c15 3

Suddenly, he snapped to his senses.
Though he hadn’t looked in the mirror to check what it looked like, Haruhiro was able to imagine his own face. Like he’d suspected, he had to remember more than just his name.
Not that remembering his own boring face made him terribly happy or anything.
“...Anyway, we’re not safe here, so let’s move away from the fortress. We can talk about what to do next later.” He was talking almost like a leader.
Feeling embarrassed, he added, “...That okay?” It seemed no one had any objection to that.
Haruhiro went back into the forest. First, he wanted to secure a place where they could rest. This forest was too close to both Alterna and Deadhead Watching Keep. They probably needed to go somewhere else. Haruhiro had planned to talk it over, but apparently his thinking had been too naive.
As soon as they went back into the forest, Kiichi looked one way, then suddenly stood up and looked the other. He seemed to be awfully tense.
Not long afterwards, they heard the barking of dogs. That settled it.
“That’s probably the goblins coming after us...”
“The question is how big their party is.” Setora was still calm. “If it’s ten, or even twenty, we can send them packing. But if it’s a hundred, maybe two, then that’s clearly more than we can handle, don’t you think?”
“Nah.” Kuzaku tried to act tough for a moment, but then admitted she was right. “...Okay, I’ve gotta agree.”
“...Is it just goblins?” Shihoru asked hesitantly. “The goblins and orcs are allies, aren’t they...?” Merry lowered her eyes.
“I don’t know the exact relationship between goblins and orcs, but they both definitely belong to the Alliance of Kings...”
There was no denying the possibility that the goblins of Alterna might have sent a messenger to the orcs of Deadhead Watching Keep, and that they were now searching for Haruhiro and the others together.
Kuzaku groaned.
“Orcs look tough, huh? They’re big.”
For the moment, the goblins, and also the orcs, had yet to find Haruhiro and the others. But once they were found, it was going to be a pretty rough situation to be in.
“There’s Damuro to the west. The Cyrene Mines are northwest of there...” Merry shook her head. “Damuro is the Goblin base, and the Cyrene Mines are full of kobolds...”
“What’s to the east?” Setora asked.
Merry thought for a moment before answering.
“If we head east from these woods, we should come out into the Quickwind Plains. Beyond there... I wouldn’t expect to find any towns, at least.”
“The south is...” Haruhiro looked southward. “Mountains, huh? ...A whole mountain range. How about we go into the mountains?” Merry shook her head.
“I wouldn’t recommend it. There are dragons in the Tenryu Mountain Range... You know what dragons are, right?”
When he heard the word, every hair on Haruhiro’s body stood on end.
“...I’ve got a sense.”
“Hold on, dragons?” Kuzaku frowned. “That sounds dangerous.” Shihoru’s shoulders slumped.
“There’s nowhere we can go...”
“Let’s head east.”
Haruhiro said that, but immediately thought, Is that really okay? and started to get cold feet.
Besides, was it really his place to decide? He wasn’t up to the task, was he? He didn’t even have his memories. No matter how you looked at it, this was beyond him.
But he hadn’t just said that at random, Haruhiro did have some reasoning for it.
“...I’m not suggesting we just keep on heading east. I think we should shake off our pursuers first. East is our best option for that, isn’t it?” Setora nodded.
“Then let us make haste.”
The group set off at once. He didn’t know if everyone was fully convinced by the idea. That wasn’t clear, but if they’d dawdled around, their pursuers might have caught them.
The group moved fairly quickly, not stopping to rest at all. Despite that, they still heard the barking of dogs, which might not have come from ahead of them, but wasn’t straight behind them, either. Their pursuers were scattered throughout the forest. They had likely formed teams of one dog and one goblin, and there were ten teams, or perhaps even tens of teams, combing the forest to find them.
The group walked and walked. None of them wasted breath chatting. Merry had said this forest wasn’t that big, but they still weren’t out of the trees by the time the sun was going down. Haruhiro felt like they had walked more than ten kilometers. It had been fifteen kilometers, or maybe even twenty.
The area around them was dark, and the western sky burned red.
When Haruhiro stopped and turned to look back, everyone stopped walking. He listened closely. He heard nothing but the tweeting of birds and the rustling of leaves.
“When do you think,” Kuzaku opened his mouth for the first time in a while, “the last time you heard a dog was?” “Quite some time ago.” Setora answered.
Shihoru’s shoulders were heaving. She looked pretty badly spent.
It grew darker by the moment as they talked. The sun would soon sink below the horizon.
“Let’s rest here for today,” Haruhiro suggested, then smiled at Shihoru.
Shihoru gave him a slightly awkward smile in return.
In terms of setting up camp, all they could do was look for a place where they could lie down. They could make impromptu beds out of leaves and grass, but since they were being pursued, Haruhiro didn’t want to leave any obvious signs they had been here.
Though sunset was approaching, it was still a little bright. They all sat down in a circle.
“Huh? Where’s Kiichi?” Kuzaku asked.
“He just took off somewhere.” Setora sounded unconcerned. “He’ll come back eventually, I assume.”
“Maybe he’ll go get us something,” Kuzaku said with a laugh.
Setora shrugged.
“I’m so blessed.”
After that, they all fell silent. Obviously everyone had to be exhausted after what they’d been through. It was too much effort to search for something to talk about.
Once it was dark enough that you couldn’t see more than a few meters away, the women went off into the bushes to go to the washroom. Once they came back, Haruhiro and Kuzaku went somewhere a little further away to go take a piss themselves.
“You think we pissed together, standing side by side like this, before we lost our memories, Haruhiro?”
“...Who knows? I don’t.”
“Ah! You just thought I’m the kind of guy who says stupid stuff, didn’t you?”
“Maybe a bit, yeah.”
“But this kind of stuff could trigger a memory, you know?”
“Did you remember something?”
“Not at all.”
When they went back to their camp site, there was a pair of gleaming eyes next to Setora.
“Nyaa.” Kiichi welcomed them with a meow.
“It seems I truly am blessed.” Setora’s voice was uncharacteristically cheerful. “Kiichi brought berries. Not many, but enough to tide us over.”
Kuzaku jumped in surprise.
“Seriously?!”
“...He’s a clever little guy, huh?” Haruhiro said, and Kiichi gave a short meow in response.
Setora offered him something, so he took it. It was one of those berries, apparently. He couldn’t tell what color they were in the darkness, but they were about the size of the tip of his thumb, and round. The skin of the fruit had an elasticity to it.
“It’s probably not poisonous,” Setora said, so Haruhiro put the berry in his mouth. He bit into it, breaking the skin, and the moisture spread throughout his mouth along with a sour taste. It was a little sweet, too.
Kuzaku took one of the berries and ate it. “I feel alive again...” “That’s an exaggeration,” Setora said with a snort.
This wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy their empty stomachs, and though it had assuaged their thirst, that would return, too, in no time. Still, he could understand how Kuzaku felt. Haruhiro felt relieved, too.
He felt like he could go to sleep right away, but he thought, That’s not what I should be doing right now, and reconsidered.
“I’ll stand watch. The rest of you, sleep.” “...All by yourself?” Shihoru asked.
“Yeah. Does that make you uneasy? Me doing it alone. Yeah. I guess it would, huh...?”
“Th-That’s not it...”
“You need to sleep, too,” Setora said in exasperation. “We can take shifts on watch. It would be a nuisance if you were to collapse from exhaustion on us.”
“You could have worded that better...” Kuzaku said
“Did you want to complain about something?” Setora asked him in return.
“You don’t have to get so scary about every little thing...”
“Coward. You frighten too easily.”
Ultimately, they decided that they would sleep in shifts while they waited for dawn.
“Well, I’ll take the first shift, then. I’ll wake up Kuzaku before I hit my limit.”
“’Kay.” Kuzaku said, then immediately lay down and let out a yawn. “...Yikes. I feel like I could fall asleep instantly...”
“Not me...” Shihoru said, so Haruhiro opted to have her stay awake with him.
Merry and Setora lay down, too. Kiichi curled up next to Setora.
It wasn’t long before Kuzaku was lightly snoring. Merry and Setora didn’t stir at all. Were they already asleep? Or just trying to get to sleep?
Haruhiro looked around the area, but the forest was locked in a darkness so deep it felt suffocating, and it was surprising how little he could see.
There was an owl or something hooting.
As for that chirping sound, was it some sort of insect, maybe? “It’s kind of scary, huh...?” Shihoru said in a quiet voice.
Haruhiro, weirdly enough, was not frightened, but, “Yeah,” he agreed with her.
Shihoru huddled close to Haruhiro’s right side. He couldn’t see her, but he could sort of tell. It seemed she was trembling slightly.
“You okay?” Haruhiro asked.
“...Yeah.”
She didn’t sound okay, but that was probably the only answer Shihoru could give. Even if she said she wasn’t okay, there wasn’t anything to do about it. He couldn’t do anything. It would be nice if there was some sign of things getting brighter, but the future was as dark as the area around them.
“...Sorry,” Shihoru said.
It must be bothering her, Haruhiro thought, but all he could do was ask her, “What?” He hated how powerless that made him feel.
“I’m just... holding everyone back...”
“No—” Haruhiro started to say, but even if he told her she wasn’t, Shihoru wasn’t going to be able to accept it.
“If only...” Shihoru was having trouble forcing the words out. “...I could remember... how to use magic...”
Haruhiro kept rubbing his nose, touching his lips, scratching his forehead, and then finally he opened his mouth.
“You shouldn’t rush it.”
“...Yeah, you’re right. Even if I do try to rush, I’ve forgotten it....” There was a whine in Shihoru’s voice.
Honestly, Haruhiro thought, Talking to me about it is not going to help, but maybe that was cold of him. She was his comrade, even if he had forgotten her. He shouldn’t have been thinking that way.
Haruhiro would have wanted to reassure Shihoru, if only he could. But how? He couldn’t think of anything, and he honestly didn’t believe he had the words. That irritated him. He was doing his best to hide that irritation, at least.
Shihoru hugged her knees, grabbing the grass with her left hand, then letting go of it again. Shihoru wanted to do something, too, but she couldn’t, and that must have been frustrating her.
It was probably by accident, or at least Haruhiro thought so, but Shihoru’s left hand touched Haruhiro’s right thigh.
“S-Sorry!” Shihoru yanked her hand back, and she might have been trying to stand up, but something went wrong, and she ended up falling to the ground.
“Urgh...”
“Sh-Shihoru...?”
“I-I can’t take this anymore...” Shihoru said in a vanishingly small voice.
 
 
She was crying. It seemed like she’d tried to stifle it, but failed. It was obvious to Haruhiro, who was right next to her, at least. Shihoru was sobbing.
He couldn’t leave her alone, but he had no idea what he could do for her. Haruhiro agonized and agonized over it until, finally, he reached out with his hand. When his fingers brushed up against something soft, he suspected, just maybe, he had touched a spot he absolutely should not touch.
No, that wasn’t it. Judging by their relative positions, her demeanor, and more, this was Shihoru’s arm. It was definitely not, say, her breasts, for instance. He was almost certain this was her left arm. But even if it was her arm, she might be upset that he’d touched her so suddenly. Haruhiro regretted it. He shouldn’t have done it, but it was too late. He couldn’t take it back now.
Shihoru stiffened for a moment, but she didn’t try to brush his hand away. It was too early to assume that meant there was no problem, though. He needed to, at the very least, observe some restraint.
Doing his best not to grab her too hard, he grabbed Shihoru’s arm as gently as he could.
“I don’t think it’ll get any worse.”
Couldn’t he come up with something better than that? Haruhiro couldn’t help but despair at his utter lack of linguistic ability. But despite that, Shihoru nodded. She must have felt sorry for him. Here she was, crying, and yet he went and made her feel sorry for him. He felt terrible about that.
Was Haruhiro better than this before he lost his memories? Whether he was or not, he hoped from the bottom of his heart that he could become a little better in the future.

5. Give us Blessings

Haruhiro started moving again before the sun rose. There was no sign of their pursuers closing in, and more than that, they needed water, as well as food.
Kiichi was their key to both. The nyaa was cat-like, but walked on his hind legs like a monkey. His front legs were quite dexterous. According to Merry, nyaas were highly intelligent animals. He even seemed to understand his master, Setora’s, words.
The group headed towards the mountains in the south. It was dangerous to climb the mountains, because there were dragons there, but they might still be safe in the foothills, and they could run away if things got dicey. It would be easier to find a water source in the mountains than in the plains.
“Listen,” Setora explained to Kiichi that they were looking for food and water. “Without food and water, we will die. So will you. Food and water. Got it?”
By the time the sun had risen high in the sky, the number of steep slopes had increased.
There was some mountain-y, mountainous, mountain-like scenery.
Maybe it was time to turn back. If a dragon showed up, they were going to be in trouble. Haruhiro and the others decided not to press any further south. That’s when it happened. Kiichi took off running. They followed, and eventually came to a valley. At the bottom of it, there was a thin river. The nyaa dipped his nose into the water and began drinking.
Setora was delighted by this. “Well done, Kiichi!”
It wasn’t a good idea to drink raw water. Even without their memories, they had retained that much common sense, but the group was all feeling ridiculously parched. They couldn’t resist gulping down some of that clear, ice-cold water.
“We’ve been living a pretty harsh lifestyle.” There was a slight sparkle in Merry’s eyes once she had sufficiently rehydrated herself. “I don’t think our stomachs will upset too easily. So long as we have water, we should survive for a while.”
Just what kind of life had they been leading? Haruhiro was going to have to get the details on that from Merry, too. He also decided to have Merry explain what she knew about Shihoru’s magic. For the time being, they would base themselves out of this watering hole until they got set up. Whatever they ultimately decided to do, they needed to build a solid foundation for surviving first.
The night before, Haruhiro had failed to cheer up Shihoru when she felt crushed by the weight of uneasiness and responsibility. He’d thought about it, but Haruhiro was just as uneasy, and didn’t have the emotional leeway to handle it. He didn’t know what he could do, and worried he couldn’t do anything at all. The fact was, he hadn’t been able to do anything. He hadn’t even tried to, so that was obvious.
He wanted to increase the number of things they did, and that they could do, little by little.
Even if they couldn’t get their memories back, they were fortunate enough to have Merry. They could take in the information she had, bit by bit, and make it their own. They had Kiichi, too. Setora’s pet nyaa wasn’t just good for finding food and water; it seemed he could do much more. He was way more useful than Haruhiro.
It was important to rely on the others, too, not just Kiichi.
There was an upper limit on what he could accomplish himself. Even if there was something he couldn’t do, one of the others might be able to do it. There were probably things that some of the others were unable to do, but that he could, too. Besides, even if he wasn’t able to do something alone, if two or three of them worked together, they might be able to.
It was hard to tell if plants were poisonous or not, but they took the things that Kiichi could eat and tried pressing them to their lips, or putting them in their mouths, and carefully checking that nothing strange happened.
There were multiple nuts and berries, and surprisingly also a moss that was relatively tasty and decently filling. Kuzaku got a stomachache when they experimented with mushrooms and tubers, so they avoided them after that.
Kiichi could capture small animals, too. Mice, lizards, snakes, and the like.
The mice and lizards were too small, so they only amounted to snacks for Kiichi. The snakes were bony, but not inedible.
When it came to the matter of whether to make a fire or not, they discussed it as a group, and considered the question carefully.
If they made a cooking fire, it was guaranteed to produce smoke. On a clear day with no wind, that smoke could likely be seen from several kilometers away.
But having a fire would make a big difference. Many things could be eaten safely when cooked.
They built a stone oven in a closed space where, even if the smoke did rise, it would be blocked by the leaves and trees.
Once the oven was ready, they prepared dry leaves and wood, then tried to start a fire. Kuzaku seemed confident, saying, “This’ll be a piece of cake,” but it was more difficult than he imagined.
They were ready to give up by the time the sun started going down, but Shihoru demonstrated a frightening degree of focus, rubbing a stick between her hands to rotate it, and she finally succeeded in starting the fire.
The way that Shihoru, who had been convinced of her own uselessness, had worked so hard warmed Haruhiro’s heart. He called out to her and said, “You did it,” but Shihoru just acted a little embarrassed, saying, “Now I’m all sweaty,” and hung her head.
Though most of their first day surviving in that valley in the foothills was spent building a fire, starting on the second day they went hunting. But on days two and three, the few small animals Kiichi caught was all anyone was able to bring back.
On the fourth day, Haruhiro threw one of his daggers and managed to injure a deer. He followed it when it fled, and managed to catch it once it was weakened. It was still just a fawn. He finished it off quickly, drained the blood, skinned it, and butchered it. From then on, he was occasionally blessed with prey.
But, in the afternoon of the group’s seventh day camping in the valley, as Haruhiro was looking idly towards the Tenryu Mountains, he saw a large creature moving around. More than half of the creature’s body was above the mountain slope’s treetops, so it was probably no exaggeration to say that the thing was massive. It seemed crazy that he could see it at all when he was kilometers away like this.
“That’s a dragon?” Setora blinked repeatedly. Her expression didn’t change, but she seemed surprised in her own way. “It’s huge.”
The dragon was cutting across the mountainside. It didn’t seem to be descending, or climbing, but it wasn’t going away, either.
Looking a bit more closely, he could see what seemed to be other dragons farther away.
Dragons lived in the Tenryu Mountains. Merry had heard that, soon after becoming a volunteer soldier, and had never really doubted it, but this was the first time that she had actually seen them for herself.
Dragons really did live in the Tenryu Mountains. They weren’t even rare. They were commonplace. That realization made camping out in the valley scarier, but if anything that big approached them, they’d have to notice it. There was no need for undue fear.
The group slowly worked on making ropes with bark and ivy. Using that and some wood, on their tenth day in the valley they built a simple shelter. It had no walls deserving of the name, and it was really just pillars with a roof, but it would keep them out of the sun and rain.
They naturally fell into a system where three of them would go hunting and gathering, while the other two stayed in the valley to watch the fire, prepare food, and work on reinforcing their little hut.
Setora worked with clay and fired it to make earthenware. It was hard to make bottles with a narrow mouth, but if they had deep jars, they could use them to store food.
It was also Setora who suggested they could make waterskins using the stomachs and bladders of the animals they hunted. She washed them well, kneaded them to make them softer, and then inflated them and left them to dry. It was a fairly complex process, but the result at least resembled a waterskin, so now they could carry water with them.
She would have liked to put the hides to good use, but that proved surprisingly difficult. Haruhiro’s thief gear had included a needle, but no thread. Without a sturdy string, it was impossible to sew them together, so for now they were just hanging the hides or laying them down wherever. Though, knowing Setora, she was bound to find a way to produce string at some point.
It was the seventeenth night.
At the time, Kuzaku and Setora were on guard. Merry and Shihoru were in the hut, or rather under the roof, and Haruhiro was lying on the ground a little further away.
Haruhiro woke before Kuzaku tried to rouse him. He didn’t think that was because he hadn’t been deeply asleep; it was just that he had learned to wake quickly when something happened.
“What’s up?”
“I dunno. There’s this noise, or presence you could say. Kiichi noticed it...”
“Got it. Just to be safe, go wake Merry and Shihoru.”
“’Kay.”
Haruhiro headed over to where Setora was crouching next to the stove. In order to keep the fire inside from getting too strong, they would only feed it the bare minimum kindling that it needed to keep going at night.
Kiichi was beside Setora, glaring into the darkness, tensed to leap into action.
“Is it an animal?” Haruhiro asked.
Setora shook her head.
“I don’t know. But Kiichi’s acting strange.”
All that Haruhiro knew was that Kiichi was wary of something. But if Setora said he was acting weird, he must have been. The nyaa was staring ahead and to the left.
“Over there, huh? I’ll go take a look.”
“Be careful.”
“Sure.”
Haruhiro moved forward with silent steps, melding into the darkness. In the time he’d spent hunting, a good portion of his instincts as a thief might have come back to him. Even in the nearly pitch-black of night, Haruhiro could move about without making a sound.
He didn’t have night vision, so he couldn’t see. However, the darkness enhanced and sharpened his other senses, and even the slightest light gave him major clues to work with.
Haruhiro left the valley and advanced about 60 paces before coming to a stop.
He heard something like, “Nggh... Ahh... Uhh...” Was that a voice?
He heard a sound like walking, or more like something being dragged.
It was off to the right a bit.
The moonlight streaming down through the gaps in the trees illuminated the moving object faintly.
It might be human. Or someone from a humanoid race.
His first thought was, Are they injured? Were they wandering around wounded?
Whoever it was came to a stop.
He couldn’t see them, but he felt like they were looking in his direction.
Haruhiro stopped breathing for a moment. His heart was racing. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.
Had they noticed Haruhiro? He couldn’t say at this point.
Haruhiro put a hand on the hilt of his dagger. Drawing it in complete silence was incredibly difficult. He’d draw when the other side moved. Until then, he’d wait. Haruhiro was apparently patient. He could wait as long as he had to.
The other side moved.
Haruhiro pulled his dagger and fell into a defensive posture.
They weren’t coming towards him. They were moving away.
Haruhiro hesitated a moment, but decided to tail them. He didn’t mean to pursue too deeply. He just wanted to know who exactly they were.
Not long after he began chasing, he broke into a cold sweat.
This could be bad?
There’s something behind me, too.
Could it be my comrades? he thought. No. That’s not it.
Kuzaku and the others might be worried about him, but now was not the time for them to come help. They’d actually be in the way. They had to know that much, at least.
Besides, it’s similar.
“Uwah... Ohh... Uhh...”
It had the same sort of... it was probably a voice... as the other one. The same walk, too. The sounds of the footsteps it was making were similar.
There were also a number of people, though he wasn’t sure if he could call them that. Anyway, whatever they were, this one wasn’t alone. There were several of them.
Spending a long time agonizing over what to do was the worst possible option. Haruhiro made a decision. He was going to break off pursuit. He didn’t need to go directly back to the valley; he could wander a little, and still make it. He just had to calm down, not rush things, and walk.
But as he walked he lost his calm.
“Ohh...” “Uhh...”
“Ahh... Ohh...”
“Eahh... Uohh...”
He heard voices from here and there. Not just two or three of them. There were ten, maybe. Perhaps even more.
At the moment, he didn’t think any of them were super close — that was to say, five or six meters in any given direction — but he wouldn’t have been surprised if one or two were within ten meters of him.
To his right, he caught a glimpse of a shadow moving. It was weird to call it a shadow when things were so dark, but what he saw was just a shadowy outline. It was humanoid. There was no doubt about that.
There was a downward slope ahead. The valley, huh? He’d made it. He could see the fire. The stove.
“Ahh...”
“Ohh...”
“Uhhh...”
“Ahhhh...”
The voices were getting closer. Were they chasing Haruhiro? If they were, he wasn’t feeling much pressure, and they didn’t seem to be trying to put it on him. What was this? It was very odd.
Haruhiro descended the slope, heading for the stove. His comrades were all around it.
“Something’s coming,” was all Haruhiro could say.
“Huh? What do you mean by ‘something’?” Setora sounded exasperated, and he couldn’t really blame her for it.
“Ah...!” Kuzaku looked towards the slope that Haruhiro had just come down.
Haruhiro turned around, too. Something was stumbling down the hill.
Kuzaku drew his sword.
“We’ve gotta take them out, right?!”
“Yeah.” Haruhiro shifted his dagger to a backhand grip. “Don’t move away from me. Try not to get separated.” “I’ll keep all of you alive,” said Merry.
He could hear Shihoru breathing tensely.
It’s coming. Whatever the hell it is.

Chapter end