Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 7 - Chapter 4

4. U Naa

Light magic and dark magic were both usable. However, their effects and duration had been reduced to about one third of what they usually were, and not only did it take more than double the usual magical power to cast them, it seemed that doing so was incredibly exhausting to both the mind and body.

Thanks to that, Protection was so inefficient that it was practically unusable. Even with the healing-type spells, seven castings of Cure, four of Heal, or even one of Sacrament were enough to drain Merry’s magical power completely.

They decided to have Ranta use Demon Call to summon Zodiac-kun as often as possible. Ranta was a terrible dread knight who couldn’t make effective use of his dark magic anyway. Besides, Zodiac-kun was somewhat useful just by being around.

Haruhiro and the party named the village where the well was Well Village and the river with the lukewarm water Lukewarm River. The cardinal directions were unclear, but going on the theory that the Lukewarm River ran north to south, they decided that upstream would be north and downstream would be south. In the daytime, the fire would rise, and the eastern sky where the burning ridge was would grow a little brighter. It didn’t seem like they could cross the Lukewarm River, so for the time being, they would have to search to the west of it.

There was a forest that spread out to the west of Well Village. What about to the south? It seemed there were aggressive enemies in the riverbed, so they decided to climb the cliff and try going south from there.

“We’re... how far do you figure from Well Town?” Kuzaku turned back and looked.

“Like one kilometer?” Yume let out a strange mnngh sound as she thought about it. “Maybe around that?”

“Tch.” Ranta clicked his tongue and stamped his feet a few times. “Damn, it’s hard to walk like this. It’s so squishy! What the hell is with this stuff?! Is it trying to harass me?!”

“Ehehe... Ranta... Your very existence is a form of harassment... Ehe... Eehehehe...”

“Hey, Zodiac-kun, what was that supposed to mean, huh?!”

“B-But, this might be kind of exhausting...” Shihoru was using her staff to support herself as she walked.

“You okay?” Merry asked. “Shihoru, if you need to, you can hold onto me for support.”

“Thanks, Merry... But then if I tripped, I’d take you down with me...”

“If it happens, it happens.” Merry looked like she was smiling, just a little.

Haruhiro smiled slightly, too.

No, a worthless leader who’s just screwed up has no right to smile. Still, it looks like Merry, Shihoru, and Yume are getting along great now. I couldn’t be happier for them.

Merry was a bit contrary when we first met, but I hear she was a cheerful person with a likable personality before. Blessed with good looks, takes her work as a priest seriously, has a good personality—what kind of perfect superwoman is she? As a comrade, and as a friend, I couldn’t ask for more. She’s pretty much ideal. As a leader, I’m happy. Though, having a girlfriend like that, I’m sure Kuzaku must be even happier...

“The area south of Well Village is a swamp, huh.” Haruhiro stifled a sigh that nearly escaped, squinting. “Looks like it goes on like this for a while...”

“It’s tough to walk in, sure, but it’s not all bad, y’know?” Yume said. “The surface here, it makes sounds. It goes squick, squick. So, if somethin’s comin’, you’ll know right away, huh?”

“Dammit, Yume,” Ranta complained. “Even with those tiny tits of yours, there you go, saying something that sounds useful!”

“Stop callin’ them tiny all the time!” Yume screamed.

There is something to what Yume said, thought Haruhiro. It’s true, it’s easy to stay alert here. For now, I want to expand our range, so let’s try going a bit further.

With that decided, they went another three hundred meters or so, but at that point the ground wasn’t just muddy, there were puddles and it felt like their feet were going to get stuck. The water was maybe about five centimeters deep at most, but there were soft spots and hard spots in the bottom, which made it worse. Actually...

“Hey, isn’t there something buried here?” Haruhiro asked.

“Treasure, huh!” Ranta immediately crouched down and thrust his hands into the mud. “...Oh? There is. There’s something. This is—”

“Should we shine a light on it?” Yume asked, to which Haruhiro nodded. “Oof.” Yume pulled out a lantern and lit it.

“Here.” Ranta brought what he had pulled out up to Yume’s lantern. It was a whitish, rod-shaped object.

Haruhiro immediately clued in. It was pretty clear what it was.

“A bone...?”

“There’re a whole bunch of them,” Ranta said. “Do you think the whole place could be littered with corpses?”

Zodiac-kun cackled. “Uhe... Ranta... You’ll turn to bones here, too... Uhehe... Uhehehehe...”

“Don’t say ominous stuff like that! Dammit, Zodiac-kun!”

“Let’s look.” Haruhiro made up his mind and nodded. “Well, I’m not that keen on it, but it might not just be bones—we might find their stuff, too. There could be black coins. Right now, we need those badly.”

There were no objections. Unlike with the water in the Lukewarm River, the water in the puddles here was chilly. When they were crouching in it, it could be downright cold. It wasn’t easy work, but compared to starvation and dehydration, it was nothing.

Eventually...

“Ah...!” Shihoru gulped as she lifted something up. “A black coin!”

“Oh, ho!” Ranta slapped Shihoru on the back. “Nice! Well done, Shihoru!”

“...Don’t take advantage of the situation to touch me.”

“No way?! You’re snapping at me now?! Seriously?! It’s not the time for that, is it?! Aren’t you happy?!”

“Kehehe... Ranta... Your existence ruins everything... Kehehehehe...”

“If my very existence is the problem, there’s no room for fixing that, you know?! Just saying!” Ranta yelled.

The discoveries continued after that. There was more than just black coins. They found two short, unrusted swords, one longsword, one metallic, mask-like thing, as well as four black coins.

“Hmm...” Ranta scrutinized the longsword before handing it to Kuzaku. “You hold onto this one, Kuzacky. It looks pretty good, and we can probably use it with some sharpening, but it’s too plain for me. A bit too long, too. Besides, my Lightning Sword Dolphin’s numbing effect hasn’t run out yet.”

“...Thanks.”

“The two short swords go to Haruhiro,” Ranta went on.

“Kehe... Ranta’s acting all important... Die, you blowhard... Kehehe...”

“Hey, Zodiac-kun?! Could you stop dissing me all the time, like it’s the natural thing to do?!”

“Hmm,” Haruhiro said, examining the short swords. “Nah, I think one’s enough for me. How about you take the other one, Yume? The slightly bigger one is about the size of your machete.”

“Meow. Now that you mention it, it is, huh? Well then, maybe Yume’ll take it.”

“How about the mask?” Merry tried putting it on. “—Oh. A perfect fit.”

It was made to look like some sort of creature. Not a human. It didn’t look like any creature Haruhiro knew, but if he was pushed to name one... an ape, maybe? It looked kind of silly, with a funny-looking shape to it.

“I-It suits you... really,” Shihoru said, struggling to keep her voice level.

“Bwah!” Ranta burst out laughing and pointed at Merry. “It does, it does! It’s the best! A masterpiece! That one goes to Merry! Decided!”

“I-I don’t want it!” Merry took the mask off, trying to hand it to someone else, but everyone cruelly refused to take it from her. “I really don’t want it, okay?! I was just trying it on!”

Haruhiro, for some reason, he wasn’t sure why, looked to Kuzaku.

No, the why is obvious. It’s like, Kuzaku, man, aren’t you going to help her? How can I not think that? When something like this is happening, really. After all, the two of them were, well... You know?

Kuzaku was the first to break eye contact, looking down. It looked like he felt awkward.

Why? Ohh. I see. They haven’t told the rest of their comrades about their relationship. Because they’re hiding it? That’s why, even at times like this, it makes it hard for him to be obvious about standing up for her.

It’s fine. No need to hide it. Why not just open up about it already? This is kind of a pain. If you’d just do that, I’d feel a lot better about it, too.

But then, now’s not really the time to announce it. If they suddenly went, “Hey, guys, guess what,” no one would know how to react.

Even as Haruhiro thought about that, Yume offered to take the mask from Merry.

“In that case, maybe Yume’ll take it? It’d be easier havin’ a mask when we go back to Well Village. This one’s not cute, but maybe when she gets used to it, she’ll start thinkin’ it’s cute.”

“Um... about these black coins...” Shihoru picked up one of the four black coins resting in the palm of her hand and showed it to the rest of the group. “There’s a slight difference in their sizes. This one is big, but the other three are much smaller. The stuff written on them? It looks like the letters are slightly different...”

“Whoo.” Yume held the lantern up closer. “You’re right. It’s that much bigger, huh.”

Haruhiro compared the one Shihoru was holding up to the three on her palm. “You think the valuation is different? Like how silver and copper are? But the material’s the same here. What were the first two we found like? Hmm, I don’t remember...”

“Come on, you should at least remember that much.” Ranta snorted. “Well, not like I do, though!”

“Kehehe... Because your head’s empty... Kehe... Kehehe... You’ll be embraced by Skullhell soon...” Zodiac-kun suddenly lowered its voice. “It won’t be long now... Kehehehehe...”

“Hey, Haruhiro.” Ranta gestured with his chin.

“...Yeah.” Haruhiro bent his knee, lowering his center of gravity. “I know.”

Were all dread knights’ demons like this? Haruhiro, being a thief, didn’t really know, but Zodiac-kun was really capricious. So they couldn’t really rely on the thing. It was only useful because, when danger was approaching, it would warn them subtly—sometimes.

Haruhiro didn’t have to give the orders—his comrades were already on alert. He hesitated for a moment. Should he have Yume put out the lantern? No, if she put it out now, they’d barely be able to see anything until their eyes adjusted to the darkness. That would be bad.

He listened carefully. He heard it. A noise. It was a splashing sound. From the west. Splash. Splash. It was getting louder. Something was walking through the water.

It was closing in.

Haruhiro looked to Kuzaku, pointing to the west. Kuzaku nodded, then lowered the visor of his helm, turning to face towards the west.

It happened immediately after that.

The thing started running. Yume turned the lantern in its direction.

They saw it. A black beast. Huge. Shining, yellow eyes—four of them.

Was it a dog? A wolf? No, it was nothing like that. It was big enough to be a tiger or lion. Maybe bigger.

It came charging towards them. Kuzaku tried to stop its charge with his shield, but it was no use. He was sent flying.

“Gwah...!”

“Isn’t this kind of bad?!” Ranta took a swing with his Lightning Sword Dolphin. The beast didn’t dodge. Incredibly, it deflected it with its forehead.

For that instant, at least, it did seem to get zapped, but it more or less shrugged it off.

Ranta leapt backwards. “Damn it’s hard! How hardheaded is that thing?!”

“Ohm, rel, ect, del, brem, darsh.” Shihoru wrapped herself in an Armor Shadow. It would nullify all attacks, or failing that, blunt them at least a little. It was the sort of cool-headed decision they had come to expect from Shihoru.

“Kuzaku?!” Merry screamed, but there was an immediate “’Kay!” followed by the sound of someone getting up in a pool of water. It looked like Kuzaku was all right.

The beast moved its head around languidly, looking at each of the members of the party. Its shoulders were one to two meters off the ground. Its torso was maybe three meters long. It was ridiculously huge, and more than a little intimidating, but it wasn’t ten times their size or anything like that. That said, if it chomped down on one of them, it looked like it could bite through an arm, a leg, or even a neck like it was nothing. Kuzaku was lucky to be all right after being tackled by that thing.

Yume was crouched low and breathing heavily. She had her machete drawn and in her left hand, but she didn’t have her bow at the ready. Her bow and arrows weren’t going to do anything useful against an enemy like this. They were already in close quarters combat anyway. Honestly, they were too close to it. If they turned to run, the beast would immediately pounce on them, no doubt. That would be the end of it. It would kill them in an instant.

The beast had yet to let out a cry of any sort. Every time he heard the sound of its tail slapping the water lightly, Haruhiro’s heart jumped. If it let out a roar or howl, he’d probably die of shock.

Scary...

Besides, what was it anyway? Was this the beast’s territory, and it was trying to drive Haruhiro and the others off for invading it? But, in that case, it would have tried to intimidate them first, right? Then were they its prey? Was the beast trying to hunt them? To satisfy its appetite? Was that it...?

He wanted to run away. But the footing here is bad, it’s dark, the creature looks fast, and it’d be pretty hard to run away without taking any casualties. We have to fight it... don’t we?

If it was looking to eat them, they probably only had to hurt it a little. If they made it think, These guys are tough, it would back down.

That’s the sense I get. I want to think it’s true.

“We’re doing this!” Haruhiro tensed himself, declaring that as powerfully as he could. “Don’t bunch together! Surround it while trying not to end up right in front of it!”

When Haruhiro and the party went to move, so did the beast. It was large-bodied, but incredibly light on its feet.

Ranta. The beast pounced at Ranta.

“Whoa!”

It looked like Ranta hadn’t let his guard down. Had he tried to dodge it while beguiling the beast with his bizarre footwork? It was probably his dread knight fighting skill, Missing.

On more solid ground, he might have succeeded. Unfortunately, he didn’t quite pull it off. While Ranta got out of the way of the beast, he tripped and plowed into a pool of water.

“Gwah?!”

“Keep trying, Ranta... Kehe... Fwehehe...”

“Ranta-kun!” Kuzaku tried to hit the beast with Punishment. The paladin’s Punishment was similar to a warrior’s Rage Blow, but they tightened their defense with their shield while swinging down with their sword. That difference saved Kuzaku. The beast dodged incredibly quickly, then swung out with its front leg.

A beast punch. It was a hook. Kuzaku blocked it with his shield somehow, but he wasn’t able to take the impact and was knocked over.

“Jess, yeen, sark, kart, fram, dart!” Shihoru slammed a Thunderstorm spell into the beast. Several thin streaks of lightning caught the beast. The beast let out a groan, its entire body shaking, but it didn’t fall. It shook its head, turning its body towards Shihoru.

“Chuwang!” Yume let out a weird cry as she charged headlong towards the beast.

Merry was trying to thrust at it with her short staff, too.

The beast roared, spinning in place to successfully knock both Yume and Merry away. The two of them landed in the water.

“Dammit, don’t take me lightly! O Darkness, O Lord of Vice!” Ranta was on one knee with the tip of his sword pointed towards the beast. “Blood Venom!”

No good ever came of Ranta using dark magic. Even when something with a bizarre and terrifying aura fired out of Ranta’s body and actually enveloped the beast like it was supposed to, Haruhiro still had nothing but a bad feeling about whatever was happening. For starters, the effectiveness of dark magic was already reduced. Why would anyone go out of their way to use it?

However, for a moment, the beast stumbled. It recovered quickly, but something was clearly wrong with it.

Blood Venom. It was a spell that used Skullhell’s miasma to weaken the target’s body, or that was what Haruhiro remembered it being. Certainly, the beast looked like it was suddenly feeling ill, or something like that.

Thanks to that, he had an opening. He could save praising Ranta for later. Or rather, if he could get away without praising Ranta, he would. Ranta being Ranta, he was guaranteed to act all conceited about it, after all.

If he said he wasn’t scared, it would be a lie. But Haruhiro was confident he would succeed. No matter how fierce it was, their enemy was a four-legged beast.

He leapt at it from behind, clinging onto its back. He stabbed his dagger into its neck. He stabbed with all his might. He stabbed the hell out of it.

Naturally, the beast thrashed around. It twisted around, flailing its front and rear paws about violently as it tried to throw him off. But because of its body structure, neither its front or rear paws could reach its back. Or so Haruhiro thought, but then one of its rear claws sank deep into Haruhiro’s right thigh and tore it apart.

“Gwah?!”

It hurt so much that Haruhiro easily let himself be thrown off. Worse yet, he let go of his dagger which was still stabbed into the beast. On top of that, he fell face first into a pool of water, leaving him unable to see anything. He couldn’t breathe properly, either.

This is kind of bad, isn’t it? Like, maybe I’m gonna die...?

“Jess, yeen, sark, fram, dart!”

If Shihoru hadn’t cast her Lightning spell, Haruhiro might have been the first to fall victim to the beast.

“Nngahh!” That one had definitely hurt the beast. That was what that cry sounded like, and its massive body fell over sideways, kicking up a large amount of muddy water. Haruhiro didn’t see it for himself, but he could hear it perfectly.

The dagger. It was the dagger, huh.

Haruhiro’s dagger had still been jammed into the beast’s neck. That was what Shihoru had aimed her Lightning at.

“Ehe... Now... Ehehehe...” Zodiac-kun spurred them on.

“You don’t need to tell us!” Ranta screamed.

“Yeah!” Kuzaku shouted.

Sensing this was their time to strike, Ranta and Kuzaku assaulted the beast. As Haruhiro wiped his face and got up, he thought, We can do this.

The beast was running away. It took off.

That was fast.

Well, the world was harsh for everyone. If it’d stuck around any longer, it would have been too late. It had to be able to make instant decisions, or it would never survive. The beast had completely vanished in no time.

“Anyone injured?” Haruhiro asked, raising his hand. “Other than me.”

“As for me,” Kuzaku said, “my back hurts a bit, and that’s about it.”

“Yume’s doin’ great.”

“I am, too,” said Shihoru. “Thanks to all of you...”

“I’m totally invincible, after all!” Ranta bragged.

“Don’t worry... Kehe... It’ll be sometime tomorrow... You’ll die instantly... Kehehe...”

“Now, listen, Zodiac-kun! It bugs me, so could you not say that like it’s a prophecy?!”

“Haru, let me see.” Merry rushed over and crouched next to him, laying Haruhiro’s left leg over her knee. “This is pretty bad. Don’t be too reckless.”

“...Um, no, I wasn’t planning to be reckless at all. I wasn’t even expecting to get hurt. I just was too optimistic, you could say. Seriously, I’m sorry about this.”

“Were you trying to make up for before?” Merry asked him in a whisper.

That was... honestly, it might have been part of it. When they’d been ambushed in the river bed, Haruhiro had been the only one to be hurt, and he’d had to have Merry heal him. That had been a blunder. This time, he wanted to do something impressive and show off his good side.

Could he say definitively that he hadn’t been trying to do that? Probably he’d had that sort of ulterior motive somewhere in the corner of his mind.

Still, he was the leader. He was a cheap thief, after all. He wasn’t the type that dragged his team along by showing off how capable he was, or the type who displayed a whole lot of leadership, but... once in a while, you know? If he didn’t make them think, Hey, he’s better at this than we thought every once in a while, he’d find it hard to go on.

If Ranta started looking down on him, it’d cause all sorts of trouble, after all. That, and it’d piss him off.

It wasn’t limited to Ranta, though; it went for all of them. He would rather have them respect him than look down on him.

Haruhiro looked away, answering, “Maybe a little” in a quiet voice.

“I respect you, Haru, and I’m grateful to you,” Merry said in a voice even quieter than Haruhiro’s. “Everyone does. Know that much.”

“I know that... I think.”

“Well, that’s fine, then. Let me heal you.”

“Right...” Haruhiro closed his eyes.

I don’t want to see Merry up close like this, he thought. I don’t want her being so kind to me. I like it, yeah. But it’s painful, I guess you could say. No, I really am grateful for it, though.

Haruhiro had gotten wounded, he’d had Merry heal him, and he’d lost his favorite dagger. The short sword they’d found while scooping through the mud at the bottom of the pool of water wasn’t going to be usable as it was. It wasn’t like he couldn’t sharpen it himself, but he didn’t have a whetstone. If possible, he wanted a proper smith to do the job.

He decided to call the area with the pools of water where a large number of remains lay sleeping Corpse Swamp.

It felt like they could still get more black coins and items in Corpse Swamp, but there were dangerous animals like that four-eyed beast living around here. They’d have to be very careful as they went about their work. If they let their guard down, they’d be gobbled right up. They had to think that way.

Regardless, since they had gotten ahold of one large black coin and three small ones, they decided to return to Well Village. Not only was Corpse Swamp already cold, they were all soaked too, so they felt cold all the way down to their bones. They wanted to warm themselves by a campfire or something. They wanted to eat and drink, too.

Haruhiro and the party each hid their faces and they crossed the bridge. Once they were inside Well Village, they felt deeply relieved. Even as they felt that relief, the gloomy atmosphere of the village and the bizarreness of its residents whose language they didn’t speak threatened to overwhelm them.

There were just too many obstacles. Were they going to be able to secure their basic necessities from here on? Could they live here? Could they have any reasonable standard of living? It wasn’t like they wanted to live in this world. They wanted to go home. To Grimgar. Was there a way back? If there wasn’t...

What if we can never go home? What then? What should we do?

“Hey...” Ranta pointed at the blacksmith. “Look. There’s... someone there, yeah?”

The blacksmith with the massive upper body and the blood-like eyes was banging away with its hammer.

There was someone in front of it.

“Someone, yeah, but...” Kuzaku shook his head. “...Well, yeah, it’s someone.”

Was it a customer, perhaps? It could be one of the residents of Well Village, but Haruhiro didn’t recognize it. If he’d seen them even once before, he’d remember.

It was tall. Easily twice Haruhiro’s height. It looked like, well, like a scarecrow. It resembled a scarecrow. If it hadn’t moved with swaying steps, occasionally crouching down, inspecting the blacksmith’s wares—in other words, if it had stayed perfectly still—he might have thought, Oh, what’s a scarecrow doing over there?

Naturally, scarecrows didn’t move, so it wasn’t actually a scarecrow. Besides, it had those long, thin arms. There were hands on the end of its arms, with what looked like ten or more wire-like fingers. It was wearing something like a raincoat over its head. There was something that looked like a mask on its face, too.

“Y’think it’s a customer?” Yume asked quietly.

“A customer...” Shihoru repeated, shuddering. “Is it dragging something behind it?”

“A corpse...?” Merry covered her mouth with her hands.

Haruhiro let out a deep breath. Let’s calm down. All right. Calm down, man. Keep a clear head. It’s okay.

Well Village was a safe zone—or it was supposed to be, right? He thought so. Even if they met a dangerous-looking creature here, if they just acted like, Oh, hello there, or just ignored it, nothing would happen... probably? Or was Haruhiro just assuming that to be true? Could he be completely wrong? For starters, what basis did he have to think that? It felt like there might be none...

The corpse. Like Merry said, it was probably a corpse. Scarecrow-san (a temporary name) was dragging what could only the corpse of a humanoid creature behind it. Also, looking closer, wasn’t that the cadaver of a beast slung over its right shoulder, too?

Scarecrow-san abruptly picked up a massive sword and turned to face the blacksmith, saying, “U naa?”

No, had it really said “u naa”? It was a throaty voice, difficult to hear properly, so he wasn’t confident, but that was what it sounded like to Haruhiro.

The blacksmith stopped pounding, held up three fingers on its left hand, then held up eight. “Son zaa.”

Yes. The blacksmith didn’t have five fingers on each hand, it had eight.

“Ouun daa,” Scarecrow-san said, shaking its head.

“Bowna dee,” the blacksmith responded.

“Giha,” Scarecrow-san put the massive sword back where it had gotten it from.

“Zeh naa.”

The blacksmith looked dissatisfied, waving its left hand, then returned to swinging its hammer. Scarecrow-san had tried to buy that sword, but they hadn’t been able to come to an agreement on price or something. Scarecrow-san left the blacksmith, now heading to grocery store.

“U naa?” Yume said, tilting her head to the side questioningly. She was currently wearing the ape-like mask. “Does that mean ‘How much’ or somethin’ like that?”

“Hey, don’t say what I was gonna say, not when you have such tiny tits!” Ranta yelled.

“Don’t call them tiny, stupid Ranta!”

“If it does mean that...” Shihoru nodded slightly, “...it could make shopping easier...”

“U naa.” Merry repeated it to herself a few times. “It’s worth trying, I think.”

“That sounds good,” Kuzaku said.

Haruhiro silently agreed. It was good. Merry’s “U naa.” It was kind of cute. Yeah. But, I mean, so what? Or rather, I want to stop being so weirdly conscious of everything Merry does. I can’t let it continue. It’s not good for me to be thinking like this.

It looked like Scarecrow-san had bought itself a bowl of bug stew. It brought its mouth to the bowl, gulping it down. It polished it all off in one go, crunching the bugs with gusto.

“Did it start when we lost that person?” Haruhiro said aloud. “Was that when I became afraid to try all sorts of things?”