Sword Art Online - Volume 9 - Alicization Beginning

by Reki Kawahara

  “Then, sorry but just wait for a while. Until I finish my afternoon work.”

  Eugeo said as he stood up with an agile movement, I then asked,

  “Now you mentioned it, Eugeo’s work…… the Sacred Task, what is it?”

  “Ah, right…… you can’t see from over there.”

  Eugeo smiled again while beckoning me. I tilted my head as I stood up and walked around the trunk of the great tree behind him.

  Then, being struck by another surprise, my mouth was left wide open.

  On the trunk of the huge tree, which was as black as a dark night, there was a cut about twenty percent or more into its diameter —— around a meter deep. The black wood inside was reminiscent of coal, the thick layers of annual tree rings were glossy like metal.

  My gaze moved down from the cut, to an axe set against the trunk. Although its simple single-edged shape wasn’t used for battle, the very large axe blade and the long handle were both made from the same greyish-white material. As I stared at its mysterious radiance, like it was a stainless steel matte finish, I somehow felt it was carved from a single lump of the raw material.

  Eugeo’s right hand grabbed the axe on its handle, which was coiled by black shiny leather, and shouldered it. He then walked to the left edge of the one and a half meter cut, spread his legs, lowered his waist, and tightly clenched his hands on the grip.

  The slim body bent, the axe, which was drawn greatly backward, took a moment to gather the momentum before sharply tore the air. The blade, which looked heavy, cleanly hit at the center of the cut, Gaan! a clear high-pitched metallic sound reverberated. No doubt, this is the true nature of the strange sound that led me here. A wood cutting sound, my baseless intuition is correct.

  In front of me, who was observing in admiration, it could be said Eugeo handled his body perfectly, he repeatedly hit while maintaining the pace and trajectory beyond the accuracy of a machine. Drawing back took two seconds, gathering force one second, swinging one second. His chain of actions were so fluent it was as if the sword skill also existed in this world.

  Exactly fifty times at a pace of four seconds each time, the axe continued hitting for two hundred seconds, and after the final strike, Eugeo pulled the axe off the deep cut and let out a long breath. He then set the tool against the trunk and sat on top of the root nearby. The beads of sweat on his forehead were shining as he caught his breath, while I was watching him, I thought swinging that axe must be more difficult than I had imagined.

  I waited for his breathing to settle before asking,

  “So Eugeo’s work…… no, Sacred Task is «Woodcutter»? Is it cutting the trees in this forest?”

  Taking a handkerchief out of the pocket of his clothes and wiping his face, Eugeo titled his head slightly and replied after thinking for a moment,

  “Yeah, well… it can be said like that. But the tree concerning the Sacred Task that I have spent seven years trying to cut down is just this one.”

  “Ehh?”

  “The name of this huge tree is «Gigas Cedar» in the sacred words. But the elderly in the village call it the evil tree.”

  ……Sacred words? Giga……Scedar……?

  Eugeo gave an understanding smile toward me, who was in doubt, as he pointed straight upward to the treetop far overhead.

  “The reason they call it as such is because it absorbs all of Terraria’s blessing from its surrounding ground. So nothing but these moss would live under the branches of this tree, and the trees within range of its shadow wouldn’t grow taller either.”

  Terraria, while I don’t know what that is, but it seemed my first impression after I saw this tree and the clearing isn’t wrong. I nodded to encourage him to continue.

  “The adults in the village want to expand the wheat fields to this forest. But it’s futile as long as this tree still stands. So they want to cut it down, but as expected from the evil tree, its trunk is terribly hard. If a normal steel axe is used, its blade would break and no longer be usable in just one hit. Because of that, they spent a large amount of money to order this axe, which was carved from an ancient dragon’s bone, from the capital, and assigned «Cutting duty» to someone to keep cutting at it here daily. And that would be me.”

  I rotated my gaze between Eugeo, who carelessly said it, and the one quarter cut on the great tree.

  “……It means, in the past seven years Eugeo spent every day trying to cut this tree, and you only got this much in that time?”

  This time Eugeo made round eyes and shook his head in surprise.

  “No way. If this cut requires only seven years, then I’d feel a little more encouraged. Listen, I’m the seventh generation of this cutting duty. Ever since Rulid was found on this land, for three hundred years, each generation of the people with cutting duty came here everyday. Perhaps, the progress when I become a grandfather and pass over the axe to the eighth generation would be……”

  Eugeo used his two hands to make a gap about twenty centimeters wide.

  “About this much, I guess.”

  I couldn’t even let my breath out anymore.

  In a fantasy type MMO, even though the craftsman and miner production jobs were generally recognized as jobs which required enduring working single-mindedly, spending a whole life and still unable to cut down a single tree was just far beyond normal. As this was the artificial world, it must be someone’s intention to place this tree here, although for what purpose, I still had no idea at the moment.

  ——But, anyway, I had an itching feeling like something was crawling down my back.

  Partly due to impulse, I said to Eugeo, who stood up and grabbed the axe after he had rested for three minutes.

  “Hey, Eugeo…… could you let me try for a bit?”

  “Eh?”

  “Um, I took half of your lunch. So I should use my muscle to help with half of your work too, right?”

  I felt as if it was my first time offering to help someone to do his work —— and it was probably so —— Eugeo had his mouth slightly opened, but soon after he hesitantly replied,

  “Hmm…… well, although there’s no rules forbidding someone to help with the Sacred Task…… but, this is unexpectedly difficult. At first I couldn’t even strike at the right place.”

  “We won’t know until we try, right?”

  As I grinned, I stretched out my right hand. And grabbed the handle of the «Dragon Bone Axe» which Eugeo held out while he still had a doubtful expression.

  The axe was heavy, despite its looks that it was made out of bone, and weighed down my right hand. I quickly grabbed the leather grip with both hands and made a small swing to confirm the balance.

  Even though I never used an axe as my main weapon in SAO and ALO, I should be able to hit a stationary target without any problem. I stood on the left of the deep cut, then mimicked Eugeo’s pose by spreading my legs and slightly lowered my waist.

  Eugeo was still having a doubtful expression, but at the same time he also looked amused, after I had affirmed that he was far enough, I lifted the axe high over my shoulders. I clenched my teeth and put as much force as possible into my arms, before swinging the axe down, aiming at the center of the deep cut on the trunk of Giga Scedar.

  Gagi, with a dull sound, the axe blade hit at a place about five centimeters away from the cut. The orange sparks scattered while a violent feedback assaulted my hands. I couldn’t bear it and dropped the axe, before putting both wrists, which were numb to the bone, between my feet and groaning,

  “O-Ouch-ouch-ouch.”

  Unsightly, looking at me who couldn’t do even a single strike, ‘Ahahaha……’ Eugeo laughed amusedly. When I turned my reproachful glance toward him, ‘Sorry,’ he lifted his right hand in that manner, but still continued to laugh.

  “……You don’t have to laugh that much……”

  “Hahaha…… no, sorry sorry. Kirito, you didn’t use force from your shoulders and waist. You need to use force from your entire body…… hmm, how shou
ld I explain it……”

  While watching Eugeo repeat a slow swinging movement of the axe, I belatedly realized my mistake. Perhaps the strict law of physics and the contraction of the muscle were not simulated in this world. As this was a realistic dream created by STL, the most important thing had to be the power of my imagination.

  Finally as the numbness left my hands, I picked up the axe off my feet.

  “Just watch, this time I will surely hit……”

  As I grumbled, this time I tried as hard as possible not to be concerned about the force. I kept focusing on the movement of my entire body in my consciousness while I made a big and slow drawing movement. Before drawing the motion of the horizontal slashing attack type sword skill, «Horizontal» which I used frequently in SAO, the weight shifted energy arose from my waist added into the rotating momentum of the shoulders, passed from the wrists toward to blade of the axe, and striking into the tree——

  This time I hit at the tree bark far away from the cut, Gain, the axe bounced off after it made an unpleasant sound. However, my hands didn’t go numb like the first time, it seemed I had completely neglected the aiming because I focused only on the movement of my body. This time too, Eugeo sure has more things to laugh at, I turned my head while thinking this, but Eugeo made an unexpectedly serious face as he gave a comment,

  “Oo…… Kirito, just now wasn’t bad. But, you didn’t watch the axe as you swung. Your gaze must not move off the center of the cut. Try again before you forget it!”

  “O-Okay.”

  The next one was also crude. But after that, Eugeo still gave advice here and there as I continued swinging the axe, I forgot how many times it was before the axe finally managed to make a high-pitched metallic sound as it struck at the center of the cut, sending off some small black fragments.

  After that I took turns with Eugeo and had chance to watch fifty times of his excellent axe swing. Then I took the axe and made another fifty swings.

  We repeated this for some time, and by the time I realized it, the sun had already reached the horizon, and the clearing was bathed in a hazy, orange tinted light. As I drank the last gulp from the big water canteen, Eugeo also finished his last strike, and then said,

  “Alright…… this makes two thousand.”

  “Eh, we did that many?”

  “Yeah. Five hundred from me, and five hundred from Kirito. Together with the morning part, striking the Gigas Cedar two thousand times each day, that’s my Sacred Task.”

  “Two thousand times……”

  I looked at the big cut on the jet black great tree again. No matter how I looked, it wasn’t any deeper than when we had first started. What an unrewarding job, while I was astonishing, the cheerful voice of Eugeo came from behind.

  “Actually, Kirito has good muscle. Of the last fifty times, you made a good sound two… three times. Thanks to you, today I had a lot of fun.”

  “No…… but it should have finished a lot faster if Eugeo did it alone. Sorry, I was supposed to help but instead I was holding you back……”

  I apologized in embarrassment, but Eugeo just smiled as he shook his head.

  “Didn’t I tell you I couldn’t cut this tree down within my life span? Because half of the cut we did today would recover during the night…… Oh ya, I’ll show you something good. I’m not supposed to open it too often, though.”

  While he said that, Eugeo approached the great tree and stretched his left hand. After he used two fingers to slice the symbol, he struck the black bark of the tree.

  I see, this tree is also set up with durability, I rushed over to Eugeo as I thought that. Along with a bell-like sound, the status window floated out, no the «Stacia Window», I peeked at it along with Eugeo.

  “Ue……”

  I inadvertently groaned. The figure displayed on the window was some two hundred and thirty-two thousands, an absurd amount like that.

  “Hmmm, it’s about fifty less than when I looked last month, huh……”

  Indeed, Eugeo also said in a tired tone.

  “Kirito, this means…… even if I spent a whole year striking it, the Life of Gigas Cedar would decrease by about six hundred. By the time I retire, over two hundred thousand would still remain. Now you understand…… just half a day of slightly less progress isn’t a big deal at all. As my opponent isn’t just a tree, but the «Titanic great cedar» after all.”

  When I heard those words, I realized the origin of the title of the Giga Scedar. It was a combination of Latin and English. The word didn’t cut at Giga, but Gigas Cedar…… the giant cedar.

  In other words, to the boy who is standing before me, aside of the Japanese language he uses fluently, English and other languages are some kind of spell incantations, the «Sacred Words». Then perhaps he doesn’t realize that he is speaking in Japanese. The Underworld language…… no, the Norlangarth empire’s language? But wait a sec, just now he called the bread «Pan». Pan is probably not an English word…… is it Portuguese? Or Spanish?

  As I was having a spree of derailed thoughts, before I noticed, Eugeo had already finished packing up and said,

  “Kirito, sorry for the wait. Let’s go back to the village.”

  After that, while shouldering the Dragon Bone Axe, and carrying the empty water canteen as we walked back to the village, Eugeo cheerfully talked about various things. About his predecessor, the elder named Garitta who was adept at using axe; about how he was slightly unhappy that the children of the same age in the village thought that Eugeo’s Sacred Task was easy; while I kept responding to his stories, my mind still focused on the same thought.

  It was the question about what was the purpose of this world, how it was being operated.

  If it is to verify the STL’s «Mnemonic Visual» technology, then it had already achieved perfection. As I already sense its indistinguishable from the reality all too well by now.

  Regarding the internal time of this world, at least three hundred years had been simulated, the terrifying thing is that great tree —— considering the amount of Eugeo’s work could do against the durability of Gigas Cedar, I think it would continue for close to a thousand years.

  While I don’t know what the upper limit the Fluctlight acceleration function can reach, but in the worst case, the person who Dives into this world with sealed memories could spend the entire life inside. Certainly it wouldn’t cause any danger to the muscle in the real world, and as the memories were blocked until the time the Dive ended, the person would probably feels like it was just a vague «Long dream» —— however, what would happen to the soul, the Fluctlight which experienced that dream? The aggregation of light quanta which made up human consciousness, wouldn’t it also have a lifespan?

  No matter how I think, what had been done to this world is just too overexerted, unreasonable, and inconsiderate.

  By braving such danger, there must be a purpose —— but what is it? At Dicey café, Sinon said, to create just a realistic virtual space, the AmuSphere would already be feasible. There must be «Something» that could only be achieved by spending infinite time in the virtual world which matches the level of the real world——

  I suddenly lifted my face, I could see the orange light spreading over the gap of the forest ahead of the narrow path. At the gap of the roadside near the exit, there was a building which seemed to be a storage hut standing there. Eugeo walked toward it and casually opened the door. As I took a peek from behind, there were a few ordinary iron axes, a small bladed tool which looked like a machete, and group of tools such as rope and bucket, among them, there was an elongate leather package which I didn’t know its content.

  Eugeo placed the «Dragon Bone Axe» between them, and closed the door shut. After he turned around and came back to the path, I quickly asked,

  “Eh, is it alright not to lock the door? It’s a very important axe, isn’t it?

  Eugeo rounded his eyes in surprise.

  “Lock? Why?”

  “Why… wouldn’t it
be stolen……”

  As I said until this point, I finally noticed. A thief didn’t exist. Because, it must be written in the «Taboo Index» he mentioned earlier to forbid an act of stealing. To me who had interrupted my own sentence, Eugeo made a serious look and gave an answer I was expecting,

  “There is no way such a thing would happen. Because I’m the only one who opens this hut.”

  ‘That’s right,’ as I nodded in response, a question floated up in my mind.

  “Err, but…… didn’t Eugeo said there are guards at the village? If there are no thieves then why is such a job needed?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? To protect the village from the forces of darkness.”

  “The forces of…… darkness……”

  “Look over there, you see it, right?”

  We just walked past under the last tree as Eugeo lifted up his right hand.

  In front of my eyes were the wheat fields. They were still young, the green heads which had yet to swell were swaying in the wind. The scene which was greatly indulge in the dusk sunlight looked just like the sea. The path stretched into the meandering gap of the fields, I saw a small elevated hill far up ahead. When I focusing at the hill which was surrounded by the grove of tree, I saw the sand grain-like buildings gathered together, there was a noticeably tall tower at the center. Apparently, that seemed to be where Eugeo lives, the Rulid village.

  But where Eugeo pointed at was beyond the village —— at the faint pure white line of mountain range in the far off distance. The steep mountain ridge which looked like a saw stretched to the left and right edges of my vision.

  “That is the «Mountain range at the Edge». On its other side is the place where the light of Solus can’t reach, the land of darkness. Even at noon, the sky would be covered by dark clouds, the light from the heaven is red like blood. The ground, the trees, are all black like charcoal……”

  Eugeo should have recalled a certain event in the distant past, as his voice became weak and trembled.

  “……Living in the land of darkness, were the cursed demi-humans like goblins and orcs, along with other terrifying monsters…… also, the dark knights who ride the black dragons. Of course the Integrity Knights who are protecting the mountain range had prevented them from invading, but sometimes, some seemed to be able to slip through the underground caves. But I haven’t seen any yet though. Also, according to the legend from the Axiom Church…… once every one thousand years, when the light of Solus weakens, the forces of darkness led by the dark knights would cross the mountain range and start their attack against us. In that great war, the guards in the village, the sentinels from all towns, and the imperial army would be led by the Integrity Knights to fight against the horde of monsters.”