Krusty, Tycoon Lord

by Mamare Touno

  “Master Immortal? What is that?”

  “It’s a disaster.”

  “Hweh?”

  “Nothing good ever comes of approaching that woman. Compared with her, the Enchantress Youren you’re concerned about is a small-timer. I’d be careful not to let her eat you.”

  “E-eat?!”

  Hua Diao had been tricked easily again. She turned pale, jumped up, and fled around behind Krusty.

  Well, it’s probably better that way, Krusty thought.

  He doubted he’d be able to return to the Yamato server for a while.

  It wasn’t just because he had a curse that forbade him from crossing server boundaries. Now that he’d found a fun enemy, it would be a waste to go back to Akiba without cleaning them up first.

  He’d retaken his memories, but he owed Bucaphi, the Queen Mother of the West, for foisting this curse on him. He’d gotten an invitation, after all, and they had to let him attend the party.

  “However, this does mean they know where I am over there now. I expect they’ll send someone for me. Riezé or Misa—one of those two, probably.”

  Krusty cocked his head.

  He’d avoided thinking about it, but now that he had his memories back, it was clear that the D.D.D. members would come to the Zhongyuan server to reclaim him.

  In that case, it would be a race to see which happened first: Would it be the escort’s arrival, or would he solve the mystery of the Ritual of Coronation and launch an invasion against the Queen Mother of the West before they got here?

  The fastest way might be to help Zhu Huan start a guild war. Possibly because he’d relaxed and rested up, a very raucous, enjoyable time seemed to have come his way.

  As he was savoring that thought, abruptly, he heard a small explosion.

  6

  There was a bang so light it sounded like a joke, and then the audio that had been streaming in was suddenly mixed with static. Flustered, Kanami ran her hands over a waist-high table that looked like a lectern, pulling and twisting knobs here and there, but it didn’t solve the problem.

  Her small “Oh” and the sound of something breaking came at the exact same time.

  Kanami turned around, holding a black lever-shaped component. Everyone except for the indigo-haired girl averted their eyes; her own eyes teared up as she began upbraiding the magic item in earnest.

  Elias, who felt beholden for having caused so much trouble during this incident, just watched the situation play out. He hadn’t spent all that much of his long life with her, which made it odd that this tepid reaction to Kanami’s acts of barbarism was already a habit for him.

  “This stupid thing’s acting up! Hey, hey, you, listen to me. Punch it, kick it! Argh! Tiger Echoooooooooo!”

  “Hey, no, knock that off. Kanami! You moron! Oh my God?!”

  The young guy who’d called himself Leonardo yelled, but Kanami had gotten desperate, and she crashed into it first, trailing lemon-yellow magic light.

  Elias massaged his eyes through his closed eyelids, as if he was troubled.

  With a sound of destruction that was just as apathetic as he’d assumed it would be, it spouted pastel smoke that was far more pastoral than he’d expected.

  Needless to say, the magic device was completely destroyed, and it fell silent.

  “It looks like it broke.”

  Kanami turned around with a terribly serious expression, arms folded, and Leonardo hit her with a flying kick. Kanami wasn’t the type to just let herself be kicked; she sent a counter-hook into the side of his face, and the next thing they knew, they had a fight on their hands.

  “And you’re the mother of a kid?! Seriously?!” “What are you talking about, my daughter’s an angel, she’s adorable!” “Then don’t break stuff!” “I told you, it just broke on its own!”

  Even as they reproached each other, neither stopped their physical onslaught. They paid out high-speed punches, catching them and evading them, acting out a comedic scene.

  “Do you wish to be healed?”

  “Coppélia… No, I’m all right.”

  Elias dropped his eyes and smiled.

  There was bitterness in that smile, but it held an even greater sense of satisfaction.

  “Coppélia would like to point out that your HP has fallen, Lord Elias. It is a full seventy-two percent below its maximum. Do you wish to be healed?”

  “Coppélia. Until the heat of these wounds recedes, I need time to reflect on myself… There are some wounds that don’t need to be healed.”

  “Is that so?”

  After she answered, Coppélia simply stood there as if she had nothing to do.

  Kanami, the master she served, was busy arguing with Leonardo. In that case, the girl was shy to begin with, and there weren’t many people she’d voluntarily talk to.

  “Coppélia thought you might defeat Lord Leonardo, Lord Elias.”

  “I see.”

  “Why did you not do so?”

  In an attempt to respond to that question, Elias mentally reviewed the answers that had come to him. All sorts of remarks rose within him, but they all sounded a bit affected, or formal, or empty and official, and he hesitated.

  This girl, Elias’s traveling companion, was innocent, and this was a virtue that warranted a type of special treatment even among the group’s eccentric members. It wasn’t only Elias; Kanami and Chun Lu and Leonardo had all given special consideration to her growth.

  Her careful question made Elias think seriously.

  The words that came to him were washed by the waves in his peaceful heart, slowly pared down—or lost their nonessential components—and, finally, he told her what remained.

  “In fights between men, the one whose heart is strongest wins in the end.”

  “…?”

  “Leonardo was a noble hero.”

  Coppélia stood rigidly, her head tilted to one side. Finally, maybe because the words had made sense to her, she nodded. “Is that so?” Elias didn’t know what was going on behind that small forehead of hers, but the dawn-colored eyes that peeked through her bangs seemed to be satisfied.

  “I’b zowwy.”

  “Just as long as you are sincere there.”

  They seemed to have reached a stopping point. Kanami was giving a dejected apology, and Leonardo was standing with his arms crossed and his chest puffed out. Behind them, he could see a big man in blue steel armor. It was Krusty, the Adventurer he’d attacked when Enchantress Youren had led him astray. Thinking that he needed to apologize, he stood up, and in that moment, the air changed.

  A straight line had appeared in empty space, and a torrent of jet-black mana spouted from it.

  It wasn’t as if the surrounding sounds had cut out, but the room grew tense, as if it had frozen over. The awful pressure made Coppélia reel back.

  Conversely, Elias went forward.

  The flames in his heart blazed bright red, repelling the malicious presence.

  It was a presence he knew. The Words of Death: words from the underworld, a curse that had lured his companions who’d heard it into a frozen sleep. It was that same aura. He felt as if he’d caught a flickering glimpse of the Great Stronghold of the End, the location they’d intended to assault through the Spatial Teleportation Device.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  Behind him, as Chun Lu began to step forward, he heard Coppélia check her. Even as he kept track of that in a corner of his mind, Elias carefully leveled his two-handed crystal sword.

  The fissure in the air yawned open, clad in pale sparks.

  The vertical split in space writhed for a few moments, and then the end of the sleeve of an elegant robe emerged. It was magnificent, bordered in gold and silver thread, but that was only true of the robe.

  The fingers, which were covered in the golden fur of a beast, were curved in a feminine way, but the talons undermined everything: They had been sharpened to the point where they seemed malformed. They looked a l
ittle like the Nue’s, but when you saw them directly, it was doubtful whether anyone could have confused the two. The difference in the sinister atmosphere they radiated was just that great.

  Even if it was sheathed in a noble sleeve, it was unmistakably the foreleg of an evil beast.

  “Truly excellent evidence of the power that governs this land. I hereby acknowledge thy coronation and promote thee from lost sheep to shepherd.”

  The reverberating voice echoed not in their eardrums but in the minds of everyone there. It was graceful yet elderly, and even without borrowing the automatic translation function, it conveyed clear contempt and rejection.

  “Queen Mother of…the…West…?”

  The words fell from the martenfolk girl’s lips; her voice was trembling. They’d expelled Enchantress Youren, but she’d had a being like this behind her? Elias wasn’t able to gauge the other’s level. He bore the title of “world’s strongest,” and he’d only experienced this a handful of times.

  The one clear thing was that the owner of this hand had skills that were in a whole different league from those past experiences.

  “This thing is—”

  “Gimme a buff. I can’t even make it retreat this way.”

  “Cast a barrier.”

  To protect the agitated Adventurers behind him, Elias warily confronted the vortex of miasma all alone. However, from beside him, Krusty, the seasoned veteran he’d crossed blades with, stepped forward.

  “Your prompt greeting is very much appreciated.”

  The herculean strength he’d been shown in that lunacy-fueled fight, and the quiet.

  Krusty spoke genteel words with a ghastly smile, and they were hardly out of his mouth when he swiftly raised his enormous two-handed ax over his head.

  The man was challenging a powerful demon without the slightest hesitation.

  Reckless, he thought.

  However, he didn’t even consider trying to stop him.

  That’s exactly how it should be, he shouted silently. Leonardo, and now this man, Krusty: Adventurers weren’t simply beings whom Elias protected. Now that he understood that, Elias would probably never be trapped by the Words of Death again.

  Even now, the hot blood that traveled through him repelled that despair.

  Kanami’s words had awakened Elias’s soul, and now Leonardo’s words were protecting it. At this point, the successor to Fairy Arts had no blind spots.

  Elias’s firm resolution that he must not lose, that he had to win, had been a weakness for him. After all, the resolution had been based on the resigned feeling that, if he was defeated, he’d never be able to rise again.

  But things were different now. No matter how often he was defeated, he’d get back up.

  He’d already done so.

  It wasn’t possible that he wouldn’t be able to do that again. Elias wasn’t just Elias; he was also the hero his friend had wished for.

  As if matching him, Elias brought Crystal Stream down as well. He saw Leonardo and Kanami come running in after them, and a crowd of Adventurers hot on their heels, with a raid on their minds.

  Every one of them must have launched their strongest attack. There was a deafening roar, and spells and projectiles were hurled almost on top of each other. The shock of clashing steel. The space seethed with the light of magic, and by the time it was quiet again, both the sleeve of the horrifying entity and the cursed fissure were nowhere to be seen.

  They looked around warily, but there wasn’t even a trace of the abnormal in their surroundings.

  “I guess that was just a hello.”

  As he sheathed his twin katanas, Elias’s friend shrugged his shoulders.

  Naturally, there was cold sweat running down his back, but he didn’t feel any prescient fear. There were no scars there, and it was enough to make them wonder if they’d been under the spell of some trickster’s illusion from the beginning.

  “I wonder what that was about. Did she come to check up on things?”

  “That was like something out of a horror movie. What the hell was it?”

  “It does seem to have had a physical body.”

  Coppélia bent at the waist and picked up an ostentatious crown from the battlefield. It was ancient, set with jade and amber, and it was most likely a present from their terrible enemy.

  “Nah, it’s not my thing.”

  Coppélia had handed the object to Leonardo, and looking disgusted, he passed it on to Kanami, who was next to him.

  Kanami took it, looking blank. Then she grinned wickedly, spun it two or three times on her fingertip, and—calling “Pass, paaass!”—tossed it to the knightly Krusty.

  With a cold, heavy-lidded glare, he caught the crown with his fingertips. Then, looking at it as if it was something filthy, he flipped it.

  The crown spun through the air.

  The group was treating it as if they weren’t interested in it, but it was definitely a phantasmal magic item. Even without getting it appraised, they could tell it held an unbelievable amount of mana. If it was something that monster had had, even if they hadn’t overthrown it, they could expect it to boost their combat power dramatically.

  It might be a treasure of fairyland, and more than enough to bury the handicap of the fairy curse.

  Possibly because his wavering emotions had shown, he felt as if a faint, iridescent shimmer had mingled with the still atmosphere. A bewitching woman’s damp, low, suppressed laugh drifted in the air, like a lingering fragrance.

  It was useless.

  Smiling wryly, in one smooth motion, Elias drew his transparent sword and slashed.

  There was a clear, glassy sound, and then the crown was gone.

  No magic item of any kind, not even a splendid treasure, could take the place of Elias’s geas, the fairy vow. Besides, on his journey with his companions, he didn’t need it.

  If he was with his companions, Elias could make his wishes come true with nothing but his own strength.

  “Let’s go, Kanami, Leonardo. Coppélia!”

  Elias puffed out his chest. He still hurt all over, but it made him truly aware of the new power he’d just obtained.

  He hadn’t risen a single level.

  This adventure hadn’t boosted the fairy knight’s status one bit.

  However, just now, Elias had gotten over a wall he hadn’t managed to cross a single time in the past, and he could smile with certainty. He’d become the strongest he’d ever been. There was no telling how many times this made, but on this mountain of wolves, towering in the strong wilderness winds, Elias had been reborn.

  He would probably be born again and again, just as long as he meant “hope” for someone. Leonardo’s words had reminded him of that.

  The cursed man existed no longer. The vow he’d reclaimed became Elias’s new strength.

 

  AFTERWORD

  It’s been forever and a half. This is Mamare Touno.

  I kept you waiting an extraordinarily long time regarding this matter, and the schedule this time is a bit like turning in my summer vacation homework after winter break. I’m sorry. On top of that, you could call it a highly intelligent maneuver in that, by turning in the summer vacation homework in a cardboard box, I’m glossing over the fact that I haven’t turned in my homework for winter break. Although that will be noticed…

  All right: Thank you for buying Log Horizon 11: Krusty, Tycoon Lord. This time, we left Shiroe’s team, and the charming typhoon queen Kanami’s team made an appearance. Since they’re on a different team from the main characters, the title of the Japanese version is in katakana. I took a shot at depicting the meeting between Krusty, who was flung to the Eured continent, and the fairy knight Elias, and their journey.

  Well, in an attempt to emulate the peripatetic overseas team, I also went traveling. In fact, I’ve visited all three of Japan’s greatest gardens. Next I thought I’d try visiting Japan’s three biggest caves. One of the reasons be
hind this was that I just happened to stop by Akiyoshido Cave, and it was really fun and interesting, and since I’m writing stories with dungeons in them, I’d been thinking I wanted some photos for reference. One other thing that was pushing me forward is that, at this point in time, I’d cleared Akiyoshido Cave, one of the big three, so I just had two left. Two locations remaining on a domestic trip: That’s easy, right?

  …Or so I thought. This is the sort of thing I really should have picked up on before I went, but as a rule, gardens are generally cultivated in human residential areas, so all three of the greatest gardens are in cities. That makes them destinations that are easy on soft, newbie travelers. In contrast, caves are natural features, and their characteristics mean they’re found in the mountains.

  My ragtag band of volunteers and I underestimated that fact. On a sightseeing road in the mountains, fire trucks kept whizzing past us, and as we were puzzling over that—“?” “???”—it turned out that there was a car accident and fire in the tunnel we were planning to go through. Naturally, it was closed to traffic.

  We were shown to the old road, which had been blocked off and hadn’t been used recently, and it was twistier than a poor attempt at a roller coaster. Not only that, but it was a dangerous journey: One third of the width of the road on each side was covered in fallen leaves, which made it slippery, and on top of that, there were areas where the guardrails just vanished. What the heck?

  It was a spectacle that made it feel like we were traveling through Central Asian countries whose names end in -stan. Never underestimate domestic Japan!

  The actual cave was wonderful, like something straight out of a fantasy. Although it was cold. As I wrote Volume 11, I was imagining that Mount Lang Jun was probably about like that.

  Sometimes people ask me what it feels like to write a long, serialized novel. I think the most accurate answer is probably “Like the cleanup after I pull something boneheaded.” Because I went and wrote random nonsense in the story, I keep having to work to make things make sense after the fact.