Sword Art Online - Volume 9 - Alicization Beginning Read online

  Sword Art Online

  Volume 9

  ~Alicization Beginning~

  Written by:

  Reki Kawahara

  Illustrations by:

  Abec

  Hosted by:

  Baka-Tsuki

  Translators:

  BeginnerXP

  Teh Ping

  Editors:

  Teh Ping

  ePUB by:

  Simon

  Prologue I

  The Seventh Month of Human World Calendar 372

  Part 1

  Grasping the axe.

  Swinging upwards.

  Striking down.

  It might be just those actions, but if the mind was distracted even slightly, the reaction from the hard bark would bounce back relentlessly to both arms. Breathing, timing, speed, shifting of body weight, all of them must be perfectly controlled from the beginning, transmitting the hidden power from the heavy blade of the axe to the tree, producing a pleasant, clear, high-pitched sound.

  While he could understand the theory well, actually doing it wasn’t that simple. Eugeo was given this task in spring when he was ten, and it would be the second coming of summer since then, yet he could only get that pleasant feedback once out of ten swings. He was told by the fellow axe users that his predecessor, Garitta-jiisan always hit the bull’s eye, and even though he didn’t show his fatigue after brandishing the heavy axe, but after merely fifty times Eugeo’s hands went numb, his shoulders became sore, and he could no longer lift up his arms.

  “Forty…… three! Forty…… four!”

  He counted with his loudest voice to push himself while striking the axe on the great tree’s trunk, the sweat gushing out caused his eyes to blur, his hands became slippery, and his accuracy continually decreased. Partly due to his desperation, he grasped the woodcutting axe tightly and brandished it over his body.

  “Forty…… nine! Fif……t……y!!”

  His last strike was a big deviation from his usual skill, it hit the bark a distance away from the deep cut on the trunk, producing an ear-splitting metallic sound. Due to the reaction which was as if it could make a spark come out of his eyes, Eugeo dropped the axe, staggered a few steps back, then sat down on the thick moss.

  While he repeated his rough breathing, he heard a voice mixed with laughter from his right.

  “The good sound came out three out of fifty times. So the total is, erm, forty-one huh. It seems today’s Siral water is your treat, Eugeo.”

  The owner of the voice who lied down slightly further away was a young boy of similar age. Eugeo didn’t reply immediately, but fumbled for the leather water canteen then picked it up. He drank the water which had become completely warm greedily, and after he became comfortable, he closed it with the hard cork, then said,

  “Hmn, yours is only forty-three, isn’t it? I’ll catch up soon anyway. Here, it’s your turn…… Kirito.”

  “Yeah yeah.”

  Kirito was Eugeo’s childhood friend and also his best friend, he was the partner of this melancholy «Sacred Task» since spring last year, Kirito wiped the sweat off his black forelock, stretched his legs straight and raised his body. But he didn’t pick up the axe immediately, his hand was on his hip while he looked up above his head. Attracted by his action, Eugeo also looked up toward the sky.

  The mid summer sky of the seventh month was still ridiculously blue, stuck at the center was the sun god Solus, which shone its overwhelming light from the sky. However, the light was obstructed by the branches of the great tree outstretched in all directions, most of it didn’t reach the roots where Eugeo and Kirito were.

  At the same time the countless leaves of the great tree devoured the sun god’s blessing, its roots also relentlessly absorbed the favor of the earth god Terraria, allowing it to recover from Eugeo and Kirito’s hard work of steadily cutting it down. No matter how much they did during the day, after a night’s rest, when they came back the next morning, the tree would have already recovered half of the cut wounds from the previous day.

  Eugeo sighed lightly as he looked back to the tree from the sky.

  The great tree —— the «Gigas Cedar», its sacred name was given by the villagers, was the monster with a diameter of four mels, and had a height of seventy mels. The bell tower of the village church, which was the tallest building in the village, was only one-fourth its height; to Eugeo and Kirito whose height only passed one and a half mels this year, this ancient titan was a very suitable opponent.

  Is it unreasonable to cut down this guy using man power? —— Eugeo couldn’t help but think about this after seeing the cut on the trunk. The wedge-shaped cut wound had finally reached a depth of one mel, but the remainder of the trunk with three times the thickness was still healthy.

  In spring last year, when he and Kirito were taken to village chief’s residence, as they were at the suitable age for the duty of «Chopping the giant tree», he had heard a mind-boggling story.

  The Gigas Cedar had stretched its roots here long before the Rulid village where they lived was founded, the duty to axe the tree was passed down the generations since the first settlers’ time. Counting from the first generation to his predecessor Garitta-jii who was the sixth generation, Eugeo and Kirito were the seventh generation, more than three hundred years had passed before they were given the duty.

  ————Three hundred years!

  At that time, it was an unimaginable time for Eugeo who had just reached his tenth birthday. Of course, it hadn’t changed even though he was eleven now. What he somehow could understand was, from the time of his parents, his grandparents, the time before that, and the time even further back, the amount of axe swings combined from those with this duty could be said to be infinite, and the result was just this cutting wound less than a mel deep.

  Why did they have to cut down the great tree to that extent? The reason was told in a strict tone by the village chief.

  The Gigas Cedar, with its huge body and its excessive vitality, took away the blessings of the sun and earth gods from its surrounding area in an enormous range. Seeds sown on the land in the shadow of the great tree wouldn’t grow, any effort to plant anything near it was futile.

  Rulid village was a part of the «Norlangarth North Empire», one of the four empires that divided and ruled over the «Human World», and in addition, it was also located in the remote northern region. In other words, this place could literally be called the edge of the world. North, east, and west, these three sides were surrounded by a steep mountain range, so in order to expand the fields or pastures, there was no way other than to cut down the forest in the south. However, that couldn’t be done due to the Gigas Cedar which was rooted at the entrance of the forest.

  It had been said that its bark was as hard as iron, and even fire couldn’t cause the slightest burn, digging it up was also not possible as its roots were as deep as it was tall. Therefore the village founders had decided to chop its trunk down using the «Dragon Bone Axe» which could cut even iron, and the duty to do so had been passed down generations since then——

  The village chief finished telling the mission in his trembling voice, it made Eugeo feel terrible, so he asked, why shouldn’t they just leave the Gigas Cedar alone and open up the forest further south.

  Then the village chief replied in a frightening voice that cutting down the tree was their ancestors’ vow, that vocation had turned into the village’s custom to entrust chopping duty to two people. Next was Kirito, who tilted his head while wondering aloud why those ancestors chose to build the village here in the first place. The chief lost his words for a moment before raging a
ngrily like fire and hit Kirito’s and even Eugeo’s heads with his fist.

  It had been a year and three months since then that the two continued taking turns with the Dragon Bone Axe and challenging Gigas Cedar. However, most likely due to their immature arms, their axe swing couldn’t make a deep cut into the tree trunk. The cut in the tree up until now was the result of the three hundred years of work, so it was natural that the hard work from the two young boys wouldn’t make much difference, they couldn’t feel any accomplishment from their work as a result.

  No —— their mood, not only could it be seen, their clear form of depression seemed like it could be verified in reality too.

  Kirito, standing beside Eugeo while staring wordlessly at Gigas Cedar, seemed to be thinking the same thing, then he briskly walked toward the trunk while stretching his left hand.

  “Oi Kirito, don’t do it. The chief said not to peep excessively at the «Life» of the great tree, didn’t he?”

  Eugeo hastily called out, but Kirito just glanced toward him while his usual mischievous smile floated on the edge of his mouth.

  “The last time we looked was two months ago, it’s no longer excessively, just occasionally.”

  “Always like this huh, it can’t be helped then. ……Oi, wait for me, let me look too.”

  Eugeo whose body finally calmed down got up using the same movement Kirito did earlier and rushed to his partner’s side.

  “Ready? Opening now.”

  Kirito said in low voice, with his left hand out front, the index finger and middle finger stretched out tightly while the remaining fingers held close. A shape which looked like a creeping snake was drawn in the air before them. It was the most basic devoted symbol of the god of creation.

  After slicing the symbol with his fingertip, Kirito immediately hit Gigas Cedar’s trunk. It didn’t make the dry striking sound it should have, but a clear sound as if it was from playing with silverware resounded softly. Then a small squared light window emerged out of the trunk.

  Everything in the universe, regardless of whether it was able to move or not, had its existence governed by the god of creation Stacia in the form of «Life». Insects and flowers had a little, cats and horses had much more, and humans were given even more life than those. Then the trees in the forest and moss covered stones had many times more «Life» than humans. Those life all had one similarity, it increased after being born, and once it reached the peak, continued to decrease. When life was completely depleted, animals or humans stopped breathing, the plants withered, and the rocks break down.

  «Stacia Window» was where the sacred text of the remaining Life was inscribed. It could be called out when a person with proper sacred power cut the symbol, then struck the target. While most could pull out the window of pebbles or grass, it was somewhat difficult to do so on animals, and for humans, it was not possible to pull the window out without sufficient knowledge in the sacred arts first. ——On the other hand, it was a little scary to look at one’s own window anyway.

  In general, the window of trees were easier to look at than humans, but the degree of difficulty of the evil tree Gigas Cedar was as high as expected, Eugeo and Kirito were only able to call out the window about half a year ago.

  There was a story that once, at the «World Central Axiom Church» in the capital city Centoria, the elder master of the sacred arts succeeded in pulling out the window of the earth god Terraria after a continuous ritual for seven days and seven nights. However, once the elder master looked at the earth’s Life, he became depressed, lost his sanity and later disappeared.

  Upon hearing that story, Eugeo became a little scared not only to look at his own, but also the windows of large things like Gigas Cedar, but Kirito appeared not to care. This time as well, he put his excited face close to the floating shiny window. While Eugeo thought he sometimes couldn’t understand his childhood best friend, he lost to his curiosity, and looked into that surface.

  The pale purple square window had figures written in a combination of straight and curved lines. Those were the ancient sacred letters, if it were only reading a few figures, Eugeo was able to do it, only writing them was strictly prohibited.

  “Well……”

  Eugeo used his finger to confirm it one by one while saying the figures,

  “235,542.”

  “Ah― ……what was it months before?”

  “Probably…… 235,590.”

  “…………”

  On hearing Eugeo’s reply, Kirito lifted his hands in an exaggerated manner, collapsed with his knees hitting the ground, then messed his black hair using his fingers.

  “Just fifty! We worked hard for two months and only managed fifty out of 235 thousands! At this rate we wouldn’t cut it down within our whole life!”

  “No, that isn’t possible in the first place.”

  Eugeo couldn’t do anything but answered with a bitter smile,

  “The six generations of this cutting duty before us worked hard for three hundred years, and the result was not even one-quarter…… To make it simple, hmm, it would take about eighteen generations, or nine hundreds years more.”

  “Y-o-u~~”

  Kirito who was crouching while holding his head in his arms looked up to Eugeo, then suddenly grabbed Eugeo’s both legs. Eugeo lost his balance due to the sudden attack, and collapsed onto the moss bed on his back.

  “What’s with that honor student attitude! At least act more troubled with this unreasonable duty!”

  Even though he said that as if he was angry, but a grin floated on Kirito’s face while he rode Eugeo and messed up his hair.

  “Uwa―, why you!”

  Eugeo’s hands grabbed Kirito’s wrists and pulled hard. He then utilized the moment Kirito stiffened his body to resist, rolled vertically in a half circle, so now he was on top.

  “Now, payback time!”

  While shouting and laughing, he pulled Kirito’s hair with his dirty hands, but unlike Eugeo’s soft light brown hair, Kirito’s pointed black hair rendered his attack meaningless. Eugeo then switched to tickling Kirito’s flank.

  “Ugya, you…… that’s, h-hahah……”

  Kirito was short of breath as he struggled while being held down and also being tickled, suddenly a high voice came from behind them.

  “You two——! Slacking off again!!”

  At that moment, the fight between Eugeo and Kirito came to a complete halt.

  “Uu……”

  “This is bad……”

  Both of them shrugged then fearfully turned around.

  On the rock a little bit away from them, with both hands on her hips, a human figure with her chest protruding forward. Eugeo pulled out slightly, then spoke with a smile,

  “H……Hey Alice, you’re pretty early today.”

  “Not early at all, just the usual time.”

  The figure made an unfriendly face, the long hair tied on both sides of her head shone with a golden light under the sunlight filtered through the foliage. The young girl jumped off the rock nimbly, she wore a bright blue skirt with a white pinafore, and held a wicker basket in her right hand.

  The young girl’s name was Alice Schuberg. Daughter of the village chief, and she was of the same age as Eugeo and Kirito, eleven years old.

  For all children living in Rulid —— no, in the northern region, it was a tradition that they would be given their «Sacred Task» and become apprentices in the spring of their eleventh year; however, Alice was the only exception, she went to school at the church instead. She was given private lessons from Sister Azariya in order to extend her talents in the sacred arts further as the best child in the village.

  However, Rulid wasn’t wealthy enough to let the village chief’s daughter who turned eleven to only study all day long, no matter how much talent she had. Everyone who could work must work, they had to continue repelling the constant attacks from drought, long period of rain, pests; all of which could shave off the Life of the crops and livestock —�
� in other words, from the «God of Darkness Vector’s Prank», it was only when the harsh winter arrived that all the villagers could finally be at peace.

  Eugeo’s house had the wheat fields in a wide cultivated land to the south of the village, his father Orick and his ancestors were farmers, after knowing Eugeo, one of his three sons, was chosen for the chopping mission his mouth was filled with words of delight, but part of his mind had surely felt disappointed. Of course they would receive the payment for the chopping mission from the village vault, but the fact that there was one less of the hand to help in the field wouldn’t change.

  In practice, the eldest son of each house would be given the same Sacred Task as their father, in the case of a farmer’s household, their daughter, next son, and the third son would also follow this standard. Children of the tool shop’s owner would continue working in the tool shop, a guard’s child would become a guard, and the village chief’s child would succeed them as the next chief too. Rulid village had maintained this custom with almost no change for a few hundred years, the adults said that it was the gift of divine protection from Stacia, but Eugeo could faintly remember the incompatibilities in their story.

  Why, if the adults thought about expanding the village, why was there not a single change until now? He still couldn’t understand. If they really wanted to expand the fields, they could just take a little detour and leave the troublesome tree alone to be able to open up the southern forest further away. However, the chief who was the wisest man didn’t have the faintest urge to review those old traditions.

  Therefore, no matter how much time passed, Rulid village was still poor, even the chief’s daughter Alice could only study in the morning, as it was necessary that she had to tend to the livestock and clean the house in the afternoon. Her first task after studying was to bring lunch to Eugeo and Kirito.

  With the wicker basket hanging on her right arm, Alice nimbly jumped down from the big rock. As she was on the verge of letting the next round of thunder fall off her small lips, Eugeo quickly raised his body while shaking his head.