Alicization Rising Page 18

  Eugeo watched Kirito purse his lips in worry, then eventually decided it was time to say it.

  “It’s no good, Kirito. She’s losing too much blood.”

  Kirito hung his head for a little while, then rasped, “I know…but if we keep trying to think of an idea…we’re sure to find a way. C’mon, Eugeo, help me.”

  Eugeo was struck by his powerlessness, and it particularly reminded him of how he had felt two days ago when he’d been unable to prevent the evil acts that befell Ronie and Tiese.

  But no matter how hard he thought about it, there simply wasn’t any way to call back the life that was vanishing before their eyes. For a moment, he even considered healing the four other knights instead for extra help, but they clearly didn’t have the time for that. If either Kirito or Eugeo stopped healing her, Fanatio’s life would run out within a matter of seconds. And even if they continued, the only difference was that the moment would arrive in a few minutes instead.

  Eugeo summoned his determination and told his partner, “Kirito, when we escaped from the underground cells, you said that we needed to be prepared to kill any enemy who came across our path if we wanted to keep going. That’s the mindset you had going into this battle, right? You knew that one side would live and the other would die when you used that attack? At the very least, I don’t think Fanatio had any hesitation. It looked like she was risking her entire life. And I think you know, too, Kirito…that this isn’t the point where we can go easy on the enemy out of concern for them and actually win.”

  Ultimately, that was what it meant to use a real sword on someone else, not a wooden one. It was a lesson Eugeo had learned through personal experience; cutting off Humbert’s arm had left his hands trembling, his eye in agony, and the pit of his stomach frozen with fear.

  He’d always assumed that his black-haired partner had understood these things for ages, ever since they met in the forest of Rulid.

  Kirito clenched his teeth and shook his head. “I know…I know. She and I fought our hardest…It was a true duel, one where either of us could have won. But…she’ll be gone if she dies! She lived for over a century…worrying, loving, agonizing…and I can’t just erase that soul of hers. I mean…if I die, I just…”

  “Huh…?”

  “If I die, I just”…what? Everyone was beckoned up to Stacia’s side and disappeared when their life ran out. Kirito might be mysterious in many ways, but he was still human and subject to that universal rule.

  But Eugeo’s moment of confusion was cut short when Kirito abruptly looked up and shouted, “Can you hear me, Commander?! Your vice officer is going to die! Or prime senator, whatever that is! If any of you can hear me, come down and help her!!”

  His voice echoed faintly off the distant ceiling and died out meekly. But he kept shouting.

  “Anyone…I know more of you Integrity Knights are up there! Come and save your companion! Priests, monks…somebody come!!”

  Up above, the disfigured representation of the three gods simply stared down at them in silence. No one was coming—not even the slightest breeze stirred the air.

  Back on the floor, the color continued draining from Fanatio’s hair and skin. Her life was down to a hundred, or maybe fifty. Eugeo considered suggesting that they observe a moment of silence for Vice Commander Fanatio Synthesis Two as her soul departed for the heavens, but Kirito wouldn’t stop screaming.

  “Please…someone! If you’re watching, help us! Oh…Cardinal! Come quick, Cardi…”

  He abruptly fell silent, as though the words caught in his throat. Eugeo looked over at him, and he was surprised to see in his face a transformation from astonishment to hesitation, and then to determination.

  “H-hey…what is it?”

  But Kirito didn’t answer. He stuck his hand through the collar of his black shirt—and pulled out a small bronze dagger hanging from a thin chain.

  “Kirito!” Eugeo shouted on impulse. “You know that’s—!”

  Eugeo had one around his neck, too. Of course he wouldn’t forget the daggers Cardinal had given them before they left the Great Library. The daggers had no attack capability, but the target of the blade would be temporarily connected to Cardinal. They were their ultimate weapons. Eugeo would use his on Alice—and Kirito, on Administrator.

  “You can’t do that, Kirito! Cardinal said there were no extras after these! It’s for the battle against Administrator…”

  “I know that…” Kirito groaned. “But I can save her with this. I can’t have the one thing that will help her right here and simply choose not to use it…I can’t just assign a priority order to people’s lives like that.”

  He stared down at the dagger in his hand, equal parts pained and determined. Then he quickly but carefully stuck it into Fanatio’s left hand, which was relatively unscathed.

  Instantly, the blade and the chain shone bright.

  Before there was time to draw a breath, the dagger dissolved into numerous little strings of purple light. On closer look, the strings were actually lines of the sacred runes that appeared on Stacia Windows. The fine little lines of text broke free and swooped through the air, then vanished into spots all over Fanatio.

  The dagger vanished completely, and purple light enveloped the Integrity Knight’s body. Eyes bulging at this astonishing phenomenon, Eugeo belatedly noticed that the blood oozing from the wound in her upper torso was totally dry now.

  “Kirito…”

  Eugeo was going to point this out, but a voice from nowhere cut him off.

  “Good grief. I should have known with you.”

  Kirito’s face shot upward. “Cardinal…is that you?!”

  “Time is short. Don’t ask the obvious.”

  That combination of sweet voice and irritated tone could only belong to the previous pontifex they’d met in the Great Library.

  “Cardinal…I’m sorry…I—,” Kirito stammered.

  “Don’t apologize to me now,” she snapped, cutting him off. “Given what I’ve seen of how you fight, I had an inkling that this might happen. I understand the situation—I will heal Fanatio Synthesis Two. But I will have to bring her here, as full recovery will take some time.”

  The purple light covering Fanatio’s body flashed brighter. Eugeo had to shut his eyes, and by the time it was safe to look again, the Integrity Knight was completely gone—and to his surprise, so was the pool of blood on the floor.

  There were a few of the little strings of sacred text still floating in the air. They blinked in synchronization with the sound of Cardinal’s voice, which was getting quieter.

  “I’ll be brief, as the insects are starting to catch on. Based on the situation, there is a high likelihood that Administrator is not in a waking state at the moment. If you can reach the top floor before she wakes, you can eliminate her without needing the dagger. Hurry…there are few Integrity Knights remaining…”

  Eugeo could sense that the invisible corridor to the Great Library was rapidly closing. Cardinal’s voice grew distant, and just before it faded out for good, the light in the air flickered, then fell to the ground.

  Instead, what landed on the marble floor was two little glass vials. Kirito gazed emptily at the azure liquid for a while before reaching out to pick them up. He looked at Eugeo and dropped one in his partner’s open palm.

  “…Sorry for getting out of hand, Eugeo.”

  “No…you don’t need to apologize. Though I was kind of startled.” Eugeo chuckled, eliciting a grin from Kirito at last. He got steadily to his feet and flicked the stopper out of the vial.

  “We’d better accept these generous gifts while we can,” he said.

  Eugeo followed his partner’s lead, opened the vial, and downed its contents. It was not at all tasty, kind of like a bitterly sour siral water without any sugar in it, but it was like a douse of cold refreshment to a mind exhausted by so much battle. The substance was healing their damaged life rapidly, the wounds on Kirito’s limbs shrinking moment to moment.


  “This is amazing…She could have given us more than just the two, though,” Eugeo commented, which earned him a shrug from Kirito.

  “It would take too long to send such a high-priority object as dat…er, through sacred arts. I’m actually impressed she pulled that off in such a short— Whoa!”

  Eugeo swiveled to look at Kirito in surprise. “Wh-what?”

  “Eugeo…um…don’t move. I mean, don’t look down.”

  “Huh?”

  Of course, saying so just made it harder not to look down. Eugeo’s head automatically craned toward his feet. He spotted something that had appeared there without drawing their attention until now.

  “Yeep!” he shrieked.

  It was about fifty cens long. A long, flat body divided into narrow ringed segments was flanked by a multitude of little legs, about half of which were resting on Eugeo’s shoe. At the tip of what was likely the head was a line of at least ten little red eyes, and on either side, a frighteningly long set of needlelike horns, each one waving on its own. It was probably some kind of insect, but it looked more bizarre than disgusting. There were plenty of bugs around Rulid, but none looked like this.

  With Eugeo frozen in surprise, the mystery creature waved its feelers around for about three seconds, then began climbing from his shoe up his pants in earnest. He shrieked again and jumped.

  “Yeep…!!”

  He stomped his foot. The bug fell, landing on its back, then flipped over and promptly scuttled between his legs. Eugeo leaped up and down several times, trying to keep himself away from the creature—and eventually, tragedy struck.

  With a crisp crack and the sensation of something snapping and squishing underfoot, Eugeo’s right foot came straight down on the thing.

  Bright-orange liquid spurted in all directions, releasing a sharp, pungent odor. Eugeo nearly fainted when he saw the severed legs still attempting to crawl, but he used superhuman effort to avoid passing out or vomiting. He looked up to Kirito for help.

  But his trustworthy partner was now a good three mels away and backing up quickly.

  “H-hey…hey! Where are you going?!” he demanded, his voice cracking.

  Kirito just shook his head, face pale. “S-sorry. This isn’t my kind of thing.”

  “It’s not my kind of thing, either!”

  “Bugs like that always come the same way: You kill one, then ten more show up.”

  “Don’t you dare say that!!”

  Eugeo lowered his waist, ready to leap onto Kirito and take them both down together, when a purple light suddenly flashed below him, causing him to freeze again.

  Beneath his shoe, the wretched remains were evaporating into light. Within a few seconds, the spattered gunk and broken carapace were totally gone. Eugeo felt the soothing calm of deep relief.

  Noticing from a distance that the danger had passed, Kirito returned rather matter-of-factly and noted, “…Ah, right, I see. That must be one of the familiars that Administrator has prowling around, looking for Cardinal. I bet it smelled the connection to the library…”

  “…”

  Eugeo glared up at Kirito with no small measure of hatred, then gave up and replied, “So…you’re saying there’s a bunch more of those things crawling around the tower? I’ve never seen anything like it until now.”

  “Remember how there was that shuffling on the other side of the door when we escaped into the library from the rose garden? They’re probably good at hiding—and I’m not gonna try snooping around to find them. Plus, Cardinal said something strange…about Administrator being in a non-waking state or something…”

  “You’re right, she did…So she’s sleeping? In the middle of the day…?” Eugeo wondered.

  Kirito rubbed at his chin and answered doubtfully, “Cardinal said that Administrator and the Integrity Knights were making certain sacrifices to be able to live for centuries. Administrator in particular sleeps almost the entire time…but it makes me wonder how she’s controlling the bugs and the knights…”

  He looked down at the floor for a while and then scratched at his bangs as he murmured, “But I guess we’ll find out the answer when we go up there. Anyway, Eugeo, can you take a look at my back?”

  “H-huh?”

  Kirito spun around before he could react. Baffled, Eugeo’s eyes slid across the black fabric, which looked tattered from the rigors of so much battle but was otherwise normal.

  “Um…I don’t see anything wrong…”

  “I’m just wondering…Do you see a little bug on it? Kind of a spidery thing.”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Okay. That’s good. Well, let’s start the second half!”

  Kirito started walking for the huge doors at the north end of the hall, and Eugeo had to rush after him.

  “Hey, what was that all about?!”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.”

  “Well, now I can’t help but be worried! Look at my back now!”

  “Trust me, you shouldn’t be concerned.”

  They proceeded onward, bickering and joking like they’d done ever since Rulid, but deep down, Eugeo practiced the question he really wanted to ask.

  If you’re always so calm and collected all the time, what made you so distraught about Fanatio’s death? What was supposed to come after, “If I die, I just…”?

  Kirito…who are you…?

  The swordsman in black stopped at the massive doors several times his height, reached out with both hands, and heaved them open. A gust of cold air rushed to meet them, and Eugeo had to turn his face away.

  3

  Beyond the double doors was a chamber about the same size as the entrance hall they came up through on the southern end of the Great Hall. It, too, was rectangular, with long, narrow windows on the far wall that offered a view of deep-blue sky.

  But the black-and-white-patterned stone floor was missing one crucial element: the staircase that would take them to the fifty-first floor and above. They looked all over, but there wasn’t even a hanging rope, much less a ladder. There was only a strange circular recess in the stone floor, and Eugeo couldn’t see a single thing that suggested a way up.

  “No…no stairs,” he mumbled, following Kirito farther into the dim room. The flow of cold air across the back of his neck made him hunch his shoulders. His partner noticed it, too, and they both looked straight up.

  “…Wha…?”

  “What is that…?”

  Then they fell silent.

  There was no ceiling. There was just empty space in the same shape as the room itself—no, a vertical shaft—that stretched up as far as the eye could see. The top was lost to thick darkness, making it impossible to tell how high it went.

  As their eyes traveled slowly back down to ground level, they realized that the shaft was not just a smooth, hollow space. Along the side of the shaft, at heights corresponding to the levels above, were doors leading to each successive floor, albeit smaller than the double doors they’d just come through. Extending from each door was a narrow little terrace that stretched about halfway across the shaft.

  So all they had to do to infiltrate the floors above was get to those terraces. In a daze, Eugeo reached out and jumped into the air.

  “…Of course I can’t reach it…,” he mumbled. Even the lowest of the terraces was higher than the ceiling of the Great Hall of Ghostly Light, well over twenty mels overhead.

  Next to him, neck outstretched, Kirito asked weakly, “Listen…Just checking here, but there aren’t any sacred arts for flying, right?”

  “Nope,” he answered without pity. “Only the Integrity Knights have the right to fly. And they use flying dragons, not sacred arts…”

  “Okay…Then how do the people here get up to the fifty-first floor and higher?”

  “I don’t know…”

  They puzzled over that one together. Just when it seemed like they would have no choice but to turn back to the Great Hall and ask Fanatio’s subordinates for help, Kirito whispered, “Something’s com
ing.”

  “Huh?”

  Eugeo looked back up the shaft.

  Something was indeed approaching. A dark shape was coming slowly down the shaft, nearly grazing the uniform edges of the vertical line of terraces. They jumped backward out of the way, and Eugeo watched the shadow descend closer, hand on his sword hilt.

  It was a perfect circle about two mels across. Given the way the edges glinted in the blue light from the narrow windows, it appeared to be forged from steel. But why was this object just floating slowly down the shaft without any visible means of support?

  As the disc passed the terrace two floors above, speed steady the entire way, Eugeo began to hear an odd hissing sound. Again, he was aware of cold air flowing over the back of his neck.

  He could neither run away nor draw his sword, but stood in place dumbfounded as the disc brushed the terrace overhead and descended toward them. When it was just a few mels away, he noticed a small hole in the middle of the disc’s underside that was emitting little bursts of air, which explained the strange sounds and breezes.

  But how could the power of wind alone keep such a large metal platter floating in the air? The object’s hissing grew louder and louder as its descent gradually slowed, until at last it came to fit perfectly in the circular depression in the middle of the floor with a soft thunk.

  The top of the disc was polished as smooth as a mirror. There was a finely decorated silver handrail placed around the rim. In the center of the disc was a straight glass tube about one mel tall and fifty cens wide. Next to the tube was a girl, with both hands resting on the bulged spherical end.

  “…?!”

  Eugeo took another step backward and squeezed the hilt of his sword. He tensed, ready for the revelation of a new knight.

  But very soon, he realized that the girl was not equipped with so much as a knife anywhere on her body, much less a sword. And she was wearing a long black skirt that seemed unsuited to combat. The white apron from chest to knees with an understated crochet pattern around the edges was about the most decorative element in her outfit, and she had no articles or accessories otherwise.