1

After Raynesia’s departure, a chaotic despondency ruled the conference room. Krusty, the Round Table Council representative, had gone with Raynesia. Shiroe, who had struck the Lords’ Council as a counselor and a moderate, had gone as well.

The only remaining Round Table Council envoy was Michitaka, who seemed like a resolute hard-liner.

The Lords’ Council was also unsure where to bring down the fist they had raised. Rather, in the first place, although they’d raised their fist, it was questionable whether they actually managed to bring it down at all. Those with the ability and the will to handle the situation at the conference had gone, and their purpose was confused.

During the discussion that followed, poor Baron Clendit completely lost his ability to preside as the chair. He turned pale and red by turns, the desperate care of his retainers proved useless, and at last, gasping feebly, he requested permission to retire.

Although theirs wasn’t as severe as Baron Clendit’s, all the lords were harboring the same sort of confusion to a greater or lesser degree.

As a result, at around midnight, the conference was temporarily adjourned.

In the corridor, Michitaka exhaled deeply.

This couldn’t be more of a pain in the butt.

In the first place, although Michitaka was in charge of a merchant guild, he wasn’t particularly skilled at fine negotiations. He was the sort of guy who thought that a merchant’s job was to make good things, sell them at fair prices, and open up new markets, and nothing else.

And anyway, I’m a blacksmith…

He still considered himself an active artisan. Even now that he was on the Round Table Council, he plied his hammer every day. Now that the number of players heading to high-level dungeons had fallen off, the magical materials needed to create magic items were running thin and things were a bit dreary, but it wasn’t impossible to work around.

Michitaka’s opinion of himself was that he’d just happened to like hanging out with other people and hadn’t had any aversion to talking, so his friends had kicked him upstairs.

He’d probably sounded like a hardliner to the Lords’ Council, but as far as Michitaka was concerned, he’d only been giving a bunch of rude idiots an earful, and he didn’t feel any ill will toward the League of Free Cities as a whole. He’d been against sending soldiers mostly because that was the role he’d been given, out of the three Round Table Council members. Personally, he wasn’t actually against contributing troops.

In any event, he was a production player. Compared to the Adventurers who would leave the town to fight with the expedition, he was in very little danger of dying. Even when the war began, it was likely that he and his guild would simply provide logistical support from Akiba. He couldn’t deny that, privately, he felt guilty about someone in a position like his easily approving of war.

Grousing now that things are in motion, huh…?

He shoved thick fingers into his black hair, scratching at his head. He was in a rotten mood, and he really couldn’t stand it.

Michitaka walked down the long, deserted corridor, trailing a man from his guild behind him. At the corner of the corridor, he casually glanced out at the terrace. There wasn’t any real significance to it. It was only that, as he’d turned the corner, the moonlight had been shining in, so he’d looked that way.

“Master Soujirouuu. These egg sweets are delicious, too.”

“Master Soujirou, listen to my story, too!”

“You’re tired, Master Soujirou. I’ll sing you a gentle lullaby, so please nap for a little while…”

There was a magnificent sofa on the moonlit terrace, set up as a place to be used for tea parties. On it sat Michitaka’s comrade Soujirou, guild master of the West Wind Brigade, surrounded by People of the Earth princesses and ladies-in-waiting. For some reason, Michitaka was assailed by a feeling of desolation.

The dark clouds that hung over Akiba’s future and had weighed on his mind, his own guilt, and that indescribable unease… None of it seemed to matter anymore.

Compared to the aura that hung around Soujirou and that view, worrying about the Round Table Council and the League of Free Cities seemed truly pointless.

Aah, I bet my face looks like something somebody scribbled with their left hand…

Without approaching Soujirou, Michitaka turned his steps toward the area that held his own room.

So, that was it for tonight. What should he do about tomorrow?

Michitaka began to think these things, but in a moment, it was clear that such a laid-back development wouldn’t be happening.

Waiting in front of the division the Round Table Council was borrowing was Raynesia’s grandfather, Duke Sergiad Cowen. The old duke—whose retinue consisted of a single knight who was holding a lamp—bowed to Michitaka silently. It had been a very long conference. There was no way he wasn’t tired, but the old duke’s aura betrayed no fatigue. Michitaka respected him for that.

The duke spoke briefly to Michitaka: “Shall we?”

Guessing what he was after, Michitaka began to walk, leading the way.

He invited him into the small conversation room where the Round Table Council—Krusty, Shiroe, and Michitaka—routinely held their meetings. The “small” was only in relation to the standards of the palace: To the Japanese Michitaka, the conference room, which was really two rooms and could be partitioned off at the center, looked big enough to live in.

When he motioned for him to sit, took tea out of his bag and poured him some, the old duke seemed very slightly startled. There was no way someone like the duke didn’t know about magic bags, and Michitaka didn’t know what the reaction meant, but he decided to ignore it for now.

“My apologies for visiting so late.”

“No, don’t worry about that. If we don’t get that conference squared away, neither of us is going to be sleeping well.”

“Ha-ha-ha, I suppose not.”

The old aristocrat who was seated across from Michitaka put a hand to his splendid whiskers and laughed confidently.

“I mustn’t let my granddaughter’s thoughtless actions bring about the fall of the House of Cowen.”

Come to think of it, his position was extremely precarious at present.

Of course, as the leading lord of Eastal, the League of Free Cities, Duke Sergiad had great influence. However, in this case, the very strength of that influence could prove to be a handicap.

“As you’ve guessed, the girl’s actions may cause a rift in the league of lords.”

He was pointing out the possibility of the story that the House of Cowen had stolen a march on the Lords’ Council. Maihama, which Sergiad governed, was powerful. If Maihama and Akiba joined forces and took in a few of the other lords, their forces would be large enough to drive out the remainder of the League.

Of course Princess Raynesia probably had no such ambition. Michitaka and the other Round Table Council members thought the event had been a sort of freak accident, and that it hadn’t had any deeper meaning.

However, in this situation, what was important was the way other people interpreted it.

Even if there had been no deeper meaning, meaning could be assigned after the fact.

The fact that we’re talking like this now might give somebody somewhere the wrong idea, too…

“Because it’s possible that Maihama could take in Akiba and establish a new power, right?” Michitaka asked directly. He wasn’t good at scheming and beating around the bush.

“That is one idea, yes, but… Hmm… What do you think, Master Michitaka?”

Michitaka had expressed a dislike for being called sir in the conference, and he felt favorably disposed to the duke for using master instead. Sir was just a word to Michitaka, and it didn’t particularly please or repulse him. However, this old man had avoided the word because Michitaka had expressed anger about it. It felt as if he was trying to deal with the other man as an individual, a human being.

Well, let’s see, now. I’m not a brain like Shiroe…

Michitaka thought hard, tilting his head on its thick neck.

Just then, there was a subdued knock.

When Michitaka gave permission, Henrietta entered with a cart that held a late-night snack. The group of delegates from Akiba, which had grown due to Shiroe’s proposal, included Chefs. The area the Round Table Council was borrowing had been set up (although they’d probably had a terrible time doing so) with the various things needed in order to create the banquets that accompanied small conferences and tea parties.

Henrietta had probably brought the midnight snack and drinks out of consideration for them.

“Hey, that’s perfect. Come join us, would you, Henrietta?”

“No, I was simply—”

“C’mon, it’s fine.”

Henrietta knit her brow at Michitaka’s invitation, but when he pressed her, after she set out the light meal, she sat down beside Michitaka.

“You’re the young lady who danced with Master Shiroe at the ball, aren’t you.”

“Yes, I’m Henrietta of the Crescent Moon League.”

“The Crescent Moon League is one of the eleven guilds on the Round Table Council. This young woman is one of their advisers.”

After he finished the introduction, Michitaka took a breather.

He didn’t plan to shove all the responsibility off onto Henrietta, of course, but the matter was much too serious. Henrietta would probably notice pitfalls Michitaka’s brain had missed and come up with a set direction for the conversation.

For the moment, the three of them began on the meal in front of them.

Cold chicken sandwiches and a salad of cooked vegetables. In addition, there was fruit and thinly diluted liquor.

They commented on each of the dishes and made small talk for a while, letting the conversation wander where it would.

When Michitaka and Henrietta briefly explained their positions, and Duke Sergiad described the city of Maihama for them, the conversation came full circle, returning to the topic of the evening’s conference.

“I understand the matter now, in general. Let me see…”

As she spoke, Henrietta set down her teacup elegantly.

Sergiad looked like a genial old man, and so she continued easily, pressing him with questions:

“The important point of departure here is your vision of the goal you wish to achieve, Duke Sergiad. I think the crux of this discussion is whether you’ll be able to share that with the Round Table Council.”

Michitaka grunted.

In a word, that was all it was, but there was something pitiful about summing up the pain and confusion of that five-hour conference in just one line. However, that was probably due to Henrietta’s intelligence. They said that two heads—or three—were better than one, but from his experience on Earth, even Michitaka knew they probably couldn’t expect that sort of thing from a conference like that one.

“I expect that’s it exactly. Hm…”

Duke Sergiad closed his eyes.

“It’s weird for me to say this, but I doubt we’ll make any headway if we keep trying to sound each other out. We’d like to hear what you have to say, candidly; whatever you, personally, are hoping for,” Michitaka added.

He was fed up with being treated like a dog or cat, but he didn’t think this elderly man would speak to them that rudely. If he did, then he did, and if the man who was leading lord of the Lords’ Council held opinions like that, he wasn’t worth dealing with.

“First, there’s the immediate issue of the goblin plunder army. I would like to cooperate with you on this, to have you defend us against them and eradicate them. We are locked in a long, long struggle with the demihumans. Our ultimate issue is protecting the land of our ancestors.”

Michitaka could agree with that.

Any noble who didn’t have the will to protect their territory and their people wasn’t a noble at all.

To them, that hope was less a condition or requirement than it was the premise of the discussion and its point of flight.

“In addition, I no longer wish to invite you to join Eastal, the League of Free Cities, as its twenty-fifth noble member.”

Michitaka was startled into silence.

“I now feel that our initial mistake, the basis of our error, lay in treating the Round Table Council as if it was the same as our lords, who hold fortified cities and territories. I don’t intend to boycott the Round Table Council or to put distance between us. This isn’t that sort of conversation. It’s more accurate to say that at this point, I am aware that the power of the Round Table Council is equal to that of Eastal, the League of Free Cities. The structure and the actual strength of the Round Table Council, and of the town of Akiba, equal those of our League of Free Cities in all respects. In the League, the lords discuss matters and cooperate with one another. This is extraordinarily similar to the Round Table Council, which was born as a federation of your houses—or your guilds, I should say; that was the word, wasn’t it? Since your territory is a single town, and it isn’t a large one, we took you lightly, and that prejudice led us to make a very rude, selfish proposal to you. I would like to apologize for that discourtesy.”

Michitaka thought about Duke Sergiad’s words.

“The area of the town of Akiba’s territory is not in proportion to its power. This isn’t a nice way to put it, but if we forced it into the League’s framework, sooner or later it would cause friction, and I believe it would destroy us. We may be able to bell a wolf, but I doubt we can chain it up. Even less so if we are dealing with a griffin that soars through the skies. I feel that the proper relationship between Eastal and the Round Table Council would place both parties on equal terms. I think we should conclude nonaggression pacts and treaties of commerce, and build our relationship on them.”

“Agreed.”

At Michitaka’s response, Duke Sergiad’s eyes went wide.

“In the first place, the Round Table Council has no territorial ambitions or plans to invade. We just want to protect our home in this world, and… If we manage to get our wish, to find a way back to our old world; that’s enough for us. Of course, in order to do that, we’ll have to live in this world for the time being. We’ll need to travel to ruins that are located all over, and we’ll need to trade for food and the like. That said, that doesn’t mean that we can’t cooperate with our neighbors in order to get these things done. Nothing would make us happier than being able to cooperate.”

After Michitaka had responded that far without pausing, he glanced at Henrietta. Henrietta frowned; she seemed to be thinking. Then she added, speaking quickly:

“This is, of course, an extremely general, basic policy, you understand. Even if the relationship is an equal one, until we see the wording of the treaty and learn just how the principle has been incorporated, we can make no promises in the truest sense of the word.”

She sounded slightly flustered. Michitaka nodded in agreement.

He’d been hoping she would cover for him when it came to details like that.

Duke Sergiad seemed to have been a bit surprised by how ready and frank their response had been. For a short while, he was at a loss for words.

“However, regarding mutual nonaggression pacts and treaties of commerce made from the standpoint of equals… Those would mean that we will not attack each other, and that we will conduct trade. I’m very sorry, but the defense against the current goblin invasion will be outside the scope of such treaties. Of course, I don’t intend to declare what is and is not within the scope of the treaty at this point, when we have yet to conclude a treaty of any kind. However, I believe the question of how to handle this irregular situation is very significant, both for the League of Free Cities and for the territory of Maihama, is it not?”

Both Michitaka and Duke Sergiad nodded at what Henrietta had pointed out.

In the end, the conversation had come right back to it.

The inequality of the burdens on the People of the Earth and the Adventurers.

The mutual distance that stemmed from the difference between their separate positions and the things they looked at.

“Let’s set that aside for now.”

Michitaka shrugged his shoulders as if poking fun at the atmosphere, which had been on the point of growing heavy.

That image of Soujirou was in the back of his mind, and just remembering it made stressing about anything seem dumb.

The Adventurers had unlimited power; would the People of the Earth grow jealous of it and plot against them? That sort of aristocratic political corruption had weighed on him, but the moment he’d seen Soujirou’s harem-forming nature in action, he’d stopped caring. That experience had drained the strength out of his knees. Jealousy and anger and suspicion were all pretty easy to understand compared to that.

In any case, there was no need for Michitaka to shoulder all that by himself.

“Since Krusty and Princess Raynesia, the two people in question, aren’t here, there’s no way to wrap things up neatly. Besides, they might have some specific idea in mind. It isn’t fair for us to have to worry about it on our own. We should pull in Shiroe and have those three think about it; that would make for a better division of labor.”

Michitaka’s opinion was a little reckless, but the other two felt the same way.

At any rate, whether they came to a conclusion here or failed to reach an agreement, the die had already been cast. At dawn, an army would probably depart from Akiba. It was no longer possible for either Michitaka or Duke Sergiad to stop that army.

Now that Krusty and Shiroe had made their moves, there could be no such thing as an impasse.

It wasn’t possible for those two to rise up and not carry through to the goal.

To Michitaka, that future was already assured.

In that case, the only thing to do was watch events unfold.

“Well, no doubt Master Shiroe will do something about it.”

Henrietta agreed, pouting; she seemed to be sulking a little. Her words seemed to disparage Shiroe, but no matter how you looked at them, her eyes were brimming with trust. Privately, Michitaka felt convinced.

“All right. In that case, let’s have my granddaughter take responsibility for the whole affair.”

With Duke Sergiad’s statement, which sounded somehow entertained, they parted ways.

2

Wait… Did something rustle…? There, in those bushes under the trees… It couldn’t be… It can’t be… Goblins?

Beside Raynesia was a female knight from D.D.D. in an austere military uniform. She wasn’t carrying a weapon at the ready; instead, she kept up a running telechat as she looked at the map of the battlefield and a sheaf of reports she held in one hand.

“Large-scale group at two o’clock. Enemy attack unit at nine o’clock, total number over eighteen. Two large magical beasts.”

As she delivered terse reports, her voice’s demeanor was unlike that of any knight Raynesia knew, and it also didn’t sound as if it belonged on the sort of battlefield she’d heard about in rumors.

When Raynesia’s eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness and she was afraid, the woman had gently applied a salve to Raynesia’s eyelids. After she’d blinked a few times, a rose-colored light had enveloped her surroundings, and it had grown easier to see.

Even so, the sounds in the darkness were frightening.

This area wasn’t all that deep in the mountains, but Raynesia had grown up in a castle, and her tolerance for such things was low. Every time the bushes swayed in the darkness, no matter how she tried to keep them under control, her knees began to quake.

C-calm down. Walk tall… That’s right, relax…

Her spirit was still strong.

She hadn’t yet lost the courage to move forward.

However, her body was more honest, and possibly because it felt that her life was in peril, it would instinctively tense up or begin to shake. Drawing upon all the ladylike training she’d accumulated and polished over long years, she tried to advance boldly and confidently, but she felt her mask was on the point of slipping.

“Princess Raynesia, they say the view opens up if we go a little farther up the ridge. Let’s go that way and rest for a while,” the female knight told her.

The warriors around her seemed to have been expecting that order: They changed formation as smoothly as flowing water. The only ones who stood dazedly in the center were Raynesia and two People of the Earth. Those two were telling the female knight about the local topography in detail, when she asked them. There was a creek small enough to step over, and once they’d crossed it and gone up for a while, the ground would turn rough and rocky, and they’d find a hill from which they could look down into the valley.

And just so, Raynesia and the others advanced, parting the underbrush.

Of course the warriors at the front of the group moved the bigger branches out of the way, but the sharp grasses of this animal track tried to tangle around her mercilessly. However, the Valkyrie Mail Raynesia wore must have been terribly high-performance: It seemed to cast a wall of air around her, and it wouldn’t let them near.

I have no complaints about the performance. …But. Honestly.

The only thing about it that concerned her was the tremendous amount of leg it made her show.

If it had been winter, she could have said something about catching a chill and asked for a mantle, but that wasn’t possible in summer. What Raynesia was actually wearing was a thin cape that barely fell to her waist, an article far too pathetic to call a mantle.

Oh…

She must have covered more distance than she’d thought while her mind had been elsewhere. Once they’d detoured around a spinney of what seemed to be huge beech trees and climbed a slope that was about as tall as she was, the view abruptly opened up. It was a clear, rocky area about six meters square, a ridge that looked down into the valley. From the rocks, she could see the trees below the cliff and the flowing river, stretching away.

Were the hundreds of gleaming lights the torches of the goblin army? They seethed restlessly, reminding her of a march of malicious insects.

“This way.”

The female knight had directed her to a simple folding chair. It had no back or armrests, but she was grateful to be able to sit down and close her legs properly.

Raynesia thanked her politely, accepted the chair, and sat down.

That speech had brought it home to her: Adventurers were fundamentally different from Raynesia and the other People of the Earth. It was probably best to assume that all of them—not only Krusty and the other Round Table Council representatives—had the education and manners of nobles.

That meant it wouldn’t do to be careless about gratitude and politeness.

However, on the other hand, Adventurers also seemed to dislike empty formality. Had her thanks been appropriate? She watched the lady knight, trying to see, but the woman was in the middle of a telechat, and was briskly reading from a map. It had probably been all right.

Around her, the Adventurers were bringing out folding pieces of furniture one after another: a little collapsible three-legged table and several tubes that were probably telescopes.

“It’s starting.”

“Pardon?”

The moment the lady knight’s words made Raynesia turn, a flash of light dropped into the valley. The roar followed a split second later. Eerie tremors shivered through the area. Raynesia was flustered, but the female knight pointed a white finger into the depths of the darkness, at a corner of the valley.

When Raynesia focused her attention on it, she felt her faintly shining vision pull the distant scene toward her. The trees and even the outlines of their leaves leapt into view, as real and vivid as life.

“It’s Fairy Balm for snipers. Even your long-range vision is good, isn’t it? Don’t expand your visual field too far… They’ll be there soon. Watch closely.”

The white light lasted a mere instant.

The thunderbolt seemed to have pierced right through the center of the goblin squad. Unlike an actual thunderbolt, though, the crushing blow that had fallen down from the heavens had enough force behind it to gouge up the earth, exploding the land and scattering the goblins.

In the midst of that flash, quite clearly, Raynesia saw Krusty’s form. A tall shadow, sprinting through the forest, holding a long-handled, double-bladed ax. It had to have been as long as Raynesia was tall, but he carried it as if it weighed nothing.

Krusty ran along the stream that flowed through the forest, with the nearly one hundred members of the strike unit following behind him. It was as if the mantle that streamed down his back had stretched and spread, eroding the forest.

Whenever the unit encountered goblins, they sliced or gouged, inflicting lethal damage, devouring them. The glinting flares of light were probably magic. At this distance, there was no way to make out the details, but she could tell they were overwhelmingly destructive.

However, what struck Raynesia even more than the force of the unit’s overpowering attack was Krusty himself.

Krusty, who ran at the head of the unit he commanded, leading the knights with his back, was exuding a strange aura. The oddness she’d sensed on the deck of the ship had become tangible and was creating mountains of corpses, rivers of blood.

Lips curved up like a crescent moon.

Eyes narrowed with joy.

Glasses that reflected the silver light.

Krusty was sprinting across the battlefield, filled with exultation, as if he were a child running to the plaza on a festival day.

Krusty’s hands swung.

The ends of the ax became invisible, as if it were a whirlwind.

Then clear space opened up around him for three meters in every direction.

Or again, when magical beasts leapt at him. An enormous wolf the size of an ox charged toward him, but Krusty thrust out his left hand, stopping it easily, and called to those around him. The wolf’s gigantic body was riddled with dozens of arrows and slashed with magically strengthened swords.

Krusty flung away the wolf’s body, now just a ragged clump of dead meat, as easily as if it had been a sack of wheat. His attention turned to the next goblin unit.

It was ominous.

It was unearthly.

It was so dreadful it provoked revulsion.

However, to Raynesia, more than anything, the sight was somehow terribly sad.

It was probably her own ego that made it look ominous and unearthly. She felt it was rude of her to feel these things about a hero who was protecting her homeland.

Still, the sadness… What was that?

What was making her feel so lonely?

“Fifty ahead, two hill giants. Recovery teams in position to the right and left. Annihilate them, starting with the surrounding squads.”

Faintly, she could hear the lady knight’s telechat.

She’d squeezed her eyes shut involuntarily, and when she opened them, she saw Krusty heading toward two huge giants the size of siege towers.

Raynesia gasped.

A loglike club bore down on him, but Krusty leapt away like a swallow, fielding the blow with his two-handed ax, and stood between the giants. To the princess, the size difference seemed overwhelming, and it looked as if the giants were unleashing attacks that would blot out Krusty’s life. However, Krusty’s smile only widened, and she couldn’t sense a trace of fear from him.

On the contrary, Krusty’s weapon shone red, and every time it struck, the giants began to focus on Krusty obsessively, as if they’d forgotten themselves.

In the faint light of dawn, as the giants were whipped into a frenzy, Krusty continued to field their attacks.

The two giants had probably been that goblin attack unit’s secret weapons, and they were surrounded by a host of goblins with crossbows and spears. However, Krusty’s legion raid began to work freely, as if they’d just been released from all restrictions.

The unit had been roughly split into four, and each of these split into four again, attacking the goblins as scattered squads. These small attack units began to spread an encircling net over the surface of the forest where the goblins were.

Even as Akiba’s forces shifted dizzyingly, they showed no openings, and the goblins’ system of command had been unreliable to begin with. They had no hope of matching them. In the darkness, one after another, they fell to spells and swords.

In Raynesia’s eyes, strengthened by Fairy Balm, they dashed through the forest like flitting shadows.

Krusty was at the center of that dance.

He brought his arms down, like a conductor.

A barrage of fireballs swallowed up the horde of goblins like a fiery avalanche.

Krusty looked as if he was enjoying himself.

He seemed far more free than he had during his time at the Ancient Court.

That, more than anything, made Raynesia sad.

Without knowing why she felt sad, or lonely, Raynesia kept gazing at the chivalric knight.

He swung his ax with all his might, hacking through enemies, blocking attacks; and even though blood streamed from both his arms, his steps were firm, and his commands spurred on his unit. He looked like a god of war.

To Raynesia, Krusty seemed to become more and more transparent, so free that sometimes she thought he might simply dissolve into the moonlight.

That’s…

For some reason, the sorrow bore down on her heart until it was nearly painful.

How could Krusty, who seemed so powerful and invincible both at the Ancient Court and on the battlefield, look ephemeral? Raynesia was sure there must be something wrong with her mind.

Krusty seemed to be having fun, but, abruptly, the suspicion welled up that beyond that fun lay absolutely nothing. There might be no one there at all.

Krusty and the Akiba expeditionary force continued their advance through the forest.

As Raynesia watched them, she sat very tall and straight, continuing to seek out the back of the tall Adventurer with single-minded intent.

3

Marielle and the others had commandeered a fishing gear storehouse located near the mouth of the Great Zantleaf River as a temporary headquarters. They were relaying telechats from patrol units they had sent to the area directly around the town and were putting together a plan for defense.

No goblin sightings had been reported for more than half a day now.

At the very least, the goblins seemed to have completely retreated into the forest-covered mountains. The Adventurers in the area were napping in shifts, at the inn and in their storehouse.

A full day and night had passed since that first night. During that time, Marielle’s group had successfully defended the village of Choushi.

Marielle had been startled by the fact that the most adaptable and enthusiastic players were the ones she’d discounted as newbies.

Maybe that was only to be expected, though, she thought.

Come to think of it, these kids are the type who decided to try playin’ Elder Tales because of the rumors about the expansion pack. They don’t have much gamin’ experience. …Meanin’ they don’t have many biases, either…

Having very little experience in Elder Tales meant that their character levels were inevitably low, and that they weren’t skilled in combat. Because of those disadvantages, the veteran players had seen the new players as weak, and nothing more.

However, not having any preconceptions about the game system or the world could also be considered an advantage.

To Marielle and the other veteran players, Shiroe’s declaration—that the People of the Earth were humans who had the same senses, spirits, desires, and intellects as they did—had come as a great shock.

However, the shock probably hadn’t been all that big for the newbies.

In the first place, since they hadn’t been playing the game for very long, the conditioning that Elder Tales was a game hadn’t sunk in all that deeply. In that sense, to them, the situation was the same as if they’d been abducted to some other world, one that had nothing to do with Elder Tales.

Marielle had been happy when these players had actively called for the protection of the People of the Earth and had sprung into action. The newbies in the summer camp group had taken up the defense of the village of Choushi without Marielle having to persuade them with impassioned speeches.

When they saw the newbies roused to action like this, there was no way the veteran players could go without taking a stand.

The summer camp had begun on what was very nearly a volunteer basis. The veteran players who had signed on for it were people who were good at looking after newbies. They couldn’t possibly disgrace themselves in front of those newbies while they watched them blaze with hope.

Once the support of Marielle’s smile, which Marielle didn’t really notice, was added to the mix, morale would rise no matter what.

When Minori and Nyanta had conspired with each other and headed into the mountains, it had really hurt her, but in the end, the maneuver had proved to be a great success. From what Marielle knew, during that first night, there had been twenty-six defensive encounters in the area around the village. That was an average of four battles per party, which meant they’d had a far easier time than they would have had capturing a dungeon.

Yet when dawn broke, the newbie Adventurers’ expressions had changed.

Battles in this other world had a special difficulty that hadn’t been there in Elder Tales: one that was less the intensity of combat itself than it was the hideous atmosphere of the battlefield.

Their bodies seemed to be based on those of their game characters: They were high-performance, and although their stamina, strength, endurance, and agility did depend on their game class, none of those posed a problem. Recovery spells healed wounds quickly, and even without a spell, if you toughed it out, minor cuts and scrapes would heal naturally in half a day or so.

The terror of battle lay more in its psychological aspects.

Taking a life with your own hands, even if that life belonged to a monster, was a terrible feeling, and some Adventurers were truly traumatized by it. It was a feeling Marielle could understand.

If they wanted to continue fighting in this world, there was no choice but to get used to it, and until they did get used to it, newbie players needed motivation and veteran players who’d stick close to them.

In terms of motivation and opportunity, the defense of Choushi was not only a big challenge, but a chance for the newbies.

It was newbie Adventurers with high morale who first noticed the change from the sea. High morale made itself known in endurance and fighting spirit as well, but the most striking effect was probably increased concentration, like now.

A team of three newbies who had gone on guard duty spotted white waves heading for the coastline and immediately contacted Marielle.

Their memories of being attacked on the white sandy beaches of Zantleaf were probably still with them. This time, that terror had worked in their favor.

When the veteran players ran to the scene, the sahuagins were still far beyond the distant, shallow coastal waters. They’d spotted them very early.

The Great Zantleaf River grew extremely broad in this area. Because the mouth of the river met the ocean, the flow of the tide mingled salt water with freshwater, and several piers jutted out into the river.

When the veterans had rushed over and looked at the sea, they had let out groans of despair. There were numerous white waves. Far more than one or two hundred.

This is…

Marielle felt it, too.

Choushi was a peaceful town that was designed around fishing and farming. This meant that the town was built along the Great Zantleaf River, and its shape was long and drawn out. Consideration had been given to flooding and the ebb and flow of the tide, of course, and even at the narrowest places, there were at least a hundred meters between the residential areas and the beach. …But that was still close.

To make matters worse, that hundred meters wasn’t a hundred meters of forest or mountain.

It was simply open beach a hundred meters wide, sandy or rocky, which fishing tackle and boats were normally dragged over.

It would be next to impossible to defend the town—which exposed its long, broad side to an open space like that one—from that many sahuagins.

Maybe not even “next to” impossible… Sure, we can survive pretty easy. All we have to do is run home. I bet we can prob’ly even beat all those sahuagins, although it’s gonna take time. But completely protectin’ the town and keepin’ all the People of the Earth in one piece… We might not be able to do that…

Still, as Marielle stared wordlessly at the foaming surface of the ocean, she heard the creak of bowstrings being drawn back on either side of her.

On her right was Naotsugu. Touya stood next to him.

On her left, newbie Assassins and lots of Warriors were nocking arrows. Shouryuu wasn’t good with bows, but even so, he was holding a throwing knife that looked like a thick metal skewer at the ready.

“Hand down an order, Miss Mari. Give us a shot in the arm.”

Naotsugu was grinning widely.

At that smile, Marielle’s feelings grew lighter.

There was nothing to stress about.

Marielle always had encouraging companions with her, friends who had supported her. Their smiles alone made her feel as if her heart had grown wings.

“Sure thing, hon. Um, let’s see. …Uh, okay, folks!”

Marielle raised her voice.

The foaming water in front of her seethed more restlessly, surging toward the mouth of the river.

“Thanks a bunch for helpin’ out up till now! Thanks to you, there wasn’t one single death from Choushi, and we made it through the goblin attack without lettin’ too many fields get ruined. That’s somethin’ we should be real happy about. It’s gonna be just a bit longer, though. The show isn’t over until we beat this enemy, too… We won’t have protected the village all the way through. Help me out for one more battle. I know you can do it. Okay, let’s go! Move out!!”

Bowstrings sang one after another.

When this had happened three times, Naotsugu took the lead, running for the coast. Shouryuu and Lezarik followed. Nyanta, who brought up the rear, gave Marielle a jaunty little wave.

Here and there, parties of Adventurers were charging toward the coast.

However, a closer look revealed several groups that weren’t charging. When she sent a questioning look at Minori, who had withdrawn to a bend in the farm road and sat down where she had an open view of the coast, the answer that returned to her was “They’ll need alternates soon.”

The opinion was so level-headed that Marielle was a bit taken aback; it made her wonder if Minori was really a middle schooler. Still, she was perfectly right: If they were going to hold back numbers like this at the very last minute, right before they came up on land, the fatigue would make alternates a must.

A fierce battle was beginning at the coastline. As such, it would probably be a good idea for Marielle to rest up, too.

Long-term battles took a ferocious mental toll on the Recovery classes. Marielle was a high-level Cleric, and her abilities would be sorely needed in the fight ahead.

4

Midrount Equestrian Gardens.

At present, simplified defenses were being set up here, and units were being organized at fever pitch. Since the military units that had been organized and issued posts had already departed in rapid succession, the camp held only about a third of the entire army now.

The situation was extremely fluid, too.

Apparently Krusty and his infiltration strike unit had already begun to engage the enemy before dawn that morning. Reports from the observation team estimated about one thousand casualties on the enemy’s side. In the near future, they’d probably learn just how much significance that number had as a part of the whole.

Although he’d been given the nickname Counselor, Shiroe wasn’t well versed in real-world military affairs or tactics. As a result, he didn’t know whether that number was large or small, or whether the damage would be enough to cause the goblins to retreat.

In general, he’d heard that if 30 percent of an army’s total forces were rendered unable to fight, the army was said to be nearly annihilated. To Shiroe, this wasn’t much more than trivia, but something about it perplexed him.

During battles with the goblins, had any enemies ever fled? When he thought about it, although he couldn’t say there hadn’t been any, he thought that, in most situations, it had been to the last goblin standing. Elder Tales had been a game, after all. Game monsters wouldn’t take to their heels, let alone surrender, until that stage.

That meant his faintly remembered knowledge might be wrong, or maybe that sort of real-world tactical knowledge didn’t apply in this world. It was also possible that goblins or demihumans in general were exceptionally bellicose and had no concept of “retreat.”

On the other hand, though, there had been good news as well.

During that morning’s battle, Krusty’s group hadn’t sustained significant damage, and they’d wiped out the goblin army’s magical beasts and two giants. Provided the main forces of the goblin army didn’t have anything really extraordinary, it was probably all right to leave them to Krusty’s legion raid.

In any case, if an enemy Krusty and his group can’t handle shows up, our chances of victory won’t rise no matter who in Akiba goes up against it.

Of course, compatibility varied among enemies. If they got intel on the enemy, they could take steps to counter it by reorganizing.

In other words, even if Krusty and the others lost, it wouldn’t mean the enemy was one they couldn’t beat. In the days of Elder Tales, during large-scale battles, they’d learned how to win by being annihilated over and over again. Information always saved the ones who came after. In a contest of practical strength, it was only natural that the contestant with the most information on their target had better odds of winning.

However, in a confrontation where they had no intel, the legion raid Krusty was currently leading was without a doubt the strongest weapon Akiba had.

We can leave the nerve center of the goblin plunder army to Krusty.

With a small tunk, Shiroe placed a black pebble in the center of the map. That was Krusty’s position. Next he set a whitish, misshapen pebble at Midrount Equestrian Gardens, and a smooth, green pebble at the village of Choushi.

At the moment, the place that needed the most watching was Choushi.

Of course he’d received reports that they’d been attacked by sahuagins, and that pained him, but what was more important was the fact that if the sahuagins managed to take that cape, they might even go ashore in Maihama.

One thing both towns had in common was that neither was expecting an invasion from the sea.

Why had the sahuagins even appeared?

He wasn’t clear on the reason, but Shiroe thought the cause lay with the army the Goblin King had unleashed. After all, they’d appeared simultaneously. It could also be a maneuver by the Sahuagins meant to capitalize on a war that had already begun, but either way, it meant their army would be split in half.

I’d already made allowances for that…or I’ll just have to bluff that I had, I suppose.

Shiroe had been fiddling with a slightly larger pebble, and he set it on the map with a thunk. The pebble was streamlined, and oddly cute: It looked a bit like a waterfowl with folded wings. He’d placed it on the ocean.

The experimental steam-driven transport ship Ocypete.

They were using it at maximum rotation.

After Krusty’s group had disembarked, the Ocypete had waited for reinforcements at the abandoned port of Narashino, but they would have reached the ship by now. It would be out on the ocean, leading the four full raids Shiroe had organized, bound for Choushi.

The Ocypete was a transport vessel, and it wasn’t armed. In that sense, it was a plain, unaffected ship.

However, since the ship was a prototype, they’d reinforced its hull so that they could run various strength tests, and with all the armor plating it had, its defense was probably high. In addition, as far as shipboard weapons were concerned, all they had to do was put the Adventurers on it.

The units Shiroe had specially organized were heavy on Summoners and Bards. Summoners were weaker at direct long-range magic attacks than Sorcerers were, but when you took into account the fact that they could use long-range attack spells based in the spirits they summoned, their range expanded to twice that of Sorcerers. Bards could provide backup for their magic attack power, avoiding the risk of exhausted MP.

Then it was just a race against time.

Shiroe consulted with the telechat operators who were constantly coming into the tent, determining organization and placement for unit after unit.

In this war, simply winning wouldn’t be all that difficult. However, the trouble was that, if they destroyed the goblins’ main army, it was just as likely that many goblins would form rogue tribes and go around wreaking havoc on the territories of Eastal.

Shiroe remembered the People of the Earth village they’d stopped at on their way back from Susukino. That good-natured old man, and the village laborers with their sheep. Of course, in a dangerous world like this one, they would be expected to defend themselves, and, although it wasn’t likely to happen, even if they did die, he thought there would probably be no help for it. However, if there was still a chance to save them, it was only natural that he’d want to do it, and fortunately, Shiroe was in a position that would allow him to try.

No doubt it would be fine to leave the subjugation of the main goblin army to Krusty. The problem was how to deal with that goblin plunder army of just under twenty thousand when it disintegrated and dispersed.

By organizing smaller, mobile units that were separate from Krusty’s strike unit—the one that was attacking the central forces—and using them to surround the perimeter, they’d keep any damage the goblins did contained in the mountains somehow. He needed to draw up a strategy for that maneuver and give concrete shape to its tactical aspects. That was the issue Shiroe was currently facing.

The key to the general strategy was to drive the Goblins into the hilly region at the center of Zantleaf.

In order to make that happen, Krusty’s group was fighting at the edges of the main goblin unit and working clockwise from the west, as though they were “peeling” the army. Fortunately, the goblins were taking advantage of any chances they got, and they’d already sallied quite far in the direction of Zantleaf. If they continued to lure them in, it should be possible to lead them to an ideal position.

If he distributed Akiba’s forces in such a way that they’d support Krusty, and they managed to seal the goblins into Zantleaf—the tip of Chiba on the Bousou Peninsula in the real world—it would make the surrounding areas significantly safer. The ultimate weak spot in that strategy was the defense of the village of Choushi, and the soldiers that were being sent over on the Ocypete.

“Aren’t you going to the battlefield, my liege?” Akatsuki asked.

She’d followed him all the way here—in order to guard him, she’d said—and she was sitting on a cushion that had been set out inside the tent.

“I’d like to. I can’t leave this place just yet, though. I haven’t finished all the organizing… Well, the end of that should be in sight within a day or two. When that time comes, I’ll move.”

“I see.”

Akatsuki nodded.

Shiroe was a griffin rider, one of fewer than two hundred on the server. In terms of speed in the air, only wyverns were able to match them.

If they had to mobilize a unit and march through the mountains, it would take time, but if Shiroe was traveling alone, he’d be able to race to either Krusty or the village of Choushi in about thirty minutes.

That was one of two reasons Shiroe was currently based here: One reason was that being close to a large number of telechat operators meant he could quickly issue orders to the entire army. The other was that, in a fluid military situation like this one, he wanted to stay halfway between Choushi and Krusty’s unit so that he could run to either one.

Shiroe was in the middle of building an army-wide communications network.

If they managed to get that in place, the expedition was already an assembly of experienced Adventurers, so they’d probably be able to carry out the operation semiautonomously. The plan was to set up leaders for each party, establishing lines for reports and orders. Shiroe’s group would organize a horizontal network between units, and position telechat operators as a vertical network. They would sort out the information that came up through the telechat operators and note it down on the map, making developments visible.

The strategy Shiroe came up with wasn’t terribly advanced, nor were his tactics.

It was a familiar situation:

Order the situation and make it visible. Once you discover discontinuity, investigate it thoroughly, find points worth noting, then “produce” them in order to show them off to good effect. Shiroe’s “scheme” was really only a collaboration between investigation and production.

…And most of it was the sort of work he was doing now: Dull tasks that would never be seen publically. Good grief, Shiroe muttered to himself. I’m just a paper-pusher.

However, as if to drown out Shiroe’s thoughts, a telechat operator’s voice echoed through the tent.

“Mister Shiroe! The summer camp group just encountered sahuagins at the village of Choushi. It’s sixty Adventurers against at least a thousand sahuagins. They’re drastically outnumbered!”

“Tell the Ocypete to hurry! Then call Calasin. The final organization materials are already drawn up. We’ll get the communications network up and running in a day—no, half a day!”

Shiroe spread documents with a vast number of notes out on his desk. About a dozen telecommunications officers stood around him, looking down at them. As Shiroe began to fill them in on his predictions for the future with clipped words, his voice held no hesitation.

For now, they had to complete the command transmission network as quickly as possible.

And then— Shiroe bit his lip, his mind racing.

5

“Haa…! Haa…!”

Calming his ragged breathing, Naotsugu gulped down the water he’d taken out of his bag.

As he ran his eyes over the area—covering for Shouryuu, who was so tired he’d sunk down to the ground—he gave a strained smile: This is a pretty nasty situation.

Naotsugu, Nyanta, Shouryuu, and Lezarik were currently taking a short break at the foot of a pine tree a little ways from the coast. You couldn’t really have called it a rest, though.

The battle that had begun that morning had gone on for four hours already, a merciless, continuous struggle under the blazing summer sun.

This was Naotsugu’s group’s third break, and the previous two hadn’t lasted more than ten minutes each. The sahuagins were trying to come up on land at many points, and there weren’t many Adventurers. In a situation like this, when they had to make defensive cover function effectively with small numbers, teamwork between parties was vital. If the Adventurers gathered in one place, the sahuagins would invade through the holes that would inevitably open up.

And if that happened, the village of Choushi was right behind them.

Of course they’d asked the village chief to have the People of the Earth take refuge in buildings whose defenses seemed solid, and the young men had probably taken up arms and were preparing to fight.

However, even so, they were nothing more than the ordinary residents of an unwalled town. How much of a fight could they give the sahuagins? The answer was: Only enough to buy some time before they were overrun.

At the waterline in front of him, three groups of newbies were fighting again and again. True, from Naotsugu’s perspective at level 90, they were clumsy about a lot of things, but their fight was worthy of being called a brave one.

Still, even so, the heartbreak of being midlevel remained: Sometimes their defensive formation loosened or came close to cracking apart.

There was no help for that. The power and range of their techniques was far too different from what Naotsugu’s group had. The fact that they didn’t have the high-level magic items that Naotsugu and the others practically took for granted also made a big difference.

Elder Tales had an Item Lock system. Nearly all high-level magic items needed to be “locked” in order to be equipped, and afterward they could be used only by the Adventurer who’d locked them.

It was probably easiest to picture if you imagined having an item that was calibrated to you, for your exclusive use. Since locked items couldn’t be equipped to strangers, it was harder to steal and resell them, and even if you died, you wouldn’t lose them. They sometimes unlocked hidden abilities as well.

Once they’d reached level 90, like Naotsugu’s group, even players who belonged to regular guilds had a few high-level magic items. Veteran players like Shiroe who went on tough adventures ordinarily had several dozen high-level items, and even some legendary items.

These magic items weren’t simply high-performance weapons or defensive gear. Sometimes they came with unique special abilities, and some of them could even rewrite their bearers’ special skill performance.

In Naotsugu’s case, this was true of the magic sword he used, Chaos Shrieker. This weapon rewrote the range of Taunting Shout—a special skill that had the effect of enraging monsters—from ten meters to fifteen. That changed even the usability of the skill.

Midlevel Adventurers didn’t have the support of these powerful, high-level magic items, and so it was only natural that their battles would look different from those of the high-level Adventurers who owned them. In addition, because of the Item Lock system, they couldn’t lend them their powerful items.

Anxious, Naotsugu started to get up, but Nyanta checked him from behind.

“Right now, our job is to rest.”

Unusually, Nyanta’s tone brooked no argument.

Naotsugu, Nyanta, Shouryuu and Lezarik had all exhausted their MP. Unless they were being influenced by some sort of special effect, MP recovery during battle was practically nonexistent. Even if they went back into the fray now, since they had no MP, the front line would break down in a heartbeat.

When they fought goblins in the mountains, they’d been able to lie low in the darkness and rest at regular intervals. In this battle, they weren’t able to set the pace themselves, and responding to the sahuagins’ charges had them in heavy rotation.

Of course, even so, Naotsugu’s group was able to hold the front line for much longer stretches than the newbie Adventurers. Even then, though, there were limits. Even the MP of level-90 tough guys like Naotsugu and the others wouldn’t last through a battle that took over an hour.

Not only that, but this time Naotsugu’s party had four members, not six. Each of them had to work one and a half times as much as they normally did to make combination plays happen.

“Naotsugu. Here.”

“Thanks, man.”

He drank the potion Lezarik had handed to him. The blue elixir was medicine that recovered MP, but its effect was very slight. Elder Tales had lots of ways to recover HP, but far fewer methods of recovering MP, and the amounts recovered were small. This potion certainly wasn’t a cheap item, but its effects were still limited.

Even as Naotsugu fretted, he watched Touya fighting in front of him.

The boy kicked up white sand, swinging his blade to draw the sahuagins’ hostility, charging again and again.

Touya had certainly gotten stronger.

His techniques and his fighting methods were still rough, and you couldn’t say he had gotten skillful, but he was stronger. And actually, subtle “skillfulness” wouldn’t be necessary for a while.

One of a warrior’s essential attributes was spirit. This was the same spirit as the one that showed up in the phrases “full of spirit” and “in high spirits.” It meant being prepared, and having a proactive attitude when trying to make something happen.

Touya’s fight had spirit. This was an irreplaceable attribute for a warrior who supported the front line. In order to protect comrades, Naotsugu thought that sometimes you needed the sort of savage courage that was involved in smashing a glass door with your bare hands. The sort that wasn’t afraid of shedding its own blood.

Touya’s gonna keep right on growing…

When he shifted his gaze, his eyes found the girl called Isuzu and the Sorcerer named Rundelhaus. Isuzu had been a Bard, if he remembered right.

Unlike Touya, she was skilled. The positions she took, the attacks she paid out: They all showed an exquisite sense of distance and rhythm. An amateur wouldn’t have been able to see her skill. Even a player who was well versed in battles might have seen her as an unremarkable Adventurer and overlooked her. However, her unerring support raised each element of her friends’ combat—offense, defense, movement, and recovery—to the next dimension.

The combinations she executed with the Sorcerer were particularly noteworthy. The prescient timing and positioning of her support made it seem as if she knew exactly what the young man wanted. The Sorcerer’s defensive power was low, and she watched the battle from his perspective as she moved, keeping him from being exposed directly to enemy attacks, but giving him room to target all the sahuagins with one attack.

The young Sorcerer who was on the receiving end of this support was practically energy incarnate. Sorcerers had high attack power in the first place. If compared at the same level, they shared the distinction of being strongest of the twelve classes with Assassins.

However, the young man’s attacks held a desperate determination, more as if he was packing all the thoughts and emotions he had into each and every spell than as if he was relying on his class’s performance. As if possessed by his tenacity, lava shells leapt and bounded, and spears of ice pierced the sahuagins.

The girl named Serara, the one who’d gotten attached to Nyanta…

She’d also begun to change. He’d noticed her chanting speed and resolution the first time he’d seen her in Susukino, but now her movements were even lighter. Unlike before, when her thoughts hadn’t gone beyond recovery, she summoned nature spirits and sent them running every which way, and she didn’t forget to use attack assistance spells to support the party.

She’d probably turn into a good healer.

And Minori.

It was likely that Minori had a completely different perspective from the rest of the group on the fight with the sahuagins. Just sensing the premonition that was visible inside Minori gave Naotsugu goose bumps.

At Minori’s orders, the party changed formations, reconstructing combinations as a team.

“Rudy, cut down your output.”

“Understood, Mademoiselle Minori.”

“Serara. Recovery switch. Go join the attack, please.”

“Icicle Ripper into the far left! Firing!”

Naotsugu knew what she was doing.

He knew because he’d spent a long time teaming up with Shiroe.

She was probably trying to keep track of the MP consumption of everyone in her party. Naturally, in order to do that, she had to have a solid grasp of all her companions’ special skills, not just her own, and that grasp had to include not only the MP they consumed, but their performances and the situations in which they were used.

In addition, she had to keep track of the teamwork between her companions and the positional relationships between them and the enemy, the encounter sequence, and the order in which they were destroyed.

In other words, she was turning the “sentences” of destroying enemies into the “text” known as battle. Then, as she restructured the battle “text” into the “story” of tactics, she “read” it. That was exactly what it was.

Of course, battles were a series of unexpected events that unfolded in real time. In this situation, “reading” didn’t mean immobilizing the battle as if it were a static text; it meant acknowledging all possible futures and reading it as a highly improvised story.

Although she was still awkward, Minori was trying to imitate Shiroe’s full control encounters. That little girl was chasing after Shiroe’s back.

One percent increments, and thirty seconds in advance, I think.

That was what Shiroe had said about the matter once.

He’d probably meant fighting thirty seconds ahead. The “1 percent increments” had been his grasp of his companions’ remaining MP.

Of course, understanding the surrounding environment was fundamental to high-level battles as well. Even Naotsugu understood that. When he was fighting on the front line, even without checking his party status screen, he had a vague grasp of his friends’ remaining MP. At most, though, there were only about six levels: “full tank,” “still plenty left,” “about half,” “getting dicey,” “low,” and “flat broke.” It was likely that most middle-class Adventurers only based their decisions on two levels or so: “still good for a while” and “better rest soon.” It was just that hard to grasp the MP of a friend who belonged to a different class, even if you could keep a handle on your own MP.

Elder Tales had been a game, and because that was so, in extreme terms, only certain things could happen in it. If you got sufficiently used to it, you could even predict how monsters would move.

Shiroe’s full control encounters didn’t stop at grasping the party’s remaining MP. It meant having an understanding of all their remaining resources as a matter of course, as well as the enemies’ remaining resources, and standing up above it all and making everything unfold according to your plan.

Now that Elder Tales had become a different world, the chance battle occurrence rate was far higher than it had been when it was a game. Even Shiroe couldn’t possibly have the power to see thirty seconds ahead at this point. However, on the other hand, he had the hope that if it was Shiroe, he just might. The “one percent increments, thirty seconds in advance” line hadn’t been due to talent or a bluff. Shiroe had murmured those words after lots and lots of hard training.

Naotsugu knew about controlled encounters only because he’d heard things like that during his long friendship with Shiroe. Even though he knew Shiroe had acquired the ability through hard work, to Naotsugu, who was on the front line concentrating on the enemy in front of him, that “sense” seemed almost like a superpower. Even if he could read the “sentences” of defeating the enemies he was facing, he couldn’t link them together into “text.”

But Minori, right in front of him, was chasing Shiroe’s back.

I wonder how many seconds ahead Minori’s seeing… What increments does she have her group pegged at? Twenty percent? Or can she already read them at ten percent, at her level?

Just as Naotsugu stood, thinking that they needed to get back to the battlefield and let the newbies take turns resting, a sharp explosion echoed from Choushi’s distant northern square. It was a special Druid attack spell, Shrieker Echo.

Naotsugu’s reaction was delayed by a beat.

He didn’t know why he’d heard a scream like that from the fields, far away from the Great Zantleaf River.

Behind the front line, the five members of Minori’s party bore down on Naotsugu like the wind.

“We’re on it, Master!”

“Thanks for your help here!”

“Ha-ha-ha! Just leave this to us! Sally forth!”

“U-um! You do your best, too, Nyanta!”

The five of them had beat a retreat from the coastline when he wasn’t looking, and they dashed off to the north, as if leaving the rest to Naotsugu’s group.

As they ran off in the summer sunlight, their backs seemed like migrating birds, making straight for the sky.

As Shouryuu and Lezarik responded, knowing they needed to fill the hole Minori and the others had left behind, Minori turned back to face them and the perplexed Naotsugu. The young girl was soaked with sweat, but a strong will shone in her eyes.

“It’s a spirit reaction; I had Serara set it up to use as an alarm. The goblins have probably invaded from the mountains again. If it’s only goblins, we can handle them. Since we’ve got a Bard and continuous combat abilities, we’re better suited to this battle… And so, please take care of the coast, Naotsugu!”

“Minori!” Naotsugu called to her.

Minori waved a hand vigorously.

Then she and the others ran off, disappearing into the village of Choushi.

6

Rundelhaus was running at the head of the group.

He’d been focusing ferociously ever since that morning, and it seemed to him as though the force of his spells had increased slightly.

They’d had a high-level player take a look at the item they’d acquired in the deepest part of Forest Ragranda. Apparently it was a magic item called Magician’s Gauntlets. Since it was the sort of item that level-25 characters could equip, in terms of the entire server, it was probably a very commonplace article. Still, it was the first magic item Isuzu and the other four had managed to win on their own.

It was a pair of slightly scratched gauntlets that gleamed dull silver and had magic circles engraved on them. Isuzu and the others had gazed at them as if they were looking at treasure. Since there was only one of the item, they couldn’t all equip it at once. That said, the idea of selling the magic item they’d found after all that trouble and splitting the proceeds made them terribly sad.

As a result, they’d discussed it among themselves and decided to have Rundelhaus use this piece of battle gear. The item seemed to be specifically for the Magic Attack classes, and he was the only magic user in their group.

Rundelhaus had hesitated just a bit, but he must have been interested, after all. When they pressed him, he put them on, looking pleased.

As Rundelhaus ran ahead of Isuzu, he had those gauntlets on his hands.

They were a magic item that increased maximum MP by just a few percentage points of the maximum. The amount was only enough for a single magic attack, but by this point, Isuzu and the others all understood that the accumulation of that small percentage would have a great influence on battles. The red crystals set in the center of the gauntlets shone as if hinting at the flame magic Rundelhaus used, and his determination.

Isuzu switched her continuous support songs to Nocturne of Meditation and Fawn’s March. The first song increased MP recovery efficiency, and the second was a special support skill that increased the whole party’s movement speed.

“My thanks, Mademoiselle Isuzu.”

“You slow down a bit, Rudy,” Isuzu remonstrated, as Rundelhaus expressed his gratitude. It was fine to be energetic, but nothing good could come of having a paper-armored magic user at the head of the line.

“Mm. Sorry.”

Rundelhaus slackened his pace as he spoke, and Isuzu handed him a canteen she’d taken out of her pack. She’d had the innkeeper’s daughter fill it with water for her that morning. It had a little orange juice squeezed into it, and even now that it was all warm, it was still a bit refreshing to drink.

“…Um, are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I, Rundelhaus Code, am doing perfectly, of course. I feel as if I had no enemies in the world at all. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Rundelhaus answered after gulping down the contents of the canteen.

He really must have been fundamentally well bred: Even though he was doing something rude—rehydrating while walking fast (and laughing loudly on top of that)—it didn’t make him seem vulgar.

Large eyes that tilted down slightly at the corners and smooth, soft, golden hair. It’s probably because he comes off a bit like a golden retriever, Isuzu thought, laughing a little.

“You two get along well, don’t you?”

Serara teased them, giggling, but Isuzu only shrugged her shoulders and answered lightly: “Sure we do!” To Isuzu, Rundelhaus was just a friendly dog.

A handsome, pedigreed dog kept at the house of the local rich family. A golden retriever with long, abundant hair who showed up at Isuzu’s house all the time, simply because their gardens happened to be next to each other.

Naturally, because of his pedigree, he was so handsome he practically shone. His features were refined as well, and his behavior was courteous, with nothing coarse about it. However, once you got used to him, you realized he was dumb. The sort of “dumb” that got dead serious about catching the ball and ran around until he was worn out, and wagging his tail so hard the base hurt.

Was he stupid, or was he a natural-born airhead? The arrogant, excessively self-conscious lines he sometimes came up with were just another result of his dumbness surfacing, but they didn’t annoy her in the least.

Isuzu and this dumb dog were already friends. They’d become friends the moment he’d licked her outstretched fingers. As a result, she was able to agree easily with Serara’s banter.

“Done? Nn.”

…To the point where she could take the canteen back from Rundelhaus, wipe it down, and return it to her bag as if that was completely natural.

“I’m sorry.”

“Keh-heh-heh! Geez, Rudy, you’re apologizing all over the place.”

“That isn’t true, is it, Mademoiselle Isuzu?”

Rundelhaus retored as Touya teased him from the head of the line, but Isuzu took no notice of him.

“You’re a magic user, Rudy, so it’s better if you act a little full of yourself. It makes you look nice and dumb,” she shot back.

“What are you saying?! What do you mean, ‘dumb’?! Did you actually have the gall to call me dumb?!”

It was incredibly strange.

She—a freckled, skinny, country high-school girl sorely lacking in feminine charms—was dealing with Rundelhaus, a princely type who might have stepped out of a picture book, as if he were a neighborhood puppy dog… Or, if that was too mean, a slightly airheaded, rich and pampered middle schooler.

Viewed objectively, it was outrageous, and something she probably should have felt badly about, but Isuzu couldn’t think of it that way at all. Playing around with Rundelhaus this way was an incredibly carefree, absent-minded pleasure.

Just as Isuzu was about to open her mouth, intending to tease him one more time, it happened: Somewhere not very far away, a second Shrieker Echo went off.

Isuzu and the others looked at one another. Then they turned the corner, quickening their pace.

The shape of the village of Choushi was unique. Having been built along the Great Zantleaf River, it was long and thin, and one broad avenue ran down its center. There were side streets and crossroads as well, but they were all secondary and short.

This meant that, once they turned the corner of the avenue and headed north, they found themselves in a rural landscape of spreading fields. In this season, eggplants and tomatoes grew thickly on top of low ridges, swaying in the wind, and spring wheat showed its green.

Running through those fields were three—no, four shadows.

Immediately, Isuzu chanted Ballad of the Slowpoke Snail. The goblins slowed as if the strength had suddenly gone out of their legs. That slight chance was all Isuzu’s trusty companions needed to launch a preemptive strike.

“Sorry, Rudy!”

As Touya yelled, he crouched extremely low, twisting his body drastically. It was a more aggressive stance than the one he used to draw enemies in by taunting.

His special Samurai taunting skills were inefficient against targets this scattered. Running around and getting the enemy together in one place would be a job all on its own.

“Leave it to me, Touya! Witness the melody of my glorious magic! Serpent Bolt!”

As its name hinted, the sheaf of bluish-purple lightning that leapt from Rundelhaus’s staff raced every which way across the field, like ribbons. It was what general theory would have called a bad move: a preemptive strike by a magic user.

Eight goblins came running from all over the field. That was more than they’d expected, but Minori, who was hanging back at the very end of the line, calmly cast a Damage Interception spell. …Not on Touya, but on Rundelhaus.

Rundelhaus was enveloped in a light blue, mirrorlike barrier, with his staff at the ready. The first goblin attacked him, and then a second goblin raised its ax high and charged. However, both attacks were blocked by the Damage Interception spell Minori had set.

Damage Interception spells were one form of the special recovery spell unique to Kannagi. When set on a character in advance, they could protect that character from a certain amount of damage.

The most famous example was Purification Barrier, but there were several other types, and the one she’d used this time was a spell called Defense of Doctrine Barrier. Its distinguishing feature was its large capacity for absorbing damage. It was a powerful spell that could negate more than four times as much as Purification Barrier could, but naturally its recast time was long, and it wasn’t the sort of skill you could use casually.

Still…

Isuzu thought as she threw down a rapid series of notes.

Minori had made the right call. Thanks to that spell, right now, Rundelhaus’s defense was even higher than Touya’s. On top of that, the goblins had been angered by Rundelhaus’s magic attacks, which had a far longer range than Touya’s attacks, and they were being drawn right out in front of Isuzu and the other Adventurers.

The moment the goblins were assembled, Touya’s Whirlwind Izuna struck home. Most of the goblins stood paralyzed, as if they’d been disconnected, and then Rundelhaus, Touya and Isuzu dispatched them one by one.

In the midst of these repeated battles, Isuzu and the others were learning not only basic team plays but irregular ones as well. Irregular plays were, as you’d expect, irregular, and they weren’t tactics that could be used on a regular basis, but in specific situations, they could be used to great effect. You could say the group had acquired more problem-solving techniques.

That, and this—

“Well, Mademoiselle Isuzu?! Did you see my magnificent magic?!”

—were all the result of being yanked around by this dumb young man.

Isuzu smiled and smacked Rundelhaus’s head.

That earlier spell had been amazing. The fact that he’d scored an accurate hit even with a range like that one was as much due to Rundelhaus’s training as it was to the spell’s capabilities.

Everyone was getting stronger. That meant Isuzu couldn’t let herself fall behind, either.

7

The confused fight continued.

The sun was already sinking in the western sky.

The five of them were the only ones in sight who were continuing to fight with the town in the balance. Minori’s group was an isolated defense corps. Their midnight strikes on the goblins had done significant damage, and the fighting power of the midsized unit that had been dispatched to Choushi was believed to have been nearly wiped out. At the very least, their chain of command had to have been shredded.

The effect was visible in this sporadic attack as well.

This wasn’t an organized effort on the goblins’ part. Now that Choushi had been thrown off-balance by the sahuagin attack, they simply wanted to devastate and plunder the village at no risk to themselves.

Raising rough, repulsive voices, the short little demons attacked out of nowhere. Minori and the others lay in wait for them in the center of the farming road that ran toward the fields in the hill country and kept on defeating them.

Shrieker Echo, the settable Druid spell Serara used, was proving to be very useful. Setting several of these spells to act as alarms helped Minori’s group cover for their small numbers.

“Sorry, Minori. Got anything to drink?”

Minori handed the groaning Touya a third canteen. She’d seen this much coming, and had been prepared. She chanted Instant Heal over Touya, who had plopped down at the base of a tree by the side of the road.

Resilience was probably at work, since the battle had ended: The scratches on his armor, the ones that weren’t very serious, were mending before her very eyes. So were Touya’s wounds. However, he was so soaked with sweat it was as if he’d poured water over his head, and the sweat wasn’t going anywhere. His body was probably still hot from the long, fierce battle. Maybe that was why his breathing was taking a while to calm down.

Minori was worried about him, but she didn’t say anything aloud.

No matter what she said, she wouldn’t be able to get Touya a few days of restful vacation. Besides, Touya probably wouldn’t want something like that. Like Minori, what Touya wanted was this defense operation.

All Minori could do was hand him a well-wrung-out handkerchief.

“Thanks.”

As she nodded, acknowledging Touya’s words, Minori realized that she felt hot as well as she looked around at her companions. Most of them were trying to recover as much mental energy as they possibly could while they caught their breath.

Minori’s job was field monitor. During this fight, she’d gone one step further and taken over the role of operator for the party as well. Because Minori had taken over Serara’s task of keeping an eye on MP, the speed of Serara’s reactions with regard to recovery and support had risen significantly.

In exchange, this meant that Minori was single-handedly performing the roles of paying attention to their surroundings and to her friends’ condition; in other words, to battle information. At first glance, it looked as though she was slightly removed from the combat, but the burden of the role was a large one.

I’m still not that good, though…

As Minori took mental notes on the difference between her companions’ remaining MP, she checked their degree of recovery. During battle, Minori grasped the trends in her companions’ MP in 5 percent increments. Using that information and the shifts in the battle, she estimated consumption and “read” the battle, piecing together the future five or ten seconds in advance. She couldn’t trust her accuracy yet, but it was a fact that this forecasting ability was helping them avoid unnecessary MP consumption.

They were defending a base in this continuous battle. Unlike normal dungeon expeditions, they were never able to let their guard down, and Minori’s combat management abilities were constantly being refined.

Minori’s own assessment of her control was that it was like a child’s game compared to what Shiroe did, but if Naotsugu had heard those words, he would probably have been speechless.

Five percent increments meant making predictions about the frequency of other players’ magic use on a concrete level, such as “She should be able to cast two more midsized recovery spells.” That was far beyond the insight that most adventurers around level 30 could hope for based on what they were shown regarding other players’ statuses. No one in the party had realized it yet, not even Minori herself, but she had quietly begun to develop a talent.

“Listen, everyone. During that last battle, Marielle contacted us.”

Collecting herself, Minori made her report.

Because she was controlling the battle, Minori often went on standby, hanging back as a reserve. While she choked back the spells she wanted to cast in rapid succession, she monitored their surroundings.

Thanks to that, she’d noticed the telechat.

“According to Marielle, a special unit is on its way here from Akiba by ship. She said it should be here this evening.”

“Evening? It’s already almost evening…”

“You’re right.”

“Hmm. Maybe they’re running a little late?”

Minori thought hard. The summer sky was still bright, but as far as the hour was concerned, it was already late in the afternoon. It would have been fine to call the time evening.

“From what I heard, they’ll arrive by ship and come ashore. If they get reinforcements at the coast, alternates will come out to us as well, so… If we hang on for three more hours at the very longest…”

Isuzu and Serara’s faces brightened. From Rundelhaus’s and Touya’s expressions, they seemed to be steeling themselves, as if they were determined not to get careless, even now. Still, it was true that they had relaxed slightly, as if a weight had been lifted from their shoulders.

During a battle that had lasted about half a day, they’d defeated nearly thirty goblins.

The total number wasn’t all that large, but the combat was very stressful. They had a wide range to cover, and there was no telling where the goblins would attack; it felt as though they were playing whack-a-mole with only the Shrieker Echoes to rely on, and there were no opportunities to relax.

As sensors, the Shrieker Echoes were convenient, but they weren’t perfect. On the contrary: They were incredibly worried that something might get through the holes in the net and make it to the village. As a matter of fact, there had been cases where a few Goblins had slipped through and headed for the village, and Minori and the others had had to hastily go back and subdue them.

As they fought, they were patrolling the area around the village out of consideration for the distance they’d have to travel to defend the center of Choushi if something broke through their line of defense, and in that sense, they weren’t able to push up that line of defense.

It was fortunate that the Goblins had lost their chain of command. If they’d had a good commander, they probably would have used disturbance tactics like burning the field. Minori’s group had been apprehensive about this, but so far, they’d managed to hold out somehow.

“You’re right. When the ship arrives, people will come out to us, too.”

Serara nodded in agreement.

It was clear that the root of their current distress was the way this double-fronted operation dispersed their forces. At present, when no large magical beasts had been sent into combat, neither goblins nor sahuagins were all that tough as individual enemies.

“Not much longer now. Let’s all get out there and do our best.”

On that note, Touya stood up energetically.

The afternoon wind was still as hot as if it had been sautéed in a frying pan, but the news that reinforcements would arrive if they hung on just a little longer was enough to bring life back to their faces.

It happened about fifteen minutes after they’d started patrolling again.

Minori and the others had hoped the time would pass without incident, but of course their hopes were betrayed.

Behind them, from the village’s wide avenue, they heard an enormous crash. When the party turned back, wondering how they’d managed to let something make it that far in, they came face-to-face with a squad of goblins radiating an aura of violence, accompanied by two Dire Wolves.

8

The turn the fight had taken put them at an overwhelming disadvantage.

“Not gonna happen!!”

Touya charged again, blocking a Dire Wolf that had been about to leap at Isuzu. However, inevitably, the charge freed up the Hobgoblin he’d been holding back.

The repeated battles had exhausted nearly all of the members’ big techniques with long recast times. Although they had MP reserves, courtesy of Isuzu the Bard, that alone wasn’t enough decisive power to let them break out of the situation.

The Hobgoblin was holding a big hammer with both hands. Taking a full swing with it as if it were a baseball bat, the goblin slammed it right into Touya’s defenseless side.

It won’t be enough!

With a smashing sound you’d never hear in baseball, the attack crashed into Purification Barrier. The single-player barrier shone light blue, and the weird noise—as if thick glass were shattering all at once—was wearing away at its durability.

Damage Interception spells were a special type of recovery spell that was set in advance and negated a certain amount of damage. They could completely negate all damage, provided the damage was below the amount they could absorb. However, if it was over their threshold, they would fall away, no matter how long they were supposed to last.

As she saw the light of the barrier spidering like glass, Minori knew instinctively that it wasn’t fully canceling the damage.

“Four Quarters Prayer!!”

Immediately, Minori cast her emergency Damage Interception spell. As befitted a spell in the Emergency category, it was extremely effective: On top of costing almost no MP, it was quick to chant, and it protected all of Minori’s companions in the area with a defense that was nearly as strong as Purification Barrier.

However, the situation wouldn’t be resolved that easily.

…And now I can’t use that one again.

Minori bit her lip. Her face was pale.

As the name indicated, emergency spells were meant to get players through emergencies. Their recast times were long, and she wouldn’t be able to use the same spell again for twenty-four hours.

“Stop! Sto-o-op!!”

Serara activated Willow Spirits. As though drawn by a spell, vines that had been clinging to the wall of a nearby warehouse wrapped around the Dire Wolf. The Dire Wolf gave an irritated bellow, then dug its claws into the ground and began to struggle, trying to work itself free of its bonds.

This was the third time Serara had used it. With the Dire Wolf’s huge body and matching strength, it would be able to tear plant bindings to shreds. But was the restraint pointless? No: Because Serara had managed to check at least one of the Dire Wolves with this spell, if even for only a short time, Touya and the rest of the group were able to concentrate on the other enemies.

However, since Serara was occupied with the Dire Wolf, this also meant that Minori had to handle recovery spells, the area Serara was in charge of.

“I told you! It ain’t gonna happen!”

Touya brought down his raised katana with all his might.

It wasn’t a technique or anything, just a brute-force strike, but it sent one goblin flying, and a Hobgoblin who’d been in its path got pulled in as well.

The Hobgoblin used its superior build to shove the Goblin out of the way, then started toward Touya again.

Hobgoblins were a goblin subspecies. That said, although they were a subspecies, their abilities were higher than those of their parent race. For instance, goblins banded together and lived in groups, but even the most diplomatic couldn’t have called their lives “well-ordered.” Recently they’d just happened to crown a king and they had formed a plunder army, too, but the reality was that they were a tribal society, a chaotic and violent demihuman species that stole others’ property.

And compared to the orcs (another wicked type of demihuman that lived in the south), who preferred military organization and nation building, the goblin race was lawless.

Yet while Hobgoblins had inherited the goblin temperament, they also had a strong desire to subdue others, which the regular goblins did not have. They were often more intelligent than goblins, too, and they mastered the weapons they took from humans.

This Hobgoblin was quite a formidable enemy: It was awkwardly wearing pieces of plate armor, probably stolen from some knight, and it used a metal sledgehammer. Its level might have been as high as 30. To be honest, at this point, that enemy alone could easily have been a bit too much for Minori’s group.

That Hobgoblin was accompanied by two Dire Wolves and four goblins. Minori and the others were managing to oppose them right now only because they knew the topography of the village’s main avenue, because they’d taken up a position where they couldn’t be surrounded and were protecting the rear rank as they fought, and because they’d polished their teamwork during their recent special training. Minori’s group had clearly gotten involved in a fight that was beyond what they could handle.

“Touya, switch! Pin down the wolf and the boss!”

However, determination that surpassed actual strength wouldn’t last long. The battle was wavering on a precarious balance. In that case, they needed to take a gamble that would make maximum use of the benefits of the emergency spell she’d cast.

Making up her mind, Minori dashed out onto the front line.

Four Quarters Prayer had deployed Purification Barrier–class damage interception over all party members, and it had thirty-two seconds left. Minori may have been healer, but even she should be able to hold out against the goblins’ attacks during those thirty-two seconds.

She’d made up her mind and leapt, but her legs were shaking, and the strength seemed about to drain out of them. The summer road, with its clouds of dust, felt soft and fluffy to her, as if it were made of cushions. Still, in an attempt to shake off the feeling of unreality, Minori unleashed a front kick at the closest goblin from an altitude that wasn’t at all ladylike.

“Understood! Let’s go, Mademoiselle Isuzu!!”

“Roger that, Rudy!”

As if they’d just woken up, yells of support rose from the rear ranks. Just hearing the first verse of Rundelhaus’s chant told Minori that they’d accurately read her intent.

The goblin leapt at her, laughing maniacally, and Minori took its attack from a defensive stance. Relying on her own Damage Interception spell, she evaded only the attacks that were aimed at her vital spots, letting the hardened areas of her leather armor handle the rest. She wasn’t dodging: Whenever an attack flew at her, she’d jump into its path, stopping it with her body before the weapon came down completely.

I’m scared! I’m scared! I’m scared— But!!

Watching his sister act as though she’d gone insane out of the corner of his eye, Touya did the exact same thing against the higher-level enemies: the Hobgoblin and the Dire Wolf.

Even if Damage Interception was in place, it had been a long time since they began fighting. The twins had patches of dried blood all over, but they built the front line together, now stopping goblin knives that looked like meat cleavers, now exposing themselves to the fangs of the fierce, demonic wolf.

The time the twins bought was used up by a ringing chant.

It was the most powerful of all Rundelhaus’s ranged attack spells. The freezing spell had a long chant, but if it hit, it couldn’t fail to do considerable damage. Isuzu’s special support skill followed after, leaving a high-pitched echo in its wake.

As Rundelhaus shouted “Frigid Window,” his voice was ornamented by Isuzu’s singing voice, exactly one octave higher. The spell, which was now a round, froze all the goblins, turning them into statues.

As Minori retreated from the front line, which was abruptly dominated by cold air, she checked her companions’ statuses. What was the situation? Even as she absent-mindedly chanted a new Damage Interception spell, her color wasn’t good.

Rundelhaus’s powerful attack had taken out the minor goblins at a stroke. However, in order to buy that time, Minori had stepped onto the front line, and during the time they’d lost there, Touya had continued to take damage.

Minori chanted a new Purification Barrier for Touya, but Damage Interception spells wouldn’t recover lost HP. Kannagi used special recovery spells, and that was their fatal weakness—they exerted control such that damage was not inflicted, but they weren’t good with normal recovery spells, the type that recovered the damage itself.

Minori herself had lost many options, including that earlier emergency spell.

The situation wasn’t good.

Still, the fact that the goblins’ numbers were down was great news. The enemy’s advantage had been in the number of members who could make direct attacks. Now that they’d done away with that advantage, a slightly higher level of balance had been achieved on the battlefield. As Minori cast her own inferior recovery spells and damage absorption spells at Touya, she issued orders to Rundelhaus and Isuzu. Following those instructions, the two of them began concentrating their attacks on the Dire Wolf.

“When you’ve encountered multiple tough enemies, there are several possible strategies. If you’re mounting a surprise attack, it’s effective to take out the strongest enemy and damage their morale. If you do it well, the lesser enemies will run from you. But for other situations, in battles that take the best of both sides’ ability, the key to victory lies in cutting down the enemy’s numbers, starting with the weaker ones. You should firm up your damage control by reducing the number of enemies who participate in attacks.”

What Shiroe had taught her came back to her.

Touya was still bleeding. Minori’s precious little brother, the brother she was so proud of, was wounded, his face twisted in pain. However, precisely because that was true, they needed to concentrate on reducing the enemy’s numbers right now.

While Touya supported the front line in exchange for his own blood, Rundelhaus and the rest needed to finish off the Dire Wolf. That was how they’d be able to reward Touya for holding the front line.

Minori was faithfully following Shiroe’s advice, and just then, she had truly “read” the battle.

She grasped her friends’ HP and MP, gave orders, supported, helped to boost each of them up—she saw all there was to see of the terrain of the battle, became the wind over the battlefield itself. Minori was living with everything she had.

However, even Minori’s foresight couldn’t predict everything.

The one thing talent couldn’t make up for was combat experience.

A moment’s accident was enough to bring the balance crashing down.

The second Dire Wolf shook off Serara’s binding spell and joined the attack on Touya.

Two Dire Wolves and a powerful Hobgoblin. Against those three, the barrier Minori had cast shattered in a heartbeat.

In an instant, Minori took in the new information that had flown her way and ran calculations, half on instinct alone.

Nine seconds. —Yes. In nine seconds, Touya would die.

Minori stared frantically at her spell chant icon. Eight seconds left until the recast time for Purification Barrier was up. However, as she’d just seen, a Damage Interception spell in that class wouldn’t be able to stop the attacks of the three enemies in front of them.

“Not yet!!”

Serara’s scream rang out. The spell she cast was Pulse Recovery. This was a special recovery skill unique to Druids. The spell continuously recovered damage, and Touya’s HP should have been gradually climbing, but it wasn’t.

It was being lost faster than it was being recovered. Even Serara’s Pulse Recovery did no more than prolong the time until his death.

Recalculate.

Recalculate.

Recalculate.

As she desperately twined feeble recovery spells together, Minori calculated. Even when she combined all the recovery spells she had and all the recovery spells Serara had, she couldn’t push back the time when Touya would fall by more than thirty-five seconds.

Both her emergency recovery spells and her large recovery spells were exhausted. Recast time rendered more than half of the recovery spells available Minori and Serara unusable.

If this keeps up…

A nasty taste filled her mouth, and a nauseating shiver raced down her spine.

Touya was the cornerstone of the vanguard. If Touya fell, the odds of their being annihilated would skyrocket.

That wasn’t all.

An instinctive revulsion—Minori sensed the smell of death.

It was hard to breathe.

It was as though the air had become a liquid, and she couldn’t get it into her lungs. Time grew heavy, viscous, and all that filled Minori was a drawn-out sense of helpless, desperate impatience.

She wouldn’t make it in time.

She wouldn’t make it in time.

Minori stood, locked in cold air in midsummer, the blood pounding in her ears. All she could do was stare at Touya’s HP as it fell every tenth of a second.

As though something had burst, time sped up again.

Rundelhaus, who had dashed past Minori, rammed into the Dire Wolf and thrust both arms into its mouth.

“Rudy?!”

“Leave this to me, Mademoiselle Isuzu!! I am… I am an Adventurer! As if I’d allow a petty mongrel like this to defeat me!!”

The wolf was enormous, the size of an ox. Its jaws were lined with fangs that looked as though they could bite off his entire upper body, and Rundelhaus had shoved his arms in up to the shoulder. But the Dire Wolf planted its feet, which might as well have been made of steel. It swung its head around, destroying the wall of a building and taking Rundelhaus along with it.

“Rudy!!”

Isuzu’s shout was almost a scream. With the heavyweight spear she gripped in her hands, she struck out at the Dire Wolf, but its body was covered in bristles that deflected the blow.

“Calm down, Mademoiselle Isuzu. A gentleman…must always act noble…”

Rundelhaus had been dragged down onto the road, and over him, demonic flames blazed in the Dire Wolf’s eyes. The air it exhaled as it tried to spit Rundelhaus out stank like wild beasts, but, even crumpled and smeared with sweat and mud as he was, Rundelhaus clung to the Dire Wolf’s fangs, staying right in front of its face.

Every time the fangs gnashed, spraying the dull smell of blood around the area, Isuzu struck it with her spear, over and over, but Rundelhaus stopped her.

“If I run, this…thing will go af…ter Touya…again. Even Touya can’t…handle three…”

He was right.

Because Rundelhaus was sacrificing himself, Touya would be able to escape death. The pressure of the attack damage had eased, and the situation seemed to be taking a turn for the better.

“But Rudy, you’ll–!”

“Isuzu! We are attackers!!”

Rundelhaus shoved his arms even deeper into the wolf’s mouth, as though saying he’d give them to it. Wolves were canines, after all: Because of their sharp teeth, when something was pushed deep into their mouths, it was difficult for them to attack another target until they spit it out.

“But–”

“Defeat the enemy!!” Rundelhaus yelled, and then, as if he felt more words would be a waste, he began to chant. His arms were already shredded, no more than lumps of meat attached to his shoulders. Even so, as he forced them into the Dire Wolf’s mouth, he concentrated his flame energy. The magma spell Rundelhaus was shouting at the top of his lungs began to burn the Dire Wolf’s insides before he fired it.

He didn’t even need to fire it.

Rundelhaus’s spell was being generated inside the Dire Wolf’s mouth.

Unable to take the agony, the Dire Wolf tried to tear Rundelhaus off, but he clung like a man possessed, refusing to let the wolf go.

No: The fibers of the robe Rundelhaus wore were already tangled in the sawlike rows of fangs, and pieces of the elbow-length magic gauntlets were caught firmly in the teeth. It would have been hard for him to pull himself free.

“Do not underestimate me. I am—!!”

His hoarse voice echoed over the street, where the sunset was beginning to fade.

“I am Rundelhaus Code!! I am an Adventurer!!”

9

A scorched smell filled the area.

Rundelhaus had set the magic of the Magician’s Gauntlets on a rampage. As he’d planned, it had burned away the Dire Wolf’s insides, and then turned the right half of the Hobgoblin’s body to cinders on momentum.

The battle had ended in victory for Isuzu and the others.

However, Rundelhaus, who had been the key figure in that victory and who should have been laughing a conceited, empty-headed laugh, was lying in front of Isuzu, covered in mud.

“Nature Revive!!”

Serara’s resurrection spell had no effect.

Of course it didn’t. As he lay there, his face was already pale, and it was practically smothered in blood. His eyelids—which, even dirty, looked like a prince’s—were smooth, and he seemed just like a child of the nobility who’d fallen asleep, but…

…he was a Person of the Earth.

“…I’m sorry.”

Something hot was dripping into the palm of Isuzu’s hand.

“Why can’t you bring him back? Hey, Minori, do it again!” Touya yelled. He didn’t understand the situation.

Minori nodded and chanted Soul-Calling Prayer, but as expected, Rundelhaus didn’t regain consciousness.

That was only natural.

“I’m sorry… Touya. Rudy is a…Person of…the…Earth…”

Isuzu spoke slowly.

It felt as though, if she admitted it, she’d be letting him go, and the words tangled up in her throat, refusing to come out. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Minori clench her fists tightly, and she heard Serara murmur, “No…,” but Isuzu couldn’t care about any of it.

“—Rudy is a Person of the Earth. …He formed a party with us, adventured with us, ate with us, but… Rudy is a Person of the Earth, so…if he…dies…”

—If he had to…

Isuzu’s chest hurt so much it felt as if the pain would crush it.

It wasn’t as though she’d never imagined something like this.

It was why she hadn’t wanted him to fight, and why she’d thought that, if she couldn’t object completely, she’d protect Rundelhaus; she wouldn’t let him do anything reckless.

…But she hadn’t been able to stop him.

If she’d stopped him that first time…

If she’d flatly refused, back at Forest Ragranda, when she’d caught on. No, even if she hadn’t done that, if she’d only been open and told everyone, things might not have turned out this way, but…

In order to make Rundelhaus’s dream come true, Isuzu had cooperated with his lie.

When Rundelhaus had said, “I’m going to be an Adventurer,” his face had been so much like a little kid’s.

Adventurers and People of the Earth were different.

They were completely different beings.

He couldn’t possibly “become” one, and yet…

Of course. Hadn’t Rundelhaus been worried and hurt by it? He’d complained that no matter how much they fought, his experience points only rose at a snail’s pace. He wasn’t able to grow even half of half as much as Isuzu and the others, and he was irritated by the fact that his level wasn’t rising. That was why he’d trained as hard and as furiously as he had.

Isuzu had never seen Rundelhaus lazing around in the tent. Whenever he’d had even a little spare time, he’d been out training hard or meditating. Rudy himself said it was “a noble’s natural obligation,” or “a man’s long-cherished ambition,” but there had to have been impatience and irritation there as well, and even so…

Isuzu had known, and she’d let it slide.

I’m sorry. Rudy…I’m so sorry…

The way Rundelhaus had wanted it had been so childlike and innocent that Isuzu had seen his dream, too. The dream that a Person of the Earth could become an Adventurer.

“Rudy…is a Person of the Earth…?”

Isuzu nodded, responding to Touya. When she nodded, the tears that were rolling down her cheeks fell from her chin in large drops, but she didn’t care. This was Isuzu’s punishment.

Rundelhaus had been so kind.

She was just a skinny country bumpkin, but Rundelhaus had treated her like a girl.

She worried about her freckles, and she wasn’t the least bit sophisticated, but Rundelhaus had always called her “Mademoiselle.”

…And yet, to the very end, she hadn’t stopped him properly, had done nothing but get in his way, and she’d said he was dumb and doggish and had treated him just as she pleased.

She’d liked it when he talked to her.

She’d liked it when he complimented her.

She’d liked the way he treated her like a lady.

Isuzu couldn’t make the words flood out; it was as if they’d gone mad. They lodged in her throat, pushing up tears and a tiny, moaning voice.

Every single warm, gentle, awkward memory was her punishment for driving Rundelhaus into the jaws of death.

“Oh…” Serara murmured softly.

She cast Instant Heal, then put her ear to his chest. Her expression clouded, and she performed another recovery.

“Huh? Don’t tell me…”

Catching sight of an impossible hope, Isuzu pressed Serara for answers.

“I don’t know. His pulse is almost gone, but when I heal him, it feels as if there’s a very slight response… But I’m sorry. If resurrection won’t work, then…”

Isuzu felt the hope she’d only just managed to reclaim crumble to bits. However, there was one girl who’d firmly latched on to those words.

“Not yet.”

“Huh?”

“…Please help us. Please. We need your strength, Shiroe.”