“Let me go!”
A pained scream echoed through the night at Fort Sandras.
“What do you think you’ll gain by going in alone?!”
“We need a hand here! This guy wants to kill himself!”
Several players were attempting to restrain a man who was frantically trying to shake them off.
The crazed man was Makoto. He kept hollering, tears running down his cheeks.
“Pushing on to clear the game was supposed to free us and our friends sooner! Well, so much for that!”
Everyone could tell he wasn’t his usual self.
Among the people who heard the commotion and came to investigate was Matsu, the sub-master of Aegis.
“…I owe you my life,” she said. “But as much as I’d like to help you, protecting you out there in the state you’re in would put both of us in too much danger.”
She drew her sword and delivered a swift blow to the back of Makoto’s neck with the blunt side of the blade. He reeled from the impact, his eyeballs rolling back in their sockets, and slumped to the ground limply, going quiet.
“Please cast healing and mind-calming magic on him. I ask you all to keep looking out for other death seekers trying to leave the town alone. Things should calm down come morning…”
Matsu’s guild members dispersed. She watched Makoto get carried away, and when she could no longer see him, she headed off to the fort again, disappearing into the darkness of the night.
Norihide, the backup receptionist at Crest’s Calloah office, stared vacantly, tears rolling down his face.
“K… My friends…”
Twenty-nine guild members had been sent to retrieve mementos of the Liberator’s victims. All twenty-nine were dead. The Calloah branch had lost too many people to be able to function as a guild, and the headquarters had to send in more people to get it back up and running.
Lumia, the receptionist from Crest’s HQ, looked devastated by grief.
“Have we been doing this all wrong…?” she muttered.
“What do you mean, dear?” asked Candy, the battle instructor, also from HQ.
“We set out to save the noncombatants in Allistras, and we all nearly died. We formed a special unit, and both Galbo and all his party members died. We set up a branch, and almost all members died.”
Lumia’s eyes were lifeless as she spoke. She was breaking down.
“We didn’t cause any of those deaths. You’re making it sound as if every time we tried to do good, it backfired. You must be tired… We’re good here for now, so why don’t you go to the inn and have some rest?”
At Candy’s insistence, Lumia stood up heavily and dragged herself out the door. Candy sighed, worried, and then he turned back to Norihide.
“After the great battle at the front line, we’re short on fighters there, too. With no protection on that side, trouble’s never far away. We’ll need to gather up players strong enough to fight on the front line and send them in as reinforcements…”
Not that they had many such players—between Candy and the defenders of Allistras, there were only ten. They had to leave some strong fighters to protect the safe havens for players, which meant that they could spare just three or four players for the front line.
Norihide looked at the ground dejectedly, and Candy put his hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Pull yourself together. For the time being, you’re the boss here. Hold down the fort until the guild leaders return.”
“Sure…”
Norihide’s response didn’t quite reassure Candy, but Candy was needed elsewhere more. He started getting ready to leave when the door opened with a clatter. Three people walked in.
“Hah!”
Candy instinctively reached for his weapon, sensing inhuman power from the newcomers. Could these be new player killers? Perhaps it was them who had killed all of Crest’s top fighters in Calloah?
“Hi, Candy.”
Even though Candy couldn’t see the face of the player due to the backlight at first, he recognized the voice, although he’d never heard it so devoid of emotion before. Tears welled up in his eyes as he ran over to the player in the middle of the three.
“Shuutarou, my boy! You’re alive!”
Candy had trained this young man, who looked the same as always but had a drastically different aura. He wasn’t as terrifying as the two people with him, but still, Candy could sense this boy’s crushing power.
What has he been up to…?!
Candy had heard that Shuutarou had changed his job to summoner, but he was shocked to see the boy with two humanoid monsters. He was so intimidated that, without realizing, he’d started walking backward until he bumped into the reception desk.
“There’s no time to waste, so I’ll get straight to the point—I’d like you to tell me what happened to Shoukichi’s party.”
Shuutarou spoke so coldly, it was as if he was a different person.
Shoutarou messaged us in the middle of that invasion…, thought Candy. At that point, we’d only been told there were a bunch of monsters heading toward the town, but he already knew it’d been caused by the Prayer’s barrier…
Candy had no idea how Shuutarou got that information, but he didn’t suppose the boy had done so through some evil means. The fact that he’d chosen to become a summoner even after witnessing Iron kill his master led Candy to think the boy had some special secret. His gut told him so, and Candy trusted both his gut and Shuutarou.
“We don’t really know what happened,” Candy said. “The only survivor has gone missing, too… All I can tell you is that the last place that party went to was Olsrott Monastery.”
The players who’d gone to retrieve the mementos from the monastery had died, but nobody knew how or why.
“Thank you,” said Shuutarou. “The three of us will find Kettle. Please tell everyone to stay put.”
Shuutarou turned on his heel to leave. Candy was taken aback, but Norihide pushed him away from his desk and called out, “Not so fast! You look like the prime suspect to me!”
Shuutarou stopped. His companion, the one dressed like a butler, snapped his book shut and looked Norihide in the eye.
“Eep…!”
Norihide felt as if a giant hand had closed around him. He was so terrified, he forgot to breathe. He started to choke, then fell backward and gasped for air.
“You don’t need to believe me, but I promise you’ll be safe if you stay within the town. Also, I’ll be dealing with the front lines,” Shuutarou explained.
Candy shot a glance at the monsters standing beside Shuutarou, thinking that probably even a single monster like that could annihilate the sort of enemies the guilds were battling on the front line.
“We’ve been to Olsrott Monastery but found nothing there. No bodies, not even mementos. If anyone can shed any light on what happened there, it’s Kettle, but we have no idea where she might be,” said Candy.
The facts remained a complete mystery.
“Thank you for sharing,” Shuutarou said, turning away again. “If I don’t find her at the monastery, I’ll go back to Allistras and search every nook and cranny. If you learn anything, even if it doesn’t seem like much, please let me know.”
Shuutarou and his minions left the guild office.
“Wh-who the heck were they…?” Norihide stammered.
He was still on the floor, shaking, perhaps unable to stand up just yet. Candy stared at the closed door, his mind elsewhere.
Shuutarou had nothing but bad memories about Olsrott Monastery. He’d lost good friends there at the hands of the Liberator, and now he’d lost even more friends in this place. As he slowly strolled through the monastery, Shuutarou wondered that maybe it was better not to have any friends to begin with.
Nothing stands out from all the other times I’ve been here.
The facility appeared unchanged, except now it was inhabited by NPCs just like any other church-type location in the game.
Shuutarou noticed that the inside seemed brighter, though. It used to be semidark, but now gentle light was shining down, and it wasn’t coming from a lamp—it was moonlight, pouring in through a large hole in the ceiling. That hole hadn’t been there before.
“Have you come here to receive a divine blessing?” someone asked him.
Shuutarou turned to see a female NPC with a gentle smile, dressed like a generic nun. She seemed harmless, but Shuutarou fixed her with a cold stare.
“No…”
“Oh,” the nun said, looking disappointed. “I am the prioress of this monastery. My name is Duo. If you have any questions about the monastery or the Church, I will be very happy to answer them.”
Shuutarou immediately pointed to the hole in the ceiling. “How long has that been there?”
“Hmm… I’m afraid I don’t know,” was Duo’s genuine answer.
“Tell me about the recent incident here, where players went missing.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”
“Someone very important to me has gone missing.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” the nun replied mechanically.
Shuutarou sighed, realizing this NPC was unable to talk about anything other than what she’d been preset to explain.
“…That’s everything, then.”
“Very well. If you’re ever in need of help, please don’t hesitate to come to us.”
Duo smiled at Shuutarou, who was already hurriedly leaving the monastery. The visit was a waste of his time.
“There was no god available to save the players when they needed help,” he muttered bitterly.
He pushed the door open and bid farewell to the monastery.
Three silhouettes were moving fast through the obsidian sky. One was a blue-haired man dressed like a butler. The second one was a beautiful woman with long silver hair. The last of them—a boy whose cheeks were streaked with tears.
Sylvia looked over at her master’s back, her expression clouded with worry.
‘I don’t sense her in Ilyana Tunnel or near Ur Sluice,’ she communicated telepathically.
The three of them had finished investigating Olsrott Monastery, Ilyana Tunnel, and Ur Sluice and were ready to head to the next location.
‘We have Beorite in Emaro, Gallarus in Allistras, and Bertrand in Calloah. They can search the towns. We’ll go to Kiren Graveyard,’ Shuutarou told them, his tone startlingly cold.
He was gazing ahead with a glazed look in his eyes, like those of a dead animal. While his voice was measured, he was gripping his sword, unsheathed. He was anything but composed.