The Twilight Marauder

by Reki Kawahara

  Copyright

  ACCEL WORLD, Volume 3

  REKI KAWAHARA

  Translation by Jocelyn Allen

  Cover art by HIMA

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  ACCEL WORLD

  © REKI KAWAHARA 2009

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS

  First published in Japan in 2009 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2015 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Yen On eBook Edition: October 2017

  Originally published in paperback in March 2015 by Yen On.

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  ISBN: 978-1-9753-0085-2

  E3-20171013-JV-PC

  It had already been five years since the largest network in the world, known as the global net, had transcended the global-ness of its name. The net had been connected to the space elevator station, which was in geostationary orbit above the eastern Pacific Ocean, and also to the international, multipurpose lunar base, such that anyone—if they were so inclined—could dive from their own home into a real-time image of the surface of the moon.

  Naturally, countless other nets existed: large-scale closed nets, protected by national and corporate firewalls; local nets in schools and apartment complexes; private nets run by individuals. The assorted systems were multilayered, and if, hypothetically, the signals flying back and forth within them were to be made visible, a dense blanket of intricate stitching, palely glittering, would veil the world.

  Although it was quite modest in comparison, the net of most critical significance to Haruyuki Arita was about to appear, at that very moment, in his own bedroom.

  “O-okay, I’m connecting, Chiyu,” he announced in a slightly shrill voice, and Chiyu—that is to say, Chiyuri Kurashima—replied, without a hint of nervousness crossing her face.

  “What’re you making such a big deal for? Just do it already.”

  Howling in his heart that she didn’t understand how he felt, Haruyuki took the plug in his left hand and inserted it into the Neurolinker on his neck. Two “wired connection” notices blinked to red life in the center of his vision, then disappeared.

  Chiyu, sitting on the bed, had XSB cables stretched out from the two connectors on her violet Neurolinker. One reached out to Haruyuki, who was plopped down on the floor, and the other linked her to Taku’s neck—that is to say, Takumu Mayuzumi’s—as he sat in a mesh office chair.

  Haruyuki shouldn’t have been so nervous about making this connection. In fact, the real issue was—

  “Y-you don’t actually need me to direct link with you guys—” he stammered, and Chiyuri favored him with a long stare from her catlike eyes.

  “Noooo way. You promised you’d install it for me if Taku’s copy doesn’t work. I’m not letting you get away.”

  “…Fine.” He nodded and glanced to his right, where Takumu offered a brief wry smile while pushing up his frameless glasses.

  Haruyuki, Chiyuri, and Takumu had been born the same year in a large condo complex in South Koenji and had basically been friends ever since. Going through essentially everything together, they used to hang out every day, occasionally fighting for no reason, then making up for the same. But three years earlier, when they were eleven, Chiyuri and Takumu had started dating, and Haruyuki had pulled back. As a result, the former equilateral triangle of their relationship had stretched into an isosceles, with one corner receding into the distance.

  However, with a certain incident the previous year as the catalyst, their relationship had been completely reset, and things had been, in truth, somewhat delicate for the past six months.

  Haruyuki simply wanted Chiyuri and Takumu to hurry and make up already. But because Takumu, the cause of the incident, continued to blame himself, he couldn’t bring himself to actively reach out to her. Thus the triangle was unstable, stretching and squashing with each new day…exactly like the two cables swinging erratically between the three Neurolinkers at that very moment.

  “All right. You ready, Chi?”

  Takumu spoke softly, with a tone that gave no hint as to his inner thoughts.

  Chiyuri bobbed her head, sending short hair swinging. She clenched both hands on her small knees, which peeked out from under the hem of her skirt.

  Takumu returned her nod and flicked a long finger in the air, running it along the virtual desktop only he could see. But once he had grabbed the file, his pale digit lingered in midair, stopped by a slight hesitation.

  “Chi. I’m about to send you Brain Burst, but I just want to check one last time. It’s a game and it’s also not a game. You’ll get the most amazing privileges, the total rush of it, and some serious thrills, but it will demand a lot from you in exchange. You…might regret this someday.”

  Takumu was giving voice to the very misgivings in Haruyuki’s own heart.

  Once you installed the mysterious game application known as Brain Burst and became a Burst Linker, you gained the ability to “accelerate,” and you could never go back. You were caught up in the previously unknown net of the accelerated world, and you had to duel endlessly, for all eternity, to protect the privilege of connecting to that world. The pressure of this could warp personalities; Takumu had set up a backdoor virus in Chiyuri’s Neurolinker and temporarily broken off their friendship because he had been backed into a corner by his fear of losing the power of acceleration.

  Faced with furrowed foreheads on either side, Chiyuri puffed up her cheeks and sharply announced, “Look! The reason I said I want to be a Burst whatchamacallit isn’t because I want this accelerating power thingy. And I definitely don’t want to be that girl’s servant! But this whole super-serious thing you two’ve got going is seriously bugging the hell out of me! Which is why I’m totally going to show you that you need to have more fun with this game!”

  Jerking their heads back involuntarily, Haruyuki and Takumu exchanged a look and smiled, strained.

  “G-got it, I got it, Chi. Okay. Ready? I’m sending it.”

  “Go right ahead.” Chiyuri jerked her sharp chin upward, urging him on with a wink.

  Takumu turned toward her and slid his fingertip through the air and Chiyuri’s large eyes became focused on a single point in space. The dialogue to confirm the installation of the application BRAIN BURST 2039 should have opened in front of her. Bringing her right hand up from her lap, she thrust her index finger at the position of the YES button without any sign of hesitation.

  “Ah?!” Her small, pink-sweatered body bounced up on the edge of the bed, wide-open eyes rolling from side to side.

&nbs
p; Haruyuki recalled the time six months earlier when he himself had received the Brain Burst app. The instant he clicked the YES button, virtual flames had erupted to fill his vision, flames that were displayed to check the acceleration aptitude of the program’s installer.

  To become a Burst Linker, you needed to clear two bars. The first was having been equipped with a Neurolinker since immediately after birth, and Chiyuri cleared that one with flying colors. The problem, however, was with the second bar: brain reaction speed.

  A Neurolinker communicated with the brain of its wearer through wireless quantum signals. But the brain was an organ inside a living body, and its responsiveness differed with the individual. You might have been born with highly reactive nerve circuits or you might be able to improve your reaction speed through long-term training, but either way, if the speed of your brain’s responses to your Neurolinker did not exceed a certain threshold, the phantom flames would die out halfway through, and your attempted installation of Brain Burst would fail.

  But maybe it would be better if it did fail, Haruyuki thought abruptly, sweaty hands clenched tight. The accelerated world was a swirling morass of the raw emotions of the people who fought there—hatred and resentment, jealousy and desire, and all kinds of other ill will. He definitely did not want to see their cherubically innocent Chiyuri hurt by her exposure to that swamp.

  “Haru.” Takumu’s voice reverberated suddenly inside his head, a voice that only Haruyuki heard. He glanced over and saw his childhood friend on the chair, lightly biting his lip. “I…I’m scared. Of Chi…changing.”

  Haruyuki flicked at his virtual desktop to similarly direct his voice only at Takumu. He replied, “If we—No, if you protect her, I’m sure she’ll be fine, Taku. And it’s not for sure that the installation will work. I mean, I feel bad for Chiyu, but it probably won’t.”

  “R-right. She said she was doing some kind of amazing special training or something, but I can’t believe anyone could develop the aptitude in just a couple months—”

  At that moment, Chiyuri’s eyes abruptly stopped whirling around to take in the various visions, and then came to fix her gaze straight ahead. She pulled her rather thick eyebrows together, and her focus traveled from left to right. Her lips parted slightly, and a real-world murmur slipped out from between them; Haruyuki and Takumu listened with bated breath.

  “What is this? W-welcome to the…accelerated world?”

  1

  The fiercely howling wind beating on the window shattered Haruyuki’s thin sleep. In the darkness, his perked ears still covered by his duvet, he listened: the sound of countless waterdrops, thrown up by the wind, ringing against the glass. Apparently, it had started to rain at some point.

  This overnight storm had almost certainly scattered the blossoms of the sakura trees dotting the grounds of his condo building. However, for reasons having nothing to do with this early destruction of a seasonal symbol, spring was a dismal time for Haruyuki.

  Those reasons were twofold. The first was that spring brought with it greater humidity and higher temperatures. With sweat glands twice as active as those of your average person, Haruyuki was already mopping his forehead at 25 degrees Celsius.

  The second was that spring was the start of the new school year. He was nothing other than loathe to have the classes shuffled just when the long, seemingly endless days of bullying had finally ended and he may have carved out for himself a harmless and inoffensive niche. He very nearly passed out at the thought of starting all over again, pinging and sounding out his position within a group of students he barely knew. Given this, it wasn’t a crime to want to stretch out the last few hours of spring break a bit.

  With that thought in mind, Haruyuki fumbled on the shelf above his bed and grabbed his Neurolinker. Once he had attached it to his neck from behind and turned on the power, the lock arm moved to the inside with a faint whir. The startup stage completed the connection check with his senses, and a semitransparent virtual desktop appeared before his eyes.

  Glancing at the clock display—2047/04/08 AM 01:22—in the lower right and sighing, Haruyuki took a deep breath and opened his mouth. “Burst—”

  Link.

  Before he could sing the last note of the magical incantation, the voice call icon blinked palely, and he heard a quiet ringing. He reflexively tapped the icon, only to realize simultaneously that the call was from his childhood friend in the condo two floors below his.

  “Haru? You awake?”

  He was a little surprised at the voice that sounded in his head. Why on earth was Chiyuri, who always went to bed at ten and slept like the long-dead until seven, calling at this hour? And what could she want?

  Pushing his tangled thoughts to one side, Haruyuki mumbled a reply en neuro, “I woke up a little while ago.”

  “The wind’s crazy, huh? But that’s not the reason I can’t sleep.”

  “You can’t sleep?! You?!” he blurted, and in a flash, Chiyuri was shouting.

  “Hey! You think I’m a machine or something? And anyway, it’s your fault I can’t get to sleep!”

  “Huh? M-me…?”

  “Uh-huh. Today, you—I guess it’s already yesterday—when I went to go home last night, you said something weird. You said I might have scary dreams tonight, but that I’m totally not supposed to take off or turn off my Neurolinker. And when someone tells you something like that, of course you’re going to worry about it and not be able to sleep!”

  Haruyuki had, in fact, turned to Chiyuri and said that ten or so hours earlier, and for a simple reason. The first night after the installation of Brain Burst, the game searched your memories in the form of a nightmare, to filter through mental scars like past traumas and feelings of inferiority, so it could then create the duel avatar that would be your other self on the battlefield.

  Six months earlier, the night after Haruyuki had gotten Brain Burst, he had had the worst nightmare in the history of nightmares. He could only remember the vaguest details, but what the software had created as a result was an extremely lanky body with an enormous helmeted head, the argent avatar Silver Crow. Remembering somewhat fondly his own disappointment at the time, Haruyuki said to Chiyuri, “Th-there’s no way around it. If you don’t dream, you can’t create your duel avatar, which is essential. Although—I just thought of this, but do you even have any mental scars—”

  “You are so rude! I’ve been traumatized in my life! Like this one time, a Certain Someone on an elementary school trip was playing this game on the bus and his sense of balance got all messed up and he got super motion sick all over my lap.”

  “I’m sorry. Really. I’m sorry. Let’s just not talk about this anymore,” Haruyuki apologized with a groan, his own mental scars threatening to reopen.

  But Chiyuri was on a roll, and her complaining tone conjured up her sullen face in Haruyuki’s mind. “And you know, now that I’m thinking about it, you never really apologized for that, did you? Perfect, you can pay me back right now.”

  “Wh-what?! That was years ago. The statute of limitations is up!”

  “Well, they were saying on the news the other day that ‘statute of limitations’ is gonna be a dead concept.”

  The establishment of the social camera net, which recorded video of all public spaces across Japan, had, in fact, several years earlier led to the repeal of the statute of limitations in criminal cases. But if they went by this public standard, Haruyuki probably owed Chiyuri for a lot more than a school trip mishap.

  “Well, with the Special Law for Childhood Friends, they decided the statute of limitations is one year, no matter what,” Haruyuki muttered in return, before sighing with his real mouth and asking a question in his mind at the same time. “Well, how am I supposed to pay you back? More jumbo parfaits at Enjiya?”

  “I feel like they’re not as good lately. Prob’ly ’cos they switched from milk to that synthetic stuff. So no. Ugh, it’s such a hassle to talk like this; come dive into our home net. I’ll open a gate fo
r you.”

  “Huh?”

  He blinked rapidly at the unexpected order, and the voice call was disconnected after a cluck of annoyance from Chiyuri’s side. Watching the call icon wink into nothingness, Haruyuki cocked his head in puzzlement, wondering what she could possibly be planning at that time of night. But it wasn’t as if he had the courage to bail on her now, so, having no other choice, he called out the command in his flesh-and-blood voice as ordered.

  “Direct link!”

  Instantly, his dim room melted into outward-shooting rays, and then swooshed out of existence altogether. Sensations of body and weight severed, Haruyuki fell gently into the darkness. His consciousness alone was released to the net, through the full-dive function of his Neurolinker.

  He felt himself floating briefly as he watched several circular access gates draw near. Each was an entrance to a net he could currently dive into. Among the VR spaces he had bookmarked on the global net and his own condo’s local net was a gate tagged as the Kurashima home, to which he turned and stretched out an invisible arm.

  After a moment, the system generated virtual gravity, and Haruyuki’s consciousness was sucked through the small gate. As he flew through with a pop, a circle of gentle lemon-yellow light grew before his eyes.

  “Wh-whoa!” he cried out at the scene that appeared.

  Usually, the VR space of the average household’s home net aped the structure of the household: living room, guest room, family bedrooms. Families often had fun customizing this space to create something larger and more inventively embellished than would be possible in the real world. However, below Haruyuki’s eyes lay a sea of cushions, an infinite number of them, in various colors and sizes.

  There were no walls in any direction. Piles of pastel-colored cushions stretched out to the horizon under a gloriously blue sky. Haruyuki fell smack in the middle of the cushionscape, bounced back up, and hit the ground again on his backside.

  “Wh-what is this?” he muttered, eyes stopping on the yellow giraffe-shaped cushion directly in front of him, the elephant cushion next to that, and then the stranger-shaped one beyond that.