Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: Volume 2

by Ao Jyumonji

  Very hard.

  Every time he had gone to scout on the armored gob and hobgob, there had been a sickening feeling in Haruhiro’s chest. More than sadness or anger; it had been an unbearable feeling.

  Ever since that day, Haruhiro and the others had almost never returned to the spot where Manato had breathed his last. They wanted to forget the place existed at all.

  “Merry, I’m worried that you might not want to do this. Going to the Cyrene Mines. You’re not forcing yourself, are you? You don’t look like you are, but...”

  “It doesn’t feel... pleasant,” Merry said, as if chewing on each word. “I can’t feel good there. Not now, and probably not ever.”

  “...Of course not.”

  “Still, I need to get over it.” Merry shook her head. “No, I want to get over it. If I don’t, I feel like I can’t move forward. But I’m sure I can’t get over it all by myself. If I have to borrow strength from someone else... I want it to be you guys. Because you said you’re my comrades.”

  For some reason, Haruhiro’s eyes felt hot. No, not for some reason. It was because he was happy.

  Merry was relying on Haruhiro and the others. She was recognizing them as her comrades. Believing in them. And now, she had talked about it with him. More than anything, that made Haruhiro unbearably happy.

  “I may be troubling you,” she said, “but...”

  The way Merry added that makes her seem so sweet, and I want to hug her—is one audacious thing I will definitely not be doing! I couldn’t do it. Besides, Merry probably doesn’t want me to.

  But I did feel she was cute.

  Because I want to protect her? Then again, the question of whether I can protect her or not, that’s doubtful.

  “It’s no trouble, okay?” Haruhiro gave her a smile. I hope I look even somewhat reliable, but it’s probably just not who I am. At the very least, I hope I can reassure Merry even a little.

  “It’s no trouble,” he repeated. “I’ll lend you as much of my strength as you want. I can’t do what I can’t do, but if I can do it—Wait, it’s because I say things like this that I can’t keep up appearances.”

  “Haru, aren’t you fine that way?” she said gently.

  “Am I?” he asked.

  “Thank you,” Merry said in a tiny voice, as if she were embarrassed.

  Whoa, this isn’t good, Haruhiro realized. I felt like I was going to fall for Merry there.

  I won’t, though.

  After all, I’m not good enough for her.

  9. Let Go of Jealousy

  I really do think I’m not suited for being the leader, Haruhiro thought the next morning. I don’t have the personality, or the ability for it. I could try to work on that, but it’s going to be hard.

  Even so, after talking to Merry the night before, Haruhiro had firmed up his resolve. He was going to do his best to be a leader. He might not be able to be a good leader, but he would try to become a passable one, at least.

  And so, as he had declared they would the day before, they had come to the fourth level of the Cyrene Mines—

  “Look. See. Look, look,” Yume said, reaching out over a fence and pointing at something on the other side of it. “Those critters’re pretty darned cute, aren’t they?”

  Right away, Ranta disagreed with her, shouting, “How is that supposed to be cute?!”

  This was the one time Haruhiro had to agree with Ranta.

  The creatures waddling around on the other side of the fence looked similar to pigs. However, they also had a rat-like appearance to them. If you blew a rat up to pig-size, then shaved it bald, it might have looked like this.

  They didn’t know what the kobolds called these things, but volunteer soldiers apparently called them pigrats. It was a fitting name.

  There were a large number of fenced enclosures, and pigrats were being kept in them. No, not just pigrats.

  “Yume thinks they’re cute, though,” Yume said. “Oh, but, those ones over there are cute, too!” She raced over to another enclosure. “...Uwah, now that I’m takin’ a closer look, maybe not.”

  “...Those creatures...” Shihoru shrunk back, trying not to go near the enclosures. The only reason she was still looking at the creatures was out of morbid curiosity. “...They’re obviously gross... I think. Really gross...”

  “Y-Yeah...” Moguzo nodded.

  “You know...” Haruhiro said, taking one glance at the other creatures that weren’t pigrats. The way they looked, he wouldn’t have wanted to look at them directly. “...these things are messed up. I dunno how else to put it: they’re messed up. I feel like I’m looking at something I really shouldn’t look at.”

  “Ah...” Merry winced a bit. “I might understand what you mean. Kind of.”

  The other creatures had no arms or legs. No tail, either. They weren’t long and slim, they were long and fat. They looked like someone had pulled the limbs and tail off a pig and then stretched it out. They were pretty scary. They were called pigworms, apparently. Of course, that was just the name that volunteer soldiers had given them.

  “Hmm,” Ranta said. He reached out with his sword to poke one of the pigworms.

  “Hey.” Haruhiro stopped him right away. “Cut that out, Ranta.”

  “Huh? Shove off. I was just trying to do it. I wouldn’t have done it for real.”

  “If you were trying to do it, how does it follow that you weren’t going to do it for real?” No sooner had the words left Haruhiro’s mouth than he regretted them. It was best to just let whatever Ranta said go, but now he’d gone and given him a serious response.

  “In my mind, it follows just fine,” Ranta said.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Haruhiro muttered.

  “It totally follows. Do you get it?”

  “I get it, I get it.”

  “Fine, explain it to me then,” Ranta demanded.

  “In your mind, it follows just fine,” Haruhiro said.

  “You just repeated exactly what I said!”

  Ignoring Ranta as he ranted, Haruhiro took another peek at the pigworm herd. The way they crawled by twisting their bodies around was probably going to haunt his nightmares. “That’s what kobolds eat, huh...”

  The fourth level of the Cyrene Mines was known as “the farm.”

  This part of it was more of a ranch than a farm, but they grew darkshrooms, holly-fern, and lightflowers, which were the plants that grew around the mine and provided a light source, unusual plants that could grow without sunlight.

  Kobolds were living creatures. If they didn’t eat, they’d die. It seemed that, aside from the lesser kobolds on the first level, they rarely ventured outside, so they needed to be self-sufficient inside the mine.

  The ore veins had long since been exhausted and there was a lot of open space on the fourth level, so this was where they had their food production center.

  “Hide,” Merry said suddenly, making a pressing-downward gesture with her hand.

  Haruhiro, Shihoru, Moguzo and Ranta immediately ducked down, but Yume remained standing all on her own.

  “Huh? What’s up?”

  “—Now’s not the time!” Haruhiro hurriedly grabbed Yume by the arm, pulling her down to a crouch.

  He’d only meant to pull her down that far, but with a “Whah,” Yume landed on her butt. “Owwie...”

  “S-Sorry. Wait, no, actually—” Haruhiro brought a finger to his lips and said, “Shh.” He mouthed the words, Be quiet. Yume seemed to understand and nodded.

  Haruhiro and the others clung close to the fence, staying put for around three minutes maybe.

  Ranta poked his head up over the fence. “—Hmm. They’re gone. I think.”

  “You think...?” Haruhiro slowly poked his head half-way above the fence, looking around the area. There was one elder in the distance, but it had its back to them. It seemed to be going away. “...There’s one there. Let’s hide a bit longer.”

  However, another minute later, when he checked again, another elder was c
oming in their direction.

  “Oh, crap!”

  “Oh, come on,” Ranta sighed. “How long do we have to hide? Maybe we oughta just kill it?”

  “Hmm...” Haruhiro looked at Merry.

  Merry shook her head. “I don’t think we should. From the fourth level down, things are different than on the first three. If we don’t finish it off in an instant, they’ll be all over us in no time.”

  Ranta snorted derisively. “Well, we’ve just gotta finish it in an instant, then.”

  “Don’t make it sound so simple,” Haruhiro said exasperatedly.

  “We might be able to do it,” Shihoru said. “With my magic.”

  “Ah,” Haruhiro opened his eyes wide. “That’s right. Sleepy Shadow.”

  “Yeah. But... If I fail, we’ll be in danger... Maybe we shouldn’t...”

  “Listen, you,” Ranta said with an exasperated look on his face that was endlessly aggravating. “If you worry about what’ll happen if you fail, you can’t even drink water. Because water could always be poisoned. You get what I’m saying? I’ll bet you do. Yeah?”

  If you’re going to make an analogy, at least try to come up with a better one, Haruhiro wanted to say, but he let it go. If he was going to lead this party, letting things go was one of the skills he needed to develop.

  “Shihoru,” he said. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t feel confident, but if you’re feeling up to it, why not try? I mean, you did come up with the idea, after all.”

  Shihoru’s so passive, it’s unusual for her to offer an idea herself. I want to encourage her, he thought.

  Shihoru looked down for some time before finally raising her face. “...Can I try it?”

  Nobody objected.

  After luring the elder within Sleepy Shadow’s 20 meter range, Shihoru poked her face and staff out from behind the fence and started chanting. “Ohm, rel, ect, krom, darsh.”

  The shadow elemental that launched from the tip of her staff wasn’t as fast as when she cast Shadow Beat. But it was quiet. It flew silently, catching the elder.

  It got its face, Haruhiro thought.

  The shadow elemental entered the elder’s body through its nose, ears, and mouth. The elder immediately began to stagger, falling to the ground not long after.

  “Okay!” Haruhiro gave the order, and everyone charged out.

  Attacking a sleeping elder is kind of cowardly, isn’t it? But that’s not something I have time to be thinking about right now. We have to hurry and finish it off quickly.

  Ranta was the one to strike the killing blow. He was always extremely fast at times like this. “Gwahaha! One easy vice! All right, people! Take its stuff!”

  “What’re you giving the orders for?” Haruhiro argued with him without thinking. Oops, I’m not supposed to do that. Let it go. Let it go.

  Unlike the elders of the third level, the elders on the fourth level wore armor with iron plates, carried iron whips, and wore rings made out of iron around their waists. This one’s talisman was a necklace that shone with a bluish silver color. It looked like it was valuable.

  “That was easy-peasy, huh?” Yume said. “Yume kinda feels just a teensy bit sorry for the elder, though. You were great, Shihoru. Gettin’ it with a pew, pew of your magic like that.”

  “Y-Yeah,” Moguzo agreed. “It was easy thanks to you, Shihoru-san.”

  With Yume and Moguzo praising her, Shihoru said “...I-It was no big deal...” in a humble tone.

  “No, really,“ Haruhiro turned to Shihoru, giving her a thumbs-up. “You did perfect. I mean it. If we find an enemy on its own that hasn’t noticed us yet, we know this method will work for sure now.”

  “I was the one who got the kill, you know?” Ranta broke in.

  Okay, just let it go.

  “This elder...” Merry looked down at the elder’s corpse, making the sign of the hexagram. “It wouldn’t be a good idea to leave the body here.”

  “Ahh,” Haruhiro looked to the fence. “Why don’t we shove it in there? Inside the fence.”

  Now that it had been stripped of its stuff, Moguzo and Haruhiro worked together to dump the elder’s corpse into the enclosure with the pigrats. Ranta ought to have helped, too, but Haruhiro decided it wasn’t worth the hassle to say anything.

  Soon after they finished, something horrifying happened.

  “Whoa...” Haruhiro said out loud.

  The pigrats oinked loudly, gathering around the dead elder’s corpse and then...No way, they wouldn’t eat it, would they...?

  Yes, way. They ate it. They went into a feeding frenzy, fighting each other over the carcass.

  Yume mumbled, “It’s the food chain...” or something like that, but was that really the issue? That wasn’t, was it?

  “...Ohhh,” Shihoru clutched her staff, looking like she was ready to faint at any moment.

  Merry looked nauseous, covering her hand with her mouth. Moguzo stood there in a daze.

  “Actually, this is convenient for us, isn’t it?” Ranta was the only one with a strange grin on his face as he watched the ghastly sight... but... “No matter how many of them we kill, the pigrats’ll dispose of the bodies for us. Though these pigrats’ll eventually end up in a kobold’s belly, so that’s kind of gross when you think about it. Well, we’re not the ones who’ll be cannibals here, so it’s not our problem. Ha ha ha ha ha...”

  “Your legs, they’re shaking, you know?” Haruhiro pointed out.

  Ranta stammered, “H-Huhhh?” trying to sound intimidating, but he wasn’t scary at all. He looked at bit pale. “I-I’m not shaking. H-How am I shaking? Y-You’re the one that’s shaking, and I just look like I’m shaking because you’re shaking, see?”

  “What do you mean, ‘see’?”

  “Shut up! See is... See is, oh, I know, the ‘C’ in cruelty!”

  “If it’s making you sick, you don’t have to force yourself to watch...”

  “Y-You moron,” Ranta said. “It’s not making me sick, okay? This is nothing. Actually, I love this kind of stuff. When you’re a dread knight, erotic and grotesque stuff just comes with the territory.”

  “Grotesque, maybe. Erotic, on the other hand, I’m just not seeing how it’s relevant here.”

  “I want it to be relevant! I’m a guy, okay?!”

  Still, it seemed wrong getting rid of the bodies this way, and because the pigrats were in such a frenzy over the unexpected feast, a number of elders rushed over, forcing the party to hide again. Hiding wasn’t going to be enough, though. They needed to get away, or they’d be in trouble.

  However, if they were to try to move, even with the high fences of the pigrat and pigworm enclosures making it easy to hide, there were a lot more elders patrolling the area now. On the other hand, the darkshroom, holly-fern, and lightflower farm had no fences, making it easy to see them, and there were a good number of low workers and workers out in the fields.

  Haruhiro and the others ended up sneaking their way to a desolate corner of the fourth level where there were just empty enclosures with no creatures in them yet.

  “...Maybe it’s going to be hard to work on the fourth level?” Haruhiro asked, leaning back against one of the fences.

  Merry thought for a moment then said, “The conditions here might be bad. We also—Ah...”

  Merry stopped short with an oops expression on her face. She might have been worried that by referring to her previous comrades as “we,” she might offend her current comrades, Haruhiro and the others. Haruhiro was about to tell her not to worry about that, but someone beat him to the punch.

  “What? You don’t need to be so touchy about that.” It was Ranta, of all people. “Do we look so small and petty? If anything, we’re big-hearted. And, me, I’m wild, too. Don’t fall in love with me, okay?”

  “Yeah. I won’t,” Merry responded immediately.

  “Trip!” When Ranta did his exaggerated facefaulting routine, Merry chuckled a little.

  Feeling a twinge of annoyance... />
  Huh? Haruhiro thought. Am I feeling jealous, maybe? Jealous of Ranta, at that...?

  Haruhiro cleared his throat, bringing his mind back to the task at hand. “—Well, how about the fifth level, then?”

  Merry responded cautiously. “It’s better than the fourth level, probably.”

  “Mhm, mhm,” Yume nodded lightly.

  “...In that case,” Shihoru said hesitantly, “should we go down... to the fifth level?”

  Moguzo exhaled deeply through his nose.

  Ranta grinned. “It’s decided, then.”

  10. You’re Supposed to be Lame

  When they descended the well’s rope ladder to level five, the first thing that struck Haruhiro was—It’s hot.

  It had been chilly, if anything, in the first four levels, but things were different here in the fifth. The temperature was clearly higher.

  The reason for that soon became apparent. The tunnels of the fifth level were lined with furnaces, large and small. The ore they mined was brought here to be smelted. The fifth level was the refinery.

  Of course, that meant there were kobold workers busily at work at the furnaces that were operational. That said, not all of the furnaces were currently in operation. Some furnaces weren’t turned on, and there was what looked like a place for the workers to take breaks.

  Some places were full of kobolds, while others were quieter. Every once in a while, an elder or worker would wander along. There were good places where that happened, too, which were perfect for volunteer soldiers.

  Merry knew some of those good areas, so Haruhiro and the others decided to take up positions around one.

  It was at the end of a tunnel, but it wasn’t a dead end: for some reason, the path looped back around in a circle. It was a long way from any of the operational furnaces, but the workers’ break area and elders’ watch post weren’t far from it. Maybe they were using it as a place to go for a walk to relax, because apparently kobolds showed up here once in a while.

  Haruhiro and the others lay in wait for them.

  ...They’re not coming, he thought.