18 15

Forgo shrieked noisily in the sky above. Haruhiro’s breathing was painfully shallow and hurried. He didn’t know how his lungs were managing to work so hard. His vision blurred. Something was off with his ears too. He kept hearing this low, heavy sound. Was it a sound?
It could have been a vibration. That, or Haruhiro’s senses had all gone haywire. If he’d gone insane, could anyone really blame him? The whole situation was nuts. It’d be crazier if he didn’t go crazy.
But it wasn’t just Haruhiro. Jumbo and Takasagi, Ranta, and Yume and Itsukushima seemed to sense something too. Everyone was looking around here and there.
“It’s not only humans,” the No-Life King said, furrowing his brow. “The world hates me too.”
It was approaching. Something was. The thing Jumbo and Takasagi had sensed. Haruhiro sensed it too. He didn’t know what it was, but he could feel it. He had no choice but to. Where was it coming from? Any particular direction? He couldn’t be sure. Or rather, it was probably coming from all over. There was a buzzing. No, more of an NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN... It was a heavy sound, crushingly so. So low that no creature could make it. The vibration came from the front, the right, the left, the back. The low, heavy sound, or vibration, was surrounding them all. The net was closing.
“I am being rejected by the world. The sekaishu will try to remove me.”
That word. Sekaishu. Right. Sekaishu. From back then.
Black. He could see something black. Beyond the trees. Just black. Formless. A mass of black. It was coming. The sekaishu. Pressing toward them. They had to run. There was no fighting it. No resisting the sekaishu.
We’ve gotta run. To run and lose it. Let’s run. Run away. But where to? The sekaishu is closing in from all directions.
“Wa ha! Aha aha aha! Eheh heh heh! Ga ha ho! Gu-hee! Gya ha ha ha ha ha!”
Besides, they couldn’t run while Kuzaku was still laughing. Setora kept walking around and around in tight circles too.
“Boss, this is bad,” Takasagi said. Jumbo sheathed his katana and took off running, with Takasagi following him.
Haruhiro almost shouted, Wait. Where are you going? You’re going to run away? Do you think you can escape?
Don’t leave us behind.
The thief was shocked. He’d never been so disappointed in himself. He was trying to cling to Jumbo and Takasagi. There was no way they’d have helped him. They obviously had no obligation to.
“Kuzaku, hey, come on!” Ranta was trying to pull Kuzaku by the arm. Kuzaku didn’t shake free of the dread knight. He just got up close and laughed in Ranta’s face.
“Uweh heh heh! Guh ha! Bo ho fwah! Ahyah hyah hyah hyah hyah! Dohyeh hyeh heh!”
“This guy’s a lost cause!”
“Setoran! Hey, Setoran!” Yume was clinging to Setora, who simply tried to keep walking, unconcerned.
“Yume!” Itsukushima tried to pull Yume off Setora.
Haruhiro couldn’t do a thing. He should have been able to help Ranta or Yume. Why didn’t he? Why was he just watching?
The black things, black masses, black waves—the sekaishu was getting closer.
The No-Life King had said, The world hates me.
It clearly had no love for Haruhiro either.
Yeah, well, I hate it too.
He felt that keenly.
I hate it.
I hate the world.


 
Afterword
For various reasons, I had a bit more time to write this volume. Thanks to that, the story advanced a little more than originally planned.
The prelude to the final chapter is finally complete, and I’m going to try to run toward the finish line from here.
To my editor, Harada-san, to Eiri Shirai-san, to the designers at
KOMEWORKS among others, to everyone involved in production and sales of this book, and finally to all of you people now holding it, I offer my heartfelt appreciation and all of my love. Now, I lay down my pen for today. I hope we will meet again.
Ao Jyumonji



# 937 Days Later
What’s changed since then? A whole lot. So many things it’s hard to count.
What hasn’t changed? The sun rises in the east, and sets in the west. The day-night cycle.
Haruhiro fed a branch into the campfire.
Oh, right. The color of these flames too. And the stars. The red moon.
“I’m grateful to you, Ranta.”
“What’re you saying, out of nowhere? You’re grossing me out, man.” Ranta was sitting diagonally across from Haruhiro with his knees up, bending and snapping little branches to keep his hands busy.
Haruhiro tried to make some sort of expression with his face, but couldn’t seem to do it. “You know, when Ruon was born, it made me happy. Yume being a mother didn’t feel all that far out there, surprisingly. But you as a father, man? It’s still hard to believe.” He had emotions. It wasn’t like they were all gone. He just couldn’t express them well.
“Oh, shut up.” Ranta let out a nasal laugh. “We did the deed, and she got knocked up, that’s all.”
“I was just thinking, even with things the way they are, I can still feel happy.”
“Yeah...”
“We’ve gotta protect Ruon until he gets bigger, huh? Yume ought to stay by his side until then, at least.”
“Yeah, even I know that much.”
“Don’t you go and bite it on us, okay, man?”
“There’s no way I’m gonna kick the bucket, leaving the woman I love and my son without me, and you know it.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Haruhiro, I oughta say...”
“What?”
“Nah...” Ranta looked away, sniffling. “It’s nothing.”
The flames flickered. Beasts cried out into the night, far off in the distance. Were those even the voices of animals? They might have been something else. Haruhiro reached toward a pelt wrapped around an object. If need be, he’d use it. If those voices or some other presence approached them.
“I’m gonna get it all back.”
“Any idea how?” Ranta asked, dubious. He was always keeping an eye on Haruhiro, never sure when the thief might go off the rails and he’d need to be the one to stop him.
Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
If Haruhiro could have put on a strained smile, he would have. But right now, that was too hard for him. It seemed he’d forgotten how to smile at all.
“I’ll find a way. Definitely. There’s gotta be one. Relics must be the key.”
Ranta started to open his mouth. But all he did was take a single breath. He didn’t say anything.
I’ll find a way.
Haruhiro repeatedly muttered, “I swear I’m going to find a way.”


Bonus Short Stories
Fire, Stay with Me
Haruhiro made a habit of picking up anything that he could use for starting a fire. Things like bark, or maybe a little dandelion fluff. When his clothes were getting too worn out to wear, he would cut them into thin strips and put them in his backpack. If he heated the scraps slowly to make char cloth, they were excellent tinder.
This was the forest, so there were dried twigs and branches lying around everywhere that provided a convenient source for kindling. Dead trees were easy to break, and their wood burned well. He could use those that had been felled by lightning strikes and the like too.
Haruhiro gathered his firewood and dug a shallow hole in the ground as an impromptu fire pit. He’d need to rebury it later, no doubt, and it wasn’t so cold out that he would freeze if he wasn’t by the fire all night, so he didn’t have to take this part all that seriously.
He put his tinder at the bottom of what could only charitably be called a fire pit, and created a dome of dried branches over the pile. The branches, which were thicker, provided a framework. Then he placed pieces of firewood that he’d broken or cut into twentycentimeter lengths on top.
He’d experimented with various ways of assembling fire pits in the past, but he tried not to be too obsessive about it. As long as it didn’t collapse, that was all that really mattered. He laid the remaining kindling and the firewood he would use as fuel later around the outside of the fire pit.
Next, Haruhiro began starting the fire. He’d tried a number of different methods for this too, but had settled on a quick method that didn’t require flint or other tools. First he would cut a piece of soft wood so that one side was flat, and carve a groove in that side.
Then he would run a harder piece of wood up and down the groove. Other people might have different preferences, but Haruhiro found this suited him better than the method of making a hole in one piece of wood and spinning another around in it to create friction.
As the pieces of wood rubbed together, the wood fiber blackened from the heat. Eventually the wood fiber ignited and started to smoke. He piled on some tinder, and blew into it. Once he started to see fire, he just had to push it into the bottom of the fire pit. In most cases, the fire would quickly spread to the kindling.
Today, the fire seemed weak. Haruhiro got down on all fours, then he lowered his head further. With a little more air blown into the bottom of the fire pit, smoke began rising, and the crackling sounds started.
Haruhiro stopped blowing and sat in front of the fire pit.
It wasn’t long before the red flames appeared. He stuck his hand out over them. Maybe this is obvious, but it felt hot.
It had gotten pretty dark out. Haruhiro took a breath, looking around the area.
Should he have lit a fire tonight? Was it safe? Or was it dangerous? He always hesitated. But if he was hesitant to do it, maybe he should have just not. He’d considered that. But he wanted a fire, even if that meant taking some risk. He couldn’t deny the appeal.
Haruhiro hugged his knees.
For whatever reason, when he stared into the flickering flames, no extraneous thoughts clouded his mind. Extraneous thoughts... Were the things he thought about unnecessary, though? Not at all. He knew that. That was why he got lost in thought. But he didn't want to think. Thinking alone changed nothing. He couldn’t get things back that way. Dwelling on it served no purpose. But pointless or not, he couldn’t help but think.
A bird cried out in the night. The bugs chirred, each kind having their own different voices.
The fire kept burning.
Haruhiro fed it a piece of firewood, crossed over another.
There was just one good thing about the dark of night. The darkness made vision useless. He couldn’t see anything in the dark. In order to detect threats, he perked up his ears instead, honing his senses to catch the slightest change. He could afford to stare at the fire.
Haruhiro kept staring intently into the flames. The night grew long, and his firewood ran out. He briefly fell asleep, still sitting, and looking as if he had given up.
Into Shelter
Haruhiro was alone that day.
He didn’t mind being by himself. If anything, he found himself hoping for this kind of solitude a lot lately, because it meant he didn’t have to take responsibility. When he was alone, he only had to worry about himself. He could freely decide what he wanted to do. No matter what came of it, the only one to suffer the consequences would be him. Being like this was easy, and he liked it.
Obviously, that didn’t apply in all cases. If Haruhiro messed up and died in a ditch somewhere, that would affect others somehow. But he didn’t need to stay aware of those “others” at all times. Even if he did think about them occasionally. And even if, ultimately, he would have no choice but to face them.
“It’s gotten cold,” he mumbled to himself.
Raising the hood of his cloak a little with his fingers, he looked up to the sky. He was at a pretty high altitude. It had been drizzling on and off since last night. Not now, though. Still, it looked like it was ready to start pouring any moment. Heavy clouds covered almost the entire sky, leaving no breaks worth mentioning.
Haruhiro pulled out his dwarven pocket watch.
“Almost four o’clock, huh?”
He still had water. If he was sparing with his rations, he could eat three meals a day. The only other thing he needed to conserve out here in the wild was body heat. He was feeling chilly already, and exhausted. Soon it would be night, but he didn’t think that he was going to die of exposure. He’d been through worse than this. But it was best not to get overconfident.
He had time before sunset. Haruhiro walked around the mountain, collecting little branches he could use as kindling.
Eventually, he found the stump of a tree that had died and fallen over. He touched it and found it was pretty sturdy and free of rot. It would probably work as a decent foundation.
“I guess here will do...”
Haruhiro laid out all his kindling, then began looking for materials he could use. What he needed was as long and sturdy of a stick as he could find. Once he had that, he’d need a lot more sticks, although those could be shorter. The more branches with leaves he could find, the better.
The key was to have a long stick to use as a ridgepole. If he didn’t have one, Haruhiro would need to come up with a different idea than the one he was thinking of now.
Fortunately, there was a suitable stick lying around, and he was able to round up a decent number of short sticks without having to spend too much time on it. This was halfway up the mountain, so there were bushes all over the place. He could cut as many leafy branches off them as he liked.
While hunting for materials, he kept an eye out for droppings, fur, claw marks, and other traces that might have been left by animals, as well as any remains. If he came across the especially strong-smelling feces of a carnivore, there was a strong possibility it was still nearby. Obviously, there was always the risk that a dangerous beast that wasn’t nearby now might come along later, but all he could do about that was remain alert. Anyway, after scouting around, everything seemed to be fine. That didn’t mean he could drop his guard, but if he was attacked while building the shelter, he was going to have to chalk it up to bad luck. He was confident enough in his safety measures to let himself feel that way.
With most everything he would need ready, Haruhiro stood one end of the ridgepole against his foundation, which had an indentation perfect for making sure the stick wouldn’t slip out easily.
After that, he leaned the other sticks against the ridgepole from either side, forming upside-down V shapes with them. If the ridgepole was like the backbone, the shorter sticks were the ribs. Like how a ship has a keel and ribs too.
With enough of the short sticks in place, he placed the rest so that they crossed the ribs diagonally to provide support. That would reinforce the skeleton of the roof. When he ran out of short sticks, he started laying the leafy branches over the top of the ribs, and followed them up with more and more of the dry fallen leaves he’d gathered.
By the time he couldn’t see through to the other side of the roof anymore, it had gotten pretty dark out.
Haruhiro crawled into his finished shelter. There was no room to crouch in it, let alone stand. It was cramped, but that just made it warmer.
Haruhiro lay on his back in the shelter, taking a deep breath.
“Being alone isn't so bad...is it?”



Sign up for our mailing list at J-Novel Club to hear about new releases!
Newsletter
And you can read the latest chapters (like Vol. 19 of this series!) by becoming a J-Novel Club Member:
J-Novel Club Membership

 

Chapter end