Homesteading the Noosphere Read online

  Copyright

  Log Horizon, Volume 10

  Mamare Touno

  Illustration by Kazuhiro Hara

  Translation by Taylor Engel

  Cover art by Kazuhiro Hara

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  LOG HORIZON, VOLUME 10

  Homesteading the Noosphere

  ©Touno Mamare 2015

  First published in Japan in 2015 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2018 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Yen On eBook Edition: February 2020

  Originally published in paperback in February 2018 by Yen On.

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  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-9753-8387-9

  E3-20200204-JV-NF-ORI

  1

  Hello.

  I wasn’t sure how to begin this, but for the first words, a greeting seems suitable.

  Hello, world. Hello, Shiroe.

  I’m writing this letter at an inn located in the town of Saphir in central Yamato.

  When I’ve finished writing it, I plan to give it to my friend Minori.

  I’m told “Shiroe of Log Horizon” will be the one to read it. When I heard that name, it made me feel quite strange. I have your memories inside me, you see.

  Just as you Adventurers are beings who have been incarnated into Theldesia from another world, we too, have been incarnated here from yet another world.

  My name is Roe2.

  We call ourselves Travelers. From your perspective, we are intelligent alien life-forms.

  At the same time, I myself am also your little sister.

  Your expectations have no doubt been raised, and all I can do is apologize: Neither we Fool-inspectors nor the Genius-collectors, who are also members of the Traveler race, are able to explain anything about the Eclipse—what you term “the Catastrophe”—to you. To be accurate, we could explain it, but the explanation would be our understanding of the Eclipse, not an elucidation of its principles nor a way to resolve it.

  Even so, I believe we are very slightly ahead of you and your people, and as such, I intend to carry out my duty. After all, I am your little sister, but as I assured Minori, I am your big sister as well.

  On that point, I should begin by explaining two things:

  Why I am Roe2, and…

  …why I am your little sister.

  Like you, we Travelers arrived in Theldesia via the Eclipse. However, our world is far more distant than Theldesia, and our species had no original physical forms or configuration data.

  Therefore, when we reached this world, we borrowed bodies we found locally to use as avatars.

  If what Minori says is correct, you are an extraordinarily perceptive, intelligent individual.

  Now that I’ve explained this much, no doubt you already understand, but my current body is yours—the one that was in storage on the moon. To use the terminology of this world, it had no active “soul connection.”

  I would like you to forgive me for borrowing it without permission.

  This body holds vivid traces of your thoughts and memories.

  I have been able to explain things to you this way by reorganizing your vocabulary data. In large part, it is thanks to you that I am able to speak the words of this world. The repayment of that debt is one of my reasons for writing this letter.

  If possible, I would like you to read it with an open mind.

  After all, you may tear it up and throw it away at any time.

  2

  Shiroe looked up at the ceiling and sighed. He’d lost track of how many times he’d done that.

  He was holding several sheets of creased stationery.

  It was the letter Minori had brought him.

  He’d recognized the neat handwriting. When he’d flipped through nearby documents to see whose it was, he’d realized it was his own. So even our handwriting is similar? Shiroe thought, massaging the spot between his eyes as though to ward off a headache.

  He was in the Log Horizon guild hall.

  By now, this place, a remodeled abandoned building in northern Akiba, was his home. Not because Shiroe had purchased the seven-story brick building by plunking down all the money he had, but because the companions who had welcomed him were constantly here with him.

  Nine Adventurers—Shiroe, Naotsugu, Akatsuki, Nyanta, Minori, Touya, Isuzu, Rundelhaus, and the new member, Tetora—lived in this guild home. With an ancient tree growing through the middle of the building, they weren’t able to use the central area of each floor. Even so, since there were about three or four rooms per floor, each of the members had a private room, and it didn’t feel cramped.

  This room was Shiroe’s office.

  With nine members, their group wasn’t quite tiny, but they were clearly one of the smaller guilds. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have needed anything as ostentatious as an office. A single work desk in his room would have been enough. However, Log Horizon was one of the eleven guilds on the Round Table Council, and Shiroe had a lot of inquiries and petitions to field. There were visitors, too… And so he had an office.

  Shiroe spent so much time in this office that the other members could very easily have called him a hermit. Naturally, this was partly because he had a lot of work, but it was also because he tended to become lost in thought, and he guessed it probably worried the other members.

  That said, as a rule, most of the members of Log Horizon didn’t fret over what was on Shiroe’s mind…

  Shiroe arched his back, stretching against the backrest of his office chair.

  His fingers folded the letter that sat on his stomach and returned it to its envelope.

  It had been serious.

  It had been a letter that threatened to stir up serious issues.

  However, behind his glasses, Shiroe closed his eyes and sighed.

  “True, this letter is a big problem. By that token, though, the Round Table Council, Minami, the Holy Empire of Westlande, and Krusty, too, are all big problems.”

  Listing them aloud made him aware, once again, that none of them was a laughing matter.

  Krusty himself aside, his guild, known as D.D.D., had developed administrative problems. Frankly, it was strange that its missing leader hadn’t created more of an issue before. D.D.D.’s administrative staff was outstanding, so the problem hadn’t yet spread to the surrounding area, but there were reports that, internally, fatigue was accumulating.

  The Holy Empire of Westlande was a problem, too. Accor
ding to his investigations, they were drafting soldiers and restructuring their knight brigades, although neither was being done on a large scale.

  The Round Table Council had united eastern Yamato with Akiba at its center, while Plant Hwyaden had united Yamato’s western half. The two organizations had different philosophies, but Shiroe didn’t think that was an inherently bad thing. Even with a schism like this one, at heart, the Adventurers were contemporary individuals with roots in modern Japan. Since that was the case, he hadn’t thought they’d go to war. Or rather, he still didn’t think they would, even now.

  However, apparently, that sort of common sense didn’t hold true with the People of the Earth.

  The Holy Empire of Westlande, which governed the West, looked as if it was planning to go to war with Eastal, the League of Free Cities. If that began, Shiroe thought there was no way he and the other Adventurers would be able to stay uninvolved. They probably couldn’t harden their hearts enough to keep out of it.

  For better or for worse, the Adventurers were modern Japanese.

  There was no way that Plant Hwyaden hadn’t noticed. When it came to that sort of thing, Shiroe thought Madame Indicus was so perceptive the word sharp didn’t even begin to cover it.

  He had a certain amount of information regarding what was happening in Minami. Thinking about it made him feel depressed. It was a road Akiba had nearly gone down, and even now, he couldn’t say the possibility had disappeared entirely.

  The Round Table Council.

  It felt to Shiroe as though the Council was approaching a new crossroads. If the crisis had been something he could see, monsters or a huge calamity, he probably wouldn’t have been this worried. Krusty might be missing, but Akiba had Isaac, Soujirou, and many other heroic Adventurers. Shiroe was confident that, in combat, they could eliminate most obstacles.

  However, this didn’t seem to be that sort of problem.

  It felt more like the atmosphere immediately after the Catastrophe. It looked to Shiroe as if the despair they’d thought they’d shaken off with the Crescent Burgers had risen again. Could people’s malaise and resignation actually breed war, which they’d never seen? Shiroe had never experienced that, and he didn’t know what it might bring.

  “And actually, thinking about why things are like this is pointless, but I can’t not think it, and the work just keeps coming in, and arrrrgh…”

  Shiroe slumped facedown across his desk.

  He’d hoped, naïvely, that if he played dead, the trouble might blow over, but it didn’t even budge. Its symbols were the letter he’d tossed aside, and that mountain of documents.

  “Shiroecchi.”

  Nyanta knocked on the door, then opened it a crack and peeked in. When Shiroe waved for him to enter, his lean shape slipped into the room.

  Seeing this, Shiroe shoved the letter into a desk drawer and went over to the reception set. Looking a bit surprised, Nyanta transferred drinks from his silver tray to the table.

  “Take a seat, Captain Nyanta.”

  “Mew don’t need to work?”

  “I’m tired,” Shiroe admitted with a laugh.

  In response, Nyanta said, “Mrowr-ha-ha. In that case, I’ll keep mew company,” and sat down.

  The two of them began drinking something that resembled hot chocolate. It was warm and incredibly sweet.

  Shiroe let his eyes fall to the whirlpool pattern on the surface of his cup. Possibly due to the convection current, it was spinning slowly. The marbling looked like a spiral. Shiroe decided that trivial things like this catching his attention was proof he was tired. The sweetness seemed to soak into him.

  “Mew’re working too hard, Shiroecchi.”

  “You too, Captain.”

  Shiroe smiled a little, and Nyanta looked startled.

  Shiroe had noticed that the other man had been brooding a bit lately. It had begun after he’d gone to the West in order to guard Minori and the other younger members. Nyanta had given him a report on what had happened. He was quiet, and he hadn’t said much, but Shiroe could imagine what he’d seen.

  The Captain ran into an Adventurer who’d failed to adjust to this world.

  That was a problem gradually becoming apparent in Akiba as well.

  “It’s been almost a year since the Catastrophe, hasn’t it?”

  “Mew’re right. It will be, in another month…”

  “Uh-huh.”

  That one year has divided people.

  If the Catastrophe had been a transitory incident that had been resolved in a short time, this never would have been an issue. The situation had been shattering and unprecedented; it was only natural that people had been shocked, and no wonder they’d been stunned and confused.

  “It feels as though it’s been a long time, and simewltaneously not very long at all.”

  “Right. I bet there are people who want to go home.”

  “True… It’s likely there are people who want it so desperately they’d throw everything away to get it.”

  “You’re right.”

  Even Shiroe would have been lying if he’d said he didn’t want to go home. However, that was only if going home was possible. After the Catastrophe, most of the residents of Akiba had managed to get used to this world through the Round Table Council’s aid, to the point where they could say, Of course I want to go back. If I can, I mean. The words held the desire to go home, but they also held the readiness to accept that, if it wasn’t possible, then there was no help for it.

  The phrase throw everything away was a heavy one.

  Shiroe didn’t think there was anyone who could even imagine “everything,” and no one who’d be able to throw it all away.

  Didn’t that really mean they wanted to erase themselves? He imagined it might be like deciding nothing mattered anymore and returning to nothingness.

  However, the Catastrophe had been an insanity-inducing event, and it wasn’t as though anyone could cope with it. There was no help for that. The previous year had proved those people hadn’t been able to adjust.

  They didn’t want to be in this world. Put into words, the feeling would probably have been, I want to go home. Even if it isn’t possible.

  “It’s not that I don’t know how they feel…”

  “Yes, it’s far mew easy to relate. That’s why I can’t blame them.”

  “It’s sad.”

  “It hurts.”

  The two of them gazed into their mugs, sharing the silence.

  The despair inside people was so great they couldn’t even look at the future. That hurt Shiroe more sharply than the most powerful monster.

  “Shiroecchi…”

  Unusually, Nyanta hesitated. Before that eloquent silence broke on its own, he asked Shiroe gently: “Do mew want to go home?”

  The kindness in his voice made Shiroe sad. This world was making Nyanta push himself. He thought the same was true of his own uneasy expression. Still, even if he thought that, he couldn’t find any answers inside himself.

  Shiroe sighed a little, then spoke, as if squeezing out the words.

  “I think we should go home.”

  He had thought for a long time before reaching this entirely natural, obvious conclusion. A sound argument. No matter how he thought about it, there was nothing else.

  “As far as this world is concerned, we really are alien. When living here, some people will be warped, and others will choose to change the world. That sort of thing might have happened when we were back in our old world. Or rather, I think it did happen. Still, if it’s an avoidable tragedy, then we should stay clear of it, and we’re—”

  Shiroe knew Nyanta was nodding slightly in agreement, but the rest of his words stuck in his chest, and he couldn’t say them. If he believed that nearby letter, then even if he couldn’t declare they could go home, there were probably things they could do instead.

  However, even the thirty seconds ahead into which Shiroe was gazing, daybreak was still distant, and the night was deep.

>   3

  “Ahh.”

  Riezé heard herself make a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sigh.

  When she raised her head and looked out the window, cream-colored light was illuminating the ancient trees. Most of the members were out training or on supply expeditions, and the guild hall was quiet and empty.

  There were a dozen or so documents near her.

  They weren’t neat documents, drafted according to a format.

  They were messy, with margins crammed with memos and notes. Riezé smiled mockingly at how clumsy they were.

  Those notes were her footprints. The record of a struggle, something she’d written as a lifeline, in a dark wasteland where she’d be stranded if she didn’t leave them behind.

  In many cases, answers were simple things. They might be as trivial as This month, purchase about five hundred substitute weapons for training. But how should she think in order to reach that conclusion? It didn’t have to be private thought. It could be debate, or calculations. At any rate, what should she do in order to find answers? Riezé didn’t know.

  This was because the decisions at D.D.D. had been, for the most part, semiautomatic: If people filled out request forms on site and submitted them, they were accumulated and distributed the next month. However, this automatic distribution had been a product of the D.D.D. official site’s member functions, which had been located outside Elder Tales.

  After the Catastrophe, they no longer had clerical support from the external site, but this didn’t become a problem immediately. The members were used to the application/supply process, and they drew up the forms on their own. The administrative headquarters organized the forms and continued to supply the necessary materials. That sort of mechanism was still alive and functioning, and it was an important driving force that kept D.D.D., one of the most enormous guilds on the Yamato server, alive.

  On the other hand, though, the mechanism was from a time when D.D.D.’s abilities to procure materials had been nearly infinite. When they couldn’t obtain “five hundred substitute weapons for training,” the system didn’t have a function that would adjust for that. In addition, this wasn’t true only for adjustments to preexisting matters and changes: Completely new requests and matters that spanned the duties of whole departments were being generated one after another.