Sword Art Online - Volume 4 - Fairy Dance Page 13

  “- Self-Destruction Magic…?”

  Lyfa whispered in dismay. That’s right - she remembered hearing about this kind of dark magic long ago. However, it had a death-penalty several times worse than that of a normal death, so it can be said to be a taboo incantation.

  Lyfa shut her eyes tightly, at a loss for words for a few seconds. Despite being a mere game; the experience, time, and effort Recon put into it made that a genuine sacrifice. From here on out giving up was not an option. She opened her eyes with determination while looking up. Then -

  As she saw the scene in front of her she felt the strength leave her legs.

  The top of the dome was so full of white that she couldn’t see it at all.

  Kirito was the small black speck in the center. After each swing of his sword, bodies fell. It was like poking a vast sand dunes with a needle. The holes in the wall of white guardian knights’ flesh that Kirito made were instantly refilled, completely blocking him.

  “Uooooo!!”

  Kirito fought like a demon and roared like he was coughing up blood, his cries of defiance faintly reaching Lyfa’s ears.

  “…It’s impossible onii-chan… something like this…”

  To be honest, the idea that someone’s soul was trapped in this world, even if Kirito told her, was something she still couldn’t quite believe. This was a game, a virtual world meant to be enjoyed. She couldn’t help feeling some resistance to the story that linked this world to the nightmarish «SAO World».

  However, Lyfa felt for the first time that she had seen a «Malicious System». The virtual game world had a fair balance, but this place was full of killing intent against players. Like a huge death scythe being swung around - that kind of feeling. It was God’s intention to kill. No one may resist.

  Suddenly a low, distorted, curse like sound reverberated in the dome.

  A section of the guardian knights stopped moving, their left hands reaching forward as they chanted spells. That was the spell that sealed Kirito’s movement the first time he came here. When it hit, it temporarily stunned, leaving the victim open to sword attacks.

  Expecting to see the scene where Kirito was skewered by countless blades Lyfa froze.

  It was at that moment…

  Suddenly, from behind came a surge, no, a tsunami of sound that hit Lyfa’s withered wings.

  “Wh…!?”

  Lyfa hurriedly turned around to see - in close formation they came through the open door dressed in shiny green new armor. It was the soldiers of Sylph.

  One look showed her that their equipment was ancient weapon class. The large player group, fully dressed in similar shiny new outfits, rushed past Lyfa like the spring wind and flew toward the canopy. There were at least 50 of them.

  While awestruck Lyfa focused her attention on them, and one by one name cursors appeared. She could not see their faces because of the visors, but the names displayed were all those of elite players from the Sylph territory. The guardian knights heard the heroic roar of the crowd, suspended their spells aimed for Kirito, and began to move. A shudder of fear and exhilaration ran up Lyfa’s back. However, they were not the only group joining to capture the dome.

  Several seconds after the last of the elite Sylvain force passed through the great door another battle cry resounded. They overlapped, mixing into behemoth-like roars, like that of distant thunder.

  The new force that rushed in was considerably smaller than the Sylvain Force. Lyfa estimated there were around ten. However, each member of that cavalry was extraordinarily large.

  “Flying Dragons…!”

  Lyfa shouted in surprise. From head to tail, they were several times larger than a player and covered with iron-gray scales. As proof that they were not wild monsters the dragons’ forehead, chest, and the protruding edges of their very long wings were equipped with shiny metal armor.

  From both sides of the dragon forehead armor reins made of silver chains extended, held firmly by the players straddling the saddles on their backs. The riders were also fortified with brand new armor, triangular ears protruding from both sides of their heads, from the bottom of their back armor a tail that couldn’t be overlooked.

  They were without a doubt the Cait Sith’s final weapon, the Dragon Knights. They were used as a last resort. The legendary warriors kept in absolute secrecy, never even seen in screenshots, and now, they were flying in front of Lyfa’s eyes.

  Caught in the euphoria, with her blood boiling, Lyfa stood there with her wings spread taut. Suddenly, she heard someone call out from behind her:

  “Sorry we’re late.”

  She quickly turned around and standing there was the figure of the Sylph Lord, Sakuya, wearing high heeled clogs and dressed casually. Sidling up next to her was Alicia Rue, Lord of the Cait Siths, who said that while twitching her ears:

  “Sorry, the Leprechaun smiths had to forge the number of required dragon armor, so it was finished just a bit ago. Even with the money the Spriggan gave us, our treasury, as well as the Sylphs is now empty!”

  “In other words, both races will go bankrupt if we are annihilated here.”

  Sakuya laughed cooly with crossed arms.

  - They came. The two of them, despite the risk of losing their status as lords, they quickly came. The combined forces of these two races, overcoming the scramble for resources which was the essence of MMORPG games, throwing all calculations of risk to the winds, would surely work effectively to exceed the expectations of the GMs.

  “…Thank you …Thank you, both of you.”

  Lyfa could only say those words with her trembling voice. Sure enough, in this world there were things more important than rules, and manners, and common sense - that thought filled her heart, and she was not able to say anything else.

  Although the two lords replied in different voices they had the same tone as they said, ‘We’re now even’, then glared at the canopy with a stern expression. Sakuya snapped the fan in her right hand. “Well - we’ll go too!”

  Seeing the wall of white guardian knights send out groups to attack the front Sylph players, Lyfa firmly nodded her head, and the three kicked off the ground. Kirito was in the center of the dome engaged in fierce battle, but he seemed to have noticed the arrival of reinforcements and stopped trying to break through by himself, leaving some room between him and the knight wall.

  Gracefully soaring toward the central part of the Dome, Alicia Rue held up her right hand and cried out in a lovely, carrying voice.

  “Dragon Corps! Prepare the Breath attack!”

  The ten members of the Dragon Knight cavalry hovered in a large circle around the three, including Lyfa. With their wings spread and their necks bent in an S-shape, she could see an orange light behind their teeth.

  Next, Sakuya quickly raised the folded red fan.

  “Sylph team, prepare for the special attack!”

  Arranged in a dense square, the Sylph forces held out their swords with their right hands above their heads. Emerald green lightning wrapped around their swords like a filigree.

  The guardian knights looked like a swarm of white worms with so many assembled and issuing queer jarring cries as they approached. Alicia Rue bit her lips with her long fang, then waiting until the guardian knights approached the limit, waved her right hand, raised her voice, and shouted.

  “Fire Breath, attack!”

  Then all of the breath the ten dragons accumulated was released in a conflagration of fire. Crimson red lines of fire flew from their mouths, leaving a trail in the air. Ten pillars of fire struck the guardian knights surrounding Kirito and the Sylph soldiers.

  Dazzling light lit up the whole dome. Moments afterward, continuous fireballs exploded creating a huge wall of flame. A terrible explosive sound shook the world. The remains of the guardian knights were blown in all directions, leaving white flames burning out.

  But there seemed to be an infinite number of guardians, new groups stretching from the wall of flesh, forcibly breaking through the blazin
g hellfire. First, as if wanting to swallow Kirito, who was at the front, it greatly opened it’s mouth, looking like a liquid spreading out.

  When the white mass was on the verge of flooding Sakuya sharply swung her fan downward, shouting:

  “Fenrir Storm, release!!”

  The Sylph force sharply thrust their long swords in perfect order. From each of the fifty swords a dazzling green bolt of lightning gushed out and cut through the air in a zigzag fashion, penetrating deeply into the group of guardian knights.

  Again the world was dyed white by the brilliant flash of light. This time no explosion occurred, instead thick lightning ran freely, guardian knights caught in that jaw were blown apart into tiny pieces.

  After the second large group was crushed the central portion of the wall of guardian knights sank down. However, like the surface of a liquid, the hole made in that wall was quickly filled in from the sides.

  It was ‘now or never’, Lyfa was convinced. She instantly unsheathed her katana and kicked into the air to rush forward. The lords seemed to have made the same decision. Sakuya’s voice rang through the air like a whip.

  “All troops, charge!”

  It was certainly the biggest battle that had ever occurred in that world. From behind came the intermittent release of Flame Breath, guardian knights were burned to death and continued to fall one by one. The warhead formation used by the Sylphs cut down the flocking giants with their powerful swords, drilling a vast hole into the wall of meat.

  At the tip of the warhead was the little black Spriggan. His equipment grade was way weaker than the Sylph warriors, but with his sword moving beyond god-like speed, anything that his sword touched was instantly cut and blown apart.

  Lyfa flew through a gap that the Sylph warriors opened, immediately reaching behind Kirito. After blocking the sword of a guardian knight that was going to attack Kirito’s back Lyfa buried her katana in its mirror mask. Holding her katana while turning, the neck of the knight flew away from its body, and the body burned with a white flame. Kirito turned to Lyfa, and said while moving only his lips.

  “Sugu, I leave my back to you.”

  “Count on me!!”

  She met his eyes and responded wordlessly, then put her back against his back. The two of them turned round and round, cutting down the guardian knights that continuously appeared in front of them.

  One-on-one, the giant knights shouldn’t be that easy for her to kill. However, as she stuck to his back and matched his speed, Lyfa felt as though the knights became slower and slower. No - Maybe her nervous system accelerated? It had happened in kendo matches before, Lyfa was enveloped by the sense that she could grasp everything going on around her.

  It felt as though she and Kirito had become one being. With their nervous system directly connected, the pale electronic pulses flowing from one to the other. Without looking, she knew how Kirito was moving behind her. While his sword cut into a guardian knight’s neck, while turning, Lyfa struck high into the same knight’s neck and finished it off. On another knight’s mask that Lyfa damaged, Kirito struck the same place Lyfa had just hit, cutting deeply.

  Kirito, Lyfa, the Sylph warriors, and the dragoon brigade moved like a single white-hot entity, continuing to touch and melt the wall of guardian knights with no limit, going deeper and deeper. The number of knights was unlimited, but the amount of space in the dome was fixed. As long as they continued to progress, the moment would come sometime.

  “Seraaaa!!”

  With her spirited shout Lyfa cut a guardian knight in half, it collapsed and disappeared.

  Beyond the last few knights, even if only for an instant, she saw the zenith of the dome.

  “Oooo!!”

  With a shout, Kirito moved from behind Lyfa as a black flash of light rushed toward the gap in the wall of flesh. The last group of guardian knights approached him from all directions while raising a cry of resentment to prevent intrusion. They numbered nearly thirty.

  “Kirito-kun!!”

  Lyfa instinctively swung her katana and threw it at Kirito’s left hand with all her might.

  The green blade spun through the air and settled into his hand as though it was sucked there.

  “U…oooooo —!!”

  With a shout that shook the entire dome, Kirito held the greatsword in his right hand and the katana in his left. They shot out with fearsome speed in a dual attack.

  Cutting down from the upper right. Cutting up from the lower left. Two shining swords changed angles slightly and drew a snow-white circle that looked just like the corona of a solar eclipse. The bodies of knights that got caught in his ultra-speed slashing were cut to pieces like paper, spreading out into the surroundings.

  This time it was clearly visible beyond the End Frame of the ring of white flame. Entangled like a mesh of tree branches at the center of the canopy of the dome, was a circular gate divided into pieces by a cross. Spanning the trunks of the World Tree, the final gate leading to ALfheim, the castle up at the top of the tree.

  The small figure in black continued to fly toward the gate, pulling a tail of light behind him. He arrived. At last.

  In front of Lyfa’s eyes, the bodies of the guardian knights were quickly and repeatedly piled up and filled any open space in an instant. Sakuya, who noticed that Kirito broke through the defensive line, shouted from the rear:

  “Everyone fall back, retreat!”

  Evading together with the Sylph team while diving with the support of Fire Breath attacks, Lyfa, for a moment, looked back in the direction of the canopy. She was unable to see Kirito’s figure due to the wall of guardians, but reflected in the eye of Lyfa’s heart, rose the figure aiming for the place that no one had ever reached, rising higher and higher.

  Fly - Go - Go anywhere! Through the giant tree, soar through the sky, to the heart of the world -!

  Part 2

  I thought my mental nerves would burn out, considering the speed I rushed through that final distance.

  In front of me was a large circular gate made of four tightly shut parts portrayed by a cross-shaped lithograph. Behind it, she - Asuna waited. Left behind in that world, along with the other half of my soul.

  From behind, the guardian knights’ screams resounded, full of anger. They turned around and it seemed as though they were about to pursue me. Then the knights reappeared from the canopy around the gate without even a flash of light and rushed toward me as they caught me in their sights.

  However, I was quicker. The gate was already just an arm’s length away.

  But - but.

  “…It won’t open…!?”

  I unintentionally cried out at the unexpected situation.

  The gate wouldn’t open. Before, I thought if I just got closer that annoying, large door would open, but it was tightly closed, blocking my path and its cross shaped parts wouldn’t budge a bit.

  From there on, there was no time to slow down. I was poised with my sword in my right hand at waist level, and hoping to shatter the gate in one blow, rushed toward it, becoming one with my sword.

  Just after that I hit the gate with a terrible shock. The tip of my sword struck the stone block, violently spraying intense sparks. But - the surface didn’t have a scratch.

  “Yui - what is going on!?”

  I cried out in confusion. No way, was that not enough? Do we not only have to break through the guardian knights, but need some type of item or flag[4] as well?

  About to follow the impulse to swing my sword again, Yui flew out of my pocket with a bell-like ting-a-ling. She gently placed her hands on the stone of the gate.

  “Papa.”

  She turned her head, and quickly said:

  “The door isn’t locked by a quest flag or otherwise! It is simply this way because of the system administrator.”

  “Wh - What do you mean!?”

  “In other words… the door is something a player would never be able to open!”

  “Wha….”

  I was speechless.<
br />
  This means the grand quest - that the race which climbs the World Tree and reaches the City in the Sky would be reborn as true fairies, was like hanging a carrot in front of a rabbit’s nose knowing it would never be able to reach it? Beyond the fact that it exceeds the limits in terms of difficulty, then there’s a lock that could never be opened without the key called system authority…?

  I felt my body lose all strength. Behind me, the cries of the guardian knights rushed over me like a tsunami. However, the will power that allowed me to grasp my sword again wouldn’t spring out anymore.

  ‘- Asuna, I’ve come so far… just a little further, until I can reach you… That piece of your warmth, was that our last contact…?’

  ‘- No. Wait. That is, that’s certainly…’

  My eyes went wide. With my left hand, I fumbled in my back pocket. There. A small card. What Yui had said, that it was the system access code…

  “Yui - use this!”

  I held the silver card out in front of Yui’s eyes. Yui’s eyes widened for an instant, then she nodded deeply.

  Her small hand brushed against the surface of the card. Several streaks of light flowed from the card into Yui.

  “Code copying!”

  She cried out, then slammed both palms onto the surface of the gate.

  I was dazzled by the bright light and squinted my eyes. Where her hands touched, bright blue lines radiated out, and right after, the gate itself started shining.

  “- We will be transferred!! Papa, hold onto my hand!!”

  Yui stretched out her right hand and firmly grasped the fingertip of my left hand. The line of light channeled through her body flowed into mine.

  Suddenly, the queer voice of the guardian knights echoed from right behind us. Although I braced myself, dozens of large swords hurtled toward me. However, those swords passed through me as though they had totally lost substance. No, I was beginning to become transparent. My body faded and melted into light.

  “- !!”

  Suddenly, I was pulled forward. Yui and I turned into a torrent of data and were then sucked into the gate, which had changed into a glowing white screen.