Eugeo tried to treat her as warmly and kindly as he could, but he knew from his own experiences that it wasn’t that easy to just relax in her situation. To the new students, the twelve elite disciples were a more forbidding, frightening presence than even the strictest teacher.
It took two months at a bare minimum for pages to be able to interact comfortably, and Eugeo hadn’t been an exception to the rule. That honor went to his partner, who had never met a bit of common sense he couldn’t overturn.
Eugeo closed the textbook of sacred arts, stood up from the high-backed chair, and replied, “Thank you, Tiese. You may now return to the dorm. Oh, and…err…”
His eyes moved left from Tiese’s red hair to another girl with dark-brown hair, similarly stiff-backed.
“…I’m sorry about this, Ronie. I’ve told him over and over to be back by the time the room is cleaned,” Eugeo apologized, speaking for the partner who had disappeared the moment his drills were finished.
The trainee named Ronie shook her head, eyes wide. “N-not at all! It is my duty to complete my report!”
“Well, I’m afraid you’ll be waiting here a bit longer. I don’t know what to say…I’m so sorry that I share a room with him…”
The North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy may have been the most prestigious swordsmanship school in the empire, attracting the children of noble families and wealthy merchants from all over Norlangarth, but once on the school’s soil, even an imperial child started at the same entry level of a primary trainee.
The first year afforded nary a chance to touch a real sword. Instead, students practiced their forms with wooden swords and spent all day learning battle theory and sacred arts. On top of that, primary trainees had to undertake a number of school chores as part of their education.
The type of job depended on the score the student earned in the swordsmanship test just after school started. Ninety percent of them were assigned to cleaning duties, maintaining school supplies, tending to the holy flowers, and so on, but the top twelve scorers were assigned as pages to the twelve disciples, earning them the envy of their peers and two months of very awkward adjustment.
In fact, page duties weren’t really that different from the other students’, except that instead of cleaning the classrooms or training hall, they cleaned the disciples’ rooms. But if that disciple was mean-spirited, or a total slob, or liked to vanish into thin air and not return in a timely fashion, kids like Ronie wound up with a major headache.
“Umm, if you want, Ronie, I can tell the teacher and have you switched to shadow someone else instead…I think you’re going to have a very rough year working for him. In fact, I guarantee it.”
“N-not at all, sir!” Ronie insisted with another vigorous shake of the head. Just then, a familiar voice spoke up—not through the door but from the open window.
“What are you telling her about me while I’m gone?”
Climbing through the third-story window was his second-year partner, Kirito, dressed in the disciple’s uniform. Their styles were exactly the same, except that Eugeo’s was a deep blue with a touch of gray, while Kirito’s fabric was straight black. One of the many privileges of being an elite disciple was the right to choose one’s uniform color.
Ronie’s face briefly softened into a relieved grin at the sight of Kirito’s return, complete with a delicious-smelling paper bag, then tightened up again as she slammed her bootheel into the floor.
“Elite Disciple Kirito, I have a report to make! Today’s cleaning has been completed without incident!”
“Cool, thanks,” he replied as he scratched his black hair, still not comfortable with the presence of the trainee pages.
Eugeo snorted and pointed out, “Listen, Kirito, I’m not saying you can’t go outside, but they’ve got tons more work to do than you do, so at least get back before they’re done cleaning. And why do you need to use the window in the first place?”
“Because this is the quickest route when coming back from East Third Street. You should tuck that fact away, Ronie and Tiese; it’ll come in handy someday.”
“Don’t fill their heads with nonsense! Oh…if you went to East Third Street, does that mean those are honey pies from the Jumping Deer?”
The sweet smell wafting from Kirito’s arms exerted almost violent force on Eugeo’s pre-dinner stomach. “Listen, I know they’re great, but…you don’t have to buy an entire pile of them.”
“Hah! If you want some, just be honest and say so, Eugeo.” Kirito smirked. He pulled two of the golden, circular pies from the bulging sack, tossing one to his partner and popping the other in his mouth. He dropped the remainder of the sack into Ronie’s arms. “Share it with your entire room when you get back to the dorm.”
Tiese and Ronie exclaimed like the fifteen- and sixteen-year-old girls they were, then regained their proper posture.
“Th-thank you, Elite Disciple, sir!” Ronie said.
“We shall return to the dorm posthaste so as not to allow our precious cargo’s life to drop! Until tomorrow!” Tiese shouted.
With a very quick and abbreviated salute, the two girls marched across the room, boots clicking, and exited into the hall. They bowed again through the doorway, shut the door, and then rushed away, their shrieks of excitement clearly audible.
“…”
Eugeo took a large bite of the fresh-baked pie and threw a sidelong look at Kirito.
“…What?”
“I didn’t say anything. I was only wondering to myself if the great Elite Disciple Kirito has forgotten the exact reason we’re actually here.”
“Hmph! As if I’d forget,” Kirito protested. He licked his thumb, already finished with the pie, and turned his black eyes to look out the window at a sight not visible from the primary trainee dorm—the looming tower of the Axiom Church in the very heart of Centoria.
“Three more to go…We’ve come this far already. First, we beat the other ten disciples at the graduation test match and earn the title of academy representatives. Next, we enter the Imperial Battle Tournament and defeat the old fogeys in the knighthood and imperial guards. Lastly, we both win out at the Four-Empire Unification Tournament. Then you can be an Integrity Knight and walk right through the gate of that tower.”
“Yeah…one more year…One more year, and I’ll finally…”
Be able to see her. The old friend who was taken away by an Integrity Knight eight years ago.
Eugeo looked away from the Central Cathedral, back at the two swords stored on the wall of the room, white and black.
As long as they had the swords of fate that had brought them to this point, they would never falter.
Eugeo believed it without a shred of doubt.
(Alicization Running—The End)
AFTERWORD
Hello, this is Reki Kawahara. Thank you for reading Sword Art Online 10: Alicization Running.
The subtitle “Running” is meant to be a reference to something in action or proceeding. A computer program “runs,” as you know. On the other hand, this book didn’t seem like it was really speeding along to me…In fact, pretty much the entire first half was dedicated to setup and explanation (which often happens with me), so I don’t blame any readers for wondering, “When are the swords gonna do their art?!” Allow me to take this opportunity to say something I repeat out of sheer custom: I’m sorry about all the exposition!
On that topic, please allow me to make another apology. In this story arc, the mysterious Mr. Kikuoka’s true position is finally revealed, but allow me to be clear that he is not a mouthpiece for the author’s worldview. His actions arose as a necessity from his position, and there are many characters in the story who oppose his views—we saw Asuna do this herself. The distance between the character and the author is normally made very clear through the text itself, so that the reader doesn’t require a disclaimer like this one, but it seems I have a problem with reaching that level of clarity…I’ll try to be better about this sort of thing in
the future, but I felt strongly enough about it to bring it up here. Please keep that in mind!
One more apology. The original publication of this book in Japan is on July 10th, 2012, meaning that I’ve finally broken the streak of every even-numbered month that had lasted since my debut. Part of this was intentional, so we could time it for the premiere of the SAO anime series, but it’s also true that I wouldn’t have finished it in time anyway. So I’m sorry to all of you who expected to see another two-month publication! My idea (my ideal?) is to have Accel World 12 out in August, where it would have been normally, thus returning me to my every-other-month schedule for the foreseeable future. I’m sure there will come a time where that pace crumbles for good, and I’ll be here to apologize for it profusely. In fact…I’m really sorry if that time ends up being before the end of this year…
As I just mentioned, this book should originally be coming out right around the time that the TV anime series begins. The fact that this story I began writing on a website ten years ago is a published series, a manga, a drama CD, and now an anime, is not just a source of joy to me but also a tribute to the mysterious nature of life. It may not be as complex as a video game story, but there have nonetheless been a myriad of different branching options to get to this point. If I didn’t have Mr. Miki as my editor, if I didn’t have abec as an illustrator, if I hadn’t applied for the Fifteenth Dengeki Novel Award, if I hadn’t kept writing my web novel, or if I hadn’t decided to write a story about a VRMMO game of death ten years ago, I wouldn’t be here now. I tend to think that things happen the way they’re meant to happen—and don’t go the way they’re not meant to go. But I can’t help but feel as though this SAO thing was brought forth to this point by some tremendous power. Naturally, that power includes the strength provided by all your support for my endeavors. The story has a long way to go, so I’d love it if you could follow Kirito’s adventures in the years to come.
I’m noticing that this afterword is rapidly expanding in length, so I figured that this would be a good time to provide a personal update, but…there’s nothing to write about! Even my one great hobby of biking is still an active one for me, but my riding route is so fixed and predictable that I might as well be riding on bike rollers indoors at this point. When the input drops, naturally the output does as well, so I want to try other stuff all over the place, but I find that my areas of interest are naturally limiting, to say nothing of the lack of time. Honestly, the only thing I want to do with all my heart is write! (laughs) If only that made the actual writing speed pick up.
Still, now that it’s been over three years since my published debut, I truly think it’s a blessing to be able to write the story that I want to write. It sounds like a simple thing, but there are a ton of hurdles to overcome. And there are surprisingly few of those hurdles that you can jump over solely through your own effort…So I want to stay healthy and keep riding my bike. The goal is ninety miles a week!
Well, I’ve still got a couple of lines of space on this page, but the deadline to submit is in ten minutes, so I should probably wrap it up. Normally, I’d spend about five lines doing my usual thanks and apologies, but I’ve kind of covered them all, so I’ll go over what’s next instead…
Volume 11, the third book in the Alicization saga, will feature Kirito and Eugeo’s arrival at the center of the Underworld. How the world is shaped and who is controlling it will (probably) be revealed at last…so I hope to see you there.
Please check out the anime adaptation, too, as well as the SAO video game currently in development. My guess is that this is one game of death that won’t be inescapable!
Reki Kawahara—May 2012
Alicization Running Page 22