by Mamare Touno
“I’m sorry.”
“We aren’t blaming you, Shiroe. It’s just that not everybody’s as well-intentioned as you are, that’s all.”
Not purchasing the zones hadn’t been an option.
He’d apologized for it, but as a matter of fact, Shiroe had purchased the Akiba guild center and had gained the power of life and death over more than ten thousand Adventurers. Famously, this had been the trigger for the establishment of the Round Table Council. Several other facilities were equally important: The Temple, the central commercial facilities, and Akiba as a whole would grant the same sort of power to anyone who purchased them.
These zones had been purchased soon after the establishment of the Round Table Council. It was safe to say they’d been forced to buy them, out of worry and vague fear, without making any specific assumptions about “who.” After that, they’d continued to expand the purchased range into the areas around Akiba. Ains didn’t think any of this had been a mistake. They had seemed like necessary measures. As proof, Honesty had contributed a reasonable amount of funding as well. All the guilds affiliated with the Round Table Council had felt the same way.
However, it was also true that the burden had been a heavy one and that it had put pressure on Akiba’s assets. Because the Adventurers were wealthy and had been able to hold up under the burden, the problem simply hadn’t grown obvious.
Shiroe of Log Horizon had resolved the issue with a drastic move: by returning zones that had already been purchased and making it impossible to purchase them. His method had made the Yamato server itself the owner of the zones. He’d gotten the capital for the initial payment out of the Kunie clan as well. Only a few of Akiba’s ordinary Adventurers were aware of the incident, but the upper-level members of the guilds on the Round Table Council knew.
Naturally, Ains admired that plan, and he was grateful.
However, precisely because it had been solved, the next problem had presented itself.
“Since we now have financial leeway, I would appreciate it if we advanced the discussion regarding the matter I’ve been proposing for quite some time now.”
Ains raised his voice, standing up and leaning out over the enormous round table.
“By ‘matter,’ you mean that one?”
Pulling a sour face, Michitaka shot a sidelong glance at Roderick. Roderick averted his eyes, and Calasin also looked a little disgusted. Isaac had his arms folded and was looking cross, as always. No one spoke up.
“Umm… What was this proposal again?”
Soujirou, failing to pick up on the mood, smiled and asked Shiroe for details.
“It’s a suggestion Ains made about information disclosure and redistribution.”
Nodding once in response to Shiroe’s answer, Ains went on. None of the guild masters shared his anxiety.
That fact filled him with foreboding. The people assembled here were the chief executives of Akiba’s most famous guilds. There might be no help for their inability to register the issue properly. It couldn’t be ignored, and he had to tell them about it.
“Currently, there is a rapidly growing disparity in Akiba. The wealth of those who can develop new technologies and hunt in the fields is growing, while those who cannot do so lose their minimal earnings in simply living day to day. The gulf between their assets is expanding rapidly.”
The entire group was listening to Ains.
“This is a problem. We have to do something about it. The Mysteries are an issue as well.”
“Huh?! Why are the Mysteries an issue?!”
Souji had asked his question in a voice that was almost comical, and Michitaka replied, “It’s written in the proposal, remember?”
Yes, Michitaka and all the other guild masters gathered here were sincere. There was no room for doubt there. After all, they hadn’t pushed back against opening discussion on Ains’s views just now.
“The Mysteries and the new product development are causing the economic disparity. Large guilds are using their scale to conduct business, or in other words, to expand their revenue. We must rectify this. At present, approximately forty different types of Mystery have been reported to the Round Table. We should widely publicize this information. Production recipes as well.”
“Hey, whoa, hold it. Hold up a minute. When you say ‘recipes,’ you mean the post-Catastrophe item production methods, right? Not the Elder Tales recipes?”
“That’s correct.”
“There’s absolutely no way we can do that. Since the Catastrophe, item production is all trial and error! Even if it’s just an order of ramen or a way to make soap, artisans rack their brains to come up with them and figure out workarounds on their own.”
“That’s true of the Mysteries, too. Besides, releasing information on them wouldn’t make any difference, would it?”
Ains listened to Michitaka’s and Soujirou’s objections with a wooden expression. He’d anticipated this, but he’d probably been too hasty. It would be difficult to make recipes and Mysteries public. However, he’d thought that, if it were possible, it would soften the landing for widespread knowledge of their existence.
Still, if that wasn’t possible, he’d have to get those before him to consider other methods.
“If that can’t be done, we should consider redistributing assets.”
“Redistribution, hmm…?”
Shiroe was also thinking about something. His expression was grim.
“That’s right. When Adventurers have more than eighty thousand gold coins deposited in the guild center bank, the Round Table Council should confiscate the excess.”
“Confiscate?! If we do that, folks’ll start screamin’ blue murder!”
“After doing so, we should redistribute the confiscated funds, prioritizing Adventurers who have few assets, according to the amount of their own asse—”
“Hey.”
Isaac was the one who’d interrupted that proposal.
“I’ve been listening to you for a while, Ains, and that’s some pretty self-centered stuff you’re saying.”
“Is it?”
“Money or the Mysteries or ways of making grub—those belong to the people who worked hard to get ’em. If you take ’em away, there’s gonna be hell to pay. Don’t tell me you don’t know that.”
“But there are people who have grown apathetic and just sit around hugging their knees!! What is the Round Table Council for, if not to save them?”
“We’re working on it. The town is safe, and there aren’t any PKs around here anymore! They’re free to hunt and do business any way they want.”
“You’re saying that because you’re one of the ‘haves,’ Michitaka.”
“Maybe so, but in that case, Ains, lemme ask you: If we gave ’em recipes or money, would the people who are sitting around spring into action with a hundred times more energy? Can you guarantee that?”
Ains looked into Isaac’s eyes and despaired at the refusal.
In the end, the problem was a sense of impending crisis.
The Round Table Council didn’t sense the danger Ains did. That was why his words didn’t reach them. No matter what he told them, it was pointless. After all, even the premise hadn’t gotten through to them.
Once, there had been terror in Akiba.
Needless to say, it had been the fear caused by the Catastrophe. That they’d been pulled into this terrifying world by an unknown disaster had been the impetus, but a part too large to ignore had been the Adventurers themselves.
In this desolate, lawless world, their fellow Adventurers had been the ones who were able to hurt them. Whether they actually did get hurt or not hadn’t been important. The Adventurers were earthlings who had lived in modern society, and to them, the mere existence of that possibility had been pain that was hard to bear.
That emotion had made it possible for Shiroe, the diabolical schemer, to launch the Round Table Council. Because most of the Adventurers living in Akiba had been afraid of one another, they had uncons
ciously desired stability. In other words, the Round Table Council had been created by fear.
This had been true of the subsequent purchase of the zones as well. The fear that “somebody, somewhere” might take away their right to live had driven the Round Table Council to buy up all the zones around Akiba. Even if this fear had been unconscious, it had been shared by the whole Council. That was why the policies had been passed, and why they had been implemented, heavy burden notwithstanding.
“Even so, we can’t just ignore this issue.”
“I know, hon, but…”
“If we publish development recipes, the technicians’ motivation will fall.”
“Is it really that hard to earn a daily living?”
“You keep saying ‘disparity, disparity,’ but we’re all the same Adventurers, yeah?”
The conference room had suddenly grown noisy, and Ains bit his lip.
He wasn’t talking about the present. He was discussing the future. Did the other guild masters really not understand?
Spurred on by terror, the Round Table Council had purchased many zones. Most of the capital had been supplied by the big guilds. Adventurers who had abundant assets had come together to put up the money, and so, although it hadn’t been intended as such, the end result had been a transfer of assets from wealthy Adventurers to the public. In other words, even if they hadn’t planned it that way, rich Adventurers had donated money for Akiba’s sake.
It needed to be noted that, even under those circumstances, the gulf between Akiba’s haves and have-nots had widened. What would have happened if the money spent on the zone purchases, the assets of high-level Adventurers from big guilds, had been used for the Adventurers’ own benefit? The horror of that idea made Ains dizzy.
If you asked Ains, this world was too straightforward and unstable.
“You’re level 90. Magnificent.”
“You’re level 32, huh? Small-timer.”
You had to walk around twenty-four hours a day with that label hanging from your neck. The simple existence of disparity was completely different from having that disparity constantly shoved in your face.
This wasn’t just about level. It was true of equipment, and of subclass skills, and of results in business and hunting. It was the problem of incessantly being reminded of it, of being unable to escape it.
Population was the same way. At present, to the best of Ains’s knowledge, there were only ten thousand or so Adventurers in Akiba. That was a frighteningly small number.
Say half of those had been level 90 on the day of the Catastrophe and that the remainder had been evenly distributed among the lower levels. In that case, there would be approximately 410 Adventurers between levels 30 and 35. That would mean that level-30 to -35 Adventurers who wanted to go out hunting could only form 68 six-member parties. Naturally, the majority of them probably belonged to big guilds. In that case, if a young level-30 player was looking for companions in town, there would be only about thirty groups they could potentially join.
How many of those thirty groups would be recruiting new members? It surely wouldn’t be more than ten. How many of those ten groups would be looking for that player’s main class, out of the twelve available classes?
These were only theoretical numbers.
However, the reality was that it was extremely difficult for Adventurers who strayed from their companions, communities, or guilds to find a new place to belong in Akiba right now. In terms of MMO common sense, the difference between the profits when hunting with friends and hunting solo was as wide as the gulf between heaven and earth. What should Adventurers who had slipped out of that circle do?
Even if you were hunting alone, you wouldn’t have any problem keeping yourself fed from day to day— What sort of help would consolation like that be to their cracked hearts?
The Round Table Council simply hadn’t noticed: Akiba held many germinating shadows. The fact that he couldn’t share that sense of danger with them made Ains so anxious that his vision dimmed.
“I understand your proposal.”
Shiroe was the one who’d spoken, and his eyes were calm and cool. His voice hadn’t been loud, but the members of the Round Table Council looked at him, startled. As far as the other participants were concerned, the fiendish strategist’s activity on the Round Table Council over the past ten months had given weight to his words.
Shiroe was one of the people whom Ains absolutely had to persuade if he was going to really communicate Akiba’s problem. If he signed on, solving the problem in one stroke wouldn’t be an impossibility.
Hope began to bud in Ains’s heart.
“I do think you’re right about the need to institute measures of some sort. However, the Round Table Council’s budget is limited. Unlike Minami, we don’t receive vast donations from the People of the Earth aristocrats, and we can’t dip into the gold of the Kunie. Let’s all take this issue back to our guilds and think about what sort of steps we could implement.”
“But, Shiroe, if we do that, it might be too late—” Ains shouted.
Shiroe would probably be able to get additional financing from the Kunie.
He’d definitely be able to talk the combat guild blockheads around.
But Shiroe cut off Ains’s request with a raised palm.
“Ains. I understand how you feel, but we can’t do more than this. The Round Table Council is a fragile organization. If we voted on a decision that important by ourselves in this room, it might break both the Council and Akiba.”
Slowly, Shiroe’s words sank into Ains’s mind.
He was right. Akiba was fragile, and an aggressive decision would shatter it.
If they took their time, though, it might break anyway.
All alone, in the midst of a feeling of bitter helplessness at having been unable to fully persuade them, Ains hung his head.
3
“It’s done!”
“That’s mewtiful.”
“It’s amazing. I’ve never done anything like this.”
The kitchen on the second floor of the Log Horizon guild house was filled with a sweet aroma. In its center were Nyanta, who was in charge of cooking for the guild, and Serara, a girl from the Crescent Moon League who’d taken to visiting the guild house frequently.
Although no one had asked her to, she’d been helping Nyanta, claiming that she was learning how to cook. Nyanta had grown used to seeing her trot along behind him with her market basket.
“Snap peas are sweet and delicious this time of year. Since we rinsed them in cold water, they look like emewralds, don’t they?”
“They’re glistening!”
“How are the mew potatoes coming along?”
“I’ve boiled them all and finished the prep work.”
Due to the transformations that had followed the Catastrophe, even Serara, who didn’t have a Chef subclass, had become able to perform simple prep work without trouble. In combination with the skills provided by her New Wife’s Apron, this meant that the number of recipes she knew was growing by the day. The fact seemed to please Serara enormously, and Nyanta smiled at her.
“Oh? Mew’ve gotten quite good at this.”
“That’s because you taught me, Nyanta.”
At Nyanta’s words, Serara puffed out her chest.
The two of them were looking at a large quantity of prepared vegetables. For tonight’s dinner, they were planning to make platters of Chinese food. Chinese dishes needed to be cooked quickly, which meant that meticulous advance prep was required. Log Horizon, the guild whose kitchen Nyanta ran, had lots of big eaters. Naotsugu and Touya went without saying, but Rundelhaus and Minori weren’t light eaters, either, and if they got interested, the other guild members ate heartily as well. Cooking was quite a task, but making a lot of something was exhilarating in its own unique way.
Thinking that it would take the steaming vegetables a little time to cool down, Nyanta removed his apron and took a pot from the shelf.
“In that
case, shall we have tea?”
“Yes!”
They didn’t bother going back to the drawing room.
The big table in the spacious kitchen was meant to be used for peeling vegetables or kneading pasta dough, but of course it was possible to make tea and take a break there. They often rested for a few minutes while cooking or doing chores, and of course they sometimes snacked here on the pretext of “taste-testing.”
Nyanta took a spoonful of the orange jam he’d bought at Danceteria and dissolved it into the black tea. The fragrance of tea and the refreshing scent of citrus spread through the kitchen.
“Is it good?”
“Yes. It’s warm.”
Serara answered in a voice that sounded as if it were on the verge of melting. Her expression was charming, as defenseless as a cat on a veranda.
“Today is a quiet day, don’t mew think?”
“Yes. We finished the advance preparations early, and there’s still time before dinner.”
“On days like this, naps sound very tempting.”
“Fu-fu-fu-fu!”
Serara’s expression was completely at ease, and at the sight of it, something deep in Nyanta’s heart stirred restlessly. The warmer this kitchen was, the more unbearable the pain he felt.
His feelings weren’t so strong that they made him fall to pieces, but the loneliness came in waves.
There had been a young man who had screamed that this world hadn’t invited him. He’d just been kidnapped, he’d declared, so he was going to do whatever he wanted here. He’d brushed aside an operation that would take the lives of scores of People of the Earth with a “So what?” In this world, that sort of pain definitely did exist.
So while Serara smiled and Nyanta poured orange-flavored tea, on the other side of the steam that rose from it, there were still young people suffering, ones who couldn’t accept this world.
Nyanta hadn’t been able to do a thing.
He hadn’t been able to reach the youth with anything: not his cooking or his sword skills or his accumulated experience. Nyanta had lived through all sorts of things, and he knew: The difference between him and Rondarg was a small one.
