Alicization Rising Read online

  “…”

  The knight looked up at the ceiling, helmet clanking, and fell silent. When he spoke again after several seconds, it seemed to be directed at himself rather than Eugeo or Kirito.

  “…I have been from one edge of the human world to the other…and even seen what lies beyond…but now I have learned that there are techniques and styles in the world that are yet unfamiliar to me…I can sense that there is true discipline and experience in your style. When I accused you of using defiled arts to lead Eldrie astray…it seems that I was mistaken.”

  His helmet creaked again as he turned to stare at Eugeo from within the helmet. “…Tell me…your names.”

  Eugeo glanced at Kirito, then said, “…Eugeo the swordsman. I have no second name.”

  “I am Kirito the swordsman.”

  The knight nodded, savoring the sound, and then, to their surprise, said, “…Several Integrity Knights are awaiting you in the Great Hall of Ghostly Light on the fiftieth floor of the cathedral. They are under orders to obliterate your life rather than take you alive, however…So if you attempt to challenge them directly, they will instantly destroy you.”

  “Whoa…Buddy, should you really be telling us that?” Kirito interjected.

  But the knight seemed to grin (as far as could be seen with his helmet on) and muttered, “Having failed to fulfill my duty as given by Administrator…my knight’s armor and weapon will surely be confiscated, and I will undergo an eternal freezing…So before I suffer that ignominious fate, I would prefer…that you end my life yourselves.”

  “…”

  Eugeo and Kirito could not respond. The knight continued, “There is no reason to hesitate…You defeated me through skill and boldness, in fair combat…”

  But any surprise Eugeo had felt was soon washed away by his formal introduction.

  “My name…is Deusolbert Synthesis Seven.”

  It was more than just familiar.

  That was a name that had been etched deep into Eugeo’s soul for the past eight years, a name he could never forget for an instant. A name that conjured up regret, despair, and anger.

  “Deusol…bert? You…you were the knight who…?”

  To his own ears, Eugeo’s hoarse voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. The color of the armor was different, and the metallic muffling of the voice through the helmet had given away nothing. But now he understood that the knight on the floor before him was the very one who…

  Eugeo staggered forward, compelled.

  “Eugeo…?” said Kirito, but the brown-haired boy hardly even heard it. He leaned over to look at the face through the helmet visor.

  There was some kind of enchantment on the helmet, because from just a few dozen cens away, the knight’s face was still hidden in darkness. But even after the loss of so much of his life value, his two eyes were clearly visible, having lost none of their force. They were sharp and bold and could have belonged to either a young man or an experienced one.

  Eugeo’s voice creaked out of his parched throat. “End…your life…? Fair combat…?”

  His right hand spasmed violently, and the sword clutched in it began to radiate cold once again. The armor right under the tip began to freeze over in white.

  A ball of furious hot rage swelled up inside him, and he forced it out with one throat-ripping accusation.

  “You shackled a girl…who was only eleven—eleven years old!—and chained her to the foot of a dragon…and you think you have the right to take the honorable way out?!”

  He held up the Blue Rose Sword in reverse, the blade pointed down.

  He would ram it through that knight’s mouth and his unforgivable words, right down to the floor, and be done with it.

  But a heavy, wincing pain stayed his hand. The pain didn’t come from his right eye but somewhere deep in his chest. It was the pain of someone, somewhere, desperately trying to stop him.

  He stood there, sword raised, entire body trembling with emotion—until Kirito reached over to put his hand on Eugeo’s arm.

  “……Why…are you…stopping me, Kirito…?” he ground out to his partner, the person he trusted more than anyone in the world, as he grappled with a maelstrom of emotion that threatened to consume his entire sense of reason.

  Kirito stared back at him with eyes full of pain and slowly shook his head.

  “This man doesn’t intend to fight anymore. You shouldn’t use your sword on someone who won’t fight…”

  “But…but he…he was the one who took Alice away…He…,” Eugeo protested, like a sulking child, but a part of him knew that Kirito was right.

  The Integrity Knights were beings who acted entirely on the commands of the Axiom Church—the pontifex herself. It was the Church, the twisted law and order that ruled over the world, that took Alice away.

  But even taking a step back did not rid him of the impulse to forget all about the truth and simply slice the prone knight to pieces. Learning the way the world really worked didn’t simply wipe clean the years of anger, powerlessness, and guilt that had built up since that fateful summer day.

  A woven basket at his feet. Bread and cheese lying in the sand. Ice melting in the sun.

  The dull shine of the chains that bound Alice’s blue dress. And his two feet, as immobile as if they’d grown roots on the spot.

  …Kirito…Kirito.

  If you had been there, you would have attacked the knight to save Alice, if that’s what it took. You would have done it, even knowing that you’d be arrested and subjected to interrogation, too.

  But I couldn’t do it. Alice was my one true friend, the girl I cared about more than anyone else, and all I could do was watch. All I could do was watch as this knight on the ground here tied her up and took her away.

  His mind was a storm, fragments of emotions and thoughts coming and going. His arm trembled in Kirito’s grasp and lifted the sword even higher.

  But what Kirito said next was stunning enough that it succeeded at stopping Eugeo.

  “…I don’t think he remembers that. He doesn’t remember taking your Alice away from Rulid…and not because he forgot but because the memory was erased.”

  “Huh…?”

  Stunned, Eugeo looked down at the knight’s helmet.

  The Integrity Knight, who hadn’t budged once, even with the sword held over his head, finally moved. His left fist, thawed at last, pried itself open and let go of the longbow in a spray of little ice shards. He reached up to undo the fasteners of his helmet.

  The menacing metal structure split in the front and back, then clattered free from the knight’s head. It revealed the fierce, stern face of a man who appeared to be around forty.

  He had close-cropped hair and thick brows, both a burnished red color like rust. The bridge of his nose and the line of his mouth were straight and proud, and his eyes were as sharp as steel arrowheads.

  But those dark eyes were wavering, betraying an internal struggle. His thin lips parted to produce a deep, rich voice that sounded nothing like what had come through the helmet.

  “…This black-haired boy…is correct. You claim that I chained a young girl and brought her here by dragon? I do not remember such a thing.”

  “You…you don’t remember…? It was only eight years ago,” Eugeo murmured, stunned. The tension drained from his arm. Kirito removed his hand from Eugeo and put it to his chin, thinking hard.

  “That’s why it was erased…along with everything before and after. Hey, guy…er, Sir Deusolbert, were you the Integrity Knight in charge of protecting the north border of Norlangarth?”

  “…Indeed. Norlangarth North District Seven was…under my jurisdiction. Up until eight years ago,” the knight said, his brows furrowing as he dredged up memories. “And then…in recognition of my feats…I was given this armor…and placed in a security role at Central Cathedral…”

  “Do you remember what feat it was?” Kirito asked. The knight did not answer immediately. He pursed his lips, and his eyes wander
ed. After a short silence, Kirito continued, “I’ll tell you why. Your feat was finding the Integrity Knight Alice Synthesis Thirty—from a tiny little frontier hamlet in the far north that no one in Centoria would have known about. Administrator gave you credit for bringing Alice to this tower but also had to remove your memories of the event…and you just explained the reason why.”

  At some point, Kirito had stopped talking to Eugeo and the knight and seemed to be laying out his argument for himself as his speech accelerated.

  “You said that the Integrity Knights have no past, because you were summoned from Heaven. I’m sure that’s what the pontifex told you just after you awoke as a knight, in order to convince you that you had no memories before then. But in order to maintain that story, there had to be no memories, not just of your humanity but of the birth of any other knights. After all, there would be chaos if the sinner you brought to justice showed up as an Integrity Knight the next day. I suppose that might actually be the pontifex’s biggest weakness…”

  Kirito looked down, pacing left and right, pondering at a rapid pace. This outburst by his partner sapped the momentum of Eugeo’s fury. He looked down at the man at his feet again. Deusolbert’s face was similarly vacant as he considered these ramifications.

  His anger and hatred weren’t gone, but if Kirito was correct that all of the man’s memories of Alice had been erased, then perhaps Eugeo just had to accept the state of things: that all the Integrity Knights were merely pawns of this Administrator at the center of the Axiom Church. The true enemy who stole Alice from him, and turned her into a knight and erased her memories, was none other than the Administrator.

  Deusolbert, sensing Eugeo’s gaze upon him, stopped glancing around. It was impossible to tell what exact emotions were swirling within the older man, but when his voice emerged at last, it wavered with a weakness that would be unthinkable from the imposing figure they’d faced in battle.

  “That…cannot be…We Integrity Knights cannot have been human beings like you…before our knighting…”

  “…”

  Eugeo was at a loss for words. Instead, Kirito spoke for him.

  “The blood from your wound is the same red as ours. And Eldrie wasn’t acting strange because we cast some wicked art on him. It was because we were trying to make him remember the memories that were taken from him…And you’re no different from him. I don’t know whether you won the Four-Empire Unification Tournament or committed some sin according to the Taboo Index, but in either case, Administrator took important memories of yours, forced absolute loyalty to the Church into your soul, and turned you into an Integrity Knight. Whatever this freezing punishment is, I’m certain that Administrator will just tinker with your memories again and erase this conversation. I’d bet on it.”

  His phrasing was cold, but there was a kind of helpless frustration in Kirito’s voice, too. Picking up on that, the knight closed his eyes and then eventually shook his head.

  “I cannot believe. I cannot believe that the holy pontifex…would do such a thing to me…”

  “But it’s the truth. There must be something still left in you. A precious memory from before you became a knight that no sacred arts can wipe from your mind…”

  Deusolbert lifted his left hand, stared at the thick, strong fingers, and exhaled. “From the time I first came to earth…I have had the same dream, over and over…of a small hand rocking me awake…and a silver ring on its finger…But when I wake…there is no one there…”

  His brows furrowed, and he pressed hard against his forehead. Kirito watched him solemnly, then murmured, “I don’t think you can remember any more than that. Administrator stole your memory of whoever owned that ring…”

  He paused, then returned the black sword in his hand to the sheath at his left side with a soft clink. “…What you do next is up to you. You can return to Administrator and receive your punishment, heal up, and chase after us…or…”

  Kirito left the final option unsaid and took a few steps toward the next flight of stairs on the right end of the landing. He paused there and looked over his shoulder, straight at Eugeo.

  His black eyes were saying, Isn’t that better? Eugeo glanced down at the prone Integrity Knight, whose eyes were closed. He lifted the Blue Rose Sword, then pointed the tip at his sheath and slid it home.

  “…Let’s go,” he said, pulling even with Kirito, and they began to climb together.

  Whatever choice Deusolbert Synthesis Seven made, it seemed unlikely that he would pursue them after this.

  2

  For quite a while after that, the only sound was of boot soles striking marble stairs.

  Everything else was ear-splitting silence. As far as Eugeo knew, there were many monks and understudies living in the Axiom Church’s central building, but no matter how they looked and listened, there was no sign of life anywhere around them.

  On top of that, the sight that confronted them on each new floor—a rectangular chamber with hallways extending forward and to the sides, with equally spaced doors along them—was so uniform that it began to feel like they were under some kind of bewitching spell that was making them pass the same exact floor, over and over again.

  Eugeo wanted to stop and check a nearby door on one of the floors, just to confirm that this wasn’t the case, but Kirito’s upward progress was so steady that it seemed like a bad idea to disrupt him. If Deusolbert was telling them the truth, the fiftieth floor not too much farther up would feature many more foes to deal with.

  He ran his fingertips along the hilt of the sword at his side to calm his mind and focus on the task at hand.

  Just then, Kirito came to a sudden stop on the staircase landing just ahead. He turned back, face dead serious, and said, “Hey, Eugeo………What floor are we on now…?”

  “Um…well,” Eugeo said, wobbling a bit. He sighed, shook his head, and slumped his shoulders all at the same time. “Next one’s the twenty-ninth floor. I’m going to assume you were at least counting at the start.”

  “Well, you’d think they would have floor number displays along the way. I mean, it’s just common sense.”

  “I agree, but you should have noticed before this!” Eugeo scolded, but Kirito merely brushed it off and rested his back against the landing wall.

  “So we’re still only that far up…I was sure we were way farther. Man, I’m getting hungry…”

  “…I agree with you there.”

  It had been nearly five hours since their fancy breakfast with Cardinal in the library. Through the long, narrow windows, Solus appeared to be near its peak. And after a fierce battle, followed by twenty-five flights of stairs (a thousand steps in total), it was natural that their bodies were asking for replenishment.

  Eugeo thrust out his hand and demanded, “So hand over one of the ones you’ve got in your pockets.”

  “Uh…but…I was saving them for emergencies…Man, you’re greedier than I thought.”

  “You thought I wouldn’t notice how much you stuffed in there?”

  Kirito gave up and slipped his right hand into his pants pocket, then pulled out two steamed buns and handed one to Eugeo. The smell of it was still strong enough to stimulate his appetite, even though they’d left the library long ago.

  “That flame attack kinda charred it a bit.”

  “Ha-ha…I see. Thanks, man.”

  Cardinal had generated the steamed bun out of some precious old tome’s pages using her high-level sacred arts, a fact that Eugeo had to ignore as he bit into the treat. The crispy, burned outside gave way to juicy meat on the inside, which he savored rapturously.

  In less than a minute, their little lunch was over, and Eugeo licked his fingers in satisfaction. Kirito’s other pocket was still bulging suspiciously, but Eugeo was happy enough to let it go for now.

  “Thanks for the meal. So, what now? We should reach the fiftieth floor in another thirty minutes or so. Do we just charge straight up there?”

  “Hmm…” Kirito grunted, s
cratching his head. “Good question…I think we’ve seen firsthand how deadly a fight against the Integrity Knights can be, but on the other hand, if we’re taking the fight between you and him as an example, they don’t seem to have much experience facing combination attacks, if any. I want to believe we stand a chance in a close-range, one-on-one battle. But if there are multiple knights ready and waiting, that becomes much more difficult.”

  “So…we give up on charging straight through and find another way instead?”

  “I’m not sure about that, either. Cardinal said this staircase was the only way up, and even if we find some kind of shortcut, it still leaves the possibility that we’ll get ambushed. I really think we need to beat those Integrity Knights on the fiftieth floor while we’re there. We’re going to be forced to use the ace up our sleeve, but thanks to the warning he gave us, we know we’ll have time to prepare those long commands before we get there.”

  “Oh, right…the Perfect Weapon Control,” Eugeo murmured.

  “I’m worried about using it for the first time in an actual battle,” Kirito admitted, “but it doesn’t make sense to test it here and waste our swords’ durability, either. We should use our Perfect Control right as we’re reaching the fiftieth floor and neutralize as many knights as we can…”

  “Uh, Kirito, about that…,” Eugeo said, feeling bad about bringing it up. “Um…my Perfect Control isn’t going to be a powerful direct attack—not like that knight’s just now.”

  “Huh? It’s…not?”

  “Well, it was Cardinal who wrote my actual command. I mean, I know it was me who envisioned the actual thing,” Eugeo said, feeling apologetic.

  Mildly confused, Kirito suggested, “Why don’t you try reciting it now? Just don’t include the starter command.”

  “Okay.”

  Eugeo rattled off the various parts of the long command, leaving out the System Call that was supposed to precede them all. Kirito listened with his eyes closed, and after Eugeo finished with Enhance Armament, he had a surprising smile on his lips.