"Freezing bank accounts? What else can you call it but intimidation?" The small guild Grandeur's guild master Woodstock said in a trembling voice.
"Shiroe-dono, do you have anything more to add?" Michitaka had already accepted all of this, as he asked Shiroe with a bitter smile and an unhappy look. "That is right, no matter how Shiroe-senpai explains, we are still in a position akin to blackmail. And humans will lose their cool if they know they are under threat. You understand this correct?" Soujirou added. Shiroe nodded to acknowledge Soujirou and continued. "The two of you summarized this very well. I don't think that a place with a single person holding so much authority is an ideal city. Returning to the previous topic, does everyone think that this city... no, let's go bigger, does everyone think that this world's Adventurers, are they okay with the current situation? I want to raise two main objectives. The first is to let the citizens of the city, and of this world recover their vitality. Second, set laws for the Adventurers of this city, and enforce it. Anyone opposed to this so far?" No objections. That was to be expected. And Shiroe's objectives were not bad things. Recovering vitality was a good thing, both the battle guilds and production guilds would benefit. But if the detailed plan caused a heavy load, then it would be different. If letting other players recover their vigor involved an increase in the burden of this meeting's participants, the next question would be 'who would pick this unlucky lot'. But at this point in time, no one raised any objections. Setting laws was the same. Some may think it was troublesome and restrictive, but the players gathered here were all Japanese playing in the Japanese server. No one could dismiss the importance of a legal system. Depending on the content of the law, such as some evil laws that no one could agree with, some problems could also arise. But just for the proposal of setting laws, there was no reason to object. "Okay." 'Black Sword' Isaac slammed his thick hand onto the table, as if to shoulder everyone's confusion, and announced, "Since it has come to this, let's listen to this meeting's proposer... Log Horizon's plan in detail." The warrior in black armor glared at Shiroe with fierce eyes. The others' gaze also fell on Shiroe. Shiroe stuck out his chest, and continued to speak with a renewed passion. 2 Moving between zones was a special game design. For instance, if you wanted to move between the guild hall and the guild building, you had to use a specific facility, a door. From the guild building side, there were countless doors along the 2nd and 3rd floor corridors. These corridors with doors were arranged in an orderly manner and led to different zones... guild halls. Physically speaking, there were no rooms behind the doors, since there was no space for the rooms anyway. All the doors were close to each other, and the wall behind was only 1 meter deep. Every floor had 17 such corridors, you couldn't find the space for rooms anywhere here. Using the guild building's magical door, you would be transported to another zone known as the guild hall. That was an easier way to understand this. Vice-versa, using the door of the guild hall would transport you to the guild building. They didn't know if it was Minori or Tohya who touched the door handle first. Facing the attacking venomous bugs, they ran away in order to avoid their attacks, and fell face-down into the guild building corridor.
Minori took hold of the offered hand of the swordsman and stood up. Tohya was already on his feet, answering the swordsman's question. "I am Tohya, this is my sister Minori, we are definitely the last two beginners." "Alright, that's great." The young swordsman smiled as if a heavy weight was lifted off his shoulders. "I am Shouryuu, nice to meet you... Okay, let's go to the lobby, your companions are all waiting there... We need to cure you and ascertain everyone is here, explain the situation and arrange for the things after..." "Hey Minori, don't get cold feet now, it is embarrassing." "Tohya you are such a bully." Tohya's gentle and relieving tone didn't match his teasing words. They just needed to follow Shouryuu the swordsman, and they would be able to meet Shiroe. Just as Minori was thinking about that... (...!) Minori felt an unexpected chill on her back. She didn't need to turn around to know that someone was 'appearing' behind her. Minori turned her gaze behind her, but only realized she shouldn't have done that midway. What she should be doing was not trying to grasp the current situation, but to rush down the stairs. But it was already too late. An adult hand covered her eyes and grabbed Minori roughly. When Minori realized this, she felt a strong force tackling her. It was Tohya. Minori was knocked away, the hand was not able to touch her clothes. It changed its target to Tohya. This arm did not look strong, but it used a strength that made Minori's face turn green as it gripped Tohya's wrist. Tohya's steel wrist guard creaked under the pressure. That Summoner appeared after changing zones. "You two...!" The Summoner with his face red with anger belonged to the mage class. But a mage with a high enough level would have stronger arm strength than Tohya's warrior class. In this world, physical appearance had no bearings on arm strength. From Tohya's tense and painful expression, you could tell how much damage this skinny arm could deal. "What are you doing? What are you all scheming?" "So noisy, just... shut... up!" Tohya shouted with all his might. Tohya overcame the level gap with his impulsive spirit, knocking the Summoner away. The Summoner would not suffer any damage, but Tohya drew his sword at the same time to protect his sister. "You audacious brats dare to oppose me! You have nowhere else to go!" These words awakened the pain in the twins' hearts. They were only a burden, and they could not even defend against the violence of this man. Even so, Minori still gathered her courage to resist. At this moment, a figure rushed to the scene like a dark sparrow from the opposite direction.
"I want to announce the secret here, the method is as follows... Just preparing the ingredients normally like in the real world will be enough. But the one cooking must have the Chef subclass. If the Chef's level is too low, the cooking will be judged to have failed. It is that simple, the trick is to not use the in-game menu." As the crowd began to understand the implication behind these words, the commotion became even bigger. Ingredients needed to be made via the in-game menu, this was an assumption that had deceived everyone. This was a simple matter, but also a revolutionary discovery. Maryele took her seat amidst the clamorous atmosphere, and Shiroe added before any other arguments were brought up. "The one who discovered this method is the Chef behind me, Nyanta. I received his permission to share this with Crescent Moon Alliance, and subsequently started Crescent☪Moon." "... So that is why Oceanic Systems sponsored them..." "... Wait, didn't they just get tricked?" All kinds of conjecture reverberated in the meeting room for a long time. Shiroe ignored the noise and continued. "I feel that... this discovery has a lot of potential. This was first discovered by Chief Nyanta, but I couldn't have held this meeting without it, and wouldn't have thought of having this meeting in the first place... Michitaka-san, have there been any results?" "Yes." Michitaka, replied with a deep voice. The seemingly calm and balanced guild master of a major production guild had a look of surprise on his face. The 3 major production guilds had been quiet for all this time... the reason lay in Shiroe's speech. "Our guild... with the help of The Rodrick Firm and 8th District Shopping Center, finished producing a steam engine moments ago." This announcement shocked the table again, but it did not cause an uproar like the last surprise. After hearing this, the listeners were starting to doubt their ears, and were concentrating on the exchange between Michitaka and Shiroe in order to not miss out any details. "Technically speaking it is still a prototype, it still has a lot of problems. But the theory has been proven to work." "Producing results in less than half a day, that is amazing." "The basic parts are made through the game menu, same with the tools. Making it with existing parts is an excellent idea." Michitaka nodded at Shiroe. "Hey... Making a steam engine is amazing, but what is this about?" 'Black Sword' Isaac asked with all his wrath and anger gone.
"From now on, things not in the game can be created, there will be an inventing craze soon... I think a lot of things in the old world can be recreated here. Let me think... Television is difficult, but there is a good chance of making radios." 8th District Shopping Center's Charasin continued where Rodrick left off. The scholarly Rodrick and Michitaka who were smiling steadily nodded at Charasin's words. Their guilds were witness to the steam engine experiment. "With more new inventions, it will create more demands, and there will be more ways to earn money. In other words, this will improve the vigor in the city. Because the economy might go out of control, I think we need to consider the details... But this chaos can be controlled, it won't cause depression and stagnation. In this world, items from the Middle Ages, or tools you can use with your hands can be made through the game menu. Since there are templates for everyone to follow, I predict that there will be rapid progress." "We the 3 major production guilds have confirmed this fact, and are focusing on ways to make money and stimulate the economy. We support Shiroe-dono's proposal and think there is nothing wrong with it." Michitaka continued after Shiroe finished. "Then, you guys from the production guilds..." "Yes, we support the setting of the 'Round Table Council'." In actual fact, a small business like the Crescent☪Moon franchise could make 50,000 in revenue a day. But with competitors entering the market, there would be a drop in price. The average sales per person would drop from 30 gold to less than 10 gold. Despite that, there were still plenty of potential customers... which was all the players in Akiba, ten times the number Crescent☪Moon could handle. It was easy to tell that this would have a huge effect on the economy. The battle guild members could only gasp in response. With the 3 major production guilds so confident, they could only accept that the proposal would invigorate the city. "The city is like this because most people are too depressed to have the will to do anything. But I think the main problem is that there is nothing for them to do. The monetary expenses in this world are too low, we need to make them spend their cash to a certain degree, so they will work to earn more money. This is the correct way of doing it. I think there should be more job opportunities in the future, for example Crescent☪Moon is looking to hire more help for the shops, correct?" "Yes, we have been restricted to using our members for various reasons, but I definitely want to hire more people." Charasin nodded at Maryele's sincere words. "Battle guilds will have more job requests such as farming for ingredients, exploration, and escort missions. If the council is formed, there will be a budget to hire the battle guilds to investigate the 'Fairy Rings'. After completing that, the next will be information about each zone, collating the data to be distributed by newspaper or other media... If there is a budget, we can achieve many things." It had been confirmed that the Fairy Rings were in normal operation. But the rings were affected by the different moon phases and would change its teleportation destination, so the chance of going to your desired location was low. With the fact that you could no longer refer to online guides, there was no way to predict where you would go, so no one used them. It was possible to investigate the destination you would be transferred to, but it would take a lot of resources. Not only were the 28 days of the moon phases different, the destination changed every hour. The data of each Fairy Ring might differ from another. Even limiting it to the time when the moon was out, the routes of all the Fairy Rings were an encyclopedic amount of data. It was not that no one wanted to investigate, it was just that this project was too big, it could not be accomplished by a single guild. But if you created the organization Shiroe proposed, to support the operation, then it was not impossible to map the routes, the battle guilds could take on this big mission. "Next is the issue of security, there should be people who thinks laws will be restrictive, but I think this is something we have to live with. This is a Middle Ages styled alternate world, even if we don't restrict certain actions by law, I think reason and culture will allow this world to operate smoothly anyway. If there are cases of hogging grinding spots or territorial disputes, if we agree to compromise, it won't come to one party rejecting another unreasonably. The participants nodded in agreement, including 'Black Sword' Isaac. "But for some extreme actions, we still need some ways to stop them. One of them is banning PKing in low level zones, for instance, bullying a player below level 50 is meaningless, correct? They don't have enough wealth for themselves, hunting them is just a way to enjoy murder. The details of the restriction can be decided later, but I feel PKing should be banned for all low-level zones around Akiba." There were no comments for this from the others. Guilds worthy of being invited here were all big guilds which wouldn't go down the PK line. This was expected, since guilds that would PK were mostly mid-sized guilds who relied on coercion to get what they wanted. "The next will be human rights, the guarantee of personal freedom. In this world where death is not the end, confinement and kidnapping are more serious than in the old world. Joining and leaving guilds should be a voluntary decision, forceful and coercive actions should be illegal and punishable by law. Other things like murder and rape should be obviously be illegal too."
"Ah... Let me add on to that point." In the air of confusion, Maryele said gingerly. She was always tense in such formal gatherings, but she maintained her cheerful nature and explained, "Erm, Crescent☪Moon is very popular, but our customers are not just players, in other words, not only Adventurers... The People of the Land also want to buy them. Even though I don't really know how to describe this, and we are not sure ourselves... But these people also want to eat tasty food." The meeting room became silent. The shock this revelation gave the crowd was enough to give the sensation of the ground you were standing on cracking and caving in. NPCs to most of the players are just NPCs, even if Brigandia in Susukino went too far, the normal players in this city treated them as 'talking vending machines'. In Elder Tales, there was nothing wrong, but that was only when this was still a game. But because of this, to the experienced players of Elder Tales gathered in this room, Maryele's report was like a punch that destroyed common sense. "I won't suggest that we give up returning to the original world, and I don't want to say this either... But we need to recognize that we have been in this alternate world for 2 months now, we cannot continue to be a selfish visitor. We have the preconception that the People of the Land have no emotions, but they do. In this world, according to the Elder Tales setting, we are a special class known as Adventurers, with the ability to be 'mercenaries who can learn special skills and raid the nest of monsters'. But the People of the Land are the majority in this world, because services such as banks are provided by them. They should be able to live on without us. But if we don't behave ourselves in this world, it could result in a irreparable bad end." Shiroe sat down after he finished without waiting for any response. He was tired but felt content. Even though Shiroe had finished his proposal, the meeting room remained silent.
He announced in a calm voice, "D.D.D agrees to the formation of the 'Round Table Council' as a governing group, and is willing to join." This was followed by Soujirou in a teasing voice, "West Wind Brigade agrees to its formation, it's been a while since I saw Shiro-senpai's 'total battlefield control' technique, I wish you had joined my guild." "I can't allow Akiba to fall apart after all, the Black Sword Knights will join." "Honesty agrees, we will work on improving our relationship with the People of the Land from now on." 'Black Sword' Isaac and Honesty's guild master Ein also replied. "As we said before, we the 3 major production guilds support Shiroe and the 'Round Table Council', and hope to earn a lot of money from its formation." Rodrick and Charasin nodded to acknowledge Michitaka's words. They had already inferred the many possibilities from Shiroe's report, and were instructing their members to carry out all sorts of experiments. The participants after that just followed the flow and expressed their willingness to join. Grandeur and Radio Market, these small guilds also expressed that they were willing to represent the other small guilds and join the council. Maryele seemed to have pushed herself too hard, and just threw herself exhaustively onto the table with her smile still active. Shiroe smiling sheepishly relaxed his sweaty fist under the table, being careful not to let Maryele find out.
Something unexpected had also happened. Maryele and company were planning to introduce the beginners to the various guilds they wished to join, or to provide aid until they were independent. This plan had already been submitted to the Round Table Council for discussion. In fact, all those present at the meeting were willing to take in the beginners and provide them with aid. But the situation was that 16 of the beginners wanted to join other guilds, the other 19 wished to join Crescent Moon Alliance. From what Serara said, Shouryuu was overly manly when executing the rescue operation, giving the impression of a dependable leader, increasing the number of people wanting to join Crescent Moon Alliance. Henrietta described it as 'chicks who are imprinted by a toy chicken', which was beyond Maryele's expectation. But Crescent Moon Alliance was a member of the Round Table Council, since the council had decided the policy of providing them with aid, they couldn't throw them out like abandoned kittens. And Crescent Moon was a warm and gentle guild that could take care of low to mid-level players, so Maryele and the members decided to accept them with a warm welcome. But this also created problems for the operation of Crescent Moon Alliance as well. The number of members in Crescent Moon had nearly doubled, so the guild hall had become overly crowded. It was not compulsory for the members to all live in the guild hall, members of any guild were free to rent a hotel room in his name for a night, months, or even a year. Many adventurers did this to ensure they had their own personal space. But this was too big an expense for beginners, and Crescent Moon Alliance members were on good terms with each other, so quite a number lived in the guild hall.
That very night, there were tens of notices about the Round Table committee in the Akiba's central square. The news spread like wildfire. By dawn everyone knew about this notice. But this move raised some voice of objection naturally. This was because the governing Round Table Council members were not elected democratically. By the standards of a common Japanese, this was the same as forcing the players to accept this, with the major guilds pulling strings behind the scenes. But in anticipation of this, the notice included all the guidelines and policies behind the formation of the council, the actions it would take in the short term as well as their execution. Other then this, Crescent☪Moon's curious new cooking methods were also disclosed without any reserve. Akiba was filled with all kinds of food just after one night. The food with taste that could only be purchased at Crescent☪Moon could now be prepared by all the Chefs. The new method not only required the Chef skill level, the Chef's knowledge and practical experience with real food was just as important. Some food that could not be said to be good were also made, but it was still miles better than the tasteless meals of days past. Some impatient Chefs set up stores immediately. Some sold freshly baked bread, some sold fruit juice, some were even selling food as simple as roasted sweet potatoes. There were even people who set up a camp fire on the roadside with a large pot of fish or meat soup and sold them by the bowl, just like people trying to reap a profit in the wake of a disaster. The desire for good food of everybody had been met. Food that had good reviews sold out in a blink of an eye. The joy of shopping for good food that was not imaginable just yesterday was now a reality in Akiba.
"Partying to this extent, my brain is turning into mush." "You are right." Maryele laughed softly, but Henrietta had a troubled look on her face. Following the endless cheers and drinking, the hour grew late. It had been a week after that night. Akiba continued to receive the blessing of the sun. Everyday there was news of new food being made, production players other than Chefs were also doing all kind of experiments, hoping to make new products. Maryele and Henrietta were most interested in shower equipment. When Elder Tales was still a game, bathtubs were just one of the many decoration that sat in the background. But to live in the alternate world, bathing had a different meaning. The humidity was lower than Japan, so the summer wouldn't make you dizzy from the heat... Despite this, the girls were still interested in this. They heard that West Wind Brigade was the fastest in getting a Mechanic, Blacksmith, and Carpenter to help them build a large bathhouse in their guild hall castle. Everyday there was news circulating of someone finishing a new idea. Akiba was really reinvigorated now, the young man who planned all this, remained low profile in the rowdy festival and speech, but was satisfied by all this. Every time Maryele thought of Shiroe and his partners, she would have the feeling of joy and gratitude, with an unexplainable feeling flowing freely.
There were only four members, even calling it a small guild would be overstating it, it was closer to being a mini-guild. Oceanic Systems' Michitaka mentioned that Log Horizon seemed to be a temporary guild formed for the purpose of organizing the Round Table meeting. As he said, it was hard to dismiss the impression that it was just a one-trick pony. The player known as Shiroe's long gaming life had always kept a distance from the organization known as guild, so it was no surprise others thought of his guild like that.
"My lord, are your finances okay?"
This could only be described as an empty and spacious high-rise building, Akatsuki asked as she continued cleaning.
Akatsuki had reason to be concerned, a weak guild like theirs normally wouldn't need a base.
Guilds with less than 10 members usually rented their own room in hotels, very few would rent a guild hall.
Since there were few members, the items and loot they needed to store were also few in number. Meetings could be held in the central square or in bars. There was no problem discussing battle tactics on the roadside, and even telepathy should be able to suffice.
Guilds with slightly more members could rent a guild hall from the guild building as a base.
The guild building was near the city center, the price was reasonable and the environment was clean, so it was very popular. The number of rooms ranges from the cheap 3 room to the 31 rooms enough to accommodate a hundred people, suitable for all sizes. The market and bank were also near. In short it was very convenient, most guilds would make use of this.
As for even bigger guilds, the guild hall would be too cramped.
The biggest room provided by the guild building was 31 rooms, Crescent Moon Alliance's Maryele felt that this was a castle, but that was for a 30-40 member guild. If the number went above 200, this space would not be enough.
Hence, big guilds on the level of Black Sword Knights and West Wind Brigade would opt to choose a building within Akiba for purchase, and the zone within would serve as its headquarters.
Production guilds like Oceanic Systems which claimed to have 5000 members, would divide themselves based on their specialties into different departments, and each department would have its own building. For situations like these, the guild would have several buildings as bases.
Log Horizon's average level was 90, but their numbers were small. A guild like this owning a building was inefficient. If they wanted to set up a base, renting a guild hall from the guild building would be more than enough, Akatsuki was worried about the money involved.
"This part is, yeah, I can still afford this."
Shiroe brushed the wall with a scrub on a long stick as he answered. The complex which was originally used as a warehouse with a big shopping area was pierced from the 1st to the 6th floor by a giant tree.
The middle of the floor had a large hole, the tree with moss which was probably hundreds of years old grew through the gaps on each floor towards the sky, and spread its leaves out on the ceiling into a green dome cover.
Akiba was engulfed by the greenery, but trees merging with buildings on this level was a rare sight.
"This complex is cheap because of the state it is in, and the lack of stairs makes it undesirable."
"Hmm... you are right."
Shiroe moved away debris in response. The main bulk of the clearing operation had already been done with the assistance of the young Crescent Moon Alliance guild members over the course of several days. But it was still in ruins, and a long way from being habitable.
This place might have been a store selling large family appliances, the 1st floor had few walls and the ceiling was high, maybe 4 or more meters.
In ancient times, that was the time when these buildings were built, there must have been stairs here. The empty space where the stairs used to be and the stairs that were definitely beside the elevator well had probably been swallowed by the tree branches.
A building of this scale was cheap but unpopular probably because it was far from the city center and inconvenient to use.
"But... Akiba is a crowded city, So this is a great find right? We can just rebuild the stairs."
Just as Naotsugu who was coming down from the 2nd floor said, the metal stairs linking the 1st and 2nd floors had been completed. It looked dull and cold but it was steady and wide, there was no problem using it.
"So, why is it that we cannot fix the hole in the floor of buildings when it was still a game?"
Shiroe agreed with Naotsugu.
Nyanta's discovery not only had an impact on the culinary world, all the production players were now researching and publishing new products all the time. No, not only production subclasses, even role-playing subclasses were doing experiments, testing what they could do with their skills in this alternate world.
These stairs were the result of one of the experiments.
When the Elder Tales world was still a game, moving the walls or floors was something that was unimaginable, but experiments for the past week proved it could be done.
There were only stairs between the 1st and 2nd floors for now, the 3rd floor onward required the use of ropes, but stairs would only be built if there was a need to expand.
This zone was cheaper than the market rates, but it was still a considerable sum of money. Other than that, he was also prepared to pay more cash to hire people to make the stairs. The finances of a weak and small guild were not enough to refurbish the whole building.
Building the stairs and repairing the floors designated to be individual rooms was a big project, and they hired Oceanic Systems to carry it out. The guild master said "With some creativity, ruins which are suitable for living can be used in other ways. Making stairs is an interesting idea." and agreed to take the job.
Michitaka personally came to supervise the project, Naotsugu bargained with him "Hey, since this is such an interesting idea, give us a discount!" Michitaka considered this seriously, which was amusing to Shiroe.
Even though they knew this would become a new business, the ease of making parts from materials through the game menu differed largely from the real world, making it hard to calculate a reasonable cost.
Henrietta mentioned before about the balance of supply and demand, full employment and minimum wage, these kinds of professional terms. Even though Shiroe understood the theory and structure, using it to calculate a value practically was near impossible. No matter what, the economy of this alternate world was full of holes, how much real world economic concepts could be applied here was a big question.
Now they could only use what Michitaka described as 'Give a rough estimate, wait some time for it to stabilize, and use that number as a guide for pricing', allowing him to name a price he guessed to be okay.
Today, the four of them also woke early and started cleaning.
But with only the 4 of them, it was impossible to clean the 6 floors and 1 basement level of the complex. And the hole in the ceiling got larger the higher you went, and all the windows were broken.
The 4 of them had long given up cleaning the whole place, just concentrating on the 2nd floor that would serve as the living area. The 2nd floor only had 2 areas with gaping holes, they should be able to clear out 8 rooms to serve as personal living space.
With this there would be no problem in the short term.
But they did not know if they could finish in the summer, or if it would drag into the fall. Shiroe considered the temperature and weather, and hoped to finish before winter.
But as Shiroe was busy creating their own living space, they had many guests visiting. Shiroe set this zone to be freely accessible to all, so anyone he knew could just waltz into the 1st floor of the building and call for them loudly.
Henrietta who should also be moving today came with a basket of fruits politely, congratulating Log Horizon on founding their base. Akatsuki who received the gift fearfully was caught in an instant and forced to wear a 'special complimentary gift', but let's not go into details.
West Wind Brigade's Soujirou along with the beautiful healer Nazuna who was also in the Debauchery Tea Party, came to visit with some peach wine. The fragrance complimented the summer nicely, and was said to be made with care by the brewer of West Wind Brigade.