by Mamare Touno
Tetora, who’d come in close again before he was aware of it, called to him musingly.
Leaning forward even farther to shield Tetora from the flames, Naotsugu yelled back: “Leave it to me! This’s nothing!” Tetora set a hand on Naotsugu’s shoulder and jumped up, then called to the great hall in a carrying voice.
“Hey, team! Are you into this?”
The fighting was fierce, and no voices responded to Tetora. However, everyone was watching her. Of course they were: Since they were attacking Ibra Habra of the Third Garden, the target they needed to defeat, they were watching Naotsugu, who was taking all of its ferocious attacks by himself, and Tetora was yelling at the battlefield over his shoulder.
A rumbling echo filled the cavern. It was the raid team’s will, responding to the little idol’s question with desperate effort from each member. Swords and axes were brought down in rapid succession, and ice and lightning attacks battered the enormous monster.
Smiling at the cacophony, Tetora thrust the baton in her right hand high into the air, an expression of defiance on her face.
“Okay, here we go! C’mon, everybody, do your best! You can do your best, so do it!”
Tetora’s brave voice rang out so well it nearly made them forget they were underground. After rising to the heavens, her voice showered down over her companions.
High in the air, light swelled, and a rainbow-colored aurora appeared. Curtains of light shimmered, holding countless falling stars inside, and gentle music played. Aurora Heal was a special spell. Of the many recovery spells held by the three recovery classes in Elder Tales, Aurora Heal was the only spell geared specifically for raids. Its recovery range included every one of their companions that were gathered under the aurora, and even if there were a hundred of them, it administered healing light to all of them.
“That’s-real-generous city!”
“Of course it is: I’m an angel!”
Beaming, the Cleric paid out spells in rapid succession, twirling around as she did so. Her speed was even greater than that of the Silver Sword Recovery classes, who had to be very skilled. She was probably getting support from Shiroe to do it, but it was a magnificent display of raiderly behavior.
As if riding that momentum, Naotsugu also paid out attack after attack.
So far, everything was going without a hitch. Apparently, as Shiroe had anticipated, Ibra Habra of the Third Garden had lower maximum HP than Ruseato of the Seventh. It also couldn’t recover by changing its shape. Ibra Habra’s specialties were ranged attacks and an area of scorching heat that made you lose health just by getting close to it.
However, since they’d anticipated that, the team had changed into all the fire-resistant equipment they had with them, and they were being supplied with appropriate support spells. Ibra Habra had prodigious HP, but they’d already shaved away half of it. If they kept on inflicting damage this way, they should be able to defeat it.
Not that I’m gonna help it out by getting careless.
Even as Naotsugu kept a close eye on the fiery serpent’s movements, he paid attention to the situation around him.
“Great job!”
“Yeppers, just leave it to me!”
He wasn’t only talking to Tetora. He was sending a message to everyone around him.
They could trust their shield. The feeling of confidence that he was still fine was necessary for a raid tank.
If it had been possible to solve difficulties with the simple emotions “We can do this” or “We should be able to do this,” no one would ever have trouble. They wouldn’t need Shiroe’s plans. However, on the other hand, one single thought of “We’re losing” or “We might lose this one” could lead to actual defeat in raids.
If it was to energize his comrades, he’d raise a shout or even put on an act.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and a soft warmth that was completely different from the heat of the flames spread through his body. Tetora’s Small Recovery was at work. In order to exercise her Cleric’s recovery abilities to the greatest extent possible, this little hand had come to the front line, where flames raged, and kept Naotsugu company with her usual cheerful backchat.
Tetora understood, too: This trifling dialogue turned into power for the entire group. Naotsugu knew this, and it put him in a good mood. He managed to give a real smile, instead of one that was just meant to reassure everyone.
“Naotsugu, have you fallen for me?”
“Absolutely nyet!”
“Isn’t this the scene where we get set up for all sorts of interesting future developments?”
“You-just-shot-the-whole-thing-to-heck-with-that-line city.”
The tail was thrust at them like a spear. As Naotsugu used the points of light his shield showed him to deflect its tip to the side, he answered Tetora’s playful query in the negative. The question made him worry whether she really understood. Wanting to demand that she give back the warm feelings he’d had up until a minute ago, Naotsugu shot a sidelong glare at Tetora.
“I have a report for you, Naotsugu.”
“At a friggin’ busy time like this? What is it, huh?”
“Well, if it wasn’t a time like this, it would be hard to bring up.”
Tetora was wriggling restlessly, purposefully saying “Fidget, fidget” out loud, but Naotsugu kept on fighting ferociously. As he used his hands and feet to deflect broken sulfur rocks so that they wouldn’t go Tetora’s way, he humored her, tentatively: “So? What is it?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m joining Log Horizon.”
“Huh?”
Passing the stage where he could get by with looking at her out of the corner of his eye, Naotsugu turned.
There was Tetora, her expression as full of self-confidence as ever and her cheeks flushed red.
“Liar city.”
“I’m serious.”
“Why?”
“To play with you, Naotsugu.” The self-proclaimed idol snickered mischievously while firing off several Heals in a row. She was in an incredibly good mood. Every time she cast a recovery spell, she tapped at the armor over Naotsugu’s side in a kittenish gesture, of which he really didn’t approve.
“Whose permission did you get to make that happen?!”
“Why, Shiroe’s.”
“Hey, Shiro! That-was-uncalled-for city!”
…But they couldn’t just keep telling funny stories like this.
Ibra Habra had reared upright like a theme park monument and it opened its mouth wide, inhaling. Air and fire were sucked in with a roar. It was the preliminary action necessary for Merciless Banquet of Purgatory, the massively damaging ranged attack that they’d lasted through a short while ago.
“Here it comes!”
“Vanguard, fall back! Federico, stay there and keep debuffing. Cut down the damage!”
Naotsugu and William yelled it almost simultaneously.
Their formation changed yet again. The raid team’s close-range attack unit rolled back like the tide.
They were getting out of the firestorm’s range of attack to reduce the overall damage. Decreasing the damage meant more than making things easier for the healers; it was also important if they were going to save their MP.
However, the formation shift was disturbed.
Azalea, the Summoner from the Fourth party who’d been conducting long-range attacks, tripped and fell on what looked like open ground, then screamed something, although Naotsugu couldn’t make out what it was. At that warning, William snapped out an order: “Dinclon to the rear!!”
With speed that didn’t leave time for even a hasty reorganization, a new battle began.
There were two openings in this huge subterranean cavern. One was the white granite corridor up above, through which Naotsugu and the others had entered. The other was the cave passage that extended from the lower part of the cavern.
An enormous savage warrior wearing a coarse pelt, the pale frost giant Tartaulga of the Fourth Garden, had appeared from that c
ave passage and joined the fight.
4
Saying there was no disturbance in the great hall would have been a lie.
After they’d experienced that devastating annihilation earlier, this was only natural. However, that frozen instant was immediately dissolved by William’s exhortation.
The Guardian Dinclon, Silver Sword’s pride, leapt forward like a bullet, rushed at the frost giant and used Castle of Stone. A club that seemed as if its diameter alone might be several meters wide swung at him sideways, but the elf warrior slapped it down as if it were a joke and took up a position in the entrance to the passage. As you’d expect from a seasoned raider, there was no wasted motion in his actions.
Pushing up his glasses, which had been jostled out of place by the exercise, Shiroe wiped away the sweat that dripped from his forehead. Now his second prediction had come true.
Apparently Ruseato of the Seventh Garden wasn’t able to open the gates in the coliseum. However, Ibra Habra and Tartaulga, who protected their own positions to the far east and west of the coliseum, could enter it, and they could also go through inner passages and reach each other’s locations without entering it.
Even if they outwitted Ruseato, they’d have to deal with the fiery serpent Ibra Habra and Tartaulga the frost giant at the same time. That had been within his predictions. Considered in ordinary terms, that would have meant a stalemate. There was no full raid anywhere that could stop attacks from two raid bosses and not be destroyed. Their attacks were far too overwhelming.
But was that really the case?
In the instant when he’d awoken, Shiroe had doubted it, and had hit on this plan.
Part of the reason Silver Sword and Shiroe’s group had been annihilated in the coliseum showdown was because they’d been confused by a situation they hadn’t anticipated—the raid bosses joining forces—and their teamwork had been disrupted. However, if you looked at the damage on its own, the reason was because they’d taken a wide-range flame attribute attack from Ibra Habra and a wide-range cold attribute attack from the frost giant Tartaulga simultaneously. Either one would have been a lethal attack as far as the rear guard was concerned; if they took both at once, death was their only option.
However, if it had been just one of the two, wouldn’t the vanguard have been able to last through it?
Shiroe remembered Ruseato’s attacks, and he didn’t think a raid boss in the same zone would have attack power that far surpassed that. It might be more than that, but it couldn’t possibly be double. He concluded that it wouldn’t be impossible to last through attacks from either Ibra Habra or Tartaulga.
The conclusion Shiroe had reached was that, provided the raid bosses’ ranges didn’t overlap, it would be possible to bear up under their attacks, and this formed the framework of his strategy.
This vast underground cavern was spacious enough to allow for that. Naotsugu had positioned himself by the southwest wall and was holding back Ibra Habra’s attacks, while Dinclon, the Guardian who’d supported Silver Sword, had Tartaulga pinned at the entrance to the corridor in the northeast.
The two shields adjusted their positions, protecting each other from ranged attacks.
This position adjustment was fairly harsh. Each of them had their own dedicated healers, but that wasn’t enough. It was necessary for several mobile healers to recover Naotsugu and Dinclon, traveling back and forth as needed, but the distance between the two was too wide, and they tended to be too late. The farther apart they were, the greater their safe zone against ranged attacks, but then the recovery spells wouldn’t reach them.
If they tried to keep the distance to a bare minimum, the safe zone that kept them from getting caught up in ranged attacks from either boss in this huge cavern was bound to disappear. For the rear guard spellcasters and archers, it would turn into a touch-and-go battle where they had to make constant, fine position adjustments to keep away from the ranged attacks that both bosses would keep sending at them.
However, on hearing Shiroe’s strategy, William had smiled a hero’s smile and told him:
I bet we’ll win, Shiroe.
Now, as if to prove those words, even as “Mithril Eyes” launched nonstop attacks so rapidly they seemed to be an unbroken line, he was issuing rapid-fire orders.
Shiroe also held nothing back as he fought.
This was no time to stand on ceremony.
True, they’d manage to check the attacks from the two terrible raid bosses. However, it had been done through Dinclon’s use of his surefire technique, Castle of Stone. For that reason, in the first battle, they’d gone with a strategy that let him avoid using that technique. In order to stabilize the combat situation, they had to support the two shields with recovery spells; there were only six Recovery classes on the team, and this meant going through their MP at a furious pace. Having anticipated this situation, the members had used their spells in moderation up until now, but if they kept trying to economize from this point on, the vanguards would probably lose their lives. This was a tightrope battle now: If the shields fell, the front line would crumble, and if that happened, they’d be wiped out immediately.
If that happened, their hopes in this zone would be dashed.
“Federico, attack power decrease buff, ranged attack decrease buff.”
“On it.”
“Miss Tetora, increase your recovery output.”
“I can’t raise it any higher!”
“I’ll support you. —Force Step!”
Shiroe fired a special support spell at Tetora. It accelerated all the recast timers she had. The speed increase was a little under 20 percent, but that certainly wasn’t a small number. Aurora Heal’s recast time was generally six hundred seconds. If he kept Force Step up without a break, she’d be able to use it again in 480 seconds. This would increase the speed at which her MP was consumed, but Shiroe supplemented this as well, using Mana Siphon. It was an Enchanter special control skill that gave the Enchanter’s own MP to a companion.
In a party battle where they were hunting in the ordinary way, MP could be recovered with relative ease by resting. As such, it was easy to disregard Enchanters’ ability to control and recover MP.
However, Shiroe loved that rare characteristic, and he’d cultivated it constantly.
In the midst of the dizzying sensation of MP loss, Shiroe kept on attacking, gauging and supplying MP. He provided Recovery classes like Tetora and Voinen with recovery reinforcement, and attackers like Federico and Demiquas with attack reinforcement. Experiencing the battlefield with all of his expanded senses, Shiroe turned his attention to the details.
“Over here!”
Voinen plunged an arm into a puddle that seethed with the smell of sulfur and released a long chant. It was a particularly unique variety of the servant summonings that Druids used. The light that stretched from his fur arm guard spread its branches high into the air, as if seeking the atmosphere, then suddenly turned green and solid. It was Life Sequoia, a summoning technique that Druids—whom nature and the spirits served—could contract with on high-level raids.
“Team Four, close in!”
As if even William’s order hadn’t come fast enough for them, spellcasters gathered in the shade of the great tree.
This summoning technique, Life Sequoia, manifested as a leaf-covered redwood tree with magic power. Its shade was filled with green light, and it continuously recovered the HP of allies in the area. The amount of recovery was several rungs lower than the Heals the actual Druid used, but it had the supreme advantage of being able to recover all the companions who were close to the tree over the long term.
Shiroe calculated.
The sharp eyes behind his glasses held combat operations beyond what Minori had performed, and his thoughts stretched toward the future.
Twenty-four people was four times as large as the party of six that Minori had handled. However, simply quadrupling the number of people made the combinations of their special skills and actions increase
explosively. He examined each of these possibilities, pruned them away, picked them up, or combined and “read” them.
Each single swing in his companions’ attacks; each drop of recovery.
The changes in enemy threat level brought about by the surging accumulation of weakening spells, or “debuffs.” The invisible remaining aggro, and the flexibility of the action options its leeway gave them.
Inside Shiroe, his companions’ constantly changing HP was like an equalizer panel.
Shiroe sensed the currents in the battle’s shrinking time line and differentiated them.
“Naotsugu, speed up!”
“Roger that!”
“Voinen, fall back.”
“Understood.”
Individually, each was only a “sentence.”
Strung together, they became “text” that had an objective.
Naotsugu’s face rose in the back of Shiroe’s mind. Tetora’s smile, too, and William’s wry, obstinate grin. Federico, Voinen, Demiquas. The members of Silver Sword.
Unconsciously, Shiroe nodded deeply.
He understood what William had said.
The battle had become a “story,” and had reached Shiroe.
It was a march to stir up hearts that seemed about to falter and keep them moving forward.
Shiroe had brushed against the thing William had called a secret. It had been made of the same stuff as the old, familiar peace of mind that had surrounded him in the Tea Party.
Shiroe had released all of the calculations he called a full-control encounter, and a humming spell flew from his White Staff of Ruined Wings. Karma Drive split the air like a great bird, striking Ibra Habra and ejecting a burst of countless shining icons.
Fifteen percent…Sixteen percent…Eighteen percent…
Shiroe bit his lip, focusing his mind.
Voinen’s Servant Summoning: Life Sequoia had been a good move. With that spell, they could cover more than 30 percent of the HP of a total of ten people.
The fiery serpent’s Merciless Banquet of Purgatory ranged attack seemed to come roughly once every 180 seconds. They’d get through the next one with Voinen’s Mercy Rain and Life Burst. The next one would be in 360 seconds. They’d negate it with Naotsugu’s Castle of Stone, since its recast time would be recovered. For the one after that, in 540 seconds, Tetora’s Aurora Heal would have recovered.