by Mamare Touno
“Yes, they’re almost here. She said they should arrive sometime before noon tomorrow,” Serara reported.
Once the rescue party arrived, she’d go back to Akiba with them. She couldn’t stay in a place like Susukino forever.
…But what would Nyanta do? Serara still wasn’t able to ask him. Nyanta had saved her because he was a good man, not because he wanted anything, and Serara didn’t know how much she could hope for from him. She felt as if she’d already received far more than she could repay, but every time she brought it up, he just smiled and dodged the question, saying, “It is the duty—and the pleasure—of the elderly to help young people.”
It’s very nice of him to say so, but… It does mean he’s treating me like a kid…
“Just a little more patience, then. I’m sure it’s been rough on mew, being cooped up in this tiny house, but it won’t be much longer now. Don’t worry. They’ll get mew out and home safely.”
At Nyanta’s smile, Serara lost yet another chance to ask him.
2
Another afternoon and night had passed. As scheduled, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki had set up camp for reconnaissance about fifteen minutes from the outskirts of Susukino. The town of Susukino, the imperial capital of Ezzo, was an urban zone located in the Ezzo Empire field zone, roughly where Sapporo had been in the old world. The area was a fortified city that included a farming region where many non-player characters lived.
When Shiroe, cautious as usual, found a tumbledown house on the outskirts of the city where they wouldn’t be spotted, they settled there for a while and checked the gates to the Susukino zone.
“I see nothing that currently warrants caution, my liege.”
“The place sure feels dicey, though. It’s practically dead.”
Shiroe nodded agreement with both these statements. He was drawing a simple map of Susukino on a piece of paper he’d taken from an inner pocket.
“Susukino is built around a main street… Like so. The downtown area cuts across the east side. The central plaza is here in the east. We”—he drew in an arrow—“are going to enter from the west.”
“Couldn’t we just rendezvous with them outside the city?”
“Bad plan, short stuff.”
“Is it, Naotsugu the Lech?”
Shutting down his companions, who’d started their usual short-stuff-and-lech banter, Shiroe explained.
“Akiba was the last city we visited. That means if we get wiped out, our corpses will get taken back to Akiba after a little while and revived there… But we’re here to rescue Serara, and she’s different. If she dies, she’ll revive in Susukino. In other words, even if the rendezvous goes without a hitch, if something happens and we all die, we’ll end up in Akiba, Serara will end up in Susukino, and we’ll have to start all over again. I want to avoid that.”
“I see. You’re right.”
Akatsuki conceded gracefully. Naotsugu wore a satisfied expression that seemed to say, “What did I tell you?”
“Next, I want to confirm our formation. Akatsuki… I want you using Sneak and Silent Move right from the beginning. Follow us, but make sure no one can tell you’re there, plea—”
“Quit being polite.”
“Agh… Right. Okay. Naotsugu, you and I will walk in through the gate normally. You come in with us, Akatsuki, but make sure you’re not detected. We’ll head for the abandoned building we’re using as a rendezvous point. Akatsuki, you find a place to hide somewhere in the area and keep an eye on the whole building. If there’s any trouble, alert me by telechat.”
The black-haired girl nodded, her face sober.
“Naotsugu, you take up a position near the building’s entrance. If possible, find a place where you can see both the street and the inside of the building. Wait there and be ready to respond to trouble, inside or out. I’ll go on into the building and meet up with Serara, and the two of us will come back to where you are as quickly as possible.”
“Roger that. So, uh, what about the third party that’s been helping her out?”
“I’m not sure yet. Personally, I’d like to get them out of Susukino when we go, whether or not they want to travel all the way back to Akiba with us.”
Shiroe was thinking hard as he spoke.
“There’s a very real possibility that the guild we’re assuming is behind most of the trouble in Susukino has Serara registered as a friend.”
Unlike the mutual consent the function’s name implied, as long as a player was in front of a person, one could register them as a friend without their permission. Once they were on a friend list, a person would be able to tell whether the other player was online or not and even whether the two of them were in the same zone.
“If they have, there’s a good chance they’ll know she’s in Susukino the second she leaves the room where she’s been hiding. They may send people after her. It would be better to get away from Susukino before that happens. If we put two or three zones between us and the city, they won’t follow us… At least, I don’t think they will.”
Serara was currently in a safe house somewhere in Susukino, and they’d been told that the house was an independent zone inside an abandoned building. In other words, as long as she was hiding in that smaller zone, even if Serara had been friended by the troublemakers, they wouldn’t be able to tell she was still in their zone. That said, once she left that safe house and entered the larger Susukino zone, it was best to assume that the Briganteers would know. On top of that, there was no way for her to return to Akiba without passing through Susukino.
This strategy was one Shiroe had come up with on the journey to Susukino in order to get around the issue, and he was able to explain it smoothly. He’d put together the fairly elaborate formation just to be safe; he thought the possibility of real trouble was quite low. However, it depended on how tenacious and unscrupulous the Susukino problem guild was. This wouldn’t be like hunting monsters: If their group got wiped out, they wouldn’t just be able to go back to the town and start over.
—Worst-case scenarios happen all the time. I know it’s thoughts like this that make people say I’m too introverted and overthinking things, but still…
If he was worrying over nothing, so be it. He really hoped he was. Naotsugu and Akatsuki nodded in emphatic agreement.
“So we could be kissing Susukino good-bye in an hour or so.”
“I’ll support your strategy, my liege.”
After going over several detailed call signs and deciding how to meet back up in an emergency, the three of them departed for Susukino.
The gate of the city was overwhelming. Reinforced with blue steel, it had been designed to look like a castle gate, and it had angular latches jutting into the frame on all sides. The Ezzo Empire was a young nation founded by the conquering emperor Al Rahdil. Its background information said it was a bellicose country with a strong military. That meant that weapons were carried prominently around town, and banners of all colors lent the country a wartime atmosphere.
It really doesn’t feel like Akiba. I was here when Elder Tales was a game, but the atmosphere now is in a whole different league…
All the things Shiroe had ignored as unimportant background when this was a game—like the town’s decorations, its smell, and all the other details—struck him as fresh and novel now. Naotsugu, wrapped in a thick wool mantle, seemed to feel the same way; he was looking around curiously.
A long main street stretched toward the urban area. It was crowded with non-player characters, but their faces all seemed listless and drained. The players they saw also looked dispirited, and many of them wore very troubled expressions.
“The atmosphere really tanks. I wouldn’t want to live here.”
Naotsugu kept his voice low so he wouldn’t be overheard.
“Agreed,” Shiroe murmured.
Although he did sympathize with the people here, a much larger part of him was supremely irritated. He’d felt the irritation during their journey as well, b
ut on reaching the city, it had abruptly grown too big to control. He was annoyed. He was angry. The unpleasant feelings seemed to be ratcheting his temperature up. Still, although he wanted to do something to improve matters, at this point, he didn’t have either the power or the means.
Shiroe looked back warily several times, but he couldn’t sense Akatsuki there at all, and he had no idea where she was. He thought she was probably following them, but she’d managed to erase her presence so completely that it made him uneasy.
After a short while, an abandoned building with a broken sign that read RAOKE BO clinging to it came into view. That was the landmark they’d been told about in their meeting with Marielle. Shiroe gave a small wave, signaling, and he and Naotsugu entered the building.
The cracked concrete had been reinforced with steel here and there, and it was in better shape than similar buildings in Akiba. It looked as though the concrete was still sturdy, at any rate. As soon as Naotsugu stepped into the building, he turned right, checking the guardroom. Shiroe could hear faint sounds from deeper inside. Letting a small part of his mind keep track of them, he headed farther into the building and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
When he contacted Marielle via telechat and had her relay the information, the response that came back was “We’ll head over right away.” Up to this point, everything had gone according to plan, and Shiroe let himself relax just a little. It had been six minutes since they’d entered Susukino. So far, so good.
“Um, hello?”
Shiroe, who’d turned calmly enough at the sound of approaching footsteps, was greeted by a girl wearing the softly curving leather armor unique to the recovery classes. Her hair hung down her back in a ponytail, and the eyes that gazed up at him seemed a bit apologetic. When combined with her shy, nervous attitude, it made Shiroe think of a small animal who’d poked its face out of the woods. He gave her a slight smile.
“I’m Serara of the Crescent Moon guild. Thank you so much for doing this.” The girl gave a light bow, but—
“Mrowr.”
“—Captain?! Wha… It’s you!”
Shiroe yelled at the top of his lungs, accidentally—and rudely—ignoring Serara.
“Well, well! If it isn’t Shiroechi. I did think this was an unmewsually fast and daring rescue.”
The tall shadow that stood there, guarding Serara’s back, was the Debauchery Tea Party’s own captain and feline retiree, the cat-eared Swashbuckler Nyanta.
3
Even for a Debauchery Tea Party member, Nyanta had been a player with a unique style. He was mild mannered, and he always had a tranquil, unconcerned air about him that made him seem a little like a sunbathing cat. He’d brought an invaluable element of common sense to the Debauchery Tea Party, which had many members who loved excitement and were prone to get out of control.
Nyanta said he was “an old man,” and coming from him, the words had the genuine ring of mature calm to them. The voice chat function in Elder Tales meant it was perfectly possible to deduce a player’s age from their voice. Although Nyanta claimed to be old, Shiroe didn’t think he’d reached fifty. He was more likely to be in his forties or possibly a sober, dignified individual in his thirties.
Of course, the average age in network games was low. Players in their thirties weren’t rare, but players in their forties were few and far between. This might have been what Nyanta was thinking of when he called himself an old man, but Shiroe and the people around him thought differently. In this case, “mature adult” had nothing to do with actual age. It was Nyanta’s personality and the experience evident in his words and gestures that made others acknowledge him as an adult, and when they said “adult,” they didn’t mean the much-loathed term used by children to designate “those clueless people who spoil all our fun.” They meant something different, an adviser who was always there, looking out for them when they needed him.
Nyanta had never hesitated to lend a listening ear to a conflicted friend or a troubled group member. Although he wasn’t overbearing in his help, his calm voice made players feel as though they could tackle even problems that had seemed insurmountable, and his younger companions had real respect for him. His nicknames “Captain” and “the Retiree” had been friendly gestures from the group as well.
The Debauchery Tea Party had been a simple gathering of players, not a guild. Many of its members had been unaffiliated, but of course there had been several who were members of guilds of all stripes. However, as a rule, large, well-regulated guilds didn’t like their members mixing too freely with outsiders. This wasn’t simply baseless prejudice (although it could occasionally be that): The guilds were worried about losing their internal human resources. For example, if a high-level player who belonged to a guild was going to be out coaching new players who weren’t part of the guild and younger players who belonged to other guilds, of course his guild would want him to coach their own younger players instead. At base, guilds were mutual aid organizations used by players to compensate for their own shortcomings. From that perspective, it was only natural that most Debauchery Tea Party members who had other affiliations belonged to small or midsized guilds.
Nyanta had belonged to the guild Cat Kibble. That said, Shiroe had never seen a Cat Kibble member besides Nyanta. Forget midsized or small, the guild had to have been practically nonexistent. When Shiroe had asked Nyanta about it, he’d laughed and said, “It feels a bit like I’ve found a veranda that suits me, but the house is falling to pieces.”
In that case, had Nyanta been an important adviser to the Debauchery Tea Party or the power behind it? The answer was no. In fact, it seemed to Shiroe that Nyanta had been almost afraid of influencing the group’s direction. He’d suspected that although Nyanta’s attitude and way of enjoying the game were sedate, he’d actually liked the Debauchery Tea Party’s frequent shenanigans and he’d wanted to have fun as part of the group of so-called “kids.”
“Oh… I, uh, I’m sorry, Miss Serara. My name is Shiroe. I’m a friend of the Retiree here.”
“That’s right, Serara. This is Shiroechi, and he’s a very good, clever boy. A mewly promising young fellow. If he’s the one who’s come for mew, this plan is bound to succeed.”
“I see your forced ‘mews’ are alive and well, Captain.”
Shiroe smiled mischievously. He’d had fun picking on Nyanta’s mews since their Tea Party days.
“Why, whatever do mew mean, Shiroechi? This is mewniversal Felinoid speech. And what amewsing speech it is, if a bit rough around the edges.”
“‘Mew,’ ‘ruff’… Pick a species, Captain.”
Nyanta and Shiroe’s cheerful exchange seemed to have thoroughly unsettled Serara. She finally pulled herself together enough to ask, “You two know each other, then?”
“Oh, I’d say we do. I once asked Shiroechi to groom me for fleas.”
“I have no memory of doing any such thing.”
Further unsettled, Serara could only nod silently.
“If you’re here, Shiroechi… Who are the other two?”
“One’s Naotsugu. The other is a girl named Akatsuki, a level-ninety Assassin. During team training, she got one hundred and sixty units in ten days. She’s really good.”
“So Naotsugucchi’s here, too, is he? And a mew companion? …That’s fine mews. It looks like it’s your time at last, Shiroechi.”
Nyanta’s eyes were always slightly narrowed as if he were smiling, but as he looked at Shiroe, his smile deepened slightly.
“Captain Nyanta… What happened to Cat Kibble?”
“The poor old house couldn’t take the wind and snow. It collapsed. I may leave Susukino and make my way down to Akiba with mew.”
Nyanta’s words seemed more transparent than lonely.
“What do you…? Oh. Hang on.”
Just as Shiroe was about to ask what he meant, a soft chime sounded in his ear.
“A group is approaching your building. They look rough. The leader may be a Monk. Three W
eapon Attack classes, two healers. They seem to have formed a party. They’re fanning out to block the street as they approach. They could be there in as little as two minutes.”
At Akatsuki’s concise telechat, Shiroe visualized the map he’d been drawing a short while ago, the one of Susukino’s streets.
“There’s a group coming this way. A party of six led by a Monk. Sound familiar?”
“That’s—!”
“That’s probably the Briganteers leader, Demiquas. He’s a level-ninety Monk, and his friends’ levels will be similar. He’s the one behind this affair… The enemy.”
Nyanta said “enemy” very clearly. In the game, he’d never used that word to refer to other players, but now he said it decisively and without hesitation. Hearing that settled Shiroe’s resolve, too.
“Does this building have a back door? We’ll force our way through if we have to.”
4
“This way, mew two.”
“Are you all right, Miss Serara?”
“O-of course.”
Serara desperately followed Nyanta, who was running in the lead. Shiroe, the young man who’d come to rescue her, was right behind her.
So he’s a friend of Nyanta’s… He looks a little hard to please, but he seems really smart, she thought, remembering Shiroe’s sharp eyes.
She snuck a glance behind her. Shiroe was scanning the area and talking in a low voice. Probably a telechat. His training showed through in the fact that he didn’t stumble.
The Briganteers seemed to have been suspicious of the simple housing district for a while, and they were searching it exhaustively. Serara thought their friend lists must have alerted them when she’d moved from the safe house into the Susukino zone. In that case, it was only a matter of time until they found them. The layout of Susukino was a simple grid, and most roads intersected with each other at right angles. Even if they ran through the backstreets, if the enemy had enough members, they’d eventually be caught.
