Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 5 - Chapter 7

7. An Issue of Time

The Dusk Realm. That was the name Anna-san gave it.

“It” being the other world that spread out beyond the ri-komo nest, of course.

Haruhiro thought it wasn’t a bad name, honestly, and that maybe they should have her come up with a better name for the ri-komos, too.

Their first day of exploration after discovering the Dusk Realm ended with them just wandering around in circles on that initial hill. The next day they planned to bring food, water, and tents so that they could continue their exploration without going home every day. If they could find a good spot, they wanted to set up a base camp for their expedition. For that, they were hoping to at least find a water source.

There were many things they needed to think about, and all of them were fun.

That night, Haruhiro couldn’t get a wink of sleep. He also didn’t feel like going to his usual place and drinking. He needed to get some sleep so that he was properly rested for tomorrow.

Time to sleep. I’ve got to sleep. I’m gonna sleep.

The more he thought that, the less able to sleep he was. He started to find Ranta’s snoring even more irritating than usual, he got pissed off, and—somehow, he still managed to fall asleep eventually, then woke up.

They got ready, then headed out for their meeting place with the Tokkis, the hole just past the Kingdom of Devils.

Haruhiro didn’t have a mechanical timepiece because they were expensive, so he didn’t know the precise time, but they left the Lonesome Field Outpost at around 7:00. The Wonder Hole was about a kilometer northwest of the outpost. Even considering the time it would take to pass through the valley of holes, the muryan nest, and the kingdom of devils, they would probably make it in time for the agreed meetup at 9:00.

They didn’t encounter an ustrel, so they presumably arrived well before 9:00. Then they waited for what was easily an hour.

“...They’re late!” Ranta stomped his feet indignantly. “We’ve been waiting for, like, half a day, you know?! The sun’s gonna set!”

“We haven’t been waitin’ that long,” Yume looked half-exasperated, half-exhausted. “But, still. They sure are late. Yesterday, they were here on time.”

“Do you think something happened?” Shihoru frowned and let out a little sigh.

“Before we could meet up, you mean?” Merry looked at her left wrist. Tired of waiting or not, this was the Wonder Hole. She couldn’t let Protection wear off.

“Ahh...” Kuzaku had been squatting for a while now. “Maybe they came a bit late, then ran into an ustrel... or something?”

“Would an ustrel actually give them trouble?” Haruhiro crossed his arms. “I wonder.”

“What do you say we just go on ahead?” Ranta snickered to himself evilly.

“That’d be like we were tryin’ to get ahead of a start on them.” Yume puffed up her cheeks.

“You mean a head start...” Haruhiro corrected her, then twisted his neck. “...Ah.”

“They wouldn’t have.” Shihoru was quick on the uptake. Or perhaps those who this idea would and wouldn’t occur to might have more to do with their individual personalities.

“Hm?” Ranta blinked, looking back and forth from Haruhiro to Shihoru.

He’s an idiot, and half-asses everything, but he’s not sly and underhanded, huh, Haruhiro thought.

“Huh?” Merry seemed to have realized. “...They couldn’t have.”

“So, basically...” Kuzaku looked to the hole. “...it’s not they haven’t come yet, they’ve already gone on ahead.”

“Well, it’s not like we know that for sure, you know...?” Haruhiro said.

I don’t think we do. They wouldn’t do that. That was what Haruhiro wanted to think. But... I can’t rule it out.

“Well, it is the Tokkis, after all...” he said slowly.

They had an unpredictable side to them. The idea might pop into their heads, and they’d go, Are we gonna do this? Are we? and then just go ahead and do it. What’s more, they wouldn’t feel bad about it in the least.

“Either way, don’t you think we should go?” Ranta said with uncharacteristic seriousness. “If they’re late, it’s their own fault. If they’re trying to steal a march on us, then it’s even more their fault. We’ve already wasted enough time. Time is money, they say. There’s no reason for us to sit put here any longer.”

That all sounded reasonable. Despite having come out of Ranta’s mouth.

“Why don’t we go?” Kuzaku stood up. “I’m tired of waiting.”

There were no objections, so onward they went.

First they passed through the round tunnel, then the seventeen egg rooms, which they could have ignored, but just to be safe, they gave them a cursory inspection. They didn’t see a single ri-komo.

They headed down the vertical hole into the ri-komo nest.

There are too many nests in the Wonder Hole, Haruhiro thought. We should have given the area a different name.

A ways before they reached the ri-komo nest, Haruhiro noticed something had changed. It was strangely loud. The ri-komos had been talking about something yesterday, too, but this time, they seemed far more noisy than they had been before.

“Yeah, something’s weird.” Ranta cast the spell to summon Zodiac-kun.

“...Ehe... Eheheh... Finally... Today Ranta dies... Ehehehe... Ehe...”

“You never change, huh, Zodiac-kun...” said Haruhiro.

This was no time to be impressed with the demon. Haruhiro was being pressed to make a decision. But, well, that was nothing new.

“I’ll go take a look,” he decided. “Everyone else, stay here. If it’s dangerous, I’ll shout, so run away immediately.”

“Got it.” Ranta put a hand on Haruhiro’s shoulder, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and winking. “If it comes down to it, we’ll abandon you and run. Don’t you worry about that.”

While, yes, Haruhiro had meant for them to do just that, it still pissed him off. But, he knew his anger would only make Ranta happy.

Haruhiro left the lantern behind and used Sneaking to scout ahead. Stopping just in front of the ri-komo nest, he tried to get a feel for the situation.

Yeah, they really are excited about something, was his impression. Was there some cause? Or was it common for the ri-komos to make this much of a ruckus?

They’re just noisy, that’s all, Haruhiro thought to himself, working up his courage, then deciding to try going a little ways into the nest.

All right! He went in.

Nothing changed. Nothing happened. The ri-komos were scattered all over, the same as before.

Maybe there was something that Haruhiro just didn’t notice. And wait, there was something coming his way from over on the other side.

A ri-komo? he thought. Apparently not. It looks human... Or so he thought, but when it came time to make a call on what to do, Haruhiro wasn’t sure.

A person? Who...?

There were only twelve people who knew this place existed, Haruhiro included. If he thought about it normally, it would have to be one of them. In other words, one of the Tokkis. But that was—

One single person, Haruhiro thought. Just one person.

They’re still far off, and it’s not that bright here, so I can’t see very well. All I can say for sure is that they look human-like. They might not be human. They could be some other human-looking creature. A dangerous one, maybe. And possibly the reason the ri-komos are making so much noise.

“No...” Haruhiro shook his head.

That’s a human. He’s walking this way. Or rather, it’s like he’s trying to run, but can’t. He’s dragging his leg behind him. Is he injured?

He’s stopped. Looks like he’s resting for a moment.

Haruhiro began to walk. After a moment, he recognized...

“Kikkawa?!”

“...Harucchi,” the man said.

I got a reply. Looks like I was right. Kikkawa. It’s Kikkawa.

Haruhiro rushed over to Kikkawa. He wasn’t sounding cheerful enough. Haruhiro knew it was Kikkawa, but he didn’t know how bad his injuries were.

“What’s up? Why are you here? What happened?” Haruhiro burst out.

“...Sorry.” Kikkawa sat down. “Sorry, Harucchi. Like, seriously, I apologize. But, I...”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Haruhiro. “No apologies for now. It can wait. Can you stand?”

“...Yeah. Somehow.”

“Okay,” said Haruhiro. “We’ll head back to where the others are for now. You’re hurt, right?”

“It’s nothing major,” said Kikkawa. “In my case...”

“We’ll need to have Merry fix you up.” Haruhiro lent Kikkawa his shoulder.

“It’s nothing major. In my case...”

The way he’d said that bothered Haruhiro.

On the way back, Haruhiro tried asking, “Where are Tokimune-san and the others?”

“...In the Dusk Realm,” managed Kikkawa. “All of us went. We set out this morning, while it was still dark out. We were trying to get ahead of you. Sorry, Harucchi...”

“Like I said, don’t worry about that,” said Haruhiro. “So? Why are you alone back here?”

“They told me to go. So here I am.”

“I can’t tell what happened from just that,” said Haruhiro. “Did Tokimune-san tell you to run away?”

“Yeah... That guy, like, says I’m the Tokkis’ lucky charm. That’s why, like, he sent me back to the Wonder Hole alone... to call for help. He figured you guys’d be at the meet-up point.”

“Help?” Haruhiro went pale. He hadn’t even imagined a situation like this. It was bad. Really bad. “...Any losses?”

“They’re alive,” Kikkawa said.

Haruhiro let out a sigh of relief.

“...But only as far as I know.”

“That figures,” Haruhiro said, nodding. “Some time must have passed... Well, even so, it means there’s some hope for them.”

“Hope, huh...” Kikkawa sniffled.

“Dammit,” Haruhiro muttered. “Why did this have to happen?”

Haruhiro brought Kikkawa back to where Ranta and the others were and had Merry treat him. Kikkawa had wounds on his left leg, right shoulder, and a deep one in his belly. He’d been in a pretty dangerous state.

“They do something underhanded like try to steal a march on us, and then this happens to them! Pathetic!” Ranta punched his right fist into the palm of his left hand.

“Still, that doesn’t mean we can abandon them...” Haruhiro said.

“First, we need to get a precise account of what happened,” said Shihoru. She was right.

“Right...” While Kikkawa had finished being healed, he had bled out a lot. He might have been feeling woozy, because he stayed sitting on the ground as he talked. “It was just... Remember yesterday? There was nothing dangerous then, so, honestly, we may have let our guards down a little...”

“Mm-hm,” Yume crouched down next to Kikkawa, patting him on the head to console him. “There wasn’t anythin’ dangerous yesterday. Did you find enemies?”

“Hey! Yume! Cut that out! There’s no need to be nice to the guy!” Ranta yelled.

“It’s fine! Don’t you feel sorry for him?!” Yume shot back.

“No, Yume. Ranta’s right.” Kikkawa looked away, brushing Yume’s hand aside. “I don’t have any right to have you treat me like that. ...Enemies, huh. Yeah. There were. Enemies. They didn’t even try to communicate. Just attacked us out of nowhere, man...”

As Kikkawa told the story, when the Tokkis had moved away from the hill with white boulders scattered around on it and arrived in the valley where the white pillar-like boulders were the thickest, the enemy had ambushed them.

They had been humanoid; they’d worn a white cloth over their heads with holes cut out where their single eye was, and they’d carried extremely sharp spear-like weapons. They had also been about the same height as humans.

When they’d seen them, Tada had muttered, “They look like a cult.” And so, the Tokkis had taken to calling them cultists.

The cultists had hidden in between the white pillar-like rocks to ambush the Tokkis. Apparently, they had outnumbered them. What was more, because the enemy had the element of surprise, the Tokkis had started out at a disadvantage. Even so, the Tokkis had put up a good fight and killed seven of the cultists. The rest had fled.

On the Tokkis’ side, Kikkawa, Inui, and Mimorin had been lightly injured. The Tokkis had two priests, Tada and Anna-san. Tokimune himself was also a paladin, so while he couldn’t heal himself, he could heal his comrades’ wounds. When they had gone to heal themselves, though... that was when they’d realized it.

“No light magic?” Merry brought a hand to her mouth.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Kikkawa hung his head. “It didn’t work, or it didn’t activate? Something like that. Our Protection had worn off at some point, too.”

“Now that you mention it... it happened yesterday, too,” said Merry slowly. “I noticed it when we went out there. I just thought the duration on it had run out, though.”

“Oh...” Ranta’s eyes went wide. “Zodiac-kun vanished, too, huh.”

“The gods,” Shihoru said in a whisper. “Light magic borrows power from Lumiaris... and dark magic borrows power from Skullhell to produce their effects. That’s why.”

“It’s another world.” Merry bit her lip. “The blessings of Lumiaris and the malice of Skullhell don’t reach the Dusk Realm.”

“Meow...” Yume put her hands on her cheeks. “If that’s true, then if anyone gets hurt, Merry-chan won’t be healin’ them, y’know. That’s gonna make it real tough.”

“That’s terrifying,” Kuzaku said simply. As the one who stood on the front line as the party tank, it wasn’t just a problem, it was a matter of life and death.

“So, like...” Kikkawa lifted his right hand weakly, then lowered it. “Of course, we panicked. Even though you wouldn’t expect it from us. That’s when enemy reinforcements... or something like that... showed up.”

“Cultists?” Haruhiro asked.

“No, not them,” said Kikkawa. “Well, they were there, too. These guys were huge... I dunno how to describe them. Big, white, like statues. They had human bodies, but their heads were like lions’. As for their size... How big were they again? I’d say four meters tall, maybe. Maybe not that much? Could have been three meters.”

“White giants...” Haruhiro said slowly.

“That’s right,” said Kikkawa. “There were three of those... guys? Or things? Whichever. Along with a whole pile of cultists. Well, we ran, of course. Not like there was much choice. So, like, there was the rubble of some kinda building? A ruin? Something like that. It was, like, crazy big. We fled into there, but they just wouldn’t give up. They chased after us forever. They searched for us, we ran and hid. A number of times, we had to fight them, and so Tokimune-san and Tadacchi got hurt, too. Well, basically everyone but Anna-san was battered and bruised all over.”

“You guys really do protect Anna-san,” Haruhiro said.

“It’s a part of our identity. It’s a thing we do.” Kikkawa gave a weak laugh. “So, Tokimune-san, he told me to run for it. To go and call for help.”

“Now listen...” Ranta said, rubbing his face. “If you tell us all that dangerous stuff, do you think we’re really going to go? I mean, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t. Everyone has to look out for their own hide, man. Even if, deep down, they want to help...”

“Well, yeah,” Kikkawa said to Ranta with upturned eyes. “Listen, Ranta. I know that much. Tokimune-san knows it, too. But, still. It was a question of losing everyone or having just one of us get away, that’s what I think. If we’d had to choose just one of us to get out of there, obviously, it would be Anna-san. But Anna-san can’t do anything on her own. Still, protecting Anna-san while all of us ran felt like it’d be a bit too much for us. If we did that, in the end, it’d get us all killed. So, with Tokimune-san and Anna-san not being options, as the one who was only lightly injured, and who had the shortest career as a volunteer soldier, I was the one they chose. We were going to risk everything to get one of us out. I just happened to be that one. So, like, with me being the seriously lucky man that I am, I was able to run all this way. But, you know, really... I want to do something to save Tokimune-san and the others. Those guys took me in, man. When I’m with them, I have a crazy amount of fun. I mean, we get along great. Man, I love those guys. That’s why—thanks, Haruhiro. And Merry-chan. For healing me. Me, I’m going back.”

When Kikkawa tried to stand, Haruhiro blocked his way. He couldn’t say, Hold on. Haruhiro hadn’t decided anything yet.

Options. How many were there?

They could choose to let Kikkawa go alone. In other words, abandon him.

They could choose not to abandon him, and instead go with him.

They could choose to go back to the Lonesome Field Outpost to gather people, then go to help.

Haruhiro thought the third seemed like the best option. Now that it had come to this, it was no time to worry about the knowledge of their discovery, the Dusk Realm, spreading. They needed to give up, accept that, and focus on rescuing the Tokkis. And, well, Haruhiro personally had no issue with that. If it was the sort of place that could easily put the Tokkis in a crisis, it was too much for Haruhiro and his group to handle. But, time.

It would take time.

If they left for the Lonesome Field Outpost now, it would take more than four hours to get there and back. That wasn’t counting the time it would take to get a group of people together. This was the time of day when all of the volunteer soldiers would be out, so it would probably take some work.

The Tokkis had been so pressed that they had been forced to send Kikkawa off on his own. The sooner help reached them, the better. Or rather, they had no choice but to hurry.

Basically, choosing the third option would be little different from choosing the first. It meant those two were the same option. The question was: Would they abandon Tokimune, Anna-san, Tada, Inui, and Mimorin, or would they go save them right now?