1

Rose. Red. Yellow. Orange.

Three griffins flew above a sunset ocean that seemed littered with broken shards of light.

Driven by night gathering in the east, the sky was gradually fading to purple, the darkness deepening. However, this only heightened the beauty of the rose-madder evening sun as it receded into the west, trailing long tails of light over the ocean at its feet.

The young man in silver-gray armor who rode the lead griffin looked back and waved hugely, a cheerful grin on his face. The wave seemed to be a signal.

At Naotsugu’s gesture, Shiroe told the slender girl who clung to his back to hold on tight.

At a small tap from Shiroe’s boots, the huge griffin he rode tilted just the tips of its wings—each of which measured three meters—ever so slightly. As the monster sliced through the wind, it sketched a wide arc, setting a course toward land.

After taking to the skies, the five who’d escaped Susukino—Shiroe, Akatsuki, and Naotsugu, plus Serara, the young Crescent Moon League Druid they’d rescued, and her guardian, the Felinoid Nyanta—had flown straight across the Laiport Strait without stopping and were now approaching the Ou region.

As indicated by the slowly sinking evening sun, the world would soon be covered in darkness. And even though they were traveling on griffins—flying mounts that ordinary Adventurers didn’t have—Shiroe and the others had wanted to put as much distance between them and Susukino as possible that day, and so they’d continued their journey quite late for a group traveling through the wilderness.

Setting up camp is considerable work. It takes a fair amount of time to pitch a tent and prepare a meal. Those who have not done so may not realize it, but simply gathering dry branches to build a campfire can take over an hour.

Since the Catastrophe, Shiroe and the others had learned how to live in the wastelands and forests that spread across this world, and during their journey to Susukino, they had been careful not to push themselves. However, today, the day in which they rescued Serara, they had wanted to cross the strait as quickly as possible and reach an area where there would be no possibility of pursuit.

The three griffins predicted one another’s courses and descended in gentle arcs, finally alighting together upon a hill.

“I’m not scared or anything.”

Akatsuki sounded a bit defensive as Shiroe held out a hand to her, helping her down from the griffin.

From the way her gaze swam, she actually was feeling timid. That said, she seemed to have grown used to the new experience of flying during the journey.

What she was just a little afraid of was the griffin itself.

Griffins were enormous monsters with the upper bodies of eagles and the lower bodies of lions. Fully extended, the span of their powerful wings measured five or six meters. Like their taloned forelegs, their sharp beaks were those of eagles, and since they were so big, to the fine-boned Akatsuki, they probably seemed apt to take off her head with one bite.

As soon as she touched the ground, Akatsuki quickly backed away. Shiroe smiled—a little smile, so she wouldn’t notice—and took a large chunk of meat from the magic bag he’d shifted to rest at his lower back. He held the meat out to the griffin.

To all appearances, it really was a terrifying monster. But, like other animals that appeared when summoned by magic whistles, it was the picture of loyalty. As he patted its neck, the griffin happily swallowed the meat in one gulp.

“So hey, that went well,” Shiroe’s friend Naotsugu said on approach. He had dismounted from the back of his own griffin and was climbing up the hill.

“It certainly did. Mew handled that quite skillfully.”

Nyanta and Serara came toward them from the opposite direction.

“—Um! Thank you very much! I was really impressed.”

“Yes, well, don’t worry about it. We didn’t do anything special,” Shiroe answered, as Serara bowed her head.

Even though he thought his words were brusque, he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He felt shy and awkward, and all he could do was avert his eyes.

Up on the hill, where he could look out over the whole area, Shiroe opened his menu, preparing to report in via telechat to Marielle. She had probably been waiting to hear from them for a long time; as Marielle received Shiroe’s report, her voice was clearly relieved.

Come to think of it, Shiroe and the others had practically stolen this journey north from Marielle’s group.

The chaos that had followed the Catastrophe. The gloomy atmosphere in town. Friends divided. Everyone haunted by a feeling of helplessness and uncomprehending irritation.

Shiroe hadn’t been able to stand that atmosphere. That was why he had undertaken the journey to save Serara.

Of course it was true that he had wanted to help Marielle and Henrietta of the Crescent Moon League. However, it was equally true that there had been more to it than that: Inside, he had felt an indescribable disgust.

“Really, don’t worry about it. Just don’t.”

Shiroe had done this for himself. That was all. It made his words get tangled up, and he ended up making a clumsy report.

“Mew’ve always been a bashful one, Shiroechi.”

Nyanta spoke with a serenity that set his listeners at ease.

“Captain Nyanta.”

“Shiroe and Nyanta—have you two known each other for a long time?” Serara asked.

“Yep, they sure have. Me, too.” Naotsugu fielded the question, interrupting from the sidelines.

“We have, indeed. Long ago, when Elder Tales was still just a game, Shiroechi, Naotsugucchi, and meowrs truly often rampaged around together.”

…When Elder Tales was still a game.

Those words sank into their hearts with a keen sadness.

He was right. This wasn’t Elder Tales any longer. Ever since the day of the Catastrophe, although it looked like Elder Tales, it had degenerated into a reality dozens of times harsher.

Possibly because her thoughts had taken her that far, Serara’s face also fell slightly. It troubled Shiroe, but there was nothing he could say to her.

“My liege, we need to set up camp.”

Shiroe felt as if Akatsuki had rescued him. He called to the others. Nyanta and Serara must have realized that pessimism wouldn’t do them any good; they actually seemed relieved, and they began looking for a place to pitch the tent.

The sun was down, but there was no sign of any powerful enemy creatures in the nearby zones.

Naotsugu and Serara began to pitch a small tent. At this time of year, as long as one had a sleeping bag, spending a night under the stars was no problem at all. If it happened to rain all night, though, things would get annoying.

Coming to a silent agreement, Akatsuki and Nyanta headed for the forest together. They probably intended to gather dry branches.

It was inefficient to start setting up camp at this late hour.

Even though they had magic light, both setting up the tent and gathering kindling took time in the darkness. By the time they dug through the hill country undergrowth, set up several stones as a windbreak, and started a fire, nearly two hours had passed since the griffins’ landing.

At this rate, they weren’t likely to get enough rest by morning, but even so, the group’s faces were cheerful. After all, they had come through the hardest part of their journey to rescue Serara.

Since they had crossed so many zones via the griffins, there was very little chance that they would be pursued. They still needed to return to Akiba safely, but since they had already met up with Serara, speed was not nearly as important as it had been when they were on their way to her.

They could even spend a second night in these hills if they felt they needed to.

That breathing room showed on everyone’s faces.

While Nyanta and Akatsuki headed to the forest—which was really more of a series of scrubby thickets—in search of kindling, and Naotsugu went to the river to draw water, Shiroe and Serara skillfully pitched the tent. Although not a magic item, sailcloth tents were essential equipment for adventures. They were quite bulky and heavy, but in a world with magic bags that canceled out the weight of items, it wasn’t hard to carry them around.

Before pitching the tent, Serara had apparently had a telechat with Marielle, who was waiting for them in Akiba. Shiroe, of course, had completed his own report a little while earlier.

Marielle always smiled cheerfully, but that didn’t mean she was not worried. Possibly because of the sudden relief, she had actually sounded tearful during his own report.

But as he sat in front of the tent unpacking their things, Shiroe was able to imagine how happy Serara’s report had made Marielle, just by listening to Serara’s side of the exchange.

“Hey up there! I got the water!”

The one making his way up the hill was Naotsugu.

He had brought up water from the spring in portable waterskins. The sun had set completely, and the jet-black forest was sharply silhouetted against an evening sky clearer than highly polished turquoise. In a short while, Nyanta and Akatsuki would return from the woods.

At any rate, their mission to rescue Serara from Susukino had been a success.

2

“Whoa. What the heck?! This’s awesome!!”

Naotsugu’s muttered words seemed overcome with emotion.

A campfire crackled in front of the five, sending up sparks.

“My liege, my liege. This is, what’s the word…? Paradise.”

Even Akatsuki—who was normally almost too serious and rarely showed much emotion—raised her voice happily, her flushed cheeks tinted by the orange flames.

Shiroe nodded in response, but he wasn’t exactly calm, either. He was worked up. It was only that Shiroe, hopelessly clumsy, couldn’t make the excitement show through in his attitude.

“Mya-ha-ha, there’s lots more where that came from.”

As if he couldn’t even hear Nyanta’s reassurance, Naotsugu chowed down single-mindedly.

Fragrant venison roasted, the fat crackling and popping.

That in itself was a major event.

It had begun when Nyanta and Akatsuki had brought back a deer they had bagged while gathering firewood.

Wild animals weren’t rare in this other world. On the contrary: Here, where the population of Japan was only one one-hundredth of what it was in the real world, wild animals had an environment so suited to breeding that it must have seemed like heaven.

This meant that in forests, hill country, and other lush areas, it was common to see deer and wild birds, as well as boars, mountain goats, and other livestock turned feral. Of course, there were dangerous animals like wild dogs, wolves, and bears as well. Boars and bears in particular had formidable fighting abilities, comparable to goblins, so caution was necessary.

However, if they avoided those few dangerous animals, deer and wild birds were relatively easy to deal with, and they were useful both as food resources and as perfect practice opponents for low-level Adventurers.

Thus, it had come as no great surprise when Akatsuki and Nyanta returned from the forest where they had been gathering kindling with a deer in tow.

Under the perplexed eyes of Shiroe’s group, Nyanta had dressed the deer and, wonder of wonders, produced venison shish kebabs that were shockingly tasty. Even the way they sizzled and crackled over the fire was completely unlike everything that had come before.

The sweet scent of roasting fat.

The realization that real food had such a complex, rich aroma was astounding. Shiroe and the others were suddenly so hungry it felt as if they hadn’t eaten for days, and they couldn’t take it anymore.

With one bite of the slices that Nyanta held out for them, their senses were flooded with the melting sweetness of meat juices flavored with salt and rosemary. This wasn’t a “food item.” It was food. When the difference stared them in the face like this, it was overwhelming.

They were as different as lightning bugs and lightning.

“It’s delicious…but…why?”

Even Shiroe couldn’t help but sound startled.

Naotsugu and Akatsuki were dumbfounded, too. Only Serara and Nyanta beamed proudly.

It was the most delicious meal they’d had in a month.

Part of the sad reality of this other world was—or should have been—the rule that none of the food items tasted like anything. That rule had plagued Shiroe and his friends, and each of the more than thirty thousand Japanese players who’d been trapped here, with the taste of despair.

Whether they ate omelets or curry, pottage or grilled fish, the food tasted like nothing more than soggy rice crackers. …Worse, actually, since they didn’t even taste very salty. It was so bad that Naotsugu had labeled it “edible cardboard.”

Over the past few weeks, they had despaired utterly and resigned themselves to the logic of this other world… And now, right before their eyes, that logic was disintegrating.

As far as cooking went, what Nyanta had made for them wasn’t very complicated, and there was nothing pretentious about it. He’d dressed the deer; flavored it with spices, herbs, and rock salt; sautéed it in a frying pan; and roasted it right over the fire.

It might not have been first-rate fare, but compared to the soggy, unsalted rice crackers that had darkened their days, the taste was heavenly.

“Yum! This is fantastic. Captain Nyanta, you’re amazing! I love you second-best, right after panties!!”

“Oh, mew’re making too much of this.”

As Nyanta spoke, he threaded the venison onto metal skewers he had taken out of his bag and began to roast them one after another. Serara, who was sitting next to him demurely, knees together, busily set out dishes and used a small knife to peel an onion for garnish.

“Captain. Hey! Maestro Nyanta. Why does it taste like this? I mean, why doesn’t it taste like rice crackers?! Requesting-testimony-from-the-defendant city!”

As he asked his question, Naotsugu had a skewer in each hand.

“Mew can have as much as mew like. There’s no need to wolf it down like that,” Nyanta told him, but Naotsugu didn’t seem to believe him. It was as if he couldn’t quite relax without gripping what he was planning to eat.

Ordinarily, it would have been Akatsuki’s job to hit him with a “Greedy, stupid Naotsugu,” but even she was muttering, “Delicious, wow, amazing,” as she munched busily on roast venison.

As Nyanta dexterously carved the organs, he continued.

“When mew cook, mew collect all the ingredients, select the dish mew want to make from the menu, and then mew have a finished food item. Correct?”

What he was describing was the ordinary item creation method in Elder Tales.

“When mew cook like that, no matter what mew do, the finished food item has that particular flavor. All mew have to do is collect the ingredients and cut, roast, or boil them directly, without opening the menu. Just like in the real world.”

Nyanta’s explanation was quite casual.

“But we—”

Akatsuki gulped down meat. Shiroe handed her a canteen, finishing the sentence for her.

“We tried that, but even by that method, the end result is just a mystery item. Isn’t it? When we tried to grill fish, it turned into a slimy paste or into weird charcoal that had nothing to do with fish. …It isn’t possible to cook normally in this world, is it?”

From what he and the others knew, that was simply how things worked here.

Since this was a game, if one lacked game skills, what they did would fail. It was basic logic.

“That’s what happens when mew aren’t a Chef, or if mew are a Chef but your cooking skills are poor. As in reality, to cook, mew need cooking skills. In other words, if Chefs cook in the mewsual way, without mewsing the menu, the flavors of the ingredients will shine through in the resulting dish.”

Although Shiroe was dumbfounded by Nyanta’s words, he was soon convinced.

When he thought about it, their salting of food items before consuming them had been odd already. If it had only been possible to create food from the food menu, wouldn’t they have had to select SALT FOOD from the menu to be able to add salt at all?

Players had a minimum of five experience points in the production classes, including Chef, even if they hadn’t acquired those classes. Even though it was one of the most rudimentary cooking operations, the act of salting food appeared to be the most advanced “realistic cooking” technique possible for any player with a non-Chef subclass.

“Then, uh, Captain, does that mean—”

“That’s right, Naotsugucchi. I’m a Chef. …Now, how about another skewer?”

With Nyanta’s encouragement, Shiroe and the others dug into the meat.

A midsized deer was enough to feed five with plenty left over. It would probably prove to be all the food they needed the next day as well. Nyanta passed around an apple brandy he said he’d made up in Susukino, and the lively nocturnal banquet continued.

Once again, Nyanta formally introduced Serara to the other three.

Serara stood politely from where she’d been sitting by the campfire with the others and bobbed her head.

“It’s nice to meet you. I apologize for not greeting you sooner. I’m Serara; thank you very much for rescuing me. I’m a level-nineteen Druid, my subclass is Housekeeper, and I’m still really new at everything.”

She sure is an energetic girl…

Many things about her combined to give Shiroe that impression: her tranquil, girlish face; her small, round, gently sloping shoulders; the hair tied into a ponytail that hung down her back…

“It’s like, in terms of the three cutest girls in class, you’d be number three, but you’d get the most love letters.”

“Uh—huh?!”

At this discombobulating assessment from Naotsugu, whom she’d only just met, Serara found herself at a loss for words. Akatsuki landed a resounding knee kick on Naotsugu’s face.

“No knees! Quit with the knees!”

“My liege, I’ve kneed a rude individual.”

“And now you’re reporting it after the fact?!”

What had Naotsugu been thinking? He hadn’t even tried to protect his face. Closer inspection revealed that he was holding a venison skewer in each hand and that he’d desperately toughed it out so that he wouldn’t drop them. Seeing that, even Serara laughed a little.

“Fu-fu-fu!”

“…Uhm. This is Naotsugu. He’s a Guardian. A very dependable fighter.”

“He’s also vulgar and an idiot.”

At Shiroe and Akatsuki’s explanations, Serara nodded, still smiling.

“I saw you fight on the front line. I’m sorry my clumsy healing spell couldn’t recover you completely.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Naotsugu replied. “You still saved my butt.”

Serara apologized repeatedly for her low level, but on that point, Shiroe agreed with Naotsugu. He felt that Serara’s focus after she had steeled herself and her resolute use of all her strength were more than worthy of recognition. In any case, with time, anyone could raise their level. She had nothing to apologize for.

“Naotsugucchi’s always been like this. Please think of him as a ribald person and pardon him. Besides, Serara, he was complimenting mew just then.”

“Huh?”

Serara looked up at Nyanta, who was sitting beside her, his already narrow eyes narrowed further in a shrewd smile.

“He’s saying mew’re the most popular girl in class. Naotsugucchi’s bashful.”

“Hey, Captain, hold up. That’s not how it is. And anyway, I’m less of a pretty-girl guy than a pantieerg!!”

Another of Akatsuki’s knee kicks hit home, cutting off Naotsugu’s words.

“Owwww… You’re getting more and more ruthless there, short stuff.”

“My liege, I’ve caved in the pervert’s face. I’ve also confiscated his meat.”

“Huh?—Uh? Aaaaaah!!”

Akatsuki was gnawing away at the venison skewers she’d taken from Naotsugu during her lightning-fast knee kick.

“That was a total foul…”

As Nyanta handed the dejected Naotsugu some fresh-grilled venison, he shifted the topic to Akatsuki. “And who is this young lady?”

Picking up on the shift, Shiroe began introducing Akatsuki to Nyanta.

The girl who’d traveled with him and Naotsugu. An Assassin and Tracker. A skilled professional, someone who could be relied upon.

Akatsuki, who had watched Nyanta fixedly with deadly serious eyes, finally bowed her head and greeted him. “I am Akatsuki, the inexperienced, venerable sage.”

When Naotsugu started kicking up a fuss about how much differently she treated him, Akatsuki shoved some half-done meat into his mouth. Short stuff! Stupid Naotsugu! The other three just laughed at their endless squabbling.

“And this is Shiroechi. He’s a very intelligent youngster who acted as a counselor for a group I mewsed to be part of.”

As Shiroe gave a slight nod acknowledging Nyanta’s introduction, Serara seemed overawed and thanked the sorcerer, over and over.

She’s a nice, cheerful girl, Shiroe thought.

Absently, he wondered how old she was.

From what they could gather, their appearance in this other world was influenced by their bodies in the real world. However, their figures and rough modeling were based on the character data from the Elder Tales MMORPG. Anyone who arbitrarily guessed someone’s age based on their height or figure ran the risk of insulting them. Shiroe had learned this through experience from Akatsuki.

However, from the way Serara spoke, he didn’t think she could be all that old.

A high school kid or maybe even a middle schooler…

Elder Tales had been the sort of game that charged monthly play fees and therefore tended to have a higher average user age than many free network games. However, that was just on average, and middle school players weren’t rare enough to cause astonishment.

Come to think of it, the twins had been about that age.

The whole noisy escape from Susukino must have put him on edge. Maybe it was the relief of having reached a safe place or the feeling of freedom that surrounded the lively meal, but Shiroe found himself thinking back to when he’d met them, just before the Catastrophe.

3

Of course, when Shiroe had first met the twins, this other world wasn’t an other world yet, and Elder Tales was still a game.

Shiroe had been spending his days playing the game as a slightly eccentric solo player (as a high-level Enchanter, he could hardly have been anything but eccentric), operating out of the town of Akiba.

After the Debauchery Tea Party had dissolved, Shiroe had been a rootless wanderer in the truest sense of the word. There hadn’t been any negative connotations to it, though, and Shiroe had rather enjoyed gaming that way.

In Akiba’s plaza, one could hear voices recruiting party members wherever they went, and at the time, since Elder Tales was still only a game, it had a recruiting channel system that let a player send messages to all areas of the server. He’d used that system to join and battle with stray parties from time to time, and he’d occasionally accepted invitations from Marielle and other acquaintances and gone to dungeons with them. Of course, he’d traveled around on his own as well, exploring zones that interested him while collecting items.

Shiroe’s Scribe subclass was one of the production subclasses. Scribes’ main talent was the ability to copy books, diagrams, and magical textbooks. In Elder Tales, producing items was nearly synonymous with compounding materials: To produce items, one needed other items to use as material.

For a Scribe, those materials were paper and ink. That said, not just any paper and ink would do. For ordinary manuscripts, it was all right to use the inexpensive ink sold by NPCs, but it took magic-infused ink to create rare tomes and high-level spell books filled with power. Creating this magic-infused ink was another Scribe task, and in order to do so, the Scribe needed materials such as dragon’s blood and precious ores found deep in dungeons.

In order to get these diverse materials, it was necessary to go to all sorts of zones, explore them, and get through their battles. With such tasks, even after the Debauchery Tea Party disbanded, and even after she wasn’t there to run Shiroe ragged anymore, Shiroe had kept himself busy.

It was the twins who spoke to Shiroe first, while he was living this way.

“Mister, mister. Yo, hold up!”

“Um… Excuse me. I’m very sorry to bother you. Would it be all right if we asked you something? We had a question…”

The pair who’d addressed him didn’t even come up to Shiroe’s shoulder.

The boy was wearing cheap armor and had a katana slung across his back.

The girl wore a white robe and carried a long staff with bells on it.

“Sure. What is it?”

From what Shiroe remembered, they’d been in the crowded streets of Akiba.

One look at their gear was enough to tell him that the two were unmistakably newbies. Not only that, but since it was gear that was distributed free of charge at the very beginning of the game, they were probably complete newbies. The voices he heard over the voice chat function seemed to belong to middle schoolers or elementary schoolers. Either way, they were young.

“My spells are weak, and Touya’s wounds won’t heal. I was told to go buy a better spell, but I’m not sure where they’re sold… Do you know, sir?”

Filtered through voice chat, the girl sounded very well-mannered.

“I want some techniques, too. If you know, mister, tell us. Pleeease!”

Their names floated above their heads in green letters. The girl was Minori, and the boy was Touya. They were both level 6.

The first quest in Elder Tales was a tutorial. Players who chose the town of Akiba as their starting point were forcibly sent to a dedicated zone known as Major Colonel’s Tutorial Ground, where they were made to practice the game’s basic operations.

Parenthetically, Major Colonel was a non-player character with rather problematic specs: While he looked like a mild-mannered, white-whiskered gentleman, once he was riled, there was no telling what he would do. From his name, it was hard to tell whether he was a major or a colonel, and it made him quite popular with a certain set of players.

Major Colonel’s training lasted about an hour, and once they’d completed the training, even players who’d just started the game were level 4. Taking that into account, these two were probably perfect newbies who’d just started the game that day or the day before.

“Is this your first day here, guys?”

“Yes, sir.” “You betcha.”

The pair spoke at the same time.

Shiroe might not have been very good with people, but it wasn’t as if he hated them. He just had a habit of keeping a wary eye out for strangers who might approach him with profit and loss on their minds.

In that sense, Shiroe didn’t dislike newbie players. They wouldn’t know that Shiroe was comparatively wealthy, and since they hadn’t yet developed the desire to play the game efficiently, the idea of using him would never enter their heads.

Even with pessimistic reasoning like that, as a player who loved Elder Tales, Shiroe wanted to make beginners feel welcome. This was particularly true when he thought of his own responsibilities as a veteran player.

“I see… Yes, I’ll show you. It’s this way.”

Showing them around town didn’t even take enough effort to count as “trouble.”

With that thought in mind, Shiroe took the lead and started walking.

After that first meeting with the twins, Shiroe ended up playing alongside them frequently. This was because Touya, who was the polar opposite of shy, would shout to get his attention whenever he saw Shiroe around town and because Minori was very polite and would always call on him to thank him.

The two really were twins; they’d been born very close together, and Minori appeared to be the elder. A mature older sister with the temperament of a committee chairwoman, she kept an eye on her little brother, who, although bright, was a daredevil that didn’t know how to hold back. That was the pair’s fundamental play style.

Both twins were in their second year of middle school, and they were so young they seemed like little kids to Shiroe. Since Shiroe had been playing for so long, he’d met all kinds of players, but not many of them had been middle schoolers. Because such an age difference left little in common to talk about, even when he’d gotten to know similar players in the past, he hadn’t taken the opportunity to go adventuring with them. However, these twins looked up to Shiroe and so sometimes traveled around with him.

Elder Tales was the twins’ first online game, and the brand-new experience had them both excited. They both told him about it in the first field zone they visited together.

That initial adventure was a considerably noisy affair.

The second he spotted a monster, Touya would charge at it like a guided missile. Minori would follow him in a panic, and they’d fight hard and desperately until they were almost in tears.

That heartwarming scene was repeated many, many times.

Elder Tales had something called a Coach System. In simple terms, it was a system that allowed high-level players to play alongside low-level players. When Shiroe used this system with the twins, although he was technically level 90, his level temporarily dropped to match theirs. In addition to his level, his HP, ability values, attack power, and general status were all considerably reduced.

The purpose of the system was to lower players’ strength to match that of their low-level friends so that they could adventure together.

Of course, Shiroe kept his veteran knowledge of the game, and even though he was stat-weak, he still had fairly expensive equipment. All of this meant he was far tougher than the average beginner; however, if that difference had been converted into levels, it would only have equaled one or two. It was a handy, useful system to use when coaching other players.

Making use of that system, Shiroe raced after the twins.

He fired attack spells at the enemy to decrease their numbers, but Enchanters’ attack spells weren’t all that powerful to begin with, and his lowered level made them pitifully weak. However, even so, the support seemed to encourage the two newbs.

“Thanks, mister! Okay, next we’re charging that enemy over there!!”

“Honestly, Touya, would you wait just a minute?! Listen to me: You’re low on HP!!”

Sometimes, he’d let them pull him around the hunting grounds all day long.

Touya was a Samurai, one of the three Warrior classes.

In Elder Tales, spells and sword techniques were known as “special skills.” In addition to proper names and effects, each special skill came with set values for required MP, cast time, and recast time. Cast time was the amount of time between the point when a player selected a special skill and the point when the skill activated—the equivalent of “charge” time. Recast time was the amount of time that had to pass after a special skill was used before it could be used again.

One of the distinguishing features of the Samurai class was that many of their techniques had long recast times.

Although the techniques were powerful, most of them couldn’t be used several times in a row, and many of them were major techniques that could only be used once or twice per battle. This made Samurai the complete opposite of Monks, who built combos from multiple small techniques.

Since Samurai had many powerful special skills, when they managed to settle a battle quickly, they had the highest attack power of the Warrior classes. In turn, this made Samurai a popular and exhilarating class.

On the other hand, if an Adventurer didn’t make the best use of the class’s features, they’d run through all their special techniques too quickly and be unable to react during the recast time, no matter what happened. The class’s weak point was that players could run out of on-the-spot coping methods and insurance, making it a difficult class to master.

“Goooooooooo! Helm Splitter!!”

Touya, who’d charged ahead, brought his sword down on a goblin from the front. The attack went right through the goblin’s shoddy armor and inflicted huge damage, but the subsequent recovery rigidity left Touya wide open.

“Gugaaaah! Gafu! Gafu!”

The horde of goblins didn’t let that chance escape them: They rushed him. Touya panicked, but while he was frozen up, he couldn’t even evade.

“Aah! Touya! Get back, that’s dangerous! Uu… Purification Barrier!!”

As Minori swung her belled staff, an effect like a shining pale blue mirror appeared, blocking the goblins’ attack.

Minori was a Kannagi, one of the three Recovery classes.

The Recovery classes recovered HP, healed their companions’ abnormal statuses, and had a variety of spells to boost friends’ abilities.

All of the Recovery classes had similar spells by which to recover their companions’ HP. However, each class had its own unique special recovery skills as well, and those skills provided the three classes’ defining characteristics.

Kannagi were apostles of the ancient gods, and their unique recovery ability was Damage Block. This type of spell put up a certain type of barrier for either one specific companion or for the whole party and would negate all damage until the total reached a set amount.

In terms of general recovery ability, Kannagi were the weakest of the three classes, but in some situations, the ability to completely negate damage before it happened gave them an extremely powerful advantage.

On the other hand, because the ability meant the player had to predict the type and range of enemy attacks beforehand, it was tough to master it.

All the main classes in Elder Tales were designed to make it hard to get better. Since this was part of the game’s complexity, there was really no help for it, but in any case, Touya and Minori didn’t seem to mind. They were just enjoying the game.

Since they pestered him to, Shiroe showed the twins around a variety of zones near Akiba, and went shopping with them, and answered all sorts of questions.

“Would you like me to give you some slightly better equipment?” he’d asked once. Even good equipment would only be level 10 or so. At level 90, Shiroe could easily purchase that at the market, in the hundreds if he so wished.

However, Touya turned down his offer. “Huh? I don’t need that. I mean, we’re out here playing the game, right? Collecting stuff’s the best part. If I just take it, it’s like I’m playing for nothing.”

Minori, bowing again and again, said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please excuse Touya’s impertinence. It’s just that you’re doing so much for us already, Shiroe! Having you play with us makes us much happier than any present could!”

Precisely because they were like this, Shiroe was able to relax and coach them. The twins didn’t treat him as a veteran player who was worth using, and playing with them was a fun experience.

Things had gone on that way right up until the day of the Catastrophe.

4

“Twins, huh? How ’bout that. And then?”

“‘And then’ what?”

“Do you not know what happened to them after that, my liege?”

After Shiroe told them about his meeting with the twins just to make conversation, they hit him with that question.

The orange light from the fire threw their wavering shadows onto the hilltop tent, and the mood in the camp was peaceful.

“They’re on my friend list… I’ve seen them several times since the Catastrophe, actually.”

“So they did get pulled in, huh?”

“We were together right up until it happened, so yes. We were all sent back to Akiba, but then we got separated.”

“I was teleported from a ruin as well.”

In the instant the Catastrophe occurred, all players seemed to have been forcibly relocated to the nearest town. As if they’d remembered that, both Serara and Nyanta looked thoughtful.

“You shoulda said something to ’em,” Naotsugu said. “I bet they’ve got it pretty rough. Amateurs getting caught up in something like this…”

All the members of the Debauchery Tea Party had been good at looking out for people. Some had been better than others, but among them, Shiroe remembered, Naotsugu had been particularly good at making sure the newer players were taken care of.

I guess you can’t really be a Guardian—the guy who protects everybody—if you’re not good at looking after people. …Although, in Naotsugu’s case, I think the way he talks puts him at a disadvantage.

Even if he treated Akatsuki like a kid, then got knee kicked for it, every time a battle broke out Naotsugu was the sort of guy who’d do his absolute best to make sure his companions went unharmed.

“Well, mew had a lot going on, too, didn’t mew, Shiroechi?”

As he spoke, Nyanta poured hot tea into his tin mug. It wasn’t real tea, he’d said; just a mixture of herbs and dried apple peel. Even that makeshift blend felt like a blessing to Shiroe and the others, who’d drunk only plain water for so long. Akatsuki was holding her cup in both hands to warm them, as if it was something very precious.

“True. For the first few days, we were pushed to the limit, and I didn’t have the leeway to think about much else. Besides, the next time I saw them, they’d both joined a guild.”

To be accurate, Shiroe hadn’t been the only one who hadn’t had any leeway. None of the players had. No one had the energy to think about anyone besides themselves.

“Oh yeah?”

“The recruiting was aggressive back then.”

At Akatsuki’s words, Naotsugu nodded, saying, “Now that you mention it…”

“What were they, level twenty? That or close.”

“I think they’ve probably leveled up a bit more by now.”

“Then joining a guild was probably their best move. I mean, they barely knew right from left.”

As Naotsugu spoke, he stretched hugely and, in the same motion, turned completely around to face Shiroe.

“So, was that Minori girl cute?”

“……Buh?”

Now that he thought about it, Shiroe had only looked at the twins closely when Elder Tales was still a game. At the time, they’d been nothing more than polygon models on a screen, so there’d been no way to tell whether Minori was cute or not. Since he hadn’t spoken to them face-to-face since the Catastrophe, it wasn’t the sort of question he could answer.

“Yeah, that. Forget about that. You used voice chat, right? Couldn’t you tell from her voice whether she was cute or not?”

Even after Shiroe told him he didn’t know, Naotsugu persisted.

Akatsuki seemed a bit disgusted by their conversation. She just looked at them coldly, as if to say, “Good grief, there they go again.”

When Shiroe glanced at Nyanta as a last resort hoping for help from her reprisal, Nyanta was busy being chivalrous. “Serara-chi, aren’t mew getting a bit chilled?” But even as Shiroe thought it wouldn’t hurt Nyanta to spare a few scraps of that chivalry for his old friend, Naotsugu pressed him further.

“Hmm. If I had to say, ‘Yes, she was cute’ or ‘No, she wasn’t,’ I’d say… Look, I really don’t know. When she talked, she sounded feminine and polite—as if she’d been well brought up, you know? Maybe. I thought she might have been from a family with good breeding, although not quite like Henrietta’s family.”

As Shiroe explained, remembering as he spoke, Naotsugu nodded along at almost every word. He seemed incredibly happy.

“Well, sure. That’s just how middle school girls should be!”

“Heck, why specify an age range?!”

“Stupid Naotsugu…”

He nodded, agreeing with Akatsuki—absolutely!—but immediately afterward, she told him, “You’re being ridiculous, too, my liege.”

“When we get back, let’s check up on ’em. Date city! I’ll be the vanguard! You’re the wingman, Shiroe! Girls are so great.”

“Well, we agree on that, I guess.”

“So you do like panties, huh, Shiro!”

“No, I don’t!! I’m no more interested in panties than the average guy.”

Even as he thought this was turning into a hassle, Shiroe agreed to Naotsugu’s proposal. The hassle came not from having to contact the twins, but from having to take verbal jabs from Naotsugu, and there was no help for that.

Naotsugu had been getting bullied by Akatsuki lately, and so even Shiroe was sympathetic.

After that, their fireside party continued late into the night.

They spoke tirelessly about guilds and each other, about delicious food and this world’s starry sky, and the night grew later and later.

The five Adventurers’ laughter echoed over the orange flames and the first flavorful meal they’d eaten in ages. It was so pleasant that no one was willing to speak up to end the experience. It was gentle and comfortable, and they didn’t want it to be over.

Akatsuki and Serara had begun to nod off, leaning against each other. It was adorable, and even Naotsugu, who was always getting mauled by one of the pair, smiled wryly and draped a blanket over them.

By the time Nyanta finally declared it time for bed, the eastern sky had already begun to gray.

“Ahh. Man, did I eat! I haven’t had food that awesome in ages. It would’ve been worth the trip to Ezzo just to get that meal. Yeah, all trips should be like this.”

Naotsugu’s steps were a bit unsteady from his fatigue and full belly, but the words he murmured were exactly what everyone was feeling.

The five of them curled up in their sleeping bags and drifted off to sleep in the warmth of the fire.

5

From the next day on, their journey went smoothly.

After all, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki had made it safely to Susukino all by themselves. Now their group had acquired Nyanta, a brilliant attacker, and Serara, who, although her level was low, could use recovery spells.

If Serara could heal superficial wounds of the sort they’d pick up in a fairly aggressive attack, their range of potential tactics expanded. There was no danger of losing to the monsters or wild animals in the field zones.

That said, it wasn’t a forced march, either.

Shiroe and the others took care to travel at a more leisurely pace than they had during the first half of their journey. After drastically oversleeping at their first camp, they chose a good time to leave during the morning and traveled by griffin. Since there were restrictions on how long they could use the griffins, they landed at a little past noon and traveled slowly, by horse or on foot, beginning to look for a place to camp early in the afternoon.

They pitched their tent before dusk, then took their time preparing dinner. Naturally, what they made was camp cooking, but compared to the meager fare they’d had up to the present, everything was a fantastic feast.

Of course, Nyanta also did his best to bring variety to their meals. The stew he simmered slowly over the small fire was very well received, and it brought a splendid warmth to their camp under the stars.

The five of them talked about all sorts of things.

Serara didn’t discuss the details of the harassment she’d experienced in Susukino, but although still frightened, she seemed to be getting over it now, which was a great relief to Shiroe and the others.

However, unexpectedly, Serara seemed to have fallen for Nyanta, and the only one who hadn’t noticed was Nyanta himself. The fact that Serara seemed to think she was successfully hiding her feelings from Shiroe and the others—including Nyanta—was both adorable and heartwarming.

When she was apart from Nyanta, Serara’s eyes would inadvertently begin to search for him. At dinnertime, when they gathered around the flames, she always sat unobtrusively beside him, looking happy.

The fact that Nyanta planned to come back to Akiba with them and make the town his new base of operations seemed to be the best news Serara had heard yet. She had hugged the catman in spite of herself, coming very near to upsetting the pot, and had been terribly embarrassed.

As he watched her, Naotsugu smirked like an unruly little kid who had just come up with a prank. Shiroe thought it was a bit mean of him, but he did understand what he was feeling. As might be expected from the fact that he’d called himself an old man, Nyanta hadn’t had a single romantic rumor attached to him at the Debauchery Tea Party. To the two of them, who knew Nyanta’s past, this was huge news and a noteworthy event.

“Still. I wonder what she sees in middle-aged guys…”

“That’s not nice, Naotsugu. This is Captain Nyanta, remember? It’s the Captain’s magnetism.”

“Serara has good taste.” Akatsuki spoke nonchalantly while the two of them snickered together.

“You’d go for Nyanta, too, Akatsuki?”

“The sage is a first-class swordsman.”

Akatsuki nodded politely in response to Shiroe’s startled question. Shiroe thought that was a weird basis for evaluation, but he satisfied himself with the thought that her respect for his battle tactics worked precisely because they were both close-range attack classes.

It was true that Nyanta’s laid-back maturity made him very reliable.

Although he kept advertising himself as an old man, viewed objectively, Nyanta was probably in his early forties or late thirties. He had a slender build, and although his eyes were a little squinty, he was quite good-looking.

Hm… Could Captain Nyanta…? I bet he could…

As Shiroe thought—with his fingers near the tip of his chin, a pose he tended to fall into when doing so—something seemed to occur to Akatsuki. She came closer and tugged at his sleeve.

“My liege. My liege.”

“What?”

“You aren’t a swordsman, my liege, but I think you’re very skilled.”

Realizing she’d meant to cheer him up, Shiroe gently touched Akatsuki’s smooth bangs and thanked her. Looking slightly troubled, Akatsuki announced, “I haven’t said anything important,” and deliberately turned away, which tickled him a bit.

As they were flying over the Aabu Highlands, ominous dark clouds that seemed mixed with India ink began rapidly bearing down on them from the distant southwest.

Naotsugu spotted the lowering clouds up ahead and strained to get a better look. They were far away, but every once in a while he thought he saw cracks of white light running through their interiors.

“Heeeey! Shiro~. Captain Nyanta~.”

Without taking the time to launch the telechat function, Naotsugu yelled down to Shiroe and the others, who were flying about ten meters below him.

“Looooks like we’ve got some incoming rain clouds~.”

When Shiroe heard him and strained his own eyes, he saw that the sun really did seem to be blotted out in the west. Possibly because the air was growing heavier, the griffins were having trouble gaining altitude.

“Shiroechi. It’s a bit early, but I think we’d do well to find a place to shelter from the rain.”

That proposal came from Nyanta, who’d calmly set up a telechat. Shiroe checked the rain clouds again, then raised his right hand. Together they veered away from the path of the wind and began their descent.

The village where Shiroe’s group took refuge was one of the small hamlets that dotted the vast Aabu Highlands. In the old era, the location had probably held a farming village. At the intersection of several unpaved roads, about twenty wooden buildings huddled close together.

They almost hadn’t made it in time.

Right after the griffins landed just outside the village, with a roar they felt deep in their chests, lightning began to race across the sky. It was one of those abrupt early-summer weather changes.

Shiroe and the others hastily made for the center of the village.

The place seemed to be a typical farming village, the sort that could be seen all over each of the five territories on the Japanese server.

In the world of Elder Tales, where it was said that scientific civilization had been mostly destroyed and the environment had reverted to what it had been a thousand years ago, rich soil had returned along with the thriving wild animals, and in areas where there were few monsters, farming had made a comeback.

Of course, the residents of this sort of farming village weren’t players.

They were non-player characters, and they called themselves People of the Earth.

When Elder Tales was still a game, a large percentage of the quests had involved traveling to villages like this one, which were nearly ubiquitous, and solving all sorts of problems and incidents. This type of village was often the setting for an adventure or the stage for some sort of event.

The village streets were filled with housewives in white blouses and skirts of thick, soft material and young cowherds with dogs at their heels, all rushing around; no doubt they’d noticed the change in the weather. Farming people of all ages and types appeared, hastily putting away farming tools or struggling to herd sheep into sheds.

As Shiroe and the others had predicted, the large house in the center of the village was both a shared storehouse and a public hall. This sort of thing was common in frontier settlements.

“Hellooooo!”

Naotsugu called into the interior. He’d taken the lead and was the first one inside the big wooden building, where the refreshing smell of dried grass hung in the air.

“Yes, yes. You’re travelers, I take it?”

The old man who appeared was an NPC, and he introduced himself as the village’s organizer. He looked to be about sixty, with white, close-cropped hair and thick glasses. As might be expected from a pioneer organizer who lived in the wilderness, in spite of his age, his spine was still straight, and he seemed fit as a fiddle.

After he listened to their story, his manner brisk and professional, he offered to lend them a roof for a night at a low rate.

Shiroe’s group thanked him and entered the storehouse.

It seemed to be a place where hay was put up for the winter, and it still held a mountain of leftover straw. By that time, the rain clouds had completely blanketed the area. The early-summer rain pelted the village with drops that, while not cold, struck like large lead shot.

As Shiroe turned back to the village street from the door, glancing up at the dark sky, he heard a cheerful voice behind him.

“This’s great. I love haystacks!”

Naotsugu sounded delighted.

In this other world, which had inherited the convenience of the game world, sleeping bags and tents performed fairly well. However, although they were passably comfortable, in the end sleeping bags were sleeping bags. Sleeping on the ground all night left them chilled, and their muscles were often stiff and sore.

Compared to that, sleeping on a haystack would be just as comfortable as sleeping in a bed at an inn.

“Mew’re right. This looks quite cozy.”

Akatsuki, who’d been exploring the large storehouse confirming the locations of windows and the back door, nodded too. Although the building was wooden, the walls had been daubed with clay that acted like plaster, and there were no drafts. The interior was cool and dry, and it smelled clean.

Now, with the rain pounding down as if it were trying to put holes in the roof, they felt they’d been quite fortunate to reach this frontier village.

“Do mew suppose there’s a place to start a fire?”

“Nyanta, I found a hearth over there.”

Nyanta had already begun to worry about dinner, and Serara pulled him away. As if to say they left all that to the others, Naotsugu and Akatsuki had begun to break down the haystack. They seemed to be preparing to make beds for the five of them.

“Hey, what’s with that itty-bitty bed? Is that for a hamster or something?”

“Shut up, stupid Naotsugu. Make your bed over on that end.”

As Shiroe was listening to the two of them squabbling, smiling wryly, the old man they’d met earlier spoke to him.

“Have you come from the town of Tsukuba, traveler? Are you all Adventurers?”

“Hm? Yes. We’re Adventurers. We’re actually on our way to Akiba,” Shiroe responded. The old man seemed pleasant. Adventurers was the word non-player characters used to refer to players. “Would you like some?”

“Why, thank you kindly… Is this…tea?”

Shiroe had taken some of Nyanta’s special sweet tea from his bag; he poured it into a tin cup and handed it to the old man. He poured his own into the lid of his flask and sat down on a nearby sawhorse.

The old man pulled up a chair hewn from a log and sat down near Shiroe.

“What do you think? It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”

Shiroe smiled at the old man. The man was drinking the tea; he seemed surprised at its slightly bittersweet taste, as if he’d never had anything like it before. Grinning from ear to ear, the man told him it was wonderful.

“Huh. You’re making that one right.”

“Of course. This one is for my liege.”

“Oh yeah? I see… It must be pretty tough to make a human-sized bed, huh?”

“Don’t make fun of me, pervert.”

Still quarreling, Akatsuki and Naotsugu were getting the beds set up. With their voices as background music, Shiroe and the old man slowly drank their tea. Outside the eaves, the streets were beginning to turn muddy, but given that the old man didn’t seem concerned, this sort of rainfall probably wasn’t all that unusual.

“Your friends are nice and lively.”

“They are that. They’re a bit embarrassing.”

“No, no. You need that much energy when you live on the road. It’s only natural for Adventurers such as yourselves.”

Among the players, it was said that the NPCs had been one of the things most changed by the Catastrophe.

In the Elder Tales game, as in all other games, non-player characters hadn’t had personalities. As characters, they were much more sophisticated than those in a badly designed home RPG, as they would answer simple questions; however, this was due to the sort of artificial intelligence that could respond to set keywords, and so in reality they’d been no more than automatons.

After the Catastrophe, though, in this other world, non-player characters seemed to be almost perfectly human. The members of the Briganteers might not have thought so, but at the very least, Shiroe did.

They thought, breathed, ate, and lived.

It was possible to drink tea with them this way and to talk with them about all sorts of things. Each of them had a name, and they all had memories.

They weren’t human, but they weren’t monsters, either. They were probably one of the elements that made up this world.

Since the Catastrophe, because they’d placed great importance on training together on the outskirts of town, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki hadn’t stayed in Akiba for any length of time. In addition, since Akiba was a starting point for Adventurers, it had fewer NPCs than PCs compared to other towns of the same size.

As a result, up to this point, Shiroe hadn’t had much opportunity to really get to know any non-player characters. However, as he and the man conversed, it was difficult for him to remember that this was a game character, and the more they talked, the more impossible it was to think of him as anything except human.

“People of the Earth don’t travel much, you see.”

The old man was watching Akatsuki as he spoke, and he smiled broadly, like a good-natured old grandfather.

The term People of the Earth didn’t signify a race, the way human, elf, and dwarf did. It was what non-player characters called themselves in contrast to the players, or Adventurers.

These names had existed when Elder Tales was operated as a game, but no players had called them People of the Earth back then. They were players. The mechanical characters were NPCs. That was all.

Now, however, things were different.

“‘People of the Earth,’ you said…?”

“That’s right. This village is a good place, and there isn’t much that troubles us.”

When People of the Earth called players Adventurers, the name held great awe and dread. From their perspective, players were beings with fundamentally different abilities and a culture completely unlike their own.

By battling repeatedly, Adventurers grew and grew, and they could develop fighting ability that was tens or hundreds of times greater than what they’d had at first. On top of that, even when lethally wounded, they weren’t completely destroyed: They had eternal souls that returned to the temple and were resurrected. They even went to the ruins that remained all over the world and fought—and defeated—giants, undead, dragons, and other terrible, menacing monsters.

These transcendent beings were what they called Adventurers.

People of the Earth didn’t have that sort of fighting ability. If they were wounded, they collapsed, and if they died, they couldn’t be revived. The term referred to the normal people of this world.

Of course, as the game specs dictated, some non-player characters were given abilities that were equivalent to, and sometimes surpassed, player abilities. The People of the Earth considered these beings to be different from both themselves and the Adventurers, and they referred to them as the Ancients.

In this system of classification, the People of the Earth were the weakest beings. If an Adventurer felt like it, they could easily take their lives or property.

The People of the Earth seemed to have undergone a population explosion since the Catastrophe, and their numbers were five to ten times greater than before, but the difference in fighting ability was a lethal one.

However, as far as Shiroe could see, the fact didn’t seem to cause them resentment or grief. Possibly this was because, to them, that was the natural way of things: This world, where they’d been born and raised, had always been that way.

Even the name is like that: People of the Earth… They live with the land. I don’t think I could match that…

As he and the old man spoke about it reticently, Shiroe felt this very keenly. How many People of the Earth did the world hold? Even in the Aabu Highlands alone, there had to be more than a hundred villages like this one.

Come to think of it, I don’t know much about the People of the Earth, do I? I don’t know what they normally eat or what they do… That’s really, really…

Spurred on by a sense of wrongness he couldn’t put into words, Shiroe was about to ask the old man about it when a cheerful voice hailed him from behind.

“Shiroechi. Great mews!”

Nyanta approached them, and there was a spring in his step. Serara skipped playfully at his side; from the smile on her face, she already knew what the news was.

“What is it?”

“We called at a few of the houses in the neighborhood. When we spoke with them, they sold us provisions.”

“It’s amazing! We have milk. And cheese. There’s sausage and bacon—oh, and eggs! Eggs, too! We bought sugar in Susukino, so we can make cookies!”

“Mm, yes, and we now have cabbage and potatoes as well.”

Triumphantly, the two of them displayed their loot. This much food would easily tide them over until they reached Akiba, even if they didn’t hunt.

“Is that all right?”

Shiroe asked the old man just to be safe, but he nodded and said, “Of course.

“The weather was good this spring, and our livestock multiplied. I’d wager the villagers are glad of the chance to make a bit of money. …Ah, that’s right. I have some barrel-pickled berries,” the old man added, as if he’d just thought of it. “If you’d like, would you buy those as well?”

No doubt he was also eager to make “a bit of money.”

“We’d love to.”

The old man counted among the People of the Earth set off, leading the way, and Shiroe followed.

6

Touya swiped roughly with his left hand at the mud on his cheek.

His battle gauntlet was made of beast hide and steel wire, so his cheek stung where he’d rubbed it, but that was just what he needed.

If it was hard enough to hurt, he could keep the tears in his eyes from spilling over.

“Step it up. Get the lead out!”

His party leader was yelling, his voice harsh.

Their battle lines had collapsed again today, and he seemed thoroughly annoyed by it.

Touya could sympathize. Touya’s class was Samurai. Samurai were one of the three Warrior classes, and it was his job to be the tank.

A tank’s role was to support the battle array on the front line. All parties had one or more tanks to draw monster attacks and provide support. If they did that, the attackers could put their abilities to work and attack from wherever they liked in relative safety, without worrying about the monsters’ attacks.

In order for that to happen, there were two requirements. The first was not to die. If the tank died, there would be no one to draw the monsters’ attacks, and the damage would spread to the players with weak defense: the magic users and healers. If that happened, the battle lines would collapse. The second was to draw enemy attacks to himself, ensuring the safety of the rest of the party members. Even if he survived, if he didn’t draw the monsters’ attacks, his companions would end up taking damage and, again, the battle lines would collapse.

Mr. Shiroe showed me the ropes, so I understand the basics, but…

Even if he understood the basics, understanding them and putting them into practice were two different things.

True, supporting the battle lines was a tank’s duty. It was practically the reason tanks existed. Touya didn’t want to just stand by and expose his party to danger. However, without the support of his companions, it couldn’t happen.

In order for the tank to survive and continue supporting the front line, he needed recovery support from the rear. Even the Warrior classes, with their excellent defense, would collapse if they had to keep taking monster attacks. To avoid that, sporadic recovery support from the rear guard was necessary. At the same time, the Warrior classes had to draw monster attacks so that the healer could concentrate on recovering, without worrying about enemies in the surrounding area.

These were two sides of the same coin. If either one was missing, Touya, the Warrior on the front line, would fall—and the battle lines would collapse.

In addition, in order to draw the enemy, he had to fan their hate more than anyone else in the party and keep their attention on him. The Warrior classes had lots of special skills to pull the enemy’s attention to them and concentrate attacks on themselves. Many of these were provocative skills known as taunts. These special skills were a type of mental manipulation that wiped everyone but the Warrior off the enemy’s radar.

“After you’ve drawn them, it’s a matter of having courage, a cool head, and the strength of will to believe in your companion’s recovery. Touya, you trust Minori, so that’s easy, right?”

That’s what Mr. Shiroe told me, but…it’s not enough…

Ordinarily, if enemies and allies had roughly equal strength, taunts would function without any problem. However, if another party member’s level was much higher than the tank’s or if the attacks were too fierce, this wasn’t necessarily the case.

In other words, even though the tank’s job was to draw the enemy on the front line, the enemy would decide that an attacker or healer posed more of a threat.

That was the issue with Touya’s current party.

The man who’d been put in charge was a level 46 Summoner. That put him right in the middle as far as Elder Tales rankings were concerned, and his level was twice as high as Touya’s.

In comparison to the Summoner’s attack power, Touya’s ability to control the front line was lethally inadequate. Enemies decided that the Summoner was more of a threat than Touya, who was supporting the front line. Naturally, the man’s excessive attacks provoked the enemy monsters’ anger, and their attacks targeted him instead of Touya. However, although the Summoner had twice Touya’s level, his defense was far lower.

In a situation where the enemy’s attacks were split between Touya and the leader, the healer’s attention would be divided as well. If two party members were taking damage from attacks, the amount of recovery was spread out, and in the worst-case scenario, there wouldn’t be enough to recover either of them.

On top of that, if their teamwork broke down, the formation they’d put together in advance would fall apart, and the members in charge of attacking wouldn’t be able to tell which enemy they needed to take out in order to salvage the situation. Should they act according to plan and take out the enemies Touya was fighting at the front, one at a time, or should they save the Summoner, their leader, by switching their target to the enemies swarming him? If the players in charge of attacking lost their focus, their attacks wouldn’t be focused either, and the individual kills wouldn’t go as planned.

As a result, the battle would drag out, and the wound in the already disintegrating battle lines would widen. It was a perfect vicious cycle.

I guess that’s why Mr. Shiroe used the Coach System. If he’d just played as himself, the monsters would have gone for him…

Touya had finally made that connection the other day.

Shiroe certainly hadn’t matched his level to theirs for show on a whim or out of sympathy, he realized. He’d done it to train them in the basics of group combat.

On that point, the Summoner, his current leader, was different.

The target monsters at that day’s hunting ground were level 25. They were lizardmen, with higher levels than Touya and the other beginners, and fighting the monsters stretched them to their limit.

However, to the leader, they were puny monsters more than ten levels below him. He couldn’t stand to chip away slowly at low-level monsters like that. “I’m not matching your pace. You match mine. That’s how it should be.” He’d said that to Touya and the others very clearly.

To the Summoner, this was just a babysitting job that his guild master had foisted on him. If they didn’t collect or earn their quota, he’d probably get some sort of warning from the guild’s top brass.

As far as he was concerned, Touya and the others were holding him back.

The leader, who was wearing a dark crimson robe, made no attempt to hide his irritation.

All his companions were exhausted, and their eyes were dull and vacant. Four of them had died today. The fact that they’d had to go back to the temple and make a fresh start every single time had only added to their leader’s annoyance.

However, even then, the man hadn’t changed his methods. If he’d used the Coach System and matched his level to Touya and the others, it would have balanced their combat teamwork, but he didn’t seem able to stomach the idea of bringing his level down. “Our battles are already slow!” he’d railed. “If I do that, they’ll get even slower, and we won’t make our quota.”

In one of Akiba’s back alleys, one of his companions, a Bard, staggered and nearly fell even though the path was perfectly clear.

“…I’m sorry. …I feel kind of dizzy…”

The girl apologized to Touya, who’d helped her stay on her feet. All he could see in her eyes was a stagnant, murky fatigue.

“It’s not much longer now. C’mon, you can do it.”

Touya lent the girl his shoulder, trying to encourage her. The Bard was a level or two below Touya; she was light, and the sour smell of her sweaty, grimy mantle clung to his nostrils. Touya knew he was about the same. They weren’t given the time or breathing room to bathe.

I guess that’s pretty rough on the girls, but…

He glanced at the girl out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t seem to have the energy to care about her shabby appearance anymore. She was moving her lips, silently counting her steps, as if she’d collapse from exhaustion if she didn’t distract herself.

Touya bit his lip.

Why had things turned out like this? The idea, which he should have been sick of thinking by then, dragged itself around his fatigue- and anger-muddled mind, unable to find a way out.

When, trailing behind their leader, the party reached the central plaza, they were made to form ranks. The leader, his lip curled in a sneer, glared at Touya and the others. Then he began going from member to member, collecting the material items they’d won that day.

Just having a guildhall didn’t give the guild limitless storage space for items. Hamelin sold off any middling items it couldn’t use at the market immediately after a hunt.

“You’ve been sitting on a lot there, Touya.”

The leader taunted him in a sticky voice. Although Touya’s level was low, he was a Warrior. Naturally, it made him physically stronger than the other classes, and he was able to carry a lot. His load was the result of his attempt to reduce his companions’ fatigue as best he could.

“I worked hard to carry it.”

Even the leader had to be aware of that. Touya spoke without meeting the man’s eyes. The urge to hit him welled up inside him, but they were already in the noncombat zone. Besides, his companions’ strength was nearly gone. He didn’t want to start trouble in a place like this and shorten their already brief break.

“Huhn!”

The leader snorted contemptuously at Touya, then put all the items he’d collected on the market.

“So, all the power you lot have is just barely enough to collect bargain-bin items like those. Well, even then, your room and board is covered for you. Be grateful for that. …Even though it’s because of your Pots.”

In spite of himself, Touya ground his molars together.

…Minori.

If they hadn’t had his sister shut up in the guildhall, a virtual prisoner, he wouldn’t have let this smug-faced thug shoot his mouth off. Even he could feel the animosity creeping into his gaze, and anger was welling up inside him like heavy oil. To keep it from showing, Touya looked away, turning his gaze to the dusty street.

In any case, the leader was only middle management.

That scumbag. If I cut him, I’d just get my sword dirty. …How long is this going to go on? How did this happen? …We don’t need the Pots. I don’t even want ’em. If they do, they can have ’em all. But even Minori’s at the end of her rope. If only we hadn’t joined this guild…

“—We just got back. Yes, thanks. Yeah… We’re fine.”

Suddenly, a pure white light lanced through Touya’s gray-hazed field of vision.

It hadn’t even been a month yet, but the voice was already nostalgic. It was a voice he’d nearly forgotten: Shiroe’s pensive, slightly troubled speech.

His head came up as abruptly as if he’d been stung; he scanned the plaza.

The market? No.

The stalls? No.

The smithy? No.

The weapons shop, the guard shop, the tavern, the inn… He looked and looked for the face he knew must be there… He was very close to despair. Touya didn’t know the face that belonged to that voice.

He’d only ever heard the voice over voice chat. Touya didn’t know what Shiroe would look like now, after the Catastrophe. When that thought occurred to him, he felt as if his chest was being crushed.

Still, when a group of a dozen or so noisy travelers entered through the arched gate that linked the plaza with the main street, Touya’s eyes were drawn to them. Several town-dwelling guild members had surrounded a small group that had obviously just returned from a long journey. A young man stood at the center of the group, but he didn’t seem at all excited and in fact looked a little troubled.

It was Shiroe.

“Don’t you worry! Once our Chefs heard what you told us, you’d never believe it. We’ve been taste testin’ like it was goin’ out of style every day. What would that be in English, ‘a taste-testin’ storm’? When we heard you were comin’ back, they started skippin’ around and gettin’ ready for a party.”

“Whoa, a feast?! Can’t-wait-for-that city!”

“That’s wonderful mews.”

“Mari, you really didn’t have to do all that. Not over this.”

Feeling frantic, as though he couldn’t move quickly enough, Touya opened his mental menu. He aligned his cursor with the player in front of him and called up the name and guild display. Guild: Unaffiliated. Name: Shiroe. Class: Enchanter.

It was the expert player who’d spent a little while with Touya and Minori before the Catastrophe struck, teaching them the basics of the game. Even now, Touya and his sister talked about the young man as if he were their big brother.

“Mist—”

Touya began to raise his voice, but then he froze, as if he’d been cut off.

He’d thought Shiroe had looked his way.

It might have been an illusion, but when Shiroe looked at him, Touya had sensed something inside him, something that had grown far stronger than before.

Shiroe was also living here, in the world after the Catastrophe.

The moment he sensed that, the shock had frozen Touya’s tongue.

The world had changed.

The Catastrophe had done something final and irreversible to it. They’d been pulled into another world, something all young dreamers fantasized about at least once or twice. Not only that, but the game world had turned real. It was like something out of a heroic legend.

However, a good look at the situation revealed a gray prison.

“A guild to aid beginners.” Touya and Minori might have been wrong to fall for words like that. Still, Touya thought. Even without that, this was a world where the “haves” were powerful people.

Money, items, experience points: All resources benefited the people who collected them. Those who had money gained more of it; those who had items got more of them. Those who had lots of experience points—in other words, the high-level players—fought stronger monsters and leveled up. In this world, where the law of the jungle prevailed, that was the Truth.

The “haves” got even more power, and the “have-nots,” eternal latecomers, could only stare at the backs of the “haves.” That was part of the true shape of the Elder Tales world, the world of the online game. Now that the game had become real, that harsh truth showed even more clearly, and on top of that, since it was no longer a game, they weren’t allowed to quit.

Touya’s thought patterns were still young, and he couldn’t put that truth into words and explain it clearly. Even so, because he was young, he was sensitive to its real shape.

The fact that they were the same.

It was a fundamental natural law, in every place, in every world. If “survival of the fittest” was allowed, then it was only proper that some people were strong and others were weak. The world wasn’t rough on the weak because this was a game. The real world had been the same way. True, open exploitation and discrimination had been forbidden, but that hadn’t meant those things hadn’t existed.

Touya knew.

He’d had legs that wouldn’t move. They’d taught him the truth well enough.

Both Touya and Minori were novice players. Novices had low battle strength and didn’t know much about the world, and on top of that, they didn’t have property. That meant they were powerless.

Touya thought there probably wasn’t anyone as well versed in being powerless, or in being a child, as he was. He bit his lip as he thought and tasted iron.

The weak didn’t have the power to protect themselves, and there was no miracle in any world that would save them for free.

What were the words Touya had swallowed? Help me? Save me? Now that he’d cut them off, even he didn’t know.

In Touya’s mind, Shiroe was an expert at the game. He’d seemed to know more about Elder Tales than anyone. Maybe Touya had thought Shiroe would rescue them from any hardship.

…But how could he say that?

Did he have any right to ask a mere acquaintance—someone who’d played with them for a week or so before the Catastrophe, when Elder Tales had been just a game—for help?

Take someone bankrupt, for example, or someone deep in debt. A person like that could never just ask a stranger, someone who wasn’t even family, for help. This was reality, and that was what that meant. Even Touya knew that much.

In order to survive in this world, even Shiroe had to be paying some sort of price.

There was no way he could impose on him like that.

As Touya thought this, he lowered the fist he’d clenched.

At some point, a fine rain had begun to fall in the plaza.