17 3

Oh, to be young again!” Tokimune’s smile was so refreshing it seemed out of place. No, more like it didn’t even belong in this world. His teeth were way too white. How did he get them so pearly?
“Hmm, hold on?” Kikkawa interjected. “Haruhiro, you don’t have a girlfriend? Like, in your party? A little love in the workplace? I mean, that’s a thing that happens, right?”
“...What about you?”
“Oh, us? We’re like a family, y’know? No, wait, we are a family! Like, Tokimune’s the daddy, Anna-san’s the mommy, Tadacchi’s the big brother, Mimori-san’s the big sister, I’m the youngest child, and Inui’s our pet dog or something.”
“Heh...”
The look on Inui’s face could only be described as evil. At first it seemed like he was offended at being likened to a pet dog, but apparently not.
“Woof...” he barked. It was in a quiet voice, though.
“So? Do you? Do you?” Kikkawa ignored it and kept going. Actually, it wasn’t just Kikkawa, nobody was going to comment on Inui’s woof. It felt like he was already lower than a pet dog.
“What’s the lowdown on the love situation in your party? How about it? Is there at least a little something going on? I’m leaning toward yes. There’s gotta be, right? Like, with Merry, maybe?” “Huh...?” Haruhiro glanced in Merry’s direction despite himself.
Merry, perhaps by sheer coincidence, was looking at Haruhiro too.
The result was that they ended up staring into each other’s eyes.
Then, instantly, they both looked down at the ground.
“Oh, what’s this now?” Kikkawa wrapped an arm around Haruhiro’s shoulder. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What? What was that? You’ve got me thinking maybe, just maybe... Haruhiro, are you and Merry, like, going steady?”
“N-No. W-We’re not. N-Nothing like that...”
“Come on, man.”
Ranta was crouching sullenly. He pushed his mask up and looked up at Haruhiro. What was that suspicious look for? Who did he think he was?
“I know all sorts of stuff happened and I left the party. But up until that point, nothing like that had happened, okay? Once I was gone? Well, who knows? You could have forgotten all about it.”
“I forgot it...?”
“Merry’d remember, wouldn’t she? Even if you forgot, she’d still remember, assuming she was involved. That’s entirely possible, right?”
“Ohh!” Kuzaku slammed his fists together.
This isn’t an “Ohh!” moment, man.
“Mmmngh...?” Yume poked Merry in the shoulder. “Merry-chan, huh? Were you goin’ out with Haru-kun?”
“Huh? G-Go...? Going...o-out? Huh? No! We...!”
Merry? Merry-san? You’re suddenly turning into a nervous wreck? What? What happened?
Hold on, maybe, just maybe...did something happen?
Naturally, Haruhiro had no idea. He couldn’t possibly. No matter what had happened between them, Haruhiro didn’t remember it. Suppose, for a moment, something did happen. Haruhiro would have forgotten it. But Merry would still remember. Well, Haruhiro couldn’t help that he’d forgotten. He’d been forced to. That being the case, couldn’t she just tell him about it casually?
Yeah, no, it probably wasn’t that easy.
He had a feeling it would be pretty hard. Just a vague one, though. Something happened...?
But was it okay for Haruhiro to ask Merry about it himself? If there wasn’t actually anything between them, then asking on the assumption that there might have been was embarrassing. Even if there had been something, asking her about it when he himself didn’t remember seemed kind of—no, really insensitive. He felt like it would be a pretty awful thing to do.
“People...!”
Suddenly, Kimura yelled at them.
“Do you think you could leave it at that? This is the Graveyard!”
He slammed his mace against the ground. Wait, he could use that thing for something other than swinging up into his enemies’ crotches? Yeah, of course he could.
But it looked like Kimura hadn’t swung his mace out of irritation or anger.
“The hell is that?!” Ranta’s eyes bugged out. When Kimura’s mace struck the ground at his feet, they didn’t hear the sound of the stone floor shattering. Why not?
Because what Kimura had struck was not the floor.
What was that thing? Pitch black, like a shadow, but different. That was no shadow. It was reasonably thin, but still had some thickness to it. Maybe ten centimeters wide, and who knew how long. Fifty, maybe sixty centimeters? It was a very thin, pitch black snake. When that enemy had slithered up to Kimura, he’d immediately struck a powerful blow against it with his mace.
“Is that what they call a shadow?” Setora said quietly to herself. It had been in the explanation before they’d entered the Graveyard. There were a variety of enemies here that would try to drive out invaders. Shadows were one of them. They moved along the floor and walls and had very little offensive power but would wrap around an intruder to hold them in place. Sometimes they acted in groups.
“The Graveyard! Guh-hoh...!” Kimura started laughing. “Wo hoh!
Nuh buh huh! This is the Graveyard, yes! Weh hah weh hah weh ha! I’d ask you to be more alert! Wa heeeah!”
He laughed like an idiot while slamming the walls and floor with his mace. Shadows. It was shadows. Shadows all over. But there was no reason to laugh like that, was there? For now, at least, Kimura seemed a whole lot scarier than any shadow.
“It’s snake-slaying time!” Tokimune swung his longsword with a flourish and slashed a shadow on the floor.
“Hmph...” Tada spun around once, using the momentum to smash the wall. “I’ll demolish them...!”
“Whoa...!” Kuzaku said in awe before noticing a shadow wrapping itself around his ankle, and shaking it off with a cry of surprise.
“Don’t let your guard down, idiot!” Ranta shouted as he slashed that shadow with his katana.
“There’re tons of ’em, huh!”
Yume used a large knife to cut up the shadows. Setora stabbed one after another with her spear. Merry crushed a few more with her battle staff.
Haruhiro couldn’t just stand still either. He went to draw his dagger, but someone nearby moved forward before he could. Who? Mimorin.
Mimorin pulled out two longswords, slashing three or four shadows with such vigor that they went flying.
“It’s okay.”
“...How so?”
“I’ll protect you, Haruhiro.”
I’m grateful, but I can protect myself, you know...?
Actually, am I even grateful? Maybe not?
Before he had the chance to express an opinion, Mimorin rapidly took out the shadows one after another.
“Haruhiro!”
“...Yes?” “I love you!”
Is that a fact?
Well, be that as it may, Haruhiro would just do what he ought to be doing. Or so he thought, but his body wouldn’t listen. He felt weak and couldn’t think straight.
What do I do?


 
5. How About This Kind of Rhapsody?
There was nothing to do. It was time to change gears. That was his only option. Being able to change gears on the fly was important and, well, that was one of Haruhiro’s strong points. After all, he wasn’t the type to get worked up and run ahead with an “Aw yeah, let’s do this thing!” attitude. Mimorin occasionally moved a bit closer to him, so it was really tough not letting his thoughts shift back to her, but it looked like they’d reached the dining hall, so he wanted to change gears. Time to change gears, he told himself.
“You call this the dining hall, huh?” Ranta snorted.
A dining hall. It was true that this place didn’t look entirely unlike one.
The hall was maybe ten meters across, and continued for a good distance, but the light didn’t reach the far end, so it wasn’t clear exactly how long it was. The ceiling was awfully high too.
What was most distinctive about this room was the stone platform, measuring seven or eight meters across, that dominated the center, as well as the countless smaller stands surrounding it. The arrangement suggested the big platform was a table, and the things around it were chairs.
Yeah, those were definitely chairs. Or stools. Nobody could say otherwise.
Each of the stools had a pawn seated on top of it, after all.
Every last one. No exceptions.
The pawns were sitting on stone stools around a massive stone table, having a meeting over lunch.
That was how it looked, hence why this was the dining hall.
Fair enough. The name made sense.
“These pawns don’t move, though,” Haruhiro noted. Then he asked Kimura, “Or do they attack if you get close?”
“Bu-foh!” Kimura pressed on the frames of his glasses, making the lenses flash. Was he skillfully adjusting the angle so they caught the light of his lantern just right? If so, it was an incredible talent. And also incredibly pointless. What a waste of effort.
“I wonder,” Kimura mused. “I have witnessed this scene many times, but never with so many pawns in attendance before. There were cases where the room seemed oddly vacant, and we thought we could just pass through until, suddenly, hidden enemies leapt out. It turned into a chaotic melee, and we were in real trouble.”
“...Heh. You’re useless!” Ranta’s insult made Kimura burst out laughing for some reason.
“Gweah-hah...! Vwah-guffaw-heh-fah-foh...! Gehen-gehen! Bu-hen! Ngheh-hah?! Ogwa-foh?!”
Now he was coughing. He’d laughed too hard. And what a bizarre laugh too. He’d had it coming to him.
“Kimu-chin, you okay...?”
When Yume rubbed Kimura’s back, Ranta snapped instantly.
“Heyyyy! Yume, you don’t have to give a shit about that guy!”
“Aw, don’t be like that.”
“Nu-buh...” Kimura smirked. It goes without saying, his glasses flashed too. “Are you jelling? You are jelling, aren’t you?”
“A-Am not! Besides, what’s ‘jelling’ anyway...?”
“It derives from jealousy. In other words, I was asking if you’re jealous.”
“...I don’t think you needed to invent a new word for that.” Haruhiro poked fun at something he probably shouldn’t have bothered to, then felt defeated.
“So? So?” Kikkawa ignored Haruhiro’s comedic jab to keep the conversation going, which Haruhiro felt a little grateful for, but also kinda left out. “What’re we gonna do? What’re we gonna do? Go? We gonna go? Is that what we’re doing? Well? If I get to decide, can we go already? Huh?”
“Kikkawa, the one thing we’re absolutely not gonna do is let you decide on the spur of the moment, like you’re on a date with a girl!”
“Oh, come on, Ranta. That was mean. Aren’t we buds? We’re pals, right?”
“We’re not pals. We just enlisted at the same time. That’s the only connection we have.”
“Hey, if we joined up at the same time, that practically makes us friends. Birds of a feather and all that, right?”
“I can’t trust a guy who’s so willing to call anyone and everyone his friend.”
“Huh? Why not? Like, in the end, all mankind are friends, right? Nah, not that I think that either!”
“Even you don’t think that?!”
Haruhiro sighed. Or rather, by exhaling, he was trying to expel the frustration from his body.
Ughhhhhhhhh.
These. People.
They just won’t shut up.
Ranta was trouble enough on his own, but add in the Tokkis, especially Kikkawa, and then Kimura on top of that, and things got even more chaotic.
“Haruhiro,” Mimorin called his name.
He looked over to see her flexing her arm in an attempt to encourage him.
“Live.”
“...Uh, I am living, though?”
“That not what she means! You idiot! Nincompoop!” Anna-san insulted him, but Haruhiro felt nothing. Maybe verbal abuse just felt normal now? Was that okay? He felt like he probably shouldn’t be getting used to it.
“Heh...”
At some point, the suspicious eyepatch-wearing guy with the ponytail had crept up behind Setora.
“You—”
That was all Inui managed to say before the tip of her spear was at his throat. Nice work. Setora had apparently sensed his presence.
“What?”
“Heh... You...”
What was with the way Inui cleared his throat? Was it a laugh? It was creepy, that was for sure.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“What?”
“I am inquiring as to whether you have a boyfriend...”
“...Are you right in the head?”
“I am sane. My head is aligned incredibly well...”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“So...do you have a boyfriend?”
Hold on, could it be? Was Inui...hitting on her?
Why? Why do that here, of all places? With this timing? They were sort of in the middle of an operation here. No, not just sort of. They were deep in the Graveyard on a mission to clear it.
“Hold on, Inui! Dude!” Ranta went after him. “You were chasing Shihoru’s ass pretty hard before, and she rejected you! Now you’re gunning for Setora?! Show some restraint, man!”
“That woman, huh? Heh...!” Inui’s right eye, the one not covered by the eyepatch, opened wide. That felt ominous in all sorts of ways. “However! That woman is not here! Therefore! My heart is drawn to the woman I see before me! Here and now!”
“You’re way too true to your desires...” Kuzaku seemed exasperated, or maybe outright shocked. The question of what had happened to Shihoru was a heavy weight on the party at the moment, so it was easy to understand how he felt. Inui, on the other hand, was an enigma.
“I see how it is.” Without a single change from her normal expression, Setora mercilessly thrust her spear toward Inui’s eye.
“Ngh...?!” Inui instinctively jumped back. He narrowly managed to dodge but not completely. Setora’s spear gouged him deeply from right cheek to right ear.
Setora readied her spear. Her expression was blank, of course, but she was ready to fight. The only date he’d be getting out of her was one with the sharp end of her spear.

 

“I’m not interested.”
“...Heh.” Inui spread his arms wide, like a bird of prey intimidating an opponent, or perhaps someone welcoming a guest. “I wouldn’t have it any other way!”
Setora paused, incredulous. “Do you not understand words?”
“I simply! Have high standards! That is all!”
“Ha ha ha!” Tokimune laughed jovially and closed one eye. “Don’t take off that eyepatch, Inui. It’s not time yet!”
“Heh...!” Inui touched his eyepatch. Did being told not to just make him want to do it more? It was possible Tokimune had been egging him on too.
I don’t care, I just want him to stop.
What was the eyepatch sealing inside Inui? Haruhiro didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. But nothing good would happen when he removed it. That much was certain.
“Enough.” Tada said something Haruhiro could agree with for once.
Yeah. I’ve had my fill of this crazy comedic nonsense. Well, no, actually I never wanted any in the first place.
By the way, what are you doing there, Tada-san?
“Huh?”
When did you get on top of the table?
“I’m sick of this.” With those words, Tada leisurely walked along the table, the warhammer resting on his shoulder.
“Whoa... Hold... Huh? Hold o—” Haruhiro tried to stop Tada. He felt he needed to, and he wanted to, but how? The guy didn’t listen. Resort to force? Go after him? Chase him down and stop him? That would require Haruhiro getting up on the table too. Was that a good idea?
It didn’t matter if it was good or bad. It might already have been too late.
The pawns sitting on the stone stools began stirring one after another. It looked like they were trying to stand up.
“Hah...!” Tada grinned, then demolished the rising pawns with his warhammer.
Smash!
Kersmash!
Smash!
Kersmash!
Smash!
Kersmash!
Ker-sma-sma-smash!
It was funny watching the way the pawns got wrecked.
Funny? Was it funny? Hard to say. Was it okay to be amused by it?
“That’s a sweet rhythm and beat!” Tokimune said nonsensically as he sprang up onto the table. “Everyone, follow Tada! Let’s play the best music ever!”
He bashed one pawn with his shield as it tried to get on the table, then, spinning his sword around, he slashed another.
“I’m not feeling musical...” Haruhiro muttered as he climbed onto the table. Ranta and Kuzaku were already following the Tokkis, so he had no choice but to go with the flow. “Yume, stay by Merry and Setora!”
“Gotcha!”
“Okay!”
“Understood.”
He didn’t have to worry about the three of them. They’d probably be fine.
Tada pressed forward, smash, smash, kersmashing pawns as he went. Tokimune, Kikkawa, Inui, Ranta, and Kuzaku all chased after him like it was some sort of race. No, they were blatantly racing against one another.
Yume, Merry, and Setora were joined by Mimorin and Anna-san. Kimura, the clever bastard, had quietly joined that group too. He wasn’t swinging his mace, just making his glasses flash. What was he up to? Because it was Kimura, Haruhiro was suspicious, but that weirdo might just have been watching to see what happened. If so, Haruhiro wished he wouldn’t do things that seemed misleading.
That said, while Haruhiro had drawn his dagger, he wasn’t fighting. The pawns were numerous but disorganized. Each of them just rose from their stone stools and tried to attack the group on their own, with no attempt at coordination, so they weren’t particularly threatening. Tada and the others at the front of the pack slowed down, allowing the rest to catch up, so Haruhiro carefully chose a position that allowed him to survey the situation.
The pawns were pressing in from the front as well as the sides, and while they weren’t slowing Tada and the others down, the group was making less progress than before. But it was just a matter of time. Tada and the rest would break through the mob eventually. If the pawns were their only enemies, that is.
“Tada-san, above you...!” Haruhiro called out a warning, and Tada finished smacking down a pawn with his warhammer, then jumped backwards.
Something was raining down. Fist-sized bullets. Haruhiro couldn’t see the enemies, but they must have been stuck to the ceiling. It had to be haunts, firing straight down at Tada and the others. The pawns pressing in at the front were being torn to shreds, but these things didn’t care about their allies being caught in the crossfire.
“Everyone, off the table!” Tokimune ordered, then jumped to a stone stool on the left.
“Wa-hey!” Kikkawa followed Tokimune.
“Heh!” As did Inui.
“The hell?!”
“Whoa!”
Ranta and Kuzaku jumped down to the right side of the table.
Yume, Setora, and Merry went right. Mimorin, Anna-san, and Kimura went left. Haruhiro followed his comrades.
Tada stayed on the table, whacking pawns and bullets with his warhammer, but who knew how long he could keep it up?
“Tada...!” Even when Tokimune called his name, Tada didn’t get down. Damn was he stubborn. That said, the haunts’ bullets were still flying at Tokimune’s left-side group and Haruhiro’s right-side group. The pawns were still rushing at them from the front as well, so their situation was largely unchanged.
“Delm, hel, en, balk, zel, arve...!” Mimorin cast Blast. There was a roaring explosion right above Tada. She must have been targeting the haunts that were presumably there.
“Whoa?!” Tada rolled off the table to escape the falling dust. That and the rubble. Large amounts of both rained down in place of the bullets. Mimorin’s Blast had taken the ceiling down with the haunts, causing a collapse.
“Sorry...!” Mimorin apologized.
“Never mind, yeah!” Anna-san was quick to encourage her, but Tada couldn’t just let it slide so easily.
“Don’t use magic! You’ll bury us alive!”
“Mew! Can’t see ’em, but...!” Yume readied her bow. She nocked an arrow, then fired. Repeatedly.
Was that working? Was she hitting the haunts on the ceiling? The bullets were still coming, so, honestly, it was impossible to tell. But it was better to do something than nothing, right?
“There’s still a shitload of pawns!” Ranta slashed an incoming pawn with his katana, then kicked Kuzaku in the butt. “Do your job and tank, damn it!”
“I am!”
Kuzaku was putting up a valiant fight. He didn’t just cut the pawns down with his large katana, he also kicked them over, pushed them down with his left arm, and tackled them using his shoulder.
“Ngh...!” Merry struck down a bullet with her battle staff.
“Hi-yah!” With a single thrust of her spear, Setora took down a pawn that had been about to spring at the priest.
Haruhiro also dodged the falling bullets, slitting pawns’ throats or kicking them to the ground for Ranta, Merry, or Setora to finish, but there seemed to be no end.
“Kimura-san!”
“What we need here...!” Kimura shouted from the other side of the table. “Is for everyone to rouse themselves and strive to fight ever harder!”
“...That’s all you’ve got?” Haruhiro said after a pause, not even able to muster the energy for a comedic retort. Exert their utmost abilities. Sure, the words sounded nice, but basically all he was saying was, “Let’s give it our best shot, okay?” How utterly useless. Haruhiro had been a fool to expect anything from him.
“Tokimune!” Tada shouted. “If this is how it’s gonna be, let’s do the thing!”
“Oh, yeah, the thing!” Tokimune’s laughter felt refreshing even at a time like this. “Ha ha! Which thing?!”
It was impressive he could laugh like that when he apparently had no idea what Tada was talking about.
“This one!” Tada leapt back up onto the table, and wound up with his warhammer. No, he didn’t put it above him, so it wasn’t really “up,” was it? Tada spread his legs wide, lowering his hips, and twisted his body with the head of his warhammer on the other side of his right foot. Was he getting ready for a big swing? That’s how it looked.
“Oh, I get it now!” Having clued in, Tokimune danced—not like a butterfly, but like a panther. He hopped up on the table, then leaped again.
Incredibly, he landed on the head of Tada’s warhammer.
“Whuh...?”
The head wasn’t all that large, so it was impressive he could land on it so precisely. But Haruhiro was only awed for a brief moment.
“Oooorahhhhh!” Tada swung the warhammer upward. What do you think happened next?
Tokimune was on the head of it. That naturally—as if there was anything natural about this nonsense—meant that he was launched into the air.
“Whuhhhhhhh...?!” Ranta shouted. The exclamation might not have been called for, but, yeah, fair enough, it was kind of surprising.
Haruhiro was shocked himself.
“What’re they doing...?”
“Hah!”
Tokimune hadn’t just been launched into the air, he’d also jumped off. Once he reached a high enough point, he swung his sword like mad. Chunks of haunt remains rained down, so he’d apparently taken out a number of them. A moment later, Tokimune came back down, rolling and springing back up to dull the impact as he landed.
“Come here!”
Tada was already waiting. They were going to do that again? Apparently, yes.
“All right!”
Tokimune jumped toward the warhammer. Tada launched him. Tokimune cut up the haunts on the ceiling, and fell together with their remains.
“Come here, Tokimune!”
“Yeah!”
Tokimune ran toward Tada, who was ready and waiting, and jumped. Tada’s warhammer launched him. He cut up haunts on the ceiling, then fell. Tokimune rolled, then got back up again.
“This is ridiculous,” Haruhiro said in disbelief.
“Come here!”
Tada was already waiting. Tokimune looked like he was about to jump, then stopped.
“What’s wrong?!” Tada shouted angrily. Tokimune shook his head with a smile.
“Sorry, Tada. This takes more out of me than you’d think.”
“What?! Fine, then! Haruhiro!”
“Huh?!”
“Come here!”
“Me?!”
“You!”
“Whyyy?!”
“Hurry up!”
“Whaaaa...”
Why did it have to be Haruhiro? Ranta was light and would probably enjoy that kind of acrobatic stunt. He seemed like a better fit.
“Dammit! They just keep coming!”
He was also fighting his hardest against the pawns right now. Okay, Ranta was out. But what about Kikkawa, or literally anyone else? No, it wasn’t the time to say that. Not that Haruhiro had said anything. He was going. If he had time to complain, he ought to be using it to whittle down the number of haunts on the ceiling. If there was a way he could, he had to give it a shot. Haruhiro reluctantly climbed onto the table, and jumped.
The warhammer. The head of the warhammer. He needed to land right on it. Wait, had he really needed to jump? He hadn’t, right? He felt like he could have just stepped onto it gingerly. Actually, it would probably have worked better. Too late now, though. He was about to touch down on the warhammer.
“Oooorahhhhh!”
“Ulp!”
Haruhiro was launched into the air.
He’d jumped too, though. He was pretty sure he got the timing right.
It was surprisingly easy.
Ohh.
So this is how it feels?
It’s pretty fast, huh?
He was hurtling toward the ceiling. Or the haunts growing out of the ceiling, rather. The light barely reached, but he could make out vague outlines.
A bullet streaked right past him, and he idly thought, Wonder what would’ve happened if that’d hit me? He didn’t feel like he’d dodged it himself. It just happened not to hit him. By a hair’s breadth.
“Urkh...!”
Haruhiro clung to a haunt, tore into it with his dagger to carve off the head section that fired bullets, then immediately jumped to the neighboring haunt. This is crazy, a voice in the corner of his mind told him. He didn’t have time to think. If he made decisions on every little thing, saying, I’ll do this first, then that next, his mind could never keep up. Was this really okay? Reflection could wait. If he didn’t want to have to repeat the whole process, he needed to take down as many haunts as he could during this one launch.
“Ahhh!”

Chapter end