chap 14 13

“Okay, then.”
“What will you do?”
“I’m...” Ranta started to say, then held up his left hand lightly.
He grasped the hilt of his katana with his right.
Leaya tried to say something, but when Ranta brought the index finger of his left hand to the mouth of his mask, Leaya shut her mouth. Alorya held her daughter close.
Where is it? he wondered. This presence—it’s probably eyes.
We’re being watched.
From where?
The area directly below Arnotu must have been being maintained by the elves or something, because there wasn’t the slightest bit of foliage, so it would be hard to hide something even the size of a dog. In which case...
How many of these giant trees were there supporting the treetop city of Arnotu? More than ten or twenty. Taking a rough guess, maybe a hundred.
The closest giant tree to the one Ranta and the others had descended from, in the old elevator, was easily more than twenty meters away. That giant tree had no elevator.
Ranta suddenly jumped with Leap Out. He closed in on the giant tree that was his target in no time, and they came out.
They came out of the shadow of the giant tree.
The guy was dressed in black. He was wearing what looked like a balaclava, so Ranta couldn’t see his face. Judging by his build, though, this wasn’t an orc.
He was human or undead, then? His arms were strangely long, so he had to be undead. There were short swords in both of his hands.
“Personal Skill...” Ranta drew his katana.
He came to a sudden stop right in front of the undead’s nose—or that was what he made it look like. It should create an illusion like he was moving to the left. The undead eyes did, in fact, follow him in that direction. However, no one was there.
The undead guessed Ranta had gone the other way and looked right, but he wasn’t there, either, and he wasn’t in front of him, either. Ranta was nowhere to be found.
Had he vanished? The undead got confused. There was no way he could have vanished.
That was right. He hadn’t.
“Mirage Slash!” Ranta was right in front of the undead. However, if the undead didn’t look downwards, he wouldn’t be able to see him.
From a stance so low his left knee touched the ground, Ranta swung his katana upward diagonally with all his might.
It was perfect. He was at killing range, and his timing was excellent, but the undead crossed his short swords, and blocked Ranta’s katana with a clang.
This undead wasn’t your ordinary opponent.
Good. Fine by me. Now you’ve got me fired up. Ranta instantly pulled back his katana.
“Personal Skill, Rantah...!”
He actually wanted to say Random Flurry, but he tripped over his tongue. Well, not like the name mattered.
He struck, and struck, and struck. From the top, from the right, from the top right, from the top left, from the top again, right, right, left, right, top, right, left, left, he swung his katana.
Daaaamn. The undead could fend off a combo this long? With those short swords? He hadn’t looked like much. He didn’t make much of an impression. If anything, he’d seemed like cannon fodder, but this undead was seriously strong.
Sure, Ranta was on the offensive. If he wasn’t, he’d be in trouble. He had to keep attacking, or he felt like the tables would be turned on him in an instant. In that case, he’d just have to attack, attack, attack.
“Personal Skill, Horizontal Rain!”
Ranta switched to thrusts. He thrust madly, like he was trying to create a line of spears all by himself. It was no exaggeration to call it a furious assault.
But the undead easily deflected everything with his short swords, making the thrusts go astray. He was neutralizing Ranta’s attacks with minimal effort.
Was he some kind of master? There were always guys out there like this.
Still, Ranta wasn’t attacking without purpose. He had a plan. He’d get his opponent used to thrusts, then change. This was preparation. He’d thrust, and thrust, and thrust, and—
“Wha...?!”
Suddenly, the undead jumped back, right into the giant tree.
What? Why? What happened? Still not understanding, Ranta tried to close in on the undead. He felt like he was being lured in, but his body moved on its own. It shouldn’t have.
The undead kicked the ground, sending a mixture of moss and dirt flying towards him.
“Huh?!” Ranta came close to shutting his eyes despite himself, but he resisted. The dirt only distracted him for a brief instant.
In that time, the undead hid himself.
“What is he, a ninja?!” Ranta instinctively looked up.
Bingo. The undead had thrust his sword into the giant tree, and was clinging on to it.
“...Heh. Hah! I’mma niiiinja!” The undead thrust his two swords in to the giant tree in turn, higher and higher each time, climbing upwards.
“Whoa, whoa... Seriously?” Ranta said. “Even I’m not gonna be able to chase after that. Hold on, intruders...”
That undead wasn’t necessarily the first to arrive. The enemy had already entered Arnotu. He had to assume that.
“Wezel!” Ranta yelled.
If that was the case, they were best off getting out of the Shadow Forest as soon as possible. Wezel and the others were standing still in front of the old elevator.
Ranta was going to shout, Go! at them, but the loud howling got in his way.
Not of dogs. He immediately knew those were the howls of wolves.
Wezel hugged Alorya and Leaya. If he’d been alone, he’d have fled long before Ranta told him to. He’d crossed many a dangerous bridge before, and he was still alive because he knew how to get himself out of a crisis. But now he had two people in need of protection with him. One of them was just a child, and his daughter at that.
“How awkward for you, gray elf,” Ranta called. “You’re so lame, it’s awesome. I don’t mind guys like you.”
Ranta flew all the way to Wezel and his family’s side.
“O Darkness, O Lord of Vice! Demon Call!”
When he called Zodie the demon, Leaya’s eyes bugged out like she had just run into the reaper himself. “What is that?!”
“Ehe... Just a hot guy... passing by... Ehehehehe....” Zodie said.
“Drop the stupid nonsense,” Ranta snorted. “We’re doing this, Zodie.”
The wolves were still at a distance, so they looked like a horde of pitch black rats, but they were unquestionably black wolves.
Yeah, there were pitch black wolves charging in from the forest.
“There are no black wolves in Arnotu,” Alorya whispered to herself in a daze.
It was hard to imagine black wolves had wandered into the Shadow Forest, which was not their territory, of their own accord. It was practically impossible. Someone had deliberately brought the black wolves all the way here.
Ranta knew only one man who could pull off that feat.
“Onsa, huh?” he muttered. That was Forgan’s goblin beastmaster.
It wasn’t just black wolves. Ranta could see humanoid figures on the other side.
“Is everyone here?” Ranta adjusted his grip on his katana. His hand was quivering slightly.
“Ehe...” Zodie cackled. “Are you scared, Ranta? You insignificant chicken... Ehehehehe...”
“Shove off. You think someone as awesome as me is afraid?”
He could see the flickering of torches or some other flame in the distance. There were a fair number of them.
The black wolves weren’t attacking—they were just barking and trying to intimidate as they surrounded them.
Following behind the black wolves, was that an orc? Judging by his build, it could be a human.
Ranta pointed behind to the rear, diagonally to the left. “That way! There’re no enemies yet. When I give the signal, go.” “Ranta...” Wezel began.
“Protect your family, Wezel.”
Oh, yeah, Ranta grinned. I nailed it.
As he was backing in secret glee, suddenly Leaya tackled him, and Ranta nearly let out a groan of surprise.
Huh? What? What was that? No, no, don’t panic. As an adult man, I need to show my composure here.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“Am I...”
Leaya pressed her face against Ranta’s chest, hugging him tight around the waist, and squeezed hard.
It actually hurt pretty bad, but Ranta was a man, so he sucked it up and pretended everything was fine.
Eventually, Leaya looked up. Her eyes were moist. Her cheeks, red.
“...seriously cute?” she finished.
“Yup.” Ranta gave her a cool smile.
He hated to admit it, but she’d made his heart skip a beat. His face might’ve looked a bit goofy as a result. It was a good thing he had his mask on. She was just a kid, after all. He was an adult, and a man.
“You’re seriously, seriously, super seriously cute,” Ranta told her.
“I’ll choose to believe you.”
“See ya, Leaya.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever meet again,” she said.
“Guess you’re right, huh?”
“Probably.”
Leaya pushed Ranta away as they parted.
The black wolves were howling loudly.
“You’re too noisy. Shut up!” It was the sound of a human voice—a man shouting, echoed. Ranta knew that voice.
The man advancing in between the black wolves had just one eye, and one arm.
It was old man Takasagi.
He’s gotten older, Ranta thought. But he’s looking better than I’d’ve expected.
Ranta put his hand on the hilt of his katana. “Now.”
When he gave the signal in a quiet voice, Wezel took off running, taking Alorya, and Leaya with him.
Takasagi went to go after them, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“Zodie, kill ’em all!” Ranta yelled.
These weren’t enemies he could take if he didn’t go into this prepared to do that much.
Ranta jumped in with Leap Out. Takasagi’s right eye went wide.
Maybe he realized. When he’d seen this katana, he should have.
You gave it to me, after all, Ranta thought.
“You bastard...!” he yelled.
Takasagi drew his katana. Damn the old man. He was smiling. Now that they’d met, it was time to settle things, was that it?
Ranta drew and swung. When their two katanas collided, there was a high-pitched clang, and sparks went flying.
Takasagi pushed with his katana. Their hilts locked.
Takasagi was old and experienced. It was obvious he should disengage right away, but he couldn’t help but want to test his strength.
Under the mask, Ranta smiled.
Am I being true to my own heart?
Of course.
Until the day that Skullhell takes me, I will never betray it.



Afterword
As I have said publicly in the past, I hate Ranta. But after all he’s been through, Ranta is likely changing.
Feelings of the Mask has so many of the good parts of Ranta in it, I nearly ended up liking him.
Next time, the plan is to give all of you a Yume story. It’s still in the planning stage, but I look forward to writing about what Yume’s been up to, and what will happen to her.
By the way, I was in charge of series composition and scriptwriting on the anime Fairy Gone, which began airing in April 2019.
I never thought it would be so much fun to make something with other people. Still, I enjoy thinking and writing about things by myself too, so I would like to keep working on novels, scriptwriting, original concepts, and whatever other opportunities arise in future.
Now then, to my editor, Harada-san, to the illustrator, Eiri Shirai-san, to the designers of KOMEWORKS among others, to everyone involved in production and sales of this book, and finally to all of you people now holding this book, I offer my heartfelt appreciation and all of my love. Now, I lay down my pen for today.
I hope we will meet again.
Ao Jyumonji



Bonus Short Stories
Scene #16: Something Lost
Why was Haruhiro walking around with his head down? That was a long story—or not.
Actually, he had dropped his phone.
He got out of school, headed home, and played with his phone. He remembered that much clearly. After that, he headed out. He went to a bookstore, wandered around the park, dropped by a convenience store, and took a stroll down the tree-lined road on the embankment. During that stretch, he was sure he had checked his phone a number of times, but he had no distinct memory of it.
It’ll be getting dark soon, he thought, and was about to head home. He tried to check the time on his phone, but it wasn’t there. He’d dropped it, or left it behind somewhere.
First he went around to the bookstore, the public washroom, the convenience store, and anywhere else indoors where it might be. He tried asking the staff if anyone had found a lost phone, too. He found nothing. So he followed the path he must have taken, and was looking for any phones on the ground.
It may just be gone, he started to think. But lost objects had a way of turning up just as you gave up on them. If he lost his smartphone, it was going to be all kinds of trouble.
I’d better look harder, he thought, leaning forward and looking down as he walked over Tsukimi Bridge.
Then he ran into something.
“Ow!” cried a girl’s voice.
“Urgh!” yelped Haruhiro.
When he looked up, a long-haired girl in a school uniform was holding her head.
“S-S-Sorry! Hold on... Huh?”
“...Huh?” She looked at him, blinking. The head-on-head collision they had gotten into must have hurt. Her eyes were all teary. “Iima... Haruhiro-kun?”
“Um... Kakimiya Merii-san?”
There was no doubt about it. It was unmistakable, in fact. This was his classmate, Kakimiya Merii. Her looks were so distinctive that she couldn’t possibly be anyone else.
“Wait, why are you using my full name?” Haruhiro asked.
“Well... I make a point of committing my classmates’ names to memory.”
“Everyone’s?” Haruhiro asked, and Kakimiya nodded. “Everyone’s,” she confirmed. “So, it just slipped out.” “I... see.”
“Iima Haruhiro,” Kakimiya addressed him by his full name again. Then she hurriedly corrected herself. “Iima-kun... what are you doing here?”
“Ohh, I’m, well... What was it? Right. I just remembered. I lost my phone.”
“Huh?” Kakimiya’s eyes suddenly went wide, surprising him, too.
“...Huh? What? What’s up?”
“Me, too,” she said. “I lost my phone, and I’m looking for it. What a coincidence.”
“Y-Yeah. It sucks, huh? Losing your phone. ...Are you okay?”
“Are you, Iima-kun?”
“Uh, sure, I’m fine... or maybe not so much. I mean, I was looking for it...”
When he was talking to Kakimiya, he felt off kilter for some reason. He couldn’t look at her face.
Does a guy like me have any right to look at her? he wondered.
Because of that, he was looking to the side, and there he saw a phone sitting on top of the railing.
Not his. But just maybe, he thought, picking it up, and showing it to Kakimiya. “Um, Kakimiya-san, is this it...?”
“That’s mine!” Kakimiya, probably without intending to, snatched the phone away from him. When she did, their hands touched, and Kakimiya immediately said, “I’m sorry!”
“...Nah.”
“This phone is really important to me. I’m so glad you found it.”
“Yeah. I’m happy for you. But what was it doing here?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Oh, but when I came through here, I saw the moon. Look.”
Kakimiya brought up an image on her phone to show him. It was apparently a photo she had taken from this spot. It was evening, and he felt like he might be able to vaguely make out something small floating in the dark sky.
“It didn’t turn out very well,” she apologized. “It looked so big, but it’s so small on the camera.”
As the situation had necessitated, Kakimiya was now standing shoulder-to-should with him. He felt awkward, so he gently moved away from her.
“Yeah,” he said. “That happens.”
“I even used the... zoom? I used that function, but it still didn’t get all that big. It’s really disappointing.”
Kakimiya’s shoulders slumped and she let out a sigh. He started to feel bad for her, and he wanted to be encouraging, but it was too great a burden for him.
“Well, I’m off,” he tried to leave, but...
“Iima-kun!” she called after him.
“...Wh-What?”
“Thank you. For finding it.”
“Nah, it was just sort of there. It’s no big deal.” “Your phone is next,” she said.
“Next?”
“Need to find it.”
“...Yeah.”
Well, yeah, of course he did. He intended to look. But he didn’t want to say, It’s fine, I’ll look for it on my own. Kakimiya may have just been saying that to encourage him.
“Well, then...”
He started walking, and Kakimiya followed. It seemed she intended to look for it with him.
“Uh, I’m fine, you know?” he tried saying, but Kakimiya just nodded. He wasn’t getting through to her. He didn’t know what to do. He hoped he’d find his phone before that drove him crazy.

Scene #17: Man is a Thinking Horse
Bzzt, went the electrical current.
Isurugi Ranta and Tsurugi Monzo were trying to cross a fairly busy crosswalk. The crosswalk signal changed from red to green, and the pedestrians all began to move. Ranta tried to walk, too. When he did, an idea came to him. Oh, did it come to him.
“This is the time for... pushups, don’t you think?” he said.
“Huh...?” Monzo looked at Ranta with a silly face that said, What are you saying all of a sudden, Ranta-kun?
Didn’t he know what pushups were? Pushups! Though, rather than try to convince him, it was better to strike while the iron was hot. He need to do it right now. Time was a moving thing, and timing this perfect didn’t come around too often.
“Make way, make way!” Ranta pushed his way through the crowd, got ahead of them, and ran.
Reaching the middle of the crosswalk, he got down and put both hands on the ground. He stretched out both legs behind him. Ranta’s arms, chest, and legs formed a beautiful right triangle with the ground.
“Here I go! Hahhhh...!”
Ranta started doing some intense pushups. Not ordinary pushups. These weren’t your easygoing, lackadaisical pushups, not by any means. They were fast. He bent and straightened his arms devilishly fast. Everyone watching had to think, Whoa, that’s fast! He was doing super high speed pushups in—can you believe it?—the middle of the crosswalk.
“R-Ranta-kun?! What on earth are you doing?!” Monzo was babbling, but Ranta didn’t care. Hoo, hoo, hoo, with rhythmical breaths, he kept on doing pushups.
The pedestrians were gonna be shocked stupid. Gwahahahaha! There was a buzz from the crowd, a buzz, damn it! There were some of them snapping photos, and shooting videos, too. They were going to spread this? On social networks? Sweet! Go ahead! No, seriously, do it!
“Nwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...!” Ranta was drenched with sweat, laughing out loud as he continued his pushups.
This! Is! Bliss!
Right now, I’m standing out. Standing out like crazy.
Do you know what it’s like? This feeling?
“There’s a guy doing pushups at the crosswalk for some reason!” That news would spread on the social networks. Tomorrow, the kids around here would all be talking about it.
“Who is he? Who is he?” People would start searching for Crosswalk Pushup Man. He could decide whether to come out and say, I am he later, but whether he did or didn’t, Isurugi Ranta would be identified as the man responsible.
The big thing wasn’t that he was doing pushups at a crosswalk. No, it was that he gain a reputation as an anarchic, punk, and rock-and-roll sort of guy. That was the impotent bit. Er, no, no. Not that. It was the important bit!
“R-Ranta-kun! Th-The light! The light!”
Monzo was shouting something again. Looking over, Ranta saw that Monzo had finished crossing. The pedestrian crossing sign was flashing now. It’d turn red soon. The majority of the pedestrians had, like Monzo, finished crossing the crosswalk. Not many people were paying attention to Ranta.
No way.
What gives?
No—The refs haven’t called this game just yet.
“Here’s where things pick up!
Oorarararararararararararararararararararah...!”
Ranta accelerated his pushups. The light would change soon. In short, that meant the cars would have the “go” sign, but Crosswalk Pushup Man would be in their way. Everyone would be shocked by the insanity of it, and give in. More! He was going to stand out more!
“Fwahahahahahahahahahahahhhh...!”
Suddenly, a voice came from behind him. “Hey.”
“Huh?!” Ranta stopped doing pushups despite himself, and turned to look.
There was a girl from his class standing there, looking down at him.
“What’re you doin’ there, Ranta?” she asked.
“Wh-What do you mean, ‘what’...?”
Wait, it was Tachibana Yume? He didn’t recall this woman being in a position to address him by his first name, without honorifics. They weren’t anywhere near that close. They were in a relationship that was on the far side of platonic. If he were to put a name on it, they were classmates.
“I-I’m, er, uh...”
“The light’s about to change, y’know? That’s dangerous.”
“I-It’s fine! Leave me alone!”
“Hmm...” Tachibana looked like she was thinking something, but she probably wasn’t thinking at all, because she suddenly went, “Oof,” and sat down on Ranta’s back.
“Huh?! What’re getting on top of me for?! What is this?! What?!”
“Full speed ahead!”
“No, no, no?! I’m not doing that, okay?! I’m not going anywhere, obviously!”
“Well, Yume’s gonna get smushed by a car, too, then. That’s no good.”
“Then get off!”
“Yume’s not gettin’ off.”
“Why not?!”
While they were doing this, the light changed and the cars started blaring their horns.
“Ah! Ranta! Hurry, hurry! You’ve gotta cross!”
“So get off of me...”
“Yume’s not gettin’ off! Full! Speed! Ahead!”
“What is with this girl...?!”




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Chapter end