Game’s End Part 2

by Mamare Touno

  “Are you coming?”

  Even though her mind was too confused to think, those words came to her like letters of light written in the clear night sky, and Raynesia nodded plainly. She thought she saw her grandfather break into a broad smile, but it was probably her imagination.

  She was only able to think these things for a moment.

  Terrifying winged monsters—griffins—glided right over the balcony, riding a strong updraft, and before she even had time to scream, she was picked up bodily, like cargo.

  “Pardon me.”

  The cool voice belonged to Krusty, the sable warrior.

  Cradling her in his powerful arms, Krusty leapt up onto the back of the griffin, using only the muscles in his legs.

  “Feel free to cling to me.”

  She might have fainted if it hadn’t been for that calm voice speaking to her as the griffin leapt up into the starry night, the two riders on its back.

  Beside them was another griffin, which carried the young man who looked like a magician, and a black-haired girl.

  She’d left her grandfather and the nobles behind.

  Raynesia clung desperately to Krusty’s chest, to keep the wind that roared in her ears from snatching her dress.

  And so it was that Raynesia’s “whim” began tumbling down an infinite slope.

  6

  “Why are you laughing, my liege?”

  Akatsuki twisted around in Shiroe’s arms and looked up at him.

  For a little while now, Shiroe had been chuckling to himself, making small noises deep in his throat.

  The griffins were slicing through the wind between the stars, heading due northeast. If they went on this way, they’d be able to see Akiba in just a few minutes. A journey that would have taken several hours on the ground grew very short—only around twenty minutes—on the back of a magical beast that was beating its powerful wings.

  “Nothing. I just thought that was brilliant.”

  “Hm?”

  Shiroe laughed as if he found it really funny.

  “I’ve never seen Krusty make a face like that before. He managed to hide it, but still. …He was really on the ropes back there. Ahh, that felt good.”

  “Were you still holding a grudge about that, my liege? …About the ball?”

  “No, not at all. …Well, maybe,” Shiroe answered Akatsuki, who fit snugly into his arms.

  “That princess is really something, too. Doing what she did at a time like that… ‘Courtesy,’ hm? I hadn’t thought of that. Still, the League of Free Cities had reached an impasse over this, and she saved them. No matter what anyone says, she took action to save them, and she succeeded.”

  The League of Free Cities needed the Round Table Council’s fighting power. Shiroe didn’t know what sort of particulars lay behind it yet, but if the Knights of Izumo weren’t able to move, the Adventurers would need to be sent out. If they failed to do so, they’d plunge into a messy war of attrition.

  The circumstances were such that it was conceivable that several of the chairs belonging to the League of Free Cities’ twenty-four lords might end up empty.

  Since that was the case, the League of Free Cities had needed to pull the Round Table Council’s Adventurers out onto the battlefield, no matter what conditions they were required to swallow.

  However, they’d gotten one thing very wrong.

  The Round Table Council was in charge of Akiba’s self-government, and it bore a certain amount of responsibility for its management. However, it did not control Akiba.

  Adventurers were completely free. The idea that the movements of separate guilds and individuals should not be restricted was so established that there had been no need to codify it in Akiba’s founding principles. To Shiroe and the others, who’d played Elder Tales as a game, this was self-evident to the point that there hadn’t been any need to confirm it.

  The town of Akiba governed itself through an unstable council system, and restricting the freedom of the Adventurers who lived there was bound to generate a huge amount of stress among them.

  Naturally, Krusty and the other special envoys from the Round Table Council could commit to cooperating in the defensive war against the Goblins. However, it wouldn’t be unconditional. The condition would lie in whether they could get sufficient support when they announced their decision to the Adventurers of Akiba.

  If they did it any other way, the people of Akiba would abandon Shiroe and the other special envoys in the blink of an eye.

  At present, in terms of defense, Akiba’s fighting capabilities were more than sufficient. In economic terms, although they had difficulty supplying their own food, since they’d begun to develop items using their knowledge from the old world, it was almost certain that advances would be made in the future.

  In other words, the situation was such that finding a way to reward the town of Akiba was fairly difficult. Even if they tried to lure them in with bait of some sort, Akiba was quite wealthy.

  If paying with money wouldn’t work, and providing technology was difficult, the League of Free Cities would naturally reach a deadlock. Of course, there were several things even Akiba wanted, with food supplies at the top of the list. After all, Shiroe and the others knew the old world, and their craving for further comfort in everyday life was strong. It was much too late for them to return to the soggy rice crackers of yore.

  However, the lords didn’t know them very well, and they hadn’t been able to pick up on that.

  If the conference had gone peaceably, Shiroe had privately intended to bring the negotiations to a close by casually presenting these requests on behalf of the Round Table Council.

  However, Marquis Kilivar and a few of the other nobles had gone off half-cocked and stalled the conference, and the circumstances had no longer been the sort in which he could play any cards.

  She probably isn’t aware of it, but she saved the lords, and she’s also saved the Round Table Council.

  As a matter of fact, Shiroe himself was in favor of dispatching troops.

  Life in this world seemed to be an inevitable fate, and since it was something they couldn’t avoid, they should fight under conditions in which they had the advantage.

  The lords had viewed the Adventurers as invincible soldiers and had wanted to send them into battle, but their understanding had been flawed. In fact, the Adventurers were also saddled with risk: the loss of their memories. From Krusty’s statement, they’d learned that they weren’t likely to lose all their memories by dying once or twice, but even if that was the case, the pressure was still terrible.

  This information hadn’t yet gone beyond the Round Table Council, but someday, they would probably have to announce it to all the citizens of Akiba.

  When that time came, what would it take for the Round Table Council to maintain the current public order? Shiroe had spent many sleepless nights worrying about that. At this point, he thought the answer might be “understanding.” It might also be called “resolution appropriate to the risk.”

  When life lost its absolute end—when death was made meaningless—chaos would come of its own accord. No longer a one-way corridor that led from beginning to end, a life that had lost its other shore—its original destination—would be compelled to wander.

  Shiroe and the other Round Table Council special envoys couldn’t simply let themselves be used by the League of Free Cities, even if they did decide to cooperate with them. Doing so would damage the “understanding” the Adventurers of Akiba had of the world.

  And directly opposite that, was her…

  In the face of all that, Princess Raynesia had said, I will persuade them.

  She would plead with the Adventurers, who were free by nature, on an individual basis.

  She’d declared it outright.

  “World Fraction”…

  The menace of that phrase pressed at Shiroe’s heart.

  Where were he and the other players?

  To Shiroe, the demihumans were monsters, his en
emies in the game. However, Li Gan had said they were the nightmares of warped souls, born from the curse of the first World Fraction.

  Shiroe had been an ordinary university student living on Earth. Elder Tales had been just an online game. However, Li Gan said that Shiroe and the other Adventurers were beings that had been summoned to this world by the second World Fraction.

  Shiroe’s immortality was only natural: This had been a game. However, Li Gan considered the restoration and repair of yin and yang energy through the Spirit Theory to be part of a great system that was tied to the secrets of the world’s beginning.

  Where did he stand?

  The question made Shiroe terribly uneasy.

  Which was the dream? Was it the body that was racing through the sky on the back of a griffin, or was it the self that had sat at a computer desk, clicking away? The boundary was growing vague.

  If his memories were taken while he harbored this unease, he was sure he’d be plunged into the darkness of delusion. No doubt most Adventurers would be. And who would save them if that happened? No such convenient outsider existed.

  All there was, Shiroe thought, was “understanding.”

  Even he didn’t know how to go about obtaining that understanding. Not only that, but this world wasn’t likely to give him time for that doubt, or to find an answer. Each day came at ferocious speed and was swept away into the past.

  The Adventurers might—no, probably would—travel that precarious, painful road, and they were the ones the ladylike Princess Raynesia had meant when she said, “It’s only natural that we afford them every courtesy.”

  I suppose I should have expected no less from Krusty…

  In his arms, Akatsuki pressed her cheek against Shiroe as if she were cold. Shiroe’s expression softened as he sheltered her under his arms.

  Marquis Kilivar’s emotional outburst had cut off the Round Table Council’s path of retreat as well. Because he’d spoken as though he saw the Adventurers as mere tools, Shiroe and the others had lost their chance to contribute to the war, even if they’d wanted to.

  If they’d let that attitude coerce them into promising to cooperate, it would have hurt the pride of Akiba’s Adventurers, and the Round Table Council would have lost their trust as an organization of self-government.

  “My liege, there lies Akiba.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Does battle come next?”

  “Most likely.”

  In this other world, night meant “darkness.”

  A pitch-black world spread out below them. Due to the stars scattered across it, the sky was actually brighter. He had no watch, but he thought it was probably about midnight. Even so, the town of Akiba wasn’t asleep.

  Thanks to the telechat he’d sent through right after the griffins took flight, the Round Table Council should be ready and waiting. Roderick of the Roderick Trading Company would probably also respond to the measures he’d taken.

  In the midst of the dark world, the lights of the town of Akiba shone like a watchfire.

  As they drew nearer, the single blaze seemed to break apart into countless bonfires, and before long, they could even make out the circle of fire that enclosed the plaza, like a tiny ring. It was an impromptu landing site that D.D.D., Akiba’s largest combat guild, had quickly set up to receive their leader.

  In the midst of enough light even for mounts whose eyesight failed in the dark, the two magical beasts descended to the town of Akiba. The long night was still less than halfway over.

  1

  After the griffin descended, Raynesia couldn’t move a muscle while she was being carried down from its back. She’d been held around the waist during dances, but for as far back as she could remember, she’d never been handled so carelessly, like luggage.

  She hadn’t thought being treated this way by the opposite sex would be so disconcerting. She tried to smile with her face tense, but even she knew it looked drawn and stiff.

  Partly because she’d been highly determined during the conference, it hadn’t felt real to her. She’d felt as if she were delirious with fever as she carried out her plan.

  Now that she thought about it, Raynesia had spent too much time with Krusty over this past week. She’d been able to give herself courage by thinking that, compared to this alabaster, practically supernatural young man who guessed her most private thoughts, speaking defiantly in front of the lords was nothing at all.

  However, she really wasn’t comfortable around Krusty himself.

  She knew that while they were flying on the griffin, he’d been casually solicitous toward her, keeping her from being blown away by the wind or getting cold. However, the more solicitous he was, the more it felt as though every one of her innermost thoughts was an open book to him, and she was beyond flustered.

  She wasn’t all that concerned anymore that he’d find out she was a fake, that she was really a lazybones who hated people, that she was a terribly hopeless person who thought of nothing except loafing around in her room.

  However, if possible—no, at all costs—she wanted to keep Krusty from finding out that she was flustered over him.

  “Milady.”

  For just a moment, she took the hand Krusty held out to her and descended to the ground.

  She was in the town of Akiba.

  Even though it was the middle of the night, lights were lit all through the town. When she’d looked down on them from the sky, she’d thought they were a type of watchfire, but now that she’d descended, they proved to be lights of all different sorts. The seven big bonfires in the plaza were orange, the lamps that were resistant to wind and rain were yellow, and magic lights were a phosphorescent white.

  “I… Thank you very much.”

  She’d lowered her eyes as she spoke, but Krusty’s interest was already elsewhere. A group who wore overcoats with white, undyed crests like the one on Krusty’s mantle was approaching from that direction, stepping briskly.

  Krusty exchanged greetings with the group, then turned to speak to the young man who looked like a magic user, the one who had just lifted the black-haired girl down.

  “Shiroe. Can I ask you to take care of her outfit and management?”

  “Yes, of course. Only… Are you sure?”

  “There’s no help for it. I’ll brace myself.”

  After Krusty had spoken to the young man he’d called Shiroe, he left with the group that was dressed like him. At the same time, the griffins also took off, whipping up a gust of wind.

  Raynesia was standing there, at a loss, when the young man named Shiroe addressed her:

  “I believe this is the first time we’ve spoken directly, Princess Raynesia. I’m Shiroe of Log Horizon. This girl is Akatsuki.”

  At Shiroe’s introduction, the petite girl he’d called Akatsuki nodded briefly. Apparently she was the quiet type.

  “All right, then. Follow me, please.”

  Shiroe turned his back to her and began to walk away. Most of the people on the street seemed to be Adventurers, and apparently they were moving with some sort of purpose. A flurried atmosphere hung in the air.

  Raynesia had rushed out, declaring sharply that she would persuade the Adventurers of Akiba, but she’d given no thought to the specifics of how she was going to do it. She’d had the vague idea that she’d make an entreaty at the Round Table Council—which she assumed was a place like the Lords’ Council—and, after obtaining permission, would meet with the major Adventurers one after another.

  The town of Akiba was nothing like Maihama.

  Unlike the beautiful, brilliant Maihama, where fruit trees hung with crystal lined the streets, this town seemed to make use of the ruins from the old days. Maze-like streets ran through the gaps between buildings that were five or ten stories tall, and Raynesia was wary, knowing she’d get lost in moments if she were to become separated from the young man who was guiding her.

  A woman who was coming up the street, carrying a large load, nimbly yielded the right of way to
Shiroe; she whispered something to him very quickly, then bowed her head. Raynesia thought that Shiroe must have significant status on the Round Table Council. He’d been chosen as a vice envoy, after all.

  He is walking a little too quickly, though.

  The girl he’d called Akatsuki was keeping up with him without difficulty. Raynesia had heard tales of the extent of the Adventurers’ physical abilities, but she’d never imagined she’d feel the difference in something so basic.

  Shiroe had one hand to his ear, covering it, and was talking to no one as he walked. He’d probably contacted someone with some sort of magic.

  But before long, they arrived at a big, blackish building.

  “Shiroe!”

  “Thanks for coming, Calasin.”

  The man who was waiting for the three of them just inside the building, in what seemed to be a reception hall or lobby, was dressed like a young merchant.

  “This is Princess Raynesia.”

  “Oho! I’ve heard a lot about you. You’re the young lady of the Cowen dukedom, aren’t you? I’m Calasin, a merchant trader. I’m the head of Shopping District 8.”

  Apparently, the man who’d called himself Calasin really was a merchant. He greeted Raynesia with an affable smile. However, to Raynesia, a noble, his brand of courtesy felt extremely pragmatic and simple.

  The Adventurers all seem to be very candid, and to dislike empty formalities…

  With a ladylike smile, Raynesia returned a greeting that was elegant, but quite abbreviated by her standards. “Shopping District 8” was an odd name, but considering the way he’d used it to introduce himself, it was probably the name of one of Akiba’s influential houses.

  “I am Raynesia of the House of Cowen. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Calasin turned red and averted his eyes. This was a reaction Raynesia was used to.

  “So, Calasin,” Shiroe said.

  “Mn?”

  “Hm… What to do… What should we go with…? We need to make an impact. The first impression has to be hard-hitting. …Valkyrie Mail. Do you have a full set?”