by Mamare Touno
“You don’t need to…”
“I can’t possibly not pay you. You said that potion was a limited-edition event item. That means it’s rare. You can’t get it anymore. That item was technically priceless. I know thirty thousand doesn’t even begin to pay for it.”
Her logic was correct. Up until now, the item had just been sitting around in his safe-deposit box, but under the circumstances, he could easily have asked a king’s ransom for it.
“……”
“……”
Still, even if that was true, was it important enough to clean out someone’s account over? Shiroe had serious doubts about that. The item had been completely useless until a few days ago.
“Um. Well… Would you settle for free?”
“I don’t wish to be labeled an ingrate.”
Akatsuki’s searing upturned gaze, the gesture that gave the impression that she was staring at him, made Shiroe pretty uncomfortable. That it belonged to a very pretty girl made it practically lethal.
“If you’re that worried about it, just give him some panties as a thank— Ghk—”
Akatsuki’s small knee made another graceful touchdown on Naotsugu’s face. Granted, Naotsugu was sitting on a pile of rubble, but even so, the kick struck home at a good angle.
“You’re quite an athlete, Miss Akatsuki.”
“Wha— Hey! Moody perv! Whose side are you on?”
“Lord Shiroe. May I knee this pervert?”
“Look, I told you, ask before you kick!”
Akatsuki pointed at Naotsugu, asking for permission. The gesture struck Shiroe as cute, and he smiled in spite of himself.
“Whatever. Never mind. Forget about how much the potion costs. Hey, Akatsuki.”
“We are not on first-name terms.”
“That’s not important, either, short stuff.”
“Don’t call me ‘short stuff,’ and yes, this is very important,” Akatsuki insisted stubbornly. “If I’ve swindled Lord Shiroe into giving me his limited-edition item for free, I will have brought everlasting shame upon myself.”
Naotsugu looked at the sulking Akatsuki, then glanced at Shiroe, then looked from him to Akatsuki again. Then he continued.
“No, that’s a pointless subject if ever there was one. Forget that, Akatsuki. Listen, why don’t you travel around with us for a while?”
“—Huh?”
The words seemed to have been the last thing Akatsuki had expected. She froze so abruptly it was as if she’d been put on pause.
“Counselor. Explain.”
Having said his piece, Naotsugu tossed the ball to Shiroe, as if the rest of it was his job.
Thanks a lot. We didn’t discuss this, and I have no idea what you want me to do, Shiroe thought, but he did approve of the proposal itself.
“…Hm. Yes, I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”
However, thinking that it wasn’t a bad idea didn’t necessarily make it easy to explain. He was sure Naotsugu’s intentions had been good, but intentions aside, an undeniable air of embarrassment hung about the proposal. It felt as if he’d lost a penalty game and was being forced to pick up girls.
“…I hate to say this, but you’re a girl, Akatsuki, and you’re small. Even with your old body back, you— Uh, I mean, your appearance and voice may be consistent now, but you might get caught up in unpleasantness anyway… Maybe. On top of that, you aren’t part of a guild yet. Is there one you’d like to join?”
“I don’t like belonging to things. Assassins are lone wolves by nature.”
Akatsuki’s face clouded; she seemed to be thinking hard.
“Yeah, I guess you would be. We’re a lot like that ourselves. Freelance adventurers. We do whatever we want. Free panties freedom.”
“…Shut up, pervert.”
“If you have somewhere in mind, that’s one thing, but… From what I hear, unaffiliated players are being hassled these days. The big guilds are trying to build up their ranks, and they’re scouting players right and left. I think female players probably get it even worse than male players.”
“Really…?”
“A place to sleep, the chance to pool information on the situation… It wouldn’t hurt to be a little connected, under the circumstances.”
Akatsuki nodded.
Besides, it’s not as if Akatsuki’s terribly good with people…
Shiroe didn’t consider himself to be very good with people, either, but Akatsuki’s unsociability was off the charts. When Elder Tales was still a game, Akatsuki’s way of being considerate had been to wordlessly help people out when they needed it. Shiroe knew her brusqueness didn’t mean she was unfriendly, but the vast majority of players probably wouldn’t pick up on that. Akatsuki was a fighter, and as far as Shiroe knew, she had very few acquaintances. He suspected he might be the one who’d worked with her the most.
Of course, that was just another way to play, and when this had been a game, it hadn’t been a problem. In a game, the only “right” way for a person to play was the way that let them have the most fun, provided they didn’t cause trouble for other people.
However, the current world wasn’t a game, and Akatsuki’s brusqueness was bound to cause trouble, especially since she’d turned out to be so pretty.
I don’t know whether Naotsugu thought things through that far, but…it’s another good reason for her to stick with us for a while—except…
“Hey, why not? Assassins are good at offing people sneakily, right? While we’re fighting, you can creep up behind the monster and shank it. It’ll be the perfect combo play. Death-to-evildoers city,” Naotsugu said happily.
Well, he’s right about the teamwork, at least… What kind of crazy “city” would that be?
“Hm. Would you be all right with that, Lord Shiroe?”
“Absolutely. Things will feel safer if there are three of us anyway.”
For a moment, Akatsuki hesitated. Then she turned that peculiar, straightforward, laser-like gaze on him and nodded.
“I see. Then I’ll serve you as your ninja, Lord Shiroe… My liege.”
Ninja?
…Liege?
Wasn’t Akatsuki an Assassin?
Although those questions did cross his mind, the proposal seemed like a good one to Shiroe.
“I owe you for saving me from my forced sex-reassignment crisis, and it is my duty to repay you with equivalent labor. This is how I’ll do it. From now on, my liege, I’ll protect you as your ninja.”
Akatsuki murmured. Uncharacteristically, her gaze wandered restlessly, as if she was ill at ease.
Naotsugu had a purple bruise spreading around his nose, but it didn’t seem to faze him; he was watching Shiroe and smirking.
“All righty, then. We’re a team. Welcome aboard, short stuff.”
“Shut up, idiot.”
“We’re a very mismatched trio, but never mind. I look forward to working with you.”
In the dingy store, its interior shot through with shafts of golden light, Shiroe and the others clinked their canteens together, toasting the formation of their team.
4
Several days had passed since Akatsuki had joined them. Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki were gradually shifting their activities into the field zones near Akiba. There were several reasons for the move, one of which was that when Shiroe and Naotsugu had gotten up the courage to go to the Forest of Library Towers, the battles had been much harder than they’d anticipated.
Battles in this world were faithful replicas of their Elder Tales counterparts where fundamental structure and strategy were concerned, but they were very different when it came to individual participants’ tactics and combat techniques. The battles included a vast number of subtle elements that players had no control over in the game, such as sword swings, the angle at which shields were thrust out, footholds, and movement. Issues with fields of vision and difficulty in fighting together were also big problems. Worst of all were the mental hurdles, especially the terror.
The first time he and Naotsugu went out to a field zone, Shiroe’s impression had been that this was going to be pretty rough. After several one-day expeditions, he’d revised that impression to Conventional strategies won’t be enough.
However, Akatsuki was completely specialized to vanguard work, and in terms of surviving in this world, the sooner they got used to fighting, the better. They’d decided to stay together for the moment, but there was no telling whether or not it would last. The three of them had decided it would be best to get the basics of combat nailed down now while they were together.
The Crescent Moon League guild was another reason. Since that first visit, Shiroe and the others had made frequent trips to the guildhall to trade information. Unlike their trio, the Crescent Moon League had artisan players as well. Shiroe’s own subclass was Scribe, and he’d worked his way up to a high level, but the guild had a variety of other artisans and more members in general. These players had connections around Akiba, and they were able to gather information in town more efficiently than Shiroe could in the same amount of time. In terms of exchanging information, it was better for Shiroe’s group to investigate various things in the field zones and work at practical training while they were there.
Of course, self-preservation instincts had compelled several people to begin doing what Shiroe and the others were doing, but Akiba still overflowed with apathetic players. Even now, a full week later, they seemed unable to believe the situation. They probably thought that someone—a god or the administrators—would rescue them.
Or maybe they “think” that because they wouldn’t be able to stand it otherwise, not because they really believe it.
It wasn’t a feeling Shiroe couldn’t relate to. He just wasn’t optimistic enough to be able to believe in that hope.
If this was some sort of prank and help found them someday, fine. If that happened, Shiroe would be relieved, too. His university hadn’t been all that comfortable, but it was the world where he’d been born and raised, and he was used to it. Of course, he wanted to go back.
However, even if this situation had been orchestrated by the administrators, there was an undeniable possibility that the incident had been irreversible and that things would never go back to normal. Shiroe was cautious to the point of pessimism, and he couldn’t bet everything on the possibility of rescue and spend his days sitting around.
Akiba was the largest city on the Japanese server and the starting point for new players. As with every player city, the zones in its immediate area were comparatively easy even for beginners to work their way through, and there were many safe places where only low-level monsters appeared. Shiroe and his group planned to check each of these beginner zones and gradually work their way up to high-level zones. In terms of simple level, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki were all level 90. In low-level beginner zones, even if they were attacked by monsters, they’d take hardly any damage. In addition, if the enemy sensed the sort of power they had, they wouldn’t attack recklessly. That technically would have made it possible to avoid battles with monsters entirely, but Shiroe and the others went out of their way to fight as many different monsters as they could.
Although the enemy’s attacks weren’t much of a threat in and of themselves, when various monsters leapt at them, they’d always cringe back at first. When they’d gamed through a monitor, they hadn’t known anything about the beasts’ harsh breathing or the choking stench of blood or what it was like to be targeted by something that wanted to kill them. Even if the enemy was a low-level monster, the terrors of real battle were enough to make them recoil. A monster might be so insignificant that they wouldn’t earn any experience points by defeating it, but even so, if it wasn’t one they’d fought before, Shiroe’s group battled it several times to study its habits and learn how best to handle it.
Naotsugu was always in the lead in their basic battle formation. Battles began with Naotsugu charging the enemy and closing the distance. As a Guardian, Naotsugu used his shield skills and the heavy armor he was so proud of to block enemy attacks. Taunting Shout was a basic Guardian skill that had the effect of sending monsters into a frenzy. The enraged monsters would attack Naotsugu ferociously, which kept them from targeting Shiroe or Akatsuki.
However, as they’d expected, keeping an eye on statuses while swinging a sword and paying out fierce attacks on the front line was no easy task. Back when Elder Tales had been a game, all you had to do was specify which monster you wanted to attack, and your character would attack it automatically and repeatedly. Enemy attacks were also dodged using evasion skills; characters would dodge with a set probability of success, deflect attacks with their swords, or stop them with their shields, and in all cases, the player didn’t need to do anything. If you wanted to use a special technique, all you had to do was click on an icon.
When actually fighting in this other world, though, they needed to either step in or jump back when a real-life monster appeared in front of them, and they had to bring both hands down over and over again to beat it with weapons. When they fought a monster that had come right up to them, their field of vision narrowed, and it was often hard to see what the monster was doing. After much discussion, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki came up with several formations and strategy codes. They came to the conclusion that it was safest for Shiroe to give orders to the other two, since he was away from the front line and had a clear view of the whole area.
As Shiroe used his spells to provide support, he watched the surrounding area and kept an eye on his friends’ statuses. Many of the Enchanter spells were fairly humdrum. One of the rare spells that Enchanters could really boast about to the other classes was Keen Edge: Its effect raised the attack force of companions’ weapons by 30 percent or so, and since the effect lasted several hours, there was no need to recast during battle.
There were many other spells he could use, of course, but he used the rest only as the situation demanded while he kept an eye on the battle. For now, Shiroe’s main role was to keep a wary eye on the area and to watch his friends’ statuses.
After several battles, Akatsuki seemed to have gotten used to working with Shiroe and Naotsugu. Assassin was one of the three Weapon Attack classes, and its ability to inflict maximum damage instantaneously was the highest of all twelve classes. Unlike the Warriors, which were skilled at drawing enemy attacks on the front lines, the Weapon Attack classes had comparatively low Defense, and they weren’t good at drawing the enemy to them. That meant that their role was to defeat the enemies the Warriors attracted. Of the Weapon Attack classes, Assassins had abilities engineered to quickly eliminate enemies. In a word, they were killing machines. The Assassin certain-kill technique Assassinate could inflict close to ten thousand in damage instantaneously.
Akatsuki seemed to skim over battlefields. Her slight body was astonishingly nimble, and even when she was sprinting to close in on an enemy, her shape seemed to blur to the point where it was sometimes hard to see her at all. According to Akatsuki, this was an Assassin technique known as Stealth Walk, and it raised the success rate of attacks launched right after capturing the enemy’s blind spot. As she ran, her black hair streaming, she moved with an almost liquid smoothness, and she was so graceful that sometimes they couldn’t help but stare. When Naotsugu blocked the enemy’s fangs with his shield, then used it to knock them back, she had them skewered with her short sword in moments. When an enemy was considering an attack on some opening in Naotsugu’s guard, she’d slash them in the side and ward off the attack.
While vanguard and rearguard team plays were big picture and strategic, vanguard-vanguard team plays were terribly direct and aggressive. For that very reason, they needed enough actual experience to understand one another’s habits by instinct.
Meanwhile, Shiroe watched their statuses, issued orders for battle maneuvers to curb enemy movements, and sometimes used his range of Enchanter’s spells to bind the enemy or to trick them and give his friends the advantage.
By the
end of a week, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki were battling level-50 monsters.
1
“Now that’s what I call a hunt. What a haul.”
Naotsugu swung the hatchet he’d been using to harvest items, wiped off the blood, and returned it to its sheath.
As Shiroe nodded in agreement, he lowered his staff, canceling the waiting spells.
…I’d better watch it. I managed to depress myself remembering all that.
He shrugged, sighing. He felt troubled. That said, there’d been so many troubling things since they came to this world that even he wasn’t quite clear on what was troubling him now.
Man, I hope that doesn’t turn into something I say all the time.
“What’s wrong, my liege?”
Akatsuki had come up beside Shiroe while his mind was elsewhere; she seemed to have finished getting her pack in order. She gazed up into his face with eyes as lustrous as polished obsidian. It was unnerving. Shiroe gave an evasive smile, then suggested that they start heading back.
At only a kilometer per side, Smallstone Herb Garden, the field zone they were in, wasn’t very big. It was already dusk. The wind that blew across the forest and ruined buildings was chilly, and the only sound in the area was faint, scattered birdsong. This particular zone was close to both Akiba and the town of Shibuya, which made it convenient for day-trip hunting excursions. Although it was close to a player town, it held relatively high-level monsters.
“Okay, then, let’s head home.”
“Understood.”
Black-clad Akatsuki answered Shiroe in her usual unemotional, too-serious tone and picked up the pack she’d set down, slinging it back over her shoulder.
The area was littered with the carcasses of the Triffids and Brier Weasels they’d been fighting. After a short while, the corpses dissolved into sparks of light and vanished.
Triffids were walking plants with buds that looked exactly like rugby balls at their tips. These monsters were horror movie material: If a human came near, the rugby ball split open into three sections, revealing a maw bristling with rows of sharp fangs like shards of broken glass. Brier Weasels were mottled purple-and-green monsters that lived parasitically on briers. They were fast, launching briers at players and moving with even more agility than cats.
