c14 10

Once upon a time, there was a great king.
The king was just great. So incredibly great that no one could defy the king. But the causal relationship between those two things was, in fact, the opposite.
It was because no one could defy the king that he was great. He’d kill everyone who opposed him, or crush them flat as pancakes. He’d make them swear they would do as he said from now and beg for forgiveness before making them become his vassals. This was how the king had become the greatest king in world.
Now, being the great king that he was, he had a lot of vassals. However, the king hated useless people, so when he decided they would never amount to anything for him, he crushed them flat as pancakes.
When the king pancaked them with his incredible power, nothing would remain but their shadows.
The shadows would loiter around, keeping an eye on his vassals despite not having eyes, keeping their ears perked up for trouble despite not having ears. If there were troublemakers about, plotting mischief, they would rush to the king and, Whisper, whisper, whisper... They would communicate with him in words only the shadows and the king could understand.
The shadows couldn’t distinguish red from blue, or derive the area of a triangle. Still, aside from the times when they idly wandered about, they mostly spent their time looking for traitors to the king.

The great king gathered more and more vassals and shadows, continuing his endless march, but suddenly, one day, he became upset that he didn’t have a castle of his own.
When he told his vassals about that, a man who called himself the king’s number one vassal proposed this:
“I hear the place that was once the town of Inami is now home to a magnificent garden of flowers. I wish to strike down the master of the flower garden, Haname, and present her land to you, my liege.”
The king was pleased. He gave the man the title of knight, the honorable name of Bayard, and the task of slaying Haname.
However, Bayard not only failed to strike down Haname, he was captured. A number of vassals stormed the gardens, but not one of them returned.
The king, at last, decided to head to the gardens himself. When he did, his number two vassal told him this:
“Should we even be building the castle in the garden to begin with? There is a tower that rises unto the heavens. I believe that tall tower is most befitting of our peerless king. I will ascend to the top of the tower, and there I will build a castle for you, my liege.”
True enough, rather than some flower garden, the highest point in this world is most befitting of me, the king felt.
“Then go forth,” he ordered.
“I shall, my liege.”
Thus did the number two vassal set out for the Iron Tower of Heaven, but for whatever reason, he never returned.
Under order of the king, several vassals left in search of the second vassal. However, no matter how high they climbed, the Iron Tower of Heaven had no end.
The one vassal who turned back would later give this report:
“My liege, we were unable to find the second vassal. I climbed fairly high up the tower, but unable to see the top of it, I gave up. It is my belief that the tower may rise endlessly.”
The king was enraged, and he pancaked that vassal.
“Why not make your castle where the town of Shiguhari once stood?” Sleeping Man proposed.
Sleeping Man was prone to fall asleep, and when he did, monsters would appear in great numbers, so he caused trouble for the other vassals. However, the king was fond of Sleeping Man, and had him serve at his side.
This was because the more he kicked and punched the monsters that spilled out, the greater the king’s own power became.
“Shiguhari was the largest town in this world,” Sleeping Man said. “The people were packed in like ants, and it was highly prosperous.” “Sleeping Man, why did that town fall to ruin?” the king asked.
“Long ago, there were seven towns in this world. The people were greedy, and did not want to see the other towns living better than them, so to steal from each other and to destroy them, eventually war broke out.”
“There need only be one king,” the king said. “I see they couldn’t understand the simplest of things.”
“Indeed, my liege. By the time the wars ended, all seven towns were ruined. However, Shiguhari had a reason for being the largest of the towns. The place where Shiguhari once stood is where we should build your castle.”
“Then let us make it so.”
The king had spoken, and so the vassals hurried to explore Shiguhari. Shiguhari had been the largest of the towns, so it had grown to be hated by the other towns, and was now thoroughly destroyed. The countless buildings were all crumbled to rubble, so just cleaning it all up was going to be an unbelievably laborious task.
That said, if the vassals dawdled too long, it was entirely possible they might get pancaked by an irate king, so they couldn’t slack off.
The king increased the number of vassals he had again, and set them to work. In particular, the master hole-digger Rainbow Mole really distinguished himself.
The rubble was sorted into pieces that could be used and pieces that couldn’t, and then the usable pieces were piled up while the useless pieces were discarded. Among the seemingly usable pieces there was a large door.
The king at first thought to make it the door to his own room, but Sleeping Man was opposed to it.
“My liege, that door is special. The only one of its kind in this world. It was the greatest treasure of Shiguhari. It is because they secretly held that door that Shiguhari became the largest town, and why they were said to be the closest place to heaven.”
“It just looks like a door to me,” the king objected.
“They say this door is connected to heaven. Now that you have obtained the door, you can go to heaven at any time.”
“If I can go at any time, there is no need for me to go now.”
“I believe it is best if you do as you see fit, my liege,” said Sleeping Man.
“Then let it be so.”
The king ordered that no one was to touch the door, and he had his vassals continue with the construction of the castle.
When the castle was finished, it was to a human as an elephant was to an ant in size. Thus it was named Elephant Castle.
The treasure of Shiguhari, that door, was carried into the king’s room, and placed in a spot where it would stand out.
The king was satisfied, and he decided to reward Sleeping Man. “For a long time, you have served me well. Is there nothing you wish for?”
“In order to serve you my liege, I have worked hard to stay awake as often as possible,” said Sleeping Man. “However, I am ever so sleepy. With your leave to do so, I would like to slumber greedily, in a place where I may see your castle when I happen to wake.”
“You are a man without greed. You shall have your reward. Sleep in a place where you can see this castle, for however long, and however much you desire.”
“Thank you, o great king.”
As he had wished for, Sleeping Man went to sleep.
When Sleeping Man laid down on the ground, the trees gave off buds of a deep red, scarlet color, which grew, and became thick leaves. They formed a copse, and then a forest.
Because Sleeping Man had gone to sleep, monsters appeared, too.
When he saw this, the king thought, It’s just like a hedge, and was very happy.
Having survived the war of the seven towns, met the great king, completed his duty, and at last been granted peaceful sleep, Sleeping Man was a loyal man, and a fortunate one.
The king would occasionally have his vassals build extensions to the castle or remodel it. If he was displeased by their work ethic, or if they did something wrong, the king would kill or pancake that vassal.
When he was short of vassals, the king would order his vassals to search for new vassals. However, it was quite difficult to find vassals who were up to the king’s standards.
The king reminisced fondly about Sleeping Man, and went out of his way to visit the Scarlet Forest, calling his name many times. However, there was no response. Sleeping Man was slumbering soundly as he dreamed a dream.
With the power the great king held, it was probably not impossible for him to level the forest and slap Sleeping Man awake. However, the king decided to let Sleeping Man sleep, and resolved that from now on, he would amply honor and reward those vassals that did well.
Without the slightest inkling of the terrible act of betrayal his vassals had undertaken against him, the king headed home.
Then when he returned to his room, it was terrible. The treasure of Shiguhari, the doorway to heaven, was open.
What was more, though he could see his own room on the other side of the door, just the head of one of his vassals was sticking out of it for some reason.
“Vassal, what are you doing?” the king demanded.
“I was trying to open the door while you were away and go to heaven,” said the vassal.
“Why is only your face sticking out?”
“That is because I was afraid, so I backed into it slowly.”
“Are you in heaven?”
“Everything from my neck down is in heaven. Only my face remains in this world, my liege.”
“What sort of place is heaven?”
“My face remains in this world, so I can not see it yet. However, as you are no longer my liege, O king, I could not tell you even if I did know.”
“What do you mean, I am no longer your liege?” the king demanded.
“I mean this.” The moment he said that, the vassal’s face vanished beyond the door.
Thus did the king cease to be that vassal’s liege. No matter how great a king he was, he could not dominate a vassal who had gone on to heaven.
The king was enraged, and he immediately summoned all the vassals in the castle and pancaked them.
“My number one vassal Bayard has failed me, and the man I saw as my number two vassal has never returned from the Iron Tower of
Heaven. Is there no vassal anywhere who is as loyal, or as capable, as Sleeping Man?”
There was nothing to be gained, and much harm to be felt, from incapable and disloyal vassals, but having absolutely no vassals was inconvenient in its own way.
When the vassals who had been away from the castle returned, the king tasked them to bring in a lot more fresh vassals. Furthermore, to keep that insolent door from ever opening again, he wrapped it with chains. Using it as a backrest, and attaching armrests and a seat to it, the king made it into a chair for himself.
When the king sat on that chair, no one could open the door.
“I cannot trust my vassals, but if I pancake them left and right, I’ll run out in no time,” the king muttered. “With the exception of those who’ve done something especially awful, I’ll lock them in the dungeon and have them reflect on their actions for now. Still, though...”
He had been overjoyed when Elephant Castle was first completed, but ever since gaining a castle, he had stopped going anywhere on his own very often. Now he was forced to defend his treasure, the door, and couldn’t be away from in front of it.
He considered just going to heaven, but even the wise king had no way of knowing what sort of place it was.
Besides which, the king had not always been a king. It was only by building power little by little, and becoming a great king, that he had been able to acquire a castle as impressive as this one. If he set aside the fact of not being able to move from in front of the treasure, you could say he was able to do anything.
It could be that the moment he went to heaven, the great, wise king would lose everything. If that came to pass, it would all be in vain.
Besides, as Sleeping Man had once told him, the king who gained the door could go to heaven at any time, so there was no need to hurry.
However, only the king could be allowed to go to heaven. If the king opened the door and went to heaven, there would be no one to close it. Anyone could pass through the open door and go to heaven after him. The door belonged to the king, so would that not be incredibly vexing?
To console himself, the king sought things that were strange and unusual. His vassals competed to find such things, but they did not get the results they hoped for. Having traveled this world a long time, it wasn’t easy to impress the king with just any old thing.
One time, a vassal brought a pretty princess to the castle. The princess was beautiful, but held a filthy shovel close at all times. What an odd princess.
The king became quite fond of the princess. That was because, unlike his vassals who were always attempting to curry favor with him, the princess was brave, or stupid, and opposed the king at every turn.
For the king, betrayal was unforgivable, but he had grown tired of only having those who would flatter him around. The vassal who brought the princess to him must have seen that was how the king felt.
“Well done,” said the king. “However, it is insolent to presume to read your king’s heart. I shall make you a shadow.”
Once the king had pancaked that vassal into a shadow, he ordered the princess to be his partner in conversation.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” the princess shot back.
“Then shall I make you a pancake, like that vassal?”
“I don’t want that, either.”
“If you don’t like it, then fight back. What else do you have that filthy shovel for?”
“As if I could beat you,” she snorted. “You know I can’t. That’s why you don’t take my shovel off me, right?”
“Good grief, you just have to have everything go your way, don’t you?”
“I don’t want you telling me I’m selfish,” the princess snapped. “No matter how you look at it, no one’s more selfish than you, you piece of shit.”
“It’s not that kings want everything their way. Those who want everything their way become kings.”
“Huh? What is this, the chicken and egg problem? Though it’s obvious the chicken came first.”
“Why did the chicken come first?” the king asked.
“I’ve heard of chickens laying eggs, but no egg lays a chicken. The egg’s just a shell.”
“You’re an interesting one. Sing for me, and assuage my boredom.”
“You think I care if you’re bored? You can stay bored forever.”
For the king, who was sick to death of his sycophantic vassals, the princess’s frank demeanor was comforting. No matter how much of a strong front the princess put up, if the king got serious, he could end things in an instant. That was why he could ignore being called a piece of shit. The princess was like a showy jester.
“If you think you’ll be on top forever, you’re dead wrong,” the princess sneered at him.
“To decide right and wrong is the exclusive right of the ruler.”
“The ruler, huh? You think frightening people into doing what you say is ruling. Real impressive.”
“If they do not listen, they will be crushed,” the king informed her. “Thus, they obey. The simpler a system is, the better.”
“You just can’t think up a more complicated system, can you? You know, like a code of laws, maybe. I’ll bet you couldn’t do anything that advanced. Not with your shit brains.”
That said, there were times he snapped. When the princess got carried away and went too far, the king would shout.
“I can turn you into a shadow that’s even lower than an animal!”
When he saw the normally bold princess’s face turning pale, those hands clinging desperately to the shovel, it was truly satisfying.
As far as the king was concerned, he was allowing the princess’s indiscreet remarks just for that purpose. Even when clearly terrified, the princess’s false bravado was still a sight to behold.
“If you want to do it, then do it,” the princess snarled. “I’m more than ready.”
“That’s the spirit. You should talk back to me more. I’ll listen to you until my patience runs out.”
In the end, the princess was a pet dancing in the king’s palm. Because the king was too great, most people placed in the palm of his hand would shrink in fear, but the princess danced desperately. Was it not so earnest, and so adorable?
“The great king has all that you will never have,” the king smirked. “This castle, for one thing, and this door, for another.”
The king rose from his throne, taking the armrests, the seat, and the chains off the door, then opened it.
“That’s nothing,” the ignorant princess said, as if exasperated. “It’s just a door, you know.”
The king sneered with all his heart. “I suppose a fool like you can’t see it, but this door leads to heaven. The king is the sole person able to open the door to heaven at any time. That is because the king is the king. In the king’s presence, everything will go his way, the way he hopes it will. How fleeting is your fate that you may be turned into an empty shadow the moment the king wishes for it?”
With lip bit in frustration, the princess continued to glare endlessly at the other side of the door.
Things had indeed gone just as the king had hoped.
The king was greatly satisfied.



14. Not Wandering [gone_gone]


This slope was very hard to walk on. It wasn’t just bumpy; it was bumping up and down. The places where he stepped might suddenly bump up, or sink down out of nowhere.
Not just a little, either. It could be anywhere from ten centimeters to over a meter at times.
It wasn’t hard enough to call it rocky, but it wasn’t dirt, either. Nor was it smooth like sand. It felt like clay, only not sticky. It was uniformly gray, but blackened in places, giving it a look not entirely unlike marble. That really messed with his sense of distance.
It was dynamically rising and falling, but sloping downwards on the whole. This might have been better than a constant downhill slope. Having some change kept him from getting bored, at least.
If he let his guard down, he’d lose balance, so he couldn’t get lost in thought. That spared him from thinking about things he didn’t need to, but still, That’s not good, he thought.
Alice and Ahiru who were more used to Parano than Haruhiro were going on ahead of him. While following the two of them, how many times had he repeated to himself, I can’t just leave this to them, now?
The flow of time in Parano was unique. Was a second in Parano a hundred seconds in Grimgar, or was it the reverse? Did it go back and forth? Did it meander? Did it flow entirely differently?
Nothing was certain, and he could think of no way to test it, but he felt that he could be sure time wasn’t flowing at a uniform rate.
Haruhiro, of course, felt that was abnormal. But not so for Alice and Ahiru. They’d likely started out with the same feeling of wrongness about it as Haruhiro, but at some point while living in Parano, it had become normal for them.
In Haruhiro’s mind, the result of that was that everything, even their thought patterns, had been influenced by Parano. He wasn’t sure about Ahiru, but Alice was by no means a stupid person, yet neither of them ever really planned things out in an ordered, logical fashion. The changes in Parano were likely too intense for that.
When it came to places that didn’t change, there were maybe a little over ten, all of them ruins or similar. Even if they were traveling from Ruin A to Ruin B, the distance as a straight line didn’t change, but the terrain in between changed by the second, so the road there was different each time. It was exceedingly difficult to predict when anything might happen, so they were fundamentally required to act on the spur of the moment to respond to an evolving situation. Given that, any plan was going to go to waste in no time.
Planning existed to carry out things in an efficient manner. Efficiency was a ratio of reward to effort expended. For instance, if it took a year to bake a loaf of bread, you would have to say that was highly inefficient. However, in Parano, the concept of time was awfully vague.
Did it take a year to bake that loaf of bread? Ten days? One day? A few hours? No one could say for sure.
Haruhiro and the others might be experiencing a kind of deathless, timeless immortality in this other world, Parano. The fact was that if something happened to them they would die, so they weren’t unkillable at all, but if they could avoid danger, they’d likely live indefinitely. That was the illusion, at least.
This situation dulled his sense of whether something absolutely had to be done right now.
Sure, he was worried about his comrades, and he wanted to see them, and they had to get back together. But if they were all right, well, “Haste makes waste,” as they say. Maybe it didn’t have to be done right this second?
No, obviously, he ne`eded to confirm his comrades were all right as soon as possible. It was just that, hurry though he might, it was questionable if there was anything more he could do. It was unimaginably difficult to search for people in Parano. Mindnumbingly so. If he wasn’t patient about it, he’d go nuts.
If after all that, he just stopped caring, would he meet an end like the rusted man at the Iron Tower of Heaven?
I won’t end up like him, was something he fervently believed at the moment. However, if this situation dragged on indefinitely, how about then?
Haruhiro might well make the same sort of decision as the rusted man, or Sleeping Man in the Scarlet Forest.
Alice and Ahiru still had an attachment to life. Still, their spirits had definitely been eaten away at by Parano’s eternity. It was surely the same for the lonely king guarding the door in Elephant Castle. And Itou Nui wasn’t as strong-hearted as any of them, so she had given up on living.
It was Haruhiro who had dealt the finishing blow to her, so he had no intention of dodging responsibility for his role in it. Even so, when Nui’s wish to be reunited with Alice had come true, she’d had no more reason to cling on to life. Having become one with Nui using Resonance, Haruhiro could say so for certain.
To Nui, living had been a terrifying and grueling ordeal, like crawling through the darkness in search of something. Alice had been her sole light.
The moment she saw that light again, Nui had felt, This is enough. I never want to suffer again. I’ll be engulfed by the light and let it end.
Like Sleeping Man, the rusted man, and Nui, would Haruhiro eventually choose to end himself in some way? It was possible Alice or Ahiru might, too. Kuzaku’s new group and the rest of their comrades likewise. He couldn’t be sure that none of his comrades had already given up on life like that.
He was going to find them before they were completely absorbed into Parano. Then they’d persuade them to defeat the king and open the door.
He didn’t know where or what heaven was, but Haruhiro’s party had come to Parano through a door. The door in Parano likely led to another world, too. It could well be Grimgar. He wasn’t sure he should get his hopes up, but he had no reason to reject the idea outright.
It probably wasn’t going to do any harm thinking, It’d be nice if it was.
After descending the bumping marble-patterned slope for a long time, suddenly the bottom of a valley came into view. There was a sudden steep cliff in front of them, so it was probably a valley.
Haruhiro came to a stop despite himself. “There sure are a lot of them...”
Alice and Ahiru were pressing on. He’d be in a spot of trouble if they left him behind, so Haruhiro earnestly kept his legs moving.
“That’s the Valley of Earthly Desires...” he said.
There was a mass of something writhing in the cliff. Like a massive swarm of insects. Some moved left and right, while others were clambering up the cliff.
Looking around, it wasn’t just Haruhiro and the other two who were descending the slope to head to the valley—no, the cliffs on the other side. Maybe they were avoiding Alice and Ahiru’s powerful magic, so they were quite far off, but he could see what looked like dream monsters dotted about here and there.
Haruhiro eventually caught up to Alice. “That valley... or the cliff, rather... where does it start, and how far does it go?”
“Beats me. You know, Ahiru?”
“How should I?” the man shot back. “If you go, you’ll find out.” “Well, get going,” Alice said.
“Me?” Ahiru was incredulous. “You can’t be serious, right?”
“I said go.”
“No way. I’m not going.”
“Why not? It’d be amusing if you did.”
“Not for me, it wouldn’t. You’re kind of like the king, Alice. Well, I guess that’s probably why he liked you.”
Alice snorted in response, but said nothing.
When they got even closer to the bottom of the valley, more and more of the buglike dream monsters vanished out of view. They hadn’t actually vanished, of course. The dream monsters grew cautious of Alice and Ahiru, and moved away. Still, they didn’t run.
While keeping a distance from Alice and Ahiru, they rushed to get ahead of the rest and cling to the cliff. Then they climbed.
“Should we climb, too?” Haruhiro asked.
“Are you crazy?” Ahiru demanded.
“Well, I think I’m still sane, Ahiru.”
“Having you call me that kinda pisses me off. You’re just a tagalong...”
“Tell me your real name and I’ll use it.”
“...I forget. I don’t even remember it anymore. Ahiru’s fine.”
The dream monsters didn’t get in their way. Thanks to that, Haruhiro and the other two were able to focus on climbing.
If they couldn’t get absorbed in the task, it wouldn’t be possible. That was partly because of the steepness of the incline, but just like the slope on the way down, this cliff bumped in and out, too. When they laid a hand or foot on part of it, it might jut out or pull in. It was ridiculously dangerous.
How were they able to climb all the way to the top without giving up? That was a mystery, but they did it.
Beyond the Valley of Earthly Desires, flat land spread out as far as the eye could see. It was blue, like a tranquil sea. No matter how far they walked, they would surely find nothing here. He couldn’t help but feel that way. Even so, the few monsters that succeeded in ascending the cliff pushed on towards the horizon.
Haruhiro and the others walked along the edge of the cliff. They weren’t just walking. They were keeping a close eye out for anything other than dream monsters, anything human.
The phantasmagoric nature of Parano was really harsh upon those who came here from other worlds. Alice had lived in Ruins No. 6, Ahiru in Ruins No. 5, and the king had built Elephant Castle at Ruins No. 1. The rusted man had met his end at the Iron Tower of Heaven, and even Nui, fallen to become a trickster, had taken up residence in Ruins No. 3. Even Haname, who was likewise a trickster, was making Ruins No. 2 her garden.
Humans were drawn to places that didn’t change. When humans were in Parano, they stayed in places that didn’t change, or moved from unchanging place to unchanging place, one of the two.
If his comrades were alive, they were sure to visit unchanging places.
If he went around the unchanging places, he’d eventually encounter Kuzaku, who was traveling with a woman and two men he didn’t know.
Haruhiro suspected he was taking things too easily. It wasn’t as if he didn’t think that maybe he, too, was being affected by Parano’s poisonous influence. But was there any better way? He considered waiting in the Valley of Earthly Desires forever until someone came, but that would be slow in the extreme. His thinking might be dyed completely in the colors of Parano while he was waiting, and he couldn’t deny the risk that he might fall into darkness.
The cliff gradually got lower, and finally reached a height where the area below could no longer be called a valley. This was the end of the Valley of Earthly Desires, apparently. He never did end up spotting another human being, but Haruhiro was surprised at how little he had lost hope.
“We can’t climb Glass Mountain, right?” he asked. “Let’s go to the
Sanzu River next.”
Neither Alice nor Ahiru objected.
When was the last time he’d exchanged words with either of them? They were with him, but they were being awfully untalkative. No, maybe not. Were they? It was hard to say.
No matter what happened on route, it was rare for any of it to move his heart.
Oh, yeah? Hm, okay. Huh, all right then, was the extent of his reactions.
It might be incredible that Alice had held onto the desire to go through the door to heaven, or that Ahiru hadn’t given up on his wish to save Yonaki Uguisu. Did Haruhiro feel that way because his own will was getting weaker?
Whenever he felt that it was, he forced himself to remember his comrades’ faces.
I want to see them. I have to.
I’m going to see them.
I want us all to go home together.
To Grimgar.
Oh, but... what sort of place was Grimgar, anyway?
Was he pining for it? Was Grimgar a homeland that merited Haruhiro wanting to return to it?
The Sanzu was a great bubbling river. The bubbles weren’t due to a swift current. There was an endless supply of sparkling rainbow bubbles forming on the surface, then flying away. The flow itself was slow. Or perhaps it only looked that way. The far shore looked hazy through the countless bubbles, almost like a mirage.
The riverbanks were packed with small white pebbles that were like beads. He couldn’t tell from a distance, but when he came closer, there were small mounds of pebbles. Had someone piled them up? Or had they ended up like that naturally?
The next thing he knew, Haruhiro was crouched down piling up stones.
“...Huh? What am I doing...?” he mumbled.
Looking around, he saw Alice nearby, and Ahiru a little further away doing the same.
“Hm... You just feel like stacking them when you come here...” Alice murmured.
“You do, for some reason...” Ahiru agreed.
Both Alice and Ahiru seemed to be stacking reluctantly, as if they had no choice but to pile up the rocks.
Then why don’t they just stop? Haruhiro thought, but he himself was piling up rocks, too, for some reason.
The pebbles were the size of his pinkie fingertip, smooth, and rather hard to stock. Even if he managed to stack a number of them well, they’d suddenly come tumbling down.
“This is frustrating...” he muttered.

Chapter end