Liena smugly decided she would take me at face value, then added, “But that aside, we ought to wrap up this sparring session now.”
“Huh…? Ah!”
It was only then that I recalled we were in the middle of a practice fight. Before I could react, a powerful shock ran through the wooden sword that I’d just been holding in place. Still Water, a forceful forward step from a locked position, was not a sword skill, but it was one of the few power moves in the Serlut arsenal.
I leaped back rather than fight the flow of force. Unlike Flowing Water earlier, Still Water placed great strain on the legs, so she would be briefly vulnerable after using it. And the whip was not in her free hand anymore.
I whirled my sword back as I landed, hoping to finish the fight with a direct lunge.
Instantly, I felt a chill run down my backbone.
Liena was still holding her wooden sword in both hands—but I couldn’t see the whip behind her, where she should have discarded it. Where had it gone?! But there was no stopping the move now. My body activated the overhead lunge Sonic Leap, lighting my weapon a pale blue…
At that exact same moment, Liena removed her left hand from her sword and stretched upward. She grabbed something and swung it down. White light stretched from her hand like a snake, wrapping itself several times around my body just before I could bolt forward.
I had assumed the whip was lying on the floor, but its end had been wrapped around a ceiling beam so that it had dangled overhead the entire time we were locked together.
But I didn’t put that all together until after I had toppled sideways and smacked the back of my head against the floor.
As stars burst in front of my eyes, I almost imagined that somebody was sighing in disappointment and exasperation, right around my forehead.
2
Centoria was the biggest city in the Norlangarth Empire—the biggest in the entire human realm, in fact. It was a perfect circle surrounded by walls, measuring ten “kilors” across, in the measurement of this world.
That was just about the length across the very first floor of Aincrad, meaning this city was as large as that massive wilderness map all on its own. It was almost impossibly huge for a virtual city and boasted a population of over twenty thousand, from what I had heard.
On top of that, the city was constructed in a very special way. The circular expanse was split into four by large walls forming an X shape. In essence, it was separated into four wedge-shaped pieces that narrowed down to a ninety-degree point. Even more surprising was that these were known as North Centoria, East Centoria, South Centoria, and West Centoria, and they acted as separate capital cities to the four empires that divided the human realm into cardinal directions.
In other words, the capital cities of the four empires, which mimicked the shape of those larger territories, were all adjacent and separated from one another by a simple wall, at the very center of humanity.
I couldn’t help but be shocked when I learned this. The emperors’ residences and the headquarters for the knights’ brigades that served as the military force of each empire were all located in the capital. If a war ever broke out, the city would immediately explode into chaos. I started to suggest this possibility to Eugeo but realized my mistake in time: There weren’t even robberies in this world, much less murders, so war could never break out among the empires.
Of course, in order to pass the giant marble walls—known as Everlasting Walls—that separated the capitals, one needed a special pass. That made sense, given that you were crossing national borders. So the visiting traders and tourists from afar in North Centoria tended to attract a bit of attention: black-haired Easterners, tanned Southerners, and slender Westerners. They were technically foreigners, but since we all spoke the same language (with different accents), there was no real trouble with the locals.
Not only was there no war, there was essentially no friction among the countries at all, and that surely had to do with what sat in the middle of the city—the giant pure-white tower that occupied the center of the human world as a whole.
The Axiom Church’s Central Cathedral.
It was so tall that the tip was always indistinct up in the sky. I couldn’t begin to guess how many hundreds, if not thousands of feet tall it was. It must have been a tremendous sight looking up from the base, but high walls surrounded the square grounds of the Church, making it impossible. The four Everlasting Walls that split Centoria each intersected with a corner of the Cathedral’s white walls…Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they flowed outward from this center of the realm.
The Everlasting Walls were quite stunning artifacts in their own right, as they ran not just through the city of Centoria but over fields, forests, and deserts, all the way until they ran into the End Mountains nearly five hundred miles away. There were no power shovels or cranes in this world, so it was terrifying to imagine how much time and manpower it had taken to construct the walls by hand.
There could be no better symbol of the absolute authority of the Axiom Church.
The tower in the center of humanity was so grand and vast, looming high over even the palaces of the four emperors, that it was easy to rationalize the way the people of this world overlooked the differences among the empires. It was probably no different than the way I viewed residents of Tokyo versus nearby Saitama.
That raised another question. In this world of less than one hundred thousand residents, why did they need to split up into four empires at all? I hadn’t yet found an answer. The rationale for an ultimate church authority presiding over the empires was also a mystery still.
The Axiom Church had civil posts such as priests and senators, along with the Integrity Knights who served as its military rank, but according to what Liena told me, it was not a large organization, consisting of less than a hundred in total. If you totaled up the knights and garrisons of the four empires, they made over two thousand. So the fact that there were no recorded rebellions of the empires against the Church meant that either the emperors themselves could not defy the Church and its Taboo Index, or that those few dozen Integrity Knights were more powerful than an army of two thousand. Possibly both were true.
The glory of the skyscraping Central Cathedral could be viewed from any spot at the Swordcraft Academy. As I left the elite disciples’ dorm following my final practice with Liena, hurrying through the chilly spring evening, I glanced up at the chalk-white tower overhead, bathed in orange and blue.
Was whoever stood at the very top of that tower gazing down upon humanity just an onlooker from the real world like me, or yet another Underworldian fluctlight? Even if I continued to clear every single hurdle, it would take another year and a half to find that answer. Yes, in the real world that amounted to only another ten hours and change, but that meant nothing to how I would perceive it.
In the two years since I had woken up in the forest near Rulid, I had spent many nights trembling with the fear of not knowing my situation and the powerful desire to see Asuna, Suguha, my parents, and my friends again.
But on the other hand, there was a part of me, deep down, that feared finding the exit at the top of the Cathedral. Logging out would also mean a parting from all the people I’d met here in this world. That included Selka and the other children of Rulid I hadn’t seen in months and months; the few friends I’d met at the academy; Sortiliena, who had tutored me and cared for me as her page for the past year; and most of all, my partner, Eugeo.
I hadn’t thought of them as AIs in quite a while. They were just as human as me, only with their souls stored in a different place. The two years I’d spent in Rulid, Zakkaria, and Centoria had taught me this.
In fact, my love wasn’t just for them. I felt it for this mysterious, vast, and beautiful world, too…
I summoned a deep breath to stop these thoughts from going any further.
Up ahead was an aging building, a two-story stone structure with green shingle roofing: the North Centoria Swordcra
ft Academy dorm building housing 120 primary trainees.
I would have preferred to climb straight into my room through the second-story window, but dorm regulations forbade that. Unlike the level of freedom granted to the elite disciples at their dorm, the primary trainee dorm and the secondary trainee dorm on a nearby hill were regimented by rules so strict, even the old Knights of the Blood headquarters would be stunned.
I summoned my courage and climbed the stone steps to the entrance, then carefully pushed the double doors. One silent step inside, then two—and I heard a quiet cough from my right. I turned fearfully to catch sight of a woman sitting across the entrance counter. Her brown hair was neatly arranged, and her features were nothing if not strict and stern. She was likely in her late twenties.
Promptly, I put my left hand to my waist and pounded my right fist over my chest in what they called the “knight’s salute” and announced crisply, “Primary Trainee Kirito, returning to dorm!”
“…You are thirty-eight minutes after curfew.”
There were no clocks in this world, only special “Bells of Time-Tolling” in every town and major location (including this academy) that played melodies every half hour. The only way to know the precise time would be some special limited-use higher sacred arts, but Azurica, the dorm manager, had to be using some extra-sensory skill to determine that it was exactly 5:38 in the evening.
I held my knight’s salute and, quieter this time, said, “My instructor, Elite Disciple Serlut, issued an extension of my instruction time.”
Azurica stared at me with her blue-gray eyes. Between her stern disposition and the sound of her name, I couldn’t help but be reminded of another person I knew. Before I left this dorm, I wanted the chance to ask her if she had a relative up north named Sister Azalia, but it didn’t look like that opportunity would come. Most of our interactions came in the form of scolding—just like this.
“It is the duty of any trainee page to accept the teaching of a disciple. Very well. But Primary Trainee Kirito, I have suspected that you see this not as a duty but a kind of free pass to escape curfew. And after an entire year, I still cannot dispel this suspicion.”
I undid my salute, moved my hand behind my head, and put on an awkward smile. “Wh-why, Miss Azurica, my only desire has ever been to improve my skill with the sword. Breaking curfew is simply an unfortunate byproduct of the process and most definitely not its intended purpose. Honest.”
“I see. If you’ve been late all year long to train your skill, you must have made great leaps and bounds. If you wish to determine your level of success, I would be more than happy to serve as a sparring partner.”
I froze in place again.
Miss Azurica’s calling was being the primary trainee dorm manager at the North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy and not an actual swordcraft instructor. But as a general rule, all adults working at the academy were former graduates. That meant she had greater skill than the average person. Her expertise in the Norkia style and fearsome “one-on-one lessons” for any student caught bending (but never breaking) the dorm rules were well-known by one and all.
That was bad enough, but then what would happen to a student who actually broke the dorm rules? Thankfully, I would never find out—because it was impossible. The artificial fluctlights who lived in this world had a peculiar feature that made them incapable of disobeying higher regulations. All except for me, thanks to my different fluctlight vessel.
In a sense, it was really a minor miracle that I had made it an entire year without ever breaking one of the dorm rules. Impressed despite myself, I shook my head in protest. “N-no, Miss Azurica, that won’t be necessary. I’ve only just finished my first year here.”
“I see. Then when you have completed your second year’s training, I will be ready to judge it.”
“…Yes…I would…love that,” I said, backing away and praying with all my might that she would not remember this promise for an entire year.
She finally returned to the document in her hands and said, “Dinner is in seventeen minutes. Please try not to be as late this time.”
“Y-yes, ma’am! Pardon me!”
I saluted again, spun around, and headed up the main stairs at the maximum allowed speed. Room 206 was where Eugeo and I stayed. It was actually a ten-person room, but the other eight were good guys. Of course, everyone in 206 (and 106 down on the first floor, which was just for the girls) was of common birth, surrounded by nobles and merchant children—so we couldn’t afford to squabble among ourselves.
In the upstairs hallway, I made my way through the groups of students chatting and laughing gently on the way to the cafeteria and finally through the door at the very west end, when—
“You’re late, Kirito!”
Naturally, that came from a boy—if you could still call him that—with flaxen blond hair, sitting on the bed second from the end on the right. My partner, Eugeo.
He stood up and put his hands on his hips. He’d grown an inch or two since we’d first met two years ago and was more firmly built now. It only made sense, as he would be nineteen this year. Yet his gentle features and sparkling green eyes hadn’t changed a bit. The six months at the Zakkaria garrison and this year at the academy had put us through serious challenges, but his honest, hardy soul had never once wavered through all of it.
For my part, I didn’t feel like my personality had changed much, either, but the amount of height and muscle I’d put on was startling. I was seventeen when I fell into this world, which meant I felt a two-year gap between my body in the real world and my body in the Underworld. I had felt plenty weird after escaping the two years in SAO, but at this rate it was going to be more like three or four this time…
I approached my partner, holding up the sideways hand of apology and saying, “Sorry about the delay. It was a ‘special’ sparring session with Miss Liena…”
“Well…I get that. It’s the last time,” Eugeo said with a mild glare. He smiled and continued, “To be honest, I was late by twenty minutes, too. We got to talking in Golgorosso’s room.”
“Oh, sheesh. I’m surprised, though…I would have figured that Rosso was the type to let his sword do the talking.”
I walked past Eugeo to the desk-bed placed against the wall and tossed my practice gloves, elbow pads, and kneepads into the drawer. In the real world, doing this with used kendo gear would quickly produce a very fragrant bouquet, but that wouldn’t happen here due to a lack of simulated microorganisms. My uniform had been soaked with sweat at the end of our duel, but now it was completely dry. Liena, of course, had not sweat a single drop the entire time.
I straightened up, feeling much lighter now, and Eugeo smirked and said, “Rosso’s actually pretty analytical, if you’d believe it. Well, let me rephrase that. He considers the state of the mind to be just as important as one’s skills…”
“Yeah, I’d believe that. His Baltio style is more focused on the one-hit victory than the Norkia style, even.”
“Yeah. And our Aincrad style is more about adapting to the moment. But there are times when a swordsman must be unshakeable and place all his life into a single blow! …Or so he says all the time. Today was just putting a period at the end of that lesson.”
“I see. He’s got a point. And I feel like your strikes have had extra weight to them recently…But where does that leave my adaptive Aincrad style, now that it’s getting mixed in with the Serlut style’s constant shifting?”
We left the room as we chatted. Our other eight dorm-mates had gone to the mess hall, and the hallway was empty. Meals at the dorm were on a strict time limit, with dinner starting at six o’clock and ending promptly at seven. Showing up after six wasn’t against the rules, but we tried not to miss the pre-meal prayer. Anything to avoid trouble—from the noble students’ perspective, Eugeo and I were not only commoners in their midst but also taking up two of the twelve valuable page slots.
We headed for the mess hall at maximum battle speed. It couldn?
??t be a coincidence that the dorm rooms reserved for students of common birth were the farthest away. Apparently, the secondary trainee dorm was arranged the same way—but we wouldn’t need to worry about that come April. If all went according to plan, we’d score within the top twelve on the advancement test at the end of the month and earn our places within the elite disciples.
Eugeo, thinking about the same thing, muttered, “No more power walking down the hallway after this.”
“Yep. The disciples’ dorm is way more relaxed about this stuff. But Eugeo…there’s one thing that really bothers me about being a disciple…”
“Say no more. It’s about the pages, right?”
“Exactly. It was fun having Miss Liena help and instruct me…but I don’t know about being in that position myself…”
“Bingo…I don’t know what I’ll do if I end up with a noble for a page…”
We sighed in unison.
The long hallway came to an end. We pushed through the door and entered a buzzing, lively atmosphere. The mess hall opened up to both floors, and it was the only coed space in the building. The majority of the 120 students were grouped in all-male or all-female tables, but here and there were individuals with the remarkable skill of chatting with mixed company. Just like school in real life, in fact.
Eugeo and I rushed down the stairs and went to the counter to get meal trays. There was an empty table back in the corner that we slid into. Moments later, the six o’clock bells rang, meaning that we had made it in time.
A male student (noble, of course) who served as dorm leader stood up, offered a prayer to the Axiom Church, then led the group in a chant of “Avi Admina.” I had no idea what that holy phrase was supposed to mean. With those formalities out of the way, it was time to eat.
Tonight’s dinner menu was fried whitefish doused with a fragrant herb sauce, salad, root vegetable soup, and two bread rolls. It wasn’t that much different from the food served at the church in Rulid and the farm near Zakkaria, which surprised me, given how many noble students attended this academy. But they treated it as completely normal, with no complaints.