He would rather stop right here than have to face that outcome.
Through the haze, Eugeo could vaguely sense that if he said the third word, his two-year journey would come to an irreversible end. But if doing so could allow him to forget his sad, painful past—and he could soak in this silver-haired girl’s love—a part of him was fine with that.
“That’s it…now come, Eugeo. Come into me,” she whispered into his ear, the sweetest and most delectable of sounds. “Welcome to eternal stasis…”
As he said the third and final word, a tear fell down Eugeo’s cheek.
3
“There…we…goooo!”
For the umpteenth time, I hauled myself up, caught my right leg on the corner of the marble, and swung up onto a flat surface at last.
My joints and muscles, taxed well beyond their limit, screamed and throbbed like they were being seared by flames. Large beads of sweat rolled down my forehead and neck, but I couldn’t even move my hands to wipe them away; I couldn’t do anything other than pant. The fatigue was so real and all-encompassing that it was hard to remind myself that this was just the STL’s virtual world.
Once the moon had fully risen, we spent the next two hours in another agonizing climb, and now that I was finally up on the ninety-fifth floor of Central Cathedral, I didn’t even have the energy to look around. I let my limbs lie flat, closed my eyes, and waited for my life value to return.
There were nearly fifteen floors between the terrace with all the stone minions and here. It wouldn’t have been that bad if not for the golden knight fixed to my back by her slender chain, necessitating all that time and stamina.
Alice Synthesis Thirty had impressively overcome the Seal of the Right Eye, that mysterious system that kept all Underworldians in check, but the cost had been severe. It had exploded her jasper-like right eye without a trace, and the shock and pain had knocked her unconscious.
The Underworldians’ souls were stored in lightcubes, an artificial memory medium. Perhaps because of that, they had a tendency to be more susceptible to psychological shock. When they were faced with immense sadness, fear, or anger, they went into a kind of temporary shutdown to protect their fluctlights from some kind of fatal error—but in a world without the concept of crime, it was quite rare for such extreme emotions to manifest. It had happened to Alice’s sister, Selka, two years ago, too, when we were attacked by the goblins in the northern cave.
Alice went unconscious merely to soften the shock of breaking through that eye seal. I expected she would awaken eventually; if there had been some fatal-error damage to her fluctlight, she would have died on the spot, as Raios Antinous had.
In that sense, it was remarkable that Eugeo, who had suffered the same phenomenon as Alice, stayed awake and finished his swing when it happened. He’d been fully spent after we got tossed into the cells, but he still responded when I spoke to him.
So the reason for the Underworldians’ mental fragility and absolute obedience to orders was still a mystery, but at least I knew it was possible for them to overcome it; Eugeo and Alice proved that. Yes, they were technically artificial intelligences, but the power contained in their souls was no different from that of people in the real world…
These thoughts and more went through my head for an hour on the terrace with the minions while I waited for Alice to recover, but she never opened her eyes. I used sacred arts to stop the bleeding, but I had neither the resources nor the skill to heal her entirely. While I waited, the moon rose and granted some spatial resources, but I needed them to generate the ice picks for climbing. The best I could do was rip the hem of my shirt to make an impromptu bandage for her, then continue climbing the tower with the unconscious knight weighing me down.
I removed the chain that connected us, tried hauling Alice’s slender but unbelievably heavy body over my back, and seriously considered removing the golden armor and Osmanthus Blade that made up most of that weight. However, it would have been stupid to leave those tools of hers behind now that she had made up her mind to fight on our side.
Instead, I steeled myself, hooked the chain to the knight’s body, and began climbing up toward the top of Central Cathedral in the distant night sky. After two hours of miserable effort, the sight of a new terrace brought me such relief, I accidentally dropped one of the hooks. All I could do was hope nobody was waiting on the ground far below, unsuspecting.
At any rate, once I had made it the ninety yards straight up that vertical wall to the ninety-fifth floor, I figured I had earned the right to lie down on flat ground for a little while. I wasn’t planning to move for another three minutes at least.
Just when I hoped to enjoy the feeling of every muscle in my body relaxing, I was interrupted by a quiet groaning from atop my back.
“Mm…muhhh…,” the knight said, her breath tickling my neck. “Where…? What…did I…?”
She tried to get up, but the chain quickly went taut, and the weight returned to my back.
“These chains…Kirito…Did you carry me…up here…?”
That’s right—you owe me some gratitude, I thought.
“Oh no, you’re all sweaty! You’ll stain my uniform! Get away from me!” she shouted, whacking the back of my head. My forehead smacked the hard marble floor.
“I don’t know…what I did to deserve that shabby treatment…,” I grumbled as I undid the chain and removed the cargo from my back, then leaned against a nearby pillar. The knight didn’t utter a word of thanks for my extreme physical labor; she was busy flapping her white skirt in an attempt to air it out. Once she finished, she felt the sleeve that had been pressed to the back of my neck the entire climb and glared at it suspiciously. Well, I wasn’t going to let this insult go without some banter of my own.
“If you’re that concerned, why don’t you go and take a bath, princess?” I said sarcastically, but fastidious Alice actually looked like she was taking the question seriously. “I’m just kidding!” I added. “There’s no way we’re going back down all that way.”
“That won’t be necessary, actually. There’s a Great Bath for the knights just five floors below us.”
“Wha…?”
Now it was my turn to look baffled. After escaping the underground prison, running through battle after battle, and completing this unplanned wall-climbing campaign, I would be lying if I said I didn’t want the chance to wash off the dust and sweat. It didn’t even have to be a bath, just a water pump—and then I looked around at last.
Like the name Morning Star Lookout suggested, the ninety-fifth floor was built to be one giant observation deck. The four edges of the tower had no walls here—which was why I was climbing up to it—just round pillars supporting the ceiling at ten-foot intervals. Given how open it was, I could now understand why Administrator placed those minion gargoyles along the walls below.
We were on the outermost part of the floor, which was a terrace with the occasional little set of stairs leading within. The interior was slightly elevated, with marble sculptures, verdant plants, and tastefully designed tables and chairs. I had no doubt that the wide-open view of the Underworld below would be breathtaking in daytime.
On the north end, a great set of stairs led to the adjacent floors. We were the only people in sight.
But had Eugeo passed through here yet or not?
Seven hours had passed since I was separated from him on the eightieth floor. I had to scramble for my life up a sheer wall and he had regular old stairs to use, so he should have gotten here much quicker.
But the problem was that he had to face a foe much stronger than the minions: Bercouli Synthesis One, commander of the Integrity Knights, a hero of legend stronger than Vice Commander Fanatio and Alice, both of whom had already fought me off without much trouble.
Eugeo was mighty, too, of course. In terms of sword skill, he had probably surpassed me already. But skill alone could not dispatch the superhuman Integrity Knights, especially the senior ones. It required taking advantage
of the opponent’s mindset and utilizing anything you possibly could in the vicinity—a true “anything-goes” approach. Could earnest, straightforward Eugeo pull that off…?
Alice finished her own examination of the vicinity. “I say this with no relation to the issue of baths…but I must doubt that your friend Eugeo has come up this far yet.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because once we were thrown out of the cathedral, this floor became the only place we could get back inside. It’s really obvious from a glance…so if he had gotten here already, he would likely be waiting for you.”
“…I see. You’ve got a point,” I said, crossing my arms. If Eugeo had reached this floor before us, he’d have been either caught or killed by now. While I’d been doubting him just a moment ago, I also wanted to believe Eugeo was good enough not to end up with either of those fates.
“The other thing for Eugeo,” Alice said, clearly not realizing how naturally that name slipped out of her mouth, “is that if he came up the stairs from the Cloudtop Garden, he would run across our most powerful fighter before reaching the Morning Star Lookout. That would be Uncle…Commander Bercouli.”
Setting aside the use of the word uncle, I couldn’t help but be curious about something she said.
“Is he really that tough? This knights’ commander guy.”
Alice turned to me with a grin, part of her face still hidden by the makeshift bandage. “I have never once bested him in a practice duel. If you lost to me, and Eugeo is at your level, then by that logic, he will not win, either.”
“…Sure, by that logic. But if not for what happened, I may not have actually lost to you, either,” I grumbled.
The golden knight ignored me and continued, “Uncle’s skill with the blade is absolutely first-class, but his Perfect Weapon Control is simply divine. His Time-Splitting Sword, like the name suggests, is capable of piercing time itself. I suppose you would understand if I said that when he cuts the air, that slicing force remains suspended there for a time. Even if you avoid his strikes, eventually you will be trapped in a cage of blades that you cannot see. The slightest move might cost you a hand or a foot or, worse, your head—but if you don’t move, you are an easy target. Ultimately, any opponent of Uncle’s will be forced to stand in place and succumb to one of his greatest attacks like a practice dummy.”
“…The slices…remain suspended…”
It was hard to imagine from the way she described it, but it sounded like the chronological length of a swing was extended out into the future. If so, it was a frightful power indeed. It would totally override the strength of the Aincrad style, which was to reduce the strength of any single blow but make up for it by extending the range and time of our attacks with combos.
What would have happened to Eugeo against such a foe? I was certain he wouldn’t be dead, but a chilling foreboding crept up my spine. Perhaps we ought to head down in search of my partner after all. But what if he’d already been captured and taken to Administrator’s chamber on the top floor? What if she was performing some dangerous sacred arts on him, with her knowledge of all the user commands…?
At last, the fatigue was starting to leave my legs, and I got to my feet, if unsteadily. I glared at the stairs on the north end of the floor and bit my lip. What I would give for a sacred art that could tell me Eugeo’s current location—but as a basic rule, no art could be cast on a human target that wasn’t present. If that were not the case, Administrator and Cardinal’s duel would have been over ages ago. But if the target were an object rather than a person, there were other options…
Only then did I realize that there was such an easy way to solve this problem.
“Of course…that’s right.”
I motioned to Alice, who was looking at me with suspicion, raised my right hand, and at a moderate volume announced, “System Call!”
My fingers glowed purple, a sign that the spatial resources were charged again after the exhausting climb up the wall. Careful to control my emotions, I enunciated the following commands: “Generate Umbra Element. Adhere Position. Object ID, DLSS703. Discharge.”
It was always good to memorize your vocabulary. Naturally, my search target was the unique ID of Eugeo’s Blue Rose Sword. From what I was able to guess, DLSS was probably an abbreviation for “Double-Edged Longsword Single-Hand,” while the string of numbers was the identification for that particular sword within that category. My black sword’s ID was DLSS102382, which suggested that when the Blue Rose Sword was generated in the early days of the Underworld, there were only about seven hundred one-handed longswords at the time, but by the time my sword was crafted just two years ago, there were over a hundred thousand. At least, if my deduction was correct…
The little darkness element floated steadily downward until it landed on the ground a short distance away and burst.
“…It’s below.”
“So it would seem,” Alice noted with mild interest.
I clutched and released my fist a few times, sensing that some of my fatigued life was back, but I knew that Alice had suffered more damage. I glanced her way and asked, “Do you think you can heal your eye…?”
She put her fingers to the strip of cloth that had previously been part of my shirt and asked, “Did…you do this?”
“Yeah…It managed to stop the bleeding, but that was the best I could do with my sacred arts. I thought maybe you…”
“Of course. My sacred arts authority is far beyond yours,” she snipped in her usual manner. Her visible eye turned to the sky to stare at the full moon. “But there is not enough sacred power in the air to generate the light elements needed to restore my lost eye. It will not be possible until Solus rises.”
“Then perhaps if you converted one of your high-priority obj—I mean, one of your precious valuables into power…Your armor, perhaps…”
“Even the art to return a receptacle into its basic sacred power requires more than a small amount of power to begin with. Didn’t you learn that at the academy?” she said with exasperation, then thought it over. “I do still feel the pain, and my vision on the right side is limited, but neither is enough to prevent me from fighting. I shall be able to continue in this state for now.”
“B-but…”
“More importantly, I want to feel. I want to feel the evidence of my intention to fight against the Axiom Church I’ve believed in for so long…”
In that sense, I couldn’t argue. This fight was as much about Alice creating her own destiny as it was about mine.
“All right…if it comes to combat, I’ll protect your right,” I said, eyeing the main staircase. “We’ve got to hurry, though. Based on the movement of that darkness element, Eugeo’s got to be pretty far down from here.”
Technically, my search spell was for the location of Eugeo’s sword, not Eugeo, but he wouldn’t let go of it unless something very bad happened.
Alice looked to the stairs as well and announced, “I’ll take the lead—I know the way. Then again…we’re only going down the stairs.” And without allowing me any chance to interject, she strode toward them, boots clicking. I hurried to keep up.
Cool air flowed up from the descending stairs at the north end of the floor, and I couldn’t sense anyone in the darkness below. Even on the lower floors, there was very little sense of activity; up here at the top, Central Cathedral was simply cold and dead, like a series of lavish, beautiful ruins. It was hard to think of this as the center of power for the organization that oversaw the entire human world.
There was supposedly a senate in addition to the Integrity Knighthood among the upper echelon of the Axiom Church. It seemed strange that I’d ascended so high in the tower yet had not seen a single one.
I caught up to Alice on the right side as she descended and voiced my suspicions. The knight looked a bit perplexed, then whispered back, “As a matter of fact, even we knights aren’t told anything about the senators. I’ve heard that the ninety-sixth floor and up is a section calle
d the senate, but we are forbidden to enter…”
“Oh…So what do the senators actually do, anyway?”
“…The Taboo Index,” she said, her voice even quieter now. “The purpose of the senate is to observe and confirm that all people are following the Taboo Index. When there is an Index violation, they dispatch an Integrity Knight to control the situation. I went to take in you and Eugeo from North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy two days ago on just such an order.”
“…I see…So the senate is kind of like a proxy for the pontifex. I’m surprised that Administrator would give them such powerful privileges, knowing how cautious she is. Unless the senators have their memories controlled the same way the knights do…”
Alice scowled and shook her head. “Please don’t talk about memory. I don’t want my remaining good eye to start hurting, too.”
“S-sorry. I think you’re safe now, though…Eugeo’s eye seal broke, too, and nothing much happened to him after that…”
“…Let’s hope you’re right,” she said, rubbing her eye patch.
I recalled what had happened on that exterior terrace. Alice had been shaken a number of times before she ultimately swore to fight against the Axiom Church and its leader, but at no point did her Piety Module ever show signs of activity. I assumed that the memory fragment Administrator took from Alice had to do with her sister, Selka, or childhood friend Eugeo, but unlike what had happened with Eldrie, when Eugeo mentioned Selka’s name to her at the academy, no purple prism appeared from her forehead.
So what in the world was the memory that Administrator took from Alice’s mind?
It was rather pointless to wonder about that now. Once Cardinal performed her Reverse Synthesis Ritual (if you could call it that), Alice would regain her past memory, and the Integrity Knight I was with now would cease to be…
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