1

Pale crimson Foxfire illuminated a magnificent room.

Unlike the Bug Lights that were prevalent in Akiba, the flames were delicate, and their weak light didn’t reach the corners of the big space. The intensity of the wavering glow fluctuated, creating shadows here and there.

The spacious room, which looked deserted, had but one master.

A woman with black hair was curled up in the shadows, with a blanket wrapped around her like a cloak.

Nothing in there was shabby.

The room was outfitted with luxurious furniture. A sofa decorated with Japanese brocade. Silk damask wall hangings, a canopy bed, a table of limestone. However, none of the furniture seemed to have been used and loved in anyone’s everyday life. The atmosphere it gave off was inorganic and distant, as if the furnishings were there simply because they had been ordered to be.

As usual, lying as if hiding in the shadows of those furnishings, Nureha was passing the night without a wink of sleep.

A waterfall of bundled papers spilled from a small, round table, spreading into her field of vision. They appeared to be documents; there were letters written on them, with red marks like scattered flowers. On closer inspection, the marks seemed to be wine stains.

Nureha strained her eyes, taking in the dimly illuminated scene.

There was no way she could read such tiny, precise letters in such a dark space. And besides, she was already battling the illusions that arose from the darkness, both on the page and in the room beyond.

Various things appeared from the shadows. Most were white, indistinct human shapes.

Even the outlines of the figures were vague. They whispered and giggled to each other in hushed voices Nureha couldn’t hear well, shooting glances her way. Weighing, taunting looks reached her from the nebulous, smoky shadows.

She clenched her fists, which had grown cold, and glared at them.

Sometimes, more tangible, fat, nausea-inducing arms appeared. They would would grab Nureha’s hair, trying to drag her toward the white shadows.

Nureha gave a low, threatening growl, like a wild animal. She already knew that if she did, the shadows would disappear.

She spent a long time that way, bottling up her ears to silence the voices that seemed to curse her.

The entire guild hall, with its sixteen luxurious rooms, had been set up as her private chambers. Aside from Nureha, there were fewer than ten people who could enter it. At this hour, late at night, no one would come here except the People of the Earth ladies-in-waiting who were on night duty.

In the midst of this empty darkness, Nureha spent endless nights.

She was physically exhausted, though she didn’t remember having accomplished much of anything. Cold blood circulated through her four limbs, which were as heavy as sandbags, and the world was so gloomy it could have been underwater.

This was nothing particularly unusual. It had been this way for ages.

Gaining an Adventurer body hadn’t changed the isolation of Nureha’s nights.

She held a hand up in front of her eyes.

Her fingers were slender, white, and smooth, like some exquisitely fashioned object.

Gleaming, pale pink nails were attached to this lithe, bewitching work of art.

Then came fine, delicate skin. The rolling outline of her arm, which held no sense of warmth, still evoked ample softness.

A bitter, irrepressible delight mixed with the darkness, which held nothing but hatred and rejection.

Nureha herself saw no great value in this body, but she was well aware that it drove others mad. It was a debauched joy, which that knowledge brought her. She moved her white fingers, more alluring than their former, real-world counterparts, stroking the darkness.

Her sweet, husky voice; her floral scent; her body, bound only by the pretense of clothing—all were objects of desire for others. At that thought, a sticky, unclean delight welled up inside Nureha.

The white shadows laughed shortly, taunting her from the documents that were their territory, but she responded with a contemptuous look. The white shadows gave accusatory moans, but the wind seemed to have changed: The Nureha who had been enduring agony up until a moment ago was gone.

Curled up in her blanket, she purred, deep in her throat.

Even she thought it was a sinister sound.

If the young heads of the administrative families had been there, or Loreil, the leader of the imperial guards, or no, even Zeldus or Nakalnad, or anyone else, she probably wouldn’t have made a harsh, creaking sound like this. Captivating others with a coaxing voice that seemed to be coated in honey was routine for Nureha. It was what she’d done up till now, and what she would no doubt continue to do.

She thought it was senseless.

She thought it was ridiculous.

Still, the more she thought these things, the funnier it was to see hoards of people running this way and that, sometimes fighting, sometimes grieving, cursing each other, and quarreling so they could boast of their own supremacy, all from desire for senseless, ridiculous Nureha.

The people who’d scorned her and accused her of being evil now showed such attachment that they’d throw away their fortunes or their lives at a single, coaxing word from her. This was both her weapon and her armor on these long nights. The only thing that made her forget the pain that tormented her, even temporarily, was the madness of the people who fought over her.

Only the ludicrous figures of the people who worshiped Nureha as if she were gold or jewels—worthless as she was—warmed her, healed her, and set her tingling sweetly.

For while she was watching them, she was able to feel pleasant. Most of all, only the trivial, ridiculous performances of the people who danced around her made her certain that this world was just as worthless as she was.

Remembering the warnings of the white-faced Adventurers who’d pleaded with her brought a faint smile to her lips.

This world isn’t a game. We have to fight to survive here.

Nureha was aware that her smile was a grim one.

What foolish things to say. Rubbish. What was the point of saying that now? Nureha thought they might as well have been talking in their sleep. The boy Adventurer who’d once said those words to her was now working away as a member of Plant Hwyaden, offering up his life every day. When he’d spoken of fighting to survive, had he meant finding employment in a guild and becoming a worker bee?

Ridiculous.

A few hours after the Catastrophe had occurred, Nureha had stripped the few Adventurers who’d approached her of all their possessions: their money, their food, and even their weapons and defensive gear. It had been easy. They’d been panicking, and they’d blindly believed even the most preposterous lie.

Several days later, their devotion had given her a hint regarding a new world. They’d stopped thinking due to the magnitude of the shock, and when Nureha obligingly took command, they obeyed her every word. She had organized them, encouraged them with kind words that made them forget their anxiety, and in a few weeks, she’d become one of the wealthiest Adventurers in Minami.

Then, one month after the Catastrophe, having obtained her Overskill, she acquired Minami’s guard system.

The coup d’état had been over before anyone knew it was happening. Having obtained the greatest military might possible, with that power behind her, Nureha negotiated with the People of the Earth nobles and administrators and acquired even greater wealth. Once she’d come that far, it had been easy to gain control of the Temple.

Yes.

It had been easy.

The fight for survival the boy had warned her about several months after the Catastrophe, as if he were telling her the secrets of this world—that was all it had amounted to.

It was so dull no one could have objected to calling it imbecilic.

The boy’s extreme innocence had actually made her hate him.

This world is not a game. When she’d heard the words, Nureha had been able to smile from the bottom of her heart. She was grateful for that terribly childish statement. If people were this naïve in the face of an unprecedented disaster, then the world was a hunting ground full of defenseless sheep indulging in afternoon naps.

The boy’s expression had been desperate, and she’d felt a small temptation to dash the black contents of her heart all over him, but she’d firmly maintained the attitude of a forlorn older sister. She knew that was the mask he wanted.

However, inside, she was filled with the nearly irresistible impulse to laugh.

She knew that. She’d known it for ages.

In the first place, Nureha had never played.

She’d never thought of Elder Tales as a game, as leisure recreation. Not even once.

Even when Elder Tales had been an MMORPG—a game, as far as most players were concerned—to Nureha it had been a harsh battlefield, something necessary for her survival.

Unless you kept bleeding, unless you kept screaming, you’d be forgotten.

Being forgotten meant being erased from the world.

Unless you were someone who meant something to somebody, unless you were wanted, unless you were treasured, you might as well be dead. Or rather, it was even worse than being dead.

After all, death was silence and nirvana and an ending, but living as worthless, insignificant rubbish that nobody liked wasn’t an end. Living as an inferior breed that no one needed meant that all the hells there were would continue endlessly.

In order to attract interest, Nureha had trained hard enough to draw blood. Her entire life up to the present had been a fight for survival: an attempt to make herself liked, to make herself wanted. There hadn’t been one single game.

Nureha knew hell. She knew the miserable loneliness that seemed to sear her to the core.

No matter how painful the effort, it had been far better than being ignored. When her training finally bore fruit and she was able to gain favor with the slightest word or gesture, Nureha threw that favor to the ground as if it were trash.

To her, this was revenge. It was a ceremony to show them that to her, their favor was absolutely worthless. The eyes of the players who were well-disposed to Nureha were dulled by greed, and jeering at their destruction brought her an indescribable exultation.

We have to fight to survive here.

It was a line out of a farce.

Why? Because that line made it sound like they hadn’t had to fight to survive in their former world.

That might actually have been the case. For that boy, at least. Maybe he’d been very lucky, had lived in a meadow of flowers. Along with the impulse to laugh, that thought made black hatred well up inside her.

From what Nureha knew, every moment was a fight for survival. In that respect, there was absolutely no difference between their former world and this one.

Decipher the systems, search out the weak points, make them get careless, toy with them, make them trust you, betray them, steal their share—that was the fundamental structure of the world. If he was making an intentional resolution to do that, he was much too far behind the times.

She understood very well why it had been easy to unify Minami.

Nureha had always meant to steal it. Of the tens of thousands of players who had been exiled to this world, she alone had lived it as if it were reality from the very beginning. To her, that had been routine.

She had simply lived as she had when Elder Tales had been a game: She had clung to goodwill, fostered attachment, and scattered love and discord. She had merely demanded her own share, as usual. That was why she was the beloved center of Plant Hwyaden. This world had chosen Nureha. She had achieved happiness. She had won everything!

With the sound of the sigh she slowly expelled filling her ears, she glared at the shadows with hatred.

She’d been chosen, so why was she so full of pain? She shivered, hugging her own tail like a body pillow.

Why did she have to curl up like a wounded animal, holding her breath, just getting through the night?

Nureha clenched her teeth, and the fox ears on her head quivered.

She looked up. At the other end of her gaze, the door opened as if a rectangle of light had been cut out, and a maid appeared.

“Lady Nureha.”

“……”

Nureha looked away, openly ignoring her. It was Indicus, the maid in charge of Plant Hwyaden’s practical affairs. She was Nureha’s confidante, but she wasn’t of interest. The woman was almost a sort of curse that clung to Nureha.

“Not using your bed again, I see.”

“…”

Nureha looked up at Indicus, who was turned into a shadow by the light behind her.

The maid’s normal expression was a frozen mask, but she wore a big smile now. That smile was never directed at anyone but Nureha, and whenever she saw it, she felt as if her stomach was spasming. That smile had the same smell as the arms that reached out from the darkness of her bedroom, no matter how many times she cut them off, no matter how many times she cleansed herself. It clung to her, stickily, sludge she couldn’t completely wipe away.

“Were you thinking of Shiroe?”

“……”

Nureha glared at her, steadily.

However, unlike those vague white shadows, Indicus wasn’t frightened, and she didn’t fade.

With a sharp smile like a crescent moon, she glided closer, bending down and putting her face close to Nureha.

The scent of cold steel drifted from the maid, causing Nureha to bite her lip. It was a smell that wouldn’t have suited most women—the hint of a well-maintained blade.

“Were you?”

“Don’t talk about him.”

She thrust those words at Indicus, brimming with irritation and anger, but they didn’t seem to reach her. It was always like this. Indicus had never accepted any of the wishes Nureha asked of her, with one exception—and it was an exception she’d traded everything for.

“What did I tell you? I did, you know. He’s no good. You can talk to him, but nothing will come of it. He can’t connect to anything. He’s always been like that. He isn’t a player. He’s merely static with advanced abilities. Do you understand? Lady Nureha?”

Nureha’s vision was beginning to blur with pain and fear.

“That’s a man you can never have. He’s just a traitor, but he’s bright. You could probably say he’s scrupulous. He recognizes it, you know. The stink of the gutter.”

Even though she’d been expecting them, had been prepared for them, Indicus’s words hurt Nureha like a blow to the stomach. The memories she’d desperately pushed into the darkness materialized like countless ghosts, trying to drag her back to that familiar hell.

This was the true form of the indistinct murmurs, the things the white shadows whispered.

The past Nureha had shed back on Earth, the memories she’d erased.

“My dear girl, do you really think anyone would touch you? Dirty, sordid, shabby, beggar you? You’re filthy with lies. There’s nothing the least bit real about you. A closer look at what’s ‘real’ about you just reveals a stench worse than rotten sewage. You, who always wore a faint, sickening smile and gazed over here hungrily.”

A mad terror rose again.

A plastic school lunch plate. Soup with garbage mixed into it. Memories of biting her lip in a cramped locker, hoping no one would find her. Memories of having her belongings hidden and having to walk over winter asphalt with bare feet, of falling into a restless sleep in the shadow of the bushes, so that even her family wouldn’t find her. All sorts of recollections of defeat.

“Please understand. No human as disgusting as yourself should be conceited enough to think they could connect with someone else… Don’t you see? I’m the only one who’d associate with a woman as filthy as you.”

The urge to vomit was rising in her throat, and she desperately pushed it down.

She managed to bite it back.

It was sheer luck.

To keep her from registering that weakness, Nureha frantically opened her eyes wide. Indicus had described her accurately. She knew all that without being told. She was more aware of her dingy, disgusting self than anyone.

However, knowing herself was completely different from having someone else point it out to her.

“You’re a very convenient princess to gaze upon from a distance.”

Nureha glared at her, but Indicus’s fingers twisted her ear.

“So. Lady. Nureha. We can’t have you going to Akiba. A little self-awareness, please. This place, Plant Hwyaden, isn’t your salon anymore. You’ll gather lots of puppets and build your castle, and this time, I’ll obtain the whole Yamato server. Remember, Lady Nureha? That was the promise, wasn’t it?”

Nureha’s wish. Nureha’s request.

A dream on which she’d wagered everything, so that she’d never have to go back there.

No matter what she had to do—and she meant that literally—no matter what she had to do, Nureha never, ever wanted to repeat the experiences of her past. That was why she’d joined forces with Indicus. Plant Hwyaden was Nureha’s castle. It was a castle that never slept, filled with countless lights and soft compliments.

“You’re going to make a place for yourself to belong, aren’t you?”

Keeping up appearances so that Indicus wouldn’t see her weakness, Nureha nodded desperately.

“That’s right. It’s about to begin, you know. The Ten-Seat Council.”

Indicus seemed to have lost interest in Nureha. Nureha didn’t attend all Ten-Seat Councils; she wasn’t interested in guild administration in the first place.

“Because you’re the princess, yes. I’ll tell everyone for you, Nureha. After all, you are Plant Hwyaden’s precious, precious guild master.”

Leaving words of sympathy behind her as a parting gift, Indicus’s footsteps receded.

In the midst of the curse from her past and self-loathing that made her writhe, Nureha hugged her sides, folding in on herself, and shrank, becoming ever so small.

Her hands and feet were so cold they hurt, as though her metabolism had dropped. The blanket she’d wrapped around herself was heavy, and it didn’t bring her any warmth.

Her pulse fluctuated violently, and the world sank into darkness before her eyes, as if she were anemic.

All that rose up were terrible recollections and memories of humiliation, and their ghosts tried to drag Nureha back to Earth. The evil spirits attacked her whenever Indicus gave the order, and she had to keep fighting them all alone.

However, the corners of her lips held a very faint smile.

Don’t you see? I’m the only one who’d contract with a woman as filthy as you.

Not true.

That wasn’t true now.

It had been only a verbal promise; you couldn’t call it a contract. It might have been nothing more than an exchange, nearly a jest, said only in passing between the two, but right now, Nureha had one other promise in addition to her contract with Indicus.

Because it’s probably more in line with your wish to have me as an enemy than an ally.

The parting words spoken by the young man Indicus had given up on. They shielded Nureha, if only ever so slightly.

In the distance, a low, metallic sound rang out, announcing that it was nine o’clock.

The hands of the clock advanced slowly, as if they were sticky, and the night still seemed to stretch on forever. Even with very little sleep, Adventurer bodies could function without much trouble. That advantage was also the prison chain that trapped Nureha in the night. She went through repeated cycles of light dozing followed by sudden, terrified awakenings.

In this room, where her customary nocturnal battle would continue… Someday, for sure. Forming the shape of these words—words she’d never once spoken, words like a prayer—with silent lips, Nureha drifted into a shallow sleep.

2

The room, in which several men and women were assembled, had a curious design.

Pillars with carved drapes adorned the walls, finely patterned vases spilled over with fresh flowers, and even the tables and chairs were inlaid with gold. All of it was barely of note though, in comparison to the magnetic vitality of the people gathered in the room.

There were the eight council members, each of them exceptional, along with their attendants.

“Where’s Indicus?”

The question had come from a man with glasses and neat clothes that made him look like a bureaucrat.

“She’s with the princess. She’ll probably be back soon. Don’t worry about it, Zeldus,” a woman in a military uniform answered.

“The designated time was when the moon rose. It’s well past that,” the man named Zeldus huffed.

“The princess is the same as ever.”

“Those two should just get married already.”

A young voice that exuded arrogance and a musing voice chimed in as well, one after the other.

The room was shaped like a gradual staircase; the height of each step was about four centimeters. Though it was really more like a series of low landings than stairs. On each landing, an individual’s unique space had been set up.

Many had sofas or leather-upholstered chairs, and some of the landings were equipped with desks or small bookshelves. All together, there were ten seats and ten different levels. The arches that opened in each of the room’s four walls had also been built at different heights, and the structure seemed to promote coming and going, so it was likely that these levels indicated the rank of the person who occupied them. It was as if the room’s odd construction showed their relationships just as they were.

Kazuhiko sat in a low chair, hugging his favorite katana, while looking around the room. This gathering was the Ten-Seat Council. It was an assembly of the people in charge of Minami’s administration, and in practical terms, it was also the core council of Plant Hwyaden.

Participants in the Ten-Seat Council were called Ten-Seats, after the name of the council, or Seat Officers.

At present, two of the Ten-Seats had yet to arrive: Nureha, guild master of Plant Hwyaden; and Indicus, who had gone to fetch her.

Indicus would probably appear soon, but there was no telling about Nureha. She was capricious and seemed uninterested in the trivialities of the day-to-day running of the guild, and she almost never attended councils like this one. Now that Plant Hwyaden was established and had become an enormous organization, the decisions of Nureha—its founder and leader—weren’t needed on a daily basis. The members were used to her absence.

This Ten-Seat Council meeting was a regular one. Kazuhiko hadn’t heard that there were any special topics for discussion.

However, that didn’t mean he could let his guard down.

The relationships among the Seat Officers were complex and delicate. Plant Hwyaden had been established by assimilating all the Adventurers in Western Yamato, which meant its foundation was unique to begin with. It had a completely different essence compared to the guilds of the former Elder Tales MMO, where players who got along with each other formed groups so that they could play together. The objective of this enormous organization, which had been formed by swallowing up many preexisting guilds, was mutual aid and cooperation in order to survive in this strange world that resembled Elder Tales. In other words, the goal of creating Plant Hwyaden had been the intersection of interests.

It was a single guild that espoused perfect equality, but its internal politics bristled with disparate factions. For people who knew a certain amount about Plant Hwyaden, this was common knowledge.

But this wasn’t all that was unique about its history.

In order to establish this enormous guild, the first thing Nureha had done was twist the guard organization around her little finger. The guards of Minami were a lower branch of the House of Saimiya. In other words, since its establishment, the organization of Plant Hwyaden had been deeply involved with the People of the Earth.

As such, Nureha, as Hwyaden’s guild master and as the “State Councilor of the West,” had gained rank and power.

Meanwhile, the Senate, which had joined the House of Saimiya in controlling Western Yamato, had showed a great interest in Plant Hwyaden and was eager to assimilate it.

Currently, one could say that the town of Minami was in a state of balance in which many forces—each of Plant Hwyaden’s internal factions, alonside the People of the Earth’s House of Saimiya and Minami’s Senate—struggled with each other.

Kazuhiko was part of one of these forces.

The security organization Miburo—the original name of the famous historical Shinsengumi forces—was a department of Plant Hwyaden that protected the peace in Minami and cracked down on corruption and fraud.

However, in practice, it was Kazuhiko’s private army.

Kazuhiko and some of his like-minded colleagues had banded together to halt the corruption plauging Minami as much as possible, and had ended up becoming one of Plant Hwyaden’s internal factions. Their power wasn’t among the greatest in Minami, but because they had some influence, they were allowed a chair on the Ten-Seat Council.

Two guards in short, black, formal Japanese overcoats known as haori stood behind Kazuhiko. Many of the Ten-Seats attended the council with similar guards in tow.

Of course the guards meant nothing at the council, but this sort of posturing was necessary in order to maintain the faction equilibrium.

Squinting his eyes, Kazuhiko glanced at the highest position in the room—the First Seat.

On the top level was an elegant, feminine, elaborately worked throne that looked as if it might have been brought back from fairyland.

The seat’s mistress was currently absent. It was the place where Nureha, guild master of Plant Hwyaden, was meant to sit.

On the level below it were a tea server and silver trolley, and a brusque stool that showed no signs of use. It was currently unoccupied, but practically speaking, it was the second seat in charge of this council: the seat occupied by the maid Indicus.

Those two hadn’t yet appeared, but once Indicus arrived, no doubt the council would begin.

The third landing was wide, with a utilitarian chair and an enormous work desk that took up both sides. At that work desk, a stubborn, cruel-looking, bespectacled young man was silently drafting figures and written instructions. Sometimes he would look up and eject a trenchant comment from his sardonic mouth. It was the third seat, the Adventurer Zeldus, nicknamed “the Watchtower.”

He was the man in charge of Plant Hwyaden’s development and finances. The Iron Chancellor.

On the level just below his, a female soldier relaxed, leaning against her backrest, with a liquor bottle set directly on the floor. This was the Fourth Seat, “the General Who Dominated the East”—Mizufa Trude. She was the strongest general in the Senate, and the greatest commander within the Holy Empire of Westlande’s People of the Earth army.

“The days are boring without the scent of blood. I feel like I’m going to rot. We’ve got all the time there is. If it means I can go to war, I’ll wait as long as they like, even if the moon sets on us.”

The woman was past thirty and beautiful, but rather than the dauntlessness of a soldier, there was a marked sense of criminal cruelty about her. She was sitting in a dissipated way, with her arms spread wide, occupying the center of a sofa meant for two people.

“Didn’t you come here just to drink fine liquor, Lander?”

Lander: a slang word for a Person of the Earth.

The jab had come from a big Adventurer seated in a leather-upholstered chair on the next level down. The Fifth Seat: Nakalnad, “the General Who Conquered the South.” He was wearing rough armor reminiscent of construction equipment, as if to point out that he was a Guardian.

The words had been insulting, but Mizufa agreed with a generous “You’ve got that right.”

“Pretty nice life, hmm?” Nakalnad raised the cup he’d drained; his expression was bitter. A maid as unobtrusive as a stain on the wall approached like a ghost and poured him fresh liquor.

These two were the center of the military, and they were in charge of Plant Hwyaden’s foreign campaigns.

They led, respectively, the People of the Earth military corps and the Adventurer army.

The common opinion among the Adventurers who attended this council was that Mizufa’s seat order was higher out of consideration for the Senate, since the military might Nakalnad actually commanded was several times greater. In the days of the old Yamato server, Nakalnad had been the guild master of Howling, the strongest guild in the Kansai area. Glimpses of Plant Hwyaden’s internal politics showed through here as well.

“I’m sleepy. Why do we meet at night? Seriously.”

The Sixth Seat stretched ostentatiously. Quon, the “Singer of Prophecies.”

“Night’s not the only time you’re sleepy.”

Zeldus’s voice came down from the higher level; he hadn’t looked up from his documents. Quon wore casual clothes—a shirt and jeans—that would have been right at home on a street corner on Earth. The only fantasy-style item was the warm-looking cloak he’d wrapped himself up in.

“I’m keeping an ear out for a GM Call,” he protested.

At his words, several of the participants gave small, wry smiles.

This young man, Quon, didn’t technically have the ability or the desire to hold a seat on the council. It was just that during the Elder Tales era, he had been a game master on the administrative side. Game masters were administrative employees who had avatars just like Adventurers, participated in the game world, and dealt with any trouble that came up there. In simple terms, they were a type of troubleshooter.

Having been a Fushimi Online Entertainment employee, he had detailed knowledge of the circumstances and information on the administrative side. Since he’d gotten pulled into the Catastrophe when he was logged in from his own home computer instead of the dedicated mainframe at the FOE offices, most of his game master abilities had been sealed, but even so, it was possible that he’d be able to help clear up situations. That was why he held one of the ten seats.

GM Call, or “Call from Beyond,” was one of the game master abilities Quon still held. It enabled him to receive pop-up notices with information regarding administrative events that occurred on the Yamato server. He could also receive a summons from FOE, but if they believed what he said, there had been no contact since the Catastrophe, and the only events that had occurred were timed or triggered types.

“So you’re saying your connection to the higher world is fading, eh?”

The old man in the Eighth Seat, one down from Kazuhiko, teased with a chuckle.

“Man, shut up. It was the Council’s decision to monitor calls, remember?”

At Quon’s sulky attitude, the old man cackled. He seemed jolly, but his eyes were blunt with cruelty. The Eighth Seat, Jared Gan, “the Great Wizard of Miral Lake.” He was an authority on magic and history who represented the People of the Earth. Along with Zeldus, his knowledge and magic abilities were being focused into the development of new technologies.

“The princess…won’t be joining us tonight either, hmm?”

As Loreil Dawn, Ninth Seat and leader of the imperial guards, muttered this, Indicus entered. She was a beautiful, intelligent woman dressed in a maid’s uniform. Her footsteps sounded like someone striking rock, and with that sound as its opening bell, the Ten-Seat Council commenced.

“Let me begin tonight’s Ten-Seat Council. For the first topic of the day, we will hear a report on urban welfare.”

Indicus began the council abruptly, without prelude. This topic was always the first one she chose. Holding his breath as if he were diving underwater, Kazuhiko tried to keep his heart cool and collected.

The town of Minami was peaceful and wealthy.

However, it was built on the invisible exploitation of the People of the Earth. At present, there were approximately ten thousand Adventurers living in Minami, and three times that many People of the Earth. There were many restaurants and inns run by People of the Earth, but the majority of them were Servants.

Servants were People of the Earth hired to look after Adventurers. There was demand from Adventurers, since this freed them from having to do odd jobs, and People of the Earth welcomed the positions as lucrative employment. On the other hand, it was true that it was a hotbed for a variety of trouble. Minami’s prosperity was built on all sorts of hidden warps and stains.

Quite apart from Kazuhiko’s thoughts, the council went on.

Currently, the government of Minami’s biggest program involved issuing guild passes.

Adventurers affiliated with Plant Hwyaden and People of the Earth living in Minami were able to receive guild passes issued by the Plant Hwyaden staff office. Passes came in several different ranks, and those who held them could use restaurants and inns that corresponded to that rank completely free of charge. This meant there would no longer be any need for Plant Hwyaden members to walk around with cash. In addition, since the passes would not be purchased, but loaned for free—although they would need to be renewed every three months—it was believed that they would make great contributions to Minami’s development.

As he listened to the splendid report, Kazuhiko renewed his determination.

It was likely that there would be even bigger trouble, and lots of it, from this point on.

He could understand the advantages of the guild pass system. There was great significance in the fact that they guaranteed lifestyles on a certain level for Adventurers who avoided fighting monsters. In addition, Plant Hwyaden would probably be able to implement more meaningful policies, such as purchase management for materials. However, it was the People of the Earth who’d be sacrificed in the process. Miburo existed to preserve justice in the city. That meant protecting the weak. Kazuhiko and the others were fighting to relieve the wretchedness of the People of the Earth, which many Adventurers pretended not to see.

Before he knew it, the council had gone from a report on an investigation of raid zones to the situation in Nakasu, and then continued to current conditions in Akiba.

“Akiba’s sent an army to the northeast, then?”

“That seems to be the case,” Nakalnad answered to Indicus. “It’s made up of five legions, led by ‘Berserker’ Krusty. ‘Black Sword,’ ‘the Hatter,’ and ‘the Old Winged Dragon’ are with them. The report’s from ‘Number One.’”

Although the shape its efforts took was different from Minami’s, Akiba also seemed to be taking great pains over its relationship with the People of the Earth.

In contrast to Minami, which had made connections with the existing local leaders in the House of Saimiya, Akiba’s Council seemed to have chosen to coexist with the League of Free Cities, the People of the Earth organization that governed the area north of the Kanto region. Most of the Ten-Seat Council members felt that that decision had made the difference in Akiba’s and Minami’s speed of reform.

Minami had stabilized far more rapidly than Akiba, and it was producing superior results on all fronts, including lifestyle services and the development of new technology. For Adventurers trapped in this other world, nothing was more important than everyday stability, and Minami was in the process of acquiring it. This was good fortune for the Adventurers who lived there.

“‘Machiavelli-with-Glasses’ is gone, too.”

Pushing his eye mask up, the Tenth Seat tossed those words to his fellows.

It was the laid-back voice of the “Transforming Jester,” who sat in a tropical-style resort chair made of a wooden frame and sailcloth. He had been snoozing peacefully until just a moment ago, but now the council was silent, as if it was holding its breath.

“‘Machiavelli-with-Glasses’ is gone, too.” There was no telling how the Tenth Seat had interpreted the silence, but he repeated himself. “I don’t know whether he went along on the northeastern expedition, but it looks as though he’s made himself scarce.”

The man, who wore a smile that looked a bit too dangerous to call mischievous, was a skinny Summoner, dressed in a rough mantle with ragged edges. A former companion who’d raced across Yamato with the organization known as the Debauchery Tea Party. KR.

From the very lowest level, the grinning KR looked up at his former companion, Kazuhiko, and still higher, at the maid.

“Well? What’ll you do, Indicus? It looks like the ‘static’ that doesn’t go according to your calculations has taken off running yet again…”

3

Shutting the thick wooden door, Naotsugu brushed the snow off himself.

Outside, it wasn’t what he would have called a blizzard, but snow danced in the mountain wind. Although it should have been early afternoon, the thick storm clouds made it gloomy, and the temperature was low.

He was wearing cold-resistant equipment, so he hadn’t frozen out in the blizzard, but his legs had bogged down beyond belief. Naotsugu was a Guardian, and he was wearing full-body metal armor. Technically, he shouldn’t have been able to move around in snow at all in that sort of equipment. The fact that he’d managed to patrol in weather like this was due entirely to his Adventurer’s physical abilities.

“Naotsugu?”

“Yeah, I’m back.”

Shiroe spoke to him from the depths of the lodge, and Naotsugu answered.

He loosened his belt and took off his gauntlets. The gauntlets were the latest prototype-class item, created by artisans, and they hadn’t existed in the days of Elder Tales. They were more versatile than the ones level-90 Naotsugu had acquired on a raid, and while he used them all the time, since they were a handmade item that was more recent than the Catastrophe, Naotsugu couldn’t equip them or take them off from the menu.

Finally removing the weighty items—whose mass made them seem more like a type of weapon than gauntlets—he tossed his other equipment into his Magic Bag, piece by piece. What appeared from under his rough armor was three-quarter-length indoor wear. It was a casual look, no different from what he would’ve worn on Earth.

It certainly was a freezing mountain winter outside, but whoever had built this lodge had understood the region’s seasons well. The log walls were double layered, and there seemed to be straw stuffed between them.

In combination with the thick tapestries, this kept the room at a fairly pleasant temperature.

Naotsugu peeled off his bulky mountain-climbing socks and shoved his toes into slippers. People told him that wanting to take off his socks the minute he got home was an old-guy thing, but he’d been that way ever since he was a kid, and he wished they’d get off his case about it.

“How was it?”

“Nothing wrong. The snow is zipping around and the wind is blowing hard.”

“It doesn’t look like it’ll stop even if we cry.”

“Short Stuff’s the only one who’d cry.”

“There you go again, talking like that just because Akatsuki’s not here…”

In Japanese terms, the room was about ten tatami mats in size.

The fireplace blazed red, and Shiroe, who was camped out on a thick rug, had lots of notes and maps spread around him. Even at a quick glance, there seemed to be at least several dozen. Naotsugu recognized some of them; in particular, there was the map of the nearby area. Densely covered with notes and memos written in red ink, it was a summary of the reports he’d made over the past week.

Although the lodge was warm and comfortable inside, it had been a week since they’d left their friends in Akiba. Naotsugu looked around the area, feeling worn out.

“Where’s the little old guy?”

“He isn’t that old. I think he’s probably around thirty.”

“He laughs like an old guy, though.”

Without looking at Naotsugu, Shiroe—who’d traded his trademark coat for indoor wear—began carefully stacking the nearby memos on top of one another.

“Want some help?”

“No, it’s fine. This won’t take long.”

“Oh, okay.”

He was probably concentrating.

So as not to bother Shiroe, Naotsugu sat down on the fur rug.

“……”

“……”

Shiroe took out a thick notebook, setting it next to the stacked memos, and began drawing up some sort of document. In this world, there were no computers or word processors. Shiroe had muttered that organizing information was rough, but even then, when Naotsugu tried to help him, he turned him down. He’d always been stubborn.

Probably ever since we first met, Naotsugu thought.

Right after he’d joined the Debauchery Tea Party, the idea of grabbing something to eat in real life had come up. Since it was an online game, this was only natural, but the Tea Party members lived all over Japan. As a result, it was really impossible to get everyone together for a dinner party. However, even so, five of them who lived in the Kanto region had met up in the real.

The first time he’d met Shiroe, he’d been drinking pu-erh tea.

When Naotsugu had said, That’s oolong tea, right? Shiroe had explained the difference to him. That explanation had gone on for thirty minutes, and had ultimately extended to the political situation in Taiwan and speculation in tea leaves. The “vital fall” had occurred in the EU at about that time, and even university students hadn’t been able to stay unconcerned about the topic.

Naotsugu and Shiroe’s friendship had begun at that offline meeting.

At the time, they were both university students, and the fact that they lived at a distance that could be covered by a one-hour bike ride if they wanted to hang out was key. Friends outside school were valuable. He’d often taken the stay-at-home Shiroe along as he wandered around town.

He couldn’t count the times they’d been yanked around by Kanami’s whims.

It was so bad that, when she’d said, We’re going to a fish paste factory in Odawara, he’d seriously thought about punching her. Even so, when they actually did go, it had been fun, and the all-important fish paste had been shockingly tasty. Naotsugu thought that Kanami’s personal magnetism, or maybe her sense about things like that, had been really something.

…And so Naotsugu and Shiroe had known each other for a long time.

He was used to kicking his legs out and relaxing beside a silent Shiroe like this. It was something he’d done a lot when he was a student, and he did it all the time at the guild house.

The heat from the fireplace made it to his toes, which had been buried in a snowfield. The stinging tingle gradually eased, and the warmth returned.

Naotsugu twisted around, rummaging through his Magic Bag, and took out a metal canteen and cups.

The liquid he poured out was mog milk. The drink, which had mashed mog fruit in it, was similar to banana milk on Earth.

When he held one out with a “Hrn,” Shiroe replied with a “Mmm” and took it without looking up. They both sipped the faintly sweet mog milk in silence. Friends were like this with each other. Energetic, witty conversation was formal behavior.

“Locked-up-on-a-snowy-mountain-with-Shiro-and-some-old-guy city.”

Even so, Naotsugu muttered vaguely, not out of spite, but because he was bored.

“What, Naotsugu? Lonely?”

“Yeah, kinda. For a resort, this place is super empty.”

“It is pretty rural.”

Shiroe’s response left Naotsugu flabbergasted.

This lodge was a closed zone, but the snowy mountain it sat on was in a field zone that was roughly sixty kilometers per side. Naotsugu had been the only Adventurer in that field zone. Before he’d entered the lodge a few minutes ago, he’d checked using the Frontier Inspector in-zone list, so he was sure about that. You didn’t call an area like that “rural.” It was a trackless waste. What Naotsugu wanted to say was that on the Yamato server, Tearstone was a land-locked desert island.

“Where are you from again, Shiro?”

“Tokyo, almost.”

At that brief answer, Naotsugu heaved a deep sigh. This was the problem with Tokyo natives. They couldn’t tell the difference between rural areas where people actually lived and the back end of nowheresville.

Disgusted, he dropped his head into his hands—he was already resting on his elbows—and rolled around.

About ten days ago, Shiroe had asked him to stay behind and hold the fort. He’d said he was leaving Akiba for a while, and had asked if he’d take care of Log Horizon. Naotsugu had turned him down in one second flat, and here he was.

He hadn’t heard where Shiroe planned to go or what he was planning to do, but Naotsugu thought it was probably to do something tiresome. It also wasn’t something that was needed in general, but Shiroe thought it was necessary. Naotsugu had known right away, just from seeing his face.

If it had been something that everyone would understand was necessary right away, Shiroe wouldn’t have hesitated to ask someone else to handle it. There would be no hesitation over everyone doing something that was necessary for everyone. He was attempting to do this on his own because it would be hard to persuade people of its necessity.

He’d thought this had improved since the Crescent Burger incident, but apparently one or two opportunities weren’t enough to completely cure inborn temperament.

Man, he’s stubborn, Naotsugu thought, but then thought better of it, deciding that this was patent Shiroe as well.

If Shiroe had a bad habit, there were tons of things about him that were good enough to cancel it out. The problem was that Shiroe himself didn’t know this, and this smart-yet-dense friend of his needed to travel with a kickstarter who’d give him hell. Naotsugu prided himself on the fact that, as his old friend, he was suited for the job.

Besides, whenever Shiroe pushed himself like this, the view afterward was fantastic.

If they were on their way to see a view like that, he wasn’t going to surrender his spot to anybody.

“Think you could tell me why we’re shut away in a locked room on a snowy mountain? It’s about time for that.”

“We aren’t shut away. We’re just holing up.”

“Shiro, you’re-never-gonna-be-popular-that-way city.”

“I mean it’s peaceful. You really don’t get it, do you?”

The problem was that, in Shiroe’s case, he was more than half serious.

“…We’re holed up here because I don’t want our location known. It’s fine now, but considering what’s ahead, I’d rather not tip our hand.”

Having finished verbally horsing around, Shiroe began to explain, quietly, bit by bit.

“For the moment, our objective is money. In short, we’re fund-raising. To that end, I need to persuade a certain person.”

“That old guy?”

Naotsugu remembered their traveling companion. The small elf Person of the Earth scholar was holed up in the next room… Literally.

“No, not him. Li Gan is involved in this maneuver. I brought him along so that he could help with the persuasion. What I say may not be enough to get them to trust us. He may not look it, but he’s famous.”

“He really doesn’t look famous.”

“Even if he’s the Sage of Miral Lake?”

Oh, is that what he is? At Shiroe’s words, Naotsugu was convinced.

The Sage of Miral Lake had been a well-known NPC in the Elder Tales MMORPG. That said, Naotsugu had never seen him on a game screen. He was a sage that was mentioned in legends and rumors in the game. He had made an appearance in the backstory for the Nine Great Gaols of Halos, a raid they would speed-run during their Tea Party days.

“So he actually exists?”

“Yes, he does. He does indeed.”

“Why are we fund-raising way out in the mountains, anyway? If you need money, couldn’t you just borrow it from the Round Table Council?”

“Mm.” Sitting cross-legged, Shiroe hemmed, frowning. “It’s a pretty large amount,” he said with a sigh.

Naotsugu felt a headache coming on.

He really couldn’t trust that pretty in this case. Shiroe had looked slightly calmer last time, when he’d been planning to buy up what was now Akiba’s guild center.

“About how much, exactly?”

“In all, about eighty trillion or so.”

It was ridiculous. An absolutely ludicrous sum.

According to the math, that amount was over ten thousand times more than all the money held by all the Adventurers on the Yamato server. It was the sort of amount they wouldn’t be able to scrape up from all the Adventurers in the world, let alone on the Yamato server; the sort of amount that probably didn’t exist in the first place. Naotsugu looked at Shiroe, his mouth hanging open. Shiroe’s brow was furrowed, and he was groaning to himself.

However, on seeing Shiroe groan, Naotsugu understood. Shiroe wasn’t doing this as a joke or on a whim. He thought that amount was necessary, no matter what.

“…Got any ideas about who to ask?”

“The whole amount wouldn’t be possible, so we’ll split it over several installments, take it little by little.”

Although it’s a fact that no matter how we split it up, it isn’t an amount that could ever be “little by little”… Shiroe gave a troubled smile.

“Well, no help for that. Gimme a bit more info. Tell me about this strategy you’ve thought up.”

“There’s no strategy. We’ll wing it, get down on our knees and beg. We’ll just persuade them.”

“Persuade who? How?”

When they’d gotten that far in their conversation, sipping their mog milk, the door to the next room opened and a man in a robe appeared.

“Shiroe. It seems our guest has arrived.”

The People of the Earth magician, who had shifty eyes and an entertained expression, giggled, then thumped Naotsugu on the shoulder. For a Person of the Earth, he showed an unusual lack of reserve. Naotsugu was rather taken aback by his attitude, but Li Gan spoke to him as though nothing had happened.

“Do watch, Naotsugu. No explanations are necessary: Shiroe’s negotiations are about to begin. This is going to be amazing. These negotiations may actually be battle-class, or even national-defense-class magic.”

What did “national-defense-class” mean? Naotsugu’s question was cut off before he finished asking it.

Someone had knocked at the door of the lodge.

Not twenty minutes ago, there had been no Adventurers within a ten-kilometer radius. Did that mean the visitor was a Person of the Earth? …But were People of the Earth even able to travel this far into the snowbound Tearstone Mountains?

As Shiroe and Li Gan watched, Naotsugu took his sword from his Magic Bag and warily approached the door.

4

“Shiro. Company.”

Even before Naotsugu’s announcement, Shiroe had crammed his maps and documents into his Magic Bag.

He’d anticipated that they would have a visitor, and a table and tea service had been set up in the room with the fireplace.

Is that how it’s turned out… Shiroe thought, at the sight of Naotsugu’s perplexed expression as his friend returned from the door. The visitor who followed at his heels wasn’t one Shiroe had expected, but it wasn’t an individual he’d never considered, either.

“This way, please.”

Shiroe felt a bit bad about ignoring Naotsugu, but welcoming their visitor took priority just now. He gestured to a sturdy oak chair.

“Climbing snowy mountains is quite taxing.”

As he spoke, the young man with violet eyes—Kinjo of the Kunie—brushed at the shoulders of his formal outfit with its stand-up collar, although there wasn’t a single snowflake on it, and sat down.

“May I say it’s been quite some time since we last spoke?”

“It has, and you may.”

At Kinjo’s response, Shiroe fell silent. Inwardly, he heaved a deep sigh, thinking that the situation was growing increasingly difficult.

Shiroe had been waiting in this cabin in the mountains, far from civilization, in order to negotiate with the Kunie clan. He’d had several reasons for traveling all the way into the Ouu Mountains, but one was that this area was close to the assumed location of the Kunie clan’s headquarters.

…This is rather, erm…

Shiroe felt that, frankly, this was a problem.

To begin with, he’d anticipated that negotiating with the Kunie clan would be difficult.

At first, all Shiroe had known about this mysterious clan was that they ran the bank. The bank was one of the convenient functions available to Elder Tales players, a service that provided storage for items and cash. Once deposited in the bank, these things could be withdrawn from any bank in Yamato, not just from the specific branch that had accepted them.

The Kunie clan had a transference technique that was different from the Call of Home spell and the intercity gates the Adventurers used, and banking wasn’t the only service they provided.

A home delivery service that carried letters and parcels from one individual to another, a bazaar service that made it possible to buy and sell all sorts of items… They handled a wide variety of things. The guard systems established in most towns were also administered by the Kunie clan.

The Elder Tales players—or, after the Catastrophe, the Adventurers—took the existence of these services for granted. They seemed to be part of the public infrastructure. When, during the establishment of the Round Table Council, Shiroe had said that the Adventurers couldn’t live without the support of the People of the Earth, he’d had this clan in mind.

Of course, at the time, he hadn’t known that these services were provided by the mysterious Kunie clan.

After the formation of the Round Table Council, the Council—and mainly Shiroe—had attempted to contact the Kunie clan. They’d managed it rather easily, and that was when he’d made the acquaintance of Kinjo, the person in charge of activities in Akiba. However, they hadn’t been able to advance beyond that point.

They’d learned that the Kunie clan provided a variety of services in the region of Yamato. They’d also learned that these services were indispensible to the Adventurers. They’d managed to formally greet Kinjo, the Kunie representative in Akiba… But that was as far as they’d gotten.

Kinjo hadn’t openly ignored them or shown clear animosity, but he’d rejected all of Shiroe’s probes with his serene smile and eloquent tongue.

In any case, as Shiroe had thought previously, while the Adventurers couldn’t live without the People of the Earth, the People of the Earth would probably manage to get by without the Adventurers. In this world where brutal monsters reigned, they might not be able to prosper they way they would have on Earth proper, but even so, if they used noncombat zones and magic technology, they’d be able to survive. The Kunie clan was a prime example.

Even if the Adventurers disappeared, the Kunie clan wouldn’t fall. That, more than anything else, meant the cards available for Shiroe to negotiate with were extremely limited.

Even so, Shiroe had continued to gather information in an attempt to acquire ammunition of some sort, and the person he’d dealt with had been Kinjo, who lived in Akiba. No doubt this young man who gave the impression of a seasoned veteran had picked up on Shiroe’s intent; he’d kept intel on the Kunie clan inaccessible. The clan’s organization and actual abilities, their hidden knowledge, their headquarters, ideas, objectives—any and all information.

Shiroe had gotten most of the knowledge he currently had regarding the Kunie clan from Li Gan, rather than Kinjo.

“This is Li Gan. The Sage. Do you know of him?”

“Yes, of course. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Kinjo, and I serve as the contact for the Kunie clan.”

“Charmed, charmed. To think I’d have the privilege of meeting a member of the Kunie…”

Li Gan waved a hand in response to Kinjo’s greeting, answering with a smile.

Kinjo also smiled, thinly.

“This is quite the unusual day, isn’t it? I’ve managed to encounter both Master Shiroe of Log Horizon, the great mage of the Debauchery Tea Party and representative of the Adventurers, and Master Li Gan, the Sage of Miral Lake. It is an honor to have been invited to participate in this historic occasion, Master Shiroe. There are few in the history of the Kunie who have been privileged to such glory. No doubt even my great predecessors never dreamed such a day would come.”

Kinjo’s response troubled Shiroe.

Kinjo certainly wasn’t hostile to Shiroe and the other Adventurers. He wasn’t silent, and it wasn’t that he didn’t understand what they said. He simply refused to disclose information he didn’t wish revealed, and he camouflaged even that refusal with this sort of theatrical verbosity.

Shiroe felt like sighing over the coming negotiations. He’d personally sent a request to the Kunie clan of Akiba—in other words, through Kinjo—and had asked to speak to a responsible person in the clan, but he’d never imagined that the man himself would come all this way into the mountains of Ouu.

At that point, a different possibility occurred to Shiroe. However, even during the few moments he spent examining it, the terribly cheerful Li Gan had continued conversing with their guest.

“Your presence has made this splendid occasion even more miraculous. The Kunie… They are a mysterious clan. A clan that supports the countries of Yamato from the shadows, the organization that preserves wisdom of the ancient civilization that once wielded enormous magical power. And you, Master Kinjo, are their leader. I can’t tell you how that raises my expectations.”

“Your expectations?”

“Yes. Master Shiroe here is a veritable jack-in-the-box, you see.”

“Oho. Is he, then!”

I wish you wouldn’t give me impossible setups.

Shiroe glanced at Li Gan, saturating the look with that emotion, but the man’s familiar, gaunt face wore a smile brimming with curiosity.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed. Even if Shiroe was in trouble, this droll People of the Earth sage simply didn’t intend to save him.

“Um, ah…”

“Heh-heh-heh-heh.”

Glaring at Li Gan, who was chuckling, Shiroe began the negotiations.

“Kinjo, the request I’d like to make was outlined in my letter.”

“To arrange for funds, you mean? For a loan?”

It was trivial.

He was asking for money.

“That’s right. I’m glad we’ve managed to understand each other so quickly.”

“Yes. That’s saved some trouble, hasn’t it?”

“I’m much obliged.”

Shiroe would have preferred to hold these negotiations in Akiba. Now, with Krusty and the other major members of the Round Table Council off conquering Seventh Fall, the town of Akiba was quite vulnerable, and Shiroe himself had a premonition of trouble as well. Since Soujirou had stayed there, he thought things would work out somehow, no matter what happened, but even so, he hadn’t wanted to leave.

He’d come here because Kinjo hadn’t let him make that proposal. It wasn’t that Kinjo had turned him down. It was more accurate to say he’d been evasive, letting any requests get lost in light conversation, and had left the matter unsettled. Shiroe was only a university student, and when it came to the art of negotiation, he couldn’t win against a professional.

The fact that Kinjo had easily moved on to the main topic this time was unexpected, but it was also welcome.

“No, no, it isn’t anything to bother yourself about. Saving trouble. That’s very important. To the Kunie clan, it’s very important indeed.”

“I see…”

“You came here because you knew of the Kunie village, correct?”

“That’s right. I heard about it from Li Gan.”

“Oho. So Miral Lake had a record like that… I seem to have underestimated him slightly.”

“I thought it would be good form.”

Shiroe frowned a little as he responded.

It hadn’t been about good form at all.

It had been one of the cards he’d played after learning that the Kunie clan headquarters was in this region, information obtained from his research of old documents with Li Gan. The statement that they knew the location of their headquarters was, essentially, intimidation. This made Shiroe uncomfortable. He didn’t reject the method, and he didn’t intend to hesitate, but that didn’t mean he was doing it happily.

During the Round Table Council affair, he’d been irritated.

He’d wanted to yell Enough already! at the big guilds, who were just sitting by idly and eying the problem, and so he simply hadn’t worried about whether this way of doing things was a threat or intimidation.

However, the Kunie clan was only carrying out its duty, just as it had always done.

“As it is a request from you, Master Shiroe of the Round Table Council, we would dearly love to accommodate it, but I’m afraid we are unable to do so.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it would violate a contract that has been in effect since the time of our progenitor.”

At that answer, Shiroe sighed.

He’d known from the beginning that these negotiations would be difficult. It was why he’d asked Li Gan for assistance, and why he’d looked into a variety of things beforehand. There wasn’t a single recorded instance of the Kunie clan’s bank providing funds to an external party, either through investment or through financing. All they did was pay out money that had been deposited with them. That was it.

Shiroe remembered the chats he’d had with Kinjo in Akiba. Capital-to-asset ratios, credit limits, trust—to Shiroe and the others, these were common banking terms, but they hadn’t gotten through to Kinjo. Of course, when Shiroe had explained them to him, he’d understood what the words meant, but that was all.

The facility known as the bank in Akiba wasn’t similar to the institutions they’d had on Earth. That was the conclusion Shiroe and the others had reached. As a facility, it would have been more accurate to call it a depository with a transfer service; the goal of the organization wasn’t finance.

…In that case, something was odd.

Say he conceded that there was no bank in this world. It was still unnatural that there was no moneylending. Shiroe wasn’t an expert, so he didn’t know all that much about it, but although banks were one thing, the history of moneylending was a long one. He thought he remembered hearing that they’d had it in Rome, and as a country, Rome had existed since before 1 AD. This world was styled after the Middle Ages. If it didn’t have moneylending, its economic development was too rudimentary.

When he’d asked Li Gan about this, he’d only looked mystified, and Shiroe hadn’t been able to get a clear answer out of him. According to Elissa, a Person of the Earth, it seemed as though aristocrats sometimes made loans to lower-ranking nobles and citizens of their domains, but it was rare, and no similar lending or borrowing was seen among the common people.

As a result, merchants didn’t have much influence in this world. Most buying and selling took place between nobles, and merchants were no more than intermediaries and carriers. There were also some People of the Earth who seemed to be half noble and half merchant.

In addition, royals and the nobility weren’t the source of trust in the currency here.

In the first place, the rulers—in the form of the royals and aristocrats—didn’t mint the currency. It was “found” when monsters were defeated. The more monsters that were subjugated, the more currency came into circulation in the markets; in other words, the money supply increased. Apparently, the system on Earth in which nations backed trust in currency didn’t apply here.

In that case, where was the trust?

In universality.

There was one single currency in circulation in this world. It had denominations—gold coins, half coins, and quarter coins—but no name. Unlike Earth, where yen, dollars, and euros existed side by side, there was only one currency, and so there was no need to differentiate it with a name. The coins were simply called “money,” “gold,” or “gold coins.” What was more, Shiroe guessed that they were shared not just on the Yamato server but on all servers: In other words, throughout the entire world of Elder Tales.

In short, the faith that the coins they possessed wouldn’t turn to worthless rubbish one day stemmed not from nations’ might and influence but from the fact that no other currency existed. It might be a more secure value retention system than the one on Earth, where currency could lose its value because one issuing country had fallen. Even if Eastal, the League of Free Cities, or the Ancient Dynasty of Westlande fell, it wouldn’t damage the circulation value of coins acquired in Maihama.

Of course, there was the fact that the coins themselves had the value of precious metal, but didn’t processing them require the skills of a Blacksmith? To Shiroe, the trust in the currency seemed to stem mainly from their universality.

Then there was the issue of the Kunie clan’s banks as well. Even if they were essentially no more than depositories, their defensive capabilities were the real thing. Once deposited with them, money was protected by absolute security. Many banks were in independent zones, and they were usually fortified with guards. In addition, banks had technology that could identify unknown individuals, and money deposited at one branch could be instantly withdrawn from another branch. They even had a function that could settle accounts, including market and zone maintenance fees. They provided a very convenient, advanced system, but it was applied only to coins.

The fact that the system was so very convenient and autonomous seemed to be the reason the rulers didn’t mint their own separate currencies.

“When you defeat a monster, it’s possible to get coins, isn’t it, Kinjo?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Shiroe pressed toward the crux of the matter.

“You can also get several hundred gold coins from treasure chests in dungeons.”

“A feat due entirely to the valor of the Adventurers.”

“If it isn’t possible to get financing from the Kunie clan, what about getting coins from whoever distributes them in those places, before they actually distribute them?”

5

Li Gan was excited.

He was here because he’d been invited by Shiroe of Log Horizon, with whom he’d formed a friendship at the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice. The excitement that event had caused Li Gan was the same as if a storm had come and changed the previous weather completely.

The Sage thought highly of the young man beside him, whose gaze was so intense it obscured both the past and the future. In the library, Li Gan had spoken with feverish enthusiasm of the World Fraction, the fruit of his lifelong research. This man, who’d grasped its background and prospects in a single night, was an unparalleled great magician.

Li Gan studied Shiroe’s profile so intently it was as if he’d forgotten to breathe.

This young man, who called himself Shiroe of Log Horizon, was an Adventurer whose profession was magic. Adventurers were strong. Their abilities were overwhelmingly higher than those of the People of the Earth. Adventurers, this other strain of humanity, were geniuses in everything they did: not only as warriors, but as scouts, healers, and magicians.

However, as far as Li Gan was concerned, that didn’t mean that all high-ranking Adventurers were worthy of being called great magicians. Adventurers had formidable abilities, but for the most part, they were too specialized toward combat. For a magician who used knowledge to peer into the depths of this world, competence with combat magic was really only a digression.

Shiroe was one of the few magicians among the Adventurers who was different, and a great magician at that.

Li Gan believed that in this world, there were four paths to ultimate knowledge.

Each path was independent, and they never touched each other.

In feudal Yamato, technology and knowledge were things that had to be concealed. Acquired knowledge was transmitted quietly, as secret teachings, and in many cases it never left the group in which it was handed down.

One path could be found in the People of the Earth academics, to which Li Gan himself belonged.

In the sense of being able to openly devote oneself to study, that meant the magic academy of Tsukuba, and in terms of hiding in the shadows and preserving knowledge, it was Miral Lake. As the Sage of Miral Lake, Li Gan was the guardian of Miral Lake, “the Lake of Forgotten Books.” The latest in a line of scholars that went into battle against the principles of this world.

The second was probably the Adventurers. Li Gan and the other sages of Miral Lake had always thought that Adventurers had magic and knowledge that was completely different from that of the People of the Earth. Although enormously powerful, the magic they used was the same as that of the People of the Earth. However, for a long time, they had wondered whether their knowledge might not have a different source.

Did the Adventurers isolate a portion of their own souls in some other world? That had been a suggestion for research, and at this point, Li Gan was certain of it. On top of that, there was the possibility that that other world was connected to the Age of Myth. By now, it was nearly common knowledge for Li Gan and the magicians of Tsukuba that the various miracles and inventions that the Adventurers had presented since the Catastrophe were related to those supertechnologies. They called these “science” or “heritage.”

The third was the abilities used by the Ancients. Like the Adventurers, they were a tribe of heroes that was beyond the common sense of the People of the Earth. Although they were of the exact same races as the People of the Earth—humans, elves, dwarves, half alvs, felinoids, wolf-fangs, foxtails, and ritians—the Ancients and Adventurers surpassed their upper limits with ease.

The Ancients had also handed traditions down in secret since time immemorial, and it was said that these existed within secret societies known as knight brigades, which protected regions all over the world.

The fourth and final path was the Kunie clan.

Much about them was mysterious, and even Li Gan could only guess at the full picture. They were definitely People of the Earth, but they weren’t affiliated with Yamato’s academic organization in Tsukuba or with Miral Lake. It was said that they handed down techniques from the ancient alv civilization, and that the sphere of their influence stretched not only throughout Yamato but to the continent as well.

In the sense that they accumulated the knowledge of antiquity and handed it down to the present, they resembled Miral Lake, but they didn’t spread that knowledge. The greatest difference between them and the People of the Earth academics at Tsukuba and Miral Lake was their closed nature. Not only did they not have wide contact with the People of the Earth, they did not conduct research. They were a clan that lacked curiosity and disliked contact.

Miral Lake’s policy was to gather all sorts of information, and in the past, the sage had made dozens of attempts to contact the Kunie clan. However, there was no record of any sage ever having succeeded in exchanging research information.

Now, one member of the Kunie clan was seated at the same table with Li Gan and Shiroe of Log Horizon. Li Gan’s excitement was only natural.

Shiroe’s remark seemed to have badly shaken the leader of the Kunie clan.

Kinjo gulped, looking startled. Then, as if to conceal it, he put on an expressionless mask and fell silent. This lasted for quite some time.

“Do you think that’s possible, Master Shiroe?”

When Kinjo finally replied, Shiroe’s response was to glance at Li Gan and draw his chin in slightly.

Apparently it was his turn. Praying that his leaping heart would calm itself, Li Gan began to speak.

“The prospect of which Master Shiroe speaks is something no one has ever considered before. Now that I think of it, it’s true that it seems to be one of the mysteries of this world. It’s a viewpoint that complements the Spirit Theory. Monsters reincarnate repeatedly. However, souls aside, where does the money come from? There must be some sort of system that issues money to the monsters. And, if it is possible to obtain a new perspective like that, Miral Lake has a vast number of books. Yes, we went over all of them. Books of all kinds.”

Li Gan pushed up the amethyst circlet he wore and scratched at his forehead, as he always did. The circlet was a magic item that had the marvelous effect of endowing him with improved memory and insight, but it was still a metal circlet. It hadn’t been long since Li Gan had inherited it from his predecessor, and he wasn’t used to it yet.

However, without this magic circlet, he probably wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this investigation in such a short time. And, even if he had the circlet, without the books his predecessors had collected and left behind, he was sure he wouldn’t have been able to acquire even the slightest clue.

“In the books, we discovered the village of the Kunie that Master Shiroe mentioned. That, and the gold the Kunie possess.”

“……”

Kinjo’s face remained expressionless.

Li Gan simply inquired. He had done so for a long time now. Those who belonged to Miral Lake collected knowledge. What they gained as a result of their endless collection were new questions. The answer to those questions was new knowledge. They went into the struggle against the resulting questions prepared to die, and the cycle repeated.

“In the very deepest part of the Depths of Palm, the books said, there is a vast vortex of gold. A winding river exists, where money that has appeared from the void vanishes into the void again, and then flows on to a forgotten subterranean garden. Hades first raised his army of the dead out of the desire to obtain this gold. That is found in the traditions as well. The Sage of Miral Lake took part in its defense, fifteen generations ago, and he set a seal on the Depths of Palm.”

This sort of assistance wasn’t all that unusual for the Sages of Miral Lake.

In the process of collecting all sorts of knowledge, the Sages obtained a variety of magic articles. Some were cursed and some were not, but most were extraordinarily dangerous if used incorrectly. The people—mostly nobles—who brought them to the sage wanted them to be sealed safely at Miral Lake.

Being able to grant these requests raised Miral Lake’s reputation and helped to increase the amount of knowledge the sages could gain. Even without that, having items no one else had in their care meant they had more material for research. Miral Lake had a very practical reason for researching the art of sealing. In addition, this art could be used not only to keep objects in custody, but to seal off places and areas.

“On a past adventure, the Nine Great Gaols of Halos, I acquired the Key of Eternal Darkness. This item was created by the Sage of Miral Lake, wasn’t it?”

Li Gan nodded in response to Shiroe’s words, letting him take the floor.

“This key qualified us to challenge the Nine Great Gaols of Halos. That zone was sealed by the…I’m not sure how many generations back, but a previous Miral Lake sage. There are several dangerous, sealed zones. We confirmed this matter as well.”

At Shiroe’s words, a shiver ran down Li Gan’s spine.

In the first place, Li Gan was a lore master, and his combat-type magic was extremely weak. His training wasn’t so poor he’d lose to a band of knights in the service of some petty lord, but that was only against People of the Earth, and his skills couldn’t compare to those of the Adventurers.

Even so, guarded by Shiroe and his friend Naotsugu, Li Gan had gone into the depths of the dungeon.

This was because all that was written in the records of Miral Lake was “I was asked to set a seal, and did so,” and there had been no mention of a method for releasing the seal or details regarding items. When they went to the site, they’d found an enormous bronze door that was over ten meters tall; it actually had been sealed, but the method was in the secret arts of Miral Lake, and they’d learned that it wouldn’t be all that hard to unseal it.

He hadn’t understood what Shiroe had meant by the term “unimplemented zone,” but in their investigation of the materials, they’d learned that countless sealed doors like this one existed all over Yamato. Not all of them had been sealed by Miral Lake, but for one reason or another, entering these regions and facilities was currently forbidden.

“Then you mean to obtain money from this vortex of gold?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe the vortex has some connection to the Kunie.”

“That’s right.”

As Kinjo questioned Shiroe, he finally seemed to have regained his mental composure.

“…In that case, wouldn’t taking gold from it be stealing? Does the Round Table Council intend to plunder?”

He responded with a question, and his voice was cold.

However, with that, it was clear.

There really was that much gold in the vortex under the Depths of Palm. The place was also connected to the Kunie clan. They’d gleaned hints of this from the materials, but they hadn’t been certain. It could have been completely unrelated to the Kunie. Li Gan had discussed it with Shiroe and had shared this possibility, but Shiroe had insisted, and he’d listened and contacted the Kunie clan.

One of their questions had been answered.

The Kunie clan was connected to the secret of the Spirit Theory in some way.

They weren’t positive yet, but Kinjo’s reaction had begun to prove it. The secret of the Kunie reached into the depths of the creation of the world. That conviction delighted Li Gan so much that he wanted to dance a little jig. The Spirit Theory was the greatest thing in his research. At this point, he would have liked to pour a toast with the wine he wasn’t allowed to drink.

However, Shiroe’s voice was pained.

“That’s why we called you. We don’t want to antagonize the Kunie clan. The Kunie are important. Even when it comes to using the money we acquire, unless we entrust future affairs to your people, we won’t be able to make plans.”

“How, or rather, on what, do you intend to use it, Master Shiroe?”

“If I explain that, is there a possibility of securing your cooperation?”

“There is not. Our progenitor’s orders, you see.”

“…Kinjo.”

Before Li Gan’s eyes, Shiroe’s lips tightened as though he were enduring something. Even so, he seemed to be desperately trying to connect a thin thread.

“Kinjo. It isn’t that we don’t understand your progenitor’s order. We understand it only in the way of Adventurers, but we know it is a rule that stretches back to the Age of Myth. We have no intention of telling you to break it. We don’t want to compel you to do something forbidden. However, for that very reason, we want you to search the outer bounds of that rule.”

“……”

“That’s right. In the Catastrophe, the rules changed. We’re in a new era. It hasn’t stopped, either. I’m sure this is—”

Kinjo had closed his eyes. He looked like a steel statue.

Shiroe’s persuasion didn’t seem to have reached his heart.

Li Gan’s delight soon began to fade as well, like the sun going behind clouds. He didn’t know what was happening here in front of him. Since birth, he’d studied only magic theory and phenomenology, and something he didn’t really understand was breaking. Put into words, it would probably be the negotiations. However, for someone like Li Gan, it felt as though he could hear something breaking, something that was too valuable to be expressed with the word negotiations.

Three of the world’s four wisdoms were gathered here, and this was the best they could do?

In spite of himself, Li Gan clenched his hands into fists.

6

The atmosphere in the living room was dazed.

As Shiroe added dry firewood to the orange flames of the fireplace, Naotsugu watched his rounded back. The table had been cleared away, and two sleeping bags were laid out.

It was the interior of the mountain lodge, after the negotiations with Kinjo had fallen through.

That’s a pretty dejected-looking back, Naotsugu thought.

Such was Shiroe.

He’d put the poker in and was adjusting the position of the firewood. He was probably tending the fire with extra care because they’d be going to sleep after this, but he also looked as if he was at his wits’ end and was aimlessly stirring the fire around.

Naotsugu guessed he was probably thinking difficult things about the failed negotiations, over and over. He’d watched the discussion from the sidelines up until a short while ago, and even to him, Shiroe had seemed hard-pressed. Even more so than he’d been on the day the Round Table Council was established.

“Hey, Shiro.”

“Hmm?”

“That’s enough. Come stick your feet in your sleeping bag.”

“Okay.”

Restlessly, Shiroe moved to his sleeping bag, then sat down on top of it, cross-legged. That put him in the same position as Naotsugu.

On Earth, because the fiber materials were excellent, most sleeping bags had been thin and lightweight. However, in this world, high-performance insulating material hadn’t been developed the way it had on Earth, and so in general, sleeping bags were made of felted wool that had been sewn together. They weren’t as good at keeping out the cold as their counterparts on Earth, but since they were thick, they were pretty comfortable to sleep on. Combined with a rug with long piles, they made perfect places to sit.

“Want some, Shiro?”

He showed him a mug of hot wine. Shiroe sniffed, as though he was smelling the air, then turned him down: “No, I’m good.”

He should just have some, Naotsugu thought, but he didn’t press him.

To Naotsugu, it seemed as though on nights like this, you needed to drink some booze and sleep spread-eagled, but Shiroe wasn’t the type. He knew that, even if he left him alone, Shiroe would find his rhythm again. There was no need to force him to go along with anything.

“So, that was a total bust.”

“Yeah.”

As he answered, Shiroe’s expression was troubled.

In terms of results, Naotsugu thought it probably hadn’t been a loss. He didn’t know the details, but Shiroe needed a vast amount of cash. It wasn’t the sort of sum they could collect from the Adventurers. If he wanted to pull together an amount like that, the places he could get it from and the methods he could use would naturally be limited.

After hearing what he’d discussed with Kinjo of the Kunie clan, Naotsugu had begun to see the general picture.

Shiroe was trying to use the settings from the days when Elder Tales had been a game.

When Adventurers defeated monsters, they got the coins the monsters had possessed. If the monster was humanoid and intelligent, the type that would have tools and treasures, this was only to be expected, but Adventurers won coins even when this wasn’t the case. Even if it was a Wild Dog, a Large Boar, or some other animal, for example.

There was technically no reason for this. Elder Tales was a game, and the monsters dropped coins because the game was designed so that players could defeat monsters and use the assets they obtained to grow stronger. In other words, it happened for the convenience of the game.

However, if convenience was the only priority, the game would lose any semblance of reality, and it wouldn’t be as interesting. To that end, a variety of background information had been added. The explanation this time—“Actually, a powerful magical device from antiquity gives coins to the monsters’ souls as they’re reborn”—was one of them.

It was a ridiculous idea. However, since monsters did in fact drop coins, there had to be some sort of cause, and it had appeared before their very eyes as fact. Shiroe probably knew this, and had attempted to use it.

And, Naotsugu thought, it had worked.

In that case, let us meet there. At “the winding river where money that has appeared from the void vanishes into the void again, in the forgotten subterranean garden.”

However, in order to reach it, no doubt you’ll need many brave warriors. The Kunie clan’s answer will depend on how you and the others manage to reach the deepest spring, Master Shiroe, and the results of your challenge.

Those had been the last words Kinjo, leader of the Kunie, had said to them.

They’d been fighting words, spoken in response to a challenge.

Shiroe had ascertained that there was a vast amount of coins in an uncharted zone deep underground. He’d gathered evidence, gone to the site itself to reconnoiter, and even confirmed that they could release the seal and enter the area.

Then he’d confronted the Kunie, its probable owners, with that fact.

At that point in time, Shiroe’s plan had already succeeded. Put in plainer terms, Naotsugu thought, Shiroe hadn’t even needed to talk to the Kunie clan in the first place.

There was a subterranean zone, the treasure they were after was there, and they even had a way to get in, so all they had to do was go there and get the money. Then they’d have won an enormous fortune.

Well, that means Shiro’s probably bummed about something else.

When he thought about what that might be, the answer was automatically clear.

This problematic friend of his had wanted to talk with the Kunie clan, even if it hadn’t been necessary.

There’s no strategy. We’ll wing it, get down on our knees and beg. We’ll just persuade them.

That was what Shiroe had said before the meeting.

At the time, Naotsugu had suspected his friend was only saying he had no strategy, out of his own unique brand of humility, but he really hadn’t had a plan. What a clumsy guy. In spite of himself, Naotsugu laughed a little.

In order to achieve an objective, Shiroe would work out absolutely any kind of plan and make thorough preparations. Even this time, he must have taken a lot of time to set things up. Naotsugu had gone along when they reconnoitered the very lowest area of the Depths of Palm, and from what Li Gan had said, they’d been preparing for that for quite some time. Some of what he’d been researching in his office until late at night, every night, had been in preparation for today’s discussion.

Shiroe had prepared that thoroughly in order to acquire the money he was after, and it had borne fruit in the shape of the Kunie clan’s promise. They simply had to enter the new underground zone, then get the money.

However, he’d had a hope that lay beyond that.

When Shiroe wanted to become friends with someone, he didn’t work out a strategy. He stopped saying anything that wasn’t so straightforward that one couldn’t help but wonder if he was an idiot. Shiroe hadn’t wanted to force his way in and steal the gold, he hadn’t wanted to catch the Kunie clan off guard, and he hadn’t wanted to lie. In other words, that meant he’d wanted to make friends, and he was at a loss because that had failed.

Because Naotsugu knew this, “That was a total bust” was all he could say to his friend.

“And anyway, what was that speech a minute ago? That wasn’t like you, Shiro.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“Those were some serious weasel words. There was nothing citified about it. You couldn’t even tack city onto it.”

“It was, huh…”

Naotsugu was irritated and was reproaching Shiroe. However, the response was a very absentminded affirmation.

“That’s seriously cold. I thought we were friends,” Shiroe said. Naotsugu heaved a big sigh.

In the first place, it was only natural that the day’s negotiations had failed.

The Kunie clan had always been terribly tight-lipped, refusing to talk about themselves at all, and Shiroe hadn’t said a word about his all-important objective for acquiring the assets, or about his hopes that the other party would give their consent as well. Both sides had been much too secretive.

With a relationship like that, of course persuasion wouldn’t go well. Even Naotsugu, who was in his first year as a working adult and had been assigned to a job in sales, could understand that easily.

If it had simply been selling a kilo of pepper wholesale for ¥2,450 according to the same deal they’d had for ages, it would have been easy. All they would have had to do was take the order, deliver the product, and send the bill, just as they’d always done for this particular customer. However, if they were proposing a new product or establishing a lasting, long-term contract, things were different. They had to know the other party’s circumstances very well. They also had to communicate their own circumstances to them. They couldn’t be selfish; they had to fit the hopes of both parties together, as accurately as possible. That was the premise, and the rest was sincerity. When trying to convince the other party, it was only natural to attempt to meet them halfway.

That was why these negotiations, in which both parties had hidden too many of their cards, had been bound to fail.

Not only that, but their hand had been hidden from Naotsugu as well.

Naotsugu didn’t know what Shiroe wanted to do with this money once he got it.

He didn’t know why he was in such a hurry, either.

He thought that was really cold.

“What are you thinking now, Shiro?”

“……”

“It’s not over yet, so c’mon, tell me what’s eating you. Spit it out.”

What’s eating me, what’s eating me. Shiroe thought it as if it were some sort of spell. Then he flopped down onto his back and went on, groaning.

“Naotsugu, listen…”

“Yeah?”

“Kinjo said, ‘In order to reach it, no doubt you’ll need many brave warriors,’ didn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

Naotsugu gave a noncommittal answer, wondering what in the world Shiroe was talking about. They already knew where they were going to get the money, so the problem had to be improving their relationship with the Kunie clan. Hadn’t that been what this was about? As Naotsugu racked his brains, Shiroe continued:

“No matter how you look at it, he was announcing a raid, wasn’t he? I mean, it really can’t be anything else. I’m in pretty deep trouble.”

“Why?”

“We don’t have the people.”

“Huh?”

He had no idea what Shiroe was getting at, since Naotsugu himself had anticipated a raid. In the first place, in Elder Tales, when a dungeon meant to be captured by an ordinary party had a mysterious door in its depths, there was a good possibility that it was a raid zone. However, even if that was the case, they should stand a good chance of beating it. Adventurers were immortal, and the Round Table Council (Shiroe) had sufficient manpower. It might take time, but that was all.

“Almost all the guilds on the Round Table Council are being monitored. The current situation is so fluid that a little push is all it would take, and it isn’t possible to get rid of those monitors. I want to keep Minami from noticing us for just a little longer.”

Shiroe’s answer left Naotsugu dumbfounded.

He didn’t want to use the Round Table Council’s manpower. He didn’t want Minami to notice what he was doing. He wouldn’t reveal his ultimate goal. Just how many restrictions did he plan to play under? Naotsugu’s mouth hung open, and he couldn’t close it. On top of that, there was probably a time limit, too. Well, if he didn’t want Minami to know, he couldn’t afford to take too long. That must have been why he’d stolen quietly out of Akiba, Naotsugu realized. After all, everyone except for the Log Horizon members probably thought Shiroe was at the guild hall, doing his job. The idea of getting things done before they were discovered was already a time limit in and of itself.

“Are you a total masochist, Shiro?”

Shiroe, still lying down, denied Naotsugu’s mutter. “Not at all,” he said. “Every day, I think about how I’d love to take it as easy as possible.”

Naotsugu was thoroughly appalled, but those words probably hadn’t been a lie. He knew that.

Shiroe really did think that way. He’d been like that when he was in the Debauchery Tea Party, too. In order to reach their goals, he’d always tried to point out the shortest method with the best chances. When that method looked troublesome and roundabout, it was because the problem itself was serpentine and difficult.

The path that looked winding and troublesome and roundabout was the shortest course. The strategies Shiroe came up with always felt like that.

Once Naotsugu’s friend settled on an objective, he never compromised it.

…Even when he loaded himself down with this much trouble as a result.

About half that trouble isn’t even necessary. I bet Shiro’s worrying too much, and if he’d just let it all hang out, there’d be lots of people who’d help him.

“Well, I guess there’s no help for it, then.”

Naotsugu gave a response that was completely different from what he was thinking.

In the end, Shiroe was a guy who understood a lot of things. He also wasn’t the type to lose sight of what was important. Besides, even if he did end up doing that, Naotsugu would just whack him upside the head.

Shiroe seemed to be in some kind of hurry, but even so, in the midst of that impatience, in order to convince himself, he needed time to roll around. Naotsugu thought all guys were like that, not just Shiroe. He had enough memories of working too hard on his own and causing trouble for the people around him that just remembering made him go beet red. Still, Shiroe thought that sort of thing was necessary.

It was necessary for everybody, and it was even more necessary for Shiroe.

The people around him seemed to have decided to think of him as a schemer and a resourceful guy, but Naotsugu thought Shiroe was actually a pretty clumsy type. Clumsy Shiroe needed a lot of time for hard battles.

During those times, he just had to be there with him.

He didn’t have to worry: Shiroe would probably put out unstinting effort he could feel satisfied with. That was the type of guy Naotsugu’s friend was. No matter what he was doing, he was incapable of cutting corners.

“There’s no help for it. Let’s pull together enough members for a raid. No worries. It’ll work out.”

“Will it…?” Shiroe responded.

“Sure it will,” Naotsugu told him cheerfully, kicking him hard. There’s no development we can’t recover from, Naotsugu thought, but he just grinned at him, without putting it into words.

Besides, he was sure Shiroe would find that dawn.

On Tea Party adventures, that had been the condition for victory. Naotsugu decided to look forward to seeing that view.

In the course of his long friendship with Shiroe, this wasn’t an unusual night.