Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 4 - Chapter 13

13. Don’t Stop Walking

It might have been true that Haruhiro and the party had needed to venture out into new and unfamiliar places.

Haruhiro and his group had been like insects clinging to the frontier of Grimgar. They’d had no wings, and so they could fly nowhere else. Fortunately, however, they did have legs. They could walk forward.

As they progressed, sights they had yet to see would unfold before them. Beneath the boundless skies, the land seemed to go on forever. It felt like they could go anywhere.

Honestly, when he thought of going back to the Old City of Damuro again, or to the Cyrene Mines, it weighed him down. Still, Haruhiro had thought there was no other option. He’d figured that if they were going to take it slow and steady, making adjustments as they went, really, the first three levels of the Cyrene Mines seemed like the most appropriate place.

He had been taking too narrow of a view; he realized that now. He felt like he had come to a dead end, but he’d neglected to gather information.

It all made Haruhiro keenly aware of how mediocre he was. As a thief and as a volunteer soldier he was average, and as an individual, he was plain and lacking in imagination. He could only look at things from an all-too-common viewpoint, unable to make the logical leaps he would need to to see things another way. Calling that having a grounded outlook might make it sound good, but not only could he not make those leaps, he didn’t even think to try.

That was why Ranta’s flights of fancy were so valuable. It was a terrible idea to let Ranta run wild and free. But Haruhiro ought to integrate some of the idea Ranta had come up with, the one that he would never have thought up himself.

“Okay! The Quickwind Plains! Yee-hawwww!” Ranta bellowed.

Obviously, no matter what happened, he would never imitate the idiotic way Ranta was shouting like a moron and running full-tilt towards the plains.

“Yahoooo-hoy! Helloooo! Quickwind Plains! Wahahahahahahaha! Hot damn, I’m excited, wow! Gwahahahaha!”

“Can I ask something?” Kuzaku asked Haruhiro, pointing to the screaming moron. “Is that normal for Ranta-kun?”

“Yeah, sorta...” Haruhiro said.

“Wow...”

“Huh?” Ranta said, turning just the upper half of his body around to look at them. “What? Did I just hear you dissing me?”

“No one’s dissing you,” Kuzaku said plainly. “It was more of a ‘Huh, Ranta-kun sure is different.’ That’s all.”

“Gwahahahahaha! That sounds like a compliment! Hurray for being rare!” Ranta shouted.

Even though everyone else was fed up with him, Ranta himself seemed happy about it. Seriously, what a blissful idiot.

But, well, when they were out in a wide open space like this, it felt incredibly liberating.

Yume, Shihoru and Merry seemed so taken with the magnificent scenery that they were at a loss for words.

When they headed six kilometers north of Alterna to Deadhead Watching Keep, then a little over an hour north through sparse woods, there were plains that could only be described as boundlessly vast. Perhaps due to the openness, the winds there were strong. That was probably where the name “Quickwind Plains” came from.

The plains were wide and vast, but not empty like a ruined wasteland. They felt like a perfectly natural prairie.

At first glance, it looked like it was all flat grasslands, but there were trees, too, and it wasn’t as if there were no rises and falls in the terrain. It was just, with the vastness of it all, the trees looked like no more than slightly tall grass, and the slight hills here and there were a rounding error at best.

Just how far did these plains go on for? Did they even have an end?

“Hm...” Ranta shaded his eyes with his hand, looking around. He tilted his head to the side. “Y’know, I don’t see anything out there. Like, there’re no animals. You’d think there would be.”

“Now that you mention it...” Haruhiro squinted and looked off into the distance. Not only were there no signs of people, there were no signs of any living creatures whatsoever. That was pretty strange, come to think of it. “Do you think they’re hiding? No... There’s not really anywhere to hide out there...”

“Ah!” cried Yume, pointing out into the distance. “There’s somethin’ out there!”

“Huh?” Haruhiro looked in the direction Yume was pointing. “...Where?”

“...Maybe,” Shihoru mumbled.

“You mean that?” Merry asked, seeming to have found it, too.

“Ahhh,” Kuzaku said, his face twitching a little. “Me, my eyes aren’t so good, you know.”

“What?! Where?!” Ranta was as annoyingly loud as ever. “Where, where is it?! I don’t see it! Are you sure you’re not imagining things?! You guys’ve gotta be hallucinating, right?! If I can’t see it, that’s gotta be—Wait, whoaaaaaaaa...?! Is that it?!”

“Oh...” Haruhiro had found what everyone else had probably meant. It was rather far off in the distance, on the other side of some bushes. There was something there. Some thing that was something. That was too vague to be any use, but, well, it was a long way off, so he couldn’t say anything definitive about it.

“That’s...” Haruhiro began.

“...something living, maybe?” Ranta finished for him. He was squinting so hard, his eyes were like slits. “Yeahhhh. It feels like it’s moving to me, so it’s gotta be alive, I guess?”

“It’s movin’, yeah.” Yume was technically—no, not just technically, she actually was a hunter—and she had been trained in archery, so she could see further than the rest of them. “...It’s movin’. That’s probably what you’d call it. It’s walkin’, maybe?”

“...Walking?” Shihoru was practically clutching her staff. “Then, is it bipedal?”

“It’s long and thin...” Merry murmured.

Even to Haruhiro’s eyes, the silhouette looked long and thin, or rather tall and thin. At the very least, it didn’t seem to be a four-legged beast.

“But, y’know...” Haruhiro said.

Those bushes.

The bushes in front of the thing in question... were they really bushes? After all, those bushes were pretty far away from here. Maybe those weren’t bushes, and they were actually a copse of fairly tall trees?

On top of that, the ground that copse of trees was on was slightly elevated.

In other words, that would mean it was walking on the other side of a copse of trees on a little hill.

Haruhiro’s eyes went wide. “I-It’s kinda huge, isn’t it?! That thing?!”

“Nuwah?!” Ranta jumped back in exaggerated surprise. “S-Seriously! Now that I think about it, that thing’s gotta be gigantic!”

“Human...” Yume said suddenly. “That thing. To Yume, it’s lookin’ like it’s human-shaped, y’know...”

“Nah...” Kuzaku said with a wry laugh. “That can’t be right.”

“A giant,” Merry said in a low voice. “I’ve heard of them before. There are giants living on the Quickwind Plains.”

“Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” Ranta suddenly cupped both his hands around his mouth like a horn, then shouted.

The hell are you doing, man? Haruhiro thought.

Before Haruhiro could come up with a witty comedic jab, Merry whacked Ranta in the back of the head with her short staff.

“Gwah! What’re you doing, Merry, you bitch!” Ranta yelled.

“Are you an idiot?!” she shot back.

“Huhh?! Who’re you calling an idiot?! You know what, there’s an ancient rule that says it takes one to know one!”

“What are you going to do if the giant comes this way?!” Merry retorted.

“If it happens, it happens! I’ll figure it out then! It’s no big deal! You’ve got me here! If it wants to pick a fight, I’ve just got to cut it down to size!”

“Hoh...” Yume backed away. “...Y-Y’know, the giant, it just stopped... maybe?”

“Run for it!” Ranta had taken off at a dash before the words were even out of his mouth.

Kuzaku watched, looking dumbfounded. “He changed his mind awful quickly.”

“That’s just what he’s like...” Shihoru sighed.

“L-Let’s run!” Haruhiro shouted, waving an arm and gesturing for everyone to move.

Ranta was already looking pretty small off in the distance. He was fast when it came to running away.

Haruhiro let Yume and Shihoru, Kuzaku, and Merry go on ahead of him, serving as the rearguard. He turned to look behind him, never stopping his legs. Was the giant getting closer? Was it not moving at all? Haruhiro couldn’t tell with his mediocre vision. But it didn’t feel like it was getting any further away, so he figured they had better keep running for now.

To the west.

To the west.

Far to the west.

The Frontier Army’s Lonesome Field Outpost was around 35 kilometers to the west of here. Lonesome Field Outpost served as the operating base for Blue Snake Force, the unit that handled the attack on Riverside Iron Fortress in Operation Two-Headed Snake. It was called an outpost, but there were far more people living there than just Frontier Army personnel. It was practically a town in its own right. The entrance to the Wonder Hole was supposedly somewhere near Lonesome Field Outpost.

As he was running, Haruhiro’s eyes met with Merry’s as she turned around. They couldn’t say for certain if the giant was chasing them. They weren’t running as fast as they could, so they could afford to talk.

“Come to think of it, Merry,” Haruhiro said as he ran. “Your staff.”

“Huh?” she asked, not slacking her pace.

“What happened to it? That’s not the one you had before, is it?”

“Ah! This is—” Merry glanced up ahead. Unless Haruhiro was mistaken, she was probably looking at Kuzaku. “Um, I sort of lost it...”

“I... see,” Haruhiro said.

“It was time to buy a new one, anyway,” she said. “My old one wasn’t very practical in combat.”

“Ahh,” he said. “Do you think the new one’s easier to smack stuff with?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s it. This one’s simpler than my last one! It’s better as a weapon.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you changed, then,” he said.

“It is a good thing.”

“I see. Good, good. Ha ha...”

I feel like she’s trying to pull the wool over my eyes about something. Still, what happened between her and Kuzaku? I can more or less imagine, but I don’t want to imagine it.

They probably spent twenty to twenty-five minutes running. Yume said she could still see the giant in the distance, but Haruhiro and the others no longer could. Figuring they were probably safe now, they switched to walking.

From that point on, they walked across the fields of grass.

At first glance, it looked flat, but there were bumps here and there, and the ground was softer or harder, so sometimes it was easy to walk and sometimes it wasn’t. It was surprisingly tiring.

Technically, there were roads that went to Lonesome Field Outpost. Haruhiro and the others just couldn’t find them. They ought to have been heading in the right direction, so that was somewhat disconcerting.

Eventually, they started to see groups of animals here and there. It must have been because of the giant that they hadn’t seen any earlier. Most of them seemed to be herbivores, but they knew there had to be carnivores which preyed on them, so it was a little bit scary. However, being a hunter, Yume had studied the different animals to some degree, so she was knowledgeable about them. While there were definitely some that were dangerous, she said they didn’t have to be too worried.

If the route there was thirty-five kilometers, traveling at four kilometers per hour, they could make the trek in a little under nine hours. It seemed possible that they would arrive today, but they’d left prepared to camp out. Partly due to that, they hadn’t been able to leave Alterna until after lunch, so they weren’t going to be able to make it there today, after all.

As it gradually grew darker, they made the decision to camp out. Though, that said, all that meant was eating preserved food, wrapping themselves in blankets, and then going to sleep. They talked about maybe setting a campfire, but it seemed like too much trouble to gather things they could burn, so they gave up.

The curtain of night descended over the Quickwind Plains in no time. Though, with the red moon out, it wasn’t totally dark. It may not have been pitch black darkness, but it was dark enough to feel oppressive.

The wind had grown weaker starting in the evening. Now it was more of a gentle breeze.

Somewhere out there, there were animals making their various sounds. After they heard a howling off in the distance, Shihoru called out to Yume, asking, “Um... What was that?”

“Hm... A horned maned dog, maybe?” Yume asked. “They’re like wolves, and they go huntin’ in packs at night. That’s what Master said.”

“...Will they hunt for us?” Shihoru asked.

“Not sure about that,” Yume answered. “Master said they don’t attack humans that often, though.”

“...Not that often...”

“There’s nothin’ absolute in nature, so be careful,” Yume explained. “That’s what Master was sayin’.”

“...Nothing is absolute...” Shihoru murmured.

“Listen, you...” Ranta said, sounding sleepy. “Don’t say things that are going to stir up anxiety. Because Shihoru’s a wimp. Right, Wimpy? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“...I wish the dogs could come and drag off just Ranta.”

“Huh? Did you say something, Wimpette?”

“...I didn’t say anything,” Shihoru said. “I can’t sleep with you being noisy, so would you please be quiet?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fiiiiiine. I’m tired, too.” He yawned loudly. “Fwahhhh...”

After that loud yawn, Ranta was snoring in no time. At times like this, one had to envy his audacity.

Merry was silent. Kuzaku, too. Were they sleeping, or not? Shihoru kept turning over. It seemed like she couldn’t get to sleep. Yume was breathing shallowly as she slept.

The later in the night it got, the more awake Haruhiro felt. He could hear the horned maned dogs howling every once in a while, and could sense something moving not far away. It wasn’t going to be easy sleeping like this.

Even so, with his comrades sleeping, he couldn’t make a fuss about it and wake them. All he could do was sit still, thinking, Wh-Whoa, that’s scary. It’s seriously scary.

Then an event occurred that forced him to act. It wasn’t the horned maned dogs howling. He heard a low roaring sound.

No, not a sound, a voice. From a carnivore.

He wasn’t sure, but he had the vague sense that it was probably from one of the big cats. It felt like it was relatively close. As he was trembling, there it was again—Roar.

“...!”

Oh crap, Haruhiro thought frantically. Not good, not good, not good, not good, not good, not good. It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming. That one was closer than the last. Seriously, seriously, seriously. Is it coming to eat us? Time for a nice meal? We’re gonna get eaten? Is this one of those things? Like, how I should wake everyone up? It’s pretty clear I’ve got to at this point. But, you know, if I move, it feels like it’ll attack? Like, that’ll be what triggers it to pounce? Now’s a bad time? I should wait and see what happens? I dunno. Which is it? What’s the right answer? And, hold on, I can’t move. I’m too scared. No, no, no. While I’m wasting time, I could get killed.

Haruhiro tried to draw his dagger and sap.

Should I get up first? But, you know, I really do think moving too much could be dangerous. If I’m going to get up, it needs to be one quick movement. First, I should check the area around me. I’ll move my head just a little, along with my eyes, to look around the area. I don’t know. It’s dark. It’s dark, okay? Damn, it’s dark. It’s too dark. It’s not there... or at least I don’t think it is. I can’t see in the darkness, so I can’t say for sure. I’ll listen closely. For the next one. I’ll judge based on its next roar. Aughhhhhhhhhhhh, dammit, Ranta’s snoring is too loud. Pipe down, would you? Please. Its roar. Is it not doing it yet? Is it still not doing it yet? There.

Haruhiro heard it. A tiny roar.

It was tiny. Has it moved away? Seems like it. But it’s too soon to relax... I think. Probably.

He tried waiting a while longer, but wait as he might, he didn’t hear it. It was probably safe at this point. Haruhiro sat up, and a moment later, Merry groggily sat up, too.

“Now...” she murmured. “Just now, there was something here, right? Whatever it was...”

“Y-Yeah,” Haruhiro said. “There was. Did you hear them? Those roars.”

“I-I did,” she said. “It was scary...”

“I know, right?” Haruhiro agreed. “I-I did, too... Hold on, everyone else, they’re totally asleep...”

“I haven’t slept a wink,” Merry said.

“Yeah, me either...”

It was dark, so they couldn’t see each other’s faces, but it all started to seem a bit funny, so they both laughed a little. Then the horned maned dogs howled again, making them both jump a little.

“...Haru, do you think it’s safe now?” Merry asked.

I dunno... he almost said, but he stopped himself.

“—Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Merry said.

“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Haruhiro asked. “I’ll be up until I get tired. Ah... we probably should have taken shifts standing watch, huh? When we’re out like this.”

“You’re right,” she said.

“Well, when I can’t fight off the tiredness any longer, I’ll wake Ranta, or someone,” said Haruhiro.

“Or you could wake me,” Merry said.

“Yeah. I might do that.”

“Well, good night.”

“Sleep tight,” Haruhiro said. “—Ah, Merry.”

“What?”

“Listen...” Haruhiro shook his head and sighed. “...Sorry. I forget what I was going to say.”

“Okay. ...Good night.”

“Yeah.” Merry lay down.

Haruhiro stayed sitting. As he looked up to the red moon, it reminded him of Moguzo for some reason. He would never see Moguzo again, but that didn’t make him feel sad or lonely, it just felt strange.

That can’t be right, can it...? he thought. But that was reality.

Around the time that the eastern sky began to brighten just a little, Kuzaku woke up.

“Huh?” Kuzaku asked. “What’re you up for?”

“I couldn’t get to sleep,” Haruhiro said. “Well, that, and I’m keeping watch, too.”

“Wouldn’t you be better off sleeping?” asked Kuzaku. “If you need someone to be on watch, I can do it.”

Haruhiro took Kuzaku up on the offer and lay down to sleep. His eyelids immediately began to feel heavy, and he managed to get some sleep.

When he awoke, Haruhiro and the others had a simple meal, then set off early in the morning. Along the way, he told them about the carnivore that had approached during the night, but they made a joke out of it. Merry didn’t seem happy about that.

In the afternoon, they encountered a vast, slightly elevated plateau. Once they climbed up it, there was a basin past there.

It was clear at first glance that this pot-like depression in the land was Lonesome Field. When they looked around, they saw there were little towers around what would be the rim of the pot. Watchtowers, most likely.

There were a number of springs in the bottom of the pot, as well as a town surrounded by a moat and a fence.

Yes, a town.

It’s a town, Haruhiro thought.

It was nothing too impressive, but there were more than ten to twenty buildings, along with the roads between them. They could also see people roaming around. This could only be called a town.

“Heh...” Ranta brushed his nose with his thumb. “Here at last, finally, we’ve finally made it. Lonesome Field Outpost.”

He might have been trying to sound cool, but he wasn’t cool in the slightest. Still, if they said anything, he’d just start a fight over it. Haruhiro and the others ignored Ranta, making no hurry as they descended the slope into the bottom of the pot. No matter how much of a fuss Ranta made, no one paid him any attention.

The moat around the outpost was thicker than it had looked from a distance, and it was deep, too. It was filled with water that had probably been drawn from the nearby springs. The sturdy-looking fence was built on top of a two-meter-high platform of compacted dirt, so it wouldn’t be easy to climb. There only seemed to be one entrance, with a bridge over the moat at that point. There was a narrow gap in the dirt wall with a gate there.

Just in front of the bridge, next to the moat, there were a number of tents dotted around. They might be tents, but some of them were quite large and impressive. This might have been where the volunteer soldiers lived.

There were soldiers from the Frontier Army standing in front of the gate. There were two of them beside the gate, but the towers on either side of it held more than ten, some of whom had their crossbows leveled at Haruhiro and his comrades. They seemed to be on edge, but when the group showed them their Volunteer Soldier Corps badges, they did at least let them through.

Inside the base, the road leading from the gate was lined with large buildings that served as stables and barracks. Once they got past that section, they reached a plaza. On the far side of a plaza was something like a keep. It looked pretty secure, and was probably a command center of some sort. There were a number of buildings crowded around that command center that were probably of a military nature, too.

They could hear men shouting at regular intervals. They must have been training somewhere.

The soldiers of the Frontier Army that they saw standing here and there, or patrolling the area, either paid no heed to Haruhiro and the rest of the party, or occasionally shot them looks of scorn but did nothing else.

However, when they cut between two barracks and went into the back streets, the atmosphere changed. There were a number of gaudy buildings that wouldn’t have looked out of place next to the bars of Celestial Alley.

There were women walking the streets languidly. There were blacksmiths. There were rows of stalls. There were street vendors. There were even a number of lodging houses that looked better than the barracks.

There were men and women that they could immediately tell were volunteer soldiers, too. They were seated at the different food stalls, eating and drinking, or were making deals with the various merchants.

It was a market, a place for entertainment, and a residential district all at once. From a cursory glance at the stalls, there was a reasonably wide variety of weapons and armor on offer. It might even have had Alterna beat for selection. There weren’t many daily necessities or foodstuffs available, but that was probably due to a lack of demand.

One thing that set it apart was that there were merchants selling caged animals that they had never seen before. When they asked about it, they were told there were also horses, horse-dragons, deer-horses, and other large animals for riding and carrying cargo tied up outside the base. The merchant also rented horses, so they were encouraged to consider using them if they were going somewhere far. The owner of one shop that dealt in all sorts of tents recognized that they were new to the outpost, and gave them an aggressive sales pitch for his wares.

With all of this looking around, they were starting to get hungry, so they stopped at a certain food stall to get lunch. The skewers of fried meat had a certain rustic charm to them, and the water flavored with sour fruit juice wasn’t bad, either.

“I could live here,” was Ranta’s take on the place, and Haruhiro couldn’t help but agree.

“Y’know,” Yume said, with a relaxed and cheerful look on her face, “Yume, she heard earlier, there’re bathhouses here, too.”

“That is important,” Merry nodded emphatically.

“...Yeah,” Shihoru said with an incredibly serious look on her face. “If I have to go even one day without a bath... honestly, it feels gross...”

“Well, yeah, if you’re a girl...” Kuzaku said idly.

“Ha! Women are such a pain!” Ranta cackled. “Me, I could go ten days, maybe a month, and not even care, you know?! Not bathing never killed anyone!”

“You say that, but if you start stinkin’, you’re not gonna like that much, now are you?” Yume shot back.

“What, Yume?” Ranta asked. “If you go without bathing, do you stink that much? C’mere! Let me sniff you!”

“Yume’s not lettin’ you sniff anythin’, you idiot!” she shot back.

“Hmm?” Ranta asked. “Well, I bet you must smell pretty rank by now, then, huh?”

“Do not! Yume doesn’t stink yet at all!”

“Well, let me check, and I’ll give you an official judgment from a third party,” said Ranta. “Besides, it’s not like it’s something you’d notice by yourself. You can’t smell your own stink.”

Merry suddenly leaned in close to Yume’s neck, sniffing. “She doesn’t stink,” she reported.

“Hyaoh?!” It must have tickled Yume or something, because she let out a weird cry.

“Oh...“ Merry moved away from Yume. “...I’m sorry.”

“Mm, nuh-uh, it’s nothin’ to apologize for.” Yume sounded slightly embarrassed for some reason. “Yume was just a little startled, that’s all. But, Yume, she’s glad to know she doesn’t smell.”

“What do you think you’re doing, leaving me out of the fun?!” Ranta shouted, waving his arms around indignantly. “Let me join in, too! No, actively include me! Let me in on the action!”

Once their bellies were full, they decided it was finally time to go to the Wonder Hole. However, embarrassingly, Haruhiro and the others only knew that the entrance to the Wonder Hole was at Lonesome Field Outpost. Ranta chased down a few volunteer soldiers and tried asking, but he was brusquely turned away.

If you didn’t know them and weren’t paying for their drinks that night, most volunteer soldiers weren’t that friendly. Haruhiro should have expected it to be like this.

“It’d be nice if there was someone I knew around here,” Haruhiro said as he looked around. “...Ah.”

There is, he realized.

“Oh!” It seemed Ranta had noticed, too, and he started to wave. “Heyyy! Shinohara-saaaan! What’s up, man! How’ve you been?!”

There was a group all wearing white capes walking in their direction. The man with the gentle-looking face who was at the head of the group cast a broad smile in their direction.

Shinohara was the leader of a well-known clan called Orion, but he was a mild-mannered fellow with a great personality. Because they were a group led by Shinohara, all of the members of Orion were friendly and well-organized. That said, Ranta’s audacious behavior still made a few of them furrow their brows in consternation. Shinohara himself, however, didn’t seem upset.

“Hey,” the man said. “If you’re here, does that mean you’re finally tackling the Wonder Hole, too?”

“Yes! Siree! Bob!” Ranta shouted, making a weird salute-like gesture for no well-explained reason as he did. He was totally letting his excitement get the better of him. It was so stupid that it was embarrassing to watch. “So, Shinohara-san, you’re going to the Wonder Hole, just like us?! Man, talk about a coincidence!”

“No,” said Shinohara. “We’re going somewhere else. We have some business to take care of at Mount Grief.”

“Mount Grief...” Haruhiro murmured the words. It wasn’t a familiar name, but it had an eerie ring to it. What kind of place could it be? Would Haruhiro and the others go there, too, someday?

“Oh.” Shinohara looked at Kuzaku. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. I’m Shinohara of Orion. Nice to meet you.”

“Ohh.” Kuzaku gave a slight bow of his head. “Hey. I’m Kuzaku.”

“I see.” Shinohara paused for a moment, closing his eyes and taking a short breath. “If I recall, you all took part in Operation Two-Headed Snake as members of Blue Snake Force, right? While there were few losses in the Frontier Army portion of Blue Snake Force, with only six dead, I’ve heard that twenty-three volunteer soldiers lost their lives there.”

“I wasn’t good enough,” Merry looked Shinohara straight in the eye and told him. “I made a mistake no priest must ever make. Because of that, I let him die.”

“Merry...” A man with short hair and narrow eyes started to come forward, then stopped himself. Hayashi. The man who had once been Merry’s comrade.

“And yet, you’re still here.” Shinohara put a hand on Merry’s shoulder. “Rather than stop, you faced forward and continued to walk. You’ve found good comrades for yourself, Merry.”

“...Yes.” Merry looked down at the ground. Her back was quivering slightly.

I want to give her a hug, Haruhiro thought, and then got flustered for having thought it. No, I don’t. No way. I can’t give her a hug. That’s so not me.

He didn’t think that was his role. After all, there was nothing between Haruhiro and Merry.

“Er, you, too, Shinohara-san.” Haruhiro cleared his throat. “Good work with the attack on Riverside Iron Fortress. I don’t know any of the details, but you guys won, yeah?”

“Thanks to the work you guys did, we had a perfect victory,” Shinohara said.

For a moment, it looked like a cynical smile crossed Shinohara’s face. However, it only lasted an instant. It wasn’t a look that was typical for Shinohara, so Haruhiro might have imagined it.

“Things went the opposite way for Red Snake Force,” he continued. “The Frontier Army was dealt a painful blow, but there were very few volunteer soldiers lost. Soma’s Day Breakers really carried the day. Thanks to them, we in Orion had an easy time of it.”

“Man! Soma, huh!” Ranta stomped his feet and pulled at his curly hair. “Damn, that Soma’s awesome! The Day Breakers, huh! Ohhh...!”

Shinohara covered his mouth and smiled. Even though it was Ranta talking, Shinohara had a look on his face like he would when watching an innocent child.

“I hear that Soma’s been operating out of this town lately,” the man said. “You might just run into him somewhere.”

“Ohhhh?! Seriously?! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Ranta shouted.

“Would you shut up already, man? Seriously...” Haruhiro sighed, then turned back to Shinohara. “—Oh, that’s right. Shinohara-san, actually, there was something I wanted to ask you.”

“What is it? Hopefully, I’ll have an answer for you.”

“Erm...” Haruhiro rubbed his cheek with one hand, looking around to each of the members of Orion. Men and women alike, they all looked back at him with calm eyes. No matter how young or old they were, they all felt like reliable older brothers and sisters.

Meanwhile, his own group—well, Ranta might be dragging down the dignity of the group all on his own, but Haruhiro, Shihoru, Yume, their junior Kuzaku, and even Merry, were all younger than the people in Orion. They gave off a feeling of being so overwhelmingly inexperienced, it was almost refreshing.

No, it wasn’t refreshing at all. Actually, it was painful.

Even having come to Lonesome Field to head for the Wonder Hole was something they’d done mostly on the spur of the moment. And now that they were here, they didn’t even know the most basic information, so he was about to ask Shinohara about it.

Is this really okay? Haruhiro wondered. But, they do say that “asking is a moment of shame, but not asking is a lifetime of shame,” and I’d rather not waste time.

“...So, about the Wonder Hole, I was wondering where it is.”