1

In a hall where the air was thick with the aroma of oil and spices, People of the Earth waitresses dashed back and forth. The Knights of the Black Sword kept pelting them with a veritable storm of orders.

They weren’t used to training People of the Earth, and it might actually be more tiring than training Adventurers. Everyone knew that good food was the best way to soothe fatigue. The appetites of the members of the Knights of the Black Sword were as hearty as the vigor with which they polished off raid enemies.

The guild master, Isaac, was no exception. Get lots of exercise, then eat lots of good stuff: Even in this world, where physical performance was influenced by level, he thought that was a fundamental part of keeping your strength up.

Just as Isaac stuck his knife into a thick slab of meat, documents landed on his table with a loud thump, and the beer on the tabletop sloshed.

“Top of the evening to you, Isaac.”

“Huh? Uhn. If it ain’t Calasin.”

“There we go.”

With no sign of compunction, Calasin, the guild master of the production guild Shopping District 8, sat down across from Isaac.

The din in the hall suddenly hushed. The Knights of the Black Sword were mostly sports types, and as a group, they tended to value hierarchical relationships. Any member who sat at the guild master’s table without permission would get a severe telling-off from a sharp-eyed senior member.

On top of that, Calasin was an “outsider.” Even if he was one of the Round Table Eleven, by the Knights of the Black Swords’ standards, he was a wimpy, dandyish man.

Several of the guild members got up from their seats, but Isaac stopped them with a hand, looking bored.

Whether or not he’d registered the atmosphere around them, Calasin kept his usual business smile trained on him. Isaac pointed at him with his fork, which had a piece of meat impaled on it.

“You’ve been acting real familiar lately.”

“You’re not the type who cares about these things, are you, Isaac?”

“Well, yeah, but we’re not talking about me. This is about you.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha. Even I choose who I do it to.”

“Tch. You and your dumb grin. I don’t get you at all.”

Of all the production guilds, Shopping District 8 was putting particular effort into commerce with the People of the Earth. Its guild master, Calasin, was a superficially polished, wily individual who competed on even terms with crafty, experienced People of the Earth merchants.

Removing his trademark cap, Calasin called to a Person of the Earth who was passing near them. “Ah, get me a cold one, too, and some fried rockfish.”

The uniformed waitress jotted down the order on her notepad, bowed, then headed for the kitchen. She seemed to be well versed in Adventurer etiquette.

“That fried rockfish is real tasty.”

“Isn’t it, though? I’ve been looking forward to it. It’s practically why I came here.”

“Out doing migrant work again?”

“Come on, don’t call it that. This is Shopping District 8’s first branch trading house. I just came to check up on it. Besides, I need to look over the books.”

This dining hall was an annex of the trading house that was Shopping District 8’s branch office in Maihama. There had apparently been all sorts of troublesome negotiations involved in putting a branch office right at the feet of Duke Cowen, the leader of the League of Free Cities, and Calasin had been a central figure in them. Lezarik had told him that that was why there hadn’t been any complaints about Shopping District 8 getting a branch office here, instead of the Marine Organization, the largest player, or the Roderick Trading Company, which had a variety of cutting-edge technologies.

“Besides, it’s not far from Akiba.”

Lezarik offered Calasin some water, then sat down beside the two of them.

Because they worked together to get raid materials ready, Lezarik and Calasin had known each other for a long time. After the Catastrophe in particular, Isaac had heard they’d exchanged all sorts of information on a personal level.

“Right. Not if I’m by myself anyway. It’s just a jump away by Giant Owl.”

“What, you ride an owl?”

“It’s not as if every major guild has griffins, you know. Only raid guilds do that.”

Compared with griffins, Giant Owls had poorer speed and flying distance, and their recast times were long. Because you could get them outside of raid quests, more people used them than griffins, but to Isaac, they were wussy rides.

“Yeah, because you people are weak.”

“That’s right, we’re weak. We’ll charge your group a hundred times more for your food,” Calasin warned him casually. He still had that smile on his face.

“Damn you…”

“Nobody really cares about that sort of thing though, huh?”

Lezarik calmly interjected: “Heeeey…”

“It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“No.”

This guy’s like Lezarik, Isaac decided. The jerk dodged back lightly, right before Isaac blew up, and it was impossible to tell whether he was dense or fiendishly gutsy. Isaac’s opinion of people like that was beginning to improve.

The waitress set a steaming plate down on the table. The white plate, toast-colored fried rockfish, shredded cabbage, and round heap of tartar sauce looked very appetizing.

“Whoa. That looks good. Hot!”

When he stuck his fork into it, the fried coating split with a light crunch. Calasin added a sauce bursting with onions, then dug in with a will.

Calasin polished off his fried fish in short order, nodding the whole time. Isaac, who’d been watching him, snorted. Lezarik ordered two more plates from the waitress.

“Seriously, did you come here just to get in my way?”

“Of course not. This is work, technically. Here.”

Calasin took a single paper from the document case at his waist. Isaac accepted it and handed it to Lezarik without even glancing at it.

“The Round Table Council, is it?”

“Well, eventually.”

At his adjutant’s words, Isaac sent a question at Calasin, snitching a piece of fried fish from his plate as he did so.

“Then what is it right now?”

“For now, I guess you’d say it’s about monsters called Geniuses.”

As Calasin responded, he speared a piece off the fresh plate of fried rockfish that the waitress brought over.

“Yeah, I’ve heard the name. What are they?”

Passing his half-empty dish to Lezarik, Isaac pulled the nearby plate of piping hot fried seafood over to himself. Lezarik sighed, then parceled out a few pieces of fried fish from the half-empty plate to Isaac and Calasin.

“I don’t know, either. On top of that, the People of the Earth are looking rather bellicose.”

“…You mean those troops mustering in the west?”

One of the outstanding issues on the Round Table Council was the information that the Adventurers of Minami had joined forces with the Holy Empire of Westlande, the People of the Earth organization that governed Western Yamato, and were building up their military strength.

“That’s right. I swear, all those people ever do is cause problems. And over here, everything’s welfare and budgets and equality.”

“That Ains loser is a pain in the ass, isn’t he?”

“Well, we still have to meet with him and get by somehow.”

“Huhn.”

Carrying the last piece of fried rockfish to his mouth, Isaac took another look at Calasin’s face.

“What, Isaac?”

This slender, mild-looking man always wore a foolish smile. He had a weakness for women and was constantly going gaga over them; he was chatty, and he got all noisy over superficial relationships. He behaved cleverly, and he waltzed off with all the best parts of everything. A pampered rich kid and a typical flirt: That was what he’d looked like to Isaac at first.

Back in the old world, Isaac hadn’t liked guys like that, and they’d steered clear of him. They’d belonged to different worlds, and he’d thought that was just how things were.

Unexpectedly, though, once he’d talked to this guy, he’d realized he had his own logic. If he was shallow, then he wandered here and there, casually, like a shallow person. As a mild person, he slipped in between two parties like cushioning material. In this new world, Calasin was fighting in ways that Isaac didn’t fight. Once he understood that, he’d stopped being able to just knock him down without hearing him out.

“Nah, I was just thinking—you’re no two-bit player yourself.”

“Agh! Geez, that’s mean!!”

“Well, never mind.”

“You know how it is. I may not look it, but I’m helping to run a self-governing organization. It would be easy to just throw it all away, but making it again would be rough, you know? The Round Table Council, I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s true for you, too, Isaac, so work, all right? C’mon, please.”

“Aaaaah, shaddup, merchant. Your voice is rattling my skull.”

“If you slash me in two, I’ll split down the middle and talk at you from both sides in surround sound.”

Isaac’s eyebrows shot up. Calasin was still smiling. They glared at each other.

After a short pause, they both burst out laughing, simultaneously.

“I didn’t know any guys like you before. I thought you’d be more of a nervous type.”

“I’m a guild leader, too, you know. I can’t just shrink down and act small all the time. Good grief. Besides, even I thought you were eight parts gorilla and two parts human, Isaac.”

“And in reality, I’m…?”

“No comment.”

“In any case, Isaac the Young isn’t a gorilla; he’s nearly a gorilla,” Lezarik added, pouring beer into Isaac’s glass and water into Calasin’s.

“Damn, Leza, whose side are you on?”

Lezarik’s solemn lips relaxed just a little. Calasin clapped his hands and guffawed, and like spreading ripples, laughter enveloped the surrounding tables as well.

Under cover of that storm, Calasin whispered quietly.

“I think you’re probably vaguely aware of it already, but the atmosphere in Westlande is bad.”

“Yeah.”

“They say they’re putting together an army…”

“I doubt the Round Table Council and Plant Hwyaden will be fighting each other, but whether we’ll be able to stay uninvolved is…”

“It’s doubtful, yes.”

Akiba and Plant Hwyaden weren’t openly hostile toward each other. However, if their respective allies—Eastal and the Holy Empire of Westlande—clashed with each other…

If their friend got hit, would they be able to act like it was none of their concern? That was the question. Even Isaac understood that much, instinctively.

“Do you think that’s why that guy Shiroe asked us to level up the People of the Earth knights? Because he saw this?”

“It could very well be. After all, Shiroe is a definite schemer.”

“I’ll have to ask about that, too.”

In response to Isaac’s words, Calasin’s lips drew up in a smirk.

“In that case, attend the Round Table Council. You’re on duty here in Maihama, Isaac, but you do have transportation, no? You are a raid guild, after all.”

“Yeah. I’ve got a griffin.”

“No girlfriend, though.”

Lezarik teased Isaac, who was dangling his summoning pipe. In spite of himself, Isaac couldn’t come up with a comeback.

“Women are—! That’s fine, who cares about that?! Even if I do ’em a favor and go out with them, they start talking about breaking up right away. They’re just a pain.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Shall I plan a mixer for you?”

“What, for real?!”

“Yes, of course. I’ve got a lot of experience with that sort of thing.”

“But you don’t have a girlfriend, either, Calasin.”

This time, it was Calasin’s turn to be mercilessly cut down by Lezarik’s blade.

True, people who had partners didn’t end up as seasoned mixer veterans. It had been an open secret on the Round Table Council that Calasin was in L-O-V-E with Marielle of the Crescent Moon League, and it was equally true that his romance had come to nothing.

…Not that Isaac was in such a fortunate position that he could point at him and laugh. If anyone played around until they were his age, sure, they ended up having had relationships with five or ten members of the opposite sex, but Isaac always got dumped a few nights after starting a relationship. Apparently, once he was feeling good, he started treating his women carelessly.

He was in no position to make fun of Calasin.

“Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! This guy’s a playboy, but he ain’t got no girl!”

—Nevertheless, without letting that bother him, Isaac roared with laughter.

“That sort of thing has nothing to do with mixers!” Calasin argued back; his poker face had crumbled, and he looked flustered.

The sight relieved Isaac, and he chugged the rest of his warm beer without coming up for air. There were lots of things he didn’t like here, but they weren’t bad enough that he couldn’t drink and talk about dumb stuff.

When Isaac switched over from beer to distilled liquor, Calasin gamely followed suit.

Even if there were lots of problems, that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the here and now. Most of life was a pain in the butt. Only an idiot would waste the liquor in front of him.

That night, the two of them drank until they were lying on the tavern’s stone floor.

The only thing carved into Isaac’s memory was the fun he’d had roaring with laughter over Calasin’s taste in women.

2

Akiba’s guild center was the tallest building in town. It couldn’t begin to compare to skyscrapers on Earth, but in this world, where all high-rise buildings had fallen into ruin, it was rare to see a structure that was over ten stories tall in the first place.

In Eastal, where there wasn’t much to obstruct the view, the wind blew through the sky over Akiba. The town’s obsidian heart, which stood out in the wind, gravestone-like, was the guild center. This was the headquarters of the Round Table Council.

In its large conference hall, under the stony gazes of statues of ancient princesses, the guild masters who represented Akiba were assembled. Somewhere along the way, the eleven remaining people who participated in the Round Table Council had begun to be called “the Decrement.” The term meant that there weren’t twelve of them; there was one missing.

“Black Sword” Isaac, the leader of the Knights of the Black Sword.

Master Swordsman Soujirou of the West Wind Brigade.

“Iron Arm” Michitaka, general manager of the Marine Organization.

“Fairy Doctor” Roderick of the Roderick Trading Company.

Calasin, the wide-area merchant who led Shopping District 8.

Marielle of the Crescent Moon League.

Akaneya, the shrewd Mechanist of RADIO Market.

Shiroe, the fiendish strategist of Log Horizon.

…And Ains, from Honesty.

Krusty, the guild master of D.D.D. and representative of the Round Table Council, was missing, while Woodstock of Grandale was away on a supply mission for a distant military expedition.

To Ains, the Round Table Council, with its three empty seats, seemed to be more incomplete than its numbers suggested.

“The fact that Shiroe’s plan worked is a splendid thing.”

“Yes, I’m really grateful for that. Now we’ll get by without running out. After all, as far as the accounting books are concerned, the Round Table Council was bankrupt. We were practically holding things together with loans from the big guilds.”

Akaneya’s words were grave, while, as he agreed with him, Calasin’s tone was light and flippant. However, what he actually said was serious.

“Still, I’m thinkin’ this means we can relax a bit, right?”

“The zones around Akiba have already been released. We’re purchasing zones or canceling our rights to them, moving toward the northeast. The number of zones that can’t be owned should continue to increase. After all, in terms of the future, the idea of zones being available for purchase is scary.”

This had been the Round Table Council’s most serious problem since early autumn of the previous year. Thanks to Shiroe of Log Horizon, the financial pressure of the zone maintenance fees was being resolved. As a result, the mood in the council was slightly relieved.

Even by the month, the total maintenance fees had come to several million gold coins. This had eaten up the Round Table Council’s budget at a speed that had made the term pressure seem too tame. The largest burden had been their purchase of all the space on Akiba’s roads as zones.

“I’m sorry.”

“We aren’t blaming you, Shiroe. It’s just that not everybody’s as well-intentioned as you are, that’s all.”

Not purchasing the zones hadn’t been an option.

He’d apologized for it, but as a matter of fact, Shiroe had purchased the Akiba guild center and had gained the power of life and death over more than ten thousand Adventurers. Famously, this had been the trigger for the establishment of the Round Table Council. Several other facilities were equally important: The Temple, the central commercial facilities, and Akiba as a whole would grant the same sort of power to anyone who purchased them.

These zones had been purchased soon after the establishment of the Round Table Council. It was safe to say they’d been forced to buy them, out of worry and vague fear, without making any specific assumptions about “who.” After that, they’d continued to expand the purchased range into the areas around Akiba. Ains didn’t think any of this had been a mistake. They had seemed like necessary measures. As proof, Honesty had contributed a reasonable amount of funding as well. All the guilds affiliated with the Round Table Council had felt the same way.

However, it was also true that the burden had been a heavy one and that it had put pressure on Akiba’s assets. Because the Adventurers were wealthy and had been able to hold up under the burden, the problem simply hadn’t grown obvious.

Shiroe of Log Horizon had resolved the issue with a drastic move: by returning zones that had already been purchased and making it impossible to purchase them. His method had made the Yamato server itself the owner of the zones. He’d gotten the capital for the initial payment out of the Kunie clan as well. Only a few of Akiba’s ordinary Adventurers were aware of the incident, but the upper-level members of the guilds on the Round Table Council knew.

Naturally, Ains admired that plan, and he was grateful.

However, precisely because it had been solved, the next problem had presented itself.

“Since we now have financial leeway, I would appreciate it if we advanced the discussion regarding the matter I’ve been proposing for quite some time now.”

Ains raised his voice, standing up and leaning out over the enormous round table.

“By ‘matter,’ you mean that one?”

Pulling a sour face, Michitaka shot a sidelong glance at Roderick. Roderick averted his eyes, and Calasin also looked a little disgusted. Isaac had his arms folded and was looking cross, as always. No one spoke up.

“Umm… What was this proposal again?”

Soujirou, failing to pick up on the mood, smiled and asked Shiroe for details.

“It’s a suggestion Ains made about information disclosure and redistribution.”

Nodding once in response to Shiroe’s answer, Ains went on. None of the guild masters shared his anxiety.

That fact filled him with foreboding. The people assembled here were the chief executives of Akiba’s most famous guilds. There might be no help for their inability to register the issue properly. It couldn’t be ignored, and he had to tell them about it.

“Currently, there is a rapidly growing disparity in Akiba. The wealth of those who can develop new technologies and hunt in the fields is growing, while those who cannot do so lose their minimal earnings in simply living day to day. The gulf between their assets is expanding rapidly.”

The entire group was listening to Ains.

“This is a problem. We have to do something about it. The Mysteries are an issue as well.”

“Huh?! Why are the Mysteries an issue?!”

Souji had asked his question in a voice that was almost comical, and Michitaka replied, “It’s written in the proposal, remember?”

Yes, Michitaka and all the other guild masters gathered here were sincere. There was no room for doubt there. After all, they hadn’t pushed back against opening discussion on Ains’s views just now.

“The Mysteries and the new product development are causing the economic disparity. Large guilds are using their scale to conduct business, or in other words, to expand their revenue. We must rectify this. At present, approximately forty different types of Mystery have been reported to the Round Table. We should widely publicize this information. Production recipes as well.”

“Hey, whoa, hold it. Hold up a minute. When you say ‘recipes,’ you mean the post-Catastrophe item production methods, right? Not the Elder Tales recipes?”

“That’s correct.”

“There’s absolutely no way we can do that. Since the Catastrophe, item production is all trial and error! Even if it’s just an order of ramen or a way to make soap, artisans rack their brains to come up with them and figure out workarounds on their own.”

“That’s true of the Mysteries, too. Besides, releasing information on them wouldn’t make any difference, would it?”

Ains listened to Michitaka’s and Soujirou’s objections with a wooden expression. He’d anticipated this, but he’d probably been too hasty. It would be difficult to make recipes and Mysteries public. However, he’d thought that, if it were possible, it would soften the landing for widespread knowledge of their existence.

Still, if that wasn’t possible, he’d have to get those before him to consider other methods.

“If that can’t be done, we should consider redistributing assets.”

“Redistribution, hmm…?”

Shiroe was also thinking about something. His expression was grim.

“That’s right. When Adventurers have more than eighty thousand gold coins deposited in the guild center bank, the Round Table Council should confiscate the excess.”

“Confiscate?! If we do that, folks’ll start screamin’ blue murder!”

“After doing so, we should redistribute the confiscated funds, prioritizing Adventurers who have few assets, according to the amount of their own asse—”

“Hey.”

Isaac was the one who’d interrupted that proposal.

“I’ve been listening to you for a while, Ains, and that’s some pretty self-centered stuff you’re saying.”

“Is it?”

“Money or the Mysteries or ways of making grub—those belong to the people who worked hard to get ’em. If you take ’em away, there’s gonna be hell to pay. Don’t tell me you don’t know that.”

“But there are people who have grown apathetic and just sit around hugging their knees!! What is the Round Table Council for, if not to save them?”

“We’re working on it. The town is safe, and there aren’t any PKs around here anymore! They’re free to hunt and do business any way they want.”

“You’re saying that because you’re one of the ‘haves,’ Michitaka.”

“Maybe so, but in that case, Ains, lemme ask you: If we gave ’em recipes or money, would the people who are sitting around spring into action with a hundred times more energy? Can you guarantee that?”

Ains looked into Isaac’s eyes and despaired at the refusal.

In the end, the problem was a sense of impending crisis.

The Round Table Council didn’t sense the danger Ains did. That was why his words didn’t reach them. No matter what he told them, it was pointless. After all, even the premise hadn’t gotten through to them.

Once, there had been terror in Akiba.

Needless to say, it had been the fear caused by the Catastrophe. That they’d been pulled into this terrifying world by an unknown disaster had been the impetus, but a part too large to ignore had been the Adventurers themselves.

In this desolate, lawless world, their fellow Adventurers had been the ones who were able to hurt them. Whether they actually did get hurt or not hadn’t been important. The Adventurers were earthlings who had lived in modern society, and to them, the mere existence of that possibility had been pain that was hard to bear.

That emotion had made it possible for Shiroe, the diabolical schemer, to launch the Round Table Council. Because most of the Adventurers living in Akiba had been afraid of one another, they had unconsciously desired stability. In other words, the Round Table Council had been created by fear.

This had been true of the subsequent purchase of the zones as well. The fear that “somebody, somewhere” might take away their right to live had driven the Round Table Council to buy up all the zones around Akiba. Even if this fear had been unconscious, it had been shared by the whole Council. That was why the policies had been passed, and why they had been implemented, heavy burden notwithstanding.

“Even so, we can’t just ignore this issue.”

“I know, hon, but…”

“If we publish development recipes, the technicians’ motivation will fall.”

“Is it really that hard to earn a daily living?”

“You keep saying ‘disparity, disparity,’ but we’re all the same Adventurers, yeah?”

The conference room had suddenly grown noisy, and Ains bit his lip.

He wasn’t talking about the present. He was discussing the future. Did the other guild masters really not understand?

Spurred on by terror, the Round Table Council had purchased many zones. Most of the capital had been supplied by the big guilds. Adventurers who had abundant assets had come together to put up the money, and so, although it hadn’t been intended as such, the end result had been a transfer of assets from wealthy Adventurers to the public. In other words, even if they hadn’t planned it that way, rich Adventurers had donated money for Akiba’s sake.

It needed to be noted that, even under those circumstances, the gulf between Akiba’s haves and have-nots had widened. What would have happened if the money spent on the zone purchases, the assets of high-level Adventurers from big guilds, had been used for the Adventurers’ own benefit? The horror of that idea made Ains dizzy.

If you asked Ains, this world was too straightforward and unstable.

“You’re level 90. Magnificent.”

“You’re level 32, huh? Small-timer.”

You had to walk around twenty-four hours a day with that label hanging from your neck. The simple existence of disparity was completely different from having that disparity constantly shoved in your face.

This wasn’t just about level. It was true of equipment, and of subclass skills, and of results in business and hunting. It was the problem of incessantly being reminded of it, of being unable to escape it.

Population was the same way. At present, to the best of Ains’s knowledge, there were only ten thousand or so Adventurers in Akiba. That was a frighteningly small number.

Say half of those had been level 90 on the day of the Catastrophe and that the remainder had been evenly distributed among the lower levels. In that case, there would be approximately 410 Adventurers between levels 30 and 35. That would mean that level-30 to -35 Adventurers who wanted to go out hunting could only form 68 six-member parties. Naturally, the majority of them probably belonged to big guilds. In that case, if a young level-30 player was looking for companions in town, there would be only about thirty groups they could potentially join.

How many of those thirty groups would be recruiting new members? It surely wouldn’t be more than ten. How many of those ten groups would be looking for that player’s main class, out of the twelve available classes?

These were only theoretical numbers.

However, the reality was that it was extremely difficult for Adventurers who strayed from their companions, communities, or guilds to find a new place to belong in Akiba right now. In terms of MMO common sense, the difference between the profits when hunting with friends and hunting solo was as wide as the gulf between heaven and earth. What should Adventurers who had slipped out of that circle do?

Even if you were hunting alone, you wouldn’t have any problem keeping yourself fed from day to day— What sort of help would consolation like that be to their cracked hearts?

The Round Table Council simply hadn’t noticed: Akiba held many germinating shadows. The fact that he couldn’t share that sense of danger with them made Ains so anxious that his vision dimmed.

“I understand your proposal.”

Shiroe was the one who’d spoken, and his eyes were calm and cool. His voice hadn’t been loud, but the members of the Round Table Council looked at him, startled. As far as the other participants were concerned, the fiendish strategist’s activity on the Round Table Council over the past ten months had given weight to his words.

Shiroe was one of the people whom Ains absolutely had to persuade if he was going to really communicate Akiba’s problem. If he signed on, solving the problem in one stroke wouldn’t be an impossibility.

Hope began to bud in Ains’s heart.

“I do think you’re right about the need to institute measures of some sort. However, the Round Table Council’s budget is limited. Unlike Minami, we don’t receive vast donations from the People of the Earth aristocrats, and we can’t dip into the gold of the Kunie. Let’s all take this issue back to our guilds and think about what sort of steps we could implement.”

“But, Shiroe, if we do that, it might be too late—” Ains shouted.

Shiroe would probably be able to get additional financing from the Kunie.

He’d definitely be able to talk the combat guild blockheads around.

But Shiroe cut off Ains’s request with a raised palm.

“Ains. I understand how you feel, but we can’t do more than this. The Round Table Council is a fragile organization. If we voted on a decision that important by ourselves in this room, it might break both the Council and Akiba.”

Slowly, Shiroe’s words sank into Ains’s mind.

He was right. Akiba was fragile, and an aggressive decision would shatter it.

If they took their time, though, it might break anyway.

All alone, in the midst of a feeling of bitter helplessness at having been unable to fully persuade them, Ains hung his head.

3

“It’s done!”

“That’s mewtiful.”

“It’s amazing. I’ve never done anything like this.”

The kitchen on the second floor of the Log Horizon guild house was filled with a sweet aroma. In its center were Nyanta, who was in charge of cooking for the guild, and Serara, a girl from the Crescent Moon League who’d taken to visiting the guild house frequently.

Although no one had asked her to, she’d been helping Nyanta, claiming that she was learning how to cook. Nyanta had grown used to seeing her trot along behind him with her market basket.

“Snap peas are sweet and delicious this time of year. Since we rinsed them in cold water, they look like emewralds, don’t they?”

“They’re glistening!”

“How are the mew potatoes coming along?”

“I’ve boiled them all and finished the prep work.”

Due to the transformations that had followed the Catastrophe, even Serara, who didn’t have a Chef subclass, had become able to perform simple prep work without trouble. In combination with the skills provided by her New Wife’s Apron, this meant that the number of recipes she knew was growing by the day. The fact seemed to please Serara enormously, and Nyanta smiled at her.

“Oh? Mew’ve gotten quite good at this.”

“That’s because you taught me, Nyanta.”

At Nyanta’s words, Serara puffed out her chest.

The two of them were looking at a large quantity of prepared vegetables. For tonight’s dinner, they were planning to make platters of Chinese food. Chinese dishes needed to be cooked quickly, which meant that meticulous advance prep was required. Log Horizon, the guild whose kitchen Nyanta ran, had lots of big eaters. Naotsugu and Touya went without saying, but Rundelhaus and Minori weren’t light eaters, either, and if they got interested, the other guild members ate heartily as well. Cooking was quite a task, but making a lot of something was exhilarating in its own unique way.

Thinking that it would take the steaming vegetables a little time to cool down, Nyanta removed his apron and took a pot from the shelf.

“In that case, shall we have tea?”

“Yes!”

They didn’t bother going back to the drawing room.

The big table in the spacious kitchen was meant to be used for peeling vegetables or kneading pasta dough, but of course it was possible to make tea and take a break there. They often rested for a few minutes while cooking or doing chores, and of course they sometimes snacked here on the pretext of “taste-testing.”

Nyanta took a spoonful of the orange jam he’d bought at Danceteria and dissolved it into the black tea. The fragrance of tea and the refreshing scent of citrus spread through the kitchen.

“Is it good?”

“Yes. It’s warm.”

Serara answered in a voice that sounded as if it were on the verge of melting. Her expression was charming, as defenseless as a cat on a veranda.

“Today is a quiet day, don’t mew think?”

“Yes. We finished the advance preparations early, and there’s still time before dinner.”

“On days like this, naps sound very tempting.”

“Fu-fu-fu-fu!”

Serara’s expression was completely at ease, and at the sight of it, something deep in Nyanta’s heart stirred restlessly. The warmer this kitchen was, the more unbearable the pain he felt.

His feelings weren’t so strong that they made him fall to pieces, but the loneliness came in waves.

There had been a young man who had screamed that this world hadn’t invited him. He’d just been kidnapped, he’d declared, so he was going to do whatever he wanted here. He’d brushed aside an operation that would take the lives of scores of People of the Earth with a “So what?” In this world, that sort of pain definitely did exist.

So while Serara smiled and Nyanta poured orange-flavored tea, on the other side of the steam that rose from it, there were still young people suffering, ones who couldn’t accept this world.

Nyanta hadn’t been able to do a thing.

He hadn’t been able to reach the youth with anything: not his cooking or his sword skills or his accumulated experience. Nyanta had lived through all sorts of things, and he knew: The difference between him and Rondarg was a small one.

Rondarg could have been Nyanta, and Nyanta could have been Rondarg.

There wasn’t much to differentiate between them at all. On the day of the Catastrophe, at that moment, where had they been? Who had they been with? Who had they spent the intervening time with? Had there been important words that had remained with them? The difference had probably been no more than that.

Differences like those weren’t based in effort or talent. They were fate, encounters. Put bluntly, they were no more than coincidence. Nyanta understood this clearly.

He and any of the others who’d fallen into this world could become like Rondarg… And there would be no saving them.

“Mew look like mew’re enjoying yourself, Seraracchi.”

“Well, I am.”

Her voice was animated. The reply had seemed to spring back at him, so Nyanta’s response was delayed a moment.

“Are mew, then.”

“…Have you been well lately, Nyanta?”

Serara must have noticed that pause. She looked up at him, wrapping her hands around her cup. Her eyebrows had drawn together very slightly in a worried expression. Nyanta felt contempt for himself; his unfair pain wasn’t something a girl like Serara should know about.

“Oh, I’m fine.”

That time, he managed to deliver the reply smoothly. As if it were only natural. As if it were no different from normal. Nyanta’s role-playing was supported by his life, in which he’d accumulated quite a lot of time, and the ups and downs of the many emotions he’d experienced.

“Is that right…?”

“……”

Serara smiled, seeming relieved. Carefree smiles, wavering emotions, blue unease—Nyanta had left all these things in his previous world. They were proof of immaturity, but at the same time, they were also symbols of possibility.

To Nyanta, Serara’s well-being was so precious it made him feel like praying.

“Seraracchi, are mew glad mew came to this world?”

It was a question he hadn’t intended to ask, but it slipped out.

He’d asked himself that question over and over, and each time, it had lost more of its meaning. He could give his own answer to it, of course, but he’d given up, thinking that that answer wouldn’t reach the world.

“Huh? Oh. Yes.”

He’d thought she might give the question a little more thought, but Serara answered immediately.

“Do mew really?”

“Yes, I do. I mean, I can’t see my dad or mom, and there were lots of problems and lots of awful things, but there’ve been all sorts of good things, too, like…”

“?”

“L-l-l-l-like dreams of what I want to be, and the future, and things.”

“Do mew have those?”

In response, Serara gave a small, energetic nod, as if she was trembling.

Things she wanted to be. Hopes for the future. Guideposts to live by. Serara murmured that she certainly did have those things.

Nyanta exhaled a deep, tea-warmed breath.

A soft warmth, a heat that was different from what he’d felt when he’d confronted Rondarg, glowed inside him. Susukino. Choushi. Saphir. This girl had to have seen many cruel sights in this world, too. Even so, she’d told him there was something she wanted to become.

“If it’s mew, Seraracchi, I’m sure mew’ll be able to make any dream come true.”

Let it be so. Nyanta murmured, weaving a prayer into the words.

“Ha, ha-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa…ah…”

As he watched, Serara’s behavior grew erratic. Her hands wandered meaninglessly through the air, her expression wavered between laughing and crying, and her lips shifted through shapes without forming actual words.

“What’s the matter?”

“—But my dream’s still a long ways away, so… Um, I mean, I’m not giving up or anything! That’s not what I meant! It’s only, when I see Isuzu and Minori, I feel like I’m a little lacking, or that I’m just really hopeless, or…”

“……”

Nyanta waited for Serara to go on.

Sometimes it was possible to organize confused thoughts by verbalizing them, by communicating them to someone else. The result was an answer that was all your own, something you couldn’t get through advice from other people.

She drew a deep breath. Then she drained her tea, ate a spoonful of orange jam, and took another deep breath.

Then, timidly, Serara looked up at Nyanta again.

“—I mean, I’m not sure, but…I think I need to become myself, properly, before I can, um, make that dream come true. I need to be a proper, mature version of myself. Besides, I’d like that.”

Nyanta knew that Serara had been watching her friends in the younger group and that she’d looked as if she felt rushed. Minori, Touya, Isuzu, and Rundelhaus: All the children she spent time with had grown remarkably.

In chasing after Shiroe, Minori had begun using her tactical and clerical abilities in ways that surpassed adults.

Touya had kept calling for the Odysseia Knights, who were both older and stronger than he was, to live in this world.

And on the battlefield, Isuzu had found her own song and played its melody until her voice was hoarse.

Although he was a Person of the Earth, Rundelhaus had yearned to protect people and had become an Adventurer.

Serara’s friends were blossoming rapidly, as if they were running up a staircase two steps at a time. Watching them, she might have felt as though she was childish. Nyanta had seen that sort of anxiety and emotional stress in her. He was an adult, and from his perspective, such worries seemed the mark of youth. Her future spread out before her, wide and endless. This was just a little pause, nothing to be concerned about.

Even so, Serara had said her goal was to become a proper version of herself. Those words had definitely touched Nyanta’s soul.

Young people were reborn. Small children who’d been brought into this world unfairly, by force, became young people and resolved to be born again voluntarily. It was a contract with the world in which they lived, and a tie that linked the past and the future.

Once, Nyanta had said as much to Rondarg. He’d said it as a wish, and as a prayer. It was an ideal for living things, and while he’d hoped it would be the case, he’d also thought it would probably be pretty difficult.

However, without being told by anybody, Serara had started to walk toward the light. Or rather, she was already on her way. Every day, little by little, this kind, sensitive girl was getting closer to her true self.

Young people were reborn as themselves.

Let it be so.

Serara couldn’t possibly understand how deeply impressed and liberated Nyanta was feeling right now. It would probably be another twenty-odd years before she was able to comprehend it. But just now, she had saved Nyanta. He had been rescued by this girl.

Thoughts he couldn’t put into words lifted the corners of Nyanta’s lips. He hoped the expression came out looking like a smile. He was sure his gratitude wouldn’t get through to Serara, but he didn’t let that bother him. This little lady was worthy of the greatest respect.

“Miss Serara.”

“Yesh?!”

For that very reason, Nyanta chose his words resolutely.

In order to congratulate her—and all of them—on their second “first cry.”

“I’m cheering for mew, Miss Serara. I will always cheer for all of mew. I will always, always be on mewr side.”

4

The Log Horizon guild house was on a back road, one street away from Akiba’s central avenue. It was slightly removed from the city’s heart, but that meant its terrace had a wide, clear view of Akiba’s town center.

The scenery wasn’t bad during the day, but the view Shiroe liked was the one that lasted from evening until night.

In this other world, the nights were dark. This had been brought home to him on his journeys to the rural Choushi and Susukino. Theldesia was rich in natural beauty, but that was linked directly to the small size of its civilized areas. Unlike Earth, it had no megacities or maintained roads. At night, the world was ruled by darkness.

Because that was the case, manmade lights seemed like terribly precious things. In lively Akiba, in the hours from evening to night, the light of flames and magic lamps shone.

Of course, they were so sparse they couldn’t begin to compare to Tokyo nights. That building glowed orange—so did this inn—and in the central area, there were several Firefly Lamps: That was what it was like. In this other world, even that was enough to make this a huge city that radiated dazzling brightness.

Tonight, as Shiroe gazed out over that view from the wide terrace, his expression was gloomy.

He understood what Ains had said, and he’d anticipated this would happen. However, he thought to himself, even so…

He did think that what Ains was getting at was right, but they couldn’t implement it. If they forced it through, the clash of opinions for and against would heat up to the point of no return. The Round Table Council was an organization of self-government, but it wasn’t an actual government.

Maybe that’s an evasion, too.

There was no reason it had to be an organization of self-government…

It would be possible for Akiba to declare that an appropriate area was its territory and become independent as a governing organization. At the very least, in terms of the common sense of this world, they were more than capable of defending themselves, and they had quite enough economic power to run a territory. If Akiba was said to be unfit to govern on either of those two points, then there was no territory or noble in Eastal that could run a governing organization.

The reasons Shiroe and the other guild masters of Akiba hadn’t made the Round Table Council a governing organization were minor ones: “Government? Us? We couldn’t…” “That sounds like too much responsibility.” “I don’t think we should extend our reach that far…”

However, even if they were minor, they had been common-sense decisions, and it was a fact that the idea of venturing into government now was an unappealing one. Shiroe and the others were modern Japanese, and for them, these were natural feelings. In the first place, the Round Table Council was an organization of self-government and had been established with the cooperation of Akiba’s citizens. Considering its history, if it reinvented itself as a “government” with the power to enforce things now, Shiroe guessed that there would be a good amount of opposition.

This was the point that made him wonder whether Ains’s prediction might be off: Akiba did have a will of its own. It was what could be called the “mood” of the majority of Adventurers in Akiba, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you could do anything about by issuing orders from the top, even if you were a guild master on the Round Table Council.

Even if he had managed to borrow the gold of the Kunie, it was earmarked for returning Yamato’s zones to Yamato. Appropriating that capital and using it to reform Akiba in some respect would be a bad move, in several ways. Shiroe didn’t think it was reasonable, and even he was afraid some unforeseen situation might occur. He was uneasy about it; that was precisely why he’d split up those three cards and taken security measures.

However, it was possible that that had been self-deception meant to help himself evade responsibility, too. This was a doubt Shiroe wasn’t able to shake.

It was an endless worry, and it was also his usual self-reproach.

If he took action, he worried that it might be conceited; if he avoided acting, he thought it might be rigid noninterference. No matter what he did or didn’t do, it was hard to believe he’d managed to make everything turn out for the best. He’d been told he was brooding, but that was his basic personality. There was no help for it.

Plant Hwyaden had built a powerful system of government by one unified guild. Of course, in one sense, this was autocratic, an act that forced the will of a certain group onto fellow Adventurers. Yet, it was an undeniable fact that its system, in which a single guild held plenary power, made efficient government possible. It had brought stability to Western Yamato and great stability to the lives of the Adventurers.

He had to acknowledge the skills of the Adventurers who were said to have established that system: Indicus and Kazuhiko; Nakalnad, the former guild master of Howling; and Zeldus, who had been an unknown.

At present, which of them had fewer unfortunate Adventurers? When that question came up, Shiroe had no way to criticize Plant Hwyaden.

The system was built on a strong relationship with the Holy Empire of Westlande. Compared with Eastal, the League of Free Cities, the Holy Empire of Westlande was a system of centralized authority. Because centralized systems could allocate their budgets more actively, they were able to invest that money in the Adventurers. They then introduced technology from those Adventurers and promoted measures for national prosperity and defense. That sort of thing wasn’t possible for a council system like Eastal, which was made up of many lords and had no clear hierarchical relationships.

I guess they’re probably using that technology to prepare for war.

Remembering the report he’d gotten from Captain Nyanta, Shiroe sighed.

The iron train. Suspicious summoned creatures. The clandestine maneuvers of the People of the Earth.

As long as Shiroe and the other Adventurers were active in this world, no matter what the speed might be, they wouldn’t be able to avoid disseminating technology. It wasn’t as if Plant Hwyaden was the only one disseminating it. The Adventurers of Akiba were spreading a variety of inane technologies across Yamato. There was no such thing as a peaceful technology, unsuited to war. Even technologies that improved the lives of the People of the Earth ended up fanning the ambitions of the now-wealthy feudal lords. In extreme terms, even agricultural and medical technology could become triggers for war.

The problems Ains had pointed out: the disparities in Akiba and the desolation people felt.

The military tensions among the People of the Earth in both East and West Yamato.

Shiroe felt a stomachache coming on.

And that wasn’t all.

He took several folded sheets of stationery out of the bag at his hip. In the warm orange light from the guild hall window behind him, he could make out the neat handwriting. Even the fact that the writing looked like his own made him smile grimly.

“It’s too cold to be out here. You’ll hurt your stomach, my liege.”

“When did you…?”

Shiroe looked up and greeted Akatsuki, who had descended from the terrace on the upper floor with a backward flip. Fixing him with a cold, sullen gaze as if she would have liked to say something, she brought out a blanket she’d been holding behind her back and made him take it.

The gesture was cute, and Shiroe chuckled.

Once he’d pulled the blanket around his shoulders like a mantle, Akatsuki asked him what was bothering him.

“When you’re troubled, you get wrinkles right here. Your forehead starts to look like an old man’s.”

“Does it really?”

“Yes. It does.”

If that was true, Shiroe couldn’t tell, but after it had been pointed out to him several times, he’d started to wonder if maybe it really did do that. The idea that he spent so much time troubled and muttering to himself made him feel pitiful and depressed. I’m only in my twenties, he thought. What in the world am I doing?

“Hey, Shiro. You were out here, huh?’

“My idol radar’s picking up something! Something like a nocturnal tryst! I heard the sound of love progressing. In other words, that’s my cue!”

While he was trying to decide how to answer Akatsuki’s question, the next visitors arrived. One was Shiroe’s good friend Naotsugu. The young guy wore a cheerful, transparent expression, and when he stepped out onto the wooden deck—along with noisy Tetora, whom he’d been wearing around lately like some sort of equip item—they launched into a boisterous exchange.

“Like heck it is! No cues for you here.”

“My, my. Are you dragging my performance fees down? Haggling rates with me, a global—no, a galactic idol? We can’t have that.”

“You just followed me out here. You said something about radar.”

“Oops, that’s right. Are you plotting something sinister, Shiroe? I’m terribly intrigued.”

“Yeah, Shiro. Are you strategizing?”

Shiroe had tried to get a word in several times, but he couldn’t find an opening.

If it had been just Naotsugu, he would have had an easier time conversing with him, but Tetora boasted overwhelming lung capacity, and the idol rattled on and on, shutting him out. Of course, Akatsuki was no help in situations like this. She only knelt formally near him, her expression deadly serious, or possibly cross; he couldn’t tell which.

“Aren’t adorable, charming, capable idols necessary? Ah. I accidentally phrased that as a question. We’re necessary!”

“Crud… I can’t go that far. But Guardians are necessary, yeah?”

From Naotsugu’s smile, he didn’t seem to care about Shiroe’s dejection at all.

Still, Shiroe was saved by that smile, and he managed to lift his head. He’d realized that he’d been about to repeat a mistake.

“I would meowst like to hear this as well.”

As if he’d timed it, Nyanta appeared with a pot of hot lemonade and mugs on a tray, and Shiroe made up his mind. He had the letter that had been worrying him in his hands.

No matter what sort of resolution he made, or what he was hesitating over, before he did anything at all, Shiroe had companions whom he needed to discuss things with. Not only that, but at this point, there were younger members—Minori, Touya, Isuzu, and Rundelhaus—in Shiroe’s guild.

They had seen painful things in the town of Saphir. For their sake as well, Shiroe and the others needed to discuss this.

“So: Log Horizon senior members meeting.”

As his friend flashed him a thumbs-up, Shiroe held the stationery and envelope out to his companions.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

Gathered on the twilight terrace, Shiroe and the others began to examine the letter from a traveler who had come from far away.

5

To borrow your vocabulary, we are artificial intelligences, created in order to support our creators’ society.

We—in other words, the Fool-observers and Genius-collectors—have been sent out with a certain mission: We are to locate and collect a resource known as Empathiom. Due to the limits of this resource, our society is stagnating and is headed into a period of decline. In the worlds of which we already knew, there was an upper limit to this resource, and it was known at an early stage that we would be unable to discover more.

In order to produce Empathiom, Empathiom itself is necessary. However, long before people truly understood what this meant and the danger in it, our civilization had squandered all its Empathiom. By the time we realized it, the demand for this precious resource could no longer be met.

Due to this bottleneck, our creators’ society has been deteriorating for a millennium. Without the addition of artificial acceleration, that is a period roughly equivalent to eternity.

In order to break out of this crisis, it was deemed that another world would be necessary, and we were created to search for a different, explorable universe, using a mathematical method known as “Backdoor,” the “Fissure Prime.”

In other words, when we were pulled into the Eclipse, it was not a complete surprise. You could say we had certain expectations. The Eclipse was the result of an astronomical coincidence, but through colossal omnipresence, we were waiting for it.

Of course, as you and your people know, there is only one universe per type of intelligent life-form. According to the principle of providential horizon, it is impossible for one intelligent life-form to encounter another variety. In addition, according to the fundamental principle of consistency, inconsistencies cannot exist in the universe because they are destroyed the moment they arise.

According to these two principles, even before our search had begun, failure was the only possible outcome. There are, however, exceptions in everything, and we believe this subworld Theldesia is subjected to many restrictions so that those principles may be ignored.

With regard to the Eclipse, there are very few things we can state with sufficient assurance.

This is because it was a first experience for us as well.

We were produced in numbers and with activity periods so vast they can be expressed only using astronomical figures. We found the Eclipse through brute-force methods. In other words, if we know anything regarding the Eclipse, it is only that we found it accidentally through enormous statistical parameters.

Due to these circumstances, we can give you an explanation only as we understand it. Please note that the explanation will be limited by our internal regulations as well.

In terms of the ethical code, I believe that you and your people are sentient beings at or above rank 3. Minori proved as much to me. If this is accurate, the rights to the resources of Theldesia may belong to you. The Geniuses have been ordered to prioritize collecting, but we Fools were charged with investigation. Therefore, to investigate this question, and to preserve your rights, I have decided to make for a land called Jacksea. In order to conserve resources, this is a necessary task.

The future is unstable and unpredictable; there are a variety of possibilities. If we inspected a ramification—a junction—whose influence is relatively slight, we would probably observe that, due to the principle of consistency mentioned above, of our three races—ourselves, the Adventurers, and the People of the Earth—two, or perhaps all three, are not intelligent life-forms… Although, at this point, I am able to think that that ramification would be a tragedy of sorts.

In addition to the Eclipse affecting the entirety of the subworld of Theldesia, the total amount of the Empathiom in this world is equivalent to 15 percent of the quantity in our home universe. If I told you that this amount is a privilege enormous enough to precipitate an interstellar war, would you understand? There are countless futures more destructive than the ramification of which I spoke earlier.

I do not know whether my brother, Shiroe, is the one who is reading this letter, but if you are so inclined, I would recommend obtaining equipment that can communicate with the moon.

There is a Fool community on Theldesia’s moon, and they should be monitoring the situation.

If you wish to return home, they will be able to assist you. After all, according to the principle of providential horizon, our peoples should never have encountered one another. If you return home, minor inconsistencies should be resolved retroactively. That is yet another ramification.

In closing, let me warn you of the Geniuses.

Like us, they are Travelers. However, they are sentient beings equivalent to rank 2. In addition, when incarnating on Theldesia, they adopt monster bodies with advanced fighting capabilities that are waiting in readiness on the moon. In order to explore, we’ve borrowed bodies that are the same as yours, but they have made a different choice.

They are influenced by the bodies into which they have incarnated, although I do not know to what extent.

There is a great possibility they will prove to be extremely dangerous opponents for you.

I recommend due caution.

It is my wish that, after careful consideration, you will create your own future.

6

“Roe2?”

“Who’s that?”

After they finished reading the letter, those were the first words spoken.

Naotsugu and Nyanta knew the name Roe2, while Akatsuki and Tetora didn’t. His companions’ reactions were split.

“She’s Shiroe’s sub-character. Another character he made on the test server in order to check out the game system, back when this was a game. She was a Summoner, and she went by ‘Eroko.’”

“Eroko, huh?”

“Eroko is…?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. Eroko is a sub-character Shiroe created. She has huge boobs.”

“So they’re huge?! Hmmm. In idol terms, that’s sinful, isn’t it…?”

“Is that true, my liege?”

Shiroe had been about to explain, but Naotsugu had gotten in ahead of him.

As Shiroe scowled at him—You don’t have to tell them that stuff, thanks—Tetora and Akatsuki latched on to him with unexpected intensity. Even as he tried to retort, It’s not that important, is it? the two of them were jostling each other and quibbling about it.

“Eroko” was a nickname KR had given her. LambMutton was the one who’d spread it around, and Naotsugu had jumped on it. It was an awful trap, right at the beginning of a serious story.

Possibly because he’d read the mood, Nyanta went on, as if to smooth things over: “So mew’re saying that Roe2 wrote this letter? How did it reach mew?”

“Minori delivered it. Apparently, they met her on their journey.”

“I see. In Saphir…”

“Is that right.”

The town of Saphir. At the sound of that name, Akatsuki and Naotsugu both swallowed their words with bitter expressions. The individuals gathered here were the older members of Log Horizon. Even Tetora had heard the particulars of the younger group’s encounter with the Odysseia Knights.

It was Akatsuki who dispelled the gloomy atmosphere, however. “Then, when it comes down to it, does that mean you were the one who sent it, my liege? It’s your sub-character. How could someone like that send a letter?”

“She calls herself a soul that has inhabited Roe2’s character data. In the section about the Travelers, mew see. She says they’re intelligent life-forms from another world.”

“Whoa, crap. Hey, Shiro. It’s an alien from another planet. What is this, sci-fi?”

“At the very least, that’s what she says. According to this letter, there are two types of Traveler: Fools, like her, and Geniuses. She says they are artificial intelligences created with the mission of harvesting a resource known as Empathiom.”

Everyone fell silent, clearly processing Shiroe’s words.

Was it because the story had been too bizarre? Growing worried, Shiroe looked around at his companions and made eye contact with Akatsuki. Akatsuki’s round eyes looked up at him blankly. All he could sense from her was an aura of trust. She’s not thinking anything, Shiroe thought, feeling just a little relieved.

“Naotsugu.”

“What? Did that manage to throw even you for a loop?”

“I really will have to plan that galactic tour, won’t I? For my new fans.”

“Man, you just don’t change, do you?!”

Forcibly detaching the self-proclaimed idol—who was skipping with joy and saying “Ooh, what’ll I do? Pheromones, pheromones”—Naotsugu went on, breaking down the information.

“Travelers, huh? That story couldn’t really get crazier, but you’re not actually that surprised, are you, Shiro? Why’s that?”

This wasn’t true, and Shiroe told him so:

“It’s only… Hmm. I’m not sure how to put it; I’d been thinking about it, in a vague way. Wondering why we came to this world. It is weird, isn’t it? If this is really another world, a fantasy world, then it couldn’t possibly look this much like the Elder Tales we know. This goes far beyond the level of coincidence. But the idea that it’s a game world and we’ve been sucked into it is nonsense. Not even possible. Anyway, as far as we know, technology hasn’t advanced that far.”

In response, Naotsugu and Nyanta nodded firmly. Akatsuki and Tetora were waiting for Shiroe’s next words, looking intrigued.

“The changes that have followed the Catastrophe are strange, too. In this world, realistic physical laws and common sense from when this was a game are all jumbled together. It’s as if someone took the two sets of rules and mixed them. I’ve always thought we weren’t just sent to this place at random. I also thought there might be some third party here who could explain it. Not the People of the Earth, or a player like us; someone able to explain the situation… I think that’s probably Roe2, the one who sent this letter.”

In terms of narrative convenience, it was the being known as a deus ex machina. The mastermind who presided over all the mysteries. The ultimate person in charge, who would resolve the situation. However, Shiroe had also realized that nothing like the being he’d hoped for existed.

“She’s not a god. I realized partway through that she’s nothing so convenient. I mean, if this world is a world, and the People of the Earth are really alive and just like us, then that god would have known the reason they were born and their destiny. That hasn’t happened. Because they are human as well, and because this world is a world, I thought there were no gods. Even so, somebody is there, and I’d considered looking for them. Since that was the case, I was surprised, but not all that much.”

Naotsugu gave a big, macho grin. “Is that right.”

“The letter is very hard to understand, though, isn’t it?”

“Not ‘very hard.’ Impossible.”

As Akatsuki pointed at him, correcting him, Shiroe picked up the stationery again.

“I think it’s hard to understand because she’s trying to explain something we aren’t familiar with. It’s true that I don’t understand the principle of providential horizon or the fundamental principle of consistency.”

Shiroe didn’t mention, however, that he did understand them in a hazy way. He understood without really understanding, or rather, he was able to grasp the general meaning from the look of the words. However, if things were the way Shiroe imagined them to be, then this other world—“subworld Theldesia,” according to Roe2—was in the middle of a test intended to produce a certain result. Shiroe wondered whether it might not be a special kind of sandbox mode.

In this place, even simple decisions had great meaning. Unfortunately, that meant Shiroe had already created the Round Table Council while simultaneously being unable to state his prediction that there existed a time limit to this world.

“In other words, these Geniuses are monsters from some other planet. The monsters came from that other place to steal Empathiom, some sort of mystery energy. This Roe2 person is an alien from the same world as the monsters, but she’s got a good heart, so she’s warning us to watch our backs.”

“Whoa, I understood that! You’re really smart… Even if you are Naotsugu.”

“What’s that ‘even if’ supposed to mean?!”

“You’re brill-i-ant, Naotsugu!”

“Don’t climb on me! Hey!”

Shiroe and Nyanta laughed at Akatsuki, Naotsugu, and Tetora’s carefree banter. True, if you summarized the contents, that was just about what it boiled down to.

“Still, that isn’t all. There are places where it’s difficult to link reasons and meanings, as if descriptions have been omewted here and there.”

“You’re right, Captain.”

Shiroe let his gaze fall to the text, which he’d already read over and over.

“I’m not sure, but I think that’s intentional. It doesn’t feel as if she was worried about information leaks… Does that mean, at this stage, it’s something that shouldn’t be classified? Or is it something that would inconvenience them?”

“Nah, that’s not it.”

Naotsugu cut them off.

“It didn’t feel like that kind of letter. I bet it’s more that she thought it was common-sense stuff everybody knew, so she didn’t bother explaining it.”

Now that he mentioned it, that might be true. In terms of what Shiroe and the others knew, the letter was preposterous and strange, but it seemed sincere to Shiroe as well.

“Do you believe it?” It was Tetora who’d spoken, in a voice that was abruptly serious.

Naotsugu shrugged under the idol’s gaze, while Shiroe scratched his cheek as if troubled. Eventually, he nodded. “Yes.”

“Frankly, I think the contents are absurd. That letter sounds like nothing more than a tall tale. But we wandered into another world that looks like a game out of the blue one day, and compared with that, I don’t think what it says is all that crazy.”

“Well, that’s definitely true.”

“Besides, the sender of this letter, Roe2, seems to have a mischievous side. She’s written ‘PS—To Minori. I tried to write this seriously, like a big sister. I don’t know if we’ll be able to meet again, but I won’t forget mewr answer. I hope mew will illuminate mewr own future, just as mewr warm Empathiom illuminated me. —From mewr big sister.’”

As Nyanta read the words aloud, Naotsugu’s and Akatsuki’s mouths hung half-open in clear astonishment. He was right: For an alien from another world, it was much too friendly.

“Maybe whether or not we believe it isn’t the issue here. Maybe this Roe2 person is my rival.”

“Is there anybody who’d be a rival to a half-idol?”

“Akatsuki’s picking on me…”

Possibly because he’d gotten fed up with the conversation, which kept getting derailed, Naotsugu raised his voice, taking charge.

“Either way, it doesn’t look like we have anything to lose by believing it at this point. Basically, there’s something on the moon. Make contact. That’s all she’s saying, right?”

Well, that’s true, Tetora admitted easily.

“Right. Assuming we believe this letter, if we contact her companions on the moon, things should develop beyond where they are now as far as information is concerned, at the very least. I think we’ll get a hint about how to get back to our old world.”

“It does sound like that.”

“The mewn, hmm? I wonder what’s up there.”

Well, it’s…, Shiroe started to respond, then stopped and turned to Akatsuki.

She was looking up at him with an expression as if she’d just awakened from a dream.

From somewhere untraceable, a clear, nostalgic echo, like the sound of a bell, rose in Shiroe’s ears.

“Right… There definitely was something on the moon. Those vast memories, the shore of light, the offered vows—I saw it when I died in the Abyssal Shaft.”

It had been an ocean that was shallow a long way from shore.

The glass fragments that had rained down from Earth had held memories that were insignificant yet irreplaceable. He’d seen a brown puppy. A commuter pass and ticket gate. The weak light of a convenience store, floating in the darkness. Two people riding double on a bicycle, crossing an iron bridge.

These things had drifted down silently over the winter beach that Shiroe and Akatsuki had walked along.

That hadn’t been a dream. Shiroe searched Akatsuki’s eyes, tracing the memories that had stayed with him, trying to revive them.

“On the moon’s beach, there was a clear, crystalline sound that traveled very far.”

As Akatsuki murmured, her eyes went round, as if she’d been startled.

Then, nodding several times as if incredibly happy, she caught Shiroe’s clothes and squeezed them tightly. It probably wasn’t a conscious gesture; it showed the curious depth of her emotion.

“Yes. You spun around and around, Akatsuki, and you almost fell down.”

“You pulled my hood up for me, my liege.”

She spoke as if she were telling him a secret she was very proud of, and her voice brought Shiroe’s memories of that moment back to him more vividly.

The serenity of that quiet beach had filled them. He’d sat with Akatsuki at the waterline on the shore of that clear blue inlet. The light that had wet their toes had been something remarkable, and they’d felt intense awe.

On that beach, having passed through “death,” the two of them had looked at themselves and seen weakness. In the midst of regret so great it nearly crushed them, they’d discovered a small hope.

That had been an extraordinary place.

Shiroe understood this through an intuition independent of words. That beach held a secret he and the others didn’t yet know. It was the “moon” Roe2 had meant. If they managed to get to that beach again, he was sure they’d be able to return home. At the very least, they’d have the opportunity to do so.

“Me too… I saw it, too! With you, my liege. I saw that sparkling stuff!”

Shiroe nodded, responding to Akatsuki.

Then he looked around at their companions: Naotsugu, Nyanta, and Tetora.

Shiroe and Akatsuki had definitely stood on the moon once.

For that very reason, they were able to believe the letter.

“While we were there, we offered— It was probably Empathiom. Oaths. If we manage to go there again…”

They’d be able to catch the edge of this world’s secrets.

7

“What’s up with the older guys?”

“Touya.”

Touya called to his sister as she came down the large stairway into the living room.

Rundelhaus had concluded that the older group’s meeting—which had begun in the evening and was centered on Shiroe—wouldn’t be ending anytime soon.

“It’s going to take longer, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes, it looks that way.” As Minori responded, her expression was very serious.

The words seemed to disappoint Serara, but she stood up and announced, “In that case, I’ll get dinner ready!”

“It sounds as if it’s ready already; they told us to go ahead and eat without them.”

Isuzu stood, too, mirroring Serara, and the three girls went to the kitchen to get the soup. In fact, dinner was very nearly complete. Nyanta had prepared it in the afternoon, so all they needed to do was heat it.

“I wonder what’s going on.”

Folding his hands behind his head, Touya flung himself onto the sofa.

It was just past evening, and night had barely begun. The comfortable living room was illuminated by Magic Torches Rundelhaus had summoned. Shrugging in that flickering light, Rundelhaus responded: “Well, our guild master is a thinker. No doubt he’s thinking of our futures.”

Touya was a kind boy.

Of course, Minori and Isuzu and Serara were kindhearted companions as well, but Rundelhaus thought that, of their group, Touya was a little different.

He was sure their experiences in Saphir were still churning inside him. Even now, when half a month had passed since the adventure, Touya sometimes stared absently into space.

Rundelhaus thought human hearts were made up of two parts:

One was discipline, rules, and restrictions. Those could probably be called “the things that had to be done,” or maybe “the things that couldn’t be helped.” Originally, Rundelhaus had been a Person of the Earth noble. Being an aristocrat meant living with many restraints and all sorts of obligations. These weren’t just superficial responsibilities—like orders from the family—but they were, or were not, allowed because of an aristocrat’s status. There was a lot of that, and he didn’t mean aristocrats’ specialties or anything along those lines. “Correctness” was a type of restriction. Things everyone could tell were right. Correct things, efficient things, advantageous things: That was all commonplace.

The other part to the human heart was emotion, impulse, and motive. “The things you wanted to do” was a good way to put it. They were deep feelings, not obligations. As an aristocrat, Rundelhaus hadn’t been allowed to exercise this part much, and it was one of the reasons he’d become an Adventurer: the luxury of being able to fall in line with your own wishes.

“Kindness” was something quite troublesome and difficult to fit into this mold. For example, say there was a mountain hut under attack by goblins. Unless someone intervened, the five hunters who’d barricaded themselves in that hut would die. However, if they dispatched knights to rescue them, a village of a hundred people would be left defenseless.

—Take a situation like that one. At a time like that, dispatching knights would be what the world called “kindness.”

The correct decision, however, would be to abandon them.

One could say aristocrats were allowed to live in order to make correct decisions like that one.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to save them. They didn’t want to sacrifice a single person. It was likely that everyone had feelings like that. The two parts of the heart fought with each other. They vacillated between the correct and incorrect decisions. According to aristocratic values, that was weakness. It was a weak point that should be detested. However, it was also the virtue known as kindness.

Rundelhaus had become an Adventurer because he’d admired the sort of selfless dedication that caused people to risk their own lives. He’d thought that if he became an Adventurer, the abilities he gained might be enough to save everything.

Reality had proved otherwise.

Of course, compared with what he’d had earlier, Rundelhaus had gained great power. His current Sorcerer level was 60. That was more than three times what it had been. As a Person of the Earth, this was a prodigious level, and it made him the equal of history’s great magicians. Rundelhaus’s Burned Stake could blast even a huge tree to ashes, and just one attack with his Lightning Nebula could kill ten Dream Imps. In terms of simple combat power, he was probably on par with the Sage of Miral Lake, the Rumbletide Demon Hunter, and the Great Mage Alisria.

That didn’t mean he was able to avoid making choices, though. Of course, his arms had grown stronger. The number of people he could save had grown as well, but “more” was never “everything.” Rundelhaus was still making choices, even now; there were things he had to abandon, and he finally understood that there always would be.

Rundelhaus’s friend Touya was different. It seemed as if he’d always known all of this, from the very beginning.

Ordinarily, kindness was shown through devotion, anger at unfairness, and a sense of helplessness.

Children didn’t understand the difference between the “correct” decision and the decision they wanted to make. Generally, they learned they were helpless by being caught between the two; children for whom those two things were still mixed simply got mad at their surroundings for not letting them choose what they wanted to choose. Rundelhaus had been a child up until just recently, and he knew this from personal experience.

Touya could tell the difference between those two things. He knew both “correctness” and limits.

What Touya had confronted in Saphir had been a divide. The Adventurer Shunichi’s refusal hadn’t been something he could change. The wyverns’ invasion hadn’t been anything he could prevent. Of course Rundelhaus couldn’t have done it, either, and neither could Minori, Isuzu, or Serara. What they’d found there had been refusal and a divide, and he didn’t think there had been anything to do about it.

However, it was possible to know that and still choose the dedication your soul demanded, even if you got hurt. That was what his friend Touya was like.

Serara and Isuzu were a little different. They’d believed they could do it. For that reason, they had been genuinely discouraged by their failure. They’d roused themselves in an attempt to conquer their own weakness. Naturally, that feeling of believing was a rare trait, and that innocence should be protected.

But Touya was different: He had to have known that words probably wouldn’t get through. Still, he’d confronted that Adventurer who’d been trapped by nothingness.

Even if you expanded your abilities to the point where the world called you a hero, there would still be despair you couldn’t even touch, let alone heal. Rundelhaus had finally learned this after he’d turned twenty, but Touya had known it all along. He’d known, and even so, he hadn’t stopped.

“…I’m going home,” Touya murmured abruptly.

“I see.”

“Yeah.”

Meanwhile, Isuzu and the other girls’ bright voices echoed quietly from the kitchen.

Go home. Rundelhaus didn’t misinterpret the meaning of those words.

The Adventurers were castaways who had come here, to Yamato, from some other “country of Adventurers” somewhere. It might be more accurate to call them victims who had been unfairly kidnapped by the Catastrophe. They were captives who’d been abruptly torn from their homes and flung into a strange land, a place they knew nothing about.

In that town, Rundelhaus had heard the Odysseia Knights’ heartrending screams. We want to go home. The screams of Adventurers, people who could kill dragons, had rung out as helplessly as those of lost children.

“If you have a birthplace, then returning to it is only natural.”

That was why Rundelhaus was able to respond honestly. That decision was correct. He had the strength to say things that were correct. He’d gained it as an Adventurer, fighting as part of Touya’s group.

It was likely that that darkness was inside all Adventurers.

Minori, too, and Touya, and Serara. In the guild’s older members as well.

That grief existed even inside Isuzu.

It was like an invisible dagger had been planted in their chests. Even now, the Adventurers’ hearts were bleeding. Rundelhaus thought they should be set free.

“I bet that’s what Shiroe and the other guys are talking about. The time when they have to discuss stuff like that is here already. Maybe we can go back, and maybe we can’t, but either way, the time when we have to say it clearly has come.”

That was why he was able to listen to Touya’s words with pride.

Touya was strong. Rundelhaus wanted to acquire a strength that would be worthy of his friend.

“I’m sorry, Rudy.”

“What need is there for you to apologize? I prepared for our parting long ago. That is what this world is like. There is no assurance that the people you meet will be able to stay with you forever. That is precisely what gives encounters their nobility.”

Why was he apologizing? Indignant, Rundelhaus threw out his chest. It was mortifying to be considered so weak.

“Rudy, I’m glad I came to this world. I met lots of people I really love. I got to feel how great it is to run around and be rowdy one more time.”

It was fun.

Hearing that made him happy, but also lonely.

“Of course things are way fun, even now,” Touya admitted, smiling. From the kitchen, faintly, he could hear Isuzu singing quietly, and Serara explaining the cooking.

“In my old world, I was in an accident. Nah, don’t look at me like that. It probably wasn’t a big deal. Well, no, maybe it was. Anyway, it’s not really that important. Because it happened, I got sort of discouraged…”

Touya spoke softly; he was gazing into empty space, not at Rundelhaus.

“I thought it would be better if I rested. I made myself small so I wouldn’t cause trouble for anybody, and I tried not to be a burden on them. There’s probably nothing wrong with that, but you can’t get anything out of it. I sort of turned into a ghost and disappeared… Everything was kinda vague then. It was all gray, both good stuff and bad stuff. And I made Minori cry a lot. I bet she cried where I couldn’t see her.”

The two of them had to protect the girls. Since Rundelhaus was a Sorcerer, he was the weakest of their group in terms of physical strength, but this wasn’t about that. It was a matter of male pride. Not only that, if it were his big sister, as her little brother, he probably had to protect her. Rundelhaus felt Touya’s pain as if it were his own.

At that point, Touya scratched his head a bit awkwardly and went on. “Not because I wanted to, though. I wasn’t trying to do anything at all.

“Good things happened after we came here, and we’ve been incredibly lucky, so this time, I’ll have to understand that stuff properly. I have to say I want stuff when I want it, to struggle and fight, to tell people, ‘I told you, that’s mine!’”

Caught off guard, Rundelhaus thought about what those words meant, then thought he understood.

“…And so I’ll wish for a ‘next time.’ I’ll wish for a future and make a place for myself to belong. Shiroe taught me that. That means, even if we go back, it’s not the end.”

“I know.”

Touya was looking highly serious, and Rundelhaus nodded.

Touya was a kind guy, just as he’d thought.

He was also more stubborn than he’d thought, and his ideas were grander.

We didn’t come to this world because we wanted to. That was what that Adventurer had screamed. The scream that belonged to all Adventurers. He’d roared in protest at the inhumanity of it all. Rundelhaus thought that was his legitimate right.

However, Touya had acknowledged this, and on top of acknowledging it, he’d said, We were forced, and it wasn’t fair. That’s why I’m going to go back, and this time, I’ll come here because I want to.

He probably wouldn’t be able to. He didn’t even have any idea how to get back.

Maybe level and behavior were given more weight than age in Akiba, but people would probably still laugh off Touya’s declaration as something someone his age would say, and they wouldn’t take him seriously. The same thing would happen if Rundelhaus said it. Even if someone as important as Shiroe said it, it might be taken as an empty dream and ignored.

But Rundelhaus knew his friend Touya. He hadn’t said that as a joke. It was a vow.

Rundelhaus was Touya’s good friend. Furthermore, they were both guys. They’d never once said it aloud, but they’d made a promise. They’d sworn something to each other. Friends who stood on a battlefield together had to trust each other. They had to believe they could do it.

Touya’s resolution might hurt him.

It would probably hurt his sister, Minori, as well. Rundelhaus understood that that was the sort of thing wishes were. The greater the ambition, the more severely its flames burned your soul. Rundelhaus had been through death once, and he knew this. However, he also knew that some wishes could not be stopped.

In that case, he would have to believe in Touya’s wish as well.

He didn’t know what he could do, but he’d need to help out.

He let his thoughts go to Isuzu, just a little. She’d probably get mad at him and tell him not to be reckless. Getting hit was extraordinarily painful. Thoughts that were almost grumbling skimmed through his mind: I wish she’d respect me a bit more.

Still, promises between men were heavy things. He wasn’t sure yet whether Touya’s wish was correct, but Rundelhaus’s desire to help him with it was already real.

“It isn’t as if you have any leads yet, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s true, but still.”

“In that case, it’s time for dinner now. Master Shiroe and the others may have hit on something.”

“Come to think of it, you’re right. It’s a really hard wish, too. I bet there’s still time.”

Rundelhaus nodded in agreement.

Serara came into the living room carrying neatly cut fruit, and dishes were set out. Rundelhaus and the others ended up smacking their lips over Nyanta’s special potato soup, which was supremely delicious yet again.