1 Leonardo woke early the next morning. Adventurers had high physical abilities, and Leonardo could tell that they affected sleep time as well. Six hours was enough to let him wake up feeling refreshed. That said, there did seem to be individual differences, and some Adventurers said they got incredibly sleepy, so it might have been a quirk peculiar to himself. In any case, having woken up, Leonardo changed into clothes that were sturdy, although not made for combat, and left his assigned shed. Elias was still asleep in the bed, which was made of packed straw and was quite comfortable, so he moved quietly, trying not to make noise. The sun had just risen, and it was glaringly bright. He cut through the courtyard of Yagudo’s house, turned onto the main street, and made for the well. There were several People of the Earth ladies there, and lots of children, too. Leonardo thought he’d woken early, but apparently, as far as the villagers were concerned, it wasn’t that early. The place teemed with women having lively conversations as they did chores, and the little kids were energetic. Thanking the women who’d considerately moved aside to give him room, Leonardo washed his face. As long as its durability hadn’t worn down, Adventurer equipment recovered from visible dirt and scratches automatically, but people’s moods didn’t bounce back so easily. He quickly wiped off his treasured green hood. The cold-water bath was refreshing. “Hey, mister.” “Mr. Green.” “Why are you green?” “Why, huh? Why?” Children had begun to gather around Leonardo like little birds. Leonardo’s mouth bent into a dissatisfied line. I can’t deal with this, he thought. He wasn’t good with kids. They were all immature and rude and temperamental. Would any sane adult ask somebody else, “Why is your face green, huh?” They most certainly would not. Asking somebody they’d just met would be even further out of the question. These guys are genuine idiots who don’t understand how awesome and cool ninjas are. “Hmph. This is proof that I’m a hero.” “What’s a hero?” “Can you eat it?” “Mister, did you eat breakfast already?” This blows. Leonardo sighed. Kids couldn’t stay on topic for a whole conversation. He’d seen that tendency among certain women, too, but it was more striking in kids. Problems and questions should be resolved one at a time. A little bit here, a little bit there: You couldn’t write code or catch software bugs that way. Children were the polar opposite of engineers. Leonardo hauled up a kid who’d been rolling up his trousers to see if the leg inside was green, too, and flicked him on the forehead. This was seriously hopeless. “This head is a tribute to the courage and might of the great frog. As a ninja and a frog, it’s the symbol of the bravest hero in the world.” “Um… Did you get that?” “I didn’t get it at all.” “Green! Green frog! Lu wa!” “Lu wa. ?” They were probably all under ten years old. Some of them seemed to be around five or six. Leonardo, who’d never babysat in his life or lived with a baby, had no way to discern kids’ ages. He was just guessing on instinct. In theory, there had been a time when Leonardo himself was a kid, but he just couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to think that he’d been anything this irrational. A boy who was built a little bigger, but who still didn’t come up to Leonardo’s waist, rammed into him from the front. The boy had run up and wrapped his arms around him. Maybe he was trying to wrestle. He pushed at him until his face was bright red, but to an Adventurer, it made less of an impression than an attack from a playful cat. Just the way you’d do to a cat, Leonardo hooked two fingers into the back of the boy’s collar and hoisted him up. A woman who seemed to be the boy’s mother, wearing several layers of the tribe’s thick, colorful clothes, apologized—I’m sorry he’s disturbed you—but the boy in question didn’t seem to care at all. “Mr. Green Frog, you’re really strong!” “Heroes have to be.” Leonardo had raised the boy to his own eye level, and he glared at him, trying to intimidate him. Even though the boy’s feet were about a meter off the ground, he didn’t seem the least bit afraid. He wriggled and twisted in Leonardo’s fingers, looking thoroughly entertained. The next thing Leonardo knew, a girl who was even younger than the boy was trying to shinny up his legs from behind. He really couldn’t understand it. Apparently, she’d managed to mistake somebody else’s body for playground equipment. He hoisted the girl up as well. That made two. He had no idea what their parents were feeding them, but he hardly felt their weight at all. They were like carry-on luggage, just a little heavier than an old-school laptop. He couldn’t tell what was so funny, but the dangling boy and girl were shrieking with laughter. Taking advantage that Leonardo had both hands full, a third assassin appeared. It was a shy-looking kid with eyes that slanted down at the outside corners. It was probably a boy, but if the kid who’d tackled Leonardo had been a hunting dog, this one seemed like a pet dog. He looked up at Leonardo with big, apologetic eyes. “Mr. Green Frog.” “That’s Leonardo to you.” “Mr. Green Frog…” “—Fine. Whatever. You can call me that. Dummy.”
The boy’s expression clouded, and Leonardo retracted what he’d just said. Argh, pain in the butt. Irritating. Aggravating. He considered chucking both these dangling kids at him at once. They’d be a new attack technique: Missile Children. However, when he imagined the way the kids would shriek and laugh as they flew toward their target, the feeling withered on him instantly. It would be too much of a mockery. Battles were about slipping through the gap between life and death, something more sacred. They weren’t the sort of thing you could insult with little kids’ laughter. “Mr. Green Frog. Food…” Failing to register Leonardo’s internal scream, the boy with drooping eyes timidly held out a white lump. The lump was more than thirty centimeters long. It was probably made of baked wheat flour or something similar. After thinking a little bit, Leonardo accepted it. This was partly because a few of the women were bowing away so vigorously that it looked as if they’d broken, and he felt sorry for them, and also because he thought spending any more time dealing with the happily frolicking kids around him would only tire him out. In order to take the thing, he had to free up his hands, so he let the captured boy in his right hand and the girl in his left hand go. They bounded around gleefully, singing some sort of local song that Leonardo didn’t know, and ran around the area. The kids seemed to have decided that getting caught by Leonardo was a new sort of game. They ran at him one after another, or tried to climb up him, or asked him to hoist them up. Leonardo turned them away with dignity. “Playing with kids isn’t a hero’s job. All right, get out of the way, clear the road.” Half-heartedly messing with the kids who were still swarming around him, Leonardo made for the outskirts of the village with leisurely footsteps. He was headed for that big boulder. It wasn’t that he’d taken a particular liking to it or anything; he just couldn’t handle getting swarmed by kids. The top of that thing would be a perfect place to take shelter. As he walked, he ate the misshapen bread. It wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it would be, and the flavor was faint and simple. In that sense, it reminded him of the unseasoned, half-dried auto meals from just after the Catastrophe. However, as he chewed, a sweetness spread through his mouth, and he decided the flavor wasn’t half bad. Tiny pieces of what was probably dried, minced mutton were mixed in, and the crunchy texture was terrific. There was already somebody on top of the boulder. It was KR. His shape resembled a horse, but as he was now—with his knees folded, lying on his side on the rock—he didn’t look like one. When he’d thought that far, Leonardo corrected himself. Real horses might actually look that messy when they slept, too. KR glanced over with his third eye, spotted Leonardo, then blissfully closed that eye again. “You’re going back to sleep?” “I’m not sleeping. This is a morning nap.” “That’s sleeping.” “Not quite. It’s not that I desperately want to sleep or anything. Good morning.” Even as he sensed the slight blur of the translation function, Leonardo gazed steadily at KR. He’d said he was getting up, but he apparently didn’t plan to change position. He probably wanted to spend the morning idly. Leonardo didn’t really feel like getting in his way. He ate the bread-like thing in his right hand in silence. Come to think of it, KR had said that mare was making eyes at him. Leonardo thought he might have spent the whole night feeling the same thing Leonardo had felt when the kids were mobbing him. In that case, he did sympathize with him a bit. Well, not asking him about it was probably the mannerly thing for an adult male to do. The brisk morning air caressed the two of them on its way by. Time passed slowly. Leonardo gazed at the thin road that ran far away to the southeast, but he didn’t see any travelers or caravans making their way up it. Yagudo had said that a caravan would be here in the next few days, but apparently, things weren’t going to go that smoothly. “What’s that?” “They gave it to me. It’s breakfast.” KR sniffed loudly; the motion looked exactly like that of a real horse. “Want some?” Leonardo held the poorly leavened bread up to his mouth. “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.” KR didn’t refuse. He obediently took a bite. “Ah, damn. That’s good. Grass is bitter and nasty-tasting. Did you know that? That’s Soul Possession’s worst point. You may be a mystical beast, but your sense of taste doesn’t change. This body really isn’t suited to having meals. It’s awful.” KR’s tone was thoroughly disgusted, and Leonardo was impressed. He hadn’t known about that problem. When he’d heard Soul Possession explained, he’d thought it was an incredibly convenient ability with a wide range of applications, but even so, he didn’t think he’d be able to handle two whole months in that shape. “You’re in Japan, right, KR?” “Yes.” “…And there are level-91 Adventurers there.” “Some have levels that are even higher.” “I see…” In the gaps in their conversation, the two of them ate the lightly salted bread. In the midst of the dazzling morning light, Leonardo was remembering Big Apple. Inside his mind, the hometown where he’d holed up in a Midtown apartment and worked as an engineer and the comfortable room he’d made for himself in the sewers in Elder Tales blurred together into one New York. “I bet things are pretty ugly in Japan, too, huh?” “No, not really.” “Oh yeah?” Leonardo hadn’t expected to hear that, and he sent another question back at him. He was thinking of the cold, paranoid times that had hit Big Apple after the Catastrophe. He’d overheard things about South Angel on a telechat, and although the details had been different, the situation had been similar, so he’d been convinced that Adventurers were hurting one another in all the major cities around the world. “Well, it depends on where you are in Japan, but yeah. It’s not as bad as the continent. I’ve seen all sorts of things since I came over here. There are some cities that are dominated by brutal violence. Dadu’s so bad it makes Susukino look like a joke. There are things that make the situation in New York you told me about seem like child’s play.” At KR’s words, Leonardo tried to imagine the atrocities he’d mentioned, then shook his head, stopping himself. There was no point in thinking about them. He wasn’t there. Right now, hearing this story came first. “Japan’s situation is a bit different. It’s isolated, see. Most of the players are Japanese, and the ocean blocks exchange with the districts under the jurisdiction of other servers.”
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