The Leaders and the Led

by Ao Jyumonji

  In fact, if they hadn’t been through the fight to the death at Deadhead Watching Keep, they would have panicked just from encountering the ustrel, which could easily have gotten them wiped out. No, not could, it definitely would have.

  Getting stronger wasn’t just learning skills, acquiring new equipment, building stamina, and strengthening their muscles—it was more than that.

  They had to experience things. They had to use their own heads and bodies to learn the terror, the harshness, the pains and difficulties. Then they had to overcome them.

  True, Haruhiro and his comrades were not strong. No matter how they trained, Haruhiro, for instance, could never become like Renji. However, with each experience like this, they might not get closer to Team Renji, but Haruhiro and the party could grow in their own way. If they had different experiences from Renji and his group, they would gain different knowledge, different specialties, and expand their abilities differently. Even if they were inferior ninety-nine percent of the time, just that once, they wouldn’t lose. It was fully possible that they could turn out like that.

  Potential.

  It’s there.

  We still have potential.

  Moguzo. Even now that we’ve lost you, there are still things we can do. Lots of them, in fact. If anything, there may be things we’ll only have to do because we’ve lost you.

  If you could have always stayed with us, that would have been for the best. But just because we’ve lost you, that doesn’t mean it’s all over. I feel bad for you, and it makes me feel very sad, very lonely to say this, but we have to move on. We can keep moving forward.

  Haruhiro put a hand on Yume’s shoulder. “Good work. A whole lot of your arrows hit their mark today. After all the times you’ve talked about how bad you are at it, you were amazing.”

  “...Yeah.” Yume looked up at Haruhiro, holding his hand tight. It wasn’t just sweat. She had tears in her eyes, too. “Yume, she couldn’t just keep sayin’ she was no good at it. Yume needs to do the things Yume can do, y’know. It’s not about needin’ to try hard—Yume, she wants to try hard.”

  “Yume, I know you’re trying hard,” said Haruhiro.

  “Well, yeah, but Yume can do much, much more.”

  “I’d say it’s okay for you to take it a little bit at a time, don’t you think?” said Haruhiro. “You don’t have to do everything at once. We’ve got a long time to work on it.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” Yume furrowed her brow and bit her lip.

  If Haruhiro and the party continued on like this, they would likely make it through to tomorrow somehow, but that wasn’t true for everyone.

  The world was neither equal nor fair. Someone had once said the only thing that was equal for all was time. But that wasn’t true. While time may flow equally for all, ours can easily be snatched away from us. This was something Haruhiro and the others had no need to remind themselves of, because they knew it well.

  Haruhiro gripped Yume’s shoulder firmly, then let go. He had nothing to say to Ranta. He slapped him on the back and Ranta gave him a “Heh.”

  “Shihoru.” When Haruhiro called out to her, Shihoru shrunk her neck into her body and looked at him apologetically. No, I haven’t even said anything yet. “Your timing with those spells was good. It helped us out a lot.”

  “There’s a lot of room for improvement...” Shihoru said. “Actually, I still don’t have enough firepower...”

  While she may have looked timid, Shihoru had the bravery to face her own weaknesses. That meant that even if she was weak, she could become stronger. In Shihoru’s case, it would probably be better to urge her to improve than to console her.

  “Yeah,” Haruhiro said. “The way things stand, your magic can’t be the decisive blow against more powerful enemies. I think you could pursue that as a goal.”

  “Yes,” she said meekly.

  “There’s no need to be so meek...”

  “S-Sorry...”

  Shihoru bowed her head, and Merry gave her a pat on the back.

  It’s kind of nice, seeing them like that, Haruhiro thought. I’m not jealous or anything. When I see girls who are close to each other, it’s strangely calming. When it’s a guy and a girl, that’s more awkward, though.

  Merry was looking at him, so Haruhiro gave her a smile. Merry smiled back just a little.

  This isn’t bad, either. I feel like Merry and I can really communicate. Only as comrades in the same party, but still. When it comes to anything more than that, or other than that—I’m not so sure. I don’t feel like we could. Not that we have to. We’re comrades in the same party, after all.

  Haruhiro turned to Kuzaku and offered him his hand. “You’ll have to buy a new shield, huh.”

  “...Guess so.” Kuzaku extended his hand, Haruhiro took it by the wrist and pulled him to his feet.

  Still, is this guy big, or what? Haruhiro thought. When you’re tall and thin, it’s a real asset. Even if your face is pretty normal, you still look relatively cool.

  “Unlike before, you actually did your job as tank,” Haruhiro said. “I’m gonna demand more and more of you from here on, so expect that.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Kuzaku. “Whatever I have to. So I don’t die—actually, so I don’t let anyone else die, either.”

  “I’m counting on you.” Haruhiro poked Kuzaku in the ribs.

  Maybe I ought to make a rule against romance within the party, he thought for a moment. If people within the group hook up or have a break up, that could cause a lot of trouble, so it might be a good idea.

  With a glance to the ustrel’s remains, he looked up into the narrow slit of sky visible from inside the canyon-like Wonder Hole.

  Here, in this Wonder Hole, we’re going to get stronger, Haruhiro resolved. We’ll build up a ton of experience, gain more and more strength, and—this one would get me laughed at, so I won’t ever say it out loud—but someday, we’ll get to the point we can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Soma.

  I swear we will.

  Afterword

  When I opened my eyes, I was in the middle of a battle. It seemed that I had fallen asleep at some point. The controller was still in my hands. When I restarted the battle, I noticed one of my party members was dead.

  Why are you dead? I don’t remember, I thought. I’ll have to bring you back to life. Well, whatever.

  I was just slaughtering weak monsters to level up, so I could handle losing one person.

  Would you usually die, though? Fighting enemies of this level? I’m sure, in my hazy semi-conscious state, I must have neglected to heal while continuing my mass murder. When I looked, my surviving party members were pretty low on health, too.

  Ahh. There goes another one. Well, whatever. Battle’s finished.

  Two people were dead, and one of them was the one who could cast the revival spell. I could also have used an item to revive them, but that would be a waste, so I used magic to warp back to town. I revived them, healed them, and now what? I had money saved up, but I’d more or less bought everything I wanted already. When I thought about it, there was no need to be such a cheapskate about using the items.

  Guess I’ll go level some more, I thought. Nah, I think I’ve done enough. Time to advance the story, I guess. Wait, where do I go and what do I do next, anyway? What was I supposed to be doing?

  I’ve had similar experiences—or actually, practically the same experience—time and again, cutting into my sleeping hours to do it. Did I waste my time? I don’t think so. I mean, if not for the time I spent doing that, I wouldn’t be writing this book, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, right now.

  Out of habit, or to escape, or in search of pleasant, mind-numbing work, I was idly spending my time leveling up. Looking back to a time long before then, I had seen a new world inside video games.

  With the advance of technology, open-world games and 3D action RPGs like Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls are now made all the time, inviting me back into that world I feel such nostalgia for, but a
t the moment, my greatest hope is reserved for VR headsets. I am certain that a VR headset will immerse me in newer and more different worlds. I am hoping the next-gen gaming experience will be able to win against the act of writing novels, something which plays out inside my head and stimulates all five of my senses. But, I dunno. Novel writing is difficult and, at times, painful, but it really is fun.

  I’ve run out of pages.

  To my editor, K, to Eiri Shirai-san, to the designers of KOMEWORKS among others, to everyone involved in production and sales of this book, and finally to all of you people now holding this book, I offer my heartfelt appreciation and all of my love. Now, I lay down my pen for today.

  I hope we will meet again.

  Oh, that’s right, please support my other series, What’s Wrong with a Hero Being Jobless?, too.

  Ao Jyumonji

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  Copyright

  Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: Volume 4

  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 © 2014 Ao Jyumonji

  Illustrations Copyright © 2014 Eiri Shirai

  Cover illustration by Eiri Shirai

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published in 2014 by OVERLAP

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

  English translation © 2017 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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  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Ebook edition 1.0: June 2017