The Gold of the Kunie

by Mamare Touno

  Before he knew it, the council had gone from a report on an investigation of raid zones to the situation in Nakasu, and then continued to current conditions in Akiba.

  “Akiba’s sent an army to the northeast, then?”

  “That seems to be the case,” Nakalnad answered to Indicus. “It’s made up of five legions, led by ‘Berserker’ Krusty. ‘Black Sword,’ ‘the Hatter,’ and ‘the Old Winged Dragon’ are with them. The report’s from ‘Number One.’”

  Although the shape its efforts took was different from Minami’s, Akiba also seemed to be taking great pains over its relationship with the People of the Earth.

  In contrast to Minami, which had made connections with the existing local leaders in the House of Saimiya, Akiba’s Council seemed to have chosen to coexist with the League of Free Cities, the People of the Earth organization that governed the area north of the Kanto region. Most of the Ten-Seat Council members felt that that decision had made the difference in Akiba’s and Minami’s speed of reform.

  Minami had stabilized far more rapidly than Akiba, and it was producing superior results on all fronts, including lifestyle services and the development of new technology. For Adventurers trapped in this other world, nothing was more important than everyday stability, and Minami was in the process of acquiring it. This was good fortune for the Adventurers who lived there.

  “‘Machiavelli-with-Glasses’ is gone, too.”

  Pushing his eye mask up, the Tenth Seat tossed those words to his fellows.

  It was the laid-back voice of the “Transforming Jester,” who sat in a tropical-style resort chair made of a wooden frame and sailcloth. He had been snoozing peacefully until just a moment ago, but now the council was silent, as if it was holding its breath.

  “‘Machiavelli-with-Glasses’ is gone, too.” There was no telling how the Tenth Seat had interpreted the silence, but he repeated himself. “I don’t know whether he went along on the northeastern expedition, but it looks as though he’s made himself scarce.”

  The man, who wore a smile that looked a bit too dangerous to call mischievous, was a skinny Summoner, dressed in a rough mantle with ragged edges. A former companion who’d raced across Yamato with the organization known as the Debauchery Tea Party. KR.

  From the very lowest level, the grinning KR looked up at his former companion, Kazuhiko, and still higher, at the maid.

  “Well? What’ll you do, Indicus? It looks like the ‘static’ that doesn’t go according to your calculations has taken off running yet again…”

  3

  Shutting the thick wooden door, Naotsugu brushed the snow off himself.

  Outside, it wasn’t what he would have called a blizzard, but snow danced in the mountain wind. Although it should have been early afternoon, the thick storm clouds made it gloomy, and the temperature was low.

  He was wearing cold-resistant equipment, so he hadn’t frozen out in the blizzard, but his legs had bogged down beyond belief. Naotsugu was a Guardian, and he was wearing full-body metal armor. Technically, he shouldn’t have been able to move around in snow at all in that sort of equipment. The fact that he’d managed to patrol in weather like this was due entirely to his Adventurer’s physical abilities.

  “Naotsugu?”

  “Yeah, I’m back.”

  Shiroe spoke to him from the depths of the lodge, and Naotsugu answered.

  He loosened his belt and took off his gauntlets. The gauntlets were the latest prototype-class item, created by artisans, and they hadn’t existed in the days of Elder Tales. They were more versatile than the ones level-90 Naotsugu had acquired on a raid, and while he used them all the time, since they were a handmade item that was more recent than the Catastrophe, Naotsugu couldn’t equip them or take them off from the menu.

  Finally removing the weighty items—whose mass made them seem more like a type of weapon than gauntlets—he tossed his other equipment into his Magic Bag, piece by piece. What appeared from under his rough armor was three-quarter-length indoor wear. It was a casual look, no different from what he would’ve worn on Earth.

  It certainly was a freezing mountain winter outside, but whoever had built this lodge had understood the region’s seasons well. The log walls were double layered, and there seemed to be straw stuffed between them.

  In combination with the thick tapestries, this kept the room at a fairly pleasant temperature.

  Naotsugu peeled off his bulky mountain-climbing socks and shoved his toes into slippers. People told him that wanting to take off his socks the minute he got home was an old-guy thing, but he’d been that way ever since he was a kid, and he wished they’d get off his case about it.

  “How was it?”

  “Nothing wrong. The snow is zipping around and the wind is blowing hard.”

  “It doesn’t look like it’ll stop even if we cry.”

  “Short Stuff’s the only one who’d cry.”

  “There you go again, talking like that just because Akatsuki’s not here…”

  In Japanese terms, the room was about ten tatami mats in size.

  The fireplace blazed red, and Shiroe, who was camped out on a thick rug, had lots of notes and maps spread around him. Even at a quick glance, there seemed to be at least several dozen. Naotsugu recognized some of them; in particular, there was the map of the nearby area. Densely covered with notes and memos written in red ink, it was a summary of the reports he’d made over the past week.

  Although the lodge was warm and comfortable inside, it had been a week since they’d left their friends in Akiba. Naotsugu looked around the area, feeling worn out.

  “Where’s the little old guy?”

  “He isn’t that old. I think he’s probably around thirty.”

  “He laughs like an old guy, though.”

  Without looking at Naotsugu, Shiroe—who’d traded his trademark coat for indoor wear—began carefully stacking the nearby memos on top of one another.

  “Want some help?”

  “No, it’s fine. This won’t take long.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  He was probably concentrating.

  So as not to bother Shiroe, Naotsugu sat down on the fur rug.

  “……”

  “……”

  Shiroe took out a thick notebook, setting it next to the stacked memos, and began drawing up some sort of document. In this world, there were no computers or word processors. Shiroe had muttered that organizing information was rough, but even then, when Naotsugu tried to help him, he turned him down. He’d always been stubborn.

  Probably ever since we first met, Naotsugu thought.

  Right after he’d joined the Debauchery Tea Party, the idea of grabbing something to eat in real life had come up. Since it was an online game, this was only natural, but the Tea Party members lived all over Japan. As a result, it was really impossible to get everyone together for a dinner party. However, even so, five of them who lived in the Kanto region had met up in the real.

  The first time he’d met Shiroe, he’d been drinking pu-erh tea.

  When Naotsugu had said, That’s oolong tea, right? Shiroe had explained the difference to him. That explanation had gone on for thirty minutes, and had ultimately extended to the political situation in Taiwan and speculation in tea leaves. The “vital fall” had occurred in the EU at about that time, and even university students hadn’t been able to stay unconcerned about the topic.

  Naotsugu and Shiroe’s friendship had begun at that offline meeting.

  At the time, they were both university students, and the fact that they lived at a distance that could be covered by a one-hour bike ride if they wanted to hang out was key. Friends outside school were valuable. He’d often taken the stay-at-home Shiroe along as he wandered around town.

  He couldn’t count the times they’d been yanked around by Kanami’s whims.

  It was so bad that, when she’d said, We’re going to a fish paste factory in Odawara, he’d seriously thought about punching her. Even so, when th
ey actually did go, it had been fun, and the all-important fish paste had been shockingly tasty. Naotsugu thought that Kanami’s personal magnetism, or maybe her sense about things like that, had been really something.

  …And so Naotsugu and Shiroe had known each other for a long time.

  He was used to kicking his legs out and relaxing beside a silent Shiroe like this. It was something he’d done a lot when he was a student, and he did it all the time at the guild house.

  The heat from the fireplace made it to his toes, which had been buried in a snowfield. The stinging tingle gradually eased, and the warmth returned.

  Naotsugu twisted around, rummaging through his Magic Bag, and took out a metal canteen and cups.

  The liquid he poured out was mog milk. The drink, which had mashed mog fruit in it, was similar to banana milk on Earth.

  When he held one out with a “Hrn,” Shiroe replied with a “Mmm” and took it without looking up. They both sipped the faintly sweet mog milk in silence. Friends were like this with each other. Energetic, witty conversation was formal behavior.

  “Locked-up-on-a-snowy-mountain-with-Shiro-and-some-old-guy city.”

  Even so, Naotsugu muttered vaguely, not out of spite, but because he was bored.

  “What, Naotsugu? Lonely?”

  “Yeah, kinda. For a resort, this place is super empty.”

  “It is pretty rural.”

  Shiroe’s response left Naotsugu flabbergasted.

  This lodge was a closed zone, but the snowy mountain it sat on was in a field zone that was roughly sixty kilometers per side. Naotsugu had been the only Adventurer in that field zone. Before he’d entered the lodge a few minutes ago, he’d checked using the Frontier Inspector in-zone list, so he was sure about that. You didn’t call an area like that “rural.” It was a trackless waste. What Naotsugu wanted to say was that on the Yamato server, Tearstone was a land-locked desert island.

  “Where are you from again, Shiro?”

  “Tokyo, almost.”

  At that brief answer, Naotsugu heaved a deep sigh. This was the problem with Tokyo natives. They couldn’t tell the difference between rural areas where people actually lived and the back end of nowheresville.

  Disgusted, he dropped his head into his hands—he was already resting on his elbows—and rolled around.

  About ten days ago, Shiroe had asked him to stay behind and hold the fort. He’d said he was leaving Akiba for a while, and had asked if he’d take care of Log Horizon. Naotsugu had turned him down in one second flat, and here he was.

  He hadn’t heard where Shiroe planned to go or what he was planning to do, but Naotsugu thought it was probably to do something tiresome. It also wasn’t something that was needed in general, but Shiroe thought it was necessary. Naotsugu had known right away, just from seeing his face.

  If it had been something that everyone would understand was necessary right away, Shiroe wouldn’t have hesitated to ask someone else to handle it. There would be no hesitation over everyone doing something that was necessary for everyone. He was attempting to do this on his own because it would be hard to persuade people of its necessity.

  He’d thought this had improved since the Crescent Burger incident, but apparently one or two opportunities weren’t enough to completely cure inborn temperament.

  Man, he’s stubborn, Naotsugu thought, but then thought better of it, deciding that this was patent Shiroe as well.

  If Shiroe had a bad habit, there were tons of things about him that were good enough to cancel it out. The problem was that Shiroe himself didn’t know this, and this smart-yet-dense friend of his needed to travel with a kickstarter who’d give him hell. Naotsugu prided himself on the fact that, as his old friend, he was suited for the job.

  Besides, whenever Shiroe pushed himself like this, the view afterward was fantastic.

  If they were on their way to see a view like that, he wasn’t going to surrender his spot to anybody.

  “Think you could tell me why we’re shut away in a locked room on a snowy mountain? It’s about time for that.”

  “We aren’t shut away. We’re just holing up.”

  “Shiro, you’re-never-gonna-be-popular-that-way city.”

  “I mean it’s peaceful. You really don’t get it, do you?”

  The problem was that, in Shiroe’s case, he was more than half serious.

  “…We’re holed up here because I don’t want our location known. It’s fine now, but considering what’s ahead, I’d rather not tip our hand.”

  Having finished verbally horsing around, Shiroe began to explain, quietly, bit by bit.

  “For the moment, our objective is money. In short, we’re fund-raising. To that end, I need to persuade a certain person.”

  “That old guy?”

  Naotsugu remembered their traveling companion. The small elf Person of the Earth scholar was holed up in the next room… Literally.

  “No, not him. Li Gan is involved in this maneuver. I brought him along so that he could help with the persuasion. What I say may not be enough to get them to trust us. He may not look it, but he’s famous.”

  “He really doesn’t look famous.”

  “Even if he’s the Sage of Miral Lake?”

  Oh, is that what he is? At Shiroe’s words, Naotsugu was convinced.

  The Sage of Miral Lake had been a well-known NPC in the Elder Tales MMORPG. That said, Naotsugu had never seen him on a game screen. He was a sage that was mentioned in legends and rumors in the game. He had made an appearance in the backstory for the Nine Great Gaols of Halos, a raid they would speed-run during their Tea Party days.

  “So he actually exists?”

  “Yes, he does. He does indeed.”

  “Why are we fund-raising way out in the mountains, anyway? If you need money, couldn’t you just borrow it from the Round Table Council?”

  “Mm.” Sitting cross-legged, Shiroe hemmed, frowning. “It’s a pretty large amount,” he said with a sigh.

  Naotsugu felt a headache coming on.

  He really couldn’t trust that pretty in this case. Shiroe had looked slightly calmer last time, when he’d been planning to buy up what was now Akiba’s guild center.

  “About how much, exactly?”

  “In all, about eighty trillion or so.”

  It was ridiculous. An absolutely ludicrous sum.

  According to the math, that amount was over ten thousand times more than all the money held by all the Adventurers on the Yamato server. It was the sort of amount they wouldn’t be able to scrape up from all the Adventurers in the world, let alone on the Yamato server; the sort of amount that probably didn’t exist in the first place. Naotsugu looked at Shiroe, his mouth hanging open. Shiroe’s brow was furrowed, and he was groaning to himself.

  However, on seeing Shiroe groan, Naotsugu understood. Shiroe wasn’t doing this as a joke or on a whim. He thought that amount was necessary, no matter what.

  “…Got any ideas about who to ask?”

  “The whole amount wouldn’t be possible, so we’ll split it over several installments, take it little by little.”

  Although it’s a fact that no matter how we split it up, it isn’t an amount that could ever be “little by little”… Shiroe gave a troubled smile.

  “Well, no help for that. Gimme a bit more info. Tell me about this strategy you’ve thought up.”

  “There’s no strategy. We’ll wing it, get down on our knees and beg. We’ll just persuade them.”

  “Persuade who? How?”

  When they’d gotten that far in their conversation, sipping their mog milk, the door to the next room opened and a man in a robe appeared.

  “Shiroe. It seems our guest has arrived.”

  The People of the Earth magician, who had shifty eyes and an entertained expression, giggled, then thumped Naotsugu on the shoulder. For a Person of the Earth, he showed an unusual lack of reserve. Naotsugu was rather taken aback by his attitude, but Li Gan spoke to him as though nothing had happened.
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  “Do watch, Naotsugu. No explanations are necessary: Shiroe’s negotiations are about to begin. This is going to be amazing. These negotiations may actually be battle-class, or even national-defense-class magic.”

  What did “national-defense-class” mean? Naotsugu’s question was cut off before he finished asking it.

  Someone had knocked at the door of the lodge.

  Not twenty minutes ago, there had been no Adventurers within a ten-kilometer radius. Did that mean the visitor was a Person of the Earth? …But were People of the Earth even able to travel this far into the snowbound Tearstone Mountains?

  As Shiroe and Li Gan watched, Naotsugu took his sword from his Magic Bag and warily approached the door.

  4

  “Shiro. Company.”

  Even before Naotsugu’s announcement, Shiroe had crammed his maps and documents into his Magic Bag.

  He’d anticipated that they would have a visitor, and a table and tea service had been set up in the room with the fireplace.

  Is that how it’s turned out… Shiroe thought, at the sight of Naotsugu’s perplexed expression as his friend returned from the door. The visitor who followed at his heels wasn’t one Shiroe had expected, but it wasn’t an individual he’d never considered, either.

  “This way, please.”

  Shiroe felt a bit bad about ignoring Naotsugu, but welcoming their visitor took priority just now. He gestured to a sturdy oak chair.

  “Climbing snowy mountains is quite taxing.”

  As he spoke, the young man with violet eyes—Kinjo of the Kunie—brushed at the shoulders of his formal outfit with its stand-up collar, although there wasn’t a single snowflake on it, and sat down.

  “May I say it’s been quite some time since we last spoke?”

  “It has, and you may.”

  At Kinjo’s response, Shiroe fell silent. Inwardly, he heaved a deep sigh, thinking that the situation was growing increasingly difficult.

  Shiroe had been waiting in this cabin in the mountains, far from civilization, in order to negotiate with the Kunie clan. He’d had several reasons for traveling all the way into the Ouu Mountains, but one was that this area was close to the assumed location of the Kunie clan’s headquarters.