by Mamare Touno
At Michitaka’s words, Calasin laughed.
“Well, there’s no help for it. We’re like a jumbled mob of small merchants. With a festival like this one, everyone’s buying and selling like there’s no tomorrow, and it makes them want to join in, too.”
“Yeah, I guess it would.”
There was a scorched smell about Michitaka. He was a Blacksmith, and he’d probably come straight from his workshop. The Marine Organization was the leader—and the largest—of the production guilds in Akiba. Apparently its leader had been in the workshop himself.
“We’re more of a workshop than anything, see. Our job is to make good things and sell ’em, and we’re not so good at haggling and hawking. Well, we’ll leave that stuff to you. I’ll admit that, just for this fair, the festival mood is fun.”
In MMORPGs, there were several types of player who specialized in production. Some, like Calasin, had fun chatting with other players. Others, like Michitaka, mass-produced items in their workshops, enjoying the game as a production and sales sim. Then there were collectors who, like Roderick’s group, wanted to collect rare materials and recipes.
The Libra Festival, it seemed, involved a huge variety of production classes.
“Never mind that. You okay?” Michitaka asked.
“No, not at all. Well, I guess there’s no way around being short-handed.”
With a disgusted expression, Calasin gestured behind him.
There were items of every variety imaginable back there packed into crates, and at a glance, there seemed to be several dozen crates. It was a veritable mountain of junk that reached the ceiling. They were all prototypes of items that would be for sale, collected from Libra Festival participants.
They’d asked for submissions with the intent of making sure there were no dangerous items, but the result had been a washout. With this many items submitted across such a wide range, there was no way Calasin could check them all by himself. Actually, even if he’d had ten people on it, it was doubtful whether they would have made it in time.
“Wow. That’s—”
“—impossible, no?”
“Impossible for sure.”
Calasin and Michitaka nodded together.
It really couldn’t be done.
“Well, no help for it. That idea blew up in the hangar. Just gonna leave ’em?”
“We’ll probably have to. You know, it might be hell starting tomorrow.”
Calasin, who was past desperate, answered cheerily. At this point in time, this was all it was. However, the fact that it was at all held a definite warning. The Libra Festival had begun to swell to a size far greater than Calasin or Michitaka imagined.
Calasin and Michitaka did register that trend, quite clearly.
As a matter of fact, all the guild masters on the Round Table Council had noticed the signs to some extent. However, the pace at which it was swelling was faster than they’d anticipated.
Calasin, in the heart of the Libra Festival at the Production Guild Liaison Committee office, first sensed the impending crisis on the night before the festival.
That said, at this point in time, even Calasin failed to notice the focused malice.
4
Viewed from the outside, the record Shiroe had accumulated probably looked spectacular.
For example, in the days of the Debauchery Tea Party, he’d given strategies to a group of individual players who hadn’t even formed a guild, and out of the whole Japanese server, that little group of comrades had managed to conquer the Hades’ Breath raid at a fairly early stage. Among players who knew the circumstances, that achievement was held in extraordinarily high regard.
The Debauchery Tea Party—which had pioneered combat on huge raids that had gone down in the history of the server, such as Radamanteus’s Throne and the Nine Great Gaols of Halos, even though they were only a small group—had become a legend of sorts.
In addition, those in the know were aware that the sequence of events surrounding the establishment of the Round Table Council had been Shiroe’s doing. When it came to huge, critical strategies, the war record of Shiroe the Strategist positively shone.
However, that was only when the results were seen from the outside. To Shiroe himself, those were only a fraction of countless battles. Of the battles he’d fought, there were many that hadn’t been big, and many where advance investigation had been useless. If those battles were added to the statistics, was his percentage of victories really all that high? That was how he thought about it.
Shiroe didn’t have a very high opinion of his abilities as a strategist.
I’m probably going to bring my win rate down again today…
For a while now, Shiroe had been feeling vaguely uncomfortable, and as he thought, he tried his best not to attract attention.
“Quit fidgeting, my liege.”
“That’s right, Shiroe. It’s a shame; you look so good.”
“Grr.”
“Huh? He…does look good, doesn’t he?”
“My liege is my liege. Looks don’t matter.”
However, reality was heartless.
The two girls who sat on either side of Shiroe wouldn’t let him lie low.
On Shiroe’s right sat a girl whose body, which had the slimness of her years, was wrapped in an intelligent aura. This was Minori, Log Horizon’s Kannagi.
Today, she looked even more feminine than usual in a long denim skirt, an off-white blouse and a beige-pink cardigan. She seemed a bit like an upper-class young lady, but Minori tended to take care of people, and the look suited her very well. When the light shone through it, her black hair turned the color of dark chocolate, and as expected, the way she wore it tied up with a black lace ribbon was sweet.
On Shiroe’s left was an old friend: Akatsuki, the self-proclaimed ninja, whose sense of loyalty was a bit of a mystery. Akatsuki’s black hair, which was glossier than ever, hung loose, and she was staring fixedly up at Shiroe with eyes that were as dead serious as always.
What was different was that she wasn’t dressed all in black. She wore a lilac kofurisode—a kimono-style top short enough to allow for a separate type of bottom—and she paired it with a pair of indigo hakama-style trousers. The costume gave her the air of a university student, and on the beautiful, slightly feline Akatsuki, it looked almost too good.
Akatsuki was a girl so lovely that if you asked a hundred people whether she was beautiful, all one hundred would tell you she was, while Minori had definite future potential. Under the circumstances, one could really say he had “a flower in each hand.”
However, as he sat between those two, Shiroe looked a bit unwell.
He couldn’t have said what was wrong, or what the reason was, but his discomfort was real.
They were very near the center of Akiba, at a special café that had been set up in the large intersection. Shiroe was sitting here at the request of the two girls.
Prompted by his innately cautious nature, Shiroe had investigated the cake buffet in advance. The preliminaries for the buffet were being held several times. He could probably have gone with Akatsuki, and again with Minori, at different times.
However, Shiroe would have felt bad about trying his luck at a free event twice. Even if it was a festival, wouldn’t that have made him like the kid who eats all the samples in the samples corner? On that thought, Shiroe had come up with a plan.
If Akatsuki and Minori wanted to go enjoy cake, then the three of them could just go together. If the quota for two people was eight pieces of cake, and the three of them ate their way through twelve pieces, there shouldn’t be a problem.
Fortunately, the guild master of Danceteria, the guild that was presiding over the cake buffet, had come to negotiate with the Round Table Council several times. If memory served, she was a woman with an artisan’s temperament who was friends with Henrietta.
When he went to ask for permission, Madame Kanako, the Danceteria guild master, had welcomed Shiroe. No doubt the bright smile she’d worn when she re
ceived him had been because he was a member of the Round Table Council, but it hadn’t inconvenienced Shiroe at all, so he hadn’t hesitated to ask for permission.
He’d said he wanted to attend with two girls from his guild, and asked if they could strike a deal with twelve pieces of cake.
Madame Kanako had been startled at first. Then she’d narrowed her already narrow eyes even further in a smile, and had asked him for all the details of the situation. The circumstances weren’t so important that they needed to be spread around, but there also wasn’t any particular need to hide them. Log Horizon acknowledged itself to be a very open-minded guild.
As the result of his explanation, the guild master, whose smile was now extremely bright, had agreed to let the three of them participate together. The worldly wise way she’d smiled had bothered him a little, but the doubt was minor enough, and the convenience to himself great enough, that he’d been able to ignore it. That was how Shiroe had gotten special permission for the three of them to attend the cake buffet together.
…And so Shiroe and the others were at the open café, waiting for their cake to arrive, but Shiroe had already begun to get a mild stomachache.
Since he hadn’t eaten a single bite yet, it probably wasn’t heartburn from the food.
It was probably because, although Minori and Akatsuki weren’t on bad terms as a rule, they were both exuding an oddly tense, prickly atmosphere.
When he’d reported via telechat that the three of them would be able to go together and told them not to worry, Minori had been one thing, but when Akatsuki responded, her tone had been rather odd. Shiroe thought the reason probably had something to do with ninja loyalty, but he didn’t really get it.
On the other hand, Minori was full of enthusiasm. She’d been cheerfully striking up conversations with Shiroe for a while now, and her attitude was so energetic and positive that it startled him. Minori had always been a hard worker, and Shiroe thought it was cute—and very much like a middle schooler—that she was looking forward to cake this way.
However, Akatsuki kept fiddling with her hakama and shooting glances at Shiroe, and taking terribly practical-looking kunai out of who knew where, so that, for the past few minutes, Shiroe had been having an awful time scolding her.
When he looked around, he saw there were about twenty pairs of men and women, each sitting at their own little table, smiling and talking.
At dusk in October, the wind was cool. The open café was illuminated by orange lamplight, and its atmosphere was peaceful and friendly. Bards might have been playing somewhere: A slightly old-fashioned pop song from Earth mingled with the wind, and the sound was nostalgic.
Absently, Shiroe thought that most of the pairs sitting at the other tables might be couples.
It had already been five months since the Catastrophe. True, this was another world, but that might be enough time for strangers to become acquaintances, and then friends, or even lovers.
In a corner of his mind, Shiroe did think, Hey, come on! Do you know just how crazy these past five months have been? You can’t possibly have had that much free time. We’ve had an emergency on our hands! On the opposite side, though, another voice said, No, but wait: Young couples’ love might burn brighter precisely because this is such a world of thrills and suspense.
Personally, Shiroe didn’t know much about love, and he’d never had a clearly acknowledged girlfriend.
For that reason, he couldn’t declare that even under these circumstances, love was possible or it wasn’t possible, but it was, in the best sense of the word, nothing to do with him. If the people in question were both happy, then it was fine, and he concluded that there was no need to pursue the issue.
When one was only watching them, couples were heartwarming, and Shiroe didn’t dislike them. He’d rather not hear someone gush incessantly about their lover or have them ask him for advice on romance, but looking at them from a distance made him feel warm. And so, now as well, Shiroe watched them absently.
“My liege. My liege!”
“Oh, um. Sorry. What is it, Akatsuki?”
When he turned back to Akatsuki—who was far more restless than usual today—she was fidgeting. “Why are you making that dumb face? It’s sloppy,” she said.
From his other side, Minori proclaimed, “That’s right. Show some spirit!” Shiroe thought it was weird to talk about showing spirit at a cake buffet, but when he tried to tell her so, Minori’s serious expression kept the words from coming out.
Minori certainly seemed to be showing spirit.
She clenched her hands in front of her chest, flexing her muscles in a tiny fist pump. The gesture made her look adorable, like some kind of animated character. When she made her sweet expression as serious as she possibly could and said, “Let’s do our best!” instead of looking dignified, it looked more as if she was trying to do something that was a bit beyond her, and, rather than encouraging Shiroe, it made him want to smile.
It really was a mystery.
“Umm…”
“Grr.”
“Miss Akatsuki, that traditional outfit is lovely.”
As he was searching for something to say, Minori started a conversation for him. She probably hadn’t done it to help him out, but Shiroe was grateful to have been given a topic.
“Those really are amazing. It’s rare to see you in Japanese clothes, Akatsuki. What happened?”
“Do they look strange on me?”
Akatsuki’s face looked troubled, but also as though she was putting up a brave front, and the two of them told her “No, not at all” in unison. The pattern on the pale lilac kimono—a scattering of Chinese bellflowers—was subdued, but when petite Akatsuki wore it, it looked so good it might as well have been made for her. In general, she was a taciturn, lovely girl who seemed a bit like a small animal, but in this kimono, she was particularly gorgeous.
“Miss Akatsuki, you look awfully good in traditional clothes.”
“It’s just like grad—”
“Don’t say ‘It’s like a graduation ceremony.’”
“Erk.”
Akatsuki had cut him off at the pass, and Shiroe found himself at a loss for words. Glaring at him, Akatsuki muttered, “Even if it’s you, my liege, I’ll kick you. With my knee,” but when Shiroe and Minori kept repeating that they really did look good on her, her mood must have finally improved, because she let him off the hook.
“Yours look good on you, too, Minori.”
At that, the middle-school girl smiled shyly.
Apparently, Isuzu had coordinated her outfit for her. When she explained in detail about where the blouse and cardigan had each been purchased, and how much they’d cost, and what Isuzu had said when she’d picked them out, she looked as if she was enjoying herself. Even Akatsuki, who had been stiff at first, seemed to have grown interested: She was listening, holding on to Shiroe’s sleeve.
Seeing this, Shiroe finally relaxed a bit.
Advance investigation, strategy… They just aren’t any help when women are involved.
It had been that way in the Debauchery Tea Party, too. For example, with incidents or discussions in which the female Adventurers Nazuna and Yomi were involved, no matter how much advance investigating he did or how well he laid groundwork, he’d never seemed to end up with good results.
That said, it wasn’t as though it had caused any major trouble. Most of the time, things faded out before anyone was aware of it, or the problem itself turned out not to have existed—incomprehensible and disappointing results for a strategist.
She was different, though, Shiroe remembered. Just her.
She had been the founder of the Debauchery Tea Party, and—technically—its leader. The technically was there because the Debauchery Tea Party had been a group of free spirits, and because, as a rule, everyone in it had been able to look after themselves.
To borrow Nyanta’s words, it had probably been the case that everyone knew what they had to do in order to make a comforta
ble place for themselves. As a result, they hadn’t needed a leader in the ordinary sense of the word.
Even so, she’d been the leader simply because she was the most willful member of the Tea Party. In a way, she’d always yanked the Debauchery Tea Party around.
Saying she wanted to see the midnight sun in Iceland, for example. She said some awful things like they were nothing…
Her willfulness had been global, and as a result Shiroe’s war record had gotten worse and worse. There had been no “vague results” or “fade-outs under the cover of…” Most of the time, they’d died in action. The time when she’d gone on an expedition to the European server, taking everyone who wanted to go with her, but had lost the quest item so that they’d been unable to get into the Aurora Zone… That had been really exhausting. Shiroe wasn’t a worrywart for nothing.
Compared to that, Akatsuki’s and Minori’s requests had been positively cute. If things went on this way, Shiroe thought, their wishes just might come true.
5
“Oh, that looks delicious!”
As she watched the service begin, Minori’s eyes were round. Although they hadn’t yet come to Shiroe’s group, adorable shortcakes were being brought out to the tables. The strawberries were a bright, splendid color.
The Danceteria guild members had said, modestly, that they weren’t nearly as magnificent as cake shop products back on Earth, but from what he saw, that probably wasn’t the case. It wasn’t just their appearance: The light, sweet fragrance that drifted from them whetted his appetite.
“My liege, my liege. This looks fairly promising, doesn’t it?”
“Aren’t they pretty?! Oh, this is exciting!”
With a girl in high spirits on either side of him, Shiroe also began to enjoy himself, just a little. Possibly because he’d had a busy day, he thought he’d be able to polish off four cakes of that size without any trouble at all. Minori and Akatsuki probably felt the same way. None of the three of them had the slightest doubt that they would be able to finish everything. Not until that moment, that is.
