Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 8 - Chapter 11

11. Deep in the Night

...Sort it out. I need to sort all of this out,  thought Haruhiro. 

Moyugi indicated it was time for them to move. 

Rock, with Gettsu the Mirumi on his shoulder, and the rest of his party in tow all headed in the direction Moyugi pointed. That included Nigi Arara, the eldest daughter of the House of Nigi, Haruhiro, and Yume. 

Not long after heading that direction, they detected something out of the ordinary. It seemed Forgan was in combat with someone. The enemy of their enemy wasn’t necessarily their friend, but Arara and the Rocks’ goal was vengeance, and their target was Arnold of Forgan. If Arnold was one of the enemies there, they might be able to catch him by surprise. 

When it came to Haruhiro and Yume, they had a different motive. What if Ranta and the others were the ones Forgan were attacking? It felt like a distinct possibility. If that was what was happening, they had to help them. 

Haruhiro went ahead of the group with his fellow thief Sakanami, as well as Kuro the former hunter. 

Sakanami was the one who got spotted by the nyaas. Or rather, for some unexplained reason, Sakanami found a nyaa and tried to grab it, resulting in the nyaas finding them and raising the alarm. 

Still, while Sakanami continued with his bizarre antics, Kuro and Haruhiro were able to get closer to the enemy. 

It looked like three humans were surrounded by wolves and orcs. One of them was unfamiliar, but Haruhiro knew the other two. They were Shihoru and Kuzaku. They were all right. Thank goodness. 

But why was it just the two of them? Where were the other two? 

Half of that question was resolved a moment later. No, maybe resolved wasn’t the word for it. 

There were humans with the enemy. Two of them, even. And one of those two was Ranta. 

As for what happened from that point on, honestly, it was a blur. Haruhiro couldn’t put the events in order. 

He recalled Rock and the others attacking Forgan, and he recalled being relieved that, for now at least, Shihoru and Kuzaku were all right. 

Shihoru and Kuzaku were shouting at Ranta about something. Haruhiro chased after Ranta. He leapt on him, and put him in a hold. He said something like, What are you doing, man,  or, What are you thinking,  or, We’re going home. 

That and, Merry, what happened to Merry? 

The one-armed man came at him with a katana. If Haruhiro didn’t get out of the way, he sensed that both he and Ranta would be cut in two. This man was probably serious. He had to get away. 

He remembered what Ranta said as he left, word for word. 

“That woman belongs to me! If you want her back, just try and steal her from me!” 

Seriously, what was that about? What did it mean...? 

“That woman” had to be Merry. No question about that. 

She belongs to me? Just try and steal her?  What was that guy saying? 

Was he an idiot? He was. Haruhiro already knew that much. But he’d never thought he was that kind of idiot. He’d never thought that the idiot would treat Merry like his property, or turn traitor. 

Haruhiro wasn’t sure it was appropriate to call what Ranta had done turning traitor in this situation, but he’d stabbed them in the back. That was how it felt. Ranta had stabbed Haruhiro and the rest in the back. 

Thanks to Ranta, even though they’d managed to meet back up with Shihoru and Kuzaku, Haruhiro couldn’t be happy about it, no matter how he tried. Even when he learned that the man with them was Arara’s uncle, “Oh” was about the only reaction that escaped him. 

Moyugi seemed to have some sort of plan, so the Rocks, Arara, and her uncle said they would be heading to the hidden village. The idea of parting ways with them didn’t even come to Haruhiro’s mind. So, they tagged along. 

After passing a number of traps, fortifications, moats, and more, they gave a password to the guard to let them in. When they arrived in the village, around ten men and women armed with katanas appeared and took Arara away somewhere. Rock seemed to want to raise a fuss about it, but Arara stopped him. 

According to Arara and her uncle Katsuharu, she was probably going to meet with her parents. Well, not so much meet them as be dragged in front of them, but, well, she was the heir to an important house. They probably had a lot going on. 

The Rocks, Haruhiro, and the rest were led to Katsuharu’s retreat on the edge of the village. It was kind of him to show them the way there and all, but Katsuharu’s “retreat” was just a hovel with no floor. It was only large enough for five, maybe six, people at most. That being the case, it seemed appropriate to let their seniors have priority, and, besides, Haruhiro didn’t really want to go in there anyway, so he and the other three decided to wait outside. They were used to roughing it from their time in Darunggar. 

It didn’t feel like any time to be taking it easy and sleeping, but they couldn’t go anywhere until dawn broke. Besides, even if they could go somewhere, he had no idea where that somewhere ought to be. 

Katsuharu told them they were free to make use of his firewood, so Haruhiro had Yume start a fire. Fires were nice. When the four of them sat around a fire like this, it felt like he might somehow manage to retain his sanity. 

On Haruhiro’s right, Yume and Shihoru were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. 

They both looked completely spent. Kuzaku, on his left, was kneeling formally for some reason, pressing down on his knees with both hands. 

“Kuzaku,” Haruhiro began. 

“Yesh.” 

“...What’s ‘yesh’?” 

“Sowwy.” 

“...Are you crying?” 

“I’m not crying,” Kuzaku said defensively. “Like I’d cry. Crying’s not gonna do us any good.” 

“Well, no, it’s not.” 

“What is it?” Kuzaku asked. 

“Oh, I was just wondered why you’re kneeling.” 

“...I just sorta felt like it?” 

“Okay, then.” 

Yeah, this was no good. 

It’s no good,  Haruhiro thought. If I relax, my mind goes blank. I need to think, but nothing comes to mind. Besides, think? About what? Ranta stabbed us in the back. We don’t know if Merry is safe or not. No, Ranta was saying she belongs to him. That means she’s still alive. I’d like to think that. It’s safe to assume she’s alive, I guess? 

Setting aside the question of whether she was fine or not, Merry hadn’t been killed. That being the case, whether Ranta told them to or not, their party had to take her back. They had to save her. 

Ranta seemed to have joined Forgan. Merry must have been taken prisoner by them. Hopefully she wasn’t being treated too badly. 

...Or was she? It was hard to be optimistic. There was that human, Takasagi, with them for some reason, but their boss was an orc named Jumbo. 

They were an independent, multi-racial group mainly consisting of orcs and undead. It went without saying that orcs and undead were the enemies of humanity. Despite that, Takasagi and Ranta were working with them. 

Haruhiro couldn’t figure them out, but it was hard to imagine they were treating Merry with the proper respect. If anything, it seemed like it wouldn’t take much for them to get rough with her. Was this just Haruhiro’s prejudice? 

Really, he hoped it was. They might be a surprisingly gentlemanly and unexpectedly good gang, one that wouldn’t hurt Merry or do anything untoward to her. If they weren’t, that was a problem. 

“Y’think she’s gonna be all right?” Yume said all of a sudden. “Merry-chan.” 

“Yeah...” Shihoru rubbed Yume’s back and shoulders, probably trying to reassure her, but she herself was crying. “I believe she will be...” 

“Arghhhhhhhhh!” Kuzaku punched the ground. “Rantaaaa! That bastard, he’s screwing with us, damn him! I never thought he was the type!” 

Yeah, that. That’s really what it comes down to, huh. 

It wasn’t like Haruhiro was firmly convinced that he hadn’t, and he didn’t have enough evidence to claim otherwise, but he wasn’t ready to decide for sure that Ranta had betrayed them yet. Even if he had stabbed them in the back, he might have been put in a position where he had no other choice. 

Merry,  Haruhiro thought. I’m concerned about Merry. I’m worried for her, of course, and there’s something that bugs me about the way Ranta talked about her. 

First, the way he’d said, “That woman belongs to me.” Taken at face value, it was a declaration that Merry was his. It was hard to imagine the feeling was mutual. Ranta was one-sidedly declaring Merry was his woman. 

Why would Ranta say that about Merry? Sure, Merry was beautiful, and could be tender, so it wouldn’t be that strange if Ranta secretly harbored feelings for her. But he’d never shown any sign of it. If anything, the way Haruhiro saw it, Merry wasn’t Ranta’s type. To go a bit further, he was probably more into Yume. As a matter of fact, Haruhiro suspected that Ranta really liked Yume. 

Ranta was all bluster. He’d go on about how he wanted a woman, or he wanted to do this or that, but he’d never take direct action. 

A line like “That woman belongs to me” just didn’t suit Ranta. On top of that, he’d said, “If you want her back, just try and steal her from me!” There was something strange about that, too. Why had Ranta gone out of his way to say that? To provoke Haruhiro? Well, it wouldn’t be that uncommon for him to do so, but something had been strange about it. 

What had been strange, and how? Think. He had to think. 

“Ranta said Merry was his,” Haruhiro said slowly. “He also said that if we want her back, ‘just try and steal her.’ Before that, I asked him, ‘What happened to Merry?’ That was his response.” Haruhiro bit his lip lightly. 

“First, we can draw one conclusion. Merry is alive. If she weren’t, he couldn’t make her his. I couldn’t steal her from him, either.” 

“Ranta-kun...” Shihoru forced herself to speak. “...was trying to tell us that?” 

“I dunno.” Haruhiro shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you that much. But maybe. In terms of possibilities, I think, broadly speaking, we have two of them. Either Ranta stabbed us in the back, or, for some reason, he’s pretending to have. Either way, in that situation, he couldn’t just tell us Merry was fine, and not to worry. Ranta was on the other side, after all. But still. 

The ‘If you want her back, just try and steal her’ bit is a little weird. I mean, did he need to go out of his way to say that? If it was ‘She’s mine now, give up,’ or something like that, I’d understand. But ‘just try and steal her’... 

Maybe he’s telling us to come take her. Maybe it meant that Merry is where he is, and he wants us to come save her. That’s only one possibility, but...” 

“Listen.” Yume leaned against Shihoru. “Yume, she’s always thought 

Ranta’s a hopeless idiot, and she’s still thinkin’ that, but him betrayin’ Yume and everyone else, doin’ somethin’ like that, that’s just not Ranta, now is it?” 

“Nah, I dunno about that...” Kuzaku was pressing down on his knees. “At the very least, he was serious there. He came at me ready to kill. If Haruhiro and the others hadn’t shown up, I think it would’ve gotten real bad for us. 

They were nearby, so we got rescued, and it was all fine, but if they hadn’t been, Ranta, that bastard, I think he’d have killed both me and Shihoru.” 

“Well...” Haruhiro scratched the back of his neck. “He can get strangely into things, you know...” 

“I don’t want to get killed because he got too into his role,” Kuzaku said. 

“You know?” 

“Well, yeah...” 

“...Um.” Shihoru raised her hand. 

Haruhiro didn’t feel like there was any need for her to raise her hand and ask for permission before speaking, but he said, “Go ahead.” 

Shihoru nodded, then cleared her throat a little. “If thinking about it isn’t giving us any answers, I think we should come back to it later. In the end, Ranta-kun is the only one who knows what his true intentions are. Before that, what should we do from here on? What should our priority be? I think those are the more important questions.” 

“In that case, it’s gotta be Merry-chan, don’tcha think?” Yume put in. 

“...I’ve gotta agree,” Kuzaku said. 

“Yeah.” Haruhiro sighed, then looked to Shihoru. 

When she smiled just a little, Shihoru seemed awfully reliable. Talentless and immature as he was, Haruhiro needed to think, and think, and think until they got through this, but there was no need for him to be the only one wracking his brains. It was okay to lean on his comrades’ wisdom at times. 

Besides, if he was aware that he was talentless and immature, he should rely on his comrades where he was able to. If he could do everything by himself, he wouldn’t be talentless or immature. 

So what meaning was there in cornering himself, thinking, I have to do it myself, I have to do it myself,  when he couldn’t do it at all? That only served to satisfy himself. 

Shihoru was shy, but that also made her cautious, and it meant she watched her surroundings carefully, and thought deeply about them. Her powers of observation and analysis were beyond Haruhiro’s. Haruhiro needed to rely on Shihoru more. 

“Saving Merry,” Haruhiro agreed. “That’s our top priority. For now, Ranta comes second. Merry’s probably been taken captive by Forgan. It’s not realistic for us to do anything about them by ourselves. If we’re going to get the Rocks to help us, since they’re going after Arnold of Forgan, we’ll need to lend them a hand, too.” 

Shihoru’s brow creased with worry, and she looked down, but when she noticed Haruhiro’s eyes on her, she nodded slightly. “I think that’s our only choice. If we could have the Rocks attack Forgan... then rescue Merry while they do...” 

“Use the Rocks as a decoy, you mean?” Kuzaku asked. 

“Kuzaku.” Haruhiro lowered his voice. “You’re being too blatant...” 

“Oh. Right.” Kuzaku glanced quickly at the retreat. “But that’s basically what it’d be, right?” 

“Nah, I mean, we can’t do that,” said Haruhiro. “The Rocks are fellow Day Breakers. If we’re going to get their help, we’ll be open about it, bow our heads to them properly, and ask. Naturally, we’ll thank them, too.” 

“What do you think’s happenin’ with Araran?” Yume looked in the direction that Arara was taken. 

“They looked intimidating.” Shihoru touched her lips. 

That was right. If Arara got punished for picking a selfish fight with Forgan, and she got locked up, what would happen to them taking vengeance? If that plot got put on hold, it was going to be a problem. 

Still, there was nothing Haruhiro and his group could do about that. For now, they would have to think things over while watching how events developed. 

And then, someone’s stomach rumbled loudly. 

“Whoa!” Yume’s eyes went wide, and she held her belly. “There’s a surprise. Never knew it could rumble that loud. Y’think some sorta creature’s livin’ in there?” 

“...Ahh.” Kuzaku hung his head. “Man, I’m hungry. And tired.” 

“It shows you’re still alive...” Shihoru murmured. She looked like she was having a tough time, too. 

Haruhiro looked up to the sky and sighed. Ranta. Is it okay for me to trust you, man? Your contemptible face is the only thing coming to mind. Maybe I shouldn’t trust you, after all...? 

Whichever the case, he had to do something about the food situation. 

When Haruhiro went to stand up, Katsuharu came out of his retreat. He was carrying something like a sieve that was full. 

“You all must be hungry. I’ve not much to offer, living in a thatched hut like I do, but eat some of this.” 

Kuzaku put his hands together and looked at the man. “Thanks!” 

Haruhiro and Shihoru looked at one another. Was this okay? It would have to be. It was said you couldn’t fight on an empty stomach, after all. 

The food Katsuharu brought them included some sort of sticky cake made with potatoes or some other vegetable, some sort of dried meat, and some sort of bittersweet dumpling. They were all unfamiliar, but none of them were bad. No one was going to be calling any of them a delicacy, but they seemed nourishing enough. Katsuharu even went and drew a bucket of water for them. He was an awfully caring man. What was more, he crouched down nearby, smiling and seeming to enjoy watching Haruhiro and the others eat. 

“...Um, thank you,” Haruhiro said awkwardly. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” 

“Erm... What about Arara-san? What do you think’s actually going to happen with her?” 

“Well, that’s not for me to decide.” 

“But if you’re her uncle—” Haruhiro began. 

“When it comes to a mere wanderer like me, it’s all the same to the village whether I’m here or not. I wanted to stop my niece before she took action, but I was too late. Now that she has, it’s out of my hands.” 

“That’s awful...” 

“Well, my older brother, one of the heads of the House of Nigi, is not the heartless sort who would make his own daughter commit seppuku because he can’t manage her. So long as she is still alive, she can do anything. Right?” 

“...You figure?” Haruhiro asked. 

“Luckily, as a wanderer, I can abandon this village at any time,” Katsuharu added. 

Oh, so that was it. 

This guy’s probably already made up his mind. No matter what happens, he’ll save his niece, and support her. That’s why he can act so relaxed. 

“Those people.” Katsuharu gestured to the retreat with his chin. He must have meant the Rocks. “They say they’ll go on the move first thing in the morning. If you people intend to follow them, get some sleep.” 

“Right.” 

“Darn, my lower back hurts.” Katsuharu stood up and rubbed his lower back. “Having to worry about the house, and all of that, must be such a pain. 

Even though all of us are born, meet people, part ways, laugh, cry, and die just the same, I can’t help but feel sorry for my brother and his wife. Not that they’d want to hear that from a lowly man like me.” 

Yume was already snoring softly, having fallen asleep while still sitting, using Shihoru’s shoulder as a pillow. Shihoru looked pretty tired, too. When Haruhiro laid Yume down on her side, Shihoru lay down next to her. 

“...Thanks, Haruhiro-kun,” Shihoru said sleepily. 

“No, I should thank you,” Haruhiro said. 

“I’m sure... she’s definitely going to be okay.” 

“Yeah.” 

Kuzaku curled his big body into a ball, shutting his eyes tight, and trying his hardest to fall asleep. No doubt he was worried sick for Merry, and that was keeping him awake. 

In his heart, Haruhiro whispered, I know that feeling. Because I feel the same way.