Chapter 1: “Catastrophe”

1

Shiroe rounded a stump several meters tall that was just where he’d imagined it would be, then turned the corner of a two-story building that was exactly where he’d remembered. The ground was carpeted with green moss, and only a few scattered patches of the old asphalt showed through. He was running through a bristling forest of ruins, the buildings choked and pierced by enormous, ancient trees. It was the first time he’d seen this place directly, but he had seen it before, and he ran as if he were flying.

There were figures huddled by the roadside. Adventurers in the same boat as Shiroe. Their screams and moans forcibly quelled the terror that had clawed its way up his throat.

It was ego, pure and simple.

“What is this?!”

“I-I… This can’t be right… What’s going on?!”

“S-somebody, get over here! Hey! Admin! I know you can hear me!!”

Their yells sounded like the shrieks of dying animals. The sheer wretchedness of it all helped Shiroe hang on to the ghost of his presence of mind. He didn’t want to start screaming like that. The feeling was all that kept Shiroe running.

My body’s moving the way I tell it to. My arms and legs aren’t quite the right size; that’s why it feels weird… Good thing it wasn’t a huge difference.

The town of Akiba spread out before him.

Akiba: hometown to many players and the largest city on the Japanese Elder Tales server. A riot of vines grew through the asphalt, twining around and through the jumble of ruined buildings. The buildings seemed to fuse with trees that were older than time and blessed by the spirits. Shiroe knew the place so well he felt something akin to homesickness for it.

“Akiba? —Like hell! Have I gone nuts?! Somebody, anybody, answer me!” The men crouched nearby were yelling. Every last one of them was dressed like someone from a medieval fantasy world, in armor or loose cloth robes.

That was only natural. Elder Tales was the world’s largest massively multiplayer online game, set in a world of sword and sorcery.

But it was supposed to be just a game.

The wind that rushed past Shiroe’s cheeks was cold and damp and brisk, as if he was deep in the forest. It was nothing like the dry, astringent air of Tokyo, where he really lived. The green scent on the wind told him that, wherever he was, it wasn’t the world he knew.

Shiroe gave his head a shake, thinking back. He’d been playing Elder Tales. He remembered sitting at home, at his desk, immersed in the game unfolding on the LCD monitor.

Elder Tales was a venerable, old game that had been around for twenty years. The content and rendering engines had been updated to the latest versions time and time again, of course, but it was the treasure trove of data and the sheer depth the game had acquired over its long run that made it such a hit with users.

Today was supposed to have been a red-letter day: the application date for the twelfth Elder Tales expansion pack. Today, data that players had downloaded in advance would be unlocked, giving the world of Elder Tales new items and zones, new monsters and battles, and—most important of all—raising the level maximum.

Since it was the day of the expansion pack introduction, there were bound to have been a ton of players linked to the game world. Shiroe had no way to check the actual numbers, but he could see from his friend list that many of his comrades had been online.

Shiroe was a veteran Elder Tales player. He’d been playing the game for eight years, ever since middle school.

This gigantic network game had more than 100,000 fans in Japan alone. Worldwide, more than twenty million people were crazy about it, and it had fascinated Shiroe for a very long time.

Of course Shiroe had been looking forward to the new expansion pack, too, but the idea of acting like a giddy newbie embarrassed him, so he’d decided to just play the way he normally did. He’d been looking out for a pair of twins lately. From what he could remember, he’d gone to a beginner’s area to help them practice hunting, given them a little advice, and had been telling them about items.

At that point, there was a yawning gap in his memory.

He seemed to recall watching some sort of demo.

Letters of flame gleaming on a black screen.

A sky brimming with sticky asphalt darkness that scrolled past at ferocious speed, with a white moon like a hole cut out of the blackness.

…And that was all.

Now he was here, running through the streets of Akiba, real legs—his own legs—pounding the ground.

A lilting tone, like xylophone notes, rang in his ears. The familiar chime signaled the arrival of a telechat. Shiroe narrowed his eyes, concentrating his attention on his forehead, and chose “Select” from the menu that appeared in his mind’s eye. He’d learned that particular operation just after being dropped into this game world, as soon as he’d gotten over the initial panic.

“Shiro, where are you?”

“Almost there.”

With his old friend’s voice in his ears, Shiroe turned right again, rounding the corner of another ruined building that looked ready to come tumbling down.

There was a damp smell on the gentle wind. The wind made a clear, brisk sound as it brushed through the treetops. And that bright light… It was the weightless sort of light that only appears in early summer. There in the chilly wind, rather than the heat of sunlight, it seemed to be an endless white blast, pure and overwhelming in its intensity. Under that early summer light, the ancient trees and buildings cast jet-black shadows on the dark soil and asphalt of the avenue. The contrast was beautiful.

The landscape that spread out before Shiroe was Akiba, his hometown in the game world. He’d seen it too many times to count, but now it completely enveloped him, bringing with it an overpowering sense of reality that was beyond the capacity of any game.

He was there, running through the middle of it on his own two feet. With every step, he felt himself slide as the wet moss crumbled beneath his shoes. He could feel his heart pushing blood into every last corner of his exercise-warmed body.

This was undeniably reality.

The town of Akiba was just as Shiroe remembered it. The buildings that seemed on the verge of crumbling, the barracks tavern with its many annexes that had been built at different times, the great trees with roots that ran across the road… This was the Akiba of the game: The sacred ground of an ancient people, coexisting with the green forest even as it slowly sank into it. A hometown for players in the eastern area of the crescent-shaped archipelago Yamato, it was located in Eastal, the League of Free Cities, and was the central city of the Japanese Elder Tales server.

Shiroe ran down the central avenue, turning at the corner of a three-story combination inn and tavern. The crumbling ruins were concrete buildings. All sorts of buildings and landmarks from the real-world Akihabara—SUFTEC, Yashikayama Electric, Kuruta Tower—had been recreated inside Elder Tales as ruins from another century.

Sleeping remnants of that ancient time were scattered all over this world. Some were enormous underground ruins, others were towers that soared into the sky, and still others were towns like Akiba.

It was a strange sight: A log annex clinging to a gigantic concrete structure that had nearly turned to rubble, and all of it wrapped in the embrace of an ancient tree. As Shiroe reached his destination, Naotsugu got up from where he’d been sitting on a fallen chunk of concrete and came to meet him. The light that angled in through the gaping windows, long empty of glass, shone down on the two with a crystal clarity impossible for any game screen to render.

Naotsugu’s face was pale, but even so, he grinned and smacked the hilt of his sword. He had a sturdy build and stood a bit over 180 centimeters. Right now, he looked for all the world like a battle-hardened warrior: He was wearing steel armor that looked formidably tough, if plain, and he carried a shield on his back.

“Hey, Shiro!”

“Naotsugu. I, uh… Good morning.”

Shiroe didn’t know quite how to respond to Naotsugu’s greeting, and he ended up sounding brusque.

The standard version of Elder Tales was equipped with a voice chat function that let players talk to their friends while they gamed, using a microphone and speaker connected to their computer. Some users didn’t like audio chats, preferring to type instead, but Shiroe and Naotsugu hadn’t been among them. That meant Shiroe was very familiar with Naotsugu’s voice.

Naotsugu Hasegawa. When anyone asked Shiroe whom he could count on in this game, that was one of the first names that came to mind.

Online games are played over the Internet, and Elder Tales belonged to the massively multiplayer (or multiuser) category. In these games, anywhere between several hundred and several thousand users access the same game space and play simultaneously. In other words, the games are designed to let players encounter throngs of other players in the game world and either cooperate or compete with them. Shiroe had played Elder Tales for many years, and naturally, he had quite a few acquaintances in the game.

However, acquaintances made in the game world tended to stay there. Although it depended on play styles and individual mind-sets, almost no users played under their real identities. Network crimes had continued to rise since the year 2000, and protecting personal information was just common sense, something one did in order to survive in an online society.

That didn’t mean it was impossible to make real friends.

Naotsugu knew Shiroe’s real name. He was one of the few players to whom Shiroe had given his real-world contact information, and they’d even met outside the game in real life.

…All of which meant that hearing Naotsugu’s voice was a relief to Shiroe. He was one of the players Shiroe was closest to in Elder Tales. Although they’d met off-line a few times, they’d blown far, far more time on dumb conversations held online through their monitors. As members of the Debauchery Tea Party, Shiroe and Naotsugu had spent countless days and nights traveling to endless outlying zones and plunging through battles together.

They’d had all sorts of empty-headed conversations. They’d even had confidential talks about trivial things, the sort of talks that made the friendship seem too close to have been formed through a game.

To Shiroe, this cheerful, reliable voice meant “Naotsugu.”

“So what’s the deal? Did Elder Tales actually evolve this far while I was gone? It’s so awesome it’s kind of a turnoff. I don’t think you could do all this by improving particle systems or rendering engines. Could you? I mean, is this some kind of joke?”

Naotsugu’s big mouth was set in an irritated line. Even that cheerful voice of his, the one that was always talking back, seemed a bit gray and subdued.

“Seriously, this is out of my league. I give up.”

Shiroe nodded vaguely, then raised the staff he held.

…Check that out. It’s a staff. An actual staff.

The staff was the sort commonly found in fantasy games: made of wood, taller than Shiroe, and quite obviously meant for a Magician. It looked as though someone had taken a gnarled branch, polished it up, and added decorative metal bits for reinforcement. Anyone who wanted to see something like this in the real world would have had to go to a costume shop.

Possibly because he’d picked up on Shiroe’s silent gesture, Naotsugu looked down at himself. He was wearing heavy-duty steel armor that looked as if it weighed several dozen kilos. He carried a shield on his back, and there was a sword in the embellished sheath that hung at his side. He could have been a warrior straight out of a fantasy tale.

“…Well, I guess I look like a cosplayer, too.”

“Yes. Yes, you do.”

They both laughed, and although you couldn’t have called it cheerful laughter, it wasn’t subdued, either.

“You know, though… You really look like yourself.”

“So do you.”

Each of them looked the other over carefully. Fundamentally, both looked like their Elder Tales game characters, but the original characters had been polygon graphics, far from photo-realistic. Now, both were physically there and as detailed as reality.

A closer look revealed that the game hadn’t simply been translated to real life. Both the male and female characters in Elder Tales had been designed to be good-looking. The slick modeling was a natural marketing response to user demand: Very few users would willingly pay money to play a game in which they were homely.

That said, Naotsugu didn’t just look like a real version of his handsome Elder Tales polygon model. Shiroe could see traces of the real-world Naotsugu, the one he’d met several times.

“Your face looks kinda like you, Naotsugu.”

The striking vertical scar that had bisected one of the game character’s eyebrows was gone, and he could make out the real Naotsugu’s bright eyes, tilted slightly downward at the outer corners, and the boyish smile that made him seem younger than he was.

“You, too, Shiro. You’ve got that creepy sanpaku-eyes thing going, so it’s like you’re always glaring, and you look like some kind of honor student with those glasses.”

Shiroe had heard similar things about his face from acquaintances for as long as he could remember. Apparently they were true for this version of it, too. Shiroe tossed his usual response Naotsugu’s way: “Just drop it, all right?”

“What’s actually going on? If you know anything, spill it, you shifty Machiavelli-with-glasses.”

“I’d love to tell you, but I’ve got no idea.”

Shiroe didn’t have much information on the current situation, either.

Shiroe and Naotsugu had kicked away the scattered chunks of concrete and were sitting down. This building was much closer to the center of Akiba than the area on the outskirts of town where Shiroe had woken up a short while ago. If he listened hard, he could hear the uproar from the city center as a faint murmur.

“Well, first off… This isn’t a dream. Right?”

“Right.”

Shiroe nodded.

When he’d come to, he’d found himself in a familiar place, but it wasn’t a place that existed in reality. It seemed to be the world of the game he knew like the back of his hand. Elder Tales was set in a world of sword and sorcery, which players journeyed through using Adventurer characters they’d created as alter egos. The body Shiroe currently inhabited was the one the game character Shiroe had used.

That said, it seemed to have acquired a resemblance to the real-world Shiroe.

“What about your status?”

“I checked.”

Because Elder Tales was a game, Adventurers were equipped with various quantified abilities, such as physical strength and stamina. In the game, players used icons to select status displays for their abilities and every possible action from a menu.

In this world, a simple look around showed no signs of any game-related display. However, if they focused their attention on their foreheads, a range of data displays and icons appeared, layered over whatever they were looking at. Within thirty minutes after regaining consciousness, both Naotsugu and Shiroe had discovered that they could mentally move the cursors to select items.

Immediately afterward, they’d noticed the telechat function. This function could be used to contact friends who were also playing the game but were far away. In other words, it was the Elder Tales version of a cell phone. However, it could only be used with acquaintances registered to a player’s friend list.

When Shiroe—concentrating on his forehead and struggling desperately with the unfamiliar operations—had discovered Naotsugu’s name on his friend list, he’d been so startled and glad to see it that he’d yelled aloud. Naotsugu had been surprised when Shiroe contacted him, but he’d readily agreed to meet at a nearby ruin.

“………”

“………”

Silence. Both Shiroe and Naotsugu were thinking of what to tell the other and where to start, but the answer was already clear. Shiroe probably knew a bit more about the circumstances than Naotsugu. As far as Shiroe knew, Naotsugu hadn’t accessed Elder Tales for two years.

Shiroe told Naotsugu everything he knew, although that wasn’t much. There were all sorts of things he could tell Naotsugu about the two years he’d been away from the game, but Shiroe knew nothing about the background or cause of the impossible incident they’d gotten caught up in.

He knew they’d been about to introduce the new expansion pack, Homesteading the Noosphere. He knew he’d been playing with some newbies near the city when he’d gotten dragged into this mess. He knew that this place looked just like the town of Akiba, his starting point in Elder Tales, that they seemed to have the bodies of their game characters, and that they’d inherited the characters’ equipment and items as well.

Come to think of it, I wonder what happened to the twins? —I’ll have to check on them later.

He also knew he knew nothing at all about whatever had caused all this.

While Shiroe talked, Naotsugu listened quietly. He asked questions about a few topics he wasn’t familiar with, but he didn’t interrupt with his own ideas.

Shiroe wasn’t partial to noise. Not that he hated it when things were lively; he just didn’t like chaotic uproar. Naotsugu may have been cheerful and easily carried away, but he wasn’t such an idiot that he couldn’t listen when people were talking. Their personalities were different, but—possibly because each had enough leeway to match the other’s pace—they got along surprisingly well.

“…Huhn. Hm. A different world, huh? —Some other world, and we got sucked in. Everything turned real…”

“What were you doing here, Naotsugu? You came back?” Shiroe asked.

“Yeah. I heard about the new expansion pack. Things had settled down at work, and I thought I’d log in and see what was up.”

—A comeback.

Naotsugu came back, Shiroe thought. He was trying to come back…

If he recalled correctly, Naotsugu was two years older than he was. They’d met about four years ago. By then, Shiroe had already been a senior Elder Tales player. Guys who’d been messing with computers since middle school weren’t rare, but even among them, Shiroe was an extreme indoors type. Specifically, even when he went outdoors, he was mentally indoors: a kid who always managed to be on his own, even in a crowd.

He moved on to high school, then to college, but his interests stayed the same, and there was hardly a day when he didn’t journey through virtual space.

By that time, Elder Tales already had a certain special standing among online games. It was so good that gamers told other gamers, “If you want to play a really solid game, play Elder Tales.”

For example, Elder Tales housed the Half-Gaia Project, a crazy-sounding plan on a mind-boggling scale. It was a project to create a half-sized version of Earth.

The town of Akiba, the initial starting point for players on the Japanese server, was located in Tokyo’s spot on the Japanese archipelago. The initial starting points on the North American server were Big Apple and South Angel. The terms “Japanese server” and “North American server” were just for convenience’s sake: The unified network formed by the multiple servers that connected to these two made it theoretically possible to journey to a different continent or the ends of the earth. In other words, it was possible to immigrate to another server. This was a tough thing to do in regular MMO games, and it was one of Elder Tales’s selling points. Of course, the Half-Gaia Project was a very long-term goal, and at present, the in-game Gaia wasn’t a complete replica of the world.

In Elder Tales, the world was divided up into zones. A zone was a unit used to express area or range within games. There were vast field zones haunted by vicious monsters like the Fuji Sea of Trees, dungeon zones that acted as the stage for adventures like the ruined Shinjuku station building, and noncombat areas like the Akiba urban zone. There were even tiny zones the size of hotel rooms. Some zones were available for purchase and could be bought by a player who’d saved up enough in-game currency.

The zones were connected to each other in various ways. Since the borders between field zones were invisible, with one zone flowing seamlessly into the next, players tended not to pay much attention to exactly which zone they were in. If one was on the move, they’d cross into the next zone long before noticing. Other zones were sometimes clearly partitioned. For example, if a building or room acted as an independent zone, it was normal for a door or gateway to function as the threshold between zones.

To the best of Shiroe’s knowledge, the Japanese server already administered several hundred thousand zones, and the developer had spread the game all over the world through multiple subcontractors. In a game this vast, players like Shiroe who’d been around for years and had commensurate knowledge were considered reliable and convenient. As a result, over the course of his gaming career, Shiroe had been approached by all sorts of guilds. He’d joined one for a short while, just to see what it was like.

Guilds were teams of multiple players, and the most common type of community in Elder Tales. Players who joined a guild were given access to an exclusive guild account at the in-game bank, were able to use safe-deposit boxes for easier item receipt and delivery, and could take advantage of several convenient services. It was easier for guild members to contact one another and to put together parties when leaving on an adventure. Belonging to a guild was convenient and profitable, and as a result, many of the players in Elder Tales joined up.

Shiroe had always been the type to get totally immersed in whatever interested him, and on top of that, he’d read everything he could find on the overseas versions of Elder Tales. Even among players who’d been around for the same length of time, he had an exceptional amount of knowledge. No doubt the guilds had seen him as a useful recruit.

No single player had a perfect grasp of the game’s innumerable zones. Even Shiroe’s memory couldn’t handle that much information. Still, just knowing about the main traffic routes, the way various zones were linked together, and the Fairy Ring transport devices was enough to shorten travel time. It was also important to constantly accumulate knowledge on what sort of items were sold in which zone and what sort of monsters appeared where.

Elder Tales was an imaginary world created from a jumble of innumerable zones that held countless types of items and monsters, commissioned adventures known as “quests,” all sorts of folklore and ancient knowledge, and an enormous assortment of other elements that the developers had dreamed up.

However, Shiroe hadn’t been able to get used to relationships built around convenience and profit and loss. He’d grown up a bit now, but at the time, Shiroe had been far more willful, still very much a kid, and—embarrassingly—obsessively conscientious.

Shiroe wasn’t good at relying on people, but he wasn’t bad at being relied on by others.

Just because he wasn’t bad at it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

Online games attract all sorts of people. Where there are people, there are human relationships, and not all of those relationships are pretty. There are countless ugly ones as well, and they were too much for a middle schooler like Shiroe.

A little while after joining the guild, Shiroe realized that the people around him were using him as their own personal solutions site. Even though Shiroe’s level was already high, he was being shuffled this way and that like a jack-of-all-trades and loaned out to help other players battle. Shiroe couldn’t get used to that sort of relationship, and he wasn’t able to deal with the other members. He’d left the guild and, ever since, had stuck to temporary relationships or adventured on his own.

Before he knew it, Shiroe had become a lone wolf. Since he had quite a lot of knowledge and level status for a loner, he’d also become fairly well-known, and as if in proportion to the notoriety, he’d become a rather jaded player.

Shiroe had met Naotsugu after his skills had improved and after he’d given up on guild ties and journeyed alone for a while, just about the time he’d grown numb to the loneliness. They’d met at the notorious Debauchery Tea Party.

The Debauchery Tea Party was not a guild. It was the Debauchery Tea Party, no more, no less; there really were no other words to describe it. To an objective spectator, it looked like nothing more than an accidental group of players who’d just happened to be there. Even if they “just happened to be there,” though, they were there, always, at any time. —That was Shiroe and his friends.

They were from all sorts of guilds.

Their personalities were all over the place.

They had nothing whatsoever in common.

Even so, Shiroe and the others met sometimes in ruined buildings, sometimes out on the plains, sometimes on hills under a sky of falling stars.

They met, and they adventured.

Elder Tales was a medieval sword-and-sorcery fantasy. There was an idea—so common among players that it was practically treated as official background—that the Elder Tales world probably came a few thousand years after the present-day world. According to the in-game folklore, an enormous war had broken out and destroyed the world, which had then been miraculously rebuilt by the gods. It was a pretty common fantasy game creation myth.

Of course, the world swarmed with all the usual monsters: orcs and goblins, trolls and hill giants, Chimeras and Hydras. Most of players enjoyed battles. Fighting monsters, earning experience points, leveling up, and acquiring rare and powerful items was the most common way to play Elder Tales.

However, that was “battling” and “getting items.” It wasn’t “adventuring.” The Debauchery Tea Party was where Shiroe had first learned that fighting battle after battle and adventuring were completely different things.

Then, too, she had been a regular fixture at the Debauchery Tea Party, along with friends who supported her. Shiroe had been a solid part of that group.

At the Debauchery Tea Party, Shiroe had found what were probably his very first friends in Elder Tales. One of those friends had been Naotsugu.

2

“If you were thinking about coming back, had things calmed down at work?”

“Yeah. Finally. I tell ya, it was a crazy year.”

The Debauchery Tea Party had been active for two years. Those two years were the happiest, most fulfilling years of all the time Shiroe had spent in Elder Tales. However, due to a variety of overlapping circumstances, the Debauchery Tea Party had closed its doors, leaving several legends in its wake.

One of the triggers had been Naotsugu’s departure from the game. One winter, things had gotten busy at Naotsugu’s company, and he’d had to stop gaming for a while. As luck would have it, several other members had also had to leave the game around that time due to personal matters.

The Debauchery Tea Party hadn’t been a guild. Since it wasn’t a guild, none of the relationships in it had been formed around shallow profit and loss. Although they were all old enough to be embarrassed by the idea and would never have said it aloud, Shiroe and the other members had really treasured one another.

That was why the Debauchery Tea Party had suspended its activities indefinitely, even though no one had specifically suggested this. They’d considered inviting new friends and keeping the Tea Party open, of course, but that would have been another adventure, another story.

It had been sad to see the group dissolve, but none of the members hung their heads and mourned. They’d shared lots of adventures and enjoyed themselves more than anyone else. That was compensation enough.

“I finally got used to the job; thanks for asking. It’s been going pretty well, actually… I guess one thing does have me worried: There’s not a single cute girl at my company.”

“Big deal. Who cares about that?”

Shiroe shrugged off Naotsugu’s complaint.

If ever there was a good guy, it was Naotsugu. In terms of true grit, Shiroe was confident that Naotsugu was much braver than he was. Sometimes he was too brave. Shiroe couldn’t recall a single situation that had been enough to stop Naotsugu from joking around.

“What’s with the glare? Moody perv.”

“I’m not a moody perv.”

“No, trust me, you’re a moody perv. There are two types of guy in the world: liberated, ‘open’ pervs and introverted, moody pervs. I’m the open kind, and I love girls’ panties. You’re the moody kind, and I know—know—that you love panties, too.”

Shiroe grimaced at that outrageous theory… Not that he was actually upset.

For as long as he’d known him, Naotsugu had picked up on the atmosphere in situations and tossed oddball topics like that one around to lighten the mood. Besides, although he’d rather not deal with anything too glaringly raunchy, Shiroe was a healthy, young adult male and not entirely uninterested in the opposite sex. He liked to think he wasn’t narrow-minded enough to let a petty line like that one make him mad.

“Well, yeah, I— I mean, sure, I like girls, but I wouldn’t take just any girl.”

“Hey, I know what’s inside the package is what’s important. I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting worked up over the package, too, you know? …But under the circumstances…”

Naotsugu heaved a big sigh.

“Yeah.”

Shiroe nodded. He knew all too well what Naotsugu meant.

“Work may have calmed down a bit, but I sure didn’t ask for a vacation in some other world,” Naotsugu cracked, trying to make light of the situation. “Seriously, are we even gonna be able to get back?”

All of the countless players who’d gotten dragged into this world were no doubt asking themselves that exact same question. The fact that Naotsugu was able to joke about a question that was so heavy it made it hard to breathe just went to show how mentally tough he was and how considerate he was toward Shiroe.

“I think what we have here is one god stepping down and another one taking over. The new god has the brain of a delusional thirteen-year-old.”

“Talk about a grim situation. Just look at all this. The world’s gone completely around the bend. What kind of a party is this, anyway?!”

“Right. It’s probably best to assume we won’t be going home anytime soon.”

“…And a merciless view of said grim situation. Wonderful.”

“Only people who want to die add mercy to grim situations.”

“Now that sounds like the Tea Party strategy counselor I know,” Naotsugu wisecracked.

He shook his head a few times as if resetting his mood, then continued, his expression more serious. “All right. For now, I’ll give up… So, what next? This is one of those stock fantasy novel situations, and we’re going to have to survive from here on out, right?”

Shiroe nodded reluctantly. From what he could remember, he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. He’d gone through his daily routine, taken a bath as usual, logged in to Elder Tales as usual, practiced hunting with the new twin players he’d met the other day, then been knocked out by something he hadn’t seen coming. He couldn’t remember anything else. He’d been doing pretty much the same things he usually did when he’d been forcibly pulled into this world, or dragged into this situation. There might have been some sort of cause or error on his part in there somewhere, but under the circumstances, there was no way of knowing.

In addition, even if there was some way to get out of this other world (or situation), Shiroe didn’t know what it was, at least not right now.

That meant that, whether they managed to find a way to get back to the world they’d left or simply waited to be sent back by the same sort of accident that had pulled them into this world in the first place, they’d have to survive here until it happened.

“It’s possible that we’ll wake up back in our world if we die here, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it. It would be a little like those guys who are sure the world’s going to end, so they go and borrow a hundred million yen from a loan shark.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t sound like a genius move. If we really just died, we’d just be dead. Loser city.”

“Exactly.”

“Still, we shouldn’t have much of a problem with the survival part. Right, Counselor Shiro?”

“You don’t think so?”

“Well, no. We’re level ninety. We might have a problem getting through a super-tough zone, but if we’re talking about just surviving, it shouldn’t be that hard. We’ve even got money. Equipment, too… Mine’s kinda old, but it’ll do. See? No problem.”

The Elder Tales RPG included a level system. At level 90, Shiroe and Naotsugu had reached the highest level there was, but it didn’t make them exceptional. Almost half the game’s players were at level 90. Elder Tales had a long history, and like most online games, it had added several hundred expansion packs with all sorts of new elements over the course of that history. Shiroe hadn’t experienced it firsthand, but he’d heard that when Elder Tales was first released, the highest level had been 50. Fans had loved the game, and they’d wanted to keep adventuring even after they’d hit level 50. An expansion pack had been released in response to the demand; in addition to adding new enemies, dungeons, and adventures, it had raised the level maximum to give the heroes more room to grow. The level maximum had been raised several times since then, until it had reached the current level 90. The last increase had been part of the Sacred Heart expansion pack released three years ago. There’d been an announcement that, with the Homesteading the Noosphere expansion pack, the level maximum would rise to 100.

That meant many players had plenty of time to level up their Adventurer alter egos. It wasn’t at all surprising that, right now, just before the release of the new expansion pack, about half the players had hit the level maximum.

“……I’m not so sure about that.”

“Why not?”

In spite of the circumstances, Naotsugu didn’t seem discouraged. Shiroe envied his optimism. He didn’t have that particular type of resilience.

What he did have right now was a vague uneasiness. As if spurred on by that unease, he mentally began pulling words together.

“I don’t know whether this is some other world or the world in the game, but either way… Just the fact that we’ve been pulled into it is weird.”

“Huh? Well…yeah. What about it?”

“I was just thinking. If things were normal, it wouldn’t have been possible for us to wander into another world, but we did. Since something impossible has happened already, we can’t trust the normal things to behave the way they usually do. In that case, if we believe we’ll be able to survive the way we could under normal circumstances, we’ll probably get hurt.”

At Shiroe’s words, Naotsugu looked taken aback for a moment. Then he pulled a very unpleasant face. “That’s one ugly syllogism.”

“Still…I think we need to face facts.”

“Yeah, but…”

Naotsugu flexed his hand, opening and clenching his fist, as if uncertain about whether or not it was safe to trust his supposedly level-90 body.

“One other thing. Since all this has been going on, I’d forgotten about it, but they’ve probably introduced that new expansion pack by now.”

“Homesteading the Noosphere? That one?”

“Right. If we assume the new expansion pack has been installed, then there’ll be new zones, plus new items, monsters, and quests. They may even have redesigned existing zones.”

“Now that you mention it…I guess so.”

Shiroe had looked away from Naotsugu, but the words kept coming. “It looks as though I can use spells without any trouble, but if I use them straight from the spell book, I have to select them from the menu first. That’s slow, so it would be dangerous in the middle of a fight. I checked, and if I register shortcuts, I just have to say a short chant to use them.”

“Yeah. I know what you’re talking about; I checked to see if I could use the sword techniques I’ve got registered a little while back.”

“That doesn’t mean we’ll be able to win a battle, though.”

“It doesn’t?”

“About how tall are you, Naotsugu? In real life, I mean.”

“A hundred and eighty-three. Same as my character.”

Naotsugu waved one hand, skimming it over the top of his head.

“I see. I guess it wouldn’t feel that weird for you, then. My height’s a few centimeters off, and it feels pretty strange. It feels…a bit like I’m wearing shoes with really thick soles, I guess. If the lengths of your legs and arms are different, it makes things feel weirder, I think. There’s a gap between these bodies and our real ones. In other words, these bodies aren’t the ones we’re used to. Even if we can use sword skills and spells, if things feel this odd, I don’t know how well we’ll be able to move in an actual fight.”

“Oh. Yeah, there’s that. Trouble city. Pain in the butt.”

“…And on top of that, under the circumstances, it won’t be easy to keep an eye on our statuses.” Naotsugu looked puzzled, so Shiroe explained.

“It’s true that if we concentrate on our foreheads, we can see the status screen. If we form a party, we should be able to check each other’s HP, but it’s not going to be easy to keep a close eye on our statuses when we’re fighting. I might be able to manage, but you’re usually out on the front line facing down enemies. It’s going to be hard to pay attention to status when you’re out there trading blows.”

“So battles will be pretty tough?”

“It’s probably safer to assume so.”

Although Shiroe didn’t bring it up, their vision would pose a big problem, too. When playing the game on a computer, it was possible to pull back and view the situation from a wider perspective. Under the circumstances, though, they’d only be able to see the 120 degrees directly in front of them.

When they fought trolls, hill giants, or other huge enemies, they’d be dealing with blind spots unlike anything they’d had to field before. Battles would pose a mountain of problems.

“Is that all?”

“…Not quite.”

“Well, what is it? Is it hard to talk about or something?”

Shiroe was startled by the sound of his own troubled sigh. To be honest, all the issues he’d spoken about before—problems with battles, differences between their current situation and the game—were trivial. They’d be tough to deal with, certainly, and they’d make battles more difficult, but he didn’t think any of them would be impossible to overcome. He’d detoured onto those topics to buy himself time, because the subject still to be broached was an unpleasant one.

“C’mon, Master Counselor. The suspense is killing me. Speak.”

Naotsugu always called him that, but Shiroe didn’t feel cut out to be a counselor. He was talking about all sorts of things now, but only because he was talking to Naotsugu. Ordinarily, Shiroe was far more likely to worry about this and that on his own privately. The Debauchery Tea Party had nicknamed him “the Counselor” because he tended to take all the details into consideration, and since he was good at talking, they’d handed him the roles of negotiator and strategist. That was all.

“—There are about 1.2 million characters registered on the Japanese Elder Tales server and about 100,000 active users.”

“Yeah? Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Just about everyone who played Elder Tales was familiar with that number.

“Since they released the expansion pack today, I assume more players were logged in than usual. I’d estimate that there were about thirty thousand users on the Japanese server. From the percentage of people on my friend list that are logged in, that’s probably a fairly accurate guess. If that’s true, it’s safe to assume that about thirty thousand Japanese users got dragged into this other world, and we still don’t know what’s going on with the American, European, or Chinese servers.”

Naotsugu nodded.

“In other words, there are at least thirty thousand people here—”

Shiroe intentionally avoided saying gamers.

“—but no government and no laws.”

3

Afterward, Naotsugu and Shiroe decided to go into town together. They’d tried to talk things through, but there was no getting around the fact that they had a fundamental lack of information. Right now, they needed all the information they could get. What had passed as common knowledge when they were just playing Elder Tales might not be true anymore.

Just to be on the safe side, Naotsugu and Shiroe formed a party. Parties were one of the Elder Tales communication functions: Teams formed to do battle together. Unlike guilds, they were temporary associations. As a party, they’d be able to check each other’s HP and see whether or not the other’s status was abnormal; if they were in the same zone, they could tell how far away the other was and in which direction.

The town of Akiba was a noncombat zone. The instant a player tried to do battle in Akiba—whether they were fighting another player or a non-player character—all the guards in the town would converge on them, and they’d be teleported straight into jail. If a player attacked a guard, they would be considered guilty of rebellion against the security forces and destroyed on the spot.

There were lots of characters in Elder Tales who weren’t players, such as the people who lived in the towns. The game system referred to them as non-player characters, but in the game itself, they were called People of the Earth. Most of them were either shopkeepers who sold a variety of wares or personnel in charge of guild registries and other service facilities, and if you talked to them, they’d give you information or quests to perform.

Since some of the formidable guards were over level 100, no player stood a chance in a fight against them. The town was also an area where monsters never appeared, so when Elder Tales was just a game, Akiba had been considered one of the safest zones in the world.

Outside the abandoned building, a wind like the beginning of summer—warm with a slight edge of moisture—was blowing across the town. There was the smell of damp earth, and the leaves and grasses rustled faintly as the wind stirred them. It all seemed so natural that Shiroe felt his awareness that this was a game begin to evaporate. The world his five senses showed him was overwhelmingly real, and the feeling that this was another world grew stronger while the idea that it might be virtual reality faded.

Rounding a bend in the alley, they emerged onto a wide four-lane road. On the corner, a smart building made of composite materials stood like a monolith. Akiba’s main intersection. Beyond it, the plaza in front of the train station. Every structure was either covered in vines or had already toppled and ceded its place to huge, ancient trees.

The place felt nothing like the high-tech, steel-and-glass Akihabara of the real world. The colorful signs and gaudy light-up decorations were broken, leaning drunkenly or snapped in two, and the buildings were supported by enormous ginkgoes and elms that had grown up right beside them.

The roads had nearly vanished under the soil, and while traces of asphalt could still be seen on the main streets, the backstreets were covered in damp earth, leaf mold, and jade-green moss, like trails in a nature park. A hybrid car, abandoned aeons ago, had rusted out, become overgrown with weeds, and now provided shelter for small animals.

Still, even in this pitiful state, Akiba was beautiful. It wasn’t a polished, stylized beauty, but the buildings were surrounded by all the shades of green there were, and even as ruins, they seemed full of life. Players and non-player characters had staked claims to the mixed-use buildings and moved in, and the temporary shops and stalls they’d set up lined the streets like stands at a bazaar in a warm southern country. This was Shiroe’s hometown, the Akiba he knew from Elder Tales, in the flesh.

Under ordinary circumstances in Elder Tales, the plaza in front of the station would have been an incredibly lively place, filled with players who were setting up stalls to sell their items to other players or killing time while they waited for companions to arrive so that they could leave for a quest or a battle.

Now, though, the atmosphere in the plaza was one of bewilderment, confusion, and muddled irritation. Even a quick glance showed that several hundred players had gathered there. Shiroe sensed eyes watching him from the ruined buildings that overlooked the plaza, from several narrow alleys—even from the elevated railroad tracks that had collapsed and were beyond use.

They’d probably gravitated here looking for help of some sort. Maybe they were hoping one of the administrators would suddenly appear in the plaza, give them a rundown of what had happened, and say, “That concludes the event. What did you think? Wasn’t it fantastic?”

Even the players who were clinging to that fragile hope seemed afraid to talk openly with people they didn’t know. Even here, out in the plaza, conversations were far more hushed than usual. The majority of the crowd was clustered in small groups here and there, casting wary glances at the people around them. Once in a while there was a sob or a yell from someone who’d reached their limit.

Although they might not have been consciously aware of it, everyone seemed to have realized that, under the circumstances, there was no telling what might happen. However, even then, no one was trying to do anything constructive, a fact that vaguely irritated Shiroe.

How long are these guys planning to just sit here doing nothing? Are they for real? …Whoa. Shiroe flinched and glanced away. He caught me looking.

The player’s eyes had seemed to be pleading for something, radiating misery. Shiroe didn’t consider himself all that delicate, but he certainly didn’t like having someone stare a hole in him with dull, leaden eyes.

…And besides. It’s irritating. The player crouched there, pleading. Complaining without trying to do a thing for himself. Not that he’d expected otherwise, but having several hundred players here like this—shoulders limp, heads drooping—was bound to be bad for mental health.

Shiroe himself was only able to do what he was doing because he’d gotten through the first rush of anguish before he had time to really feel it and because talking with Naotsugu had calmed him down. He was well aware that there wasn’t that much of a difference between him and the players who were just sitting here waiting for help.

That knowledge only amplified the irritation.

“Shiroe? Shiro, kiddo!” The voice belonged to a woman. Her call hadn’t been all that loud, but in the sunken, gloomy mood of the crowded square, her bright, bell-like voice stood out sharply. Shiroe whipped around as if he’d been stung, searching for the voice’s owner.

“Mari, Mari. Not so loud. Y-y-you’ll stand out.”

Shiroe tugged at Marielle’s arm.

“Standin’ out can’t be worse than blendin’ in with all these funeral goers.”

Marielle—a female player nicknamed Mari—kept talking, paying no heed to Shiroe.

“Perfect timin’. I was lookin’ for you, kiddo.”

“…You were? Um. Why?”

“Whoa. Check out the babe. Shiro, where’ve you been hiding this one, you panties perv?!”

“Naotsugu, forget the panties for now, all right?”

They were headed away from the plaza toward an alley where they’d be a bit more sheltered from prying eyes. Not that they were planning to do anything shady; it was just hard to stomach the atmosphere in the plaza. Add the fact that Marielle was even more well-known than Shiroe, and being careful of their surroundings seemed like a good idea.

“Draggin’ me into an alley like this… You’re growin’ up, kiddo.”

“I have no intention whatsoever of doing anything like that.”

“…Aw. You got yourself a girlfriend, huh? Sniffle, sob.”

“That’s not it, either. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. Oh, and this is Naotsugu.”

“This is definitely Naotsugu. I’m Shiroe’s friend… And you, miss?”

“I’m Marielle. Call me Mari or Sis. Wow! Naotsugu, hon, you sure look sharp! Are you two a stage act?”

Marielle was giggling. Shiroe gave her a hard look, trying to figure out what she’d actually meant, but he couldn’t see anything like malice in her beaming face. He was forced to conclude that she’d been serious, which left him with absolutely no idea how to respond.

Marielle, who even in this ghastly situation was somehow managing to turn her smile on both of them, was a Cleric. There were twelve classes in Elder Tales, and all players had to choose one before starting on their adventures. Cleric was one of the three Recovery classes, and it had the greatest curative powers.

Healers had high survival abilities but low attack power. They were in their element when adventuring with a party, and conversely, they weren’t good at acting alone. Since the principle of the Recovery classes was to help others, they tended to attract shy, quiet people. Marielle was the exception to the rule.

A white healer’s robe and long, wavy green hair. Elves tended to have attractive, regular features; this had been true before, too, when Elder Tales was a game. Of course, in the game world, everyone was good-looking, but even then, for some reason, certain men and women were more popular with other players than most. Elder Tales’s voice chat function had made this even more apparent than normal, and Marielle’s cheery Kansai dialect and her eagerness to help out had made her a widely recognized player. Her popularity was based on her unreserved candidness, and it was closer to that of a school idol than a girl who attracted guys right and left.

Marielle had no feminine clinginess about her, and both guys and girls adored her. Unlike Shiroe, who had acquired his many acquaintances as a natural consequence of his long gaming career, Mari was good at looking out for people and had lots of friends in the truest sense of the word. As the leader of the Crescent Moon League guild, she looked after several dozen companions, and since she was constantly holding feasts in the taverns of Akiba, she had a reputation as one of the best sources of information in Elder Tales.

“You look like you’ve been thinkin’ too hard about mean stuff, kiddo.”

“…Well, um…”

Shiroe wondered a bit uneasily whether his face really did look that sour. Under the circumstances, expressions were bound to be rather grim, but he was more worried about the phenomenon he’d noticed after the incident occurred: the one where physical characteristics from the real world were reflected in this one.

In the real world, people said Shiroe had mean eyes, and he had a bit of a complex about that. It was one of the reasons he was still waffling about making the switch from glasses to contacts. He was afraid it would make his eyes seem even more hostile.

Now that Elder Tales had become another reality, being told that he looked like he’d been “thinkin’ too hard about mean stuff” flustered him. It made him feel as though people had found out about his real-life mean eyes.

But even Mari doesn’t look quite…

He snuck a glance at Marielle, looking for changes. Her face clearly wasn’t a typical forest elf’s face.

“Well, I do sympathize. Even I feel like looking gloomy. Today’s been much too much, if you ask me. I think I might go bonkers if I quit jokin’ around.”

Bright hazel eyes. Her elfin face, which should have looked aristocratic, now had eyebrows that were a bit on the thick side and a smiling mouth that was a little too big. Even that was enough to make it seem warm, friendly, and much more like Marielle. Shiroe had never met Marielle in person, but he could tell with startling clarity that this was her.

“What’s with that look, hm? …Aha. You’re thinkin’, But she’s always like this, aren’tcha!”

Marielle poked Shiroe’s forehead with a finger.

“Normally, I joke around because I like it. What I’m doin’ now is active escapism. This is just insane, y’know. I have no idea what to do.”

“Shiro. Is this lady always like this?”

“Mm-hm. Always. Exactly like this.”

“…And this is what she’s like when she’s faking it.”

“Apparently. I can’t tell the difference, either.”

Naotsugu had been caught off guard by Marielle’s words, but he seemed to have slowly come to grips with the idea that this was just who she was. Noticing his discomfort, Marielle laughed. When Shiroe and Naotsugu looked at her, though, her laugh faltered. She gave a small sigh.

“…Well. Right… This really does beat all, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does. Should we trade information?”

“Probably we should. Now, where to start…? Ah, no, wait. It’s better to be careful, isn’t it? Let’s go back to my place. You okay with that, Naotsugu?”

Marielle was inviting them back to her guildhall. Agreeing that it would be easier to relax once they were there, the three detoured around Fleig’s Tavern and made for the guild center.

Every town had guild centers. In many cases, they were big multipurpose buildings, which housed several different facilities, and in Akiba, the building itself was set up as a zone. Several non-player characters were busily working away in the entry hall. They were guildhall employees, and they could carry out the procedures for establishing a guild if spoken to. They were also tasked with registering nonaffiliated players to guilds and with handling the paperwork for players leaving their guilds.

The building held a bank branch as well. All players had accounts at this in-game bank, which could be used to store money and valuables. Renting out guildhalls was another important role the guild center played. Guildhalls were independent midsized zones, with combined office and living spaces that ranged in size from three to ten rooms.

In Elder Tales, some zones were available for purchase and could be bought by individual players. Since anyone who purchased a zone could change the settings for that zone—restricting access so that only specified players were allowed to enter or leave, for example—many players bought small or midsized zones to use as residences. Although it was called “purchasing,” any player who wanted to buy a zone had to pay an additional one–five hundredth of the initial lump sum every month as a maintenance fee. For that reason, it wasn’t a practical proposition for any player who wasn’t fairly well off.

The concept behind guildhalls was similar: They were dedicated zones that could be purchased by guilds, and it was standard for guilds that were above a certain size to have a guildhall in the guild center. These halls could be used to store trophies and materials won in monster battles and items manufactured by the guild and as a meeting place for guild members.

No exception to the rule, the Crescent Moon League had a space in the guild center.

Shiroe and Naotsugu went up a wide staircase to the guild center’s second floor. After registering as guests in front of a big set of double doors, they entered the Crescent Moon League’s guildhall.

Inside, the guildhall had the standard shabby-office look of all the rented guildhalls in the Akiba guild center. Technically, it was only the flooring and wallpaper that made them seem “standard.” Players who purchased or rented zones were free to decorate them any way they liked. The members of the Crescent Moon League kept their guildhall spick-and-span, and they’d refurbished it to make it more comfortable. The walls had wood paneling added, and it gave the place a warm, homey feel.

“See? We won’t be bothered here,” Marielle said and led them deeper into the guild.

4

“C’mon in. Go ahead, sit anywhere. You, too, hon. Just pick a spot.”

In a room deep inside the guildhall, Marielle threw herself onto a sofa that was buried in fluffy pink cushions and gestured for Shiroe and Naotsugu to sit.

“This is a pretty estrogen-heavy room.”

“Sure is. After all, I’m the guild master. The leader’s room should exude the leader’s dignity.”

Pink cushions. Teddy bears. A canopy bed. A tapestry with a picture of an enormous dog with its chest puffed out in a self-important way. Curtains edged with beige lace. The room looked pretty undignified to Shiroe, and he was finding it hard to relax. The room would have been nothing if he’d seen it on a game screen, but now that he was actually inside, the atmosphere was overpowering.

Part of what made it so uncomfortable was that it felt like someone else’s personal space. The fact that it belonged to free and easy Marielle softened the edges a bit, but if this had been a lady’s private room, he would have been getting ready to beat a retreat.

This was Shiroe’s first visit to the guildhall, but he thought the place was probably pretty expensive. This whole room—which, although a bit too frilly, was fairly spacious—was reserved for the guild master’s use, and the hall held another five or six workrooms and storage rooms.

I’d say… forty thousand gold coins for the initial cost and eighty for the monthly maintenance fee, he estimated.

“How do things look on your end, Mari?”

Marielle must have checked ahead of time because she answered without hesitation.

“There were nineteen of us online, includin’ yours truly. Eighteen of us are in Akiba. They’re all feelin’ a bit lost and lonesome, so most of ’em are here at the hall… Oh, don’t worry. They won’t hear us unless we start yellin’.”

Eighteen in Akiba… Did that mean the last member was in another zone? When Shiroe asked, it turned out that the last member had just happened to be away and was currently in another city.

“From what I hear, things look about the same in Shibuya, Minami, Susukino, and Nakasu.”

That meant all five major cities on the Japanese server had been affected. Marielle had probably checked in with her wide network of friends using the telechat function.

“Hey, don’t tell me the gates aren’t—”

“Afraid so,” Marielle answered Naotsugu. “The intercity transport gates aren’t workin’… We’re all cut off from each other.”

That was new information.

Akiba, Shibuya, Minami, Susukino, and Nakasu were the five main player cities on the Japanese server. There were several other towns—towns with shops inhabited by non-player characters—but the services in these five cities were the most complete by far.

The five cities had been added with various expansion packs and had been designed to act as starting points for beginning players. This meant that all the players on the Japanese server had chosen one of these five cities as their hometown and base of operations. Each of the cities held a transport gate that linked it to the others, allowing players to travel instantaneously from one city to another… But now these gates weren’t functioning.

“So we could maybe get to Shibuya, but it’ll be pretty tough to get to the other cities.”

“Well, and even Shibuya’s… How far is it again? I think you’d have to cross seven or eight zones to get there.”

“Four at best,” Shiroe said absently.

If the gates between the cities weren’t working, it was a big problem.

In Elder Tales, a game designed to look like a medieval fantasy, the main modes of transportation for Adventurers were walking or horseback. However, in this half-sized virtual Earth, home of the Half-Gaia Project, traveling that way would take far too long. For that reason, players had been provided with Fairy Rings and the transport gates that linked the cities.

The gates had been placed only in player cities. They were teleportation-style devices designed to allow travel between cities with almost no time spent in transit. If those gates were off-line, it would be much, much harder to reach distant cities.

For example, Susukino was located where Sapporo would be on a map of the real Japan. Anyone who wanted to go there from Akiba (Tokyo) would have to cross a vast number of zones. Even in the game, it would probably take more than a week. Of course, that would be a week in game time, but under the circumstances, game time was the only time there was.

“Say, kiddo. Any idea how things got this way?”

Shiroe and Naotsugu were silent. They had no answers, but at the sight of Marielle’s slightly discouraged face, Shiroe wished he’d been able to tell her something. As things stood, it was a question he simply didn’t have the strength to answer.

“…It’s all right, miss. Cheer up. Things are obviously pretty bad, but they’re not half as bad as they could be.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Marielle sounded dejected.

Naotsugu kept going, speaking firmly in an attempt to cheer her up.

“Maybe we’ve gotten pulled into some other world, but there must be several thousand Japanese in here, y’know? If people from the other servers are here, too, that’s several hundred thousand of us. With that many people in the same boat, it’s nowhere near as bad as it could be. We all speak the same language, and we’ve got some assets on hand. I mean, look, we’ve just gotten exiled, and we’re able to be here, with a roof over our heads, talking. We haven’t checked into this yet, but we think we might be as strong as our characters, and we can probably use magic and sword skills. In other words, we’ve already got the minimum of what it’s going to take to survive here. Compared to the fantasy standards like being marooned in another world or getting exiled to another dimension, we’ve got it pretty good. Talk about an easy win.”

“You know a lot about stories like that, Naotsugu?”

“Yeah, I’d say I do. I read all sorts of stuff when I was a kid.”

Even as he asked that pointless question, Shiroe felt his respect for Naotsugu grow. He was right. Shiroe seemed to have fallen into the habit of seeing the glass as half-empty, and it had left him unable to see the bright side of things.

“I see… Wow. You’re so right!”

Marielle seemed to feel the same way as Shiroe. She looked at Naotsugu, her face flooded with gratitude, and suddenly grabbed him and pulled him to her.

“Yes! Well said! That was impressive, hon! I’m real touched! You’re a lifesaver!”

“Whoa— Wha?! Wh-wh-what’s with this lady?!”

Pressed to Marielle’s ample bosom, Naotsugu struggled, flustered, but Marielle only hugged him harder, shaking him like a puppy with a toy.

“Mari? Do we have guests?”

A woman knocked and entered. She wore glasses, and when she saw Marielle and Naotsugu, she looked terribly embarrassed.

“Hello, Miss Henrietta. We’re intruding.”

“Not in the least, Master Shiroe. It’s good to see you. Shall I come back later?”

“I’d rather you stopped her, actually.”

“Yes, absolutely. —Mari, that’s enough! Would you think before you do things like that?!”

Henrietta, the woman who’d entered the room at Shiroe’s request, was in charge of the guild’s accounts. She grabbed Marielle’s shoulders and pulled her away, scolding loudly.

“Whoa! Henrietta? Listen, I just heard somethin’ fantastic. This sweetheart here said the most amazin’ thing! Absolutely wonderful!”

“That is not what we’re talking about now! I can’t believe you! At a time like this! Think about the situation!!”

Shiroe chuckled a little, both at the sight of Naotsugu—who was limp and red-faced—and at Marielle and Henrietta.

Henrietta was one of the Crescent Moon League’s executive members, and she and Shiroe had met before. She was a Bard, in charge of the guild’s accounts, and a terribly competent individual. Since she wore glasses, too, Shiroe had always felt a secret kinship with her. Now, on seeing the other-world version of Henrietta, he realized that sense of kinship had been all in his head.

Henrietta’s wavy, honey-colored hair framed an oval face, and although both her features and her light brown eyes were sharp, she was quite beautiful. Not only that, but it was the beauty of a capable secretary. There was something a bit librarian-esque about her clothes; they accented her graceful, mature beauty and suited her very well.

It seemed a little like blasphemy for a game-crazy college student like Shiroe to even look her in the eye.

Since Henrietta had joined them, they reviewed their conversation up to the point where she’d come in and briefly reported their individual circumstances—that said, it had been only half a day since they’d found themselves in this world, and none of their reports revealed any new information.

* * *

“So… What should we do?”

“For now, I think we’d do best to stay in close contact with the rest of the group and concentrate on avoiding confusion,” Henrietta said.

It was a very levelheaded decision, and Shiroe agreed. Unless they avoided thinking about the distant future and concentrated on doing what they could right now, he felt as if they’d go under.

“They’re right, Mari. Both Master Shiroe and Master Naotsugu are entirely correct. Fortunately, we have the guildhall, and I think we should all… Yes, I know it will be a bit cramped, but it would be best if the whole group slept here.”

“True.”

Henrietta and Marielle’s discussion seemed to make Naotsugu break out in a cold sweat.

“What’s the matter, Naotsugu?” Shiroe murmured.

“Nothing!” Naotsugu said in hasty denial. “It’s just way too sudden, that’s all.” Although he was always tossing around risqué comments, apparently even he wasn’t good at handling direct attacks.

“What’s wrong, hon? Don’tcha like boobies? Wanna touch?”

At Marielle’s cheery words, Naotsugu quickly averted his eyes. Probably because he was indeed a guy, he did keep sneaking glances anyway.

Well, Mari’s gorgeous, and she has an excellent figure, Shiroe thought. I can sympathize.

Marielle had put Shiroe through this, too, back when they’d first met. Of course, Shiroe had held out obstinately—“…Yes? What are these fatty growths? They’re heavy. Get them out of my face”—all the way to the end. Ego, once again.

Back then, of course, Elder Tales was still just a game. Things like this had been limited to suggestive talk and getting two characters together on-screen, and by now—possibly because she’d grown tired of it—Marielle didn’t tease Shiroe much.

“Why is this lady so open about this stuff?! It’s freaking me out.”

“Mari went to an all-girls school. This is how native Osakans turn out if you don’t dilute them with something else… Mari?! Things like that were fine when this was a game, but right now, we’re in a state of emergency! Control yourself!!”

Marielle took Henrietta’s scolding with dejected meekness. The fact that she would let herself be scolded, even though she was the guild master, was one of her good points.

Shiroe wasn’t currently part of a guild, and even now he had a vague mistrust of the entire system, but he certainly didn’t see all players who belonged to guilds as enemies. He’d hated the guild system, yes, but that was several years ago, and although he still had some doubts about it, by now he’d accepted it for what it was. He’d been in several parties with Marielle and Henrietta, and Marielle had used her wide network of acquaintances to help him out on occasion. Shiroe had a hunch that cheerful busybody Marielle had noticed that he was a coward about relationships and tended to keep his distance from people and that she tried to make things easier for him.

Mari’s more of a grown-up than I am. Just like Naotsugu… Well, not exactly like Naotsugu.

Marielle wasn’t doing any of it to keep Shiroe in her circle of acquaintances so she could use him or profit by the relationship. She was doing it because that was the sort of person she was and because she couldn’t help looking out for people. Shiroe didn’t think it was something she did especially for him, either; she probably did similar things for everyone around her.

Although I do wish she wasn’t quite so…touchy-feely… Oh. Maybe that’s it. She acts a lot like Naotsugu. That could be why she took to him so easily…

It was probable that the members of the Crescent Moon League had gathered simply because they liked Marielle. Leading close to twenty members and being attentive to all of them was a truly monumental responsibility. Marielle was a good-natured, trustworthy player, and so Shiroe thought it was probably best to tell her what he could predict about the situation in as much detail as possible.

While Marielle listened to what Shiroe had to say, she paid extra attention to the things they’d need to keep in mind during battle and asked several astute questions. When he mentioned the number of people who were probably on the server and that there was a good chance that trouble would break out among the players, her face clouded.

“I see… You’re right. That’s a huge possibility, come to think of it. We might end up dealin’ with fraud and harassment, as well as straight-up violence…”

Unlike Shiroe, who only had to look out for himself, Marielle had friends she’d need to take care of. On top of that, she was a woman.

“—Hey, that’s right! Listen up, lady! Don’t go doing stuff like— Like that thing you just did, without thinking about it. Use your common sense, or go find some. There’s nothing good about being featherbrained.”

“Ack?! You’re so right! I’m heavy boobed but featherbrained! —But I don’t see what gives you the right to tell me that, seein’ as we just met. Mean ol’ Naotsugu! Dummy! Dummy!”

“No, Master Naotsugu has an excellent point. I insist you fix that girls’-school habit of hugging people indiscriminately, Mari.”

“Aw, who cares?! Nobody, that’s who! And anyway, what’s this fancy-schmancy Henrietta business, Umeko-in-real-life?!”

“Yeeeeeeeghk! You promised you’d never tell!!”

…Apparently Henrietta and Marielle knew each other outside Elder Tales as well. Shiroe had been telling them some pretty serious stuff, and wondering how much of it had actually gotten through was giving him a headache.

“Honestly! That’s enough time wasted on that foolish girl,” Henrietta said pragmatically. “Now, I suppose a prompt resolution is…”

“Probably not in the cards,” Shiroe answered. “I don’t think we should hold our breath.”

“Isn’t there anythin’ we can do?”

Marielle frowned, knitting her brow. She didn’t seem able to accept the idea. Shiroe knew exactly how she felt, and he’d already thought about that particular question. As a result, he’d decided to split up the responsibility of gathering information with Naotsugu, the way they were doing now.

At the moment, they knew very little. However, although gathering information was high on the list of things he and Naotsugu could and should do, it wouldn’t necessarily be top priority for everyone. Unlike Shiroe, Marielle was a guild master. Naturally, that meant there were more people she had to protect, but it also meant there was more she could do.

Although guilds were common in general, there were all sorts of different styles. Differences in activities, goals, and scale resulted in a huge variety of orientations. In terms of activities, the most common type of guild was the fighting guild. These were guilds formed to provide backup in battles—one of the highlights of Elder Tales—and the focus of member activities was battling in open-air and dungeon zones. The guild’s role was to make it easy to find people to fight alongside you that day, otherwise known as party members. It was easier to recruit people you already knew, and it often made team plays go more smoothly.

As the biggest player city on the Japanese server, Akiba boasted a large population. Its most famous fighting guilds were the Knights of the Black Sword, Honesty, D.D.D., and the West Wind Brigade.

Another type of guild was the production guild. In addition to the main classes, which determined players’ fighting styles, Elder Tales offered various subclasses. Players who belonged to production-type subclasses and used their skills to create items were known as “artisans.” The levels for main classes and subclasses were independent of each other, and although it was possible to level up both at the same time, some players preferred to spend their time quietly in town, using their subclass skills to play at being merchants. Players like these joined production guilds. Such guilds tended to be large, since the things players expected of them—bulk purchase of materials and warehouse storage—could be performed to better advantage if there were lots of people involved. The most famous production guilds in Akiba were probably the Marine Organization and the Roderick Trading Company.

Marielle’s Crescent Moon League was a small adventure support guild. Adventure support guilds provided assistance for battles, production, or whatever their members wanted to do. Since they didn’t specialize either way, their members didn’t benefit quite as much. However, they compensated for this shortcoming with a relaxed, homey atmosphere, and in fact, most small and midsized guilds tended to be adventure support guilds.

The Crescent Moon League was a relatively well-known example. It lacked the name recognition and clout of the big fighting guilds, and it couldn’t match the revenue or scale of the big production guilds, but it had an established reputation for support for midlevel Adventurers and for being light on its feet.

“For now, I think protecting yourselves should be your first priority.”

“What he said. From what I saw, there are a lot of girls in this guild, right?”

Henrietta nodded in response to Shiroe’s and Naotsugu’s comments. Although the town was a noncombat zone, under the circumstances, there was no telling what might happen… And that was assuming the noncombat settings were still in place. Until they managed to check, they had no guarantee that that was the case.

We’ll have to find some way to look into that later.

Shiroe made a mental note.

“Next, I think you should temporarily pull your items from the market.”

“Huh? The market? And why’s that?”

“Ah… Yes, you’re right.”

Markets were a service provided in all major cities by specific non-player characters. Players were able to sell off their items at will by giving them to these non-player characters and setting a price. Although there were many ways for players to do business with other players, the market was an extremely simple, handy way to sell off surplus items and items players had made.

“The Crescent Moon guild has quite a lot of raw material, doesn’t it? I’d assume many of your members have put items on the market privately, too. In a situation like this, prices can change drastically, even for old items. They may have acquired new effects, or someone may find a brand-new way to use them. If you have some money on hand, I’d pull back for a while and keep an eye on market conditions.”

“Okay. Roger that. You’re right.”

“Then, too, we won’t be able to check the Internet anymore.”

Marielle and Henrietta nodded meekly.

When Elder Tales was just a game, Shiroe and the others had played it while seated in front of monitors. That meant they’d been able to casually surf the Internet while they played, and most players had. Elder Tales was an enormous, unbelievably complex game. Because no one player could ever know everything there was to know about that world, solution sites had been players’ constant salvation.

Maps and characteristics of all sorts of zones. The routes that connected them. The monsters and items that appeared there. Where players had to go to find non-player characters and what types of non-player characters they’d be. Having all this information in front of them as they played the game had been the most common way to play Elder Tales.

Of course even solution sites were far from all-powerful. Still, they often discussed popular areas and places where players could earn money efficiently.

They also listed dangerous places that players would do well to avoid.

“It’s weird for me to say this since we came to trade information, but information is going to be one of the most valuable things we have from now on. You remember there’s a new expansion pack, don’t you?”

“Homesteading the Noosphere? Yep.”

“That’s the one. We’ll need information, not just on the new zones the expansion pack added, but on zones and towns that were already here. We can’t check solution sites if we get bogged down now.”

“True…”

And so, after that, the four of them drew a schematic diagram of the zones around Akiba based on the information they remembered.

Although the Japanese server held tens of thousands of zones, that figure included single inn rooms, small abandoned buildings, and private zones like the guildhall that were rented out to players. There were far fewer field zones (forests, hill country, ghost towns, ruins, and other outdoor areas) and dungeon zones (the insides of old subway tunnels and gigantic structures). “Fewer” was a relative term, of course: There were several thousand at least, and even Shiroe couldn’t claim to have a sufficient grasp of all of them. However, he did have eight years of gaming under his belt, and he knew his way around the world of Elder Tales much better than most players. Naotsugu had been out of action for a while, but he knew quite a lot about the older zones. Marielle and Henrietta also checked their memories against each other, and the end result, while terribly incomplete, was a zone schematic.

They’d filled in quite a lot of zones on the map, drawn lines to show the connections between them, and written in several hundred names with a focus on the field zones they visited frequently. There was no telling whether they’d still have to investigate each of these places one by one, but even this sketchy map was better than nothing at all.

“Thanks a bunch, kiddo. You, too, Naotsugu.”

“It’s the least we could do. We’re already imposing on you.”

“Yeah, and it’s not like we did much anyway.”

“No, it’s a big help. I know Shiroe’s a good kid.”

Marielle sent Shiroe a smile like a sunflower in full bloom.

Mari has the greatest smile. Even when she’s tired, even when she’s irritated—I really should try to learn from that.

“I couldn’t possibly leave you to fend for yourself, Mari.”

Shiroe had done his very best, but as usual, he’d missed the mark.

“Wha…?! Now even you’re sayin’ it! Oh, that is it. It’s curtains for me. I’m pinned as the featherbrained, dumb-broad character for sure. What’ll I do, Henrietta?!”

“Why not concentrate on sex appeal?”

Shiroe hastily averted his eyes.

“Wanna touch my boobs? Cop a feel?”

Having been turned down flat by Shiroe, Marielle tried her luck on Naotsugu, who was sitting next to him. Wordlessly, Naotsugu smacked her on the head.

“D-did you just hit me?!”

Shiroe assumed Marielle probably used suggestive lines as a way to hide her embarrassment, but now that he was thinking about it, he realized it might explain Naotsugu’s off-color comments as well. Seeing Naotsugu respond this way was funny.

“Don’t you ever learn, you panties woman?!”

“Don’t say ‘panties’! What’s wrong with you anyway, hon?! Are my boobs really that bad?! Are you treatin’ me like some old lady?!”

“You make no sense. What’s this ‘old lady’ business? We’re pretty much the same age, right?”

Naotsugu whispered his birth date to Henrietta who nodded.

“Mari’s three years older.”

“There, y’see? I’m old! …I’m bad inventory. That must be why Naotsugu’s gone to the bad. Just look at him! He defies me, he treats my poor boobs like they’re wrinkly old puddin’…”

On the sofa, Marielle whined, kicking her legs like a little kid throwing a tantrum.

In a way, it’s really impressive that she can care about stuff like that at a time like this.

Mildly appalled, Shiroe thought that Marielle was the only one who’d be able to expend this much energy over anything on the first day of their exile in another world. However, unexpectedly, Naotsugu kept lightly patting Marielle’s head as she fussed. He looked as if he was trying to comfort a large dog, but gradually, Marielle did calm down.

“…In any case. I should be going. I’ve already taken up a lot of your time… I’ll go see what else I can learn about the situation.”

Shiroe stood, giving a slight bow to Marielle, who was still inclined to sulk, and the sober Henrietta.

“Yeah. I’ll go with you… ’Scuse us, ladies!”

It had been more than half a day since the disaster. Some enterprising soul might have fought a monster or two by now. When Shiroe and Naotsugu said their good-byes to the two on the sofa, Henrietta said politely, “I’m sorry we weren’t able to show you better hospitality.” In contrast, Marielle stood up from the sofa where she’d staged her tantrum, looked Shiroe and Naotsugu square in the eyes, and made a proposition.

“Listen, kiddo. You, too, hon. So, um… It’s probably gonna sound like I’m tryin’ to take advantage of the situation by askin’ this now, but… Would you two join up? Join the Crescent Moon League, I mean.”

Her voice held a very uncharacteristic hesitation.

“Well, and look, I know. I’m well aware that you don’t feel at home in guilds, kiddo. —Everythin’s different now, though. I don’t think joinin’ up would be a bad idea. You, too, Naotsugu. From what I can see, you haven’t signed on with anybody yet… What about it?”

Her troubled expression shifted into one of persuasion. Her voice betrayed no intention of using Shiroe and Naotsugu or of trying to strengthen her own guild. There was nothing in it but simple, unaffected kindness.

However she’d taken Shiroe’s silence, it made her wave her hands hastily and continue on.

“We’re a pretty laid-back guild. We won’t tie you down. We won’t do anythin’ you wouldn’t like, kiddo. You’ve been through a few dungeons with our younger ones, remember? You know, the Shinjuku subway, Nakano Mall… I don’t know why you aren’t in a guild, Naotsugu, but the Crescent Moon League is… Well, I think it’s a pretty comfortable place myself. What do you say?”

Her green hair swayed across her white healer’s robe. To Shiroe, the gentle movement seemed like a visual expression of the consideration she was showing them.

“……”

Wordlessly, Naotsugu looked at Shiroe. The look clearly meant, “It’s up to you.” Do we settle down here? Do we stay freelance? It’s your call.

Shiroe wasn’t a middle schooler anymore. He could forgive the people who’d used him as a soulless tool all those years ago, and it wasn’t that his feelings about it were still muddled and confused. Still, something he couldn’t put into words kept him from taking the plunge.

“Mari, I’m sorry. I really can’t.”

“I see… Okay, then. No help for that.”

Marielle’s disappointed look lasted only an instant before it was replaced by her usual smile. As always, the smile was bright as a sunflower, and it made Shiroe feel as if he’d been rescued.

If they managed to get back to their world, either through some divine miracle or by sheer coincidence… If Shiroe happened to pass Marielle on the street, he was sure he’d recognize her. The healer’s cloak and the luxurious green hair might be nothing more than Elder Tales polygon data made real, but Marielle’s smile was hers alone. It was nothing anyone could ever imitate.

It certainly wasn’t anything a game program could reproduce.

“If you ever need anything, ask us. We’ll help.”

“Yeah. Any time you need a good Guardian, just yell.”

“Will do. Thanks, kiddo. Thanks, hon. You, too: If you need anythin’, call me.”

Shiroe and Naotsugu waved good-bye, wishing they had Marielle’s particular brand of strength.