A Sunday in Akiba

by Mamare Touno

  Perhaps because of the sense of anticipation, people were busily carrying cargo here and there, despite the town’s typical schedule to be asleep this early in the morning. Each person was probably transporting merchandise for their stalls or hurrying to get items they didn’t have enough of and hadn’t noticed until the day of the festival.

  As you’d expect, when she reached the entrance to the town’s guild center, the commotion was clearly greater than usual. She saw several Adventurers going in and out. Forcing herself to greet people cheerfully, Minori entered the obsidian building.

  Log Horizon was one of the eleven guilds that made up the Round Table Council, and Minori often visited the guild center as Shiroe’s assistant. She was already acquainted with the People of the Earth ladies at the reception counter, and with several of the Adventurers stationed here.

  She didn’t head to the floor that held the Round Table Council’s reference room and office, where she’d once gone to help out. Instead, today she made for the Production Guild Liaison Committee. She’d stopped by once on an errand for Shiroe, to pick up some materials, so she found it right away.

  Even though it was early morning, the floor was enveloped in a flurried atmosphere. The big oak double doors were flung wide open, and several crates had spilled out into the hallway.

  The PGLC had a central role to play in the festival. For that reason, even at this hour, it was buzzing with energy. From inside, voices barked orders in near yells, and people were hastily running out or carrying things in.

  Minori quietly slipped through the door, bowing to an Adventurer she knew. She was fairly sure the woman was a Shopping District 8 artisan.

  “What is it, Minori?”

  “I, um… Is Calasin here?”

  Minori was vaguely uncomfortable. It felt a bit as though she were visiting the clubroom of a school club she didn’t belong to.

  The artisan laughed at Minori’s restlessness, however, replying, “Sure, he’s inside. Go on in. You’ll have to excuse the mess, though!” She spoke loudly, probably because she was wired from pulling an all-nighter. Timidly, Minori went deeper into the office.

  There was a reason she’d come here so early in the morning.

  Last night, when Minori had seen Akatsuki and Shiroe’s quiet scene, she’d been depressed by her own wretchedness, but the goal she’d set herself for this festival was to wipe out Shiroe’s bad reputation.

  The first method she’d come up with was to participate in the cake buffet, attracting attention as they did so, and gain an invitation to the great dinner party. If they attended the dinner party and chatted with the participants, public opinion of Shiroe would improve.

  Although, in the end, that failed…

  Twelve whole cakes had been far too impossible, Minori thought.

  That was bullying. Honestly! But, there was no point in thinking that.

  However, a failure was a failure, and if she wasn’t going to give up, she had to think of another way to complete her mission. She’d racked her brains, and had hit on the idea of appealing directly to the Production Guild Liaison Committee.

  Fortunately, she knew Calasin of Shopping District 8, who was running the committee. If they had invitations left over, couldn’t she ask him for a couple and get them that way? That thought had brought Minori to the Production Guild Liaison Committee.

  However, Calasin didn’t seem to be in any shape for that sort of thing. The central office of the PGLC—or was it a conference room?—at any rate, that big room was packed with a literal wall of documents.

  She was used to seeing vast quantities of documents in Shiroe’s study, and since there were no computers in this world, she’d heard that they multiplied rapidly, but Shiroe’s study was nothing compared to the level of confusion in this room. At the very least, you could see a focused desire for order and efficiency in Shiroe’s study, while the only things in this office were chaos and entropy.

  On a corner of a table in the center of the room, Calasin and a young male colleague were desperately trying to protect a work space, or “civilization.” However, their efforts were in vain, and their weak lords were in dire distress from the threat of the surging barbarian hordes—in this case, the disorderly reports.

  Calasin looked fierce, and Minori hesitated to speak to him. Just then, a man who’d entered the room behind Minori began to deliver a report in an energetic voice.

  “Mister Calasin! Here’s the merchandise list and the reports for the south block! Thanks for your help!”

  The young man added a stack of papers to the table and left immediately, but that attack completely changed the balance of power on the table. A tower of documents that had been teetering unsteadily fell, slipping from under the fingers Minori stretched out. In a chain reaction like collapsing dominos, the encroaching barbarians began to light the signal fires of invasion, one after another.

  “Aaaaaah?!” “Yeek!!”

  Calasin and his assistant shrieked. Their faces were pale with despair. Under the circumstances, that was only natural. After they’d sworn and railed for a bit, the pair had dejectedly begun to pile up documents again when Minori spoke to them.

  “Shall I help you?”

  “Damn and blast. Of all the… Huh? …Um…”

  “She’s one of Shiroe’s. Minori, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Here, let me help.”

  Minori rolled up her blouse’s long sleeves. She couldn’t ignore a mountain of documents this chaotic. She also calculated that if she helped here and improved Calasin’s impression of her, he might listen to her request.

  “Sure, thanks. …Taro, get us some tea. Strong stuff.”

  “Yessir, understood.”

  The boy staggered out the door; there was no telling how long he’d worked without a break. Calasin and Minori watched him go, then set to work collecting the scattered sheaves of paper. At a glance, they seemed to be forms for the day’s exhibitions and sales. Forms related to business deals, written inquiries, instructions, tax payment forms and all sorts of other things were mixed together, and they’d been sorted by paper size alone and piled up in heaps.

  “Calasin…um… These are all different types.”

  “I know they’re all over the map, but once the stack falls, there’s no telling what the categories are. Actually, since we didn’t have set forms or formats to begin with, even if the files are for the same thing, the sizes are all different…”

  Calasin groaned, shoulders drooping.

  “I didn’t think it was going to be this rough. I tell ya, the People of the Earth are hard to deal with. I wonder if they’re paying taxes.”

  “Did something happen with the People of the Earth?”

  “Well, this is business, so it’s normal to change or add things right beforehand, but… We didn’t think we’d have this many people. The files are slipshod, too; maybe it’s because our cultures are different. If it were just our fellow guilds, it would be all right, but the Round Table said to keep records this time around.”

  Calasin shrugged his shoulders as if to say, You know how that goes, right? True, the chaos was so bad it was a bit off-putting. They knew they had to organize it, but even as they worked, inquiries and reminders continued to arrive in a constant stream. Once a file had disappeared into a mountain, it was hard to track it down again.

  Of course, Shiroe’s high opinion of Calasin’s on-site management abilities had been correct, and the staff seemed to be diligent as well. Their responses to inquiries were prompt, and their decisions were immediate.

  That advanced decision-making ability kept the office running even if the reports and files weren’t getting organized, making it possible to postpone the problem. Even if things were all right now, Calasin would gradually be driven into a corner. A backlog was building, both from the papers that had been turned in beforehand and from the files that were increasing moment to moment.

  “I’ll help out here today.”

  “Are you sure? L
og Horizon has several things going on today, too, doesn’t it?”

  After giving it a little thought, Minori offered to help. The cake buffet route had been cut off, so it was true that she did have time. Shiroe had said they’d be helping the Crescent Moon League, but if necessary, he could contact her via telechat no matter where she was.

  “Yes. I’m free.”

  “In that case, I’m sorry, but please do. …To be honest, we don’t have enough people to deal with the documents. Apparently Henrietta’s busy today, too.”

  In response to Calasin’s words, Minori nodded. Shiroe had told her that Henrietta was involved with the Liaison Committee’s duties as well. The situation might actually have gotten as chaotic as it was because she’d stepped out for the exhibition and sale today.

  “For now, I’ll start putting things in order.”

  Minori lowered a nearby tower of documents to the floor, then took paper and ink out of her pouch. The items’ rank certainly wasn’t high, but she’d made them herself.

  Using her sheathed dagger as a paperweight, she began reading through the documents, starting at the top of the stack—not hastily, but quickly. This one was a receipt for cargo that had been taken into a warehouse. Minori nodded, setting it down in a small open space. One receipt. That was followed by an offender report from a watchman. One report.

  It was the first step. Even if it was small, she mustn’t let that discourage her. She’d only just begun, so of course the results would be small. The important thing was staying dedicated to the task.

  After all, I haven’t done anything.

  She’d idolized Shiroe, and she loved him, and yet she hadn’t even begun to move. The pain from last night, when she’d discovered that about herself, still burned in her heart. Up until yesterday, she’d still been inside her eggshell.

  In that case, she had to start something.

  If she loved Shiroe, she wanted to do something for him.

  She was still just an ordinary middle schooler, the sort you’d find anywhere, but Minori wanted to become the sort of person who could give Shiroe something, so that she could be proud of having been in love.

  That was the conclusion Minori had come to after getting through that night of heart-searing pain.

  Before, she’d simply idolized her teacher’s back without giving it much thought, had made it her goal just so she could be with him, but now, inside Minori, that back had a different meaning.

  If she’d wanted only to follow Shiroe, to see the same things he saw, it would have been all right to make his back her goal. However, if she wanted to help him, she had to acquire a different sort of strength. It would probably be very hard to walk the same road while working toward a different power, but that was the course Minori aspired to now.

  The improvement in Adventurers’ physical capabilities applied to vision and reflexes as well.

  Minori put these to work, sorting documents with astounding speed. Files that seemed to need immediate action after she glanced through them were tossed into a crate she’d borrowed from nearby, one after another. She’d probably need to have Calasin check it regularly. She sorted the other files into categories.

  Minori’s current subclass was Apprentice. She hadn’t liked Tailor and had wanted to change her subclass as soon as possible, but she hadn’t been able to decide what to change it to. At that point, Shiroe had recommended Apprentice.

  Although Apprentice was one of the subclasses, it wasn’t a “class” in the general sense. It was similar to a role-play Accountant or Fortune-Teller, but it was a system with much stranger characteristics.

  Apprentices were able to register other players and “copy” several of their subclass abilities that could be acquired at a low level. Minori was carrying paper and ink she’d made because she’d apprenticed herself to Shiroe—in other words, registered Shiroe as her master—and had copied his skill.

  An apprenticeship came with an experience points acquisition bonus, and it leveled up fast. In addition, because some skills could be copied from masters, it wasn’t a hard subclass to develop. However, because the skills Apprentices could copy were limited to skills below midlevel, and because the subclass didn’t have many of its own unique special skills, it wasn’t a very popular one.

  What really set Apprentices apart came after they’d developed: With the exception of special subclasses that had class-change conditions, it was possible to transfer into almost any subclass, and you could take your experience points with you.

  For example, if an Adventurer raised their Apprentice subclass to level 30, then transferred to Chef, it was possible for them to start as a level 30 Chef instead of having to start from level 1, as they would normally have had to do.

  If you wanted to end up in a subclass like Blacksmith, where leveling up took time, people said that getting there via Apprentice wasn’t a bad idea. That said, in that case, there were still problems: You needed a master, and although you’d leveled up, the number of recipes in your item creation menu hadn’t increased, so another kind of effort would be necessary in order to build your repertoire.

  These drawbacks didn’t bother Minori in the least.

  In the first place, she was in this subclass so that she could imitate Shiroe, so handicaps on that level weren’t meaningful handicaps at all. Besides, right now, her Scribe skills—the same ones Shiroe had—were serving her well in this struggle with the chaotic documents.

  Minori copied all the documents that had to do with items people wanted to sell into forms she’d hastily created on cheap paper. When she’d accumulated a certain amount, she “copied” them, then put the originals in a crate. In the course of helping Shiroe, she’d gotten used to summarizing mere forms into materials that could actually be used.

  Minori looked around at the mountains of documents.

  On this battlefield, there had to be something that Shiroe had already acquired, but which couldn’t be learned in battles in Elder Tales. At the moment, she didn’t know what that was, or whether it had meaning or not.

  There were several hints hidden in the knowledge Shiroe had taught her up until now. The “things Shiroe had told her” had been buried in a vast amount of methods for conquering the Elder Tales game, but that certainly hadn’t been all there was.

  Guild administration. All sorts of past feuds. The things that had made him happy about his MMO gaming career. The things that had made him sad. Things he couldn’t forgive, and things he’d tried to forgive. The various situations in which battles of will had gone beyond game combat. The secret to that something had to be hidden among the many anecdotes Shiroe had related to her.

  However, Minori’s inexperience held her back, preventing her from putting them into practice.

  …And so, she would stay here.

  The decision Minori had made was to keep fighting. This was Shiroe’s old battlefield, and the battlefield on which Minori’s present was buried.

  “You’re good at this, Minori.”

  “Because I’m Shiroe’s Apprentice.”

  As Minori answered, smiling, her expression held strength that hadn’t been there the day before.

  4

  “Thankyewverramuch!”

  “Carryout complete. Five more wagons to go!”

  “Hey, I’m freed up now. Hand ’er over!”

  Day Two of the festival. That morning, commotion enveloped the town.

  After all, the festival was full of firsts. Nobody had a complete grasp of the whole thing. That was probably true even for Calasin, who stood at the top of the Production Guild Liaison Committee, which was running the festival. Initially, the event project had been nothing more than a collection of volunteers from the small and midsized guilds who wanted to show off the new items they’d created to the whole town.

  As the scale expanded, the Liaison Committee should have been swamped with central paperwork, plunging the town into chaos.

  However, due to the youth and the Japanese temperaments of t
he Adventurers who lived in the town, this didn’t happen.

  In this fantasy world, many Adventurers had more physical capabilities than they knew what to do with, which meant that, in other words, they were bored. If that boredom acted in a negative direction, they’d grow desperate and despair, and if it acted in a positive direction, it added to the enormous merrymaking.

  On Akiba’s main street, in the square beside the carriage lot by the Bridge of All Ages, a large pavilion tent had been set up. Although they called it a tent, it was really only a roof with heavy iron support pillars at its four corners, a bit like a field battle headquarters. The stern-faced members of the Knights of the Black Sword were rushing in and out of it. In the center of the tent, the guild master, Black Sword Isaac, sat majestically on a folding chair.

  “Gimme water.”

  “We don’t have enough Summoners. Send one over!”

  “We’re short on Summoners. If you’ve got a job that needs muscle, do it yourself. If you need heat or ice, ask a Sorcerer.”

  “We ain’t Summoner substitutes. Lousy solo classes… Dammit. Hey, your ice is ready. Here ya go.”

  The inside of the tent was noisy as well, as if the town’s commotion had been copied into it.

  The Knights of the Black Sword was one of Akiba’s leading combat guilds, one that only admitted Adventurers who had neared the upper level limit, a hard-line organization designed for conquering raids. Naturally, their membership was made up of hard-core gamers, and they boasted steel solidarity—or so outsiders assumed. In fact, they were just a noisy group.

  “Yo, people! Pipe down!”

  The loud warriors were thundered at by an even louder rough voice. It was their guild master, Isaac. He was a Guardian who was famous even in Akiba, with bright red hair and an intense smile that was bursting with confidence.

  “Shaddup, General.”