What if my mind was set adrift in infinite darkness and I heard my own familiar voice say, “You’re a replica of me. An experimental test subject that can be erased with the press of a key.” How shocking, how confusing, how terrifying that would be…
“Do you understand everything so far?” The voice across the table sounded like a wizened instructor. I looked up, realizing that I’d been busy frying my brain, and made a vague gesture.
“Um…yeah, kind of…”
“I am finally about to get to the part of my lesson most relevant to you. I cannot have you struggling to keep up.”
“The most relevant part? Oh…right. I still haven’t heard what you actually want me to do.”
“Yes. I have been waiting for two hundred years for the chance to explain this to you…So, I was at the point where I split off from Administrator,” Cardinal said, twirling the empty teacup in her hands. “At last, I had gained a body of flesh all my own. Technically, it belonged to a poor girl who’d been training to be a nun…but she vanished entirely in the moment that her lightcube’s data were overwritten. Once I was born through that cruel ritual and unexpected accident, I stared at Administrator for point-three seconds before I finally took the action that needed to be taken. I attempted to erase her with the highest level of sacred arts. I was a perfect copy of Administrator, so I had the same level of system access. If I struck first, I calculated that even if she fought back with a spell of the same level, I could consume all her life points before the spatial resources went dry. My first attack landed, and things went as I expected after that. The top floor of Central Cathedral was racked by thunder and lightning, gales of wind, and flames and ice blades as our respective life points steadily dropped from the damage. We were losing life at exactly the same pace…meaning that since I had drawn first blood, I should have emerged victorious in the end.”
I tried to imagine a battle between god and god, and shivered. The only attacking sacred arts I knew were the very simple kinds I’d used in battle against Eldrie, simple manifestations of the element in question. They were less powerful than a sword swing, better for covering fire or blinding a target. Using them to wipe out another person’s life…?
“Huh? Hang on. You just said that Administrator couldn’t commit murder. Shouldn’t that limitation also apply to you, too, since you’re her copy? How were you able to attack each other?”
Cardinal looked slightly peeved that she’d been interrupted at a particularly dramatic part of her story, but she obliged anyway.
“Ah…that is a good question. As you said, Administrator was not bound by the Taboo Index of her own creation, but she could not break the rule against killing from Quinella’s childhood. Even after years and years of study, I have not discovered the reason that we artificial fluctlights are totally unable to disobey our higher orders…but this phenomenon is not as absolute as you might believe.”
“…Meaning…?”
“For example…”
Cardinal moved her right hand, holding the teacup, over the table. But rather than set it on the saucer, she made to set it down on an empty bit of tablecloth—except that her arm paused right before it made contact.
“I cannot lower the cup any farther than this.”
“Huh?” I gaped.
She scowled and explained, “When I was young, my mother—Quinella’s mother, I mean—taught me that a teacup must be placed on the saucer. It was a very minor rule, but one that still holds power. The only truly great crime was murder, but there are seventeen other taboos still active, including such silly rules as this one. I cannot lower my arm any farther than this, and if I try, I will feel a terrible pain within my right eye.”
“…Right…eye…”
“But even this is significantly different from what ordinary civilians feel. They cannot fathom the idea of placing the cup anywhere but the saucer in the first place. In other words, they are ignorant of the fact that these absolute boundaries are shaping their minds. Of course, such ignorance can be bliss…”
Cardinal put on a wry, self-deprecating grimace that was completely at odds with her childlike appearance—a sign that she recognized her artificial roots. She returned her arm to its usual position.
“Now, Kirito…does this look like a teacup to you?”
“Eh?” I squawked, staring at the empty cup in Cardinal’s hand. It was white porcelain, with simple curves and a plain handle. Aside from a single navy blue line around the rim, there was no decoration.
“Uh…sure, it looks like a teacup. I mean, it had tea in it…”
“Aha. And how about now?”
She tapped the rim of the cup with her free hand. Once again, liquid filled the cup from the base, sending up a column of white steam. But the smell was different this time—my nose twitched. It was too rich and tangy to be tea. No, this was cream of corn soup.
Cardinal tilted the cup so that I could crane my neck and see inside. As I expected, the contents were thick and pale yellow. There was even a crispy crouton floating in it.
“C-corn soup! Thanks, I was just feeling hungry…”
“I’m not asking you what’s in it, fool! What is the container?”
“Err…well…I mean…”
The cup hadn’t changed in the least since the previous moment. But now that she mentioned it, it did seem a little too simple, a little too big, a little too thick to be a typical teacup.
“Uh…a soup cup?” I guessed. Cardinal grinned and nodded.
“Yes. Now it is a soup cup. There is soup in it.”
And to my shock, she set down the cup right on the tablecloth with a little thump.
“Wha…?!”
“See? In a sense, the taboos inflicted upon artificial fluctlights are very soft and vague. Simply changing one’s subjective viewpoint makes them easy to overturn.”
“…”
Stunned, I revisited the scene in the dorm from two days before. The very moment I had burst into the bedroom, Raios was about to bring his sword down on the prostrate Eugeo. If I hadn’t blocked it with my weapon, he would certainly have cut Eugeo’s head from his shoulders.
Obviously, killing was the greatest of taboos. But to Raios in that moment, Eugeo was not a fellow human being but a criminal guilty of violating the Taboo Index. By viewing the situation in that light, he easily circumvented that soul-etched command.
Eventually, I heard a creak from the back of the other chair at the table. Cardinal had lifted her tea/soup cup to her lips. The meat bun and sandwich I’d eaten many minutes ago had already been converted to life points, and my empty stomach clenched up.
“…May I have some of that?”
“You are a greedy fellow, aren’t you? Give me your cup,” she said, exasperated. She leaned over to the cup I was holding out and tapped on the rim. The empty receptacle filled up with that fragrant creamy yellow liquid.
I drew it back quickly, blew on the steam, and then sipped it. A rich, familiar taste filled my mouth, and I closed my eyes to savor it. The Underworld had a soup with a similar flavor, but it had been two years since I had an honest-to-God cream of corn soup.
I took another sip or two and exhaled with satisfaction, and Cardinal took that as her cue to continue.
“Now, as I just demonstrated, a simple change of perspective can allow me to overturn the taboos that bind me. We—Administrator and I—did not view each other as humans in that moment of battle. To me, she was a broken system that threatened the world, and to her, I was an annoying virus that could not be deleted…We spared no effort to eliminate the other’s life, using sacred arts of the maximum power possible. In just two or three more blows, I would have destroyed Administrator or, at the very least, ensured our mutual death.”
Her lips pursed, reliving the memories of regret and frustration. “But…but then, right at the end, that devious witch recalled the one definitive difference between us.”
“Definitive difference…? But I thought the only thing that sep
arated you two was your appearances. You had the same system access level and knew all the same commands, right?”
“Indeed. While we fought with sacred arts, it was clear that I would win in the end, thanks to my successful initiative. And so…she abandoned her spells. She converted one of the many high-priority objects in the chamber into a weapon, and then designated the very space where we fought as an invalid address for system commands.”
“B-but…wouldn’t she be unable to undo the order?”
“Exactly. Not unless she left that space. When she started chanting the command to generate a weapon, I realized what she was up to. But there was nothing I could do. Once I was unable to make a command, I could not undo it, either…So I was forced to join her in generating a weapon and attempted to finish her off with physical damage.”
Cardinal paused, then lifted the staff leaning against the table. She extended it toward me without a word, and, surprised, I reached out to take it. The instant I was the one supporting it, the unbelievable weight yanked at my arm, and it took both hands to set the fragile-looking stick down on the table. The staff thudded loudly on the surface, clearly possessing a priority level at least as high as my sword or Eugeo’s.
“I see…so not only is your sacred arts level godly, but so is your weapon-equipping level,” I noted, rubbing my wrist. Cardinal shrugged, as if this was obvious.
“Administrator didn’t just copy her memory and thought processes but all her authority levels, life points, and everything else. The sword she fashioned and my staff there were completely equal in strength. Even without sacred arts, I still believed that I would win a physical battle in the end. But once I held my staff, I realized Administrator’s plan at last, and the definitive quality that separates us…”
“You keep mentioning that. What is it?”
“It’s quite simple. Just look at my body.”
She opened the front of her thick robe to reveal a white blouse, black pants, and white high socks. In stark contrast to her ancient scholar’s manner, she had the fragile, weak body of a little girl.
I looked away on instinct, sensing that I had just seen something I wasn’t meant to view, and asked, “What is it…about your body…?”
She folded the robe closed again and growled, “How dense can you be? Imagine that your mind was put in this body. Your eye level and arm’s reach would be totally different. Do you think you could use your sword the same way you did before?”
“…Oh…”
“Until that point, I had been in Quinella’s body, which was very tall for a woman. During our exchanges of sacred arts attacks, I hadn’t noticed it much…but it wasn’t until I held my staff and prepared to intercept her attack that I realized what a desperate situation I’d been placed in.”
Now that I saw it from her perspective, I recognized the truth of that statement. Among the many VRMMOs out there, choosing an avatar with a vastly different size profile from your real body was disorienting, and it took a considerable amount of time and experience before close-quarters combat felt comfortable again.
“…So what is the height difference between you and Administrator, anyway…?”
“At least a foot and a half. I can still picture her expression, the way she looked down on me and smiled. Our battle resumed just after that, but within two or three strikes, I had to admit that my chances for victory were all but gone…”
“And…then what happened?”
I was here talking to her now, so obviously she’d somehow pulled through, but I held my breath like the story was unfolding before my eyes.
“Administrator had the advantage, but she made one simple mistake. If she had actually locked the doorway before she nullified all system commands within the chamber, she would have easily slaughtered me then and there. With my lack of human emotions”—I chose not to point out that she looked visibly upset right now—“I determined that immediate escape was necessary and darted for the door like a rabbit. With each scrape from Administrator’s sword to my back, I felt my life depleting…”
“Wow…that’s scary…”
“You may find yourself in the same situation, after two years and two months of drooling over every woman you’ve met.”
“I…I wasn’t drooling!” I protested, rubbing my mouth at this unexpected assault on my character. “W-wait, hang on. Two years and two months…? You haven’t been watching me all along, have you?”
“Of course I have. Yes, it was only twenty-six months out of my two centuries, but even then, it was far longer than I expected.”
“Wha…?”
I was stunned. Every single thing I’d done on the way here had been observed by this little sage? I didn’t think much of it would be worthy of embarrassment, but I also couldn’t be sure that none of it was. I didn’t have time now to go back and reflect on two-plus years of memories…or so I told myself.
“W-well, we can get back to that later. Anyway…how did you escape from the Administrator?”
“Hmph. Well, I escaped out of her chamber door on the top floor of Central Cathedral, thus restoring my access to sacred arts, but it did not change the situation. If I tried to attack with spells again, she could just label the hallway a no-commands zone as well. The only thing that changed was that my method of escape went from running to flight. In order to regroup and recover, I had to flee to a place where her attacks could not reach me.”
“Yeah, but…she’s literally the administrator of this entire world, right? Can there be a place that she can’t get to?”
“Being the administrator of the game might make her a god in a sense, but she is not truly omnipotent. There are just two places in this world that she cannot go.”
“Two…?”
“One is the place beyond the End Mountains…the Dark Territory, as the humans call it. The other is the Great Library, where we are now. In fact, this library is a space she created herself, a kind of external memory storage when she learned that there was a limit to her memory. It contains all the system commands and a vast amount of data relating to the Underworld. Therefore, she decided that no person aside from her should ever be allowed to set foot in it. Administrator fashioned it so that despite being located within the cathedral tower, it occupies its own isolated space, with no connection outward. There is only one doorway in, and only she—no, only she and I know the command to get through.”
“Aha…,” I murmured, looking around the Great Library again, with its countless aisles, staircases, and bookshelves. The rounded walls looked like nothing but unbroken brick patterns. “Then, beyond that wall is…”
“Nothing. The wall itself is indestructible, but even if you could tear it down, you would find only an empty void beyond.”
Briefly, I wondered what would happen if you jumped into that void. Then I shook my head and asked, “Is that door you mentioned the thing we passed through to get here from the rose garden?”
“No, that is something I created far later. Until two hundred years ago, there was a large set of double doors in the center of the lowest level. During my desperate flight from Administrator, I chanted the spell to call forth that door—and even I had to start over twice. Once I finished the command at last, the door appeared at the end of the hallway, and I plunged through it, then closed and locked it.”
“Locked it? But if you and Administrator had the same authority level, couldn’t she just open it right after you?”
“Indeed. But fortunately for me, while locking the library door from the inside is as simple as turning a key, it requires a very long and tedious unlocking art from the outside. Through the door, I could hear Administrator’s cold and hateful voice chanting the unlocking command while I was busy casting a new spell of my own. I saw the lock turning counterclockwise just at the moment I finished my own chant…”
Cardinal clutched herself, reliving the memory. It was a two-hundred-year-old event, and yet I felt a chill just imagining it. I finished the last of the corn soup and s
ummoned up the courage to ask, “Were you chanting a spell…to destroy the door?”
“Precisely. I obliterated the great doors, the only entrance to the cathedral’s Great Library. In that instant, this place became unmoored from the outside world…thus allowing me to escape Administrator’s wrath.”
“…And why didn’t she just create another door…?”
“What did I tell you earlier? Administrator first created the entire library, including the door, and then ripped it loose from the physical space of the cathedral. The spatial coordinates of this place as registered with the system are constantly switching through unused space at random. Unless she can precisely predict the correct numbers, it is impossible to breach this place from the outside.”
“I see…but the coordinates of Central Cathedral are fixed, so you can open a hallway from here to the outside.”
“Exactly. But because any door I create, once opened, will immediately be sniffed out by Administrator’s agents, I cannot use them twice. Just like what happened with the rose garden door I used to scoop up you and Eugeo.”
“Th-thanks for that…,” I said, bowing. The little sage chuckled, then looked up to the domed ceiling of the library. She narrowed her eyes and said, in careful reflection, “…I fought against an error that needed correcting, and I lost. I ran in disgrace to this hiding place…and I have spent the two centuries since on observation and consideration…”
“…Two centuries…”
But of course, I’d only lived seventeen and a half years in the real world, plus two years of accelerated time in the Underworld. With less than twenty under my belt, it was impossible for me to fathom that length of time. I could only imagine the vague expanse of history.
The little girl sitting across from me had lived through that virtually infinite span, surrounded by nothing but silent mounds of books in this vast library, without even a mouse to interact with, much less another person. It was a totally unfathomable isolation from the world, something the word solitary didn’t even begin to describe. If I had been in the same situation, I would never have lasted two centuries. I would have opened the door to the outside, even knowing it meant certain oblivion.
Alicization Rising Page 3