Down here in the depths without any sunlight, waking up with the faint sound of the morning bells, patrolling empty cells, then going to sleep to the night bells. This jailer’s job had consisted of nothing but that repetition for years and years. An existence so dull and automatic that he hadn’t even stirred when we blasted the bars off our cell.
There was a huge array of keys in various sizes hanging on the wall of the station. Somewhere among them would be the keys to our wrist shackles, but I wasn’t in the mood to disturb the jailer’s sleep and fight him. I stepped back and said, “Let’s just go.”
“Yeah…I agree.”
Eugeo seemed to understand where I was coming from. We moved away from the window and started up the spiral stairs, never looking back.
2
The stairs had felt interminably long when we were descending them, but rushing upward, I sensed the exit was near after just a few minutes. The moldiness of the air trailed away, and the damp stone walls and steps changed to fine, smooth marble.
Eventually the way ahead got lighter, and when the exit came into view, we leaped upward, skipping steps and completely forgetting any sense of caution. Once we were on the surface again, we greedily sucked in lungfuls of fresh air.
“…Ahhh…”
When I felt my respiratory system functioning properly again, I looked around at last. It was dark yet, but the faint amount of starlight was still enough to see by.
The Axiom Church was located on a large square plot of land directly in the middle of Centoria. From what I could see when we were hauled in on the dragon yesterday morning, the main gate was on the east side (probably to face a rising Solus), with a wide approach that led to the church building proper.
That building was the massive, white Central Cathedral. It, too, had a square base, its sheer walls polished to a mirrorlike reflection, and the top was so distant that it was always lost in the clouds and invisible from the ground.
I believed that someone or something at the top of the cathedral managed this world and that someone would maintain a system console that I could use to contact Rath on the outside. If I could just get there, I could return to the real world after two years and two months of being trapped in here…
I turned back to the entrance to the underground stairs, savoring the idea of my potential victory. The doorless, rectangular hole opened rather abruptly in the side of the pure-white building. I looked left, then right, then upward along the smooth, polished marble, but due to the thick fog, I couldn’t see a corner in any direction.
Of course, even without the fog, I couldn’t have seen the top—that white marble surface was the outside wall of the very cathedral that was my destination.
Following the same train of thought, Eugeo took a few steps forward, raised his hand, and stroked the wall. His fingers rubbed back and forth, ascertaining the absolute solidity and coldness of its surface.
“…I know it shouldn’t be a surprise at this point, but…it’s hard to believe. We’re touching the Central Cathedral itself. Even the greatest nobles—even the four emperors—can only look at this tower from beyond the walls.”
“Too bad we’re here as escaped fugitives, rather than Integrity Knights like we planned,” I deadpanned. Eugeo weakly smiled back for a moment.
“But at this point, it seems like we made the right choice,” he said. “What if we became Integrity Knights and turned out like Alice…?”
“With our memories being controlled, you mean? Good point…but if all the knights are like that, I wonder who they think they are,” I mused. Eugeo removed his hand from the stone and looked at me.
I put my hand on my hip and explained, “I mean, assuming the knights’ memories are being hidden from them…they should at least know things like who their parents are and where they were born, right? I mean, that’s the most fundamental root of human experience. I think it would be really hard to fake that kind of knowledge.”
“I see…The knights can fly everywhere on those dragons, after all. If you sealed their real memories and gave them fake ones, they could easily go to those locations and realize the lie…”
Suddenly, Eugeo sucked in a deep breath and stared at me. I looked back, surprised at this reaction. After several seconds of staring at each other, I finally recognized the reason for his behavior.
“Oh…you think we might find a way to return my memories in the tower?”
“Er…I—I just…”
He scrunched up his face and looked down at the ground, so I moved toward him and ruffled his flaxen hair. “You’re such a worrywart. I told you—whether my memory comes back or not, I’m going along on your journey to the end.”
Eugeo raised his reddened faced and protested, “Don’t treat me like a child.” But he didn’t try to brush away my hand. “I’m…I’m not doubting your word. You’ve said that over and over. But…when I started thinking about how our journey might be coming to an end, it just…”
His voice was tense and thick with emotion, and I started to feel something rising within my own chest. I looked up, hand still on Eugeo’s head.
The tremendous monolith standing over us was truly worthy of being called the center of the world. Even if there somehow weren’t any obstacles on the way up, the trip would not be easy—but that was all that was left. No matter how many thousands of stairs were between us, once we’d finished climbing them, our journey would be over. And it had taken at least a year less than we had planned.
But this wouldn’t be an eternal farewell. I’d log out to the real world, but I would be back. I had to see Eugeo, Liena, Ronie, Tiese, and everyone else again.
“Once it’s over, let’s make sure we secure a happy ending. You’ll get Alice’s memories back and take her home to Rulid. But…wouldn’t you need to choose a new calling then? You should probably start thinking about that now, because you won’t get another chance,” I teased.
Eugeo looked up at last, his familiar annoyed expression present. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself. But at the very least, I’ve had enough of cutting down trees.”
“Ha-ha, I bet you have.”
I took my hand off his head and slapped his shoulder, just as the Bells of Time-Tolling far overhead rang the time, beautiful and grand. That was the four o’clock melody. Only one more hour until daybreak…
“…Looks like we ought to get moving.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
We knuckled fists in solidarity, the force, timing, and speed of which were perfectly matched. No more words were needed. We set about examining our surroundings again.
For now, all we knew was that we were on the back side of the cathedral, on the west. The eastern side was hidden from view on the other side of the building, of course.
Our present objective was to get inside the cathedral, which would be easy if there were an entrance to the ground floor, but the west face was totally sheer and slippery, with no windows anywhere near low enough to climb up to. The only opening was the staircase exit we had just come out of, and while there just might be other passages back down there, we’d sworn to Stacia that we would never make that trip again.
So the next option was to follow the wall around, either to the north or the south. The problem was that less than twenty feet in either direction, there were metal fences flush against the building wall. They were low enough to climb over with some difficulty, but I’d seen during the flight in yesterday that there were actually many fences arrayed in rows.
Based on the well-burnished look of the bronze fences covered in vines, they were probably tougher than the bars down in the cells. There were layers upon layers of these impediments on the west side of the cathedral. It was a garden as much as it was a maze—most likely to keep in any prisoners in the unlikely event of an escape.
So between the wall and fences, the east, south, and north were blocked, but there was a gate to the west. Beyond it was a short, straight path that led to a clearing in the maze. That was whe
re the dragon had landed yesterday.
Just before that had happened, I had tried to memorize the escape route, but the maze was so complex and my time so brief that it was completely impossible. Now it seemed we didn’t have any other option.
“We’ve got to make our way through the maze…and reach the north or south side of the cathedral,” I said.
Eugeo agreed. “I put my hope on your instincts.”
“I’ve got this. Always been good at mazes,” I replied without thinking. Eugeo gave me a strange look, and I had to start walking before he asked me how I would know that.
Within a few paces, we were at the gate to the west; I opened the window of the metal fence to check its priority level. The window said it was 35—as I suspected, it was special bronze. I could break it in a number of swings with the chain around my right hand, but not only would it take longer than climbing, it was likely to attract the attention of the guards or even an Integrity Knight.
We were about to resume our attempt on the maze as originally planned when Eugeo gasped.
“Wh-what is it? Is it something about the fence?!” I asked.
“N-no, not the fence…These leaves…”
Eugeo was staring at the vine wrapped around the fence, pointing out a plain old leaf growing on it.
“I’ve never seen one, but I’m certain…it’s a rose, Kirito.”
“A rose, huh…? Wait, really?! All these plants growing in the maze…?!”
It hadn’t seemed significant at first, but then I remembered that roses were no ordinary flowers in the Underworld. The Four Holy Flowers—anemones, marigolds, dahlias, and cattleyas—all grew fruit that contained very high-purity sacred power. But even more valuable was the rose, the Flower of the Gods. Commoners, nobles, and emperors alike were forbidden to cultivate them. The few that grew naturally in some remote mountains were worth a fortune at the markets of Centoria.
And there were thousands, tens of thousands of them just in this maze…I was overcome with a sudden urge to go pick as many as I could find, but sadly, the Underworld didn’t have a handy inventory system to hide them in.
In contrast to my baser instincts, Eugeo’s reaction was quite calm. He pulled apart the jagged-edged leaves and peered deeper into the growth.
“The flowers aren’t blooming yet, but you can see the buds swelling. With this many of them, I’m sure they put off an extreme amount of spatial power.”
Now that he mentioned it, the air in the maze was sweet and rich, and every breath felt like it was purifying me. I inhaled and exhaled greedily, but Eugeo just looked annoyed.
“No, what I mean is, we might be able to use higher sacred arts here.”
“…That’s great, but we’re not injured or anything…”
“True, but we are missing something very important. Our…”
“Oh, r-right! Our swords!” I said, finally realizing what Eugeo was getting at, and snapped my fingers. Our class-38 whip-chains were powerful weapons, but Eugeo didn’t know how to use one, so the sooner we got the Blue Rose Sword and the Black One back, the better. In fact, it should be our top priority.
We hadn’t seen the swords since Alice the Integrity Knight took them away, but with the help of sacred arts, we could form a good guess as to their location. I raised my right hand, took a deep breath, and said, “System Call!”
To Eugeo, this was the initiation of a magical spell. To me, it was a system control command. Purple light gathered faintly around our fingers, signaling that the booted command prompt was ready. I extended my index finger and squeezed the other four before delivering the next command.
“Generate Umbra Element!”
As I chanted, I envisioned a gemstone, black and matte, and on the tip of my finger appeared a tiny orb, totally black with blue and purple highlights. This was a darkness element, one of the eight kinds in this world. On the overall scale, it was a difficult spell, but at least those boring sacred arts classes and tests had carried over to practical use.
Darkness elements were the opposite of the light elements that Miss Azurica had used to heal Eugeo’s eye—they had a negative energy to them. They were dangerous: If discharged, they could easily scoop out and empty the surrounding space. But their adhesive properties were equally useful.
“Adhere Possession. Object ID WLSS102382. Discharge.” I finished chanting, and the floating element began to move away, as if drawn by a magnet. The orb wobbled and rose as it moved east, until it ran out of energy just before the cathedral wall and vanished. For several seconds, it left behind a faint blue-purple trail that hung in the air.
I watched it closely, following the trajectory of the line. Eugeo did the same and murmured, “As I was afraid. They’re inside the cathedral. I was hoping they’d been stashed in some kind of storage shed outside…”
“But it doesn’t seem like they’re very high inside the building. Only the second floor…maybe the third. That’s better than if they’d been carried way higher.”
“Yeah…I guess. Then let’s set our sights on sneaking into the cathedral using some method other than the front door and head for the third floor to retrieve our swords.”
At the academy, I was the only one who’d dare to say things like sneak into and retrieve, but now Eugeo was getting into the game. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but that wasn’t important now.
We knew where to find the swords, but it hadn’t changed the situation with the rose maze. If only I could cast a sacred art that would display the path to the exit, but there were no commands that convenient here—I thought.
Eugeo and I passed through the bronze gate again and headed for the little clearing straight ahead. If the roses were blooming in the daytime, it would make for a gorgeous sight, but the darkness was our friend for now. We continued stealthily but quickly under the light of the stars.
The next gate soon made its appearance. Just past it was the clearing where the dragon landed. I recalled seeing benches and a small fountain, but I wasn’t sure if there was a map of the garden as well. But it was a clearing for general use, so there should be one. There must be!
Just as we passed through the second, smaller gate, I felt a familiar pain at the roots of my bangs, while Eugeo tugged on the back of my coat.
“Wh-what?”
“…Someone’s here.”
“What…?”
I tensed and peered forward.
The clearing was rectangular, elongated east to west, with the gate at the eastern end. In the center was a fountain with a bronze statue of Terraria, surrounded by four benches of the same metal as the fences.
And just as Eugeo said, on the northern bench—the right-hand one, from our perspective—was a figure.
The face was hidden behind long, flowing hair. The person’s slender form was clad in polished silver armor and carried a curved longsword on the left side. Hanging from the shoulders was a dark-colored cape. Even from here, the circled cross insignia was clear.
“An…Integrity Knight…”
There was no question. Based on size, hair, and color, it was not Alice, but it was clear that this knight was just as powerful as she. This was not a foe who could be beaten without a sword…perhaps not even with our weapons.
We had to rush into the maze, either to the north or south. Or perhaps turn back, I considered. But before I could even make a decision, a pleasant male voice sounded through the clearing.
“Don’t just stand there. Come in, prisoners.”
There was a shining object in his hand. To my surprise, it was a wineglass. There was a bottle sitting next to him on the bench.
I sensed something confrontational about this, and yet I couldn’t help but indulge my bad habit of rising to the bait.
“What, are you going to serve us some wine?”
The knight didn’t answer right away. He looked over at us and motioned with the glass.
“Sadly, this is not for children like you…especially not criminal children. It
’s a hundred-and-fifty-year vintage from the Western Empire. I might let you sample its bouquet, though.” He grinned, swiveling the glass in his fingers. Even in the starlight, he was shockingly handsome. The combination of his prominent, thin-bridged nose and slightly wild eyebrows had a profound balance, and his long, sharp eyes glinted with intelligence.
Eugeo and I were both shocked into silence. The knight uncrossed his legs and stood up, his armor faintly ringing. He was very tall—at least a head taller than me. His deep-violet cape and pale-purple hair both flowed in the night breeze.
The man took a sip of his wine and caught me off guard when he said, “I must admire my teacher Alice’s wisdom. She perfectly predicted this most unlikely prison break.”
“Alice…your teacher…?” I repeated.
The knight nodded easily and continued, “She ordered me to spend the night out here in case you escaped, but I honestly thought it was preposterous. I planned to gaze at the rosebuds and nurse a bottle of wine through the night, but here you are, in the flesh. Those chains wrapped around your arms are made of spiristeel forged in the volcanoes of the Southern Empire. I don’t know how you cut them, but it’s clear now that you have no regard for the law.”
He smiled and set the wineglass on the bench, then ran his free hand through his hair and continued, “I’ll be returning you to the cells, of course, but before that, you ought to be punished. I assume you understand that.”
His thin smile hadn’t left, but there was power radiating from his tall, lean form, and I had to resist the urge to falter. I summoned what strength I could muster to reply, “Then I assume you know we aren’t going to submit to your punishment without a fight.”
“Ha-ha-ha! Very feisty. I’d heard you were just pups who hadn’t even graduated the academy, but I’m impressed. In honor of your empty threat, I will give you my name, before I beat you to the last shred of your life. I am the Integrity Knight Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One. I was freshly summoned just a month ago, and I don’t have any territory to my name yet—hope you don’t mind that.”