Log Horizon - Volume 9 - Chapter 5.3

3 
Elias. 
Kanami. 
And Coppélia. 
Even though they were fighting Papus, they weren’t able to let themselves be completely absorbed in that battle. 
Papus might be a complete mystery, but he was only a Normal rank monster. 
Elias and the other two were Adventurers and an Ancient on roughly the same level, and under ordinary circumstances, they should have been able to beat him handily. 
After all, unlike Leonardo, Elias had Kanami and Coppélia with him. In terms of numbers alone, they had three times the enemy’s forces, but they also had two close-combat fighters—one of whom was Elias—who could attack and defend on the front line, and Coppélia, who could take charge of recovery in the rear. It was common knowledge that a party with balanced offense and defense had greater combat potential than the sum of its individual members’ abilities. The three of them shouldn’t have had trouble holding their ground against a Normal monster on their level. 
“Argh! Again!!” 
“Master. Leave the right side to me.” 
Coppélia raised the shields she’d been holding at the ready. Her White Magic Steel Shields were heavyweight kite shields, and using them as counterweights to change her direction, she slammed into the gnolls at full force. Kanami tackled the ones that had charged in from the left. 
…Exactly. The battle line had become deadlocked because the creatures were attacking in waves. 
Single “tails” grew from the backs of the attacking beast-men’s heads like strange pigtails. They wriggled like fish hauled up on land, bit into the gnolls’ brains, and relayed orders from Papus. 
The gnolls, which had become hosts for Papus’s tentacles, attacked Elias and the others. Every one of them had eyes that were stained a dull, dirty yellow, and they were drooling profusely. Gnolls that were more savage than usual—that was what was making the battle difficult for Elias’s group. 
Coppélia and Kanami, who’d split to the right and left, were blocking the gnolls well, covering for each other. The combat situation certainly wasn’t easy, but the two of them kept on fighting, not caring a bit. 
Coppélia fought impassively. 
Kanami fought boisterously. 
By nature, Monks didn’t have many range attacks, but Kanami seemed to have conquered that flaw: She was distributing the serial attack skills that were her specialty across the monsters around her. 
The first attack, a right punch, went to a gnoll who’d leveled its sword. The second, a left palm heel, slammed into a gnoll mage who’d raised its staff and was just about to activate a spell. 
In a battle of fists and blades, the angle and timing at which attacks were executed were important elements. For example, in the sport of boxing, all you could do was thrust out either your right fist or your left one. Even so, adjusting angles, timing, and trajectories has created an incredibly artistic system of techniques. This was probably evidence that, in combat, slight variations in attack techniques led to tricking your opponent and increasing hit accuracy and power. 
In Kanami’s case, Monks already had an abundant range of serial attacks. By using motions to activate them voluntarily, she explosively expanded their structures, delivery methods, and timing. As Kanami paid out combinations that were dizzying to even imagine, and in a baffling variety tailored to the number and condition of the enemies around her, she looked as if she were dancing her heart out. 
Kanami activated chains of serial attacks with complicated structures, parceling them out to the surrounding gnolls. However, she looked far from meditative. Elias thought she was probably executing this complex fight through sheer instinct and muscle memory acquired during training. 
As for Elias, he was facing off against Papus, the owner of the tentacles, who was still spinning in front of him. 
“Glub-buh-bub! Glup-blub-bloop-blorp!” 
With an unpleasant laugh like seething bubbles, Papus attacked Elias. 
Papus’s countless tentacles reached out for Elias, but Elias was the owner of the byname “the Strongest,” and the number and speed of those tentacles were nothing he couldn’t gauge. However, this was Papus he was dealing with, and if he avoided the tentacles, he’d sacrifice nearby gnolls. The tentacles took in foreign matter, and they were apparently capable of absorbing monster energy. If he did it, he’d only be giving Papus more underlings. It was a troublesome attack. 
In order to prevent that, Elias used his two-handed sword to keep severing the tentacles that bore down on him. He intercepted tentacles he’d missed with the instantly activated Aqua Ripper, then slammed his sword into Papus, who’d closed in on his back. 
“Useless.” 
“Tch!! Spawn of disaster!! By my fairy blade, I will end you!” 
“Fairy blade? Blup-glup. Glorp-wah-ba-ba-ba-bah!” 
The rapidly spinning log structure struck Elias and sent him flying. 
Even as his abdomen took heavy damage, Elias closed the distance immediately and shifted into a counterattack. Papus’s defense blocked his midrange attack spells, and they wouldn’t reach him. 
Having decided that he had a better chance of winning in close combat with sword attacks, Elias charged forward, believing in the protection of the water spirits that dwelled in him. 
Papus must have known this, but he let him close in. 
A wild dance of tentacles and water currents broke out at close range. 
Elias’s two-handed sword, Crystal Stream, bit into Papus’s wooden fortress. The exchange became a contest of strength, and they locked up. 
“?!” 
“I know.” 
“You know—what?!” 
“How your race met its end.” 
Elias’s vision went red. 
“Have your companions awakened? Impossible. Why do you not sink? Why do you not freeze? A mere hint of Empathiom. How can you move?” 
He’d known. 
He’d sensed it with his first glimpse of this tentacled monster. 

As he’d suspected, he was a Genius. A rank-and-file member of the army that had destroyed half of the world’s thirteen chivalric orders. Images flew into Elias’s mind: his companions, who had been transported against their will to a battlefield under a foreign sky, and the grotesque army that had assailed them. 
His blood burned. 
Rage gathered at his throbbing temples. 
The monster in front of Elias was one of the faction that had destroyed his comrades. Even though he tried to hold it back, his rage made the water magic boil. 
“Enough!!” 
“Why do you not stop?” 
“Shut your mouth!!” 
Elias howled. His arms, wrapped in his blue and silver surcoat, swelled up, and cursed blood raced through the magic circuits that were under fairy protection. Using only his aura, Elias repelled the layers of tentacles that tried to wrap around him. However, Papus spoke to him in a dripping sort of voice that was hard to make out, filling it with malice: 
“I know. You Ancients— No, all People of the Earth as well. You are all dolls. Puppets with no will, mere character software.” 
A memory burst. 
These were the Words of Death that had put half of the Ancients, Elias included, to sleep. A dreamless “sleep,” from which there was no waking. To the Ancients, who had no concept of death, it was another name for “parting” that came very close to it. 
You are dolls. 
That compulsory awareness had devoured the thirteen chivalric orders like a plague. 
The words had driven some insane, made others despair, and caused still others to lose all interest in everything. Some had been unharmed, but they were the ones who had disappeared from this world. 
When confronted with those words, even Elias, who was known as the strongest, had fallen into a dreamless sleep. He’d been unable to bear the ridiculousness of his mission, its hollowness, that overwhelming truth, and he’d closed himself off. 
“Fall, as a counterfeit. Shutting down is what’s best for your kind. Those who were born from nothing should halt their timelines.” 
The Words of Death echoed. 
There was no Ancient hero who had learned swordsmanship from the fairies. 
After all, there were no fairies. 
There were no Ancients. 
There were no People of the Earth who must be protected. 
There was no world. 
The hum of the fairy village, which he could remember if he listened closely, was fake. The sword in his hands, his surcoat, the wind, the wide world—it was all false. Everything Elias knew was counterfeit, and the world was just a hollow vessel. 
Even Elias himself was only… 
“Like! That’s! Even! True!!” 
Suddenly, light was born. 
Mowing down trees and breaking through both Papus’s defense and the swarm of tentacles, Kanami howled. She’d shot through with a flying kick like a shooting star, and she didn’t break that stance. 
“Don’t be an idiot! Eli-Eli’s here, all right! He’s right here! From now on, we’re going to do tons of fun stuff! Don’t take him away without permission, you—bike-tube guy!” 
In the midst of the golden Aorsoi light that streamed through the pierced grove, she roared like a proud queen. 
Just as she had on the day she’d resurrected Elias from the abyss of sleep. 
“Kanami—” 
“We’re taking this guy down, Eli-Eli!” 
“Understood!” 
Elias nodded. 
Strength returned to the hands that gripped his sword. 
Mana overflowed. Kanami’s trust was converted into physical warmth, and his exhilaration and sense of mission came back to him. 
“Hup!” 
“Aaah!” 
Sending the mana and fighting spirit within him into Crystal Stream, Elias ran like a white tiger. The aggressive streams of water he unleashed attacked Papus like countless spears. As the tentacles reached up from the earth to intercept them, they looked like opposing ranks of spears, held at the ready. However, as Elias’s water spears fell from the sky, the light passed through them, and they shone, forming a binary of light and darkness with Papus’s mud spears, which intercepted them from the ground. 
A single blow opened a vast hole in the conflict. 
Giant-Killer Gauntlets groaned. A shift from Mantis Action to Aerial Rave had sent Papus into the air, and Shadowless Kick knocked him even higher, like a circle throw. He was a perfect midair target. 

Elias, who had believed and held his two-handed sword at the ready, channeled a flood of emotions into it and brought it down. 
“Begone! Back to your den!” 
His main body must have been fragile. With nothing more than a sticky noise, a gaping hole that stretched from Papus’s chest all the way through his upper body opened up. Robbed of both his mobility and the defense of his tentacles, Papus really was nothing but a Normal rank monster. 
Exhaling roughly, the Ancient glared down at the monster’s corpse and swung his sword to clean it. Elias Hackblade had been reborn, and this had been the attack that would touch off the war with the Geniuses.