Fame 4
Hanna's proposal, the moment we gathered, was to head for the Magic Tower while watching the morning sun rise. Anyone else would have found the idea faintly absurd and suggested waiting for word from the Guild. But Grace, who treated Hanna like a genius witch, and Irene, who was always ready to take someone at their word, both nodded without hesitation.
And of course I stood up too — I knew she was a player and a streamer.
We peeled away from the stream of adventurers hurrying into the Tower and made for the local Magic Tower branch. A handful of mages were visible, shabby in a different sense from the grimy adventurers — apprentices, most likely, reporting for duty at dawn after a too-short holiday.
"Why would traces of the Full Moon Wolf show up on Horned Wolves?"
"When we first ran into it, Horned Wolves were roaming in a pack alongside the Full Moon Wolf. Horned Wolves do share some wolf instincts, but they're not pack monsters by nature."
Grace stuck close to Irene — who had never seen the Full Moon Wolf — and began explaining in a soft, measured voice. Irene was quiet and a little timid by nature; Grace was the opposite, sly and unflappable. They suited each other surprisingly well.
Hanna, glancing sidelong at the two of them, was busy chatting away with her viewers. Thanks to her running commentary on the quest, I could keep one ear open and piece the situation together myself.
"Once we hit the Magic Tower and pick up the quest to track the Full Moon Wolf, I figure the shortcut to the tenth floor should open. Hm? Tell Roland-sensei we should do some real-estate speculation? Okay, you're… kind of smart, actually… Looking at how realistic this place is, if you squat a claim next to a gate, you might make some real money?"
When a player reaches the tenth floor and starts hunting Horned Wolves, Chapter One of the main scenario unlocks. The quest is simply to kill a set number of them. Chapter Two is dealing with the enraged Full Moon Wolf bursting out of the Tower at the head of a Horned Wolf pack.
Chapter Three, after that, is hunting Horned Wolves on the tenth floor until you find one of the countless beasts that is a Horned Wolf thrall of the Full Moon Wolf and recover its traces. That was as far as our party had gotten in the main scenario. Nothing hard to follow — the viewers seemed to have absorbed it perfectly.
"Of course you'd need to know where the gate is… Wonder if any of my viewers will actually pull off a successful squat after watching this stream. But to buy buildings and land with the money from killing Horned Wolves on the tenth floor? How much grinding would that even take."
I walked in silence, half-listening to her banter with chat, and before I knew it we had arrived at the Magic Tower. Today's receptionist must have been briefed on our appearance in advance; the moment we stepped inside, she came straight over.
"Mage Hanna and her companions, correct?"
"Yes, I'm Hanna."
Hanna followed the guide upstairs the same as last time. Grace and Irene, for their part, seemed to regard the quest as mage business and took no particular interest. The two of them sat at a table and continued talking about the Full Moon Wolf.
Grace had a gift for storytelling — the night plains under a full moon, so different from the ordinary daytime grasslands, and the silver wolf itself, so vast and beautiful it had earned the name Full Moon Wolf. Irene's small lips parted as she fell under the spell of the tale.
"My goodness. What a rare experience that must have been."
"Miss Charlotte?"
A pink-haired young woman settled herself naturally beside Irene, who had been hanging on Grace's every word — Charlotte. I had known she was both a mage and an adventurer, but I hadn't expected to run into her at this hour.
She slipped into the chair that Mary, her dark blue-haired maid, had pulled out for her, and joined Irene and Grace's conversation as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Between telling stories to the girls and her general talkativeness, she seemed to have a real knack for putting people at ease.
Two sociable people in one place made all the difference — Grace and Charlotte, who had been stiff with each other on the first day, warmed up without effort. The gap between a free commoner from a slash-and-burn village and a noble young lady seemed to dissolve with Irene acting as a buffer between them.
"But Miss Charlotte, what brings you here?"
"The Full Moon Wolf you were discussing."
"Oh — you're already here?"
Just as the conversation was winding down and Charlotte was about to state her business, Hanna came down the stairs with perfect timing. She didn't look surprised to see Charlotte at the table, so the mages must have already spoken among themselves.
As if to confirm that thought, Hanna joined the table and dropped the conclusion without preamble.
"When we go after the Full Moon Wolf, Miss Charlotte here will be joining us."
"What?"
"Huh? Why?"
Why would Charlotte — who already had a hired tank and a maid-thief of her own — join our party? Grace and Irene put the question with exactly that doubt in their voices, and Hanna went on explaining.
"It isn't just Miss Charlotte joining our party alone. Several mage parties designated by the Magic Tower will be coming along. Partly because there was a Horned Wolf pack with the Full Moon Wolf when we met it, and partly because the mages want to investigate the anomaly themselves."
She kept the honorifics, probably out of consideration for Irene, who still hadn't dropped formal speech. At the mention of mages wanting to do their own research, both women nodded naturally. To ordinary people, mages carried a strong image of eccentricity, so the idea of them insisting on going into the Tower themselves was easy enough to accept.
Charlotte picked up where Hanna left off.
"Monsters breaking out of the Tower is unprecedented. The city's nobles, of course — and even the Temple, which declared the Tower a profane space — are taking a keen interest. The Adventurer's City was built because of the Tower, and it survives because of the Tower. It's a peculiar arrangement."
Cities, as a rule, grew out of commercial development. Unlike a lord's domain where serfs farmed the land, a city took shape as trade and industry flourished and markets swelled. Guilds themselves were merchant cooperatives formed by blacksmiths, carpenters, bakers, and innkeepers for mutual profit.
But this was a fantasy world of mana and roaming monsters. The first people to band together for profit weren't blacksmiths or bakers — they were adventurers. Mana gave them direct martial power, so their voices carried farther and louder than anyone else's.
Adventurers flocked to the Tower; merchants followed the money the adventurers spent. The Magic Tower and the Temple had joined for the sake of research, but everyone else in the city had gathered because of the adventurers — more precisely, because of the Mana Stones and byproducts that came out of the Tower.
The Tower was a profane space in religious terms, and yet, paradoxically, it functioned like a mine that fed the city's citizens.
Just as a mining town turns to ruin when the vein runs dry and every miner is out of work, an anomaly in the Tower would put every adventurer in the Adventurer's City out of a job. The economic shock would inevitably upend the lives of ordinary citizens.
"The Magic Tower has its eye on the Full Moon Wolf's abilities. Among every monster that has appeared so far, it alone possesses the mana to cross the Tower's boundaries — and the power to generate a special field, the Night Plains. The Magic Tower plans to use that to create teleport gates inside the Tower."
"Whoa — gates?"
"Yes. Several of the senior mages on the uppermost floors made a strong request. To send supplies up, you need a large-scale expedition, and when those expeditions drag on, experimental materials and reagents spoil…"
For adventurers, the benefit was obvious: easier Tower runs and faster transport of byproducts. For the Magic Tower, opening gates meant fee revenue and the solid backing of the mage community. I didn't know where the Temple stood, but it was more than enough reason for the Adventurer's Guild and the Magic Tower to join hands.
To a player, a shortcut just meant convenient. To the people who lived in the city, it was a revolution — like a highway connecting one city to another.
"So what's the schedule?"
"The analysis is mostly done. The expedition is supposed to depart at noon today."
"We've got some time to kill, then."
Grace answered Hanna's next remark. We had gathered at the crack of dawn, so there was still a stretch until noon. I wondered why we couldn't just leave right away — but finishing the analysis and assembling an expedition in a single day was already an unnaturally competent feat.
And "expedition" was a grand word for what it was. A run to the tenth floor, nothing more — just mage parties that, like Charlotte, had been hired or recruited privately, gathering in one place.
"We've got time. Want to hit the market together? …Oh. Soft."
Grace sprang up from the table and casually linked arms with Irene. I decided to ignore the last part, clearly added for timid Irene's benefit — either way, she was trying to build camaraderie. Hanna glanced my way, then took Irene's other arm.
The three of them were off shopping to get closer; there was no need for me to barge in without reading the room. I gave a small nod that said go without me, and Grace and Hanna smiled softly at the gesture and urged Irene along.
"…Aren't you going, Miss Charlotte?"
"I have a research room of my own at the Magic Tower."
"A research room at the Magic Tower — you must have quite the achievements to your name."
Which left, naturally, the pink-haired chatterbox beside me — Charlotte. When I ventured a word, she smiled bashfully and edged a little closer. Her reaction was nothing like the first meeting, or even the second.
"I'd like a private word, if you can spare a little time?"
Her manner was too odd to chalk up to a simple crush on my face. She seemed to catch my doubt, rising from her seat. Mary the maid appeared at her side as if on cue, and under Mary's attendance Charlotte invited me to her research room.