by Mamare Touno
“Well…”
To be honest, she didn’t feel like it.
It was a pain, and a little bit scary.
This calm young man seemed to be reading not merely her intentions but her mind, and Raynesia felt as if she’d never be able to look him in the eye.
If she hadn’t been a daughter of the nobility, she would have abruptly apologized: I’m terribly sorry. I’ll be more careful from now on. Please forgive me. —She wasn’t sure what she was going to be careful about, but she was beginning to want to say it.
But I haven’t felt that way since the time Grandfather scolded me…
“You just thought, I don’t feel like it, didn’t you?”
“Eek—”
He’d read her again.
Raynesia was suspicious: Was this Adventurer a Brain Eater? How could he be so perceptive? It was enough to make her want to cry. However, Krusty was smiling like a perfect gentleman.
“Don’t worry about it too much.”
“Um, would you care for some tea…?”
“I would, thanks.”
Krusty nodded. As she got out the tea items that had been placed in the summerhouse beforehand, Raynesia considered her plight. If this was how things stood, there was no help for it. Her heart was very heavy, but it wasn’t because she particularly disliked this young knight. She felt this way whenever she had to meet strangers, period. Besides, even if she ran from this young Adventurer, she’d still have to talk to other people when evening came.
Lazing around in the summerhouse was probably better than going to tea parties or being dispatched to what amounted to marriage interviews with other lords’ sons.
This Adventurer seemed to be abnormally quick on the uptake, and since that was the case, she’d be able to get by without being on her best ladylike behavior. If he was already on to her, then there was no need to hide anything, was there?
With that thought, Raynesia made tea for two, then slumped back down onto the marble table again. Once she dropped her polite facade, Raynesia was shameless enough to be able to do things like this without a blush.
Fu-fun… Let’s see what you make of this.
The daughter of a dukedom rested her forehead against the marble, enjoying its cool. There was a gentleman present, but she was ignoring him completely, not even attempting conversation. Could there be any greater luxury? No, there could not. Raynesia was certain of that. Three cheers for solitude. Three cheers for being left alone. They could take having to make eye contact with strangers and feed it to their horses.
However, although one minute passed, then two, Krusty seemed to be doing nothing more than quietly enjoying his tea.
She could hear birdsong.
That twittering… Was it perched in a tree in the courtyard? Or was it bathing by the water?
Still, this man isn’t at all attentive, is he…
If a young lady of noble birth had her head on the table in front of him, any normal knight—or rather, any gentleman—would have said something solicitous to her immediately. If she said she was feeling unwell, it was likely that he’d chivalrously escort her to her rooms and have her ladies-in-waiting sent for. Depending on the situation, he might call a doctor instead, or a specialist in curses.
However, the young man who called himself Krusty showed no sign of doing any such thing.
“At the moment, I’m attracting a great deal of attention at the palace. If you tell them we were having tea together, you’ll have a tailor-made excuse for skipping functions and tea parties. Your parents will commend you for it, too.”
At Krusty’s words, Raynesia’s thoughts froze for a moment.
As their meaning sank in, her cheeks flushed bright red. She was very glad she had her face pressed against the marble table. In the past few years, even her parents hadn’t seen her this flustered.
Between the embarrassment, the desire to run away, and an oddly sweet sense of relief, she thought her knees would go weak.
What Krusty had just said was the very reason she’d stayed to drink tea with him.
“I’m only talking to myself. Pay no attention.”
Raynesia couldn’t even answer. All she could do was keep her pink face against the table.
5
Forest Ragranda.
It was dark inside, but contrary to expectations, it wasn’t cramped.
The ceilings were three to five meters high, and the corridors were easily three meters wide. The walls were made of hard stones, possibly granite, that were fitted closely together.
A faint scent of mold hung in the dry air.
“I’ll call up a light.”
Rundelhaus chanted the Magic Torch spell, summoning an orange-tinted light.
“Is it okay to have light? Won’t it make us a target?”
Isuzu sounded worried, but Rundelhaus countered her easily: “It won’t matter.”
“If most of the monsters here are undead, they’ll identify us with magic and by the frequencies of our souls, even in the darkness. They’re the only ones who’ll have an advantage in the dark, so it’s actually better to have light.”
With that comment, Serara also summoned a light using her Bug Light spell.
Having multiple light sources was a standard tactic. If they had only one magic light ready, and that magic user got taken out by a surprise attack, the spell’s effect would abruptly break off, plunging them into darkness.
“Rrgh! Mine’s brighter!”
However, Rundelhaus didn’t seem to know that particular tactic. He hastily summoned another magic light, competing with her. Smiling a little wryly, Serara explained the tactic to him.
Rundelhaus had been indignant at first, but once he’d heard the explanation, he seemed quite satisfied. “Oh, well then. It wasn’t that my light was weak. Of course not: I’m excellent. Ha-ha-ha-ha!” he laughed.
It made Minori think he might be surprisingly prone to getting carried away.
After following the corridor around several corners, they reached a room.
Cautiously, the group peeked into the room through the arch, searching for any sort of presence, but when nothing happened, they went in timidly.
“This is…”
Possibly because there was a gap somewhere, the stone-flagged floor was covered in fine sand. There were signs that a midsized group had walked around on the sand, and bones were scattered across it.
“It looks as if the earlier group fought Skeletons here.”
Minori was examining the traces on the floor as she spoke. The scene seemed to rise up behind her eyelids.
The many scattered footprints, the marks as though something had been dragged, and the white bones showed Minori what the battle had been like. The fighting probably hadn’t lasted more than a minute. It must have been a cinch. In most dungeons, the monsters near the entrance had comparatively low levels and were easily dealt with.
“I see. Well, that means we probably won’t run into any enemies until that T junction, anyway.”
With that, Touya started walking, taking the lead.
It was just like her little brother to sniff the air from time to time, wrinkling his nose, searching for smells.
Speaking less and less as they moved on, the party reached the first T junction. As they’d expected, the footprints that had gone ahead of them turned left.
“……”
Rundelhaus clicked his tongue in vexation. Touya nodded in agreement, staring down the left-hand corridor. Minori thought hard; she didn’t get it herself, but the two of them seemed to share some understanding.
“We’re going this way today. Let’s go.”
“Yes, but don’t imagine I’ll be turning right forever,” Rundelhaus said, responding to Touya.
At Touya’s voice, the party turned right. This probably marked the beginning of the real training. They’d entered territory where they would have to be wary.
“I’m…pretty nervous.”
“Me, too.”
&nbs
p; Minori spoke quietly with Serara, who walked beside her.
In a place this quiet, there wasn’t much point in keeping their voices down. Even if they were quiet, if something was around to hear them, they’d be heard.
However, maybe because of the darkness and the oppressive feeling in the dungeon, the atmosphere seemed to swallow them up, and even though they knew it wasn’t necessary, their voices grew quieter and quieter, until they were whispering.
“—!”
It was Touya, walking in the lead, who noticed them first. He’d seen four Skeletons who seemed to be sentries walking toward them down the corridor.
On reflex, Touya drew his sword and prepared to leap at them.
“Touya!”
In the same moment, Minori yelled at him, urging him to restrain himself.
Leaping at them now was what the old Touya would have done.
Touya probably knew that as well. His two months of training with Log Horizon had improved him, too. Pointing his katana at his opponents’ faces, he swung it once with a low yell.
A flash of light.
The deep crimson shock wave released from the sword’s tip crashed into the Skeletons.
The shock wave didn’t appear to have caused much damage to the Skeletons, but even so, as the writhing bones shed fine fragments, they seemed to have noticed him. They approached rapidly.
The technique was Izuna Cutter.
As a rule, Warriors weren’t good at long-range attacks. This was because their job was to draw enemy attacks on the front line. However, since there were some situations which couldn’t be handled that way, they did have a few long-range techniques.
Izuna Cutter, used by Samurai, was one such long-range offensive technique. Of course the damage was practically nothing compared to attacks from the true long-range attack classes—Assassin’s bows or magic users’ spells. However, the fact that they could attract enemies’ attention without charging into their midst was convenient to Warriors in a way that had nothing to do with force.
That effect seemed to have worked well enough. Illuminated by the magic lights, the Skeletons charged down the corridor toward Touya, their movements eerily smooth.
Three of the Skeletons held axes, while one held a bow. It had looked as if all four were charging as a group, but the Skeleton Archer stopped at a point about five meters away.
Touya took a wide stance in the center of the passage, exposing himself to the three Skeletons’ attacks. The ax-wielding Skeletons surrounded Touya in a C shape, then began paying out attacks one after another. It was the mechanical, emotionless action peculiar to the undead.
“Here I come!! Take that!!”
Touya attacked as if he meant to mow down all the Skeletons. It was Whirlwind Cutter—one of the Samurai specialties: a big technique with a long recast time.
In an instant, the Skeletons collapsed, falling on their rears.
However, they hadn’t gone down without a fight. As a parting gift, each seemed to have hit Touya with a well-aimed attack. In that one instant, Touya had lost about twenty percent of his HP.
“Purification Barrier!” “Pulse Recovery!”
Serara’s and Minori’s unique recovery spells flew through the air almost simultaneously.
A single-player, shock-resistant barrier that looked like a pale blue mirror formed around Touya. Minori’s Damage Interception spell was a barrier that intercepted damage equal to 15 percent of Touya’s maximum HP. In other words, even if he took those three attacks again, he’d get by without losing more than 5 percent of his HP.
Serara’s Pulse Recovery spell was continuously recovering Touya’s HP like a strong heartbeat. For fifteen seconds, it applied a continual recovery spell to the target, meting out HP nearly every second. It would take about ten seconds to recover 20 percent of his HP.
It was safe to say that these two spells guaranteed Touya’s defense.
“And now it’s my turn! Eat this!!”
The thing Rundelhaus’s fingertips had generated was about the size of his fist…but it was still a ball of liquid lava, boiling hot.
“Orb of Lava!!”
Once unleashed, the ball of lava didn’t simply travel straight ahead.
It punched through one Skeleton from the front, then made a right-angle turn, piercing the Skeletons one after another. The extreme heat carbonized the undying monsters, and the bones crumbled or blazed up in an instant.
Rundelhaus’s class, Sorcerer, was one of the magic-user classes, and in a sense, it was their perfected form.
It was distinguished by ferocious attack power; just as Assassins aspired to extreme damage with weapons, the goal of the Sorcerer class was extreme damage with magic.
Unlike Summoners, they didn’t use their own magic to summon and use beings from other worlds. They also weren’t good at amplifying other players’ power the way Enchanters did. The magic Sorcerers used was something more primitive and powerful—they converted their own magic directly into destructive force. In many cases, this destructive energy took the form of flames, ice, or lightning, and by blasting these straight at a target, they annihilated the opposition instantaneously.
Along with Assassin, the class boasted the highest attack power of all twelve classes. Many people felt that being able to choose an attack attribute put it one step ahead of Assassin, where you simply struck with weapons.
“Huh? What? …Whoa~!!”
Rundelhaus cried out in surprise.
The ball of lava had run through the enemy, and as if to follow it, a ball of rainbow light flew from the tip of his staff and inflicted additional damage.
“Yesss! It worked!”
Isuzu beamed.
Bards had many special skills geared toward support. From the other classes’ perspective, Bards’ distinguishing feature was their overwhelming number of special skill variations. In terms of diverse support for allies, even Enchanters were a step or two behind Bards.
The Continuous Support song Isuzu had chosen for that day’s adventure was Circular Carol. Its activation key was “Ally’s magic attack hits home,” and it granted the ability to perform an additional attack of the same kind automatically.
“This is fantastic! This was you…? Miss Isuzu, the, erm, Bard? My spell’s artistic destructive power has been raised to destructive force of mythic proportions! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! Grazie! Nice play!”
The support seemed to have boosted Rundelhaus’s mood considerably. He sent a thumbs-up in Isuzu’s direction and gave a wink so huge it had its own sound effect.
Rundelhaus was blond and handsome in a Western European sort of way, and when he did these things enthusiastically, he seemed like a Hollywood actor. It looked so right it was actually a bit of a problem.
He spoke quite arrogantly, possibly because he’d grown up as a pampered rich kid, but there was absolutely no malice in his words, and deep down, he didn’t seem to be a bad guy.
Besides, what incredible force…
That ability to annihilate marked him unmistakably as a Sorcerer. Touya had initially pared down their HP with a range attack, and he’d had support from a Bard, but even then, he’d managed to wipe out three Skeletons in a single attack.
In Elder Tales, it was very rare for battles to end this easily.
For example, if Touya fought a monster at his level one-on-one, he’d need to attack ten or more times in order to finish it off. The recovery classes were weak when it came to attacking, and Minori would have needed to attack more than twenty times.
Although these had been rather weak opponents to Rundelhaus, annihilating them at a stroke meant his attack power was truly outrageous.
…But.
“Wait, th-there’s still—!”
“What’s wrong, Miss Minori? You haven’t fallen in love at the sight of my beautiful spell, have you?”
As Rundelhaus turned, putting on airs, one of the Skeleton Archer’s arrows struck the back of his head with a thwok!
“Ah.” “Ah.�
� “Oh, my.” “Crap.”
“Wh-what’s going on?!”
Quickly, Rundelhaus turned around again.
His attack had hit all four Skeletons, but Touya’s initial attack hadn’t reached the Archer. Thanks to the difference in the amount of damage, the Skeleton had survived.
“Grr, you blackguard!!”
“I-I’ll recover you!”
Minori chanted Small Recovery as an emergency measure.
Probably not wanting to give the enemy time to attack, Touya launched himself at their foe.
However, this was a mistake. Having come farther out front, Touya was spotted by another group of Skeletons at the corner of the passage and ended up attracting enemy reinforcements.
When it came to annihilating the enemy, the Sorcerer’s high attack power was a formidable weapon. However, it wasn’t invincible.
Those towering offensive abilities stirred up monsters’ hate. The greater the threat a player was, the more likely monsters were to see that person as a priority target that had to be destroyed. On top of that, as was the fate of all magic-user classes, Sorcerers had only paper-thin armor and meager defensive abilities.
An additional five Skeletons had appeared from around the corner. Between those five and the Skeleton Archer they hadn’t been able to destroy, there were six.
Not only that, but since Touya had stretched the front, their formation was pulled into an unstable line.
This is turning into a melee! —No, stop it; times like this are when you need to stay calm. First cast an Overall Damage Interception as insurance…
But her thoughts were already far from calm.
Powerful special skills like Overall Damage Interception took a long time to chant. While this was going on, apparently unable to wait, Rundelhaus had unleashed an attack spell and pulled the enemy’s attention away from Touya. Getting past Touya, who’d been building the front line, the Skeletons managed to break into Minori and the rest of the party’s defensive formation.
The Skeleton Archer mounted long-range attacks, sending its arrows at Rundelhaus over and over, and the fragile Sorcerer’s HP plummeted toward the red zone.
