by Mamare Touno
Of course even solution sites were far from all-powerful. Still, they often discussed popular areas and places where players could earn money efficiently.
They also listed dangerous places that players would do well to avoid.
“It’s weird for me to say this since we came to trade information, but information is going to be one of the most valuable things we have from now on. You remember there’s a new expansion pack, don’t you?”
“Homesteading the Noosphere? Yep.”
“That’s the one. We’ll need information, not just on the new zones the expansion pack added, but on zones and towns that were already here. We can’t check solution sites if we get bogged down now.”
“True…”
And so, after that, the four of them drew a schematic diagram of the zones around Akiba based on the information they remembered.
Although the Japanese server held tens of thousands of zones, that figure included single inn rooms, small abandoned buildings, and private zones like the guildhall that were rented out to players. There were far fewer field zones (forests, hill country, ghost towns, ruins, and other outdoor areas) and dungeon zones (the insides of old subway tunnels and gigantic structures). “Fewer” was a relative term, of course: There were several thousand at least, and even Shiroe couldn’t claim to have a sufficient grasp of all of them. However, he did have eight years of gaming under his belt, and he knew his way around the world of Elder Tales much better than most players. Naotsugu had been out of action for a while, but he knew quite a lot about the older zones. Marielle and Henrietta also checked their memories against each other, and the end result, while terribly incomplete, was a zone schematic.
They’d filled in quite a lot of zones on the map, drawn lines to show the connections between them, and written in several hundred names with a focus on the field zones they visited frequently. There was no telling whether they’d still have to investigate each of these places one by one, but even this sketchy map was better than nothing at all.
“Thanks a bunch, kiddo. You, too, Naotsugu.”
“It’s the least we could do. We’re already imposing on you.”
“Yeah, and it’s not like we did much anyway.”
“No, it’s a big help. I know Shiroe’s a good kid.”
Marielle sent Shiroe a smile like a sunflower in full bloom.
Mari has the greatest smile. Even when she’s tired, even when she’s irritated—I really should try to learn from that.
“I couldn’t possibly leave you to fend for yourself, Mari.”
Shiroe had done his very best, but as usual, he’d missed the mark.
“Wha…?! Now even you’re sayin’ it! Oh, that is it. It’s curtains for me. I’m pinned as the featherbrained, dumb-broad character for sure. What’ll I do, Henrietta?!”
“Why not concentrate on sex appeal?”
Shiroe hastily averted his eyes.
“Wanna touch my boobs? Cop a feel?”
Having been turned down flat by Shiroe, Marielle tried her luck on Naotsugu, who was sitting next to him. Wordlessly, Naotsugu smacked her on the head.
“D-did you just hit me?!”
Shiroe assumed Marielle probably used suggestive lines as a way to hide her embarrassment, but now that he was thinking about it, he realized it might explain Naotsugu’s off-color comments as well. Seeing Naotsugu respond this way was funny.
“Don’t you ever learn, you panties woman?!”
“Don’t say ‘panties’! What’s wrong with you anyway, hon?! Are my boobs really that bad?! Are you treatin’ me like some old lady?!”
“You make no sense. What’s this ‘old lady’ business? We’re pretty much the same age, right?”
Naotsugu whispered his birth date to Henrietta who nodded.
“Mari’s three years older.”
“There, y’see? I’m old! …I’m bad inventory. That must be why Naotsugu’s gone to the bad. Just look at him! He defies me, he treats my poor boobs like they’re wrinkly old puddin’…”
On the sofa, Marielle whined, kicking her legs like a little kid throwing a tantrum.
In a way, it’s really impressive that she can care about stuff like that at a time like this.
Mildly appalled, Shiroe thought that Marielle was the only one who’d be able to expend this much energy over anything on the first day of their exile in another world. However, unexpectedly, Naotsugu kept lightly patting Marielle’s head as she fussed. He looked as if he was trying to comfort a large dog, but gradually, Marielle did calm down.
“…In any case. I should be going. I’ve already taken up a lot of your time… I’ll go see what else I can learn about the situation.”
Shiroe stood, giving a slight bow to Marielle, who was still inclined to sulk, and the sober Henrietta.
“Yeah. I’ll go with you… ’Scuse us, ladies!”
It had been more than half a day since the disaster. Some enterprising soul might have fought a monster or two by now. When Shiroe and Naotsugu said their good-byes to the two on the sofa, Henrietta said politely, “I’m sorry we weren’t able to show you better hospitality.” In contrast, Marielle stood up from the sofa where she’d staged her tantrum, looked Shiroe and Naotsugu square in the eyes, and made a proposition.
“Listen, kiddo. You, too, hon. So, um… It’s probably gonna sound like I’m tryin’ to take advantage of the situation by askin’ this now, but… Would you two join up? Join the Crescent Moon League, I mean.”
Her voice held a very uncharacteristic hesitation.
“Well, and look, I know. I’m well aware that you don’t feel at home in guilds, kiddo. —Everythin’s different now, though. I don’t think joinin’ up would be a bad idea. You, too, Naotsugu. From what I can see, you haven’t signed on with anybody yet… What about it?”
Her troubled expression shifted into one of persuasion. Her voice betrayed no intention of using Shiroe and Naotsugu or of trying to strengthen her own guild. There was nothing in it but simple, unaffected kindness.
However she’d taken Shiroe’s silence, it made her wave her hands hastily and continue on.
“We’re a pretty laid-back guild. We won’t tie you down. We won’t do anythin’ you wouldn’t like, kiddo. You’ve been through a few dungeons with our younger ones, remember? You know, the Shinjuku subway, Nakano Mall… I don’t know why you aren’t in a guild, Naotsugu, but the Crescent Moon League is… Well, I think it’s a pretty comfortable place myself. What do you say?”
Her green hair swayed across her white healer’s robe. To Shiroe, the gentle movement seemed like a visual expression of the consideration she was showing them.
“……”
Wordlessly, Naotsugu looked at Shiroe. The look clearly meant, “It’s up to you.” Do we settle down here? Do we stay freelance? It’s your call.
Shiroe wasn’t a middle schooler anymore. He could forgive the people who’d used him as a soulless tool all those years ago, and it wasn’t that his feelings about it were still muddled and confused. Still, something he couldn’t put into words kept him from taking the plunge.
“Mari, I’m sorry. I really can’t.”
“I see… Okay, then. No help for that.”
Marielle’s disappointed look lasted only an instant before it was replaced by her usual smile. As always, the smile was bright as a sunflower, and it made Shiroe feel as if he’d been rescued.
If they managed to get back to their world, either through some divine miracle or by sheer coincidence… If Shiroe happened to pass Marielle on the street, he was sure he’d recognize her. The healer’s cloak and the luxurious green hair might be nothing more than Elder Tales polygon data made real, but Marielle’s smile was hers alone. It was nothing anyone could ever imitate.
It certainly wasn’t anything a game program could reproduce.
“If you ever need anything, ask us. We’ll help.”
“Yeah. Any time you need a good Guardian, just yell.”
“Will do. Tha
nks, kiddo. Thanks, hon. You, too: If you need anythin’, call me.”
Shiroe and Naotsugu waved good-bye, wishing they had Marielle’s particular brand of strength.
1
—Four days had passed.
Four days since the insanity of being set adrift in another world.
After taking their leave of Marielle, Shiroe and Naotsugu had spent most of their time trekking through the streets of Akiba, gathering information.
Naturally, new facts came to light every day.
The first discovery, and one they’d made quite easily, was that they got hungry. In fact, they’d felt a vague irritation starting at about the time they said good-bye to Marielle. However, the tension and fear of the abnormal situation had swamped the irritation, and they’d walked around searching for information until night fell and their legs were like lead without ever realizing that the strange sensation was hunger.
In the end, though, they’d given in to their empty stomachs. At daybreak, Shiroe and Naotsugu bought food at the market and went back to the abandoned building where they’d met the day before. Their attempt at a slightly unhealthy meal (dinner meets breakfast) proved to be a shattering experience.
That morning, Shiroe had purchased roast chicken with orange sauce, a tomato sandwich, chocolate cake, and green tea. Naotsugu had picked up seafood pizza, potatoes and bacon, a Caesar salad, and orangeade. While that may seem extravagant, Shiroe and Naotsugu were both level-90 players with property to match. Besides, everything they’d purchased had been made by artisan players and offered for sale at the market in large quantities. To all appearances, the food was fresh, colorful, and fit for a king.
…But it all tasted exactly the same.
It was, to borrow Naotsugu’s disgusted review, like eating soggy, unsalted rice crackers. Shiroe was forced to agree.
As for the beverages, although they were different colors, they both tasted like city tap water.
It didn’t taste so bad that they had to spit it out after the first bite. It probably wasn’t poison. If they ate enough of it, they felt full, so it was definitely food. But Shiroe and Naotsugu still felt as if the bottom had been kicked out of their morning.
That the taste wasn’t terrible enough to provoke instant yelling made it really difficult to deal with. The more they ate, the odder they felt. The insipid flavor seemed to slowly drain the hope out of them. It was a dull, miserable taste.
After buying up several different kinds of food, they learned a few more things. All the foods they were eating had either been made by players or sold by non-player characters. One of the countless subclasses in Elder Tales was Chef. The food items they’d purchased had been created by Chefs using their cooking skills. Because subclasses could be acquired regardless of which of the twelve main classes a player belonged to, it was possible to be a Samurai Chef or a Sorcerer Chef.
Although these Chefs had used their skills to create the food items Shiroe and Naotsugu were eating, cooking in Elder Tales was a fairly automatic operation. You approached the kitchen counter object, took the ingredient items out of your pack, and specified which ones to use. Some ingredients could be harvested in various zones, while others—such as meat—could be taken from monsters, and a few could be picked up in dungeons. There were also items like grain, which could be grown by sowing seeds in a field. Non-player characters sold basic ingredients, and it was perfectly possible to purchase ingredients from other players at the market. No matter how a player got the ingredients, all they had to do was select items to view a list of dishes that could be created, then select the dish they wanted to make. In about ten seconds, the ingredients would start to glow, then disappear and be replaced by the finished dish.
Shiroe and Naotsugu had started to wonder whether this push-button preparation method was the problem.
Just yesterday, they’d discovered that unprepared ingredients did taste the way they were supposed to. Oranges, apples, and other fruits were juicy and delicious, and fresh-caught fish smelled like real fish. The salt and sugar they’d bought from non-player characters tasted salty and sweet. Regardless, any dish made by mixing these ingredients together tasted like soggy, unsalted rice crackers.
The phenomenon was inevitable. No matter what they tried, they couldn’t change it. On top of that, apparently it wasn’t possible to actually cook in this world. When they tried to process an ingredient by hand, it turned into a weird gel-like substance.
With no way around it, Shiroe and Naotsugu bought salt as a stand-alone ingredient along with their other food items and staved off starvation by salting their soggy rice crackers before they ate. It made for a very poor meal, but it was better than having no flavor at all.
Of course what went in had to come out, which meant they discovered that they’d have to go with relative ease as well. Since Shiroe and Naotsugu were guys, this didn’t pose much of a problem, provided they didn’t mind going outside, although it would have been nice to have toilet paper. Naotsugu muttered, “This must be pretty rough on the girls…,” but Shiroe pretended he hadn’t heard.
The world held all sorts of things that it did no good for Shiroe to think about. They learned that they needed to sleep, too. Unlike Shiroe’s real body, his body in this world was pretty strong. At level 90, even a magic user had corresponding abilities, and stamina seemed to be one of them. However, physical fatigue and the desire for sleep seemed to be two different things, and after being active for a certain amount of time, both Shiroe and Naotsugu would get very sleepy.
When Shiroe and Naotsugu entered an inn, they’d rent a zone for a short period and stay there. Neither of them had ever used this function when Elder Tales was a game. When they’d decided to stop playing for a while, all they had to do was find a convenient alley in Akiba and log out. When they played the game, they adventured; when they wanted to rest, they left the game world entirely. Things that they’d taken for granted when they played the game didn’t hold true anymore.
Since they kept their bodies while they slept, they needed somewhere relatively safe to put them… And of course, when they woke up, they hadn’t returned to the real world.
Speaking of returning to the real world, they’d discovered the answer to another question: Resurrection from death existed even in this version of the Elder Tales world. When players died, after a little while they came back to life in the temple in Akiba. If things still worked the way they had in the game, the resurrected player would probably lose a certain amount of experience points or money, but since it hadn’t happened to Shiroe or Naotsugu yet, they didn’t know for sure.
The fact that resurrection existed meant that death in the game world didn’t equal actual extinction. Although that was good news, it also put an end to the hope that death would be a ticket back to the real world.
Death and food. If there was one thing they’d learned from these two basic elements of life, it was that even the most diplomatic speaker couldn’t call this world anything but warped and contradictory. At a glance, it seemed to be a faithful real-life reproduction of the Elder Tales game world. Shiroe and Naotsugu had acquired their in-game abilities and property and were living in a world that teemed with game monsters. However, the game was a game, not a replica of some other world. Considered as a world with consistent physical laws, this world seemed incredibly incomplete and on the verge of disintegrating to Shiroe.
The biggest example was the food. Roasted fish, which was made by selecting the ingredients salt and fish, didn’t taste like either salt or fish. Instead, it turned into something that looked exactly like roasted fish but tasted like soggy rice crackers. That said, when they put salt on the roasted fish and ate it, it did taste salty. Sprinkling salt on afterward made it salty, but cooking with salt as an ingredient negated any saltiness.
Just as an experiment, they tried cooking raw fish over a fire and other heat sources, the way it would have been done in the real world. Nothing they tried produced anything they recognized as roa
sted fish. The end result was always an unidentifiable charred lump.
The same was true of sleeping and going to the bathroom: Neither should be necessary in a game. However, in this real version of Elder Tales, Shiroe and Naotsugu did get sleepy, and bathrooms were definitely necessary.
No matter how you looked at it, this world was strange.
Of course, since it actually was a world, there had to be rules behind it somewhere. What they didn’t know was whether the world was operating on the Elder Tales rules or whether there were different physical rules at play here, completely understandable but belonging to a world that wasn’t their own. It almost looked as though both ideas were true: two sets of rules mixing in an uncanny way, making the world even more of a chaotic puzzle.
They’d discovered many other things over those four days.
On the second day after the fiasco, Shiroe and Naotsugu screwed up their courage and headed out to one of the field zones. They chose the Forest of Library Towers, a neighboring zone that could be reached by gate from Akiba.
Since the Forest of Library Towers was so close to the starting point, it was a fairly easy zone. Many of the zones around the five major cities were tailored to beginners. In Elder Tales, everyone knew that high-level monsters lived deep in the mountains, far from the cities. This was a typical field zone of ruins, haunted by monsters who were somewhere in the level-20 bracket. It was filled with abandoned buildings covered in green vines and parasitic plants, similar to the ones in Akiba.
As its name implied, the Forest of Library Towers was a zone littered with old bookstores, libraries, and laboratories and was connected to several dungeon zones. Although enemies here were weak, they occasionally dropped Esoteric Scrolls as treasures, and the zone was a notoriously profitable hunting ground for newbie Adventurers.
Shiroe and Naotsugu were level-players with plenty of experience points and a good array of equipment, and they’d be tackling weak monsters, none of which would be more than level 25. There was such a huge level difference that they wouldn’t get any experience points no matter how many monsters they defeated, but they’d chosen this beginner zone anyway, partly out of caution. In it, they came up against a reality that was harsher than anything they’d imagined.
