Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 6 - Chapter 9

9. If There Is Light There

Haruhiro and the others were hardly doing anything. They were just following Gogh and the others. Yet, still, it was a gruesome experience.

Once Gogh accepted the change in policy, Akira-san immediately took back everything he had said before and had them head for the initial hill.

But Akira-san, Soma, and their group didn’t run away. They couldn’t afford to. The first hydra soon had the last of its tentacles chopped up and was left unable to move, but three new ones arrived. There were cultists and white giants rushing in, too. They had to pull back, knocking the fight out of these enemies as they went.

They would use the volunteer soldiers as their wall and shield while they took out the dangerous enemies. Once enough of them were dealt with and the situation had calmed down, they would retreat. That had probably been Akira-san’s strategy. However, they had turned that around completely, and now Akira-san and the others were acting as the rear guard so that the volunteer soldiers could escape.

If Haruhiro hadn’t objected, it probably wouldn’t have been this way. No, not probably. It definitely wouldn’t have. In other words, Akira-san, Soma, and the others were having a hard time because of Haruhiro.

Akira-san, Branken, Kayo, Taro, Soma, Lilia, and Kemuri—none of them complained. They repeated the process of hitting an enemy and retreating a little, striking down an enemy and falling back, shooting or blowing away an enemy and withdrawing slightly, all in silence. Miho and Gogh would occasionally let loose a spell and pulverize an enemy, but not often. They were likely conserving their power in anticipation of a long battle.

Tokimune and Tada were eagerly assisting them, but Haruhiro’s party, as well as Mimorin, Anna-san, and Kikkawa, were only good for forming a wall of flesh in front of Gogh, Miho, and Shima.

Haruhiro wasn’t just feeling frustrated, he was also having trouble not feeling sorry for the trouble he was causing them.

Also, he was scared.

I mean, there were three hydras and around ten white giants, on top of dozens of cultists, possibly more, all of which were persistently swarming at them.

When it was just the cultists, Akira, Soma, and their party members could strike them down with a single slash of the sword or katana, blow of the ax, or shot of the bow. But when it came to white giants, that obviously wasn’t possible. The hydras didn’t just attack them directly with their tentacles; they would also slam the ground with them to cause it to cave in, or to send dirt flying at them and interfere with their movements. It was pretty nasty.

Even though they were already being forced to fight an incredibly hard battle while retreating, Akira-san and the others didn’t let the enemies get anywhere near them. Thanks to that, for now at least, Haruhiro and his party hadn’t been touched by the enemy. Still, between crying when he got dirt flung into his eyes, and tripping and almost falling over, he was having a lot of trouble—or rather, it was embarrassing and he felt pathetic.

“I’m getting a bit worn out,” Akira-san muttered as he dodged one white giant’s fist and cut a Pansuke who attacked him clean in two. “It’s not easy getting old.”

“Huh?” Soma lopped off a hydra’s tentacle and turned to face Akira-san. He seemed astonished. “Are you that old, Akira-san?”

“If you think about it, isn’t it obvious he’s just exaggerating to make a joke at his own expense?!” Lilia scolded Soma while cutting down two or three cultists.

“Gwahahaha!” Branken swung his ax and pulverized a four-meter class white giant’s left knee. “That’s an elf for you! They look delicate, but they lack delicacy!”

“I don’t want to hear that from a hairy dwarf!” she shouted.

“Don’t fight with him, Lilia!” Soma cut off another tentacle as he chided her. “A dwarf’s just not a dwarf without a beard. You need to think more about that.”

“Ohh. You have a point—” Kemuri incredibly managed to block a six-meter class white giant’s punch with that large sword of his. “A dwarf’s gotta have a beard!”

“You all sure seem to have it easy!” Kayo wasn’t swinging her sword very much. Instead, she was weaving between the enemies and causing them to hit one another. “I don’t have the energy to spare for chatter!”

“Mom, please, take a little rest!” Taro fired off one arrow after another, hitting cultists in their one eye. “You can leave everything to me!”

“Man, the enemies just keep on coming!” Tokimune’s white teeth were sparkling, but he looked even more tired than Kayo did. “It’s fun, though!”

“Don’t strain yourself!” Tada was the opposite. The more enemies he slaughtered with his warhammer, the sharper his moves seemed to get. “I’ll do it! I’ll kill them! Hahahaha! I’ll take all of these punks! I’ll smash every last one of them to death!”

Haruhiro hadn’t said a word in a while now. He didn’t think he should say anything, either. He felt like he’d drunk lead or something, because there was a heavy weight sitting in the bottom of his stomach, and it hurt. His body, well, it felt heavy, too.

Why? Why had Akira-san and the others agreed to go along with Haruhiro’s opinion? There was no reason they’d needed to. He wished they hadn’t. If, back then, Gogh had said, What are you saying? and refused, Haruhiro could have immediately said, Oh, I’m sorry for being cheeky, and backed down with an apology.

That would have been better—Maybe? Maybe not? He didn’t really know, but either way, this was hard on him emotionally. Just being here at all. He felt like he didn’t belong here. But he was the one responsible for it.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I want to just charge in, he thought. If he could charge into the enemy and get killed, that might make him feel better. Of course, he wasn’t going to, but he wished from the bottom of his heart that he could be less sensitive. He questioned why he was here every few dozen seconds.

If someone died doing this, he’d have no choice but to commit seppuku. No, the moment anyone was hurt, he might reflexively stab his own dagger into his stomach.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Gogh suddenly caught him by the back of the neck. “You’ve been looking around anxiously for a while now. Are you not feeling well?”

No, he meant to answer, but he wasn’t sure if his voice came out or not.

“Augh!” Ranta banged on his own helmet in frustration. “Don’t get so deflated, Parupiro, man! You’re throwing me off, too!”

“W-Well, sorry for getting deflated!”

“You better be sorry, you know?!” Ranta shouted. “We’re proper members of the Day Breakers, got it?! Th-Th-Th-Th-There’s no need to act so hesitant with them, you moron!”

“You sound pretty hesitant there yourself, pal...” Haruhiro said.

“That’s because I’m super humble, not like you with your hypocritical fake politeness!”

“Members, huh....” Yume mumbled.

“W-We are, you know?!” Ranta glanced to Miho and Shima. “Right...?!”

Miho and Shima both just giggled and didn’t answer him. Well, that was probably intentional. He was being teased, but Ranta responded back with a pervy laugh. He was an idiot, and a creepy one at that.

Members, huh, Haruhiro thought. Well, yeah, we are, but...

We’re not cut out for it, Haruhiro ultimately ended up thinking. The way we are now, we’re too unripe, we lack the strength, and its pretentious to call ourselves Soma or Akira-san’s comrades. Even looking at the future, we’ll probably never be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Maybe this feeling of inferiority will never go away?

Even if he had to bluff and force himself, would it be best to present himself like a member? No matter where he went, he would always be himself, so did he have no choice but to push through using his current style?

His stomach hurt. It wasn’t feeling stretched; it felt like it had scrunched up real tight. He felt like he was going to puke.

The way Soma and Akira-san fought was vivid, wild, and fierce. It was so incredible it could only be called artistic, and it hurt to watch. He didn’t want to see, but he had no choice but to look. He wanted to cry out, Please, just give me a break already.

A break? From what? Haruhiro didn’t know. No, he did. Basically, he wanted to run away. He wanted to flee from this situation. He didn’t want to be here. Not for another second. There was no threat to his well-being.

Haruhiro wasn’t the one facing danger; it was Soma, Akira-san, and the others. That was hitting him really hard.

“When you’re watching from the rear, it’s frustrating, isn’t it?” Gogh let out a throaty laugh. “I was frail as a mage, and that hasn’t changed since I became a priest.”

Haruhiro was taken aback.

If he thought about it, Merry and Shihoru might have been feeling this way all along. Those in the rear being defended by their comrades were under a different kind of stress from those exposed to the threat of death on the front line. Haruhiro had never had this perspective before. Until he was actually placed in the same position, it was hard to see it. That might have just been how it was.

It just shows that any experience can come in handy. It expands your field of view. That’s a positive. Right. I need to try thinking positively here. Yeah. It’d be nice if I could think that way.

“...I can’t,” he murmured.

For now, just hanging on was the best he could do. While he was enduring, time went by. The initial hill was getting closer. That was the one thing he had to encourage him: this suffering would end. That was his one hope. He wanted to have everything else wait until this was over. He could regret, and repent, and apologize later.

He certainly hadn’t forgotten that the final, and perhaps the greatest, barrier to their escape was waiting for them at the initial hill. It was just that he was trying not to think much about it.

Haruhiro looked to the initial hill for the first time in a while, then gazed up towards the heavens.

No, it wasn’t the heavens he was looking at.

“The giant god!”

Its total height was estimated at three hundred meters. It didn’t only touch the heavens, it seemed to be covering them up.

How much farther was it to the initial hill? One kilometer, thereabouts? Closer than he had thought. Before he realized it, they had gotten awfully close.

The giant god was right in front of it. Not just standing there. It was moving. It was moving, you know? It was walking, or treading in place rather. The tremors were incredible. It was like it was trying to stomp on ants.

To the giant god, humans probably looked like ants.

The volunteer soldiers who had fled first were running around, desperate not to get stomped. There might even be some volunteer soldiers who had avoided the giant god’s stomping and managed to escape from the Dusk Realm. Or there might not be. It was impossible to say, but without taking the long route around or passing between its legs or around its feet, reaching their objective was impossible. They’d have to do it.

For Soma’s and Akira’s parties, the Tokkis, and for Haruhiro’s party who were, technically, also part of the rear guard, they had to pull that off while defending against the enemy, or after quickly breaking away from them.

Did they have any hope of succeeding? Or not? It didn’t seem like it...

“Akira-san!” Soma shouted as he swept down several enemies with one swing. “When I give the signal, please go!”

“Got it! I’ll take you up on that kind offer!”

“Tokimune, Haruhiro!” Soma shouted. “You guys, too!”

“Roger!” Tokimune called.

Tada clicked his tongue and slammed his warhammer into a cultists’ head. “You want the main dish and now the desert all to yourself?! You greedy pig!”

“You already had enough, yeah?! Fucking Tada! Anna-san is heavy tired!”

“Well, if that’s how Anna-san feels, I guess I have to! I’ll back off for you this time!”

Haruhiro didn’t answer one way or the other. No, of course, he wanted to escape the moment he could, but was this okay? Gogh had told him to stick with them until the end. He’d thought that maybe he was obligated to. Still, though, shouldn’t he obey Soma? ...Which had priority?

While he was wondering, the time to choose closed in on him. Or rather, it arrived.

“Now, go!” Soma lowered his hips and took a position with the flat side of his katana touching his shoulder. There was an abnormal power swelling up inside his entire body. It looked like the orange-colored light of his armor had grown stronger, too. “Hahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

There were a number of cultists, of hydra tentacles, and of white giant body parts that were not so much slashed as pulverized and their chunks, shards, fragments, innards, and bodily fluids were scattered over a wide area. It was Soma. There was no question that Soma had done it. Had he charged in and swung his katana? He must have. But was that all it had taken to do all that? It wasn’t. It couldn’t have been.

But the reality was that one swing from Soma had wrecked a large number of enemies who were now all dead at worst, or unable to continue fighting at best. With one strike, Soma had put a big hole in the force of enemies pursuing them.

Lilia and Kemuri didn’t miss a beat before going into that hole and widening it. No, it wasn’t just Lilia and Kemuri. Shima. Even Shima went with them, swinging around a weapon that looked like a metal whip. Was that sexy older girl going to fight in that bewitching outfit?

Then there was one more. The masked man with the needlessly long arms who was wearing the bizarre armor charged past Shima and into the midst of the enemy.

Zenmai the golem. He had no weapons. Or rather, both his arms were armored with metal and could be used either as swords or hammers.

“Uhuhuhuh... Aren’t you going to run away, you trash?”

The eerie voice came from beside him. Haruhiro turned to look, startled, and there, with a childlike physique and boyish face, but eyes reminiscent of a bottomless swamp, was the necromancer, exuding a miasma-like presence.

“You’re in the way... Get lost already...” Pingo said.

“Y-Yessir! S-S-S-S-Sorry!” Haruhiro yelped.

Right. That’s right. If Soma says to run, it’s time to run. We have to. We’re late. We’ve fallen pretty far behind. Soma was just too incredible. No, now’s not the time for excuses.

“L-L-L-L-L-Let’s go, guys!”

Oh, crap. I’m panicking pretty badly. I can’t see my comrades’ faces properly, either. I didn’t hear their response. But we’ve got to run. Is everyone coming? I feel like they are. Ranta and Yume, and Shihoru, and Merry, and Kuzaku. What about the Tokkis? What about Akira-san and his group? I can see their backs up ahead. They’re pretty far, huh? We really have fallen behind. What am I doing?

Mimorin turned back and shouted something.

The giant god. It’s close. I keep looking up. It’s raising its right foot. Is it trying to stomp us? Better avoid it. Need to run. At full power. Full burst. Run away at top speed. Who cares what direction? I don’t wanna get stomped.

That was all he thought as he dashed. There was a rumbling, an incredible shaking of the ground, and he almost tripped. From that, he knew he apparently hadn’t been stepped on. If he got stepped on, there would be no more tripping, no more anything.

He could see now why the volunteer soldiers had been running back and forth. They had to head for the hole in the initial hill. In their heads, they knew that, but they couldn’t do it.

It was the giant god. The giant god was scary. They had to run from it. That was the sole thing occupying their hearts. Their bodies were prioritizing that whether they wanted them to or not.

On top of that, visibility was bad. Every time the giant god stepped on the ground, a cloud of dirt rose up. It was raining dirt and sand. In the most extreme cases, they couldn’t see more than a few meters in front of them.

Which way should he go? Where was the initial hill? Haruhiro quickly lost sight of Akira-san’s party and the Tokkis. That meant he no longer had his guides. He nearly stopped. But he couldn’t just stop. If he stopped, he would surely be stepped on. If he was stepped on, he’d be crushed flat before he had time to think, I’m gonna die.

“Who...?!” someone shouted.

Yeah, you said it. Who was it? Haruhiro couldn’t help but think while feeling like he was going to puke up bloody vomit. Who thought it was a good idea to try and defeat the giant god?

Well, yeah. It was Tokimune. Not like saying that now is going to help. There’s seriously no helping this. No helping this at all.

“Everyone’s here, right?!” he shouted while tasting dirt in his mouth.

“Yeah!” He heard Ranta’s voice.

“Here!” Yume followed.

Kuzaku said, “Yep!”

Merry said, “I’m okay!”

But he didn’t hear Shihoru.

No way, seriously, don’t do this to me, please.

“Shihoru? Shihoru?!”

“...Yes!” she called.

Oh, good. She’s here. Thank goodness. My eyes hurt. This dirt is awful. It’s hard to breathe, too. Run.

He still had no choice but to run. He was running pretty much blind, but there was nothing else they could do. He didn’t even have a good grasp of where the giant god was anymore. He could hear a zushing, zushing sound, so they couldn’t be that far from it, and he was more or less certain that it was still close.

From the incline and the white pillars around them, it felt like maybe they were climbing the hill? If they were, it was luck. They hadn’t come this far because he was aiming for it. It was a coincidence. With good luck, they might escape from the Dusk Realm.

“It’s a hole!” Yume said.

She was right. The hail of dirt and sand had let up just enough that they could see a hole up ahead. There were volunteer soldiers rushing inside it, too.

It was the hole. The hole. The way out.

Suddenly, courage welled up inside him, and, We’re saved, he thought. Now we’re going to make it. We don’t have to die. We can live.

Haruhiro tried to speed up. He’d been running as fast as he thought he could all this time. Could he run any faster than this? He felt like he could. Was it the rush of adrenaline? Humans were amazing.

“Oh, crap!” Ranta shouted.

Suddenly, someone pulled on the back of his cloak, so he wasn’t able to unleash that speed that went beyond his limits. Ranta. It was Ranta’s fault. Because of Ranta, Haruhiro tripped and fell. No. It wasn’t Ranta’s fault. It was thanks to Ranta.

Ranta might have just saved Haruhiro’s life.

If he had kept running like that, something bad would have happened. Haruhiro hadn’t noticed it at all. His focus must have been taken up by the explosion of thoughts and emotions when he believed that they could get out, they could escape, they could live. He hadn’t been looking at all.

It was the giant god. The giant god’s right foot, or maybe its left foot, came down on the hill, right where that hole was.

“Nooooooooooo! Shihoru let out a scream.

“It’s go—” Merry couldn’t even finish the word.

“Whoa...” Kuzaku fell back on his rear end.

“No way of goin’ home now, huh...” In blank amazement, Yume said something that hit the bullseye. Probably because she was an archer.

...No, no, no, no, no.

“W-W-We’ve gotta run!” Ranta was about to take off somewhere, then his shoulders slumped. “Wait, wh-where do we even go?”

“Somewhere!” Haruhiro responded immediately.

Somewhere? Where’s that? I don’t know. We’re screwed. But this is where I’ve got to dig in my heels, or rather, this is where digging in my heels won’t do any good but I’ve got to do something, or rather it all seems kinda pointless and there’s nothing but despair and I want to cry.

The rain of dirt and sand soon started in earnest once more. He couldn’t see a thing. For now, he was just going to race down the hill.

The footing was bad. Really bad. Beyond bad. His foot got caught. He tripped, or rather fell. He scrambled to keep going.

If one of his comrades was in reach, he grabbed them and either pushed or pulled them along. In turn, they pulled him along, too, and helped by pushing him from behind. When one of the giant god’s feet landed nearby, they called out their comrades’ names and checked if everyone was okay.

The first order of business was to get out of range of this rain of dirt. That became his goal. He couldn’t think of what would come next, and he didn’t need to.

The giant god didn’t seem to have any intent of leaving the initial hill, so though it came at risk of life and limb, Haruhiro and the party eventually reached their goal. Once they did, a new difficult problem presented itself.

Enemies.

They encountered cultists, and were forced to decide whether to fight or flee.

If there had been one or two enemies, they would gang up on them and kill them quickly. But cultists and white giants from all over the Dusk Realm were on the move towards the giant god. In other words, it seemed they were gathering at the initial hill.

Haruhiro and the party, on the other hand, were trying to get away from the hill. That meant they were inevitably going to bump into enemies, and if they stopped to fight, the enemies would come one after another until they were the ones outnumbered.

Haruhiro decided to flee. He ran in the direction where there were no enemies.

He soon started to regret it, thinking it might have been a mistake. The number of cultists chasing them was gradually growing, and soon there would be more than ten. If he thought about it calmly, this was a situation that would inevitably end in them being defeated and wiped out.

It’s my own fault, thought Haruhiro. Because Haruhiro had made the wrong choice, everyone would die. In this awful place.

Where was this place, even? He could see the giant god going on its rampage near the initial hill, so he could get a rough grasp of his location. Only a rough one, though. There weren’t a lot of geographical features or buildings in the Dusk Realm that could be used as landmarks, so it was hard to pinpoint their current location. Difficult though it might be, that didn’t stop him from guessing.

Ranta was at the very rear of the group, behind Shihoru, who was totally out of breath. That was deliberate, no doubt. He was protecting Shihoru. The guy had some good in him after all.

Haruhiro was at the head, with Yume, Kuzaku, and Merry behind him in that order. This wasn’t a marching order he had decided on. It was one they just ended up with.

The cultists weren’t that fast. They also showed a hesitance to keep chasing after Haruhiro and the party. If the party had more energy, they might have been able to shake them off. Thanks to that, they had been spared. So far, at least.

It was only a matter of time, though. Shihoru, for one, was getting close to her limit. If any of them, not just Shihoru, were to stop, they’d have to fight. If they fought, he figured there was an eight to nine out of ten chance they’d lose.

The truth was, he had one plan. However, he couldn’t say it was very feasible. The odds were pretty low, he had to admit.

When he looked back, the number of pursuers had gone up again. Were there fifteen? Sixteen, maybe?

If only Kuzaku had his shield. No, it wouldn’t have made a difference. He wanted to call out to his comrades. To do something to encourage them.

What could he say? When at best it was just going to give them temporary peace of mind? If Haruhiro, Kuzaku, and Ranta worked together, could they hold off the enemy for a few minutes? While they did, Yume, Shihoru, and Merry would get away—They’d get away, and then what? Should they try their luck on an all-or-nothing battle while he was still able to think straight like this?

It was sixteen against six. They weren’t just Pansukes—there were one or two Tori-sans, too. They couldn’t win, could they? No way, right? Maybe they had, like, a one percent chance? Could he bet on that one percent? Were they going to die, right here?

Instant death from being stepped on by the giant god would have been easier.

“Hey!” a woman’s voice called out. It wasn’t Yume, Shihoru, or Merry.

Where was that from? Haruhiro looked around.

There was a depression up ahead on the left. Something jumped up out of it. It was a person. Two people. A man and a woman. The woman was tall. They were both in pretty incredible outfits. The woman’s in particular was crazy.

There wasn’t that much skin exposed overall, but the bits that were exposed were all ones that would make you think, Wait, you’re showing that? Was she showing them on purpose?

Also, there was her figure. Her breasts, her butt, her thighs... they all had the perfect amount of meat on them. She also had an hourglass figure and long arms and legs. Gorgeous curly hair. Her appearance was as gaudy as gaudy could be. Harsh eyes with large pupils. Deep-red lips.

She was a dominatrix. That was the only word that came to mind to describe her.

“We’ll save you, so lend us a hand!” the dominatrix called.

The man shot past Haruhiro. He had white hair, and the lower half of his face was covered by a mask. He was wearing tight-fitting black clothes, or armor, it wasn’t clear which, and he raced along on all fours like a dog.

Why did the man have a collar on? It was like he really was a dog.

An unfamiliar man and woman... was not what these two were. Haruhiro had never spoken to them before, but he’d seen them. They were an unforgettable pair. They were a little famous in this business.

Lala and Nono.

The dominatrix was Lala, and the white-haired man with the collar and mask was Nono.

Why were they here? There was no way of knowing that.

Nono passed by Ranta in no time flat, then attacked the cultists. The way he attacked them was just like a dog. Nono slipped under the cultists’ outstretched spears, then bit one Pansuke in the throat—or that was what it looked like. But Nono’s mouth was covered by his mask. He couldn’t bite like that, and he wasn’t a dog, he was a human. He didn’t bite the Pansuke. He’d drawn a knife from his hip just before he’d jumped, and stabbed it into the cultist’s face.

They say there’s no reward without risk. Well, Nono set out to prove that. It went without saying that going right into the middle of the enemy group was dangerous, but it was hard for the enemy to deal with, too.

Especially since the Pansukes’ weapons were long spears. If Nono got in close, they had a hard time fighting back. What was more, Nono was nimble like a cat rather than a dog. He instantly closed in and made contact, then delivered a death blow with the knife in his right hand.

Alternatively, he would punch them with his left fist. He’d wrap his arm around their necks and snap them. He used one Pansuke he had in a pinion as a shield against the Tori-san’s Thunder Sword Dolphin. Then he pushed the Pansuke towards the Tori-san and instantly killed another Pansuke.

“Don’t just stand there and gawk!” Lala called.

While they were focused on Nono, enemies had come to attack Lala, too. The dominatrix wasn’t a melee fighter like Nono. She used a bow. It was pretty short. She nocked a short arrow to her short bow and fired.

Nocked an arrow and fired.

Nocked an arrow and fired.

Yume could use Rapid Fire, but nothing like this. It was fast. Too fast. Also, close. Lala was firing at close range. Firing like crazy.

“Oh?! Ohh?! Ohhhh?!” Ranta lifted up his Thunder Sword Dolphin and charged at the enemy.

“Uh...?” Kuzaku looked to Haruhiro.

“D-Do it! Go!” Haruhiro nodded and went after Ranta.

It was a bit sloppy, but they couldn’t let this chance slip away. The enemy were clearly panicking. If they didn’t strike now, when would they?

Push. We have to push and push, and of course we’re exhausted, but we’ll squeeze out what strength we can and push like crazy.

Of the sixteen, Nono probably got four or five, and Lala shot just as many. The rest were finished off by Haruhiro and the rest on pure momentum. Before the last of them went down, Nono had already started collecting Lala’s arrows for her.

With the enemies gone, Lala accepted her arrows back from Nono and then immediately ordered them all to, “Run!”

It didn’t feel like they had a choice in the matter. If they disobeyed her, something horrible would probably happen to them. They wouldn’t get off with just a spanking.

“Wh-Why?!” Haruhiro asked as he chased after Lala and Nono.

“Why what?” Lala responded without turning back.

“No, it’s just, Akira-san said it looked like you two had run away...”

“You make it sound so bad,” Lala said. “Our horse-dragons got crushed, so we had no choice but to lie low.”

Lala and Nono had ridden horse-dragons from Grimgar into the Dusk Realm. Now they were on foot. It was probably true that their horse-dragons had become unable to move and they’d abandoned them, or they had been killed by enemies.

“Err, um... Where are we going now?!” Haruhiro yelped.

“I have an idea,” said Lala. “If you can’t keep up, we’ll leave you behind. Nono, carry the mage girl.”

Nono silently nodded, rushed over to Shihoru, quickly put her on his back, and caught up to Lala in the blink of an eye. She talked tough, but maybe she was a surprisingly good person? But she might also have been planning to sacrifice them if the time came. Even if that was the case, the two had saved them, so they couldn’t really complain.

That was right. They were saved. For now, at least.

I have an idea, Lala had said. If that was true, they had some hope at least.

Haruhiro looked to his comrades. Every one of them, without exception, was covered in sweat and snot, caked with dirt and dust, and was an exhausted mess. That they were still alive like this, and they weren’t even injured that badly, was kind of hard to believe. He was so relieved, his strength almost gave out on him.

—No. Don’t let your guard down. Not yet. We’re just getting started. We have to live. Live on. Survive. All of us together. What can I do to make that happen? What should I do? Follow Lala and Nono. I have no other plan, so that’s all I can do right now. Just stay cautious, don’t do anything I shouldn’t, and conserve stamina as much as possible. We’re running right now, but we’re only going at double time. Nono is carrying Shihoru, so we’re more than able to keep up.

Lala occasionally stopped and crouched down, signaling for the others to get low to the ground, as well. Nono immediately obeyed her, of course, and Haruhiro and the others followed his example.

Lala must have either had really good eyes, or an incredible sense for danger. Even when the enemies were pretty far off, she detected them first and tried to avoid them. To keep the enemies from finding them, they avoided elevated terrain, choosing lower spots to travel along. Once Shihoru was able to walk on her own again, they started ambushing cultist groups and wiping them out whenever they outnumbered them.

There was no idle chatter. When they made it through the lowlands and ran straight into a group of cultists and white giants, Ranta opened his mouth wide and shouted, “Whoa!” for the first time in a while.

Lala chose to flee without fighting. Fair enough; while there were fewer than ten cultists, the white giant was a threat, even if it was only in the four-meter class.

Lala and Nono kept picking up the pace. Did they plan to use Haruhiro’s party as bait while they escaped on their own? He couldn’t even get mad about it. To those two, Haruhiro and the others must have just been insurance in case things went wrong. He’d thought that from the beginning.

But it wasn’t like Haruhiro hadn’t been thinking at all.

“Lala-san, I have an idea!” he called.

For a moment, Lala turned back. There was no response.

If you’re going, go, he thought. I don’t mind. He was grateful to Lala and Nono. Thanks to the two of them, they had found time to catch their breath. Even if the two abandoned them now, they’d manage. At the very least, they’d struggle to the bitter end. He’d recovered enough that he could think that way.

“This way! Come on!” Haruhiro called. “Everyone, follow me! Keep trying!”

When Haruhiro changed course, Lala turned back again. She might be having trouble deciding.

Do what you want, he thought. He had been keeping a careful eye on their present location on the way here. If Haruhiro hadn’t gotten it wrong, this should be the right place.

“Damn those two!” Ranta spat.

Lala and Nono had vanished out of sight. They really had run off, huh? It wasn’t like that didn’t disappoint him.

“Don’t let it bug you!” Haruhiro called. “It’s fine! Leave it to me!”

“That doesn’t sound like you at all, Parupiro! You don’t say things like that!”

Oh, shut up. I know that much. He pisses me off. But, well, it’s Ranta. That’s nothing new. Like always, don’t worry about what’s done. Focus on now. Pour everything into this moment. I’m gonna live. Here, in the now.

Run along the easy paths, where it isn’t too uneven, and just don’t get my directions wrong. Everyone’s keeping up. Shihoru looks like she’s having a hard time, though. Keep going. Seriously, keep going. We’re almost there. We got lucky. It’s not far now.

“I get it!” On their left-hand side, on an elevated spot that was like an embankment, Lala and Nono suddenly appeared. “So, that’s what you’re doing! If it works, I’ll praise you for it!”

Had they not run away after all? Haruhiro grinned at Lala.

They ran for their lives, the cultists and white giant trailing behind them. There were a lot of ups and downs here, and they couldn’t see far ahead.

“Whaa...?!” Yume shouted. It looked like she’d figured it out.

The ground leveled out and their field of vision opened up.

Haruhiro spread his arms wide and went left. “Spread out! Don’t step on them!”

There were nets with grass over top of them, but if you looked closely, it didn’t take long to figure out what they were. They were far from perfect, but if you knew nothing about them, they might be surprisingly hard to notice.

It wasn’t long before he heard a falling sound behind him. When he turned back, one cultist had fallen right into a pit trap. There was a dip in the net and grass was dancing through the air.

Haruhiro, Kuzaku, and Merry were running on the left side of the hole, while Ranta, Yume, and Shihoru were on the right. One more cultist charged over the pit trap and fell in. The other cultists stood there, unable to move. The white giant might have tried to stop, but it was too late, because it pitched forward and fell in.

They hadn’t been of any use in the attempt to defeat the hydra or giant god, but he was glad they’d dug them. Of course, that was only in hindsight. They’d gotten lucky. That really was all there was to it.

Good or bad luck could be the difference between life and death. By a small but decisive margin, Haruhiro and his party were still on this side. The side of the living.

The cultists who hadn’t fallen into the pit were having a hard time deciding whether to pursue Haruhiro and the party, or what to do. Meanwhile, Haruhiro and the others ran as fast as they could, without hesitation, trying to put more distance between them.

By the time the cultists were out of sight, Lala and Nono were in front of Haruhiro. They were unbelievable. But Lala said she had an idea. They were planning to use him, so Haruhiro had every intention of using them, too.

“Weren’t you supposed to praise me?!” he called.

“Try asking again in a hundred years!” Lala yelled.

So that was how it was gonna be, huh. She was acting every bit like the dominatrix she looked like, that Lala. Seriously, she was unbelievable.

Regardless, the other pit traps were far away, so they couldn’t reuse the same trick. Haruhiro ended up spending time with his stomach hurting again. While it felt like they were gradually seeing fewer enemies, they couldn’t let their guard down. When Ranta started yakking about stupid nonsense, he was noisy and annoying and that only caused more stress.

When Lala occasionally took a break, she would have Nono get down on all fours and use him as a chair. That would be fine on its own, but she made a point of crossing and uncrossing her legs, then posing in ways that accentuated her bust, so it was tempting to look. It wasn’t like he really, really wanted to see, but he couldn’t help it, you know?

But what kind of relationship did Lala and Nono have...?

He didn’t have the courage to ask, and there were other things he’d rather know first. Like where they were going.

He tried asking, but Lala wouldn’t tell him. It looked like he’d just have to keep quiet and follow her.

Preparing himself for the worst, Haruhiro did just that. Lala and Nono made no attempt to run now. They walked. They walked, and walked, and boy did they walk.

Haruhiro and the party didn’t have a timepiece. Lala would sometimes pull out a pocket watch during breaks. When he asked the time, she answered, “And what good would knowing that do for you?” So, while he didn’t know the precise time, he thought they had probably been walking for more than a full day.

They were in a place that seemed similar to the valley where the volunteer soldier settlement had been set up. However, there was no spring at the bottom of this valley. No plants, either. It was a small, dry valley from the looks of it.

“We’ve walked around the Dusk Realm a fair bit,” Lala said in a lilting, singsong voice as she descended the slope. “We’ve found a wide variety of different things. We sold most of that information, but we haven’t told anyone about this place. The truly fascinating discoveries we keep to ourselves, you see. Only we know about them. Isn’t that lovely?”

Every hair on Haruhiro’s body stood on end. Lala and Nono might suddenly bare their fangs and try to kill Haruhiro and the party. That was the sense he got. Was it an unfounded worry?

Lala and Nono descended into the valley, seemingly unconcerned. However, it couldn’t hurt to stay on guard.

When Haruhiro slowed his pace, his comrades seemed to notice and matched him. But when they reached the valley floor and saw what was there, all of that was blown away.

Beneath an outcropping that was like the overhang of a roof, there was an open maw. Thanks to that, they probably wouldn’t have noticed it without descending to the valley floor.

It’s a hole.

I’m sure it’s not just any cave. What gave me that impression, though?

Haruhiro quickly realized the answer to that. It was the initial hill.

It had a similar atmosphere or appearance as the initial hill—no, what the initial hill had once been. It was gone now. But this was just like that hole, the exit.

Lala and Nono entered the hole without stopping.

Haruhiro and Ranta looked at one another. Ranta looked dumbfounded.

Haruhiro had a sleepy look in his eyes, no doubt.

“...Do you know what I’m thinking?” Ranta asked.

“No, I don’t,” Haruhiro said immediately. “I have no idea what goes on inside your head. I’m pretty sure it’d be bad news if I did.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Exactly what he said...” Shihoru took a deep breath. “Do you think this carries through back home?”

“Fweh?!” Yume’s eyes went wide and she let out a weird cry. “Curryru?! Where’s that?!”

“There’s no place called that, moron!” Ranta screamed. “Carryru, really! What the heck’s Carryru supposed to be?!”

“If you say Curryru, it’s gotta be curry roux, y’know?” Yume said. “Huh? What’s curry, again...?”

“It’s spicy...” Merry tilted her head to the side in thought. “...I think? I recall it was... food?”

“Oh, yeah.” Kuzaku mumbled. “There was something like that, wasn’t there? It was kind of brown... Brown...?”

“...It was.” Haruhiro nodded. He was watering at the mouth. The words Shima had whispered came back to him.

“We’re searching for a way back to our original world.”

Their original world.

He looked to the hole, then up to the many-colored sky.

We need to get back.

Haruhiro looked around at his comrades. Their faces were all filthy. It was kind of comical.

“Let’s go,” he said.

No one objected.

They walked into the hole single-file, with Haruhiro, Kuzaku, Merry, Yume, Shihoru, and Ranta as their marching order. It was pitch-black inside the hole. But there was light up ahead.

Lala and Nono were waiting for them. The light source was the lantern that Nono was carrying. Lala just smiled slightly, walking forward without a word. It was a meandering path. It wasn’t steep, but it was on a downwards incline. They could feel a breeze. The air was flowing towards the valley they had come in from.

It’s the same, thought Haruhiro. Not just similar, but the same.

The path eventually straightened out. It wasn’t going down anymore, either. It was level.

“We discovered the gremlins years ago,” Lala suddenly said in a singsong voice. “We kept them a secret, though. But you guys found them, too, so we figured, well, okay. By the way, that wasn’t the first place we encountered the gremlins.”

“Huh...?” Haruhiro stopped walking despite himself. “It wasn’t... there?”

“Right,” she said. “They’re very weak creatures. They breed fairly quickly, but they aren’t aggressive, and they lack the power to fight back against predators. But they have a strange power, or a trait, and they’re stubborn survivors. That’s our hypothesis.”

Lala and Nono didn’t stop walking. Haruhiro hurriedly followed after them.

The path went on. There was a weak light up ahead. He could hear a rustling noise.

“They have the power to cross from one world to another,” Lala said. “Or the power to find the seams between them. Either that, or the tendency to find and flee into them.”

There. They were there. In the rock walls, there were countless holes large and small, and a bluish light shone out from inside them. They would be in those holes, or hanging from the edge of those holes, talking incessantly.

The nest. These were their homes. The ri-komo—no, the Gremlin Flats.

“But this is it.” Lala turned back and puffed up her chest with pride. “This is as far as we’ve explored.”

“Huh?” Haruhiro was so overwhelmed by the seemingly proud Lala that he took a half-step backwards. “W-Well then, do you know what kind of world this leads to, maybe...?”

“No clue,” Lala said with a broad smile. “It’s a total mystery.”