18 3

Haruhiro was concerned about Merry, of course. But, honestly, he didn’t know what to do about it. He left his comrades at the lodging house and headed for the thieves’ guild in West Town.
Mentor Eliza was at the guild. She refused to show her face, as per usual, though. They exchanged information, and without meaning to Haruhiro told her that his memories had come back. They talked a bit about Barbara. It really hurt, losing her. Right now, he wanted Barbara-sensei here more than ever.
In addition to Eliza, there were two other surviving mentors, the brothers Fudaraku and Mosaic. They were supposed to be following the Southern Expedition, but they hadn’t come back yet. If even one of the brothers was still alive, they might try to contact Haruhiro and the party as they headed to the Kurogane Mountain Range. Just to be safe, Eliza taught Haruhiro the code to check if the person he was talking to was a mentor of the thieves’ guild.
“But I’m sure it won’t be of any use.” Eliza apparently didn’t expect much of the brothers. “If they’re alive, they’re lying low somewhere waiting for the heat to die down. That’s how those two are.”
Haruhiro returned to the volunteer soldier lodging house. They could have split up into the boys’ room and the girls’ room like they had in the past, but with Merry’s current issues to consider, they decided to each take one room for themselves.
Haruhiro chose a room with two bunk beds packed full of straw. He lit the lamp on the wall and took off his cloak, sitting on the lower bunk of a bed.
Back when they were volunteer soldier trainees, they’d rented this room for ten copper a day. It was a real trip down memory lane. Ranta had slept in the top bunk of one bed, with Moguzo on the bottom, while the other bed had been Haruhiro on top, Manato on the bottom.
“We went and peeped on the girls in the bath... I know it was Ranta’s idea, but that was pretty awful of us, huh?”
This bed, the one that Haruhiro was sitting on now, had been Manato’s. Next to it was Moguzo’s. They were both gone now.
Barbara-sensei had died too.
Come to think of it, Team Renji had also lost Sassa on the Red Continent.
Haruhiro sighed.
I wish I could just sigh away all these heavy emotions, but it’s probably not gonna happen, he thought. He wasn’t good at changing gears. He’d forgotten all this stuff, even though he hadn’t meant to. But now he’d remembered it all. Maybe everything was back to the way it should have been all along.
Someone knocked at the door. He’d heard their footsteps before that, so Haruhiro wasn’t surprised.
The door opened before he could answer.
“Heh.” It was the masked man. “Boy, that face is depressing. You’re gonna affect morale, you idiot.”
“Sorry, man. This is the face I was born with.”
“I know you can’t change that, but pull yourself together. You know what I’m trying to say here.” The masked man came in and plunked himself down on Moguzo’s bed. “You remember it all now, huh?”
“Well...” Haruhiro sighed. He felt like he was sighing a lot, but that was nothing new. He always had. “Probably, yeah.”
The masked man bared his face and sprawled himself across the bed. “You’re so noncommittal. Memories or no memories, you always have been.”
Haruhiro forced a smile. “Yeah, I guess.”
“As for Merry...” Ranta said in a low voice, “I’ve got Yume keeping a subtle eye on her.”
Normally, maybe Haruhiro should have given some directions, orders on what to do about Merry. He’d ended up leaving it to Ranta. That was an oversight on his part, but whatever. Haruhiro decided to accept it for what it was.
Did Haruhiro need to shoulder everything himself? No. He could let Ranta take some of the burden, and Yume had become so reliable she was hardly recognizable. Setora’s head was built differently from Haruhiro’s too. And as for Kuzaku, he was well above average when it came to putting his body on the line.
“Hey, Ranta.”
They’d lived a hand-to-mouth life here in this room.
Time went by.
So many things had happened. More than could ever be told.
Haruhiro and the others had changed. None of them were able to stay the same.
“Back then...”
“Huh?”
“I never would have thought things would turn out like this.”
“Yeah, I’m all-powerful,” Ranta said with a laugh, “but, sadly, I’m not all-knowing. I can’t predict the future.”
“Yeah... It’s all so hard...”
Haruhiro was venting to the wrong person. Knowing Ranta, he’d mock and insult Haruhiro.
“In the end, everything’s just a load of shit.” Ranta loosely crossed his legs, put his hands on the bed, and sat up. Uncharacteristically, he didn’t belittle Haruhiro, or make fun of him. Even though he was Ranta. “Is there that much in life that’s not shit? I mean, think about it. We started this life with the shit condition of not knowing anything but our names. But even if that weren’t the case, I’d still say it. Once you’re born, it’s eat, sleep, shit, eat, sleep, shit, eat, sleep— and so on, and so forth, until one day you kick the bucket. It’s more or less the same for every living thing. Basically, all we do is eat, shit, and sleep!”
“You don’t mince words, huh?”
Haruhiro laughed just a little. Not because it was funny, but because what could he do but laugh? It was about the only option he had. “But that’s not all life is, is it?”
“Well, no,” Ranta was quick to admit. “There’s always more living things born before the current ones die. We’re born to give birth and die, so when you think about it that way, procreation’s important.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Hey, man, you wanna screw women too.”
“...I’m not gonna deny it.”
“Why’ve you gotta be so noncommittal? If you wanna do it, even if it’s just occasionally, what’s wrong with just saying that you do?”
“Okay, sure. I do.”
“Though, even that impulse, it’s just a system put there to make us animals leave behind offspring.”
“If you put it that way...maybe it is, yeah.”
“I’ll bet, once you’ve got a kid of your own, even a noncommittal guy like you would adore them so much it’d make me want to puke.”
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“I’ll say it definitively. You’re the shittiest of shits, and you’d adore your brat to puke-worthy levels.”
“Adoring your own child isn’t really shitty, is it?”
“It wouldn’t be, if it weren’t all a big setup to make you feel that way.”
“Oh... You’re saying, as living beings, we’re wired to adore kids who carry our blood?”
“Of course, there’s shitty parents out there who can’t love their own kids. But in general, things are set up so we care about them. If they weren’t, the whole procreation thing wouldn’t work. So, knowing it’s all a setup, doesn’t that kill your enthusiasm?”
“Nah, not really...”
“It kills mine. It’s total shit. Everything’s shit. Seriously. Seriously...”
Ranta told him about the time when he was alone in the deep forest. With no one else around. Absolutely no one. It felt like he was the only person in existence. No matter what he did, where he went, how much time passed, he never met anyone. He was sure he’d never see anyone again.
He even hoped he’d be attacked by a wild beast and devoured.
He considered not eating or drinking, just waiting to waste away.
Despite that, he made an effort so that he could escape the deep forest some day. No matter how much he yearned to, could he actually get out? He didn’t know if it was possible. It might not have been. He might be devoured by wild beasts in the forest, or wander lost until he died without anyone ever knowing.
In the endless silence, a voiceless terror strangled him.
He felt like he was going to suffocate, but he never passed out.
His feet were leaden.
His whole body felt as heavy as it possibly could.
Try as he might, he couldn’t take that one first step.
Even so, he would do what he could to eventually escape that deep, deep forest.
“It wasn’t just once. I went through that countless times.”
Ranta was smiling faintly. His eyes were half open. His lips and jaw seemed to quiver. It must have been terrifying for him to think back on it. But he didn’t intend to run from those memories. Even if he was just trying to act strong, if he could keep it up long enough, it would eventually become genuine. That was Ranta’s style.
“It was like, ‘I’m seriously all alone.’ It forced me to realize that. If I wanted someone to talk to, I had to imagine them in front of my eyes, or inside my head, and mumble to myself. It was seriously shitty. Even now, just occasionally, I have dreams about that time. Like, ‘Aw, not this again.’ Sometimes, I think that’s what dying might be like. And if so...I don’t wanna die slowly. One good, clean shot is the way to go. Man, it’s such shit. That’s ultimately just how life is.”
“I don’t really get it, but...what do you mean, that’s ultimately how life is?”
“Are you a moron? Figure it out, man!” Ranta clicked his tongue. “Listen, Parupiro. No matter how good a time you have, it’s all the same in the end. Even if you have three thousand kids with genes as incredible as mine. Either you die instantly, not knowing a thing, or you go out writhing in agony, thinking, ‘Wow, this sucks,’ but either way, you turn into a corpse that’s practically—no, that’s actually shit. That’s our life. That’s the one truth, isn’t it?”
“I don’t see it that way, though.”
“You do you. That’s your freedom. I think everything’s shit. That’s my freedom.”
“We just don’t get along, huh?”
“We’ve known that a long time, haven’t we?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
“Everyone’s shit.”
“Yume too?”
“No exceptions. I’m shit, she’s shit, living’s shit, dying’s shit. But I still want to hold her tight and treasure her until the day I die. You could say that I had an epiphany out there, alone in the forest. I figured it out. The important thing isn’t whether she’s shit or I’m shit.”
If Haruhiro were to interpret, here’s what Ranta was trying to say:
The value of everything is just for show. Everything is worthless. You have to strip the value away from everything, even the things that seem like they can’t possibly be without it. Then it’s just a matter of treasuring whatever’s left.
“Haruhiro, do you think there’s some sort of special reason that these shitty events keep on coming?”
There isn’t, was what Ranta was implying with total confidence.
“From the very beginning, it’s all been shit. You included. Of course all the events are going to be shit too. You’re shit, so don’t complain like you’re something else. Learn to live with things being shit. Because you’re shit.”
That’s a pretty awful thing to say, Haruhiro thought. But he didn’t get pissed off.
Time had gone by, and he had sensed that he was no longer his old self. So why was he still being tossed about at the mercy of every little thing life threw at him? Wasn’t there some way he could make better decisions and get them out of this awful situation? Ranta had seen Haruhiro thinking that way, so the dread knight had come to say, Don’t be conceited. Haruhiro and the gang had been like this all along, so it wouldn’t be strange if things carried on the same way forever.
I hope not, but I can’t give up either way. I’ve got to look for a way out of this deep forest. And unlike Ranta’s situation back then, I’m not alone, so I have it much better.


 
7. Not So I Can Remain Myself
In the dim light of early morning, before the first bell rang, Shinohara and the members of Orion showed up in front of the north gate where the Frontier Army’s delegation was assembling to see them off. There was mist in the air, giving the whole thing an ambience like they were inside a dream as they prepared to leave. Not a good dream, though. If anything, it was a nightmare.
“Sorry to trouble you...” Haruhiro said meekly, but Shinohara laughed it off, telling him not to act so reserved.
“I wish we could join you, but unfortunately we can’t. Watch yourselves out there. I’ll be praying for your safety.”
This man had just lost his friend and confidant, Kimura, the other day. At the time, he’d been beside himself with grief in a way that felt uncharacteristic of him, but now he was just fine. There were still suspicions about him and what involvement he might have with the master of the Forbidden Tower, so the way he was acting looked kind of dodgy.
If Haruhiro were to list the senior volunteer soldiers who’d helped him out, Shinohara’s name would be at the very top. Haruhiro respected the guy, and had always thought of him as good-natured and trustworthy. Was he just a poor judge of character?
“Thank you... Well, anyway, we should be going.”
As Haruhiro bowed his head, Shinohara raised a hand.
“Orion!”
Immediately, Hayashi and the other members lifted their weapons over their heads in unison.
“Whoa! That’s so cool...” Kuzaku was honest with his emotions, and kind of a simple guy. Ranta, on the other hand, just clicked his tongue with distaste behind his mask.
“Time to go!” Bikki Sans declared loudly. He, Neal the scout, and Itsukushima were all on horseback. Haruhiro and his party hadn’t mounted up yet. They had put their luggage on the horses and were leading them by the reins.
“Poochie!” Yume called the name of Itsukushima’s wolf-dog and the animal rushed over to her. Poochie had been raised by the hunters’ guild, and it wasn’t just Itsukushima he was attached to; he was friendly with Yume as well.
The Frontier Army’s delegation—nine people, nine horses, and one wolf-dog—set off north from Alterna. By the time they entered the Quickwind Plains, the fog had totally cleared.
Soon the sun rose and it started getting warmer. There weren’t many clouds in the sky and, despite the name of the area, the wind wasn’t all that strong. The weather was just right.
Haruhiro and the others were practicing their riding so that they were prepared for anything that might come up. Yume, who had apparently been on a horse before, improved rapidly, while Haruhiro, Ranta, Merry, and Setora could handle themselves at regular speeds. Kuzaku’s horse didn’t like being ridden.
“Well, I am a big guy and all. Maybe I’m heavy?”
The horse didn’t seem to mind it when Kuzaku stroked its mane, so it wasn’t like it hated him or anything.
“To think you’d be unable to ride a horse. Useless.”
Despite his harsh words, Chief Delegate Bikki Sans, a hairy fellow with a full unibrow, proceeded to teach Kuzaku everything he needed to know. It turned out he was from a family of equestrians and had worked as a groom back in the mainland. Thanks to his careful instruction, Kuzaku was at least able to get on the horse.
“Ooh. He’s walking. Horse-kun’s walking for me. Thanks, Bikki-san.”
“Don’t thank me, thank your horse. You dolt.” Despite the insult, Bikki Sans’s face was a little red. He must have been embarrassed. A weirdly nice guy, considering he was one of the black cloaks.
If they continued for another three hundred kilometers across the Quickwind Plains, they’d come to the Shadow Forest. From there it was a hundred and fifty kilometers east to the River of Tears, the Iroto. The source of that river was in the Kurogane Mountain Range. They just had to follow it a hundred and some kilometers upstream to reach their destination. This was the simplest route, but they would have to make detours.
They would start by heading toward the Crown Mountains, a mountain range in the middle of the Quickwind Plains. Obviously, they wouldn’t be climbing them. They would travel through the foothills, heading northeast until they ran into the Iroto. Then they just had to follow the river to the Kurogane Mountain Range.
That was just the plan, though. There was no telling where they might encounter the enemy. It was going to be harder to remain undetected as a group than if Haruhiro were acting alone. There was extremely little cover in the Quickwind Plains, so you could see things from really far off. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but he’d have to respond flexibly as the situation demanded. They had Itsukushima and Yume—experts at operating in the wild— working with them. Itsukushima seemed to know the Quickwind
Plains well too, so it was fair to say they had the terrain advantage.
It was apparently about three days’ travel to the Crown Mountains. And yet, even at this distance, you could see the outline of the mountains on a clear day, so they served as landmarks.
Things went well on the first day, but just after noon on the second, Yume found something.
“Fwooo. Master, hey, lookie, lookie.”
Yume was on horseback, pointing a little to the west. Itsukushima stopped his horse and squinted in that direction.
“Hrm, that’s...”
Haruhiro’s eyesight wasn’t as good as that of hunters like Yume and Itsukushima. Despite that, he could immediately tell what she was pointing at. Actually, everyone could.
“Huh?” Kuzaku muttered, cocking his head to the side as he stroked the neck of the horse he was riding. “That’s a tree, right?”
“You moron!” Ranta shouted, unmasking himself on horseback. “No tree on the Quickwind Plains grows that tall. It is pretty gangly, though...”
“It appears to be moving,” Setora noted as she deftly controlled her horse. She could make it stop and go as she pleased.
“Seriously?” Neal the scout grumbled, clicking his tongue. His horse looked left and right, flaring its nostrils. If Haruhiro recalled correctly, that was a sign it was feeling uneasy.
Looking down, he saw his own horse was twitching its ears. He’d been told saying “whoa” and petting it was supposed to help if that happened. Come to think of it, Kuzaku was already stroking his horse. Haruhiro decided to imitate him.
“There, there...”
“And?” Bikki Sans asked, sitting tall on his horse, which made him look a good fifty percent more impressive. No, make that twice as impressive. “What is that tall, thin thing?”
“A Quickwind Plains giant...” Merry mumbled.
Bikki Sans’s eyes bulged. “Did you say giant?” Poochie the wolf-dog started howling.
“Poochie!” Itsukushima scolded him and the wolf-dog immediately stopped.
Neal blinked repeatedly. “It looks pretty far off to me... Isn’t it awfully big, considering?”
“Heh,” Ranta snorted. “They call ’em giants for a reason.” “How big is it, actually?” Bikki Sans asked Itsukushima.
The hunter shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you exactly. I’ve seen them at a distance a number of times, but never tried getting close to one. A good ten meters, at least, I’d think.”
“So we just have to keep our distance, then.” Bikki Sans was surprisingly calm.
Itsukushima nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”
For the moment, they decided to keep going and not pay too much mind to the gangly giant. It remained visible until the sun had set and darkness fell, which was unsettling, but it didn’t seem to be approaching them. The group took turns on watch as they got five or six hours of sleep. Haruhiro woke as the sky began to brighten.
“And it’s still there...” Off to the north. The gangly giant. I dunno if it’s moving or not. But it’s there. That’s for sure.
“I feel like I had a really weird dream. Was it this...?” Kuzaku said as he got up, still half asleep.
“We should set off quickly,” Itsukushima said, hurrying them all along. No one objected.
Once the sun was fully risen, the members of the delegation felt a much greater sense of urgency.
“Mew...” The first one to spot it was Yume, of course. She pointed to the northeast while skillfully controlling her horse. “It looks like there’s another one, huh?”
The northeast was the direction of the Crown Mountains, which they were heading toward. But between the mountains and the delegation stood another gangly giant-looking figure. It was a little hard to see, as it blended in with the outline of the terrain, but if he looked hard enough, even Haruhiro could make it out.
Itsukushima looked at Yume, his nose twitching.
“Yume, you can see even farther than me now, huh?”
“Is now the time to be impressed?” Ranta quipped listlessly.
Bikki Sans’s unibrow raised in a V-shape and he turned his eyes toward Neal the scout. “What do you think?”
Neal shook his head. “I dunno...”
“The issue is if it is coming toward us or not,” Setora said, stating the obvious. When people were uneasy or frightened, things that should have been obvious sometimes stopped feeling that way.
“Nuhhh...” Yume looked from one gangly giant to the other. “This could be tough.”
“I’ve had them get this close a number of times. Let’s continue as planned for now, and keep an eye on how far away they are.” As Itsukushima said that, Poochie the wolf-dog barked twice.
Yume smiled. “Poochie’s sayin’ that’ll work too. Aren’t you, boy?”
Bikki Sans was quick to accept Itsukushima’s proposal. He was a good listener, and could be decisive. It also took a lot to unnerve him. Did that mean some of the black cloaks were actually decent?
The delegation headed toward the Crown Mountains while keeping a careful eye on the gangly giants. The sun was beating down mercilessly as the violent winds tried to blow them all away—just another afternoon on the Quickwind Plains.
The area around Alterna at the foot of the Tenryu Mountains had something resembling four seasons, but the Quickwind Plains were more or less the same throughout the year. It was unbearably hot on days with clear skies when the winds were weak, but when they were stronger it was more tolerable. Once the sun went down, it got really cold. When the weather was bad, it hammered you from every direction.
Haruhiro had heard there was a type of heavy thunderstorm unique to the Quickwind Plains. The clouds would rise up to blot out the sun as you watched, and powerful winds would rage as lightning poured down like rain. In a heavy storm like that, you could be electrocuted even if you were clinging to the ground, so it was difficult to survive.
We’re being blessed with fair weather, but how’s our luck otherwise?
Yume spotted a third gangly giant shortly after noon. It was in roughly the same direction as the second, but farther away.
That meant there was one giant north-northwest of the delegation, and two more in the direction of the Crown Mountains to the northeast and north-northeast.
“We have to assume they’re stalking us,” Itsukushima concluded. “It would be a bad idea to keep heading toward the Crown Mountains. We’d be narrowing the gap ourselves.”
“Do we turn back...?” Neal asked anxiously, looking at Bikki Sans. The chief delegate shook his head with determination.
“No. We have to make it to the Kurogane Mountain Range and deliver the commander’s letter to the iron king. No matter what. Turning back is out of the question.”
“Yeah, I know. I was just saying it,” Neal said with an awkward frown. “So? What do we do?”
Even if returning wasn’t an option, running straight into the gangly giants was obviously a dumb idea.
“If we head east from here, we’ll still run into the Iroto. Yes?” Bikki
Sans asked Itsukushima. The delegation’s destination was the Kurogane Mountain Range. So long as they followed the Iroto upstream, it would take them there.
“That’s right,” Itsukushima said, nodding, and Bikki Sans made an immediate decision.
“Then east we go.”
With that, the delegation changed direction to head due east.
Kuzaku had gotten pretty used to riding at this point, or at least had gotten his horse to tolerate him.
They wanted to get away from the gangly giants as soon as possible. But no matter how far they went, they couldn’t shake their three gargantuan pursuers. They might not have been getting any closer, but they weren’t getting any farther away either.
“This has never happened to me before.” Even for Itsukushima, who was familiar with the Quickwind Plains, this development was beyond his expectations.
“The giants may be reacting to any major intrusions into the Quickwind Plains. Lately, they’ve had armies of orcs and undead marching through here like they own the place, after all.”
The humans hadn’t settled the Quickwind Plains, instead building cities like Damuro at the foot of the Tenryu Mountains. The elves had lived in the Shadow Forest which spread out nearby. That was in part because the climate of the Quickwind Plains was forbidding, but Itsukushima said there were other reasons too.
The towering giants of the Quickwind Plains terrified human, elf, dwarf, and orc alike. There were countless stories of the giants. However, the humans had lost most of their kingdoms, and even the
Kingdom of Arabakia had been forced to flee south of the Tenryu Mountains. Thanks to that, tales about the giants were gradually being forgotten.
“I know some of the legends the elves and dwarves tell about giants. Humans take the giants of the Quickwind Plains too lightly. The same is probably true for orcs. We need to keep in mind who the true masters of these plains are. It’s not us. That’s for sure. And it’s not the orcs or undead either.”
Once night fell, they obviously couldn’t see the gangly giants anymore. However, their pursuers had been within visual range for as long as the light lasted, so it would have been a huge mistake to think they’d escaped.
The delegation decided to keep moving through the night.
Itsukushima and Yume set their course by the stars. The darkness was terrifying—so dense it rendered the moonlight practically useless, making it impossible for anyone to see the person next to them—but they pushed onward and onward to the east. Aside from the times they stopped to let the horses rest or eat grass, all they did was push eastward.
“Wait.” It was just before dawn when Itsukushima called for them all to stop.
He dismounted to crawl on the ground. What was he doing? Yume did the same thing.
“You can feel them,” Itsukushima said and Yume immediately agreed.
“Yeah. They’re gettin’ pretty close, aren’t they?”
Bikki Sans got down off his horse and asked Itsukushima, “What’s going on?”
“Hold on a moment,” Itsukushima said, raising a hand to stop Bikki Sans. He wasn’t just crawling around. He had his head—or his ear, rather—pressed to the ground. The hunter changed places a number of times.
“This is bad...”
Poochie suddenly started barking.
“Poochie!” Itsukushima shouted and the wolf-dog immediately quieted down.
By that point, Haruhiro had already started sensing something. No, describing it that way was too vague. It was a sound. Heavy and low. And it was probably coming from the east. The sound was in the direction they’d been headed.
“Something’s coming...” Ranta said in a quiet voice.
The horses started whinnying and twisting their bodies around.
“Wh-Whoa...!”
It was too dark for Haruhiro to see, but that was probably Kuzaku struggling to control his horse. The thief wasn’t doing much better himself.
“Whoa, whoa!”
He stroked his horse’s head and neck to try to calm it, pulled back on the reins, and squeezed the animal’s sides with his legs, but the horse kept on freaking out.

Chapter end