by Mamare Touno
The sounds of the summer insects. The quiet noise of the water. The pale moonlight. Shiroe stood stock-still in the midst of it, clenching his fists, desperately suppressing everything.
They’d had expectations for him.
They’d bet on him.
They’d waited for him.
He had pondered and analyzed and worried, or he thought he had. Why hadn’t he seen it? Had he really been that slow-witted? Even though his distrust of himself and his sense of inferiority were as high as a levee, the frozen restraints were being washed away by happiness, and familiarity, and trust.
“Will I be in time?”
“Of course.”
“Captain Nyanta. You join, too. …It would make me really happy if you came with me. I need you there.”
As he delivered the invitation, Shiroe watched Nyanta steadily. Nyanta laughed a bit self-consciously and said, “I’d like a good veranda.”
“Sure,” Shiroe agreed. “We’ll build you one. We’ll get you a fine veranda.”
He wanted the most incredible thing. If he was allowed to want it. It came with a responsibility so huge that Shiroe couldn’t support it by himself, but he did have a plan.
If he had friends who would shoulder it with him, then…
4
The dark room was damp.
The uncarpeted floor was made of ancient concrete, and it absorbed heat like a sponge. This meant that even in early summer, at times like this, just before dawn, it was as cold as graveyard earth.
Wrapped up tightly in her drab, dirty mantle, Minori turned over. She’d done it so many times already she’d lost track of how often.
The night was long, and it felt endless.
Maybe it was because her “bed” was much too hard and cold, or maybe it was her anxiety for the future. Her weary body wanted rest, but her sleep was shallow, and she woke easily at the smallest thing.
Grinding pain was what she felt when her consciousness drifted up from the dark of night. All she could remember were indistinct dreams that grew vague and melted into the darkness, leaving only unease and regret.
She spent most of the day cooped up in a tiny room, being forced to work as a Tailor, and her hands hurt as if the muscles were dead wood. Today, no matter how often she stroked them with her chilled fingers, the pain refused to recede.
Her little brother Touya slept next to her, hugging his knees.
Nearly twenty of her companions were asleep in this room.
The guild Hamelin.
It was a midsized guild that had advertised mutual aid for beginners.
It was the guild Minori and Touya had joined.
After the Catastrophe, the town had been engulfed in confusion and a feeling of claustrophobia. The sudden disaster had left everyone dazed; no one had known what to do. Minori thought the reason the town hadn’t erupted into large-scale riots in those first few days was that most of the players hadn’t known how to take what had just happened and had been hoping it might be some sort of elaborate joke.
She and Touya had been the exact same way.
For the first few hours, they hadn’t known what had happened.
For a few days after that, although they knew what had happened, they hadn’t known why.
The “why” was still unclear. What they finally did understand now was that those first few days had been terribly valuable and that, while they’d been distracted by the question Why did something like this happen?—a question that had no answer—they’d lost that time forever.
Her memories of the days that followed were hazy.
She remembered being hungry. They hadn’t really known how to eat. She’d bought several food items at the market and shared them with her brother Touya. When they tried to leave the town, they were attacked, and before they knew what was happening, they’d been stripped of everything they owned.
By the time they remembered that Shiroe had advised them to leave all unnecessary items in a safe-deposit box at the bank whenever they left town, they were already penniless.
She had heard that many players were contacting their acquaintances and working to gather information.
However, she and Touya were newbie players, and they didn’t have anyone to turn to. There was just one person they could think of, and they hesitated to contact him.
They might have been able to contact him right after the Catastrophe. However, after spending several days in a stupor, they’d lost all their property, and in this world, they would have been far too much of a burden.
Minori felt that she and Touya got along well.
She’d heard it said that when they reached middle school, brothers and sisters often began to detest each other. The fastidiousness and sense of independence among their age group made siblings of a near age a target for strict exclusion. Her classmates said they couldn’t even stand to look at their siblings.
Maybe the rest of the world was like that, but not Minori and Touya. They were close.
They never even wanted to fight, and the desire to help Touya was never far from Minori’s mind.
There was a reason for this.
After an accident when they were small, Touya had lost the ability to walk. There was no problem with his legs themselves, but he had been left with nerve damage.
It wasn’t that Minori felt sorry for him, and thus didn’t fight with him. The accident had been a terrible thing, and she sometimes wished she could take his place, but there was nothing she could do.
Even to her, his older sister, Touya seemed to be cheerful and a hard worker. Even in his situation, he never got angry or irritated with the people around him. Life was challenging when a family member was disabled, and Touya was always trying to make things easier for their father and mother.
She remembered that when they took him to and from the hospital twice a month, she and Touya had only talked about silly, trivial things. He’d joke around about manga and the Internet like any other middle school boy. From what the doctor said, Touya’s exams were sometimes quite painful, but he never let it show.
Sometimes Minori thought that Touya’s childish ways of speaking and acting were really intentional, something he did out of consideration for others.
Minori thought Touya was a fine little brother. Of course, as his older sister, she also thought he was a dummy who acted like a little kid, got carried away easily, and didn’t think before he did things.
Still, fundamentally, she could count on him. Even if his legs wouldn’t work for him, and no matter what difficulties he ran into in the future, she was sure Touya would continue to be himself.
Since that was the case, even if she’d only been born a few hours ahead of him, she had to fulfill her duty as his big sister. She was Touya’s guardian. When Touya had to do something, she wanted to provide him with the necessary power.
A kind of respect—the sort of feeling that doesn’t grow easily between siblings, particularly when they are young—had made the two of them close.
They’d started playing Elder Tales for a similar reason.
After his exams, Touya was exhausted and unable to go out, and he’d shown an interest in an online RPG. The two of them were already tired of all the ordinary indoor games, and they’d wheedled their parents into letting them play the game (on the condition that they didn’t neglect their schoolwork).
It was a world where Touya could run around as much as he wanted, without worrying about anyone else. Touya had been thrilled and enjoyed himself immensely, and the game had excited Minori as well; it was like nothing she’d ever experienced before.
Almost immediately, they’d fallen head over heels for Elder Tales.
However, because of their situation, Minori was well aware that some things just couldn’t be helped.
Sometimes being a child was very hard.
It meant it wasn’t possible to make your thoughts and dreams come true just by doing your best.
Minori was a child, and that made her just as much of
a burden as Touya with his damaged legs. Sometimes being a child was a handicap, and it put just as much weight on someone else.
For example, even if she wanted to take Touya to the hospital herself, Minori couldn’t drive. Since she was a middle schooler, this was only natural, but it meant that burden fell on her parents.
Her abilities weren’t enough. She couldn’t take care of herself. She couldn’t save anybody. She couldn’t make her wishes come true the way she wanted to. —All of these characteristics made the faces of people she loved cloud over. In other words, they made her a burden.
Here, in the world of the game, having a low level made you so much of a burden that it was almost considered a sin.
She’d seen Shiroe from a distance, just once, after the Catastrophe.
The moment she’d seen the tall shadow with glasses, she’d known it was him.
Yet she hadn’t been able to call out to him.
After all, next to that figure, grimy with blood and dust, were a heavily armored warrior, who seemed to be as much of a veteran as Shiroe, and a beautiful girl, like a fairy of the night.
Shiroe had his own battles to fight.
That thought kept Minori from approaching him. In this chaotic world, everyone had their hands full trying to protect themselves. How could she beg an acquaintance, someone who’d only played with them a handful of times, for help?
When she closed her eyes, a menu opened behind her eyelids.
Minori’s friend list was short: Her brother Touya. A few of the newbie players she’d met at Hamelin. …And Shiroe.
Shiroe’s name shone brightly, and she stroked it gently with an imaginary fingertip.
To Minori, who’d lost nearly everything she could call her own, it was a treasure no one could take away.
I wish we could have learned a little bit more from Shiroe…
She pulled her mantle closer around her chilled body. Tonight’s darkness seemed even deeper than usual. The dull pain in her chest kept her from sleep.
Suddenly, a soft bell-like tone sounded in Minori’s ear.
She caught her breath sharply and then was startled at how loud it sounded there in the dark room.
In her mind’s eye, Shiroe’s name—the one she’d just touched—was pulsing.
She was afraid she might have triggered the telechat function by mistake, but when she checked, that didn’t seem to be the case. Shiroe was calling her. At this hour, just before dawn.
The bell chimed again.
Minori knew from experience that only she could hear it. Still, if she spoke, the Hamelin members might notice, and she risked waking her companions who slept nearby.
Even so, it was hard for Minori to ignore the sound of the bell.
Using her mental menu, she answered in a tiny, nearly inaudible voice. “Hello?”
“Um… Good evening. This is Shiroe. Do you remember me?”
“……—”
It wasn’t just that the familiar voice was nostalgic. It seemed like a bridge to pleasant, distant days, and it made Minori’s heart spill over.
In her dark, damp bed, wrapped in a dirty woolen mantle, Minori sniffled quietly.
“…That is Minori, isn’t it?”
The flood of feelings that washed over her had made her nose begin to run a bit, and she didn’t register Shiroe’s words the first time. She couldn’t reply. If she spoke, the others in the room might be suspicious. Even more than that, though, she didn’t want Shiroe to hear her voice this way, cracked and damp with tears.
In her heart, she nodded dozens of times, but aloud, Minori could only murmur yes in a small voice.
“”
“……”
The sound of breathing flowed between them. Minori struggled desperately to keep her unreasonable nose from snuffling; she was frightened that Shiroe would be disgusted with her, and she was so tense that the inside of her eyes seemed to flicker. Why had he called at this time of night? Why her? The questions raced around and around in her mind.
“…Minori. Listen carefully. Cough very quietly; once for yes, twice for no. If I get something wrong or you have something to tell me, cough three times. …Understand?”
At Shiroe’s question, the realization hit Minori like a lightning bolt:
He knows. Shiroe knows all about this.
The situation she was in. The sort of place Hamelin was.
She felt her ability to think, which had been half-numbed by her days of monotonous forced labor, coming back to life.
I don’t want to cause trouble for Shiroe. Not for him…
Now that she was a part of Hamelin, she understood full well.
Beginners didn’t have any systematic knowledge of this Elder Tales world, even if they were ten levels higher than Minori and Touya.
In this world, “knowledge” was a powerful weapon, and the lack of it was what kept newbies chained to their status as beginners. The common sense Shiroe had taught them as they played had become the strength she and Touya used to survive in this other world. Even in Hamelin’s terrible environment, she and Touya were able to maneuver a bit better than the other newbies, and this was due in large part to the few scraps of knowledge Shiroe had shared with them.
Shiroe was their benefactor. Minori had always thought so.
She’d wanted him to be even more than that.
“If you understand, cough once.”
Minori scraped what little warmth she had together, moistening her throat ever so slightly.
She gave one tiny cough.
Her throat was drier and achier than she’d realized, and even she thought the sound she managed to produce was pathetic.
She was indebted to Shiroe. She had to repay that debt. As Minori thought this, she swallowed several times to wet her throat, listening carefully.
“You and Touya are in Hamelin, aren’t you?”
One small cough.
“You’re giving your EXP Potions to Hamelin.”
Another small cough.
“…Are you all right?”
“……”
A nearly palpable silence filled the dark room.
Having heard that much, Minori knew what Shiroe was asking and what he was trying to do.
However, precisely because she understood, she felt a pain that nearly crushed her heart. Minori had no idea how Shiroe was planning to do it, but the method wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Shiroe was very close to resolving to save Minori and Touya.
What sort of price was he on the verge of paying in order to do something about their situation? In this other world, where everyone had to fight to survive, what would it end up costing him to save the two of them, burdens that they were?
How much were they worth, really?
There was only one answer to that question.
We’re all right. We’re absolutely fine. …They feed us every day, and my Tailoring level is going up, little by little. Touya and I can get by here. I’m sure Touya would say so, too. …We’re fine…
As she admonished herself, her heart’s voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else. In order to shut the door she longed for, the one that was dangerously close to opening, Minori gave one small cough. Just one.
We’re fine.
“Really?” Shiroe asked again.
His voice was gentle, and it reminded Minori of one of the times they’d played together.
That time, Touya had charged at the enemy, she’d run in to provide backup, and their careless actions had ended up drawing enemy reinforcements.
While Shiroe had used a sleeping spell to render the reinforcements powerless, Touya had fought desperately, and she’d recovered both of them. There were hordes of enemies, and their HP displays were always dyed red. She’d exhausted her MP in the excitement, and again and again she’d thought, We’re finished! It’s all over! but in the end, although they were limp and exhausted, all three of them had survived.
She’d heard that in Elder Tales level 90 was the h
ighest level there was.
If he’d died, he would have lost experience points as a penalty, but they’d made him wander the border between life and death right along with them, when they were barely level 10. She’d felt wretched and ashamed; she’d apologized desperately, and she’d hit Touya on the head with her fist and made him apologize, too.
We can’t let Shiroe damage his valuable experience points over the two of us, she had thought. …But Shiroe had only laughed, looking almost like a little kid.
“I had fun. It’s an adventure, you know? There are some skills you only learn when you’re in trouble. …I think you’re a little too proper, Minori. You did have fun, didn’t you? I liked it.”
His voice had been kind, and that kindness had saved Minori. She could sense the same kindness now, across the telechat’s invisible line.
…And so she coughed, just once more.
We’re fine.
If she did that, then the next time she met Shiroe, she might be able to smile and talk with him. Of course, she’d need a bit more time. Right now, she was filthy, and she looked like a street urchin. She hadn’t even bathed. It was so bad she felt she couldn’t even call herself a girl at this point.
There was a small, smoldering pain deep in her chest, but it had to be better than causing trouble for Shiroe. Even Minori was having a hard time believing that logic anymore, but she forced herself to listen to it.
“…All right. You’re fine; I understand. In that case, let’s play together again. I’d really like to. It was fun. So just…hang on for a little while.”
“……—!!”
But that meant he didn’t understand at all!
Or, no, it might be because he did understand everything…but even so.
Conflicting thoughts clashed in Minori’s chest, turning into hot tears deep in her nose and forcing their way up. Why was Shiroe so stubborn? And why did he say such kind things?
Frustration that her own attempt to be considerate hadn’t been understood; shame, confusion, guilt at having pulled him in… Sadness. And in equal measure to those negative emotions: happiness, kindness, joy, hope…and trust in Shiroe.