by Mamare Touno
She thought that the Lords’ Council, which had believed they could negotiate with the Adventurers by threatening them, soothing them, and dangling noble titles in front of them as a reward, had misread them on a fundamental level. What sort of negotiations had they planned to conduct by rewarding people who had that much understanding and wealth with a prize they’d thought up themselves?
The nobles were wrong.
Through her irritating yet easygoing relationship with Krusty, and through that speech, Raynesia had come to understand this very well.
It was just the same as the way jewels and invitations to dances were no incentive to Raynesia. All she wanted to do was laze around in cotton pajamas, doing nothing but eating and sleeping. The Adventurers, these alien beings, were like that, too. There was no way that jewels or gold or rank or territory would serve as a reward for them. When you looked at it that way, there was really nothing to do except beg and make promises.
In any case, I am a woman, and I haven’t received any training in politics… There’s really no help for it.
To make a firm promise, no matter how small, and earn trust by following through on it…
To bear the same amount of risk as the Adventurers, when they were exposed to danger…
Continuing to accumulate these things was all Raynesia could think of.
Even so…
Declaring that she would go to the battlefield as well had been incredibly bold. Had she been out of her mind? Could it have been the fault of this odd…excessively leg-exposing costume?
She wanted to crouch down and curl up right where she was, but—possibly because of those long years of training—the common sense that one had to stand up straight and behave in a ladylike manner in public was too ingrained to allow that. She wasn’t even able to act listlessly.
She’d been taken in by that smirking Shiroe’s glib words, and just look what had happened. The villainy of it all nearly brought tears to her eyes.
“You look as if you’d gotten carried away and said something insane on impulse and now regret it, but have no way to take it back and are writhing in agony.”
“Yeek!”
He must have come up behind her while she wasn’t paying attention. Krusty stood there, blocking the sea wind, and his words made her jump as if an electric current had run through her.
“Ha-ha-ha. Master Krusty. That isn’t true at all.”
“You’re twitching.”
Raynesia, whose chance of continuing the conversation had been summarily cut down, turned an expression “filled with melancholy” on the waves.
“You look worn out.”
“…Rrgh. Well, that’s true—but don’t get me wrong! I don’t regret it. I’m asking you to risk your lives, so it’s only natural that I’d go myself and stand on the battlefield with you. And no, I don’t think a life such as mine is equal to the swords of even ten Adventurers. That is, in other words, um…”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s enough…”
“Pardon?”
For just a moment, something about the tone of Krusty’s words seemed strange to Raynesia. However, the sense of oddness was broken by the voices of the sailors announcing their arrival, and she came back to herself.
—Fast.
True, they’d only cut across the bay, but they were carrying more than a hundred knights, and they’d arrived after noon… What incredible speed. Why, it had only been about fifteen minutes since they’d put out to sea.
By the time she noticed it, Maihama’s familiar Castle Cinderella was practically right in front of her nose.
They seemed to be planning to bring this huge ship along the bayside pier.
She could see that the residents of Maihama working at the port were in an uproar. They’d probably been startled by the strange, enormous black ship. That was only to be expected. The news probably hadn’t made it to the townspeople yet.
This was normal.
This was the reality of People of the Earth society, the one Raynesia had lived in up until now.
An army that had methods of individual long-range communication, in which all the soldiers could not only read and write, but perfectly understood military operations and goals— That was abnormal. If the people who worked at the port had been Adventurers, no doubt they’d already know why this warship was coming toward them, its objectives, and its later plans.
Just as when Raynesia had stepped down from the griffin in Akiba, all preparations had already been made.
However, the Maihama where Raynesia lived wasn’t like that. Since she was the only Person of the Earth on this ship, it was probably her job to reassure them.
Prompted by Krusty, as she waved from the bow of the ship, there was no trace of the idle, people-shunning princess about her.
5
Meanwhile, Shiroe and the General Staff Office were leading the main body of the Akiba Expeditionary Force.
The strategy Shiroe and Krusty had adopted this time emphasized “fast and loose” over “slow and careful,” since there was no telling how the goblin army in the center of the archipelago would move from here on out. However, if they consumed all the available provisions in the mountains, it was clear that they would invade one or the other of the towns nearby. Because there was no telling where that attack would be aimed at this point, the group from Akiba had lost its initiative: The fact that the choice of battlefield lay with the enemy was a big disadvantage.
To compensate for that, speed was the most important thing at this stage.
Fortunately, even in this devastated other world, the land between Akiba and Maihama was comparatively safe and open. The biggest issue with regard to travel—after they had left Akiba—was where to cross the great river.
Precisely because the line of march was expected to be relatively safe, Shiroe had abandoned the idea of assembling a large army in one place and having it march in an orderly fashion. Instead, he’d organized the Adventurers who were ready into squads, and sent them off one after another.
Shiroe’s General Staff Office was made up of a telechat communications team composed of Shiroe, Calasin, and about a dozen other members. A communications network had been set up between participating guilds, and solo Adventurers who were participating on their own were also registered with the communications team.
Through these preparations, Shiroe and the others had created a high-speed communications and report network that covered the entire army. However, of course, they hadn’t been able to take time building the relay network—it would be issuing simple instructions, requesting mutual communication between guilds, and having players register a communications officer to their friend list and vice versa when they confirmed their participation.
The advance units who’d already left, the core units, and the rear guard units that were being kept in reserve were all linked by the current communications network. It was a monstrous expeditionary force with completely unprecedented communications abilities, and the issue Shiroe and the rest of the General Staff Office were facing at the moment was how to organize it.
First we’ll need to draft a register categorized by level, but… That’s going to be almost impossible to do on the move. Should we divide up the work roughly at our destination?
For now, their destination was approximately where Matsudo would have been in the old world. It was north of the city of Maihama, at about the midpoint between it and Abiko, where the hill country began. According to Shiroe’s knowledge of Elder Tales, that area had many ruined buildings, and as a battlefield, the topography would give them a disadvantage.
However, there were no other suitable candidate areas, so there was no help for it.
According to the telechat transmissions, after the Ocypete had called at Maihama’s port, they had taken a few People of the Earth onboard as guides and sailed to the abandoned port of Narashino.
Krusty, meanwhile, was commanding an advance strike battalion with ninety-six members.
P
arties were composed of six Adventurers. Full raids, being made up of four parties, consisted of twenty-four members. Legion raids brought together four full raids. This last group, with a total force of ninety-six members, had been the largest battle unit in Elder Tales.
Krusty looked like a young nobleman with glasses, but on the inside, he was the charismatic warlord who led D.D.D., the largest combat guild in Akiba and, therefore, on the Japanese server.
He’d understand the crux of this strategy, the speed of the advance. It was a sure thing that, after reaching Narashino, he’d lost no time in beginning their march.
Shiroe, on horseback, dexterously rummaged through his bag and took out a portable map.
The distance from the abandoned port of Narashino to the central forests where the main goblin forces were believed to be was about twenty-five kilometers north-northeast, as the crow flew. For normal knights in this world, the march would take from two to three days, but Krusty might even manage to open hostilities by the next morning.
Meanwhile, the main army was traveling, not by sea, but overland by horse. Although there was really no help for it, their ranks were strung out, and they weren’t under control.
Let’s have the lower levels set up a military post about five kilometers north of Maihama…
Shiroe’s finger skimmed over the map.
He selected candidate areas, analyzing the geography of the area centered on Maihama and remembering the features of the zones as he did so. This military post would be built around lower-level players, and in addition to conducting defensive formations and peace-keeping activities, it would be used as a place to accumulate resources. It would probably need to be relatively spacious.
Midrount Equestrian Gardens.
Before long, his fingertip stopped on a small, green oval. According to Shiroe’s memory, it was an equestrian garden with an exterior that looked like an enormous coliseum. Wild animals appeared in the surrounding area, but there were no dangerous monsters. It was an ideal location.
“Communications team! Transmit this, please. Midrount Equestrian Gardens is the temporary destination for the northbound army! Select units will continue on to the coast. Once the advance units arrive, have them guard the surrounding area and set up camp immediately. Please clear away the rubble and create a large open space.”
Various possibilities flickered in Shiroe’s mind.
He shifted his glasses up; he seemed to be holding his breath. His profile showed fierce concentration, exuding an atmosphere like glass.
Either way, this war is a blitzkrieg. We don’t need to pay too much attention to supply lines… Our total numbers are…
The main expeditionary force that Shiroe was currently commanding was about 1,200 strong. In other words, roughly 10 percent of Akiba’s Adventurers were participating in this war. If he excluded artisans and looked only at the percentage taken up by combat-type players, the number jumped to more than 20 percent.
None of them, Shiroe included, had any experience in large-scale battles fought by more than a thousand people. However, Raynesia’s speech had definitely set fire to the souls of a great many Adventurers, more even than Raynesia herself had suspected. The high morale was visible in the eyes of the small units heading past him, to the north.
Shiroe’s role was to avoid trouble and guide this war to success without breaking that morale.
People said there were things to be learned from mistakes. However, as far as this expedition was concerned, Shiroe didn’t think there was anything they could learn from failure.
The Adventurers’ self-confidence and pride. Their future influence, and their survival, in this world. And, most important, “understanding,” and the self-government of Akiba. All sorts of conditions demanded victory from Shiroe and the others.
They must not suffer defeat.
Besides, a force of 1,200 was more than enough to actually win a victory. He wasn’t Soujirou, but, All we have to do is have each player take out ten Goblins.
It was Shiroe’s job to eliminate unforeseen trouble and turn the fighting spirits of those 1,200 Adventurers in a set direction on the front line.
Ten kilometers to Midrount Equestrian Gardens, hm? Even if we don’t hurry, we’ll reach it after noon. We’ll camp there tonight. We’ll also structure and organize these 1,200 players. Half will deal with the goblins by guarding the area and scouting over a wide range. I’ll lead the other half; we’ll follow Krusty and attack the main goblin army. Or should we leave the defense of the town to the People of the Earth and lead the whole army into the mountains…?
As Shiroe rode his horse at a walk, he ran all sorts of simulations regarding the coming war in his mind.
6
Meanwhile, the speed of Krusty’s advance had been even more rapid than the fastest speed Shiroe had imagined.
He’d judged aptitude through interviews onboard the ship, and had already finished organizing his legion raid.
“Organize” was easy to say, but it was a pretty difficult task.
For example, every spell had a restriction known as “range.” The range of the average recovery spell was twenty meters, and the maximum range of Bard support spells was also twenty meters.
In other words, it was possible to recover or support allies only within that range, and so there was a general concept of the party as a battle unit that could act within that range.
Taken the other way around, it meant that the battle unit known as a party assumed teamwork within a range of twenty meters.
In that case, all parties needed to have at least one Warrior for protection and two Recovery specialists.
Even when four parties were assembled into a full raid, their formations had to be balanced according to this principle.
It was the same with a legion raid composed of sixteen parties: Even if twenty-four of the ninety-six members were Recovery classes, it wouldn’t do to create four six-member parties made up entirely of healers.
However, on the other hand, simply organizing all units so that their classes were balanced wasn’t enough. When one considered a variety of cases, it was necessary to give them special characteristics for tactical purposes.
For example, if only one Recovery class was assigned to each party, they would be dogged by the possibility that the Warrior wouldn’t be able to completely absorb attacks from a large magical beast enemy. It was preferable to assign two Recovery specialists—or even three, if possible—to units that could be expected to battle large magical beasts.
That said, conversely, if no attack units were heavy on Attack classes, when it came right down to it, there wouldn’t be any melee units that could wipe out the enemy, and the battle lines would be plunged into a war of attrition.
Thus, if all units were organized equally, their ability to respond would be lowered.
In addition, a party couldn’t display its true strengths without regular team training.
Taking that variable into consideration, it was preferable to put members belonging to the same guild in the same party, or in parties that would mutually support one another. On the other hand, veteran Adventurers who were well-known on the server could work with any party they happened to be placed in as if they’d trained alongside them for ages.
In addition to the compatibility between the classes of individual Adventurers, how accustomed players were to combat and how they adjusted to the system of command also needed to be taken into account.
It was common sense among veteran players that, even in a perfectly ordinary six-person party, it was vital to communicate during team plays in combat.
In a full raid, in which a total of twenty-four players participated, the level of confusion on the battlefield inevitably grew. Who was supposed to do what? Should they emphasize recovery or offense, and what about their position? Decisions on these matters were required frequently. To that end, each party had to choose a leader and secure a line to receive orders from the raid leader.
In a
legion raid, the raid leader would also take orders from the legion leader. Maintaining this chain of command in the midst of ferocious combat required quite a lot of concentration and experience.
When Elder Tales was a game, very few game quests or events had called for a legion. This was because it was terribly difficult to assemble nearly one hundred members whose skills were at a certain level, within a certain time. In addition, the training needed to facilitate organic teamwork among those nearly one hundred members boggled the imagination.
Legion raid wars were content whose threshold was too high for ordinary players to challenge. If most players weren’t able to attempt them, the company that administered the game couldn’t make them a development focus, either.
The bottom line was that legion raids were “too hard.” They became content that was limited to a certain demographic of top-level players, and as a result, although the winners were promised vast wealth and fame, there had never been many challengers.
One group that had challenged that type of high-level content was D.D.D. Krusty, D.D.D.’s guild master, was one of fewer than twenty players on the Japanese server who had experience commanding a group the size of an army.
He put that experience to work, organizing the formations with a speed that left everyone dumbfounded. At first glance, his member allocations seemed careless, but an examination of the details showed that they were quite reasonable.
On disembarking from the Ocypete, Krusty’s group organized itself into the ninety-six-member legion raid to use in the advance strike, and a twelve-member detail that did double duty as both Raynesia’s guard and the observation team. Having received a brief description of the surrounding topography from the People of the Earth guides, Krusty added that information to his military map, and then, with no hesitation, began the march.