Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 7 - Chapter 16

16. A Good Day to Wait for a Better Day

There was a mountain of things that needed to be considered, and a mountain of things that needed to be done.

For a start, Haruhiro decided to test how close he could actually get to Waluandin. He didn’t need his comrades for that. Or rather, Haruhiro was better off on his own. In fact, not operating solo would have been bad.

Haruhiro made use of Stealth, which Barbara-sensei had taught him, and headed towards Waluandin alone.

Waluandin seemed to have been built at the foot of Fire Dragon Mountain. There was a basin at the foot of the mountain. Haruhiro was trying to cut across the basin to reach Waluandin, but it wasn’t exactly an empty field. There were villages dotted around the basin.

The villages were made up of anywhere from ten to a few dozen igloo-like buildings, and there were hot springs welling up all over the place. Though it was from a distance, he even managed to spot the residents.

They were humanoid and green-skinned. With smushed noses. Large tusks protruded from their mouths. They had broad, thick frames, and were tall, too. From every angle, they looked just like orcs. They couldn’t be anything else. They wore nothing but short pants, going naked up top. It wasn’t just warm here, it was kind of hot, so they probably didn’t need shirts. Their whole bodies were smooth. Did they shave, or just not grow body hair?

Incidentally, there were female orcs, too, and they wrapped cloth around their chests and heads.

The orcs in the villages were digging in the dirt, and doing some sort of work at a shelf. He was able to observe them raising large caterpillar-like creatures in pens. They were a bit like the pigworms he had seen before at the Cyrene Mines. Were they for eating, perhaps?

There were holes dug in the ground, and he was able to see that they were doing something or another inside of them. These were farming villages, possibly producing food for Waluandin.

The farmer orcs had such impressive physiques that Haruhiro grew worried. No, these were farmers, so they had grown strong by working every day, and that was why they had such muscular bodies. He wanted to think that was it.

But aren’t all of them, male or female, bigger than the ones we fought at Deadhead Watching Keep? he thought. Am I imagining that? I hope so...

The orc villagers were busy working, so they never noticed Haruhiro. What if he hadn’t been alone, and his comrades had come with him? It was hard to say, but if he’d paid the utmost attention to their every move, it might have been manageable. Besides, the orcs probably didn’t work day in and day out. Because of the lava, it was hard to tell how bright the sky was, but, well, he figured they went home and slept at night.

Whatever the case, Haruhiro was able to slip past the orc villages without difficulty. Of course, it took a fair amount of time. If he went by his unreliable internal sense of time, it took maybe three hours. If he kept the path he took in his head, he could probably shave that down by half. The problem would be everything that came after that.

Beyond the area with the villages, there was a river of lava flowing. If they crossed it, they’d be in the city streets of Waluandin. This river was less than a meter across, there were many bridges across it, and they could probably even jump over it. It seemed like it was a simple borderline.

The city streets were lined with square-ish buildings. Based on the layout of their windows, they were all two-story, but they were awfully short for that to be the case. It looked like the first floor must be half-underground. Their doors probably all faced away from the river.

Haruhiro saw a number of orcs sitting in the doorless windows with their legs dangling down. They were awfully thin and tiny for orcs. Children.

Could he cross the river without being spotted by the orc children, and successfully enter the city? Haruhiro was cowardly, so he didn’t really feel up to it. He was sure it would be suicide to enter Waluandin from the front.

Haruhiro followed the river of magma to the left, continuing on and on. Eventually, he started to hear a familiar sound. This was the sound of hammers. In a large workshop which was just a bunch of poles with a roof over them, there were some way-too-muscular orcs swinging their hammers.

Waluandin’s smithy made effective use of lava. They didn’t have to light fires, just draw high-temperature lava into their furnace. It probably wasn’t just the smithy; nowhere in Waluandin would have any need for fuel. It would be incredibly dangerous if they messed up, but still convenient.

The workshop district went on for quite a ways. The orcs of Waluandin worked metal, manufacturing quite a variety of products in large quantities. Naturally, that meant that they needed raw materials.

When Haruhiro reached the end of the workshop district, the lava river came to a stop, and a rock wall appeared. He didn’t think there was any way he could climb that rock wall, but there were holes bored into it. Large holes.

The orcs went in and out of them. They were pushing wagons filled with something. It had to be ore. There was an ore pile, too. This had to be a mine.

He saw an orc who seemed to have a foreman-like role, too. That orc wore shoulder and hip guards that gave off a dim light, carried a long stick, and acted like he was important. He was also noticeably larger than the rest.

This was all just Haruhiro eyeballing things, but the orcs in the farming villages had been two meters and thirty centimeters, maybe? The orcs working the smithy hadn’t been taller, but they’d had much broader shoulders and thicker frames. The miner orcs were around the same as the farmer orcs, maybe? The foreman orc, though, looking at him, he might well be a full three meters.

There was one more thing.

Haruhiro had initially thought that the big orc was something like a foreman. But that was wrong.

There was more than one big orc. There were several. Although there was less than one of them for every ten miner orcs. It was possible that, rather than a difference in position, they belonged to a different social class.

Either way, if they were that well-built, and armed to boot, they had to be tough. The mine looked dangerous.

When he finished his investigation of Waluandin, Haruhiro headed back to where his comrades were.

Ranta asked, “Well? How was it? Huh? Huh? Huh?” and made a real pain of himself, so while Haruhiro was eating some of the less-than-delicious preserved food they’d brought with them, he quickly related what he had seen. He was a little... no, incredibly... tired, so he laid down and passed out.

When he woke, his comrades, who had been taking shifts observing the villages while Haruhiro was sleeping, had a report for him.

Yume went first. “In the night, the orcies, they go beddy-bye, like you were thinkin’.”

When Yume described them, the orcs turned into orcies, and it made them sound like adorable little creatures, but that was an illusion, of course.

“But for Waluandin, there wasn’t much of a change... I think?” Shihoru didn’t seem confident. “I do know the villages were asleep until a little while ago, though.”

“I was out like a light and didn’t see anything, got it?” Ranta announced.

“Why do you sound so proud?” Merry sounded absolutely mystified. “Because you’re off in the head? Because you’re rotten to the core? Hey, why is it? Could you tell me?”

“Excuuuuse meeee,” Ranta sneered. “Haven’t you been a bit harsh with the jabs at me lately? It wouldn’t kill you to be a bit nicer, okay?”

“I dunno about that...” Kuzaku muttered.

“Hey, Kuzacky! You’re my underling! Don’t try to get smart with me!”

Today, the party decided to try slipping past the villages as a group. Haruhiro wished he could leave just Ranta behind, but he couldn’t.

Though Haruhiro had gotten the hang of it during his solo scouting trip yesterday, he had also foreseen the difficulties involved. When they actually tried it, just having the six of them walking together made them stand out to an unusual degree. Even though there were places where he had been able to lay low when he was alone, they were often too tight for a group of six. He tried to follow the same basic route he had taken the other day, but they were almost discovered by farmer orcs on multiple occasions. It took a lot of time and effort to move forward even a little, so Haruhiro occasionally felt ready to give in and turn back.

With the exception of Ranta, his comrades were cooperative, and they followed Haruhiro’s orders obediently. But that was about all they did. If Haruhiro didn’t think, make a decision, and then tell them to do this or that, none of them would do anything. That was probably because there was nothing they could do. They had no choice. He understood that, but it still pissed him off.

There were times when he felt ready to snap. When he did, he’d take a deep breath. He couldn’t help getting emotional. He just had to make sure he didn’t let his emotions control him. Actually, if he let his emotions swing him around, he’d get exhausted, and that could lead to mistakes.

This was just going by his internal sense of time, but it took four, maybe five hours to reach Waluandin. Even if they were to repeat the trip over and over, they weren’t likely to see any drastic reductions in that time. For Haruhiro alone, it had probably taken an hour and a half. That meant it had taken three times longer with six people. They would burn a third of a day just to go there and come back.

Hiding themselves near the lava river in front of Waluandin was hard for six people, too. Haruhiro was a thief, so even without objects to hide behind, he could lie down or crouch down and use Stealth in some cases, but that was out of the question for his comrades. If they stayed in one place, they’d be found. They had to keep moving.

The blacksmiths were to the left, and the mine was past there. Haruhiro and the others went right. Occasionally there were orc children sitting in the windows of the square-ish buildings across the river of lava. They were looking around a lot, so the party had to be careful.

“Orcies’re cute when they’re little,” Yume whispered quietly.

“How?” Ranta spat distastefully. “You call them little, but they’re probably bigger than you or me...”

“Size’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

“Yeah, it does. They’ve got some pretty vicious looking mugs, too...”

“They’re just lookin’ out here ’cause they’re bored,” Yume said. “Ranta, you’re just seein’ ’em that way ’cause you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Ranta retorted. “In a fight, I could take them easy. If you think I’m lying, I don’t mind proving it. I mean, I’m not scared, after all. I’m seriously not scared.”

Thanks to this idiot (and piece of trash), Haruhiro broke into a cold sweat, worried that the orc children would detect them, but fortunately nothing like that ever happened. They did, however, come to a dead end.

When they reached the edge of the square-ish, two-story buildings, it opened up past there. That’s not to say it was an empty lot. There was an incredible number of orcs. It was noisy. With all the voices, it sounded almost like they were shouting at one another. With all those things laid out on the ground, was that one selling stuff? Was it a shop? There were carts, too. He spotted orcs who were standing or sitting as they ate and drank. It was like a marketplace and an area for entertainment rolled into one. It looked like it was pretty chaotic. Haruhiro didn’t know what was so fun about jumping back and forth around a river of lava, but there were orcs laughing with their throaty voices, too.

It was dangerous to approach. They’d definitely be found. It would be possible to take the long way around to avoid them, but they’d have to go back into the area with the villages for that.

Taking various factors into consideration, Haruhiro decided to turn back. For now at least, they’d go to Herbesit.

They should move forward with their investigation of Waluandin slowly and carefully. It wasn’t something they could do in a day or two. It was going to take a good deal of preparation. When it came to food, they couldn’t just acquire it on the spot. In the end, the only option was to return to town.

Even though they were just going back the way they came, Haruhiro felt keenly how helpless they were without Mr. Unjo there to guide them. Once they rested by the Hot Spring River, there were no more chances to let his guard down. Every time they encountered one of the crested crocodiles known as nivles in the ruins of Alluja, he felt like his heart was being ground down, and there were injuries, too.

They crossed the bridge over the reddish-brown Dendoro River, and were repeatedly tackled by skards in the Field of Bones, Zetesidona.

When the farms west of Herbesit came into sight, Haruhiro’s sense of tension broke despite his best efforts to maintain it, and he started to tear up. Would he ever feel like going back to Waluandin? He might not. He never wanted to go to Zetesidona or Alluja. Or see orcs, for that matter. Couldn’t they just decide to live in Darunggar now? No...?

Well, Herbesit was a pretty dangerous city itself, so he got himself back in the right mindset, and they made it to the underground somehow. Once they finished shopping there, though, he was at a loss for what to do.

They weren’t with Mr. Unjo, so it felt wrong somehow for them to visit Rubicia’s tower. Haruhiro and the others weren’t Zeran, so they couldn’t stay in the underground, either. The people above ground in Herbesit were noisy, and frightening.

What now? What should they do?

“Hey, even up top, there’re good people, like Mr. Unjo’s wife,” Ranta opined. “Maybe there’s something like an inn, where they’ll let us stay if we just pay them? If we look, there’s probably one somewhere, don’t you think? I mean, there’s gotta be. Kuzacky. You go nip up top and find one for us real quick. We’ll be waiting down here. I’ll even be nice and wait for you, okay?”

“Why’d you make it sound like you’d be doing me a favor? And wait, why me?” Kuzaku complained.

“Because you’re the lowest ranked here, duh! I mean, you’re my gofer, right? You’re my gofer, so you’ve gotta do what I tell you, y’know?”

“I don’t really get what you’re saying.”

“Oh? Acting all rebellious now? I don’t mind. I’ll take you on anytime you want. I’ll beat your ass, though. You want that? Huh?”

“...This is the first time I’ve wanted to set that curly hair of yours on fire, Ranta-kun.”

“What? Did you just call my hair curly? You did, didn’t you?! Curly!”

“It is curly, though, isn’t it?” Merry said coldly.

“...Curly.” Shihoru said it, too.

“It sure is curly, huh.” And Yume.

“You jerks! Curly, curly, curly, curly, you keep saying it! People who call me curly are the ones who are really curly! Don’t you know that?!”

“Hey, curly hair has done you no wrong, so don’t be besmirching its good name, Curly...” Haruhiro said.

He sighed as he looked around. Herbesit’s underground had originally been the aqueducts and graves, so there was only water flowing in some places, and most of it was just underground tunnels. It was dank, but there was a refreshing smell hanging in the air, too. The people here might be mixing something like mint oils in with the fuel for the lamps that were lit here and there. Maybe thanks in part to that scent, the customers who came to shop in the underground marketplace were calm, and relatively quiet. When the party made a ruckus like this, the Zeran who had shops open on either side of this tunnel looked clearly bothered by it. It seemed like it would be best to shut Ranta up, or silence him permanently, then beat a hasty retreat before they got thrown out.

After thinking over a number of options, Haruhiro and the others decided to return home. To Well Village.

They’d considered the idea of using Herbesit as their base of operations while searching the ruins of Alluja for tablets they could sell at a high price. But Herbesit was just going to be too hard to live in.

They prepared a bell, crossed the forest, and headed for the charcoal burner’s place. The charcoal burner didn’t exactly give them a warm welcome, but he didn’t try to drive Haruhiro and the others away, either. They rested in the corner of his place for a night, and when they woke, the charcoal burner was preparing to take his wagon out.

When they signaled that they were willing to help him out, he didn’t refuse, so they helped load the wagon. They accompanied the charcoal burner’s wagon back to Well Village. They didn’t have a house here or anything, but it was amazing how much it felt like they had come home.

The residents of Well Village were all taciturn, but the giant grocer crab smiled and spoke cheerfully, happy to see Haruhiro and his group again. It was hard to read the giant crab’s expression, but at the very least, he looked like he was smiling to Haruhiro, and his voice seemed happy. That’s how it sounded.

They talked about what to do next while eating in front of the grocery store, but not one of them raised the name of Waluandin. Should Haruhiro make a point of bringing it up himself? He debated that internally for a while, but ultimately didn’t.

Haste makes waste. Now is the time for patience. Let’s wait for the time to be ripe. He could think of any number of reasons, but, ultimately, he just decided to wait for a better day.