Game’s End Part 1

by Mamare Touno

  Copyright

  Log Horizon, Volume 3

  Mamare Touno

  Illustration by Kazuhiro Hara

  Translation by Taylor Engel

  Cover art by Kazuhiro Hara

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  LOG HORIZON, VOLUME 3

  Game’s End, Part I

  ©Touno Mamare 2011

  First published in Japan in 2011 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2015 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Yen On eBook Edition: February 2020

  Originally published in paperback in November 2015 by Yen On.

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  ISBN: 978-1-9753-0986-2

  E3-20200204-JV-NF-ORI

  PROLOGUE

  Straining to hear the cry of a distant copper pheasant, the huntsman came to a stop.

  Listening carefully to the sounds of the mountain, his ears were filled with the noise of approaching footsteps behind him.

  It was nothing to worry about. The footsteps belonged to the huntsman’s apprentice.

  “…T-too fast… Haa, haa… You’re too fast, master.”

  “Catch your breath.”

  His apprentice pleaded with him. His slight frame, not yet fully out of boyhood, was trembling.

  He was fourteen. It hadn’t been much more than a year since he’d begun training in earnest.

  Compared to the huntsman—who’d devoted thirty years to trekking through the mountains—he was still wet behind the ears.

  It wasn’t that their physical strength was all that different. In fact, in terms of sheer strength, the boy might beat him. After all, the kid’s beard still hadn’t grown in yet, while he himself was going on fifty and his hair was graying.

  Put simply, there was a knack to trekking through the mountains.

  Ways of carrying your weight, ways of judging the stability of footholds, breadth of stride, posture: All were crucial. Without them, you’d end up wasting your strength.

  Unlike the village, the mountains were a harsh world. Fundamentally, it wasn’t a world that would tolerate humans. In the village, human laws were accepted, but in this green place, a human was just another animal. They were forced to fight on equal terms, the same as other living creatures.

  Death was all that waited for those who spent their strength unwisely in this world. Deep in the mountains, simply surviving was a considerable ordeal.

  …Or it was for the People of the Earth, at any rate.

  For Adventurers, with their nearly inexhaustible strength, this wasn’t the case. The huntsman had seen an Adventurer who looked younger than his apprentice running through the mountains, practically humming to himself as he went.

  The sight had convinced him, to the depths of his soul, that they were different beings altogether.

  Unlike people who lived in villages, the huntsman lived in the mountains. He was already well into middle age, but in the village to which he belonged, he was considered a skilled man.

  His thick arms and legs, which seemed to have been polished red, and the solid line of his jaw gave him the unmistakable air of an expert. As a matter of fact, no one had ever gotten the better of him, even in drunken brawls.

  The boy who panted and wheezed beside him, gasping for breath, had chosen to become a huntsman out of admiration for him. Once in the mountains, the huntsman used his skills with a bow to bag deer and boar, bringing precious meat back to the settlement, and he was a key figure in his small, impoverished village.

  However, for that very reason, he knew his limits.

  No matter what he did, he couldn’t compete with an Adventurer. They might as well have been wind and thunder. Although he’d never met one personally, to him Adventurers were like dragons or other mighty monsters simply condensed into human form.

  “Let’s go.”

  With that brusque declaration, the huntsman set off.

  Behind him came a pitiful wail, but he paid it no attention. He’d been put through grueling training like this by his own master, and in the process, he’d stolen the tricks of mountain trekking. If the boy broke this easily, he wouldn’t learn a thing. Besides, the pack the boy carried wasn’t even half the size of his own.

  He detoured around a thicket, making for the ridge.

  There was a regular rhythm to his pace, and he seemed nonchalant, but the huntsman was keeping a watchful eye on the undergrowth. The route they were traveling wasn’t one of the trails that deer and boar used regularly. However, a man who let his guard down simply because that was the case would never last as a huntsman.

  It was summer. The deep mountains were coming to life, and he knew bears would be out and about. He wanted to avoid a sudden encounter with one.

  “M-master, where are we going?”

  “The east ridge.”

  The mountain range they were hiking along was a vast region commonly known in Yamato as the Mountains of Ouu. Of course, the huntsman and his apprentice were from a nameless village up in the mountains; everything that surrounded them was “mountain,” and they weren’t particularly conscious of how far Ouu proper extended from where they were. To them, the mountains were just mountains.

  The stream with monkeys. The great, craggy peak. Lone Cedar Ridge. If prominent landforms were referred to such that each party recognized them, that was enough.

  The huntsman had planned to climb to Kite Rock Ridge by afternoon, then circle around toward its stream.

  However, from the look of the boy, that might be overdoing it a little. Either way, once they were up in the mountains, he’d planned to stay for a week or so, and he’d prepared accordingly.

  If today isn’t going to be good for much, I might as well train him a bit.

  Once he’d decided that all they had to do was reach the ridge, they had more leeway.

  Although it was nothing compared to the man’s tightly strung hunting bow, the boy did have his own short one. It wouldn’t hurt to put him through the mill for a while on the ridge. It sounded as if he’d been practicing his shot in the village, but no matter how good an archer he was there, it was pointless if he couldn’t shoot in the mountains.

  Shooting at a straw post on level ground was just a game.

  If he couldn’t shoot up toward a ridge or down into a valley, bagging prey that had hidden itself in the shadows of thick grass or poked its face out of a thicket, his skills would be useless.

  The sound of the huntsman’s short exhalations; the sound of the b
oy’s ragged breathing.

  The occasional sound of a machete slashing through the undergrowth went on for a while.

  In the mountains, they couldn’t make straight for their destination. As long as they were limited by the abilities of human feet, they had to find and follow a walkable route if they wanted to go anywhere. Although they were climbing the ridge, sometimes their path meandered away from it, and in some places they had to go downhill.

  Not only would an amateur have gotten sick of the repeated changes in direction, they probably would have lost their sense of direction. After all, the forest that surrounded them was dense, and its wild growth—undisturbed by human hands—nearly blotted out the sky.

  However, with a certainty that came from long experience, the huntsman made his way steadily toward the ridge.

  Struck by a sudden sense of wrongness, the huntsman lifted his eyes from the ground. The feeling was like an aura. In specific terms, it was probably trivial information—the smell of the wind, the soundless sounds of the songbirds and insects that filled the forest—and none of it was at a level where it could be put into words.

  However, the middle-aged hunter did feel that something was different from the way it usually was, and he stopped.

  “What’s wrong, master?”

  “Shh…”

  Checking the boy with a hand, the huntsman began to make for the ridge. Up until now, he’d moved at a rather leisurely pace, but now his body rocked from side to side he moved so fast. He forced his way up, practically tunneling through the bases of thickets, and when he reached his destination, he could see all the way to the next two ridges.

  The land was like a crumpled, gathered tablecloth. Even from high places it wasn’t possible to see all that far, but from this vantage point, he had a good angle.

  He could see the winding, rushing stream, and the direction of the forbidden land that lay at its upper reaches.

  The swift mountain stream, the one the huntsman’s people called “the monkey stream,” stretched far beyond the limits of his vision. Compared to the other streams that ran through these valleys, it was broad, and with the dry, rocky riverbed at its edges, it formed a long rift in the greenery.

  “That’s…”

  The boy’s words trailed off.

  He had no words to describe it.

  That was only natural. The man was more than three times older than the boy, with thirty times more hunting experience, and even he had never seen anything like this before.

  The stream was blotted out.

  Blotted out by something dark, and rough, and crawling.

  Living creatures.

  The distance was too great and their numbers were too vast for him to really tell, but their movements were definitely those of living things. A huge horde of something alive—most likely some sort of demihuman—was making its way downstream. No, with numbers like that, they probably weren’t just advancing along the stream. The trees hid it from view, but a group of such size that it provoked vague dread was advancing through the forest that spread below, rustling the trees as it passed.

  The huntsman stared and stared at the scene, as if he’d lost his soul.

  It was an overwhelming interruption. A premonition of the end.

  No matter what sort of creatures they were, the huntsman was certain he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about them.

  That probably would have been true even if he’d been an Adventurer.

  The horde stretched as far as he could see, deep into the mountains— Toward Seven Falls, which the huntsman’s people called “the forbidden mountain.” Their numbers were so enormous that, for a long time, the huntsman and the boy could do nothing but stare at the sight.

  1

  It was said that in the Age of Myth, many enormous cities had prospered in this region, covering the land’s black skin. Perhaps that repression had spawned this backlash.

  Although it was modeled after Japan, the plants in this world were lush and bursting with life. The undergrowth that covered the forest road seemed to spray up from the earth, and dense trees arched overhead, turning the road into a tunnel.

  But black soil wasn’t the only thing visible through the gaps in the undergrowth at their feet.

  The asphalt that showed in places marked this forest road as something created in the Age of Myth.

  Sunlight filtered down through the leaves, twigs became inky black shadows, and the tunnel stretched on and on.

  For that very reason, the instant the greenery came to an end, the sight that leapt out at them was magnificent.

  “Woooow…”

  Minori gave an involuntary cheer.

  The thirty or so companions that surrounded her seemed to feel just as she did.

  “Yahaaah! Whoa! Dude-dude-dude!!”

  Her little brother, Touya, promptly took the lead, spurring his horse from a walk to a trot and heading down the hill.

  A strong wind that carried the smell of the sea raced up that same slope to blow over Minori and the others. The deep green road through the hills led from the pass they’d just crossed to the coast.

  What was the name of the wide river that cut across the view?

  On a hill that overlooked the seashore beyond, there stood a line of windmills several dozen meters tall. They couldn’t tell whether the structures were ruined hulks or still in operation.

  The coast was a brilliant white line.

  They were still about ten kilometers away; from where they stood, it only sparkled and shone, and they couldn’t make out any details.

  “’Kay, folks! Save the celebratin’ for when we’re there. If we don’t get there quick and find the campsite, no one’s gettin’ dinner!”

  “You heard the lady. Skipping meals in the middle of a trip is brutal, guys~!” Naotsugu broke in, attaching his own joke to Marielle’s words.

  The newbies had dismounted on the forest road, but with a cheerful shout, they remounted their horses, formed two lines, and began to descend the hill.

  The Zantleaf region.

  In the real world, it was an area that consisted of the Bousou Peninsula and its surroundings.

  In the world condensed by the Half-Gaia Project, it was a bit under fifty kilometers from Akiba as the crow flies. In this ruined world, where monsters lurked, the journey had taken three days.

  “Are mew all right, Minoricchi?”

  “Y-yes sir.”

  The slim, lanky figure that blocked the dappled light was Nyanta, a fellow member of Minori’s guild, Log Horizon. His gaze was kind, his eyes narrowed in a smile, and Minori hastily answered in the affirmative.

  When she looked, the Guardian Naotsugu, up near the head of the line, had also turned back to look her way. Minori gave a little wave to reassure him. It was soothing to be surrounded by friends from the same guild.

  Although it had also been a guild, Minori realized once again that Hamelin had been nothing like this.

  This party wasn’t composed entirely of Log Horizon members, however. It was a large mixed group, made up of volunteers from many groups. There were about sixty members in all.

  Akiba’s foremost megaguilds, such as the Marine Organization, the Knights of the Black Sword, and the West Wind Brigade, had sent delegates as well.

  There were around thirty-five people in this group—the main group—but she’d heard that a team of outriders had gone on ahead and had already arrived. The groups ultimately planned to join up at their destination.

  Minori’s group was on a camping trip which had, apparently, started with Marielle.

  Minori hadn’t been there herself, but according to Isuzu, a close friend of hers who was a bit older, it had happened this way:

  I wanna go to the beach. I wanna eat shaved ice and curry rice and ramen at the beach. I’m tellin’ you, I want ’em! I want ’em bad!! Can I? C’mon, please? I can, can’t I? I wanna to go the beach! Let’s go!!

  …That proposal had come from Marielle, guild master of the Crescent Moon
League.

  I can sort of see it…

  Minori was a member of Log Horizon, but for a short time before she’d joined, she’d stayed at the Crescent Moon League’s guild house. It had been a confused few days, just after she’d been released from the corrupt guild Hamelin, which no longer existed.

  Everyone at the Crescent Moon League had been kind to Minori during her time there, and she’d been in the care of Marielle, Henrietta, and Shouryuu. Marielle making a spoiled suggestion like that, and Henrietta looking troubled: That had been an everyday sight at that guild. Minori found it easy to imagine.

  I bet she threw a temper tantrum on the sofa.

  The thought brought a visual of Marielle hugging a big cushion and kicking her legs to mind, and it made her smile.

  She couldn’t blame her for feeling like that.

  Even now, Minori knew that many players were doing everything they could to get back to their old world, but their efforts weren’t likely to be rewarded overnight. She hadn’t even heard rumors about the discovery of a clue to a solution.

  In this world, it didn’t take much money just to survive, and if there were no clues as to what sort of efforts would get them home, it wasn’t hard to imagine that boredom would follow.

  As a result, if someone had decided they wanted to take a summer vacation, there was nothing to stop them… Or there shouldn’t have been.

  However, Marielle and the Crescent Moon League were currently in a special position. That June, on Shiroe’s suggestion, the Round Table Council—an organization designed to handle Akiba’s self-government issues—had been established. The Crescent Moon League was one of the eleven guilds on the council, and Marielle, its guild master, was one of the councilors.

  Since its establishment, the Round Table Council had been at the heart of conversations in Akiba, and it had also been in a position to lead the reforms.

  Marielle was one of those select members. Wouldn’t it look bad for her to leave on vacation for two or three days, let alone weeks at a time? After all, it had only been two months since the Round Table Council was created. Every day was a flurry of new information, and it was possible to feel the town of Akiba changing from moment to moment.