Alicization Invading, page 5
part #15 of Sword Art Online Series
Instead, she trotted back to the wheelchair, crouched, and whispered, “I’m sorry, Kirito. I need to borrow your sword for a little while.”
She brushed the black leather scabbard with her hand and sensed his arm tensing as it cradled the weapon. But when she stared patiently into the blank pools of his eyes, his arm eventually went limp, and from deep in his throat, he croaked, “…Aaah…”
Rather than an utterance of will, it was more likely the echo of some memory, Alice interpreted. The only thing controlling Kirito now was not conscious thought, but whatever memories still lingered in his heart.
“Thank you,” she whispered, retrieving the black sword from his lap. Once she was sure he would be fine without it, she returned to the oak tree.
It really was a beautiful specimen. Not quite as grand as the ancient trees scattered around Centoria, perhaps, but easily more than a century old. Mentally, she apologized to the tree, then took a stance.
She placed her right foot forward with her left in the rear. She held the Night-Sky Blade in her left hand and placed her right hand on its leather-wrapped hilt. With her one good eye, she gauged her distance to the tree.
“Come on, now, are you really going to cut down that massive oak with your flimsy little sword?” one of the men shouted, prompting a gale of laughter from those nearby. Others chimed in, claiming her sword would break or the sun would set first.
Eventually Nigel said, with great consternation, “Er, Alice, it would be appreciated if you could do the task in about an hour…”
She’d cut down over ten trees since she’d started her job, and they always took no more than thirty minutes. This was because she had to carefully limit her strength so as not to destroy the axes they gave her to use. This time, however, there was no need. The Night-Sky Blade was a Divine Object with the same priority level as her own Osmanthus Blade.
“It will not take that long,” she muttered, squeezing the hilt.
Then she shouted, “Haaah!!” An explosion of dust burst up from her right foot in front.
It had been a long time since she had last swung a real sword; fortunately, she hadn’t forgotten any techniques. The level slash shot from the sheath like black lightning.
None of the men around her actually saw it, apparently. Once the sword was fully outstretched to her right, Alice straightened up and met their baffled gazes.
The smooth bark of the platinum oak was unmarred aside from the mark the men had been chipping away at for the past day—or so they thought.
At last, one of them wondered, “Did she miss?” and a few of them cackled.
Alice turned back to the one who’d spoken, lowering her sword. “It’s going to fall your way.”
“Huh? What are you—?”
The man paused, his eyes bulging. The trunk of the oak was very slowly starting to tilt. Like those around him, he suddenly wailed and started running the other way.
With a tremendous rumble, the gigantic tree toppled onto the place where the men had been standing just three seconds before.
Alice made her way back to the stump, waving away the dust. The rings of the tree were thick on the fresh cross section and shone as though polished. There was just one end of the stump that was still jagged and torn.
She wondered whether that was because she was losing her edge or whether it was due to the lack of depth perception with only one eye. As she turned away, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Nigel Barbossa was rushing toward her with a huge grin and arms wide.
Her rough handling of the sword made for a menacing clink as it slid back into the sheath, which brought Nigel up short. But the smile never left as he rubbed his hands together.
“Won…wonder…wonderful! That was incredible! So much for Zink, the chief man-at-arms! That was simply divine!” he babbled at a distance of a mel—his expression equal parts delight and greed. “Wh-what do you say, Alice? I’ll double your pay if you work once a week for me rather than once per month…No! Once a day, even!”
He was rubbing his hands at high speed now. Alice merely shook her head.
“No, thank you. What you are paying me now is enough.”
If she brought the Osmanthus Blade and used its Perfect Weapon Control art, she could do more than one tree a day—she could reduce this entire forest to flat land as far as the eye could see in a matter of minutes. But if she did so, it would only change their demands into tilling the land, breaking the rocks, even making the rain fall.
Nigel grumbled at her rejection and didn’t seem to remember she was there until she said, “My payment.”
“Ah, yes, of course, of course.” He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a bulging sack, then plucked out a 100-shia silver coin, as he had promised her, dropped it into her palm, and tried his luck again. “Alice, how about this? If I pay you another silver, would you consider retracting your offer to Ridack for this month…?”
She held her breath, preparing to turn him down again, when a heavy thud caught her attention. She looked up with a start and saw that the wheelchair had toppled over, sending Kirito to the ground.
“…Kirito!” she shouted, running past Nigel to him.
Kirito was reaching forward desperately with his left arm as he lay on the ground. In that direction, the loafing young men had balanced the longsword in its white-leather sheath upright on the ground and were exclaiming over it.
“Whoa, why is it so heavy?!”
“No wonder she could cut down a platinum oak in one swing with it.”
“Hey, you guys, hold it straight!” cried a third, who grabbed the hilt of the Blue Rose Sword with both hands so he could pull it out.
Alice actually heard the sound of her jaws grinding. A cry left her throat before she was even aware of it herself. “You scoundrels—!”
The boys turned to her, mouths agape. She crossed the twelve mels between them in an instant and came to a stop with dust swirling around her. The three backed away when they saw the look on her face.
Alice took a deep breath and used it to stifle the explosion threatening to erupt from within her. She helped Kirito get up first, put him back in his wheelchair, then hissed, “That sword belongs to him. Give it back now.”
Suddenly, the young men looked aggrieved. The large one who’d been about to draw the sword pointed at Kirito, his lip curled. “We asked him to let us borrow it.”
Even sitting in the wheelchair, Kirito was reaching for the white sword, moaning weakly.
One of the youngsters holding up the sheath said mockingly, “He was happy to lend it to us. He was like, ‘Aaah, aaah.’”
The last of them nodded and agreed, laughing.
Alice had to keep her hand tight on the handle of the wheelchair—if she didn’t, she would grab the handle of the Night-Sky Blade and draw it instead.
Half a year ago, she would have cut off all six arms that dared to touch the sword without a moment’s hesitation. An Integrity Knight was not bound by the Taboo Index and its rules against harming others. As a matter of fact, without the seal in her right eye to bind her, there was no law at all that limited Alice’s behavior.
But…
Alice clenched her teeth painfully, fighting against her urges. These young men were the common folk that Kirito and Eugeo had sacrificed their lives to protect. She couldn’t harm them. It wasn’t what they would have wanted.
She stayed absolutely still and silent for several seconds, but she didn’t do a very good job of hiding the fury that blazed in her remaining eye. The three boys stopped laughing, their smiles replaced by fearful looks.
“…All right, all right. Geez, you don’t have to get so mad,” the largest boy said, sulking as he released the handle. The other two followed his cue and let go of the sheath, almost relieved that they didn’t have to support its weight anymore. It toppled heavily to the ground.
Alice walked over without a word, crouched, and easily lifted the white-leather sheath with no more than three fingers. As she turned back, she paused for a moment to glare at the little imps before returning to the wheelchair.
After quickly dusting off the sheath with the hem of her cloak, she placed the black and white blades on Kirito’s lap. He clutched them tight and went still.
Nigel Barbossa was absorbed in giving orders elsewhere, seemingly with no interest in the situation here. Alice gave him a little bow for propriety’s sake—he wasn’t paying attention—and wheeled the chair back to the path going north.
The surge of hot, stormy anger that had filled her for the first time in ages had turned into cold helplessness. This wasn’t the first time she’d felt it since moving into the forest near Rulid. Most of the villagers avoided talking to her, and they hardly even treated vacant Kirito like a human being.
She wasn’t blaming them. From their point of view, she was still the criminal who broke the Taboo Index. She ought to be grateful they allowed her to live close to the village and sold her essential goods and food.
But all the while, in a corner of her mind, she wondered, To what end?
To what end had she undergone all that suffering and fought with Administrator? What exactly was the thing that the other administrator, Cardinal; her intelligent spider, Charlotte; Eugeo; and Kirito had made such sacrifices to protect?
Those thoughts led her to a question that she knew she could never voice: Was there truly a point in protecting people like Barbossa’s family?
That question was one of the reasons Alice had put down her sword and traveled to this distant region. Even now, on the far side of the Eastern Gate at the edge of Eastavarieth Empire, the forces of darkness were marching closer. It was a question of whether Commander Bercouli could get his new Human Guardian Army arranged and in place in time. She hadn’t been stripped of her status as Integrity Knight—only the late Administrator could do that—so perhaps Alice ought to head for that gate as soon as possible.
But the Osmanthus Blade was far too heavy for her now.
The celestial realm she thought she had come from did not exist. The Axiom Church she swore fealty to was full of hypocrisy. She’d learned far too much of the ugliness and pettiness of the people of the human realm. The days when she could pray to the gods and swing her sword believing in the righteousness of her cause had long passed.
Now there was only a handful of human beings that Alice truly wanted to protect. Her mother and father, Selka, Old Man Garitta, and Kirito. As long as she could keep them safe, she would be content to turn her back on the knighthood and live her days here in peace…
When they were out of the clearing and onto the path that wound through the barley fields, Alice stopped and whispered to Kirito, “Can I do some shopping in the village, since we’re here? I won’t let those nasty children mess with you again.”
He didn’t answer, but Alice took that as agreement and wheeled the chair north.
Her 100-shia silver coin bought her a week’s worth of food and necessities. By the time they were heading back to their cabin in the forest, the sun had begun to set.
As she approached the porch, she detected the low hum of wind. Once the wheelchair was safely out of the way, she waited for the source to arrive in the center of the little clearing in the woods.
Eventually, an enormous flying dragon almost skimmed the treetops as it soared by—its massive wings, long neck, and silver tail all adding to its regal aspect. It was Alice’s dragon, Amayori, who had flown them here from Centoria.
The dragon did two turns above the grassy clearing, then floated down to land. It folded its wings and stretched its neck until its nose brushed Kirito’s chest, then it rested its large head against Alice.
She scratched at the silky, faintly blue hair under the dragon’s chin, eliciting a purring gurgle from the beast.
“Amayori, you’re getting fat. You’ve been eating too many fish at the lake,” she scolded with a grin. The dragon snorted guiltily and began plodding toward its nest on the east side of the cabin. It curled up atop the bed of thickly stacked hay so its neck was intertwined with its tail.
Half a year ago, on the day she’d decided to build this cabin here in the clearing, Alice had undone the leather harness on Amayori’s head and removed the sacred arts of binding. She’d told the dragon, You are free; go back to your nest in the western empire, but the dragon would not leave her side.
The dragon collected grass to make its bed and spent the days on its own, frolicking in the forest and catching fish in the lake—but it always came back in the evening. The sacred arts that suppressed the dragon’s proud, fierce nature and forced it into servitude to its knight’s commands was gone. So why didn’t it return to its home?
Still, the continued and willing presence of Amayori, who had been with her ever since she became an Integrity Knight, was a welcome development, and Alice did not try to drive it off. Occasionally, the sight of the dragon overhead caused more rumors about Alice among the villagers, but it was pointless to worry about that now.
Amayori began to snore softly atop the hay, so Alice bade it a good night and pushed the wheelchair into the cabin.
Dinner that night was a stew of half-moon beans and meatballs. The beans were too hard, and the meatballs were all different sizes, but the flavor was really coming together, she thought. Kirito didn’t offer any comments, of course. He just let her stick the spoon in his mouth and chewed and swallowed as if that was all he could remember how to do.
If only she at least knew what he liked and didn’t like to eat. Moments like this reminded her that the total amount of time she had really spoken to this young man was not even an entire day. Two years ago, Selka had lived in the church with him for a period, but she said that he seemed to enjoy everything he was served, regardless of what it was. It seemed fitting for Kirito.
At last, Kirito finished his stew, so she moved his chair over to the small heater, then washed the utensils and placed them in the basket.
Just then, she heard Amayori, who would normally sleep outside until dawn, growling in a soft trill. She paused and listened intently. With the whisper of the breeze coming through the forest was the unseasonal frail rustle of dead branches, then the sound of large wings beating.
“…!”
She leaped out of the kitchen, made sure that Kirito was behaving in his chair, then threw open the front door. Able to hear more clearly now, she determined that whatever was slicing through the wind was coming closer. She descended the porch and looked up at the night sky.
Against the backdrop of the stars, a black shadow was descending in a spiral—a dragon. She glanced to the east, just in case, and saw that Amayori was still on the bed, of course, looking up at the sky.
“Could it be…?”
She was about to turn back for her sword, thinking that a dark knight from over the End Mountains had invaded, when she saw the scales of the dragon gleam silver in the moonlight. Her shoulders relaxed just the tiniest bit. The only ones who rode dragons with silver scales were the Integrity Knights of the Axiom Church.
But it was still too early to be completely at ease. Who would have flown out all this way? Were they still discussing the idea of punishing Kirito the traitor? Had they dispatched an agent of justice from the cathedral at last?
Amayori crawled out of the bed, sensing Alice’s worry, and lifted its head high to growl again. The threatening noise soon made way for a much sweeter purr.
Alice understood why very quickly.
The dragon did three more circles before landing on the south end of the clearing. Its own fuzzy beard was colored similarly to Amayori’s. This was Amayori’s older brother, Takiguri. Which meant that its rider was…
A knight clad in platinum armor and helmet leaped smoothly to the ground. Alice called out to him in a hard voice. “I’m impressed that you found me. What do you want, Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One?”
The only Integrity Knight with a number younger than Alice’s Thirty did not speak at first. He put his right hand to his chest and bowed deeply. Then he stood up and removed his helmet. His lustrous pale-purple hair wafted in the night breeze, and his city-boy good looks came into view. His voice was higher and softer than the average man’s.
“It has been too long, Master Alice. While you are dressed differently than I remember, your beauty still amazes me. The thought of my mentor’s golden hair gleaming in the moonlight was so captivating, I could not help but pay a visit with an excellent vintage from the collection.”
His left hand emerged from behind his back to reveal a wine bottle. Alice did her best not to sigh, and she answered her strange disciple, “I’m happy to see that your wounds have healed—sadly, your personality has not changed for the better. In fact, if anything, your way of speaking reminds me a bit more of Prime Senator Chudelkin’s.”
Eldrie gurgled a bit. She turned her back on him and walked toward the cabin.
“Erm, Alice…?”
“If you have something important to say, I’ll hear you out inside. If not, you can drink your wine alone and return to the city.”
Takiguri and Amayori were rubbing their necks together, delighting in their first family reunion in half a year. Alice gave them a brief glance and returned to the cabin.
Eldrie followed her obediently inside and looked around the interior in wonder before his eyes stopped on Kirito, who was sitting motionless by the heater. He made no comment on the rebel who had once crossed swords with him. Instead, he slid around the far side of the table and pulled out a chair for Alice.
“…”
It felt silly to thank him for this, so she just exhaled instead and plopped onto the seat. Eldrie sat himself down across from her and placed the wine bottle on the table. A hint of a dark expression crossed his face the moment he got a good look at her, probably from seeing the black bandage that still covered her right eye. The agitation was gone the next instant, however. He looked around curiously, his nose twitching.
