Log Horizon - Volume 9 - Chapter 1.7

7 
Fourteen hours. That was the time difference. 
In regions that were farther east than New York, May 4 would have already arrived. 
Right: the introduction date for Homesteading the Noosphere was May 4. Once his thoughts had taken him that far, Leonardo yelled in astonishment: 
“The expansion pack’s been implemented in Japan?!” 
“Yes, it has.” 
The indistinct male voice startled Leonardo again. 
When he looked at Elias, the other man shook his head as if he was startled, too. True, it probably hadn’t been him. Elias had a deep, carrying, “handsome guy” voice that suited his slender build and mild face. Even his voice had been designed for the female fans. 
It wasn’t a mumbly voice like this one. 
When Leonardo shot a tentative glance at Coppélia, she gazed back at him blankly with dark ultramarine eyes like polished turquoise. No matter how he thought about it, it couldn’t have been her. 
“Kanami. This is a serious conversation. Quit with the weird voices.” 
“And why exactly would I be talking like my nose was all plugged up, Croakanardo?” 
“I’m not Croakanardo. I’m Leonardo.” 
“Right, respect the original work.” 
“You said it, pal. This frog suit is a hero’s… Who was that?!” 
Leonardo had heard the low voice again, and when he looked over in the direction it came from, he saw a white horse. 
“Oh. It’s the horse from earlier.” 
The fact that a horse had spoken was strange to begin with, but Kanami’s easygoing tone made his surprise shrivel up as if she’d dashed cold water over it. It felt pointless to pay attention to her every single time. 
“It’s your horse, Kanami. Right?” 
“No, it isn’t. Didn’t you have it waiting to use in your escape, Croakanardo?” 
“Nope.” 
Even as he answered, Leonardo somehow managed to keep from retorting, You mean you got right onto a horse you thought somebody else had waiting and made that somebody run beside it?! 
In any case, the sort of horses and other mounts that could be summoned with items were meant to be used as transportation. It took a set amount of time to summon them, and it really wasn’t something you wanted to do in the midst of battle. 
Most midlevel Adventurers owned whistles that summoned horses. As a hard-core gamer, Leonardo even had a kelpie summoning pipe that he’d won in a raid, but this white horse wasn’t his style. 
“And why is a white horse talking, anyway?” 
“He is not a white horse. He is a hakutaku. From what Coppélia knows, they are traditional sacred beasts in China, believed to understand human language and have detailed knowledge of everything under the sun. In Elder Tales, they are classified as mystical beasts.” 
“Bingo!” 
“Ah. So you can talk because you understand human speech. I see. And you fell in love with me and came to save me—” 
“Wrong!” 
At that word from the white horse—the mystical beast hakutaku—Kanami looked put out. 
The horse continued, “And anyway, why should a mystical beast have to waltz into the middle of a battle like that and rescue a girl Monk? I’m under no obligation to do any such thing. I’ve got no motive for it.” 
“Are you sure?” she retorted. “If I saw one of those, I’d dive right in. They look like fun.” 
It was Leonardo’s turn to scowl at Kanami. When he glanced to the side, Elias also looked tired. Apparently, he didn’t welcome everything about Kanami’s personality, either. 
“Hmm. Well, I don’t have any horsey friends…,” she added. 
“You turned into a Monk, Kanami,” the magical beast noted. “It’s been two years since we last met. It looks like your entire account is different. How’s life in England treating you? Is eel pie lethally nasty?” 
“Boy, is it ever. Seriously, England’s brutal about stuff like that. Whoever said the only delicious thing in England is breakfast hit the nail right on the head. I’ve gotten really into doing my own cooking over the past two years. But if you want to know why the food’s bad, I think the water quality in England is iffy to begin with… And, um, who are you, Mr. Horse?” 
“KR. Long time no see.” 
“Huuuuh?!” 
Kanami’s loud yell was sucked into the highland night, where the only other thing that howled was the wind. Elias, who’d been serenaded with that scream at point-blank range, twisted his expression—which was usually handsome—into a grimace like a Buddhist ascetic and muttered, “If he’s a friend, introduce us.” 
In spite of himself, Leonardo laughed quietly. You’re wrecking your looks, buddy. 
“Um, KR is…” 
“I’ll tell ’em myself. If I let Kanami handle this, she’ll turn it into a cheap play instead of an introduction.” 
“You’re a meanie, KR.” 
Apparently, Kanami and this mystical beast were old friends. 
“I’m KR. You can’t tell from the name, but I’m Japanese. I was friends with Kanami here back when she lived in Japan. Up until two years ago, she acted as the leader of a certain play group and flustered the bejeebers out of us.” 
“She sounds like kind of a pain.” 
Her excellent hearing seemed to have caught Leonardo’s murmured verbal jab. 
“Oh, who cares? It was fun, and they were all good kids.” 
“Well, Kanami was the leader of that play group, and I was one of the members.” 
“I see, I see. So you helped Kanami out on a daily basis, KR.” 
“No, I thought it was funny, and I went along with her and made the messes worse.” 
Would you listen to this horse?! 
The creature that looked like a white horse had come closer to the fire; it made a low whuffling noise, then lowered its long neck and nuzzled up to Coppélia. There was a third eye in its forehead, and its hind legs were covered in luxurious fur. It was a fantastic animal that only resembled a white horse. 
“Hey! KR! Quit harassing her!” 
“I’m not harassing her. We’re communicating. Besides, I want some water, too. You could have a little consideration, you know.” 
The words had been directed at Kanami, but Leonardo took his canteen out of his magic bag, hesitated a little, then poured it into a basin. The mystical beast who’d called himself KR thanked him and began to drink. 
“Still, in that case, you’re an Adventurer, Sir KR? That shape…” 
“Maybe the Catastrophe turned everyone on the Japanese server into animals, and now the place looks like a safari park?!” 
Kanami looked terribly happy, as if stars were about to start falling from her eyes, but Leonardo thought, Yeah, right. There’s no way. 
He was starting to understand this Kanami woman. 
In exchange for holding in the comeback, he directed a question at KR. 
“So, KR, you’re a…Summoner?” 

“Correct. Hey, Kanami, did you notice? We’ve got somebody clever here.” 
“Hmm! Croakanardo is clever? Cute on top of being clever?! Bweh-heh-heh! I got myself a bargain.” 
Leonardo glared at Kanami reproachfully, but it didn’t seem to get through to her at all. In the first place, KR had been saying “You’re dumb, Kanami” in a roundabout way, but even the sarcasm seemed to have gone over her head. 
“Can Summoners take animal shapes? I’d heard that type of sorcery was a secret technique of the fairy tribe, but—” 
“Nah, that’s not it. This is probably Soul Possession.” 
KR gave a low whinny, as if agreeing with Leonardo’s comment. 
“Exactly. It’s Soul Possession. In other words, this hakutaku is a mystical beast I summoned myself.” 
“So what’s this ‘Soul Possession’ business?” Kanami sounded puzzled, so Leonardo began to explain. 
“Uh, well… Soul Possession is a Summoner special skill. I don’t know much about it, either, but when this was Elder Tales, I’m pretty sure it was a spell that let you swap control with a summoned pet.” 
In Elder Tales, being able to call servant entities wasn’t a particularly rare gimmick. Naturally, Summoners were the top authorities when it came to this skill, but if you weren’t picky about variations or abilities, almost all the Recovery and Magic Attack classes could summon beings of some sort. 
A typical example was Bug Light, an area-illuminating spell that all Recovery classes learned. Strictly speaking, it was a summoning spell: It called upon mystical fireflies that gave off a faint light. 
The world was believed to hold several thousand diverse varieties of special summoning skills, including types that were item activated. Even Leonardo, who was a veteran player, didn’t have a clear idea of the whole picture. 
There was also a way to classify those countless summoning techniques by whether they could be controlled. 
For example, once the previously mentioned Bug Light was summoned, all it did was float near the caster, illuminating the area, until it was released or the effect time ran out. It wasn’t possible to control it, and it wasn’t likely to be put to practical use. 
On the other hand, some summoned creatures were completely controllable. 
One example was the Summoner’s servant. A summoned mystical beast—a Salamander, for example—was able to take orders to attack, defend, or move from its caster. In other words, it could be controlled by the caster’s orders. 
In the Elder Tales game, this element of control had been handled by giving orders to summoned creatures. 
However, there hadn’t been many order types. Attack, defend, prioritize recovery, move, follow me, stay there, and guard the area—that was about all of them. Even if, hypothetically, the summoned creature had had lots of special attack skills, the decision of which skill to use had been left to the creature’s AI, and the AI’s capabilities certainly hadn’t been high. 
That was what the situation had been like. However, Summoners’ Soul Possession spell had allowed them to control a summoned creature in its entirety. 
When a player used Soul Possession, their control screen changed to the perspective of the mystical beast that had been targeted by the spell. The ability values that were displayed belonged to the beast, and it became possible to select its special skills using icons, the same way the player had done as an Adventurer. 
Of course, most mystical beasts didn’t have them, but it was even possible to display equipment and item screens and to speak using the beast’s mouth. 
As the skill’s name indicated, you possessed a mystical beast. The spell had some interesting special characteristics, but it also had a big disadvantage: The body of the one who’d conducted the possession—in other words, the Summoner’s own body—could now be controlled with simple orders, like a summoned creature, by the possessed mystical beast. 
In short, you could say it was a spell that took a caster and a summoned creature and switched their control methods. 
Generally speaking, the Adventurer-Summoner had all sorts of special skills that were far more adaptable than the summoned creature’s handful of skills. In addition, when you compared the servant mystical beast and its summoner, the Adventurer, it was clear which one was more important. 
On top of that, Soul Possession took a long time to cast and a long time to release. If a sudden crisis came up, the Adventurer couldn’t return to their body quickly. 
As a result, during the days of Elder Tales, the Soul Possession spell had been treated as a special skill that was “interesting enough, but mostly just a joke.” 
“Oho. Oho!” 
After listening to Leonardo’s explanation, Kanami nodded. The nodding seemed to be because she was convinced, not because she was sleepy, so Leonardo deemed it a win. He couldn’t take responsibility for the question of how much she’d actually understood, but at this point, as long as she didn’t yank the conversation around, he wasn’t going to sweat the small stuff. To a certain extent, good code masters let their audiences’ reactions slide. 
“In other words, you haven’t turned into a horsey, KR.” 
“Of course not.” 
“So is this white, silky horse a Thoroughbred fraud?!” 
“What are you talking about, Kanami? Are you maybe—no, are you actually an idiot?” 
“Eh-heh-heh-hehhh.” 
“Why are you acting all moonstruck? It’s creepy.” 
“Well, I ran into an old friend, and I’m pretty happy about it.” 
Watching the two joke around with each other—Is that right? It certainly is, yes indeed—Leonardo shrugged. 
In the first place, Thoroughbred racehorses were considered living works of art. The velvety coat was noble, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t understand the urge to touch it… But the way Kanami moved her hands toward KR was creepy, abnormal, and just wrong. 
“Then where are you, Mr. KR?” 
Coppélia had been silent up until now, but when her sweet voice spoke, KR answered. 
“In Japan. Of course. We didn’t think about it when this was a game, but apparently distance doesn’t affect how this special skill works.” 
“Whoa, hold it, is your actual body okay? Soul Possession is a gag spell that leaves you unprotected, remember?!” 
“Never fear. I’m on vacation in a guarded house that’s hidden deep in the woods and very hard to find. That said, I haven’t actually been back there in over two months.” 
“I see… So that’s how you’re using it.” 
Now that he thought about it, it was an excellent idea. 
Since Elder Tales was a game, movement had been restricted to the control screen. However, after the Catastrophe, they’d probably gained more freedom. KR had doubtless made clever use of that to get his own hideaway and guard. It was possible that KR’s friends were taking care of his actual body for him. 
After all, as long as you resolved the problem of your own body, Soul Possession was a special skill with a wide range of applications. 
“Well, never mind about me. It’s true that Homesteading the Noosphere has already been implemented on the Japanese server.” 
“Are you sure?” 
“Positive. As proof, several Adventurers on that server have already hit level 91.” 
Level 91. 
That was definite proof. 
For close to two years now, the level maximum in Elder Tales had been 90, but there had been an announcement that it would be increased with the new expansion pack, Homesteading the Noosphere. 
“So are there new dungeons? New quests or monsters, new items? Or actually, are there any hints about how to clear up this mess?” 
After he’d practically yelled those questions, Leonardo was surprised by the sharpness in his own voice. Am I really this starved for information? Do I think the situation is unfair? 
It was enough to make him aware of these things all over again. 
“I’ll only answer the stuff I can answer, but… That’s right— Mind if I call you Leonardo?” 
“That’s fine. Call me whatever you want. And? How’re things?” 
As Kanami, Elias, and Coppélia watched, Leonardo stood up and walked over to the white mystical beast. In the wilderness night, below a sky of twinkling stars, the orange campfire snapped loudly. 
“I possessed this mystical beast and crossed to the continent in order to gather information. I figured that Specs or the Captain or somebody would pick up on anything in-country, even if I did nothing; that’s why I prioritized the areas overseas. I hit shore on the Korean server, circled around from the Chinese server to the Russian server, then headed south and back to the Chinese server. I went all over the place in two months.” 
“…” 
“The world’s in horrible shape. Seriously wasted. Of course, every place has people who are trying to maintain order. However, I found out there are also lots of people who aren’t doing that. Even in areas where the Adventurers aren’t plotting something heinous, they’re working desperately just to survive. The Adventurers have abandoned most People of the Earth. They think the world is on a fast track to destruction and walk around looking gray.” 
“?!” 
“I’ve heard rumors—lots of ’em. Right now, though, I know nothing about new quests or dungeons. It’s all vague. Nobody knows anything specific. What little intel there is melts into delusions and vanishes. There aren’t any bulletin boards that discuss solutions, and there aren’t any wikis. Adventurers are astoundingly hopeless. Over these two months, I learned that real well. It may be half-sized, but the world is big. I didn’t think we’d be this useless without the Web. To put it bluntly, right now, Adventurers are just blockheads. Without information support, modern people are good for absolutely nothing.”