Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 16 - Chapter 4

4. The Illusion of a Crossroads

Jin Mogis had assigned Haruhiro and his comrades a room in Tenboro Tower.

It looked like it had originally been used as a staging room when banquets were held. It was impressively large, but nearly empty, with no furniture other than tables and chairs.

Incidentally, this room was larger than the one given to the black cloaks, or the one given to Frontier Army Regimental Commander Anthony Justeen and his subordinates. Was that the general’s way of showing how much he valued Haruhiro and his team? Even if it was, so what? It didn’t make Haruhiro happy at all.

Shinohara was in the room too, waiting for Haruhiro and his party to arrive. There was a ton of stuff Haruhiro wanted to talk about, but he couldn’t speak freely in Tenboro Tower. So, he figured that since Shinohara had to be interested in what things were like in Alterna, Haruhiro could take them all outside under the pretext of looking around.

As they passed by the Volunteer Soldier Corps Office and the Temple of Lumiaris, he checked to see if they were being followed. It looked like two scouts, Neal’s subordinates, were monitoring them. He could have shaken them, but there was no need to do anything that would agitate the general yet.

On Shinohara’s request, they dropped by the Yorozu Deposit Company.

The Yorozu Deposit Company would securely store anything you deposited with them for a fixed fee. It was a familiar business to a lot of volunteer soldiers, one they couldn’t have lived without. When Alterna fell, the company must have had a massive store of gold, silver, arms, equipment, and other treasure, but it wasn’t pillaged. There was no way to loot it. The solid warehouse had no windows and remained tightly sealed, with no way to get it open, not that that stopped anyone from trying. The general certainly hadn’t given up. There were a number of soldiers hanging around, guarding the warehouse.

Next, Haruhiro and the rest pretended not to notice the scouts tailing them, and entered Sherry’s Tavern in Celestial Alley, where they could talk in private.

“...This is pretty miserable.”

Seeing the tavern in this sad state pained Shinohara. Not having any memory of the place, Haruhiro didn’t think anything more than, The goblins messed this place up pretty bad, too, but, yeah, it was a real mess. Most of the chairs and tables had been flipped upside down or knocked over, and more than a few of them had been smashed. There were shards of plates and bottles scattered across the floor, and a sour smell permeated the building. The flies must have been drawn to the rotten food and drinks.

“This place.” Merry clutched her chest, speaking to no one in particular. “We used to come here. A lot...”

The group split up and opened all the windows. They propped the door open, too.

Airing the place out helped with the stench, but the sunlight just made it easier to see how much of a disaster the tavern was.

“When Alterna was attacked, I’m sure there must have been fighting in here.”

Shinohara closely examined the darkened stains that looked like blood, and the arrows sticking out of the wall.

“Most of the volunteer soldiers got away, but nearly all of the soldiers of the Frontier Army and the civilians died in Alterna. Unlike us, this was their homeland, the only place they could be. Even if they fled, they had nowhere to go.”

“It’s kinda hard to take in...” Kuzaku sat on the counter, hanging his head.

Setora sat on the stairs leading to the second level, and Kiichi rested next to her.

Shihoru just stood there in the middle of the tavern. She seemed lost.

Merry walked over to Shihoru, putting a reassuring hand on her back. Shihoru shuddered for a moment, but turned a tense smile her way. Then, in a voice so small it was nearly inaudible, she said, “Thank you,” or something close to that.

Eventually, Shinohara started setting the tables and chairs back upright and putting them in rows. Haruhiro and Kuzaku helped.

Shinohara, Haruhiro, Kuzaku, Merry, and Shihoru sat around one table. Setora stayed on the stairs. She could see most of the tavern from there, including the windows and door. Kiichi went out the window. If their watchers were eavesdropping, Kiichi would let them know.

“It’s been a while, Haruhiro. Let me start by saying I’m glad you’re all right.”

“I just wish I remembered you, too, Shinohara-san.”

“I’ve heard some of the details.”

“...I’ll bet.”

“I heard the thieves’ guild—” Shinohara lowered his eyes. “The thieves’ guild mentor Barbara passed away.”

Haruhiro sighed.

“Yeah,” he answered. His voice was low, and awfully thin.

Shinohara laid his hands on the table.

“I knew her when she was in active duty as a volunteer soldier.”

“You... did?”

“It was only for a short time, but we were in the same party.”

“Huh?”

“We were comrades.” Shinohara looked down at his hands. “She seemed like the last person who was going to die. When she quit the volunteer soldier business and became a mentor in the thieves’ guild, I was convinced she was going to be all right. You never know, huh? I’ll bet she never saw it coming herself. But these things happen. All the time here. That’s the way of the world here in Grimgar.”

“Shinohara-san...” Merry seemed to be trying to say something. But she couldn’t find the right words, and looked down.

“Sorry,” Shinohara said with a self-effacing laugh. “This isn’t the time to get sentimental. I heard about your amnesia from Eliza. She said Merry was the only one not affected.”

Rather than nod, Merry seemed to lower her head further.

“...Yes.”

Shinohara stroked his chin, a pensive look on his face.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of anything like this. Honestly, it’s hard to believe. Though, we’ve all experienced the same thing once.”

“Erm...” Haruhiro rubbed his cheeks as he spoke. “What happened was we woke up in the Forbidden Tower. It was dark there... We were underground. All we remembered were our names. According to Merry, before that we were in some... other world? I guess that’s what you’d call it. Some place that wasn’t Grimgar.”

“In my memories, we went to the Leslie Camp and—”

The moment Merry mentioned that name, Shinohara’s face changed color.

“The Leslie Camp? Ainrand Leslie’s camp?”

Merry looked daunted.

“...Oh. Yes. I think that’s right.”

“Through the Leslie Camp to another world, huh?” Shinohara crossed his arms. “What happened in that other world?”

“The thing is, I...” Merry bit her lip. “I don’t... um... remember the other world so well...”

Shihoru put a worried hand on Merry’s arm.

Shinohara was looking closely at Merry. What was that about? That look in his eyes. It wasn’t sharp, exactly.

No, that wasn’t it; was it doubt?

“I see.”

Was Shinohara suspicious of Merry?

At the very least, he didn’t seem wholly convinced by her story.

“Whatever it was, stuff happened in that other world, and you all woke up in the basement of the Forbidden Tower. When you did, you had forgotten everything but your names. Except for Merry.”

Kuzaku clutched his head and groaned.

“Yeah man, thinking about it again, I dunno. It’s scary. I mean, it’s crazy, isn’t it? What the hell happened...?”

“What’s ‘crazy’ is your pitiful lack of vocabulary.”

When Setora said that, Kuzaku shouted out loud.

“Hey! I’m sensitive about that!”

Haruhiro smiled out of exasperation.

“So, it did bother you...”

“Just a little, though.”

Kuzaku held up his hand with his index finger and thumb so close together you couldn’t tell if they were touching or not.

“Seriously, only a little.”

“It ought to bother you more.”

“Setora-san, listen, could you not sit off in the corner, sniping at me?”

“What? Do you want me to stay close to you?”

“I dunno that I want you close, but I know I don’t want you gone, so I guess, yeah, I want you to stay reasonably close...?”

“I refuse.”

“What, you’re gonna refuse?”

Kuzaku slumped his shoulders.

“...What, you’re gonna refuse?”

“Why’d you have to say it twice...?” Haruhiro asked in exasperation.

Kuzaku looked at Haruhiro with upturned eyes.

“What is this I’m feeling now? It kinda hurts, you know...?”

“Jeez, you’re not an abandoned puppy...”

“Ohh, I see. That’s what this is, huh? This is how a dog feels when it’s abandoned by its master? Something like that, huh? You could be right...”

“Since when were you my pet?”

When Setora said that with clear disgust, Kuzaku’s eyes bugged out.

“Why’re you so against it...?”

“Do you not understand?”

“Huh? No, not at all. Why?”

“Whatever’s wrong with your head is beyond help...”

“...It’s fine. Really. I’ll get Merry-san to heal me.”

“I don’t think I can fix you.” Merry looked pretty displeased, too.

“Seriously?” Kuzaku was visibly shocked. “...Not even you can fix me? ...Seriously? I’ve got it bad...”

“Hey, now...”

For a moment, Haruhiro considered consoling him, but it felt wrong.

“Yeah, I guess you do, huh?”

“So that’s the kind of kid you were...”

Even if it was Shinohara, Haruhiro didn’t know how he felt about him treating Kuzaku like a kid. Well, he couldn’t blame him.

In an attempt to get things back on track, Haruhiro turned to Shinohara.

“If I say the name Hiyomu, do you know who I’m talking about?”

“Yes,” Shinohara answered, but he didn’t nod. “I know.”

Something felt off.

What was it? Haruhiro wasn’t entirely sure.

“...Hiyomu, or her master, did something to us, and it seems like that’s what made us lose our memories.”

Shinohara fell silent. Had something occurred to him? Or was he confused? It was hard to say which. It was an odd moment.

Haruhiro glanced at Merry. Merry seemed to think it was weird, too.

“Regardless.” Shinohara looked around at the group. “We should think of that matter as separate from the current problem. I can’t imagine the master of the Forbidden Tower would have invited the Southern Expedition in.”

“Yeah... I guess so...”

Haruhiro nearly cocked his head to the side. Something felt off. Again. But this time he felt like he’d caught a glimpse of what it was that bothered him.

Shinohara couldn’t imagine that the master of the Forbidden Tower had invited the Southern Expedition, which was to say the orcs, goblins, and kobolds.

That was what he had just said. It might well have been true. But wasn’t there something strange about it?

Well, he knew what that something was.

Who exactly was the master of the Forbidden Tower?

Haruhiro could make inferences.

Haruhiro and the others had woken up in the basement of the tower. Hiyomu had been mixed in with a group that was all volunteer soldiers, including Haruhiro. She pretended to have lost her memories, like everyone else. It was an act. Hiyomu had apparently been planning something nefarious on the orders of her master.

The master of the Forbidden Tower was probably Hiyomu’s master. That was a possible interpretation. It made sense.

However, Haruhiro had never once thought that Hiyomu’s master was the master of the Forbidden Tower before.

Hiyomu was deeply involved with the tower. There was no questioning that. But still, did the equation of “her master” = “the master of the tower” work?

The Forbidden Tower was supposed to be this mysterious building that volunteer soldiers weren’t able to enter.

Was that wrong?

Did Shinohara not think that? The Forbidden Tower had a master. Did he know that someone was living there? Or was it just a rumor?

Still, at the very least, Merry hadn’t said anything like that.

“By the way,” Shinohara suddenly changed the subject, “did you hear that Yume-san and Ranta-kun are with the Volunteer Soldier Corps?”

“Yume...!” Merry covered her mouth with both hands. Her eyes seemed to be trying to push the limits of how wide they could open, and she looked like she might burst into tears any second.

Yume.

Ranta.

For Haruhiro, those were just names. He didn’t remember them, after all. But when he saw Merry’s reaction, he felt emotion welling up inside him.

“...They were with you guys, huh? I see. Both of them, too. I dunno... We split up with Ranta after we had a fight, right? Okay, maybe ‘had a fight’ isn’t the right way to put it. I don’t really know...”

Haruhiro tried to recall how Merry’d told him things had happened, but it wasn’t going very well.

“Ohh?!” Kuzaku started trembling, and wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m getting the shakes. What is this? Do I have some weird disease? Yeah, no. I don’t, right...?”

Shihoru was tearing up. She seemed bewildered by that.

“Having no memories of them, I have nothing in particular to say.” Setora was the same as ever. “I would rather have met them in person than simply be told they are well. That would have been quicker, and more certain. Couldn’t you have brought the two of them with you?”

“Um, did you have to say it like that to our senior, Setora-san...?” Kuzaku quietly chided her. Shinohara smiled.

“You don’t have to worry about it. The clan has a command structure, so it’s inevitable that there’s a hierarchy, but I’m a volunteer soldier, the same as all of you. We’re equals.”

Setora had a faint smile on her face.

“I’m not even a volunteer soldier, so there’s even less need for me to mince words with you. I feel we’ll get hurt if we take your words at face value. I’m probably the suspicious type. I approach things without any preconceptions, but that only makes everyone seem dubious.”

Haruhiro felt like he’d had cold water poured on him.

Setora wasn’t wrong. Actually, Setora was rarely wrong about anything.

Yume and Ranta were alive, and working with the Volunteer Soldier Corps. That was good news. If it was true. Right now, the only one saying that was Shinohara.

“I did consider bringing them with me, of course.”

Shinohara didn’t look particularly offended. He was smiling, the same as before.

“But there’s the issue of your memories. I didn’t want to complicate an already complex situation. Taking everything into consideration, we talked it over within the Volunteer Soldier Corps, and this was what we decided to do. Yume-san and Ranta-kun both accepted it.”

Setora simply shrugged, not saying any more.

Shinohara. The master of Orion. The guy seemed impeccable.

Unlike Setora, Haruhiro wasn’t particularly suspicious of him — okay, maybe that wasn’t true.

Merry seemed to trust him implicitly, but Haruhiro didn’t remember Shinohara, and Setora had never even met him. He seemed trustworthy. But even if he gave that impression, did that mean they could actually trust him?

Haruhiro might have just been trying to read too much into things. He was being cautious. That was for sure. Setora was probably doing the same.

He’d gone with the flow up to this point, because he’d had no other choice but to follow the path laid out in front of him.

Now he had come to a fork in the road. He had to decide which choice would be the best for him and his party.

Haruhiro looked around to each of his comrades.

“Everyone, if you’ve got any opinions, I want to hear them.”

Kuzaku groaned and shook his head.

“I don’t think I do.”

“I haven’t even said what I’m talking about yet...”

“Would someone please silence this nincompoop?” Setora said coldly.

Shihoru let out a weak laugh.

“Setora-san.” Kuzaku’s expression was suddenly serious, which made Setora falter a little.

“...Wh-What?”

“You called me a nincompoop... Don’t you think that sounds kind of cute?”

“Is that a question you should ask with a serious look on your face?”

“Nah, I just thought it.”

“And you have to say every single thing that passes through your head?”

“You know, maybe it does sound a little cute. Nincompoop...” Merry mumbled.

Haruhiro cleared his throat. Everyone turned to look at him.

“Erm. Listen, uh... What I’m trying to say is, we don’t have to let the Expeditionary Force... that is to say General Jin Mogis, boss us around forever. I think we can act as members of the Volunteer Soldier Corps.”

Everyone looked Haruhiro in the eye and nodded. So far, there were no objections. That seemed good enough.

“It’s just... the question of whether we should leave the Expeditionary Force now or not is another matter. The general sees us as his pawns. I doubt he trusts us, but he’s trying to win us to his side. We need to think about what he might do if we try to say, ‘Okay, we’re going back to the Volunteer Soldier Corps now.’”

“That’s exactly it.”

Shinohara explained the Volunteer Soldier Corps’ current situation.

Haruhiro had been told this already, but the Volunteer Soldier Corps was suffering from a shortage of supplies. In fact, occupying Riverside Iron Fortress had done nothing to ameliorate that.

The kobolds had some rather unique eating habits, so there hadn’t been much at the fortress that was fit for human consumption. While they weren’t starving yet, if they didn’t secure supplies soon, or have some given to them, the Volunteer Soldier Corps was going to face a food crisis in the not-so-distant future.

On top of that, Mount Grief, where they believed their enemies were gathering, was fifteen kilometers north of Riverside Iron Fortress. It was forty kilometers as the crow flew from Alterna, so Riverside Iron Fortress was much closer.

The Volunteer Soldier Corps had beaten 5,000 kobolds to take the fortress. However, taking it and holding it were two separate issues. The defender was usually supposed to have the overwhelming advantage, but that actually depended on the conditions.

The Volunteer Soldier Corps had overcome the difference in numbers with their powerful magic, and exceptional individual fighting ability.

But if they tried to defend the fortress with somewhere over a hundred people, were they going to have enough to cover all of the walls? If there was a single break anywhere, the fortress’s entire defense could collapse in an instant.

On top of that, if the orcs from Deadhead Watching Keep had gone to Mount Grief like they thought, the threat was only growing. The orcs were a far more dangerous race than the kobolds, after all.

If the enemies at Mount Grief came to attack Riverside Iron Fortress, the Volunteer Soldier Corps was going to have a pretty hard time. If they couldn’t hold the fort, they’d have no choice but to flee.

Where would they run?

Not the Wonder Hole. The Corps had been struggling at their base there. They had retaken Riverside Iron Fortress in order to open a route to their survival.

There was another possibility.

Alterna.

Assuming the Expeditionary Force would welcome them.

“For my part,” Shinohara said in a gentle, but firm tone, “I would like you to stay with the Expeditionary Force, the same as you have up until now. What you can take from that is, I’m asking you to be our spies. Obviously, that carries a certain degree of risk. If you find yourselves in danger, please, pull out immediately. If it comes to that, we’ll protect you.”

“How exactly?” Setora laughed. “You people are away from Alterna, where it’s safe. I can’t see how you’re going to help us when we need it.”

“We have no intention to oppose the Expeditionary Force. If we can cooperate, that would be best. However, though I called you spies, I don’t expect to have you disrupt the Expeditionary Force from within, or anything like that.”

“What you want is... information, right?”

When Shihoru hesitantly asked that, Shinohara answered immediately.

“That’s correct. Particularly on Jin Mogis’s objectives, and what he intends to do from this point on, in as much detail as you can manage. This is not so that we can fight the Expeditionary Force. If we can get along with them smoothly, that’s the best outcome. I want you to help us with that.”

It didn’t sound like there was any reason to refuse.

Though Haruhiro didn’t have his comrades’ agreement yet, he and his party would likely accept Shinohara’s request. They weren’t going to turn him down.

It’s not bad. I mean, I think it’s the only option.

But something doesn’t feel right.

Why?