Hear Me Out, And Try Not To Laugh

by Ao Jyumonji

  Before the giant could pull back its right arm, incredibly, Tokimune raced up it. Where had he gotten that sense of balance? How could he commit like that?

  Tokimune reached the giant’s right shoulder in no time. Then, once again, he smacked the giant in the side of its face with his sword and shield.

  “Gooooooooong! Dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  The giant staggered a little, but soon tried to catch Tokimune with its hands. Only, it was slow and stupid. Tokimune jumped away, pulling off a stylish landing, then wailed on the giant’s knees with his sword.

  “Take that! And that! And that! And that! And that! And that, and that, and that, and that!”

  “Go, go, go, go, go, go...!”

  The giant swung down its right arm, trying to crush Tokimune. It was a terrifying strike that threatened to make an instant pancake out of him, but Tokimune dodged it with a laugh. Using a back flip, for some reason.

  “That was unnecessary,” Haruhiro commented.

  “It was, too, necessary!” Tokimune shouted. He got in close to the giant, visiting blows on it with his sword and shield. “Because it was damn cool! Strong and cool are synonymous—Yeahhhhhh!”

  “Tch! Dammit, Tokimune!” a man shouted.

  It was Tada. Tada was here. He was bleeding all over, but Tada ran forward with his warhammer over his shoulder.

  “I don’t care who’s cooler, but I’m stronger!” Tada bellowed. “Somersault Bomb!”

  That skill—he ran up, did a forward somersault, then slammed his weapon down into the enemy. That wasn’t a priest’s self-defense skill. A warrior. It was a warrior’s heavy armor combat skill.

  Ker-smash! Tada’s warhammer caught the giant’s left knee. The giant’s knee caved in, causing white fragments to fly everywhere.

  Tada did a backwards roll to get behind it, then was unable to get up, lying on his backside. “Urgh... Not enough blood...”

  “Wahaha! It’s ’cause you’re trying too hard, Tada! Whoa there...” Tokimune slipped through the giant’s arms as he fell back, then hit those arms with his sword. He hit them and hit them. “But that was a good attack there! It’s slowed it down!”

  It was true, the giant was dragging its left leg. Tada’s Somersault Bomb must have been pretty effective.

  “Seriously?! Are we seriously, seriously going to finish this thing here?!” a voice screamed.

  Someone annoying had arrived. It was Ranta.

  “Then that’s gotta mean, gotta mean, gotta mean it’s my time to shine, right?!” Ranta hollered.

  No, you get lost! was what Haruhiro wanted to say, but Ranta wouldn’t have listened.

  “Yahoo!” Kikkawa yelled. “I’m getting in on this too!”

  “Haru!” Merry called.

  “Haru-kun!” cried Yume.

  “Haruhiro-kun...” murmured Shihoru.

  “Haruhiro?!” cried Kuzaku.

  Yeah, and it looks like everyone’s come down here now, Haruhiro noted. We’re doing this. Is that the way things are going? It probably is. I don’t like it. I mean, my left arm, butt, and back hurt. If we’re going to do this, we have to win. Sure, it’s slowed down a bit, but can we take down that monster?

  Haruhiro didn’t think it was going to be that easy.

  The giant was going after Tokimune, reaching out with its right hand, then its left. Tokimune was nimbly avoiding its grasp and striking back, but he wasn’t managing to do any damage.

  Tada was still on the ground. It didn’t look like he’d be able to move. Ranta and Kikkawa seemed to be trying to get behind the giant. Yume, Shihoru, Merry, and Kuzaku were trying to get closer to Haruhiro.

  Haruhiro’s left arm was starting to seriously hurt now. It kept drawing his attention, and he couldn’t help it. He needed to get his mind back on track. What was it? What did he need to be thinking about? Reinforcements. That was right. Enemies. There could be cultists coming. There didn’t seem to be any yet.

  They had to take it down. Kill it. That giant. How? Tada’s warhammer. The giant’s... outer skin? Was it skin? He wasn’t sure, but the giant’s outside was really hard. It seemed bludgeoning weapons would still work, though. Even so, it was too much to ask Tada to pull off another hit like before. Haruhiro’s sap was a bludgeoning weapon, too, but he would be hard-pressed to pull off a powerful attack like Tada had with it. Or rather, it would be impossible to. Merry’s short staff was probably a similar case. That left magic, maybe. The cultists had been weak against Darsh Magic. What about the giant?

  Shadow Bond couldn’t bind powerful enemies to begin with, so it was going to be pointless. Even if Shadow Complex could confuse the giant, if it thrashed around violently, it wouldn’t be any different. That one was out, too.

  What about putting it to sleep with Sleepy Shadow? It would wake up if they attacked it, so that one was also no good. Shadow Echo didn’t seem like it would be a game-changer, either.

  “What do we do?” Haruhiro mumbled to himself as he looked around them, and above.

  Where were Anna-san and Mimori, he wondered? Had Inui not managed to keep up with the group, after all? What was he going to do?

  “Kuzaku, you join in and help surround it,” Haruhiro said. “Don’t get too close. Yume and Merry, cover Shihoru. Shihoru, use magic. Try nailing it with a Thunderstorm.”

  “Right!” Shihoru immediately turned to face the giant. “Everyone, get back a little!”

  Tokimune and the others backed away from the giant. Shihoru began to draw elemental sigils with the tip of her staff and chant a spell.

  “Jess, yeen, sark, kart, fram, dart!”

  It was a big target, so the entire bundle of lightning struck the giant. There was a pretty incredible noise, and the giant’s body shook, with smoke rising from it here and there, but, as if everything were normal, it turned to look in this direction—or rather, in Shihoru’s direction.

  Oh, crap, Haruhiro thought. Here it comes.

  “I’m not gonna let you—” Ranta stabbed Lightning Sword Dolphin into the giant. “—do thaaaat!”

  The giant shuddered. That was all. Then it reached out and tried to grab Ranta. “Go, go, go...!”

  “Whoa, hoh!” Ranta let out a weird cry and swung Lightning Sword Dolphin again. The tip of the blade grazed the middle finger of the giant’s right hand.

  The giant shuddered.

  Ranta leapt back during that time, and Tokimune and Kikkawa, along with Kuzaku, closed in on the giant, whaling on its lower extremities with their swords and shields. However, no matter how much they hit it, they couldn’t do the same kind of damage that Tada’s Somersault Bomb had.

  “Go, go, go, go, go, go...!”

  “Whoa!” Tokimune shouted.

  “Yipes!” Kikkawa screamed.

  “Wha...!” Kuzaku cried.

  When the giant made a grand swing with both of its arms, Tokimune, Kikkawa, and Kuzaku were all forced to back away. Could they really defeat it by just repeatedly doing this?

  “Haruhiro!” Tokimune shouted to him while dodging the giant’s right hook. “As your senior, let me teach you the secret to beating down enemies like this!”

  “What’s that secret?!” Haruhiro shouted back.

  “A concentrated attack!”

  “Come again?”

  “You concentrate your attacks! If there’re five people, that’s five times the attacks! If you have ten people, it’s ten! You slam all of that into it at once! A focused attack! That’s the secret!”

  “...I see,” Haruhiro muttered. He felt like an idiot to have expected anything.

  What’s the big deal about a concentrated attack? You’re just concentrating your attacks. Anyone would think to do that. It’s obvious, isn’t it?

  The issue was where to concentrate their attacks. How would they concentrate their attacks?

  A concentrated attack, Haruhiro thought.

  “Mimorin! Keep trying, yeah!” a new voice shouted.

  That voice, that way of talking—it’s Anna-san
, he realized.

  Looking up, he saw Mimorin wedged into a gap in the ceiling. No, she wasn’t wedged in there, she was trying to come down. Her chest was kind of large, though, and she seemed to have gotten stuck. Still, she slipped through.

  Or rather, she fell.

  “Eek!” Mimorin landed on her rump, letting out a surprisingly cute little scream as she did. Then she groaned. “Ngh...”

  The fall looked like it had been painful.

  “Mi-Mi-Mimoriiiin?!” Anna-san was trying to come down through the same gap. She had large breasts, too, but unlike Mimori, her body was small, so it didn’t look like she’d get caught. “Are you all right?! You not hurt, yeah?!”

  “It’s nothing major.” Mimorin used her staff for support as she got up, then drew her sword.

  That’s right, Haruhiro remembered.

  She was a mage now, but Mimorin had once been a warrior, and she also carried a sword in addition to her staff. What was Mimorin planning to do with her staff in her left hand and her sword in her right?

  For now, she looked around restlessly, then seemed to find what she was after. She started walking towards it, but her leg was injured, and it looked like her butt hurt, too, so she was tottering unsteadily.

  “Hold on, that’s dangerous,” Haruhiro told her.

  Mimorin was trying to face down the giant. She was apparently going to join in on the concentrated attack. Why did everyone in the Tokkis have to be like this?

  Concentrating our attacks, Haruhiro thought.

  No plan came to mind. Fighting this way was absurd. Why did they even need to defeat the giant to begin with? Dealing a major blow to it, to buy the time to retreat, would be enough. Any more was unnecessary.

  “Ranta!” Haruhiro shouted. “Keep on whacking the giant’s legs with that Lightning Sword you’re so proud of! When you do, everyone will go for the eye! It can still see with that eye! We’ll blind it, then run! You can complain later, just do what I say for now! Now, do it, Ranta!”

  “Don’t act so full of yourself when you’re just Parupiro!” Ranta hollered. He closed in on the giant and hit its leg with Lightning Sword Dolphin. “You’d better cry and thank me later!”

  Not gonna happen, Haruhiro thought. I’ll never thank you, but if you do well, I might praise you for it.

  “Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! Hahhhhh...!” Ranta swung Lightning Sword Dolphin continuously, without stopping for a breath. He swung it like crazy, striking the giant’s left leg.

  Each time he hit the giant, it shuddered. Shudder, shudder, shudder, shudder. Each of those shudders only took a short time, but when they came continuously, it was almost like it was paralyzed, because the giant couldn’t move.

  “Mrrow!” Yume nocked an arrow to her composite bow, then let it loose.

  In rapid succession, she fired, and fired, and fired, and fired.

  It was the archery skill, Rapid Fire. With Yume’s skill level, every couple shots one would fire off in completely the wrong direction, or not fly far enough, but two in every five hit the giant right in the eye. This was a result so successful, Haruhiro could only imagine it was a fluke.

  “Haruhiroooo!” Tokimune raced up the giant’s body. “It looks like you’ve mastered the secret! Now it’s time for my super attack! Float like a leopard, sting like a whale!”

  You’ve got something wrong there, Haruhiro thought. You probably meant float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

  But it would be uncouth to correct him—maybe? Besides, Tokimune didn’t float like a butterfly or a leopard, and he didn’t sting like a whale or a bee. However, once he got up on the giant’s shoulders, he did stab the hell out of its one eye.

  “Me, too! Me, too! Let me in on this!” Kikkawa tried to climb the giant, too, but failed.

  Kuzaku shook his head, as if to say, Yeah, no, I can’t. Haruhiro was more or less fine with that. He was the one who’d said everyone should attack its eye, but maybe Tokimune alone would be enough.

  Of course, Mimorin, who was injured, didn’t need to do anything. Haruhiro rushed over to Mimorin, patting her on the back lightly.

  “You’ve done enough! Let’s run, Mimorin!”

  “Huh?” Mimorin looked down at Haruhiro, then nodded. “Okay.”

  Haruhiro waved his right arm wide, calling out loudly, “Retreat! We’re retreating! Tokimune-san, get down here! Kikkawa, you, too!”

  “Zwahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Tada, who had been hanging his head until this point, shouted as he rushed towards the giant.

  Before Haruhiro could say, No, we’ve done enough, and stop him, Tada did a forward somersault and slammed his warhammer into the giant’s right knee.

  “Somersault Booooomb!”

  Crunch. The giant’s right knee caved in.

  Tada stumbled backwards, then sat down. “How do you like that? I’m the strong one here... heh heh...”

  Who really cares? Haruhiro thought.

  “Nwahhhh!” Ranta backed away two, three steps, then thrust Lightning Sword Dolphin into the ground. “I-I’m... so... exhausted... dammiiiiit!”

  This is the limit, huh, Haruhiro thought.

  The giant began to move.

  Ultimately, Kikkawa, who had never fully managed to scale the giant, came down from it, half-falling off in the process, and helped Tada to his feet. He lent him a shoulder for support, and made him walk.

  “Tadacchi! You can go, right?!” Kikkawa called.

  “Damn straight!” Tada called. “Who do you think I am?!”

  Tokimune made a graceful landing. “Anna-saaaan! We’re getting out of here! You know the way, right?!”

  “Of course, yeah?!” Anna-san was still clinging to the wall of rubble, but she nimbly jumped down. “You follow Anna-san, yeah! Let’s go!”

  Was this going to be okay? Haruhiro wasn’t fully convinced, but he didn’t know the way himself, so he had no choice but to let Anna-san lead on.

  “Ranta-kun!” Kuzaku dragged Ranta behind him.

  “Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go...!”

  The giant might have been trying to thrash about, but with both legs collapsing underneath it, it was forced to squat. The two Somersault Bombs had hurt its knees badly.

  Haruhiro looked quickly to Yume, Shihoru, and Merry. “Follow Anna-san!” he shouted.

  All three nodded in unison.

  Anna-san and Tokimune took the lead; then Yume, Shihoru, and Merry; Kuzaku and Ranta followed, as well as Kikkawa and Tada; and lastly, Haruhiro and Mimorin followed them, in that order. They were far from running away at top speed. Even setting Ranta aside, Tada and Mimorin were in no shape to run. The best they could manage would be a hurried walk.

  Mimorin had returned her sword to its sheathe and was using her staff like a cane, but she was still having a hard time. It looked like she had lost the strength in her left leg. She was bleeding, too.

  If her left side was weak, if he supported her left side with his right, she might have an easier time of it. Fortunately, it was Haruhiro’s left arm that hurt. If it had been his right, it would have made things difficult, but this he could handle.

  Haruhiro smoothly slid in between Mimorin’s left arm and her left flank, putting his right arm around her shoulder.

  “Let’s do our best,” he tried saying to her, but Mimorin didn’t say a thing. When he looked, she was biting her lip. It looked like she might burst into tears at any second.

  The giant was behind them, putting a great deal of effort into tackling the walls of rubble, grabbing onto chunks of rubble and throwing them. Hopefully, none of it would fly their way.

  This is kinda awkward, thought Haruhiro.

  They had been working with the Tokkis to explore the Dusk Realm, which they had both discovered, after all, and—well, the Tokkis had stabbed them in the back and tried to steal a march on Haruhiro and the party, but they still felt like comrades, and that was why the party had accepted Kikkawa’s request and come this far.

  Ha
ving come all this way, Haruhiro wanted to save anyone he could, and that was a feeling that didn’t apply to any particular individual, but to the Tokkis as a whole. Of course, that whole included Mimorin. That was all there was to it. What he was doing now was just another part of that. He could explain he didn’t mean anything else by it, and maybe he should have, but this really wasn’t the time, was it?

  “Um... say, Mimorin,” said Haruhiro. “Uh... I-Inui-san’s kind of not here, you know. Nobody’s saying anything, though.”

  “Ohh,” said Mimorin.

  “Is that okay?” Haruhiro asked. “No, I mean, there’s no way it’s okay, but...”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think.”

  “Y-You think?”

  “He’s a stubborn survivor, that Inui.” Mimorin was back to her usual deadpan expression. “Like a cockroach.”

  “...Wow,” Haruhiro murmured.

  “But he’s not cute like a cockroach.”

  No—I’m pretty sure cockroaches aren’t cute.

  But, even if he said something normal like that, Mimorin probably wouldn’t be able to understand. He had a feeling that this girl and he would never understand one another. They didn’t have to, though. He didn’t particularly want to understand her.

  I don’t care, he told himself. It doesn’t matter.

  First, they had to get out of the maze of rubble. Then they could get out of the Dusk Realm. Once they were able to receive the blessings of the God of Light, Lumiaris, they would heal up with light magic. Then they would return to the Lonesome Field Outpost.

  I don’t care what happens after that, Haruhiro added silently.

  “My God!” exclaimed Anna-san, coming to a stop in the middle of a four-way intersection.

  Everyone had to stop.

  “Hey, hey, hey, hey, Anna-san!” Ranta sputtered.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Anna-san turned around and said something foreign that probably meant she wanted him to shut up. “’Kay! We going, yeah! I make little bit mistake! No big deal, yeah!”

  “Is that actually true?” Kuzaku mumbled to himself.

  “You people.” Tokimune gave them the thumbs up and flashed his white teeth at them. “Come on, just trust Anna-san. I’m sure we’re about to witness a miracle. Yes, a miracle. No doubt about it.”