Homesteading the Noosphere Read online

  Riezé was a member of Drei Klauen, D.D.D.’s executive organization. She’d prided herself on her understanding of the guild’s administrative system. As a matter of fact, the guild master had entrusted the material arrangements and schedule management on the external site entirely to her.

  However, stepping in and managing a system that was already operating—not only that, but one that included some automatic adjustments and clerical support—was completely different from searching for correct solutions for a variety of matters, turning them into procedures, spreading the word, and refining them to the point where they could be run as systems.

  I didn’t understand that those were completely different things.

  The fact made Riezé smile bitterly.

  Drei Klauen was a clownish name. Kushiyatama had seen that, and she had left because of it. At this point, Riezé could be honest with herself about that.

  By the time she gave a big stretch, the temporary office was tinted with pale lemon-colored light. The afternoon had grown later. This wasn’t the madder red of evening, but the soft light showed that it was on its way. In March, early spring, the light held no heat; it was tranquil and beautiful.

  Standing up to reset her mood, Riezé poured cold tea from a pitcher into a glass.

  This temporary office was bleak, and it didn’t have a tea set. This was only natural: She was borrowing a conference room that could hold about twenty people. D.D.D. did have proper offices, of course. They were luxurious, imposing, with atmospheres that made them seem like rooms for distinguished guests, but Riezé felt a little awkward about using them. This was odd because when Crusty had been with them, she’d used those rooms as if it were nothing. Riezé chuckled a little, thinking their guild master must have had a sort of magical ability that had made even the companions around him shameless.

  “Whoops. Miss Riezé.”

  A young man with cheerful eyes had poked his head in without waiting for a response to his knock. It was Calasin of Shopping District 8. Slipping in casually, Calasin shut the door and set down his bags. He came over fairly frequently, so his being in and out of D.D.D. was routine for both of them.

  “Thank you for all your hard work, Calasin.”

  “Ah-ha-ha-ha. Seriously… Things are pretty hairy.”

  “They don’t look good?”

  “Well, it’s busy as hell!”

  “Honestly. You always joke around like that.”

  Riezé pointed to a chair, encouraging him to sit. After he set down the canvas bags he’d carried, one over each shoulder, Calasin organized the contents of the one paper bag he’d been carrying, continuing their conversation as he worked.

  “That’s not… Well, maybe it’s true. You look busy, too, Riezé.”

  “I’m simply clumsy, that’s all.”

  “Oh, there you go again. And you’re serious; that makes it hard to deal with.”

  Riezé indicated the documents with a look.

  They were programs for level-75, -77, -81, and -85 raids. Before the Catastrophe, D.D.D. had fought battles on that scale three hundred times a week. The level zones meant the raids had been more like “patrols” than challenges to tackle. At this point, though, everything had changed.

  Now that this world was real, battles were considerably more difficult. Before, level-75 raids had been the sort of content attempted by Adventurers between levels 70 and 72. However, at present, it would be difficult to achieve a complete victory on that level. Even if it was possible, they’d have to prepare for the accompanying exhaustion. She had to select the levels of the participating members carefully.

  In addition, the increased cost of travel was a big problem. Now that the Fairy Rings couldn’t be used, all expeditions involved mounts, and it was necessary to take food and camping equipment. There were only a handful of dungeons where they could say, This raid’s just to keep ourselves in practice. Let’s go clean it out real quick.

  “Raids, huh?”

  “Yes, although we’re only selecting suitable ones nearby.”

  “Can I see?” Calasin asked, and Riezé nodded. As she watched, he flipped through the programs. There were lots of notes and memos, but there weren’t many pages. The plans were simple.

  “You do want fantasy-class materials, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Riezé nodded.

  Akiba was undergoing a technological development boom, and in the midst of that activity, all sorts of materials were being bought and sold. This was true both for food and for items such as weapons and defensive gear. The prices of all sorts of things were fluctuating violently, but in the midst of the chaos, there were two things whose prices continued to climb.

  One was luxury indulgences, which couldn’t be replicated—for example, delicious food and recreational items sold for extremely high prices. The cost of manga and handmade figures was skyrocketing. This was probably because, even if they’d been shut into this fantasy world, Riezé and the others were modern earthlings, and they needed something to soothe their emotional cravings. Even Riezé couldn’t help loosening her purse strings when newly developed cakes were advertised.

  The other was fantasy-class materials.

  In this world, material was the general term for items that were used in the creation of other items. In cooking, wheat, tomatoes, Pacific saury, and Hokuri potatoes were all materials. In contrast, items created by processing materials were called “processed items.” It was possible for processed items to be used as materials in the manufacture of other items as well.

  These “materials” could be obtained from the world itself. Lumber came from forests. Ores came from mountains. Fish came from the ocean. There were acquisition points for materials from fields and ranches that required human labor, too. In most cases, the people who produced these materials were People of the Earth.

  Monster drop items were the ones Adventurers were most familiar with, and these were known as “drop materials” or “monster materials.”

  In many cases, materials had levels, even if those levels weren’t explicitly stated. For example, there were low-level and high-level versions of the same Iron Ore item. Low-level versions could be obtained from safe mines where the monsters were weak and scarce, while acquiring high-level versions required equivalent risk.

  Fantasy-class materials were the very hardest type to acquire. These were materials dropped by the sort of monsters that had to be subjugated through raids. Fantasy-class materials were precious resources. They were required in order to repair and create fantasy-class weapons and defensive gear. That wasn’t all: In the post-Catastrophe world, demand was soaring, not just from weapons and gear, but from all sorts of invented items and experiments. The anecdote about the Roderick Trading Company using Dragon Scale Bricks to create a superhot furnace was famous.

  “Does it look as if the supplies will be all right?”

  “Well, of course, we’ve got that nailed down. Both food and materials for repairs.”

  “Monster materials are fine, but everything else tends to stagnate.”

  “Let’s split that part up, then.”

  “All right.”

  By nature, D.D.D. was a self-contained guild. At the very least, Riezé understood that that was where Krusty’s interests had lain. The guild had an internal supply function and could continue to operate independently.

  However, after the Catastrophe, that function was showing marked flaws as well. In the game, it had been one thing, but now that it had grown this complicated and become part of the Round Table Council, being “self-contained” was a pipe dream. As expeditions grew longer, obtaining supplies from external sources had grown more important, and cooperation with Calasin’s Shopping District 8 had become vital.

  “You’re a hard worker, Riezé. Little Minori, too. Akiba’s ladies are all, you know, dazzling.”

  After wrapping up a lengthy preliminary meeting about how to transfer the supplies necessary for the expeditions (it would be best if they could be de
livered to the actual sites), Calasin spoke to Riezé in a droll way.

  “That isn’t true.”

  Riezé denied it, and Calasin smiled wryly. “You’re comparing yourself to the wrong person.”

  That probably is true, Riezé thought.

  Krusty really was exceptional. After coming into contact with this enormous system he’d created—D.D.D.—the better she understood it, the more aware she was of his skills. She was constantly finding signs that all the concerns she could think of had already been anticipated—countermeasures had been taken, too. Furthermore the procedures that made Riezé think, This is unnecessary. We should simplify it, proved to be balancers, or redundancy for dealing with trouble.

  For the first time, Riezé had learned that organizations could be creations and works of art. D.D.D. was Krusty’s creation, and he had built it with talent in a class all on its own.

  Riezé knew Krusty was exceptional and that she shouldn’t compare herself to him.

  However, she had no other teachers to serve as examples, and there were no textbooks in this world.

  “Oh. Right, ermm… Listen. I think Machiavelli would be better.”

  “Shiroe, you mean?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Him. Shiroe.”

  Riezé faltered, and the reply she got back was delivered in an unexpected and pretty irreverent tone.

  “And why is that?”

  “Shiroe’s got a few awkward places, too. From what I’ve seen, he’s your type, isn’t he, Riezé?”

  Riezé looked dubious, but Calasin responded smoothly. It was as though he’d already had that answer waiting.

  “Is that right?”

  “About fifty percent, from what I hear. Shiroe is. Really.”

  “Fifty percent what?”

  “Shiroe’s fifty percent ordinary. I’d say forty percent is brilliance, and ten percent is desperation.”

  “Huh?”

  Calasin folded his arms and sulked, but he still sounded facetious.

  Fifty percent ordinary…

  Riezé reflected on what that meant.

  Oh, she thought, I see. It felt right.

  Fifty percent ordinary, forty percent brilliant. That was priceless. She giggled.

  If he had been completely ordinary, he wouldn’t even have known what his position was. Because he knew, to a certain extent, just how little he understood and how ignorant he was, even though he was ordinary, he couldn’t ease up. That was probably what that meant.

  It was just like the tiny footprints Riezé had made.

  She’d thought and researched desperately for days, and the result had been five A4-sized memos. Put together, they were as tall as Riezé’s body back in Japan. The “intelligence” inside her had ordered her to create those memos. This was because “intelligent Riezé” had known that that was the only way she had left to learn how to do this correctly.

  On the other hand, “ordinary Riezé” had been able to create only five of them. That was the extent of Riezé’s current skills. Clumsy, slow on the uptake, incompetent. Still, there was no help for that. At the moment, that was the size of her reality.

  True, it was really pathetic, but it was also a relief.

  Those five pages were Riezé’s domain. The thoughts she’d written here covered the range to which she’d given sufficient consideration and concern. Of course, outside it, there were lots of things she didn’t really understand. Even her own guild, where she’d spent long years, was riddled with things she didn’t know. All she could do was continue to increase her domain this way, with infuriating slowness. She’d been on the verge of despairing, but Calasin’s words had made her see that she was wrong.

  If progress was slow, there was no way around that. That was what being life-sized meant.

  On the contrary, she felt as if she’d been shown that there was nothing for it but to increase her domain that way and that, no matter how roundabout it looked, it was the right method.

  There was a young man who’d launched the Round Table Council using the same method and had made Krusty smile broadly. That was what Calasin had taught Riezé.

  “I think he’d make a better reference than the Mr. Super-Glasses who’s ten percent demon.”

  “Yes.”

  “Eh-heh-heh-heh. Your eyes finally look settled.”

  Calasin had put a hand to his jaw in an affected pose, and he smiled at Riezé. The idea that she might have made this cheerful young guy worry about her embarrassed her. There were lots of people who had helped her. Since the Akiba raid, every single day made her aware of assistance she hadn’t noticed before.

  “No, no. Calasin knows; you don’t even have to tell me. How about a dorayaki?”

  “Aw, maaan. Picking up girls again, Young Gent?!”

  Just as she was about to accept the dorayaki Calasin had taken from his paper bag, a boy in knee-length shorts flung open the door with a bang. It was one of Calasin’s Shopping District 8 companions, someone they’d asked several times to carry messages and show in guests.

  “Taro, you’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Those are the ones I just bought. Seriously, all you do is loaf around. C’mon, c’mon, let’s go deliver the goods.”

  “Ah, then, Miss Riezé? Later! Oh, um. Once you’ve cheered up, let’s go out to eat!”

  “Thank you very much for supplying us.”

  “Huh, seriously? Taro. That was a good response, wasn’t it?”

  “Calasin, c’mon, get moving. Three strikes, you’re out; just give it up.”

  “I’m telling you, Taro, that conversation was business lubricant.”

  “Yeah, and that’s why she was so smooth when she turned you down.”

  As the boy dragged him away, Calasin’s voice grew fainter and fainter, and Riezé chuckled as she watched them go. Misa Takayama would probably be back from getting her prosthetic arm replaced soon. Riezé felt blessed.

  The Round Table Council was headed into a difficult time. Even she knew that.

  That was why, for now, she wanted to improve her skills, even a little.

  It had nothing to do with level, or with this other world. It was a single resolution Riezé had made: her expectations for her future self.

  4

  Isaac had never been a fan of spring.

  All it meant was that the weather got a little nicer and the temperature went up. The air grew dusty and nasty, and it was a glaringly half-assed season; not summer, but not winter, either.

  He also didn’t really know why the town had started to get strangely giddy. Well, in terms of accounting periods or school, it was when the new school year began, and he understood why that would make for a restless atmosphere. Still, it wasn’t as if it held any advantages for Isaac; if he’d had to say, it was solidly in the “pain in the butt” category.

  When he was a kid, and throughout his school years, spring had been nothing more than an irritation, a season in which he fought unnecessary fights. Once he’d started earning paychecks, it had gotten a little better, but that was because he was now free to distance himself from the giddy people.

  In any case, Isaac had never been a fan of spring.

  Although, spring here seemed a bit different from what he was used to.

  In this world, where it got colder than it did back in Japan, winter had been pretty harsh. Of course, neither the unending snow nor the frozen woods had posed any obstacle for Isaac and the other Adventurers, but this hadn’t been true for the People of the Earth.

  In terms of the old Japan, Maihama, where Isaac had been staying on and off since February, was located in Chiba. That meant that, although it hadn’t been buried under heavy snows, it had been covered in a blanket of the stuff for a full two months, and he’d heard there had been over forty centimeters of ice on the ponds.

  For people without the Adventurers’ equipment, it had been a season where activity was limited.

  Eastal, the League of Free Cities, which covered the eastern part of Yamato,
wasn’t a poor organization. In addition, at this point, it was the recipient of various blessings from new Adventurer technology. However, as might be expected, compared with what it was in spring or autumn, the yields of all sorts of things fell in winter. It wasn’t as bad as the snow country, but even in Maihama, meals tended to deteriorate into plain fare built around preserved food. Spring wasn’t just the dusty, half-assed season known as “spring”; it was the season that meant winter was over.

  As a Japanese person who’d been able to wander around in a down jacket, then duck into a roadside family restaurant and eat whatever he wanted when he got hungry, Isaac felt a little bad: Sorry, people. Go as nuts as you want.

  As Isaac thought about useless things like that, he was leaning against the trunk of a great tree on top of a hill, out in the April wind, taking a break.

  This was the suburbs, about thirty minutes’ run from the city of Maihama.

  Strictly speaking, this area wasn’t within Maihama city limits, but the villages near the city were so close their borders almost touched, and pastoral fields spread around them.

  In response to a request, not from the Round Table Council, but from Shiroe, Isaac, and the Knights of the Black Sword had come here to train the Glass Greaves, the chivalric order attached to the duchy of Maihama.

  However, his guild members hadn’t let Isaac participate in actually training the knights—they’d told him it would set a bad example—so he had too much time on his hands. That said, he couldn’t just ditch the whole thing, and so here he was, gazing down at the military drills from the top of the hill and biting back yawns.

  The hill was circular, with a radius of one kilometer or so, and there was a mixed forest about the size of a small schoolyard in its slightly elevated center. This forest spread behind Isaac’s back. It wasn’t so thick it obstructed the view, and even if there were animals of some sort in it, they would be only wild dogs or foxes or weasels.