Towards a Glory Not Worth Taking

by Ao Jyumonji

  How had Akira-san survived? Hadn’t he occasionally been forced to make harsh, even cold decisions? Hadn’t he grown stronger because he could do that, and so he’d survived?

  Haruhiro turned back, and then, as casually as he could manage, he asked Gogh, “What do you think our losses will be?”

  “Oh, you’re that type, huh.” Gogh raised one eyebrow. “That’s a little bit unexpected.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had taken you for the emotional type. I don’t know you that well, so that was just my impression. If you’re able to calmly calculate losses, you might actually be more suited to be a commander than I would have thought.”

  “...You still haven’t answered my question, though.”

  “It’s luck.” Gogh spun his index finger in a circle. “If our luck is bad, even we could die. That’s how it works. There’s no way to tell how many people will die. Of course, I have no plan of dying here. If you want to survive, too, then I suggest you stay by our side.”

  “That’s no good,” said Haruhiro.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s no good.” Haruhiro sighed.

  It feels like the blood is gonna rush to my head. Don’t get emotional. It’s not that I’m mad. It’s just, that’s not it, he thought.

  “If you claim you survived because you were lucky, you can only say that in hindsight,” he said. “There are actually a lot of factors that go into it, aren’t there? Would you call being used as a disposable pawn by someone else part of luck? I don’t see it that way. I have cases where I think, ‘I only survived thanks to that guy,’ or, ‘I’d have died if things had happened this way.’ That’s not luck. It’s thanks to someone, or something.”

  “So what?” Gogh was smiling slightly. “What is it you want to say?”

  “I dunno that I can word it very well, but...”

  “Just get to the point. I hate beating around the bush.”

  “J-Just—I was thinking, wouldn’t it be possible to try to minimize the number of people who die? Yeah, I’m sure the strong ones might survive. It may mean that the ones who survive are strong. But even if they’re weak, or unlucky, aren’t people still alive?”

  “Why should we have to go to the trouble of taking care of the weak and unlucky?” Gogh asked.

  “I don’t think you have to take care of them...”

  “Damn straight. We’re not philanthropists, and we aren’t running a charity here.”

  “S-Still, if there’s something you can do, please, do it.”

  “What for?” Gogh asked.

  “I mean, if they die, it’s all over!”

  Haruhiro bit his lip and shook his head. If he were smarter, might he have been able to come up with a convincing argument and persuaded Gogh? Or was Haruhiro’s thinking misguided to begin with?

  “Once you die, there’s nothing left,” he explained. “For that person, at least, the door to every possibility is closed. So, is it that strange that I want as few people to die as possible? If there’s no other way, then so be it, but if you’ve got something you can do, I think you ought to do it. Isn’t throwing away people you don’t know as sacrificial pawns just taking the easy way out?”

  “You’re saying we should deliberately take the harder path?” Gogh demanded.

  “I think it would be better that way.”

  “You’re so green.” Shima chuckled. “I don’t mind that, though.”

  “But Haruhiro-kun.” Miho stared Haruhiro in the eye. “What can you do? You don’t want sacrifices. That’s fine, but what can you do about it?”

  “No, that’s...”

  It was a strangely intense stare. Haruhiro almost looked down despite himself, but he managed not to somehow. With upturned eyes, he just barely managed to withstand Miho’s gaze. That was the best he could do.

  “No... there isn’t anything I can do. Not really. If there were, I’d be doing it. That’s why I’m asking Gogh-san, though.”

  “Oh, my.” Miho’s eyes opened a little wider.

  “You’re preposterous.” Gogh frowned and shrugged. “I don’t think that honesty of yours is a virtue. Not one bit. But it’s something that, at some point, we lost. It’s good to go back to our roots every once in a while.”

  “Soma’s instincts may have been right, you know.” With those mysterious words, Shima leaned in close to Haruhiro. Something smelt incredibly good.

  Wait, isn’t she a little too close?

  “We’re searching for a way back to our original world.” Her voice was an almost breath-like whisper.

  Haruhiro held his ears and backed away despite himself. “...Huh? Original? What do you mean, a way back...?”

  “Forget that for now.” Shima brought her index finger to her pursed lips. “We’ll discuss that some other time. First, we’ve got to get out of here, right?”

  “This was your idea,” Gogh said, pressing a finger against Haruhiro’s forehead. “Even if you can’t do anything, if you just scramble to run away, I won’t stand for it. You’re sticking with us until the end. You’ve got to give us at least that much.”

  “Oka—”

  He was about to immediately agree, but then he snapped to his senses. This wasn’t only Haruhiro’s problem. It affected his comrades, too. Haruhiro was the party’s leader.

  When he turned around, Ranta laughed and gave him a bitter look. “If you hadn’t said it, I was gonna, baldy.”

  “There’s noooo way that’s true.” Yume puffed up one of her cheeks.

  “I’ve already decided I’ll follow you.” Kuzaku was like a big, loyal dog at this point.

  “Me, too.” Merry smiled and nodded.

  “...I think it’s fine.” Shihoru gave him an awkward smile, too.

  “Umm, umm, what about all of us?!” Kikkawa glanced to Mimorin and Anna-san, then looked around restlessly. “Whaaaa?! Where’s Inuicchi?!”

  “That half-wit’s been gone for loooong time now, yeah?!” Anna-san shouted.

  “Seriously?! Like, I never even noticed,” said Kikkawa. “Well, whatever! He’s prolly alive! As for us, well, I guess that’s up to Tokimune, huh?”

  “Sadly,” Mimorin nodded.

  “Oh, good grief. What a pain.” Gogh looked Haruhiro and the others over quickly. His expression made it look like he was fed up, but there was a life in his eyes that hadn’t been there a little while ago. “For the time being, you’ll be escorting Miho, Shima, and myself. Stay close to us, and do as I tell you. I’ll teach you what it means to walk a thorny path. Starting now, we’re going to withdraw, keeping casualties to a minimum. We’ll slip past the giant god somehow and escape from the Dusk Realm.”

  9. If There Is Light There

  Haruhiro and the others were hardly doing anything. They were just following Gogh and the others. Yet, still, it was a gruesome experience.

  Once Gogh accepted the change in policy, Akira-san immediately took back everything he had said before and had them head for the initial hill.

  But Akira-san, Soma, and their group didn’t run away. They couldn’t afford to. The first hydra soon had the last of its tentacles chopped up and was left unable to move, but three new ones arrived. There were cultists and white giants rushing in, too. They had to pull back, knocking the fight out of these enemies as they went.

  They would use the volunteer soldiers as their wall and shield while they took out the dangerous enemies. Once enough of them were dealt with and the situation had calmed down, they would retreat. That had probably been Akira-san’s strategy. However, they had turned that around completely, and now Akira-san and the others were acting as the rear guard so that the volunteer soldiers could escape.

  If Haruhiro hadn’t objected, it probably wouldn’t have been this way. No, not probably. It definitely wouldn’t have. In other words, Akira-san, Soma, and the others were having a hard time because of Haruhiro.

  Akira-san, Branken, Kayo, Taro, Soma, Lilia, and Kemuri—none of them complained. They repeated the proc
ess of hitting an enemy and retreating a little, striking down an enemy and falling back, shooting or blowing away an enemy and withdrawing slightly, all in silence. Miho and Gogh would occasionally let loose a spell and pulverize an enemy, but not often. They were likely conserving their power in anticipation of a long battle.

  Tokimune and Tada were eagerly assisting them, but Haruhiro’s party, as well as Mimorin, Anna-san, and Kikkawa, were only good for forming a wall of flesh in front of Gogh, Miho, and Shima.

  Haruhiro wasn’t just feeling frustrated, he was also having trouble not feeling sorry for the trouble he was causing them.

  Also, he was scared.

  I mean, there were three hydras and around ten white giants, on top of dozens of cultists, possibly more, all of which were persistently swarming at them.

  When it was just the cultists, Akira, Soma, and their party members could strike them down with a single slash of the sword or katana, blow of the ax, or shot of the bow. But when it came to white giants, that obviously wasn’t possible. The hydras didn’t just attack them directly with their tentacles; they would also slam the ground with them to cause it to cave in, or to send dirt flying at them and interfere with their movements. It was pretty nasty.

  Even though they were already being forced to fight an incredibly hard battle while retreating, Akira-san and the others didn’t let the enemies get anywhere near them. Thanks to that, for now at least, Haruhiro and his party hadn’t been touched by the enemy. Still, between crying when he got dirt flung into his eyes, and tripping and almost falling over, he was having a lot of trouble—or rather, it was embarrassing and he felt pathetic.

  “I’m getting a bit worn out,” Akira-san muttered as he dodged one white giant’s fist and cut a Pansuke who attacked him clean in two. “It’s not easy getting old.”

  “Huh?” Soma lopped off a hydra’s tentacle and turned to face Akira-san. He seemed astonished. “Are you that old, Akira-san?”

  “If you think about it, isn’t it obvious he’s just exaggerating to make a joke at his own expense?!” Lilia scolded Soma while cutting down two or three cultists.

  “Gwahahaha!” Branken swung his ax and pulverized a four-meter class white giant’s left knee. “That’s an elf for you! They look delicate, but they lack delicacy!”

  “I don’t want to hear that from a hairy dwarf!” she shouted.

  “Don’t fight with him, Lilia!” Soma cut off another tentacle as he chided her. “A dwarf’s just not a dwarf without a beard. You need to think more about that.”

  “Ohh. You have a point—” Kemuri incredibly managed to block a six-meter class white giant’s punch with that large sword of his. “A dwarf’s gotta have a beard!”

  “You all sure seem to have it easy!” Kayo wasn’t swinging her sword very much. Instead, she was weaving between the enemies and causing them to hit one another. “I don’t have the energy to spare for chatter!”

  “Mom, please, take a little rest!” Taro fired off one arrow after another, hitting cultists in their one eye. “You can leave everything to me!”

  “Man, the enemies just keep on coming!” Tokimune’s white teeth were sparkling, but he looked even more tired than Kayo did. “It’s fun, though!”

  “Don’t strain yourself!” Tada was the opposite. The more enemies he slaughtered with his warhammer, the sharper his moves seemed to get. “I’ll do it! I’ll kill them! Hahahaha! I’ll take all of these punks! I’ll smash every last one of them to death!”

  Haruhiro hadn’t said a word in a while now. He didn’t think he should say anything, either. He felt like he’d drunk lead or something, because there was a heavy weight sitting in the bottom of his stomach, and it hurt. His body, well, it felt heavy, too.

  Why? Why had Akira-san and the others agreed to go along with Haruhiro’s opinion? There was no reason they’d needed to. He wished they hadn’t. If, back then, Gogh had said, What are you saying? and refused, Haruhiro could have immediately said, Oh, I’m sorry for being cheeky, and backed down with an apology.

  That would have been better—Maybe? Maybe not? He didn’t really know, but either way, this was hard on him emotionally. Just being here at all. He felt like he didn’t belong here. But he was the one responsible for it.

  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I want to just charge in, he thought. If he could charge into the enemy and get killed, that might make him feel better. Of course, he wasn’t going to, but he wished from the bottom of his heart that he could be less sensitive. He questioned why he was here every few dozen seconds.

  If someone died doing this, he’d have no choice but to commit seppuku. No, the moment anyone was hurt, he might reflexively stab his own dagger into his stomach.

  “What’s wrong, kid?” Gogh suddenly caught him by the back of the neck. “You’ve been looking around anxiously for a while now. Are you not feeling well?”

  No, he meant to answer, but he wasn’t sure if his voice came out or not.

  “Augh!” Ranta banged on his own helmet in frustration. “Don’t get so deflated, Parupiro, man! You’re throwing me off, too!”

  “W-Well, sorry for getting deflated!”

  “You better be sorry, you know?!” Ranta shouted. “We’re proper members of the Day Breakers, got it?! Th-Th-Th-Th-There’s no need to act so hesitant with them, you moron!”

  “You sound pretty hesitant there yourself, pal...” Haruhiro said.

  “That’s because I’m super humble, not like you with your hypocritical fake politeness!”

  “Members, huh....” Yume mumbled.

  “W-We are, you know?!” Ranta glanced to Miho and Shima. “Right...?!”

  Miho and Shima both just giggled and didn’t answer him. Well, that was probably intentional. He was being teased, but Ranta responded back with a pervy laugh. He was an idiot, and a creepy one at that.

  Members, huh, Haruhiro thought. Well, yeah, we are, but...

  We’re not cut out for it, Haruhiro ultimately ended up thinking. The way we are now, we’re too unripe, we lack the strength, and its pretentious to call ourselves Soma or Akira-san’s comrades. Even looking at the future, we’ll probably never be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Maybe this feeling of inferiority will never go away?

  Even if he had to bluff and force himself, would it be best to present himself like a member? No matter where he went, he would always be himself, so did he have no choice but to push through using his current style?

  His stomach hurt. It wasn’t feeling stretched; it felt like it had scrunched up real tight. He felt like he was going to puke.

  The way Soma and Akira-san fought was vivid, wild, and fierce. It was so incredible it could only be called artistic, and it hurt to watch. He didn’t want to see, but he had no choice but to look. He wanted to cry out, Please, just give me a break already.

  A break? From what? Haruhiro didn’t know. No, he did. Basically, he wanted to run away. He wanted to flee from this situation. He didn’t want to be here. Not for another second. There was no threat to his well-being.

  Haruhiro wasn’t the one facing danger; it was Soma, Akira-san, and the others. That was hitting him really hard.

  “When you’re watching from the rear, it’s frustrating, isn’t it?” Gogh let out a throaty laugh. “I was frail as a mage, and that hasn’t changed since I became a priest.”

  Haruhiro was taken aback.

  If he thought about it, Merry and Shihoru might have been feeling this way all along. Those in the rear being defended by their comrades were under a different kind of stress from those exposed to the threat of death on the front line. Haruhiro had never had this perspective before. Until he was actually placed in the same position, it was hard to see it. That might have just been how it was.

  It just shows that any experience can come in handy. It expands your field of view. That’s a positive. Right. I need to try thinking positively here. Yeah. It’d be nice if I could think that way.

  “...I can’t,” he murmured.

&n
bsp; For now, just hanging on was the best he could do. While he was enduring, time went by. The initial hill was getting closer. That was the one thing he had to encourage him: this suffering would end. That was his one hope. He wanted to have everything else wait until this was over. He could regret, and repent, and apologize later.

  He certainly hadn’t forgotten that the final, and perhaps the greatest, barrier to their escape was waiting for them at the initial hill. It was just that he was trying not to think much about it.

  Haruhiro looked to the initial hill for the first time in a while, then gazed up towards the heavens.

  No, it wasn’t the heavens he was looking at.

  “The giant god!”

  Its total height was estimated at three hundred meters. It didn’t only touch the heavens, it seemed to be covering them up.

  How much farther was it to the initial hill? One kilometer, thereabouts? Closer than he had thought. Before he realized it, they had gotten awfully close.

  The giant god was right in front of it. Not just standing there. It was moving. It was moving, you know? It was walking, or treading in place rather. The tremors were incredible. It was like it was trying to stomp on ants.

  To the giant god, humans probably looked like ants.

  The volunteer soldiers who had fled first were running around, desperate not to get stomped. There might even be some volunteer soldiers who had avoided the giant god’s stomping and managed to escape from the Dusk Realm. Or there might not be. It was impossible to say, but without taking the long route around or passing between its legs or around its feet, reaching their objective was impossible. They’d have to do it.

  For Soma’s and Akira’s parties, the Tokkis, and for Haruhiro’s party who were, technically, also part of the rear guard, they had to pull that off while defending against the enemy, or after quickly breaking away from them.

  Did they have any hope of succeeding? Or not? It didn’t seem like it...

  “Akira-san!” Soma shouted as he swept down several enemies with one swing. “When I give the signal, please go!”