Game’s End Part 2

by Mamare Touno

  In Naotsugu’s case, this was true of the magic sword he used, Chaos Shrieker. This weapon rewrote the range of Taunting Shout—a special skill that had the effect of enraging monsters—from ten meters to fifteen. That changed even the usability of the skill.

  Midlevel Adventurers didn’t have the support of these powerful, high-level magic items, and so it was only natural that their battles would look different from those of the high-level Adventurers who owned them. In addition, because of the Item Lock system, they couldn’t lend them their powerful items.

  Anxious, Naotsugu started to get up, but Nyanta checked him from behind.

  “Right now, our job is to rest.”

  Unusually, Nyanta’s tone brooked no argument.

  Naotsugu, Nyanta, Shouryuu and Lezarik had all exhausted their MP. Unless they were being influenced by some sort of special effect, MP recovery during battle was practically nonexistent. Even if they went back into the fray now, since they had no MP, the front line would break down in a heartbeat.

  When they fought goblins in the mountains, they’d been able to lie low in the darkness and rest at regular intervals. In this battle, they weren’t able to set the pace themselves, and responding to the sahuagins’ charges had them in heavy rotation.

  Of course, even so, Naotsugu’s group was able to hold the front line for much longer stretches than the newbie Adventurers. Even then, though, there were limits. Even the MP of level-90 tough guys like Naotsugu and the others wouldn’t last through a battle that took over an hour.

  Not only that, but this time Naotsugu’s party had four members, not six. Each of them had to work one and a half times as much as they normally did to make combination plays happen.

  “Naotsugu. Here.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  He drank the potion Lezarik had handed to him. The blue elixir was medicine that recovered MP, but its effect was very slight. Elder Tales had lots of ways to recover HP, but far fewer methods of recovering MP, and the amounts recovered were small. This potion certainly wasn’t a cheap item, but its effects were still limited.

  Even as Naotsugu fretted, he watched Touya fighting in front of him.

  The boy kicked up white sand, swinging his blade to draw the sahuagins’ hostility, charging again and again.

  Touya had certainly gotten stronger.

  His techniques and his fighting methods were still rough, and you couldn’t say he had gotten skillful, but he was stronger. And actually, subtle “skillfulness” wouldn’t be necessary for a while.

  One of a warrior’s essential attributes was spirit. This was the same spirit as the one that showed up in the phrases “full of spirit” and “in high spirits.” It meant being prepared, and having a proactive attitude when trying to make something happen.

  Touya’s fight had spirit. This was an irreplaceable attribute for a warrior who supported the front line. In order to protect comrades, Naotsugu thought that sometimes you needed the sort of savage courage that was involved in smashing a glass door with your bare hands. The sort that wasn’t afraid of shedding its own blood.

  Touya’s gonna keep right on growing…

  When he shifted his gaze, his eyes found the girl called Isuzu and the Sorcerer named Rundelhaus. Isuzu had been a Bard, if he remembered right.

  Unlike Touya, she was skilled. The positions she took, the attacks she paid out: They all showed an exquisite sense of distance and rhythm. An amateur wouldn’t have been able to see her skill. Even a player who was well versed in battles might have seen her as an unremarkable Adventurer and overlooked her. However, her unerring support raised each element of her friends’ combat—offense, defense, movement, and recovery—to the next dimension.

  The combinations she executed with the Sorcerer were particularly noteworthy. The prescient timing and positioning of her support made it seem as if she knew exactly what the young man wanted. The Sorcerer’s defensive power was low, and she watched the battle from his perspective as she moved, keeping him from being exposed directly to enemy attacks, but giving him room to target all the sahuagins with one attack.

  The young Sorcerer who was on the receiving end of this support was practically energy incarnate. Sorcerers had high attack power in the first place. If compared at the same level, they shared the distinction of being strongest of the twelve classes with Assassins.

  However, the young man’s attacks held a desperate determination, more as if he was packing all the thoughts and emotions he had into each and every spell than as if he was relying on his class’s performance. As if possessed by his tenacity, lava shells leapt and bounded, and spears of ice pierced the sahuagins.

  The girl named Serara, the one who’d gotten attached to Nyanta…

  She’d also begun to change. He’d noticed her chanting speed and resolution the first time he’d seen her in Susukino, but now her movements were even lighter. Unlike before, when her thoughts hadn’t gone beyond recovery, she summoned nature spirits and sent them running every which way, and she didn’t forget to use attack assistance spells to support the party.

  She’d probably turn into a good healer.

  And Minori.

  It was likely that Minori had a completely different perspective from the rest of the group on the fight with the sahuagins. Just sensing the premonition that was visible inside Minori gave Naotsugu goose bumps.

  At Minori’s orders, the party changed formations, reconstructing combinations as a team.

  “Rudy, cut down your output.”

  “Understood, Mademoiselle Minori.”

  “Serara. Recovery switch. Go join the attack, please.”

  “Icicle Ripper into the far left! Firing!”

  Naotsugu knew what she was doing.

  He knew because he’d spent a long time teaming up with Shiroe.

  She was probably trying to keep track of the MP consumption of everyone in her party. Naturally, in order to do that, she had to have a solid grasp of all her companions’ special skills, not just her own, and that grasp had to include not only the MP they consumed, but their performances and the situations in which they were used.

  In addition, she had to keep track of the teamwork between her companions and the positional relationships between them and the enemy, the encounter sequence, and the order in which they were destroyed.

  In other words, she was turning the “sentences” of destroying enemies into the “text” known as battle. Then, as she restructured the battle “text” into the “story” of tactics, she “read” it. That was exactly what it was.

  Of course, battles were a series of unexpected events that unfolded in real time. In this situation, “reading” didn’t mean immobilizing the battle as if it were a static text; it meant acknowledging all possible futures and reading it as a highly improvised story.

  Although she was still awkward, Minori was trying to imitate Shiroe’s full control encounters. That little girl was chasing after Shiroe’s back.

  One percent increments, and thirty seconds in advance, I think.

  That was what Shiroe had said about the matter once.

  He’d probably meant fighting thirty seconds ahead. The “1 percent increments” had been his grasp of his companions’ remaining MP.

  Of course, understanding the surrounding environment was fundamental to high-level battles as well. Even Naotsugu understood that. When he was fighting on the front line, even without checking his party status screen, he had a vague grasp of his friends’ remaining MP. At most, though, there were only about six levels: “full tank,” “still plenty left,” “about half,” “getting dicey,” “low,” and “flat broke.” It was likely that most middle-class Adventurers only based their decisions on two levels or so: “still good for a while” and “better rest soon.” It was just that hard to grasp the MP of a friend who belonged to a different class, even if you could keep a handle on your own MP.

  Elder Tales had been a game, and because that was so, in extreme terms, only certain things c
ould happen in it. If you got sufficiently used to it, you could even predict how monsters would move.

  Shiroe’s full control encounters didn’t stop at grasping the party’s remaining MP. It meant having an understanding of all their remaining resources as a matter of course, as well as the enemies’ remaining resources, and standing up above it all and making everything unfold according to your plan.

  Now that Elder Tales had become a different world, the chance battle occurrence rate was far higher than it had been when it was a game. Even Shiroe couldn’t possibly have the power to see thirty seconds ahead at this point. However, on the other hand, he had the hope that if it was Shiroe, he just might. The “one percent increments, thirty seconds in advance” line hadn’t been due to talent or a bluff. Shiroe had murmured those words after lots and lots of hard training.

  Naotsugu knew about controlled encounters only because he’d heard things like that during his long friendship with Shiroe. Even though he knew Shiroe had acquired the ability through hard work, to Naotsugu, who was on the front line concentrating on the enemy in front of him, that “sense” seemed almost like a superpower. Even if he could read the “sentences” of defeating the enemies he was facing, he couldn’t link them together into “text.”

  But Minori, right in front of him, was chasing Shiroe’s back.

  I wonder how many seconds ahead Minori’s seeing… What increments does she have her group pegged at? Twenty percent? Or can she already read them at ten percent, at her level?

  Just as Naotsugu stood, thinking that they needed to get back to the battlefield and let the newbies take turns resting, a sharp explosion echoed from Choushi’s distant northern square. It was a special Druid attack spell, Shrieker Echo.

  Naotsugu’s reaction was delayed by a beat.

  He didn’t know why he’d heard a scream like that from the fields, far away from the Great Zantleaf River.

  Behind the front line, the five members of Minori’s party bore down on Naotsugu like the wind.

  “We’re on it, Master!”

  “Thanks for your help here!”

  “Ha-ha-ha! Just leave this to us! Sally forth!”

  “U-um! You do your best, too, Nyanta!”

  The five of them had beat a retreat from the coastline when he wasn’t looking, and they dashed off to the north, as if leaving the rest to Naotsugu’s group.

  As they ran off in the summer sunlight, their backs seemed like migrating birds, making straight for the sky.

  As Shouryuu and Lezarik responded, knowing they needed to fill the hole Minori and the others had left behind, Minori turned back to face them and the perplexed Naotsugu. The young girl was soaked with sweat, but a strong will shone in her eyes.

  “It’s a spirit reaction; I had Serara set it up to use as an alarm. The goblins have probably invaded from the mountains again. If it’s only goblins, we can handle them. Since we’ve got a Bard and continuous combat abilities, we’re better suited to this battle… And so, please take care of the coast, Naotsugu!”

  “Minori!” Naotsugu called to her.

  Minori waved a hand vigorously.

  Then she and the others ran off, disappearing into the village of Choushi.

  6

  Rundelhaus was running at the head of the group.

  He’d been focusing ferociously ever since that morning, and it seemed to him as though the force of his spells had increased slightly.

  They’d had a high-level player take a look at the item they’d acquired in the deepest part of Forest Ragranda. Apparently it was a magic item called Magician’s Gauntlets. Since it was the sort of item that level-25 characters could equip, in terms of the entire server, it was probably a very commonplace article. Still, it was the first magic item Isuzu and the other four had managed to win on their own.

  It was a pair of slightly scratched gauntlets that gleamed dull silver and had magic circles engraved on them. Isuzu and the others had gazed at them as if they were looking at treasure. Since there was only one of the item, they couldn’t all equip it at once. That said, the idea of selling the magic item they’d found after all that trouble and splitting the proceeds made them terribly sad.

  As a result, they’d discussed it among themselves and decided to have Rundelhaus use this piece of battle gear. The item seemed to be specifically for the Magic Attack classes, and he was the only magic user in their group.

  Rundelhaus had hesitated just a bit, but he must have been interested, after all. When they pressed him, he put them on, looking pleased.

  As Rundelhaus ran ahead of Isuzu, he had those gauntlets on his hands.

  They were a magic item that increased maximum MP by just a few percentage points of the maximum. The amount was only enough for a single magic attack, but by this point, Isuzu and the others all understood that the accumulation of that small percentage would have a great influence on battles. The red crystals set in the center of the gauntlets shone as if hinting at the flame magic Rundelhaus used, and his determination.

  Isuzu switched her continuous support songs to Nocturne of Meditation and Fawn’s March. The first song increased MP recovery efficiency, and the second was a special support skill that increased the whole party’s movement speed.

  “My thanks, Mademoiselle Isuzu.”

  “You slow down a bit, Rudy,” Isuzu remonstrated, as Rundelhaus expressed his gratitude. It was fine to be energetic, but nothing good could come of having a paper-armored magic user at the head of the line.

  “Mm. Sorry.”

  Rundelhaus slackened his pace as he spoke, and Isuzu handed him a canteen she’d taken out of her pack. She’d had the innkeeper’s daughter fill it with water for her that morning. It had a little orange juice squeezed into it, and even now that it was all warm, it was still a bit refreshing to drink.

  “…Um, are you okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? I, Rundelhaus Code, am doing perfectly, of course. I feel as if I had no enemies in the world at all. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Rundelhaus answered after gulping down the contents of the canteen.

  He really must have been fundamentally well bred: Even though he was doing something rude—rehydrating while walking fast (and laughing loudly on top of that)—it didn’t make him seem vulgar.

  Large eyes that tilted down slightly at the corners and smooth, soft, golden hair. It’s probably because he comes off a bit like a golden retriever, Isuzu thought, laughing a little.

  “You two get along well, don’t you?”

  Serara teased them, giggling, but Isuzu only shrugged her shoulders and answered lightly: “Sure we do!” To Isuzu, Rundelhaus was just a friendly dog.

  A handsome, pedigreed dog kept at the house of the local rich family. A golden retriever with long, abundant hair who showed up at Isuzu’s house all the time, simply because their gardens happened to be next to each other.

  Naturally, because of his pedigree, he was so handsome he practically shone. His features were refined as well, and his behavior was courteous, with nothing coarse about it. However, once you got used to him, you realized he was dumb. The sort of “dumb” that got dead serious about catching the ball and ran around until he was worn out, and wagging his tail so hard the base hurt.

  Was he stupid, or was he a natural-born airhead? The arrogant, excessively self-conscious lines he sometimes came up with were just another result of his dumbness surfacing, but they didn’t annoy her in the least.

  Isuzu and this dumb dog were already friends. They’d become friends the moment he’d licked her outstretched fingers. As a result, she was able to agree easily with Serara’s banter.

  “Done? Nn.”

  …To the point where she could take the canteen back from Rundelhaus, wipe it down, and return it to her bag as if that was completely natural.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Keh-heh-heh! Geez, Rudy, you’re apologizing all over the place.”

  “That isn’t true, is it, Mademoiselle Isuzu?”

  Rundelhaus reto
red as Touya teased him from the head of the line, but Isuzu took no notice of him.

  “You’re a magic user, Rudy, so it’s better if you act a little full of yourself. It makes you look nice and dumb,” she shot back.

  “What are you saying?! What do you mean, ‘dumb’?! Did you actually have the gall to call me dumb?!”

  It was incredibly strange.

  She—a freckled, skinny, country high-school girl sorely lacking in feminine charms—was dealing with Rundelhaus, a princely type who might have stepped out of a picture book, as if he were a neighborhood puppy dog… Or, if that was too mean, a slightly airheaded, rich and pampered middle schooler.

  Viewed objectively, it was outrageous, and something she probably should have felt badly about, but Isuzu couldn’t think of it that way at all. Playing around with Rundelhaus this way was an incredibly carefree, absent-minded pleasure.

  Just as Isuzu was about to open her mouth, intending to tease him one more time, it happened: Somewhere not very far away, a second Shrieker Echo went off.

  Isuzu and the others looked at one another. Then they turned the corner, quickening their pace.

  The shape of the village of Choushi was unique. Having been built along the Great Zantleaf River, it was long and thin, and one broad avenue ran down its center. There were side streets and crossroads as well, but they were all secondary and short.

  This meant that, once they turned the corner of the avenue and headed north, they found themselves in a rural landscape of spreading fields. In this season, eggplants and tomatoes grew thickly on top of low ridges, swaying in the wind, and spring wheat showed its green.

  Running through those fields were three—no, four shadows.

  Immediately, Isuzu chanted Ballad of the Slowpoke Snail. The goblins slowed as if the strength had suddenly gone out of their legs. That slight chance was all Isuzu’s trusty companions needed to launch a preemptive strike.

  “Sorry, Rudy!”

  As Touya yelled, he crouched extremely low, twisting his body drastically. It was a more aggressive stance than the one he used to draw enemies in by taunting.