by Ao Jyumonji
1. One Quarter of One Day
“Huff... Hahh... Huff... Hahh...”
Haruhiro ran. He dashed, panting.
He glanced behind him. —They’re there.
There.
There.
There.
Chasing after him.
They were wearing large white sheets with a single eyehole cut out of them. Well, it was something like a long poncho. They had a torso, a head, and two arms and legs. It would have been fair to say that their physique was remarkably similar to a human’s. Just, there was only one eye peeking out from their eyehole.
It was never just one of those white-sheeted things. There were always several of them.
He didn’t need to bother counting. He already knew the number. Six of them. Five carrying spears, and then another carrying a sword and shield. The spears were unremarkable aside from their white poles, but each sword had a slightly purplish luster to it, and each shield looked almost like a mirror. Their swords had, for some reason, been given the name Lightning Sword Dolphin, and the shields were called Mirror Shields based on their appearance.
Someone had started calling them—well, no, not someone, it was those guys who’d started calling them it—cultists.
The spear bearers were standard cultists, all of which they had nicknamed Pansuke. The sword bearer was an elite cultist, for which they used the nickname Tori-san. Those names had stuck.
“Damn, I’m tired...” Haruhiro muttered.
Even as he grumbled, Haruhiro kept running without letting up. If he didn’t keep running at full-tilt, the Pansukes and Tori-san would catch him. If that happened, Haruhiro was a mere thief. He’d be ganged up on, and almost certainly killed in an instant. So, he had to run.
Run away, he thought. For now, just run. Run like mad. It’s the only option.
Beneath a sky with deep blue, a slightly reddish blue, purple, orange, yellow, red, and all the colors in between scattered across it, he raced as hard as he could through the white town.
—A town.
Yes. This was a town, or at the very least something of that variety. On either side of the roads paved with white stone, there were box-like buildings made, unsurprisingly, of white stone. No miraculous convergence of coincidences would ever have created something like this naturally. It was clear that someone, some intelligent beings, had created them.
“Augh! Enough!” Haruhiro shouted.
Sweat got into his right eye and stung. He got an urge to look back again, but he resisted it. Without doing anything unnecessary, he ran. With one eye closed, he ran.
“Hah... Hahh... Hah... Hah, hah...!”
It’s that corner. Turn there.
He practically dove left around the corner, then kept running down the slightly narrow path.
The footsteps of the cultists were closing in on him. His stomach hurt, as if it was being squeezed tight.
Haruhiro yelled as loudly as possible. Or rather, he couldn’t stop himself from shouting, and his voice came out on its own. His upper body was so upright that he felt like it might bend over backwards.
He pumped his arms. Pumped them as hard as he could.
Should I raise my thighs higher? Will that just tire me out more? Oh, I don’t know anymore. It hurts. I should never have gone along with it, this stupid plan.
“Crown Break!” Tada shouted.
They’re here. Finally. They came.
Without stopping, Haruhiro turned back to look. From a building off to his right, a man wearing glasses and a priest’s uniform had leapt down, attacking the cultists. Tori-san, specifically. The man in priest’s clothes had a warhammer that looked stupidly heavy, and he swung it down with a satisfying thud on the cultist Tori-san’s head.
Tori-san was a pretty high-level swordsman, a cut above the Pansukes, but he hadn’t seen this coming at all. He took the full force of the blow.
Of course, he wasn’t fine after taking a blow to the head from that warhammer. The cultists ponchos were highly resistant to bladed attacks, and could absorb impacts to a certain degree, but that wasn’t going to be good enough here. Tori-san collapsed with his head caved in.
With their leader suddenly down, the Pansukes panicked.
“And here!” rang out a voice that sounded like exactly what you’d expect from a handsome guy.
The ambush wasn’t done yet.
A man who wore armor with a hexagram engraved on it jumped up into the air to follow the man in the priest uniform, Tada.
“Huh?” Haruhiro stopped despite himself. Why? Why did he have to jump up? Couldn’t he just drop down?
But Haruhiro knew the answer to that question. This was not a man you could apply reason to. He was well aware of that, but he was still appalled.
“This is where I stylishly finish this!”
Tokimune, the paladin who led the Tokkis, flashed his white teeth as he reached the apex of his jump, then plunged downwards.
They had managed to get the Pansukes flustered, but he’d wasted it. The Pansukes thrust out their spears towards Tokimune.
Aw, crap. That’s not good. He’s gonna get skewered, thought Haruhiro. Only he didn’t.
“Dance like a panther!” Tokimune rotated his entire body along with his sword and shield, knocking the Pansukes’ spears aside. “And sting like a whale!”
Stepping on Pansuke A’s head, he kicked off and landed a roundhouse on Pansuke B, then landed on the ground and closed one eye.
“I settled that, huh,” Tokimune said, grinning.
“Well, you haven’t gotten run through yet, at least,” Haruhiro shot back, making a funny joke.
Tada, the man in the priest outfit, slammed his warhammer into Pansuke C’s flank and sent him flying. “You didn’t nail anything!”
“Tch, tch, tch.” Tokimune calmly clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “The battle’s already settled, you know?”
“Heh!” A middle-aged guy wearing a ponytail, an eyepatch, and a tight-fitting leather jumpsuit, a cringe-worthy combination, leapt out from an alleyway to bury his single-edged sword in Pansuke D’s eye.
With hardly any delay, out followed a woman who, judging by her outfit, looked like a mage, but was gigantic in more ways than one and dual-wielded a staff and sword. Her nickname was Ms. Giantess. Mimori, also known as Mimorin, first struck Pansuke E in the side of the face with her staff, then without missing a beat stabbed her sword through his eye.
“Good luck, yeah! Kill them all!” A petite girl with blonde hair and blue eyes stuck her head out from the alley and cheered them on in a mix of Japanese and English.
Anna-san might peek out, but she wouldn’t get involved. She was essentially a cheerleader.
“Yahoo! Let me get in on this, too!” Kikkawa cried. The uncommonly easygoing warrior jumped off the roof, probably imitating Tokimune. It was fine up to the point where he danced in midair and struck a pose.
Well, no, it wasn’t fine. It was completely pointless.
The easygoing warrior Kikkawa tried to pounce on Pansuke A, the one whose face Tokimune had landed on and thrown off-balance. Or that was what he’d seemed to be going for, but while he was striking a pose, Tada grunted and swung his warhammer. It knocked Pansuke A flying until he slammed into the wall of the building, and Kikkawa’s bastard sword slashed through nothing but air.
“Ahaha, Tadacchi! You stole my kill!” Kikkawa cried.
“Wahahahahahh!” Tokimune shouted.
Then a piece of trash jumped onto Pansuke B, which Tokimune had knocked down with his roundhouse kick but was still trying to get up.
“Mine, mine, mine!” That bloodthirsty piece-of-trash-to-end-all-pieces-of-trash kicked Pansuke B to the groun
d, then held him down and went in for the killing blow. “For Skullhell!”
“Out of the way.” Tada kicked the piece of trash out of his way, then mercilessly brought his warhammer down on Pansuke B’s head, splattering it all over the inside of his poncho.
“Noooooooooooooooooooo!” The piece of trash known as Ranta sat down and wailed.
Well, at least he’s not crying.
“What the hell?!” Ranta screamed. “I was gonna off that one! You stupid moron!”
“Huh?” Tada pressed his left index finger against his bloodstained warhammer. “A stupid moron? You calling me that?”
“...No, not you,” Ranta said. “I’m sorry. Seriously, seriously, sorry. I didn’t mean you, really. No... F-Forgive me!” The piece of trash quickly got down and performed a kowtow. “It was just the way it came out, you see! Spur of the moment, and all that! I didn’t really mean it!”
“Well, good. This time, I’ll let it slide.” Tada shouldered his warhammer. “Next time, I kill you.”
“Y-Yes, siiiiir! Th-Th-Th-Thank you kindly!” Ranta stuttered.
Is he stupid? Haruhiro wondered, but he also wouldn’t put it past Tada to bludgeon Ranta with that warhammer without hesitation. Apologizing was probably the right call. Seriously, the Tokkis were off the charts in all sorts of ways.
“Wow...” Yume, who had been hiding nearby, came out with her eyes wide. “It’s already over. Sure was quick, huh.”
“It sure was.” Shihoru came out from behind Yume, glancing around.
“No chance for us to show off...” The lanky Kuzaku came out from the alley.
“It was too fast,” Merry said with a sigh. She was standing behind Kuzaku diagonally.
“Well, when we go to work, it’s just this easy, am I right?” Tokimune flashed his all-too-white teeth and gave them a thumbs up. “The real fight’s just getting started though, right, Haruhiro?”
“Right.” Haruhiro kicked Ranta in the backside. “Come on, get ready.”
“Ow! Hey! You’re just a Haruhiro, how dare you kick—”
“Meow!” Yume nocked an arrow. “It’s coming!”
Noise. There was a loud noise coming their way. From the direction of the corner Haruhiro had just come around. Here it was.
Taller than Mimorin the Giantess, taller than 190-centimeter-tall Kuzaku. More than double their size, probably. It was nearly four meters tall. It had a lion-like head, but with only one eye.
“Bwahaha! Time for me to show my stuff!” Ranta picked up Tori-san’s Lightning Sword Dolphin. “Here I go! With my usual Super Stunning Strategy!”
“That name...” Shihoru looked thoroughly unimpressed with it.
“Whoop!” The arrow Yume let loose shot towards the four-meter-class white giant’s one eye, and—did not hit it, instead scratching the side of its face. “Ahhh! So close!”
Haruhiro took a deep breath, letting the stress out of his shoulders, then glanced to Tokimune. “Okay, let’s do the usual.”
“Haha!” Tokimune gave a friendly laugh and slapped Haruhiro on the back. “Okay, okay. Let’s do this like we always do.”
“Delm, hel, en,” Mimorin began to chant as she drew elemental sigils with her staff while still holding her drawn sword in her left hand. “Ig, arve.”
She was a former warrior, and it seemed she was still more used to fighting in close quarters, but she was a mage now. This was the most basic of basic spells in Arve Magic, Fireball. The elemental formed a ball of fire larger than a person’s fist, then sped towards the white giant. The white giant made no attempt to avoid it. The ball of fire struck the white giant in the chest, and... vanished.
“Don’t get stepped on!” Haruhiro shouted an order he realized everyone already knew even as he said it, then looked to Kuzaku. “Kuzaku, you’re up front. Also, Tokkis, form the front line, please.”
“We’re on it!” Tokimune banged on his shield with his right fist while still holding his sword in that hand. “Kikkawa, Inui, Tada, let’s make this flashy!”
“Righty-o!” Kikkawa called.
“Heh... So be it!” Inui added.
“Yeah,” Tada shot back. “I’ll show you I’m the strongest.”
Tokimune went, followed by Kikkawa, Inui, Tada, and a silent Kuzaku.
Haruhiro raised his hips up and down. He didn’t change position. Yume, Shihoru, and Merry took up positions right behind Haruhiro. Anna-san and Mimorin came over next to him, too.
I’m sure I have sleepy eyes right now, he thought. His breathing wasn’t ragged, and he was feeling pretty calm, more or less.
Tokimune, Kikkawa, Inui, Tada, and Kuzaku had formed a horizontal line with as much space between them as possible. That said, this wasn’t exactly a wide road. It was a little over three meters wide, maybe.
Should we have chosen a different road? Haruhiro wondered. But if they had, then it wouldn’t have worked as well for ambushing the cultists and taking them out quickly.
This time the cultists had formed a group with a white giant, so there were, broadly speaking, two options. Give up, or come up with a plan.
If it had just been Haruhiro and his group, they would have done the former. Ranta (the piece of trash) could have hollered all he wanted, but Haruhiro would have used all of his authority as leader to get the group to retreat.
But because, for better and for worse, they were working with the Tokkis, it wasn’t that easy for him anymore. If Haruhiro said, Hey, this is dangerous, let’s not do it, the Tokkis weren’t the type to listen to him and back down quietly.
In the end, they came up with a plan where Haruhiro would act as a decoy, running around to separate the cultists from the white giant. Once the cultists were finished off, then they’d sort out the giant.
Well, I’ve gotten used to it, Haruhiro thought. A month had passed since they’d found this new area, NA for short, and discovered the Dusk Realm.
A lot’s happened in that time, he thought. Too much, really. No, maybe not, I guess?
Has it? Yeah. It has.
At least, by Haruhiro’s standards, it had been a rather eventful month. It was no exaggeration to say that the Tokkis had been around half of the reason for that.
After all, they had found this place together. Actually, Haruhiro and his party had found the entrance first, but it was generally thought the band of jokers, the Tokkis, had discovered it, while the Goblin Slayers, Haruhiro and his crew, had just tagged along. But ever since then, many things had happened to make them all closer. That was why, because Haruhiro and the others had remained too worried to go on their own, the two groups had ended up going to explore the Dusk Realm regularly together without really having discussed it.
This and that had happened. Every day, sometimes multiple times in a day, there would be some incident or another. After all, the Tokkis were nuts.
Unless Haruhiro, the one with pretensions of having common sense, was actually the one who was crazy? Were the Tokkis normal? He had worried a bit about that, but it was all quite ridiculous.
The Tokkis were crazy. Haruhiro was sane. Ranta aside, there was a nigh-unfillable trench between Haruhiro’s party and the Tokkis. No, not nigh unfillable, completely unfillable. It couldn’t be done. No way, no how. Once he started thinking that way, it actually made things a little easier on him. Though only a little.
If he knew it couldn’t be filled, he didn’t have to try. It was pointless to.
He tried not to think, Why are things like this? He always ended up thinking it anyway, but he didn’t let himself agonize over it. There was no helping it. It was just the kind of people they were. Once he accepted that, if he just understood it, he could anticipate what they were likely to do in a given situation. That way, he didn’t have to get upset or surprised every time they showed their insanity.
Other than that, they were certainly not incompetent, so he could use them well. In point of fact, while they were a little too biased towards offense, they were a real force to be reckoned with in com
bat. Tokimune and Tada, in particular, were first-rate attackers. Tokimune was a paladin, so that was fine for him, but even if he was a former warrior, Tada was supposed to be a priest...
Anyhow, if they could just get along with the Tokkis, they could do things together that Haruhiro’s party couldn’t do alone. It wouldn’t be impossible for them to get through situations that seemed deadly.
Also, and this was the most important point in a way, they could make money. Even splitting half their earnings with the Tokkis, Haruhiro and his group were earning far more efficiently than they ever could have if they’d worked for it slowly and steadily by themselves.
“Jess, yeen, sark, kart, fram, dart!” Shihoru cast Thunderstorm, and a bundle of lightning struck the white giant.
There was a pretty tremendous noise, and the white giant’s entire body convulsed. Its feet stopped. Of course, it would start walking again soon, and even if it was only walking, the white giant was huge. Its legs were long. It would close in on them with massive strides.
“Hey, hey, heeeey!” Tokimune beat his shield to provoke it. “Come on, come on, come onnnnn!”
“Go, go, go, go!” The white giant swung its fist down at Tokimune.
“Nimbly!” Tokimune leapt back and away.
“Go, go!” The white giant swung its fist again.
“Spin!” Tokimune danced out of the way.
“Go!” The white giant reached out with both arms to grab Tokimune.
“Whee!” Tokimune did a backflip to get away.
“Rahh!” Tada immediately slammed the white giant’s arm with his warhammer.
“Go, go...” The white giant pulled back its arm, turning its one eye on Tada.
Tada, intentionally no doubt, leisurely rested his warhammer on his shoulder and flipped his middle finger at the white giant. He probably meant something like, Come get me, you piece of shit. It wasn’t clear if the white giant understood the gesture. That was uncertain, but the white giant bent its knees and lowered its hips. It was getting ready to jump.
“Get back!” Haruhiro shouted.
That probably could have gone without saying, but he shouted it out just to be sure.
“Yeah, everyone knows that! Skip it! You don’t have to say it!” I don’t want them thinking that stuff, or “We already know that, you idiot,” but... Even if Haruhiro was going to get called an idiot, he had to do it. That was Haruhiro’s stance.
