Log Horizon - Volume 11 - Chapter 1.3

3 
Meanwhile, in another spot in the expanse of Theldesia, another party was preparing to take a brief rest. The time difference was a mere five minutes or so, and with one of Earth’s airplanes, the distance would have been no more than a short hop. However, the denizens of this world could only advance over the ground like ants, and to them, the national border was far, far away. Even so, in a corner of what was definitely the same highlands of Eured, several other protagonists were continuing their journey. 
“Carnivore style!” 
Kanami twirled around, holding drumsticks in both hands as if preparing to strike with them. 
“Don’t play with your food,” Leonardo replied. 
The sky in this country was vast. 
It was so wide it could hold blue sky, a sunset, and purple twilight at the same time. 
This beautiful gradation appeared practically every day, but the colors were never truly the same. Below it, once again, Kanami’s party was camping under an extremely cold sky. 
They’d met up with the merchant Ju Ha, then parted ways, one group heading north and the other south. All sorts of stuff had happened on this trip, Leonardo thought. 
Though—no, it wasn’t okay to let his guard down; the trip was still in progress. 
“Things are cheerful during every evening meal, aren’t they?” 
Chun Lu, her face serious, was sitting on a rug she’d spread over the desiccated ground. As she spoke, she sipped soup out of a bowl. She was an Adventurer, a guard who belonged to the Lelang Wolf Cavalry. The seasons had changed, and she was currently wrapped in a fluffy fur. 
“It simply means that telling Kanami to settle down is useless.” 
The Ancient hero Elias Hackblade had polished a piece of fruit on his sleeve and was nibbling on it with white teeth. The girl in the maid outfit who was briskly serving him soup was the Cleric Coppélia. 
Including Leonardo, who was stuffing his face with some rather flat bread, they were currently traveling as a band of five. 
“I did think you were restless, but who’d have thought it was this bad…?” 
“If there’s a voice crying for help in the north, I go there and punch out the villains. If I hear there’s a poor village in the south, I head over there and kick their bad harvest.” 
What’s the point of kicking a bad harvest? That’s just dumb. 
Leonardo pinned Kanami with a dubious look. 
Her actual words had gone off the rails and showed no sign of coming back, but what she’d said was true, in a bad way. After their adventure in Aorsoi in central Eurasia, you’d have thought the party would have made straight for Yamato in the Far East, but instead they’d strayed dramatically. 
The incident at Ruined Colonnade Tonnesgrave had happened in September, which meant that, at this point, they’d spent three months wandering around the wasteland. 
Granted, it apparently hadn’t been strange for a journey along the Silk Road to take six months or a year, so in that sense, they couldn’t declare that their pace was slow. 
Rather than keep traveling, it wasn’t at all unusual for them to spend three days or a week at the villages they visited, resting up. If there was a caravan going their way, it was common sense to adjust their time by ten days or so in order to travel with them. 
Actions like these were wisdom from the People of the Earth, used as a defense against the natural dangers of the wilderness and monsters, but even Adventurers like Leonardo and the others couldn’t afford to take those lightly. 
Leonardo’s group did have several dozen times the combat power of People of the Earth, but there had been that incident in the Tekeli Ruins. Not knowing about the wasteland and the surrounding topography could have fatal consequences. Even if it didn’t endanger their lives, if they got lost in a winding ravine, they could easily end up wasting several weeks. They really did need information from the People of the Earth, who were well versed in local roads and traffic. Apparently, that was what journeys on this continent were like. 
Of course, while these ordinary circumstances were prolonging their trip, it was also true they were being delayed by Kanami’s habit of saving people, or her ability for detecting trouble. 
At Turkul, they’d defeated a Sand Turtle that had dominated a great river and was rampaging, and at a nameless, impoverished village, Coppélia had blessed watermelon seeds and planted a field. 
At Mount Hei Feng, they’d been dragged into a terrible mess when the Kuromami Tribe, a band of malicious tanuki spirits, had stolen Kanami’s hot pants. (They were apparently thought to hold mystical power.) They’d ended up gathering seven ingredients to make a miraculous medicine for the leader, Great King Kuromami, to turn the fur on his belly white… Or rather, Leonardo had. 
Ugh, god. 
Just remembering it made his head hurt. 
Kanami had charged, Coppélia had followed impassively, Elias had raced to the scene in a panic, and Leonardo had cleaned up the aftermath in a glum daze. What was he anyway, the project manager for a raging dumpster fire? Even on the Avenue, he’d never heard of anything like this. 
As long as he was with Kanami, it didn’t seem like they’d run out of fuses for trouble. This evening, though, it looked as if they’d run clean out of difficulties, and they were finally camping peacefully… Although even that was more than noisy enough. 
“Do you think we’re getting pretty close to Shimanaikui?” 
“Yes.” 
Chun Lu nodded, licking some fat off her fingers. 
“If we keep traveling along this mountain range, we’ll arrive in less than a week.” 
This was why they were traveling with this female Adventurer, who was a member of the Lelang Wolf Cavalry. Shimanaikui marked the end of central Eured; from the perspective of what would be China on Earth, it was the town where the Silk Road began in earnest. In other words, in terms of Earth, it would be somewhere around Mongolia. 
Kanami’s party (which included Leonardo, although he wished it didn’t) was bound for Yamato. To them, Shimanaikui was a milestone on their journey east, while to Chun Lu, it was the headquarters of the guild she was returning to. 
Kanami’s group had wanted a guide, Chun Lu had wanted combat power for the way home, and thus their goals had meshed. 
That said, conditions in this land seemed to be growing more and more chaotic, and Leonardo thought the Lelang Wolf Cavalry might have taken an interest in them, since they were outsiders who weren’t affiliated with a major guild… Frankly, he suspected they were keeping an eye on them. 
Naturally, even if they were under observation, that in itself wasn’t enough to make them feel alienated. In the situation they found themselves in, if there was an uncertain element, anyone would try to investigate it. Even if they didn’t know whether the code had a bug in it or not, engineers’ instincts told them, Somehow, it feels like the processing is gonna stall somewhere. At the very least, they’d set a breakpoint beforehand. Since they were harboring a landmine like Kanami, he also thought it was only natural that others would be wary of them. 
Besides, if Leonardo’s group got pulled into some sort of trouble near here, they intended to use the Lelang Wolf Cavalry. Since they were planning to use them, it probably wasn’t fair to object when the other party did the same thing. 

“Shimanaikui, hmm? If we’re going there, I’d like a horse.” 
“You want a horse?” 
“Uh-huh, uh-huh!” 
Kanami nodded vigorously. 
“You can ride horseback? So I guess you’re upper-crust, then, huh?” Leonardo muttered, but apparently, Elias had taught her. 
She might have developed a taste for it during the business with KR. Riding a friend around seemed like a nasty thing to do, but KR had looked like he was egging her on, so Leonardo kept quiet about it. 
“A horse, hmm?” 
Chun Lu looked pensive. “Is there some sort of problem?” Elias asked. 
She denied this briefly, then began to speak. “It’s possible to buy both horses and Horse Summoning Whistles. However, this land is teeming with monsters. Wolves might be a better bet.” 
“Wolves?” 
“Yes. In Eured, they’re common mount items. The popular edition is the Wolf Mount Summoning Whistle, I think. They allow you to summon and ride huge wolves. The Lelang Wolf Cavalry is famous for them.” 
Kanami’s eyes sparkled. “Huge wolves!” she shouted. 
Leonardo and the others had seen the gray-furred wolf she’d summoned several times over the course of their journey. The group was traveling without mounts, and to match their walking pace, she didn’t normally summon it. However, they’d seen it in action multiple times, whenever danger fell upon them. 
True, that summoning technique might be ideal for a journey across a wasteland. If all you were thinking about was transportation, you’d probably choose a horse, but if they were attacked by a carnivorous monster while on horseback, their ability to defend themselves and adapt to their environment was bound to prove problematic. 
“Uh. Chun Lu? Do they sell those wolf whistle items?” 
“Yes, they’re for sale. The guild has artisans who can make them as well. Only…” 
“Only?” 
“Even if you lump them all together as wolf summoning whistles, there are quite a few different ranks and types.” 
Leonardo nodded understandingly. 
It was only to be expected. Elder Tales held a wide range of mount-summoning items. With the exception of ultra-high-class items that had flight capabilities, nearly all of them could be acquired by ordinary users. However, for the most part, even these had level-based usage restrictions. Level-20 items for level-20 Adventurers. Level-50 items for level-50 Adventurers. The size, sturdiness, and color of the horses they summoned were different, too. Naturally, capabilities such as speed and the amount of time they could be used for varied as well. 
“Since you are all high-end players with levels in the nineties, commercial whistles probably won’t be enough. In that case, you will need to complete a quest.” 
That also sounded reasonable. 
Summoning items were sometimes obtained as the result of a quest, but it was also just as likely to acquire core materials for the creation of said high-level items through those quests. 
“There is a dungeon near here known as Sirius Grotto. It’s intended for high-level parties, and quite a lot of different wolf-type monsters appear there. Core materials can be obtained from several species. If your subclass is Tamer, you can tame the monster and receive a summoning item directly, but…” 
“Hey, people. What’s your subclass? Mine’s Delivery Person.” 
“Me, me, over here! I’m a Chef!” 
“Coppélia is a War Priest.” 
“I can use nothing but fairy techniques.” 
“Okay, so the quick way’s out, then,” Leonardo summed up. 
Still, maybe it really was the correct choice to head down into that Sirius Grotto dungeon and hunt monsters for a while… 
But before he could think any further on the matter, Kanami had plunged into fully motivated mode and started muttering: “Hmmm. Wolves, huh? I’ll have to come up with a name! Wolfie…Mr. Wolf…?” 
Once she was like this, resistance was futile. 
His traveling companions each had abilities he could count on, but he knew that adorable Coppélia was no use whatsoever at restraining Kanami, and that the handsome blond fellow—who had put a hand to his chin and was saying “Not fairy horses, hmm…?”—was a lot more busted than he looked. 
Obtaining wolf mounts seemed to be their predetermined route. 
That said, even if it was, there were very few problems with it. Shutting themselves in a dungeon would be a lot easier on their nerves than wandering north and south through the wasteland without a plan. Even in terms of time, Leonardo thought, it would probably take a day at the longest. 
If that was all they had to do to secure transportation, it was practically the definition of being lucky. 
Leonardo had realized, vaguely, that this decision would trigger their second adventure in central Eured. 
However, everybody has the right to at least try to comfort themselves. Especially when it lay in the as-yet-unseen future, they were free to fantasize that “this time, it looks like we’ll make safe, peaceful, trouble-free progress.” 
Leonardo, a programmer from the Big Apple, had put this into practice on all sorts of projects. 
Naturally, it had failed every time. 
However, he still hadn’t learned his lesson, and he tried to stay optimistic this time as well. 
After all, adventuring New Yorkers couldn’t survive without being tough.