by Ao Jyumonji
They hadn’t met another ri-komo since then.
What was that ri-komo? What was it doing before we found it? Were these ri-komo eggs? Or not? Haruhiro didn’t know.
The seventeenth room was big. Or maybe it just felt that way.
“There are... no eggs,” Haruhiro said slowly.
Without anything casting light, it was pitch black. There was no way to tell if there were any ri-komos.
He didn’t sense any presences there, but Haruhiro thoroughly searched the room with a lantern just to be sure.
There were no ri-komos.
There was, however, a hole in the corner. Not in the wall. It was a round hole in the ground, about 1.2 meters in diameter. A vertical hole.
They all surrounded the hole.
Haruhiro crouched down and thrust the hand he was holding the lantern with into the hole.
“The bottom is... not visible, at all. It goes down quite a ways, though.”
“Hmm.” Mimorin nodded, tucking her chin in. “Let’s search.”
For some reason, Mimorin was crouching at Haruhiro’s side. Well, that reason was clear—it was because she wanted to raise him like a pet. However, even crouching, she was a gigantic woman. Just huge.
“You could use those as, like, hand and footholds, don’t you think? Over there.” Kikkawa motioned towards the surface of the hole’s sides with his chin. “Even without a ladder, you could, like, get up and down. Don’t you think?”
It was true, there were protrusions it looked like they could grab with their hands or hook their feet on. It might not be quick, but if they put their minds to it, they could go down.
“Zodiac-kun.” Ranta turned to the demon. “You go down first for us.”
“...Kehe... Ranta... I wouldn’t mind pushing you down it... Kehehehe...”
A flat refusal.
“Heh...” Inui flipped a coin and caught it in the palm of his hand. “Let’s try with this...”
“Ouch!” Anna-san cried out. “That what Anna-san was thinking of doing, yeah?!”
“Too late... Heh...” Inui sent the coin down the hole.
They listened for it.
Soon, there was a clinking sound. It seemed the hole had a bottom, at least. It could only be so deep.
“Well...” Haruhiro sighed slightly. “I’ll go in.”
“Sorry about this, thief.” Tokimune flashed his white teeth in a smile.
“Do your best,” Mimorin said impassively.
It’d be awkward to just straight-up ignore her. Haruhiro tied the lantern around his waist, the corner of his lips twitching slightly as he nodded. Feeling bothered, not very happy, put upon, and carrying all sorts of other unsatisfying feelings, he went into the hole. Or down the hole, rather. Hooking his hands and feet on the bumps, he descended.
Partway down, he started to wonder, Is it really smart for the leader to be scouting ahead? It’s something I always do, but the leader has the important role of making decisions for the party as a whole. If they lost their leader, no matter how plain and mediocre of a leader I am, that would end badly. Scouting carries a fair number of risks. It can lead to serious injury or, well, death, so maybe it’s not something the leader should be doing...?
It was something that had just occurred to him. Right now, they had Tokimune, so things would work out even if something were, theoretically, to happen to Haruhiro. There was the issue of if he could leave it to any of his other comrades, too. While Ranta and Yume were both quick, owing to their jobs, neither of them had the personality for it. They lacked the ability to concentrate.
Who did it for the Tokkis? Maybe Inui, since he used to be a thief, too?
Though, this was the Tokkis he was thinking about, after all. They might not bother with a little thing like scouting and just, wham, charge in and go bam and boom and be done with it.
No, it wasn’t that scouting was a little thing. He didn’t hate doing it. These sorts of jobs that were pretty plain, but that someone had to do, and that had a real effect on the outcome if done right, but that didn’t earn the person who did them much praise, but that he could still feel a sense of self-satisfaction about, they were the jobs Haruhiro secretly enjoyed.
I must say, I’m not a clever person, he thought. But that’s okay, I’m fine like this. Even if he tried to force himself to change, he’d soon be unmasked for what he really was.
In a plain, ordinary way, without making any noise, he went down the hole.
He reached the bottom. There was a path. He couldn’t see what was down it, but he didn’t sense anything nearby.
“It looks clear,” Haruhiro called up. “We can keep going. Come down.”
Tokimune and then each of the others in turn came down. At times like this, Haruhiro thought it might have been best if Tokimune had stayed up until everyone else was down, but he opted not to say anything.
The path narrowed from here on. It was around two meters high, less than a meter and a half across. It wasn’t impossible to walk two abreast, but it would have been cramped, so Haruhiro took point, with Tokimune behind him to the left, Kikkawa diagonally to the right behind Tokimune, and so on. They advanced in an unorthodox zigzag column, or one and a half columns.
It wasn’t just Haruhiro and his group being quiet now; the Tokkis were, too.
Something’s probably going to happen here. There’s got to be something. Haruhiro felt his pulse racing. No, calm down, he told himself. Level head. Keep a level head. If I get too nervous, that narrows my range of vision and my body tenses up.
The path was more or less flat and straight. At some point, Haruhiro noticed he had started going awfully slowly. It might be okay to pick up the pace a bit.
“Just now...” Haruhiro stopped walking and turned around. “Did someone say something?”
“Hmm?” Tokimune shrugged his shoulders. “Could be. Did anyone say anything?”
No one raised their hand. Everyone shook their head.
“Did you hear something?” Tokimune asked him.
“No... Well, I thought I did... maybe? That’s as far as it went. Oh...” Haruhiro brought his index finger to his lips. Everyone held their breath.
—I can hear them, he thought.
...Aruburuburah.
...Furaguraburubaradirah.
...Shurubiraburaharagureroh.
...Pyuraryugadih.
...Aburaguh.
Those were the sorts of voices he heard.
“Ri-komos...” Kikkawa said in a small voice. “...You think, like, there’re a lot of them?”
Haruhiro took a deep breath, laying the lantern down on the ground. “I’ll go take a look.”
“You going to be okay?” It was unusual for Tokimune to sound worried for him like this.
That’s a bad omen, Haruhiro thought nervously. No, no.
“If you want, I can go with you, you know?” Ranta said, sounding all self-important.
“If my only other alternative was to go with you, I’d be eight hundred million times better by myself, so no thanks,” Haruhiro said.
“You’re so not cute. Augh!” Ranta was cowering. Someone had whacked him with their staff.
“Haruhiro is cute.” It was Mimorin, expressionless as ever.
“How so?” Shihoru asked.
She had probably just asked the question because it’d popped into her head, but it was still a little mean.
No, maybe not.
No. No it wasn’t. Haruhiro wasn’t cute at all. He didn’t want anyone thinking he was cute.
“The way he’s pitiful, but he still puts in all this meaningless effort,” Mimorin responded.
I see. Haruhiro pinched the bridge of his nose. ...I see.
It was true, he was pitiful, and he might have been trying too hard in spite of that. In fact, he was shocked she had hit so close to the mark, and he wasn’t sure he could recover from it. Well, even if he was fine with that—which he wasn’t—how was that supposed to be cute?
“Mimoriiiin..
.” Anna-san said as she hugged Mimorin around the waist, which was pretty high up for her with how short she was. “Now I sort of get it, yeah.”
“Right?” Mimorin nodded.
“That bad... Anna-san think it is... enduring. No... Endearing? Subset, type, of pity? Yeah? He is pathetic? Right?” Anna-san asked.
Mimorin cocked her head to the side and thought for a moment, but ultimately didn’t answer Anna-san’s question before turning back to Haruhiro. “Haruhiro, you’re cute.”
“Uh... Thanks,” he said.
“I want to keep you as a pet. Let me.”
“I can’t.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t die.”
“...Okay.”
Haruhiro headed out as if trying to escape.
Scouting. I have to scout. I’ll give scouting my all. I’m going to do the most perfect scouting job ever. I’ll scout like no one else. I am going to scout. Now, I am going to be the scouting master. I am the best scout ever. I want to be able to puff up my chest and say that with pride. Okay, no, not really, but right now, it’s time to scout. For now, I’m gonna scout.
Use Sneaking. Ahh, this sure is fun, Sneaking. I love it. Sneaking. I’m pathetic, but I’ll work my butt off for no good reason. What’s wrong with working hard?! Nothing. I’m already pitiful, so if I don’t at least try hard, I’ll be way too pitiful, you know? I’ll be like Anna-san. Sigh...
Focus. Gotta focus.
The path went on without winding. He kept hearing the ri-komos talking. He didn’t really understand, but maybe they were shooting the breeze? It didn’t have a particularly urgent tone. As he felt his way forward, the voices grew louder, so the one thing he could be sure of was that there were ri-komos up ahead. It was the right decision to leave the lantern behind—he thought. Probably.
He could see light up ahead. A slight, weak light. He approached it.
Just before coming out into a wider area, Haruhiro stopped.
“Aburerah, burareryoh, samuragerasshuh.”
“Bagashoburirah, faiabushuh, fakkashuburyoh.”
“Rabureshuburaruroh, fanafarabushoh, ireburesshoruttoh.”
They’re there. There. They’re coming now. From over there.
The room’s got considerable height, width, and depth. But, what exactly is it like inside? And what’s this faint light? He squinted his eyes. No good. Can’t see.
Haruhiro turned his neck, then his shoulders. Nodding, he poked his head out a little.
It’s big—though, that said, it’s not ridiculously wide. Well, maybe ten meters across. Thereabouts. I dunno how high the roof is, or how far back it goes. There’re light sources all over. There’re lots of holes, big and small, in the rock wall, and it looks like there’s a blue light coming out of them. Seems like the ri-komos are inside those holes. Where the holes are—hanging upside down?—there’re ri-komos there, too. And the ri-komos, they’re talking about something? Looks like.
Is it a ri-komo nest?
That’s probably what this place is.
Haruhiro turned back before the ri-komos could find him. Haruhiro was welcomed back by a silent group of eleven volunteer soldiers and one Zodiac-kun.
“Looks like a ri-komo nest,” Haruhiro said. “There’re a ton of them. More than ten or twenty. Charging in is, well, not something I’d want to do. Personally speaking.”
“Hmm...” Tokimune had a pensive look on his face.
“Leave this one to me,” Tada said, the lantern’s light flashing off his glasses as he spoke. “The way I see it, the ri-komos won’t attack. I’ll go and check that now. You guys, at least get ready to run in case you have to.”
“Hold up,” Ranta said, a not-so-daring smile that was really a mix of fear and bravado on his face. “We can’t have the Tokkis do everything for us. Let me come, too.”
“...Kehe... Give it up... Ranta... Kehehe... You can try to act cool, but you never will be...”
“That’s not true! I was damn cool just now, wasn’t I?!” Ranta shouted. “It was on the level where you might fall for me in spite of yourselves, right? Right? Come on? Right?”
Ranta looked to the girls. He received no response but cold stares.
“No, um...” Haruhiro scratched his head. “It’s clearly dangerous, so maybe you should give up?”
“No.” Tada adjusted his glasses with his left index finger. “Absolutely not. Listen, Tokimune. If things go south, run away without me.”
“Sure,” Tokimune said. “Okay, let’s do that.”
“He accepted that easily...” Kuzaku mumbled.
“You’re okay with that, yeah, Haruhiro?” Tokimune asked. The fact that Tokimune had checked with him actually came as a bit of a surprise. “Okay, get going, Tada.”
Well, I still hadn’t given you a response yet, though? Haruhiro thought.
Tada shouldered his warhammer, humming as he walked off at a leisurely pace.
“W-Wait, wait! Me, too! Me, too!” Ranta and Zodiac-kun chased after him.
“Wow...” Yume looked on, dumbfounded.
Merry cleared her throat. She might have been trying to calm herself.
Haruhiro sighed. He seemed to punctuate nearly everything with a sigh. Sighs were the one thing he could believe in. No, it wasn’t a question of believing or not believing. Just...
“I’m going to be following a bit behind Tada-san,” he said. “Tokimune-san, just in case, have everyone ready to run away.”
“Okay.” Tokimune nodded. “Thanks for your hard work.”
“Haruhiro.” Mimorin nodded to him expressionlessly. “Live.”
“...Okay.”
He was happy she was rooting for him, at least. No, maybe not so much.
Haruhiro stayed three meters behind Ranta and Zodiac-kun.
Tada was still humming to himself. The guy was having way too much fun. He had to be off in the head.
The most normal-looking one wasn’t just crazy, he was the craziest. That was the pattern their group had ended up following.
Tada looked like he was headed off on a merry stroll, but Haruhiro was on edge. Ranta was walking funny, too. He was totally spooked. Compared to Tada, Ranta’s behavior was almost cute.
This was a new thought for Haruhiro. Ranta being cute.
Tada didn’t stop once, or slow, before he entered the nest. Ranta was hesitant, but Zodiac-kun pushed him from behind.
“Whoa... Hey! Zodiac-kun?! Stop?! I need to be mentally prepared before I do this, you know?!”
“...Kehe... Shut up and die...”
“I’m not gonna dieeeeeeee...!”
“Ranta,” Haruhiro warned him, even though it was already too late, “you’re too loud, man.”
“Whoa?!” Ranta jumped.
“Haha!” Tada turned back to them and gave his warhammer a swing. “Don’t sweat it! It’s no problem! If I’m on the mark, the ri-komos won’t come and attack us!”
The ri-komo voices—had stopped.
It was silent.
“See?” Tada said boastfully, looking around the nest. “Just like I thought. These guys are really cowardly. They’re not exactly belligerent.”
“No, but, Tada-san, you killed one of them in the other room,” said Haruhiro.
“That’s when I figured it out,” he said confidently. “From the feeling when I hit him? I knew the guy was weak.”
“So, it’s that sort of... How should I say it...? Instinctual thing, huh?” Haruhiro asked.
“Life, man,” said Tada. “It’s not about reason.”
“Ohh!” Ranta fell to one knee, clutching his chest. “A great line is born! You’re right! ‘Life’s not about reason,’ is it?! Tada-san, you’re awesome!”
“Don’t praise me so much.” Tada hit his warhammer on his shoulder as he adjusted his glasses. “I’ll catch your stupidity!”
“Wahaha! No, no, noooo! There you go, being like that again, Tada-saaaan!”
What’s with these two? t
hought Haruhiro. Ranta’s always been an idiot, but maybe Tada’s an idiot, too? Are they both idiots?
The ri-komos remained silent, showing no sign of moving. Though, that said, this could be the calm before a storm, maybe? Haruhiro, honestly, didn’t feel safe at all.
“Haruhiro, you come, too,” Tada beckoned to him.
“...I think I’d rather not.”
“Just get over here,” Tada said.
“Yeah, Parupiroooo,” Ranta yelled. “Don’t chicken out on us, you idiot!”
“Hurry up,” Tada said. “Or I’m gonna slug you.”
“If you hit me with that thing, I could easily die, you know...” Haruhiro muttered.
He probably wasn’t serious. But, this being Tada, Haruhiro couldn’t be sure, so he was left with no choice but to comply.
Haruhiro hesitantly walked into the nest. It was true, the ri-komo they’d met in the earlier room hadn’t been that tough. Still, if the ri-komos swarmed them en masse, they would be a threat. Or rather, the difference in numbers was so great, Haruhiro and the other two might be minced in no time. He could feel death so very near. Mimorin had told him to live, but that might not be possible.
Or maybe it would be.
The ri-komos hadn’t moved, after all. Their voices were silent.
“Ranta.” Tada gestured towards the path they came from with his chin. “Go call Tokimune. Haruhiro and I will wait here.”
“Yes, sir!” Ranta yelled.
“...Kehehe... You’re like a gopher, Ranta... Kehe... It suits you... Kehehehe...”
“Shut up! It’s fine! Tada’s the man with the quote of the day!” Ranta made that nonsensical declaration and then ran off down the path. Zodiac-kun followed after him.
Now Haruhiro was alone with Tada. No... there were a ton of ri-komos surrounding them. It was hard to call that being alone together.
“Haruhiro.”
“...What?”
Tada didn’t say anything more right away. A moment passed before he said, “Take good care of Mimori for me.”
“...Say what?”
“She’s bigger than I am, and her taste is awful, and I never know what she’s thinking, and she won’t let me call her Mimorin, and she pisses me off, but we’re still comrades,” Tada said.