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Log Horizon © Mamare Touno

This work provided under section 107 of the copyright act of 1978

Chapter 5

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Shiroe pushed up his glasses.

"With that bit of theatre Akatsuki and I pulled off, Indicus should believe we've fallen for her ploy, too focused on chasing down her summoners to realize Nureha plans to disguise herself as the Plant Hwyaden delegate we agreed to send." The other Alliance leaders nodded. "That leaves us with the initiative, and with the debacle with the magic overload yesterday, we even have a justification for pushing our timetable back, so we can spend more time preparing any plan we come up with."

"Of course, that leaves us with the problem of deciding what our plan is." Krusty had a wry smile on his face, as the massive blond guardian leaned back into his chair. His padded armor made little sound as he shifted in place.

The council hall fell into silence,

Marrielle spoke up first. "Indicus was a Debauchery Tea Party member, so you should know her pretty well, right?" Shiroe nodded. "Well, what do you think she's going to do with Nureha out of the way?"

Shiroe thought for a moment. "Most likely? Sit tight and re-consolidate her power. Having Nureha back on earth will allow her to kill two birds with one stone. Plant Hwyaden's image and influence will improve because of their willingness to send their charismatic leader in their stead, while we chose a middle schooler to represent us. At the same time, Indicus will be able to reverse the effects of Nureha taking a more assertive role in leading Plant Hwyaden instead of being a malleable figurehead."

"But they won't take overt action here in Elder Tale?" This was Eins, the elfin guild leader of the combat guild Honesty.

"No. Indicus relies on having a figurehead to disguise her own actions. That doesn't rule out that they'd take action back on earth, however. Plant Hwyaden was an extremely large guild even before the Catastrophe."

"Ugh, I hate politics." Isaac cracked his knuckles, which was an impressive feat considering his massive, bulky armor and equally bulky gauntlets. "So what you're saying is, we need to send the leader of a large, well respected guild over to counterbalance her."

Krusty blinked.

"Why are all of you looking at me?"

"You are the leader of a large, well-respected combat guild," said Isaac, some humor evident in his voice.

"I've barely gotten back from from my involuntary 'vacation'," and here Krusty made air quotes, "on the China server."

"You're on really good terms with Princess Lenessia, and she's scheduled to go through the next time we create a portal," Marielle chimed in.

"Henrietta and Rieze are her friends as well."

"And Soujiro's out grinding, so you're the most attractive man in Akihabara." Nazuna had a vulpine grin on her face, befitting her Fox Tail race. She was sitting in Soujiro's customary spot as his temporary substitute. "No offense, Shiroe." She easily ignored Akatsuki's death glare.

"And regardless," she continued, "your guild is the most used to functioning without you. We lose comparatively little and keep up parity with Plant Hwyaden, which gradually gives us the advantage so long as we control all means to and from earth."

"That's not going to last forever," pointed out Shiroe.

"You'll think of something, strategist. You always do."

Despite Krusty's continued protest, the other guild leaders moved on, considered the matter effectively settled. They began negotiating the fourth and last person who'd go through on the scheduled departure date.

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Shopping for panties had to be Tetra's favorite thing about being turned into a girl.

Sure, the new and interesting genitals were OK, she guessed, but people who'd changed genders were almost mundane, in this day and age.

Panties, however, still had something strange and illicit about them.

And of course, they aided her in her favorite pastime- teasing Naotsugu.

But despite the impression someone might have gotten from noticing how completely blasé she acted about the changed gender, Tetra identified as cisgender.

She just happened to be the sort of person who was completely comfortable in their own skin- so comfortable, in fact, that her preferred gender was whichever one she happened to be.

She had a transformation potion, of course (what self-respecting veteran wouldn't?) but just didn't feel the need to use it.

To her, the Catastrophe had been one big opportunity, and oh boy had she capitalized.

Which brought her train of thought right back to panty shopping. She hummed to herself, browsing the shelves of the shop at high speeds, as the cashier gave her strange looks, both for her eccentric dress and eccentric actions.

But she knew she'd have a decision to make soon. She loved her family back home, and they'd have trouble recognizing her if she kept this form. Ah, well. At least the production guilds were working on mass producing copies of the previously limited transformation potions. Wouldn't that be fun?

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With the younger members of the guild out on a quest, Tetra shopping, and Naotsugu, Akatsuki and Shiroe at the Alliance meeting, Nyanta felt he was entitled to some "me time."

So he did what he did every time one of these rare blocks of time were available.

He closed the doors and windows, shut the blinds, took of his clothes, then sat in the middle of his room.

Crossing his legs, he closed his eyes, stopped breathing through his nose, plugged his ears, and indulged his fantasy.

For the next ten minutes, he was human again.

No fur rubbing against the inside of clothes, no digitigrade toes, no massively improved senses.

No improved reflexes, no instinct to twitch at unexpected stimuli and fling himself into the air.

He loved being a werecat, he really did. But if given too much time to think about it, or not enough time to wind down from interacting with his frequently fractious guildmates, the awareness of how much his new body was just subtly wrong could be stretched to the breaking point.

It was funny that the Race of Ritual understood the best out of the the other races what werecats went through. Physically, they were nearly identical to an ordinary human. But Roderick had described the strong affinity ritualists had for magic as almost a sort of synthesasia. He tasted cooldowns on abilities, going from salty to sweet as they approached usability. The interaction of buffs and debuffs, even those outside of physical range, gave him the same impression as watching sunlight dapple across leaves.

The Wolf Fangs and Fox Tails had some nonhuman features, of course, but their internals remained much the same.

Those stuck as an alternate gender could use transformation potions, but for "game balance reasons," there had never been a race-changing item implemented.

Nyanta sighted, opening his eyes. That had been a pleasant break from his regular schedule.

But, he reflected as he put on his clothes, he had work to do.

Busy, busy, busy.

~oOo~

Minori had been expecting the interview to be a lot scarier, to be honest.

The prime minister was one thing, but TV was an entirely different ballgame.

Knowing that she'd be in front of a live studio audience, on top of tens of millions of live viewers as she was broadcast internationally and streamed online had had her obsessing for most of the day, to the point where her performance in the quest she'd taken with her guildmates had been negatively affected.

But by the time she actually reached the stage, she was tired enough from the long day to be feeling mellow, and the host hadn't tried to rip her apart like she expected.

She hadn't needed to worry about what to wear, because they had specifically asked for her Kannagi robes, and it had been a huge confidence boost knowing that, as a result of the Catastrophe, her features were more even than they used to be. She was lucky that even Elder Tale, with its graphics iteratively improved over two decades, didn't really bother with facial asymmetry.

Her father had been called off to deal with an incident about thirty minutes ago, but her and her mother had decided to get ice cream. She'd changed back to more ordinary clothing, and with her hair pulled back into a bun, she wasn't yet famous enough to be instantly recognizable.

Or she had thought.

Because a tall man, wearing a mask and gloves was rapidly disabusing her of that notion.

Having a serrated knife blade stuck unexpectedly into your stomach tended to do that.

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A/N: Thank you Mizu25 for corrections!