by Ao Jyumonji
He had started to feel like he could get to sleep, so Haruhiro decided to turn back to the tent. “This is all I amount to, really...”
As he walked, he laughed to himself. Day in and day out, he thought the same sorts of things over and over, wracking his brains over them, and then he would notice he just didn’t care anymore. He would start to get into the mindset of, Well, I’ll work hard again tomorrow.
“You could say I’m not making any real progress... but still, it’s not so bad. I’m no one important, so I have to question if it’s that easy to make progress...”
The party as a whole is making steady progress, and managing to turn a profit, so it’s fine, right? he thought. Yeah. It’s fine. I should just accept that. That’s what I’ll do.
My sweet tent is just around the corner now. Not that there’s anything sweet about it.
Hey, wait.
Someone came out of the tent. No, not someone—it could only be Ranta or Kuzaku.
It’s Kuzaku, Haruhiro noticed. He’s as tall as ever, even if his posture isn’t that good. Not a surprise, really. Height doesn’t change that easily. That’s obvious.
If that had been all, it wouldn’t have mattered—Oh, what’s this, he woke up, hmm?—but another person came out of the neighboring tent, so it was a big deal.
Well, no, not a big deal, but Kuzaku came out of the guys’ tent, and Merry came out of the girls’ tent at almost exactly the same time. Could that really be a coincidence? Maybe it was an inevitability? It was hard to say.
“...I can’t ask them...” Haruhiro ducked into the shadow of a nearby tent. He had immediately hidden himself, though he hadn’t intended to.
Is there anything wrong with hiding? Not really, no. But still. I really shouldn’t.
He stuck his face out halfway, watching the two of them.
Why do I have to do this? It’s like I’m peeping. It’s not good. It really isn’t. But still. I have to admit, I’m kinda curious. Of course I am. I mean, I’m the leader, right? Maybe that doesn’t matter? No, but it’s happening inside the party, isn’t it? You can’t say it’s absolutely none of my business, right? I dunno. Maybe it isn’t?
They were saying something. Merry was looking downwards a little.
I wonder what the hell they’re talking about. Damn it. I can’t hear.
“Oh...” Haruhiro finally let out a strange groan.
Kuzaku had grabbed Merry’s arm—no, her sleeve. He pulled on it and they walked off. Merry didn’t resist. Still looking down, she followed him.
Ohh. So she’s going. She’s going to go. Off together. Ohh. I see. So that’s how it is...
“I saw it,” Haruhiro murmured.
Well, whatever.
That’s right.
I’m A-OK with it, you know?
It’s not like I haven’t seen this coming for a while. Yeah. I did, okay? It was practically a sure thing. How far have they gone? That I’m not sure of, and I have no intention of finding out, because I don’t want to find out, but I’m damn sure that something has happened between them, at least. I’m sure a fair bit has happened. So, please, just go ahead.
Do whatever you want!
Yeah!
Like it’s any of my business!
I mean, if anything, I’d be rooting for you, okay?! I will, you know?!
If you’d say something, that is!
If you’d just be honest and tell me...
I kind of think they should come out and announce it, you know...
“Hahhhh...” Haruhiro let out a deep sigh, sitting down on the ground and holding his chest. He felt like he could cry.
It’s a shock.
Why? Why am I so shocked by it? Because they’re being secretive? Tell me! Say something! Don’t you trust me?! Is that it? I don’t think it’s quite that. Even if I’d rather they didn’t hide it, it’s not exactly the easiest thing to announce. It’s not like I can’t see it that way.
”Actually, the two of us are going out!”
Just suddenly saying that wouldn’t be like Kuzaku, and it wouldn’t be like Merry, either. Y’know, it’s just not in their personalities. Besides, their relationship may be slowly growing deeper, there may not be any clear line, or a definite form that it’s taken. Maybe they both feel bad about keeping quiet about it to their comrades, but they just can’t bring themselves to say anything. They may not know how to say it themselves. There could be all sorts of things going on. There must be.
Besides they have, what—feelings? For each other? So, they’re mutually attracted?
“Urghhhh...”
There’s a pain in my chest. This is agony. What is this? —Well, anyway, if they’re going to be in, what, love? Something like that? A romantic relationship? Mutual love? That’s between the two of them, and they’re free to do it.
They’re absolutely free to do it. No one has any right to get in their way. Anyone who gets in the way of love deserves to be kicked to death by a horse!
That was what Haruhiro thought. He really did think that from the bottom of his heart.
So, why?
Is that really the reason they’re doing this?
It was hard to accept it, and he didn’t want to accept it, and he felt like it was best not to, but in the end, that was probably what was going on here.
No matter what he said, Haruhiro had rather liked Merry. In a plain and simple way—a truly plain and simple way, a way so plain and simple that it suited him—he’d had a one-sided crush on her.
Naturally, I never really thought, even the slightest bit, that I could make Merry like me back. I had no expectation of that. I can say that definitively. That was why I never wanted to think that I was in love with Merry. I tried not to think about it. I mean, it feels so empty and meaningless.
Even so, he had probably loved her.
If he ran a thought experiment like this, he could see it.
Take Yume or Shihoru, his comrades like Merry, for example. Imagine Yume or Shihoru had gotten together with someone in the party. When that happened, would he feel this pain in his chest? Would it hurt like this?
Probably not.
Shihoru and Ranta—if it were a pairing like that, it would be a pretty big surprise. But he’d just be really surprised, and he might worry about what would happen in the future, but it would surely end at that. The same with Yume and Ranta. If it were Yume and Kuzaku, or Shihoru and Kuzaku, it would be unexpected, but Oh, I see, I hope you find happiness, try not to break up, okay? It’d be a pain to deal with the fallout, would be about his reaction to it.
It was only because it was Merry.
Whether it was Kuzaku she hooked up with, or anyone else, Haruhiro would probably always have been in shock. Because he had been pretty seriously in love with Merry.
“I see... So that’s what it was...” Haruhiro looked vacantly up into the many-colored sky.
A hole opened up in his chest which had been weighed down and tormented by pain for a while now. Because it was a hole, there was nothing there, just the wind blowing through.
Haruhiro’s heart was broken.
Or rather, it had been broken for a while now.
3. With All My Heart
—And? So what if it had been? Did that mean anything?
It didn’t. There was nothing he could do about it.
Haruhiro’s emotions had nothing to do with the way they all lived day to day. His feelings had no influence on that.
He had settled those feelings now, or comes to terms with them, you could say. In fact, all his frustration had evaporated at this point. He didn’t even care what was going on between Merry and Kuzaku anymore.
Well, it hadn’t gotten quite to the point where he could think, I wish them both the best, but, Sure, fine, do whatever you want. Oh, by the way, you may think you’re keeping it quiet, but I know—
Maybe?
Yeah, honestly, he couldn’t think that either.
They thought it was a secret, but he knew. What c
ould he do to resolve that gap? Should he try to resolve it at all? He wasn’t sure.
It was awkward.
So, when the idea of Let’s go back to Alterna for a little while came up, it was a huge help.
He had saved up a good amount of money, so it was about time for him to learn at least one new skill, and he wanted to do some shopping, too.
Also, he wanted to face himself properly. Or rather, he wanted some time. Sorting out his feelings, and all that stuff, it wasn’t that easy!
Over the course of about two days, they traveled from the Dusk Realm Settlement, passing through the Lonesome Field Outpost, then crossing the Quickwind Plains, to Alterna.
They parted there for a time. Haruhiro went to the thieves’ guild, where he spent seven days learning Stealth, the ultimate thieving skill. He had debated whether to take the skill Air Throw from the art of fighting and killing instead, but as the party’s plain and boring leader who doubled as its scout, what he really wanted was the full set of skills that would let him conceal his presence and not be detected by others.
He paid 20 gold to the guild for it. That wasn’t cheap—it was expensive, actually—but if he didn’t learn it properly, he would be missing out. Besides, Haruhiro’s mentor Barbara was super strict, so there was no chance of her letting him cut corners.
“I thought I was going to die...” Haruhiro moaned.
This time, without any joking or exaggeration, he had been told to die. To become a corpse.
Stealth was composed of what could broadly be categorized into three techniques:
The first, to eliminate your presence—Hide.
The second, to move with your presence eliminated—Swing.
The third, to utilize all of your senses to detect the presences of others—Sense.
When he’d begun with Hide, the first stage, Barbara had ordered Haruhiro, Die! and then mercilessly punished him when he couldn’t do it well enough. She’d broken two, maybe three bones, then forced him to train at using Hide in that state.
There was this one person with a shady background, a former thief who had now become a priest. When someone was injured at the thieves’ guild, he would come to heal them, but it was still questionable whether she should be driving her students to the point of nearly passing out in extreme agony. It was just cruel.
As Barbara-sensei told it, if she didn’t break him in under these extreme conditions, he wouldn’t learn properly. She was doing this all for him. He ought to be crying tears of gratitude.
As a matter of fact, it was a trial he couldn’t get through without shedding tears. He could see how what Barbara was saying had some truth to it. However, if he had made one misstep, Haruhiro might have died. It was scary.
Having borne through it had paid off, though. The basics of Stealth had now thoroughly seeped into Haruhiro’s head and body and would never leave them. Now, even when he was just idly wandering through Alterna in the evening, he would catch himself using Hide, Swing, and Sense without intending to. It was a little creepy, if he did say so himself.
You’ve got an aptitude for this, Barbara had said, offering him a rare compliment. You must really be suited to this line of work.
“Well...” Haruhiro smiled a little as he melded into the crowds of the marketplace. “I was glad to hear that, yeah...”
Even though it’s for being a thief, you know? he thought. It goes without saying, but a thief is someone who steals things. A robber.
Apparently, the thieves’ guild had its origins in a secret society of thieves, Black Widow, who’d worked behind the scenes in the Kingdom of Arabakia. When Arabakia had advanced into the frontier, Black Widow had offered to assist the Royal Army in exchange for the release of their imprisoned comrades. This offer had been accepted, and some of those former prisoners who’d been sent to certain death as scouts in the frontier had gone on to create the thieves’ guild.
Quite the heroic tale, really, Haruhiro thought. Is it because of those origins that the thieves’ guild’s training is so rough? Or is Barbara-sensei just a sadist?
Whichever the case might be, a thief was still a thief. Some of them misused the skills they had acquired in the thieves’ guild to indulge in a life of endless larceny. Haruhiro hadn’t thought much about it before becoming a thief, or rather, he hadn’t thought about it at all, but when he said, I’m a thief, it made more than a few people furrow their brows. Especially those living normal lives in Alterna.
That’s just prejudice, he might try to explain. Most of the thieves in the thieves’ guild are volunteer soldiers, and they don’t steal anything. But the art of thieving still had skills like Picking, Burglary, and even Pickpocket, all of which had practical applications. If one were so inclined, a thief could turn to robbery at any time. It was hard to blame people for being wary.
“It’s not a respected trade, I guess,” Haruhiro murmured.
He liked skulking around and doing reconnaissance. It suited him, to the point that he thought it was his calling.
But a thief, huh...
“Maybe they should have changed the name...”
When the guild was formed, they wouldn’t have had to call themselves thieves. They should have gone with something else. Or did our predecessors who founded the thieves’ guild take pride in the fact that they were thieves? No, but is that something you’d take pride in?
“The thieves’ guild has no code, so someone could even start up another guild... No, not that I’d do that, of course,” he murmured. “Won’t someone else do it for me?”
If someone did, Haruhiro would join that guild in a second.
I’d be a bit sad to break off my master-and-apprentice relationship with Barbara-sensei, maybe? Maybe not? I mean, Sensei’s scary.
Well, it wasn’t as if he was seriously considering it. It didn’t really matter that much.
Ranta had said he’d be spending six days learning a dark fighting skill, Missing. Shihoru had said she’d be spending five days on Shadow Pond, which belonged to her main focus, Darsh Magic, and then two days trying to learn the Kanon Magic spell Ice Globe. Yume had seemed to have something in mind, and she’d planned to spend a total of seven days on skills like Hunting, Tracking, Pit Trap, and Bear Trap.
Because Merry couldn’t use light magic in the Dusk Realm, she had chosen to spend five days learning the self-defense skill Revenge, while Kuzaku had decided to spend six days learning the defensive swordsmanship techniques Guard and Tug of War.
Haruhiro, Shihoru, and Yume had spent seven days on training, Ranta and Kuzaku six, and Merry five. As for the Tokkis, Anna-san and Tada had finally learned Sacrament. The others had each worked hard on their own training, then used their leftover time to do whatever. Tomorrow everyone would be meeting back up.
Ranta was probably in Celestial Alley around now, womanizing. Haruhiro didn’t know much about it, but Alterna had brothels... Was that what you’d call them? Places where you paid money for women to be with you, and there was no shortage of people who patronized them.
In fact, Ranta had invited him to come along once. When he’d refused, Ranta had snapped at him. He’d apparently lacked the guts to go alone, and had been trying to drag Haruhiro with him. If he’d wanted to go, he should have just held his head high and done it. However, Ranta just hadn’t been able to push himself to take that step, and he no doubt still hadn’t gone. He was probably at a bar with girls who would pour his drinks for him, drowning his sorrows, or out hitting on girls or something.
Merry and Kuzaku were—
Well, you know? They’re probably off somewhere together. Of course they would be! They seem to be going out, I mean. I wonder if they’re doing it. Not that I mind. Please, build a wonderful family for yourselves. Am I getting ahead of myself? Well, it could happen eventually. I feel like that could be a good thing...? Maybe...?
The bell began to toll. It was the bell for six o’clock in the evening. The time-keeping bell in Alterna started ringing every two hours at six
o’clock in the morning. At six o’clock in the evening, it would toll seven times to inform people of the coming of night, then it would go to sleep until the next day. Shops in the marketplace would begin to close, while Celestial Alley would become more lively.
Haruhiro stopped in front of the Yorozu Deposit Company. “Hey.”
“You late, yeah!” Anna-san said, puffing her cheeks up angrily and jumping. “Maybe not, yeah?! Because you not actually late, yeah?! But, for date, the man has to come early?! Yeah!”
Haruhiro bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”
“You not acting with straightness, yeah?!”
“...You mean sincerity.”
“With sincerity, yeah!”
“Oh, I get it,” Haruhiro said. She meant being straight with her, huh? I mean, I thought she was talking about the other kind of straightness. How embarrassing.
Haruhiro hesitantly looked up at the tall girl who towered over Anna-san. “...Hey.”
“Yeah.” Mimorin smiled—maybe? Her expression never changed much, so it was hard to tell. “I’ve wanted to see you.”
Her words were direct enough there was no way to misunderstand. She was so direct that it made his stomach hurt.
“...I see,” he murmured.
“You, Haruhiro?” she demanded.
“Huh, me?”
“Did you want to see me, too?”
“Um...”
Haruhiro hung his head. It made him want to give a diplomatic response. If he did, that would have been easier. For the moment, at least. But he couldn’t do that.
Haruhiro raised his face, looking Mimorin in the eyes. “Maybe not so much.”
“Gasp,” she said.
“Saying that in a deadpan voice doesn’t help...”
“I’m very hurt. My heart is broken.”
“There, there, yeah.” Anna-san rubbed Mimorin’s back, or rather her butt. He could see the tears welling up in Mimorin’s eyes, and even Haruhiro had to be taken aback by that.
“No, hold on—h-huh? Where’s Kikkawa? He was supposed to be here today, too...”
