Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 7 - Chapter 10

10. Plus and Minus

Not only was the City of the Dead Ones larger than Well Village, it was probably larger than Alterna, too. It must have been a pretty big city before it was reduced to ruins. Naturally, that meant many people had once lived here. It had been more than a few thousand. Perhaps an order of magnitude more than that—tens of thousands of people—had lived here.

There was a large, castle-like structure in the center of the city. Haruhiro thought of it as castle-like, but, well, it was probably a castle. From the looks of it, the castle was composed of a main tower surrounded by eight other towers, but three of those towers had collapsed completely, and two of them were halfway gone. The main tower was hardly broken at all, but opening its rusted metal doors and setting foot inside would take a lot of courage. Besides, how would they open those doors when they wouldn’t budge in the slightest from a little pushing or pulling?

When they circled around the castle, they found two back entrances, but they still couldn’t convince themselves to try going inside. It was just plain too scary.

There were three cobblestone roads leading out from the castle heading north, south, and west. Each of them had a plaza along the way. These main roads and plazas were bizarrely empty, and they rarely spotted dead ones near them. To put it the opposite way, the main roads and the plazas were relatively safe.

On the north side of the city, there were many buildings that were either half destroyed or almost completely destroyed. Furthermore, the closer to the Lukewarm River they were, the heavier the damage to the buildings was.

To the south of the castle, the streets were largely intact. In the Southwest Quarter in particular, the place looked like it would be pretty livable if only the dead ones weren’t around. Though, realistically speaking, there was no chance of the party living there. If they came across a relatively solid building, it was safe to assume there was a dead one inside. It seemed that they needed rest, too, and the party occasionally spotted dead ones sleeping in the back alleyways or behind the rubble. However, dead ones would wake at the slightest disturbance, so it was difficult to attack them in their sleep.

What did the dead ones do inside those building? They didn’t actually know, but even if they were asleep, the slightest noise would rouse them. Then they would viciously attack the intruders. If the party didn’t want any nasty surprises, it was best to stay out of the buildings in the City of the Dead Ones.

The fog from the Lukewarm River hung thick over the eastern half of the city, making visibility incredibly poor. That was why Haruhiro and the others lurked around the western half of the city, searching for dead ones.

In particular, the remains of the marketplace in the Northwest Quarter, or the Warehouse District, where there were the remains of a row of large buildings that looked like warehouses, made good targets.

It seemed there was a class system, or rather some sort of ranks, among the dead ones, too. The Northeast Quarter had nothing but weak dead ones, with the Northwest Quarter being the next step up from that, followed by the Southeast Quarter, and finally the Southwest Quarter. Their numbers followed the opposite trend, with dead ones being most plentiful in the Southwest Quarter, with decreasing numbers in the Southeast Quarter, Northwest Quarter, and finally Northeast Quarter.

For cannibals like the dead ones, the more densely populated areas made finding prey easier. That meant there was a lot of competition over them. It was survival of the fittest, so that might mean only the strong dead ones survived.

The weak had their own ways of fighting, though. If they knew their limits and went searching for prey they could defeat, the lowest level of dead ones would arrive in the Northeast Quarter. There they would only find weaklings like themselves. As they ate and devoured the weak, they would grow in confidence. Dissatisfied with the lack of prey, they would head towards the Northwest Quarter. If they survived there, they would move on to the Southeast Quarter. Ultimately, they would go to the Southwest Quarter where the experienced dead ones gathered, fought, and fed.

Haruhiro and the others did their best to avoid the Southwest Quarter. It was swarming with dead ones to the point it was ridiculous, and the way they fought was fierce, or rather, extreme. Those dead ones would use anything that came to hand as a throwing weapon, and they had a fondness for sneak attacks. They’d try to take you out with a single blow, then flee if that failed. The powerful dead ones of the Southwest Quarter were crafty as a general rule.

Of course, there were powerful dead ones so fierce that they stood out from the pack, too.

One time, they saw a powerful dead one feeding from afar. It was totally crazy. It looked like a lion on its hind legs, standing about three to three and a half meters tall. It punched a bearlike powerful dead one that was bigger than it, knocking it down with a series of two kicks, then easily lifting its massive body up.

In the next moment, Haruhiro doubted his own eyes. The lion powerful dead one easily tore the bear powerful dead one in two. Just how strong was it?

While bathing in a shower of blood, it trembled with unmistakable delight as it laughed loudly. It was more than just terrifying. If they approached it, they would be killed in an instant. It was pretty likely it would kill them even if they didn’t.

That being the case, the Southwest Quarter of the town was too dangerous. The dead ones of the Southeast Quarter were, too. They would sneak up on you in the dense mist, making them pretty nasty to deal with. And there were just too few of the dead ones in the Northeast Quarter. Therefore, it had been decided that the Northwest Quarter was just right.

Honestly, the Northwest Quarter of the City of the Dead Ones couldn’t have been more perfect for Haruhiro and the group. It would have been fair to call it the ideal hunting ground.

First, he eliminated his presence with Hide. Second, he moved with his presence eliminated with Swing. Third, he utilized all of his senses to detect the presences of others with Sense.

Using the secret art of thieves, Stealth, to its fullest, Haruhiro moved forward like a shadow.

While he was using Stealth, Haruhiro’s knees and elbows were never stiff. They were always bending smoothly. He lowered his hips, arched his back, and didn’t let his neck stiffen. He was ready to respond to any kind of shock at any time. He maintained a posture that allowed him to breathe as his feet plodded onward without hesitation.

Instead of focusing his attention on one point, Haruhiro looked at the whole picture. It felt like his eyes had pulled into the back of his skull. He was actually using eye motions and slight turns of his head to expand his field of vision. If this was done properly, he could even see behind him where he wasn’t supposed to be able to.

He didn’t listen with his ears alone. He felt sound with his entire body. He turned his whole body into a sensor, and with it he picked up not just sound, but every stimulus, every single kind of change.

He spotted a dead one poking its head out of the remains of a building in the Warehouse District and looking left and right.

Should we all attack it together? Haruhiro wondered.

It was common for a dead one in the Northwest Quarter to run away as soon as it sensed it was at a disadvantage, though. Especially a dead one like this, which was close to Ranta’s size. It wore a helmet and light-looking armor and carried a short halberd-like weapon, but there was something that seemed frightened and hesitant about it. It didn’t look that strong.

That didn’t guarantee it was weak, but it looked like it might flee, so Haruhiro decided he was going to circle around behind it. If he was able to finish it off, good. If he didn’t seem like he’d be able to, he could chase it to where his comrades lay waiting.

Ranta was the only one who had been against this plan. That meant they were going through with it.

So, right now, Haruhiro was closing in on the dead one’s back.

It was less than ten meters away. Eight meters. No, even as he was thinking all this, Haruhiro was still on the move, so it was already around seven meters away. Six meters.

If he said he didn’t feel tense in the slightest, that would have been a lie. But when he had his target’s back in sight, it was strangely calming. That might have been part of his nature as a thief. Or perhaps it was just Haruhiro. He often read the backs of living creatures. Even in more tense situations when he couldn’t afford to calmly observe them, their backs provided Haruhiro with a lot of information.

The easiest thing to understand was whether they were a liar or nor. Whether they were honest or crooked might have been another way to put it. Were they guileless or a schemer? Were they trustworthy or not?

This dead one was a liar and dishonest, the untrustworthy sort that tried to lure its opponents into traps. Haruhiro could sense that from the way it leaned, the warped way it held itself. But the dead one was also shallow. It told obvious lies. It relied on its nose to sniff out stupid prey that would still fall for its ruse. If it didn’t think it could win, it wouldn’t hesitate for a moment before fleeing.

Sorry, Haruhiro thought, but I’m not going to let you do that.

He silently drew his short sword. Its sheath was well oiled and maintained.

It was another three, two, one step away. He couldn’t let himself think any of those steps were special. If he placed undue special importance on them, his target would notice him.

Here’s the trick, Barbara-sensei had once told him. When it comes to hiding, or stealing, or killing, you do them all the same way. In this world, and in any world, nothing is special. You can’t think that things are interesting, or that they’re boring. You do them all the same way, without any particular attachments.

I can’t do that, Barbara-sensei, he had complained, but the mysterious thing was, when it all went well, he sometimes was able to do those things like they were all the same.

Haruhiro approached the dead one from behind like he was hanging over it, then he wrapped his left arm around its head. With a backhanded grip, he stabbed his short sword into its neck, then gouged it, twisting its whole body to break its neck.

If he let out a sigh of relief here, Barbara-sensei would scold him. No, she wouldn’t just shout at him, she’d trip him, put his joints in a lock, and then make him faint in agony. “Do them all the same way! How many times do I have to tell you this before you get it, Old Cat?!”

This path was precarious. It was the sort of steep hill where, if he let his guard down, he wouldn’t just come to a stop, he’d roll right back down it. He didn’t know that he would ever see Barbara-sensei again, but his master’s teachings were still alive inside of him.

Probably. No, definitely. He was still persevering along this steep and narrow road, wasn’t he?

Yes, the way of the thief!

“Heyyyy. I’m doooone,” Haruhiro called.

While he was calling his comrades over, Haruhiro thought he was maybe acting a little off. Am I getting carried away, maybe? Like, things are going really well with the dead ones of the Northwest Quarter. This hunting ground is way too lucrative. I can work hard as the party leader, while still pushing forward along the way of the thief, even though I’m just doing it all the same way. I can look at it that way, too. In fact, I am doing it all the same way. But, somehow... Yeah. It scares me. It’s all been going too smoothly. This isn’t what life is like, right?

“Hey, Parupirorinnosuke!” Ranta jumped in and went to work on the fallen dead one. “Taking one down on your own is too much for an insignificant flea like you!”

“Kehe...” Zodiac-kun put in. “Talking like a human is too much for you, Ranta... Kehe...”

“No, Zodiac-kun, I’m an honest-to-goodness human, okay?! I mean, I’m a respectable human man, all right?!”

Following quickly on Ranta and Zodiac-kun’s heels, Yume, Shihoru, Merry, and Kuzaku arrived. They all came to a halt, then backed away from him.

“Huh?” Ranta looked to Yume and the others. “What, guys? What’s wrong? Does my way-too-respectable, special and mature aura intimidate you?”

“...Mature?” Shihoru scoffed as if the idea was ridiculous. “...How?”

“Respectable?” Yume furrowed her brow, stuck out her bottom lip, and made a show of shrugging her shoulders. “How?”

Merry shook her head. “If you call him childish, I’d feel bad for actual children.”

“You’re all in sync, huh?! Perfectly, too! You’re a trio! What kind of threesome are you, huh?!” Ranta shouted at them as he rummaged through the dead one’s possessions. “Well, fine by me! Say whatever you like! I’ve got my soul mate, Zodiac-kun, after all! Huh...?”

“Just now.” Kuzaku pointed above Ranta’s head. “It vanished, man.”

Haruhiro was surprised by that. “...Wow, Zodiac-kun. You learned a trick like that just so you could harass Ranta.”

“N-No!” Ranta jumped to his feet and rounded on Haruhiro. “N-None of you get it, okay?! Zodiac-kun’s not doing it to harass me, or anything like that! He does that as a way of showing his love!”

“What do you mean, ‘he’?” Haruhiro asked. “Honestly, you two seem kind of distant.”

“W-W-We do not! There’s no distance between us. Me and Zodiac-kun are tight. We’ll always be in loooove. You dummy, dummy, dummy!”

“I get it, I get it. I get it already, so go on, keep looting, okay? You like that, don’t you?”

“I do not! I hate, hate, hate it! You do it, you stupid moron!”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I’ll do it, then.”

“Moron! I’m obviously gonna do it! Like I’d ever let you handle it, Parupiro! I’ll do it all! Me! Don’t you forget it, Paruparu!”

“What’s a Paruparu...?”

“Paaaruparuparuparuparuuuu,” Ranta cackled. “Ehehehehe!”

There were times Haruhiro legitimately wanted to murder this piece of crap (and trash). He wouldn’t do it, though.

Ranta got back to work, finding two medium-sized coins and three small ones. There was a ring on the dead one’s left hand, too. They thought they might be able to sell it, so they decided to take it, as well. Eventually another dead one would come along and clean up the body for them—well, eat it, actually, to be blunt, but they could just leave it here.

“On to the next one,” Haruhiro said. When their job was done, it was best to move on.

His comrades knew that, too, so even Ranta did what Haruhiro said without any fuss. They quickly departed, going off to find their next target. They had to return to Well Village before the flame set, so they couldn’t afford to waste time.

We’re hardly wasting any time, thought Haruhiro. When things are going our way, honestly, everything seems to go well. Although the good times can’t last forever.

Don’t get carried away, Haruhiro had to remind himself multiple times each day. Stay on your guard. There’ve got to be pitfalls waiting for us everywhere. This is just a coincidence. It won’t last. We don’t know what tomorrow will be like. No, even today, right now, misfortune could be coming our way. Someone, maybe even me, could make a horrible mistake.

His eyes met Merry’s.

For some reason, Merry smiled at him.

Everything’s going well, huh? Haruhiro thought. No, no, no? What am I even thinking? No, no, no. I’m not thinking at all. No, it’s not that I’m not thinking, just that I’m not thinking this, or that, or anything in particular about Merry. I don’t intend to be thinking anything.

But I can’t help but be conscious of her. It’s Kuzaku’s fault. Of course, Kuzaku didn’t do anything wrong. That’s not it. It’s just Kuzaku opening up to me is what’s triggered it, that’s all.

Haruhiro was, of course, the party leader, so it was wrong for him to have unique, or special, feelings of that sort for a single party member like Merry. It probably wasn’t a good thing.

—Or that’s how it feels. Right? That’s gotta be right, right?

But Akira-san and Miho were married, he reminded himself. That was an inter-party romance. There were Gogh and Kayo, too. Those two even had an adopted son.

When he thought about it a bit, Haruhiro started to feel like, after going through so much danger together, it was perfectly natural that those sorts of feelings would sprout between them, and that they would form a strong bond. Besides, when he thought about a relationship with someone outside the party, it didn’t really feel realistic. In fact, it didn’t feel realistic at all. Well, there were people like Mimorin, but he didn’t have romantic feelings for her, and they might never meet again anyway.

In that case—No, no, no, what am I thinking? In that case, nothing! I’m getting a little too giddy, maybe? I need to seriously, diligently, earnestly focus on my job as leader. Because I’m awkward.

Honestly, I’m not good at this stuff. Doing this and doing that at the same time—it’s all beyond me. If I don’t focus on just one thing, my head gets all jumbled up.

Haruhiro came to a stop on a narrow road in the Warehouse District.

Haruhiro the thief took point. Kuzaku was ready to step in if needed. Behind them was Yume. Merry was somewhere she could protect Shihoru, and Ranta brought up the rear. This was their basic formation for exploring the City of the Dead Ones.

“...Haruhiro?” Kuzaku already had his longsword and his shield at the ready.

“Meow?” Yume let out a weird noise, looking around the area.

“Huhhhh? Whaaaat?” Ranta turned to look behind him.

Shihoru inhaled sharply and shrank into herself.

Merry immediately got into a position to protect Shihoru, lowering her posture. Merry was awfully gallant at times like this. It was a hard fact to deny, but he didn’t have time to stare admiringly at her.

The blood instantly drained from Haruhiro’s face. He wasn’t even sure himself how he had managed to react. Anyway, he threw himself forward. Before he could do a roll, he heard some massive object impacting the ground right behind him, and he felt a shockwave.

“Run for it!” Haruhiro shouted without checking to see what it was. Where had it come down from? The sky? Well, the buildings around here were relatively intact. It must have been lurking on some nearby roof, aiming for Haruhiro and the others.

Haruhiro and the others, or just Haruhiro?

It was coming. Charging at him. Scary!

Haruhiro ran. He dashed at top speed, turning around a corner. The only thing he knew about his enemy was that it was a dead one, and it was pretty big, but he figured with its large size, maybe it couldn’t make tight turns? That was the hope.

Just like he’d thought, it couldn’t turn suddenly, and it made a wider turn. That put some distance between them, so Haruhiro was able to take a look at his pursuer, even if it wasn’t a very good one.

Aw, man, he thought. It sure looks like a lion. I had a feeling it would, but it looks lion-y. Like a lion standing on its hind legs. That’s what it looks like.

But it’s a little, no, a lot smaller than the lion we saw that one time, isn’t it? Maybe it only looks that way because I want to think that? No, for real, it’s small, right?

If that had been the powerful dead one that looked like a lion, Haruhiro would be long dead by now. It was certainly scary. He thought his stomach was going to jump out of his throat, because it was ridiculously scary, but he wouldn’t be getting off this lightly if the one behind him was the real deal. If it had been, Haruhiro would probably cower, unable to move until it gobbled him up. That was just how crazy the lion powerful dead one had been. This one wasn’t that bad.

Haruhiro went into an alley and jumped inside a building through a collapsing wall. What were his comrades doing? Had they gotten away all right? Haruhiro didn’t think they were heartless enough to abandon him.

They wouldn’t run away, I think. They probably wouldn’t run away. They wouldn’t run away on me, I’m sure of it.

It—the probably-not-so-powerful lion dead one—was diligently chasing after Haruhiro.

Haruhiro left the building through the entrance. The lion dead one bounded after him. He couldn’t outrun it. That thing had to be faster than him.

“Haruhiroooo...!” He heard Ranta’s voice.

Still, I’m amazed I managed to dodge it the first time that thing jumped at me, Haruhiro thought as he rolled inside another large building.

It had two floors. There were stairs. He raced up them. They were wooden. Weak stairs. They gave in, and his foot almost got trapped. He didn’t care. He took the stairs two at a time and kept going up.

The lion dead one destroyed the stairs as it tried to go up, then let out a roar.

Haruhiro made it to the second floor. There was a window. He could see outside through it. Ranta was there. Kuzaku was there. Yume, Shihoru, and Merry, too. They were running this way. None of them had noticed Haruhiro on the second floor yet.

Haruhiro leaned out the window. “Run away! Come on, run away!”

“Whaa...?!” Ranta looked up at Haruhiro, then immediately waved to him. “Man, get down here already! It’s inside, too, right?!”

Haruhiro couldn’t argue back. The lion dead one was still trying to get up to the second floor. Even if the stairs had completely collapsed, it would eventually get up here. Ranta was right. For once.

Haruhiro—did not jump out the window. He didn’t have that kind of guts. He straddled the window frame, got a firm grip on it with his hands, then hung down. From that position, he let go. He didn’t feel much of an impact when he touched down; his legs just felt a little numb.

“Come on, let’s get outta here, you bunch of bozos!” Ranta had already started running.

“Who’re you callin’ a booboo!” Yume shouted after him as she ran.

“I didn’t say that, you tiny-tittied monster! Hey, girls, if you stay next to that monster, your tits’ll shrivel up and they’ll turn into miserable tiny tits like hers!”

“...You’re the worst, you vile monster man,” Shihoru muttered as she caught up to Yume.

“If I’m the worst, that makes me number one, huh! Hurrah! Hurrah! Gahahaha!”

“I respect that...” Kuzaku ran with his armor clanking.

“No, go all the way and worship me! I’m offering a serious boon! You can become a thousand times more erotic! Gwahehehehehe!”

“That’s not a boon, that’s a negative you’ll never recover from...” Haruhiro forced his slightly numb legs to keep going and caught up to his comrades.

“Haru!” Merry shouted at him.

“Yes?!”

“For that, just now!”

“J-Just now?”

Merry held for a dramatic pause. No, maybe not a dramatic pause, but she didn’t say the next bit for a while.

While they were bantering, the lion dead one stuck its head out the second floor window and roared.

Haruhiro forced himself to speed up, catching up to Merry and turning the corner. At almost exactly that moment, she slapped him hard on the shoulder, startling him.

“You get one demerit!”

“Whaa...?!”

What did that mean? It felt like he understood, but also like he didn’t.

Merry wouldn’t look him in the eye. Was she mad? Or was she embarrassed?

It might have been both.