“Wha…?” Chudelkin’s face went from red back to white, his large mouth flapping helplessly. “Why…? How did you…?”
“Blocked or not, there are a few memories I still retain. When we stepped into the senate room, I caught a glimpse of an image…A terrified girl tied up in the center of that chamber, subjected to three days and nights of the senators’ multilayered spells to crack open the walls of her mind. That was the truth of the Synthesis Ritual…and the stone floor of that chamber is most certainly stained with the tears of lamentation and despair of that girl I once was.”
Alice’s voice was controlled, but it cut like a steel blade. Chudelkin’s face bounced back and forth between red and white at a dizzying speed. Ultimately, the only person in the senate with his own will regained his swagger and leered at us.
“Oh yes…that is correct. I can recall the scene quite clearly, in fact. You were so young and innocent and sweet, and you pleaded with tears in your eyes so many times…‘Please, don’t let me forget…Don’t let me forget the people I care about!’ Hoh-hoh-hoh-hoh!”
When he put on a hideous falsetto to mimic a little girl’s speech, Alice’s eye grew bright with flame. This did not threaten Chudelkin into stopping his mockery.
“Oh-ho! Oh-ho! Yes, I remember indeed! Even now, I could spend an entire night basking in the delicious memory! They dragged you out of that rural hellhole you called a home, and I put you to work as an apprentice sister for two years. You were the kind of tomboy who would slip through the curfew regulations and go see the Centoria solstice festival, but you really truly believed that if you studied hard, we’d let you go home again. Of course, that wasn’t true in the least! Just when you raised that sacred arts authority level to a good solid amount, boom! Forced synthesis! Oh, you should have seen the look on your face when you learned you’d never go home again…I wish I could have turned you into stone and kept you around as a decoration in my chamber forever! Hoh-hoh-hoh!!”
Even I couldn’t stop my sword arm from trembling. I heard Alice grinding her teeth over Chudelkin’s jabs, but she kept herself under control and said, “You mentioned something odd just now: forced synthesis. That makes it sound like there’s a voluntary version of the Synthesis Ritual.”
The prime senator’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Hoh-hoh, very shrewd of you. Yes, that’s correct. Six years ago, you steadfastly refused to recite any of the secret commands that are necessary for a typical Synthesis Ritual. You actually had the nerve to tell me your calling was still back in your home village and that you didn’t need to obey my orders!”
That sounds just like what young Alice would say, I thought, despite having not known her back then. The memory of this experience caused the prime senator’s lips to curl into a nasty sneer.
“What a disgusting little shit you were. I wished so badly to have my lady awaken early, but the rule is that she’s not to rise until all the preparations for the ritual are completely done. So I had no choice but to temporarily pause the automated senators and have them pry open the door to your most precious secrets through magical force. I suppose I shouldn’t complain about getting such a juicy show, however! Hee-hoh, hoh-hohhh!”
His gale of laughter stopped the instant she moved the tip of the Osmanthus Blade an inch closer. But the ugly smirk on his lips and in his eyes remained.
Chudelkin had boasted several crucial bits of information. I wanted to pry out some more intel, assuming Alice could maintain her composure, but something about it felt wrong. Would this clown really reveal core secrets of the Church without even being prompted? He wouldn’t taunt her this way if he was afraid for his life, and he didn’t seem to be waiting for a chance to take her by surprise, either.
While my mind raced on, Chudelkin resumed his story. “When the first stage of the forced synthesis ended and you blacked out, it was none other than I who took you to Her Holiness. Regrettably, I was not allowed to witness what happened next, but when the ritual was done and you awoke as an Integrity Knight, you had total belief that you were a disciple of God, dispatched from Heaven. Just like all the other knights. Boy, when I hear you folks drone on and on about the celestial realm, I have to hold my sides in to keep them from splitting! Ohhh…”
He babbled and chattered away, dangling in the air, and I gradually noticed that his eyes were jittering slightly, as though he were waiting for something. Was he carrying on like this in order to keep us here in the room with him…?
I was about to warn Alice, but she spoke first. The golden room rang with her voice, even icier now than in the Great Bath: “Prime Senator Chudelkin, you may be just another victim like the Integrity Knights, a sad little clown whose life was a plaything for Administrator like everyone else. But regardless of that, you have enjoyed your circumstances immensely. Surely you have been satisfied with your life. I am done listening to you.”
The Osmanthus Blade’s tip pressed against the center of the bulging clown costume, right above his heart. The shining material dipped inward with one final show of resistance.
If Chudelkin’s goal was to buy time, he would bring up some new piece of information now, I assumed—perhaps Eugeo’s location.
But one second was all it took to prove me wrong.
As the prime senator froze, his mouth half-open, the golden sword plunged deeper and deeper. His narrow eyes shot wide open, and the red-and-blue outfit bulged out even farther, testing its limits. Alice turned her face away, anticipating a spray of blood.
There was a tremendous bang! and Chudelkin’s body popped like a balloon. A massive gush of blood landed on Alice’s armor and did…nothing.
“What…?”
“Huh?!”
Alice and I were stunned. It was not liquid that burst forth, but smoke that had somehow been colored deep red. It spread farther and farther, filling the room.
There had been a special kind of monster in Aincrad that did this. It puffed out the skin of its body, and if struck with any kind of non-blunt damage, it would burst and emit a huge blast of smoke, allowing its true body to escape.
With that old instinct in mind, I swung my sword at a narrow shadow that quickly passed the corner of my vision. I felt it strike something, but the only object I could see through the smoke was a familiar golden hat rolling at my feet.
I made to chase after him, but the moment the nasty-colored smoke entered my nostrils, I felt a needling pain in my throat and doubled over coughing.
“Chudelkin!” Alice hissed, hand over her mouth, and leaped for the shadow. Chudelkin ran toward the back of the chamber, not toward the hallway to the senate room. I followed after them in a crouch, believing there wasn’t actually an exit back there.
Instead, the first thing I saw when I got through the choking smoke was a golden chest of drawers pushed to the side to reveal a hidden passage. A comically thin figure with that same fat round head was nimbly racing down it.
“Hee-hoh!! Heeee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hoh!!” he cackled, loud enough that I could hear it through my coughing. “Sacred arts isn’t all I’m good at, you pathetic losers! Sucks to be you! Wanna play tag? Because I can play the host, and I’m very thorough! Hoh-hohhhhhh!!”
The pattering of his shoes soon drowned out his maniacal, broken-toy laughter.
4
Alice and I were slowed down for less than five seconds.
We shared a glance, then I took the lead down the narrow hallway. Thankfully, the red smoke I inhaled wasn’t toxic—if it had been, something would’ve happened to Chudelkin, given that his clothes were filled with the stuff—and the coughing indeed soon wore off.
The hidden passage was built for Chudelkin’s size, and I had to duck down to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling. The occasional scraping noise I heard from behind had to be Alice’s shoulder guards hitting the walls. The sheath of the Blue Rose Sword on my right waist was also banging against the wall as I shuffled along uncomfortably.
Eventually there was an ascending staircase ahead, so I
stopped and made sure there wasn’t an ambush before charging upward. Chudelkin’s footsteps were long gone, darkness and cold air the only things coming down the passage ahead.
The staircase was much longer than I had anticipated and seemed to cover a good three floors’ worth of height. I’d estimated that the chamber filled with what Chudelkin called the automated senators covered the space from the ninety-sixth to ninety-eighth floors, so this path was probably leading us up to the ninety-ninth.
The battle with the Axiom Church that had begun in the basement—two years before, when Eugeo and I left Rulid—would be over in two floors. My partner wasn’t at my side, but if Bercouli’s words were accurate, I would see him again in Administrator’s bedchamber. Then I’d give him the Blue Rose Sword, and the three of us would defeat Chudelkin, then the pontifex herself. And then…
I shook my head, focusing on a faint light up above. I could think about what to do afterward when we got there. This was the final battle: Concentration was everything, and the present was more important than the future and the past.
From up ahead, I heard the distant screech of the prime senator.
“System Caaaaall! Generaaaate…”
That would be an element-based sacred art. My hackles rose, but there was no stopping now. The light ahead grew closer and closer.
“The stairs are ending up ahead!” I warned Alice.
“Watch out for a surprise arts attack!” she replied.
“Got it!”
I held my black sword out front as I ran. Given the measure of control a caster had over the possession of a generated element, magic in this world was well suited to ambush attacks. You could form a flame element, keep it on standby, then discharge it when the enemy came into sight, almost like a firearm.
On the other hand, the power of the magic was dependent upon the number of elements being expended. If it was just one little orb, the attack power would be the same, whether cast by a student in their first year at school or a master with a lifetime of experience. Discipline allowed one to increase the number of elements at once, but each one required a finger to maintain it, so the upper limit of simultaneous elements was ten. My black sword had the capability to absorb energy, so I could defend against even a tenfold heat or frost element attack.
If Chudelkin was going to attempt a surprise attack, it would be safer to plunge through the exit of the stairway, rather than lean out carefully. I sped up through the last leg and leaped high in the air on the final step.
But there was no storm of fireballs or deluge of icicles. I did a full three-sixty turn in midair to survey the room, but I did not see Chudelkin or anyone else. I landed on the marble floor on one knee and listened carefully. The only sound was Alice running toward me.
She appeared through the exit of the staircase as I got to my feet, then she took her own turn examining the place. “I thought I heard him chanting, but there’s no one here…Perhaps Chudelkin gave up on laying a trap and fled to the hundredth floor above…,” she murmured, glancing up at the ceiling.
“But that’s Administrator’s room, right?” I asked. “Is the prime senator allowed to just burst in there?”
“I doubt it…Where are the stairs up anyway?”
Once again, I looked around the round room that composed the ninety-ninth floor. It was quite large, probably a hundred feet across. The floor, ceiling, and curved walls were the same familiar white marble, but there was nothing in the way of decoration or ornamentation. At most, there was a series of large lamps fixed to the walls, but only four were lit, leaving the interior dim. Everything in the room was pure white, so it would probably be blinding in here if all the lamps were on at once.
The staircase we’d taken opened directly into the floor near the wall. There was a marble hatch above, and I was certain that if lowered, it would fit seamlessly into the floor.
Perhaps there was a similar hidden drop-down door in the ceiling somewhere. I looked around for a pull cord or handle, but saw nothing. Perhaps a good sword skill might punch a hole in the ceiling…
“This room,” Alice suddenly murmured. I turned and saw that the knight’s left eye was open wider than usual.
“What about it?”
“I’ve…been in here before. This is where I woke up…on the day I became an apprentice Integrity Knight…”
“W-wait…are you sure about that?!”
“Yes…All the lamps were on at the time…and the room was extremely bright and shining…The pontifex herself stood in the center, and she commanded, Wake up, child of God…”
Alice realized that a note of reverence had crept into her voice, and she scowled. “The pontifex removed all my memories up to that point, gave me a false past and a knight’s duty, then left me with Uncle…with Commander Bercouli. Then a part of the floor, similar to the elevating disc in the middle part of the cathedral, took Uncle and me down to the ninety-fifth floor. I have never been back here since.”
“The floor…sank?” I repeated, stomping on the marble with my boots. The only sensation I felt was thick, unmoving stone. It would be hard to find a hidden elevator in a room this size, and we didn’t need to go down.
“Do you remember how Administrator went back to her chamber then, Alice?” I asked.
She lifted a finger to her lips and thought. “I think…that the moment the disc sank into the floor…she looked up…and another small disc descended from above…”
“That’s it!” I shouted, staring greedily at the white ceiling. It wasn’t a pull-down hatch but an elevator hidden above us. Even still, I couldn’t spot anything like a switch. There wasn’t an operator like on the elevator between the fiftieth and eightieth floors, so there had to be some mechanism to work it automatically. But what was it…?
“Oh…perhaps it was what the prime senator was chanting…,” I wondered aloud. Alice latched onto it.
“So it wasn’t an ambush but an art to make the disc move…? Kirito, what did you hear Chudelkin say after ‘Generate’? Do you remember?”
I really, really didn’t want to tell her I wasn’t listening, so I frantically replayed the moment from a few minutes before in my head. His needle-pitched voice had cried, Generate, and then…
“L…Lu…something…,” I said, struggling to remember. Alice’s glare was even colder than usual.
“That should be enough. The only element that starts with lu would be a light element.”
My face lit up, and I nodded to show that I did understand after all, but Alice was already turning and putting away her sword. She thrust her open hands toward the ceiling.
“System Call! Generate Luminous Element!”
To my amazement, she created a full ten light elements, the theoretical maximum. She then sprayed the floating white orbs outward without further modification. They landed at various points on the ceiling and burst without a sound. One flashed brighter than before—and then a circle of light a few feet across appeared where it had landed. It wasn’t in the center of the room, but close to the wall.
Alice lowered her arms, and I walked up to her side, watching cautiously. The circle of light faded quickly but did not disappear, and before long, the ceiling within its perimeter slid smoothly down toward us.
The stone platform was at least eighteen inches thick and looked tremendously heavy, yet it floated as if it were nothing. The light element had merely been a switch, and something else was powering the movement, but I couldn’t begin to guess what it was. It was on the level of some of the “miracles” I saw Cardinal perform in the Great Library—in fact, that must be exactly what it was. The source of this elevator’s movement was doubtless some tiny piece of Administrator’s boundless power.
The elevator landed on the floor with the slightest of vibrations. The top was not bare marble but was covered in bright-red carpet that glowed faintly in the light coming down from the circular hole in the ceiling.
The way to the top floor of Central Cathedral was open.
&
nbsp; When Alice and I rode that elevating disc to the hundredth floor, the last and biggest battle of all would begin.
The original plan was that I’d use my secret-weapon dagger on Administrator while she slept and let Cardinal handle the rest. But with Chudelkin hiding from us on the floor above, she would likely be awake already—and more importantly, I’d already used my dagger to save Fanatio, the vice commander of the Integrity Knights.
Fortunately—if you could call it that—Alice the knight had agreed to return to being the original Alice already. That meant Eugeo didn’t need to use his dagger on her. When we got up there, I’d have to rescue him from his frozen state, I suspected, and find a way to use his dagger before Administrator started taking me seriously. I couldn’t imagine another way for us to win.
Alice was reaching a final moment of determination as well. We stared at each other and nodded in unison.
“…Let’s go.”
“Here goes nothing.”
And thus the elite disciple Kirito and Integrity Knight Alice Synthesis Thirty started walking toward the elevating disc that awaited just ahead.
One, two, three steps—and the pale light coming from the hole in the ceiling, probably moonlight, abruptly shaded over.
I stopped and stared into the hole, where I caught sight of a number of bright glimmers of light.
It was, in fact, moonlight—reflecting off a beautifully designed suit of armor. Whoever it was leaped down through the hole, a good twenty feet above, long cape trailing behind.
It was too tall to be Chudelkin. Then I wondered whether Administrator was coming down to this floor, but the figure’s stature was male. I couldn’t make out a face against the light.
“Are there more Integrity Knights left?” I muttered.
“That armor belongs to…No, wait…,” Alice whispered, right as the descending knight landed atop the disc. He bent his knees to absorb the impact and slowly straightened back up.
The armor was silver tinged with blue. The metal plate looked almost a bit translucent, collecting the moonlight and bouncing it back beautifully. The cape was deep blue, and I did not see a sword on his waist. His downturned face was hidden behind a large gorget covering his neck, but the wavy hair was…a soft flaxen color.
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