The Knights of Camelot

by Mamare Touno

  “The rescue I’ve been telling you about is on. Let’s get to the guild center hall right away. Hurry!”

  He felt them catch their breath. On some level, the others had probably sensed it in the air, too. A flurry of motion broke out. Some hastily tried to grab their belongings, but he checked them. “Leave that stuff. It’s not like we’ve got anything anyway.”

  It was true. Touya and the others didn’t have any property to speak of. All they had were all the clothes and sundries they could pack into the ready-made bags they always used, the cheap kind that didn’t even have weight cancellation spells on them.

  When Touya glanced back, keeping his ear pressed to the door, several of his companions nodded. Touya opened the door, stepped into the hall, and ran straight to the other group bedroom.

  As he approached the door to that room, he heard a small shriek and the sound of a struggle behind it. When Touya flung the door open without even thinking about it, he saw Minori struggling with a regular guild member.

  What, they’re onto us?!

  Touya gulped. Then he gestured at the frightened newbie girls who were watching the struggle from the fringes, motioning for them to leave. In nearly the same motion, he rammed the short-haired bandit who was leaning on his sister, trying to hold her down.

  “Wha?! What are you kids planning—”

  There was a wheezing sound as the man filled his lungs. The short-haired bandit was probably going to yell. His sister’s frightened face. That face alone was enough to set Touya moving again before he was even aware of it.

  He dropped into a crouch, and his left arm snaked around smoothly.

  The sword leapt from its sheath with such force that it seemed to have been launched rather than drawn. The shining silver light became a straight line that struck at the man’s throat.

  It was a special Samurai attack skill, Rania’s Capture.

  Its effect crushed the target’s vocal cords, preventing them from chanting spells. In this case, the player wasn’t chanting a spell, but the effect seemed to work anyway. The short-haired bandit choked soundlessly, holding his throat.

  Normally, guildhalls were noncombat zones. Any act of aggression would summon the non-player guard characters instantly, even if they hadn’t been nearby.

  However, the noncombat zone settings were determined by the owner of the zone, and they could be lifted. In Hamelin’s guildhall, combat had been legalized because it was necessary to “manage” the newbies.

  The regular members had used those settings to hurt their new recruits.

  —At least they had until today.

  “Get them to safety!”

  At Touya’s call, Minori leapt up as if she’d been stung and pushed the other girls toward the guildhall’s entryway. Now that things had gone this far, there was no time to dawdle. All she could do was encourage her frightened companions and lead them away.

  Meanwhile, Touya squared off against the bandit.

  The man’s face was hard, and hatred blazed in his eyes. His throat had been crushed by one of the newbies he’d held in contempt as little squirts, and the rage it had whipped up inside him was unbelievable. There was a difference of more than twenty levels between Touya and him.

  The bandit whipped out a scimitar with a blade that had to be fifty centimeters across and swung it at Touya.

  The effect of Rania’s Capture only robbed players of the ability to chant spells and speak. It was very effective on magic users and healers, but it wouldn’t drain any of the combat ability from a physical fighter like the man in front of him.

  The bandit’s sharp sword overcame Touya’s defensive stance easily and slashed into him. The fundamental difference between their skill levels was far too great.

  Touya’s surprise attack had only succeeded because, in his arrogance, the man had assumed that no newbie would turn on him and because the attack had been Rania’s Capture.

  Many Samurai special techniques had long recast times. Most skills were so-called “one-shot tricks” and could only be used once every five or ten minutes. As if to compensate for that, the techniques were designed to be powerful, and their hit rates were incredibly high. That was how Touya had managed to affect a midrange player who had a twenty-level advantage.

  The certain-kill techniques were powerful and varied, but there were very few convenient midrange techniques that could be used to bridge the gaps between them. That was the fateful characteristic of the Samurai.

  The effect of Rania’s Capture lasted fifteen seconds.

  He only had about ten seconds left. Touya stomped down his panic as he took blows from the bandit’s sword.

  I don’t have to win! If I can just hold out here until the other guys have gotten away—

  Red sprays of blood were spreading across the area. Touya didn’t even have to look to know they were coming from him. His whole body ached and prickled painfully. He could feel his hands and feet getting colder and heavier.

  “Touya!”

  An effect like a shining, sky-blue mirror blocked the bandit’s attack. With the level difference, the man’s attack shattered the mirror in an instant, but it had been Minori’s damage block spell. He saw the bandit click his tongue in annoyance.

  “They all left for the entryway. Let’s get into the corridor!”

  “Roger that! Let’s move.”

  After checking the man with a large attack, Touya left the bedroom with Minori. The corridor wasn’t even two meters wide. Out here, he could protect Minori without letting anyone capture his side or get behind him.

  “Gepluh! Gah!”

  However, just then, the effect of Rania’s Capture ran out. The bandit clutched his throat, gave a cracked cough, then screamed at Touya.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re in for after pulling a stunt like this?! I’ll kill you a hundred times, you damn brats!!”

  Just as Touya had feared, the man’s rough voice echoed through the guildhall. Several of the doors in the corridor opened and the bulk of Hamelin’s forces stuck their heads out, then hastily grabbed for their weapons.

  The guild master with a face like thunder. The Summoner, who wasn’t even trying to hide his irritation. The production-class men, who turned coarse stares on the new girls.

  As one, they roared threats, then drew their weapons.

  “What can the two of you do?!”

  The Summoner brandished his arms, and a black wind whirled up. It was Deadly Swarm, a cloud of winged insects about the size of ants. The spell had the side effect of clouding the target’s vision, and it went straight over Touya, attacking Minori directly.

  Minori desperately chanted her damage block spell, but the level difference was too great. As the evil black insects slammed into it and were smashed, one after another, the shining wall cracked, then shattered like glass.

  Even in the corridor, I can’t block direct magic attacks on the vanguard! I’m an idiot!

  Even as Touya told himself off, he threw the sword in his right hand into the false, swarming darkness with all his might. What he saw was the shape of the Summoner, waving his staff deep in the darkness.

  “Touya! Touya!!”

  “Just a little longer, Minori! Keep your head down!!”

  Touya’s arms had already taken so much damage they were bluish black, but he flung them around his twin sister and charged at the zone door as if he meant to ram it.

  1

  “But that’s blackmail!!”

  Meanwhile, in the vast conference room on the top floor of the guild center, the participants’ discussion had grown heated.

  Shiroe’s declaration—“I own the guild center”—had been a bombshell.

  The only players who had not been shocked were Shiroe himself; Nyanta, who stood behind him; the members of the Crescent Moon League; and Soujirou of the West Wind Brigade, who hadn’t known exactly what would be done, but had dimly suspected something of the sort.

  The guild center was one of Akiba’s core faciliti
es.

  The functions of the center itself included guild formation, joining or leaving guilds, and the receipt of bonuses for high-level guilds—practically every guild-related, system-level clerical procedure.

  However, in Akiba’s case, that wasn’t all it did. The guild center’s entrance hall housed the service counter for the bank. The bank was a commonplace facility in the world of Elder Tales, and players used it to store money (in accounts) and items (in safe-deposit boxes).

  In this other world, death resulted in no more than a slight drop in experience points and equipment durability, but at the moment of death, there was a set probability that ordinary items that hadn’t been equipped to the player would be scattered across the area.

  If the player was lucky, they could retrieve them, but if they’d been killed in a PK attack, the items would almost certainly be stolen. Even without that, it wasn’t prudent to carry lots of money around. Ordinarily, almost all players kept most of their property in the bank, and if they wanted to purchase an expensive item at the market, they’d withdraw money for a small fee.

  To the players, the bank was the most familiar, most important commercial facility in the Elder Tales world, and they used it every day.

  The only bank window in Akiba was in the guild center. The fact that Shiroe, an individual player, could restrict entry to the guild center carried staggering implications.

  Of course, every town had a bank. The accounts were the same, which meant that money—and even items—could be withdrawn from any bank, no matter where the original deposit had been made. For example, a deposit made in Akiba could be withdrawn in Minami.

  That said, right now, with the intercity transport gates dead, the long journey between cities was very risky. Shiroe and his group had gone to Susukino, but they were part of a very tiny minority. Since the Catastrophe, it was likely that less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all players on the Japanese server had gone to a town other than their own.

  Considering the current environment, the rights Shiroe held were equivalent to the authority to freeze bank assets at will. It was no wonder that the conference members were aghast.

  Shiroe had announced this strategy—of an entity controlling the bank to control players—to the Crescent Moon League when they had nearly earned the five million in funding necessary to acquire the guild center, and even Henrietta had murmured, “Compared to Master Shiroe, devils are far tamer. Devils are fully aware that they’re bad, but not Master Shiroe. That byname, ‘Machiavelli-with-glasses,’ is too cute for him.”

  “Freeze the assets in the bank?! If that isn’t a threat, what the heck is?!”

  Woodstock, the guild master of the small guild Grandale, spoke in a shaking voice.

  “I simply answered Isaac’s question. The question was, ‘Even if the council is formed, depending on the matters presented to it, won’t the big guilds exercise their right to veto and start a war?’ The answer is no: There will be no war. Warring forces will lose the right to use Akiba’s guild center.”

  “And I’m telling you that’s blackmail—”

  Shiroe responded to the obstinate claim.

  “It may very well be. However, if what I’ve done is blackmail, what of what Isaac and the other big guilds have done? Isn’t it blackmail to threaten to start a war if a proposal inconveniences you? How is that different? All I’m saying is that I want to establish a council and discuss things. I don’t plan to ignore remarks that strike me as inconvenient. Think about which proposal is more sensible.”

  A subdued silence fell.

  To the conference attendees, it may have seemed as if they were having an ugly nightmare.

  “Where did you get that kind of money?! The guild center is a common zone!! A huge amount like that—”

  “We financed it.”

  The speaker was “Iron-Arm” Michitaka, general manager of the Marine Organization. He seemed to have been one of the first to recover from the shock; the energy was starting to return to his voice.

  “Then, Shiroe, the challenge you were directing was…”

  “Yes. The establishment of this council.”

  “Well, that figures.”

  In the midst of a storm of questions as to why they’d put up the money, Michitaka nodded. Technically, only the eleven seated around the table were conference participants, but the shock of Shiroe’s proclamation had sent their followers and advisers into a panic as well.

  “Quiet down! What a ruckus!” Michitaka barked, then let his eyes fall to his documents.

  The documents held the secret of the cooking method Nyanta had discovered, and the preparation method for the hamburgers currently being sold by the Crescent Moon League. It was a cooking method in the truest sense of the word, not a special “recipe” game item of the sort that could be registered as a new, complete item in the item creation menu.

  Early that morning, the leaders of the three production guilds—the Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District 8—had been called to this room before the conference and received these documents directly from Shiroe.

  Once the structure was revealed, it was far too simple. The new food items at Snack Shop Crescent Moon weren’t the result of a new recipe.

  In chasing the fantasy of a new recipe, the production guilds had been tricked by the Crescent Moon League. Each had lost their investment of 1.5 million gold coins.

  However, Shiroe hadn’t given them anything that remotely resembled an apology.

  Instead, he’d posed a question to the disgruntled trio: “What makes you think those documents are worth less than 1.5 million gold coins?”

  “Isn’t there something you still need to say, Shiroe?”

  Michitaka urged him to continue. Although he’d steeled himself, his expression was something between a wry smile and dissatisfaction.

  “He’s right. No matter how you try to gloss it over, Mr. Shiroe, there’s no denying that you’re currently in a position where you could threaten us. Humans are wired to lose their composure, and possibly even feel that they’ve been threatened already, just by realizing that someone could do it. Surely you know that.”

  It was Soujirou who’d chimed in.

  “It’s just as you say. Even I don’t think a town where a single person holds this much plenary power is ideal. On that note, let me return to the first matter I discussed. Do you think the Adventurers in this town—or, in larger terms, this world—really want things to stay this way? I have two policies to propose. One is that we revitalize everyone living in this town and, by extension, this world. Second, that we create and implement laws to govern the Adventurers who live in Akiba, at the very least. Is anyone opposed to any of what I’ve said so far?”

  There was no answer.

  Of course there wasn’t.

  In the first place, considered individually, none of the things Shiroe was saying were bad ideas. Bringing life back to the town was a good thing in and of itself, and it would benefit combat and production guilds alike.

  Of course, if the burden from specific measures were to prove a harsh one, things would be different. If only a few participants were made to shoulder a heavy burden while all the others regained their footing, the question would be, “Which of us is going to draw the short straw?”

  However, at this point, that wasn’t a concern that opposed the topic of betterment itself.

  The same went for establishing law. Some might feel that it was a nuisance and would only make things stuffier. However, all the players gathered here were Japanese and had originally been playing on the Japanese server. As such, they all knew the importance of “law.”

  Here as well, of course, there was a possibility that problems could arise, depending on the content of that law. There might also be bad laws they couldn’t agree to. However, if it was a simple question of establishing law, there didn’t seem to be anything to object to.

  “All right.”

  “Black Sword” Isaac, who’d
struck the conference table with his thick palm, broke in as if he was shouldering the confusion of the entire assembly himself.

  “If you’re going to go that far, tell us the specific policies of this proposed council of yours—of Log Horizon’s.”

  The black-armored warrior kept his steely glare fixed on Shiroe, and it naturally drew the eyes of those around him. Shiroe held his head high and began to speak with even more enthusiasm.

  2

  There was something unique about moving from one zone to another.

  For example, in the case of the guild center and guildhalls, one moved between the zones by using a specific object shaped like a door.

  On the guild center side, the second- and third-floor guildhall corridors held countless such doors. These corridors, with their ranks of doors and not much else, were linked to many separate guildhall zones.

  In reality, there were no physical rooms behind the doors. There wouldn’t have been any space for them. The doors themselves were right next to each other, and the wall behind the doors was only a meter thick. These floors held seventeen of these door-filled corridors, and no matter how hard one looked, they wouldn’t have found the space to build a room.

  It was easiest to picture if one thought of the doors in the strange guild center corridors as devices that transported them to another dimension (in this case, a guildhall). Conversely, using a door that acted as a guildhall exit would put one in front of the corresponding door in the guild center zone.

  Was it Minori who’d touched the doorknob, or was it Touya? To the very end, neither of them knew. They’d simply jumped back to protect themselves from the black, smokelike swarm of poisonous insects, and as a result, they’d tumbled out into the guild center corridor.

  “There’s two more!”

  Unusually, there were several players standing at the ready in the corridor. By the stairs, a boy in leather armor and a girl equipped with a katana were directing the newbie Hamelin members back and away.