Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 5 - Chapter 2

2. The Clear Line Between Those Who Are Ordinary and Those Who Are Not

Haruhiro had come to Grimgar, probably without warning, in a group of eleven men and women.

There had been Ranta, Shihoru, Yume, and the late Manato and Moguzo. There had also been Renji, Ron, Sassa, Adachi, and Chibi-chan.

And then there had been Kikkawa.

“Man, I mean, like, seriously! What a coinky-dinky-dink! Right?!” Kikkawa cried. “Meeting in a place like this—it’s, like, priceless! I mean, seriously?! I’m pur-sized, sur-prized! Wow! Fantastic! Yay!”

He was abnormally easygoing, positive beyond reason, too energetic, gregarious as all get-out, had connections everywhere, and seemed to be the living embodiment of the word “frivolous.”

Renji had quickly brought Ron, Sassa, Adachi, and Chibi-chan under his control and formed Team Renji, and now there was hardly a volunteer soldier who didn’t know that name. They never seemed out of their depth, and had risen up to become a real force to be reckoned with.

As for Haruhiro and his group, they were the leftovers who had somehow managed to form a party and dragged themselves along this far.

Kikkawa had been left on his own, and, though it wasn’t clear to Haruhiro how—he’d explained it once, but even then it hadn’t made much sense—he had managed to join one of the senior volunteer soldier parties. Since then, he’d been enjoying the volunteer soldier life with laughter and an excess of good cheer.

Kikkawa kept on babbling along. “Huh? So? What, what? Ohh, ohh, Ranta, how’ve you been? Shihoru, you’re the same as ever, I see, I see, heh heh, no, I don’t remember what’s the same as ever, but, hey, Yume! Yumeeee! Yayyyy! You good?! Merry! Merry-chaaaan! Wow, you’re even more beautiful than usual today—just kidding! Well, it’s true, though! Kuzaku, right? You’re huge, I mean, like, seriously! So? What, what, what? What’re you all doing here? Playing around? Like, wanna play? In the Wonder Hole! Are you a bunch of players?! Wahahahaha!”

“Too noisy, yeah!” a petite, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl called, putting her hand on Kikkawa’s face and shoving. “Kikkawa’s too noisy, yeah! Speaks too much, yeah!”

“Owow, owowowowow, wait, Anna-san, stop! Not the face! My face is important! It’s my life!” Kikkawa howled.

“It’s not very good face, yeah! It’s normal, yeah! It looks like shiitake mushroom, yeah?! It’s bad, bad face, yeah?!” Anna-san snapped.

With Anna-san suddenly turning to them for agreement, Haruhiro stuttered a bit, not sure what to say, but Ranta was clutching his belly and laughing.

“Gyahahaha! Shiitake! A shiitake, she says! Well, it’s pretty normal, yeah, Kikkawa! Your face! I don’t think it’s a bad face, though! Well, maybe a bit below average!”

“Hey, bullshit!” Anna suddenly turned to Ranta and flipped him the bird. “What you insult our Kikkawa for?! Kill you! Fuck you!” she shouted in a mixture of broken speech and foreign expletives.

“...But, you said it first...” Ranta whined.

“Shut up! Anna-san say it? Okay! You say it? No! Figure that much out, warty-assed human!”

“Hahaha! I dunno what to say.” Kikkawa was embarrassed for some reason. “Anna-san’s love for me’s, like, heavyweight class. It’s a real KO show. Hahaha, bwah...?!”

“You dummy!” Anna-san hit Kikkawa with a straight right punch and KO-ed him for real. “There’s no love there! It’s like scorched earth! Anna-san not love, but like, yeah! How can you misunderstand?!”

Shihoru, Yume, Merry, Kuzaku—yes, Haruhiro, too, and even Ranta—were all overwhelmed by Anna-san’s intensity.

By the way, Anna-san was wearing a priest’s uniform with blue lines. Unbelievably, she was a priest. More than that, from what Haruhiro had heard before, she had been a mage before, too. It made no sense.

“Well, that aside—” An awfully pleasant and handsome man stepped forward. The handsome man wore a suit of armor with a hexagram engraved in it. He was a paladin, like Kuzaku. When he smiled, they caught a glimpse of his teeth. They sparkled white. He was, like, 200% handsome, and it was clear to see that he was the leader of the party Kikkawa had joined. “What were you up to here, Harukawa?”

“...No, um, my name’s Haruhiro, Tokimune-san,” Haruhiro said awkwardly. “I think I’ve corrected you on that twice.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” said Tokimune. “You’re Kikkawa’s pal, so maybe I figured you were connected by the kawa in your names, or something like that?”

“I’d appreciate it if, maybe, you wouldn’t make that sort of connection between us...?” ventured Haruhiro.

“All right,” Tokimune gave him a thumbs up, winking. “Haruhiro. I’ve got it now. Won’t get it wrong again. I swear.”

“...Sure.”

You said the same thing while striking the same pose the last two times. But that was something Haruhiro decided not to say. It’s probably just how the guy is. After all, he let Kikkawa join his party, and they get along, so there’s no way he’s normal. Anna-san’s got a pretty unique personality, too. Well, the others are all pretty incredible, too.

Though, it wasn’t as if none of them looked normal.

“Well, you know,” said a guy who looked sane, adjusting his glasses. He looked good in his priest uniform, too. The bulky warhammer he carried left some room for concern, but few people who were just passing by would look at him and think, Oh, yeah, that guy’s bad news. “It’s the mineshaft, so they’ve gotta be aiming for grimbles. Can’t be anything else.”

“Heh...” The tall man who grunted in response, on the other hand, was clearly bad news. First of all, he had a ponytail. Also, an eyepatch. And he was an old guy. He looked to be in his mid-to-late thirties, but they’d learned he wasn’t actually that old. A quiver of arrows was slung over his back, and two one-edged swords hung at his hip. He wore a close-fitting leather jumpsuit, which made him look like, well... some kind of pervert. “The same as us... then, huh. Heh...”

The one wearing glasses was Tada. The one with the eyepatch was Inui. And there was one other person in Tokimune’s party.

The last person in his party was a match for Inui when it came to height. If you included the mage hat she wore, she might have been taller than Inui. The mage’s robe she wore wasn’t that thick, but she still looked like she was bundled up in warm clothing.

She’s huge, thought Haruhiro.

Of course, she wasn’t as big as 190-centimeter-tall Kuzaku. Still, she was huge—for a woman, it might be sensible to add. But she was large enough that anyone who saw her would never forget her.

For all her height, the features of her face, rimmed by the thick, long hair which spilled out from under her mage hat, were small and understated. They looked like they belonged on a girl who was less than 160 centimeters tall.

Her name—What was it again? Haruhiro wondered. I recognize her perfectly, but I can’t quite remember. I know her nickname is Giantess.

Ms. Giantess had eyes like a cute little animal, which suited her face but not her giant size, and they were fixated on Haruhiro for some reason.

No, that’s not it, he realized. It must be something behind me. Ms. Giantess must be staring at the hole.

Haruhiro looked at Ranta.

...What do we do? he signaled Ranta with his eyes, looking for advice. Ranta always managed to figure out what he wanted, at least.

“Uh... erm...” Ranta cleared his throat awkwardly, as he subtly moved to stand right in front of the hole.

—Yeah, no, that’s not subtle at all, Haruhiro thought.

If anything, it would have been fair to say Ranta drew Tokimune and his party’s attention to the hole. Ranta seemed to sense that himself.

“...Th-This is, well... Can you pretend you didn’t see it?” Ranta asked.

“Yeah,” Tokimune said with a nod and a grin. “That’s not happening!”

“That wasn’t here last time we came through, was it?” the glasses-wearing Tada said, rubbing his chin and tilting his head to the side.

“So? So?” Kikkawa dashed towards the hole. “Could it be? Could it, maybe, be? No way! Like, no way?! Have we got a discovery here?! Is that it?!”

“H-Hold on!” Ranta stood in Kikkawa’s way. “We got here first! It’s our discovery!”

“Nuh-uh-uh-uh,” Kikkawa said, clinging to Ranta. “That’s not faiiiir. Don’t be like that, Ranta! We’re buds, right? What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine, too. Yeah?”

“Like hell it is, pal!” Ranta yelled, brushing Kikkawa off. “Not a chance, moron! Everything in this world belongs to me, Ranta-sama, obviously!”

“Heh...” Inui, the one wearing an eyepatch, put his hand on his swords’ hilts. “Too much greed could be the end of you, you know...?”

“Y-Y-Y-You wanna go?! I’ll take you, punk!” Ranta hollered.

“If you’re fighting, leave the rest of us out of it,” Shihoru said, distancing herself from him.

“H-Heyyyyy?!” Ranta looked to Haruhiro and the others in the group.

As if they had planned it out in advance, Haruhiro and the others all refused to make eye contact.

“Hahaha!” Anna-san cackled, puffing her chest out. While she only stood maybe 155 centimeters tall, her chest was big. “Stupid Ranta! Not popular, yeah! Just the way he looks, yeah!”

“Shut your face! You freckled pipsqueak with big tits! I’ll grope you!” Ranta shouted.

“Try it, if you think you can, yeah! Because Anna-san’s minions butcher you first! You no talk about my freckles, idiot! I am sensitive about that, moron! Stand on your hands and suck your dick, asshole! Dummy, dummy, dummy! Dumb Ranta! Ahhhh, no forgiveness! Punish him in name of heaven, yeah!”

“...Hey,” Haruhiro gestured towards Ranta with his chin. “Apologize, Ranta. Anna-san’s crying a bit.”

“Why should I have to apologize?!” Ranta screamed. “Don’t be ridi—”

“Hmm...” Tokimune patted Anna-san on the head, drawing his sword as he did. “Well, maybe I’ll punish you in the name of heaven. We don’t let anyone get away with hurting Anna-san. She’s our precious mascot, after all.”

“I...!” Ranta got down on his hands and knees at light speed. “I’m sorry?! I’ll never mention the freckles again, so forgive me?! Please?!”

“That was fast...” Ms. Giantess muttered to herself, taken aback.

“You dim-witted pumpkin-head!” Anna-san shouted, grinding her foot into the back of Ranta’s head. “If you going to apologize, never say thing in first place! If you learn your lesson, you be Anna-san’s slave starting today! Be grateful, motherfucker!”

Ranta groaned in pain as she stepped on his head, but he sat there and took it.

Well, it’s probably best that he just takes it, Haruhiro thought. If he doesn’t restrain himself, things’ll get out of hand.

The biggest group of jokesters in the Volunteer Soldier Corps. That was the reputation that Tokimune’s party, the Tokkis, had earned for themselves. But they’d been at this much longer than Haruhiro and his group. They had to be decent if they’d been active for that long.

The Tokkis weren’t the type to play it safe, either. They were more than happy to take risks, and they had still managed to keep going this long. They were more than just a group of eccentric jokesters.

Haruhiro had no intent of picking a fight with the Tokkis. Kikkawa had enlisted at the same time as them, and they owed him for introducing Merry to the party, too. If they could get along peaceably, he felt that would be for the best.

The problem was, did Tokimune feel the same way?

“Um, Tokimune-san,” Haruhiro said.

“What is it, Haruhikawa?” Tokimune asked.

“...It’s Haruhiro.”

“Oh, my bad. So? What is it?” Tokimune sheathed his sword. “You wanna do it? Together. We’d be down with that.”

That pleasant smile felt disconcerting now.

—Do it. Together, Haruhiro thought. Is that... our only option?

Given the circumstances, it wouldn’t be strange for the Tokkis, as their seniors, to ignore Haruhiro and the others, or push them aside, and take the discovery for themselves. We won’t do that—let’s share the discovery, was what Tokimune was proposing.

Well, we found the hole first, was something Haruhiro did feel, to some degree, but it wasn’t a bad deal.

If they were happy just to be the ones who discovered it, that would be one thing. But, since they were here already, he wanted to explore it, too. The vast majority of volunteer soldiers had more experience and were more accomplished than Haruhiro and his party, but it was possible no one had ever gone past this point. If they could be the first to leave their own footprints here, he wanted to.

Yet, he had no idea what might be, or live, on the other side of the hole. It could be something, or someone, really, really dangerous, so there were risks.

If the Tokkis came with us, that would be reassuring, he thought. If we can trust them, that is.

“I have a condition, you could say...” Haruhiro said, carefully gauging Tokimune’s expression.

Tokimune wore a pleasant smile, his white teeth peeking out.

Is he simply being open with us, or is he plotting something? Haruhiro wondered. It’s hard to get a grasp on this guy.

“For the time being, at least, how about we keep this between us?” Haruhiro finished.

“That’s fine,” Tokimune said easily, giving him a thumbs up. “Haruhirokawa, until you and I talk it over, and we both give the go sign, it’ll be a secret between the twelve of us here. Well, it’s not like we can seal the area off, so if someone finds out, there’s not much we can do.”

“...Well, yeah, you’re right about that,” said Haruhiro. “It didn’t seem like anyone but us was coming to the mineshaft lately, but then you guys turned up, after all. Also, my name isn’t Haruhirokawa, it’s Haruhiro.”

“Haruhiro, huh. Sorry, sorry. Hmm. Well, you know how it is. It was pure coincidence. Who was it that suggested we come here?”

“Me.” Ms. Giantess raised her hand.

“Oh, yeah. Mimori, huh,” Tokimune said, smiling far more than made any sense. “Mimori, why was it again? That we came to the mineshaft.”

“Because I like grimbles,” Ms. Giantess, whose name was apparently Mimori, said plainly. “They’re cute.”

“Right, right. That was it. I remember now, Mimori, you were saying you wanted to catch one to keep as a pet.”

Mimori nodded.

—Yep, Haruhiro thought. I knew Ms. Giantess would be a weirdo, too.

“Aaaanyways.” Tokimune stretched his right hand out towards Haruhiro. “Nice working with you, Haruhiro. Let’s give it our all.”

It looks like he finally learned my name, Haruhiro thought.

He glanced over at his comrades. Nobody seemed unhappy about it. Ranta was being stepped on by Anna-san, though.

“We’re in your care,” Haruhiro said, taking Tokimune’s hand. “Take it easy on us.”

“Heh heh heh!” Tokimune shook his hand up and down vigorously. “That could be a bit difficult, you know?”