The Knights of Camelot

by Mamare Touno

  If they did refuse, it would be because they doubted some aspect of the tale, but the three men were completely caught up in the story of the unknown quest they’d imagined.

  It’s about time I threw them a life vest…

  “We’re working with everything we have to raise funds. Including asset disposal and the Crescent Moon sales, we’ve managed to raise 500,000 gold coins. We still need 4.5 million. We thought that asking any one guild would drastically change the current balance. In that case, 1.5 million gold coins from each guild… How does that sound?”

  In a single stroke, Henrietta cut the amount she was requesting by two-thirds.

  In this world, a level-90 player could have anywhere from ten thousand to forty or fifty thousand gold coins on hand. In other words, those 1.5 million gold coins could be covered by contributions from about one hundred members.

  If the Marine Organization, the largest of the three guilds, took up a collection from its 2,500 members, the contribution would only be six hundred gold coins per person.

  Six hundred gold coins was no more than the cost of a suit of midrange armor. It was only natural that the three players’ expressions shifted into determination.

  “The Roderick Trading Company will participate.”

  “Shopping District Eight is in as well.”

  “All right. The Marine Organization will set you up with capital. Heck, if you want, we’ll fund the whole thing on our own.”

  “I’d have a problem with that. …Are you planning to monopolize the profits?”

  As the three began to argue, Marielle said, “Oh, now, don’t be like that, y’all. Okay? C’mon. Play nice, for my sake.”

  At these words from Marielle, who’d smiled through the entire talk, the three had no choice but to back down. After all, the Crescent Moon League held the initiative in the discussion.

  “In that case, we’ll expect your payment in… Will four days be sufficient?”

  “Fine. And when will you deliver the recipe?”

  “It depends on our Scribe’s schedule, but if possible, we’d like to give you the cooking method upon receipt of the funds. You’ll have it by the day after at the very latest. The Scribe is Master Shiroe, you see.”

  With those parting words, the three left the rented room. After they’d gone, Marielle and Henrietta were exhausted. Henrietta had controlled the initiative and set the pace from beginning to end, but the pressure had been greater than she’d expected.

  Although it hadn’t taken long, she felt mentally fatigued. Her back seemed to have gone limp and weak; unable to sit up properly, she slumped forward onto the table.

  “Sorry, Henrietta…”

  Marielle seemed listless and apologetic.

  “Whatever’s the matter, Mari?”

  Henrietta’s well-bred speech had also grown rather careless.

  “I wanted to help with the negotiatin’, but there wasn’t much I could do… Negotiatin’s hard, isn’t it…?”

  Marielle sounded sincerely miserable. Even though Henrietta was completely worn out, she couldn’t fight back a giggle.

  “What are you saying, Mari? If you hadn’t smiled like that, we wouldn’t have had a chance in these negotiations.”

  The smile Henrietta gave Marielle was filled with deep gratitude. Without Marielle’s beaming sunflower smile, they’d never have been able to separate those three veteran players from their money.

  …And so Henrietta and Marielle acquired five million in campaign funds.

  5

  It was a bright moonlit night.

  A dry wind, still warm with the afternoon’s heat, blew across a crumbling station platform over which lightning bugs flitted. It was a concrete plateau about two hundred meters in length, mounted on an elevated structure, and it commanded a view down over Akiba’s central plaza.

  In the real world, it had been a platform at Akihabara Station.

  The rails and support posts had rusted away long ago, and it was covered with unidentifiable weeds and moss. The buildings to the right and left of the platform bore what could have been the scars of a great crash: They seemed to have been struck with terrific force partway up, and their tops were broken and jagged.

  The moonlight threw the dark spearhead shadows of the buildings across the platform’s marbled green and concrete surface, and in the midst of it all stood two tall shadows.

  Shiroe and Nyanta.

  “I think the wind’s picked up a bit, don’t mew?”

  “Yes, it has.”

  Shiroe looked up at the moon, shading his eyes with one hand.

  Possibly because the wind ruffled his hair, making a few strands catch on his eyelashes, he narrowed his eyes behind his glasses and spoke slowly.

  “It’s still a little while before midnight, I think… We’ve probably got a bit of time left before Soujirou comes. Captain Nyanta, do you want to sit down somewhere?”

  “No, no. Thanks for meowr consideration, but I’m not quite such a run-down oldster.”

  “I didn’t say it because I thought you were old.” Shiroe shrugged.

  “Are mew not looking forward to seeing Soujicchi, Shiroechi?”

  “Um. Mm…”

  The question made Shiroe think a bit.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to see him. I just feel a little guilty. When Soujirou formed his guild, he invited me to join, so… It’s awkward.”

  “He did, did he?”

  “He didn’t invite you, Captain Nyanta?”

  “If memory serves, I wasn’t logging in regularly back then. I don’t remember getting an invitation.”

  “I see…”

  They were waiting for Soujirou Seta.

  He was an old friend of Nyanta, Shiroe, and Naotsugu.

  He was also a Samurai and Master Swordsman, and one of the eight former Debauchery Tea Party members in this world.

  In a way, Soujirou was one of the players who’d been most influenced by the Debauchery Tea Party. Not only was he hardworking and earnest, he was kind. When the Debauchery Tea Party had decided to disband, it might have been Soujirou who missed it most.

  Samurai were skilled with a variety of Asian weapons, but the essence of these was the katana. The term katana covered many varieties: Tachi, the traditional longsword. Kodachi, smaller short swords. Wakizashi, or side swords, meant to be worn in pairs, and the main Samurai weapon—the uchigatana, or “striking sword.” In Elder Tales, generally speaking, swords made of steel that emphasized superior attack power were called tachi, and lighter swords that emphasized speed and handling and were easy to swing were called uchigatana.

  Soujirou was an uchigatana master.

  His techniques, which hid their strikes in elegance instead of speed, were nearly impossible to follow, even if one strained their eyes. Soujirou could parry an attack from a giant who could snap great trees in two, and even Sand Cricket Armor, which could block an attack from an iron hammer, was useless against him.

  “There’s a knack to it, sir,” Soujirou had said with a slightly bashful smile.

  Naotsugu had left the game, and at the same time, due to a variety of personal circumstances, several of their other companions had left Elder Tales as well. By all accounts, Captain Nyanta had also nearly stopped playing for a while or had at least not logged in frequently.

  In the midst of that, Soujirou had headed the list of members who had stayed in Elder Tales. “I don’t want to let the Debauchery Tea Party go to waste,” he’d said and started his own guild.

  Of course, as a prerequisite, he’d invited the remaining members of the Debauchery Tea Party to join. However, the Tea Party hadn’t been a guild, and many of the players who’d “belonged” to it had been free spirits.

  There had been several players who’d joined Soujirou’s guild, but several others had refused. Shiroe had been one of the latter.

  “I don’t think mew have anything to feel guilty about. Mew were following different paths. Soujicchi isn’t the type of boy who�
��d be upset about something so trivial.”

  “That’s true, but…,” Shiroe said evasively.

  His refusal to join the guild wasn’t the only thing that was worrying him. The issue was why he’d refused.

  Shiroe didn’t think it was Soujirou that he’d turned down.

  He’d refused to let himself be bound by a guild.

  Yet now here he was, going all the way to Susukino to help the Crescent Moon League guild, then, becoming irritated by the growing silent power of the big guilds in Akiba, he was seeking out Soujirou’s guild, the West Wind Brigade, for help to change the situation.

  Simply time had passed, and Shiroe had changed with it.

  He was already different from the Shiroe who’d been merely fastidious and prejudiced against the human relationships known as guilds. However, he didn’t think his current feelings would get across to Soujirou if he only defined them in the negative, as “different.”

  In addition, he thought that Soujirou, who’d started his West Wind Brigade immediately after losing the Debauchery Tea Party, might have understood quite a lot more than Shiroe had.

  The West Wind Brigade…

  While not large, it was a guild with great influence in Akiba. Although its official membership was 120, its active membership was said to be sixty, and yet even with small numbers like that, it competed on equal terms with D.D.D., Honesty, and the Knights of the Black Sword, the famous guilds of Akiba.

  While it could never have won on size, it had competed with the big guilds to hold first place in large-scale battles that had gone down in the server’s history, such as Radamanteus’s Throne and the Nine Great Gaols of Helos.

  In terms of military achievements, its record might be even more splendid than those of the big guilds, which had hordes of reserve members.

  “Don’t worry about it too much. Mew’ve decided to conquer, Shiroechi, so mew need to walk tall. Mew’re already the landlord of my veranda, mew know.”

  At Nyanta’s words, Shiroe changed his mind. Come to think of it, he’s right.

  Just as Soujirou had created a place for himself and defended it, Shiroe had built a new place for himself. He couldn’t afford to spend forever worrying.

  “Good evening. I haven’t seen you in a while, Mr. Shiro. Sage Nyanta.”

  The approaching shape hailed the two of them while it was still a good distance away. On seeing Soujirou’s boyish expression, Shiroe remembered, Oh, that’s right. He was younger than me, wasn’t he? It had been almost a year since they’d spoken.

  “It’s been a long time, Soujirou.”

  “Long time no see. How have mew been, Soujicchi?”

  At their greetings, Soujirou ducked his head, looking a bit embarrassed.

  Smiling together like this made it feel as though they’d gone back in time.

  Soujirou came over to them, lightly dodging the countless vines that hung down over the platform as he approached. The lightning bugs seemed to dance out of the way of his hands.

  As Soujirou came closer, they saw he was dressed in Japanese hakama and had two swords hanging at his waist, like a patriot from the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate. Of course, in a full-scale battle, he’d probably wear armor; this was how he equipped himself when in town.

  “I hear mew started a guild. How goes it?”

  “I did; thank you for asking. It was going pretty well, but then the Catastrophe hit, so…”

  Soujirou shrugged.

  His expression made Shiroe realize something unexpectedly.

  Now that he thought about it, he himself, Naotsugu, Nyanta, Soujirou—none of them seemed to be the least bit discouraged by the Catastrophe. This way of taking things as half sightseeing and half adventure, no matter how bad the circumstances were, might have been in the genetics of the Debauchery Tea Party.

  “Are Nazunacchi and Mistress Saki still with mew?”

  “Nazuna is. Saki’s part of the guild, but… It looks as if she wasn’t logged in at the time of the Catastrophe.”

  The names Nyanta had brought up belonged to skilled healers who had been part of the Debauchery Tea Party. The question reminded Shiroe of another reason he hadn’t joined Soujirou’s guild.

  “Are you still as popular as ever, Soujirou?”

  “Huh? Ah… It’s not like that…”

  Soujirou abruptly looked flustered. Nyanta narrowed his already threadlike eyes even further in a smile and asked, “Ah, youth. How many do mew have now?”

  At his question, Soujirou quietly raised one hand and folded down just the thumb.

  He still has a harem…? Not that I’m jealous or anything, really…but. But. Four is incredibly hard to swallow…somehow. I mean, four of them? What’s with that? Nazuna, Saki, and two others… Talk about a deluxe lineup…

  Shiroe felt his energy draining away.

  “—But never mind that! What’s going on, Mr. Shiro? I didn’t expect you to summon me. I thought you didn’t like me.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  The unexpected words made Shiroe answer the question with a frank question of his own.

  “Well, I… Um. Because I tend to attract harems.”

  Soujirou faltered, red-faced. Shiroe had no way to respond. Beside him, Nyanta burst into loud laughter. If Naotsugu had been there, he would have promptly delivered a physical comeback in the form of a karate chop.

  “That’s definitely a serious problem, but there’s no way I’d hate you for it. We were in the Debauchery Tea Party together, remember?”

  “I see. I suppose that’s true… But then, what brings you here?”

  At Soujirou’s question, Shiroe straightened, psyching himself up again.

  “I’ll get straight to the point: I’d like your help.”

  “What sort of help might that be?”

  “…What do mew think of the way Akiba is now, Soujicchi?”

  “This town? That’s a pretty abstract question… Well, I think it’s painful in several ways. It isn’t just this town. I mean, depending on how you look at it, this entire world is a prison, isn’t it?”

  “A prison, hm?”

  Soujirou combed his hair up with his fingers. His Samurai-style ponytail fluttered in the wind that crossed the platform.

  “Yes. We were abruptly pulled into another world. We don’t know how to get back home. We can’t die, either. That’s simply how the world works, and on top of that, there are monsters prowling outside the town. Leaving us aside, I can understand how players who hate fighting would feel as if they’ve been locked in.”

  “That’s right. Now that mew mention it, that’s exactly right,” Nyanta agreed.

  Soujirou had taken a vague thought that was on everyone’s mind and stated it clearly. Shiroe agreed: If one thought of it that way, it was only natural that they would feel trapped.

  “So it is painful, you know. I don’t think it’s good. Under circumstances like these, people tend to resort to bullying the weak. As a matter of fact, my guild has been talking about leaving town.”

  “You’re leaving Akiba?”

  “No, I just meant the idea has come up,” Soujirou said. “We haven’t made specific plans or anything. Besides, it’s convenient to be headquartered in town. It’s just that it’s hard to watch things get worse and worse. Especially when there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about it.” He’d said the words easily, but it certainly wasn’t because he’d relinquished responsibility. Soujirou had thought of doing something and had properly examined the possibilities. As a result, he’d concluded that there was nothing he could do, and he was saying so honestly. That was all.

  As proof, his voice is bitter…

  “There is something we can do.”

  “Do you mean that, Mr. Shiro?!”

  “…I think there is.”

  Shiroe honestly avoided making a positive statement. He did want to do something, and he intended to try, but he had no guarantees. In any case, in Tea Party
terms, anyone who refused to follow without a guarantee was a coward, not a friend.

  That meant that if one wanted someone to be a friend, they didn’t give them guarantees.

  “In order to do it, I want your help.”

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “…It isn’t just you, Soujirou. I’ll have to borrow the West Wind Brigade’s name.”

  Shiroe stared Soujirou right in the eye.

  If, as Nyanta had said, birth and death were constants for all things, and effort was necessary to ensure long life, then as the one who’d created and protected the West Wind Brigade, Soujirou had nourished it properly with love and paid for it through hard work. If he was going to borrow that strength, Shiroe couldn’t avert his eyes.

  And even more so, because he himself hadn’t tried to cultivate anything.

  Soujirou looked mildly startled, but then he nodded, seeming satisfied. Shiroe continued.

  “First, I want you to talk to the people around you about how the current atmosphere in Akiba is bad. Tell them that if this keeps up, things will go to seed. If you’d let that travel to the other major guilds as well, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “Yes, that’s fine. That’s something everyone already feels, though, on some level.”

  “Still, I think it’s important to put it into words. If you can make them aware that the West Wind Brigade thinks this and might even take action, it will have enough of an effect. Second, you should be getting an invitation in a few days. If possible, I’d like you to stay in Akiba until that day. It’s an invitation to a conference. I’d like to settle things at that conference somehow.”

  “I understand.”

  Soujirou agreed easily with a nonchalant smile.

  “You’re sure you don’t need to ask about the particulars of the operation?”

  “Well, you’re busy, aren’t you, Mr. Shiro? I’d hate to take up your time with things like that. Besides, I’m a vanguard lunkhead, and you’re the Tea Party’s top strategy counselor. Even if you told me, I’m sure I wouldn’t understand half of it.”

  The words were so warm that Shiroe flinched.