by Mamare Touno
He’d never thought that Soujirou would trust him this much, after they’d been apart for over a year and after he’d shrugged his hand off once already.
“Mew’re a good boy, Soujicchi.”
“Only because you praise me for it, Sage Nyanta.”
Soujirou smiled as he spoke. Then his expression tensed, and he looked at them both squarely.
“On a completely different note: Mr. Shiro, Sage Nyanta… Would you join the West Wind Brigade? It would make Nazuna happy, too, I think. We’re all pretty good-natured. Right now we’re taking turns exploring the outlying areas, working to uncover information about the new expansion pack. I know this may sound forward, but… That strategy you’re putting into action, Mr. Shiro. Wouldn’t it be more efficient if you worked under the auspices of the West Wind Brigade?—Or is that out of the question?”
Soujirou had straightened up, standing formally. His suggestion made sense, but Shiroe couldn’t agree to it now. Last week, he might have been able to. At this point, though, Shiroe already had a home.
“You really do dislike me, then?”
Soujirou sounded dejected. Shiroe had shaken his head.
Even as he thought, That’s the second time I’ve turned down an invitation from Soujirou, Shiroe touched his shoulder.
Nyanta’s words had finally given Shiroe a clear picture of what it was he needed to do. It was what he’d kept his eyes turned away from.
By taking advantage of Naotsugu and Akatsuki’s kindness and by letting Nyanta protect him, he’d managed to go without saying it until now.
“It really isn’t that, Soujirou. …Listen. I realized it was about time I made a place for myself. I’ve been running away from tiresome things that happened years ago, and I ran all the way here, but I finally realized I need to be one of the people who protects things, too. I’ve formed my own guild. It doesn’t have many members yet, and we’ve just barely begun, but… I finally realized that the place where I belong can’t exist until I make a place for other people to belong.”
As Soujirou gazed at him as though he were meeting him for the first time, Shiroe slowly told him about his resolution.
1
Following the opening of Snack Shop Crescent Moon, the town of Akiba grew livelier.
Although it was just food and drink, it was food and drink.
Up until this point, the people of Akiba had eaten food that had absolutely no flavor, and these new delights captivated them in the blink of an eye. For the most part, Crescent Moon meals were take-out fare, and they certainly weren’t lavish by the standards of the old world. In this other world, however, they were welcomed as the finest delicacies.
The original three-shop supply system wasn’t able to keep up with demand, and a few days after the initial opening, a fourth shop opened. Slices of pizza—kept warm on an iron sheet heated by a Salamander that was conjured by one of the Crescent Moon League’s Summoners—and custard pudding made with sweet cream had been added to the menu, and these proved wildly popular as well.
The citizens of Akiba had known from the very beginning that Snack Shop Crescent Moon was run by the Crescent Moon League, which was only a small guild. Some were critical of the fact that a minor guild was monopolizing the new recipes, but in the game world, justice was considered to be on the side of the one who achieved results fastest, and the criticisms were ignored.
As a practical problem, the Crescent Moon League received threatening letters telling them to publish the new recipes, but even the people in question knew they had no real grounds for complaint.
About the time the fourth shop opened, a rumor began to spread through town.
According to this rumor, the Crescent Moon League had joined forces with the three biggest production guilds in Akiba: the Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District 8.
The total membership of these three big production guilds was over five thousand. This was nearly a third of the entire population of Akiba, and it made for an enormous force. In fact, as if to corroborate that rumor, transactions for some of the food items on the market had picked up, and Shopping District 8 seemed to be buying up materials.
Although there were now four shops and the new menu items had increased the rate of customer turnover, demand far outstripped the Crescent Moon’s food supply. Even working together, it was all the shops could do to handle a bit less than 1,500 customers per day.
Most of the people in Akiba had experienced the flavor of Crescent Moon’s delicious take-out hamburgers, and those who had wanted to repeat the experience. Now that they’d been reminded of the flavors they’d been used to in the old world, it was agony to return to a life of sodden, flavorless space food.
It grew common for lines to begin forming at the Crescent Moon shops before dawn, and the shops started handing out numbered tickets to customers.
This completely unexpected Crescent Moon boom had influenced several things for the better.
First, Crescent Moon food was rather expensive. The cost of one meal was between three and six times the cost of a meal purchased at the market. Of course, there was no entertainment or anything else on which to spend money in Akiba, and very few users hesitated over spending an amount like that. However, although they didn’t hesitate, they needed to have the money to spend.
Eating Crescent Moon hamburgers three meals a day, every day (if any player was lucky enough to be able to buy that much!), would cost 1,350 gold coins a month.
Since it had hardly cost anything at all to live in Akiba up until now, there had been players who’d sat huddled in the ruins day after day, lost in the sorrow of being unable to return to the old world. The fact that even they now felt like earning a few coins was a huge change.
For the first time in a very long while, public recruiting began in Akiba’s central plaza. This was a method of recruiting in which participants gathered and looked for companions to join them on temporary hunting expeditions, and it had nothing to do with any guild. This type of recruiting was rare in this other world, and it drew lots of attention in the plaza.
When it was time for the parties to depart, all the clerks of the Crescent Moon shop located in the plaza waved and loudly chorused, “Have a good trip!”
This probably had at least a little to do with the fact that the members of those temporary parties had bought canteens of Black Rose Tea before they left.
Still, it was an odd, heartwarming sight, unlike anything witnessed in the era of the Elder Tales game. As they left Akiba, the members of the temporary parties had tickled, flattered smiles on their faces.
In addition to that sort of individual economic activity, there were market trends as well. The prices of several food items, such as young venison, potatoes, and ptarmigan meat, had begun to rise.
This was the result of careful buying up on the part of Shopping District 8, but there were always people who were sensitive to the rise in prices and would respond by attempting to fill the demand. Several guilds that had picked up on this information organized voluntary material procurement teams and began to put items on the market. No doubt they predicted that prices would rise and envisioned vast profits. However, Calasin of Shopping District 8 had already anticipated this situation, and at an earlier stage, he’d directly approached several dozen small adventuring guilds of his acquaintance and proposed a large-scale expedition team organization.
Schedules for hunts that spanned several days were put together, and alternate members were found and dispatched. The guilds organized teams to hunt on location and other teams to bring the spoils back to town, creating a system in which the production guilds supported the material supply line on their own.
This was the first time—not only since the Catastrophe, but in the history of Elder Tales—that a production guild had established a direct support system for a combat guild. The method proved successful, and Shopping District 8 managed to obtain vast quantities of materials at a set price without leaning too heavily on the market.
When players who had never left the town began to go out on excursions, it triggered varied consumption activity regarding expendables and repairs, and this in turn increased the opportunities for artisans to work. Although the transformation was still subtle, little by little, the town of Akiba was changing.
Was Snack Shop Crescent Moon the source of these changes?
If the Crescent Moon League had completely joined forces with Akiba’s three largest production guilds, the group would have encompassed one-sixth of all the players on the Japanese server. It would have meant the birth of the largest force on the Japanese server at the very least. Recently, there had been many inquiries from other cities via telechat regarding the Crescent Moon League. There was also no end to the players who hoped to join the guild, but Marielle kept turning them down, telling them, “Hang on till the end of the month, ’kay?”
Even the members of the combat guilds, which ordinarily didn’t interfere with the production guilds and seemed to inhabit a completely different world, were taking an interest in the situation.
In this world—which had no Internet or WebTV and was, in other words, almost completely without entertainment—rumors provided a lot of the fun.
The citizens of Akiba gathered here and there, tirelessly discussing their predictions and guesses. Mentioned in these rumors were the names of Marielle, the cheerful, caring guild master of the Crescent Moon League; of Henrietta, who was rumored to be quite accomplished; and of Shouryuu, the young combat team leader. However, at the same time, some of the veteran players and people who were well-informed about the situation whispered Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Nyanta’s names, and that of the Debauchery Tea Party, as if they’d just remembered them.
That said, almost no one realized that the players—the Adventurers—weren’t the only ones discussing the rumors.
2
Ten days had passed.
Snack Shop Crescent Moon, which had more business than it could handle every day, was already an established part of the town, and its endless lines were a local attraction. Even today, in the clear summer weather, the four shops were doubtless serving their jostling hordes of customers as fast as they could.
However, this was a wide space far from that tumult.
It was the enormous conference room on the top floor of the guild center, the building that was the cornerstone of Akiba.
The conference room was open to any Adventurer who used the guild center. However, in a world with no electricity, elevators were nothing more than iron boxes, and very few people were eccentric enough to climb sixteen ruined floors’ worth of stairs.
In the center of this vast, high-ceilinged space sat a large round table. The individuals seated around it could have been said to represent Akiba.
“Black Sword” Isaac, the leader of the Knights of the Black Sword.
Ains, the guild master of Honesty.
“Berserker” Krusty, D.D.D.’s commander.
William, the young leader of Silver Sword.
Soujirou, the harem-prone guild master of the West Wind Brigade.
Michitaka, the iron-armed general manager of the Marine Organization.
Roderick, the guild master of the Roderick Trading Company.
Calasin, leader of Shopping District 8.
Marielle of the Crescent Moon League.
Woodstock of Grandale, Animal Trainer.
Akaneya, the shrewd Mechanist of RADIO Market.
…And Shiroe, who wore the guild tag “Log Horizon.”
Since many of the twelve who sat at the round table had several close associates standing behind them, there were nearly thirty players in this vast space.
The members of the gathering wore a variety of expressions. Some were uneasy, some suspicious, some expressionless, and some seemed self-confident. All had been summoned to this gathering by an invitation that had arrived the previous evening.
The title of the invitation had been “Re: The Town of Akiba.”
It had been sent jointly by Shiroe of Log Horizon and Marielle of the Crescent Moon League.
Almost all the assembled members were in charge of huge guilds. The Marine Organization, the Roderick Trading Company, and Shopping District 8 were all major production guilds. The Knights of the Black Sword, Honesty, D.D.D., Silver Sword, and the West Wind Brigade—all combat guilds—were either large or had a track record of impressive achievements. The Crescent Moon League, Grandale, and RADIO Market were small, but they had been central to the attempted former liaison committee for small and midsized guilds, an alliance that had failed.
Only one guild, Log Horizon, was unfamiliar to everyone present. No one had even heard of it.
However, guilds as large as the ones assembled here had their own diverse ways of gathering information, and less than a quarter of the members looked puzzled by Shiroe’s presence.
As the seated players eyed one another, sizing each other up, Serara of the Crescent Moon League appeared and served them chilled fruit tea. This wasn’t a beverage that Snack Shop Crescent Moon sold, and a few of the members looked a bit startled, but the silence continued, seeming to swallow up that slight confusion.
Shiroe sat quietly.
It didn’t mean he felt calm.
To Shiroe, this conference was a battlefield.
It was a battlefield of clashing swords and flames, no less than any of the large-scale battles he’d taken part in before. Shiroe felt simultaneously hot, as though he was delirious with fever, and cold with nervous tension, but he bore them both. Almost all the players gathered here were enemies from whom he’d have to extract compromises. The remaining few were allies who were counting on him. He couldn’t let either camp realize how hard-pressed he felt.
I chose to start this war, after all.
As Soujirou had said, this world was a prison. Everyone in it was spellbound by the curse of struggling to survive. The despair of having no way to get home. The monster-haunted wilderness. The shackles of apathy.
Shiroe himself had spent the days since the Catastrophe being hounded by the situation. He’d responded to the circumstances in front of him, gotten his plans in order, and lived with the sole purpose of increasing his chances of survival.
However, this operation was different. Saving Touya, saving Minori, bringing some sort of order to Akiba… Ultimately, these were all self-indulgence on Shiroe’s part. He wanted them, and he intended to get them, even if it meant starting an unnecessary war. That was all.
He did think there were merits, of course. He believed there would be not only for him, but also for the people important to him and for Akiba.
However, that didn’t change the fact that this had its beginnings in what was essentially selfishness.
In that sense, Shiroe had gained the first freedom he’d had since the Catastrophe. This war had begun with his self-indulgence; he’d started it in order to make his own wish come true, and he was going to fight it with everything he had. Although this did make him feel very tense and put him under enough pressure to make him cringe, at the same time, it gave him fierce joy.
“Shiroechi? Are mew all right?”
Nyanta, who was standing behind and to his right, spoke to him. At this point, he could accept those words honestly. Nyanta wore the guild tag “Log Horizon” now, as did Naotsugu and Akatsuki, who weren’t at the meeting. They were going into this first battle as a guild of four, and although they might be on duty at different posts, they were on the same battlefield.
Bring my friends victory.
That was Shiroe’s fervent wish.
At last all the participants were seated, and the tension in the room built.
Shiroe stood and delivered the opening remarks.
“Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend this conference. I’m Shiroe of Log Horizon. …I’ve invited you here today to discuss a certain matter with you and to ask a favor. It’s a rather complicated matter, and it will probably take some time, but pleas
e bear with me.”
Shiroe paused, looking around the room.
…Well, at any rate, they all came. That’s good. It’s probably because Soujirou laid the groundwork, but even so. That saves me the trouble of going around and persuading each of them individually. …Although it also makes this conference that much more of a decisive battle.
“You can keep the pleasantries brief, Shiroe of Debauchery. It’s not like we don’t know each other.”
It was “Black Sword” Isaac who’d raised his voice. He was a seasoned soldier and one of the leading high-level players on the Japanese server. He was a true warrior who’d led the charge in countless large-scale battles. Shiroe had been invited to several of these battles as support. Enchanter was a bottom-of-the-barrel class, and he’d assumed Isaac wouldn’t remember a player like that, but apparently he’d been wrong.
“What’s going on here anyway?”
The irritated voice belonged to William, the young leader of Silver Sword. The youth’s flowing silver hair was tied back, and he looked like a typical elf lord. He seemed to be a very impatient type: He kept crossing and uncrossing his legs.
“As you say. I’ll get right down to business, then. The matter I would like to discuss—propose may be a better word—has to do with current conditions in Akiba. As you know, since the Catastrophe, we’ve been stranded in this other world. We have absolutely no idea about how to get back to our old world. To the best of my knowledge, we don’t even have a clue. This is incredibly painful, but it’s a fact. Meanwhile, under these circumstances, Akiba’s atmosphere is souring. Many of our companions have lost their motivation, while others have grown desperate. The economy is in tatters, and our exploration rate is stagnant. I’d like us to do something about the situation. That is why I’ve called you here.”
Shiroe spoke with his eyes half-closed.
He was fine. He’d gone over the words he needed to say in his mind, again and again, until they seemed so real he could practically feel them.