Alicization Beginning

  “…If you don’t mind, I’d like to help out with your work again today,” I offered. He beamed.

  “Of course, I’d love that. I had a feeling you’d say so; look, I brought twice the bread money today just in case.”

  He pulled two small copper coins from his trousers and jangled them in his palm.

  “Ohh, no, I feel bad. I couldn’t,” I protested, but Eugeo just shrugged and smiled.

  “Don’t worry about it. All the payment I get from the village hall each month just piles up without anything meaningful to spend it on.”

  Oooh, perfect, that means a good stock of money for the trip to the city, I thought wickedly. Now I just needed to find a way to cut down that enormous tree so that Eugeo’s Calling would be fulfilled.

  Meanwhile, Eugeo’s innocent smile made my heart hurt when I thought of the tricks I was playing. He said, “Let’s go,” and started walking south. As I followed, I looked over my shoulder one last time to the bells that rang automatically on the hour.

  It really was a strange world. Around the edges of the ultrarealistic depiction of an agrarian village were little hints of VRMMO systems. Even in the old flying Aincrad, there were bell towers that rang out automatically on the hour in all the major cities.

  Sacred arts. Axiom Church. Were these just the specific names for magic spells and the world-ordering system? If that were the case, what did the “land of darkness” outside the world mean? A system at odds with the system…

  While I was lost in thought, Eugeo stopped to greet a woman in an apron outside of what looked like a bakery, where he bought four of those round bread rolls. Inside the store, I could see a man smacking and kneading a wad of dough, and a large oven emitting fragrant smells.

  In another hour, perhaps half, we could buy fresh-baked bread, but I suspected that the fussy nature of the “Calling” system prevented us from doing that. Eugeo had a strict time when he had to be in the forest, swinging his ax, and it was not open to debate. I had to remind myself that my plan called for him to totally upend his way of life, and that overcoming this would not be easy.

  But there was always a loophole, a shortcut. Such as me, the guy who showed up out of nowhere to help him do his work.

  We passed through the southern arch and headed down the road, winding through green fields toward the heavy forest along the border. Even from here, the proud form of the Gigas Cedar was visible, jutting above all.

  Eugeo and I took turns desperately swinging the Dragonbone Ax, until the sun he called Solus reached the sky directly overhead.

  I summoned what little strength I had left into my numb, heavy arms, slamming my five-hundredth swing into the gut of the monstrous tree. It smacked heartily true, sending out a fleck of wood the size of a sand grain—a sign that I’d managed to inflict the tiniest bit of damage on the tree’s preposterous durability rating.

  “Aaagh, I can’t swing one more time,” I wailed, tossing aside the ax and wilting down onto the moss. Eugeo offered me a canteen of something he called siral water—I didn’t know what language it was supposed to be—and I greedily sucked down the sweetly sour liquid.

  He looked down at me with comfortable confidence and said in the tone of an instructor, “You know, you’ve got good fundamentals. I think you’ve really come a long way in just two days.”

  “…But I’m still…nowhere near as good as you…” I gasped, sitting up properly and leaning back against the Gigas Cedar.

  Thanks to the heavy workout lasting all morning, I felt like I had a much better grasp on my own physical status in this new world.

  For one thing, the superhuman strength and agility that SAO swordsman Kirito was blessed with were completely absent here, though I’d already surmised this. But my physique wasn’t based on the frailty of the real-world Kazuto Kirigaya, either. If the real me tried swinging this heavy ax for an hour, I’d find myself bedridden from muscle pain the next day.

  Which meant my current stamina must have been based on the average build of a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boy. Eugeo seemed far tougher than me, which made sense if he’d been at this for seven years already.

  Fortunately, the ability to use instinct and imagination to move my avatar was at least equally sensitive, if not even greater, than in the VRMMOs I’d been playing all this time. Thanks to attempting hundreds of swings with a focus on weight and trajectory, I felt confident I’d be able to control the ax to an acceptable degree, even with its high strength requirement.

  Plus, repeated practice of the same actions was a specialty of mine; I’d cut down on my sleeping hours in Aincrad to do that very thing. When it came to patient perseverance, I was at least Eugeo’s equal…

  No…wait. There was something important in that thought just now…

  “Here, Kirito,” Eugeo said, tossing me a pair of rolls and interrupting my train of thought. I awkwardly reached out and grabbed a roll in each hand.

  “…? Why the serious face?”

  “Uh…nothing…”

  I tried desperately to catch the tail of the slippery thought before it left my mind but was left with nothing but the irritating fugue of knowing that I’d just been thinking about something very important. I had no choice but to shrug it off and assume that if it was that important, it would occur to me again later.

  “Thanks for the food, Eugeo.”

  “Sorry it’s the same thing as yesterday.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  I opened wide and bit down. The flavor was good—but the chewiness was a bit off the scale. Eugeo shared my opinion, scowling as he worked his jaw.

  For several minutes we silently chewed away at our first rolls of bread, then shared an awkward smile when we finished together. Eugeo took a mouthful of siral water and gazed into the distance.

  “…I wish you could have eaten one of Alice’s pies, Kirito…The crust was crispy, and the insides were packed with juicy bits…With a cup of fresh milk, you couldn’t imagine anything better…”

  Oddly enough, I felt the taste of that pie register on my tongue, and a flood of saliva issued forth. I bit down on the second roll to hide my surprise, then asked, “Say, Eugeo…This Alice girl studied sacred arts at the church, right? In order to take over Sister Azalia’s position one day.”

  “That’s right. She was said to be the first true genius since the founding of the village. From the age of ten, she could use all kinds of arts,” he answered proudly.

  “Then…what about Selka, the girl studying at the church now?”

  “Ah…After the Integrity Knight took Alice away, Sister Azalia was very depressed. She said she’d never take another apprentice, but Elder Gasfut convinced her that the teaching must go on, and so two years ago, she finally took in Selka as her new apprentice. She’s Alice’s little sister.”

  “Her sister…Ohh…”

  That was funny, because if anything, Selka seemed like the bossy-older-sister type. If she was that girl’s sister, then Alice must’ve been quite the busybody getting into everyone’s business. She would have made a great team with Eugeo.

  I glanced over at him and saw that he was pensive.

  “…We’re five years apart, so in fact, I haven’t spent much time with Selka. On the occasions when I would visit Alice’s home, Selka was usually hiding shyly behind her mother or grandmother…Her father, Gasfut; the other adults; and even Sister Azalia are all hoping that as Alice’s sister, Selka will display the same talent for the sacred arts…but…”

  “But Selka isn’t quite the genius her sister was?” I asked rather bluntly. Eugeo grimaced a bit and shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t say that. Everyone is poor at their Calling right after they receive it. It took me over three years to learn how to swing the ax properly. No matter what Calling you have, if you treat it seriously, you can master it eventually, like the adults do. But in Selka’s case…I think she’s trying a little too hard for someone just twelve years old…”

  “Trying
too hard?”

  “When Alice started studying the sacred arts, she wasn’t actually living in the church. She studied in the mornings, brought me my lunch at noon, and helped around the house in the afternoon. But Selka left home, saying it wouldn’t give her enough time to study. On the other hand, that was around the time that Jana and Arug came to the church, too, which was a little more than Sister Azalia could handle.”

  I thought of Selka, diligently watching after the younger children. It didn’t seem like she was having that hard of a time with it, but doing a full day’s study on top of taking care of six children had to be quite difficult for a girl only twelve years old.

  “I see what you mean…And now they’ve got a ‘lost child of Vecta’ to add to the mix. I’d better be careful not to make extra trouble for Selka,” I said, making a mental note to get up at five thirty on the dot tomorrow. “Oh, and did you say that all the kids aside from Selka living at the church lost their parents? Both parents? How are there six orphans in such a peaceful village?”

  Eugeo glanced down at the moss at his feet, distress palpable in his features.

  “Three years ago…there was a plague in the village. It hadn’t swept through for over a century, they said, and it ultimately took the lives of over twenty villagers—adults and children. No matter how hard Sister Azalia and Miss Ivenda the herbs master tried, there was no help for those whose fever got bad enough. The children at the church lost their parents to the disease.”

  The revelation stunned me.

  An epidemic? But this is a virtual world. There can’t be actual germs or viruses here. Which means those who died of disease were meant to do so by the person or system in charge of managing this world. But why? Perhaps it was an intentional strain placed upon the village in the form of a natural disaster, but what was it meant to simulate?

  Once again, it all came down to the same question: What was the reason this world existed?

  Whether he recognized the meaning behind my expression or not, Eugeo continued, “It’s not just the plague. A number of strange things have happened recently. Villagers attacked by wandering long-clawed bears and packs of black wolves, crops that refuse to bloom…Some months, the regular caravan from Zakkaria never shows up. They say it’s because bands of goblins are attacking the road far to the south of us.”

  “Wh-what?” I said, stunned. “But wait…what did you say about goblins earlier? That the knights guard the border…”

  “Of course. If the descendants of darkness approach the End Mountains, an Integrity Knight will defeat them at once. They have to—they’re much, much worse than Alice, who merely brushed the ground of that place.”

  “Eugeo…”

  I was surprised to hear a note of angry chagrin in Eugeo’s normally placid voice, but a wan smile replaced it at once.

  “…Which is why I think it’s all just rumor. Still, it’s true that there’s been a rush of new graves out behind the church in the last few years. Grandpa says times like this come around.”

  I heard a little voice alerting me that this was the opportunity to ask one of those questions I’d been wondering.

  “Say, Eugeo…Are there sacred arts that can, you know…bring people back to life?” I asked, expecting yet another of his wide-eyed stares, but to my surprise, he merely bit his lip and bobbed his head vaguely.

  “I don’t think many of the villagers know…but Alice once told me that among the highest sacred arts is the ability to increase life itself.”

  “Increase…life?”

  “Yeah. We cannot increase the life of all people and things, including you and me, as you know. So a person’s life grows and grows as we go from baby to child to adult, and in most cases, it maxes out at age twenty-five. After that point, it slowly drops, and at around seventy to eighty years of age, we are called back to Stacia’s side. You remember all that, right?”

  “Y-yeah.”

  It was all new to me, of course, but I put on an understanding face. What Eugeo said was essentially that one’s max HP increased or decreased by age.

  “But when you get sick or hurt, your life drops by a lot. Depending on the depth of the injury, it could lead right to death, which is why we use sacred arts and herbs to heal. In doing so, life can be restored, but never above the proper total. You cannot make the elderly as strong as their youthful peak with herbs or heal grievous wounds…”

  “But you’re saying there are arts that can do this?”

  “Alice said she was surprised to read that in an old book at the church. When she asked Sister Azalia about it, the sister was ferociously stern, took the book away, and told her to forget what she’d read…So I don’t know any more than that, but I’m sure that it’s only usable by the highest priests of the Axiom Church. It works not on wounds or illnesses but on a person’s life itself…from what she said. But I couldn’t begin to guess how the arts themselves work, of course.”

  “Ohh…high priests, huh? So it’s not like any old priest in the church can perform those sacred arts.”

  “Of course not. The arts get their strength from the sacred power that Solus and Terraria and the like pour into the air and earth. The bigger the art, the more sacred power necessary. Manipulating human life is a tremendous art, so it might require more power than can be gathered from this entire forest. You won’t find a single person able to wield so much power in all of Zakkaria, I bet.”

  Eugeo paused there, then continued in a quieter voice, “Plus…if Sister Azalia could do such a thing, she would never have allowed those parents and children to lose their loved ones to disease.”

  “Good point…”

  That suggested that if I died on the spot, I would not be resurrected at a church altar to the sonorous tones of a pipe organ. Death would most likely result in my waking up in the STL in real life. If it didn’t work like that, I had a problem. The STL didn’t have the ability to destroy the user’s fluctlight, unlike the NerveGear—I hoped.

  But I preferred to save the “death as escape” option for desperate times. My expectation that this was the Underworld was not yet confirmed, and even if I knew that for a fact, there was a little voice deep down in my soul that warned it might not be best to disengage before I discovered the purpose of this living simulation.

  If only I could instantly teleport to the capital, charge into this Axiom Church place, and grill the high priests for the answers. The lack of a teleportation feature was a major setback in terms of playability. Even SAO had teleport gates in almost every town.

  It was an issue that I might complain about to the administrators, if this were a regular VRMMO. But without that capability, I just had to do my best within the confines of the system. The same way I racked my brain to figure out the best way to defeat bosses back in the old Aincrad.

  I finished my second piece of bread and lifted Eugeo’s canteen to my mouth, looking up at the impossibly massive trunk overhead.

  Eugeo’s assistance was vital to reach the city. But he was too responsible to abandon his Calling, not to mention that the Taboo Index no doubt forbade it.

  That left one choice: figure out how to deal with this monstrous tree.

  For his part, Eugeo was getting to his feet, patting his trousers clean. “Well, let’s get started on the afternoon work. I’ll go first—hand me the ax?”

  “Sure,” I said, leaning and grabbing the middle of the ax handle next to me so I could put it into his outstretched hand.

  A bolt of lightning blasted through my head. The thing that had wriggled from my grasp before was back, and this time I squeezed tight and pulled, ensuring it did not slip away again.

  Eugeo said it himself. A normal ax would easily chip on the tree, which was why they’d spent such an extravagant amount shipping this ax from the big city.

  So what if we used an even stronger ax? One with a higher strength requirement, with even greater attack and durability?

  “H-hey, Eugeo,” I began, launching right into the pitch.
“Are there any stronger axes than this in the village? Or if not here, then in Zakkaria…? It’s been three centuries since you got this ax, right?”

  But he merely shook his head. “Of course not. Dragon bones are the greatest possible material for a weapon. It’s even harder than Damascus steel from the south and Tamahagane steel from the east. To get something stronger than this, you’d need an Integrity Knight’s…divine weapon…”

  His voice slowed and trailed off. I looked at him with equal parts patience and curiosity. Five seconds later, he spoke again softly, reaching blindly for his conclusion.

  “…There’s…no ax…but there is…a sword.”

  “Sword…?”

  “Do you remember when I said there was another divine object in the village, aside from the Bells of Time-Tolling?”

  “Er…yeah.”

  “It’s actually quite close…And I’m the only one in the village who knows about it. I’ve kept it hidden for six whole years…Do you want to see it, Kirito?”

  “O-of course! Please, please show it to me!” I said enthusiastically. Eugeo mulled it over a bit more and eventually decided he would do it. He handed me back the ax.

  “Why don’t you get started on this, then? I’ll go get it, but it might take me a little while.”

  “Is it kept far away?”

  “No, it’s in the storage shed right over there. It’s just…very heavy.”

  Sure enough, when he came back after I finished a full set of fifty swings, Eugeo’s forehead was glistening with sweat.

  “H-hey, you all right?” I asked, but all he could do was nod weakly and toss what he carried over his shoulder onto the ground. It landed with a loud, heavy thud and sank deep into the carpet of moss. Eugeo sat down, panting heavily, and I rushed to give him the siral water before I turned to look at what he’d brought.

  I recognized the object—it was the narrow, nearly four-feet-long leather container I’d seen on the storage shed’s floor when Eugeo put away the ax yesterday.