17

1. That Feeling, One More Time
“...This place is a ruin,” said the curly-haired dread knight wearing a mask and cloak as he kicked a scrap of wood that must have, at one point, belonged to a building. “This isn’t the Lonesome Field Outpost anymore. It’s the Lonesome Field Outpost Ruins. What a ruin. It’s a complete and total ruin. Seriously. Seriously...” The sun was about to go down.
As the muttering dread knight had suggested, this outpost was no longer fit to be called one. There was nothing but rubble remaining, and only Haruhiro, his party, and ten members of Orion led by Shinohara had arrived so far.
“Heh...”
One member of Orion with short hair and round glasses let out a laugh that was a little creepy. He was apparently a priest.
“Indeed. Indeed. We operated out of the Lonesome Field Outpost too, so I can’t deny it’s emotional for me, seeing it in such a state. Eheh heh, bwa hah, heh heh...”
A little creepy... Yeah, no. It was really creepy.
Uh, but seriously, the guy was scary. Not that Haruhiro could say anything. No, he had no plans to call him out on it whatsoever. He was too scared to.
“You know, that laugh...”
Unlike Yume, he could never.
“Yume thinks it’s real unpleasant.”
“Do you now? Guhuh, nwuh huh, bwa hah...!”
“Sorry about him.” Shinohara was smiling like always, but seemed a little apologetic. “No matter how much I warn him, Kimura can’t seem to stop.”
“Well, that’s gruff luck then, huh?”
“You mean tough luck.” Ranta immediately pointed out Yume’s error. “That’s probably what you were going for. Not gruff.”
“Nah, I mean, she said gruff, right?” Kuzaku disagreed. “Maybe that laugh makes him sound gruff?”
“Lay off, would you, Beanpole? You’re an idiot. I don’t need this shit.”
“Beanpole, huh? Yeah, I am pretty tall. Way taller than you.”
“And now you’re boasting about it? That’s some personality you’ve got there. You’re a real piece of work. The absolute worst.”
“...You’re the last person I want to hear that from.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Huh? Pretty much exactly what it sounds like.”
“Jeez!” Yume puffed her cheeks up angrily. “Ranta and Kuzaku-kun. You two’re always fightin’, huh? Goin’ at it like cats and hogs.”
“Wasn’t it your fault this time?! Also, hogs? What kind of cat fights a hog?! It’s supposed to be cats and dogs!”
“Close enough! Dogs, hogs, it’s nothin’ to blow a basket over.”
“I’m not blowing a basket! Why would I blow a basket?! It’s gasket, okay?!”
“Gasket? You sure it’s not casket?”
“No, it’s gasket! You blow a gasket... Wait, what is a gasket anyway?”
“Well, what does the word mean?”

“Don’t ask me!”
“You’re the one who was sayin’ it!”
“It’s a figure of speech! You stupid, stupid, stuuuupid!”
“People who go around callin’ other people stupid are stupid, y’know?”
“Nuh-uh, the person who gets called stupid is stupid. Stuuupid!”
“It’s nice how lively things are with you guys around.”
Was Shinohara perhaps being sarcastic when he said that? He was smiling, so it was hard to tell how he really felt.
“But seriously, Ranta-kun and Yume-san sure do get along well,” Kuzaku said, sounding half exasperated, and suddenly Ranta panicked.
“Whuh, wh-wh-wh-wha...!”
“Our relationship, huh?” Yume crossed her arms and frowned. “It’s not bad. If you were wantin’ to say it’s good, well, maybe it is?”
“Whah? Wh-Wh-Wh-Whaaa! Wh-Whah? Wh-Wh-Wh-WhWhaaaa?!”
Ranta was transforming into a creature that could only say “wha.” It grated on the ears.
“You’re stuttering way too hard...”
“Shove off, Paruparara!”
“If you change it that much, no one will even know who you’re talking about.”
“If you’re responding, you know damn well who I mean, Pourporaran! You Pirupiru! Papapa or Pipipi or Pepepe or Popopo oughta be good enough for you!”
Ranta wasn’t so much lively as he was loud and annoying. And he tended to drag others into it too, so he was a real nuisance. It was bad. But the guy had some serious vitality. Maybe Haruhiro needed to show a bit more energy too? Or maybe not? Yeah. No. Haruhiro didn’t particularly want to be that energetic.
Setora and Merry hadn’t said anything in a long while. They were both watching quietly from a distance.
If he addressed them directly, they’d respond. But only to say the absolute minimum. For instance, if he were to ask, “How are you?” the response would be something like, “Okay” or “Fine.” They would never answer more than he asked.
There was the matter of Shihoru, after all.
And Setora had lost Kiichi.
What was he going to do about that? Honestly, he couldn’t come up with anything that would help. Whatever he tried to do would be in vain. Waiting for time to heal all wounds. That might be the only option.
He wished he could just accept that, but he couldn’t help but think: If there was nothing he could do, maybe it was best to do nothing at all? Or was it better to try and do something? Well, yeah. He was their leader, after all. But what? What? Just do anything at all. Well, no, doing just anything wasn’t good. Was it doing something that was important? No, not really. Just giving off the sense that, “Hey, I tried,” was meaningless. Like, he’d only be doing it to show that, as leader, he’d made an effort, despite the futility of it. He didn’t want to make excuses for himself like that.
Suddenly, his eyes met Yume’s. She smiled as if to say, “What’s up?”
Honestly, Yume must have been feeling down too. In fact, Haruhiro had occasionally spotted her sighing or getting a forlorn look on her face. Seeing the kindness she showed him, despite her own pain, touched him deeply, and the corners of his eyes started to feel a little hot. He thought he was going to cry. He wouldn’t, though. Haruhiro looked around.
The Lonesome Field Outpost was in the bottom of a depression, so the area around it was slightly higher. Hills in every direction. But when every direction was a hill, they didn’t feel like hills at all. Setting aside what it means to “feel like a hill,” there were humanoid figures on the hill to the west.
“...Oh.”
“Ahh.” Shinohara was looking to the west. “Looks like they’re here.”
“Uh, hold on...”
That one figure was running.
“Haruhiro...!”
It was a woman, going by the voice.
Hey, wait.
“...Huh?”
Was Haruhiro imagining it?
Did she just call his name?
“Haruhirooo...!”
No, he was not. She had called his name.
Twice at that.
“Haruhirooo...!”
Make that three times now.
The woman was racing down the hill at an incredible speed.
“Huh? Huhhh...?!”
“Damn, she’s fast...!” Ranta, who was pretty quick himself, was flabbergasted. That was just how fast she was going.
The woman wore a big, wide-brimmed hat. It made her look awfully tall. No, hat or not, she would still be tall.
Though the Lonesome Field Outpost was a ruin, it was still surrounded by a moat. There was a spring in a depression in the Quickwind Plains. People had set up camp around it and dug a moat to defend themselves. That was apparently how this place got started.
Even with all of the buildings wrecked, the spring and moat were still intact. There had originally been a bridge across the moat. It was mostly destroyed now. However, it wasn’t impossible to use what was left of the supports and girders to cross without getting wet. That was what Haruhiro and his group had done.
But that woman, she just up and dove into the moat as if to say, “I don’t have time for that shit.”
“Haru! Ha! Haru! Hirooo...!”
The woman swam. She powered through the water using both arms, doing the breaststroke. That moat was pretty deep. She was trying to swim across it.
Her hat fell off along the way. She ignored it and kept swimming. In no time, she had swum across and finally stepped into the Lonesome Field Outpost.
“Haruhirooo...!”
“Huh...? Uh...? Wh-Who is that...?”
When it came to people from their pasts, most of what he knew came from Merry. For whatever reason, there was nothing he could draw from his head to explain this.
“Whoa...” Ranta was dumbfounded. Was he impressed? He seemed almost overcome with emotion.
“Ooooh...!” Yume seemed surprised too. She looked over to Haruhiro, her eyes wide. “Right?”
“Uh, no, I don’t know what I’m supposed to agree with—”
“Haruhiroooooooo...!”
The woman continued her mad dash. Sopping wet, splashing water all over the place, she kept barreling toward them.
Man, though, she was huge.
Probably not as big as Kuzaku. But her head was small, and her body was lengthy. Yeah. Big and lengthy, that was the impression she gave off.
It wasn’t like he couldn’t run away. He could. But the intensity with which she was coming at him was incredible. While he was still overwhelmed by it, the woman tackled Haruhiro.
“Oh...?!”
No, this wasn’t a tackle—was it?
Apparently not.
“Haruhiro! It’s Haruhiro! Haruhiro...!”
“Gwah...!”
It hurt—or rather, it was hard to breathe.
The woman hadn’t tackled Haruhiro and sent him flying. She had hugged him. Hard.
Haruhiro’s feet were off the ground. Floating in midair. The woman had picked him up.
She was bigger than he was. Despite looking slim, she was really tall, so she had a lot of strength.
“Urgh... Agh! Ouagh...?!”
At the very least, she had the power to hug Haruhiro, lift him up, and crush the life from him. Fortunately, if you could really call this fortunate, she hadn’t killed him yet, but if she kept squeezing, who knew? It wouldn’t be surprising if she did.
“Haruhiro. I wanted to see you. Haruhiro.” The woman rubbed her cheek against Haruhiro’s.
His consciousness was fading fast.
“H-H-H... Hel...”
“Hel? Who’s that?”
“N-No, uh...”
“Noah? I don’t know him either.”
“No! I’m in...”
“You’re in... In what?”
“I-I-In pain...”
“Pain...?”
Finally, it seemed to sink in.
“Ohh!”
The woman cried out and loosened her vice-like grip. Thanks to that, Haruhiro could breathe again.
“W-Would you let go of me...?”
“It’s been so long. Can I pet you?”
“U-Uh, no, I don’t know...”
She already was, though, wasn’t she?
The woman had already resumed rubbing her cheek against his.
What the hell?
She was all wet too.
What the actual hell?
I’m scared.
“That’s Mimorin for you,” the dread knight said, shaking his head in dismay. “For some reason, she’s always been head over heels for Parupiro. It’s unbelievable. What an absolute, crazy weirdo.”
“You...”
Another woman rushed in, this one small but full-figured, in contrast to the one rubbing her cheek against Haruhiro’s. Who was it this time? Where had she come from? The woman dropped a fist on the back of Ranta’s head.
“Total moron...!”
“Bwuh...?!”
As Ranta’s mask slipped and his eyes bulged, the petite woman gave him a firm kick in the butt.
“Hi-yah...!”
“Gah...?!”
Ranta jumped up into the air, seizing his wounded buttocks. What a leap. Man, could he jump. Ranta landed with both feet, and the impact rippled through his sore hind.
“Augh...?!”
“You no call her ‘Mimorin’ like you her friend, yeah!” the woman
shouted, spittle flying as she did. “You gross idiot! You pervert! You nincompoop cabbage!”
“Y-Y-You bitch!” Ranta stood pigeon-toed, clutching his rear end, tears in his eyes and a whine in his voice. His butt must have been absolutely devastated. “Y-Y-You kicked me full force! In my glorious, firm ass! What if you made it split even more?!”
“Someone should...bisect? Bifurcate? Uh...break your stinky butt in two, yeah!”
“My butt doesn’t stink that bad!”
“You say it not stink that bad, but it still stink!”
“Butts are butts! They all stink a little! It’s what butts do! Even your butt—”
“Hey,” a man wearing glasses swung a warhammer that looked like it could easily shatter rock, stopping it just shy of Ranta’s face.
Whoa, hold on, where had this guy come from? How long had he been here?
Had Haruhiro just not noticed him? Even now, his attention was occupied by the woman who was molesting his cheeks, so there was no way he could have.
“Eeeeek...?!”
Ranta shuddered. No, more than that. He fell to the ground trembling. His hands were still holding his butt as he did.
“A loser like you has no right to talk about Anna-san’s butt,” the man wearing glasses said, pulling back his warhammer and resting it on his shoulder. “I’ll kill you, got it?”
“I-I-I-I nearly died...!”
“But you didn’t.”
“I could’ve! Then you’d be getting more than just complaints!”
“What? You can complain when you’re dead? That’s a neat trick.
Wanna show it off?”
The man wearing glasses wound up for a big swing with his warhammer.
“S-Stop?!” Ranta was sweating and panicking. “There’s nothing to show off! I know I’m awesome, but if you kill me, I’ll be just a corpse like any other!”
“Boring.” The man lowered his warhammer.
“Hey! Heyyyy!”
An easygoing guy called out to them from a distance. Based on the way he looked, he might have been a warrior. That guy, another man who looked like a paladin, and some weirdo with a ponytail and an eyepatch over his left eye entered the Lonesome Field Outpost the way everyone ought to, using the broken bridge.
“It’s me! I’m here! Like, on the scene! Heyyyy!”
“Rub, rub, rub...” The tall woman was still rubbing her cheek against Haruhiro. “Oh, I’ve dreamed of feeling Haruhiro like this again. Rub, rub, rub. I can smell Haruhiro. Rub, rub, rub...” What the hell is this?
This went beyond being hard to deal with.
He wasn’t just uneasy, he was scared. Haruhiro felt nothing but despair for their prospects going forward.



2. Someone to Chase After
“I’m sorry.”
When the tall woman, Mimori, knelt in front of him, bowing her head apologetically, it made Haruhiro start to feel like he was the one who had done something wrong. It was tough.
“...Erm, you don’t have to apologize. You didn’t do any real harm... Uh, maybe I got a little wet, but that’s all...”
“I’m sorry,” Mimori repeated again, still not raising her head.
“Man, this is the problem with you...” Ranta elbowed Haruhiro in the ribs. “You’re awful. Making a hottie like her bow in front of you. What an absolute fiend. You’re a piece of trash. An absolute shitlord.”
Mimori looked up to glare at Ranta.
“Haruhiro is not a piece of trash. You are. You’re the only one who ever is.”
“Harsh!”
“But true,” Kuzaku added under his breath.
“Why you...!”
Ranta ran at Kuzaku, swinging his arms. Immediately, Kuzaku put his right hand on Ranta’s head. Given Kuzaku’s height, he of course had longer arms and Ranta’s fists couldn’t reach him.
“You ass! Damn it! Screw you!”
“Wow, what a childish comedy routine! I want in! Me too! Me too!” The intensely laid-back Kikkawa—a warrior who had apparently enlisted at the same time as Haruhiro and the others—started trying to hit Kuzaku too, for no well-explained reason.
“What the hell?!” Despite his incredulity, Kuzaku put a firm hand on Kikkawa’s head too. Kikkawa’s swinging fists didn’t reach him either.
“Take that! And that! Yeah, yeah! Yay! Whoa, man, this is super fun!”
“Ha ha ha!” Tokimune the paladin watched them go at it with an affable smile.
“Heh...” Behind Tokimune, the eyepatch-wearing nutcase with a ponytail, Inui, was laughing, but ominously. “Gwa ha ha ha ha ha!”
“You apologize enough, yeah, Mimorin.”
The petite Anna-san was, as you could tell from her white robes, apparently a priest.
“Now, stand! Stand up!”
Anna-san grabbed Mimori from behind, trying to pull her to her feet.
“For start, there is nothing reason you should cow toe.”
“This is to show my contrition.” Mimori still stubbornly refused to rise. “I’m prepared to keep cow toeing until Haruhiro forgives me.”
Er, that should be kowtow, not cow toe, thought Haruhiro. Not that it matters.
“...Uh, there’s really nothing to forgive.”
“In fact of matter, you should be one to apologize, yeah!
Haruhirooo!” Anna-san teared up as she desperately tried to lift Mimori up by putting Haruhiro down. Honestly, at this point, none of it mattered to him anymore.
“...I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for, Haruhiro,” Mimori insisted. Haruhiro agreed, but this conversation refused to move on otherwise.
“I’ve got it.” The bespectacled priest, Tada, swung his warhammer in their direction. “I’ll beat him to a pulp. That’ll settle all this.”
“...Except I’ll be dead?”
“It’ll still be settled, though, right?”
“...What is wrong with you people?”
“Now, don’t be like that,” Tokimune said, throwing an arm around Haruhiro’s shoulder. “Everyone’s just so happy to see you guys. Right?”
No, winking at me like that doesn’t fix it.
“Isn’t the way they choose to express it just a little too unique?”
“Yeah, we’re original like that. People tell us all the time.”
“I’m not sure we’re on the same page here...”
“Honestly, it’s almost scary how much we are,” Tokimune countered. “It’s hard to believe you guys ever lost your memories at all.”
“That’s because you guys just keep doing these bits whether we like it or not...”
“Cut it out,” Tokimune mussed Haruhiro’s hair. “It’s embarrassing when you compliment us so much.”
“Okay, that’s enough nonsense,” a silver-haired man said from a short distance away.
Renji. He’d supposedly enlisted at the same time as Haruhiro and the others. It was hard to believe that, though. He had way too much poise. He had an intimidating face and an imposing physique. As for his equipment, Haruhiro didn’t know what all of it was, but it looked really impressive.
Incidentally, the rest of Renji’s group—the warrior with a buzz-cut, Ron; the bespectacled mage, Adachi; and the diminutive priest, Chibi-chan—had all enlisted at the same time as Haruhiro too.
Renji and his party had arrived at the Lonesome Field Outpost Ruins a little after Tokimune’s band of weirdos, the Tokkis.
With the arrival of Haruhiro’s six-man party and ten members of Orion, including Kimura and Shinohara, from the Frontier Army, as well as the six members of the Tokkis and four members of Team Renji from the Volunteer Soldier Corps, the twenty-six-member detachment that would take Mount Grief was now gathered at the Lonesome Field Outpost Ruins on schedule.
“You said it!” Kikkawa, who had been playing at not being able to punch Kuzaku with Ranta, instantly stopped what he was doing and hid behind Tokimune. “Yeah, I was starting to think that too. It was getting boring. I was thinking it was time to call it quits too... Renji’s scary, y’know? Like, way more than he has to be. He’s too scary...”
“Heh!” Ranta had stopped futilely flailing at Kuzaku too, but he turned to Renji and puffed out his chest. “Pretty full of yourself, huh? I say there hasn’t been near enough nonsense. If you think there has, then give us some quality nonsense yourself!”
“...How’s that make any sense?”
“Oh, shut up. You stay out of this, Parupiro!”
“Your knees are shaking, man...”
“N-N-N-No, they’re not!”
Ranta had raised his shoulders and arched his back, trying to put on a brave face. But his lower half was quaking. His legs trembled, with his knees knocking into one another.
“We’re setting out soon.” Renji didn’t even glance at Ranta. “Get some rest.”
“...Y-Yes sir,” Ranta replied in a quivering voice.
“That was a prompt reply...” Kuzaku gave Ranta a cold look. But he kept his voice low. Like, really quiet.
“...The guy’s crazy intimidating! If you think you can do better, you try picking a fight with him.”
“No way, man. He’s terrifying...”
“See, you’re scared of him too!”
“There’s no way that guy wasn’t a gangster at some point.”
“Get this, Renji was like that from the very start, okay? He hadn’t done anything yet, didn’t know a thing other than his own name, and he was still that confident. I just don’t get it...”
“You say that, but Renji’s been havin’ troubles too,” Yume interjected. “...Like with Sassa.”
“Ngh...” Ranta groaned before falling silent. The truth was, Team Renji used to have five members. There had been one more: Sassa, a female thief who’d enlisted at the same time as Haruhiro and the rest. That meant she’d been in the same line of work as Haruhiro and would have had just as much experience.
Team Renji was a standout team in the Volunteer Soldier Corps, while Haruhiro’s party was the bottom of the barrel, known for only hunting goblins in the Old City of Damuro. Would it be too much of an exaggeration to say they lived in different worlds? The fact of the matter was, they hadn’t come into contact all that often. Haruhiro likely hadn’t known Sassa that well.
But when he heard there was a woman like that, but she was gone now, dead, it made him strangely sad.
It didn’t feel unconnected to him. Sadly, he didn’t remember them, but his own party had lost comrades too: Moguzo and Manato. On top of that, there was also Kiichi, even if he wasn’t human, who had been killed by Commander Jin Mogis. Then there was Shihoru, still unaccounted for.
Without further instructions, the joint task force of twenty-six members from the Frontier Army and Volunteer Soldier Corps divided into their own camps with their comrades, and sat around the Lonesome Field Outpost Ruins.
The sun set, but because there were still enemy scouts lurking around the Quickwind Plains, they didn’t light campfires.
“I’m gonna sleep. Wake me when it’s time.” Ranta lay down and was snoring almost as soon as he hit the ground.
“...Wasn’t that a little too fast?” Kuzaku said in disbelief, but let out a yawn of his own. “Maybe I’ll take a nap too...” “You can go ahead,” Haruhiro prompted.
Kuzaku gave him an apologetic “Sorry for the trouble” before lying down.
Yume sat between Merry and Setora, linking arms with them and pulling them close to her. With the three of them clumped together, Yume had them at her mercy. She was doing her best to help those two cheer up. Right now, just quietly being together like that might be doing more for them than awkwardly trying to talk would. Still, Haruhiro could never do something like that. Obviously. Only Yume could. That was a method only Yume could use. Thank goodness for her being there.
He sensed something. Someone approaching him. Renji? Haruhiro tensed up.
“Got a moment?”
Haruhiro nearly replied, “Sure.” Come on, this isn’t Ranta. “Yeah... I don’t mind.”
He stood up and moved away from the others. Chasing after Renji’s back. He didn’t remember it, but Renji must have been running ahead of Haruhiro all this time. So far ahead that it might not even have been possible to chase after him. The difference between them was simply too great for him to compare. To Haruhiro, Renji had been someone far off in the distance.
Even without his memories, when they were together like this, he could tell that’s how it must have been. Renji stopped at the moat. Haruhiro stopped next to him, but it didn’t seem right to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, so he stayed one step behind.
“What’s it like, not remembering?”
The sudden question caught Haruhiro off guard.
“Hmm... Well...weird, I guess?”
“You don’t remember Manato or Moguzo either, right?”
“...No, I don’t.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Renji snorted. Was that a laugh? It didn’t seem to be. What was this exchange about? Haruhiro didn’t get it.
But, somehow, he got the feeling that Sassa’s death had hit Renji hard.
Ranta said that Renji had been brimming with confidence from day one. He’d gone on to prove it wasn’t unjustified either. This was just Haruhiro’s imagination, but losing a comrade like that must have been a kind of frustration that a guy like Renji had never experienced before.
But this wasn’t really a situation where he could say, “I’m sorry for your loss,” or, “You have my condolences,” or anything of the sort. “So, Renji...”

Chapter end