by Mamare Touno
In a hall that branched off the other side of the main corridor, she saw a figure with light-yellow hair streaming behind it. Focusing as if she were desperately praying, Minori checked on the situation. That hair belonged to Riezé. She was the linchpin of the current operation. Her MP was at 78 percent, and she warned Rundelhaus to be careful to match it.
“We’re starting!”
A familiar voice echoed in the corridor. It was Shiroe.
Rainbow light overflowed, and she saw a fierce fluctuation in MP.
Minori had been thinking, all this time.
She’d thought for a long, long time about what the true nature of the mysterious determination inside her might be and what sort of place it meant to take her to.
Of course she loved Shiroe. He was her favorite person.
That was why, for a time, she’d mistaken the truly stubborn mass inside her for love. However, she’d realized that was a misunderstanding. After all, it showed its face even in matters that had nothing to do with Shiroe, and it gave Minori brief reviews of her own actions: That was bad, this was good, etc. Touya said it had been that way since long before they met Shiroe. He’d informed his sister that she’d been like that for ages.
According to Touya, Minori was a big sister who didn’t listen and tended to run wild. She really didn’t think that described her at all, so she’d been reluctant to accept the evaluation.
However, since coming to Theldesia, she did suspect that, if people said things like that about her, it might be true after all.
There was something resolute inside her that even she couldn’t do anything about, and sometimes it pushed her into action. Shiroe had probably been nourished by it, and it seemed to be growing with every day she spent in Log Horizon. That made Minori happy. She was sure it wasn’t a bad thing.
One night, she had been lying in bed, thoughts wandering.
It wasn’t as if she was the only one with stubbornness inside of her.
Touya had the same thing, and so did Serara. Isuzu had it, and of course Rundelhaus did as well. Ordinarily, it was hidden and couldn’t be seen, but when push came to shove, it emerged and began to sparkle and shine. It was unimaginable wisdom, or kindness, or startlingly intense, desperate courage. Minori had seen it many times in Ragranda and on the journey to Saphir.
It seemed to her as if people had an internal core, like hidden treasure that wasn’t usually visible, and it surfaced at unexpected moments and connected with its surroundings.
Back when she’d lost hope in Hamelin, at the bottom of that constricting night to which morning never came, what she’d felt in the voice on the other end of that quiet telechat had been the treasure inside Shiroe. Even Minori and Touya hadn’t dreamed that the grad student who’d played alongside them a few times would brave danger to come and rescue them when they were imprisoned.
Why had he saved them? Minori had always wondered about that. It was probably true that he’d felt kindly disposed toward them. However, the real reason had been that special quality inside of him. Shiroe didn’t usually talk much, and he was so busy that he didn’t have much time to spend on Minori and the others. Back then, though, his spirit had abruptly begun to shine, and it had saved them.
When Minori thought back, she realized she’d felt the same thing in her father and mother. Her parents had been her parents even when they were exhausted and irritated, but that wasn’t the only side of them there was. The parents who celebrated with her and Touya on their birthday probably weren’t the real ones, either. They were hidden much deeper, like the time when she and Touya had been doing their homework together in the eat-in kitchen, and their mother had bragged to them about her student days while she heated water for apple tea… Minori didn’t understand it all that well, but she thought that feeling, which she’d brushed with her fingertips, had probably been an important treasure.
She’d been told that, after Touya’s accident, she’d become a “good kid.” However, she hadn’t been acting the part of a good kid because she’d been unhappy or because she’d felt sorry for Touya or anything like that.
Minori had wanted to be on a team with her parents. She’d been on Touya’s side since they were small, and she’d simply thought she’d like to have more relationships like that.
She’d wanted people to count on her.
Practically speaking, she had been just a child, and there had been far too little she could do in Japan; she’d only been able to go to school and come home again. She hadn’t been able to earn money, and if she’d put herself in harm’s way, she thought she probably would have worried her parents terribly. For that reason, back when she’d understood even less than she did now, she hadn’t been able to persuade them, and in the end, they hadn’t managed to become a team. She thought they’d been a happy family, but after all, Minori and Touya were their parents’ children.
Minori could see the brightness in Touya and Serara, in Isuzu and Rundelhaus. That was proof they were partners. She was able to see it in Naotsugu, Akatsuki, Nyanta, and Shiroe, too. However, they were still of an age when others implicitly worried about them, so they weren’t a true team just yet.
She might be overreaching herself, but she thought that that was what Touya had been talking about and what she herself wanted. They were still okay. As long as Shiroe and the others were nearby, her group of younger Adventurers could work a whole lot harder. For that reason, she didn’t want him and the others to treat her as a burden. After all, they lived in the same house, Log Horizon. She didn’t want to be left out.
“Minori, Wolfie’s gone up ahead, and he’s spotted a swarm of moths in the main corridor.”
“We’ll detour as planned. Touya, go up the next stairway on the right!”
Minori’s exhale was harsh; she didn’t bother suppressing her ragged breathing before turning around to check and adjust their ranks. Currently, Rundelhaus was the party member with the least health to spare. If they managed to shake him off, the party formation would collapse. That was why Isuzu, next to him, was raising his move strength with Fawn’s March and encouraging him. Isuzu and Rundelhaus made a good pair, and Minori smiled a little. If this was how things were, they’d be fine for quite a while yet.
Minori had an accurate grasp of the mission she was currently carrying out, but the level wasn’t as deep as those around her. Right now, on this raid capture team, the members who had a complete grasp of the operation Shiroe had proposed were Shiroe himself, Riezé, Nyanta, Nazuna, Kushiyatama, and Naotsugu, followed by Kurinon and Tetora. The tactics they were executing were so unprecedented that even the members of D.D.D., who were used to raids, didn’t know what the results would be.
What was the current problem in the Fortress of the Call capture?
The unlimited reinforcements.
The cause of their defeat had lain not in the enemy’s strength itself, but in the fact that their mental stamina and MP had been worn down by the frequency and sporadic timing of the enemy reinforcements.
These might be enemies they could beat, but when they ended up in combat, a certain process was necessary: The main tank accumulated aggro, the tank’s defender cast recovery spells on the tank and secured their safety, and then they attacked within the range of the aggro and wiped out the monsters. If ten enemies appeared at once, they needed to go through the process only one time, but if single enemies appeared ten times, they had to run through the whole process ten times as well. If things were like that, no matter how much MP they had, they’d run out.
The maneuver Shiroe had come up with resolved this issue.
Ordinarily, whether they were being used on single targets or a range, the Warriors’ aggro-increasing special skills only worked on enemies that were within eyeshot. That had been common knowledge in Elder Tales. However, just this once, there was another way to do it. Both Eternal Moths and Moon Rabbits loved MP. The monsters had actually attacked Akiba and the other towns in order to steal it. They’d left Fortress of the Cal
l and gone to attack other areas because the MP had lured them there. “We’ll use their natures and detection abilities and scatter bait,” Shiroe had said.
He was using a combination of Mana Channeling and Mana Siphon to scatter high-density MP around the area. Shiroe had turned himself into live bait and was attracting monsters. The key to the first stage of the maneuver was “kiting,” using Shiroe as a tank.
But it’s a dangerous plan that makes Shiroe a target…
Minori’s breathing had gone rough from the tension, and she gritted her teeth, calming it down.
“Got ’em!”
“This way, my liege!”
She heard Naotsugu’s and Akatsuki’s voices.
The operation was underway, and Shiroe and the other members of the first party ran, trailing rainbow light. A herd of monsters chased after them, several dozen meters behind. Ordinary aggro-increasing special skills worked only on monsters that were within eyeshot, but with this method, they’d probably affect all the monsters in the facility, or across an even wider range.
In fact, a swarm of Eternal Moths was flying right past the corridor where Minori and the others were holding their breaths, as if their group was transparent.
It was a fairly nightmarish scene: a flying swarm of giant, nearly human-sized moths. Preschool kids often drew airborne butterflies with crayons in their picture-diaries, but they only drew them there because they felt as if they should, and it was possible they’d never seen a real butterfly or moth. At the very least, it was hard to imagine they liked them enough to constantly draw them in their journals.
Seen from a distance, the patterns on their bright wings might look like fashion accessories, but up close, not to mention enlarged to an enormous size, they were spine-crawling, and they made a person feel like screaming.
“We’re making for the standby point, Mademoiselle Minori.”
“Right!”
“Rudy, I’m casting Nocturne of Meditation, okay?”
Weapons at the ready, Minori’s group moved rapidly down the corridor. Their feelings were optimistic, but some of that was empty bravado. They were speaking loudly to raise their morale.
Using their summoned animals, the raid team had mapped this complicated floor to some extent.
They were headed for the very longest main corridor. It was Minori’s group’s job to set a trap in that corridor.
Having reached their position, Minori’s third party joined up with the fourth, which Riezé was leading. Party Three had been rebuilt to keep Minori and the rest of the younger group together, and except for Nyanta, all its members were around level 60. Frankly speaking, it was the team’s weak point. Despite that, they made it to their position.
Minori’s eyes met Riezé’s, and she smiled softly. As if complimenting her, she pointed into the depths of the corridor. Shiroe and the rest of the first party, who had sprinted through a complicated route, were coming their way, trailing a veritable horde of monsters.
“Are you ready?”
At Riezé’s dignified question, the group nodded firmly.
The swarm of approaching monsters was frightening.
Possibly because they were on edge, they were able to see everything very clearly, even the dense fur that covered their torsos and the scales that shone faintly as they scattered. Even if that hadn’t been the case, the way they jostled one another in the small space provoked a visceral disgust. A suicidal tactic, in which an Enchanter acted as the tank. The payoff was that all the dungeon’s monsters had collected in this long corridor. The straight hallway was packed with hundreds of Eternal Moths, Moon Rabbits, and Ogres, all trying to steal MP.
There was an attack that was possible precisely because this was the case.
Against monsters that were concentrated this densely and couldn’t run, range attacks were several times more effective.
“Concentrate your fire! Go ahead!”
She heard a shouted order. It had come from Shiroe, who had run past Minori and the others, then turned back. Akatsuki and Naotsugu leapt forward again, to shield him.
Blinding light filled the main corridor, and energy from flame, ice, and electrical spells threw steam and the smell of ions around the area.
The annihilation maneuver had begun.
Riezé’s Freezing Liner, the operation’s focal point, became a raging torrent that swept through the corridor. It was overlaid by Rundelhaus’s Lightning Nebula, which had been expanded to its maximum range. Big spells that ordinarily couldn’t be used several times in a row received chant speed acceleration support and were unleashed two or three times.
Minori fired Mystic Spell Shawl. It was an expulsion spell with a pursuit effect that acted on evil insects and spirits, and it was perfect for holding back the Eternal Moths. That attack, which seemed to be venting her disgust, went on until the dungeon grew hushed again.
2
Meanwhile, the second party was sprinting through a completely different route, heading upstairs.
“Uh-huh, yeah… Understood. Don’t you push yourself, Old Man Whiskers.”
Nazuna, who was running beside Soujirou, took her hand away from her ear. Telechats were hard to manage during combat, but there was no sign of monsters near the party. All the enemies were probably stampeding into the trap, drawn by the rainbow-colored MP Shiroe was releasing.
Soujirou understood that it was a reckless strategy, although he didn’t know exactly how reckless it was. A spellcaster, with his characteristically low defense and HP, was attracting enemies for an entire raid. If something went wrong, the battle lines would crumble in a heartbeat, and the maneuver would end in failure.
Soujirou wasn’t all that worried, though.
“We just got a follow-up report, Souji.”
“How does it look?”
“Exactly like we want it to. He’s using the rooftop broadcasting tower to summon Taliktan, the Genius of Summoning. A Raid-rank level eighty-six.”
“Is that right.”
Soujirou laughed. It looked as if they’d be able to fulfill their role.
“Cannonball” Woodstock, the guild master of Grandale, was a skilled flying dragon rider. He was conducting aerial reconnaissance from above Fortress of the Call and had relayed the results to Nazuna. Apparently, the enemy leader’s name was Taliktan. They’d confirmed its shape in a reconnaissance run at daybreak, and it had been good news.
There was a reason Soujirou and the rest of Party Two had left Shiroe and the other three groups and were acting separately.
Shiroe’s tactics—to leak MP in a mock taunt and round up all the monsters in the zone—had one flaw. If the raid monster that was the enemy leader happened to be within that range, it would turn into a complete melee. The tactic of annihilating the monsters’ reinforcements in a narrow corridor would fall apart the moment the boss monster got pulled in. For this tactic to work, they couldn’t let the boss monster go to Shiroe. The key to the strategy was dividing and ultimately conquering them.
“You look kinda happy, Souji.”
“I am!” he told Nazuna.
His body was light. It felt as if his legs had grown wings. This sharper-than-normal body was probably a reflection of his lack of hesitation. It reminded him of his Debauchery Tea Party days. Back then, Soujirou had been a newbie.
He’d played Elder Tales with his buddy, picked up the basics, stuck his nose into a variety of typical MMO events, gotten separated, made friends, and then found the Tea Party. The Tea Party had been the first community he’d ever encountered in online gaming, and it was a place he’d wanted to protect.
At the time, the Tea Party had been brand-new. Players who wanted to try their hand at raids had begun to gather around Kanami, but those members weren’t fixed, and more than half of them were recruited on the spot whenever they executed a capture. After Soujirou had participated a few times, they sounded him out about participating in earnest, and he’d agreed readily. He’d wanted to attempt high-level high-end conten
t more seriously, too, but what he’d really wanted was companions. There were lots of ladies who were kind to him, but he couldn’t call them comrades-in-arms. Soujirou had wanted hard-hitting combat.
Back then, the senior members—Kanami, Shiroe, KR, Indicus, Naotsugu, Nyanta, Suikazura, Stallbourne, Nurukan, and Nazuna—had already joined up. Touri, Saki, Kurama, Yomi, and others joined around the same time as Soujirou, and the Tea Party continued to take shape. Soujirou’s memories were nostalgic and bright.
“Because this is Mr. Shiro’s maneuver.”
“Ah, I see.”
There was a smile somewhere in Nazuna’s voice, and she sounded happy. That accelerated Soujirou forward, farther and faster.
“Gaaaah. Souji, I swear, you like Shiroe too much!! Are you gay?! You’re gay, aren’t you?!”
Smiling even at Kurinon’s nastiness, Soujirou raced up the narrow staircase, taking the steps three at a time. As he used his high-level Adventurer physical abilities to speed up, he looked like a rocket blasting off its launch pad.
The key to this operation was dividing the enemy.
In particular, the most important task was isolating the boss.
That was the mission entrusted to Party Two, the one he led. Having finished re-forming, the party ran, kicking up a wind. They didn’t have to worry about reinforcements. When Soujirou played his part, it wasn’t even possible Shiroe would fail at his own post. After all, he was one of the three players Soujirou idolized.
“Now that Mr. Shiro’s made up his mind, there’s just one role for me.”
Soujirou slashed with Sacred Blade Kogarasumaru, slicing open the high-steel door that led to the roof. Dashing out into the wash of sunset light, he immediately leapt.
“Lone Dash!”
It was a clear, open space. In the world of Theldesia, the People of the Earth didn’t often make tall structures. As demonstrated by Maihama’s Castle Cinderella, it wasn’t that they didn’t have the technology, but the costs were probably overwhelming. Fortress of the Call was a ruin from the Age of Myth, and as a result, there were no nearby buildings that compared to it in height. In Theldesia, a structure with ten aboveground floors was the equivalent of a skyscraper.
