by Mamare Touno
In that respect, the woman in front of him was rather uninteresting. She was an ordinary person who plotted mundane affairs in the regular way.
He couldn’t trust her, but he didn’t actively dislike her, either. She wouldn’t abruptly attack him with bloodshot eyes; she wasn’t unpredictable enough for that. In a way, you could say she was a disappointment.
She was the sort of person you could find anywhere, so he wasn’t very concerned with her. Those were his unvarnished thoughts.
If possible, he’d have preferred that she leave him alone, but unfortunately, this self-styled Enchantress was the type who didn’t listen. That was a common characteristic in women who were otherworldly attractive.
“How do you feel, physically? What about your memories?”
“There aren’t any major problems.” He shrugged.
His physical condition had neither improved nor worsened since he’d regained consciousness after having been flung to the Zhongyuan server. The level-150 bad status known as Soul Darkening Curse hadn’t changed, either.
NATURAL HP RECOVERY IS SUSPENDED.
HP MAY NOT BE RECOVERED THROUGH RECOVERY SPELLS, OR THROUGH FACILITIES OR ITEMS.
THE TELECHAT FUNCTION IS SUSPENDED.
MOVEMENT ACROSS SERVER BOUNDARIES BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE.
MEMORIES ARE LOST.
The effects of the bad status were wide-ranging and serious. When he checked it against his memories, even though they were patchy, he could tell that the curse’s content wouldn’t have been possible in the days of the game.
Krusty had been carried to this fairyland on the back of the enormous wolf dog Gumon, but both Zhu Huan—who’d saved him—and Hua Diao had blanched at his status.
They’d told him it was a terrible, unprecedented curse. Since the HP he lost when wounded didn’t return, that was probably accurate.
He currently had about 5300 HP. That was roughly half his maximum.
The display looked like a warning, and it was an ominous red. Krusty wasn’t particularly disturbed or concerned, though.
This was because, while his HP was down by half, it didn’t seem as if it was worth making a big fuss over. HP was a resource in combat, and when you were up against a strong opponent, it indicated how durable you were. In other words, it was a tool for fighting enemies.
If he actually got into a fight against an enemy and didn’t have enough HP, he would probably think about it. However, under those circumstances, the issues that would come up were “How do I increase my HP?” and “How do I break through this situation with five thousand HP?” and if he accepted that for what it was, it was nothing to agonize over.
Was it inconvenient? Well, maybe. He thought it might be, at least.
However, if asked whether it was a problem, he would have said, Not particularly.
On Earth, it was likely he would have been half paralyzed or in a coma, which would definitely have been inconvenient, but in Theldesia, it didn’t even hurt. It was part of the reason he ended up taking things easy.
“‘No problems’… How courageous you act. It’s heartbreaking.”
If anything, what struck him as dismal was the woman in front of him.
Her eyes were still hidden by her thin silk veil, but her posture as she spoke to Krusty made her seem to be looking up at him. The conversation was probably her way of showing her worry. Even Krusty understood she was hoping for some sort of reaction from him.
Why is she worried about me?
Good intentions.
That seems rather implausible…
Even if her intentions are good, they’re self-centered.
As part of a negotiation.
She wants a definite statement that I’m in dire distress.
I’m not in dire distress.
Though in general terms, I might be, actually.
She’s going to try to force assistance on me.
Working from our last conversation, that’s very likely.
Information gathering.
Is she checking to see how bad my memory loss is?
Does she know me well enough to be capable of checking on that?
I’m not even sure I remember whether we’re acquainted or not.
Am I interested enough to guess at her motives?
As motives, are they enough to interest me?
Circular argument.
And so Krusty played along with her, letting his shoulders slump.
He wasn’t actually discouraged or anything like it. It was a technique for getting along in life: He was matching her mood. He knew from experience that, in most situations, it was safe to respond this way.
He thought scratching Gumon behind the ears would be a more positive and constructive thing to do, but apparently, doing it in the middle of a conversation was considered rude. It made Hua Diao become obviously cross.
“It really doesn’t seem inconvenient to me. This place is peaceful, and anyway, I spend all day watching the peach blossoms.”
“—Doesn’t it frighten you not to have memories?”
At the Enchantress’s words, Krusty broke off and considered.
Was it frightening enough to mention?
If you lost your memories, you simultaneously lost your motive for getting them back, and he didn’t seem to feel any real need to do so. He thought he was probably the sort of person the world referred to as “cold-hearted.”
Krusty gave a little smile. “That doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“What about this amuses you?”
This time, apparently, he really had discouraged the Enchantress.
Inwardly, he thought it was funny.
“Master Krusty.”
The Enchantress tried to take his hand, and he evaded her slim white fingers.
“That curse is unknown, and there is no one who can cure it. If left alone, there’s no knowing what calamity it may invite.”
As Krusty gazed at her, smiling, the woman repeated a treatment suggestion she’d made several times before.
“I may not look it, but I preside over the mystic art of healing. The art was granted to me by the Queen Mother of the West, who lives on the moon. If you’ll only give me permission, Master Krusty, I would like to brew an elixir of life for you.”
“I’m not good with bitter things, you see.”
Still smiling, Krusty declined the offer.
Was the Enchantress saying medicine she brewed could cure this, even though it was “an unknown curse no one could cure”?
Didn’t that mean it wasn’t exactly incurable?
In any case, immortal wizards and mystic arts struck him as fishy.
Well, even Krusty wasn’t flatly denying the woman’s words. That sort of paranormal skill probably did exist. This was a secluded region where mysterious peach trees bore fruit all year round, so something on that level could exist. Since he’d passed level 90, Krusty himself was something like a low-ranking immortal wizard, and that was fine.
However, he didn’t like the way Enchantress Youren had confirmed his weakness, then proceeded to force her good intentions onto him. He didn’t care enough to angrily criticize her for it, but he also didn’t want to get actively involved with her.
The theatrical atmosphere that hung around the woman was boring as well. Was there anything in the depths of that aura? Probably not. It was likely this affected air and way of thinking were the woman herself. In other words, the Enchantress thought her good will—although he didn’t know whether it was actual good will or merely for her own benefit—would get through. She thought that other people would acknowledge it. That her way of doing things would get the job done.
She thought Krusty would agree.
In his hole-ridden memories, many women were like that, so he didn’t intend to single out the Enchantress for criticism, but this was dull. If her goal was to get consent, she could just have been aboveboard about it and handed him a consent form or a contract. Assuming the conditions were appropriate, the
matter would move forward easily.
A negotiation over promises in search of profit, before advancing to the stage of consent: That was how society worked, and it was probably necessary, but there was a definite smell of corruption about it.
What should he call it, a sense of not being connected to anything?
Even if Krusty fostered this relationship, it was likely he wouldn’t gain any new knowledge. He had a hunch he wouldn’t even manage to lose anything by it, let alone profit.
She wasn’t fun to tease, either, the way or had been.
Krusty shrugged, letting his eyes go to the distant, drifting peach blossoms.
He’d been told that attempting to descend the mountain would be suicidal, so he hadn’t tried it yet, but if things were like this, there was no telling how true that was. Now that his wounds had largely healed and he’d learned all there was to know about the surrounding situation, this fairyland was much too boring.
Unless something happened soon, he’d end up spending his time doing nothing but stifling yawns. That said, it wasn’t as if he had any leads to follow even if he did descend to the world below.
So, maybe not having memories actually was inconvenient. But after thinking just a little, he knew there was no way he’d have had acquaintances on the Zhongyuan server to begin with, so the presence or lack of memories wouldn’t be an issue toward finding them down there.
So no, it really wasn’t an inconvenience.
The Enchantress was speaking to him in tones that sounded sincere, but in the spare moments between his responses, he was scratching the soft fur behind Gumon’s ears.
He felt sure that, even if he didn’t get impatient, an uproar would break out sooner or later.
The stirring in his chest was alerting him to the approach of that disturbance. To Krusty, it was a far more familiar friend than the suspicious woman in front of him.
3
Meanwhile, in another spot in the expanse of Theldesia, another party was preparing to take a brief rest. The time difference was a mere five minutes or so, and with one of Earth’s airplanes, the distance would have been no more than a short hop. However, the denizens of this world could only advance over the ground like ants, and to them, the national border was far, far away. Even so, in a corner of what was definitely the same highlands of Eured, several other protagonists were continuing their journey.
“Carnivore style!”
Kanami twirled around, holding drumsticks in both hands as if preparing to strike with them.
“Don’t play with your food,” Leonardo replied.
The sky in this country was vast.
It was so wide it could hold blue sky, a sunset, and purple twilight at the same time.
This beautiful gradation appeared practically every day, but the colors were never truly the same. Below it, once again, Kanami’s party was camping under an extremely cold sky.
They’d met up with the merchant Ju Ha, then parted ways, one group heading north and the other south. All sorts of stuff had happened on this trip, Leonardo thought.
Though—no, it wasn’t okay to let his guard down; the trip was still in progress.
“Things are cheerful during every evening meal, aren’t they?”
Chun Lu, her face serious, was sitting on a rug she’d spread over the desiccated ground. As she spoke, she sipped soup out of a bowl. She was an Adventurer, a guard who belonged to the Lelang Wolf Cavalry. The seasons had changed, and she was currently wrapped in a fluffy fur.
“It simply means that telling Kanami to settle down is useless.”
The Ancient hero Elias Hackblade had polished a piece of fruit on his sleeve and was nibbling on it with white teeth. The girl in the maid outfit who was briskly serving him soup was the Cleric Coppélia.
Including Leonardo, who was stuffing his face with some rather flat bread, they were currently traveling as a band of five.
“I did think you were restless, but who’d have thought it was this bad…?”
“If there’s a voice crying for help in the north, I go there and punch out the villains. If I hear there’s a poor village in the south, I head over there and kick their bad harvest.”
What’s the point of kicking a bad harvest? That’s just dumb.
Leonardo pinned Kanami with a dubious look.
Her actual words had gone off the rails and showed no sign of coming back, but what she’d said was true, in a bad way. After their adventure in Aorsoi in central Eurasia, you’d have thought the party would have made straight for Yamato in the Far East, but instead they’d strayed dramatically.
The incident at Ruined Colonnade Tonnesgrave had happened in September, which meant that, at this point, they’d spent three months wandering around the wasteland.
Granted, it apparently hadn’t been strange for a journey along the Silk Road to take six months or a year, so in that sense, they couldn’t declare that their pace was slow.
Rather than keep traveling, it wasn’t at all unusual for them to spend three days or a week at the villages they visited, resting up. If there was a caravan going their way, it was common sense to adjust their time by ten days or so in order to travel with them.
Actions like these were wisdom from the People of the Earth, used as a defense against the natural dangers of the wilderness and monsters, but even Adventurers like Leonardo and the others couldn’t afford to take those lightly.
Leonardo’s group did have several dozen times the combat power of People of the Earth, but there had been that incident in the Tekeli Ruins. Not knowing about the wasteland and the surrounding topography could have fatal consequences. Even if it didn’t endanger their lives, if they got lost in a winding ravine, they could easily end up wasting several weeks. They really did need information from the People of the Earth, who were well versed in local roads and traffic. Apparently, that was what journeys on this continent were like.
Of course, while these ordinary circumstances were prolonging their trip, it was also true they were being delayed by Kanami’s habit of saving people, or her ability for detecting trouble.
At Turkul, they’d defeated a Sand Turtle that had dominated a great river and was rampaging, and at a nameless, impoverished village, Coppélia had blessed watermelon seeds and planted a field.
At Mount Hei Feng, they’d been dragged into a terrible mess when the Kuromami Tribe, a band of malicious tanuki spirits, had stolen Kanami’s hot pants. (They were apparently thought to hold mystical power.) They’d ended up gathering seven ingredients to make a miraculous medicine for the leader, Great King Kuromami, to turn the fur on his belly white… Or rather, Leonardo had.
Ugh, god.
Just remembering it made his head hurt.
Kanami had charged, Coppélia had followed impassively, Elias had raced to the scene in a panic, and Leonardo had cleaned up the aftermath in a glum daze. What was he anyway, the project manager for a raging dumpster fire? Even on the Avenue, he’d never heard of anything like this.
As long as he was with Kanami, it didn’t seem like they’d run out of fuses for trouble. This evening, though, it looked as if they’d run clean out of difficulties, and they were finally camping peacefully… Although even that was more than noisy enough.
“Do you think we’re getting pretty close to Shimanaikui?”
“Yes.”
Chun Lu nodded, licking some fat off her fingers.
“If we keep traveling along this mountain range, we’ll arrive in less than a week.”
This was why they were traveling with this female Adventurer, who was a member of the Lelang Wolf Cavalry. Shimanaikui marked the end of central Eured; from the perspective of what would be China on Earth, it was the town where the Silk Road began in earnest. In other words, in terms of Earth, it would be somewhere around Mongolia.
Kanami’s party (which included Leonardo, although he wished it didn’t) was bound for Yamato. To them, Shimanaikui was a milestone on their journey east, while to Chun Lu, it was the headq
uarters of the guild she was returning to.
Kanami’s group had wanted a guide, Chun Lu had wanted combat power for the way home, and thus their goals had meshed.
That said, conditions in this land seemed to be growing more and more chaotic, and Leonardo thought the Lelang Wolf Cavalry might have taken an interest in them, since they were outsiders who weren’t affiliated with a major guild… Frankly, he suspected they were keeping an eye on them.
Naturally, even if they were under observation, that in itself wasn’t enough to make them feel alienated. In the situation they found themselves in, if there was an uncertain element, anyone would try to investigate it. Even if they didn’t know whether the code had a bug in it or not, engineers’ instincts told them, Somehow, it feels like the processing is gonna stall somewhere. At the very least, they’d set a breakpoint beforehand. Since they were harboring a landmine like Kanami, he also thought it was only natural that others would be wary of them.
Besides, if Leonardo’s group got pulled into some sort of trouble near here, they intended to use the Lelang Wolf Cavalry. Since they were planning to use them, it probably wasn’t fair to object when the other party did the same thing.
“Shimanaikui, hmm? If we’re going there, I’d like a horse.”
“You want a horse?”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh!”
Kanami nodded vigorously.
“You can ride horseback? So I guess you’re upper-crust, then, huh?” Leonardo muttered, but apparently, Elias had taught her.
She might have developed a taste for it during the business with KR. Riding a friend around seemed like a nasty thing to do, but KR had looked like he was egging her on, so Leonardo kept quiet about it.
“A horse, hmm?”
Chun Lu looked pensive. “Is there some sort of problem?” Elias asked.
She denied this briefly, then began to speak. “It’s possible to buy both horses and Horse Summoning Whistles. However, this land is teeming with monsters. Wolves might be a better bet.”