by Mamare Touno
In the first place, Marielle, the guild leader, used the guildhall as her own house, so it was only natural that the people below her would imitate her.
“Mari. Mari? We’re ready; stand up. Here, these are yours.”
Hugging the stuffed teddy bear and cushion Henrietta had handed her, Marielle left her familiar old office. Almost all the furniture had been carried out already, and the room was wide and bare. Not even a shadow of its former self remained.
“Commander Marielle~. We’ve gotten the office at the new guildhall ready, ma’am.”
Smiling and saying, “Thanks much!” to the guild member—who was bouncing up and down—Marielle set off.
And so, unable to make do with its old guildhall, the Crescent Moon League found itself facing a move. Like the old hall, the new hall was located in the Akiba guild center.
Even though Marielle had started off carrying her belongings, the move was a very short one: She stepped out of the old guildhall into the guild center, then teleported to the new zone through another door in the next corridor over.
However, the rank of the hall they were renting had changed. They’d leveled up from a seven-room guildhall to a hall with thirty-one rooms. The rent had gone up as well, of course, but they still had some of their earnings from Snack Shop Crescent Moon left over.
Henrietta, who was strict about balancing income and expenses, had given it her guarantee—“I don’t see why not”—so Marielle felt secure in her decision to move.
They now had nearly fifty guild members, but with the new hall, they’d be able to manage quite well. Each individual space—the kitchen, the conference room, the workrooms, storerooms, and hall—was larger, so above and beyond the fact that there were more rooms, the guildhall felt more spacious. Thirty-one rooms: It seemed almost like a castle.
One surprise was that the guildhall was two stories, which meant it even had a staircase.
“It’s so big, ma’am!”
“Whoa. It’s huuuge.”
“I bet we could fit a dragon in here!”
Marielle grinned at the excited guild members. The business of placing the furniture they’d brought over around the guildhall, undoing packages, and jotting down notes regarding new equipment they’d need seemed to have begun.
Thinking of the expenses for tables and carpets was giving her a headache, but their artisans would probably be able to make the minimum of what they’d need. Besides, if it turned out they didn’t have enough of something and had to save up for it, it would be a good excuse to go adventuring.
Akiba had begun to come to life again. Just thinking about it made Marielle feel warm and happy.
There’s lots we need to do. …There’re so much I want!
The area of her spacious new office was about three times the area of her old one. It was so big she was having a hard time relaxing. The desk and chairs she’d used at the old guildhall had been brought in, along with the sofa and cushions, but in the huge office, the compact desk-and-reception set only served to emphasize the vast coldness of the room.
“This is rather…large, isn’t it? It might even be bigger than the conference room at the old guildhall.”
Henrietta, who’d come in with some documents, also seemed a bit nonplussed. When they’d come to inspect the hall before moving in, there hadn’t been any furniture, so she’d been able to say, “It’s nice to have so much space.” However, now that the room actually held furniture, all that extra space made it feel much too lonely.
“What’ll I do? Am I really gonna live in a place like this?”
In spite of herself, Marielle sounded miserable. This was going to be quite a problem in its own way.
“I think it would be good to put up some dividing screens. Single-leaf wooden screens and some ornamental plants.”
Henrietta jotted down the necessary items one after another in a nearby notebook. That would work, come to think of it, and in an office this spacious, it would be entirely possible to set up a reception corner. If they split it into three rooms, Marielle thought, she could probably even use the innermost one as her bedroom.
“This is gonna cost us quite a bit.”
“Very true. …Still, I believe that’s a good thing.”
Henrietta smiled faintly, her eyes still on the notebook. The lovely smile made Marielle happy. She knew Henrietta was feeling the same thing she was.
“I love ya to pieces, Henrietta~.”
In an attempt to express those feelings, Marielle hugged her hard.
“Now how did that conversation lead to this?! Honestly, Mari!”
Startled, Henrietta struggled. On top of that, they were spotted by a newbie—“I-I’m sorry, ma’am!”—and so by the time Marielle finished tidying up the room, chuckling the whole time, she was worn out.
“You are something else, you know that…?”
“I said I was sorry. Forgive me, ’kay? Please? Pretty please?”
“I only said that since it will contribute to the town’s economic development, buying a few pieces of furniture would be a good thing.”
Marielle’s attitude had made Henrietta blush bright red, and her shapely eyebrows were bristling. Marielle couldn’t stop smiling at the sight of her friend’s face: Although Henrietta was always visiting hugs upon Akatsuki, apparently she wasn’t skilled at being on the receiving end of things.
“I swear, it’s like the sun came out all of a sudden.”
Marielle wasn’t talking about the approaching summer.
She meant the town of Akiba ever since the establishment of the Round Table Council.
That night, several dozen flyers had been promptly posted in Akiba’s central plaza to spread the word of the Round Table Council’s establishment. The news spread with terrifying speed, and by the time dawn broke, there was no one in Akiba who didn’t know.
…Not that there hadn’t been any backlash.
After all, the Round Table Council was not a self-governing body made up of members selected by democratic vote. To the standard Japanese mind, this council had practically been forced on them from higher up, and it must have seemed as if the big guilds were behind it, pulling the strings.
However, having anticipated this, the flyers also listed the intent behind the council’s establishment, its short-term goals, and its methods in detail.
In a magnanimous gesture, they also gave the secret of the completely new cooking method made famous by Snack Shop Crescent Moon.
In the space of a night, the town of Akiba was flooded with food of all kinds. Food that tasted like it should—the sort that had only been available from Snack Shop Crescent Moon—could now be made by any Chef.
Of course, with the new cooking method, the knowledge and techniques of the person doing the cooking mattered just as much as cooking skills. Some of the dishes, made by amateurs, couldn’t have been called “good” by the most diplomatic player. However, even these were much better than the former dull and uninteresting food items.
Several hasty Chefs opened stalls one after another. Some baked bread and sold it, while others sold sweet juices. Some simpler stalls made and sold baked potatoes. Some even made meat or fish soups in big iron kettles over open fires by the roadside and sold it by the bowlful, as if they were doing impromptu business in a disaster zone.
Everyone was able to satisfy their previously unfulfilled appetites for food. Delicious foods became the subject of rumors and sold out almost instantly, and the town of Akiba developed a luxurious pastime that no one had even imagined could exist the day before: “eating and strolling.”
The townspeople welcomed the change.
Among those who met it with cheers were a fair number of People of the Earth, as well as Adventurers.
The revitalization of the town, maintaining public order through the establishment of law, improving relations with the People of the Earth, and the introduction of a tax to support these initiatives were announced in a public address given the following afterno
on.
At the address, which took place in Akiba’s central plaza, several notables from Akiba—including “Berserker” Krusty, the leader of D.D.D., and Michitaka, general manager of the Marine Organization—assembled to talk about the intent behind the establishment of the Round Table Council.
The idea of a tax drew some skeptical comments, but when they were told that collection would be nearly automatic and that it wouldn’t be very much, they accepted it with passive agreement. The tax would be instituted in the form of a fee for guild center use, with one coin per day collected from any player who entered or left the guild center.
This was one of the entry- and exit-related items that could be set by the owner of the guild center zone. According to Roderick’s calculations, the revenue would earn the Round Table Council a monthly budget of slightly less than 400,000 gold coins.
Everyone, and particularly players who didn’t belong to one of the big guilds, had sensed the importance of establishing law, and by now everyone understood what revitalizing Akiba would mean.
The revolution that had been sparked by a single evening meal had brought life back to the faces of all the townspeople.
The upshot was that the Round Table Council was widely accepted by everyone who lived in Akiba. A governing body like this one would have been created eventually, and in that case, it was dozens of times better to have a competent self-governing organization than something dictatorial—something controlled by the big guilds, for example.
When the representatives from the eleven guilds that made up the Round Table Council addressed the crowd from the platform, each drew loud applause. That said, it felt more like the reaction of amiable onlookers at a large-scale party than support for a political assembly.
Everything was colored by the sunset, and people thronged the central plaza. Players who hadn’t been able to find a place in the plaza looked down over the platform from various floors of the surrounding mixed-use buildings.
Many of them held bread, sweets, or shish kebabs in their hands as they watched this first event in a very long time. Some of those present had a bit of alcohol in them, and the proceedings were more like a policy announcement given in the midst of an uproar than a public address.
In any case, Krusty, the Round Table Council’s representative, explained that they would work to reorganize the town of Akiba on a new system; that they had several projects, including investigating the Fairy Rings; and that the cooperation of the townspeople would be vital in order to achieve these things.
Abruptly, as the townspeople met that declaration with cheers, an astonishing number of artisans began to bring in food and alcohol. Representatives of three production guilds—headed by the Marine Organization—proclaimed vigorously that they’d make that day the first of the auspicious festival days and yelled that they were bringing out all the delicacies their storehouses held. At that, the excitement in Akiba reached fever pitch.
“If that racket keeps up, my head’s going to turn into a cream puff.”
“Yep, it just might.”
Marielle giggled. Henrietta looked put out.
The night grew later and later amid endless calls of “Cheers!”
One week after that night…
Sunlight continued to stream into the town of Akiba.
New dishes were supplied almost every day, and they heard that the production artisans who weren’t Chefs were also trying various things in order to create new items.
The thing that currently held Marielle and Henrietta’s interest was a bathing facility. When Elder Tales was a game, bathtubs had been mere background objects. However, now that this was another world, one they were actually living in, bathing suddenly took on a different meaning. The humidity was lower here than it was in real-world Japan, and the summer heat wasn’t quite as sweltering… But, as women, there was no way they wouldn’t be interested.
From what they’d heard, the West Wind Brigade had promptly gained the cooperation of Mechanists, Blacksmiths, and Carpenters and begun to build a large public bath in their guild castle.
News of advancements flew in almost daily—reports that somebody somewhere had used some new device—and this really did bring energy back to Akiba. The young man who’d planned it all had received no attention whatsoever at the speeches on the night of the raucous festival, but he’d seemed satisfied.
When she thought of Shiroe and his companions, Marielle felt a mixture of happiness and gratitude, but she also felt something very strange.
Hamelin had decided to disband not long ago.
He really did take down a whole guild. Wow… Shiro’s a pretty scary kid. Talk about dangerous…
Marielle sat on her luxurious chair at her work desk, hugging her knees and ducking her head low. She remembered the strong eyes behind Shiroe’s round glasses. When Shiroe had led that conference with that fiery will of his, he’d done so with so much force that she’d been a little afraid of him.
The Shiroe Marielle knew was the veteran player who was always mulling something over privately, who tied himself down with all sorts of bad premonitions, and yet was kind and trustworthy even so.
He was more good-natured than anything, a homeless wanderer, oddly mature for his age, evasive but reliable, a lone Enchanter. That was all.
Marielle didn’t know the steely youth who’d used his intense will to drive his opponents into a corner, as if he were at a duel or a chessboard.
But he did save us, didn’t he…?
With her face still buried in her knees, Marielle gave a mischievous little chuckle. Shiroe, Akatsuki, Nyanta, and Naotsugu. Her reliable friends had brought Serara back to the Crescent Moon League, and they’d brought energy back to the town of Akiba.
They could have said it wasn’t their problem and left everyone out in the cold, but even then, they’d kept up their relentless pursuit of the “greatest good.” In her head, Marielle still couldn’t quite mesh those four with the four who’d relaxed at the guildhall drinking tea, but that didn’t change the fact that they were their benefactors.
“…Hm. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Shiro’s crew today. What’re they up to?”
Abruptly curious, Marielle checked with Henrietta.
“My. Hadn’t you heard? Master Shiroe’s group is moving today, too.”
5
At about that time, on the edge of the outskirts of Akiba, Shiroe and the others were in the process of taking up residence in one of the mixed-use buildings closest to the northern boundary.
Log Horizon, which Shiroe had founded just the other day, had a current membership of four.
Shiroe, the Enchanter who, in spite of his mild demeanor, would carry even the most reckless plan through to the end once he’d set his mind to it. Byname: Machiavelli-with-glasses. (…Although, personally, Shiroe had several objections to that name.)
Naotsugu, the Guardian, a rock-solid vanguard tank and panties evangelist, who was always ready with flippant banter and bad jokes.
Akatsuki, the pretty-girl Assassin, slight and black haired, always dead serious and the resident straight man.
Finally, the quiet and restrained Swashbuckler Nyanta: adviser and guardian of the group’s collective stomach.
With four members, the guild was so tiny it would have seemed presumptuous to call it “small.”
In the first place, as Michitaka of the Marine Organization had commented, everyone had thought Log Horizon was a temporary guild, formed just to launch the Round Table Council. The guild couldn’t shed the image that it had been established in haste.
Shiroe had spent so much of his game life steering clear of guilds that this sort of profiling was only natural.
On the morning after the night when he’d looked up at the white moon hanging over the Kanda River, while the streets were still hazy with mist, Shiroe took Akatsuki and Naotsugu into Akiba.
The dawn sunlight held a growing premonition of summer, and the cicadas were already starting to cry. After thor
oughly stressing himself out over how to begin, the words Shiroe settled on were completely commonplace: “I’m forming a new guild. Would you join it?”
Rats, he thought, barely a moment later. I should have come up with something better. Even as Shiroe began to regret his approach, the other two readily agreed to join up.
“What, you’re finally ready to go for it, Shiro? I was starting to think I’d just keep hanging around with you like this, like some guild without a guild tag.”
“Ninja follow their lords wherever they go. Command as you see fit, my liege.”
Along with Nyanta, whom he’d already invited, Shiroe’s guild, Log Horizon, now had four members. In this way, the tiny guild—which, in terms of numbers, should have been called Log Minimum instead of Log Horizon—got its modest start in the streets of Akiba.
“Will our wallet be all right, my liege?”
Akatsuki’s question came as she was cleaning the floor. The only words to describe the high-ceilinged space were enormous and completely empty.
Her worry was well-founded. Guilds as small as Shiroe’s didn’t generally bother with guildhalls the way normal guilds did.
In most guilds with memberships in the single digits, individual members might rent their own rooms at inns, but they very rarely set up a guildhall.
With only a few people, there weren’t many possessions or guild trophies that needed to be put somewhere, and people could be met in the plaza or at taverns. There was no problem with conducting strategy meetings on the side of the road, and in any case, the telechat function kept them nicely connected.
Smaller guilds with a few more members would rent guildhalls at the guild center and use these as their headquarters.
The guild center was close to the center of town, and since it was also economical and clean, it was quite popular. It also held halls of all sizes, from affordable three-room suites to halls that had thirty-one rooms and could accommodate guilds with a hundred members. It was close to shopping at the plaza and to the bank, and since it was so convenient, most guilds used it.