Log Horizon - Volume 11 - Chapter 4.4

4 
The battle became a melee. 
Calling it a three-on-three fight would have been an accurate description of the circumstances. 
The defenders consisted of the Monk Kanami, the wolf dog Gumon, and the Guardian Krusty. 
The attackers were, first and foremost, the Nue, a magical beast that wielded lightning, followed by the ultra-high level Blademancer Elias Hackblade, and the enigmatic Ancient Enchantress Youren. 
If you thought of it as a contest of strength, they were at a ridiculous disadvantage… Meaning Krusty’s side, of course. 
The Nue, a magical beast, was a half-raid-rank monster. Elias was a level-100 Ancient. Then there was Enchantress Youren as well. Ordinarily, they would have needed a unit of twenty or so people to fight them. 
However, Krusty wasn’t anxious or afraid. Pushed into action by the tingling heat of the battle and, more than that, by his curiosity, he swung his bardiche. The fun was about to begin. 
Armed combat was an intriguing thing. 
He didn’t know whether the situation was peculiar to this world, which had its roots in the Elder Tales game, or whether it was like that in general, but there were a variety of subtleties in it. 
When Krusty had fought Elias, the trend of that one-on-one battle had been dictated by the individuals’ combat abilities and mental strategies. The self-possession to curb mental confusion and the perceptiveness to spot vulnerabilities were particularly important. Krusty, whose true strength had been inferior, had managed to get through that battle without losing his life because, at the time, he’d been superior to Elias mentally. 
He’d been helped along by his Hyperion Eye. This Mystery, which widened his field of vision, showed its true value when its user’s mind was serene. 
Meanwhile, what was important in group combat was the division of roles, communication, and the physical manifestation of those things—teamwork. It wasn’t that individuals’ combat abilities and coolheadedness weren’t necessary, but they were no longer the most important thing, and your ordinary training and how you dealt with others acquired more meaning. In battles of that size, the most important things were having flexible tactics that responded to the state of combat, and whether you were able to communicate well enough that you could fight as one entity. 
In contrast, the three-on-three battle that was currently under way was terribly primitive, dizzying, and treacherous. 
“Gwarrgh!” 
The Nue, which had been belted behind the ear with a high-speed kick from adamantine toes, accidentally spit a sphere of compressed electricity at Elias. Kanami had set that up on purpose. Bloodshot eyes swamped with resentment, Elias deflected the sphere of electricity with his crystal sword, but the affinity was bad. The purple lightning wrapped around the stream of water, enveloping Elias. Possibly because he was wearing high-resistance magic armor, he didn’t take much damage, but for a moment, his movements were dulled. 
Gumon charged into that vulnerability like a bullet, bounded up from below, and slammed her whole body into him. 
With a sound like a car crash, Elias went flying. 
“Wh-wh-wh-what’ll I do?! I accidentally hit Eli-Eli!” 
“Didn’t you do that on purpose?” 
Kanami was upset, but Krusty responded without even looking at her. 
Three-on-three battles were disorienting. It was like a game of pinball. 
In a one-on-one battle, you only had to think about your opponent, but when it was three-on-three, each of you had two companions. Team plays tended to happen. However, that sort of teamwork hadn’t been calculated and trained for like a raid. There was a strong element of improvisation to it, as if it was the product of on-the-spot flashes of inspiration. 
In a battle between small teams, the most necessary element was a feel for combat. 
Its difficulty rivaled or surpassed that of raids, whose precision was improved by training. 
Apparently, Kanami had a natural talent for that sort of combat. For the past little while, the Nue had seemed to be having trouble fighting. By continuing to evade its attacks, Kanami had been building up aggro, and at the same time, she continuously took up positions where the enemy couldn’t avoid involving its allies in its large-scale attacks, locking down the middle range. The act seemed as if it would have required a long combat record, but apparently, she was doing it all on instinct. 

“Eli-Eli’s turned into Dark Eli-Eli.” 
“…” 
“A minute ago he told me, ‘If you don’t get out of my way, I’ll cut you’ and took a slash at me, you know?!” 
“…” 
That said, since it was on instinct, what she was saying was pathetic. He didn’t even feel like smiling and nodding to help move the conversation along. 
He shrugged, then took the opportunity to attack the Nue. 
Enchantress Youren seemed to be plotting some sort of support action, but the Nue’s body was as big as a minivan. If he used it as an obstacle to block her line of sight, she wouldn’t be able to attack easily. Using the rotation of his knees, he struck it with close-range skills like Taunting Blow and Armor Crush, neatly crushing the origin points of the monster’s attacks without showing it any vulnerabilities. 
Elias and Kanami were still fighting as if they were dancing, neither managing to land any telling blows on the other. 
Kanami’s haphazard explanation had made it hard to understand, but apparently, the two of them were companions who had met on the way here. In that case, leaving him to her was probably the right thing to do. 
He’d experienced Elias’s sword technique for himself, but it wasn’t as much fun this time around. Sure enough, easy lunacy didn’t add to your combat power. 
That said, it probably wasn’t anything to be disappointed about. This buffet still had more dishes left on it than he could eat his way through. With that level-headed thought, Krusty set his sights on the ringleader, on the other side of the Nue. 
Like the Nue, Enchantress Youren, who was keeping her cards hidden and not making any attacks of her own, had the air of a seasoned veteran about her. 
Or is she afraid? 
That was the impression he got when, in response to his gaze, the Enchantress turned sideways, wary of firing lines. It was the gesture of a child who had touched a stove and learned what burns were. 
Krusty’s thoughts ran through an examination several hundred lines long. 
He was considering the things Enchantress Youren had said. 
The magical beast was sent from the sky. 
It’s now possible to send military forces to each area. 
This is because they shared the summoning technique technology and pulled together the resources. 
The orders come from the Queen Mother of the West. 
It was nothing important. 
When he put everything in order, it was simply the sort of self-conscious reveal that movie villains tended to indulge in: the declaration that they were the ones who had orchestrated this affair. 
In other words, they were the enemy. 
She’d declared an invasion. 

Krusty grinned. 
He swung his bardiche, feeling so cheerful he didn’t even care that his remaining HP was now below 20 percent. The bracing invigoration curved the corners of his lips up, and he wasn’t able to keep from showing his clenched teeth. 
Splendid. 
He hadn’t been interested in the woman who’d attempted to curry favor with a condescending air of having “saved” him, but if it was all right to take her down, it was a completely different matter. If he could exterminate her, then he had no reason to refuse. If she was declaring them to be enemies, what a terrific birthday present that was. 
Deep inside Krusty, a mysterious vibration let him know: 
This Enchantress Youren was also his “real” enemy. 
She wasn’t the sort of enemy Elias had been, when Krusty had faced off against him. She wasn’t an “opponent”; she was an enemy in the sense of being a usurper. A resonance in his soul, like the wind blowing through the caverns of his stolen memories, made him sure of it. 
The Enchantress and her companions had robbed Krusty of his memories, his personal property. 
His smile widened. 
What she had done was an unmistakable declaration of hostility, an act, and an overture, of a fight for their existence. 
So Krusty would take everything from this Enchantress, too. 
In a corner of his vision, Elias, who was radiating a clouded aura, was launching brute-force attacks at Kanami. The Monk looked perplexed, and she was evading them easily, but the attacks that didn’t hit her seemed to be wounding her opponent deeply. With an inarticulate, animalistic roar, he shifted into a ruthless attack. 
Kanami managed to get through the hurricane of a serial attack by crouching down, or flipping, or making them slip past with her gauntlets. True, Elias was the one who was pressing his opponent hard, but his attacks didn’t have their earlier edge. His muddied mind was clouding his technique. 
Why is he fighting Kanami, one of his companions? 
 Brainwashed or hypnotized, mental manipulation. 
 …By Enchantress Youren. There’s no need to even ask. 
Having succinctly come to a conclusion, Krusty’s interest waned. 
It wasn’t that he was repulsed by mental manipulation; people were beings that were influenced at every turn. Brainwashing was a type of education that knew where the limits were and emphasized utility; even living an active life was a kind of brainwashing mantra, the result of self-suggestion. 
Since that was the case, although Enchantress Youren had done it and Elias had been tricked by it, he had no intention of accusing her for it, or blaming him for being weak. It was a very common sight, and it had merely happened on a battlefield this time, that was all. 
However, on the other hand, he did feel something like irritation and scorn. 
Loading those feelings onto his blade and releasing them, Krusty knocked the Nue flying and simultaneously attacked Enchantress Youren. 
“So you’re the one who made Elias weak.” 
Beneath the veil, her eyes widened, and as they exchanged looks, Krusty was sure of it: Getting weaker was a clear evil. 
Even if brainwashing and mental manipulation weren’t evil on their own, if they caused degradation, he could conclude that they were. That was Krusty for you. 
The aversion he felt for the Enchantress changed to delight. After all, he was about to engage in mortal combat with this being who had engineered that clear evil. 
Several wet sounds echoed, as if someone were hacking away at a soggy futon. 
Apparently, Enchantress Youren really did have advanced combat abilities. A wall of mud appeared from the ground, blocking Krusty’s attack. It seemed to have properties that diverted the force of lightning attacks away, into the ground, and it served as an impregnable defense against the Nue’s attacks as well. 
Sensing this, the Nue switched to long-charging electrical breath attacks that affected a wide range, although their force decreased. Since the force of each attack was down, they wouldn’t prove lethal immediately, but practically speaking, they were impossible to avoid. The thunder beast was launching attacks that pulled in Enchantress Youren, who was making use of that mud wall. To Krusty, who had lost the ability to recover HP, it was a troublesome attack. 
“Even if he is weakened, the great hero is attempting to harvest your lives.” 
Krusty slammed a gauntlet into the lady’s mocking voice like a blunt instrument, interrupting it. 
“I learned from defeat: to hunt, not gather. True, you may not be rank three but you are strong. You will die by your own swords.” 
Was that why she’d sent Elias at them, then? 
The more irritated he got, the wider his smile grew. 
This woman probably didn’t understand a thing. 
In the end, Krusty thought, life existed so that you could make attempts. 
What could you do? What couldn’t you do? It was an experiment. Life existed to be used in those experiments. 
The world held a massive amount of problems. Could they be resolved, or not? People ran through it to learn the answer. They burned through their brief lives, searching for answers they hadn’t yet seen. 
Of course, malicious experiments that shouldn’t be performed probably existed as well. However, tackling challenges was the essence of humanity. No one could deny that. Taking a bird who was trying to fly and shutting it up in a cage was usurpation. 
Going insane was also fine. However, as a result, Elias was no longer able to do things he’d been capable of. He’d lost the techniques he’d gained through a long period of devoted training. As he was now, he seemed desolate and pitiful. 
Krusty’s annoyance gave strength to the Fresh Blood Demon Ax he swung. 
“You and the rest will perish here.” 
“We won’t know until we try.” Glaring at her with glittering eyes, Krusty whispered hoarsely. 
The meaning of human life lay in testing to see whether things were possible. 
Life was a tool for that purpose. 
To Krusty, that was the greatest possible joy. 
In the cage of his childhood, where he’d been forbidden even to test himself, it was all he’d dreamed of. 
Krusty absolutely loved pulling off something difficult in front of people who blustered that it “couldn’t be done,” then seeing their arrogant, condescending expressions twist with humiliation. 
Right now, the world had entrusted the question of whether the test was possible or impossible to Krusty. 
The Berserker began to burn through what little life he had left.