The nape of the white giant’s neck and the back of its head were more or less destroyed, and it had already stopped moving. It seemed to be dead.

But in some ways, the hard part of dealing with a four-meter giant was yet to come. It was a time-intensive and bothersome task, but it paid off well.

At first, the white giants had been these huge, dangerous things that had just gotten in their way, and they had treated them as something to run away from as soon as they saw them. However, Shinohara of Clan Orion had discovered that the white giants had a number of organs inside them where an unknown metal was concentrated. Ever since someone had spread word of that discovery, the white giants had become a favored target for volunteer soldiers.

By the way, this wasn’t a recent development. It had happened close to a month ago.

“I got me some rainbow pyroxene!” Ranta shouted like an idiot, holding up an orb with a fifteen-centimeter diameter that shone with the rainbow of colors its name suggested.

As far as Haruhiro knew, these rainbow pyroxene organs that were unique to the white giants were usually fist-sized, so that one would be considered large.

“Yahoo! Me, too! Me, too! Me, too! I got one!” Kikkawa lifted another rainbow pyroxene up high, with one eye closed and his tongue stuck out. This second one was ten centimeters across, maybe. Still, that wasn’t small.

In the end, those were the only two rainbow pyroxenes they extracted from the white giant. However, when they stripped the cultists of their ponchos and searched them, they were able to find a number of accessories with small pieces of rainbow pyroxene embedded in them. These rainbow pyroxenes had been diligently ground and polished, so they had a high value for their small size.

“Well, I’d say we’ll make around six,” Tokimune said from atop the giant’s remains, his white teeth sparkling as he smiled.

While thinking, Wow, they’re brilliant, Haruhiro tilted his head to the side in thought. “Nah... I’d say about five, maybe?”

“That’s all, you think?” Tokimune asked.

“Probably.”

Five gold. Split fifty-fifty with the Tokkis, Haruhiro and the party’s take would be two gold and fifty silver. Split six ways, that was a bit over 41 silver each. Not bad. Or rather, it was an incredible amount that they could never have imagined making a few months ago.

I shouldn’t get used to this, he thought. I have to assume making this much won’t be a given.

The white giant’s remains would have to be left where they were, but they at least dragged the cultists’ corpses to the side of the road before Haruhiro’s party and the Tokkis moved on.

Soon, they passed by someone. Not a cultist, and not a white giant, but a human.

No, humans. Volunteer soldiers, to be precise.

“Oh.” The hunter that led the group gave off an unpleasant vibe. He wore a hide outfit, a cap with a feather in it, and had a bow and a quiver of arrows slung over his back. He was probably a little older than Haruhiro and the others. He had eyes like a fox and a crooked mouth. “It’s the Goblin Slayers and the comedians.”

“Hello, Kuzuoka-san.” Haruhiro bowed his head slightly.

Among all the senior volunteer soldiers, there were a few he was less than happy about having to address with a -san. This was one of them. They hadn’t had much in the way of interaction, but he did have a grudge against this man. When they had just arrived in Grimgar, Kuzuoka had scouted Moguzo to join his party, then stolen his money and abandoned him.

“Tch...” Ranta clicked his tongue with distaste.

Kuzuoka narrowed his eyes and tried to intimidate them with a “Huhhh...?”

There were a warrior, thief, mage, priest, and dread knight following Kuzuoka. One looked as if he wanted to say, Here we go again..., while another was impassive, and yet another seemed amused. Each of the five had their own reaction, but none of them were anything remotely friendly.

“Why, hello, hello, Kuzuoka-saaaan,” Kikkawa butted in, slapping Kuzuoka on the shoulder in that over-friendly manner of his. “It’s been, like, ages. You been doing all right, Kuzuoka-saaaan? Like, how’ve things been lately?”

“Damn it, don’t touch me, Crap-kawa!” Kuzuoka yelled.

“Huh? What’s this? I’m cute as crap? Man, I always thought I was.”

“I didn’t say that, you dolt!”

“No, no, no, no need to be shy, Crap-oka-saaaan. Oops, got it wrong, it’s Kuzuoka! Soz, soz! I’m gonna reflect on what I did!”

“There’s no way you’re reflecting on anything!” Kuzuoka screamed.

“Yup! I’m not! Teehee!”

“You piss me off, you know that?” Kuzuoka snarled. “Move it, or die! I’ll kill you!”

“That’s not possible,” Tokimune said with a friendly smile. “I don’t know you all that well, but I do know you’re weaker than me. Want to try it and see?”

“I-I’m not gonna do it!” Kuzuoka pushed Kikkawa aside.

“We’re going!” he ordered his comrades, and they shuffled along. Even as he left, the way he kept muttering what sounded like insults at the group was very like Kuzuoka.

“That guy.” Ranta kicked the ground. “With his rotten personality, I’m amazed he manages to be a party leader. I can’t believe him.”

“Yeah...” Haruhiro rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re not one to talk, though...”

“You idiot!” Anna-san shouted, pointing her finger at Haruhiro. “Are you stupid?! You at the age when you want to do it all the time! Day and night, you think about it! That’s you, young! Why not just go out with her and do it? You can, can’t you? You’re in mating season! Yeah!”

“You’re getting a little lewd there, Anna-san,” said Haruhiro.

“Shut up, yeah! You look! Mimorin’s boobies! Boing! She have very good body! She does, yeah?! You not want to sink your teeth into that?!”

“No, I’m not going to be doing that,” said Haruhiro. “I’m not Ranta. Well, he’s all talk, too, so I doubt he’d actually do anything.”

“Mimorin is head over eels for you!”

“You mean head over heels...”

“With her endless sexniques, she serve you endlessly, no doubt about it!”

“...Sexniques?”

“Sexual techniques are sexniques, yeah?! Special technique! You know?!”

“Yeah... Kind of. But you’re saying it kind of loud...”

“What’s more, she is a virgin! Virgin! Not even had her first kiss yet!”

“That’s true.” For some reason, Mimorin confirmed this with straight face.

Was that an important point, maybe? Haruhiro didn’t really get it, but there was one thing that seemed off to him if it was true.

“Huh? ...Then what about this special... technique?”

“I’ll study.” Mimorin nodded again. “It’s fine.”

“Just leave it to Anna-san, yeah?!” Anna-san thumped one hand on her ample, though not so ample as Mimorin’s, bosom. “Anna-san take her by the hand and teach her each and every technique there is, yeah!”

“You have a lot of experience... then?” Haruhiro asked hesitantly.

“Don’t be silly, pervert boy! I’m obviously a fresh virgin, yeah?!”

“No, but then—”

“Heh heh,” Anna-san put on a bold smile and pinched her own earlobe. “Anna-san knows so much about sex. I’m the kind of girl who comes along once in a century, you know? It will be easy.”

“...I see.”

“In my imagination, I make more than a million guys climax, you know?”

“Maybe you’re fantasizing a little too much.”

“It was obviously a joke, yeah?! Because Anna-san’s a pure, proper, holy virgin!”

“Okay, fine. Whatever...”

Haruhiro took a sip of his herbal beer and looked downwards. The inside of the restaurant wasn’t silent like it had been a moment ago, but Haruhiro and the others were still drawing attention, and more than a few customers were listening in. Anna-san sure liked her dirty jokes. Haruhiro didn’t especially hate them or anything, but he didn’t like them all that much, either.

“So, how about it?!” Anna-san took a long swig of her herbal beer, then let out a satisfied sigh. “For now, you try going out with her? Try it? Not a bad deal, yeah? Because, with her nice body, you drown in dirty desire every day?”

“Yeah, no, I’ll pass.”

“Fuck you!” Anna-san flipped him the bird.

No matter what they said, he wasn’t going to cave in on this. Especially because they were his allies—but even if they weren’t, he’d have felt the same. He wasn’t keen on going out with someone he had no romantic feelings for. Or rather, Haruhiro felt it was impossible for him to do that. Even if she paid him, he’d feel that way. No, if he was offered money, that might make it even worse.

Maybe I’m just being stubborn? he thought. I can’t deny the possibility, but the point is that that’s just how I am.

“Is there any...” Mimorin started, then the tears started running again and she wiped them with her hand. “I’m sorry. For crying.”

“...No,” he murmured. He didn’t know why, but that made his heart skip a beat. Now why might that be? Why had his heart skipped a beat? Haruhiro himself didn’t know at all. “Y-You don’t need to apologize. Erm, it would help if you’d stop crying. It’s not like I want to make you cry. I don’t want you to cry...”

“This is a first for me,” said Mimorin. “I’m so sad, it hurts.”

“...Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault, Haruhiro. I just went and fell in love with you on my own.”

“Er, well, yeah, that’s true, but...”

“Can I continue with my question?” Mimorin asked.

“Oh, go ahead.”

“Is there any possibility?”

“...Of what?”

“Even if you can’t do it now. Someday...”

“Um, you mean at some point in the future?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Hrm...”

Haruhiro wanted to writhe and squirm, but he desperately restrained himself.

I’m not sure. That’s a really tough one. I’m stumped.

He felt that, maybe, telling her No, at no point in the future would it ever be possible might be the kind thing to do here. It was wrong for her to fall in love with someone like Haruhiro in the first place. Time wasn’t infinite. Even now, it was ticking by. It wasn’t as if he didn’t think she should give up on him and find someone else—but, you know?

Was that something for Haruhiro to decide? Mimorin, in her own way, had found something appealing in Haruhiro. As a result, she had fallen in love with him. Did Haruhiro have any right to deny those feelings?

Having worked alongside the Tokkis, he had gotten a sense for what Mimorin was like. True, she was strange. She was a mage, but she couldn’t ditch the habits she’d picked up as a warrior. It scared him when he saw her running up front and waving her sword around. However, she was strong, and she was good with a sword, too. She also cared deeply for her comrades.

Occasionally, she was adorable.

He didn’t really hate her as a person. If anything, he actually liked her.

The way she came straight at him and did nothing but push her affection on him was what he had a problem with. If not for that, honestly, he would have had no issues with her.

He even had a positive view of Mimorin’s personality. At the very least, he liked her enough that he wanted to respect her thoughts and feelings.

Haruhiro didn’t know what to do about Mimorin’s affection and thought, If only we were just friends, that would be easier, but even so... wasn’t it wrong for Haruhiro to try to change her values or feelings to get rid of her bothersome feelings for him? After all, Haruhiro was only thinking about his own convenience.

Besides, if he were to tell her there was no possibility of them ever getting together, sure, he could say that, but wasn’t it a lie? No one knew what tomorrow might bring. It was questionable whether they’d even still be alive.

Despite that, might it be best to tell that lie?

Or should he be honest to a fault?

What was right? What should he do for Mimorin? For Mimorin? Was Haruhiro really thinking of Mimorin? Wasn’t he just pretending to care for her? Wasn’t he being a hypocrite?

“Can I give it to you straight?” Haruhiro asked at last. “Well, I’m going to. I don’t know what’s possible. I don’t know the future. That’s not just me; it’s the same for anybody. Just, right now, honestly, I think you’re an interesting person. It’s fun to watch you, and I don’t mind talking at all, but I can’t consider a romantic relationship. I really do feel like, ‘Can’t we just be friends?’ I can’t do anything more than that right now. Maybe, some years from now, I might decide I do like you that way, but I don’t want to think about that. It’s not reliable. Even if I started feeling that way, you might already have a boyfriend by then, and there would be nothing I could do about it. It’s a matter of timing, you know. I can only speak for now, sorry. I have my hands full just worrying about the present.”

Mimorin stared intently into Haruhiro’s eyes, listening closely. It wasn’t that Haruhiro didn’t find that intimidating, but he did his best not to look away. When he finished, all of his strength left him.

I must have really sleepy eyes right now, he thought. He wasn’t sleepy, but he was exhausted.

“I understand,” Mimorin said, her whole face twitching. She narrowed her eyes, raising both corners of her lips in what was probably a smile.

She understood. Thank goodness. Haruhiro closed his eyes and let out a sigh. That’s a load off my shoulders.

You know, my body’s not that big, and my belly isn’t either, so there’s a limit to how much I can carry. I can only carry so many responsibilities. I lead the party, and I do my job as a thief. That’s the limit for me. I don’t have the time to think or do anything about other stuff.

That’s right. Like romance. I don’t have time for it. The same goes for Merry. If I’d had the room to do so, I’d have said something. Yeah. Maybe not. No way. It wouldn’t have happened. Never. I couldn’t have done it.

It’s something to be grateful for, he realized. Despite his inadequacies, Mimorin had fallen in love with him. This kind of good fortune probably didn’t come along often. It might never come again. This could be the last time. Rejecting it might be a terrible waste.

But what else could he do? It was true he didn’t feel that way for her now. He really couldn’t lie about that. He didn’t want to deceive himself, or to deceive Mimorin. He couldn’t.

“Well, there you have it,” he said.

“But I love you.”

“...Come again?” he asked.

When he opened his eyes, Mimorin was staring at Haruhiro. Without a speck of doubt in them, her eyes were serious and filled with sincerity.

“Right now, I love you. I love Haruhiro. Is that wrong?”

“Whew...” Anna-san whistled, shrugging to the point that her shoulders touched her head. “Mimorin sure is stubborn. Like a rock, yeah? No, like steel, maybe?”

Haruhiro looked down at the ground and scratched the back of his head. No... Is it wrong? I’m not the one to ask. It’s not a matter of it being wrong or not. I have no right to tell her not to. That’s Mimorin’s choice. I have to respect that.

In the end, saying, Thank you for understanding. Well, let’s be friends, then would be just a convenient way of handling it for Haruhiro. Whether Mimorin accepted it or not was up to her.

In the same way, whether Haruhiro accepted Mimorin’s feelings or not was up to him, but Haruhiro couldn’t change Mimorin’s feelings. Mimorin’s feelings belonged to Mimorin alone.

“It’s not wrong,” he said.

The woman standing next to that incredible beauty was huge. She reminded him of Kajiko of the Wild Angels, only she was way older than Kajiko. She must have been in her thirties, too. She wore a massive sword slung over her back. She was a warrior, no doubt.

The remaining two were—Haruhiro opened his eyes wide despite himself.

They weren’t human.

The two of them were both men, but otherwise they were contrasting figures.

One had a short, barrel-like body. Not fat, though. He was a mass of muscle. No, a mass of muscle and beard and body hair, to be fully accurate. Much larger than his hairy, boulder-like body was the powerful-looking and terrifying ax he carried.

He was a dwarf.

The other was the opposite of a dwarf. He was slender. He was similar in height to Haruhiro, maybe a little taller. He looked like a beautiful and fair-skinned young boy. He was very pale, and the color of his hair and eyes seemed not so much bright as thin. He had a somewhat sharp look in his eyes, looking stubborn. He carried a bow and quiver, so maybe he was an archer.

The thing to take note of was his ears.

Long and pointed.

He was an elf.

“Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!” Kikkawa suddenly let out a strange cry. “An older paladin, a priest, a mage, a female warrior, and a dwarf, could you possibly be hiiiim?! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakira-san, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?!”

“Wait! Akira,” Ranta whispered and then immediately got down and kowtowed. “I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I’m very sorry! How clumsy of me! I accidentally called you just plain ‘Akira’! I’m so, so sorry, Akira-san! Please, please, overlook this mistake!”

“What a funny boy,” said the thirty-something beauty with a laugh.

Ranta’s cheeks turned a little red. “Heh heh. I’m a funny boy. Heh heh heh.”

“Akira-san...” Haruhiro covered his mouth with his hands. “Wait, you don’t mean that Akira-san?”

Soma and his group were living, walking legends. Naturally, as walking legends, they walked around places. That meant that, although they were legendary, they actually existed, and if you were lucky, you might pass by them somewhere. In fact, before Haruhiro and his party had ended up joining the Day Breakers by chance, they had once had Kemuri treat them to a round of drinks at Sherry’s Tavern.

But Akira-san was different.

Any volunteer soldier who didn’t know Akira-san’s name had to have been living under a rock. He was that famous, but Akira-san was far more distant than Soma and his group.

From what Haruhiro had heard, before Soma and his group had made their name, Akira-san and his party had long been seen as the strongest volunteer soldiers.

When Soma and his party had appeared, Akira-san had recognized their skills and praised them as the strongest. That was what had cemented their reputation.

That said, it had done nothing to diminish Akira-san’s dignity.

For instance, there were some volunteer soldiers who boasted, “I could take Soma in a one-on-one fight and win.” In other words, there were volunteer soldiers who thought themselves his equals, whether they said it aloud or not. Influential clans like Iron Knuckle and the Berserkers felt especially competitive towards Soma. So while many volunteer soldiers praised Soma as the strongest, his position as such was by no means absolute.

That was the difference between him and Akira-san. No volunteer soldier would compare themselves to Akira-san. It would be presumptuous for them to even think about whether they were stronger or weaker than Akira-san.

To put it in extreme terms, it would be like comparing your height against a mountain. It was natural for humans to be shorter than the mountains, and strange to even attempt to make the comparison. Akira-san wasn’t so much on another level as in another class altogether.

Akira-san had laughed, saying, “I’m getting old,” and then casually pushed the title of strongest off onto Soma and his party. Then, one day, he had set off on a journey with his comrades, never to be seen again. That was the sort of unverifiable story, practically a legend, that Haruhiro had heard about him.

Now they were saying this man was Akira-san? This old man?

“Ah...” Tokimune blinked. “Man, it really is Akira-san.”

“I’ve met you before,” said Akira-san, or the old man who supposedly was him, flashing Tokimune a wonderful smile. “Tokimune-kun. Tada-kun and Inui-kun. I believe it’s my first time meeting those young men and women.”

“Hey,” Tada said. And then the guy who looked like he had common sense at first glance, but was more arrogant than anyone, bowed his head.

“Heh.” Inui... grinned. “It’s an honor...”

“I’m K-K-Kikkawa, man! It’s a meet pleasure to you... No, that’s not it! It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Me A-Anna-san, yeah! You can call me Anna, too, though, okay?”

“I’m... Mimori.”

Oh, wow. Haruhiro was stunned. The Tokkis were acting all meek and quiet.

In contrast, Shihoru, Yume, Merry, Kuzaku, and even Ranta, who was on the ground kowtowing, were all stiff and nervous. Yume wasn’t the type to let someone’s name bother her, but she must have sensed something from Akira-san and his group.

It wasn’t oppressive by any means, but it was something.

Like, They sure are adults, or something like that? Although Akira-san was probably old enough to be their father, so they were clearly the children here. But it wasn’t just the age difference. It was experience. It was their weight, breadth, and depth as individuals. There was just too great a gap between them in all of those things. They could sense that clearly, but without having it feel like it was being rubbed in.

Akira-san was natural. That just made him more incredible.

“It’s a bit embarrassing to give my name at this point, but...” Akira-san said, extending his right hand, “I’m Akira.”

“Oh... uh... yeah.” Haruhiro wiped his right hand on his cloak, wiped it, and wiped it again, and then took Akira-san’s hand. “N-N-N-N-N-Nice to meet you. I-I-I-I’m Haruhiro.”

“It’s a pleasure,” said Akira-san, shaking his hand.

A handshake. I’m shaking hands with the Akira-san. His hand is big, warm, dry, powerful, and gentle. I could probably brag about this, huh? To whom is the question, though.

No, hold on.

There are other questions here, too.

“Wait, huh? Why would someone like you be looking for someone like me?” Haruhiro asked.

“I heard about you from Soma,” Akira-san explained like it was no big deal.

“From Soma-san?”

“Yeah. You all came here to meet with Soma, too, right?”

“Huh? Oh, yes, well... You’re right. Huh? Us ‘too’—Wait...”

“I’m Gogh.” The short man in a priest’s outfit produced a black, rectangular stone from his pocket. “It’s inconvenient that this is about all we have as proof of membership, isn’t it?”

“That’s...” Shihoru gasped.

“It’s a receiver!” Yume cried, clapping her hands to her cheeks.

“Then, that means...?” Kuzaku looked to Merry.

“It can’t be—” Merry held her chest and tried to calm herself.

“Yeah,” the female warrior said, clearly having a good time. “It means we’re comrades. Oh, by the way, I’m Kayo. Gogh is my honey.”

“Your honey...” Haruhiro felt dizzy enough to faint, for some reason.

“Yeah, kinda.” Gogh may have felt a bit embarrassed, because he looked off in the opposite direction. “It’s true, Kayo’s my wife. And this here is our son.”

“I’m Taro,” the elf boy brusquely introduced himself.

“Wait, but...” Ranta rudely looked back and forth from Gogh and Kayo to Taro.

“As you’ve already inferred, we’re not related by blood.” Taro glared at Ranta. “But Mom and Dad are my real parents. Did you want to say something about it?”

“Nope! Not a thing! No, no, no, no!” Ranta laughed, shaking his hands back and forth. “Wouldn’t dream of it! Geheheh! Nothing I’d want to say, you know? I mean, blood ties don’t matter anyway! If anyone wants to obsess over that stuff, I’ll kick their asses myself! Gahahaha! B-By the way, um... What is the name of the lady over there?”

“Me?” The beauty pointed to herself. “Did you want to know something about me?”

“No, um, well, like, if you’re available, maybe...”

“I’m an old woman compared to you,” the beauty said. “I’m thirty-seven.”

“Thirty-seven?!” Ranta shouted in disbelief. “You don’t look it! Not at all! No way! That’s the biggest shock in my whole life! Besides, who cares how old you are?! You’re above and beyond something like that!”

“Thanks. I’m Miho.”

“Miho-saaaan! M-M-Marry meeee!”

“I’m sorry,” Miho said, placing a hand on Akira-san’s arm. “I intend to devote my life to this guy here.”

“Gwarrrrrrghhhh! My love, struck down in an instaaaaaaaaaant!”

“Are these people going to be any use?” the dwarf snorted. “I can’t imagine Soma choosing them.”

That’s fair, Haruhiro thought. Especially Ranta. I mean, Ranta, I don’t think I’ve been this embarrassed by you in a long time. I wish I could kill you and then die myself.

“Branken.” Akira-san gave the dwarf a look of rebuke before turning a friendly gaze—or at least, one that felt that way—to Haruhiro. “I had been looking forward to meeting all of you. After all, I knew Rock and Io and their groups before they joined, but you guys, I only first heard about through Soma.”

“Yeah, I imagine you wouldn’t have met us,” said Haruhiro. “Um, I dunno what to say, but we haven’t been volunteer soldiers long, and we have no accomplishments to speak of...”

“You took down Death Spots, didn’t you?” asked Akira-san. “I hear you performed well at the offensive on Deadhead Watching Keep, too.”

“W-Well, yeah, we did!” Ranta puffed up his chest with pride. “Young up-and-comers! That’s us, I’d say! No denying we’ve got a real future ahead of us!”

“Man...” Haruhiro wanted to give Ranta a good, hard punch, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to do it.

“Hmm.” Tokimune looked back and forth from Akira-san to Haruhiro. “The Day Breakers, huh. I was surprised to hear Haruhiro was with them, but you are too, Akira-san? I feel like I heard from Kikkawa that the Rocks and Io’s party joined up with him, though.”

“They’re, like, totally the strongest!” Kikkawa was shaking his head around like he couldn’t restrain himself any longer. “Awesome! The legends, the original legends—Typhoon, the Rocks, and Io-sama’s team! It’s, like, a dream team, or something?! No, like, a real dream?! Like, dream, dreamier, dreamiest?!”

“Oh. Right.” Tada walked up, looking at Akira-san with appraising eyes. “Hey, bud. Er, Akira-san.”

Whoa, there. Haruhiro was startled. Did you just call him “bud”? Huh? What happened to meek and quiet mode? Kikkawa seems to be getting back into his groove, too. Whaaaaa...?

“You know about the Dusk Realm?” Tada didn’t even make an attempt at being polite.

“We haven’t been there yet.” Akira-san didn’t seem to mind. “But we’ve heard of it.”

“There’s this crazy monster there,” said Tada. “Like, so crazy it’s even got me excited. It’s a giant god.”

“Oh?”

“We’re planning to invite Soma and the others along, but do you want a piece of the action, too?” asked Tada.

He’s inviting them. He’s totally inviting them.

Haruhiro pinched the bridge of his nose. He was starting to cry.

What? What the hell, Tada? Don’t pull this kind of crap. This is Akira-san, okay? You’re asking the Akira-san if he wants a piece of the action, like some two-bit hoodlum. If you want to invite him, there’ve gotta be better ways. Like, in how you say it. Besides, it’s not okay. You wouldn’t invite him, not normally. Well, Tada’s never been normal. I knew that, but still. Isn’t he a bit too abnormal?

“Let me think about it,” said Akira-san.

Man. You’re such a nice guy, Akira-san. The way you’re being considerate to him. You don’t even get upset at someone as brazenly arrogant as Tada. You’ve got such character. It’s wonderful. Haruhiro was moved.

“Huh?” Tada snapped.

So, why’s Tada got a vein pulsing on his temple? Isn’t that weird? Has he gone nuts, maybe? He’s clearly not normal, right? I mean, it’s totally weird, right? It’s not something to snap over, is it? He’s got nothing to be mad about, right?

“What’s with that response?” Tada snarled. “Like you’re trying to dodge the question. Me, I hate it when people do that. Are you interested or not? Be clear about it.”

Oh, that’s his issue? Haruhiro thought. I get what he’s saying. I get it, but he doesn’t need to snap over it.

Haruhiro, his party, and even the other Tokkis were looking on in disbelief. As for Gogh, Kayo, Miho, Branken, and Taro’s reactions, he was too scared to check.

“Hmm.” Akira-san’s face stiffened. Or rather, he had a serious expression. At last, Akira-san nodded slightly.

Did he just bow his head?

“I’m sorry. You’re right, that response I just gave you was close to being a mere formality.”

“Yeah.” Tada mussed his own hair. “So, what’s your response?”

“It sounds interesting, but I can’t decide on the spot.”

“Why’s that?” Tada demanded.

“There are two reasons. First, I have no information on this giant god.”

“That’s what makes this interesting, isn’t it?” Tada shot back.

“You have a point there.” Akira-san wore a strangely childish, mischievous, and surprisingly nasty smile. “Here’s the other one. We’re meeting Soma tomorrow.”

“That’s just a matter of going to the Dusk Realm afterwards, you know.”

“If we end up going, that’s how it’ll be,” said Akira-san. “You said you mean to invite Soma, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let me talk to Soma about it, too.”

“I couldn’t ask for a better outcome,” Tada said.

“I can’t reply immediately.” Akira-san was still smiling. “But I’m inclined to go. You seem like you’d be fun to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with.”

“I’ll guarantee that.” Tada grinned and thrust his fist out. “I only know you from rumors, but I know myself pretty well.”

Akira-san bumped fists with Tada. “Let’s make sure we bring Soma, too. Fighting alongside him is stupidly fun.”

“Ha ha ha.” Tada clapped Akira-san on the shoulder.

“Ohoh!” Ranta jumped up.

“Yahooey!” Kikkawa jumped into the air, too, and let out a bizarre cry.

“It getting exciting now, yeah!” Anna-san made V-signs with her hands and spun in circles.

Mimorin was staring down at Branken for some reason. She probably thought he was cute.

“We did it, huh, Haruhiro?” Tokimune flashed his white teeth and poked Haruhiro in the side.

Haruhiro said nothing. For now, he just wanted to crouch down. He wanted to sit down. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep for a long time.

You can’t give an immediate reply? No matter what you say, if you’re saying you’ll bring Soma along, Akira-san, you’re already set on going, aren’t you? I don’t like it...

I don’t like it...

I just don’t get people who aren’t normal, and I don’t like it...

“Ha ha!” Tada laughed as he ground their foreheads together again.

Haruhiro didn’t back down. He couldn’t. He couldn’t retreat. With all he’d said, if he backed down and apologized, he’d look like a total fool. He was close to crying, but he wouldn’t cry.

“A novice like you, trying to tell me...!” Tada moved his head back and forth. Their foreheads rubbed together.

Someone save me, Haruhiro pleaded silently. Someone stop him. Like Tokimune.

However, the moment he looked away from Tada to seek salvation from one of the others, the contest would be decided. That was the sense he got.

“E-Even if I am a novice...”

“Even if you’re a novice, then what?!” Tada screamed.

“...I can tell what’s right and wrong better than you can!” Haruhiro finished. “If you’re going to be like a child who can’t tell the difference, I’ll have to put you on a leash and lead you around!”

“Oh, ho.” Tada suddenly drew back, adjusting the position of his glasses with his left index finger.

Haruhiro nearly fell forward.

“Not bad.”

...Did he just grin? He seems happy? Haruhiro was stunned. I don’t get him...

But I’m saved—I think? he thought uncertainly. At the very least, it doesn’t look like I’m about to get beaten to death. No, if I let my guard down, he might come at me with his hammer, maybe? Just to be safe, maybe I shouldn’t let my guard down?

“Haruhiro.” Tokimune flashed his white teeth and gave him a thumbs up. “Nice fight.”

Oh, shut up, Haruhiro thought, but he was too timid to get angry. “Thanks,” he said, bowing his head a little.

“Pft...” Taro burst out laughing, then covered his face with both hands. “Heheheheheh! Ahahahahaha! You’re weird! You’re all so weird! Bwahahahahahahaha! Gwahahahahahahahah!”

He was laughing. Laughing like crazy. Laughing so hard, it looked like he was gonna keel over. The sight of the elven pretty boy doubled over with laughter was unexpected, and it took Haruhiro aback.

Taro stayed that way for a while, then suddenly cleared his throat and put on a serious expression. But his face had turned red. Even his long ears were red. He might have been embarrassed.

“Dad once said, ‘Laughter is the best medicine,’” Taro said solemnly.

Well, okay then, Haruhiro thought. What a strange elf.

Regardless, in between events like that one, Haruhiro’s party and the Tokkis took seventy-two hours to dig a hole that was around thirty meters across, and roughly three meters deep. They set up a number of support beams inside the hole, put nets that came from the merchants remaining in the settlement over top, and then camouflaged it with grass to make it more like a real pit trap.

It was easy to tell from up close, so it could hardly be called a perfect job. Still, if they lured a giant creature like the hydra on top of it, maybe it might fall in? Possibly? Honestly, there was no way to know until they tried.

They had agreed in advance to gather back at the initial hill once they had a finished pit trap. The initial hill was to the west of the settlement.

Haruhiro and the others had built their structures around five kilometers south of the settlement. It was going to be along the way, so they had decided to stop at the settlement. They had finally become accustomed to their work as volunteer soldiers, so no one asked for luxuries like a proper bath, but they did want fresh water to drink.

Even before they reached the settlement, everyone thought something was strange. To put it more clearly, they had a bad feeling about it.

The giant god was visible far off to the west. If it was moving, that was not really a problem.

The thing was, it wasn’t. It was standing still.

Just before they reached the settlement, Anna-san idly said, “That... direction of initial, yeah...?”

Yeah, Haruhiro thought.

It was pretty noisy inside the settlement. While most of the merchants had packed up and left, there were still seventy to eighty volunteer soldiers gathered there, after all.

No, if they had only been gathered there, it wouldn’t have been this noisy.

“What was that, jerk?! You wanna fight?!” “One-on-One” Max of Iron Knuckle was closing in on a man with blazing red hair as if he might try to grab him at any moment.

There were men forming a wall around the two of them, jeering and shouting, and that was why it was so noisy.

“Do I want to fight?!” The red-haired man who wasn’t just tall but had a big eyes, a big nose, and a big mouth, too, shouted at Max and didn’t back down a bit. “You’re damn right I want to fight, Tiny!”

“Who’re you calling tiny?! I’m not tiny, you’re just stupidly big!” Max yelled.

“Don’t blame others for your being tiny, Tiny!”

“‘Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny’—is that all you can say, Fatty?!”

“What about me are you calling fat, Tiny?! I keep my body fat percentage in the single digits, so don’t underestimate my body, you tiny little shit!”

“How the hell are you keeping your body fat percentage down?! Don’t act like you’re hot stuff just because you dye your hair red, you big loaf!”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘oaf,’ you ignoramus!”

“Don’t try to pick grits with the way I speak, you red-haired ass! You wanna get burned?!”

“What the hell is picking grits?! And if you think you can burn me, then burn me, you ape!”

“Who’re you calling an ape, you ape?!”

“Nobody who’s called me an ape is still alive now! Not that anyone ever has, though, okay?!”

“I’ll call you it as many times as I want! You ape, ape, ape, ape, ape, aaaape, ape!”

“Why, you...!”

Red Hair’s fists roared through the air. Max... didn’t dodge. That was probably intentional. Without avoiding the blow, he lowered his waist and took the hit with his left cheek.

Max shook for a moment, but he held through it. “Your wimpy punches don’t hurt or even itch!”

“Oh, yeah?!” Red Hair battered Max’s knees with a low kick this time. “Then how’s this?!”

“Ugwahhhh!”

What a kick. It was bold and powerful, yet sharp. It looked almost like both of Max’s legs were broken. Yet still, Max was standing. With a smile, too.

“Gyahyahyahya! That won’t work on me!”

“You’re putting on a strong front!” Red Hair punched Max in the face once, then again, and again harder. “It’s your one strong point, you little ape! Take this!”

“It doesn’t! Hurt! Dammit! Not! At all! Gwahrah!”

“Kuh?!” Red Hair pulled back the boulder-like fists he was pummeling Max with.

His head. He’d punched Max in the head. No, had Max let him punch his head? The skull could be pretty hard. If it hit at the right angle, it could even deflect a steel sword. Still, Max was covered in blood at this point.

Doesn’t that hurt? Has he completely lost it? That was all that Haruhiro could think.

Max immediately grappled Red Hair. Grabbed him by the lower extremities. He immediately pushed him down. He mounted him, raining punches down on Red Hair from above.

“Oorah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!”

Red Hair was defending his face with both arms—or so it looked, but Max’s violent rush of attacks was incredible.

There’s no way he can fight back like that... The moment Haruhiro thought that, Red Hair thrust his right fist up from below.

If it had struck his chin, Max would surely have gone down. It would, without a doubt, have knocked him unconscious.

But Max twisted aside, dodging it by a hair’s breadth—and that wasn’t all. Without missing a beat, he seized Red Hair’s arm. He contorted himself around, going to put the joint in a lock.

However, Red Hair reacted quickly, too. He stood up, pulling Max up with him, who was clinging to his arm.

“Uwahahahaha!” Red Hair immediately swung his arm down, trying to slam Max into the ground.

Haruhiro imagined a scene of him being splattered, but that didn’t happen. Before he could be crushed, Max let go of Red Hair’s right arm. With a flexibility and nimbleness that made him look like an invertebrate, he spun around once and got back up.

“That’s not gonna work on me, Ducky! It’s the second time, after all!”

“I figured it wouldn’t! I still can’t forget how it felt smashing you up that time! I want another taste of it!”

“Well, isn’t that a coincidence? I dream of that time I beat the shit out of you sometimes, too!”

“Uwahahaha!”

Red Hair suddenly came out of his fighting stance and offered Max his right hand. Max grinned and slapped Red Hair’s right hand with his own.

The men around them all erupted into applause.

“Max! Maaaax!”

“Ducky’s the best!”

“Max is strong!”

“You moron, Ducky’s clearly stronger, you know?!”

“If they went at it for real, Ducky’s the one who’d die!”

“Shut up, you anus!”

“Now you said it, you stupid berserker!”

Some of the men were insulting each other, but they didn’t seem like they were ready to kill each other. It would have been a bit much to say they were getting along great, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

“‘Anus’?” Yume tilted her head to the side.

“It’s just an insult, probably,” Haruhiro said, trying to keep as calm as possible. “Anyway, you shouldn’t say that word.”

“Anuuuus?” Yume looked at him, mystified. “Why?”

“No, it’s fine, I guess,” Haruhiro muttered. “Not really, though...”

“Now listen, Yume,” Ranta said with a sigh, putting his hand on Yume’s shoulder. “Let me tell you about the anus. It’s, well, hard to explain in words, so I’ll point out where it is. You know how you’ve got an ass, right? Well, inside your ass is—”

“...Filthy,” Shihoru muttered to herself.

“Clever!” Kikkawa pointed to Shihoru.

Shihoru shrunk into herself. “I... I wasn’t trying to make a joke.”

“‘One-on-One’ Max and ‘Red Devil’ Ducky, huh.” Tada pushed up his glasses with his left index finger. “Yeah, they’re no match for me.”

“Those two are always going at it.” Tokimune looked at the two of them like a proud father might. “I guess it’s like they say—the more you fight, the better you get along.”

“I can’t understand that...” Merry shook her head.

“They were drawing blood...” Kuzaku seemed a bit weirded out, too.

“Heh...” Inui said.

I wish Inui would stay quiet, thought Haruhiro.

“To think they would begin that ritual without me....” Inui continued.

Because nothing he says makes a lick of sense.

“Oh, stupid fuckers! There other things to do first, yeah?!” Anna-san jumped up with her cheeks puffed up. “Other things? Why, shit? What was it? What?”

Honestly, what was it they ought to be doing first, huh? Haruhiro closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Perhaps he had always been the patient type. Either way, he felt like he had built up an impressive level of tolerance.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Shinohara approaching with a group of men and women in white capes. When compared to Max of Iron Knuckle and Ducky of the Berserkers, people it didn’t seem like he would ever understand, Shinohara seemed like a savior. He even had a halo of light around him. Was that an illusion?

Well, of course it was an illusion. There was no way he’d have an actual halo of light around him.

“Urkh...” Mimorin grimaced a little and narrowed her eyes.

Was he too brilliant for her? No way... could Mimorin see that halo of light, too?

Haruhiro blinked to confirm it for himself. No, not even Shinohara, great as he was, gave off a halo of light. That was obvious.

“Hey, Haruhiro, Tokimune,” Shinohara greeted them. “It looks like we’ve gotten into a bad situation, huh.”

“Hello,” Haruhiro nodded, looking at Shinohara with upturned eyes, “A bad situation? What do you mean by—”

“Allow myself, Kimura of Orion, to explain,” the bespectacled man with the crew cut butted in.

This guy again.

“We noticed that the giant god had stopped moving roughly two hours ago. Our pit trap was already complete, so we decided to pinpoint the giant god’s current location. Not exactly a difficult task. If you approach the giant god, its location becomes readily apparent. And so, we saw it. The giant god towering over the initial hill. Oh, how awful! For that is our only way home! Now, while we may not be completely unable to return, to do so would be incredibly difficult!”

Wh-What did you say? Haruhiro almost said in a completely monotone voice, but he stopped himself. He wasn’t that surprised.

He was depressed that his worst prediction, the one he hadn’t wanted to think about, had come true. But that was all. That was all it was.

From the looks of Shihoru, Merry, and Kuzaku, this had killed any enthusiasm they had.

Yume seemed to be deep in thought. It looked like she’d come to a conclusion. “...Ah! If we can’t go back, does that mean we’ve got no way of goin’ home?!”

“He already said that! Are you a moron?!” Ranta shouted at her.

“Yume’s no moron,” she defended. “People who call people morons, they’re the real morons, y’know.”

“Well, following your logic, are the people who call people geniuses the real geniuses, too?!” Ranta hollered.

“Hmm. Probably, don’tcha think?”

“You genius! You genius! Yume, you’re a real beautiful genius!”

“Oh? Really? Ranta, so that’s how you’ve been feelin’ about Yume,” she beamed. “It’s kinda embarrassin’.”

“Y-You dummy! That’s not what I meant! It’s not like that, okay?!”

“Your face is all red...” Shihoru gave Ranta the side-eye, shivering with disgust. “So gross...”

“Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Whose face is all red, damn it?! And what do you mean, gross?!”

“Hmm.” Kimura neatly adjusted the position of his glasses, looking back and forth from Ranta to Yume. “I apologize if this is a delicate question, but are you two in a deeply romantic relationship? In short, are you boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“Wh-Whaa?!” Ranta flipped out so bad he did a little dance. “Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-What are you saying, you idiot?! D-D-D-D-Don’t make me laugh!”

“Nuh uh.” Yume swiftly denied it. “You’re wrong.”

“Y-Y-Y-Y-Yeah! Y-Y-Y-Y-You’re wrong! D-D-D-D-Don’t misunderstand! I’d never settle for her! I mean, look at her tiny tits!”

“Don’t call them tiny!”

“What’s wrong with tiny tits?!” Kimura was suddenly very angry. “Flat is sublime! Mankind has yet to invent anything that can transcend the flat chest! By no means!”

“Kimura, calm down.” Shinohara looked somewhat troubled as he patted Kimura on the shoulder.

“Oh, pardon me.” Kimura laughed. “I lost my composure there. However, allow me to clear up any misunderstandings. While it is my personal philosophy that flat chests are the pinnacle of all things, I do understand that they are not the only things of value. Naturally, I can get off to huge breasts, too! In fact, I am flexible enough to adapt to any bust size!”

“You’re passionate!” Kikkawa pumped his arm. “You’ve got passion, Kimuracchi! I get it, I so get it! I’m the same way, man! I’m good with any size, yeah!”

“Yeah!”

Kimura and Kikkawa exchanged a firm handshake. It seemed that a passionate friendship had formed between them.

Even Orion had weirdos like this, huh. Somehow, that was a deeply moving discovery.

“Um, yeah...” Anna-san shrugged her shoulders and look at them with disappointment. “Every time you open your mouth, you say boobies, boobies, boobies! That? That called sexual harassment, yeah! What if Anna-san and other ladies start talking about dick size in front of you? Think how that would send you to heaven, you tiny-dick losers!”

Merry furrowed her brow. “Hayashi? What’s wrong?”

Looking over, Merry’s former comrade Hayashi was crouched over. “...No. It’s nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Really, nothing...”

“Oh, my God!” Anna-san covered her mouth. “Are you real tiny dick? Nothing to worry about, yeah? Theories say even if it small, it still function no problem...”

“Theories say,” Mimorin said with no expression.

Why was she repeating it?

Hayashi was on the verge of tears at this point. The poor guy. But it would have been awkward to go comfort him. It wasn’t as if Haruhiro was so small he needed to be pitied. He couldn’t offer support, or really say much of anything in this situation. Maybe none of the guys could, and they just had to keep quiet?

“Hmph...” Tada licked his lips. “Basically, we’re gonna have to fight. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

That was Tada-san for you. No social graces whatsoever. For Tada, it didn’t matter to him, and he probably just didn’t care. That was why he ignored it. It was a very Tada way of doing things. In this case, Haruhiro was grateful for it.

No? Am I grateful? Huh? “We have to fight”? Hold on.

“What do you mean—” Haruhiro forgot what he was about to ask. More precisely, the fact that he was even trying to say something at all slipped right out of his mind. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong.

Something echoed past.

A sound? No, it was more a vibration than a sound. Though, if I recall, sound is a vibration, so I guess it was the same as a sound. What kind of sound? Haruhiro wasn’t sure, but it was loud. His whole body shook as if it had become one large eardrum. His very being was shaken by the sound.

With no time for surprise, he was at the sound’s mercy. This was a first-time experience for him. Where was the sound coming from? Where did it come from, and how far did it go? He wasn’t sure how vast the Dusk Realm was, but it couldn’t be that small. Had it reached the very ends of it?

Haruhiro saw the sound. It shook the world and distorted it. The distortions were visible to the eye.

Haruhiro clutched his chest. His heart was racing like crazy. The sound passed in a few moments, at most. However, his heart was still shaking. It was different from his pulse. Was it numb? It felt something like that.

He looked around. No one was totally fine. Everyone had been hit by that sound just now. Shihoru was sitting on the ground, clutching her head.

“Are you okay?” Merry held Shihoru as she helped her to her feet.

Shihoru nodded, but it seemed she couldn’t get any words out. There were tears in her eyes.

“What... do you think... that was, just now?” Haruhiro tried asking Shinohara, but then he thought Shinohara would be just as much of a loss for an answer as he was.

As he expected, Shinohara shook his head. He had a sharper look in his eyes than usual. “Dunno... but I doubt it’s a good sign.”

“You think?” Tokimune let out a deep breath, then flashed his white teeth. “I couldn’t be more excited, though.”

Ah... This isn’t gonna end well, Haruhiro thought. I can say from experience, nothing good ever happens when Tokimune says that. This is the worst. I don’t like this anymore. How did things end up like this? Whose fault is it? What the hell? Stop, please. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

Haruhiro unleashed every complaint he could think of inside his head, and then bottled them all up.

I want to run away. I can’t, though.

I’m ready for this—but that’s something I can’t say. It’s not possible. But I have to brace myself. No matter what happens, all I can do is cope with it. No matter what happens?

Just what’s going to happen here?

I don’t know.

As if I possibly could.

Iron Knuckle and the Berserkers had each gathered into their respective groups to talk about it. Orion was doing the same. Those who weren’t in a clan, or had come to the Dusk Realm as an individual party, not as part of their clan, were grouping together, too, out of uncertainty. Somehow, though Haruhiro’s party and the Tokkis hadn’t really decided to do this, the flow of things led them to join Orion’s group.

They discussed a great number of things.

Where’s Soma’s party? Where are Akira-san and his party? What was that sound just now? What should we do? What can we do for the time being? We should go home. Even if we were to return home, the problem is there’s no easy way to do that. Well, what should we do then? We should get out of here. Why would we move away from the settlement? Whatever we do, we need to decide on a general direction to take. It’s better if we don’t split up. Best if we stick together. No, maybe it would actually be better to split up and not focus ourselves in one place? If everyone is clustered together, there’s the risk we’ll all be wiped out. Wiped out? What do you mean, wiped out? We don’t know yet, right? It could be that nothing will happen. Where are Soma and his group? We were originally going to gather at the initial hill. Now we can’t; that’s why Orion came to the settlement. It’s probably the same for the others. So, where are Soma and his group? Akira-san and his group? What do we do? What should we do? What’s the right course of action?

It more or less just went in circles. They couldn’t find any answers. Iron Knuckle and the Berserkers weren’t moving, either.

Eventually, Shinohara and Kimura got into a discussion. It looked like the two of them would decide what to do for Orion.

There were volunteer soldiers scattered around, arguing over this or that. It was noisy. Not just that—there was a restlessness in the air.

Haruhiro had to say something. Had to talk to his comrades. Because Haruhiro was the leader. He had to decide. That was how he felt, but he couldn’t think straight. Nothing came to mind.

This was no good. He couldn’t let things stay this way. Honestly, that was the only thing Haruhiro knew. He didn’t want to look his comrades in the eye, so he hung his head.

No good. This is no good. It’s seriously no good. He felt ill. I can’t breathe properly. It hurts. Hadn’t I braced myself for the worst? How pathetic. Yeah, that’s right. I’m a pathetic person. I know. I can’t be decisive even if I want to. I mean, that’s not what I am.

“Listen,” Kuzaku said. “Me, I’m going to follow you. No matter what happens, I’m with you, Haruhiro. I thought I should say that, at least.”

“M-Me, too,” Shihoru raised her hand a little. “Haruhiro-kun, you’ve saved me so many times. I wanted to say that...”

“It’s gotta be Haru-kun, y’know,” Yume said with a giggle.

“I’m sure,” Merry smiled. “If you hadn’t been there, Haru, something terrible would have happened. I mean that in so many ways. I’m here now thanks to you.”

It all resonated.

In so many ways.

Merry’s words in particular.

That’s what it’s like, huh?

It wasn’t quite the right way to put it, but he felt like something precious had been snatched away from him.

If only he had realized sooner. That he truly loved Merry.

Still, even if he had realized it, this was Haruhiro. Surely he couldn’t have done anything. In other words, it would have been the same.

Yes. The same. Things had turned out this way because they needed to.

“Heh.” Ranta snorted derisively. “You guys are so cheesy. Did you want to trigger your death flags that badly? You’re morons. Seriously, seriously.”

It was actually reassuring. If Ranta didn’t act like Ranta, it would have thrown Haruhiro off-balance.

Haruhiro spun his shoulders around. Worked out the tension. What good was being on edge going to do him? That wasn’t the sort of situation this was.

“They won’t die, man.” Haruhiro’s eyes probably looked sleepy right now. Of course, he wasn’t tired. “I won’t let anyone else die.”

The moment he said it, he started to think things like, Well, that’s the hope, I’ll work myself practically to death to keep everyone alive, that’s what I’m saying, it’s an expression of intent, I don’t know if it’s possible or not, but—

This was Haruhiro. He couldn’t suddenly change who he was. However, pretending to have changed—that, to some degree, he could do.

“Ducky, we’re going!” “One-on-One” Max led Iron Knuckle into action. It looked like they’d be heading for the initial hill.

“Do what you want! The Berserkers are staying on standby!” “Red Devil” Ducky shouted back. It looked like the Berserkers planned to stay in the settlement.

Max and Ducky had different builds, but they were the same type. Because they were the leaders, or bosses, rather, Iron Knuckle and the Berserkers gave off a similar aura. They were aggressive and showy.

Iron Knuckle used blue and black, while the Berserkers used red as their signifying colors, and each of the members had those colors displayed on their equipment. It looked like they had clan symbols, too. Iron Knuckle’s was a clenched fist, while the Berserkers used a skull with a cross sword and ax. However, though they were similar, Iron Knuckle were cheerful and mischievous, giving off what could be taken as a more youthful vibe. The Berserkers had what could charitably have been called a sense of dignity, or less charitably called cunning.

Iron Knuckle were going offensive, the Berserkers were defensive. Shinohara and Kimura were still talking it over. What would the Tokkis do? Haruhiro looked to Tokimune to gauge his reaction.

Huh? Is something weird? he thought suddenly. By weird, I mean—this is...

This sound.

Haruhiro looked to the east. Then, to the south.

It’s coming. Getting closer. A white giant. Footsteps, huh. That’s right. This rumbling... It’s white giant footsteps. No, but this... But wait, huh? These white giants, the number of them...

It’s not just one or two, is it? About how many? I don’t know. Maybe they’re still far off?

They’re coming from over there, and over there, too?

I can’t quite count. It’s too many to. I don’t have time to sit here and count.

“Th-There’s a swarm of white giants!” Haruhiro’s voice sounded like it might crack.

“Whoa...” Even Tokimune was shocked. “They’re coming from all over, huh.”

Tada laughed, spinning his warhammer around. “That’s how I like it.”

“Heh...” Inui spread his arms wide. “Wind of ruin, blow with wild abandon!”

“You no say bad omen things, yeah?!” Anna-san punched Inui.

“I’ll ard-gu Anna-san with my fe-li!” Kikkawa pointed to himself with his thumb.

“Ard-gu and fe-li...” Haruhiro muttered despite himself. They were probably some of Kikkawa’s signature scrambled words, but he couldn’t even figure out what they meant anymore.

“Kwahh,” Mimorin let out a strange sound as she drew her sword.

“Looks like we’ve gotta fight, damn it.” Ranta lowered the visor on his helmet.

“But even if we’re gonna fight...” Kuzaku adjusted his helmet and readied his shield. “...can we, really?”

Yume, Shihoru, and Merry were all silent. Their expressions were stiff and grim. Even Yume was grimacing.

Haruhiro honestly wanted to flee. But the question was, where to? Yeah, it didn’t look like there was anywhere. Because the giant god was at the initial hill.

Could the giant god have made that incredible sound? That was the kind of thing he was thinking. Then it turned out like this? They say let sleeping gods lie, but maybe we volunteer soldiers angered the gods of this Dusk Realm?

It didn’t matter. At the very least, it wasn’t anything to think about now.

“Hey, Shinohara!” Ducky shouted, waving to them. “Help us out here for now! Splitting up isn’t a smart plan!”

“Let’s call back Iron Knuckle, too.” Shinohara nodded. “This is a time when we need to pull together, clan differences aside! Orion will do as it always does!”

“Listen, don’t you dare get scared and turn your backs on the enemy!” Ducky roared. “If you turn tail, expect to get killed! Face forward until you die!”

“What’s that red-haired guy stating the obvious for?” Tada laughed mockingly.

Was that guy not afraid?

Haruhiro was afraid. He could feel his knees and the bottom of his stomach quivering.

Iron Knuckle turned around and came back, led by Max.

“They’re here, they’re here, they’re here!” Tokimune banged on his shield with his sword.

Oh, I don’t want to look— But Haruhiro had to look. The white giants. They’re still a ways off to the south. The white giants to the east are pretty close. From what I can see, there are around ten, maybe? There could be more behind them.

While there were differences between individual white giants, they could be categorized into roughly three size categories. The four-meter class, the six-meter class, and the eight-meter class. Those in the eight-meter class were rare, and Haruhiro had never seen one before.

There were two of what looked to be those eight-meter class white giants. One was six-meter class, and the rest were four-meter class.

Haruhiro wasn’t brave and decisive, or stout-hearted, or clear-thinking, or calm. The best he could manage was to act out the role of the dauntless leader. He needed to play that role somehow.

Shihoru. Yume. Ranta. Merry. Kuzaku. He looked to each of their faces. I have comrades, and I don’t want any of them to die. That’s why we need to overcome this together.

“If you’re sleepy, just go to sleep, leader,” Ranta laughed.

“How many times do I have to tell you? I was born with these eyes.” Haruhiro thumped one fist against his chest. “—Okay. Let’s get this job done. Sleep can wait until after that.”

“Nice!” Kuzaku pumped his arm.

Merry placed her hand over her chest, looked up to the heavens, and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Yeah!” Yume was all smiles.

“See, I told you so!” Ranta screamed. He was so excited, he was babbling nonsense.

“Happy New Year! Wow!” Kikkawa made even less sense.

Why is it suddenly New Year’s?

Haruhiro didn’t want to rain on their parade, but this wasn’t the end of things. He took a short breath.

“Next! Six Pansukes, two Tori-sans, one four-meter class giant! Incoming!”

“Hahahahaha!” Tada laughed as he pushed up his glasses with his left index finger. “It’s nice having no shortage of enemies to crush.”

“We can have at them with mirth and good cheer, huh!” Tokimune seemed to truly be enjoying himself. “Let’s do this, guys! Anna-san, we’re counting on you for some good cheering!”

“You can super-duper leave it to me, yeah!” Anna-san puffed her chest out with pride and thrust her fist forward. “For as long as sun is in sky and Anna-san is on ground, victory will be yours! Everybody, fight for Anna-san!”

What, this is all for Anna-san now? Haruhiro wasn’t sure he was down with that, but the others were erupting in cheers, and it seemed to be raising their morale, so he decided to let it slide.

“Ranta, take one of the Tori-sans!” he called. “Kuzaku, take as many Pansukes as you think you can handle!”

“I’ll do it, so you better pay me the proper respect, Parupiro!” Ranta hollered.

“’Kay!” Kuzaku called.

“Merry, Yume, Shihoru, you stay bunched together for now!”

“Got it!”

“Meow!”

“...Okay!”

“Tada!” Tokimune took off running. “We’re gonna take out the white giant!”

“I could do it myself,” Tada bragged.

“Count me in to help, too! Peace, peace! Yay, yay, yay!” Kikkawa yelled.

Tada and Kikkawa followed Tokimune. It looked like Mimorin would be guarding Anna-san. Inui, meanwhile, was wandering around aimlessly near Shihoru.

No, seriously, what is with that guy?

Kuzaku could manage three of the Pansukes, while Haruhiro, Merry, Yume, and Shihoru would quickly take care of the rest. One of the Tori-sans would go to Ranta, but what about the other?

Haruhiro could probably count on Tokimune, Tada, and Kikkawa to handle the white giant. He glanced towards the valley. They hadn’t exactly finished off the six-meter class, so it was sure to climb back up here eventually. They needed to wipe out the reinforcements before that, and then high-tail it out of here.

Hurry. But don’t be hasty.

Tada lunged towards the white giant.

Man, I’m amazed he can do that without being afraid.

Kuzaku bravely used Bash on the Pansukes’ spears, sweeping them aside with his long sword. Their party paladin wasn’t a nutcase like Tada. Because of that, it made Haruhiro think, Damn, Kuzaku’s incredible. He’s awesome, seriously. Maybe I have Merry to thank for that. Yeah, I figure he wouldn’t want to look lame in front of the person he loves.

Whatever the case, he wouldn’t let Kuzaku’s hard work go to waste.

He could see that line.

That dimly shining line.

It wasn’t straight. It bent and twisted many times. It was a proposal being offered to him by his situational awareness that arose from his observations, combined with his predictions based on experience.

Hey, if I do this right now, wouldn’t it work out? it said. If he delayed even a tenth of a second, it would be of no use anymore. In Haruhiro’s case, fortunately, whether by habit or some other force, he never hesitated when he saw the line—or rather, by the time he saw it, he was already on the move.

With smooth steps, he rushed past one of the Pansukes, burying his dagger in the cultist’s one eye as he did.

While pulling it free, he performed a Shatter on the Pansuke next to him, then followed up by using the sap in his left hand to perform Hitter on the other Pansuke’s jaw.

To top it all off, he landed a Shatter on yet another Pansuke. Then, he pulled back.

“Ohhhhhhhh!” Kuzaku scattered the Pansukes with his longsword and shield. One Pansuke was dead, and three had been thrown into disorder when Haruhiro had caught them by surprise, so they couldn’t stop Kuzaku.

Do we all pile on them now? No, Haruhiro thought.

“Ah!” Kuzaku backed away. When someone took a swing at him with a Lightning Sword Dolphin, all he could do was avoid it.

It was a Tori-san. Two of them, at that. What was Ranta doing?

“Exhaust!”

There he was. About damn time.

Ranta leapt in and attacked one of the Tori-sans from the side. There was a loud clash as Lightning Sword Dolphin met Lightning Sword Dolphin. Ranta won the pushing contest and threw the Tori-san off-balance. But there were two Tori-sans. The other one took a thrust at Ranta.

“Exhaust!” Ranta shot straight backwards at an incredible speed.

If the Tori-sans went after him, they would be playing right into Ranta’s hands. Sadly, they didn’t. The Tori-sans both focused their attacks on Kuzaku.

“Oh, crap! I can’t take two of them!” Kuzaku was forced to run around.

The Pansukes were using that opening to attempt to regroup.

“Rantaaaa!” Haruhiro shouted despite himself.

“I’m just getting started, okay?” Ranta contorted his entire body and took up a strange pose with his Lightning Sword Dolphin turned sideways. “O Darkness! O Lord of Vice! Dread Wave!”

Maybe his moronic pose caught their attention, because it wasn’t just Haruhiro—the Pansukes and Tori-sans were staring at Ranta, too.

Well, not like anything will happen, though.

That much was obvious. It wasn’t only the God of Light, Lumiaris, whose power didn’t reach the Dusk Realm. The Dark God, Skullhell’s, didn’t either.

“Huh?” Haruhiro looked on with surprise and dismay. “What? Huh? Why?”

“Hmph...” Ranta looked down at the ground. “Totally forgot I can’t use magic here.”

“Stupid Rantaaaa!” Yume shouted.

Ranta really was an idiot, and a piece of trash, and he was beyond all help, but the enemy had stopped moving. Even if this was an unexpected side effect of his idiocy, as volunteer soldiers, they ought to exploit it to its fullest.

“Ohm, rel, ect, el, nemun, darsh!”

Shadow Pond. Shihoru affixed a shadow elemental to the ground where the two Tori-sans were standing. They wouldn’t be moving from that spot for a while.

“Get the Pansukes!” Haruhiro immediately ordered, and Kuzaku lunged at them.

“Zeeah! Rahhh! Oryahhhhh!” he yelled.

Haruhiro circled around behind the Pansukes. Yume drew her machete and came at them swinging. Merry didn’t leave Shihoru’s side.

Suddenly, though Haruhiro didn’t see the line, he got the feeling he could take one of them down. Gotta kill them when I can, he reasoned. Okay, now’s the time...

But when he went in for a Backstab, someone suddenly stole his kill.

“Heh!” It was Inui. That deviant Inui landed a jump-kick on the Pansuke’s back, knocking him down, then stomped hard on the cultist’s jaw.

Crack. There was an unpleasant sound, and his neck bent in a direction it was never meant to.

“I am Inui! He who brings destruction from the heavens!”

Man, that was impressive and all. But it came out of nowhere. You spooked me.

Inui turned to Shihoru with a mysterious glint in the one eye that wasn’t covered by his eyepatch. “Oh, my fated bride, walk the path of carnage with me!”

“No way.” It was an immediate response, and in a rather strong tone for Shihoru. Well, of course it would be.

“Heh...” Inui turned and went the other way. “For now, I bid you farewell...”

—Wait, huh? You’re going? Where the hell to?

That wasn’t clear, but Inui dashed off.

Well... Maybe we’ll just let him do what he wants? I mean, he doesn’t have to come back if he doesn’t want to. We’re busy enough taking care of ourselves.

Tokimune, Tada, and Kikkawa were circling the white giant as they attacked it. It looked like Tokimune and Kikkawa were harassing it and acting as decoys, while Tada was the one putting in the heavy blows. The white giant already had damage to both of its legs. The way things were going, it looked like those three could take it out, but it wasn’t going to be quick.

There’s still time before the Tori-sans break free from Shadow Pond or its effect expires. In that time, if we can just get the four Pansukes—

But while Haruhiro was thinking that...

“Delm, hel, en, balk, zel, arve!”

...the Tori-sans got blown away. It was the Blast spell.

They were pounded into the ground, then rolled a bit—but they were getting up. It didn’t look like they were completely unharmed, but they didn’t seem to have taken serious injuries from it, either.

Miiiimoriiiin, Haruhiro moaned silently. Damn, their ponchos really are durable.

“Oh, well.” Muttering to himself a little, Haruhiro decided to change gears. He couldn’t change what had already happened. Kuzaku, Haruhiro, Ranta, Yume, Merry, Shihoru, and Mimorin would have to take out the two Tori-sans and four Pansukes.

We’ve even got Anna-san cheering us on, so we do have the numerical advantage, you know. We can do it. We should be able to. I’m sure of it. Probably.

Kuzaku kept three of the Pansukes under control, while Yume dealt with the other. Ranta looked like he was aiming for a Tori-san. If he didn’t do so, they’d be in trouble.

While keeping an eye on the Tori-sans, first they would have to quickly reduce the number of Pansukes, and then—

Haruhiro glanced towards the valley. Just to be on the safe side.

He looked again to check what he was seeing.

“...Already?”

This is terrible.

Wasn’t that the six-meter class white giant trying to climb up out of the valley?

It was a shock, but Haruhiro didn’t lose his head over it. He couldn’t claim this had been within his range of expectations. He’d been focused on other things, after all. But they just had to cope with it.

The volunteer soldiers were pulling back.

They’re retreating?

Where’re they gonna run to?

And why?

“That, huh...” he realized. This time, he couldn’t help but lose his head.

From the south.

There’s something coming.

It’s big, white, and writhing.

Well, yeah, of course. Of course they’d run. I want to run, too. There’s no choice but to run from that thing.

Its height wasn’t that enormous, although it did look bigger than the six-meter class giant. The problem was its length. It was twenty meters long, maybe twenty-five. It might have even reached thirty meters long. Possibly even more.

The hydra.

It was an unsettling, giant creature that looked like nine snakes of two to three meters in diameter had all been balled up together. If it attacked them, what would they do?

Haruhiro, of course, would flee to the ends of the earth. That would be the normal response.

It seemed Iron Knuckle, the Berserkers, and Orion all agreed with Haruhiro’s view. They were human, too. Thank goodness. Was that good? No? It wasn’t particularly good.

Haruhiro didn’t take any time to think about what to do. “Tokimune, it’s the hydra! We’ve gotta run!”

“Whoa...!” Tokimune made his decision quickly. “Okay, everyone run! Protect Anna-san!”

“Just when we were almost done here. Dammit.” Though he complained while he did it, Tada shouldered his warhammer and took off at a run.

“Run, run, ruuuun! Yep! Run!” Kikkawa was cheery even at time like this.

Even though Anna-san was supposed to be the group’s cheerleader, she was grinding her teeth in audible frustration. “It time for strategic retreat, yeah, damn it! No choice, yeah?!”

“Let’s go.” Mimorin grabbed Anna-san by the scruff of the neck and dragged her away.

“Meow...!” Yume turned and fled.

“Just when I was about to show you all how great I am!” Ranta went, too.

Merry hesitated.

“I’ll be fine, so go!” Kuzaku didn’t back away. Or rather, he couldn’t. If he tried to, the Pansukes would gang up on him and beat him to a pulp.

“Haruhiro-kun...?!” Shihoru looked to Haruhiro.

“Go, Shihoru! You, too, Merry!” Haruhiro ran as fast as he could, trying to will himself to See it, see it! —That line. It was times like this when he really wanted to see it.

But, of course, it wasn’t anything so convenient.

Haruhiro was no hero. He was just a leader. That’s why he had no choice to do what he should, and what he could, as a leader.

“Kuzaku, give ’em hell!” he called.

“Roger that! Ruahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Kuzaku used his longsword to sweep a number of spears away, then used Bash on the Pansuke in front of him. “Dahhhhh! Gahhseahhh! Rahh! Nwahhhhhhhh!”

Without stopping, Kuzaku swung his sword around while protecting himself with his shield, and advanced. Even when the Pansukes’ spears reached his armor, he ignored them and advanced.

Kuzaku was wearing sturdy plate armor. That said, when he took a good hard hit to his armor, it still had to hurt. He’d get bruised, at least.

Hang in there. Hang in there, please, Kuzaku.

“There!” Haruhiro grappled one of the Pansukes, not from behind, but from the side, and strangled him using his left arm while he stabbed his dagger into the cultist’s single eye.

That was pretty forced just now, wasn’t it? If I’d messed up my timing even a little, I’d have been in danger. Scary...!

He could feel a cold mass of fear cling to the inside of his stomach. But so what? What difference did it make?

Haruhiro got in close to another Pansuke, pulling off a combo with Shatter and Hitter. Yet another Pansuke reached out to get him with his spear, but he jumped to avoid it. Even as he cried out, Oh, crap, oh, crap, this is seriously dangerous, in his heart, he Swatted the spear twice.

While screaming, Seriously, I’ve had enough, give me a break, augh! in his head, he stepped in and used Arrest to seize the Pansuke’s arm, followed by a leg sweep to trip him.

“Assuh!” Kuzaku let out a mysterious shout to psyche himself up, then used Bash to knock one Pansuke flying.

Now, let’s run, Haruhiro thought.

He didn’t have to say anything to get that message across. Haruhiro and Kuzaku took off running at the same time.

“Ha ha!” Kuzaku laughed as he ran. “This is awesome! Ha ha ha! Just awesome!”

No, um, buddy, now’s not the time for laughing. Well, it’s not like I don’t get how he feels. Kuzaku must have been pretty scared, too. Now that he’s set free from it, he’s feeling a high. But is that all? He’s enjoying this crazy bad situation so much he can’t help himself. Could that be part of it? The thrill of it all is addictive. I want to live in peace. That’s how I really feel, but the question is if I can. What would a life without stuff like this be like? Surprisingly less boring than I might expect...?

The Pansukes, the Tori-sans, and the four-meter class white giant chased after them. Behind them were volunteer soldiers, cultists, white giants, and even the hydra.

Where they were headed was the valley and the six-meter class white giant that would soon crawl up out of it.

This is the worst. I feel terrible. I wish this were all just a dream. Can someone take my place? Like, I want some help here, you know? I’m not kidding. If someone will save us, and guarantee me and my comrades our safety, I’ll do anything. No lie. No matter what it is.

I don’t want to go through all this. It’s ultra-stressful, you know? Man, I’ve had it with this, seriously. I’m fed up. It’s not fun at all, okay?

I think we might die, too. This time, we may just be out of luck. What’ll happen when we die? Do we go to heaven? Or hell, maybe? Do we cease to exist? Return to the void?

I don’t want to die. I’m scared of dying. I don’t wanna. No, no, no, I don’t want this.

Yeah. I knew it. I don’t need this. This sort of situation. I don’t mind a little thrill now and then, but I don’t need this extreme life-and-death stuff. Haruhiro felt it quite keenly. I want to live in peace!

Tokimune and the others who had gone on ahead of them looked like they were taking a detour around the valley to reach the initial hill.

Will they be able to avoid the six-meter class that way? Haruhiro thought. Or not? I dunno, maybe it could go either way?

It didn’t seem like their pursuers were about to catch up to them for the moment.

Even if the route was a bit questionable, they had to take it.

The six-meter class was already out of the valley up to its waist. It supported itself with its left arm and swung with its right.

“Go, go, go, go, go!” the giant called.

It was trying to slam Tokimune and Tada with its right hand.

“Dodge it!” Haruhiro shouted.

They didn’t need him to tell them that. Tokimune, Tada, and even Kikkawa threw themselves to the ground to get away from the white giant’s right hand.

The white giant braced itself with both arms and lifted its body up. While it was doing that, Mimorin and Anna-san, Ranta, Yume, Shihoru, and Merry all passed in front of it.

Inui was missing. But who cared about that deviant?

Haruhiro and Kuzaku stood there, unable to move.

“Whoaaaaaaaaaa?!” Haruhiro shouted.

“Wha... Wh-Wh-Wh-Wha...?!” Kuzaku sputtered.

The six-meter class white giant rose up before their very eyes. To be precise, it had just gotten out of the valley, so it was still down on one knee, but it was still big. It was huuuuge. But if they stopped here, the enemies behind them would catch up. It would be like saying, Why, yes, please do try to hit us, to the white giant, too.

Haruhiro slapped Kuzaku on the back. It was do or die time. “G-Go! Go for it! We have to!”

“Guhsuh!”

What the hell does “guhsuh” mean?

That wasn’t clear, but Kuzaku took off running. His running form was a little awkward, though. Not that Haruhiro’s was much better.

As if we could run smoothly now!

“Go, go...!”

The white giant tried to slug Kuzaku and Haruhiro with its left hand while still on one knee, or maybe it was trying to grab and crush them instead.

“Bwuh...!” Kuzaku slid headfirst to the ground, avoiding the white giant’s right hand.

“Ah...!” Haruhiro rolled to avoid it.

“Go, go, go!”

Next was the left hand. It came down at them.

“Uwahhhhhhhhhhh?!” Kuzaku tossed his shield and kept crawling forward. He was desperate.

Of course, Haruhiro was dashing like a madman with his butt on fire, too.

“Nnnnngh!” he grunted.

Is it gonna hit? Is it gonna hit me? Am I gonna get crushed?

When the ground shook violently, he let out a weird little shriek. It looked like he had made it.

“M-My shield!” Kuzaku gasped.

“I-I-I-I-It’s not worth your life, okay?!” Haruhiro yelled.

It got up!

The white giant got up!

“Go! Go, go! Go! Go, go! Go! Go, go, go!” The six-meter class white giant got up and danced. No, maybe it wasn’t dancing, but the way it was coming at Haruhiro and Kuzaku, it looked like it was following the steps of some sort of dance.

I don’t even know what’s happening anymore. It’s going in random directions. Anyway, we need to avoid its feet. That’s the best we can manage. We need to catch up with the others. I’d really love to do that, and we’re farther away from the valley than we were before, but what direction did they go in? No, that’s not what—

“Somersault Booooooooomb!”

Huh?

The white giant stopped moving. Or rather, it stumbled. That was because someone had slammed a warhammer into its left ankle, which was the leg that had been supporting it at the time.

—Tada.

Why is Tada here?

It wasn’t just Tada.

“Hah...!” called Tokimune.

When Tada slammed it with his Somersault Bomb, Tokimune hit it with Bash. Well, not so much Bash as an ordinary tackle. Still, he was up against a six-meter class white giant, you know? That wasn’t even going to shake it. If not for the fact that Tada’s Somersault Bomb had made it stumble, that is. It was their combined attack that made it work. Then, on top of that...

“Del, hel, en, balk, zel, arve!”

There was a flash of light and then an explosion near the white giant’s crotch for some reason. It was Mimorin’s Blast.

The white giant was thrown completely off-balance, and it stumbled backwards one, then two steps.

“Haruhiro!” Tokimune turned back with a flash of his white teeth. “We owed you one! We couldn’t leave you for dead!”

“Stop talking!” Tada spun around in a circle, then slammed his warhammer hard into the white giant’s left shin. “And attack! Tornado Slaaaaaaaaaam!”

“Gohhhhh?!” The white giant shook again. What power.

“Damn, he’s cool,” Kuzaku whispered.

Haruhiro felt the same way, but he prayed no one would start aspiring to be like that. If his party members started acting like that, his heart would never be able to handle the stress, even if he had more than one. And, fundamentally, humans only had one heart, so he’d probably die of a heart attack in no time. Besides, while Haruhiro and Kuzaku had survived thanks to it, was this really okay?

It wasn’t just Tokimune and Tada. There was Mimorin, who had cast the spell earlier, and Anna-san. Kikkawa was turning around and coming back. Ranta, Yume, Shihoru and Ranta, too. What about Inui? Haruhiro didn’t care about him, but they had lost their chance to escape now.

The cultists and four-meter class white giants would reach them soon. The volunteer soldiers and the hydra, too. It would become a chaotic melee. They’d be caught in the fray.

There were no guarantees that things would be any better where they were running to. Still, there was a major difference between things ending here and there being a next place for them to head towards. If they were caught up in that wave of enemies and allies, they were more or less sure to be finished. He couldn’t help but think that.

It looks like this is the end. I can feel my strength draining away. Well, of course it is. This is tough. How am I supposed to turn things around here? I mean, even if I did get us back on a proper footing, what then? I’m sure we’d still be screwed.

I wish I could just give up.

GAME OVER

That text flashed through his mind.

What was that?

Have I seen it somewhere before...?

GAME OVER

G A M E O V E R

- GAME OVER -

Game Over Continue? Yes / No

Will you continue? Y/N

GAME OVER RETRY?

game over

GAMEOVER

G A M E O V E R

A game, huh? Haruhiro thought. But this is no game.

“It isn’t, right? Manato, Moguzo?” he murmured.

That’s why I can’t give up. Not until the very end. Giving up is out of the question.

First, I need to look around. That’s right. Look. Look properly, and see.

Iron Knuckle and the Berserkers were, to some degree at least, moving together as a group. Orion was more spread out, but none of the white capes were completely isolated. They seemed to be moving as parties.

There were dozens—no, easily over a hundred cultists. Several hundred. As for the white giants, at a glance there were around ten of the four-meter class, two of the six-meter class, and one ridiculously huge one that looked like it was in the eight-meter class, too.

Then there was the hydra. That thing was bad news. Seriously.

“Kuzaku, you don’t have your shield, so don’t do anything too crazy,” Haruhiro warned.

“’Kay. Not like I could, anyway.”

“Come with me!”

Haruhiro brought Kuzaku with him and joined up with Ranta, Yume, Shihoru, and Merry. Kikkawa, Anna-san, and Mimorin were with them, too. Right after that, the cultists caught up with them.

“Kikkawa, I’m counting on you to be the main tank!” Haruhiro called.

“Righto! You just leave it to me!”

“Everyone, stay together!”

Everyone gave their own response, but Haruhiro was more focused on looking than listening. He had to be.

Kikkawa swung his sword around and drew the enemies to him. Kuzaku and Ranta shored up his defense on each side, attacking the enemies there. If there were enemies that the three of them couldn’t stop, then Yume, Merry, Mimorin, and finally Haruhiro would suppress them. Even Anna-san had some sort of stick-like weapon at the ready as she cheered on the rest of the group.

Shihoru was pretty badly winded. She was catching her breath and looking for the right time to use her magic. The other volunteer soldiers also stopped fleeing near where Haruhiro and the others were.

It was the hydra. It had caught up to the rear of the fleeing group of volunteer soldiers.

Ducky’s red hair was shaking around wildly as he shouted something. One of the Berserkers got punched by a white giant and sailed spinning through the air.

Oh, Haruhiro realized. Yeah, that guy’s dead. But now’s not the time to worry about others.

“Augh!” Yume cried out, and her body shuddered. It was a Tori-san. She had knocked Tori-san’s Lightning Sword Dolphin aside with her machete.

The Tori-san stepped in and tried to slash Yume.

He’s gonna kill her. Kill Yume. No, I won’t let him.

Haruhiro charged in and, rather than interpose himself between them, he tackled the Tori-san at the hip. He used his sap to Slap the hand the Tori-san was holding his Lightning Sword Dolphin with.

It connected. How’s that?

But the Tori-san didn’t drop his Lightning Sword Dolphin. He just pulled it back. Worse yet, he thrust out his Mirror Shield.

Oh, crap. Not good. I can’t avoid it.

“Urgh!” Haruhiro took the shield bash directly and was flipped right over.

Will I die? he thought for a second.

“There!” Mimorin called.

“Take that!” Merry shouted.

Thanks to his comrades, he didn’t have to die. It was a close call. Mimorin and Merry double-teamed the Tori-san and made him back away. Meanwhile, Yume helped Haruhiro to his feet.

“Sorry, Haru-kun!” she said.

“It’s fine!” he answered.

There were going to be mistakes. It wasn’t possible to reduce their failure rate to zero. The important thing was that they support whoever messed up, avoid getting injured, and survive. When holes started to open, they had to fill them in, or cover them to keep it from becoming noticeable. If they could just repeat that process steadily, they could get out of here alive somehow. If that was all it took, well, even if it might not be Haruhiro’s strong suit, he could make an attempt at least.

Though, naturally, there were limits.

Tokimune and Tada were still going at it with the six-meter class. Kikkawa, Kuzaku, and Ranta were doing well on the front line, and Haruhiro, Yume, Merry, and Mimorin were doing a relatively stable job in the rear, too. Thanks to that, Anna-san and Shihoru hadn’t had to do anything yet. The way things were going, they would probably be able to count on Shihoru’s magic when they needed it. They could support this system for now.

From what he could see, Iron Knuckle, the Berserkers, Orion, and the other volunteer soldiers had all taken up formations of their own, and were managing to repel their enemies as a group.

If the enemy only had six-meter class white giants, it might not be impossible to defeat them one by one and then wipe out the enemy.

The problem was going to be the eight-meter class white giant and the hydra.

The eight-meter class’s movements seemed sluggish, even compared to the other white giants, but just by being there at all, it got in the way. Of course, it was also a threat.

The hydra was swinging five of its tentacles around to attack the volunteer soldiers, while the other four slithered around, pressing it forward.

When the eight-meter class white giant or the hydra were attacking, the volunteer soldiers couldn’t fight. That gave the cultists and other white giants an opening to attack. They were making a mess out of this battlefield.

The way things were going to work here was simple. If they did something about the eight-meter class and the hydra, the volunteer soldiers would win. That was, if they could just do something.

At the very least, that task was beyond Haruhiro and the party’s capabilities. Even the Tokkis would have a hard time with it. No, it would probably be impossible for them, too. As for Iron Knuckle, the Berserkers, and Orion, if they could do it, they would have by this point. Things had gotten like this because they couldn’t.

Still, things hadn’t fallen apart yet. Whenever the occasional volunteer soldier got caught by the hydra’s tentacles, or kicked into the air by the eight-meter class, and their party looked ready to break and run, someone would quickly step in and support them. “One-on-One” Max, “Red Devil” Ducky, and Shinohara were running all over the place to assist their comrades.

Through great pain, the volunteer soldiers held their lines and were slowly backing away. Haruhiro and his party were doing so, too. It was a gradual retreat.

Even as they were being pushed hard, they held out the best they could.

There was going to be a break somewhere, no doubt.

Eventually it would be too much for them to endure, and they would collapse.

But it was strange. Even though they were clearly being chased down, the senior volunteer soldiers looked unperturbed, and were just doing their best. No one had given in to desperation, and no one gave off a sense of despair, either.

Had they all stopped thinking about things they didn’t have to think about so that they could focus on the task at hand?

In the end, people could only do the things they could do. They could give it their best. They couldn’t control the situation beyond that. Even if they wanted things to go a particular way, wish and pray as they might, it would only turn out the way it was going to turn out.

“Focus. Focus. Focus...”

While whispering that to himself, Haruhiro looked around. He looked and got a grasp of the situation. He Swatted a Pansuke’s spear.

There was a gap forming between their front line and rear line, so he had the rear line move up. There was another Pansuke coming up from the rear, so he had Yume and Merry fall back behind Anna-san and Shihoru.

Kuzaku was pretty exhausted. Haruhiro wanted to let him rest, but that wasn’t an option.

“Keep at it!” he shouted to him.

He Swatted a Pansuke’s spear. He wanted to chain that with Shatter, but that was only his wish. It wasn’t something he had judged was doable at this moment. He had to show restraint.

The eight-meter class hadn’t really gotten any closer, but the hydra had. Were Tokimune and Tada, who were jumping around near the six-meter class white giant, going to be okay?

“The hydra’s coming!” Haruhiro called.

He’d at least warned them. Then he Swatted a Pansuke’s spear. He ordered Kikkawa, Ranta, and Kuzaku to shift their positions to the left twice.

Swat, Swat, Swat.

He took a look around the area. It’s to the west, he thought. They were heading west. Towards the initial hill. The giant god was there.

In other words, the way things were going, they would eventually be caught between the hydra and the giant god. Though, only if they lasted that long.

No, no. Don’t think about that. Don’t get distracted. Focus, focus, focus, focus, focus.

“Gahhh!” Kikkawa accidentally struck a Tori-san’s Lightning Sword Dolphin and was stunned.

“You moron!” Ranta deflected the Lightning Sword Dolphin with his own Lightning Sword Dolphin to protect Kikkawa.

The front line broke formation, and it looked like the cultists would push past them.

For a moment, Haruhiro was scared, but they could make it through this. “Kikkawa, keep going and swap places with Ranta! Mimorin, support Kikkawa!”

“Righty-o!” Kikkawa shook his head to clear it as he passed Ranta.

“Aye!” Mimorin took a position diagonally behind Kikkawa, knocking aside a Pansuke’s spear with her staff.

I know there was another Tori-san around here, Haruhiro thought, scanning the area. There! He’s circled around behind us.

“Merry!”

Reacting to his warning, Merry twisted in time to avoid the Lightning Sword Dolphin.

“Ohm, rel, ect, el vel, darsh!”

Shihoru used Shadow Echo. Three shadow elementals flew towards the Tori-san. It was relatively close range.

They’d hit. No, the Tori-san had blocked two with his Mirror Shield. But one got him in the face.

The Tori-san’s head shot back like he’d been punched. Merry jabbed at his Mirror Shield with her short staff and made him back away even more. However, she couldn’t just focus on the Tori-san.

Merry and Yume had each been keeping a Pansuke busy. With the Tori-san getting involved on top of that, they were having trouble dealing with them. Even if Anna-san joined in, it would be too little, too late, and Shihoru wasn’t able to handle close combat. Haruhiro himself was already keeping two Pansukes busy with Swat.

Do I have Mimorin move back? he wondered. Or do I take someone off the front line and send them to help? Decide. Right now.

“Kuzaku, go to the back!”

“’Kay!” Kuzaku began to fall back immediately.

Kuzaku had probably been hopelessly worried about Merry. It would be easier for him if he was by her side, no doubt. Now, how to fill the hole he left?

Ranta was fully occupied dealing with the Tori-san in front, while Kikkawa was handling a number of enemies, too. Mimorin only had the one Pansuke for now. If Haruhiro took that one and freed up Mimorin...

Focus. I need to focus. Focus, focus.

The hydra.

It’s close.

It’s gotten pretty close. Maybe not? I dunno. But... it feels kinda close.

“Whoa!” Tokimune was hanging from his sword, which had been stabbed into the white giant close to its waist, and it looked like he was close to being shaken off.

What the heck is he doing? Though, white giants have pretty hard bodies. I guess it’s impressive that he managed to stab it in there, huh?

This is no good. Calm. I have to stay calm. Swat, Swat.

“Haaaaaze!” Tada screamed.

Tada swung his warhammer up on the diagonal, slamming it into the white giant’s left shin. The white giant’s massive body shook. The left shin. Come to think of it, Tada was stubbornly focused on hitting that one spot. He was serious. Tada really meant to fell the white giant. Together with Tokimune, it might actually be possible.

If they had had more time, those two might have taken care of the six-meter class white giant. In that instant, something must have happened, but Haruhiro wasn’t entirely sure. Or rather, why had what happened happened? And was it even possible?

He doubted his eyes.

The six-meter class white giant’s head had just suddenly exploded, after all. Like a watermelon being smashed with a stick. It wasn’t that unusual to see a watermelon get smashed, but this was a white giant’s head. Wasn’t it strange for it burst like that, with its contents scattering all over the place? It was weird, wasn’t it? Or was Haruhiro the one who was weird for thinking that way?

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!” Tada roared. “That was my prey! Who did that?!”

That’s right. It couldn’t possibly be a natural phenomenon, so someone must have done it. Was it magic? Who did it?

It didn’t take long for the answer to that to become clear.

“Ohhhhh?!” Ranta leapt backwards.

Yeah, I can’t blame him for being surprised.

The Tori-san’s head was gone.

An ax. It was an ax. Held by a short, stocky figure. The thick-bearded dwarf had closed in on the Tori-san from behind and decapitated him with his ax.

No way, Haruhiro thought. It shouldn’t be possible to cut through their ponchos. Does that not apply to that dwarf—to Branken?

“Gwahahahaaaaaah!” Branken let out a throaty and unsettling laugh as he went around cutting cultists cleanly in two one after another with the terrifying ax he held. He cut through them easily.

This is a kind of simple thing to question, but is that ax light? It looks kind of heavy, you know? How can Branken swing around an ax that’s bigger than he is so easily? Because he’s crazily strong? Is that how it works?

Haruhiro had been distracted by Branken, so it took some time to notice, but he wasn’t the only one who had come. Not far away, there was a large woman swinging around a massive sword, and, of course, cutting down cultists one after another, completely ignoring the blade-resisting property of their ponchos. That was Kayo.

There were also a mysterious number of cultists dropping like flies, even though they hadn’t been cut. Haruhiro wondered what it could be, but it was arrows. They were being shot through their single eye.

Where are the arrows coming from? he wondered. The west, huh.

They were probably coming from the west. When he looked that way, he spotted him. The beautiful elf boy with his bow at the ready. It was Taro.

The short former mage, Gogh, and the beautiful mage, Miho, stood behind Taro with an air of composure. The spell that had gone off might have been from Gogh. Or perhaps it was Miho’s.

And then...

“Sorry. We’re running late.”

That man walked in. Drawing his sword, it was the former strongest, the man who was an indisputable legend.

“That guy’s got one hell of an aura...” Ranta said with an admiring groan.

He can say that again, Haruhiro thought.

People often talked about someone with a lot of presence having an aura, but this might have been what a real aura looked like.

“Akira-san!” Someone called out his name.

“It’s Akira-san!”

“Akira-san’s here!”

“Akira-san!”

“Woo! Akira-san!”

“We’ve got Akira-san!”

The atmosphere changed in an instant. Akira-san. It was Akira-san. The whole area was dyed in Akira-san’s colors! Enveloped by his aura!

The cultists were going down in a one-sided fight against Branken, Kayo, and Taro, and they were in an utter panic.

Oh, oh? What’s with that four-meter class white giant? It’s turning towards Akira-san, isn’t it?

Akira-san was a big man, but the difference in size between him and the white giant was still greater than that between a child and an adult. Even so—damn, Akira-san was huge. For some reason he looked larger than the white giant.

Well, that’s reckless, thought Haruhiro.

The white giant foolishly took a swing at Akira-san. Naturally, it never stood a chance of hitting. Akira-san turned and evaded it as easily as he might have avoided a butterfly fluttering along, letting the white giant’s right fist fly past him. With a slight movement, somehow he managed to get right behind the white giant.

“And... there!” Akira-san climbed the white giant. He didn’t clamber up it. With the ease of walking up a hill, Akira-san reached the white giant’s shoulders right before their eyes.

Haruhiro was watching it happen, but he couldn’t understand. It might not have been completely vertical, but it had been an incredibly steep angle. Wasn’t it insane that he could climb it like that?

“Rest in peace, okay?” Akira-san buried his sword deep in the white giant’s single eye. In a rather offhanded manner, too. It was like he wanted to say, Hey, at least put up a fight.

Not that it could have heard him if he did say it. It was too late for that.

The white giant collapsed.

Just before the white giant’s back touched the ground, Akira-san flipped into the air and came down with a graceful landing.

“Well, doesn’t that just beat all.” Tokimune laughed in amazement. “He’s in a whole other dimension from us, huh?”

It really is another dimension, Haruhiro agreed. There’s that much of a difference between us?

“Yeah, so what?!” Tada pushed up his glasses with his left index finger, then rushed over and swung his warhammer down at the nearest Tori-san. “I’ll make a new dimension of my own!”

The Tori-san’s head and the Mirror Shield he attempted to defend himself with were both crushed, and he collapsed to the ground.

“Yahoo!” Kikkawa jumped for joy. “Not just another dimension, but a new one, huh?!”

With those words as their signal—no, that was definitely not what it was—the volunteer soldiers began their counterattack. It was no simple counterattack, though. It was a violent onslaught, a massive counteroffensive.

After all, the absolutely legendary team of Akira-san, Branken, Kayo, Taro, Gogh, and Miho were mowing down cultists and white giants like they were cutting weeds. It was less clear with the white giants, but the cultists did seem to come equipped with emotions, and it looked like shock and panic were included. The cultists were looking ready to flee. The volunteer soldiers, emboldened by Akira-san’s arrival, moved as one to attack them.

The Pansukes’ spears broke one after another. The Tori-sans’ Lightning Sword Dolphins weren’t so scary when everyone rushed them at once. Their weapons were battered from their hands, and their Mirror Shields were trampled. The four- and six-meter class white giants were felled one after another.

Haruhiro and the others finished off a number of cultists, too. Especially Ranta and Kikkawa, who got carried away and ran wild.

Where had the difficult battle they had been fighting all this time gone to? Haruhiro couldn’t help but think it wasn’t that the enemy were scary, it was the flow of events. With one change in the winds, everything could change dramatically like it just did. That being the case, it was entirely possible they would suddenly be knocked from this position of overwhelming advantage into a disadvantage they couldn’t hope to recover from.

Is this... really okay? Haruhiro couldn’t go with the flow, and he didn’t know what to do with himself because of it. That’s, well, yeah... It’s fine, I guess? I should probably try to go with the flow when things aren’t going so badly.

“I see you’re still all right, Haruhiro-kun,” a voice said.

Haruhiro was shocked to find Akira-san right next to him. Akira-san returned his sword to its sheathe, crossing his arms with a cool look on his face.

“Oh, er, yeah, w-we’re fine, all of us,” Haruhiro stammered. “Well, my party is, at least...”

“We’ve been trying out different things with Soma and his group to see if anything can be done about the giant god.”

“Oh, yeah?” Haruhiro asked. “—And?”

Akira-san shook his head. “Ever since it took up that spot in the middle of the initial hill, it’s hardly moved. That thing is tough.”

“Even for you guys?”

“We’re still volunteer soldiers, just the same as all of you. I’ve merely survived at it much longer than you have. When you’ve lived twice as long, you’re bound to be a little better at things.”

“Is that how it works?”

“Of course it is.” Akira-san smiled and nodded.

This guy had been giving off an aura that put pressure on the whole area just moments ago, but now he looked like just a nice, regular old man. Of course, that wasn’t the case at all.

“I’m just an old man,” Akira-san said. “Because of my old age, I find myself wanting to meddle. —Kuzaku-kun, look at this for a moment.”

Akira-san called out to Kuzaku, then readied his shield and drew his sword. He moved forward, covering half of his body with the shield, and swinging the sword down diagonally at a nearby Pansuke. Even Haruhiro could tell what he was doing. It was the Paladin skill Punishment. But Akira-san deliberately chose to stop his sword halfway and pull it back. The Pansuke was cowering, as if frozen.

“Did you see that? With enough repetition, you’ll be able to do this, too,” Akira-san said.

“Right...” Kuzaku stood bolt-upright and watched closely.

I couldn’t have put it better myself, thought Haruhiro.

Akira-san used Punishment on the Pansuke once again, only this time he let it hit. At least, it was probably Punishment, but it was completely different.

I dunno, it was like it was all one movement.

Defending with his shield, advancing, and swinging down with his sword. The three actions had completely melded together to become one.

Akira-san’s sword cleanly cut through the Pansuke from his left shoulder to his right hip. It looked like when you got to the same level as Branken, Kayo, or Akira-san, the supposedly uncuttable ponchos didn’t even matter. Was this really something they could achieve through repetition? It was hard to accept at face value, but Akira-san didn’t seem like the type to make things up to trick those who were younger and less experienced.

“It’s all about what you build up over time.” Akira-san returned his sword to its sheathe once more. “It’s experience. Feel things for yourself, and build on that. If all you’ve done is learn it, a skill is just a skill and nothing more. True power lies somewhere beyond that. Now, when it comes to how you get a sense for that, really, repetition in the field is the only way.”

“Hmm,” Gogh snorted. “Well, aren’t you sounding self-important.”

The beautiful mage Miho was standing there, too. While the situation was in their favor, it was still a chaotic battle, so why were these people taking it easy as if they were out for a stroll in their own garden?

“Giving lectures doesn’t suit you, Akira-san,” Gogh said. “You’re not even the type to follow theory. The fact that you want to tell the younger folks these things anyway may be proof that you’ve gotten old.”

“Well, yeah,” Akira-san shrugged. “I’m aware of that myself.”

“He’s still young,” Miho said with a giggle.

“Bwuh!” Ranta may have just imagined something strange. “M-Magic!” Shihoru leaned in, clutching her staff tightly. “Wh-What about... magic? Is there a trick to it?”

“I want to know.” Mimorin nodded.

“Hey, wait.” Anna-san looked around restlessly. “Is it okay to jabber?! There still lots and lots of enemies around, yeah?!”

“Well, time to do a little work, then,” Gogh said with a look to Shihoru and Mimorin. “I’ll answer your question while I’m at it, too. You’re only at the start line for magic once you’ve properly learned all the elemental sigils that you can pay for the guild to teach you. From there, it’s up to you. —Miho.”

“Right.”

“We’re doing it.”

Gogh and Miho walked away. Akira-san followed after them without a sound. If any enemies attacked the two of them, Akira-san would cut them down immediately.

The three soon came to a stop. They were looking towards the eight-meter class white giant.

Gogh and Miho began tracing what looked like elemental sigils with the tips of their staves.

“De, he, lu, en, ba, zea, ruv, dag, na, mitoh, la, we, swa, va.”

“Ne, ve, lu, shia, rass, fe, de, ge, hi, mina, sheh, kweh, du, il.”

“I’ve never seen that before,” Shihoru whispered.

It was true. Haruhiro hadn’t seen elemental sigils like these before, and it was an unfamiliar chant. It felt like, maybe, the intonation was different from the incantations Shihoru or Mimorin used, too?

The eight-meter class, seeming to have noticed Gogh and Miho, looked down at them. Right after it did, there was a resounding thuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun, a sound that seemed both high- and low-pitch, and its head was blasted off.

“...One shot.” Merry’s jaw dropped.

“Meow...” Yume blinked repeatedly.

“And, well, there’re countless points I could cover, but...” Gogh spun around to face them, brushing his hair back behind his ear with an artistic flair. “Even after changing jobs to become a priest, I was able to manage this much with enough study. Though, I couldn’t have done what we just did on my own. We set loose an elemental, then activated an alternate power. They won’t teach you this stuff at the guild. You have to study it for yourself, make discoveries, and refine your skills. ...Whew, I’m beat.”

Gogh suddenly hung his head and pressed a hand to his forehead. He looked like he might slump to the ground at any second.

“Oh, my.” Miho narrowed her eyes and covered her mouth with her hands.

“We’re both getting old.” Akira-san offered Gogh some support. “Though, in your case, your body was weak to begin with.”

“...Oh, shut up,” Gogh grumbled. Leave me alone.””

“Honeeeeeeeey...!” Kayo rushed over, leaving a fine mist of blood in her wake. “What’s wrong?! Are you okay?! Honey?! I’ll never forgive you if you die before me!”

“Dad?! Did something happen to you, Dad?! Don’t die!” Taro also rushed over, his face contorted with anguish.

“Listen! I’m not gonna die that easily!” Gogh shouted at them, but the sound of it was mostly covered by the thunderous crash from the eight-meter class white giant falling hard to the ground.

To think the eight-meter class white giant that had been such a problem would be killed so easily.

The volunteer soldiers let out a cheer.

“Gwah, hah, hah, hah, hah!” With a terrifying laugh, Branken pointed his ax towards the other problem. “Now, it’s your turn! Get ready to die!”

Haruhiro tried to swallow his spit, but his mouth was dry, so his Adam’s apple just moved meaninglessly.

The hydra must have sensed something, too, because it stayed put where it was, its tentacles writhing. No, not just writhing. Its tentacles spread out wide, like it was trying to make its already huge body look even bigger.

“Well now.” Akira-san walked away from Gogh and drew his sword. “First, let’s see what it’s capable of.”

Iron Knuckle. The Berserkers. Orion. They were all among the foremost volunteer soldiers, and yet they didn’t move, or couldn’t move. Akira-san, Kayo, and Branken were the only ones approaching the hydra.

The five tentacles all lashed out at them at once. Three at Akira-san, and one each at Kayo and Branken.

They’re fast. Even at that size, they’re that fast?

To Haruhiro’s eyes, it looked like they were moving at a speed similar to a person swinging a sword. There’s no dodging that, he thought for a moment.

But Akira-san took just two quick steps, Kayo pressed forward, and Branken rolled to the side, each of them avoiding the tentacles in their own way.

Akira-san went to the right of the hydra, while Branken went to the left. Kayo was approaching it straight-on and closing in.

The hydra swung its tentacles. It seemed to have two type of attacks it could do with them. Swings and downward stabs.

The stabs seemed dodgeable, but the swings would be tougher. They were over two meters in diameter. If something like that, which was way too thick, and way too long, came at them at those intense speeds, wasn’t there kind of nowhere to run? Why were Akira-san and the others able to avoid them? Haruhiro couldn’t even imagine.

Maybe they can predict them, he thought. They must know where the tentacles can’t reach them. Probably. But how did they figure it out? That’s a mystery. Way too much of a mystery. Without spending a long time observing it closely and studying it, isn’t that impossible?

“Not unless you’re the kind of genius this world has rarely seen,” Gogh said, seeming to have seen through Haruhiro’s current thought process. “In the end, experience does all the talking. When we’re up against an enemy we’ve never seen before, of course we won’t know those things either. However, there will always be some similarities, points of commonality, with enemies we’ve faced before. What’s similar? What’s the same? You can’t deal with them if you’re agonizing over those things. What do I do here? What gives me the best odds? Your body needs to move on its own before you start arguing with yourself about what to do.”

“Th-That thing...” Ranta groaned. “They’ve fought lots of things like it? That’s why they’re able to fight it like it’s no big deal?”

“I get the impression that it’s pretty tough.” Gogh shrugged his shoulders. “They’ll have a hard time with it. Without access to light magic, they’ll be less willing to press their luck.”

“You say that like this doesn’t concern you.” Miho furrowed her brow, but Haruhiro couldn’t help but think she seemed completely at ease with the situation, too.

“There’s nowhere to target.” Taro lowered his bow, a frown distorting his beautiful face. “I hate big enemies. I wish I could help Mom...”

Taro looked younger than Haruhiro and his party, but he must also have had considerable experience. Given he was traveling with Akira-san and his party, that was only natural.

“Mind if I ask a question?” Kuzaku asked hesitantly.

Gogh glanced over to Kuzaku, indicating with his expression that he should go on.

“You said ‘unless they were geniuses,’ but...” Kuzaku asked just what Haruhiro had wanted to. “It’s a little much to try and claim Akira-san and the others aren’t geniuses, isn’t it?”

Though this was true for Branken and Kayo, too, it was incredibly hard to believe the things Akira-san was pulling off. He had been focused on evading the attacking tentacles at first, but now he was doing more than just that. After dodging, he would slash at it with his sword. On top of that, wasn’t he slowly closing in on the hydra? He probably was. No, not just probably, he was definitely getting up closer to it.

“Akira’s no genius,” Gogh said definitively, then let out a malicious chuckle.

He’s gotta be lying, Haruhiro thought incredulously. Is their relationship coloring his perspective?

“You’re right,” Miho said instantly.

Haruhiro started to think that maybe that wasn’t the case.

She said, “When we first met, that guy was a hopeless coward.”

“The guy’s still pretty timid, you know?” Gogh agreed.

“You could be right.”

“Even in our generation, there were plenty of guys stronger than him.”

“I’d say Kayo was far braver.”

“Not that that’s changed.”

“My mom’s the bravest in the world, and my dad’s wisest,” Taro declared with a look in his eyes so serious that it was scary. “And me, I’m the most fortunate.”

“You sure do love them, huh,” Yume said earnestly.

“Of course I do!” Taro shouted, his eyes wide. “My love for Mom and Dad won’t lose to anything! Never! Ever!”

“I’m not sure it’s a matter of winning or losing, though.” Gogh patted Taro on the head with a wry laugh. “That aside, the one thing I can tell you for sure is that Akira’s no genius. But he survived. That’s thanks to me, Kayo, Branken, Taro, and the many friends and comrades we’ve lost along the way. Many talented warriors and paladins who were blessed with talent fell, while he remained. He didn’t survive because he was strong. What was it that worked in his favor? If you were to sum it up in a word, it’d be luck, I guess. Because he was lucky, he survived, and he was able to become strong.”

It wasn’t just one or two instances—it was more than two decades’ worth of good luck accumulated. That was what had created Akira-san.

Just how lucky was he? Even just one instance of bad luck might have been enough to get him killed like Manato or Moguzo.

Turning that around, if Manato or Moguzo had not died when they had, they would have had the chance to become like Akira-san. In fact, Manato and Moguzo had both had more aptitude than Haruhiro did. Which meant there was no guarantee of success. If a volunteer soldier’s luck was bad, even a little bad, they would drop out. They’d die.

Either way, Akira-san was one of a chosen few.

“...I’m not like that,” Haruhiro murmured.

Akira-san, Branken, and Kayo were almost touching the hydra. The five tentacles couldn’t seem to catch them at all.

Then, suddenly, the four tentacles it used for moving attacked Akira-san and the others. While Haruhiro was caught by surprise, Akira-san and the others seemed to have anticipated it. Dodging and weaving between the tentacles, Branken and Kayo fell back, but... Akira-san stabbed his sword into the root of the tentacles.

With that as a handhold, he climbed. It was that same climbing style, like he was walking up a hill. He ran along the top of the tentacle.

“Ohh.” Gogh snapped his fingers. “There was one strength Akira did always have. His sense of balance. That’s the one thing he was above average in.”

“He liked high places, too,” Miho giggled.

“He must be an idiot.” The corners of Gogh’s lips turned upwards. “It’s almost time, huh.”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

Almost time for what?

The tentacle tried to shake Akira-san off. Akira-san jumped. He kicked off another tentacle, then yet another tentacle. Akira-san vanished behind the tentacles.

“I-I-I-I-Is he gonna be okay?!” Kikkawa shouted.

The hydra’s entire body shuddered.

“Gyahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” It let out a tremendous cry.

If a woman who was over ten meters tall let out a scream, it just might have been that loud. That sound was released from the lower portion of the hydra along with a blast of air, stirring up the tentacles and making them flap around.

Akira-san rolled out from a gap between the tentacles.

Gogh and Miho drew elemental sigils with their staves and chanted their spells.

“Ea, zu, fa, nwe, meu, hoa, rahi, kweh, ba, ju, sai, le, cthu.”

“Ni, fau, shin, dza, wao, iki, le, vu, duma, gis, qua, zu.”

“It’s hot?!” Haruhiro covered his face without meaning to and bent his knees. The blast of hot wind blew into him. Or it might have been more accurate to say that it swept violently over him.

The hydra was at the center of it. The hydra was burning—no, that wasn’t it. There were no flames rising from it. But it was hot. There was an incredible vortex of hot air tormenting the hydra’s tentacles. That vortex seemed to be heading towards the core of the hydra. Haruhiro and the others were only being caught in the trail of it. Even so, it was hot and frightening.

What was going on? What was going to happen here? The trail suddenly changed direction. It wasn’t blowing into them anymore. It was sucking.

They were being pulled in.

“Uwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!” Ranta yelled.

“Yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?!” Kikkawa screamed.

Ranta, Kikkawa, shut up.

I know how you feel, though.

“Eeeeeeeeeeek?!” Shihoru shrieked.

“Funyooooooooooooooo?!” cried Yume.

“Yahhhhhhh?!” shouted Merry.

Shihoru, Yume, and Merry were hugging one another.

“The hell?!” Kuzaku got down on the ground.

“What the heeeeeeeeeell?!” Anna-san screamed.

Mimorin held onto the panicking Anna-san, and for some reason, she had a firm grip on Haruhiro, too.

“No, I’ll be fine, okay?” he told her.

“Just in case!”

I really will be fine, and actually, it’s harder on me when you hold me tight like that. Come to think of it, are Tokimune and Tada all right? Also, where’s Inui?

“Oh!”

The wind changed direction again. This time, it neither pushed nor pulled them. It was blowing downwards from above. The mass of hot air was pressing down and crushing them.

Haruhiro and his party were only being hit with enough pressure to force them down on all fours, but the hydra in the center of the storm had it far worse.

Seriously?

The hydra was being crushed.

The nine tentacles were pressed flat to the ground, revealing the center part—its main body, maybe? Or the torso? Whatever it was, that part which looked like a massive white succulent plant had been exposed, and the top of it was creaking and caving in farther with every second.

What is this magic? Arve Magic? It can’t be Kanon Magic, right? It doesn’t seem like it would be Falz Magic or Darsh Magic, either. Well, what was it then? I remember Gogh said something about releasing elementals, then activating an alternate power. Is that the true nature of this super-hot, crushing whirlwind spell?

Eventually the hot wind subsided.

The massive white succulent plant thingy looked like it had shrunk to half its original size. It wasn’t possible to confirm it from here, but the middle of it was probably caved in pretty heavily.

The hydra didn’t move at all.

“Is it... dead?” Ranta fell on his backside, his mind only half there.

“I’m exhausted...” Gogh staggered.

“Dad! Here!” Taro moved his bow and quiver of arrows under his arm, then crouched down in front of Gogh and offered him his back.

“Now, listen... I’m your father, got it?” Even while uttering what sounded like a complaint, Gogh rested on Taro’s back. He might have been having a pretty hard time.

“Hee hee.” The smiling Miho seemed to be having no such trouble. Was she tough, on top of being an incredible beauty? Or was Gogh just too weak?

“Is it... over...?” Shihoru clung to Yume, trembling.

“Maybe?” Yume rubbed Shihoru’s back reassuringly.

“I hope so.” Merry joined Yume in petting Shihoru.

“Whew...” Kuzaku looked up timidly.

“Is it safe now?” Mimorin asked.

Anna-san, who was playing with Mimorin’s all-too-ample chest for some reason, tilted her head to the side questioningly.

Is it okay when girls do that to each other? Haruhiro wondered. Not that he was jealous or anything. “Wh-Who knows...”

But was it, really?

Haruhiro couldn’t say for sure, but he might have appreciated it if Mimorin would let him go, you know? Feeling Mimorin’s breasts pressed up against him, he was just about to tell her as much when, not far away, Tada started shouting.

“No, this isn’t funny! I refuse to let it end this easily! I haven’t even done anything yet! Don’t just stay dead, come back to life already!”

Gyahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!” Mimorin let out an uncharacteristic shriek and squeezed Haruhiro and Anna-san tightly. Or rather, she was strangling him. He couldn’t breathe.

Save me, Haruhiro silently begged. But, well, he couldn’t blame her for being surprised. He had been surprised himself.

The hydra he had assumed was dead suddenly let out another burst of sound from the bottom of that large, white part that was like a succulent plant. What was more, the sound was louder and more violent than the first time. Then the tentacles began swinging around wildly.

Akira-san, Branken, and Kayo were falling back. Well, no surprise there. It looked pretty dangerous, you know? The other volunteer soldiers were panicking now, just like Haruhiro and his group.

“Hahahahahahahahaha!” Tada seemed thrilled, though. “Good! That’s the way I wanted it! Amuse me more!”

“Nice! This is where the second round starts, huh!” Tokimune seemed to be enjoying himself.

Are they stupid...?

“Kwa, do, roh, wo, su, eck, lue, rah, va, le.” Meanwhile, Miho cast a spell.

If he were to describe it with a color, it was purple. This purple thing that was neither a flame nor bolt of lightning exploded into the gigantic, white succulent plant-like portion of the hydra with a tearing sound. It was cut and torn, splattering some sort of mucus-like substance around, and the hydra started convulsing, but you could say that was all it did. Still, Miho remained confident. Not only did she not back away, she moved forward.

“Ah, lua, de, muo, su, vi, gwa, pa, le, tu, kia.”

This time it was a blackish green. The dark-green light flashed repeatedly and struck the massive, white, succulent plant-like part. It pierced through it. It scratched it up. The tentacles writhed. The hydra writhed, mucus splattering everywhere, and then...

“Ta, tu, rua, fa, yek, nie, she, la, stoa, ryu, kweh, wana.”

Huh? More still? You’re going for more?

A pink dot formed above the massive, white, succulent plant-like portion of the hydra. Then it fell.

Shishishishishishishishishishishishishishishishishishishishishi...

Wait, what kind of sound was that? What was it? That wasn’t clear, but it was apparently coming from where the pink-colored dot made contact with the massive, white, succulent plant-like bit. What was that pink-colored dot anyway? It was getting bigger.

The dot wasn’t a dot anymore. It was a ball now. Getting bigger and bigger.

The tentacles flailed wildly. Their tips were slapping the ground. Like it was saying, Hold on, hold on, seriously, hold on, and trying to call for a time-out.

Naturally, the volunteer soldiers weren’t going to hold on. Giving it a break was unthinkable.

The pink-colored sphere was erasing the massive, white, succulent plant-like bit. Like it was melting it away. The pink-colored sphere finally sunk inside the massive white succulent plant-like bit.

The nine tentacles went limp. The massive, white, succulent plant-like bit looked like it had gone limp, too.

Miho stopped and let out a sigh. Then she giggled. “It was stubborn and cheeky, so I punished it a little.”

Haruhiro was shocked and clung to Mimorin without meaning to. Is she a total sadist?

“Come oooooon!” Tada shouted in Miho’s face. “Just when it was finally about to get good, you had to ruin it!”

“Oh, dear. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry’s not gonna cut it! Now, you listen here—Murgh?!”

...Whoa. Haruhiro knew he couldn’t afford to be shocked by every little thing, but this was really astonishing.

The hydra’s tentacles were suddenly filled with strength. The nine tentacles pushed off the ground, and the hydra sprang into the air.

It jumped.

Huh, it can jump?!

“Oh, crap! Get back!” Akira-san shouted.

This was the first time he’d heard an urgency in Akira-san’s voice. Akira-san, Branken, Kayo, Miho, and Taro, who was carrying Gogh—none of them hesitated when it came time to run. It was almost dumbfounding how incredibly they ran away.

The hydra leapt. It flew into the air, swinging its tentacles around.

Tokimune and Tada backed away, too.

“Mimorin, let go!” Haruhiro broke free from Mimorin’s confining grasp. “W-W-W-W-We need to hurry and get out of here!”

“We do, yeah!” Anna-san shouted.

“Yep!” Mimorin plodded off carrying just Anna-san.

The rest of their comrades fled, too. It was like a competition to see who could run first. They needed to get away from the hydra.

Oh, man. No. Just no. Haruhiro kept moving his legs as he vented all of the feelings he couldn’t convert into words inside his head. Ranta, Merry, Kuzaku, Yume, Shihoru. They’re all okay. Kikkawa, Tokimune, and Tada, too. Inui’s still missing, but who gives a damn about him? What about Iron Knuckle, the Berserkers, and Orion? It looks like they’ve scattered, maybe?

Haruhiro, for his part, was still following after Akira-san and the others. Was this okay? Was it not? He had no clue. He couldn’t decide.

Suddenly, the hydra stopped jumping around.

It’s coming.

It slammed all nine of its tentacles into the ground hard, charging forth in a wild rampage.

“Wawawawawawawawaaaaa?!” Haruhiro flipped out and babbled incomprehensibly in panic.

Is this bad? It’s bad, right? Huh? Did I screw up? Did I do the wrong thing? I mean, it looks like the hydra’s coming this way. Is it targeting Akira-san and his group? If it is, should we separate from them? Maybe?

“De, he, lu, en, ba, zea, ruv, ah, tu, la!” Gogh turned back while still being carried by Taro and began chanting as he drew what seemed like elemental sigils with his staff.

Kaboooooooooom!

There was an explosion directly underneath the hydra, blasting a vast amount of grass and dirt into the air.

The hydra lost its balance. That was because its footing had been wrecked with magic. They needed to gain as much distance on it as they could now. But what good would that distance do them? What was going to happen? Wouldn’t it eventually catch up? What would they do if it did?

For now, all we can do is run as fast as we can, thought Haruhiro. If the hydra’s actually targeting Akira-san and his group, that’s not good. I dunno how to say it, but you know, there are better ways for us to handle this. Like, if I’m looking out for our safety, you could say there’s only one option.

If Haruhiro was to be perfectly blunt, he thought it was best not to follow Akira-san’s party. The way things were now, they were standing on the straight line between the hydra and Akira-san’s party, and they didn’t want to be there. It might be best for them to change course and act independently.

I’d feel guilty about doing it, though. Besides, it’s not absolutely certain Akira-san and the others are its target. What if they aren’t? If it turns and follows us when we break off from Akira-san and the others, it’d be a total disaster. Akira-san and his party wouldn’t be able to help, and, well, that’d be the end of us.

That said, I’m pretty sure the hydra has got to be going after Akira-san and his party.

Do we take that gamble?

It doesn’t feel like a bad bet, but I can’t quite commit to it. I should decide sooner rather than later, though. I’m so indecisive. I hate it.

In the end, won’t Akira-san and his party handle things somehow? Is that what I’m thinking? I can’t say that’s not at least part of it. That’s just leaving my problems to someone else, isn’t it? I think there’s something wrong with that. Is that okay? I can’t say that it is, can I?

Even in his indecision, he was continuing to diligently pump his legs when he ran past something going the other direction.

“Huh?” Haruhiro realized. The other... direction?

Yes. There was no doubt about it. Something had raced towards him, then ran right past Haruhiro.

Haruhiro turned back and looked.

That something was clad in black armor.

It was tight-fitting, looked light, and it was black where it was black, but what was with that orange-colored light that came out of it here and there? How did that work? There was a short, curved sword, or rather a katana, on one of the figure’s hips, and a rather long katana over their back. The person reached back and put one hand on the hilt of his katana as he kept running. Dashing straight towards the hydra.

“Soma...” Haruhiro accidentally said his name without an honorific.

He stood there in a daze.

Soma.

It was Soma.

The hydra was rushing towards them, and Soma was running in the opposite direction from them, so the two were guaranteed to collide.

Was he... going to be okay?

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t worried, but for some reason, Haruhiro couldn’t imagine Soma possibly getting killed.

The hydra lifted up its massive body with its tentacles, then sprung at Soma.

Soma didn’t stop, didn’t even slow his pace.

He drew his katana.

Haruhiro was able to see everything up until that point. But what did he do after that?

Haruhiro’s eyes had been wide open and he watched closely, but still, he couldn’t tell.

He only knew that two of the hydra’s tentacles were lopped off and soared through the air.

The hydra landed with an earth-rattling thud—but what about Soma?

Haruhiro was finally gripped by uncertainty. Had Soma been crushed?

The hydra’s tentacles twisted and coiled as the creature tried to make an about-face. Did that mean that was where Soma was? Had he slipped under the hydra? Or something like that?

While Haruhiro was still in suspense, unable to be sure what had happened, the hydra jumped to the left.

There.

That’s Soma.

He was swinging a katana. It’s long, that katana. Why does it look so much longer than when he had it slung over his back?

Whatever the case, Soma’s slashes were making the hydra hesitate. He was taking on that massive creature in one-on-one close-quarters combat, and he was the one pushing it back.

It’s weird. That’s just not right. What’s going on?

“Now, see, when you use the word ‘genius.’” The next thing he noticed, Gogh was next to him, still being carried on Taro’s back. “That’s the kind of guy you’re talking about. He’s only been active for one-fifth of the time we have. Yet, still, he can do that. Talent is a cruel and terrifying thing.”

Incredible, thought Haruhiro. The rumors about him weren’t all talk. Soma had saved their lives before, too. He wasn’t called the strongest for nothing.

Haruhiro knew that. Or he had thought he had. But he must not have truly understood what that meant.

That katana might have been special somehow. His armor seemed to hide some secret power that transcended human knowledge. Even so, Soma himself was a flesh and blood human. He had to be.

Was he really human, the same as all of them? It was hard to believe.

Soma was driving the hydra back with a single katana. How was he cutting through those tentacles that were over two meters thick? Haruhiro had no idea. It was clearly impossible. But Soma was doing it.

Haruhiro probably wasn’t hallucinating, so this was reality. It was a reality that transcended Haruhiro’s understanding and imagination. Or rather, there was no way he could have imagined something like that.

Like, if he were to say, Someday, I’m gonna swing around a katana and take down a monster the size of a two-story building, people would be guaranteed to laugh at him. Haruhiro would do the same, of course. If anyone around him said something like that, he would think, What an idiot.

Were people like Soma, who made those ridiculous-sounding dreams a reality, the true geniuses?

Gogh was right—it was cruel. There was no closing this gap, and no jumping over it. It was like the difference between the moon and a turtle. Sure, both were round, but even trying to compare the two was pointless. They were just too different.

Even the things that came to mind when he thought about it were so ordinary that he just wanted to disappear. Haruhiro had always known he was ordinary, so he wasn’t frustrated by it at all, but it still made him feel empty. If he had thought he had the potential to be someone, and he’d been aiming for the top, the shock might well have left him unable to recover.

He was glad that he and everyone else recognized his mediocrity. Thanks to that, he only had to suffer from this feeling of powerlessness.

“Soma!” shouted a creature of inhuman beauty and elegance as she raced past Haruhiro.

It was only natural she seemed inhuman. She wasn’t human at all.

She’s an elf. Well, Taro’s an unusually pretty boy, too. Maybe the elven race only has beautiful people? Either way, her beauty stands out. That fair skin of hers ought to be against the rules. She’s got silver hair, too. The way her eyes sparkle, they look exactly like gemstones. When it comes to her figure, I guess you could say, or her physique and musculature, they aren’t even human. Like, her head is soooooo tiny. The way she runs is different, too. Her steps are much lighter than a human’s. It’s less like she’s kicking off the ground, and more like she’s sliding along it.

“You’re running off on your own again!” Lilia drew a thin sword which suited her well, and charged straight towards the hydra.

She was a sword dancer. It was truly like she was dancing. Lilia spun circles around the tentacles, making her sword dance. Rather than cutting them with her sword, it was like she was cutting them with the motion of her sword and body. Even if she couldn’t cut them off like Soma had, Lilia was definitely injuring the tentacles she attacked. Naturally, they couldn’t touch her. She never let anything get near her.

While Haruhiro was holding his breath and watching the elf’s magnificent and sublime sword techniques intently, he heard someone let out a sigh that sounded like a yawn. When he looked over, the big man with the dreadlocks passed by Haruhiro with relaxed, but incredibly large steps.

Kemuri was a paladin just like Akira-san, Tokimune, or Kuzaku. Naturally, that meant he had a shield on his back, but the very long sword he was wearing diagonally over his back caught Haruhiro’s attention first.

Slowly drawing that sword with both hands, Kemuri approached the hydra.

No matter how good he is, isn’t that being a little too careless?

One of the tentacles took aim at Kemuri. From up above and to the side, it swung down diagonally at him.

“Heave—” Kemuri didn’t dodge. He met the tentacle with his sword. “—ho!”

When it collided with the sword, the tentacle was torn in two. How did that even work? He’d just won a contest of brute strength against a tentacle that was over two meters thick.

“If he does stuff like that, I’m amazed his back doesn’t hurt.” Akira-san was stroking his chin, having switched into spectator mode.

Is that the problem here?

“You have back pains, after all.” Miho rubbed Akira-san’s back.

“Hmph! I could do that, too...” Branken had shouldered his ax and looked like he was taking a break, too.

“I’ll pass, thanks.” Kayo walked over to Gogh, snatching up her hubby and carrying him in her arms like he was a princess. “That was some good work you did. You must be tired from using all that magic, aren’t you, honey?”

“...Not that tired, so stop carrying me like this.”

“At your age, what do you have to be embarrassed about?” Kayo asked.

“It’s precisely my age that makes this so embarrassing. Let me down!”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Dammit!”

While watching that husband and wife who were so close it made everyone who saw it embarrassed for them, their elven son wore a truly contented smile.

“Oh, my. It’s Shima-chan,” said Miho. Looking over in the same direction as she was, Haruhiro saw the sexy older girl walking gracefully in their direction.

“Hey,” Shima said with a bow of her head. “What’s the situation here?”

“It’s tougher than we thought.” Akira-san tilted his head to the side a little. “It looks like we won’t be able to just hit its weak spot and finish it quickly like that. We’ll need to wear it down. Where’s Pingo-kun?”

“He’s sticking close to the giant god. Zenmai, too. He’s been with Pingo since he came back when he couldn’t lead the hydra around anymore.”

“Do you think Lala and Nono fled?” Akira-san asked.

“I wonder,” Shima said. “There’s no predicting those two.”

“I guess we’ll have to sort out the hydra first.”

“If anything happens, I’ll heal you,” Shima said. “Not that I think it will.”

“No, I’ll be counting on you. I mean, I’m getting on in years, after all. I could always slip up.”

“Surely you jest.”

“I’m serious. —Branken, Kayo, time to get back to work.”

“Very well.” Branken stroked his beard, a fire burning in his eyes.

“Honey, wait for me, okay?” Kayo set Gogh down, then spun her arms in circles to warm up.

“I’ll help, too!” Taro readied his bow.

Oh. They’re actually doing it. Well, yeah, I guess they would, huh? I mean, it’s looking like Soma, Lilia, and Kemuri could take it out by themselves, thought Haruhiro. There was nothing for him and the others to do, so they were probably good to stay here in spectator mode and watch the fight to the end. Or rather, they couldn’t do anything more than that.

Tada spoke up. “We’re gonna steal their thunder, Tokimune.”

“Let’s do it, Tada!”

Tada and Tokimune were raring to go, and Iron Knuckle, the Berserkers, and Orion all looked like they saw this as the time to turn things around, but Haruhiro had no intent of getting dragged into it.

Despite that, Ranta said, “O-O-O-O-Okay, me too!” with a quiver in his voice. He was hopeless.

“Yeah, you go right ahead,” said Haruhiro.

“—Wait, you’re not stopping me?! Damn you and your sleepy eyes!”

“My eyes have nothing to do with this...”

“They so do, you dolt!” screamed Ranta. “It creeps me out, that look in your eyes!”

“Akira-san and the others are leaving without you, you know,” said Haruhiro.

“Whoa, you’re right! I missed my chance! Maaaan, I’m too late. What a shame, huh. Can’t go now. It’s all your fault, Parupiro.”

“My fault, huh...”

While thinking, Man, how about you just go charge at the hydra, Haruhiro looked around. There was no way he could fight the hydra, but there could still be cultists or white giants coming. If necessary, they could handle a number of those.

That’s right. I’ve got to keep it together. We ordinary people need to do ordinary people things. That’s fine, or rather, it’s all we can do. Even if we’re mediocre, we won’t let out skills rot, you know? I mean, if we let them rot, we’d be even worse than mediocre.

“...Wait? Is that—Huh...? Hold on... Yume?”

“Meow?” Yume asked.

“Hey, over there...” Haruhiro pointed off to the south. “I mean, it could be my imagination, but...”

“Huh? Whewie. There’s somethin’ there,” Yume agreed. “Not sure ’bout this, but maybe it’s a hydra?”

“Yeah, I thought so. That’s what I thought it lo—” Haruhiro panicked and looked again. “I-It does look like one, doesn’t it?! It looks like a h-h-hydra, right?! Yeah?!”

“Another one?!” Merry cringed.

“No way...” Shihoru was trembling.

“Huh? Isn’t that bad?” Maybe because of exhaustion, Kuzaku’s posture was even worse than usual.

“You joking...” While still tucked under Mimorin’s arm, Anna-san shaded her eyes with one hand and looked off into the distance. “—What the fuck?! No way!”

“Oh, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on!” Ranta pointed the tip of his Lightning Sword Dolphin at Haruhiro. “This is all your fault, bud! I blame you!”

“What the heck?” Mimorin said in a monotone voice and whacked Ranta in the back of the head with her staff.

“Urgh...” Ranta squatted down in pain.

“Maaaan!” Kikkawa tried to joke around for some reason. “It’s like, doesn’t that just beat all? Even I’ve got to cry uncle after seeing this! Wait, have I even got an uncle?!”

“Hm...” Gogh seemed to be thinking about it.

“Well, that’s a quandary.” Miho’s tone didn’t sound quite serious enough given the gravity of the situation.

Is it because she’s too beautiful? wondered Haruhiro, Or does that have nothing to do with it?

“There were others, huh.” The way Shima said that with a furrowed brow seemed, in a word, seductive.

Hold on, why are these people acting so undaunted? Is it experience? This kind of crisis is nothing to them? Maybe they think they’ll just be able to get out of it in the end anyway?

“A-A-Akira-san!” Haruhiro raced over.

Akira-san was about to throw himself at the hydra. Even so, he noticed Haruhiro and turned to face him.

“What is it, Haruhiro-kun?”

“Th-Th-This is bad! There’s a hydra!” Haruhiro looked once more to the south, then cast his eyes to the east and west.

He almost fell speechless.

No, I can’t afford to get tongue-tied. Not now.

It wasn’t just the south. It was a good thing he’d looked to the east and west, too. Was it good? He couldn’t say. But the facts were the facts.

“Th-Th-Th-Th-There are more coming! I see one, two—three or four?! Around that many!”

“What did you say?” Even Akira-san was surprised by this news, but apparently not to the point where he was shocked by it. He took a quick look around the area, then lifted his sword up high. “Miho, Gogh, keep me apprised of the situation. To any volunteer soldiers sure of your skills! Follow me and Soma! Don’t fall behind! Victory will belong to those who pluck it for themselves!”

With the legendary man firing them up, the volunteer soldiers roared as one.

Huh? Haruhiro thought, stunned. Is that okay...?

This time, Haruhiro really did fall speechless, and he stood there in dumb shock.

No, well... If that’s what Akira-san says... it’s the right answer—I guess. Probably.

The original hydra had been pushed to the brink by Soma and the others, leaving it with only three tentacles left completely intact. It was using those tentacles to jump and run around. Once the remaining tentacles were chopped up, it wouldn’t even be able to do that.

That hydra would be taken down soon. Even if the new hydras came, it wouldn’t change that. They could just take them down one at a time. Akira-san must be confident about that. If he had Soma and the others, they could kill them. He must have made his decision having accounted for that.

Haruhiro used the back of his hand to wipe the area around his mouth and looked around.

Hydras.

There was one to the south, one to the east, and one to the southwest. That was three that he could see. But he couldn’t say for certain that there wouldn’t be more coming after them. Besides, as he had expected, there were more than just the hydras. He saw white giants, too. And cultists. Some portion of those would come swarming to attack the volunteer soldiers, no doubt.

Are they planning on using them? The thought suddenly occurred to Haruhiro.

Between Soma, Akira-san, and their parties, they could defeat the hydras. They didn’t need the other volunteer soldiers’ strength. Despite that, Akira-san had egged them on and convinced them to stay. If the lesser enemies got involved in their fight, it would complicate things. Were they planning to use them to deal with the small fry?

No, no, Akira-san wasn’t that kind of guy. That was the sense that Haruhiro got. Akira-san was a great man, and a good person. He wouldn’t use others as disposable pawns. He was so accepting and considerate of others, he was completely perfect—

Was he really?

He used to be a coward. That’s what Miho had said. Even though he didn’t look like it at all.

Akira-san seemed so kind. He was strong, reliable, and if anything happened, it felt like he would protect them, like a father—but would he really?

Akira-san wasn’t the genius type. There had been those more talented than him, but they had all died. Akira-san had survived to grow stronger. That was what Gogh had said.

How had Akira-san survived? Hadn’t he occasionally been forced to make harsh, even cold decisions? Hadn’t he grown stronger because he could do that, and so he’d survived?

Haruhiro turned back, and then, as casually as he could manage, he asked Gogh, “What do you think our losses will be?”

“Oh, you’re that type, huh.” Gogh raised one eyebrow. “That’s a little bit unexpected.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had taken you for the emotional type. I don’t know you that well, so that was just my impression. If you’re able to calmly calculate losses, you might actually be more suited to be a commander than I would have thought.”

“...You still haven’t answered my question, though.”

“It’s luck.” Gogh spun his index finger in a circle. “If our luck is bad, even we could die. That’s how it works. There’s no way to tell how many people will die. Of course, I have no plan of dying here. If you want to survive, too, then I suggest you stay by our side.”

“That’s no good,” said Haruhiro.

“Huh?”

“It’s no good.” Haruhiro sighed.

It feels like the blood is gonna rush to my head. Don’t get emotional. It’s not that I’m mad. It’s just, that’s not it, he thought.

“If you claim you survived because you were lucky, you can only say that in hindsight,” he said. “There are actually a lot of factors that go into it, aren’t there? Would you call being used as a disposable pawn by someone else part of luck? I don’t see it that way. I have cases where I think, ‘I only survived thanks to that guy,’ or, ‘I’d have died if things had happened this way.’ That’s not luck. It’s thanks to someone, or something.”

“So what?” Gogh was smiling slightly. “What is it you want to say?”

“I dunno that I can word it very well, but...”

“Just get to the point. I hate beating around the bush.”

“J-Just—I was thinking, wouldn’t it be possible to try to minimize the number of people who die? Yeah, I’m sure the strong ones might survive. It may mean that the ones who survive are strong. But even if they’re weak, or unlucky, aren’t people still alive?”

“Why should we have to go to the trouble of taking care of the weak and unlucky?” Gogh asked.

“I don’t think you have to take care of them...”

“Damn straight. We’re not philanthropists, and we aren’t running a charity here.”

“S-Still, if there’s something you can do, please, do it.”

“What for?” Gogh asked.

“I mean, if they die, it’s all over!”

Haruhiro bit his lip and shook his head. If he were smarter, might he have been able to come up with a convincing argument and persuaded Gogh? Or was Haruhiro’s thinking misguided to begin with?

“Once you die, there’s nothing left,” he explained. “For that person, at least, the door to every possibility is closed. So, is it that strange that I want as few people to die as possible? If there’s no other way, then so be it, but if you’ve got something you can do, I think you ought to do it. Isn’t throwing away people you don’t know as sacrificial pawns just taking the easy way out?”

“You’re saying we should deliberately take the harder path?” Gogh demanded.

“I think it would be better that way.”

“You’re so green.” Shima chuckled. “I don’t mind that, though.”

“But Haruhiro-kun.” Miho stared Haruhiro in the eye. “What can you do? You don’t want sacrifices. That’s fine, but what can you do about it?”

“No, that’s...”

It was a strangely intense stare. Haruhiro almost looked down despite himself, but he managed not to somehow. With upturned eyes, he just barely managed to withstand Miho’s gaze. That was the best he could do.

“No... there isn’t anything I can do. Not really. If there were, I’d be doing it. That’s why I’m asking Gogh-san, though.”

“Oh, my.” Miho’s eyes opened a little wider.

“You’re preposterous.” Gogh frowned and shrugged. “I don’t think that honesty of yours is a virtue. Not one bit. But it’s something that, at some point, we lost. It’s good to go back to our roots every once in a while.”

“Soma’s instincts may have been right, you know.” With those mysterious words, Shima leaned in close to Haruhiro. Something smelt incredibly good.

Wait, isn’t she a little too close?

“We’re searching for a way back to our original world.” Her voice was an almost breath-like whisper.

Haruhiro held his ears and backed away despite himself. “...Huh? Original? What do you mean, a way back...?”

“Forget that for now.” Shima brought her index finger to her pursed lips. “We’ll discuss that some other time. First, we’ve got to get out of here, right?”

“This was your idea,” Gogh said, pressing a finger against Haruhiro’s forehead. “Even if you can’t do anything, if you just scramble to run away, I won’t stand for it. You’re sticking with us until the end. You’ve got to give us at least that much.”

“Oka—”

He was about to immediately agree, but then he snapped to his senses. This wasn’t only Haruhiro’s problem. It affected his comrades, too. Haruhiro was the party’s leader.

When he turned around, Ranta laughed and gave him a bitter look. “If you hadn’t said it, I was gonna, baldy.”

“There’s noooo way that’s true.” Yume puffed up one of her cheeks.

“I’ve already decided I’ll follow you.” Kuzaku was like a big, loyal dog at this point.

“Me, too.” Merry smiled and nodded.

“...I think it’s fine.” Shihoru gave him an awkward smile, too.

“Umm, umm, what about all of us?!” Kikkawa glanced to Mimorin and Anna-san, then looked around restlessly. “Whaaaa?! Where’s Inuicchi?!”

“That half-wit’s been gone for loooong time now, yeah?!” Anna-san shouted.

“Seriously?! Like, I never even noticed,” said Kikkawa. “Well, whatever! He’s prolly alive! As for us, well, I guess that’s up to Tokimune, huh?”

“Sadly,” Mimorin nodded.

“Oh, good grief. What a pain.” Gogh looked Haruhiro and the others over quickly. His expression made it look like he was fed up, but there was a life in his eyes that hadn’t been there a little while ago. “For the time being, you’ll be escorting Miho, Shima, and myself. Stay close to us, and do as I tell you. I’ll teach you what it means to walk a thorny path. Starting now, we’re going to withdraw, keeping casualties to a minimum. We’ll slip past the giant god somehow and escape from the Dusk Realm.”

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.”

Afterword

In the afterword for each volume of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, I’ve usually ended up writing about video games, but I think I’ll do something a little different this time.

As has already been announced, this novel will be receiving an anime adaptation.

I hadn’t anticipated this at all, and honestly, when my editor, Mr. K, first told me it might be happening, I laughed it off as unlikely. I was sure that the project would just up and vanish. Even after meeting Director Ryosuke Nakamura, as well as Mieko Hosoi-san and all of the producers, I was still half in doubt.

When I read the script, it was very entertaining, and I admired what they had done. “Why, this Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, it’s quite an impressive story. I wonder who wrote the original work. Oh, I did? Are you sure?” That was how disconnected I felt from it all. It just didn’t feel real.

It’s Mr. K and Mr. H of the editing department that deal directly with the anime production staff, so, in a way, it’s like everything’s happening off somewhere far away. It’s hard for it to sink in. There was a lot of actual work involved for me, including checks and adjustments, as well as giving my opinion on things. Though I never calmed down, I was relatively clear-headed about it all. But, you know, I just couldn’t calm down about it, and I still can’t.

This project came about because someone liked the novel and wanted to make an anime of it, so I am, of course, grateful for and happy about that. In the process of meeting the production team directly and speaking with them a number of times, I saw the passion and the seriousness with which they approached the work. I was surprised and overwhelmed by how deeply and with how much detail they thought about everything, and I was sincerely pleased by the fact that the thing they were creating was based on my own original work.

There are many people involved in the production of an anime, and a lot of money changes hands. It’s on a completely different scale from a novel. Obviously, they aren’t just doing all of this for their own entertainment, so I’m hoping it’s a success for them.

This is all just a matter of my own mentality, but one day I noticed I was watching the anime of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash from a surprisingly objective perspective.

Why is that? I wondered. I quickly found my answer.

Fundamentally, I am the kind of person who, even when it isn’t going well, and he is feeling pain and loneliness, can be happy so long as he is writing novels. I think being a novelist is truly my calling. But does it absolutely have to be novels? I don’t think it does.

What I enjoy is imagining this or that in my head, and then capturing it in some form. Whether that’s as manga, movies, pictures, music, I think anything would probably do.

However, if you have a pen and paper, or even just a PC these days, you can write. What’s more, you can do it by yourself, no help from others needed. That’s an important point.

I want to do everything by myself. I want to create something that’s purely my own.

Well, I’m sure there are people who do it all by themselves with manga, but it’s not as easy as with a novel. As for pictures, if there had been something that gave me the impetus to do it, I might have worked with them. I tried music, or songs rather, but I hated the sound of my own voice. With my voice, my songs wouldn’t turn out the way I was imagining them. There’s no helping that.

Due to various factors, I ended up choosing novels, which I could begin and complete entirely by myself. By the way, even with novels, when you think about the publication of the book, there are the editor and designers, the proofreaders, and the illustrator involved, as well. However, the first draft, I believe, belongs entirely to the novelist.

That’s why I do as little to change my first draft as possible. Almost the only time I make corrections is when my editor or the proofreaders note a mistake or something contradictory and I feel there is a valid need to. My novels are mine and mine alone, and that’s why I love being a novelist.

Because of that, I am very grateful to those who make my novels into books for me. I pay great respect to the talents of those men and women.

It’s true that the anime for Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash is based on my novel, but naturally, it is not my novel. It’s something that Director Nakamura and many other people have worked together to create. It’s absolutely not mine. If the anime turns out to be something wonderful, that achievement belongs to the people who created it. I only provided the original source materials. The anime is entirely their work.

I have ended up in a position where I can, directly and indirectly, see the incredible labor they put in, the skills they’ve developed, and the rare sense of taste that they have put to use in creating anime. I am the person with the greatest expectations for the anime Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, and also one of the people looking forward to it.

If my novel were not the original work, I wouldn’t have had the chance to have these expectations and anticipation for it. That is a fact. In a broad sense, that may be because I am one of the creators. If there’s anything I can do to make the anime a success, I will gladly do it. But, really, I’m a novelist, and the anime is not my novel. It’s because I’ve drawn a firm distinction between the two in my mind that I’m able to wait for the anime with great expectations, and to look forward to it.

This is a first experience for me, and I’m having trouble keeping calm about it, but it looks like I’ll be able to become one of the fortunate viewers of the anime Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash. Because of my position, I’ve had a glimpse at the production process (which was incredibly fun me, too; the script, storyboards, roughs, everything, it was all incredible), and so I can say this with absolute certainty: It’s going to be a really, really, really wonderful anime!

I’ve run out of pages.

To my editor, K-san, to Eiri Shirai-san, to the designers of KOMEWORKS among others, to everyone involved in production and sales of this book, and finally to all of you people now holding this book, I offer my heartfelt appreciation and all of my love. Now, I lay down my pen for today.

I hope we will meet again.

Ao Jyumonji

Bonus Short Stories

The Beast that will Soon Bring Destruction

The twilight colors that stained the skies were the mark of the end.

“In time, the black king of demons will be born, and the world will fall to the black despair...”

The man who was masquerading under the transient name of Inui in this current world looked up to the skies in Alterna, the town of destruction.

“Heh...” He cleared his throat and smirked.

The bell tolled, marking the time of ruin. Unaware of their impending destruction, the foolhardy masses went about their business as the wind of prophecy blew.

“It would seem that it is I, alone, who knows the truth of this material world...”

With a tinge of loneliness, Inui entered the alleyway.

“They are not so easily found, it seems... my fated comrades, to whom I am bound by the ties of our past life...”

Suddenly sensing the gaze of another upon him, Inui looked up. The black beast stared down at him from atop the building facing the alleyway. Amber eyes. Round pupils the color of darkness.

“You... you couldn’t be...” Inui said beneath his breath.

“Meow,” the black beast responded in a ridiculous voice.

“Your usual false form, I see,” Inui intoned. “Did you think it would deceive me?”

“Meeeeow.”

“You seek battle, do you? Heh... I admire your courage...” Inui waved to the beast. “Come. Come at me. I will face you.”

The black beast ducked its head, vanishing from view. Had it sensed its imminent defeat and fled? It was no fool, then, unlike the indiscriminate humans. Inui furrowed his brow and shook his head. He was about to turn and go.

That was when it happened. With a soft landing, the black beast descended somehow, then approached him.

“I knew it...!” Inui opened the eye not covered by his eyepatch wide. He slowly lowered his hips, extending his right hand towards the black beast. “I am well aware of your weaknesses. Do you think you will truly be able to overcome me?”

The black beast came to a halt, hesitating. Perhaps in fear. Of course, it must fear Inui, no doubt. However, the black beast would still challenge him. Inui had faced countless battles like this. He could tell these things.

He proved to be right.

The black beast carefully walked forward, bringing its nose towards Inui’s right hand. When Inui extended his index finger, the black beast sniffed it. Then it rubbed its chin against Inui’s finger. Its throat emitted a low purr. Inui smiled.

“You could never defeat me... Heh... Heheheh... Hahhh! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...”

However, perhaps he had let his guard down. As Inui stroked the black beast’s neck, he turned to look behind him. His eyes met those of another.

“...Reinforcements, is it?”

There was a white beast, several stripped beasts, and a large black beast. They approached Inui without fear. How bold!

“You think you can defeat me if you rely on numbers?” Inui asked. “You take me too lightly! Did you not think I would foresee your plot and prepare myself?”

Inui quickly scooped up the black beast, pulling a number of strips of jerky from his pocket. There was a hunger in the beasts’ eyes.

“I am well acquainted with your habits. Know thyself, know thy enemy, and you need not fear the result of a hundred battles!”

The beasts swarmed around the jerky he threw to them. The black beast cradled in Inui’s arms struggled, desiring some of the jerky for itself.

“Patience... I have some for you, too.”

Inui produced more jerky from his pocket and gave it to the black beast at his breast. The black beast must have been hungry, as it forgot it was being held by Inui, not objecting when he stroked it all over. It fed greedily on the jerky instead.

Inui narrowed his right eye. “In the end, you were no match for me... That’s all it means. Meh...”

“Meow.”

“Meeeeow.”

“Mrrrow.”

“Meow.”

“Meow.”

“Meow.”

Voices. Voices. Voices. Voices... Voices from all directions.

Inui looked around. On the roof, across the alleyway, and on the opposite side of it, too, there were beasts, beasts, beasts. There were more than ten... no, there were tens of them. Holding the black beast that was still engrossed with its jerky, Inui stuck his hand into the container.

“...The battle has only just begun, I see. Heh.”

Even

“Ta-dah! Who’s here? Hey, it’s me, Kikkawa! Yeah! Huh? You didn’t like that? Pardon me? Wow! Well, whatever, we’ll roll right along then. What, what? You’re going away? You’re leaving? Like, no way. Like, for serious? Okay, fine. I get it. Later. Maybe next time, okay? Tomorrow, okay? Tomorrow! Ciao! I love you! I need you! Bye bye! I really, really do love you!”

Kikkawa smiled as he watched the two women leave, then gave a wink to Ranta who was rushing back over.

“Soz, soz! I got shot down again!” Kikkawa called. “I’m, like, totally off my groove today. That’s seven in a row! Let’s go for ten! Yeah! Ten, ten, teeeen!”

“...Man, with all the times you’ve been shot down, I’m amazed you can keep going so strong,” Ranta replied.

“Huh? I mean, the next one might say yes, right? There might be an even cuter cutie out there, just waiting for me, you know? When you think of it that way, doesn’t it get you fired up? Burning, burning! Okay, for the next one, Ranran, you be my wing man! Let’s do that!”

“I’d... rather not,” Ranta said.

“Why, why, why? How come, how come?”

“...I’m just feeling exhausted, somehow. I mean, what’s your success rate, anyway?”

“Hmm. I wonder. I don’t count, so, like, I dunno, man. Sometimes I get someone on the first try, sometimes I strike out all night. Well, that’s just how it goes, I guess. How about you, Ranran?”

“I’m not... Wait, hold on. Who’re you calling Ranran?”

“Ranran-ra-ran! Doesn’t it sound fun? Feel it! Yay! So, so, so, Ranran, how about you? What’s your success rate?” Kikkawa demanded.

“I’m... Well, you know? When I get them, I get them, when I don’t, I don’t, I guess...”

“Just like me, huh! We’re birds of a feather! Yay! So? You in for the next one?”

Ranta passed.

It would have been awkward to just go home, though, so the two decided to drink. They chose the bar Renji had taken him to on the edge of Celestial Alley. It was small, but they had good a selection of drinks. It was a nice place.

“Ooh, Ranchicchi, you drink at places like this, huh?” Kikkawa called. “So mature. You’re such an adult. You’re cool. You’re the best!”

“You making fun of me, pal?” Ranta demanded.

“Nah, man, it’s a good place. Hey, barkeep, I’ll have one of whatever you suggest! Something that tastes good! Nothing too hard, maybe. I’ll go with that!”

“Brandy for me,” Ranta said.

“Wow! Brandy! Ranchicchi, you so cool! Well, maybe I’ll... not do that, too! Something else for me, please! No real reason for it, though!”

“...Kikkawa, man, you’ve got too much energy. I could kill you, and you’d probably still keep going and going.”

“Nah, man, if you killed me, I’d be pretty dead. ...Oops.”

“Huh? What?” Ranta asked.

“Nah, I’m sorry. For, like, talking about dying and stuff.”

“Ohh, that. No sweat, man. I mean, I’m the one who started it.”

“Well, yeah, I know. I know that, but still...” Kikkawa knocked back the drink brought to him, then let out a sigh. “I didn’t really understand it, you know. The way you guys feel. Yeah. I keep thinking I should have been more understanding. It was only once I went through that situation where it looked like, ‘Hey, maybe we’re totally screwed’ that I got it. The idea of losing someone, it’s scary, man. You guys have had to go through that and overcome it. That’s why, right? Why you saved us.”

“...Who knows,” Ranta said.

“I thought, like, maybe that might be it.”

“You guys’ve helped us out, too. I’d say we’re even.”

“You think?”

“That’s just how it is. That’s life, man. ...Let’s stop. It’s no fun to talk about it.”

“Yeah.”

Kikkawa smiled, lifting his glass mug. “This one’s on me. Let me get the bill.”

“You’d damn well better.” Ranta gave a nasal laugh. “Then I’ll pay at the next place. That’s how it works, you know?”

Can’t Stop This

“You think that weird old man ran off?” Tokimune laughed and adjusted the grip on his sword. His shield was lying somewhere nearby. He couldn’t use his left hand, or his entire left arm anymore.

“Who knows?” Tada asked. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

Tada was carrying his two-handed sword over his shoulder. His ragged breathing made it seem less like he was deliberately lowering his center of gravity and more like he was exhausted and that had forced him to do it.

They were in the Cyrene Mines. He didn’t remember which layer. Whether they looked forward, backward, left, or right, there was nothing but kobolds, kobolds, kobolds. There might have actually been more of the well-built elder kobolds than the normal ones. The two were completely encircled.

The kobolds were all enraged, but they didn’t come at them. Even in their excited state, they remained cautious. There had been a number of pitiful kobolds that had sprung at these two humans, only to be taken down in one blow when they did.

“Tada,” Tokimune said.

“What?”

“I’ve been wondering, man, you’re a warrior, so why don’t you wear a helmet?”

“Hey, buddy, you’re a paladin, so why don’t you?” Tada shot back.

“Yeah, it’s constraining, so I don’t like to.”

“Well, I’m strong, so I don’t need one.”

“Makes sense.”

“...Besides, I can’t see that well without my glasses,” Tada confessed.

“Ohh. Yeah, glasses and helmets don’t work together that well, huh.”

“Either way, I don’t need one.”

“You’re a stubborn man, Tada.” Tokimune laughed and twisted his head around. The kobolds still hadn’t attacked yet. “They’re spooked, huh. By us. Hey, Tada. You up for a competition? See who can kill more?”

“No way.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“I know I’d win. It’s pointless. Let’s do something better.”

“What?” Tokimune asked.

“See who can get out of the Cyrene Mines first.”

“I like it. I’m in.”

“I’ll win.” Tada stepped forward and swung down with his two-handed sword. There was a howl. One kobold collapsed.

Not one to be beaten, Tokimune charged forward, thrusting his sword into a kobold’s mouth. He soon lost the leeway to keep tabs on how Tada was fighting. After Tokimune took down the kobold, he used its body as a meat shield as he killed another.

“Ha ha! Ha ha!” He could hear Tada laughing.

He was having so much fun that, even as he was almost buried in the pile of kobold corpses, Tokimune smiled. With a smile, he thrust his sword out through a gap in the bodies.

“Gah...!”

That was Tada’s voice. Tokimune turned to look. Tada was down on all fours. Had he been hit? Better go help him, thought Tokimune, but he couldn’t make his way there through the bodies.

“Weren’t you going to win this, Tada?!” he shouted.

Tada tried to rise. It didn’t work. He wasn’t fast enough. One elder kobold got to Tada.

Someone grabbed that elder kobold violently from behind, snapping its neck.

“...Old man!” Tokimune cried.

“My name is Inui!” The thief, Inui, who looked like a middle-aged guy if ever there was one, went on to break another kobold’s neck. “I am Inui the Demon Lord! Behold my supremacy!”

“You make no sense!” Tada took his time getting up, then swung his two-handed sword around chopping up kobolds. Tokimune pushed aside the corpses, too, kicking a kobold and stabbing it with his sword.

“Being the old man you are, we thought you’d ditched on us!” Tokimune shouted.

“The Demon Lord never flees! He never curries favor! Butter Roll!” Inui seemed to be in a weird state of mind. He went around snapping kobold necks, snap, snap, one after another. “Also! I’m only twenty! Not an old man!”

“Seriously?” Tokimune was so surprised that he just stood there for a second. Not good. He was wide open. The kobolds didn’t take advantage, though. Inui and Tada were on such a rampage that they didn’t have time to. Naturally, Tokimune had no intention of letting those two have all the fun.

“Inui! You get in on this, too!” he shouted. “First one out of the Cyrene Mines wins! Got it?!”

“May the darkness of ruin spread through the world’s dawn! I, the Demon Lord, shall be victorious!”

“I’m going to win!” Tada yelled.

“Nuh-uh! I’m the one who’s gonna win!” Tokimune called back.

Encyclopedia of Rare and Bizarre Beasts

“What the hell?”

Anna-san crouched down, dejected. She was all alone in the Old City of Damuro. Maybe wandering away from her comrades to relieve herself had been a bad idea. But what else could she have done? Anna-san’s stomach had been bothering her since that morning. In other words, she had told them she was going to take a leak, but there was the risk it wouldn’t end there. As such, she couldn’t very well do it nearby.

“After all, Anna-san is a lady, yeah? Yeah...?”

What was more, it had taken her a long time. But she couldn’t have stopped in the middle and gone back to ask them to wait for her. That would have been really awkward. Besides, though she called them her comrades, it wasn’t as though they were close. It was a party that felt like a mish-mash of leftover people, one that hadn’t even formed that long ago.

It had been a little over thirty days since she’d come to Grimgar. Anna-san had been through a number of parties. She knew why. Her language. It was unclear why, but while she could more or less understand pretty much everything the other volunteer soldiers and residents of Alterna said, she couldn’t speak the same language as them very well.

No one else was like Anna-san. This was shocking, and made for a tough situation. Even so, Anna-san tried to speak her mind. It made her feel awkward if she didn’t. However, no matter what she said, they didn’t try to understand her.

Not many pushed back against her openly, but all of them disliked having Anna-san around, and she was treated as a nuisance. If she protested the unfair treatment, things only got worse, and ultimately the party would break up. However, later Anna-san would sometimes find that everyone but herself was working together again. In other words, they had worked together to stage the breakup of the party just to rid themselves of her. They didn’t have to go to all that trouble — they could have just chased Anna-san out. Thanks for nothing!

She knew what was up. It had played out differently this time, but it was the same thing. Anna-san was in her comrades’ way. That was why when Anna-san went off on her own to take a leak and didn’t come back for a while, they took that as their cue to leave. Anna-san had been left behind. In the middle of the goblin-infested Old City of Damuro. They had basically told her to go to hell. The dummies!

There was a sound behind her. Anna-san turned and looked in surprise. When she saw what looked like a goblin in the distance, she panicked and quickly tried to hide in the shadow of a nearby building. For some time, she held her breath and stayed still. When she timidly peeked out, the goblin was nowhere to be seen. She was relieved, but then her stomach started to hurt again.

“Ow... Wow... No... Tummy pain...”

Anna-san sweated profusely and writhed in pain. As she did, she thought she heard something like breathing. When she turned to look, wondering what it was, the goblin was right next to her, sword raised above its head. It was about to swing down at Anna-san.

“...Oh, my God!”

It never occurred to her to run away. Her mind went blank. Anna-san was about to be killed before she had the time to think, I’m dead.

Until a woman cut the goblin down, or rather pulverized it with her sword. “Hah!”

There was one awfully large female warrior in the party. She wore a horned helm, chain mail, and was the tallest in the group despite being a woman. That warrior suddenly appeared behind the goblin.

She clobbered it in the head with the flat of her blade, not the cutting edge for some reason. It was an incredibly wide swing. That only meant it was that much more powerful, because the goblin was swept to the side and fell down. The female warrior then jumped into the air, stomping down on the goblin’s head. There was a wet noise as its head caved in and blood splashed all over. It even got on Anna-san’s face.

“Wha... Wha... Wha... How...?” Anna gasped.

“You okay?” With no expression on her face, the female warrior offered Anna-san her hand. Anna-san was trembling, so the female grabbed her by the arm, pulled her up, then lifted her up and carried her. “You don’t look okay.”

“Y-You... Wha...?” Anna-san sputtered.

“You cute critter,” said the female warrior. “I was worried, so I came looking.”

Queued quitter? The female warrior said something that sounded like nonsense to Anna-san, and then she frowned a little.

“The others wandered off. Useless trash. I’m sick and tired of them.”

“Why, you...” Anna-san began.

“You’re cute. I was worried.” The female warrior started to walk, still carrying Anna-san. “Call me Mimorin.”

“...Mimorin?”

“Yes. Mimorin. And you’re Anna-san. Okay?”

“...Okay,” Anna-san said.

Mimorin smiled slightly.

Anna-san kept looking at Mimorin’s face for a long time.

The Dozing Yorozu

The Yorozu Deposit Company operated year round, never taking a holiday, from seven in the morning to seven at night. At any time, for any purpose, the fourth Yorozu would be waiting at her window to handle business.

There was always a steady stream of customers—or that was what she would have liked to say, but on occasion, there were times when it was oddly dead.

Yorozu sat behind the counter on her personal leather chair. She wore a red and white outfit accented with gold that had been tailored specifically for her, as well as a gold-rimmed monocle. She also had a golden pipe.

The fourth Yorozu was poised, with an air of composure. Of course she was. For she was a Yorozu. No matter what might happen, or when, a Yorozu always had to be able to respond with a ready wit. Even if she had “free time,” that changed nothing. A Yorozu was to make appropriate use of such “free time.” Yes, for instance, this time, the present Yorozu was thinking about her predecessor.

The previous Yorozu had been her great-grandfather. He had remained in service until the age of 92, reigning from his glorious position at the window of the Yorozu Deposit Company. Then, only half a year after relinquishing his seat to this fourth Yorozu, he’d died of trivial causes. By the will of her great-grandfather she had inherited his position and become the fourth Yorozu.

There had been resistance within the company to the idea of a young girl like her becoming Yorozu. The truth was, even her own father and grandfather had opposed her great-grandfather on this. Despite that, her great-grandfather had held firm. The reason was clear. When compared to her father, her grandfather, and her elder brothers, or the head clerk, the sales clerks, the apprentices, compared to anyone else, she was the most fit to be Yorozu. That was why she had become the Yorozu. These words from her great-grandfather were carved deeply into the back of her mind:

One does not become a Yorozu. One cannot become a Yorozu. A Yorozu is born a Yorozu.

She understood well what her predecessor had meant. For as far back as she could remember, she had not once forgotten a thing. When she’d realized her memory was unnaturally good, she had prepared herself to become the Yorozu. Only her great-grandfather had known how prepared she was. Her father, her grandfather, her elder brothers... no one else had known. That was because her great-grandfather had been just as she was. A Yorozu knows another Yorozu. No one but a Yorozu can understand a Yorozu.

It seemed that, as she had been embracing the memories of her predecessor, with whom she had shared a unique and absolute closeness, and for whom she felt a limitless affection for, the Yorozu, of all people, had fallen asleep at her post.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a young man with a rather drab face and sleepy-looking eyes standing there idly.

“Wh-What are you doing, insolent one?” the Yorozu demanded.

“...Uh, it looked like you were taking a nap. You seemed to be enjoying it, so I’d have felt bad waking you, y’know.”

“I-I was doing no such thing. The Yorozu does not nap.”

“Is that how it is?” the insolent one asked.

“I-Indeed. The Yorozu is a Yorozu, you see.”

“Wow... That must be tough. I mean, on an afternoon like this, you get awfully sleepy, don’t you?” When the insolent one covered his mouth with one hand as he yawned, it nearly made the Yorozu yawn, too.

The Yorozu banged her golden pipe on the counter. “The Yorozu is not sleepy, and does not have free time to waste in idle banter. State your business, insolent one!”

“You look pretty tired to me, though?”

“Your business!”

“Right. ...Hold on, how long are you going to keep calling me ‘insolent one,’ anyway?”

“Forever! For so long as the fourth Yorozu remains Yorozu, Haruhiro, you will always, allllways be the insolent one!”

“Whaa...” The insolent one scratched the back of his head and sighed. “Well, I guess it’s fine.”