Game’s End Part 1

by Mamare Touno

  “Corridor checked! No following patrols in sight. It’s all right. Go ahead, Rundelhaus!”

  “Leave it to me, Miss Minori! Orb of Lava!”

  At Minori’s call, Rundelhaus released his spell. A lump of rock so compressed that it melted and glowed like lava floated at his fingertips.

  Touya used Samurai Taunt again.

  Rundelhaus’s attack capabilities were off the charts. He thought he should whip up the monsters’ hate even further, making sure that he was the only thing on their minds.

  He’d used his special taunting skill several times over, but he needed to be careful. Touya was a Samurai. In his mind’s eye, he saw Naotsugu’s back.

  “It’s a vanguard tank’s job to draw all the enemy’s attacks and believe in his party, Touya. That’s-a-man’s-promise-city, right?!”

  Touya glared at the Skeletons, his gaze strong. Behind the Skeletons, out of their line of sight, Rundelhaus’s chant was changing magic into destructive power.

  An incandescent ball of sizzling, roiling lava appeared in the burial room, accompanied by heat and orange shadows that wavered oddly. Released from Rundelhaus’s hand, the fireball punched through the Skeleton on the far left, bounded as if it had struck something in midair, and pierced the second Skeleton as well.

  The tiny, leaping, white-hot grim reaper pierced or shattered the Skeletons, destroying them one after another. Refusing to give them any leeway, Rundelhaus added Frigid Window, a range attack spell.

  “And now you meet your end. Return to the dark world that befits your lives!”

  The Skeletons, which had been writhing with intense heat just moments before, suddenly lost their strength in the freezing wind and scattered across the floor.

  The sounds of battle were abruptly stilled, and the party’s rough breathing echoed in the silent burial chamber.

  Touya kept his katana at the ready; he hadn’t dropped his guard. Rundelhaus held up his staff, magic still crystallized in it. Working by conditioned reflex, Serara cast recovery spells at Touya, cleaning up.

  From deep inside the room, everyone watched Minori.

  After carefully examining the depths of the corridor, Minori turned back to her companions.

  “No one’s following. The battle is over.”

  At her words, the party’s tension dissolved.

  “Whew. Yes, that’s how it should be.”

  “That went really well, didn’t it!!”

  “Yes, wonderful work, everyone!”

  As they looked at the members’ delighted smiles, Minori and Touya bumped fists, exchanging their twins’ salute.

  3

  Everyone worked hard.

  As Minori thought this, she felt her cheeks soften into a smile.

  On the fifth day of their expedition, Minori’s party had finally managed to explore for seven hours. They’d fought twenty-three battles. Once—and only once—they’d ended up battling two monster platoons at the same time, but she thought they’d managed to handle it far more neatly than yesterday.

  After each battle, they’d taken a short break.

  That break was meant to heal HP and abnormal statuses and to recover their MP to the maximum, but it had a greater significance than that.

  They looked back over the battle they’d just fought, mutually recognizing what had gone well and searching for things that could be improved. During these breathers, they discussed the site and strategy for the next battle and readied their plan into action.

  The very first thing they’d gone over had been formation.

  Touya was a Samurai who supported the front line. That meant their tactics were built on the idea that Touya would draw all enemy attacks to himself. However, even though this was only natural, everyone had to cooperate in order to make it happen.

  How could they make it so that all party members except Touya were able to move freely? If they didn’t act with that in mind, Touya wouldn’t be able to capture enough of the enemy’s attention.

  Next, they thought about the operator. Operator was a role that involved watching and keeping track of everyone’s HP. In the current Elder Tales, it was hard to get the leeway to check everyone’s status screens, particularly for the vanguard classes who were fighting in close combat.

  In this other world, that was fast becoming common knowledge.

  This time around, Minori’s party had two healers.

  Since this gave them plenty of recovery spells, it was an advantage, but at the same time, it was also a weakness.

  Say two healers simultaneously healed the player who’d lost the most HP. Naturally, there was a big recovery in HP, and in many cases, the player was healed even more than necessary. That meant it went to waste.

  If another casualty turned up in the meantime, both Minori’s and Serara’s major recovery spells would be tied up in recast time. Simultaneously casting their important recovery spells created a simultaneous vulnerability. …In other words, the wound opened further.

  Minori and Serara had talked it over and decided that Serara would manage Touya’s HP on her own. If she couldn’t quite cover it, she’d call for help.

  Since her hands were free, Minori volunteered to be the field monitor. This was a player who kept an eye on the surrounding area, even during battle. They chanted recovery and attack spells as a reserve member, but even as they did so, they watched the area and reported on enemy monster reinforcements and patrols.

  By having a member perform this role, Minori’s party managed to trim the possibility of getting into a melee down to the bare minimum. Even if enemy reinforcements they couldn’t avoid turned up, as long as the party managed to spot them first, they could take advance measures such as increasing the amount of recovery or switching support spells.

  Patrol file was a travel method that maintained their formation and the field monitor position even when they were on the move.

  Touya was at the head of the file. Minori guarded the rear.

  Since they were twins, by covering each other’s blind spots they could quickly detect approaching enemies or the scent of battle. Isuzu, who had the best stealth and surveillance abilities in the party, kept both Minori and Touya in view. In addition to keeping an eye on the immediate area, she sometimes went on alone in places where reconnaissance was necessary.

  Moving this way made it possible for Serara to concentrate on managing the party’s HP and for Rundelhaus to focus on recovering his own MP, even when they were traveling. Serara was the mainstay of recovery, and Rundelhaus was at the heart of attacks that would annihilate the enemy. The core of the plan Minori and the others had come up with was letting these two concentrate on their jobs.

  These four items were things Minori had learned from Shiroe: the basics of party movement in dungeons. They weren’t part of the game system. They were Adventurer wisdom and workarounds.

  However, even Minori didn’t know what sort of nuances these basics carried. They were probably techniques that had no meaning if you only understood them in words. Because she hadn’t understood them, she hadn’t been able to suggest them.

  What they had needed to do had been terribly simple.

  They’d needed to speak to each other, to discuss things.

  If they wanted help, all they’d needed to say was, “I want help.”

  When casting a recovery spell, they’d only had to say, “I’ll handle recovery.”

  If the enemy was closing in: “Enemies approaching.”

  “Defeat the ones with projectile weapons first,” or “Leave this one to me,” or “I’ll be out of MP in two more attacks.” Anything would have been fine.

  It had been such a simple thing. That alone let them defeat the enemy, as if all their trouble up until yesterday had been an illusion.

  This wasn’t friendship or playing at being considerate. It was a necessary survival skill.

  A party in which the members couldn’t work together might as well be sealing its members’ abilities. Only when they combined
their abilities did Adventurers like Minori’s group begin to be able to oppose monsters. That was the way this other world worked.

  However, on the other hand, these techniques were a terribly warm and sacred thing, something that went far beyond friendship or superficial consideration. On a battlefield where each instant meant the difference between life and death, in order to genuinely ask for the help you needed or stretch out a helping hand that the other person probably needed right now, in addition to knowledge of the other person’s techniques and the abilities they held, you had to have deep mutual understanding.

  Did they want to fight at the front of the room? Did they want to draw the enemies deep inside the room before they fought? Should they begin the battle with a charge? Should they lure the monsters in instead? Did they have a vision for victory in this battle? What was it? Was it all right to leave something to someone, or not?

  The members of Minori’s party gave each other the answers to all sorts of questions.

  It was also a harsh test in how well they understood each other, and as Minori and the others began to pass this test, for the first time, they went from being “five Adventurers” to “a party.”

  “Ah ha! Minori, your nose is all black.”

  Isuzu laughed.

  When they left the dungeon, the last light of evening was streaming into the forest. It was the peaceful time just before sunset; in another thirty minutes, everything would be dyed madder red. Under that light, Isuzu was pointing at Minori’s nose.

  “Is it dust? Maybe it’s a cobweb…”

  As Minori spoke, Isuzu giggled at her. But even Isuzu had blotches of mingled sweat and dust on her forehead and leather armor.

  Still, when she laughs, her eyes are wonderful. They’re perfectly clear.

  Minori smiled, handing her a little cloth from her pack. “You, too,” she said, laughing. Isuzu hastily wiped at her face, and when she’d finished and looked at the mini-towel, her expression was mortified.

  “Nnugh. Am I pitch-black, too?”

  “Not pitch-black. Should we go to the spring, though?”

  “Probably. Ahh. Want to invite Sera?”

  Isuzu called to Serara, who was walking in front of them.

  “What? You guys are going to the spring, too, Minori?”

  Touya, who was at the head of the line, heard them and looked back. Apparently Touya and Rundelhaus, who walked beside him, had also been discussing visiting the spring.

  “Grr. We’re all sweaty, too, you know.”

  “The fairer sex takes precedence. Tough it out, Touya, my lad,” Rundelhaus admonished Touya.

  Rundelhaus himself was so sooty that not a trace of his usual dandyish self remained. Even his glossy tunic was dull and dingy.

  On today’s expedition, they’d made great progress.

  They’d reached the underground workshop that was thought to be the innermost area of the right-hand route.

  There, coke blazed with magic flames, and in the midst of the rising black smoke, ghosts that harbored grudges were becoming Skeletons and being put to work.

  The one forcing the Skeletons to work had been a Burning Dead. Unlike ordinary Skeletons, the specter had had the blue-black flames of the Underworld blazing from every one of its joints, and it had been a powerful enemy that could even use magic. However, having defeated each of the patrols, Minori’s party had used a lightning suppression operation and smashed through this formidable foe.

  Thanks to that battle, though, the soot that filled the room had clung to them, and they still wore the results.

  “Why not just go together?”

  “I-Isuzu!”

  Isuzu had spoken nonchalantly, but Serara flapped her hands frantically in refusal. Registering this and realizing what it meant, Isuzu grew abruptly flustered as well and amended her statement.

  “When I said ‘go together,’ I didn’t mean ‘go in together’!! I just meant we could wash at the spring in the bushes, and Touya and Rudy could wash their faces or bodies or whatever in the pond!!”

  As Isuzu hastily made excuses, Serara said, “Oh. Oh, yes, you’re right,” and smiled awkwardly.

  “What about it, Minori?”

  “If you two are okay with that, Touya.”

  The twins agreed quite easily, and they got fresh clothes from the tent. The five of them headed toward the spring, chattering noisily as they went.

  They talked about the day’s battle and conquest.

  The Burning Dead had been level 24. It had probably been the toughest enemy on the right-hand route. From what Shiroe had told them, in an atmosphere like the one in that battle, the only enemies they could safely beat were enemies “five or more levels below your party’s average level.” Their current average level was a bit over 24. This meant the only enemies they could fight safely were level 19 or below, and they’d defeated an enemy who was far stronger than that.

  Just knowing this made them all a little excited.

  Defeating an enemy on their level with a party of only five was a considerable achievement. They’d also gotten their first magic items, which had startled them.

  What made them even happier, though, was the fact that the ordinary battles along the way had gone so incredibly well. The importance of drawing the enemy in, or charging them, and fighting from an advantageous position had been beyond imagining.

  More than anything, they’d learned how vital it was to talk to each other.

  We’ve become a party.

  Minori smiled quietly to herself.

  She was happy that the meaning of Shiroe’s words had settled firmly into place in her heart.

  It hadn’t simply been about level.

  Level hadn’t been the key to getting stronger.

  In order to fight in this world, they needed companions.

  In order to make these companions, they had to talk and act, over and over. They were a treasure you couldn’t get with special skills or level, no matter how powerful.

  Her days at Hamelin were melting away.

  At the very least, those days of forcibly boosting her level couldn’t have brought her here. There was something certain here, something that couldn’t be reached by simply leveling up.

  “Minori~~~? Hurry u~~p!”

  Deep in the brush in the forest, she could see Isuzu bouncing up and down, waving to her. Minori responded energetically, then broke into a run, making for the spring with the reddening sunset at her back.

  4

  Whew…

  Shiroe slipped the papers he’d bundled together into a leather document case.

  The papers he’d been organizing were documents of all sorts.

  Briefings, surveys, reports… There were many different names for them, but they were papers filled with miscellaneous information. Among them were notes that Akatsuki and the members of the Round Table Council had put together for him. This sort of information had to be collected and organized daily.

  After all, in their negotiations with the People of the Earth, there was no telling where an ambush might appear.

  On the other hand, the papers filed in the larger, more severe document case were, as their name stated, “documents.” Notifications from guilds, balance sheets, contracts, promissory notes, and title deeds…

  Shiroe was a Scribe. His role was to copy books and documents, and to transcribe written incantations, technical books, and maps.

  No matter how complicated the object was, if he knew the item’s production method, he could make it in under ten seconds.

  However, he couldn’t state positively that there were no new possibilities for Scribes, as there had been for Chefs. It was an area Shiroe wanted to study, but he kept getting distracted by his Round Table Council work, and he’d made almost no progress in his research.

  Shiroe stretched hugely. He was sitting at the big table in the living room he’d been given at the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice. The sun had set, but all the rooms in the palace were illuminated with magic lights
, and it wasn’t yet time for bed.

  From a different document case, he took out a map of Eastal. By now, it wasn’t simply a beautiful copy of a map: Shiroe had nearly filled it with handwritten annotations here and there.

  He felt that his Scribe subclass was helping him out a lot. The greatest assist it gave him was probably in paper quality.

  In this other world, the quality of paper was pretty poor. On journeys and adventures, he’d seen parchment frequently, and some places used paper that might as well have been tree bark. Fortunately, Shiroe was a Scribe, and Scribes’ functions included copying and creating maps, documents, and magic primers. As far as the game system was concerned, these were magic items, and they couldn’t just be written on any old paper. While it depended on the level of the item, if he wanted to create a high-level item, he needed suitable materials—in this case, paper and ink. Scribes’ duties included creating special paper and ink, and Shiroe had the magic materials in abundance.

  Just making notepaper this way didn’t require very high-class magic materials. It only had to be easy to write on and of high quality.

  In terms of paper, this meant thin, light, uniform and white. Ink had to be light resistant, quick-drying, nonrunny, and have bold colors.

  Shiroe had mass-produced ink and easy-to-use paper, and it was a great help in his clerical work.

  Shiroe gazed at the hand-drawn map.

  He ran his fingertip along mountain ranges and coastlines, thinking about the connections; he knit his brow and jotted down questions in his notebook.

  For a while, the only noise in the room was the scritch of his pen skimming over paper, but suddenly, as if to cut if off, the sound of a bell rang in Shiroe’s ears alone.

  “Hello?”

  “That’s Shiroe, isn’t it? It’s me. It’s Minori.”