~oOo~
Log Horizon © Mamare Touno
This work provided under section 107 of the copyright act of 1978
Chapter 21
~oOo~
"Before I heal her, can you made sure she doesn't have cancer?"
"Cancer?"
"It's just a simple healing spell- it causes HP to rise which then causes cell regeneration. That's great for fixing stab wounds, but not something you want to use on a tumor. For more complicated stuff, you need a cleric."
"Ah. Shi- um, crap. Just- uh, wait a second."
The nurse grabbed a wall-mounted phone and dialed in a number. Minori could tell she was new at the job. Her nervous tics- running her hand through her hair and tapping her foot- were things that went away with time. Or cigarettes. One or the other.
Minori suppressed uncomfortable memories about the aftermath of Tohya's accident.
The little girl's mother was looking rather spooked, so Minori tried to comfort her.
"It's probably not something to worry about, I just want to be absolutely sure, you know?"
"So, to make sure, you don't have some sort of magical sense that's telling you my daughter has cancer, right?"
"Oh, no, of course not."
"Oh." The woman's breath whooshed out of her. "That's a relief."
The little girl- Minori's estimate put her at eight or nine years old- whimpered. "Does that mean you can't heal me?"
"I don't know. I want to help, but if magic would make things worse I can't."
Minori tried her best to be reassuring, but either due to her lack of bedside manner or the girl's sprained ankle, wasn't successful.
The nurse sighed as she replaced the phone. "Unfortunately, we don't have the resources on-hand to screen your child, so it doesn't seem like we can authorize Minori to heal you."
The mother nodded, as her daughter made a dejected noise.
Minori bowed her head apologetically. "I'm sorry I couldn't help."
The mother shook her head. "No, that's fine. I'm just grateful that you were so concerned with her safety."
Minori left the room a little disappointed, but ultimately not unhappy. She'd been thinking about her mother's lecture, and taking unnecessary risks with someone else's health wouldn't be responsible of her.
"So, how'd it go?" Her dad greeted her.
Minori shook her head. She adjusted her ponytail, as she said, "The nurse decided it wouldn't be a good idea for me to use healing spells since they couldn't check for cancer."
"I see. Makes sense, I guess. This is just an urgent care clinic, not a fully-equipped hospital. Still, that's pretty disappointing."
They stood in silence for a little while.
Her dad spoke again. "Maybe a real emergency room would be a better environment? If the patient is dying anyways, then I doubt they'd care as much about the risk of cancer…"
Minori frowned. "I don't want to pressure people into receiving healing. The magic going even just a little bit wrong would lead to a lot of backlash."
Her dad grumbled a bit but had to agree. Minori knew he was disappointed his coworker's idea hadn't panned out, but it had been worth a shot.
A brief phone call to update the hospital director later, they left the building.
The gray of the parking lot and muddy brown of the nearby industrial buildings failed to improve Minori's mood.
Almost unconsciously, Minori jerked her staff out of her bag, brandishing it towards the carbuncle unexpectedly blocking her way.
"You!"
Her dad reached for his baton.
"Woah, woah, calm down!" The standard "I'm peaceful" hand gesture didn't quite work with the carbuncle's quadrupedal stance, but the almost disgusting cuteness of the summon made up for it.
Minori kept her staff pointing directly at the summon, not letting it waver.
"I'm not your enemy."
"Then why did you kill Shoryu?"
"Nureha killed Shoryu."
"She wouldn't have had the mana to kill him without him waking up, and duels are supposed to be one on one, the outcome was your fault."
The summon opened his mouth, closed it, then said, "touché. But I'm being serious here. Shiroe might have told you about me- my name is KR."
This time, Minori lowered her staff by the barest margin. "KR? Were you with the debauchery tea party?
The summon nodded, its foxlike head moving up and down smoothly. "Yep. A fair few of us were, to be honest."
"A lot of who were what?:
KR chuckled. "A fair few of us in Plant Hwyaden were in the debauchery tea party, I mean. Me, Kazuhiko, Indicus…"
Minori frowned. "Three is not a 'fair few.' And anyways, that's no reason for me to trust you."
KR performed what someone with a fair bit of imagination could call a shrug.
"Not alone it isn't, but think of it like this- If you consider Shiroe a good judge of character, and he played with us, obviously we can't be all bad. And anyways, I've kept you talking more than long enough for a sneak attack if that's what I was planning. Just hear me out, please."
Her frown stayed in place, but she agreed.
"So as I said, I'm not your enemy. I'm not exactly your friend, either, but we at least share a common goal. Namely, making sure Adventurers can reunite with their families. But there's a little problem with that on my end- Nureha does what Indicus tells her to, and Indicus's goals are a little more along the lines of 'world domination.'"
"Well, why are you helping her? You must be Indicus's only point of contact with this world, no?"
"Well, I hope I'm Indicus's only point of contact, but knowing how paranoid she gets I'm not sure. And my real body's defenseless and guarded by soldiers loyal to her, so…"
"So if you can't do anything about the situation and help me, why are you even bothering to risk telling me?"
"Because I can do something about the situation, but only once. Just wanted to give you a heads up, understand?"
Minori's frown grew more pronounced, but to her disappointment, she did understand. Yet another thing to be futilely unhappy about.
She nodded. "Fine, I get it."
A screen popped up in front of Minori.
"'KR' has sent you a friend request. Do you accept?"
"What? No!" Minori raised her staff again. "I'm not letting you track me!"
How could she have trusted KR even for a moment? He was just like Demagoguery. (Demon-ocracy?) Every member of Crescent Moon had taken Serara's tale to heart, and Minori wouldn't be fooled by a Plant Hwyaden member, of all people.
"Then how are you going to be able to contact me?"
"I won't, if I have to accept your friend request to do it."
"Fine. I'll be leaving, then. Can't have Nureha becoming suspicious." KR sighed. "See ya."
He bounded off.
Minori's father shook his head. "You were angrier at him for interfering in a duel than for killing your friend. Those are some messed up priorities."
~oOo~
"Political intrigue was not what I expected out of today," Minori's dad joked.
His phone repeated his words in the halting tones of the automatic translator.
To Minori, the content was identical, even though the delivery differed. A result of Elder Tale integrating the same translation software, she guessed.
The blonde, foreign woman chuckled as the translation completed. "A pleasure to meet you. My name is Theresa."
"I'm Michael."
The adults shook hands. Minori first tried to extend her hand for a handshake, to be met with a bow performed by the American boy, and then tried for a bow, to be met with an abortive handshake.
Luckily, they were able to salvage the exchange with a fist bump.
Greetings exchanged, all four sat down.
A red-and-white checkered tablecloth covered the square, western-style table. The room was well lit, but the gray ceiling, exposed piping, and dark, wood floors and walls gave it a moodier ambiance.
It wasn't what Minori would normally associate with the words "French restaurant," but since the American embassy was paying for it, she couldn't exactly complain.
Krusty had said something about not wanting to intimidate Michael when he changed his plans last minute. Minori might have cared more if she wasn't being bribed with expensive food.
The start of the conversation was tepid, as both sides stumbled through the ordinary icebreaker questions, but with the inconvenience of having to wait for machine translations.
Eventually, both sides adapted to the limitations of the machine translationsa and switched to using simpler, clearer syntax, avoiding idiomatic language.
As a consequence of the increased fluidity, by the time food had been ordered, both conversations had grown more personal.
Minori related a few adventures she'd had, while Michael satisfied her curiosity about how people had taken the disappearance.
It was funny- even though the experience she'd been through was objectively more fantastic, in the sense that it was a scenario literally taken out of fiction, its outcome had been predictable for the exact same reason. There were hundreds, if not thousands of novels about people trapped in video games, but not many about those left behind.
"The pope, caliph, and Dalai Lama decided the Disappearance was not a religious event. People decided that aliens caused it. Perhaps."
Michael made a variety of arcane gestures while he spoke, waving his hands around in tight, constrained circles.
"Space agencies were funded everywhere. It did not work. When technology failed, governments tried to legislate. They could not solve the problem, but in accounting for the possible consequences tried to reassure their citizens."
Minori nodded to show that she was still following him. He opened his mouth to keep talking, but then gave up, probably deciding that this wasn't a topic that could be efficiently explained with the verbal translator.
Instead, he started typing on his phone.
The translator couldn't use Michael's vocal inflection to glean contextual meaning, but by seeing the real-time translation of Michael's sentences he wrote as they were written, it easier for Minori to figure out what he meant by synthesizing the various possible interpretations for his words.
"Governments everywhere tried to make laws to solve the problem, though that didn't work for obvious reasons. Still, we're actually pretty prepared to deal with Adventurers coming home because of that. I got here to Japan so quickly because of a treaty that got passed a few months back."
Michael fumbled with the phone for a little while, erasing a typo.
"After a while, though, people got sort of fed up with politicians, which isn't exactly anything new, but this time around desperate families focused on the more fringe religions. That's probably why you got attacked, actually-the guy who stabbed you was a scientologist, so already pretty crazy and slash or desperate, and cults who've capitalized on the Disappearance said some pretty weird things about what would happen if/when you guys would come back.
"There's also a bunch of economic stuff," Michae added, "but most of it sort of flies over my head, to be honest."
Minori thought for a while, before tapping out her response. "Do you think I'll be attacked again, then?"
"Nah. Japan is pretty secular, it was mostly just the Scientologists here."
"Well, that's a relief."
Both were lost in their thoughts for a few minutes. Minori went through another glass of water, while Michael polished off his plate.
Michael resumed typing. A minute later, he was finished.
"I have to ask- is there any chance my brother can come back here? I know there must be tons of people on the other side that want to return home."
"Well, our plan is to bring everyone back who wants to. Eventually, anyways. But as for your brother specifically, I'm sorry, but I honestly don't know. It's up to the Round Table, and even Krusty only gets a single vote."
"Crap. Well, I suppose that's as much as I can expect." Michael's expression wasn't quite angry or disappointed, but Minori could see the tensing of his jaw as he clenched his teeth together. He sighed, relaxing a little. "To be honest, I guess it's a little bit of a relief. We were browbeating you guys into doing what we wanted just because the US government is on our side, but now there's no real reason to do that."
Minori… well, she had felt the diplomats were a little pushy. But how could she fault Michael for wanting his brother back? Being separated from Tohya for years was… not something she wanted to consider.
Maybe, if she'd had a different experience with Elder Tale, she might have treated this dinner as people just trying to use her to get what they wanted. But being a total noob was still fresh on her mind, more than two years later. She wouldn't be where she was, reunited with her family, if Shiroe hadn't decided to help her out.
"You shouldn't be sorry for wanting to meet with your brother, or asking for help; I didn't figure out everything myself either." Minori half-smiled, more than a little nostalgic. "You're here in Japan anyways, when I can spare some time maybe I can show you a few of the basics."