So how had Alice increased her System Access Authority? I started sinking into the quagmire of that question when Cardinal’s voice brought me back.
“At the time, the people believed, without exception, that Quinella was a priestess blessed by Stacia herself. They prayed at the tower morning and night and gladly gave up a portion of their harvests. At first, those lords who weren’t her blood relatives did not think kindly of her…but Quinella was a hardy soul. She gave all the landowners noble titles in God’s name. Until that point, some of the farmers were unhappy about donating a portion of their harvests to their feudal lords, but once that became a divine right, they had no choice but to obey. Now that they were proper nobility, the feudal lords decided that it was in their best interests to follow Quinella rather than oppose her.”
She set the teacup down on its saucer, the hard surface clinking, then stared me right in the eyes. “It was longer than I intended, but that is the story of why feudalism exists in the Underworld.”
“I see. So it wasn’t a system that arose to maintain society out of necessity but in order to rule it…I suppose that would explain why the higher nobles don’t feel responsibility toward the realm,” I muttered.
Cardinal grimaced and said, “I doubt you have seen it for yourself, but the actions of the great nobles and imperial families on their own territory are truly awful. If the Taboo Index did not forbid murder and assault, I cannot imagine the carnage that would unfold there.”
“…And was it Quinella who created the Taboo Index, too? Does that mean that she did have some kind of moral compass after all?”
“Hah! I wouldn’t say that,” Cardinal said, snorting adorably. “Even after long years of thought, I still do not know the reason that the people of this world cannot break the rules imposed by their social superiors. Even I am not an exception. Although the Axiom Church does not rule over me, and thus the Taboo Index does not bind me…I must still obey a number of rules created for the Cardinal program. The fact that I have been locked in this place for centuries should tell you that I am shackled by an inescapable fate.”
“Is Quinella bound by higher rules still, too?”
“Of course. Because she created the Taboo Index, that preposterous set of laws does not apply to her…but she still could not break the rules set by her parents when she was young, and now she is controlled by new orders. Think—if her parents had not commanded, ‘you must not harm people,’ would she have been satisfied just killing animals? Of course she would kill humans. The authority level gain would have been higher.”
Again I felt a prickle run along my back. I tried to ignore the sensation and said, “Okay…so in this world, the concept of not hurting people was one of the very first taboos, those lessons that the Four Progenitors instilled in their children. And Quinella put that into writing and added a more complex system and series of rules to it?”
“In appearance only. But it was not out of any wish for the world to be peaceful. When she was in her mid-twenties, Quinella was even more beautiful, the tower was even taller, and she had many disciples doing her bidding. Similar white towers appeared in other villages, and under the official name of the Axiom Church, Quinella’s rule was becoming ironclad. But as the population grew, along with the expansion of human settlements, Quinella became concerned about the places beyond her sight. She was worried that others in the more distant reaches of the land might discover the secret of one’s sacred arts level, as she did. So she decided to stipulate laws that would ensure she had control over all human beings. The first law was absolute loyalty to the Axiom Church, and the second law was against the act of murder. Why do you suppose she did that?”
She paused and stared at me. I waited for the answer.
“Because killing humans would raise one’s authority level. That is the only reason the Church outlawed murder. There is no virtue, no morality, no sense of goodness or justice behind it.”
Stunned, I couldn’t help but argue back. “B-but…didn’t the Four Progenitors instill a moral taboo against murder and harm from the beginning? Didn’t the people have those values already, before the Church told them so?”
“And what if that lesson must come from the parent? What about the slim chance that after birth, a child could be separated from its parent—its first higher structure—and end up growing without that moral education? If such a child had the noble genes, it might kill people around it in its greed and gain an authority level higher than Quinella’s. So in order to minimize that possibility, she put together a book called the Taboo Index and placed it in every town and village. Parents were obligated to teach the entire Taboo Index to their children from page one, as soon as they were old enough to understand language. You see? If the people of this world seem to be overly good, diligent, and benevolent, it is because having them that way suits the purposes of the structure that controls them.”
“B-but…”
I kept shaking my head, unwilling to take Cardinal’s explanation at face value. All those people I’d met in Rulid, along the trip, and at the Swordcraft Academy—Selka, Ronie, Tiese, Sortiliena, and, most of all, Eugeo—couldn’t have been as warm and human as they were because the program forced them to be.
“But…that’s not all there is to it, right? Isn’t there…something in the fluctlight archetype as well? Something that’s placed in our human souls from the very start…”
“You have seen the evidence against that argument for yourself already,” Cardinal said. I stopped in my tracks, taken aback.
“Huh…?”
“Think of the goblins who attempted to kill you and Eugeo for sport. You didn’t really think of them as programmed code, either, did you? They are what happens to the fluctlight archetype when it is given orders that are the antithesis of the Taboo Index—kill, steal, live by your desires. You see, they are ‘people,’ too, just as much as you are.”
“Ah…”
I had nothing to say to that.
I’d had a suspicion this was the case. Just over two years ago, when I saw and heard the mannerisms of those goblins I fought beneath the End Mountains, I felt that they were far too natural to be those programmed NPCs or monsters from a typical VRMMO. The look of greed in those yellow eyes was subtler than any simple texture mapping could re-create.
But that just made it harder to shrug off the knowledge that they were human beings with proper fluctlights. I killed two of those goblins to save Eugeo and Selka, but they were just following the greed etched into their souls. Eugeo had surpassed the limitations of the Taboo Index, so surely goblins could also potentially turn away from their orders to kill and steal. Yet I assumed, just because they were goblins and they looked scary, that they must therefore be evil, and I unleashed my sword upon them without another thought…
“Don’t think too hard, fool,” Cardinal scolded. “Are you imagining yourself to be a god now? You can ponder it for a century or two and still won’t find any answers. Even now, as I’ve finally come across someone like you, I am conflicted…”
She looked up, brows knitted, then stared into her cup. When she spoke again, there was a poetic cast to her words.
“Once, I was a manager without hesitation or qualm. I moved the world by unshakable principles, sparing not a thought for the tiny things in the palm of my hand. But now, in human form…I finally know the fixation on life…I doubt that those who created this world truly understand what it is they have brought about. For they are gods, too…If they learn of Quinella’s atrocities, they might be interested but never mournful. When this world enters the stress test stage, it is inevitable that this will all descend into a hell too horrific to describe—”
“Oh…that! What is this stress test you keep mentioning…?” I interrupted.
Cardinal glanced up again and bobbed her head. “Yes, I should get back to the topic. Let’s go in order—I was explaining that Quinella had distributed the Taboo Index throughout the world. That text solidified the Axiom Church
’s control. By adding more and more entries to the index, Quinella not only sharpened the moral compass of the populace to better suit the Church’s needs, she also eliminated the various issues that threatened the people’s livelihoods. It forbid wandering into swamps labeled sources of infectious diseases, identified grasses that prevented the flow of milk in goats that ate them, and so on…As long as they unthinkingly followed the text, no problems would ever arise. Over the years, the people put their blind faith into the Church, until not a single person ever doubted its first rule: Thou must obey the Church.”
It was total control. An ideal society without starvation, rebellion, or revolution.
“The population of Centoria exploded, and with new, advanced construction techniques using large-scale commands, that little village grew into a splendid city. The Axiom Church’s property grew to the size you see now, and the tower only grew taller…If anything symbolized Quinella’s endless desire, it was this tower. She did not know what it meant to be sated. As she turned thirty, then forty, and her beauty faded, it only got worse. It was not the kind of base gluttony of the nobles, with their hedonistic pleasures. After a time, Quinella no longer walked on the surface but stayed locked within the top floor of the ever-growing tower, deciphering more and more of the world’s sacred arts. She sought further authority, greater secrets…until at last, she surpassed the final, ultimate barrier of all: her life.”
The statistic known as “life” was represented in an exceedingly clear way. It grew along with the user’s life span, peaking around the twenties or thirties, then slowly descended until it reached zero somewhere between age sixty and eighty. My life had grown quite a bit in the last two years. Seeing it dwindle a bit each day had to be terrifying—especially to a conqueror who had the entire world in her grasp.
“But…no matter how many commands she deciphered and skills she mastered—including even the weather—the limit of her life itself, her natural life span, was an irrefutable fact. Only those with administrative status could alter it—such as an outside admin or the autonomous control program, Cardinal. Quinella’s life sank, day after day. She turned fifty, then sixty…There was no longer a shred of the beauty that had enraptured so many. Walking became impossible. She was confined to her luxurious bed in the room that overlooked the rest of the world. Once an hour, she would examine her Stacia Window, confirming the numbers as they dropped…”
Cardinal paused. She wrapped her hands around her small body as if to ward off a chill.
“But even then, Quinella did not give up. Her tenacity was tremendous…With her cracked and faded voice, she continued testing all combinations of sounds, trying to call forth that forbidden command. These vain efforts should not have succeeded. The odds would be like flipping a coin that lands heads up a thousand times in a row…perhaps even less likely than that. But…however…”
I felt a sudden, indescribable shiver come over me. Cardinal—this strange girl who insisted that she was merely a system without emotions—was expressing a kind of fear, in no uncertain terms.
“Finally, she was on the brink of death…One little scratch, a mere brush with illness, and it would have all been over…and on that very night, Quinella finally opened the forbidden door. It was an impossible coincidence—in fact, I even suspect that someone from the outside world might have assisted her. I can show it to you, not that you can use it.”
She brandished her staff in her left hand and whispered, “System Call! Inspect Entire Command List!”
And with a tremendously deep and rich sound the likes of which I’d never heard before, a purple window larger than usual opened in front of her.
That was all. No holy light from above, no chorus of angels with trumpets blowing a fanfare. But I understood the tremendous effect of that command.
It was the ultimate sacred art. A thing that should not be.
“I think you’ve figured it out. Yes, this window contains a list of every system command there is. This was another colossal mistake of the founders of this world. They should have removed this command the very instant the Four Progenitors who needed it finally left this realm.”
She swung her staff again, and the forbidden list vanished.
“Quinella pored over the list with fading eyes. Then she understood it all, and rejoiced, and literally stood up and danced. The command she sought was at the end of the list: the command to take over all of the Cardinal System’s privileges in case of a world-balance emergency requiring manual control. The command to become a true god…”
Suddenly, the image floated into my brain, vivid and clear.
The top of a tower that reached all the way into the sky. Beyond the windows, a starless night choked with roiling clouds and brilliant flashes of lightning.
In the center of the wide, empty room was a single canopy bed. But its owner was not lying down in it. She stood on the soft mattress, colorless long hair flying to and fro, sagging flesh writhing in a bizarre dance. Her arms jutted from white silk pajamas like dead branches, and her neck curved backward so that a roar of joy could surge from her throat. Against the accompaniment of the intensifying thunder she squawked, like some monstrous bird, the forbidden command to usurp the throne of God…
The Underworld was no longer an AI test, nor some kind of virtual civilization simulator.
The Rath staffers who created this world, like Seijirou Kikuoka and Takeru Higa, had lived for only thirty-something years. But at the time that Quinella, pure dominance incarnate, had gained full administrative status at last, she was already eighty. If Cardinal’s story was accurate, she had lived nearly another three hundred years since then. Who could estimate what kind of being such an intellect would be now?
Did Rath really have everything under control? How much did they understand about what was happening here…?
The black-robed young sage and I stared at each other, each grappling with our own fear.
There were no doors in the Great Library—we were completely cut off from the rest of the world. And yet, I thought I heard the low rumble of thunder in the distance.
That ominous sound heralded a new storm along the path that should have been near its end—a storm greater than any we had yet encountered.
(To be continued)
AFTERWORD
Hello, this is Reki Kawahara. Thank you for reading Sword Art Online 11: Alicization Turning. I chose this subtitle in the sense of it being a turning point, but as for whether this is materially the midpoint of the Alicization arc…sorry, I can’t be sure of that yet! In terms of content, however, it brings an end to Kirito’s and Eugeo’s school life and shifts the story to a new phase. And then, from a character with a name familiar to Kirito, we learn the secrets of the Underworld’s creation…and then, splat—run headlong into the end of the book. I have no good excuses for this abrupt finish and will endeavor to bring you the twelfth volume as soon as possible, so please join me there.
This book is the sixth I’ve had published this year, which means I’ve somehow managed to maintain my pace of six books a year since my professional debut in 2009. This year of 2012 was a huge one for me, as both Accel World and Sword Art Online received anime series, and my encounters with people from various walks of life have given me a lot to think about when it comes to my own writing. I don’t have the space to explain all that here, but if put in a nutshell, it would be “to take my story creation seriously but enjoy it as well.”
Writing books is a personal task, and when you’re in your private thoughts, there are times when you get depressed. But enjoying yourself and your process is the basis of creative motivation, so I want to get back to basics and just enjoy each book as I write next year. I hope to continue my six-books-a-year pace as long as I can! I’m not doing this just to rack up streaks, of course, but I know from personal experience that once I fall off a certain pace, I never get back there. So I want to keep alternating SAO and AW every other month until I finish them…he said, thus putting more pre
ssure on himself.
I started the Progressive series this year as well, which meant four volumes of SAO. I must express my utter thanks to abec, who provided so many wonderful interior illustrations, despite being busy already with the incredible amount of anime work to do. To my editors Mr. Miki and Mr. Tsuchiya, I’m sorry for being late at various stages. Even this afterword is thirty minutes overdue!
And of course, to all of you still following along, my deepest thanks. Hope to see you again next year!
Reki Kawahara—October 2012
Alicization Turning Page 19
