Chapter 4: Depths of Palm

1

“You’re sure you don’t mind? Really?”

Marielle asked, checking for what had to be the thousandth time. She’d come out to Ueno Rogues’ Castle to say good-bye to Shiroe and the others. At night, this zone was overrun with bands of thieves made up of demihumans and non-player characters, but now, white and weightless in the morning mist, it was simply beautiful. Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki stood in the damp morning air with Marielle and a few of the Crescent Moon League guild members who’d come to see them off.

“No worries, Miss Mari. This Serara girl’s cute, right? I’m not letting any other guys lay a finger on her before I get a chance to talk to her. Long-distance pickup city!”

To the casual listener, Naotsugu might have sounded as if he wasn’t taking this seriously. “Quiet, stupid,” Akatsuki said, elbowing him hard.

“It’s fine. We’re used to camping, and we’ve spent the past two weeks training,” Shiroe assured Marielle.

Objectively, they had a better chance of success than Marielle’s group. That was quite true, but the posturing he’d done the previous night still embarrassed him, and he was having a hard time looking Marielle in the eye.

“…Here. Unfortunately, it’s exactly like the usual stuff, but it is food. Eat it on your way, okay? Thanks so much for doing this, Mr. Shiro.”

“Akatsuki, this is an ointment the guild members made. Please be careful.”

Shiroe and Akatsuki accepted the Crescent Moon League’s modest relief supplies. Shiroe said a brief thank-you, and Akatsuki only nodded, but the guild members seemed to understand anyway.

“You be careful, too, Mari… You know. Look out for PKs.”

“Mm-hm. We’ll be fine. We’ll keep collectin’ information.”

“Just leave everything to us, Miss Mari.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha! You, too, Naotsugu. Make sure you come home safe and sound, you hear? It looks like Shiro doesn’t want ’em, so I’ll let you cop a feel. C’mon, hon. They’re real soft.”

Marielle laughed, as if to hide her embarrassment, and hugged Naotsugu’s arm to her rather eye-catching bosom.

“Hey— Whoa, Miss Mari, time out!”

“Oh, what! Are you gonna pull a Shiro and turn me down, too, hon?”

“I didn’t say that, I just…”

Marielle—a little bit macho, everyone’s big sister, good at looking after people—always took shelter in risqué talk when she felt flustered or embarrassed. Shiroe remembered her saying she wasn’t shy about broadcasting the fact that she didn’t have a feminine personality, so even if she talked about stuff like this, no one would take her up on it. She’d laughed then, her generous mouth wide open.

Mari’s the only one who thinks she isn’t popular…

Shiroe snuck a sidelong glance at Akatsuki. She’d stealthily cupped her hands to her mouth and was whispering, “Moron, mooooron! Die, Naotsugu the Lech.”

Given the fact that the Crescent Moon League members were letting this go with no more than a wry smile, it probably happened on a regular basis.

“No? Can’t do it? Are you sayin’ these boobs are worthless?”

“Wai… Th-that’s not it… How am I supposed to feel you up when you’re throwing yourself at me like that? Argh, forget it. Never mind that, we will rescue your girl!! And quit talking dirty!!”

“Less than convincing, coming from you.”

Akatsuki aimed a small kick at Naotsugu. Of course, the Guardian’s thick armor blocked the kick so that the only effect was a dull clang, but he took the opportunity to free himself from Marielle.

“As long as you come back safe, I don’t care what happens to my ‘fatty growths.’ …Right. Come back safe, and thanks for doin’ this for us. Take care, you hear?”

At that, their departure was nearly upon them. Naotsugu, still red-faced but free of Marielle’s embrace, was already walking down the road through the mist in an attempt to hide his embarrassment.

“Shiro, Naotsugu, Akatsuki. Please take care of Serara for us.”

Naotsugu turned in the morning sunlight and raised his shield high. Shiroe waved, too, while Akatsuki lifted her short sword slightly, then let it fall back into its sheath with a loud clang. With those parting salutes, the three of them began their journey to the far north.

2

The early summer haze only lasted for a short while that morning, and afterward, the sky was clear and blue. The group pressed ever northward, traveling along a crumbling elevated roadway—what had been known in the ancient world (in other words, the world they used to live in) as the Metropolitan Expressway—that looked like an enormous overpass. As far as they could see from the expressway, the zones they’d passed through so far had been fairly peaceful. The main inhabitants seemed to be wild animals, not monsters, and they saw herds of deer and the occasional shambling bear in the forest that spread below them.

Players spoke about the idea that the Elder Tales world was Earth several thousand years in the future as if it were part of the official scenario. According to Elder Tales folklore, there had been some sort of great war, and the world had been destroyed…then miraculously re-created by the gods. It was a typical fantasy game creation myth.

The beauty of a world rendered by successive generations of outstanding graphics engines had fascinated players, but the world they saw with their own eyes after the Catastrophe was more beautiful than images from even the highest-performing graphics board.

In the world of Elder Tales, the word journey meant the travel you did between leaving one point and arriving at another. However, smelling the scents the wind carried and running over the wide world this way was such a novel experience that it could easily have been the point of their journey in and of itself.

Although none of the three had experience with horseback riding in the real world, they were able to ride with ease here. Horses were a comparatively major mode of transportation in Elder Tales, and any player was able to ride without special training. Horses could be purchased at a stable or rented for a set number of days, and it was normal for players in the higher levels to have their own horses.

When Elder Tales was a game, horses had been classified as a type of summoned item. When a player purchased or rented a horse, they were given a whistle. The player could blow this whistle in any field, and the horse would appear almost immediately. This had been re-created to a certain extent in this other world. If one blew a whistle, their horse would come running up to them from the distance. That meant a player didn’t have to worry about where to tie the horse when they were exploring a dungeon and that its safety was guaranteed.

During the game, since horses had been treated as items, they’d never died, but there was no telling how far that could be trusted to hold true here. If they summoned their horses somewhere dangerous, they might actually lose them, and since they didn’t dare experiment to find out, at this point in time, Shiroe and the others had no way of knowing what would happen.

The three of them planned to journey across field zones. As the name suggested, field zones tended to be composed of open country, and they were the basic units of this world. Large buildings could be independent zones, if conditions were good and their interiors were still enclosed, but as a rule, ruined buildings tended to be objects placed in field zones.

One of the characteristics of field zones was their vague boundaries. The links between closed zones were shown by doors, trapdoors, or stairs, but there were no set gates to symbolize the boundaries between field zones. When one reached the end of a zone, they crossed seamlessly into the next one. For that reason, as long as they traveled on land, they didn’t pay much attention to zone boundaries or which zone they were currently in. If they happened to check their menus for information, they’d see the name of their current zone; that was about it.

The highway they were traveling along was crumbling in places and littered with chunks of rubble. Sometimes they had to dismount and travel on foot. Once, in order to detour around a thicket so large and dense it was practically a forest in a tract of heath that had swallowed up the road, they had to walk through a wasteland of bushes.

A little after noon, they started to think about taking a break. The windswept highway sketched a complicated curve and joined up with another wider expressway. However, the asphalt underfoot had felt disturbingly fragile for a while now, and they knew it would be dangerous to stay on this route for much longer.

“Let’s get off the road and eat.”

Naotsugu had been in the lead, and at Shiroe’s suggestion, he dismounted, sighing heavily. “Horses are great. I’m not complaining. My body knows exactly how to ride ’em, and that’s fine. But I’ve gotta say, my butt hurts.”

“Agreed,” Shiroe said.

Akatsuki watched them steadily, her expression perplexed. “Really?” she asked, sounding mystified. Shiroe thought Akatsuki was about thirty centimeters shorter than he was, and she probably only weighed half what he did. She was agile, too. It might not be as hard on her.

“How much distance do you think we’ve covered?”

“It’s only been half a day. Don’t be so impatient, stupid Naotsugu.”

Naotsugu didn’t even blink at Akatsuki’s retort. By now, this sort of exchange was second nature to both of them, and it had almost become a sort of game.

With Shiroe in the lead, they worked their way down from the elevated highway on a slope of rubble. In ancient times, this area might have been filled with housing. Now it was a wasteland dotted with sparse trees, and all that was left were the skeletal remains of telephone poles jutting up from the ground.

In the folds of the rolling red earth, the three of them found a boulder that would make a decent table and settled down to rest. They spread a cloth over the boulder and laid their food and canteens out on it, along with a map and writing instruments. The map was a full rendering of Japan, and Shiroe had written in all the zone names he could remember.

“What’s this, my liege? That’s quite an impressive map.”

Akatsuki’s eyes were round. She was right: The hand-drawn map was very detailed. Unfolded, the paper was about one meter square, and it showed the area administered by the Japanese Elder Tales server, an archipelago roughly the same shape as Japan. The map had been drawn in four colors and included rivers, forests, and even villages. It didn’t look like an amateur’s hand-drawn map.

“I am a Scribe, you know, even if I don’t look like it. I copied one of the maps from the archives in Akiba.”

“I see. You’re good, my liege.”

“…And? Whereabouts are we?” Naotsugu asked, loosening the cap on a canteen.

“Probably here or close to it.”

Shiroe pointed to a spot on the map a bit to the north of Tokyo, not far from the town of Akiba.

“So we’ve come, what, ten meters?”

“There’s no help for that. It’s only been half a day… We’ll fly this afternoon, though.”

“Roger that.”

As Naotsugu and Shiroe talked, they ate the soggy rice crackers that looked like turkey sandwiches, which had been packed in the basket. Akatsuki didn’t usually participate in this sort of conversation. Lately, Shiroe had begun to think that this was more because she trusted them than because she wasn’t interested. When asked, she could give an accurate rundown of what they’d been talking about, so she did listen.

While they were eating, the horses grazed on the dry brown grass nearby; after a while, though, they seemed to grow tired of it and wandered off. Horses tended to leave shortly after their riders dismounted. Shiroe and the others didn’t pay much attention to them; they knew they’d come back when they whistled for them.

“…I wonder if it’s going to stay uncomfortable.”

Akatsuki nibbled on a pseudo-turkey sandwich as she mused. She was gazing into the distance in front of her, deep into the wasteland; it would have been easy to assume she’d been talking to herself and let it slide. What she’d said had probably been a very abridged version of what she was thinking.

I do know what she means, though, thought Shiroe.

It was true that the Elder Tales specs had been meticulously re-created here. However, Elder Tales had been a game, not a real world. In Elder Tales, there had been no sleep and no pain. This world was not a game. Even if it had inherited the Elder Tales specs and memories, they had to think of it as something completely different. Somehow, Shiroe was sure of it. Ever since the day of the Catastrophe, he’d had the uneasy feeling that, the instant he thought of this world as being the Elder Tales world, he’d make some terrible mistake.

Everyone’s forgetting something big. There’s something important we’re not sure about yet, but they’re already trying to move on. I don’t know what that “something” is, but… Even if this place is linked to Elder Tales somehow, it’s another world… That’s why everyone’s gone a little crazy.

Public order wasn’t deteriorating, come to think of it. Saying that it was made it sound as though public order had been good to begin with, but that hadn’t been the case. If you thought of this world as being another world, separate from Elder Tales, it was more accurate to think that no “public order” had ever existed. All they had—and it wasn’t much—were the noncombat zone settings, a flimsy restriction that seemed to mimic the Elder Tales specs. Limitations like that weren’t laws in any sense of the word.

This world had never had any order to lose. It was lawless.

Akatsuki was well aware of that, of course… And even though she knew, she’d muttered those words to herself.

What was the feeling that flickered there, deep in her serious eyes?

I can’t tell…

Shiroe didn’t have a clear idea of what Akatsuki was feeling. It could have been unease or a type of homesickness. It might even have been despair, but when Shiroe looked inside himself for something similar, what he found was irritation. Maybe that was it.

It was revulsion. Loathing for the ugly situation. The “it” in Akatsuki’s “I wonder if it’s going to stay uncomfortable” had probably stood for “this world,” but at the same time, she’d meant “us.”

Is this really all we are? he asked himself. Is somebody out there underestimating us? Do they think all they have to do is shake us up a bit and we’ll rob and kill each other, arbitrarily riot and cry and despair?

Are we really the sort of beings who’d turn on our friends at the drop of a hat, attacking them and stealing their property, just because we’ve been thrown into a lawless wasteland?

Shiroe knew the answer to that, so he gave it.

“Absolutely not.”

They didn’t have to continue this fall.

It wasn’t as if they were rotten fruit on their way to the ground, and this was simply nature taking its course. The world had gone sly and cheap and ugly, and it was fast losing any trace of gallantry and virtue. That couldn’t possibly be okay. Even if that was “the natural way of things,” Shiroe would fight it.

“That would just be lame.”

Naotsugu briefly voiced his feelings.

“……”

Akatsuki kept gazing at the horizon.

When Shiroe had said they’d go on the rescue mission instead of Marielle and the Crescent Moon League members, it had been because he’d calculated that they had a better chance of success than the guild members, both because of their levels and because they’d been through more battles.

That had been one of the reasons, at any rate.

Still, while it might have been a reason for them to accept the mission if offered, it hadn’t been a reason they needed to take it.

Although they were on friendly terms with the Crescent Moon League, it was an independent guild. There had been no call for Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki, unaffiliated players, to intentionally take on a long, dangerous mission in the guild’s place. Ordinarily, the idea would have been unthinkable. Marielle had been fully aware of this, which was why, at first, she’d asked them to check in on the younger members who were staying behind once in a while. She’d probably felt it was the very most she was entitled to ask of them. It was only common sense, and under the circumstances, she’d been entirely correct.

Naotsugu and Akatsuki had known that, too. They had no obligation to go rescue one of the guild’s members.

Even so, Shiroe had wanted to take this mission. Logic and calculations were important, of course. He’d compiled and recompiled everything mentally, holding his breath, thinking hard. At the heart of everything, though, there’d been a fierce irritation. Even Shiroe had been startled to discover this vein of rich emotions in himself. He wanted to bless the friends who’d felt the same way, without his having said a word about those feelings, at the top of his lungs.

—That would just be lame.

—It’s ugly.

Although I did say something humiliating, for sure…

At the memory, his cheeks began to burn, but the brisk wind rushed past them. Among the peaks and troughs of his surging feelings, he felt a ticklish sort of happiness and anxiety and a soft, light sense of……euphoria. It was a feeling of rebellion against this degenerating world.

If this was how it was going to be, he had things he wanted to try.

Even if it was only in the area he himself could reach.

Even if it was only while he was here.

As Shiroe thought about this and that in a daze, Naotsugu thumped him on the back.

“If family starts crying, you go help. Everybody knows that. Just because the other guys are pathetic losers doesn’t mean we have to join ’em.”

He didn’t want to think they’d been exiled to a world that ugly and pathetic and boring and hopeless. Shiroe couldn’t hate himself that much. He knew there had to be amazingly cool things like the Debauchery Tea Party in this world, too.

It would have been embarrassing to say aloud, so Shiroe was doing his best not to think about it, but that was what he felt, and it was the answer he’d come up with.

It was his “something better to do.”

“Yeesh. Brute force attacks like that are all wrong. No class. It should really be more like, you know. This. A little peek or something.”

Naotsugu’s words withered the atmosphere at a stroke.

“Then, uh… What sort of thing do you like, Naotsugu?”

Akatsuki was watching Naotsugu coldly, but Shiroe decided, a bit defiantly, to humor him. His naively idealistic thoughts had embarrassed him badly, and he had to take his mind off them somehow.

“Oh, all sorts of stuff. Maids, nurses, you know… Well, no. I guess the standard is a cute little junior. Once you’re out in the working world, those innocent, purehearted kids shine like stars. Like new hires, when they call you ‘Mr. Naotsugu, sir!’ and stuff. Basic things like that are super important.”

“Yeah, the basics really are important. Even team plays in combat are an accumulation of basics!”

Shiroe hadn’t understood half of what Naotsugu had said, but he answered loudly and almost desperately, feeling he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Akatsuki’s gaze was physically painful.

“Yep, you got it. Team plays are important. That and tactics. Using the land. Like sneaking peeks up skirts on a stairway… And then you get mad at them right after. You yell, ‘You put it out there where I could see it!’ You can’t beat that.”

Forget beating it. Wouldn’t that be a pretty vicious false accusation…?

Such were Shiroe’s thoughts, but of course, Akatsuki couldn’t read his mind, and all he got was a “Stupid Naotsugu is one thing, but I wish you’d act like yourself, my liege. Stupid my liege.”

3

After they finished eating, Akatsuki—who’d gone icy after that particular discussion—began to call the horses back, but Shiroe stopped her. Before her perplexed eyes, he produced a bamboo pipe whose surface was carved into a flowing openwork pattern. It looked a bit like the whistles used to summon horses, but it was beautiful, practically a work of art. At the same time, Naotsugu took out one of the same pipes.

“What is that, my liege?”

Akatsuki cocked her head to one side. Shiroe smiled at her, then blew on the pipe, sending the sound echoing high into the sky. The sound blended with the tone from Naotsugu’s pipe, until the notes were like the calls of two songbirds, twining around one another and riding the wind over the wilderness to dissolve into the clear blue.

“Wait… Are those…?”

Akatsuki’s question was cut short by an eagle’s piercing scream. Two enormous shadows soared toward them on heavy, powerful wings. The two beasts, which were nearly as big as carriages, circled Shiroe’s group twice, then landed with rough force and lowered their sturdy heads at Shiroe and Naotsugu’s feet.

“They’re griffins!”

Shiroe and Naotsugu had summoned imaginary beasts known as griffins. They were flying creatures with the bodies of huge lions and the heads, wings, and forelimbs of eagles. Although their combat abilities varied by subspecies and age, they were on the same level as Chimeras.

“…Well. Yes.”

Shiroe patted his griffin’s neck two or three times, then gave it some raw meat he’d taken out of his pack. They’d bought quite a lot of raw meat at the market before they left. Since it was a harvested item used as a basic ingredient for food items, it was cheap.

“You didn’t really think we were going to ride those horses all the way north, did you? We’d be old before we got there.”

Naotsugu teased Akatsuki a bit spitefully.

“Yes, but why would you summon beasts like… Are we riding them?”

“Yes, we are… Miss Akatsuki?”

“Just Akatsuki.”

Akatsuki barked her correction. No matter how many times Shiroe said it, she insisted that he refer to her casually, by her first name only.

“Akatsuki, then— You’ll ride behind me… Unless you’d mind, of course.”

“I don’t mind… But…”

Akatsuki backed away from the griffin, eyeing it fearfully. Naotsugu was expertly strapping a saddle and girth onto his griffin. Shiroe had given his more meat and was scratching its ears.

“I’d heard that summoning pipes like yours existed. They were given to players who made it through the Hades’s Breath raid.”

“Right. We, um… It was a while ago,” Shiroe told Akatsuki. It was one of the legends the Debauchery Tea Party had left behind, and not many people remembered it anymore.

Shiroe and Naotsugu had won the pipes deep in an underground tomb where Hades—the king of the dead, a high-ranking undead monster—slept. The pipes were souvenirs of a long, fierce battle against Hades’s four knights, on an altar that was a magical device meant to warp the secret of life into something malicious. Hades had plotted to steal the underground energy from the sacred mountain and use the power to gain eternal life. The players had fought alongside the Simurghs, the rulers of all winged creatures, and after they’d foiled Hades’s plot, the Simurghs had given them the pipes as a symbol of friendship.

“Why do you have those?”

“They make for a great party trick, no?”

Naotsugu answered Akatsuki that time.

These really are sort of embarrassing.

They hadn’t exactly been hiding the pipes, and it wasn’t that they wanted to. It was just that, for Shiroe and Naotsugu, having to explain the details of how they’d gotten them felt pretty awkward. Griffins’ pipes were rare items, the envy of other players. Still, no matter how powerful the actual item was, it was just a reminder of a priceless memory.

“Fasten your sheath and short sword to your belt even more securely than usual. The same goes for your pack. If you have anything the wind could take, put it away.”

Shiroe held out a hand to Akatsuki, who was still hanging back. After starting and then hesitating several times, just as she finally reached for Shiroe’s outstretched hand, she seemed to realize something. Her face went a little red. As Shiroe watched her, puzzled, she grabbed his hand quickly, as though she’d dared herself into it. Shiroe pulled her up to sit behind him; he barely had to pull at all. He didn’t know whether it was because she was small and slender or because she’d jumped just as he pulled, but she was as light as a feather, and it startled him.

“All set?”

“Yes, my liege. No problems here.”

Akatsuki was shifting around restlessly behind Shiroe, and it made him a bit uneasy; he looked back at her.

“Let your weight settle and sit a bit deeper. Hold on to me, too. If you’re scared, you can hang on as tight as you want to… But please don’t grab my stomach like that!”

Naotsugu, who’d been watching Shiroe and Akatsuki and biting back laughter, finally cracked up. They both glared at him, but he didn’t seem fazed by it. He smacked his griffin’s neck.

“Catch you two later!”

The words weren’t so much left behind as ripped to shreds and tossed back by a gale, and the next instant, Naotsugu and his griffin were just a backlit shadow in the clear sky.

“Geez… Akatsuki, are you ready? Then here we go.”

It felt like being thrown into the farthest reaches of the sky and also like falling headlong to the land that spread out far, far below. Akatsuki managed to tolerate the sensation by clinging to Shiroe’s slim back. Shiroe was an academic type, and his back had no extra meat on it. At first, Akatsuki pressed her face into it so that she couldn’t see her surroundings, but after a while, she’d settled down enough to look around.

“It’s a great view.”

Shiroe spoke gently. Having Akatsuki clinging to him for dear life was making him all kinds of uncomfortable, but she was little. At most, she only came up to his shoulder—maybe only to his chest—and she was fine boned. She was so light he was worried the wind might take her. He thought it might have been better to let her ride in front so that he could hold on to her, rather than having her ride behind and hang on to him… Then again, it might have been just as scary for her.

Besides, I’d have had to figure out where to hang on to her…

He ran a detailed mental analysis and came to the conclusion that, since he was holding the griffin’s reins, he’d have had to put his left arm around either her stomach or her upper chest. Either way, the thought of what would have happened if he’d accidentally gotten the wrong place made him turn bright red and break out in a cold sweat. Naotsugu roaring with laughter would have been the least of his worries. Just imagining the possibility of being shoved away—and off—in midair sent Shiroe’s mind into a tailspin.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes— My liege, this is amazing. It’s like we’re floating in the heart of the sky.”

The air rushed past them, roaring, shredded by their flight. By now, the griffin was hardly beating its wings at all. It held them out rigidly, dexterously riding the air currents.

The currents in the atmosphere seemed to bend gently to the left and right, like a river, sometimes rising, sometimes falling. Still, possibly because the griffin had a bird’s unique vision, it chose the rising currents that would work to their advantage, and they were rapidly climbing the slope of the sky.

At some point, there in the blue sky and sapphire sunlight, Naotsugu’s griffin had come up beside them.

“Whaddaya think?! Isn’t it awesome?!”

More than pride, Naotsugu’s words shone with the simple exhilaration of flying. On seeing his smile, Akatsuki—who usually had nothing but scorn for the immature, vulgar Naotsugu—broke into a very rare smile of her own. It was like watching a flower bloom.

“It’s fantastic. Really fantastic. The blue is crystal clear.”

Still facing forward, Shiroe gave a tiny smile that curved just the corners of his lips.

They were right. Skimming through the blue sky was rare ecstasy.

4

“—No enemies ahead.”

In response to Akatsuki’s hushed voice, Naotsugu flashed a hand sign.

“Let’s go.”

They were in the Depths of Palm, an ancient underground road that ran beneath the Tearstone Mountains. They’d entered the dungeon fifteen long hours before. According to the rough map Shiroe was drawing, they’d already traveled about twenty kilometers as the crow flies. Shiroe had been here before, when Elder Tales was a game, but he’d never realized just how big the place actually was.

It had been three days since their departure from Akiba, and they were traveling fast. In terms of simple speed, the griffins they rode traveled about three times as fast as horses. However, the fact that they were able to completely ignore all obstacles on the ground meant they were covering close to ten times the distance in the same amount of time. The griffins’ ability restrictions meant they were only able to ride them for four hours per day, but even then, they’d only taken three days to cover a distance that might have taken two weeks on horseback.

Yesterday, though, their journey had hit a snag.

They’d guessed as much, and when Shiroe and the others reached the Tearstone Mountains, their predictions had been confirmed: The mountains were home to wyverns. Wyverns were a fairly low-level dragon subspecies. Although they looked a lot like dragons, they had no front legs, and they weren’t able to use magic or Dragon’s Breath.

That didn’t mean they were easy to deal with.

Dragons had the highest Health and Defense of all monsters. They were fast and powerful, and some were even highly intelligent and able to use magic. In Elder Tales, as in many fantasy stories, dragons were an Adventurer’s greatest nemesis. Wyverns might be a low-level subspecies, but they were still dragons. Although they couldn’t use magic, their tails were sharp and as hard as iron, and their razor-like wings made them as fast as rocs.

Of course, Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki’s abilities were as high as player abilities could get. If the three of them fought one wyvern on the ground, they would have been able to defeat it with ease. Still, if attacked by a flight of wyverns in midair over the mountains while riding the griffins, they’d have a very hard time winning.

The Tearstone Mountains had been a haunt for wyverns ever since the old Elder Tales era, and Shiroe had been prepared for this situation. That was why they’d avoided blindly rushing into the airspace over the mountains. If they’d happened to get themselves entangled in an aerial battle without a plan, they might have been able to defeat a few wyverns, but they would have been attacked by several dozens of the dragons in waves that just kept coming and would eventually have been dashed to the ground.

There was no way to retire gracefully from aerial combat. The loser was fated to be forcibly sent to their place of execution, several hundred meters below.

Shiroe and his group, who’d avoided that trap and were lurking as quietly as they could on the ground, had four options: (1) They could take a big detour to the ocean; (2) they could trek through the dense forest that covered the Tearstone Mountains, crossing the range that way; (3) they could cut through the Depths of Palm, a complex of ancient tunnels and mineshafts that ran deep under the Tearstone Mountains.; or (4) they could go up the roads that ran through the mountains. After some discussion, Shiroe and the others decided to go through the tunnels. All things considered, that route would take the least amount of time, and it seemed to be the safest course.

Fifteen hours ago, they’d entered the tunnels through the ruins of an enormous ancient construction site cut into the rock face in the forested foothills of the mountain. Instead of the rough dirt-walled cavern they’d expected, the tunnel proved to be a vast underground passage with pale gray concrete walls that ran on and on in the glow of their Magic Light. Like the main drainage tunnel of an underground water treatment plant, the passage was interrupted at regular intervals by narrow branch tunnels to the right and left, and sometimes they passed dull, boxy rooms whose original purpose was a complete mystery.

The intent of the space’s designer and any traces of its users had been eroded over the aeons, until now they lay buried under the dust and the rubble. The current owners of this enormous cavern and its underground streams were the ratmen.

Among the many species of demihumans that populated this world, ratmen were a fairly low-ranking variety. As far as appearance went, they looked like something halfway between a human with a rat’s head and a rat standing on its hind legs. They were about as tall as a middle schooler, but the smooth, damp-looking fur that covered them from head to toe made it difficult to see what their bodies were shaped like. They could use simple tools, but to high-level players like Shiroe and the others, their combat abilities were no threat whatsoever. Although it depended on the individual, ratmen tended to be even weaker than goblins or orcs.

That said, they still had two troublesome weapons: numbers and plague. True to the phrase “to multiply like rats,” normal rats were astoundingly vigorous breeders. Possibly the ratmen were as well, because considerable numbers of them tended to live concentrated in small areas. Since entering the tunnel, in fact, on several occasions, Shiroe and the others had seen more than twenty ratmen huddled in rooms a few meters square.

Under normal circumstances, any creature that sensed the approach of something much stronger would run the other way. This reaction was particularly marked in wild animals, and the ratmen were no exception. Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki were high-level players, and the monsters around them seemed to sense it. As proof, throughout the journey from Akiba to this tunnel, Shiroe and the others hadn’t fought any battles to speak of. They were on a mission to rescue Serara, and so they’d come this far without pausing for anything, avoiding unnecessary combat training or exploration. If the monsters ran away from them, it was all for the best.

Still, if they were dealing with large, concentrated groups of monsters like the ratmen, and if they happened to stumble onto a group in an enclosed room or a narrow dead end, things would be very different. Even if the ratmen tried to run, they’d have nowhere to go. In that case, even if Shiroe’s group tried to retreat and give them their space, they’d most likely attack in a frenzy. It would be a real-life case of the cornered rat biting the cat. Shiroe didn’t think they’d lose in combat, but it would take time to defeat so many ratmen, and it wouldn’t do their nerves any good.

The other issue was plague. Like medieval rats, ratmen were carriers of the plague. If the Elder Tales specs had been faithfully reproduced here as well, the plague was a nasty one that would inhibit recovery and cause continuous damage.

The ratmen in this tunnel were all around level 40. Transmitted plagues had levels as well, and the levels were linked to the host. In this case, the plague would have to be around level 40 as well. A midlevel healer could have treated it easily, but Shiroe’s group didn’t have a healer. They were drinking the Antibacterial Potions they’d bought at the market, but the potions were preventative measures and wouldn’t treat the actual plague. With a level difference like this one, it was doubtful whether they’d be hit with such an attack at all, but even then, it didn’t hurt to be careful.

“This room looks like it might be sorta safe. Whaddaya say, Shiro?”

“Mm… Sure. Let’s rest for a bit. You stay near the door, Naotsugu. I’ll check in with Mari for the day. Akatsuki…”

“I’ll go scout.”

Without waiting for Shiroe’s answer, Akatsuki melted into the darkness.

This sort of role division was already routine for the three of them. At first, Shiroe and Naotsugu hadn’t been happy with the idea of sending a young girl out scouting all alone. However, Akatsuki was more than capable, and she was proud: She wanted to contribute to the party. Once they understood that (although they still hadn’t approved wholeheartedly), they were able to accept this division of labor.

True, scouting was one of Akatsuki’s fortes, and she was definitely the right player for the job. She was a very serious girl, and she was resolutely faithful to her mission.

Naotsugu dragged a steel box that was just the right size out of the rubble, sat down on it near the door, and began to listen, his sword out and ready. If any ratmen or other monsters approached, he’d be able to take them on instantly.

After making sure Naotsugu was settled, Shiroe half closed his eyes and opened his mental menu. He called up the telechat function and contacted Marielle. Over the four days of their journey, Shiroe had contacted her regularly, once a day. Marielle seemed to understand what he was doing, and her response came quickly.

“Thanks for all your hard work, kiddo… How’s things?”

“No problems here. After I checked in yesterday, we set up camp, and early this morning, we entered the Depths of Palm.”

“So you’re down in a dungeon now?”

“That’s right.”

“How are you makin’ such great time?! You’re scarin’ me over here! Talk about fast!”

“Mm-hm.”

Marielle’s warm words made him feel awkward. He wished he could think of some better way to respond, but he couldn’t seem to find one. Even as he thought that, he answered conscientiously.

Marielle didn’t know they were traveling by griffin. In this world, if one wanted to travel, they usually used a whistle to summon a horse. There were War Boars that were trained for use as extremely expensive items, and he’d heard that dire wolves were used in certain areas of the Chinese server. Summoners were able to summon several varieties of animal, including the unicorns they used for personal transportation. However, only a very high-level Summoner could summon animals that could carry them through the air, and no regular player would ever guess that a mere Enchanter, Warrior, and Weapon Attack player had them.

“I mean it. If we’d gone, I doubt we’d have covered half of half that distance yet. Seriously, thank you.”

“Please don’t worry about it… Um. How do things look?”

“I’m still gettin’ through to her.”

This was one of the reasons for Shiroe’s daily calls. He and the others were headed to the town of Susukino in the Ezzo Empire to rescue a girl named Serara. However, they weren’t able to contact Serara by telechat. The telechat function could only be used with people registered to players’ friend lists, and in order to register someone to your friend list, you had to be standing right in front of them, looking at them. Since Serara wasn’t on any of their lists, they couldn’t contact her directly.

“So nothing’s changed?”

“Nope. It sounds like she’s hidin’ with the nice player she mentioned. Nothing bad is happenin’ right now, and she says she’s all right.”

“Understood. If there’s someone like that in Susukino, I guess the place isn’t entirely rotten.”

“You said it.”

Serara had been targeted by a group of vicious players who were trying to intimidate her into joining them. She’d been locked up once and had very nearly been sexually assaulted. However, she’d managed to escape, and at present, she was hiding somewhere in Susukino.

Although Susukino was the same size in area as Akiba, only about two thousand players were currently using it as their hometown, which meant its population was one-eighth the size of Akiba’s. That meant that each individual player was more visible, relatively speaking. For example, if Serara went to the market to buy food, it would be several times harder for her to blend into the crowd and make her purchases quietly. With the town’s population as small as it was now, Shiroe had worried that it would be nearly impossible for her to stay hidden.

However, Serara seemed to have found an ally. Shiroe didn’t know the details, but the ally was a player with good intentions, and their help had made it possible for Serara to make her initial escape from the dangerous Briganteers guild.

If Serara had an ally whose identity wasn’t known to the enemy, shopping would be incredibly easy. In that case, there was a good possibility that Serara could stay hidden until they got there. If there were only two thousand players in Susukino, there would be scores of deserted houses and empty buildings. The lack of players—a factor that had worked against Serara before—would now work in her favor, Shiroe thought. He felt a bit relieved.

“Since we’re in a dungeon, I’m not sure what things are going to be like for a while, so I’ll contact you again once we’re out. I’d assumed the Tearstone Mountains would be the place that gave us the most trouble—”

“What are you goin’ to do about the strait?”

“We’ll think about that when we get there.”

They were actually planning to fly across on the griffins, but Shiroe kept his answer vague. Although Akatsuki had accepted it as a matter of course, knowing they had mounts that could fly would earn them nothing but envy from the average player. In addition, for players that knew how they were acquired, the griffins would be proof that their owners had been victorious in the Hades’s Breath full raid. Large-scale battles were high-end Elder Tales content. They were hard battles that only a few of the bigger guilds could attempt and average players could only dream about, and the rewards included rare items such as griffins’ pipes. A certain subset of players would find it unforgivable that someone like Shiroe, a player who wasn’t even in a guild, had such a rare item.

Marielle was the Crescent Moon League guild master. Unlike Shiroe, she had a large circle of acquaintances, and at the very least, it was likely that all the members of her guild knew that Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Akatsuki were on their way to Susukino to rescue one of the guild’s members. Marielle would probably register the griffins with no more than her usual smile, but it wasn’t a sure bet that all the members would follow suit. If word got around, people might start to look at them differently, and that idea scared Shiroe a bit.

“Well, it’s you guys. I think you’re gonna be just fine.”

Marielle giggled at Shiroe’s haphazard remark.

I know she’s pushing herself to sound normal, and she still sounds like this… Mari’s really strong.

“We haven’t taken any major damage yet. We haven’t done very much fighting at all.”

“Roger that!”

“All right. I’ll call again later.”

“Yep! I’ll be sendin’ prayers to the god Eulara for you. Say hi to Naotsugu and Akatsuki for me. Henrietta’s gettin’ lonesome over here!”

As Marielle ended the telechat, Shiroe thought that her closing comment about the god Eulara made her really sound like a Cleric.

So far, everything’s going according to plan…

“How does the situation look, my liege?”

“~~~!”

Since he’d been concentrating on the telechat, he’d completely failed to notice, but Akatsuki was back. When Shiroe turned around, Naotsugu was chowing down on some travel rations.

“No changes in Akiba. Serara is currently in hiding in Susukino, and there’s no trouble on her end. The situation’s stable.”

“Understood.”

Akatsuki answered briefly, then took a big canteen out of her pack. The canteen was actually the same size as Shiroe’s, but when Akatsuki held it, it looked bigger. Shiroe handed her an orange he’d taken from his pack. Fruit could be eaten without being prepared, and in this world, where most food items tasted the same, it was the one precious thing that actually tasted like itself.

Shiroe’s pack was magic and could hold up to two hundred kilograms’ worth of items. The bag canceled out the weight of anything put into it, so that however much it was holding at the time, it only weighed as much as a small, empty knapsack.

This sort of magic bag was a typical Elder Tales magic item. There were several grades ranked by their weight limit and the types of items that could be carried, and since the bags were so convenient, almost all players had one. The packs were one of this world’s must-have survival items: Thanks to them, players could keep fighting even if they found treasure in a dungeon, and they made it easy to carry food and camping gear around.

“Could you report on your scouting expedition now? I’d like to check the terrain against the map.”

“Of course.”

As she dexterously peeled the orange with her knife, Akatsuki reported the results of her expedition. The main road through the tunnel was so wide that even dump trucks would have no problem entering it side by side, and there was really no way to get lost on it, but that road was crossed by countless side roads. If they went straight down the main road, it would get them to their destination; however, since there were colonies of ratmen in places, they might have to make the occasional detour, and the information from Akatsuki’s scouting excursions was invaluable. As he listened to her report, Shiroe jotted down new branch roads on the sheaf of paper he kept nearby.

“…Like this?”

“Yes, that looks right… You’re good at this sort of thing, my liege.”

Akatsuki sounded impressed. She was standing on tiptoe to look at the drawing by Shiroe’s hand, inspecting the parts he’d just added.

“It’s a little like CAD… That and I’m a Scribe.”

“What’s CAD?”

“Computer-aided drafting. I do some of it at university. On top of that, I’m in the Department of Engineering, so…”

“You’re in college, my liege?”

Shiroe nodded. “I’ll be graduating soon, though.” Real-world matters seemed distant and increasingly unreal.

“I see. We’re about the same age, then.”

“Huh?”

“What, for real?!”

Shiroe and Naotsugu reacted to Akatsuki’s comment at the exact same time.

“Is it that unexpected?”

Akatsuki responded calmly. Shiroe thought, a bit guiltily, that it was. He’d assumed Akatsuki was at least three or four years younger than he was.

“You’ve gotta be kidding, short stuff. You’re nowhere near tall enough to be an ad— Dwah!”

A sharp, flying knee kick, launched as if to strike the words down, hit Naotsugu square in the face.

“My liege. May I kick Naotsugu the Idiot?”

“I keep telling you, ask first!”

Internally, as he listened absentmindedly to their comedy routine, Shiroe felt himself break out in a cold sweat. He hadn’t actually said it, but now that he thought about it, the only reason he’d had to assume Akatsuki was younger was her height.

“And anyway, stupid Naotsugu, you harp on my height too much.”

“Well, your chest is even more of a washout— Nyargh!”

That time, Naotsugu took a beautiful flying knee kick from the left. From the difference in their heights, Akatsuki had to have jumped nearly two meters straight up, but she twisted back with brilliant, nearly feline aerial form and landed lightly.

“—Akatsuki? Naotsugu’s going to die.”

“If you insist, my liege…”

Reluctantly, Akatsuki put some distance between herself and Naotsugu. Shiroe had privately thought she was younger as well, and even though he’d been quiet about it, he felt compelled to help Naotsugu out.

“Don’t tell me… Did you think I was a minor, too, my liege?”

Unable to take Akatsuki’s forceful gaze, Shiroe made a muttered confession.

“It wasn’t really your height or anything— I mean, age isn’t— Please don’t ask.”

Shiroe had thought Akatsuki was younger, but he’d never treated her as a kid. This was a world where you had to fight to survive. The sort of world where they had to battle ratmen in cavernous tunnels. Age had nothing to do with it: Anyone who couldn’t do the bare minimum of what had to be done for themselves would have a hard time surviving… Even if “death” didn’t technically exist.

Shiroe remembered the twins he’d helped out. Come to think of it, on the day of the Catastrophe, he’d been playing with them right up until it happened. They’d been separated when the Catastrophe kicked him back to Akiba. He’d seen them later from a distance, and they seemed to have joined a guild, but he was still a bit worried.

Once they got back to Akiba, he decided, he’d check up on them.

“My liege? What are you brooding about?”

“Hm? I’m not really thinking about anything.”

“That’s not true. When you think, your forehead wrinkles up right between your eyebrows.”

“…Oh. Uh…”

He’d tried arguing for no real reason, but Akatsuki had seen right through him. That part wasn’t so bad, but Akatsuki had begun tapping the space between her own eyebrows, saying, “Right here. Old guy wrinkles,” and it was making him feel very weird.

“Rrgh! Naotsugu, what’s so funny?!”

“You’ve gotta ask? Gwah-hah! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Shiroe aimed a kick at Naotsugu’s shin, but Naotsugu’s legs were covered in thick armor, too, and he only hurt his toes.

After the three of them bickered for a while, they stood and got ready to press forward. The fathomless darkness of the tunnel pressed down on them, as heavy as eternity. The atmosphere was damp and frigid in the way peculiar to deep underground spaces, but even so, as they laughed together, the air around them felt just a little warmer.

5

By the time they finally left the endless tunnel, the first light of dawn was beginning to edge the mountains on the horizon with purple. They’d been underground for a very long time, and they stretched hugely in the cold, fresh wind. Although the cavern hadn’t been so low they’d had to stoop, having several hundred million tons of earth and sand above them had been more oppressive than they’d realized. Now they were just happy to have the early summer sky, still indigo with receding night, over their heads.

“The wind is cold.”

Akatsuki leapt nimbly up onto a large boulder that looked out over the forest and the ocean.

“Yeah. Feels good, though. We’re finally out. Glad-that’s-over city!”

Shiroe hurried after the two of them and climbed up onto the boulder. The wind was really cold, but the view was overwhelming. The primeval forest, a green so deep that it looked nearly black, was being colored with great strokes of rose-colored light. When the clouds that rode the dawn wind broke, that rosy light struck the sea that gleamed on the far horizon, making it shine raspberry and gold.

“How pretty.”

“Whooooa…”

Akatsuki and Naotsugu’s brief comments said it all.

Come to think of it, this is a first, Shiroe thought.

We’re the first people to ever see this view… No one in this world has traveled all the way from Akiba to Susukino yet. We’re really the first ones to see this. There are lots of players who happened to be passing through here at dawn when Elder Tales was just a game, but in this other world, we’re the first. And being first is…

“—Adventures are all about firsts, you know. It’s feeling like a psyched-up hamster, going eek-brr-whizzz, like that… Huh? What was that? ‘Don’t wet your pants?’ Hey, why not, it’s fun! …It’s not fun? It is too! I mean, look at this fantabulous thing we got to see! Talk about making out like bandits! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

She’d said that. She’d been randomly brimming over with confidence, filled with conviction even though she had zero proof, a girl made up entirely of whims and exaggerations and energy… And even then, she’d always known the right answer. If she’d been here, she’d have worn this view with pride, like a medal of honor.

That was why Shiroe spoke to the other two, saying exactly what he felt.

“We’re the first. We’re the very first Adventurers in this other world to see this view.”

It was the first time Shiroe had consciously declared that this was another world.

The breathtaking natural beauty that spread out below them said it more plainly than any logical quibble ever could. No game could hold a view like this. The dawn wind, the cool air, the faint noises that came to them across the treetops, the early morning scenery that changed by the millisecond—none of it would be possible for a jumped-up VR environment.

When he’d come to this world, and when everyone around him was panicking, and when some of the players had lost their purpose in life and public order had begun to deteriorate, a part of Shiroe had stayed calm. True, he’d thought, Not good, not good. This is a definite problem, but he’d still gone into town every day, explored the zones, tried out spells as he battled, and meticulously determined what he could and could not do here.

…It could be that I’m better at adapting than I thought. It could be because Naotsugu was here, joking around and making me forget about the pain. It could be because we met up with Akatsuki, and things got livelier, and it helped.

Those elements had definitely been there, but now Shiroe understood that they hadn’t been the whole reason. The beauty he’d felt in Akiba’s ruins, buried by ancient trees, when he’d first come to this world. As if he’d felt another world there.

This is another world, and I am an Adventurer.

For a moment, Akatsuki gazed at him with a puzzled expression. Then she nodded firmly, as if she’d satisfied herself of something. Naotsugu gave a mischievous, macho smile and drew in a lungful of air.

“Right. We got here first. I’ve never seen a view this awesome, even in Elder Tales.”

“It’s our first trophy.”

The two of them looked at the scenery as if it were something to be treasured. Then they nodded to Shiroe.

As if in response, Shiroe took out his griffin’s pipe and sent a loud note toward the eastern sky.