1

Just as she always did, Akatsuki passed through the narrow door to enter the shop.

The place was deep within the Production Guild District, set in a corner of a ruined building’s remodeled basement. It was filled with stacks of crates.

This store “zone” was the sales area for the production guild Amenoma. As proof, Japanese swords were out on display, status set to non-retrievable. Among the many guilds that forged weapons, Amenoma was an eccentric one that specialized in Japanese swords.

Naturally, the members who ran this eccentric guild weren’t normal either, and as a result of their enthusiastic manufacturing, tools and materials flooded from the relatively large forge at the back of the sales area. Swords and materials that were midway through the production process had overflowed into the sales area and were piled messily in crates, such that the place looked like a storehouse.

Still, as far as Akatsuki was concerned, this was all for the best.

Being greeted with a round of “Welcome!” when she entered a store made her feel pressured, and having products recommended to her by over-friendly salesclerks was a turnoff. Akatsuki was fundamentally shy. She’d grown able to talk quite casually with her guild mates Naotsugu and Nyanta, and she thought she’d managed to make friends with Touya and Isuzu and the others, but she was still pretty uncomfortable around other people.

In that respect, at Amenoma (even though it was because they just weren’t concerned with sales), she was able to relax and size up the items on her own, and she was grateful for it.

“Okay…”

Relying on memory, Akatsuki made for a corner of the shop.

It was an area that held highly versatile Japanese swords.

In this other world, glass showcases weren’t common.

Here, the swords simply hung from hooks on the wall.

Since the sales zone was controlled by the guild and many of the items were set to be non-retrievable, Akatsuki could touch the items, but she couldn’t pick them up or move them anywhere. It was, however, possible to look at them and examine them carefully, so the item properties were displayed. The result was that customers who came to shop weren’t inconvenienced, but there was also no danger of theft. It was a clever system.

It turned out that there were several dozen swords on display.

As it happened, a few of these were items that Akatsuki was keeping an eye on.

In Elder Tales, the conditions that made it possible to equip an item were set on the item itself. For example, the Green Steel Short Sword—Ornate Black Katana Mounting right in front of Akatsuki could be equipped by six of the main classes: Guardians, Samurai, Assassins, Swashbucklers, Bards, and Kannagi.

Samurai were able to equip almost all swords, but if the weapon’s equip settings didn’t include them, they weren’t able to make an exception and equip it. Conversely, Monks weren’t able to equip most swords, but if special permission was granted on the item’s side, it was possible for them to equip that particular sword.

Major equipment for Assassins—Akatsuki’s main class—consisted of bows, whips, and both Western and Japanese swords, but since Assassin was fundamentally a weapon-attack class, it was possible to equip many other types of implements as well, if desired. In the days when this had been a game, Akatsuki had used a short sword simply because it had looked kind of cool, but after the Catastrophe, she’d continued to make regular use of it for more practical reasons. Akatsuki had experience in kendo, and it seemed like the easiest, most comfortable weapon to use.

Choosing weapons was a difficult affair. Akatsuki ransacked the familiar list in her memory, which she’d gone over many, many times already. Elder Tales might have tens of thousands—or maybe even hundreds of thousands—of weapon items, but it was common knowledge that, for a specific Adventurer trying to find the perfect weapon, there weren’t all that many options.

To begin with, there were the weapon categories. These categories included one-handed swords, two-handed swords, spears, axes, pole-type weapons, bows, staves, cudgels, brass knuckles, throwing weapons, whips, and special weapons. Quantities varied by category, but if there were about a hundred thousand weapons in all, each category would, presumably, have about a tenth of that number.

There was also the issue of equipment levels. In Elder Tales, higher-level equipment appeared every ten levels or so. Furthermore, without exception, all Adventurers were compelled to update their weapons and switch them for new ones every ten levels, simply because if they kept using low-level equipment, they’d handicap their companions who were supposed to be on par with them. Skilled Adventurers tended to review their gear even more frequently because of that. In the end, with the level limit apparently set at 100 at current, if an Adventurer updated their equipment every five levels, that meant switching weapons a total of twenty times.

In addition, Adventurers were divided between twelve main classes. While it was possible for one weapon to be equipped by multiple main classes, different weapons would naturally fulfill different needs. For example, a Kannagi looking for a short sword would want one that provided magic power amplification and attribute defense, while most Assassins would want a short sword that focused on agility and attack power. In addition, even if a piece of equipment was geared toward Assassins, equipment choices could still vary depending on whether it emphasized the force of single attacks or attack speed.

These myriad conditions kept narrowing the field of weapon candidates for any one person by increments of one-tenth. By necessity, no matter how vast the total number of weapons was, the options that appeared as a result were limited.

Right now, for Akatsuki, there were probably about ten potential choices.

On top of that, there was an even greater problem:

Whether it was possible to obtain them.

In Elder Tales, powerful weapons were only granted as rewards during raids, almost without exception. Akatsuki had no raid experience. She flattered herself that, as an Adventurer, her level and skills were by no means low, but that was in terms of party Adventurers. In addition, 90 percent of the weapons from raids were nontransferable. In other words, it wasn’t possible to trade ownership to someone else. Unless you participated in a raid and acquired one there, you’d likely never get one.

There were about ten weapons that Akatsuki wanted, but only two could be acquired without participating in a raid—or, in other words, could be purchased.

“…Welcome.”

Hearing a voice, Akatsuki turned around.

A girl about as small as Akatsuki stood there. Of course, Akatsuki was a human whose height had been set to be short. The standard height for dwarves like this girl was about the same as a child to begin with, so the implications were a bit different. Since the race had unique abilities that were useful to several production classes, they were seen fairly often in production guilds.

Her name was Tatara. She was the guild master of Amenoma, a craftsman who’d mastered high-level Blacksmith skills, and one of Akatsuki’s acquaintances.

In response to the voice, Akatsuki nodded.

She might be an acquaintance, but they weren’t so close she could make small talk with her.

“Hmm…”

That said, as far as Akatsuki was concerned, Tatara was a pleasant person to deal with. The general opinion was that she poured all her affection into her swords, and as proof, her subclass was Swordsmith, a high-level Blacksmith class that was rare on the server. Possibly because she was indifferent about human relations, she wouldn’t actively try to sell anything to customers even when they were standing in the sales area. She was one of the few acquaintances that Akatsuki never had to be afraid of.

…Not that that was the reason, but Akatsuki asked the question on her mind:

“Um, I know this is abrupt, but could I ask…? What happened to the sword that was on display here?”

Her voice had gone a little tense. As she asked the question, she thought to herself that people besides her guild mates really did make her nervous. Tatara had flopped her upper body down over the counter carelessly, and she answered from that position: “It sold.”

The words astonished Akatsuki.

This was because, by that point, she’d been coming to Amenoma for two months.

The sort of high-level equipment Akatsuki wanted could get terribly expensive. This was particularly true of the rare raid weapons that were transferable. Some were displayed at Amenoma because they’d been reforged, but as far as Akatsuki knew, there weren’t that many secondhand short swords. As a result, since it hadn’t sold for two months, she’d thought that as long as she didn’t buy it herself, it wouldn’t sell for a while.

“Really?”

“Yeah, for real. They went all out and paid in full with cash…if I remember right.”

“Uuu…”

Words failed her. She really hadn’t seen this coming.

That said, when she looked at the swords on the wall again, the one she really wanted, Ringing Blade Hagane-mushi, or “Iron-Devouring Insect,” was still there. Of the two short swords that had been for sale—Haganemushi and Hail Blade Byakumaru, or “White Snow Devil”—the latter was the one that had sold. That sword had a “proc,” or programmed random occurrence ability that inflicted cold-air ranged damage. Attribute damage was effective against opponents with high physical defenses, but range damage could be difficult to use. In that sense, she might just have been lucky that the one she was really after was still there.

“…Gonna buy it?”

“Uuu…”

That question found her speechless, too.

Of course she wanted it. She wanted it so badly she could taste it.

In any case, as a weapon-attack class, compared to other classes, a larger percentage of Assassins’ combat abilities depended on their weapons. In addition, Akatsuki was currently dealing with some personal circumstances.

She wanted a high-performance weapon.

However, high-performance weapons were expensive.

The remaining weapon, Ringing Blade Haganemushi, was the one she really wanted, and if things were like this, there was no telling when it would sell. That said, the figure written on its price tag was twice as large as Akatsuki’s total assets.

She really couldn’t say she’d buy it.

Of course, Akatsuki was going out to the fields day after day and battling monsters. It had been that way ever since Shiroe began shutting himself up in the guild house after the Zantleaf sweep. However, since the Catastrophe, this world changed as it pleased, and there were limits to how much money a player could earn alone.

For Shiroe, or possibly Marielle, or any of the other guild masters whose names were linked to the Round Table Council, the amount might have been something that they could pay on the spot. However, right now, for Akatsuki, the burden was too great.

Tearing her eyes away from the beautiful short sword in its black sheath, Akatsuki shook her head several times, communicating her intent.

Tatara didn’t seem all that interested in boosting her sales, either. When she saw that Akatsuki wasn’t going to buy anything, she lay down over the counter again, making noises that sounded like “Mukyuu.” Apparently this was where she slept.

As if to shake off her regrets, Akatsuki squeezed the handle of her current favorite short sword in its lacquered scabbard and left the Amenoma shop.

She wanted to improve her combat abilities as quickly as possible, and there was somewhere else she needed to go.

2

It was December, and winter had fallen upon Akiba’s landscapes.

Summer in Yamato had been cooler than summers in Japan in the old world, and apparently, as anticipated, winters were harsher than they’d been in the old world as well. Snow had fallen several times since the beginning of December. There hadn’t been enough to stick, but every time, the wind had gotten colder.

That said, Akiba was an Adventurer town.

While the People of the Earth population had grown, Adventurers still accounted for two-thirds of the traffic in the streets. Adventurer bodies were tough; a little cold was nothing to them, and if necessary, one ring set with a small aquamarine gave them enough resistance to the chilly air to easily repel natural cold.

Akatsuki cut through the morning streets, walking rapidly.

She was headed for the outskirts of town.

At the southern edge of Akiba, Akatsuki blew her summoning pipe, leapt onto a swift black horse, and galloped off.

I want to get stronger…

Once again, Akatsuki murmured it to herself, silently.

Lately, it felt as if she thought this every day… No, several dozen times a day.

One more time, Akatsuki put a hand to her hip, tracing the sheath with her fingers.

It held a kiln-turned ceramic stained short sword. It was a high-level production-class weapon that Akatsuki had obtained before the Catastrophe. It certainly wasn’t a weak short sword. Of the types that could be acquired when adventuring as a party, it was the highest grade.

Akatsuki thought that this weapon was exactly like her.

In a six-person party, her skills were high-level. She could carry out the role she was given flawlessly and efficiently. However, in Elder Tales, there was a world beyond that one: raids. Akatsuki had never taken part in a raid. She’d shied away from the long times spent on standby and the complicated human relationships.

In addition, no one had called her for the task.

However, no matter the reason, the fact was that Akatsuki had no raid experience. That meant she hadn’t acquired the high-level treasure-class and fantasy-class equipment that could be obtained on raids. Akiba was home to major combat guilds like the Knights of the Black Sword and D.D.D. Their members probably included super-top-class Assassins who were more skilled than Akatsuki, and who had equipment she could never obtain no matter how much she wanted it.

Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Nyanta were like that as well.

They’d belonged to the Debauchery Tea Party, a group that hadn’t been a guild but had once dominated the world, to the point where it had become a legend. They were super-top-class Adventurers who’d competed with the major combat guilds for victory.

Compared with friends like that, her own abilities seemed far too shaky.

She was a skilled Assassin, certainly: a modest top-class, or at least the very top of second-class. However, she wasn’t a super-top-class Assassin.

That was Akatsuki’s reality.

The very top of second-class.

She was a lot like the weapon she used.

As a result, she’d started going to Amenoma in search of a top-class weapon, even if it was at the very bottom of its class, but top-class weapons were—as expected—expensive, and they were out of her reach. The way she let her regrets accumulate and went back every day was absurd.

When she reached the Dovature Birdlands, Akatsuki dismounted. She wasn’t planning to do anything bad, but from this point on, she needed to conceal her presence.

She advanced, slipping between the dense trees, and before long, her vision was blocked by a wall of greenery.

Of course there were trodden paths as well, but that sort of animal trail had inherited the game’s design intent, and they meandered. It was a design technique used to make small places look bigger.

The Dovature Birdlands were a type of field dungeon. Although it was an outside zone, the small paths that ran every which way formed a labyrinth, and it had been designed to make it possible to fight lots of monsters.

However, after the Catastrophe, if you didn’t mind losing some speed and taking a little trouble, you could skip the suggested routes and cut straight through the brush. You had to climb up and down small cliffs, and it did take work, but for the petite Akatsuki, slipping through the brush was comparatively easy.

This zone was located about forty minutes on horseback from Akiba. It was a zone designed for parties, and the monsters that appeared there had levels in the 80s. Akatsuki was level 91, and she wouldn’t gain any experience points here, but in exchange, she could move in relative safety. On the other hand, although it was possible to defeat the monsters that appeared here safely, it took more than one attack to do so, which made it the perfect place for testing weapons and practicing. Akatsuki often came here for combat training.

The group she’d come here for was probably training right now, too.

After she’d pushed her way through the brush for a while, she heard the sounds of battle: clashing steel and a raucous noise that seemed to freeze the air; the sharp sound of electrical attacks… Apparently, the Knights of the Black Sword were going over their teamwork and equipment again today.

Akatsuki found a depression in the ground, then quietly sat down. From that cluster of trees, she could look down into the sunken clearing.

There, two parties from the Knights of the Black Sword were in the middle of a fierce mock battle. Akatsuki used her special Tracker skills to erase all traces of her presence, then began to watch their combat training.

Around the time of the Libra Festival, the word Mystery had begun to be whispered through the town of Akiba.

When it first appeared, it was a rumor a bit like an urban legend.

In Elder Tales, Adventurers’ various actions were expressed as special skills. Special skills were granted to Adventurers according to all sorts of conditions, but the most common was through their classes. For example, Assassinate, the high-powered offensive special skill Akatsuki used, was one that could be acquired by Assassins once they reached a certain level. As Adventurers leveled up, these special skills were replaced by higher-level special skills. For example, Assassinate III, which was acquired at level 47, was weaker than Assassinate IV, which was acquired at level 57.

However, even with Assassinate IV, it was normal for its power to differ depending on who used it. The reason lay within the special-skill ranks. A special skill that had just been acquired as a result of leveling up belonged to a rank known as “Initiate.” It could be used, but it wasn’t very powerful. After that, by paying into proficiency or using specific items, it was possible to raise the power of the same special skill to “Elementary,” “Intermediate,” “Esoteric” and “Secret.” To attain “Intermediate,” you needed a scroll made by someone in the same class; attaining “Esoteric” required a scroll made with rare materials. Both were expensive, but could be purchased.

However, it was impossible to attain “Secret” without conquering a dedicated quest. In addition, that dedicated quest required participation in a raid. This difficulty in acquiring special skills was one of the reasons behind the difference in combat strength between super-top-class Adventurers affiliated with raid guilds and second-class Adventurers like Akatsuki.

According to the rumors, “Mystery” was what lay beyond “Secret.”

It was a special skill rank that hadn’t existed when Elder Tales had been a game, at least not before the Catastrophe. For that reason, some also called it Overskill.

Increased power in special skills due to a rise in rank manifested on several fronts.

Although this differed by special skill, Assassinate was an offensive special skill, so the damage inflicted simply increased. From what Akatsuki remembered, there was a power increase of about 22 percent between “Initiate” and “Secret.” There was no knowing how much of a power increase to expect when you attained “Mystery.”

As described, “Mystery” brought nothing but good things. However, its existence was no more than a rumor because the number of Adventurers who could declare categorically that they’d confirmed it was incredibly small. As far as Akiba’s rumor mill went, half the people didn’t believe in Mysteries or Overskills and half did, while even most of the Adventurers who believed in it thought it wasn’t all that powerful. Akatsuki believed in the existence of Mysteries simply because Shiroe had declared they existed.

If I manage to acquire a Mystery, even I’ll be more…

As she thought, Akatsuki hugged herself tightly.

Most of Akatsuki’s own special skills were ranked “Intermediate” or “Esoteric.” Of course, for a party-level Adventurer, these ranks were more than sufficient, but she’d be no match for a member of a major combat guild. Even here, there was a wall in front of Akatsuki.

However, the Mysteries must exist.

Shiroe had said they existed, so they did.

And the ones who were most likely to have attained them were the strongest of the combat guilds, the members of the Knights of the Black Sword. Of course, there were probably Adventurers in guilds like Honesty and D.D.D. who’d attained “Mystery” rank as well, but the Knights of the Black Sword prided themselves on being elite, and it was more likely to exist among them.

No one knew how “Mystery” rank was attained, but in light of the fact that “Secret” was granted through special quests that required raid participation, it was logical that it probably involved some sort of quest. That just showed how little general knowledge there was about the way “Mystery” level was attained. In the current Elder Tales, where strategy sites no longer existed, information traveled slowly, and its value was through the roof.

This was why Akatsuki was huddled up in the brush in the bone-chilling December cold, watching the Knights of the Black Sword train. If another Assassin was using a “Mystery”-level attack, she wanted to see that skill and gauge how powerful it was. If they were going on a quest, she wanted to at least know its trigger.

They’re tough… That was just one attack.

Even from here, she could tell the Knights of the Black Sword were strong: naturally, the Assassins who fought there, but even the other classes as well. They were so strong it was fascinating.

Heeey, cut in deeper.

Lame. That ain’t enough damage, is it?

You’ve gotta step farther in!

The way they spoke might have been rough, but all the members of the Knights of the Black Sword were elites, in the top 1 percent on the Yamato server.

Their movements, their teamwork, the beauty of their equipment, their strength.

Just watching them made Akatsuki want to cry.

Even though fighting was all she could do…

She was weak in combat.

She remembered the profiles of her liege and her junior guild member on the night of the festival, illuminated by the bonfires. A pair of birds soaring to heights Akatsuki didn’t understand.

She’d wanted to be by Shiroe’s side. She’d wanted it very badly.

But she hadn’t even tried to think about what Shiroe was seeing, and now she was paying the price.

I want to get stronger…

Once more, Akatsuki murmured it to herself.

However, she was keenly aware that that murmur alone would never make her stronger. She knew how foolish it was to be sitting here observing the Knights of the Black Sword. She didn’t have the strength to accomplish one single thing.

Akatsuki, who had to protect Shiroe’s secret, was the loneliest person in wintry Akiba.

3

The glass bottle was big, so big it might have been better to call it a glass basin. Pale pink liquid circulated inside the glass vessel, and a man on a stepladder was casually tossing light brown leaves into it.

The fragrance that wafted up smelled like cocoa, but Roderick, who was frowning, knew it wouldn’t taste the least bit sweet if you drank it.

This was a research facility known as “Roderick’s Workshop.”

It was a room in the Roderick Trading Company’s guild tower.

“Guild tower” was one of the terms Adventurers used for guild halls. The term was often used when a guild bought up an entire building, as the Roderick Trading Company had, and used its interior as a guild hall. This was particularly true if the building was a tall one.

The Roderick Trading Company, one of Akiba’s leading production guilds, had purchased a seven-story building on the north side of Akiba that it used as its guild hall. Inside, the laboratory that Roderick claimed as his own was overflowing with glass lab instruments.

There were small items for experiments, but the room also held enormous heating vessels like the one that was currently in use, and a pestle the size of a bathtub.

In order to create items in Elder Tales, all you needed to do was select the thing you wanted to make from a menu. If you had the materials and the machinery, it would be done in ten seconds. Even now, in this world, that method could be used the way it had in the game. However, if you wanted to create something new, as Roderick did, it was another story. You had to do everything by hand, right from the start.

If you wanted to produce in volume, you needed large equipment.

On the day the Round Table Council was established, Shiroe had pointed out the possibilities that lay within the new item-creation system.

These possibilities had first taken root in the field of food and drink, and had then spread to the disciplines of furniture making, smithy, and haberdashery. For the past six months, the artisans of Akiba had continued to discover and develop new items on a daily basis.

However, there were some artisans who were unable to apply manual skills from the real world. Roderick was one of them. His subclass was Apothecary. This was a production class that created the potions and balms that were staples of fantasy games.

Since there had been no “potions to recover 180 HP” in the real world where he’d once lived, there could be no techniques to use as models. Alchemists, Sigilmancers, Gem Engineers and other fantasy world–type production classes all had similar issues.

That didn’t mean they couldn’t create new items, however.

If they were unable to divert recipes and techniques from the real world, all they had to do was inspect the recipes that were already in this world, run experiments, and invent. Over the past six months, they’d created reinforcement-type recovery potions up to level 50, and sigils and gems had been continually improved.

One of Roderick’s great personal achievements had been the development of a mass-produced Appearance Reset Potion. Unlike the real Appearance Reset Potion, it was simple: It only allowed changes to up to two parameters from the gender, height, weight, figure, hair color, eye color, and skin color options. However, thanks to the popularization of this potion, they’d nearly managed to eradicate cases of Adventurers struggling with genders that were different from their old-world selves.

After that, Roderick had continued to analyze, mass-produce, and work out countermeasures for extremely difficult medicines such as Ambrosia, Theriac, and Netherworld Repast.

The Roderick Trading Company was counted as one of the three major production guilds, but its purpose wasn’t quite production itself.

When Elder Tales had been a game, item creation had taken the form of selecting recipes from a menu. There were different recipes for different subclasses, and in order to become able to create a variety of items, artisans had had to collect countless Recipe Scrolls.

For example, even when speaking only of the types of medicines Apothecaries could create, there were instant HP recovery potions, gradual HP recovery potions, HP reinforcement potions, reinforcement potions for abilities, three types of poison antidote, antivenom potions, more than ten poisons for lacing weapons, movement speed increase potions, attack-speed increase potions…and so on. Because potions with stronger effects appeared every ten levels or so, even in the game, Roderick had been able to make over six hundred types of items. In other words, he’d had that many recipes.

That said, it was difficult for ordinary Adventurers, let alone beginners, to collect the vast number of recipes in their entirety. Even among Apothecaries, it took a lot of time and in-game assets to become able to make absolutely anything medicinal.

In an endeavor to counter that game situation, the Roderick Trading Company guild had been established with the goal of building a recipe library. If materials of corresponding rarity were used, it was possible to copy the recipes. In addition, artisans who worked at a guild that accumulated recipes naturally acquired many of them, and so were able to add more value to the cause overall than other crafters.

It was only natural that, following the Catastrophe, the Roderick Trading Company had been the production guild that shifted its focus to research and development.

At this point, most Adventurers who liked research and development had gravitated to the Roderick Trading Company.

In the same way, Adventurers working to apply technology from the old world to this one, to mechanize and mass-produce, were joining the Marine Organization, and Adventurers who liked selling the resulting items and doing business with the People of the Earth were affiliated with Shopping District 8. The Marine Organization ran its own guild shop, even so, but the Roderick Trading Company left its sales work to Shopping District 8 and several commercial guilds. All of its guild members were people who liked mulling over new experiments when they had time.

As a result, the Roderick Trading Company’s guild tower was buried in pointlessly complicated lab equipment and bundles of record documents, and its atmosphere was disorderly. Many fans of MMO games were in high school or college. They’d been students to begin with, and the atmosphere of this research institution-esque guild was probably comfortable for them.

Internally, they often called the Roderick Trading Company the Roderick Laboratory, or the RoderLab for short. To them, it must have felt like an academy with a free and easy atmosphere, where they could immerse themselves in fun research every day.

Including things such as the popularity vote for the lunch delivery girls from Onigiri Shop Enmusubi, it was turning into a guild that was well suited to this other world in a different way from comfy, homey guilds like the Crescent Moon League.

In the heart of that guild hall, an enormous room with a high ceiling, Roderick turned around.

The voice that had spoken to him belonged to a young member of his guild. The companion, who was still young enough to be called a boy, went away, leaving a visitor behind. Roderick climbed down from the low stepladder and greeted his guest.

“Good afternoon, Nyanta.”

“It’s night already.”

Roderick paused at that. …Hmm. He’d been sure it was still before lunch…

“Even if mew skip lunch, night comes.”

His question received an entirely natural response. Nyanta had been looking around as if he was deeply interested, but with a twitch of his whiskers, he took a letter from his pouch in a smart gesture and handed it to Roderick.

On taking it and skimming through, Roderick was left nonplussed.

The sender of the letter was Shiroe of Log Horizon. He’d known that from the beginning. The content was a request for research related to technology development, and he’d anticipated that as well. Such paper-based exchanges were occurring more frequently these days.

After all, this other world held all sorts of plant, animal, and mineral materials. Compounding them, verifying their effects, and searching for new items was incredibly entertaining. It was possible to look at the materials consumed in recipes from Elder Tales’ game days and get a vague idea of the medicinal properties of the required materials. Collecting and analyzing this sort of knowledge and putting together ideas thrilled him.

The Roderick Trading Company attracted these so-called “research fiends.” Although most of the members specialized in different fields, it was safe to say that, on some level, they all had that sort of temperament.

Roderick himself was aware that he had so much fun with this sort of trial and error that he tended to leave his Round Table Council duties to other guilds. The biggest victim of this was Shiroe. As a result, it was hard for him to turn down Shiroe’s requests.

In addition, in most cases, Shiroe’s letters turned out to be beneficial for the Roderick Trading Company as well: suggestions from Shiroe for new products, or introductions to promising guilds or people. At the very least, so far, they’d never been worse off for considering them.

However, this letter wasn’t as easy to understand.

In any case, it held only a few lines.

“That’s what it is, apparently.”

“Nyanta, are you familiar with the contents of this letter?”

“No, not in the least.”

Nyanta waved a hand at the dumbfounded Roderick. Apparently he really didn’t know.

I want a catalog of all the magic items that are currently in circulation in Akiba, or are most likely in the possession of the large guilds. I’d also like you to investigate their abilities. In particular, could you append the flavor text to your survey material?

“Mmm, well… I don’t have any objection to it. However, investigating this is going to take quite a lot of items that are higher than fantasy-class and secret-class. That’s a lot of material. I expect that’s why he came to us, but…”

“We don’t have assets like that at Log Horizon, mew see.”

“So you say, but I’d wager you do have quite a variety of things.”

“Mya-ha-ha-ha. We’ve got lots of growing youngsters, and it’s a drain on the wallet.”

Nyanta laughed gently, showing a laid-back maturity. As always, he was neat and fashionable, a perfect gentleman.

Roderick sighed and let himself be convinced.

If Shiroe had sent him a letter like this, this sort of research would probably be necessary sooner or later. True, it was research which was likely to require a budget, but it wasn’t an amount they couldn’t scrape together.

It was true that the Roderick Trading Company was probably the best guild for a job that required investigating many types of items. After all, it had the largest recipe collection on the Yamato server, and it attracted obsessives who loved research more than anything else in the world.

“There are several things I’d like to discuss. Would you join me for lunch?”

“As I told mew, it’s night.”

“For ramen, then.”

“I suppose I must.”

He shrugged, and Roderick left the laboratory, in which he’d spent who knew how many hours, with his older friend.

Since it was winter, hot soup would probably taste wonderful.

4

It was a cold night.

The wind that stabbed her cheeks had a metallic chill to it. Kyouko sneezed hugely, then looked around. That had been a pretty impressive one. Really unladylike.

Thinking that Master Soujirou would probably be disillusioned with her if he found out, she rubbed at her nose, which had started to tickle again.

For Adventurers who’d reached a certain level, the cold air of winter wasn’t a threat. They could use their equipment to shut out damage from the cold. However, saying they weren’t cold would have been a lie. In particular, the information they got through their sight and hearing that told them “It’s probably cold” convinced their spirits of the cold, long before they took physical damage.

As a result, Kyouko was hurrying to the guild house.

More than half the guild members were probably asleep there already.

While she’d been talking business with Shopping District 8—or rather, just chatting—it had gotten very late. However, it had been worth it: Kyouko’s Magic Bag was stuffed with loot. She’d actually managed to get three salt-pickled salmon. Some of her companions would cry tears of joy if she fed them this. After all, it tasted like home.

If all goes well, maybe Master Soujirou, too—

Conjuring up sweet daydreams, Kyouko broke into a grin.

They’d eat lunch together. The menu would be onigiri, naturally, made with plenty of salmon. “Master Soujirou, you have some of your lunch stuck to your cheek.” “I do? Which one?” “The right one.” “Huh? Where, where is it?” “I guess I’ll have to… There, I’ve got it.” Munch. Heh-heh! Kidding!

In one of Akiba’s back streets, Kyouko turned bright red.

Her twelve-cylinder maiden engine was going full throttle, repelling the midwinter’s night wind.

Kyouko was an athletic type in any case, and her temperature rose easily. She had a good basal metabolism. If it had been Fragrant Olive, she would have gotten a nosebleed and collapsed. The anemic elf’s ability to fantasize left Kyouko’s in the dust.

“Wachoo!”

However, the mental lunch-date fantasy seemed to have made her careless. A sneeze that couldn’t be called ladylike burst out. It really was a problem.

That sneeze had gotten her teased both in middle school and in high school. “What the heck, Kyouko?! You’re like some old guy!” She could still remember it. One of her classmates in brass band had told her that. She’d actually liked the boy quite a bit, too. Calling a girl an old guy… That had been mean. She’d been pretty wounded by it.

True, she’d been a dedicated athletic-club type for ages, and in her class, she’d been less of a feminine type and more of a laughs-with-her-mouth-wide-open type, but even so, she wished he’d chosen his words more carefully. Such as, maybe, “Now there’s a sneeze that hints at real greatness.” …No, actually, that would have been awful. Really terrible.

Kyouko thought about these things as she walked.

Even so, she realized—although it was a bit late for such realizations—that the way she sneezed was the same in this world, too. It had seemed only natural, but come to think of it, it was odd.

Although the fact that I’m in another world is odd enough to begin with.

She directed a verbal jab at herself.

Possibly because of the sneezing, she wasn’t in top form tonight.

The greenery whispered. The air was cold and felt stiff somehow.

Night wind had blown through the spaces between the ruined buildings, rustling the trees. Then, by the time Kyouko noticed, there was a man standing in the darkness ahead of her.

He was about 175 centimeters tall, a man with long hair. A tight black tank top and leather pants. He wore sturdy jet-black armor on his arms and legs only, which gave him a strange silhouette, but strangeness on that level wasn’t uncommon in Akiba, a town of Adventurers.

What made Kyouko stop in her tracks was the indescribable feeling of intimidation that rolled off the man.

Feeling as though her spine had frozen, Kyouko paused. She even took an involuntary step backward.

As if he didn’t like the distance she’d put between them, the man came forward.

In the wan glow of the Bug Lights the Round Table Council had had installed, the man wore a black mask that resembled a blindfold. Although she had no idea when he’d drawn it, he held a sword that seemed to absorb the pale light.

The blade rose smoothly, as if pulled by a string, and Kyouko’s body reacted to it before her mind did.

Kyouko was level 90, and a veteran Guardian too. The West Wind Brigade had a reputation for being a harem or girls’ club, but in terms of achievements alone, it was among Akiba’s top five combat guilds.

Kyouko was skilled enough to be the captain of the West Wind Brigade’s second company.

However, that was all thanks to her Adventurer body.

As the silver light passed by, seeming to skim the surface of her eyeballs, greasy sweat broke out along Kyouko’s spine. The first thing to surface from the midst of her fragmented thoughts was the feeling that she was about to be killed. The man in front of Kyouko was going to kill her. The next thing to surface—the word PK—was shattered by the words in town.

No, even in town, it wasn’t as though murders couldn’t happen.

It was just that the guards would teleport in and stop them.

In that case, if she hung on until the guards came…

In the worst possible scenario, she’d probably die. However, even if she did, she’d revive in the Temple. That was an Adventurer’s prerogative. There was no need to be afraid. In any case, at level 90, there weren’t many things that could kill her easily. Guardians had the greatest defense of all twelve main classes. Since she was in town, she wasn’t wearing her armor, but even so, she was physically sturdy. It’s all right; I can get through this. There was no need to be too afraid.

Thus, she tried to calm herself down.

…But it was no good.

The man had stepped in close enough that he could have kissed her, and when he smiled, showing the red, wet cavity of his mouth, the composure Kyouko had managed to scrape together fell to pieces.

He was too fast. Too fast for her to follow, even with level-90 kinetic vision. Or no, was it technique, rather than speed? When she stared at him steadily, he seemed to slip through the gaps between her thoughts with slimy invertebrate movements, closing the distance before she was aware of it.

She was only able to follow the first few silver flashes.

Kyouko saw the man grasp the hilt of a sword that had sprouted from her stomach.

No.

The sword the man held had run her through.

Expelling something from her lungs that was less a scream than a clot of damp air, Kyouko leapt backward.

However, when she landed, the sneering man was toying with a blade that had grown from her thigh.

Possibly the serial damage had hit her with a bad status effect: The blood that flowed from her wounds wasn’t stopping. Kyouko ran through the alleys like a wounded hare. Her throat stung and wouldn’t let her scream the way she wanted to, and her limbs felt limp, as if she had a fever.

The fact that, even so, she managed to maintain her agility and field several attacks was due entirely to her Adventurer body.

As she continued to raise wordless screams, Kyouko desperately kept trying to gather her thoughts and think of a way to escape.

Subjectively, a long time seemed to pass.

Far too long.

Shaken by her terror of the man, who kept sticking her with his sword any way he pleased, she’d almost lost her sense of time, but even so, too much time had passed.

“Ah, agh! Aie!”

Kyouko couldn’t make the words come out. Stabbing her through the chest, the man warped the red cavern of his mouth into the shape of a smile.

“The guards won’t come.”

As she understood the meaning of those words, a doubt like roaring static filled Kyouko’s mind. That was against the rules. She’d never heard of such a thing. The declaration had been far too unfair, and Kyouko slammed her raised fist into the man.

However, a blade sprouted from that fist.

The sight was almost comical. At some point, the man had jumped back, holding his sword out as if to thrust, and had stopped Kyouko’s fist with it. Overwhelming speed and technique that surpassed Kyouko’s, even at level 90. Soujirou might have been able to follow the attacks with his Mystery, Clairvoyance, but she couldn’t see through them.

Again and again, Kyouko struck out with her fists and her feet.

Kyouko had zero martial arts experience, but Adventurers’ physical performance was fast and destructive enough to lead even a bear around by the nose. Those attacks fell prey to the man’s blade, almost as if they were drawn into it. The single sword that hung from the man’s right hand sliced Kyouko apart, protecting the man as if it had multiplied by a thousand.

She didn’t understand.

She had no idea what in the world was happening.

Kyouko didn’t know why the guards weren’t coming, or why a PK had been allowed to run loose in the middle of town, or why a monster like this had infiltrated Akiba.

Kyouko couldn’t even think straight anymore, and she kept fighting as if delirious with fever. However, if Kyouko seemed feverish, the man was lunacy itself. Smiling a sticky smile, the man ran his sword through every inch of Kyouko’s body, as if tormenting her, toying with her.

The midnight battle came to an end in silence.

The late-night wind that blew between the buildings carried away the sound of their struggle.

Kyouko fell, still not understanding, and as if it had been promised from the beginning, the man stabbed his bright sword into her neck. As her vision dimmed, fading to black and white, Kyouko saw the blood that clung to the sword, her own blood, turn into frozen crystals and sift away.

Even though it was midwinter, they looked like pale pink flower petals.

Was the lethargy that lingered in her limbs frostbite? Tears that weren’t from sadness fell from Kyouko’s eyes onto the immobile remains of her arms and legs.

Kyouko had been on the brink of reaching something. However, in accordance with the laws of this world, she was sent to the Temple. By the time she woke and reached the guild hall where her companions waited, it was the next morning.

And so rumors of the murderer who threatened Akiba’s winter spread like wildfire.

5

A killer had appeared, one who dominated Akiba’s nights.

The news spread even faster than the wind that blew over the town. On the first night, there had been three victims. The next night, just one. However, on the third day, a group of five had fallen.

Since several of these had been veterans from combat guilds, it seemed safe to say that the murderer’s preposterous combat abilities had been proven to be far greater than those of level-90 Adventurers.

At first, people thought the incident would be easily resolved.

To begin with, this world had been modeled on Elder Tales, and in it, there was power in numbers. Even if the murderer was a bit stronger than an individual, if six people in a functional party formation surrounded him or her, it was assumed they couldn’t lose.

The peculiar conditions of this world also gave them an advantage when it came to capturing the criminal. All the victims had been killed by the murderer, but they were still alive. Even if Adventurers died, they were shunted to the Temple and reborn. As a result, there was a wealth of eyewitness testimony regarding the murderer, and of combat information.

Enbart Nelles.

No guild affiliation.

Level 94, Samurai.

Long, dark hair with hints of indigo and a mask like a blindfold. Metal armor that encased his arms and legs.

With that many characteristics, they’d assumed that investigating would be easy. True, the incidents had occurred late at night, but that didn’t mean they had to limit their search for the criminal to nighttime. As a matter of fact, guilds—particularly the West Wind Brigade and Honesty, which had suffered damage—were continuing to hunt for the culprit.

However, even now, a week after the incidents, they hadn’t so much as glimpsed him, and the number of victims kept growing.

When Adventurers killed other Adventurers, the term for it was a “PK,” or “player kill.” It was one way of playing, and the act was currently restricted at the zone level by Akiba’s Round Table Council. Yet, even though adventurers who committed PKs again and again were known as player killers—also abbreviated PK—that didn’t mean they were automatically called “murderers.”

To begin with, the town of Akiba was a zone under the protection of the guards.

If a violent act was committed there, a magical alert went to the guards’ station immediately, and the guards—People of the Earth in special equipment—went to capture the offender… Or they should have. At this point in time, it was clear that something very strange was afoot.

Of course, in the process of their investigation, the Round Table Council had inquired at the guard station. As a result, they’d learned that, at the time the incidents had occurred, the guards hadn’t detected any abnormalities. Apparently, at least as far as the Elder Tales game system was concerned, no PKs had occurred.

Rumors about the uncanny cutthroat spread rapidly through Akiba.

However, this wasn’t because the incidents were an object of serious terror.

Instead, the stories were taken more as a morbidly fascinating urban legend.

After all, to Adventurers, death wasn’t that great a risk.

It did have a certain disadvantage, of course: the danger of losing memories from the old world. Through a careful information disclosure maneuver by the Round Table Council, this fact had gradually become known to the town of Akiba. The dejection regarding this destruction of memory wasn’t a small one, and it was particularly marked among the Adventurers who were involved in production classes in the town.

However, on the other hand, it was true that there was a certain mood of pragmatism as well.

This was probably due to the fact that Adventurers who had experienced death a dozen or so times said that the destruction of memory wasn’t significant enough to feel like a problem; in fact, they were still participating in the town of Akiba without any trouble, just as their companions were.

Either way, the Adventurers lived in this world, and inevitable fates were inevitable.

Even if they were attacked by the murderer and became a victim, it wouldn’t do them any critical damage.

In addition, although the Adventurers of Akiba didn’t say it outright, it was partially because they placed great confidence in the Round Table Council, or RTC.

The RTC, which had been established less than a month after the Catastrophe and had handled Akiba’s self-government ever since, had produced a variety of tangible and intangible achievements. The Adventurers shared a common experience that gave their community a clearer origin than any in the old world: the shock of the Catastrophe, and the following devastation; given that, the residents of Akiba were quite proud of the representative system that had risen out of the ashes. They’d even managed to pull together and hold the Libra Festival last month.

In other words, the term monstrous clearly expressed the strangeness of the incident itself.

Unfairness that deviated from the system. A monster that attacked out of nowhere, like a natural disaster.

—And yet, even so, the damage wasn’t severe. On the contrary, the incidents seemed designed to cause only terror, and they were almost like a campaign tale. Most of the citizens of Akiba thought that, even if he behaved ferociously now, the matter would be resolved before long.

In any case, ever since the Catastrophe, all sorts of abnormalities had cropped up in the world and new incidents occurred nearly every day. And, too, as the largest Adventurer city on the Yamato server, Akiba was one big sieve of information. Mysterious incidents, mildly troubling incidents, hair-raising incidents, anxiety-inducing incidents—all sorts of things were here.

It was true that this serial killer wasn’t the sort of problem that could be neglected, but Akiba had several other, bigger problems at the moment.

The two that could be deemed Akiba’s main concerns were the Seventh Fall Subjugation Operation and the sudden rise to power of an enormous guild in Minami.

The Akiba expeditionary force, which had been victorious in the Zantleaf war, had finally begun its invasion of Seventh Fall, the castle of the Goblin tribe. The Goblin King appeared in the course of the Return of the Goblin King quest, and his strength changed depending on how active the Adventurers were during that event. In the confusion that had followed the Catastrophe, the Adventurers had ignored the Goblin King, and he’d developed to the point of plotting to send soldiers into the Zantleaf Peninsula. No doubt he was stronger than any previous raid boss.

No matter how high the difficulty level had risen, the enemy was fundamentally a Goblin, a midrange demihuman. Naturally, if this had been a game, he wouldn’t have posed enough of a threat to worry about.

However, on the other hand, they couldn’t ignore the fact that it was possible that common sense from the game no longer applied to the post-Catastrophe world. In addition, even if he was a threat the Adventurers could cope with, it wasn’t hard to imagine that he might be lethal for the People of the Earth.

Due to these circumstances, Akiba’s Round Table Council had dispatched a subjugation force composed of elites.

It had 450 members, with Krusty as commander-in-chief.

Of course, these troops were being dispatched to subjugate the Goblins and to bring stability to northeastern Yamato, but at the same time, the expedition was part of their exchange with Eastal, the League of Free Cities.

To that end, Krusty and Isaac, two of Akiba’s most prominent heroes, had gone to the front with the subjugation army, and even Akaneya and Calasin had gone along as reinforcements.

That meant that the burden on the other Round Table Council guild masters would inevitably increase. There was a rumor that they were spending every day in the guild center or their own guild homes, fielding exhausting workloads.

This expedition operation was what was drawing the most interest in Akiba at the moment.

The 450 members of the expedition army had departed ages ago, and no one had any doubts about their victory, but the rear duties, such as supply transport and relief personnel, weren’t going anywhere. There was also no telling when the Adventurers in Akiba would be asked to provide backup. Thus, there were reasons to pay attention, and no reasons not to.

The other subject that was attracting attention was information about Plant Hwyaden, which was said to have brought the West almost completely under its control.

At this point in time, many of Akiba’s Adventurers had mixed feelings about the town of Minami.

To the players on the Yamato server, who were from modern Japan, the system of self-government established in Minami looked like a one-party dictatorship.

In the first place, in the Elder Tales game, having a variety of guilds crowded together had been the natural state of things, even where the game system was concerned. It had been only natural that the early confusion in Akiba had taken the form of guilds competing with each other.

It seemed somewhat high-handed that, in a short period of time, a single guild—Plant Hwyaden—had claimed supremacy and, on top of that, had absorbed all the other guilds.

However, could they criticize the move? That was hard to say. Instantly declaring that it was bad, just because it was a dictatorship, would have been too simplistic. In fact, according to the information that came in from Minami, trouble caused by Adventurers had dropped off dramatically, and although their policy was different from Akiba’s, the Adventurers seemed to be advancing matters in harmony with each other.

In the first place, these were Adventurers who had played on the same server. It wasn’t unusual for old friends and companions to live separated, some in Akiba and some in Minami. Sometimes Adventurers were invited to move to Minami from Akiba and did so, and sometimes they were invited to Akiba from Minami and moved that way.

In any case, Japanese people weren’t good at bringing up politics in everyday conversation.

As such, Adventurers were conscious of the difference between Akiba and Minami and considered it high-interest news, but they also knew it was a slightly awkward topic to discuss.

In terms of the population difference between Akiba and Minami, there were comparatively more Adventurers in Akiba. However, Plant Hwyaden had more than twice as many Adventurers as Akiba’s largest guild, the Marine Organization.

Even as they felt a premonition of trouble in the situation, people were hesitant to express clear opinions on Minami, and the mood was an uncomfortable one.

At present, Akiba was caught between these two major news items, and although the days passed peacefully, there was tension about them as well. As a result, although they knew the information about the murderer, most of the Adventurers didn’t attach much importance to it.

On the fourth and fifth days, the murderer failed to appear.

However, on the sixth day… An arrest patrol squad from Honesty was completely wiped out.

The Round Table Council sent out a mild alert, requesting that people voluntarily refrain from going out at night. The Adventurers were one thing, but for a Person of the Earth, the situation would be irreparable. So far, all victims had been Adventurers, but that didn’t guarantee the safety of other groups.

However, even at this point in time, no Adventurers predicted what the appearance of the murderer truly meant.