by Mamare Touno
Following the banquet the previous night, Akatsuki had gone back to wearing her drab, black clothes. Today, the third day, her usual expression—the one that was so dignified it looked almost cross—had returned, and she was silently guarding Shiroe. Shiroe thought that, since it was a festival, she could have worn something a bit less plain, but Akatsuki seemed to have her own code.
Akatsuki had been visibly tired that morning, but Naotsugu teased her, and by evening, she was back to her usual self. When she called him “Stupid Naotsugu” while planting a flying knee-kick in his face, it looked just the same as it always did. Lately, even Shiroe had grown able to watch it with a wry smile.
As Shiroe had anticipated, the attack on the Round Table Council seemed to have died away completely. Once countered, this type of attack was hard to continue. He’d expected this, and Shiroe and the others enjoyed their first day off in a long time.
By and by the sun set, and Akiba plunged into the festival wrap party. There had been a banquet the previous night, and this time there was a full-fledged feast. Since it was being hosted by the Round Table Council, several liquor barrels were set in front of the guild center, and it turned into a lively gathering in which anyone could participate.
The Round Table Council had considered taking this opportunity to implement several support measures for the small and midsized guilds. One such measure was to issue invitations to solo players who were still unaffiliated with a guild. In addition, the topic of making single departments of major guilds independent had come up for discussion. At the banquet, even as they got drunk on liquor, young Adventurers debated.
Raynesia, back in her customary dress, was probably also attending the festival, which was illuminated by bonfires. Naturally, Michitaka, Krusty, Isaac, Calasin, Roderick, Marielle, and other prominent members of the Round Table Council were probably draining glasses to strengthen connections with acquaintances and old friends and create new bonds.
Although there had been a lot of trouble, Akiba’s Libra Festival ended its mission in success. In the light of the bonfires, no doubt the guild mates of Log Horizon were also praising each other’s hard work and storing up the energy they’d need starting the next day.
And so the October Libra Festival came to an end, with few people even aware that there had been trouble. It proved to be a turning point for the town of Akiba.
INTERLUDE
However…
On the final day of the Libra Festival, in the dead of night, Shiroe left his guild members and went walking alone.
The place was a ruin in the south of Akiba, on the outskirts of town. Through a steel roll-up door that was buried in rubble, a damp, humid staircase stretched away. When this building had existed in the Age of Myth, the space had probably held the boiler and water tank. Countless pipes crawled across its bare concrete walls.
Shiroe had come here for a reason.
He was here to rendezvous with Oshima, an old acquaintance whom he’d planned to meet during the festival. Oshima had been ferreting out information about the Holy Empire of Westlande for him, and, assuming the worst, they were limiting their number of telechats. In addition, since he had items to give him as well, they’d planned to meet and exchange information in person, but he felt vaguely uneasy.
Shiroe advanced cautiously through darkness enveloped in stifled silence, moving by the weak light of the Magic Light he’d summoned with a whisper. He opened a door with a metal plate that had CONTROL ROOM written on it. The space behind it was more livable by human standards than the outside had been.
“”
“You’re Master Shiroe, aren’t you? I’m Dariella. I’m a Person of the Earth, and I work as a travel writer…”
However, the person who waited for Shiroe in the room wasn’t the one he’d been expecting.
Long, wavy black hair. Deep red lips and eyes like polished obsidian shone in a white, egg-shaped oval. A voluptuous body that looked as if it would be soft no matter where you touched it was squeezed into a robe woven with a geometric pattern of indigo and red, and even though she was only sitting on the sofa, she seemed to be slowly wriggling.
The woman was so beautiful that one glance was enough to spark an intense magnetism.
As far as “beautiful” was concerned, Akatsuki was a beautiful girl as well. However, the beauty in front of him exuded an attractiveness that was equal to Akatsuki’s, yet different in nature.
Shiroe didn’t ordinarily give much thought to women’s looks, and even for him, the glamour this beauty held was enough to make him feel drunk. Even though he had no such intention, his cheeks were growing hot.
“The ‘Oshima’ you’re waiting for has been unavoidably detained, Master Shiroe… I’m here because I was asked to deliver the message and report in his place.”
That was right: Shiroe had promised to meet Oshima the Adventurer here. Oshima was a young male dwarf with a small but agile-looking build, not a beautiful, black-haired woman.
DARIELLA / SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN / LEVEL 10
The information Shiroe confirmed on the status screen supported what she’d said. For that very reason, Shiroe shook his head, which was threatening to sweetly mist over, and managed to force his voice to work.
“…That’s a skill I’ve never heard of. What sort of camouflage is that, Miss Nureha?”
A gloomy underground control room.
The room wasn’t that large. A heavy silence fell between Shiroe and the woman on the sofa. As Shiroe stood, his entire body brimming with tension, the beauty giggled and squirmed, then sketched a small crest in the air with a fingertip.
As if to absorb Shiroe’s Magic Light, countless small, dark doves flew out of that beautiful black hair. No sooner had they flitted into space than they melted into the air. They were probably the effect of some unknown spell.
The woman’s fey, bewildering beauty was unchanged, but she now wore a jet-black gothic dress that might have been made from crow feathers, and she had ears and a tail that were snow white at the tips.
“Fu-fu-fu. Uu-fu-fu. …How did you know, Master Shiro? I shouldn’t think there’s any information about the Overlay floating around anywhere…”
“Instinct.”
Shiroe bluffed.
It was true that the woman in the basement room had been a Person of the Earth named Dariella. Her level had been only 10. Shiroe had confirmed this on her status screen. According to common sense in Elder Tales, that made it an established fact, and there was no way to overturn it. The only reasons Shiroe had been able to doubt it were information gained from a source in a system that was different from Oshima’s, and intuition.
Shiroe had been certain that at this very moment, Nureha was somewhere in Akiba. He hadn’t expected her to appear in front of him, but the idea that the cause of his worries had made an appearance made more sense than believing that the owner of beauty like that was just a Person of the Earth writer.
“Instinct…was it? But you did know my name, didn’t you.”
Nureha, the beauty in front of him, gave a bewitching laugh. Even though he knew who she really was, Shiroe couldn’t stop his eyes from being drawn to her.
“Won’t you sit down?”
Nureha looked up at Shiroe with dewy eyes. The angle made her white throat look defenseless, and Shiroe’s mouth turned down in a scowl. He’d thought he’d stare if he didn’t do that, and the idea had scared him.
“Don’t be so wary. I’m— Well, I’m as you see. I don’t even have a magic bag with me, and of course I’m unarmed. I’m all alone today. I only came to meet you, Master Shiro.”
Even as he remained cautious, Shiroe sat down on an office chair beside the door. Nureha continued speaking to him in a velvety voice.
“Isn’t that a bit careless for someone who rules the West?”
“I’m no ruler.”
Nureha smiled.
Softly, with an air of secrecy, she put an index finger to her lips. There was something girlish and sw
eet about the gesture. Her age didn’t seem to be much different from Shiroe’s, but although her beauty remained unchanged, the gesture made her atmosphere shimmer unstably. Just when he thought she was a voluptuous woman, she showed a profile like an innocent young girl’s.
Enchanting, but scary. That was what Shiroe thought.
There, like a riot of white flowers in pitch-black darkness, was a lunatic, sweetly intoxicating beauty.
After all, this woman was the guild master of Plant Hwyaden.
The beautiful woman who reigned at the top of Plant Hwyaden, an enormous guild that everyone knew existed, but whose true shape remained unclear: That was Nureha, State Councillor of the West.
It had begun about the time Shiroe had launched the Round Table Council.
Back then, Shiroe had been attempting to return energy and order to Akiba, which had been completely disheartened by the Catastrophe, and whose public order had deteriorated.
At the same time, a similar situation had occurred in Minami, the player town in the West. Chaos and depression and deteriorating order. There had also been an Adventurer who’d tried to change it, as Shiroe had done.
This had been Nureha, the disheveled beauty seated in front of him.
However, both the vision for self-government that she’d proposed and the means she’d chosen had been completely different from Shiroe’s.
Nureha had approached the House of Saimiya. The House of Saimiya were descendents of the Westlande Imperial Dynasty, which had ruled Yamato in the old days, and they boasted rank of the first order in Yamato’s aristocracy. Unlike the East, which was governed by the League of Free Cities, the Holy Empire of Westlande was ruled through centralized authority by the House of Saimiya, who lived in the city of Kyou, and by governing duchies.
Of course, these were People of the Earth governments, and ordinarily, they would have had no bearing on the Adventurers. He’d heard that, even after the Catastrophe, the Adventurers who lived in the West had taken no interest in the People of the Earth or their aristocracy.
However, Nureha had been different. She’d gotten close to the nobles and the House of Saimiya and had gained their favor. Her methods remained a mystery, but in any event, Nureha had used her charms to ingratiate herself with the People of the Earth, and she had sown poison.
Around the time Shiroe and the others had traveled to Susukino, the Guards of the town of Minami had become Nureha’s private army. Using the wealth of the People of the Earth, Nureha had also purchased Minami’s Temple zone.
Vast military might and power over life and death. Nureha had gained both these things, but she hadn’t put herself in the public eye. She advanced her plans quietly, peacefully, secretly. The guild she’d created, Plant Hwyaden, gradually acquired supporters, and before anyone noticed, it had grown quite large. Not only that, but its members were all veteran players and the strongest in the West.
Then, one day, Nureha had made a proclamation:
“All Adventurers living in the town of Minami must join Plant Hwyaden.”
A town that had no discrimination among guilds, because there was only one.
This had been the shape of the new self-government Nureha had created.
“My apologies for contradicting you, but you are the ruler of the West… Even if you do leave the practical business to Indicus, Misuha, and Zeldus.”
“I’m not leaving it to them, you know. Everyone simply does as they please. I have no intention of restricting them. I’m only giving everyone a place to belong… And in exchange, they protect me. That’s all I want.”
Her words, spoken in smooth tones, echoed like a siren song. Her sweet whisper sounded like soft words of love, and the seduction would have made anyone male want to listen forever.
“State your business here.”
“Such impatience, Master Shiro.”
“I know my place.”
“…U-fu-fu. Very well. If you say so, Master Shiro, I’ll match my pace to the gentleman. I—I came with an invitation for you, Master Shiro. Come to Plant Hwyaden. Come stay by my side. Walk with me, and protect me.”
“Why?”
“It’s just as I’ve said. I want you, Master Shiro. …It’s a rather embarrassing thing to discuss, but I’ve known about you for ages.”
That wasn’t a startling idea.
Both Shiroe and Nureha were Enchanters. Enchanter wasn’t a popular class in Elder Tales, and the play population was only half that of the average class.
In the days when Elder Tales was still a normal game, there had probably been about eighty thousand players, but as far as Shiroe knew, there had only been about two thousand level-90 Enchanters.
In MMORPGs, people are curious about other Adventurers in their class. What sort of equipment do they use? How are they training? How do they fight? Since it was a game, it was easiest to learn techniques and growth policies by studying players whose environments were similar to your own; basically, it was possible to learn from players who were more skilled than you were.
This way of thinking was very close to common sense for gamers.
There had been only a handful of Adventurers who had belonged to major guilds, had collected good equipment in raids, and were studying combat. If limited to Enchanters, the number dropped to about a hundred. With just one hundred people, it was possible to learn their names.
As a matter of fact, Shiroe had a fairly good grasp of the names of the ranker-class Enchanters on the Japanese server. This was how he’d known Nureha.
Like Shiroe, Nureha was an Enchanter who hadn’t joined a guild. Enchanters who weren’t affiliated with a major guild yet still participated in raids and exercised their talents were more of a rare endangered species than the Iriomote cat. They must have met each other two or three times. For a veteran player like Shiroe, an industry of one hundred people wasn’t large at all.
“…I know what you’re thinking, Master Shiro, but that isn’t it. I didn’t know about you because you’re an Enchanter, and that isn’t why I want you.”
“What do you mean?”
Nureha didn’t look away.
Fixing Shiroe with an enraptured gaze that seemed to pour something into him, she continued speaking. Her words were like knives.
“You discovered a new type of magic at Zantleaf, didn’t you? I don’t know the specific method, but… A magic that makes large-scale changes… You’re an extraordinary person, Master Shiro, so I expected you’d do something of the sort.”
“That makes two of us, then, doesn’t it? I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve reactivated your Town Gate. From what I hear, you can’t make free use of it yet, but even so.”
In the underground room, in the midst of an atmosphere so strained it was almost palpable, Shiroe and Nureha gazed at each other.
He hadn’t thought the matter of the contract technique had been leaked, but then Shiroe had information on the West’s new technology as well. Striking back against the blade of words that had been turned on him, Shiroe glared at Nureha.
“I knew you were special, Master Shiro. You know everything. The idea that you might even know what lies behind my veil makes my cheeks burn.”
“Enough flattery. …Information from the West is being blocked on your orders, correct?”
Plant Hwyaden was a stand-alone guild with strict controls. On the inside, it was an extremely sophisticated, finely structured organization.
He knew the slogan Nureha had used.
Get rid of the large guilds’ discrimination against the small and midsized guilds, restore public order in Minami, and work together to return to the real world. The most efficient way to make these things happen was for a single guild to organize it. Some aspects of Minami’s claims were true. Shiroe acknowledged their advantages as well.
However, due to that idea, Plant Hwyaden, which had been created for those reasons, had become a well-disciplined organization with sophisticated organizing ability.
In other words, it
had become a clannish organization that didn’t leak information.
Since the Round Table Council took the form of a self-governing council of free guilds, it was necessary to hold debates openly. Disclosure of information was the foundation of debate. As a result, its movements were probably completely transparent to outsiders.
On the other hand, Plant Hwyaden was a single guild managed by an executive department, and it wasn’t possible to get a clear grasp of the actual form of its center. Shiroe was one of the most well-informed people in Akiba, and even to him, Plant Hwyaden’s full shape was riddled with mysteries. Most of Akiba’s Adventurers probably knew only that it was a creepy area run by a single guild.
The day’s original objective—meeting Oshima—had been to get new information on Minami and receive a few items.
“No. I said so earlier, remember? I believe in noninterference. The information blocking was Misuha’s personal decision.”
“Was that true of the processing saturation attack on Akiba’s Round Table Council as well?”
“Yes. That was a reckless, independent act by Malves, a shortsighted member of the House of Lords.”
As if he could believe that. Shiroe was about to tell her that was called tacit approval when, as if to block his words, Nureha touched Shiroe’s lips with a delicate white fingertip.
Shiroe hadn’t noticed her draw nearer, and he knocked her arm away.
“I came to invite you, Master Shiro. Would you come to me?”
“Soujirou’s the one to ask for that sort of thing. It isn’t my department.”
“Soujirou, hmm?”
A dangerous gleam appeared in Nureha’s eyes, but the next instant, it changed to a slightly troubled expression.
“I prefer you to Soujirou, Master Shiro. I think you’re more extraordinary than he is. I came to this town to issue an invitation to you alone, to entreat you alone.”