The Gold of the Kunie

by Mamare Touno

  Copyright

  Log Horizon, Volume 7

  Mamare Touno

  Illustration by Kazuhiro Hara

  Translation by Taylor Engel

  Cover art by Kazuhiro Hara

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  LOG HORIZON, VOLUME 7

  The Gold of the Kunie

  ©Touno Mamare 2014

  First published in Japan in 2014 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2017 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Yen On eBook Edition: February 2020

  Originally published in paperback in March 2017 by Yen On.

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  ISBN: 978-1-9753-0990-9

  E3-20200204-JV-NF-ORI

  1

  Pale crimson Foxfire illuminated a magnificent room.

  Unlike the Bug Lights that were prevalent in Akiba, the flames were delicate, and their weak light didn’t reach the corners of the big space. The intensity of the wavering glow fluctuated, creating shadows here and there.

  The spacious room, which looked deserted, had but one master.

  A woman with black hair was curled up in the shadows, with a blanket wrapped around her like a cloak.

  Nothing in there was shabby.

  The room was outfitted with luxurious furniture. A sofa decorated with Japanese brocade. Silk damask wall hangings, a canopy bed, a table of limestone. However, none of the furniture seemed to have been used and loved in anyone’s everyday life. The atmosphere it gave off was inorganic and distant, as if the furnishings were there simply because they had been ordered to be.

  As usual, lying as if hiding in the shadows of those furnishings, Nureha was passing the night without a wink of sleep.

  A waterfall of bundled papers spilled from a small, round table, spreading into her field of vision. They appeared to be documents; there were letters written on them, with red marks like scattered flowers. On closer inspection, the marks seemed to be wine stains.

  Nureha strained her eyes, taking in the dimly illuminated scene.

  There was no way she could read such tiny, precise letters in such a dark space. And besides, she was already battling the illusions that arose from the darkness, both on the page and in the room beyond.

  Various things appeared from the shadows. Most were white, indistinct human shapes.

  Even the outlines of the figures were vague. They whispered and giggled to each other in hushed voices Nureha couldn’t hear well, shooting glances her way. Weighing, taunting looks reached her from the nebulous, smoky shadows.

  She clenched her fists, which had grown cold, and glared at them.

  Sometimes, more tangible, fat, nausea-inducing arms appeared. They would would grab Nureha’s hair, trying to drag her toward the white shadows.

  Nureha gave a low, threatening growl, like a wild animal. She already knew that if she did, the shadows would disappear.

  She spent a long time that way, bottling up her ears to silence the voices that seemed to curse her.

  The entire guild hall, with its sixteen luxurious rooms, had been set up as her private chambers. Aside from Nureha, there were fewer than ten people who could enter it. At this hour, late at night, no one would come here except the People of the Earth ladies-in-waiting who were on night duty.

  In the midst of this empty darkness, Nureha spent endless nights.

  She was physically exhausted, though she didn’t remember having accomplished much of anything. Cold blood circulated through her four limbs, which were as heavy as sandbags, and the world was so gloomy it could have been underwater.

  This was nothing particularly unusual. It had been this way for ages.

  Gaining an Adventurer body hadn’t changed the isolation of Nureha’s nights.

  She held a hand up in front of her eyes.

  Her fingers were slender, white, and smooth, like some exquisitely fashioned object.

  Gleaming, pale pink nails were attached to this lithe, bewitching work of art.

  Then came fine, delicate skin. The rolling outline of her arm, which held no sense of warmth, still evoked ample softness.

  A bitter, irrepressible delight mixed with the darkness, which held nothing but hatred and rejection.

  Nureha herself saw no great value in this body, but she was well aware that it drove others mad. It was a debauched joy, which that knowledge brought her. She moved her white fingers, more alluring than their former, real-world counterparts, stroking the darkness.

  Her sweet, husky voice; her floral scent; her body, bound only by the pretense of clothing—all were objects of desire for others. At that thought, a sticky, unclean delight welled up inside Nureha.

  The white shadows laughed shortly, taunting her from the documents that were their territory, but she responded with a contemptuous look. The white shadows gave accusatory moans, but the wind seemed to have changed: The Nureha who had been enduring agony up until a moment ago was gone.

  Curled up in her blanket, she purred, deep in her throat.

  Even she thought it was a sinister sound.

  If the young heads of the administrative families had been there, or Loreil, the leader of the imperial guards, or no, even Zeldus or Nakalnad, or anyone else, she probably wouldn’t have made a harsh, creaking sound like this. Captivating others with a coaxing voice that seemed to be coated in honey was routine for Nureha. It was what she’d done up till now, and what she would no doubt continue to do.

  She thought it was senseless.

  She thought it was ridiculous.

  Still, the more she thought these things, the funnier it was to see hoards of people running this way and that, sometimes fighting, sometimes grieving, cursing each other, and quarreling so they could boast of their own supremacy, all from desire for senseless, ridiculous Nureha.

  The people who’d scorned her and accused her of being evil now showed such attachment that they’d throw away their fortunes or their lives at a single, coaxing word from her. This was both her weapon and her armor on these long nights. The only thing that made her forget the pain that tormented her, even temporarily, was the madness of the people who fought over her.

  Only the ludicrous figures of the people who worshiped Nureha as if she were gold or jewels—worthless as she was—warmed her, healed her, and set her tingling sweetly.

  For while she was watching them, she was able to feel pleasant. Most of all, only the trivial, ridiculous performances of the people who danced around her made h
er certain that this world was just as worthless as she was.

  Remembering the warnings of the white-faced Adventurers who’d pleaded with her brought a faint smile to her lips.

  This world isn’t a game. We have to fight to survive here.

  Nureha was aware that her smile was a grim one.

  What foolish things to say. Rubbish. What was the point of saying that now? Nureha thought they might as well have been talking in their sleep. The boy Adventurer who’d once said those words to her was now working away as a member of Plant Hwyaden, offering up his life every day. When he’d spoken of fighting to survive, had he meant finding employment in a guild and becoming a worker bee?

  Ridiculous.

  A few hours after the Catastrophe had occurred, Nureha had stripped the few Adventurers who’d approached her of all their possessions: their money, their food, and even their weapons and defensive gear. It had been easy. They’d been panicking, and they’d blindly believed even the most preposterous lie.

  Several days later, their devotion had given her a hint regarding a new world. They’d stopped thinking due to the magnitude of the shock, and when Nureha obligingly took command, they obeyed her every word. She had organized them, encouraged them with kind words that made them forget their anxiety, and in a few weeks, she’d become one of the wealthiest Adventurers in Minami.

  Then, one month after the Catastrophe, having obtained her Overskill, she acquired Minami’s guard system.

  The coup d’état had been over before anyone knew it was happening. Having obtained the greatest military might possible, with that power behind her, Nureha negotiated with the People of the Earth nobles and administrators and acquired even greater wealth. Once she’d come that far, it had been easy to gain control of the Temple.

  Yes.

  It had been easy.

  The fight for survival the boy had warned her about several months after the Catastrophe, as if he were telling her the secrets of this world—that was all it had amounted to.

  It was so dull no one could have objected to calling it imbecilic.

  The boy’s extreme innocence had actually made her hate him.

  This world is not a game. When she’d heard the words, Nureha had been able to smile from the bottom of her heart. She was grateful for that terribly childish statement. If people were this naïve in the face of an unprecedented disaster, then the world was a hunting ground full of defenseless sheep indulging in afternoon naps.

  The boy’s expression had been desperate, and she’d felt a small temptation to dash the black contents of her heart all over him, but she’d firmly maintained the attitude of a forlorn older sister. She knew that was the mask he wanted.

  However, inside, she was filled with the nearly irresistible impulse to laugh.

  She knew that. She’d known it for ages.

  In the first place, Nureha had never played.

  She’d never thought of Elder Tales as a game, as leisure recreation. Not even once.

  Even when Elder Tales had been an MMORPG—a game, as far as most players were concerned—to Nureha it had been a harsh battlefield, something necessary for her survival.

  Unless you kept bleeding, unless you kept screaming, you’d be forgotten.

  Being forgotten meant being erased from the world.

  Unless you were someone who meant something to somebody, unless you were wanted, unless you were treasured, you might as well be dead. Or rather, it was even worse than being dead.

  After all, death was silence and nirvana and an ending, but living as worthless, insignificant rubbish that nobody liked wasn’t an end. Living as an inferior breed that no one needed meant that all the hells there were would continue endlessly.

  In order to attract interest, Nureha had trained hard enough to draw blood. Her entire life up to the present had been a fight for survival: an attempt to make herself liked, to make herself wanted. There hadn’t been one single game.

  Nureha knew hell. She knew the miserable loneliness that seemed to sear her to the core.

  No matter how painful the effort, it had been far better than being ignored. When her training finally bore fruit and she was able to gain favor with the slightest word or gesture, Nureha threw that favor to the ground as if it were trash.

  To her, this was revenge. It was a ceremony to show them that to her, their favor was absolutely worthless. The eyes of the players who were well-disposed to Nureha were dulled by greed, and jeering at their destruction brought her an indescribable exultation.

  We have to fight to survive here.

  It was a line out of a farce.

  Why? Because that line made it sound like they hadn’t had to fight to survive in their former world.

  That might actually have been the case. For that boy, at least. Maybe he’d been very lucky, had lived in a meadow of flowers. Along with the impulse to laugh, that thought made black hatred well up inside her.

  From what Nureha knew, every moment was a fight for survival. In that respect, there was absolutely no difference between their former world and this one.

  Decipher the systems, search out the weak points, make them get careless, toy with them, make them trust you, betray them, steal their share—that was the fundamental structure of the world. If he was making an intentional resolution to do that, he was much too far behind the times.

  She understood very well why it had been easy to unify Minami.

  Nureha had always meant to steal it. Of the tens of thousands of players who had been exiled to this world, she alone had lived it as if it were reality from the very beginning. To her, that had been routine.

  She had simply lived as she had when Elder Tales had been a game: She had clung to goodwill, fostered attachment, and scattered love and discord. She had merely demanded her own share, as usual. That was why she was the beloved center of Plant Hwyaden. This world had chosen Nureha. She had achieved happiness. She had won everything!

  With the sound of the sigh she slowly expelled filling her ears, she glared at the shadows with hatred.

  She’d been chosen, so why was she so full of pain? She shivered, hugging her own tail like a body pillow.

  Why did she have to curl up like a wounded animal, holding her breath, just getting through the night?

  Nureha clenched her teeth, and the fox ears on her head quivered.

  She looked up. At the other end of her gaze, the door opened as if a rectangle of light had been cut out, and a maid appeared.

  “Lady Nureha.”

  “……”

  Nureha looked away, openly ignoring her. It was Indicus, the maid in charge of Plant Hwyaden’s practical affairs. She was Nureha’s confidante, but she wasn’t of interest. The woman was almost a sort of curse that clung to Nureha.

  “Not using your bed again, I see.”

  “…”

  Nureha looked up at Indicus, who was turned into a shadow by the light behind her.

  The maid’s normal expression was a frozen mask, but she wore a big smile now. That smile was never directed at anyone but Nureha, and whenever she saw it, she felt as if her stomach was spasming. That smile had the same smell as the arms that reached out from the darkness of her bedroom, no matter how many times she cut them off, no matter how many times she cleansed herself. It clung to her, stickily, sludge she couldn’t completely wipe away.

  “Were you thinking of Shiroe?”

  “……”

  Nureha glared at her, steadily.

  However, unlike those vague white shadows, Indicus wasn’t frightened, and she didn’t fade.

  With a sharp smile like a crescent moon, she glided closer, bending down and putting her face close to Nureha.

  The scent of cold steel drifted from the maid, causing Nureha to bite her lip. It was a smell that wouldn’t have suited most women—the hint of a well-maintained blade.

  “Were you?”

  “Don’t talk about him.”

  She thrust those words at Indicus, brimming with irrita
tion and anger, but they didn’t seem to reach her. It was always like this. Indicus had never accepted any of the wishes Nureha asked of her, with one exception—and it was an exception she’d traded everything for.

  “What did I tell you? I did, you know. He’s no good. You can talk to him, but nothing will come of it. He can’t connect to anything. He’s always been like that. He isn’t a player. He’s merely static with advanced abilities. Do you understand? Lady Nureha?”

  Nureha’s vision was beginning to blur with pain and fear.

  “That’s a man you can never have. He’s just a traitor, but he’s bright. You could probably say he’s scrupulous. He recognizes it, you know. The stink of the gutter.”

  Even though she’d been expecting them, had been prepared for them, Indicus’s words hurt Nureha like a blow to the stomach. The memories she’d desperately pushed into the darkness materialized like countless ghosts, trying to drag her back to that familiar hell.

  This was the true form of the indistinct murmurs, the things the white shadows whispered.

  The past Nureha had shed back on Earth, the memories she’d erased.

  “My dear girl, do you really think anyone would touch you? Dirty, sordid, shabby, beggar you? You’re filthy with lies. There’s nothing the least bit real about you. A closer look at what’s ‘real’ about you just reveals a stench worse than rotten sewage. You, who always wore a faint, sickening smile and gazed over here hungrily.”

  A mad terror rose again.

  A plastic school lunch plate. Soup with garbage mixed into it. Memories of biting her lip in a cramped locker, hoping no one would find her. Memories of having her belongings hidden and having to walk over winter asphalt with bare feet, of falling into a restless sleep in the shadow of the bushes, so that even her family wouldn’t find her. All sorts of recollections of defeat.

  “Please understand. No human as disgusting as yourself should be conceited enough to think they could connect with someone else… Don’t you see? I’m the only one who’d associate with a woman as filthy as you.”

  The urge to vomit was rising in her throat, and she desperately pushed it down.

  She managed to bite it back.