c15 2

“They’re... not human...”
“Huh?” Kuzaku stopped, too. “What?”
Haruhiro squinted as he looked up at the top of the walls.
There were silhouettes up there. Some moving, some not.
The wall was still over 100 meters away, and he didn’t really have enough light, so he couldn’t make them out clearly. But from what he could see, they were increasing in number. There were a large number of guards up on the wall, and they were gradually gathering.
Kiichi let out a short, sharp hiss.
He looked over, and Kiichi was facing the wall, tail raised. It was thick. No, it wasn’t just his tail, every hair on Kiichi’s body was raised.
“It’s kind of like...” Haruhiro struggled to find the words. He didn’t really know what it was, so he’d just have to say exactly what he was thinking. “We’re being watched...?”
The next moment, a voice cried, “Woeaaaohhh!” It came from the direction of the wall. He thought it was a voice, at least. It was pretty throaty.
“...They’re not human,” Haruhiro repeated.
Yeah.
They weren’t human.
That was it.
The silhouettes on the wall looked human at a distance. Their figures seemed humanoid, at least, but there was something strange about them.
It was just that, well, they were all a bit small.
They wore helmets and armor and whatnot, but they were too small to be adults.
They were like a troop of children.
Eventually, clang, clang, clang, a sound like the beating of metal on metal rang out.
The guards who looked like child soldiers began hooting and hollering.
“Those voices...” Merry shook her head. “No way... It can’t be. How...?”
Something came flying at them from the wall.
“What’s that?” Kuzaku asked.
“Get back!” Haruhiro screamed instinctively.
A great number of thin stick-like objects were launched from the wall, tracing a large arc through the air before eventually raining down on Haruhiro and the others.
Every single member of the group turned heel at practically the same time. Haruhiro heard the thin objects slamming into the earth behind them. As he ran, he unconsciously found himself checking for Kuzaku, Shihoru, Merry, Setora, and Kiichi. It looked like they were all fine.
“Alterna’s out!” Merry said. “There’re enemies inside!” “Enemies?!” Kuzaku shouted. “What does that mean?!” “I don’t know!” Merry shouted back.
Without stopping, Setora looked behind her.
“This doesn’t look like the time to argue.”
More of the thin objects came flying towards them. Those were arrows. Ten, twenty, maybe more of them. It looked like they were already out of range, so the arrows didn’t reach the group this time.
Still, the gates of Alterna were opening.
They weren’t fully open yet, but the army of children was pouring out through them. Okay, it was clear it was not, in fact, an army of child soldiers, but what were they, then?
Enemies.
That was what Merry had called them. They were enemies. Simple as that.
Haruhiro and the others climbed the hill. The Forbidden Tower stood atop it.
“If we can get in there...!”
That would be great, but it’s not happening, huh?
Hiyomu had made them an offer, telling them to submit to her, and said they would definitely regret it if they didn’t. This must have been what she meant.
According to Merry’s story, Alterna was a town of the Kingdom of Arabakia, where Haruhiro and the others served as volunteer soldiers, but that had changed now. Something had happened, and it was occupied by enemies.
They shouldn’t have approached Alterna so carelessly. It led to the enemy finding them. And what would happen if the enemy found them?
This.
They would be shot at with arrows, and chased after.
“Damn her!”
Still, no matter how he cursed at Hiyomu, who was no doubt kicking back and relaxing inside the Forbidden Tower right now, she couldn’t hear him. It wouldn’t improve the situation, either.
Maybe because she had nothing on under her cloak, Shihoru seemed to be having a hard time running, and she’d fallen a bit behind. Haruhiro slowed his pace and waited for her to catch up.
“Can you keep running?!”
Shihoru nodded in response, but her breathing was ragged, and she didn’t exactly pick up the pace. Was this too hard on her? He tried shouting, “You can do this!” but all that did was make Shihoru nod again.
It wasn’t just enemy soldiers that had come out of the gates. There were smaller creatures with them, too. What were those things? They were barking, so dogs, maybe? There weren’t that many of them. Two, no, three of the blackish dogs were chasing after them. Kuzaku was saying something like, “Oh crap oh crap oh crap.”
The dogs were faster than the soldiers. They were rapidly gaining on Haruhiro and the others.
If it were just the enemy soldiers, they might have been able to shake them, but the dogs were eventually going to catch up to them.
They were almost at the summit. Setora and Kiichi were already by the Forbidden Tower.
“What now?!” Setora shouted.
The dogs had closed in to a distance of two, three meters away from Haruhiro and Shihoru.
“Merry?!”
Was there no safe place other than Alterna around here? Merry, who still had her memories, was the only one they could rely on here.
“...Sorry!” Merry frowned. “I don’t know, either...!”
It would be lying to say that Haruhiro didn’t think, We’re screwed, not even a little bit. Still, he changed gears in an instant, and quickly surveyed his surroundings.
The sun was rising in the east, so that line of really high mountains must have been to the south, huh? There was a forest spreading out to the north.
“Head for the forest—” was all he managed to get out before the dog lunged.
Haruhiro reflexively put his left arm in front of him, trying to defend himself. The dog bit that arm, or rather his left wrist.
“Oh...!”
That surprised him, and he was scared, but at the same time, he retained the composure to think, This dog’s pretty small. It wasn’t just small; its legs were tiny, too. If this were a big dog, it would have bowled him over, or at least pushed him down. It still had a strong bite, though.
“That hurts!”
Haruhiro let the dog bite his left wrist, then pummeled it in the head with his right fist.
The dog yelped and loosened its bite. Taking advantage of that opening, Haruhiro shook it off him.
“Ah!” Shihoru screamed.
Another dog had gotten on top of her when she tripped.
Haruhiro didn’t hesitate to kick the dog in the side, getting it off of Shihoru. Immediately after that, yet another dog bit Haruhiro, in the shin this time.
“I said that hurts!”
Haruhiro pulled his dagger from the sheathe at his hip. He wasn’t exactly enraged, but he didn’t hesitate to slash the dog’s throat with it.
Copious amounts of blood gushed from the wound. Haruhiro hadn’t just cut the dog’s carotid artery, he’d torn open its trachea, too. It was still alive for now, but it couldn’t breathe anymore. When Haruhiro shook his right leg, the dog lost its grip, and fell to the ground.
The remaining two mutts were yelping noisily, but maybe what happened to their friend had them scared, because they didn’t attack.
Haruhiro pulled Shihoru to her feet.
“...Haruhiro-kun, a-are you hurt?!”
“I think I’m probably fine. This is no big deal. You?”
“I-I’m okay.”
“Well, go on ahead, then.”
Haruhiro gave Shihoru a push in the right direction.
He had another dagger. He drew it, and the blade was like a dancing flame.
When he held both blades with a backhand grip, it was strange how right that felt for him.
He paused and took a breath.
He had two dogs barking at him, and enemy soldiers closing in, but Haruhiro wasn’t all that flustered. No, actually, he wasn’t flustered in the slightest.
The enemy had yellowish-green skin, and the faces peering out through the openings in their helms were clearly not human. They stood two heads shorter than Haruhiro. Kuzaku was a pretty tall guy, but Haruhiro was probably average height, so it was safe to say they were about the size of a human child.
There were more than ten of them; no, more than fifteen, but less than twenty.
He caught himself thinking, That’s a few too many, then nearly laughed at how crazy that was. A few?
It was way too many.
He was more than just outnumbered, so what did he think he was doing? Why would he do this?
He had to let Shihoru get away. He had to save his comrade. His comrade? Even though he didn’t remember her? It felt stupid, but he had no regrets. Actually, it felt good.
Haruhiro charged the enemy soldiers. They must not have been expecting him to come at them alone, so that put them on the back foot a little.
I’d better take out one or two now.
That was the thought that crossed Haruhiro’s mind.
What crossed his eyes, though, was something else entirely.
“Oorahhhh...!”
Kuzaku really was tall. He wasn’t fat, but he had broad shoulders and a thick chest, so he looked absolutely huge. Especially when his opponents were so little.
Kuzaku jumped right in front of Haruhiro from the side, swinging down with his big sword.
He cut one enemy from shoulder to flank, literally slicing him in two.
“Haruhiro! Going it alone like this....!”
Kuzaku stepped in farther with a big swing of his sword. Big, but not random or without thought. As proof of that, Kuzaku’s blade cut down another enemy.
“You’re trying to be too cool! So you should really stop!”
The enemy were noticeably intimidated. Well, after they saw him pull that trick, could you really blame them?
“...No, man, you’re being way cooler, you know?”
“Huh? You think so?” Kuzaku got this goofy grin on his face, but then cut down yet another enemy. “Is this nuts, or what? Maybe I’m strong?”
“They’re just goblins, but there’s a lot of them!” Merry shouted as she ran over. “Push in and finish this quickly!”
It looked like Kuzaku wasn’t the only one who had turned around and come back rather than fleeing.
“O Light, may Lumiaris’s divine protection be upon you.” Merry pressed her right hand to her forehead, then thrust her hand out towards the enemy. “Blame!”
There was a powerful flash from Merry’s hand, and the enemies were sent flying.
Setora picked up an enemy’s fallen spear and thrust it at another enemy. When it impaled that enemy’s throat, Setora let go of it without even trying to pull it out. Then, as if saying, “I’ve got my weapon right here,” she snatched up the impaled enemy’s axe and threw it at yet another enemy. The axe spun through the air before burying itself in that enemy’s chest. Right after that, another enemy tried to attack Setora, but Kiichi pounced on him. The new enemy had a helmet that covered his entire head, but Kiichi quickly and skillfully tore it off, then sank his claws into the enemy’s eyes.
As that was happening, Kuzaku was cutting down enemies one after another.
The two dogs just kept barking.
One enemy fled, practically rolling down the hill. That caused all the rest of the enemies to suddenly break, and the dogs followed them in their scattered retreat.
Kuzaku started to give chase, but before Haruhiro had time to stop him, Kuzaku stopped himself. It seemed he hadn’t meant to seriously pursue them, just to send the message, “I’m gonna come after you!” He then turned to Haruhiro and said, “Now’s our chance!”
Haruhiro nodded. For his own part, he shouted, “To the forest!” but he couldn’t help but think, Did I really have to say that? Everyone, even Shihoru, who was far from nimble, was already heading toward
the forest. It might be the case that they’d all had a lot of experiences like this before they lost their memories, and their bodies still remembered, even if their heads didn’t.
The group rushed down the hill and into the northern woods.
There was no guarantee that there wouldn’t be reinforcements coming from Alterna, but it didn’t look like they were being pursued for now.
“This forest isn’t so big,” Merry told them.
They went about 300 meters into the trees before stopping for a rest.
“Now then...”
Setora was holding a spear she had seized from the enemy. It was about as long as she was tall. Which, incidentally, was a little shorter than Haruhiro.
“What exactly was that all about? Goblins, I think you called them?”
“Yes.”
According to Merry, those enemies belonged to a race known as goblins. They were part of the Alliance of Kings. Naturally, they were hostile to the Kingdom of Arabakia, and they were based out of a place called Damuro to the northwest.
“...So this, uh, Damuro place?” Kuzaku asked, scratching his neck. “The goblins from there attacked Alterna, and took it... or something like that? I mean, there were a lot of them just now, but they were pretty weak. So, the Kingdom of Arabakia, was it? They lost to those things...?”
Shihoru hung her head.
“I couldn’t do anything. I was just in the way...”
“You were a mage,” Setora said with a shrug of her shoulders. “You’ll just have to remember your magic, won’t you?”
“Nyaa,” Kiichi meowed. He was looking at Shihoru, not his master, Setora. He might have been trying to encourage her.
“Speaking of magic...” Kuzaku looked at Merry. “Merry-san, didn’t you use something like magic? Can Shihoru-san do stuff like that?” Merry lowered her eyes.
“...What I use is the priest’s light magic.” You mean that “Marc em parc” stuff?
Haruhiro considered asking that for a moment, but something stopped him. Why did he stop? He didn’t really know that himself.
No, that was a lie. It wasn’t like he had no idea why.
Merry had drawn some sort of figure in the air with her fingers as she chanted “Marc em parc,” and it produced a bead of light. She tried to hit Hiyomu with it. That had really surprised Hiyomu, and unless Haruhiro was misremembering, she said this:
“You’re a priest, but you just used magic.”
Hiyomu had seemed familiar with everyone’s backgrounds, not just Io and her group’s. Despite that, when Merry used that spell, it caught her by surprise. Didn’t that mean that Merry shouldn’t have been able to use that magic?
Besides, Merry had been acting strangely then, even if he found it hard to explain exactly how. Haruhiro didn’t remember what Merry had been like before this, so he was having a hard time being confident of that, but there was something about it that made him go, “Huh?”
“By light magic, you mean this?” Setora thrust her hand forward to demonstrate. “You blew the goblins away with light.” Merry nodded.
“...Blame is about the only attack spell I have. But I can use a number of spells that heal wounds, so as long as something’s not instantly fatal, I can generally take care of it.”
“Ooh.” Kuzaku’s eyes widened. “That’s reassuring.”
“You’re a paladin, Kuzaku, so you can use light magic, too. It’s a little different from a priest’s, though.”
“Huh? Me, too? Seriously? Sweet. Oh, but I can’t remember it, though...”
Setora twirled her spear and thrust the blunt end of it lightly into the ground.
“It seems I can do enough to look after myself, at least.”
“You were always able to do a bit of everything,” Merry said. “You were a necromancer, and a nyaa master. You could use a range of weapons, too. But, above all that, you were smarter than most people.”
This much praise was bound to make a person feel embarrassed, but Setora seemed unfazed.
“I understand that that’s how you saw me. I’m sure the reality was quite different, though.”
“Whoa.” Kuzaku stared at Setora. “You’re pretty awesome, huh, Setora-san...?”
“You remind me of a dog, somehow,” she responded.
“Whaa? How?”
“The way you act so clingy and excessively friendly is just like a dog.”
“I’m not really being excessively friendly, and I’m not clinging to you, either. I’m keeping my distance, see?”
“If you weren’t, I’d either punch or kick you.”
“Harsh...”
Haruhiro had just killed one of the goblins’ dogs, so he had a hard time seeing Kuzaku as dog-like. Still, it was true that Kuzaku reminded him of a friendly dog in some ways.
Honestly, it was a big help having Kuzaku around.
The way Kuzaku had mowed down enemies in battle made him reliable; that went without saying. But on top of that, while Kuzaku could be a little annoying — though that might only be because Haruhiro didn’t have his memories of their time as comrades — Haruhiro found the overly-familiar way Kuzaku interacted with him comforting.
It wasn’t clear what Hiyomu’s master, whoever that was, had done to them, but between the lack of memories and Alterna being in the state it was, nothing good had come of it. Kuzaku being here with him might have been the only reason that, even despite their losses, he felt like they could still manage.
Obviously, Merry having maintained her memories was a large part of it, too, though.
“Um, I had a question,” Shihoru said hesitantly. “You said we were volunteer soldiers... Does that mean we volunteered? I can’t imagine I’m cut out for this...”
“That’s...” Merry hesitated. “I think we were left with no other option.”
“No other option?” Haruhiro parroted back. “What do you mean by that...?”
“This is probably the second time.”
“For what?”
“Not for Setora and Kiichi, but for the rest of us, this isn’t the first time we’ve lost our memories.” Haruhiro rubbed his cheeks.
“The second time.” Merry nodded.
“Yes.”


4. The Dark is Cold and Gentle

The first time.
When she came to, Merry had nothing but the clothes she happened to be wearing, and remembered nothing beyond her own name.
Merry was not alone, but was in a group of 11 people, and out of those 11, the ones she ended up working with were Hayashi, Michiki, Ogu, and Mutsumi.
Though she didn’t remember it clearly, Hiyomu had shown up all of a sudden, and led them to Alterna. That must have happened in front of the Forbidden Tower, because she had no memories of Hiyomu below or inside the tower.
When Merry was telling the story, Haruhiro noticed something. For some reason, the details of inside of the tower and the area beneath it were a haze. He checked with Kuzaku, Shihoru, and Setora, and it was the same for all of them.
As Merry explained it, the memories had come back, like, “Oh, yeah, that’s what it was like.” But when he tried to recall the finer details of that place on his own, he just couldn’t seem to. The conversations he’d had inside and below the tower were kind of a blur.
In response to this, “Maybe we were drugged,” Setora suggested.
According to Setora, though she didn’t remember the different types, the secretions of certain plants and animals could cause effects like hallucinations, hypnosis, and derangement. It wouldn’t be that odd for one of them to cause memory loss and confusion.
Whatever the case, Merry and her group were taken to Alterna, and were offered enough money to cover their living expenses for the time being if they would become volunteer soldiers. With no idea what was going on, they had accepted this offer in order to survive.
Though they had come at a different time, Haruhiro and the others had apparently become volunteer soldiers through a similar course of events.
There were hundreds of volunteer soldiers like them, some percentage of whom had died, had their bodies burned to ash, and were buried beneath the graves scattered across the hill.
“It’s kind of incredible, huh?” Kuzaku said with a sigh.
By “incredible” he must have meant “terrible.”
Hiyomu had talked about switching sides, and becoming the ones who used others.
In other words, Haruhiro and the others who had their memories stolen were being used from the beginning. Did that mean that being pushed into becoming volunteer soldiers was part of that?
Who was the mastermind behind all of this? Higher-ups in the Kingdom of Arabakia? Hiyomu’s master? Or someone else pulling the strings in the shadows?
If they had obeyed Hiyomu, they might have found out. It was too late for that now.
Besides, Hiyomu had demanded they obey her, not that they become her comrades, or help her. She had the upper hand. It wasn’t an even trade. It was fair to consider the possibility that she would still have taken advantage of them.
He wanted to think that made it fine that things turned out this way, but there was too little that was positive about the situation for him to feel that way.
Haruhiro and the others proceeded farther north through the forest.
Once they were through the not particularly large woods, there would be an imposing fortress called Deadhead Watching Keep, which was supposed to be guarded by the Kingdom of Arabakia. Alterna had fallen to the enemy, but they had to check what happened to the keep, too.
When they came out of the forest, they could see a building that certainly looked like a fortress across from them.
There were bushes growing here and there in the barren field, and lumber and quarried stone scattered around. But that wasn’t all.
There were watchtowers dotted around. Each had several tents around it. Some had fences, too.
There were people on top of some of the towers and fences.
No, not people.
Haruhiro and the group hid behind piles of lumber and stone, surveying the camp from a distance. They looked human, but were clearly not.
They were maybe a little larger than humans. Their hair was a bright whitish color, but probably not due to age. Their skin was probably green.
“Orcs...” Merry said.
Unfortunately, Haruhiro didn’t remember this, but Deadhead
Watching Keep was once occupied by orcs. The Kingdom of Arabakia Frontier Army and volunteer soldiers had attacked and taken it. Incredibly, Haruhiro and his party had taken part in the battle, and had actually made a major contribution.
At the time, Kuzaku had been in another party. He’d had other comrades.
However, Kuzaku lost them all in that battle.
One of Haruhiro’s comrades had died in that battle, too.
He didn’t remember it at all, but it apparently happened.
They had won the battle.
The volunteer soldiers had received a large amount of money as a reward. It had cost Haruhiro’s party a lot of pain to get it, though.
The Kingdom of Arabakia gained Deadhead Watching Keep.
Did this mean it had been taken back?
“Alterna was occupied by the enemy, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise.” Setora was as calm as ever. “Did the Kingdom of Alterna have any bases other than Alterna and that fortress?”
“We should’ve taken that map from the second floor of the Forbidden Tower.” Merry started drawing something like a map on the ground. “If this is Alterna...”
North of Alterna there was a vast plain. It was called the Quickwind Plains.
In the southwest of the Quickwind Plains, about 30 kilometers westnorthwest from Alterna, the Kingdom of Arabakia Frontier Army had a garrison at the Lonesome Field Outpost.
On top of that, another 10 kilometers or so to the west of the
Lonesome Field Outpost, along the Jet River, stood Riverside Iron Fortress, which was also a base for the Frontier Army. This fortress, like Deadhead Watching Keep, had once been under orcish control. The Frontier Army had taken Riverside Iron Fortress at the same time as Deadhead Watching Keep.
“I don’t want to be too pessimistic, but...” When Kuzaku had such a gloomy look on his face, you couldn’t help but feel the situation was really bad. “It’s hard to be super optimistic about this... outpost? At
Lonesome Field, or this whatever-it-was at Riverside.”
“He has a point,” Setora said in an unemotional tone. “Though it’s not impossible that the soldiers who fled from Deadhead Watching Keep have gathered at Riverside Iron Fortress and are holed up there, they’d likely be under siege there if they did.”
“...Is there anywhere else we can go?” Shihoru looked so gloomy she seemed like she might just up and die at any moment. “Anywhere... at all...?”
Merry pointed to a spot about a meter up and to the right of Alterna on her crude map.
“If we went back to Vele, we’d be safe for a time. The Free City of Vele is neutral. Humans, orcs, undead, and goblins all live there.” “That’s... pretty far, huh?” Haruhiro asked.
Merry nodded.
“I couldn’t tell you the exact distance, but it’s probably around 500 kilometers...”
“Well...” Kuzaku put on a strained smile. “That’s, what? A twenty day walk...?”
“With no guarantee of food?” Setora looked at Kuzaku with exasperation. “If your goal is to die along the way, that might not be a bad idea.”
“You’re being a little spiteful, aren’t you, Setora-san?”
“That wasn’t my intent at all. I do think the things you say are beyond foolish, though.”
Haruhiro had nearly let out a sigh, but without realizing it he held it in.
Yeesh. It feels like we’re blocked in on all sides.
He wanted to say that. But this wasn’t a situation where he could just throw his hands up. Even though, honestly, he was feeling depressed, Haruhiro wasn’t letting it show on his face. That wasn’t because he was determined not to. He just wasn’t for some reason.
“I want more information,” Haruhiro said, desperate, but doing his best to maintain a level tone and not sound like he was. “Precise information. That, water, and something to eat, I guess. It’d be good if we could hunt.”
“If only Yume were here...” Merry said, then shook her head. “...Not that saying that’s going to help.” “...Yume?” Shihoru asked.
“Our comrade,” Merry said with a slight smile. When she recalled this Yume person, she couldn’t help but grin. That was the kind of smile it was. “Yume ended up separating from the group for a little while. We were supposed to meet back up in Alterna half a year after that, but... who even knows how much time has passed since then...?”
Shihoru pressed both hands against her chest.
“Yume...”
“Did you remember something?” Haruhiro asked.
Shihoru lowered her eyes, and shook her head.
“That’s... not it. It’s just... I don’t know why, but... it hurts, for some reason...”
“You and Yume were really close,” Merry said with a smile. “Yume’s a hunter... and just a great kid. I mean that. Strong, earnest... and funny.”
Kuzaku whispered in Haruhiro’s ear. “She’s a girl, right? This Yumesan.”
“Probably,” Haruhiro replied quietly.
“Me and Haruhiro are the only guys?” Kuzaku counted on his fingers. “...Isn’t the number of girls kinda high?”
“Man...”
“No, I mean, come on.” Kuzaku said weakly. He had to be curious about what the romance situation had been like. When there was a group with guys and girls, that sort of stuff came up naturally, or it was natural for it to come up, or something like that. Haruhiro could only smile wryly.
Haruhiro wasn’t completely uninterested himself, but...
Haruhiro didn’t know how to praise a woman for her appearance. In terms of words, he would probably call them “pretty,” or “cute,” but what kind of person was pretty, and what kind was cute?
In his estimation, Merry would fall under “pretty.” Definitely. Setora leaned towards “pretty,” too.
What about Shihoru? “Cute,” maybe? But in Shihoru’s case, he couldn’t deny the womanly aspects of her appearance left a stronger impression.
Regardless, all three of them were what you might call attractive in their own ways.
Thinking about it again, he had to cock his head to the side a bit and wonder at how he was able to interact with them so normally. If he were tall and muscular like Kuzaku, he might have an easy time attracting the opposite sex, but Haruhiro wasn’t. Just as he started to think about how he was plain, mediocre, no, even less than that, Haruhiro touched his own face.

Chapter end