Towards a Glory Not Worth Taking

by Ao Jyumonji

  That was right. She was here. She had to be. She was somewhere. He just couldn’t see her.

  He couldn’t see her.

  She’s somewhere I can’t see her...?

  “The valley!” Haruhiro shouted.

  He could be wrong, but it was possible.

  The volunteer soldier settlement in the Dusk Realm had been built around a valley with a spring at the bottom. It wasn’t a deep valley, but it wasn’t shallow, either. At least, he couldn’t see the bottom from here. Not at all. If she had been separated from her comrades, fled, and tried to hide somewhere, wouldn’t that be the place she’d choose?

  The bottom of the valley was a dead end. It wasn’t guaranteed to be safe. If the enemy found her, she’d be in immediate danger. But if she were pressed to make a decision, she wouldn’t think that through.

  While heading for the valley, Haruhiro continued to look. Glancing this way and that, he got as good of a grasp of his allies’ situation as he could manage. It felt like his duty at this point. It was scary to look and learn what was going on. Ignorance was easier on his mind, but it was scary in its own way, too.

  Would he die with his eyes closed, or with them open? Either way, it was scary. However, if his eyes were open, he might find some way to avert his impending demise. If his eyes were closed, he couldn’t even resist in vain.

  At the rear of the group, Kuzaku was attacked by a cultist. It was a Pansuke. Just one.

  Haruhiro immediately did an about-face. “Kuzaku, stop there!”

  “’Kay!”

  Kuzaku parried the Pansuke’s spear with his shield, then used Thrust. With Kuzaku’s longsword stabbing his chest, but not through it thanks to his poncho, the Pansuke faltered. By that point, Haruhiro had already raced past his side.

  With a sudden stop, he got behind the Pansuke. He grappled him, jamming his dagger into the Pansuke’s one eye with a backhanded grip. He tore it free, and headed for the valley.

  “You ass!” Ranta screamed.

  Ranta, just shut up.

  “Let me handle that stuff!”

  “Next time!” Haruhiro called.

  If you’d handle it quickly and well, I wish you would. Well, whatever. We’re here. This is the valley.

  “There she is!” he shouted. “Shihoru!”

  Shihoru was cowering by the edge of the spring. She raised her face and looked towards Haruhiro.

  “I-I’m sorry! I... I couldn’t find any of you, and I was scared!”

  “Well, who can blame you!” Ranta cackled. “I’ll let it slide this time, so let me squeeze those tits of yours!”

  “Wow...” Kuzaku was appalled.

  “You’re the worst. You couldn’t sink any lower,” said Merry, and Haruhiro had to agree.

  “You moron!” Ranta laughed loudly. “I can always sink lower! It’s being the lowest of the low that makes me the worst! Morons!”

  This is the problem with him.

  “Shihoru!” Yume rushed down the slope, as if she were rolling.

  Haruhiro was about to follow, but then he turned and looked. It was a good thing he did, too. “Yume! Bring Shihoru up here!”

  “Meowger!”

  Was that supposed to be a “roger”? Anyway, I’m counting on you. We’ve got things of our own to deal with. Enemies. Cultists incoming. Five Pansukes. One Tori-san. That’s a lot. But if they caught up to us while we were down in the valley, we’d be at a disadvantage because they’d have the high ground. We’ll fight them here.

  Until Yume and Shihoru made it to them, they had four people: Haruhiro, Ranta, Kuzaku, and Merry.

  “Kuzaku, do what you can!” Haruhiro ordered.

  “Roger that! I’ll draw them to me!”

  “Ranta, use quick attacks!”

  “You don’t have to tell me!”

  “Merry, don’t push yourself too hard!”

  “I’m fine!”

  “Rahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” With an uncharacteristic roar, Kuzaku charged towards the cultists. The Pansukes thrust out their spears in an attempt to meet his charge.

  Kuzaku used his shield to block—no, to sweep their spears away. It wasn’t Block that he used. It was Bash. On top of that, he made grand swings with his longsword and shield.

  “Ngahhhh! Rahhhhhhhh! Yahhhhhhhh!”

  Kuzaku’s longsword and his shield were both only knocking aside the Pansukes’ spears or landing grazing blows on their ponchos. He wasn’t doing any damage. But the Pansukes couldn’t move forward. Kuzaku was keeping a whole five Pansukes at bay. Obviously, he couldn’t keep that up. Besides, there was that guy, too. Pushing aside the Pansukes, the Tori-san moved up. Tori-san pushed Kuzaku’s longsword back with his Mirror Shield, then immediately slashed at him with his Thunder Sword Dolphin.

  “Leap Out!” a voice yelled.

  That was Ranta. He leapt in from the side at an incredible speed, landing a kick on Tori-san’s Mirror Shield. Even as Tori-san was thrown off-balance, he turned his Thunder Sword Dolphin towards Ranta. Ranta was trying to attack him, but it’d be bad if he took a hit from that weapon. Even a scratch would leave him stunned. Ranta drew back Betrayer Mk. II. His form flickered ominously.

  “Missing!”

  The Tori-san’s strike seemed to have been dulled. He had been fascinated by Ranta’s mysterious movements. Ranta easily avoided the Thunder Sword Dolphin and put some distance between the two of them.

  “Ha! Damn, I’m cool!” Ranta laughed.

  “Not really!” Haruhiro called back.

  Haruhiro came out on the right side of the group of enemies, aiming for the Pansukes’ spears with his dagger and sap. Merry also took up a position behind Kuzaku diagonally and was using her short staff to interfere with their spears.

  “Dahhhh! Tahhhhhh! Nwahhhhhh!” Kuzaku swung his shield and longsword with reckless abandon as he pressed forward. The Pansukes began to fall back, but Tori-san came and struck Kuzaku’s longsword with his Thunder Sword Dolphin.

  “Ngh!” Kuzaku’s entire body shuddered. The Tori-san went in for a follow-up. Kuzaku may have had the best armor in the party, and he might have been wearing a helmet, too, but even he wasn’t going to be completely unscathed if he took a good hard thrust from a Thunder Sword Dolphin. Here in the Dusk Realm where light magic didn’t work, heavy wounds could be life-threatening.

  “Hah!” Merry yelled.

  If Merry hadn’t swung her short staff down diagonally, hitting the Thunder Sword Dolphin with a Knock Off, things could have gotten pretty bad.

  Merry cried out, “Augh!” and fell on her backside, twitching, but the Tori-san nearly dropped his Thunder Sword Dolphin, too. In the end, he didn’t actually drop it, but Kuzaku was able to use that time to recover.

  “Close call!” Kuzaku swept the Pansukes’ spears with his longsword and shield. “I’ve still got a long way to go!”

  “You’re doing great!” Haruhiro encouraged.

  Haruhiro tried to get around behind the Pansukes. Come at me. Good. It worked.

  Haruhiro managed to peel a number of the Pansukes away from Kuzaku. “Ranta, show us your guts!”

  “Don’t make it—” Ranta charged again, closing in on one of the Pansukes. “—sound so easy, damn it! Reject!”

  The Pansuke put out his spear. Ranta pushed it aside with Betrayer Mk. II and backed away. The Pansuke fell for it and tried to pursue Ranta.

  “Avoid!” Ranta screamed.

  When his opponent tried to move up, Ranta made a thrust towards a vital point while retreating. Ranta’s skill landed perfectly. Betrayer Mk. II bit into that Pansuke’s one eye and he collapsed to the ground.

  “I’ll do it easily enough, though!” Ranta hollered. “I mean, this is me, after all!”

  “There you go, getting cocky!” Haruhiro called back.

  Haruhiro Swatted two Pansukes’ spears, Swatted them, and Swatted them again. Ranta had taken down one Pansuke and was looking to take on another one, so Kuzaku only needed to deal with one Pansuke and the Tori-san. Bu
t the Tori-san was the problem.

  “Nuh!” Kuzaku used Bash to knock away the Pansuke’s spear, then quickly tried to quickly close the gap between them, but the Tori-san swung his Thunder Sword Dolphin. That forced Kuzaku to jump backwards.

  “I’ll take one of them!” Merry called.

  Having recovered from the numbing effect of Thunder Sword Dolphin, Merry was trying to get the Pansuke to turn and face her. However, even in a one-on-one fight, the Tori-san was going to be tough. His Thunder Sword Dolphin was way too dangerous. All Kuzaku could do was keep track of the distance between them and run around.

  “Dammit! This is pathetic!” Kuzaku yelled.

  “Don’t rush it!” Haruhiro shouted while using Swat on the spears that kept coming at him. He said it to Kuzaku, but he was also saying it half to himself.

  Yeah. I can’t rush this. Look. Take a good look. Are there enemy reinforcements? Not now. It wouldn’t be strange to see them come in at any moment, though. When that happens, I can’t just start panicking like, “Oh, crap, oh, crap, we’re so screwed!”

  Kuzaku wholly focused on evading the Thunder Sword Dolphin. Merry was playing it safe and focusing on defense, while Ranta couldn’t land the deciding blow. Was he watching and waiting for his chance to do it in one blow? Haruhiro did nothing but Swat. They weren’t doing anything more than hanging in there, and they might eventually fall apart if they had to keep it up, but it wouldn’t be much longer.

  See?

  In flew an arrow. This one was going to hit. The Tori-san would take it right in the face. No, the Tori-san jumped aside to avoid it.

  Haruhiro glanced behind him. Yume. She’d come up out of the valley. She was already nocking her second arrow. She fired. Then, at practically the same time...

  “Ohm, rel, ect, nemun, darsh!”

  Right behind Yume, Shihoru was chanting and drawing elemental sigils with her staff.

  Yume’s second shot also missed. The Tori-san dodged it. However, when he got out of the way of the arrow, a shadow elemental affixed itself to the ground where he was about to step.

  Shadow Bond.

  The Tori-san’s foot was caught by the shadow elemental, and he couldn’t move away from it. The Tori-san was clearly flustered. That was when Kuzaku went in to finish him.

  “Rahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  Punishment. It was fundamentally the same as Moguzo’s specialty, the warrior skill Rage Blow, AKA Thanks Slash. He swung down diagonally with all his might. However, in this paladin version, he would defend himself with his shield as he did it. Normally, at least.

  Kuzaku swung so hard it looked like he might fling his shield away, though he didn’t actually do so, and slammed his longsword into the Tori-san’s Thunder Sword Dolphin with all his might. Of course, when he touched the weapon, it shocked him.

  “Ah!”

  Kuzaku’s body shuddered, and he ended up sitting down. He must have known that would happen. Even so, he’d taken the risk.

  Kuzaku’s plan had been to knock the weapon out of the Tori-san’s hands. It’d worked.

  The Tori-san crouched down and tried to reach for his fallen weapon. It was just barely out of reach. That was thanks to Shadow Bond.

  Even so, the Tori-san tried stretching himself farther to grab his Thunder Sword Dolphin. It might have worked if no one had intervened. If Merry hadn’t hit the sword’s hilt with her short staff and knocked it far away.

  “You’re the best!” Kuzaku rose to his feet, then lifted his longsword over his head. The Tori-san tried to cover his head with his Mirror Shield. However, Kuzaku didn’t swing down. It was Feint.

  “Rahhhh!”

  Kuzaku kicked the Mirror Shield away, then smashed his longsword into the Tori-san’s now-defenseless head. Not just once. Two, three, four times, he slammed the top of his head. Even if he couldn’t cut him because of the poncho, that was more of a beating than he could take. Even once the Tori-san collapsed and was lying prone, Kuzaku attacked him two, three more times, making sure he was good and dead.

  “Exhaust! Exhaust! Exhaaaauuuust! Gwahahahahahahahaaa!” Meanwhile, Ranta zoomed around with his creepy backwards movements to quickly collect the Thunder Sword Dolphin. With Betrayer Mk. II in his left hand, and Thunder Sword Dolphin in his right, he dual-wielded—

  Wait, considering Ranta’s lack of strength, that Thunder Sword Dolphin is pretty long and heavy. Is that going to be okay...?

  “There! Ha! Take that!”

  Like Haruhiro had expected, no matter how hard Ranta tried to swing both Thunder Sword Dolphin and Betrayer Mk. II around, he wasn’t hitting anything. The Pansukes easily avoided them. He was a moron. A complete and utter moron.

  “Choose one or the other!” Haruhiro screamed at him.

  Haruhiro was still busy using Swat on the two spears. He wanted to tell Ranta he didn’t have time to fool around like that.

  I mean, I have to look around while doing it. This is pretty hard. I’m just barely managing it. Finish yours up and come help already, man. Well, it’s fine, really.

  “Yah!”

  Someone came, at least.

  It was Yume. Yume charged in fiercely. With a somersault, she let off a powerful blow with her machete. One of the two Pansukes that were attacking Haruhiro took it in the shoulder, and while he didn’t go down, his head shot back in pain.

  Raging Tiger. It was a machete fighting skill.

  “Tau! Tau! Tauuuu!” With that strange series of battle cries, Yume put together a combo of Brush Clearer, Diagonal Cross, Brush Clearer and cornered the Pansuke.

  She’s as gutsy as ever. That’s the kind of bravery you’d expect from a tank. No, given her light armor, she’s braver than a tank. It’s scary to watch. I’ve gotta support her.

  The next time he Swatted a spear, Haruhiro simultaneously kicked that Pansuke in the knee. Shatter stopped his opponent from moving for a moment, which Haruhiro then used to get in close and clobber him in the chin with his sap.

  The Hitter skill had been originally meant for striking the enemy’s chin with your palm after performing a Swat, but Haruhiro had learned to apply it like this. Haruhiro had been on the defensive all this time, so that probably made it hard for the Pansuke to adapt to the sudden surprise attack. Naturally, that had been part of Haruhiro’s calculations, which was why he went fully on the counterattack.

  Once he cleanly landed a Swat, Shatter, and Hitter, it wasn’t hard to sweep his opponent’s leg and trip him. That was what Haruhiro did. Haruhiro mounted the fallen Pansuke, stabbing his dagger into the cultist’s one eye. When he twisted and gouged, the Pansuke soon stopped moving.

  “Haruhiro-kun!” Shihoru shouted to warn him.

  When he looked, another four Pansukes and a Tori-san were coming their way. Haruhiro let out a deep sigh, then tore his dagger free and stood up.

  Currently, Ranta and Yume were each handling a Pansuke. Kuzaku and Merry were double-teaming another. There were a total of five enemy reinforcements, and one of them was a Tori-san on top of that. The only ones free to act were Haruhiro and Shihoru. Shihoru couldn’t fight in a melee, and the best Haruhiro could hope to manage was fending off a couple of Pansukes’ attacks with Swat.

  “Ohm, rel, ect, el, krom, darsh!”

  But this was one thing Shihoru had. A black mist-like elemental blew towards the oncoming cultist reinforcements. Shadow Mist. It was the upgraded version of Sleepy Shadow, which caused intense sleepiness in the target.

  Normally, whether it was Sleepy Shadow or Shadow Mist she was using, it wouldn’t work when sent straight at an oncoming opponent like that. It was a spell that only worked if you caught them off guard. However, Shihoru happened to have learned that Darsh Magic was especially effective against the cultists.

  When the shadow elemental enveloped them, the cultists started dropping like flies. She managed to put all of the Pansukes to sleep, but the Tori-san only staggered a little. He’d resisted it, huh.

  The Tori-san kicked the Pansuke who ha
d collapsed at his feet. It looked like he was trying to rouse him.

  “Ohm, rel, ect, el, vel, darsh!” Shihoru immediately set off a Shadow Echo. Vwong, vwong, vwong. With that distinctive sound, three shadow elementals that looked like balls of black seaweed flew towards the Tori-san. However, even if they hit, he probably wouldn’t go down.

  Haruhiro shouted as he ran, “Kuzaku!”

  “’Kay!”

  Kuzaku left the Pansuke to Merry and chased after Haruhiro. Two of the three shadow elementals hit the Tori-san and seemed to do some damage, but it was far from being fatal. On top of that, the Pansuke that the Tori-san had kicked got up.

  If more new enemies come now, we’re absolutely finished. That was the thought that crossed Haruhiro’s mind. Well, not that he had time to be worrying about it. Focus. I have to focus. Focus, focus, focus.

  Haruhiro repeated that to himself as he charged towards the Pansuke and the Tori-san. The reason he wasn’t that scared was because he didn’t plan to fight. Fighting them properly was just beyond him.

  First, the Pansuke thrust out his spear. Haruhiro leapt aside to the left, and this time it was the Tori-san that followed up with another attack.

  I’m still out of range, so I’m safe, he thought. Even if the Tori-san slashed at him with his Thunder Sword Dolphin, it wouldn’t reach Haruhiro. Probably.

  “Bring it, bring it, bring it!” Haruhiro shouted, not so much to provoke his enemy as to encourage himself, as he dodged the Tori-san’s Thunder Sword Dolphin and the Pansuke’s spear.

  Soon Kuzaku arrived and used Bash on the Pansuke’s spear. When he did, Haruhiro had predicted that the Tori-san would lunge at Kuzaku. Or rather, he had hoped that would happen, but it didn’t go that way. While Kuzaku was attacking the Pansuke with Thrust, the Tori-san started to kick the other Pansukes.

  Not good, thought Haruhiro.

  At this rate, the remaining three would all wake up. But if he was going to stop it, he would have to attack the Tori-san. If he tried to take the Tori-san in a straight-up fight, Haruhiro’s life would be on the line. Was this the time to gamble like that?

  The moment he paused to think about it, he had missed his chance to make that choice. It was already too late. The Pansukes were awake and starting to get up. Because there was already a chaotic mix of allies and enemies nearby, they couldn’t count on Shihoru’s magic.