17 1

“Huh?”
That grunt was scary. Haruhiro nearly chickened out of saying more, but if he did, that seemed likely to anger Renji. Or maybe it wouldn’t.
“I was thinking, uh, you could stand to, I dunno...talk to your comrades more...like this, maybe...?”
Renji wasn’t saying anything, which made Haruhiro uneasy. Should he apologize? Would that be weird? Or maybe not? Which was it?
“What good would that do?” Renji said after a moment.
“What good?” Haruhiro rubbed his face. Were Ron, Adachi, and Chibi-chan all right when Renji took this attitude towards them? “You’d understand each other better...and everyone could share their opinions. I think there’s some merit in that...maybe...?”
“You’re deluding yourself if you think a bunch of strangers can understand one another. If you think I understand anyone, that’s just an illusion. No one understands me.”
“Well...that’s one way of seeing things, I guess. An illusion, huh? ...I’m deluding myself. ...Yeah. Sorta...”
“I do ask for their opinions. I’m not all-powerful, after all. When I need to make decisions, the more information the better.”
“...Oh. You’re not all-powerful?”
“What are you getting at?”
“N-Nah, it’s nothing...”
“Obviously, I’m not. If I was, then...” Renji shook his head and sighed.
“Haruhiro.”
“...What?”
“What do you think?”
“...Huh?”
“About that man.”
Renji indicated in some direction with his eyes. Not toward his own party or Haruhiro’s. Probably not toward the Tokkis either.
Renji was looking toward where Shinohara and the ten members of Orion had set up camp.
Oh, so that was it. Renji had said he did ask people for their opinions. So he was asking Haruhiro now. What did he think about Orion? No, he’d limited it to “that man.”
Orion had a number of central figures; commanders, if you will. Like bespectacled Kimura, or Merry’s old comrade Hayashi. On this occasion, Hayashi was with the main Frontier Army force, leading a group with more than ten other members of Orion.
Kimura had a distinctive, eccentric personality, but he was still only the second-in-command.
Who was the man Renji was asking about? Shinohara, of course.
But Shinohara was acting as a member of the Volunteer Soldier Corps. So was Renji. Of the two of them, he should have had more opportunities to encounter Shinohara than Haruhiro had. Besides, unlike Haruhiro, Renji remembered the past. He had to know more about Shinohara than Haruhiro did.
Haruhiro wished he could ask him the same question. What did Renji think of Shinohara?
But while Renji might seek out the opinions of others, he didn’t see any value in revealing what he thought himself. Renji had just said as much. Haruhiro might not have agreed with that view, but to each his own. Was it really his place to tell Renji he was wrong or advise him to adjust his attitude? They weren’t friends or even comrades for that matter. Besides, was Renji even wrong to begin with? Probably not.
He was just different from Haruhiro. Very different, Haruhiro felt. Was the reason they had never become friends or worked together because they were so far apart in every way?
Still, they had enlisted at the same time.
Strange as it was, despite having no memories, Haruhiro found it hard to think of Renji as just another random, unimportant person he had no connection to. For whatever reason, he had the impression that Renji was trustworthy.
And terrifying.
Not to sound like Ranta, but he’s way too intimidating.
Renji wasn’t the sort of guy to openly express his feelings. But it wasn’t like he was keeping secrets either. He probably wasn’t as cold and indifferent as he appeared, nor was he the type to betray others. While Renji might act like a bit of a dictator, he wouldn’t just sacrifice his comrades for his own benefit. Team Renji had managed to get along as a five-man team for a long time. Knowing Renji, they had probably done some pretty reckless stuff, but no one had gotten killed. Until they lost Sassa. Her death had hurt him badly. That was Haruhiro’s read on the situation.
I can rely on Renji.
That was mostly Haruhiro’s gut speaking, but he decided to trust his judgment.
The one he couldn’t bring himself to trust here was Shinohara.
“...I want this to stay between us. Because it’s all a vague feeling, and I’m not sure of anything.”
“Yeah.”
“We woke up under the Forbidden Tower and had lost our memories.”
“I heard Hiyomu was there too, trying to manipulate you.”
“Hiyomu...seemed to be following someone’s orders. She called him her master.”
“And this master’s not Jin Mogis?”
“No. It can’t be. So I talked to the general about it, and he described that person as...” Haruhiro took a deep breath, then spoke very clearly. “‘The master of the Forbidden Tower.’ That’s what he said.”
“The master of the Forbidden Tower?” Renji parroted. He must have been surprised. “Who...is that?”
“I don’t know. But he definitely said it. And, ‘I can’t imagine the master of the Forbidden Tower would have invited the Southern Expedition in.’”
“Anything else?”
“...This is where it gets more vague. Shinohara, and Hiyomu... I don’t know what it is, but they seem to know things, more than you do or I would have before I lost my memory...”
“That’s not so strange. That man’s been a volunteer soldier longer than either of us.”
“Well, yeah, but...still, I think Jin Mogis has gotten into contact with the master of the Forbidden Tower through Hiyomu. I’m certain they joined hands at some point.”
“And you think Shinohara was involved in that?”
“If he was, it explains how Orion was able to join the Frontier Army so smoothly.”
“So the bit about him acting as a connection to the Volunteer Soldier Corps is just a cover story, then?”
“...I think it’s possible. Not that there’s any proof.”
“Any proof now, you mean.” Renji touched his lips lightly with his right thumb. “He wouldn’t give himself away so easily. But people make mistakes.”
“...It sounds like he’s done a lot for me in the past. And even more for Merry.”
“The man’s popular. Has a lot of connections. Lot of people have a high opinion of him.”
“If I hadn’t lost my memories, I might never have been suspicious of him.”
“I never liked the guy. Didn’t have any real reason for it, but we never got along.”
“You’re a completely different type of person from him, after all.”
“True.”
“You acknowledge it yourself, huh?” “I’ve never wanted to make people like me.”
Hey, that’s you you’re talking about there.
Could Haruhiro get away with poking fun at him? Renji probably wouldn’t just laugh it off.
“...You think he acts the way he does to make people like him?” Haruhiro asked instead.
“That’s how it looks to me.”
“So...he’s not really like that, he’s just putting on an act?”
“It’s his eyes.”
“His eyes...aren’t smiling?” This didn’t ring true for Haruhiro.
Shinohara smiled a lot. He’d never once sensed anything off about it. “No,” Renji shook his head. “His eyes don’t move. Even when he’s smiling, they’re fixated on one point. It means he’s observing the other person.”
“...You watch people pretty closely yourself, Renji.”
“Just watch for it,” Renji said, then immediately turned and walked away. His movements felt weightless, yet each one seemed to be made with purpose.
Haruhiro couldn’t help but think, Even at something as simple as walking, he’s on a whole other level from me. It was silly to feel inferior. The thought made him gaze up into the sky.
Suddenly, Renji came to a stop.
“Even if you’ve forgotten, your skills haven’t dulled much.”
 
 

Turning back to Haruhiro, he said, “More than that, I barely recognize you now. I’ll be counting on you.”
Haruhiro felt his face twitch. How was he supposed to respond to that? “Thank you. I’ll do my best”? Would that be deprecating himself too much?
In the end, all Haruhiro was able to do was nod. He’d have liked to say something clever, but that was beyond him.


 
3. Is the King Who Does Not Sleep Unable to Sleep?
Who left this here? Or, if not who, then what?
How long had that mountain stood alone in the middle of the endless flat wasteland that was the Quickwind Plains?
People had a name for it.
Mount Grief.
There were a number of theories on its origin. This was the generally accepted one:
The largely broken form of the old castle at the summit was visible even at a distance during the day. Though it might have seemed like an ordinary castle, it was not. Long, long ago, it was a temple to the old gods. In ancient times, one king had the audacity to build a castle atop the ruins of that temple. Then, when the king died, the castle remained as his grave marker. The fearless king was revered for his great acts, and as a show of their sadness, people sang songs of lamentation as they faced his grave.
Even as countless stars shone overhead, the darkness of night on the Quickwind Plains felt suffocatingly thick. If a person looked up to the sky to resist being crushed by the oppressive gloom, the brilliant lights atop Mount Grief would be impossible to miss.
The scouts sent by the Volunteer Soldier Corps reported that there was currently construction underway to restore the old castle. In particular, the towering walls just past the steep slope near the summit had seen considerable repairs done to them.
With the exception of the narrow road to the gate, there were abatis-style barricades placed all around the castle. If they approached using the road, they would be picked apart by archers, crossbowmen, and slingers. If they took another route, they would have to remove the barricades. That would take time during which, obviously, they would be targeted by the same ranged weapons they would have faced on the road. The Volunteer Soldier Corps could have their mages lead a frontal assault and rapidly push past these obstacles, but they would have to be prepared to take no small number of casualties.
That’s why they were going for the back door.
Now, it wasn’t the case that there was a front gate and a back gate to this castle on top of a mountain.
The information about a “back door” came from Shinohara. His clan, Orion, had for a time investigated Mount Grief because it had become a den of undead. They had even infiltrated the castle many times.
That said, Orion’s focus hadn’t been the old castle.
The castle had been built atop the ruins of an old temple. The king who built it was also buried there, if the stories were true. However, search as they might, Shinohara and his people had been unable to find anywhere that an individual of such high status might have been laid to rest.
Was it possible the king’s grave was elsewhere? Orion continued their search, and, at long last, they found it.
It was underground.
Beneath the castle, there was a secret graveyard.
Well, to be precise, it was a space that they theorized was a graveyard, but that’s getting too nitpicky, so for now we’ll continue to call it the Graveyard.
Orion spent years investigating and finally succeeded in finding two ways into the Graveyard. One entrance in the old castle, another in the foothills of Mount Grief, each sealed behind a stone door.
Orion managed to enter the Graveyard through both. It was, unmistakably, a graveyard. Shinohara and Kimura were more or less certain the king had been buried beneath the castle. They claimed to have found enough proof to convince them of it.
Shinohara called the room where the king lay sleeping the burial chamber. Incredibly, Orion had managed to set foot in there.
However, every time they entered the burial chamber, people died. Because of that, Shinohara was forced to order a retreat.
The reason all of this was relevant to the operation to take Mount Grief lay in the fact that the Graveyard could be entered through both the foothills and the castle.
We’ll call the entrance in the foothills the foothill entrance, and the entrance in the castle the castle entrance. Both led to the burial chamber. Incidentally, the castle entrance was far closer to the burial chamber.
In short, it was possible to enter through the foothill entrance, pass through the Graveyard, break through the burial chamber, and then enter the castle.
The assault on Mount Grief was a joint operation between the Frontier Army and the Volunteer Soldier Corps.
Commander Jin Mogis of the Frontier Army had sent a hundred of his best men under the command of General Thomas Margo. In addition to this, Haruhiro, Kuzaku, Ranta, Yume, Merry, Setora, and twentythree members of Orion led by Shinohara were also participating.
The Volunteer Soldier Corps had sent Team Renji, the Tokkis, the Wild Angels, Iron Knuckle, and the Berserkers for a total of seventy people.
From this, a detached force of twenty-six members—ten from Orion, including Shinohara and Kimura; Haruhiro’s party; Team Renji; and the Tokkis—would attempt to breach the castle by traversing the Graveyard.
That left the main force. Their role was to posture as if they were going to take Mount Grief in a frontal assault, forcing the enemy to maintain a combat-ready footing while they awaited a signal from the detached force.
It was no exaggeration to say that the success or failure of this operation would hinge on the detached force.
In fact, the main force wouldn’t attack at all until the detached force made it into the castle and sent the signal. If they couldn’t get results, the operation wouldn’t even begin.
“Grah...!” Kuzaku went for a big swing with his large katana and slashed through a humanoid pawn.
“Na ha ha...! I’ll show you how I deal with pawns!” The masked dread knight let out an ominous laugh, before springing at a pawn like he was some kind of monstrous bird. His katana flashed evilly as he shouted “Pawwwn!” and cut its head off. “That’s how!”
“Lame...” Kuzaku muttered, as he continued swinging his large katana around as easily as a stick. With each nimble swing of the blade, another pawn was cut down.
“Hoo-hah!” Yume, incredibly, was kicking them. She used a forward kick to push one of the pawns that approached her backwards and immediately hit it with a roundhouse kick to send it flying. It seemed like that would be that, but then she sprang into the air, hollering, “Cha-cha-cha-chai!” as she fired off three more kicks, each faster than his eyes could follow, and sent it flying again. Then, on top of all that—“Hah-nyah!”—she struck it with the palm of her hand, knocking it back through the air once more.
“What are you, some kinda kung-fu master?!” said the masked dread knight, who had been cutting down pawns left and right while shouting “pawn, pawn, pa-pawwn, pawn,” like it was some kind of sound effect.
Why was he having so much fun with this? Well, maybe it was because he was Ranta? That was just how Ranta was.
Merry and Setora stood back-to-back, using their battle staff and spear to fend off any pawns that approached them.
Haruhiro wasn’t sure what it was, but because Ranta and Yume moved around too much, he felt relaxed when he saw Merry and Setora holding one location. It wasn’t soothing, exactly. That’d be overstating the effect. This was still a battle, after all. Yeah. He didn’t have time to be soothed.
Haruhiro got behind a pawn that had been closing in on Merry and grabbed it. He held its head with his left hand, while using the dagger in his right to quickly tear its throat open.
The word “pawn” was apparently derived from a word for “foot soldier.” These pawns in the Graveyard had their entire bodies wrapped in something that resembled whitish bandages. For that reason, Orion also referred to them as mummy men or just mummies. But instead of being made of cloth or gauze, the bandages felt more earthy, somewhere between clay and earthenware. If you cut off or broke their heads, then they fell apart like the one Haruhiro had just killed. The pawns were apparently made of earth and bones.
“Thanks, Haru!” Merry shouted, which made Haruhiro feel a bit relieved, because recently she had been way too quiet. Now if only Setora would cheer up a bit too, he thought. He didn’t want the two of them to force themselves to act cheerful, though. He knew they would still do what was needed. He trusted them to. If there was any way they came up short, then it would be up to Haruhiro to cover for them. He was their leader, after all.
This part of the Graveyard was called the entrance hall, a large room immediately inside the foothill entrance. It was Orion that had named it that, of course. But was that really what it was? It seemed to be built more like a theater.
Soon after entering the entrance hall, the members of Orion had scattered more than a dozen rods that emitted a powerful light, so the room was just bright enough for them to see. The light didn’t reach the ceiling, though, and it wasn’t clear if the walls and floor were cobblestone or stone slabs. It was lower in the middle and higher out toward the edges, with the low center not looking entirely unlike a stage. Whatever the case, Haruhiro and the others were working their way toward that stage-like spot.
The pawns were weak, but they rushed in one after another. It was a real slog, trying to make any progress at all. It didn’t feel like the group was likely to take casualties, but if Haruhiro and his party were on their own, they might have been pushed out.
“Let’s take it slow and steady!” Shinohara used a shield with a dull silver luster to bash a pawn. His sword was short, but broad, with the end of the blade cut off diagonally. The shape was kind of unusual, but it was awfully sharp. It cut through the pawns like they were made out of paper.
Orion was a famous clan. Shinohara wasn’t the only skilled fighter among them. There was one guy called Matsuyagi, or something like that, who used a mace in each hand, fighting like a madman. It was a sight to behold. They also had two mages, a hunter, and a thief too. It was easy to see they were well balanced.
“Mwe heh!”
Though, that priest wearing glasses was doing a whole lot to throw off that sense of balance just by existing.
“Mwa hah!”
Kimura had to constantly be weird. Now, given Haruhiro was making Merry fight, he wasn’t in any position to say that Kimura should be staying out of the action. But still, Kimura didn’t need to be quite so proactive about moving up to the front line. Orion had plenty of other fighters, after all.
His fighting style was bizarre too. He protected himself with a small, buckler-style shield as he got up close and personal with the pawns, swinging his mace. For whatever reason, he refused to use the traditional sideways, diagonal, or downward swings that Haruhiro would have expected. He always swung from below. Every strike was an upward swing. His target was always the same.
“Kehfwah!” The crotch.
Kimura swung his mace upward into a pawn’s crotch.
“Swa hah!”
When he maced pawns in the crotch, they didn’t so much fall apart as burst. Kimura liked the feel of it.
“Nufoh! Tovahhh!”
Wow, those were some weird noises he was making.
It sounded almost like Kimura was receiving sexual gratification from smashing the pawns. What kind of priest acted like that? Then again, having lost his memories of his time as a volunteer soldier, perhaps Haruhiro’s vague conception of what a priest was supposed to be like was off the mark? He couldn’t deny the possibility.
“Now for my ultimate skill!”
Another man wearing the same priest uniform as Kimura ran to the front and did a forward flip.
“Somersault Bomb!”
Using the momentum as he swung down, holding his warhammer with two hands, he smashed a pawn, and the floor beneath it. Both were utterly pulverized.
“Oooorahhh...!”
He then twisted around, lifting his weapon and swinging it down again all in one quick motion. It was terrifyingly fast.
That was Tada. Tada-san. He was nuts. There was a roaring explosion every time Tada-san struck down a pawn. Seriously, what was with that noise? This went beyond questions of whether or not it was appropriate for a priest to be fighting like that or not. What was even going on there?
“Heeeere’s my attack!”
Next to Tada, Kikkawa was a lightweight. He zoomed around, knocking the heads off pawns. Kikkawa was loud and seemingly desperate for attention, but moved efficiently, without waste.
“Dance like a leopard!”
When it came to Tokimune, it was kind of hard to tell if he was moving efficiently or not. He was certainly light on his feet, but what was with the way he twirled his sword around every time he struck a pawn? It seemed pointless, but maybe he was doing that to keep a certain rhythm? Though, that raised the question of whether rhythm was necessary.
“And sting like a whale!”
Seeing the way he jumped into the middle of a group of pawns, slammed his shield into the ground to do a handstand on it, then spun around as he kicked the pawns away, maybe he did need to keep a certain rhythm going. Not that Haruhiro would know. Seriously. Haruhiro had no idea. But setting that aside, he was pretty sure the saying was supposed to be, “Dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”
Anyway, the Tokkis were all crazy, but the craziest of them all wasn’t Tokimune or Tada.
No, it was her.
She was supposed to be a mage, but she used swords.
Yeah, that’s right, swords.
And she dual-wielded them too.
Okay, yes, she had been carrying them all this time. Two swords, hanging at her hips. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that she used them. But the fact of the matter was, when Haruhiro saw her fight, it was gobsmacking. Just an incredible sight to behold.
If anyone was dancing like anything here, it was her, not Tokimune.
Mimori’s skill with a sword was...what’s the word? Magnificent. Her strokes were in no way slow, but they seemed unhurried. She went for a big swing and cut a pawn in half. Once she finished swinging her right blade, she didn’t pull back. She kept going with a big swing of her left. You would think that a swing like that would throw her off balance, but Mimori had a strong core. Even if her whole body was at an angle or she swung around with considerable force, her core never shook. Mimori never stopped, never slowed down. She just constantly flowed from one swing to the next. There was nothing artificial about it. Like she just kept swinging, and this was how it turned out. It felt like she had reached a certain state of perfection. That might be exaggerating, but it really did feel like Mimori’s swordplay was operating on another level. It was truly sublime.
And yet despite all of that skill with her swords, Mimori was still a mage, and she fought as only a mage could.
As she mowed down pawns, she was drawing elemental sigils with the tips of her blades and chanting a spell.
“Delm, hel, en, balk, zel, arve!”
Haruhiro had hallucinated explosive noises when he saw Tada pulverize a pawn with his warhammer, but, no, those hadn’t been real. This ear-shattering noise that reverberated through his stomach, this was what an explosion sounded like.
That was because five, six meters in front of where Mimori was pointing her sword, there had been an actual explosion.
The Arve magic spell Blast probably only blew away three, four, maybe five pawns at most. But it had a far greater effect than that.
“You see that...!”
Anna-san was being carefully protected by Kikkawa and Tokimune. Nothing was going to be able to hurt her. Now, as for Anna-san herself, she wasn’t really doing anything. Well, no, it’s not like she was doing absolutely nothing. She was puffing up her chest.
“That show you what we can do, yeah! Take that! Bet you scared now, you worthless losers...!”
She sounded full of herself. Full of herself and more than happy to show it.
The priests were there to act when something happened to their comrades. So, in a way, Anna-san might have been doing the right thing. The Tokkis had their own way of handling things. They didn’t seem to have lost anyone, so Haruhiro had to assume it was working for them. He even found Anna-san’s attitude almost refreshing. Because she was a priest, she was standing by until she was needed.
But just because she had to stay on the sidelines, that didn’t mean she had to be apologetic about it. It was okay for her to be loud and proud.
The real surprise, though, was Team Renji.
The fighter with a buzz-cut who had a lantern hanging from his belt, Ron, and the teeny tiny priest, Chibi-chan, were defending the mage with black-rimmed glasses, Adachi, as they steadily took down pawns. Renji, meanwhile, was going all-out, and looked like he might take down all of the enemies himself, though realistically that wasn’t possible. The way that he kept a constant distance from his comrades and nonchalantly slashed any pawn that got too close to them seemed so easy, it was like he was taking a break.
No, he was fighting hard, and achieving more than most people, but didn’t it look like he was practically sleepwalking? That was how trivial he was able to make it look. That might have been the most amazing thing about him. It kind of threw Haruhiro off kilter.
“Huh...?!”
Suddenly, Haruhiro sensed something. What was that something? In the moment, he could only describe it as “something,” but he soon found out what it was.
It came flying in. Toward the stage from the left—no, ahead and to the left, huh?
“Kuzaku!” Setora shouted a warning before Haruhiro could.
“Whuh?!” Reacting instantly, Kuzaku hit the incoming object with his large katana, changing its course. It was pretty big. It managed to throw him off balance, even if only a little, so it must have been pretty heavy. What the hell was that?

Chapter end