Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 7 - Chapter 3

3. The Forbidden Bath

When the six of them pooled all the money they had on them, they had 1 gold, 87 silver, and 64 copper. When it came to other possessions, all they had were their personal effects.

They went around showing these to the proprietors of the clothing and bag store, the mask store, and the grocery store, but those people showed no interest and ignored them.

The blacksmith was in the middle of a job, so they didn’t want to disturb it, or more like they were afraid it’d kill them if they did.

They thought the proprietor of the general store was probably inside, so they knocked on the door. They knocked three times and got no response, so they gave up.

It seemed like it would be difficult to acquire more of the black coins inside the settlement. That would be making it too easy. The stomachs they had tricked into thinking they were full with water were already back to grumbling, and they felt a sense of crisis. Even if it was just one or two, they would have to find more of the black coins outside.

Haruhiro clutched his empty stomach as they left the village. Their objective, it went without saying, was to find black coins. They discussed their plan.

It was dangerous, or rather they didn’t know whether it was dangerous or not, so they wouldn’t go too far afield. While making a mental map of the area with the village at its center, they expanded their range of operations little by little.

First they crossed the bridge and tried going straight. They ran into a forest after going about one hundred meters. They found it was dense with tall, whitish, twisted plants that were probably trees. Making their way through it didn’t seem like it was going to be easy. They couldn’t keep going.

They turned back, traveling around the moat and descending the low cliff. The riverbed was mostly sand. It was strangely warm.

Haruhiro and the others went up to the riverside. The river looked deep, and its current swift.

Haruhiro hesitantly dipped his hand into the pure black water. He opened his eyes wide with surprise. “...It’s lukewarm. This river.”

“Seriously?” Ranta took off his shoes and socks, stepping into the river barefoot. “Whoa! You were serious! It’s not warm, but it’s lukewarm! We could use this in place of a bath!”

“A bath...” Shihoru mumbled absently. “I want to take... a bath...”

“That’s right...” Merry looked up into the sky and sighed. “A bath...”

Yume let out a silly laugh. “Bathin’ would probably feel real good, huh.”

“Yeah...” Kuzaku nodded. “Everyone smells pretty awful. Myself included, I’m sure.”

“Let’s go in!” Ranta gave them a thumbs up. “Everyone together! I mean, where’s the harm, just this one time? Nothing like getting naked together to build camaraderie, they say! I mean, it’s super dark! No one’s gonna see much! Gehehehehehehehe!”

“That’s never gonna fly, and you know it.” Haruhiro felt a strong urge to clobber Ranta, but he didn’t want to needlessly waste stamina. “Sorry, but let’s save it for later. We need to find some black coins and get something to eat. The bath can come after that. We’ll check that it’s safe, and the guys and girls will take turns bathing separately.”

“Screw you, Haruhiro! I’m against it! Against, against, against! Agaiiiiinst!” Ranta made a whole lot of noise, but the rest of their comrades agreed with Haruhiro.

“—Whuh?” Yume, who had still been splashing in the water along the riverbank, reluctant to leave, picked something up. “Oh? What’s this? It was buried in the... sand? It’s round and—”

Haruhiro took it from Yume. “...It’s a black coin.”

“There could be more, right?!” Ranta got down on all fours and started to search for black coins with such vigor that it looked like he might take off swimming. “Get searching! All of you! Let me say, though, what’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is, of course, mine, too!”

“Save the sleep talk for when you’re asleep, man.” Even as he grumbled, Haruhiro began feeling around for black coins.

Everyone was pretty—no, very—serious about it.

Eventually the flame-like light from the distant ridge vanished completely, and the area was locked in perfect darkness. They weren’t far from the village, and they had heard the banging of the blacksmith’s hammer not that long ago, but now that had completely died out.

It was night. How long had they been searching for black coins? Haruhiro wasn’t entirely sure, but regardless, it was night now.

“That was it! We never found another one!” Ranta punched the water.

“I guess it’s just not that easy...” Kuzaku was sitting down in the riverbed.

“A-Anyway...” Shihoru squeezed the water out of the hem of her soaked robe. “We could head back, see if we can buy food with that one coin...”

“That’s true.” Yume sounded like she might be crying a bit. “Yume’s gettin’ mighty hungry, and it’s been makin’ her sad...”

“It might buy more than we think, after all.” Merry tried to console them, which was a little unusual for her.

“Yeah, you’re right...” Ranta hung his head. He didn’t have much energy, and it was hard to blame him for that.

“Let’s do that... I guess...” Haruhiro said languidly, then told himself, No, no, that’s not good enough. A leader couldn’t afford to let his spirits get down like that. “L-Let’s go, guys! It’s chow time!”

However, even climbing the two-meter cliff on their way back proved a difficult task. They made it back to the bridge on unsteady feet, and were shocked by what they found.

Watchtower C, on the other side of the bridge, was for all practical purposes a gate. If they couldn’t pass through that gate, they wouldn’t be able to enter the village. The gate that had been open just a little while earlier was now closed, for some reason.

“Wh... Why?” Haruhiro pressed a fist against his forehead. “Because it’s night?”

“Who cares!” Ranta lowered his visor and started to run across the bridge.

“H-Hey!” Haruhiro didn’t even have to stop him.

The lookout on Watchtower C nocked an arrow to its bow. When it drew a bead on him, Ranta did more than just come to a sudden stop. He launched into an incredible jumping kowtow.

“Sorry! Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! I’m begging you, please, don’t shoot me!”

It worked in his favor, maybe. While the lookout didn’t lower its bow, it also didn’t fire. Ranta backed away with his head still bowed, eventually making it to where Haruhiro and the others were.

“You piece of crap! You balding idiot! I nearly died there, dammit!”

“Hey, don’t snap at me...” Haruhiro felt dizzy. He felt so weak from hunger that it was hard to talk at all. “We’ll have to wait for the gate to open... I guess. Or, since it feels silly to just wait, do you want to go look for black coins? No, that’s not happening... None of us are up for that...”

They didn’t have the willpower left to move. Or the stamina. Haruhiro and the others sat or lay down where they were. Even as they were collapsed there, the feeling of starvation relentlessly assaulted them. However, they could do nothing but sit there and take it. Even if they started nodding off, the intense hunger would wake them back up.

It made them want to lash out at someone. While they were fighting off that urge, their consciousness would grow faint again. That shallow slumber would then be easily broken by aching hunger.

The three girls stuck together, sleeping and then getting back up.

Yume rubbed Shihoru’s head. “So hungry...” she mumbled. “Hey, Shihoru, she’ll only take a little, so can Yume eat you?”

“If you don’t mind me eating you, too...”

“Ohhhhh,” Yume moaned. “If it means she can have some Shihoru, maybe Yume doesn’t mind bein’ eaten...”

“You want to try eating each other...?” Shihoru mumbled.

“That sounds good... Shihoru, you’re lookin’ tasty, after all...”

“Um, do you mind if I eat, too...?” Merry ventured.

“If you do, then let us eat you, too, Merry,” Yume said.

“Sure... Eat me... If it lets me eat, I’ll do anything at this point...”

“—Hah.” Ranta rolled into a ball like some sort of dead maggot. “What’re you damn women talking about? Dammit... I’m jealous... Seriously, seriously...”

Kuzaku was lying on his back with his arms and legs spread out, chanting something. “She shells sea shells by the she shore... Peter Piper picked a pick of pippled peppers... How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck wood chuck wood...”

“Well, I guess we’re not at our limit yet...” Haruhiro smiled weakly. “We’re not at our limit, or what’s a limit, a limit... libit... ribbit... heheh...”

In this world of endless darkness, it was hard to believe the morning would come again, but eventually it did.

Even before the light peeked out from behind the ridge, there came an ominous bellowing, and the lookout of Watchtower C opened the gate from the inside. Immediately afterwards, the distant ridge lit up.

Haruhiro and the others all leapt to their feet, rushing to be the first across the bridge. The blacksmith hadn’t gone to work yet, but the pot in the grocery store was already steaming. Haruhiro offered the black coin to the giant crab proprietor that was stirring the pot with a ladle. The giant crab looked back and forth from the coin to Haruhiro and the others with the eyes that stuck out from behind its mask.

“Give us something to eat!” Haruhiro immediately began pleading. “We’re starving to death! We’ll take anything, seriously, anything, so long as it’s edible!”

The giant crab took out six bowls made of wood or something, and scooped the contents of the pot, stew, or something like it, into them.

Haruhiro and the others all said their thanks and then took their bowls. It would have been nice to have some spoons, but they didn’t need them.

Haruhiro took a sip of the thick, hot, blackish stew. He didn’t quite understand the taste. But, it was so good he could die. When he looked around, everyone else was hungrily wolfing down their stew.

We’re so happy, Haruhiro thought from the bottom of his heart. We’re happy. We’re happy, too happy. It’s mind-numbing, like there’s essence of glee leaking out through every pore of our bodies. We’re damn happy.

He had slurped the thick broth down in no time flat. However, he still wasn’t done. There were still the solid ingredients. Haruhiro poked the ingredients at the bottom of his bowl.

“Ick?!” he cried out in surprise.

After all, those ingredients, they clearly looked like centipedes. These are... bugs... aren’t they?

“Gahahah! A man’s food is his castle!” Ranta said something incomprehensible, then boldly tossed those bugs into his mouth and chewed. “—Guwaaeh?! Eughhhh?!”

They were apparently bitter. Ranta spat the bugs out. It was only to be expected, really. They looked pretty disgusting. It was probably best not to eat them. But... It wasn’t enough. Honestly, this was far from enough to fill them up.

Haruhiro looked to the giant crab. When he did, the giant crab offered him some sort of fried meat skewer. Faith began to take root in Haruhiro’s heart. His god was a giant crab that ran a grocery store.

Even as Haruhiro choked back tears, he took the meat skewer with gratitude, so much gratitude. He chomped into it before even thinking, Is this meat safe? It was cold, hard, and it seemed to be smoked rather than fried, but it wasn’t bad. It was dry and hard to swallow, but it released more and more flavor as he chewed it. This seemed like it would keep him feeling full for a while.

The giant crab gave each of the others one of the smoked meat skewers, too. That meant a black coin was worth at least six bowls of bug soup and six skewers of smoked mystery meat.

With their hunger satisfied, now they wanted water. However, they would likely need another black coin to use the well again. They would have to do without for now, and boil the river water later. While Haruhiro was worrying about it, that idiot Ranta skipped right over to the well, lowered the bucket, pulled up a pail of water, and drank it greedily. The well’s guard didn’t move.

—Huh? That’s okay?

When Ranta was done, Haruhiro hesitantly drank some of the water himself. The well guard really wasn’t going to do anything to him. Because they’d paid the day before? If one black coin was good for six bowls of bug stew and six skewers of smoked meat, maybe one black coin for water for six people had been overpaying. So, that was why it was letting them drink again today... maybe?

Whatever the case, once they all rehydrated themselves, they finally started to feel like themselves again. No, not yet.

“Um, Haruhiro-kun...” Shihoru raised her hand. “I’d like to take a bath now...”

He couldn’t bring himself to say We have bigger concerns.

Well, Haruhiro reasoned, we can probably think about how to get more black coins while we’re getting ready to bathe and while we’re bathing. I’m sure we can. Once we’re feeling properly refreshed, something might come to mind, after all. Yeah. A bath. Let’s take a bath.

Haruhiro and the party left the village and took an express trip to the riverbed. Maybe they didn’t need to be in such a rush, but they couldn’t help themselves.

First, they dug a hole near the river. Then, they connected the hole to the river with a channel. Once the hole filled with river water, they closed off the channel. It was decided that the girls would go first, then the guys. While the girls were in the bath, the guys waited somewhere at a distance.

The hole they were using as a tub was a meter and a half across, with a depth of about one meter. The river water only about body temperature, but that was way better than it being cold. They held up a lantern to it, and it wasn’t cloudy, and didn’t smell. Their work went as planned, without interruption, and the lukewarm open-air bath was complete.

“Well, we’ll be off over there,” Haruhiro said to the girls.

Haruhiro, Ranta, and Kuzaku left Yume, Shihoru, and Merry behind as they went about twenty meters away from the open-air bath. Right next to the cliff. Even when the sun rose, or rather the flames rose, this world was still dark. There was no way they could see the girls from here, so this was probably far enough.

Still, it was strange. Ranta was being oddly quiet.

No. He had been being quiet.

“Well, time to begin the operation, am I right?” Ranta asked.

“I thought so...” Haruhiro sighed. How was he going to stop this utter sleazeball?

Fortunately, Haruhiro didn’t have to do a thing. That was because Kuzaku suddenly held him down.

“Not gonna let you do that.”

“Ow! Ow, ow! Wait, dammit, Kuzacky! What’re you doing?! Not the joints, man, seriously, go easy on the joints! That hurts, dammit! Let go of me, you big idiot!”

“Nah, you’re pretty strong yourself, Ranta-kun. If I don’t go this far, you’ll get away.”

“You’re breaking my arm! My shoulder! You’ll burst my organs! What’re you gonna do if I die, huh?! You moron!”

“You won’t die that easily, Ranta-kun. This’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, it’s not fine, it’s not fine. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. I’m dying, I’m dying, I’m dying. Let go, let go, let go.”

“I can tell you’re making it sound worse than it is, y’know.”

“...Dammit, you’re too damn uppity, Kuzacky! Can’t you show your seniors the proper respect?!”

“I do. I actually have a fair bit of respect for you, as a matter of fact.”

“Then let go! Nuuuude! I’m gonna see the girls nude! Boobs! I have a disease that’ll kill me if I don’t see some naked boobs! Seriously, man, I’m not lying here!”

“...Well, there goes some of that respect,” Kuzaku told him. “That was a little much.”

Ranta isn’t a person deserving of any respect, so I think that’s just fine,  thought Haruhiro. Still, Kuzaku sure was quick to act. Is it that? His thing with Merry? Gotta be. He doesn’t want her to be seen. She’s his... what? Girlfriend? Lover? Same difference. He doesn’t want to let other men see a person he’s in that sort of relationship with naked. That’s how it is. Probably. It’s natural to feel that way.

Even Haruhiro could understand that much.

I’m still a virgin, though, y’know? What about Kuzaku? Do you think they’re already—already doing it...? Like, you know?

Haruhiro sat down on the ground and covered his face with his hands. What was he even thinking about? It was stupid. What did it even matter? He didn’t have time for this.

That’s right. He really didn’t have time for it.

Black coins. How could they find them? From corpses, and from the riverbed. Methods that relied on chance like that weren’t good. Was there a more certain way? If they had to earn money, could they work? Like, by doing some sort of labor for the residents of that village? Would that be doable? Even without speaking their language? It didn’t seem like it.

Money. Money, huh. The black coins were money. Were they the currency of that village? If they were, there was a cash economy—but, could a system where cash was exchanged for goods be practical for just one tiny village like that? There were maybe fifty of them there at most. Every one of the stores had had a fairly wide selection of goods. Wasn’t that a little too much for a village of fifty? Did they have other customers? Others like Haruhiro and the party...?

“Eek!” They heard someone’s voice.

Not just a voice. A scream.

“Hey!” Ranta knocked Kuzaku off of him.

Kuzaku quickly jumped to his feet. “Merry... san?!”

Haruhiro started running as soon as he was on his feet. “Merry?! Yume?! Shihoru?!”

“Nu-chah...!”

That was Yume’s battle cry. She was fighting back? Against what? An enemy?

There was a violent splashing.

“Wah...!”

Was that Shihoru’s voice? Like, she tried to get away, then fell in the river, or something?

“Hah!”

That was Merry. Merry’s voice. It sounds like she’s fighting.

“W-We’ll do our best not to see anything!” Haruhiro drew his dagger and sap. But, yeah, he did kind of think this wasn’t the time to worry about what they might or might not see.

He raced over as fast as he could. He could make out vague outlines. It looked like Yume and Merry were moving around with their weapons, like he had thought. They were out of the bath. Where was Shihoru? The river? Was that the enemy?

At first, Haruhiro thought it was a lizard or something. Its posture was low, like it was crawling. It was fast. It quickly jumped left and right, dodging Yume and Merry’s attacks. It was about the size of a person.

Before he could think anything, Haruhiro moved. He grappled his enemy from behind. Spider.

It wasn’t a lizard. This thing was all hairy. Whatever. He went to bury his dagger in the side of its neck, but the enemy struggled wildly.

It leapt. Boing, upwards on a diagonal. Up high.

“Whoa...!” Haruhiro cried, instinctively clinging to the enemy.

Oh, crap. The enemy bent backwards in midair. The way things were now, it was going to land on its back. Haruhiro was clinging to that back, which meant—Haruhiro was going to get smashed into the ground, wasn’t he?

When he tried to get away, the enemy wrapped itself around him. There was an unpleasant noise. The impact hit almost his entire body. He couldn’t breathe. His head was spinning.

The enemy leapt away from Haruhiro. Then it immediately attacked. Haruhiro got both of his arms up trying to protect his neck and face. He had to at least avoid dying, somehow.

“Gahhh!” Kuzaku jumped out, trying to hit the enemy with his longsword.

The enemy leapt straight backwards, then ran.

“There you are!” Ranta ran over, slashing the enemy.

Nice teamwork, thought Haruhiro, but it was questionable if he could really afford to be taking it easy and mentally praising his comrades.

He tried to get up. No good. Even just turning on his side hurt. All over.

I feel like I’m gonna puke. Pathetic. I was careless. I lost my head. Why couldn’t I stay calm? It’s frustrating. How embarrassing. What am I, a newbie? That was a rookie mistake. No excuse for it. It hurts...

Kuzaku and Ranta were chasing the enemy around. Merry and Yume were rushing over to him.

“Haru?!” Merry shouted.

“Haru-kun!” Yume cried.

No, that’s great, but it’s really not. I mean, you two are naked, aren’t you? It was too dark to see any details, but he still felt bad about it. Haruhiro closed his eyes, figuring it was the least he could do.

“Where’s... Shihoru...?” he rasped out.

“Meow?! That’s right! Shihoru! Where are you, Shihoru?! You okay?!”

“I-I-I’m j-j-just fine...” Shihoru responded, which was enough for Haruhiro to feel deeply relieved.

But it was still too early to relax, wasn’t it? Like, this wasn’t a situation where they could.

“Haru! I’ll use my magic now!” Merry cried.

“No, you can’t do that... I mean, light magic... gives off light... Before you do that... put some clothes on...”

“Is this really the time to be saying that?!” Merry got mad at him.

I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.

“Merry-san, here, clothes!” Kuzaku came back, throwing Merry’s clothes at her.

“I don’t really care!” Merry yelled, but she still threw on what she could quickly. Then she started treating Haruhiro.

“Dammiiiiit!” Ranta shouted. “It got away from us, you idiot!”

“Stupid Ranta, don’t come over here!” Yume hollered.

“Oh, shut up! Like I’d go out of my way to see your tiny tits!”

“Shihoru’s here, too, y’know!”

“Of course I wanna see hers! I’d love to stare at them, by all means! Gwehehehehe!”

“Jess, yeen, sark, kart, fram...”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold it, hold it, Shihoru! No magic! That’s the Thunderstorm spell, isn’t it?! If I eat one of those, I’ll be toast!”

Haruhiro kept his eyes squeezed tight.

If I open them, I might see all sorts of stuff, y’know. I mean, Merry’s close. She’s close enough that I can feel part of her body touching me. I won’t look, though. I swear I won’t, okay? I feel so ashamed of myself for everything, I want to cry.

Still, can’t we even take a bath in peace? Man, this is tough...