Game’s End Part 2

by Mamare Touno

  “No, there’s no need for that. You stay here, at court.”

  “Why? If the domain is in crisis, the whole family should return—”

  “No, Father is also staying at the court.”

  “Father” was the current head of the House of Cowen, Duke Sergiad. Raynesia’s father had married Sergiad’s daughter Saraliya, Raynesia’s mother.

  “This demihuman invasion is uncanny. From its size, it does not seem to be a cataclysm that has fallen on our city of Maihama alone. An attack made solely on Maihama isn’t the worst that could happen. …Should worse come to worst, the goblins may lay waste to our entire land, all the territory of the Free Cities. As such, the Lord’s Council must be in perfect unity. And as the leading lord, Father must not leave the Ancient Court, and you must support him. …You do understand, don’t you?”

  In all likelihood, he’d only come to tell her this.

  Without waiting to hear his daughter’s response, Phenel left the room at a brisk clip. Elissa could only bow her head deeply and watch him go.

  Phenel was her employer. She saw him far less than Raynesia, whom she served directly, or Raynesia’s mother Saraliya, but she had the impression that he was a sincere person.

  The lord of the city of Maihama, on the other hand, was Duke Sergiad. He had ascended to the position of lord at a young age, he had a great reputation for being clear-sighted, and the people were deeply attached to him. His daughter Saraliya and granddaughter Raynesia were also extraordinarily beloved.

  In contrast to them, it must be pointed out that Phenel, merely a son-in-law and an outsider, made—however rude it was to say it—a rather shallow impression.

  Elissa’s parents had told her that when it had been decided that a young man who was not the general of a chivalric order nor the relative of the lord of another country but an ex–civil servant—and one who’d been involved in practical business, at that—would be added to the royal family, the people of Maihama might not have been disappointed, exactly, but they’d felt mildly let down.

  However, as Phenel showed not a scrap of hesitation in his haste to reach his territory, the sight of his back betrayed nothing of the softness and naïveté of an ex–civil servant. A man as weak as that could never have passed muster with Sergiad in the first place. Elissa felt deeply convinced.

  “Father…”

  “Princess?”

  At the murmur, Elissa returned her attention to Raynesia.

  She was brooding again.

  Except…her expression was completely different from the one Elissa had noted as “the thinking Raynesia” just a moment before.

  Her eyes seemed to gaze at something invisible, and they held a quiet, intense flame. She stood gracefully, but the noble determination that surged from her made it impossible for anyone to say she was “filled with melancholy” or any such nonsense.

  “Prin…cess…?”

  Raynesia kept biting her lip, as if she hadn’t even heard Elissa’s voice.

  5

  The abandoned school was located on a gentle slope near the sea on the Zantleaf Peninsula. Its grounds were teeming with Adventurers.

  They were exchanging murmured private conversations, but their expressions were filled with tension. They weren’t a disciplined army, so there was no senior officer to badger them about rank and rules, but each huddled close to the people they knew or gathered in groups with people close to their level, and they all seemed to be waiting.

  Although no one had specifically said to, all the Adventurers had finished inspecting their belongings and checking their equipment. Several large barrels had been placed near the big tent in the center, and staff members were distributing chilled Black Rose Tea to companions who brought over waterskins or canteens.

  They were probably acting spontaneously. The Adventurers who’d been given tea returned to their companions and resumed talking in low voices.

  A sun that seemed larger than it had at noon was sinking, dyeing the western sky crimson. It was already evening.

  For a while now, several Adventurers had been constantly going into and out of the single large tent that remained standing in the center.

  According to the plan someone had announced in a loud voice a short while earlier, the school would be used as their headquarters at least until the safety of all the training camp participants had been confirmed. However, conversely, the announcement had hinted that, once everyone’s safety had been confirmed, there was the possibility of a mass exodus.

  Marielle looked away from the scene outside the tent and sighed.

  Inside the big tent, Nyanta, Naotsugu, Marielle, Shouryuu, Lezarik, and the other level-90 leaders were holding a meeting.

  On paper, Marielle was the person responsible for the summer camp. Although the Crescent Moon League was a smaller guild, it was one of the eleven guilds that sponsored the Round Table Council. As guild master of the Crescent Moon League, there were only ten other players who were on equal footing with her. Those ten colleagues were currently scattered between the town of Akiba and the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice. Marielle was the one to whom the Round Table Council had entrusted the newbies’ training.

  They’d reported the sahuagin and goblin attacks to the Round Table Council, of course, and they were certain to be discussing remedial measures on that end as well.

  “Miss Mari? I wouldn’t stress about it too much. Leave that stuff to Shiro; he’ll figure something. Henrietta’s there, too, right? See, nothing to worry about. They’ll cheat or do whatever it takes and come up with a good plan.”

  “Thanks, hon.”

  Marielle gave a great big, perfectly ordinary smile.

  Even she thought that now wasn’t really the time for smiling, but the brush with sincere human kindness had made her happy. This boy—or, no, that was weird; Naotsugu was only a couple of years younger than she was, so “this young man” was better—was capable of careful consideration for others to an extent you’d never imagine from the rough-and-ready way he generally spoke and acted. Ever since she’d noticed it, Naotsugu’s solicitude had made Marielle incredibly happy.

  “Right! That was glomp-worthy! Here comes a glomp!”

  Partly to hide her embarrassment, she squeezed the flustered Naotsugu hard. The way he went bright red and panicked was cute, and she thought it was funny.

  “Wai–! Wait. Miss Mari. Quit. Quit!! Cease-and-desist city, evacuate city, they’re-touching-me city, bikini city?!”

  He seemed too upset, really, but even as Marielle tilted her head in bewilderment, she kept hugging Naotsugu’s head until Nyanta checked her, mildly:

  “Mariellecchi? Listen. It might be best if mew changed into something else. It’s already evening. …Ahem. That is to say, mew see, a single parka over a bikini is a bit too stimulating for Naotsugucchi.”

  When he pointed this out to her, Marielle registered what he meant and hastily jumped back.

  He was absolutely right. She’d been so tense up until now that she hadn’t even noticed it. Why, she was practically half naked.

  Nuh-nuh-not good! How could I be ditzy enough to go ’round dressed like this… Uu! I bet they think I’m a real dumb broad. Lucky Henrietta isn’t here; she would’ve smacked me good for this…

  The chest she’d pressed against Naotsugu was flushed and hot, and apparently it was from shame, because she felt the same heat in her cheeks. Marielle ran to the back of the tent and took a change of equipment out of her magic bag. Since she was on the other side of a standing screen and the others couldn’t see her, she picked out a tunic shirt and light armor and began to simply pull them on over her swimsuit.

  “Excuse me! Roll call completed for the over-level-thirty group! They’re all here!”

  Marielle was in the middle of changing and couldn’t see, but she heard Nyanta take the team leader’s report. That was probably the last of the roll calls. At the thought that they really hadn’t lost any participants, Marielle felt as if a great weight had been li
fted from her shoulders.

  The battle they’d fought as they retreated from the coast had been a fierce one.

  It wasn’t that the enemy’s level had been all that high. There had just been so many of them. The tactics required for long-term battles—in specific terms, those for MP distribution—were different from those for short-term ones.

  As a Cleric, it went without saying that Marielle was a Recovery class. When a Recovery class ran out of MP, it meant the supply of recovery spells for the front line was cut off. Healers held the lives of everyone in the party in their hands, and it was necessary to pay very close attention to MP management. However, in Elder Tales, the only battles were those fought by normal parties during dungeon explorations and the like, and they lasted anywhere from thirty seconds to a few minutes. It was extremely hard to learn management techniques for use in battles that lasted more than ten minutes.

  Fierce battles that went on that long belonged to a territory that only some of the major guilds experienced—raids.

  However, the summer camp contingent had managed to get through that running battle somehow.

  Some players had been injured, of course, but fortunately, none of the injuries had been so serious as to not be recovered by spells after the fact. Shouryuu had commented that making it through the first wave had given the newbies a sense of the attitude and courage needed for battle, and in that sense, it probably hadn’t been a waste.

  When Marielle had finished changing and was giving her hair a few swipes with a brush, she began to hear a hum of voices outside the tent.

  “Miss Mari!”

  Drawn by Naotsugu’s call, Marielle went outside, where the sky was turning violet. What she saw, flickering in the forests on the distant mountain range, was the light of countless tiny flames, no bigger than grains of rice.

  “…They’re torches,” Nyanta murmured.

  It was a fantastical sight, and at the same time, there was something incredibly disturbing and ominous about it.

  The forested hills of Zantleaf were sunk in shadow, backlit by the burning evening sun. Among them, innumerable tiny flames were flickering and moving, like lights carried by ants.

  “Just at a glance, I’d say, what, a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty?” Naotsugu muttered.

  Of course, it didn’t follow that there was just one goblin for every torch, but at the very least, there were that many goblins traveling through the mountains. Marielle understood that they’d abandoned even the idea of hiding themselves and moving in secret now.

  Those myriad wavering flames were a wordless threat from the goblins: We’re about to attack you.

  “Bring a map!”

  “Right, hang on. I’ll summon a Magic Torch.”

  High-level Adventurers who’d come from Keel and the West Wind Brigade seemed to be calculating the goblin unit’s position on a map. Serara looked nervous; she was hanging on to the tail of Nyanta’s jacket. Nyanta was staring intently at the map and the written notes, but before long he raised his head and looked toward the southeast, straining his eyes.

  While the sun was still up, Nyanta had ventured out on a griffin to do some aerial reconnaissance. At present, he was probably the one with the most complete knowledge of the goblins’ movements.

  Even faced with this eerie sight, the people in the square weren’t all that agitated. Now that all the participants had been accounted for, in extreme terms, they could abandon the camp immediately and hold the closing ceremony in Akiba fifteen minutes later. Since Call of Home existed, it was probably only natural that no one felt as if they’d been chased into the jaws of death.

  In this world, Adventurers were overwhelmingly the strong.

  Well, either way, it depends on what we decide to do after talkin’ it over with the Round Table Council. Still, now that we know we’re all here, I should prob’ly report in…

  Just as Marielle was thinking this, Nyanta came over with Serara and Minori. He was wearing a rather complicated expression. Naotsugu and Lezarik were near Marielle. Nyanta had probably come with some opinion or report to deliver to Marielle and the others, the senior management of the summer camp.

  “What’s the matter? Did somethin’ happen?” Marielle asked.

  “It seems we have a bit of a problem. No, I suppose there’s really no need for us to trouble ourselves, but… Hm.”

  Unusually for him, Nyanta seemed to be having trouble choosing his words; he hesitated.

  “What’s up? Spit it out, Retiree.” Naotsugu sensed that Marielle was bewildered, so he spoke to his guild mate, his tone direct.

  “—Apparently, that mewnit plans to attack the village of Choushi. A midsized plunder mewnit, I mean; not the full army I found. The main force of the goblin army is far, far to the north… In other words, they intend to make Choushi their provisions storehouse.”

  “The village of Choushi doesn’t have a town wall.”

  It was Minori who’d cut in.

  Her clenched palms were trembling slightly, but even so, the middle schooler tensed her legs and stood firmly, speaking to Marielle.

  “If we leave things as they are, Choushi won’t last until morning.”

  6

  “There are that many of ’em…?” Michitaka echoed, like a parrot.

  There were five people in the small conference room:

  “Berserker” Krusty, the leader of D.D.D.

  Soujirou, the harem-prone guild master of the West Wind Brigade.

  “Iron Arm” Michitaka, general manager of the Marine Organization.

  Henrietta, proxy for the head of the Crescent Moon League guild.

  …And “Machiavelli-with-Glasses” Shiroe, of Log Horizon.

  The Round Table Council had swiftly convened a meeting to discuss the sudden crisis that assailed the Zantleaf Peninsula. Marielle, who was in Zantleaf to train newbies, and Krusty, Michitaka, and Shiroe, who were stationed at the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice for the negotiations with the People of the Earth, all participated by proxy, via telechat.

  The conclusion reached by the telechat meeting was, in a word, Wait.

  At this point in time, they were unable to come to a conclusion. All they could do was stay in close contact, gather intel, and watch how the situation unfolded. That was the general outline of their conclusion.

  However, that didn’t make it all right for them not to prepare for an emergency.

  One of the three measures Shiroe had proposed to the Round Table Council had been to reinforce the guard at the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice. Many nobles were gathered there, and they couldn’t leave it defenseless. The aristocrats had brought bodyguards, of course, but from the Adventurers’ perspective, that wasn’t enough military power.

  It was thus that after the Round Table Council, in response to Shiroe’s request, the West Wind Brigade promptly rushed to the Ancient Court.

  The Ancient Court of Eternal Ice was located roughly southwest of the ruined city of Eastal. It was hard to imagine that the goblins would attack it. This was a safe place, and there was no need for reinforcements. However, the movements of the Lords’ Council were unpredictable, and in several of the developments Shiroe predicted, there was a possibility that either Shiroe or Krusty would be unable to continue their participation in the Council. To that end, the Ancient Court delegation requested reinforcements from the town of Akiba.

  That said, under the circumstances, during this stare-down with the Lords’ Council, calling in reinforcements on too large a scale might invite the lords’ animosity. Because of that, Shiroe singled out the West Wind Brigade, a comparatively small guild that belonged to the Round Table Council and was composed of high-level players.

  The West Wind Brigade was currently setting up camp at a point about ten minutes on horseback from the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice. Soujirou, the guild master, had gone ahead to the court, with only a few advisers.

  In the League of Free Cities, the towns of Akiba and Shibuya were the two closest town zones to t
he Ancient Court of Eternal Ice. If they felt like it, they could reach it in under two hours, even traveling on horseback. That was how they’d managed to arrive that evening in response to a telechat conference held in the morning.

  According to reports, the great horde of goblins had been sighted in a location that skimmed the edge of the Zantleaf Peninsula’s root.

  In the old world, the location Shiroe had roughly indicated on the map was in the vicinity of Abiko and Toride. There these towns had acted as bedroom communities for Tokyo, but in this world they were lush, green, undeveloped fields and mountains.

  “They seem to be splitting into tribes and working with each other as they move, centered on this area. However, their coordination isn’t perfect. They can sense the existence of the king, but the system of command is probably completely different between tribes. They’re irregular, spread out over a large area. That’s actually a problem,” Shiroe commented.

  When they looked on a map, yes, the location was already nearly touching the sphere of influence of the ruined city of Eastal. If the town of Tsukuba and the city of Maihama were connected by a rough straight line, Eastal was right in the center, where it would keep them from working together.

  “In the first place, because their movements are so scattered, we can’t get an accurate grasp of their numbers. We’ve had several reports, but… If we believe the latest aerial reconnaissance report, the goblin army is fifteen thousand strong.”

  “Fifteen thousand…”

  It was Henrietta who’d spoken. She sounded as if she was at a loss for words. She wasn’t a guild master affiliated with the Round Table Council; she was serving as Marielle’s proxy while Marielle was in Zantleaf at the summer camp. As a result, she’d refrained from speaking much during this discussion and exchange of information, but the cry seemed to have slipped out involuntarily.