Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 15 - Chapter 5

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.

The thing dragged one leg behind it. Its body heaved up and down an awful lot as it moved.

Was it human? It didn’t look like a goblin. It might have been an orc.

Setora pulled a burning piece of firewood from the stove, and thrust it towards whatever it was.

“It’s human!” cried Setora.

At the same time, Merry shouted, “Zombie!”

“Doesn’t matter what it is...!” Kuzaku sprang forward, his sword flashing.

Kuzaku’s sword was long and thick. It was single-edged, so you might have called it a large katana. It would have been pretty hard to control it without Kuzaku’s height and muscles.

Kuzaku’s large katana easily parted the head of the human, or zombie, or whatever it was from its shoulders.

The severed head fell to the ground and rolled next to the stove. It looked like a man’s. He was awfully gaunt, and his hair, which had grown wild, was so stiff it was hard to think it was hair.

“Eeek...!” Shihoru let out a shriek.

The severed head’s eyes and mouth were still moving.

Setora punted the severed head away.

“...That was beyond disgusting!”

“Scary!” Kuzaku was a brave man, but even he was shuddering. “This is way too scary! Zombies are—”

“There’s more coming!” Setora interrupted him to warn.

Were all of those zombies? They were shambling down the hill towards the bottom of the valley.

Merry jumped forward.

“O Light, may Lumiaris’s divine protection be upon you.”

She was going so fast it looked like she was going to tackle the zombies.

Haruhiro chased after Merry.

“Merry?!”

“Dispel...!” Merry got up close to the zombies and cast a spell.

This was literally light magic. There was a bright flash and Haruhiro was forced to close his eyes despite himself.

“Urkh...”

He quickly opened them again, and looked around. It took some time before he could see again.

There were two zombies collapsed at Merry’s feet. Motionless. Like corpses.

“They’re moving corpses, unable to rest in peace because of the No-Life King’s curse!” Merry pressed her fingers to her forehead once more, preparing to cast another spell. “O Light, may Lumiaris’s divine protection be upon you.”

“They’re coming in from all directions!” Setora shouted.

It turned into a melee.

Setora and Kiichi were protecting Shihoru, so Kuzaku swung like mad at the zombies that swarmed in, while Haruhiro cut off their heads and kicked them away or stomped them, focusing his efforts on rendering them immobile. Zombies struck by Merry’s light magic were turned into corpses, or returned to how corpses should be, but those that weren’t moved until they no longer could. Maybe the brain was still in control, because bodies that lost their head stopped moving, but their heads were still full of energy. Though the zombies’ heads couldn’t actually speak, they could still open and close their jaws. Haruhiro nearly got bitten by one of the zombie heads. If he wasn’t careful, he’d really be in danger.

Partially because of how dark it was, the battle with the zombies seemed to drag on forever.

Just when he thought there were no zombies left nearby, he’d hear more moaning from another direction. He’d hear zombies shambling down the slope. He’d hear an eerie chattering, and when he looked around, he’d find a zombie head. No matter how many times he did it, he could never get used to that awful sensation when he crushed a zombie head under his heel.

Ultimately, no one in the group was able to relax until the sky brightened, and they could see for themselves that there were no more zombies in the area.

During the battle, they noticed the zombies included non-human races, too. However, all of the bodies that Merry hadn’t hit with light magic were basically chopped to pieces, so it was hard to tell how many were human and how many had been something else.

But seriously, how many zombies had the group taken out?

It was hard to get a rough estimate. Honestly, he didn’t even want to count.

“We...” Shihoru hesitantly looked at the rest of the group. “We have to clean this up...?”

“Yeah...” Kuzaku was in an incredible state, bathed in blackened blood and chunks of flesh. “...Guess so. We... probably should clean this up, huh? I’m not sure I want to sleep here otherwise...”

“There’s something more important.” Setora was strong, to be able to say that. Though not to the same degree as Kuzaku, Setora had her fair share of blood splatter and rotten meat on her, but she seemed unfazed by it. “Were we targeted by the zombies? Or was this raid a product of coincidence?”

Merry must have been exhausted by overusing her magic. She was kneeling.

“The dead who are dominated by the No-Life King’s curse form into columns and wander aimlessly. I heard that somewhere before, but I don’t know when...”

“Then it was coincidental.” When Setora reached out her arm, Kiichi climbed up onto her shoulder and licked her cheek. “We had bad luck.”

Kuzaku hung his head, letting out a sigh.

“Just terrible luck...”

Haruhiro didn’t sigh.

He would have liked to put a positive spin on this, but that was clearly not going to be possible. He was disappointed, and wanted to complain, too. He wanted to cry his eyes out. He wanted to lash out at someone.

Well, no, not really.

Not that he wasn’t disappointed. It was just that he could handle it. Or he wanted to think he could, at least.

If he was able to think like that, then it meant his spirit wasn’t broken yet.

“I hate to do it, but let’s abandon this place.” Haruhiro did his best not to sound reluctant as he said that. “It doesn’t look like the goblins of Alterna are looking for us anymore, and we have some preserved food. I think we’re ready to move on.”