Following the opening of Snack Shop Crescent Moon, the town of Akiba grew livelier.
Although it was just food and drink, it was food and drink.
Up until this point, the people of Akiba had eaten food that had absolutely no flavor, and these new delights captivated them in the blink of an eye. For the most part, Crescent Moon meals were take-out fare, and they certainly weren’t lavish by the standards of the old world. In this other world, however, they were welcomed as the finest delicacies.
The original three-shop supply system wasn’t able to keep up with demand, and a few days after the initial opening, a fourth shop opened. Slices of pizza—kept warm on an iron sheet heated by a Salamander that was conjured by one of the Crescent Moon League’s Summoners—and custard pudding made with sweet cream had been added to the menu, and these proved wildly popular as well.
The citizens of Akiba had known from the very beginning that Snack Shop Crescent Moon was run by the Crescent Moon League, which was only a small guild. Some were critical of the fact that a minor guild was monopolizing the new recipes, but in the game world, justice was considered to be on the side of the one who achieved results fastest, and the criticisms were ignored.
As a practical problem, the Crescent Moon League received threatening letters telling them to publish the new recipes, but even the people in question knew they had no real grounds for complaint.
About the time the fourth shop opened, a rumor began to spread through town.
According to this rumor, the Crescent Moon League had joined forces with the three biggest production guilds in Akiba: the Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District 8.
The total membership of these three big production guilds was over five thousand. This was nearly a third of the entire population of Akiba, and it made for an enormous force. In fact, as if to corroborate that rumor, transactions for some of the food items on the market had picked up, and Shopping District 8 seemed to be buying up materials.
Although there were now four shops and the new menu items had increased the rate of customer turnover, demand far outstripped the Crescent Moon’s food supply. Even working together, it was all the shops could do to handle a bit less than 1,500 customers per day.
Most of the people in Akiba had experienced the flavor of Crescent Moon’s delicious take-out hamburgers, and those who had wanted to repeat the experience. Now that they’d been reminded of the flavors they’d been used to in the old world, it was agony to return to a life of sodden, flavorless space food.
It grew common for lines to begin forming at the Crescent Moon shops before dawn, and the shops started handing out numbered tickets to customers.
This completely unexpected Crescent Moon boom had influenced several things for the better.
First, Crescent Moon food was rather expensive. The cost of one meal was between three and six times the cost of a meal purchased at the market. Of course, there was no entertainment or anything else on which to spend money in Akiba, and very few users hesitated over spending an amount like that. However, although they didn’t hesitate, they needed to have the money to spend.
Eating Crescent Moon hamburgers three meals a day, every day (if any player was lucky enough to be able to buy that much!), would cost 1,350 gold coins a month.
Since it had hardly cost anything at all to live in Akiba up until now, there had been players who’d sat huddled in the ruins day after day, lost in the sorrow of being unable to return to the old world. The fact that even they now felt like earning a few coins was a huge change.
For the first time in a very long while, public recruiting began in Akiba’s central plaza. This was a method of recruiting in which participants gathered and looked for companions to join them on temporary hunting expeditions, and it had nothing to do with any guild. This type of recruiting was rare in this other world, and it drew lots of attention in the plaza.
When it was time for the parties to depart, all the clerks of the Crescent Moon shop located in the plaza waved and loudly chorused, “Have a good trip!”
This probably had at least a little to do with the fact that the members of those temporary parties had bought canteens of Black Rose Tea before they left.
Still, it was an odd, heartwarming sight, unlike anything witnessed in the era of the Elder Tales game. As they left Akiba, the members of the temporary parties had tickled, flattered smiles on their faces.
In addition to that sort of individual economic activity, there were market trends as well. The prices of several food items, such as young venison, potatoes, and ptarmigan meat, had begun to rise.
This was the result of careful buying up on the part of Shopping District 8, but there were always people who were sensitive to the rise in prices and would respond by attempting to fill the demand. Several guilds that had picked up on this information organized voluntary material procurement teams and began to put items on the market. No doubt they predicted that prices would rise and envisioned vast profits. However, Calasin of Shopping District 8 had already anticipated this situation, and at an earlier stage, he’d directly approached several dozen small adventuring guilds of his acquaintance and proposed a large-scale expedition team organization.
Schedules for hunts that spanned several days were put together, and alternate members were found and dispatched. The guilds organized teams to hunt on location and other teams to bring the spoils back to town, creating a system in which the production guilds supported the material supply line on their own.
This was the first time—not only since the Catastrophe, but in the history of Elder Tales—that a production guild had established a direct support system for a combat guild. The method proved successful, and Shopping District 8 managed to obtain vast quantities of materials at a set price without leaning too heavily on the market.
When players who had never left the town began to go out on excursions, it triggered varied consumption activity regarding expendables and repairs, and this in turn increased the opportunities for artisans to work. Although the transformation was still subtle, little by little, the town of Akiba was changing.
Was Snack Shop Crescent Moon the source of these changes?
If the Crescent Moon League had completely joined forces with Akiba’s three largest production guilds, the group would have encompassed one-sixth of all the players on the Japanese server. It would have meant the birth of the largest force on the Japanese server at the very least. Recently, there had been many inquiries from other cities via telechat regarding the Crescent Moon League. There was also no end to the players who hoped to join the guild, but Marielle kept turning them down, telling them, “Hang on till the end of the month, ’kay?”
Even the members of the combat guilds, which ordinarily didn’t interfere with the production guilds and seemed to inhabit a completely different world, were taking an interest in the situation.
In this world—which had no Internet or WebTV and was, in other words, almost completely without entertainment—rumors provided a lot of the fun.
The citizens of Akiba gathered here and there, tirelessly discussing their predictions and guesses. Mentioned in these rumors were the names of Marielle, the cheerful, caring guild master of the Crescent Moon League; of Henrietta, who was rumored to be quite accomplished; and of Shouryuu, the young combat team leader. However, at the same time, some of the veteran players and people who were well-informed about the situation whispered Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Nyanta’s names, and that of the Debauchery Tea Party, as if they’d just remembered them.
That said, almost no one realized that the players—the Adventurers—weren’t the only ones discussing the rumors.
Ten days had passed.
Snack Shop Crescent Moon, which had more business than it could handle every day, was already an established part of the town, and its endless lines were a local attraction. Even today, in the clear summer weather, the four shops were doubtless serving their jostling hordes of customers as fast as they could.
However, this was a wide space far from that tumult.
It was the enormous conference room on the top floor of the guild center, the building that was the cornerstone of Akiba.
The conference room was open to any Adventurer who used the guild center. However, in a world with no electricity, elevators were nothing more than iron boxes, and very few people were eccentric enough to climb sixteen ruined floors’ worth of stairs.
In the center of this vast, high-ceilinged space sat a large round table. The individuals seated around it could have been said to represent Akiba.
“Black Sword” Isaac, the leader of the Knights of the Black Sword.
Ains, the guild master of Honesty.
“Berserker” Krusty, D.D.D.’s commander.
William, the young leader of Silver Sword.
Soujirou, the harem-prone guild master of the West Wind Brigade.
Michitaka, the iron-armed general manager of the Marine Organization.
Roderick, the guild master of the Roderick Trading Company.
Calasin, leader of Shopping District 8.
Marielle of the Crescent Moon League.
Woodstock of Grandale, Animal Trainer.
Akaneya, the shrewd Mechanist of RADIO Market.
…And Shiroe, who wore the guild tag “Log Horizon.”
Since many of the twelve who sat at the round table had several close associates standing behind them, there were nearly thirty players in this vast space.
The members of the gathering wore a variety of expressions. Some were uneasy, some suspicious, some expressionless, and some seemed self-confident. All had been summoned to this gathering by an invitation that had arrived the previous evening.
The title of the invitation had been “Re: The Town of Akiba.”
It had been sent jointly by Shiroe of Log Horizon and Marielle of the Crescent Moon League.
Almost all the assembled members were in charge of huge guilds. The Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District 8 were all major production guilds. The Knights of the Black Sword, Honesty, D.D.D., Silver Sword, and the West Wind Brigade—all combat guilds—were either large or had a track record of impressive achievements. The Crescent Moon League, Grandale, and RADIO Market were small, but they had been central to the attempted former liaison committee for small and midsized guilds, an alliance that had failed.
Only one guild, Log Horizon, was unfamiliar to everyone present. No one had even heard of it.
However, guilds as large as the ones assembled here had their own diverse ways of gathering information, and less than a quarter of the members looked puzzled by Shiroe’s presence.
As the seated players eyed one another, sizing each other up, Serara of the Crescent Moon League appeared and served them chilled fruit tea. This wasn’t a beverage that Snack Shop Crescent Moon sold, and a few of the members looked a bit startled, but the silence continued, seeming to swallow up that slight confusion.
Shiroe sat quietly.
It didn’t mean he felt calm.
To Shiroe, this conference was a battlefield.
It was a battlefield of clashing swords and flames, no less than any of the large-scale battles he’d taken part in before. Shiroe felt simultaneously hot, as though he was delirious with fever, and cold with nervous tension, but he bore them both. Almost all the players gathered here were enemies from whom he’d have to extract compromises. The remaining few were allies who were counting on him. He couldn’t let either camp realize how hard-pressed he felt.
I chose to start this war, after all.
As Soujirou had said, this world was a prison. Everyone in it was spellbound by the curse of struggling to survive. The despair of having no way to get home. The monster-haunted wilderness. The shackles of apathy.
Shiroe himself had spent the days since the Catastrophe being hounded by the situation. He’d responded to the circumstances in front of him, gotten his plans in order, and lived with the sole purpose of increasing his chances of survival.
However, this operation was different. Saving Touya, saving Minori, bringing some sort of order to Akiba… Ultimately, these were all self-indulgence on Shiroe’s part. He wanted them, and he intended to get them, even if it meant starting an unnecessary war. That was all.
He did think there were merits, of course. He believed there would be not only for him, but also for the people important to him and for Akiba.
However, that didn’t change the fact that this had its beginnings in what was essentially selfishness.
In that sense, Shiroe had gained the first freedom he’d had since the Catastrophe. This war had begun with his self-indulgence; he’d started it in order to make his own wish come true, and he was going to fight it with everything he had. Although this did make him feel very tense and put him under enough pressure to make him cringe, at the same time, it gave him fierce joy.
“Shiroechi? Are mew all right?”
Nyanta, who was standing behind and to his right, spoke to him. At this point, he could accept those words honestly. Nyanta wore the guild tag “Log Horizon” now, as did Naotsugu and Akatsuki, who weren’t at the meeting. They were going into this first battle as a guild of four, and although they might be on duty at different posts, they were on the same battlefield.
Bring my friends victory.
That was Shiroe’s fervent wish.
At last all the participants were seated, and the tension in the room built.
Shiroe stood and delivered the opening remarks.
“Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend this conference. I’m Shiroe of Log Horizon. …I’ve invited you here today to discuss a certain matter with you and to ask a favor. It’s a rather complicated matter, and it will probably take some time, but please bear with me.”
Shiroe paused, looking around the room.
…Well, at any rate, they all came. That’s good. It’s probably because Soujirou laid the groundwork, but even so. That saves me the trouble of going around and persuading each of them individually. …Although it also makes this conference that much more of a decisive battle.
“You can keep the pleasantries brief, Shiroe of Debauchery. It’s not like we don’t know each other.”
It was “Black Sword” Isaac who’d raised his voice. He was a seasoned soldier and one of the leading high-level players on the Japanese server. He was a true warrior who’d led the charge in countless large-scale battles. Shiroe had been invited to several of these battles as support. Enchanter was a bottom-of-the-barrel class, and he’d assumed Isaac wouldn’t remember a player like that, but apparently he’d been wrong.
“What’s going on here anyway?”
The irritated voice belonged to William, the young leader of Silver Sword. The youth’s flowing silver hair was tied back, and he looked like a typical elf lord. He seemed to be a very impatient type: He kept crossing and uncrossing his legs.
“As you say. I’ll get right down to business, then. The matter I would like to discuss—propose may be a better word—has to do with current conditions in Akiba. As you know, since the Catastrophe, we’ve been stranded in this other world. We have absolutely no idea about how to get back to our old world. To the best of my knowledge, we don’t even have a clue. This is incredibly painful, but it’s a fact. Meanwhile, under these circumstances, Akiba’s atmosphere is souring. Many of our companions have lost their motivation, while others have grown desperate. The economy is in tatters, and our exploration rate is stagnant. I’d like us to do something about the situation. That is why I’ve called you here.”
Shiroe spoke with his eyes half-closed.
He was fine. He’d gone over the words he needed to say in his mind, again and again, until they seemed so real he could practically feel them.
“What are you planning to do by getting us all together?”
“Pain in the butt…”
“Why does stuff like this have to be said now?”
“I know what you’re trying to say, but what on earth can we do?”
As if to quell the murmurs that rose here and there, Ains, the young guild master of Honesty, asked a question.
“Will this be something like the earlier alliance of smaller guilds?”
“Similar. However, I hear that did fail.”
Shiroe glanced at the guilds in question, Grandale and RADIO Market. The two representatives went pale and nodded. These guilds—and actually, the Crescent Moon League as well—were far too small to be at this conference. In terms of numbers, several of the groups here were over fifty times larger.
“True, that plan did collapse. However, I think it was because it had several unreasonable aspects. The plan at the time was for the small and midsized guilds to band together and oppose the big guilds. …In other words, the small guilds would come together and fight to protect their own interests. Our plan failed.”
Akaneya, guild master of RADIO Market, was also a master-class Mechanist, a subclass that created mechanical clocks and devices. Marielle picked up where he’d left off, supplementing his words.
“That’s right. We said we’d cooperate, but we ended up just chasin’ after our own guilds’ interests…which meant we couldn’t agree, which meant things broke down.”
“Are you planning to speak to every force—or at least, all the leading forces in Akiba—and coordinate their interests this time?”
“…They couldn’t even bring the small guilds together. With the big guilds’ egos involved, it’ll never work. This is insane!”
The members began to react to Marielle’s words.
Marielle’s name—in other words, the Crescent Moon League’s name—had been on the invitation as well. As a result, the participants had probably thought, in the backs of their minds, Is the real purpose of this conference to continue the small guild alliance that failed?
That’s a natural assumption…
However, even if his name was familiar to a certain set of people, it would have been difficult for Shiroe to convene the conference on the strength of his name alone.
Marielle’s name value and the Crescent Moon League, alias “Snack Shop Crescent Moon”—the notoriety of those two names had carried him to the beginning of the conference. However, he’d need to clear up that misunderstanding as soon as possible.
“My purpose this time is a bit different. I want to improve current conditions in Akiba.”
The sound of a chair scraping back interrupted Shiroe’s clear words.
“In that case, count us out.”
The player who’d stood was the one who’d been fidgeting irritably, William of Silver Sword. He adjusted the saber at his waist and tossed back his mantle.
“We’re a fighting guild. The atmosphere in town is no concern of ours. We just come back here to exchange items. In other words, it doesn’t matter to us whether the atmosphere gets better or worse. The lot that cares about the town should carry on here. I’m not saying discussing it is a bad idea, although I do think it’s a waste of time. We just aren’t interested, that’s all. Leave us out of it.”
Flinging that remark over his shoulder, William left the conference room.
The room began to buzz.
The people in charge of Grandale, RADIO Market, and the Crescent Moon League looked particularly pale. Shiroe had heard that in the last days of the small guild alliance, members had dropped out this way one after another.
However, Shiroe, who was steering the discussion, had anticipated developments like this one.
Silver Sword is out, then…
Shiroe analyzed the fact’s influence on the tide of battle, updating a mental scorecard.
Silver Sword certainly was a large combat guild, but it wasn’t vital to this conference. If the biggest fighting guild (D.D.D.) or the biggest production guild (the Marine Organization) made a motion to leave, he’d do something to stop them, but he’d assumed from the beginning that one or two guilds would storm out.
More importantly, the departure of William and his group had unsettled the atmosphere at the conference, and he had to do something about that.
“There are eleven of us now, but I’ll continue. The reason I’ve called you here, as Silver Sword said a moment ago, is to advocate for the formation of an organization to discuss the self-government issues in Akiba: the ‘Round Table Council.’ Roughly speaking, there are two pressing objectives. First, to improve the atmosphere in Akiba. More specifically, to set it on a track toward revitalization. Second, to improve public order. For now, I will focus on these two points, with the ultimate goal being an organization which will be able to resolve issues with Akiba’s self-government.”
The assembly answered him with silence.
It was the type of stillness that occurred because participants were gauging one another’s responses.
Now it really begins.
In the awareness that he was finally standing at the starting line, Shiroe examined the expressions of those around him.
True, the players gathered here could influence about 80 percent of the population of Akiba. The membership of the assembled guilds alone was more than six thousand. That was 40 percent of the players living in Akiba.
On top of that, guilds this large had friendly ties with many other guilds, as well as numerous quasi-subordinate guilds. Arranging for materials and going hunting with other guilds also gave them wide-ranging horizontal connections.
The players assembled here held great influence over all the Adventurers in Akiba. Consensus at this conference would be nearly equivalent to consensus among everyone living in Akiba. Of course, Shiroe had chosen which guilds to invite to the conference with this result in mind.
However, in equal measure, it would be incredibly difficult to get guilds this enormous to come to an agreement. It would be many times harder than crushing a single guild. Shiroe had been fully aware of that going in.
“Before that, could we hear your criteria for member selection?”
It was Ains who first broke the silence. The guild master of the major combat guild Honesty, he spoke in a calm voice that meshed with his middle-aged appearance.
“Of course. First, I chose the Knights of the Black Sword, Honesty, D.D.D., and the West Wind Brigade because they are large-scale combat guilds or because they have achieved great things. Silver Sword, which has bowed out, was selected for that reason as well. The Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District Eight were invited to represent the production guilds, as they are the three largest. The Crescent Moon League, Grandale, and RADIO Market were called as representatives of the smaller guilds. So that there will be no misunderstandings, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear with regard to these last three: These three guilds were selected in order to incorporate the opinions of players unaffiliated with a guild and of smaller guilds, which I was unable to invite to join us, rather than as single guilds in their own right. Just because a guild is small, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the weight of what they have to say. In addition, if this council is formed, I will probably request that they perform these tasks.”
He’d anticipated some backlash from having invited three smaller guilds to participate, but the assembly accepted it more calmly than he’d expected.
It was true that, in all, over six thousand players were affiliated with the major guilds he’d summoned. However, conversely, that meant that the number of other players in Akiba—in other words, the unaffiliated players and the members of small and midsized guilds—was close to nine thousand. They seemed to have accepted that the smaller guilds had been invited to represent these players.
Of course, Shiroe observed, there was a large possibility that they’d let it slide because they assumed there would be no council.
“And you?”
The taciturn question came from “Berserker” Krusty, the leader of D.D.D. Belying his name, he was a dandy who wore glasses.
“I’m attending as organizer and as the one who came up with the idea,” Shiroe said firmly.
He was hosting a conference regarding Akiba’s self-government. If the qualifications to participate in that conference were guild size or fame, then Shiroe himself technically wasn’t qualified to be there.
If the guild master of a guild formed just the week before—a guild with only four members, so tiny one hesitated even to call it “small”—began to talk about the future of Akiba, no one would listen.
Even from the perspective of the criteria Shiroe himself had used to select the guilds, he would have been out.
Still, that’s neither here nor there.
Was he qualified to participate? No, probably not. Well, then, had the big guilds that were qualified made the town any better? Had they done anything for the whole community since the Catastrophe? No, they hadn’t.
They’ve already demonstrated that things won’t go the way I want if I just sit around and wait. …Sure, it’s arrogant. I’m just indulging myself. I won’t stand on ceremony anymore. I won’t hold anything back. I’ll do what I want to do. And in order to do it, I’ll lay groundwork, and I’ll even convene a conference.
“Hm… In other words, you sponsored this conference and sent out invitations just to qualify yourself to participate?”
Krusty’s question was grounded in an accurate perception of Shiroe’s intent. Since that was so, Shiroe held his head high and answered, “Yes, that’s correct.”
“Say that council is formed. How exactly would you maintain public order? And actually, in this case, what deterioration in public order are we talking about specifically?”
At “Black Sword” Isaac’s question, Shiroe braced himself.
“I believe it’s common knowledge that a few guilds are keeping newbies under what amounts to house arrest on the pretext of protecting them. That isn’t a healthy situation.”
Directly confronted by these words, “Black Sword” Isaac flinched.
“…You mean the EXP Pots, right? But you couldn’t call that illegal…”
EXP Pots. The room buzzed at the abrupt mention of that noun. More than half the reactions were something along the lines of “Ah, I thought that would come up.” No doubt it was a fact that, questions of legality aside, the others had also felt vaguely guilty, at least to some extent.
“Right now, no law exists for the players. Saying that no law has been broken when ‘law’ doesn’t even exist is mere sophistry. I’m certain everyone here is aware of that.”
Isaac’s expression was grim. Shiroe continued.
“This is about more than EXP Pots. The problem lies in the fact that we, the players, have no law. As things stand, anyone can do anything at all, no matter how reckless. Even so, there’s almost no disadvantage to us, provided we’re the only ones we care about.”
“Now that’s an exaggeration. We have law. Any player who fights in a noncombat zone pays with their life.”
“That’s a result. It isn’t law. It happens because of a simple principle. …Let me put it more clearly: The act of fighting in a noncombat zone is the cause, and it carries the effect of an attack from the guards. That’s all. You can’t even call that a rule. It’s just a phenomenon. It isn’t something we approved. It wasn’t even created. How could something like that be law?”
At Shiroe’s words, Isaac shut his mouth.
The Knights of the Black Sword was one of the major fighting guilds rumored to be buying EXP Pots. His obstinate arguments were probably intended to cover up his own feelings of guilt. However, the arguments were an obstacle on Shiroe’s road to victory, and Shiroe cut them down with all his might.
“For example, I visited the town of Susukino the other day. In Susukino, a guild called the Briganteers had gone into business kidnapping young female NPCs and selling them to players as slaves.”
The conference attendees turned shocked faces to Shiroe.
“In terms of the conversation we’ve been having, since they weren’t attacked by the guards for it, it wasn’t ‘illegal.’ But is that what law is? In this world, it could be. At the very least, the specs make it possible. If asked to say whether it’s possible or impossible, it is possible. But that isn’t what law is. The question I want to ask you is, ‘Are we going to let that be a possibility with regard to ourselves?’ Isn’t that fundamentally what law is? It’s the question of where we put the rules by which we ourselves are governed.”
There were any number of possible excuses.
For example, the newbies were being penned up for their own protection. The EXP Pots were being confiscated to supplement the newbies’ living expenses, which they couldn’t completely cover due to their poor combat abilities.
With regard to the NPCs, it could be argued that they were just AI-powered dolls and so had no human rights. At the very least, one couldn’t prove that they weren’t AI-powered dolls and did have human rights. At any rate, real-world history showed that human rights were something that generally had to be won, instead of proven.
For that reason, Shiroe’s tactical objective wasn’t to take down these excuses one by one. At the very least, his short-term objective was to make everyone present admit that it was necessary to govern themselves in this lawless other world.
In reaction to the question Shiroe had tossed at them, some of the conference participants shut their mouths, and others loudly voiced their opinions. It wasn’t just the formal members, either. Their staff members also joined in, and tumult filled the conference room.
The responses seemed to be roughly split into two camps.
One held the opinion that it was indeed necessary to make rules of some sort.
The other held the view that that sort of consensus building would be impossible.
“Silver Sword said they wouldn’t participate in the conference and left, but they seem to have approved of the conference continuing. Suppose a force that doesn’t approve of the council’s very existence appears in Akiba. In other words, a force that defies the council’s aims. What will you do?”
Krusty directed his question at Shiroe. The question was as calm and to the point as ever, but he asked it as if he was voicing the second of the two views.
“Fight. Specifically, I’ll exile them from Akiba. Even if they manage to infiltrate, they’ll have a very difficult time doing anything. Of course, the option of forcing them to disband is also on my radar.”
Shiroe’s answer raised a great clamor, mostly from the combat guilds.
It was the same sort of startled cry that Marielle, Henrietta, and Shouryuu had given in the Crescent Moon League conference room two weeks earlier.
“Disband a guild,” “exile a guild”… These were easy things to say, but nearly impossible to accomplish. In this world, even death wasn’t much of a deterrent. After all, resurrection existed. With death no deterrent, being arrested lost much of its effectiveness. For example, if a player was arrested and detained, ultimately they could escape by committing suicide.
Under circumstances like these, it was incredibly difficult to do any lethal damage to guilds.
However, the baffled silence wasn’t rooted in a feeling of faltering helplessness, as the Crescent Moon League’s had been: The conference room held top players with influence over nearly 80 percent of the population of Akiba.
There were many things that, while impossible for the Crescent Moon League, would be possible if the members of this conference agreed to them. For example, they could set guards on all of Akiba’s gates, and if a player who had a warrant on them tried to enter, they could obliterate them with a PK. The production guilds could also refuse to sell articles of any kind to a wanted player.
Of course, such a move would take massive amounts of time and money. Even so, it would be possible to exert material and immaterial pressure that way.
“You couldn’t do something like that without the help of combat guilds like mine, though.”
“Black Sword” Isaac tossed those words at Shiroe. He’d regained his composure.
“And anyway, if there were, say, ten or twenty people, it could work. We could punish ’em that way. But if a guild like the ones gathered here didn’t go along with the council, ignored its decisions, flipped the bird at the law… If one started talking like that, we’d have a war on our hands. Even if the council got off the ground, there’s no guarantee we’d reach an agreement on every single matter. Heck, under those circumstances, could we reach an agreement? If we try to forge an agreement between opposing views but end up with a war instead, there’s no sense in having a council.”
Isaac had a very good point.
The assembled players began to mutter their agreement, and the murmur spread.
For example, his Knights of the Black Sword had 190 members. If that many level-90 members rose up in revolt, it would be hard to oppose them practically. Since the town was a noncombat zone, they’d have to arrest or PK them in other zones, and even if they succeeded there, it wouldn’t do any decisive damage to the guild.
For a guild with more than a certain number of members, refusal to do business and other types of economic pressure wouldn’t have much effect: Guilds of that size could fill most types of internal demand through members who held production subclasses.
Of course, it depended on the level and ratio of subclass holders, but fifty of them would probably be able to create a self-contained system.
Based on these facts, even if the council Shiroe proposed were established, it was very likely that matters the big guilds were opposed to would be unable to get the council’s support. In other words, the big guilds would have veto power, which meant that conditions would be exactly the same as they were at present.
Shiroe lowered his gaze and adjusted his glasses.
All developments up to this point have been about what I expected. Certainly, under normal circumstances, if we established a council, infighting is probably the best we could manage. …But this time, I can’t settle for that.
“I’m afraid I have to admit this doesn’t feel plausible. Don’t you agree?” Krusty asked.
His profile was as delicate and graceful as ever. It was a bit hard to believe that a man who looked so much like an intellectual was feared as a Berserker, but it was a fact. As proof, he continued to deliver relentless words in a calm voice.
“I do think there is meaning in establishing that council. However, it would be…no more than a type of posturing. I can’t imagine it would have any real power to restrain.”
At that remark, Shiroe quietly raised one hand.
As if his gesture had captured their attention, all eyes went to him. A momentary silence fell in the conference room.
“Today…about four hours ago now, I purchased the guild center.”
A stunned atmosphere hung over the members.
Every one of them needed time for the meaning of those words to sink in.
“Naturally, I hold the right to change the zone settings, including entry and exit permissions. In other words, anyone I blacklist will be unable to use the guild center. That is to say, they will be unable to use the guildhalls, or the banking facilities, or the safe-deposit boxes.”
As everyone stared at Shiroe with odd expressions, as though they’d gotten something stuck in their throats, Henrietta sighed deeply. In this vast conference room, she alone had seen through Shiroe’s scheme. At her sigh, Shiroe gave a wry, fleeting smile.
“There, what did I tell you? He’s pitch-black.”
Henrietta’s murmur was simultaneously appalled and filled with pity. Beside her, Marielle, who’d been watching the conference with bated breath, nodded.
Shiroe’s words had rung out like a death sentence.
In the morning, when she woke up, she washed her face in water from the trough.
The crude trough was really meant to be used in a stable as a manger. She washed her face in the cold water that filled the dingy trough, then dragged her dirty mantle around her shoulders.
This was one of the rooms set aside as a group sleeping area for newbies at the Hamelin guildhall. It held shabby furnishings and the bare minimum of facilities required for day-to-day life.
I have to get to the kitchen…
Morning preparations were always hectic. Each of them began to work according to the roles they’d been forced into. Minori’s job was to serve breakfast, and she had to go to the kitchen to pick up the meal.
Please let me get through the whole day without any trouble, Minori prayed.
Today was a special day.
Minori dressed hastily and headed for the kitchen.
A player with Chef skills who’d woken early would be there, making black bread. Minori didn’t consider this a poor meal. In this world, even the most luxurious food tasted the same, which meant that, conversely, even this meal of black bread and water could be called a feast. …She’d been telling herself so for the past two months.
Minori greeted the Chef girl in a small voice, then hastily dragged out a large tray. In addition to the Chef, who was also a newbie, the kitchen held an executive member on guard. Doing her best not to meet his eyes, Minori hurriedly began to fill a pitcher with well water.
There was enough for thirty-five people in all. She set the water and the black bread on a big wooden tray.
“Hold up.”
At the man’s voice, Minori shrank back reflexively.
She felt a nasty, greasy sweat break out on her palms.
Why?! …I’m not doing anything. I’m behaving the way I always do, so why…?
She had to act normally, no matter what, but apparently she’d already tripped up, first thing in the morning.
“Y-yes, sir?”
She squeezed out a response, thinking even as she spoke that her voice was so faint it might as well have been a mosquito’s whine.
“Hah! That’s one gloomy face. …Well? Can’t you even greet folks properly?”
The guard snorted as if she bored him, then criticized her.
Holding herself in check, Minori greeted him.
“Of course. Good morning, sir.”
“Whatever. …You’re a Tailor, right? How high?”
“I’m level thirty-two now.”
“You can sew rank-thirty leather armor, then. Boost your skills with leather aprons and leather gloves today.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bobbing her head to him again and again, she left the kitchen. Minori’s heart was pounding so fiercely she thought it might break.
Since that night, Shiroe had contacted her several times.
It was always after sunset, when the guild had gone to bed.
She’d wrap herself up in her mantle on the cold concrete floor, holding her breath, and then a bell only she could hear would sound in her ear. That was the signal that Shiroe was requesting a telechat.
Of course, she couldn’t have much of a conversation in the silent Hamelin bedroom late at night. Mostly she gave small coughs or sent little signals by knocking on the floor lightly. When there was no guard, she said two or three words. She had to keep her voice very small, so he wouldn’t notice how pitiful and tear-filled it was.
Most of the things Shiroe contacted her about were trivial.
Once a day or once every two days. The telechats were short, too—about ten minutes.
They talked about things like where he’d gone today or whom he’d met.
Apparently Shiroe had companions now: A Guardian named Naotsugu who cracked weird jokes constantly but was reliable. A lady Assassin named Akatsuki who was small and sharp-tongued. Then there was Nyanta, an elderly Swashbuckler that Shiroe called “Captain.” She also heard names from the Crescent Moon League: Marielle, Henrietta, and Shouryuu.
Shiroe told her about the things he’d done and the things he was doing. In exaggerated terms, it was the world he saw.
Shiroe and I are in the same world. …It’s the same world, but to me, it looks so tired and dingy… Shiroe says it’s wide and pretty…
That was painful to Minori.
She didn’t think it was unfair. She was sure that if the world looked this shabby to her, it was because her eyes and soul were clouded.
Shiroe was surrounded by cheerful, fun, kind people, but she wasn’t. She knew she envied him that. Shiroe’s world was bright and warm, and her own was dingy and cold. It seemed to her that, in other words, the grime inside her heart was seeping out into her surroundings and that hurt her.
Shiroe told her things, bit by bit.
That he’d never settled down in any guild before.
That he’d traveled around providing support, like a mercenary.
That he’d destroyed everything he built and had never tried to help it grow. That even so, he’d finally decided to make a place for himself to belong. That even now, he was a little afraid of working with others, of asking for things, of issuing invitations.
To Minori, these were just groundless fears on Shiroe’s part. Needless worry.
After all, he’d been kind to Minori and Touya. Maybe to Shiroe that kindness had been too small to count for much, but it was still saving her and Touya, even now.
The world Shiroe lived in was a world he’d won for himself. If she didn’t have the world Shiroe did, it was because she hadn’t been able to win it.
Minori thought she’d probably lost it during those few days after the Catastrophe.
I spent those days after the Catastrophe crying because I wanted somebody to save me. That’s why I lost it…
That thought was accompanied by bitter pain. Minori had joined Hamelin for the same reason: She’d wanted someone to save her, hadn’t felt like saving herself. She’d lost it because she’d foolishly thought that someone would rescue her. She and Shiroe had been given the same chance. It was just that Shiroe had made good on that chance, and she hadn’t.
In that sense, then, the situation wasn’t unfair.
If the shining things that surrounded Shiroe didn’t surround her, it was in no way Shiroe’s fault.
Besides, if I thought like that, this time I’d really… I’d be too worthless to even talk with him.
If Shiroe had begun working to secure a place for himself now, even she ought to be able to do that… She might have lost all her property, but as a newbie player, she’d barely had anything to begin with.
She had Touya. She still had her precious family.
No matter how lonely or scared it made them, they could leave the town and live in hiding, in the shadows of the ruins. If they’d only managed to steel themselves for that in the days after the Catastrophe, they never would have found themselves in a situation like this.
She rallied her feelings by main force and started for the living room, where the other beginners would be waiting.
Shiroe really did seem to be working to rescue Minori and Touya. Not only that, but from the odd word here and there, she’d sensed that he was working not just to rescue Minori, but to free all the newbie players who belonged to Hamelin.
Shiroe is an amazing person. …He’s calm and collected, and mature, and cool, and he knows everything, and he’s tall, and he’s kind…
Noticing that her thoughts were tending to fall into a loop, Minori’s cheeks grew hot.
Someone like that was trying to save her.
Shiroe still thought Minori was an acquaintance worth helping.
Of course Minori herself couldn’t believe she was worth anything of the sort. She thought Shiroe’s kindness had probably made him feel responsible for the two of them, even though they’d only played together for a little while.
But Touya was different. Touya had muttered, “He’s really awesome.” Then, after falling silent for a very long time, he’d continued, “…Wonder if I could be like that.”
Minori was really proud of her little brother.
If Touya was thinking that way, Minori had to, too. In the future, she would have to prove to Shiroe that he hadn’t been wrong to save them. If she didn’t, she’d lose the right to accept Shiroe’s calls now.
For that to happen, she couldn’t let herself think underhanded things like, It’s not fair.
She could be jealous. She could also let that envy make her suffer.
If that pain became the strength she needed to move forward, Minori thought, she’d welcome it. However, she didn’t have time to waste on pessimistic feelings like “It’s not fair.”
After handing out bread to the other kids, Minori went to the west corner, her usual place, and nibbled at her own black bread. It didn’t taste good, but it wasn’t terrible, either. As she swallowed down the rather vague, unstimulating food, she waited with bated breath.
There were no key members of the guild in the living room.
The newbies who’d gathered around her sent searching glances at Minori. In response, Minori nodded, whispering things like, “Hang on just a little longer.”
Most of the commonsense things Shiroe had taught them were very general knowledge, the sort of rudimentary information that formed the foundation of all game play in Elder Tales. However, in this other world, where they were cut off from online solutions sites, these knacks and scraps of knowledge gave Minori and Touya a big advantage. Before they knew it, this broad, shallow knowledge that wasn’t limited to their main classes or subclasses had elevated Minori and Touya to something slightly above ordinary newbies.
The two of them had tried to use this modest knowledge to alleviate the impossible demands Hamelin placed on them, and somewhere along the way, that attitude had earned them trust from the other newbies.
Minori gave one of the players who already seemed to be in bad shape some hot water she’d snitched especially for her, then went back to thinking.
Shiroe had said he’d contact her today. Once his call came, she’d have to act.
She’d already told her roommates a little bit about it, and she knew Touya also knew what they were going to do today.
Minori wasn’t sure when the call would come, but she thought it would be either in the morning or that night. During the day, Touya and the others were out hunting. Any strategy would be harder to implement if the targets that needed to be rescued were scattered.
After they finished their bread, Touya and the other players who were going out to hunt began drifting to another room to get ready. The newbies who would be hunting would gather and be given the day’s destinations, party members, and formations. After that, the chosen members would change, check their equipment, and depart.
Just then, a faint bell sounded in Minori’s ear.
That’s it! It’s Shiroe!
Tension over the uproar that was about to break out made her heart begin to pound like a trip-hammer. Even if she was killed, she wouldn’t die. Logically, she knew this, but if someone were to turn a weapon on her, she’d still shrink back.
Minori didn’t know what sort of operation was about to play out, but there could very well be violence. The possibility that there’d be a battle was not a small one. Still, Minori had thought it through carefully, and she’d resolved that, no matter what, she wouldn’t disgrace herself.
When the telechat was connected, Shiroe’s voice, a voice only Minori could hear, began to speak.
“Good morning. Minori? …I know this is sudden, but we’re about to begin the operation. The signals will be the same as always. …Are you in your bedroom right now?”
Koff. She gave one small cough, answering in the affirmative.
“Is Touya in the other room getting ready?”
Another cough.
“All right. When Touya leaves the guildhall, you leave, too. …All of you, the new players. Just walk right out the door. You don’t have to worry about anything. I’ve taken total control of the guild center.”
Total control?
Minori didn’t know what he meant, but she responded in the affirmative anyway.
“Next, if anything happens inside… If you fall and resurrect, after you wake up in the temple, run for the guild center. The guild center entrance hall is the headquarters for the rescue operation.”
Minori struggled desperately to remember everything exactly.
“I have an important battle to fight on another front, and I can’t be there. A young guy named Shouryuu is commanding the operation. Aside from him, there’s an Assassin named Akatsuki; you can count on her. She’ll be either at the hall or nearby.”
She was so nervous the strength had gone out of her knees, and her chest hurt. Even so, fighting hard, Minori managed to return a single small affirmative cough.
“Naotsugu is camped at the temple. If the worst happens, you can count on him as well. All right: This is it. …Let the escape begin.”
Touya had received a similar telechat.
So the operation’s starting, huh, big brother Shiroe?
Touya gulped. He was putting on his battle armor, and his hands felt unusually tense; he breathed slowly and deeply, scanning his surroundings. It was still too early to tell his nearby companions.
Shiroe’s order had been to get all the new players to flee into the guild center. The Hamelin guildhall, where Touya and the others were now, was linked to the guild center zone by a single door.
If they all made it through that door, he would have achieved the objective Shiroe had given him. If it had just been him, Touya was confident that he could have gotten away in less than ten seconds.
However, Minori wouldn’t do a thing like that.
Minori would wait to make sure that Touya had gotten completely away before she made her escape. No, if he knew his sister, she’d let all the other new members besides Touya go as well and be the very last one out.
In that case, I can’t just run, can I?
He knew Minori tended to punish herself.
It was the flip side of having a sense of responsibility, and Touya suspected he might be the reason that responsibility had taken root in the first place.
Touya liked his big sister.
His classmates said that siblings tended to fight whenever they got the chance. He’d heard that habits and ways of thinking that one could have forgiven in a stranger turned into a source of stress when one had to live with them, and he remembered thinking, That makes sense.
Still, Touya thought the pecking order was what caused the stress. There was an age difference between normal siblings; between one and three years in most cases. In children, an age difference like that created a disparity in abilities that was too big to ignore.
To older siblings, their younger brothers and sisters probably seemed like badly made copies of themselves. To younger siblings, older brothers and sisters were tyrants.
If things were like that, and they had to live together, of course it would be stressful.
On that point, twins had it easy. Minori always did her best to look after Touya because she thought of herself as his big sister, but she was only a few hours older than he was, and Touya didn’t consider her to be any kind of guardian.
He thought of her as a great person to have as family and as a friend.
The fact that they were twins made them excellent playmates and opponents for each other. In a world where it was normal for there to be an age difference between siblings, that sort of pecking order was completely foreign to the two of them. As far as Touya was concerned, they were lucky.
However, even though they were the same age and on equal footing with each other, his sister was a bit timid. He was a guy, and so at times like that, it was his job to protect her. Touya had thought so for ages.
“Hey, it’s time to move out. I’ll go tell the guild master. You lot line up in front of the guild center.”
The speaker—the leader of the hunting team, that arrogant Summoner—left the room, tossing those words back over his shoulder. He’d probably headed for the guild master’s room.
Touya shoved his cheap sword into his belt and, starting for the door, called back to his companions.
“The rescue I’ve been telling you about is on. Let’s get to the guild center hall right away. Hurry!”
He felt them catch their breath. On some level, the others had probably sensed it in the air, too. A flurry of motion broke out. Some hastily tried to grab their belongings, but he checked them. “Leave that stuff. It’s not like we’ve got anything anyway.”
It was true. Touya and the others didn’t have any property to speak of. All they had were all the clothes and sundries they could pack into the ready-made bags they always used, the cheap kind that didn’t even have weight cancellation spells on them.
When Touya glanced back, keeping his ear pressed to the door, several of his companions nodded. Touya opened the door, stepped into the hall, and ran straight to the other group bedroom.
As he approached the door to that room, he heard a small shriek and the sound of a struggle behind it. When Touya flung the door open without even thinking about it, he saw Minori struggling with a regular guild member.
What, they’re onto us?!
Touya gulped. Then he gestured at the frightened newbie girls who were watching the struggle from the fringes, motioning for them to leave. In nearly the same motion, he rammed the short-haired bandit who was leaning on his sister, trying to hold her down.
“Wha?! What are you kids planning—”
There was a wheezing sound as the man filled his lungs. The short-haired bandit was probably going to yell. His sister’s frightened face. That face alone was enough to set Touya moving again before he was even aware of it.
He dropped into a crouch, and his left arm snaked around smoothly.
The sword leapt from its sheath with such force that it seemed to have been launched rather than drawn. The shining silver light became a straight line that struck at the man’s throat.
It was a special Samurai attack skill, Rania’s Capture.
Its effect crushed the target’s vocal cords, preventing them from chanting spells. In this case, the player wasn’t chanting a spell, but the effect seemed to work anyway. The short-haired bandit choked soundlessly, holding his throat.
Normally, guildhalls were noncombat zones. Any act of aggression would summon the non-player guard characters instantly, even if they hadn’t been nearby.
However, the noncombat zone settings were determined by the owner of the zone, and they could be lifted. In Hamelin’s guildhall, combat had been legalized because it was necessary to “manage” the newbies.
The regular members had used those settings to hurt their new recruits.
—At least they had until today.
“Get them to safety!”
At Touya’s call, Minori leapt up as if she’d been stung and pushed the other girls toward the guildhall’s entryway. Now that things had gone this far, there was no time to dawdle. All she could do was encourage her frightened companions and lead them away.
Meanwhile, Touya squared off against the bandit.
The man’s face was hard, and hatred blazed in his eyes. His throat had been crushed by one of the newbies he’d held in contempt as little squirts, and the rage it had whipped up inside him was unbelievable. There was a difference of more than twenty levels between Touya and him.
The bandit whipped out a scimitar with a blade that had to be fifty centimeters across and swung it at Touya.
The effect of Rania’s Capture only robbed players of the ability to chant spells and speak. It was very effective on magic users and healers, but it wouldn’t drain any of the combat ability from a physical fighter like the man in front of him.
The bandit’s sharp sword overcame Touya’s defensive stance easily and slashed into him. The fundamental difference between their skill levels was far too great.
Touya’s surprise attack had only succeeded because, in his arrogance, the man had assumed that no newbie would turn on him and because the attack had been Rania’s Capture.
Many Samurai special techniques had long recast times. Most skills were so-called “one-shot tricks” and could only be used once every five or ten minutes. As if to compensate for that, the techniques were designed to be powerful, and their hit rates were incredibly high. That was how Touya had managed to affect a midrange player who had a twenty-level advantage.
The certain-kill techniques were powerful and varied, but there were very few convenient midrange techniques that could be used to bridge the gaps between them. That was the fateful characteristic of the Samurai.
The effect of Rania’s Capture lasted fifteen seconds.
He only had about ten seconds left. Touya stomped down his panic as he took blows from the bandit’s sword.
I don’t have to win! If I can just hold out here until the other guys have gotten away—
Red sprays of blood were spreading across the area. Touya didn’t even have to look to know they were coming from him. His whole body ached and prickled painfully. He could feel his hands and feet getting colder and heavier.
“Touya!”
An effect like a shining, sky-blue mirror blocked the bandit’s attack. With the level difference, the man’s attack shattered the mirror in an instant, but it had been Minori’s damage block spell. He saw the bandit click his tongue in annoyance.
“They all left for the entryway. Let’s get into the corridor!”
“Roger that! Let’s move.”
After checking the man with a large attack, Touya left the bedroom with Minori. The corridor wasn’t even two meters wide. Out here, he could protect Minori without letting anyone capture his side or get behind him.
“Gepluh! Gah!”
However, just then, the effect of Rania’s Capture ran out. The bandit clutched his throat, gave a cracked cough, then screamed at Touya.
“Do you have any idea what you’re in for after pulling a stunt like this?! I’ll kill you a hundred times, you damn brats!!”
Just as Touya had feared, the man’s rough voice echoed through the guildhall. Several of the doors in the corridor opened and the bulk of Hamelin’s forces stuck their heads out, then hastily grabbed for their weapons.
The guild master with a face like thunder. The Summoner, who wasn’t even trying to hide his irritation. The production-class men, who turned coarse stares on the new girls.
As one, they roared threats, then drew their weapons.
“What can the two of you do?!”
The Summoner brandished his arms, and a black wind whirled up. It was Deadly Swarm, a cloud of winged insects about the size of ants. The spell had the side effect of clouding the target’s vision, and it went straight over Touya, attacking Minori directly.
Minori desperately chanted her damage block spell, but the level difference was too great. As the evil black insects slammed into it and were smashed, one after another, the shining wall cracked, then shattered like glass.
Even in the corridor, I can’t block direct magic attacks on the vanguard! I’m an idiot!
Even as Touya told himself off, he threw the sword in his right hand into the false, swarming darkness with all his might. What he saw was the shape of the Summoner, waving his staff deep in the darkness.
“Touya! Touya!!”
“Just a little longer, Minori! Keep your head down!!”
Touya’s arms had already taken so much damage they were bluish black, but he flung them around his twin sister and charged at the zone door as if he meant to ram it.
Following the opening of Snack Shop Crescent Moon, the town of Akiba grew livelier.
Although it was just food and drink, it was food and drink.
Up until this point, the people of Akiba had eaten food that had absolutely no flavor, and these new delights captivated them in the blink of an eye. For the most part, Crescent Moon meals were take-out fare, and they certainly weren’t lavish by the standards of the old world. In this other world, however, they were welcomed as the finest delicacies.
The original three-shop supply system wasn’t able to keep up with demand, and a few days after the initial opening, a fourth shop opened. Slices of pizza—kept warm on an iron sheet heated by a Salamander that was conjured by one of the Crescent Moon League’s Summoners—and custard pudding made with sweet cream had been added to the menu, and these proved wildly popular as well.
The citizens of Akiba had known from the very beginning that Snack Shop Crescent Moon was run by the Crescent Moon League, which was only a small guild. Some were critical of the fact that a minor guild was monopolizing the new recipes, but in the game world, justice was considered to be on the side of the one who achieved results fastest, and the criticisms were ignored.
As a practical problem, the Crescent Moon League received threatening letters telling them to publish the new recipes, but even the people in question knew they had no real grounds for complaint.
About the time the fourth shop opened, a rumor began to spread through town.
According to this rumor, the Crescent Moon League had joined forces with the three biggest production guilds in Akiba: the Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District 8.
The total membership of these three big production guilds was over five thousand. This was nearly a third of the entire population of Akiba, and it made for an enormous force. In fact, as if to corroborate that rumor, transactions for some of the food items on the market had picked up, and Shopping District 8 seemed to be buying up materials.
Although there were now four shops and the new menu items had increased the rate of customer turnover, demand far outstripped the Crescent Moon’s food supply. Even working together, it was all the shops could do to handle a bit less than 1,500 customers per day.
Most of the people in Akiba had experienced the flavor of Crescent Moon’s delicious take-out hamburgers, and those who had wanted to repeat the experience. Now that they’d been reminded of the flavors they’d been used to in the old world, it was agony to return to a life of sodden, flavorless space food.
It grew common for lines to begin forming at the Crescent Moon shops before dawn, and the shops started handing out numbered tickets to customers.
This completely unexpected Crescent Moon boom had influenced several things for the better.
First, Crescent Moon food was rather expensive. The cost of one meal was between three and six times the cost of a meal purchased at the market. Of course, there was no entertainment or anything else on which to spend money in Akiba, and very few users hesitated over spending an amount like that. However, although they didn’t hesitate, they needed to have the money to spend.
Eating Crescent Moon hamburgers three meals a day, every day (if any player was lucky enough to be able to buy that much!), would cost 1,350 gold coins a month.
Since it had hardly cost anything at all to live in Akiba up until now, there had been players who’d sat huddled in the ruins day after day, lost in the sorrow of being unable to return to the old world. The fact that even they now felt like earning a few coins was a huge change.
For the first time in a very long while, public recruiting began in Akiba’s central plaza. This was a method of recruiting in which participants gathered and looked for companions to join them on temporary hunting expeditions, and it had nothing to do with any guild. This type of recruiting was rare in this other world, and it drew lots of attention in the plaza.
When it was time for the parties to depart, all the clerks of the Crescent Moon shop located in the plaza waved and loudly chorused, “Have a good trip!”
This probably had at least a little to do with the fact that the members of those temporary parties had bought canteens of Black Rose Tea before they left.
Still, it was an odd, heartwarming sight, unlike anything witnessed in the era of the Elder Tales game. As they left Akiba, the members of the temporary parties had tickled, flattered smiles on their faces.
In addition to that sort of individual economic activity, there were market trends as well. The prices of several food items, such as young venison, potatoes, and ptarmigan meat, had begun to rise.
This was the result of careful buying up on the part of Shopping District 8, but there were always people who were sensitive to the rise in prices and would respond by attempting to fill the demand. Several guilds that had picked up on this information organized voluntary material procurement teams and began to put items on the market. No doubt they predicted that prices would rise and envisioned vast profits. However, Calasin of Shopping District 8 had already anticipated this situation, and at an earlier stage, he’d directly approached several dozen small adventuring guilds of his acquaintance and proposed a large-scale expedition team organization.
Schedules for hunts that spanned several days were put together, and alternate members were found and dispatched. The guilds organized teams to hunt on location and other teams to bring the spoils back to town, creating a system in which the production guilds supported the material supply line on their own.
This was the first time—not only since the Catastrophe, but in the history of Elder Tales—that a production guild had established a direct support system for a combat guild. The method proved successful, and Shopping District 8 managed to obtain vast quantities of materials at a set price without leaning too heavily on the market.
When players who had never left the town began to go out on excursions, it triggered varied consumption activity regarding expendables and repairs, and this in turn increased the opportunities for artisans to work. Although the transformation was still subtle, little by little, the town of Akiba was changing.
Was Snack Shop Crescent Moon the source of these changes?
If the Crescent Moon League had completely joined forces with Akiba’s three largest production guilds, the group would have encompassed one-sixth of all the players on the Japanese server. It would have meant the birth of the largest force on the Japanese server at the very least. Recently, there had been many inquiries from other cities via telechat regarding the Crescent Moon League. There was also no end to the players who hoped to join the guild, but Marielle kept turning them down, telling them, “Hang on till the end of the month, ’kay?”
Even the members of the combat guilds, which ordinarily didn’t interfere with the production guilds and seemed to inhabit a completely different world, were taking an interest in the situation.
In this world—which had no Internet or WebTV and was, in other words, almost completely without entertainment—rumors provided a lot of the fun.
The citizens of Akiba gathered here and there, tirelessly discussing their predictions and guesses. Mentioned in these rumors were the names of Marielle, the cheerful, caring guild master of the Crescent Moon League; of Henrietta, who was rumored to be quite accomplished; and of Shouryuu, the young combat team leader. However, at the same time, some of the veteran players and people who were well-informed about the situation whispered Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Nyanta’s names, and that of the Debauchery Tea Party, as if they’d just remembered them.
That said, almost no one realized that the players—the Adventurers—weren’t the only ones discussing the rumors.
Ten days had passed.
Snack Shop Crescent Moon, which had more business than it could handle every day, was already an established part of the town, and its endless lines were a local attraction. Even today, in the clear summer weather, the four shops were doubtless serving their jostling hordes of customers as fast as they could.
However, this was a wide space far from that tumult.
It was the enormous conference room on the top floor of the guild center, the building that was the cornerstone of Akiba.
The conference room was open to any Adventurer who used the guild center. However, in a world with no electricity, elevators were nothing more than iron boxes, and very few people were eccentric enough to climb sixteen ruined floors’ worth of stairs.
In the center of this vast, high-ceilinged space sat a large round table. The individuals seated around it could have been said to represent Akiba.
“Black Sword” Isaac, the leader of the Knights of the Black Sword.
Ains, the guild master of Honesty.
“Berserker” Krusty, D.D.D.’s commander.
William, the young leader of Silver Sword.
Soujirou, the harem-prone guild master of the West Wind Brigade.
Michitaka, the iron-armed general manager of the Marine Organization.
Roderick, the guild master of the Roderick Trading Company.
Calasin, leader of Shopping District 8.
Marielle of the Crescent Moon League.
Woodstock of Grandale, Animal Trainer.
Akaneya, the shrewd Mechanist of RADIO Market.
…And Shiroe, who wore the guild tag “Log Horizon.”
Since many of the twelve who sat at the round table had several close associates standing behind them, there were nearly thirty players in this vast space.
The members of the gathering wore a variety of expressions. Some were uneasy, some suspicious, some expressionless, and some seemed self-confident. All had been summoned to this gathering by an invitation that had arrived the previous evening.
The title of the invitation had been “Re: The Town of Akiba.”
It had been sent jointly by Shiroe of Log Horizon and Marielle of the Crescent Moon League.
Almost all the assembled members were in charge of huge guilds. The Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District 8 were all major production guilds. The Knights of the Black Sword, Honesty, D.D.D., Silver Sword, and the West Wind Brigade—all combat guilds—were either large or had a track record of impressive achievements. The Crescent Moon League, Grandale, and RADIO Market were small, but they had been central to the attempted former liaison committee for small and midsized guilds, an alliance that had failed.
Only one guild, Log Horizon, was unfamiliar to everyone present. No one had even heard of it.
However, guilds as large as the ones assembled here had their own diverse ways of gathering information, and less than a quarter of the members looked puzzled by Shiroe’s presence.
As the seated players eyed one another, sizing each other up, Serara of the Crescent Moon League appeared and served them chilled fruit tea. This wasn’t a beverage that Snack Shop Crescent Moon sold, and a few of the members looked a bit startled, but the silence continued, seeming to swallow up that slight confusion.
Shiroe sat quietly.
It didn’t mean he felt calm.
To Shiroe, this conference was a battlefield.
It was a battlefield of clashing swords and flames, no less than any of the large-scale battles he’d taken part in before. Shiroe felt simultaneously hot, as though he was delirious with fever, and cold with nervous tension, but he bore them both. Almost all the players gathered here were enemies from whom he’d have to extract compromises. The remaining few were allies who were counting on him. He couldn’t let either camp realize how hard-pressed he felt.
I chose to start this war, after all.
As Soujirou had said, this world was a prison. Everyone in it was spellbound by the curse of struggling to survive. The despair of having no way to get home. The monster-haunted wilderness. The shackles of apathy.
Shiroe himself had spent the days since the Catastrophe being hounded by the situation. He’d responded to the circumstances in front of him, gotten his plans in order, and lived with the sole purpose of increasing his chances of survival.
However, this operation was different. Saving Touya, saving Minori, bringing some sort of order to Akiba… Ultimately, these were all self-indulgence on Shiroe’s part. He wanted them, and he intended to get them, even if it meant starting an unnecessary war. That was all.
He did think there were merits, of course. He believed there would be not only for him, but also for the people important to him and for Akiba.
However, that didn’t change the fact that this had its beginnings in what was essentially selfishness.
In that sense, Shiroe had gained the first freedom he’d had since the Catastrophe. This war had begun with his self-indulgence; he’d started it in order to make his own wish come true, and he was going to fight it with everything he had. Although this did make him feel very tense and put him under enough pressure to make him cringe, at the same time, it gave him fierce joy.
“Shiroechi? Are mew all right?”
Nyanta, who was standing behind and to his right, spoke to him. At this point, he could accept those words honestly. Nyanta wore the guild tag “Log Horizon” now, as did Naotsugu and Akatsuki, who weren’t at the meeting. They were going into this first battle as a guild of four, and although they might be on duty at different posts, they were on the same battlefield.
Bring my friends victory.
That was Shiroe’s fervent wish.
At last all the participants were seated, and the tension in the room built.
Shiroe stood and delivered the opening remarks.
“Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend this conference. I’m Shiroe of Log Horizon. …I’ve invited you here today to discuss a certain matter with you and to ask a favor. It’s a rather complicated matter, and it will probably take some time, but please bear with me.”
Shiroe paused, looking around the room.
…Well, at any rate, they all came. That’s good. It’s probably because Soujirou laid the groundwork, but even so. That saves me the trouble of going around and persuading each of them individually. …Although it also makes this conference that much more of a decisive battle.
“You can keep the pleasantries brief, Shiroe of Debauchery. It’s not like we don’t know each other.”
It was “Black Sword” Isaac who’d raised his voice. He was a seasoned soldier and one of the leading high-level players on the Japanese server. He was a true warrior who’d led the charge in countless large-scale battles. Shiroe had been invited to several of these battles as support. Enchanter was a bottom-of-the-barrel class, and he’d assumed Isaac wouldn’t remember a player like that, but apparently he’d been wrong.
“What’s going on here anyway?”
The irritated voice belonged to William, the young leader of Silver Sword. The youth’s flowing silver hair was tied back, and he looked like a typical elf lord. He seemed to be a very impatient type: He kept crossing and uncrossing his legs.
“As you say. I’ll get right down to business, then. The matter I would like to discuss—propose may be a better word—has to do with current conditions in Akiba. As you know, since the Catastrophe, we’ve been stranded in this other world. We have absolutely no idea about how to get back to our old world. To the best of my knowledge, we don’t even have a clue. This is incredibly painful, but it’s a fact. Meanwhile, under these circumstances, Akiba’s atmosphere is souring. Many of our companions have lost their motivation, while others have grown desperate. The economy is in tatters, and our exploration rate is stagnant. I’d like us to do something about the situation. That is why I’ve called you here.”
Shiroe spoke with his eyes half-closed.
He was fine. He’d gone over the words he needed to say in his mind, again and again, until they seemed so real he could practically feel them.
“What are you planning to do by getting us all together?”
“Pain in the butt…”
“Why does stuff like this have to be said now?”
“I know what you’re trying to say, but what on earth can we do?”
As if to quell the murmurs that rose here and there, Ains, the young guild master of Honesty, asked a question.
“Will this be something like the earlier alliance of smaller guilds?”
“Similar. However, I hear that did fail.”
Shiroe glanced at the guilds in question, Grandale and RADIO Market. The two representatives went pale and nodded. These guilds—and actually, the Crescent Moon League as well—were far too small to be at this conference. In terms of numbers, several of the groups here were over fifty times larger.
“True, that plan did collapse. However, I think it was because it had several unreasonable aspects. The plan at the time was for the small and midsized guilds to band together and oppose the big guilds. …In other words, the small guilds would come together and fight to protect their own interests. Our plan failed.”
Akaneya, guild master of RADIO Market, was also a master-class Mechanist, a subclass that created mechanical clocks and devices. Marielle picked up where he’d left off, supplementing his words.
“That’s right. We said we’d cooperate, but we ended up just chasin’ after our own guilds’ interests…which meant we couldn’t agree, which meant things broke down.”
“Are you planning to speak to every force—or at least, all the leading forces in Akiba—and coordinate their interests this time?”
“…They couldn’t even bring the small guilds together. With the big guilds’ egos involved, it’ll never work. This is insane!”
The members began to react to Marielle’s words.
Marielle’s name—in other words, the Crescent Moon League’s name—had been on the invitation as well. As a result, the participants had probably thought, in the backs of their minds, Is the real purpose of this conference to continue the small guild alliance that failed?
That’s a natural assumption…
However, even if his name was familiar to a certain set of people, it would have been difficult for Shiroe to convene the conference on the strength of his name alone.
Marielle’s name value and the Crescent Moon League, alias “Snack Shop Crescent Moon”—the notoriety of those two names had carried him to the beginning of the conference. However, he’d need to clear up that misunderstanding as soon as possible.
“My purpose this time is a bit different. I want to improve current conditions in Akiba.”
The sound of a chair scraping back interrupted Shiroe’s clear words.
“In that case, count us out.”
The player who’d stood was the one who’d been fidgeting irritably, William of Silver Sword. He adjusted the saber at his waist and tossed back his mantle.
“We’re a fighting guild. The atmosphere in town is no concern of ours. We just come back here to exchange items. In other words, it doesn’t matter to us whether the atmosphere gets better or worse. The lot that cares about the town should carry on here. I’m not saying discussing it is a bad idea, although I do think it’s a waste of time. We just aren’t interested, that’s all. Leave us out of it.”
Flinging that remark over his shoulder, William left the conference room.
The room began to buzz.
The people in charge of Grandale, RADIO Market, and the Crescent Moon League looked particularly pale. Shiroe had heard that in the last days of the small guild alliance, members had dropped out this way one after another.
However, Shiroe, who was steering the discussion, had anticipated developments like this one.
Silver Sword is out, then…
Shiroe analyzed the fact’s influence on the tide of battle, updating a mental scorecard.
Silver Sword certainly was a large combat guild, but it wasn’t vital to this conference. If the biggest fighting guild (D.D.D.) or the biggest production guild (the Marine Organization) made a motion to leave, he’d do something to stop them, but he’d assumed from the beginning that one or two guilds would storm out.
More importantly, the departure of William and his group had unsettled the atmosphere at the conference, and he had to do something about that.
“There are eleven of us now, but I’ll continue. The reason I’ve called you here, as Silver Sword said a moment ago, is to advocate for the formation of an organization to discuss the self-government issues in Akiba: the ‘Round Table Council.’ Roughly speaking, there are two pressing objectives. First, to improve the atmosphere in Akiba. More specifically, to set it on a track toward revitalization. Second, to improve public order. For now, I will focus on these two points, with the ultimate goal being an organization which will be able to resolve issues with Akiba’s self-government.”
The assembly answered him with silence.
It was the type of stillness that occurred because participants were gauging one another’s responses.
Now it really begins.
In the awareness that he was finally standing at the starting line, Shiroe examined the expressions of those around him.
True, the players gathered here could influence about 80 percent of the population of Akiba. The membership of the assembled guilds alone was more than six thousand. That was 40 percent of the players living in Akiba.
On top of that, guilds this large had friendly ties with many other guilds, as well as numerous quasi-subordinate guilds. Arranging for materials and going hunting with other guilds also gave them wide-ranging horizontal connections.
The players assembled here held great influence over all the Adventurers in Akiba. Consensus at this conference would be nearly equivalent to consensus among everyone living in Akiba. Of course, Shiroe had chosen which guilds to invite to the conference with this result in mind.
However, in equal measure, it would be incredibly difficult to get guilds this enormous to come to an agreement. It would be many times harder than crushing a single guild. Shiroe had been fully aware of that going in.
“Before that, could we hear your criteria for member selection?”
It was Ains who first broke the silence. The guild master of the major combat guild Honesty, he spoke in a calm voice that meshed with his middle-aged appearance.
“Of course. First, I chose the Knights of the Black Sword, Honesty, D.D.D., and the West Wind Brigade because they are large-scale combat guilds or because they have achieved great things. Silver Sword, which has bowed out, was selected for that reason as well. The Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District Eight were invited to represent the production guilds, as they are the three largest. The Crescent Moon League, Grandale, and RADIO Market were called as representatives of the smaller guilds. So that there will be no misunderstandings, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear with regard to these last three: These three guilds were selected in order to incorporate the opinions of players unaffiliated with a guild and of smaller guilds, which I was unable to invite to join us, rather than as single guilds in their own right. Just because a guild is small, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the weight of what they have to say. In addition, if this council is formed, I will probably request that they perform these tasks.”
He’d anticipated some backlash from having invited three smaller guilds to participate, but the assembly accepted it more calmly than he’d expected.
It was true that, in all, over six thousand players were affiliated with the major guilds he’d summoned. However, conversely, that meant that the number of other players in Akiba—in other words, the unaffiliated players and the members of small and midsized guilds—was close to nine thousand. They seemed to have accepted that the smaller guilds had been invited to represent these players.
Of course, Shiroe observed, there was a large possibility that they’d let it slide because they assumed there would be no council.
“And you?”
The taciturn question came from “Berserker” Krusty, the leader of D.D.D. Belying his name, he was a dandy who wore glasses.
“I’m attending as organizer and as the one who came up with the idea,” Shiroe said firmly.
He was hosting a conference regarding Akiba’s self-government. If the qualifications to participate in that conference were guild size or fame, then Shiroe himself technically wasn’t qualified to be there.
If the guild master of a guild formed just the week before—a guild with only four members, so tiny one hesitated even to call it “small”—began to talk about the future of Akiba, no one would listen.
Even from the perspective of the criteria Shiroe himself had used to select the guilds, he would have been out.
Still, that’s neither here nor there.
Was he qualified to participate? No, probably not. Well, then, had the big guilds that were qualified made the town any better? Had they done anything for the whole community since the Catastrophe? No, they hadn’t.
They’ve already demonstrated that things won’t go the way I want if I just sit around and wait. …Sure, it’s arrogant. I’m just indulging myself. I won’t stand on ceremony anymore. I won’t hold anything back. I’ll do what I want to do. And in order to do it, I’ll lay groundwork, and I’ll even convene a conference.
“Hm… In other words, you sponsored this conference and sent out invitations just to qualify yourself to participate?”
Krusty’s question was grounded in an accurate perception of Shiroe’s intent. Since that was so, Shiroe held his head high and answered, “Yes, that’s correct.”
“Say that council is formed. How exactly would you maintain public order? And actually, in this case, what deterioration in public order are we talking about specifically?”
At “Black Sword” Isaac’s question, Shiroe braced himself.
“I believe it’s common knowledge that a few guilds are keeping newbies under what amounts to house arrest on the pretext of protecting them. That isn’t a healthy situation.”
Directly confronted by these words, “Black Sword” Isaac flinched.
“…You mean the EXP Pots, right? But you couldn’t call that illegal…”
EXP Pots. The room buzzed at the abrupt mention of that noun. More than half the reactions were something along the lines of “Ah, I thought that would come up.” No doubt it was a fact that, questions of legality aside, the others had also felt vaguely guilty, at least to some extent.
“Right now, no law exists for the players. Saying that no law has been broken when ‘law’ doesn’t even exist is mere sophistry. I’m certain everyone here is aware of that.”
Isaac’s expression was grim. Shiroe continued.
“This is about more than EXP Pots. The problem lies in the fact that we, the players, have no law. As things stand, anyone can do anything at all, no matter how reckless. Even so, there’s almost no disadvantage to us, provided we’re the only ones we care about.”
“Now that’s an exaggeration. We have law. Any player who fights in a noncombat zone pays with their life.”
“That’s a result. It isn’t law. It happens because of a simple principle. …Let me put it more clearly: The act of fighting in a noncombat zone is the cause, and it carries the effect of an attack from the guards. That’s all. You can’t even call that a rule. It’s just a phenomenon. It isn’t something we approved. It wasn’t even created. How could something like that be law?”
At Shiroe’s words, Isaac shut his mouth.
The Knights of the Black Sword was one of the major fighting guilds rumored to be buying EXP Pots. His obstinate arguments were probably intended to cover up his own feelings of guilt. However, the arguments were an obstacle on Shiroe’s road to victory, and Shiroe cut them down with all his might.
“For example, I visited the town of Susukino the other day. In Susukino, a guild called the Briganteers had gone into business kidnapping young female NPCs and selling them to players as slaves.”
The conference attendees turned shocked faces to Shiroe.
“In terms of the conversation we’ve been having, since they weren’t attacked by the guards for it, it wasn’t ‘illegal.’ But is that what law is? In this world, it could be. At the very least, the specs make it possible. If asked to say whether it’s possible or impossible, it is possible. But that isn’t what law is. The question I want to ask you is, ‘Are we going to let that be a possibility with regard to ourselves?’ Isn’t that fundamentally what law is? It’s the question of where we put the rules by which we ourselves are governed.”
There were any number of possible excuses.
For example, the newbies were being penned up for their own protection. The EXP Pots were being confiscated to supplement the newbies’ living expenses, which they couldn’t completely cover due to their poor combat abilities.
With regard to the NPCs, it could be argued that they were just AI-powered dolls and so had no human rights. At the very least, one couldn’t prove that they weren’t AI-powered dolls and did have human rights. At any rate, real-world history showed that human rights were something that generally had to be won, instead of proven.
For that reason, Shiroe’s tactical objective wasn’t to take down these excuses one by one. At the very least, his short-term objective was to make everyone present admit that it was necessary to govern themselves in this lawless other world.
In reaction to the question Shiroe had tossed at them, some of the conference participants shut their mouths, and others loudly voiced their opinions. It wasn’t just the formal members, either. Their staff members also joined in, and tumult filled the conference room.
The responses seemed to be roughly split into two camps.
One held the opinion that it was indeed necessary to make rules of some sort.
The other held the view that that sort of consensus building would be impossible.
“Silver Sword said they wouldn’t participate in the conference and left, but they seem to have approved of the conference continuing. Suppose a force that doesn’t approve of the council’s very existence appears in Akiba. In other words, a force that defies the council’s aims. What will you do?”
Krusty directed his question at Shiroe. The question was as calm and to the point as ever, but he asked it as if he was voicing the second of the two views.
“Fight. Specifically, I’ll exile them from Akiba. Even if they manage to infiltrate, they’ll have a very difficult time doing anything. Of course, the option of forcing them to disband is also on my radar.”
Shiroe’s answer raised a great clamor, mostly from the combat guilds.
It was the same sort of startled cry that Marielle, Henrietta, and Shouryuu had given in the Crescent Moon League conference room two weeks earlier.
“Disband a guild,” “exile a guild”… These were easy things to say, but nearly impossible to accomplish. In this world, even death wasn’t much of a deterrent. After all, resurrection existed. With death no deterrent, being arrested lost much of its effectiveness. For example, if a player was arrested and detained, ultimately they could escape by committing suicide.
Under circumstances like these, it was incredibly difficult to do any lethal damage to guilds.
However, the baffled silence wasn’t rooted in a feeling of faltering helplessness, as the Crescent Moon League’s had been: The conference room held top players with influence over nearly 80 percent of the population of Akiba.
There were many things that, while impossible for the Crescent Moon League, would be possible if the members of this conference agreed to them. For example, they could set guards on all of Akiba’s gates, and if a player who had a warrant on them tried to enter, they could obliterate them with a PK. The production guilds could also refuse to sell articles of any kind to a wanted player.
Of course, such a move would take massive amounts of time and money. Even so, it would be possible to exert material and immaterial pressure that way.
“You couldn’t do something like that without the help of combat guilds like mine, though.”
“Black Sword” Isaac tossed those words at Shiroe. He’d regained his composure.
“And anyway, if there were, say, ten or twenty people, it could work. We could punish ’em that way. But if a guild like the ones gathered here didn’t go along with the council, ignored its decisions, flipped the bird at the law… If one started talking like that, we’d have a war on our hands. Even if the council got off the ground, there’s no guarantee we’d reach an agreement on every single matter. Heck, under those circumstances, could we reach an agreement? If we try to forge an agreement between opposing views but end up with a war instead, there’s no sense in having a council.”
Isaac had a very good point.
The assembled players began to mutter their agreement, and the murmur spread.
For example, his Knights of the Black Sword had 190 members. If that many level-90 members rose up in revolt, it would be hard to oppose them practically. Since the town was a noncombat zone, they’d have to arrest or PK them in other zones, and even if they succeeded there, it wouldn’t do any decisive damage to the guild.
For a guild with more than a certain number of members, refusal to do business and other types of economic pressure wouldn’t have much effect: Guilds of that size could fill most types of internal demand through members who held production subclasses.
Of course, it depended on the level and ratio of subclass holders, but fifty of them would probably be able to create a self-contained system.
Based on these facts, even if the council Shiroe proposed were established, it was very likely that matters the big guilds were opposed to would be unable to get the council’s support. In other words, the big guilds would have veto power, which meant that conditions would be exactly the same as they were at present.
Shiroe lowered his gaze and adjusted his glasses.
All developments up to this point have been about what I expected. Certainly, under normal circumstances, if we established a council, infighting is probably the best we could manage. …But this time, I can’t settle for that.
“I’m afraid I have to admit this doesn’t feel plausible. Don’t you agree?” Krusty asked.
His profile was as delicate and graceful as ever. It was a bit hard to believe that a man who looked so much like an intellectual was feared as a Berserker, but it was a fact. As proof, he continued to deliver relentless words in a calm voice.
“I do think there is meaning in establishing that council. However, it would be…no more than a type of posturing. I can’t imagine it would have any real power to restrain.”
At that remark, Shiroe quietly raised one hand.
As if his gesture had captured their attention, all eyes went to him. A momentary silence fell in the conference room.
“Today…about four hours ago now, I purchased the guild center.”
A stunned atmosphere hung over the members.
Every one of them needed time for the meaning of those words to sink in.
“Naturally, I hold the right to change the zone settings, including entry and exit permissions. In other words, anyone I blacklist will be unable to use the guild center. That is to say, they will be unable to use the guildhalls, or the banking facilities, or the safe-deposit boxes.”
As everyone stared at Shiroe with odd expressions, as though they’d gotten something stuck in their throats, Henrietta sighed deeply. In this vast conference room, she alone had seen through Shiroe’s scheme. At her sigh, Shiroe gave a wry, fleeting smile.
“There, what did I tell you? He’s pitch-black.”
Henrietta’s murmur was simultaneously appalled and filled with pity. Beside her, Marielle, who’d been watching the conference with bated breath, nodded.
Shiroe’s words had rung out like a death sentence.
In the morning, when she woke up, she washed her face in water from the trough.
The crude trough was really meant to be used in a stable as a manger. She washed her face in the cold water that filled the dingy trough, then dragged her dirty mantle around her shoulders.
This was one of the rooms set aside as a group sleeping area for newbies at the Hamelin guildhall. It held shabby furnishings and the bare minimum of facilities required for day-to-day life.
I have to get to the kitchen…
Morning preparations were always hectic. Each of them began to work according to the roles they’d been forced into. Minori’s job was to serve breakfast, and she had to go to the kitchen to pick up the meal.
Please let me get through the whole day without any trouble, Minori prayed.
Today was a special day.
Minori dressed hastily and headed for the kitchen.
A player with Chef skills who’d woken early would be there, making black bread. Minori didn’t consider this a poor meal. In this world, even the most luxurious food tasted the same, which meant that, conversely, even this meal of black bread and water could be called a feast. …She’d been telling herself so for the past two months.
Minori greeted the Chef girl in a small voice, then hastily dragged out a large tray. In addition to the Chef, who was also a newbie, the kitchen held an executive member on guard. Doing her best not to meet his eyes, Minori hurriedly began to fill a pitcher with well water.
There was enough for thirty-five people in all. She set the water and the black bread on a big wooden tray.
“Hold up.”
At the man’s voice, Minori shrank back reflexively.
She felt a nasty, greasy sweat break out on her palms.
Why?! …I’m not doing anything. I’m behaving the way I always do, so why…?
She had to act normally, no matter what, but apparently she’d already tripped up, first thing in the morning.
“Y-yes, sir?”
She squeezed out a response, thinking even as she spoke that her voice was so faint it might as well have been a mosquito’s whine.
“Hah! That’s one gloomy face. …Well? Can’t you even greet folks properly?”
The guard snorted as if she bored him, then criticized her.
Holding herself in check, Minori greeted him.
“Of course. Good morning, sir.”
“Whatever. …You’re a Tailor, right? How high?”
“I’m level thirty-two now.”
“You can sew rank-thirty leather armor, then. Boost your skills with leather aprons and leather gloves today.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bobbing her head to him again and again, she left the kitchen. Minori’s heart was pounding so fiercely she thought it might break.
Since that night, Shiroe had contacted her several times.
It was always after sunset, when the guild had gone to bed.
She’d wrap herself up in her mantle on the cold concrete floor, holding her breath, and then a bell only she could hear would sound in her ear. That was the signal that Shiroe was requesting a telechat.
Of course, she couldn’t have much of a conversation in the silent Hamelin bedroom late at night. Mostly she gave small coughs or sent little signals by knocking on the floor lightly. When there was no guard, she said two or three words. She had to keep her voice very small, so he wouldn’t notice how pitiful and tear-filled it was.
Most of the things Shiroe contacted her about were trivial.
Once a day or once every two days. The telechats were short, too—about ten minutes.
They talked about things like where he’d gone today or whom he’d met.
Apparently Shiroe had companions now: A Guardian named Naotsugu who cracked weird jokes constantly but was reliable. A lady Assassin named Akatsuki who was small and sharp-tongued. Then there was Nyanta, an elderly Swashbuckler that Shiroe called “Captain.” She also heard names from the Crescent Moon League: Marielle, Henrietta, and Shouryuu.
Shiroe told her about the things he’d done and the things he was doing. In exaggerated terms, it was the world he saw.
Shiroe and I are in the same world. …It’s the same world, but to me, it looks so tired and dingy… Shiroe says it’s wide and pretty…
That was painful to Minori.
She didn’t think it was unfair. She was sure that if the world looked this shabby to her, it was because her eyes and soul were clouded.
Shiroe was surrounded by cheerful, fun, kind people, but she wasn’t. She knew she envied him that. Shiroe’s world was bright and warm, and her own was dingy and cold. It seemed to her that, in other words, the grime inside her heart was seeping out into her surroundings and that hurt her.
Shiroe told her things, bit by bit.
That he’d never settled down in any guild before.
That he’d traveled around providing support, like a mercenary.
That he’d destroyed everything he built and had never tried to help it grow. That even so, he’d finally decided to make a place for himself to belong. That even now, he was a little afraid of working with others, of asking for things, of issuing invitations.
To Minori, these were just groundless fears on Shiroe’s part. Needless worry.
After all, he’d been kind to Minori and Touya. Maybe to Shiroe that kindness had been too small to count for much, but it was still saving her and Touya, even now.
The world Shiroe lived in was a world he’d won for himself. If she didn’t have the world Shiroe did, it was because she hadn’t been able to win it.
Minori thought she’d probably lost it during those few days after the Catastrophe.
I spent those days after the Catastrophe crying because I wanted somebody to save me. That’s why I lost it…
That thought was accompanied by bitter pain. Minori had joined Hamelin for the same reason: She’d wanted someone to save her, hadn’t felt like saving herself. She’d lost it because she’d foolishly thought that someone would rescue her. She and Shiroe had been given the same chance. It was just that Shiroe had made good on that chance, and she hadn’t.
In that sense, then, the situation wasn’t unfair.
If the shining things that surrounded Shiroe didn’t surround her, it was in no way Shiroe’s fault.
Besides, if I thought like that, this time I’d really… I’d be too worthless to even talk with him.
If Shiroe had begun working to secure a place for himself now, even she ought to be able to do that… She might have lost all her property, but as a newbie player, she’d barely had anything to begin with.
She had Touya. She still had her precious family.
No matter how lonely or scared it made them, they could leave the town and live in hiding, in the shadows of the ruins. If they’d only managed to steel themselves for that in the days after the Catastrophe, they never would have found themselves in a situation like this.
She rallied her feelings by main force and started for the living room, where the other beginners would be waiting.
Shiroe really did seem to be working to rescue Minori and Touya. Not only that, but from the odd word here and there, she’d sensed that he was working not just to rescue Minori, but to free all the newbie players who belonged to Hamelin.
Shiroe is an amazing person. …He’s calm and collected, and mature, and cool, and he knows everything, and he’s tall, and he’s kind…
Noticing that her thoughts were tending to fall into a loop, Minori’s cheeks grew hot.
Someone like that was trying to save her.
Shiroe still thought Minori was an acquaintance worth helping.
Of course Minori herself couldn’t believe she was worth anything of the sort. She thought Shiroe’s kindness had probably made him feel responsible for the two of them, even though they’d only played together for a little while.
But Touya was different. Touya had muttered, “He’s really awesome.” Then, after falling silent for a very long time, he’d continued, “…Wonder if I could be like that.”
Minori was really proud of her little brother.
If Touya was thinking that way, Minori had to, too. In the future, she would have to prove to Shiroe that he hadn’t been wrong to save them. If she didn’t, she’d lose the right to accept Shiroe’s calls now.
For that to happen, she couldn’t let herself think underhanded things like, It’s not fair.
She could be jealous. She could also let that envy make her suffer.
If that pain became the strength she needed to move forward, Minori thought, she’d welcome it. However, she didn’t have time to waste on pessimistic feelings like “It’s not fair.”
After handing out bread to the other kids, Minori went to the west corner, her usual place, and nibbled at her own black bread. It didn’t taste good, but it wasn’t terrible, either. As she swallowed down the rather vague, unstimulating food, she waited with bated breath.
There were no key members of the guild in the living room.
The newbies who’d gathered around her sent searching glances at Minori. In response, Minori nodded, whispering things like, “Hang on just a little longer.”
Most of the commonsense things Shiroe had taught them were very general knowledge, the sort of rudimentary information that formed the foundation of all game play in Elder Tales. However, in this other world, where they were cut off from online solutions sites, these knacks and scraps of knowledge gave Minori and Touya a big advantage. Before they knew it, this broad, shallow knowledge that wasn’t limited to their main classes or subclasses had elevated Minori and Touya to something slightly above ordinary newbies.
The two of them had tried to use this modest knowledge to alleviate the impossible demands Hamelin placed on them, and somewhere along the way, that attitude had earned them trust from the other newbies.
Minori gave one of the players who already seemed to be in bad shape some hot water she’d snitched especially for her, then went back to thinking.
Shiroe had said he’d contact her today. Once his call came, she’d have to act.
She’d already told her roommates a little bit about it, and she knew Touya also knew what they were going to do today.
Minori wasn’t sure when the call would come, but she thought it would be either in the morning or that night. During the day, Touya and the others were out hunting. Any strategy would be harder to implement if the targets that needed to be rescued were scattered.
After they finished their bread, Touya and the other players who were going out to hunt began drifting to another room to get ready. The newbies who would be hunting would gather and be given the day’s destinations, party members, and formations. After that, the chosen members would change, check their equipment, and depart.
Just then, a faint bell sounded in Minori’s ear.
That’s it! It’s Shiroe!
Tension over the uproar that was about to break out made her heart begin to pound like a trip-hammer. Even if she was killed, she wouldn’t die. Logically, she knew this, but if someone were to turn a weapon on her, she’d still shrink back.
Minori didn’t know what sort of operation was about to play out, but there could very well be violence. The possibility that there’d be a battle was not a small one. Still, Minori had thought it through carefully, and she’d resolved that, no matter what, she wouldn’t disgrace herself.
When the telechat was connected, Shiroe’s voice, a voice only Minori could hear, began to speak.
“Good morning. Minori? …I know this is sudden, but we’re about to begin the operation. The signals will be the same as always. …Are you in your bedroom right now?”
Koff. She gave one small cough, answering in the affirmative.
“Is Touya in the other room getting ready?”
Another cough.
“All right. When Touya leaves the guildhall, you leave, too. …All of you, the new players. Just walk right out the door. You don’t have to worry about anything. I’ve taken total control of the guild center.”
Total control?
Minori didn’t know what he meant, but she responded in the affirmative anyway.
“Next, if anything happens inside… If you fall and resurrect, after you wake up in the temple, run for the guild center. The guild center entrance hall is the headquarters for the rescue operation.”
Minori struggled desperately to remember everything exactly.
“I have an important battle to fight on another front, and I can’t be there. A young guy named Shouryuu is commanding the operation. Aside from him, there’s an Assassin named Akatsuki; you can count on her. She’ll be either at the hall or nearby.”
She was so nervous the strength had gone out of her knees, and her chest hurt. Even so, fighting hard, Minori managed to return a single small affirmative cough.
“Naotsugu is camped at the temple. If the worst happens, you can count on him as well. All right: This is it. …Let the escape begin.”
Touya had received a similar telechat.
So the operation’s starting, huh, big brother Shiroe?
Touya gulped. He was putting on his battle armor, and his hands felt unusually tense; he breathed slowly and deeply, scanning his surroundings. It was still too early to tell his nearby companions.
Shiroe’s order had been to get all the new players to flee into the guild center. The Hamelin guildhall, where Touya and the others were now, was linked to the guild center zone by a single door.
If they all made it through that door, he would have achieved the objective Shiroe had given him. If it had just been him, Touya was confident that he could have gotten away in less than ten seconds.
However, Minori wouldn’t do a thing like that.
Minori would wait to make sure that Touya had gotten completely away before she made her escape. No, if he knew his sister, she’d let all the other new members besides Touya go as well and be the very last one out.
In that case, I can’t just run, can I?
He knew Minori tended to punish herself.
It was the flip side of having a sense of responsibility, and Touya suspected he might be the reason that responsibility had taken root in the first place.
Touya liked his big sister.
His classmates said that siblings tended to fight whenever they got the chance. He’d heard that habits and ways of thinking that one could have forgiven in a stranger turned into a source of stress when one had to live with them, and he remembered thinking, That makes sense.
Still, Touya thought the pecking order was what caused the stress. There was an age difference between normal siblings; between one and three years in most cases. In children, an age difference like that created a disparity in abilities that was too big to ignore.
To older siblings, their younger brothers and sisters probably seemed like badly made copies of themselves. To younger siblings, older brothers and sisters were tyrants.
If things were like that, and they had to live together, of course it would be stressful.
On that point, twins had it easy. Minori always did her best to look after Touya because she thought of herself as his big sister, but she was only a few hours older than he was, and Touya didn’t consider her to be any kind of guardian.
He thought of her as a great person to have as family and as a friend.
The fact that they were twins made them excellent playmates and opponents for each other. In a world where it was normal for there to be an age difference between siblings, that sort of pecking order was completely foreign to the two of them. As far as Touya was concerned, they were lucky.
However, even though they were the same age and on equal footing with each other, his sister was a bit timid. He was a guy, and so at times like that, it was his job to protect her. Touya had thought so for ages.
“Hey, it’s time to move out. I’ll go tell the guild master. You lot line up in front of the guild center.”
The speaker—the leader of the hunting team, that arrogant Summoner—left the room, tossing those words back over his shoulder. He’d probably headed for the guild master’s room.
Touya shoved his cheap sword into his belt and, starting for the door, called back to his companions.
“The rescue I’ve been telling you about is on. Let’s get to the guild center hall right away. Hurry!”
He felt them catch their breath. On some level, the others had probably sensed it in the air, too. A flurry of motion broke out. Some hastily tried to grab their belongings, but he checked them. “Leave that stuff. It’s not like we’ve got anything anyway.”
It was true. Touya and the others didn’t have any property to speak of. All they had were all the clothes and sundries they could pack into the ready-made bags they always used, the cheap kind that didn’t even have weight cancellation spells on them.
When Touya glanced back, keeping his ear pressed to the door, several of his companions nodded. Touya opened the door, stepped into the hall, and ran straight to the other group bedroom.
As he approached the door to that room, he heard a small shriek and the sound of a struggle behind it. When Touya flung the door open without even thinking about it, he saw Minori struggling with a regular guild member.
What, they’re onto us?!
Touya gulped. Then he gestured at the frightened newbie girls who were watching the struggle from the fringes, motioning for them to leave. In nearly the same motion, he rammed the short-haired bandit who was leaning on his sister, trying to hold her down.
“Wha?! What are you kids planning—”
There was a wheezing sound as the man filled his lungs. The short-haired bandit was probably going to yell. His sister’s frightened face. That face alone was enough to set Touya moving again before he was even aware of it.
He dropped into a crouch, and his left arm snaked around smoothly.
The sword leapt from its sheath with such force that it seemed to have been launched rather than drawn. The shining silver light became a straight line that struck at the man’s throat.
It was a special Samurai attack skill, Rania’s Capture.
Its effect crushed the target’s vocal cords, preventing them from chanting spells. In this case, the player wasn’t chanting a spell, but the effect seemed to work anyway. The short-haired bandit choked soundlessly, holding his throat.
Normally, guildhalls were noncombat zones. Any act of aggression would summon the non-player guard characters instantly, even if they hadn’t been nearby.
However, the noncombat zone settings were determined by the owner of the zone, and they could be lifted. In Hamelin’s guildhall, combat had been legalized because it was necessary to “manage” the newbies.
The regular members had used those settings to hurt their new recruits.
—At least they had until today.
“Get them to safety!”
At Touya’s call, Minori leapt up as if she’d been stung and pushed the other girls toward the guildhall’s entryway. Now that things had gone this far, there was no time to dawdle. All she could do was encourage her frightened companions and lead them away.
Meanwhile, Touya squared off against the bandit.
The man’s face was hard, and hatred blazed in his eyes. His throat had been crushed by one of the newbies he’d held in contempt as little squirts, and the rage it had whipped up inside him was unbelievable. There was a difference of more than twenty levels between Touya and him.
The bandit whipped out a scimitar with a blade that had to be fifty centimeters across and swung it at Touya.
The effect of Rania’s Capture only robbed players of the ability to chant spells and speak. It was very effective on magic users and healers, but it wouldn’t drain any of the combat ability from a physical fighter like the man in front of him.
The bandit’s sharp sword overcame Touya’s defensive stance easily and slashed into him. The fundamental difference between their skill levels was far too great.
Touya’s surprise attack had only succeeded because, in his arrogance, the man had assumed that no newbie would turn on him and because the attack had been Rania’s Capture.
Many Samurai special techniques had long recast times. Most skills were so-called “one-shot tricks” and could only be used once every five or ten minutes. As if to compensate for that, the techniques were designed to be powerful, and their hit rates were incredibly high. That was how Touya had managed to affect a midrange player who had a twenty-level advantage.
The certain-kill techniques were powerful and varied, but there were very few convenient midrange techniques that could be used to bridge the gaps between them. That was the fateful characteristic of the Samurai.
The effect of Rania’s Capture lasted fifteen seconds.
He only had about ten seconds left. Touya stomped down his panic as he took blows from the bandit’s sword.
I don’t have to win! If I can just hold out here until the other guys have gotten away—
Red sprays of blood were spreading across the area. Touya didn’t even have to look to know they were coming from him. His whole body ached and prickled painfully. He could feel his hands and feet getting colder and heavier.
“Touya!”
An effect like a shining, sky-blue mirror blocked the bandit’s attack. With the level difference, the man’s attack shattered the mirror in an instant, but it had been Minori’s damage block spell. He saw the bandit click his tongue in annoyance.
“They all left for the entryway. Let’s get into the corridor!”
“Roger that! Let’s move.”
After checking the man with a large attack, Touya left the bedroom with Minori. The corridor wasn’t even two meters wide. Out here, he could protect Minori without letting anyone capture his side or get behind him.
“Gepluh! Gah!”
However, just then, the effect of Rania’s Capture ran out. The bandit clutched his throat, gave a cracked cough, then screamed at Touya.
“Do you have any idea what you’re in for after pulling a stunt like this?! I’ll kill you a hundred times, you damn brats!!”
Just as Touya had feared, the man’s rough voice echoed through the guildhall. Several of the doors in the corridor opened and the bulk of Hamelin’s forces stuck their heads out, then hastily grabbed for their weapons.
The guild master with a face like thunder. The Summoner, who wasn’t even trying to hide his irritation. The production-class men, who turned coarse stares on the new girls.
As one, they roared threats, then drew their weapons.
“What can the two of you do?!”
The Summoner brandished his arms, and a black wind whirled up. It was Deadly Swarm, a cloud of winged insects about the size of ants. The spell had the side effect of clouding the target’s vision, and it went straight over Touya, attacking Minori directly.
Minori desperately chanted her damage block spell, but the level difference was too great. As the evil black insects slammed into it and were smashed, one after another, the shining wall cracked, then shattered like glass.
Even in the corridor, I can’t block direct magic attacks on the vanguard! I’m an idiot!
Even as Touya told himself off, he threw the sword in his right hand into the false, swarming darkness with all his might. What he saw was the shape of the Summoner, waving his staff deep in the darkness.
“Touya! Touya!!”
“Just a little longer, Minori! Keep your head down!!”
Touya’s arms had already taken so much damage they were bluish black, but he flung them around his twin sister and charged at the zone door as if he meant to ram it.
