by Mamare Touno
“Wahh… Oh, don’t call us that.”
“We, um, we’re not! We aren’t that yet.”
Serara squirmed and Minori protested (tentatively, her face red), but the mood didn’t last long.
They were shopping, according to plan, but there was something that worried them.
“Telechats aren’t getting through.”
“It’s true…”
They’d noticed that telechats weren’t connecting while they were camping, but at the time, they had brushed it off as “one of those things.” In any case, the telechat function wasn’t easy to activate well if you couldn’t use both hands. You had to gesture in order to select another party from your friend list or accept a telechat. In consequence, if the other person was fighting or doing some other type of work, the telechat might not get through. That was the difference between regular telechats and party telechats, where you could get a message to the whole group just by shouting.
As a result, it was fairly common for the other party to not respond to a telechat, particularly if that “other party” was Shiroe. He tended to be in meetings quite a lot.
However, Boreas’ Moving Temple had worried them, and when they’d investigated, they’d learned that it really did have the effect it was rumored to have. It seemed certain to them that the telechats weren’t simply “not connecting.” They were being jammed.
They didn’t know what the range of the effect was, but at the very least, telechats seemed to be restricted throughout the entire town.
The range seemed far too wide to be the effect of the Moving Temple they’d passed near the Boxroot fortress, and Minori thought there might be another Moving Temple somewhere in town. However, they had no intention of searching for it. Even if they found it, they didn’t know how to shut off the effect, and if they broke it or something, they’d probably call another sort of trouble down on their heads.
“I think it’s probably because of that Moving Temple,” Minori said. “I don’t know where it is or what sort of effect range it has, but even so.”
“I think you’re probably right.”
“Yes…”
This was a headache for Minori as well.
The white wolf cub at Serara’s feet seemed to have picked up on the mood. It looked dejected, too.
“What should we do?”
“Um…”
Minori’s eyes went to the notebook in her hand. There was a folded map of the vicinity between its pages. It wasn’t something she’d drawn herself. It was a map of the surrounding area that Shiroe had copied for them.
Their destination wasn’t that far away. They were planning to make their preparations here, in Saphir, then go into the mountains. It wasn’t a reckless move. If they left from this town, they’d be able to follow the river up the mountain. That was why they’d traveled along the Pacific side in the first place.
In terms of distance on the map, it was probably about twenty kilometers. Even taking into account they’d have to climb mountains and would need to find and hunt their targets, it didn’t seem all that hard. At the earliest, they’d be able to return to the town in three days, and no matter how long the trip dragged on, it probably wouldn’t take a full week.
“I don’t think it’s going to take very much time,” Minori said decisively.
“Maybe about three days…?”
“A little more than that.”
“Once we come back here, we’ll be safe, right?” Serara asked.
“I think so.”
In fact, it was that very thought that had brought them to the town.
Minori had meant to ask Shiroe for advice once the telechat function was back, but right now, the circumstances wouldn’t allow it.
“If we could only talk to Shiroe…”
“If we could talk to Nyanta…”
Their words overlapped. The two of them gazed at each other, seriously, then burst out laughing. Apparently they’d been thinking the exact same thing.
As a matter of fact, they had a lot of things they wanted to ask about.
The Odysseia Knights.
The disquieting magic item known as Boreas’ Moving Temple.
Roe2, the woman who overlapped with Shiroe in Minori’s mind, no matter what she did.
Something was changing in a big way. Minori could feel it clearly, the way the echoing rumble of the earth traveled across great distances.
Still, she didn’t know what it meant. It felt as if she’d gotten a secret message, but bits of it were written in a foreign language. It was terribly irritating.
“This is so frustrating. I’m sure Shiroe would understand it, but…”
“Minori…”
As Serara consoled her, Minori mentally switched gears.
She was still quite inexperienced, so she didn’t have time to wallow in pessimism. She had to solve the problem in front of her. The current issue was whether they should make for the Redstone Mountains or abandon their journey here and turn back.
There were advantages and disadvantages to both courses of action.
Pressing forward when they couldn’t report in or ask for advice via telechat was definitely dangerous.
However, on the other hand, Minori couldn’t say whether turning back now would be any safer. Since they didn’t know the effective range of that peculiar magic item or how to disarm it, they might not be able to use telechats even if they returned to Akiba.
Bringing back a report was important, but this was Shiroe they were talking about, and Minori had the feeling he’d gotten information about that temple just about the time she and the others had.
In that case, should they go forward, or start back? Staying in this town and investigating was another option. Under the circumstances, letting the Magic Bag quest determine their moves didn’t seem like something Shiroe would advise.
The question What would Shiroe do? was the only clue she had regarding how to think indicated to Minori that she clearly wasn’t experienced enough, but lamenting that wouldn’t get them anywhere.
“I wonder what Roe2 is going to do.”
“You know, that’s a good question.”
“She said she was going to Ikoma…”
“Do you suppose she’ll go with Dariella? She doesn’t need to go mountain climbing with us.”
“True.”
Having realized this, the two of them quickly made their remaining food purchases and discussed returning to the inn.
They’d told Roe2 about going to the Redstone Mountains, but depending on the situation, they might part ways here. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to look around the town to see if there was anyone who could repair Adventurer summoning pipes.
They’d passed several Adventurers as they were walking around, and it had planted the idea in Minori’s mind. If it came down to it, they were prepared to sell the cart in town, but if possible, they wanted to buy horses and take it back to Akiba with them. It was the first cart they’d ever purchased, after all. Minori was rather attached to it, and she thought her friends probably were as well.
“But Minori, we’re staying here tonight, the way we planned, aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Then do you think Isuzu will be feeling better by this evening?”
“She’s staying shut up in the room, isn’t she…?”
Isuzu had remained in their room, saying she wasn’t feeling well. Rundelhaus seemed to know something about the situation, but all he’d say was that she’d be better soon. Isuzu had been a bit strange since the previous night. They thought she’d finally returned to the room early in the morning, and she’d seemed to be brooding. It worried them.
“I’ll make Isuzu’s favorite mentaiko potatoes tonight!”
“Can you make those, Serara?”
“Of course! We bought potatoes, and we have mayonnaise.”
As they made their way back up the avenue, their conversation died away.
The wolf that had been gamboling around Serara’s feet
pricked its triangular ears bravely, then began to run around in circles, glaring up at the sky and howling a warning.
“Hmm? What is it?”
Distantly, Minori heard Serara’s easygoing voice.
Something had bled into the color of the hazy March sky and was moving slowly, with Sacred Mount Fuji behind it. The flock, which was closing in on them from far in the distance, was obviously what Minori’s group had come this far to find: wyverns.
More than a hundred wyverns were approaching the town of Saphir.
4
One individual had sensed the wyvern stampede.
Nyanta had touched down once—lightly, on tiptoe—on the angular train, and he used Unicorn Jump to leap again without killing the momentum of his plunge from the griffin. Taking a trajectory that would have been possible only in fantasies in the old world, he slipped between the trunks of the trees using Quick Step, while using Lightning Step in the direction of his fall.
Putting his body’s superhuman abilities to work, Nyanta sped up among the rustling green of the forest.
He felt burning sadness and anger deep in his gut.
With all his might, he slashed at the black spirit monsters that were invading the forest below him. Heavy bodily fluids clung to the tips of his swords, and he wasn’t able to finish the creatures off in one attack. Even adding a special skill that sent the damage of his range attacks through the roof—a Swashbuckler specialty—wasn’t enough to kill them instantly. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t win. Nyanta was level 90, and the Nightshade Servants in front of him were just a bit over level 40. Silently, Nyanta swung his rapiers twice, cutting down shadows that had been trying to slip past him on either side.
Nyanta was aware of the general situation, or at least of its visible aspects.
As a representative of Log Horizon, he’d been sent to provide support for Minori’s group, and he’d come this far by griffin, keeping an eye on them as he went. A black cloud of wyverns had appeared in the town of Saphir, about twenty kilometers from him as the crow flew. In the process of trying to discover where those wyverns had come from, he’d realized that they’d been driven from their home in the Redstone Mountains as the result of a siege, nearly a mountain hunt, by Nightshade Servants. He also knew that the battle between the two forces was escalating, threatening to engulf Saphir.
When he’d expanded his reconnaissance upstream, he’d discovered this train and had learned that the struggle was the result of an intentional plot.
That was why he was angry.
His heart was screaming that it was a completely unbelievable, impossibly stupid move—until his eyes found a lone magician on horseback.
“Rondarg.”
“Oh-ho… To think we’d meet here.”
There was a distance of about ten meters between them.
The forest had been warped by magic, and the dismal-looking Sorcerer who answered Nyanta was in an odd sort of clearing.
Neither of them was a stranger to the other. Where Nyanta was concerned, they’d seen each other several times from a distance in the player town of Susukino, and they’d come into conflict during Serara’s rescue. Rondarg seemed to have remembered that as well: The look he turned on Nyanta was somewhere between irritation and hostility.
However, Nyanta didn’t have the leeway to go along with Rondarg’s hurt feelings.
On the surface, Nyanta’s usual calm was intact, but his anger underneath was so strong it was nearly unmanageable. It was bad enough that, if possible, he would have liked to slash apart all the Nightshades in the area with his rapiers.
“What are mew doing here, Rondarg? What is that train? What are those black shadows, and what do mew intend to do with Saphir?! What’s going on, Rondarg?!”
More demanding than asking, Nyanta confronted the other man with crossed swords.
“Rondarg!”
“Bwah-ha-ha.”
He responded to Nyanta’s reprimand with a terribly superficial laugh.
One of his cheeks warped sardonically. He seemed like a completely different person from the man he’d been in Susukino. The atmosphere he wore was degenerate: terribly shallow, irresponsible, and disheveled. His cracked laugh really didn’t seem like an expression of relaxed confidence.
“What am I doing here? I’m here for work I was hired to do: guarding and guiding the train. As you can see, the train’s a magic vehicle. The black shadows are summoned creatures, Nightshade Servants. We don’t intend to do a thing with Saphir, or at least, I don’t. What’s going on? —That’s no concern of mine.”
Rondarg didn’t seem inclined to hide anything.
To Nyanta, it looked as if he didn’t see enough value in anything to try to cover it up.
Even so, that answer hadn’t held a single one of the things Nyanta wanted to know. Rondarg’s reply hadn’t shown him anything beyond what he knew already—in other words, what he could see by looking.
“Don’t glower like that. I don’t plan to fight you. It’s the same for you, no? I’m not doing anything. I took a job request and I’m on guard duty, that’s all. That business in Susukino… Okay, sure, I regret that. Threatening People of the Earth just might be a bad thing. Is that good enough? Out of the way, Swashbuckler.”
Up on horseback, lazily dangling the staff he’d taken from the holder at his waist, Rondarg gave a little smile and sighed, speaking to Nyanta as if he were tired. He seemed casual, disinterested, and as if he just didn’t care.
“Do mew know what mew’re doing, Rondarg?”
Sensing something suspicious about the man, Nyanta took a step closer.
“I know. I’m getting paid and doing my job.”
“I mean the consequences of that, Rondarg!”
The man responded with a tense smile.
“That bit wasn’t in the manual—but I didn’t get one, mind you, so that’s only natural.”
He couldn’t have sounded less concerned, and that pierced something very deep inside Nyanta.
It wasn’t because Rondarg’s words and the future they indicated had caught him by surprise. On the contrary: He’d been afraid someone would say those words to him at some point. But they were something Nyanta had hoped he wouldn’t have to hear.
When the Round Table Council was established, Krusty, the leader of D.D.D., had asked Shiroe whether there was a possibility of war with the People of the Earth. Shiroe’s answer had been, “I understand that that’s something for the Round Table Council to consider, not for me to think about now.”
How many of the people in that meeting had accurately caught the meaning of that response? It was something Nyanta thought about, now and then. Krusty seemed to have gotten the message. In his own warped way, he’d tried to help Shiroe. However, Nyanta didn’t know how well the other youngsters had understood.
Shiroe’s words had been both a prediction and a warning.
That response hadn’t admitted the possibility of war, nor had it denied it.
It wasn’t a question of whether or not there would be war. It was at an earlier stage than that: It pointed out the fact that they were in a world where war could occur, and it was advice to the effect that each individual who lived there needed to come up with a way to confront the possibility of war.
Shiroe had tried, more earnestly than anyone else, to face the question he’d detected. Nyanta knew that Shiroe harbored secret pain. In this one matter, he thought that he might be closer to Shiroe than Naotsugu, who was young and optimistic, or Akatsuki, who admired Shiroe.
Nyanta respected his too-serious friend, who was less than half his age, and he himself had also faced the fact that Shiroe had pointed out.
Shiroe and Nyanta thought that the possibility of a war between the Adventurers who lived in Yamato had fallen low enough to ignore early on. Fundamentally, Japanese people had a strong aversion to war. Especially if it was a war with other Japanese, emotional inhibitions would come into play. There might be violent incidents and desperate, str
ess-fueled crimes, but the possibility of all-out war had always been small. That was true even now, when Yamato’s Adventurers were divided between the Round Table Council and Plant Hwyaden.
The possibility of war between the Adventurers and the People of the Earth was higher. In particular, if there were a lot of Adventurers who didn’t acknowledge the People of the Earth as human, the issue would probably develop into a big problem. However, although the possibility was high compared to war among the Adventurers, they hadn’t thought it was large enough to worry about. Their combat abilities were too different. Domination and conquest were far more likely than war.
In this warped world, Adventurers and People of the Earth complemented one another. It was structured so that they supported each other in production, in consumption, and on every other front. Nyanta thought that the Round Table Council’s achievement in making that fact common knowledge at such an early stage was great beyond measure.
The remaining combination was war among the People of the Earth, and neither Nyanta nor Shiroe had been able to give an answer with regard to that one.
After all, neither of them were People of the Earth. They’d been brought up to believe that war was bad, and they had a strong desire to reject it, even if it was between People of the Earth. However, if the People of the Earth resolved to go to war, did they have the right to stop them? They weren’t sure. In theory, it was true that the other party had sovereign authority as well.
On top of that, considering the technological development that had followed the Catastrophe, there was a fear that if the People of the Earth went to war, even if the Adventurers didn’t actively contribute, they would end up playing a part in expanding the scale of the conflict. He hadn’t spoken with Shiroe about this, but it was likely that it was a fragment of the future Shiroe had his eye on.
“Rondarg, do mew intend to seed war across this world?!”
“I intend no such thing. The ones who might be thinking that are the People of the Earth who issued this quest for me.”
Those words touched off the clash between Nyanta and Rondarg. Nyanta performed repeated thrusts, loading them with accusation, closing the distance between himself and his foe.
