by Mamare Touno
Apparently, there really are holes in my memories.
Should I do something about it?
According to general common sense, forgetting memories is a routine occurrence.
Although, personally, I don’t have much experience with it…
Forgetting is a novel experience.
Would it be better if I took a good vacation and relaxed?
I’m enjoying one already.
Is it inconvenient in any way? (Utilitarian decision.)
Not at present.
Wouldn’t that depend on the reason?
Said reason is currently unclear.
Isn’t the bad status the reason?
That merely cycles to the fact that the cause of the bad status is unclear.
Take the necessity of looking for the reason under consideration.
“It looks as though I really will have to go down to the human settlements.”
“Hweh?”
Hua Diao made a funny noise; she was gazing at Krusty as if startled. From the tea-colored syrup around her inverted triangle of a mouth, she’d apparently helped herself to the dessert after she’d finished serving the others.
“Is something the matter?”
“Master Immortal. It isn’t possible to descend Mount Lang Jun. There are various routes through Sirius Grotto, but rank and the number of people are limited. In Adventurer terms, a party of between four and six people may pass through, so long as their levels are between eighty and ninety. I am told that there are other routes up from the foothills, but from the peak, the only choice is to go through the longest cavern.”
Well, well.
Krusty gave the content a cursory examination.
He had some idea of what Hua Diao was talking about. Unbeknownst to them, he had gone down into Sirius Grotto and had seen that the path ended at an enormous bronze door. That door must be one that screened based on levels; the zone beyond it was probably a level-restricted dungeon area. While there were comparatively few in Yamato, it was a characteristic that appeared in raid zones and instance dungeons.
It was likely that “Sirius Grotto” was an aggregate of multiple dungeons with the same name. Most of the interior details would be the same, and monsters that differed by level demographic were probably stationed inside. Designing a dungeon that only a small percentage of users could enjoy would be a waste of development resources. On that thought, they’d created zones like this one, which could serve multiple levels.
He understood the design concept, but as far as Krusty was concerned, it was inconvenient, too.
“I see. In that case, there’s no going down the mountain, is there?”
“No. But you are an immortal mountain wizard, Master Immortal, so I expect that won’t be a problem for you.”
“It won’t?”
“After all, immortal mountain wizards become what they are by climbing mountains, don’t they? Since it’s you, Master Immortal, I think you’ll be fine staying at Bai Tao Shrine… And besides, um, this is delicious.”
She’d flushed red when she murmured that last bit, but that aside, she’d said something pretty unreasonable. If he attempted to supplement it, would it be something like Immortal mountain wizards become immortal by climbing mountains, so because you are a mountain wizard, it’s okay for you to live on the mountain?
Apparently, some of the settings on the Zhongyuan server had been influenced by Taoist myths. In that case, the idea that an immortal was someone who lived on a mountain was something he could agree with. He seemed to recall a scene in The Investiture of the Gods where being ordered to descend the mountain had nuances of being excommunicated. In that case, he could understand the sentiment that he should stay on the mountain.
…Except for the basic fact that he wasn’t an immortal mountain wizard.
In the first place, it was likely that Krusty had been mistaken for an Immortal—probably an Ancient—because his status display was abnormal. Hua Diao and the others probably hadn’t picked up on it, but it was another effect of the level-150 bad status they’d named the Soul Darkening Curse. Even in the chaotic, post-Catastrophe world, level 150 was outrageously powerful. The maximum level that Adventurers could do anything about was 90—or, in Yamato, 100.
On top of that, there were no Adventurers over level 90 on the Zhongyuan server. It was no wonder that, at level 94, Krusty seemed to be one of the Ancients, a special NPC.
He didn’t have the slightest intention of blaming them for that error, but explaining and clearing up the misunderstanding seemed like too much trouble.
In the process of explaining the situation, he’d probably be on the receiving end of a lot of questions, and there were quite a few of them that even he wouldn’t be able to answer. Besides, it didn’t feel as though clearing up the mistake would result in a situation that was much different from what it was now.
In the clear sunlight, Krusty gazed at Hua Diao, who was absorbed in plying her wooden spoon, and thought for just a little while.
“You know, that tart is really supposed to be served with vanilla ice cream.”
“Va…nilla?”
“It’s a cold, sweet, creamy, frozen dessert. You aren’t familiar with it?”
“No, I’m not.”
The young girl shook her head, and Krusty nodded sagely. “If I go down to the human settlements, I may be able to find the ingredients for it.”
“Understood, sir! As a heavenly official, I will help you descend Mount Lang Jun.”
Determined, Hua Diao nodded several times, and mildly appalled, Krusty thought:
Too easy.
2
They’d been told that the mountain’s name was Mount Lang Jun, “Wolf Lord Mountain.”
I see, Leonardo thought, but it wasn’t as if he had any particular knowledge about it. He only “saw,” and that was all.
However, the same was probably true for Kanami and Coppélia. After all, the land around here was too dry and desolate. All they’d seen in the past hour were cracked rocks and cliffs and the bean-sized shadow of a bird, flying at an astonishing height.
When he heard they were headed for this Mount Lang Jun, he’d thought, I see, but he had no idea whether this was it or not, or where the mountain was, or whether they’d already been on it for ages.
For quite a while now, they’d been walking over steep, high-altitude terrain, and in the space of an hour, they’d encountered multiple differences in level that he’d had to use all the muscles in his body to climb over.
All that screamed mountain, right?
To Leonardo, a New Yorker, this was a mountain with a capital M. The depths of the mountains.
He couldn’t bring himself to buy that they were “headed to” a mountain from where they were.
Couldn’t this place right here count as a mountain?
“You sure we’re not already there?” Leonardo huffed.
“It isn’t far now,” Chun Lu replied, with a response that was as regular as clockwork.
This exchange was the fourth or fifth time since this morning.
Enough already, let’s just say this is it, Leonardo groaned inwardly. Settle it democratically, all right?
“Do you suppose this place is Mount Lang Jun?”
In the end, Elias asked the question in Leonardo’s place.
Nice one! Leonardo glanced at his companion, loading the look with feeling.
He really would have liked to flash him a thumbs-up, but the mountain path was leeching his energy, and he couldn’t manage it. Adventurer bodies were toughness incarnate, but rock-littered terrain that featured sharp rises and dips wore down their strength of will.
Leonardo was a city kid. The only experience he had with traveling on inclined slopes was on the treadmill at the gym.
Spider-Man shot sticky webs from his hands and zipped around high-rise buildings, but Leonardo was more the type to travel on level ground, through the sewers.
Chun Lu was smiling in a troubled sort
of way. “We’ve been on Mount Lang Jun since last night. Everything on this side of that peak”—she pointed at a mountaintop far in the west, then slowly swept her finger around, past her feet, to point behind them—“can be said to be Mount Lang Jun, in general terms.”
I see, Leonardo thought.
…But he still wasn’t quite satisfied. If they were headed for Mount Lang Jun, and this was in fact Mount Lang Jun, then couldn’t they say they’d already reached their destination? Or rather, this should be their destination…?
He knew he was grasping at straws. This was just childish willfulness on his part.
In a word, Leonardo was fed up with this mountain track, plain and simple.
Kanami, who was walking in the lead, was in ridiculously high spirits.
She went on and on, humming in tones that were slightly off-key. Sometimes she’d seem to just vanish, and it was because she’d crouched down by the side of the road with agility so good it was sickening and was gazing at a nameless flower.
After her came Coppélia. She was carrying the bulkiest luggage of the group: a trunk-shaped magic bag. The thing was a meter square and very thick, and the fact that she was carrying it without much effort was due to sheer physical strength. Clerics were the one non-Warrior class that could equip heavy armor, and during combat she wore Victorian Armor, a maid outfit made out of steel plate. As befitted that background, her strength was set high. Even though they were the same level, her power surpassed Leonardo’s.
Well, in numerical terms, even Leonardo was about thirty times stronger than a regular Person of the Earth, or in other words, than himself in his New York days. As he thought this, he jumped lightly down from a big boulder that was taller than he was, supporting his weight on one hand.
It wasn’t that the mountain road was tough and his body was screaming about it.
It was more that he wasn’t used to the environment and it had worn him out, or that he was bored.
Chun Lu seemed to have picked up on this. She explained, in a tone that seemed to hold a wry smile, “Once you enter the mountains, it’s a series of steep slopes one after another, and you go up and down in complicated ways. It isn’t like looking up from a distant plain, where you can see a clear, triangular peak. The peak is probably to the southeast; we just aren’t able to see it from here.”
When he looked in the direction she’d mentioned, he saw a rock wall so big he had to look up, and a twisted alpine forest that protruded from the cliff face.
“The five of us are Warrior classes, Weapon Attack classes, and a Recovery class, after all. If we could use Fly, I expect it would be a little different. I’m sorry I can’t be a better guide for you.”
Chun Lu bowed her head lightly, looking apologetic.
She was dealing with him a lot more politely than his initial impression of her had suggested.
“You don’t need to be so humble. I’m just not used to mountain climbing, that’s all.”
“Is that right…?”
As he spoke, Leonardo waved a hand.
True, he wasn’t good with all this nature. He hadn’t done anything like this since he was a kid and had been practically kidnapped and forced into participating in a Boy Scouts event. While he was lying in a tent that bugs kept crawling into, choking back screams, dawn had broken. The memory made him tired.
That didn’t make it okay to take it out on a woman, though. He’d be a failure as a hero if he did that.
Leonardo knew they were what had caused the change in her.
It was only natural. They’d headed to a valley where they’d been told there were several hundred gnolls, just the five of them: His party was crazy. On top of that, after they’d met up again, they’d talked about how it had actually ended up being several thousand gnolls instead of several hundred, and how they’d fought an aerial battle with a Raid-rank Black Dragon, and how they’d had a knockdown, drag-out fight with some weird new monsters. If she thought they were nuts, there was no help for it.
And actually, anybody would think that. Even I think that. It’s like, what, are we on drugs or something?
You wouldn’t want to get friendly with people like them, and if it happened anyway, you’d do your best not to make them mad. In other words, you stayed humble. Remembering the tactics he’d learned from a Japanese person, Leonardo scratched his head. His group was overwhelmingly to blame here.
“When traveling to Mount Lang Jun from Shimanaikui, there’s a slightly better mountain road, and visibility is higher. However, unfortunately, we entered the mountain from the southeast.”
That was probably why they had to travel by practically crawling through trackless ravines. Leonardo waved his hand again and told her, “We’re not worried about it.”
“Sirius Grotto was halfway up Mount Lang Jun, wasn’t it?” Elias murmured from behind them.
His voice was hard and determined.
The prickly urgency had faded, but as if to compensate, it now held a resolute intensity. When Leonardo heard that voice, he felt a little troubled.
Yesterday morning, wearing a similar expression, Elias had abruptly said, “I would like to go to a place known as Bai Tao Shrine.” Apparently, a fellow Ancient and the local residents were being tormented by some sort of monster.
Huh. Really? Leonardo had thought, but he hadn’t been particularly suspicious. It had simply caught his attention.
However, that had probably been true for Kanami and Coppélia as well. After all, this world’s monsters were based on enemy characters in the game—attacking and killing people was standard behavior for them. This had been a combat game, so that was only natural. Since the word tormented had been used, he assumed it was probably damaging them while they were alive, but he questioned whether it would really do something that roundabout.
Still, there was the case of the Geniuses they’d encountered the other day. It was also true that, after what KR had called “the Catastrophe,” monster behavior had been changing before their very eyes. For that reason, his only reaction on hearing the term tormenting was Huh. Really? I guess that sort of thing could happen, too.
That probably meant it was a Genius.
Hey, whoa, hold it, no, hang on. Hold the phone. We’re fighting a creepy thing like those again?! No way. Gimme a break.
“Her name was Enchantress Youren, you said? The one who requested aid.”
“Yes. It sounds as if there’s an enchanted land known as the Bai Tao Shrine on the peak of Mount Lang Jun. She said it had been seized by a magus.”
“What’s this ‘enchanted land’ business?”
As Leonardo asked his question, he was at his wits’ end.
“I expect it’s similar to a fairy village.”
The answer had come from Elias, and possibly because he’d registered Chun Lu’s and Leonardo’s gazes, he gave a few dry coughs and continued, “In the country where I was born, fairy villages are a type of legendary land. They’re special regions located deep in the forest or in the mountains and administered by Ancients. Fairies live in them, and they’re filled with old, powerful mana. Strange things happen there, and they’re treasure troves of rare magic items.”
In other words, it’s probably that kind of special zone. Leonardo had visited places like that on adventures as well, back in the Elder Tales era. Even if it was a fantasy game, Elder Tales had been built using the Half-Gaia Project. Since the geographical features resembled Earth, the design had limits. As a result, there were special zones all over the place. In the broad sense of the term, dungeons counted, too.
Apparently, out of these zones, Ancients lived in fairy villages and enchanted lands.
“And there’s a magus…? Uh, I don’t really get it, but they’re under attack from some weird monster?”
“Do you suppose it’s a Genius?”
Chun Lu, who’d heard about that from Leonardo and the others, asked her question with a grave expression.
The answer was probably “Yes.” It was
a lot less likely that somebody who’d do an incomprehensible thing like this was a normal monster.
To guess otherwise would be too optimistic.
“Never mind that, the puppy dogs. It’s a mountain with puppy dogs, isn’t it?!”
“They’re wolves, not dogs, but…”
Chun Lu responded to Kanami, who’d spun around so vigorously that she ended up twirling twice on momentum. She’d been standing at the top of the slope, and she was dancing a little jig of delight, her expression deliriously euphoric: “Fluffy and shaggy! Tons and tons of scritches!” She was hopeless. Even Coppélia stood expressionless, holding her trunk. Leonardo’s shoulders slumped.
“Hey. Kanami. You’re not curious about this? You heard what Elias said, right?”
“Yep, I was listening, Croakanardo. You mean the one about how the hidden village on puppy-dog mountain got taken over by some vague-ass person and is having a really lousy time, right?”
“Magus,” not “vague-ass,” but whatever.
She had it mostly right…didn’t she? Leonardo checked himself: She was probably basically right. Expecting accuracy from Kanami was a lost cause. The woman was as broad and fuzzy as a Texan.
“Are you not worried, Master?”
“I guess I’m not really sure yet.”
Kanami put a finger to her temple, tilting her head. Considering how reckless she was, this was unusual. Whether or not she knew what Leonardo had just thought, Kanami scaled a boulder in two or three bounds, as lightly as if gravity didn’t exist, then turned around again.
“Besides, thinking about it is lots of work, isn’t it? I mean, Eli-Eli wants to go, and I want to see the doggies. Let’s just think about it after we’re there!”
That was exactly how a Texan would think.
Leonardo pinched the bridge of his nose, between his eyes. The type who said We’ll think about it later was the type who wouldn’t think about it then, either.