly giant to the other. “This could be tough.”

“I’ve had them get this close a number of times. Let’s continue as planned for now, and keep an eye on how far away they are.”

As Itsukushima said that, Poochie the wolf-dog barked twice.

Yume smiled. “Poochie’s sayin’ that’ll work too. Aren’t you, boy?”

Bikki Sans was quick to accept Itsukushima’s proposal. He was a good listener, and could be decisive. It also took a lot to unnerve him. Did that mean some of the black cloaks were actually decent?

The delegation headed toward the Crown Mountains while keeping a careful eye on the gangly giants. The sun was beating down mercilessly as the violent winds tried to blow them all away—just another afternoon on the Quickwind Plains.

The area around Alterna at the foot of the Tenryu Mountains had something resembling four seasons, but the Quickwind Plains were more or less the same throughout the year. It was unbearably hot on days with clear skies when the winds were weak, but when they were stronger it was more tolerable. Once the sun went down, it got really cold. When the weather was bad, it hammered you from every direction.

Haruhiro had heard there was a type of heavy thunderstorm unique to the Quickwind Plains. The clouds would rise up to blot out the sun as you watched, and powerful winds would rage as lightning poured down like rain. In a heavy storm like that, you could be electrocuted even if you were clinging to the ground, so it was difficult to survive.

We’re being blessed with fair weather, but how’s our luck otherwise?

Yume spotted a third gangly giant shortly after noon. It was in roughly the same direction as the second, but farther away.

That meant there was one giant north-northwest of the delegation, and two more in the direction of the Crown Mountains to the northeast and north-northeast.

“We have to assume they’re stalking us,” Itsukushima concluded. “It would be a bad idea to keep heading toward the Crown Mountains. We’d be narrowing the gap ourselves.”

“Do we turn back...?” Neal asked anxiously, looking at Bikki Sans. The chief delegate shook his head with determination.

“No. We have to make it to the Kurogane Mountain Range and deliver the commander’s letter to the iron king. No matter what. Turning back is out of the question.”

“Yeah, I know. I was just saying it,” Neal said with an awkward frown. “So? What do we do?”

Even if returning wasn’t an option, running straight into the gangly giants was obviously a dumb idea.

“If we head east from here, we’ll still run into the Iroto. Yes?” Bikki Sans asked Itsukushima. The delegation’s destination was the Kurogane Mountain Range. So long as they followed the Iroto upstream, it would take them there.

“That’s right,” Itsukushima said, nodding, and Bikki Sans made an immediate decision.

“Then east we go.”

With that, the delegation changed direction to head due east.

Kuzaku had gotten pretty used to riding at this point, or at least had gotten his horse to tolerate him.

They wanted to get away from the gangly giants as soon as possible. But no matter how far they went, they couldn’t shake their three gargantuan pursuers. They might not have been getting any closer, but they weren’t getting any farther away either.

“This has never happened to me before.” Even for Itsukushima, who was familiar with the Quickwind Plains, this development was beyond his expectations.

“The giants may be reacting to any major intrusions into the Quickwind Plains. Lately, they’ve had armies of orcs and undead marching through here like they own the place, after all.”

The humans hadn’t settled the Quickwind Plains, instead building cities like Damuro at the foot of the Tenryu Mountains. The elves had lived in the Shadow Forest which spread out nearby. That was in part because the climate of the Quickwind Plains was forbidding, but Itsukushima said there were other reasons too.

The towering giants of the Quickwind Plains terrified human, elf, dwarf, and orc alike. There were countless stories of the giants. However, the humans had lost most of their kingdoms, and even the Kingdom of Arabakia had been forced to flee south of the Tenryu Mountains. Thanks to that, tales about the giants were gradually being forgotten.

“I know some of the legends the elves and dwarves tell about giants. Humans take the giants of the Quickwind Plains too lightly. The same is probably true for orcs. We need to keep in mind who the true masters of these plains are. It’s not us. That’s for sure. And it’s not the orcs or undead either.”

Once night fell, they obviously couldn’t see the gangly giants anymore. However, their pursuers had been within visual range for as long as the light lasted, so it would have been a huge mistake to think they’d escaped.

The delegation decided to keep moving through the night.

Itsukushima and Yume set their course by the stars. The darkness was terrifying—so dense it rendered the moonlight practically useless, making it impossible for anyone to see the person next to them—but they pushed onward and onward to the east. Aside from the times they stopped to let the horses rest or eat grass, all they did was push eastward.

“Wait.” It was just before dawn when Itsukushima called for them all to stop.

He dismounted to crawl on the ground. What was he doing? Yume did the same thing.

“You can feel them,” Itsukushima said and Yume immediately agreed.

“Yeah. They’re gettin’ pretty close, aren’t they?”

Bikki Sans got down off his horse and asked Itsukushima, “What’s going on?”

“Hold on a moment,” Itsukushima said, raising a hand to stop Bikki Sans. He wasn’t just crawling around. He had his head—or his ear, rather—pressed to the ground. The hunter changed places a number of times.

“This is bad...”

Poochie suddenly started barking.

“Poochie!” Itsukushima shouted and the wolf-dog immediately quieted down.

By that point, Haruhiro had already started sensing something. No, describing it that way was too vague. It was a sound. Heavy and low. And it was probably coming from the east. The sound was in the direction they’d been headed.

“Something’s coming...” Ranta said in a quiet voice.

The horses started whinnying and twisting their bodies around.

“Wh-Whoa...!”

It was too dark for Haruhiro to see, but that was probably Kuzaku struggling to control his horse. The thief wasn’t doing much better himself.

“Whoa, whoa!”

He stroked his horse’s head and neck to try to calm it, pulled back on the reins, and squeezed the animal’s sides with his legs, but the horse kept on freaking out.

“This is ridiculous!” That was Neal the scout’s voice. It was followed by the pounding of hooves.

“He’s running away!” Setora shouted.

“Neal...!” Bikki Sans loudly called his name, but Neal didn’t respond.

Poochie started barking again. Itsukushima didn’t stop him.

“Everyone, get your packs off the horses and let them go! Hurry! We have to act fast!”

“Right!”

That was probably Merry, reacting faster than any of them. Kuzaku fell off his horse before he could dismount on his own.

“Whoa?!”

“You okay, Kuzaku?!” Haruhiro called out as he unfastened his luggage from the saddle. He dismounted, then slapped his horse on the butt. “Go! And stay safe...!”

The horse didn’t need some human to tell it that. It was already running.

“What do we do?!” Bikki Sans shouted, seemingly still on his horse. The horse was pretty restless, but it hadn’t thrown him from the saddle.

“We can’t do anything with it being so dark...” Itsukushima said, then raised his voice to shout, “It’s all or nothing! Get us some light...!”

“On it!”

In no time, Setora retrieved a square hand-lantern from inside her luggage and lit it. Everyone but Bikki Sans had ditched their horses, and their luggage was scattered all over. Neal was, of course, nowhere to be seen. Ranta had already unsheathed his katana. Exasperated, Haruhiro thought, You’re gonna fight?

Yume pointed to the east. “Thataway!”

Setora turned her lantern eastward. It didn’t have a reflector for focusing its glow, so its range was limited. The darkness outside the bleary circle of light it cast on the ground seemed impenetrable. It was so dark. Too dark. Maybe Yume’s eyes let her see some semblance of what was around them, but for Haruhiro it was pitch black. For now, at least.

Even if he couldn’t see, he could sense them. The sound—the vibrations—was getting closer.

“Grab all the stuff you can carry!” Haruhiro ordered as he gathered up his own luggage. Fighting would be reckless, or flat out impossible. Shouldering his pack, he asked Itsukushima, “If we’re going to run, where do we go?!”

Itsukushima looked at Haruhiro and was about to say something, but then he immediately turned to the east.

Ranta shouted, “Here they come!”

“Mmmew!” Yume let out a strange cry.

Bikki Sans pulled back on his reins hard, making his horse turn as he shouted, “R-Retreat...!”

“Everyone, go on ahead!” Kuzaku shouted, charging into the darkness. What was he thinking? “I’ve got this!”

“Wait, you imbecile!” Setora tried to stop Kuzaku, but she didn’t move from where she stood. She just called after him. Simply telling him not to go wouldn’t stop Kuzaku. Setora had to know that, but chasing after him in this situation was too dangerous.

The darkness is moving, pushing in toward us. No, not just the darkness.

Haruhiro saw something else. It was much higher up. Some sort of round object. Vaguely shining. There were two of them. Aligned horizontally. What’re those? he wondered.

“Ahhh...!”

He heard Kuzaku’s voice. It came from the overwhelming darkness up ahead. At the same time, there was the sound of two hard objects colliding.

Yume’s gaze turned up. Then her head snapped around to look behind her. Ranta looked behind himself too.

“The hell?!”

There was an unsettling noise from that direction. Haruhiro screamed, “Kuzakuuuuuuuuuuu...!”

“I’m here...”

The voice was weak, but he definitely heard it.

He’s alive. At least, he’s breathing for now. Kuzaku’s the toughest guy on the team, he’s not gonna die that easily. I won’t let him do that to us.

“Merry!” Haruhiro called her name, but Merry was already on the move.

He couldn’t hear very well, but he had a feeling she said something like, “Leave it to me!”

“Will it reach?!”

Itsukushima was holding his bow at the ready, in a position that had him almost bent over backward. What was he planning to do? That much was obvious.

Itsukushima meant to shoot. At those two objects, vaguely shining high up above them? Haruhiro had some idea what they were. Eyes, probably. Did these gangly giants have eyes? He wasn’t sure, but that was probably the function those organs served.

Basically, the giant’s head was that high up, and it had something resembling eyes. Itsukushima was trying to attack them. Yume nocked an arrow.

“Yume too!” she shouted.

“Wait, that’s not gonna—!”

Itsukushima loosed his arrow before Ranta could complain. And it wasn’t just the one. He shot several times in rapid succession. Yume followed suit. It was an incredible feat of speed. The two hunters fired shot after shot at what had to be almost a ninety-degree angle. Haruhiro couldn’t see the arrows’ paths very well. But the arrows were flying. That was all he knew for sure. The sound and vibrations soon stopped. No, there was an echoing noise. A different one.

“Mmoooooooooooo. Mmmmmoooooooooooooooooooo.”

It was like the lowing of a massive cow. He heard it coming from the sky. Up above them. Was that a voice? If so, it might have belonged to the gangly giant.

“I-It’s working...?!”

Ranta’s question was a hard one to answer. Was it working? Haruhiro wanted to know too.

“Okay, now’s our chance...!”

Bikki Sans had been on the verge of setting his horse to flee, but seeing how Itsukushima and Yume were desperately firing arrows, he reconsidered.

“Nngh...!”

Without the hunters holding off the gangly giant, they couldn’t run. That meant that if the delegation were to take this chance to flee, they’d have to sacrifice the two of them. Haruhiro felt something resembling affection for Bikki Sans when he didn’t order them to do so.

Is he a pretty decent guy?

That still left the question of what exactly they were going to do instead, though.

“Let me borrow that!” Haruhiro yelled as he snatched the lantern out of Setora’s hand. If they couldn’t see the enemy properly, they couldn’t do anything.

Haruhiro had a vague expectation of what the gangly giant would look like as it was slowly revealed by the lantern’s light, but he was totally wrong.

“Mmooooooooooooommmmmmmmooooooooooo.”

It happened so suddenly. A wall rose up in front of Haruhiro. What was it made of? It wasn’t smooth, didn’t glisten. Was it rock? It looked like it could have been wood too. But it didn’t have the texture of a plant. What was it, then? Haruhiro didn’t really have the words. He’d never seen anything like it before. It was hard to identify the color too. No, not just hard, impossible. What was he supposed to call this color? It wasn’t white. It wasn’t black. Wasn’t red, blue, yellow, green, or brown. It probably didn’t even have a name.

Haruhiro raised the lantern. The wall continued up and up. Tall. It was a really tall wall.

Something fell toward him. Haruhiro instinctively dodged, and it hit the ground.

It’s an arrow.

It had to be one of Itsukushima’s or Yume’s. That was the only possibility.

The arrow had fallen vertically. One of them shot it upward and it bounced off something. Then, by pure chance, it fell down toward Haruhiro. That was probably it.

So? What do we do? Think. No, it’s no good. I don’t have time to mull things over. I need to decide fast.

By the time he’d thought that, something else was already happening.

The wall rose up. Not super fast, but not slowly either. It didn’t make much noise. Haruhiro’s jaw dropped. He turned into a bystander without meaning to. It was careless, yes, but he couldn’t help staring. He was entranced, overwhelmed.

“Oh, shi—”

How high had the wall risen? It was temporarily out of sight. Then, immediately after, it came back down again. Wait, something was weird. Before it rose, the wall had been in front of Haruhiro. Now it was falling again. From above him. Directly above him. He couldn’t call it a wall anymore. Some huge mass, a part of the gangly giant, likely a foot, was coming down on Haruhiro’s head.

Haruhiro turned tail and booked it out of there. Thoughts like, Oh, shit, I’m about to get stepped on. It’ll crush me. I can’t let that happen. I’d die, raced through his mind.

His body was lifted up into the air before he felt the impact. Normally, it should have been the other way around. But for whatever reason, that was how Haruhiro experienced it.

“Oh...!”

Haruhiro wasn’t the only thing that had been lifted into the air. There was dirt too. No, not lifted, he’d been kicked up, together with a ton of sand and pebbles.

Hadn’t he been stepped on? It hadn’t crushed him, so he must have avoided a direct hit. Haruhiro flailed about desperately in the middle of that flurry until, somehow, he managed to land. He turned to look behind him, but the wall—no, the gangly giant’s foot was nowhere to be seen.

“Huh?! No way...!”

“Ruuuuuun...!” someone screamed as if they were trying to destroy their vocal cords. Was it Ranta?

At that moment, it occurred to Haruhiro that the gangly giant might be about to do the same thing again. Ranta had just shouted for him to run away.

Oh, right. I’d better run. Run away. Or this time it’ll crush me for real. I’ve gotta run through the dust cloud. Run.

Haruhiro was holding the lantern tight. Even with a light in his hands, he didn’t have time to look behind him or above his head. While it might not have been anything more than an emotional crutch, having a light source close at hand made a pretty big difference for him. It was really revitalizing.

“Ah...!”

He felt an impact and the sense of being lifted up simultaneously. It had been a much narrower shave this time. A stone or something struck the lantern, breaking it. The light of the flame inside flickered wildly. Haruhiro felt his body taking a lot of hits too. They didn’t hurt, but his feet weren’t on the ground, so it sure felt like he was getting put through the wringer. I’m in serious trouble, aren’t I?

He couldn’t brace himself for the landing. He didn’t have any sense of how far up he’d flown, or any idea what kind of position he was in, so he didn’t know how he’d hit the ground. The lantern was gone. Haruhiro was in darkness.

He wasn’t dead. He was still alive. That much, he knew for sure.

Haruhiro got up and tried to keep going. He never thought, Is this the right way? What caused him to make his decision? Whatever it was, he followed an intuition that said, This way. Did Haruhiro crawl forward? Was he walking? Did he run? Jump? He couldn’t even tell, but only a moment later, there was another impact, and he was showered with more dirt. Still, Haruhiro wasn’t dead yet. He’d avoided getting stepped on.

Am I in the air again, maybe? I’m not on the ground, at least.

Haruhiro was driven by some kind of premonition. Call it instinct. He drew his dagger with his right hand. Or more like, even without his meaning to do so, the dagger drew itself.

I’m going to hit it. No, cling on to it, Haruhiro willed himself.

To elaborate, Haruhiro had this mental image that he was about to collide with an unimaginably large solid object, and he had to grab onto it just before he did, then stab it deeply with his dagger so he wouldn’t fall. Also that if he moved his hands, feet, and waist in a particular way, things would more or less work out. He knew this from experience.

“Urgh...hhh...!”

He couldn’t see a thing. Had he gone deaf? He could hardly hear either. So it was hard to say anything for certain, but maybe things had gone just as Haruhiro had thought they would?

There was incredible motion up and down. Rising, then falling again. An impact. Another rise, another fall. An impact. It was amazing he hadn’t been thrown off. Thank goodness the dagger had sunk in. And just as impressively, he’d been able to find something sticking out of the giant that he could grab with his fingers without even a moment’s notice. He lost his grip, but got it back. Lost his grip again, and scrambled desperately to get it back. Not to toot his own horn, but he was putting in a pretty good effort here. He had to, or he’d be thrown off in no time.

He was concerned for his comrades. Were they okay? What were they doing? But right now he had no choice but to focus on himself. Ranta’s with them, Yume’s with them, Setora’s with them, and even Itsukushima’s with them. They’ll be fine, he thought. His comrades would get through this. For now, he needed to think about surviving and getting back to them.

Hold on, isn’t it moving...?

The gangly giant that Haruhiro was desperately clinging to had probably been stomping its feet before. Things seemed different now. The up and down motion was more relaxed. The impacts, much smaller.

Could the gangly giant be walking?

Walking away from that spot?

Or is it chasing the rest of the group as they run away?

Considering Haruhiro was now able to ponder these things, the gangly giant had to be walking at a sedate pace.

Even so, he couldn’t relax. It’s important to remember that incaution is our greatest enemy. Even though we know that, we humans are prone to getting careless, and it often leads to failure.

That’s why he looked around, cautiously, without letting his guard down. He didn’t see anything. It was dark. Just dark. He couldn’t even make out the moon or the stars. Just a world of darkness spread out before him.

The way he saw it, Haruhiro was clinging to the gangly giant’s leg. That was more or less certain. The leg. Where, specifically? Just how long were the giant’s legs? What part was Haruhiro clinging on to? The giant had been stomping its feet. It probably had joints, like the human knee, which bent. Haruhiro figured he was on a lower part. Like the shin. Or maybe the ankle, or the calf. He couldn’t be that high up. Maybe two, three meters. It was pitch dark, so he had no clear idea.

Seriously, not knowing was a real problem. It made it hard to decide whether to risk letting go. The moment he did, he might get kicked or stepped on, or he might be higher than he’d expected and hurt himself badly. He might fall to his death.

He couldn’t help but think of his comrades. Why had the gangly giant started walking in the first place? It might be that it had already trampled all of them, so there was no point in it staying there anymore. If so, Haruhiro was alone. He’d be the sole survivor. Oh, but what about Merry? Merry, who’d died and come back.

Hadn’t Jessie said it?

“It did get harder for me to die once I came back, though.”

Haruhiro seemed to remember him saying that. Would it be the same for Merry?

The gangly giant kept walking. Haruhiro shook with each step. But his heart was being shaken even harder.

Again and again, he thought about it.

Enough. I should just drop down. I’ll either live or I’ll die. What’s it matter which it is? My comrades might be dead. Or someone might have survived. Like Merry. But it’s hard to imagine all of them did. I’m just exhausted. Haven’t I done enough? I don’t need to try anymore. It’s time to give up.

Haruhiro was weak. He was mediocre. It didn’t take much to make him want to throw everything away. There was nothing to be done about that. The question was, once he’d acknowledged that weakness, what could he do?

Hang on. That was all.

Oh, I hate this. I can’t take it. It’s ridiculous. I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I really can’t. I’m at my limit. I’m way past it. What am I doing? I’m tired. Enough of this. I don’t want to keep trying. Let me just stop already.

He complained, and complained, and complained until he was sick of it, but somehow he managed to hang on, no matter how much he wanted to give in to despair. I know how you feel, Haruhiro thought. It was weird to be sympathizing with himself, but clinging to a sense of desperation actually made this easier on him. If he acted without caring what happened, he’d at least get some result. Even if it was a bad one, he’d be able to end things.

But, well, you know...? It’s not like I saw my comrades die with my own eyes. Maybe nobody died.

If they’d already lost someone, that would be incredibly painful for him, but if just one of his comrades was left alive, he had no choice but to persevere. Actually, as long as that was how he felt, even slightly, it was the right choice for him to keep hanging on. Because until he was no longer able to think that way, try as he might, he wouldn’t be able to give up.

“Ungh...” he groaned.

It had gotten brighter, if only a little. The sky was starting to take on color. The moment twilight arrived, the black of night beat a hasty retreat.

Low. Haruhiro was at a really low point on the gangly giant’s leg. That was more or less as he’d expected. He’d be maybe two meters from the ground when the giant’s foot was touching it.

This might seem like an obvious thing, but the gangly giant had two legs. Haruhiro was clinging to the outside of its left one.

It looks like I can make this work, he thought. It would have been dangerous if he’d been on the inside or front of the leg, but the outside seemed comparatively safe.

Still, the gangly giant was huge. Gargantuan. So massive it was hard to even estimate its size.

Was this its skin that Haruhiro was clinging to? It was weird. And not just because it was hard as a rock. It had a unique elasticity to it, and a slight moistness, though he wouldn’t have called it wet. It must have been chilled by the night air of the Quickwind Plains, but it didn’t feel cool at all. Well, considering they could move, the gangly giants were obviously living creatures. Did they have body heat?

“That’s insane. How can a creature like this actually exist?”

Haruhiro waited for the gangly giant’s foot to be touching the ground before pulling the dagger out of its skin. Sorry for stabbing you, he apologized in his head. Could the giant feel pain? Whether it could or not, Haruhiro’s dagger probably hadn’t even registered as a pin prick to it. Haruhiro was beginning to develop a sense of awe. Humans, elves, and orcs needed to learn their place. They should have been grateful if the giants left them alone when they entered the Quickwind Plains. And anything that might have angered them ought to have been strictly forbidden.

Haruhiro rolled as he landed. After several rolls, he darted away. By the time he got up, the gangly giant had already put dozens of meters between them.

“It’s huuuge...”

He stared in renewed awe.

The eastern sky had turned somewhat whitish as dawn approached the Quickwind Plains, providing enough light to make out the shapes of bushes and patches of grass. The gangly giant behind Haruhiro couldn’t be more than a hundred meters away yet. But even from this distance, he couldn’t tell what it was. Well, no, he knew it was a giant. It had two arms, two legs, and something resembling a head. But he couldn’t bring himself to think of it as a massive humanoid creature for some reason. Even though he could see it properly, it seemed as if he couldn’t make out the details.

The sounds of its massive footfalls sent tremors through his entire body. It was a being on a scale so incredible it felt like some sort of illusion.

Haruhiro had the strange feeling that perhaps the gangly giant had no physical form and that he was only seeing it in a dream.

“I’m alive...?”

Haruhiro sat on the ground, exhausted. Once he did, he couldn’t resist the urge to lie down completely.

“Ohhh, it’s cold...”

He wouldn’t say that grass glistening with the morning dew was the best bed he’d ever had, but it beat sitting up. Haruhiro lay there awhile, figuring out which way was which.

I know where the east is. The sun’ll be coming over the horizon soon. So west is the opposite of that, which makes that way north, and the other way south.

“Which means...”

He could see what looked to be the Crown Mountains to the southeast. The gangly giant was heading northwest.

“Whoa... I’m way up north...”

Considering how gargantuan it was, the gangly giant walked at speeds a tiny human couldn’t possibly compare with. It might have covered over a hundred kilometers in the last few hours.

“I’m lost... Totally lost...”

Haruhiro gazed up at the purple sky. This wasn’t funny. There was nothing humorous about it. But he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Now what...?”

Haruhiro shut his eyes. He couldn’t think of anything. He was exhausted, body and soul. Even if he forced himself to think in this state, he wasn’t going to come up with anything decent. Fine, Haruhiro told himself. I don’t have to think. I’ll rest. Not for long. I’m sure I won’t be able to sit still.

He was right. Once the sun had fully risen, Haruhiro got up.

The next thing he knew, he was thinking all sorts of things, such as, Looks like clear skies again today, and, I’m glad there’s not much wind, and, There don’t seem to be any dangerous animals nearby. He was feeling depressed, but it still could have been a lot worse.

“South,” Haruhiro said, deliberately emphasizing the word.

“I’ll head south...”

He kept mumbling the words to himself. No, he wasn’t brimming with confidence. He wasn’t Ranta. It was impossible for him to become someone he wasn’t, and he thought that was okay. In a situation like this, the bigger question was whether or not he could remain himself.

“Probably, at least...”

He had a water bottle in his pack. Portable rations in dumpling form too. Haruhiro ate one of them between sips of water. Then he started walking south.

He wouldn’t act optimistic. He wouldn’t act pessimistic. He’d keep an eye out around him, perk his ears up, and occasionally glance at the gangly giants in the distance as he walked at a fixed pace.

It was maybe three hours after he’d started walking that he saw it.

“Huh...?”

At first, Haruhiro saw it as a pea-sized figure in the distance.

Is that an animal?

It was coming toward him from the direction he was walking.

The sun was really strong. He shaded his eyes with one hand and squinted at it. Haruhiro was sure now. There was a creature of some sort heading in his direction.

Should I run? Haruhiro quickly thought about it. But the area was flat as far as the eye could see. There weren’t any copses of trees he could hide in around here. Aw, shoot, he thought, letting out a small sigh. Was he going to have to do something about this without running and hiding? Well, if there was no other option, he would.

Just as he was thinking, I should have my dagger ready...

Woof, woof, woof!

Awoooooooooooo!

“Huh? Wait...”

Wasn’t that some kind of wolf or dog barking and howling? That’s what it sounded like.

“It can’t be...”

He was hesitant to believe it, and frankly Haruhiro didn’t know what to believe anymore. But as the animal approached, he started to get a clearer view of it.

It had tough-looking fur—gray and brown with yellow patches.

That’s a wolf.

No matter how I look at it, all I see is a wolf.

“No, it looks like a wolf, but it’s not. A wolf-dog?”

The wolf-dog came to a stop five meters from Haruhiro, barking twice. It didn’t look like it planned to get any closer. They didn’t act overly friendly with humans they didn’t know well.

“Poochie.”

Haruhiro couldn’t help but laugh. His eyes felt a bit leaky, but thankfully they weren’t so leaky that he ended up crying for joy.

Poochie the wolf-dog turned his tail toward Haruhiro. He walked two or three steps, then barked again.

“You want me to follow you...?” Haruhiro asked and Poochie gave a short bark in response.

“I’m gonna owe you for this, Poochie. You’re a real lifesaver...”

It wasn’t clear if Poochie heard Haruhiro’s mumbling or not, but he started picking up the pace.

Haruhiro hurried too. It would be a shame to get left behind after Poochie had gone to all the trouble of finding him. Surprisingly, it turned out not to be that big of a strain on Haruhiro. The pace was manageable for him—just right, in fact.

“Thank goodness for Poochie...”