SAO 15 - Alicization Invading

by Reki Kawahara

  And she jumped from the height of several tens of mel without the slightest hesitation. The hem of her overcoat blew violently as she fell, slicing through the cold night air.

  The villagers, numbering an overwhelming three hundred, who huddled in a circle might have been prepared to put up a fight as there were men positioned on the edge carrying farm implements such as spades and scythes. Alice landed right beside two men who shot off orders from the side.

  The stone paving cracked in a radial pattern with a thunderous roar. An intense shock ran from the sole of her feet to her head and her Life probably fell somewhat, but that was as far as it went.

  The two men—the wealthy farmer, Nygr Barbossa, and Rulid Village’s chief, Gasupht—had their words scared out of them by the silhouette suddenly falling from above.

  Though Alice felt her breath momentarily stop upon seeing her father’s face, she recovered quick enough to take advantage of the silence she caused and shouted out.

  “You will not be able to hold them back here! Evacuate all of the villagers through the southern road at once!!”

  The shock grew on the men’s faces as they heard Alice’s instructions.

  But what came out from Nygr’s mouth after he came to his senses was a throaty, harsh voice.

  “Don’t be stupid! How can we run away and abandon my mansion… this village?!!”

  Alice refuted the wealthy farmer, veins popping from his brow, in a sharp tone.

  “You can still escape from the goblins’ reach now! What is more important, your assets or your life?!”

  Replacing Nygr who could grunt in reply, Gasupht the village chief let out his voice, deep and tense.

  “Fortifying our defenses in a circular formation was the instruction from the guards’ chief, Jink. Even I, the village chief, have to abide by his orders in such a situation. That is the empire’s law.”

  Alice was the one who went speechless this time.

  During emergencies, the one who acceded to the sacred task of the guard chief gains a temporary authority to command all residents of a village or town in place of its leader. That provision certainly existed on the empire law of Norlangarth North Empire.

  However, the guard chief named Jink was a youngling who only recently inherited his sacred task from his father. It was doubtful he could maintain his composure and assume command under such abnormal circumstances. The pronounced anxiety on Gasupht’s face showed that he, too, thought so inside.

  That said, the empire’s laws were absolute to the villagers. She could only have Jink, commanding the defensive line fighting at the north side of the plaza, pull back and change his orders to start the evacuation at once, but there was clearly insufficient time.

  What? What could she—

  The cry of a young yet resolute voice reached Alice’s ears then, as she stood frozen.

  “Let’s do as big sister says, father!!”

  Looking back forward with a gasp, she saw a short sister healing the burnt villagers with sacred arts.

  “…Selka!”

  Thank goddess, she was fine; Alice took a step forward towards her beloved little sister, but Selka stood up and weaved through the crowd to the trio.

  After showing a brief smile towards Alice, Selka’s facial expressions immediately tensed up as she spoke to Gasupht.

  “Father, have big sister ever been wrong even once? No, even I can tell. At this rate, everyone will die!”

  “But… but still…”

  Gasupht stammered with a bitter expression. His moustache, stained with white, quivered slightly and his sight wandered futilely through empty space.

  Taking the place of the village chief who went speechless, Nygr Barbossa erupted once more in anger.

  “This is no place for a child to meddle!! We will protect this village!!”

  His two bloodshot eyes stared at the Barbossas’ mansion built near the plaza. What was on Nygr’s mind was unmistakably the mass of wheat just harvested in autumn and the gold coins hoarded over many years.

  Returning his sight towards Alice and Selka, the farmer, naturally enough, yelled out shrilly.

  “Yes… yes, I’ve got it! You are the one who invited those beasts from the land of darkness to this village, aren’t you, Alice?!! You were defiled by the darkness’s power when you crossed the mountain range at the edge in the past!! You witch… this girl must be a terrible witch!!”

  Alice lost her words, jabbed by that fat finger. The clamor from the villagers, the clashes between weapons resounding from the defense line, and the war cries from the monsters closing in from the north all felt far away.

  Since she began living in the village’s outskirts, Alice had countlessly fell the forest’s gigantic trees on Nygr’s request. This man had practically writhed to thank her each time. And yet, he could still spew those words as his family’s fortunes occupied his entire time; how could—

  Alice averted her eye from the middle-aged man with an expression much like the evil countenance of the orcs and murmured inside.

  —How about you deal with it on your own?

  —I will simply do as I like. I will take Selka, the elderly Garitta, my parents, and Kirito away from this village and search for a new home somewhere far away.

  She grinded her teeth audibly; she lowered her eyelids.

  Her stream of thoughts put forth an opposing view.

  —But the foolishness Nygr Barbossa and the other villagers displays was created by the rule by the Axiom Church over hundreds of years.

  The masses were bound by countless principles and laws under the Taboo Index and while they were granted a tepid peace, something important was steadily stolen from them.

  That would be their ability to think, and to fight.

  Where had that imperceptible power, plundered from the masses over endless years and months, accumulated?

  Within the integrity knights who numbered merely thirty-one.

  After she took in a deep breath and let it out, the force Alice’s left eye flashed open with practically made a noise.

  Nygr’s face abruptly turned pale, as if from fright, in her sight.

  In contrast, Alice felt a mysterious energy overflowing from within. A power like a flame burning blue-white, quiet yet hotter than all other. The power that she thought lost at the end of that battle on the cathedral’s highest floor—one that led Kirito, Eugeo, and Alice to face off the Human World’s mightiest ruler.

  Alice took in a deep breath and announced.

  “…I will revoke Guard Chief Jink’s order. I shall have every villager gathered in this plaza retreat to the southern forest with those bearing arms at in front.”

  Her tone was gentle, but Nygr’s upper body bent back as though hit by some unseen hand. Nonetheless, one could still say his courage was admirable with how he still replied in a quivering tone.

  “By… by what right can a girl who was drove away-”

  “The authority of a knight.”

  “Wha… what knight!? This village has no such sacred task! Even if you can swinging a sword around a little, do you know what will happen should the esteemed knights in the capital hear about you just claiming to be one…?”

  Alice gave Nygr, frothing as he continued screaming, a firm look as she gripped her overcoat at her right shoulder with her left hand.

  “I am… My name is Alice. Third among the Axiom Church’s integrity knights, overseeing the Centoria City Region, Alice Synthesis Thirty!!”

  She tore the overcoat from herself as she loudly announced her name.

  The moment the thick cloth her entire frame was clad in was taken off, her golden armor and Fragrant Olive Sword gleamed brightly as they reflected the blazing flames.

  “Wha… an, an i-integrity knight…!?”

  Nygr fell on his rear while looking upwards as a voice, now completely shrill, leaked from him. Gasupht’s eyes opened wide as well.

  Alice’s proclamation of her name could not have been a lie. After all, there
could not be any in this world who could pass themselves off as an integrity knight—none who could disobey the authority of the Axiom Church. Kirito and Alice were probably the only two capable of doing so, but it was not as if Alice abandoned her sword, the proof of her knighthood, even after escaping here from the central capital.

  The villagers making a din around, too, fell silent. The swords clashing at the defense line in the north as well as the war cries of the guards and goblins, too, felt far away.

  What broke that silence first was a whisper from Selka.

  “Big… sister…?”

  Turning her left eye towards her little sister who had her two hands grasped together before her chest, Alice smiled gently.

  “I am sorry for keeping it from you all this time, Selka. This is the real punishment given to me. And—my real duty.”

  Tear droplets appeared from Selka’s eyes upon hearing those words.

  “Big sister… I…. I always believed in you. That you were never a criminal. You are beautiful… so, very…”

  The next to act was Gasupht.

  Kneeling down on the stone paving with a firm noise, the village chief shouted with a strained voice while looking downwards.

  “Your will shall be done, esteemed integrity knight!!”

  Quickly getting up, he turned back to the villagers behind and issued clear instructions.

  “Everyone, stand!! Those bearing arms shall lead the way, run to the south gate!! Once you are out of the village, escape to the forest south of the cleared land!!”

  An uneasy stir ran through the villagers standing stiffly. But that, too, lasted but a brief moment. The villagers had no option to resist orders from the village chief in the first place; all the more so when it was the will of an integrity knight.

  The muscular peasants fortifying the surrounding stood up and urged the women, children, and elderly to stand as well. Alice called to Gasupht who joined in at the head of the pack to stop and spoke in a hushed voice.

  “Father, please take care of everyone… of Selka and mother.”

  Gasupht’s stern expression quavered for a mere instant and he gave a terse reply.

  “……Do take care of yourself too, esteemed knight.”

  This father would likely never ever call Alice his daughter again. That, too, was part of her payment for the power she was granted. Carving that into her heart, Alice pushed Selka’s back and made her go along with Gasupht.

  “Big sister… don’t work yourself too hard, please.”

  Alice smiled as she nodded to her little sister whose eyes were still watery, and then turned towards the north. The villagers moved off as one behind her.

  “Ah… aah… m-my mansion…”

  That pathetic moan came from Nygr Barbossa whose rear was still on the ground. His gaze flickered between the villagers running off and his mansion where the flames were closing in towards. Deciding to leave him alone, she focused on the overall state of the village.

  She did succeed in setting the villagers into action, but they still numbered three hundred. It would take time for them all to escape from the village. But the defense line was reaching the end of its rope and besides, the enemy’s footsteps approached from the east and west too.

  A young man’s shout, much like a scream, rang out from the north side of the plaza then.

  “We can’t hold on any longer! Retreat! Retrea—at!!”

  The voice belonged to Guard Chief Jink. Nygr stood up upon hearing that, as though revitalized, and flared up Alice.

  “Look… just look at that! We should have stayed in the plaza and defended! We will get killed! They will murder all of uss!!”

  Alice shrugged her shoulder and refuted calmly.

  “No need to worry; there is all this space. I will hold them back here.”

  “As if you can! You can’t possibly do it, not a chance! Even if… even if you are really an integrity knight, what can you do alone against so many of those demons?!!”

  Nygr still continued crying out despite the goblins’ horrifying silhouettes already pressing in from the east and west. Ignoring him yet again, Alice glanced behind. The last of the villagers were still in the plaza, though enough of a distance from Alice and the rest in the center.

  Alice gripped Nygr firmly from his nape and pushed him towards the south. That hand thrust straight into the night sky and she called her beloved dragon’s name out loud.

  “Amayori!”

  A mighty roar immediately returned from the skies. Swinging her raised right hand down from the west to the east, she then shouted.

  “—Burn them to ashes!!”

  The noise of flapping wings poured down like a storm and Nygr, standing still, along with the grotesque demi-humans charging into the plaza—the goblins—looked straight up at the same time.

  The gigantic flying dragon diving through the skies, dyed red by flames, opened its jaw wide. A bluish-white gleam flickered from deep in its throat—

  Shubaa!!

  That resounded as a glaring light came forth. The heat ray that made contact with the west streets mowed down the east streets as well, cutting through before Alice and Barbossa’s eyes as they stood on the southern side of the plaza.

  Time stopped briefly.

  Terrible flames swelled up along a line and freed themselves into the night skies. The goblins swallowed up were blasted up high with shrill screams.

  The heat ray that instantaneously slaughtered over twenty of the aggressors while vaporizing the fountain in the middle of the plaza and thick white smoke rolled out into the surroundings. Amayori flew off, skimming atop it, and Alice called out instructions to standby before glancing her eye behind.

  Nygr collapsed back onto the stove paving, perhaps due to the strength in his waist leaving him, with his two eyes peeled.

  “Wha… whaa… a…. a, a d-dragon…!?”

  Alice was wondering what happened to the middle-aged man whose slackened cheeks went into spasm before desperate footsteps approached from beyond the hanging steam. The ones who appeared, all clad in leather armor, were the men from Rulid’s guard corps. The decision to beat a hasty retreat was a good call as their condition showed; despite suffering slight wounds, none were hurt badly among the several tens of guards.

  A young man with a large frame who admirably ran at their end—Guard Chief Jink—noticed the plaza was mostly empty and shouted with a shocked face.

  “W-Where have everyone from the village went!? Didn’t I tell them to fortify their defenses here!?”

  “I had them retreat to the southern forest.”

  Alice answered and he blinked as though just noticing her existence. His sight shifted between her head and feet countless time as he spoke, dumbfounded.

  “You… Alice…? Why are you…?”

  “There is no time to explain. Is this all of the guards? Are there any left behind?”

  “Ah… yes, I believe so…”

  “Then please escape along with everyone. Aah, and take Barbossa there with you.”