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  Copyright

  ACCEL WORLD, Volume 14

  REKI KAWAHARA

  Translation by Jocelyne Allen

  Cover art by HIMA

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  ACCEL WORLD Vol. 14

  © REKI KAWAHARA 2013

  First published in Japan in 2013 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2018 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Yen On Edition: June 2018

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kawahara, Reki, author. | HIMA (Comic book artist) illustrator. | Beepee, designer. | Allen, Jocelyne, 1974– translator.

  Title: Accel World / Reki Kawahara ; illustrations, HIMA ; design, bee-pee ; translation by Jocelyne Allen.

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2014–

  Identifiers: LCCN 2014025099 | ISBN 9780316376730 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296366 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296373 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296380 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296397 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296403 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316358194 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316317610 (v. 8 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316502702 (v. 9 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316466059 (v. 10 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316466066 (v. 11 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316466073 (v. 12 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975300067 (v. 13 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975327231 (v. 14 : pbk.)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Science fiction. | Virtual reality—Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.K1755Kaw 2014 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2014025099

  ISBNs: 978-1-9753-2723-1 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-2724-8 (ebook)

  E3-20180524-JV-PC

  1

  “Do you remember, C?”

  Haruyuki shifted his gaze at the sudden question and found that, at some point, a small figure had come to stand next to him.

  The armor of her upper body, patterned after a white Japanese robe, was the color of unbleached fabric, the whitest shade available, with pure, natural-fiber materials. Meanwhile, the hakama she wore on her lower half was a brilliant red, a fresh yet solemn color, while her avatar’s long hair hung down to the belt around her waist, covering her slender back. She exuded the overall impression of an ethereal shrine maiden.

  One of the Four Elements who formed the senior executive council within the Black Legion, Nega Nebulus, and also known by the name Testarossa, Ardor Maiden looked up at Haruyuki with her cool, cherubic eye lenses. “…Do you remember what you said to me a little over ten days ago, when we were locked up inside the Castle?”

  “Uh, um…” Unable to immediately answer Maiden’s—aka Utai Shinomiya’s—question, Haruyuki scratched the metallic helmet of his own duel avatar, Silver Crow, with the tips of his fingers.

  Naturally, he clearly remembered from beginning to end how they had charged into the only area in the Accelerated World where entry was prohibited, which corresponded to the Imperial Palace in the real world—the Castle. Groups of super-powerful soldier Enemies patrolled the inside, and if they hadn’t been able to find a way out, Utai and Haruyuki would have no doubt ended up in a kind of pseudo–Unlimited EK situation.

  Their exploration of the Castle had taken a full night, including breaks, and during that time, they had talked about any number of things. Thus, now, ten days later, the mental acuity he needed to pinpoint exactly which conversation Utai was talking about was—

  Suddenly, the plate under his feet shuddered fiercely, and Haruyuki opened his wings slightly to keep his balance. As he did, he reached out to support Maiden’s back with his left hand; the female avatar neatly dipped her head in thanks.

  “Sorry!” A voice came through a speaker up ahead. “There was, like, this huge hole in the road! Anyone fall off?!”

  “NP.” The reply came from an avatar opposite Haruyuki and Utai, who sported a deep-crimson leopard head: Blood Leopard. The other passengers—the Black King, Black Lotus; her deputy Sky Raker; Cyan Pile; and Lime Bell—also snapped to attention and stared out ahead of the vehicle as it roared forward.

  Haruyuki and the other members of Nega Nebulus, together with Pard, the Submaster of the Red Legion, Prominence—a total of seven people—were careening down the Century End stage road on a massive, twelve-wheeled armored trailer. Sitting in the cockpit was none other than the master of Prominence, the Red King, Scarlet Rain.

  The treacherous vehicle held four auto cannons on the front of the tractor, multiple missile pods on the trailer area (which was where Haruyuki and the others were standing), and had large-diameter laser guns equipped on both sides. Not to mention that the trailer itself was the Enhanced Armament “Invincible,” transformed into a sort of souped-up tank by the Red King—who also boasted the nickname Immobile Fortress in the Accelerated World.

  At Niko’s voice command, the trailer—Dreadnought—had departed from Umesato Junior High in Suginami about five minutes earlier and was currently barreling down a back street in Nakano Area No. 2. The shortest route to their objective, the Castle’s east gate, was to go straight down Oume Highway eastward, turn onto Shinjuku Street after passing the Yamanote Line, and then get onto Uchibori Street via Gyoen Mae and Yotsuya, but the major roads in the Unlimited Neutral Field were patrolled by Beast-class Enemies.

  Naturally, with a battle formation that included two kings, they could easily dispatch even a Beast class without really breaking a sweat. But a large part of their route was also in territory controlled by the Blue Legion, Leonids. If a Leonids Enemy-hunting party happened upon them, they were highly unlikely to let the Nega Nebulus team pass through with a wink and a smile.

  Given all this, the massive trailer was deliberating staying off the wide Oume Highway, but the Century End stage roads were peppered with sinkholes and overturned oil drums and other obstacles. They were not good roads by any standard. And there was no space to avoid obstacles on these back streets, so they shook rather spectacularly. But not once did they become stuck or collide with a building as they went; Niko’s skill was to be commended.

  Standing alongside Utai at the very end of the trailer, Haruyuki considered this as he looked up at the sky of the Unlimited Neutral Field. Dense black clouds loomed overhead, but he spotted the light of the stars from time to time through faint breaks. Because the star map of the Accelerated World re-created the real world’s constellations, given that it was June, the large Summer Triangle would be hanging low in the eastern sky.
/>   Haruyuki had learned about it during the time he had been locked up in the Castle with Utai. While they’d sat there, trapped, Utai had indicated a star with her small hand—Altair—and then had related that the initial Burst Linkers had also looked up at the starry night sky, and that was why the names of the major Legions were all related to space.

  Nega Nebulus was a dark nebula. Prominence was a flare on the sun. The Leonids were an annual meteor shower.

  According to independent research on Haruyuki’s part once they’d managed to make it safely out of the Castle, the name of the Green Legion, Great Wall, referred to a wall formed by a collection of countless galaxies in a place two hundred million light-years away from Earth. Similarly, the Purple Legion, Aurora Oval, indicated an elliptical area enclosing the poles of the Earth where auroras frequently occurred. The Yellow Legion, Crypt Cosmic Circus, seemed to be the only Legion whose name had no relation to space terminology, the sort of move you’d expect from a contrarian like Yellow Radio. And the White Legion, Oscillatory Universe, clearly indicated the scientific concept of an oscillating universe.

  This one was the hardest for Haruyuki to wrap his mind around. The oscillating universe theory was initially espoused nearly a hundred years earlier, and put simply, it stated that the universe repeatedly expanded and collapsed. The expansion was the Big Bang, which even Haruyuki had heard more than a little about, while the collapse was called the Big Crunch. The universe, over however many billions of years, cycled through Big Bangs and Big Crunches—creation and destruction—and at some point, the current universe, including Earth and the Milky Way, would contract into a single tiny dot. Or that was the main idea, but this oscillating universe theory had apparently been refuted and shelved long ago.

  So then, why had the White King, White Cosmos—also known as Transient Eternity—apparently deliberately named her Legion after a discarded theory?

  Naturally, Haruyuki’s knowledge did not extend this far. The little sister of the White King in the real, Kuroyukihime, perhaps might have known, but he definitely couldn’t just ask her about it. The White King was the very person who had cleverly manipulated Kuroyukihime into sending the Red King, Red Rider, into total point loss; and the reason Kuroyukihime currently lived alone in a town house in Asagaya Jutaku was a family incident brought about by her intensifying anger and hatred toward her sister.

  It had already been three days since Kuroyukihime explained all this to him. She’d told him the story in a pained voice, with a grief-stricken look, when they were alone in the student council office after school. The lurid tale started with the Seven Kings of Pure Color reaching level nine and continued up to the eventual destruction of the initial Nega Nebulus.

  When, two days earlier, on Friday, she and Fuko Kurasaki had stayed over at Haruyuki’s house, Kuroyukihime had looked like she was back to her old self. He hadn’t sensed anything especially different about her in the Territories the day before or at the school festival that day, either.

  But there was no way that could be. He knew there were still ripples disturbing the calm of her heart. Because the reason she had become so upset to begin with—the mystery of Red Rider’s crest, etched into the sealed ISS kit cards Haruyuki had obtained in the Setagaya area—still hadn’t been resolved.

  He brought his gaze back down from the night sky and stared at the slender back of the Black King as she stood in the center of the trailer. While everyone else shuddered and shook with the vehicle, Kuroyukihime alone, with her hovering ability, maintained an essentially static position. Arms crossed, legs neatly lined up, she was almost like a single black sword. Seeing her from behind like this, Haruyuki couldn’t help but feel the strength and brittleness of her sharply honed blades.

  Of the eight there, it was likely Kuroyukihime who had the greatest, most serious expectations. Their first objective: rescue Aqua Current, trapped in Unlimited EK at the east gate of the Castle. Their second: the destruction of the ISS kit main body, hidden away in Tokyo’s Midtown Tower. Both objectives were directly connected to the events that had occurred two years and ten months earlier.

  They had already been reunited with Current in the real world, and they had taken pains to learn everything they could from her about her situation, so that the first mission simply required the resolve to go and do it. But there was still a large unknown at play in the second mission: the relationship between the ISS kits and the first Red King, Red Rider. As long as the mystery of the crossed-guns crest remained unsolved, they couldn’t know what would happen at Midtown Tower. They might be thrust up against some obstacle other than the Legend-class Enemy Archangel Metatron that guarded the tower.

  But.

  Haruyuki clenched his right hand into a tight fist and vowed in his heart: No matter what happens, I will protect Kuroyukihime. And not just her—Taku, Chiyu, Master Fuko, Shinomiya, Curren, Pard, and Niko, too, I’ll protect them all. I mean, they’re all helping me save Rin and Ash, without even complaining. We’re totally going to smash the ISS kit main body and go back to the real world together. And then I’m going to properly introduce Rin and Pard and Niko to Curren and Shinomiya, and we’ll get back to the school festival—

  “Oh…”

  Here, Haruyuki finally stumbled upon the crux of Utai’s question. He turned his gaze back toward Ardor Maiden, who was still standing next to him, and the small shrine maiden avatar seemed to read Haruyuki’s mind.

  “Have you remembered then, C?” she said as if grinning.

  “Y-yeah. I told you in the Castle, right? That I had a friend I wanted to introduce you to.”

  “That’s exactly right.” Utai nodded sharply and turned her eyes to the front, toward the cockpit they couldn’t see from the back of the trailer. “The friend you spoke of at that time was the Red King, Scarlet Rain, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Returning her nod, he traveled back in his memory twelve days.

  Haruyuki had indeed said that to Utai after they’d managed to slip into the main building of the Castle, when they were walking along the wooden floor of the central hallway: that once they managed to escape from the Castle and solve all the various problems before them, he had a friend he wanted to introduce her to. “Kinda sassy, kinda rough, but…but she’s really great. Maybe you could be friends with her, too.”

  Yet, he hadn’t been able to finish the sentence at the time. He’d been suddenly overcome by a terrible premonition that it would never happen, that some catastrophe would befall them before he could introduce Utai to Niko. But in the end, this premonition turned out to be needless fretting on his part.

  On the twenty-fourth day of this month, four days after their escape from the Castle, Niko and Utai had met at the curry party held at the Arita house and spoken, albeit briefly. The main purpose of that gathering had been a training session to help Haruyuki acquire the Theoretical Mirror ability, so they had hurriedly moved to the Unlimited Neutral Field. But they could try again, once the current mission was over. He would show Niko, Pard, and Rin to the animal hutch in the rear courtyard and reintroduce them to Utai and to Hoo.

  Haruyuki made this promise in his heart and then said to Utai, “…But now that I’m thinking about it, I didn’t actually have to bring you guys together. You and Niko—er, Rain—met each other ages ago, Mei. In the territories between Negabu and Promi, way back when.”

  “Yes. But we only were able to say hello once on the battlefield, and of course, we had never met in the real. I’m truly delighted that you introduced Rain to me, C…We’re both red colors; I’m sure we’ll be able to be friends.”

  “Yeah. I know you will…I just know it,” he replied, half for his own benefit, before bringing his face back up.

  Toward the front of the trailer that was roaring down the road, a remarkably massive building appeared on the right, in the midst of half-destroyed buildings. The distinctive silhouette of the twin towers was, without a doubt, that of the Diet, Tokyo’s main government building. The tip of the five
-hundred-meter-tall edifice was completely cloaked in twisting black clouds.

  Rumor had it that the throne of the Blue King, Blue Knight, sat on the special viewing platform at the top of that building in the Unlimited Neutral Field. Naturally, the king himself wasn’t always seated there, but there was a 0.0001 percent chance that the level-niner Niko, called an Originator, was glaring down at the world below from the summit that Haruyuki was currently staring up at.

  According to the original schedule, the mission to invade Midtown Tower was to have taken place the following weekend after the fourth meeting of the Seven Kings, to be held in a few days. The attack party was to have been made up of elites carefully selected from all the Legions, with perhaps even Blue Knight and Green Grandé participating, which would give the attack force fighting power on a scale far and away beyond that which the eight on the trailer at that moment could manage (well, the nine of them, if you counted Aqua Current’s eventual participation).

  But just as Kuroyukihime had said before they sallied, there was a possibility that information from the meetings of the Seven Kings was being funneled to the Acceleration Research Society through the Quad Eyes Analyst, Argon Array. So naturally, the Acceleration Research Society was likely to be waiting to greet the attack party with a multitude of clever traps that played to their specialty. So a plan where a large party basically marched on the front door didn’t seem to be the best strategy.

  Put another way, to succeed in the surprise assault strategy that the nine had adopted that day, they would have to attack with the perfect combination of shock and speed. They had to render Metatron helpless, swiftly penetrate Midtown Tower, and destroy the ISS kit main body before the Acceleration Research Society noticed them.

  A critical component of this strategy was the Optical Conduction ability Haruyuki had acquired, and whether or not this power—a counterfeit of the Theoretical Mirror he had originally been trying to get—would work against Metatron’s instant-death laser. This was directly connected to the success or failure of the overall mission; he probably should have taken a shot from Invincible’s main armament before the big day just to make sure this ability would actually reflect it.