1. Laugh If You Want

It was so cold that morning that it had woken him up.

The air in the tent had been chilly and moist. His mom and dad hadn’t been there. He’d assumed they’d probably woken up first and headed out already, and he’d been right. One of them had then come into the tent. He’d known it was his mom when she hugged him tightly through his blanket.

“Listen, Manato. Your father and I have been talking, and we’ve decided we need to go to town.”

When his mom had told him that, what exactly had he thought about it? Manato didn’t remember very well. But he felt like he hadn’t understood that going to town meant they’d be living there. They had gone to town before, after all.

His parents were hunters. That meant they hunted wild beasts with bows and crossbows, spears and knives; they fished, or set up nets to be retrieved later; they foraged for berries, fruits, mushrooms, wild vegetables, fragrant grasses, and medicinal herbs; and they did all of this while frequently moving from place to place.

Even in Manato’s earliest memories, he’d had a knife in his hands. He knew which berries he could eat, and which mushrooms and grasses were definitely bad news, as well as the bugs, snakes, and other critters he had to watch out for—the bare minimum he’d needed to learn in order to survive. His parents must have taught him all that. Anything he didn’t know, he’d asked them. His mom would explain things at length, but his dad sometimes told him to figure it out for himself. Tear off a bit and lick it. If that did no harm, put it in his mouth. If nothing went wrong after a while, then it was more or less safe. That was the method that Manato had learned from a young age.

There were hunters outside of Manato’s family too. When they went after larger prey or hunted an entire herd of animals, they would sometimes work together with other hunters. But they never traveled with others for long. There were some hunters they had worked with a few times, but Manato only had a vague recollection of their faces. He didn’t remember any names.

Manato remembered a number of villages where hunters met up. Those small settlements had usually had maybe a dozen houses and some small fields, and had been inhabited by a bunch of old folks who could have dropped dead at any moment. They’d sometimes had hot springs. But those villages had apparently been taken over and occupied by the towns.

The towns were larger than the villages. Much larger. They had more houses than he could count and tons of people. Too many people. The towns had markets where he and his family could buy and sell things. Hunters would sell their furs and meat at the markets and receive things they couldn’t make in exchange, like textiles, clothes, knives, nails, and glue. But once their business was done, they never lingered long. The townsfolk looked down on hunters and were wary of them. It was best to leave in a hurry.

Since his mom and dad were hunters, Manato was a hunter too.

They’ve decided to go into town. We’re going into town again.

That was all Manato had made of it.

But he’d been mistaken. Badly mistaken.

First his mom and dad took him to the town called Nikoh. He’d been to Nikoh before and seen a sparkling building called the Toshogun from a distance. But Nikoh wasn’t their destination. Manato and his family passed through without stopping. Half a day later, they arrived in a town called Tsunomiya.

It was his first time in Tsunomiya, and the town was bigger than any he’d ever seen before. There were buildings everywhere, and even the narrowest roads had someone walking on them. There must have been an incredible number of people living in the town, yet there were no bodies lying along the roadside even though fly-ridden corpses were usually unavoidable in towns. There were a lot of crows, but none of the roaming dogs and pigs that would eat anything. There were a number of monstrous buildings belching black smoke into the air that shrouded the whole town in a thin haze. The sound of people talking, people shouting, people screaming, and who knew what else was constant.

There was a place in Tsunomiya called Hachimayah Park with a barbed wire fence around it and an unbelievably long line waiting in front of a sturdy gate. Manato had a lot of time to kill while his mom and dad were lined up there. But though he got hungry, he was never bored. There were dozens of kids like Manato around, whose parents were waiting in line. Manato hung out with them, and they’d talk about themselves or tell him about Tsunomiya. He also walked around picking things up.

The boss of Tsunomiya was called the mayor, and he was apparently a yakuza.

Manato knew what yakuza were. They shaved their heads or dyed their hair and always had tattoos. They wore flashy clothes and carried weapons openly, as if showing them off. They walked around in groups too, sometimes only a few, sometimes more, which made it easy to spot them. You had to watch out for them in towns. They were bad news. If a yakuza set their eyes on you, you had no idea what they were going to do.

And the town’s boss was a yakuza? What did that mean?

Manato thought that yakuza were big scary bad guys, so it came as a surprise to him, but it actually wasn’t that unusual. In fact, it was pretty common. That was what everyone told him.

His mom and dad spent almost two full days waiting in line and were finally able to meet the yakuza mayor. Or rather, they were able to meet another yakuza acting as his representative. They asked for permission to live in Tsunomiya, and once they got the okay, they went through the citizen registration process and were given a job by the yakuza mayor and a microapartment.

A microapartment was a room in a public housing complex. It was a lot more spacious than a tent, but the roof was low. Manato could stand up straight in it, but his mom and dad had to stoop.

When he asked about their work, his mom and dad wouldn’t tell him in any detail, but when the sun came up, they would leave the apartment, and they would come back when it went down. They were apparently going to that monstrous building that belched black smoke, which was something called a factory. There was a yakuza referred to as the foreman at the factory, and they had to do whatever he ordered them to. This was called labor. Doing labor was their job. They got one break in the middle of it, and were given food. His dad told him it was barely edible.

When they finished the work, they were given paper tickets. But the tickets weren’t just any old scraps of paper. They were money.

Money could be exchanged for goods in Tsunomiya and the surrounding area. His mom and dad used it to buy food which they brought back to the microapartment. And Tsunomiya didn’t just have meat, fruit, and vegetables. It had richly flavored soup, noodles, porridge, dumplings, dried foods, fried foods, skewers, and a wealth of other things for sale. Manato always looked forward to eating with his parents in the light of an oil lamp before going to bed.

But his mom and dad didn’t eat much. They’d only take a few bites and let Manato have the rest. While his parents worked in the factory, Manato wandered Tsunomiya, being careful not to let the yakuza pick a fight with him, and ate anything he could find that seemed edible. Even then, he was always hungry, so his parents were probably trying to provide for him as well as they could.

But that wasn’t all. There was an actual reason for them not being able to eat very much.

Back when they were hunters, the two of them had limped occasionally, and the grip strength of his dad’s left hand had been very poor. Both of his mom’s elbows, her right wrist, and her left knee had already gone bad. Occasionally, his mom or dad would lose a tooth, and they’d all laugh about it, but it wasn’t hard to recognize that not having many teeth left made it hard to eat. The two of them had gotten awfully thin since they’d moved into the microapartment. Not that they hadn’t been pretty thin before then too.

When hunters didn’t use traps, they had to chase their quarry. That had been hard on them. Manato had spent a lot of time desperately chasing animals around, trying to direct them to where his parents had been waiting. Sometimes the prey had suddenly fought back, which had resulted in some close calls. Manato had been delighted whenever his dad saved him, and he’d actually found it all pretty enjoyable, but it had scared his parents badly every time.

His parents had decided to move to Tsunomiya because they hadn’t been able to carry on as hunters.

They’ll both die soon. It won’t be long. Though Manato often thought that, he never said it out loud, because his mom and dad never talked about how they were going to die. They probably thought of it as an inevitability. All living things, whoever or whatever they were, had to die eventually. That was just the way of things. But they might have been worried because they had Manato. Manato would die eventually too, but how was he supposed to live until then? It was hard to hunt alone. Hunters always worked in pairs, at least. If possible, a group of three people was better than two. If they could get four, or even five, that made things even easier.

But in town, wouldn’t it be possible for Manato to live on his own?

That must’ve been what his mom and dad had been thinking when they’d decided to settle in Tsunomiya.

†

One day, his mom brought home a paper called a newspaper and read what it said for him. His dad was proud that his mom could read. His dad knew his numbers and a handful of other characters but couldn’t read blocks of text. His dad boasted about how smart his mom was, a toothless smile on his wrinkled face.

One day, his mom came to him with a bundle of papers called a book. It was a wonder that the paper didn’t scatter everywhere. Every piece of it was dense with text. His mom said it was a book she’d read a long time ago, and she’d been wanting to read it again for years, so his dad had saved up the money and bought it for her. She was weeping with joy, while also laughing because she couldn’t read through her tears, and they’d get the pages wet, so she said she didn’t know what to do. She knew how to read the book, and she wanted to, but she couldn’t. Manato and his dad burst out laughing.

One day, Manato’s mom taught him to read. After that, while his mom and dad worked in the factory, he would mostly stay in their microapartment, looking at the newspaper and his mom’s book. He was hopelessly hungry, but it made his mom happy when he spent time learning how to read. And when his mom was happy, his dad was happy too. They’d both be dead soon, so he wanted to make them as happy as he could until then.

One day, his dad couldn’t get out of bed. His mom was struggling too, but managed to drag herself to the factory. She bought some warm soup on the way home, but his dad just laughed and said that there was no way he could eat it and told Manato to eat it for him. As Manato sipped the soup, his dad asked if it was good. Yeah, it was good. When Manato said that, his dad laughed. Oh, yeah? It was good? His dad was glad to hear it. From the bottom of his heart, Manato was glad it had been so good. His mom smiled. She said she was glad too. So glad. They all smiled together. His dad would be dead soon, so it was best if he smiled while he could.

They turned out the oil lamp, and tried to go to sleep with Manato’s dad in the middle and Manato and his mom clinging to the withered man on either side, but then a yakuza stormed into the microapartment.

“Who told you y’could skip work, huh, pal? Are you messing with us? Y’think you can get away with this, do ya? Not a chance, you idiot.”

The yakuza had a tool that made a beam of light. He flashed it around the room, then stomped on dad through the blanket.

“The hell? You have a brat? If you’ve got a brat, you should put him to work too, pal. If his old man can’t work, then he should do your job to cover for you. Don’t you even know that? Are you stupid? You idiot.”

Manato was ready to take a swing at the yakuza, but his mom clung to him and made him stop. His dad didn’t resist, didn’t scream, didn’t even groan or stir.

“Listen here, pal. You better show up tomorrow. Y’know what’ll happen to you if you don’t, right? Huh.”

The yakuza wasn’t stomping on Manato’s dad repeatedly. He had just planted his foot on the old man through the blanket and held him down.

“And you, register your brat as a citizen. He looks healthy enough to me. Put him to work, you hear? Work. Honestly now. All these illegal residents are a real problem. Don’t make trouble for us. You hear me, idiot?”

Once the yakuza left and it was quiet, Manato’s dad burst out laughing. That yakuza had banged his head on the ceiling repeatedly, he said. Yeah, he had, Manato’s mom agreed with a laugh. The yakuza should have known microapartment ceilings were low, but he’d still ended up doing it repeatedly. Clearly that yakuza was the real idiot. Manato started to laugh too.

Manato and his mom clung to his dad in the middle again, and his dad said he was fine. He was better after a day’s rest and would be able to go to work tomorrow. It was okay.

But his dad was still stuck in bed the next day too, and his mom could only crawl. She tried to drag herself to work, but this time Manato stopped her. Well, she wouldn’t have been able to work anyway, his mom said with a laugh.

Manato thought that maybe he should go line up at the iron gate of Hachimayah Park and register as a citizen. He tried to talk to his parents about it, but his dad could only groan, and his mom would only shake her head, saying no, no, he didn’t have to. When night came, the yakuza returned.

He didn’t kick Manato’s mom or dad. He just took Manato out of the apartment. The hallway of the housing complex with its line of apartment doors was so narrow that two people could barely pass each other, but the ceiling was high enough that the yakuza wouldn’t hit his head.

“Listen here, brat.”

The yakuza threw his arm around Manato’s shoulders and lowered his voice. The stench of the man’s breath made Manato’s nose twitch.

“I’m not gonna lead ya wrong here. Get yourself registered and get a job. You’ve still got years of work left in ya. Your mom and dad, they’re finished. Once they bite it, this apartment’ll get reassigned to another citizen. So think about why your folks brought you here to Tsunomiya. You get me?”

“Your breath stinks,” Manato said, unable to take it any longer. The yakuza punched him.

“Watch it, you little shit. I’m in charge of this area, so I’ll be back again to check on things. I’ve gotta report it to town hall when your mom and dad croak. Another department’ll take care of the cleanup. You get yourself registered and work hard for the mayor. Live on the straight and narrow. I’m sure that’s what your mom and dad want for you too. It’ll be the best thing for you. Otherwise, they wouldn’t’ve come to Tsunomiya, would they? Huh?”

When Manato woke the next morning, his dad had gone cold. His mom had already noticed, but she was silent. Manato had been sound asleep, and she hadn’t wanted to wake him, she explained, laughing a bit.

That night, the yakuza knocked on their door. He didn’t come in. When Manato opened it, the man asked if his dad was dead yet. Not yet, he answered, and the yakuza just said okay and left.

The next day, his mom was breathing, but her eyes stayed closed, and she didn’t respond when Manato talked to her. The microapartment was swarming with flies. No matter how many he swatted, there were still more.

That night, the yakuza came knocking again. Manato opened the door just a little and said not yet again before closing it. The yakuza stayed in the hall awhile, but all he did was kick their door a few times before leaving.

That night, Manato didn’t sleep. It was still dark out when his mom stopped breathing. After she died, he realized his mom had been holding his dad’s hand.

Manato sat there thinking. He didn’t even try to drive off the flies. Should he register with the city like the yakuza had told him to? They’d find out that his mom and dad were dead in no time. Manato couldn’t stay there. He could become a citizen and work at the factory every day for the mayor. He’d get one break. They’d feed him. And he’d get money too. He could use that money to buy more food. He could also use it to buy newspapers and books to read occasionally.

Manato dragged his dad’s corpse out of the microapartment.

Then he did the same with his mom’s dead body too.

It was a lot of work, but they’d gotten a lot smaller before they died, so Manato was able to manage it by himself.

He then laid their bodies in front of the housing complex and made them hold hands.

He hesitated a bit first, but he placed the newspaper and book on his mom’s chest.

“Okay. Mom, dad, I’m leaving now.”

He smiled at them as he left the housing complex behind, heading toward the north. He was carrying the backpack he’d used in his days as a hunter. It had his knife, a hammer, flint, some nails, a can of adhesive, and the bare minimum of other tools he would need, so he was sure he could survive. And if he couldn’t, it would just mean that he’d die.

He meant to leave Tsunomiya before it was light out, but the roads were blocked by fences and had yakuza guarding them. He was pretty sure there had been yakuza when he’d first come to Tsunomiya but no fences back then. They could apparently be opened and closed and were shut at night so no one could slip out.

Would the yakuza manning the fences let him out if he asked? Probably not. If he paid them, maybe. But Manato had no money.

As he sat by the side of the road feeling like he was completely out of options, a yakuza approached him.

“What’re you doing here, brat? Huh? You wanna leave Tsunomiya? Did ya do something? Hey, c’mere a second, you little shit.”

Manato almost got caught, but he ran away. The yakuza chased after him, and before long, more and more of them began to join in on the pursuit. He even spotted the yakuza with the awful breath who’d come to the apartment. Manato got surrounded at one point, and a bunch of yakuza started whaling on him, but he found an opening and managed to get away. It felt like there were yakuza everywhere on the roads, so Manato fled into a drainage ditch. There was a hole under a bridge that went over the drainage ditch, the kind of hole that even Manato had to crouch to get into. But it continued for quite a distance. It was pitch-dark, it stank worse than the yakuza’s breath, and there were all sorts of things moving around inside of it.

“Nitwit!”

He heard a shout from somewhere ahead of him in the darkness. It was a high-pitched voice.

“Huh?” Manato didn’t understand.

As he came to a stop, the high-pitched voice shouted, “He’s not one of us!”

“Hey, get him!”

Something rushed toward Manato, and he immediately found himself pinned down in the dirty water. It was only knee-deep, but since he was being held under its surface, it quickly got into his mouth and nose. Manato thrashed around, unable to breathe. It wasn’t long before he lost consciousness.

†

When Manato came to his senses, his body, hair, and clothes were still soaked, but he wasn’t in the water anymore. He was lying on a hard floor with his hands and feet bound. It wasn’t pitch-dark. There was light. A campfire. He’d often sat around a campfire with his parents when they had been hunters. But this didn’t seem to be outdoors.

There was a group of people around Manato, looking down at him.

“I’ll be honest, you would normally be dead right now. We only spared you ’cause you’re a kid.”

“Who are you people? Yakuza?”

“No. Of course not. And you’re no yakuza either, huh?”

“The yakuza chased me and beat me.”

“What’d you do?”

“Nothing, really. Just tried to leave Tsunomiya.”

“Why do you want out of Tsunomiya?”

“I couldn’t stay in my old apartment now that mom and dad are dead, and I don’t wanna register as a citizen and work.”

“Neither do we. All our parents worked in the factories and died.”

“Then we’re the same.”

There were seven people present. Eight if you included Manato. Some were bigger or smaller, male or female, but they were all in about the same situation. They’d all lost their parents. When one of them said “nitwit,” the response was “canary.” Anyone who didn’t say that wasn’t one of them. Apparently, a canary was a bird. None of them knew what kind of bird. They’d just sort of settled on it.

The Canaries lived in places like drainage pipes, manholes, gaps between buildings that were too tight to pass through easily, and buildings that were crumbling and had been declared too unsafe to enter by the yakuza. If they stayed in one place for too long, the yakuza would find them, and that could mean getting killed, so they moved around constantly.

They mostly got their food in the marketplace. They didn’t have money, so they stole from the stalls whenever they could. But if they were caught, the yakuza would get called in, so they had to be very careful. Food someone didn’t finish eating, that went unsold, or that was rotting made for an easier target. It was all thrown out in dedicated buckets behind the marketplace. Garbage or not, though, it seemed there was still some use for it, because yakuza from the town hall came to collect it once every two days. The Canaries took what they could before that.

But there was a lot of competition for the trash.

Lots of people lived like the Canaries in Tsunomiya, and not all of them were kids. There were some groups of adults too. They all wanted the edible trash, and there wasn’t enough to go around. That could mean fights sometimes, but if they made too much of a ruckus, the yakuza would come running, so they had to keep it under control. But no matter how hard they tried to do that, if the other side got serious, they had to respond in kind. One Canary got badly hurt that way and died. There were seven Canaries, including Manato, after that.

One time, over a hundred yakuza were deployed to carry out a “cleanup operation,” and a huge number of garbage scroungers were killed. One of the Canaries got caught by the yakuza and beaten to a bloody pulp. Then their corpse was put on display in the center of the marketplace.

The six remaining Canaries decided it was time to leave Tsunomiya. It wasn’t so hard to come in, but when you tried to leave, you would find fences and yakuza guards in your way, which made escaping pretty tough. The Canaries weren’t the only ones who wanted out of Tsunomiya, though, and there was talk of working together with another group. But someone in the other group turned out to be a traitor who ratted them out to the yakuza. In the end, everyone in that group got slaughtered, the traitor included.

The six Canaries eventually made a run for it in the middle of the day when a large group was coming into town. The yakuza chased them around for a while, but the Canaries managed to shake them off.

Manato figured that with six people, they’d surely be able to manage. Even when it had just been him and his two infirm parents, they had managed to get by as hunters. There were six Canaries, and all of them were young. No one in the Canaries knew exactly how old they were, but they were probably around ten or something like that.

Juntza knew a lot and could read and write. According to him, if a person made it to thirty, they had lived a long life. So, at the very least, they all had another ten years in them. Though, maybe ten years from now their teeth would start falling out like his mom’s and dad’s had. They’d wrinkle up, and their arms and legs would gradually stop working. Then, once they couldn’t eat properly, they’d soon be dead.

One girl called Amu, who had hair like a bird’s nest, was really conscious of the fact that she was missing a tooth that she’d lost when a yakuza had punched her.

“Yakuza live a long time. I hear the mayor of Tsunomiya’s thirty-five. He’s been living for thirty-five whole years. Isn’t that incredible?”

Amu had wanted to go out with a different yakuza but decided she couldn’t do it when he’d mocked her for her missing tooth. She’d thrown rocks at him, and then he’d snapped and kicked her butt.

Manato found it strange that Amu’s front tooth hadn’t grown back. When he asked why that was, Juntza explained to him that after a baby tooth fell out and an adult one grew in, it would never grow back again. It was true that his mom’s and dad’s teeth had never grown back. But while Manato had lost a number of teeth to injuries, they had always grown back quickly. Everyone was surprised when he told them that, but Juntza not so much.

“I’ve heard about this kind of thing before. There are guys like that sometimes. You must be one of them, Manato.”

“One of what?”

“Just guys who are like that.”

After they left Tsunomiya, Neika, who could only see out of one eye, would always say, “Japan’s a big place, so if we’re going to go somewhere, let’s go somewhere far away.”

At first, Manato didn’t know what Japan was. According to Neika, Japan was the name of the world they were in. This world was Japan, and Japan was a big place. Juntza said he’d seen an old map of all of Japan one time. The land stretched all the way from north to south, and there were a bunch of islands stretching way out into the sea that were part of Japan too.

Manato wasn’t so sure about going someplace far away, but it seemed wise to get as far from Tsunomiya as they could. He was sick of living in town, and if they were going to survive in the mountains, they’d need to live as hunters.

Manato taught the Canaries the hunter lifestyle. Juntza was a quick study and learned anything he was taught in no time, so he grew quickly. He was a big guy too. As the oldest person in the group, he probably had a few years on Manato.

“I’m sure I’ll be the first to die,” Juntza would sometimes say with a smirk. “Don’t any of you die before me.”

The six of them lived on the move, playing at being hunters. But then, one of the Canaries developed a fever, became unable to travel or keep food down, and wasted away as the others watched. It eventually sank in that their friend wasn’t going to make it, and the sick Canary stopped breathing the next day.

The other five discussed what to do with the dead Canary’s body. It would begin to rot soon enough. If they left it lying around, the beasts and bugs would eat it, and only bones would remain. Manato was fine with that, and Neika, who hid her sightless right eye under a piece of cloth, agreed with him, but the other three were of a different opinion.

Amu of the missing front tooth and bird’s nest hair said she’d feel sorry for the dead Canary if they didn’t do something.

“If we just leave things like this and take off, I dunno why, but I’d feel absolutely terrible about it. I mean, didn’t we all want to escape together? One of our friends is gone, though, and can’t come along with us anymore. We can’t carry a dead body around either. It’d rot and all. But leaving it behind like this...feels bad.”

Juntza suggested that they say goodbye.

“Our dead friend can’t hear anything we say, and like Amu’s already said, we can’t take a corpse with us. I don’t know what the right thing to do is, but doing nothing wouldn’t sit right with me.”

The five surviving Canaries sat around the dead one. As they were talking about the dead Canary, a murder of crows gathered around them.

“They’re planning to eat you.” Manato said and tried to laugh about it, but he couldn’t.

He didn’t like the thought of seeing the dead Canary being eaten by crows. They all felt the same, and discussed digging a hole to bury the Canary in. Yeah, that was the thing to do. The five of them dug a hole in the ground, and laid the dead Canary in the bottom of it, then piled the dirt back over their friend. It felt right.

The five Canaries traveled around continuing their hunting lifestyle. None of them had been hunters before except for Manato, so there were a lot of complaints about how it was too hot or too cold, or how they were exhausted or sleepy. Even Juntza, the eldest, seemed to struggle with it sometimes.

In the hot season, it was too hot for them to be comfortable even if they went naked, and it wasn’t all that unusual for it to get too cold at night to sleep. During the rainy season, even during the brief periods of sunshine, dark clouds could quickly blot out the sun and hit them with a downpour. If the rain went on for an extended period, the rivers overflowed their banks, leaving everything wet and muddy, which made it difficult to walk. Juntza said there were entire towns that had been submerged by heavy rain.

There were places that had been polluted with poison, but it was normally easy to identify them at a glance because the ground and plants usually looked weird, and there were no birds or bugs around, but with intense rain it became much harder. If they wandered into one of those areas by accident, they’d be affected by the poison and come down with a bad disease. It could even kill them.

The forest also had beasts that they absolutely needed to avoid messing with. Beasts that if they suddenly ran into one, it was safe to assume they were going to die. There were a fair number of such creatures, in fact.

The giant bears, giant boars, and giant apes were particularly bad news. They couldn’t be taken down easily even with a dozen hunters, and the giant apes formed colonies, so hunting even one of them would make enemies of the rest. Though this was just a story he’d heard from his mom and dad, it was said that the great apes would sometimes raid villages and eat people.

Other than those, the great mountain cats were scary too. When hunters lived in groups, sometimes one of them would suddenly vanish, and that was believed to be the work of the great mountain cats. They would creep into the hunters’ camp without making a sound and carry one off to eat. And once they were finished eating their first catch, they’d come back in a few days for another until there was no one left. That was how great mountain cats hunted.

Manato had been born a hunter, so he figured that was just how things were. If they ran into an opponent they couldn’t possibly handle, there was nothing they could do. They could prepare all they wanted, but when the time came for them to die, they’d die. There was no need to be scared all the time. However, the other Canaries couldn’t help but worry.

The night was especially scary. Or rather, the forest at night was. It always felt like dangerous beasts might be targeting them, so it was hard to sleep soundly.

The Canaries searched for ruins. When ruins were uninhabited, there was usually a reason for it. Like maybe they had started to crumble and were prone to collapsing and burying people alive. Or maybe animals avoided an area because being there made them feel sick, for no reason the Canaries could understand. Or maybe there was a colony of great apes there, or some great bears had turned a nearby train station into their den. It was rare for there to be ruins without people or dangerous beasts living in them, but it also wasn’t completely unheard of. Those were the sorts of places they stayed in while living the hunter life.

However, ruins were easy targets. People and beasts alike would often enter ruins they came across to explore. They might be looking for things they could use, or to live there if the place was habitable. Intact buildings required extra caution. If it was just hunters the Canaries ran into, that was fine, but there were also former yakuza roaming about, and those guys preyed on people, not beasts.

There was a large cluster of ruins south of a big town called Mebashi, and the Canaries came across a dying former yakuza there.

The former yakuza had been abandoned by his gang and was lying on the floor in the basement of a large building. He was emaciated, with legs that were wasting away. Unable to do anything more than sip from a pool of dirty water, he would be dead in less than ten days. The group happened to have a lot of deer meat at the time, so Manato gave the man a couple pieces, and he was incredibly grateful.

“I’ve been a terrible person my entire life, yet here on my deathbed, you’re giving me deer meat. Now that I’ve had one last good thing happen to me, I can die anytime without regrets. Thanks.”

The fallen yakuza said he was from a yakuza organization called the Gonnodo-kai that ran a large town called Nagano. But he’d done something to dishonor himself, after which he had been unable to remain in Nagano any longer. He had then started traveling around with some other former yakuza, raiding villages and traders, abducting residents from small towns, killing and eating people.

“All right. I’m not sure if this is enough to count as a reward, but let me tell you something. There’s this place called Kariza in between Mebashi and Nagano. Kariza’s pretty famous, so maybe you’ve heard of it. But this should be new to you. Deep in Kariza, there’re some big houses that’re still intact. I always wanted to live there someday. To find me a good woman, get a house all of my own, and die there...”

†

The Canaries started preparing to travel to Kariza. They soon encountered the driver of a flatbed minitruck whose vehicle was stuck in some mud, and after they helped him out, he told them that they could reach their destination by following the road west from Mebashi. He regularly carried cargo between Mebashi and Nagano, and warned them to watch out for bandits along the road, though really that went without saying. Bandits were ex-yakuza, or actual yakuza, who robbed those who passed by. They could be bought off with money from nearby settlements or objects of value, but the Canaries had no money. Anything they did have on them, they had because they needed it, so they couldn’t go giving things away willy-nilly. Bandits had a lot of weapons, and they tended to show up in large groups. That meant the Canaries couldn’t beat them in a fight either and would have to avoid them.

The Canaries went off the road where they could, traveling through the mountains. It was a rainy time of year, so one of them caught a fever along the way. He coughed a lot and was constantly quivering. The feverish Canary said to go on without him, but Manato and Juntza wouldn’t hear of it. They took turns carrying him. He was lighter than the girls, Amu and Neika. When they told him it was no problem because he was so light, he laughed and said no way.

The little Canary smiled a lot. Possibly even more than Manato. He was short, with long, nimble fingers, slender shoulders, and a lean chest.

When Manato was carrying him, the little Canary chirped on about their lives in Tsunomiya and since they had left. It was all about how this had been a lot of trouble, or that had been terrible, but the little Canary always ended his stories by saying how fun it had all been and laughing. Manato would agree that, yeah, it had been fun, and then the little Canary would laugh even more until he started coughing, and when the coughing wouldn’t stop, he’d complain about how Manato had made him laugh, and then laugh even more. Which of course meant more coughing.

The little Canary didn’t make it to Kariza. With the constant rain, it was hard to find a place to bury him. They dug up the soft earth at the base of a tree and laid him to rest there. Then they all piled mud on him together. The Canaries were reduced to Manato, Juntza, Amu, and Neika.

Kariza turned out to be a town full of yakuza that really didn’t get along with each other. They all belonged to different groups with names like the something-something-kai or the something-something-gumi and fought over turf. There was a big market in town with lots of stuff to buy, and there weren’t just trucks driving around but also carts drawn by oxen or horses.

The Canaries got suspicious. Maybe that dying ex-yakuza had lied to them?

Kariza wasn’t that big of a town. But the market was relatively large. A lot of people lived there, but they were mostly yakuza.

The ex-yakuza had said that deep in Kariza there were some big houses that were still intact. But where was “deep in Kariza”?

In the south of Kariza, there was a huge mansion people referred to as the Palace that was home to a yakuza boss called Shigatake. In the north, there was an armed encampment belonging to a yakuza group called the Bunge-gumi, making the area too dangerous to approach.

None of this discouraged the Canaries. They would head into Kariza for supplies occasionally, living the hunter life as they searched for the alleged houses in the backwoods. They got into some fights with the yakuza but always managed to survive them by running into the mountains.

The people around Kariza were terrified of a giant bear named Three-Eyes, so not many hunters lived in the area. True to its name, Three-Eyes had three eyes, and when it stood on its hind legs, it was supposedly three times as tall as a fully grown human. It was furry, with black and white spots, and had once even burst into the center of the town to attack people. They said that thirty people had been devoured that time.

If there was really a beast like that around, there should have been paw prints, claw marks, droppings, and other traces left by it, and yet there were none. That put Manato at ease, but the other Canaries were still pretty scared. The residents of Kariza were even more terrified of Three-Eyes, though.

There was a memorial plaque for the thirty people killed by Three-Eyes in Kariza and even a statue of the bear. Once, a man had gotten drunk and pissed on the statue. The yakuza had beaten him to death when they caught him. Manato didn’t know if this was true or not, but Shigatake’s Palace and the Bunge-gumi’s armed encampment both had little shrines to Three-Eyes called kamidana, and there were stony-faced yakuza who prayed at them every day, hoping that the bear would never return to Kariza.

Eventually, they found what they had been looking for far, far north of the Bunge-gumi’s armed encampment. There were the remnants of two houses a little up the hill from the road, and then two more that had collapsed. A little farther in, there was just one more—a sturdy looking two-story house that was still intact.

The forest around them was gloomy, and visibility was terrible. They’d had to get pretty close before realizing the building was there at all. The doors and windows were locked, and they couldn’t find a way to pry them open, so the Canaries smashed a window to get in. There was dust and cobwebs, but many things had been left lying out, unmoved since the last time someone had lived in the house. The ex-yakuza had apparently known about this place, yet it remained untouched. Surely, no one else had found out about it, then. Now, it belonged to the Canaries.

Let’s stay here and live together from now on. None of them bothered to say that. Not Juntza, not Amu, not Neika, not Manato. It went without saying that they were going to. Maybe Three-Eyes did live out in these mountains, but who cared? This was a house with pillars and beams that weren’t rotting, a roof, walls, and even a fireplace. They’d secured a place all their own. The Canaries would die someday, like the other Canaries, their parents, the ex-yakuza, the people who lived in the towns, the yakuza, and the wild beasts. But they could live in this house until then. And when they died, they’d have the others bury them nearby.

There were two bedrooms upstairs in their house. Juntza said he’d sleep in the room with the fireplace downstairs. Manato took the bedroom on the first floor, while Amu and Neika slept upstairs.

As he went to sleep on a proper bed for the first time, Manato thought about his parents. If they had found this house back when they had been living as hunters, how might things have been different for them? Both of them would surely have been delighted. They’d have laughed and smiled and then laughed and smiled even more when they woke up the next day.

“Awaken.”

Feeling as if a voice was calling him, he opened his eyes.

Darkness. Was it still night? It wasn’t pitch-black. The floor was shining faintly. It wasn’t bare ground; it was a proper floor. Was it stone? Or was it something like concrete? Something on the floor was glowing. What was it?

“Huh?”

Had he gone to sleep here? Something was wrong. Where was this place?

“You’re awake?”

Hearing that voice made him realize someone was standing nearby, looking down at him.

“Who...? Juntza? Amu? Neika? No...”

He sat up and squinted. Despite the glowing floor, it was still pretty dark. This wasn’t outside, but it was still a fairly large space, and there was someone else there too. That was all he knew.

“Unfortunately, I’m not...Juntza? Or Amu or Neika.”

Must be a person. I mean, he’s talking and all.

“Figured not.”

“Are those your friends?”

“What?”

“Juntza. Amu. Neika. Are they friends of yours?”

“Friends... Mmm, I dunno about that. More like comrades?”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Do you...know where Juntza and the others are? They’re probably...around here somewhere.”

“No, sorry, I have no idea.”

“Oh. Okay, then.”

He was still a bit out of it, but maybe volunteering Juntza’s, Amu’s, and Neika’s names hadn’t been a good idea. He didn’t know this guy at all. It was best to be wary of strangers. The guy could be a yakuza from Kariza, after all.

They had acquaintances in Kariza who knew their names. Some of the yakuza were aware of them too, and he’d rather not be found.

Were Juntza and the others okay? What was going to happen to him? He was in an unfamiliar place, and there was a guy right over there. Why was he here? He had no idea. What could possibly have happened? He should’ve been with Juntza, Amu, and Neika, like he always was.

He’d probably been in the house. Their house. They’d finally found it on the outskirts of Kariza, where no one else went. The pillars and beams had been solid, and it’d had two stories, with an intact roof and walls, and the windows hadn’t been broken. He should’ve been in that house right now.

Juntza had been there, and Amu. Neika too. They’d talked about something while eating—or that was the feeling he had. His memory of it was hazy, but he’d...left the house afterward? This wasn’t the house. Which meant he must have gone outside. Alone?

“Can you stand?” the stranger asked. Who was this guy?

“Sure... Well, actually, I dunno. But I feel like I should be able to...I guess?”

“There’s no point in just staying here. Let’s leave.”

“Leave?” he asked questioningly and even double-checked. “I can leave?”

The stranger would let him go? He wasn’t being held here? Was that what the man meant?

“If you want to stay here, that’s fine with me. I’ll be going soon. What will you do?”

“What will I do...? Hold on.”

He tried getting to his feet. The stranger was already on the move. Leaving, walking away. What quiet footsteps he had. Was the man light? Or just highly cautious?

He chased after the stranger, who was standing next to a wall, seemingly waiting for him to catch up.

“We can get out through here.”

“What do you mean?”

“We just have to go outside.”

The stranger went through the wall. Vanished through it. He completely disappeared.

“Wha...?”

Manato hurriedly pushed on the wall the stranger had gone through and felt nothing. His hand slipped through it to the other side, even though all he’d meant to do was touch it.

“What is this?”

Was it really a wall? Even in the dark, he could tell there was something in front of him. A wall. But on closer inspection, this part of it was different from the rest. It was like there was nothing there. As if that part of the wall was actually a square hole, with the inky blackness of night stretching out on the other side of it. That was how it looked to him.

He made up his mind to go through, and found that he was quite able to.

“Whoa...”

There were stairs before him now. They formed a spiral, and they had a handrail too. But there was no railing where he was. Weird. It wasn’t dark in the spiral staircase, but it wasn’t bright either.

The stranger was a few steps down from him.

Once again, it struck him: I don’t know this guy.

The man wore a black hood. He couldn’t even see what the guy looked like.

He’s hiding his face.

“So you did decide to leave.”

The guy was wearing a mask.

“Let’s head down,” the masked man suggested.

“Uh, listen.”

“What?”

“Where is this?”

“They called it the Stake long ago.”

“The Stake? You mean like a pole?”

“We’re inside of the Ark.”

“The Ark? So, it’s a ship?”

“Let’s head down,” the masked man repeated as he resumed his descent down the spiral staircase. For now, there was no choice but to follow.

“Hey, hold on.”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry for all the questions, but...who are you?”

“Me? Well...”

The masked man was taking a long time to answer. The two descended the spiral staircase in silence for a while.

Getting impatient, he decided to give his own name. “Manato.”

The masked man came to a stop. “Manato?”

That was a weird reaction.

“Yeah,” Manato said with a nod.

The masked man turned to look at him. “That’s...your name, is it? Manato?”

“That’s what I just said, yeah. Some of my comrades call me Matt, and others Manato. But Manato is my name, since that’s what mom and dad called me.”

“Your dad... You have parents?”

“They’re dead. Long dead. None of my comrades had parents either.”

“How old are you?”

“How old? Oh, in years? Umm... Twelve, maybe? Or was it fourteen? Could be thirteen.”

“You’re young. Younger than I thought.”

“I’m just making shit up. It’s been maybe...three, four years since my folks died? I think that much time has passed. I haven’t been able to keep track of it properly.”

“Manato...”

“Yeah.”

“I knew one of those...” the man mused, letting out a sigh behind his mask. “It was a long time ago, but it just so happens that I had a friend...a comrade with the same name as you.”

“Huh. Is that right? What a coincidence.”

“Serendipity, I’d call it.”

“Serendipity?”

“When something happens by chance, but in a happy way.”

“Serendipity, huh? Never heard that one before. Oh, right. What about you?”

“You mean, what’s my name?”

The masked man grabbed on to the railing. He was wearing gloves. The mask probably had eye and mouth holes, but it was hard to tell at a glance. Did he wear it for protection? None of the masked man’s skin was exposed.

“Haru,” the masked man said and let go of the railing. “There were once people who called me that.”

“Haru,” Manato echoed.

Haru. Doesn’t that mean spring? It’s the name of a season. When the cold of winter relents and the rain falls instead. Or is it the other haru, which means sticking to something?

“So you don’t mind if I call you Haru, then?”

“I don’t... I’m going to call you Manato. Do you have any problem with that?”

“Problem?”

This guy had a kind of funny way of speaking. Manato laughed a little.

“Not a one. No problem whatsoever. I mean, I am Manato.”

“Okay then. Let’s head down, Manato. I’m sure you want to know where you are.”

The masked man who was apparently named Haru started going down the stairs again.

Where was this place? Earlier, Haru had said they were inside of an ark. What exactly had he meant by that? Manato followed behind Haru. He had questions he wanted to ask. Lots of them. But he didn’t know how to put them into words.

Eventually, the end of the spiral staircase came into sight. And it was well and truly an end. There was nothing past it. Haru silently entered the void, which was identical to the one in the place where Manato had awakened. It looked like he could use this one to enter the space beyond too. Or would he be exiting through it?

Manato stepped through.

He was outside. Genuinely outside this time. This was the outdoors.

Had the sun just set? Or was it about to rise? More than half the sky was covered in clouds. He couldn’t see the sun anywhere. There was a bit of light on the horizon to his right, but he couldn’t tell if the sun was lowering behind it or if it was about to peek out.

We’re on top of a hill.

Manato turned around. There was a building. It was a tall structure, more of a tower than a high-rise building. The top of it was broken and covered in ivy.

“Huh? Where is this place?”

There were ruins a short distance from the hill. Manato was used to seeing ruins. But these ruins looked older than any he’d ever seen before. The ruins he was used to seeing were once high-rises or train stations. Even if the structures still had roofs, you never knew when they might crumble, so normal people didn’t try to live in those places. Oh, and there were underground towns too. It was a little dangerous, but some people were willing to risk sleeping down in them. Manato and his comrades had taken up temporary residence in high-rise buildings with broken stairs and damp, smelly subways before too. There were all sorts of dangerous creatures in the forest, and proper houses made for easy targets.

“A different world from the place you came from,” Haru said, descending down the hill a little before stopping in front of a large white stone. There were a lot of others like it on the hill. “It’s called Grimgar.”

“Another world... Grim...gar...”

Manato tried repeating the word for himself. He had no idea what it meant. Grimgar. Another world.

“What the... Huh? How... I don’t remember coming here. What do you mean, ‘another world’? This world...isn’t Japan?”

“Japan is...a country. I used to live there. I don’t remember anything about it, though. But I’ve heard about Japan, so it’s not like I know nothing.”

“Are you...from Japan too, then, Haru?”

“Apparently. I came to Grimgar from Japan.”

“Again with that... Uh, how?”

“I don’t even know. I wouldn’t say there were a ton of people who came to Grimgar like you, but there were a fair number. They all said that they didn’t know. Even if they had memories from before coming, they never knew what they’d done—or what they’d done wrong—to end up here. That was true for every last one of them.”

“Hold on.” Manato crouched down and scratched his head. “Then, are there others...like you? Other people from Japan?”

“It might be better to say there were.”

“So...not anymore?”

“It’s been a long time.”

“A long time? Since what?”

“When someone crosses from Japan into Grimgar, they’re transported to that room in the Ark. There’s a system in there that makes that happen. Or a machine, it might be better to say. Back when my group arrived, a number of people would arrive together every few years on average. Sometimes more than ten at once. But it became less and less frequent over time, and the numbers dwindled.”

“If you’re saying it’s been a while, then...no one’s come recently?”

“That’s right.”

“For about how long?”

“More than forty years.” Haru sighed after saying that. “I guess it’s been close to five decades now, huh?”

“Fifty years? That’s...a long time, isn’t it? People don’t usually live that long. When mom and dad died, they weren’t even thirty. Don’t you think you’ve lived way too long, Haru?”

“It sounds like your folks died young, but as for me...yeah, you’ve got it right, Manato. I’ve definitely lived for too long.”

“Fifty years... So...back then, the last time a Japanese person came to Grimgar, were you still a kid?”

“Nah.”

“Then...how long have you lived, Haru? I mean...in Japan, if you make it thirty years, that’s already a pretty long life, you know? We’re all gonna die anyway, so nobody’s all that serious about keeping track of what age they are.”

“I’ve stopped counting too, Manato. Though for a different reason from your people. It sounds like the situation’s changed a lot. In just the last four decades...something must’ve happened to Japan. Has it really only been four decades? It feels like longer...”

Haru turned his masked face downward. He seemed to be mumbling to himself.

What did the face behind that mask look like? Before they’d died, Manato’s parents had been emaciated, toothless, and wrinkled. He’d heard that the mayor of Tsunomiya was over thirty-five. He’d never seen him.

The distant horizon was brighter now. It wasn’t after sunset. The sun was about to rise.

Manato spotted a round white moon. The moon he remembered from Japan had been more broken. But when was the last time he’d looked up at it?

How were Juntza, Amu, and Neika doing? Were they at the house in Kariza? Were they safe?

How had this happened?

Manato stood up and took a deep breath. He started stretching and flexing his body to both sides. His hair was getting awfully long. Come to think of it, he hadn’t cut it in a while. He smiled as he remembered Neika saying “Isn’t it about time you cut your hair?” It was getting in his eyes, so maybe he ought to.

“What’re you doing?” Haru asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what’?”

Manato spread his legs wide. Then he leaned all the way back, and all the way forward again several times.

“I’m moving my body. As long as you can move well, you won’t die in the near future.”

“Huh... Is that how it works?”

“For all your years, you’re still pretty spry, Haru. Isn’t that why you were able to live so long?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Hey, got anything to eat? I see there’s a forest. Oh! And mountains too! They’re so tall!”

Manato pointed to the mountain ridge that was like a high wall.

“Those are the Tenryu Mountains,” Haru told him. “Dragons live there. Not even the servants of the gods can enter those mountains.”

“What’re dragons? Wild beasts? Can you eat them?”

“It wouldn’t be easy... You’d get yourself eaten instead.”

“Huh. Is that a fact? But there’s animals in the forest, right?”

“Yeah. Well...”

“If they’re not that dangerous, then we just gotta kill ’em and boil or roast ’em. Then we’ll have food. Oh, and there’ll also be mushrooms and berries and other stuff we can forage for. I mean, I figure a forest’s a forest, and a mountain’s a mountain, but maybe it’s different here than in Japan.”

“If you’re hungry, I can provide you with enough to eat for a while.”

“For real? Nice. Okay, guess things’ll work out, then.”

“You’re...not depressed at all?”

“Depressed?” Manato smiled. “Why would I be? I’m alive, aren’t I?”

Manato flexed his knees and swiveled his neck. He jumped a short distance, then went for a much bigger leap after that. He was fine. His body didn’t hurt anywhere, and nothing was wrong with it.

“I’m worried about my comrades, but they’re probably alive. And as long as I keep living too, maybe we’ll meet again. Maybe not, though. But if I really want to see them, then I have to go to them. Do you think I can? Or is that impossible?”

Haru shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know. But as far as I’m aware, no one’s ever returned to Japan.”

“Oh, I see,” Manato said. Then he took a deep breath in and let it out. “Well, maybe this...Grimgar, was it? Will surprise me. I might actually be more comfortable here. Though, if I had my comrades too, it’d be even better. But I don’t even know how I got here, so there’s nothing I can do about that.”

“You’re certainly positive.” There was a faint laugh from under Haru’s mask. “Can I ask you something, Manato?”

“Sure.”

“What year was it in Japan? A.D., I mean. If you don’t know what that means, then you don’t need to answer.”

“A.D.”

Manato pressed his fingers to his temples. What year A.D. was it? Back when he’d lived with his parents in the microapartment in Tsunomiya, he felt like he’d heard someone say something like that, or maybe he’d seen it.

“Twenty-one hundred...A.D.? It’s kind of foggy, but I remember mom saying something like that. Maybe it was in the papers. But that was a long time ago.”

“Twenty-one hundred...” Haru brought his hand up to where the mask covered his mouth. “All right then. In all likelihood, time flows at the same rate in Grimgar and Japan. Although, it sounds like Japan has changed a whole lot in the last four decades or so.”

2. The Past Is Gone

How and when had he come to Grimgar?

Manato had no clue, but he was pretty hungry. That meant it had been some time since he’d last eaten. That was the only thing he could be certain of right now.

“Whoa, impressive!”

The two of them were back inside the tower. Haru led him up the spiral staircase to a wide, open room where the walls and ceiling were gray and the floor was a faded shade of deep blue.

“You think so?” Haru asked. He then walked over next to the wall, and opened a door on a large rectangular object that was apparently a cupboard, which had shelves full of jars inside. Haru removed two of them, and then closed the door.

“Sit down wherever.”

The center of the room was empty, but there were a table and four chairs close to the cupboard.

Manato ran over and sat in one of the chairs. Haru set the two jars down on the table and opened the lids on them. One jar had what Manato assumed were either fruits or roots in it. Some were a reddish color, while others were white or green, and they were pickled in some kind of liquid. Manato gave it a whiff and found that it had a sour odor. The other jar had what was probably the flesh of some sort of animal. It was packed full of chunks of meat that were dark in color and didn’t look particularly tender.

“I don’t have to eat very often, but not doing so gets boring, so I’ve been making preserves to snack on occasionally.”

Haru opened up another container and pulled out some kitchenware. A plate, a fork, and also a knife.

“Eat as much as you like.”

“You don’t mind?”

“They’re pickled melon and root vegetables, and the meat of a cowlike animal called a ganaro which I’ve salted and dried, and then smoked. I’ve also got roasted beans and a few different types of dried fruits. The dried beans would need to soak in water for a while before you’d be able to eat them, but if you want to try them, it wouldn’t be a problem for me to prepare them.”

“Wow. You’ve got a real selection here.”

“I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. I gathered whatever looked edible and did what I could to preserve it, but even then I end up having to throw stuff out because there’s more than I can eat.”

“That’s such a waste. You’ve got to eat it all.”

A faint chuckle came from behind Haru’s mask. “You’re right.”

Manato used the fork to move a few of the finely chopped pickles over to his plate. He’d had them before on the other side. The first ones he tried were the white kind. They might’ve been pickling too long, because their flavor had gone beyond sour to actually a little spicy, but it was very flavorful.

“This’s pretty good,” Manato said.

“Glad you like it,” Haru replied.

“Can I eat the meat?”

“Of course.”

“I love meat.”

Manato pulled a hunk of smoked meat out of the container, and carved off a thin slice with his knife.

“Ohh...”

As he chewed on it, he found that it was pretty salty, but the flavor of the meat eventually started to make itself known, and he could taste the fat too. Thanks to that, the saltiness gradually mellowed out.

“Tasty! What is this? It gets better with every bite. It almost feels like a waste to swallow it.”

By the time he was done, Manato had eaten three chunks of meat and about half a jar of pickled vegetables all by himself. At some point, Haru brought over a bizarrely light cup and a narrow-mouthed container with water in it, so Manato was able to rehydrate himself too.

“Uh-oh. I guess now that I’m stuffed, I’m starting to get a little drowsy. Mind if I sleep?”

“I don’t mind, but...the only bed here is the one that I sometimes use.”

“A bed? Nah, I’ll pass.”

“What do you mean...you’ll pass?”

“The floor is fine. I’m gonna lie down now, okay?”

“Uh, sure...”

“Just let me sleep for a bit.”

Manato lay down and closed his eyes.

He could tell Haru was confused. He didn’t seem like a bad guy, even if he was wearing a mask. Why was he hiding his face? Probably not for no reason. What did he look like under there?

Well, whatever he looks like, he’s safe. That’s the sense I get.

Manato drifted off to sleep, and then his eyes snapped open. As he sat up, Haru, who was doing something over by the wall, jumped a little before turning to look in his direction.

“You’re awake already? That was fast.”

“And refreshed too!”

He stood up and took a fresh look around the room. Was that some sort of work station Haru was standing at? No, a kitchen. It was a kitchen. There’d been one of those in the house at Kariza too. It was a fixture that had counters and all sorts of other stuff for preparing food. Oh, and were those books? There was a shelf that had a row of what he assumed were books on top of it, right next to a bed. Was that Haru’s bed? There was a little table beside the bed, and a single book was lying face down on it.

The room was well lit, despite the lack of windows, thanks to a number of lights on the ceiling. It was bright but not too bright.

“This is so strange,” Manato said to himself. Then took a deep breath.

The jars of pickles and smoked meat had been put away, and he didn’t see them. That was probably why there was no lingering smell of vinegar or meat. However, the room didn’t have any real smell to it at all. The only thing giving off an odor was probably Manato himself. Also, the air wasn’t warm or cool, moist or dry.

“What’s strange?” Haru asked him. Manato thought about that for a moment.

“Everything, I guess?”

“Oh, I see.” Haru walked over to the table where Manato had eaten earlier and put his hand on it. “Let me warn you in advance, you shouldn’t assume all of Grimgar is like this. The inside of the Ark is special. You could even call it a different world unto itself. The world outside is... How should I describe it? It’s no paradise, that much is for sure.”

“Is it like hell, then?”

“Hell...” Haru echoed the word, then let out a short sigh. “In some ways, that might be pretty close.”

“One of my comrades said that when people die they go to a place called hell. It’s an awful place, and terrible things happen there. I laughed out loud when I heard about it.”

“You...laughed?”

“Yeah. I mean, life’s already pretty awful, so if we go to an awful place after death, what’s the difference, really?”

“How is that funny?”

“Oh, I don’t know that it’s funny. Just something to laugh about. If you die in a terrible place and go to a terrible hell, then dying didn’t really change anything. Like, what was even the point? Even if you die, it’s all the same? What’s up with that?”

“Yeah... What is up with that, I wonder.”

“Right? So, when I said that, Juntza—ah, he’s the comrade who told me about hell, by the way—said that was one theory. One way of looking at it. Or something like that. So I laughed again.”

“You laughed again?”

“I mean, no one knows what happens when you die. How would they even check? If I could talk to my dead mom and dad, I could ask them. But that’s impossible, right?”

“Yeah, it probably is.”

“And I thought to myself, ‘There really are people who spend time thinking about things they’ll never know, huh?’ It’s that crazy. It’s so weird. Ah!”

“What?”

“I want to go outside. Can I still go out? Or is it better if I stay here?”

“Well... I don’t mind.”

“Will you come with me, Haru?”

“If you’d like me to.”

“I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’re not suspicious of me?”

“Oh, I definitely am.”

“Of course you are.”

“Yeah. Just a little, though. I mean, I don’t know a thing about you, Haru.”

“I could say the same about you, though.”

“Ah. That’s true, huh? But somehow, I get the feeling it’ll be all right. I mean, I’m Manato, after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your friend.” Manato smiled a little without meaning to. “You said it earlier, remember? Your friend? Comrade? He was named Manato, right?”

“Oh... Yeah, he was.”

“Now, let’s say, for the sake of argument, you were scheming something, Haru.”

“I’d like to make clear that I’m not scheming to do anything.”

“Hypothetically, if you were. Even if you were going to do something bad, wouldn’t it be hard to do it to a Manato? Like, you’d think, ‘But this guy’s Manato.’”

Haru crossed his arms. But then he quickly uncrossed them. “I don’t mean you any harm. And that would be true even if you weren’t Manato. But coincidentally meeting someone with the same name as my friend...does make me feel a little happy, I think. I hope that comes across. It’s, uh, been a while since I talked to anyone.”

“Don’t worry.” Manato thumped his chest with one hand. “It comes across just fine. You’re a good guy, Haru. I can kind of tell that.”

Haru’s masked face turned downward slightly. “Wouldn’t it be nice if that were true.”

†

When they left the room, the spiral staircase had changed. Actually, it was completely different. The walls, floor, ceiling, and lights were now similar to the ones in Haru’s room. And it wasn’t even a staircase anymore. It was a corridor. It stretched out in a straight line, and there were doors here and there along both sides. The end of the hall looked like it had a door too.

Come to think of it, when they’d entered Haru’s room, they hadn’t opened a door. They had simply walked through a spot where the spiral staircase had no railing. Then they had emerged into his room right in front of a door.

“So...since we left by opening the door, we came out in another place? Huh.”

“It’s difficult to explain,” Haru said as he walked down the corridor. “This is the same space as the spiral staircase. It’s both the spiral staircase and the corridor. Or perhaps it’s neither of them...”

“Hrmm... I don’t get it,” Manato said as he followed Haru.

“Yeah, that’s fair. I don’t completely understand it myself.”

“Well, never mind.”

“You’re fine with not knowing?”

“There’s tons of stuff I don’t know. Like, what am I even doing in Grimgar in the first place?”

“Well... You’re absolutely right about that.”

Haru opened a door on the left side somehow. Manato couldn’t figure out exactly how he’d done it, but he was sure that Haru had touched a part of the door.

There was a room on the other side. Haru’s room was big, but it had nothing on this one. However, it wasn’t as well lit as Haru’s. The round lighting fixtures on the ceiling had a green tint to them, and they lacked the strength to illuminate the entire space.

After Manato followed Haru into the room, the door slid shut on its own. It made a little whoosh as it did, but the room was awfully quiet other than that.

“What is this?”

Manato couldn’t help but be taken aback. Not by the size of the room but by the incredible number of things in it. There were round things, and there were square things. There were machines of all sorts. There were counters with lots of little things laid out on top of them. There were shelves, and they were lined with pots and bottles. Books too. There were human-shaped things. There were a variety of containers. And there were empty spaces here and there, which Haru was walking through. Manato hurriedly followed.

“What is this? Hey. Haru. What’s with this place?”

“This is all more or less scrap.”

“Scrap?”

“These were all relics at one point. But they’ve lost their power because their elixir was extracted.”

“Rrrelics? El-lick-sir?”

“This is a warehouse. Things that were no longer of use were brought here to be stored. Though some are still usable.”

Haru stopped in one corner of the warehouse. There was a blue sheet laid out on the floor. A pretty large one. On top of it lay knives, longer blades, spears, bows, and crossbows. There were a lot of them too. Not just ten or twenty. There had to be over a hundred.

Haru pulled back his cloak, apparently to show Manato the knife hanging at his hip.

“I’m armed. It’d be careless of you to go empty-handed. Do you see anything here you could use? If you don’t know, I’ll pick out something for you.”

“You mean I can use any of these that I want?”

“I don’t mind. I’ll go fetch some clothes that should fit you. Take your pick.”

“Right, I’ll get to choosing, then. Whoa, this is awesome. There’s so many of them. And I can pick any weapon I want, huh? I dunno what to do...”

Manato crouched down and grabbed the knife that had caught his eye first. He pulled it from its sheath and found that it had a double-edged blade.

“Oh. Come to think of it, I don’t have my knife with me. Huh. But I kept it on me most of the time, even when I was in the house. That’s weird. I was used to using that one. Well, whatever. Hmm... This one’s nice too. It’s pretty sharp and all. And since it’s double-edged, it’ll probably be good for stabbing. Oh, but this long one is cool too. Is it a katana? Maybe? Like the yakuza carried around? Maybe not. Think I’ll take this one too...”

Manato sheathed the double-edged knife and set it down on the blue sheet, then picked up the katana by the hilt. He stood up with it, and immediately noticed that it wasn’t as heavy as he’d thought it would be.

“Whoa! No way! It’s so light! Let’s try drawing it.”

When he pulled it from its scabbard, it turned out it wasn’t a single-edged blade like he’d expected. It was another double-edged one. But after pondering that for a moment, he remembered that the hand guard on the yakuza’s katanas had been round. This one’s hand guard was a cross.

He set the scabbard on the floor, then tried posing with the katana.

“I can totally manage it one-handed, but holding it two-handed would work as well.”

Holding the long hilt with both hands made it feel even lighter.

“I bet I could take down a bear with this. Maybe not a great bear, though.”

He gave it five or six test swings to get a feel for its balance and whatnot, tossed it from his right hand to his left, tossed it back again, went for another test swing from a different angle, and then tried swinging with both sides of the blade as he moved around.

“Oh man. Seriously? This is way too good. Wow. But there’s a bunch of other ones that look awesome too. What about the bows? Guess I won’t know without trying them first. There are quivers and arrows with them too. Huh. Well, it’d be good to have a bow. They’re all...well maintained? In good condition. What should I do? It’s so hard to choose.”

As he tested katanas and bows one after another and considered his options, Haru returned with his arms full of clothing.

“You’re about the same size as me, so this should fit you. Not sure how you’ll feel about the color, though.”

“The color?”

Manato set the katana he was currently trying out down on the sheet and accepted an article of clothing from Haru. It was heavy. Heavier than the katana. It wasn’t made of cloth, but some kind of tanned leather, and it had been dyed.

“Oh, it’s orange.”

Manato unfurled the piece of clothing. It was a jumpsuit with the top and bottom connected. Some parts were orange. Other parts were black. Haru set the rest of the clothes he was carrying down on the floor. Boots and gloves. They looked no less durable than the jumpsuit.

“Is it perhaps a bit too showy?” Haru asked.

All of the clothes Haru was wearing were black, or close to it. That would make him hard to see at night, and would blend into the forest well, which Manato thought was good. Manato had never worn clothing or used tools with vibrant colors. It was impossible to not stand out that way.

“Hmm, well... Can I try it on?”

“That is what I brought it here for.”

Haru turned his back to Manato. Why had he done that? Manato didn’t know, but he quickly stripped down and put on the jumpsuit.

“Ooh! It feels so light now that I’m wearing it! Awesome! It’s easy to move in too. Ah! There’s something hard in the knees and elbows. And the shoes...fit perfectly! Whoa! They’re light! Even though the soles are so thick! And these gloves are nice too. I can even move my fingers properly in them. Wow. Mind if I try using the katana like this?”

“Katana? Ohhh. That is not a katana. It’s a longsword. It used to be a relic called a Punisher, but now that the elixir’s been removed, it’s just a sword.”

“A longsword? So that’s what they’re called. Huh. Got it. It’s a good sword. Its balance’s perfect, isn’t it? Easy to use too. Yeah. I’m going with this. Oh, and the double-edged knife too.”

“The dagger, huh? That’s a Fatalsis. Like the Punisher, it’s lost its effect, though.”

“Can I borrow a bow and a quiver too?”

“Use whatever you like. I don’t need any of this stuff.”

“Nice! My mom and dad were hunters, y’know. I used to hunt with them. With these, I should be able to take down some prey pretty easily.”

“Hunters... So that’s what your parents were, huh?”

“Do you have hunters here in Grimgar too?”

“We did.”

Manato noticed Haru’s deliberate use of the past tense. That meant there had been hunters a long time ago, but there weren’t any now.

“One of my closest friends was a hunter. She was stronger than anyone, and kind. She was like the sun.”

“Wow. So is she...”

Dead?

Manato was about to ask Haru, but he thought better of it.

It was natural for people to die, and anyone who was alive was eventually going to. Whether they were children or adults, when they died, they died. Adults always got weaker over time until they died. That was how Manato saw it, because that was how things had been in Japan.

But Haru seemed to have been alive for a long time. And from the way he’d been talking earlier, people in Japan might have been short-lived compared to people in Grimgar. Death might not be as commonplace for Haru as it had been for Manato.

“That was a long time ago.” Haru let out a small laugh behind his mask. “For me, everything...is in the distant past. I’m remembering her for the first time in ages. Because I tried so hard not to think about her. It’s...kind of a nostalgic feeling.”

“Nostalgic, huh?”

Manato spun his new sword around. He wasn’t just twisting his wrists but putting the hilt of the sword between the fingers of both his hands and twirling it around. As he got used to it, the blade started to feel like an extension of his own body. It really was a wonderful sword.

“Well, even if she did die, all that means is that she’s dead, right?”

“Um, care to explain what you mean by that?”

“Uhhh, you know... Even when a person dies, they’re not gone. My mom and dad died, but they didn’t disappear. A bunch of my comrades died too, and they’re still with me. Ahhh. It’s hard to explain. Your friend? The hunter? She died a long time ago, right? Should I avoid that word? Died?”

“Nah. No need to worry about my feelings. It’s just... I never confirmed it myself. I couldn’t. She was far away... And when I did go looking for her afterward, I couldn’t find her. But given the situation, I have a hard time imagining how she could’ve survived.”

“Oh, I see. You don’t want to think that she died?”

“No... I suppose I don’t. But even if, against all odds, she did manage to make it out in one piece, she’ll have died of natural causes by now.”

“Natural causes?”

“So there’s no chance she’s still alive. She’s dead. Just like all of the others. But...”

Haru gripped his mask with his right hand. For a moment, Manato thought he might be trying to take it off. He wasn’t. Haru was simply pressing on the mask as he let out a sigh.

“She still...exists. Inside of me. It’s like you were saying, Manato. I haven’t lost her...or my comrades. My friends. Not completely. I was trying to forget that. Even though I shouldn’t...”

3. You Were Flying

They left the Ark and headed for the nearby ruins.

According to Haru, they had once been a walled city called Alterna that had been home to many people. But that had apparently been over a hundred years ago.

As he had guessed based on what he could see while they’d been approaching the walls, two thirds of the former Alterna was forest, and the other third was bushes. The stonework walls were still intact, but most of the buildings had collapsed and been swallowed up by the trees.

Narrow paths had been beaten through the forest and bushes, which Haru was using to advance into the old city. The footprints that Manato could make out on the ground told him that these paths had been formed by the passage of humans. Or more likely, the same human coming and going over and over. If so, he had no doubt it had been Haru.

“This place is relatively safe. The only dangerous creatures that live here are some peppies—they’re, like, these rabbit-dog sort of things. And the occasional pit rat, I guess.”

“Can you eat either of them?”

“Pit rats taste awful. Peppy meat is good, but they’re quick to run away.”

“How big are these peppies?”

“About this big, maybe?” Haru turned around and held his hands out in front of him, spread apart at a distance a little less than the width of his shoulders.

“There are far fewer large beasts than there used to be. The Tenryu Mountains south of here have a bunch, but that’s dragon territory, so you generally don’t want to go there.”

“Why are there fewer large beasts?”

“Overhunting.”

“You mean someone killed too many of them? Was it you, Haru?”

“As if. No, it wasn’t me. It was the servants of the gods.”

“Gods? Ohhh. I think I’ve heard of those. The yakuza worship them. They’re important people. Well, actually, I guess they might not be people, huh? There was this great bear in Kariza called Three-Eyes. Or...I think there was? Never saw him myself. He was this huge bear with black and white spots, and he once came into town and devoured like thirty people, they say.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“They built a statue in Kariza. Of Three-Eyes, I mean. Everyone was terrified, and the yakuza built a shrine to him, and they prayed at it. Is that what gods are like?”

“They might be somewhat similar.”

“We hunted all over the mountains around Kariza, but we never ran into any Three-Eyes. I wonder if that story was even true.”

“I don’t know anything about your Three-Eyes, but the gods do exist. The God of Light, Lumiaris, and the God of Dark, Skullhell.”

“Lumiaris...and Skullhell? So there’s two of these people?”

“Gods aren’t people, but yeah, there are two of them.”

Eventually, Haru and Manato came to an open area. It had obviously been cleared—not only were there no bushes, there wasn’t even any long grass. The ground had been leveled, and orderly rows of plants were sticking out of the ground.

“Huh? Is that a hut?”

Manato pointed at the edge of the clearing. There was indeed a hut over there that looked like someone had taken a tent and enlarged it.

“I built that. I grow fruits and root and leafy vegetables here. It’s my garden.”

“Don’t the animals eat them?”

“As long as they don’t eat everything, it’s never been an issue, since I’ve been the only one here.”

“But you aren’t alone anymore, huh?”

“No... I guess not.”

Haru walked around the edge of the garden to reach the hut and Manato followed behind him, being careful not to step on the plants.

There was a wooden table and chair next to the hut. A number of barrels and pots were scattered around nearby, and some picks and shovels for digging in the earth were leaning against the side of the hut, along with a few other tools.

Haru gestured for Manato to sit in the chair, then sat on the table himself. Manato took the offered seat.

The bugs and birds were constantly chirping, but it was still quiet despite that. Was it because they were inside the defensive walls? This place was pretty different from the forests in Japan.

“Have you always been alone, Haru?”

“It’s been quite some time since I’ve met another person. The last time anyone came to Grimgar from Japan was...forty-eight years ago, I think?”

“And you haven’t seen anyone since then?”

“I was in touch with them for a number of years after that.”

“Huh. I take it that since you said ‘them,’ there was more than one person?”

“There were two people.”

“Where are they?”

Haru shook his head in response to Manato’s question. “Grimgar is being fought over by two factions: the divine soldiers who’ve devoted themselves to Lumiaris and the thralls who’ve submitted to Skullhell. There are other groups too—or there should be, but...I haven’t been in touch with any of them for a long, long time.”

“Are these divine soldiers and thralls...human?”

“Some of them were.”

“But they aren’t anymore?”

“There are nonhuman races in Grimgar.”

“Races?”

“They’re about as smart as humans, and some of them look a lot like us, while others look pretty different. There’s the elves and dwarves. The hornedfolk. The piratsians. The centaurs. The goblins. The kobolds. You should think of them as being just like humans, except they happen to come in a wide variety of different forms. Those are the different races. Humans like you are simply one variety among many.”

“And you call all of them people?”

“Yeah, I guess I would.”

“And if people...devote themselves, or submit, to the gods...then they’re no longer people, is that it?”

“Yeah. As far as my own experience with them goes, I haven’t seen anything to make me believe that either the divine soldiers or the thralls are fit to be called people. They’re something else.”

“Does something about them change? Like the way they look?”

“Uh, yeah...” Haru let out a sigh and hung his head. “If it was just their appearance, that wouldn’t have been so bad... But what’s inside of them changes too. Everything changed. Grimgar changed...”

He seems pretty down about it.

“Hmm?” Manato cocked his head to the side. Was he imagining it? The way Haru was talking was making him wonder if Haru himself had been the one to change them somehow.

But at that moment, there was the sound of beating wings and rustling leaves. Birds. An incredible number of birds took off flying all at once.

Whatever was happening, it didn’t stop there. First, the birds flew in the opposite direction of the Tenryu Mountains. Then, as if in response, more birds started fleeing in other directions. No, there was no “as if” about it—the other birds had flown away in response to the first group doing so. When birds sitting in a tree detected something unusual, they would take off, and then more birds would follow suit. It was a common occurrence in the forest.

“Haru,” Manato said, rising from the chair.

“Yeah,” Haru responded, getting off the table. “I let my guard down. I assumed they wouldn’t come near here.”

“Who are they?”

“There are thralls of Skullhell living about four kilometers northwest of Alterna. It’s probably a group of them. We’re getting out of here.”

“What about your garden? Will it be okay?”

“Don’t worry about it. If I need to make another, then that’s what—”

Haru stopped mid-sentence and reached inside his cloak, pulling out a dagger that he held with a backhand grip. Manato grabbed his bow and started to pull an arrow from his quiver, but Haru stopped him.

“Arrows won’t work on them... I’m such an idiot these days. It’s more than just my skills having dulled. I truly didn’t notice at all.”

What hadn’t Haru noticed? Manato already had a pretty good idea.

The two of them were looking in the direction opposite from where the first birds had taken off. But whatever was coming wasn’t coming from there; it was coming out of the forest a little to the left of where they were facing. Someone had rushed out into the garden.

“I was wrong,” Haru muttered. “It’s...not a thrall? A divine soldier—”

They had been people, but were no longer fit to be called that. Haru had said their appearance and what was inside of them had changed. And it was true. The thing that had appeared before them was bizarre.

It had a head, and arms and legs were sticking out of its torso. It was shaped like a human. But there was glistening, shiny stuff covering its whole body that looked like polished metal, but was too smooth to actually be that. And then there were its eyes. It had two of them, but they were shining brightly.

It was holding something long in its hands. A spear, probably, with a banner attached to it. The design on the banner wasn’t a square or a triangle. It wasn’t even a circle. Manato didn’t know what to call it, but it was a shape with six points.

“A priest, huh? In that case... Come on, Manato.”

Haru took off running. Before Manato could finish thinking that he should probably do as Haru said, his body was already chasing after the masked man.

Haru headed into the forest in the direction of the Tenryus. Something was over there too. Eyes. Shining eyes turned toward them. But with this one, only the head was changed. That stuff that shined like metal only covered this one’s head. It was different from the one that had the spear with the banner. It was wearing clothes too. A baggy outfit made of white cloth was wrapped around its body. It was holding something like a stick. But it wasn’t just any stick. There was a ball-shaped thing stuck to the end of it. Getting hit with that would hurt pretty bad.

“Haru?!”

“It’s a divine soldier captain.”

Right after saying that, Haru, who had been running ahead of Manato, vanished from his field of view. Manato was surprised, but he managed to figure out that Haru had lowered his stance, then circled around a tree that was ahead of them on the right. The guy was moving like a wild cat. Manato had never met one of the elusive great cats of the mountains. If he had, it would probably have eaten him. He had only seen a mid-sized wild cat before, but it had been ridiculously quick. It had sprinted between the trees, and then the next thing Manato had known, it had been up in the branches, looking down at him. Even the fastest people couldn’t have hoped to imitate it. Or so he’d thought back then, but apparently he’d been wrong. Haru was like a wild cat.

Before he knew it, Haru had closed in on that thing with the shiny stuff just on its head and two shining eyes—a divine soldier captain, was it? Haru wasn’t in front of the divine soldier captain. He wasn’t beside it either.

He’s behind it.

Haru had moved around behind the divine soldier.

“Wow!” Manato shouted, eyes wide with surprise. He came to a stop without even meaning to.

Haru reached out with his left hand, wrapping it around the front of the divine soldier’s head and grabbing it on the right side in a way that covered its eyes. At the same time, he used the dagger he was holding in his right hand to cut off its head. Was it that easy to cut a living being’s head from its body? There had to be some trick to it. How he applied his strength, or the angle and timing. The way he’d held the divine soldier’s head with his left hand, pulling it toward him, or perhaps twisting it, had to be important, right? The way he’d used the dagger had been different from an ordinary cutting motion too. Haru had twisted his wrist. And on top of that, he’d moved it up and down too, like he was drawing a figure eight.

Haru wasted no time kicking the captain’s body away from him. Manato expected him to throw the head away too, but that wasn’t what he did. Haru tossed it up into the air, then caught it again with his left hand. The top of its head was resting neatly in Haru’s palm.

The divine soldier’s eyes were still shining, and Manato now noticed that it had something resembling a mouth. Where a human would have had a mouth, it had a horizontal tear, which was starting to open.

“Liiight! Lumiarisss! Let there be light!”

It had a voice, though it was pretty hard to hear. The divine soldier had spoken.

Even though it’s just a head.

“This isn’t enough to kill the servants of the gods.”

Haru reoriented the divine soldier’s head so its cut-open neck was facing him and jammed his dagger into it.

“Ahh! Ahhhhh! The liiight! I see Lumiaris’s light! Liiight!”

What was Haru doing? It looked like he was stirring the inside of the divine soldier’s head with his dagger. But it was probably more than that. There must’ve been something inside of its head. Something that, when destroyed, would make the divine soldier that had been able to survive having its head separated from its body finally die. In a normal animal, that would have been the brain, or the heart, or some other organ that it absolutely needed to live.

The divine soldier captain fell silent. The light in its eyes went out.

Haru chucked the head aside, then lowered himself like a wild cat once again and smoothly moved off to the left where there was another—this one wasn’t like the priest or the captain. It looked human. But its skin was brown, no, ashen. It was thin and had pointed ears. Its clothes were similar to those of the divine soldier captain. It carried a sword in its right hand, and a platelike object in its left—a shield. Its eyes were shining, like the others, but it didn’t have any of that shiny stuff on its body, unlike the priest and the captain. There were times when wild animals’ eyes seemed to shine in the darkness. This wasn’t the same, but it felt pretty similar. The eyes themselves were shining.

Haru took down the pointy-eared one using a different method than he’d employed against the captain. It was the same up until he got behind it, but then he thrust his dagger up diagonally through the base of its neck. Haru held the pointy-eared one’s head still and twisted his dagger. The light went out of its eyes, and it slumped to the ground.

“What are you doing, Manato? You need to keep moving.”

Haru beckoned him with his left hand. Manato took off running again, but found himself wondering if this was going to end well for them. As he followed Haru, Manato kept glancing not just to his sides, but behind him too. They were being tailed from multiple directions. Enemies were all around them. The area they were in was densely forested, and there were the remains of buildings all over the place too, which made it hard to see very far. But even then, Manato spotted humanoid forms occasionally. He heard footsteps and voices too.

“Light!”

“O liiight!”

“Light!”

“Let there be light!”

“Lumiaris!”

“O light! O Lumiaris!”

“Bless us!”

Those were words Manato could understand. The rest, he couldn’t.

“Diedenda!”

“Arfinke!”

“Rorbarol!”

But they were probably shouting the same kind of stuff. The intonation was similar.

There’s so many of them.

It wasn’t, like, five or six. There had to be more than ten chasing them. It could’ve been dozens.

Manato had been chased around by packs of dogs and gangs of yakuza before. He was pretty used to being chased, but now he was worried about whether they’d be able to get away. Common sense told him they were pretty much sure to get caught.

Yet, strangely, ever since Haru had dispatched the divine soldier captain and the pointy-eared one, their pursuers had kept chasing them, but hadn’t been able to catch up. Were they just really lucky? Was that all it was? Manato wasn’t doing anything except following Haru as best he could. Haru was the one choosing their escape route, so it probably meant that Haru had been doing a good job of running away.

“You’re keeping up pretty easily,” Haru said with a backward glance. “I’m impressed, Manato.”

“Yeah, well, not as impressive as you. You’re not even running out of breath.”

“Neither are you.”

“Nah, this is getting pretty hard on me. Well, maybe not that hard, I guess. I can still keep going.”

“That’s a big help.”

“You’re the one helping me here, y’know?”

The walls were visible up ahead. There was a section where they had crumbled, forming a breach with slanted sides. Haru likely planned to escape through there.

“Haru! On the right!” Manato shouted a warning.

“Yeah,” Haru briefly replied. He’d already noticed. Though it was still some distance away, there was a humanoid figure up on the walls to their right. Not a person, though. It was carrying a spear with a banner attached to it. It was the priest. It must’ve circled around to get ahead of them.

Haru didn’t let it stop him from dashing through the gap in the wall and out of Alterna. Manato followed.

He looked to the right. The priest was jumping down from the walls. It wasn’t alone. There was a divine soldier captain with its head covered in shiny stuff, and another one of the ones with just its eyes shining. They were following the priest.

Haru slowed his pace for some reason. That let Manato catch up to him.

“Okay, Manato, listen up.”

“Right. I’m all ears.”

“Head for the Ark. You can’t get inside by yourself, so just hide near there and wait for me.”

“Huh? What about you?”

“I’ll deal with them somehow.”

“By yourself?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Uh...”

“I’ve been living here for over a hundred years. But I’m not sure if I can do this if I have to protect you at the same time.”

“Over a hundred years?!”

“Go.”

Haru gestured toward the tower with his chin. Then he did an about face.

Manato turned around and drew his sword too.

“Manato?!”

Haru’s eyes widened.

“I’m gonna help!”

Haru laughed despite himself.

“If things get dangerous, I’ll bail! It’ll be fine!” Manato insisted.

“As if you have any idea whether it will or not.”

“Look, there’s a lot of them coming. See? One’s coming out of the hole in the wall we just came through too.”

There was the priest that had jumped down off the walls, one divine soldier captain, and four, no, five of the ones with shining eyes, plus another captain that was coming out from the same spot Haru and Manato had. It was followed by even more of the ones with shining eyes.

“Haru, those people with the shining eyes...”

“They’re divine soldiers too.”

Haru switched his dagger to his left hand, then pulled another weapon out of his cloak. It was also a dagger, but shaped differently. Instead of waiting for the enemy, he rushed toward the priest. The priest, the captain, and the five lesser divine soldiers swarmed around him. It was seven against one. Talk about being outnumbered. Manato wanted to join in and help, but if he didn’t do something about the ones coming through the wall, Haru was going to have an even harder time.

Manato charged at the divine soldier captain that had come through the gap in the wall. Its head, which was covered in that shiny stuff, had two horns sprouting from it. Haru had mentioned that there were a variety of races in Grimgar. One of them must have been people with horns. The two-horned divine soldier was holding a rounded stick in its right hand. The stick was maybe as long as a person’s arm, at most. In its left hand it was holding a round object that looked like it was defensive in nature. A round shield, huh? It looked like it could probably be used for bashing too.

“Rorbarol!”

The two-horned divine soldier captain held its round shield out as it closed in on him.

If Manato tried to slash at it, the two-horned captain would either block with its shield or parry the blow. Then it would immediately attack Manato using its stick.

There was no need for him to play along with his enemy’s plan, though. Manato narrowly dodged the two-horned captain’s round shield, then he threw himself forward diagonally to the right. Once he’d rolled and gotten to his feet, Manato found that the captain had stopped and turned to face him. It was targeting Manato, not Haru. That was exactly what he’d been hoping for.

Manato ran for the gap in the wall. There were two divine soldiers, no, three of them, hollering some nonsense about the light as they all rushed toward him.

This’s scary and all, but the scarier it gets, the less scared I actually am.

It was like jumping down from a high place. He’d think, Whoa! It’s so high! This is dangerous! His chest would tighten and he’d get goose bumps. But though he would feel like he shouldn’t jump, he’d also feel a strange urge to.

That was something about Manato that had always worried his parents. Hunters had to be cautious. A fearless hunter would go after quarry that was beyond them and pay the price for it. Hunters were better served by being a little cowardly. Manato’s parents had probably thought he wasn’t suited to be a hunter.

But Manato couldn’t do anything about not being afraid. Juntza, Amu, and Neika had all looked at him funny when he’d talked to them about it, so perhaps he was just weird. Manato didn’t mind being scared. If anything, he might have liked it a lot. He laughed in the face of fear. He was definitely scared, but he wasn’t afraid of it. No, he was afraid, but it was fun.

Yeah. It’s fun. And the scarier it gets, the more fun I have.

But the fact that he was having fun didn’t mean Manato wasn’t thinking. There were three divine soldiers. He watched how each of them moved, predicted what they’d do next. He thought about what to do, how each enemy would respond, and how he would respond to them. But despite all of that thinking, he made his decision in an instant. The general idea of what he should be doing was clear to him.

I’ll dodge them.

He wouldn’t run away. If he turned his back to them, they’d catch up and take him down. He was going to have to dodge, and dodge, and dodge some more.

The three divine soldiers included a female one with a rounded stick, a well-built green-skinned one equipped with a sword and a boardlike shield, and a pointy-eared one with a long stick. The amount of reach they each had with their weapons was very different, as were their overall builds. The two-horned captain had come after him too.

Four against one, huh? Four against one. What a laugh. It’s four against one.

“Arfinke!”

The pointy-eared divine soldier took a swing at him with its long stick from the right. It was going to hit him. If that blow landed, he was in big trouble. Manato didn’t back away or even slow down. He didn’t go left or right. It was gonna hit him. It totally was.

Right before it did, Manato ducked his head while still facing forward. He lowered his hips until his knees were almost touching his chest, and the long pole missed him. Or it missed his head, at least. It grazed his hair.

Manato ignored it as he plowed into the pointy-eared divine soldier. Not with a tackle. With his sword. When he slammed it into the divine soldier’s flank, it sank in a little easier than he’d expected it to. Huh? It’s going in? That much? It buried itself almost to the hilt in an instant. Was he going to be able to pull it free?

“Ngh!”

Manato jerked on the hilt as hard as he could with his right hand and shoved the pointy-eared divine soldier’s chest with his left hand. The divine soldier fell on its rump, and the sword slid free with surprising ease. It hadn’t let go of its long stick, though. Manato slashed at the divine soldier’s right wrist. He willed his weapon to cut through it, and the sword did. Wow. It was almost funny how well the sword cut.

“Arfinke, Lumiarishel!”

Despite having been stabbed in the gut and losing its right hand, the pointy-eared divine soldier was trying to stand back up. Was he going to have to decapitate it? But he couldn’t—the well-built green-skinned divine soldier with the sword and shield was attacking him now. Manato reflexively swung his sword. He managed to deflect the incoming blow somehow, but it threw him a little off-balance.

“It’s strong!”

“Igrantcia!”

The green-skinned divine soldier followed up quickly with its sword. Manato didn’t want to trade blows with it, but he didn’t think he could dodge the attack completely. He desperately swung his own sword into the green-skinned divine soldier’s. It was holding its sword in one hand, while Manato was holding his with both hands, but he still felt like he was going to get overpowered. It was pretty big, after all. And while its sword wasn’t that long, it was thick and heavy. He was amazed that it could swing that thing around so nimbly with just one hand.

“O light!”

On top of that, the female divine soldier came charging in too. It was more than Manato could handle.

“Wagh!” Manato reflexively jumped to the side, throwing himself to the ground. If he hadn’t, then the female divine soldier’s stick would have landed a solid hit on him.

As he rolled and tried to get up, the pointy-eared divine soldier sprang on him.

“Arfinke!”

“Whoa!”

Manato kicked the pointy-eared one. He got lucky and it collided with the female one.

“Diedenda!”

However, the green-skinned one leaped toward him. Was it planning to stomp on Manato?

“Oh, come on!”

Manato couldn’t let it crush him. He scrambled to his feet, but the two-horned captain was waiting for him.

“Rorbarol! Lumiaris!”

“Bwah!”

Oh, damn. I might be in trouble.

Manato had already lost track of what he needed to dodge, and what he was already dodging. Everything was a blur, and all he could do was twist out of the way of whatever came at him. They were all trying to crush Manato. That, or chop him to pieces. Or maybe tackle him to the ground and then mess him up.

“Gugh?!” Manato nearly lost his sword. It jerked to his left and pulled his arms with it. He’d tried to block the green-skinned one’s attack and had been unable to parry it completely.

An instant later—Wham!—he felt a powerful impact. Had he been kicked or something? He felt like the blow had sent him flying, and his breath had been knocked out of him. Before he could rise to his feet, Manato thought, They’re gonna get me. Uh-oh. I’ve gotta get back up.

He couldn’t breathe right. But his body was still able to move somehow.

Manato was trying to get away from the two-horned captain. He wanted to get away from the green-skinned divine soldier, the female divine soldier, and the pointy-eared divine soldier too. Even a little distance would have been enough. He just wanted to get away.

The wall. I can use the wall. It’s right there. Not far at all.

“Heh heh!” Manato laughed.

Or he tried to, at least.

The wall had plenty of gaps he could stick his fingers and feet into, so he was able to scale it easily. That meant turning his back to the divine soldiers, though, which wasn’t the brightest idea, but he only realized that after he had already started climbing. He wasn’t sure, but he guessed that it was better to keep climbing than to turn back. Or rather, he’d already finished climbing.

Manato crouched down on top of the wall. He looked down to where the divine soldiers were staring up at him with their shining eyes.

“Huh.”

They weren’t climbing.

That was when he realized he was empty-handed. Oh. That’s why he’d been able to climb up so easily. He had always been good at climbing trees, but he wouldn’t have been able to climb quite so well with a sword still in his hands. Where had his weapons gone? It wasn’t just his sword. His bow and arrows were missing too.

My chest hurts pretty badly. It’s tough, but I can still breathe. Oh, there it is. My sword.

It had fallen behind the two-horned divine soldier captain. He had to pick it up. It was a good sword. But his chest hurt. What was up with that? Did he break a bone? Like a rib or something? Oh, yeah. It had probably been the shield. The green-skinned divine soldier had bashed him with it and sent him flying. That was probably what had done it.

The pointy-eared divine soldier was doing something. Was that its right hand? It was pressing the hand Manato had cut off against the stump. Were its body parts reattachable? Was that how bodies worked? He didn’t know. Manato had never tried to put a severed hand back on before.

“Ahhh.”

Manato shook his head. His mind was getting a bit hazy. And his chest hurt. But he was fine. He could take it. The pain would go away eventually. A busted rib was no big deal. He’d broken bones before. More than once. He’d done it repeatedly.

His mom and dad had been shocked.

“Huh? Manato, your broken bone’s better already? That’s amazing.”

“Huh? Is it really that amazing?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Really amazing.”

The three of them had laughed about it, hadn’t they?

But now wasn’t the time for memories.

The captain kicked the wall. Then the female divine soldier threw down its weapon and shield. It apparently meant to climb up.

“Manato!”

He heard Haru’s voice. Looking over, he saw Haru surrounded by the priest with the spear and two divine soldiers. There were bodies on the ground. Had Haru managed to take down all of the others?

“Buy time! I’ll be over to save you soon!”

“I’m fine!”

Manato couldn’t help but laugh at what he’d just said. Fine? How was he in any way fine?

He looked toward Alterna. He could see humanoid figures—divine soldiers or divine soldier captains, he couldn’t tell which—moving in the forest. A captain with its head covered in shiny stuff was rushing through the gap in the wall, and there were more divine soldiers following it. All the progress that Haru had made on reducing their numbers was erased.

“Seriously?!”

What a laugh. Juntza had told him off for this before. He laughed too much at weird things. But could anyone blame him? If something was funny, he was gonna laugh.

“Okay!”

Manato jumped down off of the wall, aiming to land as far from it as he could so he wouldn’t be caught by the green-skinned soldier or the female soldier that were climbing the walls. Would he be able to jump far enough to land past the divine soldier captain? If he couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be good.

“Propral! Lumiaris!”

The two-horned divine soldier captain held up its circular shield. It was trying to knock Manato out of the air with its rounded stick. Manato laughed.

This is bad. I can’t dodge in midair. Actually, hmm. I guess maybe I can?

“Ngh!” Manato used both arms to tuck in his knees. By reducing his size even a little, he would make it harder for the captain to hit him with the stick. Maybe. Who really knew?

“Gugh!” No good, huh?

A strike to his left side sent Manato to the ground. For a moment, he was knocked senseless, but then...

The sword. The sword. I have to pick up my sword. There it is. My sword. My sword.

“Gwahhh!” Manato held the sword in both of his hands, swinging it with all his might as he sprang to his feet. It connected. Manato knocked the divine soldier captain’s rounded stick away. It was a total fluke. What a laugh that was.

“Ngh! Khh! Gah!” Manato hurt all over, but he couldn’t let that bother him. He swung and swung and swung. He felt like if he backed away, that would mean he’d lost. He just swung constantly as he advanced and advanced and advanced.

Manato kept the pressure up, and the two-horned captain seemed like it was backing away.

Right when he thought he was managing to overpower his opponent, something hit him from the side. He couldn’t possibly have dodged it.

“Ough!”

Manato fell over sideways and hit the ground, at which point one of his opponents kicked him without delay. What ridiculous leg strength. It had to be the green-skinned divine soldier.

He was sent rolling into the grass, or some other foliage that wasn’t quite dense enough to be called a thicket. The grass obstructed his field of view, and he had no idea what was happening anymore. But he wasn’t just lying there.

“Ngh?!”

He felt a sharp pain from his left shoulder to his back.

It hurts. Or it feels hot. What is this? Did I get cut or something?

“Manatooo!” Haru shouted from somewhere.

The thought that maybe he should’ve run away flashed through his head. Should he have done as he was told?

“Gyahhh!”

Manato lay on his back, swinging the sword that was clutched in his right hand at nothing. His left arm hurt or something, and it wouldn’t move the way he wanted it to. But it wasn’t just his left arm—nothing was going the way he’d wanted it to.

He knew there were lots of divine soldiers and captains around. He didn’t know their precise numbers. That was a bit too much for him to figure out.

I’m not scared. Not one bit. But this is no fun, so I can’t laugh. What is this? What am I even doing? This’s no good at all.

Should he have run back to the Ark after all, like Haru had told him to? Was that what he’d needed to do? Had he messed up?

“Gah!”

Suddenly, the sword flew out of Manato’s right hand.

The two-horned divine soldier captain straddled Manato’s chest. It raised its rounded stick, and looked down at Manato with its shining eyes.

There was something flying up in the sky. Was it a bird? It seemed too big for that. It was close, or perhaps it was better to say it was flying low. Was it just one? No. There were two of them, whatever they were, flying over the captain’s head, and they were soon out of sight. Birds. Who cared about birds?

“Alberalo Lumiaris rel!”

The captain was saying something. What, though? Manato had no idea. The female divine soldier brought its face close to Manato’s.

“Devote yourself to Lumiaris. If you do, you will be saved for eternity,” it said.

Manato looked into its eyes without meaning to. Unlike the priest or captains, its head wasn’t covered in shiny stuff, but the way that it looked like it had human eyes that were shining actually made it creepier. Deep inside the light, he saw a shape with six points. It was the same shape as the one on the priest’s banner.

“O weak one, devote yourself to the light,” the female divine soldier said. Its tone was strangely gentle.

Devote himself to the light. What did that even mean? He didn’t get it. But it probably meant something like submitting, becoming one of them.

Manato laughed. It made his body hurt all over, which only made him laugh more.

“No way.”

“Then die,” the female divine soldier whispered. It looked up at the two-horned captain and shook its head.

The captain nodded. Was it going to bludgeon him with the round thing on the end of its stick? How would it hit him with it? In the face, maybe? If it did, his face would get totally smashed. He doubted a wound like that would heal easily. He might even die. Ohhh.

Am I gonna die? Is that what’s gonna happen?

Manato tried to escape, but he wasn’t going to make it.

“Kh!”

Manato’s face would have been pounded to pulp, if not for Haru showing up and scissoring his daggers around the two-horned captain’s head to decapitate it.

Wait, when did that happen? You were there, Haru? I don’t think you were there a moment ago.

“Manato!”

Haru kicked over the now headless divine soldier captain, then beheaded the female divine soldier. How had he done that? To Manato’s eyes, it looked like the dagger in Haru’s right hand had stretched out. It had gotten longer for just a moment, and then the female divine soldier’s head had been sliced off. Was that possible? But the female divine soldier had been down on all fours, so Haru would have had to crouch in order to behead her. And yet Haru hadn’t done that. He’d been standing the whole time. So did that mean Haru’s dagger really had stretched?

“Can you get up, Manato?!”

Even as he was asking that question, Haru’s dagger reached out toward the green-skinned divine soldier.

There was no doubt about it. When Haru swung with his right hand, the blade got longer. The divine soldier managed to block the dagger with its shield, but it couldn’t move in any closer. Haru was whipping his dagger around, and was forcing the green-skinned divine soldier totally onto the defensive. It was more like a rope than a dagger. Well, no, ropes didn’t extend on their own either. What was up with that thing?

“Manato?!”

“Oh! Yeah!” He still hadn’t responded to the question about whether he could get up. Manato pushed off the ground and jumped to his feet. He hurt all over, sure, but that didn’t mean he was unable to move.

Haru stretched out his dagger to make the green-skinned soldier back away while simultaneously dodging a thrust from the pointy-eared soldier’s long pole. But by that point, he’d already reached out with a dagger and severed the pointy-eared soldier’s head.

Manato looked around for his sword. Where had it flown off to? It was gone. He couldn’t find it. Well, it didn’t matter for now. Okay, no, it did matter, but the more immediate concern was the reinforcements coming from the gap in the wall. How many of them were there? They kept on pouring through. And that wasn’t all. There was a divine soldier on top of the wall as well. No, wait, was that one a divine soldier captain? There were a bunch of divine soldiers with it.

“Damned orc’s tough!”

Haru was whipping his dagger around and forcing the green-skinned divine soldier to use its shield, then closing the distance between them. On the first step, Haru was fast. On the second step, he was faster, and because he didn’t move in straight lines, it was hard to follow his motions. What had he meant when he’d said that his opponent was tough? Haru was able to get behind the green-skinned divine soldier in no time. He then wrapped the stretching dagger in his right hand and the other dagger in his left around the divine soldier’s neck and severed its head. It was a brilliant move. It must’ve felt great to pull off.

Haru looked at Manato.

“Run—”

He must have meant to say more. But he didn’t because the two-horned captain stood up.

“Lumiaris! Propral!”

“Heh!” Manato was so dumbfounded that he laughed a bit. That was why his “huh” had come out as a “heh.”

The captain grabbed its two-horned head with both hands and pushed it against the stump of its neck.

Nah, there’s no way it can put it back on like that. That’d be too ridiculous.

But come to think of it, the pointy-eared divine soldier had been holding its long pole with both hands earlier despite Manato having lopped one of them off. Had its hand reattached and healed that quickly? Yeah, it had. Did that mean they could put their heads back on too? He wasn’t so sure of that. Heads and hands were different. Totally different.

Except, maybe they weren’t so different after all.

The divine soldier captain let go of its two-horned head which despite not being held in place anymore didn’t fall off. It was stuck back on.

“I didn’t fully destroy its light core!”

Haru said something that Manato didn’t really understand and then struck with the dagger in his right hand. The captain blocked the dagger—though Manato was becoming dubious about whether it could actually be called a dagger—with its left arm. It was trying to knock the blade aside, but instead the dagger lopped its arm off. The captain didn’t let that concern it, though, as it charged Haru.

“This’s the problem with you!”

Haru kicked the divine soldier captain in the chest with his right foot, sending it reeling backward, then followed up with another kick from his left foot that knocked it over.

Oh, that’s right. I need to run away.

Manato tried to start running. He was going to do as Haru said this time.

“O light!”

“Igrantcia! Diedenda!”

“Lumiaris! Rorbarol!”

“Afinke! Lumiarishel!”

“Lumiaris’s divine protection be upon you!”

They were closing in. The captains and the lesser divine soldiers. And even the priest that was covered in the shiny stuff all over.

The priest swung its spear and banner around, urging the divine soldiers on. Had Haru not been able to finish off the priest? Then again, even the divine soldier captain had been able to put itself back together after losing its head. That was supposed to kill people, you know? Getting your head cut off. At least normally. And even if these things weren’t normal, it felt like it still ought to kill them. But the captain had been able to come back to life. Or it hadn’t even died in the first place. A little thing like losing its head wasn’t enough to kill it. Was that the takeaway from all this? Priests were probably the same, or—and this was just a feeling Manato had—they were even tougher than the captains. If Haru couldn’t kill them, that was seriously bad news. It was super scary, but Manato couldn’t laugh. It wasn’t much fun. He needed to get out of there. But even though he was thinking that, his body wouldn’t move as fast as he wanted it to.

“At times like this, you should smile.”

His dad’s wrinkled, toothless face flashed through his mind.

“If you smile, it’ll take the tension out.”

His mom’s face had been just as wrinkly, and that was because she and his dad had always been smiling and laughing together.

“If you always smile, no matter the occasion, then you’ll be able to endure and overcome anything.”

That was what Manato’s parents had always taught him. He’d cried sometimes when he was little, but his parents had always tried to make their little boy smile. But more than that, they had always been laughing and smiling themselves. It had been contagious.

He was aware that there had been times when they hadn’t felt much like smiling at all. In fact, there probably hadn’t been a single day when his parents hadn’t struggled or been in pain in some way. But whenever life felt hopelessly tough, they had forced themselves to smile. Sometimes those smiles had been desperate ones. But it was better to smile than to not. Far better.

Everyone would die eventually. Even Manato. But until he did, he wanted to be like his parents, and smile as much as he could.

“Heh.”

That thought forced a smile onto his face. It made things feel a bit more fun. And if he was having fun, then his body would move.

Haru was trying to send Manato on ahead, and probably intended to follow behind him. If that was the case, Manato needed to run as fast as he could. He needed to face forward, and not look back. That was what he was thinking, but he couldn’t help but glance behind him. They were close. That captain and several divine soldiers. They had closed in an awful lot.

“Wait.”

Something came flying in. But not from Alterna. From the opposite direction. And not horizontally, but diagonally. It swooped down out of the sky. Some kind of creature. It had wings, and it was big. A bird. No, that wasn’t it. That was no bird. It was bigger than a person.

He had spotted something in the sky earlier as it had passed over the head of the captain with two horns. Something too big to have been a bird. Was this the same creature?

“A dragon?!” Haru shouted.

A dragon. So that’s a dragon, huh?

It had wings, and two legs that it used to kick the divine soldiers, sending them flying. It didn’t land. It was skimming the ground, beating its powerful wings as it hovered along in a straight line.

Manato spotted someone riding on the dragon’s back. A person? Were they human? Though they weren’t wearing a cloak, they were dressed as heavily as Haru. He couldn’t see their face. They didn’t have a mask on, but they were wearing some thick glasses, and had something covering the lower half of their face too.

The dragon nearly collided with the wall, but somehow managed to raise its altitude in time to avoid crashing.

“Karambit! Wait in the mountains!”

Was that the voice of the person who had gotten down off the dragon? Yeah. With humans, there were men, and there were women. His parents had told him that there were more genders than just those, but his dad had been a man, his mom had been a woman, Haru was probably a man, Manato was a man, Juntza was a man, and Amu and Neika were women. That human was probably a woman. Men and women had slightly different proportions and voices. In most cases, men were bigger. The person who had spoken seemed to be a little shorter than Manato and Haru.

The woman drew the sword strapped to her back and approached a divine soldier that had been sent flying by her dragon. She simply walked over to it and swung the sword using only her right hand, and just like that, the divine soldier’s arms both flew off.

“Yori, daughter of Rinka and Ruden Arabakia, happened to notice that you were woefully outnumbered and came to assist!”

4. Sword and Fist

“Came...to assist...” Manato was so overwhelmed he just stopped and stood there. He didn’t know what was going on, but she was apparently here to help.

Haru had stopped too. “Did you just say Arabakia?!” he asked.

“That’s my father’s name!” The woman who had introduced herself as Yori got angry for some reason.

“Lumiaris!” The divine soldier that had lost both its arms tried to lunge at Yori.

“Huh?!” Yori was shocked for a moment. But only for a moment. Then she quickly swung her sword, decapitating the divine soldier with ease.

“That one sure was spirited, huh?” she said. “It got a bit chilly while we were crossing the mountains. Time to warm up!”

The decapitated divine soldier was still down, but the captain and the other ones that had been kicked by her dragon were already getting back up. And there were probably about a dozen that hadn’t gotten kicked. No, there might have been even more than that.

“O light! Come to the light! O Lumiaris, bless us with your light!”

The priest turned its banner spear toward Yori, and the divine soldier captain and its underlings moved to attack her. The priest’s appearance made it stand out from the rest. Was it more important, and in a position to give orders to the others?

“Hey—” Haru tried to warn Yori.

“Fifth Ember!”

Yori wasn’t listening. She turned to face the captain and soldiers coming at her. But was that really the move to be making? It was brave but also reckless. Manato’s hair stood on end. Yori. Who was she? He had no idea what she was about to do, but he had a feeling that it was going to be incredible. She’d come riding in on a dragon, after all. It had been flying. Yori had come flying in out of the blue. That was already incredible.

“Arvearn!” Yori lifted her sword up. Its blade turned red. Well, it had been red to begin with. But it got even more red. As if it was burning. The sword was burning red.

“Wha?!”

Haru was speechless. Manato couldn’t speak either.

“Detonera!”

Did Yori slam her burning sword into the ground? Manato couldn’t tell. He didn’t know if it had made contact or not. But he felt like what happened next occurred before her sword made contact with anything.

There was an incredible noise, and Manato was knocked over.

“Eagh?!”

One time, in Tsunomiya, he’d watched the yakuza demolish an old building, and one of the other onlookers had explained to him what bombs were. If you set them on fire, they blew up, and could do things like this. The yakuza of Tsunomiya had been in possession of bombs that could demolish buildings. Maybe Yori was too? Had she used a bomb just now? But all she’d done was shout something and then swing her sword. Was that enough to cause an explosion?

The dozen or so divine soldiers and the captain that had tried to attack Yori were blasted away from her. Some of them tripped, fell over, or landed on their backsides, and a few were even torn to bits.

“Was that...magic?” Haru was in a crouching position too.

“It’s not magic,” Yori said as she turned, adjusting the position of the glasses-like thing she was wearing. “It’s the Fifth Ember from the Six Embers. The detonation of the scorching sword.”

“Yoriii!” A shout came from up above them.

There was a dragon. Again. Was it a different one from before? It was flying in the air over their heads, not that high up. It was beating its wings, but not going anywhere, instead simply hovering in place. It seemed as though someone was riding it. No, someone definitely was. The person had long hair. Was it another woman?

“It’s not over yet! Don’t let your guard down!”

“Well, of course!” Yori shouted back at her. “Who do you think you’re talking to, Riyo?!”

As Yori was speaking, the long-haired woman jumped down from her dragon’s back. Was she seriously doing that? Sure, it wasn’t that high up, but it was still higher than the walls of Alterna. At that height, even Manato would’ve hesitated. He didn’t think he could’ve brought himself to take that leap.

Was Riyo her name? The woman who’d been riding the dragon rolled forward so that her front was facing the ground, spreading her arms and legs as she fell.

It gave Manato the chills and he smiled.

“Whoa!”

That was scary, scary stuff. What was she gonna do? What would happen to her if she hit the ground like that? Wouldn’t she get hurt? There was no way she wouldn’t, right? And it’d be more than just a scratch.

And yet, Riyo landed without any trouble. How in the world had she done that? It looked to Manato like Riyo had curled into a ball right before she’d hit the ground. Then she’d rolled. No way. No way. It wasn’t possible. There was no way she could’ve done that. Just one well-timed roll, and she was able to get up like it was nothing? That was impossible, right?

But as soon as Riyo was on her feet, she took off running. Running? Was that running?

It didn’t look like walking. And it was super fast, so she must’ve been running. He’d never seen anyone run like that. Riyo was tall. Taller than even Haru or Manato. And not by a little; by a lot. But as she was running, Riyo kept her head low. She ran like she was crawling across the ground. She must’ve been really flexible. Maybe too flexible. Did human joints really bend like that? Could human muscles support that posture? If it were Manato, he would have fallen over.

Riyo didn’t fall over. She was tilting pretty heavily, though. Not just forward, but to the sides as well. She ran in an arcing path rather than straight as she closed in on a divine soldier that was attacking Yori.

Did Riyo put her hands around the divine soldier’s head when she reached it? That was how it looked to Manato. Riyo’s hands weren’t bare. She wore long gloves that protected her up to her elbows. Were those gloves hard? But that wouldn’t explain what happened to the divine soldier’s head, which exploded with a loud pop. Skulls were supposed to be pretty hard, though.

Then, with a couple unnaturally long strides, she closed in on another divine soldier, kicking it. No, that wasn’t a kick. She’d caught the divine soldier between her legs. The long boots Riyo was wearing were probably pretty solid, but again, that didn’t explain how she was able to make the divine soldier’s head fly off with another loud pop. It was clear something out of the ordinary was going on. Sure, nothing that had happened since he’d woken up in Grimgar had been normal, but that didn’t mean he could help feeling surprised by it.

“Riyo! I didn’t ask for your help!” Yori shouted.

But Riyo didn’t turn to look at her. And she didn’t stop.

“They’re strong. We might be able to do this after all,” Haru murmured. His mask turned toward Manato. “You get back, Manato! I’ll take out the priest!”

“Oh! Okay!” Manato replied, then immediately thought, I don’t want to run away. But at the same time, he felt as though he ought to do as he was told. He didn’t have a sword. And he’d been cut. He had other wounds as well. Manato could handle the pain, sure, but even if he was still kicking, was he of any use? That was doubtful.

Yori took the shortest route to her enemies, swinging sharply with her red sword. It seemed like that Sixth Ember, or Fifth Ember, or whatever she had called it was something she kept in reserve. She didn’t use it again, probably because in single combat she didn’t need it. A single swing of her sword was enough. It was probably also due to Riyo being nearby.

Riyo was constantly running around, catching the enemies that were trying to attack Yori between her arms or legs and taking them out. She was always circling around to get ahead of them. Unlike Yori, Riyo didn’t run in straight lines. She took circuitous routes that curved. And her attacks were the same. When she swung out with her arms and legs to sandwich her opponents, her movements weren’t straight then either. Some part of Riyo’s body, or the whole thing, was forming circles, either big or small, at all times. And she was giving Yori the support she needed. Yori seemed to not be paying any attention to Riyo, but Riyo was constantly watching Yori and predicting what she’d do next.

Haru was going after the priest that was entirely covered in that shiny stuff and carrying the banner spear, leaving the other enemies to Riyo and Yori.

Manato found his sword and picked it up, then crouched in some bushes that would let him watch Haru and the priest.

The priest was holding the spear that was half again as long as the priest was tall using both its hands, while Haru had the stretching dagger in his right hand, and the nonstretchy dagger in his left. Even when Haru pressed the attack with his stretching dagger, the priest skillfully parried with its spear, and occasionally struck back. It didn’t seem like it was going to be able to skewer Haru, but Haru’s reach was an issue. There was a lot of distance between the two. While one of his daggers could stretch, it could only extend a little farther than Manato’s sword. Haru would have to close the distance in order to get his attacks to hit the priest, which was moving around skillfully to stop Haru from doing that.

Whenever Haru showed signs of circling around to either side, the priest would turn its spear that way to keep him in check. The priest may have looked weird—downright bizarre, really—but it was a really tough opponent.

“Lumi, Betectos, Edem’os, Tem’os desiz.”

The priest had once been a person. It spoke a human language, so maybe it had once looked like Manato. Until it had converted and had become a follower of the god called Lumiaris. But Haru had said it wasn’t a person anymore. It was something inhuman.

“Tem’os redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix.”

The priest was murmuring something as it fended off Haru’s attacks.

Suddenly, it thrust the pommel of its banner spear into the ground.

“Fraw’ou qu’betecra’jis lumi.”

“Huh?”

Manato’s eyes widened. Though the priest’s head and body weren’t bumpy, exactly, they weren’t completely smooth either. Some kind of patterns were visible on them, which were now turning blue and becoming more distinct.

Haru was probably not as surprised as Manato, but he did jump back. He was acting wary.

“Lumi addecza qu’devain.”

The priest started chanting again.

“Ahhh!” Manato shouted without meaning to.

The priest was shining so brightly it was almost blinding. Manato wasn’t the only one to recoil. Haru did too. But of course he would. Haru was much closer to the priest. He’d been bathed directly in that intense light.

“Lumi trough’es duec eskalys.”

The priest said something again, and raised the tip of its spear toward the sky. There was no flash of light this time, but the priest seemed to grow a little, and its whole outline turned blue and hazy. What in the world was it doing?

Manato gulped.

The priest started moving. It was about to stab Haru with its spear. No. It had already thrust its weapon at him. And not just once. A ridiculous number of times. The priest was unleashing a flurry of attacks. Manato heard its spear making the air vibrate. What had happened to Haru?

He’s not there. He disappeared.

Haru had dodged the priest’s flurry.

Behind it.

He was behind the priest.

How did he get there? No clue.

Manato couldn’t even begin to guess how that had happened.

But Haru had probably predicted what the priest was going to do. If he hadn’t, then he’d have gotten skewered like crazy. Nobody could react to an assault like that in real time. That was what Manato had to think, having seen how fast the priest had moved. It had suddenly sped up a lot. Had that hazy blue outline had something to do with that?

And yet Haru had managed to get behind the priest, or so Manato thought, but only briefly, because he wasn’t behind it for long. When had the priest turned? The priest was now facing Haru, and about to let loose with another flurry of thrusts.

“Haru!”

“Kh!”

Haru dodged the flurry of thrusts by falling to his left. He then rapidly recovered, and an instant later he was moving to get behind the priest again. Haru sure was incredible.

But even so, in its current state, with the hazy blue outline, the priest was keeping up with Haru. It turned in an instant, facing Haru once more, and stabbed at him with the banner spear again. Haru had no choice but to dodge.

It’s no good. There’s no end to this.

Manato was about to jump out of the bushes. Isn’t there something I can do? he wondered. It didn’t matter what it was. He wanted to do something.

It wasn’t Manato who acted, though, but Riyo. She raced in on an arcing course, keeping low to the ground. Was she planning to grapple the priest as it unleashed its flurry of thrusts toward Haru? She reached out and wrapped her arms around it from the side, then twisted. She wasn’t wrestling with the priest. This was a throw.

But the thrown priest rolled and then quickly got back onto its feet.

Neither Riyo nor Haru attempted a follow-up attack on it.

“Fifth Ember!”

But Yori did. She rushed right at the spot where the priest had landed.

“Dashura Illusio!”

Yori’s red sword...was not red. Even though it had been before. Now it was black. And not the glistening kind of black. It was covered in dark mist, which shot out from it after a moment. What Manato saw next made him doubt his eyes. Yori appeared from it. Another Yori. There were two of them now.

Manato threw his head back and laughed, though he knew it wasn’t a good time to be doing that. The priest thrust at one of the Yoris without hesitation. Ohhh. It got her. She vanished. But not without a trace. The Yori impaled by the banner spear turned to black smoke. Meanwhile, the other one was rapidly closing in on the priest. Yori’s red sword cut the priest from its left shoulder to its right hip.

As the bisected priest slumped to the ground, Yori gave a performative shrug.

“Is that all? Great-grandma wanted to return to Grimgar so badly, but she was never able to.”

The only ones left standing were Manato, Haru, Yori, and Riyo. Their opponents were all lying face down in the soil of Grimgar. The bisected priest—obviously—as well as the captain and all of the lesser divine soldiers.

“It’s not over yet!” Haru shouted.

But he didn’t just shout. He sprang into action. There was something writhing at Yori’s feet. No, not something—the priest. It was reaching out to grab her leg with its right hand. Of course, its right arm was the only one it could move after Yori had cut it in half. But even in its current state, the priest was trying to grab Yori. Haru jumped on the priest to stop it. Turning the priest face down, he thrust his dagger—the non-stretchy one—into its neck.

“Priests have three hexagrammic light cores!”

What was he doing? He wasn’t just stabbing the priest at random. He pinned it down with his knees, cutting it open like he was butchering prey. Was he trying to separate the meat from the bones?

“Hexagrammic...light cores?” Yori murmured in confusion.

Riyo was standing next to her, looking around.

“I’ve destroyed two of them. Now for the last one.” Haru thrust his left hand into the priest’s head, extracting something from it. The object was awfully small. Manato rushed over to get a closer look.

The round thing Haru was holding between his index finger and thumb was probably smaller than the nail on his little finger. It was translucent and there was light coming from inside it. Not just any light, though. On closer inspection, the source of the light had six protrusions coming from it. It was that shape again. The same one that was on the priest’s banner.

“This is a hexagrammic light core. It’s what powers Lumiaris’s converts.”

Haru stood up and squeezed the hexagrammic light core thingy in his hand really hard. But when he opened his hand, the light core wasn’t so much as scratched. It sat in his gloved hand, still shining.

“A convert’s body will keep being repaired as long as its hexagrammic light cores exist. I ran an experiment once, a long time ago, on a piece of spine with one of these cores embedded in it. A body was able to regrow from it in about two days.”

“Yori.” Riyo gently placed her hand on Yori’s back.

Yori batted her hand away in annoyance. “What?”

“They’re not dead.”

“Huh? What do you mean, not dead?” Yori clicked her tongue without even looking for herself to check.

The divine soldiers and the captain that had been lying face down were rising again. The ones whose bodies were too damaged to stand were crawling.

“Finishing them all off is going to be a real pain,” Haru said, sighing behind his mask. “But there’s no sign of further reinforcements, so we probably should. Yori and Riyo, was it? You two don’t need to help. But we have someone with an injury here, so could I ask you to look after him?”

“Someone with an injury?” Manato echoed, pointing to himself. “Uhhh. I’m fine, actually.”

“As if. You were slashed across the back. It looks like you’ve been bleeding a lot too, so it’s not just a scratch.”

“Oh, I guess I am bleeding. It does hurt, but it should heal all on its own.”

“Don’t act tough. If we don’t treat it properly, your life could be at risk.”

“Nah, I’m okay. Seriously. What was it that Juntza said? My, uh, constitution is really good, so my injuries all heal real quick. Maybe I was just born this way?”

“Ah!”

There was someone behind him, and they let out a small cry.

“Huh?” Manato turned his head to look. It was Riyo. She was crouching to take a closer look at Manato’s back. Manato had no idea when she had moved. Riyo was quicker and more nimble than Haru, but she wasn’t just agile. She also moved in a unique way. There was something particularly fluid about it.

Riyo was wearing the same sort of glasses-like thing as Yori. She lowered them and let them rest beneath her chin. Though her hair was really long, her bangs were cut short. Probably to keep them out of her eyes, though they were actually even shorter than they needed to be for that.

“It’s closing up,” Riyo said before looking at Manato’s face with upturned eyes. If she hadn’t been bent over, she’d have been looking down at him instead. She really was tall. But her head was kind of on the small side.

“How?” she asked.

“How? You mean how is it closing?”

“Yeah.” Her voice was pretty quiet. She hadn’t been quite this quiet during the battle, but this was probably how she normally talked. She spoke like she was breathing out the words without trying to raise her volume too much.

“I dunno. Mom and dad weren’t like this. Juntza and the others weren’t either. Ah, Juntza and the others were my comrades. They aren’t here, though. Seems like I came to Grimgar alone. Not sure why, though.”

Riyo furrowed her brow. “I need time to process all this.”

“But first, let’s deal with them!” Yori said, pointing the sharp end of her red sword at the divine soldiers.

“The kid’s wounds seem fine, so let’s get to it, Riyo!”

“Okay.” Riyo stood up straight. As expected, she wasn’t quite a full head taller than Manato, but she was close.

“Teach us how to do it!”

At Yori’s urging, Haru said “Oh, sure,” and went over to a nearby divine soldier somewhat hastily. “The position of the hexagrammic light cores is more or less fixed, so—”

“And hold on, why are you wearing a mask? That seems pretty suspicious.”

“Does it? Well, sorry. Um...”

“It’s fine for now. We’ll take care of business first.”

“Good call. So, uh, the hexagrammic light core is in the deepest part of the brain, or rather the center of it, in a region called the thalamus—”

“The brain? So, inside the head? But decapitating them’s still not enough, huh? You were saying earlier that priests have three, or something like that, right?”

“They grow along the brain stem and spinal cord. The second is in the medulla oblongata.”

“And the way these guys look changes when they have more of these things?”

“Yeah, that’s right. With the second one, the converted gains a receptor—”

“That’s what the stuff covering its head is?”

“I’m glad you’re picking this up so quickly.”

“With the second hexagrammic light core, the head gets covered in a receptor, and with three it spreads to cover the whole body, huh? Got it. Riyo, were you listening? Do you get it too?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get a move on, then.” Yori smashed a divine soldier’s head with her red sword, then pointed her weapon toward Manato. “You there!” she said. “If you can move, you should help too. Check to see if any of these things seem like they’re still dangerous and let us know.”

“Don’t push yourself, Manato,” Haru told him, but Manato felt like he could handle what Yori was asking him to do.

His wounds would heal soon enough, but it would take time, and he’d be in pain until then. Just sitting around and suffering through the process would be boring, though. So long as he didn’t move too quickly and reopen his wounds, he’d probably be fine.

“Got it!” Manato opened his eyes wide and looked for any divine soldiers that looked ready to get up.

“Manato?” Yori murmured.

Manato nodded without looking at her. “Yeah. What is it?”

“Manato...” Yori repeated, her voice low.

Apparently, she hadn’t been calling his name.

“That name... It came up in great-grandma’s stories...”

5. What Have We Forgotten?

“You crossed the Tenryus? On dragonback? Do they tame dragons in the mainland? I never knew that was possible,” Haru mumbled. The mask obscured his facial reactions, but he seemed surprised and even shaken.

The tall girl, Riyo, tended to her dragon, which had folded its wings. She was stroking its neck and chest and seemed unbothered when it licked her face in return. Yori was checking on her dragon as well, but unlike Riyo, she was speaking with Haru at the same time.

“‘Tame’ might be a strong word for it, since three out of five of us get killed in the process. It’s not easy. Also, dragons only listen to the person who raises them, so if you want to ride one, you’ll have to do what Yori and Riyo did and raise it from an egg yourself. Ah! Hey, Karambit, that tickles, c’mon, cut it out! Hee hee!”

It was impressive that the two of them had no problem with letting such massive creatures lick and sometimes even bite them, though it was probably just gentle nipping. The dragons’ mouths were lined with sharp teeth, and they opened wide enough to swallow a human’s head whole. Those teeth—these things were definitely carnivorous. Were they so used to it that it didn’t scare them anymore? If their dragons made even a slight mistake, it’d have had terrible consequences, so they ought to have been scared. That much was obvious. Manato felt a shudder run down his spine. He was so scared he had to laugh.

In truth, he wanted to approach Yori’s and Riyo’s dragons so badly it hurt. But Manato’s instincts as a hunter told him, beyond any doubt, that if he tried to get close to the dragons, it would anger them. He’d be putting himself in danger, and possibly Yori and Riyo too. That wouldn’t be good, so Manato restrained himself. But he really wanted to try petting them.

The Ark was standing nearby, looking like nothing more than an old tower. Once Lumiaris’s converts had been thoroughly finished off, the group had moved away from Alterna and climbed the hill. Yori had then said that she wanted them to meet her dragon, so they’d had her call it. How had she done that? Well, Yori and Riyo had these round whistles made of stone called dragon whistles, and when she had blown on hers, the dragon had come flying in from the direction of the Tenryu Mountains.

The clear, high-pitched sound of the dragon whistle hadn’t been that loud, but it would apparently carry for quite a long distance if there weren’t too many obstacles, and certain species of dragon could hear it really well. Manato couldn’t tell the difference, but each dragon tamer had their own distinctive way of blowing the whistle so the dragons knew who was putting out the call.

“If your hearts are connected, winged dragons make cute and reliable partners. If you give them the love they deserve, it doesn’t take much work to care for them. They’ll even take care of feeding themselves. I smell blood, by the way. She must’ve eaten in the mountains. We pushed them hard crossing the Tenryus, so she must’ve been hungry. Maybe it would have been better not to call her. Nah, it’s probably fine. You wanted to see Yori, right? Yori feels the same, Karambit. There, there, there.”

“Ahhh!” Manato clutched his head and cried out loud.

The two winged dragons looked his way. The air crackled with tension.

“What? Why did you shout all of a sudden?” Yori asked, quickly hugging her dragon around the neck. The dragon narrowed its eyes and licked her cheek.

“Yeah, sorry,” Manato said. “I wanted to try touching it. But I can’t, though, right? I figured that out on my own.”

“You’re right. She definitely wouldn’t like that.”

“Obviously. It looks like it’d eat me.”

“If you make Karambit mad, it wouldn’t be surprising if she did. Not even Yori could stop her. Actually, Yori wouldn’t even try. How’s your wound, by the way, Manato?”

“Wound?” Manato raised his arms and twisted his body around, then tried some light jumping.

“Yeah. I’m all good now. There’s no pain. Looks like it’s all closed up.”

“It’s...almost exasperating how fast you heal. You sure you’re human?”

“I think I am. But...y’know, I’m kinda different from how my mom and dad were, and maybe Juntza and the others too. When they got hurt, it took them a while to heal. And some of our comrades just died instead of healing.”

“You’ve...lost comrades?” Riyo asked.

“A whole bunch of them. Only four of us are still alive, me included. There were more of us before, though. Oh, I’m talking about in Japan. Not Grimgar.”

“Japan...? Not Grimgar? So then...does that mean you’re like our great-grandma?”

“Your what, Riyo? Oh, do you two mind me calling you Riyo and Yori?”

“Not at all,” Yori said. “Yori is Yori, and Riyo is Riyo, after all. Those’re the names our great-grandma gave us.”

“Wow. A great-grandma, huh? A grandma’s your mom’s mom, right? I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard of them.”

Yori nodded. “And a great-grandma’s your grandma’s mom.”

“That’s one megamomma!”

“Megamomma? Uhhh... What do you mean?”

“She’s your mom’s mom’s mom, so she’s a megamom?”

Yori stared at Manato for a beat. “Anyway, Yori and Riyo’s mom is named Rinka, and Rinka’s dad is named Ruon. Ruon is Yori and Riyo’s grandpa.”

Manato crossed his arms and repeated, “Grandpa...”

“Ruon,” Haru murmured.

“Ruon’s mother was Yori’s great-grandma, and—” Yori tried to continue, but Haru cut her off.

“Hold on... Wait—just give me a second. Ruon... Did you say Ruon? And his mother is...?”

“Ruon’s our grandpa. But we never met him. He died a long, long time ago.”

“More than thirty-eight years,” Riyo murmured before giving her dragon a shove on the back. “Ushaska, you can go now.”

Ushaska let out a kwee in response, then raced down the hill beating its wings. Was that how winged dragons took off? Ushaska didn’t have much of a running start. But the dragon’s wings were strong, and it had incredibly powerful legs. In no time, Ushaska had lifted off from the ground, and was quickly gaining altitude.

“Our grandfather Ruon died nearly twenty years before Yori’s birth, on February twenty-third, 724,” Riyo explained. “Yori was born on April third, 744, and I was born the next year, on October third 745.”

“Whoa... So many numbers...” It was making Manato’s head spin, and he quickly gave up on trying to keep track of them.

“Go, Karambit,” Yori said, giving her winged dragon a push.

Karambit resisted for a moment, and only after Yori indulgently rubbed her cheek against the dragon’s some more did it finally agree to go. Karambit ran down the hill and flew away.

Haru was bent forward a little, pushing his mask against his face with his left hand.

“That’s Alterna, right?” Yori asked, looking toward the ruins. “Back when Arabakia still had a margrave in Alterna, great-grandma woke up there with her comrades and became a volunteer soldier. She told us all sorts of stories from back then.”

“And from her time on the Red Continent,” Riyo added as she stared up at the Ark. “Up until her tribe and the company they were working with took over the landmass south of the Tenryus and founded a united kingdom. And many more stories from after that too.”

“Riyo. You always derail conversations like this.”

“I’m sorry.”

Riyo hung her head. Her face showed no emotion, and her tone was level, but she might have been feeling depressed.

“Would you mind telling me something?” Haru asked in a groaning tone without taking his hand from his mask. “What was your great-grandmother’s name? I might have known her.”

“Great-grandma was the living dictionary of our tribe,” Yori said, turning back to Haru. “People called her all kinds of things like the great mother, godmom, and so on. But Yori gets to call her great-grandma because Yori bears the blood of the one most precious to her, a great man whom she loved from the bottom of her heart. Whenever children were born into the tribe, great-grandma would name them herself. Those named by great-grandma were special.”

“Yori... That name... I’ve heard it before. I just remembered...” Because Haru’s face was hidden behind a mask, it was impossible to tell where he was looking. But his face was turned downward. He wasn’t looking Yori in the eye. “My comrade...my friend once told me that if her baby was a girl, they were going to name her Yori. But it was a boy.”

“So, about Yori. Yori is the second Yori in our clan. The first Yori was Ruon’s daughter. His first daughter. She passed away at a young age. Then great-grandma gave that name to Yori. The precious name she’d come up with together with our great-grandpa.”

“No way... This can’t be happening... You’re kidding me... No... I don’t think you’re lying... That’s not it, but... It’s already been a century. A hundred years have passed... It’s just not possible. How can I be hearing that name again...? Wait, she named you? You were born in the year 744... So you’re eighteen this year, huh?”

“Great-grandma didn’t know her age. When she woke up in Grimgar, the only thing she knew was her own name. But she lived for a very long time, and was always full of energy. She always used to put Yori on her lap and tell stories. Sometimes Riyo too, because Riyo was still small back then.”

“When? When did...she...?”

“It was about five and a half years ago, maybe?”

“December 24th, 756 A.C.,” Riyo said in a quiet voice, but without hesitation. “That’s the day great-grandma passed. It was a day I’ll always remember.”

“Five years...?” Haru said, right before he dropped to his knees. “Only five and a half years ago...” He hung his head and shook it listlessly. “That’s so recent... She was...alive...not that long ago... And I just...assumed it was impossible... Ohhh... What’ve I been doing...staying here all this time...? Why...?”

Manato walked over and crouched down next to Haru. He wanted to do something for him but didn’t know what. He was pretty sure that smiling wouldn’t help, though. Haru didn’t look like he was in any mood for smiles.

Well, darn. Manato couldn’t smile either.

“Yume...” Haru murmured. His voice sounded warped, like it was being squeezed out of his throat. “Yume...was alive. She lived on for us, protecting her child—Ruon...and escaped from Grimgar. Ohhh... Ruon had children... And his grandkids have come to Grimgar... And I... What was I doing? I should’ve been able to do something... Yeah... I could have. There’s no reason I couldn’t have...”

After hesitating a little, Manato patted Haru on the back. “You okay, Haru?”

“Yeah...” Haru replied, but he didn’t so much as budge. “I’m okay. I can’t say that I’m not.”

“Hey,” Yori said, circling around until she was in front of Haru. She didn’t crouch. She looked down at Haru without lowering herself. “Yori and Riyo introduced ourselves and told you where we came from. Now it’s your turn. Who are you? Your name’s Haru, and there was a Haru-kun in great-grandma’s stories. She said that he was her comrade, her friend, and something like a big brother to her. Great-grandpa was in another class altogether, but she trusted Haru-kun with all her heart. Haru-kun saved her time and again. More often than she could count. But...”

Yori let out a sigh before continuing. “Haru-kun awoke in Grimgar on the same day as great-grandma and was about the same age. He wasn’t an elf or a dwarf. He was human. It’s not nice to say it like this, but there’s no way he’s still alive. Even great-grandma, who wanted to see him up until the day she died, had probably given up hope of that.”

“Haru-kun was what great-grandma called him,” Riyo added dispassionately. “But his real name was Haruhiro.”

“Yeah...” Haru finally raised his head. “I’m that same Haruhiro. And like you said, normally, I ought to have been dead by now. But I failed at dying. You could say I’m living in disgrace.”

“Why do you hide your face?” Yori asked.

“This isn’t just a mask.” Haru put his hand on the edge of the mask that covered his entire face, ears included. “It has other functions.”

“It’s a relic?”

“That’s right.”

“So keeping it on you is convenient? That’s the only reason?”

“My face isn’t worth showing... No, that’s not it. I’ve been alone for decades. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be seen. I just wanted to hide.”

“No matter how wrinkled great-grandma got, she never hid. She was always bolder than anyone.”

“I wish I could’ve met Yume again... It’s possible that I could have. And if it was possible, then I should have... I needed to tell her about what I did, in my own words—”

Haru took his mask off. Or rather, it was more like it came off on its own, and Haru just caught it with his hand. Yori furrowed her brow and clenched her teeth. Riyo was looking at Haru’s unmasked face from some distance away too. Her expression never changed, but she did blink two or three times.

Manato stared at Haru’s face from the side.

What did a human look like when they were over a hundred years old? Manato couldn’t even imagine such a thing. His own parents had probably died without even making it to thirty. They had been all wrinkled, and missing most of their teeth. Sometimes, they had laughed together about how much smaller they’d both gotten. As people aged, first they got bigger, and then they shriveled and got smaller, until they had shrunk as much as they could, at which point they couldn’t live anymore, and so they died. Manato himself had gotten pretty big, so he was going to start getting smaller soon. There wasn’t really anything he could do about it, or at least, that was how Manato saw it.

Haru’s face hadn’t shrunk or shriveled up. There were no wrinkles on it to speak of. But that wasn’t all that surprising. Haru didn’t have a hunched back, and didn’t have a bad leg that he dragged behind him. In fact, he was actually quite a bit faster than the average person. So if his face had been all wrinkled and small, that would have been weird.

Instead, his skin was pale. Incredibly pale. There were dark-skinned people, and there were pale-skinned people. Juntza and Amu had been naturally dark. Neika and Manato had been pale. Yori and Riyo were pale too. But the whiteness of Haru’s skin was something else.

It wasn’t that his skin was translucent, but it had no color to speak of. There was a network of blue lines that ran under the surface. Were those blood vessels? His lips were a little dark, and the whites of his eyes were a pale white. His irises were light yellow.

“I don’t age like other living beings. I don’t mean to frighten you, but that’s just the kind of entity that the thing inside me is. I’m Haruhiro, but also not Haruhiro. I’m not living. I’m being kept alive.”

“Are you connected to the No-Life King in some way?” Yori asked.

Haru didn’t immediately answer. It took some time for him to open his mouth. “I can’t say that I’m not. But I’m different from the No-Life King... Oh, right. Yume told you two about everything that happened back then. Then, do you know that the No-Life King—or rather, his vessel—used to be our comrade?”

“Yeah. You can assume that Yori knows more or less everything great-grandma knew. Sometimes, she would say that she was fuzzy on some of the details, though, and she would suddenly remember things in the middle of a story she was telling us or figure things out that she had misunderstood.”

“Even after escaping with Ruon...Yume never forgot Grimgar, huh?”

“She always wanted to come back.”

“‘In Grimgar,’” Riyo suddenly interjected. The words were not her own. But the cadence was Riyo’s, unnaturally level. “‘There’s somethin’ your great-grandma forgot. And someone’s gotta go get it. Do y’think you could go and do that for your great-grandma?’”

Haru cast his eyes skyward. “Yume...” he said.

“Whaa?!” Yori turned to look at Riyo with shocked surprise. “Whoa, what?! How?! Great-grandma said that to Yori when we were all alone! I mean, sure, she was the kind of person who repeated herself a lot, but she only said that once!”

“She said it to me when I was alone with her too. Just once.” Riyo cast her eyes downward. “I’ve been keeping it a secret. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Riyo... Great-grandma could be like that! She was a real airhead! It was part of her charm, though!”

“So, basically...” Haru’s yellow eyes turned to Yori, and then Riyo. “The two of you have come to Grimgar to fulfill Yume’s last request? That thing Yume said she forgot... What exactly is it?”

Yori and Riyo exchanged glances. The sisters were quite different when it came to their heights and personalities, but they had some similarities too.

“Yeah, that there? That’s the problem,” Yori said with a casual shrug. “Great-grandma never said exactly what she wanted to do if she came back to Grimgar. She probably didn’t want to shackle Yori...and Riyo with whatever it was. To be honest, she might not’ve meant to tell us to go get whatever she forgot for her in the first place. But she said it anyway. She couldn’t help herself.”

“I see... Knowing Yume...I’m sure you’re right. Not that I know Yume as well as you do. Because Yume spent far longer with Ruon and you girls—her family—than she did with us...”

“But Grimgar was special to great-grandma.” Yori looked around, took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Great-grandma’s life began here. Her earliest memory was of waking up in Grimgar. This is where she met the people she cared about the most, and where they were split up. There were people she lost too. But she gained a lot of irreplaceable things here. Most importantly, it’s where she met great-grandpa. That’s the reason Yori and Riyo exist now. Here. In Grimgar. We’ve arrived, great-grandma. Yori still doesn’t know what it is that you forgot, but Yori’s gonna find it. And when Yori finds something that seems like it must be what Yori is looking for, that’ll be what great-grandma forgot. Great-grandma would definitely have thought the same way.”

Haru hung his head. Then he put a hand on Manato’s shoulder and quietly said, “Thanks, Manato. That helped. I’m fine now. Really.”

Manato nodded and withdrew his hand from Haru’s back.

Haru had been carrying some really heavy feelings with him for a long time. And the burden hadn’t been lifted from his shoulders yet. He was still struggling under the weight, trying not to let it crush him.

“Yori. Riyo. There’s one more thing I need to tell you about.” Haru said as he set his mask down on the ground. “The one who killed Ruon’s father, your great-grandfather Ranta... It was me. I killed Ranta with my own hands.”

“Hm?” Manato cocked his head to the side.

Yori and Riyo’s mother was named Rinka, and her father had been named Ruon. Ruon’s father had been named Ranta. Haru had killed that same Ranta.

Ranta had been Yori and Riyo’s great-grandfather, and Yume had been their great-grandmother, so that probably meant they’d been in the same sort of relationship that Manato’s parents had been in. Husband and wife. That was what it was called, right? And when a husband and wife loved each other very much, babies were born, or something like that.

Basically, it was the same as when animals copulated in mating season and the female got pregnant. When parents copulated, babies were the result. Manato was familiar with the word love, but he didn’t really understand it. Maybe it was just a euphemism for copulation? Or was it when two people were in a mating relationship and they got along well? Manato’s parents had gotten along really well.

Haru and Yume had been comrades. Yume and Ranta had been husband and wife. Haru had killed Ranta.

Yori and Riyo were both very quiet. It wasn’t that they were surprised. It seemed like they didn’t understand what they’d just heard, or were unable to accept it. Manato felt the same way.

“So, um...you and Ranta were...enemies? Is that it? Huh?”

“No.” Haru shook his head slightly without looking at Manato. “Ranta awoke in Grimgar on the same day as Yume and me. We had our differences, but he was still my comrade.”

“But you ended up killing him?”

“I didn’t just ‘end up’ killing him. I killed Ranta with intent.”

“Why?”

“I had a reason to do so... But I don’t want to make excuses. I killed Ranta. That’s the immutable truth.”

Yori brushed back her hair, which was by no means long, and started to say something, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was an inaudible whisper.

“Haru-kun-san,” Riyo said, stepping out in front of Yori. She looked down at Haru, and Manato next to him. “Please, have a duel with me.”

“A...duel?” Haru’s eyes closed, then immediately opened once more. “What are you saying? And, wait... Haru-kun...-san? There’s no need for that ‘san.’”

“I cannot call you Haru-kun.”

“Oh. I see... Well, I don’t care what you call me... I’m in no position to demand anything of you, but... A duel? You want me to fight you?”

“Yes, that is what I said, Haru-san.”

“But why would I... Oh. This is about vengeance. Of course, you have that right. But I’m not sure that—”

“This isn’t about vengeance. Please, have a duel with me.”

“But...I...”

Haru looked away from Riyo’s face, as if searching for something. He might have been trying to see Yori’s reaction. But Yori was standing behind Riyo, almost completely hidden from view by her sister.

“Haru-san. Please, have a duel with me.”

Manato suspected that Riyo was probably going to keep saying the same thing in the same tone until Haru agreed.

“Okay.” Haru nodded. And not just once. His jaw was tremulous as he nodded three times.

“If that’s what you want, I can’t refuse. Let’s duel.”

6. Something Inhuman

This was an odd development. Downright strange, to be honest.

Haru and Riyo were preparing to duel in front of the Ark. Though, really, all Haru did was put his mask back on.

Riyo took off the thick coat she was wearing, as well as the scarf around her neck, which left her in some kind of incredibly tight-fitting leather jumpsuit. The extra clothes must have been making it harder for her to move around, or they were just too hot. She also removed the glasses-like thing from around her head. Next, she put on a pair of sturdy-looking gloves that covered her hands and arms all the way up to her elbows. The long boots she was wearing looked like they were pretty solid too. Lastly, Riyo tied her long hair back with a string, then slowly rolled her neck.

If Riyo wanted payback for Haru killing her great-grandfather, then that wasn’t beyond Manato’s ability to understand. But she had said that wasn’t it.

“Manato,” Yori called his name.

“Yeah? What?”

Manato looked over at Yori, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground next to him. She had taken off her gloves and scarf, but not her coat, though she had opened its front.

“Is it really okay already?”

“Is what?”

“The wound.”

“Yours?”

“No, yours.”

“Ohhh.”

Manato raised both arms, crossed them above his head, and stretched. He flexed his body to both sides too. Nothing felt wrong.

“It doesn’t hurt at all, so it’s probably healed, right?”

“Would you show me?”

“Sure.”

Manato twisted around so that Yori could see his back where his injury should have been.

“Your clothes are torn and stained with blood, but there’s no real wound here. What’s up with your body, Manato?”

“Uhhh. I dunno what to tell you. I’ve always been like this. That reminds me, do your teeth not grow back if they fall out either, Yori?”

“Not the permanent ones that grew in after my baby teeth fell out.”

“Permanent teeth? You mean adult teeth?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve lost an adult tooth and had it grow back before. Apparently, guys like me pop up sometimes.”

“They say that long ago, the priests of Lumiaris could heal wounds with magic.”

“Magic? I don’t think it’s that. Not that I’d know. But I’m not doing anything special.”

“So you just leave it alone and it heals. Must be nice.”

“But if I ever had my head cracked open, I think that’d probably kill me. Wouldn’t...it? Y’know, my head’s never been cracked open before. Maybe I ought to give it a try?”

“And what if doing that kills you? Don’t even try it.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Manato said with a laugh, causing Yori to laugh along with him.

Manato thought it was a little weird for him to think this when he was laughing too, but Yori seemed awfully unconcerned, considering that Riyo and Haru were about to duel. She looked like she was totally relaxed.

“Who do you think’ll win, Haru or Riyo?” Manato asked.

“Dunno,” Yori replied instantly. “Haruhiro’s got over a century of experience, after all. And it doesn’t seem like his age is slowing him down. He ought to be pretty tough. But Riyo’s no slouch either, so who can say?”

“Could you beat Haru?”

“Couldn’t say without trying.”

“Why is Riyo fighting Haru?”

“You’ll find out if you watch.” Yori raised one knee and hugged it, then looked over at her sister. “Riyo’s not awkward the way Yori is. Though, she did do everything Yori told her to when she was little. But Riyo’s not a kid anymore, so she’s gonna do things her way. She’s a stubborn one. But so is Yori. Maybe that’s because we’ve got great-grandma’s blood in us. Though, great-grandpa was supposedly pretty willful too.”

“Let me warn you...” Haru said as he brandished his two daggers. He had the stretching one in his right hand, and the nonstretching one in his left. “I’ve never trained in any martial art. I’ve only ever learned techniques for wounding and killing living creatures.”

“I learned Odradd from Master Emi Bubur.”

Riyo put her hands together in front of her chest. The tips of her fingers were touching, but her palms were not. She stood with her legs spread a bit and her knees slightly bent.

“Odradd means ‘the one who resists.’ The liberator of the Red Continent’s slaves, Odradd, is said to have invented the style. But no evidence remains of Odradd having actually existed. One theory holds that minstrels and storytellers invented the character of Odradd based on the stories of several different liberators. In addition to throwing swords like the braka and jabi, we use armored gloves called kuduses, and armored boots called hadumas. In this duel, I won’t be using a braka or a jabi. I’ve already put on my kuduses and hadumas.”

“Thanks for the detailed explanation,” Haru said.

“You’re welcome. Now, how about we get started, Haru-san.”

“You’re serious about doing this, huh?”

“Of course I’m serious.”

“Okay. We can start whenever.”

The moment Haru said that, Riyo slid into motion. She was already running. Not directly, of course. She took an arcing course as she closed in on Haru.

Haru swung with his stretching dagger. Did Riyo block with her glove—a kudus, or whatever it was called? Or did she dodge? The two were so close, it looked like they were about to collide. But then a moment later, they had parted.

Riyo’s movement was constant and flowing, never stopping for a second. It changed moment to moment, speeding up and slowing down.

“It’s like nyu, nyuh, nyu, ninyu, nyuu, nyuu, nininyu, nyu, nyu...” Manato murmured.

“You mean Riyo?” Yori asked.

“Yeah.”

“Haruhiro’s like shoo, shooshooshoo, pappan, papa, shoo, shoo, shooshoo.”

“Ohhh! Yeah, he is kinda moving like that!”

“Riyo’s a real pain to fight.”

“Have you fought her, Yori?”

“Not Riyo, but Yori has fought against other Odradd users. They’re strong. Or you could also say they’re unnerving. There’s more to Odradd than just those distinctive striking attacks. It uses throws too. All of their techniques are offensive. They throw themselves into battle aiming to take down ten guys before dying themselves. And they’ll do it bare-handed. But when they have kuduses and hadumas to protect their arms and legs like that, they can kill ten guys and be just fine.”

It was true, Riyo was constantly on the attack. Haru would back away, or move to the side, but he hardly ever moved forward.

Yori’s lips twisted into a frown. “But Haruhiro’s not fighting seriously. Those are his techniques for wounding and killing living things? If so, I’m disappointed.”

Yori sounded mad. Manato smiled a little.

“What?” Yori asked, glaring at him.

“Well, I mean, if Haru killed Riyo, you wouldn’t like that, right?”

“Well...”

“You’d hate it, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, yeah. She’s my little sister.”

“Do you think Haru’ll kill Riyo?”

After a pause, Yori said, “No.”

“Well, then don’t you think that means Haru won’t get serious?”

“Haruhiro accepted the duel.”

“But why do you think he accepted? You and Riyo are the grandchildren...no, great-grandchildren of the comrades he cared so much about, right? I don’t think Haru would be able to kill people like you. Huh. But he did kill his comrade, Ranta, didn’t he? Weird.”

“He must’ve had a reason for doing it. Maybe he had no other choice.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Huh? Do you know something, Yori?”

“Not a thing. After all, that was a century ago.”

“I’m sure...Haru didn’t want to kill him. I wonder what that feels like, killing someone when you don’t want to.”

After a pause, Yori said, “I don’t even want to think about that.”

“Must’ve been rough on Haru.”

Manato could tell that, just like Yori had said, Haru wasn’t serious. Even as Riyo pressed the attack on him, he’d occasionally counter with his stretching dagger, but the swings didn’t have any sharpness to them. There was no sense he was trying to finish her off.

Haru had killed a man he hadn’t wanted to kill, and was now fighting Riyo whom he didn’t want to fight.

“Hahhh...” Manato sighed without meaning to.

Yori glanced at him. “What is it?” she asked.

“Hmm. I dunno.” For some reason, Manato felt like he couldn’t keep sitting cross-legged. He got up into a crouching position. “Hang in there, Haru.”

“Hang in there?” Yori seemed upset, or maybe suspicious.

Manato had no idea why he had said that. It was so weird he couldn’t help but laugh. “It just sort of slipped out,” he replied.

“It’s no good,” Haru suddenly said, casting aside his stretching dagger. And then he let go of the non-stretching dagger too.

Riyo stopped for the first time. But it wasn’t a sudden stop. She moved smoothly into a lowered posture.

“Does this mean you’re stopping the duel?” she asked.

“I can’t kill you when you have Yume’s and Ranta’s blood in you.”

“But you killed our great-grandpa, Haru-san.”

“You’re right. And despite what I just said, if I were in a situation that forced me to, I might kill you as well.”

“What kind of situation would that be?”

“Ranta asked me to do it. He begged me to kill him before Skullhell took over. He knew. Skullhell was about to be set free, and then he wouldn’t have been himself anymore. He wouldn’t have even been able to die as a person. He probably understood all of that.”

“So the only way he could have died as a person was to have you kill him, Haru-san.”

“There might have been another way, but not one we could have figured out right then and there. Just before I ended his life, I said I was sorry. He was true to himself to the very end. He smirked and said, ‘That’s my line, moron.’ Even a hundred years later, my memory of that moment hasn’t faded one bit.”

“And you aren’t ever going to die, Haru-san.”

“I don’t think I’m immortal, but I won’t die easily.”

“You’ll always remember it.”

“It seems unlikely I’ll forget.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Nah.” Haru gave a clear shake of his head. “If I let myself regret it, that would mean I thought he made the wrong call. He did what was right for him. So, no, I don’t regret it. Even if I could go back, I’d do it again. I’d definitely kill him.”

“Haru-san.”

Riyo undid a metal clasp or something of the sort. First her left glove, and then her right glove, fell to the ground. She wasn’t bare-handed under the gloves, though. There were thin pieces of cloth wrapped around both of her hands. They probably weren’t heavy or hard, but were simply meant to protect her hands, rather than being a weapon like the kuduses.

“Please fight me.”

Before Haru could answer, Riyo took her boots off as well. Like her hands, her legs had thin cloth wrappings around them.

Haru took off his mask and set it on the ground. His face was different than before. It was still pale as pale could be, with a network of blue veins under the surface. But even so, Manato got the impression that something had changed. When he had first seen Haru’s face, it had looked like the face of a dead man, or of something artificial, but now, while it still only had a thin semblance of life to it, he didn’t look dead anymore. Haru then took his cloak off as well.

“If that’s what you want, I’ll spar with you.”

“I’ll be going all out from now on.”

Riyo tilted her body. She was already running. She’d said that, from now on, she’d be using her full power. Which meant that she hadn’t been before.

There was an incredible sound, and Haru went flying.

“Ngh—”

Haru spun through the air, only to be smacked down out of it. Riyo had taken off at a run, gotten ahead of him, and then hit him in midair with a reverse roundhouse kick. And as his back hit the ground, there was already another attack coming at him. Again. Riyo turned diagonally, and as she did, she swung her arms into Haru’s body. He didn’t just lie there and take it, though. He curled into a ball, as if assuming a defensive position.

Haru’s body bounced upward, and as soon as he was airborne, Riyo pummeled him with both her arms again.

If she’d done that to Manato, he didn’t know if it would kill him, but it would probably have been enough to knock him out. How had Haru gotten out of that situation? Manato had watched the whole thing without blinking and he still had no clue.

Haru grappled Riyo. No, he tried to, but she immediately threw him. You’d think that would have put some distance between them, but not when Riyo was his opponent. She closed in on Haru, whom she had just thrown, in an instant, and what did she try to do to him next? It wasn’t clear. Whatever it was, he blocked both her right arm and her left leg with his hands at the same time. Using the momentum from having been pushed away, though, she shifted her center of balance diagonally and performed a backward somersault.

Riyo’s head swayed up and down as she moved in a circle centered around Haru. Her legs were obviously in motion, since she was running, but her arms, and even her fingers and wrists, were moving too. They never stopped for a moment.

Haru was hunched over with his knees bent, and he wasn’t moving. Blood dripped from the left side of his lips.

“Odradd was originally a fighting style meant for unarmed resistance,” Yori explained. Her whole body was slightly tense. “It’s easier for Riyo to bring out her full strength without kuduses and hadumas. But often the user’s body can’t take the strain and breaks down.”

“Are you worried about Riyo?” Manato asked.

Yori snorted. “That girl decided to go this route on her own. If she had continued training with the Six Embers, she might not have gotten to Yori’s level, but she could have gotten somewhere with it.”

“The Six Embers is what you use?”

“Riyo wasn’t blessed with a natural ability for inhaling mana. Unless you can use both the internal spirit—prana—and the external spirit—mana—you can’t master the Six Embers. So instead, she apprenticed with this inscrutable Emi or Bubur or whatever and learned Odradd.”

“Oh, I see. Riyo must’ve thought she couldn’t become as strong as you with the Six Embers.”

“For her to try to become as strong as Yori was a mistake in the first place. Riyo’s just not good enough for that.”

“But if she couldn’t at least get close to being as strong as you, she’d have needed you to protect her.”

“Even if Yori didn’t want to, Yori would have protected her,” Yori said, pulling the knee she was hugging closer to her chest. She sounded sullen.

“Well, she is your little sister.”

Manato chuckled. Without missing a beat, Yori slapped him on the back, and not lightly. Manato coughed. Her response seemed so silly to him that he ended up laughing again. This time, she didn’t slap him.

Riyo moved to attack Haru again, but it seemed like something had changed. He deflected her long right arm with his left hand, and at the same time, he reached out with his left leg and kicked her right knee, or rather, pressed down on it with his left foot. Riyo stopped. Not of her own volition, but because Haru had forced her to. He then used her right knee as a stepping stone to gain some elevation.

It’s a knee strike.

Haru aimed his own right knee at Riyo’s face, but her body was incredibly flexible. It was shocking to think a spine could bend like that, but she managed to bend over backward, out of the way of his knee strike.

Manato couldn’t keep track of what happened after that. He didn’t know how, but Haru was briefly able to put Riyo in a pinion. She slipped out of his arms, though, and instead pinioned him herself. But no sooner had that happened than they both fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

“Haruhiro’s already seen through Riyo,” Yori murmured. Bitterly. “Odradd seems unorthodox at a glance, and it’s far from simplistic, but there are rules governing it. Riyo is still easy to read compared to her master, Emi Bubur. Once she builds up some more experience, she’ll outstrip her master in no time, but Emi Bubur is stronger now.”

“What about Haru?”

“His performance isn’t a matter of strength.”

“Well, what is it, then?”

“He’s a monster.”

What did she mean by that?

Riyo and Haru didn’t get up for quite some time. They rolled around on the ground, trying to pin each other, grabbing at arms, legs, and necks.

But then, Riyo suddenly leaped back up to her feet. Haru rose only a split second after that.

Riyo caught Haru’s face between her arms. Oh, but she wasn’t just wrapping her arms around him. After she got a good hold of him, she twisted hard. Manato shuddered. It was so scary he could only laugh. If she had done that to him, it would’ve been terrible. His bones would’ve been broken, and his head would’ve popped.

Haru’s neck bent in a strange direction. His head hadn’t ruptured. That obviously wasn’t gonna happen. But his face was a mess. His skin was torn open and blood was spurting out of him.

“Is something wrong?” Haru asked, despite the terrible state he was in.

Riyo seemed to hesitate for a moment before she followed up with a roundhouse kick using her left leg. She might’ve been trying to catch him between the kick and a right-hand strike.

Haru wrapped his arms and legs around Riyo’s left leg. He seemed to be trying to break her knee and ankle joints. In order to stop him, she slammed the leg he was clinging to into the ground, but that wasn’t enough to get him to let go.

“Is that your full power?”

“Grr!”

Riyo was getting mad. Even Manato could tell that she’d lost her cool. She jumped up, spun diagonally, and swept her left leg—and Haru—across the ground. That didn’t knock him off her either, though. She swung her leg up high and performed a heel drop, or rather, a Haru drop, smashing him into the ground twice.

Before Riyo could repeat the move a third time, Haru did something. It looked like he struck her belly around where her solar plexus was. It wasn’t a full-strength punch, but more of an open-palm slap. For a brief moment, the way she was moving her limbs became uncoordinated, and he was able to use that small opening to rapidly shimmy up her body. Haru pushed Riyo over and got on top of her.

“Ooh!” Manato stood up without thinking.

Riyo was lying on her back with Haru straddling her belly. His arms were crossed, and his hands were on her neck, throttling her.

Yori let out a sigh. “Normally, people can’t fight like that,” she said.

Riyo had probably wanted to throw him off, but she hadn’t been able to put up any meaningful resistance. Haru seemed awfully used to doing this. He’d knocked her unconscious in no time.

“Sorry... Yume... Ranta...” Haru said through labored breaths as he moved away from Riyo. His neck was bent backward and to the right, and his face was a terrible mess, yet Haru stood there calmly. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the right word to use. But then again, maybe it was.

“Your...great-granddaughter is...tough... I’ve got...to hand it to her...”

He was probably speaking like that because his broken neck made it hard to talk. It must have been bothering him, because he grabbed his head with both hands and turned it to face straight forward. He held it in that position for a little while, after which it was apparently all better.

Haru released his head and turned to face Manato and Yori. His neck wasn’t bent anymore, and his face was changing too. It was covered in blood, but the muscles, blood vessels, and flesh all looked like they were bubbling as they restored themselves.

Manato was quick to heal too, but he wasn’t that fast. And the way his wounds healed was nothing like that either.

“Yori. Did you want to fight me too?” Haru asked.

“Don’t lump me together with Riyo,” Yori grumbled. Then she lowered her head and slumped her shoulders. “Great-grandma wouldn’t have blamed you for what you did. And Yori won’t resent you for it either. Tell us more about our great-grandpa, Haruhiro. I want to hear what you have to say about him.”

“Of course,” Haruhiro said with a nod. “I’d be happy to. I haven’t talked about him in ages.”

7. Without Knowing

“This is the Ark’s control room.”

Manato finally found out how Haru had been opening the doors in the corridors. There was nothing to it, really. He pressed an unobtrusive button next to the doors which caused them to open. That was all.

The door was smoothly sucked into the right side of the doorframe. Yori and Riyo watched it closely as it moved, seemingly fascinated. Manato had seen machines that ran on electricity in Japan, though, so a mechanism like that wasn’t particularly strange to him, but it must have been far more unusual to the two of them.

To Manato, the “control” room Haru had led them to felt like a place that one would be more likely to find in Japan than in Grimgar. In Tsunomiya, and Mebashi, and Kariza, there had always been places that only the yakuza had been allowed to enter, full of impressive-looking buildings, and with vehicles other than flatbed minitrucks driving around on the roads. If the yakuza had found him in those places, they might have killed him. But even though he’d known it was dangerous, he’d snuck into them a few times to look around. He hadn’t gone inside any of the buildings, obviously, but there had been glass walls on some of them that he had been able to see through, or he’d peered through the windows, so he had some idea what they were like inside.

“But, nah, this is totally different...”

It wasn’t as large inside as the warehouse had been. The ceiling wasn’t very high, and the lights set in it only emitted a dim light. There were neat rows of desks, or tables, or something of the sort, and chairs to go with them. The control room was divided into levels too. They had entered at the highest level, and the levels descended the farther you went into the room. There were stairs too, and also sloped paths like what one might see on the side of a hill.

Haru headed down the stairs. It seemed like Yori and Riyo weren’t sure what to do, but Manato decided to follow him.

“Hey, Haru. What’s a control room?”

“It has control over all of the Ark’s functions...though, I only understand a small subset of them.”

“Hmm. Its functions, huh? That sure means a lot of nothing to me!”

“The only thing I know about the Ark for certain is that it isn’t from Grimgar. It crossed over from some other world, and either fell here, or landed. In all likelihood, beings different from us came here aboard the Ark.”

“Oh, so is that why you call it the Ark? Because it’s a ship? It doesn’t look much like a ship, though.”

“It can alter its exterior. And that’s not all. You can manipulate the interior too.”

“Like how the corridor used to be a spiral staircase, huh?”

“And the Ark isn’t the only interesting thing around here. This mask is another one.”

Haru was wearing that thing again. There wasn’t any real reason he needed to hide his face at this point, but he’d apparently been wearing it for ages and didn’t feel right without it on.

“There are many things in Grimgar that came from other worlds. It may be that this place draws such things to it,” he continued.

“Other worlds... You mean like Japan? Is Japan one of the other worlds?”

“I think so.”

Once Haru had fully descended the stairs, he came to a stop in front of a long table. It wasn’t just any old table, though. It had things sticking out of it, and lots of shapes drawn on it too.

Yori and Riyo came down the stairs as well.

“Never would’ve thought the tower was like this on the inside,” Yori said as she glanced around anxiously, a sharp look in her eyes. She seemed pretty wary.

Riyo followed Yori without betraying any emotion. Manato found it impossible to tell what she was thinking, or how she felt.

Though Riyo had been knocked out when she’d lost to Haru, she’d quickly regained consciousness. From the look of it, she hadn’t taken any lasting damage. Haru’s neck had been broken, and his face had been smashed, but he’d barely hurt Riyo at all. He must have deliberately chosen to win that way.

“I don’t blame you for being bewildered,” Haru said, removing his right glove and touching one of the drawings on the table. The skin on his hand was as excessively pale as his face had been.

“Control, I’m requesting authentication.”

When Haru said this, lights turned on all over the room.

“Whoa!” Manato cried out in surprise.

Yori didn’t let out a cry, but she did jump a bit, and Riyo’s eyes were wide open.

The drawing Haru was resting his right hand on glowed with a pale light.

“Authenticated. Control activating.”

“Who...?” Manato cocked his head to the side. That voice hadn’t belonged to Haru, or Yori, or Riyo.

White text lit up in a spot elsewhere in the room, not right in front of Haru. Though Manato had learned to read, he didn’t recognize this script at all. Based on the way Yori and Riyo had fallen silent, scrutinizing the suspicious letters, they apparently couldn’t read what it said either.

“Code: spare room A and code: spare room B, change camouflage,” Haru said.

“Request to change camouflage accepted,” the same voice as before responded.

“Let’s see... Size: 3, style: modern, type: one-room living space. A single bed for spare room A, and twin beds for spare room B.”

“Accepted. Do you wish to proceed with the requested camouflage change?”

“Proceed.”

“Accepted. Camouflage will complete in 180 seconds.”

“No need for a countdown.”

“Accepted. Countdown aborted.”

“Haru?” Manato tugged lightly on Haru’s cloak. “Who’ve you been talking to all this time?”

“Control,” Haru said. Then he pulled his hand away, and the light of the shape went out. “Or rather, to no one,” he corrected himself. “One function of the Ark’s control system is that you can manipulate the Ark by talking to it like that.”

“If the company knew about this...” Yori said, furrowing her brow and frowning, “it’d cause all sorts of problems. They’d come with everything they have to seize it. Those people are maniacs for crazy stuff like this.”

“I don’t know what this company you’re talking about is, but seizing the Ark wouldn’t be easy. They’d have to get authenticated to use the control system,” Haru explained.

“And you’re the only one who can do this ‘authentication,’ Haruhiro?”

“Yeah. Basically.”

“Maybe this warning will fall on deaf ears, Haruhiro, but you blab too much. What would you do if Yori was affiliated with the company?”

“You may think this is illogical, but I refuse to harbor doubts about Yume and Ranta’s great-grandchildren,” Haru said, putting his glove back on. “Especially not you and Riyo, whom I’ve met personally. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but I can sense Yume in you. You’ve inherited something from her—probably something incredibly important.”

“It’s not fair to bring up great-grandma.”

“Sorry. I’m not a fair guy. That’s why I’m still alive,” Haru stated before moving away from the table. “Come with me. I’ve set up some rooms for you.”

†

Heading back down the corridor, Haru opened a different door. Beyond it, there was an ordinary room. It was a bit like the rooms in the house that Manato and the Canaries had found deep in Kariza. It was fairly spacious, and the ceiling was high enough that he would have needed to jump to touch it. There were two beds, a bookshelf, a table, and two chairs. There were other doors in the room aside from the entrance too. According to Haru, they led to a small room called a changing room for getting undressed, a bathroom where the girls could wash themselves, and even a separate toilet.

“If you choose to stay here, Yori and Riyo, you can use this room together. If there’s anything else you need, let me know. As long as it isn’t anything too special, I should be able to get it for you,” Haru explained, with the two of them behind him. Then he turned to face them. “Or maybe you would have preferred two rooms, not a shared one?”

“Hrmm...” Yori crossed her arms and groaned.

Riyo instantly replied, “Together is better.”

Haru had also prepared another room. It was the same size as Yori and Riyo’s, but there was only a single bed in it. He said it was Manato’s room.

“A room all to myself? Ooh. This might be a first for me.”

“I have food stored in my room. I may not need it myself, but you’re all pretty young, so I imagine you probably eat a lot. Depending on how long you stay, I’ll have to think about how to get more. I don’t know if my garden in Alterna’s still usable.”

Manato had Haru explain how to use the bathroom, then took a shower. All he had to do was twist the tap, and an endless supply of warm water came out. He’d heard of facilities like this in Japan, but never imagined he’d be able to use one himself.

“Showering feels so good.”

He stood under the warm water for almost too long, then rubbed himself down with a fluffy piece of cloth that was sitting in the changing room. The changing room also contained a large mirror that reflected the top half of his body. He twisted around to check his back, and found nothing left of the wound but a swollen scar, which would likely be completely gone the next day.

“Man, my hair’s gotten so long.”

There wasn’t much point in just wandering around the room naked, with nothing but a towel hanging from his neck, so he sat down on the bed. He balled up the clothes he’d taken off and dropped them in a random corner of the room. Haru had gone to the trouble of picking them out for him, and now they already had a tear in the back.

“Wonder if that’s fixable. Ah. There’s still blood on them. Will that wash out? It’d be nice if they’d get better on their own, like my body... But clothes don’t normally heal, huh? Hrmm... Y’know, Yori and Riyo were pretty tough. And so was Haru. Must be nice. Being so strong, I mean. I wanna be strong... Or do I? I dunno. If Juntza and the others were here, I’m sure I’d think that it would be so useful to be strong. But Yori, Riyo, and Haru are all real tough. Ah... But maybe it’s better to be strong than to not be strong? If I were strong, then... I dunno. Oh, right. Yeah. I could avoid holding them back, I guess?”

Manato laid down in bed. The bedspread was soft, and the mattress underneath it supported him firmly. He had never imagined that anything could be so comfortable.

“Man, this is awesome.” Manato sighed and then laughed. “What’s the word for this again? Paradise? Heaven? Juntza talked about it. I think he said that when most people die, they go to hell, but some of us go to paradise or heaven instead, or something like that. Hell’s a terrible place, but paradise isn’t... How did we get onto that subject again...? Oh, yeah... It was when Juntza got injured, and it hurt so bad he couldn’t sleep...so Amu was clinging to him and rubbing his body all over. That’s when...even though he was in so much pain...he said, ‘Aw, yeah. This is paradise.’ Man, what does that even mean? Wish I could ask him. And then he talked about hell, heaven...and paradise...”

He continued to ramble to himself. “Oh, right... Then Juntza said, ‘Maybe I oughta make a kid with Amu.’ Like, what the heck? I laughed out loud. Then Juntza kinda flipped out on me... And I was like, why’s this guy so pissed? And I laughed even harder... ‘But, real talk, man, between Amu and Neika, which one do you want?’ Nah, seriously, I don’t even know... I mean, I’ve never thought about that kind of stuff, y’know? Kids, huh... Even if we did make kids, the parents always die first... I dunno if I wanna die before my kid... Hrmm... Yeah, uh, I don’t think I’d like that... I mean, it was good that mom and dad were together when they died and all, but... Yeah... Mom and dad would be so surprised... Grimgar, huh...”

At some point, he started drifting off to sleep.

“Huh...?”

When he awoke, the lights in the room had dimmed considerably and there was a blanket covering him. He couldn’t imagine that he’d done that for himself while half asleep. Besides, he had no idea where this blanket had even come from. The fluffy cloth that had been wrapped around his neck was lying in a heap not far away.

When he sat up, he noticed a plate on the table with a fork and knife. There was some stuff on the plate too. He could smell it faintly, and its scent told him it was probably food.

Manato moved the blanket aside and got out of bed. An orange and black jumpsuit, the same one he’d balled up before getting into the shower, was hanging over the back of the chair. Manato picked it up and spread it out to look at it.

“Huh! The torn spot’s been sewn together. And the blood’s been cleaned off too? That doesn’t just happen on its own. Somebody fixed it. But who?”

It was a mystery to him, but he decided to eat before pondering it. The plate was pretty big, and loaded with pickles, smoked meat, cooked beans, and purple and red objects that must have been dried veggies. It was a lot of food, and there were so many different kinds of it.

“Whoa... And I was just getting hungry too. Having food waiting for me without having to do anything is the best!”

Manato dropped the jumpsuit and sat in the chair.

“Hmm...”

As soon as he sat down, though, he picked the jumpsuit back up. Someone had gone to all the trouble of mending it for him. It wouldn’t be right to treat it poorly. He thought about putting it on, but he wanted to start eating right away too. Manato folded up the jumpsuit and wondered what he should do for a long moment before he set it on the floor. Then he sat in the chair and grabbed the fork.

“No way. The meat’s been sliced so it’s easier to eat.”

Manato started with the thin slices of smoked meat, shoving pieces of it into his mouth, chewing them, and swallowing them one after another.

“So... So... So good...! Nghh!”

He nearly choked. Looking down, he spotted something like a bottle filled with a liquid he assumed was water sitting next to the plate. He’d been so fixated on the food that he hadn’t even seen it. Manato uncapped the container and took a sip, gulping down the liquid inside.

“Water. Ahhhh! It’s water. Come to think of it, I was thirsty too. It’s a good thing I have this!”

He inhaled the entire meal in no time at all, and even licked the vinegar from the pickles off the plate.

“Whoa. I could still eat more... But I’m satisfied.” Manato gazed up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. “It’s a good life.”

He started to laugh. Not a loud laugh, though. Just a light chuckle.

“Beep, beep... Beep, beep...”

“Hm?” Manato opened his eyes and looked around the room.

“Beep, beep... Beep, beep...”

“What?”

“Beep, beep... Beep, beep...”

“A voice...? No.”

“Beep, beep... Beep, beep...”

“Hmmmm?” Manato got up from the chair and listened closely, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.

“Beep, beep... Beep, beep... Beep, beep... Beep, beep... Beep, beep... Beep, beep...”

“Hrmm...”

The sound was coming from somewhere in the ceiling, but he couldn’t be sure where.

“Beep, beep... Beep, beep... Beep, beep... Beep, beep... Beep, beep...”

Eventually, the odd sound was joined by another one—probably someone banging on a wall, the floor, or some other hard surface.

“Is it coming from the door?”

Manato walked over to the entrance and pressed his ear to the door. He definitely heard the sound there. It was faint, but the door vibrated slightly with each knock, knock.

The doors in this room, unlike the ones in the corridor, weren’t all that different from the doors in a house in Japan. This one had a handle and a thumbturn lock. Manato undid the lock, turned the handle, and opened the door.

“Oh.”

Yori was standing out in the corridor, and Riyo was there too, behind her.

“Were you knocking?” Manato asked, head tilted to the side. “You were, right? I heard a weird sound.”

Yori opened her mouth slightly. Her brow furrowed. Riyo was wide-eyed. Neither said anything. Where were the two of them even looking? Not at Manato’s face. It was lower than that.

“Oh!”

Manato tried to cover himself with both hands. But that wasn’t enough to conceal everything, so he turned around.

“I was still naked,” he said to himself, before adding, “Amu and Neika were always getting mad, telling me I shouldn’t show this thing to girls. Sorry. It slipped my mind.”

“But showing us your butt is fine?” Yori asked.

He tried to answer, but ended up turning halfway around to face her.

“Ah!” Manato yelped, hurriedly turning away from the two of them again. “I guess my butt’s no good either,” he said. “But it’s better than the front, right? I mean, I’ve only got one of these on my front side.”

“Try putting on some clothes,” Yori suggested.

“Right.”

Manato started to go and grab them, but Yori stopped him.

“The door! Close it!”

“Oh, right.”

When he reached for the door’s handle to close it, he ended up facing them once again.

Yori covered her eyes with one hand and let out a very pointed sigh. “Oh, come on!”

“Sorry,” Manato said, laughing a bit even though he probably shouldn’t have right after apologizing. He closed the door, got dressed, and then opened it again.

“Did you sleep well?” Yori asked, acting unfazed. Riyo was always expressionless, so it was hard to tell how she felt about what had just happened.

“I seem to have dozed off at some point. But how did you know that? Did you come into my room while I was asleep?”

“Haruhiro did. Yori and Riyo didn’t. It’s kind of a boy’s room and all... No, not kind of. It’s totally a boy’s room.”

“And you two are girls. I, uh, guess that’s a thing, huh? I shouldn’t wander around naked too much, right?”

“Generally, no... And it’s not just a matter of ‘too much.’ Unless you’re in a special relationship, you shouldn’t be letting people see you naked at all.”

“A special relationship? Oh! But I already let you two see me naked. Does that mean we’re already in a special relationship? Is that how it works?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Oh, it isn’t. Hrmm. This stuff’s complicated. So, if we were to have that kind of special relationship, then I would show you my naked body?”

“Um...maybe?”

“And what would you do after I showed you my body?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, do we show each other?”

“That’s, uh...not quite it...”

“Guys have a thingy between their legs, and girls don’t, right? Oh, and girls’ chests stick out. That’s so you can give the baby milk after you give birth, right? That’s how it works in animals, at least. Ohhh. Maybe men and women show themselves to each other because we’re different. Like, see, this is different. Is that what it’s all about?”

“Yori doesn’t know what to tell you.”

“You don’t know, Yori? Well, how about Riyo, then?”

“I—” Riyo only got that much out before freezing up. Her mouth hung open, and her face, no, her entire body had gone stiff.

Manato cocked his head to the side. “Hm? Is something wrong?”

“Don’t ask Riyo weird questions!” Yori suddenly shouted at him. “You got some sleep and you’re well rested, right? So let’s go!”

“Go?” Manato asked. “Wait, go where?”

“Outside!”

Yori seized him by the arm and started pulling him along.

“There’s no point in staying here forever. We’ve come all the way to Grimgar, and there’s all sorts of things we want to see!”

8. Holy Song

The ruins of Alterna were next to the Ark. To the south, the Tenryu Mountains loomed over the old city, and beyond them was Yori and Riyo’s home, the United Kingdom. The most important person in the United Kingdom was a king named Ruden Arabakia, who was also Yori and Riyo’s father. They were the daughters of a king. That made them genuine princesses.

But setting that aside, after the four of them passed through the forest to the north of the ruins of Alterna, they came to a barren land without much green in it, and there were more ruins there. Manato was currently observing them from a distance.

“It’s much smaller than Alterna was, huh?” he said. He currently only had his sword and dagger on him. His bow was useful when hunting, but totally ineffective against Lumiaris’s converts. The bow and quiver together were pretty bulky, so if he wasn’t going to be hunting, he was better off leaving them behind. He was, however, wearing a backpack just in case he came across something he wanted to bring back with him.

“It was once a keep,” Haru said. He was still wearing his mask and cloak. He’d apparently been dressing like that for decades. “Deadhead Watching Keep. It was originally built by a race called the orcs.”

“Come to think of it...” Manato twisted around and touched the sewn part on the back of his jumpsuit. “Were you the one who fixed this, Haru?”

“Yeah,” Haru replied.

“He worked on it with a needle and thread,” Yori explained. “While you were sleeping, we were in Haruhiro’s room, listening to him tell stories about great-grandpa. He worked on it as he was talking. That takes some skill.”

“I’m just used to it,” Haru replied brusquely.

Yori was wearing her coat, but she was dressed fairly lightly underneath. Her top only covered the upper part of her torso, and her pants looked really tight. The glasses-like thing hanging from her neck by a strap was probably for when she rode her dragon. Her red sword was in a scabbard slung across her back, and she wasn’t carrying anything else other than a knife.

Riyo was in her leather jumpsuit, and also had those long gloves and boots on—the kuduses and hadumas. The bag she held by a string as she carried it over her shoulder was like a backpack, but it wasn’t very thick. Manato didn’t know what to call it, so it was just a bag to him. It had a bunch of pockets that looked like they had knives in them. Manato vaguely recalled being told that Odradd used throwing knives, so that was probably what those were. Her glasses with the strap were apparently in the bag too.

“Juntza was telling me once, when someone feeds you and gives you shelter for the night, you’re indebted to them for, uh, hospitalizing you...?”

“Showing you hospitality,” Riyo immediately corrected him.

“Yeah, that! You have to repay them for their hospitalness.”

“No, not hospitalness. Hospitality.” Riyo was looking directly at Manato, but her expression remained unchanged. “The idea is that by letting you stay the night and feeding you, they have done you a great favor that must be repaid. It’s a concept that’s also practiced by multiple tribes and cultures across the Red Continent.”

“Huh. Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure know a lot, Riyo. Kinda like Juntza.”

“I don’t really know that much. If anything, there’s far more that I don’t know than that I do.”

“Wow. With me, it’s not that I only know a little, it’s that I don’t know anything at all.”

“So?” Yori said with a shrug. She seemed a little exasperated. “You were talking about being indebted?”

“Oh, right, that. I’m indebted to Haru. And not just for a night’s shelter and a meal. He loaned me clothes and a sword and even mended my clothes when they got torn. Also, he gave me two meals, not just one, so I owe him for, uh, one night’s rest, two meals, clothes, a sword... Eugh.” As he counted it all up, he started to laugh. “It’s a lot. And I need to pay him back for all of it.”

“No, you don’t,” Haru said, his masked face turned toward the ruins.

“It’s not even about feeling indebted to you. It’s more like I want to pay you back.” Manato nodded. “Yeah. I’ll make sure I do.”

“Please don’t.”

“I shouldn’t?”

“It’s not really my place to stop you, but still...”

“I was wondering what I could do. In Japan, we had finally found ourselves a house and were planning to live there until we died. But since I don’t have anything like that here, I dunno, hrmm...”

“It sounds like you’re looking for something to challenge you,” Yori suggested.

“Yeah. Maybe that’s it. Or is it?”

“Or something worth living for,” Riyo offered as an alternative.

“Something to live for!” Manato turned to look at Riyo. “That’s it! Something to live for! One of my comrades said the same thing. When we were all together, he said he felt like he had something to live for. He died before we found the house, though.”

“Oh, so he died,” Yori murmured.

“Yep,” Manato said with a laugh. It wasn’t exactly funny, but he couldn’t help but laugh when he remembered the little Canary. “He was the kind of guy who smiled a lot. He was real tiny. And light too. He was sickly, and he always had a fever and a cough. Eventually, it got to the point where he couldn’t walk on his own anymore, so we carried him on our backs, and even then he would keep on smiling. I was hoping he’d get better, but he died. It was always raining, so it wasn’t easy to bury him.”

“Manato,” Riyo said, suddenly putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Hm?”

He looked at her and saw that she was hanging her head a little. Though she had touched his shoulder, she wouldn’t look him in the eye.

“My condolences.”

“Condolen... What? What’re those?”

“It means she feels sorry,” Yori explained on Riyo’s behalf, but Manato still didn’t understand.

“Sorry? Why?”

“You and your comrades were searching for a house, right? But that kid died along the way. She feels sorry for him because of that, and also for you losing your comrade. That’s what Riyo was trying to say.”

“Ohhh. I see. Yeah, it would have been nice if he’d at least lived until we got to the house. But he was having a good time up until he died, and was always smiling too. I don’t think you need to feel sorry for him.”

Manato lightly took hold of Riyo’s right hand which was resting on his shoulder. Since she was wearing her kuduses, though, her hand felt really hard under his.

“But thanks. You were being considerate. You’re a kind girl, Riyo.”

“No...” Riyo shook her head with a very small motion. No, actually, it looked like she was shuddering. “I’m...not kind... That’s not the sort of person I am...”

“Really? Well, I think you are. Yori too. It was nice of you to explain what Riyo meant. You’re kind, and amazing.”

“Of course,” Yori said, looking away and crossing her arms. “Yori’s skills and personality are perfect. That comes with being great-grandma’s great-granddaughter. Yori’s Yori, so doing something like that is no big deal. And actually...”

“Actually?”

“It’s nothing... Great-grandma said Manato was popular with girls, but you’re a different Manato...”

“You’re talking about Haru’s comrade? The one I happen to share a name with?”

“Well, yeah...” Yori said.

Haru touched his mask. “He was a man who drew a lot of attention, who was seen as special by others. He was very personable, and smiled a lot.”

“What do they call people like that again?” Manato wondered aloud. “Comedians?”

“That’s a person who tells a lot of jokes,” Riyo murmured. She was hanging her head again.

“Okay, that’s wrong, then. Is there another word for a person who laughs a lot? Well, whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“Hand...” Riyo’s right hand twitched. “My hand.”

“Your hand?”

“I was hoping you could let go.”

“Ohhh, sorry.”

When Manato let go, Riyo quickly pulled her right hand away and clutched it with her left. Had he hurt her? That couldn’t be it. Manato hadn’t squeezed that hard, and Riyo’s hand was protected by its kudus.

“Is there someone in the ruins of that keep?” Yori asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Haru said, shaking his head. “Looking at it from this side, it probably seems like the walls are mostly intact, but actually, two-thirds of them have collapsed. And the keep itself isn’t fit for people to live in.”

“It’s not much use, then, huh?” Yori said.

“No. But Lumiaris’s converts showing up in Alterna made me curious about what might be going on around here.” Haru pointed to the west. “There’s a city called Damuro about four kilometers west of here. Over a century ago, it was a goblin stronghold. Now it’s a base for the thralls of Skullhell.”

Yori put her hand on her chin. “Which means this is Skullhell’s turf?”

“That’s right. There’s a factional struggle between Lumiaris’s and Skullhell’s forces all across Grimgar, but it’s always seemed like everything south of the Quickwind Plains is a backwater to them. The forces of Skullhell managed to take control of Damuro before Lumiaris’s could, and the Cyrene Mines a little farther to the northwest belong to them as well. They’ve beaten back a number of attacks from the Lumiaris faction over the years, and things have been pretty quiet around here lately, but...”

“Lumiaris’s converts might be taking aim at Damuro again. That’s your read on it, right, Haruhiro?” Yori suggested.

“It’s a possibility.”

“The converts we took out could’ve been a forward detachment.”

“Maybe.”

“So the main force, or at least part of it, would be somewhere in that keep, and they sent out that forward detachment as scouts to see if anything was going on in Alterna?”

“We don’t have confirmation of that, which is why I want to investigate this place. If I were by myself, I could’ve just holed up in the Ark and waited for the storm to blow over, though.”

“Well, should I go take a quick look, then?” Manato offered, raising his hand.

Yori frowned. “You’d probably get spotted by their guards and get yourself into a huge mess.”

“Huh? I just have to be careful to not draw attention, like a...what was the word again? A scout? That’s all, right? I was a hunter, so I’m pretty good at that kind of thing. I mean, animals are more sensitive than humans. And if I do get hurt, my wounds will just heal. You and Riyo aren’t able to recover from injuries as quickly as I do, are you?”

“No, we can’t heal as fast as you do, Manato,” Yori admitted. “But we can manipulate prana to elevate our natural healing ability. We actually heal many times faster than an ordinary person.”

“All right,” Haru said, beckoning. “Manato and I will go. You two stay put here.”

†

Manato could walk on his tiptoes and make very little noise, but he couldn’t be completely silent. It might not have been impossible for him to be that quiet, but moving forward even a little without making noise took time. Haru was quiet and fast, deciding where each step would fall so smoothly that Manato found it hard to imagine he was thinking about each one.

Haru and Manato closed in on the keep in no time, and stood with their backs against the wall. Yori and Riyo weren’t visible from where they were. The two of them were hiding behind the small hill. Haru pointed to the east. Once Manato nodded to show he understood, Haru started walking again with Manato trailing behind him.

They followed the wall all the way to a corner. Right after the turn, there was a mound of rubble where the wall had collapsed. Haru held his palm out toward Manato. That sign probably meant he wanted Manato to wait there. Manato nodded.

Haru scaled the mound of rubble. It was only a little taller than Manato, so it didn’t take him long. He poked his head out over the top and didn’t immediately duck back into cover. He was observing the interior. Eventually, he climbed down to where Manato was.

“It’s like I expected. There’re divine soldiers massing in there,” Haru whispered in Manato’s ear. “There’s at least one priest, and dozens of others, maybe over a hundred.”

“Is that a lot?” Manato asked without using his voice, just clearly mouthing the words. He trusted that Haru would be able to understand him.

“There’s upward of several hundred thralls in Damuro. They won’t be able to take it with the numbers they have here alone.”

“You think there’s more of them?”

“Seems likely. Their numbers are already an issue...but if there’s a saint among the converts, we’re in trouble.”

“What’s a saint?”

“You know about priests, right?”

“The ones with their whole bodies covered in that silvery stuff... Re... Recital?”

“Receptor. It’s something given to the converted by Lumiaris’s hexagrammic light cores, but it’s not just some inanimate substance. It’s a kind of life-form.”

“Whoa. Receptor. By the sound of it, it must be pretty complicated, huh?”

“There are converts even stronger than priests who’ve had a part of their receptor transform. They’re called priest captains.”

“Transform...”

“In most cases, a part of their receptor turns into a weapon.”

“So you can tell just by looking at them?”

“Yeah. And saints are even more advanced.”

“Hmm.”

Priests had multiple cores in their bodies, and their receptor was hard. It also boosted their physical abilities. Plus, they could power themselves up by whispering some weird words. Priest captains were even stronger than that. And the saints were stronger still.

“Heh.” Manato nearly burst out laughing, but he knew it would be bad to make that much noise, so he quickly stopped himself.

Haru inclined his head to the side slightly. “What?”

“Nothing,” Manato replied, shaking his head. “I was just thinking that’s scary. And doesn’t it being scary make it kinda fun?”

“Not for me it doesn’t. But I can understand what you’re saying. It’s rare, but some guys find pleasure in taking risks... Y’know, that’s pretty much how Ranta was.”

“That’s Yori and Riyo’s great-grandpa, right?”

“There’s signs of it in the two of them as well. They wouldn’t have crossed the Tenryus otherwise.”

“But you’re not like us, Haru?”

“I’m a coward. Let’s search a little more.”

The two of them kept their heads low as they passed the collapsed part of the wall. There was another intact section beyond it, but after that, the wall had been destroyed so thoroughly that there wasn’t even a mound of rubble left.

Haru leaned out around the edge of the broken wall, only to immediately pull himself back behind it. He casually beckoned to Manato, so Manato drew closer to him.

“Did you see something?”

“They’re nearby. A bunch of divine soldiers sitting around a priest. There were around forty of them.”

“Yikes.”

Haru looked up at the stonework wall they had their backs to. “Looks like we can climb up here,” he said.

It couldn’t have been more than three Harus or Manatos high. There were plenty of potential handholds and footholds in it too. Yeah, it seemed like it would be easy enough to climb. And now that Manato had reached that conclusion, that was exactly what he wanted to do.

“You wait here,” said Haru.

Manato wanted to protest, but he felt hesitant to argue with the man he wanted to repay. It seemed he’d have to comply. He puffed his cheeks up as much as he could in frustration, but gave Haru the thumbs-up.

After a moment’s pause, Haru said, “Stay put until I say otherwise.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll do what you say, Haru. Probably. More or less. I’ll do my best. Yeah.”

Haru began clambering up the wall. He was fast. Manato felt like some of the stones probably would have shifted or made noise if someone put their weight on them, but Haru never picked a bad one.

Haru didn’t climb all the way up onto the top of the wall. He clung to the side and poked his head halfway over, staying very still.

“Hm?”

Manato heard something.

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris—”

Was that a voice? Yeah. He was sure of it.

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez—”

It wasn’t alone. There were several of them, not talking, but singing.

“Lumi eua shen qu’aix, Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris—”

There had been songs in Japan. His parents had sung occasionally, and Manato remembered some of the things they would sing. He’d heard singing in Tsunomiya and Kariza too. His comrades had each had their own songs that they had sung as well.

“Enshen lumi, Miras lumi, Lumi na parri—”

The voices rose. However, it didn’t sound like they were having fun. They were definitely singing in a large group, but not in chorus. It was more like they were all hanging their heads, each mumbling the words at their own speed.

“E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris—”

Each voice was probably not that loud, but the sound of singing gradually intensified. There were divine soldiers all over the keep, and they each began singing not all at once, but individually, and that contributed to the total volume. It was kinda creepy. The voices were all coming from inside the keep, yet it felt like the song had surrounded Haru and Manato.

Haru finally climbed down.

“Let’s head back” was all he said before turning to go. There was something unusual about his behavior, and it seemed like it would be a good idea to do as he said.

They returned to the small hill where Yori and Riyo were crouched down, waiting for them.

“How was it?” Yori asked. Haru let out a small sigh behind his mask.

“I’ve got bad news. There are at least three hundred divine soldiers in the fortress. There was even a saint.”

“A saint?”

Haru gave them the same explanation he’d given Manato.

Yori got a pensive look on her face. “So there’s gonna be a war soon? Do you think the fact that we wiped out all those converts in the ruins of Alterna is going to change anything about how it goes? Well, for as much trouble as it was, it’s a good thing we finished them all off. If even one of them had gotten away, the converts in the keep might have found out about us. Is the Ark going to be okay?”

“It’s never been attacked by either faction,” Haru said.

“Then if worse comes to worst, we can take shelter there. Right, Haruhiro?”

“I suppose...”

Haru sounded noncommittal. Was Manato imagining that? Haru had been acting a bit strange since he’d climbed down from the wall. Was it because of the song? Who could say? Was there anything else it could’ve been?

“Was it the saint?” Manato murmured, and Haru’s masked face turned toward him.

“Was what the saint?” Haru asked.

“Oh, I was just thinking about what you saw back there. Y’know, the, uh, saint, I mean.”

“It was sitting on one of the upper levels of what’s left of the main keep. For a moment, I thought it had noticed me, but it turned out I was worrying for no reason.”

“Um...” Manato slapped one of his own cheeks. Something was bothering him, but he had no idea what it was. “Hrmm. Oh, yeah. Have you ever met a saint before, Haru?”

“A few times, I guess. A century’s not a short amount of time. And there’s more than just one saint. There are several, so...you could say I’ve met them, I guess. Or rather...”

“Did you only see them?”

“No.”

“You fought them?”

“Not properly. I was chased, but I managed to shake them off.”

“Is it a saint you know?” Yori asked.

Oh, so that’s what it is, Manato thought. That’s got to be it. That was what had been bothering him. The feeling that Haruhiro might have known the saint in the keep.

“How should I say this?” Haru said, hanging his head. “The saints weren’t always saints. They were priests and paladins who served Lumiaris. They were human. Skullhell’s thralls include higher-ranked ones called fiends, which are equivalent to Lumiaris’s saints. They’re the same way.”

“Former humans,” Yori murmured.

“The converted don’t die,” Riyo said to herself.

Manato crossed his arms and gazed skyward. “Haru knows that saint. A former human. They don’t die. Which means...you knew them when they were human?”

“That’s right,” Haru said, pressing his hand against his mask. “The one in the keep is Taidael, the Saint of Tremors. I knew him back when he was human. We fought together, shoulder to shoulder...”

9. Crush Them All

The sun was still high in the sky, so they decided to go to Damuro. Haru wasn’t enthusiastic about it, but Yori wanted to see the place, and Manato was curious about Skullhell’s thralls. Riyo would follow Yori wherever she went.

Damuro was a settlement on a far greater scale than the ruins of Deadhead Watching Keep or even the former Alterna had been. Tsunomiya in Japan had been a big city, and in terms of the land area it covered, Damuro wasn’t any smaller.

According to Haru, Damuro could basically be divided into the New City in the northwest and the Old City in the southeast.

The broad strokes of Damuro’s history were that it had once been a human city but had been laid to waste by another race about two centuries ago. The Old City remained in ruins, and the new masters of Damuro, the goblins, had subsequently built the New City.

About a century ago, a bunch of stuff had happened, and those goblins had been wiped out.

After that, Skullhell’s thralls had come along and settled there.

“Most of the thralls are in the New City. The outskirts of the Old City are still in ruins, as you can see for yourselves.”

Damuro had once been fully enclosed in a defensive wall. There were still traces of those glory days here and there, but they amounted to little more than the occasional pile of stones. Nothing that was still fit to be called a wall. On the other side of what remained of the fortifications, there was scattered rubble that had once been buildings all over the place, sometimes piled up fairly high. Dense grass was growing everywhere, and there were even a few groves of trees. Though they spotted small animals and bugs fairly often, there was no sign of any thralls.

“The Old City’s uninhabited, then?” Yori asked, but Haru shook his head.

“No. This is where their farms are.”

“Their farms? They keep animals?”

“You might call them that, I suppose. They are animals.”

The four of them proceeded through the outskirts of the Old City that had been reclaimed by nature. They had only covered a short distance, though, when a wall came into sight. Beyond it was the dark shadow of a tall building. Once, long enough ago that he didn’t remember exactly when it’d happened, Manato had found a large beehive in the mountains. It had been a bulging growth near the roots of a tree, rather than being up in the branches. The building they were looking at was like that hive, only blown up to be much, much bigger. Was it really a building? He couldn’t believe it was natural.

But before he could take a closer look at the building, there was that wall to consider.

Haru led Manato and the girls into a grove where they could more easily hide themselves. There was still some distance between them and the wall. Even at a run, it would have taken ten seconds to reach it.

“It’s maybe six meters high?” Yori said as she poked her head out of the grove, doing something with her hands. “As for width, it’s two hundred...maybe two-fifty meters across. What’re they keeping in there? Is that a farm?”

Haru neither confirmed nor denied it as he pointed at the wall.

“There’s a guard. The surface of its body has become malignant. That’s a slave soldier.”

It was true. There was someone standing where Haru had pointed. It was human in form, but it looked like it might have been clad all in black like Haru. Its whole body was dark in color. Manato had better eyesight than Juntza and the other Canaries, and he could see well even at a distance or at night. Even at this range, he would normally be able to make out a person’s face. However, he was having trouble making out the features of the slave soldier that was standing guard.

“Roughly how many guards are there?” Yori asked.

“I’m not sure,” Haru said, tilting his head slightly. “The thralls aren’t well organized the way the converts are. I’ve scouted Damuro quite a few times, and each time I’ve come here, the number has been different than the previous time. There’re always two or three thralls posted at a farm. I doubt there’s ever just one. And when it’s shipment time, other slave soldiers come too.”

“Shipment... Wait, y’mean shipping out the animals they breed there?”

“I’ve never seen the converted eat anything. At least, not so far. But thralls do eat.”

“They’re meat eaters, then? And they mainly eat meat from their farms?”

“Yes, but they don’t cook, as far as I’m aware.”

“They eat sashimi?” Manato asked. He had eaten raw meat and innards from animals he’d hunted before. That wasn’t something you could do with every kind of game, but as long as the kill was fresh, there were a lot of animals that had parts that were delicious that way. He’d learned that from his parents.

“Is that the word for it...?” Haru wondered aloud. “I really wouldn’t know. But anyway, the thralls either eat their prey alive, or right after killing it without any further preparation. They apparently hunt too, but they aren’t able to catch enough food that way.”

“Oh! Haru, you were saying that the number of large animals around here has gone down. Is that ’cause the thralls hunted too many of them?”

“Yeah. They increase their numbers by eating.”

“But isn’t that just how living beings work?” Yori asked with a shrug. “It’s fundamentally the same for all of us, right? We have to eat to survive, and we reproduce for our own benefit.”

“What they farm in there...is goblins.”

“Huh?”

Yori and Riyo looked at one another, both having been surprised by what he had said.

“Wait, aren’t goblins...?” Manato asked, trailing off. He didn’t think he had ever heard of any kind of creature with that name in Japan, but the word had come up in his conversations with Haru a number of times. He tried to search his memory. “They’re the...uh, race...that took, or occupied Damuro? Like humans, but a bit different? Huh? They’re eating...things that are like humans?”

†

There were a number of farms in Damuro. According to Haruhiro, behind the stone walls, the farms where the goblins were kept were pits dug into the ground.

The group was currently hidden within a complicated mess of trees growing in a large pile of rubble, watching the single gate that was built into the walls—a badly rusted iron grate that was barred on the outside to keep things in.

The sun eventually began to set, and as it did, something approached from the New City. It looked like some kind of freight cart with four wheels. It was fairly big. Way larger than the flatbed minitrucks Manato had seen so often in Japan. He figured it had to be easily twice the size of one of those. But instead of having a flatbed, this cart was like a cage with wheels. Also, trucks moved using their engines, but this cart didn’t have one of those. Instead, there was a thing sticking out of the front of the cage that was used to pull the cart by hand. There were two creatures pulling it, and they were awfully big. Were those humans? They had green skin.

“Orcs,” Yori murmured.

The green-skinned race. Orcs. Yori mentioning their name reminded Manato that there had been some orcs among the divine soldiers. The two orcs were walking side by side, holding the handle and pulling the cage cart along. The divine soldier orcs had had shining eyes, but these ones’ eyes were dark. They had no whites. The thrall orcs’ eyes were completely black.

They weren’t transporting any cargo. The cage was empty. But a dark humanoid creature was sitting on top of it. That one was no orc. It was like the guards. The surface of its body had become malignant—that was how Haru had described it before. A slave soldier, huh?

The cage cart stopped at the gate. Then the orcs removed the gate’s bar and began opening it. They looked pretty strong, but they were still struggling with it. Probably because it was rusted, or maybe it was warped too? It didn’t look like it was fitted properly.

The slave soldier on top of the cage cart crossed its legs, then raised one knee, but it didn’t move from where it was sitting. It didn’t look like it was interested in helping the orcs.

Finally, the gate opened. The orcs began pulling the cage cart once again, taking it inside the farm.

They knew there were guards on top of the wall, but none were visible from where Manato and the others were.

The gate was wide open.

The cage cart soon vanished from sight.

The breeding grounds were located in pits, so they were lower than the surrounding terrain. The cage cart might have descended into that lower level.

Manato heard something resembling a voice. He didn’t know what language it was speaking, but it was definitely shouting at someone. What were those shrill cries? They sounded like they were coming from multiple different voices. Were they screams? It was really noisy.

“What’re they doing?” Yori asked Haru, or perhaps she was just wondering aloud. Haru remained silent.

Yori was the one who’d wanted to investigate the farm. Haru had wanted to turn back. Manato honestly didn’t know what he wanted to do.

For him, it was perfectly normal to hunt animals to live. And sometimes, humans were hunted and eaten by animals instead. He didn’t think there was anything particularly awful about that. But no matter how hungry he got, would he ever kill and eat a fellow human? He felt like he wouldn’t want to. But no matter how much he disliked the idea, if it was a matter of eat or die, he’d have no choice. And yet, even if he were starving, could he eat a comrade like Juntza? That, he wasn’t so sure of. No, actually, he was. He wouldn’t eat a comrade.

On the other hand, what if he were on the verge of death and his comrades were dying of starvation? If there was nothing else to eat and he was going to die anyway, then maybe he’d think it was okay for them to eat him. He might even wish they would. But regardless of Manato’s wishes, would his comrades eat him? It would take an awful lot to convince them to, wouldn’t it?

But if someone wasn’t his comrade, could he eat them? If they were a total stranger, could he look at them as food?

He’d come across human corpses when he was hungry before. There had been dead bodies along the roadside in every town he’d ever been in other than Tsunomiya. They’d been swarming with flies and other bugs, and had been picked at by crows, dogs, and pigs. Living as a hunter, he had eaten birds, mountain dogs, and boars, which were similar to pigs, as well as snakes and some bugs. If those beasts and bugs ate humans, then it was fine for a human to eat humans too.

Or that should have been the case, but Manato felt like he couldn’t eat a human. He didn’t understand the reason; he just knew that humans couldn’t eat humans. It was probably wrong.

Manato reached out and tugged on Haru’s cloak. “Are goblins...human?” he asked in a small voice.

There was a short pause before Haru answered. “I killed a lot of goblins here in Damuro back in the day. They had their own language and culture, and they resembled humans in some ways. But we never treated them as humans. They engaged in cannibalism. I guess I’ll just say this without worrying about being misunderstood—we looked down on the goblins as an inferior race, ugly, and not as smart as us humans.”

“Are you for real?” Yori interjected. “Goblins may be smaller than us, but they’re quicker than humans and have more stamina too. They’re not dumb either. Their tradition of eating their own kind is about mourning the dead. The goblins of the Red Continent still carry on with the practice, but those who crossed over to the United Kingdom stopped doing it in order to coexist with the other races. There are a lot of goblin dragon tamers. It’s a dangerous job, and they deserve respect for it. In fact, Yori and Riyo’s master in dragon taming was a goblin.”

“I see... So there are goblins on the Red Continent. And south of the Tenryu Mountains as well.” Haru let out a sigh before continuing. “It’s not that surprising to me that they’ve become your allies. There were goblins who built a kingdom in the New City of Damuro, and they had relations with the other races.”

“How could those thralls use them as livestock like that?” Yori said, hanging her head and biting her lip. She was pissed now. Or rather, she’d been mad this whole time. “It’s unthinkable. Why would they do such a—”

Riyo gently touched her sister’s arm, making Yori pause and look up.

The cage cart had come back into view through the open gate. It had gone down into the lower level, and then had come back up again.

The slave soldier that had previously been sitting on top of the cart as the two orcs had pulled it was nowhere to be seen.

The cage had been empty on the way in. Now, though, it was completely full. There were a large number of creatures riding inside it. No, it would have been better to say that they had been loaded into it.

They were tiny, maybe about the size of human children, with thin arms and legs, and chests that were narrow and not very thick. Their ribs poked out, but their bellies were swollen. They had large heads relative to their size, though it might have only looked like that because they were so thin. Their skin was green, similar to the orcs, but it had a yellowy tinge to it. But unlike the orcs, who were dressed in tough-looking clothing, these guys weren’t wearing anything. They were naked.

“The goblins,” Yori moaned.

Some of the goblins were sitting, while others were standing. Those who had enough space to sit were doing so, while those without were forced to stand. The goblins standing toward the outside held on to the bars, while those who couldn’t reach the cage leaned against other goblins. The cage cart was shaky, so they’d have collapsed without support. It looked horribly cramped, and Manato wouldn’t have been surprised to see them pushing against one another, but maybe none of them had the energy for that. They all looked weak.

The cage cart passed through the gate, with the slave soldier walking behind it, carrying something in its hands. What was that? It wasn’t small. No, it was actually pretty big, maybe the size of an arm, and it was bent in the middle.

The orcs moved away from the cart and began closing the gate. Meanwhile, the slave soldier walked up to the side of the cart at a leisurely speed while bringing the thing it was holding closer to its face. What was it doing? What was that thing?

The slave soldier’s body was pretty much entirely pitch-black. It looked like it was covered in black scales.

It opened its mouth—or at least that was what Manato thought it did. The slave soldier’s bottom jaw moved down. The inside of its mouth was black too. Then it bit into the thing it was holding.

“The soldier is eating it,” Yori murmured, covering her mouth with one hand.

The thing was about the size of an arm. It was bent at around the point where an elbow would have been on an arm. It was green, with a slight yellow tinge and dark-red spots in some places.

It wasn’t about the size of an arm, that thing was an arm. The slave soldier was eating a goblin’s arm.

The gate to the farm was closed, then barred. The orcs returned to the front of the cart, where they stood side by side. Grabbing the handle in their large hands, the two of them started pulling the cart again. The slave soldier was apparently going to keep walking alongside the cart.

The goblins in the cage were quiet. The slave soldier was right there next to them, munching on the arm of one of their kind. There were goblins looking at it from inside the cage, but they said nothing. They were very still.

“Um...” Manato looked at the cage cart, then at Yori and Riyo. “You’re not going to save those, uh, people?”

“Urgh!” Yori grunted.

Riyo’s eyes widened with surprise and she gulped. Yori put her hand on the hilt of her red sword, and bent her knees.

“No, that’s—” Haru rushed forward, signaling for Yori to stop. “Wait, Yori. Damuro is thrall territory. You can’t underestimate a slave soldier, even if it’s alone. If there were two or three of them, I don’t know if we’d be able to handle them. Besides, even if you do manage to free those goblins from that cage—”

“Haruhiro. Yori understands what you want to say. Yori’s not an idiot.”

“I know you aren’t.”

“Really? You’re assuming that Yori’s gotten so emotional that she’s gonna try to save the goblins without thinking it through. Isn’t that right, Haruhiro? Well, you’re wrong.”

“What...are you thinking of doing?”

“There are multiple goblin farms, right?”

“Probably four in the Old City.”

“We’re gonna destroy them all.”

“What did you just say?”

“It’d be too difficult to save all the goblins trapped inside. But we aren’t going to let those thralls treat them as livestock anymore. Yori can’t accept that, and Yori won’t allow it. First we’ll stop them from being shipped out. Then we’ll destroy the breeding sites. Every last one of them. Riyo.”

When her older sister called her name, the younger sister nodded. If Yori meant to do this, Riyo would help. Of course she would. They might have been sisters, but they weren’t all that similar. They weren’t twins. The two of them had been born about a year and a half apart. And Riyo was much taller than Yori. And they differed in more than just their appearances. Their personalities were almost complete opposites too. But even so, they were surely of one mind on this.

“Haru,” Manato said, placing his hand on Haru’s shoulder. There was nothing funny about the topic they were discussing, but he couldn’t help but laugh a bit.

“Fine...” Haru said, hanging his head. “Just promise me that you’ll back down when you need to. Skullhell has thralls all over Grimgar. I don’t even know how many farms there are elsewhere. This’ll be a far longer battle than you’re imagining.”

“You think Yori will lose her nerve? Not with great-grandma’s and great-grandpa’s blood running through my veins.”

“All right!” Manato said, sticking his hand out, palm down.

“Huh?” Yori cocked her head to the side in confusion, but she placed her hand on top of Manato’s.

Riyo did likewise, though probably only because her big sister had, placing her hand on top of Yori’s.

“What?” Haru said. He didn’t move to join in.

“Mmm!” Manato grunted, gesturing with his chin, and Haru finally placed his hand on top of Riyo’s.

“What’s this supposed to be?” It seemed Yori still didn’t understand.

“Who knows?” Manato said with a laugh. “It’s just something people do. Sort of a ‘let’s give it our all together’ sort of thing?”

“Together...” Riyo said, looking at Yori, then Haru, and then finally Manato. She nodded ever so slightly. “We’ll give it our all. Together.”

10. In Being Myself

Having gotten ahead of the cage cart, Haru silently attacked the slave soldier that was walking beside it. Manato was watching from some bushes that were off to the side behind the cart, but when Haru’s stretching dagger swung out, the slave soldier ducked under it. Up until right before that, and actually, even at the exact moment it happened, Manato hadn’t had any idea where Haru was.

Haru was good at vanishing. He wasn’t actually invisible, but he made it feel like he was. How could a person disappear like that? Manato wanted to ask him later.

But even though, to Manato’s perception, it had seemed like Haru had vanished and then suddenly reappeared, the slave soldier had been able to react to his attack. And it hadn’t just gotten out of the way of the stretching dagger. It had immediately counterattacked, throwing something at Haru—the half-eaten goblin arm.

“Urkh!”

Haru swatted the goblin arm aside. The slave soldier tried to use that opening to get in close to Haru, but he managed to jump back and gain a little distance. The thrall gave chase, trying to catch him.

The cage cart stopped. The orcs pulling it had noticed something was amiss and had slowed to a halt.

Yori and Riyo, who had been with Manato just a moment ago, were rushing toward the cage cart from the side. Or rather, from an angle a little ahead of the cart. They were going after the cart pullers.

Haru had given them a quick rundown of slave soldiers and thralls before. Slave soldiers sounded dangerous, but ordinary thralls not so much. Even if they were up against orcish thralls, which looked impressively strong, Yori and Riyo would be able to take them down in no time. Once that was done, the sisters would go and assist Haru.

Manato jumped out of the bushes. He was curious about how the battle would go, sure, but he had a job of his own to do. He had to deal with the cage cart. But he wasn’t heading toward the front of the cart, where Yori and Riyo were going. He was doing the opposite, running full tilt toward the rear.

The goblins inside of the cage had been quiet since the cart had exited the farm, but now they were starting to look around anxiously and grunting as they tried to figure out what was going on. There was a door in the back of the cage, and it wasn’t locked. There was a latch on the outside, and all he had to do to open the cage was unlatch it, which he promptly did.

“C’mon, get out! Run!”

The goblins looked at Manato, but made no attempt to escape. Were they too surprised? Maybe they had no idea what was going on and didn’t know where to go.

“Uhhh... I said get out! Out! If you stay in here, uh, right, they’ll take you away and eat you, okay?! Oh, wait. I see. You don’t speak my language.” Manato then mimed biting his own left arm. “Eat! You understand? One of you just got eaten earlier!”

The goblins were staring at Manato. Some were trembling, while others simply stared at him in a daze. They probably didn’t get what he was trying to tell them.

“Well, uh, I guess I can’t blame you.”

It wasn’t their fault they didn’t speak Manato’s language. But the goblins had been shut in this cage. Now they were able to get out. That should have been plain for them to see. So why? Why weren’t the goblins trying to get out?

Sure, as far as the goblins were concerned, Manato was a stranger. They must have been suspicious of him. But even so, if they let themselves be taken away, they’d get eaten. No matter who Manato was, and no matter what he was saying, running away should have been the only choice they could make. It was absolutely what Manato would have done if he were one of them.

Since trying to convince them with words wouldn’t work, Manato seized the nearest goblin by the arm and tried to drag him out. The goblin just bit him.

“Ow?!”

Once he let go, the goblin stopped biting. The little guy had some pretty sharp teeth, but they hadn’t drawn blood. It had hurt a little, but it was no big deal.

“Fine... But you’ve gotta get out... Gotta run... You’re...not gonna? Huh? Why not? C’mon, let’s go. Okay? Hey, get out... Well, darn, what now? Hmm...”

Manato backed away from the cage temporarily. It hadn’t occurred to him that the goblins might not run when they were given the opportunity.

“Ihah!”

Suddenly, there was a loud voice. Someone had shouted. But who? A goblin. It was a goblin. One of the goblins inside of the cage had pushed through the others and stuck its head out, looking at Manato.

“Nihah!”

No, not at Manato. Behind Manato. He turned around.

“Oh, damn,” he murmured without meaning to as he pulled out his sword.

It was black. Not pitch-black but tinged slightly blue. It was a human covered in deep-blue scales. A slave soldier. Was it one of the guards from the farm? It must’ve been. It was a fairly long distance from the farm to here. They’d made a point of waiting until the cage cart was well away from the farm before attacking, but even with that precaution, they had been detected.

The deep blue slave soldier was racing toward Manato. He got the feeling that if he backed away, it was going to take him out, so he advanced instead. After one step, the slave soldier was almost in range of his sword. That was awfully close. It had already closed in on him that much?

Manato swung his sword hard, and the swing went all the way to the end of its arc. It didn’t connect, or rather, he didn’t think it did. He was right. He’d lost sight of the slave soldier. A moment later, Manato was rolling across the ground.

“Urgh!”

Had he been kicked? Something had impacted him on his right flank and knocked him over. Then, once he was on his back, his stomach had been stomped on.

“Nnghhh!”

And not just once. The slave soldier had planted its right foot into Manato’s midsection two or three times. Was it aiming to rupture his stomach? He wouldn’t have been surprised if he was already spilling his guts all over the place, or if his organs had been mashed to a pulp inside of him.

Something came up and spewed out of Manato’s mouth. He didn’t know what it was, but it tasted bitter and smelled terrible.

“Gagh!”

He swung his sword around wildly, but the slave soldier easily twisted away. Manato leaped to his feet, but he couldn’t feel his legs and staggered. Then the slave soldier kicked him again, or maybe it punched him.

“Agh!”

The air was blasted from his lungs as he landed on his back. He couldn’t breathe, but even so, he needed to move or he was gonna get killed.

A few moments later, it seemed he had ended up wrestling with the slave soldier. It grabbed his throat, and he somehow managed to tear free from its hands. That much he was sure of. But then it quickly slugged him in the face a few times, making him lose sight in his left eye. The slave soldier got on top of him and grabbed some part of his body. He wasn’t sure where, though.

Seen up close, and with only his right eye, the slave soldier didn’t feel human. It wasn’t just because of the deep blue scales covering its flesh. The structure of its face was, uh, well, he didn’t know how to describe it, actually. Manato had never seen any creature like it. If anything, it was more like a fish or insect.

A fish? An insect? Or something in between? But in what way, exactly?

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

It’s splitting. Splitting, splitting, splitting. It’s gonna split. My head’s gonna split. It’s gonna split my head. My head.

The slave soldier had Manato’s head in a clawlike grip. Was it trying to crush his skull?

There was a voice, or maybe just a sound, that went, “Shihshihshihshih!”

It was probably the slave soldier’s voice.

Is it laughing? What’s wrong with this thing? What the hell? It’s gonna split my head open. I mean it, seriously. This’s bad. It’s gonna crack.

“Ugyigih!”

Different. That voice was different. It wasn’t the slave soldier’s. And it wasn’t Manato’s either. A totally different voice. A goblin’s?

Something had grabbed the slave soldier from behind. Had a goblin really come to help him?

No doubt about it. That was a goblin. He was clinging to the slave soldier’s back, and had sunk his teeth into its neck. The slave soldier had thick skin. It was still stretchy rather than stiff, but it was tough. Would teeth do anything to skin like that? It was hard to say. But the goblin was trying, at least.

The slave soldier, who was trying to crush Manato’s head with both of its hands, let go with its left, but continued to hold on with its right. Its free hand then reached for the goblin’s head. Oh, that wasn’t good.

It’ll be crushed. Seriously crushed. The goblin’s head’s in danger.

Manato was tough, but that goblin had come from the farm. There was no way he was in good health. Manato couldn’t imagine that his body was particularly robust. And he was smaller than Manato.

Manato didn’t have his sword. It had flown off somewhere. But he had a dagger.

While the slave soldier had been squeezing his head in both of its hands, he’d been in too much pain to try anything, but now that it was only one hand, he had more freedom to act.

Manato held his dagger with a backhand grip and drew it from its sheath. In a single breath, he slammed it through the underside of the slave soldier’s jaw, into its gullet.

“Gogh!”

That was the noise that escaped the slave soldier’s throat. It wasn’t clear if the blow had been enough to make it falter, but the pressure on Manato’s head let up.

“Run!” Manato shouted as he tried to throw the slave soldier off of him.

The goblin’s eyes seemed to meet his own. His words might not have gotten through to the goblin, but his feelings had. That was the sense he got.

The goblin screamed something as he jumped away from the slave soldier. Good. That was the thing to do. Manato brought his left hand up to join his right, which was holding the dagger. Then, as he tried to tighten his grip, the slave soldier took a swing at him with its fist. Whoa, uh, that was bad, but what could he do?

Manato took the blow with his forehead. It had probably been trying to hit his right eye. Instantly realizing that he would be finished if it managed to put his right eye out of commission too, he’d twisted his neck a bit to adjust the position of his head. That had saved the sight in his right eye, but left him groggy. Not good. It was still looking really bad for him.

If someone hadn’t come and clobbered the slave soldier, then he would have lost for sure. He saw them out of his right eye, and though they were only a blur, he knew it was Riyo. Riyo had come to save him.

Manato tried to stand. As much as he would’ve liked to get back on his feet, though, the best he could do was to roll over onto his front. Why had he ended up face down? Maybe he’d messed up somewhere along the way. He was hurting pretty badly. Where had he been injured, that it was causing him this much pain? Manato couldn’t even imagine. All he knew was that it hurt more than he could take.

Riyo was apparently fighting. He felt like he heard Yori calling his name. Then Haru did too. They asked if he was all right.

Manato tried to reply that, yeah, he was fine, but who knows if he actually managed it. He might have only tried to reply.

He couldn’t see anything while facing down. Not that he would have been able to see well even if he’d been face up, but he struggled to raise his head anyway. Despite his best attempts, though, he simply ended up with the ground in front of his eyes once again.

There wasn’t much grass around him, which was probably because the cage carts came this way frequently. The ground had ruts in it too. It consisted of the kind of dirt that would quickly turn to mud in the rain. Pressing his face against it would have been painful, so Manato put his arms together in front of his forehead, though the spot where it touched his arms still hurt really bad.

Man, this was rough. So rough, he couldn’t help but laugh. And when he laughed, his whole body ached, which was even more laugh-worthy.

But Manato couldn’t just stay there doing nothing but laughing at the situation, so he raised his head again. He still couldn’t see out of his left eye, but his right one seemed fine. And it seemed like his body was still capable of moving a bit. Manato started to get up, managing to get on all fours somehow.

“Oh!”

Goblins. The goblins. There were goblins outside of the cage cart. He didn’t know how many had gotten out, but the majority were still inside the cart. And it was a pretty large majority too. One of the goblins was at the door, calling out to the others. He must’ve been telling his friends to get out of there, and to run away, and they had to hurry, and stuff like that. Was that the goblin? The one who’d bitten the slave soldier? It might have been him. Manato couldn’t tell them apart, but he had a feeling it had been.

“Manato!”

Looking up at the sound of his name, he saw Yori was there.

“Whoa, that looks awful!” Yori said, cringing as she looked at him.

Manato laughed. “I’m the one in pain here,” he said.

“It’s amazing that you can laugh like that.”

“Well, I’m starting to heal. It still hurts, though. I’m aching all over... Heh heh.”

Riyo was leaning the upper half of her tall body into the cage cart, seizing goblins and tossing them out. The goblins were now pushing and pulling one another as they started heading toward the door too. The cage was a lot emptier now. What had happened to the two slave soldiers and the two orcish thralls? Manato didn’t see them. Had they been taken care of?

“We’re getting out of here!” Haru said, racing over to them.

“You’ve gotta be kidding!” Yori immediately shot back. “There’re still more goblins in the farm! We’ve got to at least release them!”

“What about you, Manato?!”

“I’m fine!” Manato said, quickly trying to get to his feet. He actually managed it, surprising even himself. “Whoa— Blugh!” And then something came spewing out of his mouth.

“You’re coughing up blood!” Yori exclaimed, and immediately tried to offer him her shoulder.

Manato pushed Yori away. “Nah, uh, I’m fine, just fine... Gack...”

“There’s no way you’re fine!”

“I-I’m not gonna die from this. Probably... Bwugh!”

“Normally, this would be more than enough to kill someone!” Haru scolded him.

This was enough to kill a normal person. Was Manato not normal? He’d been different from Juntza and the others, he knew that. But even if they’d been different from one another, if he thought of them as comrades, then they were comrades. Whether he was normal or not. But it was weird to hear Haru talking about how things “normally” were. What a laugh.

“Gack, gwugh, kagh!”

“Hey, this guy’s laughing as he hacks up blood,” Yori said.

“Blegh... I-It doesn’t hurt that bad, so it’s fine,” Manato insisted.

“No, we’re evacuating you to a safe place!” Haru said, scooping Manato up in his arms. “Yori, Riyo, come on! Please, just listen to me for now!”

“Then you carry Manato, Haruhiro! Riyo!” Yori called her sister’s name as she took off running. “Hurry, to the farm!”

Riyo followed Yori, and Haru chased after the two of them, still carrying Manato.

“Why did everything have to go so wrong?!” Haru complained.

Manato wished Haru would set him down so he could run on his own two legs. But he didn’t feel like he could go that fast yet. Or rather, he was sure he’d cough up more blood if he tried. He’d never imagined that he would end up with a body that spat up blood whenever it ran. That was something to laugh about. No, no, he had to resist the urge. He’d coughed up blood the last time he’d laughed too. Though, it seemed like he was going to keep doing that no matter what. Habitually coughing up blood? What kind of human did that? It was beyond hilarious. But still, he couldn’t laugh about it. No laughing was allowed. He needed to avoid thinking about things that would make him laugh.

“Oh, my sword...and my dagger too,” Manato moaned.

“They’re replaceable!” Haru shouted at him.

Haru’s having a rough time, Manato thought as if it had nothing to do with him. It did, though. Who was the one putting Haru through so much trouble? It was Manato. Maybe not just Manato, but half of the trouble, more than half, was Manato. What was he laughing for? Manato tried to tell himself off for it, but for some reason that did nothing except make him want to laugh more.

Stop laughing and take this seriously, Juntza and the others had warned him time and time again. He didn’t feel he had been goofing off, but he looked unserious when he was laughing. He needed to be careful. He was trying to be, but he still couldn’t help but laugh sometimes.

All I can do is laugh. I’m not gonna, though. No way will I laugh.

Up ahead, Yori and Riyo were trying to open the farm gate.

“Yori!” Haru shouted.

The wall, huh? Up on the farm’s wall, there was a slave soldier running toward them. Another guard? One guard had rushed to the aid of the cage cart when the group had ambushed it, but that hadn’t been the only guard here. The slave soldier jumped off the wall, springing at Yori and Riyo.

Riyo was the one who took it on. She spun diagonally, sweeping the slave soldier aside with her long leg. Though she had really sent it flying, it quickly got back up and came at her. But it didn’t need to go to her, because Riyo was rushing at the slave soldier on her own.

Yori undid the gate bar and tried to open the gate. Two orcs working together had struggled with it, though. There was no way it would open easily.

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

Manato heard something.

“Haru.” He tried to draw attention to it, but Haru was already looking around.

“This is bad. It’s a holy song. One of Lumiaris’s.”

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix...”

Singing. Manato had heard it at the ruins of Deadhead Watching Keep too. It was the same song. This time, however, the style of singing was different. Totally different. In the ruins, they had each been mumbling the lyrics to themselves. That wasn’t what the singing he heard now was like.

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”

Their voices were joined as one, rising high. The only reason the sound wasn’t loud was because they were a good distance away.

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

They were still far off. But they were getting closer.

“Put me down!”

Manato escaped the arms holding him, and Haru let him go without resistance. Once he was standing on his own, he felt much better than he had earlier. His arms and legs had their strength back. He didn’t feel the need to cough either.

Haru glanced at Manato, checking how he was holding up, but then looked at Riyo who was fighting a flashy battle with the slave soldier.

“You stop Yori! I’ll finish off the slave soldier!”

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris, Lumi na oss’desiz...”

The singing was pressing in toward them.

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”

Manato ran toward the gate.

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

His legs were tired, giving him a weird gait, and his body ached here and there, but he could handle it.

“Yori! Hey, Yori! Let’s get out of here for now, okay?!”

“Just help me get this thing open!”

“I’m wounded here, sorta.”

“Yeah, but you ran over here, sorta!”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“I’m doing this because I’ve got an idea! I’m not being reckless! So help!”

“Huh? Really? Okay!”

Manato started pulling the gate open next to Yori. Looking down, he saw the lower edge of the gate doors were digging into the ground. Were they going to be able to get it open like this? The orcs had managed it earlier, so it wasn’t like it was impossible.

“Nghhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Manato grunted.

“Don’t overwork yourself, okay?!” Yori said.

“You’re the one...who said I should help...you know?!”

“Sure, but—”

“Ah, I think we can open it! It’s stuck on something, but if we can get past it, we’ll be all good!”

“Then let’s give it one big pull! Hungh!”

Working together with Yori, he got the gate past the obstruction, and then it went relatively smoothly from there. There were two gate doors, and the cage cart wouldn’t have fit through the gateway without both of them open, but a person would only need one open to get through.

“So, what now?!”

“Riyo! Haruhiro!”

Yori stayed outside the farm as she called to the other two. The slave soldier was down. Manato didn’t know if it was dead or not. It seemed like slave soldiers whose bodies had turned fully malignant might have been unable to die. Was it the slave soldier that couldn’t die, or was it the malignancy? Haru had given them an explanation about all of that, and Manato had thought that he’d understood, but it was all a jumble inside his head. Regardless, the slave soldier wasn’t just down. Its head and arms had been severed from its torso or pulverized, so it wouldn’t be getting back up.

Of course, Riyo and Haru were fine. The moment Yori called her name, Riyo came running without a word.

“We need to hurry and get out of here!” Haru grumbled as he rushed over too.

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

The singing was a lot closer now.

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix...”

The converted weren’t in sight yet, but it felt like they would be soon.

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”

“Everyone get inside!” Yori urged them before rushing through the gate. Riyo followed Yori without hesitation, and Manato went along with them. A moment later, Haru rushed into the farm too.

The pit before them, which Haru had mentioned earlier, didn’t take up the entire space within the walls. There was a perimeter around six or seven steps wide that was level with the outside terrain until it dropped off like a sheer cliff. How were they supposed to get down? There was some scaffolding made of wood or something a short distance from the gate. It looked like they could reach the bottom from there.

It hadn’t been all that noticeable from outside the walls, but the stench in the air that they were now having to deal with was unspeakably awful, and needless to say, its source was the massive pit in front of them.

The hole wasn’t that deep. Its depth looked to be about the same as Manato’s height. If they’d felt like it, the goblins probably could have clambered up the sides, so why didn’t they attempt to escape? Inside the hole, there were some elevated spots, and in other places, there were pools of terribly filthy water. The scrawny, naked goblins were gathered on the higher points, either sitting down or lying around. There were a few that were eating something in a crouching position too. A couple goblins off to one side looked like they were wrestling, though they might have actually been copulating instead of fighting. And as for the sitting goblins, it wasn’t as though they were totally still. They were moving their mouths, chewing on something, apparently.

Taking a better look, the goblins that were crouching were bent over one of their fellow goblins, and that was what they were eating. They were sinking their teeth into a goblin who had died, stripping his flesh from his bones and digging out his organs.

“Close the gate! Hurry!”

Yori must have seen the goblins in the hole too, but she was totally unfazed by it. She and Riyo pulled on the gate Manato had opened with her, trying to close it now.

“Huh? Why?” Manato asked, as it wasn’t really clear to him why they were going to all the trouble, but despite his doubts, he did move to help them. Haru pitched in too, so they were able to get the gate door shut in no time.

“Are you planning to wait in here until they pass by?” Haru inquired.

“For now, yeah,” Yori said, moving away from the gate now that it was fully closed. “Depending on how the situation develops, calling Karambit and Ushaska is an option too. They’re both young and not fully matured yet, but they can fly for short distances. I wanted to get a proper look at what was inside here for myself anyway.”

Yori started walking along the edge of the pit. Her eyes remained focused on the farm’s goblins as she did. Riyo followed her older sister and glanced down into the pit a couple times, but otherwise kept her eyes pointed straight ahead. It might have been hard for her to look at it for too long.

Manato was shocked too. He had been somewhat able to guess that this was what they would find inside the farm after seeing the goblins in the cage cart, but the reality of it was even worse than he’d expected. It went way beyond whether they were being treated well or poorly. The conditions were so awful, it was hard for him to believe that the goblins were even able to survive in there. Was it really possible to live in such a place?

He found himself imagining what it would be like if they were human. Humans couldn’t live like this. They’d definitely die. Were the goblins living here really human like him? Could he call them that? For instance, could Manato call one of those goblins his comrade? Yori wouldn’t like his answer, but probably not.

The reason was because the goblins in the hole were paying almost no attention to them. It wasn’t that there were no goblins looking up, but there weren’t many. How many of them were there in the pit? It wasn’t just dozens. More like hundreds. Possibly even more. Regardless, even when one of the goblins happened to glance in the group’s direction, they immediately looked away.

It didn’t make any difference to them, so they weren’t interested? That couldn’t be right. If they were fellow humans, they should have been interested.

Unfamiliar people had entered the farm instead of the slave soldiers who ate them. “Who are those guys? What is this? What’s going on here?” It was weird that they didn’t ask those questions. Besides, some of them had just been taken away earlier. Why were they acting like nothing had happened, eating their dead, lazing about, and copulating?

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix...”

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

The singing of the converted seemed to rain down from above. That should have been an unusual situation for the goblins too. There was no way that they couldn’t hear it. They should have been frightened or excited. They should have shown at least some kind of reaction. It was bizarre that they didn’t.

“These goblins were born here, and they’ll die here, unless they’re shipped out to be eaten,” Haru murmured. “It’s an environment where most living creatures wouldn’t be able to survive, let alone breed...but they happen to have adapted to it. They’re an incredibly tough race, and grow in number no matter where they are. The thralls of Skullhell are taking advantage of that trait.”

“I’ve considered that,” Yori said, coming to a stop.

They were close to a corner in the wall now. Riyo, Manato, and Haru stopped too. Yori didn’t turn to look at them.

“What if Yori were born here and raised like this? Everyone else is eating the dead bodies of their own kind, so Yori would do the same. She might want to leave, but if she ever tried to leave the pit, then she’d be caught and eaten by the guards. So she wouldn’t do that. She’d avoid thinking about it. Sometimes, the slave soldiers would come, and they’d take some of her friends away. But fighting back would only get her eaten, so she’d have to stay quiet. It could just as easily be her that they’d take. She could fight them with everything she had and it wouldn’t make any difference, so when her turn came, there’d be nothing she could do.”

Yori paused for a moment. “But even if that never happened, all she would ever do would be eat her comrades’ dead bodies, poop, sleep, and eat more dead bodies. The same thing over and over until she either died or was eaten. Nothing more. If Yori had been born here, that’s definitely how it would have been. Yori would’ve turned out the same as them. She couldn’t have become the Yori she is now. Yori just happened to be born as great-grandma’s great-granddaughter...with Riyo as her sister, and her other siblings too, and everyone else around her, and that was why she was able to turn out like this. She was given that opportunity. But if she’d been born here, everything would’ve been different. Yori’s the same as these goblins.”

What about Manato? Could he really say that he would have been different? He didn’t think so. He would have been the same if he had been born here as well. Because he had been raised by two parents who always laughed and smiled, and they had protected him, he had learned to laugh and smile too. Manato could only live as the Manato he was because of his parents who had kept on laughing until right before they’d died, and because of the Canaries.

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix...”

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

The singing was loud enough to echo far and wide now. The converted were near. They might even have been right outside the walls.

“Wanting to be free, wanting to change the situation, wanting to change themselves.” Yori kept looking into the pit without turning to face Manato and the others. “It might be difficult for them to even think about those things. What can be done to save them? Yori doesn’t know. But if the goblins who got out of here have children, then maybe those kids can live differently from how their parents did. They’ll have more possibilities than simply being born and dying here, at least. So, yeah, Yori wants to get every single goblin out of here that she can.”

“Set them free into the world and leave it to them from there, huh?” Haru murmured. He was hanging his head. It didn’t sound like he was arguing against Yori. It was more like he was questioning himself.

“Hey,” Manato said to Haru. “What do you want to do?”

“I...have no wishes. None...”

“So you don’t want to do anything?”

“That’s not it... Well, no, I guess it is. The truth is, for a long time, I was living without purpose. I didn’t do anything.”

“Why was that?”

“Probably because...there’s nothing a guy like me can do. That’s how I felt.”

“Oh, yeah. You were completely alone all that time, weren’t you?”

“Alone...”

“Yeah. You were, right? I’ve never been alone much myself. Maybe just right after my mom and dad died. It felt kind of weird. But then I met Juntza and the others, and once I had comrades, I didn’t feel that way anymore. When you’re all by yourself, you can’t talk to anyone, and it’s boring. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Well...you’re right about that.”

“But you aren’t alone now. Because I’m gonna stick with you until you tell me to get lost.”

“I’d never tell you to—”

Suddenly, Haru closed his mouth. It was quiet. No singing. The sound that had been echoing so noisily before had stopped. The sun hadn’t set yet, but the walls made the interior of the farm feel awfully dark. The silence pressed down heavily on them. It wasn’t that the source of the singing had passed by them. If anything, it had been at its loudest right before it had stopped. In other words, the converted had been as close to the farm as they had ever gotten. It wasn’t possible to see from where the four intruders were, but they might even have been trying to pass through the gate.

Had the converted just stopped singing? Were they continuing their march in silence now?

Manato listened carefully, but heard no footsteps. There was a wall in the way, so that wasn’t really surprising, but he had a vague intuition that the columns of converts weren’t moving.

“...diance...diance...”

He heard a voice, probably a man’s.

Haru raised his left index finger, and turned his right palm toward Manato, Yori, and Riyo. That probably meant be quiet and don’t move. But there was no need to tell Manato that, since he couldn’t have moved anyway. He didn’t know why, but his body was all tense. He couldn’t breathe properly either. Was he scared? He didn’t dislike being scared. But no, this sensation was different from fear. So then, what was it?

“Radiance... Radiance... Radiance...”

Radiance.

The man’s voice was repeating the word radiance. But he wasn’t just saying it, he was chanting it.

“Radiance... Raaadiance... Radiiiance... Radiance... Radiaaance...”

It almost sounded playful, or mischievous. Nothing like the chanting of the converted.

“Pft... Heh... Heh... Heh...”

He was laughing. The man had stopped chanting, and burst out laughing.

“Ah! Ha! Ha! Ha...! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee...! Pft, heh, heh...”

The laughter worked its way inside Manato’s body, threatening to pulverize his lungs, heart, and stomach. That was impossible, but it really did feel that way.

“O liiiiight!”

The man started shouting.

“The liiiiiiiiight!”

“Ra-di-ance.”

Other voices followed. A lot more than one or two. Was it all of the converts?

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

It wasn’t just voices. The converted were stomping their feet. Chanting radiance, radiance, radiance, as they did.

“Ra! Diii! Ance!”

The man was getting louder. It was easy to pick his voice out from the voices of the other converts.

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

There was a tremor. The ground was shaking. No, was it the ground? Or was it the wall?

It was the wall. The walls of the farm were vibrating.

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

There were other sounds in addition to the voices. Fairly loud ones at that. Banging. Something was hitting the wall. From the outside, obviously. Manato and the others were inside the farm. No one, and nothing, was hitting the walls from the inside.

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance...!”

Someone, or something, was impacting the wall, likely near the gate.

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance...!”

With each blow, the wall shook. Dust flew out from between the tightly packed stones.

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance...!”

The stones were going to come loose. In fact, they were already starting to.

“We’re getting away from here,” Haru said, gesturing to one of the corners of the wall opposite from the gate and pushing Manato in that direction. “They’re breaching through. The walls aren’t going to hold for long. Hurry and get away!”

Yori and Riyo took off running. Manato ran too. He was lucky not to trip over his own feet. Haru brought up the rear.

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

The wall shattered. Not the whole thing, obviously. Just the part around the gate. But even so, a ridiculous amount of rock flew into the farm. What could possibly have broken the stone walls like that?

Manato turned at the nearby corner, and headed toward the next one. The noise had spooked the goblins, and they were now running around the pit screaming.

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

Another section of the wall exploded, sending the same amount of stone flying as the first time. The debris fell down into the pit, hitting some of the goblins directly and causing them to collapse.

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

The wall was gradually being broken down as destruction spread along its length, heading toward the corner that Manato and the others had passed. There was so much dust being thrown into the air that he couldn’t see what was going on beyond the broken walls.

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance! Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

Were the converted causing those explosions? They had to be, right? Or could it be that the man with the distinctive voice was doing it all by himself? Was that even possible?

The four of them were almost at the far corner now. The goblins in the pit were doing their best to distance themselves from the gate. Some even tried to crawl up out of the hole. But it looked like they were acting purely out of panic rather than having any kind of plan to escape.

“Yori, Riyo! Call your dragons!” Haru shouted to the two girls. “That guy—that thing isn’t a normal enemy! We can’t take it in a fight!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance! Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

Even though they’d put some distance between themselves and the destruction, the man’s voice was still audible as he shouted about radiance and smashed the walls of the farm.

Yori and Riyo got out their whistles and blew into them while still running away. Manato couldn’t hear anything, but he was pretty sure that they were making a sound.

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance! Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

What he could hear, however, was the man shouting and the walls getting smashed. They had already been demolished all the way up to the corner that Manato and the others had gone past. They were getting close to the next one now. Most of the goblins were trying to crawl up out of the pit.

“How long is this going to take?!” Haru asked in a raised voice.

He probably meant how long was it going to take for Karambit and Ushaska, the winged dragons, to fly to them.

Yori shook her head. “They would have been in the mountains, so it’ll be a while yet!”

“Okay, let’s wait for the dragons in this corner!”

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance! Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!” the man shouted, and more sections of the wall were destroyed.

Manato and the others finally reached the corner.

“Yori,” Riyo said, pointing up above her head.

Manato looked in that direction too. Something was up there. Flying. Was it just the one? No, two were coming. They had to be the winged dragons, Karambit and Ushaska.

Yori glanced around the area, looking like she was thinking about something. It only took her a moment to come to a conclusion.

“They won’t be able to land down here. We have to get over this wall.”

“Climb!” Haru shouted, gesturing for them to get going.

Yori and Riyo started climbing. Manato joined them. Haru started climbing after Manato, but they reached the top at the same time. Yori and Riyo worked their way down the other side of the wall a little, then jumped. Manato was itching to throw himself all the way off, but thought better of it and followed their example instead. Haru landed on the ground as well a moment later.

Yori and Riyo moved a short distance away from the wall, and started calling the winged dragons down by raising one hand up to the pre-sunset sky. Was that really all they had to do?

Apparently so. Karambit and Ushaska circled around, and then came in from the west and slightly to the south. They slowed as they descended, and both touched down smoothly. There was no stumbling or pitching forward into the ground. The winged dragons seemed to understand the situation, as instead of fully folding their wings in, they lowered their posture as if to say “hop on.” Yori got on Karambit, of course, and Riyo got on Ushaska.

“Manato, get on Ushaska! Haruhiro, you join Yori on Karambit!” Yori ordered.

Haru did so without saying anything. The dragons weren’t really meant to be ridden by more than one person, so they needed to sit as close together as possible. Haru seemed a bit hesitant, but Yori grabbed his arms and wrapped them firmly around her belly like she was demonstrating how it should be done to a novice. Manato tried to do the same, but Riyo seized him by the shoulders.

“Go in front.”

“Oh. Not in the back?” Manato asked for confirmation, and Riyo nodded before repeating herself.

“Go in front.”

“Okay, front it is!”

As Manato tried to straddle Ushaska, Riyo shifted back to make space for him. He wasn’t riding the dragon bareback. There was a saddle made of leather or something for people to sit on. But it had apparently been designed with only one rider in mind, because even though Manato slid forward as far as he could, Riyo’s butt still probably ended up hanging off the back of the saddle. Or maybe not. He wasn’t sure.

Riyo leaned forward, the front of her body pressing tight against his back. She was taller than Manato, so doing this left her jaw pushing up against Manato’s right temple, which meant she must have been leaning a bit to the right. Manato felt like that wasn’t very good for her, so he tilted his head to the left to allow her to sit facing straight ahead.

“Thanks,” Riyo said in a small voice, whispering right into his ear. It tickled. “Fly, Ushaska.” Her voice remained gentle even as she was giving commands, and this time her voice didn’t tickle his ear, it made his heart jump in a strange way.

As Ushaska started running, Riyo’s body pulled away from Manato’s a little.

“Hold on tight,” she instructed.

“Okay.”

The up and down movement was surprisingly intense, but it was nothing Manato couldn’t handle, so long as he held on for dear life.

Unlike Manato, Riyo was matching her posture to the dragon’s moves. But even as she did, the position of her chin didn’t change much. It remained pressed against the top of Manato’s head, a little to the right side. There was more to the saddle than just being something for the rider to sit on. It also had spots for them to place their feet, and a bit that stuck out above the dragon’s neck with grips for them to hold on to. Riyo had her feet on the footrests, was gripping the handles, and was raising and lowering her hips. She was matching the dragon’s motions, probably trying to minimize the burden on her mount as it carried her. Manato recognized that he was being a burden. His weight had been added to hers, and all he could do was cling on.

“Sorry, Ushaska!” he said. He felt bad, but there was nothing he could do about it right now. If he tried to imitate what Riyo was doing, he’d just get in Ushaska’s way instead.

“It’s okay,” Riyo whispered. “I won’t make Ushaska do anything she can’t handle.”

A shudder ran down his spine.

Ushaska gave the ground a hard kick.

We just took off.

It was his first time riding a dragon, or flying through the air, but Manato immediately understood what was happening. It was completely different from jumping.

So this is what it’s like to fly.

It felt like he was being pushed up, and also like he was being pulled up. He could have interpreted it either way.

“Whoa!” Manato shouted despite himself. “This is incredible!”

He felt like Riyo chuckled at that. He couldn’t hear her laughing, and he couldn’t see her face, but he got the feeling that she had.

Manato didn’t want to cause trouble for Riyo or Ushaska. He just held on as tightly as he could. He wanted to become one with the dragon, if that were possible. He couldn’t move his head, so that greatly limited his field of vision. Ushaska was definitely flying, but honestly, he had very little idea where they currently were, how high they had risen, or what way they were going. He couldn’t see Yori and Haru on Karambit either, so he was really curious. Maybe it would be better for him to keep his eyes shut?

“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance! Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”

“Huh.” Manato could hear the man’s voice.

“Radiance.”

“Ra-di-ance.”

“Ra! Di! Ance!”

And the voices of the converted.

Boom! There was a rumbling noise, possibly the wall being destroyed.

“Ah!” Manato yelped.

Ushaska was going down. They hadn’t been constantly ascending since they had left the ground. There had been a lot of up-and-down motion. He felt like they’d done some circling too. Karambit was ahead of them. He wasn’t sure exactly how far. Ushaska must have been following the other dragon. Based on how the ground looked, they weren’t that high up.

Actually, they were flying pretty low. So low, he worried they might fall. Manato let out a laugh.

“Wait...” he said to nobody in particular.

Was that what the farm looked like when it was seen from up in the air? Was Ushaska plunging into the farm from above? No, the angle of descent wasn’t steep enough to call it a plunge. Maybe a third of the farm’s walls had been destroyed.

He could see the converts. Haru had told them that there had been hundreds at the ruins of the keep, and yeah, he felt like that sounded about right. There were scads of them hanging around outside the destroyed walls. But he couldn’t hear the man’s voice now. Had the saint stopped smashing the walls? Was that it?

There was something standing next to a section of the wall that hadn’t been destroyed yet. Was it a person? Was it the saint?

Its body—or rather, its shape—was awfully strange. It appeared to be an upside-down triangle with limbs hanging out of its sides that were more like big hammers than arms, and two legs that looked awfully skinny growing out of its underside. It didn’t seem to have a head.

The saint twisted its body. Was it looking up? Manato couldn’t tell where its face was, or where its eyes could be, if it even had any, but he felt like it was looking at him.

“Hah! Hahhh! Hahhhhhh!” That voice. It was the same as the voice of the man who’d been shouting “radiance.”

“Haruhiro?! Is that you, Haruhiro?! Do you long for the light, Haruhirooo?!”

Karambit, who was carrying Yori and Haru, and Ushaska, who was carrying Riyo and Manato, passed over the saint’s head not even a moment later. Manato felt like they’d only barely managed to pass over it, as if the saint could have jumped up and knocked them out of the air. Though, they might not have actually dropped that low. The saint didn’t try to do anything to them, and Karambit and Ushaska rapidly raised their speed and altitude after that, making Manato worry that they were going too high instead. High and fast. Man, were they fast.

“You look like you’re having fun,” Riyo whispered in his ear.

“Eagh!” Manato cried out without meaning to. “Um, Riyo, could you not do that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Urkh, c-come on, that tickles! Heh heh!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Nah, you don’t need to apologize! Ha ha ha! Urkh, I’m starting to feel weird... But don’t worry, I’ll deal with it! Heh heh heh.”

11. We’re Comrades

Winged dragons were fast. Too fast for a person to chase and catch. That probably meant they were safe, but just to be sure, Yori and Riyo had Karambit and Ushaska fly south instead of heading straight for the Ark. That was the direction the Tenryu Mountains were in. The dragons and the sisters had come a long way, crossing that mountain range to enter Grimgar. Manato felt like it was a bit late to be realizing this now, but that seemed like it was probably a pretty amazing feat. After all, the Tenryus rose higher than the sky. Well, no, the sky was still the sky no matter how high up you went, so maybe they weren’t higher than the sky. But the winged dragons were flying pretty high up, and yet the Tenryu Mountains were still standing in their way. How could it be possible to cross a mountain range that was that tall? It couldn’t be, right? But the sisters and their dragons had done it. It was unbelievable. Though, that wasn’t to say Manato didn’t believe them. But it was crazy. Completely and utterly insane.

The winged dragons landed in the forest at the foot of the Tenryus, and the group dismounted. It was pretty dark already by then. Yori and Riyo petted their dragons for a while and then sent them on their way. It was adorable the way that the dragons turned back to check on Yori and Riyo repeatedly until they were out of sight. Manato wanted a dragon too. But they’d told him that it wouldn’t grow attached to him unless he raised it from an egg, and that was clearly not a simple task. The Tenryu Mountains were home to many different dragon species with large populations, but apparently, the number of them that could be raised by humans was extremely limited.

“If you wanted to take a shortcut, you would probably have to cross the Tenryus to the United Kingdom and apprentice under a dragon tamer there, I suppose,” Yori suggested as they were walking back to the Ark.

“A shortcut, huh? Hrmm. But how much of a shortcut is that, really?” Manato said.

“Have you ever heard the saying ‘Haste makes waste’?” Riyo asked. “If you’re in a hurry, rather than take a hazardous shortcut, it’s better to take a circuitous but steady route. If you do that, you’ll ultimately reach your destination faster.”

“Oh, I see. So if I want to become a dragon tamer like you two, my only option is to have you take me back to the United Kingdom with you someday. But can Karambit and Ushaska cross the Tenryus with an extra rider?”

“Not a chance,” Yori immediately replied.

“Whaaa? So that means I’ll never be able to, doesn’t it? Hrmm. Well, I guess that’s that, then. Oh! I lost sight in my left eye after that slave soldier hit me, but I think I can kinda see now. I guess it’s starting to get better.”

“Your ability to recover is astonishing,” Haru said, sounding more exasperated than impressed.

Manato laughed. “Nah, I’m pretty sure you’ve got me beat there, Haru.”

By the time they made it back to the ruins of Alterna, the curtain of night had fully descended. Manato had good night vision, but he’d still have struggled without Haru there to guide them.

As they were climbing up the hill, Manato suddenly felt like he sensed something. He wasn’t alone. Haru, Yori, and Riyo were with him. But he had a weird feeling that there was something else out there too. Nothing had moved, though. He hadn’t heard or seen anything either. There were insects making noises all around them, so he wasn’t going to be able to pick out other sounds easily. And since it was so dark, all he could see was the Ark at the top of the hill, the white stones scattered around on the slope, Haru walking ahead of him, and Yori and Riyo by his sides.

Haru and the sisters weren’t acting any different than usual. That probably meant they didn’t sense anything. Maybe it was all just in Manato’s head.

But even once they reached the top of the hill, the inscrutable feeling didn’t go away.

“Uh, hey,” he called out.

“Yeah,” Haru replied, turning. “I know. There’s something out there, right?”

“Whaaa? You’d noticed it?”

“Well, of course,” Yori said, with Riyo nodding in agreement.

Manato smiled.

“So you did notice. You should’ve said something. No one else brought it up, so I thought I was just imagining it.”

“What do you think it is?” Yori asked Haru. He was apparently looking at the hillside.

“It doesn’t seem to be a convert or a thrall. They’re a bit more...direct, you might say.”

“Direct...” Manato cocked his head to the side, wondering what Haru meant by that.

He finally spotted the cause of the feeling by pure chance. His eyes just happened to fall on it as he was looking around at the white stones. Something was poking its head out from behind one of them. But all Manato could say for sure was that it was “something.” It was too dark for him to be able to see it clearly. He couldn’t even make out its outline. But he got the sense that it was sticking its head out. So it was an animal, and not a small one.

“A goblin?” He couldn’t see it, so Manato wasn’t sure why he had said that. You could say it was just a hunch. “It’s a goblin, isn’t it? Hey—”

The moment Manato took a step, the thing moved. It turned and scampered off, moving pretty quickly. Manato was ready to run after it but reconsidered. He noticed that Haru, Yori, and Riyo weren’t moving to chase it either.

“That was a goblin, yeah,” Haru said, sounding certain of it. Apparently, he was able to see more clearly from behind his mask.

“From the farm?” Yori asked, looking in the direction the goblin had run.

Haru nodded. “That’s the only place I can think of that he could’ve come from. I haven’t seen goblins in these parts since the thralls started building farms.”

“In that case, while this may not be the nicest way to say it, there’s no harm in us ignoring the little guy, right?”

“I can’t see any way that he’d be able to cause trouble for us.”

“I hope he survives.”

“For better or for worse, a saint’s leading the converts in an attack on Damuro. The thralls aren’t going to have time to chase after any goblins that get away. Besides, if we chased him, we would probably just frighten him.”

“Hrmm.”

There was something about this that didn’t sit right with Manato. But he couldn’t figure out what it was, or why it was bothering him so much.

“Well, if he did just escape from that place, I guess having people chase him would be pretty scary. I mean, of course it would.”

†

“Beep, beep... Beep, beep...”

I recognize that sound, Manato thought after waking up. Or maybe he’d thought it before waking up, and then only once he had woken up did he consciously realize he’d heard the sound. He wasn’t sure which.

His eyes snapped open and the ceiling came into view. He wasn’t in the house in Kariza. Of course he wasn’t. This place wasn’t anywhere in Japan. Manato was in Grimgar. What had happened to him? How had he come to Grimgar? Those were questions he didn’t know the answers to. But Haru had told him that nobody knew, so there really wasn’t anything he could do about it. The point was, this was Grimgar. A room inside the Ark. The one that Haru had prepared for him. Manato’s room.

“Beep, beep... Beep, beep...”

“Hold on, this sound...” It’s so weird, he thought as he sat up. He got out of bed and headed for the door, which he unlocked and opened to find Yori and Riyo standing in the hall.

“Whoa, he’s naked again!” Yori shouted, looking away.

Riyo’s eyes widened and she stared at Manato. She seemed pretty shocked. Manato covered his crotch with both hands.

“Sorry. I was sleeping,” Manato apologized.

“Why were you sleeping naked?” Yori asked. “Is that some kind of custom you follow?”

“Nah. Not really. I’m not sure why I did it. Oh, right. I took a shower, and it felt really good, so when I went and lay down on the bed after that, I fell asleep before I could get dressed.”

“It would be bad if you got sick, so you should wear something when you go to bed,” Riyo suggested quietly.

She was looking at Manato again, but her eyes weren’t on his face. They were focused on his navel. Manato looked down to see for himself. A part of his anatomy wasn’t fully hidden behind his hands. It was poking its head out.

“Oh.”

Just being naked was one thing, but being seen like this was kind of embarrassing. Manato turned around.

“It, uh, it does that in the mornings sometimes. Though, it doesn’t only do it in the morning. Sorry.”

†

They had breakfast in Haru’s room. As they were eating, they discussed their future plans. Yori wanted to start out by crushing all the farms in Damuro and setting the goblins loose. Riyo simply wanted to stick with Yori. Manato, for his part, didn’t think it was right to leave those farms as they were, so he didn’t object to the idea. Haru was of the opinion that, whatever else they wanted to do, their first priority should be to get a handle on what the situation was around Damuro. Yori didn’t disagree with him on that.

“If the converts led by the saint are fighting the thralls of Damuro, then there might be less security around the farms,” Yori suggested, adding, “And if that gives us an opening, there’s no reason not to take advantage of it.”

Manato had lost his sword and dagger during the surprise attack on the cage cart yesterday. They might have still been lying around on the ground somewhere, but even if they were, he couldn’t go back there empty-handed. Ultimately, he asked Haru to take him to the warehouse again and borrowed a long katana called a tachi and a knife.

They stopped by the control room before leaving the Ark and completed the entry registration process. Haru walked them through the steps. It was simply a matter of having them put their hands on a machine, say the things Control told them to, and stay put for a while, but now that they had done it, Manato, Yori, and Riyo were apparently able to come and go from the Ark without Haru being around. “Entry registration” wasn’t really the proper term for it—it was apparently called a something-or-other ID registration, but that was too hard to understand, so Haru referred to it by a simpler name.

He also told them the specifics of how to get in and out. Leaving was easy enough. They just had to open the door at the end of the hall and step out, and that would place them in front of the Ark.

It wasn’t that hard to get in either, but there was a bit of a trick to it. They had to put their hand on a specific part of the outside of the Ark, then say “open gate.” That was apparently something called a “command.” Once they did that, a part of the wall would whoosh open, and a pitch-black square-shaped hole would appear. Going through the hole would take them to a spot in front of the door at the end of the hall. If you looked closely at the part of the wall they were supposed to put their hand on, it would appear to be slightly recessed, which would help them find it, though it looked like it would have been pretty hard to notice if they didn’t already know it was there.

According to Haru, the entry procedure could be changed to something else, but as long as they remembered where to put their hand, the current method wouldn’t be all that inconvenient.

Once they had fetched trail rations and water, and they were all ready to head to Damuro, Manato sensed something. Well, not so much something as someone. There was a goblin on the hillside, poking his head out from behind a white stone.

“Oh! Could that be the same one we saw yesterday?”

Just to be safe, Manato kept his voice down. He refrained from obviously pointing at the goblin, instead using his eyes to indicate to Haru, Yori, and Riyo which stone the goblin was hiding behind. Well, no, maybe he wasn’t really hiding. He had stuck his whole head out and was clearly looking at the four of them.

“I dunno if he’s the same one we saw yesterday,” Yori said, cocking her head to the side. “He looks like he’s alone, so the odds are good that he is.”

Riyo had a pensive look on her face, but said nothing. Haru seemed vaguely uncertain as well.

“Hrmm,” Manato groaned.

If he moved toward the goblin, the goblin might run off again, so Manato decided to stand still and observe closely.

The goblin’s skin was more yellowy than an orc’s, but still green. He had no hair on his head and also no eyebrows. His skin was pretty smooth, and his eyes were pretty different from Manato’s, Yori’s, or Riyo’s. They had a lot of black in them. Or rather, they had almost no white. His nose and mouth protruded out from the rest of his face a bit, and his nostrils were thin and faced to the sides. His mouth looked large and had four prominent canine teeth. The ears that stuck out of either side of his head seemed to be fairly big too. They had pointy tips and drooped downward a little bit.

“Well... This one’s a toughie... Hrmm,” Manato groaned, crossing his arms in front of him.

“Is something wrong?” Yori asked.

“Yeah. Well, maybe not wrong, exactly, but I can’t tell them apart.”

“Tell them apart?” Riyo murmured.

She furrowed her brow a bit and looked over at the goblin. The goblin started to recoil. He was fine with Manato looking at him, but Riyo’s stare was awkward, huh?

“Okay,” Manato said, nodding.

He put his hand on the tachi that he had strapped across his back. The goblin jumped a little as he did. Manato smiled and shook his head.

“No, no. It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m taking it off, that’s all. Though, I guess the best thing to do would be to stop talking and just do it, huh?”

Manato took off the tachi and crouched to place it on the ground. Next, he placed the knife that had been hanging at his hip on the ground next to it. Then he spread his arms in an exaggerated manner.

“I don’t have any weapons. See? I’m not gonna do anything to you. Okay? I’m coming over now. Nice and slow. If you want me to stop, just say so. Not that I’ll understand, but...here I come, okay?”

“Manato?” Yori called out to him. He deliberately ignored her.

He walked carefully, step by step, toward the white stone the goblin was hiding behind. He kept his hands up.

The goblin’s black pupils were focused on Manato. What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all? Manato couldn’t tell. But at the very least, the goblin wasn’t running away. Not yet. If Manato broke into a dash, the goblin would likely bolt. He had to make the goblin believe he was totally harmless. That was the sense he got.

Eventually, he was able to get close enough—only a step or two away—that he could almost reach out and touch the goblin. Manato knelt down on the ground, hands still raised.

“I’m not gonna do anything to you. I can’t do anything like this. So, uh, I’m pretty sure you helped me yesterday, right? You’re that goblin? Thanks, man. Seriously. Do you know what ‘thanks’ means? Um, uh... I’m grateful. It’s an expression of gratitude. Hrmm, how can I get him to understand?”

Manato tried bowing his head.

“Thanks,” he said, looking at the goblin with upturned eyes to see how the little guy would react.

The goblin was giving Manato a look that said, What’s with this guy? What is he doing?

Didn’t work, huh? Well then, let’s try this.

Manato lowered his whole upper body, to the point where his hands touched the ground.

“Thanks. If you hadn’t helped me out yesterday, I might’ve died. You’re the reason I’m still alive. Thanks.”

He raised his head, wondering if that had worked. The goblin’s head cocked a bit in confusion. Another failure, huh?

“Umm, you see...” Manato sat up. He put his hands over his chest, then looked directly at the goblin. “Thanks, from the bottom of my heart! I’m seriously grateful!”

“Woh?” the goblin said quietly. From the sound of it, he still didn’t understand. If anything, he seemed a little taken aback.

“Urgh... That meant nothing to you, huh? Well, yeah. Of course it wouldn’t. Oh! I know!”

Manato had a brilliant idea. Words weren’t working, and gestures like bowing his head weren’t really getting the meaning across either. In that case, why not try reenacting the events of yesterday?

Manato got on his back, and mimed having his head grabbed. Or rather, he actually grabbed his head with both of his hands.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” he screamed, grimacing.

“And then...”

Manato pointed at the goblin. Then he pointed at the thing that was on top of him. Okay, there wasn’t anything on top of him, but he pointed as if there were.

“That guy. The slave soldier. You came in, and you were like ‘grar’!”

It was a little difficult, but Manato tried to use gestures to communicate the idea of a goblin grappling with the thing that was on top of him.

“This is the slave soldier, and you attacked it from behind, right? And then you went ‘chomp’!”

Manato put his upper teeth and lower teeth together, trying to mimic a bite. He immediately followed that up by slapping his own neck.

“That guy’s neck. You sank your teeth into it. Chomp. Isn’t that right?”

“Ahh.” The goblin was nodding. It looked like he’d figured it out. Manato jumped to his feet, then lowered his head again.

“Thanks! You really, truly saved me!” He put his hands together and bowed even more deeply. “Thank you so much! Yeah!”

Manato gave a thumbs-up with his right hand and winked. The goblin did the same, albeit somewhat hesitantly.

“Ohhh, you got it! Woo-hoo! I’m so glad! Huh...?”

At some point, Haru, Yori, and Riyo had come over. They were all sitting on the ground.

“What’re you all doing?” Manato asked.

“Uhhh, spectating?” Yori replied, waving to the goblin.

The goblin hesitantly waved back. Yori grinned.

“It seems you’ve managed to make him less wary of us,” Haru said, looking around. “And he’s apparently alone again today.”

Manato turned back toward the goblin. He got the sense that he could probably communicate with their new friend using gestures now.

“Umm, you, alone? Just you? Any others? Comrades. You have any? Comrades. Are you getting any of this? Goblins, other than you. Comrades. You have any? How about it?”

The goblin gave a big, slow shake of his head. Then he pointed northwest, toward the Ark, and slapped his chest twice.

“Ohhh. You came here from Damuro by yourself? I get it. Hrmm. Did you get split up, maybe? Was that it? It must’ve been tough. With the, what was it? The saint? Right? Tadaemon? Was that its name?”

“Taidael,” Haru corrected him. “Back when he was human, Tada-san... Its name was Tada.”

“Oh, is that right? It was calling your name, Haru. Like, ‘Haruhiroooo.’ Even after being transformed like that, it still recognizes you?”

“They apparently retain their memories and sapience. But even so, they are different people. Or different things, I should say.”

“They understand what we say, but they can’t be reasoned with?” Yori asked.

Haru shook his head. “No, they can’t. Though, if I said I’d convert and devote myself to Lumiaris, that might change things.”

That jogged something in Manato’s memory. “Oh yeah, one of them said that to me. Like, devote yourself to the light, or something like that. I didn’t want to, though, so I refused. And then they told me to die instead. I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d said yes.”

“I’ve never seen what happens myself. If someone asks for conversion, they must either have some way of implanting a hexagrammic light core into their new convert, or one simply manifests. But anyway, once you’ve got a light core in your brain, you can’t abandon your faith in Lumiaris of your own free will.”

“Everyone turns out like that, huh? Yikes. I wouldn’t want that to happen to me. I’m glad I refused... Oh!”

Manato realized that he’d been neglecting the goblin. He hurriedly turned, and their eyes met.

“Sorry, sorry. We got off topic there. Um, so, where were we? You’re all alone, and you have nowhere to go? Were you born in the farm? That isn’t really a place you can go back to, though. That saint, Tadael... No, Taidael wrecked the place. There’s no point in returning there now. And, hold on, you’re naked. You sure you don’t need to wear clothes? You get what I mean? Like...what I’m wearing. Well, you’ve probably always been naked, so maybe it’s fine.”

“Let me go find something appropriate for him,” Haru said, rising to his feet. He took off his cloak and gave it to Manato. “Even something like this should make a difference.”

“I can give this to him?”

“I don’t mind. I have several others like it. I mean, I’ve been making them myself.”

“Wow. Then he’s gonna have matching outfits with you!”

Haru headed back to the Ark for a little while. Manato spread out the cloak, and approached the goblin slowly.

“I’m gonna put this on you, okay? It might be a bit too big, but hopefully it won’t drag on the ground. Or maybe it will...”

The goblin seemed a bit tense. When Manato draped the cloak over his back, he tensed up momentarily, but then he turned and looked at Manato.

“Like this,” Manato said, miming bringing the cloak together in front of him. The goblin immediately imitated Manato.

“Yeah, that’s it. Isn’t it warm? Well, it’s not like it’s that cold out right now. But how is it?”

The goblin pulled on the cloak, then let it go slack. Haru’s cloak had a hood, so the goblin tried putting it on, then pulling it back. It was indeed long enough to drag on the ground even when the goblin stood up. It was clearly too big for him, but he didn’t try to take it off.

Yori chuckled.

“He’s surprisingly fond of it, huh?”

†

Haru brought a white undershirt, short pants, and a sleeveless coat for the goblin. That was apparently about all he had in small enough sizes. But with enough time, Haru could make just about anything.

It wasn’t hard to get the goblin to wear his new outfit. Yori and Riyo looked away while Manato took his clothes off and then put them back on to demonstrate. Once he did that, the goblin imitated him and got dressed too. As for the cloak, the goblin watched Haru put on the spare cloak he had brought for himself. Then the goblin put on the cloak that Haru had given him. He even gave Haru a look first, as if asking if it was okay before doing so.

“Of course,” Haru said with a nod and a little chuckle.

“...aaaa...nks,” the goblin said, bowing his head.

Manato wasn’t the only one surprised by this. They all were.

“He just said thanks...” Yori murmured as her sister stood wide-eyed beside her.

“He learns fast,” Haru said before turning his masked face toward Manato. “You said he helped you yesterday?”

“That’s right. I owe him my life. Also, while I was trying to get the goblins out of the cage and they were refusing to move, one of them warned me about the slave soldier when it showed up. I think that was him too.”

“Now that you mention it,” Riyo said, raising her hand. “One of the goblins went back inside the cage after coming out. He helped me by pulling his friends who wouldn’t run away toward the door. That might have been him too.”

“Ohhh...” Manato was struck by the urge to give the goblin a big hug. But doing it out of nowhere would probably scare the poor guy. “You’re amazing. Like, really incredible. You’re considerate of your friends and even saved me when you had no real reason to. I’m surprised you’re here all by yourself, though.”

He felt itchy. What was this emotion? He wanted to go wild. But not as in, like, hitting and kicking things. It just felt painful to stay still. He wanted to do something, or rather, to help the goblin in some way.

“I brought this too,” Haru said, showing the goblin a cloth bundle, which he opened to reveal some of the bread they’d had for breakfast. He had apparently made it using flour from a grain that wasn’t rice or wheat, and to prepare it, all you had to do was add water to the flour and let it sit for a while before baking it. It was kind of chewy rather than being soft, and a bit sour, but also sweet. It tasted pretty good.

The goblin looked at Manato. “Umwa?” he asked.

“Yeah. That’s food. You can eat it. Eat. Do you understand?”

Manato mimed holding the bread, and bringing it to his mouth.

“Munch, munch, munch. Food. You. Hungry, right? Your stomach. Empty, right?”

“Uguh.” The goblin licked his lips, hung his head, and rubbed his belly.

“I don’t know if you’ll like it, but give it a try,” Haru said. He then held out the bread a little more for the goblin to take.

The goblin brought his nose closer and gave it a sniff. He was frowning. It seemed like he was unsure about eating it, but he had to have been awfully hungry, so he eventually grabbed the bread with both hands and lifted it off Haru’s palm. He started by licking it several times. The baked bread was a bit hard, and he didn’t seem to know what to make of it. Then he tried biting off just a little, and after chewing it for a few moments, he finally swallowed it.

“Mm... Uff...” He seemed to find the bread perplexing. But that didn’t mean he thought it was inedible. The goblin went for a much larger bite the second time.

“Mm... Off...” It might not have tasted all that good to him, but he still inhaled the rest of it in no time. He held his mouth shut with both hands as he thoroughly chewed and swallowed the last of his meal.

“Hahhh...” The goblin moved his hands away from his mouth and took a breath. Then he gave a thumbs-up with his right hand. Manato returned the gesture and the goblin bowed his head to Haru. “Taaanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Haru said with a chuckle.

“Okay!” Manato said, punching his left palm with his right fist. The goblin jumped.

“Ah! Sorry,” Manato apologized. “Did I startle you? Um, I didn’t mean anything bad by it. So, uh, I was thinking, why don’t you come with us? I mean, if there’s somewhere else you want to go, we won’t stop you. But if you don’t, well, being alone is... Uhhh, I dunno, I’m sure it’s dangerous and all? I think you’d have trouble. All sorts of trouble. Like with finding food. Would that be okay, Haru? And what about you, Yori and Riyo?”

“I’ve already made up my mind,” Haru said, looking at the goblin. “I guess it’s up to him.”

“Uuh?” The goblin pointed at himself and tilted his head to the right. It looked like he didn’t understand. Of course he didn’t. Not only did he not speak their language, the conversation had wandered quite far from its previous topic.

“It’s up to him, huh?” Manato said, crouching down so his eyes were level with the goblin’s.

“Hauh,” the goblin said, tilting his head to the other side now.

Yori came over next to Manato and crouched down too. “What do you want to do? Yori agrees with Manato. In fact, even if it isn’t what you want, Yori thinks we should take you in. If the thralls find you, you’ll be dragged back to the farm, or just get eaten on the spot.”

“Uff.”

“Yep. It’s clear that you don’t understand. But you seem smart, and if you stick with us, you’ll figure it out. Yori can see it in your eyes. You think a lot, and you’re trying to figure out what Yori’s saying. Hey, so, do you like that cloak?”

Yori only glanced at the cloak Haru had given the goblin. She didn’t make any gestures beyond that. But that was enough to make the goblin grasp his cloak. Then he grabbed it a bit lower and lifted its long hem. Finally, he nodded to her.

“Kuh...lowk. Lah...ike.”

“You do, huh?”

Yori patted the goblin on the head. He didn’t try to avoid her touch, allowing her to pat him freely. It seemed like he didn’t mind it. If anything, he seemed comforted by it, and even happy.

“A name,” Riyo murmured. “If he has a name, I’d like him to tell us what it is.”

“I’m not sure if he would have one or not,” Haru said, crossing his arms.

The simplest way to find out was to ask. Manato pointed to himself.

“Manato. Ma-na-to. Manato!”

“Mah...to?”

“Ohhh, you’re almost there. Ma!”

“Ma.”

“Na!”

“Nah.”

“To!”

“...To.”

“Yeah. Manato!”

“Manahto.”

“Yeah. That’s the way. Next...”

“Yo-ri,” Yori said, pointing to herself.

Then she pointed to Manato, said his name, and pointed back to herself again.

“Yori,” she repeated.

The goblin nodded.

“...Yori.”

“Yep! Yori.”

“I am...” Riyo placed her hand over her chest. “Ri-yo.”

“...Riyo.”

“I’m Haru,” Haru introduced himself.

“Haru,” the goblin repeated without hesitation.

“That’s right. I’m Haru. Who are you?”

“...Yewww.” the goblin said, probably imitating Haru, and crossed his arms. “Manato. Yori. Riyo. Haru... Yewww. Ahh... Wada... Fiy... Kakkah...”

“Is he speaking some kind of Grimgar variety of Goblin?” Yori whispered to Haru.

Haru shook his head. “Nah. The goblins did have their own language, but this isn’t it.”

“Yori learned a little Goblin from her master, but she isn’t hearing any similarities. The goblin language has a distinctive guttural sound to it. Like clearing phlegm out of your throat. But he’s not making any sounds like that.”

“Aak,” the goblin said, pointing at himself. Then he clicked his tongue, crossing his hands in front of his face repeatedly.

“Chaa. Iah. Nah. Bah. Boh.”

“Ohhh,” Manato said, nodding a few times.

The goblin touched his face with both hands. “Tah, tah. Wadah. Fiy.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Boppe. Bah. Boh.”

“I see.”

“You understand him?” Yori asked, her eyes widening. “What’s he saying?”

“I have no clue.”

“You were totally acting like you did, though.”

“Well, I kinda get it. Like, he doesn’t have a name, per se, just a thing he’s called. That’s basically what he’s trying to tell us. Right?”

When Manato asked this, the goblin gave him a big nod.

“Tahh, tahh.”

“Tata!” Manato said, placing his hand on the goblin’s arm. That made the goblin shudder a little, but he didn’t try to shake free.

“...Tatah?” the goblin asked hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Manato replied. “Tata. Manato, Yori, Riyo, Haru, and you’re Tata.”

“Yewww...Tata.”

“Tata!”

“Tata,” the goblin said again, then, pointing at himself, repeated, “Tata.”

“Let’s go with that. Tata!”

“Ledsgowid...at. Tata!”

“Tata, comrade. All of us, Tata’s comrades. Manato, and Yori, and Riyo, and Haru, Tata’s comrades. We’re all comrades!”

“Comrahhhds. Manato. Yori. Riyo. Haru. Tata. Comrades. Alluv us.”

“Comrades!”

Manato gave a thumbs-up, and the goblin, Tata, immediately returned the gesture.

Oh no. I can’t hold back any longer, Manato thought, right before he embraced Tata.

“Tata! Thanks for saving me! Thanks for coming all this way by yourself! I’m so glad you did. Just overflowing with joy. We’re comrades now, Tata!”

“Foh... Woh...”

Tata stiffened and groaned.

Maybe I should let go? Manato was starting to think, but then Tata wrapped his arms around Manato too. He was returning the hug.

“Ha ha! Tata!” Manato lifted Tata up with a laugh, and then spun around holding him. He would have stopped immediately if Tata had shown any signs of not liking it, though.

“Ouh, wohuh!” The little goblin was laughing. Or at least, Manato thought he was.

“More?! You want to spin more?!”

“Wawa, hoah!”

“You haven’t had enough yet?!”

“Fuoh!”

“Isn’t it about time you stopped?” Yori asked.

“Huh?! Why?!”

“You’ll get dizzy.”

“It’s fine! I’m not dizzy at all!”

“Well, even if you aren’t...”

“Auh, ofuh, geh, bfoh...”

“Tata?! What’s wrong?!”

“Told you so.”

12. Tears of Darkness

The group set off for Damuro once again, and as they traveled, the topic of what to do about Tata came up. From his perspective, he had finally escaped the farm and made it all the way to the former Alterna and the Ark. Would he even want to return to Damuro where the farms were? It’d make perfect sense for him to never want to go back there again.

The idea of leaving him behind was raised, but Tata didn’t want to be separated from them, particularly Manato. When they explained with pantomime that they would be going to Damuro, it wasn’t entirely clear that he understood, but he nodded.

They decided that if Tata showed signs of unease on the way there or tried to turn back, they’d discuss what to do about him again then. The cape was a little too long for him, and he couldn’t move very well with it on, so they had him wrap it around his neck as a way of making it shorter for the time being. Haru would adjust the length for him later.

Tata was little, but he had strong legs and kept up fine without the others having to slow down for him. As they spoke, he picked up more words, and soon he wasn’t just answering Manato’s questions, he was asking his own too. He often let out a laugh, like “Fushahah!” Or expressed his displeasure by saying, “Fiyyfiyy.” Apparently, “Tah,” meant “myself,” and Manato had come up with Tata from him saying “Tah, tah,” so he was basically now named “me, me.” It had been a spur of the moment idea, but was it really okay to keep calling him that? Tata seemed satisfied, so maybe it was.

“In all likelihood,” Haru said after watching one of Manato’s interactions with Tata. “We’ve only seen one facet of what it’s like on the farm. Even though they’re being forced to live in some incredibly harsh conditions, the goblins are doing more than just suffering and giving in to despair. They communicate with one another and live as best as they can. Deciding that there could be no joy in such a place, and they couldn’t possibly have any hope...was presumptuous of me. I underestimated them.”

“You’re right,” Yori agreed. “Tata’s smart. So smart that you might think he’s some kind of super goblin, but he probably isn’t. That makes me all the more motivated to free as many goblins as I can.”

“Maybe Tata understands what we’re trying to do,” Riyo said in a low voice. “And he came along because he wants to help us.”

After some time, they heard a sound like an explosion in the distance. They were almost at the Old City of Damuro. They could see the rubble of its walls up ahead.

“More of Tada-san—Taidael’s handiwork, huh?” Haru muttered.

“Yori is wondering about something,” Yori said, coming to a stop. “Do you see that saint as Taidael? Or the person you once knew as Tada-san?”

“Well...” Haru put a hand on his mask where his mouth would be, seemingly at a loss for words.

Tata was watching Haru closely. He edged closer to Haru, and tugged on his cloak. When Haru noticed, he gently patted Tata on the head.

“Are you worried about me? You’re so nice, Tata. But compared to what you’ve been through, my doubts and indecisiveness seem trivial. I lost the will to move forward, and came to a standstill for a long time. My problems felt overwhelming to even think about, so I simply averted my eyes from them. Honestly, I don’t think the word ‘indecisive’ even really comes close to covering it.”

“Haru... Okay?” Tata asked.

“Yeah. I’m okay,” Haru gave Tata another pat on the head, earning him a short laugh.

“Now, back to your question,” Haru said, turning to Yori. “Even though he is now Taidael, the Saint of Tremors who serves Lumiaris, Tada-san is still Tada-san. The converts and the thralls might have worshipped Lumiaris and Skullhell, but I can’t imagine that they willingly offered up their bodies to be transformed like that. They were forced to submit by beings with such overwhelming power that people call them gods.”

“So, you don’t think it’s okay to leave them like that?”

“No. You’re right, Yori. Honestly, I’ve never thought that. Not even for a second. Tada-san was a weirdo, but he was true to his feelings and loyal to those he cared about. And he never once wavered. If he was told that he had to either bend his beliefs or die, he wouldn’t have hesitated to choose the latter. That’s what he was like. And he wasn’t the only one. The older soldiers I respected...so many of my comrades in arms...were warped by the gods.”

“And you can’t turn them back?” Manato asked.

Haru shook his head. “I don’t know, but...in order to save the converts, for example, their hexagrammic light cores would have to be removed to free them from their god’s domination. And those light cores are located in parts of their bodies, like the brain, that control their vital functions. Is it even possible for them to live through having those cores removed? It’s hard to say, but it would undoubtedly be very difficult for them to survive.”

“Hrmm.” Manato tried to sort out everything Haru had told him inside his head.

No, there was no need for that. Haru had explained the problem in a roundabout way, but it wasn’t actually that difficult to understand. He was just hesitant to state his conclusion directly.

Was that really all there was to it?

Haru had given up on agonizing over these things. If Manato had been in the same position, maybe he would have done the same. It sounded like a pretty hopeless conundrum, after all.

“Only death will let them escape the gods,” Yori said, letting out an exhalation too loud to call a sigh. “To save them, we have to kill them. If they were your comrades in arms, Haruhiro, then they must have been great-grandma’s as well. Isn’t that right?”

“When Ruon...” Haruhiro looked down, then tremulously nodded his head. “When your grandfather was born, everyone celebrated. All of us, from the bottom of our hearts... I remember that day so vividly.”

“Great-grandma was at Daybreak Village at the time, correct?”

“Yeah. That’s where Ruon was born.”

“Something happened at Daybreak Village which forced great-grandma to flee with grandpa. But she never said what it was. She always told Yori everything, except for what happened between her escape from Daybreak Village and the moment when she left Grimgar on a ship. She didn’t even want to remember that time.”

“Some of our comrades stayed in the village to protect Yume and her child... They were all women, but among them...there were believers of Lumiaris and followers of Skullhell.”

“Did they kill each other?”

“Probably. It’s a miracle that Yume and Ruon didn’t get caught up in the fighting, but I suspect that their survival was more than just a matter of luck. Someone must have put everything on the line in order to get them out of there. As a new life born in Daybreak Village, Ruon was our hope.”

“And that was also why great-grandma had to do whatever it took to survive and protect grandpa.”

“January 1st, 720 A.C.,” Riyo said as if reading something that had been written down. “The clan and the company start their joint venture south of the Tenryu Mountains. March seventh of the same year, the company successfully makes contact with remnants of the Kingdom of Arabakia and the venture goes into full swing. At the time, the seventeen beast god tribes were firmly entrenched under the leadership of King Obdoo of the lion god tribe. Our grandfather Ruon challenged him to a duel on September 9th, 722, and lost. He was severely wounded, and his injuries never fully healed. His life came to an end as great-grandma watched over him on February 23rd, 724.”

Riyo’s tone remained completely dispassionate.

“When our grandfather passed away, they say great-grandma didn’t shed a single tear. He had lived as he wanted to. He had done everything he believed he ought to and passed without even the slightest regret. That was why great-grandma said she wasn’t sad at all.”

However, Riyo’s slightly downcast eyes were glistening with moisture.

“Why did our grandfather try to settle things with Obdoo, a four-meter-tall monster of a man, in single combat? Even when I was a child, that struck me as reckless, and I asked great-grandma why he did it. Her answer was that it was obviously the fastest and least bloody way to end the fighting. He didn’t even need to kill Obdoo. He just needed to beat him fair and square and take his position as the head of the seventeen beast god tribes, as their king, and then he would’ve been able to stop the war. Our grandfather bet on that possibility. He wanted to pacify the lands south of the Tenryus as quickly as he could and go to Grimgar. To the land of his birth. But more than anything, he wanted to take great-grandma there. However...”

Riyo’s voice wavered. But only for a moment. After taking a quick breath, she returned to a flat tone.

“Ruon lost his bet and his wish never came true. Obdoo was finally defeated fifteen years later, on March 17th, 739. No one but our grandfather ever challenged him to single combat. In the end, Obdoo was surrounded by hundreds of elite fighters and pummeled to death. Great-grandma told me it was brutal. Twenty-three years later, Yori and I finally made it to Grimgar. Honesty, I wanted to bring great-grandma with us. And if it were possible, our grandfather too.”

“Riyo, what are you talking about?” Yori asked with a hint of exasperation.

Riyo lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”

“I...”—Haru raised his right hand and opened it, then slowly curled it into a fist—“...hate the gods. I want to save everyone. But it just isn’t possible. I can’t...end their lives with my own hands.”

“It is possible,” Yori said with a smile. But her eyes weren’t smiling. She was glaring at the wreckage surrounding Damuro. “Yori and Riyo are here. It’s not impossible at all. We’ll smash the farms, free the goblins, and help the people who celebrated grandpa’s birth leave this world not as slaves of the gods, but as people.”

“Haru!” Manato thrust his fist out toward Haru. “I’ll help! Up until now, you’ve been helping me an awful lot, but pretty soon, I’m gonna get to the point where I can help you in return!”

“No,” Haru replied, giving Manato a fist bump. “You’ve already helped me. I feel like when I met you, time started to flow for me again after having been stopped for so long.”

“Howih!”

Tata imitated Manato and thrust out his fist too. Haru gave him a fist bump as well.

“That’s right, Tata. You’re one of us. I had comrades in the past too. I haven’t forgotten them. But because I can never forget, I was trying not to think about them. I was running around, trying to avoid what I really needed to do.”

Freeing the goblins from the farms. And freeing Haru’s old comrades in arms, the converts and the thralls, from the gods’ control. Having new goals filled Manato with energy. He didn’t know if they could do these things, but if he had a path to follow, then he was going to follow it. He might not have been able to feel this way if he had been alone, but Haru was here, and so were Yori and Riyo, and Tata too.

Manato and the others crossed the wreckage of the wall into the Old City of Damuro. The farm that Tata had been in was completely destroyed, and the pit that had been dug in the middle of it was half full of wreckage. There were no goblins around. But not seeing any goblin corpses either caught him by surprise. Tata must have had some feelings about that, but all he did was look at the farm in silence. He didn’t say or do anything.

They could hear more of those noises like explosions coming from the west, which grew louder and louder as they approached the New City. Taidael, aka Tada, was apparently going wild. It sounded like those hammer-like appendages were hitting things with a pretty steady rhythm.

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris—”

Eventually, they started to hear the converts singing too.

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix—”

The explosions and singing blended together into a unified song.

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi—”

The singing voices and the explosions were pretty loud. They had to be really close now.

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris—”

The area was obstructed by trees and ruins, so it was hard to see. But the grass was trodden, and the branches of the bushes were broken, so it was certain that a group had been this way very recently. Those marks had probably been left by the converts.

Suddenly, their field of view opened up. Ahead of them, there was a green wall that looked like it was probably not made of stone. It continued unbroken as far as the eye could see in either direction. Well, except for where it had been partially demolished off to the left. Was that Taidael’s handiwork? It must’ve been.

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris—”

The song and the explosions sounded like they were coming from that direction, ahead and to the left.

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix—”

“Wanna go see?” Yori asked.

Haru didn’t answer. He seemed hesitant.

“If it seems dangerous, we can flee immediately,” Manato said.

Tata hopped up and down. “Danjuhrus, canflee, mediately!”

“Okay,” Haru said with a nod. “I’ll lead the way. Follow me in this order: Yori, Manato, Tata, Riyo. Everyone stay aware of your surroundings.”

“Got it,” Yori replied.

“Yeah!” Manato said. “Tata, you’re behind me, okay?”

“Kay!” Tata answered.

“Okay,” Riyo added.

Haru began walking toward the green wall. Yori was practically clinging to him.

Manato looked at Tata’s face. The goblin didn’t seem all that tense. Manato was probably more worked up than he was. Tata was a curious little guy, but even more than that, he was brave.

“Let’s go,” Manato called out to him.

“Ess!” Tata replied quickly.

They didn’t want to get left behind. Manato hurried after Yori, Tata followed him, and Riyo followed Tata.

Haru advanced left along the green wall. Why was it that color? Manato touched it, and it felt like moss. The wall itself was hard, but it wasn’t stonework. It was like there was moss growing over a wall of hardened dirt.

Manato kept an eye on both the top of the wall and the Old City on their other side as he followed Yori.

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi—”

The explosions were continuing at fixed intervals. When he tried to listen more closely, he realized the sound of the singing was rising and falling too.

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris—”

If there were a hundred singing converts, and they weren’t all trying to match their timing, then occasionally there would be times when a handful of them, or even a few dozen, weren’t singing. Was that how it worked?

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris—”

The converts might have been split up. No doubt, there would be a good number of them close to Taidael, but there had been a lot of them, so maybe they weren’t all gathered in one place. Maybe they had spread out somewhat.

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix—”

The converts might have been fighting the thralls that lived in the New City of Damuro, according to what Manato had been told. Were they singing as they fought?

Haru came to a stop. There was a broken section of the wall up ahead. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary up top or on the Old City side. There were no converts or thralls nearby. It was just Manato and the others.

Haru started moving again, stepping over the remains of the broken wall to the other side. Then Yori did as well, with Manato a short distance behind her.

It was like a tunnel with no ceiling that someone had dug, or maybe a large cave. The buildings on the other side of the wall, which seemed to mostly be made of the same material, were arranged in disorderly lines with no gaps between them. And somewhere up ahead, Taidael was smashing through them. The converts were following the path Taidael was carving—or rather, smashing—through the city.

“What a mess,” Yori said.

“That’s Tada-san for you,” Haru replied, raising his hand to stop Manato and the others. Was there something bothering him?

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi—”

There was a cloud of dust way up ahead. The explosions, no, the smashing noises didn’t stop. Taidael must have been in the middle of all that dust, still demolishing buildings.

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris—”

Haru swung his raised hand forward, then started to walk. Yori followed, then Manato and Tata, with Riyo still bringing up the rear.

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix...”

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

The smashing noises and the singing grew louder. They could feel the vibrations now. Chunks of the earthen walls of the buildings, both big and small, were lying around, having been crushed by Taidael’s ridiculously huge hammer-like arms, but even though the ground was far from level, they were able to walk across it with ease, even as it shook in time with the noises. But there was more. A dust-laden wind was blowing against them. Manato squinted and covered his mouth with his arm, feeling like he was about to cough.

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix...”

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

The dust cloud was making things hazy. Haru held up his left hand to stop them again.

“Ha-ha-hahhhhh!”

Laughter? Manato couldn’t hear it particularly clearly, but he did hear it. Was that Taidael?

“Kh—” Manato gulped.

It wasn’t that he was surprised when he heard laughter that he assumed must be Taidael’s. The saint was up ahead. He understood that. He’d been prepared for it. So, no, that wasn’t the reason. It was because someone had suddenly seized his shoulder.

Was it Tata? Tata was right behind Manato. He turned, but it wasn’t the little goblin. Riyo. Riyo had reached over Tata in order to put her hand on Manato’s shoulder. She wasn’t looking at him, though. Instead, her eyes were aimed back the way they had come.

Manato looked in that direction too. The dust was thinner than up ahead, which allowed him to see much more clearly. Enough to make out the shape of whatever had caught Riyo’s attention.

It wasn’t small. In fact, it seemed to be even taller than Riyo, the tallest member of their group, by quite a bit. He wasn’t sure what it was. Was it alive? It was blackish in color, and looked like a tree that had lost all its leaves. But it wasn’t just a dead tree. And maybe it wasn’t a single tree either? It was as if multiple trees had grown together and intertwined, and were now all dying at the same time. He’d seen trees like that in the forest before on rare occasions. They had looked like some kind of tree ghosts. Kinda creepy. Where had this tree ghost come from, though? It had clearly moved to its present location at some point, because Manato and the others had previously passed by the spot where it now was, and it hadn’t been there a moment ago. Of course, it wasn’t actually the ghost of a tree. Manato understood that. But what was it, then?

Were those arms? Dark arms? The reason Manato thought that they might be was the fact that there were hands—or things that resembled hands and had five fingerlike protrusions—at the end of each limb. There were an absolutely incredible number of them, though. It was just a giant tangle of arms that were too numerous to count, except for a single spot right above the center of the mass, where something white was peeking out through a gap between all of the limbs.

“A face?” Manato murmured.

A face. It was a face. A person’s face, with eyes that were slightly open. It was probably a woman. Inside the mass of blackish arms. There was a face there. What was with that?

“Chibi,” Haru murmured.

Manato saw that Haru had turned to look back too. Chibi? Meaning, like, tiny?

“What’s a fiend doing over there?” Haru wondered.

“When you say a fiend—” Yori might have been starting to ask a question, but she stopped mid-sentence and drew her red sword.

“Stop, you’re no match for her!” Haru immediately said to prevent Yori from attacking whatever it was. “That’s Chegbrete of Penitence! You could call her the lord of Damuro!”

Fiend. Lord. She was the boss, then? Of the thralls living in Damuro. Taidael, the Saint of Tremors, was probably leading the converts that followed Lumiaris, the God of Light. So was Chegbrete of Penitence the same, except she belonged to the faction of Skullhell, the God of Dark?

“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix...”

“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”

“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”

The singing voices and smashing noises reverberated.

The fiend’s arms, or rather the hands on their ends—so many of them that they seemed to be unlimited in number—began bending their fingers and reaching out. It was absolutely enormous. This whole situation was nuts. Completely nuts. However, Manato was not afraid. And because he wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t having fun. As strange as it might sound, it just didn’t feel real. Was the fiend, Chegbrete of Penitence, really there?

“You said Chibi,” Yori noted, her hands tightening around her red sword’s hilt. “I’ve heard that name from great-grandma. There was a girl called Chibi-chan. But wasn’t she supposed to be a priest?”

“Yeah,” Haru said. “She was a priest. And right before my eyes, she turned on her comrade...the man whom she must have trusted, and loved, more than anyone—Renji...”

That was when it happened. Had saying the name Renji triggered it? The eyes on the fiend’s face, which were only slightly open, started oozing a black liquid. Were those tears? They were running down her white face now. She was crying.

Manato shuddered.

She was there. The fiend. Haru’s former comrade in arms whom he called Chibi. A priest, who should’ve become a convert of Lumiaris, but who had submitted to Skullhell instead for some reason.

Chegbrete of Penitence.

Ohhh, she was coming at them now, her black arms, and hands, and arms, and arms, and arms, and arms writhing.

She was heading straight for them, shedding black tears.

Afterword

Recently, I found myself wondering, when did I start writing Grimgar? So I checked the files, and the time stamp on the first draft of volume 1 was March 29th, 2013, so yeah, that was eleven years ago. I wish I could say that I remember it like it was yesterday, but it’s almost entirely faded from my memory.

Besides, looking back, the first book of mine that was ever published would have been the first volume of Bara no Maria under Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko on December 1st, 2004.

Hey, hold on.

Has it really been twenty years?

You’ve gotta be kidding me.

Twenty years.

A baby born back then would be twenty now.

I’m not exactly shocked, but it feels weird. Twenty years. Who’d have thought. Back then, I don’t think I ever would have imagined that twenty years later I might not still be writing Bara no Maria, but I would still be writing Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, a novel that unquestionably exists on a line extending from that series. Well, I doubt I was imagining anything in particular, really. I’ve never been good at sticking to one thing. I always sort of want to do something at least a little different with every book, and to write something I haven’t before.

I wonder, how much has my current self changed from who I was back then? I don’t think I’ve stayed completely the same, but I also don’t feel very different. I also feel like it doesn’t really matter one way or the other.

Grimgar’s taken a new turn. I wonder where the story is going to end up. I’ve got a bit of what I’d guess you’d call the story’s core figured out, but even I don’t know how it’s going to end up looking in terms of the little details. I think I’ll consult with my editor and Shirai-san as I continue writing it.

I hope you’ll all keep on supporting me forever, if possible. And on that note, I’d like to offer my heartfelt thanks to my editor Kawaguchi-san, to Shirai Eiri-san, to the designers at KOMEWORKS, and to everyone else involved in the production and sale of this novel, as well as to all of you out there who are now reading it, whether it’s on paper or digitally. And with that, I lay down my pen for today. I’d be happy if we were able to see each other again sometime this year.

Ao Jyumonji

Bonus Short Stories

The Legend of Ruon: Setting Sail

Ruon had been born in Daybreak Village in Grimgar, but he had no memory of the place, nor did he have any recollection of the many others who his mother said had been there, or of Kajiko’s comrades. He had, after all, been just a baby. After leaving the village, they had apparently drifted from place to place. His mother and Kajiko told him that they had never been able to settle down anywhere for long. He recalled a number of scenes, but not when any of them had taken place, or where. It didn’t seem like they’d happened on the Red Continent, and they hadn’t happened at sea either. That probably meant they’d taken place in Grimgar. That was what he had to assume, but he couldn’t say so for certain.

He had clear memories of the first time he’d gotten aboard a boat.

Ruon and the others had left Grimgar by sea. They hadn’t found a boat, or built one themselves. The boat had come to them—a rescue ship, one that the K&K Company had sent out to look for survivors. It had been called the Cornelia II, and had been under the command of Captain Giancarlo Kreitzal. Had that boat not found them, there was no telling what might have happened. Would it even have been possible for them to survive in Grimgar? It would have been difficult, to say the least.

When Ruon, his mother, and Kajiko had escaped Grimgar aboard the rescue ship, they had looked back at the continent from the deck. Ruon still remembered the profile of his mother’s face as she had watched the coastline tearfully. She hadn’t been bawling, just shedding tears. For some reason, she’d even been smiling as she’d cried. He’d thought about that later. He was sure that she hadn’t wanted to leave Grimgar. After all, Grimgar was the place where everything she’d ever had was. No matter how much she’d lost, she wasn’t the type to give up hope and simply accept that it was all completely gone. She always turned the memories of the things she lost into cherished treasures. But for his mother, everything that mattered to her had been in Grimgar. She couldn’t have wanted to leave. So why had she smiled as she cried? He had tried asking her about it once. She’d laughed and told him that she didn’t remember. Knowing her, she might really have forgotten. Or she might have been playing dumb. Either was possible.

Regardless, Ruon gradually started to believe that his mother had always wanted to go back to Grimgar at some point. Though she’d had no choice but to leave with her young child for a time, she’d boarded the rescue ship with him and Kajiko intending to return one day, no matter what. He was sure of it.

Another thing Ruon remembered about his first time on a boat was how much the deck had rocked, and how sick he’d felt. His mother had been fine, though. She’d made Ruon stand on the deck and shown him how to keep his balance. But the ship had been rocking so much that it had been all he could manage to stand up straight. His mother had laughed out loud as she’d watched him.

“No, no, you’re doin’ it all wrong.”

“Then how am I supposed to do it?”

“You can’t fight against the wobblin’.”

Ruon remembered her teaching him like that. That he shouldn’t try to counteract the rocking of the boat, but rock with it. It made no sense to him, and he’d protested.

“If I do that, I’ll fall over and roll across the deck.”

“Well, it’s okay to roll around a bit, y’know.”

Then she literally got down and started rolling across the deck. He distinctly remembered, even as young as he’d been, thinking that she might just be an idiot. He’d had no interest in doing something so ridiculous, but his mother had wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down with her, and the two of them had rolled around on the deck together.

As they rolled, he forgot how sick he’d felt.

Her approach might not have been so foolish after all, because Ruon had never gotten seasick again.

If anyone else on board got sick, he’d roll them around on the deck too. It worked for some, and just made things worse for others. It was about fifty-fifty.

The Legend of Ruon: Innate

Women are strong. Women protect me. I’m here now thanks to women. These weren’t things Ruon started to think at some point. They were innate to him. A sort of truth that had been with him his entire life.

After all, he had his mother with him—his mother who was stronger than anyone. And along with her, he also had Kajiko, who had protected them until they could escape Grimgar.

After escaping Grimgar, Ruon had then met the women of the K&K Company, including Ichika, Momohina, Mirilieu the elf, and Heinemarie the dwarf. They had played with him often, taken baths with him, and slept alongside him. The then company president of K&K, Anjolina Kreitzal, had adored him too. Prominent elves like Aryalea Landurowal and Rumeia Alraloron had taken care of him at times too. In all the wide world, there wasn’t another man who had slept next to as many women as Ruon had.

The K&K Company, where Ruon had spent his youth, had an absolute leader in Kisaragi. However, the company was represented by the president—Anjolina—while Kisaragi had no formal job title. That man raised the company flag high, decided what direction they should follow, and sometimes pushed them in that direction himself. But the organization was really being moved by the strong women at its forefront. Or to put it a bit more fairly, the strong women took the lead, and the men did the boring work of supporting them.

Those strong women all pampered Ruon. Now, if anyone had pointed that out to them, some of the women would have objected to that characterization, but Ruon felt that they had raised him with love. And the women weren’t just strong. They had all been really intense in one way or another.

“Listen, Ruon.”

Kajiko, who was Ruon’s second mother, had repeatedly warned him not to misunderstand. She was a big woman, and beautiful, but she was also harsh, especially to men, whom she sometimes got strangely aggressive with. Kajiko had once loved a woman named Mako. Ruon barely remembered Mako at all, but she had been with them part of the way during their flight from Grimgar. After losing her, Kajiko had apparently given up on love. She’d said as much herself, but Ruon had his doubts about it. What about me? I mean, Kajiko loves me, right? Like, loves me to bits, he thought, but he never said it. Because just as Kajiko loved Ruon, Ruon loved Kajiko back. He didn’t want to hurt her. He would never let himself do that.

“You’ve lived an incredibly blessed life so far. It’s true that many people care greatly for you. But that doesn’t mean every single person likes you, or that they think you’re important. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that, Ruon.”

I know. I get it, Kajiko. You don’t need to worry. I’m not an idiot. I mean, really, I’m not. You all raised me, remember? I grew up to be such an upstanding guy because I was raised by the strongest women around. Didn’t I? Not yet? Yeah, no, I’m still not there yet. I’m clearly still developing. But, well, I’m getting there.

I don’t think everyone loves me unconditionally. It’s just that most women seem to like me for some reason. Why? Because the strongest women alive raised me with love. It’s like a self-evident fact that women are gonna love me. I can’t see it any other way.

“Don’t worry, Kajiko,” Ruon murmured in Kajiko’s ear as he pinioned her. “I won’t misunderstand. You’ve been teaching me since as far back as I can remember. And you’d never teach me anything wrong, would you?”

The Legend of Ruon: Fearless

Right before turning twelve, Ruon had started to call himself a pirate.

He had been sailing with K&K’s ships before that, imitating their sailors since he had been just a child, and when another ship had attacked his, he’d taken up arms to defend it. That sort of thing—being attacked—was not at all uncommon for K&K ships, and in fact, it happened fairly regularly. It almost felt like a daily occurrence.

Ruon had been nine years old when he killed his first pirate. Although, strictly speaking, that was only the first time he could be sure he was the one to get the kill. He’d been swinging a knife for longer than he could remember, and had fought with axes, swords, and whatever else came into his hands. When was the first time he’d kicked an opponent overboard? Probably when he was six.

Ruon had essentially been a pirate all his life. He just hadn’t been assigned to a K&K ship. That had been the only thing that had kept him from being a proper pirate. After that, he’d had a lot of opportunities to move from ship to ship. Sometimes he even forced them to take him after they refused. Or he would stow away in a ship’s hold until they were out at sea. He was good at finding his way onto ships in one way or another and acting like he was supposed to be there. All he had to do was get onboard, and as soon as he did, he had already won. He would always be able to prove to them that he wasn’t useless before they had the chance to drop him off somewhere. He knew how to crew a ship at sea.

It was only shortly before Ruon turned twelve that he was formally accepted as a member of K&K and joined the crew of the Bachrose II-go. There really wasn’t any more to it than that.

K&K was a trading company that maintained an armed fleet, but on the Red Continent they were seen as a society of heinous pirates. Any time someone picked a fight with them, they always took up the challenge, and over time they had managed to bring all of the seagoing outlaws based out of the islands near the Red Continent under their command, so it was certainly true that they possessed a large pirate fleet. They could try to say “no, no, no, we aren’t actually pirates, we just act like pirates” all they wanted, but no one was going to believe them. K&K understood that, so they didn’t bother denying it every time someone called them pirates. Piracy wasn’t all there was to K&K. It was simply one of their facets.

And so, Ruon was a pirate. You could say he had been born to be one.

What was a pirate? Basically, a sort of sea thief. They made their living sailing the seas, stealing, intimidating, and killing. But the word covered a broad range of people. Some were your standard pirates that fit all the stereotypes. Others were privateers who engaged in piracy on behalf of a nation, or merchants who acted as pirates half the time, or fishermen who turned to piracy on occasion.

Each pirate probably had their own definition, but for Ruon, it was about being fearless. If you weren’t brave, you weren’t a pirate. Those who lived on a sea that could swallow them up on a whim couldn’t let themselves be scared of anything. In particular, those who confused caution for cowardice weren’t fit to call themselves pirates.

“Ruuuooonnn...”

That was why, even if he happened to hear his mother’s voice while sleeping intertwined with a bunch of naked women, Ruon wouldn’t jump up in fright.

The moment he heard his mother’s voice, Ruon would sober up instantly, no matter how drunk he’d been.

It was strictly a reflexive thing. She was his mother, and he was her only son. That gave them a unique, special bond. He couldn’t help but react to her voice. That was all there was to it.

When he awoke to his mother’s voice, Ruon would relax his breathing as much as he could to calm his racing heart, stop himself from opening his eyes immediately, push his face against his female companions’ bare flesh, and pretend to still be sleeping.

“Ruuuooonnn...”

Oh, piss off, he considered saying, but he never actually did. He didn’t think he could. Or, no, he refrained from doing so. Yeah. It wasn’t that he couldn’t. Nope. He chose not to.

The Legend of Ruon: Niya

Ruon barely remembered the woman. It wasn’t that he had no memories of her, exactly, but he would’ve been hard-pressed to guess how many times he’d had relations with her. Part of that was because it had never been one-on-one. He was certain of that. He’d never slept with just her.

Of course, Ruon was alone with women sometimes. And there were times, rare though they might have been, when he was alone with one of them at night. Since that kind of thing was so rare, it tended to leave an impression on him, and he definitely wouldn’t have forgotten it.

So, he was more or less certain that he’d never slept with Niya alone.

He’d probably been with her along with multiple other women once or twice, three times at most.

But, well, he was pretty sure they’d done it. He didn’t remember very well, but it would’ve been weirder if they hadn’t, so he figured it was best to assume they had.

That said, though, he didn’t recognize the name Niya, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d seen her face before, though he couldn’t say for sure that he hadn’t either. Also, the woman calling herself Niya had a large belly. He could tell immediately that she was pregnant—her belly looked so large that she seemed like she could go into labor at any time.

Niya had tanned skin, raven black hair, and dark irises to match. She was also equipped with two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and just one mouth. There were two arms and two legs attached to her torso, and it didn’t look like she secretly had four or six breasts or anything like that. Ruon wasn’t picky, so even if a woman did have some extra limbs, or eight eyes, or skin that was a centimeter thick with metallic scales, he never saw that as a reason to turn them away.

Anyway, Niya would have been cute if she hadn’t been so obviously pregnant. But her being pregnant meant that Ruon couldn’t help but look at her as a mother, not a woman. It made him feel like, Whoa, that looks rough. Take care of yourself, okay? Well, I’ll protect you if you need it. He’d made that kind of offer to women from time to time.

“Uh, no, it’s your child,” the woman insisted.

“‘It’? Listen, this is your kid, right? You’re really gonna call them an ‘it’?” he replied. “Hm? Wait, ‘your child’? What do you mean? Who are you talking about?”

“I’m talking to you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. The baby is yours,” Niya said, rubbing her belly as she spoke.

Ruon was a bit dazed, but he wasn’t slow on the uptake. In fact, he was known for being a quick thinker, and he obviously agreed when people said that he was pretty sharp. It wasn’t that he was unable to understand what Niya was saying. It would have been a lie to say he didn’t question whether it was true. But whatever doubts he had, the most important thing to be thinking about was what he should do, and how he should act in this situation.

“Welp, I guess we’re getting married, then. Be my wife. You’ll be the mother of my child, and I’ll be the father.”

Niya nodded instantly. Then she smiled, and said yes.

“I’ll be your wife.”

That was the moment when Ruon decided he liked Niya. He instinctively sensed that she’d be a good mother. As for whether he was, biologically, the father, that wasn’t particularly important to him. If Niya was having the kid, then it was his.

Ruon immediately went to tell his mother that he’d be marrying Niya, and their child would be born soon. His mother was surprised, but also delighted.

Niya gave birth to a girl, and his mother named her Yori. She told them that would have been Ruon’s name if he’d been born a girl. It was a suitable choice for his daughter. Niya seemed satisfied too, saying it was a wonderful name.

Their daughter didn’t even survive a year. Niya kept clutching her baby long after Yori had gone cold.

“That’s enough,” Ruon told her, but Niya shook her head.

“She was never your child. Yori wasn’t yours. You weren’t the father.”

Ruon laughed. Then he smiled a little and gave Niya a hug.

“Whoever her father was, Yori was still Yori, wasn’t she?”

The Legend of Ruon: Sarika

The first child born to Ruon’s first wife, Niya, the girl they had named Yori, had only lived for three months.

Niya had appeared before Ruon in the last month of her pregnancy. Because of that, Ruon hadn’t known he was going to be a father until then. It was true that he’d had relations with Niya, but in all honesty, he hadn’t been fully convinced that the child had been his. Even so, he had decided that he would be the child’s father. And once he had decided that, his mind had been made up about marrying Niya too. He hadn’t hesitated one bit.

But did that mean there were no problems with their relationship? Of course not.

There was one thing that Ruon didn’t personally think was a problem, but he was well aware that others would probably take issue with it in the future. Namely, his relationships with women.

At the time when he had decided to marry Niya, Ruon had already been engaged in relations with several women. And that didn’t even include his one-night stands—he’d had more of those than he could count. If one were to count only those that he had been seeing continuously and had slept with multiple times, there were four or five of them.

Sarika was one of those women, and Ruon had no idea why he had ended up sleeping with her so often. She would seemingly just show up next to him out of nowhere, and without even any words being exchanged between them, they’d both get naked and start going at it. That was the kind of relationship he had with Sarika. She was skilled, but a bit plain. Or basic, you might say. She never dressed nicely, she didn’t use makeup, and she didn’t let her emotions show. She was taciturn, inscrutable, and even kinda creepy. She could be in the same room as him, and he’d still question if she existed, but when she had been gone for a while, her absence would start to bother him.

When Ruon had married Niya, Sarika had already been pregnant. Ruon was vaguely aware of that, but he never pointed it out. She never said anything about it either. He had told her that he was going to marry Niya, of course, and Sarika had simply given him a smile that wasn’t quite a smile and said, “I see.”

I really don’t get her, Ruon had thought, but that had always been the case for as long as he’d known her, and he had just been reconfirming that to himself, so whatever.

He had thought from the start that if Sarika gave birth after Niya and then Sarika told him that he was her child’s father, then there might be trouble, but he had decided that he would deal with that scenario if and when it came up.

Ruon figured it was fine. If he had a second kid, so what? You could never have too many children. He was able to think that way because he had his mother, and he had Kajiko, and he had all of the incredible women of the K&K Pirate Company whom he could rely on unconditionally. Their protection was absolute to him, and beyond doubt. Most men were unreliable in some way, but Ruon knew that wasn’t the case with women. Thanks to all the women who were there for him, there weren’t many things he wouldn’t be able to handle. And the things he couldn’t handle with them by his side were simply beyond his ability to ever do anything about, so he would have no choice but to give up on changing them regardless.

What eventually ended up happening was that five months after his first daughter, Yori, had passed away, Sarika gave birth, but she still didn’t say anything to him about it. And then his mother came to him and started grilling him over it.

“So? What are you gonna do?”

If he was being honest, Ruon wanted to turn that question around. What should he do? But he had no idea what she’d do to him if he had to ask. She would never stop loving him. He knew that. No matter how much he disappointed her, his mother’s love was unwavering. But he had to keep up appearances in front of her.

“Sarika’s given birth to my kid. I’m gonna marry her, of course.”

“But you’ve already got Niya.”

“Yeah, I’m married to Niya, and there’s also what happened with Yori. I’m going to take care of both of them.”

After that conversation, Ruon went to Sarika, who was holding their son, and offered to marry her. Sarika accepted without any show of emotion. Yeah, he really didn’t get her. But he didn’t dislike her. His mother named the boy Muran, and needless to say, she adored her new grandson.