c14 5

His stomach felt like it was paper-thin. It was so empty, it hurt. The feelings of starvation assaulted his body en masse from inside. He felt an aching, burning pain behind his eyes, and the blaze traveled from his nose, to his mouth, to spread through his throat. Ohhhhhhhhhh! It’s hot! Hot! I’m burning!
“My throat... Oh, right, I haven’t drunk anything, either...”
His stomach felt like an evil dragon, trying to escape through his mouth and claw out his eyes. Wait, what did that even mean?
While he rolled around in unbearable agony, someone scolded him, “Suck it up.”
They could say that all they wanted, but it was clearly impossible. Water, water, water, water, water, giver me water! he tried to scream. Or rather, he probably was screaming.
He was either pushed over or kicked himself over, he wasn’t sure which, but either way, Kuzaku flipped.
—Heavy!
Damn, that’s heavy. Is it Tonbe? Don’t mount me. Man, you’re heavy. Too damn heavy.
“Hang in there! Hang in there, Bossari!” Tonbe said as punched Kuzaku in the face.
Kuzaku instinctively tried to block with both arms, but Tonbe’s fists demolished his defense in no time and broke through.
After thirty or forty hits, he was losing consciousness. If Io hadn’t stopped it, he would have likely passed out.
“That’s enough, Tonbe,” she snapped. “We can’t use light magic here, so we can’t heal him. It’d be a pain if he died on us.”
“Sorry, Io-sama! I hate this guy, so I got serious, despite myself!”
Those were serious punches? Kuzaku thought. I mean, the way you mounted me before attacking, that was too good. You get respect for that. It pisses me off, though. What kind of person are you? And hold on, we can’t use light magic? Yeah, I had a feeling about that. The power of the gods doesn’t reach here, or something.
He had a lot he wanted to say, but the damage was too heavy for him to talk. The way hunger and thirst worked here had been explained to him, but only half of it had stuck.
“Anyway, you’ve got to be tough,” Io told him. “Tough it out. Now, stand up, Bossari. We’re going.”
Io-sama, you’re so harsh, Kuzaku moaned silently. From the bottom of his heart, he thought, I wish I could introduce her to Haruhiro.
Then he stood up on his own, chasing after the three who were moving along ahead of him. His face hurt. He was bleeding, too. His eyes were puffy, and his field of vision was narrow, so narrow.
I’m getting treated pretty awful, huh? Good comrades are a treasure, he realized. It made him want to cry.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “This king, or whatever he is... Is this any time to be meeting him? I don’t particularly want to. I’ve gotta find Haruhiro and the others...”
But if he managed to reunite with any of them, he’d have to talk about Shihoru.
Like, Shihoru’s wandering around practically naked for some reason. Man, that was lewd. I guess that’s something I shouldn’t say. I can’t say it. Also, her tears are sparkling and pretty, but they’re crazy dangerous. Man, I have to admit, my vocabulary sucks. My face hurts, and my spirits are heavy. My feet feel heavy, too, though.
That shadow was following them again. He was starting to feel more and more sorry for it. Though, sorry or not, it wasn’t like he could do anything.
Finally, they hit the end of the corridor.
It seemed there were a number of corridors coming off of a theaterlike space, and Kuzaku and the rest had been walking through one of them. Past here, it was more and more like a field. It wasn’t a field, though.
When they descended those smooth, glossy stairs all the way, was that a round stage? There was a column rising in the center of it.
What is this place? he wondered. Is it for gathering an audience and putting on events, or something? No? Well, whatever it is, it’s even prettier than the floor. I can’t see if light’s shining down from above, but it’s all so shiny.
Whew. Amazing. Though I kinda feel like, “Yeah, so what?” I can’t deny it. I don’t have time for this stuff, seriously.
The steps were short of thirty centimeters, and there were not just a hundred of them, but probably more than two hundred. The theater area was needlessly big, too.
On the way down, he tried asking, “Do I have to meet this king?” “The king rules all of Parano, ya know?” Gomi said.
Gomi’s accent was starting to grate on him. He even felt a slight urge to kill the man.
“Uh, right, but I’m not interested,” Kuzaku said. “I’ve got other things to do...”
“Those don’t matter,” Gomi shot back. “Yer Io-sama’s lackey. Ya just do what Io-sama tells ya to do.”
“I’m grateful for the help, but honestly, the lackey thing, that’s kinda... a bit much? Maybe? I don’t think it works that way. You people can do what you like, though.”
“‘You people’?” Gomi snarled. “Ya think yer better than us, Bossari?” Tonbe laughed nasally. “Leave him be, Gomi.”
That nasal laugh made Kuzaku want to punt Tonbe down these stairs and watch him tumble hysterically.
However, Tonbe wasn’t just a fatty. He was a strong, hefty man who could move really well, so even if Kuzaku wanted to do that, he couldn’t.
“You’ll see when you meet the king,” Tonbe smirked. “It will be painfully obvious that the best plan in Parano is to do as the king commands. If you’re enough of an idiot not to understand that, your fate’s already decided.”
“Is he scary?” Kuzaku asked warily.
“Did I not tell you you’ll understand when you meet him? Are you a nincompoop? You are, I bet. You nincompoop. You’re a worse nincompoop than the shit I squeeze out my ass. A nincompoop that’s worse than shit! That’s pretty bad!”
Kuzaku almost gave in to his destructive impulse. Not good.
I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, he chanted inside his head, blocking out Tonbe’s voice.
I just won’t talk to them, he thought to himself. These guys have some damn defective personalities. Why in the world does Io even keep them as lackeys? Having lackeys at all is weird enough. The Rocks were mostly weird, and Akira-san and his team were a bunch of supermen. The Daybreakers don’t have enough normal people. Man, I wanna see Haruhiro. Just having him with you, it’s kind of soothing, you know...
Kuzaku hung his head as he descended the steps in silence.
Now that I’ve come this far, I’ll go down, okay? But how far are we going down? Where can I stop? We’re still going down? We’re going to keep going down?
He felt like he had been descending the steps for an indeterminably long amount of time.
Finally, at last, they reached the stage-like area at the bottom.
It seemed Io had business with that pillar.
Except, when he followed her, it wasn’t a pillar. There was a door. It opened on its own.
When they went inside, there was a round room.
Incredibly, though you couldn’t see the inside from outside, the outside was visible from inside. Everything but the floor and ceiling was transparent.
The door closed. The room itself started to move.
“An elevator, huh...” Kuzaku whispered, eyeing Io to see what she did.
Io removed her mask, looking closely at the transparent walls. Whew! She let out a sigh, but her tense expression didn’t soften. She was clearly on edge.
It wasn’t just Io. Tonbe and Gomi were tense, too. They were a fairly high level dread knight and paladin. Was the king of Parano that insane?
The elevator continued to rise. It just wasn’t stopping. They must be going a pretty long way up, but mysteriously, the view outside hadn’t changed much.
“Hold on, we’ve simply gone up too much,” Kuzaku muttered.
The moment he did, he felt himself nearly thrown not upwards, but backwards.
“Whoa?!”
He managed to steady himself somehow, but if he had felt like he was being thrown backwards, were they moving forward? As he thought that, he was shaken to the right this time.
“Ah?!”
Io, Tonbe, and Gomi were lowering their posture and trying to endure it. Kuzaku decided to emulate them.
But if you knew this was coming, say so! Would it have killed you to tell me? he thought resentfully, but there was no time to complain.
“Nwah?! Doh?! Bwuh?! Goh?! Ubah?! Zeh...?!”
Each time the elevator suddenly changed direction or turned, Kuzaku would fall and get up, get up and fall.
Io had at some point started leaning on the invisible wall for support. Gomi and Tonbe were creating a wall around her. Neither of them would lay a finger on Io, but they wouldn’t let Kuzaku, who was rolling around all over the place, touch her, either.
Man, their loyalty is something else, he grimaced. I don’t respect it, though.
“Gwah...!”
The elevator, of course, came to a sudden stop, the doors opened in unison, and Kuzaku rolled out through them.
My eyes are spinning. I’m spread-eagled on the ground. I feel sick. What even is this place?
“Urgh... Ahh...” he moaned.
It was harsh treatment. As he was groaning, he got kicked in the stomach.
“Get yer ass up!” Gomi yelled.
That hurts, Kuzaku tried to complain. But his voice wouldn’t come out.
He felt an unpleasant chill. His whole body seemed to shrink from the cold. It was an incredible chill, unlike any he had experienced before. He didn’t feel like he could move at all.
Despite that, Kuzaku jumped to his feet. That was what he had to do now, and failing to do so would bring about the worst possible result. His sixth sense pushed him to do it.
Kuzaku held his breath. Or rather, he couldn’t breathe properly.
Before riding the elevator, the corridor and theater area had been impressive, but this place was on another level. It was like a limestone cave, with things jutting out of the ceiling, the walls, and even the floor. But those weren’t stalactites or stalagmites. They were linear or curved instead, making them appear artificial. These surroundings had a dark, significant feeling on the whole, and felt way too oppressive.
The wall directly in front of them was the only white one. It even looked phosphorescent. He thought it might be a glass window at first, but it wasn’t transparent.
Was it milky white? Or was it not glass at all?
In front of the white wall there was a step, several of them, maybe tens of steps, going up.
Up top, was that a chair? The blackish, rectangular back of it was wrapped with chains, and there were arm rests, too. It had a somewhat, no, a rather strange form, but, well, it was probably a chair. Was that what you’d call a throne?
This is the king’s place.
It was a far cry from Kuzaku’s vague imaginings. But he wasn’t wrong.
The man sitting on the throne, his legs crossed, was the king. Even without being told, he could tell that. If that wasn’t the king, Parano had no king.
Even if the bearded man hadn’t been wearing a black crown, he wouldn’t have looked like anything but a king. The man wore tightfitting leather, or something similar, but as for whether it was suitable attire for royalty, Kuzaku couldn’t say. When he heard the word king, he imagined something more gaudy, more florid, with clothing and accessories that were obviously opulent.
However, this was a king. If there was a king here, this was the king’s hall.
Kuzaku’s eyes were fixated on the throne... or rather, on the king and nothing else.
The king was far away. Kuzaku’s sense of distance seemed to be going crazy, because while he couldn’t tell how many meters away it was, the throne had to be tens of meters away. Despite that, he could make the king out clearly.
He’d be tall when standing. The king’s legs were awfully long and slender.
He couldn’t have been in his thirties. He was forty, maybe fifty. His face was appropriately wrinkled, and he had a short, salt-and-pepper beard. His hair was short, too. Had he not been smiling, he might have given off a different impression, but if anything, he seemed to have a gentle expression. His eyes, in particular, seemed almost kind.
Still, he was frightening.
Just by being there, he made the air in this royal hall harden and solidify.
The countless sharp growths must have sprouted because of the king.
The reason this royal hall was black was because the king was here.
The king’s existence defined this place. No, he conquered it, dominated it.
Naturally, it was the same with Kuzaku. He was ruled by the king.
As proof of that, he had prostrated himself before the king at some point, bowing his head, and was peering at him with upturned eyes, as if stealing a glimpse of the king. Tonbe, Gomi, and even Io had also each taken a knee, just like Kuzaku.
For as long as they were here, there was no other choice. Tonbe had said he’d understand when he met the king, and there was no choice but to do as the king said.
He was right.
“Hello, Io.” The king’s voice was low, soft, and deep. It was the sort of older male voice girls might like, but for some reason, it was thunderous, beating Kuzaku and the others into submission.
Just hearing him speak once, Kuzaku was trembling and ready to cry.
Io’s voice when she responded was awfully weak. “...Yes, Your
Majesty.”
This king, he’s crazy, Kuzaku thought wildly. Beyond crazy. I don’t know a thing about him. That’s crazy to the max. In a way, this might

be the very definition of crazy. He’s seriously, legitimately crazy. It’s like, wait, this is the king?
“You’ve brought something with you, I see,” the king said. “A newcomer?”
“Yes, sire...” Io murmured. “In order to serve you, sire... I felt it was my duty... my duty as your vassal. That is why I have brought him before you.”
“How admirable.”
“...Thank you, sire.”
“One can never have too many vassals. If they’re useful, that is.”
“If... if you feel that he cannot be of service to you... do with him as you please.”
Whoa, what? I dunno, does she mean... Huh? Kuzaku’s mind raced. Those shadows—they said those are what’s left of those who’ve angered the king, right?
If he can’t use me, she’s asking him to turn me into a shadow?
That’d kind of be a massive problem for me, you know?
Due to his slight anger and antipathy towards Io, and the feeling of irritation, his awe of the king seemed to have weakened slightly. Kuzaku was finally able to observe things other than the king.
To put it another way, he had only been able to see the king up until now. Just how incredible was this king?
There was a dais in the back of the royal hall, and on it was the throne. Behind the throne was the window or wall that emitted white light. However, there were many other things, too. The most eyecatching thing was hanging from the ceiling.
Was that a massive bird cage? No, it might be a cage, but not a bird cage. It was shaped like a bird cage, but that was no bird shut inside.
It was a human.
A brown coat, worn over a white dress. Long hair. Her face wasn’t visible, but from the shape of her body, she was likely a woman.
There was a king, so was she his queen, maybe?
No.
In what world would you find a husband who kept his wife in a cage? Okay, there might be rare cases where it happened. Was that what he was into?
There were stairs in front of the throne, and it was possible to go up to or descend from the dais. He realized now that everywhere aside from those stairs, there were cells. They were separated into small cages, each with a prisoner inside. He could see some slumped against the bars, too. Listening closely, he heard their voices.
“Io-samaaaa...”
It wasn’t clear which prisoner was saying it, but he was definitely calling out to Io.
At least one of Io’s comrades, a member of the Io-sama Squad, had been taken captive. Another had been turned into a shadow by the king. It made sense now.
So that’s what’s going on here, huh?
Io hadn’t submitted to the authority of the king and sworn loyalty to him. She wasn’t just terrified of his massive power after he had turned one of her comrades into a shadow, either.
He had a hostage.
If the hostage was a member of the Io-sama Squad, then even if he was a faceless stranger to Kuzaku, he was still a comrade through the Daybreakers.
Kuzaku couldn’t just say, Not my problem. I don’t care.
I can’t defy the king, he thought, mind racing. Even if I don’t want to obey, I have to for now. Either way, it’s impossible. Defying a guy like that? Not a chance.
He couldn’t help but wonder if the woman in the cage was someone else’s hostage, and think that, if the king was really so great, he shouldn’t act like such a petty villain.
Kuzaku’s hostility might have leaked out, but he wasted no time in smothering it.
No way. I can’t take him. I don’t really get it, but I can tell it’s impossible even without understanding why. Honestly, I’m afraid to even look at the king. I don’t want to see him. And yet, I’m looking.
Still, what’s with that?
That throne.
Like, the back rest?
It’s simply oversized. The armrests and seat fit the king. It’s just the back rest that’s weirdly tall, and wide. It looks hard, too. On top of that, it’s wrapped in chains. It’s like the armrests and seat were added later, and he’s forcing himself to use that back rest. I’m not even sure it’s a back rest to begin with.
I mean, there are all sorts of engravings, and the edge seems to be reinforced with a different material, but that shape...
From the look of it, is it a door?
“From now on, you, too, are my vassal.” The king was trying to use a large door as a back rest, but was being forced to cross his legs because he couldn’t rest his back against it. He grinned at Kuzaku. “If you grind your bones to dust, working hard until you satisfy me, I will give you a reward. I hope you will be a useful vassal.” Kuzaku tried to open his mouth.
Why? Huh? Why’d I try to open my mouth? I have no clue. No clue at all. I’m sweating like mad. This is crazy.
Io’s glaring at me as if to say, “Don’t say anything.” Yeah, I know. No, I won’t say anything. Not a word.
The king laid his eyes on Kuzaku with a smile.
Come on, just say something yourself. Scold us, or anything. The silence is only making this scarier.
Maybe the king was acting this way in order to scare Kuzaku. If it was a calculated move, wasn’t that sneaky? Thinking about it that way, Kuzaku’s fear lessened a little.
Only a bit, though. He’s still scaaaa-ry. He’s so scary, I feel like I might wither into a dry husk. More like I’ve already started.
Suddenly, there was a strange sound from behind. He hadn’t even been able to breathe properly before, but somehow he was able to turn and look.
There was a pillar rising from floor to ceiling. It was the elevator Kuzaku and the rest had ridden in.
Its door opened. Out came a man in a moss green coat with a fur collar.
His long hair was a little wavy, and he had stubble. He seemed listless, degenerate, and a little filthy, but still stylish somehow. To put it simply, he was the type that seemed like he’d be popular with girls.
Looking at Kuzaku and the rest, the man frowned a little, immediately looking away as he approached the dais.
“Ahiru,” the king said.
As the king called him, the man stopped and knelt, bowing deeply. “Your Majesty... It is an honor to lay eyes on you again.”
“Yonaki Uguisu sings as finely as ever. Just for me.”
When the king said that, the man who was apparently called Ahiru didn’t quite tremble, but he tensed up. Kuzaku saw it.
Looking to the woman in the cage for a moment, then back, Kuzaku thought, It was him.
The woman was like a shell of a person, but her position had changed from before. He couldn’t say for certain, but she was likely looking at Ahiru. Like Io and her group, Ahiru had that Yonaki Uguisu woman being held over him as a hostage.
Kuzaku lowered his eyes, and bit his lip. Ohhhhh, I’m pissed.
No matter how detestable a bastard he was, there was no defying the king. If he defied him, it would be all over. That was one thing he couldn’t do a thing about.
“Yonaki Uguisu always pleases me, yet you return to me with nothing, Ahiru?” the king asked.
“...I’m sorry.”
“I believe you were able to sing, too. Why don’t you perform a song for us here?”
“Spare me, please. I haven’t sung in ages. I wouldn’t want to sully your ears.”
“In that case, hurry and bring Alice back.”
“As you’re aware, sire, that princess is a tough one,” Ahiru said. “It’s embarrassing to admit, but I don’t have the strength to win, so I went and smashed up the princess’s house.”
“Well, well. Alice must be awfully angry, I’m sure.”
“Maybe enough to come storming in here.”
“Can Alice make it through the Scarlet Forest, like before, when running away?” the king mused.
“I wonder... Knowing the princess, maybe.”
“Before coming here, Alice may try to kill you first, Ahiru.”
“I’m... good at running away, if nothing else.”
“You mean to lure Alice here,” the king said. “That’s your plan, is it, Ahiru?”
“If it doesn’t work... I’ll think of something else. There’s time. No... maybe there’s no time at all.”
“You could say both that there is no time, and there is unlimited time. We are eternal,” the king said. “The eternity that should be impossible to attain, no matter how desperately we crave it, is now in our hands. We need no longer measure ourselves in human terms, yet we are forced to. This is karma. Cast aside karma.”
“I can’t understand complicated things, but I’ll think hard on it... sire.”
“Leave me,” the king told Io. “I wish to hear Yonaki Uguisu’s voice.” “We’re going,” Io said in a whisper.
When Kuzaku looked up, Io, Tonbe, and Gomi were taking their leave.
Ahiru wasn’t moving. Yonaki Uguisu was still facing Ahiru, too.
Thud, thud, thud. The king stomped his foot on the ground as he ordered, “Get. Out. Now.”
Kuzaku shot up like a bullet, and did an about-face.
Sca-ry. I nearly wet myself.
Wondering what was going on, he looked towards Ahiru. Ahiru followed after Kuzaku and the rest like he was running away, too. His back hunched, his right hand clutching his left breast, both eyes rolled back, his teeth gritted, and a face like a fiend.
This man wasn’t fully loyal to the king, either. If anything, he was suppressing his feeling of, I’ll kill him, I swear I’ll kill him, and serving the king because he had no choice.
“Um, what is our job?” Kuzaku asked Io on the way to the elevator.
“To finish them off,” Io said quickly. “Every last human in Parano. That, or bring them to the king, and make them swear loyalty. That is a vassal’s duty.”
“...Oh, yeah?”
Just maybe, Kuzaku started to think, Io is pretending to serve the king, while actually gathering comrades. Then, when the time comes, she’ll pull the king down from his throne. If the king is removed, we can open that door. What’s through the door? Can we go back to Grimgar? Can we no longer return?
More importantly, I have to find Haruhiro and the others first. But what about Shihoru? There are too many problems. In times like this, I really do need Haruhiro. Without Haruhiro there, I can’t do anything.
Haruhiro...


8. Their Song [honesty]


Once upon a time, there was an unsuccessful singer.
However, the singer had doubts about that. What, exactly, did it mean to be unsuccessful?
The proud singer thought, My songs aren’t something to be sold. It takes an impoverished soul to only see value in things based on whether or not they make money, doesn’t it?
Songs are art. Art is the pursuit of beauty, and the expression of it. Beauty is that which transcends petty personal interest and taste in order to move people’s hearts. That feeling of being moved is, in itself, beauty.
Because people were moved by the singer’s songs, and felt the beauty in them, he received offers to form a band, and to hold concerts.
Each time someone said they were going to make a killing, and the singer was held up as a golden goose, the singer cocked his head to the side.
That’s weird, he would think. The money doesn’t matter at all, does it?
If the singer could sing songs that made his entire body tingle and his soul connect to the audience, that was enough. That was better than having sex with a woman. It felt so unbelievably amazing, no one who hadn’t experienced it could even imagine.
The singer made songs, sang them, captivated audiences, and gained massive support in certain quarters. The singer had bandmates, and his relationship with them was good, at first, but it gradually became more fraught. That was because whenever someone brought them an offer that would bring in money to the singer, he chased them away.
Both the singer and his bandmates sweated hard at work, then made use of their down time to practice, and put great effort into the concerts.
Isn’t this good? the singer thought. As long as he did things this way, he didn’t have to sing for money.
However, his bandmates were apparently dissatisfied.
“We could make it,” they asserted. “We could be successful. We could make a living off our music.”
If they did that, they wouldn’t have to work, and they could devote themselves entirely to the music.
“Now, listen,” the singer cautioned his bandmates. “If we did that, the songs, our performances, they wouldn’t be pure anymore. If we use them to earn money, they’re no different from any other labor.”
Despite that, his bandmates said, “Whatever. We’ve gone as far as we can while working jobs. Come on, let’s do it. It’ll be fine. We just need one hit. We can do it.”
Finally, the singer gave in. “Okay, fine. In exchange, I’m going to do things my way, just like always. You’re all right with that, right?” “That’s fine,” his bandmates all agreed.
And so the singer did what he wanted.
When it came to the songs, the singer was sincere, and he pulled no punches. In writing them, he was not just earnest, but desperately so. He turned only the things he truly thought and felt into lyrics, honestly conveying them exactly as they were. He was merciless, and at times cruel.
If he was going to be honest, then he couldn’t depict even a woman he loved from the bottom of his heart as just beautiful. There times when, after they made love, and she fell into a slovenly state of slumber, snoring loudly, he suddenly felt he hated her.
There were times he wanted to say, How could you feed me this disgusting slop? and nights he masturbated thinking about another woman.
Oh, but in this moment, more than anyone, more than anything, I love her! To shout that out loud, with no shame, that was honesty. I don’t know about tomorrow. I might throw you out some day, like a piece of oversized garbage, but for now I love you.
When it came to his bandmates, the singer hid nothing there, either.
“You suck. Just quit. Why can’t you do this properly? Go redo your lives a few times. I like you guys, but right now, I want to kill the lot of you. I mean, you’ve lost your spirit. You aren’t serious at all. I’m right, aren’t I?”
And the singer occasionally shouted at them.
“It’s not about money! We don’t play music for the money, damn it! I’ll yield a little, no, a lot, and say it’s fine if money comes in, but don’t put money before us. If we want money, and we’re just doing it for the money, we’re through. That’s not music anymore. The value of singing it, or listening to it, is zero. Zero! Why don’t you get it? We’ve been together all this time, so when did you all become such trash? If I had to choose between you lot and a pile of vomit, I’d take the vomit. A bunch of flies swarming around a pile of shit would be better than all of you right now. I can’t love any of you now. I wish you’d all just die, seriously.”

Chapter end