by Ao Jyumonji
“—Bwahh! I... win...!” Ranta slammed his empty ceramic mug down on the table.
What’re you going to do if it breaks? Haruhiro wondered.
“Moguzo! How do you like that? I won! Wahahahahahahahahahaha!”
“Uh... sure,” Moguzo said, putting down his mug without finishing it. “Y-You’re amazing, Ranta-kun. Drinking it all in one go like that.”
“I know, right? I am awesome, aren’t I? You really do get it, Moguzo,” Ranta said proudly. “I should’ve expected no less from my future business partner.”
Yume blinked repeatedly. “Blinking partner?”
“No, a business partner...” Haruhiro at least made the effort to correct her. “And, hold on, what kind of partner would that even be? A blinking partner...”
Suddenly, Shihoru let out a strange “Hic.” When they looked over, Shihoru was covering her mouth with both hands and looking down. Her face was a little red.
“What’s wrong, Shihoru?” Haruhiro asked.
“...I-It’s nothing... Nothing, really...” she murmured.
“Oh, yeah,” Ranta displayed one of his irritating grins. “Shihoru. I’ll bet you were imagining something weird.”
“...S-Something weird...?”
“I don’t know what it’d have been. I’m not equipped with a delusion engine as powerful as yours, you know?”
“I-I don’t have an engine like that...!”
“So, that means I don’t have the same delusion energy coursing through me that you do, get it?” Ranta went on.
“It’s not coursing through me...!”
“That’s some nasty accusation, Ranta!” Yume said, holding Shihoru close to her. “Shihoru’s not like that. She doesn’t have no delugin’ apogee, or whatever weird thing you said, got it!”
“...You got the words wrong, though,” Merry whispered quietly.
“Whuh?! Did Yume goof it up again?!”
Ranta laughed, mockingly. “Your words are wrong way too often, you know that! It drives the people listening to you crazy, so don’t talk for a while! Shut up!”
“Nuh-uh, no way!” Yume shot back.
“You don’t get the right to refuse here!”
“Yume has her own opinion, too!”
“No one said anything about you having an opinion or not!”
“Ranta, you did!”
“I said you don’t have the right to refuse! Right! To! Re-fuse! You know what that is?! The right to refuse!”
“Yume knows that much!”
“Yeah, well, before we talk about what you do or don’t know, stop getting words wrong so often! Do you have holes for ears?!” Ranta shouted.
“Ranta.” Haruhiro stuck his fingers in his ears. “Yep, they’re there. Holes in my ears. Everyone has holes for ears. Or are you blind? Do you have holes for eyes?”
“Huh...?” Ranta realized his mistake, but that wasn’t enough to make him change his attitude. He gave it a sarcastic shrug. “—Here we go again. This is it. This here. This is the problem with our party’s leader. He likes to pick at any little mistake people make! On top of that, the way he criticizes them for it is downright malicious! What an awful personality!”
“You’re the last one I want to hear that from...” Haruhiro muttered.
“If you don’t want to hear it, then don’t act in a way that makes me say it, huh? Show some restraint, okay?”
“...Hey, Moguzo,” Haruhiro said. “Listen, just a friendly word of warning, but if you’re planning to run a business with this piece of shit in the future, you really ought to reconsider. There’s no way it’ll be a success.”
Moguzo laughed awkwardly.
“A business?” Merry asked, cocking her head to the side.
“Ohhh.” Haruhiro told her about what had happened at the food stall. “...So, once they’ve saved up some money and retired from being volunteer soldiers, Ranta suggested to Moguzo that they open up a soruzo shop together, you see.”
“Ohh,” Yume mumbled. “Soruzo, that’s that stuff that’s like ramen, huh.”
“Ramen...” For an instant, Haruhiro felt a salty taste spread through his mouth.
Ranta crossed his arms in thought. “...Ramen.”
“Ramen...” Shihoru touched her lips.
Moguzo leaned out over the table. “...Ramen.”
“Ramen—Wait...” Merry said, a slightly frustrated look on her face. “What was that again?”
“Whut?” Yume looked around restlessly. “Ramen is... Um... Huh? That’s odd. Yume, did she know it... from somewhere? Maybe? What was it again? Huh? What was Yume talking about with everyone again?”
Haruhiro scratched his head. “...What were we talking about?”
“About ramen,” Moguzo said in a strong tone. “We were talking about ramen. We... We probably know what ramen is. That’s right. Soruzo, it’s kind of like ramen. When I first ate it, I thought it tasted like something. It was ramen I was thinking of. I couldn’t remember it at the time. I wonder why not. I’ve always loved ramen. Ranta-kun.”
“Huh? Oh...?” Ranta asked.
“Someday, let’s do it. Open a restaurant.”
“Huh?”
“But, me, I don’t want to open a soruzo place, I want to make ramen. I’ll save up money, study, and when I can make ramen that tastes just right, let’s do it, let’s open that restaurant.”
“A restaurant...” Ranta grinned broadly, grabbing Moguzo around the shoulder. Even though it was Ranta, this was a smile that wasn’t infuriating to see. “Yeah! You’ll be in charge of the cooking and raising capital! Leave everything else to me! I swear I’ll lead us to success!”
“Yeah!”
“...The cooking is fine, but raising capital, too...?” Haruhiro muttered. What, aren’t you putting in any money yourself? Haruhiro wanted to add, but he’d have felt bad doing so after seeing how excited Moguzo was about doing it. I can warn him any time. I don’t need to be a killjoy right here and now.
Either way, it was a long way off. Probably an astonishingly long way off.
The saying about the best-laid plans of mice and men came to mind, but Haruhiro wasn’t so boorish that he was going to tell them to stop talking about it. He felt things were fine the way they were.
Honestly, he was even a little jealous.
Haruhiro was only ever thinking about tomorrow, maybe three days into the future at most. Even if he wanted to think about more than that, he couldn’t.
And, technically, he had something he needed to make a decision on within those three days that was the most he could think about, anyway.
“By the way, since everyone’s here, I had something I wanted to talk about,” Haruhiro said.
When Haruhiro gave them a quick rundown of the order—
“Hell! Yeah!” Ranta cried, thrusting a fist into the air so hard it seemed like he might jump up on top of his chair. “We’ve gotta do it! That goes without saying, I mean! It’s a gold coin! Golden work! Not doing it isn’t an option! What’re we gonna do if we don’t?!”
“...Hrmm...” Shihoru looked down, clearly not enthusiastic about the idea.
Yeah, that figures, Haruhiro thought. I mean, it’s Shihoru. How does Merry feel?
She was lowering her eyes, stroking her chin, looking like she was deep in thought, but she hadn’t approved of it yet, either. She probably planned to go along with the rest of them. She might be trying to be considerate.
Everything up to this point was going as Haruhiro had expected.
“Yume, yeah,” Yume puffed up her cheeks, looking up and away diagonally. “She doesn’t care either way, maybe?”
“...Oh. Is that right?” Harurhiro asked.
“Hm? What?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
If Ranta said he wanted to do something, Yume would usually oppose it. That was the way it usually went, but it looked like things were different this time. Why? If anything, Haruhiro wanted to ask that, but if he did something that would encourage confli
ct between Yume and Ranta, that wouldn’t be very mature, and he didn’t feel it would be right for the party leader to do that, either. Even if Ranta was a hopeless case, he was still a comrade, and it was best not to rock the boat.
But, wait, hold on?
That meant that Haruhiro was against, Ranta was for, Shihoru was weakly against, Merry was neutral, Yume was neutral, too...
“I...” Moguzo looked more serious than ever.
Somehow, that gave Haruhiro a bad feeling. That bad feeling was right.
“I’d like to try it... maybe?”
“Moguzoooo!” Ranta thrust his fist out at Moguzo. “Yeah!”
“Y-Yeah...?” Moguzo asked.
“Get over here! Say, yeah! Yeah!”
“...Y-Yeah?”
When Moguzo hesitantly bumped his fist into Ranta’s, Ranta said “Yeah,” and bumped his fist back, then he bumped their forearms, then elbows together, saying “Yeah,” finally finishing by locking their arms together firmly.
“Wahahahaha! Seriously! Seriously! That’s my future business partner for you! We’re both frontliners, too! It’s no exaggeration to call him my partner! We’re like peas in a pod, Moguzo! Don’t you think so?! You do, right?!” Ranta shouted.
“Ah! Er, yeah. Y-You’re right. Hahaha...”
“Good, good, good, good! Hey, Haruhiro!”
“Huh? Wh-What?”
“Majority vote.” Ranta put his arm around Moguzo’s shoulders, licking his lips. He had a look in his eyes like a carnivore about to devour its prey. “Go on, let’s take a vote.”
“No...” Haruhiro said.
Wait, wait, wait.
Hold on.
This is no good. It’s bad. I don’t like where this is going.
If Moguzo was voting for, then along with Ranta’s vote there were two fors. Haruhiro would vote against, and probably Shihoru as well, giving them two. Merry and Yume’s two votes remained unclear.
If it comes down to it, I feel like Yume will follow me, Haruhiro thought. But, when I ask myself if that’s guaranteed—I dunno. Now that Moguzo’s sided with Ranta, I can’t be confident.
“Ah—” Haruhiro started to speak, but then looked to Merry and Yume, sizing them up.
Man.
Which is it? Are the two of them for? Or against?
I don’t know.
“Let’s do it tomorrow,” he said.
“Huhhhhhhhhh...?!” Ranta’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean tomorrow, you idiot?! Don’t put off until tomorrow what can be done today! Are you a sloth?!”
“...It’s fine,” Haruhiro said. “We don’t have to rush. There’s still time before the deadline. We can take a day to think it over properly, and it still won’t be too late to decide then.”
Merry raised her hand to support him. “I think that’s a good idea.”
She’s like a goddess. She looks positively radiant. Oh, I guess she’s always like that.
“Well...” Yume lay down on the table. She’d only drunk non-alcoholic lemonade, but she was acting tipsy. “Yume agrees with Merry, maybe. It should be fine, no?”
“...Y-Yeah,” Shihoru nodded. “...It’s a good idea. I think so, too.”
It didn’t look like Moguzo had any objections. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s fine. There’s no rush.”
“You people...!” Ranta screamed.
Ranta can hardly contain himself, but who cares about him. For now, it looks like I can get through this. Haruhiro breathed a sigh of relief, looking around the tavern.
Sherry’s had the same crowd as usual. In other words, it was packed with volunteer soldiers.
Among them, there should have been a good number who had already accepted the order and would be participating in Operation Two-Headed Snake. It might be a good idea to gather information.
“...I’m not so good at doing this kind of stuff,” Haruhiro murmured.
Honestly, I’d rather not talk to strangers. I can’t afford to be saying that now, I know, but still.
Chapter 5: That’s What it Feels Like
I understand that, so I tried my hardest, you know...? Haruhiro thought. Well, as much as I could, at least.
He had tried calling out to the senior volunteer soldiers that he’d talked to in the past and asking them about it. The fact that the affable Shinohara and his gang hadn’t come to Sherry’s hurt his chances a bit—maybe?
Shinohara was usually kind and polite, of course, and so were the other members of Orion. If he were to ask politely, without demanding too much of them, they would probably tell him what they knew.
Well, outside of Shinohara, the only one Haruhiro could easily talk to was Kikkawa, the guy who had come to Grimgar at the same as him, but was super easygoing and had a lot of connections.
But Kikkawa wasn’t there today, even though Haruhiro met him at Sherry’s pretty often. Had he gone off somewhere, maybe?
Despite appearances, Kikkawa was a member of one of the more senior volunteer soldiers, Tokimune’s, party, so he had gotten a lot further than Haruhiro and his group.
Come to think of it, he mentioned something, I think. If I remember correctly, some place called Wonder Hole is their main hunting ground now. That was somewhere in the Quickwind Plains, right? Wonder Hole, huh?
Haruhiro was sitting in the hall on the first floor of the volunteer soldier lodging house, leaning with his back against the wall.
Ranta and Moguzo were back in the room, fast asleep. Maybe it was the alcohol, but they both snored incredibly loudly. Because of that, Haruhiro hadn’t been able to sleep—though maybe that was just one of the many usual reasons.
He had spoken to a handful of senior volunteer soldiers who had accepted the order, and from what they had told him, everyone seemed optimistic about their chances of taking Deadhead Watching Keep.
When he asked why, it was apparently because Deadhead had fallen a number of times in past. They could take that keep any time they wanted to. It was just that the reinforcements from Riverside Iron Fortress were hard to deal with, so they usually left it alone.
Even if the volunteer soldiers ignored them, the orcs there hardly ever came to attack Alterna. Even if an incident like the one with Ish Dogran occurred, it wasn’t going to shake the fortress city of Alterna. Even in the worst case scenario, if the orcs brought a massive army to attack them, they just had to bar the gates and settle in for a siege.
They had supplies. They could even expect support to come from the Arabakia Kingdom mainland. Because the orcs knew that, too, they never got serious about sending forces after Alterna. The orcish position was that Deadhead was merely a watching keep, and they were monitoring the humans. They didn’t station a large force there, so if the humans suddenly attacked, it would fall easily.
Because that was the general consensus, none of the volunteer soldiers doubted that the mission to take it would succeed. It was a given that they’d win at Deadhead, like they always had up until now. However, since there had never been a proper attack on Riverside before, nobody knew how that one would go until they tried it.
It seemed like people expected it to go well, though.
After all, it seemed the Frontier Army would be committing a good amount of manpower to taking Riverside, and as for the volunteer soldiers, Soma and his Day Breakers would be participating, along with many other influential clans. It just might work.
That was what most volunteer soldiers seemed to be thinking, and Haruhiro hadn’t heard anyone sounding negative about it.
It might be okay to do this... maybe?
After all, it was one gold. One golden coin. Converted to silver, that was 100 coins.
Recently, Haruhiro and the party had been going to the Cyrene Mines. There had been times when, on the best days, their daily earnings could exceed 30 silver each. Though, most of the time, it was questionable whether they would make 10 silver each or not. The talismans from elder kobolds like foremen always sold for around 5 silver at the minimum, so it was fairly stable. H
owever, their living expenses were going up, too. Everyone was clearly eating better than before. They drank, too, and would go out to buy this or that.
From what he’d heard, while the upfront payment and completion bonus were one gold all together, every full night they were out on the mission would earn them another 30 silver each.
That meant, probably, that the higher-ups intended to finish this in a single day.
One gold in one day.
That was a big deal. A really big deal.
It was very tempting.
It seemed like a winning battle, and the money was really enticing, so why was Haruhiro so incredibly hesitant?
After leaving Sherry’s Tavern, he considered consulting Merry about it. It wasn’t something that she always did, but Merry seemed to have a habit of first leaving with everyone else, then turning back and going for another drink by herself.
He probably had the opportunity to do it, but Haruhiro didn’t. Why not?
In the bar—no, it wasn’t just that—he didn’t know when it had started, but lately, Haruhiro had been sensing a wall. It had risen up between Haruhiro and his comrades. Haruhiro was being separated from his comrades by something that felt like a wall.
It must have been his imagination, or rather, he was just overthinking it. It couldn’t be that Haruhiro was the only one on this side, and everyone else was on the other side. But, there was a gap between them.
That was a fact.
His comrades were starting to build confidence. In fact, Haruhiro thought that they were growing in strength, too. When they were on the third level of the Cyrene Mines, it was generally pretty easy, after all. That was partially because they no longer needed to worry about Death Spots, but he didn’t feel like they could lose. At their current level, if Haruhiro and the others took on a group of seven, no, eight goblins, they could probably handle them now. With kobolds, it would depend on how many of them there were elders, but usually there were two to three ordinary kobolds for each elder. Even if they went up against three elders and five ordinary kobolds, it wasn’t like they couldn’t manage that. Not that he wanted to take that sort of risk.