Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash vol. 1

2. Lost and Confused

They had left the office of the Red Moon Volunteer Soldier Corps, but where would they go now? There had been talk of gathering information, but Haruhiro and company knew absolutely nothing about this town called Alterna. None of them knew anyone here, so they had no connections to rely on, and Renji, Kikkawa, Manato, and even Kuzuoka and Moguzo didn’t seem to be around anymore, either. It looked like they had already taken off elsewhere.

      No one knew what to do.

      Haruhiro and Ranta, Yume, and Shihoru stood in front of the office a while, in a daze.

      “...What should we do?” Shihoru was first to speak.

      Why are you asking me? I ought to be asking you, Haruhiro wanted to say, but then he thought, She’s a girl. I can’t say it like that.

      “What... should we do?” he tried asking her.

      “What... should we do, indeed?” Shihoru answered, three seconds later.

      “You people...” Ranta said, with an exaggerated sigh. “Can’t you come up with something a little better? Show a little more, I dunno, independence? Something like that. It’s really not the time to be saying, ‘What do we do?’ now is it?”

      “Well, since you’re saying that, what do you suggest...?”

      “I’m thinking about it, okay? About what to do next.”

      Yume chuckled to herself. “That sounds ’bout the same to Yume.”

      “Yeah, kinda,” Ranta said, rubbing the underside of his nose like a mischievous child. “You could say that.”

      Honestly, this is pretty bad, Haruhiro couldn’t help but think. Kuzuoka called us the leftovers, and he may have been absolutely right. The indecisive four of us were left behind, and we aren’t trying to come together to do something, we’re just sort of here. Could this be the worst possible result...?

      “Moguzo’s got it good...” said Ranta, giving voice to a thought Haruhiro couldn’t say he didn’t share. “Even if that Kuzuoka did seem scummy. He’s got experience, you know? If you get into a party with a guy who seems like he knows stuff, you can relax a bit. It could be pretty breezy from there. And why Moguzo, anyway? He shoulda chosen me. I’m clearly way more useful. Seriously... Seriously...”

      “You sure?” Yume asked in a soft voice.

      Haruhiro concurred. “I have a hard time seeing it.”

      “You people...” Ranta said, pointing at Haruhiro and Yume. “You can only say that because you haven’t seen what I can do! Let me tell you, I’m real capable! From the time I was a baby suckling at my mother’s teat, I’ve been secretly famous as a man who would do great things!”

      “If you were famous, it would hardly be a secret,” rebutted Haruhiro.

      “Don’t sweat the details that much. You’ll just tire yourself out, y’know?”

      “Having to deal with you has already left me a little tired...”

      “You’ve got no stamina. Haruhiro, you’re so useless. You’re no good. No good at all.”

      “I don’t want to hear this from the guy whose only redeeming quality is his curly hair.”

      “Don’t call it curly!”

      “Hey, I said it was a redeeming quality. Your curly hair is the only thing you’ve got going for you. Curly hair is all you’ve got.”