Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash Volume 3

『Chapter 2』

2. Coincidence

They returned to Alterna, sold off their loot, split the proceeds, ate dinner, returned to home sweet home at the volunteer soldier lodging house, bathed, went back to their rooms, then all that was left was to go to sleep. That was all, yet Haruhiro couldn't get in the mood to do so.

The hanging lamp on the wall had already been put out.

That lamp, and two bunk beds stuffed with hay. That was all there was in this room.

I want to say farewell to this place and find a better room to stay in. It's an option now, but I just can't take that leap.

Haruhiro was lying down in his upper bunk. Moguzo was in the lower bunk of the bed next to him while Ranta was on the top one. There were three of them in a four-person room. In the beginning, the room had been at capacity, and there had been four of them.

Haruhiro was about to quietly call their lost comrade's name, but he stopped himself.

When he came down from his bunk...

"...Haruhiro-kun?" Moguzo called out to him. "Is something up?"

Ranta was snoring loudly. It seemed he was asleep.

"Uh... Yeah." Unable to come up with a good answer, Haruhiro was vague. "Well, it's not really that anything's up."

After saying it, he regretted not just saying he had to go to the washroom or something.

"...Are you going somewhere?" Moguzo asked.

"Huh? I'm not going anywhere. Just... outside... to get some fresh air?"

Haruhiro just said whatever came into his mind, and it felt kind of awkward, but Moguzo didn't push the matter any further.

"...Okay."

Haruhiro was relieved. "Yeah. Moguzo, you must be tired. You sound it at least. You should sleep. Good night."

"Good night."

After leaving the room, he debated whether to actually go out for some fresh air. He wouldn't have minded it, but he didn't especially want to, either. If Moguzo was willing to talk with him, maybe he hadn't even needed to leave the room.

Should I have asked Moguzo to give me some advice?

I couldn't do that, could I?

Why couldn't he? He felt like he could explain it, but also like he couldn't. It was just, he couldn't talk to Moguzo.

Moguzo's a good guy, though. He seems like he could keep his mouth shut. But that's not really the issue.

Haruhiro crouched down, leaning his back against the wall in the first floor corridor of the lodging house. There were a number of old lamps in the corridor and, while it couldn't be called bright, it wasn't pitch black.

Now as for whether he could have talked with anyone other than Moguzo, that wasn't really the case. Like, Ranta, never, no way. He wouldn't even consider it. If he talked with Yume, the conversation felt like it would go off into another dimension and make no sense to him. As for Shihoru—

Hmm... Now that I think of it, I've never spoken at length with her, have I? It was hard to imagine a situation where he would be talking with Shihoru alone.

Now Merry, she would surely listen to Haruhiro.

But, was that okay? It didn't feel like it. He didn't want to make Merry indulge him any more, he didn't want to show her his weaknesses, he wanted to act cool, he had those sorts of feelings, but there was more to it than that.