by Mamare Touno
“Have you come from the town of Tsukuba, traveler? Are you all Adventurers?”
“Hm? Yes. We’re Adventurers. We’re actually on our way to Akiba,” Shiroe responded. The old man seemed pleasant. Adventurers was the word non-player characters used to refer to players. “Would you like some?”
“Why, thank you kindly… Is this…tea?”
Shiroe had taken some of Nyanta’s special sweet tea from his bag; he poured it into a tin cup and handed it to the old man. He poured his own into the lid of his flask and sat down on a nearby sawhorse.
The old man pulled up a chair hewn from a log and sat down near Shiroe.
“What do you think? It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”
Shiroe smiled at the old man. The man was drinking the tea; he seemed surprised at its slightly bittersweet taste, as if he’d never had anything like it before. Grinning from ear to ear, the man told him it was wonderful.
“Huh. You’re making that one right.”
“Of course. This one is for my liege.”
“Oh yeah? I see… It must be pretty tough to make a human-sized bed, huh?”
“Don’t make fun of me, pervert.”
Still quarreling, Akatsuki and Naotsugu were getting the beds set up. With their voices as background music, Shiroe and the old man slowly drank their tea. Outside the eaves, the streets were beginning to turn muddy, but given that the old man didn’t seem concerned, this sort of rainfall probably wasn’t all that unusual.
“Your friends are nice and lively.”
“They are that. They’re a bit embarrassing.”
“No, no. You need that much energy when you live on the road. It’s only natural for Adventurers such as yourselves.”
Among the players, it was said that the NPCs had been one of the things most changed by the Catastrophe.
In the Elder Tales game, as in all other games, non-player characters hadn’t had personalities. As characters, they were much more sophisticated than those in a badly designed home RPG, as they would answer simple questions; however, this was due to the sort of artificial intelligence that could respond to set keywords, and so in reality they’d been no more than automatons.
After the Catastrophe, though, in this other world, non-player characters seemed to be almost perfectly human. The members of the Briganteers might not have thought so, but at the very least, Shiroe did.
They thought, breathed, ate, and lived.
It was possible to drink tea with them this way and to talk with them about all sorts of things. Each of them had a name, and they all had memories.
They weren’t human, but they weren’t monsters, either. They were probably one of the elements that made up this world.
Since the Catastrophe, because they’d placed great importance on training together on the outskirts of town, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki hadn’t stayed in Akiba for any length of time. In addition, since Akiba was a starting point for Adventurers, it had fewer NPCs than PCs compared to other towns of the same size.
As a result, up to this point, Shiroe hadn’t had much opportunity to really get to know any non-player characters. However, as he and the man conversed, it was difficult for him to remember that this was a game character, and the more they talked, the more impossible it was to think of him as anything except human.
“People of the Earth don’t travel much, you see.”
The old man was watching Akatsuki as he spoke, and he smiled broadly, like a good-natured old grandfather.
The term People of the Earth didn’t signify a race, the way human, elf, and dwarf did. It was what non-player characters called themselves in contrast to the players, or Adventurers.
These names had existed when Elder Tales was operated as a game, but no players had called them People of the Earth back then. They were players. The mechanical characters were NPCs. That was all.
Now, however, things were different.
“‘People of the Earth,’ you said…?”
“That’s right. This village is a good place, and there isn’t much that troubles us.”
When People of the Earth called players Adventurers, the name held great awe and dread. From their perspective, players were beings with fundamentally different abilities and a culture completely unlike their own.
By battling repeatedly, Adventurers grew and grew, and they could develop fighting ability that was tens or hundreds of times greater than what they’d had at first. On top of that, even when lethally wounded, they weren’t completely destroyed: They had eternal souls that returned to the temple and were resurrected. They even went to the ruins that remained all over the world and fought—and defeated—giants, undead, dragons, and other terrible, menacing monsters.
These transcendent beings were what they called Adventurers.
People of the Earth didn’t have that sort of fighting ability. If they were wounded, they collapsed, and if they died, they couldn’t be revived. The term referred to the normal people of this world.
Of course, as the game specs dictated, some non-player characters were given abilities that were equivalent to, and sometimes surpassed, player abilities. The People of the Earth considered these beings to be different from both themselves and the Adventurers, and they referred to them as the Ancients.
In this system of classification, the People of the Earth were the weakest beings. If an Adventurer felt like it, they could easily take their lives or property.
The People of the Earth seemed to have undergone a population explosion since the Catastrophe, and their numbers were five to ten times greater than before, but the difference in fighting ability was a lethal one.
However, as far as Shiroe could see, the fact didn’t seem to cause them resentment or grief. Possibly this was because, to them, that was the natural way of things: This world, where they’d been born and raised, had always been that way.
Even the name is like that: People of the Earth… They live with the land. I don’t think I could match that…
As he and the old man spoke about it reticently, Shiroe felt this very keenly. How many People of the Earth did the world hold? Even in the Aabu Highlands alone, there had to be more than a hundred villages like this one.
Come to think of it, I don’t know much about the People of the Earth, do I? I don’t know what they normally eat or what they do… That’s really, really…
Spurred on by a sense of wrongness he couldn’t put into words, Shiroe was about to ask the old man about it when a cheerful voice hailed him from behind.
“Shiroechi. Great mews!”
Nyanta approached them, and there was a spring in his step. Serara skipped playfully at his side; from the smile on her face, she already knew what the news was.
“What is it?”
“We called at a few of the houses in the neighborhood. When we spoke with them, they sold us provisions.”
“It’s amazing! We have milk. And cheese. There’s sausage and bacon—oh, and eggs! Eggs, too! We bought sugar in Susukino, so we can make cookies!”
“Mm, yes, and we now have cabbage and potatoes as well.”
Triumphantly, the two of them displayed their loot. This much food would easily tide them over until they reached Akiba, even if they didn’t hunt.
“Is that all right?”
Shiroe asked the old man just to be safe, but he nodded and said, “Of course.
“The weather was good this spring, and our livestock multiplied. I’d wager the villagers are glad of the chance to make a bit of money. …Ah, that’s right. I have some barrel-pickled berries,” the old man added, as if he’d just thought of it. “If you’d like, would you buy those as well?”
No doubt he was also eager to make “a bit of money.”
“We’d love to.”
The old man counted among the People of the Earth set off, leading the way, and Shiroe followed.
6
Touya swiped roughly with his left hand at the mud on his cheek.
His battle ga
untlet was made of beast hide and steel wire, so his cheek stung where he’d rubbed it, but that was just what he needed.
If it was hard enough to hurt, he could keep the tears in his eyes from spilling over.
“Step it up. Get the lead out!”
His party leader was yelling, his voice harsh.
Their battle lines had collapsed again today, and he seemed thoroughly annoyed by it.
Touya could sympathize. Touya’s class was Samurai. Samurai were one of the three Warrior classes, and it was his job to be the tank.
A tank’s role was to support the battle array on the front line. All parties had one or more tanks to draw monster attacks and provide support. If they did that, the attackers could put their abilities to work and attack from wherever they liked in relative safety, without worrying about the monsters’ attacks.
In order for that to happen, there were two requirements. The first was not to die. If the tank died, there would be no one to draw the monsters’ attacks, and the damage would spread to the players with weak defense: the magic users and healers. If that happened, the battle lines would collapse. The second was to draw enemy attacks to himself, ensuring the safety of the rest of the party members. Even if he survived, if he didn’t draw the monsters’ attacks, his companions would end up taking damage and, again, the battle lines would collapse.
Mr. Shiroe showed me the ropes, so I understand the basics, but…
Even if he understood the basics, understanding them and putting them into practice were two different things.
True, supporting the battle lines was a tank’s duty. It was practically the reason tanks existed. Touya didn’t want to just stand by and expose his party to danger. However, without the support of his companions, it couldn’t happen.
In order for the tank to survive and continue supporting the front line, he needed recovery support from the rear. Even the Warrior classes, with their excellent defense, would collapse if they had to keep taking monster attacks. To avoid that, sporadic recovery support from the rear guard was necessary. At the same time, the Warrior classes had to draw monster attacks so that the healer could concentrate on recovering, without worrying about enemies in the surrounding area.
These were two sides of the same coin. If either one was missing, Touya, the Warrior on the front line, would fall—and the battle lines would collapse.
In addition, in order to draw the enemy, he had to fan their hate more than anyone else in the party and keep their attention on him. The Warrior classes had lots of special skills to pull the enemy’s attention to them and concentrate attacks on themselves. Many of these were provocative skills known as taunts. These special skills were a type of mental manipulation that wiped everyone but the Warrior off the enemy’s radar.
“After you’ve drawn them, it’s a matter of having courage, a cool head, and the strength of will to believe in your companion’s recovery. Touya, you trust Minori, so that’s easy, right?”
That’s what Mr. Shiroe told me, but…it’s not enough…
Ordinarily, if enemies and allies had roughly equal strength, taunts would function without any problem. However, if another party member’s level was much higher than the tank’s or if the attacks were too fierce, this wasn’t necessarily the case.
In other words, even though the tank’s job was to draw the enemy on the front line, the enemy would decide that an attacker or healer posed more of a threat.
That was the issue with Touya’s current party.
The man who’d been put in charge was a level 46 Summoner. That put him right in the middle as far as Elder Tales rankings were concerned, and his level was twice as high as Touya’s.
In comparison to the Summoner’s attack power, Touya’s ability to control the front line was lethally inadequate. Enemies decided that the Summoner was more of a threat than Touya, who was supporting the front line. Naturally, the man’s excessive attacks provoked the enemy monsters’ anger, and their attacks targeted him instead of Touya. However, although the Summoner had twice Touya’s level, his defense was far lower.
In a situation where the enemy’s attacks were split between Touya and the leader, the healer’s attention would be divided as well. If two party members were taking damage from attacks, the amount of recovery was spread out, and in the worst-case scenario, there wouldn’t be enough to recover either of them.
On top of that, if their teamwork broke down, the formation they’d put together in advance would fall apart, and the members in charge of attacking wouldn’t be able to tell which enemy they needed to take out in order to salvage the situation. Should they act according to plan and take out the enemies Touya was fighting at the front, one at a time, or should they save the Summoner, their leader, by switching their target to the enemies swarming him? If the players in charge of attacking lost their focus, their attacks wouldn’t be focused either, and the individual kills wouldn’t go as planned.
As a result, the battle would drag out, and the wound in the already disintegrating battle lines would widen. It was a perfect vicious cycle.
I guess that’s why Mr. Shiroe used the Coach System. If he’d just played as himself, the monsters would have gone for him…
Touya had finally made that connection the other day.
Shiroe certainly hadn’t matched his level to theirs for show on a whim or out of sympathy, he realized. He’d done it to train them in the basics of group combat.
On that point, the Summoner, his current leader, was different.
The target monsters at that day’s hunting ground were level 25. They were lizardmen, with higher levels than Touya and the other beginners, and fighting the monsters stretched them to their limit.
However, to the leader, they were puny monsters more than ten levels below him. He couldn’t stand to chip away slowly at low-level monsters like that. “I’m not matching your pace. You match mine. That’s how it should be.” He’d said that to Touya and the others very clearly.
To the Summoner, this was just a babysitting job that his guild master had foisted on him. If they didn’t collect or earn their quota, he’d probably get some sort of warning from the guild’s top brass.
As far as he was concerned, Touya and the others were holding him back.
The leader, who was wearing a dark crimson robe, made no attempt to hide his irritation.
All his companions were exhausted, and their eyes were dull and vacant. Four of them had died today. The fact that they’d had to go back to the temple and make a fresh start every single time had only added to their leader’s annoyance.
However, even then, the man hadn’t changed his methods. If he’d used the Coach System and matched his level to Touya and the others, it would have balanced their combat teamwork, but he didn’t seem able to stomach the idea of bringing his level down. “Our battles are already slow!” he’d railed. “If I do that, they’ll get even slower, and we won’t make our quota.”
In one of Akiba’s back alleys, one of his companions, a Bard, staggered and nearly fell even though the path was perfectly clear.
“…I’m sorry. …I feel kind of dizzy…”
The girl apologized to Touya, who’d helped her stay on her feet. All he could see in her eyes was a stagnant, murky fatigue.
“It’s not much longer now. C’mon, you can do it.”
Touya lent the girl his shoulder, trying to encourage her. The Bard was a level or two below Touya; she was light, and the sour smell of her sweaty, grimy mantle clung to his nostrils. Touya knew he was about the same. They weren’t given the time or breathing room to bathe.
I guess that’s pretty rough on the girls, but…
He glanced at the girl out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t seem to have the energy to care about her shabby appearance anymore. She was moving her lips, silently counting her steps, as if she’d collapse from exhaustion if she didn’t distract herself.
Touya bit his lip.
Why had things turned out like this? The
idea, which he should have been sick of thinking by then, dragged itself around his fatigue- and anger-muddled mind, unable to find a way out.
When, trailing behind their leader, the party reached the central plaza, they were made to form ranks. The leader, his lip curled in a sneer, glared at Touya and the others. Then he began going from member to member, collecting the material items they’d won that day.
Just having a guildhall didn’t give the guild limitless storage space for items. Hamelin sold off any middling items it couldn’t use at the market immediately after a hunt.
“You’ve been sitting on a lot there, Touya.”
The leader taunted him in a sticky voice. Although Touya’s level was low, he was a Warrior. Naturally, it made him physically stronger than the other classes, and he was able to carry a lot. His load was the result of his attempt to reduce his companions’ fatigue as best he could.
“I worked hard to carry it.”
Even the leader had to be aware of that. Touya spoke without meeting the man’s eyes. The urge to hit him welled up inside him, but they were already in the noncombat zone. Besides, his companions’ strength was nearly gone. He didn’t want to start trouble in a place like this and shorten their already brief break.
“Huhn!”
The leader snorted contemptuously at Touya, then put all the items he’d collected on the market.
“So, all the power you lot have is just barely enough to collect bargain-bin items like those. Well, even then, your room and board is covered for you. Be grateful for that. …Even though it’s because of your Pots.”
In spite of himself, Touya ground his molars together.
…Minori.
If they hadn’t had his sister shut up in the guildhall, a virtual prisoner, he wouldn’t have let this smug-faced thug shoot his mouth off. Even he could feel the animosity creeping into his gaze, and anger was welling up inside him like heavy oil. To keep it from showing, Touya looked away, turning his gaze to the dusty street.
In any case, the leader was only middle management.
That scumbag. If I cut him, I’d just get my sword dirty. …How long is this going to go on? How did this happen? …We don’t need the Pots. I don’t even want ’em. If they do, they can have ’em all. But even Minori’s at the end of her rope. If only we hadn’t joined this guild…
