Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 13 - Chapter 10

10. ROOMS

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.

“Uh, yeah, so basically...”

Haruhiro pretended to think about it. Or rather, he was trying to think, but he couldn’t help but feel it was pointless. What did this mean?

“Heh heh!” Kejiman cackled. “Don’t you get it?”

It seemed even Kejiman was in no hurry to enter that empty room, because he turned back to them while still holding the curtain open.

The man paused. “Well, I... I have no clue. What’s going on here?! It’s scary! Sca-ry! W-W-W-We’d better be able to get back home, damn it...!”

“Look, this is your fault to begin with...” Haruhiro muttered.

“You’re my bodyguard, so do something about it, you ass!”

“Who is an ass?” Setora asked coldly. “Watch your mouth, you lowlife.”

While Setora told him off, Kejiman started bawling. His nose was running pretty badly, too. “Forgive me, my queen. My goddess. But I had no idea it would end up like this...”

It would have been nice to have Kejiman spare a thought for those he had dragged into this mess, but there was zero chance that taking him to task over it would improve the situation.

Haruhiro wanted to, though. He wanted to really give him an earful.

This was a situation that required a little self-restraint. But he knew the trick to holding himself back.

This was better than the days he’d spent being tormented by that one idiot. If he thought of it that way, he could tolerate it, somehow.

But wait, was it, really...?

That was questionable. Kejiman was pretty awful, too.

“This may be another world... maybe,” Merry said, then added, “That’s just a possibility, though,” as if making excuses.

“A-Another world, huh?!” That might not be something to panic over, but for some reason, Haruhiro was. “Hmm, yeah, another world, huh? Makes sense. It’s another world, huh? Another world...” he mumbled, his brain racing desperately.

In the end, what did it mean? Another world? What was that?

“Huh...?” he mumbled. “This place? Like the Dusk Realm, or Darunggar?”

“Another world...” Kejiman adjusted the bridge of his glasses with the middle finger of his right hand. “Can I go...?”

“Go.” Setora pointed towards the ground with her index finger. “Go at once. Go, and never return.”

“Sorryyyy! I was just joking around! That’s not what I really want to ask! I was thinking, maybe you people have been to other worlds?! It sounded like you had, at least!”

“I have not, but Haru and the rest have,” Setora said.

“Woooow! Awesooooooooooooome!” Kejiman’s eyes bulged out, and he did a little dance.

What was with this guy? Seriously. He was gross.

“Another world! How I’ve dreamed of going! I’ve always wanted to see one before I died! Oh! What if this really is another world?! Shouldn’t I be happy?! My wish may have come true, right?!”

“How nice,” Kuzaku said with a look of exasperation on his face.

But it’s not that nice, though, okay? Haruhiro thought with annoyance.

“Relics, huh...” he muttered.

He didn’t know much, but Haruhiro did have one. He’d gotten it from Soma. The receiver. It seemed to be broken, but—

Right. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t told his comrades yet. Oh, crap. He needed to say something. But, yeah, not now. This wasn’t the time.

Anyway, if he remembered correctly, Soma’s comrade, Shimam, had said something about this. The word “relic” was a general term for all things that couldn’t be replicated with current technology, but had clearly been made in the past. Basically, it was a word for things that carried powers beyond human knowledge, which were of unknown origin and design.

Haruhiro wondered if they’d been hypnotized by that sound or something, and that was why they couldn’t leave. Maybe there was a musical instrument-like relic somewhere in the tent with that sort of power. But it seemed possible that a relic was changing the inside of the tent, turning it into another world like Merry was saying. Or it was possible the entrance had led to another world, and this was a one-way trip.

None of it was more than speculation, though.

He felt like he was almost ready to give in to desperation. Maybe they should just do whatever at this point. Keep going, and going, and going. Eventually, they had to hit a dead end.

Haruhiro cleared his throat. He breathed out, letting the tension out of his shoulders. This wasn’t a common situation, but was anyone at risk of dying right this second?

The answer was no. This wasn’t a desperate situation.

So the first priority was to avoid falling into a life-or-death crisis. To that end, they would have to get out of the Leslie Camp.

He was afraid of acting carelessly out of desperation. It was important to be consistent. Keep doing the same work, without giving up. As long as he did that, this wasn’t undoable, even for someone with no special talent like Haruhiro.

“What we need to do hasn’t changed,” he said. “Let’s keep searching, one room at a time.”