19 9

They don’t have to do anything special. Just leave me alone. If they’d just do that, I’d be fine. I’m not gonna do anything. I’ll just be here. Sitting. Then lying down, eventually. Once I lie down, I’m probably not getting back up. I doubt I’d be able to. But I’m fine with that.
That’s what suits me.
I want to end it.
I want it over.
Let’s end it.
Let it end.
I’m going to end it.
It’s fine if I end it, right?
That’ll be the end of things.
It’ll just end.
The end is near.
Incredibly near.
So let’s end it.
Don’t anyone complain.
It’s gonna end either way.
Let’s all end.
Everything will end.
From the moment it started, it had to end eventually.
The beginning was the beginning of the end.
All that’s left is for it to end.
The end is playing out before us.
No matter how I look at it, the sekaishu tearing up the Quickwind Plains is a scene from the end times.
Maybe there’s no need to draw the curtains myself, because things are already heading toward the end.
It’s going to end.
End.
Let it end.
I don’t need to say anything, right?
I don’t need anyone’s permission, right?
No one has to accept it.
They just have to end.
They just have to let it end.
At some point, he sensed Poochie next to him. He’d thought he was imagining things. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but Poochie was sticking close to him, nuzzling up to his belly.
Go away.
Leave me alone.
I want to end it.
I’m just trying to let things end here.
Stop it.
I want to let it end, so don’t get in the way.
Stop turning around and looking at me every now and then.
You stop too, Yume.
Don’t come over and lean your shoulder against mine when we’re resting.
Don’t talk to me about old times.
And you too, Ranta.
Stop telling crude jokes and then laughing at them.
Itsukushima was gazing up at the stars. “I’m alive,” he said.
“What’s that about?” Ranta said, laughing.
Yume jumped to her feet and yelled, “Mewwwww! Yume’s alive tooooooo!”
“Heh! You and me both!” Ranta shouted, like it was a competition.
“I’m aliiiiive! How do ya like that, you pieces of shiiiiiiiiit?!” Stop it.
I want to let it end.
I’m trying to let it end.
I want to let it end, but for some reason I can’t.
I don’t know what I’m clinging to, what’s keeping me here.
It should be simple.
I just have to let it end.
If I just do that, it’ll be over.
I won’t see anything.
I won’t hear anything.
I won’t feel anything.
There won’t be anything.
And that’s fine.
Let it all go away.
No regrets, no wishes. I don’t need any of that.
Why can’t I let it end?
What’s holding me back?
I’m not scared. How could I be, given all I’ve been through? I have no lingering regrets. Nothing to dwell on. And if I did, all I’d want is to be rid of them. It’d be so much easier to let them end.
Morning is coming.
The morning will come once more.
The sun will rise over the land torn apart by the sekaishu.
I want to hold my knees and say goodbye to the sun as it peeks over the horizon.
This is the last time.
Goodbye, for real this time.
I promise you.
We won’t meet again.
So, tell me.
Does shining down on us day after day without fail not feel empty to you?
You give this useless body of mine warmth, but I’ll never be able to do a thing for you in return.
Have you never considered ending this cycle that brings you nothing?
The wolf dog poked him with its wet snout and licked his face. Its eyes seemed to know everything.
I don’t know anything, he tried to mumble.
“We’re moving out, dumbass,” Ranta said, whacking him on the back of the head.
“Jeez! You’ve been told to stop doin’ that!” Yume protested, puffing her cheeks out, but Ranta screwed up his face, which still had horrible scars, and stuck out his bottom lip.
“I’m holding back, damn it! This falls within the realm of communication! Don’t be such a nag or I’m gonna kiss you!”
“You kissed Yume before, and she didn’t do nothin’ to deserve it then!”
“What?!”
“Whoaaaaaa! Old man! Don’t point your bow at me like that! I mean, wow, that was fast! You got your bow out and nocked that arrow so freakin’ quick! L-L-Listen! You’ve got it all wrong! Yume was spending too much time on stupid Parupiro, so I was like, I dunno, hey, I still exist! Or something! Okay?! I had to remind her! You’re a man too, so you get it, right?!”
“How should I know?” Itsukushima said.
“D-D-D-Don’t draw your bow all the way back like that!” “No more kisses for you, Ranta!” Yume declared.
“Whaaaaaa?! No wayyyyyy! No kisses?! Forever?! Like, eternally?! Seriously?! Are you crazy?! I know you didn’t mind it!”
“It was real surprisin’. Not bad, but kinda sudden, y’know?”
“See! She didn’t mind it! Seeeee?!”
“Y-Yume...”
“The old man’s depressed! I’ve never seen a grown-ass man look so sad! Well, tough luck!”
“What’s wrong, Master? You okay?”
“It’s fine! Just fine, Yume! Having you console me now would only make it worse!”
“Ngh? Really?”
Maybe it’s okay to end it, thought Haruhiro.
I’m just holding everyone back.
They can go on without me.
I can’t walk.
I don’t want to anymore.
I just can’t say it.
I couldn’t possibly bring myself to.
That’s why I stay quiet and follow them.
I’m a mess.
Whatever happens, happens.
I just have to walk, right?
Fine, I’ll walk.
Between these black tubes, these sekaishu things that start and end who-knows-where.
“Augh! Damn it!”
Ranta kicked the ground and did an about-face. The sekaishu had formed a lattice up ahead. It was going to be too difficult to step between them.
Ranta, Itsukushima, and Yume all turned to go and Poochie looked up at Haruhiro, who was just standing there.
Haruhiro started walking.
“Hey...” Ranta called after him.
Haruhiro kept walking as if he hadn’t heard him. He didn’t stomp down hard on the sekaishu. Just tread on them as he continued on his way. What did he have to fear at this point? He wasn’t scared. He should’ve been doing this all along.
Let it end. Let’s end it. I want to end it. Yeah.
Haruhiro was walking toward the end. That was what lay in the direction he was going. How would it end? What would end? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. It would end eventually regardless. That much was certain.
Haruhiro kept his eyes fixed on the Crown Mountains in the distance as he walked on and on. It didn’t matter to him if it was dirt, or grass, or sekaishu he was stepping on. It was all the same.
Ranta, Yume, and Itsukushima were chasing him. How were they going about it? Were they stepping on the sekaishu? It was none of his concern.
Poochie occasionally appeared in front of Haruhiro, though he sometimes disappeared out of view as well.
The closer he got to the Crown Mountains, the more the sekaishu blanketed the ground, the holes in the net they’d formed becoming smaller and smaller. The surface was almost completely covered in them.
At some point, the sun began going down. The eye-searing light couldn’t illuminate the sekaishu. The worms had no luster at all. Their black was darker than darkness itself. It seemed endlessly deep, as if there were no bottom to it.
Haruhiro stood atop the sekaishu.
In front of him, there was only sekaishu and the twilight sky. He’d thought the Crown Mountains would be there. That he would see their shape that looked like a crown from whatever angle you viewed them.
No, those are the Crown Mountains.
The mountains were also covered in the sekaishu. He hadn’t been able to tell from a distance. But there were things writhing in the foothills and halfway up the mountain. Were those part of the sekaishu? Was some amalgamation of sekaishu rising up and taking on those forms?
No, that’s not it. Why did Haruhiro think they weren’t? Because I know what those are.
Haruhiro had spotted them on the Quickwind Plains before. No, more than just spotted them. He had ridden on one’s leg.
“Giants...”
It’s the gangly giants.
Those giants, with their distinctive, gangly outlines, had wandered freely across the Quickwind Plains. They were so massive that it was impossible to tell what their faces were like when you looked up at them, but you could still imagine that they wore expressions like they thought they owned this place. Even if a great cataclysm had transformed the terrain of the Quickwind Plains, the gangly giants wouldn’t have even flinched at it. They would surely still be strolling around at their relaxed pace long after the humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs had all died out.
Haruhiro sensed more than thought that the giants might have been closer to gods than to living creatures. But those gangly giants had been caught by the sekaishu.
At a glance, Haruhiro spotted two at the foot of the Crown
Mountains, one more halfway up them, and another near the peak. Those were all the ones he saw standing, but the thing writhing on the ground several hundred meters ahead of him might have been a gangly giant too. Everything was pitch black, so it was impossible to completely tell it apart from its surroundings, but it looked like the blackened upper torso of a gangly giant sticking out of the ground. Maybe there was a depression there, and the gangly giant was in the process of falling in. It looked like a bug in an ant-lion’s trap, trying not to get pulled down.
Perhaps there had always been holes in the foothills large enough for the gangly giants to get themselves stuck in. The sekaishu had come up from the bowels of the planet. Maybe those holes were where it had come from. Were there really holes like that? Haruhiro didn’t know. He’d never seen one. And he didn’t recall hearing about any from Itsukushima.
The sekaishu had been coming out of the bottom of a valley in the Bordo Plains too. Maybe this was where the sekaishu had emerged in this area? The Crown Mountains looked like they had become a sekaishu form themselves.
Maybe they had. Maybe it wasn’t just the Crown Mountains. Something similar could be going on elsewhere too. There could be sekaishu emerging all over Grimgar. Maybe they were going to cover the entire landmass. Maybe the sekaishu was a disease Grimgar was afflicted with—an untreatable and ultimately fatal one. Maybe Grimgar was dying.
He didn’t know. Haruhiro didn’t know. How could he? Things might be coming to an end without him ending them. Maybe everything would be over soon enough regardless. This might be the actual end.



0118A660. To the Future
The black ones will come and swallow the world.
Lie in wait in the deepest depths until the black ones depart.
A new dawn awaits us after the calamity brought by the black ones.
This was the prophecy of a terrible future foreseen by the first ugoth sage, Togorogo, the finest specimen of the goblin race, a seer said to be unsurpassed to this day.
The duty of the mogado, the king of the goblins, was not simply to protect his race, allow them to prosper, and pass his authority on to the next generation. They also had to prepare for the calamity Togorogo had seen in his visions.
Togorogo had served the current mogado’s tenth predecessor. That mogado had heeded his warning and started to excavate Ohdongo, the Deepest Valley. It was to be the place they would evacuate to when the calamity arrived. In time, Togorogo had died. The mogado’s fifth predecessor had finally finished digging out Ohdongo, housing the ugoths there with all the treasures of their race in preparation for that day.
We must avoid a situation where all that remains of our race after the calamity passes is what little we can manage to hide in the Deepest Valley. That had been the thought of the mogado’s fifth predecessor. Not all of us will make it through the calamity. Decisions will need to be made as to who should survive.
Mogado Gwagajin was in the deepest part of Ohdongo, unable to sleep a wink. The treasures of his people were on display here, with the seats of the ugoths set around his own throne and a colored drawing depicting the prophecy of Togorogo carved into the wall.
The mogado’s fifth predecessor, who had expanded the vertical shaft of Ohdongo to add a horizontal shaft with eight rooms called this room, the deepest of them all, the Room of Prophecy. There was no way to reach it without going through the iron doors at the base of the vertical shaft and passing through all the other rooms.
On one occasion, the mogado who came before Gwagajin went mad, believing the calamity was upon them, and shut himself in the Room of Prophecy. When he emerged some time later on his own, he started raving that the Room of Prophecy was cursed. It wasn’t. While the door was shut, the Room of Prophecy was completely sealed, so the king had simply been struggling to breathe.
“There is poison in the air we goblins exhale, and staying in a place dense with that poison will make you drown as if you were underwater.”
That fool of a king hadn’t believed his ugoths when they’d presented him with this fact, but Gwagajin was different. When he ascended the throne, he immediately took their counsel and installed side passages between the eight rooms, as well as air tanks. They had learned that fire produced the poison too, so they started a crossbreeding program to produce the flying worms that gave off light, which had become their main source of illumination.
There were now countless lightworms flying around the Room of Prophecy, sharing their glow with Gwagajin, the ugoths, his five wives who were cowering in the corner, and the sixteen young princes.
Gwagajin had never thought that the day these preparations would be needed would come during his reign. He couldn’t ignore the prophecy, but it had set no date for when the black ones would come. It might have been during his time. It might have been during the next king’s, or five kings down the line. Perhaps even ten.
If that’s the case, then rather than prepare for the day of prophecy, wouldn’t it be better to boldly expand into the outside world?
If they were to expand beyond Damuro, there were problems that had to be tackled first. Nothing but problems, it might be fairly said.
For one thing, as a general rule, we’re too short-lived.
Even those of royal stock, like Gwagajin, were doing well if they lived more than thirty hundredfold-days. Most goblins would be too weak to stand by the time they reached ten hundredfold-days. The ugoths were so long-lived that some made it past forty hundredfold-days, but only because these highly clever goblins were singled out, kept from exercising, fed well, and carefully protected. The larger variety of goblin, the hobs—which were born on rare occasions—could live as long as those of royal stock, but they learned slowly and were incredibly stupid.
It’s clear that we need to become wiser, but if most of us can only expect to live ten hundredfold-days, they can’t learn much, and what they do learn will be lost when they die.
Gwagajin recognized that they were inferior to humans and orcs. When he’d become mogado, he had come to the conclusion that the biggest reason for that was the shortness of their lives.
Gwagajin sat silently on his throne in the Room of Prophecy. The ugoths surrounding him kept their mouths shut as well. His wives and the princes whispered to one another occasionally but mostly kept quiet. This was because it was important that they breathe out as little poison as possible while they waited in the Room of Prophecy for the calamity to pass them by.
When they’d received reports that the black ones had entered Damuro, Gwagajin had hesitated to evacuate to Ohdongo. Should he, the mogado, be fleeing into the Room of Prophecy while his people were panicking because the calamity they had long feared was now coming to pass? Against the warnings of his ugoths, Gwagajin had tried to halt the invasion of the black ones.
It had all been in vain. He had to admit that now.
There was no way to tell the time anymore, but Gwagajin had held out in Ahsvasin, the Highest Heaven, for six days and nights. However, when the black ones were finally about to reach Ohdongo, he was forced to make a decision.
Gwagajin had raced down the stairs that ran along the walls of the Deepest Valley with his retinue. Before they could even reach the bottom, the black ones were already starting to flow down the walls.
He’d never forget the sight of the black ones raining down on them. He’d screamed, without shame or concern for appearances.
He’d sent his wives and the princes to Ohdongo days before, and the most important of the ugoths were assembled in the Room of Prophecy.
Gwagajin remembered the moment when the doors to the Room of Prophecy had been shut tight. He was sitting on his throne, surrounded by ugoths and treasure, painfully aware that, even with all his wives and princes around him, he was a king no more.
Gwagajin had regretted it ever since.
Perhaps he never should have moved from Ahsvasin. If only death awaited, then the Highest Heaven was where a king should meet it.
Ever since he had become mogado—no, even before then—the ugoths had been the only ones he could have a decent conversation with. When Gwagajin spoke to them of his belief that they too must become a long-lived race, they offered tepid rebuttals. Some even warned him that the privileged class would never stand for it and that he might face rebellion from his fellow royals.
But what had the royals ever done? Lived longer than the rest and spent that time pursuing their own pleasure? Those of royal stock bred with one another, while looking down on the shorter-lived members of their race as beneath them, immersing themselves in power struggles, gourmet food, and sexual indulgence. They made the short-lived kill one another, not seeing the cannibalism they engaged in as wrong. Were they not the worst of their own kind?
And Gwagajin came from that same royal stock.
“It’s the cannibalism,” Gwagajin murmured to himself.
The ugoths all hung their heads. A number of them had their eyes turned up to still look at the mogado.
The doors to the Room of Prophecy were creaking under some great pressure from the outside. They had been for some time now. First the ugoths, and then his wives and princes, had made a fuss about it, but now no one paid it any mind. Perhaps they had grown used to the terror.
“Royals and ugoths do not eat their own. Right? It’s the short-lived who eat one another. Royals are the descendants of those who stopped engaging in cannibalism a long time ago. My ugoths, I had you look into the causes of death for our people. For the short-lived ones, first they start to fear the night. Then their limbs wither, and they begin to speak nonsense. Their speech grows slurred, they walk with difficulty, they become bedridden, and then they stop breathing. This is the typical death for one of the short-lived. Yes? But it’s rare for a royal or an ugoth to die like this, isn’t it? To the best of my knowledge, there has only been one. My uncle, the previous mogado, Bodojin. Bodojin engaged in eccentric behavior, cursing at everyone around him, clinging to the throne, and soiling himself as he foamed at the mouth. My ugoths, you must know. Bodojin had the awful habit of killing the short-lived and eating them. He was secretly engaging in cannibalism. Shouldn’t we have stopped that practice as the first thing we did?”
Gwagajin wore a suit of armor from the treasury, with the crown on his head and the royal scepter in his hand. Not to mention every other shiny accessory that he could manage. But he wished he could throw them all away. These were not what Gwagajin had wanted.
“We should have banned cannibalism. We could have found a solution to the food crisis it would have resulted in. I knew we should have gone out into the world. We were too timid. Yes, the prophecy was right. Togorogo was a genuine seer. But we’ve had no seers since. In Togorogo’s time, even the ugoths engaged in cannibalism. If they hadn’t, Togorogo might have lived even longer. He could have seen more of the future, and shown us the way. If the short-lived can live as long as the royals when they don’t eat each other, then we could have produced many intelligent and powerful individuals from their ranks. We would have been stronger and wiser for it, I’m sure. Without cannibalism, our women wouldn’t need to fear that the children they have birthed and raised might be eaten. They wouldn’t need to produce and throw away so many disposable young. We might have learned to value each and every one of our kind. It’s not enough for me, royal Gwagajin, to think these things on my own. Our lives are too short to fully cultivate these ideas and pass them on. We needed to stop the cannibalism. Why didn’t I see this sooner? Tell me, my ugoths. Was I, royal Gwagajin, a fool? Too foolish to realize?”
The assembled ugoths hung their heads and wept. His wives and the older princes cried. The younger princes were despondent.
The lightworms, which had likely lived for dozens of hundredfolddays, flew rapidly around the Room of Prophecy.
Now it wasn’t just the doors. The tiled floor of the room, the wall that bore Togorogo’s vision of the calamity, the sturdy pillars and beams that held up the ceiling—no, the entire Room of Prophecy was shaking.
“Is there no tomorrow for us?”
Gwagajin could not hold back a sob.
“Where did we go wrong? What are the black ones? What is about to destroy us? My ugoths, I beg you, tell me. Was I, royal Gwagajin, a fool? If this is my fault alone, then let Gwagajin alone perish. What need is there to destroy us all? Don’t wipe us out. O black ones, O calamity, please, do not kill us all. We’ll stop the cannibalism. Our people can become wiser, stronger! Once, the No-Life King took us by the hand, held us close to his chest, and told us to rise with him— told us we could. Yes. We can stand for ourselves. We’re no barbarians. At the very least, we’re not willing to endure others calling us savages and looking down on us. We can move forward. If we have a future, we can walk. O calamity, don’t destroy us. Give us a chance, please...”
The door which had been shut tight and barred several times was opening.
Gwagajin rose from the throne. The armor, necklace, earrings, bracelets, and other treasures which had been stored in the Room of Prophecy—and which Gwagajin now wore—supposedly harbored special powers inside of them. Some had been found at various places in Alterna. Others were treasures they’d received from trade with the humans in the past. Many had been brought by adventurers from parts unknown. Wasn’t this the time to put their hidden powers to use?
“We cannot die out!”
Oh, the door was opening.
The black ones would rush into the Room of Prophecy.
Gwagajin raised his scepter.
“O treasures, give me your power!”

0119A660. You Are My Destiny
A castle like a white swan with folded wings was reflected in the black surface of the lake below it, illuminated by the light of many torches. Its owners called it the Swan Palace—Wehagoran, in the Orcish language.
Lake Gandah, which was shaped like a flattened gourd, was supposedly the largest lake in all of Grimgar. The Swan Palace and its castle town, Grozdendahl, the City of Battle Cries, were situated on the western shore of Lake Gandah, in the area where the neck of the gourd narrowed and twisted to the south in a unique way. Kuzaku and Setora, who found themselves on the southern shore now, were only five or six kilometers from the Swan Palace. It was a windless night, leaving the lake as smooth as glass and making it look as if there were another Swan Palace in its reflective surface.
Kuzaku crossed his arms and nodded repeatedly. “The stars are real pretty too,” he murmured to himself, earning him a swift blow to the head from Setora. Kuzaku nearly let out an involuntary “Ow!” but was able to cover his mouth in time to hold it in.
I know. I know, okay? Kuzaku signed at her.
Kuzaku and Setora weren’t alone here on the southern shore. She was telling him, Stop prattling and be quiet.
Still, there was no need to be quite so wary, was there? Kuzaku and Setora were right on the shore. A sandy beach, mere meters from the water line. If they looked to the left, there was a Southern Expedition camp. The expedition forces, made up of orcs, undead, and gray elves, had slowly made their way here from the Kurogane Mountain Range and finally settled down to make camp near a fishing village on the shore of Lake Gandah.
That said, they hadn’t put up fences or watchtowers. There were watch fires dotted about and scouts standing or walking around carrying torches, but it didn’t feel like they were on high alert. If anything, it was the opposite. The night was half over at this point. Most of the soldiers had probably been snoring for a while now.
When the morning came, the forces of the Southern Expedition would proceed a handful of kilometers to the west and cross the bridge over the Ruko River which flowed into Lake Gandah. Setora had said they’d be “a stone’s throw” from Grozdendahl at that point, which apparently meant they’d be really close to it.
No, not tomorrow. It was past midnight, so today. The Southern Expedition would enter Grozdendahl today. A lot had happened. They’d driven the elves out of the Shadow Forest, taken Alterna, and killed the dwarven king and her attendants, so the soldiers must have been in a celebratory mood.

 

Yes, a lot had happened, so this wasn’t actually the main force. It was a detachment. The main force, including Jumbo, had stayed behind in the Kurogane Mountain Range, while an orc named Maga Odoha had led this detached force here.
Unlike the rank and file soldiers, an officer like, say, Maga Odoha probably had mixed feelings about the situation. At the very least, he wouldn’t be thinking, Yeah, we won a whole bunch, now it’s time to go home for some rest and relaxation.
“Because a lot happened...” Kuzaku mumbled to himself again without meaning to.
Obviously, Setora whacked him again.
Sorry, sorry. Kuzaku waved his hands apologetically. Setora looked fed up with him. That part of her hadn’t changed.
Kuzaku felt he hadn’t changed much either. Obviously, he couldn’t say he hadn’t changed at all.
To give one example, though it was currently pitch black where they were standing on the shores of Lake Gandah, Kuzaku could see Setora’s face clearly. It was likely the same for her.
His body felt awfully light too. In order to be less conspicuous, he wasn’t wearing armor at the moment, instead opting for a blackish outfit. But that wasn’t the reason behind the change. Even when he was buck naked, he felt different from before. Strangely energetic.
He had memories. He hadn’t forgotten what had happened before this. He remembered Haruhiro, Ranta, and Yume.
Setora and Kuzaku had died after escaping the Ironblood Kingdom in the Kurogane Mountain Range. That part was kinda blurry, to be honest. He’d probably thought, Oh, shit. I’m gonna die, and then that’s exactly what had happened to him.
After he had come back to life, apparently he had been a total mess in both mind and body. Things slowly came back together, and at some point he found himself thinking, Oh, I just have to listen to Merry-san. Well, it had looked like Merry, but it wasn’t. Kuzaku knew that too, but he had still decided, I’m gonna do what Merry-san tells me for now. He could tell that would be the best path to take. The right path to take.
He was still the same in many ways, but Kuzaku sensed that he must have been a different person from before. That wasn’t bad. He didn’t mind being who he was now. Did he like it? Well, he would say he was having a decent amount of fun. He enjoyed his current self.
Setora gave him a light shove from behind. That meant, Time to get going. Kuzaku nodded in response.
They brought their scarves up to just below their eyes and pulled their hoods down in front to cover their foreheads. It was effectively the same as wearing masks. Their skin was barely exposed. They were dressed in suitably dark clothing too.
Setora led the way, and Kuzaku followed.

Chapter end