by Nikita Thorn
“Which means I have to jump.” Considering what his latest ability allowed him to do, Seiki thought his conclusion made perfect sense. “Maybe it just comes down to landing it.”
Having traded his health with Blood Rush for maximum energy and spent all that in the first jump, he knew he would have to wait till both his resources refilled again before making another attempt—which would be about ten to fifteen minutes. Perhaps it would be smarter just to call it a night and come back later when he was better-equipped with proper potions.
Still undecided, Seiki paused as he came up to the last ledge before the top of the cliff. He had walked slightly north, so the climb would put him a little outside the private instance. After his experience with endless ambushes by the Shadow Manor, it had become his habit to be extra cautious whenever he stepped out of safe zones.
The prudence paid off.
Seiki tensed as he realized that the grass ledge above him was not empty. Above the sound of rustling grass in the occasional wind, faint movements sounded from somewhere further away, perhaps near the edge of the woods, in a mixture of hooves, footsteps, and soft clinking weapons.
Almost at the same time, the ruckus died down, as if the newcomers were also listening for suspicious movement. Seiki doubted it was the Rogami Clan, since it was unlikely they would simply wait on an empty grass ledge just for him to reappear. But at this point, perhaps it did not really matter. The private training ground was right there, and he was quite certain that by the time whoever it was had time to react, he would have made it back across the instance border.
Keeping as quiet as he could, Seiki pulled himself onto the last ledge and peered over the cliff.
Staring straight at him, less than a foot away from his face was a pair of large glowing silver eyes of something that was definitely not human. Seiki suppressed a startled yelp and managed to stop himself from letting go of the rocks as he stared back at it. It was a fox, white, slim, with fur gleaming silver in the moon, which happened to look exactly like Mairin.
It wagged its white fluffy tail once.
After a second, he realized it was indeed Mairin.
In a puff of white smoke, the kitsune transformed back into a human girl; she was laughing uncontrollably. “Oh my god.” Her crescent hairpin jingled like tiny bells. “I didn’t think—” She finally caught her breath. “I didn’t think you’d be that spooked. Sorry. Were you expecting the Rogami?”
Seiki exhaled deeply as he waited for his body to recover from mild shock. “Actually, yes,” he said. “Why are you here?”
From the edge of the woods came Ippei’s sigh. “Foxy, you knew it was him, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did.” Giggling, Mairin extended a hand to help Seiki over the edge.
At the tree line, a group of people of at least fifty had gathered, most of them NPC soldiers in uniform. Ippei and Yamura, both in their Shinshioka armor sets, had behind them dozens of NPC unit members. Beside them was Kentaro with his staff, sitting on his cream-colored horse, and next to him was an obake girl and her group of identical NPC girls in purple. Seiki recognized her as being Mairin’s friend, Koharu, with whom he had once done a civil mission.
Seiki brushed off the dirt from his hands as he got up, still trying to comprehend the significance of his friends’ unexpected appearance. “You… brought an army?”
Yamura lowered his bow and started walking toward them. “You told us to get ready to fight,” he said accusingly to Mairin. “What if I accidentally shot him? I’m the kind of guy who shoots first and asks questions later. And… Oh, what happened to you?” He suddenly noticed Seiki’s meager amount of health, which had been traded for energy. “Did you fall?”
Seiki was not sure how to start answering the question. Nor did he actually have the chance to, as he was instantly bombarded with more.
“What happened to the Rogami?” Ippei now had eight or nine unit members behind him, which he must have very recently recruited, since this was the first time Seiki had seen that many.
“Were you hiding from them down there?” said Mairin.
“Where did they go?” asked Kentaro.
“Hi, Seiki,” said Koharu with a slight smile. “I just tagged along, because Mairin said she was coming out here and I was hoping to see Lieutenant Kato.”
Seiki blinked, completely lost. “Uh, sorry, what?”
Mairin giggled. “Oh, yeah, Koharu’s in his fan club.”
Utterly confused now, Seiki simply stared at them. “What are you guys doing out here?” He paused. “And… do you actually know something I don’t about the Rogami?”
Ippei’s expression was a mixture of surprise and worry. “Your… girlfriend wrote.” He produced a piece of post paper from his pocket and handed it to Seiki.
It was written in a slim, graceful hand:
Fuyu [Level 16] – Ippei: (34 minutes ago) You might be interested to know your ronin friend just killed Kojiro of the Rogami Clan out the West Gate. Ooooh, interesting, isn’t it? Fuyu-chan wonders if he can handle the whole Rogami army out the West Plains by himself…
That did nothing to make the whole situation less mystifying, and Seiki had no idea what to make of the message. “How did she even know about Kojiro?”
“Probably combat logs.” Kentaro leapt lightly off his horse and dismissed it. “I’ve heard that with enough Favors, you can put in a standing order for the Bureau to notify you when something interesting happens, like when someone you’re watching enters combat. I’m not sure how that works, and it takes quite a lot of Favors. But, I mean, it wouldn’t be beyond someone like Ichikeya.”
“I see.” Seiki now remembered that the Shinshioka Scientific Society had mentioned something similar. “Like with Sasu’s Locate. But why? Does this means she’s—”
Another pigeon dropped down beside him, interrupting his question, before perching itself perfectly in his hand.
Fuyu [Level 16]: (21 seconds ago) Yes, Seiki-san, I keep tabs on all of you. Don’t worry, though. Fuyu-chan is honestly making amends this time. I sent the Rogami Clan after you once, but now I’m going to help you fight them. Do you like the rescue team I sent?
With an uneasy sigh, Seiki silently passed the message to his friends.
Yamura frowned. “What is keeping tabs supposed to mean? And ‘all of you’? Why ‘all of you’? Does that… does that include me?”
Mairin laughed. “Once upon a time, you kinda got your clan mates to destroy the Rogami army.”
“Yeah, but how would they know it was me? Could have been anyone!”
“I’m sure more than one person remembers you yelling something about a world-event rare in your clan hall,” Kentaro said.
The ryoushi grunted, just as another bird arrived for Seiki.
Fuyu [Level 16]: (13 seconds ago) I can’t help wondering what the whole Rogami army is doing out there… Do you want to know, Seiki-san?
Seiki could almost hear the Ichikeya ninja’s affected innocent tone, and that could mean nothing but bad news.
“No, I don’t want to know,” he muttered, still racking his brain to figure out what Fuyu could want out of this. It was perhaps best that whatever Ichikeya chose to do remained solely their own business.
Certainly enough, the Ichikeya ninja disagreed with that sentiment, and another bird arrived almost instantly.
Fuyu [Level 16]: (8 seconds ago) Come on, Seiki-san, I know you want to know. Please, please, please say yes.
Yamura suddenly turned to shout at the woods. “Yes. Yes, we want to know!”
“That’s not going to work,” Koharu said after a moment of silence. “See? She can’t hear—”
A pigeon fluttered down in the middle of the group, again for Seiki. After exchanging a quick glance, they all crowded in to read.
Fuyu [Level 16]: (8 seconds ago) I’m only going to tell YOU, Seiki-san. Do you want to know?
Yamura took a step back from the piece of pape
r as if it was a poisonous snake. “Okay, that’s just freaky.”
Seiki grunted. “How is she doing this?”
“She’s watching us?” Mairin popped into fox form and stopped to listen, her large furry ears twitching as she tried to locate anyone hiding in the area. After a moment, she transformed back and shook her head.
Ippei looked to the tree line for a moment, but said nothing. He then turned back toward Seiki. “So I take it that the message was a lie and the Rogami’s not after you?”
“No,” said Seiki.
“But you really killed the guy?” Mairin sounded excited. “That’s the one with this stupid giant sword, right?”
“I, uh, threw him off the cliff,” said Seiki.
Ippei nodded. “That explains it. The combat log only showed you doing a little bit of damage, but then Kojiro’s log showed that it was you who killed him.”
“You actually checked the combat logs?” Seiki could not help feeling like the group was overreacting. “You know, I sent you a message earlier saying that I’ve got everything under control.”
His friends exchanged another quick glance, before Kentaro produced a piece of post paper from his pocket. “Well…” He cleared his throat before he read it. “It actually says: ran into a weird quest. I’m really sorry I won’t be able to make it back tonight.”
“Right,” said Seiki. In his books, that was pretty clear.
The houshi hesitated. “Given your history with the Rogami, and considering the fact that the tip-off had come from Ichikeya, we thought…”
“Oh, I see.” Seiki gave a half-smile. “You thought I wrote the message under duress.”
“No,” said Ippei. “We knew they wouldn’t be able to get you to do that.”
There was a kind of gravity in his tone that took Seiki by surprise. Ippei had the same look as he did when they rode down the mountain path from the Kano Castle, when he told Seiki never to drink unknown liquids for anyone’s sake again.
Seiki suddenly understood what he meant. “Okay, look,” he said honestly. “If I want to go after the Rogami, I’ll say, hey, I’m in the mood to go kill some Rogami tonight, when’s a good time for you? If the Rogami comes looking for me, I’ll say, hey, problems, a little help, somewhere around a West Gate gorge. Whatever happens, I swear you’ll hear from me first, and not Ichikeya.”
Ippei met his eyes. “Okay.”
Seiki realized he was grateful. Fuyu’s message had been intentionally misleading, and his friends had most likely dropped everything to come out. They deserved a full explanation.
“The thing with Kojiro was more of an, uh… ad hoc situation.” It was not completely accurate, but he was not sure how else to put it, and there was actually a much more important issue at hand right now. He looked at Ippei. “Sorry about the war lockout.”
The Out of Line debuff meant he was barred from War Games for the next seven days, which meant Ippei was as well, as he had insisted on waiting for him.
Ippei exhaled deeply. “At least tell me it was absolutely necessary.”
“It was.”
His friend studied him for a moment, before letting out a resigned chuckle. “And tell me you’re actually not sorry about killing the guy.”
“I’m not.” Seiki allowed himself another little smile.
“That would have been grade-A entertainment,” the samurai said. “Well, now that we can’t run our own progression, I guess I’m going to have to find a way to convince the West Defenders to trade their second and third run for another progression run and buy us two more Seals.”
“You mean—”
“Oh,” said Ippei. “Seals aren’t affected by lockouts.”
Not having been expecting that, the fact came as a delightful surprise. Checking the description of the debuff again, Seiki found that the Out of Line penalty only barred players from directly receiving a war order from Shinshioka officers and from accepting war orders shared by other players. It made no mention of cases where they joined as guests or spectators using the Civil Officer’s Seal.
Seiki breathed a sigh of relief. “So it’s not as bad as I thought.”
Ippei mused for a moment. “But now we might need to help them clear the ruins for real, though, to keep them interested.” The samurai fell silent as he considered new strategies.
“Why were you down in the gorge anyway?” said Mairin. “To make sure that Kojiro guy is really dead?”
“No, it was a class quest. You see, after we killed the Rogami, the game phased me into my Level 15—”
“Whoa, hold on,” said Ippei. “We?”
Seiki only now remembered that his friends had not heard the full story, and everything they knew about the encounter they had learned from his combat log. “Yeah, so before Kojiro showed up, there was Rieko and this other ryoushi guy with his troops. And, uh, it was actually the Fuoka Army who killed them.”
Ippei shook his head in amused defeat. “So you’ve been making very efficient use of your time. Three Rogami kills and a class quest, and somehow we’re straight back into clan politics.”
“Things kinda escalated,” said Seiki. “At first, I thought I could just invite the Fuoka Army into my instance so they could get away from Rieko.”
Ippei seemed surprised. “There’s a ronin instance here?”
“Yeah.” Seiki pointed to where it was. “Starting from that bush, and going way down half this ledge. Then Kojiro showed up and this kitsune guy asked me to distract him.”
“Who again now?” said Yamura.
“You know, Seiki,” Mairin said. “Next time, I think I’ll write to Ichikeya to ask what happened. I’m sure your Fuyu-chan can give a better account.”
Seiki laughed. “I’m sure she can.” He initially meant it as a joke, but as soon as he said it he suddenly had misgivings about the whole affair. Ichikeya had a reputation of being able to get people to do exactly what they wanted, and here, Fuyu had successfully lured all his friends to the gorge under the false premise of a threat.
Still, without actual Rogami members waiting to ambush them, Seiki could not see what Ichikeya could possibly get out of the lie—unless they were trying to take over Kentaro’s charm-selling spot at the kakigouri shop, which was very unlikely.
“All right, let’s not fall for this, whatever it is.” Seiki finally made up his mind. “Thanks for coming out. I really appreciate it, but I think you should all go back to the city. I can run into the instance if the Rogami comes back.”
“Might be better to use the Palace Training Ground,” said Ippei. “Military camps in the Wilderness are usually more expensive.”
“Oh, no, I’m not working on formations. I’m just trying to jump to the other side.”
Kentaro glanced at the cliff. “And what even makes you think you’re supposed to jump that?”
“There’s a cave there. There was a bridge earlier, but it burned down.” Seiki retrieved Shousei’s map out of his inventory to show his friends. “The map shows this cave leading to these tunnels in the mountain, so I’m trying to—”
“It’s blank,” said Kentaro.
“Yeah, it’s blank,” Mairin confirmed as she leaned in for a look.
“Oh,” said Seiki. It was his personal class quest after all, so perhaps it was not surprising that his friends were not able to see the content of the parchment.
“Invite,” said Ippei.
Yamura frowned. “What, to his class quest?”
Ippei nodded, and Seiki did as his friend suggested.
You are now in a group with Ippei [Level 14], Yamura of the Honor Warriors [Level 16], Mairin [Level 13], Kentaro of the Crafters Guild [Level 14], and Koharu of the Social Guild [Level 14].
Kentaro’s eyes lit up in delight. “Ah, now we’ve got something. Let’s see… Ancient West Plains Map: Ketsui Gorge and the Renkan Mountain Range. Commissioned during the glorious reign of Emperor Genmu. Oh, wow, now look at the shading on the mou
ntains. Very nice. And this lovely shade of Ayame purple. I’ve been trying to discover that ink forever.”
The houshi’s Calligraphy skill was allegedly nearly as high as his main Trade Skill Tailoring, and both were nearing max level. Seeing how fascinated Kentaro was, Seiki passed the map to him to study.
“Why does it look like I’ve seen it before?” said Koharu. “Sorry, where did you get it from?”
“An NPC guy,” said Seiki. “From my last ability quest.”
“Right. Level 15.” Ippei let out a grim chuckle. “Blood Rush? Shousei?”
Seiki understood his meaning. Ippei had once told him the swordsman was universally hated by everybody who had the misfortune of coming across him, which meant all samurai and ronins who had ever played. Seiki never thought he belonged in that crowd before, but after the latest quest he was starting to see why it would be so easy to despise him.
“Who’s that again?” asked Mairin.
“A renowned swordsmaster who uses very questionable methods to give you new class abilities.”
“And that’s a severe understatement,” Seiki added, more darkly than he intended.
Ippei nodded. “I’m actually not looking forward to my Level 15 when he—” His eyes widened all of a sudden. “Whoa, you got a variation on your Rush?”
The samurai had apparently been inspecting Seiki’s new ability description, which he could now do once they were in a group. His Blood Rush, Seiki remembered, was marked Variation: Infinite.
“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to ask.”
“Infinite.” Ippei let out a completely uncharacteristic expletive and stared at Seiki. “What did you do in that quest?”
“What do you mean?” Seiki said.
“What’s a variation?” said Yamura.
Ippei gazed back at the empty space in front of him as he read the descriptions again. “Basically, it’s a free enhance on your ability, so it saves you an enhance slot in the long run.”
“Is it… rare to get a variation?” Seiki asked.
