Read Log Horizon Vol 2 – Chapter 5 : Grab Your Future

1

“But that’s blackmail!!”

Meanwhile, in the vast conference room on the top floor of the guild center, the participants’ discussion had grown heated.

Shiroe’s declaration—“I own the guild center”—had been a bombshell.

The only players who had not been shocked were Shiroe himself; Nyanta, who stood behind him; the members of the Crescent Moon League; and Soujirou of the West Wind Brigade, who hadn’t known exactly what would be done, but had dimly suspected something of the sort.

The guild center was one of Akiba’s core facilities.

The functions of the center itself included guild formation, joining or leaving guilds, and the receipt of bonuses for high-level guilds—practically every guild-related, system-level clerical procedure.

However, in Akiba’s case, that wasn’t all it did. The guild center’s entrance hall housed the service counter for the bank. The bank was a commonplace facility in the world of Elder Tales, and players used it to store money (in accounts) and items (in safe-deposit boxes).

In this other world, death resulted in no more than a slight drop in experience points and equipment durability, but at the moment of death, there was a set probability that ordinary items that hadn’t been equipped to the player would be scattered across the area.

If the player was lucky, they could retrieve them, but if they’d been killed in a PK attack, the items would almost certainly be stolen. Even without that, it wasn’t prudent to carry lots of money around. Ordinarily, almost all players kept most of their property in the bank, and if they wanted to purchase an expensive item at the market, they’d withdraw money for a small fee.

To the players, the bank was the most familiar, most important commercial facility in the Elder Tales world, and they used it every day.

The only bank window in Akiba was in the guild center. The fact that Shiroe, an individual player, could restrict entry to the guild center carried staggering implications.

Of course, every town had a bank. The accounts were the same, which meant that money—and even items—could be withdrawn from any bank, no matter where the original deposit had been made. For example, a deposit made in Akiba could be withdrawn in Minami.

That said, right now, with the intercity transport gates dead, the long journey between cities was very risky. Shiroe and his group had gone to Susukino, but they were part of a very tiny minority. Since the Catastrophe, it was likely that less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all players on the Japanese server had gone to a town other than their own.

Considering the current environment, the rights Shiroe held were equivalent to the authority to freeze bank assets at will. It was no wonder that the conference members were aghast.

Shiroe had announced this strategy—of an entity controlling the bank to control players—to the Crescent Moon League when they had nearly earned the five million in funding necessary to acquire the guild center, and even Henrietta had murmured, “Compared to Master Shiroe, devils are far tamer. Devils are fully aware that they’re bad, but not Master Shiroe. That byname, ‘Machiavelli-with-glasses,’ is too cute for him.”

“Freeze the assets in the bank?! If that isn’t a threat, what the heck is?!”

Woodstock, the guild master of the small guild Grandale, spoke in a shaking voice.

“I simply answered Isaac’s question. The question was, ‘Even if the council is formed, depending on the matters presented to it, won’t the big guilds exercise their right to veto and start a war?’ The answer is no: There will be no war. Warring forces will lose the right to use Akiba’s guild center.”

“And I’m telling you that’s blackmail—”

Shiroe responded to the obstinate claim.

“It may very well be. However, if what I’ve done is blackmail, what of what Isaac and the other big guilds have done? Isn’t it blackmail to threaten to start a war if a proposal inconveniences you? How is that different? All I’m saying is that I want to establish a council and discuss things. I don’t plan to ignore remarks that strike me as inconvenient. Think about which proposal is more sensible.”

A subdued silence fell.

To the conference attendees, it may have seemed as if they were having an ugly nightmare.

“Where did you get that kind of money?! The guild center is a common zone!! A huge amount like that—”

“We financed it.”

The speaker was “Iron-Arm” Michitaka, general manager of the Marine Organization. He seemed to have been one of the first to recover from the shock; the energy was starting to return to his voice.

“Then, Shiroe, the challenge you were directing was…”

“Yes. The establishment of this council.”

“Well, that figures.”

In the midst of a storm of questions as to why they’d put up the money, Michitaka nodded. Technically, only the eleven seated around the table were conference participants, but the shock of Shiroe’s proclamation had sent their followers and advisers into a panic as well.

“Quiet down! What a ruckus!” Michitaka barked, then let his eyes fall to his documents.

The documents held the secret of the cooking method Nyanta had discovered, and the preparation method for the hamburgers currently being sold by the Crescent Moon League. It was a cooking method in the truest sense of the word, not a special “recipe” game item of the sort that could be registered as a new, complete item in the item creation menu.

Early that morning, the leaders of the three production guilds—the Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District 8—had been called to this room before the conference and received these documents directly from Shiroe.

Once the structure was revealed, it was far too simple. The new food items at Snack Shop Crescent Moon weren’t the result of a new recipe.

In chasing the fantasy of a new recipe, the production guilds had been tricked by the Crescent Moon League. Each had lost their investment of 1.5 million gold coins.

However, Shiroe hadn’t given them anything that remotely resembled an apology.

Instead, he’d posed a question to the disgruntled trio: “What makes you think those documents are worth less than 1.5 million gold coins?”

“Isn’t there something you still need to say, Shiroe?”

Michitaka urged him to continue. Although he’d steeled himself, his expression was something between a wry smile and dissatisfaction.

“He’s right. No matter how you try to gloss it over, Mr. Shiroe, there’s no denying that you’re currently in a position where you couldthreaten us. Humans are wired to lose their composure, and possibly even feel that they’ve been threatened already, just by realizing that someone could do it. Surely you know that.”

It was Soujirou who’d chimed in.

“It’s just as you say. Even I don’t think a town where a single person holds this much plenary power is ideal. On that note, let me return to the first matter I discussed. Do you think the Adventurers in this town—or, in larger terms, this world—really want things to stay this way? I have two policies to propose. One is that we revitalize everyone living in this town and, by extension, this world. Second, that we create and implement laws to govern the Adventurers who live in Akiba, at the very least. Is anyone opposed to any of what I’ve said so far?”

There was no answer.

Of course there wasn’t.

In the first place, considered individually, none of the things Shiroe was saying were bad ideas. Bringing life back to the town was a good thing in and of itself, and it would benefit combat and production guilds alike.

Of course, if the burden from specific measures were to prove a harsh one, things would be different. If only a few participants were made to shoulder a heavy burden while all the others regained their footing, the question would be, “Which of us is going to draw the short straw?”

However, at this point, that wasn’t a concern that opposed the topic of betterment itself.

The same went for establishing law. Some might feel that it was a nuisance and would only make things stuffier. However, all the players gathered here were Japanese and had originally been playing on the Japanese server. As such, they all knew the importance of “law.”

Here as well, of course, there was a possibility that problems could arise, depending on the content of that law. There might also be bad laws they couldn’t agree to. However, if it was a simple question of establishing law, there didn’t seem to be anything to object to.

“All right.”

“Black Sword” Isaac, who’d struck the conference table with his thick palm, broke in as if he was shouldering the confusion of the entire assembly himself.

“If you’re going to go that far, tell us the specific policies of this proposed council of yours—of Log Horizon’s.”

The black-armored warrior kept his steely glare fixed on Shiroe, and it naturally drew the eyes of those around him. Shiroe held his head high and began to speak with even more enthusiasm.

2

There was something unique about moving from one zone to another.

For example, in the case of the guild center and guildhalls, one moved between the zones by using a specific object shaped like a door.

On the guild center side, the second- and third-floor guildhall corridors held countless such doors. These corridors, with their ranks of doors and not much else, were linked to many separate guildhall zones.

In reality, there were no physical rooms behind the doors. There wouldn’t have been any space for them. The doors themselves were right next to each other, and the wall behind the doors was only a meter thick. These floors held seventeen of these door-filled corridors, and no matter how hard one looked, they wouldn’t have found the space to build a room.

It was easiest to picture if one thought of the doors in the strange guild center corridors as devices that transported them to another dimension (in this case, a guildhall). Conversely, using a door that acted as a guildhall exit would put one in front of the corresponding door in the guild center zone.

Was it Minori who’d touched the doorknob, or was it Touya? To the very end, neither of them knew. They’d simply jumped back to protect themselves from the black, smokelike swarm of poisonous insects, and as a result, they’d tumbled out into the guild center corridor.

“There’s two more!”

Unusually, there were several players standing at the ready in the corridor. By the stairs, a boy in leather armor and a girl equipped with a katana were directing the newbie Hamelin members back and away.

Minori coughed, over and over.

It felt as if those poisonous insects had gotten inside her through her mouth, and the disgust made her retch. In reality, the insects had been a magic-generated effect and had only existed temporarily. Now that they were out of sight of the spellcaster, the insects ceased to exist, but the memory of the vivid physical sensation kept her from believing that.

“You okay, Minori?”

Touya was rubbing her back; he sounded worried. Since she was kneeling on the floor, Minori couldn’t see Touya’s whole body, but she did see the red stain that was spreading across the floor in front of her.

“You’re the one who’s… Hang on, Touya, I’ll cast Small Recovery…”

“Nah, I’m fine. …Only…”

Feeling Touya look up, she looked that way, too. Standing there were a young swordsman in blue leather armor, equipped with two Chinese-style straight swords, and a girl dressed all in black.

“What are your names, guys? Are there any others on their way out?”

Although he was a “young” swordsman, the player who spoke to Minori was probably still older than she and Touya were. He had black hair and looked as if he might be in high school.

Are we…safe…?

She didn’t understand why the Hamelin members weren’t leaping into the guild center corridor, but they certainly did seem to have been saved. Minori felt relief drain the strength from her knees.

Minori took the hand the young man held out to her and stood.

Touya had made it to his feet before she did, and he answered the question posed to them a moment earlier.

“I’m Touya. This is my big sis Minori. We should be the last two newbies.”

“You are? That’s great.” The swordsman smiled as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “I’m Shouryuu. Pleased to meet you. …Okay, let’s get you to the entrance first; your friends are already waiting there. We’ll get you patched up, do a head count, and then ask you a bit about the situation for future reference…”

“Hey, Minori~. Quit doing that wet noodle impression. It’s lame.”

“Oh, honestly! Touya, you’re such a meanie!”

Even as he teased, contrary to his words, Touya’s voice was gentle with relief. Now all they had to do was follow this Shouryuu swordsman, and they’d see Shiroe. Just as Minori thought this…

!

Something was wrong behind her. The feeling made her sick. She didn’t even have to turn to look; she could feel that someone was in the process of materializing there. She was about to glance back, but even as she moved, deep down, she knew: Now wasn’t the time. She should be flinging herself toward the stairs instead. Even so, her body had already begun to turn, and it wouldn’t stop.

Just as she registered that a man’s palm had filled her field of vision and was about to grab her roughly, Minori felt something ram into her. It was Touya.

The man’s hand had been grabbing for Minori’s collar, but when she was sent flying, it missed its mark and reached for Touya instead. Even though the arm wasn’t thick, it squeezed Touya’s wrist with such monstrous strength that Minori turned pale. The steel framework of Touya’s gauntlet creaked ominously.

The Summoner—that Summoner—had moved between zones.

“You little…!”

His face was brick red with rage. True, the Summoner was a magic user. However, with enough of a level difference, his physical strength could surpass even that of a Warrior like Touya. In this gamelike world, physical strength was not proportionate to appearance. From the way Touya gritted his teeth, it was clear how much destructive power those thin arms held.

“What did you do?! What are you?!”

“Shut up! Shut—yer—trap!!”

But Touya’s voice was strained.

As if to push aside their levels, that insurmountable difference in strength, through sheer willpower, Touya shoved the man with all his might. The Summoner didn’t take any damage from the attack, but Touya had drawn his second blade, his katana, and was barring the way, posed as if to protect Minori.

“Don’t try to act tough, brat! As if there’s anywhere you could go!”

Those words awakened deep pain in Touya and Minori.

They were burdens, and even now, in this instant, it was hard for them to stand against the man’s violence.

Even so, Minori screwed up her courage and was about to retort when, in that instant, a jet-black shadow swooped in like a swallow from the opposite direction.

The shadow sent the big man flying with a kick that had all her weight behind it, then stood between the twins and the Hamelin Summoner who’d come through the door.

Oh my… That lady’s incredibly pretty.

The girl, who was as beautiful as Minori’s admiration indicated, cut the man’s knees out from under him in a motion so smooth she seemed to have practiced it thousands of times. It was so fluid, it looked more like a kind of dance than an attack.

However, the words that fell from her pale pink lips were sharp.

“I thought so. What a weak-looking face,” the girl muttered. The expression she turned on the Summoner was filled with deep disdain.

“Who’re you?! Akatsuki?—Log Horizon? Never heard of ’em.”

The magic user, who’d frozen momentarily, seemed to have checked his mental menu. When he read the girl’s—Akatsuki’s—guild tag, he looked at her with clear contempt.

However, his words didn’t seem to affect the girl in the least. She tilted her head slightly, with her usual too-serious expression, then responded.

“Really? I would imagine you’d be more embarrassed, with a tag from a third-rate guild like Hamelin. When you walk around town, don’t you ever get snickered at and want to run back to your guildhall…?”

Her words infuriated the man; he seized her by her shirtfront. Combat was forbidden in the guild center, but from experience, the members of Hamelin were well aware of what constituted “combat.”

Attacking with a drawn weapon or casting a hostile spell would immediately (and mercilessly) be recognized as fighting. However, unless it was accompanied by severe pain, contact with bare hands wasn’t considered “combat.”

Just as real-world yakuza had near-perfect knowledge of how far they could go before an act became illegal, these players knew just how much they could do before their actions were deemed “combat” by the system and the guards punished them.

“What did you say, girl? You know about Hamelin and you’re still spouting crap like that? Little runt!”

It was bone-chilling intimidation, but even then, Akatsuki didn’t flinch. The man, who was sturdy for a magic user, had lifted her lightweight-class body by the collar, and even her toes weren’t touching the ground. From that position, Akatsuki murmured.

“…Ah, my liege? I’m sorry. There’s one we hadn’t registered yet. His name is Shreida. He’s a big man who looks like he’d have smelly breath, and as you’d guess from his name, his face looks like it’s been run through a shredder. …Yes.”

“What was that?! Let’s you and me go back to my guildhall, and then you’ll get what’s—”

The man’s voice cut off.

As a matter of fact, it wasn’t just his voice. He’d ceased to exist.

As Akatsuki dropped to the floor with a light noise, there was no man in front of her.

“Thank you for registering that one, my liege. Elimination complete. It looks as if when players who are in a zone are added to the ‘no entry’ list, they’re ejected from that zone. I couldn’t say whether he’s in Akiba or whether he’s returned to his guildhall.—Yes. That’s right. Understood. We’ve just secured a girl named Minori and a boy named Touya. They say they’re the last ones. I’ll continue to watch the Hamelin guildhall door.”

The transparently lovely girl turned, her face still far too serious, and went over to Minori and Touya, who had slumped to the corridor floor as though their legs would no longer hold them.

“You’re Minori and Touya, right? My name is Akatsuki. I serve my liege Shiroe as his ninja. Your safety and that of your comrades is assured. My liege is fighting valiantly on another battlefield at the moment. For now… Why don’t you come take a bath?”

Minori was so relieved that this time she did start to cry.

3

“I have two basic policies I’d like to propose. Revitalization of the area and improvement of public order are as I explained earlier. As far as specific policies are concerned, let me begin with an outline of the revitalization. I’ve already run this by several of the parties concerned. …Mari?”

At Shiroe’s words, Marielle steeled herself and stood.

“I’m sure some of y’all already know, but Crescent Moon started runnin’ a shop called Snack Shop Crescent Moon a little while back. We’re gettin’ lots of customers, and business is real good.”

Behind Marielle, who had her hands on the conference desk and was leaning forward as she talked, Shiroe noticed Henrietta silently cheering her on.

“Snack Shop Crescent Moon is a take-out place whose main product is real, good-tastin’ hamburgers, like nothin’ we’ve ever had here. We’re well aware that all sorts of rumors are croppin’ up all over the place. Such as, for example, the secret’s a completely new recipe, level ninety-one or higher, from some unknown zone. …It isn’t.”

Aside from the production guilds, who already knew this, the news caused another significant stir in the conference room.

“I’m gonna disclose that secret here. This is how it works. You get your ingredients ready the usual way, and then you cook just the way you’d do it in the real world. Only the person doin’ the cookin’ has to be a Chef. That, and if their cookin’ skills are judged to be too low, they’ll fail. That’s all it is. I guess the fact that there aren’t any tricks or strings is the trick.”

As the listeners gradually registered the meaning of those words, the murmur grew louder.

The preconceived notion that cooking was something made from a creation menu had had everyone fooled. Once spelled out, it was very simple, but it was also revolutionary.

As the room buzzed, Marielle sat down. Shiroe jumped in before another debate could start.

“The one who discovered that cooking method is Nyanta, the Chef standing behind me. With his permission, I taught it to the Crescent Moon League, and we launched Snack Shop Crescent Moon.”

“I see. That’s why the Marine Organization backed them…”

“But doesn’t that mean they were tricked?”

As the hum of conjectures continued unabated, Shiroe ignored the comments and kept speaking.

“To my mind…it’s a discovery that holds quite a number of suggestions. The discovery itself was made by Captain Nyanta here, but without it, I doubt I could have set up this conference, and I wouldn’t even have considered doing so. Michitaka. Did you get results?”

“We did,” Michitaka replied in a deep voice. At first glance, the leader of the gigantic guild seemed calm, but his expression was suffused with profound astonishment.

The reason the three production guild leaders had kept their silence ever since the conference began lay in the words Shiroe had just spoken.

“Our guild… Well, us and the Roderick Trading Company and Shopping District Eight, working together… We’ve just successfully developed a steam engine.”

This announcement was also met with surprise, but the surprise didn’t cause a stir the way the others had. On the contrary: The participants who’d heard the words doubted their ears, and they kept their attention riveted on Shiroe and Michitaka’s conversation, so as not to miss the rest of what Michitaka said.

“To be completely accurate, it’s a prototype. There are lots of issues, but the theory’s been verified.”

“That didn’t even take half a day. That’s fantastic.”

“Basic components can be created from the creation menu. So can tools. The idea of diverting components was a masterstroke.”

Michitaka and Shiroe were nodding in agreement.

“Hey… I mean, a steam engine, that’s real impressive. Bottom line, though: What’s going on?”

“Black Sword” Isaac sounded completely staggered.

“Don’t you see, Isaac? It means this: That discovery isn’t limited to cooking skills and Chefs. It’s been demonstrated that if players who’ve acquired production-related skills actually work with their hands, without using the creation menu, they can make items that don’t appear on the menu. Not one item related to steam engines exists in the original Elder Tales specs. There was no new food item recipe; however, the fact that it doesn’t exist brought us a whole new dimension instead of a single, superficial new recipe. Things have gone far beyond the realm of fine food.”

It was Roderick of the Roderick Trading Company who answered Isaac’s question. His answer was so logical that it might have come from a scholar, instead of a merchant.

“From now on, it’s going to be possible to make items that aren’t on the creation menu. There’s going to be an inventing boom for a while. We should be able to recreate a few of the things we had in the real world. Such as, let’s see… Televisions might be out of reach, but it’s quite possible that we’ll be able to make radios.”

Calasin of Shopping District 8 picked up where Roderick had left off.

His words drew a nod both from the intellectual-looking Roderick and from Michitaka, who was smiling heartily. Their guilds had witnessed the success of the steam engine experiment.

“More new inventions should arouse new demand. Naturally, methods of earning money will increase, as will the need to earn it. In other words: revitalization. I think we’ll need a few safeguards here; it’s possible that the economy may get out of control. Still, that’s a chaos we should be able to master. It isn’t stagnation drifting toward depression, is it? In this world, basic medieval items and handheld tools can be made from the creation menu. Since we have tools and models, I predict that progress will be rapid.”

Michitaka carried on following Shiroe’s prediction.

“Our three production guilds have confirmed those things, and we’ve got our eyes on both the earnings they may bring in and the new enthusiasm that will well up. …To the point where I wouldn’t mind supporting Shiroe over just this one thing.”

“Then the production guilds are…”

“Yeah. We support the establishment of the Round Table Council.”

As a matter of fact, even the small-scale Snack Shop Crescent Moon had achieved sales of fifty thousand gold coins per day. The arrival of competition would probably bring the price of the new food down as well. The average cost per customer might fall from the thirty gold coins it was at Crescent Moon until it was only a few gold coins. Still, even then, the potential customer demographic—in other words, the number of players—was more than ten times the number Crescent Moon had served.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine generating an incalculable economic effect.

The combat guild members could only sit there gasping.

If the three major production guilds could declare it that categorically, the others seemed to be left with no choice but to believe them about the revitalization.

“The lack of energy is at least partially due to feelings of despair and apathy, but we think a large part of it is the fact that there isn’t anything to do. It takes very little money to live in this world, to the point where it’s a problem. It’s healthier to use a certain amount of money, and to earn it so you can then use it. I think, from here on, we should see a wider variety of jobs begin to appear. For example, in the case of Snack Shop Crescent Moon, you wanted salesclerks badly enough that you would have paid for them, correct?”

“That’s right. Since things were the way they were, we kept the work in the family, but it would’ve been nice to hire clerks.”

Marielle shook her head several times as she answered Calasin, and no doubt she meant what she said.

“There should be more jobs for the members of the combat guilds as well. This goes for material discovery and acquisition, as well as guard duty, but once the council is established, don’t you think we should set aside a budget and commission a complete investigation of the Fairy Rings? Once that investigation is complete, there’s accumulation of zone information, followed eventually by compilation of historical records, and then publication of newspapers and other media… As long as we find the budget for it, there are lots of things we should do.”

They knew that the Fairy Rings—teleportation devices that linked zones—were functioning. However, the Fairy Rings were influenced by the movement of the moon, and their destinations changed. The odds that a Fairy Ring was connected to the place one wanted to go were slim, and now, when it was impossible to check solutions sites, there was no telling where a player might be sent. As a result, players steered clear of them.

Investigating them was certainly possible, but it would take massive amounts of time and effort. In addition to the twenty-eight-day lunar cycle, destinations changed every hour. The fact that one Fairy Ring’s destination information was completely different from that of a Fairy Ring somewhere else was also a big factor. Even if they limited themselves to the time when the moon was out, the connections between the Fairy Rings in all the zones were bound to yield an enormous number of combinations.

It wasn’t as if no one had wanted to investigate them, but it was far too ambitious a task for any single guild to undertake.

However, if they could establish a backup system like the one Shiroe had spoken of, it certainly wouldn’t be impossible. It would also send big missions to the combat guilds.

“Next is the issue of public order. Some people will probably feel that the establishment of law cramps their style. Still, I don’t think there’s any sense in making it all that strict. This other world feels like the Middle Ages, and I believe it has the sort of culture that will do well even if it isn’t bound tightly by laws. People have monopolized hunting grounds, true, and there are turf wars. However, if we think of those acts as being a type of competition, they aren’t anything we should unilaterally deny.”

Several of the conference participants nodded. “Black Sword” Isaac was one of them.

“That said, there are few actions that go overboard, and we’ll need to deter them to some extent. For one, I’d say we really should ban PKs in low-level zones. There’s no point in bullying our companions who are level fifty or under, is there? They don’t have all that much property anyway, which means that hunting them is simply killing for pleasure. We can decide on the specific places later, but I think we should ban PKs in the low-level zones near Akiba.”

There were no comments here, either.

This was only natural: No guild as large as the ones that had been invited to the conference would assiduously PK as an organization. Most of the guilds that player killed were oppressive midsized groups.

“Next, the issue of human rights. Let’s guarantee the right to liberty. In our current environment, where death isn’t absolutely final, kidnapping and confinement are arguably more serious crimes than they were in the real world. The decision of whether to join or leave a guild should be left to the individual in question. We should ban and institute penalties for threats and talent hoarding that ignores the will of the affected player. I shouldn’t even have to say this, but forcing a member of the opposite sex into sexual activity will carry the maximum penalty.”

“Well, yeah, sure…”

“I guess we’d have to include those, huh?”

The atmosphere in the venue was beginning to shade toward agreement. In the first place, it wasn’t as if the participants had thought there were no problems. The issues had struck everyone present as detestable, and they’d thought they should probably be gotten rid of.

That said, although the act of fighting in a noncombat zone was subject to an automatic penalty, in this world’s system, there were no such automatic penalties for other violent acts, confinement, or threats. They’d also assumed that penalties that were not automatic—in which someone shouldered the responsibility of monitoring things, handed down decisions for each individual case, and occasionally meted out punishment—would take so much time and effort that implementing them would be impossible.

However, with the card Shiroe held—the ability to freeze players’ savings—things became much simpler. If a player was causing trouble of some sort, the Round Table Council could investigate and suspend the player’s use of the guild center. Problematic players would find it difficult to live in Akiba and, in practical terms, would probably be forced to relocate to another town.

To most of the participants, Shiroe’s proposal seemed quite reasonable.

The invention of the steam engine and the production guilds’ declaration of support for the Round Table Council had startled them, but once they’d heard the explanation, they found they agreed with a lot of it.

Shiroe had presented specific measures because he wanted participants to decide whether they agreed or disagreed with the establishment of the Round Table Council after they’d heard the content of the proposal.

Having done so, even if not all present approved of the proposal wholeheartedly, they did seem generally satisfied with it. The atmosphere of the conference itself seemed to be gradually shifting to a discussion of what should be done after the Round Table Council was established.

“In closing, these human rights issues should be applied to the People of the Earth, as well as to Adventurers.”

A few of the participants began to open their mouths. A quick-witted listener could probably have foreseen this development from the mention of the slave trading in Susukino.

However, what Shiroe began to talk about was something else entirely.

“I don’t know yet what the results of this conference will be. At present, I’m not sure whether or not you’ll approve the outline I’ve presented and establish the Round Table Council. However, there is one thing I want you to recognize, and I think it’s high time you did. We are in another world, and somewhere, this world is warped in a very strange way. It’s true that it’s influenced by Elder Tales. However, as you can tell from the Chef discovery I mentioned earlier, this isn’t simply the world of the game. It’s another world, one with more sophisticated physical laws. Has anyone here really talked to the People of the Earth?”

“But they’re NPCs,” said someone’s attendant.

“They aren’t non-player characters. They’re people with their own individual personalities. They have their own worries and dreams and ethics and lives, and they’re living them. They call themselves the People of the Earth… At least, in contrast to their term for us, the Adventurers. Let me make this clear: They are the natural residents of this world, and we are parasites. The town of Akiba has always been an Adventurer town, so there are comparatively few People of the Earth here, but in terms of the world as a whole, they must outnumber us by far. Adventurers and People of the Earth have different roles with regard to this world, but if things keep on like this, we won’t be able to build proper relationships.”

“Relationships…?”

They could agree with part of what Shiroe had said—it did make sense, now that they thought about it—but even so, it tended to rely too heavily on logic. “In Elder Tales, which has become a different world, they are citizens of the world, not non-player characters.” Stated plainly like that, even if it didn’t completely go without saying, it wasn’t something entirely incomprehensible. However, for the majority of the players, emotionally, it still didn’t register.

“Uhm… I have a little bit to add to that.”

In the midst of that bewilderment, Marielle timidly spoke up.

Possibly she got nervous every time she spoke in front of these dignitaries: She faltered, but even then, she maintained her natural cheerfulness and spoke clearly.

“So, Snack Shop Crescent Moon is real popular, and that’s a fact. But listen, the players—the Adventurers, I mean—weren’t the only ones who came and bought from us. The People of the Earth came, too. In other words… I dunno how to say it. I don’t really get it myself yet, but… They want to eat stuff that tastes good, too.”

This time, the conference room went so quiet one could have heard a pin drop.

The shock that had struck the participants seemed to have crumbled the very ground they stood on.

To many of the players, the NPCs had been nothing more than non-player characters. The Briganteers of Susukino might have gone too far, but even the completely ordinary, well-intentioned players assembled here had seen them as a type of talking vending machine. At the very least, in Elder Tales, that hadn’t been wrong. When this was a game, that was what they had been.

However, for that very reason, to players with as much experience in Elder Tales as the ones who’d gathered in the conference room, Marielle’s report felt like an attack that destroyed something fundamental.

“I’m not saying we should give up on returning to our old world. I don’t even want to say it… But let’s admit that this is another world. It’s been nearly two months since we were sent here. We’ve been ‘demanding guests’ for long enough. You’re free to think that the People of the Earth don’t have feelings, but as a matter of fact, they do. As in the official Elder Tales scenario, we seem to be Adventurers, a type of privileged class. That makes us something like mercenaries, with special abilities that allow us to attack monster strongholds. However, the vast majority of people in this world are People of the Earth. Let me repeat myself for clarity’s sake: Without the People of the Earth, we can’t live in this world. They provide all sorts of services, including the bank. However, the People of the Earth could probably survive without us. If we keep living like this, doing just as we please every day, unable to govern ourselves, we will do irreparable damage.”

When Shiroe finished speaking, he sat down in his chair heavily, without waiting for a response. He was tired, but he felt good.

Even after Shiroe had delivered his entire proposal, the conference room was silent.

No one moved. It was as if they’d all become statues. What Shiroe had said had been that strange and that shocking. Most of the conference participants had thought they’d been pulled into the world of Elder Tales. They’d felt as if the world of the game had become real.

Even now, they couldn’t exactly deny that.

However, the facts Shiroe had set before them today—the method of creating articles without using the item creation menu, for example, and the idea that the People of the Earth had actual personalities and were the main force in the world—had been more than enough to take what knowledge of the world they’d managed to scrape together over the past two months and smash it to smithereens.

“—Are you suggesting that there’s a possibility of war with the People of the Earth, Shiroe?”

Krusty’s quiet question was delivered in the tones of a fair-skinned philosopher.

“I understand that it’s something for the Round Table Council to consider, not for me to think about now,” Shiroe tossed off irresponsibly.

The die had been cast. Shiroe had played every card he had. He’d disclosed all the information he held. He’d shown them the world he wanted in a shape that was easy to understand.

Shiroe had begun this war out of self-indulgence, but he’d only wanted to win; he hadn’t wanted to make anybody lose. He’d wanted to win a victory, not steal it.

Although he didn’t intend to sound trite, if possible, he’d wanted them all to reach that goal together. “All” meaning all the people of Akiba.

Even so, if an overwhelming number of people still don’t understand, after hearing all that… We may have a war on our hands.

When Shiroe glanced to the side, his eyes met Marielle’s.

Marielle’s face was slightly troubled, but she still wore the same artless sunflower smile. Henrietta, who stood behind her, shrugged. Her expression seemed to say, “Do as you please.”

Time passed. It felt like a very long time and also like the space of a few breaths. Everyone in the conference room sat in total silence. The first player to open his mouth was “Berserker” Krusty, leader of D.D.D., Akiba’s largest combat guild.

In a calm voice that held no tension, he spoke to the assembly.

“D.D.D. approves the establishment of the Round Table Council as a body to govern Akiba and intends to participate.”

The next words came from Soujirou, who sounded quietly entertained.

“The West Wind Brigade also approves. I haven’t seen you dominate like that in a long time, Mr. Shiro… I really do wish you’d joined my guild.”

“Well, we can’t bust up Akiba. The Knights of the Black Sword are in.”

“Honesty approves as well. Let’s work to better relations with the People of the Earth.”

“Black Sword” Isaac and Ains, the guild master of Honesty, gave their answers, too.

“As I said earlier, our three production guilds support Shiroe and the Round Table Council. We hope the decisions made there will be fruitful ones.”

Roderick and Calasin nodded their agreement to Michitaka’s words. They had already inferred several possibilities from Shiroe’s report and had instructed their guild members to run various experiments.

After that, the declarations of approval came one after another, as if carried along by a swift current. Grandale and RADIO Market, smaller guilds, expressed their intent to participate as organizers of the former small- and midsized guild alliance.

Marielle, who had apparently been pushing herself very hard, slumped facedown onto the conference table with the smile still on her face, as if she had no energy left. Smiling wryly, Shiroe slowly unclenched his hands, which were slippery with sweat, under the conference table, so that Marielle wouldn’t notice.

On that day, the town of Akiba witnessed the birth of the Round Table Council.

4

“Commander Marielle! The cupboard is all packed, ma’am!”

“None of that ‘commander’ business, ’kay? I really can’t take it.”

There were people working busily, and people numbering packages, and people dithering around with no idea what to do.

A week had passed since the assembly that had resulted in the Round Table Council, and the Crescent Moon League guildhall was buzzing with noisy activity.

“You’re the guild master, Commander Marielle, so please sit there, ma’am!”

“Nope. No can do! We’re a small outfit, and as I keep tellin’ you, the guild master doesn’t get treated like a big shot around here!”

“Mari. You’re scatterbrained, and you are in the way. Sit in the corner and have some tea or something, please.”

Henrietta scolded Marielle, who was arguing with the newbies. At her words, Marielle teared up a bit and, with a clearly dejected “What am I, useless?” removed herself to a corner of the office.

The Crescent Moon was right in the middle of a move.

The entire guild membership was bustling around, cleaning and packing up the furnishings that were originally theirs. As she looked around at her companions, whose number had grown, Marielle was lost in thought.

The day the Round Table Council had been established was also the day Hamelin had fallen. In the same building where Marielle and the others had been meeting, Shouryuu and Serara of the Crescent Moon League and Akatsuki and the other members of Log Horizon had safely taken Hamelin’s escaped newbie members into protective custody.

Very few people were aware that while he’d been conducting the proceedings of that complicated conference as its initiator and chairman, Shiroe had also been quietly directing the operation to destroy Hamelin.

Even Marielle might not have noticed if she hadn’t been told about it beforehand.

With their names added to the blacklist of people barred from entering the guild center, the members of Hamelin hadn’t even been able to follow the escaping newbies.

From what they’d heard, Akatsuki had tracked down the names of all the members of Hamelin beforehand. Apparently, Akatsuki’s absence during Snack Shop Crescent Moon’s creation and operation wasn’t because she was avoiding being used as Henrietta’s dress-up doll.

Having been evacuated to the guild center, the newbies had promptly completed the procedures to leave their guild under Shouryuu’s supervision. Approximately thirty-five low-level players had been kept under what practically amounted to house arrest by Hamelin. They were a sorry sight, dingy with sweat and grime.

Just about the time Serara and volunteers from the Crescent Moon League were getting food and fresh clothes ready for the newbies, the members of Hamelin finally realized what was going on.

Since they were unable to enter the guild center and the guild center was the only zone that their guildhall was linked to, the members of Hamelin were prisoners in their own building.

Of course, as Shiroe had predicted earlier, there were ways to escape. One was Call of Home. This was a spell that transported players who were registered in Akiba back to Akiba. Ordinarily, it was used to return from distant field or dungeon zones. However, there were no rules against using it from within a town or building. Using Call of Home would return them to the entrance of Akiba.

Another way was to end one’s own life in the zone. In that case, a player would lose some experience points as a penalty, but they would resurrect in the temple. Since the temple was in the center of Akiba, this equaled a move by default.

By the time the members of Hamelin discovered these methods and used them, the sun had set. The council’s course of action had been established, and the discussion of the laws that would be implemented had entered its final stages.

The situation had already progressed to the point where Hamelin couldn’t do a thing about it. On top of that, although they’d escaped their guildhall-turned-prison, they would never be able to enter the guild center again.

The outcome of the game had been decided several moves earlier.

Something unexpected had happened as well.

Marielle and the others had planned to introduce the rescued newbies to new guilds or support them until they were independent, whichever they preferred; they’d already reported their intentions to the Round Table Council and had the topic placed on the agenda.

In fact, every guild that attended the conference had volunteered to accept newbies and take responsibility for supporting them.

However, on closer examination, only sixteen of the thirty-five low-level newbies wanted to enter the assembled guilds. The remaining nineteen all wanted to join the Crescent Moon League.

According to Serara, Shouryuu had been a bit too visibly “gallant” while conducting the rescue. He’d come off as such a reliable leader that he’d increased the number of players who wanted to join the League.

In Henrietta’s words, it was “a type of imprinting, like showing a toy ‘mother’ to chicks,” and it was something even Marielle hadn’t seen coming, either.

That said, the Crescent Moon League was already a solid part of the Round Table Council. The council had already declared its intent to provide support, so they couldn’t toss them out on their ears like unwanted kittens. In any case, the League was a homey kind of guild that was able to accept both midlevel and low-level companions with open arms. Knowing that the other members were happy about it, Marielle decided to accept the newbies.

With that, the Crescent Moon League’s headquarters developed several disadvantages.

Now that the guild’s membership had nearly doubled in size, its current guildhall was cramped.

There was no rule that said guild members had to sleep in the guildhall, and no matter which guild they were part of, players could rent rooms at inns as individuals. Rooms could be rented by the night or reserved for a month or a year, and many Adventurers had their own private spaces.

However, for low-level players, even that expense was hard on the wallet. The members of the Crescent Moon League got along well with one another, and many of them did sleep at the guildhall.

In the first place, Marielle, the guild leader, used the guildhall as her own house, so it was only natural that the people below her would imitate her.

“Mari. Mari? We’re ready; stand up. Here, these are yours.”

Hugging the stuffed teddy bear and cushion Henrietta had handed her, Marielle left her familiar old office. Almost all the furniture had been carried out already, and the room was wide and bare. Not even a shadow of its former self remained.

“Commander Marielle~. We’ve gotten the office at the new guildhall ready, ma’am.”

Smiling and saying, “Thanks much!” to the guild member—who was bouncing up and down—Marielle set off.

And so, unable to make do with its old guildhall, the Crescent Moon League found itself facing a move. Like the old hall, the new hall was located in the Akiba guild center.

Even though Marielle had started off carrying her belongings, the move was a very short one: She stepped out of the old guildhall into the guild center, then teleported to the new zone through another door in the next corridor over.

However, the rank of the hall they were renting had changed. They’d leveled up from a seven-room guildhall to a hall with thirty-one rooms. The rent had gone up as well, of course, but they still had some of their earnings from Snack Shop Crescent Moon left over.

Henrietta, who was strict about balancing income and expenses, had given it her guarantee—“I don’t see why not”—so Marielle felt secure in her decision to move.

They now had nearly fifty guild members, but with the new hall, they’d be able to manage quite well. Each individual space—the kitchen, the conference room, the workrooms, storerooms, and hall—was larger, so above and beyond the fact that there were more rooms, the guildhall felt more spacious. Thirty-one rooms: It seemed almost like a castle.

One surprise was that the guildhall was two stories, which meant it even had a staircase.

“It’s so big, ma’am!”

“Whoa. It’s huuuge.”

“I bet we could fit a dragon in here!”

Marielle grinned at the excited guild members. The business of placing the furniture they’d brought over around the guildhall, undoing packages, and jotting down notes regarding new equipment they’d need seemed to have begun.

Thinking of the expenses for tables and carpets was giving her a headache, but their artisans would probably be able to make the minimum of what they’d need. Besides, if it turned out they didn’t have enough of something and had to save up for it, it would be a good excuse to go adventuring.

Akiba had begun to come to life again. Just thinking about it made Marielle feel warm and happy.

There’s lots we need to do. …There’re so much I want!

The area of her spacious new office was about three times the area of her old one. It was so big she was having a hard time relaxing. The desk and chairs she’d used at the old guildhall had been brought in, along with the sofa and cushions, but in the huge office, the compact desk-and-reception set only served to emphasize the vast coldness of the room.

“This is rather…large, isn’t it? It might even be bigger than the conference room at the old guildhall.”

Henrietta, who’d come in with some documents, also seemed a bit nonplussed. When they’d come to inspect the hall before moving in, there hadn’t been any furniture, so she’d been able to say, “It’s nice to have so much space.” However, now that the room actually held furniture, all that extra space made it feel much too lonely.

“What’ll I do? Am I really gonna live in a place like this?”

In spite of herself, Marielle sounded miserable. This was going to be quite a problem in its own way.

“I think it would be good to put up some dividing screens. Single-leaf wooden screens and some ornamental plants.”

Henrietta jotted down the necessary items one after another in a nearby notebook. That would work, come to think of it, and in an office this spacious, it would be entirely possible to set up a reception corner. If they split it into three rooms, Marielle thought, she could probably even use the innermost one as her bedroom.

“This is gonna cost us quite a bit.”

“Very true. …Still, I believe that’s a good thing.”

Henrietta smiled faintly, her eyes still on the notebook. The lovely smile made Marielle happy. She knew Henrietta was feeling the same thing she was.

“I love ya to pieces, Henrietta~.”

In an attempt to express those feelings, Marielle hugged her hard.

“Now how did that conversation lead to this?! Honestly, Mari!”

Startled, Henrietta struggled. On top of that, they were spotted by a newbie—“I-I’m sorry, ma’am!”—and so by the time Marielle finished tidying up the room, chuckling the whole time, she was worn out.

“You are something else, you know that…?”

“I said I was sorry. Forgive me, ’kay? Please? Pretty please?”

“I only said that since it will contribute to the town’s economic development, buying a few pieces of furniture would be a good thing.”

Marielle’s attitude had made Henrietta blush bright red, and her shapely eyebrows were bristling. Marielle couldn’t stop smiling at the sight of her friend’s face: Although Henrietta was always visiting hugs upon Akatsuki, apparently she wasn’t skilled at being on the receiving end of things.

“I swear, it’s like the sun came out all of a sudden.”

Marielle wasn’t talking about the approaching summer.

She meant the town of Akiba ever since the establishment of the Round Table Council.

That night, several dozen flyers had been promptly posted in Akiba’s central plaza to spread the word of the Round Table Council’s establishment. The news spread with terrifying speed, and by the time dawn broke, there was no one in Akiba who didn’t know.

…Not that there hadn’t been any backlash.

After all, the Round Table Council was not a self-governing body made up of members selected by democratic vote. To the standard Japanese mind, this council had practically been forced on them from higher up, and it must have seemed as if the big guilds were behind it, pulling the strings.

However, having anticipated this, the flyers also listed the intent behind the council’s establishment, its short-term goals, and its methods in detail.

In a magnanimous gesture, they also gave the secret of the completely new cooking method made famous by Snack Shop Crescent Moon.

In the space of a night, the town of Akiba was flooded with food of all kinds. Food that tasted like it should—the sort that had only been available from Snack Shop Crescent Moon—could now be made by any Chef.

Of course, with the new cooking method, the knowledge and techniques of the person doing the cooking mattered just as much as cooking skills. Some of the dishes, made by amateurs, couldn’t have been called “good” by the most diplomatic player. However, even these were much better than the former dull and uninteresting food items.

Several hasty Chefs opened stalls one after another. Some baked bread and sold it, while others sold sweet juices. Some simpler stalls made and sold baked potatoes. Some even made meat or fish soups in big iron kettles over open fires by the roadside and sold it by the bowlful, as if they were doing impromptu business in a disaster zone.

Everyone was able to satisfy their previously unfulfilled appetites for food. Delicious foods became the subject of rumors and sold out almost instantly, and the town of Akiba developed a luxurious pastime that no one had even imagined could exist the day before: “eating and strolling.”

The townspeople welcomed the change.

Among those who met it with cheers were a fair number of People of the Earth, as well as Adventurers.

The revitalization of the town, maintaining public order through the establishment of law, improving relations with the People of the Earth, and the introduction of a tax to support these initiatives were announced in a public address given the following afternoon.

At the address, which took place in Akiba’s central plaza, several notables from Akiba—including “Berserker” Krusty, the leader of D.D.D., and Michitaka, general manager of the Marine Organization—assembled to talk about the intent behind the establishment of the Round Table Council.

The idea of a tax drew some skeptical comments, but when they were told that collection would be nearly automatic and that it wouldn’t be very much, they accepted it with passive agreement. The tax would be instituted in the form of a fee for guild center use, with one coin per day collected from any player who entered or left the guild center.

This was one of the entry- and exit-related items that could be set by the owner of the guild center zone. According to Roderick’s calculations, the revenue would earn the Round Table Council a monthly budget of slightly less than 400,000 gold coins.

Everyone, and particularly players who didn’t belong to one of the big guilds, had sensed the importance of establishing law, and by now everyone understood what revitalizing Akiba would mean.

The revolution that had been sparked by a single evening meal had brought life back to the faces of all the townspeople.

The upshot was that the Round Table Council was widely accepted by everyone who lived in Akiba. A governing body like this one would have been created eventually, and in that case, it was dozens of times better to have a competent self-governing organization than something dictatorial—something controlled by the big guilds, for example.

When the representatives from the eleven guilds that made up the Round Table Council addressed the crowd from the platform, each drew loud applause. That said, it felt more like the reaction of amiable onlookers at a large-scale party than support for a political assembly.

Everything was colored by the sunset, and people thronged the central plaza. Players who hadn’t been able to find a place in the plaza looked down over the platform from various floors of the surrounding mixed-use buildings.

Many of them held bread, sweets, or shish kebabs in their hands as they watched this first event in a very long time. Some of those present had a bit of alcohol in them, and the proceedings were more like a policy announcement given in the midst of an uproar than a public address.

In any case, Krusty, the Round Table Council’s representative, explained that they would work to reorganize the town of Akiba on a new system; that they had several projects, including investigating the Fairy Rings; and that the cooperation of the townspeople would be vital in order to achieve these things.

Abruptly, as the townspeople met that declaration with cheers, an astonishing number of artisans began to bring in food and alcohol. Representatives of three production guilds—headed by the Marine Organization—proclaimed vigorously that they’d make that day the first of the auspicious festival days and yelled that they were bringing out all the delicacies their storehouses held. At that, the excitement in Akiba reached fever pitch.

“If that racket keeps up, my head’s going to turn into a cream puff.”

“Yep, it just might.”

Marielle giggled. Henrietta looked put out.

The night grew later and later amid endless calls of “Cheers!”

One week after that night…

Sunlight continued to stream into the town of Akiba.

New dishes were supplied almost every day, and they heard that the production artisans who weren’t Chefs were also trying various things in order to create new items.

The thing that currently held Marielle and Henrietta’s interest was a bathing facility. When Elder Tales was a game, bathtubs had been mere background objects. However, now that this was another world, one they were actually living in, bathing suddenly took on a different meaning. The humidity was lower here than it was in real-world Japan, and the summer heat wasn’t quite as sweltering… But, as women, there was no way they wouldn’t be interested.

From what they’d heard, the West Wind Brigade had promptly gained the cooperation of Mechanists, Blacksmiths, and Carpenters and begun to build a large public bath in their guild castle.

News of advancements flew in almost daily—reports that somebody somewhere had used some new device—and this really did bring energy back to Akiba. The young man who’d planned it all had received no attention whatsoever at the speeches on the night of the raucous festival, but he’d seemed satisfied.

When she thought of Shiroe and his companions, Marielle felt a mixture of happiness and gratitude, but she also felt something very strange.

Hamelin had decided to disband not long ago.

He really did take down a whole guild. Wow… Shiro’s a pretty scary kid. Talk about dangerous…

Marielle sat on her luxurious chair at her work desk, hugging her knees and ducking her head low. She remembered the strong eyes behind Shiroe’s round glasses. When Shiroe had led that conference with that fiery will of his, he’d done so with so much force that she’d been a little afraid of him.

The Shiroe Marielle knew was the veteran player who was always mulling something over privately, who tied himself down with all sorts of bad premonitions, and yet was kind and trustworthy even so.

He was more good-natured than anything, a homeless wanderer, oddly mature for his age, evasive but reliable, a lone Enchanter. That was all.

Marielle didn’t know the steely youth who’d used his intense will to drive his opponents into a corner, as if he were at a duel or a chessboard.

But he did save us, didn’t he…?

With her face still buried in her knees, Marielle gave a mischievous little chuckle. Shiroe, Akatsuki, Nyanta, and Naotsugu. Her reliable friends had brought Serara back to the Crescent Moon League, and they’d brought energy back to the town of Akiba.

They could have said it wasn’t their problem and left everyone out in the cold, but even then, they’d kept up their relentless pursuit of the “greatest good.” In her head, Marielle still couldn’t quite mesh those four with the four who’d relaxed at the guildhall drinking tea, but that didn’t change the fact that they were their benefactors.

“…Hm. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Shiro’s crew today. What’re they up to?”

Abruptly curious, Marielle checked with Henrietta.

“My. Hadn’t you heard? Master Shiroe’s group is moving today, too.”

5

At about that time, on the edge of the outskirts of Akiba, Shiroe and the others were in the process of taking up residence in one of the mixed-use buildings closest to the northern boundary.

Log Horizon, which Shiroe had founded just the other day, had a current membership of four.

Shiroe, the Enchanter who, in spite of his mild demeanor, would carry even the most reckless plan through to the end once he’d set his mind to it. Byname: Machiavelli-with-glasses. (…Although, personally, Shiroe had several objections to that name.)

Naotsugu, the Guardian, a rock-solid vanguard tank and panties evangelist, who was always ready with flippant banter and bad jokes.

Akatsuki, the pretty-girl Assassin, slight and black haired, always dead serious and the resident straight man.

Finally, the quiet and restrained Swashbuckler Nyanta: adviser and guardian of the group’s collective stomach.

With four members, the guild was so tiny it would have seemed presumptuous to call it “small.”

In the first place, as Michitaka of the Marine Organization had commented, everyone had thought Log Horizon was a temporary guild, formed just to launch the Round Table Council. The guild couldn’t shed the image that it had been established in haste.

Shiroe had spent so much of his game life steering clear of guilds that this sort of profiling was only natural.

On the morning after the night when he’d looked up at the white moon hanging over the Kanda River, while the streets were still hazy with mist, Shiroe took Akatsuki and Naotsugu into Akiba.

The dawn sunlight held a growing premonition of summer, and the cicadas were already starting to cry. After thoroughly stressing himself out over how to begin, the words Shiroe settled on were completely commonplace: “I’m forming a new guild. Would you join it?”

Rats, he thought, barely a moment later. I should have come up with something better. Even as Shiroe began to regret his approach, the other two readily agreed to join up.

“What, you’re finally ready to go for it, Shiro? I was starting to think I’d just keep hanging around with you like this, like some guild without a guild tag.”

“Ninja follow their lords wherever they go. Command as you see fit, my liege.”

Along with Nyanta, whom he’d already invited, Shiroe’s guild, Log Horizon, now had four members. In this way, the tiny guild—which, in terms of numbers, should have been called Log Minimum instead of Log Horizon—got its modest start in the streets of Akiba.

“Will our wallet be all right, my liege?”

Akatsuki’s question came as she was cleaning the floor. The only words to describe the high-ceilinged space were enormous and completely empty.

Her worry was well-founded. Guilds as small as Shiroe’s didn’t generally bother with guildhalls the way normal guilds did.

In most guilds with memberships in the single digits, individual members might rent their own rooms at inns, but they very rarely set up a guildhall.

With only a few people, there weren’t many possessions or guild trophies that needed to be put somewhere, and people could be met in the plaza or at taverns. There was no problem with conducting strategy meetings on the side of the road, and in any case, the telechat function kept them nicely connected.

Smaller guilds with a few more members would rent guildhalls at the guild center and use these as their headquarters.

The guild center was close to the center of town, and since it was also economical and clean, it was quite popular. It also held halls of all sizes, from affordable three-room suites to halls that had thirty-one rooms and could accommodate guilds with a hundred members. It was close to shopping at the plaza and to the bank, and since it was so convenient, most guilds used it.

But for even larger groups, the “big” guilds, even the halls at the guild center began to feel cramped.

The largest guildhalls available for rent at the guild center had thirty-one rooms. Marielle of the Crescent Moon League had considered hers a castle, but although this might be true for guilds with thirty or forty members, guilds with memberships of over two hundred found that even that wasn’t enough space.

For that reason, guilds as large as the Knights of the Black Sword and the West Wind Brigade often chose buildings that could be purchased in Akiba proper, bought the whole zone in which the building lay, and established their headquarters there.

Production guilds like the Marine Organization, which now boasted five thousand members, divided their artisans into several departments by category and housed each department in its own ruined building. In cases like that, the entire guild overall had several headquarters.

Headquarters like these were known as “guild houses,” “guild towers,” or “guild castles.”

At 90, Log Horizon’s average member level was high, but it had very few members. Ordinarily, keeping a whole building like this one would have been inefficient; if they’d needed headquarters, they could have just borrowed a guildhall from the guild center. This expense was what was worrying Akatsuki.

“…It’s all right. We’ll manage.”

Even as he responded, Shiroe was scrubbing the walls with a deck brush. This ruin had been a warehouse and a large-scale store, and it had an enormous old tree growing up through its first six floors.

There was a big hole in the center of each floor, and a mossy tree trunk, which must have been several centuries old, had threaded its way up through them. The great tree pierced every floor from the basement on up, heading for the sky, and at the roof, its great branches spread out into a green dome.

The entire town of Akiba seemed to have been swallowed up by a sea of trees, but it was rare to see the growth of a tree overlap with a building so completely.

“This building’s cheap because it’s like this. There aren’t any stairs, you know, and it’s hard to use.”

“Hm… Is that right?”

Shiroe was clearing rubble while they talked. The general cleanup had been done over the course of a few days with the help of the younger Crescent Moon League members, but the ruin was still far from livable.

Originally, it was likely that the place had been a big home electronics store or something similar: This first floor was almost unbroken by walls, and the ceiling must have been four or five meters high.

Of course it was hard to imagine that this building had been stairless ever since the old era, when it had been built. The well that had held stairs, and the elevator shaft that had doubtless been next to it, had probably been where the trunk stood now.

After this building had been abandoned and damaged, the old tree that had grown in the stairwell (or elevator shaft) had most likely pierced through the floors and eroded them.

The fact that this building had been ignored when it was being sold for such a low price was probably due to its distance from the center of town and its sheer inconvenience.

“Still. Akiba’s not a big town, and this is prime real estate. I mean, heck, stairs can be built.”

As Naotsugu, who’d come down from the second floor, pointed out, the first and second floors were now connected by a steel stairway. The stairs looked rough and bleak, but they were sturdy enough and large enough to be used without a problem.

“But listen, when this was a game, there was no option to ‘Repair Facility with Hole in Floor,’ was there?”

Shiroe’s words seemed to satisfy Naotsugu: “Oh yeah. Guess not.”

The impact of the new cooking method Nyanta had discovered hadn’t stayed in the culinary world. By now, all the production guilds had begun to develop new items. It wasn’t limited to the production subclasses, either; even the role-playing subclasses had begun experimenting to see what changes their skills could bring to this world.

The stairway had been the result of one such experiment.

Interfering with basic objects such as the walls and floor would have been an unimaginable act in the Elder Tales game, but in the past week, it had been demonstrated that even that was possible.

At this point, the stairway only linked the first and second floors; if they wanted to go to the third floor or higher, they had to shimmy up a rope. If they wanted to expand, though, all they had to do was call on the artisans again.

Compared to the rest of the market, the cost of this zone had been cheap, but even so, it had been a pretty sizable amount. That had been something they’d planned on, but they’d also had to pay the artisans a reasonable sum to build the stairway. Tiny Log Horizon didn’t have the funds for a complete overhaul of the building.

They’d commissioned the installation of the stairway and reflooring of the second story—where they’d be sleeping for now—from the Marine Organization. Michitaka, the guild master, had accepted cheerfully. “Yeah, if you use work-arounds like that, I guess you could find new ways to use ruins that weren’t good for living in before. Building a stairway’s an interesting idea.”

Michitaka himself had stopped by the site of the remodel several times, and when Naotsugu had called, “Hey! If the idea’s so interesting, cut us a deal, wouldja?!” he’d actually seemed to worry about it, which had tickled Shiroe.

Even when they knew it was likely to lead to new sales, in this other world the processing of various materials was so different from what it had been in the real world that it was hard to calculate prices that would bring in a decent profit.

Henrietta had explained this using jargon like “optimization of supply and demand” and “full employment” and “minimum wage.” Shiroe understood the broad theory—the structure—but he really couldn’t slot in figures and run actual simulations.

In any case, the economic system in this other world was full of holes, and it was tough to say just how far real-world common sense could be applied.

For now, as Michitaka put it, “Well, we’ll just bill what looks good. Good market prices should work themselves out with time, once things settle down,” and there seemed to be nothing for it but to make do with slapdash accounting.

On that day, too, Shiroe and the other three had been cleaning since early in the morning.

However, there was no way four people could completely clean a building with six aboveground floors and a basement. In any case, this was a ruin: The window glass was broken, and the farther up one went, the bigger the hole in the ceiling grew.

The four of them had soon abandoned the idea of overall repairs, and they were concentrating on making the second floor—their temporary living quarters—comfortable. At present, the second floor only held two large halls that had been made with flooring material, but they planned to make about eight private rooms there as well.

With that many, they wouldn’t be troubled for rooms for a while.

They weren’t sure whether they’d be able to finish during the summer or if it would take until autumn. Mainly due to concerns about temperature and sleeping outside, Shiroe hoped they’d be done by winter.

However, even as Shiroe and the others worked to create their home, they had a variety of visitors. Shiroe had set the zone’s entry restrictions to “unrestricted,” so nearly every acquaintance they had came to the first floor of the ruined building and yelled their names.

Henrietta, who was in the middle of a move herself that day, conscientiously brought by an assortment of fruit to congratulate them on the establishment of Log Horizon’s headquarters. Upon nervously accepting the gift, Akatsuki was captured in the blink of an eye and very nearly forced to wear a “special present” or some such thing, but it’s probably best not to discuss that.

Soujirou of the West Wind Brigade stopped by for a visit, accompanied by Nazuna, a beautiful healer and fellow former member of the Debauchery Tea Party. It wasn’t clear which of them had liked cherry liqueur enough to bring it, but its limpid fragrance went perfectly with the early summer weather. Apparently it had been made by the West Wind Brigade’s Brewer.

Calasin of Shopping District 8 paid a call to discuss something with Shiroe.

The “something” was the idea of hiring People of the Earth to handle clerical work for the Round Table Council—mostly light work, such as delivering documents and taking notes.

True, it would be hard to bind Adventurer players to work as light as that, and it would probably be quite expensive. They’d determined that, if possible, this way could work.

Calasin went home with a smile, saying that he’d start checking with the People of the Earth he happened to know right away.

Among the combat guilds, Isaac of the Knights of the Black Sword had stuck around for a surprisingly long time. Stopping by with a few of his Summoner subordinates, he began making arbitrary demands. “Hey, Machiavelli-with-glasses. Your place is huge and handy; let us do combat training here.”

Before Naotsugu even had time to complain, the Summoners summoned Undine of the Pure Currents and rinsed the cavernous first and second floors clean with a massive bead of water. Since there was no plumbing in this other world, this was incredibly helpful.

Isaac himself only chewed holes in the congratulatory fruit assortment Henrietta had brought by and left, but memorably, Captain Nyanta murmured, “The Knights of the Black Sword aren’t such a bad lot.” It was possible that Isaac had intended the visit to patch things up with Shiroe.

This was at least half of the reason that Shiroe had decided to purchase this abandoned building as their guild tower.

As one of the guilds participating in the Round Table Council, they were bound to have quite a few visitors. Shiroe’s friend list had acquired more names over the past few days. They might not be friends he’d played closely with, but he had more opportunities to contact them now, and if he didn’t register them, they couldn’t telechat.

They’d probably have visitors in the future, and some of those visitors might have business that would need to be discussed for a long time. There was no telling whether a great uproar like the establishment of the Round Table Council would occur again, but if something of the sort did happen, they might end up needing a kitchen, a workroom, or a storehouse.

Due to these considerations, they’d chosen this building. It was on the outskirts of town, but it had more than enough space.

“Plus, it’s like they say: Better too big than too small.”

“That’s what she said, right, Naotsugu? You would think like that.”

“Shiro! Dude. Hey. Akatsuki keeps calling me an idiot because you say stuff like that. My-stock’s-in-the-toilet city.”

Naotsugu was one of Shiroe’s oldest friends, and the one he found it easiest to relax with. Having completely useless conversations like this was incredibly restful.

“Here, now. Shiroechi and Naotsugucchi. If mew don’t hurry and clean up, mew won’t get dinner.”

“Is it curry? Are we having curry?! I love curry!”

“…Dang it, Naotsugu. Yes. We’re having curry today.”

“What, for real?! Whoo-hoo!”

And thus, Nyanta and Akatsuki joined them.

In his long history with Elder Tales, even Shiroe had joined a guild before. Now, though, he knew he hadn’t been part of that guild in the truest sense of the word; he’d only been a guest.

It wasn’t the structure known as a guild; it was companions and a place to belong.

It meant holding these things important and protecting them.

That was something he ought to have learned from the Debauchery Tea Party: The will of the companions who gathered there was much more important than whether it was a true “guild” or not.

When the town began to turn red, it always gave Shiroe a special feeling. Back when Elder Tales was a game, sunset had been nothing more than an on-screen effect, but in this other world, it was different.

With sweet, sad cries, blackbirds flew low on their way home to the forest.

Adventurers returning from the hunt filtered into the plaza, having a look at the stalls that lined the central avenue as they passed. Groups that had bagged lots of prey discussed their plans for the next outing in high spirits, and those that hadn’t had much luck swore to vindicate themselves next time. The vine-tangled ruins glowed red madder, and the shadows of the warriors and the town’s artisans grew longer and longer, regardless of whether they were Adventurers or People of the Earth.

In the space of a week, the sunset had acquired a fragrance.

Numerous stalls sold evening meals, sought out by weary Adventurers and production-class artisans alike who’d finished the day’s work. Even the taverns run by People of the Earth now had the smell of sweet-tasting alcohol and simple food wafting from their doors.

The sky gradually darkened. Copper slowly changed to smoky rose, then deep blue, then indigo. In the midst of a sunset that felt slower than it had in the old world, the townspeople wound up their day and made preparations for tomorrow.

“There’s the evening star, my liege.”

“Forget that, I’m hungry. I’m so hungry I can’t move. Starvation city.”

Akatsuki and Naotsugu, who seemed to have finished carrying their cargo, were cooling themselves by the window.

In the sunset, too early yet for lamps to be lit, Shiroe’s two friends turned back to him.

Their peaceful, inquisitive expressions convinced Shiroe that this was indeed his place.

Inside him, the Debauchery Tea Party was growing distant. It had taken a very long time. Shiroe thought, with regret, that he might unwittingly have hurt many people and places by comparing them to his old home.

He hadn’t even understood the easy things. He’d taken the long way around. As Shiroe castigated himself for having nothing but faults, the other two looked at him blankly. “What’s the matter, my liege?” “You’re hungry, too, huh? Empty stomachs are no joke.”

“Hm? Where’s the captain? Isn’t he back yet?” Pulling himself together, Shiroe realized that Nyanta wasn’t there. He’d gone out to buy some more spices.

“Yeah, now that you mention it, the captain’s late. He’d better not be shopping and snacking. If he is, I’ll have to mete out his punishment.”

“That wasn’t terribly clever.”

Even as he listened to their banter, Shiroe began to feel a bit concerned. Just then, from the floor below, an easygoing voice called, “Shiroechi~. Naotsugucchi~. Akatsuki~.”

Nyanta seemed to have returned.

As they went downstairs, talking among themselves (did he need help carrying things? No, nothing would be that heavy in this other world), on the bare moonlit floor, they saw a figure so slim it might have been made of wire. It was Nyanta.

“What’s up, Captain? I’m starving. Let’s get that curry eaten, stat.”

“Yes, venerable sage. I’m hungry as well.”

Sounding childlike, Naotsugu and Akatsuki leaned out partway down the stairs. Nyanta laughed—“Mya-ha-ha-ha”—and pushed forward two shapes that had been clinging to his back.

“……Uu.”

“Um, ummm…”

“If it isn’t Touya and Minori!”

It was the Kannagi girl, who was blushing so fiercely that it showed even in the dark, and her Samurai twin brother. Over the past week, the newbies’ hair had been trimmed and their equipment tidied. Nyanta urged them on.

“I found them on my way back from buying spices. They were circling this building, round and round and round. If it were me, I would’ve turned into butter candy.”

“What’s the matter, you two?” Shiroe asked. “Wasn’t the Crescent Moon League moving today, too?”

The Crescent Moon League had been scheduled to move into a guildhall two ranks higher that day. Once they’d finished moving, there’d probably be another banquet. Marielle loved it when things were lively, and he couldn’t imagine that she’d send two of her precious newbies out into the night all by themselves.

“No, uh, mister. Listen, we…”

“Hm?”

From where he stood on the first floor, Touya looked up at Shiroe, standing halfway up the stairs, and spoke in a young, ringing voice.

“—We’re here to join your guild, mister.”

“Huh…?”

“We came because we hoped you would teach us, Shiroe. …We’ve imposed on the Crescent Moon League for the past week, but we haven’t joined it. …We didn’t join. Touya and I are the only players who left Hamelin who haven’t joined a guild yet.” Minori conscientiously supplemented her brother’s frank, straightforward words.

“We were able to do our best because of all the stuff you taught us, mister. If you’ve started a guild, we want to join it. Maybe I’m weak, but I’m gonna get stronger.”

“I may just be in the way as well, but… I’ve decided not to use that as an excuse anymore. Please let us stay with you.”

“Ah…… Um.”

He might turn them down.

What would they do if he did?

The young twins spoke as eloquently as they possibly could. They were so stiff that their tension was obvious at a glance.

He’d heard vague rumors of the sort of treatment they’d been subjected to in Hamelin. For players who were new to Elder Tales and had no acquaintances or people to rely on, the experience must have been incredibly painful.

At the Crescent Moon League, they would have had lots of friends who’d been in the same situation and whose skills were at about the same level. He was positive that they wouldn’t have been treated badly. What must they have felt when they turned down the chance to join the Crescent Moon League and came to Shiroe, knowing that, if he refused them, they’d have nowhere left to go? Shiroe could only guess, but he could sense the desperation in their resolution.

They’d played together for one week, the last week that Elder Tales was a game. Shiroe didn’t know what he’d said to them that could have attracted them to him in that short time.

He’d never been a role model for anyone in that way before, and so their wish left him speechless, unable to respond properly.

As he watched Shiroe, Nyanta’s narrow eyes narrowed further in an excess of kindness. He spoke to him, calmly.

“Shiroechi. Mew mustn’t just stare like that. Mew’re the GM.”

GM.

Guild master.

The leader of a guild.

He was right, Shiroe realized. He was so used to his companions that they could practically read one another’s minds, and so even after he’d created a guild, he hadn’t been all that conscious of being a leader.

…Or of being a role model for someone.

Even though he’d come this far following role models of his own, he’d never imagined that he’d become someone like that.

Shiroe turned to look back at his two hungry companions, who’d poked their heads out over the edge of the stairs. Naotsugu gave a sly grin and said, “Well, duh,” flashing him a thumbs-up sign. Akatsuki nodded, her expression just a little softer than usual.

“All right. Log Horizon welcomes you, Touya and Minori. As new recruits, your first mission is to come eat curry rice with the top brass. …Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir!” “Mister!”

Two young voices chimed in, and now they were six.

In the world that had once been Elder Tales, a new guild was formed.

Its name was Log Horizon.

And so this small band of companions established itself in a ruin, pierced by an ancient tree, on the outskirts of Akiba.

Read Log Horizon Vol 2 Chapter 5 : Grab Your Future1But that's blackmail!!Meanwhile, in the vast conference room on the top floor of the guild center, the participants' discussion had grown heated.Shiroe's declarationI own the guild centerhad been a bombshell.The only players who had not been shocked were Shiroe himself; Nyanta, who stood behind him; the members of the Crescent Moon League; and Soujirou of the West Wind Brigade, who hadn't known exactly what would be done, but had dimly suspected something of the sort.The guild center was one of Akiba's core facilities.The functions of the center itself included guild formation, joining or leaving guilds, and the receipt of bonuses for high-level guildspractically every guild-related, system-level clerical procedure.However, in Akiba's case, that wasn't all it did. The guild center's entrance hall housed the service counter for the bank. The bank was a commonplace facility in the world ofElder Tales, and players used it to store money in accounts and items in safe-deposit boxes.In this other world, death resulted in no more than a slight drop in experience points and equipment durability, but at the moment of death, there was a set probability that ordinary items that hadn't been equipped to the player would be scattered across the area.If the player was lucky, they could retrieve them, but if they'd been killed in a PK attack, the items would almost certainly be stolen. Even without that, it wasn't prudent to carry lots of money around. Ordinarily, almost all players kept most of their property in the bank, and if they wanted to purchase an expensive item at the market, they'd withdraw money for a small fee.To the players, the bank was the most familiar, most important commercial facility in theElder Talesworld, and they used it every day.The only bank window in Akiba was in the guild center. The fact that Shiroe, an individual player, could restrict entry to the guild center carried staggering implications.Of course, every town had a bank. The accounts were the same, which meant that moneyand even itemscould be withdrawn from any bank, no matter where the original deposit had been made. For example, a deposit made in Akiba could be withdrawn in Minami.That said, right now, with the intercity transport gates dead, the long journey between cities was very risky. Shiroe and his group had gone to Susukino, but they were part of a very tiny minority. Since the Catastrophe, it was likely that less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all players on the Japanese server had gone to a town other than their own.Considering the current environment, the rights Shiroe held were equivalent to the authority to freeze bank assets at will. It was no wonder that the conference members were aghast.Shiroe had announced this strategyof an entity controlling the bank to control playersto the Crescent Moon League when they had nearly earned the five million in funding necessary to acquire the guild center, and even Henrietta had murmured, Compared to Master Shiroe, devils are far tamer. Devils are fully aware that they're bad, but not Master Shiroe. That byname, Machiavelli-with-glasses,' is too cute for him.Freeze the assets in the bank?! If that isn't a threat, what the heck is?!Woodstock, the guild master of the small guild Grandale, spoke in a shaking voice.I simply answered Isaac's question. The question was, Even if the council is formed, depending on the matters presented to it, won't the big guilds exercise their right to veto and start a war?' The answer is no: There will be no war. Warring forces will lose the right to use Akiba's guild center.And I'm telling you that's blackmailShiroe responded to the obstinate claim.It may very well be. However, if what I've done is blackmail, what of what Isaac and the other big guilds have done? Isn't it blackmail to threaten to start a war if a proposal inconveniences you? How is that different? All I'm saying is that I want to establish a council and discuss things. I don't plan to ignore remarks that strike me as inconvenient. Think about which proposal is more sensible.A subdued silence fell.To the conference attendees, it may have seemed as if they were having an ugly nightmare.Where did you get that kind of money?! The guild center is a common zone!! A huge amount like thatWe financed it.The speaker was Iron-Arm Michitaka, general manager of the Marine Organization. He seemed to have been one of the first to recover from the shock; the energy was starting to return to his voice.Then, Shiroe, the challenge you were directing wasYes. The establishment of this council.Well, that figures.In the midst of a storm of questions as to why they'd put up the money, Michitaka nodded. Technically, only the eleven seated around the table were conference participants, but the shock of Shiroe's proclamation had sent their followers and advisers into a panic as well.Quiet down! What a ruckus! Michitaka barked, then let his eyes fall to his documents.The documents held the secret of the cooking method Nyanta had discovered, and the preparation method for the hamburgers currently being sold by the Crescent Moon League. It was acooking methodin the truest sense of the word, not a special recipe game item of the sort that could be registered as a new, complete item in the item creation menu.Early that morning, the leaders of the three production guildsthe Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District 8had been called to this room before the conference and received these documents directly from Shiroe.Once the structure was revealed, it was far too simple. The new food items at Snack Shop Crescent Moon weren't the result of a new recipe.In chasing the fantasy of a new recipe, the production guilds had been tricked by the Crescent Moon League. Each had lost their investment of 1.5 million gold coins.However, Shiroe hadn't given them anything that remotely resembled an apology.Instead, he'd posed a question to the disgruntled trio: What makes you think those documents are worth less than 1.5 million gold coins?Isn't there something you still need to say, Shiroe?Michitaka urged him to continue. Although he'd steeled himself, his expression was something between a wry smile and dissatisfaction.He's right. No matter how you try to gloss it over, Mr. Shiroe, there's no denying that you're currently in a position where youcouldthreaten us. Humans are wired to lose their composure, and possibly even feel that they've been threatened already, just by realizing that someone could do it. Surely you know that.It was Soujirou who'd chimed in.It's just as you say. Even I don't think a town where a single person holds this much plenary power is ideal. On that note, let me return to the first matter I discussed. Do you think the Adventurers in this townor, in larger terms, this worldreally want things to stay this way? I have two policies to propose. One is that we revitalize everyone living in this town and, by extension, this world. Second, that we create and implement laws to govern the Adventurers who live in Akiba, at the very least. Is anyone opposed to any of what I've said so far?There was no answer.Of course there wasn't.In the first place, considered individually, none of the things Shiroe was saying were bad ideas. Bringing life back to the town was a good thing in and of itself, and it would benefit combat and production guilds alike.Of course, if the burden from specific measures were to prove a harsh one, things would be different. If only a few participants were made to shoulder a heavy burden while all the others regained their footing, the question would be, Which of us is going to draw the short straw?However, at this point, that wasn't a concern that opposed the topic of betterment itself.The same went for establishing law. Some might feel that it was a nuisance and would only make things stuffier. However, all the players gathered here were Japanese and had originally been playing on the Japanese server. As such, they all knew the importance of law.Here as well, of course, there was a possibility that problems could arise, depending on the content of that law. There might also be bad laws they couldn't agree to. However, if it was a simple question of establishing law, there didn't seem to be anything to object to.All right.Black Sword Isaac, who'd struck the conference table with his thick palm, broke in as if he was shouldering the confusion of the entire assembly himself.If you're going to go that far, tell us the specific policies of this proposed council of yoursof Log Horizon's.The black-armored warrior kept his steely glare fixed on Shiroe, and it naturally drew the eyes of those around him. Shiroe held his head high and began to speak with even more enthusiasm.2There was something unique about moving from one zone to another.For example, in the case of the guild center and guildhalls, one moved between the zones by using a specific object shaped like a door.On the guild center side, the second- and third-floor guildhall corridors held countless such doors. These corridors, with their ranks of doors and not much else, were linked to many separate guildhall zones.In reality, there were no physical rooms behind the doors. There wouldn't have been any space for them. The doors themselves were right next to each other, and the wall behind the doors was only a meter thick. These floors held seventeen of these door-filled corridors, and no matter how hard one looked, they wouldn't have found the space to build a room.It was easiest to picture if one thought of the doors in the strange guild center corridors as devices that transported them to another dimension in this case, a guildhall. Conversely, using a door that acted as a guildhall exit would put one in front of the corresponding door in the guild center zone.Was it Minori who'd touched the doorknob, or was it Touya? To the very end, neither of them knew. They'd simply jumped back to protect themselves from the black, smokelike swarm of poisonous insects, and as a result, they'd tumbled out into the guild center corridor.There's two more!Unusually, there were several players standing at the ready in the corridor. By the stairs, a boy in leather armor and a girl equipped with a katana were directing the newbie Hamelin members back and away.Minori coughed, over and over.It felt as if those poisonous insects had gotten inside her through her mouth, and the disgust made her retch. In reality, the insects had been a magic-generated effect and had only existed temporarily. Now that they were out of sight of the spellcaster, the insects ceased to exist, but the memory of the vivid physical sensation kept her from believing that.You okay, Minori?Touya was rubbing her back; he sounded worried. Since she was kneeling on the floor, Minori couldn't see Touya's whole body, but she did see the red stain that was spreading across the floor in front of her.You're the one who's Hang on, Touya, I'll cast Small RecoveryNah, I'm fine. OnlyFeeling Touya look up, she looked that way, too. Standing there were a young swordsman in blue leather armor, equipped with two Chinese-style straight swords, and a girl dressed all in black.What are your names, guys? Are there any others on their way out?Although he was a young swordsman, the player who spoke to Minori was probably still older than she and Touya were. He had black hair and looked as if he might be in high school.Are wesafe?She didn't understand why the Hamelin members weren't leaping into the guild center corridor, but they certainly did seem to have been saved. Minori felt relief drain the strength from her knees.Minori took the hand the young man held out to her and stood.Touya had made it to his feet before she did, and he answered the question posed to them a moment earlier.I'm Touya. This is my big sis Minori. We should be the last two newbies.You are? That's great. The swordsman smiled as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. I'm Shouryuu. Pleased to meet you. Okay, let's get you to the entrance first; your friends are already waiting there. We'll get you patched up, do a head count, and then ask you a bit about the situation for future referenceHey, Minori~. Quit doing that wet noodle impression. It's lame.Oh, honestly! Touya, you're such a meanie!Even as he teased, contrary to his words, Touya's voice was gentle with relief. Now all they had to do was follow this Shouryuu swordsman, and they'd see Shiroe. Just as Minori thought this!Something was wrong behind her. The feeling made her sick. She didn't even have to turn to look; she could feel that someone was in the process of materializing there. She was about to glance back, but even as she moved, deep down, she knew: Now wasn't the time. She should be flinging herself toward the stairs instead. Even so, her body had already begun to turn, and it wouldn't stop.Just as she registered that a man's palm had filled her field of vision and was about to grab her roughly, Minori felt something ram into her. It was Touya.The man's hand had been grabbing for Minori's collar, but when she was sent flying, it missed its mark and reached for Touya instead. Even though the arm wasn't thick, it squeezed Touya's wrist with such monstrous strength that Minori turned pale. The steel framework of Touya's gauntlet creaked ominously.The SummonerthatSummonerhad moved between zones.You little!His face was brick red with rage. True, the Summoner was a magic user. However, with enough of a level difference, his physical strength could surpass even that of a Warrior like Touya. In this gamelike world, physical strength was not proportionate to appearance. From the way Touya gritted his teeth, it was clear how much destructive power those thin arms held.What did you do?! Whatareyou?!Shut up!Shutyertrap!!But Touya's voice was strained.As if to push aside their levels, that insurmountable difference in strength, through sheer willpower, Touya shoved the man with all his might. The Summoner didn't take any damage from the attack, but Touya had drawn his second blade, his katana, and was barring the way, posed as if to protect Minori.Don't try to act tough, brat! As if there's anywhere you could go!Those words awakened deep pain in Touya and Minori.They were burdens, and even now, in this instant, it was hard for them to stand against the man's violence.Even so, Minori screwed up her courage and was about to retort when, in that instant, a jet-black shadow swooped in like a swallow from the opposite direction.The shadow sent the big man flying with a kick that had all her weight behind it, then stood between the twins and the Hamelin Summoner who'd come through the door.Oh my That lady's incredibly pretty.The girl, who was as beautiful as Minori's admiration indicated, cut the man's knees out from under him in a motion so smooth she seemed to have practiced it thousands of times. It was so fluid, it looked more like a kind of dance than an attack.However, the words that fell from her pale pink lips were sharp.I thought so. What a weak-looking face, the girl muttered. The expression she turned on the Summoner was filled with deep disdain.Who're you?! Akatsuki?Log Horizon? Never heard of 'em.The magic user, who'd frozen momentarily, seemed to have checked his mental menu. When he read the girl'sAkatsuki'sguild tag, he looked at her with clear contempt.However, his words didn't seem to affect the girl in the least. She tilted her head slightly, with her usual too-serious expression, then responded.Really? I would imagine you'd be more embarrassed, with a tag from a third-rate guild like Hamelin. When you walk around town, don't you ever get snickered at and want to run back to your guildhall?Her words infuriated the man; he seized her by her shirtfront. Combat was forbidden in the guild center, but from experience, the members of Hamelin were well aware of what constituted combat.Attacking with a drawn weapon or casting a hostile spell would immediately and mercilessly be recognized as fighting. However, unless it was accompanied by severe pain, contact with bare hands wasn't considered combat.Just as real-world yakuza had near-perfect knowledge of how far they could go before an act became illegal, these players knew just how much they could do before their actions were deemed combat by the system and the guards punished them.Whatdid you say, girl? You know about Hamelin and you're still spouting crap like that? Little runt!It was bone-chilling intimidation, but even then, Akatsuki didn't flinch. The man, who was sturdy for a magic user, had lifted her lightweight-class body by the collar, and even her toes weren't touching the ground. From that position, Akatsuki murmured.Ah, my liege? I'm sorry. There's one we hadn't registered yet. His name is Shreida. He's a big man who looks like he'd have smelly breath, and as you'd guess from his name, his face looks like it's been run through a shredder. Yes.Whatwas that?! Let's you and me go back to my guildhall, and then you'll get what'sThe man's voice cut off.As a matter of fact, it wasn't just his voice. He'd ceased to exist.As Akatsuki dropped to the floor with a light noise, there was no man in front of her.Thank you for registering that one, my liege. Elimination complete. It looks as if when players who are in a zone are added to the no entry' list, they're ejected from that zone. I couldn't say whether he's in Akiba or whether he's returned to his guildhall.Yes. That's right. Understood. We've just secured a girl named Minori and a boy named Touya. They say they're the last ones. I'll continue to watch the Hamelin guildhall door.The transparently lovely girl turned, her face still far too serious, and went over to Minori and Touya, who had slumped to the corridor floor as though their legs would no longer hold them.You're Minori and Touya, right? My name is Akatsuki. I serve my liege Shiroe as his ninja. Your safety and that of your comrades is assured. My liege is fighting valiantly on another battlefield at the moment. For now Why don't you come take a bath?Minori was so relieved that this time she did start to cry.3I have two basic policies I'd like to propose. Revitalization of the area and improvement of public order are as I explained earlier. As far as specific policies are concerned, let me begin with an outline of the revitalization. I've already run this by several of the parties concerned. Mari?At Shiroe's words, Marielle steeled herself and stood.I'm sure some of y'all already know, but Crescent Moon started runnin' a shop called Snack Shop Crescent Moon a little while back. We're gettin' lots of customers, and business is real good.Behind Marielle, who had her hands on the conference desk and was leaning forward as she talked, Shiroe noticed Henrietta silently cheering her on.Snack Shop Crescent Moon is a take-out place whose main product is real, good-tastin' hamburgers, like nothin' we've ever had here. We're well aware that all sorts of rumors are croppin' up all over the place. Such as, for example, the secret's a completely new recipe, level ninety-one or higher, from some unknown zone. It isn't.Aside from the production guilds, who already knew this, the news caused another significant stir in the conference room.I'm gonna disclose that secret here. This is how it works. You get your ingredients ready the usual way, and then you cook just the way you'd do it in the real world. Only the person doin' the cookin' has to be a Chef. That, and if their cookin' skills are judged to be too low, they'll fail. That's all it is. I guess the fact that there aren't any tricks or strings is the trick.As the listeners gradually registered the meaning of those words, the murmur grew louder.The preconceived notion that cooking was something made from a creation menu had had everyone fooled. Once spelled out, it was very simple, but it was also revolutionary.As the room buzzed, Marielle sat down. Shiroe jumped in before another debate could start.The one who discovered that cooking method is Nyanta, the Chef standing behind me. With his permission, I taught it to the Crescent Moon League, and we launched Snack Shop Crescent Moon.I see. That's why the Marine Organization backed themBut doesn't that mean they were tricked?As the hum of conjectures continued unabated, Shiroe ignored the comments and kept speaking.To my mindit's a discovery that holds quite a number of suggestions. The discovery itself was made by Captain Nyanta here, but without it, I doubt I could have set up this conference, and I wouldn't even have considered doing so. Michitaka. Did you get results?We did, Michitaka replied in a deep voice. At first glance, the leader of the gigantic guild seemed calm, but his expression was suffused with profound astonishment.The reason the three production guild leaders had kept their silence ever since the conference began lay in the words Shiroe had just spoken.Our guild Well, us and the Roderick Trading Company and Shopping District Eight, working together We've just successfully developed a steam engine.This announcement was also met with surprise, but the surprise didn't cause a stir the way the others had. On the contrary: The participants who'd heard the words doubted their ears, and they kept their attention riveted on Shiroe and Michitaka's conversation, so as not to miss the rest of what Michitaka said.To be completely accurate, it's a prototype. There are lots of issues, but the theory's been verified.That didn't even take half a day. That's fantastic.Basic components can be created from the creation menu. So can tools. The idea of diverting components was a masterstroke.Michitaka and Shiroe were nodding in agreement.Hey I mean, a steam engine, that's real impressive. Bottom line, though: What's going on?Black Sword Isaac sounded completely staggered.Don't you see, Isaac? It means this: That discovery isn't limited to cooking skills and Chefs. It's been demonstrated that if players who've acquired production-related skills actually work with their hands, without using the creation menu, they can make items that don't appear on the menu. Not one item related to steam engines exists in the originalElder Talesspecs. There was no new food item recipe; however, the fact that it doesn't exist brought us a whole new dimension instead of a single, superficial new recipe. Things have gone far beyond the realm of fine food.It was Roderick of the Roderick Trading Company who answered Isaac's question. His answer was so logical that it might have come from a scholar, instead of a merchant.From now on, it's going to be possible to make items that aren't on the creation menu. There's going to be an inventing boom for a while. We should be able to recreate a few of the things we had in the real world. Such as, let's see Televisions might be out of reach, but it's quite possible that we'll be able to make radios.Calasin of Shopping District 8 picked up where Roderick had left off.His words drew a nod both from the intellectual-looking Roderick and from Michitaka, who was smiling heartily. Their guilds had witnessed the success of the steam engine experiment.More new inventions should arouse new demand. Naturally, methods of earning money will increase, as will the need to earn it. In other words: revitalization. I think we'll need a few safeguards here; it's possible that the economy may get out of control. Still, that's a chaos we should be able to master. It isn't stagnation drifting toward depression, is it? In this world, basic medieval items and handheld tools can be made from the creation menu. Since we have tools and models, I predict that progress will be rapid.Michitaka carried on following Shiroe's prediction.Our three production guilds have confirmed those things, and we've got our eyes on both the earnings they may bring in and the new enthusiasm that will well up. To the point where I wouldn't mind supporting Shiroe over just this one thing.Then the production guilds areYeah. We support the establishment of the Round Table Council.As a matter of fact, even the small-scale Snack Shop Crescent Moon had achieved sales of fifty thousand gold coins per day. The arrival of competition would probably bring the price of the new food down as well. The average cost per customer might fall from the thirty gold coins it was at Crescent Moon until it was only a few gold coins. Still, even then, the potential customer demographicin other words, the number of playerswas more than ten times the number Crescent Moon had served.It wasn't difficult to imagine generating an incalculable economic effect.The combat guild members could only sit there gasping.If the three major production guilds could declare it that categorically, the others seemed to be left with no choice but to believe them about the revitalization.The lack of energy is at least partially due to feelings of despair and apathy, but we think a large part of it is the fact that there isn't anything to do. It takes very little money to live in this world, to the point where it's a problem. It's healthier to use a certain amount of money, and to earn it so you can then use it. I think, from here on, we should see a wider variety of jobs begin to appear. For example, in the case of Snack Shop Crescent Moon, you wanted salesclerks badly enough that you would have paid for them, correct?That's right. Since things were the way they were, we kept the work in the family, but it would've been nice to hire clerks.Marielle shook her head several times as she answered Calasin, and no doubt she meant what she said.There should be more jobs for the members of the combat guilds as well. This goes for material discovery and acquisition, as well as guard duty, but once the council is established, don't you think we should set aside a budget and commission a complete investigation of the Fairy Rings? Once that investigation is complete, there's accumulation of zone information, followed eventually by compilation of historical records, and then publication of newspapers and other media As long as we find the budget for it, there are lots of things we should do.They knew that the Fairy Ringsteleportation devices that linked zoneswere functioning. However, the Fairy Rings were influenced by the movement of the moon, and their destinations changed. The odds that a Fairy Ring was connected to the place one wanted to go were slim, and now, when it was impossible to check solutions sites, there was no telling where a player might be sent. As a result, players steered clear of them.Investigating them was certainly possible, but it would take massive amounts of time and effort. In addition to the twenty-eight-day lunar cycle, destinations changed every hour. The fact that one Fairy Ring's destination information was completely different from that of a Fairy Ring somewhere else was also a big factor. Even if they limited themselves to the time when the moon was out, the connections between the Fairy Rings in all the zones were bound to yield an enormous number of combinations.It wasn't as if no one had wanted to investigate them, but it was far too ambitious a task for any single guild to undertake.However, if they could establish a backup system like the one Shiroe had spoken of, it certainly wouldn't be impossible. It would also send big missions to the combat guilds.Next is the issue of public order. Some people will probably feel that the establishment of law cramps their style. Still, I don't think there's any sense in making it all that strict. This other world feels like the Middle Ages, and I believe it has the sort of culture that will do well even if it isn't bound tightly by laws. People have monopolized hunting grounds, true, and there are turf wars. However, if we think of those acts as being a type of competition, they aren't anything we should unilaterally deny.Several of the conference participants nodded. Black Sword Isaac was one of them.That said, there are few actions that go overboard, and we'll need to deter them to some extent. For one, I'd say we really should ban PKs in low-level zones. There's no point in bullying our companions who are level fifty or under, is there? They don't have all that much property anyway, which means that hunting them is simply killing for pleasure. We can decide on the specific places later, but I think we should ban PKs in the low-level zones near Akiba.There were no comments here, either.This was only natural: No guild as large as the ones that had been invited to the conference would assiduously PK as an organization. Most of the guilds that player killed were oppressive midsized groups.Next, the issue of human rights. Let's guarantee the right to liberty. In our current environment, where death isn't absolutely final, kidnapping and confinement are arguably more serious crimes than they were in the real world. The decision of whether to join or leave a guild should be left to the individual in question. We should ban and institute penalties for threats and talent hoarding that ignores the will of the affected player. I shouldn't even have to say this, but forcing a member of the opposite sex into sexual activity will carry the maximum penalty.Well, yeah, sureI guess we'd have to include those, huh?The atmosphere in the venue was beginning to shade toward agreement. In the first place, it wasn't as if the participants had thought there were no problems. The issues had struck everyone present as detestable, and they'd thought they should probably be gotten rid of.That said, although the act of fighting in a noncombat zone was subject to an automatic penalty, in this world's system, there were no such automatic penalties for other violent acts, confinement, or threats. They'd also assumed that penalties that were not automaticin which someone shouldered the responsibility of monitoring things, handed down decisions for each individual case, and occasionally meted out punishmentwould take so much time and effort that implementing them would be impossible.However, with the card Shiroe heldthe ability to freeze players' savingsthings became much simpler. If a player was causing trouble of some sort, the Round Table Council could investigate and suspend the player's use of the guild center. Problematic players would find it difficult to live in Akiba and, in practical terms, would probably be forced to relocate to another town.To most of the participants, Shiroe's proposal seemed quite reasonable.The invention of the steam engine and the production guilds' declaration of support for the Round Table Council had startled them, but once they'd heard the explanation, they found they agreed with a lot of it.Shiroe had presented specific measures because he wanted participants to decide whether they agreed or disagreed with the establishment of the Round Table Council after they'd heard the content of the proposal.Having done so, even if not all present approved of the proposal wholeheartedly, they did seem generally satisfied with it. The atmosphere of the conference itself seemed to be gradually shifting to a discussion of what should be done after the Round Table Council was established.In closing, these human rights issues should be applied to the People of the Earth, as well as to Adventurers.A few of the participants began to open their mouths. A quick-witted listener could probably have foreseen this development from the mention of the slave trading in Susukino.However, what Shiroe began to talk about was something else entirely.I don't know yet what the results of this conference will be. At present, I'm not sure whether or not you'll approve the outline I've presented and establish the Round Table Council. However, there is one thing I want you to recognize, and I think it's high time you did. We are in another world, and somewhere, this world is warped in a very strange way. It's true that it's influenced byElder Tales. However, as you can tell from the Chef discovery I mentioned earlier, this isn't simply the world of the game. It's another world, one with more sophisticated physical laws. Has anyone here really talked to the People of the Earth?But they're NPCs, said someone's attendant.They aren't non-player characters. They're people with their own individual personalities. They have their own worries and dreams and ethics and lives, and they're living them. They call themselves the People of the Earth At least, in contrast to their term for us, the Adventurers. Let me make this clear: They are the natural residents of this world, and we are parasites. The town of Akiba has always been an Adventurer town, so there are comparatively few People of the Earth here, but in terms of the world as a whole, they must outnumber us by far. Adventurers and People of the Earth have different roles with regard to this world, but if things keep on like this, we won't be able to build proper relationships.Relationships?They could agree with part of what Shiroe had saidit did make sense, now that they thought about itbut even so, it tended to rely too heavily on logic. InElder Tales, which has become a different world, they are citizens of the world, not non-player characters. Stated plainly like that, even if it didn't completely go without saying, it wasn't something entirely incomprehensible. However, for the majority of the players, emotionally, it still didn't register.Uhm I have a little bit to add to that.In the midst of that bewilderment, Marielle timidly spoke up.Possibly she got nervous every time she spoke in front of these dignitaries: She faltered, but even then, she maintained her natural cheerfulness and spoke clearly.So, Snack Shop Crescent Moon is real popular, and that's a fact. But listen, the playersthe Adventurers, I meanweren't the only ones who came and bought from us. The People of the Earth came, too. In other words I dunno how to say it. I don't really get it myself yet, but They want to eat stuff that tastes good, too.This time, the conference room went so quiet one could have heard a pin drop.The shock that had struck the participants seemed to have crumbled the very ground they stood on.To many of the players, the NPCs had been nothing more than non-player characters. The Briganteers of Susukino might have gone too far, but even the completely ordinary, well-intentioned players assembled here had seen them as a type of talking vending machine. At the very least, inElder Tales, that hadn't been wrong. When this was a game, that was what they had been.However, for that very reason, to players with as much experience inElder Talesas the ones who'd gathered in the conference room, Marielle's report felt like an attack that destroyed something fundamental.I'm not saying we should give up on returning to our old world. I don't even want to say it But let's admit that thisisanother world. It's been nearly two months since we were sent here. We've been demanding guests' for long enough. You're free to think that the People of the Earth don't have feelings, but as a matter of fact, they do. As in the officialElder Talesscenario, we seem to be Adventurers, a type of privileged class. That makes us something like mercenaries, with special abilities that allow us to attack monster strongholds. However, the vast majority of people in this world are People of the Earth. Let me repeat myself for clarity's sake: Without the People of the Earth, we can't live in this world. They provide all sorts of services, including the bank. However, the People of the Earth could probably survive without us. If we keep living like this, doing just as we please every day, unable to govern ourselves, we will do irreparable damage.When Shiroe finished speaking, he sat down in his chair heavily, without waiting for a response. He was tired, but he felt good.Even after Shiroe had delivered his entire proposal, the conference room was silent.No one moved. It was as if they'd all become statues. What Shiroe had said had been that strange and that shocking. Most of the conference participants had thought they'd been pulled into the world ofElder Tales. They'd felt as if the world of the game had become real.Even now, they couldn't exactly deny that.However, the facts Shiroe had set before them todaythe method of creating articles without using the item creation menu, for example, and the idea that the People of the Earth had actual personalities and were the main force in the worldhad been more than enough to take what knowledge of the world they'd managed to scrape together over the past two months and smash it to smithereens.Are you suggesting that there's a possibility of war with the People of the Earth, Shiroe?Krusty's quiet question was delivered in the tones of a fair-skinned philosopher.I understand that it's something for the Round Table Council to consider, not for me to think about now, Shiroe tossed off irresponsibly.The die had been cast. Shiroe had played every card he had. He'd disclosed all the information he held. He'd shown them the world he wanted in a shape that was easy to understand.Shiroe had begun this war out of self-indulgence, but he'd only wanted to win; he hadn't wanted to make anybody lose. He'd wanted to win a victory, not steal it.Although he didn't intend to sound trite, if possible, he'd wanted them all to reach that goal together. All meaning all the people of Akiba.Even so, if an overwhelming number of people still don't understand, after hearing all that We may have a war on our hands.When Shiroe glanced to the side, his eyes met Marielle's.Marielle's face was slightly troubled, but she still wore the same artless sunflower smile. Henrietta, who stood behind her, shrugged. Her expression seemed to say, Do as you please.Time passed. It felt like a very long time and also like the space of a few breaths. Everyone in the conference room sat in total silence. The first player to open his mouth was Berserker Krusty, leader of D.D.D., Akiba's largest combat guild.In a calm voice that held no tension, he spoke to the assembly.D.D.D. approves the establishment of the Round Table Council as a body to govern Akiba and intends to participate.The next words came from Soujirou, who sounded quietly entertained.The West Wind Brigade also approves. I haven't seen you dominate like that in a long time, Mr. Shiro I really do wish you'd joined my guild.Well, we can't bust up Akiba. The Knights of the Black Sword are in.Honesty approves as well. Let's work to better relations with the People of the Earth.Black Sword Isaac and Ains, the guild master of Honesty, gave their answers, too.As I said earlier, our three production guilds support Shiroe and the Round Table Council. We hope the decisions made there will be fruitful ones.Roderick and Calasin nodded their agreement to Michitaka's words. They had already inferred several possibilities from Shiroe's report and had instructed their guild members to run various experiments.After that, the declarations of approval came one after another, as if carried along by a swift current. Grandale and RADIO Market, smaller guilds, expressed their intent to participate as organizers of the former small- and midsized guild alliance.Marielle, who had apparently been pushing herself very hard, slumped facedown onto the conference table with the smile still on her face, as if she had no energy left. Smiling wryly, Shiroe slowly unclenched his hands, which were slippery with sweat, under the conference table, so that Marielle wouldn't notice.On that day, the town of Akiba witnessed the birth of the Round Table Council.4Commander Marielle! The cupboard is all packed, ma'am!None of that commander' business, 'kay? I really can't take it.There were people working busily, and people numbering packages, and people dithering around with no idea what to do.A week had passed since the assembly that had resulted in the Round Table Council, and the Crescent Moon League guildhall was buzzing with noisy activity.You're the guild master, Commander Marielle, so please sit there, ma'am!Nope. No can do! We're a small outfit, and as I keep tellin' you, the guild master doesn't get treated like a big shot around here!Mari.You're scatterbrained, and you are in the way. Sit in the corner and have some tea or something, please.Henrietta scolded Marielle, who was arguing with the newbies. At her words, Marielle teared up a bit and, with a clearly dejected What am I, useless? removed herself to a corner of the office.The Crescent Moon was right in the middle of a move.The entire guild membership was bustling around, cleaning and packing up the furnishings that were originally theirs. As she looked around at her companions, whose number had grown, Marielle was lost in thought.The day the Round Table Council had been established was also the day Hamelin had fallen. In the same building where Marielle and the others had been meeting, Shouryuu and Serara of the Crescent Moon League and Akatsuki and the other members of Log Horizon had safely taken Hamelin's escaped newbie members into protective custody.Very few people were aware that while he'd been conducting the proceedings of that complicated conference as its initiator and chairman, Shiroe had also been quietly directing the operation to destroy Hamelin.Even Marielle might not have noticed if she hadn't been told about it beforehand.With their names added to the blacklist of people barred from entering the guild center, the members of Hamelin hadn't even been able to follow the escaping newbies.From what they'd heard, Akatsuki had tracked down the names of all the members of Hamelin beforehand. Apparently, Akatsuki's absence during Snack Shop Crescent Moon's creation and operation wasn't because she was avoiding being used as Henrietta's dress-up doll.Having been evacuated to the guild center, the newbies had promptly completed the procedures to leave their guild under Shouryuu's supervision. Approximately thirty-five low-level players had been kept under what practically amounted to house arrest by Hamelin. They were a sorry sight, dingy with sweat and grime.Just about the time Serara and volunteers from the Crescent Moon League were getting food and fresh clothes ready for the newbies, the members of Hamelin finally realized what was going on.Since they were unable to enter the guild center and the guild center was the only zone that their guildhall was linked to, the members of Hamelin were prisoners in their own building.Of course, as Shiroe had predicted earlier, there were ways to escape. One was Call of Home. This was a spell that transported players who were registered in Akiba back to Akiba. Ordinarily, it was used to return from distant field or dungeon zones. However, there were no rules against using it from within a town or building. Using Call of Home would return them to the entrance of Akiba.Another way was to end one's own life in the zone. In that case, a player would lose some experience points as a penalty, but they would resurrect in the temple. Since the temple was in the center of Akiba, this equaled a move by default.By the time the members of Hamelin discovered these methods and used them, the sun had set. The council's course of action had been established, and the discussion of the laws that would be implemented had entered its final stages.The situation had already progressed to the point where Hamelin couldn't do a thing about it. On top of that, although they'd escaped their guildhall-turned-prison, they would never be able to enter the guild center again.The outcome of the game had been decided several moves earlier.Something unexpected had happened as well.Marielle and the others had planned to introduce the rescued newbies to new guilds or support them until they were independent, whichever they preferred; they'd already reported their intentions to the Round Table Council and had the topic placed on the agenda.In fact, every guild that attended the conference had volunteered to accept newbies and take responsibility for supporting them.However, on closer examination, only sixteen of the thirty-five low-level newbies wanted to enter the assembled guilds. The remaining nineteen all wanted to join the Crescent Moon League.According to Serara, Shouryuu had been a bit too visibly gallant while conducting the rescue. He'd come off as such a reliable leader that he'd increased the number of players who wanted to join the League.In Henrietta's words, it was a type of imprinting, like showing a toy mother' to chicks, and it was something even Marielle hadn't seen coming, either.That said, the Crescent Moon League was already a solid part of the Round Table Council. The council had already declared its intent to provide support, so they couldn't toss them out on their ears like unwanted kittens. In any case, the League was a homey kind of guild that was able to accept both midlevel and low-level companions with open arms. Knowing that the other members were happy about it, Marielle decided to accept the newbies.With that, the Crescent Moon League's headquarters developed several disadvantages.Now that the guild's membership had nearly doubled in size, its current guildhall was cramped.There was no rule that said guild members had to sleep in the guildhall, and no matter which guild they were part of, players could rent rooms at inns as individuals. Rooms could be rented by the night or reserved for a month or a year, and many Adventurers had their own private spaces.However, for low-level players, even that expense was hard on the wallet. The members of the Crescent Moon League got along well with one another, and many of them did sleep at the guildhall.In the first place, Marielle, the guild leader, used the guildhall as her own house, so it was only natural that the people below her would imitate her.Mari. Mari? We're ready; stand up. Here, these are yours.Hugging the stuffed teddy bear and cushion Henrietta had handed her, Marielle left her familiar old office. Almost all the furniture had been carried out already, and the room was wide and bare. Not even a shadow of its former self remained.Commander Marielle~. We've gotten the office at the new guildhall ready, ma'am.Smiling and saying, Thanks much! to the guild memberwho was bouncing up and downMarielle set off.And so, unable to make do with its old guildhall, the Crescent Moon League found itself facing a move. Like the old hall, the new hall was located in the Akiba guild center.Even though Marielle had started off carrying her belongings, the move was a very short one: She stepped out of the old guildhall into the guild center, then teleported to the new zone through another door in the next corridor over.However, the rank of the hall they were renting had changed. They'd leveled up from a seven-room guildhall to a hall with thirty-one rooms. The rent had gone up as well, of course, but they still had some of their earnings from Snack Shop Crescent Moon left over.Henrietta, who was strict about balancing income and expenses, had given it her guaranteeI don't see why notso Marielle felt secure in her decision to move.They now had nearly fifty guild members, but with the new hall, they'd be able to manage quite well. Each individual spacethe kitchen, the conference room, the workrooms, storerooms, and hallwas larger, so above and beyond the fact that there were more rooms, the guildhall felt more spacious. Thirty-one rooms: It seemed almost like a castle.One surprise was that the guildhall was two stories, which meant it even had a staircase.It's sobig, ma'am!Whoa. It's huuuge.I bet we could fit a dragon in here!Marielle grinned at the excited guild members. The business of placing the furniture they'd brought over around the guildhall, undoing packages, and jotting down notes regarding new equipment they'd need seemed to have begun.Thinking of the expenses for tables and carpets was giving her a headache, but their artisans would probably be able to make the minimum of what they'd need. Besides, if it turned out they didn't have enough of something and had to save up for it, it would be a good excuse to go adventuring.Akiba had begun to come to life again. Just thinking about it made Marielle feel warm and happy.There's lots we need to do. There're so much I want!The area of her spacious new office was about three times the area of her old one. It was so big she was having a hard time relaxing. The desk and chairs she'd used at the old guildhall had been brought in, along with the sofa and cushions, but in the huge office, the compact desk-and-reception set only served to emphasize the vast coldness of the room.This is ratherlarge, isn't it? It might even be bigger than the conference room at the old guildhall.Henrietta, who'd come in with some documents, also seemed a bit nonplussed. When they'd come to inspect the hall before moving in, there hadn't been any furniture, so she'd been able to say, It's nice to have so much space. However, now that the room actually held furniture, all that extra space made it feel much too lonely.What'll I do? Am I really gonna live in a place like this?In spite of herself, Marielle sounded miserable. This was going to be quite a problem in its own way.I think it would be good to put up some dividing screens. Single-leaf wooden screens and some ornamental plants.Henrietta jotted down the necessary items one after another in a nearby notebook. That would work, come to think of it, and in an office this spacious, it would be entirely possible to set up a reception corner. If they split it into three rooms, Marielle thought, she could probably even use the innermost one as her bedroom.This is gonna cost us quite a bit.Very true. Still, I believe that's a good thing.Henrietta smiled faintly, her eyes still on the notebook. The lovely smile made Marielle happy. She knew Henrietta was feeling the same thing she was.I love ya to pieces, Henrietta~.In an attempt to express those feelings, Marielle hugged her hard.Now how did that conversation lead tothis?! Honestly, Mari!Startled, Henrietta struggled. On top of that, they were spotted by a newbieI-I'm sorry, ma'am!and so by the time Marielle finished tidying up the room, chuckling the whole time, she was worn out.You are something else, you know that?I said I was sorry. Forgive me, 'kay? Please? Pretty please?I only said that since it will contribute to the town's economic development, buying a few pieces of furniture would be a good thing.Marielle's attitude had made Henrietta blush bright red, and her shapely eyebrows were bristling. Marielle couldn't stop smiling at the sight of her friend's face: Although Henrietta was always visiting hugs upon Akatsuki, apparently she wasn't skilled at being on the receiving end of things.I swear, it's like the sun came out all of a sudden.Marielle wasn't talking about the approaching summer.She meant the town of Akiba ever since the establishment of the Round Table Council.That night, several dozen flyers had been promptly posted in Akiba's central plaza to spread the word of the Round Table Council's establishment. The news spread with terrifying speed, and by the time dawn broke, there was no one in Akiba who didn't know.Not that there hadn't been any backlash.After all, the Round Table Council was not a self-governing body made up of members selected by democratic vote. To the standard Japanese mind, this council had practically been forced on them from higher up, and it must have seemed as if the big guilds were behind it, pulling the strings.However, having anticipated this, the flyers also listed the intent behind the council's establishment, its short-term goals, and its methods in detail.In a magnanimous gesture, they also gave the secret of the completely new cooking method made famous by Snack Shop Crescent Moon.In the space of a night, the town of Akiba was flooded with food of all kinds. Food that tasted like it shouldthe sort that had only been available from Snack Shop Crescent Mooncould now be made by any Chef.Of course, with the new cooking method, the knowledge and techniques of the person doing the cooking mattered just as much as cooking skills. Some of the dishes, made by amateurs, couldn't have been called good by the most diplomatic player. However, even these were much better than the former dull and uninteresting food items.Several hasty Chefs opened stalls one after another. Some baked bread and sold it, while others sold sweet juices. Some simpler stalls made and sold baked potatoes. Some even made meat or fish soups in big iron kettles over open fires by the roadside and sold it by the bowlful, as if they were doing impromptu business in a disaster zone.Everyone was able to satisfy their previously unfulfilled appetites for food. Delicious foods became the subject of rumors and sold out almost instantly, and the town of Akiba developed a luxurious pastime that no one had even imagined could exist the day before: eating and strolling.The townspeople welcomed the change.Among those who met it with cheers were a fair number of People of the Earth, as well as Adventurers.The revitalization of the town, maintaining public order through the establishment of law, improving relations with the People of the Earth, and the introduction of a tax to support these initiatives were announced in a public address given the following afternoon.At the address, which took place in Akiba's central plaza, several notables from Akibaincluding Berserker Krusty, the leader of D.D.D., and Michitaka, general manager of the Marine Organizationassembled to talk about the intent behind the establishment of the Round Table Council.The idea of a tax drew some skeptical comments, but when they were told that collection would be nearly automatic and that it wouldn't be very much, they accepted it with passive agreement. The tax would be instituted in the form of a fee for guild center use, with one coin per day collected from any player who entered or left the guild center.This was one of the entry- and exit-related items that could be set by the owner of the guild center zone. According to Roderick's calculations, the revenue would earn the Round Table Council a monthly budget of slightly less than 400,000 gold coins.Everyone, and particularly players who didn't belong to one of the big guilds, had sensed the importance of establishing law, and by now everyone understood what revitalizing Akiba would mean.The revolution that had been sparked by a single evening meal had brought life back to the faces of all the townspeople.The upshot was that the Round Table Council was widely accepted by everyone who lived in Akiba. A governing body like this one would have been created eventually, and in that case, it was dozens of times better to have a competent self-governing organization than something dictatorialsomething controlled by the big guilds, for example.When the representatives from the eleven guilds that made up the Round Table Council addressed the crowd from the platform, each drew loud applause. That said, it felt more like the reaction of amiable onlookers at a large-scale party than support for a political assembly.Everything was colored by the sunset, and people thronged the central plaza. Players who hadn't been able to find a place in the plaza looked down over the platform from various floors of the surrounding mixed-use buildings.Many of them held bread, sweets, or shish kebabs in their hands as they watched this first event in a very long time. Some of those present had a bit of alcohol in them, and the proceedings were more like a policy announcement given in the midst of an uproar than a public address.In any case, Krusty, the Round Table Council's representative, explained that they would work to reorganize the town of Akiba on a new system; that they had several projects, including investigating the Fairy Rings; and that the cooperation of the townspeople would be vital in order to achieve these things.Abruptly, as the townspeople met that declaration with cheers, an astonishing number of artisans began to bring in food and alcohol. Representatives of three production guildsheaded by the Marine Organizationproclaimed vigorously that they'd make that day the first of the auspicious festival days and yelled that they were bringing out all the delicacies their storehouses held. At that, the excitement in Akiba reached fever pitch.If that racket keeps up, my head's going to turn into a cream puff.Yep, it just might.Marielle giggled. Henrietta looked put out.The night grew later and later amid endless calls of Cheers!One week after that nightSunlight continued to stream into the town of Akiba.New dishes were supplied almost every day, and they heard that the production artisans who weren't Chefs were also trying various things in order to create new items.The thing that currently held Marielle and Henrietta's interest was a bathing facility. WhenElder Taleswas a game, bathtubs had been mere background objects. However, now that this was another world, one they were actually living in, bathing suddenly took on a different meaning. The humidity was lower here than it was in real-world Japan, and the summer heat wasn't quite as sweltering But, as women, there was no way they wouldn't be interested.From what they'd heard, the West Wind Brigade had promptly gained the cooperation of Mechanists, Blacksmiths, and Carpenters and begun to build a large public bath in their guild castle.News of advancements flew in almost dailyreports that somebody somewhere had used some new deviceand this really did bring energy back to Akiba. The young man who'd planned it all had received no attention whatsoever at the speeches on the night of the raucous festival, but he'd seemed satisfied.When she thought of Shiroe and his companions, Marielle felt a mixture of happiness and gratitude, but she also felt something very strange.Hamelin had decided to disband not long ago.He reallydidtake down a whole guild. Wow Shiro's a pretty scary kid. Talk about dangerousMarielle sat on her luxurious chair at her work desk, hugging her knees and ducking her head low. She remembered the strong eyes behind Shiroe's round glasses. When Shiroe had led that conference with that fiery will of his, he'd done so with so much force that she'd been a little afraid of him.The Shiroe Marielle knew was the veteran player who was always mulling something over privately, who tied himself down with all sorts of bad premonitions, and yet was kind and trustworthy even so.He was more good-natured than anything, a homeless wanderer, oddly mature for his age, evasive but reliable, a lone Enchanter. That was all.Marielle didn't know the steely youth who'd used his intense will to drive his opponents into a corner, as if he were at a duel or a chessboard.But he did save us, didn't he?With her face still buried in her knees, Marielle gave a mischievous little chuckle. Shiroe, Akatsuki, Nyanta, and Naotsugu. Her reliable friends had brought Serara back to the Crescent Moon League, and they'd brought energy back to the town of Akiba.They could have said it wasn't their problem and left everyone out in the cold, but even then, they'd kept up their relentless pursuit of the greatest good. In her head, Marielle still couldn't quite mesh those four with the four who'd relaxed at the guildhall drinking tea, but that didn't change the fact that they were their benefactors.Hm. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Shiro's crew today. What're they up to?Abruptly curious, Marielle checked with Henrietta.My. Hadn't you heard? Master Shiroe's group is moving today, too.5At about that time, on the edge of the outskirts of Akiba, Shiroe and the others were in the process of taking up residence in one of the mixed-use buildings closest to the northern boundary.Log Horizon, which Shiroe had founded just the other day, had a current membership of four.Shiroe, the Enchanter who, in spite of his mild demeanor, would carry even the most reckless plan through to the end once he'd set his mind to it. Byname: Machiavelli-with-glasses. Although, personally, Shiroe had several objections to that name.Naotsugu, the Guardian, a rock-solid vanguard tank and panties evangelist, who was always ready with flippant banter and bad jokes.Akatsuki, the pretty-girl Assassin, slight and black haired, always dead serious and the resident straight man.Finally, the quiet and restrained Swashbuckler Nyanta: adviser and guardian of the group's collective stomach.With four members, the guild was so tiny it would have seemed presumptuous to call it small.In the first place, as Michitaka of the Marine Organization had commented, everyone had thought Log Horizon was a temporary guild, formed just to launch the Round Table Council. The guild couldn't shed the image that it had been established in haste.Shiroe had spent so much of his game life steering clear of guilds that this sort of profiling was only natural.On the morning after the night when he'd looked up at the white moon hanging over the Kanda River, while the streets were still hazy with mist, Shiroe took Akatsuki and Naotsugu into Akiba.The dawn sunlight held a growing premonition of summer, and the cicadas were already starting to cry. After thoroughly stressing himself out over how to begin, the words Shiroe settled on were completely commonplace:I'm forming a new guild. Would you join it?Rats, he thought, barely a moment later.I should have come up with something better.Even as Shiroe began to regret his approach, the other two readily agreed to join up.What, you're finally ready to go for it, Shiro? I was starting to think I'd just keep hanging around with you like this, like some guild without a guild tag.Ninja follow their lords wherever they go. Command as you see fit, my liege.Along with Nyanta, whom he'd already invited, Shiroe's guild, Log Horizon, now had four members. In this way, the tiny guildwhich, in terms of numbers, should have been called Log Minimum instead of Log Horizongot its modest start in the streets of Akiba.Will our wallet be all right, my liege?Akatsuki's question came as she was cleaning the floor. The only words to describe the high-ceilinged space wereenormousandcompletely empty.Her worry was well-founded. Guilds as small as Shiroe's didn't generally bother with guildhalls the way normal guilds did.In most guilds with memberships in the single digits, individual members might rent their own rooms at inns, but they very rarely set up a guildhall.With only a few people, there weren't many possessions or guild trophies that needed to be put somewhere, and people could be met in the plaza or at taverns. There was no problem with conducting strategy meetings on the side of the road, and in any case, the telechat function kept them nicely connected.Smaller guilds with a few more members would rent guildhalls at the guild center and use these as their headquarters.The guild center was close to the center of town, and since it was also economical and clean, it was quite popular. It also held halls of all sizes, from affordable three-room suites to halls that had thirty-one rooms and could accommodate guilds with a hundred members. It was close to shopping at the plaza and to the bank, and since it was so convenient, most guilds used it.But for even larger groups, the big guilds, even the halls at the guild center began to feel cramped.The largest guildhalls available for rent at the guild center had thirty-one rooms. Marielle of the Crescent Moon League had considered hers a castle, but although this might be true for guilds with thirty or forty members, guilds with memberships of over two hundred found that even that wasn't enough space.For that reason, guilds as large as the Knights of the Black Sword and the West Wind Brigade often chose buildings that could be purchased in Akiba proper, bought the whole zone in which the building lay, and established their headquarters there.Production guilds like the Marine Organization, which now boasted five thousand members, divided their artisans into several departments by category and housed each department in its own ruined building. In cases like that, the entire guild overall had several headquarters.Headquarters like these were known as guild houses, guild towers, or guild castles.At 90, Log Horizon's average member level was high, but it had very few members. Ordinarily, keeping a whole building like this one would have been inefficient; if they'd needed headquarters, they could have just borrowed a guildhall from the guild center. This expense was what was worrying Akatsuki.It's all right. We'll manage.Even as he responded, Shiroe was scrubbing the walls with a deck brush. This ruin had been a warehouse and a large-scale store, and it had an enormous old tree growing up through its first six floors.There was a big hole in the center of each floor, and a mossy tree trunk, which must have been several centuries old, had threaded its way up through them. The great tree pierced every floor from the basement on up, heading for the sky, and at the roof, its great branches spread out into a green dome.The entire town of Akiba seemed to have been swallowed up by a sea of trees, but it was rare to see the growth of a tree overlap with a building so completely.This building's cheap because it's like this. There aren't any stairs, you know, and it's hard to use.Hm Is that right?Shiroe was clearing rubble while they talked. The general cleanup had been done over the course of a few days with the help of the younger Crescent Moon League members, but the ruin was still far from livable.Originally, it was likely that the place had been a big home electronics store or something similar: This first floor was almost unbroken by walls, and the ceiling must have been four or five meters high.Of course it was hard to imagine that this building had been stairless ever since the old era, when it had been built. The well that had held stairs, and the elevator shaft that had doubtless been next to it, had probably been where the trunk stood now.After this building had been abandoned and damaged, the old tree that had grown in the stairwell or elevator shaft had most likely pierced through the floors and eroded them.The fact that this building had been ignored when it was being sold for such a low price was probably due to its distance from the center of town and its sheer inconvenience.Still. Akiba's not a big town, and this is prime real estate. I mean, heck, stairs can be built.As Naotsugu, who'd come down from the second floor, pointed out, the first and second floors were now connected by a steel stairway. The stairs looked rough and bleak, but they were sturdy enough and large enough to be used without a problem.But listen, when this was a game, there was no option to Repair Facility with Hole in Floor,' was there?Shiroe's words seemed to satisfy Naotsugu: Oh yeah. Guess not.The impact of the new cooking method Nyanta had discovered hadn't stayed in the culinary world. By now, all the production guilds had begun to develop new items. It wasn't limited to the production subclasses, either; even the role-playing subclasses had begun experimenting to see what changes their skills could bring to this world.The stairway had been the result of one such experiment.Interfering with basic objects such as the walls and floor would have been an unimaginable act in theElder Talesgame, but in the past week, it had been demonstrated that even that was possible.At this point, the stairway only linked the first and second floors; if they wanted to go to the third floor or higher, they had to shimmy up a rope. If they wanted to expand, though, all they had to do was call on the artisans again.Compared to the rest of the market, the cost of this zone had been cheap, but even so, it had been a pretty sizable amount. That had been something they'd planned on, but they'd also had to pay the artisans a reasonable sum to build the stairway. Tiny Log Horizon didn't have the funds for a complete overhaul of the building.They'd commissioned the installation of the stairway and reflooring of the second storywhere they'd be sleeping for nowfrom the Marine Organization. Michitaka, the guild master, had accepted cheerfully. Yeah, if you use work-arounds like that, I guess you could find new ways to use ruins that weren't good for living in before. Building a stairway's an interesting idea.Michitaka himself had stopped by the site of the remodel several times, and when Naotsugu had called, Hey! If the idea's so interesting, cut us a deal, wouldja?! he'd actually seemed to worry about it, which had tickled Shiroe.Even when they knew it was likely to lead to new sales, in this other world the processing of various materials was so different from what it had been in the real world that it was hard to calculate prices that would bring in a decent profit.Henrietta had explained this using jargon like optimization of supply and demand and full employment and minimum wage. Shiroe understood the broad theorythe structurebut he really couldn't slot in figures and run actual simulations.In any case, the economic system in this other world was full of holes, and it was tough to say just how far real-world common sense could be applied.For now, as Michitaka put it, Well, we'll just bill what looks good. Good market prices should work themselves out with time, once things settle down, and there seemed to be nothing for it but to make do with slapdash accounting.On that day, too, Shiroe and the other three had been cleaning since early in the morning.However, there was no way four people could completely clean a building with six aboveground floors and a basement. In any case, this was a ruin: The window glass was broken, and the farther up one went, the bigger the hole in the ceiling grew.The four of them had soon abandoned the idea of overall repairs, and they were concentrating on making the second floortheir temporary living quarterscomfortable. At present, the second floor only held two large halls that had been made with flooring material, but they planned to make about eight private rooms there as well.With that many, they wouldn't be troubled for rooms for a while.They weren't sure whether they'd be able to finish during the summer or if it would take until autumn. Mainly due to concerns about temperature and sleeping outside, Shiroe hoped they'd be done by winter.However, even as Shiroe and the others worked to create their home, they had a variety of visitors. Shiroe had set the zone's entry restrictions to unrestricted, so nearly every acquaintance they had came to the first floor of the ruined building and yelled their names.Henrietta, who was in the middle of a move herself that day, conscientiously brought by an assortment of fruit to congratulate them on the establishment of Log Horizon's headquarters. Upon nervously accepting the gift, Akatsuki was captured in the blink of an eye and very nearly forced to wear a special present or some such thing, but it's probably best not to discuss that.Soujirou of the West Wind Brigade stopped by for a visit, accompanied by Nazuna, a beautiful healer and fellow former member of the Debauchery Tea Party. It wasn't clear which of them had liked cherry liqueur enough to bring it, but its limpid fragrance went perfectly with the early summer weather. Apparently it had been made by the West Wind Brigade's Brewer.Calasin of Shopping District 8 paid a call to discuss something with Shiroe.The something was the idea of hiring People of the Earth to handle clerical work for the Round Table Councilmostly light work, such as delivering documents and taking notes.True, it would be hard to bind Adventurer players to work as light as that, and it would probably be quite expensive. They'd determined that, if possible, this way could work.Calasin went home with a smile, saying that he'd start checking with the People of the Earth he happened to know right away.Among the combat guilds, Isaac of the Knights of the Black Sword had stuck around for a surprisingly long time. Stopping by with a few of his Summoner subordinates, he began making arbitrary demands. Hey, Machiavelli-with-glasses. Your place is huge and handy; let us do combat training here.Before Naotsugu even had time to complain, the Summoners summoned Undine of the Pure Currents and rinsed the cavernous first and second floors clean with a massive bead of water. Since there was no plumbing in this other world, this was incredibly helpful.Isaac himself only chewed holes in the congratulatory fruit assortment Henrietta had brought by and left, but memorably, Captain Nyanta murmured, The Knights of the Black Sword aren't such a bad lot. It was possible that Isaac had intended the visit to patch things up with Shiroe.This was at least half of the reason that Shiroe had decided to purchase this abandoned building as their guild tower.As one of the guilds participating in the Round Table Council, they were bound to have quite a few visitors. Shiroe's friend list had acquired more names over the past few days. They might not be friends he'd played closely with, but he had more opportunities to contact them now, and if he didn't register them, they couldn't telechat.They'd probably have visitors in the future, and some of those visitors might have business that would need to be discussed for a long time. There was no telling whether a great uproar like the establishment of the Round Table Council would occur again, but if something of the sort did happen, they might end up needing a kitchen, a workroom, or a storehouse.Due to these considerations, they'd chosen this building. It was on the outskirts of town, but it had more than enough space.Plus, it's like they say: Better too big than too small.That's what she said, right, Naotsugu? You would think like that.Shiro! Dude. Hey. Akatsuki keeps calling me an idiot because you say stuff like that. My-stock's-in-the-toilet city.Naotsugu was one of Shiroe's oldest friends, and the one he found it easiest to relax with. Having completely useless conversations like this was incredibly restful.Here, now. Shiroechi and Naotsugucchi. If mew don't hurry and clean up, mew won't get dinner.Is it curry? Are we having curry?! I love curry!Dang it, Naotsugu. Yes. We're having curry today.What, forreal?! Whoo-hoo!And thus, Nyanta and Akatsuki joined them.In his long history withElder Tales, even Shiroe had joined a guild before. Now, though, he knew he hadn't been part of that guild in the truest sense of the word; he'd only been a guest.It wasn't the structure known as a guild; it was companions and a place to belong.It meant holding these things important and protecting them.That was something he ought to have learned from the Debauchery Tea Party: The will of the companions who gathered there was much more important than whether it was a true guild or not.When the town began to turn red, it always gave Shiroe a special feeling. Back whenElder Taleswas a game, sunset had been nothing more than an on-screen effect, but in this other world, it was different.With sweet, sad cries, blackbirds flew low on their way home to the forest.Adventurers returning from the hunt filtered into the plaza, having a look at the stalls that lined the central avenue as they passed. Groups that had bagged lots of prey discussed their plans for the next outing in high spirits, and those that hadn't had much luck swore to vindicate themselves next time. The vine-tangled ruins glowed red madder, and the shadows of the warriors and the town's artisans grew longer and longer, regardless of whether they were Adventurers or People of the Earth.In the space of a week, the sunset had acquired a fragrance.Numerous stalls sold evening meals, sought out by weary Adventurers and production-class artisans alike who'd finished the day's work. Even the taverns run by People of the Earth now had the smell of sweet-tasting alcohol and simple food wafting from their doors.The sky gradually darkened. Copper slowly changed to smoky rose, then deep blue, then indigo. In the midst of a sunset that felt slower than it had in the old world, the townspeople wound up their day and made preparations for tomorrow.There's the evening star, my liege.Forget that, I'm hungry. I'm so hungry I can't move. Starvation city.Akatsuki and Naotsugu, who seemed to have finished carrying their cargo, were cooling themselves by the window.In the sunset, too early yet for lamps to be lit, Shiroe's two friends turned back to him.Their peaceful, inquisitive expressions convinced Shiroe that this was indeed his place.Inside him, the Debauchery Tea Party was growing distant. It had taken a very long time. Shiroe thought, with regret, that he might unwittingly have hurt many people and places by comparing them to his old home.He hadn't even understood the easy things. He'd taken the long way around. As Shiroe castigated himself for having nothing but faults, the other two looked at him blankly. What's the matter, my liege? You're hungry, too, huh? Empty stomachs are no joke.Hm? Where's the captain? Isn't he back yet? Pulling himself together, Shiroe realized that Nyanta wasn't there. He'd gone out to buy some more spices.Yeah, now that you mention it, the captain's late. He'd better not be shopping and snacking. If he is, I'll have to mete out his punishment.That wasn't terribly clever.Even as he listened to their banter, Shiroe began to feel a bit concerned. Just then, from the floor below, an easygoing voice called, Shiroechi~. Naotsugucchi~. Akatsuki~.Nyanta seemed to have returned.As they went downstairs, talking among themselves did he need help carrying things? No, nothing would be that heavy in this other world, on the bare moonlit floor, they saw a figure so slim it might have been made of wire. It was Nyanta.What's up, Captain? I'm starving. Let's get that curry eaten, stat.Yes, venerable sage. I'm hungry as well.Sounding childlike, Naotsugu and Akatsuki leaned out partway down the stairs. Nyanta laughedMya-ha-ha-haand pushed forward two shapes that had been clinging to his back.Uu.Um, ummmIf it isn't Touya and Minori!It was the Kannagi girl, who was blushing so fiercely that it showed even in the dark, and her Samurai twin brother. Over the past week, the newbies' hair had been trimmed and their equipment tidied. Nyanta urged them on.I found them on my way back from buying spices. They were circling this building, round and round and round. If it were me, I would've turned into butter candy.What's the matter, you two? Shiroe asked. Wasn't the Crescent Moon League moving today, too?The Crescent Moon League had been scheduled to move into a guildhall two ranks higher that day. Once they'd finished moving, there'd probably be another banquet. Marielle loved it when things were lively, and he couldn't imagine that she'd send two of her precious newbies out into the night all by themselves.No, uh, mister. Listen, weHm?From where he stood on the first floor, Touya looked up at Shiroe, standing halfway up the stairs, and spoke in a young, ringing voice.We're here to join your guild, mister.Huh?We came because we hoped you would teach us, Shiroe. We've imposed on the Crescent Moon League for the past week, but we haven't joined it. Wedidn'tjoin. Touya and I are the only players who left Hamelin who haven't joined a guild yet. Minori conscientiously supplemented her brother's frank, straightforward words.We were able to do our best because of all the stuff you taught us, mister. If you've started a guild, we want to join it. Maybe I'm weak, but I'm gonna get stronger.I may just be in the way as well, but I've decided not to use that as an excuse anymore. Please let us stay with you.Ah Um.He might turn them down.What would they do if he did?The young twins spoke as eloquently as they possibly could. They were so stiff that their tension was obvious at a glance.He'd heard vague rumors of the sort of treatment they'd been subjected to in Hamelin. For players who were new toElder Talesand had no acquaintances or people to rely on, the experience must have been incredibly painful.At the Crescent Moon League, they would have had lots of friends who'd been in the same situation and whose skills were at about the same level. He was positive that they wouldn't have been treated badly. What must they have felt when they turned down the chance to join the Crescent Moon League and came to Shiroe, knowing that, if he refused them, they'd have nowhere left to go? Shiroe could only guess, but he could sense the desperation in their resolution.They'd played together for one week, the last week thatElder Taleswas a game. Shiroe didn't know what he'd said to them that could have attracted them to him in that short time.He'd never been a role model for anyone in that way before, and so their wish left him speechless, unable to respond properly.As he watched Shiroe, Nyanta's narrow eyes narrowed further in an excess of kindness. He spoke to him, calmly.Shiroechi. Mew mustn't just stare like that. Mew're the GM.GM.Guild master.The leader of a guild.He was right, Shiroe realized. He was so used to his companions that they could practically read one another's minds, and so even after he'd created a guild, he hadn't been all that conscious of being a leader.Or of being a role model for someone.Even though he'd come this far following role models of his own, he'd never imagined that he'd become someone like that.Shiroe turned to look back at his two hungry companions, who'd poked their heads out over the edge of the stairs. Naotsugu gave a sly grin and said, Well, duh, flashing him a thumbs-up sign. Akatsuki nodded, her expression just a little softer than usual.All right. Log Horizon welcomes you, Touya and Minori. As new recruits, your first mission is to come eat curry rice with the top brass. Are you ready?Yes, sir! Mister!Two young voices chimed in, and now they were six.In the world that had once beenElder Tales, a new guild was formed.Its name was Log Horizon.And so this small band of companions established itself in a ruin, pierced by an ancient tree, on the outskirts of Akiba.