17 4

He’d been able to keep count up until the ninth. He probably got about twelve of them. But this was it. He wasn’t going to get a thirteenth. Too bad. There was no haunt close enough for him to jump to.
“Uh...”
Which also meant he had nowhere to go but down.
Landing. He needed to prepare for landing.
He had to do that thing Tokimune had done. Land with both feet, but then not absorb the impact with them. Roll and distribute the shock. Spread it out.
Is that something I can just pull off on the fly...?
He was going to have to. But even if he failed and got badly hurt, there were priests. It was easier to think that way. Or was it? Really? No, maybe not.
“Whoa?!”
Well, he gave it his best shot, and somehow it worked out. Not thud, then spin, but both at the same time. He didn’t know how to describe it, but his body moved really well. His legs didn’t even feel numb. Haruhiro was standing up so straight he could hardly believe he’d just fallen from that height.
“Good, come here!”
Haruhiro looked and saw Tada ready to go again. He really didn’t want to do it. Not ever again.
“Okuh!” For that reason, his reply was strangely slurred. Was he doing this? Did he have to? There were still bullets coming down, which meant there were still haunts, so someone had to deal with them. Maybe one of the others could. Nothing said it had to be him, but it was dangerous, and there was something of a trick to it. Haruhiro had just happened to figure out what it was. He didn’t want to go again, but he’d probably manage a second round well enough.
Haruhiro didn’t jump on Tada’s warhammer. That part had been utterly pointless. He gently got on.
“Go ahead!”
“Oooorahhhhh!”
Haruhiro was launched into the air. How many more times did he have to do this? He wanted to minimize the number. To that end, he’d take out as many haunts as he could on each trip. I’m pretty optimistic, huh? Haruhiro thought to himself as he clung to a haunt and swung his dagger. Then, immediately, he moved on to the next.
There’s no choice. I’ve gotta do it. I’ll do it. I’m doing it, but still...


 
6. What the Warriors Left Behind
Having reached the end of the dining hall, sad to say, the group had to stop and take a rest.
Mimorin sat and looked at Haruhiro imploringly, with her legs folded under her and her knees sticking forward.
“She telling you to use those knees as pillow, yeah! You pig shit!” Anna-san shouted at him, but, no, he was going to have to pass.
Haruhiro sat with his back against the wall, steadying his breath.
“...You okay?”
If he had Kuzaku worrying about him, it was already over. Okay, maybe he wasn’t completely finished. Rather, when Kuzaku, who gave off incredible little-brother energy, started worrying about him, he couldn’t help but be uneasy.
“It’s fine. I’m better now,” Haruhiro said, rising.
“Hah! Like hell you are!” Ranta wasted no time being toxic. “If you’re exhausted after that, we’re never gonna make it through this. The only thing you’ve ever been good at is putting up a strong front. If you aren’t fine, you still better pretend, you moron.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Don’t just brush me off!”
“What am I supposed to do...?”
What a pain in the ass. I wish he’d get lost. I don’t want the guy completely eliminated, but it’d be nice if he went far, far away every once in a while.
“Ranta’s always sayin’ heartful things like that...” Yume crossed her arms and sighed. “It never, ever stops, y’know?”
“People don’t change that easily,” Kuzaku said with a chuckle. “I mean, it just shows you, Ranta-kun’s never grown.”
“The hell, man?! Don’t get full of yourself just because you’re a little taller than me, you shithead!”
“Nah, I know I say this every time, but it’s not ‘a little.’ I’m a lot taller than you.”
“You still haven’t learned not to brag about your height?!”
“It’s a boney feed fact, y’know,” Yume interjected, making Ranta even madder.
“You mean bona fide! Oh, and it’s hurtful, not heartful! You made the same mistake a long time ago, just saying! You’re the one who hasn’t grown!”
“Yume has grown too!”
“Where?!”
“Yume’s not gonna say exactly where, but here and there!”
“That’s pretty vague! Wait, here and there...”
Ranta shifted his mask aside, and looked Yume up and down. Repeatedly.
“W-Well...maybe you have...? There are some places I guess I can’t for sure say you haven’t. I dunno, it’s not impossible...” “See?” Yume thrust her chest out with pride.
“Where are you staring?” Merry muttered with a scowl.
“O-Oh, fuck off!” Ranta’s face was bright red. He hurriedly put his mask back on. “I can look where I want! I wasn’t trying to see anything she’s hiding! You’ve got nothing to charge me with!”
“Whoa, look at him try to defend it...”
“Shut up, Kuzaku! Get on your knees! I’ll kill you!”
“Tell me...” Setora pressed the tip of her spear directly against Inui’s throat. “Do I need to stab you before you’ll stop that?”
“Heh!” Inui opened his uncovered right eye wide before grasping the spear’s tip with his bare hands.
“Do it, if you can! Do it! I want it!”
Setora hesitated. “May I really?” She seemed perplexed for once.
“Sure, why not?” Tokimune flashed his pearly whites.
Wait, it’s okay?
“Yeah, do it.” Tada seemed fed-up. He might just not have cared anymore.
“Whew, that’s intense, Inuin! Burning love! Love, love, love! You’re making me want to fall in love too!” Kikkawa was writhing.
“Inui is sexual deviant who can’t pull his skin back, yeah,” Anna-san interjected with a completely unrelated insult.
“Inui is a true...” Mimorin began to speak, then for some reason, perhaps realizing she was about to reveal some truth that no person ought to know, she covered her mouth. But what was it? Well, not like it mattered.
This is utter chaos.
“Moving on.” Kimura’s glasses flashed. He repeatedly made his lenses glare as he repeated those words. In a way, he was as bad as Ranta and even more annoying.
“Tokimune-san,” Haruhiro prompted. Tokimune nodded.
“Yeah, all right. We should get going...”
The end of the dining hall was not a dead end. There were doors. Two of them, on opposite ends of the stone wall, made of a material which they still couldn’t tell whether it was metal or stone. Each door had a depression in the shape of five overlapping circles in the center of it. Haruhiro stood in front of the door on the right, while Tokimune stood at the door on the left.
“Okay...”
They nodded to one another, and then each pressed the depression in his own door. The doors creaked in unison and started to open, seemingly folding into themselves and the wall.
“Looks like we get the chapel.”
Haruhiro’s party would continue down the right-hand route.
“And we have the kitchen, huh?” The Tokkis would go left.
Once Haruhiro’s party opened the door on the far side of the chapel, and the Tokkis opened the door in the kitchen, the synchronized unlocking would be complete, and they would meet up in the inner courtyard.
“As for me...”
What was Kimura going to do?
“We-hoh!”
With that weird laugh, he walked over to Haruhiro and the others in front of the right-hand door.
“You don’t need to come with us, you know? I mean, you probably fit in better with them. Go over there.” Ranta made a gesture like he was shooing away a fly.
Kimura abruptly laughed. “Zwe-hah!”
“Eek!”
Ranta wasn’t the only one who was frightened. Kuzaku, Merry, and
Yume all jumped a little too. Setora gave him a mystified look, as if she were thinking, Is this man insane? What is going on in that head of his?
Haruhiro felt about the same as she did.
“...Kimura-san.”
“What is it, Haruhirorororong. Rororororong. Rororong. Rong.”
“...You know what? Never mind.”
They said this guy was close to Shinohara. How much did he know about Shinohara’s intentions?
If, as Haruhiro suspected, Shinohara was connected to the master of the Forbidden Tower, was Kimura aware of that fact? If Shinohara was plotting something, was Kimura in on the conspiracy?
What about the other members of Orion? Like Hayashi, for instance.
Hayashi was Merry’s comrade. If they were going to investigate Orion, he was their way in.
But Hayashi hadn’t joined the detached force. He was one of the thirteen members of Orion assigned to the main assault force on Mount Grief. Shinohara had entrusted him with leading that group.
If Kimura was so close to Shinohara, wouldn’t it have been natural for him to lead the main force? But Shinohara had chosen to have Kimura join the detached force instead. Did that show how much he trusted him? Were they so close that Shinohara wanted him by his side at all times?
What if they were so close that you could say they were practically the same person?
Haruhiro and Renji had decided it was worthwhile to keep an eye on Shinohara. Kimura would need to be treated the same way. They would also need to consider the possibility that every member of Orion was under Shinohara’s control.
However, it was possible that Shinohara hadn’t disclosed his intentions even to Kimura, his closest friend. Taking it to the most extreme conclusion, Shinohara might be betraying his friends and comrades too. Naturally, there was no way to say anything for sure right at that moment. It might be true, it might not. No way to know.
“Well, see you later!” Tokimune said with a wink and a slight nod of his head.
“Yeah,” Ranta replied with a wave.
“No, not ‘yeah’! You cocky fly shit!” Anna-san snapped at him.
“...Harsh much?”
Though Ranta seemed hurt, Haruhiro didn’t feel all that sympathetic, but if he’d been the one to be called “fly shit” out of nowhere, he’d have started doubting the value of his existence too. Anna-san’s verbal abuse game was on point.
“Haruhiro.”
He could feel the warmth in the look Mimorin was giving him even at this distance.
Was this what they called a passionate glance?
“I love you.”
“...Uh, sure.”
What am I even supposed to do? Jeez.
Well, he didn’t have to do anything for now. They were parting ways with the Tokkis for a while...though only a while. They’d be meeting up again in no time if things went as planned, and it would be bad if they couldn’t, so dwelling on what was to come wasn’t terribly productive. For now, he had to concentrate. Focus on what was in front of him.
The corridor beyond the door was ominously quiet. He made a point of keeping his ears perked up and his eyes peeled as they proceeded. Nothing happened, though.
“Now, let me tell you about the chapel...” Kimura said. “This room, to the best of my knowledge, is always filled with the same kind of enemy. That will likely hold true this time as well...” For some reason, he wasn’t laughing anymore. Kimura didn’t feel like Kimura without the bizarre laughter, so it felt wrong, and ominous.
“What enemies are those?” Setora got straight to the point.
Kimura pushed up the frames of his glasses. The lenses didn’t flash. Yeah, this was weird. Or was it weirder the way they usually flashed like crazy?
“In Orion, we call them wraiths.”
Fortunately, they didn’t encounter any before reaching the chapel.
Unlike all the other rooms before now, the chapel was lit. Light shone down from the high ceiling, apparently coming through panes of stained glass. This place was supposedly underground, so it was probably not natural light. What kind of light was it, then? That remained unclear, but it was good that the room wasn’t dark.
Because of how bright it was, the group could clearly see that the chapel was a cylindrical room, twenty meters across, and that there were stone stairs heading upward in the center of it.
People were sitting on those stone steps.
At least, they certainly looked like people.
Six of them.
This might seem obvious, but they had a mixture of ages, physiques, and manners of dress. There was one point in common though. Each of them was dressed similarly to the party. That is to say, they looked like volunteer soldiers.
“Our other name for the wraiths is mimics.” Kimura held his mace in his right hand, his buckler ready in his left as he pressed forward. “They are animated puppets, modeled on volunteer soldiers who fell in the Graveyard...”
The wraiths on the stone steps gradually stood up.
From the look of it, three of them—a young man, a middle-aged man, and a rather large woman—must have been warriors. The brave young man wielded a greatsword, the middle-aged man an ax, and the large female warrior a longsword and large shield.
The old man with graying hair wore white robes similar to Kimura’s, so he must have been a priest. He held a heavily-ornamented priest’s staff, but it looked like it would still be nasty to get hit with it.
The man with the pointy hat and excessively long goatee was clearly a mage. He carried an off-white staff that didn’t look like it was made of wood.
But it was the tough-looking woman who already had her longsword drawn that caught Haruhiro’s attention. She had a somewhat distinctive way of holding her sword, with the back of her hand turned toward them. There were sheaths on her trunk and thighs too. Did she carry multiple knives? There were a lot of them. Based on the size of the sheaths, they might have been throwing knives. It was impossible to see her face through the iron helm she wore, but her armor was limited to a breastplate, shin guards, and just the bare minimum. He watched her footwork as she smoothly shifted her body weight around. When she had been alive—if that was the right way to say it—the woman whose form the wraith had taken must have been a skilled fighter.
“Let me be clear,” Kimura said quietly, his eyes never leaving the wraiths. “Fight with everything you have. Even if Shingen and my beloved Yokoi are mere shades of their former selves, they are still incredibly powerful.”
Did he just casually mention something huge? Er, was it huge? Hard to say. Maybe it wasn’t that big of a revelation after all.
“Delm, hel, en, trem, rig, arve.”
No time to dwell on it. At the highest point on the stone steps, the gaunt mage with the goatee began drawing elemental sigils and chanting.
“Firewall!” Merry shouted.
The flames rose. It was a literal wall of fire. The screen of flames hid the steps from view. Immediately, the wraiths moved into action. That tough-looking woman descended the stone steps. The greatsword-wielder went right, while the ax-wielder and the female warrior with the longsword and shield went left.
“Here they come!”
Haruhiro gestured for Kuzaku to go right and Yume to go left. Ranta had already taken off to the left.
In mere moments, the greatsword-wielder came out around the right side of the Firewall, and the ax-wielder and female warrior came around the left. Kuzaku took on the greatsword-wielder, Ranta engaged the ax-wielder, and Yume intercepted the female warrior.
“Kimura-san?!”
Kimura was standing before the middle of the Firewall. What was he doing?
Waiting. Was that it?
That tough woman. Kimura’s lover, that was probably what she was. Did he say her name was Yokoi? Yokoi broke through the Firewall like it was nothing, then came at Kimura swinging.
“Fwah-hah?!”
Kimura stopped Yokoi’s longsword with his buckler, then went for a swing with his mace. She might not have been the real thing, but was he really going to actively swing for his ex-lover’s crotch?
It didn’t matter, because Yokoi batted his mace away and attacked Kimura. Repeatedly. Kimura tried to fend off her attacks with his buckler, but he wasn’t quite able to manage it. He got cut all over and was heavily injured in no time.
“Weee! Yokoiii!”
He looked delighted, but she was going to slice and dice him at this rate, so something had to be done. Haruhiro was about to go help, but Setora stopped him.
“You get the mage!” she said.
Haruhiro nodded. “Take care of him!”
Leaving Setora in charge of protecting Kimura, Haruhiro circled around the Firewall. The gaunt mage with the goatee and the graying priest hadn’t come down from the steps. It was like they knew Haruhiro was coming.
“Delm, hel, en, van, arve.”
The gaunt mage triggered another spell. This one was...
“Ah?!”
Hot. In an instant, his eyes felt dry, and his throat was parched. The wind was intensely hot. But it wasn’t so strong that it blew him away. He could hold his ground. He could push through the wind, somehow, but...
“Delm, hel, en, ig, arve.” Magic again?
Fireballs came at him. Not just one. Two, three whizzed past. Haruhiro instinctively stopped resisting the hot wind. He let it blow him backwards as he twisted out of the way of the orbs of flame. The third one only narrowly missed, and it singed a good chunk of his hair, but he managed to dodge it somehow.
“Huh?!”
The next attack wasn’t magic. It was the graying priest charging in. He gave a sideways swipe of his staff, but put way too much force into it. Haruhiro crouched and got out of the way. But the staff didn’t stop. Or rather, the graying priest didn’t. He spun all the way around with the staff and went in for a second swing. If that hits me, I might be dead, Haruhiro thought as he leapt aside.
“Delm, hel, en, rig, arve.”
The gaunt mage was at it again. Casting spells at regular intervals. A pillar of flame rose up, and Haruhiro came close to running right into it. That was the Fire Pillar spell.
“Urgh...!” Haruhiro tried to back away in a hurry, but the gaunt mage cast another Flame Pillar.
“Delm, hel, en, rig, arve.”
“Hot!”
Behind him. There was a flaming pillar right behind Haruhiro. He couldn’t go forward or back. Left or right? Haruhiro went right before he could second-guess the decision. The graying priest was waiting for him there, swinging his staff down at Haruhiro.
“Ah?!”
If he tried to think through his options, he’d never make it. Haruhiro let his body move for him. The staff grazed his left ear. It didn’t hit. Haruhiro passed by the graying priest, sweeping his leg out on the way. As the priest fell, incredibly, he began to chant a light magic spell.
“O Light, may Lumiaris’s divine protection be upon you!”
The graying priest dropped to the stone floor on his back with a thud. But he still turned his left palm toward Haruhiro.
“Blame!”
“Wha—?!”
Nothing was happening. Did the spell not trigger? Was the light magic a dud? Why? No, the why wasn’t important. Haruhiro jumped on the graying priest. He held the wraith down and slit his throat with a dagger. It was like a bag of dirt. Earth poured from the wound, and it rapidly fell apart. The graying priest turned to soil. No, not just soil. There were white objects mixed in too. Bones, huh?
“Wraiths can’t use light magic?! But they can use other magic!”
“Delm, hel, en, van, arve.”
Yeah. The wraiths couldn’t gain Lumiaris’s blessings with light magic, but they could still use other magic. The gaunt mage cast a spell. The searing wind blew against Haruhiro, nearly throwing him off balance.
“Urgh...!”
“Delm, hel, en, ig, arve.”
Then came the Fireballs. One, two, three. It was nasty work. Haruhiro somersaulted backwards diagonally, avoiding the first and second, then jumped to the side to evade the third.
“This is pretty dangerous, huh?!”
“Meow!”
Yume? Yeah, that was Yume. She had jumped over the now much lower Firewall, rolled, and assumed a kneeling position. Her bow was already drawn and ready. She quickly loosed an arrow. Then another, and another.
“Marc em Parc.”
The gaunt mage was good at reacting. Magic Missile. He generated multiple beads of light, and shot down Yume’s arrows one after another.
“Marc em Parc!”
He continued firing Magic Missiles as he went on the offensive.
“Hah! Whoa! Mew!”
Yume nimbly rolled around, somersaulting and avoiding the beads.
“Shoot!”
She even found an opening to loose an arrow. Incredible.
“Marc em Parc!”
If it weren’t for the short incantation time of Magic Missile, that gaunt mage couldn’t have hoped to win a shooting match with Yume. Judging by how good he was at choosing the right spell for the right situation, he must have been quite a reliable volunteer soldier in life.
The Firewall was disappearing.
Kuzaku was struggling against the greatsword-wielder. Ranta seemed to have taken down the ax-wielder and was now facing the female warrior Yume had been fighting.
Yokoi was incredibly strong. Kimura, Setora, and Merry were all working together and still struggling.
Yume didn’t even look at Haruhiro. As if he didn’t exist. It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford to. Yume was deliberately ignoring Haruhiro.
Why?
That was obvious. So as not to get in his way.
Haruhiro’s consciousness had already sunk into the floor.
Not literally, of course. That was just the mental image he used.
Stealth.
Haruhiro climbed the stone steps.
“Marc em Parc...!”
The gaunt mage launched four beads of light. Yume moved quick as a bunny to get out of the way and loosed an arrow that shot through the gaunt mage’s hat. It instantly crumbled to dust.
“Delm, hel, en, van—”
The gaunt mage wasted no time casting another spell. But it would never be completed.
Haruhiro was already on the gaunt mage, twisting his dagger into the wraith’s back. Backstab.
“Urghk...!”
The gaunt mage’s agony lasted but a moment. He was already crumbling. It was almost instantaneous, the way the gaunt mage turned to dirt.
“Mew!”
Yume jumped once as if to say “We did it!” then turned around. They couldn’t waste time celebrating. The others were still fighting.
“How long are you gonna take, you numbskull?!” Kuzaku shouted, though it wasn’t clear if he was trying to psyche himself up or something else.
There were suddenly two, no, three Rantas. It almost appeared that way for a moment, but it was just the dread knights’ unique way of moving. Or perhaps a Ranta original.
The female warrior had completely lost track of Ranta. She stood there, doing nothing as both her arms got chopped off. The female warrior might have tried to turn, but in that instant, Ranta lopped her head off. She fell to pieces, leaving nothing more than dirt and bones.
“Ultimate technique, Dark Rending! Hot damn! That was badass! I’m the greateeest! Whooo!”
“Ngh!” Kuzaku blocked a downward swipe of the greatsword with his large katana, knocking it up and away. That left its wielder’s torso wide open. “Hahh!” Without missing a beat, Kuzaku slashed through the greatsword-wielder’s torso, cleaving the wraith in two. Just like that, it collapsed into dust.

Chapter end