“And yet…you didn’t surrender…You…you enormous fool.”
Her eyes squeezed shut, the long lashes trembling. But she won the saving roll against tears, took a deep breath, and opened them. Those deep-blue eyes were full of a warmth I’d never seen before.
“It was…an incredible battle, Kirito. I want to thank you. I’m sad that it wasn’t just for me…but you showed me everything your sword can do, as you promised. Thank you.”
“Uh…b-but it was a draw…”
“You’re upset about taking Levantein to a draw?”
“I—I didn’t mean it that way,” I complained, shaking my head.
She favored me with a rare chuckle and leaned close to my ear to whisper, “The outcome of the bout does not matter. I’ve learned something…something very valuable from your fight. I am now filled with pride at being the heir to the Serlut style…and joy. At being your tutor, as well.”
She patted my shoulders again and pulled away, the corners of her mouth still very slightly upturned. “There is still some time until curfew. Come to my room so we can celebrate. Call Eugeo, too…Just this once, I’ll allow his tutor to come as well.”
I broke into a smile, nodded, and gestured to Eugeo in the stands, pointing to the exit. Once he and Golgorosso got up to leave, I began to walk with Liena across the floor of the still-buzzing training hall.
All the while, the majority of my brain was preoccupied not with visions of Liena’s special wine collection, or Golgorosso’s endless lectures on the history of sword strategy, but…
You have the option of surrendering in a punishment duel?!
So it was that I barely even noticed Humbert and Raios, sitting in a corner of the stands and shooting me looks of very explicit intent.
6
In the late Aincrad, there had been an abundant variety of wines and ales.
But even an entire barrel of the hardiest, harshest fire whiskey was fundamentally unable to get the drinker inebriated. The user’s physical body, resting on its gel bed in the real world, wasn’t taking a drop of alcohol, after all.
But to my surprise, alcohol in this world did function as intended, to a degree. I suspected that it worked by sending the fluctlights signals intended to simulate a state of inebriation, but in a sign of good conscience uncharacteristic for such a merciless experiment, the effects of being drunk were limited to a level of good cheer, while still retaining rational reason. There were no crying drunks or angry drunks, and no one broke the law on account of the effects of alcohol.
And yet, there was no guarantee those conditions would hold true for me, so when Liena threw her “Draw Celebration Party,” I held myself to just two glasses of wine. This was a considerable act of self-control, as Liena had opened up a priceless hundred-year vintage that was so tasty, even a complete newbie like me had to admit that it was fantastic.
Eugeo and Golgorosso joined in the fun, so we reveled in the year’s events, made predictions for the year-advancement tests, and even got into the nitty-gritty of different skills and styles. Before I knew it, we had just fifteen minutes until the primary trainee curfew.
We left the disciples’ dorm with great regret. Eugeo hadn’t yet recovered from his “drunk” status effect, so I dropped him off at the dorm room and headed for the flower beds to the west. Just because it was a day of rest didn’t mean the zephilias could go without water. I marched down the staircase and opened the door to the outside.
In the time that I had laid Eugeo into his bed and stashed my sword in the drawer, the last bit of sunlight had vanished, leaving only the shroud of night.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath to savor the chill of the night and the pleasant smell of the anemones in full bloom—but grimaced instead. There was another smell in the air, a clinging odor of some animal-oil perfume. I recognized that smell. I’d experienced it just last night at dinner…but it shouldn’t have showed up here.
My eyes snapped open and squinted down the path that split the flowers into four beds, right at the same time that two figures appeared from the darkness. They were wearing the same gray trainee uniforms that we all did, but they both had three buttons of the jackets undone, exposing boldly colored undershirts. The one with the gleaming red shirt was Raios Antinous. The one in fluorescent yellow was Humbert Zizek.
No sooner did I wonder why these two would be out in the garden, given their total lack of interest in plant cultivation, than a nasty foreboding entered my mind. I stood in place, one step in front of the garden door on the west wall of the dorm, as Raios and Humbert walked directly up to face me from a few feet away.
“Well, well, what a pleasant coincidence, Trainee Kirito,” Raios drawled, his voice smooth and yet ugly with malice. “We were just thinking of going to find you. Thanks for saving us the trouble.”
Humbert giggled gleefully. I looked back at Raios and muttered, “What do you want?”
His friend scowled in fury, but Raios held up a hand to stifle him and answered, “To offer my praise for your splendid battle, naturally. I never would have expected the page to a banned disciple to fight the great Levantein to a draw.”
“Absolutely, absolutely. I daresay that the first seat was stunned by the acrobatics of your swordplay,” Humbert joined in, cackling.
I kept my tone of voice low. “Are you offering me compliments or insults?”
“Ha-ha-ha, wouldn’t dream of it! Higher nobles would never bother to offer commoners anything. We may provide some things, however. Ha-ha!” Raios laughed, very pleased with himself, and stuck his hand into his jacket pocket, pulling out something long and narrow. “In honor of your acrobatics—er, your accomplishments—I provide you with this. Please accept it.”
He took a step forward, reached out, and placed the object in my front pocket.
“If you’ll pardon us, we shall now take our leave. Sweet dreams, Sir Kirito,” Raios murmured into my ear, his lips curled into a grin, and passed by me with a wave of golden hair.
Humbert leaned in next and spat, “Don’t get full of yourself, you nameless cretin,” before following.
They walked into the building and slammed the door behind them, but I was still frozen where I stood.
The object Raios had placed in my pocket was a flower bud with a single bluish leaf. It looked nearly ready to bloom. I plucked it from my pocket with a freezing-cold hand and examined it.
The flower, its stem crudely ripped at the end, belonged to none of the Four Holy Flowers. It was a zephilia, the western flower I’d been trying over and over to grow for the past six months.
With that understanding came a rage so profound, I nearly cracked my molars with the strength of my jaws grinding. If I’d had my sword with me, I’d have rushed into the building and swung it at Raios and Humbert. Instead, I raced for the back of the garden, clutching the pale-blue bud in my trembling fingers. Past the intersecting paths and to the tool shelf on the back wall, where a white planter came into view.
“Ah…aaaah…” I gasped.
The twenty-three zephilia plants that I had bought as spice seeds, raised in unfamiliar soil and very nearly brought to bloom, were all cruelly torn off their stalks.
The round buds were scattered around the planter, their trademark blue color already fading. The stems left in the ground were wilting, clearly losing the last remnants of their life.
Right in the midst of the dying plants stood the tool of their destruction, stuck in the earth like a gravestone: a long metal trowel of the kind used to plant bulbs. Raios and Humbert had used the sharp edges of the tool to sever the fragile plants.
I felt the strength drain out of my legs, and I collapsed to my knees in front of the planter. Through eyes dazed and bleary, staring half-focused at the scattered buds, I tried to think.
Why? The motive and means were obvious, but why did they undertake this course of action? Intentional destruction of another’s property was a clear violation of the Taboo Index. It should have been an iro
nclad rule, even for higher nobles like them.
Object ownership in the Underworld was defined without room for mistake. As I learned when I went out on our journey, the windows for your objects always included a small P field indicating possession. In other words, everything without a P on it was not yours and couldn’t be stolen or destroyed.
Yes, there was no possession of plants while they were still rooted to the ground, but that ground itself could be owned. A plant growing in soil owned by someone was that person’s property. The flower beds behind me were on Swordcraft Academy land, so the blooming anemones belonged to the school. And I had bought that planter in District Six, so I had always assumed that the zephilia plants growing in it naturally became my property.
Through a mind numbed by rage and despair, I finally hit on the fact of the matter. My eyes bulged.
The dirt. The black soil filling the planter…I hadn’t dug that up from the academy ground or bought it at the market. I had brought it back from outside the city, from a patch of land owned by no one. And I had told Muhle about it, as well as several others. Raios and Humbert must have overheard and determined that if they were growing in soil from a distant location without an owner, the plants would belong to no one, too.
If that was true, this was all my fault. I should have thought harder about placing my precious plants in a spot that anyone had the right to access.
Underworldians never broke the law. But that didn’t mean they were all fundamentally good people. Some of them followed a personal creed that said anything that wasn’t explicitly outlawed was open to interpretation. I was supposed to have learned that in the Zakkaria tournament.
“…I’m sorry…” I grunted.
With one hand, I plucked up the scattered buds around the stand and placed them in my other palm. The brilliant blue of the plants grew grayer as I collected them.
Right after I finished pooling together all twenty-three buds, they died out for good. The little plants crumbled in my palms, spraying a brief, weak blue light, then melted away into the air.
Suddenly, tears flooded my eyes.
I tried to force my mouth into a smile, mocking myself for crying over my precious flowers being ripped up by bullies. But the only thing that happened was a twitching in my cheeks, sending the pooled tears running down them to drip onto the bricks at my feet.
At long last, I realized what meaning I had put into those zephilia sprouts.
The first reason I had tried raising those flowers was to experiment with the power of mental images in the Underworld.
The second reason…was to fulfill Liena’s desire to see a real zephilia flower, just once.
But there had been a third reason that I’d never consciously grasped until just now. I saw something of myself in these little flowers, desperately trying to grow in foreign soil. Cut off from the real world, from those I loved and cared about, assailed by the pain and loneliness of not knowing when I might see them again—things I had tried to share with these little flowers…
The tears continued to gush forth, flowing down my cheeks and dripping off.
I huddled into a ball, trying to hold back the sobs, and was about to collapse to the ground when it happened again.
I heard the voice.
Have faith.
Believe in the strength of the flowers you grew so well in this foreign land. Believe in yourself, for getting them to that point.
It was that strange voice I’d heard a number of times on my long journey. It sounded feminine, but it didn’t belong to anyone I recognized. It wasn’t the voice of the young girl I had heard in the cave through the End Mountains two years ago. It was calm, full of deep knowledge and just the faintest hint of warmth…
“…But…they’re all dead,” I mumbled.
It’s all right, the voice answered quietly. The roots in the soil are still doing their best to live. Can’t you feel it…? All the holy flowers blooming in these flower beds are trying to save their little companions. They want to share their life with them. And you can transfer that wish to the zephilia roots.
“…I can’t. I don’t know how to use such high-level sacred arts.”
The formal arts are nothing but a tool to harness and refine the “Meaning”—what you call the mental image. At this point, you need neither chants nor catalysts.
Now wipe your tears and get to your feet. Feel the prayer of the flowers.
Feel the ways of the world…
And with that, the voice vanished into the distant night sky.
I took a deep, quavering breath, exhaled, then rubbed at my eyes with the ends of my sleeves. With great force of will, I pulled myself up into a standing position.
Behind me, there was an incredible sight. The holy flowers planted in the four flower beds of the garden—not just the blue anemones in full bloom but the bud-less marigolds, the short stalks growing from the dahlia bulbs, and the cattleyas with their crawling roots—were glowing faintly green in the darkness.
Sacred power. Spatial resources. These words were crass and pointless in the presence of that gentle, warm, powerful glow.
Guided by the light, I spread my hands to the four species of flowers and whispered, “Please…give them your strength…just a bit of your life.”
I focused on an image—the life force coming from the flowers running through me like a conduit and into the zephilia roots left in the planter.
Narrow, glowing green lines rose in countless numbers from the flower beds. They gathered and wove together, forming a number of thick ribbons. I waved my fingers, and they danced silently through the air, flowing toward a single point.
All that was left was to close the final distance. The ribbon of light infused the planter of broken stalks, wrapping around it multiple times to look like one enormous flower, then melting into the ground and vanishing.
Slowly but surely, the twenty-three stalks began to rebuild and regrow. Leaves like sharp little swords split off from them, spreading to protect round, bulging buds.
Once again, my eyes filled with tears.
What a mysterious, wondrous world. It was all, all of it, a collection of virtual objects, and yet it was equipped with beauty…with life…with will that far surpassed the real world’s.
“…Thank you,” I whispered to the Four Holy Flowers and to the owner of the mysterious voice. After some brief consideration, I took the sigil pin off my uniform collar and placed it at the edge of the planter. It was a sign that this land belonged to me.
When I got back to the room, I would apologize to the branch of the Gigas Cedar I’d turned into a sword, for cutting it down. And I would thank it, for helping me in the match against Volo.
For a long while, I gazed at the zephilia buds, now fully regrown. When the bells rang seven thirty, I got up and started walking back to the dorm.
Just before I reached the door, I glanced to the south, over the stone wall surrounding the garden, over the roof of the training hall, at the massive Central Cathedral that split the starry sky in half. The way the countless windows shone orange was just like a skyscraper in the real world, only this one was far taller and more beautiful.
Just at that moment, one light separated itself from the tower, very high up.
I squinted, unable to believe it. But it wasn’t an illusion or a hallucination. The light was growing, bit by bit, approaching North Centoria. It glided through the night sky, maintaining altitude…
“…A dragon!” I gasped.
No doubt about it. The light was from one of the enormous lanterns that hung from the flying dragon’s armor. It wasn’t a headlight or a warning signal, merely a light meant to inspire the proper fear and respect in the people on the ground by night, as they did during the day. Riding on the back of that dragon was an Integrity Knight, highest agent of control and order in the world.
The gigantic beast crossed the sky, its wings held outstretched, moving in the northeast direction. It was likely heading for the End Mountains t
o undertake its duties of protecting the human realm. The dragon would cross that 750-kilometer expanse in a single day—a trip that had taken Eugeo and me an entire year.
Once the light of the lantern had vanished into the night, I craned my neck to gaze upon the cathedral tower again. The knight had taken off from about three-quarters of the way up. Perhaps there was something like a flight pad up there. I tried looking higher than that, but the top of the tower was lost in the darkness.
What I sought had to be up there: the door to the real world.
But was it my imagination, or did the thirst to return grow weaker and weaker by the day? And was it a trick of the mind that it seemed to be replaced by a growing desire to see more of this mysterious and beautiful world, to know it more intimately…?
I breathed in a lungful of the flowers’ sweet scent, exhaled slowly, and tore my gaze from the cathedral tower to open the old door and return to the dorm.
At the end of March…
Second-seat disciple Sortiliena Serlut participated in the graduation tournament and, in her final opportunity, bested first-seat disciple Volo Levantein, thus graduating from the North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy as its top student.
When we parted ways, I presented her with the planter full of blooming zephilias, and she presented me with the first dazzling smile and tears that I had ever seen from her.
Two weeks after her graduation, she appeared in the Imperial Battle Tournament, but in the first round, she ran into the representative of the Norlangarth Knighthood and lost by a slim margin after a fierce battle.
INTERLUDE II
The bootheels clicked, and a crisp, loud voice filled the large chamber.
“Elite Disciple Eugeo, I have a report to make! Today’s cleaning has been completed to satisfaction!”
The voice belonged to a red-haired girl dressed in the gray uniform of a primary trainee, her facial features still containing traces of childhood.
Less than a month had passed since she had traveled through the academy’s gate and achieved the honor of being an elite disciple’s page, and there was a painful, awkward stiffness to her actions and posture.