SAO 15 - Alicization Invading

by Reki Kawahara

  “Hey, hey, you think you can break platinum oak with that thin sword?”

  One of the men shouted and the crowd went into an impromptu frenzy. That sword’s gonna break; the sun’ll set before that; while the jeers flew in one after another, Nygr Barbossa’s concerned voice mixed in.

  “Aah, Alice, if possible, I would rather you do something about it within an hour, you know?”

  She had fallen over ten trees since she started this job, but required around thirty minutes almost every time. The reason behind that slowness was due to her having to keep her strength in check to avoid breaking the axes she borrowed. But she had no need for that worry today. The Night Sky Sword was a sacred tool boasting a priority level equal to Alice’s Fragrant Olive Sword.

  “No, I will not require that long.”

  Replying with a near-murmur, Alice gripped the sword’s handle.

  “…Haah!!”

  A short yell. A cloud of dust whirled up from beneath her right foot, dug firmly onto the ground, like some sort of explosion.

  It had been a while since she swung an actual sword, but fortunately, she had yet to forget her techniques. The horizontal slash from the left in the same motion as drawing it from its sheath ran through the air like black lightning.

  The surrounding men appeared to have been unable to follow the slash itself. Even as Alice rose up from her final posture, with the sword swung completely to the right in front of her, they continued scowling questioningly.

  There was no more than the meager notch made by the men on the platinum oak’s smooth bark; it had suffered no other damage—or so it appeared.

  A “Whaat, she missed?” eventually came from somebody and a number of them laughed. Alice glanced at the person to whom that voice belonged to and spoke as she sheathed the sword.

  “It will be falling that way.”

  “Hah? The heck are you…”

  The man’s two eyes opened wide with shock upon getting to that point in his words. He saw the platinum oak’s trunk slowly begin to tilt. A scream grew from him and those around him as they ran behind.

  The huge tree fell with a terrific tremor where the men were until three seconds ago.

  Alice moved to the front of the stump as she warded off the rising thick cloud of dust with her right hand. Fine tree rings were clearly visible on the newly-made cross-section and shone as though it was polished, but a single section on the edge was slightly frayed.

  Perhaps her skills have dulled, or perhaps her unavailable right eye was to blame—Alice pondered as she turned herself about.

  Her upper body unconsciously straightened up in the next instant. Nygr Barbossa had a full smile on his face and was rushing towards her with heavy steps, his arms spread out.

  She instinctively lifted the sword in her left hand and Nygr came to an abrupt stop at the clink made by the guard. Still, his smile remained and he put his spread out hands together in front of his body as he shouted.

  “B-Bri… brilliant! What skill! Jink, the guard chief, couldn’t even hope to match that! It’s practically divine!”

  He went another mel closer and continued his words with an expression filled equally with admiration and greed.

  “H-H-How about it, Alice, I will double your fee, so let’s not make it once a month, help us out once a week… no, once a day!!”

  Alice lightly shook her head at Nygr who was rubbing his hands together fast.

  “No, the fee I am currently receiving is plenty.”

  If she were to wield the Fragrant Olive Sword and make use of the armament full control art, it would not be on the scale of one large tree a day; it would be possible to change this forest to nothing more than barren land as far the eye could see in mere minutes. But if she were to do that, their requests would stretch on to tilting the plains, smashing rocks, and even making it rain.

  Nuhnhnhnhnh; Nygr moaned in agony before finally snapping out of it, blinking, after a “my pay, please” from Alice.

  “O-Oh, that’s right, that’s right.”

  Sticking his hand in his pocket, he pinched out the agreed hundred Shear, a single silver coin, from a leather bag that sounded heavy.

  Dropping that onto Alice’s palm, Nygr still stubbornly added some words.

  “How about this, Alice? I will pay another silver coin, so how about you decline those under Redack this month if they ask for help…”

  It was then, when she held back her sigh and was about to reject his offer once more.

  A heavy clunk reached her ears. Her face sprung up and saw the wheelchair sprawled on its side with Kirito thrown onto the ground a distance away.

  “…Kirito!”

  She gave a hoarse shout and rapidly slipped past Nygr.

  She could sense desperation from Kirito as he reached out with his left arm with his stomach lying on the ground. Ahead of him were the previously resting young men, two who now supported the long sword sheathed in white leather on the ground as they cried out in excitement.

  “Uohh, woah, this is heavy as heck!!”

  “That’s why even that girl can bring down that platinum oak in one blow, huh?”

  “Shut up and hold onto it properly!”

  The third youth shouted and held the Blue Rose Sword’s handle with both hands so as to draw it.

  Alice heard her own teeth gnashing as they grinded together. Released next from her throat was a sharp yell.

  “You bastards…!!”

  The youths’ mouths opened wide upon hearing that as they looked at Alice.

  She ran through the remaining twenty mel in an instant and came to a stop with the dust whirling up. The three looking at Alice’s face backed off haltingly.

  Somehow restraining the emotions threatening to burst out with a deep breath, Alice first helped up the fallen Kirito. While sitting him on the wheelchair once again, she ordered with a stifled voice.

  “That sword belongs to this man. Return it now.”

  Defiant expressions instantly showed up on the trio’s faces. The lips of the one with a large build and about to draw the Blue Rose Sword grew crooked and he pointed at Kirito.

  “We did ask that guy if we could borrow the sword, you know?”

  Back on the wheelchair, Kirito’s left arm was still reaching out towards the pure white sword while his feeble voice leaked out.

  One of the youths holding back the sheath warped his lips in ridicule as he continued.

  “And then, he generously lent it to us. With those cries of aah, aah, you know?”

  The last went with the flow and laughed with a “yep, yep”.

  Alice could not help but to tighten her right hand’s grip on the wheelchair’s handle. That hand was unmistakably seeking to draw the Night Sky Sword hanging off her left hand.

  She would have sliced off those six hands touching the Blue Rose Sword without even a hint of hesitation half a year ago. Integrity knights were above the Taboo Index and its prohibition on hurting others. And in the first place, with the seal on her right eye currently broken, there were no longer any laws capable of keeping Alice’s actions in check.

  Still—

  Alice grinded her teeth so hard it hurt as she fought against the impulse surging through herself.

  These youths were part of the people of the Human World that Kirito and Eugeo sacrificed their lives to protect. She could not hurt them. Neither of them would wish for that.

  Alice remained silent without moving a cen for several seconds. But she likely failed to conceal the bloodlust emanating from her left hand. The trio wiped off their smiles and averted their eyes, afraid.

  “…Fine, no need for that scary look.”

  The larger one eventually spat out with a sulk and took his hands off the sword’s grip. The remaining pair let go of the sheath with faces that appeared relieved, probably already at their limits in supporting it. The Blue Rose Sword laid down heavily where it was.

  Alice approached without any additional words, stooped over, and
deliberately used just three fingers on her right hand to lift the white leather sheath. After a glare at the brats right after turning about, she returned to the wheelchair.

  She wiped the soil that got on the sheath with the cuff of her overcoat, then placed on Kirito’s lap both the white and black swords which he firmly hugged before coming to a stop.

  She gave Nygr Barbossa a glance, seeing him apparently paying that commotion no attention and engrossed in directing the men. Alice lightly bowed towards his back as he continued his shouting, and then pushed the wheelchair back north on the narrow path.

  The anger raging in her breast for the first time in a while had turned to a cold sense of futility.

  It was not her first time thinking so since she began living in the forest near Rulid. Most of the villagers avoided even talking to Alice and as for Kirito who lost his sense of self, they would not even treat him as a human.

  She had no plans to condemn them. Alice was likely still a criminal who violated the Taboo Index to them, after all. She felt thankful enough for them giving their silent consent for her to stay close to the village, and selling her food and daily necessities.

  Still, she still pondered in a corner of her mind. —What for?

  Exactly what did she suffer so much and fight against the highest minister, Administrator, for? The other highest minister, Cardinal, the intelligent black spider, Charlotte, and Eugeo lost their lives; Kirito lost his speech and emotions; exactly what was protected after all that?

  That line of thought ended up on a question that she could never utter.

  Was there truly a need to protect people like those from the Barbossas?

  That doubt was partly what made Alice abandon her sword and live in this remote land.

  The tremendous military forces of darkness were drawing closer, moment by moment, beyond the «Great East Gate» at the end of the Eastabarieth Empire even now. It was dubious if the reborn «Human World Defense Army» fostered by Knight Commander Bercouli could even be deployed in time. As Alice was not relieved of her integrity knight duties—the only one capable of doing so was the deceased highest minister—perhaps she ought to be rushing towards the Great Gate to join them as soon as she could.

  However, the weight of the Fragrant Olive Sword was now beyond what Alice could handle.

  The Celestial World she believed to be her origin was actually a deception. The Axiom Church she swore her fealty to was smeared in lies. Not to mention she now knew the ugliness and vulgarity of the Human World’s inhabitants far too vividly. The time she could swing her sword without doubts over her own justice and pray to the gods was of the distant past.

  Those Alice now truly wished to protect numbered a mere few. Her father; her mother; Selka; the elderly Garitta; and Kirito. If nothing would befall them, what issue would there be turning her back to her knight duties and continuing her peaceful life in this land—?

  Leaving the cleared land, Alice’s feet stopped just as they reached the path beyond the wheat fields, and she whispered to Kirito.

  “Could we go shopping in the village seeing as we are here? I will not allow some insolent child to harass you this time.”

  There was no reply, but judging the lack of response as consent, Alice pushed the wheelchair on towards the north.

  The skies were dyed in the shades of sunset by the time they bought a week’s worth of food and essentials with the hundred Shear silver coin earned and returned to the forest cabin.

  She was on the way up the cabin’s porch when she noticed a low whoosh approaching. Descending slightly with the wheelchair, she awaited the origin of that sound near the meadow’s middle.

  What made its appearance before long, skimming the treetops, was a gigantic silver beast with two wings, a long neck, and a tail—a flying dragon. Alice’s flying dragon who brought the two of here from the central capital. With the name, Amayori.

  The flying dragon circled through the skies above the meadow twice before gently descending. Tucking in her wings and stretching out her neck, she first touched Kirito’s chest with the tip of her nose before rubbing her large head against Alice.

  Upon scratching the faintly bluish fuzz under the dragon’s neck, a low kururu rang out from her throat.

  “Amayori, you have gotten a little plump. You have been eating too many of the lake’s fishes.”

  After being scolded with a vague smile, she breathed out from its nose as though embarrassed, turned her long body about, and walked towards her bed east of the cabin. She curled up atop her bed made from thickly laid dry grass, entwining her tail with her head.

  Half a year back, Alice undid the leather bridle fixed on Amayori’s head and released the binding art on the day she decided to build this cabin in this meadow. And she even went to the extent of telling her that she was now free and to return to the flying dragon nest in the west empire, but the flying dragon made no attempt to leave Alice.

  Making a bed with grass she gathered on its own, she plays in the forest and catches fish in the lake during daytime, but comes back in the evening without exception. Despite the lack of the sacred art that restrains the proud, brutal disposition of a dragon and brought her under a knight’s command, it was a mystery why she did not return whence she came.

  That said, she was simply glad that Amayori, always together with her since she became an integrity knight, would remain by her side through her free will, so she made no actual effort to chase her away. The villagers spotting her flying over the forest at times seemed to be one of the causes for Alice’s unsavory reputation among them, but she felt no point in being bothered over that now.

  After telling Amayori good night as she began her low snoring atop the dry grass, Alice pushed the wheelchair into the cabin.

  For dinner, she made a stew from half-moon beans and meatballs. The beans were just a little hard and the balls were not all that consistent, but it seemed to have tasted rather decent. Naturally, it was not like Kirito gave any opinion through his words. He merely chewed and swallowed, as though from memory, whenever the small spoon entered his mouth.

  She considered how it would be nice if she knew his likes and dislikes at least, but realized she actually held a proper conversation with this youth for less than even a full day after thinking about it. It seemed Selka lived with him in the church for a while two years ago, but she only remembered him indiscriminately enjoying everything served. She thought that, too, was just like him.

  It happened after she moved Kirito, who managed to finish the stew after some time, to the small stove’s side along with the chair and was washing the cutlery in the sink, lining them up in the drainer.

  Amayori who usually slept until dawn suddenly cried out with a low rururuu outside the window.

  Her hands jerked to a stop and she perked up her ears. A noise unsuited to the season was mixed in the night wind passing through the forest, like a cold winter wind. A noise like thin, large wings flying against the wind.

  “……!”

  Leaping out of the kitchen, she confirmed Kirito was staying quiet on the chair before opening the entrance. Straining her ears again, she judged the wind noise to be approaching, immediately went down to the front yard, and looked upwards into the night sky.

  The black silhouette descending in a spiral against the backdrop of a sky filled with stars unmistakably belonged to a flying dragon. She looked towards the east of the meadow just to be sure, but naturally, Amayori was crouching on her bed as she looked up at the sky.