2

Centoria was the biggest city in the Norlangarth Empire—the biggest in the entire human realm, in fact. It was a perfect circle surrounded by walls, measuring ten “kilors” across, in the measurement of this world.

That was just about the length across the very first floor of Aincrad, meaning this city was as large as that massive wilderness map all on its own. It was almost impossibly huge for a virtual city and boasted a population of over twenty thousand, from what I had heard.

On top of that, the city was constructed in a very special way. The circular expanse was split into four by large walls forming an X shape. In essence, it was separated into four wedge-shaped pieces that narrowed down to a ninety-degree point. Even more surprising was that these were known as North Centoria, East Centoria, South Centoria, and West Centoria, and they acted as separate capital cities to the four empires that divided the human realm into cardinal directions.

In other words, the capital cities of the four empires, which mimicked the shape of those larger territories, were all adjacent and separated from one another by a simple wall, at the very center of humanity.

I couldn’t help but be shocked when I learned this. The emperors’ residences and the headquarters for the knights’ brigades that served as the military force of each empire were all located in the capital. If a war ever broke out, the city would immediately explode into chaos. I started to suggest this possibility to Eugeo but realized my mistake in time: There weren’t even robberies in this world, much less murders, so war could never break out among the empires.

Of course, in order to pass the giant marble walls—known as Everlasting Walls—that separated the capitals, one needed a special pass. That made sense, given that you were crossing national borders. So the visiting traders and tourists from afar in North Centoria tended to attract a bit of attention: black-haired Easterners, tanned Southerners, and slender Westerners. They were technically foreigners, but since we all spoke the same language (with different accents), there was no real trouble with the locals.

Not only was there no war, there was essentially no friction among the countries at all, and that surely had to do with what sat in the middle of the city—the giant pure-white tower that occupied the center of the human world as a whole.

The Axiom Church’s Central Cathedral.

It was so tall that the tip was always indistinct up in the sky. I couldn’t begin to guess how many hundreds, if not thousands of feet tall it was. It must have been a tremendous sight looking up from the base, but high walls surrounded the square grounds of the Church, making it impossible. The four Everlasting Walls that split Centoria each intersected with a corner of the Cathedral’s white walls…Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they flowed outward from this center of the realm.

The Everlasting Walls were quite stunning artifacts in their own right, as they ran not just through the city of Centoria but over fields, forests, and deserts, all the way until they ran into the End Mountains nearly five hundred miles away. There were no power shovels or cranes in this world, so it was terrifying to imagine how much time and manpower it had taken to construct the walls by hand.

There could be no better symbol of the absolute authority of the Axiom Church.

The tower in the center of humanity was so grand and vast, looming high over even the palaces of the four emperors, that it was easy to rationalize the way the people of this world overlooked the differences among the empires. It was probably no different than the way I viewed residents of Tokyo versus nearby Saitama.

That raised another question. In this world of less than one hundred thousand residents, why did they need to split up into four empires at all? I hadn’t yet found an answer. The rationale for an ultimate church authority presiding over the empires was also a mystery still.

The Axiom Church had civil posts such as priests and senators, along with the Integrity Knights who served as its military rank, but according to what Liena told me, it was not a large organization, consisting of less than a hundred in total. If you totaled up the knights and garrisons of the four empires, they made over two thousand. So the fact that there were no recorded rebellions of the empires against the Church meant that either the emperors themselves could not defy the Church and its Taboo Index, or that those few dozen Integrity Knights were more powerful than an army of two thousand. Possibly both were true.

The glory of the skyscraping Central Cathedral could be viewed from any spot at the Swordcraft Academy. As I left the elite disciples’ dorm following my final practice with Liena, hurrying through the chilly spring evening, I glanced up at the chalk-white tower overhead, bathed in orange and blue.

Was whoever stood at the very top of that tower gazing down upon humanity just an onlooker from the real world like me, or yet another Underworldian fluctlight? Even if I continued to clear every single hurdle, it would take another year and a half to find that answer. Yes, in the real world that amounted to only another ten hours and change, but that meant nothing to how I would perceive it.

In the two years since I had woken up in the forest near Rulid, I had spent many nights trembling with the fear of not knowing my situation and the powerful desire to see Asuna, Suguha, my parents, and my friends again.

But on the other hand, there was a part of me, deep down, that feared finding the exit at the top of the Cathedral. Logging out would also mean a parting from all the people I’d met here in this world. That included Selka and the other children of Rulid I hadn’t seen in months and months; the few friends I’d met at the academy; Sortiliena, who had tutored me and cared for me as her page for the past year; and most of all, my partner, Eugeo.

I hadn’t thought of them as AIs in quite a while. They were just as human as me, only with their souls stored in a different place. The two years I’d spent in Rulid, Zakkaria, and Centoria had taught me this.

In fact, my love wasn’t just for them. I felt it for this mysterious, vast, and beautiful world, too…

I summoned a deep breath to stop these thoughts from going any further.

Up ahead was an aging building, a two-story stone structure with green shingle roofing: the North Centoria Swordcraft Academy dorm building housing 120 primary trainees.

I would have preferred to climb straight into my room through the second-story window, but dorm regulations forbade that. Unlike the level of freedom granted to the elite disciples at their dorm, the primary trainee dorm and the secondary trainee dorm on a nearby hill were regimented by rules so strict, even the old Knights of the Blood headquarters would be stunned.

I summoned my courage and climbed the stone steps to the entrance, then carefully pushed the double doors. One silent step inside, then two—and I heard a quiet cough from my right. I turned fearfully to catch sight of a woman sitting across the entrance counter. Her brown hair was neatly arranged, and her features were nothing if not strict and stern. She was likely in her late twenties.

Promptly, I put my left hand to my waist and pounded my right fist over my chest in what they called the “knight’s salute” and announced crisply, “Primary Trainee Kirito, returning to dorm!”

“…You are thirty-eight minutes after curfew.”

There were no clocks in this world, only special “Bells of Time-Tolling” in every town and major location (including this academy) that played melodies every half hour. The only way to know the precise time would be some special limited-use higher sacred arts, but Azurica, the dorm manager, had to be using some extra-sensory skill to determine that it was exactly 5:38 in the evening.

I held my knight’s salute and, quieter this time, said, “My instructor, Elite Disciple Serlut, issued an extension of my instruction time.”

Azurica stared at me with her blue-gray eyes. Between her stern disposition and the sound of her name, I couldn’t help but be reminded of another person I knew. Before I left this dorm, I wanted the chance to ask her if she had a relative up north named Sister Azalia, but it didn’t look like that opportunity would come. Most of our interactions came in the form of scolding—just like this.

“It is the duty of any trainee page to accept the teaching of a disciple. Very well. But Primary Trainee Kirito, I have suspected that you see this not as a duty but a kind of free pass to escape curfew. And after an entire year, I still cannot dispel this suspicion.”

I undid my salute, moved my hand behind my head, and put on an awkward smile. “Wh-why, Miss Azurica, my only desire has ever been to improve my skill with the sword. Breaking curfew is simply an unfortunate byproduct of the process and most definitely not its intended purpose. Honest.”

“I see. If you’ve been late all year long to train your skill, you must have made great leaps and bounds. If you wish to determine your level of success, I would be more than happy to serve as a sparring partner.”

I froze in place again.

Miss Azurica’s calling was being the primary trainee dorm manager at the North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy and not an actual swordcraft instructor. But as a general rule, all adults working at the academy were former graduates. That meant she had greater skill than the average person. Her expertise in the Norkia style and fearsome “one-on-one lessons” for any student caught bending (but never breaking) the dorm rules were well-known by one and all.

That was bad enough, but then what would happen to a student who actually broke the dorm rules? Thankfully, I would never find out—because it was impossible. The artificial fluctlights who lived in this world had a peculiar feature that made them incapable of disobeying higher regulations. All except for me, thanks to my different fluctlight vessel.

In a sense, it was really a minor miracle that I had made it an entire year without ever breaking one of the dorm rules. Impressed despite myself, I shook my head in protest. “N-no, Miss Azurica, that won’t be necessary. I’ve only just finished my first year here.”

“I see. Then when you have completed your second year’s training, I will be ready to judge it.”

“…Yes…I would…love that,” I said, backing away and praying with all my might that she would not remember this promise for an entire year.

She finally returned to the document in her hands and said, “Dinner is in seventeen minutes. Please try not to be as late this time.”

“Y-yes, ma’am! Pardon me!”

I saluted again, spun around, and headed up the main stairs at the maximum allowed speed. Room 206 was where Eugeo and I stayed. It was actually a ten-person room, but the other eight were good guys. Of course, everyone in 206 (and 106 down on the first floor, which was just for the girls) was of common birth, surrounded by nobles and merchant children—so we couldn’t afford to squabble among ourselves.

In the upstairs hallway, I made my way through the groups of students chatting and laughing gently on the way to the cafeteria and finally through the door at the very west end, when—

“You’re late, Kirito!”

Naturally, that came from a boy—if you could still call him that—with flaxen blond hair, sitting on the bed second from the end on the right. My partner, Eugeo.

He stood up and put his hands on his hips. He’d grown an inch or two since we’d first met two years ago and was more firmly built now. It only made sense, as he would be nineteen this year. Yet his gentle features and sparkling green eyes hadn’t changed a bit. The six months at the Zakkaria garrison and this year at the academy had put us through serious challenges, but his honest, hardy soul had never once wavered through all of it.

For my part, I didn’t feel like my personality had changed much, either, but the amount of height and muscle I’d put on was startling. I was seventeen when I fell into this world, which meant I felt a two-year gap between my body in the real world and my body in the Underworld. I had felt plenty weird after escaping the two years in SAO, but at this rate it was going to be more like three or four this time…

I approached my partner, holding up the sideways hand of apology and saying, “Sorry about the delay. It was a ‘special’ sparring session with Miss Liena…”

“Well…I get that. It’s the last time,” Eugeo said with a mild glare. He smiled and continued, “To be honest, I was late by twenty minutes, too. We got to talking in Golgorosso’s room.”

“Oh, sheesh. I’m surprised, though…I would have figured that Rosso was the type to let his sword do the talking.”

I walked past Eugeo to the desk-bed placed against the wall and tossed my practice gloves, elbow pads, and kneepads into the drawer. In the real world, doing this with used kendo gear would quickly produce a very fragrant bouquet, but that wouldn’t happen here due to a lack of simulated microorganisms. My uniform had been soaked with sweat at the end of our duel, but now it was completely dry. Liena, of course, had not sweat a single drop the entire time.

I straightened up, feeling much lighter now, and Eugeo smirked and said, “Rosso’s actually pretty analytical, if you’d believe it. Well, let me rephrase that. He considers the state of the mind to be just as important as one’s skills…”

“Yeah, I’d believe that. His Baltio style is more focused on the one-hit victory than the Norkia style, even.”

“Yeah. And our Aincrad style is more about adapting to the moment. But there are times when a swordsman must be unshakeable and place all his life into a single blow! …Or so he says all the time. Today was just putting a period at the end of that lesson.”

“I see. He’s got a point. And I feel like your strikes have had extra weight to them recently…But where does that leave my adaptive Aincrad style, now that it’s getting mixed in with the Serlut style’s constant shifting?”

We left the room as we chatted. Our other eight dorm-mates had gone to the mess hall, and the hallway was empty. Meals at the dorm were on a strict time limit, with dinner starting at six o’clock and ending promptly at seven. Showing up after six wasn’t against the rules, but we tried not to miss the pre-meal prayer. Anything to avoid trouble—from the noble students’ perspective, Eugeo and I were not only commoners in their midst but also taking up two of the twelve valuable page slots.

We headed for the mess hall at maximum battle speed. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the dorm rooms reserved for students of common birth were the farthest away. Apparently, the secondary trainee dorm was arranged the same way—but we wouldn’t need to worry about that come April. If all went according to plan, we’d score within the top twelve on the advancement test at the end of the month and earn our places within the elite disciples.

Eugeo, thinking about the same thing, muttered, “No more power walking down the hallway after this.”

“Yep. The disciples’ dorm is way more relaxed about this stuff. But Eugeo…there’s one thing that really bothers me about being a disciple…”

“Say no more. It’s about the pages, right?”

“Exactly. It was fun having Miss Liena help and instruct me…but I don’t know about being in that position myself…”

“Bingo…I don’t know what I’ll do if I end up with a noble for a page…”

We sighed in unison.

The long hallway came to an end. We pushed through the door and entered a buzzing, lively atmosphere. The mess hall opened up to both floors, and it was the only coed space in the building. The majority of the 120 students were grouped in all-male or all-female tables, but here and there were individuals with the remarkable skill of chatting with mixed company. Just like school in real life, in fact.

Eugeo and I rushed down the stairs and went to the counter to get meal trays. There was an empty table back in the corner that we slid into. Moments later, the six o’clock bells rang, meaning that we had made it in time.

A male student (noble, of course) who served as dorm leader stood up, offered a prayer to the Axiom Church, then led the group in a chant of “Avi Admina.” I had no idea what that holy phrase was supposed to mean. With those formalities out of the way, it was time to eat.

Tonight’s dinner menu was fried whitefish doused with a fragrant herb sauce, salad, root vegetable soup, and two bread rolls. It wasn’t that much different from the food served at the church in Rulid and the farm near Zakkaria, which surprised me, given how many noble students attended this academy. But they treated it as completely normal, with no complaints.

It took me a while to figure out why this would be—and it wasn’t because the nobles lived simple, humble lives, too. It had to do with the Underworld’s peculiar concept of spatial resources. There was a limit to the quantity and volume of objects generated within a certain range of space and time, which meant that there were only so many crops, livestock, animals, and fish to harvest or hunt at a time.

If the nobles were to monopolize this limited food source, there wouldn’t be enough for everyone, and some disadvantaged residents would go hungry. That would cause their life to drop, which was against the Taboo Index law about causing damage to others’ lives without justifiable reason—and even nobles and emperors could not defy the Index. Therefore, given its direct link to maintaining life, food was not the subject of fixation and monopolization that it was in real life…Or at least, that was how I interpreted it.

Of course, just because they weren’t snooty about food didn’t mean that all the nobles were automatically of exemplary character.

“Why, I’m positively jealous, Raios!” someone boomed from right behind us. We both made sour faces.

“We poured our own sweat into cleaning this mess hall, and yet some people just get to waltz in afterward and eat! Truly jealous!” the voice continued accusingly.

Another voice chimed in. “Oh, don’t be spoiled, Humbert. No doubt the pages are subject to rigors that the rest of us could never understand!”

“Hah! I bet you’re right. From what I hear, a page has no choice but to do as their tutoring disciple commands.”

“Boy, what if you wound up stuck with a tutor who was of low birth or banned? You never know what they might put you through.”

I just sat there, eating my food, understanding that they were just trying to get a rise out of me and responding would be giving them exactly what they wanted. Still, that didn’t stop the anger. Not only were they taking it out on us, they also referred to “low birth” to mean Eugeo’s tutor, Golgorosso, while the “ban” was referring to Liena’s style having come about due to her family’s banishment from its original sword style.

That wasn’t the only sarcastic needling contained in their statements. The bit about coming in “afterward” was a reference to the fact that there were twelve pages in total, but Eugeo and I were the only ones who showed up just before the dinner bells, identifying us as their targets.

There were creeps like this in Zakkaria, too. Egome Zakkarite had displayed some truly wicked smarts during our tournament duel. But the twisted way that some people had gone after us once we joined the academy was almost impressive. In fact, their totally natural harassment was one of the factors that caused me to forget that all these people were just artificial fluctlights, AIs.

“…We’re almost there, Kirito,” Eugeo muttered, tearing off a bite of his bread.

He was referring to the fact that we would be disciples soon and live in a different dorm from them. It was a bold statement from Eugeo, to be sure, but it wasn’t just idle boasting.

The twelve pages were chosen out of the 120 primary trainees based on their results in the academy’s entrance test, meaning that the twelve elite disciples from the second year of the academy got to pick out one page each.

When you were a page, you didn’t have to clean the dorm or take care of the practice tools like the other students. Instead, you would clean up the chambers of your tutor disciple, help them with their tasks, and act as their sparring partner.

The two who kept offering up snarky comments hadn’t been selected as pages, meaning that their test results were lower than ours. They’d been hovering around the twenties and thirties in rank through the periodic progress tests, so Eugeo was justified in assuming that they would not reach the elite disciple boundary.

But I wasn’t so sure about that…

I held up the knife in my right hand and used the reflective flat of the silver blade to see behind my back.

At a nearby table, two male students were continuing their insulting innuendo, throwing occasional glances our way. The one on the left with the slicked-back gray hair was Humbert Zizek, who came from a fourth-rank noble family. The one on the right with flowing blond hair down to his back was Raios Antinous, the eldest son of a third-rank noble line. There were no first-rank nobles at this school—they were prestigious enough to have their own private instruction—and only a few were second-rank, such as Volo Levantein, so third was quite high.

But of course, not all the noble children were like these two. Volo the first seat was the quiet, stoic warrior type—not that I’d interacted with him much. Liena was a third-rank noble like Raios, and she was the very picture of grace.

In that sense, Humbert and Raios fit the mold of the stereotypical pampered rich boys who talked a bigger game than they were actually worth…but I wasn’t sure if that told the entire story. Through either good or bad luck, I’d never faced either in a duel, but I couldn’t help but wonder if they were slacking off in the seasonal testing periods—perhaps even the original entrance tests, too.

The reason for this was that the top twelve students were automatically thrust into the page’s role for the elite disciples. This was treated as an honor within the academy, but given that Raios and Humbert were easily the proudest nobles in the school, they might have gone out of their way to avoid having to take orders from a fellow student.

I had no proof of this, of course. But when I saw their forms during sword practice, I would feel a kind of pressure, a very foreboding chill. It was that sense of mental power again, the absolute self-confidence they possessed by being noble.

“Hey, Kirito, your dish is empty,” Eugeo said, nudging me. I looked down and realized that my fork was simply poking an empty salad bowl. To cover up my embarrassment, I lowered the knife to my fried fish, only to see that it was gone, too. I’d been so focused on Raios and Humbert that I had eaten my dinner, the second-best part of the day, without enjoying any of it. So much for not letting them get to me.

Worst of all, the best part of my day—the sparring sessions with Liena—was coming to an end today…

Actually, that wasn’t quite right. My official duty as page was over, but I did have a big promise to fulfill tomorrow, on our day of rest. I was going to show her everything my style could do.

That reminded me of a very important fact. I set down my knife and fork and leaned over to Eugeo.

“Hey, I need to ask you something. Will you come out to the courtyard after dinner?”

“Yeah, sure. I was just wondering how your little ‘garden’ was coming along, Kirito.”

“Heh! Believe me, it’s doing great. Should be ready just in time for graduation.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

We finished whispering and stood up with our empty trays. As we passed Raios and Humbert, still prattling on about us, I caught a pungent whiff of the animal-oil perfume they put on their uniforms and rushed past to get away from it.

Once we had returned our dishes to the counter and left the mess hall, we both exhaled mightily. The bells had rung once, just a few minutes ago, which meant it was past six thirty now. That meant we had free time until lights-out at ten, but it really wasn’t that free—we couldn’t leave the dorm building, and we had to be back in our rooms by eight. There wasn’t much else to do but some self-training or studying. I, however, had just one activity after dinner.

On the west wall of the dorm (opposite the mess hall) there was a small door that led to a little yard. High walls without a roof surrounded it, but it was treated as part of the dormitory building.

The square yard was split up into four beds, each sprouting buds of different plants and flowers. There were designated students to tend to the beds, but they weren’t just for show. The four different plant species were all materials used as catalysts in sacred arts classes. The plants flowered three months apart, so materials could be harvested year-round. If you crushed a dried-up fruit in your fingers, it would release sacred power into the air, providing the resources necessary for students to practice the arts.

Of course, the earth and sun provided regular resources on their own, but the earth power was diminished in the city, and the sun’s strength was affected by weather. In order for 120 students to practice the sacred arts all at once, they needed a more substantial material than spatial power.

Since it was spring, the northeast bed was full of blue anemones in bloom. In summer it would be marigolds, followed by dahlias in the fall and cattleyas in the winter. These were all high-priority, resource-rich flowers.

The Underworld’s plant species had evolved in peculiar ways over 380 years of history, but the fact that these flowers still shared the same name and appearance as their real-world counterparts spoke to their importance. I was not as certain that the rest of their biology was so heavily based on reality.

For one thing, once the petals were gone, all the flowers left behind similar rounded fruit. If you plucked and peeled it, you’d wind up with a glass-like ball about an inch across. Pinch it with your fingers, and it would break and release sparkling green light, indicating sacred power…That part was clearly unique to this virtual world.

From what the teacher in sacred arts class said, outside of these Four Holy Flowers, there was one other miraculous species that could bloom throughout the year and grow a particularly lush fruit called the rose. But commoners, nobles, and even emperors were forbidden to cultivate it. If you wanted to see one, you’d have to seek out the rare, secluded locations where it actually bloomed in the wild. That reminded me that I hadn’t seen a rose since coming here. Given this description, it made sense that they were reserved for the crafting of divine objects.

We headed west down the little path that split the garden, gazing at the beautiful anemones along the way. Just before the fence, there was a large metal stand laden with gardening tools like shovels and watering cans.

Eugeo and I crouched down around a small, unassuming planter located at the side of the stand.

“It’s really growing now. Look, the buds are actually swelling,” he noted.

“Well, we’ve failed at this three times now. I hope that we actually get somewhere this time…”

Growing in the planter was something known as a “zephilia,” which had sharply angled leaves that were nearly blue in color. It was probably unique to the Underworld. It apparently did not generate much magical resource…but it was very beautiful. The reason it “apparently” didn’t have much magic was that neither I, nor Eugeo, nor just about anyone else in Norlangarth had ever seen one before.

The zephilia plants were exclusive to the empire of Wesdarath, beyond the Everlasting Wall. They did not grow in the northern empire; they were not even cultivated.

There was a small but brisk trade among the empires, so you’d think they would sell the flowers or put them in pots, but that was not the case—because there was no calling for “flower traders.” They considered it a waste of sacred power to grow inedible flowers for the purpose of commerce. There were herb traders who grew their products in their own fields, but they were limited to the Four Holy Flowers. Everything in this world came down to effective use of resources.

So where had the seeds for this zephilia plant come from?

“Did you use up all the seeds you got to produce this seedling, Kirito?” Eugeo asked. I nodded.

“Yeah…this is our last chance. The spice trader said that the next shipment of them wouldn’t come until this fall.”

They didn’t sell the flowers, but they did sell the seeds. Zephilia seeds would produce a vanilla-like scent when crushed into a powder. Therefore, a small amount was imported from Wesdarath as a spice for sweets—a fact I had learned last fall.

I had taken all the shia I had—basically, all the salary from the Zakkaria garrison—and bought as much as I could get from a spice trader. All they had in stock was a small bag of seeds, but it was enough for me to try growing them on my own.

There were two reasons that I had suddenly gotten into gardening.

For one, I wanted to do a little experiment about a core nature of this world: what I called the “Imaging System.”

The spice trader had told me that zephilias wouldn’t grow in Norlangarth soil. I had dug up dirt as close to the western empire’s wall as possible to use in the planter, but the first batch of seeds ran out of life without even budding. They simply vanished from the planter.

But that couldn’t be a conscious design decision on the part of whichever real-world people (probably Rath’s staff) built and managed the Underworld. Unlike anemones and cattleyas, zephilias weren’t a real flower.

So why would zephilias grow in the west empire but not the north?

My suspicion was that the people of this world believed that to be so. The mental image of their beliefs fixed the properties of the zephilia flower within the buffer data of their main memory device.

If that was the case, could I laser-focus a mental image that was stronger than the people’s common knowledge into just a few dozen seeds, causing a temporary overwrite of the buffer data…?

The idea of one person overturning the common sense of thousands and thousands sounded ridiculously arrogant, but it was worth trying out, in my opinion.

I was challenging a piece of ancient knowledge that had been passed down for over a hundred years. In the present day of the Underworld, there likely wasn’t a single person bothering to chant, “Zephilias only bloom in Wesdarath!” every single day. In other words, it wasn’t like the zephilia data in the main memory device were completely locked from change.

So what if I used my imagination, my mental power, to will it into being…to pray, every single day? Could I actually overturn some ancient bit of common-sense knowledge?

With that idea in mind, I spent six months starting in the fall, giving it water and mental images to feed on.

The first attempt was a failure. The second attempt was a failure. The third attempt had produced tiny little buds. They wilted soon after, but I’d managed something they said was impossible. I had used up the rest of my seeds in the fourth attempt, and now I was going twice a day, in the morning before school and in the evening after dinner, to focus on them like never before. Soil is soil, and water is water. You’re going to sprout, and grow, and bloom.

At this point, when I silently spoke to it, I could even see the sprout take on a faint glow at times. That was probably just a trick of the eye (or the mind), but by now I was sure of it: the twenty-three plants growing in the planter were going to bloom beautiful flowers this time.

“Here, Kirito, I brought some water.”

“…Ah, oh, thanks.”

Eugeo had carried over a watering can full to the brim while I’d been lost in thought in front of the planter. I took it from him, and he grinned. “We’ve been together for two years, Kirito, but I’d never have guessed you had an interest in gardening.”

“Neither would I,” I said idly. I didn’t think much of it, but Eugeo’s face suddenly went serious.

“What if it’s a sign that your memory’s about to come back? What if, before you showed up in Rulid, you had grown flowers back home…? Maybe you had a gardener’s calling.”

I stared back at him in stunned disbelief, then quickly cleared my throat. “Ah, ahem…I don’t know about that. Remember, I didn’t know anything about plants. I needed all of Muhle’s expertise to get this far.”

I’d almost forgotten that I was technically a “lost child of Vecta,” a term that Underworldians used to describe people who showed up far from their homes without any memory—which they attributed to a prank of the god of darkness, Vecta. Eugeo was the only one who knew this about me, since I was registered with the academy as being from Rulid Village. And he’d stopped bringing it up recently, so I figured he had essentially moved past it. Apparently I was wrong.

Eugeo nodded slowly and refrained from further comment. Instead he looked at the plants. “Well, let’s give them their water. Don’t you hear them begging for it?”

“Oh? Have you learned to hear their voices, too, young Eugeo?”

“Well, I’ve been going along with this idea of yours for half a year now, Kirito,” he joked back. I straightened up and prayed quietly before the planter.

I know it’s small, but that’s your country. There’s nothing there to threaten you. Take in the light, suck up the water, and bloom your beautiful flowers.

Once I felt certain that this wish had permeated the water in the can, I tilted my hand. A spray of droplets issued forth, wetting the fragile bluish leaves and stems, trailing downward, seeping into the black dirt…

I thought I sensed a gentle, warm light infusing the twenty-three sprouts. Another illusion? Or…I glanced over at Eugeo, who was praying with his eyes shut and hadn’t noticed anything. By the time I looked back to the plants, the light was gone.

As a matter of fact, I hadn’t told Eugeo the truth about my little experiment (disguised as a hobby). He didn’t know the flowers were zephilias; I’d told him only that I’d picked out the seeds at the market at random.

My expectation was that if I told Eugeo the truth, his common sense might cancel out my efforts. The experiment wasn’t to compare our willpower, and that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I was already nervous enough about the possibility that in the testing exams for elite disciples, he and I would end up forced to face each other in a duel…

“…Hey, Kirito.”

I spun toward him, surprised. Of course he hadn’t really heard my inner voice. But I still wasn’t ready for what he asked next.

“What would you do if all your memory came back, Kirito…?”

“Uh…what would I do?”

“I mean, you’re here trying to be a disciple…and, ultimately, an Integrity Knight…because you’re helping me with my goal, remember? We’re trying to look for Alice, since the Axiom Church took her away eight years ago. But…what if you remember everything—remember your true hometown…”

Would you go back? he finished, speaking with his eyes.

There could be no other answer than, Yes, I want to go back home. But home wasn’t anywhere in the Underworld. My home, and the people waiting for me, was outside in a country called Japan in the real world.

In order to log out voluntarily, I’d need to find either a system manager or a system console. If I was going to find either of those things anywhere, it would be in the Central Cathedral, the very core of power. So both Eugeo and I needed to become Integrity Knights—just for different reasons.

It hurt to keep a secret from my partner, my friend. I switched the empty watering can to my other hand and patted Eugeo on the back, then left my hand there.

“No…even if my memory does come back, I won’t leave. I was a swordsman in my old home. That’s the one thing I’m sure of…even if I did like flowers. And why wouldn’t a swordsman want to compete in the Four-Empire Unification Tournament?”

“…”

Eugeo’s back trembled a little bit. His flaxen hair hung low from his bowed head as he hunched. I could just barely hear him say, “I’m…a weak person. If I hadn’t met you at the Gigas Cedar, I’d still be swinging my ax at it right now. I’d use that as my excuse, never leave the village…and eventually…I’d forget all about Alice…”

He stared down at the bricks at his feet and continued, “The fact that I got into the Zakkaria garrison…that I made it all the way to Centoria and into the Swordcraft Academy…it was all thanks to you pulling me along. So I’ve been telling myself…I want to at least be as strong as you by the time we graduate from here. And yet…hearing what you just said…made me so relieved…”

Eugeo trembled again under my palm. I willed strength into my hand, wishing it would flow through my fingers like it had just done for the plants. You are strong. You are. You’re the one who made the decision to leave your home, in this world bound by laws and rules.

“Let me just say that I certainly couldn’t have gotten all this way by myself, either,” I said, trying to keep my words lighter than they felt. “I didn’t know the way, my memory of Basic Imperial Law is rusty…and I didn’t have a single shia to my name. The only reason I’m here now is because there were two of us. And it’s going to stay that way. If we don’t work together, we’ll never overcome these elite nobles who have been swinging swords since they learned how to walk. We’ll never match the best and brightest of the imperial knights. You can save your thoughts about striking out on our own for after we’re Integrity Knights.”

“…”

Eugeo didn’t have any response to this for a while. When he did speak, his voice was frail. “Yeah. Yeah…you’re right. We came this far together. And we’ll climb that white tower together.”

“That’s right. And the next step in that process is placing within the top twelve in this month’s test. I might have the physical skill down…but I’m not as sure about the sacred arts. When we get back to the room, teach me more about which catalyst is best for which element.”

“…Ha-ha, you got it. Calling in that ‘working together’ favor early, huh?”

“Hey, why not?”

I slapped Eugeo on the back and got to my feet. When he joined me, he wore his usual genial smile. Then his head tilted a bit, as though he was remembering something.

“Hang on, didn’t you have something to talk to me about?”

“Uh…oh, r-right. I completely forgot,” I said. I turned to Eugeo and asked formally, “Eugeo, can I borrow the Blue Rose Sword for tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, so easily it was almost a letdown. Then he cocked his head again. “But why? Weren’t you the one who said we should use the practice swords as much as possible, so as not to throw off our instincts on the test?”

“I did…but then I made a promise to Liena earlier. I said I’d show her the best I can do. And I can only manage up to a two-part attack with the wooden sword.”

“Oh, I get it. You want to show her the true power of the Aincrad style. You’re free to use the Blue Rose Sword as much as you want, but…”

He paused, looking confused. “But Kirito, have you forgotten? Tomorrow’s break is the big day!”

“Huh? What big day…?”

“Come on—the seventh day of the third month. The one you were looking forward to!”

“…Oh, r-right, right. The day it’s finally ready! Gosh, it’s not like I completely forgot…I just didn’t think it would take an entire year…”

“Meaning that you did forget.” Eugeo laughed and asked, “What’s the plan? Will you use the Blue Rose Sword, or…”

“No, I’ll use my sword. It’s all according to Stacia’s guidance or whatever. Sorry—just after you said I could borrow yours and everything.”

“It’s fine. More importantly, let’s get back to the room so I can tutor you until lights-out time.”

“…Just…go easy on me, okay?” I said, putting the can back on the shelf and following Eugeo back.

I turned for one last look at the planter, glancing at the glistening young buds stretching up to the night sky.

As for the second reason for my zephilia-growing experiment…I didn’t even like to acknowledge it. It was just slightly—no, considerably—embarrassing to admit.