Log Horizon - Volume 9 - Chapter 3.4

4 
Chun Lu belonged to a guild called the Lelang Wolf Cavalry. From what she said, the guild had left Dadu in China and fled west. Dadu was a city in the game that corresponded to real-world Shanghai. It was a player town on par with Yandu, aka Beijing, on the Chinese server. 
She recounted her circumstances to Leonardo’s group as they traveled together. Apparently, the Lelang Wolf Cavalry had gotten fed up with the way society was deteriorating in the central area of the Chinese server—the regions along the coast—and had been the first of the guilds to move their main base westward. 
On hearing her story, Leonardo thought, That makes sense. 
The Lelang Wolf Cavalry was probably a homey outfit. From what he’d heard, they had about five hundred members, which made them huge, but not super-huge. In other words, they’d had enough members to ride the situation out, but they hadn’t been big enough to control the struggle for supremacy on the server. In that case, evacuating seemed like a sound move. 
Most of all, Chun Lu knew a lot about this region. 
Of course, the wasteland was a vast expanse of unexplored territory. After all, it was the center of the immense Eurasian continent. Even though its size had been halved by the Half-Gaia Project, the Chinese server covered an enormous region that included the Tian Shan Mountains, the Taklamakan Desert, and the Pamir Mountains, among other things. Even on Earth, you really couldn’t say the region was completely developed. 
In addition to the gigantic country of China, the area under its jurisdiction included Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and the other countries of Central Asia. 
There was probably no one, Adventurer or Person of the Earth, who had complete knowledge of each and every zone in its entire map. Even the developers couldn’t possibly have a comprehensive picture of the whole thing. 
That said, there were people who did use the narrow paths that linked trade routes, villages, and oases, and Chun Lu and Ju Ha were two of the select few. 
“I’m glad we went with you!” 
On the night they had left the village, as she sipped hot water they’d boiled in a tin can, Kanami made that declaration to her traveling companions with a smile. 
Leonardo had to agree with her. 
True, in terms of fighting ability, the People of the Earth merchant Ju Ha would hold them back. The man had a virile, bearded face and a sturdy build, and for a civilian, he was comparatively tough. He might even be as strong as the average soldier. However, his physical abilities were far below Leonardo’s and those of the other level 90s. 
Moving forward in accordance with Ju Ha’s orders, the group traveled for ten hours each day. 
If he hadn’t been there, they could have spent an additional two hours traveling, plus they would have doubled the distance they covered. 
However, nobody was unhappy about this. 
If the Adventurers hurried ahead on their own, they’d probably be able to shorten their travel time by a week or two, but the odds of losing their way or running into trouble would be far greater. Leonardo, Kanami, and Coppélia were all Adventurers who’d spent a long time living in cities, and it was highly unlikely that they’d be able to find an oasis. 
As a matter of fact, when Elias spotted a watering hole from a sandstone ridge and tried to climb down to it, Ju Ha stopped him. 
Although the water in the oasis they saw from up on the ridge was perfectly clear and sparkling, he said that if they climbed down to it they’d get trapped in an enormous hollow. 
On hearing that climbing up a cliff of brittle, crumbling sandstone was next to impossible, and that they’d waste a full three days before reaching the next oasis, Leonardo and the others gave up on the idea. Additionally, by evening they reached an abandoned village, and while the place was small, it was comfortable and had an old well. 
When traveling across deserts and wastelands, experience was vital. 
“True.” 
Elias responded to Kanami’s carefree comment with his deep, resonant voice. Of course this Ancient hero, who was as handsome as a picture, even had a beautiful voice. 
“You said it.” 
Leonardo also responded, shrugging. 
Ordinarily, it wouldn’t have been at all strange for him to develop some sort of complex about Elias’s high specs, but weirdly, he didn’t feel anything of the sort. Maybe they’d just boggled him to the point where he had no idea what to do. 
This is the Elias Hackblade, after all. Even thinking about it is probably pretty dumb… 
The flames of their campfire snapped and crackled. 
They’d built it out of solid fuel made from dried livestock dung and a little kindling. The deep red, flickering light shone on the party, who were sitting close together in the shadow of the rock. 
“Yaaaay! I call the back today!” 
Quickly, Kanami burrowed into the very back of the tent Leonardo had set up. The tent was something Ju Ha had had with him; apparently, it was a travel necessity. It was made of a sturdy felt cloth draped over a lattice framework of plaited bamboo, and even though it was collapsible, it was incredibly good at keeping out the cold. 
If you ignored the fact that it made for crowded sleeping conditions, it was perfectly possible for six people to lie down inside. 
Earlier, Leonardo had let his Adventurer body’s capabilities handle everything and had traveled without making proper camping preparations, but now he was very impressed, both by this camping equipment and by the skilled campfire-building method Coppélia had used. 
In every situation, there were logical actions to take. 
“You’re okay there again, KR?” 
“I don’t mind. I can handle the cold better than humans. Being a horse has its advantages.” 
KR had already moved his equine body to the tent’s entrance. 
Even if it was a high-performance felt tent, at night, the plateau wind sometimes crept in. The area near the entrance was cold, and Kanami had fled to the best seat in the house in order to avoid it. Picking up on this, KR had apparently taken the spot by the entrance. 

Pulled in by Kanami, Coppélia also went to get ready for bed. From inside the tent, Leonardo heard inappropriate words like hug-pillow and boff, boff, but thinking that was okay because they were both girls, he let it slide. 
Elias, Chun Lu, and Ju Ha, who were still near the fire, planned to stay awake a bit longer. 
Traveling while fatigued was dangerous. Even so, it couldn’t be much past seven in the evening yet. Since they’d started to make camp a little before sunset, it would be a while longer before they felt sleepy. 
“Would you care for another cup?” 
At Chun Lu’s suggestion, Leonardo held out his mug. Dexterously using two sticks to take down the brass pot that hung over the fire, she picked it up with the tail of her mantle and poured boiling hot tea into the cup. 
“It’s hot, so please be careful.” 
“Thanks,” he told the woman, who filled another mug in the same way and handed it to Elias. 
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” 
“This area’s always like this.” 
Elias’s gaze was turned upward to the sky. Ju Ha was the one to reply. 
“Full of stars” was the only way to describe that sky. It was high, infinitely clear, and adorned with a sparkle like scattered diamond dust. 
“You said the Lelang Wolf Cavalry is planning to subjugate the gnolls with a raid?” Leonardo asked as he sipped his tea. 
In response, Chun Lu nodded. “That’s correct.” 
“What’re the odds are their of success?” 
“The odds? The Lelang Wolf Cavalry is a guild with slightly under five hundred members. This operation will be conducted by a century unit led by Zhu Huan, our guild leader, in person. I can’t imagine we’ll be defeated.” 
He’d never heard the term century unit before, but he understood that she was probably talking about a legion raid. That would mean ninety-six people. You could certainly call that “roughly one hundred.” 
Generally speaking, Adventurers’ combat abilities jumped as their numbers grew. The total combat abilities of two Adventurers weren’t double what one Adventurer had—they were two and a half times that, at the very least. Three times, if they fought in close cooperation. 
This was a manifestation of the ability generated by the fact that parties weren’t just groups of multiple Adventurers; they were single life-forms that coordinated their fighting. Some Adventurers specialized in defense, some in recovery, some in offense, and some in disturbing the enemy. If Adventurers who knew their own strong points exercised them and compensated for each other’s weak points, Adventurer parties could display terrifying combat abilities. 
Of course there were several prerequisites for this sort of coordinated teamwork. The Adventurers in the party had to know one another’s abilities and work together appropriately. They also had to attempt to respond reliably to the other members’ hopes. 
These principles applied to raids as well. 
Full raids, which were made up of four six-member parties, had twenty-four members. Legion raids, which brought four full raids together, had ninety-six members. With units that large, a cohesive understanding among the groups, vital for cooperation, was difficult to achieve. That said, if they overcame that difficulty, these Adventurer “armies” were probably the strongest military force in the world of Theldesia. 
Gnoll levels ranged from about 20 to 50. Although there was no telling what sort of tactics the beasts would use, if the Lelang Wolf Cavalry had gone through even modest team training, against a gnoll force forty times their size—yes, four thousand gnolls—they would be able to fight without giving an inch. 
Considered normally, that was enough military strength to power through the game’s content on the grandest scale. 
Of course, after the Catastrophe, combat had changed. 
The terror of violence, in which steel clashed with steel, emitted a burnt smell. The horror of death, where something gradually transformed into a bloody lump of meat before your eyes. 
The influence these things had certainly wasn’t small. Even people who had grown more resistant to pain, thanks to system assists, could break. Leonardo had seen many Adventurers crumple. However, if he believed what Chun Lu said, these fears were groundless. He got the impression that the Lelang Wolf Cavalry was a band of skilled veterans with an excellent leader, so they had nothing to worry about. 
…Except for the phenomenon known as “plague demons.” 
Leonardo still didn’t have any firm ideas about what the plague demons actually were. He’d told Chun Lu about them, but she hadn’t heard of them. The merchant had said he’d heard rumors among the People of the Earth, but he didn’t know details or the actual truth, and of course he’d never seen one in the flesh. 
What had that crazed Person of the Earth boy been? 
The boy’s behavior patterns had unmistakably matched those of a gnoll. 
It seemed almost self-evident that whatever had made the boy like that had something to do with gnolls. For that reason, he felt a trace of unease about the Lelang Wolf Cavalry’s gnoll subjugation as well. 
However, in that case, what was the specific relationship between the plague demons and the gnolls, and what sort of mystery did that hold? Leonardo had absolutely no clue. 
He’d given Chun Lu a summary of the incident and had suggested she instruct her headquarters to be on the alert, but with no definite proof at that moment, inspiring caution was the best he could do. 
“I hope it’s nothing.” 
Elias’s comment seemed somehow undependable. Apparently, even the words of a hero weren’t much help at a time like this. 
Leonardo and the others were keeping to the ridge as they traveled, over a hundred kilometers away from the Wolf Cavalry, which was advancing across the plain to the south. Besides, they hadn’t been asked to help, not in so many words. They’d pray for their safety, but it wasn’t as if they could do anything. 
This was a natural conclusion, and it was a view Elias and Leonardo shared. 
Far to the south, the Lelang Wolf Cavalry advanced under the night sky. 
They were headed straight for the Ruined Colonnade of Tonnesgrave.