Her grayish brown hair was cut straight across at eyebrow and shoulder level, and the features of her pale face were unremarkable. They looked fine but lacked character or expression. She appeared a bit younger than Eugeo, but there was no way to be sure.
Eugeo gazed at her eyes, wondering who she was, but they were downcast, the lashes covering them so that he couldn’t even make out their color. She folded her hands in front of the apron, still not looking at either of them, and bowed deeply before saying at last, “Pardon me for the wait. What floor will you be visiting?”
It was a voice devoid of emotion and with only a bare minimum of inflection. At the very least, there was no hostility, either, so Eugeo took his hand off his sword. He repeated her question.
“What…floor? Are you saying that you’re going to take us higher up?” he asked, scarcely believing it.
She lowered her face again. “That is correct. Please tell me the floor you wish to visit.”
“Um…well…”
Eugeo wasn’t sure what to say; he’d grown to assume that anyone they met in the cathedral would be an enemy. Next to speak was Kirito, who was often just as inscrutable in his own way.
“Well, um, we’re wanted men who snuck into the cathedral…so are we allowed to ride on this elev—I mean, this flying disc?”
The girl’s head tilted the tiniest bit in confusion, then returned to position. “My job is merely to operate this floating platform. I am under no other orders.”
“I see. In that case, we’d be happy for a ride,” Kirito said, walking right up to the circle.
Eugeo called out, “H-hey! Are you sure about that?”
“Well, it doesn’t look like there’s any other way to get up.”
“Uh…I guess you’re right, but…”
After what the two child knights did to them, Eugeo was stunned that his partner could be so trusting again, but on the other hand, they had no clue how to operate the disc. He simply had to tell himself that if it was a trap, they could somehow jump to the nearest terrace.
They stepped onto the disc through a gap in the delicate handrail. Kirito peered at the glass curiously and told the girl, “Well, uh, take us to the highest floor this can go.”
“Yes, sir. Ascending to the Cloudtop Garden on the eightieth floor. Please keep your hands and feet behind the guardrail at all times,” she replied, bowing, and put her hands on the top of the tube.
Then she sucked in a breath and said, “System Call. Generate Aerial Element.”
Eugeo’s first instinct was that she was about to attack them with sacred arts, but he immediately realized he was wrong. The shining green wind elements appeared inside the clear tube. But it was the number that amazed him—a full ten, which marked her as a considerable master of the arts.
The girl lifted her right thumb, index, and middle fingers off the glass tube and murmured, “Burst Element.”
Three of the elements flashed green, and a rumble started under their feet. With all three of them on top, the metal disc began to rise as though lifted by an invisible hand.
“Aha! So that’s how it works,” Kirito exclaimed, and thus the pieces clicked into place for Eugeo as well. The tube running through the middle of the disc released wind elements, pushing the explosion of wind downward and propelling the disc and the weight of its three passengers upward.
It was very simple once they knew how it worked, but the movement of the disc was so smooth that they barely felt it. Aside from a brief feeling of pressure at the start, it essentially floated up without the slightest bit of movement.
The marble floor dropped farther and farther away, and it hit Eugeo that this floating disc was going to take them to the eightieth floor of the cathedral—in other words, an elevation up in the clouds. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and clenched the handrail.
Kirito, meanwhile, was taking it all in stride as though he’d ridden on such a thing before. He made sounds of admiration as he examined the disc, and when that was done, he turned his attention to the person operating it.
“How long have you been doing this job?”
With just the faintest note of surprise in her voice, the downcast girl replied, “This is the one-hundred-and-seventh year since I received this Calling.”
“A hund—?” Eugeo gaped, forgetting about the distance under their feet. He took over for Kirito and asked, “Y-you’ve been moving this floating platform for…a hundred and seven years?!”
“Not…all that time. I receive a break for lunch, and I do rest at night.”
“Er…that wasn’t what I meant…”
But perhaps it did explain what he wanted to know. Like the Integrity Knights, her life had been frozen so that she lived atop this little plate of metal for what was essentially eternity.
The disc rose, slowly but surely. Whatever emotions the girl might have had, she kept them hidden. As one wind element ran out, she released another, then another, each time with the command, “Burst.” Eugeo wondered how many times she had said that word before and realized that he couldn’t imagine it.
“Hey…what’s your name?” Kirito asked suddenly.
She put on her most pronounced display of confusion yet. “My name is…forgotten. I am simply called the operator of this platform. My name is…the Operator.”
Kirito was unable to mount a reply to this. Eugeo counted the terraces as they passed, and by the time he reached twenty, he felt an impulse to say something to break the silence.
“…Um…so, listen…We’re going up there to defeat a very powerful person in the Axiom Church. The person who gave you this Calling.”
“Is that so?” was her only reply.
But Eugeo pressed on, knowing that his words probably meant nothing. “If…if the Church disappears, and you’re released from this Calling, what will you do…?”
“…Released…?” she repeated awkwardly. The girl named Operator was silent for a whole five terraces.
Eugeo glanced up and saw, to his surprise, that the gray ceiling was now in sight and approaching. That would be the base of the eightieth floor. At last, they were reaching the central core of the Axiom Church.
“I…I do not know anything but the world of this shaft,” the girl blurted out. “Therefore…I cannot possibly choose what my next Calling should be…but if I had a wish…”
For the first time, she lifted her face and stared through the narrow windows on the right wall, out to the pure-blue sky.
“…I wish that I could fly this platform out there…wherever I could go…”
Eugeo saw, now that they were visible at last, that her eyes were the absolute crystal blue of midsummer sky.
Just before the final wind element flickered and died, the disc reached the thirtieth terrace and slowly floated to a halt. The Operator removed her hands from the glass tube, folded them in front of her apron, and bowed.
“Thank you for waiting. This is the eightieth floor, the Cloudtop Garden.”
“…Thank you.”
Eugeo and Kirito bowed back and stepped onto the terrace. She dipped her head briefly one more time, looking down again, and as the wind element weakened, the platform began to descend. That rustling sound of the wind expelling faded, and eventually the tiny, confined world of metal trapped in time was gone.
Eugeo lamented, “…And I thought my old Calling felt endless…” Kirito shot him a look, eyebrow raised, so he explained, “At least I was lucky enough that I could retire after getting too old to swing an ax. Compared to what she’s been doing…”
“Cardinal said that even if you freeze the natural degradation of life, you can’t prevent the soul from aging. Eventually your memories start to crumble, and then it all falls apart in the end,” Kirito said, downcast.
He turned around, forcefully cutting off that line of thought, and faced away from the long vertical shaft. “What the Axiom Church is doing is wrong. It’s why we’ve come all this way to put a stop to Administrator. But that’s not th
e end of it, Eugeo. The real problem is what comes after…”
“Huh…? Weren’t we going to leave things up to Cardinal after we beat Administrator?” Eugeo asked. Kirito’s lips moved as he sought the right thing to say, but there was a rare moment of hesitation in his eyes. He turned away.
“Kirito…?”
“…Actually, I’ll tell you the rest after we get Alice back. This isn’t the time to be thinking about extra stuff.”
“Well…okay, I guess,” Eugeo replied. Kirito hurried down the terrace to escape his gaze. Eugeo followed after him, feeling no small amount of apprehension about what had just been mentioned, but the sudden surge of tension that gripped him when he saw the large doors ahead swept away his concern.
Given how many Integrity Knights had been waiting for them on the fiftieth floor, it seemed clear that whoever was giving the orders—Fanatio had mentioned a prime senator—intended to put a stop to them right then and there. It was practically a miracle that they had withstood the furious assault of the knights and won.
Now that they had broken through that barricade to threaten the top floor, this prime senator would use whatever power necessary to stop them. They might open this door and come across the commander of the Integrity Knights with all the remaining members, flanked by powerful priests and monks to cast sacred arts from a distance.
But there were no side routes in. Whatever awaited, they had to meet it head-on.
Kirito and I can do this.
They shared a look of determination, reached out to the doors, and gave a push together. The large slabs rolled inward.
“…!”
The resulting combination of color, trickling water, and sweet scent was so overwhelming that Eugeo couldn’t believe his senses at first.
They were still inside the tower. The same white marble wall as the rest of the obelisk was visible in the distance ahead. But the floor here was no longer stone tile; instead, it had thick, soft grass. Here and there bloomed holy flowers, which were the source of the scent.
To Eugeo’s surprise, there was even a pristine little brook a short distance away, its surface sparkling. From the doorway ran a narrow brick-lined path that crossed over the brook with a wooden footbridge before continuing on.
Beyond the river was a small hill. The path snaked its way up and over the slope, which was covered in flowers. Eugeo followed the trail with his eyes all the way to a single tree standing at the top of the hill.
It wasn’t a very big tree. The thin branches supported dark-green leaves and little orange cross-shaped flowers. The light of Solus coming through the windows just below the high ceiling fell right on that tree, illuminating the flowers like gold.
The slender trunk also shone in the sunlight—and at its base was a flash of even brighter gold…
“Ah…!”
Eugeo didn’t even register the gasp that came from his mouth.
From the moment he saw the girl resting against the trunk with her eyes closed, he failed to think of anything else.
Like some trick of the gentle, dappled sunlight, the girl’s entire form shone with gold. The beautiful armor that covered her top half and arms was already dazzling gold to begin with, and her long white skirt had embroidered highlights of similarly colored thread. Even her polished white leather boots seemed to radiate in the sunlight.
But more beautiful and glowing than anything else was her long, flowing hair. It was perfectly straight, running from her perfectly curved head down her back, like a waterfall of holy light and molten gold.
Years ago, he had seen that hair every single day. He had tugged on it and jammed twigs into it, innocent and ignorant of its glory and fragility.
That golden shine that was a symbol for friendship, longing, and just a tinge of love, turned in the course of a single day into a reminder of Eugeo’s weakness, ugliness, and cowardice. Now the light that should have remained forever out of his grasp was in reach once more.
“A…Ali…ce…,” he mumbled, scarcely hearing the words. He lurched toward her, wobbling down the brick path. Eugeo couldn’t even sense the pleasant fragrance of the holy flowers or the babbling of the brook. The only sensations that connected him to the rest of the world were the warmth of his sweaty hand clutching the collar of his shirt and the pulsing sensation of the little dagger beneath the fabric.
He crossed the bridge over the water and started up the hillside. Less than twenty mels to reach the top.
As he looked up, he saw the downward-facing features of the girl, clear as day. There was no expression of any kind on that pure white skin. She just sat there, eyes closed, floating in the warmth of the sun and the scent of the flowers.
Is she sleeping?
If he snuck up on her and held out the dagger to prick one of the fingers resting on top of her knees…would that be the end of it, right there?
Just then, Alice raised her hand, and Eugeo stopped, his heart leaping into his throat. Her shining lips opened to let him hear that familiar voice.
“Please wait just a little longer. The weather is so nice, I want to let her soak in the sun a bit more.”
Her eyes, bordered by golden lashes, slowly opened.
Irises a shade of blue that existed nowhere else in the world met Eugeo’s gaze. He anticipated a softening in her look, the hint of a smile to play over those lips.
But the blue of those crystal eyes was not gentle like it once was. It was the color of permanent ice, unmelting under centuries of sun. Eugeo was trapped in place, an intruder caught in the sights of a sentinel.
So battle would be unavoidable.
Lost memory or not, she was Alice Zuberg from the village of Rulid, and now he would have to point his sword at her—to return her to normal. No matter how hard and unforgiving the fight would be.
He understood the strength of Alice Synthesis Thirty, Integrity Knight. He’d learned it by experience, when she smacked him in the face with her scabbard. He hadn’t merely been taken by surprise; he hadn’t even seen the blow before it landed. How difficult would it be to neutralize a warrior of such skill without hurting her, either?
She could not be fought with anything less than his greatest effort.
But can I even manage to cut a single lock of her golden hair?
He couldn’t take a single step forward, much less draw his sword for battle.
While Eugeo struggled like never before, Kirito approached from the rear and murmured hoarsely, “You shouldn’t fight, Eugeo. Just think of how to stick Alice with Cardinal’s dagger, that’s all. I’ll block her attacks with my body if I have to.”
“B-but…”
“It’s the only way. The longer the battle goes, the worse our odds get. I’ll take Alice’s first hit on purpose, hold her down, and then you use the dagger. Got that?”
“…”
He bit his lip. In the fight against Deusolbert, and again versus Fanatio, it had been Kirito who suffered all the bloodletting. And this mad rebellion against the Axiom Church had all stemmed from Eugeo’s own personal desire in the first place.
“…Sorry,” he muttered, feeling abashed.
“You don’t have to apologize,” said Kirito, sounding more normal now. “I’ll give it back to you double…But, that aside…”
“…? What is it?”
“Well…based on what I can see from here, she doesn’t seem to be armed. Plus…who was she talking about…?”
Eugeo focused on Alice again, sitting atop the hill. She had closed her eyes and put her head down again, but sure enough, that golden whip from their encounter at Swordcraft Academy was nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe she’s on break and left her sword somewhere else…Boy, wouldn’t that be helpful,” Eugeo hoped, without any audible conviction.
Kirito brushed the hilt of his black sword. “I feel bad, but we can’t wait for her to stop napping in the sun. If we attack now, whether she has her sword or not, she won’t have time to cast her Perfect Weapon Control. If there’s o
ne thing we need above all else, it’s to prevent that from happening.”
“Good point…My Perfect Control doesn’t use up too much of the sword’s life, so I think I can use it two more times today…”
“That’d be great. But one more’s the limit for me. And we should have this knight’s commander after Alice, too. Anyway…here goes.”
Kirito signaled to him, then took a step forward. Eugeo summoned his courage and followed.
They stepped off the brick path, which wound around the hill, and headed straight for the top. Their boots rustled the grass. When they were halfway up the slope, Alice stood. Through half-open lids, her emotionless, icy gaze met them.
Instantly, as though her vision itself could cast sacred arts, Eugeo felt his legs turn to lead. Despite the lack of any weapon, Eugeo’s legs seemed to be refusing to get any closer to Alice. Was that one bash to the cheek enough for his body to have learned its own subconscious lesson? Yet it seemed like Kirito’s pace was losing steam up ahead, too.
“…So you have come all this way up at last,” Alice’s crystal-clear voice rang out. “I made the decision that even if you should somehow escape your cells, Eldrie would be enough to stop you cold in the rose garden. Yet you defeated him, and then Deusolbert with his divine weapon, and even Fanatio, before setting foot in the Cloudtop Garden.”
Her arched brows darkened. There was a faint note of mourning from her cherry lips. “What in the world is giving you your power? Why do you seek to unravel the tranquility of our realm? Why do you not understand that for every Integrity Knight you harm, a major weapon against the forces of darkness is lost?”
It’s for you. That’s all this is, Eugeo thought. But he knew that this statement would mean nothing to the Alice facing him now. He clenched his teeth and put all his concentration into moving forward.
“I suppose I shall only have my answers by the blade. Very well…if that is what you seek,” she relented, placing her hand on the trunk of the tree.
Alicization Rising Page 19
