chap 13+6

The source of the sound was that tent. Was it from some musical instrument? Someone was playing music.
This is bad, isn’t it? he wondered. No, maybe not?
I wonder.







Naturally, Haruhiro headed back, shook everyone awake, and informed them of what he’d seen.
Kejiman seemed to ooze cheer from his entire body, and was ridiculously excited. “Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-You! Do you know what that is?! You don’t, do you?! You can only act so calm because you don’t! Unbelievable! Do you lack basic, common sense?! Or are you an idiot?! I’ll bet you’re an idiot, a big damn idiot!”
“...I’m pretty sure I haven’t done anything to merit that response.”
“The massive tent that appears by night! Mysterious music! This is a famous story, you know! Everyone know it, unless they’re an idiot or live under a rock! Which are you?!”
“I don’t know...”
“You can’t even answer that! That means you’re an idiot! Well, not that it matters! Whether you’re an idiot or live under a rock, it doesn’t make a difference! That’s a minor detail, so let’s get going!”
As Kejiman tried to take off running, Setora grabbed him by the collar.
“Hold up.”
“L-Let go!” Kejiman squealed. “You’re choking me! It hurts! I’ll suffocate! I’ll suffocate to death!”
“If you’d like, why don’t you go ahead and suffocate?” “Noooooooooo, thank you! I still have things I need to do! No, I can’t die until I see the Leslie Camp for myself! I could never rest in peace otherwise!”
“Leslie Camp?” Kuzaku cocked his head to the side. “What’s that?”
“U-U-U-U-Unbelievable! You really don’t know?! You’re pulling my leg! I can’t believe this! You can’t not know about the Leslie Camp! You must literally live under a rock!”
He was saying that, but this was the first Shihoru or Setora had ever heard of it, and it was the same for Haruhiro.
What about Merry? He couldn’t ask. While it hadn’t been outright suspicious, the way Merry reacted had been a little odd.
“Have you... heard of it...?” Shihoru asked her in Haruhiro’s place.
Merry hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Just the name,” she answered briefly.
“Ohh,” Kuzaku said with a relaxed nod. “Merry-san, you might disagree with us sometimes, because you’ve had a longer career than the rest of us.” Oh, yeah.
That was right.
Merry was kind of their superior—no, not just kind of; she had definitely been a volunteer soldier longer than the rest of them.
The Leslie Camp. From what Kejiman said, it was a fairly major thing. It wasn’t weird that Merry would know. Haruhiro and the rest were just ignorant.
That had to be it. No doubt about it.
“I don’t mind going to see, but it’s not dangerous, right?” Haruhiro asked carefully.
“Is it dangerous?!” Kejiman exclaimed. “Does worrying about that let you live a more fulfilling life?! Can you sing out loud about how wonderful this life is like that?! Don’t you think there are more important things out there?!”
Kejiman babbled on, explaining the Leslie Camp had been sighted in places all over Grimgar, usually by night. It was apparently a regular feature of accounts that claimed that it suddenly appeared where there had been nothing during the day.
As one might infer from the name, a person called Leslie was involved with it.
Ainrand Leslie. He was the master of the Leslie Camp.
Some said he was human; others said he was undead. He was a merchant who had been famous in certain quarters for over fifty years.
That said, he was more than some mere merchant. Ainrand Leslie acquired objects the likes of which no one had ever seen, and would sometimes hand them over in exchange for a great price. Sometimes in gold, sometimes in other forms.
One rich man in Vele turned his beautiful wife and daughter over to Ainrand Leslie without regret, and received a ring unlike any other in this world with the power to call storms.
However, then the rich man had no idea how to call storms. So when he asked Ainrand Leslie for help, this was the response:
“Let me teach you. However, the price will be your new wife.”
The rich man had a young mistress. He had resented his wife who was past her prime, and his daughter, who was cheeky with him. For the rich man, his original wife and daughter had been no great price to pay. In fact, he’d been able to rid himself of them, gain the ring, and marry his new wife. Three birds with one stone.
But his new wife...
“As if I would give you my wife!” the rich man snapped and threw the ring down on the ground.
When he did, a storm arose, dark clouds forming as people watched, and Vele was hit by a great storm heretofore unseen proportions.
Houses collapsed, and many ships sank. Ainrand Leslie vanished, and the rich man perished inside his ruined mansion.
There were countless such tales of Ainrand Leslie. That said, he wasn’t a person from hundreds of years ago, so it was much too soon for there to be legends of him.
According to Kejiman, there was no shortage of people who claimed to have met Ainrand Leslie. There were quite a few people in Vele who would show off some oddity, treasure, tale, or piece of junk, or try to sell it, claiming they had received it from Ainrand Leslie.
However, there was not actually any solid proof, nor any unshakable evidence that Ainrand Leslie had definitely visited Vele. The story of the rich man was seen as a delusion, a fabrication, something idiots would talk about over drinks.
Even so, no one questioned that Ainrand Leslie existed.
Here was another story, for example.
A young girl ran away from home, wandering into a forest not ten kilometers from Vele. The girl was eventually drawn to a mysterious sound, and came across a large, round tent, with horse-like creatures gathered around it. She turned back in fear, wandering the forest until morning, and somehow made it home.
The girl told everyone around her about the things she had seen. Someone suggested it could be the Leslie Camp, and with rumors giving birth to more rumors, there was soon an uproar throughout Vele.
For a period of over ten days, hundreds of people—no, thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands—headed out into the forest, seeking the Leslie Camp.
In the end, the camp was not discovered, but this had happened just five years ago, so most people in Vele remembered it.
Travelers who wandered Grimgar, curious adventurers, ex-volunteer soldiers, merchants burning with ambition who would go anywhere for profit, none of them encountered the Leslie Camp. If it could be found by searching, someone would have by now. There were those called Lesliemaniacs who obsessively traded information on it among themselves, but it was said that the more you looked, the further away the Leslie Camp got.
Regardless, the Leslie Camp was obviously the place to find Ainrand Leslie. He was one of Grimgar’s few collectors.
He might not have had a ring that called storms, but he might have one or two famous treasures like a red diamond, said to be worth enough to buy an entire country, or a solid gold bust of Enad George, the founding king of Arabakia, or the lost crown of the royal house of
Nananka, or the Necklace of Nigelink, which Princess Titiha of lost Ishmar had worn until the moment of her death, or the Dawn Scepter, or the treasured sword Ulgis.
If anyone were to attempt to buy any of those famous treasures, Ainrand Leslie would no doubt demand an extortionate sum. However, even if they could not have those things, even a glimpse of them would be a story they could tell until the day they died.
Also, hardly anyone took this seriously, but there were childish stories that Ainrand Leslie could grant a wish for anyone who met him.
Furthermore, according to one theory, Ainrand Leslie was neither human nor undead, but something akin to a fairy or spirit, and could bring great wealth to people with his mysterious powers.
In truth, the reason no one who claimed to know his face came forward was connected to that. Those who had become rich with the help of Ainrand Leslie would carry that secret to their graves. Just like money, if everyone had good fortune, it would decrease in value. That was why, until they died, they were better off hiding what they knew about Ainrand Leslie. That was the secret to ending a privileged life still at the top.
Did the Leslie Camp ultimately exist? If they were to judge purely based off what Kejiman said, it was a little dubious.
No, really dubious.
However, Haruhiro had seen it with his own eyes.
That being the case...
Honestly, though he wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea, he guided his comrades and Kejiman there.
They soon arrived.
Haruhiro had hoped that, after following the route he remembered, they’d be disappointed to find it was no longer there. It wasn’t that he wanted to be disappointed, but if the Leslie Camp existed, he didn’t see it being anything but trouble. He wanted to avoid that...
but it didn’t work out.
This might be a major find, but he wasn’t happy about it in the least.
“Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-This is...!” Kejiman stood at the edge of the depression, pulling on his own hair. He was pulling so hard that his glasses fell off. “Ohhh! M-My glasses! Where, where, where are my glasses?! My glasses...!”
“...Here.” Shihoru picked them up and returned them.
Kejiman put them on and rushed towards the bottom of the depression. “Ohhhhhhhhhh! I! Am! Leslie! Camp!”
“You’re the Leslie Camp now?” Kuzaku asked. “Wait—”
He glanced over at Haruhiro as if to say, Don’t we need to go after him?
It was questionable. Maybe they didn’t? Haruhiro was apparently not the only one thinking that, because Shihoru, Merry, Setora, and Kiichi the gray nyaa didn’t move from the edge of the depression, either.
Haruhiro and the party were only hired as guards. They weren’t Kejiman’s mommy or daddy. They didn’t have to go along with this.
“If that man were of no further use, now would be the time to cut him loose,” Setora said quietly.
She could say that again. She had a point. Setting aside the bit about him being their employer, they needed him to lead them back to Alterna.
“Heyyyy...” Hesitant to yell too loudly, Haruhiro called after him with a half-hearted shout.
Either Kejiman didn’t hear, or he wasn’t listening to begin with, because he didn’t stop. He didn’t even turn back. Seriously, what was with that guy?
He was already reaching the bottom of the depression.
Guess there’s no other choice, huh? Even if I ran my fastest, I couldn’t catch him in time.
Haruhiro steeled himself. They would stand by, and wait to see what happened. If it got ugly, they’d have to leave Kejiman and run.
Farewell, Kejiman. Until we meet again.
“Ahh...” Kuzaku groaned, then covered his mouth. He must have been worried about Kejiman who was at least making an attempt to creep as he approached one of the doors to the tent.
You’re such a damn softie, thought Haruhiro. But I do think that is one of your strong points. It makes you a likable guy. Still, it’s that part of you that worries me the most. I know that may be none of my concern, though.
Kejiman was already at a point around ten meters from the entrance to the tent.
“This sound,” Shihoru whispered. “Is it an accordion?” “That’s it!” Haruhiro realized.
The image of a musical instrument composed of a snake-like bellows and a keyboard that could be pressed came to mind. Then he lost track of what he was thinking, and just the word a-kor-dee-on was left behind like an empty box.
This, again? He was getting mad now.
Now isn’t the time to get mad, though, I guess...
Kejiman finally reached the door to the tent. He was sure Kejiman would be cautious from that point, but Kejiman suddenly flung the curtain open.
Should we run for real? For several seconds, Haruhiro seriously considered it.
“Ainrand...” someone said in a small voice.
No, not just someone.
Haruhiro reflexively looked to Merry, who was next to him. Merry’s eyes were open wide, like something had surprised her.
Haruhiro didn’t hesitate, and in the most subtle way he could manage, he averted his eyes. He didn’t know if he could pull off acting like he hadn’t seen anything, but he was going to try.
Kejiman poked his head into the tent. Was nothing going to happen?
Eventually, he started waving his hand. Come on! was what he apparently was trying to say.
Kuzaku looked around to the rest of them. “...Do we go?”
 



Peeking hesitantly into the tent, the only one there was Kejiman.
That was right. Kejiman had apparently been too impatient for Haruhiro and the rest to arrive, so he’d gone in ahead of them.
It wasn’t wide. Three meters in each direction, maybe. It was divided not by walls, but lustrous, deep purple curtains. There was a red carpet laid out on the floor. Its fibers were pretty long. There was a side table standing in the corner, and atop it was a rather expensivelooking lamp. Considering the size of the tent, there had to be another room or something if they pulled back those curtains.
There was nothing like a musical instrument that could have been making the sounds they’d heard here.
Haruhiro had his comrades wait outside, setting foot inside the tent himself.
Kuzaku held the entrance open from the outside.
“This is truly... truly it,” Kejiman said. Then he started to laugh. “Heh heh heh heh!”
“Listen, um... could you be quiet?” Haruhiro asked.
“What for?!”
“Do I really have to explain?”
“We’re dealing with the Ainrand Leslie, you know! If he wanted to do something to us, he could have done anything, anything, anything by now!”
“You don’t know what kind of person he is either, do you, Kejimansan? Not even if he’s human or not...”
“Buuuuut! I am confident that when it comes to rumors, gossip, hearsay, and more about Ainrand Leslie, my knowledge is second to none! Maybe second to none is a little excessive, but I’m decently knowledgeable about the subject! I know some things!”
“Isn’t the level of knowledge you have gradually decreasing there...?”
“This roooom!” Kejiman stood bowlegged, pointing up diagonally with the index fingers of both his hands.
“Is there some meaning to that pose?” Haruhiro sighed. Haruhiro lamented his need to point these things out.
“This room iiiis...!” Kejiman cried.
Haruhiro was being ignored. Depressing.
“...the Violet Roooom!” Kejiman exclaimed, finishing his sentence. “From what I’ve heard, the inside of the Leslie Camp is viiiioleeeet! In other words! In other worururds! This labyrinth of deep purple curtains! The labyrinth really exists!”
“I’m already exhausted...” Haruhiro muttered.
“Okay, okay, let’s calm down now.”
Kejiman thumped himself on the chest twice, breathed out, and then cleared his throat.
Oh, man. This is bad news.
Haruhiro felt he was used to guys like this. That was why he had a way to control them to some degree. Or so he’d thought, but he had been pulled totally off his pace. There was always someone better than you. Who knew he’d been up against such a tough opponent?
“Now, come in, people.” Kejiman gestured with his arm.
Kuzaku followed them inside the Violet Room.
Haruhiro pressed his hand against his forehead. “What’re you coming in here for, man?”
“Ah! Sorry, I didn’t mean to...”
“They have no choice but to come in, anyway.” Kejiman pressed on the bridge of his glasses with his middle finger, letting out a low laugh.
“Why is that?” Setora flipped back the curtain to ask.
Kejiman lowered his voice and said, as if unveiling some special secret, “The thing is... there is a legend about Leslie Camp, saying, ‘You cannot leave through the door you enter.’”
“Nonsense.”
Setora passed through the curtain, boldly entering the Violet Room. The curtain at the entrance closed behind her. Then Setora made an about-face, attempting to leave the way she’d come in.
“Wha...?”
Setora was heading for the exit. There was no doubt about that. If she reached out, she could reach the curtain. If she moved a little forward and pushed the curtain aside, she should have been able to leave. And yet...
“How strange,” Setora murmured.
“What is it?” Kuzaku asked.
Setora shook her head as if she couldn’t understand it. “I don’t know.”
“Ho-hoh! Well, well!” Kejiman attempted to run to the exit, but on the way he froze in place, and his entire body started twitching. “Nnnnngh...! Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-What is thiiiiiiis...?!”
“Huh? You can’t get out? You’re pulling our leg.” Kuzaku laughed and headed for the exit. The first and second step went fine, but he came to a dead stop right in front of the exit. “What is this? All I can say is, it feels weird...”
Kejiman was one thing, but it was hard to imagine Kuzaku or Setora were messing with him. Haruhiro didn’t need to try it himself; he could assume something abnormal was going on.
Shihoru, Merry, and Kiichi were still outside.
There were two options. He could have the Shihoru and the others outside escape, and those inside would figure a way out themselves, or...
No. Haruhiro shook his head. Splitting up the party was no good.
“Shihoru!” he called. “Merry and Kiichi, too... come in.”
Two people and one nyaa came through the curtain into the tent. Merry seemed pensive, or had a slightly grim look on her face, but she looked like she might be pale, too.
Perhaps Kiichi sensed something, because he jumped up and had Setora hold him. Shihoru seemed uneasy, too.
“What’s... going on?” Shihoru asked.
“Well, you see—” Kuzaku started to explain, but he was cut off by someone’s voice.
“Helloooo. How are you feeeeling? Weeeelcome to the Leslie Camp.” “Nihah?!” Kejiman let out a weird cry and looked left and right.
“Just now... did that voice say Leslie Camp?” Shihoru asked.
Yes, Haruhiro had clearly heard the voice say that, too. Was this really, really the Leslie Camp? What did that mean for them?
Whatever it meant, that voice...
That voice was a woman’s voice.
He might have been imagining it, but it sounded familiar, or maybe not...?
“You are humans, yes? That means you understand this language, yes? Are you all—”
“There!” Kejiman turned to the left curtain, pulling it violently. When the curtain was pulled back, there was a similar room surrounded in curtains, and no sign of any person inside. “...Urgh! The voice was coming from here, so whyyyy?!”
“Oh, my, my, my, my,” the voice said. “We have some lively guests here. Too lively, in fact. If you get too carried away, you won’t live long, I’m afraid.”
“Wh-Where are you?! Come out! No, please come out! You, the one with the voice of a beautiful young girl!”
“Kyapii,” the voice said. “How’d you know I was a beautiful young girl, I wonder? From just my voice? Do I give off such a high level of beautiful young girl-ness that it can’t possibly be hidden? But I can’t.”
“Why kyapii?!”
“O travelers.” The self-proclaimed voice of a beautiful young girl suddenly took on a more august tone. “Seek and wander. If you do, your path will lead you somewhere. I welcome you once more, travelers, to the wandering warehouse of relics that my master, Ainrand Leslie has gathered.” The voice cut out.
Haruhiro and Kuzaku quickly traded glances. Haruhiro took the front, Kuzaku the right. They both pulled back the curtains in unison.
The room in front of them was no different from this one. But the room to the right was different. It had a wooden door.
Taking a glance at it, Haruhiro couldn’t help but find it bizarre. Normally, doors were built into walls. However, that door stood with a curtain behind it.
From the look of it, if they opened the door, there would be a curtain behind it.
“Ohhhhh!” Suddenly, Kejiman rushed over in front of the door, and reached for the knob. If Haruhiro had reacted a moment slower, Kejiman would no doubt have opened it.
Spider.
No, he wasn’t going to go as far as killing him. Haruhiro just pinned Kejiman’s arms behind him before he could do it.
“H-Hold on!” Haruhiro exclaimed as he struggled.
“Argh, let go! I’m your employer! What do you think you’re doing to your employer?!”
“We don’t know what will happen!”
“Whether it’s a demon lord or a dark god that’s going to come out, we won’t know until we try!”
“Somehow, I don’t really want either of those coming out!”
“Let go! Let go, let go, let go! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!”
“What are you, a petulant child...?”
Haruhiro handed Kejiman, who was flailing around and making a scene, over to Kuzaku. He felt safer for now, but what to do next?
“We can’t go out that exit,” Haruhiro pondered aloud. “If we can find another way out...”
“There is still no guarantee we will be able to leave.” Setora was thoroughly stroking Kiichi’s throat. Perhaps she was trying to calm him. “That woman’s voice, it said this was a warehouse of relics. It was a relic that made creating artificial souls and manufacturing golems possible, too. Though this may not be true for all of them, a certain percentage of relics hold the power to upend the laws of this world. They are priceless.”
“Theyyyy’re! Iiiin! Heeeere! Lots of them! Even that door, as ordinary as it looks, muuuust be a relic!” Kejiman screamed.
Kejiman was being held firmly by Kuzaku. He wasn’t gagged, though, so he could still shout.
Setora gave Kejiman a side-eyed glare. “What a noisy man. Should I silence him?”
“Y-Y-You’re going to kill me?! If so, I’ll shut up for a bit...” “Close your mouth until I say otherwise. You are insufferable.” Kejiman nodded in silence.
“That’s a relic...” Shihoru was hugging her staff, looking nervously at the door, but not approaching it.
Merry was quiet. She looked down, her brow furrowed. Was she okay?
No, it wasn’t just Merry; none of them were okay.
“Could we just open it, open it and see what happens...?” Kuzaku asked.
His suggestion was worth considering. They could try opening it, and if anything weird happened, they could immediately close it again.
“No,” Haruhiro said. “But, hmm, I’m not sure...”
Like Kejiman had said before, they had no idea what might come out, so honestly, he was scared. Still, Haruhiro deliberately swallowed his fear, and decided not to use the word “scared” anymore, if possible.
It was good to have a sense of fear. It made him cautious. But wailing about how scared he was could only hurt him.
Even if it was baseless, he had to, at the very least, reassure his comrades that they could handle this somehow.
“For now, why don’t we check out the rest? Obviously, we’ll do it as cautiously as we can, though,” Haruhiro suggested with feigned calm.
No one objected.
 



Each time Haruhiro pulled back a curtain, he tensed both mentally and physically.
That was for the best. It was at the times when he was sure that they were fine, and nothing bad would happen, that things tended to go wrong.
“A box, huh...” he murmured.
In this room, in addition to a side table and lamp, there was a box large enough he would have to wrap his arms around it to pick it up. It didn’t seem to be made of wood. It was probably metal.
Kejiman tried to touch it, but Setora shouted, “Hey!” at him.
“Eek! I’m sorry!”
This was becoming a regular occurrence.
It was unclear if this box, or the door from earlier, were relics, but for as long as that remained a possibility, it was best not to touch them carelessly. Having encountered the mysterious phenomenon that prevented them from leaving the tent, that level of caution was warranted.
Haruhiro suspected this sound might be the cause of that mysterious phenomenon, but it might be the work of a relic, too.
Whether his guess was on the mark or not, it was best to assume anything could happen in the Leslie Camp, and to focus on finding another exit.
Haruhiro and the party had searched twelve rooms now. Thus far, they had all been about three square meters and separated from the others by deep purple curtains. There was always a side table and lamp.
There might, or might not, be other objects, too. However, there had yet to be a case with a variety of items in the same room.
The rooms with only a side table and lamp, let’s call them empty rooms, had numbered seven. For the remaining five, the breakdown was as follows.
The Door Room, with a wooden door.
The Sculpture Room, with a statue of a nude, probably human, woman.
The Keyring Room, with a ring of keys left out on a chair.
The room they were in now was the second one with a box.
The box in the first such room had been similar to this box in terms of the size and material used, but a different color. The box in the first room had been a blackened gold, and this room’s box was a copper-like color.
Shihoru hesitantly raised her hand.
“There’s something bothering me...” she began, and then showed them a note with a simple layout of each room. “The entrance we came in... this spot should have been on the outer edge of the tent, but...”
Haruhiro and the party had used the room with their entrance, and the two rooms to the left and right of it, as their starting point, and searched four rooms inwards from each of them, one after another.
“It may sound weird to say this, but I wonder what’s outside the outer edge...” she went on.
Kuzaku cocked his head to the side. “There is nothing outside the outer edge, right? I mean, wouldn’t that be outside?”
Setora crossed her arms and muttered to herself, “That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Kiichi was well-behaved, sitting there and looking up at Setora.
“Yeah,” Merry agreed.
“How it would normally be...” Haruhiro murmured.
That’s right. If it isn’t like that, something’s wrong.
Haruhiro tried returning to the Door Room, which was to the right of the entrance.
“Normally, the other side of this curtain would be outside... right?” he asked.
The Door Room had curtains on four sides, too. Of those four sides, the door in question was in front of the curtain in the direction that was straight ahead when entering this room from the door with the entrance.
Haruhiro was in front of the curtain that was on his right while facing the door.
The tent itself was a whitish color. If he drew back that deep purple curtain, there should have been a whitish outer curtain separating the inside from the outside. He wasn’t fully conscious of it, but that was why he hadn’t tried to go past here.
There was no way they could go past here.
“Wait, Haruhiro,” Kuzaku said. “I’ll handle this.”
When Kuzaku went to touch the curtain, Kejiman let out a bizarre cry of “Zumoy!” and charged forward. He pulled the curtain back with gusto.
Kejiman called out, “Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa...?!”
He’d had a feeling—no, he’d been half-convinced—that this was a likely possibility, so Haruhiro wasn’t all that surprised.
No, that was a lie. He was surprised, but more than that, he was confused about how to interpret this situation. Because it was there, after all.
Based on the tent’s layout, he should have hit a curtain to the outside, or gone outside, one of the two, but there was a room with a side table, a lamp, and curtains each of the four directions, the one Kejiman now held open included.
It was a room.
There was a room.
An empty room.

Chapter end