Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 12 - Chapter 15

15. Negotiator

There were no stalls, no shops, no nothing. Everything was smashed.

Humans, orcs, and a variety of other races, all of them were collapsed and covered in blood. Many were crushed, or had a piece of their body torn off. There were arms, legs, even heads rolling around. They must never have imagined the dragons would descend on this emergency market.

Hey, that’s weird, they’re coming this way! By the time someone had shouted that, it was already too late.

This tragedy really wasn’t pretty.

The three dragons had already flown off, and they were circling in the air above Roronea.

“We have to help the living,” Merry said.

They thought that sounded reasonable, so they split up and went to search for survivors, but then the dragons descended again, and everything went to hell.

Haruhiro and his party weren’t safe in town, so they’d have to evacuate to the dense forest. But was the forest safe? There was no guarantee the dragons wouldn’t come into the forest, so they might be forced to fight them. They started resolving themselves to do just that, but the dragons never did come into the forest.

It looked like a lot of people had fled into Roronea from the emergency market. The dragons now focused their attention on them. Smoke was rising from all over town, and screams could faintly be heard coming from the town even in the forest.

Ultimately, up until the dragons flew off after noon, all Haruhiro and his companions could do was hold their breaths as they hid in the forest.

They started looking for survivors in the emergency market afterward, but could find none left breathing, and as they were looking, the dragons came back, so they ended up hurriedly fleeing into the forest once more.

The dragons were apparently coming back from their fishing grounds, where they’d eaten. They’d wreaked havoc in Roronea on full stomachs, and then returned to their nests when evening came.

That being the case, it wasn’t until night that the extent of the damage became clear.

Extensive was the only way to describe it. There were over eighty people just among the confirmed dead, and more than another three hundred wounded.

From what Haruhiro and the rest heard, there was no small number of people who had made a mad dash through the streets only to jump into the sea from the piers and wharves. Because of that, the damage to the port was especially heavy. The No. 1, No. 3, and No. 4 piers were thoroughly destroyed, and the No. 1 and No. 2 wharves were heavily damaged, so the only one still reasonably intact was the No. 5 Pier.

The storehouses near the port were also smashed by the dragons, and a large quantity of grains, salted meat, fish, pickled vegetables, fruit, and liquor had been spoiled.

It was a crippling blow to Roronea. And the dragons might still return the next day.

When the sun set, the pirates began fighting over money, food, and water. There were desperate pirates who picked a fight with whoever they could, too. The boats staying offshore rushed to the No. 5 Pier out of fear of the dragons, and the heavy traffic led to utter chaos.

In order to control the pirates, Giancarlo, Momohina, and Jimmy ran all over, but even once the clouds that had hung low over the town since afternoon began to pour rain, the town showed no sign of quieting.

No good was going to come of staying in Roronea in this point, and it was just dangerous. In the middle of the rain, Haruhiro and the party pulled out and went to the rock wall from earlier.

The runaruka pirate Tsiha came along with them.

At the rock wall, Honey Den was delighted to see them return.

“Mmpf, mmpf, mmpf, mmpf!” he shouted.

No, he might not have been delighted, but since he had his hands bound behind his back, a gag in his mouth, both knees and ankles tied together with rope, and a rope around his waist tied to an outcropping on a boulder, he must have been at least a little relieved.

He might be hungry, and it had started raining, so he was certainly in a less than pleasant situation. Still, seeing the way he refused to stop incessantly going, “Mmpf, mmpf, mmpf, mmpf!” Honey Den was still doing relatively well.

Why had they come back to the rock wall? One reason was that they had left Honey Den here when they returned to Roronea. The emergency situation had left them no other choice, but it wasn’t as if Haruhiro didn’t feel it was a little cruel, and he’d have trouble sleeping at night if they just left the guy like this.

Undoing just the rope around his waist and the bonds on his legs, they took Honey Den somewhere out of the rain. There was a convenient cave not far away, so they decided to rest there.

No one had much to say. Kuzaku asked permission to lie down, and he was asleep in no time.

Honey Den was getting irritating with his muffled cries, so Haruhiro undid his gag and just listened to his pitiful begging for food. When he gave the man some of their portable rations, he finally shut up.

It was getting brighter outside. The rain hadn’t let up. According to Tsiha, on days when it rained, the dragons tended not to leave their nest. If that was the case, they could catch their breaths.

Haruhiro stood up with some effort. “The night’s over, so I’d say it’s about time we went out searching.”

“Still, we don’t know what hole it’s in, right?” Setora asked. “Worse yet, it might well not even be here.”

Setora might be right. But she also might be wrong.

Haruhiro looked from the entrance of the cave towards the rocks outside. The rain should have washed a lot of it away, so they couldn’t find his remains easily, but when Haruhiro had asked Red-Eyed Ben, whose life had ended here, where the treasure was, the response had been: It’s not here, you idiot.

I’ll bet. Haruhiro believed the dead man.

Thinking about it, it was a mystery. He’d been careless, addle-brained, and frankly Ben had had every reason to call him an idiot.

Benjamin Fry hadn’t been an honest man, by any means. He’d easily deceived others, tricking them with quickly improvised lies. That was the kind of man he had been. If he’d said something was white, it was best to start off assuming it was black.

“If it’s not here, it’s not here, and we’ll work from there,” Haruhiro said. “For now, everyone stay here. I can do this alone.”

Haruhiro left the cave. It wasn’t visible from a distance, but Ben’s blood and flesh were still clinging to the rocks. That meant it was just above here.

He carefully climbed the rock wall which was slick with rain. When he reached the hole in question, the inside was close to pitch black. Well, he’d manage somehow.

Moving aside pieces of wood and branches that sea birds had brought as material for their nests, along with other objects he couldn’t identify, he searched.

Was it his imagination? He occasionally smelt the dead man’s stench. That man had slept here. His head had rested right around here, and—

His back. No, his waist would have been around here. When Red-Eyed Ben had lain down to sleep, his butt would have been right around here.

It was soft. Or more like there was an indentation to begin with. Ben had dug it out, and then laid down branches and whatever on top of it.

When Haruhiro cleared those away, he found it.

It was there.

A bag made from thick hemp, or a similar material.

He pulled the bag out. He opened it. Haruhiro gulped, and then threw up a bit.

“This is it,” he whispered. He closed the bag and shouldered it.

When he left the hole, Kuzaku, Merry, Setora, and Kiichi were down below. Yume, Shihoru and Tsiha were probably guarding Honey Den.

“Found it,” Haruhiro said.

“Huh...” said Merry.

“Nyaa?” Kiichi put in.

“What did you say?” Setora asked.

Kuzaku was slack-jawed. “For real?”

Everyone was surprised. Haruhiro was surprised in many ways, too.

What an idiot he had been. He should have immediately assumed that if Red-Eyed Ben said it wasn’t there, the opposite was true, and it actually was. If a man as suspicious as him was going to hide something, where would it be? The hole where he was staying was obviously the most suspicious place.

Haruhiro descended the rock wall, and returned to the cave with Kuzaku and the others. The moment he saw the bag Haruhiro was carrying, Honey Den shouted “Ah!”

Haruhiro opened the bag again. Was the large amount of dried grass stuffed inside intended as insulation? The man had been taking good care of it, in his own way. Haruhiro brushed aside the grass.

It was glossy. A deep green. If they looked at it under sunlight, it would be a brilliant green, no doubt.

The egg. It was definitely egg-shaped. Taken at its widest point, it might have a diameter of about twenty centimeters. It wasn’t small, but it felt like an egg from those dragons could have been bigger.

Haruhiro tried flicking it with a finger. It was hard. Like a rock. It wasn’t going to scratch easily.

He tried lifting it.

“Heavy...”

It really was a rock. It was heavy like one.

Merry put a hand on the egg, closing her eyes. “It’s very cold. It may be a genuine egg, but I wouldn’t expect it to hatch.”

“Is it petrified, or something?” Shihoru asked, looking more at Merry’s expression than at the egg.

“Could be.” Merry opened her eyes. She hurriedly pulled her hand back. “I wouldn’t really know. That was just the feeling I got.”

Kuzaku crossed his arms and nodded. “That means we can’t eat it, right?”

“You want to eat it?” Haruhiro asked, mind-boggled.

But Kuzaku turned to him with all seriousness and replied, “Huh? Wouldn’t you want to try it?”

“No, not really.”

“Ohhhh. Well, that’s just how you are, after all. You’re pretty conservative about what you’re willing to eat.”

“I’m not sure that’s the issue here...?”

“Listen, that thing is worth 5,000 gold, people.” Honey Den sounded like he had bitten into something unpleasant.

“Fwoo...” Yume twisted her neck around. “Five thousand? Mmmm?”

“Gold?”

Haruhiro nearly dropped the egg in surprise, and Kuzaku went “Whoa,” and jumped back and away from it.

“F-Five thousand! Five thousand gold?! That’s a whole ladda money! I’m not sure what a ladda is supposed to be, though...”

“That’s what Ben told me, at least,” Honey Den said. “I dunno if it’s true. Even a hundred gold would be enough to make us set for life. That was the plan, at least...”

Honey Den’s shoulders slumped, and he started muttering curses. In a way, it was impressive to see that he was so scummy, he could still bemoan his misfortune at this stage of the game.

“You realize a whole lot of people are dead thanks to you two, right?” Haruhiro snapped.

“Wasn’t my idea. Besides, even if I didn’t help, I’m sure Ben’d have done it alone. He’s the one to blame. If not for him, none of this would ever’ve happened. Am I right, or what?”

“What do you mean, ‘Am I right, or what?’” Setora turned a cold gaze towards Honey Den.

Kiichi was glaring threateningly at the man desperately in need of dental care, too.

“Haru, we’re done with him,” Setora said freezingly. “Wouldn’t it be best to finish him off? He’ll be in our way, and he’s evil.”

“D-Don’t be like that!” Honey Den yelped. “I-I may not look it, but I can be useful, okay?”

“I can’t imagine you would be,” she sneered.

“No, I mean it! That’s why Ben brought me in on this!”

“Did you not just say he could have done it himself?”

“Th-That was just, uh, you know, a figure of speech, okay?”

Were they done with him, or not? It was a hard call. Even if they were, Haruhiro didn’t see a need to kill him, but he didn’t want to be stuck looking at the guy’s face much longer, either. What to do?

“Tsiha, this thing, you ever see one before?” Haruhiro asked, just to be sure.

Tsiha looked at the egg in silence for a while, then shook his head. “No,” he said at last. “But probably dragon egg. To dragon, give back good. Not give back, dragon stay angry.”

“How do you think we should go about givin’ it back?” Yume arched her eyebrows and hugged her knees. “The dragons, they’re hollerin’ mad, you know? Like, imagine Yume were to take them the egg, right? Yume, she’d get gobbled up by the dragons, don’t you think?”

“Why don’t we just leave it out somewhere?” Kuzaku suggested, then whacked himself two to three times in the head. “No good, huh. Wait, is it no good? I dunno, but either way, I have a feeling they won’t stop attacking the town. They’ve totally snapped.”

“We can’t take the ship out anymore, either...” Shihoru looked outside the cave, sighing deeply.

“Give it back, huh...” Haruhiro murmured to himself.

“Give it back...” Kuzaku parroted back, looking up to the ceiling of the cave.

“Give it back...?” Yume tilted her head to the side ninety degrees. “If Yume had to return a thing to someone, do you think she’d go to them?”

“Go to them...” Merry tucked in her chin and looked down. “To the dragon’s nest?”

“I... I don’t wanna!” Honey Den screamed and tried to run out of the cave.

Setora immediately swept his leg and tripped him. The rock surface was far from flat here, so Honey Den let out a squeal as his face got all scratched up.

“N-No, I don’t wanna go there,” the pirate moaned. “If it means going to that place again, I’d rather die. No, that’s going a little far. I can’t die until I’ve slept with a whole lot of good women, and eat sweet stuff until my cheeks cave in...”

“What is with this guy?” Setora was past being put off, and was shuddering a little.

Seriously, though, what was with him?

If they left him alone, Honey Den seemed likely to crawl out of the cave on his belly, so Haruhiro planted a foot on his back for lack of a better alternative.

“Gyauagh?! You inhuman monsteeeeer!”

“Oh, shut up... Also, I don’t want to hear that from you.”

“Then let me go. Set me free. If you do, I’ll remember you as a saint.”

“Mind your manners. Do you want to get fed to the dragons?”

“I-I’m sorry, i-it won’t happen again, forgive me, please, have mercy...”

Even just stepping on him like this, Haruhiro felt his heart being dirtied a little more each second. But if he removed his foot, this man was more or less guaranteed to make a run for it.

“You say you never want to go there again, but you never went in there in the first place, right?” Haruhiro demanded. “Red-Eyed Ben went into the nest alone, and he managed to come back in one piece.”

“That bastard was a little weird. In the head, you know. Me, I’m sane...”

“You know the way there, right?”

“Only the way there. There’s no map once you get past that point, either. Going in there, it’s not something that a sane man does.”

“But, Haru.” Setora looked at Honey Den as she might look at a pile of excrement.

You don’t have to look at him, Haruhiro couldn’t help but think. Not many guys are as worthless as this.

“Do we have any obligation to go so far?” Setora asked. “Now that we’ve found the egg, I think we can say we have uncovered the reason the dragons are attacking Roronea. Our jobs should be done at this point.”

“You’re right, Setora,” Haruhiro said. “It’s exactly as you say, but...”

The rain was still coming down. Had it let up a little? Would the dragons fly today? What was happening to the ships that’d rushed to the No. 5 Pier? Most of them probably couldn’t leave. It wasn’t just the rain; the wind was strong, too. The seas were rough.

Roronea was a pirate town. The supplies they went through mostly came by ship. If shipping was no longer viable, the populace would starve in no time. Would they fish to eat? They could try hunting in the forest, too, but the runarukas wouldn’t stand for it.

What Haruhiro had to keep in mind was that this problem didn’t only affect the islanders anymore. The party was here on this island. It affected them, too.

They should meet with Giancarlo, or Jimmy. Haruhiro wanted to hear the runarukas’ opinions, too. He decided to have Tsiha call his elder brother Mwadan, the next in line to become chief of the tribe.

Kuzaku said he’d go with Tsiha, and Haruhiro ran all the way to Roronea to find Giancarlo.

The town had been laid to waste. It was best to assume anyone out in the streets was a looter. When he snuck his way through to the port, there were still several ships moored to the No. 5 Pier, and a crowd had gathered. They were arguing pretty loudly about something.

When he got closer, Giancarlo was shouting at the pirates, and they were shouting back. It could turn to fisticuffs at any moment.

When Momohina got in the middle of them, the pirates bowed down immediately. It looked like things had been solved peaceably.

Jimmy was there, too.

Haruhiro tried talking to him. “Section Chief.”

“Oh. You, huh. Good to see you’re still alive.”

“You look exhausted,” Haruhiro told him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m undead; it comes with the territory. Did you have something to talk about?”

Haruhiro whispered a report about how they’d found the egg. Then it was decided not just Jimmy but also Momohina would come with them to confirm they had the genuine object, and from there, they’d discuss what would happen next.

Not long after they left Roronea, the dragons took flight in spite of the rain.

If the dragons smashed the No. 5 Pier, too, they’d seriously be out of ways to leave the island. No, Haruhiro wasn’t optimistic enough to think that it couldn’t happen. He expected it probably would.

Giancarlo and his people had half given up. It might have been that they were exhausted, but even when they saw the dragons, they didn’t act particularly surprised, or act like they were worried for their future prospects.

Tsiha and Kuzaku had returned with Mwadan by the time they arrived. Mwadan was pretty angry at Honey Den, and said he should be offered as a sacrifice in some sort of ritual, but they got him to hold off on that for the moment.

First of all, they had to decide what was to be done with the dragon egg. Mwadan thought it should be returned to where it rightfully belonged.

“Whether this is dragon egg or not, I do not know,” Mwadan said. “However, it is important to dragons. No question. Runarukas punish thieves. Person who stole, made to return things. Things they stole, returned to where they came from. Then punishment. You humans do same. Dragons do same. Return stolen things. No other choice.”

“I more or less agree,” Giancarlo said, raising his hand. “Well, we won’t know if that solves things or not until we try it. It seems that’s the only way we can show the dragons our sincere contrition.”

“Mewwww. Let’s do iiiiit!” Momohina turned to Haruhiro, and stretched both hands out towards him. “Okay!”

Haruhiro responsively said, “Okay,” and placed his left hand on top of Momohina’s palm. Was he doing this right?

“Nooo. That’s not it! Give me the dragon’s eggy-weggy!”

“Oh...”

He wasn’t sure she should be calling it that, but Haruhiro passed Momohina the egg, bag and all.

But was this okay?

Haruhiro looked to Shihoru. When he was in a bind, he always looked to Shihoru for salvation. It had totally become a habit. Shihoru looked Haruhiro in the eye and nodded.

“Nngh! Eggy-weggy!” Momohina urged him.

Haruhiro pulled the bag back just before he would have placed it on Momohina’s palms.

“No.”

“Nyo?”

“I can’t hand it over. We haven’t received our reward yet.”

“About that...” Giancarlo started to say, but Haruhiro interrupted him with an, “I know.”

“This isn’t a situation where you can send out a boat to take us to Vele,” Haruhiro said. “Right? More than that, if we don’t do something about the dragons, we don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

Giancarlo frowned and shrugged.

Haruhiro kept pushing. “We’re happy to help you with returning the egg to the dragons’ nest. However, we’re going to need more of a reward. The K&K Pirate Company is raking it in, right? You guys have money. And by the way, from what Honey Den tells us, a dragon egg is apparently worth 5,000 gold coins.”