1

Although there was no particular rule about it, people at the RoderLab who had the same subclass and were doing similar research formed fixed groups, becoming communities that called themselves “sections” or “departments.”

For example, Mikakage and the other Chefs performed experiments to test the limits and properties of new cooking methods and the act of cooking on a daily basis. In order to do this, they needed an abundance of clean water, ingredients, and fuel, as well as facilities such as kitchens, ovens, heating equipment, items with refrigerating and freezing functions, knives of all types, a variety of containers, mortars, mixers, and more.

The value of the groups known as guilds lay in being able to jointly possess large-scale facilities which would have been difficult for any individual to scrape together. Of course, since they were owned by the group, it wasn’t possible to use them by yourself, but even so, the idea of being able to use a top-of-the-line kitchen if you contributed a small amount of money to the guild was appealing. Lately, exemptions were often given even for these contributions. This was because their joint development projects with Shopping District 8 was proving profitable.

The RoderLab held a dozen or so kitchens of varying sizes with all sorts of facilities, and they were used by the roughly seventy members of the cooking section. It was only natural that members of the same class would connect with each other to draw up schedules or adjust the equipment they planned to use.

“Allie!”

When the carefree young man appeared in the small kitchen, it was late afternoon. The light that streamed into the room seemed to have had a hint of orange diffused into it, but it was still too early for sunset.

Startled by the sudden visitor, Allie the Alraune, a petite plant spirit, shivered and leapt up. Grabbing that chance, he caught her easily.

This young male Cleric with awful taste (he was wearing three shirts with loud patterns layered over each other) was Aomori. Both Mikakage and this colleague of hers—who, in spite of being an Adventurer, wasn’t very dependable—were Chefs, and in terms of affiliation, they both belonged to the cooking section.

Allie, who was holding a potato in each hand, flinched, then began to struggle, twisting and wriggling.

“Don’t torment Allie, Aomori.”

“I’m not tormenting her. Am I, Allie?”

The struggling spirit, who was only as tall as a girl who’d just entered preschool, was wearing an outfit that was identical to Mikakage’s. She was a shy girl. To Allie, Aomori was like a scary uncle who seemed to approach to shower her with affection, but always teased her instead. Below the macaron cap that matched Mikakage’s, her big eyes were wet with tears.

“A-o-mo-ri!”

When Mikakage scolded him, Aomori responded as usual, muttering—“It’s not Aomori. It’s ‘Blue Forest’”—but he put Allie down. Still holding her potatoes, Allie ran around behind Mikakage and crouched down, huddling by her feet.

“Got anything to eat here?”

Aomori pulled a nearby chair over and sat down, asking a question that was pretty irresponsible for a Chef. Without rushing, Mikakage pointed at the pot. Aomori shambled over to it. Then, with bizarre cheers of “Yo-ho” and “Wahoo,” he began filling his plate.

Paying no attention to Aomori, Mikakage kept peeling potatoes with a small petty knife. Every time she peeled one, sweet Allie handed her the next one. Since Allie was so short, the way she stood on a special stand, leaning out over the kitchen table with ears twitching, was adorable.

Mikakage was a Druid, and Allie was one of the nature spirits she could summon, but there was no time limit on that summoning. In other words, unless told to go back, Allie would be there forever. Mikakage thought of her diminutive attendant as a little sister, and she lived with her, without sending her back. The miniature cook’s coat and pastry chef hat matched Mikakage’s, and had been specially ordered from the RoderLab’s clothing section.

Mikakage had spent the period of chaos and confusion that had followed the Catastrophe with Allie and her other small attendants. Her little-sister helper Allie. The Myconid who carried her belongings. Orchis, the lullaby songstress. If they hadn’t been with her, she probably would have been crushed. Mikakage was glad she was a Druid.

“So, this.” At Aomori’s voice, Mikakage turned her ears (and nothing else) his way.

“What is it?”

He probably meant the contents of the pot.

She was pretty sure that was… Searching her memory, Mikakage answered.

“Horned Yakuu shank and chickpea stew. It’s seasoned with salt and pepper, cream, butter, and several kinds of herbs.”

“Is that right. I don’t get it.”

At Aomori’s frank response, Mikakage shrugged.

Hearing things like that would only cause her trouble. Mikakage wasn’t good at cooking to begin with.

People might ask, “What are you talking about? Your subclass is Chef,” but Mikakage thought of herself as a confectioner, and she didn’t feel like a cook. It wasn’t that she was completely incapable of making food for meals, but as a rule, she left everything to the pot. Pressure cookers were wonderful: All you had to do was put in the ingredients, add the seasonings, and heat it, and most of the time it turned into food of some sort. Mikakage considered them a great invention and used them all the time.

“By the way: cheese.”

“Huh?”

Aomori, who’d been eating thick potage-style stew, looked up, tilting his head to the side in confusion. When she asked for cheese again, he said, “Oh! Oh, right. Yeah, it’s done, it’s done,” and pulled something that looked like badly shaped tofu out of a refrigerated tote at his feet.

Accepting it, Mikakage sniffed it, checking the smell. It was definitely ricotta cheese.

This would broaden the range of sweets she could make. Should she go with cannoli? Or keep it basic and make a cream cake? She could pair it with pudding, too. If she was going to make something, she wanted to surprise people.

“Thanks.”

“Yep.”

Aomori drank water as he answered. He wasn’t a regular Chef, either.

He was an odd one who’d switched over to Brewer and, although he worked to create all sorts of ingredients, he didn’t do any cooking on his own. That being said, in a way, that was only natural.

If you wanted to cook normally and serve the food to customers, your best bet was to join Shopping District 8 and set up a shop. You could also get financing as one of the minor guilds affiliated with them. If you wanted to produce in volume and aim for the markets, the Marine Organization was the recommended route. They were currently creating a meal distribution system, and you’d be able to do business in a big way.

This was the RoderLab, a place that attracted oddballs who liked researching and developing new things.

In that sense, there wasn’t much difference between Mikakage and Aomori.

“Are you making something else?”

“Uh-huh.”

As she carefully lined up potatoes in a baking dish, then sprinkled them with granulated sugar, Mikakage responded absently. Compared to cakes made with wheat flour, potatoes, and other raw ingredients tended to produce different results depending on the day. Moisture content, sweetness, and the flavors inherent to the ingredients were more pronounced, and they varied. In adding sweetness with sugar, she was only supplementing the ingredients. When she thought of it that way, she had to be careful.

“A present for someone?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Take me with you.”

“No.”

Mikakage answered instantly as she poured in cream. Aomori had an ulterior motive there. After he’d heard it was a girls-only tea party, he’d made the same request dozens of times. Aomori—or most guys, really—truly didn’t understand: Chatting was important.

Really irreplaceable.

There were several things Mikakage had learned after coming to this world.

One of them was the value of time spent with friends. Here, there were no televisions. No cell phones. No movies or manga. Almost anything that could be termed “entertainment” had disappeared. Calling things “entertainment” made it sound as though they weren’t necessary, but Mikakage could declare categorically that this wasn’t the case. It was likely that most Adventurers could.

That miserable atmosphere in the town just after the Catastrophe. Even if they had immortal bodies, it didn’t really seem like “living” when they spent their days in a despondent mood, listlessly eating food that had no flavor. She thought that human life was something better, something more fun. To that end, it was absolutely vital to have something that would console their spirits.

Like sweets. Or friends who’ll eat those sweets.

Come to think of it, Mikakage thought the time she’d spent talking with friends after school had been the best time ever.

She remembered stopping by the hamburger shop almost every day on the way home from club in middle school. They’d order hundred-yen milkshakes and tirelessly tell dumb, funny stories until it got dark. At the time, it had seemed only natural to her, something she’d have limitless access to. When she started high school, she’d drifted apart from those friends and had begun going straight home. Manga and games had filled those hours for her, but after coming to this world, Mikakage had reconsidered, and now she thought human warmth was really important.

Mikakage had been rather shy, but now Allie was here. Mikakage’s small partner was a lot shyer and more timid than she was. Strangely, when she was with Allie, Mikakage was able to be proactive. She’d thought that, for Allie’s sake as well, she needed to actively greet people. When she was trying not to embarrass herself in front of Allie, she was able to manage without being tense, even in front of Princess Raynesia, a peerless beauty… Although maybe she was able to avoid being tense because she’d seen her profile when she’d been caught off-guard.

Besides, sweets that made Allie happy made everyone else happy, too.

Creating new sweets and serving them to her friends was Mikakage’s greatest pleasure now, and it was the center of her daily life. Luckily, she was able to make enough to live on by selling sweets and submitting recipe logs. In that sense, of all the time following the Catastrophe, these days felt the most fulfilling to Mikakage.

The new facts she’d discovered in the cooking section… They did make her feel a bit uncomfortable, but the investigation looked as if it would yield a modest harvest. Investigations were fun, once you got used to them.

“What, the get-together’s that important or something?”

At Aomori’s petulant question, Mikakage took a moment to think. Of course it was important. How could it not be?

Making sweets.

Having people eat those sweets.

Telling pointless stories.

Nothing was as important as these things. The problem with guys was that they wanted set results from everything. But it wasn’t okay to rush any of these elements. Proper heat, proper timing.

Mikakage put on a big oven mitt, took the potatoes baked in cream out of the oven and served them to Aomori. She was experimenting with a new dish. Aomori was emitting whoops of delight, but since it was a prototype, she couldn’t serve it to everyone at the tea parties yet. This was just a couple of steps above tasting for poison. That was why Aomori was good enough.

“Yes. It’s really important. Really-really. I bet there’s nothing more important.”

“Huh? Not even your relationship with me?”

“That’s less important than scorched, failed jam.”

Ignoring the dejected Aomori, Mikakage began to put away the cooking implements she’d used.

After all, even as Aomori sniffled, he’d probably polish off the potatoes, and Allie—who, though shy, was a busybody—would probably comfort him.

2

When the young man’s visit was announced, Raynesia felt something unexpected.

Of course she knew him by sight, and he was an important person, but she realized she had never imagined him visiting her, or indeed anyone.

In aristocratic society, visits were announced several days to several months in advance, but for better or worse, this was Akiba, and the servants at Water Maple Mansion, Raynesia’s residence, had grown accustomed to abrupt guests.

This time as well, the visitor had been shown into the drawing room before Raynesia had even been informed.

With Elissa’s help, the princess tidied her hair a little and changed clothes. Although the young man was someone from “her side,” he wasn’t a noble, and, most important, they were both People of the Earth who lived in Akiba. Deciding there was no need to dress as formally as she would have for a soirée, she’d chosen a long-sleeved one-piece dress with slim lines.

The dress was pink, as misty as a light snowfall. It had been a gift from Marielle of the Crescent Moon League. Of the clothing she’d been given, it was one of the most demure pieces, and Raynesia secretly liked it.

When she trotted into the drawing room, hurrying just a little, the guest stood to greet her.

“It’s been a long time since we last spoke, Lady Raynesia.”

The visitor, who bowed his head politely, was a young man. His name was Kinjo. He was the young leader of the Kunie clan in Akiba.

“I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting.”

Raynesia gracefully returned the courtesy.

While Elissa prepared tea, an odd silence flowed between them.

Raynesia didn’t know much about this young man. On the contrary: The fact that he was the young leader of the Kunie clan was nearly all she knew about him. The Kunie were an unconventional clan, even for the People of the Earth, and it was safe to say that, in a sense, they had special influence in Yamato.

Yamato was roughly divided into five territories.

The Ezzo Empire, which had been founded in the wastelands to the north. The Nine-Tails Dominion, a merchant shipping nation far to the south. The Duchy of Fourland, which had already collapsed and was now a dangerous island where monsters ran rampant. The Holy Empire of Westlande, which had inherited the blood of the Westlande Imperial Dynasty. Finally, Eastal, the League of Free Cities, which had put down roots in Eastern Yamato and included the city of Maihama, which was governed by Raynesia’s grandfather.

The same currency was in circulation in all five of these territories. The money was divided into halves, quarters, and whole coins, but these were ordinarily referred to in general terms as “gold coins.” Raynesia had heard that the exact same currency was used, not only in Yamato, but even on the continent.

These gold coins had been used since ancient times, and the members of the Kunie clan were the ones who controlled their circulation, or in other words, the banks.

They had inherited a few of the ancient alvs’ technologies, and they were able to send and receive articles across long distances using a method that was different from the intercity gates. The Kunie clan used these technologies to operate the financial institutions scattered across the country.

However, they weren’t a banking clan.

Their mission was to maintain the magic technologies from the time of the ancient alvs.

The bank was the most typical example, but in Eastal, they were also in charge of maintaining the barrier cities’ magical defensive circles. There were roughly thirty barrier cities in Eastal, and ancient facilities that transmitted magic had been built underneath them. This magic prevented monsters from invading, and it also powered the mobile armor.

With the exception of the cities belonging to the Holy Empire of Westlande, which had been afraid its nobles would rebel, almost all the barrier cities in Yamato were supported by the Kunie clan.

That was how heavy the clan’s responsibility was. In a way, you could say their clan was more important to Yamato than the nobles. Even when Raynesia had been posted to Akiba, her grandfather had duly sent word to the Kunie clan.

However, on the other hand, since antiquity, the Kunie clan had been known for its curious lack of interest in fame or power. Among Eastal’s nobility, the unanimous impression was that they handed their mission down orally and cared only about its accomplishment.

In general terms, ordinary People of the Earth nobles—and Raynesia herself—were conscious of the Kunie as an eccentric People of the Earth tribe that was strange and mysterious, but that had lent its strength to maintaining the world since antiquity.

“Please, do have some tea.”

However, for that reason alone, Raynesia didn’t know how to speak to him. For the moment, because it seemed safe, she offered him the tea Elissa had made. What she’d set down on the low table was green tea they’d recently purchased.

Kinjo softly lowered his half-closed eyes, then brought the cup to his lips.

She’d heard from Elissa that he was young, and even now, when she was facing him, there was no other way to describe him. However, even when she gazed steadily at the young man—who had violet eyes and black hair, and was dressed in a formal suit with a stand-up collar—his age wasn’t clear to her.

Naturally, he was older than Raynesia, but what would he be compared to Krusty the warrior-menace? The smooth contours of his cheeks made her think he might be much younger, and his sinewy hands made him seem much older. Raynesia had never seen anyone whose age was this unclear to her before.

“I apologize for my sudden visit today. A grave incident has occurred; I’ve come to explain it to you, and to apologize.”

Kinjo had returned his cup to its saucer, and he grimaced as he spoke.

“What might that be?”

“A suit of mobile armor has been stolen from the guards’ station.”

“What…?”

“We believe the thief was one of the guards, a member of the Kunie clan.”

Raynesia didn’t usually think of herself as being quick on the uptake, but this time she truly missed his meaning.

She was also keenly aware that the blood was draining from her head.

A vicious dizziness assailed her, and her vision seemed to darken.

Mobile armor was one of the relics from the ancient alvs, special armor used in order to protect a specific zone. The greatest difference between it and ordinary armor lay in the magic that was externally supplied to it, and that function greatly improved the physical abilities of whoever wore it.

Currently, the People of the Earth’s combat abilities weren’t that strong, comparatively. Not only were they no match for the Adventurers, they couldn’t stand up to any monster that was midlevel or above. Even so, they were able to protect their living space in the world because they had help from several quarters.

One was the legendary People of the Earth heroes known as the Ancients, as well as the Adventurers, who acted as guerilla fighters and put down the world’s enemies. Another was the barrier technology that protected the big cities and major highways from monsters.

The organization of guards equipped with mobile armor was an element just as important as the previous ones.

Depending on the situation, People of the Earth who’d been strengthened by mobile armor gained abilities that surpassed those of high-level Adventurers. In addition, although their abilities were limited to the cities, they could teleport and put people in prison. The guards employed these abilities to keep the peace in town.

Of course, the use of these abilities wasn’t unrestricted. Mobile armor required a vast amount of magic just to operate, and she’d heard it could be used only in certain cities.

“Yes, that’s correct. Mobile armor can be used only in a few major cities. Without a constant supply of magic from the enormous magic circle constructed under the city, the wearer finds it difficult even to move. That’s one of the armor’s distinguishing characteristics. In addition, mobile armor is tuned to the magic wavelength of its specific city, so if removed from Akiba, it would be nothing more than rubbish.”

Raynesia was dumbfounded. Watching her steadily, Kinjo kept speaking.

“However, that doesn’t change the gravity of the situation. Even if it’s only papier-mâché if taken outside, within the city, its strength is unequaled.”

Depending on how it was adjusted, mobile armor could greatly amplify output. In the town of Akiba, its abilities surpassed level 100. Its purpose was to control Adventurers who committed violent acts in town, so this was only natural, but its combat abilities were set to surpass even those of Adventurers at the highest level.

In fact, part of the reason Raynesia, a woman, had been posted to this town governed by Adventurers was the fact that her safety was guaranteed by the mobile armor and the guards. Of course, the official stance was that she was taking responsibility for having touched off the battle for Zantleaf by making reckless statements, without permission from the lords’ council. However, it did mean that her grandfather had had that much foresight when it came to posting a defenseless People of the Earth princess to an Adventurer city with only a handful of attendants.

However, the combat abilities that served as a guarantee had been leaked to an outsider. That news indicated a variety of things, all at once.

“But then… You can’t mean… The murderer…”

Raynesia had gone pale. In response to her question, Kinjo nodded.

“Yes, the Kunie clan is involved in those crimes. As embarrassing as that is, I’m forced to admit it.”

The scandal was enough to freeze Raynesia.

The Kunie clan—and a guard, at that—must not cause a situation like this. It was the sort of thing the People of the Earth hadn’t imagined even once in the space of several hundred years.

However, if that was the case, it did explain several mysteries.

The failure of Akiba’s guard system to detect the murders was only natural. The surveillance network was designed to detect harm Adventurers or People of the Earth did to each other. When the guards did battle, it wasn’t a crime: They were keeping the peace.

In other words, there was no way the murders could have been detected.

While wearing the mobile armor, the criminal had combat abilities greater than the Adventurers. Raynesia had no combat strength, and she didn’t know just how much higher “greater” would be, but from the rumors she’d heard over the past several days, she knew there had been quite a few victims already.

Moreover, the fact that the Kunie clan had a hand in the incident was lethal on two points.

The first was that the clan’s existence was far too transparent, as natural as air. The teleporting guards that protected the peace of the city and the banking network that stretched across all of Yamato… The systems were too much a part of society, both for the People of the Earth and for the Adventurers. Their convenience and safety were solid components of the social infrastructure.

However, didn’t that make the fissure in their foundation all the more terrifying? Raynesia hadn’t received expert training, and she couldn’t even imagine exactly what sort of disaster it might cause, but she felt an unease at the idea, like black clouds on the horizon.

The second was more direct: The Kunie, although eccentric, were People of the Earth, and they had killed Adventurers.

Adventurers were completely different beings from People of the Earth. Their physical appearance was similar, but the difference between their biological potentials was as great as the difference between heaven and earth. Adventurers increased their abilities dramatically by engaging in harsh combat over and over again, and when they were high-level, they had combat abilities that would allow just one of them to fight a band of a hundred knights.

Up until now, the Adventurers of Akiba had protected Raynesia. They’d supported her as well. However, wasn’t that because Raynesia and her people were weak? Even if that hadn’t been all of it, Raynesia felt this was part of the reason.

When that crumbled, the relationship between the Adventurers and the People of the Earth might suffer a fatal collapse.

Why is this happening…?

Raynesia’s mind filled with regret and resentment.

There really was no other way to describe her mood. Why had this unnecessary trouble occurred now, when she’d been posted here, when she was standing right out in front? This incident hadn’t needed to happen, had it? The Kunie clan hadn’t had a single scandal in centuries, and she was at a loss to understand why they’d misbehaved now, of all times, and in Akiba no less, the town where Raynesia lived.

“This incident is due to our carelessness. I’m truly sorry.”

“Can’t… Can’t the Kunie clan, um…do something about it?” Raynesia asked.

She’d had a hunch even before she asked him, but she’d had to ask.

“I’m sorry, Princess Raynesia. Of course, if we cut off the supply of magic, the mobile armor will stop functioning. However, if we do that, the city’s defensive magic circle will also lose its abilities, and it will take decades to bring it back into operation. I can give you no other answer.”

In order to protect Akiba from the monsters outside, the magic circle could not be stopped.

The fact that that magic circle was giving the murderer strength shattered Raynesia.

3

Akatsuki, who’d been let into the anteroom, was warming a cup in her hands, a quiet expression on her face.

She wasn’t particularly cold. There just hadn’t been anything else to do.

She didn’t know how much of it was an accident and how much it had been a plot on the part of Elissa the maid, but her sharp Tracker’s senses were letting her hear nearly all of the conversation in the next room.

No matter how she thought about it, though, it was too much for Akatsuki to deal with alone. Akiba was in crisis: It was the sort of thing no one but a big guild like the West Wind Brigade or D.D.D. would be able to cope with, the sort of thing the Round Table Council might have to move for.

Akatsuki thought she should probably pretend she hadn’t heard anything and leave.

That beautiful princess, a girl like moonlight, had been worrying about whether or not to tell the Adventurers. Akatsuki felt as though, if she heard part of the murderer incident before Raynesia had made up her mind, it would have had too great an effect on the state of things.

As a result, Akatsuki thought she’d get a look at Raynesia’s face, but when she thought about it later, she realized it might have been too capricious of her. Because of what her liege had said, she’d thought she’d at least check on the princess’s expression; the reason she even attempted it was the mission Shiroe had given her, and nothing more than that. In any case, right now, Akatsuki didn’t have a shred of mental leeway to worry about other people.

She slipped out onto the balcony through the window of the anteroom. In combination with her drab everyday clothes, she probably looked like a creeping shadow. For a high-level Adventurer’s physical abilities, jumping across to the balcony of the drawing room—three meters away—was even easier than stepping across the border of a tatami mat.

Raynesia was there, in the shadow of the elaborately sculptured window frame, beyond a lace curtain that looked like foam. The young man who’d been speaking with her a moment ago must have gone home: She was sitting all alone on the drawing room sofa, burying her face in a large cushion.

How strange, Akatsuki thought, absently.

Raynesia had always been calm, cheerful and genuine, and she’d held her head high. She was the sort of beautiful girl you couldn’t help but envy. Even more than her beautiful silver hair and her slender neck, her constantly modest, gracious manner created an atmosphere that was decisively different from the Adventurers. The girl Raynesia had the power to persuade any Adventurer that upbringing really did determine who you became.

…And now Raynesia was leaning forward as if her strength had run out, hugging a large cushion and burying her face in it. She didn’t look like Raynesia at all.

“It’s useless.”

There was glass between them, but she’d heard that voice.

The faint voice had been like a silver bell, but reckless bewilderment clung to it.

“It’s really no good.”

Every time she shook the cushion, her smooth silver hair rippled like a waterfall.

“…Why now? …Why me?”

It was as if Raynesia’s body had wilted.

A long, long sigh escaped the princess, and she became a fragile little girl.

“Things are not going my way—”

On the wintry balcony, Akatsuki nodded. She understood that feeling all too well.

There were too many difficult things in the world, and too few things she could do well with her own hands. It was a very frustrating, miserable feeling.

“Could you make this a little easier on me? …Would you give me a bit of extra help? Would you hold back…just a little, perhaps?”

Akatsuki had wished these things as well.

Was there anyone who hadn’t?

But they wouldn’t come true.

She didn’t think there was anyone who hadn’t been let down. No one ever got everything they wished for. The things you’d thought you’d gained, the things you thought you’d made, the things that were yours alone… Before long, they all faded, slipping through your fingers.

It was too trivial, and sometimes she wanted to think that maybe wishing itself had been a mistake. It was so bad it made her think that spitefulness was the chief element in the world.

“What should I do?”

Raynesia sounded as if she was at a loss, and so Akatsuki answered her.

“Discuss it with the Council?”

“But if I do that, won’t we find ourselves at war with the Adventurers?”

“Still, you can’t keep it a secret. It’s hard to say we know enough about the situation, but even so.”

The window had been opened ever so slightly, and Akatsuki had slipped in through it, not even disturbing the curtain, to stand in front of Raynesia.

She felt something just a little nostalgic. She’d looked down on her liege when his head had been bowed like this. That time was very distant now. The one in front of her wasn’t her black-haired liege, but a silver-haired princess.

“I really will have to tell, then…?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why is that menace gone at a time like this? He always turned up when he had no business here, and now… He’s truly useless.”

“Krusty left for Seventh Fall, the Goblins’ castle.”

“I know. Still, that doesn’t mean… Oh, no, that isn’t it…”

“…”

“That isn’t…it?!”

Raynesia’s head came up as though she’d been stung. The corners of her drawn lips were trembling, and she was trying desperately to compose her expression, but the corners of her eyes were very slightly red.

“Um, oh. I…”

Raynesia hastily resettled herself, sitting up straight. Akatsuki stood in front of her. Since the tall princess was dealing with the petite Akatsuki, even when she was sitting down, if she sat up straight, there wasn’t much difference in their eye levels. Possibly because she was uncomfortable, Raynesia lowered her gaze. Akatsuki felt bad for making her feel like that.

Akatsuki hadn’t meant to eavesdrop either, or to come into the room like this.

“Wh-what— You, um… You heard…?” Raynesia peeked up at her through her lashes. Akatsuki nodded. Raynesia acknowledged, “Of course you did…” letting the end of the sentence fall in resignation.

Both seemed to be at a loss for words, and time flowed between them.

With no help for it, Akatsuki took a sweet red bean bun she’d bought for lunch out of her bag and handed it to Raynesia. The two girls sat on the sofa, side by side, and for a short while, they quietly savored the sweetness they’d torn apart.

“The criminal’s a Person of the Earth?”

Raynesia answered Akatsuki’s question, haltingly.

“Yes, that’s right. A suit of mobile armor has been stolen from the Kunie, a clan that is responsible for guarding the town. Apparently, since the mobile armor is guard equipment, incidents it causes in town won’t be reported, and it’s able to bestow great combat abilities. I’m really…terribly…sorry.”

“Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why was it stolen? Who stole it?”

“The person who stole it also seems to be missing. We don’t know whether the person who’s currently using it is the member of the Kunie clan who stole it or not. We don’t know his goal or where he’s hiding, either.”

“I think he’s hiding in the sewers.”

“In the sewers?”

Akatsuki filled her in on what she thought.

“From what I heard, I doubt he’s hiding outside Akiba. In that case, the sewers are about the only place that hasn’t been searched completely, and where he’d be out of sight.”

From what she’d heard, the murderer seemed to have acquired the power of a guard.

Akatsuki had been startled when she’d first heard that, but, if true, it did explain a few things.

The murderer’s combat abilities had probably surpassed level 100 and were close to level 110. The Adventurers of Akiba were mostly around level 90, so of course they’d be no match for him.

At the same time, if he was using the guards’ power, he was very unlikely to leave Akiba. After all, if he left, he’d lose his combat power. Considered that way, the number of places he could hide was limited.

However, capturing him was likely to prove extremely difficult.

In order to bring crimes committed in town under control immediately, the guards had a teleportation function. When used to punish PKs, this function was reassuring, but when a criminal was able to use it proactively, there was no better escape method.

Even if one of the big guilds formed a raid force and surrounded him, if all he wanted to do was run, he’d be able to get away for sure.

“I see…”

Akatsuki looked at the girl in front of her.

A daughter of the greatest noble family in eastern Yamato: the House of Cowen.

A legendary beauty whose name was known throughout Eastal.

The intermediary between the People of the Earth and the Adventurers, and the central figure in the Zantleaf war.

The “mystic princess of the silver moon.”

The girl before her didn’t seem like any of those things. She looked ordinary.

She wore an expression of depressed anguish, but even so, she was nibbling at her sweet red bean bun. This was a regular girl, the sort you could find anywhere. Not only that, but Akatsuki thought she was probably the same in the other women’s eyes.

“That’s a problem for you?”

“It’s a problem.”

As the two of them nodded, it was likely that neither had the leeway to cope with anything but their respective problems. At the very least, Akatsuki saw herself in this beautiful silver princess.

Akatsuki’s liege had said something:

Protect Raynesia, the People of the Earth princess.

Akatsuki had taken those words to mean “guard duty.” However, just now, she’d realized there was a possibility that that hadn’t been it.

I wonder what my liege wanted me to protect…

If it had been about physically protecting Raynesia, there wouldn’t have been any need to come to these tea parties, would there? If the other girl had only wanted to be physically protected, there wouldn’t have been any meaning in hosting the tea parties, would there? Wasn’t she overlooking something important? Something Marielle and Henrietta and the others noticed a long time ago?

The words Akatsuki wanted to say to Raynesia were, It can’t be helped.

Lots of unfair things happened. There were lots of things you couldn’t handle, lots of wishes that wouldn’t come true.

There really was no help for that. Akatsuki didn’t have the ability to draw a miracle to Raynesia, and so the only words she could say to her were It can’t be helped.

If she were able to add one more thing, it would probably be, You’re doing your best.

Akatsuki had seen the great achievement she’d pulled off at the lords’ conference. She’d also heard Shiroe’s evaluation of her. And, for a while now, she’d hidden close to her, watching over her. As a result, she could say, You’re doing your best.

However, was she qualified to say those words to her? The girl was a daughter of the nobility, the representative of the People of the Earth, and she was shouldering a heavier responsibility than the eleven guild masters on the Round Table Council. Akatsuki was uneasy about whether those were words she could say to her.

When she’d thought that far, Akatsuki realized she personally felt just a little respect for this silver-haired girl. That was why she’d come here every day and watched over her from nearby.

Even now, when she was frantic to get stronger, when it was hard for her to go home to her own guild house, she’d been on her mind.

“I’ll go find him.”

Akatsuki stood up.

If the one she was looking for was a Person of the Earth, and if he had a special teleportation item, that would give her ways to look for him. He probably spent the day lying low in the sewers, and at night, he used teleportation to infiltrate a place where he could see across the whole town—a place ordinary Adventurers couldn’t get into—and watched the streets.

“What?”

“I’ll carry out my duty. I saw that you’re giving it your all.”

Raynesia’s outstretched hand closed on empty space.

Having found a clue, Akatsuki had departed through the open window, sortieing into the streets of Akiba again.

4

Ten eyes were gazing at silver light.

The crossing blades drew trails like shooting stars, light bursting forth, only to vanish.

As if through an agreement, they slipped past each other or struck each other, with a noise of rejection that was more like shards of crystal than metal.

As Nazuna and her companions watched, the murderer and Soujirou were locked in mortal combat.

The strikes Soujirou’s weapon, an uchigatana, paid out were incredibly smooth, without the slightest hint of intimidation. However, Nazuna knew that each strike held an unavoidable terror for its target: The slashing attacks seemed slow only because they were so graceful. Soujirou’s attacks saw through his opponent’s evasions, and in contrast to their appearance, were perfectly lethal.

Yet the murderer repelled Soujirou’s attacks with his grotesque gauntlets and armor.

It wasn’t proper swordsmanship. His movements were instinctive, his fighting style nearly animalistic. It was colored by a clear joy for murder that only humans felt.

Almost before the sparks from one deflected attack had vanished, the murderer’s sword struck from a slipshod stance.

Unlike Soujirou’s, his attacks didn’t follow the etiquette of swordsmanship. In a sense, they were rough strikes.

However, precisely because they were so haphazard, they were fast and hard to predict.

In fact, Nazuna’s companion Kyouko had fallen victim to them, and Kawara, whom Nazuna was cradling now, had sustained a serious injury.

“The boss is amazing…”

The murmur that slipped from the form between her arms mirrored the thoughts of all the members who waited behind Nazuna.

They really should have surrounded this opponent and fought as a group.

Enbart Nelles.

Level 94, Samurai.

Nazuna no longer thought that this demon, who was one level above Soujirou, was an Adventurer. The idea that he was a Samurai was ridiculous.

Nazuna had been watching a Samurai (Soujirou) for a long time now. True, the special-skills system in Elder Tales was diverse, and there were lots of special skills that the Samurai class could acquire. Level changed most skills into more advanced ones, and there were about forty series. It wasn’t possible for a single Samurai to master all of them, but the difference between the skills the murderer in front of her was using and the ones Soujirou used was just too great.

The stranger wasn’t a Samurai. The way he fought was too different from Adventurers.

Even so, at first, they’d faced him as a party.

It had been directly after one of the West Wind Brigade search teams had encountered the murderer and failed to capture him. Soujirou’s group, which had been waiting back at their headquarters, had sortied and engaged the murderer in this narrow alley.

However, Nazuna’s group’s battle plan—to surround and obliterate him—had fallen apart easily.

In this alley, in the gap between two ruins, it hadn’t been possible to put together a decent formation. On top of that, there was no one in Nazuna’s party besides Soujirou who could pin down the murderer’s uncanny swordsmanship.

Kawara, the second vanguard, had been sliced up in the blink of an eye, and Nazuna and the spell casters had taken damage as well. If Soujirou hadn’t dashed forward in one sprint and put pressure on the murderer, one or two of them would probably have been sent to the Temple by now.

Nazuna quietly gave her thanks.

Not because Soujirou had saved them.

And not for the good fortune of having gotten by without sacrificing any girls in front of him.

Attacks that would have cut people with sound, if that had been possible, came together over and over. It was evening, and the winter wind was growing dryer, becoming cold enough to crack. The murderer’s sword raced as if to slash that air apart.

In the midst of a landscape where white mist leaked out even if you tried to hold your breath, Soujirou repelled the attacks.

It was Soujirou’s Mystery, Clairvoyance.

Nazuna didn’t understand it completely, but Clairvoyance was a defensive Mystery. Soujirou had told her it saw trajectories that ran through the air. It was a new power he’d acquired. Making free use of it now, Soujirou continued to deflect the murderer’s attacks.

Soujirou’s usual composure was absent.

Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have deflected the attacks. He would have let them slip by him, or parried them.

The fact that he couldn’t do this showed just how fast and sharp the murderer’s strikes were.

Then a strike he couldn’t fully parry came along, and one of the large sleeves of the armor Soujirou wore, which made him look like a warrior from the Warring States period, flew off.

Her other companions probably couldn’t tell, but Nazuna bit her lip.

That attack had burst the defensive barrier she’d been providing to Soujirou. It was a defensive spell that prevented damage to HP by setting barrier magic in advance. In a way, you could say it was invisible, additional HP. Ripples ran across the surface of the pale blue, mirror-like effect, and it shattered. Even if those around her could see it happen, Nazuna, the spell caster, was the only one who could know specifically how much damage it had taken before it fell away.

The Purification Barrier Nazuna had used had been equivalent to slightly less than 20 percent of Soujirou’s total HP. In other words, in that moment, if the barrier spell hadn’t been there, Soujirou would have lost 20 percent of his health. The attack power was equivalent to that of a raid boss, and it made Nazuna anxious. If he took attacks like that one after another, Soujirou really wouldn’t last.

Of course she was preparing to chant another barrier into existence, but it wasn’t a spell she could use back-to-back. Kannagi like Nazuna fought by combining barriers and subtle recovery to fully protect their companions from danger.

If she blindly stuck with barriers, she’d lose more MP than she had to, and before long, the battle would begin turning against them. Even without that, it felt as though she was walking a tightrope. If the murderer in front of her sensed that she was casting defensive spells like this, his blade might turn on her.

However, if she turned her back on the fight, she wouldn’t be able to protect or heal Soujirou.

All she could do was watch him, gauge her own powers, and continue to entrust everything to barriers, even if they were like tissue paper.

What is this guy? As if a gamble like this could exist!

There were some things she understood precisely because she was a Kannagi.

She was the main healer of the West Wind Brigade, a guild which yielded to other top-class groups in terms of size yet kept challenging raid after raid anyway and was one of the top guilds on the server.

Yet defeat in this fight seemed almost certain.

Because the tank who was drawing the enemy’s attacks was Soujirou, they were managing to preserve a balance by the skin of their teeth, but if it hadn’t been him, Nazuna was certain they would have been trampled, and that would have been that.

Even Soujirou wasn’t able to parry all the attacks.

Of course, even if this had been a raid, it wouldn’t have been possible to negate all the attacks from a giant dragon or murderous golem. In most raids, combat moved forward with at least three, and sometimes as many as ten, healers supporting just one vanguard player. Then, while the vanguard kept the powerful enemy pinned, the attackers shaved its HP down to nothing.

However, right now, they didn’t have enough healers or attackers. In any case, in this narrow alley that was like a gap between furniture, they couldn’t use a raid formation.

Nazuna and the others had thought that if the enemy was an Adventurer, or possibly an average monster, they had nothing to be afraid of. They hadn’t thought the murderer would be such a demon.

And again—

“Ghk!!”

The enemy slipped through Soujirou’s attack.

The murderer had gotten around to Soujirou’s right side before they were aware of it. His weird silhouette moved like an insect as he took a swipe at Soujirou’s shins. Soujirou leapt, evading the attack, but his usual dance-like grace was gone. He didn’t have that sort of breathing room.

Soujirou would link several attacks together and break down his opponent’s stance, working diligently to create an opening for an attack, but this monster would use his strange martial arts to negate the blow. It had happened again, just now.

He slipped through Soujirou’s attack and caught him in the back.

If they could only hit him with an attack, she doubted he’d respond like an actual raid monster, but they just couldn’t hit him. Even if Soujirou was able to stay this active, if things kept on this way, Nazuna’s MP would run out and the front line would crumble.

And it was likely that…

As long as we’re here, I bet Soujirou won’t run.

She was sure of it.

“…Master Sou.”

“Boss.”

“It’s no good, I can’t see!”

She heard murmurs that held hints of pain. It was Nazuna’s companions. They were covered in wounds, and it was technically Nazuna’s job to heal them, but right now, she couldn’t even do that properly. She wanted to hang on to even the slight amount of MP it would take to heal them.

On a separate circuit from her increasingly anxious heart, Nazuna put together a plan for retreat.

Soujirou couldn’t run. This was partly because he would never abandon his female companions, and also because he was already being pushed hard by the murderer: Running would leave him open to attack from behind.

In the same sense that Soujirou couldn’t run, Nazuna couldn’t run either. If Nazuna ran, the barrier would fall in a few seconds at the earliest, and thirty seconds at the most. If the barrier fell, the damage would be dealt straight to Soujirou’s HP. In order to keep Soujirou alive—in other words, to delay the pursuit for even a little while—Nazuna couldn’t run.

But what about the other girls?

She could let Kawara and Olive and the others go first. That was probably the only right answer.

However, she needed an opportunity to do it. If they began running away pell-mell now, the murderer might shift his target from Soujirou and lay waste to the girls. It was Soujirou’s role to keep that from happening, of course, but there was no guarantee he’d be able to prevent it entirely. The demon was simply that skilled.

If they had some sort of chance… Even as she thought this, time was slipping past her, and it was growing darker. The murderer’s blade danced, shining with a phosphorescent glow. The twilight stretched out, longer and longer.

Glimpses of uncertainty were visible in the way Soujirou swung his sword. The battle was a contest. Even if this was Soujirou, she couldn’t presume that mental agitation wouldn’t trigger his collapse.

Just then, a swallow swooped down.

5

She ran along the branch of an ancient tree that surrounded the guild office building, then launched herself from its tip.

The thinner the branch, the better. Branches that seemed thick enough to sit astride felt secure, but when using flexibility to “fly,” they were a bit inconvenient.

In movements she’d repeated over and over, Akatsuki ran through the town of Akiba.

There were corridors in the air, just as there were roads on the ground. Branches and roofs that were easy to jump to. Balconies and crumbling signs. In the Adventurers’ town, which held the ruins of old buildings and ancient trees, there were routes specifically for those who raced through the sky.

When had she become able to travel through the air along those routes without thinking about it?

When this was a game, it hadn’t been an option.

She didn’t think she’d been able to do it yet when the Round Table Council was established. By the time they returned from Zantleaf, she’d already been doing it unconsciously. She wasn’t clear on when she’d become able to do it, but by now, she couldn’t imagine traveling through Akiba without this method. Even in zones she’d never visited before, she felt herself unconsciously observing the flow of the wind, the placement of the buildings, and the positions of trees and the walls of structures.

Her long hair fluttered through the layers of the air.

If her hair was heavy, that meant the air was damp and rain was on its way.

If it tugged at her, the wind was strong, and some of the routes would be unusable.

Having acquired even this sense, Akatsuki had begun to gain physical skills that were far and away the best among the Adventurers who used these corridors in the air.

She was only doing what she always did, but her body felt hot deep inside, and her limbs were light.

Akatsuki watched for the instant her weight came down on the tip of a branch, then flung herself into the air. When she caught the wind, her awareness of her body’s movements was sharper than usual. She’d repeated these motions dozens of times, but why was it that she was able to land on the next branch using half the strength she normally used, then let her mind skip ahead to the next leap, which would use the shift in her weight?

Her short conversation with Raynesia spun around and around in her mind.

Akatsuki wasn’t good at thinking about herself in relation to other people, and she couldn’t organize her thoughts well. How Raynesia had looked. Raynesia’s words. Her own feelings. Her responses. They floated up inside Akatsuki like rising bubbles, brushing against her, then burst and vanished.

Because they disappeared before becoming words, Akatsuki didn’t really know what it was that had pushed her into motion.

Raynesia was working hard.

Those words alone smoldered in her heart.

…To the point where she thought she should be rewarded.

The evening sun was retreating into the west. As she watched it out of the corner of her eye, she strained her ears, spreading her senses wide and thin. The presence-sensing skill she’d used over and over again picked up miscellaneous murmurs from the town of Akiba.

Let’s go back to the guild and make onion soup.

Where should we hunt tomorrow?

Want to go get dinner with me somewhere? I, um… My treat!

Y’know, I’ve been thinking about a new business.

I swear, our sub GM is so strict!

I wonder if I could get a date somehow.

The Adventurers eat twice as much as we do, don’t they…

Nah, three times as much.

The conversations were truly trivial, nothing important. Ordinarily, she probably wouldn’t even have registered the exchanges. However, for some reason, Akatsuki’s ears picked them up with unusual clarity today.

These were their secrets.

Everyone lived through the activities of their day, and in the evening, these were the modest plans to spend the night with the people closest to them. Either that, or the little private wishes each had for themselves, about what sort of day they wanted the next to be. Of course these weren’t the kind of secrets that would cause them trouble if anyone overheard, but in the sense that they were the individuals’ feelings about themselves, the whispers counted as secrets.

Akatsuki didn’t really know, but it was likely that the murmurs were very important to each of those people. Today, she understood that importance.

Without knowing what it was she’d touched, Akatsuki brushed against something big and extraordinary.

Possibly because she’d been thinking these things, by the time she spotted the fight, she’d already leapt into it.

It was about two minutes from the time her ears caught the rasp of sword guards in close combat and she changed her course, to the point where she spotted the battle from a deserted fifteen-story building. The instant she detected it, she flung herself lightly into the canyon between the two buildings.

She didn’t simply relax into the free fall: She kicked the walls of the buildings on either side, trying to accelerate.

Putting a hand to the hilt of the short sword bound to the small of her back, Akatsuki held her breath and plunged into a tailspin.

As she felt the kickback from cutting through the membranes of air that were automatically deployed by magic equipment, Akatsuki finally recognized the situation.

A single party was fighting the black murderer. There was a Samurai vanguard, and a rear guard composed of just one healer. They rest had been partially wiped out.

The vanguard was Soujirou, guild master of the West Wind Brigade, one of the eleven guilds that made up the Round Table Council.

In MMO games, what Akatsuki had done was called “kill stealing.” It meant a situation where one party was fighting an opponent, and an Adventurer who wasn’t a member of the party attacked that opponent without permission. Since the action was very closely related to stealing experience points or treasure, it was considered poor etiquette and frowned upon.

On top of that, the other party was from one of Akiba’s leading combat guilds. Since Akatsuki was bad at dealing with other people, ordinarily, she would have been at her wits’ end and probably wouldn’t have approached in the first place.

However, this time was different.

Her consciousness was saturated with everything that had happened since that morning.

Her mind felt as though she was delirious with fever, but even so, the world Akatsuki leapt through looked dozens of times clearer than usual.

An Accel Fang, sweeping sideways from the right.

It didn’t reach. She’d known it wouldn’t. She kicked the wall, danced through space: Stealth Blade.

She flipped, dodged: Quick Assault.

As she’d felt on that first charge, the murderer was strong. Akatsuki probably couldn’t win.

Even so, she didn’t stop.

In an attempt to gain even a small hint: Venom Strike.

She stepped back as the enemy’s sword bore down on her. Not enough. She forced herself backward with Gust Step. Still not enough. Even as the pale blade slipped through Akatsuki’s zone of defense, freezing her spine, she stepped forward with blazing composure. Not caring that her right bangs had been cut away: Accel Fang.

Too shallow. One more! Carefully changing the trajectory, as if scooping it up: Accel Fang.

Faster, faster, faster still.

At some point, Akatsuki noticed that pale blue ripples were shimmering around her.

It was a Kannagi’s barrier spell. She could tell it was a high-level spell, several times stronger than the one Minori used. No doubt it was support from the healer she’d seen a moment ago.

However, Akatsuki knew that even that was no more than slight insurance. The murderer’s blade was still turned on the Samurai in front of her. That was why he hadn’t made many counterattacks on Akatsuki, which was why Akatsuki was still alive. If it had been one-on-one, Akatsuki’s life would have been long gone.

Although she hated to admit it, the round-faced boy—who wore his hair in a ponytail even though he was a guy—was one of the top-class vanguards on the server, West Wind Brigade leader Soujirou Seta. He was a tough guy with a war record and fame that made Akatsuki’s pale in comparison, and even he wasn’t able to restrain the black murderer.

“Run!”

Akatsuki saw the corners of Soujirou’s lips rise in response to the words she’d screamed.

An intense, penetrating gaze struck Akatsuki. Even though he looked younger than she was, it was a man’s expression, and a threatening one, and Akatsuki anticipated that it would frighten her. However, in fact, she’d ignored that premonition and was still fighting like a small-scale storm.

“Why?”

Soujirou’s question was quite natural, and it left Akatsuki at a loss for words.

She’d only yelled on reflex, and even she didn’t know why she’d said it. This Person of the Earth, who was far stronger than Akatsuki, was a monster.

Come to think of it, that was probably only natural. His level was higher than any Adventurer’s, and his abilities were being augmented with mobile armor. Another look showed her that the swollen silhouette of the murderer’s limbs was due to the fact that he’d forcibly fixed parts of the guard armor to his body. The bits that looked like light-emitting diodes—proof that magic was still being supplied?—formed a defensive membrane, blocking the Adventurer’s attacks.

Akatsuki probably couldn’t win. It was likely Soujirou couldn’t either. No one could defeat the murderer in this narrow alley. The only way to do it would be to surround him with far more Adventurers and put pressure on him…but was that why she’d yelled? Did she want to use herself as a decoy to save Soujirou?

Amid Akatsuki’s saturated thoughts, she saw Shiroe, looking up at the sky, his face troubled.

“Why?”

“Because defeating him and resolving this are two different things.”

A grotesque strike bore down on Soujirou, ready to rip through him, and Akatsuki intercepted it with all her might:

Assassinate. It was an Assassin’s fastest, strongest special skill, dealing over ten thousand in instantaneous damage, and even that could only knock the murderer’s thick, black, enormous gauntlet off course.

“So run!”

“I can’t agree to that.”

At her repeated warning, Soujirou’s smile deepened. He’d had his sword raised over his head, and he brought it down.

The murderer dodged, then released a superhuman kick that Soujirou evaded, letting it brush against the right side of his bangs. As he lost hair in the exact same place as Akatsuki, Soujirou stepped in to cross swords, slashing up at the blade that had been on its way down.

Soujirou was strong. Probably several times stronger than Akatsuki.

Even from an exchange that had taken no more than a fraction of a breath, she could tell.

However, precisely because of that, Soujirou must have known he couldn’t finish off the monster here and now… And yet he wouldn’t run. Why? What a stubborn boy, Akatsuki thought. Come to think of it, all the men in this world were stubborn. Touya and Rundelhaus—the younger boys in the group—were exceptionally stubborn. Naotsugu was more stupid than stubborn, and he couldn’t mend his ways. Sage Nyanta was also more stubborn than he appeared. The fact that he put cucumbers in salads was proof. Akatsuki felt as though the only one who’d listen to her suggestions was her liege, Shiroe.

“On your left!”

Akatsuki stopped abruptly, and a violent mass of metal flashed right past the end of her nose.

She’d just barely avoided that side blow, and Soujirou, still watching Akatsuki, evaded it lightly.

Akatsuki stared, admiring the motion, and began to feel strange.

Even now, Soujirou was directing a bone-chilling smile at the murderer and Akatsuki alike. Ordinarily, Akatsuki would have felt enough pressure to make her run straight home.

But she didn’t.

There was something here, too, something big that Akatsuki didn’t really understand. Soujirou hadn’t threatened Akatsuki. He was trying to give her something, and she had grazed it.

Akatsuki felt guilty for not knowing what its true shape was, but, even without knowing, she understood that it was something terribly important.

“Nazuna. Go home ahead of me, please.”

“—Understood. We’ll await you at the guild hall.”

At those words, Akatsuki finally understood that Soujirou had continued to fight a battle he couldn’t win against the murderer to protect the girls who’d been rendered helpless. Sensing the barriers that flew at her and Soujirou as a final act of support, Akatsuki felt the others leave. Even as she did so, she and Soujirou began a ferocious attack.

Neither Soujirou’s flowing strikes nor the attacks that Akatsuki poured all her special skills into worked against the murderer. They layered on several dozen attacks. The mere fact that they’d managed to last this long against the murderer, with just the two of them, set this battle apart from the man’s previous assaults, but of course Akatsuki didn’t have the time to register that.

Her strength wasn’t enough, but even so, she desperately swung her sword.

She also thought that, as an Adventurer, even if she put herself on the line here, she’d just resurrect in the Temple. What could a cheap life like that change? Even without that, Akatsuki was tiny and weak and slow on the uptake.

Still, she thought Raynesia was doing her best.

Before she knew it, the precious barriers they’d been given as support were gone. Apparently the cold air that blanketed the area wasn’t due solely to the winter wind; it was some sort of range attack that radiated from the murderer in front of them. Soujirou had been a direct target for a while now, and his HP was down to about half. There was a limit to how long they could fight this way.

“All right. I’d better give at least a small present to my senior’s junior, too.”

Soujirou murmured something incomprehensible, then resettled his stance.

Akatsuki had been a kendo girl, and even she thought it was a beautiful middle guard stance: a seigan stance, in kendo jargon, with the sword pointing at his opponent’s eyes.

“That said, there isn’t all that much I can say.”

Smoothly, Soujirou stepped out in front of Akatsuki, who was taken aback, and swung his blade. It was a straightforward attack, and on its heels, the murderer’s counterstrike cut through space. He’d swung and missed.

“Watch carefully. Listen closely.”

This time, the murderer dealt an attack with bone-crushing force. Soujirou intentionally received it, in order to get in an equal blow on his opponent. In the midst of Soujirou’s red blood, which froze in midair, the two separated, then closed again.

“Want it badly, and keep thinking about it. Don’t give up; keep training.”

Akatsuki had leapt out, and she also swung her short sword desperately.

Even though it was something very important, because Akatsuki didn’t understand its importance, it broke.

That was a terribly bad thing. Sadness filled her chest.

“…It’s pitiful, hardly an explanation at all, but… That’s everything about the Mysteries.”

The murderer spun, with his hips as the focal point. He was a small-scale hurricane.

Not yet, Akatsuki thought. She still didn’t understand. She’d touched something, and yet…

She wished hard for just a little longer. It was a feeling of frustrated regret, a feeling Akatsuki didn’t normally have.

It was sorrow at parting with “something” that was slipping away from her.

However, as if to smash those feelings along with her, the roaring, onrushing blade came down.

She felt a longing, as though her fingertips were just about to reach something. However, with an attack that seemed to shatter even that, in the midst of pain they hadn’t ever imagined, Akatsuki and Soujirou “died.”

6

The tea party didn’t turn into a dress-up tournament every time.

That morning, when they hadn’t been blessed with fair weather, the mood in Raynesia’s guest room was quiet.

It was safe to say that the atmosphere of the tea party was determined by its members. When Marielle came, it immediately turned bright and lively. When it was only Henrietta, the atmosphere resembled a consultation meeting.

And when it was her and Riezé, the mood was calm and elegant.

Today, apparently, the Crescent Moon League and Roderick Trading Company members wouldn’t be coming. Riezé had told Raynesia so, and Raynesia had looked puzzled. She’d welcomed this strategist from D.D.D., who led a training unit; they’d taken lunch together, then had green tea that was served from a large pot.

Outside the window, the wide, overcast sky threatened rain.

The blond Adventurer who sat on the opposite side of the small reception set gazed through the window into the distance.

She was fairly well acquainted with this female Adventurer, Riezé. The girl was calm and courteous, and she was from the same clan as Krusty-the-menace.

The two of them didn’t really converse.

That said, it didn’t trouble Raynesia much. Raynesia was the type who generally did care about that sort of thing, and so at first she’d been solicitous and spoken to her about this and that. However, the blond girl had told her clearly that she didn’t need to bother, so she’d stopped trying to force a conversation.

Still, it wasn’t as though things were uncomfortable, or as if she couldn’t talk to her. If they had a good topic, they occasionally had quite long conversations. That was Raynesia’s current relationship with the girl named Riezé.

Silence did trouble Raynesia, but she certainly wasn’t good at conversation for its own sake. On the contrary, she was aware that she was bad at it. This meant her relationship with Riezé was a pleasant one, as far as she was concerned.

Besides, today, Raynesia wasn’t in the mood for that sort of thing either.

A Person of the Earth—and a guard, at that: a being who should have upheld the law in Akiba—had been corrupted and was attacking Adventurers. There had already been several victims. At the thought of her small acquaintance, who’d dashed out toward the town leaving cryptic words behind her, Raynesia’s mood grew too painful to bear.

Why did this happen? Why me? The questions never left her mind.

The weather seemed as if it might be trying to exacerbate her depression, and her brow clouded.

“This Tokyo does get quite chilly, doesn’t it? I expect this winter will be a cold one.”

“Tokyo…?”

The quiet words Riezé had let fall drew Raynesia back to reality.

It was an ancient alv word that meant “eastern paradise.” It was said there was a primeval steel plate with the letters “Tokyo” on it in Castle Cinderella, where Raynesia had been born and raised.

“Oh, erm. It’s an Adventurer word that indicates the whole area around Maihama, Akiba, and Shibuya,” Riezé said.

Hearing that explanation, Raynesia nodded. The statement seemed to be in agreement with her superficial knowledge.

“Was your birthplace warmer than Tokyo, Miss Riezé?”

“It wasn’t ‘warmer than Tokyo,’ it really was Tokyo, but… Yes, I suppose so. Winters weren’t this cold. That said, we didn’t have much resistance to cold in the first place, so we wore thicker clothes then and stayed shut up in our houses.”

…Didn’t have much resistance to cold? Stayed shut up in their houses?

Sometimes she abruptly stopped understanding what the Adventurers said.

As Raynesia tilted her head, puzzled, her eyes met Riezé’s.

Riezé quietly returned her teacup to the table, then gazed at Raynesia for a little while. Raynesia wasn’t sure how to interpret that gaze. Then Riezé began to smile. It was a peaceful, gentle smile, a kind she’d never seen before.

“I was born in a small town in Tokyo.”

“Not in Akiba, you mean?”

“That’s right. It was a town called Kiyose. Here…it would be the area around Nobidome District, I think. It’s the sort of place where you’d expect to find something, but there’s nothing.”

“But…”

According to Raynesia’s memories, Nobidome District was a habitat for water-dwelling monsters. Not only was there no town there, there wasn’t a single village.

Raynesia was startled by her own surprise.

“Then you aren’t a noble, Miss Riezé?”

She said this because she’d thought Riezé was the child of some aristocratic family, and an influential one at that. All Adventurers were educated to the point where they couldn’t be considered commoners. Even among them, Riezé and Henrietta were nobles whose grace and elegance shone through in their interactions with others. It wasn’t a matter of superficial etiquette. She thought they were true nobles who’d been raised in an environment where they’d been able to be considerate of others since birth.

It wouldn’t have mattered if they weren’t, and Raynesia had no intention of discriminating because they were commoners or Adventurers. When she thought about why she’d been startled, that was the answer she reached.

“No, I’m not. I was born into a small, ordinary family, raised as an ordinary child, and sent to an ordinary school.”

“……”

“You have schools here as well, correct? They’re places where children gather and are made to learn. In the place where I was born, all the children in the area are sent to one school or another. It’s mandatory.”

She didn’t know anything about Riezé.

She didn’t know about Akatsuki either, or Henrietta, or Marielle, or Serara, or Nazuna, or Mikakage, or Ranya, or Azukiko.

…Or about Krusty.

In other words, she really knew nothing about the Adventurers.

She’d been made to see this over and over, and yet here it was, happening again. Raynesia felt shame and despair over her own ignorance.

“Let’s see… When I was a child, I think I was quite the tomboy. Children’s anime… You don’t have that here, do you? Fairy tales, I suppose it would be. I adored those, and I dashed around with the boys. That said, I graduated from that sort of thing when I turned ten… After that, let’s see… I overreached myself when I tried to become a lady, failed, and was laughed at by those around me. I liked studying, and I was good at it. If I did it, people praised me, so I got good at it. Of course, it didn’t take long for that to become only expected, and before long, people stopped praising me…”

“Oh…”

This was something Raynesia knew as well.

She’d been good at smiling and being well-behaved. Sitting so that she looked precociously mature and wise hadn’t been difficult for her. She’d done it because she liked being praised. Raynesia had loved her father, mother, and grandparents—her family.

It had become second nature by now, and it was ingrained to the point where she couldn’t handle things any other way, but originally, she’d wanted the people who were important to her to smile. She’d wanted them to be happy.

“I was an honor student at school because adults liked me and because I was particularly good at studying. It wasn’t that I worked desperately at that; I was simply born that way. The town where I was born had several large hospitals, and there were lots of elderly people. As a result, I was probably more conscious of adults’ eyes than I was of children’s… In that sense, I’m glad I came here and joined D.D.D. I’d grown conceited, and there are people here who broke me. There are people who taught me, after I’d fallen apart, that it didn’t have to mean the end of me. Lots of—”

“I—!”

Raynesia stopped her; her tone was firm.

She couldn’t hear this.

She wasn’t qualified to hear it.

She’d thought she was a strong woman. Raynesia was embarrassed at having thought Riezé was of noble blood and that she’d been an Adventurer by birth. In the end, didn’t that simply mean she hadn’t even tried to understand her?

Once she realized this, the world she knew seemed very petty and narrow.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know about the world because she’d been raised as a princess of Maihama. Raynesia’s world was small because she hadn’t tried to see the things that were right beside her.

You’re working hard, Raynesia.

She finally understood the meaning of the words that had been spoken to her.

They’d meant, “I was paying attention.”

Raynesia had been such a child that she hadn’t even understood that that was what was being said.

“I was born in the city of Maihama. Since I am a princess, technically, I was raised by a nurse from the time I was small… I don’t know many of the games others play. I think I was probably wealthy and happy. I had pretty clothes and plenty of food. I never felt that my life was in danger…”

Raynesia began to speak in a small voice.

“When it came to my studies, there were several teachers in the castle. I think the education I received was above average for a Person of the Earth, but from your perspective, I’m not sure how proud of it I can be…”

Raynesia put the words together, unsure of what she should tell her, or how.

It was a childish ceremony, going on clumsily, just as Riezé had shown her.

“I think I also acted more demure than I really was because I wanted my family to praise me. I…I’m really very lazy. I’d like to spend every day napping and sunbathing, and I don’t understand even half of the complicated conversations I hear. When I’m bored, I bite back yawns.”

Riezé was thoughtful, and confessing this to her took quite a lot of courage.

However, although Raynesia watched Riezé for reactions, she didn’t consider breaking off. After all, that swallow-like girl had probably flown beyond this point.

“I came to this town because I thought I could escape tiresome formalities that way. Even now, I’m bad at business discussions and shouldering responsibility. When I come face-to-face with things I don’t understand, it makes me want to cry. I think eating little rice balls and spacing out suits me best. However, I’m… In short, I am a princess, so—I can’t do that, and I also think I shouldn’t. Truthfully, I don’t even know whether that’s really the case, but…”

The words wouldn’t come out well, and Raynesia began to feel resentful.

Krusty would probably have picked up that feeling for her.

However, that probably wouldn’t have been okay.

There was something between her and this blond girl, and the swallow-like girl, that she wouldn’t be able to create or connect that way.

She felt as though she’d heard Elissa’s admonishing chuckle. Instantly, Raynesia’s temper flared, and she continued rather violently, as though wringing the words out.

“I think there’s something terribly important somewhere, and because it’s important, I have to treat it as though it’s important. And so I, um, I think I have to stay a princess. —Only I never have enough strength, so…”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to do things properly with you, too, Riezé. Not only with you, but with Akatsuki as well. And with Marielle. If I don’t, I don’t think I’ll be qualified to be your friend, or to live in Akiba…or to be arrogant enough to think of protecting anything.”

“‘Do things properly,’ was it?”

Riezé laughed a little at the words, but hiding her embarrassed tone with a composed expression, she granted Raynesia’s wish for her.

“You’re right. This sort of thing is… Well, once one’s in high school, it’s a little embarrassing. Since we’re dealing with each other straight on, you see… In that case, first, a little advice: ‘Do things properly’ is a difficult way to put it. Too difficult. Let’s be friends, Raynesia. I am an Adventurer, but if you don’t mind that…”

It was a single fragment of something important, handed to the slacker princess from an entirely unexpected source.