Lost Child of the Dawn Page 6

  The four teams valiantly burst out of the guild hall.

  The West Wind Brigade’s guild hall was built to feel rather Japanese.

  It hadn’t been that way originally; the change reflected the guild members’ taste and Soujirou’s preferences. Similarly, the first floor was a spacious place, to allow for troop inspections before sallying forth. It was empty, with no furniture.

  Pulling a wooden chair into that great hall, Soujirou sat down.

  For the moment, he was on standby, but apparently he couldn’t bring himself to withdraw to the dining hall or his own room.

  “I hear they’re making miso pork in the dining hall.”

  Nazuna spoke to him, thinking she should try, but Soujirou’s only response to her proposal was to smile and shake his head.

  Nazuna pinched the tip of her chin and thought.

  She’d been this way in the old world as well, and for a woman, she was relatively tall and full-figured. It wasn’t the sort of glamour an idol singer would have, but her figure was good. Although she’d been told she was “easy on the eyes,” as far as she was concerned, her body was a bit too much for her. Apparently, when she stood with her feet apart at shoulder width and crossed her arms, she looked more self-possessed than her age would suggest.

  She was the type who was good at looking after people, and since she was also one of the guild’s founding players and one of its longest-serving members, the people around her trusted her completely. As a result, half-inevitably, Nazuna was viewed as the sub-master of the West Wind Brigade. Nazuna herself was aware that she handled more of the practical business than Soujirou did, who led by exercising his charisma.

  All the members were good kids who idolized Nazuna, and Nazuna thought they were adorable as well. The West Wind Brigade was Nazuna’s tribe. After living together here since the Catastrophe, she thought of them all as her family.

  However, sometimes, when Soujirou let a practical expression show through a crack in his usual mild-mannered mask, it made her remember her old comrades, and then she wanted to lean on him.

  Naturally, logic was on Soujirou’s side this time.

  Their opponent was a murderer who threatened Akiba’s nights. As one of the eleven guilds on the Round Table Council, the West Wind Brigade bore a certain moral responsibility for the safety of Akiba. Nazuna also acknowledged that the major combat guilds had a duty to patrol the town.

  Furthermore, this murderer had killed a West Wind Brigade member.

  Of course Kyouko had revived in the Temple. What she’d lost from the incident, memories included, hadn’t been serious. Although Kyouko was afraid of the murderer, even she wasn’t so frightened that she wouldn’t be able to face him again. She’d said so herself. However, an assault was an assault. The murderer had struck at Nazuna’s—and Soujirou’s—family.

  That was unforgivable.

  Nazuna thought so as well.

  She thought Soujirou shared that anger. However, even so, his decision had been a bit too smooth. That was in his personality; he’d been that way ever since he was part of the Debauchery Tea Party. When you called it “carefree” or “unhesitating,” it sounded good, but on the other hand, it leaned toward relentlessness and cruelty.

  Nazuna thought Soujirou wasn’t anywhere near as gentle and good-natured as the women of Akiba thought he was. Well, no, he was a gentle, good-natured boy, but it wasn’t because the individual in question was exceptionally good.

  He was like that because he was like that. That was all.

  Soujirou was kind to women. Almost without exception.

  However, it wasn’t because he liked them personally. He was simply “that kind of boy.”

  He was giving orders to retaliate against the person who’d struck a girl in his family, not because he had any particularly deep attachment to Kyouko. He was merely “that kind of boy.”

  It was a certain type of rule, a mechanical decision, and Nazuna was unable to influence that part of him. She could probably get him to postpone such a decision temporarily, or to cancel it for something else—for example, she could tell him, “Let’s meet up with the Knights of the Black Sword first” or “We should let the Round Table Council handle things this time.”

  However, she couldn’t admonish Soujirou, or guide him to grow.

  The only ones who could influence Soujirou on that level were Shiroe and Kazuhiko.

  Because Soujirou was overly conscious of women as beings who must be protected, Nazuna’s words about certain things would never reach him.

  Soujirou was kind to girls. It wasn’t a virtue; it was one of his flaws, and it couldn’t be corrected.

  In the West Wind Brigade, people assumed Nazuna was one of Soujirou’s lovers.

  However, to Nazuna, Soujirou was something like a little brother.

  He was awkward and unsteady, and she couldn’t leave him alone.

  The fact that Soujirou was able to present himself as guild master, as if that was normal, was just a fortunate coincidence, with no guarantees and nothing to support it. Nazuna thought the boy named Soujirou Seta was someone who could easily destroy his own guild at any moment.

  I mean, I love him. Of course I’m absolutely nuts about him. But.

  Unconsciously ruffling Soujirou’s black hair, Nazuna found herself caught up in her thoughts.

  She did love him, but—speaking without fear of being misunderstood—the boy was abnormal.

  …To the point where he was about on par with the murderer.

  If he hadn’t been, he’d never have been able to hold together a guild that consisted of over ninety women. Not only that, but it wouldn’t have been possible to use that system to aim for the top of the server in raid clearings.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Soujirou spoke to Nazuna; his eyes were round. He’d probably gotten worried because she’d been quiet for so long. But even with her concerns, Nazuna smiled back at him… He was family, so there was no help for it. She’d just have to use what she had to make up for what Soujirou lacked. And they’d have to avenge Kyouko, another family member who’d fallen to the murderer’s blade.

  4

  The moment a white mist began to gather at her feet, the scent of the wind seemed to soften.

  The night shook off the heaviness it had worn like a thick curtain, growing gradually lighter and more transparent. It was a premonition of dawn.

  The town of Akiba was still shrouded in darkness, but the chest-crushing pressure of late night was already gone.

  The sky was slowly turning a limpid deep blue. Although the silence was unchanged, time flowed on.

  Akatsuki had just finished a night of patrolling, and she was tired.

  One all-nighter wasn’t enough to affect Adventurer bodies in the least, but scouting had kept her nerves under constant strain, and it had tired her mentally more than physically.

  I’m hungry…

  She wanted to drink hot potage.

  Nyanta’s special potage soup, with lots of corn.

  However, right now, she was up on a crumbling elevated track. At Log Horizon, her friends were probably sleeping the deep sleep that came just before dawn. She couldn’t pester them for warmth.

  In any case, these late-night wanderings were a secret from her guild mates. She was jealous of the young girl who was her friend, and she wanted to become as strong as the Adventurers in raid guilds, so every night, she slipped out of her home and pursued the murderer. She couldn’t tell her friends about something like that.

  As she looked down at the town, which was gradually growing brighter, Akatsuki heaved a deep sigh.

  The reason she couldn’t tell, and the reason she felt this tired, was that she was aware that this quest was, at heart, nothing more than her own selfishness. The wish to get stronger was simply her ego. Neither Shiroe nor Naotsugu had asked her to do it. Even Akatsuki knew that chasing the murderer was a bit like trying to grasp at clouds.

  True, if she pursued the murderer, she
might be able to witness high-ranking guilds in combat.

  If that happened, she might get to see the Mysteries they used.

  If all went well, she might even find a hint about the rank.

  All these things were hypothetical. Haphazard action plans based on “maybes.”

  Akatsuki knew this acutely. That was why she couldn’t tell her friends.

  Crossing over the main drag, Akatsuki walked along the elevated track toward the center of Akiba.

  By now, the darkness had left Akiba, and early morning had come. The cold, cutting wind peculiar to winter mornings stole the warmth from Akatsuki’s cheeks. She’d spent the whole night in her ninja clothes so that she’d be ready for combat at any time, and she’d gotten cold. It had been all right during the night, when she’d stayed on high alert and moved around, but once day had broken, while she’d been gazing vacantly down at the town, she seemed to have gotten chilled.

  Her mood wasn’t very cheerful.

  Akatsuki thought that was only to be expected. She’d prowled around town all night long, and she had nothing to show for it.

  She clambered up onto a big, mossy chunk of concrete, then reached out farther, finally arriving at the top of the rubble. In the old world, this place had probably been a platform on the Chuo Line, but now lots of trees grew here, turning it into a hanging garden. The air was cold, but because the wind was blocked, she could breathe a little easier.

  This huge structure wasn’t a separate zone; it was an open, freely accessible object set up in Akiba. That meant there was no set entrance or exit, and if she’d wanted to, she could have jumped down off the elevated track.

  Akatsuki thought absently about going down the central staircase and cutting through the guild center square…but then sat down on a decaying bench.

  She didn’t think she was that tired.

  It was only that she didn’t want to move anymore.

  Once she sat, the area around her stomach felt heavy. It felt as if something had curdled there, and she couldn’t stand it.

  Akatsuki was surprised at herself.

  Why was she sitting on the bench, and why was she staring at the ground? She was forced to face the fact that she’d simply been tormenting herself that much.

  She kicked a pebble with her toe. The pebble rolled across the hanging garden which had once been a platform, and was now cracked and crumbling here and there and bristling with ancient trees. She saw a small bird take flight; apparently she’d startled it.

  Feeling terribly depressed, Akatsuki found her thoughts meandering.

  About the guild. About Shiroe. About vulgar, stupid Naotsugu. About Nyanta and his delicious cooking, about her juniors, about the Crescent Moon League, about the enemies she’d fought before now.

  And about Minori.

  She thought she was a very feminine girl. She was tidy. She was conscientious, cheerful, not timid, and polite… None of those things were anything special on their own. She was cute, but only on a level that would have made her mildly popular in class, and she tended to be a bit too direct.

  She couldn’t cook, and she was a middle schooler, so she certainly didn’t know all the fashionable shops around town. Akatsuki thought Minori’s taste in pouches was childish. When she talked to Shiroe, she frisked around and her voice went high-pitched, and it must have made Shiroe feel fed up with her.

  Akatsuki bit her lip hard.

  What was she thinking?

  Shameful.

  Even she thought she was being disgustingly narrow-minded.

  The self Akatsuki had seen in the mirror had been ugly, drawn out, and warped. The bitterness of jealousy had accumulated like sediment, and it tortured her. What had Minori done, anyway?

  At the very least, she’d probably never held any ill will toward Akatsuki. Even so, privately, she looked down on Minori, thinking of her as a cheeky little kid… Even though she knew that wasn’t really the case. Even though she knew Minori was her lovable, hard-working junior. Even so, she couldn’t hold back the feeling that the girl was just an uppity, annoyingly precocious middle schooler.

  As she brooded this way, all alone, she couldn’t take it anymore. The jealousy she was normally able to forget when she was in a crowd flooded her heart. She couldn’t hold the torrent back even if she tried, and it seemed about to swallow her up.

  Akatsuki took several deep breaths.

  She relaxed her clenched fists.

  The deciduous trees had dried up for the winter and lost their leaves, but the conifers were still deep green; it was their shadows that fell over the damp garden.

  Somewhere, she heard a twitter, as though someone were shaking a small bell.

  It was the little bird she’d seen earlier.

  In the winter air, this deserted ruin from the Age of Myth had a bright, crisp beauty to it. Even the clear air, which froze the white breath she exhaled, was an important, irreplaceable element that highlighted that beauty.

  In the midst of light that was simply white instead of bright, Akatsuki felt she was a black stain. A black stain that would only spread if scrubbed. Even her dark hair, which she’d been proud of until now, became loathsome at the thought.

  When she thought that Shiroe might not like her hair—that he might prefer hair of a brighter color, like Minori’s—she felt as if her stomach had been packed with stones.

  …This, even though Akatsuki knew very well that Shiroe wouldn’t base his likes and dislikes on a thing like hair color. Shiroe wouldn’t show favoritism over something as material as tresses.

  Even so, all because of her jealousy, Akatsuki had found herself asking: Doesn’t he prefer lighter hair?

  She’d spread the filthy jealousy inside her to Shiroe, someone she respected as her liege.

  Even as she sat there, Akatsuki’s jealousy was compromising Shiroe.

  And I call him “my liege” with this mouth?

  Akatsuki finally understood why she’d sat down on this bench.

  In short, Akatsuki didn’t want to return to the guild hall.

  She was just like an elementary schooler who’d skipped after-school lessons.

  That thought struck her as ridiculous, and she laughed. It was a childish escape.

  Akatsuki was cold, in pain, and in a wretched mood. It had been her precious, precious place to belong, and she’d been really happy there, but in order to protect that happiness, she’d stayed up all night, chasing after power, and now, after all that, it was hard to go home. Reality, in which she’d gotten her priorities backward, reproached her.

  Minori and Touya and the rest of the younger group were out on an overnight hunting trip, so they weren’t there.

  If she went back to the guild house, she wouldn’t have to see them. She was well aware that Nyanta would give her a warm welcome.

  …And so, not wanting to go back was not Akatsuki’s choice, but her ego’s.

  Even she knew that not wanting to be seen in this jealous state was vanity.

  However, she couldn’t throw it away.

  I want to see my liege.

  That was what Akatsuki desired. The wish was so strong it made her chest tight.

  She wanted to see Shiroe. She wanted to talk to him, even if it was only a little. She wanted to go up close to him and tug on his white coat. She wanted to pour Black Rose Tea into his teacup from a canteen. She wanted to sit on the sofa with him and look out the window. She wanted to stand beside Shiroe as he looked at complicated documents and made an equally complicated face, and then imitate that complicated face herself.

  But that wouldn’t happen. Selfish and vain as she was, she didn’t think she was qualified to set her mind at ease near Shiroe. Not only that, but if she went back there now, she’d never be able to run off again. From this point on, she’d live as a sort of free bonus that came with Shiroe.

  She’d thought that wouldn’t be so bad.

  She’d thought it would make her happy to be her liege’s ninja, as if she was sunbathing
beside him.

  However, that had been cheating.

  Minori had taught her that she’d only been leaning on him, because it’d made her happy.

  A swallow that lost its ability to fly would stop being able to follow Shiroe someday. When that happened, they’d have to part ways.

  She’d been thinking the same things for a while now, over and over. In all of them, the subjects were “I” and “mine.” Even she thought it was too self-centered, and it disgusted her.

  There probably wasn’t anyone who’d like a girl like that. Akatsuki herself wouldn’t want a friend who was so self-centered that she could only talk about herself.

  …And so, she couldn’t see Shiroe now.

  It was also an order she’d received from Shiroe, her liege.

  “…I’ll stay at an inn today,” she told herself.

  Akatsuki forced her heavy body to its feet.

  She really shouldn’t have been tired, but she felt oddly listless. It had to be the emotions.

  This strange land, caressed by the winter wind, was vast, and no voice answered her call.

  5

  Raynesia shut her eyes tightly, against the cold.

  Naturally, simply closing her eyes did nothing to take the edge off the chill.

  It was rare for her to be out in the streets of Akiba like this.

  Even if she was at a new post (or rather, being left to her own devices), Raynesia was the second daughter of the House of Cowen, the leading family of Eastal, the League of Free Cities, and a successor to one of the two remaining dukedoms in Yamato. Due to security issues, she didn’t go out much. Even if she did go out, it was usually only to perform inspections from a carriage, and she almost never walked around town in her everyday clothes this way.

  If Marielle from the Crescent Moon League hadn’t suddenly stopped by and said, “Let’s go get brunch somewhere else today!” she probably wouldn’t have gone out at all.

  Generally, Elissa or the guards would have put a stop to this sort of sudden outing, but this was Akiba. If a few skilled Adventurers were protecting her, she’d be safer than if she’d stayed shut up in Water Maple Manor. On top of that, although she didn’t know what her motives had been, Elissa had made the preparations for the outing so quickly that she hadn’t been able to talk her way out of it.