1

When they entered the cavern, the harsh cold lost its edge, and relief rushed through Leonard’s group.

“Huhn. It’s warmer in here than I thought it would be.”

“From what I’m told, the temperature in limestone caverns doesn’t fluctuate that much throughout the year,” Chun Lu answered.

Apparently, temperatures underground were more stable than temperatures on the surface. That wasn’t because they were in Theldesia; it worked the same way on Earth.

The interior of Sirius Grotto was lit by the pale glow of Coppélia’s Bug Light spell. It was several dozen meters wide, and the ceiling was even higher than that. They were just inside the entrance, but already the space was vast.

“Bweeg?!”

With a cry, Kanami abruptly dropped into a stance that would have turned into the splits if she’d fallen much farther, then managed to hold the position, trembling.

“Master. The footing is slippery.”

“I’m well aware of that!”

No doubt she was: She’d almost fallen just then. Thinking that the fact that she’d managed to tough it out in a stance as unnatural as that one was just what you’d expect from a Monk, Leonardo shrugged and went on ahead. Thanks to the rubber boots he was wearing, he didn’t feel like he was in the slightest danger of slipping.

“Still, this place is pretty damp.”

As he walked over slippery stone, Leonardo looked around restlessly. The space itself was several dozen meters wide, but the majority of it was taken up by a stream of water. He’d tried thinking of it as a passage, but it would have been more accurate to say it was an eroded, walkable area beside a river that flowed through a great subterranean cavern.

Not being a local, Leonardo had no way of knowing whether the dungeon had been designed that way, or if it had ended up like this after the Catastrophe. Either way, it was a sight that made you aware of the threat of nature.

The current wasn’t fast, so the sound of the water wasn’t harsh on the ears. On the contrary, it echoed quietly in the enormous cavern, turning into soothing background noise.

Kanami, who’d been walking in the lead, turned around several times, going slower than usual. He’d thought she might be worried about Coppélia, but apparently, that wasn’t it. Her gestures were comical: She put a hand to her chin in an odd motion and held her head. She didn’t look as if she was having trouble with anything, but Leonardo realized that she was, and so he wondered:

“Kanami, are you worried about Elias?”

“Uh-huh.”

Kanami nodded like a little kid, and Leonardo felt mildly annoyed. “If you’re going to worry, you didn’t have to go out of your way to leave him there, y’know.”

It was true that he wouldn’t have been able to go in with them, but in that case, they could have at least tried a few other ways. If there was no other way, and they’d had to make him stay behind, then they could have taken their time, camped for the night, and talked him into it.

“Mmm… The thing is, the face Eli-Eli was making was kind of scary.”

As she spoke, Kanami kicked a rock by her feet, hard. Her answer startled him.

“It was sort of like…he wanted to fight, maybe? Or maybe take stuff out on himself? That kind of face. So I thought it would be better if he stayed behind. Besides, there’s just no way heading into a dark cave with a face like that could be a good thing.”

Kanami spun around lightly, pulling Coppélia into the conversation with a single word: “Right?”

However, Coppélia only answered in her ordinary tone of extreme calm. “Coppélia doesn’t really know, Master.”

For his part, unlike Coppélia, Leonardo was feeling something very close to shock.

He hadn’t thought that Kanami—who seemed like the sort of miraculous creature you’d get if muscles and reflex nerves acquired intelligence—would be considerate of others and try to resolve issues this way.

He’d thought that this Kanami-being could do nothing but cause unforeseen trouble.

Kanami just might have evolved.

…Amazing.

“Hey, Kanami.”

Leonard had been planning to tell her You’re pretty awesome, but Kanami didn’t wait for him. “You’re kinda cold, Coppé, you know that?” she shouted.

“?? Coppélia is not currently under a bad status.”

It was Coppélia’s fault, too.

Kanami had sent her a sign that she wanted someone to pay attention to her, and she’d obliviously shot her down. As a result, Kanami broke into a run, faking tears, and bolted ahead of them. She went so fast that, due to Adventurer physical strength, her wail generated a Doppler effect. Her pointlessly artistic cry echoed: “Weh-eh-eh-eh-eh…”

This was technically a dungeon, so Leonardo thought she should be more careful than that. However, when he looked hastily around at the other members, Chun Lu—the local—told him, “There are no forks for about thirty minutes, and monsters shouldn’t appear.” Her calm expression showed that she’d gotten used to Kanami’s weird antics.

Are you sure that’s okay? Leonardo looked back and forth between his companions and the darkness up ahead, but he was apparently the only one who was worried, so he shrugged and gave up.

After all, for engineers, switching over was important.

This limestone cavern was fairly enormous. As a result, they got by without feeling any sort of claustrophobic pressure. Having lost sight of Kanami, Leonardo and the others advanced steadily through the darkness, following her without getting impatient.

“Lord Elias is like a clear spring sky, but spring is the season of thunderstorms as well,” Coppélia suddenly said, as if talking to herself.

Leonardo was beside her, keeping a sharp eye out for enemies. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you request information regarding Lord Elias from Coppélia?”

Oh, I see, Leonardo thought.

Apparently, as far as Coppélia was concerned, that exchange with Kanami was still in progress.

“Was that response insufficient?”

Her voice was as quiet as always, but it sounded vaguely sad to Leonardo. The shadows in the cavern kept him from being able to read the little expression that was framed by her glossy indigo hair. She was a petite, beautiful girl, and everything about her was like a work of art.

Feeling the emotion he always felt when he looked at Coppélia but hadn’t been able to put a name to, Leonardo told her, “Your answers have lots of poetic metaphors in them, huh?” After the words were out, he felt frustrated with himself: What kind of tactless dolt am I anyway?

It wasn’t like this was in middle school.

“Coppélia’s basic vocabulary includes meteorological forecasts and information on the four seasons from every country.”

“Ah, I see…”

The memory of the night in Aorsoi when they’d talked on top of that boulder rose in his mind.

Coppélia had commented that Kanami was “a person like first light.” He didn’t think she was wrong about that.

That audacious woman dove into trouble way ahead of everybody else, and in the end, she arrived at new developments by force. In that sense, she was exactly like the dawn. Calling her Eos, the goddess of the dawn, would probably be going too far, though: In Grecian myth, she was such a beauty that they described her as having “rosy fingers.” He thought giving Kanami an evaluation like that would be praising her too highly. She was more like the war god Ares, laying waste with a tank.

In other words, didn’t that make her the type of person you couldn’t have in Sales?

She’d probably manage to get huge orders, but there was no telling what she’d promise the customers.

Man, would that be hell, Leonardo muttered to himself.

Coppélia had said that her vocabulary included meteorological forecasts and information on the seasons. In other words, she was using weather reports to describe others’ personalities. It was routine information that had nothing to do with poetry, but coming from Coppélia’s lips, it sounded poetic. Didn’t that prove Coppélia herself was poetic, instead of the words?

What sort of person is he, or she, to you?

When he actually thought about it, that question seemed really difficult, and it also seemed to hold a variety of meanings.

Like the weather, people changed. Nobody was all sunshine, all the time. People had all sorts of sides to them. As you watched someone else’s shifting heart, you were changing as well.

“Coppélia looks at Master. She looks at Lord Elias. She looks at Lord Leonardo.”

What’s with the “Lord” business? The words had made it as far as Leonardo’s throat, but the way Coppélia looked made him swallow them back down.

“Your colors are complicated, and they change continuously. In an attempt to understand them, Coppélia puts them into words. Coppélia has portraits of everyone inside herself. They are a variety of colors. They seep into Coppélia’s own color and brightly illuminate her surroundings. Coppélia is very—”

She broke off. Her eyes had been turned to the darkness far ahead, but now she let them fall to the ground at her feet. She shook her head, looking like a lost child.

“She doesn’t understand them very well.”

“I see.”

The tactless geek from New York didn’t have any fancy words he could say to her at a time like this. He’d only said the words and nodded gravely. He was the only one who’d thought it looked grave; he was aware that he was actually being awkward.

From the way she’d spoken, he thought Coppélia’s “doesn’t understand” hadn’t had any negative emotion behind it. It might merely have been a wish, but Leonardo didn’t really know.

Apparently, Coppélia had a portrait of Leonardo inside her, too.

What about him?

Did he have an internal portrait of Coppélia?

Obviously, he did.

It was a picture of a young girl with a prim face on a pale background the color of cherry blossoms.

She wasn’t wearing her best smile. If he’d had to say, her face was blank, as if she’d been caught off guard. However, if he stroked those soft cheeks with a feather pen, it looked as though she’d giggle in a soft voice and smile for him. That was the sort of expression it was.

Even he thought something was wrong with him. Apparently, his head had caught some malware.

That was what Leonardo thought.

It would have been great if the portrait of Leonardo inside Coppélia showed a sharp, cool hero, but, well, New York engineers understood that most things didn’t work out that neatly.

From up ahead, they heard a weird cry, something between a “Yeowp” and a “Gneaaarr.”

It was Kanami.

Something had apparently made her happy; sporadically, he heard a voice that sounded simultaneously flustered and delighted.

“It really is fluffers and cute! It’s just like I imagined: It’s the perfect kind of hairy!”

When they got closer, as he’d figured, Kanami was clinging to the neck of a huge wolf that had to be two meters long. The giant wolf had gray fur and an intelligent face, and it was wagging its tail in a reserved way, looking vaguely put-upon.

“…So the wolves in this cave aren’t monsters?” he asked.

“No, they are monsters,” Chun Lu corrected.

As this exchange went on, Leonardo was forced to notice that there was no battle under way. It was odd.

“Then why is it like that? All, uh, friendly.”

“I would guess…” Tilting her head, Chun Lu answered carefully, “It may be a Wise Wolf someone has already tamed. It could be acting on its own because its master is nearby. When you encounter the wolves of this cavern, combat begins, and after the battle, if it’s possible to train them, you can. That’s how it usually goes.”

Apparently, that was how it was.

Kanami seemed to have forgotten she’d just run off in tears; she’d called Coppélia over and was making her pet the wolf’s neck. Kanami herself kept hugging it tightly and nuzzling it with her cheeks.

“Hey, Kanami.”

“What, Croakanardo? I’m not giving you this one.”

“Uh, that’s right, you’re not. It sounds like that wolf’s already been tamed. It’s somebody else’s, not yours. Don’t hang all over it like that.”

“Awwww! Even though it’s fluffers?!”

The condition of its coat has nothing to do with anything. Leonardo put in the retort mentally, but it didn’t seem to get through to Kanami. She was seriously asking the wolf things like “Hey, kiddo, where are you from?”

After letting itself be thoroughly petted, the wolf seemed to feel that it had done its duty. Although it wasn’t at all forceful about it, it slipped out of Kanami’s embrace, took two or three steps, then slowly wagged its tail.

What a well-behaved wolf. Leonardo was impressed.

Its composed attitude projected dignity, showing a character that was far more intellectual and thoughtful than a half-baked human (say, for example, Kanami).

“It is a very intelligent wolf.”

As if thanking Coppélia for her comment, the wolf gave one low whine, then abruptly looked up at the cave ceiling.

“What’s the matter, huh? Was there a bat or something?”

“There shouldn’t be any flying magical beasts in this cave…”

As Kanami and Chun Lu spoke, they also looked up at the ceiling, which was shrouded in darkness. Coppélia and Leonardo looked up, too, although they didn’t speak. The wolf’s gesture had pulled them all in.

There was a soft, dry sound somewhere, and a moment later, they realized that a small rock had fallen. Leonardo and the others had no idea what that meant, and they exchanged glances—but in the next instant, a tremor big enough to make them feel as if they were floating hit the cave.

What, an earthquake?! Jesus!

The roar of an enormous mass collapsing echoed.

In the midst of an impact that shook him around, making him lose all sense of forward and backward, left and right, Leonardo caught Coppélia’s slim wrist, trying to pull her into his arms.

However, he had no idea how far he’d managed it.

With a memory of falling into cold water, Leonardo’s mind was abruptly enveloped in darkness.

2

As always, waking up brought a slight feeling of unpleasantness with it.

He didn’t think he was the type who woke up feeling lousy. It was more that the existence of sleep itself was disagreeable. He thought shutting off your consciousness and resting was irrational. As far as Krusty was concerned, if you were going to spend 25 percent of your life unconscious, it would be better to just shorten your life by 25 percent and get rid of that downtime entirely.

He checked through his sensations, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with his hands, nor, after a moment’s examination, either of his legs.

It smelled very damp and stuffy. When he sat up, as he’d figured, he seemed to be in a sealed subterranean cave. The ground he’d set his hands on wasn’t dirt, but slippery rock. Apparently, this was a limestone cavern. The slight stream of water he felt under his palms hinted that his situation was precarious.

His battle with Elias seemed to have ended by cave-in.

His memories up until that point were clear. Afterward, he’d probably been caught up in the collapse and lost consciousness. He had about 15 percent of his HP left. His sense that he’d had his fun spoiled was stronger than his feelings that he’d been saved from a tight spot.

There was a faint light in the cave. The source of the light seemed to be on the other side of a large rock.

As he was thinking that odd, the silhouette of a head popped out of the boulder.

“Yoo-hoo, Krus-Krus. You’re awake, huh?!”

The voice was so cheerful that it seemed out of place underground.

Krusty held still for a few seconds, then responded, choosing his words carefully.

“I see you’ve returned, Miss Kanami.”

“Whoa! Not only are you not surprised, that’s kind of a standoffish response!”

“Frankly, I feel as if I’d like to keep some distance between us, so…”

“That’s so mean!”

He didn’t think that was true.

To Krusty, she was the sort of person he didn’t dare get close to.

She wasn’t the type who’d obligingly disappear if he said the magic words, so Krusty got up, then lowered himself onto a nearby round rock, using it as a chair. It wasn’t that he found her particularly unpleasant to deal with, and she wasn’t a stranger, but she was hard to handle.

She seemed to have changed her avatar, and her class had switched from Swashbuckler to Monk. However, her form—or rather, the impression she gave—hadn’t changed much. Her blue eyes, which seemed intensely curious, were set in an oval outline. Her big mouth that always seemed ready to shout for joy was still going strong as well.

This was Kanami, “Tourist of Seven Continents,” the legendary Amazon who’d led the Debauchery Tea Party, the group that had caused a sensation on the Yamato server.

Even in the community outside the game, she was a mystery woman who’d been cloaked in countless rumors.

Many opinions of her were favorable, such as that she was the legendary leader who commanded the Tea Party, a group of specialists, and that she was an overwhelmingly charismatic beauty. However, there were more than a few—possibly based in jealousy—that were filled with spite. Or rather, to put it bluntly, it was safe to say she’d been covered in hatred.

If you were victorious in raids, you could acquire phantasmals, fantasy-class items. According to game theory, large-scale, difficult quests yielded high-performance rewards. The sort of rare items that everyone wanted were extremely hard to get.

Not only that, but in the game of Elder Tales, you couldn’t get them by playing for a long time, or through probability, or by buying them with real money. To acquire them, you needed to be one of twelve like-minded companions. The ones who managed to pull this off were almost exclusively major guilds.

Most ordinary users thought they couldn’t get the rare phantasmals they coveted because they weren’t in a big guild. Since they didn’t have the “status” of a guild, they weren’t able to acquire items. Even if they didn’t put it into words, a majority of users thought that way… Although it wasn’t that they actually believed it; they merely wanted to think it.

However, the existence of the Tea Party had flatly disproved that common sense.

Getting your friends together and going on raids is fun. If you have fun while you play, you’ll get all sorts of things. That had been the message of the Tea Party, Kanami’s group.

It was the truth.

Guilds were organizations composed of players, too. In the sense of assembling companions and tackling difficulties, there was no difference whatsoever between the Tea Party and D.D.D. Whether they were a guild or just a bunch of friends, in the end, it was only a name. However, many players averted their eyes from this fact and attacked the Tea Party, which charged into tough zones without adopting a guild tag. They tried to boycott the group for showing, wordlessly, that you could do it if you tried.

She and her group were getting rare items under their own steam, without being chosen by a major guild, and to the greedy majority, they were something to be hated and excluded. To those players, they were inconvenient: They made them face the fact that people who didn’t attempt raids on their own initiative were short on energy and communication.

To Krusty, even the phrase “the legend of the Tea Party” was laughable: Now that the Tea Party had disbanded, their own pangs of conscience had simply substituted the “legend” for the history of their ugly boycott. It was no more than a fabrication.

That said, not only had Kanami paid no attention to that malice, she’d made no attempt to even know about it. As the leader of a raid organization, Krusty had run into her several times back then, and so he knew her: This woman was absolutely not the type to be influenced by that sort of public rumor.

She was a lot harder to deal with than that.

“You know, for some reason, nobody gets startled about this.”

When he looked at her, prompting her to go on, Kanami said, “KR was totally blasé about it, too.”

Krusty thought she probably had only herself to blame.

Everything she did was unprecedented, and so no matter what she did, the people around her had just stopped being surprised.

“I imagine he assumed that, given your skills, it was possible.”

“I see.”

Kanami laughed—“Eh-heh-heh!”—and Krusty put just a little more distance between them.

Ordinary people didn’t cause trouble for their friends. At the very least, they tried not to.

For that reason, getting closer to someone could serve as a way to decrease the damage they did to you.

Once in a blue moon, there were people who tried to cause trouble for their friends in particular. Putting distance between yourself and those people was a way to lessen the damage.

On the other hand, Kanami was the rare person for whom—as far as Krusty knew—neither affection nor coolness had any effect on the amount of damage dealt. As a matter of fact, the amount of damage was determined by the frequency with which you interacted with her: The woman was like a type of natural disaster. Her one saving grace might have been that she also spread around good luck, in addition to damage. Apparently, that didn’t have anything to do with a psychological sense of distance, either. No, the friendliness Kanami scattered in her vicinity was the type that didn’t take the recipients’ wishes into consideration in the first place. She was a terribly bewildering monster: In a sense, by the time you met her, she’d already seeded the area with fortune and misfortune.

It is a big world.

He couldn’t deal with her, but she was unusual.

She was like a rare character that was difficult to encounter.

The wide world held singularities a youngster like him couldn’t handle, such as people who were inscrutable menaces (like his grandfather), human natural disasters like Kanami, righteous men like Isaac who were moved by personal convictions rather than profit and loss, and people like Shiroe, who endlessly invested resources to solve problems. They just didn’t seem to go the way you wanted them to, but that fact gave Krusty a mysterious sense of satisfaction.

“What are you doing out here, Krus-Krus? Weren’t you on the Yamato server? There was an earthquake; do you know anything about that? Oh, hey— Waaah! Geez, I’m sorry, okay?!”

Kanami’s rapid-fire barrage of questions had been shut down by the huge Wise Wolf Gumon, who’d caught the hem of her clothes in her teeth and forced her into a pratfall. As if saying, Never mind, just calm down, Gumon wagged her abundant gray tail in front of Kanami once, then pushed her damp muzzle into Krusty’s palm and, satisfied, settled her large frame down at his feet.

“Is that little one a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“She’s really smart. I was unconscious for a while myself, but she dragged me out; she was a lifesaver. She’s intelli-cute! It looks like she knew where you were, too, Krus-Krus.”

“Did she?”

Krusty scratched Gumon behind the ears. With the generous attitude unique to large dogs (?), still lying on her side, without even opening her eyes, she wagged her thick tail as if to say, Don’t worry about it.

“Why are you here, on the Zhongyuan server? Did you keep your return secret?”

Flatly ignoring the questions Kanami had tossed at him, Krusty asked her questions of his own. He wasn’t trying to be mean, but he didn’t feel as if there would be any profit in giving Kanami information. At this point, he should probably prioritize gathering information.

Whether or not she knew what Krusty was thinking, Kanami began to answer, saying things as she thought of them.

“It’s not that I came back in secret, not really, but I did it on the Western European server, you know? Besides, I’d retired because I was going over there, too. It’s far away, and I figured that stuff would wait until I’d grown a bit, and then I just sort of never made contact. Oh, I came back in February or so. Then after that, there was that huge Catastrophe mess, right? On top of that, I didn’t have everybody on the friends list for this body. So then I wasn’t able to make contact, period. Then Eli-Eli was frozen in an iceberg, so I rescued him, and we picked up Coppé-cat in a wilderness of flowers—”

Apparently, it was Kanami’s fault that an Ancient hero was here.

“Oh, Eli-Eli is Elias Hackblade. He’s this blond, super-duper-dishy guy, you know, the cover character!”

He knew.

Cover was the word you used with books, while for a game, it should have been jacket or package, but he knew what she was trying to say.

“And then we met up with Croakanardo in the Tekeli Ruins, and KR was there, too, but it sounds like he went back to Yamato. Now we’re traveling with this local girl named Chun Lu, so there’s five of us!”

The only thing he fully understood from that was that none of this really counted as an explanation.

“Then there were these things called Geniuses, and we fought ’em, and we won! ‘We Are the Champions’!!”

Kanami’s words brought a flickering image with them.

A golden woman.

…If it was all right to call something with a blood-smeared mouth, disheveled hair, and the striped limbs of a tiger a “woman,” that is. A man-eating noblewoman, buried under luxurious accessories— Shoving down a sharp headache through habit, Krusty smiled slightly.

The enemy.

This might also be a product of Kanami’s influence. Without intending to, she sometimes brought benefits to the people around her. And this time, he’d gotten another clue of some sort. He didn’t know what it meant or when it would prove useful, but apparently, he now had more enemies. If the word Geniuses had been the key, then it was probably lurking in his lost memories.

“What are you grinning about, Krus-Krus?”

“It felt as if I’d heard something nostalgic, that’s all.”

“I see. So you say average stuff like that, too, Krus-Krus! That’s a surprise.”

There’s no call for me to take that sort of treatment from you, Krusty thought, but he looked at Gumon’s wagging tail, considered the subject of maturity, and rephrased his remark.

“And just what sort of person do you think I am?”

“Well, you know…”

Kanami turned her eyes to the ceiling, put her index finger to her lips as if she were remembering something, and began to speak: “Sort of…”

“…hard, and huge, and…”

As a Guardian, that was only to be expected.

“…sort of like you’d shoot beams from your glasses with no expression on your face? In other words, you know, like a super-robot!! Like the Terrifying Megalo-King Robot from Mars!”

Krusty gazed at Kanami steadily.

It wasn’t as if he had no idea what she was talking about (although the bit about the Martian robot wasn’t clear). That said, even if she told him that, there was almost nothing about it that he could fix, and since fixing it would be a nuisance, he didn’t want to anyway. Still, it was informative, as well as persuasive enough that he thought most people probably did think of him that way.

“Good for you, though, Krus-Krus. Way back when, it felt like you kept putting up with stuff so you wouldn’t cause trouble for people.”

Kanami swung her arms in circles, then cocked her head.

“In the ages it’s been since the last time I saw you, you seem like you’ve loosened up. That’s great. Although you’ve got a weird ‘bad status’ curse on you. Stuff like that has nothing to do with enjoying life, though, huh?!”

Apparently, that was how she’d thought of him in the past.

She probably wasn’t that far off the mark.

For Haruaki Kounoike (aka Krusty), the son of a mistress, standing out was not an option. While he was studying abroad, surveillance was lax, but after he returned to his home country, he was subjected to unpleasant interference in practically everything.

Krusty had no intention of cutting into their profits, and he didn’t want to participate in the main family’s business. What he had wanted was to be left alone, but the reality was that it wasn’t going to happen. His grandfather and had high expectations for him (illogically, as far as Krusty was concerned), but he wondered, feeling rather ironic about it all, whether that wasn’t a lack of self-reliance, in a way. After all, they were trying to make an illegitimate outsider resolve their family’s recklessness, which had gotten to be too much for them to handle.

In some respects, Krusty had played Elder Tales as a sort of camouflage. He’d thought that, if he acted like a bohemian who was obsessed with online gaming, the people around him would give up on him. To Krusty, who had been forbidden to devote himself to anything, Elder Tales was his “revels and dissipation.”

If he’d seemed to be constantly putting up with things to avoid making a nuisance of himself, even in the game, he was ashamed of his petit bourgeois self.

The walking disaster in front of him had probably just guessed at random and said whatever came into her head, but even then, she managed to come up with things that ran people through this gamut neatly. It stood to reason that the group she’d led, the Tea Party, had left a battle record that shredded the rankings.

Krusty didn’t think he’d loosened up after arriving on the Zhongyuan server.

It was because he’d come to Theldesia, a world where the Kounoike main family didn’t exist.

He couldn’t just do as he pleased, but he was able to act a lot more freely than he had in the other world. He knew the freedom was temporary, but it did make him want to chew things to bits.

He was like Gumon. Even if he could tolerate lying down in the hope of finding peace and quiet, he didn’t want to be chained up.

Krusty thought he might be cynical, but he had absolutely no intention of mending his ways. He stood, adjusted his glasses, and spoke to Kanami.

“If that’s how you see it, I’m glad. It looks as though I’ve aged out of my patience. Shall we go aboveground, so I can continue my hobby? Apparently, someone’s worrying about me as well. Forgetting doesn’t make things go away. —I’d prefer not to, but until then, it looks as if it would be best for us to stay together.”

3

“Achoo!”

“Have you caught a cold, Princess Raynesia?”

“Has the cool wind chilled you?”

The two young ladies, Apretta and Fevel, were frowning at Raynesia in concern, and she waved her hands slightly, denying it.

“No, not at all. Water Maple Manor is warm, after all. I’m sure it was because my father and mother are gossiping about what a failure I am, back at home.”

Raynesia, who was seated on an incredibly fluffy sofa that had been made by the artisans of Akiba, gave a little smile. She didn’t have to smile very broadly. This sort would get through to fellow People of the Earth aristocrats just fine, and ladies preferred it for its refinement.

In Akiba, where the winds of early summer had begun to blow, Water Maple Manor towered majestically on the town’s main street as the guest house for foreign dignitaries and the official Akiba residence of the Eastal exchange official. In a compact, comfortable drawing room, reached by crossing a crimson carpet, three ladies had assembled and were enjoying their first animated conversation in quite some time.

Today’s guests were Apretta, the daughter of Marquis Lester, and Fevel, granddaughter of Baron Sugana. Because they were all relatives of the lords of Eastal and belonged to the same generation, they had made their society debuts at the same time the previous year, at the Lords’ Council. Since then, they’d deepened their friendship by exchanging letters. Partly as a result, the atmosphere of the visit was genial, and although she was conducting herself as though it were official business, to Raynesia, it felt like a bit of a vacation.

“And how did you find the town of Akiba?”

Feeling a little nervous even so, Raynesia asked them a careful question.

The atmosphere in Akiba was, frankly speaking, too much for her to handle.

Every day, explosions went up here and there, enigmatic fliers and booklets streamed in from who-knew-where, and even the shops opened new locations, or remodeled, or vanished before anyone knew what was happening. Having no history meant, in a way, that everything was like a dream. The face of the town changed on a daily basis.

Adventurers dressed in outlandish garb (she was told it was armor and magic equipment), would recruit companions in the square in front of the guild center or under the Great Silver-Leaved Tree, then abruptly sit down and begin selling their combat trophies, right there in the open air. This was also an everyday occurrence.

Even if she put it mildly, the town was a seething mass of lunacy, and Raynesia couldn’t possibly control or take responsibility for it.

However, on the other hand, she didn’t want people to hate it. The timid question she’d asked the aristocratic girls had been an expression of these complicated feelings.

“It’s, it’s simply—!”

“It’s wonderful!”

Whether or not they knew what Raynesia was thinking, the two began to speak, beaming and shaking their clenched fists slightly.

“What do you suppose it is? That sensational foodstuff.”

“It’s sweet. Sweeter than cream made with the finest sugar and milk.”

“Vivid herbs in a rich bouillon, supported by a soup as robust as the earth!”

“One mouthful and it feels as though you’ll melt, body and soul!”

“The full-bodied harmony of small dried sardines and safa broth!”

When what they said was mixed together, it was completely incomprehensible, but the lady-in-waiting who’d shown them around managed to guess that they probably meant Milk Pudding and Yes House Ramen, where they’d stopped while they were in Akiba. Apparently, the two of them had encountered Akiba’s gourmet foods.

Gingerly, Raynesia sent out a further probe.

“Wasn’t there anything dangerous or raucous?”

“Dangerous?”

“Raucous?”

The two girls looked at each other blankly, then began to speak, reviewing their memories of the day.

“In terms of dangerous things, I would say the number of items on the menu.”

Apretta quietly closed her eyes—which slanted down at the outer corners—in rapture, folding her small hands as if in prayer, and continued.

“Princess Raynesia. Are you familiar with ‘ramen,’ a soup dish that has four types of main ingredient, two types of broth, and three types of topping with which one can vary the flavor? On principle, one would have to eat it twenty-four times before one could understand it completely.”

Her voice was as serious as if she were speaking about territorial defenses, and Raynesia also straightened up, firing herself with enthusiasm. If she didn’t do that, she felt as though she’d fall off the sofa.

“Rather than raucous, I would say the town is lively.”

With a determined expression, Fevel smiled, her cheeks flushing until they were the color of apples.

“During this one day, I saw more Adventurers than I’ve seen since I was born. The Adventurers laugh a lot, and they like music, don’t they? No matter where you go in Akiba, little sounds reach you from some unknown source.”

Fevel praised it with a blissful expression.

When she heard that, Raynesia finally felt relieved. She’d had a lady-in-waiting whom Elissa had trained show them around the town, so if there had been any trouble, she would have contacted them promptly. She’d also been given a report that the pair had enjoyed themselves, so she hadn’t been terribly worried. Although, she hadn’t known whether the town had made a good impression on them.

Apretta and Fevel were noble girls who were Raynesia’s pen pals, after a fashion. In the course of their correspondence, the two of them had taken an interest in Akiba, and they had been wanting to visit for a while now.

Raynesia had also wanted to invite them for quite some time, but in this world, travel was a serious affair. The residents of the domain had to stay near their farmland or risk losing their livelihoods, and nobles needed to make arrangements for the formalities and security personnel, which meant that travel required large-scale plans and preparations.

The Adventurers, who set off for far-flung places that would take weeks to reach without even giving it much thought, were exceptional beings.

The girls’ visit had finally happened because Adventurers from Silver Sword had volunteered to escort them here, and they would be able to meet up with the Lords’ Council on the way back. Naturally, the fact that Marquis Lester and Baron Sugana had been moved by the girls’ entreaties had been a significant factor as well.

“I’m very pleased you found it to your liking.”

Raynesia thanked them, feeling a strange delight.

She wasn’t the one who’d created this town, and as a rule, the Adventurers wouldn’t listen to her. Still, she’d lived here for more than half a year now. She’d experienced their kindness, just as much as their outlandishness.

Even if they were her pen pals, these girls were related to lords by blood, and it was possible this would influence imports to Akiba. They might affect the town, either positively or adversely.

To Raynesia, the Adventurers of Akiba were unbelievable epicureans. She’d heard that quite a few of them spent over half of what they earned on meals. The marine products and rice that came from Marquis Lester’s and Baron Sugana’s territories were probably important to the Adventurers as well.

Aside from these political motives, she hadn’t wanted the two of them to dislike this town. No, not just these two: anyone. This was the first place Raynesia had ever been posted to.

“By the way, Princess Raynesia.”

With a smile like a flower, Fevel enthusiastically changed the subject. Beside her, Apretta was chuckling in a way that, while adorable, wasn’t suitable for an aristocratic young lady.

Feeling apprehensive for no real reason, Raynesia stiffened on the sofa and tilted her head. “What is it?” Being able to respond elegantly on reflex in absolutely any given situation was her specialty. In aristocratic society, this ability was both a powerful weapon and armor, but right now, it was no help to her at all.

“What’s happened between you and Sir Krusty?”

“Is he hiding?”

“How is your relationship progressing?”

“Is he in bed?”

Fevel was making fun of her, but Apretta’s straightforward questions were hard to parry. Raynesia camouflaged her dry laugh by turning it into a cough, focusing even more of her attention on her expression. It was the gesture of feigned innocence that earned her description “the royal shrine maiden of the silver moon, lamenting the twilight.”

“During the capture of Seventh Fall, Master Krusty vanished from the turmoil of the battlefield.”

Raynesia let her gaze fall to the table.

If they looked into her eyes, they might stumble onto the fact that she wasn’t all that worried.

As a matter of fact, it was ridiculous to wish for Krusty’s safety.

He was the sort of person who’d spread chaos and grown drunk on blood in the midst of the great goblin army. Worry from a fragile Person of the Earth like Raynesia probably wouldn’t be of any use to him.

In the first place, she was really more irritated than anything.

She was being subjected to questions like these because that bespectacled menace had gone missing without permission. Apretta and Fevel aside, a barrage of similar inquiries and concern was raining down on her. The idea that Krusty was off skipping work somewhere (that had to be it!), shoving the troublesome role onto Raynesia, made anger boil up inside her.

“He’s—vanished?”

“I hadn’t heard a word about that!”

“I’m very sorry. Since it involves the Adventurers, I was unable to write about it in my letters.”

The two of them had given thin, ladylike shrieks.

It was probable that, as befitted sheltered young ladies, they were imagining a strong, noble knight being swallowed up by a monster horde, fighting valiantly, but collapsing in a pool of blood, no longer able to move, and breathing his last. Even though it’s nothing of the sort, Raynesia thought.

He was bound to be idly drinking tea somewhere, enjoying his holiday (the sort Raynesia couldn’t take!) to the fullest.

Disguising the fact that she hadn’t sent news of Krusty in a letter because just thinking about him was annoying, she went on in a heavy tone.

“I’m pitiful. Do forgive me, please.”

The words she’d murmured with downcast eyes had meant Do you think we could stop talking about this now? but it didn’t seem to have gotten through to the good-natured pair.

“You must have been so lonely, Princess Raynesia.”

“I, Apretta, couldn’t bear it if my beloved knight vanished in battle.”

Their worried expressions sent a twinge through her heart.

She wished they wouldn’t put it like that. She really wasn’t worried at all. She was simply irritated because he’d disappeared with no warning, and if he’d just send word about how he was getting along, she wouldn’t mind a bit if he stayed missing.

No, that wasn’t true. Both his disappearance and the fact that he’d left without permission were problems. It wasn’t fair that Raynesia had to do all the bothersome official duties alone. Krusty should be toiling away, too. If he hadn’t disappeared, this would never have happened. Unforgivable.

In a word, what Raynesia was harboring wasn’t unease or worry, but the desire to see an injustice redressed. If he was a knight, shouldn’t he carry out his duties? When she thought about it that way, she grew even more disgusted. And anyway, what was that “beloved knight” business about? It was like something out of a story. Apretta was too much of a dreamer.

“…Huh?”

However, Raynesia—who’d been taken aback by the word beloved—noticed a silver band on Apretta’s slim finger. Then, when she slid her gaze over to check, she found a similar item on Fevel’s hand.

She couldn’t believe it, but it was a fact.

Tiny, simple, silver circlets.

Raynesia knew. They were jewelry known as “rings,” meant to be worn on a finger.

Elissa, who’d been waiting by the windows, nodded once, keeping her eyes downcast. From the way she looked, she seemed to be saying, You’ve spotted something good, Princess.

“Is it possible that, um…you two are…?”

“Hmm? Oh. Um.”

Dusk was approaching in Akiba, and golden lamplight streamed into the now-silent drawing room.

In the space of a breath, Apretta flushed bright red. Next to her, Fevel was squirming, her hands pressed to her cheeks. The silver rings on their fingers were unmistakable proof that they were engaged.

“Yes. That’s right. Erm… No, no, no, no, this isn’t, um, it isn’t much of a ring, you know? He isn’t a great general like Sir Krusty, or a great hero; he’s merely one of the domain’s lowly knights. Exactly! Because we struck a deal close to home, and this was the result.”

“You say that, Apretta, but I seem to recall you splitting that pudding with him.”

Not only that, but apparently, he’d traveled here with them.

“You were boasting about your fiancé, too, Fevel! About how he was wonderful, and how soft his hair was. About how he was the strongest in the domain. And on top of that, he even gave you a cape!”

Hers as well, then.

“Yours picked out a hair fastener for you, didn’t he, Apretta? Here, Princess Raynesia, this is the one. ‘Pearls suit your hair,’ he said.”

This was not in the report, Raynesia thought, but that probably wasn’t because the lady-in-waiting had been remiss. Nobody would think to report lovers’ sweet nothings. Especially not if the contents were the sort that would cause heartburn.

The strength was draining out of her.

Raynesia felt like praying. Why am I the only one who has to end up in a situation like this?

Her expression grew sad, for a reason that had nothing to do with Krusty’s disappearance. When they saw her, possibly because even they regretted what they’d done, the other two ended their conversation instantly. Relieved, Raynesia forced a smile and raised her head.

The way she looked seemed to have been interpreted in a way that was absolutely unrelated to her internal state. Even Raynesia didn’t really understand, but it was the reaction described as “the noble silver princess, enduring sorrow.”

Apretta and Fevel began apologizing: “I’m terribly sorry, Princess Raynesia.” “We’ve made you witness such a shameless fuss, when you’re unable to contact Sir Krusty.” “No war god of his caliber would lose easily. Do cheer up, Princess Raynesia, please.” “If you lose heart, Sir Krusty will be too worried to kick the enemy to pieces.”

That would never happen, all right? Master Krusty, losing. Or being troubled. And on top of that, there’s absolutely no way whatsoever that he’d be concerned about me!

Looking down, Raynesia was assailed by that sort of irritation, and an odd loneliness. She didn’t really understand, but it was probably the stress of conducting official business all on her own. Her chest had begun to hurt, and she stopped being able to give responses that befitted the daughter of a noble family.

Why did she have to feel this unfair emotion? Princess Raynesia of the dukedom of Maihama just couldn’t understand it. In all the time since she was born, up to the present, she’d never felt like this, not during any sort of party or strict lesson, or even during the hectic whirl of official business in Akiba.

It was a wretched, dreary feeling that prickled at the inside of her nose and stuck in her chest, making it ache.

The only thing she understood was that all the blame lay squarely with that mind-reading menace.

4

“Dammit to hell!”

Don’t screw with me. Don’t you dare screw with me.

Zhu Huan, guild master of the Lelang Wolf Cavalry, mentally cursed as he and his Wise Wolf raced along.

Thin, silklike fragments were beginning to drift from the low-hanging clouds, dark like India ink. It was powdery snow—unlike the heavy, wet stuff, it didn’t sap his strength directly, but it danced in the wind, obstructing his vision. In the midst of it, two columns wound through the wilderness, long and snakelike. This was the group Zhu Huan was leading.

As he watched, the distant mountains faded into dim silhouettes.

It would be hard to run all night in weather like this. They’d need to find a place to camp. Even if they couldn’t sleep, if they didn’t warm themselves by the fire and get something hot to drink, even if they were Adventurers who boasted inexhaustible strength, they’d freeze. On top of that, the breed of Great Wolves that the party was riding had limited active hours.

The hard ground, which was covered in dead grasses, was like an accumulation of the cold itself.

The wolves headed west, kicking round rocks that had been hidden in the shadows of the grass. On the other side of the thick clouds, the sun must have set, because the cold had grown more severe. The Cold Resistance sigil on the mantle he’d wrapped around himself was emitting a wavering, aqua-blue magic light. It was a seal invested with magic that warded off the cold.

The sigil had been carved in by a Sigilmancer, in order to make a production-class magic item. Back when this had been a game, because their low performance limits had kept them from being a match for secret-class items, production-class items had been treated as stopgaps for middle-ranking Adventurers. However, at present, people appreciated that they could give you the exact abilities you wanted, so they were used on a daily basis.

Wrapped securely in these cold-resistant mantles, the elite Lelang Wolf Cavalry unit plunged through the pale darkness and swirling snow.

When they stopped to rest, it was just before midnight.

This vast wasteland held extremely few places that were suitable for camping. There were a few basins and ruins that blocked the wind slightly, but there were no guarantees that these would be conveniently located on their route. The normal routes for traders ran between places like these, using them as stepping-stones. However, all that was required from tonight’s journey was speed, so they just kept pushing west through the wilderness.

Conditions were bad as well.

The flurries of fine snow had thoroughly chilled the ground, and on top of that, it was beginning to get wet. All they could do was pile up thick carpets—even though they might get damaged—without holding back, and set up curtains as windbreaks. The band began their camp by digging up the hard, rigid ground with their sword points, starting a fire with a flame spell, and hanging a pot over it.

While this was a rest, it wasn’t so that they could actually sleep. They were toughing it out for a few hours, in order to get through the coldest time of the day.

Quite a few of the lower-ranking wolves ran out of time and vanished into the darkness. They’d need to wait four hours before they could summon them again. The members who had middle-rank mounts with summoning times of over forty hours had buried themselves in their reclining wolves’ fur, sharing what little warmth there was. On Zhu Huan’s orders, the members who had even higher-ranking summoning pipes went on ahead to reconnoiter, breaking off their precious rest with nothing more than a cup of plain hot water, and they melted into the darkness.

“GM, will we catch up to them?”

Asking about the current situation, a swarthy-skinned member’s voice was tense. It wasn’t the way he usually spoke, but on a frozen night like this, it was understandable. In the darkness, his companions’ eyes were turned his way, faintly reflecting the glow of the flames. Everyone wanted an update on the situation.

“Ma Bao, the sub-guild master who stayed in town, sent an additional report. As we figured, it wasn’t the Singing Sword Company. It’s the Ruby Qilin. The Red King faction picked a fight.”

“What’s going on? Did they attack?”

“If this turns into war, it’ll be as ugly as it gets. There are five thousand of them. Shimanaikui doesn’t have a decent defensive wall.”

“Hey, Chief,” called a rough voice. “Don’t tell me we’re running.”

Zhu Huan shook his head. “Of course we’re not. We worked hard to get to that city, and we’re finally used to the place. Like we could actually throw it away! Shimanaikui isn’t just a base for exchange between the east and the west. There are lots of People of the Earth living there, too. We’ve even got a few married guys in the guild. It’s real irritating, but you know we can’t break them up.”

Who are those guys?! Getting girls—now that’s inexcusable behavior. Zhu Hua smirked at the cheerful jeers.

“On top of that, it doesn’t look like it’s gonna be that easy for ’em. See, their goal isn’t Shimanaikui. Or, well, it’s probably on the list, but they’re after something bigger. According to intel an old friend of mine who stayed back in Yandu leaked to me, it’s pretty likely it’s the Ritual of Coronation.”

“The one that rewrites the ownership for the whole surrounding area?”

“But that’s a guild war, ain’t it?”

“There’s no ‘ain’t it’ there. It’s a guild war, period. The bastards just touched off an all-out guild war, and it’s gonna pull in the whole server.”

The Ritual of Coronation was the climax of the guild wars system. If a guild offered prayers from one of the Coronation Altars built in several areas, then expended the guild points they’d earned previously, they could rewrite the right to rule over the whole surrounding area so that it belonged to their guild. It was a variation on the zone purchase system that had been implemented in Elder Tales; it was a high-level system that could affect a wider range.

Of course, if another guild stole that altar and conducted a new Ritual of Coronation, they’d lose their sovereign rights, but the authority was attractive, and they’d want to protect it even if it meant beefing up their defenses.

During the days of the game, only very limited areas had been stages for guild wars. They were Shanghai’s equivalent, Dadu; Beijing’s equivalent of Yandu; and Yangdu, the equivalent of Guangzhou.

The wide areas that had these player towns at their centers had been the “rewards” in the guild wars. Next to these reward areas, there had been combat areas that were equipped with perilous mountains and Coronation Altars. The guild that conquered the combat area could conduct the ritual and claim the reward. That had been the outline of the guild war system.

However, that wasn’t how it played out in reality.

Zhu Huan continued.

“At this point, we don’t know whether it’s been like that since the days of the game or not, but those three altars weren’t the only ones. Or, well, they might have multiplied, but… Anyway, altars were discovered in every area. Mount Lang Jun is one of ’em. The guild wars turned into real wars.”

The “coronation” was a ritual in which a king notified heaven and earth that he had ascended the throne and gave thanks that the world was at peace. In a manner of speaking, it was a declaration to all of creation that a king had been crowned. In that sense, it was understandable that it made for a fitting “final blow” in a guild war. In ancient Chinese history, it had famously been performed by the first Manchu emperor. On that occasion, it had apparently been conducted on Mount Tai Shan, a mountain that was considered sacred in Taoism.

That said, the coronation didn’t necessarily have to be held on Mount Tai Shan. That was how it was in Theldesia, at least. If that had been the case, there wouldn’t have been Coronation Altars in three different places.

Evidently, there was no law that said those three places couldn’t become four or more places, either.

“From what I hear, all the mountains where the Coronation Altars are located have legends that say they’re connected to fairylands. Well, I mean, you’re reporting in to the heavenly immortals and the gods, so I guess they’d have to be. After all, in this world, unlike that one, we’ve got “immortals” in the form of the Ancients. So, see, if you follow that link, Mount Lang Jun fits the description, too, which means—”

The Crimson King faction had set their sights on that altar.

Zhu Huan told his companions so, flatly.

True, this situation might have been better than a concrete war. For example, if Shimanaikui became the stage of a raid for the Adventurers, not only would the town’s facilities and its precious farmland be destroyed, but it was very likely there would be deaths among the People of the Earth. For the Ritual of Coronation, Adventurers could just settle things with other Adventurers in combat areas: places with no production facilities, such as the wilderness, the mountains, or dungeons.

However, on the other hand, it was a terribly cruel system. At a time when the rights to ownership of the city in which they lived were being affected, the People of the Earth and Adventurers who didn’t have the scale or the combat strength to participate in raids couldn’t even resist.

It was possible for their fates to be decided before they were even aware of it. That was exactly what was going on now.

“According to the report, there are about thirty of them, same as us. Guild wars are like raids, so they probably got all their elites together. Mount Lang Jun hasn’t been confirmed as a raid zone, but we won’t know until we check it out.”

In ordinary Rituals of Coronation, guilds or guild alliances fought in combat zones, and the guild points they won as a result were offered at the ritual altar. The contest of forces in the combat zone was confirmed again in the ritual. However, that method was used to overturn the sovereignty to an altar that had already been occupied, in order to sufficiently weaken the defenders while simultaneously earning a lot of points. This time, since nobody had found the altar yet, the ritual would be conducted by the first ones there.

Even if the opposing forces had already completed the ritual, if they launched a surprise attack immediately and drove them off, they’d be able to conduct another ritual by offering a few guild points. However, the more time passed, the firmer their system of defense would be, and the greater the amount of guild points they’d have to pay. That was precisely why the Lelang Wolf Cavalry group was racing through the dark night.

“GM! Hey, Chief!”

Time crept by, with Zhu Huan unable to allow himself to sleep. In the midst of that frustrating rest, the chime that alerted him to a telechat sounded in his ear.

The scout who’d sent it was speaking in a low, stifled voice. The telechat was reproduced in the hand he held up to his ear—in order to block the surrounding noise so that he could concentrate—as if he were using a smartphone from Earth.

“Bad news.”

“What happened? Trouble?”

Zhu Huan asked that particular question because the scout’s voice was hushed. Regardless of their name, telechats weren’t a telepathic ability. In the Elder Tales days, they’d been an ability known as “Whisper,” a function that would convey words you spoke to someone registered to your friends list. Since it was, as the name said, an ability that delivered your voice to the other’s ear, in order to send a message, you had to speak aloud.

The Lelang Wolf Cavalry was a guild noted for taming enormous wolves, then summoning and riding them, and when you were riding wolfback, it was pretty noisy. When you were slicing through the wind and you tried to talk to one another, you inevitably ended up yelling. This was true when speaking through a telechat as well: When you were competing with the sound of the wind, your voice got loud, no matter what you did. This was why the guild members were said to be macho and coarse.

The fact that one of those members was speaking in a low voice meant, first off, that he clearly wasn’t riding at the moment. In addition, in this vast wilderness before dawn, if he had to hush his voice even further, it was likely he was involved in some kind of crisis.

“I dunno. I dunno, but, GM…our problem may have gotten solved already.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the Crimson King faction. They actually did set up camp, about an hour ahead of us. They’re all gone now, though.”

As the scout made his report, his voice was shaking. Zhu Huan could hear an edge of dread in it, more than fear, and he steeled himself, tensing his abdomen. Apparently, something big had happened.

“I think it was a raid enemy. There was a black cloud with bird cries coming out of it. I heard thunderclaps and saw tiger claws. They fought it, and they drove it back once, but there was this bright-white light. —It got them, took out the whole unit. The Crimson King faction went to the temple, every last one of ’em.”

Ordinarily, he might have been relieved to get that report.

After all, the Crimson King faction, which had been trying to gain control of this area, had retreated.

Of course they’d probably dispatch another unit in the near future, but this area was far from central Zhongyuan. It would take them ten days or so. In a tense situation, that was a crucial time difference. It was enough time for Zhu Huan and his team to conduct the ceremony and solidify their defenses.

However, what was the beast that had appeared in that report?

Only raid enemies could wipe out raid units. Did that mean a field boss had appeared? It had been a year since he had come to this world. It had been more than half a year since they’d arrived in Shimanaikui, even, but he’d never heard of any magical beast like that one.

Naturally, it was possible that the report was exaggerated, or that the darkness had unsettled the Crimson King faction and they’d been routed. However, Zhu Huan really didn’t think that was the case. Would an elite unit that had been prepared for a guild war be completely annihilated because they’d gotten a little startled?

Something fearsome had happened.

The night in this bone-dry country of grasslands, where confusion was deepening, apparently hid an incident that was much more unsavory than he’d anticipated.

5

Leonardo was close to falling to pieces over his unexpected good luck, and he clamped down hard, controlling himself. As a geek—and a gentleman—he had to deal with this coolly.

Calm down, compose yourself, don’t smirk, and don’t sniff out loud.

A head that seemed very small was resting on his shoulder.

Coppélia’s body was too delicate, and as he held her close, it felt as if he had an overabundance of arm. She was thin and lithe, and she seemed terribly fragile, rather than soft. He would have liked to savor that sensation, but it felt as if he’d end up breaking two or three bones if he did, and it made him terribly careful and nervous.

Leonardo shook his head hard, but he twisted his body gently—taking care not to wake Coppélia—and took some cheap Moon Fay Drops out of his pack, sprinkling them around his eyes, one-handed. These eye drops were made by an Apothecary, and they made your eyes see in the dark as well as a cat’s for a whole day. Since he was using a consumable item, it had higher performance than an Assassin’s special skills. Technically, they could have just made a Magic Light, but Leonardo was a melee attacker, and that was too much for him to handle.

As far as Leonardo’s eyes were concerned, the pitch-black darkness softened to the level of a moonlit night. Of course, since the Balm didn’t improve his actual eyesight, he didn’t know what the sealed space they were in looked like in its entirety. However, Leonardo could sense dense matter beyond them, as an invisible feeling of oppression. Something unpleasant was lurking out there.

On the other hand, the girl he’d pulled close in a reflexive attempt to protect her during that collapse didn’t seem to have taken any noticeable damage. The clean line of Coppélia’s cheek, her little cherry lips, the eyelashes that were always lowered in the shadow of her bangs—all these things shone palely, so close he could have kissed them if he felt like it. This particular situation was gratifying.

Hey, now’s not the time. You should be handling this crisis more resolutely!

Leonardo shook off the temptation and began to act.

After all, being a hero was a thankless job.

Taking another careful look around the area, he confirmed that there were no impending threats.

They’d definitely been buried alive, but since he could hear water running somewhere, it probably wasn’t a completely sealed space. If he’d had to say, he was more concerned about a secondary collapse or some other additional disaster.

He wanted to go explore the area, but it would mean setting Coppélia down on the ground, and he was hesitant to do that; he couldn’t make up his mind. He felt a resistance to the idea of laying a delicate girl down directly on a cold, damp, rock-littered surface, and frankly, it also seemed like a waste.

Kanami, who put ideas into action just as soon as she thought of them, hugged Coppélia on a routine basis—like when they were riding on horseback, for example—but (naturally), Leonardo didn’t get opportunities like that. That didn’t mean it was hard for him to let go of her… Well, actually, that’s exactly what it meant.

Man, I am seriously uncool.

Leonardo compromised by holding her sideways, then sat up, peering into the darkness.

“So we managed to survive somehow.”

There was a small reaction to his murmur.

When Leonardo looked down, in the midst of his pale field of vision, her white, thin eyelids opened slowly, revealing eyes like liquid jewels. They blinked several times, then found Leonardo.

“Good morning, Sir Leonardo.”

“Morning, Coppélia.”

Feeling awkward for some reason, Leonardo hastily averted his eyes as he spoke. Coppélia didn’t have night vision abilities, and in this darkness, she wouldn’t notice he was blushing. That was a relief.

“We got caught up in a collapse,” Coppélia murmured, confirming the facts.

The girl seemed to be mentally putting her memories and the circumstances in order, and instead of responding, Leonardo waited patiently for her to settle down. After about ten seconds, Coppélia chose Bug Light, a spell that summoned a light.

“Coppélia is able to walk.”

At those rather brusque words, Leonardo set her down on the floor of the limestone cave. He didn’t think she meant anything by it, but the things Coppélia said were very direct sometimes, and Leonardo, who was aiming to be a hero, felt that they whittled away at his spirit. He almost asked her to give more emotional responses—a demand that even the apps he made didn’t fulfill.

The direction of the gravity in this space—in other words, the rock they stood on—tilted significantly, and although it wasn’t a problem as far as standing up went, it was bad enough that if they dropped something small, it was bound to keep rolling forever and get lost in the darkness. The limestone had a unique texture, the sort of smoothness you’d expect from a living creature. He wasn’t sure whether the lime had melted or accumulated, but in any case, he’d seen on some sort of documentary that these things were made by flowing water, which resulted in that smoothness.

“Do you wish to be healed?”

“Uh… Yeah, but heal yourself, too.”

Coppélia had tilted her head as she asked her question, and he took a look. He didn’t know whether the damage had been from the fall or the impact, but his HP was down about 20 percent. He’d figured something on that level would recover naturally with time, but as Coppélia looked up at him, he checked her HP, too. Area Heal surrounded them, softly illuminating the cave’s interior.

When she’d finished her spell, not seeming at all afraid of the darkness, she began walking up the slope.

“Hey, hold on a second. That’s not safe.”

“Coppélia detects no hostile entities in this space. Coppélia thinks we should reunite with the others as soon as possible.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean…”

The lead spot was dangerous, and he wanted her to let him take it. Leonardo’s feelings didn’t seem to have gotten through to his companion; she kept walking without turning back.

“Aren’t you scared, Coppélia? Because it’s dark, or because this place might collapse…”

After mulling it over, the girl responded, “Coppélia’s vision is not affected by darkness. The data stream is stable.”

Is that how it is? Leonardo thought. Come to think of it, this mysterious girl had explained to him before that her vision was different from his and the others’.

“Can you see through walls with those eyes? Like the exit of this cave. Or a map.”

“Coppélia seems unable to perceive anything not in the range known as ‘visible light.’ However, it is possible to expand and display estimated vectors from her sight history.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Currently mapping two hundred and ten sets of vectors in the composition of her current field of vision. From the shape, areas with sufficiently stable instances may be considered trustworthy.”

Leonardo scratched his head. From the gist of the conversation, he thought she probably meant For now, this area won’t collapse. To be honest, he hadn’t understood half of that.

However, as he listened to Coppélia’s voice, his irritation and unease disappeared in a curious way. I guess there’s no sense in worrying. Leonardo rolled his shoulders, switching his feelings over.

Even listening closely, the two of them were moving through a subterranean cavern so still that the silence seemed as if it would suck them in. It was a strange experience. The stuff under his feet had to be solid (and pretty hard) limestone, but as he walked along in the faint, soft glow of the magic lamp, Leonardo felt somehow light, as if he were in a dream or an illusion.

Through the unfathomable commotion known as the Catastrophe, he’d been pulled smack into the middle of an epic. It was unusual for him to be thinking like this, but he felt as if he was in a fantasy. This was partly because the scenery he was seeing right now was far too much like something out of a fairy tale, but more than that, it was because he was walking beside Coppélia, an innocent young woman.

Walking next to a girl I like is just as fantastic as a dungeon collapsing? How sad am I anyway? That makes it sound like I’ve never had a single girlfriend.

Laughing at himself, he scratched his cheek with his index finger, then sighed, shoulders slumping.

Well, there was no help for that. In his old world, the only women he could remember talking to recently were his manager (with her triangle eyebrows), the industrial doctor (with her triangle spectacles), and the clerks at the deli, who were from India (a country shaped like a triangle).

“As the boulders fell, Coppélia saw Lord Elias in the direction of the sky.”

“Yeah.”

His response sounded an awful lot like a sigh.

She was right: During that collapse, the sky had opened up abruptly, and Elias had been there.

He’d been brandishing that enormous sword that sparkled like a crystal, challenging something that shone vermillion. It had been for less than half an instant, but Leonardo had seen it, and Coppélia said she had, too. In that case, it had probably been real.

“Lord Elias looked—”

Coppélia’s words vanished as though the darkness of the cavern had absorbed them, and she didn’t finish the sentence. The girl’s shoulders slumped dejectedly, and she seemed bewildered. It made Leonardo feel the same way.

“That expression didn’t look good on him, did it? Even in the ghetto, you don’t see stuff like that much these days… Well, you probably do once in a while, but still. Seriously.”

Remembering Elias’s face, Leonardo forced out the rest of a sentence that didn’t want to emerge. It was a truly unemotional comment. He couldn’t criticize Coppélia.

What had that expression been anyway?

Why were he and Coppélia feeling like this?

Elias Hackblade was a real hero. He protected the world of Theldesia. However, that was from the perspective of the People of the Earth.

To the Adventurers, Elias Hackblade was an Ancient they were unexpectedly close to. He featured in the package art. He showed up in all sorts of quests, guided the Adventurers, gave them advice, and sometimes fought alongside them. In other words, they had plenty of opportunities to come into contact with him. His appearances were so frequent that, in a way, he was more of a regular than the nameless village blacksmiths they visited.

Of course, that had probably been for the convenience of the game. When the whole place was swarming with monsters, when they’d been attacked by a ghost ship and their boat sank, when an immortal snake king had scattered miasma around…Elias had appeared. He’d shown up to shout, “Come, rise up! Illuminate the darkness with the radiance of justice,” and race onto the battlefield.

Since Elder Tales had been a game, all sorts of cataclysms and huge incidents had occurred. Sealed monsters were released. Ancient, evil magic items were stolen. Demihumans invaded. These were all common events. Most People of the Earth grieved over these things and resisted them desperately. After all, back then, no matter what they personally thought, that had been the role they were meant to play.

With every crisis, Elias—who had been cast as a hero in the same way—would yell, “Now is the time for a counterstrike!” He had definitely looked gallant and heroic, but he’d also seemed rather fictional, in a way that provoked wry smiles. Always straightforward and never losing his optimism, the elf fit the part too well.

When Elias had encouraged the Adventurer Leonardo from inside the game screen, he’d seemed like a reckless hero who spoke of hope without really thinking.

Naturally, he didn’t mean that this was bad. On the contrary, it was why people had loved Elias. Elias Hackblade, who was widely viewed as a prominent candidate for “strongest hero in Theldesia,” had been called “the charging elf,” “the drill sergeant,” and “Mr. Elias” by the players. In chats, on bulletin boards, and on video sites, he’d been teased in all sorts of ways, and more than that, he’d been loved.

This was because, in the end, everybody knew.

The optimistic way Elias spoke and acted had its roots in the convenience of Elder Tales game production. If he hadn’t been that way, there would have been no one to bring Adventurer-players into the story. His unfortunate points—the rule that kept him from finishing off monsters, the way he was fated to slip up at crucial moments and leave things up to the Adventurer-players, and the ridiculous amount of odd, mismatched background information he was loaded down with—were also there for the convenience of the game. After all, if it hadn’t been for those things, the protagonist of the story would have been Elias, not the players.

In that sense, Elias’s encouragement and his busy efforts were nothing more than expedients. In other words, a farce. However, for that very reason, Elder Tales fans loved his excessive sense of mission and his mistakes. Fans all around the world cheered for this handsome clown of a hero, who was the first one to charge into the thick of trouble, yet seemed somehow haphazard.

And now…

Elias’s tear-streaked face, as he was torn in two between his manufactured sense of mission and his manufactured flaws—whose fault was that? Who should he accuse, and who should he press to take responsibility?

Leonardo had realized that, in a Theldesia that had lost Elder Tales, that answer didn’t exist. Elias was just like Leonardo and the other modern players who had lost the call center, their “gods’ consulting service.”

6

If victory was defined as achieving his objective, then Elias was currently a loser.

He’d stuck his sword into the rubble-littered mountainside and sat there, as if clinging to it, but it wasn’t a matter of appearance. He’d wanted to rescue his comrades and had challenged the magus to combat, and yet, he hadn’t managed to annihilate the magus or save his comrades: That was his defeat.

Not only that, but destroying his surroundings to this extent could be nothing but defeat for an Ancient, a guardian of the land. Elias felt helpless, as though something powerful that had filled him was leaking away.

However, the despair that clung to that helplessness wasn’t as great as he’d anticipated.

On the contrary, he was smiling faintly, as if he was somehow relieved, as if it all made sense to him. It was unpleasant, self-mocking loneliness, and if put into words, it might have been I knew it.

A sense of rotten comprehension.

It was a disgusted, contemptuous thought. The idea that this really was the extent of his strength.

His sense of time was hazy, so he wasn’t certain, but he thought that several hours had passed since that collapse, at dawn.

In the instant they lost the ground, Elias had tried to end the battle with a huge attack that gave no thought to his own safety. He’d attempted to strike that indigo-steel magus, who boasted fearsome strength, with Quad Aqua Harpoon, the highest-power attack he could make with his sword. It had been a reckless offensive.

The Fairy Arts Elias used triggered phenomena that were almost like magic. In his case, combined with the attribute of the weapon he used, it was an attack technique that manifested as water and ice. However, Fairy Arts was Fairy Arts, not magic. No matter how far you went, it was a martial art and a combat method. After it was launched, magic would have struck home automatically or pursued the opponent, but Fairy Arts had no such ability. It was a sword technique, and so he had to use subtle handling to make his attacks hit home.

Under those circumstances, he hadn’t been able to do that, and the attack he’d steeled himself to make had done nothing except pointlessly spread damage.

On a slope that looked as though there had been a great earthquake or a landslide, Elias smiled, faintly and bitterly. It was an emotion far more vicious than despair.

If it had been despair, he would only have had to fight. If he roused himself, even if he couldn’t win, it would turn into a trial of strength. However, this ironic feeling of understanding and acceptance was coming from inside him. No, this shallow smile was Elias himself.

Somewhere along the way, he’d begun to feel a strange correspondence.

What was the fairy curse?

In a word, it was a cage.

A prison that separated Elias from victory.

“You are unable to inflict damage above a certain level upon your opponents.” Why did a ridiculous curse like that exist in the first place? Wasn’t it obvious that as long as that curse dwelled in him, he wouldn’t be able to score even the smallest victory?

This was what he had sensed, vaguely. Wasn’t he a being who would never have any wish granted? Protection, victory, aid: All these things had been placed carefully out of his reach beforehand. Wasn’t that what he’d been born as?

This doubt had clung stickily to Elias, soaking in, ever since this journey began—no, ever since the night they’d gathered for their assault on the Great Stronghold of the End—and he couldn’t rid himself of it.

Compared with this body, which had most likely been a true counterfeit, how dazzling the Adventurers looked: They could make even their counterfeit bodies real. He envied them so much.

“He was strong,” Elias muttered.

The figure of the indigo steel magus, the mortal enemy he’d crossed blades with, rose behind his eyelids. He’d been a living weapon, and as he attacked, he’d swung that enormous bardiche, a weapon as long as he was tall, like a storm. His strangely shining eyes had held not anger or hatred but simply a grotesque craving.

Elias had probably had the upper hand of that battle from beginning to end.

Objectively, that was how it must have been, but Elias hadn’t felt that way at all.

No matter how much he attacked, all he could do was shave away his enemy’s HP.

HP was life energy. If it ran out, combat would be impossible, and you would die. To Adventurers, death wasn’t absolute, but in terms of winning or losing, it would be decisive. In other words, shaving HP away should have been not a metaphor, but a path to victory.

…And yet, the light in that magus’s eyes had ignored that principle. All he could think was that the other had ignored the difference between their HP and had been focused on something else. If the act of shaving away HP didn’t lead to victory, how was he supposed to wrest victory from his opponent?

“Was that… Did he stretch out his hand and grasp power? Power from where? Twisting the rules…”

Still, if he’d shaved them away entirely, even that magus might have stopped moving.

However, he’d done something strange. It was true that Elias hadn’t seen a vision that would point him toward victory, but he couldn’t imagine that the magus had had one either. On the contrary, defeat should have been the only thing that lay in his future… But that man had extended an invisible arm and grasped some sort of great and terrible power, inviting it in.

The mana that had filled the magus, and that invisible power.

What had it been?

At the very least, it had been something Elias didn’t know, a thing that lay outside the bounds of the laws that ruled all creation. If it hadn’t been for that, Elias’s attacks would have put an end to the magus before the collapse.

“Why is he so incredibly free, when I, a knight of the Red Branch, am bound by a curse? Is that the difference between Adventurers and Ancients? Or, no, is it the difference between him and myself…?”

When his faded fighting spirit had left him, all that remained in Elias was envy.

He couldn’t even struggle. The cage got in his way.

However, even when that man was on the brink of losing his life, he’d had the right to fight recklessly. Since that was something that had been put out of Elias’s reach, it was dazzling.

“Lord Elias.”

“Lord Elias.”

A faint voice came to him on the wind, over and over. When he raised his eyes, vacantly, Enchantress Youren was there, her thin silk streaming in the wind.

At this point, a sense of shame finally resurfaced inside Elias. Even if he couldn’t feel regret for his own sake, he had Ancient comrades on this mountain.

“Is your body all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

Elias got to his feet as he responded.

So that it could carry out Elias’s thoughts, his body was sturdy. The damage he’d taken in that fight was already recovering. Even Crystal Stream, whose blade had been chipped and cracked, was being repaired by Elias’s own mana.

“Is that so…? What a relief. For a little while, I was afraid you had been swallowed up by the magus’s dreadful plot.”

The Enchantress had approached across the unstable slope in slow, curious motions, and she thanked Elias with a respectful curtsy. Her long, glossy black hair slipped free of the thin silk, fanning out, and the transparent light of the mountains illuminated a beautiful, bewitching sight. Elias, an elf knight, wasn’t from the sort of culture that would make a woman kneel, and he hastily caught the Enchantress’s arm and helped her to rise.

“I’m sorry. I failed to kill the Genius—the magus.”

“I saw.”

The Enchantress’s casual words sent an unpleasant twinge through Elias’s chest. It felt as if someone had thrust an iron rod into a festering wound, and while it was nothing he couldn’t endure, the pain held an uncomfortable heat.

He didn’t know its true identity, and he apologized again.

Elias was the leading member of the Knights of the Red Branch, and a user of Fairy Arts. On top of that, right now, he had to be the most elite of the surviving Ancients. That was the equivalent of an absolute mission: He had to rescue his comrades without fail and banish the darkness from Theldesia.

Now, when he had failed to do that, the only thing Elias could do was apologize.

Watching Elias, the Enchantress thought for the space of ten full breaths, then spoke. “No, there was some sort of extraordinary power at work in that battle.” Maybe she wasn’t confident, either—she spoke carefully, choosing her words.

“He must have used some wicked technique and toyed with his own life force. That was the power of the rainbow.”

“The power of the rainbow…?”

Her response triggered an association in Elias’s mind. Those fragments of light the magus had radiated in the last stages of the battle… The fragments had looked as though the colors that hung in the sky after rain had been hardened, then shaved thinly; they must have been the Power of the Rainbow that the Enchantress meant. As if in exchange for that, all of the crazed warrior’s abilities had skyrocketed.

The murmur that had escaped him was one of confirmation, rather than doubt.

However, the Enchantress seemed to have heard it as a question. She answered it in an admonishing tone:

“It is the inborn power that gives life to everything in the space between heaven and earth. It is the power that creates and raises everything, the strength that helps one to overcome difficulties. It is also the power that links people with the earth, and the enchanted lands with the moon.”

“Why is a Genius able to use such a power?!”

If what the Enchantress said was true, that power could be called the ultimate energy. It was linked to mana and physical strength, the earth as represented by volcanoes, the sky that encompassed lightning, and every other great power.

“By rights, that power belongs to the enchanted lands—in other words, to you and the rest of the chivalric orders. That man has acquired it simply because he unfortunately gained control of the fairyland on this mountain. As a result, many martenfolk were lost…”

“Rgh!”

Now that he thought back, the light emitted by the Spatial Teleportation Device that the technical knights had repaired had been iridescent as well. Deep down, that light and the cowardly power the Genius had used were the same. That realization led to a further memory. The great magic tree in the fairy village, and the alv ruins at the bottom of the sea, and the missing Sacrament Sword, which had been stolen—hadn’t they all been cloaked in rainbow light?

Elias realized that the iridescent light was something like the world’s mana. He had been taught that the techniques the fairies used were far closer to the world’s foundation than crude skills like magic and sorcery. However, it was said that ordinary humans could never learn them. To Elias, who had mastered fairy techniques that were that difficult, rainbows also meant the power of fairy blood.

When it came to the world’s mana, Elias—the fairy swordsman who borrowed the natural powers of earth, water, fire, and wind—was inferior to a magus.

That rainbow radiance was also the light that appeared when lives were lost.

Did that mean the man was a god of death?

“That man made further use of that power to control the kin of the wolves. There’s no doubt he’s plotting to search for the ruin, the television station, that lies hidden in this mountain. If he takes the altar in the television station, the Ritual of Coronation will occur. Once that happens, this entire area will fall under the dominion of the magus.”

“…”

Elias bit his lip.

His combat power was first-rate. He prided himself that his equipment was also made up of first-class articles, imbued with magical abilities.

But he remembered the indigo-steel man’s wide, crazed eyes. The eyes of a starving beast who sought only combat, who would use both victory and defeat to fuel the flames. Elias admitted that those eyes had overawed him.

In the first place, Elias was bound by the chains of a hero. Even though he had the strongest abilities, the fairies’ curse ate away at him, distancing him from victory: That was Elias. He’d had everything. Was victory the only thing he lacked, and the one thing no amount of wishing would ever get him?

Inevitably, even if Elias defeated that man, would it lead him to victory? He, the strongest. He, the head knight of the proud Thirteen Global Chivalric Orders.

“…Do you lack confidence?”

“That’s not—!” Elias shouted reflexively, feeling something claw at the pain in his chest.

Enchantress Youren’s delicate lips tightened, very slightly. That expression was one Elias had never known before, and it was something he feared more than anything:

Distrust and disappointment.

Elias finally understood the meaning of the festering wound in his chest that spit out miasma: It was the terror of being abandoned by the world. The darkness that lay there was the complete opposite of the indolence the Geniuses had beckoned him to, and yet, in essence, it was exactly the same.

Would the strongest knight be discarded as something unnecessary?

In the first place, why had a “strongest” anything who’d never once been victorious been considered necessary up until now?

What on earth had Elias misunderstood? He couldn’t possibly be the strongest if he’d never won, could he?

Elias, who’d bitten his lip so hard he’d gone pale, was currently in the very midst of terror. It was the first time the fact that he couldn’t win had cornered him this badly.

“Lord Elias. Listen carefully, please. Your strength is still necessary to save this world. I am aware that you harbor pain in your heart. However, that pain itself is a qualification. That’s right: It qualifies you to rule heaven and earth.”

With a gesture that made it look as if she was praying, the Enchantress whispered to Elias with nearly intolerable slowness. It was a guidepost as thin as a needle that showed the way to salvation, so that Elias could retake his qualifications as a knight.

Elias grasped a proposal that he would have been able to brush aside if it had had the mercilessness of an ultimatum.

“Conduct the Ritual of Coronation. If you do, a portion of the power of the rainbow will be yours, Lord Elias. It is the spiritual power that is the source of all creation. It will surely remove any curse, and I am certain it will soothe your anguish.”

That’s right. Elias nodded with a bitterness that smelled like iron.

He didn’t need the curse that bound him anymore.

This was the first time he’d heard that term, the Ritual of Coronation, and it held a gloomy attraction for him, as though a fragment of the world’s secrets had been sealed into it.

As far as Elias was concerned, he hadn’t put his full trust in this sorceress who whispered to him, but her tempting words had a powerful magnetism, and they seemed to hold a glimmer of truth. If that was the power at the source of the world, then it was sure to be able to shatter and discard even the curse that bound him.

Elias nodded, his face pale.

In order to slay his enemy, he would obtain the power of the rainbow.