Chapter 2: Small Assassin

1

—Four days had passed.

Four days since the insanity of being set adrift in another world.

After taking their leave of Marielle, Shiroe and Naotsugu had spent most of their time trekking through the streets of Akiba, gathering information.

Naturally, new facts came to light every day.

The first discovery, and one they’d made quite easily, was that they got hungry. In fact, they’d felt a vague irritation starting at about the time they said good-bye to Marielle. However, the tension and fear of the abnormal situation had swamped the irritation, and they’d walked around searching for information until night fell and their legs were like lead without ever realizing that the strange sensation was hunger.

In the end, though, they’d given in to their empty stomachs. At daybreak, Shiroe and Naotsugu bought food at the market and went back to the abandoned building where they’d met the day before. Their attempt at a slightly unhealthy meal (dinner meets breakfast) proved to be a shattering experience.

That morning, Shiroe had purchased roast chicken with orange sauce, a tomato sandwich, chocolate cake, and green tea. Naotsugu had picked up seafood pizza, potatoes and bacon, a Caesar salad, and orangeade. While that may seem extravagant, Shiroe and Naotsugu were both level-90 players with property to match. Besides, everything they’d purchased had been made by artisan players and offered for sale at the market in large quantities. To all appearances, the food was fresh, colorful, and fit for a king.

…But it all tasted exactly the same.

It was, to borrow Naotsugu’s disgusted review, like eating soggy, unsalted rice crackers. Shiroe was forced to agree.

As for the beverages, although they were different colors, they both tasted like city tap water.

It didn’t taste so bad that they had to spit it out after the first bite. It probably wasn’t poison. If they ate enough of it, they felt full, so it was definitely food. But Shiroe and Naotsugu still felt as if the bottom had been kicked out of their morning.

That the taste wasn’t terrible enough to provoke instant yelling made it really difficult to deal with. The more they ate, the odder they felt. The insipid flavor seemed to slowly drain the hope out of them. It was a dull, miserable taste.

After buying up several different kinds of food, they learned a few more things. All the foods they were eating had either been made by players or sold by non-player characters. One of the countless subclasses in Elder Tales was Chef. The food items they’d purchased had been created by Chefs using their cooking skills. Because subclasses could be acquired regardless of which of the twelve main classes a player belonged to, it was possible to be a Samurai Chef or a Sorcerer Chef.

Although these Chefs had used their skills to create the food items Shiroe and Naotsugu were eating, cooking in Elder Tales was a fairly automatic operation. You approached the kitchen counter object, took the ingredient items out of your pack, and specified which ones to use. Some ingredients could be harvested in various zones, while others—such as meat—could be taken from monsters, and a few could be picked up in dungeons. There were also items like grain, which could be grown by sowing seeds in a field. Non-player characters sold basic ingredients, and it was perfectly possible to purchase ingredients from other players at the market. No matter how a player got the ingredients, all they had to do was select items to view a list of dishes that could be created, then select the dish they wanted to make. In about ten seconds, the ingredients would start to glow, then disappear and be replaced by the finished dish.

Shiroe and Naotsugu had started to wonder whether this push-button preparation method was the problem.

Just yesterday, they’d discovered that unprepared ingredients did taste the way they were supposed to. Oranges, apples, and other fruits were juicy and delicious, and fresh-caught fish smelled like real fish. The salt and sugar they’d bought from non-player characters tasted salty and sweet. Regardless, any dish made by mixing these ingredients together tasted like soggy, unsalted rice crackers.

The phenomenon was inevitable. No matter what they tried, they couldn’t change it. On top of that, apparently it wasn’t possible to actually cook in this world. When they tried to process an ingredient by hand, it turned into a weird gel-like substance.

With no way around it, Shiroe and Naotsugu bought salt as a stand-alone ingredient along with their other food items and staved off starvation by salting their soggy rice crackers before they ate. It made for a very poor meal, but it was better than having no flavor at all.

Of course what went in had to come out, which meant they discovered that they’d have to go with relative ease as well. Since Shiroe and Naotsugu were guys, this didn’t pose much of a problem, provided they didn’t mind going outside, although it would have been nice to have toilet paper. Naotsugu muttered, “This must be pretty rough on the girls…,” but Shiroe pretended he hadn’t heard.

The world held all sorts of things that it did no good for Shiroe to think about. They learned that they needed to sleep, too. Unlike Shiroe’s real body, his body in this world was pretty strong. At level 90, even a magic user had corresponding abilities, and stamina seemed to be one of them. However, physical fatigue and the desire for sleep seemed to be two different things, and after being active for a certain amount of time, both Shiroe and Naotsugu would get very sleepy.

When Shiroe and Naotsugu entered an inn, they’d rent a zone for a short period and stay there. Neither of them had ever used this function when Elder Tales was a game. When they’d decided to stop playing for a while, all they had to do was find a convenient alley in Akiba and log out. When they played the game, they adventured; when they wanted to rest, they left the game world entirely. Things that they’d taken for granted when they played the game didn’t hold true anymore.

Since they kept their bodies while they slept, they needed somewhere relatively safe to put them… And of course, when they woke up, they hadn’t returned to the real world.

Speaking of returning to the real world, they’d discovered the answer to another question: Resurrection from death existed even in this version of the Elder Tales world. When players died, after a little while they came back to life in the temple in Akiba. If things still worked the way they had in the game, the resurrected player would probably lose a certain amount of experience points or money, but since it hadn’t happened to Shiroe or Naotsugu yet, they didn’t know for sure.

The fact that resurrection existed meant that death in the game world didn’t equal actual extinction. Although that was good news, it also put an end to the hope that death would be a ticket back to the real world.

Death and food. If there was one thing they’d learned from these two basic elements of life, it was that even the most diplomatic speaker couldn’t call this world anything but warped and contradictory. At a glance, it seemed to be a faithful real-life reproduction of the Elder Tales game world. Shiroe and Naotsugu had acquired their in-game abilities and property and were living in a world that teemed with game monsters. However, the game was a game, not a replica of some other world. Considered as a world with consistent physical laws, this world seemed incredibly incomplete and on the verge of disintegrating to Shiroe.

The biggest example was the food. Roasted fish, which was made by selecting the ingredients salt and fish, didn’t taste like either salt or fish. Instead, it turned into something that looked exactly like roasted fish but tasted like soggy rice crackers. That said, when they put salt on the roasted fish and ate it, it did taste salty. Sprinkling salt on afterward made it salty, but cooking with salt as an ingredient negated any saltiness.

Just as an experiment, they tried cooking raw fish over a fire and other heat sources, the way it would have been done in the real world. Nothing they tried produced anything they recognized as roasted fish. The end result was always an unidentifiable charred lump.

The same was true of sleeping and going to the bathroom: Neither should be necessary in a game. However, in this real version of Elder Tales, Shiroe and Naotsugu did get sleepy, and bathrooms were definitely necessary.

No matter how you looked at it, this world was strange.

Of course, since it actually was a world, there had to be rules behind it somewhere. What they didn’t know was whether the world was operating on the Elder Tales rules or whether there were different physical rules at play here, completely understandable but belonging to a world that wasn’t their own. It almost looked as though both ideas were true: two sets of rules mixing in an uncanny way, making the world even more of a chaotic puzzle.

They’d discovered many other things over those four days.

On the second day after the fiasco, Shiroe and Naotsugu screwed up their courage and headed out to one of the field zones. They chose the Forest of Library Towers, a neighboring zone that could be reached by gate from Akiba.

Since the Forest of Library Towers was so close to the starting point, it was a fairly easy zone. Many of the zones around the five major cities were tailored to beginners. In Elder Tales, everyone knew that high-level monsters lived deep in the mountains, far from the cities. This was a typical field zone of ruins, haunted by monsters who were somewhere in the level-20 bracket. It was filled with abandoned buildings covered in green vines and parasitic plants, similar to the ones in Akiba.

As its name implied, the Forest of Library Towers was a zone littered with old bookstores, libraries, and laboratories and was connected to several dungeon zones. Although enemies here were weak, they occasionally dropped Esoteric Scrolls as treasures, and the zone was a notoriously profitable hunting ground for newbie Adventurers.

Shiroe and Naotsugu were level-players with plenty of experience points and a good array of equipment, and they’d be tackling weak monsters, none of which would be more than level 25. There was such a huge level difference that they wouldn’t get any experience points no matter how many monsters they defeated, but they’d chosen this beginner zone anyway, partly out of caution. In it, they came up against a reality that was harsher than anything they’d imagined.

Battles didn’t unfold as planned.

It wasn’t that the monsters were tough. All it took to topple a goblin or a gray wolf was a single glancing blow from Naotsugu’s sword. Not only that, but a direct hit from one of Shiroe’s attack spells would kill a monster, even though, as an Enchanter, his attack spells were the weakest of any magic user’s. The level gap was just that big.

However, being able to defeat the enemy didn’t mean the battles were easy. The first time he encountered a wolf, and the time he was swarmed by little green goblins brandishing bloodstained, rusty axes, Shiroe was so terrified that his knees would barely hold him. He was breathing ten times faster than he normally did, but even with that much air in his lungs, he felt like he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. It was hard to breathe, and his field of vision narrowed. If he hadn’t kept telling himself over and over that the enemy’s attacks wouldn’t do any damage, he might have turned and run.

A little while later, that desperate guess—that they couldn’t take damage from these enemies—proved to be correct. At level 90, Shiroe’s HP was slightly over eight thousand, and as a Guardian, the class with the strongest Defense, Naotsugu had thirteen thousand. Against them, goblins could only inflict damage in the single digits. Even if the goblins came at them with ferocious shrieks and swung axes down on them with terrible force, it hurt less than taking a punch from an elementary schoolkid. Once they knew for sure that was the case, Shiroe and Naotsugu were finally able to calm down.

Even though they stopped taking any damage once they’d relaxed, the fighting was still hard. Here, too, the weird tension produced by the conflict between natural physical laws and the Elder Tales specs reared its head.

In Elder Tales battles, once players had formed a party, as Shiroe and Naotsugu had done, they chose team plays and strategies almost unconsciously while keeping an eye on each other’s HP via their status screens. Were other enemies approaching while they fought the enemies in front of them? Was the enemy merging or summoning reinforcements? Which enemy should they take down first? Which enemies was it safe to weaken to a certain level and leave for later? These insignificant scraps of information could have a major effect on the outcome of a battle.

Under the circumstances, though, it was hard even to check each other’s HP. If they concentrated on their foreheads, the HP display came up in their mind’s eye. However, it was incredibly difficult to keep track of numbers and statuses while battling on rubble-strewn, uneven ground. As a magic user, Shiroe had the leeway to watch the whole battlefield from the rear, but Naotsugu had to attract enemy attacks on the front lines and protect the rest of his party, and having lost the wide field of vision and the ability to grasp his surroundings that he’d had in the game, he was practically flying blind.

“This is a lot hairier than I thought it would be.”

Naotsugu heaved a deep sigh as they ate the Chinese steamed buns they’d brought for lunch. Since the monsters here were so weak, they were able to fight without worrying about their HP, but how well they’d fare against an opponent on their level was anyone’s guess. Dejectedly eating the bland, salted muck that only looked like Chinese steamed buns, Shiroe and Naotsugu compared notes on the battle.

Neither of them had any real-world fighting experience. They had no idea how to get used to the sensations and the fear battles brought, and they weren’t sure whether trying to do it this way would actually work. That said, they both knew that if they were scared of puny-level monsters, they’d be in big trouble if anything more serious happened later on. Since Elder Tales was a fantasy adventure game, fighting monsters was a major element. Whether this world had been influenced by Elder Tales or was the world of Elder Tales itself, getting used to fighting was going to be a big prerequisite of survival.

Fortunately, they were both far tougher physically than they’d anticipated. Since they were high-level players, Shiroe’s and Naotsugu’s bodies didn’t seem to get fatigued. Even if they managed to wear themselves out by fighting or traveling, it only took them a few minutes of rest to recharge. They spent nearly all the daylight hours outdoors and used the hours between evening and true night to go to taverns and visit acquaintances in town, looking for new information and talking with players who were in the same situation.

During those first four days, at least on the surface, the town of Akiba remained quiet. The big panic Shiroe had anticipated didn’t happen. That might have been because the players had been given the bare minimum required for peace of mind: Food was readily available—even if it tasted abysmal—and they’d seen that death in this world didn’t equal extinction. Of course, that didn’t mean nothing happened. Several trends began to appear, and while they weren’t large, they weren’t safe to ignore.

First, the goods offered for sale at the market were rapidly disappearing. Many players seemed to have come to the same conclusion as Shiroe and taken their own items off the market. The remaining items belonged to players who had been lucky enough to not have logged in that day, and as the days went by, even those began to sell out. There were rumors that some of the big artisan guilds were buying up raw materials, and quite a few items became impossible to get. Many players belonged to production classes, but they seemed to have suspended their activities due to the current situation.

Another trend was the guilds’ recruiting war and the search for guilds by unaffiliated players. Apparently, humans did feel more at ease when they belonged to something. The disaster seemed to have spurred many unaffiliated players, gamers who’d been content to spend their days carelessly until now, into taking the plunge and joining a guild. If a player was in your field of vision, it was possible to tell their name and which guild they belonged to by checking a menu. However, there was no easy way to see statistics about the whole situation from within the game. For that reason, all Shiroe had to go on was the general ratio of the players he saw, but he felt that the number of unaffiliated players was dwindling.

Of course, as unaffiliated players who were also level 90, Shiroe and Naotsugu were approached by any number of guilds as they wandered through town. Both turned down every single invitation.

Unlike Shiroe, Naotsugu didn’t seem to have any particular negative feelings toward guilds. When Shiroe asked him about it, he laughed. “Hanging out with somebody is an end result. You just start running, and you pick up friends along the way. That’s how it’s usually done.”

The Debauchery Tea Party hadn’t been a guild, and it hadn’t been formed the way guilds were. To Shiroe and Naotsugu, former Tea Party members, a guild was just a name, and names weren’t important. In the first place, neither of them had any illusions that belonging to a guild would have protected them from the initial disaster or the resulting chaos.

Unlike Shiroe and Naotsugu, though, many players seemed to feel that the guilds were the only things they could rely on. The twins Shiroe had been with on the day of the disaster seemed to have joined a guild as well. He only saw them once in town, from a distance, but they seemed to be safe, which was a small relief. As if to fulfill unaffiliated players’ desire for the reassurance of belonging somewhere, several guilds had launched expansion strategies. Some expanded by recruiting unaffiliated players and swelling their ranks, but it was more common for several small guilds to merge or for big guilds to target and appropriate particular players from other guilds.

Shiroe didn’t understand why the guilds would want to boost their numbers. When he asked Marielle, she said it had to do with the current atmosphere in Akiba.

Ever since the disaster, many players seemed to feel that they’d been exiled to this other world. Even Shiroe and Naotsugu felt to some extent that the situation was unfair. However, the irritation the players felt at this unfairness seemed to be much stronger than Shiroe had anticipated. When an entire guild shared this feeling, it turned into active rejection of anything that was not part of that particular guild. In other words, “Everyone who isn’t us is the enemy.” It was all right to trust members of the same guild, but no one else. In this harsh atmosphere, it could have been a natural attempt at self-defense.

However, that atmosphere had grown too intense, and little by little, friction between the guilds was increasing. Of course, since Akiba was a noncombat zone, there would be no sudden outright attacks. If there were any attempts at starting a fight, at stealing, or at keeping someone prisoner, the guards would immediately teleport in and forcibly arrest the aggressor.

That said, sharp words and harassment didn’t necessarily count as “combat.” There were all sorts of ways to slip harassment through the gaps in the definition of combat, especially now that players were physically part of this world. Small guilds were often the targets of this sort of harassment. Marielle gave a small smile that was both slightly troubled and intended to gloss over that trouble.

It was while they were talking to Marielle that they uncovered something serious about the zones. Shiroe had absently opened his mental array of icons. Down below the information menu and the guild-related items, he discovered that an unfamiliar item had been added to the list. Although he wasn’t used to seeing the item here, he had seen it before. It was the menu that showed the information on the zone he was currently in, and it displayed all the usual items: JAPANESE SERVER / THE TOWN OF AKIBA / URBAN AREA—NO MONSTERS / NONCOMBAT ZONE / ENTRY PERMISSION (UNLIMITED) / EXIT PERMISSION (UNLIMITED).

Shiroe, Marielle, and Naotsugu had been standing and talking in one of Akiba’s deserted streets, and so of course the display described Akiba, the zone they were in. No problems there.

The problem was in the next line.

THIS ZONE HAS NO SPECIFIC OWNER AT PRESENT. TO PURCHASE THIS ZONE, YOU’LL NEED SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION GOLD COINS. MONTHLY MAINTENANCE FEES ARE 1.2 MILLION GOLD COINS. PURCHASE? (YES / NO)

That notice was a menu that appeared during purchases of small zones. A smaller abandoned building, for example, or a hotel room or the Crescent Moon League guildhall. Now, although it would take an astronomical sum of money to purchase it, Akiba itself was up for sale.

At first, when Shiroe mentioned it to them, Marielle and Naotsugu laughed. Once they checked their own menus, though, they were struck dumb.

Shiroe had a long history in Elder Tales, and he was a high-level player. As players went, he was comparatively wealthy. The total worth of everything in his bank account was about fifty thousand gold coins. He could declare categorically that seven hundred million gold coins wasn’t an amount any single player could pay.

However, if one of the major guilds invested all the resources at their disposal—even then, he thought it probably wouldn’t be possible, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t be.

If, hypothetically, someone bought the town of Akiba, the purchaser would be able to set entry restrictions. If they didn’t like a guild or an individual, they could make the town off-limits to them at the system level.

When Marielle assembled the members of the Crescent Moon League and everyone split up and investigated, they discovered that almost every zone was now for sale. In other words, all zones—urban areas, fields, and dungeons—had been declared ownerless and put up for sale. The only exceptions were places that already had owners, such as the Crescent Moon League guildhall. Zones like that had acquired the option to revert the right of ownership to a deed item.

By the fourth day after the disaster, Shiroe and the others were no longer able to shrug off the major guilds’ increasing strength as straightforward expansion strategies.

2

On the morning of the fifth day, Shiroe and Naotsugu left their usual inn and headed for the market to buy food for the day. Oddly for him (although it could have been because he’d just woken up), Naotsugu trudged along listlessly.

“What’s the matter?”

“…Nnergh. The idea of having to eat that craptastic food for the rest of forever is really bumming me out.”

Shiroe knew exactly how Naotsugu felt. He’d never considered himself a gourmet, and he hadn’t had brag-worthy eating habits in the real world. Now, though, he realized just how well he’d eaten before.

Those fast-food fried chicken bentos really were tasty. That sixty-eight-yen instant ramen. Mm, and yakisoba bread… All incredible luxuries, come to think of it.

The same went for black tea, coffee, and soft drinks. That every single beverage tasted like city tap water had been really tough to take. From what Shiroe knew, all beverages were made by combining well water with other ingredients. When they’d tried drinking it, just to see, even well water had tasted like city tap water, which meant that the “city tap water” taste was probably all in their heads, and the water was just plain water.

The idea that water mixed with something else was still just water made them feel as if they’d been cheated somehow.

“…That’s all there is.”

“Well, yeah. I know that. I just think they probably feed you better in jail even. I saw what they served at Abashiri Prison on a TV special one time, and it looked pretty good.”

“Yeah.”

Come to think of it, it did feel that way. Up until middle school, Shiroe had gone to a public school. The lunches he’d eaten there hadn’t been gourmet in any sense of the word, but they’d been far better than this world’s universal soggy rice cracker fare.

“So, I’ve been thinking.”

“About…?”

“What if this is some divine torture chamber where we’re being forced to eat craptastic food?”

Shiroe was about to tell him that was insane when he realized he had no way to disprove it. It sounded like a far-fetched, nutty idea, but reality was already pretty far-fetched and nutty, and he couldn’t just laugh it off as crazy talk.

“If so, that particular god is pretty good at torture.”

“That’s what I say. What if the food was poison and eating it made you cough up blood, but they kept making you eat it anyway? Doesn’t that sound like hell? Like there’d be tormenting demons who force-fed it to you.”

You know, that does sound like it could be a Buddhist hell, Shiroe thought.

“It’s not like that, though, is it? It’s probably some kind of nutritious, and it isn’t poison. Even the taste isn’t so bad you can’t choke it down. For one meal, it’d probably be okay. But it’s the only thing we’ve got. There will never, ever be any other flavor. This is all we get, from here to infinity, and we’ll just keep getting more and more bummed out—that’s some pretty high-level harassment, wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s why I said they’re good at torture—not that I don’t wish they weren’t.”

As Shiroe and Naotsugu were talking…

…a pebble bounced off the asphalt at their feet with a faint click.

When Shiroe looked up, he saw a tall man standing in the entrance to a crumbling three-story building that had once been some sort of shop.

“That’s Akatsuki.”

Black hair, black clothes, regular features. The man had a scarf wrapped around his face, hiding his mouth. He nodded to Shiroe.

“Friend of yours?”

“Yeah. This is Akatsuki,” Shiroe told Naotsugu as they approached the man. “He’s an Assassin.”

Shiroe had gotten to know Akatsuki about a year ago. Akatsuki was an extremely taciturn player. This was partly due to the fact that, in this day and age, when practically everyone used voice chat, he preferred old-school text chats. Of course, that only made him a more authentic Assassin. There were quite a few role players like Akatsuki in Elder Tales. To Shiroe, role players were players who took atmosphere very seriously.

Even before Elder Tales went real, Akatsuki had not been “that guy who plays a character called Akatsuki in the game,” but “a guy named Akatsuki who lives in this world,” and everything he said or did in the game had reinforced that image. Calling it acting would have been rude. Role-playing was part of the fun of games like Elder Tales, and there was no reason for other players to criticize it.

Besides, Shiroe thought Akatsuki was a pretty skilled player. He was quiet, curt, and didn’t have a shred of personal charm—in that sense, he was very nearly the opposite of Marielle—but when Shiroe had been in parties with him, Akatsuki had performed his role flawlessly, and he’d never forgotten to be considerate to the other party members. Cheerful words and actions weren’t the only ways to be considerate. Players like him were invaluable these days.

More than anything, Shiroe liked the fact that silences never got uncomfortable. In some relationships, silences tended to feel stony and strained, but Akatsuki and Shiroe were a bit alike in a few ways, and even when they’d hunted together for long stretches, the silence had never gotten awkward. Shiroe felt as if it was because they’d been communicating through something other than words, instead of simply being mute. They’d pieced together a conversation from small, intentional actions and exchanges: The timing of a team play, a slight gesture when providing support in combat, the rests between battles. An Assassin with a professional’s pride who could be relied on during quests: That was Shiroe’s image of Akatsuki.

“Hi, Akatsuki. Did you need something?”

Akatsuki got his intent across with a slight dip of his jaw, then withdrew into the depths of the shop, which looked set to come down around his ears. Apparently, this particular shop wasn’t an independent zone; it was just a huge object within the Akiba boundaries.

Accepting Akatsuki’s invitation, Shiroe and Naotsugu followed him into the dim ruin.

“Hey, Shiro. What sort of guy is this dude?” Naotsugu whispered.

“Akatsuki is a role player,” Shiroe answered, also whispering. “He doesn’t say much, but he’s got skills. Solid ones… Under the circumstances, though, he’s probably as depressed as the rest of us.”

They’d already lost sight of Akatsuki; he’d gone deeper into the ruin by himself. His behavior seemed a bit more impatient than usual.

The room smelled damp and dusty. The morning sun streamed in through chinks in the crumbling walls and narrow windows in ruler-straight lines. The place really had been some sort of shop, most likely a restaurant: The room they’d entered was spacious and terribly jumbled, with several scattered tables, chairs, and sofas tipped over or resting at crazy angles.

Akatsuki turned then, staring at Naotsugu with eyes that seemed troubled and somehow accusatory.

Shiroe took that as his cue to make introductions.

“Akatsuki, this is Naotsugu. Guardian. He’s an old friend of mine, and he’s pretty reliable. You can trust him.”

“Naotsugu here. Nice to meetcha! I dunno if you’re an open type or a moody type, but whenever you want to talk about raunchy stuff, count me in.”

It was a typical Naotsugu greeting: much too straightforward. You just met this guy, Shiroe thought, feeling very close to his wits’ end, but Akatsuki’s expression was tense, as though he didn’t have the emotional leeway to care.

Was Akatsuki always this on edge? Shiroe wondered privately, as the uneasy silence lengthened. He didn’t say much, but unless I’m remembering wrong, he used to be light on his feet and love fighting.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

At last, Akatsuki spoke, letting the words fall in a voice so faint it was barely audible. It was a very thin, unreliable voice.

“Did you need me for something?”

Akatsuki nodded silently in response to Shiroe’s question. Even then, he seemed to be agonizing over something. He took two or three deep breaths, then spoke, as if he’d made up his mind.

“I want to buy your Appearance Reset Potion.”

Akatsuki’s voice was faint, but Shiroe heard what he said quite clearly. Even so, it took a while for the content of the words to travel from his ears to his brain, and he had to think for a bit before he really understood what he’d heard.

The Appearance Reset Potion was a limited-edition item that had been distributed at an event Shiroe had attended just after he’d started playing Elder Tales. It had been a free gift in some sort of sales promotion campaign intended to draw in more Elder Tales users. From what he remembered, the campaign itself had been a tie-up with online radio and a pretty shoddy affair. It was a badly designed event, with an appearance by some unknown, here-and-gone voice actor and the announcement of a new song thrown in haphazardly, and even the Elder Tales administration team probably wanted to forget it had ever happened.

Any game with a history of twenty years was bound to have several ridiculous campaigns in its past, and no doubt there were countless limited-edition items associated with those campaigns.

Elder Tales players created their characters right after they began the game. Eight races. Twelve classes. Name. Gender. Then there were other items to fine-tune: height and body build, facial texture, hairstyle, hair and eye color. The “body build” category allowed players to adjust a dozen or so measurements, including chest diameter, leg length, and shoulder width. Of course, things like figures and faces had no effect whatsoever on battles, growth, or any other aspect of the game balance, so seasoned users tended to just punch in likely looking numbers and go.

The Appearance Reset Potion was exactly what it sounded like: an elixir that let players change the appearance of the characters they’d created at the beginning of the game. That said, since appearance didn’t affect game difficulty at all, the potion was little better than a gag item. In line with the extremely shoddy sales promotion campaign, although it was incredibly rare, it was just a “fun” item with no practical significance.

…Until now.

“A-A-Akatsuki… D-don’t tell me…”

Shiroe’s tone earned him a very focused glare from Akatsuki.

“You’re a girl?”

In sharp contrast with his intrepid, exquisitely skillful professional killer’s looks, Akatsuki nodded his head meekly.

That faint voice. Akatsuki had been working hard to disguise it, but it had been a woman’s voice. In this world, with text chats no longer an option, there was no way to hide it.

“…Okay. I did not see that coming.”

Beside Shiroe, Naotsugu had frozen up, too.

3

Shiroe made a trip to the bank and withdrew the Appearance Reset Potion from his deposit box. Back at the crumbling shop, he handed the item to Akatsuki. The Assassin looked visibly relieved to be holding the pale orange vial.

“Wait here.”

Akatsuki disappeared into the shop’s interior. Interior wasn’t quite the right word for it; there were no other rooms farther back. There was a single-panel, freestanding screen at the border between the kitchen and the rest of the shop, and apparently Akatsuki’s belongings were stashed behind it.

That’s not safe, Shiroe thought. Don’t tell me he—uh, she—has actually been living here… But the atmosphere was tense, and he knew better than to actually ask.

“Hey, Akatsuki. You okay back there?”

“Fine… Gkh!”

“What’s wrong?”

“This potion…hurts. A lot.”

Akatsuki seemed to have drunk the potion right away. An orange light the same color as the potion glowed from the shadows behind the screen. Akatsuki’s response to Naotsugu had been tinged with pain, and that had worried Shiroe, but it was nothing compared to what came next. He felt his face go pale.

Sounds were leaking from behind the screen. Sounds like a whole bundle of chopsticks being snapped in two. Sounds like wet rags being ripped to shreds. Sounds so awful he didn’t want to know how they were being made.

Whoa, hold it, no, that can’t be okay—

“Ugkh…agh…”

Worried, Shiroe had started toward the screen, but Akatsuki’s groan seemed to nail his feet to the floor. It certainly did sound like a woman’s voice, and a very young woman at that. The strangled cries of pain continued, but Shiroe was paralyzed by the idea that if he kicked the screen out of the way he might accidentally see her naked.

Belatedly, Shiroe realized why Akatsuki had never used voice chat. Voice chat would have instantly telegraphed her gender to other players, and since she was role-playing as an Assassin, she would have found it terribly inconvenient.

“It takes all kinds, I guess.”

Naotsugu sighed. He’d picked up a fallen stool, dusted it off, and sat down on it. Shiroe was startled, too, but it wasn’t an inconceivable situation. In current online games, where voice chat was the main mode of communication, it wasn’t common for players to play as characters of a different gender, but it wasn’t as if it never happened. Elder Tales had a reputation for being complex and expertly executed, a game for experienced gamers. Both men and women enjoyed online games, but at least according to a statistic Shiroe had come across in a magazine article, women tended to prefer lighter games. In Shiroe’s own experience, about 70 percent of the players in Elder Tales were male and only 30 percent were female. Akatsuki was a player who loved combat and had a detailed understanding of the system, so Shiroe had never suspected that “he” might actually be a “she.”

“It’s over. I’m okay—thank you.”

The Akatsuki who emerged from behind the screen was a girl not quite 150 centimeters tall. She had long black hair that swayed as she moved, and as Shiroe had guessed from her voice, she was surprisingly lovely. Since she was more than thirty centimeters shorter than her former character, she seemed to be drowning in the black men’s outfit that had fit her earlier character. She looked like a little kid who’d dressed up in her dad’s work clothes. Still, there was something adorable about the delicate white ankles that peeked out of the thick, upturned cuffs and the tiny fingers poking out of the rolled-up sleeves.

“Whoa. It’s an actual pretty girl. A real one.”

Naotsugu’s mouth hung halfway open as he muttered.

Shiroe had to agree.

In this world, basic figures and hairstyles seemed to have been inherited from the Elder Tales model settings. However, recent observations seemed to indicate that elements of their real-world counterparts had been blended in as well.

Shiroe’s character in this world was a half Alv, a hybrid of the human and ancient Alv races. Alvs were supposed to be slender and brimming with curiosity, but when he’d checked the mirror at the inn, his face bore a marked resemblance to the one he wore back home in the real world. Since that resemblance included what people told him were his mean-looking sanpaku eyes, the discovery had left Shiroe rather depressed.

Unlike Shiroe, Akatsuki was a pure-blooded human, and if the same logic were applied to her, she was beautiful, full stop. Large black eyes in a pale oval face. Eyebrows like elegant arcs of deep black ink. If she looked like this even through the warped lens of the game world, the real Akatsuki must be incredibly lovely—the sort of girl anyone would call a beauty.

That said, Akatsuki’s new body was quite small. The top of her head didn’t reach Shiroe’s shoulder, and she might not even have been 150 centimeters tall.

In Elder Tales, players had very fine control over the details of their Adventurer’s figure and appearance. The male Akatsuki had been very tall.

He’d probably had at least thirty centimeters on the current Akatsuki. Shiroe’s character was only a few centimeters taller than the real-world Shiroe, and even he’d had a hard time walking at first. The handicap the disaster had inflicted on Akatsuki must have been dozens of times worse.

Shiroe felt paralyzed. He hadn’t expected her to be so pretty.

“…Nope. No way.”

Naotsugu spoke, breaking the tension.

“I take back what I said. You can’t be an open perv, a moody perv, or any kind of perv, because you’re not a guy. You’re one of them that wears the panties. Don’t you forget it.”

While that was no doubt true, it was an unreasonable declaration, and it seemed to puzzle Akatsuki.

“Lord Shiroe. Is this person deranged?”

“No, he isn’t deranged, he’s just… Um. He’s just fundamentally weird.”

“What about me is weird?!”

“Strange either way, then,” Akatsuki said, watching Naotsugu out of the corner of her eye.

Possibly because the voice chat restriction had been lifted, Akatsuki’s responses were much more relaxed than they had been when Elder Tales was a game. Still, the way she spoke—as if she was economizing on words—fit perfectly with Shiroe’s mental image of Akatsuki.

…Although that cute voice of hers is really disorienting.

“Hey, I asked you a question! What about me is weird?! I was born one hundred percent male! What sort of guy would I be if I couldn’t talk dirty once in a while? It’s like my calling. Not that I’d expect a girl like you to understand…”

Naotsugu, puffing out his chest proudly over absolutely nothing, shot Akatsuki a look and snorted contemptuously.

“Still, that sounded pretty rough back there. Here. Drink up.”

He tossed her a canteen filled with well water. Shiroe and Naotsugu had taken to buying well water because it was the cheapest thing there was, and everything else tasted just like it anyway.

“Thanks.”

Akatsuki looked a bit surprised by the gesture. She probably couldn’t figure out whether Naotsugu was a weirdo or a considerate type who was good at looking out for people. Still, she caught the canteen and gulped down quite a lot of its contents without coming up for air. Apparently she’d been really thirsty.

There in the damp-smelling shop, the three of them took up whatever positions felt comfortable and settled down to talk.

According to Akatsuki, she’d been living in this ruin for five days, trying to stay out of sight and unable to get much of anything to eat or drink. At first, Shiroe couldn’t fathom why she’d do a thing like that, but as he listened to her story, he began to understand.

The difference between this body and Akatsuki’s former one had been so large that she couldn’t even walk well. She’d been able to sidle slowly around town, but if she’d gotten caught up in any trouble, she wouldn’t have been able to cope with it, and she’d assumed that the probability of running into trouble was very high. In this world, with text chat no longer an option, if she wanted to buy anything or contact friends, she’d have to speak. She could have communicated by writing notes, but even that would have made people treat her with suspicion.

Of course, it wasn’t as if the act of speaking carried a penalty. She would simply have been a man with a woman’s voice. However, a tall, fierce killer who spoke with a woman’s voice would have been a glaring contradiction, and the combination would undoubtedly have attracted attention. Akatsuki had expected trouble, and she probably would have gotten it.

“Then I remembered that earlier when I was in a party with Lord Shiroe, he’d mentioned an Appearance Reset Potion. I thought, if I had that, I could at least get myself out of this mess.”

“I see,” Naotsugu said.

“…Still. I think you should’ve just played as this midget model version to begin with.”

“Don’t call me a midget.”

Akatsuki gave Naotsugu a sharp glare. She had a very forceful gaze. It had been forceful before she drank the potion, too, but now that she had her own form back, her incredibly serious gaze, loaded with willpower, was so persuasive that Shiroe thought it could probably bore a hole through solid rock.

It didn’t seem to bother Naotsugu, though.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with calling a midget ‘midget,’ short stuff.”

“I don’t want to hear that from a weirdo.”

It was very like Naotsugu to casually pull food and drink from his pack and offer them to her, giving her what she seemed to need even as he teased her, Shiroe thought. Akatsuki seemed to realize that, too. She didn’t seriously snap at him, and she seemed a bit out of her element.

“Part of what makes games fun is being able to do things you can’t do in real life, you know?” she said, sulking a bit. “Just like with fantasy and sci-fi. For me, that ‘thing’ was being tall.”

When she put it that way, she had a very good point.

“Well, yeah. I guess there’s no help for that.”

Naotsugu’s voice was superficially sympathetic. He shot a glance at Akatsuki.

“……”

“Yep, there’s no help for that. It’s not your fault, Akatsuki. I’m on your side here. Everybody’s got the right to dream.”

At that, he smiled as if he understood everything, then flashed her a thumbs-up. In the next instant, Akatsuki had hit him square in the face with an elegant flying knee kick.

“No knees! Did you seriously have to use your knee?!”

“Lord Shiroe, may I knee kick the weirdo?”

“You already did it! Don’t ask for permission now!”

On seeing that exchange, Shiroe was unable to choke back a laugh. That they didn’t look as though they were actually on bad terms made it even funnier.

“Way to score points by being a good lil boy all by yourself,” Naotsugu accused.

“Would you keep this weirdo on a tighter leash?” Akatsuki demanded.

After choking back his laughter more successfully for a little while, Shiroe turned to Akatsuki.

“It is easier being in a body that’s more like your own, isn’t it?”

Akatsuki considered the question for a minute, then answered with the too-serious expression Shiroe was beginning to expect.

“The male body looked really neat, and its reach was much better, but…there were issues.”

“Yeah? What was the problem?” Naotsugu asked.

These two hadn’t met before, but they already seemed to have gotten used to each other. From what Shiroe could remember, Akatsuki tended to be cautious about human relationships, but Naotsugu’s Naotsugu-ness seemed to have disarmed her somewhat.

“Um… Using the bathroom.”

Akatsuki looked down, mumbling.

Naotsugu! That’s sexual harassment!!

“Oh, right. Because you had a wiener!”

Naotsugu! Don’t make it worse!

“Um. So, uh. Changing the subject! The measurements of this version are closer to your real body, right?”

Shiroe asked, executing a supremely clumsy change of topic in an attempt to help out Akatsuki, who’d gone red and was looking very uncomfortable. Even for a woman, she was quite short.

“Yes.”

Akatsuki nodded, tugging at bits of her baggy clothes, her expression earnest.

Part of that’s probably to hide her embarrassment over Naotsugu’s dirty old man comments, but…

Even then, Shiroe thought, she was an oddly serious girl. She had a habit of keeping her eyes fixed too long on whatever she was looking at. When she looked at people or things, she looked so hard she seemed to be staring. The habit had probably belonged to the real Akatsuki in their former world, and it gave the slight girl an earnest, desperate air.

“That means the height difference problem is solved, then. It’s easier to walk now, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Akatsuki said in concise gratitude.

Her brusque tone, her abruptness, her habit of gazing fixedly at things. In Shiroe’s mind, that combination was gradually overlapping with his image of the old Akatsuki, the taciturn, professional fighter. Physically, they couldn’t have been more different, but her serious behavior seemed to him to be the very essence of Akatsuki. Little by little, he felt the gap between the slender girl in front of him and the Akatsuki he knew close.

“How much should I pay you? Will everything I have be enough?”

Akatsuki asked Shiroe a hair-raising question, fixing him with a gaze that was just this side of a glare.

“I only have about thirty thousand… Could you settle for that?”

“You don’t need to…”

“I can’t possibly not pay you. You said that potion was a limited-edition event item. That means it’s rare. You can’t get it anymore. That item was technically priceless. I know thirty thousand doesn’t even begin to pay for it.”

Her logic was correct. Up until now, the item had just been sitting around in his safe-deposit box, but under the circumstances, he could easily have asked a king’s ransom for it.

“……”

“……”

Still, even if that was true, was it important enough to clean out someone’s account over? Shiroe had serious doubts about that. The item had been completely useless until a few days ago.

“Um. Well… Would you settle for free?”

“I don’t wish to be labeled an ingrate.”

Akatsuki’s searing upturned gaze, the gesture that gave the impression that she was staring at him, made Shiroe pretty uncomfortable. That it belonged to a very pretty girl made it practically lethal.

“If you’re that worried about it, just give him some panties as a thank— Ghk—”

Akatsuki’s small knee made another graceful touchdown on Naotsugu’s face. Granted, Naotsugu was sitting on a pile of rubble, but even so, the kick struck home at a good angle.

“You’re quite an athlete, Miss Akatsuki.”

“Wha— Hey! Moody perv! Whose side are you on?”

“Lord Shiroe. May I knee this pervert?”

“Look, I told you, ask before you kick!”

Akatsuki pointed at Naotsugu, asking for permission. The gesture struck Shiroe as cute, and he smiled in spite of himself.

“Whatever. Never mind. Forget about how much the potion costs. Hey, Akatsuki.”

“We are not on first-name terms.”

“That’s not important, either, short stuff.”

“Don’t call me ‘short stuff,’ and yes, this is very important,” Akatsuki insisted stubbornly. “If I’ve swindled Lord Shiroe into giving me his limited-edition item for free, I will have brought everlasting shame upon myself.”

Naotsugu looked at the sulking Akatsuki, then glanced at Shiroe, then looked from him to Akatsuki again. Then he continued.

“No, that’s a pointless subject if ever there was one. Forget that, Akatsuki. Listen, why don’t you travel around with us for a while?”

“—Huh?”

The words seemed to have been the last thing Akatsuki had expected. She froze so abruptly it was as if she’d been put on pause.

“Counselor. Explain.”

Having said his piece, Naotsugu tossed the ball to Shiroe, as if the rest of it was his job.

Thanks a lot. We didn’t discuss this, and I have no idea what you want me to do, Shiroe thought, but he did approve of the proposal itself.

“…Hm. Yes, I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

However, thinking that it wasn’t a bad idea didn’t necessarily make it easy to explain. He was sure Naotsugu’s intentions had been good, but intentions aside, an undeniable air of embarrassment hung about the proposal. It felt as if he’d lost a penalty game and was being forced to pick up girls.

“…I hate to say this, but you’re a girl, Akatsuki, and you’re small. Even with your old body back, you— Uh, I mean, your appearance and voice may be consistent now, but you might get caught up in unpleasantness anyway… Maybe. On top of that, you aren’t part of a guild yet. Is there one you’d like to join?”

“I don’t like belonging to things. Assassins are lone wolves by nature.”

Akatsuki’s face clouded; she seemed to be thinking hard.

“Yeah, I guess you would be. We’re a lot like that ourselves. Freelance adventurers. We do whatever we want. Free panties freedom.”

“…Shut up, pervert.”

“If you have somewhere in mind, that’s one thing, but… From what I hear, unaffiliated players are being hassled these days. The big guilds are trying to build up their ranks, and they’re scouting players right and left. I think female players probably get it even worse than male players.”

“Really…?”

“A place to sleep, the chance to pool information on the situation… It wouldn’t hurt to be a little connected, under the circumstances.”

Akatsuki nodded.

Besides, it’s not as if Akatsuki’s terribly good with people…

Shiroe didn’t consider himself to be very good with people, either, but Akatsuki’s unsociability was off the charts. When Elder Tales was still a game, Akatsuki’s way of being considerate had been to wordlessly help people out when they needed it. Shiroe knew her brusqueness didn’t mean she was unfriendly, but the vast majority of players probably wouldn’t pick up on that. Akatsuki was a fighter, and as far as Shiroe knew, she had very few acquaintances. He suspected he might be the one who’d worked with her the most.

Of course, that was just another way to play, and when this had been a game, it hadn’t been a problem. In a game, the only “right” way for a person to play was the way that let them have the most fun, provided they didn’t cause trouble for other people.

However, the current world wasn’t a game, and Akatsuki’s brusqueness was bound to cause trouble, especially since she’d turned out to be so pretty.

I don’t know whether Naotsugu thought things through that far, but…it’s another good reason for her to stick with us for a while—except…

“Hey, why not? Assassins are good at offing people sneakily, right? While we’re fighting, you can creep up behind the monster and shank it. It’ll be the perfect combo play. Death-to-evildoers city,” Naotsugu said happily.

Well, he’s right about the teamwork, at least… What kind of crazy “city” would that be?

“Hm. Would you be all right with that, Lord Shiroe?”

“Absolutely. Things will feel safer if there are three of us anyway.”

For a moment, Akatsuki hesitated. Then she turned that peculiar, straightforward, laser-like gaze on him and nodded.

“I see. Then I’ll serve you as your ninja, Lord Shiroe… My liege.”

Ninja?

…Liege?

Wasn’t Akatsuki an Assassin?

Although those questions did cross his mind, the proposal seemed like a good one to Shiroe.

“I owe you for saving me from my forced sex-reassignment crisis, and it is my duty to repay you with equivalent labor. This is how I’ll do it. From now on, my liege, I’ll protect you as your ninja.”

Akatsuki murmured. Uncharacteristically, her gaze wandered restlessly, as if she was ill at ease.

Naotsugu had a purple bruise spreading around his nose, but it didn’t seem to faze him; he was watching Shiroe and smirking.

“All righty, then. We’re a team. Welcome aboard, short stuff.”

“Shut up, idiot.”

“We’re a very mismatched trio, but never mind. I look forward to working with you.”

In the dingy store, its interior shot through with shafts of golden light, Shiroe and the others clinked their canteens together, toasting the formation of their team.

4

Several days had passed since Akatsuki had joined them. Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki were gradually shifting their activities into the field zones near Akiba. There were several reasons for the move, one of which was that when Shiroe and Naotsugu had gotten up the courage to go to the Forest of Library Towers, the battles had been much harder than they’d anticipated.

Battles in this world were faithful replicas of their Elder Tales counterparts where fundamental structure and strategy were concerned, but they were very different when it came to individual participants’ tactics and combat techniques. The battles included a vast number of subtle elements that players had no control over in the game, such as sword swings, the angle at which shields were thrust out, footholds, and movement. Issues with fields of vision and difficulty in fighting together were also big problems. Worst of all were the mental hurdles, especially the terror.

The first time he and Naotsugu went out to a field zone, Shiroe’s impression had been that this was going to be pretty rough. After several one-day expeditions, he’d revised that impression to Conventional strategies won’t be enough.

However, Akatsuki was completely specialized to vanguard work, and in terms of surviving in this world, the sooner they got used to fighting, the better. They’d decided to stay together for the moment, but there was no telling whether or not it would last. The three of them had decided it would be best to get the basics of combat nailed down now while they were together.

The Crescent Moon League guild was another reason. Since that first visit, Shiroe and the others had made frequent trips to the guildhall to trade information. Unlike their trio, the Crescent Moon League had artisan players as well. Shiroe’s own subclass was Scribe, and he’d worked his way up to a high level, but the guild had a variety of other artisans and more members in general. These players had connections around Akiba, and they were able to gather information in town more efficiently than Shiroe could in the same amount of time. In terms of exchanging information, it was better for Shiroe’s group to investigate various things in the field zones and work at practical training while they were there.

Of course, self-preservation instincts had compelled several people to begin doing what Shiroe and the others were doing, but Akiba still overflowed with apathetic players. Even now, a full week later, they seemed unable to believe the situation. They probably thought that someone—a god or the administrators—would rescue them.

Or maybe they “think” that because they wouldn’t be able to stand it otherwise, not because they really believe it.

It wasn’t a feeling Shiroe couldn’t relate to. He just wasn’t optimistic enough to be able to believe in that hope.

If this was some sort of prank and help found them someday, fine. If that happened, Shiroe would be relieved, too. His university hadn’t been all that comfortable, but it was the world where he’d been born and raised, and he was used to it. Of course, he wanted to go back.

However, even if this situation had been orchestrated by the administrators, there was an undeniable possibility that the incident had been irreversible and that things would never go back to normal. Shiroe was cautious to the point of pessimism, and he couldn’t bet everything on the possibility of rescue and spend his days sitting around.

Akiba was the largest city on the Japanese server and the starting point for new players. As with every player city, the zones in its immediate area were comparatively easy even for beginners to work their way through, and there were many safe places where only low-level monsters appeared. Shiroe and his group planned to check each of these beginner zones and gradually work their way up to high-level zones. In terms of simple level, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki were all level 90. In low-level beginner zones, even if they were attacked by monsters, they’d take hardly any damage. In addition, if the enemy sensed the sort of power they had, they wouldn’t attack recklessly. That technically would have made it possible to avoid battles with monsters entirely, but Shiroe and the others went out of their way to fight as many different monsters as they could.

Although the enemy’s attacks weren’t much of a threat in and of themselves, when various monsters leapt at them, they’d always cringe back at first. When they’d gamed through a monitor, they hadn’t known anything about the beasts’ harsh breathing or the choking stench of blood or what it was like to be targeted by something that wanted to kill them. Even if the enemy was a low-level monster, the terrors of real battle were enough to make them recoil. A monster might be so insignificant that they wouldn’t earn any experience points by defeating it, but even so, if it wasn’t one they’d fought before, Shiroe’s group battled it several times to study its habits and learn how best to handle it.

Naotsugu was always in the lead in their basic battle formation. Battles began with Naotsugu charging the enemy and closing the distance. As a Guardian, Naotsugu used his shield skills and the heavy armor he was so proud of to block enemy attacks. Taunting Shout was a basic Guardian skill that had the effect of sending monsters into a frenzy. The enraged monsters would attack Naotsugu ferociously, which kept them from targeting Shiroe or Akatsuki.

However, as they’d expected, keeping an eye on statuses while swinging a sword and paying out fierce attacks on the front line was no easy task. Back when Elder Tales had been a game, all you had to do was specify which monster you wanted to attack, and your character would attack it automatically and repeatedly. Enemy attacks were also dodged using evasion skills; characters would dodge with a set probability of success, deflect attacks with their swords, or stop them with their shields, and in all cases, the player didn’t need to do anything. If you wanted to use a special technique, all you had to do was click on an icon.

When actually fighting in this other world, though, they needed to either step in or jump back when a real-life monster appeared in front of them, and they had to bring both hands down over and over again to beat it with weapons. When they fought a monster that had come right up to them, their field of vision narrowed, and it was often hard to see what the monster was doing. After much discussion, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki came up with several formations and strategy codes. They came to the conclusion that it was safest for Shiroe to give orders to the other two, since he was away from the front line and had a clear view of the whole area.

As Shiroe used his spells to provide support, he watched the surrounding area and kept an eye on his friends’ statuses. Many of the Enchanter spells were fairly humdrum. One of the rare spells that Enchanters could really boast about to the other classes was Keen Edge: Its effect raised the attack force of companions’ weapons by 30 percent or so, and since the effect lasted several hours, there was no need to recast during battle.

There were many other spells he could use, of course, but he used the rest only as the situation demanded while he kept an eye on the battle. For now, Shiroe’s main role was to keep a wary eye on the area and to watch his friends’ statuses.

After several battles, Akatsuki seemed to have gotten used to working with Shiroe and Naotsugu. Assassin was one of the three Weapon Attack classes, and its ability to inflict maximum damage instantaneously was the highest of all twelve classes. Unlike the Warriors, which were skilled at drawing enemy attacks on the front lines, the Weapon Attack classes had comparatively low Defense, and they weren’t good at drawing the enemy to them. That meant that their role was to defeat the enemies the Warriors attracted. Of the Weapon Attack classes, Assassins had abilities engineered to quickly eliminate enemies. In a word, they were killing machines. The Assassin certain-kill technique Assassinate could inflict close to ten thousand in damage instantaneously.

Akatsuki seemed to skim over battlefields. Her slight body was astonishingly nimble, and even when she was sprinting to close in on an enemy, her shape seemed to blur to the point where it was sometimes hard to see her at all. According to Akatsuki, this was an Assassin technique known as Stealth Walk, and it raised the success rate of attacks launched right after capturing the enemy’s blind spot. As she ran, her black hair streaming, she moved with an almost liquid smoothness, and she was so graceful that sometimes they couldn’t help but stare. When Naotsugu blocked the enemy’s fangs with his shield, then used it to knock them back, she had them skewered with her short sword in moments. When an enemy was considering an attack on some opening in Naotsugu’s guard, she’d slash them in the side and ward off the attack.

While vanguard and rearguard team plays were big picture and strategic, vanguard-vanguard team plays were terribly direct and aggressive. For that very reason, they needed enough actual experience to understand one another’s habits by instinct.

Meanwhile, Shiroe watched their statuses, issued orders for battle maneuvers to curb enemy movements, and sometimes used his range of Enchanter’s spells to bind the enemy or to trick them and give his friends the advantage.

By the end of a week, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki were battling level-50 monsters.