Gasfut proceeded before the knight, alone and unafraid, then clasped his hands in front of him and bowed in the manner of the Axiom Church. Then he straightened up and said in a crisp, loud voice, “I am Zuberg, the elder of Rulid Village.”
The Integrity Knight, standing a full two fists taller than Gasfut, nodded with a faint clank of metal armor, then spoke at last.
“I am the Axiom Integrity Knight overseeing the northern Norlangarth territory, Deusolbert Synthesis Seven.”
The voice had an unnatural ring to it, a quality that identified the speaker as something other than a mortal human being. The metallic sound echoed across the square, silencing all the residents of the village. Over twenty mels away, Eugeo grimaced as he felt the knight’s voice pierce his forehead rather than his ears, burrowing into his mind.
Even Gasfut stumbled back half a step, overwhelmed by its force. But he quickly recovered, regaining his posture and proclaiming, “It is the utmost of honors that an Integrity Knight, protector of all human lands, should set foot in our humble, distant village. We wish to offer you a feast of welcome, however meager it might be.”
“That will not be necessary. I am here on official duty,” the knight boomed, the gaze from the slit of the helmet as cold as ice. “I am here to apprehend and escort Alice Zuberg, daughter of Gasfut Zuberg, for her crimes against the Taboo Index, so that she may be judged and her sentence carried out.”
Alice’s body shook. But neither Eugeo nor Kirito could move a muscle, much less say anything. The knight’s words were echoing, repeating in their heads.
The elder’s body also lurched. What could be seen of his facial features from his distant profile were skewed with emotion.
After a long silence, Gasfut spoke again, his voice no longer smooth with authority. “My lord knight…what crime is it that my daughter has committed?”
“She has broken Book One, Chapter Three, Verse Eleven of the Taboo Index: venturing into the Dark Territory.”
The villagers listening to the exchange abruptly broke into uneasy murmuring. The children’s eyes bulged, and the adults muttered sacred mantras and made sigils to ward against evil.
At last, instinct pushed Eugeo and Kirito into motion. They muscled Alice out of the way and stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking her from the view of the other villagers. But they could do no more than that. If they moved too quickly, they would draw the attention of the adults just in front of them.
The only thing in Eugeo’s mind was a question that repeated over and over: What do we do? Terror bubbled in his chest, demanding immediate action, but he had no idea what action that should be.
All he could do was watch as Gasfut the elder stood, still and silent, his head hung low. It’s all right, he’ll do something, Eugeo thought. He hadn’t spoken much with Gasfut, but among the people of the village, the elder was most respected by all, after perhaps Old Man Garitta.
However…
“In that case, I will call my daughter here. I wish to hear her story for myself,” the elder said when he raised his head at last.
No! You can’t let the knight see Alice, Eugeo thought wildly. The Integrity Knight lifted a heavily armored hand. Eugeo’s heart leaped into his throat when he saw that the index finger was pointing directly toward them.
“That will not be necessary. Alice Zuberg is right there. You and you…” He pointed at two men in the midst of the crowd. “Bring the girl to me.”
The villagers parted before Eugeo’s eyes. Only he and Kirito stood between the knight and Alice now.
Two familiar villagers walked up through the empty space. Their skin was pale and lifeless, their eyes oddly empty. The men pried apart Kirito and Eugeo and pushed them aside, each grabbing one of Alice’s arms.
“Ah!” she yelped, then bravely clamped her mouth shut. A weak grin dimpled her usually rosy cheeks, and she nodded to the boys to indicate that she was all right.
“Alice…” Kirito mumbled, right as the men roughly yanked her forward and the basket fell from her arm. The lid opened, spilling the contents onto the cobblestones.
The men dragged Alice away toward the Integrity Knight before she could scoop it up. Eugeo looked down at the toppled basket.
All the pie and hard bread was wrapped in white cloth, with the rest of the basket completely packed with fine ice chips. Some of the ice had spilled out to glitter in the sunlight. Within moments, it began to melt atop the hot stones, fading away into dark little stains.
At his side, Kirito sucked in a sharp breath. Eugeo raised his head and watched them drag Alice away. He gritted his teeth and tried to force his immobile legs into action.
The two men released Alice next to the village elder, then stepped back and knelt. They clasped their hands and hung their heads in a gesture of obedience to the knight.
Alice looked to her father, her face pale. Gasfut briefly gave his daughter a pained look, then lowered his head again.
The Integrity Knight nodded, then pulled an odd tool from the back of his armor. It was a thick metal chain with three parallel strips of leather attached, ending in a large ring.
The knight handed the tool to Gasfut with a heavy clank.
“I command the village elder to punish the guilty.”
“…”
The elder stared at the shackles, dumbfounded. Just then, Kirito and Eugeo reached the knight. The imposing helmet turned slowly to face them.
The cross-shaped slit in the front of the helm was entirely dark, but Eugeo felt the power of that gaze on his skin. He automatically looked away and tried to say something to Alice, who was just ahead of them, but his throat was scorched, incapable of speech.
Kirito was similarly downcast, breathing rapidly, but then his head shot up and he spoke in a loud but tremulous voice. “Sir Knight!!”
He took another breath. “A-Alice did not enter the Dark Territory! Her hand merely brushed the surface! That was all!”
But the knight’s response was brief. “And what else is necessary?”
He waved to the kneeling men, commanding them to take the boys away. They stood up and grabbed Kirito’s and Eugeo’s collars, pulling them off. Kirito struggled helplessly. “Then…then we’re guilty, too! We were in the same place! If you’re going to take her away, take us with her!”
But the Integrity Knight did not heed them.
That’s right…If Alice broke a taboo, then we ought to be punished with her, Eugeo thought. With all his heart.
But the words would not come out. He tried to shout like Kirito, but all he could do was emit rasping exhaust, as if he had forgotten how to speak.
Alice looked back at him. She gave a small smile and nodded, as if to say it was all right.
Her stone-faced father slipped the menacing restraints over her body. She grimaced as the three leather straps wrapped tightly around her shoulders, stomach, and hips. When the last was tightened, Gasfut took a few unsteady steps back. The knight approached Alice and picked up the chain dangling from her back.
Eugeo and Kirito were dragged to the center of the square and pushed to their knees. Kirito pretended to wobble toward Eugeo so that he could whisper into the other boy’s ear. “Listen, Eugeo…I’m going to attack the knight with this ax. I’ll try to hold him off for a few seconds, and you take Alice away to freedom. If you rush to the barley field to the south, you can hide among the stalks and slip into the forest. That should give you good enough cover.”
Eugeo glanced down at the Dragonbone Ax still clutched in Kirito’s hands and found his voice at last.
“B-but…Kirito…”
You saw the way that Integrity Knight used his sword and bow yesterday. He’ll kill you in no time…just like that black knight.
Kirito read Eugeo’s unspoken thoughts on his face and continued. “It’s all right. The knight didn’t execute Alice on the spot. I don’t think he can kill someone without a trial or whatever. I’ll look for my chance to escape. Besides…”
He turned
his burning gaze upon the knight, who was checking that the restraint straps were on tight. With each tug of a strap, Alice’s face twisted in pain.
“…Besides, if we fail, so what? We’ll get hauled in with Alice and wait until we have a chance to escape. All that matters is that if Alice gets taken away on that dragon, we’ll never see her again.”
“I…don’t…”
He had a point. But it was so brash and reckless it didn’t even qualify as a “plan.” Wasn’t that just rebellion against the Church? The very greatest of crimes, outlawed in Book One, Chapter One, Verse One…
“Why would you hesitate, Eugeo?! Who cares about taboos?! Are they more important than Alice’s life?!”
Kirito’s impassioned but restrained voice lashed his ears.
And he was right.
Deep down, Eugeo’s mind screamed at him.
The three of us were born in the same year, and we decided we’d die in the same year. We swore to always help one another. Each of us lives for the other two. So there’s no reason to hesitate. Which is more important, the Axiom Church or Alice? The answer is obvious. It should be obvious. It’s…it’s…
“Eugeo…What’s wrong, Eugeo?!” Kirito nearly screamed.
Alice was looking at them, distraught. She shook her head.
A strange, unfamiliar voice broke from his throat. “It’s…it’s…”
But he couldn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t even formulate the words that came next into his head. A sharp pain winced behind his right eye. An odd itching that refused to go away was blocking his thoughts. Wince, wince. Bloodred color covered his vision. The sensation of his limbs faded.
The village elder noticed the change in Eugeo and weakly waved his arm to the two men standing behind the boys, commanding, “Take them out of the square.”
Hands grabbed their collars and resumed pulling.
“Damn…let go! Elder! Mr. Gasfut! Do you really want him to take Alice away?! Are you fine with that?!” Kirito raged, knocking away the man’s hand. He prepared to charge with the ax.
But his simple leather shoes would not take a single step forward. Something impossible had happened.
Having finished checking Alice’s restraints in the distance, the Integrity Knight merely glanced at Kirito, and the Dragonbone Ax gripped tightly in the boy’s hands clanged and flew high into the air. The knight hadn’t touched his sword or his bow. He hadn’t even moved a finger. Yet as though his own will were a physical blade, he had struck the ax from Kirito’s hands, sending it flying to the edge of the square.
Kirito fell onto his back with the momentum of that strange collision. A number of villagers immediately set upon him and held him down.
His cheek forced into the cobblestones, Kirito screamed, “Eugeo! Please, you have to go for me!”
“Ah…uhh…” Eugeo grunted. His body shuddered.
Go. You have to go. You have to steal Alice from the knight’s hands and run into the forest, a tiny voice commanded in his head. But then came that stabbing pain behind his right eyes again, robbing him of his agency. Another voice clanged inside his head along with the pulsing red light.
The Axiom Church is absolute. The Taboo Index is absolute. Disobedience is forbidden. No one is exempt from the law.
“Please, Eugeo! At least get them off me! Then I can—!”
The Integrity Knight did not watch what was happening in the square. He fixed the end of the chain to another chain connected to his dragon’s saddle. The creature lowered its head, and the knight swung up to straddle it. The silver armor shone again.
“Eugeo!!” Kirito screamed at bloodcurdling volume.
The white dragon rose, stretched it wings, and beat them. Again and again, it pounded the air.
Alice was tied directly to the dragon’s saddle. She stared at Eugeo and smiled, her blue eyes seeming to be saying good-bye. The updraft of the beating wings brushed her golden hair, which sparkled just as brightly as the knight’s armor in the sun.
But Eugeo couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak.
He couldn’t budge an inch, as though his feet were rooted right into the ground.
PROLOGUE II
JULY 2026 AD
1
Shino Asada took a sip of cold-brewed iced coffee with just a dab of milk, allowing the rich flavor to seep back into her throat before she let out a long breath.
Through the faded glass window was an assortment of colored umbrellas moving in different directions. Shino hated the rain, but it was rather relaxing to sit at a table in the hidden, alley-side café and watch the damp gray city move. The interior devoid of technology and the nostalgic smells wafting from the kitchen behind the counter made her feel like she’d fallen into some gap between the real world and the virtual world. Just an hour ago, she’d been in class, but that felt like it had happened in a distant dimension now.
“It’s really coming down.”
She didn’t realize at first that the baritone from beyond the counter was directed at her. But of course it was; there were no other customers. Shino turned to look at the barista polishing drinking glasses, his skin the shade of a latte.
“It’s the rainy season,” she replied. “It’s supposed to rain until tomorrow.”
“And here I thought it was the work of an undine mage,” the stern-faced man said flatly. She snorted.
“No one’s going to understand that you told a joke if you don’t at least make the right expression, Agil.”
“Hrm…”
Agil, owner of the café/bar Dicey Café, wriggled his eyebrows and mouth in search of the “right expression,” prompting Shino to burst into laughter when each face he made looked more likely to bring small children to tears. She lifted her glass to her mouth and drowned out the laughter with coffee.
Satisfied, he put on an even fiercer look, just before the bell on the door jingled. A new guest stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway when he saw the proprietor’s face, and he shook his head.
“Listen, Agil, if you greet all your customers that way, your place is going to go out of business very quickly.”
“N-no, it’s not that. This is my joke face.”
“…It’s not that, either,” the customer snapped, putting his umbrella in the whiskey barrel near the door once he’d shaken off the drops. When he saw Shino, he waved to her. “’Sup.”
“You’re late,” she scolded, glaring at Kazuto Kirigaya as he winced in apology.
“Sorry, it’s been so long since I rode the train…” He sat down across from Shino, opening his collar.
“You didn’t ride your motorcycle?”
“I wasn’t up for riding it in the rain…I’ll have a caffé shakerato, Agil,” said Kazuto, trying a new drink. The collarbone peeking through the top of his shirt was as thin as that of his virtual avatar. His skin color wasn’t particularly healthy, either.
“…Have you lost more weight? You really need to eat more.” Shino grimaced, but Kazuto just waved his hand.
“I was back at my base weight for a while. I just lost a bit more over this long weekend…”
“Why, were you training in the mountains?”
“Nope, just sleeping.”
“How do you lose that much weight?”
“Probably because I wasn’t eating anything.”
“…Huh? Are you trying to reach enlightenment or something?” she asked, baffled. Just then, a light clattering came from the counter. The owner of the café was working a silver shaker with (rude as it was to admit) surprising dexterity for his size. Agil poured the contents of the shaker into a wide coupe glass and set it on a tray, and Shino was reminded that the place turned into a bar at night.
He set down the glass in front of Kazuto, the contents light brown with a fine layer of froth on top.
“So this is a…caffé shakey-something?” she asked. Kazuto pushed the glass over to her. She lifted it and put her lips to the rim to take a sip. The creamy texture of the head gave way to a pl
easantly chilly coffee flavor, followed by a sweet aftertaste. It wasn’t anything like the cans of iced milk-coffee from the vending machine at school.
“…It’s good,” she murmured.
Agil tapped his bulging bicep happily. “You can’t get that much head on it unless the bartender really knows what he’s doing.”
“We hear enough bragging about your skill levels without you having to do it in real life, Agil. And what’s that smell?” Kazuto wondered, his nose twitching.
The bartender cleared his throat and announced, “Boston baked beans. They don’t come out right unless the cook really knows what she’s—”
“Oh, a taste from home from your wife, huh? I’ll take an order of those, too.”
Agil retreated to the kitchen, scowling at being cut off. Kazuto grabbed the glass back from Shino and took a big gulp. He exhaled, sat up straight, and stared right at her.
“…How is he doing?”
Shino understood at once what he meant. But rather than answer, she snatched Kazuto’s glass back again and downed a big swig. The thick froth slid past her tongue, filling her nose with rich flavor. The coffee’s stimulation jolted the fragments of memory into the form of a proper response.
“Yeah…He seems to have settled down a lot.”
Half a year ago, at the end of 2025, these two were involved in the “Death Gun” incident.
One of the three culprits in that case and Shino’s only real friend at the time, Kyouji Shinkawa, underwent an extraordinarily long trial for a case involving a minor and was finally sent to a juvenile medical facility last month.
He maintained total silence throughout the trial and hardly said a word to the experts brought in for a psychological evaluation until, at last, six months after the case, he finally began to answer the counselor’s questions bit by bit. Shino had a rough suspicion of why it took exactly that long. Six months—180 days—was the length of time until an unpaid subscription in the VRMMO game Gun Gale Online forced the automatic termination of the account. Only when that much time had passed and Kyouji’s alter ego, Spiegel, was gone forever from the GGO server did he summon up the determination to face reality.