17 6

Wow...” Haruhiro said despite himself.
“He’s a star!” Yume babbled some nonsense. Well, maybe it wasn’t total nonsense. Haruhiro kind of got it.
The golem craned its neck, looking up at Tokimune.
“Yah-hahhhh!” Tokimune spun around—no, he flipped over in the air above the golem.
What did that mean?
Obviously, Tokimune’s feet were facing upward and his head downward.
And he wasn’t so much above its head as its face.
Tokimune thrust out his longsword and fell.
“Finiiiiish...!” It went in.
It went in!
Tokimune’s longsword sank into the golem’s shining red eye.
Deep.
To the root.
“Whew!” Tokimune immediately withdrew his longsword, hopping down from the golem and landing on the stone floor.
He put his feet together, stood up straight, and held his shield close. His longsword was pointing at his toes as he used it to draw a semicircle, then he raised it to point straight up.
“Whoa...” Kuzaku stood there, dumbstruck. He must have been in awe.
Ranta ground his teeth. “Damn it, that was awesome...”
The golem did not move. Its eye no longer glowed, not even faintly.
“Aw, yeah!” Kikkawa struck the same pose as Tokimune. He didn’t look nearly as cool.
“No matter what anyone say, we won thanks to me, okay?!”
Where does Anna-san’s bottomless spring of self-confidence and self-affirmation come from? Haruhiro wondered.
“Sure did,” Tokimune winked at her. “We owe it all to you. You’re the best, and we’re blessed to be able to accompany you!”
 
 

I’ll bet it comes from you.
Maybe Anna-san had become the kind of person she was because Tokimune so openly reinforced her behavior. Or had she been able to become the mascot of the Tokkis because she was like that? Which was it?
Whatever the case, Haruhiro couldn’t be like Tokimune or Anna-san. He felt a little jealous but didn’t think he needed to be. Maybe he shouldn’t.
“Suh, suh, suh...!” Kimura started laughing. What kind of laugh was that? Was he forcing the laughter out between his teeth? He pressed on the frames of his glasses, and the lenses flashed.
“You are truly, truly gifted, unique, and reliable volunteer soldiers. I am deeply impressed. Suh, suh, suh. I never thought you would be this good...”
“That sounds like a line the final boss would say...” Kuzaku said. Haruhiro kind of got what he meant.
“Be-heh!”
Your laughs sound insane, Kimura.
“If that’s what I sound like, then perhaps that is what I am.”
“At least deny it...” Haruhiro said despite himself. Kimura slapped his forehead and doubled over backwards.
“Aheeejoahhhh!”
Seriously, your laughter is terrifying.
At this point, it wasn’t even clear if that was a laugh or some other expression of emotion. But it felt like poking fun at him over it would be admitting defeat, so Haruhiro wasn’t going to do it.
“Heh...”
Looking up, he saw Inui was on the second floor. He’d gotten up there without Haruhiro noticing. How? The second floor had a railing—or a parapet rather—around it, and Inui was resting both hands on it with his shoulders slumped.
“There goes my shot at the spotlight...”
“Like we care!”
Much to his displeasure, Haruhiro agreed with Ranta.
“Oh?” Tokimune looked deeper into the inner courtyard. “I don’t know about that.”
“Whuh?!” Inui leaped up onto the parapet. But that wasn’t all.
“Hohhhh!” Inui threw himself to the first floor. What was that for? Had he climbed to the second floor looking for his chance to jump in and steal the spotlight, but having failed to do so, decided to show off with a dive? Was he an idiot?
That wasn’t it.
The parapet that Inui had just dived from exploded. It had been destroyed by some kind of projectile.
Inui stuck the landing, but it didn’t matter. Something had blasted the second floor’s parapet, right? Was it a haunt?
“Everyone, take evasive action with style!” Tokimune ordered confidently, though the “with style” part seemed unnecessary.
They’re coming. Coming right at us. Bullets.
“Wahhhh!”
“Yahoo!”
“What’s going on?!”
“Damn it all!”
“Fuuuuck!”
“Bweh ha heh hahhhh!”
“You’re all so noisy...”
It was pandemonium. Everyone, Haruhiro included, ran around in confusion, but so far none of them had ended up eating a bullet yet. Tokimune stood almost unmoving, acting only occasionally to deflect an attack with his shield. Tada casually swatted down everything that flew his way. They were likely trying to discern the direction and number of enemies. As he ran, Haruhiro tried to do the same, but was it working?
“Is this enemy mobile?!”
“Yeah, they’re mobile,” Tokimune confirmed with a relaxed shrug of his shoulders.
“I thought haunts don’t move?!” When Haruhiro watched Tokimune, his sense of crisis always weakened, for better or for worse.
“Zo-foh! They don’t move, no.” Kimura’s glasses flashed. “Not if they’re haunts. But could it be?! A new type of enemy?!”
“Uh, but...” Haruhiro came to a stop. He was hearing something other than ricocheting bullets, and he was certain it was coming from the second floor. Was something big on the move? The second floor creaked under its weight. Were those footsteps, then? It was hard to see up there from the first floor. But wait, he spotted something.
“A golem?!”
It looked almost the same as the golem Tokimune had just defeated. There was a red light in the center of its head. But this one wasn’t as large as the golem on the first floor. It was a size smaller. It didn’t feel like a small golem, though. Yeah, it was more of a medium-sized golem. There were medium-sized golems on the second floor. Not just one. The U-shaped second floor had one on the left side and one on the right. Two in total.
And?
Where are these bullets coming from?
Where are the haunts?
“Woo-hoo!” Kikkawa cheered. What was he woo-hooing about?
“They’re growing out of it, right?! That golem’s got haunts growing out of it?!”
“A new tyyyype?!” Kimura shook his head. “No! We cannot really call it a new type! That is simply a haunt stuck to a golem! We should call it a hybrid instead!”
It didn’t matter what he called them, there were three haunts growing out of each of the medium-sized golem’s shoulders.
“Like a golem weapons platform?!” Ranta said. That name seemed a bit long.
“Golplat for short, yeah!” Anna-san provided a working short form.
Golplat A on the right side and Golplat B on the left were firing constantly as they approached.
“Whoa...!” Kuzaku jumped to the side to dodge a bullet, but another was in front of him, so he almost took a direct hit. He twisted his body diagonally, narrowly evading it.
Setora was escorting Anna-san, Merry, and Kimura to an area underneath the second floor. They’d be safe there. Wait, no, they were in Golplat A’s blind spot, but Golplat B started firing on Setora from the left side of the second floor.
“Boom! Bash! Smash!” Kimura was deflecting the bullets with his mace and buckler, but he wasn’t like Tokimune or Tada. He couldn’t keep that up forever. Kimura was a weirdo, but he was still a priest. Then again, so was Tada. And Anna-san. Wait, were all priests weirdos? Was Merry the only sane priest here?
That aside, Golplat A and B needed to go down in a hurry.
Incidentally, Haruhiro had sneakily gone into Stealth, so he wasn’t being targeted at the moment. It looked like Stealth was effective against the golplats.
“Delm, hel, en, balk, zel, arve...!” Mimorin suddenly cast Blast. No, it wasn’t sudden. Golplat B had approached the parapet near the spot Inui had dived from, where the structure had a hole blown through it. Mimorin sent her spell at that opening.
“Nice one, Mimori-san!” Kikkawa cheered while deflecting a bullet. Despite being in trouble himself, he actively clapped and shouted encouragement to his comrades. The guy had guts.
The already broken parapet took further damage from the Blast, demolishing the floor there and causing it to collapse. Golplat B fell to the first floor in a cloud of smoke and rubble.
“Kuzaaaaku! It’s our turn!”
“’Kay!”
Ranta raced toward it, zigzagging like lightning. Kuzaku couldn’t run that skillfully or bizarrely. He charged straight at Golplat B.
“What now?” Tokimune was eyeing Golplat A, still up on the second floor.
Tada swung his warhammer. “Want me to throw you up to the second floor?” he offered.
“Uhh. That trick, huh? Maybe not so much...”
They seemed to be taking it awfully easy, but was that okay? Well, feeling tense, getting focused, and acting desperate wasn’t really the Tokkis’ style. They stayed chill and had fun. That might have been their method. Not that most people could do that, even if they tried, you know? The Tokkis were clearly not normal. That was why such an abnormal style suited them.
What was Inui—who was intensely idiosyncratic even by their standards—planning? How had he originally gotten up to the second floor?
Mystery solved, Haruhiro thought as he spotted him. Inui was clambering up the stone wall to get to the second floor now. Oh, so that he does normally, huh?
Haruhiro suppressed his desire to quip about it and tried imitating Inui. He was a pretty good climber himself. Maybe he’d done rock climbing as a hobby before losing his memory? Or had he just lived such a dangerous life that he’d been forced to climb sheer cliffs on a regular basis?
Whatever the case, he made it to the top of the stone wall before Inui, who’d had a head start on him, so now he was in trouble.
Okay, maybe not so much. Golplat A wasn’t aware of Haruhiro. The haunts on its shoulders were unloading on the first floor. Haruhiro couldn’t just sit and watch that. He approached the enemy, neither rushing nor taking his time. He remained alert, of course. But if Golplat A detected him, would he be done for? Not so much. If the bullets were going to come his way, either Golplat A’s body or the haunts’ heads would have to turn toward him first. Basically, it would be telegraphed. He could just move to evade when that happened. Jump down to the first floor and hide underneath the overhang. That position was hard for Golplat A to hit. Even if he botched the landing, it wasn’t high enough for the fall to kill him. They had several priests on standby, so he could get healed immediately. When he thought about it, the situation didn’t demand he be so timid.
Haruhiro circled around behind Golplat A. What was Inui doing? He’d just made it onto the second floor, huh? Golplat A hadn’t noticed Inui either.
Now Haruhiro got a little tense. But taking more time wouldn’t increase his chances of success. If anything, he had to act quickly.
Haruhiro got up close to Golplat A. It was maybe four meters tall. Scaling it would be no problem. With Golplat A being humanoid, it obviously wasn’t a flat surface, which made the climbing even easier. In no time, Haruhiro had gotten up high enough to touch the golplat’s head. That was when it detected him. It twisted around, possibly trying to throw Haruhiro off. But Golplat A’s back was not as flexible as a human’s, nor did it have a moving waist. Its moves were heavy and sluggish. He didn’t even have to cling on for dear life.
Haruhiro drew his dagger and finished off Golplat A’s shoulder haunts one by one. It was simple work, especially compared to what he’d had to do when Tada had launched him up to the ceiling of the dining hall.
“Aww! My chance at the spotlight!” Inui was complaining. Haruhiro didn’t give a damn.
Once he had reduced a total of six haunts to dirt, Haruhiro grabbed onto Golplat A’s head and tried stabbing his dagger into the glowing red eye part. Emphasis on “tried.” His dagger bounced off. It was clear like glass there, and something red shone behind it. He’d scratched the glass-like part, but it was going to take considerably more force to break it. Or maybe he could stubbornly keep attacking the same place?
He had nothing to lose by trying, but he could give someone else the chance to shine. Haruhiro hopped off Golplat A and landed on the parapet. The golem came charging at him, forcing him to jump backward. This being the parapet, there was nothing behind him to land on. He just dropped to the first floor, as did Golplat A, which smashed through the parapet after him.
“Haru-kun...!”
“Haru...!”
“Haruhiro...!”
He heard Yume, Merry, and Mimorin. He appreciated their concern, but, well, he’d be fine.
If he were Tokimune, he might have done an awesome midair flip and then stuck the landing. He was not. He lacked Tokimune’s charisma and star power, so he prioritized landing safely without getting hurt. The experience of being repeatedly launched into the air by Tada helped. You never knew what would come in useful. The moment he landed, he softened the impact, imagining his joints dislocating, and rolled right back up onto his feet. Tokimune and Tada, with Kikkawa as an extra bonus, were already descending on Golplat A.
“All riiiight!”
“Out of the way, Kikkawa!”
“Wow! Sorry! I’m mega sorry!”
“Okay, let’s race to see who can finish it first, Tada!”
“Me, obviously!”
It looked like Tokimune and Tada largely had it taken care of.
“Yahhhh!”
Haruhiro looked over just in time to see a large katana smash through Golplat B’s shining red eye thing. Ranta slapped Kuzaku on the back of the head.
“Dammit, you ass! Let me finish it!”
“Ow! There’s no reason to hit me for it!”
“When was I ever reasonable, you moron?!”
“Yeah... You got a point there. Makes sense to me.”
“Haruhiro!” Mimorin rushed over and grabbed his face with both hands. “Haruhiro!” “Yesh?”
“You aren’t hurt?”
“I’m fwine.”
“I’m glad.”
He wanted her to stop, but once she’d teared up like that, he’d have felt bad for interrupting her. “Would you shtop that?” But, yeah, he still wanted her to knock it off.
Mimorin nodded, then let go.
Thank goodness.



8. Gaps Can Form Anywhere
The door out of the inner courtyard was on the second floor, not the first. There were no stairs anywhere to be seen, so everyone clambered up to the second floor through the hole in the palisade where the balcony had collapsed. With just one exception.
Anna-san threw a tantrum about having to climb up by herself, so Tada carried her on his back. He might have grumbled about it, but wasn’t it a problem that he basically let Anna-san get away with anything? Wasn’t that spoiling her? It seemed to be the Tokkis’ policy, though, so it wasn’t Haruhiro’s place to say anything about it. But even once they got onto the second floor and everyone gathered in front of the exit to the next area, she was still riding piggyback. Was that really okay?
“What?” Tada said in a menacing tone, while Anna-san mockingly looked down at Haruhiro from his back, enjoying her elevated position.
“Uh, no, it’s nothing.”
“Parupiro!” The masked dread knight stepped up, placing his hand in the depression on the door. “Let me do this one! Oops! I already did! Gah ha ha ha! Oh?!”
The door opened as if folding into itself.
“It would seem Shinohara-kun and Mr. Renji already unlocked theirs,” Kimura said, glasses flashing. “Now then. I think I’ve taken the measure of your capabilities... But! All of this has been a mere prologue for what is to come. The true test of the Graveyard is the burial chamber. It is no exaggeration to say that we are only just getting started. Even we of Orion have only made it through the corridor, antechamber, and central room of the burial chamber. I want all of you prepared for a literal battle to the death in there.” “The corridor is shaped like this...” Haruhiro said, making a square with an open side using his fingers. “The door we opened and the door Shinohara and the others opened are separated from each other.”
“Correct. The door into the antechamber is at roughly the midpoint of the corridor.”
“A battle to the death, huh?” Tada pushed up the bridge of his glasses with his left index finger. “Not bad. Anna-san, get down.”
“Aww...” Anna-san reluctantly got off Tada’s back with a look on her face you could have pasted into the dictionary next to the entry for disappointment. “Why do I need to walk on my own feet, yeah? It’s not fair, yeah!”
Why do you think Tada should keep carrying you? was what Haruhiro honestly thought, but he didn’t say it.
“Okay, then...” Haruhiro tried to move down the corridor, but Tokimune stopped him.
“Wait, Haruhiro.”
“Uh, yes?”
The corridor was three meters tall and three meters across, looking about the same as any other they had encountered so far. There were no lights in it. Light shone in from the well-lit inner courtyard, but it was too dark to see deep inside.
There was a noise. Haruhiro listened carefully. What was it?
It was coming closer, right?
This tap, tap, tap sound.
Were those footsteps?
“They’re coming,” Tada said, striding forward with his warhammer on his shoulder.
“...Why are you a priest, Tada-san?”
“Huh?” Tada responded without looking back. “So I can heal myself if I get hurt, duh.”
“Oh, of course.” Haruhiro had figured as much.
The tapping sound was getting closer and closer. Tada ran forward.
“Murgh?!” Kimura’s glasses flashed. “These enemies are...!”
“Grahhh!” Tada bellowed as he took a sharp swing at one with his warhammer. Just before he did, Haruhiro was finally able to visually identify the enemy.
They looked pretty creepy. Like pairs of slim, white legs were running on their own. Okay, no, not just the legs. It was more like the lower half of a person’s body. That’s what they looked like.
“Take—” Tada’s shout was drowned out by an explosion. The moment his warhammer struck the white pair of legs, they burst.
“O Light, may Lumiaris’s divine protection be upon youuu!” Kimura made the sign of the hexagram in front of his forehead. Tada, who had been thrown by the explosion, had reacted in time to at least cover his face with his left arm. But the front of his body was cut and torn, leaving him in pretty bad condition. Kimura turned his palm toward his fellow priest’s sprawled form.
“Sacrament!”
Powerful light radiated out, mending Tada’s wounds in mere moments.
“Tada!” Tokimune burst out laughing. “That was a good one! Getting blown up like that right after saying you could heal your own wounds!”
“You almost become one-hit wonder though, yeah!” Anna-san clutched her sides as she howled with laughter. Wait, was this really something to laugh about?
“Shut up!” Tada jumped to his feet and readied his warhammer. “The hell was that?! It hurt! A little!”
Man, imagine having the brass balls to take a hit like that and then say it only hurt a little. The guy was nuts. If Kimura’s Sacrament had come even a moment later, Tada could easily have died. Also, considering Anna-san was a priest, she really shouldn’t have been in a position to laugh about it.
“They’re specters,” Kimura explained. “Their special technique is selfdestruction. Actually, it’s all they can do. They’re dangerous enemies.”
“So we can’t fight up close with them?!” Kuzaku shouted.
“Mewww!” Yume got down on one knee and fired an arrow down the corridor. Then another, and another.
There were two, then three explosions. Had her arrows caused the specters to go off? But the corridor was dark, so she couldn’t aim for them. Yume was just firing at random and hoping that with enough shots one would hit.
The specters that hadn’t taken an arrow rushed toward them.
“O Darkness, O Lord of Vice...!” The masked dread knight unleashed an ominous miasma from the tip of his katana. “Dread Wave!” The specters enveloped by the miasma all blew up.
“Mew, mew, mew, mew, mew, mew, mew...!” Yume followed that up with over ten more arrows, and four or five specters blew up. No more were approaching.
“Heh! Out already?!” Holding his beloved katana, Ranta strode forward triumphantly, acting as if he alone had been responsible for that result, but then, “Nwuh?!” he nearly fell flat on his face.
“Shadows!” Setora thrust her spear at Ranta’s feet. One of the flat black snakes called shadows had apparently wrapped itself around his leg.
“I-I didn’t need your help!”
“Why can’t you just be grateful, man?! Huh?!” Kuzaku twisted around. It looked like there was a shadow wrapped around him too. “I-I can’t move...!”
“Do something about it yourself!” Setora snapped.
“Aren’t you a little too harsh with me, Setora-san...?!”
“Wa ha ha!” Ranta cut up the shadows clinging to both of Kuzaku’s legs. “She hates your guts! Take a hint, moron!”
“I’m shocked!” Kuzaku swung his large katana upwards. A number of shadows were dropping from the ceiling.
“Wow!” Kikkawa pointed his lantern toward the ground. There were a good number of shadows slithering soundlessly across the floor. No, not just the floor, the walls too. Kuzaku had just slashed a bunch of them, but there were shadows rushing toward them across the ceiling as well.
“It’s an all-out offensive, huh?!” Tokimune twirled his longsword, slicing through the shadows on the ground like it was a lawnmower, then crushed some of the ones on the wall with a shield bash. “We’ve got specters incoming too!!”
It was true. Haruhiro could hear their steps.
Yume wasted no time loosing an arrow, causing a specter to explode.
“Haru-kun! Yume’s runnin’ out of arrows!”
“Gotcha!” Haruhiro replied, but what could he do about it?
“I have an idea.” Tokimune sprang into action with a flourish.
The specters were coming.
“Mew!” Yume was trying to fire an arrow, but Tokimune was in the way, standing in front of her. Hold on, though, there was no way a guy like Tokimune didn’t notice he was in Yume’s line of fire. He had deliberately stood in front of her. Don’t fire, I’ve got this, he was telling her.
“Have you noticed?! There’s a lag before the specters self-destruct!” Tokimune leapt into the air, slashing a specter with a twirl of his longsword. He bashed it with his shield too, almost simultaneously. Then, pushing away from the specter, he jumped back and away.
The result was that when the specter went kaboom, there was a gap of several meters between it and Tokimune.
“Yep.” Tokimune turned back to them with a flash of his pearly whites. “That’s how it’s done. Did you get that?”
“Sure... Not that we can imitate it,” Haruhiro replied.
“Oh, yeah? It was surprisingly easy to pull off.”
Maybe for Tokimune it was, but not for everyone else.
“It’s worth a shot.” Mimorin rushed forward.
“Huh?”
Why Mimorin, of all people? The shadows were attacking her too, trying to wrap around her legs and stop her as she sprinted ahead.
“Mimoriiin?!” Anna-san screamed. “Gooo! Yeah?!”
Why don’t they stop her? The Tokkis make no sense.
Haruhiro could have stopped her himself, but he’d totally missed his chance. Mimorin was already past Tokimune. And right on cue, a specter stepped up to meet her.
Here it comes. I’m telling you, that’s dangerous!
Mimorin was amazing in her own way, but she was in a different category from Tokimune. Completely different. It was blatantly obvious that she couldn’t pull off the same trick Tokimune had.
“Marc!”
As Mimorin ran, she drew elemental sigils with the point of her longsword.
“Em Parc!”
A Magic Missile flew toward the specter and obliterated it. No, the bead of light didn’t have that kind of force on its own. The selfdestruct must have triggered.
“Oh, yeah... She is a mage, after all.” Haruhiro had completely forgotten.
“That’s some originality!” Tokimune said with a casual laugh.
Yeah, that’s right. Er, wait... Is it?
“Marc em Parc!” Mimorin spun around, drawing elemental sigils with the tip of her longsword, and fired off another Magic Missile.
“Marc em Parc!”
Explosion followed explosion. Haruhiro couldn’t see the specters running out of the dark corridor, but maybe it was different for Mimorin and she was able to make them out?
“Marc em Parc!”
Or was she firing blind? Either way, another specter had just selfdetonated.
“Marc em Parc!”
And another one went off. Still, why did Mimorin have to spin every time she fired a Magic Missile? It was unnecessary.
“Marc em Parc!”
Was Haruhiro small-minded for dwelling on the pointlessness of it? Was he too hard-headed?
“Marc em Parc!”
“Aww, yeah!” Kikkawa did a wiggly dance. “Their suicidal explosions are blooming like flowers! Flower power! Yes, Mimorin-san, yes, yes!”
“We’re all just too badass,” Tokimune concluded with a shrug as he sliced away more shadows. “Gotta keep our awesomeness under control!”
Incidentally, Haruhiro and his party were busy taking care of the shadows coming at them on both the floor and the walls. They didn’t have time to do a little dance like Kikkawa. Which, hold on, should he really be dancing now?
“Urgh...!” For some reason, Inui was wrapped in shadows, bound and unable to move. Weren’t all of the Tokkis supposed to be badass? Was Inui any use at all?
“Hmm...” Kimura’s glasses flashed, and he smirked. “That’s miiiild.” That didn’t even make any sense.
“Tada!” What did Anna-san, who was running from the shadows, plan to do?
“C’mere, Anna-san!” Tada welcomed her approach. Welcomed her? What was he crouching down for? “We’re gonna link up!” “Yeah...!” Anna-san hopped on Tada.
She was riding on his shoulders.
“Power up! Yeah!”
“One hundred times! Hoorah!”
With Anna-san on his shoulders, Tada swung his warhammer around, knocking shadows into the air whether they were down low or up high. Was that really one hundred times more power? Anna-san was small but by no means light. She had to be weighing him down a fair bit.
“Rah!” Despite the added burden, Tada slammed his warhammer into the wall with gusto. But doing that was probably the reason a whole pile of shadows rained down from the ceiling onto Mimorin.
“Ngh...!” Mimorin vanished in an instant, buried under the monsters.
“Haruhiro!” Tokimune said urgently, a serious expression on his face. “Please assist!”
“Me?!”
Honestly, Haruhiro wished he could refuse, but if he left Mimorin buried in that ominous pile of dark snakes, she might suffocate. If he let that happen, it’d keep him up at night. Haruhiro didn’t particularly dislike Mimorin. Her powerful one-sided affection confused him, but he didn’t wish her dead for it.
“But still...!”
Why Haruhiro? Tokimune could go himself. Anna-san and Tada, as a pair, or Kikkawa, or even Inui could too. Okay, maybe not Inui. Yeah, no, that wasn’t happening.
Haruhiro took off at a run. He stomped shadows into the floor as he went, or just jumped over them and left them behind.
When he sheathed his dagger and rammed his hands into the abominable mass of darkness, the shadows hissed and attacked him.
He shrugged them off, wrapping his arms around Mimorin and pulling.
“Haruhiro!”
“Grahhhh!” When he shouted, a shadow got inside his mouth. “Gwogh?!”
That made it hard to breathe, obviously. It was trying to block his windpipe, but he wasn’t just going to let that happen. Haruhiro bit down on the creature as he tried to tear Mimorin free from the dreadful pile of shadows. But pull as he might, the shadows held on.
“O Liiight, may Lumiaris’s divine protection be upon youuu!” Kimura. That voice has to be Kimura.
“Scold!”
“Gah!” “Ngh!”
What was that light? Haruhiro felt like it was pummeling them. His whole body felt numb, and he couldn’t move so much as a finger. It wasn’t just Haruhiro either; Mimorin was affected in the same way, as were the shadows wrapped around the two of them.
“Hmm...”
Kimura. What did you do, Kimura?
“That seems to have done little good. I suspected as much...”
What do you mean, you suspected as much? That it would be pointless? Oh, I see. So that’s how it is.
Haruhiro felt the exhaustion ebb, and his body was able to move again, but that wasn’t true for just him and Mimorin. It was the same for the shadows. Ultimately, all it did was freeze them all for a few seconds without changing the situation in the slightest.
“Bwehhh?!”
No, the situation was worse. The moment it could move, the shadow went down his throat.
“Mnngh!” Mimorin was panicking about something.
Oh, crap. I can’t see. I can’t see anything. The shadows. They’re on my face.

Chapter end