Log Horizon

Boxurt.

The name was well known throughout the Yamato Archipelago.

Originally it was the name of the mountainous region, but it became the name of the area, the name of the ridge, and the name of the fortress.

There were several roads going from east to west Yamato, but the ones along the pacific coast all had to pa.s.s through Boxurt. Excluding marine trade, it was essentially the only trade route and was a strategic location.

On Earth, the place was called Hakone, and of course Tohya had heard of it. He was sure he’d heard about it from a friend during social studies cla.s.ses when they had said about going there with their family.

The strongest impression was that of a WebTV travel program.

Tohya’s family often watched those programs over dinner. His mother liked travelling, and the only places they could take Tohya with his legs were places like tourist hot-springs, so they watched a lot of those programs. The impressions of Hakone across the monitor were lakes and hot-springs.

They were now approaching a mountainous trail to Boxurt.

It was nearing half a day since they’d joined the trail, but they were surprised, you might even say dumbfounded. It was a genuine mountain trail.

You might ask them what they were talking about and call them idiots, but those were Tohya’s true feelings. The road was only about three metres wide, only just wider than the carriage. Sometimes it was reinforced with stones and stakes but the majority of the red clay had been turned to mud by falling rain.

The road was unstable, but seemed to cling to the slope as it wound its way up. To the right was the slope continuing up to the summit, tightly packed with foliage like j.a.panese Cedar trees; to the left was the slope dropping down to a valley, a dizzying difference.

Rather than just the scenery, the road itself had to wind back and forth, sometimes seeming to double back on itself to deal with the whims of the uneven terrain. It was March, and though the signs of winter remained, the natural vitality was strong and the thick scent of greenery filled the air.

In other words, despite having gotten used to Celdesia after the catastrophe, it was enough to give Tohya, Minori, and Serara a shock.

Isuzu was more used to ‘nature’ than the other three but that was things like hills past a farmers fields, amazingly wide floodplains with tall weeds growing on them and taking mysterious watermelons from vegetable gardens behind disrepaired school buildings, she was ‘used’ to things of that level, but this actual mountain path left her dumbfounded.

This was a world filled with ruins from the age of the G.o.ds.

They wanted to complain that even though there were lots of destroyed places, there were urban highways, so why was Hakone in particular left without asphalt for the mountain roads.

It wasn’t just mulched leaves covering the forest path, huge, wet, black boulders, twice Tohya’s size jutted up from the ground making the road detour just to avoid them.

Rundelhous, the only one of them with this experience was nodding sagely, tiredly saying.

“This is why I told you to get fired up this morning.”

If that was said, Tohya couldn’t help but get fired up.

Their saviour was their fellow traveller, Roe2, and the Pale Horse she summoned. This pale white horse, even after Roe2 had lowered her level with the mentor system and could only summon one, had enough strength to continue pulling the originally two horse carriage.

The winding and undulating road meant that even in the carriage it was uncomfortable and their speed wouldn’t increase, so Tohya and Rundelhous got off the carriage and walked ahead as if they were guiding it.

The girls were exhausted in the back of the carriage and occasionally walking behind.

A white wolf cub was running around Tohya’s feet with a boasting gallant expression. Tohya couldn’t help but see it as a white shiba, but according to Serara it was Wolf-chan. It was a helper summon, summoned by a special skill in the summoning family, it would stay around as long as Serara didn’t order it away. Therefore, apart from when they slept at the inn, it had spent the journey like this, surveying their surroundings, on guard.

“I can summon a patrol spirit too.”

Rundelhous turned back to Roe2, languishing on the drivers seat and shot back.

“No, you don’t need to, sister Roe2.”

In the early morning, Roe2 had tried out her Zombie Bats, they were fairly grotesque looking and Serara had crouched down and gone teary eyed. Moreover, there wasn’t a need for that much vigilance, so the strategy of having Roe2’s Zombie Bats patrol was rejected. She was already maintaining the Pale Horse summon and they judged it would take too much mana.

“It might not seem it, but they’re cute when you get used to them.”

Roe2 had the cla.s.s of summoner, which specialised in summoning. There was a great variety of summons that they could call forth to work for them, so they had a wide range of applications, making them the most active cla.s.s since the catastrophe. Undines that could produce water and manipulate coldness, and Salamanders that could create fire and manipulate heat were examples of this.

In short, though there was a great variety in summoners, most could be separated into four types. Elementalers that controlled things like water and fire spirits, Beast Tamers that had Unicorns and Carbuncles, Alchemics that controlled Slimes and Golems and finally Necromancers that had Skeletons and Phantoms.

These trends weren’t exclusive, normally,

“Around seventy percent of summoners contracts with spirits, but they also summon beasts with talismans.” and create their own style. With those combinations and balances, summoners have many opportunities to show their skill. Minori read aloud from her notebook, most of it was second hand knowledge from Shiroe.

But Roe2 was a real necromancer, she only had contracts with dead spirit type monsters, not making a single one with other types. Because she had a pure build, her applications were limited. After the catastrophe, Tohya had heard that their popularity had vanished from Naotsugu. Their summons looked scary and grotesque, and they were hard to come to an understanding with.

If you looked at the wolf that Serara summoned, he didn’t really think it could be helped.

Of course, in battle, the white puppy-like monster would fight gallantly, but it was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with curiosity and seemed pampered, almost like a pet. Tohya guessed that together with normal sensibilities, these fluffy ones would be more popular.

“Tohya.”

“I’m looking, Rudy-nii.”

On this mountain with poor visibility, there weren’t many places where their line of sight was good.

In exchange, when the mountain jutted out, they could see three or four bends ahead.

Probably around fifteen minutes from where they were, they could see two carriages which had come to a standstill. It didn’t appear they were under attack, so they probably had some kind of trouble. Tohya began to think what to do.

From the looks of things, they were going in the same direction, west in other words. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, they’d just follow behind. But with them stopped it was a different matter, the road here wasn’t wide enough to pa.s.s. They might be able to solve things with an adventurer’s strength, but they didn’t know the situation yet.

“It looks like they’re stuck.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s up? Did something happen?”

They heard Roe2’s voice from the driver’s seat. She was exhausted and dealt poorly with sunlight, so she probably missed the scene from earlier.

“It appears that two carriages got into trouble around three or four turns away and stopped.”

“I don’t think we’ll be able to pa.s.s them, Roe2-neechan.”

“Hm, I see. I’m your Onee-chan after all.”

Roe2 meaninglessly puffed her chest out, but she didn’t appear to have a particularly good idea or anything.

“At any rate, let’s get there first.”

“Let’s do that.”

After getting Minori’s agreement, they continued along the trail and, as expected, met a stranded group of traders.

“Hey, do you want to buy a sword? They’re fine gems from Akiba, equipment level 20.”

This was what greeted them, a trader with bags beneath his eyes called out to Tohya with this.

Tohya was surprised, but quickly shook his head.

“We’re already a higher level so we won’t use those swords. What happened?”

The merchant slowly shaking his head seemed to be the leader, but looking around there was an escort of three people exhausted, sitting on wooden boxes. Most of the luggage was trade materials and one of the carriages had a broken axle.

The carriage Minori and the others were riding was around twenty metres away, because if they needed to go back and change direction, it was easier to not come any closer. This area was narrow, even compared to the rest of the narrow mountain trail so there wasn’t enough s.p.a.ce to pa.s.s and one wrong step would lead to the carriage rolling down the spa.r.s.e slopes.

“Looks like we’re stuck, Tohya.”

“Yeah.”

Most likely, if the luggage was all metal swords the carriage was overloaded to begin with. The solution was simply, push the broken carriage into the valley and take what they could on the other carriage, abandoning the rest. However, this was stock they’d obtained, so they likely would hold on to it tightly.

“It’s been a whole day since the axle broke. Please forgive the merchants if they’re rude.”

From inside the carriage, a gentle looking woman descended.

Before them was a woman, with light brown hair, like the ears of silver gra.s.s, wearing a long skirt and a bolero jacket, co-ordinated with yellows from daisies and dandelions, and a large hat. Her eyebrows traced out a gentle curve and the beautiful woman looked affectionately at them.

With the slight scent of Hepatica in the air, Tohya felt strangely melancholic as he looked at the woman. Tohya’s premonition was correct. This woman who seemed nothing but gentle was enduring awful feelings. But he couldn’t understand why.

“I am a travelling writer, Dariella.”

The woman sweetly curtseyed in greeting.

“You’re young, but you are adventurers, correct? Spending another night here would be tough on the merchants, so even if it’s just to Boxurt fortress, could you carry a few boxes? With your help, I think we’ll quickly be able to get over the next ridge. It would save the merchants from their predicament too.”

The woman who called herself Dariella’s plea was graceful, her kind words held persuasive power and Tohya and Rundelhous reflexively nodded.

There was no other choice in a situation like this.

The two of them turned back to go and discuss it with Minori.