Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 6 - Chapter 2

2. My Love Is Always Like This

There was no sun that rose or set in the Dusk Realm, no mornings or nights. Compasses were worthless here, leaving no way to tell the cardinal directions. That was inconvenient, so Shinohara of Orion had come up with a proposal.

Looking out from the initial hill, off in the distance, there was a pillar-shaped object rising into the sky. It was of a size and shape that didn’t seem natural, and it had probably been created by someone. He suggested that, for the sake of convenience, that direction would be North. With no objections, everyone had accepted that idea.

East of the initial hill, a pair of adventurers called Lala and Nono had discovered a valley where plants grew, and a spring with clear water at the bottom of it. Incidentally, it had also been Lala and Nono who’d arrived five days after Haruhiro and the others to discover the hole that had appeared in the Grimble Mineshaft in the Wonder Hole.

On top of that, Lala and Nono had named those bat-like creatures “gremlins.” The name “ri-komo” wasn’t being used anymore. Even Haruhiro and the rest called them gremlins now.

Lala and Nono named the area where the gremlins were thought to lay their eggs the Egg Storage, and the area past there the Gremlin Flats. Naturally, Haruhiro and the rest were using those names too at this point. Lala and Nono had a knack for business, and they had made money by inviting Orion, Iron Knuckle, and the other influential clans to the Dusk Realm and charging them to show them around.

Lala and Nono were apparently very diligent and meticulous. They searched every nook and cranny of the Gremlin Flats and discovered the entrance to another world, separate from the Dusk Realm, where it was always dark and the dawn never came—the Night Realm.

The Night Realm was still more or less untouched. It was dark, after all, and there were rumors that volunteer soldiers may or may not have gone in there, never to return. It seemed to be a very dangerous place, and there were rumors that Lala and Nono were secretly continuing to investigate it.

On this day when those idle rumors were feeling like they might have some truth to them, the Dusk Realm was the number-one hunting ground for volunteer soldiers. It had become that way in almost no time whatsoever.

Haruhiro stood out in front of his tent, taking a sip of water from his canteen. He sighed. “It sure is amazing...”

In the area between the valley Lala and Nono discovered and to the east of the initial hill, there were not just ten, but tens of tents lined up.

Most of them belonged to volunteer soldiers who, like Haruhiro and the Tokkis, were staying in the Dusk Realm. The rest were for those that did business with volunteer soldiers—an itinerant cafeteria, an itinerant bar, a blacksmith, a bathhouse, a reseller, a branch of the Yorozu Deposit Company, and even... those sorts of people who sold “companionship.” These people had their tents set up near the valley, while the volunteer soldiers’ tents were set up around them, forming a sort of miniature village.

It was being called the Dusk Realm Volunteer Soldier Corps Settlement.

No, that was a lie. Almost no one called it such a fancy name. “The settlement” was what it was called for short.

Night never came here.

On the outside, it was probably the middle of the night now, but in a way, there was no time here, so it didn’t really feel like it. Anna-san had a mechanical clock, so Haruhiro and the others relied on it to wake up in the morning, be active during the day, and then sleep as much as possible at night.

Haruhiro really wanted to do that, but he was feeling a little bit of insomnia. That was why he was here alone, huddled outside the tent.

He could hear Ranta’s snoring.

No way I’m getting to sleep over that, he thought.

The voices of the volunteer soldiers at the itinerant bar were sounding awfully noisy.

I’m not going to be getting any sleep at all, he thought.

“The way that, y’know, it never gets dark here is getting to me,” Haruhiro mumbled.

Is it making me nervous? he wondered. I’m not completely insensitive to these things like Ranta is, but I don’t think I’m excessively sensitive, either.

“I want to live alone... someday...” he murmured.

There’s just something intolerable about having people around at all times. It can get suffocating. Pretty often, actually. It’s a pretty big dream, but I want to rent a room all to myself.

“Ugh, I hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, hate this, I can’t take it anymore...” He buried his head in his arms and muttered to himself for a while. That helped him feel a little better.

Let’s be realistic. I mean, even if I were going to rent a room, we won’t be back in Alterna for a while. In the Lonesome Field Outpost and the settlement, we’re gonna be living in tents. When it comes to moving around, the fewer tents the better. The current arrangement, one for the guys, one for the girls, two total, is probably the best. I know that, so why do I occasionally have such an urge to be alone?

I can’t think of a reason.

Maybe it’s partly because I’m the leader, a role I’m fundamentally not suited for... actually, mostly because of that, I try to be considerate to the others.

That’s fine when we’re working. There’s a lot to think about, a lot to do, so I don’t focus on it so much. But when the day is over and I’m freed from my duties, it all weighs down on me, making it hard to breathe.

I don’t think I want to throw it all away. I don’t plan to run away from it, either.

Just, it’s hard.

I can’t throw anything away, and I have no intention to, but it’s rough. I’m doing more than I can handle, and I can’t help but feel inadequate. But still, I have to do it.

I can’t whine about it, either. I don’t want to worry my comrades, and I don’t want to rock the boat. It could affect our performance.

Anyway, I’m being considerate of their feelings. Both with my comrades, and the Tokkis. I have no other choice. That emotional labor is wearing me out.

I want to be alone.

“Well, I am, though,” he murmured. “Alone...”

That’s right. I got my wish. I am alone now. Haruhiro got up. I’ll go for a walk.

He left the tent and headed towards the valley. There was no day or night here, so there were customers at both the itinerant cafeteria and bar. There were volunteer soldiers wandering around, too, but Haruhiro moved stealthily to avoid their attention.

There was a large number of volunteer soldiers gathered here in the settlement. Still, it wasn’t like there were two or three hundred of them. He was at least acquainted with most of the volunteer soldiers, but they were his seniors, and Haruhiro and the others were generally the subject of ridicule. If one of them called out to him and he had to engage in pointless small talk, he was sure to have an unpleasant time. Besides, he wanted to be alone.

The members of Iron Knuckle were having a party at the itinerant bar. They were what you’d call a clan, but for some reason they called themselves a family, and addressed each other as brothers. In the center of the group was a man with a buzz cut who wasn’t especially large, and had a baby face, but even at a distance gave off an intimidating aura, “Titan” Max. The man with a short goatee sitting next to him was his right-hand man, Aidan.

Apparently Max’s real name was Masafumi and Aidan’s was Eisuke, but anyone who spoke those names in front of either of them was guaranteed to end up seeing their own blood. It wasn’t just Max and Aidan; most of the brothers had nicknames they called each other by.

“We! Are! Iron! Knuckle! Yeahhhhh!” the brothers shouted.

Haruhiro heard that shout from them often. The brothers got very excited when they shouted it together with their throaty voices. He didn’t really get it, that sort of culture.

Iron Knuckle had been the next ones to storm into the Dusk Realm after Orion, and they had quickly demonstrated how fierce they were.

Orion was a reflection of Shinohara’s character, and its members were generally elegant, a sort of large-scale explorers’ club, but Max and his lot were completely different. They were bellicose to the core, a terrifying group of fighters.

They killed them. Every cultist they got their hands on, they killed. It was a massacre.

There were cultist towns scattered around the Dusk Realm. Before Orion came, Haruhiro and the others had discovered two of them. However, they had never approached them, since there were cultists living there. That would have been clearly dangerous.

However, Iron Knuckle had charged into one of those towns like it didn’t matter. From what Haruhiro had heard, they had spent a full day, over 24 hours, staying in town and murdering cultists. In the end, the surviving cultists had left town, and Iron Knuckle had returned singing manly songs about their victory.

They had occupied the town. No, perhaps it was more accurate to say they had destroyed it.

In fact, it just so happened that these days, that was the town Haruhiro and the others sometimes used as their hunting ground.

After that, Iron Knuckle hadn’t continued to occupy the town; they’d set off on a journey of raids and slaughter. Did they spend their day’s earnings the day they got them? No, that wasn’t it. Anyway, the cultists had been returning to the town in small groups, but they only cleaned up the corpses of their fallen comrades and patrolled the area, showing no intention of living there for now.

Furthermore, the white giants were usually in the areas called cultist bases, or just bases, and not in the cultists’ towns. That had been true, from what the party had seen so far.

For starters, unlike cultists, white giants weren’t just anywhere and everywhere. It was only in the ruins of the temple of the giant gods that the Tokkis had fled into on their second day in the Dusk Realm, or in the basin to the southwest of the initial hill called the Great Cauldron of the Gods that there had been confirmed sightings of white giants.

However, ever since Iron Knuckle had crushed one of the cultists’ bases, the white giants had begun to wander around. Sometimes, they were even seen acting in concert with the cultists.

For that reason, it was now easy to catch a limited number of cultists and white giants in the base that Iron Knuckle had destroyed, making it a convenient hunting ground for volunteer soldiers. Among volunteer soldiers, it was called “the first.”

Did that come from it being the first base destroyed by humans, or from it being the first hunting ground? Or both, perhaps? Haruhiro didn’t really know.

“Well, we’ve got a lot to thank Iron Knuckle for, that’s for sure...” he murmured.

They were terrible people, yeah. It wasn’t going to be easy to wipe away that feeling completely. But as Haruhiro and the others were living off the spoils of their work, that meant they were just as terrible, and they were also petty. They were in no position to criticize.

That aside, Haruhiro put his skills as a thief to use, reaching the edge of the valley without attracting anyone’s attention. He savored the small feeling of accomplishment.

I’m such a small-timer, he thought. But I’m fine with that. Being small-time. It’s great. I want to be a small-timer forever. Honestly, what I don’t want is to be a small-time leader, and it really hurts that I have no choice in the matter.

When this place had first been found, it had been verdant and green, but now it was much more desolate. The trees had all been cut down, not a single one left. There were some bushes left here and there. That was about it.

The spring in the bottom of the valley was being used as a water source. Haruhiro’s canteen contained water from this spring that had been boiled. The water looked clear and clean, but if you drank it straight, it was guaranteed to give you the runs. Intensely, too. The volunteer soldiers didn’t hold back in their use of water, so there was the risk of the spring running dry, but it seemed fine for now.

When he looked into the spring, for some reason, it calmed his heart. Doing this let him get back to a level state of mind. He was such a simple, cheap person. He was happy to be a simple, cheap person. If Haruhiro had been a refined and complicated person, he would no doubt have worried himself sick over more things.

He had started to feel like he could get to sleep, so Haruhiro decided to turn back to the tent. “This is all I amount to, really...”

As he walked, he laughed to himself. Day in and day out, he thought the same sorts of things over and over, wracking his brains over them, and then he would notice he just didn’t care anymore. He would start to get into the mindset of, Well, I’ll work hard again tomorrow.

“You could say I’m not making any real progress... but still, it’s not so bad. I’m no one important, so I have to question if it’s that easy to make progress...”

The party as a whole is making steady progress, and managing to turn a profit, so it’s fine, right? he thought. Yeah. It’s fine. I should just accept that. That’s what I’ll do.

My sweet tent is just around the corner now. Not that there’s anything sweet about it.

Hey, wait.

Someone came out of the tent. No, not someone—it could only be Ranta or Kuzaku.

It’s Kuzaku, Haruhiro noticed. He’s as tall as ever, even if his posture isn’t that good. Not a surprise, really. Height doesn’t change that easily. That’s obvious.

If that had been all, it wouldn’t have mattered—Oh, what’s this, he woke up, hmm?—but another person came out of the neighboring tent, so it was a big deal.

Well, no, not a big deal, but Kuzaku came out of the guys’ tent, and Merry came out of the girls’ tent at almost exactly the same time. Could that really be a coincidence? Maybe it was an inevitability? It was hard to say.

“...I can’t ask them...” Haruhiro ducked into the shadow of a nearby tent. He had immediately hidden himself, though he hadn’t intended to.

Is there anything wrong with hiding? Not really, no. But still. I really shouldn’t.

He stuck his face out halfway, watching the two of them.

Why do I have to do this? It’s like I’m peeping. It’s not good. It really isn’t. But still. I have to admit, I’m kinda curious. Of course I am. I mean, I’m the leader, right? Maybe that doesn’t matter? No, but it’s happening inside the party, isn’t it? You can’t say it’s absolutely none of my business, right? I dunno. Maybe it isn’t?

They were saying something. Merry was looking downwards a little.

I wonder what the hell they’re talking about. Damn it. I can’t hear.

“Oh...” Haruhiro finally let out a strange groan.

Kuzaku had grabbed Merry’s arm—no, her sleeve. He pulled on it and they walked off. Merry didn’t resist. Still looking down, she followed him.

Ohh. So she’s going. She’s going to go. Off together. Ohh. I see. So that’s how it is...

“I saw it,” Haruhiro murmured.

Well, whatever.

That’s right.

I’m A-OK with it, you know?

It’s not like I haven’t seen this coming for a while. Yeah. I did, okay? It was practically a sure thing. How far have they gone? That I’m not sure of, and I have no intention of finding out, because I don’t want to find out, but I’m damn sure that something has happened between them, at least. I’m sure a fair bit has happened. So, please, just go ahead.

Do whatever you want!

Yeah!

Like it’s any of my business!

I mean, if anything, I’d be rooting for you, okay?! I will, you know?!

If you’d say something, that is!

If you’d just be honest and tell me...

I kind of think they should come out and announce it, you know...

“Hahhhh...” Haruhiro let out a deep sigh, sitting down on the ground and holding his chest. He felt like he could cry.

It’s a shock.

Why? Why am I so shocked by it? Because they’re being secretive? Tell me! Say something! Don’t you trust me?! Is that it? I don’t think it’s quite that. Even if I’d rather they didn’t hide it, it’s not exactly the easiest thing to announce. It’s not like I can’t see it that way.

”Actually, the two of us are going out!”

Just suddenly saying that wouldn’t be like Kuzaku, and it wouldn’t be like Merry, either. Y’know, it’s just not in their personalities. Besides, their relationship may be slowly growing deeper, there may not be any clear line, or a definite form that it’s taken. Maybe they both feel bad about keeping quiet about it to their comrades, but they just can’t bring themselves to say anything. They may not know how to say it themselves. There could be all sorts of things going on. There must be.

Besides they have, what—feelings? For each other? So, they’re mutually attracted?

“Urghhhh...”

There’s a pain in my chest. This is agony. What is this? —Well, anyway, if they’re going to be in, what, love? Something like that? A romantic relationship? Mutual love? That’s between the two of them, and they’re free to do it.

They’re absolutely free to do it. No one has any right to get in their way. Anyone who gets in the way of love deserves to be kicked to death by a horse!

That was what Haruhiro thought. He really did think that from the bottom of his heart.

So, why?

Is that really the reason they’re doing this?

It was hard to accept it, and he didn’t want to accept it, and he felt like it was best not to, but in the end, that was probably what was going on here.

No matter what he said, Haruhiro had rather liked Merry. In a plain and simple way—a truly plain and simple way, a way so plain and simple that it suited him—he’d had a one-sided crush on her.

Naturally, I never really thought, even the slightest bit, that I could make Merry like me back. I had no expectation of that. I can say that definitively. That was why I never wanted to think that I was in love with Merry. I tried not to think about it. I mean, it feels so empty and meaningless.

Even so, he had probably loved her.

If he ran a thought experiment like this, he could see it.

Take Yume or Shihoru, his comrades like Merry, for example. Imagine Yume or Shihoru had gotten together with someone in the party. When that happened, would he feel this pain in his chest? Would it hurt like this?

Probably not.

Shihoru and Ranta—if it were a pairing like that, it would be a pretty big surprise. But he’d just be really surprised, and he might worry about what would happen in the future, but it would surely end at that. The same with Yume and Ranta. If it were Yume and Kuzaku, or Shihoru and Kuzaku, it would be unexpected, but Oh, I see, I hope you find happiness, try not to break up, okay? It’d be a pain to deal with the fallout, would be about his reaction to it.

It was only because it was Merry.

Whether it was Kuzaku she hooked up with, or anyone else, Haruhiro would probably always have been in shock. Because he had been pretty seriously in love with Merry.

“I see... So that’s what it was...” Haruhiro looked vacantly up into the many-colored sky.

A hole opened up in his chest which had been weighed down and tormented by pain for a while now. Because it was a hole, there was nothing there, just the wind blowing through.

Haruhiro’s heart was broken.

Or rather, it had been broken for a while now.