Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: Volume 1

by Ao Jyumonji

  “Yes.”

  Then Soma turned to the man with dreadlocks.

  “Kemuri.”

  “Yeah,” the man with dreadlocks said, twisting his neck left and right lethargically.

  Soma turned to look at a childlike man.

  “Pingo.”

  “...Yeah,” Pingo looked downward and sighed. “I don’t like that sort of thing.”

  “I see,” Soma’s lips loosened slightly and he cast a look at the golem wearing a frightening mask.

  “Zenmai.”

  Zenmai slowly nodded his head.

  Lastly, Soma fixed his gaze on the elf.

  “Lilia.”

  Lilia’s vivid, sapphire eyes stared back at Soma.

  “Yes, Soma.”

  Soma closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. Then, moving only his lips, he called another name.

  Nino.

  She was gone now.

  After Soma and the others had lost Nino, who had once been their party’s priest, Kemuri had changed classes from warrior to paladin. Shima had given up on being a thief, learning to become a shaman in the Shadow Forest where the elves lived. Lilia had joined the party.

  Nino was dead. Soma had begun searching for a way to bring her back, but he hadn’t found one yet. He thought there might be some lead in the hinterlands of the territory of the former Kingdom of Ishmal, where the remains of No-Life King were said to sleep.

  Though, that said, nothing was for certain. There might be no means of reviving the dead in this world.

  Not in this world.

  However, what was this world, really? Where had they come to this world from? To begin with, this ridiculous world, where the moon shone red and aberrant monsters ran free like it was perfectly normal, was it actually real?

  It had been a while ago, but Kemuri had said, “You know, it’s almost like a game,” and Soma had responded, “Yeah, it is.” At the time, he had certainly thought so, but the two had quickly found they didn’t understand what they meant.

  What was a game?

  Something was wrong.

  Those feelings of wrongness grew weak and he nearly forgot them, but now Soma carved them into his heart.

  If this world was not real, if it was fake, where was the real world to be found? And if Soma and the others came from there, what had become of Nino, who had died in this fake world? If they could return to their own world, might Nino still be there?

  It was a possibility. Just a possibility. Still, it was a possibility. They couldn’t say for sure that it wasn’t possible.

  Soma opened his eyes.

  “—We have decided to form a clan.”

  A commotion arose and the whole tavern shook.

  “Our goal is to invade Undead DC in the former Kingdom of Ishmal.” Even without having to raise it, Soma’s voice carried well. Just by issuing a low shout, timid monsters would turn tail and flee. Any monster that could hold firm before Soma was a big deal. “We have information that there are omens suggesting the revival of No-Life King. We will investigate this, and, if No-Life King has revived, we will immediately destroy him once more. Of course, this will not be easy. We will need to find a method to accomplish that. We will need power, as well. The six of us alone are not enough. We need a greater power.”

  The volunteer soldiers raised their voices in joy while the curious onlookers cheered. The air was ready to burst with all of the voices clapping and whistling.

  Soma was half-deceiving them. However, for those he recognized as trustworthy, he intended to eventually tell them his true objective.

  “Please, lend us your hands! If you feel this is for you, come and offer to participate!”

  “The name! What’s the clan’s name?!” someone shouted.

  Soma nodded. “—From this moment onward, we call ourselves the Day Breakers! You who are brave, you who are wise, you who are noble, you who are decisive and awe-inspiring, come unto me! If you fear not death, will fight death, and seek life when faced with death, whoever you are, brave ones, I will welcome you!”

  Nino, Soma whispered in his heart, standing the center of the excitement. I will solve the mystery of this world. Then, someday, I will go to meet you.

  —That his fate would become entwined with theirs, Haruhiro had no way of knowing.

  Afterword

  Dragon Quest, Wizardry, Final Fantasy, Megami Tensei, Metal Max, Romancing Saga, Breath of Fire, Live A Live, Chrono Trigger, Arc The Lad, Tactics Ogre, Suikoden, Tales of Phantasia, Wild Arms, Final Fantasy Tactics, Star Ocean, Atelier Marie, Saga Frontier, Xenogears, and many more console RPGs, or games that included RPG elements, saved me.

  Even I, who couldn’t get into shooters, sports games, fighting games, and other action games because I was bad at them, could focus on RPGs and immerse myself in their worlds.

  That I was able to enjoy them on my own, at my own pace, was important to me. Throughout my life, I haven’t been the kind of person with many friends. It might be fair to say I had very few.

  Of course, it’s not that I had absolutely no friends, but I’m incapable of enjoying playing as a group or having a good time talking about something. Honestly, I want to do those things, but I can’t seem to do them well.

  When I was a child, when the new Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy went on sale, everyone would start playing it. They would talk about how far they had gotten and what level they were now every day at school. I couldn’t get involved in those conversations.

  All I could do was cut into my sleeping hours to play the game, get farther than everyone, then when I heard someone boasting, “I got this far!” I could quietly think, “Oh, only to there? That’s nothing special. I’m further than you,” and smile to myself.

  Basically, I was a gloomy kid. But even I could become the protagonist, go on incredible adventures, become stronger, and save the world. It was always RPGs that saved me.

  Then, something brought about a change for that gloomy, solitary gamer. Diablo... Ultima Online... EverQuest... Dark Age of Camelot... These are all American games, but domestically there were games like Dark Eyes and Lifestorm, too.

  It was online RPGs.

  Using the internet, you could play an RPG with someone else. If we’re talking about playing RPGs with other people, there are tabletop RPGs, as well. However, for someone not so good at dealing with other people, like I am, that was too high a hurdle to get over. In online RPGs, I didn’t have to be face-to-face with anyone.

  If I knew some small amount of English, I could play with people overseas. I went crazy for it. This was an era when the internet wasn’t as widely deployed as it is now. I connected to the internet not over fiber or ADSL, but over the phone lines, so the telephone was unavailable while I was playing games.

  Using a service called Tele-hodai, which charged a fixed monthly rate for unlimited calls to select numbers late at night and early in the morning, I used every single one of those minutes for playing games. There were times I accidentally went outside that time period, well outside it, causing my phone bill to cost an incredible amount.

  At that time, for me, online RPGs were reality, and everything else was just time to sleep, eat, lay about, or think about games. Every night, I dove into the thrilling world of online RPGs, and when morning came, I returned to the mundane world. I lived in games. Games kept me alive.

  Occasionally people ask what led me to start writing. As you would expect, games were a major influence. If I hadn’t encountered RPGs, I’m sure I never would have written novels.

  In particular, had I not spent that time immersed in online RPGs, my debut novel Bara no Maria (Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko) would never have been born, nor would this book either.

  Furthermore, had I not read books based on RPGs, such as Ryo Mizuno’s Lodoss-tou Senki (Record of Lodoss War) or Benny Matsuyama’s Tonariawase no Hai to Seishun, even if I had become a novelist, I don’t believe I would have written this sort of book. Even the Japanese title of this book, Hai to Genso
u no Grimgar, was inspired by Tonariawase no Hai to Seishun, and the title for the novel that eventually became Bara no Maria was Bara no Maria Senki.

  Online RPGs, and RPGs in general, stirred up my creativity, or perhaps my delusions, and led me to novels deeply involved with RPGs. That’s how I got here. Because I played so many RPGs for such a long period of time, I can no longer play games with the same feeling I did during “that time.”

  Even so, I fervently hope for games that will bring “that time” back to life for me. While ruminating on my feelings from “that time,” I wrote this novel. I believe, beyond doing that, a world I have yet to see surely awaits. If I have further opportunities, I think I will write more “that time” novels.

  At this time, I offer my heartfelt appreciation and all of my love to: my editor, K, who gave me this opportunity; to Eiri Shirai, the illustrator who drew such transparent, atmospheric, modern, cute, cool and lovely illustrations; to the designer and others who compiled this novel into such a fine book; to everyone involved in production and sales of this book; and finally, to all of you people now holding this book. Now, as I hope we will meet again, I lay down my pen for today.

  Ao Jyumonji

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  Copyright

  Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: Volume 1

  by Ao Jyumonji

  Translated by Sean McCann

  Edited by Emily Sorensen

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 Ao Jyumonji

  Illustrations Copyright © 2013 Eiri Shirai

  Cover illustration by Eiri Shirai

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published in 2013 by OVERLAP

  This English edition is published by arrangement with OVERLAP, Inc., Tokyo

  English translation © 2016 J-Novel Club LLC

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

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  Ebook edition 1.0: December 2016