1

Shiroe rolled over in bed.

It wasn’t yet dawn. There wasn’t the slightest sound in the dark room.

The curtains were closed, shutting out even the starlight, and the room was ruled by pitch-black. The darkness was so dense that it didn’t make the least bit of difference whether his eyes were open or closed.

In that darkness, Shiroe was thinking back over the past few days.

As predicted, the nobles of Eastal, the League of Free Cities, were approaching Shiroe and the other members of the Round Table Council separately. Although their requests were varied, few places hoped to have soldiers dispatched to them. The majority wanted to be provided with technology or to form trade agreements. Shiroe’s delegation had gotten the impression that they were much wilier and more intelligent than they had first imagined.

The nobles knew that dispatched Adventurer troops could easily destroy the balance of military power between cities, and that the current equilibrium could be lost. Also unexpected had been the fact that quite a few nobles had information on the magic steamship prototype that was being jointly developed by the Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company and Shopping District 8. He’d guessed as much from Akatsuki’s report, but the town of Akiba seemed to have been infiltrated by a fair number of spies.

It spoke to the amount of attention they were attracting.

There was no gag order regarding technical information in Akiba. It probably wouldn’t be that hard to extract. At present, they might as well not have any secrets at all. However, technology like steam engines required high-level Blacksmith and Mechanist subclass skills. Even if word got around that such-and-such an item was being made, it was hard to believe that they would find themselves in a situation where other countries were able to produce that item right away.

He’d spoken with Michitaka and Krusty, and with the other Round Table Council members via telechat, and there didn’t seem to be any disadvantage to concluding a free trade agreement regarding foodstuffs. When it came to food, Akiba wasn’t very self-sufficient at all.

The situation regarding staple foods—rice, wheat, beans, and potatoes—was particularly catastrophic. If limited to that type of food, the trade agreement would work in Akiba’s favor. On the other hand, seasonings could become Akiba’s main food export.

Of course they would be weak with the basic seasonings—salt, sugar, and herbs—but Brewers in the town of Akiba had knowledge from the old world regarding processed seasonings like soy sauce and other sauces, and they were good with them.

They would have to accept—with qualifications—some of the nobles’ requests, or promise to consider them. There were probably several times as many requests that would have to be turned down. All were steps that would be necessary in order to clarify Akiba’s stance.

However, his encounter with Li Gan had had even more of an impact than these meetings with the nobles.

I can’t relax…

Shiroe turned over yet again, and thought.

Li Gan himself hadn’t been an unpleasant character at all. Shiroe thought he was a rather charming researcher. He was both clever and knowledgeable. Could they trust him…? Maybe not, but Shiroe didn’t think he was lying.

However, the world history that he had related had unsettled Shiroe badly.

World Fraction.

Spirit Theory.

In his research of world-scale magic, Li Gan’s current interest had been narrowed down to these two points.

A problem of souls, Li Gan had called it. That was the Spirit Theory. Shiroe wasn’t a specialist, and he hadn’t been able to understand the technical aspects, but on the whole, the theory seemed to be as follows:

In general terms, the immaterial power that moved humans and demihumans was known as “spirit.” Spirit wasn’t a solid entity; instead, it was a body formed of two types of energy, yang and yin, adhered closely together.

According to Li Gan…

Yang energy was the energy that drove the mind. The human mind existed on top of this yang energy. Strong yang energy meant that the heart’s power was strong, and it influenced the force of magic. MP was an expression of the yang energy’s strength.

Yin energy was the energy that drove the body. The physical toughness of the human body was greatly influenced by it. If the yin energy was strong, in addition to physical toughness, it strengthened the body’s spiritual energy as well. Warriors and other weapon attack classes used it in battle. It made itself apparent in HP as well, but the best expression of yin energy strength was life force.

When humans stopped being able to live, first of all, the body stopped moving. At this point in time, the mind was healthy. However, the link between body and mind was severed, and the mind became trapped in darkness. This was because the information that should have flowed through the yang energy—the consciousness—had ceased to come from the yin energy—the physical body that could feel the light of the outside world.

Then the yin energy began to disperse. As mentioned earlier, yin energy was life force, the fundamental energy of the body. As a result, the sturdier and higher-level the body, the longer this dispersion took. The yin energy of beings that were low-level or frail dispersed in minutes, but for tougher beings, the dispersion continued for half a day. This process was called “degradation.”

The resurrection magic employed by the recovery classes was used on corpses in this state. It worked by gathering the yin energy that had diffused into the surrounding atmosphere, reconstructing it, and returning it to the body.

If there wasn’t enough life force, the healer used their own life force to reconstruct it. The information needed for the construction was created by calculating backward from records that remained in the corpse in front of the healer. The loss of experience points was apparently due to an error during these calculations, an inevitable deterioration of information.

Now, then: If resurrection magic was not used and the yin energy dispersed completely, the body became unable to maintain its current state. In physical terms, it began to rot. For the People of the Earth, at this point, death was final. …Yes, he hadn’t expected it, but resurrection magic worked on the People of the Earth as well, provided it was used directly after death.

On the other hand, when Adventurers’ degradation was complete, or at the point after death when the Adventurer wished it, the body and its equipment broke down into particles. The power of their yang energy was used to transmit these particles to the temple, where their bodies were automatically reconstructed. In addition, the life force that filled the temple was used to restore their yin energy. The yang energy was then recombined with the restored body, which resurrected the ego.

As a result of this seemingly miraculous ability, although both yang and yin energy were expended to the limit, and some experience points were lost due to the deterioration of information…Adventurers came back to life. For all intents and purposes, they were immortal.

According to Li Gan’s research, this was the system of death in this other world, and of the Adventurers’ resurrection.

“It bears a startling resemblance to the demihumans’ reincarnation system,” Li Gan had said.

“When a demihuman meets its end… Or rather, when it degrades, its body rots like those of the People of the Earth, and its equipment is left behind. However, on the other hand, its yang energy is immediately given life as another being. It may take anywhere from a few years to a decade for it to reach maturity, but this is reincarnation and immortality.”

In a way, it was a horrifying idea.

Of course, this was a hypothesis that Li Gan and his master had been researching, and it wasn’t something the average Person of the Earth knew. However, if it was true, the demihumans might be far more troublesome enemies than they’d thought.

Shiroe had asked if, in that case, the demihumans had memories of their previous lives, memories from before they’d died.

“I can’t give you any real answer about that. There are two elements involved in this matter.”

Li Gan had searched for words, as if answering wasn’t easy.

“First, yang energy is the seat of the mind. In demihumans and Adventurers, this is indestructible. The mind, personality, vows, temperament: Without a doubt, all these things are stored in the yang energy as information. We know that memories, or at least most of them, are stored in yang energy as well. However, on the other hand, we also know that memories are stored in the physical brain. As I’m sure you’re aware, the body is the territory of yin energy. In other words, memories are an information continuum that spans both yin and yang energy. Since that’s the case, we hypothesized that memories might be lost during degradation and the reconstruction of the yang energy, and in fact, this phenomenon has been confirmed. Death causes the deterioration and loss of memories.

“Yang energy is also the seat of the emotions. As that’s the case, ‘poisons’ such as terror, despair, and weariness could circulate even in an immortal being. As a practical issue, it’s possible that the yang energy in demihumans was distorted by the curse of the First World Fraction, and that it remains so. Even if minds in that state retain their memories, they’ve lost the power to recall them at will and recognize them as their own past. It’s probably rather like schizophrenia, or as though the person is seeing their own memories as a story.”

In that case, death…

In this other world, death was not without risk.

That was a terrifying fact as well.

Though, it was possible to say that all of this was still just a hypothesis.

However, most of Shiroe was sufficiently convinced that it was fact that he silenced that doubting voice. It was like a sense of smell, something older than logic. Life without end… It couldn’t possibly be without risk.

Li Gan said that memories were stored in both yang energy and the brain…

It wasn’t that he believed this magician’s fantasy magic theory without hesitation, but it had reminded him of something.

It was the structure of the Elder Tales game, or rather, of all online games. Shiroe and the other players had sat at their computer desks at home, playing in the world of Elder Tales. In general, all online games were meant to be enjoyed under those conditions.

Didn’t that mean that shy, real-world university student Kei Shirogane had acted as the yang energy?

Kei Shirogane the player wouldn’t die, even if his character did. He had only to set the resurrected Shiroe in motion again and restart the adventure.

To borrow Li Gan’s theory, the logic would be that Kei Shirogane had all the memories, and Shiroe only had a body.

However, that was when Elder Tales had been a game.

Although there was no telling what magic had been at work, the current Shiroe was Shiroe himself, and he existed entirely in this other world.

In other words, Shiroe’s yang energy was here. It wasn’t in the old world, safe and snug in front of a computer desk. The continuity of his memories was no longer protected. Death would mercilessly scar his yang energy.

Shiroe called up his status screen.

It held a counter for the number of times he’d died.

The number reflected Shiroe’s long play history, and it wasn’t a small one.

However, since the Catastrophe, Shiroe hadn’t died once. It had seemed creepy to him, somehow. Even when he knew he’d come back, he’d felt fear and visceral dislike. Put into words, that was all it was, but… That must have been true for all the members of Log Horizon.

He didn’t know how extensive the memory loss was.

He was certain it wasn’t happening on a large scale.

If that had been the case, Akiba would have been in an uproar long ago. For each separate time, the loss was probably too small to notice. Alternatively, it might be selective: Unimportant memories, the sort the person wouldn’t even miss, might go first.

It might be a completely insignificant amount, no different from the memory lapses that happened all the time in everyday life.

But how am I supposed to say that…?

He hadn’t told Michitaka or Krusty about this.

He’d told Akatsuki to keep quiet, too.

Still, he’d have to tell them someday. It was an issue that affected all the players.

In the darkness, Shiroe turned over again.

The dark was endlessly painful.

2

“Patrol approaching. Um… Maybe five? Five of them, I think. They’ll be here in about ten measures.”

Isuzu made her report in a small voice, peeking out very slightly from the arch.

Um, ten measures would be… About twenty seconds?

They were in the first burial chamber on the right side of Forest Ragranda. It was a room just before the broad corridor itself began to descend in wide steps. It was about five meters square. There was no door; the arch connected it directly to the corridor.

In this ancient tomb, which held several stone caskets, Touya and the others hid, holding their breath.

Five Skeletons were slowly patrolling the passageway, according to Isuzu’s report. She was the party member with the highest stealth capabilities, and so she was the one who hid and spied. Past experience told them that one Skeleton would use a projectile weapon.

“We’ll do this the way we planned.”

At Touya’s whispered declaration, the other four nodded. As they’d planned, they scattered to various points in the room, then checked the equipment they held.

It’ll be okay. We talked it through, so we should be able to do it. Besides, even if it turns out like it always does…it’s not like we’ll lose anything.

Touya muttered to himself, silently.

…Nah. There’s no way we’ll let it turn into a fight like that.

They wouldn’t let today’s battles be like yesterday’s. Everyone held that firm resolution inside them. You could see it in their faces.

It was the fifth day of their dungeon expedition.

As it turned out, yesterday, the day it had rained, they hadn’t gone into the dungeon at all.

Touya and the others had talked until past noon, asking questions and explaining their special skills. They’d quickly decided that they would have to actually see the skills to understand, and so they’d gone out into the forest. They could just as easily have gone into the dungeon and tested them in action, but if someone had had a question partway through the dungeon, the enemy would have pressed forward, and there would have been no time to explain.

In the world of Elder Tales, there were lots of monsters and wild animals within the fields. In particular, goblins, orcs, lizardmen, and other demihumans had built up significant forces in this ruined world, so there were quite a lot of them.

However, although there were many monsters, the fields they stalked through were vast. Even if it had been condensed to half its size, Elder Tales inhabited a project that replicated the entire planet, and its area was in a whole different league from ordinary MMO games or consumer RPGs.

Consequently, unless they attacked a monster settlement or had themselves followed and continually attacked, the odds of encountering a monster were pretty low. As a rule, once a battle ended, if they wanted to get a good rest before the next battle began, they could do so.

On the other hand, in dungeons, the concentration of monsters was different. They were headquarters, after all, or regional fortresses. They were also far smaller spaces than the field zones, and the fact that they might hold several hundred of the same type of monster was a possibility that couldn’t be ignored.

As a result, battles in dungeons happened one after another, and the intervals between them were shorter than they would have been outside. Frequent battles with short breaks made it easy to exhaust MP, and classes such as Samurai, whose special skills all had long recast times, weren’t able to recover their special skill use limits in the spaces between battles.

Dungeons also had their own unique issues with light sources and three-dimensional space restrictions.

In fields, battles generally began when there were about ten meters or more between players and the enemy. This was because, in many cases, they spotted each other at great distances.

However, in dungeons, an enemy might be waiting the instant you turned a corner or entered a room.

All sorts of factors combined to make battles in dungeons so tough that it was impossible to compare them to field battles. There was a clear difference in the skills it took to hunt enemies of a certain level in dungeons, and the skills required to do the same thing in fields.

Over the past few days, Touya and the others had seen for themselves just how formidable dungeons were.

That was why they’d confirmed each member’s abilities thoroughly, one more time.

While this was true for the properties of separate special skills as well, when it came to different combinations, the numbers were vast, and countless questions arose. For example, how much damage did Circular Carol’s additional magic attack damage do, and what was the probability that it would occur?

If a sword skill “mowed down the area around you,” how big was the attack’s range, and what sort of damage could it do? Each individual question seemed simple and unimportant, but there were many combinations, and sometimes the answers were unexpected.

By evening, they’d managed to come to a stopping point in their analysis of special techniques, but then the question of how they should use them came up.

It was after that point that Minori began to explain patrol files, formations, operators, and field monitors.

—Light, scraping footsteps were coming closer.

In terms of distance, the Skeletons were probably about five meters away. Silently, Touya made a hand sign to the rest of the group. Their faces were tense, but even so, they nodded in unison.

Touya scanned the group. Then, without hesitation, he leapt into the corridor. As Isuzu had reported, the approaching monsters were a patrolling platoon of five Skeletons. Touya drew his sword, unleashing Izuna Cutter on the group of Skeletons in almost the same motion. The deep crimson shock wave snaked through the air, shallowly wounding one Skeleton’s arm.

Confirming this, Touya threw himself back into the burial chamber and sprinted into its depths. The dry sound of approaching bones was loud and chaotic. Up until a moment ago, the rhythm of the footfalls had been the one used for patrol. Once they’d been spotted, of course the enemy would run toward them. It wouldn’t take them more than a few seconds to close the distance.

The Skeletons that rushed in were blackened in places, and a ghostly aura hung about them.

Pale flames burned in their dark eye sockets. Of the five Skeletons that had passed through the arched entry, four charged deeper into the room, making for Touya, while the archer remained by the entrance.

However, this was something everyone in the party had anticipated.

“That one’s yours!”

As if pushed by Touya’s yell, Isuzu struck at the Skeleton Archer’s hands with her two-handed spear. Minori also swung the katana she held, although she wasn’t used to it.

The two girls’ attacks might have done as much damage as could be expected to the undead, but they didn’t stop it from moving. Unless they were completely immobilized, undead monsters didn’t shrink from pain.

“…If there’s only one of you, I have a spell that’s more appropriate than Orb of Lava. —Take this! The magnificent magic of a Sorcerer! Lightning Chamber!”

Feeling a strange, twitching sensation, Minori and Isuzu jumped back.

In the instant the advance discharge sketched a pentagram, the Skeleton Archer was trapped by purple lightning. The Sorcerer’s electrical spell ran from floor to ceiling, then back from ceiling to floor, dealing massive damage to the target and turning it to carbon.

“Awright!”

Having seen this from the depths of the room, Touya grinned. He had his back to the wall, had taken on the four Skeletons, and was fighting them without giving an inch. Serara was handling his recovery.

“Current HP at eighty-four percent. Current status sustainable!”

Through a combination of Pulse Recovery’s regular recovery effect and, when that wasn’t enough, an additional Instant Heal, Touya withstood the four enemies’ attacks. He was also managing to keep his HP at 80 percent.

Of course, his body hurt.

The attack power of the Skeletons’ hand axes was pretty formidable, and if it hadn’t been for the healing, Touya wasn’t sure whether he could have lasted a minute. Now, though, Serara’s recovery spells were firmly supporting him.

“Minori, check. Isuzu and Rudy, prepare to attack.”

At Touya’s voice, the other members responded, taking their appointed positions. Minori went to the nearby arch. Rundelhaus and Isuzu came around behind the four Skeletons, which were completely focused on Touya.

“Are these fellows completely boiled already?”

Arrogantly, Rundelhaus looked down on the Skeletons.

“Yeah, I had time, so I cast Samurai Taunt on ’em twice each. They won’t go for you that easily, Rudy.”

“That’s good to hear. I can relax while I work, then.”

Rundelhaus immediately began to chant an attack spell.

Isuzu did as well. Even though she’d started last, she was the first one to complete her spell. When she stuck the spear into the ground, the bells at the base of its head rang, and the sound waves turned into a directional, destructive shock wave that soaked into the Skeletons.

“Corridor checked! No following patrols in sight. It’s all right. Go ahead, Rundelhaus!”

“Leave it to me, Miss Minori! Orb of Lava!”

At Minori’s call, Rundelhaus released his spell. A lump of rock so compressed that it melted and glowed like lava floated at his fingertips.

Touya used Samurai Taunt again.

Rundelhaus’s attack capabilities were off the charts. He thought he should whip up the monsters’ hate even further, making sure that he was the only thing on their minds.

He’d used his special taunting skill several times over, but he needed to be careful. Touya was a Samurai. In his mind’s eye, he saw Naotsugu’s back.

“It’s a vanguard tank’s job to draw all the enemy’s attacks and believe in his party, Touya. That’s-a-man’s-promise-city, right?!”

Touya glared at the Skeletons, his gaze strong. Behind the Skeletons, out of their line of sight, Rundelhaus’s chant was changing magic into destructive power.

An incandescent ball of sizzling, roiling lava appeared in the burial room, accompanied by heat and orange shadows that wavered oddly. Released from Rundelhaus’s hand, the fireball punched through the Skeleton on the far left, bounded as if it had struck something in midair, and pierced the second Skeleton as well.

The tiny, leaping, white-hot grim reaper pierced or shattered the Skeletons, destroying them one after another. Refusing to give them any leeway, Rundelhaus added Frigid Window, a range attack spell.

“And now you meet your end. Return to the dark world that befits your lives!”

The Skeletons, which had been writhing with intense heat just moments before, suddenly lost their strength in the freezing wind and scattered across the floor.

The sounds of battle were abruptly stilled, and the party’s rough breathing echoed in the silent burial chamber.

Touya kept his katana at the ready; he hadn’t dropped his guard. Rundelhaus held up his staff, magic still crystallized in it. Working by conditioned reflex, Serara cast recovery spells at Touya, cleaning up.

From deep inside the room, everyone watched Minori.

After carefully examining the depths of the corridor, Minori turned back to her companions.

“No one’s following. The battle is over.”

At her words, the party’s tension dissolved.

“Whew. Yes, that’s how it should be.”

“That went really well, didn’t it!!”

“Yes, wonderful work, everyone!”

As they looked at the members’ delighted smiles, Minori and Touya bumped fists, exchanging their twins’ salute.

3

Everyone worked hard.

As Minori thought this, she felt her cheeks soften into a smile.

On the fifth day of their expedition, Minori’s party had finally managed to explore for seven hours. They’d fought twenty-three battles. Once—and only once—they’d ended up battling two monster platoons at the same time, but she thought they’d managed to handle it far more neatly than yesterday.

After each battle, they’d taken a short break.

That break was meant to heal HP and abnormal statuses and to recover their MP to the maximum, but it had a greater significance than that.

They looked back over the battle they’d just fought, mutually recognizing what had gone well and searching for things that could be improved. During these breathers, they discussed the site and strategy for the next battle and readied their plan into action.

The very first thing they’d gone over had been formation.

Touya was a Samurai who supported the front line. That meant their tactics were built on the idea that Touya would draw all enemy attacks to himself. However, even though this was only natural, everyone had to cooperate in order to make it happen.

How could they make it so that all party members except Touya were able to move freely? If they didn’t act with that in mind, Touya wouldn’t be able to capture enough of the enemy’s attention.

Next, they thought about the operator. Operator was a role that involved watching and keeping track of everyone’s HP. In the current Elder Tales, it was hard to get the leeway to check everyone’s status screens, particularly for the vanguard classes who were fighting in close combat.

In this other world, that was fast becoming common knowledge.

This time around, Minori’s party had two healers.

Since this gave them plenty of recovery spells, it was an advantage, but at the same time, it was also a weakness.

Say two healers simultaneously healed the player who’d lost the most HP. Naturally, there was a big recovery in HP, and in many cases, the player was healed even more than necessary. That meant it went to waste.

If another casualty turned up in the meantime, both Minori’s and Serara’s major recovery spells would be tied up in recast time. Simultaneously casting their important recovery spells created a simultaneous vulnerability. …In other words, the wound opened further.

Minori and Serara had talked it over and decided that Serara would manage Touya’s HP on her own. If she couldn’t quite cover it, she’d call for help.

Since her hands were free, Minori volunteered to be the field monitor. This was a player who kept an eye on the surrounding area, even during battle. They chanted recovery and attack spells as a reserve member, but even as they did so, they watched the area and reported on enemy monster reinforcements and patrols.

By having a member perform this role, Minori’s party managed to trim the possibility of getting into a melee down to the bare minimum. Even if enemy reinforcements they couldn’t avoid turned up, as long as the party managed to spot them first, they could take advance measures such as increasing the amount of recovery or switching support spells.

Patrol file was a travel method that maintained their formation and the field monitor position even when they were on the move.

Touya was at the head of the file. Minori guarded the rear.

Since they were twins, by covering each other’s blind spots they could quickly detect approaching enemies or the scent of battle. Isuzu, who had the best stealth and surveillance abilities in the party, kept both Minori and Touya in view. In addition to keeping an eye on the immediate area, she sometimes went on alone in places where reconnaissance was necessary.

Moving this way made it possible for Serara to concentrate on managing the party’s HP and for Rundelhaus to focus on recovering his own MP, even when they were traveling. Serara was the mainstay of recovery, and Rundelhaus was at the heart of attacks that would annihilate the enemy. The core of the plan Minori and the others had come up with was letting these two concentrate on their jobs.

These four items were things Minori had learned from Shiroe: the basics of party movement in dungeons. They weren’t part of the game system. They were Adventurer wisdom and workarounds.

However, even Minori didn’t know what sort of nuances these basics carried. They were probably techniques that had no meaning if you only understood them in words. Because she hadn’t understood them, she hadn’t been able to suggest them.

What they had needed to do had been terribly simple.

They’d needed to speak to each other, to discuss things.

If they wanted help, all they’d needed to say was, “I want help.”

When casting a recovery spell, they’d only had to say, “I’ll handle recovery.”

If the enemy was closing in: “Enemies approaching.”

“Defeat the ones with projectile weapons first,” or “Leave this one to me,” or “I’ll be out of MP in two more attacks.” Anything would have been fine.

It had been such a simple thing. That alone let them defeat the enemy, as if all their trouble up until yesterday had been an illusion.

This wasn’t friendship or playing at being considerate. It was a necessary survival skill.

A party in which the members couldn’t work together might as well be sealing its members’ abilities. Only when they combined their abilities did Adventurers like Minori’s group begin to be able to oppose monsters. That was the way this other world worked.

However, on the other hand, these techniques were a terribly warm and sacred thing, something that went far beyond friendship or superficial consideration. On a battlefield where each instant meant the difference between life and death, in order to genuinely ask for the help you needed or stretch out a helping hand that the other person probably needed right now, in addition to knowledge of the other person’s techniques and the abilities they held, you had to have deep mutual understanding.

Did they want to fight at the front of the room? Did they want to draw the enemies deep inside the room before they fought? Should they begin the battle with a charge? Should they lure the monsters in instead? Did they have a vision for victory in this battle? What was it? Was it all right to leave something to someone, or not?

The members of Minori’s party gave each other the answers to all sorts of questions.

It was also a harsh test in how well they understood each other, and as Minori and the others began to pass this test, for the first time, they went from being “five Adventurers” to “a party.”

“Ah ha! Minori, your nose is all black.”

Isuzu laughed.

When they left the dungeon, the last light of evening was streaming into the forest. It was the peaceful time just before sunset; in another thirty minutes, everything would be dyed madder red. Under that light, Isuzu was pointing at Minori’s nose.

“Is it dust? Maybe it’s a cobweb…”

As Minori spoke, Isuzu giggled at her. But even Isuzu had blotches of mingled sweat and dust on her forehead and leather armor.

Still, when she laughs, her eyes are wonderful. They’re perfectly clear.

Minori smiled, handing her a little cloth from her pack. “You, too,” she said, laughing. Isuzu hastily wiped at her face, and when she’d finished and looked at the mini-towel, her expression was mortified.

“Nnugh. Am I pitch-black, too?”

“Not pitch-black. Should we go to the spring, though?”

“Probably. Ahh. Want to invite Sera?”

Isuzu called to Serara, who was walking in front of them.

“What? You guys are going to the spring, too, Minori?”

Touya, who was at the head of the line, heard them and looked back. Apparently Touya and Rundelhaus, who walked beside him, had also been discussing visiting the spring.

“Grr. We’re all sweaty, too, you know.”

“The fairer sex takes precedence. Tough it out, Touya, my lad,” Rundelhaus admonished Touya.

Rundelhaus himself was so sooty that not a trace of his usual dandyish self remained. Even his glossy tunic was dull and dingy.

On today’s expedition, they’d made great progress.

They’d reached the underground workshop that was thought to be the innermost area of the right-hand route.

There, coke blazed with magic flames, and in the midst of the rising black smoke, ghosts that harbored grudges were becoming Skeletons and being put to work.

The one forcing the Skeletons to work had been a Burning Dead. Unlike ordinary Skeletons, the specter had had the blue-black flames of the Underworld blazing from every one of its joints, and it had been a powerful enemy that could even use magic. However, having defeated each of the patrols, Minori’s party had used a lightning suppression operation and smashed through this formidable foe.

Thanks to that battle, though, the soot that filled the room had clung to them, and they still wore the results.

“Why not just go together?”

“I-Isuzu!”

Isuzu had spoken nonchalantly, but Serara flapped her hands frantically in refusal. Registering this and realizing what it meant, Isuzu grew abruptly flustered as well and amended her statement.

“When I said ‘go together,’ I didn’t mean ‘go in together’!! I just meant we could wash at the spring in the bushes, and Touya and Rudy could wash their faces or bodies or whatever in the pond!!”

As Isuzu hastily made excuses, Serara said, “Oh. Oh, yes, you’re right,” and smiled awkwardly.

“What about it, Minori?”

“If you two are okay with that, Touya.”

The twins agreed quite easily, and they got fresh clothes from the tent. The five of them headed toward the spring, chattering noisily as they went.

They talked about the day’s battle and conquest.

The Burning Dead had been level 24. It had probably been the toughest enemy on the right-hand route. From what Shiroe had told them, in an atmosphere like the one in that battle, the only enemies they could safely beat were enemies “five or more levels below your party’s average level.” Their current average level was a bit over 24. This meant the only enemies they could fight safely were level 19 or below, and they’d defeated an enemy who was far stronger than that.

Just knowing this made them all a little excited.

Defeating an enemy on their level with a party of only five was a considerable achievement. They’d also gotten their first magic items, which had startled them.

What made them even happier, though, was the fact that the ordinary battles along the way had gone so incredibly well. The importance of drawing the enemy in, or charging them, and fighting from an advantageous position had been beyond imagining.

More than anything, they’d learned how vital it was to talk to each other.

We’ve become a party.

Minori smiled quietly to herself.

She was happy that the meaning of Shiroe’s words had settled firmly into place in her heart.

It hadn’t simply been about level.

Level hadn’t been the key to getting stronger.

In order to fight in this world, they needed companions.

In order to make these companions, they had to talk and act, over and over. They were a treasure you couldn’t get with special skills or level, no matter how powerful.

Her days at Hamelin were melting away.

At the very least, those days of forcibly boosting her level couldn’t have brought her here. There was something certain here, something that couldn’t be reached by simply leveling up.

“Minori~~~? Hurry u~~p!”

Deep in the brush in the forest, she could see Isuzu bouncing up and down, waving to her. Minori responded energetically, then broke into a run, making for the spring with the reddening sunset at her back.

4

Whew…

Shiroe slipped the papers he’d bundled together into a leather document case.

The papers he’d been organizing were documents of all sorts.

Briefings, surveys, reports… There were many different names for them, but they were papers filled with miscellaneous information. Among them were notes that Akatsuki and the members of the Round Table Council had put together for him. This sort of information had to be collected and organized daily.

After all, in their negotiations with the People of the Earth, there was no telling where an ambush might appear.

On the other hand, the papers filed in the larger, more severe document case were, as their name stated, “documents.” Notifications from guilds, balance sheets, contracts, promissory notes, and title deeds…

Shiroe was a Scribe. His role was to copy books and documents, and to transcribe written incantations, technical books, and maps.

No matter how complicated the object was, if he knew the item’s production method, he could make it in under ten seconds.

However, he couldn’t state positively that there were no new possibilities for Scribes, as there had been for Chefs. It was an area Shiroe wanted to study, but he kept getting distracted by his Round Table Council work, and he’d made almost no progress in his research.

Shiroe stretched hugely. He was sitting at the big table in the living room he’d been given at the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice. The sun had set, but all the rooms in the palace were illuminated with magic lights, and it wasn’t yet time for bed.

From a different document case, he took out a map of Eastal. By now, it wasn’t simply a beautiful copy of a map: Shiroe had nearly filled it with handwritten annotations here and there.

He felt that his Scribe subclass was helping him out a lot. The greatest assist it gave him was probably in paper quality.

In this other world, the quality of paper was pretty poor. On journeys and adventures, he’d seen parchment frequently, and some places used paper that might as well have been tree bark. Fortunately, Shiroe was a Scribe, and Scribes’ functions included copying and creating maps, documents, and magic primers. As far as the game system was concerned, these were magic items, and they couldn’t just be written on any old paper. While it depended on the level of the item, if he wanted to create a high-level item, he needed suitable materials—in this case, paper and ink. Scribes’ duties included creating special paper and ink, and Shiroe had the magic materials in abundance.

Just making notepaper this way didn’t require very high-class magic materials. It only had to be easy to write on and of high quality.

In terms of paper, this meant thin, light, uniform and white. Ink had to be light resistant, quick-drying, nonrunny, and have bold colors.

Shiroe had mass-produced ink and easy-to-use paper, and it was a great help in his clerical work.

Shiroe gazed at the hand-drawn map.

He ran his fingertip along mountain ranges and coastlines, thinking about the connections; he knit his brow and jotted down questions in his notebook.

For a while, the only noise in the room was the scritch of his pen skimming over paper, but suddenly, as if to cut if off, the sound of a bell rang in Shiroe’s ears alone.

“Hello?”

“That’s Shiroe, isn’t it? It’s me. It’s Minori.”

A notification from his friend list made this clear whenever a call came in, but Minori always began her telechats this way. It was probably her well-mannered nature showing through. It was completely different from the energetic way Touya started his conversations: “Hey, mister, it’s me!”

“Good evening. Have you finished training over there?”

“Yes!”

Minori’s voice was cheerful, although her reports had been gloomy for the past few days. Shiroe guessed that they must have gotten over a wall.

Minori and the others were at a training camp, attempting to explore a dungeon for beginners. That said, in this case, “for beginners” didn’t mean “easy to conquer.” Quite the opposite, in fact: It was a difficult dungeon that gave beginners a rough welcome.

In other words, it meant that all the obstacles beginners needed to overcome were crammed into one place.

Corridors that intersected in three dimensions. Rooms that could be looked down into. Open stairwells. Monsters that appeared regularly in patrolling groups. Nearly inexhaustible hordes of undead.

This was a strong citadel, and it thwarted brute-force captures that relied on class abilities. In particular, since undead monsters welled up endlessly due to malicious underground energy, if players broke through without thinking first, they’d probably be tormented by infinite enemy reinforcements.

“Did you make any progress on your capture?”

“Yes! I’ll report it now. During today’s invasion, we went in at seven thirty in the morning. We spent about seven hours exploring, then withdrew at fifteen hundred. During that time, we went to the end of the right-hand corridor route and vanquished a Burning Dead in the smelting furnace!”

“Whoa, that’s amazing!”

If Shiroe’s memory served him right, the levels of Burning Dead varied between 23 and 25. That was about the same as the average level of Minori’s group. Defeating a monster that was almost on their level—with five people, no less—would have been one thing in the former Elder Tales, but in the current setup, it wouldn’t be easy even for a veteran party.

Compatibility with the enemy monster had probably come into it, too, but he thought they must have fought extremely well. Considering how depressed she’d sounded up until the other day, it had to have been a brilliant achievement.

“Yes, sir!”

He could understand the cheer in Minori’s voice now: It was a huge victory.

Even though she’d sounded so discouraged the day before yesterday.

Shiroe felt something warm fill his heart.

Since yesterday, he’d felt emotionally cornered. The ominous premonition within the Spirit Theory. The creepiness he’d sensed in the history of this world, a feeling even he couldn’t explain. These had become a pressure he couldn’t talk about, and it sat heavily in his chest.

It could probably have been called uneasiness. A feeling of anxiety, as if he couldn’t do anything, didn’t know anything. …And yet the situation was being swept along with irresistible force. Shiroe had been fighting that premonition all alone.

However, on hearing the voice of this young, brave companion, a Log Horizon member, he felt that darkness dispersing as though blown by a light-infused wind.

That was the blessing of comrades.

If he’d put it into words, it would have sounded trite, but that was what Shiroe felt.

“How was everyone?”

“They’re fine!”

“Not that.”

Shiroe asked her again, laughing a little. Minori seemed to be in very high spirits tonight. Her speech was as courteous as always, of course, but when she answered instantly in a voice this lively, in addition to giving Shiroe a bit of trouble, it made him happy.

“Hm?”

He could almost see Minori tilting her head to one side, politely, on the other end of the telechat.

“How did everyone do? How did you pull off the capture?”

“Oh, well, you see, Touya was the vanguard; he kept the enemies together and drew them to him. That was the same as before, but this time we changed our strategy. We calculated our battle locations before we started, moved between safe rooms and split the enemy into small groups.”

That was a technique known as “pulling.” The trick to fighting back-to-back battles lay in figuring out a way to maintain the advantage of numbers. In simple terms, your chances of victory were higher if you fought one-on-one a hundred times than if you fought a hundred enemies at once.

“We dealt with monsters that used projectile weapons first. After that, I kept an eye on the area and acted as an assistant healer. We cut down the enemy’s combat power with concentrated victories as we fought. …Um, does that make sense?”

“Yes, I understand.”

Minori’s strategy had been correct.

She was observing the basics Shiroe had taught her.

However, those basics weren’t the sort of things you could carry out just by having heard them. Recovery or attack? During battles, all actions acquired a priority. Who decided the order of priority, and how? How were these decisions shared?

He could understand why Minori would be worried that he hadn’t understood her explanation—she probably couldn’t wait to know whether what she was talking about was getting through or not.

We defeated individual enemies while watching the area.

Said out loud, that was all it was, but just how many detailed tricks and processes had they needed in order to make that happen? They’d have to grasp the layout of the surrounding area, and the distances at which they could provide support for each other. All members would need to know the ranges of attack spells and recovery spells by heart. They would also need to understand and train to cover for other party members whenever one of them got into trouble.

When Minori was in trouble, Serara would provide backup.

When Rundelhaus was in trouble, Minori would use a damage interception spell.

When Isuzu was in trouble, Serara would cast Instant Recovery while Isuzu fell back. The teamwork of combat actions was formed by an accumulation of countless subtle team plays like these.

Would that delicate accumulation come through in this explanation? Shiroe knew Minori’s unease stemmed from that sort of impatience as clearly as if it were his own.

It’s all right. I know. You’re getting through. I know how trivial it is, and how important. …How many small tricks you have to accumulate in order to protect your safety and reach your goal.

“It’s all right. You’re getting through. Everyone else played their part, too?”

“Of course! Serara’s recovery magic is amazing, isn’t it?! She recovers HP several times faster than I can! It makes it hard to stay confident. She has lots of spell variations, too.”

When it came to sheer recovery, a Kannagi (Minori) couldn’t compare to a Druid (Serara). Their approaches to healing allies were different, to begin with. Kannagi, Minori’s class, wasn’t a class that recovered damage. The recovery class’s unique spells intercepted damage, reducing the damage itself to zero.

In terms of recovery performed after damage had been inflicted, Druid would win hands down.

“As you level up, you’ll catch up in terms of spell variations.”

“Will I? …Isuzu is really fantastic. I’m not sure whether you’d call it variations or a repertoire, but she has so many special skills it’s hard to remember them all.”

Isuzu was a Bard, he remembered. In that case, it was no wonder her special skills had so much variation. In fact, it wouldn’t do for Minori to compare the two of them: Having a wide variety of special skills was what set Bards apart. Shiroe chuckled.

“Touya worked hard, too. He held the enemy right on the spot, and he’s learned how to keep from using big moves… Shiroe? Oh, honestly! Are you laughing?!”

“I’m sorry. I’m not laughing. I mean it,” Shiroe answered, laughing a little.

On the other end of the telechat, Minori’s voice was also laughing a bit shyly, so it was probably okay.

“Everyone calls Rundelhaus ‘Rudy.’ Sorcerers really are amazing, aren’t they?”

“He’s unaffiliated, isn’t he?”

“That’s right. He’s handsome, but…a bit silly. He’s also really stubborn and uncool but fun. He’s friends with Isuzu, and he uses incredible magic. On top of that, he won’t give an inch until he’s defeated the enemy. I think he might be the most dedicated member of our group.”

Handsome and silly and uncool and fun and dedicated?

What Minori had said didn’t make much sense, but somehow he understood that he must be a likable guy.

Minori went on to report several other things. That they’d fought with Skeletons. That they’d kept them from pursuing them.

About Touya’s brave combat. Serara’s devotion. Isuzu’s perseverance. Rundelhaus’s daring. …And just a little bit about what Minori herself had done.

Shiroe nodded in response to everything her happy, lively voice said.

The party members laughing at a dumb joke Touya had told, and Isuzu with the tip of her nose all black. The way Serara was head-over-heels for Nyanta, as usual. How Nyanta completely failed to notice it. How when Rundelhaus ate sandwiches, he politely used both hands, for some reason. She made him feel almost as if he’d been there in person.

Time flies when you’re having fun.

After reminding Minori to avoid putting her life in danger, Shiroe ended the telechat. Since Naotsugu and Nyanta were there, he thought it would be all right, but he didn’t feel like taking risks yet.

In the quiet room, after the telechat had ended, it felt as if he could still hear Minori’s bright, happy voice.

There was something terribly strange about this world. At this point, he couldn’t tell anyone that there were risks to dying, but he’d probably have to someday.

Still, even so, they had to get by in this world, and when he listened to Minori’s cheerful voice, it felt as if that would be possible.

5

Sparks crackled and danced.

These were the mountains at the center of Zantleaf.

An open space cleared in the forest. It was the base camp from which Isuzu and the rest were working to capture Forest Ragranda.

Isuzu and Rundelhaus sat by the fire.

There had been more people up until a short while ago, but the others had all gone back to the tents in twos and threes.

They were a week into their invasion. Today was the last day of their first expedition, and they planned to return to the group camp at the abandoned school after noon tomorrow. That meant they’d only be going into the dungeon briefly tomorrow morning.

Isuzu and the others had gotten good at working together, and they’d sat around the fire a little earlier, drinking after-dinner Black Rose Tea with honey. As they cleaned their weapons and armor, they’d chatted with each other. The conversation had wandered, but it had been fun. Nyanta had patted Serara’s head, and Minori had stealthily made a telechat to somebody yet again.

Isuzu had taken her lute out of her pack and strummed it. The lute was a stringed instrument from medieval Europe. It was shaped like a cross between a guitar and a Japanese biwa, and it fit perfectly in Isuzu’s too-skinny arms.

The lute’s tones were flatter than those of a guitar, but there was something elegant about its sound, and it lent an atmosphere of supreme luxury to the camp. Apparently, lutes were a typical portable instrument in this other world. When you strummed it gently—not with a pick, but with your fingertips—the tremulous notes unique to string instruments flowed out.

Wow… Lutes aren’t bad at all, are they…?

She’d taken part in the conversation up until a moment ago, and that had been fun as well, but, Isuzu thought, she really did need music.

Just strumming the strings this way filled her heart with nostalgia and yearning until it nearly overflowed.

Isuzu liked music. She liked instruments in general.

She was a perfectly ordinary country high school girl, and her “like” didn’t mean she had a passion for them, or that she was determined to make a living with them in the future. Conversely, though, precisely because of this, the feeling was simple and sincere.

If she had to say one way or the other, she thought, Oh, it feels wonderful to have an instrument in my hands. I never want to stop playing. She’d felt this way since she was in elementary school.

“You’re quite elegant, Miss Isuzu.”

“Nn. Well, I am a Bard, technically.”

Isuzu raised her eyes, smiling.

Now that everyone had gone, Isuzu and Rundelhaus were the only ones left near the fire.

She didn’t have any particular score in mind; she just strummed chords.

Isuzu had never touched a lute before this. She seemed to remember reading an article in a music magazine that had said it was a European instrument that was the ancestor of the guitar, and that it had been used in the Middle Ages…but until she came to this world, she’d never played one. The basics are the same as a guitar or violin, though.

At Isuzu’s house, they had a guitar and a cheap wood bass, but no violin.

What had given her the most trouble was the fact that the lute had fifteen strings.

Even so, in two months, she’d learned how to play chords. Single-note melodies weren’t a problem, either.

Tin cup in hand, Rundelhaus listened quietly to this session, which couldn’t even be called a performance. His gaze didn’t make Isuzu uncomfortable, and he didn’t interrupt.

The music was like waves that rolled in and receded, over and over.

She hadn’t been playing with a clear song in mind in the first place, so the performance wandered here and there, meandering off on detour after detour. Pop songs Isuzu knew from the old world appeared unexpectedly, then disappeared back into the sea of chords. Classical melodies and the sort of children’s songs that were printed in textbooks surfaced, then dissolved.

There wasn’t any real need for her to stop, but she’d reached a good place for it, so she struck a chord and rested for a bit. Seeming impressed, Rundelhaus began to clap.

“Oh, quit. It wasn’t anything that great.”

“No, it was good. It was as if the notes spilled out and melted into the air.”

Isuzu thought that might have been the case, in a literal sense.

Still, if the sound of the lute had been that pleasant, it was probably due more to the situation than to anything Isuzu herself had done.

In a forest on a night of twinkling stars, seated by a fire, with a slightly cool mountain wind that still held the scents of summer. Under those circumstances, any instrument was bound to sound heavenly.

Isuzu was about to say so, but Rundelhaus’s eyes held nothing but genuine admiration. It didn’t seem right to find fault with that emotion. “Thank you,” Isuzu said, briefly, and let the matter rest.

After that, they returned to idle chitchat.

From time to time, she strummed the lute she held in her arms, as if she was playing with it.

The droplets of sound floated up into the night air, and it made her happy.

“What do you usually eat, Rudy?”

“Toasted sandwiches, or toasted sandwiches, or toasted sandwiches.”

“So, just toasted sandwiches. Do you mean the ones with fish eggs?”

“That’s right, Miss Isuzu.”

These were sold from a mobile shop on the grounds of the train station in Akiba, run by a guild called Ray Parker (abbreviated on menus as RP.jr). They were a small guild, but they prominently displayed the super-popular menu item Mentaiko Toasted Sandwich, and they were making a killing with it. The secret of its popularity was probably the delicious bread they were rumored to bake six times a day.

Isuzu liked them, too; they had items like Mentaiko Potato Salad that focused on ingredients that cost less than meat-based dishes, and they were good at business.

“Those really are good, aren’t they?”

“Mm-hm. The way the fish eggs pop is superb.”

For a while, they talked enthusiastically about food.

As far as drinks went, they both liked the Black Rose Tea that was currently all the rage in Akiba.

Crush Sherbet—made by adding a little honey and lemon juice to water, then having the spirits freeze it—was also delicious. When you wanted a bit of a feast, the breaded pork cutlets from Kitchen Buu were the best.

Isuzu felt unusually talkative.

She knew that she was a plain girl, and she had very few memories of ever having talked with a boy for this long.

Was it because the boy was Rundelhaus?

She took another look at the young man. His eyelashes were long, he was good-looking, and he had the face of an Anglo-Saxon model. In other words, he looked like a prince, and if he’d come to the country school Isuzu attended, there would have been such an uproar that it would have been impossible to hold classes for a week.

However, even when she looked at that face, Isuzu didn’t feel the least bit romantic.

“Hmmmm,” Isuzu murmured.

That’s it! A golden retriever!!

The big, smart, handsome dog that seemed linked to the English aristocracy—Rundelhaus bore a strong resemblance to that sort of canine. His intelligence, elegance, and arrogance fit, too. The way his eyes tilted down at the outer corners, the way he was really kind of dumb when you got to know him, and his friendliness toward people all matched perfectly.

Isuzu’s mind had placed Rundelhaus solidly in the spot meant for golden retrievers.

I see… That’s why Rudy isn’t the least bit scary.

Isuzu loved dogs, and she thought they loved her back.

Being with Rundelhaus felt exactly like taking care of a big dog. That was why she didn’t get nervous, Isuzu thought, and she felt oddly satisfied with the answer.

The conversation turned to regular lodgings. Isuzu slept at her guild house, but Rundelhaus didn’t belong to a guild.

“Fu-fuuuhn. I always stay in the royal suite on the second floor of Siden’s Tavern.”

His conceited manner of speaking sounded just like a puppy’s woofing to Isuzu, and she didn’t mind a bit. Besides, where the taverns of Akiba were concerned, Siden’s Tavern was a bit below average. Its good location made it popular, but its prices and status were only so-so.

Um, no. That’s not really the sort of place you can brag about.

Although the name sounded good, the “royal suite” on the second floor of the inn was perfectly ordinary lodgings for Adventurers, nothing more.

It was quite like a golden retriever to brag about a place like that, Isuzu thought.

Of course that was cute, too.

“I see. By the way, why aren’t you in a guild, Rudy? Aren’t you going to join one?”

“Tying my brilliant talent to one place would be sin itself, wouldn’t it?” Rudy answered, posturing, then gave her a casual wink.

I’ve never met anyone who could wink that naturally before. Rudy’s amazing. …Well, amazing and dumb.

Rudy was dumb, but the decision of whether or not to join a guild was up to individual players.

It wasn’t something for other people to find fault with.

“I see…”

“But you have natural beauty, Miss Isuzu. I’ve never heard such a moving solo performance. You really do seem to love music. …You’re reliable in battle as well. I’d never seen a Bard with a two-handed spear before.”

“G-geez, Rudy. Shut up…” Isuzu shot back.

She’d chosen the two-handed spear only because it seemed to go with something she’d seen in her father’s collection: a rock star smashing his guitar on his amp.

It was a fairly heavy weapon, and even she was surprised at how oddly easy it was for her to use. Wood basses might not look it, but even they weighed about fifteen kilos, so maybe it was only natural that she could swing a two-handed spear around. In other words, she thought, anything was possible with practice.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! I like your spirit, Miss Isuzu! You’re a rare companion; it’s relaxing to be around you. We both live in Akiba, you know. We’ll run into each other even after the training camp. I hope you’ll keep an eye out for me!”

“Mm. Me, too.”

Isuzu nodded, simply.

They weren’t likely to get out of this world anytime soon.

Battles were scary. Sometimes memories of the pitch-black emotions she’d felt when she was in Hamelin came back to her, and it felt as if her chest would be crushed.

Even so, Isuzu had music right there with her, and she had friends. If she couldn’t go home yet, she’d just have to make the present as nice as possible. Isuzu had learned that determination from Minori, and because of it, she was able to accept Rundelhaus’s words at face value.

“Oh. In that case, I’ll add you to my friend list, Rudy. If I hear about any good money-making opportunities, I’ll call you. We also need to go get Mentaiko Toasted Sandwiches sometime. Fu-fu-fu! Okay, adding, adding…”

“Uh—”

Rundelhaus’s face clouded.

It was the expression of someone regretting a mistake.

Of someone reproaching his own naïveté.

Isuzu’s menu screen wouldn’t let her add Rundelhaus to her friend list.

6

The sound of violently clashing swords echoed through the forest.

Sword striking shield.

Ax and spear, each seeking out the other’s weakness.

In one sprint, Shouryuu closed the distance between himself and the Kannagi he was fighting. The young player was level 38, and he’d just taken some distance and begun to chant, preparing to unleash Sword’s Mystic Spell.

Shouryuu added a follow-up attack with Razor Edge, a fundamental Swashbuckler sword skill, blocking the chant as he closed the gap between them.

Coughing, the young player fell. Shouryuu lent him a hand, helping him to his feet.

“I know you want to get some distance before you chant, but if your opponent picks up on your intentions, he’ll stop you. You won’t have to worry about things like that if you’re up against regular monsters, but enemies get stronger, too, you know. You’ll have to get better at teamwork.”

“So I really was too slow?”

“Not too slow, exactly. More like too honest. I’d think about picking up more action patterns.”

The young man nodded meekly in response to Shouryuu’s advice.

By level 40, players were in the Elder Tales middle class. In order to acquire the practical skills needed to reach this level, it was necessary to make it through a considerable number of battles. His level was probably good enough for artisan’s self-defense, but if he was going to get by as a fighting Adventurer in the future, he’d need combat abilities that were more than just window dressing.

Now that Elder Tales was no longer a game, this was an important point that made the difference between life and death.

Adventurers in this world might be deathless, but they did feel pain.

According to players who’d died, the pain was quite possible to endure. They said it was about like breaking a bone, for example, or being hit by a car (although these things hurt far more than enough), but even without the pain, the disadvantages were significant.

For one thing, there was the problem of time.

When Elder Tales was a game, time in this world had moved twelve times as fast. For every two hours that passed in the real world, a day had passed in this world.

This had been a measure taken because of the game’s quests. Some quests had events that only happened at night. If the real world and the Elder Tales world had run on the exact same time, when it was night in the Elder Tales world, it would have been night in the real world as well.

If the system had been run that way, users who could only ever play Elder Tales during the day could never have cleared these quests. Players were humans who lived their lives in the real world, and naturally, there was a regular rhythm to the times at which they played the game.

To accommodate these players, time had been adjusted to run twelve times as fast in the game world, so that one day would pass roughly every two hours.

However, now that Elder Tales had become another world, the players—in other words, the Adventurers—existed inside it. Unlike when it had been a game, they needed to take breaks, and they needed to sleep.

For that reason, they found themselves in a situation where destinations that could have been reached with an hour’s journey when playing the game—in other words, destinations that were twelve hours away—now took a full two days to reach, since the journey included breaks and camping.

Under the current circumstances, with the Fairy Rings and all other methods of travel greatly restricted, that trend was even more noticeable.

Whether they were going to a dungeon or to a zone where high-level enemies appeared, simply getting there was hard.

The upshot was that experience points meant more than they had in the game. The number of experience points required to level up hadn’t increased, but the number of points that could be earned per hour had shrunk considerably. Naturally, it also took more trouble to recoup the property and experience points lost through death.

Considered this way, you could say that battles themselves had become more difficult to approach. Since death didn’t exist, in a pinch, every player was guaranteed the bare minimum of physical safety, but Adventurers who put themselves in combat on a daily basis needed to acquire skills with considerable determination.

The young Kannagi probably understood this. He raised his katana and began running through a sequence of moves, over and over, his expression serious.

Of the recovery classes, the Kannagi class was based on an Asian concept, and it was possible for its members to carry katana.

It wasn’t clear how it worked for the rest of the world, but on the Japanese server, male Kannagi were often called negi—a term for a senior Shinto priest—while female Kannagi were known as miko. The suikan shirt and red hakama appropriate to those names were dedicated equipment that could be used only by players at or above level 40, and they must have been a goal for many players.

Many items in Elder Tales had been added by subcontracting companies, and the Japanese server had lots of exclusive equipment for Kannagi and Samurai in particular. Some—like Sacred Sword—were items that boosted magic abilities, and these were popular with Kannagi who played solo, like this young player.

Shouryuu looked at the young man and grinned.

His form wasn’t bad. Fundamentally, Kannagi was a recovery class; save for a few exceptions, he wouldn’t be able to learn special skills that involved close-combat weapons, but the training itself wouldn’t be a waste. Being able to use both long-range spells and close-range weapon attacks dramatically increased the variety of combat maneuvers. Even among other Kannagi, this could become an advantage.

Just as Shouryuu was about to show the Kannagi one more thing—a practical method of walking—he whirled around as if he’d been stung.

Bad premonitions are always correct.

The gloomy sound of the bell that rang just then was something Shouryuu would probably never forget. It wasn’t a sound from reality. It was a signal sent from the menu.

The ominous sound signaled an incoming telechat.

“Shouryuu?! Come to the beach, quick!”

“What’s wrong, Miss Mari?”

“Sahuagins are comin’ up out of the ocean! The newbies are— ghk. …Hurry!!”

Leaving the telechat connected, Shouryuu yelled to the nearby, young Kannagi: “Get everyone together! It’s an emergency!”

He didn’t know what things were like on the beach.

He didn’t know the sahuagins’ numbers, or their military force.

However, the telechat audio was grainy, Marielle’s breathing was harsh, and he could hear the sounds of battle. The players at the coast were low-level newbies. That meant there were lots of high-level Adventurers there with them, but depending on the enemy’s numbers, there was no telling what the situation was.

What’s going on?! Do sahuagins even appear here?!

“When you get everyone assembled, contact me by telechat. —Check in with me every ten minutes, too!”

Flinging those words over his shoulder, Shouryuu broke into a run. Quickly, he blew his summoning whistle, racing through the grove as if he couldn’t wait for the horse.

Of course, it was important for someone to be here with the midrange players as well. However, the newbies at the coast were thirty levels lower.

Sahuagins were a species of monster.

As their name meaning “green water-dwelling demons” suggested, they were demihumans who lived in oceans and lakes. They looked like fish that had sprouted arms and legs, and their bodies ranged from pale gray to dark blue all over. Most of them had brown spots.

Their heights could be anywhere from 160 centimeters to—for the biggest—over two meters. They probably weighed a hundred kilos, give or take.

They had webs between the fingers of their thick forelimbs, and because they breathed with gills, they were able to live underwater. On top of that, possibly because they could also use their lungs to breathe, they sometimes came up on land.

It wasn’t clear whether the problem was with their skin or the way their bodies were built, but they never went far from the water, which meant this type of monster was very rarely seen in ordinary wastelands or dungeons.

In terms of intelligence, they were on par with goblins, and they often used throwing spears or tridents as weapons. However, that was all Shouryuu knew about them.

He hadn’t fought them very often.

Their levels were…from 20 to about 30, I think…

A chestnut horse had come galloping up beside Shouryuu, and he leapt from his run up onto its back, then spurred it straight for the coast at full speed.

The horse ran.

Through groves bursting with greenery. Through gooseberry bushes hung with berries.

Down field roads through hill country that was marked off like tiles.

Cumulonimbus clouds, the symbol of summer, floated in the blue sky.

What a beautiful sight.

That was what Shouryuu felt, even at a time like this.

Even though the summer was so calm and beautiful…

In his ears, from the open telechat transmission, he heard harsh breathing, clashing swords, and the shrill sound of magic splitting the sky.

Beyond it were the sahuagin’s roars, like gnashing teeth, and the chaos of battle.

He could hear the quiet sound of something dripping… Was Marielle bleeding?

Shouryuu was assailed by a sense of urgency, as though he had a stone stuck in his throat.

The horse raced through the grounds of the abandoned school, now empty, and then made a beeline for the coast. This wide hill road was probably a farm road from the Age of Myth. The rotted utility poles on either side were buried like useless signposts. Leaping over fields of rapeseed blossoms and ridges of greens, Shouryuu’s horse ran hard.

When he reached the coast, passing fleeing newbies as he did so, it was the front line of a battle. There, among members of the Knights of the Black Sword and Keel, Marielle was fighting to protect her companions.

Shouryuu drove his horse in among the sahuagins, kicking down a few that had held tridents at the ready. The high level–exclusive warhorse fought freely, responding to Shouryuu’s expectations.

“Miss Mari!”

“Shouryuu!”

Shouryuu barred the way, shielding the pale Marielle. Shouryuu himself was the leader of the Crescent Moon League’s combat team, so it was his job to fight to protect her. He was up against sahuagins, whose levels were low, but their numbers were so great they buried the coast.

“Miss Mari, get back!! We need to call back the groups that are scattered at area camps. Hurry!!”

Drawing his twin swords, Shouryuu leapt at the sahuagins—whose hideous forms were neither fish nor reptile—with movements as splendid as those of a young classical Chinese opera actor.

He turned himself into a gust of wind, charging again and again, not even avoiding the blue-black sprays of blood. There was no strategy or deliberation here. He only ran at them, threw himself into the melee and cut them down recklessly, striking at anything within reach.

Shouryuu didn’t know yet.

He didn’t know the sahuagins were coming up on land one after another, flooding the coast. He didn’t know this wasn’t an isolated battle, triggered by chance, but the beginning of a crisis like a dark cloud that was assailing the Zantleaf peninsula.

Wielding his twin swords, the boy scattered sparks into the air, fighting simply to protect his companions.

< Log Horizon, Volume 3: Game’s End, Part 1—The End >