c14 9

“You people, are you Yomu?”
“Yomu?” Setora looked over at Not-Merry despite herself.
It seemed Not-Merry had no more idea what he was talking about than her, and she cocked her head to the side. “I don’t... think so?”
“You don’t look like Yomu, so what are you?!” the man cried. “From the looks of it, you’re not half-monsters, or dream monsters. You don’t look like tricksters, either. Does that mean what I think it does?! What are you people?! Do we get to take you out?!”
“What’re ya doin’, Tonbe?! Yer a such worth sack o’ lard!” Another man appeared from the hole in the wall of ivy.
“That’s one hell of an accent,” Not-Merry muttered.
It was true, he had a distinctive intonation that was hard to pick up, but his appearance was quite unique, too. Were there really people with chins that long?
This man had his mouth covered with cloth, but it couldn’t fully contain his overlong chin. It was jutting out.
Could eyebrows grow in such perfect equilateral triangles like that? His pupils were awfully small. Those sanpaku eyes had been seen as a mark of ill fortune long ago, a cause for shunning.
Also, what was with that man’s forehead? Or rather, was there anything to it? It was narrow, bordering on nonexistent. It was hard to even call it a forehead when it was that narrow. Did the man not have a forehead, then? What did it mean to have no forehead?
The sentence “He packs some crazy punch” passed through Setora’s head. Those words weren’t a part of her usual vocabulary. It sounded like something Kuzaku might say. Still, it was true, the man’s appearance packed some crazy punch.
The man put his hand on the hilt of the greatsword strapped across his back, glaring at Setora and Not-Merry. “Huh...? The hell’re you people?”
Setting Mirror Man aside, this guy seemed fairly capable—though, because his looks packed too much punch, Setora couldn’t help but laugh at him.
“I could ask you the same.”
Earnestly suppressing her laughter, Setora had to work hard to maintain a serious expression. If she laughed, Too Much Punch Man would attack Setora immediately.
She wasn’t sure she could even block the first swing. Depending on how it went, it might be over with that first swing. The evil, vicious

aura that Too Much Punch Man gave off was enough to inspire that sense of urgency in her.
Mirror Man readied his giant mirror. His plump body was mostly hidden by the massive mirror. The giant mirror looked like a hand mirror blown up to that size, but how was he even carrying it? She didn’t really know.
With his lips lowered, and his left arm hanging slack, Too Much Punch Man inched closer, gripping and releasing the hilt of his greatsword with his right hand.
Even for Kiichi, who had his hackles raised and was ready to fight, handling Too Much Punch Man was probably going to be difficult. They probably couldn’t underestimate Mirror Man, either. Who knew how much of a fight Not-Merry would even put up? Whatever the case, Setora needed to be ready for an all-out battle.
Setora jumped down from Kiichi’s back, gripping the pseudo-soul vessel hidden in her pocket tightly. “Enba!”
The pseudo-soul which was made with the power of a relic and the pseudo-soul vessel that contained it were the golem Enba’s true body. That said, Enba’s cadaver, which had been made of dead bodies and metal, was broken and lost. The cadaver couldn’t function without a pseudo-soul vessel, and was no more than a mere puppet, but the pseudo-soul vessel was also no more than a hard gem without a cadaver.
Those who came before her said that it was possible to read the pseudo-soul’s will from the blue light that flickered through a number of holes. Setora thought that was a hallucination. If she didn’t remake his cadaver, Enba would not move.
If Setora were to make a cadaver anywhere but her hometown, the village, she would have to gather all the tools and materials from scratch, so it was, to put it extremely lightly, going to be a massive undertaking. It would be incredibly difficult to prepare a new cadaver for Enba.
Enba was essentially dead at this point.
For whatever reason, she had been born into the House of Shuro, and the first flesh golem she’d created as a necromancer was Enba. She couldn’t get used to the House of Shuro’s method of making and destroying new golems one after another, seeking to make a cuttingedge golem.
She had created life with her own hands. Now that she had made it, she couldn’t destroy it. She’d decided Enba would be her last golem.
The unspeaking Enba had served her in silence. He had always been at her side. Like a friend.
That had caused Enba’s death.
It was as if Setora had killed Enba herself.
She felt no guilt. Enba was a golem. He was ready to give his life for the necromancer who was his master at any time. Enba only did the obvious. Enba, obviously, would not blame Setora. No one could blame her for anything.
Enba was no more. He would likely never come back. Setora just had to accept that fact. There was nothing else she could do. That was how it was supposed to be.
Too Much Punch Man jumped and lunged towards her. He was going faster than Setora’s kinetic vision could hope to follow.
Setora or Kiichi, possibly both, would have been neatly bisected by Too Much Punch Man’s greatsword if Enba hadn’t suddenly appeared to stand in Too Much Punch Man’s way.
Enba’s long, metal-bound left arm deflected Too Much Punch Man’s greatsword. Without missing a beat, his right arm roared.
Too Much Punch Man retreated with a strange move that made him disappear, only to reappear in another place, dodging Enba’s right arm.
“The hell...?!” he shouted.
“Mwuhuh...?!” Mirror Man knocked back a sudden attack by Kiichi with his massive mirror.
Kiichi jumped back, fell into a fighting position, then growled.
That massive mirror had quite a bit of defensive power. Mirror Man had a warhammer on his back, but he surely couldn’t use it at the same time as the mirror.
Too Much Punch Man and Mirror Man were a team, one handling attack, the other handling defense, were they?
Not-Merry tapped the pommel of her head staff twice on the ground, watching on in silence. It looked like she had no intention of getting involved at all. It was impossible to know what she’d do if things went bad, but for now, Setora would need Kiichi and Enba to do their best.
Why was Enba, who should have lost his cadaver, here? More than that, when Setora had held his pseudo-soul vessel and willed him to come, he’d appeared. How did this phenomenon work? Setora had no idea, but Enba was here.
He had defended Setora a number of times in this bizarre world, eliminating her enemies, and had done a good job of deflecting Too Much Punch Man’s greatsword just now. He was no illusion.
Enba’s skin wasn’t exposed at all. The elastic corpse wrappings that Setora had made for his cadaver with her own hands were wrapped around his entire body, covering it up properly. The one who had armored his arms where they needed it was Setora, too.
No matter how you looked at him, Enba could only be Enba. However, it was hard to say he was completely unchanged. In fact, it was impossible to.
Enba had been the height of a grown man, maybe a little shorter. When she had started making Enba, Setora had been nine years old, so he had felt large at the time, but not so much anymore.
He hadn’t been large before.
Enba had grown.
Had he?
No, of course not. That couldn’t be right.
Flesh golems didn’t shrink or get thin, and they didn’t grow taller or get fatter, either. It shouldn’t have been possible, but Too Much Punch Man was probably above average height, yet also shorter than Enba. Yes, he was definitely shorter.
Enba had clearly gotten bigger.
“Go, Enba, Kiichi!” Setora called.
What did it matter when Kiichi had turned into what he had? Enba had just gotten bigger. It was no big deal.
Enba attacked Too Much Punch Man, while Kiichi charged at Mirror Man. Too Much Punch Man moved flexibly to the left and right, evading the fierce attacks from Enba’s left and right arms.
He dodged.
He dodged.
When it looked like he was going to just evade, he thrust out his greatsword like a spear for a counterattack. Enba bent over backwards to avoid it, falling backwards as he did.
Before he could regain his footing, Too Much Punch Man roared and sprang at him. “Gyahhhhhh...!” Could Enba handle it?
Please, handle it somehow, Setora silently pleaded.
His opponent wasn’t even serious yet. They were at the stage where the enemy had seen through all of the moves available to them.
Kiichi’s cat punches using both front legs, and the kick he performed after a forward somersault, had both been blocked by Mirror Man, so he was struggling to attack.
If Too Much Punch Man determined he could overwhelm Enba, they would likely go on the offensive. She wanted to do something before then, but Setora had no cards to play.
Looking over at Not-Merry, the woman was sitting down and hugging her legs. What was she doing?
Unable to put up with this any longer, Setora finally snapped and started to yell at Not-Merry. “You—”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Someone stumbled through the hole in the wall of ivy and into town.
That person was tall, and possibly as a countermeasure against the sweet wind, the person had a cloth over their mouth.
It was...
“Stop, stop, stop! Tonbe-san! Gomi-san! They’re not enemies! They’re my comrades! There’s no need to fight!”
“Huh?!”
“Say whaaaat?!”
Too Much Punch Man and Mirror Man jumped back in unison.
“W-Wait!” Setora cried.
When Setora gave the order, Enba and Kiichi stood down.
The man took the cloth covering his mouth off.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Merry-san! Setora-san! This is insane!”
What was supposed to be “insane”? What was with that face? She felt embarrassed just looking at him.
How could anyone smile with their face all messed up like that? His eyes were filled with tears, too. It was understandable that he was happy, but wasn’t it strange to cry? It had to be.
Despite that, Setora felt an irritation deep in her nose, and the area around her eyes got hot.
No way. She felt like she was going to cry—or did she?
Meanwhile, Not-Merry had gotten up in no time, and was waving to him with a smile. “It’s been a while, Kuzaku.”





That was to be expected, perhaps. It didn’t make Setora feel strongly one way or the other, but couldn’t she put a little more in to her act?
It seemed Kuzaku was so moved that his judgment was clouded, and he was just going, Yeah, yeah, while trying to wipe away the tears, so it was probably fine for now.
“...Hold on. Huh?” Kuzaku looked at Kiichi, turned to look at Enba, then screamed. “Whaaaaaaa?! H-Huhhh?! Whaaaaaaa?! Wh-WhWhat?! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa...?!”
“You’re being too loud, Bossari!” a female voice shouted.
There was still another one?
Who now?
Setora could tell it was a woman from the voice. She was presumably traveling with Kuzaku, but she wasn’t Shihoru.
There weren’t just monsters in this world. Mirror Man and Too Much Punch Man both were human. Most likely they were volunteer soldiers, like Haruhiro and the party. In that case, was that woman one of them, too?
The woman stood on the other side of the hole in the wall of ivy, crossing her arms. She made no attempt to enter the town.
Like Too Much Punch Man and Kuzaku, her mouth was covered with cloth, and she wore a white outfit with blue highlights. It was what they called a priest’s uniform.
“What are you?” Setora demanded.
“No, you. What are you?”
“I am Shuro Setora. Who are you?”
“I’m Io. I wouldn’t mind permitting you to call me Io-sama.”
“I don’t need permission.”
“Why?!”
“Because there is no reason I would ever address you with -sama.”
“You don’t know why you should call me Io-sama out of respect?” the woman sneered. “Oh, my. Are you soft in the head, perhaps?”
“Doesn’t that better describe you?” Setora asked coolly. “By the way, Kuzaku.”
“Muh?”
Kuzaku pointed at himself with a moronic look on his face. She already knew he wasn’t a particularly bright man, so it didn’t annoy her. This was, in its own way, a praiseworthy aspect of him.
“What are you people doing here?” Setora asked. “What did you come to this town for?”
“Ohh. The thing about that is—”
Rule... One... Be quiet... Don’t make a fuss...
Rule... Two... Fighting is... bad... Be peaceful... gentle... fun...
Rule... Three... You can’t... leave this... town... ever...
Rule... Four... Imitate... everyone...
Not following... rules... bad... Get out...
They heard that voice. Or maybe, because of all the ruckus they made, they hadn’t been noticing it. It was possible they’d been hearing it the whole time.
You not get out... Kill...
Setora turned around. She’d been careless. Because of everything that had been going on, she hadn’t noticed before now.
On the roads, on top of the roofs, in the gaps between the buildings, they were there. Their outlines were indistinct through the haze, but while some were human-like, some were similar but different, and others were completely inhuman. They may have gathered from all around town. There were swarms of them.
“...Uh, we came here to earn id?” Kuzaku asked falteringly.
He approached Setora, drawing his large katana. But this man, he had been tall to begin with, but was he this big?
“If I say that, do you understand?” he asked.
“No, not even a bit... but prepare yourselves, Enba, Kiichi.”
Enba and Kiichi defended Setora’s flanks. Not-Merry reluctantly readied her head staff, too. Mirror Man and Too Much Punch Man moved up, as well.
The residents of the town appeared not to be moving at first glance. However, they hadn’t been there before. They were definitely moving forward. They closed in little by little, and then would fall on them like a dam had just broken.
“Massacre them,” Io said.
It was like Io had given them the order. They were coming. The residents of the town were pressing in.
For a moment, a thought occurred to Setora. We won’t be massacring them. Won’t they massacre us instead?



12. Easily Lost, Easily Broken

[we_have_lost]

“...Alice?” I ventured.
I’m sure of it. That’s Alice C looking down at me.
“Yeah...” Alice nodded.
At me?
...Wait, who?
Me...
Oh, right.
“I’m...”
Holding something. What is it?
A person? It’s a human being.
He had his face thrust into that person’s hair. Like he was... hugging that person, from behind. And they were lying down. Was it a woman?
He didn’t think, Why am I clinging to a woman like this? He quickly— no, perhaps it would be better to say “finally”—realized it. Who exactly she was.
“Ito... Nui...”
She was limp, unmoving. Haruhiro pulled his arm out from under her, laying her on the ground as he stood up.
Though she was wearing an outfit that was like underwear, it was pretty tight, and torn in places, too. Even without taking off her multiple layers of glasses, he knew her face all too well. He had synchronized with her using his Resonance magic. It might be more accurate to say he’d gone inside her, or become one with her.
Haruhiro had been Ito Nui. Even now, he felt very close to her. He couldn’t think of her as a stranger. Nui’s pain and suffering, and her joy, Haruhiro knew them intimately. He felt as if the obsession with Alice that dominated her spirit was his own.
Maybe because of that, he felt no hesitation in touching Nui’s cheek.
“Nui-san?” he asked quietly.
It even felt inappropriate addressing her with a -san.
“Nui,” he repeated.
He hadn’t anticipated this at all. Haruhiro was simply mystified.
Why was Nui’s cheek so cold?
He didn’t panic. He just thought it strange, and gradually confirmed it.
Nui’s whole body was limp. Not one part of her moved. Her bright red lips, caked with lipstick or something like it, were still slightly parted. Her chest didn’t rise and fall.
Haruhiro pressed his ear to Nui’s partially exposed chest. There was no heartbeat.
At this point, Haruhiro became flustered. “It’s stopped! Her heart!
She’s not breathing! Alice!”
“Yeah.”
“This isn’t the time to be saying ‘yeah,’ is it?! Nui’s...”
“I know.”
“You... know... Huh? Wait, what do you...?”
“Nui’s already dead.”
“Dea—” Haruhiro stopped abruptly.
“Just look. She’s dead.”
“No, but it’s not too late to—”
“Do artificial resuscitation? Fine, let’s try. I think it’s pointless, though.”
“I’ll do it,” Haruhiro said frantically. “I have to. Isn’t that obvious? Of course we’re going to do it. Umm, how does it go...?”
“I more or less know. I’ll help.”
Tilting Nui’s head back to clear the airway, Haruhiro had Alice blow air into Nui’s mouth. When there was enough air inside her that her chest rose, they would wait for Nui to exhale, then blow in again. Once this had been done two or three times, he pushed down hard on the center of her chest with both hands.
Haruhiro had to do it pretty fast, pushing until her chest sank in by about five centimeters. After thirty compressions, they would breathe for her again.
When Alice first breathed into her, there was no response at all. Nui’s body was like an object, not much different from the girl dolls scattered around on the stairs of the Iron Tower of Heaven and the mountain of iron scrap.
Nui was here, and yet nowhere. She was completely dead. But he couldn’t bring himself to say, Let’s stop this. He had to continue.
Nui was like himself. Nui’s memories, her feelings, were clinging on inside him.
She could be a pain, Alice had said.
It was true, Nui wasn’t benevolent or pure. But she had reasons why she could only live the way she did, and Nui had been doing her best in her own way.
When she’d wandered into Parano, when she’d been separated from Alice, Nui despaired, and after losing the ability to maintain her sanity, she’d become a trickster.
No... as the doll master, Nui had just been confused.
Haruhiro had fallen asleep in Parano, had a dream, and given birth to a dream monster once. He didn’t remember what had happened in the dream, but it had been an unbelievable nightmare.
Essentially, Nui had still been awake, but subjected to an ongoing nightmare. Because of that, even when reunited with Alice, she couldn’t have recognized Alice as the person she was endlessly searching for.
Now, the nightmare was at an end.
Alice was here.
Nui had met with Alice again.
“So, why...?” Haruhiro moaned.
“Enough of this.”
The area around Alice’s mouth was stained a deep red. It was proof of how many time Nui had been given artificial respiration.
Nui would have been happy about that. She’d liked Alice so much. Not romantically, and Haruhiro didn’t know if it was what you’d call love, either, but Nui had yearned for Alice with all her body and soul.
Alice could have been nicer to Nui. Not treat her like one of several friends, but put her in a best-friend-like position and gotten along with her.
Nui had liked Alice more than either could bear.
“You finally found each other,” Haruhiro whispered.
“But Nui’s dead.”
“I heard it,” Haruhiro said. “At the very end, your voice. You were calling Nui’s name over and over, right? It reached her. She heard it... She must have heard it.”
Using the back of her hand, Alice vigorously rubbed the lipstick away. Then Alice pulled her mask back up.
“You assimilated to Nui, huh? It wasn’t just magic amplification. Is that resonance’s true nature? Have you been assimilating to me, too?”
“I didn’t know, okay? I never tried to do it intentionally with you, Alice. But Nui...”
“You thought you could save her?”
“I had no proof I could. How could I have? But I thought, just maybe...”
“Probably, the reason Nui died is because she met me.” Alice took Nui’s glasses off one pair at a time. With delicate movements, making every moment seem to be frozen in time. “Because Nui was always, always suffering. She wanted to be like me... to be me. Such a weird girl. It’s not so great, you know. Then again, I guess being alive at all’s not so great.”
“If I hadn’t gone and did what I did...”
“Maybe.”
“It’s my fault,” Haruhiro said, grief-stricken.
“Even if it is, listen. There’s nothing to be done about it now.”
“I couldn’t save her!”
“Come on, it doesn’t even matter anymore. Nui won’t be blaming you. She’s dead. I don’t think you did anything wrong, either. I mean, even if I did think that, nothing would come of it.”
Once Alice had removed all of Nui’s pairs of glasses, the hat came off, but then Alice put it back on, laughing a little.
“Nui’s so weird. I mean, this is just strange. Right, Haruhiro?”
“...Yeah.”
“Could you help me out?”
“With... what?”
“It doesn’t feel right to leave her here like this. I dunno, it just kind of leaves a bad aftertaste.”
Not only did he help, Haruhiro more or less carried Nui by himself.
Though he could carry her under his arm while going up stairs, that didn’t work for ladders. After trying various things, it seemed like it would work out if he carried Nui on his back, fixing her in place using his cloak and other things. She was still heavy, yes, but not unbearably so.
This being Parano, there were several times he thought Nui might start moving around on his back. Just because she’d died didn’t mean she wouldn’t come back to life. Nui was dead. She was just still dead, that was all.
“Here’s good, I guess,” Alice said, tapping the man who sat with his legs overhanging the edge of the landing on the head.
At some point, Alice had told him about it. The man had chosen to rust of his own will, and remained in this place. He looked like a statue, but perhaps the man was still alive.
Haruhiro set Nui down, laying her back against the Iron Tower of Heaven. Nui was dead, so without delicate positioning of her body’s angle, as well as her arms and legs, she’d fall over. Also, the fact she was half-naked bothered him.
“I’ve got a good idea.” Alice took off the raincoat, putting it on Nui instead.
Then, together they managed to stabilize Nui’s body through trial and error.
With her legs spread a little and stretched out, her hands were clasped in front of her belly, and her face looking down, Nui looked like she was sleeping.
Diagonally in front of Nui, that man had rusted where he sat.
Eventually Nui would start to rust, too, no doubt.
Alice sat down not next to her friend Nui, but next to the man instead.
Haruhiro crouched down next to them.
They stayed put there for so long, he began to wonder if the two of them would rust. Or maybe that wasn’t the case at all, and they were only quiet for a moment.
Haruhiro removed his coat and put it around Alice’s shoulders.
“Thanks,” Alice said without looking in his direction, then closed up the front of the cloak and stood up. “Guess it’s time to get going.”
Even when Alice started to walk, Haruhiro didn’t move from where he was for a time. Alice wouldn’t stop, and wouldn’t turn back, either. Even so, he suspected that, from time to time, Alice would come to see Nui. The same as Alice sometimes came to see the rusted man who had been an acquaintance.
Farewell, Nui. With that silent goodbye, Haruhiro chased after Alice.
His cloak had already gotten used to Alice, and looked like a raincoat.
They climbed down the ladders, and descended the stairs.
On the way down, they spotted Ahiru climbing the stairs.
It seemed Ahiru had noticed Haruhiro and Alice, too.
Ahiru climbed a ladder. Haruhiro and Alice waited at the top of it for him.
“There were dolls scattered around below,” he told them. “Unmoving dolls. Lots of them. Those things, they’re the doll master’s, right?”
“Dunno,” Alice said curtly.
Ahiru may have clued in, because he asked no more. “It seems the king’s gotten himself more vassals. I’ve seen the woman who drags two ugly men around with her before. But the tall guy, he was new.”
“That’s Kuzaku,” Haruhiro said. “He’s my comrade.”
Ahiru frowned. “How do you know?”
“We were watching from a distance when you crawled out of Rainbow Mole’s Nest. After you, that woman and her cohorts appeared.”
“It seems you still don’t trust me, Alice,” Ahiru said.
“Whether I trust you or not is up to you, Ahiru.”
“I want to save her,” he protested. “That’s all.”
“I want to take down that piece of shit.”
“You planning to become the new king or something?”
“Not interested. I just want to say goodbye to this messed up world.” Once before, Haruhiro had asked if Alice didn’t want to return to Alice’s original world. He hadn’t been given a definite yes to that. In fact, the answer had been, Not really, or something like that.
Had Alice had a change of heart since then? Or had the situation changed? Because Alice’s friend, Nui, was dead, there was no longer any reason to stay. Was that why Alice now wanted to say goodbye to this messed up world?
“If we take out the king, can we say goodbye to this world?” Haruhiro asked. “Can we get out of Parano? Is that what you’re saying?”
“There’s a door.” The answer came from Ahiru, not Alice. “The king’s throne is a door. That door’s been there from the very beginning, I hear.”
“A door...” Haruhiro whispered.
Haruhiro and the party had opened a door that was apparently a relic while they were in the Leslie Camp. Once they’d passed through that door, they were in Parano.
“The door I know was, uh, how do I describe it? There was nothing behind it,” Haruhiro said. “It wasn’t built into a wall. If you open it, you just see through to the other side. But, despite that, if you walk into it, you come out in another place... another world. And there’s no going back.”
“I’ve never seen the king’s door opened,” Ahiru said. “All I know is that it’s definitely shaped like a door.”
“I have,” Alice mumbled. “He showed it to me... or forced me to look,
I guess. That piece of shit opened the door in front me, just once.”


13. Dreaming Forever [fable]

Chapter end