“There’s something here,” said someone up ahead. “It’s bright. There are... lamps?”
The silver-haired man said, “It’s an iron grate.”
“D-Do you think it’s the exit?!” exclaimed a different man, his voice shrill and excited.
The sound of the heavy footfalls lightened. Even in the dark, he could tell that everyone was hurrying ahead.
He could see the light sources now. They were much brighter than the candles had been. Those were definitely lamps. Were they hanging on the wall? The lamps were illuminating what looked like an iron grate.
The silver-haired man grabbed the iron grate. Not only was his hair silver, the man was dressed like a gangster. He shook the iron grate violently, like a gangster would, and it began to move.
“I’m opening it,” the gangster called, pulling the grate inwards. With a creaking noise, the iron grate door opened.
“Oh...!” several people cried out at the same time.
“Can we get out?!” exclaimed a woman dressed in flashy clothes who was standing behind the gangster.
The gangster headed through the door. “There are stairs. We can go up.”
Through the door was a cramped, moldy corridor. Beyond that, there were stone steps. There were no lights, but light was shining down from above.
The group ascended the stairs in single file, one step at a time.
There was another iron grate at the top of the stairs. This one looked like it wouldn’t open.
The gangster bashed the grate with his fist over and over again. “Is nobody there?! Open the door!” the gangster roared, like a beast.
The flashy woman joined in, shouting, “Hey, someone, anyone, open up!”
From behind them, a guy with curly hair shouted, “Hey! Open the door! Hey!”
They didn’t have to wait long. The gangster took his hand off the grate and stepped back. Apparently someone had come.
The flashy woman and guy with curly hair went quiet, and there was the sound of a lock turning. The iron grate opened, and a man’s voice said, “Get out.” He assumed the voice belonged to the man who had unlocked and opened the door.
They ascended the stairs, and there was a stone room. It was windowless, but brightly lit thanks to the lamps. In addition to the stairs they had come up, there was another set of stairs going up to a higher level.
The whole place feels too old, like it doesn’t belong in the modern world. The man who opened the gate is dressed weirdly, too. I mean, those aren’t clothes he’s wearing. That metal stuff he’s wearing is... armor? I’d call that headgear he has on an armored helmet, too. And that object hanging from his waist, it doesn’t look like a nightstick. Was it a sword... or something similar? Armor, a helmet, and a sword? What era did this guy come from? Then again, I guess that’s not the problem here.
The man in armor pulled a blackish switch on the wall.
The wall and floor shook slightly, and a heavy sound echoed through the room. The wall moved.
It opened. Part of the wall slowly opened.
It sunk down, leaving a hole. An oblong, rectangular hole.
The man in armor simply said, “Get out” again, gesturing towards the hole with his chin.
The gangster went outside first, and the flashy woman followed. Everyone followed after them, going through the hole one after another as if being pulled along.
Outside.
This time, they were really outside.
It was either predawn or twilight. The dimly lit sky spread out as far as the eye could see.
This was the top of a small hill.
When they turned around, a large tower rose in front of them. They had been inside that tower... or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, beneath it.
Counting everyone in the group, there were eight males including Gangster, Curly, and himself, and four females including Flashy. Twelve in total.
It was dark, so he couldn’t see that much detail. Still, he could make out their figures, roughly what they were wearing, hairstyles, and general facial features. As he had thought, he didn’t recognize anyone.
“You think that’s a city?” asked a slender man with silky hair. He was pointing to the other side of the hill.
Looking in that direction, he could see buildings crowded together.
A town. It certainly looked like one. It had to be a town. Except that the town was surrounded by a high fence— No, not a fence. It was surrounded by high, solid walls.
“Rather than a town,” said a thin man wearing black-rimmed glasses, “it’s almost like a castle.”
“A castle...” he whispered, but for some reason his own voice sounded like someone else’s.
“Um...” a petite girl behind him timidly asked, “where is this, do you think?”
“Look, asking me isn’t going to help.”
“...Right, of course. Um, d-does anyone... know? Where is this place?”
No one said anything. Unless they were deliberately trying to trouble the girl, or were concealing the information for some other reason, that meant none of them had any idea.
Curly scratched at his curly hair and said, “Seriously?”
“I’ve got it!” said a man who looked like a playboy, clapping his hands together. He wore a bordered cut-and-sew outfit. “Why don’t we just ask that dude?! Y’know, the one who was in, like, armor or whatever!”
Everyone turned to look at the tower.
And then it happened.
The entrance began to shrink. The wall rose up again, filling in the hole.
“Whoa, whoa, wai—”
Playboy made a panicked run for it. He was too late.
The entrance vanished, leaving the spot where it had once been indistinguishable from the surrounding wall. Playboy tried touching and hitting the wall in all sorts of places while crying out things like, “Oh, come on, you can’t be doing this! Wait, wait, stop it! Please, man...” But nothing happened.
After a while, Playboy sat down, dejected.
“Well, this is a problem,” said a girl with her long hair in two braids. She said the word “problem” with a funny accent.
“You said it,” replied Curly Hair, crouching down and hanging his head.
“Seriously...? Seriously?”
“And, now, with that perfect tiiiiiiiming!” a high-pitched woman’s voice rang out—
Wait, who...?
There were four girls in their group: Flashy, the one with braids, the petite and timid one, and an even tinier girl who had to be shorter than 150 cm. That high-pitched voice didn’t sound like it belonged to Flashy, Braids, or Timid. It probably wasn’t Tiny’s voice, either.
“I appear, you know. I take the stage, you know. Where am I? I’m right heeeere!”
“Right where?!” cried Playboy, standing up and shouting.
“Don’t paaaanic! Don’t be alaaaarmed! But, still, don’t relaaaax. Don’t pull out your hair, eiiiither!”
Singing something like “Charararararahn, charararararahnrarahn.” a woman poked her head out from the side of the tower, where she had apparently been hiding.
Is her hairstyle what they call “twintails”? he wondered.
“Heeeey. Is everyone feeling fiiiine? Welcome to Grimgar. I’m your guide, Hiyomuuuu. Nice to meet youuuu. Let’s get along? Kyapii!”
A man with a buzz-cut ground his teeth loudly. “What an annoying speech style,” he muttered.
“Eek!” Hiyomu ducked her head back into the tower, but soon stuck it out again. “You’re so scary. So dangerous. Don’t get so maaaad. Okay? Okay? Okay? Okay?”
Buzz-Cut clicked his tongue in distaste. “Then don’t piss me off.”
“Yes, sirreeee!” Hiyomu hopped out next to the tower, raising her hand in a salute. “I’ll be careful from now on, sir! I’ll be reeeeal careful, sir? Is this okay? It’s okay, right? Teehee.”
“You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you?”
“Aw, you could teeeell? Ah, ah! Don’t get mad! Don’t punch me, don’t kick me! I don’t like being hurt! Generally, I want you to be niiiice to me! Anyway, is it okay if I move things along now? Can I do my job now?”
“Hurry it up,” said Gangster in a low voice. Unlike Buzz-Cut, he didn’t look openly agitated. Still, his tone was intimidating.
“All righty, then,” Hiyomu began with a grin. “I’m gonna do my job now, okay?”
The sky was getting brighter by the moment. It was much brighter now than it had been earlier, which meant it must be morning, not dusk. The dawn was breaking.
“For now, just follow after meeee. Don’t get left behiiiind!” Hiyomu started to walk, her twintails swaying behind her.
Looking around, they saw a path from the tower leading down the hill. Grass fields spread out on both sides of a dark path of exposed earth that had been hardened with use, and there were large white stones scattered around the grass that covered the hill. A whole lot of them. Too many. It looked almost like they were in orderly rows.
It was as if someone had lined them up.
“Hey, are those...” Curly asked, pointing at the white stones. “Could they be... graves?”
He shuddered.
Speaking of which, he noticed some sort of writing carved into them. Flowers had been placed in front of some, as well. A graveyard. Could this hill be a graveyard?
At the head of the group, Hiyomu giggled without turning around. “I wondeeeer. Well, don’t you worry about that now. Don’t woooorry. It’s too soon for any of you. I hope it’s too soon for any of youuuu. Hee hee hee...”
Buzz-Cut clicked his tongue in distaste again, kicking the dirt. He seemed pretty ticked off, but it looked like he still planned to follow Hiyomu for now.
Gangster had already started walking. Glasses, Flashy, and Tiny followed him.
Playboy shouted, “Whoa! Me too, me too! Me too!” and began chasing after them, then tripped.
It looked like there was no choice but to go along. But where was Hiyomu planning to take them? Where was this place?
He sighed, looking up to the sky. “Ah...”
What was that? It was pretty low in the sky. It couldn’t be the sun. It was too big to be a star, though. It wasn’t even a full circle, anyway. Its shape was somewhere between a half and a crescent moon. Did that mean it was the moon, then? That’d be a weird moon, though.
“It’s red,” he said out loud. He blinked, taking another look at it. No matter how many times he looked, it was still ruby red.
Behind him, Timid gulped audibly. He turned around to see she was gazing at the moon, as well.
“Ahh,” said Braids as she seemed to notice it, too. She blinked repeatedly, then chuckled. “Mr. Moon is red. That’s super pretty.”
The man with silky hair looked up to the red moon hanging in the dawn sky, standing still with an absent look on his face.
Curly said, “Whoa...” with a wide-eyed stare.
An excessively large, but seemingly quiet, man let out a low groan.
He didn’t know where this was. Where had he come from? How had he gotten here? He didn’t know those things, either. He couldn’t recall. But... there was just one thing he was certain of.
The moon in that other place wasn’t red.
A red moon was just weird.