1

Isuzu stepped onto a stage that was about twenty centimeters high, holding her lute to her rapidly beating heart. As she advanced with deliberate slowness—torn both by nearly unbearable nerves that threatened to tense her shoulders and butterflies that urged her to run away—she made eye contact with Touya, her partner for the day. He smiled at her brightly, then, as a greeting, lightly kicked the improvised drum set made out of lashed-together cans and boxes.

Isuzu sent him a fearless smile—or at least she thought it was—then raised her lute slightly. It was an An Die Freude, made by Marielle and modified by the Roderick Trading Company.

Standing in the center of the minuscule stage, she looked out across the room. The space was about ten meters square. This was Bloom Hall, one of the many eateries on Akiba’s central avenue.

The abandoned buildings in this area had originally been ruins, but the Marine Organization had done experimental remodels on them, and they’d eventually passed into the hands of various Adventurers. This shop had been renovated several times after that, and it currently belonged to the Seventh Marching Band. Yet, that said, most of the staff who actually ran the shop were People of the Earth. The Adventurers were busy; they didn’t have time to get involved with shop administration or clerical work. In fact, at present, most of the establishments in the town of Akiba were managed jointly like that—symbiotically.

This shop’s interior was rustic, but brightly and lavishly illuminated by Magic Lights. In the midst of those lights, Isuzu bowed her head, and applause welled up loudly.

There were probably around seventy seats, and nearly all of them were filled.

Sturdy sofas upholstered with sailcloth. Toffee-brown tables. Menus posted on the walls. Handwritten event schedules here and there. It was a shop that had been created and tinkered with, through a process of give and take, by the Adventurers and People of the Earth who coexisted in Akiba. There was no generic, bland interior decoration or construction that prioritized efficiency, as there would have been in the old world. Each and every individual guild hall, residence, and shop was handmade.

This shop in particular, with its cluttered atmosphere, had a stage the size of a small balcony, and it was run as a cross between a restaurant, fast-food joint, and music club. In fantasy novel terms, it probably would have been called a tavern, but unlike adventurers in works of that sort, the Adventurers of Akiba didn’t drink enough liquor to bathe in. They were eaters more than drinkers. This place reflected that trend, and the atmosphere was lively.

As Isuzu looked out over the shop’s interior, trying to ease her tension a little, she found a few familiar faces in the audience and steeled herself.

Being nervous was a good thing. If she learned to enjoy it, she was bound to improve.

Resolutely, Isuzu strummed the first note.

Her scattered thoughts would last only until she began playing. After that, she knew, she’d feel as if she’d been set free.

They’d given her enough time for six songs. Thirty minutes. Long enough that any dream might come true, yet so short that she could blink three times and it would be over.

Isuzu’s heart was racing so fast with delight and anticipation that it seemed as if it might jump out of her throat.

Smiling at her pulse, which seemed to be in perfect sync with the rhythm of the drums Touya played, Isuzu scattered eighth notes through the air.

Amber Dragon’s Claw, a production-class item Shiroe had given her, slid over the strings. It wasn’t how lutes were conventionally played, but it made for a showier performance.

In a corner of her mind, Isuzu thought, It’s like I’m at the beach, swaying in the sound of the surf.

And indeed, happiness surged over her in waves.

Each time she strummed the perfectly taut strings, the resistance and vibration traveled from her fingertips to her wrist. The sensation was like fizzing soda water, amplified hundreds of times. To Isuzu, this was joy.

Just having an instrument in her hands made her expression soften into a smile. That instrument was responding to her wishes and uttering its first cry—a sharp, clear riff. It was Isuzu’s job to help it grow.

Feeling as if she was congratulating it on its birth, Isuzu let the first word leave her lips.

Her voice, which should have been completely ordinary and mediocre, echoed in the room with more clarity than she’d expected. There was no electronic loudspeaker technology in this world, so her voice was unamplified. Yet even so, it was enough to fill a small venue like this one.

This always gave Isuzu a very odd feeling. She was just a country high school girl, the sort you’d find anywhere. Had her voice always been this resonant?

Naturally, Isuzu had begun performing here only a month ago. She could count the number of times she’d been onstage on one hand, and of course she’d had no similar experiences in the suburban town where she’d lived before the Catastrophe. The closest thing she’d known were the freight container–esque karaoke boxes that sat along the highway, surrounded by vacant lots and fields.

As a result, every time, the fact that her own voice was this sweet and carefree startled her.

However, that only lasted for the space of a breath or two.

In the blink of an eye, both thought and hesitation were swallowed up in the flood of sound.

She moved her arms, which were trembling feverishly, in short, sharp motions, summoning the biggest voice she could muster from her tense, quivering throat.

It was just a rock number, a song that had been very common on Earth.

It was a melody she’d learned from her father’s collection, one she’d heard ever since she was little.

Isuzu played and sang the familiar tune with reckless abandon. Touya, who was filling in as the drummer, was enveloped in Isuzu’s Bard aura, but there were no other instruments. It was an ad hoc show, put on by a group that common sense in their old world would have considered too small to call a band.

Still, in the face of the joy that welled up like a summer thunderhead, even that feeling of mild shame was meaningless.

Isuzu was singing on a stage of her own.

The experience was far more vivid and moving than she’d imagined it would be.

In the glare of the Magic Lights, Isuzu became somebody else. She stopped being the frizzy-haired high school girl with the boring body: just plain thin and short on curves. She became Isuzu the Bard, who strummed her lute with a self-confident smile.

Explosive delight cleared Isuzu’s vision.

All sorts of people were watching her from the packed seats.

They were all smiling.

The venue’s dwarf manager, who had become an acquaintance of hers, had set his big mouth in a grumpy line, but even so, he was cheerfully tapping his toes to the rhythm. Feeling as if she was returning his salute, Isuzu leaned forward, thrusting her lute out, and sent an F note arching toward him.

Nyanta and Serara were seated at the counter, twisting back to watch the stage. Serara’s cheeks looked flushed, and Nyanta was smiling as if he was watching over her. Serara, whose small, trembling hands were clenched into fists in front of her chest, was really adorable. She was the most feminine girl Isuzu knew. Nyanta, calm and gentlemanly, was waggling his silver whiskers slowly and seemed to be enjoying the show.

The gentle atmosphere that hung around the pair flowed into Isuzu, lending an extra sparkle to her lute.

The first song ended. Most of the people in the room had been thumping on the tables in time with the drums, and the echoes were strong, almost as if the place was one big percussion instrument. Right now, Isuzu was in the belly of a bass drum. Chasing the tip of her braid, she spun once, jumping and kicking up her feet, and got ready for the second song.

She felt frustration and a keen sadness.

Was her happiness getting through to everyone?

Even in the midst of a fierce giddiness, her lute managed to spin accurate phrases, and she was grateful to it; this lute was her partner.

Isuzu had found the instrument at the Crescent Moon League when she’d been released from Hamelin but hadn’t known what to do. Apparently it was an item that the guild master Marielle—who was a Woodworker—had made a long time ago. The lute had been changed and remodeled all over the place, to the point where it didn’t resemble its original self at all, but even so, it had soothed the loneliness of being banished to another world.

By now, Isuzu and the lute were a single entity.

This world had no schools or club activities, so her daily life consisted entirely of doing chores at her guild, going hunting with her companions, and playing her lute.

In a world with no TV or Internet, no cable or movies, if she wanted to hear music, she had to play it herself.

At the end of ribbonlike cables that stretched from her trusty partner, tiny spheres pinched between two shells raised their voices. These were man-made spirits that picked up the vibrations from the lute’s body and amplified them. They were devices from the Roderick Trading Company: modified Siren’s Shells, low-level items that made it possible to summon servants. By nature, the lute had a delicate, graceful sound, but these devices instantly expanded its range of expression, evolving it into a specially made mystery instrument. But that was exactly what Isuzu loved about it.

She made eye contact with some of the Magic Lights; they blinked and smiled in return.

I’d forgotten. Thank you.

Isuzu nodded, filling the gesture with those feelings.

What number was she on now? She didn’t really know. She felt dizzy. She thought she’d played three songs, or maybe four.

Her feverish body seemed about to fly away. She didn’t feel the slightest fatigue. It was as if she’d grown wings.

Was this due to the increased strength she got from being an Adventurer?

…That didn’t seem quite right.

It felt more as if there were a cord connected to her back, recharging her energy. The sounds that filled the room— feet stamping, the drumbeats marking time—were a joy like a dangerously rampaging avalanche. Isuzu sang a cheerful, silly rock number. It was one of the oldies from her father’s collection.

This probably isn’t a good performance, she thought.

After all, Isuzu didn’t have any musical talent. Her father had told her so dozens of times as she was growing up.

When all was said and done, Isuzu was a country high school girl. She could play instruments well enough to perform a little at school festivals, and her singing was at an “after-school karaoke” level. She hadn’t had special training in either, and she couldn’t hope to match her musician father.

However, even so, none of that had anything to do with this shining moment.

After all, joy wasn’t an emotion.

It was nothing so nebulous. It was real, legitimate energy.

This power—which was colorless and transparent as a rule, neither visible nor palpable—lay dormant in everyone. It was in Isuzu, Touya, Nyanta, and Serara, and in all the people who were gathered here.

It had overflowed and rained down over the stage and connected with Isuzu, encouraging her to continue playing her lute… And so talent really had nothing to do with it. As proof, it was fun, she was happy, and everyone was enjoying it.

Beside the shop entrance farthest from the stage, Isuzu saw a gleam of gold.

The puppy-dog prince, his cheeks flushed with excitement, was waving both his arms at her.

That sight alone created an even clearer sound from her lute, and it soared past its limits with ease.

Filled with too many feelings to understand, Isuzu gave up on trying to keep herself from smiling, broke into a big grin, and brandished the neck of the lute as if returning his wave. She felt awkward and embarrassed, and there was nothing she could do about it. Notes that had blushed pink seemed liable to overflow.

The next number was bound to put her in a mood good enough to send it all flying, too.

It was a slow ballad, the sort that Isuzu’s ally and colleague and personal porter and walking group guard and prince, Rundelhaus Code, loved.

There’s really no help for it. I’ll give this song to Rudy as a reward, Isuzu thought, drawing a deep breath.

In the midst of the glow from the Magic Lights, which had read the mood and lowered their brightness, Isuzu began to sing the next number.

Even for that day, it was a particularly special performance.

2

“The evening appurrs to be a bit warm.”

“Yes, Nyanta.”

Even so, once they’d left the shop and walked a little ways, Akiba’s night showed its true, hushed face.

In this other world, there were no electronic media, no cars or railways, so city noise was completely alien to Akiba. Things were different during events like the Libra Festival, but at this time of year, right at the beginning of February, mornings and evenings were still very cold, so the streets were quiet at night—even on a relatively warm night.

Having left Bloom Hall, Isuzu, Rundelhaus, Touya, Nyanta, and Serara started back toward their guilds, smiling. Firefly Lamps shed milky light here and there on the avenue, but the group traveled with Rundelhaus’s Magic Lights ahead of them, too.

Everyone was in high spirits. Rundelhaus, who was walking at the front of the group, talked animately with Touya. Meanwhile, Serara and Nyanta seemed to be having fun together. Bringing up the rear, Isuzu followed after them, enveloped in a light, airy happiness.

Touya and Rundelhaus were carrying heavy loads, but all Isuzu held was her lute, hugging it to her chest. Since they were only walking around town, everyone was in ordinary street clothes and lacking any weapons. Isuzu had lived an unsettled life just after the Catastrophe, and when she’d first joined Log Horizon, she hadn’t had many clothes or personal belongings. However, since she’d been given a room at the guild house, she had more regular apparel now. Come to think of it, it was just over half a year since the battle for Choushi…

“Mademoiselle Isuzu, are you all right? You’re not fatigued?”

“Not a bit. I’m bursting with energy!”

Isuzu was walking slowly, and Rundelhaus, worried, had turned around to speak to her.

Apparently she’d given him the wrong impression.

She’d only wanted to watch everyone while she savored this feeling of satisfaction.

“Let’s remewve ourselves to the guild house before we take a chill.”

“Our bellies are full, too!”

With that exchange, Nyanta and Touya crossed a small intersection.

As her companions traveled along the dark road, they all seemed to be at peace.

By now, both Rundelhaus and Isuzu felt completely at home in Log Horizon.

Log Horizon was a tranquil, comfortable guild. In particular, Isuzu had also become close friends with Minori, who was currently elsewhere. She felt as if she’d known her brave, earnest younger friend for years. It was the same with Serara, who walked beside Nyanta, wearing a rapturous smile. Isuzu was really fond of that girl.

Isuzu’s sworn ally Rundelhaus also seemed to have relaxed the tense expression he’d worn in Forest Ragranda. As the younger boys in their guild, Rundelhaus and Touya had also become friends. When the two of them were together, things got really noisy. Isuzu had realized, once again, that when guys moved in groups, their mental age came down.

Gradually, she’d also grown close to the guild’s older members: Shiroe, Nyanta, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki.

Nyanta, the oldest member, was a very easy person to make friends with. He was a calm, fashionable dandy, and the guild’s kitchen was his domain. He’d gotten ahold of the younger group’s vital point—their stomachs—and they’d gone crazy for him in no time.

Through Touya and Rundelhaus, she’d also come to understand Naotsugu by degrees. Among the older members, he was the life of the party, constantly bantering while they were talking, but Isuzu thought he was an unexpectedly considerate person. If they found any problem with the guild’s interior or equipment, he was the one to talk to.

Lately, it seemed as though Naotsugu, Touya, and Rundelhaus (and sometimes Nyanta) had been doing some sort of male bonding. They called it “special training.” It sounded somewhat juvenile, but Isuzu and Minori were pretending not to notice it. Rundelhaus and Touya went to all sorts of places, following Naotsugu’s orders, and they often came back home grinning and covered in mud. Whenever that happened, Minori and Isuzu smiled wryly and got the bath ready.

Akatsuki was a quiet, acerbic, enigmatic woman. Maybe she was shy: When they tried to talk to her, her replies were often curt. When Isuzu had first joined the guild, she’d sometimes felt a little uncomfortable around her. Still, deep down, she was a kind person with a hidden sense of humor. Not only did she love laundry and house cleaning, she had a habit of doing it stealthily, on a large scale, without help. If they looked away for a moment, and then all the sheets in the guild were abruptly fluttering on the veranda, it was Akatsuki’s doing.

After New Year’s, a Cleric named Tetora had joined Log Horizon. Tetora seemed to be an outgoing person, and had hugged Isuzu the first time they met. It wasn’t just Isuzu. Except for Akatsuki, who’d hastily evaded, everybody got a hug. Before anyone knew what was happening, the cheerful, vivacious Cleric had become the life of the party at their guild.

Meanwhile, the one Isuzu hadn’t really understood for a long time was the guild master, Shiroe.

During meals, he tended to space out or hand seasonings or small plates around to everyone, and she couldn’t see anything special about him. When he napped on the sofa in the living room, he seemed completely worn out. When they cleaned or went shopping, Naotsugu and Akatsuki tended to be mean to him, telling him, “You’ll be useless, go to your room.”

When she listened to the rumors in town, she heard that his eyes looked mean, that he was a sinister strategist, a demon who held Akiba’s fate in his hands, the mastermind behind the Round Table Council—in other words, nothing good. Isuzu thought he had mean eyes, too, but even she thought a lot of what she heard about him was questionable.

If that had been all, it would have been one thing. However, Isuzu’s friend Minori had known Shiroe longer than Isuzu had, and according to her, he was really a nice guy. He was kind, good at looking after others, intelligent, and chivalrous, he could do anything, and she absolutely adored him— She’d really said that.

It was such a confused portrait that it would have been easy to think there were three different Shiroes who appeared in a daily rotation.

Isuzu’s internal image of Shiroe was the young man who’d stood at that crossroads in Choushi, his face stern. The fact that he’d seemed like a judge to her (although she’d never seen a real judge) was a bit of a secret. It was undeniably true that he’d saved Rundelhaus, and she thought he was an amazing person for that.

However, she’d first felt a kind of affection for Shiroe when, one day, Nyanta had told her, “Shiroecchi has ‘oldest-son syndrome.’” Shiroe was an unbelievably hard worker to an extreme degree. In addition, she thought that while there were areas in which he displayed great talent, he could be clumsy about other things.

After she’d come to understand Shiroe a little, Isuzu was able to genuinely support Minori.

In this way, Isuzu and Log Horizon had slowly grown closer, and time went on.

Isuzu thought that “every day” was a bit of a tyrant.

Even if they did nothing, human bellies grew empty morning, noon, and night.

When their stomachs were empty, they needed food, and they had to make it. Among its members, Log Horizon had Nyanta, who had a Chef subclass, but that didn’t make it all right to force all the meal prep onto him.

In the first place, in this other world, preparing meals was hard work. It wasn’t brimming over with convenient cut vegetables and seasonings and instant foodstuffs, the way their old world had been. If they wanted to make something a bit elaborate, the preparations could easily turn into a full day’s work. Even when it came to buying the ingredients, it wasn’t possible to turn to online supermarket delivery services.

It wouldn’t have been fair to leave all that hard work to Nyanta. At Log Horizon, breakfasts were always made in advance so that they wouldn’t have to cook every morning, and twice a week, they’d set designated “Captain Nyanta’s Rest Days.”

The fact that meal prep took work was a problem every guild shared, and the most common shops in Akiba were the type that handled food and drink. There were lots of soup and set meal establishments where people could just drop in, eat, and leave. Maybe it was because this was a town of gamers. Many restaurants served stick-to-your-ribs dishes with satisfying quality and portion sizes, and there were also candy stores, portable street stalls, and shops that sold take-out snacks. There were only a handful of super-high-class restaurants and the sort of fashionable places that could be used for dates.

There had been a lot of shops that sold side dishes since the early days, but Shopping District 8 had taken the lead and created a street stall bazaar, and now that they’d built a shopping street mall under the elevated tracks in the ruins of Akiba Station, it was possible to relax and buy all sorts of flavors.

On Captain Nyanta’s Rest Days, the guild members bought side dishes at shops like these or they ate out.

This custom of eating out had changed, very slightly, starting around Snowfell, the winter festival held to celebrate the New Year.

After Isuzu had given an impromptu performance at Bloom Hall, she’d been scouted, and now, about once a week, she performed small gigs like the one held today.

Bard abilities didn’t correct or improve performance and singing. However, limits were placed on the abilities of Adventurers who weren’t Bards and didn’t have a similar subclass. No matter how skilled they were at performing, there was a possibility that off-key notes would pop out on their own.

If they chose a subclass like Songstress, they could improve their singing by practicing, and the ability limits wouldn’t hold them back. Because Bards could lift the restrictions on the people around them as well, when Isuzu took the stage, she often asked Touya, Minori, or Serara to take care of the rhythm or secondary instruments for her. Since the puppy-dog prince unfortunately had no musical aptitude of his own, he mostly handled the cheering.

“It’s too bad Minori couldn’t come, too.”

“Mm, yes, mew said it.”

“No help for that. Minori’s got a part-time job.”

“…At Calasin’s place, wasn’t it?”

“Mademoiselle Minori is a career woman, then.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“She’ll be done soon, though, won’t she?”

“I bet she’ll come back with Mr. Shiroe.”

The beat of her heart, which had been turbocharged from soaking in the vortex of sound, was soothed by her talking friends who walked ahead. Yet her heart was slowly returning to normal, accompanied by a lonely feeling, as if a dream were slipping away. Even then, there was not enough happiness to erase that fleeting worry.

I can’t be a professional like my dad, but playing the lute just for fun once in a while is nice.

Standing on a stage had made her acutely aware of one thing.

Apparently, Isuzu liked music far more than she had thought. She stroked the lute she held as if it was precious to her. Its ripe, rounded body was the resonance chamber. Isuzu had played the wood bass, but she thought the lute had a delicacy and an antique atmosphere that the wood bass lacked.

Dweh-heh-heh…

The wood bass she used to use had been mass-produced (but even so, she’d thought it was shockingly expensive as a high schooler), but this lute was Marielle’s creation, one of a kind. There were elegant mother-of-pearl inlays made from the opalescent interiors of shells on either side of the strings. Isuzu had modified it here and there after they’d given it to her, but the pattern looked like a dolphin, and she really liked it.

She firmly believed that any rocker worthy of the name needed a favorite instrument, and this lute, Flying Dolphin, was just that.

“What’s up, Isuzu-sis?”

“Uhn?”

“Mademoiselle Isuzuuu.”

When Isuzu looked up, everyone had gathered around her.

“Huh? What?”

“You were smirking, Isuzu.”

“That’s not true!”

“She was smiling.”

Isuzu put her hands to her cheeks, wondering if she really had been making that sort of face. Her flushed cheeks did seem to be smiling.

“Mademoiselle Isuzu is still excited, you see.”

“Rudy, seriously, that’s not it at all!”

Isuzu raised her voice, leaning in close to him. With a smile that managed to be mildly appalled and yet kindly at the same time, Rundelhaus looked to the people around him for help. At that, Touya responded, “You really were awesome, Isuzu.”

“No, I wasn’t, all right? That wasn’t anything impressive. There were instruments at my house when I was a kid, so I can play a little, that’s all.”

“That isn’t true, mew know. Everyone looked happy.”

Besides Serara, who was smiling and agreeing, even Nyanta complimented Isuzu, and her face went bright red. Then Rundelhaus, who was supposed to be her ally, hit her with an additional blow:

“Mademoiselle Isuzu is an artiste, a veritable sylph! Her exquisite melodies are a benediction to this town’s nights. If she’s a foot, even the journey on which we embark next week will be filled with cheer… Hm? What’s the matter, Mademoiselle Isuzu?”

“Rudy. I. Swear. You’re such a— How can you say things like that with a straight face?!”

Unable to stand the embarrassment, Isuzu proceeded to chase Rundelhaus around.

She was happy, but she couldn’t look any of them in the face. In the cold night air, the game of chase lasted until they reached the guild house.

3

In the six months since the Catastrophe, the most-renovated building in Akiba’s cluster of ruins was the guild center.

The first floor held the guild reception desk, the bank, and halls. Floors two through six looked like hotel corridors: They were lined with teleportation doors that led to guild halls, which were rented to different outfits. On the fourteenth floor was the Ruquinjé conference hall, which had been used during the establishment of the Round Table Council.

From the seventh floor on up, the building had once been like a rental space with no tenants. In the game of Elder Tales, the space had had no purpose, but of course, that was immediately after the Catastrophe. After the Round Table Council had been established, this building had become its headquarters, and the empty space—now valuable—was being repurposed for various things.

During the Libra Festival, the Production Guild Liaison Committee had been created, and many other groups related to the Round Table Council had subsequently set up their offices here. Although the Round Table Council was Akiba’s organization of self-governance, even the most diplomatic person couldn’t have called its ability to govern “strong.” The Council itself held only modest authority, and its capacity for practical business was low as well.

Even so, the Round Table Council was managing to govern Akiba anyway, for a variety of reasons: The members of the major guilds that participated in it made up a large percentage of Akiba’s population; the Council had the trust of Akiba’s residents; the people who lived in the town were former Net gamers and didn’t have high expectations for government institutions; and the town had an energetic volunteer culture made up of altruistic citizens.

In the first place, the town of Akiba was bursting with the spirit of freedom. In this world, as long as all you wanted to do was live, life wasn’t that hard in either military or economic terms, and so the residents of Akiba spent their days any way they pleased. Those who wanted to hunt went to the city’s outskirts, residents who wanted to manufacture holed up in their studios, and citizens who wanted to conduct sales and interact ran shops.

The general view among the Akiba’s residents indicated, as long as the self-governing body didn’t interfere with what individuals wanted to do, that was fine.

Of course, this was how things appeared to the citizens, but in fact, the Round Table Council had more duties than most imagined. The people might have thought that as long as they could do what they wanted, nothing else mattered, but even when it came to things like priority use regarding a ruin that people wanted for shop supplies, it was common for demands from multiple residents to clash.

Processing a vast number of incidents, each of which was trivial in and of itself, was the fate of government organizations, and the RTC was no exception.

“Yo, Machiavelli. I’m done over here.”

“So am I, Isaac.”

The two men, who had installed themselves in a corner of a brightly lit cafeteria in the guild center’s first basement, congratulated each other on their strenuous efforts. They were Shiroe, guild master of Log Horizon, and Isaac, guild master of the Knights of the Black Sword.

They called the place a “basement cafeteria,” but strictly speaking, it was closer to a shared space where people could eat and drink. The light of Firefly Lamps poured down from the high ceiling, and the spick-and-span tables were arranged in a geometric pattern, split into tables for four and tables for two. The space was divided into several areas, and there were individual rooms, including small meeting rooms, farther back.

Four restaurants that shared two kitchens sold their food here. Buyers carried purchased meals to the tables and ate in peace.

Shiroe and Isaac’s group was camped at a secluded table for eight.

Maps, documents, and writing implements were spread over the table, and a variety of tools and measuring instruments spilled out of the bags at their feet. They were clearly monopolizing the table—something that shouldn’t be done at a restaurant—but this wasn’t the first time it had happened, and everyone was used to it.

“What are you saying? I’m the one who organized most of the Black Sword’s materials.”

The young man who spoke to Isaac looked mildly appalled, and his shoulders slumped. It was Isaac’s aide, Lezarik. Cracking a macho smile, Isaac dodged the comment, telling him, “Don’t bring up fiddly little details like that.” As you’d expect, Isaac wasn’t wearing his habitual armor today. He was in his Round Table Council uniform, and he’d thrown a gray coat over it like a robe.

Shiroe thought that he seemed to like the Council uniform quite a bit.

For his part, Shiroe was wearing a turtleneck, as usual. When one was carrying around documents or doing clerical work, comfortable clothes were best.

Shiroe had been working with Isaac a lot lately, but Isaac wasn’t an office-jockey type. When he was in his office, he always tried to make a break for it, so whenever Shiroe needed to meet him or draft papers with him, they always ended up in a restaurant or a tent somewhere.

Since Akiba’s restaurants were trying to do business, camping out in one of them would have prickled their consciences, so in that sense, the shared space in the guild center basement was a boon to Shiroe and the others.

“Not that I really get it, but is this okay?” Isaac asked.

“Yes, that’s fine. I’m sorry to ask you to lead like this,” Shiroe answered.

“Nah, no prob there, but—”

“Our dear Isaac may not seem like it, but he’s looking forward to it,” Lezarik interjected.

“Hey, loser. Don’t go saying stuff like that. And don’t call me ‘dear.’”

Chuckling at the pair’s squabble, Shiroe sorted the unnecessary documents.

“But, man… To think we’d be drilling knight brigades after the world got like this…”

“The Black Sword is a knight brigade, too, you know.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Isaac grumbled, but his face wasn’t that gloomy. He was eyeing the document he’d picked up as if it intrigued him. The paper read, FIRST PEOPLE OF THE EARTH KNIGHTS’ DRILL GUIDELINES.

“As I mentioned during the meeting, it’s also to promote friendly relations,” Shiroe continued.

“Yeah, but we can’t just do it with no goal,” Isaac whined. “They should level up a little.”

“If we can manage to get them two or three levels higher… Well, I suppose we should take it slow,” Shiroe answered without looking up, straightening the documents.

He’d asked the Knights of the Black Sword to run a drill in the City of Maihama. Naturally, the drill was intended for People of the Earth knights. It wasn’t limited to the domain of Maihama; there would be participants from other lords’ brigades as well, so it wasn’t specifically for the Maihama troupe. The official reason was to provide training for all People of the Earth in Eastal, the League of Free Cities.

“For long-term training, those people ain’t asking for much,” Isaac muttered.

“We’re dealing with People of the Earth. We can’t push them too hard.”

“Seriously? Hey.”

When Shiroe responded in the negative, Isaac turned to the aide who stood behind him. “Were you planning on power leveling?” Lezarik asked.

“Power leveling” was a gaming term that meant boosting one’s level very rapidly, half by force. By providing a high-level leader who took players through an unbroken series of battles against monsters with lots of experience points, low-level members of the party—who followed at a safe distance—gained massive amounts of EXP. Since it was a way to level up efficiently in very little time, it was a routine sight in MMO games.

“Power leveling would be a problem. They wouldn’t gain any actual skills that way.”

On the other hand, as Shiroe had pointed out, quite a lot people were opposed to the idea. Power leveling gave you experience points and levels. However, the growth happened fast, and your physical and combat abilities didn’t get intensive training. Even if your attack power, endurance, and other physical abilities increased, you didn’t learn tactics or how to fight, and that was damaging.

“You’re such a hardhead, Machiavelli,” Isaac said. “We can just alternate power leveling and combat training, y’know. Nah, I’ll make sure there’s more training. They look like they’ll be a pain in the butt anyway.”

As he spoke, Isaac laughed shamelessly.

After hearing all that, even Shiroe thought there was no help for it. In the first place, he wasn’t completely against power leveling itself. Players who already had one high-level character often used growth methods like that when they made second or third characters.

Besides, this time around, Shiroe was staying in Akiba. Even though Maihama was only an hour away by griffin, Isaac would be the one in charge on the scene, and if Shiroe nitpicked his policies, the role-sharing wouldn’t work.

“That part’s meant for the public eye, so don’t go all out, please.”

“Yeah, leave it to me… Still, guard duty, huh?”

Looking as if he was thinking hard, Isaac scratched roughly at his head and fell silent for a while.

It was evening, after dinner.

Since this shared space was a sort of restaurant, business should have been booming right about now, but not even 10 percent of its capacity was in use.

That was only to be expected: This was a sort of staff cafeteria for Adventurers and People of the Earth who worked for the Round Table Council. Adventurers who participated in the Council and had large workloads also needed to manage their own guilds, and as a rule, they worked at their guilds’ headquarters. Shiroe, Michitaka, and Calasin were no exception.

As that was the case, the only people who had lined up documents and were eating here at this hour were those with special circumstances, like Shiroe and Isaac, or oddballs who did so much work that one wondered why they didn’t just move into the guild center. There certainly weren’t many of either type.

“Still no luck getting ahold of that idiot Krusty yet?”

“No. From what I hear, he isn’t responding to his friend list, either.”

“What’s he doing deserting his guild like that? It’s gonna break up on him.”

“It doesn’t look as if things will go that far, but…” Shiroe said.

It had been nearly three months since Krusty’s disappearance in the mountains of Ouu. Isaac had said break up—it certainly was enough time for a guild to collapse.

In general, guilds in MMORPGs were terribly fragile.

After all, in the Elder Tales game, guilds hadn’t been contractual relationships. They were simply people who “played together.” In a way, relationships with friends in cyberspace—where they weren’t affected by physical restrictions, such as living in the same neighborhood or being classmates at school—were purer than face-to-face friendships, but as a direct consequence, they were also more easily broken.

If a participant thought, I don’t want to be here anymore, there was almost no way to keep them there. Guilds such as Hamelin, which had blocked withdrawal procedures, were an exception to the rule.

And in most cases, the center of a guild was its leader.

The leader was the one who determined the guild’s course, and in many cases, they were also the one who set its emotional tone. When there was any sort of internal trouble or quarrel, it was the leader’s job to arbitrate. In order for a guild to carry on as an orchestrated group, “the leader” was a necessary device.

As a matter of fact, immediately following Krusty’s disappearance, D.D.D. had lost some members.

The idea of a leaderless organization had probably made them uneasy. They couldn’t be blamed for that.

However, despite the fact that this world had turned real and therefore guided mutual aid was necessary for survival, the number of members who’d withdrawn from the now-leaderless group hadn’t even reached fifty.

In three months, a guild which had lost its leader had seen only fifty withdrawals. That was already a quiet miracle, all on its own.

Shiroe had received that report from the Sorcerer Riezé. Her expression had been downcast, but when he’d praised her administrative skills, it certainly hadn’t been mere lip service intended to keep the Round Table Council running. Shiroe genuinely thought that it was an amazing guild.

“What? You worried, Machiavelli?”

“What about you, Isaac?”

“Like I’d actually worry. The guy’s a Berserker. He’s probably just messing around somewhere.”

“Well.”

Shiroe nodded, vaguely.

He wasn’t denying what Isaac had said.

Shiroe also thought that Krusty had been sent to another server, or possibly to a zone where telechats were restricted, through some sort of teleportation accident. Similar “events” had existed when Elder Tales had been a game. Of course, that was serious in and of itself, and there was a significant possibility that Berserker had gotten pulled into some sort of trouble.

However, as Isaac said, if he’d been asked to choose the one man from the people involved with the Round Table Council who was most likely to make it back alive if he got into unexpected trouble, he would probably have chosen Krusty. There was no sense in worrying about him.

“I bet he just shows up again one of these days,” said the guy Shiroe would have chosen as “second most likely.”

“It isn’t Krusty I’m worried about,” Shiroe confessed. “It’s D.D.D. and the Round Table Council.”

D.D.D. was quite the autonomous guild, and even without Krusty, it seemed to be running just fine. However, whether administrative processing would function smoothly and whether its members could keep themselves calm were entirely different issues. Even if only a few people had withdrawn, their anxiety was clear enough to see. The possibility that D.D.D. might collapse certainly wasn’t low enough to ignore.

It was also the biggest combat guild, and the most disciplined organization. For example, if it was a matter of being victorious in raids or combat quests, Akiba had a veritable galaxy of capable guilds. Isaac’s Knights of the Black Sword was one, and Soujirou’s West Wind Brigade could be relied upon as well.

However, if the scale of the battle grew larger and they found themselves in military action where they were required to make decisions regarding things beyond victory, no guilds could substitute for D.D.D. in terms of command and control experience.

Since that was the case, if that group collapsed or atrophied, neither the Round Table Council nor the town of Akiba would be able to escape the consequences.

Shiroe thought that the Round Table Council was a good organization of self-government, but he didn’t think it was perfect. If disharmony reared its head in the council of influential guilds, the system would probably prove to be unexpectedly fragile.

I hope Ains doesn’t stop…

Honesty’s Fairy Ring exploration was proceeding at a good pace. That said, not many people in Akiba were paying attention to it. This was because of the technological revolution that was unfolding in town. The reforms were slowly breaking down the index of Elder Tales levels that had become a part of life in Akiba. The time when having high levels led to wealth was on its way out.

The establishment of the Round Table Council and the ensuing technological revolution were changing the world. It was to the point where, if you had a new idea and the power to carry it out, riches were within your reach.

Even when it came to hunting, many Adventurers were leaving safety margins when they acted. For example, a level-90 Adventurer would go to level-85 hunting grounds. Of course they’d be able to earn money and property that way, but they wouldn’t level up. Some combat guilds continued to tackle a string of fierce challenges, but it was safe to say that they were the exception. Not raising their levels meant that they couldn’t hope for any great improvement in their combat abilities. In this world, that meant their disparities would be cemented in place.

Quite a few of Akiba’s residents were showing signs of irritation at the situation.

As someone who brought people together, Krusty was important, and Shiroe had taken his disappearance seriously.

Just when he’d gotten through the difficulty of financial negotiations with the Kunie clan, he’d found himself with yet another headache. Shiroe felt like crying. The one bright spot was that Roderick, who’d been working in cooperation with Captain Nyanta, had performed a careful investigation regarding highly dangerous flavor text and had issued a statement calling for self-imposed control with certain items.

Even though he’d done this, it wasn’t a given that disasters involving cursed items would decrease.

Depending on their flavor text, even items that weren’t clearly marked as cursed could provoke tragedies. Since they were checking flavor text via human wave tactics, the list of dangerous items would probably be completed eventually, but there was no guarantee it would put an end to all trouble.

“Shiroe.”

“Well, well! Shiroe and Isaac. Are you through with your work? We bought food.”

The figures that appeared just then were Calasin and Minori, who was working part-time at the Production Guild Liaison Committee that Calasin ran. Calasin was the same as always, but Minori was in the everyday clothes she wore when she was spending time in town. She was dressed like a student on her way home from private lessons, and she was watching Shiroe as if in a good mood.

“Heya,” Isaac said. “You lot, huh? Go on, siddown.” He indicated the sofa with his chin. There was force in the gesture, and it could easily have scared people off, but Calasin said, “Sure, thanks,” and sat down amiably. While Shiroe was thinking that Calasin’s weapon was his friendliness, Minori came up beside him, dexterously tidied away the documents on the table, and set out the sandwiches and drinks they’d purchased.

“Shiroe, here. It’s ginger ale.”

“Thank you, Minori. There weren’t any problems at work?”

Minori shook her head. Calasin watched her with a shamefaced smile.

“Listen, Shiroe. This is pretty awkward, but do you think you could let Shopping District 8 have Minori? She’s got real talent; I’m not kidding.”

Shiroe didn’t know how to respond, but Isaac saved him. Cackling loudly, he thumped the other man hard on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Calasin. Hitting on middle school kids now, huh? What, you’re that starved for girls?”

In a panic, Calasin rushed to find an excuse: “That’s not it, Isaac, seriously. I was talking about work…”

Minori giggled. Apparently Calasin’s banter was routine for her.

Relieved, Shiroe took a swallow of his ginger ale and smiled. Akiba was bursting with beverages, and they were all homemade. The soda was flavored with ginger and honey, and it was very easy to drink.

He had a mountain of things to do, and the way ahead was perilous.

Shiroe’s ears were picking up on lots of unsettling news. The capture of Seventh Fall, where the Goblin King reigned, wasn’t over yet. To that end, the Round Table Council wanted the lower-level demographic that made its home in Akiba to raise its average level to at least 30.

However, Shiroe intended to piggyback another measure on that plan.

In order to make that happen, he needed to lay the groundwork now, and so he spoke to Isaac and Calasin about a further request for the People of the Earth knights’ training.

4

Riezé was swamped with work.

It wasn’t that Krusty’s disappearance had increased her regular duties with the training unit. But as unease had spread through the guild, the number of matters that needed slight adjustments had grown.

Messages were no longer transmitting smoothly, and so every one of them needed confirmation. The time that had to be spent on human relationships—giving advice, listening to worries, consoling others—had increased, too.

What took the greatest toll on her was that she didn’t know whether these duties were necessary or not.

Riezé had no idea what kind of work she would have to perform, and how far she would have to complete a task, in order for it to be “enough.” The underlying unease had driven her to an attempt to comprehend and monitor everything about the administration of D.D.D., and the vast amount of information had sent her flying with a single blow.

If she’d been able to give up then, all would have been well, but possibly due to her feelings of impatience, she’d worked herself very nearly to her limits and was causing trouble for the people around her.

She’d lost track of the priority order for things that had to be done, and she didn’t even know where she was going. Everything she did or made seemed to be a failure, and day after day, she felt as if she was only getting in the way of the administration.

Her sleep was shallow, and she often bolted upright in bed in the middle of the night.

Her sense of perspective about events had gone off, so even slight trouble seemed to be a huge problem that would impede the guild’s future, and she felt so frightened about that future that her teeth chattered.

Conversely, she’d sometimes underestimate matters that needed to be dealt with immediately, and the resulting damage had increased.

Even without the goodwill she felt toward Krusty, Riezé flattered herself that she’d watched him run his guild from as close a vantage point as possible. And it wasn’t just her—all the members of Drei Klauen had held posts like that.

However, once Krusty was gone, she was forced to realize that she understood nothing about guild administration or the division of labor, or even the reporting system.

The guild as a whole had an administration system that operated autonomously for each division, just as Krusty had promoted it, and this system was functioning incredibly well. If it had a flaw, it was that, during the month when Misa Takayama had been unable to act, D.D.D. had disintegrated in midair.

The fact that they’d made it through that shocking month was, without question, thanks to the organizational structure Krusty had created.

However, after the end of Snowfell, an invisible, metallic fatigue had seemed to gradually erode her. Not only that, but she still couldn’t see the end of that darkness.

The ones who’d redeemed those days had been Henrietta and the others.

“You’re looking pale again.”

“…Am I?”

Today, once again, Henrietta had practically kidnapped Riezé and brought her to the Crescent Moon League’s guild hall.

Ornamental plants had been placed here and there in the rather spacious dining hall, and the gaps between them were decorated with pictures and odd stuffed animals. It should have looked cluttered, but all the items were filled with the warmth peculiar to handmade things. The table was made from a simple beige wood that harmonized cheerfully with the orange-tinted lights.

It brought Riezé to recognize a homey warmth within the Crescent Moon League’s dining hall.

She’d been invited over for a late lunch.

They were eating a cream stew made by a Chef named Girof. Even though the end of February was near, the days were cold, and it was a welcome feast.

They spoke very little; the meal was a quiet one.

Henrietta said the members of the Crescent Moon League had already had their lunch. In any case, nearly half of them had packed box lunches and gone elsewhere.

Tranquil time flowed through the afternoon guild hall. She heard voices in quiet conversation somewhere, and the noises of cleanup work from the kitchen.

They were the sounds of this midsized guild’s everyday life, and they brought Riezé a sense of relief.

“Your eyes are looking grim, Riezé. Just like my liege’s.”

It was Akatsuki, the other guest, who’d spoken to her. The small, black-haired young woman was gazing at Riezé steadily with a slightly troubled expression. Now that she and Akatsuki were friends, Riezé understood this was a sign she wasn’t just troubled—she was worried.

“I’m all right. I certainly haven’t lost heart yet.”

“You mustn’t be too stubborn.”

Henrietta, her face gentle, admonished Riezé. And yet she still had Akatsuki between her arms: She’d embraced her from behind.

“You’re twenty, aren’t you, Akatsuki?”

“Mm? Yes.”

“And Henrietta, you’re twenty-ei—”

“Ahem!”

Her probe was shut down, and Riezé let it drop without protest. The world held many things which shouldn’t be pursued too far.

“I am twenty.”

“Yes.”

Akatsuki looked put out, but Riezé felt as if she’d been rescued by her.

The girl suffered from the disparity between her actual age and her appearance, and she loathed looking young, but if you asked Riezé, it was a characteristic to be envied. After all, it did mean you looked youthful.

However, since Riezé was in high school herself, if she said that, she was likely to cause friction. Even she knew that much.

“You know, it’s curious, isn’t it?”

Having thought that far, Riezé was struck by an abrupt realization that startled her.

Akatsuki was twenty, and a university student. Henrietta said she’d been a career woman employed by a large corporation. Mikakage was studying to become a confectioner at a vocational school for cooks, Minori was in middle school, and Nazuna was a dental assistant.

“My age?” Akatsuki asked.

“No, I just thought, in the old world, I’m sure we’d never have become friends.”

“You could be right.”

Akatsuki responded quietly; she looked bewildered. It was funny to see her friend being fussed over by Henrietta, and for the first time in a very long while, Riezé smiled.

It had been so long since she’d felt her cheeks rise that way that it startled her. Apparently she’d been far tenser than she’d thought.

“No, that isn’t true! They say cute attracts cute, after all. No matter what happened, dear Akatsuki and I would have met!”

“No one needs that declaration.”

“But lately you don’t get mad at me when I pat your head. Oh, I’m so fortunate!”

Henrietta and Akatsuki were messing with each other as usual, right in front of Riezé. From Henrietta’s expression, she might as well have been scattering hearts everywhere, and although Akatsuki looked sullen, she didn’t protest all that much. She probably didn’t like it, but she’d given up resisting. Riezé guessed this was probably because Akatsuki still felt a bit indebted after the previous year’s incident, but she didn’t extend a helping hand.

She thought Akatsuki probably needed the warmth of being held.

In any case, Riezé felt close to these two, and the time she spent with them was peaceful.

Her expression naturally softened into a smile. She even felt as though the heavy accumulation of numbing fatigue that ran from the back of her head to her spine was slowly melting and draining away.

“…Are things rough now that the scary man with glasses is gone?”

“Yes, they are. We’ve realized we were relying on Master Krusty quite a lot.”

Akatsuki, ducking her head like a cat taken against its will and enduring Henrietta’s attacks, quietly spoke to a smiling Riezé. Picking up Krusty’s slack was an issue that Riezé was currently confronting.

“My liege is having trouble, too.”

“Master Shiroe as well…? I suppose he would. When it came to diplomacy, Master Krusty was the face of the Round Table Council. In the time he’s been gone, things have been all right, but considering what’s to come, it’s clear that there will be trouble.”

“I’m very sorry, but we can’t handle the Round Table Council duties.”

True, Krusty’s disappearance was a big problem for the Council as well, but that was clearly something Riezé couldn’t handle. However, it was noteworthy that she’d finally matured enough to be honest about it.

As captain of the training unit, she was able to take command during raids. She could draft management plots, too. However, at the very most, these were game strategies. If it was all right to praise herself just a little bit for something, it would be for her adaption of game strategies for use in guild training in this current, other-world Akiba.

After the Catastrophe, Krusty had told them constantly, “Nothing is different from what it was before. The way we ran the guild then is the way we’ll run it now. Nothing will change. Our lives here will be no different from our lives on the other side.” Most of the guild members seemed to have assumed these were more of the “slippery” lines Krusty was particularly good at, but Riezé knew they had been his true feelings, with no exaggeration.

Not only that, but it was also very likely that he’d meant it when he’d said, “The world after the Catastrophe is just like reality, and it isn’t very exciting.” Just as Krusty had said, his days at D.D.D. had been unchanging and routine.

Shiroe, the young man Akatsuki called her liege, was also someone worthy of admiring stares. That young man, Log Horizon’s guild master, had diverted capture techniques from the game, just as they were, and had captured the Catastrophe.

When his methods and policies were explained, they made sense. MMORPGs were communication games. For that reason, if you genuinely risked your life and used all the words you knew, it was possible to use capture techniques from the game in real life. She understood the logic, but she couldn’t believe he’d taken it seriously and put it into action.

…Was it really all that strange, though?

Krusty and Shiroe were certainly special, but Michitaka of the Marine Organization, Roderick of the Roderick Trading Company, and Calasin of Shopping District 8, plus Soujirou, Isaac, Ains, Marielle, Henrietta, who was beside her now, Kushiyatama, and crowds of other people…

In a way, wasn’t it true that the Catastrophe hadn’t changed any of them?

In this world, which had been transformed beyond recognition and was still changing from moment to moment, they kept fighting, using the fact that they were themselves as their greatest weapon.

Krusty and Shiroe had meshed with their circumstances, but in terms of having unwavering selves and using their prior experiences to resolve the situations that confronted them, the others were in no way inferior to those two.

In other words, right now, Riezé was where Akatsuki had been at the end of the previous year.

She was competing in a dimension that was centered on game methods and manuals, asking herself whether this was a right answer or a mistake, and whether or not it was enough. As a result, she couldn’t win, and the anxiety made her heart ache every day. She was just like Akatsuki, who’d brooded over her own level and lack of high-class equipment.

Riezé thought that this was the wrong approach. She needed to focus more on her own will and resolutions, on her preparations and how she lived. She thought that having that center was what made Krusty and people like Michitaka and Isaac strong.

Not that I can gain self-confidence that quickly…

“I’m sure we’re causing you a lot of trouble, and I’m afraid we’ll probably continue to do so.”

“You needn’t worry about that. We know how difficult this is for you. Besides, no doubt Master Shiroe will do something.”

“…My liege doesn’t think of it as ‘trouble.’ Besides, even if you told him not to, he’d try to help you on his own.”

Riezé hadn’t expected them to respond to her statement like that.

Henrietta, her expression prim, assured her that things would be all right, while the petite, lovely girl she was hugging to her chest also blushed and smiled resolutely.

The girl was always expressionless, and when she did smile, it was as if flower petals had begun drifting down.

That fight changed Akatsuki. It must have changed me as well.

She had to take one more step forward. Not from impatience or unease, but because now was the time to deal with the issue she’d been putting off. With only Riezé and Takayama, who blamed herself, they couldn’t hope to improve the situation.

Now that Krusty was gone, D.D.D. needed Drei Klauen, the triumvirate.

5

In this world, there was a proliferation of magic items.

The many different types included weapons and armor, equippable items, documents, and even items that were shaped like furniture.

After the Catastrophe, there had been an explosive increase in available magic items. However, even before that, Adventurers sought after one particular type for its convenience: “the bag.”

In Elder Tales, “container” would have been the accurate term for it. It was an item that could hold other items, and it came in a variety of shapes, from handy things like pouches and bags to larger items like crates, safes, and chests of drawers.

You could put all sorts of things inside ordinary container items, provided they had enough capacity. With magic container items, you could put in items regardless of size, decrease the weight of those items, or make a specific item you’d put in go through some sort of transformation. There were so many variations that it was hard to have a solid grasp of all of them.

Dazanek’s Magic Bag was a magic container item that could be equipped starting at level 45. There were magic container items with lower equip levels, but due to their holding capacities and the difficulty of getting them, they weren’t mainstream.

In addition, unless you were stocking and selling items as a production-class player, in ordinary use, the bag had a very decent capacity of two hundred kilograms. On top of that, there were high-level quests that increased the bag’s performance. It was a superb item that became a perennial favorite for many Adventurers.

Nearly all midlevel Elder Tales players had Dazanek’s Magic Bags, and the item could have been called the gateway to magic bags in general.

“Are you guys ready to go?”

“All set, Master.”

Naotsugu had poked his head into the living room, and Touya answered him proudly. In this big room, the junior members of the guild—Touya, Minori, Isuzu, and Rundelhaus—were preparing for a journey.

With Magic Bags, it would have been easy to consolidate all their belongings, but unfortunately, the younger group hadn’t gotten theirs yet. As a matter of fact, that was why they were going on a journey. The quest to obtain Dazanek’s Magic Bag—Get a Magic Bag—could be taken at level 45. At this point, there wasn’t much meaning in that restriction, but even after the Catastrophe, the levels at which items could be equipped were still binding.

In order to retrieve the materials to make Magic Bags, Touya and the others were about to leave the Kanto region for the very first time.

“The cart is ready as well, Naotsugu.”

Minori, who’d made that additional report, had a notebook in her hand and was absorbed in trip preparations.

They were bound for the Redstone Mountains.

The distance was supposed to be around a hundred and sixty kilometers. Since they were going by horse-drawn cart, the whole trip would probably take about twenty days.

Touya was imagining as-yet-unseen landscapes and mountains, and it made him a little restless. “Well, if it’s the Redstone Mountains… That’s around Nagano, right? Mountains and rivers and woods! And what’s more, villages we’ve never been to!”

“Hmm. It’s been quite some time since I last journeyed. You may leave me, Rundelhaus Code, in charge of the rules.”

“Come to think of it, you traveled to get here, right, big bro Rudy?” Touya continued.

“That’s right. I traveled with Adventurers part of the way, but from Bogport to Akiba, I was on my own. As a result, I have plenty of experience.”

“Yes, that’s it. Load the water onto the cart in barrels.”

“I know that!”

“Touya, here. Two more pairs of underwear.”

“Minori, I told you, I already packed that stuff.”

Touya couldn’t stop his heart from fizzing with excitement. It had been a very long time since he’d traveled in their old world. Even long day trips had been rare. Besides, this time, it would be just him and his friends from the younger group, and they’d be spending their nights on the road. It sounded a lot more interesting than a school trip. The idea of leaving in a cart tickled his sense of adventure, too.

Touya and the others had their belongings spread out over the floorboards.

Minori checked over them as they packed away spare clothes, preserved foods, and first aid supplies. That said, Touya didn’t think this really needed as much thought as Minori was giving it.

Handmade clothing was one thing, but as long as they had enough durability left, equipment from Elder Tales automatically got rid of tears and dirt. That meant that if you spent all your time in armor, even if the only spare clothing you had was underwear, things would work out somehow. And when it came to food in this world, as long as you weren’t looking for fun, you could get by on simple stuff.

Still, Touya didn’t say anything so tactless. He knew Minori was doing her very best, and that was a good thing. Any older brother worth his salt looked after his little sister (although Minori said that she was his older sister).

“Hmm.”

Beside him, Rundelhaus, who was down on his knees, began to paw through his luggage.

“What’s wrong, big bro Rudy?”

“Hmmmmm. My brush isn’t here. Elegant Adventurers have a duty to keep their appearances neat and tidy.”

“Huh?”

Ignoring the sound of Naotsugu’s breathing—he seemed to want to jump in with a Wait, really?—Rundelhaus went on.

“This isn’t good. That’s an important item. It cost one hundred gold coins.”

“Rudy.”

Isuzu had spoken.

Setting down her own bag, which was made with ethnic-looking fabric, she deftly plucked a smoke-blue pouch from the luggage Rundelhaus had scattered around.

“It’s in your toiletries set, Rudy. And pick up your things.”

“I see, Mademoiselle Isuzu. Thank heavens you found it.”

The two of them smiled, and as he watched the pair pick up the gear, Touya felt happy, too.

Rudy and Isuzu were both precious Log Horizon companions, and by now they almost felt like siblings to him.

When he was little, Touya had played soccer. Looking back, he wasn’t sure he’d really liked the sport that much, but he’d been full of energy, and a single ball was the only excuse he’d needed to run around the schoolyard with his friends after class.

Even after he wasn’t able to use his legs anymore, Touya had shown up at his friends’ gatherings several times.

However, after two months, he’d stopped coming.

It wasn’t because he was jealous or resented them. Out of consideration for Touya, his friends had stopped playing soccer in front of him. It made him feel bad, and he couldn’t bear to stay.

After that, he’d started to put some distance between himself and his friends. His friends’ ability to smile was more important to him.

Even after Touya was forced to depend on a wheelchair, no one in his family had grimaced, not even once. Touya knew he was treasured. Still, logic aside, there were moments when a family member’s expression would stiffen, or when they’d bite their lip. Touya was the sort of kid who felt pain if someone was forgoing smiles for his sake.

And so, when he saw Rundelhaus or Isuzu or Minori smile, he felt relieved.

He also respected Shiroe.

It wasn’t just Rundelhaus’s life that Shiroe had protected back then; he’d kept everyone smiling.

Shiroe had defended their time together, which could be spent doing things like this. That was more amazing than anything Touya had ever imagined.

“Mweh-heh-heh…”

After they’d finally gotten their luggage together and piled it into a small mountain, Isuzu hugged her lute case, petting it as if it was precious. Her eyes were sparkling.

The younger group was going hunting, alone, in order to get the materials necessary to make Magic Bags. It was a quest journey. When they’d come up with that plan, he’d been the one who’d been happiest about it, but he thought Isuzu had seemed just as glad as he was. His own reasons were one thing, but he wasn’t sure about Isuzu’s reasons.

“Isuzu-sis, you’re happy about the trip, too?” Touya asked. “How come?”

“Sure I’m happy. It’ll be fun to go all together. Besides, doesn’t it seem a little like a tour?”

A tour?

No one there, Naotsugu included, understood what she meant.

“I mean, you know, in the cart… Twang-twang-braaaang! Like that.”

Isuzu got up and, still holding her case, gestured as if she were strumming it. Her pigtails bounced happily as she did so, in time with her giddiness.

“A tour is a journey mewsicians take in order to perform. Famous artists often conduct them on a global scale, and independent artists pay their own way as they travel.” Nyanta, who’d appeared from the kitchen with a tea set, explained this as he approached the coffee table near Naotsugu.

“A tour! Luckies! A performance trip across the Milky Way!”

“They’re only going a bit past Izu…”

Tetora, who’d appeared next, ran to Naotsugu, who’d spoken after. When Akatsuki and Shiroe came in—as if to further dissuade the Cleric—all the Log Horizon members were in one place.

After hearing it explained like that, even Touya recognized the term. He’d never been to a live music venue or the Budokan stadium, but he’d seen video clips online.

Touya, Minori, Isuzu, and Rundelhaus, plus Serara (who was attending from “the neighbors”—the Crescent Moon League): The five of them would pile into a cart and leave “on tour.” He’d never thought of it before, but it struck him as a very exciting idea.

“I see! A tour, huh! Like, ba-ba-boom.”

When Touya struck a nearby rucksack with the palms of his hands as though it were a drum, Isuzu looked a bit startled, but she smiled almost immediately and spun around for him, mimicking instruments with her lips: eeeowm, eeowm, shreee.

“A tour, hm…?” Rundelhaus asked. “I’ve never heard the word before, but that’s impressive. Are we going to travel around the villages with the forty-two, then?”

“No, no,” Touya replied helpfully. “We won’t hit that many villages this time. Right, Minori?”

“If we’re going all the way to the Redstone Mountains,” Minori began, “then, according to Shiroe’s map, there are only about four or five villages.”

“But hey, why not? Let’s go to ’em,” Touya proposed immediately. “We’ll need to tank up on water either way.”

Climbing mountains and hunting small wyverns would probably be fun all by itself, but Touya figured visiting local villages to perform sounded like just as much fun. If they ran across a village, they’d spend at least one night there anyway. If they could manage to do both, it would be way better.

As everyone voiced their agreement, Isuzu whooped. “Yaaay! It’s a tour! Yeah, a tour!” Her smile was absolutely dazzling.

“Right! Then I’ll be in charge of management and showing the way.”

Rundelhaus stood to make his proclamation, and his face was radiant, too.

Touya didn’t know much about music, but he could let his strength take over and whale away on a drum. Serara could manage a simple keyboard instrument, he remembered, and Isuzu had been teaching Minori to play the lute. They might not be able to measure up to a show by real artists, but just helping Isuzu out sounded like more than enough fun.

“Oh, I’m so happy!” Isuzu shouted, hugging Rundelhaus’s head and pulling him close to her, the way she always did. Rundelhaus was the oldest of Touya’s group, and he was tall, but he didn’t seem to feel up to dealing with Isuzu’s physical affection: He couldn’t resist, and she always did whatever she wanted with him.

Rudyyyy, you’re way uncool. Heh-heh-heh.

Touya came very close to laughing at him, but he swallowed the words back down.

Truth be told, whatever he might say, Touya was in Minori’s debt and couldn’t defy her, which made him just the same as the other guy. That hit hard, and gave him pause.

On this trip, he and Rundelhaus would have to exhibit masculine dignity. He remembered Naotsugu’s expression as he’d outlined his theory, arms folded: When it comes to the crunch, real men put themselves on the line!

Of course they were dependable comrades, but three of their companions on this journey were girls.

As a man, he (and his friend Rundelhaus) had no business doing anything but protecting them.

“Minori, Minori! I’m going to buy tons of replacement strings and things!”

“Oh, Isuzu, honestly!”

This was what was going through Touya’s mind as he watched the members of his group cheerfully bantering.

6

There were several different types of cart in Elder Tales, and the technological revolution that had followed the formation of the Round Table Council had surged over even them: Apparently cart springs had always been used in certain high-class carts, but suspension springs, spring models, and lightweight materials were being introduced as well.

The Roderick Trading Company developed items that made liberal use of freakish technology, appalling all of Akiba’s residents. They had absolutely no idea what the point was in giving a cart a tail fin out of consideration for aerodynamics. However, tricks like this, which were the product of a few rampaging individuals, were gradually penetrating the market, beginning with the simple, cheap ones.

After all, all sorts of products were made in Akiba, but for the People of the Earth, carts were the highest in demand.

The People of the Earth had low mana, and it was hard for them to use Akiba-made items that required magic. In addition, most of the items created in the pursuit of the comforts of modern Earth made them wonder why anyone would go overboard like that.

Even if it was the sort of item an Adventurer could buy with pocket money, the same wasn’t true for the People of the Earth. Of course, this was fine when it came to the expensive items the lords and aristocrats of Eastal purchased, but that meant the demand for them wouldn’t grow.

In that respect, new-model carts were truly ideal products.

While some of them used magic, others did not, and these carts—made more convenient with mechanical devices—could be used by People of the Earth. If their performance was improved too far, the required Driver level went up, which was a shortcoming; but fortunately, Driver and Trader were common classes among People of the Earth. Since there were a lot of them, it wasn’t too much of an issue.

Naturally, the prices for such objects were high, but carts weren’t consumable items. If a merchant was using one, in terms of business efficiency, it was an amount that could be recouped from profits in a relatively short time, and when farmers bought them, instead of an individual making the purchase, the whole village often put up the money and bought it together. As a result, the high prices were also seldom a problem.

Carts were at the top of the list of articles People of the Earth wanted to purchase from Akiba, right next to chrome-molybdenum steel farming tools.

The cart Isuzu and the others had bought was one such product.

Of course, there were high-end carts meant for Adventurers as well, but ordinary carts were the standard. For instance, flame-resistant, cold-resistant, anti-shock, defense-rank-80 properties were too much for Isuzu’s group to handle.

As long as it was sturdy, easy to maneuver, and could hold lots of cargo and carry five or six people, that was enough. They’d considered wagons and closed carriages as well, but had settled on a covered cart. While they were planning to camp in tents, so they wouldn’t have to hope for livability from the cart itself during rainy weather, they’d splurged and gone with water-repellent cloth for the covering.

It was a comparatively lightweight cart, too. Nyanta and Roderick had advised them that, since Isuzu’s group was still midlevel and the road to their destination would often be rough, it would be best if the cart wasn’t all that heavy, and the group had made their decision based on that advice.

Since they’d split the cost equally five ways, this cart really and truly belonged to Isuzu and the others. Serara and Minori had purchased quilted cushions at the market and installed them inside the canopy. The luggage area was waterproofed, and even if it got flooded, anything they put in there would probably be fine. Touya had proposed putting the LOG HORIZON mark on the canopy, and they’d agreed unanimously.

The fact that, afterward, Minori had attempted to draw a picture, and Isuzu had put her in a full nelson to stop her, was something nobody really wanted to remember.

The horses that would draw the cart were dealt with in the style of the Adventurers: by purchasing a summoning pipe.

Summoning pipes were a magic item used to call the animals that Adventurers used. Some high-ranking versions could summon griffins and other flying or fantastic beasts. The item group included a vast number of types, and even if you limited it to the ones that simply summoned horses, there were quite a lot of them. There were all sorts of elements—the type of horse that was summoned and its abilities, the amount of time a horse would help you once it was summoned, the number of times it could be used, the amount of time that had to pass before you could use it again—and naturally, the prices were also all over the map.

In this world, there were “regular horses” that were used mainly by the People of the Earth. These were animals that spent their lives with you; they wouldn’t suddenly appear when you blew a whistle, and they wouldn’t run away when the time limit came.

However, these horses had to be fed and cared for, and the Adventurers couldn’t use their levels to make them obey, so the summoning pipe was the safest option.

Isuzu’s group had bought a Lyman’s Twin Horse Whistle.

Considering the size of the cart they’d purchased, they were going to need two horses, and buying one item that could summon two animals had been cheaper than buying two whistles. Still, the truth was that they’d fallen in love with the name and the horses at first sight, and that had been just as important. Twin Horse Whistle had made them think of Minori and Touya, and the horses it summoned—which had been billed as cart horses—were tough and powerfully built…and also incredibly cool.

“Wafaaah. Wafaaah!”

Serara was joyfully feeding cabbage to the horses with incomprehensible cries of delight. Since they were summoned horses, there was no need to feed them, but apparently that didn’t matter.

With practiced motions, Rundelhaus was using a rag to wipe down one of the horse’s necks. From behind him, Isuzu spoke to him in a hushed voice.

“Say, Rudy?”

“What’s wrong? Why so timid?”

“Do you think they’ll get mad if I touch them?”

“It should be fine. They’re docile, and they don’t seem that restive at the moment.”

The horse glanced at Isuzu. Then, as if it had lost interest, it concentrated on the cabbage Serara and the others were feeding it. Isuzu thought it might just be greedy, rather than docile, but her curiosity won out.

Swallowing, she touched it gingerly.

She’d borrowed a horse and ridden it to the Choushi summer camp, but when she touched this one, she felt its muscles under her palm. Apparently, even when there was no particular reason, touching large animals was a profoundly moving experience.

It shifted from one foot to the other, stirring, and even that let her feel the horse’s overwhelming muscles at work. This was a force that brooked no arguments, and it reminded Isuzu that the horse really was a living creature.

Not that she was making excuses, but Isuzu hadn’t touched the skin of other living things very often. She didn’t think it was just her: She doubted ordinary high school girls in general came into contact with large animals on a routine basis. Once you were in high school, you were past the age for cuddling with your parents. She sometimes hugged girls she was friends with when they were joking around, but of course everyone was clothed, and there was never any direct skin contact.

She was nodding to herself as she thought. Yeah, living creatures really are amazing…

“Hm? What’s the matter, Mademoiselle Isuzu? Are you frightened of the horse?”

Rundelhaus leaned in to look at her. He seemed worried.

“No.”

She shook her head emphatically.

“I’m not scared at all. It’s cute.”

I see. That’s all right, then. As Rundelhaus spoke, Isuzu put her hand on his hair and petted it. His mouth bent into a dissatisfied line, and he looked cross, but that just made her feel awkward, for which she ended up ruffling his mop of hair out of spite.

Yes, it’s fine. I’m okay with touching dogs.

Isuzu had just confirmed this for herself.

The moment she’d touched the horse, she’d felt startled and incredibly embarrassed somehow, and she’d camouflaged the feeling by touching Rundelhaus. He’d resisted, and she felt a bit bad, but even so, there was no help for it.

Isuzu was still a little uncomfortable around boys. She thought her former, high school self would probably have been uncomfortable around a horse (an animal!) this big, too. The idea of a creature that wasn’t her, was something large, something whose thoughts she couldn’t read…really was a little scary.

But she was fine with Rundelhaus.

She would have expected no less from her personal Guard of the Morning Stroll. He was a golden retriever.

“Do you want to feed them some cabbage, too, Isuzu?”

As if to disguise her own thoughts, she latched on to Serara’s words.

“Yes, I do, I do. Here, Rudy, you too!” Isuzu all but shouted.

“I’m fine,” he replied. “I don’t need to.”

“You can’t be left out, you know. These little guys are part of our tour group, too,” Isuzu spoke loudly, in an attempt to blow away the awkwardness.

Snorting and glaring at her, the horse seemed startled by her sudden noise. As she stared at it, eyes round, Rundelhaus scolded her, too: “Horses are skittish, so you mustn’t yell around them! Never!”

Are you skittish? she asked it with her eyes. The disgruntled horse twitched its ears, but it didn’t look at her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she apologized.

The mere idea of having this big, lovely companion dislike her was a shock.

“Give it a better apology than that,” Rundelhaus said.

That was a tough one. Isuzu didn’t have any apologies for horses in her repertoire. In a situation like this, there was nothing for it but to throw herself on the mercies of Rundelhaus’s undiscriminating, tranquil, puppy-dog aura.

“I’m sorry. Go on, Rudy, you apologize, too!”

“Wha—?! For the love of… Fine. Forgive us, O horse.”

At first, the horse had been out of sorts, but thanks to Isuzu and Rundelhaus’s tribute, it seemed as if it just might open its heart to them. By the time they’d presented it with four carrots and made up, the sun was well on its way down the sky.

Rundelhaus had seemed reluctant at first, but now his mood had improved, and he looked like he was having fun. He joined Serara, Minori, and the others in taking care of the horses, took them back to the guild house, and even gave them names (sweet, delicious-sounding ones!).

And so, before they knew it, the day of their departure had arrived.