The Beginning of Another World Read online

  Copyright

  Log Horizon, Volume 1

  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 1

  The Beginning of Another World

  ©Touno Mamare 2011

  First published in Japan in 2011 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

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

  English translation © 2015 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 April 2015 by Yen On.

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  ISBN: 978-1-9753-0984-8

  E3-20200204-JV-NF-ORI

  PROLOGUE

  “Naotsugu, look out! Up ahead on your right!”

  “Bring it! I’ve got this.”

  Naotsugu yelled back to Shiroe, raising his shield. The shield gleamed dull silver as he brought it down on a Triffid.

  “My liege!”

  Checking a writhing green vine that had darted out from the left with a single swift strike, Akatsuki slid into a low crouch, positioned to guard Shiroe.

  Smallstone Herb Garden wasn’t a large zone. However, the ancient gaming facility within its boundaries meant the topography was more varied than the surrounding ruins, and this made it a difficult place to fight.

  “…Hey, how come there are so many of these things?”

  “They multiply every time you say something off-color, Naotsugu.”

  “What, it’s my fault?!”

  Instead of answering, Shiroe generated a pale magic arrow and fired it into a Brier Weasel. Mind Bolt, an arrow of psychic power that could go right through single enemies, was one of the basic offensive spells for Enchanters. Even as he watched the meter-long weasel jump with a piercing shriek, Shiroe mentally visualized an icon. Since recast time was in effect, the icon had lost all its color and was slowly refilling like an hourglass. Shiroe wouldn’t be able to use that spell again until the icon had regained its glow. It didn’t matter. He had nearly thirty other spells at his command.

  “Rush them! Akatsuki, you take the left flank!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “On it!”

  In any case, even if he hadn’t been able to use his spells, Shiroe had two companions on his side now.

  “Better get ready ’cos here I come! Shield Smash!”

  The silver-armored warrior charging down the moss-covered path, sweeping his shield from side to side, was Naotsugu. He was a tall guy with short hair and bright, lively eyes, and he and Shiroe had been friends for years. His class was Guardian. The three Warrior classes specialized in single-handedly fielding enemy attacks, and of the three, Guardians had the highest Defense. In Elder Tales, they boasted the nickname “The Unbreakable Shield.”

  “…Too slow.”

  A girl who had the air of a swallow about her darted through the space Naotsugu’s advance had cleared. A grotesque creature like a split rugby ball with glass fangs sprang at her, but the girl cut it down with her short sword as she ran, not even pausing. This was Akatsuki: a slight girl whose black hair danced in the wind. Also Shiroe’s friend, she felt no qualms about calling him “my liege.” She was an Assassin, a type of master swordsman whose techniques included a one-strike kill and which boasted the greatest physical attack force of all twelve classes.

  Even as he admired their work, Shiroe hurried after them.

  Shiroe’s class was Enchanter. Of the three Magician classes, Enchanters were a complete support class that specialized in support spells and negative status magic. As with all the Magician classes, their Defense was shaky. Shiroe couldn’t even wear the Adventurer’s leather armor Akatsuki wore, let alone Naotsugu’s sturdy full armor. All he had under his big white mantle, which looked a bit like a lab coat, were an ordinary tunic shirt and trousers.

  Since Shiroe was a rear guard player with poor Defense, it wasn’t a good idea for him to be alone on a battlefield. That said, considering the enemy’s ranged attack spells, it was dangerous for him to get too close to the front line, too. The best policy was for him to leave a certain distance between himself and Naotsugu and Akatsuki while keeping a wary eye out for sneak attacks from the rear.

  As field zones went, Smallstone Herb Garden wasn’t all that difficult. The monsters that appeared here—Triffids, Brier Weasels, Venom Moths—were level 50 at most.

  Shiroe, Akatsuki, and Naotsugu were all level-90 Adventurers. Their abilities were nearly the highest rank possible in the world of the MMORPG Elder Tales. Shiroe’s Defense might be low, but with a level difference like this one, he wouldn’t take damage easily.

  In any case, although Naotsugu had said there were a lot, any one of the three could have kicked ten or twenty Triffid-level enemies to pieces all on their own.

  …Well, yes. We’re fine for now… But.

  For a while now, Naotsugu and Akatsuki had been bantering as if they didn’t need all their attention for the fight, but their faces were serious.

  Battles were a terrifying thing.

  Even if their bodies were enhanced, even if they were able to use spells and sword skills at the touch of an icon, terror was a constant companion when they faced down monsters. The legs planted firmly on the ground, the hands that held his staff at the ready—this was Shiroe’s real body. All of this belonged to him: the wind that brushed his cheek, the raucous howls of the monsters, and the adrenaline rushing through his veins. It was harder than he’d imagined to block or to absorb damage from the claws and fangs that were suddenly right in front of him or the flames and gobs of acid that flew at him. The three of them had determined that the only way to overcome this fear was experience, and lots of it.

  “On your right!”

  “I see it.”

  His face grim, Naotsugu quickly checked the direction Shiroe had warned him about, then struck with the longsword he held in his right hand. The attack missed its mark, but it seemed to have deterred the Brier Weasel. Bristling with green spines, the weasel glared with bloodred eyes and gave a few throaty howls, backing away.

  The attack hadn’t been an exception.

  As level-90 Adventurers, it shouldn’t even have been possible for an attack they made against a level-48 monster to fail. Here, too, Shiroe could see the gaps in their teamwork. They still hadn’t done enough training together.

  Their bodies might be level 9
0, but they didn’t yet have full control of their abilities.

  In that case, Shiroe concluded, he should respond accordingly. He cast a ranged spell.

  “Nightmare Sphere!”

  Nightmare Sphere was an Enchanter’s ranged attack spell. That said, it couldn’t do much damage. Enchanters weren’t good with damage spells to begin with. Compared to other classes at the same level, the offensive spells they could cast on their own were notoriously weak. As if to prove this, although the spell Shiroe had launched flew in an unsteady arc to touch down and burst in the midst of the weasels and prowling plants, it didn’t seem to have done much damage.

  It would take him more than one attack to beat a monster even half his level. The only attack methods the Enchanter class had were low-damage ones. It was one of the things that made Enchanter a pretty unpopular class in Elder Tales.

  When it came to games, gamers were quite callous. In the program—a world ruled by formulas—numbers were everything. True, it was just a game. Still, precisely because it was a game, the society inside it was all the more ruthlessly stratified. There was a huge difference between the reputations of the popular classes, which were rumored to get preferential treatment, and the unpopular classes.

  However, even if it had a poor reputation with the average gamer, Shiroe had no complaints about his class. It was probably very nice to have superior abilities, but since he didn’t have them, he saw more benefit in arranging things so he could enjoy himself without them. That was how Shiroe played, and he’d never been inconvenienced by it.

  Besides, Shiroe liked Enchanters. He liked the way things never seemed to go their way. He liked the fact that they were weak. He also liked the huge potential they held. Shiroe’s weakness was being unable to do anything on his own. The Enchanter design concept held the flip side of that weakness. That was what had attracted him to it.

  Shiroe’s Nightmare Sphere unleashed a transparent psychic wave across its attack range. The dozen or so monsters inside the range were caught up in that wave, and the shock slowed their movements to a crawl. While it lasted, which wouldn’t be long, Nightmare Sphere’s effect caused a negative move speed reduction status in its targets.

  Two cheerful voices rang out.

  “Hey, yeah! That’ll be easy to hit!”

  “Thank you, my liege.”

  Although the enemies they were currently fighting—Triffids and Brier Weasels—looked grotesque and daunting in the extreme, none of them measured more than a meter or so. In terms of attack reach, Naotsugu and Akatsuki’s swords gave them an overwhelming advantage. With the monsters’ speed reduced, all they had to do was walk right up to them and make sure their attacks hit home.

  “There we go! One down!”

  “Likewise.”

  “Not bad, short stuff!”

  “Do not call me short stuff, stupid Naotsugu!”

  Of course, his friends weren’t the type to dwell on gloom and doom. Naotsugu was more cheerful and tougher than average, and although Akatsuki was normally a girl of few words, she could hold her own against Naotsugu with room to spare.

  One opportunity and a little assist, and in the blink of an eye they’d started to take the monsters out. Shiroe followed behind, acting as support. All he had to do was use a spell to bind the occasional monster they’d missed and lob an attack at it.

  Knowing that speed reduction would put them at an advantage in battle, Shiroe had developed his own system. He used binding spells like Nightmare Sphere and Astral Bind to limit enemy abilities, then focused on assisting the vanguard. It was nothing, if you thought about it. Just a basic fighting strategy, one he’d used a thousand times before.

  Well, we can’t waste too much time and energy on low-ranking monsters like these, he thought. There’s a formation I want to test today.

  “One, two, and gone!”

  “Hup!”

  Two sharp yells. Naotsugu and Akatsuki were both veteran players. One cue was all it had taken for them to shift into teamwork-focused combo plays. By now, there was no trace of the confusion they’d shown earlier.

  “Was that the last of ’em?”

  Naotsugu swung his one-handed sword energetically, then wiped off the blood and slid it into its sheath.

  Shiroe nodded. At some point, while his mind had been elsewhere, the battle had ended. He lowered his staff and canceled the spells he’d had on standby.

  “We took out a lot of them.”

  “I don’t see any more enemies in the area. It’s probably a good idea to keep an eye out, though. —Would you two mind doing the retrieval on your own?”

  With that, Shiroe began acting as lookout. The warning icon in the back of his mind had changed from red to a calm marine blue, signaling that the battle was truly over. Naotsugu and Akatsuki were gathering loot from the fallen monsters. They were probably planning to strip off the pelts.

  These were survival instincts they’d acquired over the past few weeks.

  Fortunately, the sun was still high. If some emergency came up, he wasn’t likely to miss it. Shiroe took a canteen out of the magic bag at his waist, drank a mouthful, and listened carefully, on the alert. You know, really… I’m the gloomiest one here.

  He heaved a deep sigh.

  When he looked down, he saw the white hem of his mantle. Trousers made of thick cloth, meant for outdoor wear, but of fine quality. Short, soft, comfortable boots, which, if memory served him right, were made of Thunder Elk leather.

  In his hands, incredibly, he held a staff.

  The Staff of the Wise Horned Owl—a rare item that increased spell power and chanting speed and one of Shiroe’s greatest assets. At two meters long, it was taller than Shiroe himself. Its design was mystical and rather striking. He thought it looked cool, but it wasn’t the sort of “cool” that belonged to the real world. It was the sort found only in games.

  Nothing had been the same since the day of what Shiroe and the others had begun to call “the Catastrophe.”

  Another reality, one with no heroic grandeur or softened edges. Cynical, muddy, and endlessly harsh.

  This reality was the monsters they’d been fighting a few minutes ago. It was the lush green of the crumbling ruins where he stood, straining his ears. It was the dull thwack of a hatchet being brought down, over and over, as his friends dismembered their kills. It was the chill wind that blew through the forest, and it was the terror of battle that still prickled under his skin.

  All this was now part of the “reality” Shiroe belonged to.

  Elder Tales was—or used to be—just a game. Ever since the day of the Catastrophe, when everything had changed, Shiroe and the others seemed to have been locked inside it.

  Still, we can fight. We just did. Fighting earns us a few gold coins, and there are beds waiting for us. I met up with Naotsugu and Akatsuki, too. When you look at it that way, we’re actually really lucky.

  Shiroe caught himself in the middle of a sigh; his thoughts had begun to turn dark, and he forced them onto a different track. He could visualize the day of the Catastrophe. Countless players cowering in the streets of Akiba. He didn’t want to let himself sink into a swamp of apathy the way they had.

  Even as Shiroe scanned his surroundings, alert for signs of movement, he let his mind run back to the day the Catastrophe had occurred.

  1

  Shiroe rounded a stump several meters tall that was just where he’d imagined it would be, then turned the corner of a two-story building that was exactly where he’d remembered. The ground was carpeted with green moss, and only a few scattered patches of the old asphalt showed through. He was running through a bristling forest of ruins, the buildings choked and pierced by enormous, ancient trees. It was the first time he’d seen this place directly, but he had seen it before, and he ran as if he were flying.

  There were figures huddled by the roadside. Adventurers in the same boat as Shiroe. Their screams and moans forcibly quelled the terror that had clawed its way up his throat.
r />   It was ego, pure and simple.

  “What is this?!”

  “I-I… This can’t be right… What’s going on?!”

  “S-somebody, get over here! Hey! Admin! I know you can hear me!!”

  Their yells sounded like the shrieks of dying animals. The sheer wretchedness of it all helped Shiroe hang on to the ghost of his presence of mind. He didn’t want to start screaming like that. The feeling was all that kept Shiroe running.

  My body’s moving the way I tell it to. My arms and legs aren’t quite the right size; that’s why it feels weird… Good thing it wasn’t a huge difference.

  The town of Akiba spread out before him.

  Akiba: hometown to many players and the largest city on the Japanese Elder Tales server. A riot of vines grew through the asphalt, twining around and through the jumble of ruined buildings. The buildings seemed to fuse with trees that were older than time and blessed by the spirits. Shiroe knew the place so well he felt something akin to homesickness for it.

  “Akiba? —Like hell! Have I gone nuts?! Somebody, anybody, answer me!” The men crouched nearby were yelling. Every last one of them was dressed like someone from a medieval fantasy world, in armor or loose cloth robes.

  That was only natural. Elder Tales was the world’s largest massively multiplayer online game, set in a world of sword and sorcery.

  But it was supposed to be just a game.

  The wind that rushed past Shiroe’s cheeks was cold and damp and brisk, as if he was deep in the forest. It was nothing like the dry, astringent air of Tokyo, where he really lived. The green scent on the wind told him that, wherever he was, it wasn’t the world he knew.

  Shiroe gave his head a shake, thinking back. He’d been playing Elder Tales. He remembered sitting at home, at his desk, immersed in the game unfolding on the LCD monitor.

  Elder Tales was a venerable, old game that had been around for twenty years. The content and rendering engines had been updated to the latest versions time and time again, of course, but it was the treasure trove of data and the sheer depth the game had acquired over its long run that made it such a hit with users.