Sword Art Online Volume 19 Moon Cradle Part 1.pdf

Initial illustrations

Kirito: —— The thing is, the war will start once again. Ronye Arabel: No, no way...

(Kirito/Ronye): ...A Dark Territory dweller committed a "murder" in Centoria. Isukan: Unthinkable... As long as the "Law of the Strongest" is in action, people of Dark Territory are unable to kill a person from Human World. Scheta Synthesis Twelve: But if the culprit is from Human World, this means he is able to ignore the Taboo Index.

(Isukan): Un...Unbelivab...le (Scheta): This is... Kirito's incarnation... (Kirito): OOOO~!!

"Underworld" map Human World Union Council: Prime swordsman Kirito Vice prime swordsman Asuna Integrity knight Fanatio Integrity knight Dusolbert Integrity knight apprentice Ronye Integrity knight apprentice Tiese Plain goblins tribe inhabitation Northern cave Mountain goblins tribe inhabitation Village of Rulid Orcs tribe inhabitation Dark people inhabitation The Great Eastern Gate Obsidia castle

"Human world" Central Cathedral "Dark Territory" Giants tribe inhabitation Ogres tribe inhabitation

World End Alter

After the "Great war", the exchange project began between "Human World" and "Dark Territory (Darkness world)". It was the proposal of Kirito and Isukan, respective representatives. Tourists from Dark Territory were accepted in Human World while merchant factions from Human World were allowed to Dark Territory. Real world Alice Leafa Shinon and also Lisbeth, Silica, Klein, Egil Dark Army main headquarters Dark Army commander Isukan Human world full authority representative Scheta

Intro The footstep sounds of two are echoing in a corridor formed with stretching up white columns. Running ahead is a girl wearing gray light armor and slender long sword with fluttering dark brown hair. Just behind her, a young dragon covered in pale yellow wool with whole body being fluffy chases while shaking a long tail. The head of the dragon, which has not yet developed corners, is slightly higher than the girl's waist. The girl's name is Ronye Arabel. The name of the young dragon is Tsukigake1. From a beautiful, causing to smile sight as if in a fairy tale, it is hard to imagine that in a few years the girl and the young dragon will grow up to "Integrity Knights" with the greatest fighting power in the Underworld. But indeed, even now, there won’t be even 100 people in the whole world, who surpass Ronye in sword skill. The girl was always fighting at the forefront of that terrible "foreign world war"2, followed by the "Rebellion of Four Empires", and for the first time in history, it was appointed to be an Integrity Knight apprentice by the battle in actual war. However ───. The girl’s polished sword skill that will bloom to perfection soon, will probably have no opportunity to be required on the battlefield. Because Underworld finally got complete peace at the end of the 300-year-old dispute. Six parties: Human World, Dark Territory, Goblins, Orcs, Ogres and Giants tied permanent peace treaty. The privileges of the four emperors and the aristocracy of the human world who were oppressing the other people were also eliminated. Merchants' wagons go one after another through the collapsed Great Eastern Gate, and you can see visitors from the Dark Territory in the central city of Centoria. Fear and hostility that used to separate two worlds, are melting without a trace like the snow in the sun. The girl with the sword swinging at the waist and the young dragon run in a gentle sunlight creating a diagonal striped pattern shielded by columns. The moving away sound of two’s footsteps and patter was becoming barely heard, and eventually disappear. A big butterfly appeared from anywhere dancing in the corridor to enjoy the quiet that returned again.

Footnotes: 1. 月駆, Moon Drive. 2. In the "Prologue III" of volume 18 the same event was named "The war of two worlds".

Part 1 "Ronye, over here!" Standing on tip toes and looking at the direction from where the voice came, she saw the burning red hair swaying across the crowd. She was muttering apologizes “I am sorry, I am sorry” to Central Cathedral's clerics and staff members while pushing her way through. Several people turned around, somewhat frustrated, but after noticing Tsukigake following Ronye, gave the way. Somehow Ronye made it to the front row and breathed a deep breath. "Hey, finally, it starts already!" The redhead girl inflating cheeks was the best friend of Ronye, who turned and apologized. "I'm sorry, I got lost as to what to wear ......" "Got… lost, but in the end, stayed with your usual appearance" The name of a surprised girl was Tiese Shtolienen. She was in the same status of Integrity Knight apprentice as Ronye. Autumn-colored eyes similar to her hair were shining vividly, her slim body was wrapped in cute patterned jacket and indigo skirt. She had lowered the red leather sheath on the waist, it even seems to be a sort of jewelry fitted with clothes. I should have brought the Southern Empire shawl I bought last week, regretted the other one moving her gaze away, noticing Shimosaki1, the young dragon she was raising, rubbing against Tsukigake’s nose, and a young man wearing a gentle smile behind Tiese. He was looking more like a boy than a young man, but in addition to heavy long sword he was equipped with two crossed knives bent in the middle. Priority which is given to the sword was also considerable, but the one of throwing blades was simply outrageous. That weapon that looks thin like paper was nothing else than a "divine object" class weapon. Ronye lifted the right fist, moved an arm horizontally and hit the chest, and placed the left hand on the handle of the sword greeting the young man with the formal knight bow. "Good morning, Renri-sama2" Integrity Knight Renri Synthesis Twenty-Seven answered to that with a wry smile from the other side of the dragons. "Good morning, Ronye-san ...... You do not have to worry about fight so much, as today it's a longawaited fest."

"Fest... What fest is it?" She tilted her head unconsciously. Today ── it is the seventeenth February, three hundred and eighty-second year according to the Human World calendar, just a regular weekday. Also, neither in the "Human World Fundamental Law" issued last year, nor in the “Taboo Index” being actively revised, there is not a single line instructing to celebrate this day. However, looking around, the vast Central Cathedral front square was crowded with as many onlookers as the total count of it’s staff. Everyone seemed to have a terrible trouble trying to get drinks and snacks. Furthermore, the front gate of Cathedral which is usually closed tightly seemed to be open to citizens of the central capital today. Two improvised standing areas provided on the left and right of the main gate inside, were crowded with the number of onlookers which could easily surpass a thousand. "... Well, can’t name this anything but a festival. Can’t help it, senpai...... When Prime Swordsman does something, it definitely looks like this" Ronye also nodded to the words that Tiese spoken with embarrassed face. "Well, I guess.... Let’s hope he won’t destroy Cathedral today" On the other side of the crowd, where three people gathered their line of sight ── As they say, the words could not describe it. The strange sound echoed from the space in the middle of the front square, a separated area of about one hundred square mel, and on a pure white stone floor, a “metal dragon statue” appeared. However, as a proof that it is not just a decoration, the upper part of the sharp head was made of transparent glass. Short wings attached to the left and right sides of the trunk were flat, and instead of legs, two thick cylinders stretched out from a big swollen back. There was no tail. It can be said that it’s total length was about 5 mel, and orange flames were peeking out from the holes above and below the cylinders and in the back, but it’s identity could not be understood at all. ……One thing certain is that it makes me feel badly disgusted. Muttering this deep within her heart, Ronye removed her gaze from a metallic dragon and stared at three people standing nearby. Then one of them ── a young swordswoman with the long chestnut hair fluttering in the breeze having a fine sword hanging on the left hip on top of a pearl skirt, turned back as if feeling Ronye's gaze. She smiled once and raised a hand as if beckoning her.

"Hey, come over here" As Tiese got hesitant and stepped back for a moment, Ronye moved forward and soon daringly crossed the yellow barrier rope. Behind her back, of course, followed Tsukigake. Under focused gaze of numerous spectators gathered, pulling her head in to the limit, she slowly crossed the square. Stopping in front of a swordswoman, she stretched out to the fingertips and returned the knight’s greeting again. "Good morning, Vice-Prime Swordsman-sama" "Good morning, Ronye-san. It looks like we’re celebrating today, so you can make it more comfortable" She said that while having a light smile on her face beautiful enough to be disappointing, and Ronye relaxed shoulders and answered. "...... Yes, Asuna-sama" "I told you so many times, don’t add that “sama”" She sharpened her lips, but it was hard to accept this. A woman standing before Ronye’s eyes and looking a little older than her — a Vice Prime Swordsman of the Human World Union Council Asuna — was respected by everyone, in a sense, respected more than the Prime Swordsman himself. Because she was believed by all the people of the Human World that to be a reincarnation of "Genesis God Stasia", one of the three goddesses of Genesis mythology. While she continues to deny that she is actually a god, Ronye witnessed a scene where Asuna have created a huge rift in the ground with a sword to cut the inevitable clash with other army. Once you’ve seen that, you cannot even imagine omitting "sama". Even directly ordered 『do not add “sama”』by the higher Knight whom she should be obliged to obey, she swung her purple neck left and right with the firm intention to continue, seeing which Asuna switched the subject with a bitter smile. "So, Ronye-san. You are the best in thermal element sacred art, aren’t you?" "I… yes, I am" Feeling awkward, she nodded. Asuna then moved her face close and continued in a low voice. "Well then, there is a little favor to ask. As we have thermal elements array and you have mutual predisposition to each other, I would like you to teach me how to let them out." "Eh, oh ......? Is there a thermal element in it?"

Ronye could not immediately understand the meaning of words, and she moved her gaze, blinking. She looked up at the highest point of a metal dragon, and then saw two men discussing something beside it. "...... all in all, Kiri-boy, even if you say that the thermal element can is computationally resistant to the heat that one generates, that is because there is sufficient supply of permanent freezing! Grandson is not good at cryogenic element, so if you take any delay during the sacred art, the fully charged element can will blow in a blink of an eye!" The one proclaiming this loud speech full of unknown words was a man of about fifty years old owning a magnificent beard. That person well-known to Ronye, was a metalworker producing the best armor in the capital city of Centoria named Sadore. For a long time, he used to operate a shop in a downtown, and after a cooperation with the Integrity Knights Order in the "Rebellion of Four Empires", he took office as Central Cathedral's chief engineer. The one being spoken to by Sadore-shi3 immediately became totally blushed, like a little kid ── With black hair and black eyes, his appearance was one of a fairly ordinary young man. He wore long-sleeved jacket and trousers of a strange gray color. There was no weapon on his waist. He combined hands fitted with brown leather gloves behind the head and talked back to old Sadore with a slightly tired face. "Hey, hearing this hurts my ear like an insect lurking inside. Old man, I guess it’s time to stop that “Kiri-boy”." "Hmph, don’t even hope it. Since that day three years ago, when you brought that hard branch to my shop so I had to completely use six grinding stones of precious black rocks to sharpen him into a sword, I decided to call you my grandson forever." "...... Mind you, without that sword, this world would be in great trouble..." The complaining young man suddenly turned around and saw Ronye. Since they met for the first time, he did not change, leaving an impression of a somewhat childish person. As soon as Ronye saw a wide smile on his face, something tightened deep in her chest. Ronye lowered her head, aspiring not to put it on the table. "Good morning, Kirito-senpai" This time she would like to use “sama” as well, but exclusively for this person a “sama ban” was actually issued in official documents. So unavoidably, she used “senpai” as she would do back then when they both were students. Former Elite Swordsmen Trainee at the Sword Mastery Academy in North Centoria, a young man

named Kirito who is currently appointed to the position of the Prime Swordsman of the Human World Union Council, said raising his right hand with a smile. "Oh, Ronye! How are you doing?" A young dragon appeared from behind of Ronye and loudly singing “kurururu” and flapping small wings it pounced on Kirito and began licking his cheeks without refrain. After smiling involuntarily from the look of that situation, she also greeted Sadore. "Good morning, master." "Oh, good morning, young Ronye." Having exchanged that, Ronye quickly approached the old man with a gentle smile, and asked. "So, that ...... you were taking about just now, what is it like, that thermal element can?" "Well, here, look at the back of “machine dragon” prototype No. 1" "Machine... dragon?" It was an unfamiliar word once again, but she quickly understood that it was the name of a metallic dragon that aroused in front of her. Looking at it again she felt somewhat uncomfortable to call “dragon” a creature without life which the emitted strange sound called “Hiruuruuru” from the back part swollen in an elliptical shape. "There, two charged containers made from western adamant steel, there are only 10 thermal elements contained in each". "Eh....... Eeeeh!" As soon as she heard of it, Ronye bend backward filling dizzy. Thermal element was the most difficult thing among the eight attributes being the source of sacred art. Unlike the cryogenic and the aerial ones which can be kept in the space for a while, if you leave it as generated, it will quickly emit heat and light and disappear. If you use thermal element, you must never lose concentration until it is processed or discharged — that is the first fundamental thing apprentice clerics are taught of. "Well, such a...... But even adamant steel with highest heat resistance, if you leave it in contact with ten heat elements, won’t it melt and explode...?" "There is a contrivance. On the outside of the container, there is a pipe made of Yorund giant centipede husk which has high freezing resistance. It is a rough pipe system connected to sealed cans with cryogenic element supplying cold air there to prevent hot cans from melting." "............... It is, ehm ............"

Even though it is said to be a contrivance, for Ronye thermal and cryogenic elements are the sources of the sacred art which is the sacrament of Gods and is far from the smith craft and metalworking. She has never thought of what will happen when combining the two. "............... That thing, so what will happen if it works...?" Murmuring distantly, master Sadore spread out his stubborn hands. "Well, it’s pretty clear." "Eee!" "Old Kiri-boy will ride this thing." "Eeeeee~~!?" Ride — heck, does this make any sense now? Fearfully she moved her face and looked up at the tip of the “machine dragon”. Then, she noticed that there is a thing that seems to be nothing but a chair installed inside the head with a transparent glass plate combined in a sharp shape. There were a metallic pipe and a number of small disks attached around the chair. A thin needle in the center of one disk seemed to be trembling finely in sync with strange sounds. "............ Well, no way ...... Someone sitting there, then...... releasing the thermal element...... from the barrel in the back of it, and then............." "Swish! Flying... Like a dragon in the sky." It was Kirito who stood next before she finished. Next to them, Tsukigake sniffed the metal wings of the “machine dragon”, and turned away with clearly disappointed face. "Un......, un..., un..., unreasonable, senpai!" She shouted while pulling the sleeve of Kirito 's strange clothes. "Well, you didn’t think that we plan to discharge all twenty thermal elements at the same time, which will clearly blow out the entire thing, did you!? This is done similar to a cathedral elevator." "Yup, since the nozzle is adjustable and initially sealed, you can raise or lower the pressure with the flow of aerial elements. Nothing is better to fly the skies than the explosive power of a thermal element..." Finally smiling, Kirito turned around.

"Besides, there are so many people waiting to see such a thing... If you say that we are cancelling now, the “Central Government Rebellion” will happen next." "Ah, wasn’t it senpai who gathered them all!" A lot of people gathered today in the Central Cathedral front square because Kirito has widely announced that “we will conduct a public experiment by the Cathedral arsenal”". As the peace came to the Underworld, it is natural that staff members and citizens who have greatly enjoyed the recent "Northern Cave Protective Dragon Restoration Experiment", will show up as soon as the Human World Prime Swordsman, who is the biggest noise source, does something again. At that time, as it seemed Kirito made a minor mistake controlling the resurrected white dragon, almost all planted trees of Cathedral were frozen unfortunately. Ronye who knew it unintentionally bend backwards. Her back was supported by a Vice-Prime Swordsman standing right behind. Asuna who had a long relationship with Kirito said with a face that looked like she gave up. "Don’t waste your time, Ronye-san. There’s nothing we can do, it will happen." "Bu... but...... it is not right............" The head turning left and right, made her rethink it once again. In the last years Ronye had learned the cases of “there is no other way but to do it” if stubborn Kirito comes up with something. Intending to do everything possible to at the very least avoid catastrophe, Ronye focused her mind on the heart of the “machine dragon”. Even though she was appointed as an apprentice, Ronye still has not yet reached the level where she could freely utilize the "incarnation" which was the secret of the Knights. It was completely impossible for her to invoke sacred art by shortening the incantation to as little as her will like Kirito and higher Knights did, but recently she became able to perceive the state of the generated elements. As Sadore-shi said, a lot of thermal elements were contained inside the machine dragon. However, the thermals are never quiet. She felt how they are trembling and pulsing as if trying to blow away from the surrounding shell. Such activity at this state of the elements, what will happen if we release it? ..... her back chilled but there was no choice but to continue watching the progress. "... Well, I could feel the elements for the time being, Asuna-sama, they seem to be controlled well......." Asuna next to her answered in a loud but trembling voice.

"Thank you, then keep en eye on the circuit." "I will" Just as Ronye nodded, Kirito loudly said from a distance. "Well then, here we start! Asuna, countdown, if you please!" "Why should it be me!" "Like in old times, when we were getting ready for the boss room rush!" Asuna swiftly nodded to the cryptic words of Kirito, then raised her right hand and recited the initial phrase of a sacred art. "System call!" She quickly and smoothly constructed "wide area loudness sacred art" combining aerial and crystal elements. She could use an incarnation, but there were no enemies around so there was no reason in concealing the technique. Asuna raised her lips to the thin film of glass floating in the center of the vortex-like air. 『Everyone who gathered, we kept you waiting for long! Here and now, by the Central Cathedral arsenal, we are doing the flight experiment of “Machine Dragon — Prototype No. 1”! 』 The loud voice echoed through the crowed square, and both the Cathedral officials standing on the other side of the narrow strands and the citizens of the central city packed in the seats in front of the main gate all happily cheered. Looking up to the Central Cathedral, the armor of Integrity Knights could be seen shining brightly on the large terrace around the thirtieth floor high above. In the applause and cheers, Kirito waved his hand towards visitors and began to climb a ladder standing against the machine dragon. He quickly reached the head and opened a transparent glass plate sliding it inward. He sat on the chair set facing the sky and fixed the body with a leather band. After wearing big eyeglasses previously hanging on his neck, he gave thumb up with the left hand to master Sadore. Old Sadore followed by Ronye and Asuna retreated for more than 20 mel. Ronye increased the distance carefully while paying attention so as not to lose the contact to thermal elements. 『Then, I begin the countdown! Everyone, please join me! 』 Asuna called out onlookers in an awfully familiar tone4. She put both hands up in the air and extended ten fingers. 『Altogether, ten! Nine! Eight! 』

Approximately 1000 voices responded to the numbers Asuna shouted folding her fingers. Same moment, Tiese and Renry also joined the count with smiles on their faces. Ronye shouted together with them holding tightly to Tsukigake’s neck. 『Seven! Six! Five!』 Unexpectedly, the vibrations of thermal elements increased in strength. Kirito began direct control with incarnation. Kirito's intense mind power flowed into the connected Ronye through elements serving as a mediator. Again, something tightened deeply in her chest. ── I cannot just let this feeling go out. ── As a Kirito-senpai’s companion, I have to keep it sleeping quietly until that time when I get old and my life runs out. Ronye shouted louder, aspiring to hide her heating eyes from Asuna standing next to her. 『Four! Three! Two! 』 The sound of the machine dragon is increasing rapidly. The dull silver shining surface violently shook and the light leaking from the bottom tube changed color from red to orange and yellow. 『One! ...... Zero!! 』 The stone pavement of the square was shaken by the incantation finished with faintly heard Kirito's cry. "Discharge!!" A keyword invoking the release of the elements. Immediately after, twenty heat elements burst out at once with their concealed powers. Along with the magnificent impulsive sound, a whitish flame burst out from the bottom of the machine dragon. The marble paving stones that should have nearly infinite life were burned and a lot of white smoke appeared. A huge crowd furiously resounded. From that smoke ──. The metal dragon jumped out straight like a silver arrow. A high-pitched sound resonated through the sky that Ronye had never heard before. While dragging the long flame tail from the two cylinders, the dragon rising higher and higher.

Ronye felt sore pain in the palms of both hands enveloped with the raging fever of released heat. Inherently, whatever the material container is made of, the ultra-high heat should completely destroy it and the whole machine dragon should be exploding. However, ultra-low temperature ice elements are sent one after another into the narrow tube embedded in the sealed can, reducing the temperature of the container. As a result, the explosive power of the thermal element is released only in one direction from the nozzle cylinder, and the huge machine dragon is blown straight. Now, for the first time in the history of Underworld, a human is soaring through the sky riding something other than a dragon. "............ amazing ......" Tears for the reason different than before filled both eyes of Ronye. Through her blurred distorted vision, she saw the silver dragon climbing up more and more as far as reaching over the Central Cathedral. If the dragon remains in one place on the ground, the surrounding space sacred power will be exhausted quickly due to the cryogenic elements generated constantly, but traveling at a high speed, it should be possible to barely catch up with the supply of spatial resources. Then, that man-made dragon may be able to rise to a height that cannot be reached even with a real dragon. As soon as she thought this, Ronye felt that she realized the true intention of the Human World Prime Swordsman. Kirito’s goal is not just to just fly ── perhaps, with the machine dragon, even the "end wall of the world" that no creature can cross, may be surpassed....... However, the moment her thoughts reached that far. Suddenly, Ronye felt the signs that the thermal elements are expanding. The sealed can is beginning to distort. It melts with high heat. I do not know the reason, but the supply of cryogenic elements that should lower the temperature of the can is insufficient. "Ah, Asuna-sama! Thermal elements are──" As she was saying that, they heard “Bo-mum!” which didn’t sound nice at all, and saw black smoke running from one of nozzle cylinders.

Immediately afterwards, the dragon began to rotate along the vertical axis. It’s track deviated to the south. Where was located ── The Central Cathedral, ninety-fifth floor wall. "Cra…crashes!"

Ronye grasped hands in front of her chest and shouted. A loud scream rised from the onlookers as well. With the sound “Shats!” Asuna pulled out the small sword from her waist. A bright yellow light shining with the light of Solus divided into seven colors, pointed straight to Cathedral. "....... Yoisho!"5 Asuna cried it loud and menacingly like a god should, and at the same time moved the tip of the sword to the left. As if being pulled by it, the top of the huge Central Cathedral beginning with 95th floor shifted to the west with a heavy sound. The next moment the machine dragon passed there while drawing black streaks of smoke. In the sky far from to the south, it emitted a dazzling flash. And with the sound “Doku~n!”, it exploded grandly. Although some energy has been consumed to rise the dragon, the power that was simultaneously released by twenty thermal elements was tremendous. Normally, one finger can control only one generated element, so even high-level clerics could not overcome the limit of ten instances. Rumors said, the former head of the Elder Council that used to manage the Axiom Church once used his toes to rise this limit to twenty, and the deceased Highest Priest Administrator seemed to have manipulated nearly a hundred instances using her hair, but of course Ronye never witnessed that. Even the knight Ronye was struck, not saying anything about the citizens who packed in Cathedral. High there in the air, an orange flash flared up so bright it should be called the second Solus, followed by the roar and a cruel shake as if heavens have fallen to the ground. Most of the onlookers screamed and covered heads with both hands. However, of course, unprocessed thermal elements have only exploded in the sky, so no damage has been none to the ground several hundred mel away from the bright phenomenon. At the end of the line of sight of the visitors who raised their faces, the dark black smoke expanded fully covering the top of the Cathedral which returned back to the original position. After seeing the explosion of the scale several times larger than the fireworks celebrating the New Year fired from this square two months ago, ── perhaps everyone thought that the Prime Swordsman who was in the steel dragon had passed anyway. Naturally, Ronye thought so as well, clenching both hands in front of her chest and opening her eyes wide.

"Ki............" Kirito-senpai! As soon as she was about to shout, Asuna next to her tapped Ronye's shoulder lightly and said. "He's all right" A small shadow dropped down breaking through the bottom of the black smoke as she heard the calm voice with no signs of trembling. A human. Even though all the materials forming the dragon evaporated and became a divine force spread in space, but one person wearing black clothes was falling down turning around. A shadow unexpectedly spread his arms. The part of the sleeves fabric stretched after them melting and changing shape to thin wings extending from the shoulders. When dragon-like wings fluted twice, three times, the speed of the fall decreased and eventually it completely stopped. The flight technique that should have been lost with the death of the Highest Priest. No, it was not actually a sacred art. It was only possible by incarnation to rewrite the “matter of the world” to transform the fabric of clothing into genuine wings and become a creature allowed to fly in the sky. There was no other person capable of doing such things at the moment. The watchers looking up roared all at once, and eventually the roar turned into a huge cheer and applause. Although the “machine dragon flight experiment” have probably failed for more than a half of its initial goal, Kirito gently descended waving and smiling. Ronye also clapped both hands hard looking up at his figure. Kirito’s style of implementing an outrageous idea causing extraordinary results have never changed even after years. The vision of his smiling figure once again became blurred in Ronye’s both eyes. Blinking fast she prayed quietly deep in the back of her heart. Should it ever come true, I hope that day would last forever.

Footnotes: 1. 霜咲, Frost Bloom. 2. As a reminder, "-sama" honorific is a more respectful version of "-san" for people of a higher rank than oneself. 3. 師, teacher, mentor. It is a shortening for his complete title, "master".

4. Refers to kids shows where watchers should sing/count together with the lead. 5. よいしょー, expression of effort or strain

Part 2 The Central Cathedral fiftieth floor, called the "Great Corridor of the Spiritual Light" was a conference hall for the current "Human World Union Council". In the middle of the floor where only polished marble was spread, there was a huge round table cut out from an ancient platinum oak, surrounded by twenty chairs. It was Kirito who sit on one of them shrinking his neck. A large man standing in front of him roared a thunder-like voice. "Today you shall hear my word, Prime Swordsman-dono1!" "............ Yes" "This time you haven’t destroyed anything! But I swear by my sword, next time you won’t be so fortunate!!" "………………Yes" The knight wearing heavy brass armor rebuking him like a teacher was the strongest swordsman in the Human World. His face was the reflection of the term fortitude itself, the hair was short trimmed and his sharp eyes blazed. That was Dusolbert Synthesis Seven, one of the oldest integrity knights. "Even though Asuna-sama revealed her divine power, the Cathedral from 95th floor is now char black! Although those floors are currently unused, the symbol and landmark of "tower of chalk" became "tower of embers". How much grief and sorrow are the people of the central city suffering! You, Prime Swordsman-dono, must be aware that you are in a position of heavy responsibility which you clearly lack! Having the need for advanced tools or sacred art, you could leave it to a cleric or a blacksmith who have it as their profession!" A slender knight sitting in a close distance raised from the table to interrupt the Dusolbert’s sermon, which seemed to last forever. "Let's finish it up, Dusolbert. The Prime Swordsman-dono is already withered like a namekuri2 in the sun." The owner of glossy voice inducing laughter was a female knight who wore an armor polished like a mirror and had a black hair waving on his back. On the left of her waist there was a slender long sword with a white-silver pattern, and with her right arm she held a small child with indigo hair rare in the Human World. "But, the knight commander..." "It is awkward to repeat so much but I’m more afraid if the Prime-dono simply escapes. We don’t have a consultation with the Dark Territory next month."

The name of the woman beautiful as a blooming flower who was called the commander was Fanatio Synthesis Two. She was a person with the world's highest sword power and held the leading position of the Second-Generation Integrity Knights, though it was hard to notice this from her appearance of slowly shaking a sleeping baby. Fanatio looked directly to Kirito who was still sitting head down and said with a smile. "That's why, please be quiet for a while, boy." To that Kirito raised his face a bit wearing a big bitter smile. "It is much more frightening to be called “boy” than “Prime”." "He-he, I guess it frightens you because there’s a dark background behind it" And Fanatio sent a sidelong glance to where there was a figure of Vice-Prime Swordsman Asuna with her arms folded. Although she also smiled, it felt her eyes were a little narrowed. Then Fanatio also directed the line of sight to Ronye standing next to the pillar away from the round table, smiling a sort of mischievous smile. But immediately she returned her glance back and tapped the Kirito’s shoulder. "Well, this time there was no actual harm, and I will beg your pardon should there be any further accusations. Instead, I'll do the office exactly until dinner." "............es" Having released both shoulders of Kirito and nodded to the each chair around the table, Fanatio again beckoned watching Ronye. The latter quickly came up, and she held out the baby she was holding to her. "Ronye, I'm sorry but I wonder if you can take care of Berchie. Around this time, if left alone, he will break something." "Sure, yes, my pleasure!" Having answered, the knight chief passed on a sleeping baby to the arms of Ronye. She was surprised by the weight felt by her arm. As an integrity knights apprentice, Ronye could swing with one hand both Human World’s weapon or a large two-mel length sword from the Dark Territory, but the weight of a child seemed quite different from that of a weapon. One-year-old Berchie firmly hugged to her chest with both arms and let out some murmuring, but immediately returned to restful sleep again. She bowed to Fanatio and returned to the wall. Tsukigake waiting there stretched her nose to smell Berchie and seemed to be interested. At the round table, Kirito, Asuna, Fanatio, Dusolbert, the head of clerics once used to be a monk and chiefs of various departments of the Cathedral sat around and started a meeting immediately.

"First of all, about the reopening of the mountain range in the Southern cave, which was reported the other day ..." "Although it is possible to dig a cave, it takes quite a while to build a highway in the southern jungle area ..." Since that day was not a formal meeting, the knight apprentice Ronye was not obliged to stay in this place. In fact, she was going to join her friend Tiese who was studying in the big library to close the gaps in her sacred art. But there was something Ronye secretly wanted to ask Kirito. When watching the flight experiment in the morning, she suddenly felt the need to confirm or reject the idea that came into her mind. But since Kirito would flew away as soon as Cathedral staff takes their eyes off him — to shopping streets of Centoria or to some city or village somewhere in the Human World as he has already done when things got rough, she intended to catch him quickly at the end of this meeting. Training the incarnation, one may keep standing for a few hours with one foot on the top of a thin iron pole, but waiting for the end of this meeting with her back by the pillar was causing more impatience. But as long as there’s Tsukigake here, who is by the nature much calmer young dragon than Tiese’s Shimosaki, I won’t get tired of propping the pillar. While standing still listening to lively discussions, the baby snugly cuddled in her arms suddenly sneezed. Although it did not appear to wake up, it might be cold so she moved a few steps to bring it in the light of Solus which was falling from a high window. The soft indigo hair glowed and glittered as the sunlight fell on the plump baby face, and Ronye held her breath for a moment to adore its innocent beauty. ............ Baby....... She smiled quietly murmuring the word. But then, her consciousness wandered to memories that couldn’t be said to be very enjoyable, when she returned to a birthplace in the northern part of the capital last month.

The Arabel family, from generation to generation, was a family given the 6th, lowest ranking in the old aristocratic system. The life was never wealthy. Without having resources of a senior aristocracy, such as territory, the income was composed of her father’s salary who was the platoon leader in the empire guard and very small baron allowance. As if that’s not enough, there was a tremendous tax every month, far from not only first- or second-class, but not even close to a merchant holding a large store in the center of Centoria.

Still, she spent every day very happy, surrounded by kind and housewifely mother, a strict but friendly father, and a naughty little brother. The only depressing moment was the occasional party held at her father's birthplace, the house of fourth class aristocrat. Her grandfather, who was a father of four, had been called to heaven by the time Ronye was still a baby, and the eldest son, Ronye’s uncle, the head of a family with insufferable aristocratic temperament ── took over the house. Her gorgeously looking aunt was disgusting when she falsely praised Ronye's mother's old dress and things like that were inevitable so she didn’t want to go at those parties every time. However, after the “Rebellion of Four Empires” has been finished, the aristocratic system was greatly reformed. All their land was released. Aristocracy classes were also abolished. Only the soldiers' allowance was left behind, but that alone was not enough and every aristocrat had to get a job at the restructured “human forces army”. For the former Emperors families, this change was the same as a natural disaster, but if you ask Ronye, it has only become the proper way it should finally be. The era of loud titles and high ranks granted solely because of the origin was over and sword power and intelligence, as well as experience and knowledge, allowed people to take up key positions. In conclusion, it can be said that now the credit given by state to every aristocrat, was equalized. But there are a few exceptions. Specifically, from all the former aristocrats in Centoria, two people were brought into an Integrity Knights apprenticeship: Ronye of the house Arabel, and Tiese of the house Shtolienen. Last month Ronye returned to her parents' house for the first time after she became a knight apprentice. Parents and younger brother whom she hasn’t seen for the whole year were all happy, especially her younger brother, a student of Northern Centoria Sword Mastery Academy, who tried to swing Ronye's sword — and could not even draw it — than challenged Ronye to arm-wrestling — and wasn’t able to push in half a cen — which made him terribly excited. Her father asked about the life in Cathedral, her mother's cooking was as delicious as ever, it was a fun night. The next day, three father's older brothers and their families unexpectedly arrived very early, and they brought plenty of gifts. In other words, there were marriage proposals to Ronye. Should Ronye ever be formally entitled Integrity Knight, a guardian from the former Axiom Church, she would be getting overwhelming awe and respect from the entire Human World. These emotions remained almost unchanged even though the Church has been reformed to the “Human World Union Council". It’s even vice-versa, as the number of Integrity Knights have lost their lives in a foreign world war, the appreciation of their heroism has only increased. If you take such a knight as a bride, the house's status and income will rise at once — and it seemed

that her uncle and aunt were thinking this direction. They were from a house of the oldest son. A house of a direct heir. They gathered up a mountain of presents and being proud that they brought so much, they stacked it up in front of Ronye. ── No matter if I’m the knight apprentice, the most important role of a woman is to give birth and bring up a child. Sure, they say even the head of integrity knights, even that kind of person raises a baby. And there is no law that could say anything is wrong with “my recommendation is my son”, but not like this, not with this person... In the past, Kirito secretly told Ronye and Tiese. The Highest Priest who ruled the former Axiom Church gathered those who excelled in sword skill and sacred art from all empires and turned them into an integrity knight. However, in fact, knights were deprived from previous memories by the forbidden technique called “The synthesis ritual”, and instead they were given false memories that they were summoned from the divine world. Of course, it was a terrible act, but standing in front of her uncles and aunts Ronye could not help thinking it was a brilliant idea in terms of streamlining the administration of the Order. Suppressing her feelings and a wish to create a smoke screen with sacred art and simply escape, Ronye could hardly explain that neither there is a high allowance for the knight, nor a territory for their children. However, her uncle did not try to believe it at all, and finally he became angry saying that Ronye must be luxuriously lavish in Cathedral every day, which made her father angry, so they were finally chased away, and she escaped the danger. But ── In her mind, Ronye could not help thinking “Thank you Dad” and bowing. My father told me that I should marry a man who really wanted to marry me, but in his deepest thoughts he must want to see the grandchild's face as soon as possible. No, even before, both father and mother were concerned that their daughter has joined Integrity Knights. If not for the war, Ronye would normally graduate from the Sword Master Academy, marry some archetypal second or third son or a son-in-law of some low-class aristocrat, following the footsteps of her ancestors from the Arabel family. That's why it was clear they at least want to have Ronye properly married and given birth to her children. She would definitely want to fulfil that wish, if she could. But Ronye had to leave her birthplace and return to Cathedral and apologize many times deep in her heart. ── I'm sorry, father. Mother. Maybe I will never get married for a lifetime and I won’t have children. ── Because my feelings will never reach that person.

Baby Berchie in her arms woke up and interrupted Ronye's thoughts with a small sob. Hastily, she gently rocked him with awkward hand movements. But there was no sign of sobs stopping. "Hey, good boy, good boy." Though she tried hard to comfort him but the face of the baby instantly dyed red and distorted, ready to transition to crying ─ Just before that, hands stretched from the front and lifted the disgruntled boy. "He won’t be satisfied with that, this child" Who was standing there was his mother, the knight commander Fanatio. Smile full of charm on a beautiful face framed with smooth black hair. "Sail high!" In other words, she tossed baby Berchie free of support straight up. It was a completely light gesture, but made with the strongest Integrity Knight's strength. As the child swirled around, it risen high in the air, aiming for the tremendously high ceiling of the “Great Corridor of the Spiritual Light”. "Nah....... Fuanah...... ah, aboo......!" Ronye froze at his strange voice. The boy stopped at the point where he almost touched the ceiling picture depicting gods, and started to fall straight down. And again, he fell precisely in both hands of his mother. Immediately he started to laugh and make loud joyful sounds. "Indeed, the future concerns me. Ronye, thanks for looking after him. I will do my best from now on." Smiling Fanatio left her and headed for the exit. The meeting was already over, so Dusolbert and the heads of departments also followed. "...... that’s another method of bringing up a kid......" She heard the whispering voice of amazed Kirito, standing with half a fearful face. Next to him stood Asuna wearing a subtle smile. "Well, well, as they will become knights and ride the dragons, isn’t it a good thing for kids to be accustomed to high places?"

"With this baby and Scheta’s one, the future seems more and more uncer...... tain, I mean fun." Shaking his head Kirito put hands on his waist. "As today's work has been done, I got to take a little look at the state of Version 2..." "Oh, uhhhhhhhh? Are you ready for the next one?" "That one is amazing — there is a fumes compressor between the thermal engine and the thruster, such a turbo......." "Well, Kirito-kun, I’d say you must be doing something about safety before increasing the power!" While they were having that conversation where there were more sacred words then normal ones, Ronye managed to raise her hand. "Ah, that ....... Sorry, Kirito-senpai ..." "Hmm?" "Oh, I, a question...... I have something I'd like to ask......." Surprised Kirito blinked his black eyes for a moment, but soon gently smiled and nodded. "Oh, good. Well then, why don’t we have a little early tea. What do you think Asuna?" At the direction of his line of sight, the Vice-Prime Swordsman raised a voice "Umm". "I'd like to go out with you, but after this I am supposed to take a sacred art lecture at the big library." "I see. The second-generation librarians are so scary. It is better not and skip......" "Only for non-serious students" Smiling at Kirito and patting him on the back, Asuna went a step away and turned to Ronye. "Well, at the tea time, Ronye-san, please make sure Kirito does not eat to many sweets" "I, I understood!" Ronye lowered her head and glanced at Kirito who babbled something unclear while Asuna walked away leaving a rainbow-colored reflection3. Kirito waited until her back disappeared in the big southern door and turned around. "Well then. So, let’s...... haven’t been there for a long time, would you like to go to the 80th floor? And Ronye, I want to have the Yukimomo4 cake."

"Affirmative. I’ll fetch some from the kitchen." "I’d say best is two... well, better three pieces, well then you get’em and I go ahead!" Without giving Ronye a single chance to pinch his mouth, Kirito disappeared in the northern door leading to the lift shaft. And already from there, he shouted in a loud voice to Ronye, who let her hands fall down onto the neck of Tsukigake approaching her. "...It would be better to take the whole thing."

In the large kitchen on the 10th floor Ronye found round cakes with plenty of sugar icing with called Yukimomo ─ that was chief’s special, ─ put one in a basket with a pot of tea and headed to the 80th floor of Cathedral. The automatic elevator she took swiftly lifted her. This device was once operated by the hand of a human, but now the girl who was working like some sort of automate has been liberated from her awful job and they say now she is anticipated as an owner of an outstanding aerial sacred art skill and holds a position in the arsenal. The 80th floor of the Central Cathedral known as "The Cloudtop Garden", was an indoor flower garden. In the middle of the vast grassland fully covered with innumerable flowers, on the top of a smoothly raised hill there was a figure of a Human World Prime Swordsman in his black clothes. Kirito stood with a right hand on the young olive tree5 planted in the center of the hill, but smiling turned around when Ronye approached. "Oh, sorry I had to bother you." "It’s nothing, because this is also a responsibility of a valet." Returning a smile, Ronye quickly spread the rug. She took out the dishes from the basket and handed the cake cut into big chunks out to Kirito whose eyes shined like those of a child. She took a slice for herself and for Tsukigake, poured tea into two cups and said "Here you are". "Enjoy the meals!" Shouting, Kirito started stuffing his mouth as if competing with the dragon. Watching this picture, Ronye was feeling warmth spreading from the deep of her chest. In times like now, when I can stay with Kirito like this and have this comforting feeling, I only wish one thing. I wish I had time freeze sacred art...... then, I’d freeze this moment forever. But of course, there’s no sacred art of time manipulation6. One can’t go back in time, it can’t be

stopped, it keeps constantly flowing towards the future. Because of the nature of the time, this world has overcome the greatest crisis and thus it was possible to obtain perfect peace. Someday Ronye will be officially appointed to be an Integrity Knight, and the day will come when she rides on the Tsukigake’s back who grew up and soars the sky. Of course, she was looking forward to that time. But this very moment, another wish has engulfed her. Stop, time, stop. "....... nye. Ronye?" Ronye who suddenly heard Kirito's voice, raised a startled face. "Oh, I'm sorry! Another piece?" "No, well, I want it, but ... that's something else." Presenting an empty dish while saying so, Kirito slightly tilted his head. "Certainly, have you not told me there’s something you want to ask me about?" "Ah……" Finally remembering her own words, Ronye hurriedly spoke. "I'm sorry! Well... that’s about that iron dragon my senpai made, uh,... ”machine dragon” thing." Kirito nodded while grudgingly devouring two pieces received from Ronye. "Yup" "Oh, somehow, I thought .... No, I was rather worried......." Unconsciously throwing looks to the right and left, Ronye asked in a low voice. "Could it be... senpai is planning to .......jump over the "end wall of the world" with that machine dragon? As soon as Kirito heard this strange voice, he struck the air with his right hand while hitting his chest with his left hand. Ronye hurriedly grasped the cup of tea, drinking it all at once and let out a long breath. After that, the black-haired young man smiled like a mischievous child who had not changed at all since when they first met. "......something that I expect from a mentored trainee. An ability to keep secrets." "Sure, yes, I can!" "Yeah, well, I do."

Having nodded as if not saying anything special, Kirito sat rubbing his chin. Ronye stared at him for a moment, stunned. The end wall of the world. It is the common name for the cliff of an infinite height surrounding the Underworld consisting of the Human World and the Dark Territory. It was too far from Centoria, so Ronye has seen it melting in the blue sky with her own eyes only once. While following Kirito she had visited the Mountain Goblin areal in the northern part of the Dark Territory, she noticed a breathtaking view of an incredible cliffing upstanding from behind the horizon. According to goblins’ stories, the wall seemed to be made of ultra-hard mineral, not soil. It was not easy to open a small hole especially digging a cave or staircase. It seems that everyone who tried to climb it in the history of 300 years encountered death. A similar tale is also in the Giant and Ogre tribes, and the wall is eventually the absolutely inviolable, as its name suggests, "the end wall of the world" is the boundary, which all the races living in the Dark Territory must respect. It should be ── "Ah, that, um" Even though it was expected, Ronye was still largely surprised by the positive answer, so she worked though hard. After having a gulp of tea, somehow she managed to summarize the words. "......Umm....... So have senpai already tried to cross the wall with your own flying technique?" "Yup" However, after nodding, Kirito immediately shook his head. "I tried and I gave up, neither the aerial sacred art nor the incarnation wind I created was good enough, it seems that the gravity increases indefinitely when approaching an altitude above a certain level ......" Leaning against the trunk of the olive, Kirito kept on speaking words as if explaining to himself. "... However, when I threw the knife straight up above the limit, it flew to a considerable height, so it did not refuse to allow all the objects, probably only those being classified as human type, and I tried to manipulate that but I could not change my unit ID even when I grew the wings... All in all, I think the last resort is to be completely sealed in some movable shell. Then we only have to bet on the possibility that the system recognizes that it as entirely non-alive object..." It was hard to keep up with the story, and Ronye raised her hand. "That means, though a human of flesh and blood cannot overcome the wall, it may be possible to

exceed its height if riding a metal dragon, right?" "Hmm……?" Kirito finally raised his face to her and after blinking several times began nodding. "Oh, sure. Yes, yes, that's right. Actually, I already tried something like leather or paper airplane moved by sacred art or incarnation...... to tie off from a dragon. But it was in vain... It seems the movement of clothes and armor is considered the same as if I myself moved. It is necessary to fly with the power of the dragon. However, it’s a vicious circle because when it comes to resisting the high heat of thermal elements, it inevitably becomes metallic, but then considering the total weight you have to ensure enough power to take off, which increases the number of thermal elements required..." "Um, ha... it's a difficult thing......." After thinking a bit in the same direction with Kirito, Ronye suddenly looked back to him. "No, it’s different! That, what I wanted to ask......" "And what was it?" "Why do you want to cross the end wall! Because I am so long by the side of Kirito-senpai, I know the feelings of senpai who wants to get over if there are walls…... but I think nowadays there are various …… more important things" Although she felt the need to say that vigorously, she realized that it was more like a sermon, and shrugged her neck. Kirito tapped Ronye’s shoulder lightly. "Thank you, Ronye. You always worry I don’t think anything wrong." She laughed and her heart suddenly began to jump. It was hard to hide these feelings from being noticed. Showing no appearance of noticing Ronye’s state, Kirito put his hands to the back of his head and turned his eyes away. "........... but, I think that crossing that wall is the top priority task in the Underworld now." "Well... what does that mean?" "...... Do not tell anyone else, even Tiese and Fanatio." Suddenly having heard such a thing, she opened her eyes wide but somehow stayed calm. But truly amazing were words of Kirito that followed. "── The thing is, the war will start once again." "............! No, no way ...... The peaceful era has just finally come..."

Drawing a deep sigh, Kirito shook his head with a difficult face. "I am sorry, but will probably not last for long. ...... The Great Eastern Gate collapsed, the exchange project of two worlds began, and a lot of tourists came from the Dark Territory. Right now, they are enjoying promised landscapes and food. But, everyone will eventually notice. That two worlds have crucial difference." "A difference...?" "Aha. Human World's land is so rich and the Dark Territory is awfully poor. You saw it Ronye, that bloody sky and the charcoal black ground....... The only place where they have plenty of rich ground is around the capital city of Obsidia, but humans are exclusively controlling it. Right now, goblins, orks and giants are mostly calmed down again, but dissatisfaction is steadily accumulating. ...... Me and Asuna worked hard to make it possible to plant the territory of sub-people, but it was useless. Spatial resources ...... The supply of sacred power is hopelessly small." Ronye listened to words of Kirito without a sound. Indeed, the desolated view of the Dark Territory was burning in her mind. But until now, she never thought about it from such perspective. Not a single idea of how to handle it came to her mind. "...... Senpai...... I ..." Kirito’s black eyes met muttering Ronye and he smiled softly. "I'm sorry, I do not blame Ronye. There is no choice, the Underworld is made from the beginning like that. The only goal is the war between the poor Dark Territory and the rich Human World. And the war began in fact, with so many sacrifices, and we barely avoided the worst ending possible. I will never let the same thing happen again, for the sake of lives lost in that battle." "But, then, what shall we do ...?" "There is only one answer. For sub-people, it should not be an inhabitation at the remote boundaries of the Dark Territory that they were inevitably dislodged to, they need a country they can be proud of. Not a land of "sub-people". A real country." "Real ...... country" Ronye previously was trying to keep up with the story of Kirito as much as she could, but she felt she could instantaneously understand the clear meaning of those words. It is only the territory of mountain goblin tribe that Ronye saw with her own eyes. They dwell in hilly areas progressing all the way from the Great Eastern Gate to the northeast. Wheat does not grow in the ground, fish do not live in the water, it is a literal desolation. Besides, both chieftain Hagashi and his first-born child chief Kosogi fell one after another, and while a new chief was being chosen, the tribal reconstruction hasn’t progressed too well. In the earlier

days when the Dark Territory followed only "Law of the Strongest", it would have been destroyed by the giant or the ork tribe, possibly the flat goblin tribe. Ronye who visited their land following Kirito lost her words to the sight of sick goblins left on the beds of the poor straw and crying weak hungry children. Even if the worst situation is pushed back by a large amount of emergency supplies brought from the Human World, it will not be a fundamental problem resolution. In that land one simply couldn’t support the prolific goblin population in the first place. But Ronye did not try to think about their "future" until now. No, she tried to forget them. Figures of goblin children who galling and hitting each other like crazy trying to fetch not so tasty hard-baked breads from her own hands. Since then, goods should be continuously sent from the Human World. Maybe once in a while I tell myself that something is wrong, but looking back now I see that in the rich Human World, although I was a lower-class aristocrat, I lived as nobles do without any inconvenience. But now that she heard words "real country" from Kirito’s mouth, Ronye was forced to comprehend. That wilderness could not be called even a territory, especially a country. That was an exile place. It was such a place that living there itself is punishment. "............ Senpai...... I ....... I....." Ronye, deeply depressed, dropped the fork down on the cake dish and muttered with a blurred voice. ── Nobility has a serious obligation beyond a given privilege. We call that duty of having to fight for those without power at any time, in the sacred word "Noble Obligation"7. Two years ago it was Kirito sitting in front of her who taught so Ronye being at that time a first-year student not knowing anything yet. ── Even so, I forgot it already... no, it is worse. In truth, I did not consider the goblin tribe as equal. Even though I thought that their circumstances are pitiful, somewhere in my heart, even if they are, I didn’t think of helping it.... First her vision got blurred and then tears fell into a white dish. Tsukigake turned to her and purred “kurururu” inquiringly but then a hand stretched from the front and combed Ronye’s head. "I'm sorry, Ronye. I told you this story though I knew you might get hurt." Instead of his usually gentle voice, Kirito whispered. "...... However, you do not have to blame yourself so much, because being able to send aid supplies from the Human World to the Dark Territory became only possible after we have stopped wasting of the emperors and the great aristocrats and rapidly recovered after the war. Neither of that could be

realized without Ronye's hard work, so Ronye you did your best for them properly." "Is... that so?" "Yes, it is. I was to the country of mountain goblins since then, and children remember perfectly even now how you gave them bread." Again, tears overfilled her eyes and ran down the cheeks, but this time those tears had slightly different meaning. Kirito wiped them with a simple handkerchief. Ronye desperately resisted the impulse to jump into his chest, to press her face and to cry. Forcibly stopping tears, she lifted her face, smiling a little while leaning on the spot. "...... Thank you, senpai... It's all right now. I’m sorry, crying like this in the middle of the talk." "I knew Ronye is a crybaby since you were a first-year trainee." Watching laughing and smiling Kirito, Ronye sharpened his lips enduring the pain in the back of the chest again. She finished with tea and after blinking the last tears away opened her mouth. "...Well, I understood what senpai is thinking. Goblins and orcs need a rich and beautiful country as much as the Human World. No more such places are left in the Underworld, we can only find it on the other side of the "the end wall of the world". For that reason, we must cross the wall with that machine dragon. That's how it is." "That's right. ... It will be hard even after crossing the wall ..." Kirito deeply nodded, confirming. "... But, is there really the other side of the wall? Is that wall not endless, and if not where it runs to.......?" " I also thought about that... But if that wall really ends up in this world, it feels like it's not even a wall. It is something more like an inaccessible address...... a void." "Void...... Is it like an emptiness you cannot see or use?" "Correct. But actually, the end wall of the world is a real cliff. Extremely high and terrible hard. The reason for this is probably to keep the inhabitants of the world from observing the uncomfortable truth.... The real "end of the world". If so, there is a possibility that it stops being "endless" when reaches up there. Everything depends on how much room and spare capacity the main visualizer has......." Seeing him again flying to areas that the she could not understand, Ronye raised her eyebrows, and Kirito shrugged his head.

"My bad, sorry Ronye, wasn’t talking to you just thinking out loud. Uh, well.... Basically, there is no "end" in this world." "There is no end ......?" That was as well an unfamiliar concept to Ronye. For Ronye, who was born and grew up in North Centoria, a huge wall that divides the city into sectors — the "timeless wall" — was the beginning. Eventually she learned that the vast Norlangarth empire spreading from it and also learned that it was forming a circular Human World together with the other three empires. She was taught about the endless mountain range surrounding the Human World and the dreadful territory that is spread far beyond that since she entered her childhood school at the age of eight years. However, even teachers did not talk about the specifics of the Dark Territory — come to think of it, it is doubtful if they were talking about that at all, — and that there is an endless cliff called “the end wall of the world”, — she only learned after volunteering to Human World defense army together with Tiese and arriving to the camp by the Great Eastern Gate. In other words, a constant "wall" always existed in the world Ronye knew. Even if one crossed the boundary, the next wall always appeared. This way, she believed, one will someday arrive to the perfect end of the world that they could never overcome. "....... Well, that is like... ... You mean, on the other side of the end wall, it’s like the Human World and the Dark Territory again?... ... Grasslands, forests and wilderness are spread far and wide?" As she asked that with an awkward tone, Kirito groaned “ugh…”. "How can I explain ...? ── Ah, right, come there." Rising up, he held the hand out. Embarrassed, she took that hand, and Kirito pulled Ronye up and led her to the narrow window open at the outer periphery of the Cloudtop Garden. "Here, look at that." The point where his right arm pointed to was the white semicircle floating in the dark blue eastern sky — Lunaria8. Both Ronye and Tsukigake as they were told looked up at the big star that was the source of the name of the young dragon. Then Kirito said something obvious. "It’s round, isn’t it?" "...... Yes, it is round."

She nodded thinking that she meant to answer something. "That Lunaria is not a flat disk but a round sphere so only the part where sun light hits looks brighter and this way comes waxing and waning... This is taught at the school in Centoria, too?" Kirito surely looked confident, with a wiggly smile. "Of course, of course, they tell you at the elementary school, ... that golden orb that is the throne of Goddess Lunaria ... floating in the god kingdom beyond the sky ..." "Oh, oh, um ... ... actually, I guess this world, including the Human World and the Dark Territory, should be of the same spherical shape." "Em...... What!? A sphere!?" She couldn’t help screaming. Suddenly, she felt unwillingly feared and unconsciously stomped on both feet. Next to her Tsukigake snorted “fururu” as if laughing at stupid Kirito. Kirito then spent five minutes and taught her about the global spherical structure — the planet, — as he named it. Of course, it was not so easy to accept, but there was something that could help. The "Morning Star Lookout" on the 95th floor of the Central Cathedral was open to the all the skies around. Standing at that floor, looking at the ground, it was visible that the horizon far away draws a gentle upward arc. If the world is truly spherical, — it seems like it is obvious — but when you try to wrap your head around, you start realizing things, thought Ronye watching Lunaria floating in the sky. Unexpectedly, words she had never thought of went out from her lips. "If this world, like Lunaria is a sphere, too ...... on Lunaria, are there grasslands, forests and streets, do people live there?" "Huh……" It seemed that it was an unexpected question for Kirito, and a swordsman with long black hair blinked several times, but soon he got his eyes calm again. "......Maybe ... Depends on the distance to the moon, it may be not a small satellite, it may be a planet of the same size .... Well, someday I will understand it." Unexpectedly, Ronye did not feel much surprised hearing these amazing words that were uttered quite casually. Rather, she had a premonition that this person would naturally say so. So Ronye smiled, just moved closer to Kirito for only one cen and whispered.

"At that time, I will accompany you as well, as a trainee following her senpai." "You won’t unless we build a big enough machine dragon" And then two humans and one dragon for quite some time looked up at the semicircle far away in the sky.

Footnotes: 1. Here: purely official honorific, used as for higher ranked officer. 2. Some sort of Underworld insect, probably, water-dependent. There’s a kind of wordplay here, but I couldn’t google it out, sorry. 3. Her pearl skirt left it, I guess? 4. Literally “snow peach”. 5. Kanji for this representative of osmanthus is special for the so-called “fragrant olive” species. 6. …anymore, see Vol.17-18 7. See here. 8. Interestingly enough, Kawahara uses here normal kanji for the Earth moon, tsuki (月). However, Underworld moon has a special name, just like Solus. In this case, the pronounced name is given as furigana above the kanji 月. To add to this mess, I have to mention that first kanji of “Tsukigake” is again 月, but even though it’s named by the dwellers of Underworld who has no clue what “tsuki” means, it is still pronounced “Tsukigake”, not “Lunagake”. However, again, just like in case of Solus, the name of a goddess comes after the “localized” name, so the goddess of dreams is also called Lunaria.

Part 3 Ronye kept thinking over Kirito's words all the time after an unexpected tea ceremony finished and even after she returned dishes to the kitchen. Neither over a story about the other side of the end wall of the world nor the fact that the world is spherical nor regarding traveling to the moon. She was rather thinking about the topic that first popped up, a possibility of a “new war”. Ronye also thought that the wealth of the Human World will certainly continue to accumulate dissatisfaction among sub-people. However, actual war – the one that comes as an armed invasion, — to be honest it was hard to believe in this. As now the "Peace Treaty of the Five Peoples"1 was concluded with the Dark Territory which should be clearly known to all races. Although it is a primitive law compared to ones of Human World, there was a prohibition of both killing and properly plundering there. Of course, for the people of the Dark Territory who for hundreds of years have followed only "the law of the strongest" by which strong people ruled over everyone else, it was impossible to undergo such a major revolution of the scale of heavens and earth exchanging, so as a shock absorber for that period, there was declared a freedom of battle in the range that does not deprive life. However, if it comes to war, there is no way to follow that. And, even the people of the Dark Territory, were bearing the soul seal saying “One cannot break the law” just like people of the Human World. That is why although it was only a few years since the previous war, it was possible to accept visitors from the Dark Territory in the Human World....... "... Ronye, hey, are you listening, Ronye?" Been nudged several times into right shoulder, Ronye raised a startled face. it seems, while she was working hard on incarnation training in a corner of the large training ground on the fourth floor of the Cathedral, she had unnoticeably sunk in thoughts. Today's training was "Tanza2 mind wiping", which was much easier-to-comprehend alternative to "Controlling the created element" and "Standing straight on the top of a pillar". But apparently to her friend sitting next to her, the challenge was to have a chat rather than idle thoughts. Ronye glanced to a teacher explaining sword skills to junior knights in the center of the training ground — today it was "Conflagrant Flame Bow" Dusolbert — and after watching him for a moment, she apologized to her best friend in a low voice. "Sorry, I was drowsing."

Having apologized she realized that something unusual was in this situation, as her redhead friend whispered with puffy cheeks. "What, you didn’t listen at all? ...I told you I need to consult you." "Consult?" Tilting her neck slightly, Ronye looked at her with a questioning expression. Tiese Shtolienen, knight apprentice being her friend since the Sword Mastery Academy, changed her expression to a serious one and nodded. "Well............... thing is, I....... I was offered…" "A… competition? Please decline, duels are unsafe!" When she reflexively exclaimed in a low voice, Tiese’s autumn leaves-colored eyes starred at Ronye, and she quickly denied. "Not at all! It’s the opposite...... It is not a duel...... It's rather…… matchmaking..." Companions clearly did not understand what each one was talking about, so Ronye starred at her with a blank look for a few seconds, when she finally understood the meaning of the word. Immediately after, Ronye had to rely on all her willpower to hold the wild "Ee~~~~e!". Instead, she took a deep breath, held it for a second and slowly breathed out. After pulling the air in again, Ronye asked fearfully. "... That......in other words...... means... a marriage....?" To that, Tiese lowered her gaze to the floor in front of her and gave a short nod. Ronye held the question of who made the proposal, which was naturally ready to jump out of her mouth. That time there was only one male who might propose the marriage to Tiese. It was senior integrity knight "Twin Edged Wings" Renri Synthesis Twenty-Seven. It was obvious from the time of the Foreign world war that he has feelings to Tiese. It could be said that it was rather late proposal than surprising one. Ronye was about to say "congratulations" imaging the figure of a young male knight who always keeps a light smile. However, still looking downwards Tiese quickly shook her head. "...... I still have not decided what to reply" To that whisper, she blinked several times, surprised.

"Well ... why ...? You don’t dislike Renri-sama, it seems to me you like him? And you are together for quite some time......." As she heard this direct question, Tiese’s face grew even darker and a sad expression appeared on it that was unthinkable to this unimpeachably energetic girl. "I like him. But you know, the main reason why I do. That is......, how Renri-sama somewhat resembles senpai." "............!" Ronye sharply breathed in. "Senpai" of Tiese was not the Prime Swordsman Kirito, of course. While being a junior trainee at Sword Mastery Academy, just like Ronye was serving Kirito, Tiese has also been attached to an Elite Swordsman trainee. Regardless of his calm demeanor and a meek smile, he had a strong will and sword power enough not to lose to Kirito, and Ronye knew that Tiese had sincere feelings to him. But he has left this world. Ronye believed that her redheaded best friend overcame that sorrow. Hoped, that she saved precious memories like jewels deeply in the heart and began walking forward again. But a transparent drop spilled from red eyelashes to the cheek told her that she was wrong. "Tiese......." Ronye called her best friend and tightly covered her lips with palms, then unintentionally stood up. She shouted out to Dusolbert who was actively giving out instructions in the center of the training ground. "Your Excellency instructor! Knight trainee Shtolienen feels sick, please let us leave today's practice before the end!" Short-haired knight threw a steel arrow-like gaze in their direction but fortunately just silently nodded. She quickly helped Tiese to stand up and bow so that they couldn’t see her face, and then they left. Ronye held shoulders of Tiese as they quickly descended the wide staircase and went to a rose garden spreading in the backyard of Cathedral. They skirted the giant gardener that formerly was a prison guard and went through the labyrinth of passageways and sat down on a small bench they found deep inside. It was February, so even the earliest varieties of this so rose garden haven’t produced completed buds, and only the vines with small leaves and thorns were trembling in the cold wind. Tiese was looking through them not trying to focus her wet autumn leaves-colored eyes, and then

eventually she murmured. "............. If I stay with Renri, I believed someday I could forget him...... no, I was hoping so." "Tiese............" Gently striking her back, Ronye felt as power left Tiese’s body and her head came to rest at Ronye's shoulder. "But you know……, in Renri’s smile, and his words, and his gestures, I search all the time for something similar to senpai....... Renri also knows that I couldn’t forget senpai. He said even this is fine. Then he proposed to me. I'm really happy...., I'm happy but ..." Again, tears ran the long eyelashes and fell. This time they did not stop at a chin, heavy drops fell below and left two stains on simple training clothes. "I am happy but I don’t really want to forget him. Deep inside my heart I know I want the memories of senpai to stay with me forever. Because it understood it....... that I……" Breathing heavily with a trembling throat, Tiese pushed her face tightly against Ronye's chest and shouted. "I want to see him... I want to meet Yujio senpai again..."! Ronye strongly hugged the back of her close friend who didn’t rise the face and her whole body was shaking from crying. Even eyes of Ronye filled with hot liquid. It was only about one month that they two served as valets at the Sword Mastery Academy. But for them, that encounter defined their destiny. It was a miracle that happens only once in a lifetime. They accepted the miracle and vowed long ago to love no one else forever. That's why, Ronye finally understood, she selfishly thought that Tiese sought the next happiness — but it actually was a wish that couldn’t be helped. Because, unlike Ronye, Tiese could not meet that person anymore. Not touching or talking, even gazing secretly from a distance was not possible for her. Ronye did not have a word of comfort to give her miserable best friend. Instead, she kept tapping her back and stroking her hair.

Tiese’s tears finally ceased when the color of the evening sneaked into the rose garden. As if all the emotions were throttled out, her red-haired close friend leaned her head down to

Ronye’s shoulder and looked up at the sinking Solus in a blurry look. "............ Sorry. And thank you" Eventually muttered Tiese with a weak voice, but Ronye slightly shook her head. "No...... It’s me who is sorry, Tiese. I ... ... did not notice your feelings at all, I had thought you selfishly wanted to be happy with Renri" "That’s OK, I feel like I’ll be happy with that in a little while." Tiese breathed heavily and said with a strong voice. "I will ask Renri to wait a little more. Even after some time, nothing may change, but ... but, I have a premonition." "Premonition ...?" "Yeah, I feel that since I saw the “machine dragon” Kirito made, ... something will happen from now on, something will change" Ronye was suddenly reminded of that moment by the words of Tiese. The dark-blue sky behind, the silver light flowing everywhere. She felt a painful elevation from that vision. Surely there was something in that sight portending a huge change. "... ............ Yes, I feel, too." When Ronye muttered that, Tiese slowly nodded. Two girls kept sitting on a bench for a while. In a few minutes, when they heard five o’clock bell, Tiese turned around, took a glimpse of Ronye and told her something unexpected. "So, what about Ronye?" "Er... what do you mean?" The autumn leaves-colored eyes blinked, even a gentle smile appeared ── "Did you tell Kirito a little about your feelings?" "No...... No way, such a thing!" She shouted unintentionally, shrugged and shook her head vigorously. "I will never do that...... It’s just impossible. I’m fine, don’t worry." "You were worried about me so can I not be doing the same?" But she continued to deny in reply to Tiese’s serious question.

"It's not like that, it's all fine...... Senpai has Asuna-sama. Besides, there’s Alice-sama who is supposed to return to this world someday, then Human World Defense Army general Selrut...... Perhaps, Fanatio-sama..." "So much Ronye" Sighed Tiese, amazed. "Kirito-senpai is not married to anyone of them, and now senpai’s status is higher than an emperor, so if you look to the Empire's Fundamental Law, he could have... ... three wives? Four perhaps?

"No way, senpai will not do that!" Ronye shouted again and got up abruptly to hide her red face. "I’m completely fine! Tiese, take care of yourself first!" Proclaimed she facing away. Upon hearing that, her best friend once again sighed, raised from the bench and stood up next to her. "Well, Kirito-senpai is not likely to say such a thing himself for the time being............. Let’s go back Ronye. Shimosaki is hungry." "Yeah... I was just about to say so...." Then Ronye looked at the same hedges on the left and right and said. "......... Tiese, do you know the way home?" "...... I was crying, I don’t remember anything." They looked at each other’s faces and sighed again standing in the deeps of the huge rose labyrinth.

That night. Lying on a bed in her room on the 22nd floor of the Cathedral, Ronye could not easily fall asleep. ── That’s all because of strange things Tiese said. And she immediately felt the displeasure towards the girl in the room next door, separated from her by a thick stone wall. But quickly, she reflected on that she probably is having a sleepless night as well.

Anyhow, a man proposed to Tiese for the first time in her life that day. ── Which place in Cathedral did it happen? What kind of words did he choose? Her imagination immediately wandered in a wrong direction. ── If, hypothetically ... If by any chance Kirito-senpai would propose me. What kind of place will he pick for that? Cathedral’s 95th Floor "Watchtower of the Morning Star"... Or maybe the backyard of a memorable Sword Academy... No, maybe in the clouds above, using a flying technique...... Ronye sighed heavily, then slapped her cheeks and shielded this thought. I must tell myself that even imagining such things should never be done. There is only one thing I can hope for. That peaceful days will continue from now on. Nothing else can be desired. Nothing. She turned over, dropped her head into a pillow, her fighting sleep spirit finally gave up and Ronye's eyelids have slowly closed.

Footnotes: 1. Yes, of 5 peoples, not 6. Humans are humans — from both Human World and Dark Territory so 6 parties signed a "Treaty of the 5 Peoples". 2. 端座, a way of sitting originating from well-known seiza, but differing in a strait back, no fixed legs position and generally applied in different cases.

Part 4 Next day, February 18th. Ronye sitting at lunch understood that an incident just happened that shook even that single wish of her. The low-ranking knight jumped in with wry face, kneeled by Kirito and cried out that ── Mountain Goblin tourist murdered one Centoria citizen in South Centoria.

State Prime Swordsman, and even Vice-Prime Swordsman who perhaps was bolder than the one, both opened their eyes wide and inhaled rapidly. Kirito pondered briefly, then quickly put a knife and a fork and stood up. "Asuna and Fanatio, please ask commanders of the Human World Defense Army and the squadron leads. Do regular missions only, do not attempt to any special measures regarding this case. ── Where is that Goblin now, do you know?" The second half of a question was addressed to the low-ranking knight who brought the message. The kneeling knight still retaining the appearance of the boy, replied. "Yes, I heard that he is already imprisoned in the South Centoria guard office!" "I understood, messenger, thanks for the effort!" As soon as he said that, Kirito threw over his black suit and started walking away in long steps. Ronye at last recovered from astonishment, stood up in a hurry and shouted from the other side of the big round table. "I... I ask for permission to accompany you, Prime-dono!" Kirito thought of that for a moment, and soon he nodded. "I beg your pardon. Is it OK to have a little shortcut?" "Well...... yes. Ehm......." Ronye’s eyebrows jumped up as she ran after him. There’s nothing to shortcut, Central Cathedral is located in the center of the circular central capital, it’s enough to run down the Cathedral stairway and leave the South Gate, that is already the city of South Centoria, the capital of the former Southacroith Empire. Important facilities such as the guard office should be along the main street that extends from the Cathedral and penetrates through the city, in other words, straight to the

destination. To Ronye’s unspoken question, Kirito replied with action. Without a doubt, he went to the balcony on the east side of the hall, not to the big door on the south side. Ronye who followed him saw the view from the height of about 20 floors of Cathedral and thought: no way! But Kirito saying “excuse me” had already wrapped his left arm around Ronye's body. There was no time for the heart to bounce. Biyu~n! Strange sound echoed and her field of vision was covered by green light. Immediately after, even before Ronye feeling that her body is lifted casually into the air had a chance to raise the voice, two people rushed out into the sky with fierce momentum. Cathedral was immediately left behind. The vast city of the central capital spread in front of their eyes. It was not like being just fast. Although it seemed that their speed is likely to reach several times the maximum speed dragons can fly, wind pressure was hardly felt. Air resistance is eliminated by wrapping our bodies with membrane constructed from aerial element, and it seems we are getting huge thrust by continuously bursting more aerial elements from behind. This is "aerial elements flight technique" which can be used only by Kirito in the entire Underworld ─ and when she realized that, two of them descended to the ground like a gale. A mysterious sound echoed again, and the color of the vision restored. She blinked several times to shake away the attacking dizziness, just in front of the huge ─ although it couldn’t be compared to Cathedral, of course, ─ stone building. The rough texture wall cut out of the red sandstone is undoubtedly unique to South Centoria. The front entrance at the top of the stone steps was guarded by two people dressed in thick armor. Kirito walked straight towards them raising large halberds without trying to hide caution scared with the sudden appearance of him and Ronye. 1

"Name yourselves! " Despite inquired for identity, guards crossed their halebards with clash, so Ronye cried out as quick as possible from behind Kirito. "We’re from the Human World Union Council!" The Integrity Knights coat of arms embroidered on the short jacket caught the gaze of the guards. Because she still was a trainee, there was no number that should normally be stamped at the bottom, but fortunately it still seemed to have demonstrated sufficient effectiveness. Guards swiftly took an upright posture and with high sound struck the stone ground with a halberds’ poles. Kirito ran at once between two people. Ronye followed.

Ronye only now had noticed that the Prime Swordsman of the Human World Union Council had not even wearing cloak or mantle bearing a coat of arms. It was just a simple black hemp shirt and also black thick cotton trousers. Therefore, one couldn’t really blame the guards who did not recognize him. The officials of the guard office were glancing surprisingly at his bad look, but Kirito headed straight to the stairs to the basement. As if he already knew where the problem goblin is held. No, it seemed that was the case. When they ran down the stone steps halfway, a distinctive shriek squeaky voice arrived in Ronye's ears. ".......nything! Me not do anything! Not see anything!" "Stop telling lies, you subhuman scum2!" A dull sound followed the rude voice. The second basement floor of the guard office was a prison separated by a black grid. Saying of which, guardians who passed here before left footsteps in the faint dust covering the floor, so looked like it had not been used for many years. Naturally, criminals did not appear in the Human World in principle, and it was only in very rare cases when someone could not remember the vast provisions of Taboo Index and the Empire Fundamental Law end-to-end so "as a result had committed a petty offense" and was released. ── So far. At the end of the passage there was a spacious room without iron bars, probably a place for interrogation. Clunky wooden desk was standing in the center of the dimly lit room, and who was lying face down there was definitely a still young mountain goblin. A tough guard was pressing down that small body from behind. And in the front, a man standing in the uniform of the captain swinging his long swords at a high rate. "Let’s see if it continues that dirty lies even after one arm is cut away!" The sword moved down barely reflecting the light of the candle. ── Stop it! Ronye tried to shout, but sooner than that ── Kin! A sharp sound echoed, and sparks were scattered from the commander's sword as if it was struck by an invisible blade, it slipped out of his hand and stuck in the wall behind. Kirito delivered a "sword of mind", a secret weapon of Integrity Knights. A young man wearing a black suit who fought off the captain’s sword ran with the full speed and cried jumping into the interrogation room without stopping. "That’s all! Everything about this matter will as of now be taken over by the Human World Union

Council!" "Name yo......." The captain who was gazing at the blown away sword, looked back and stared at Kirito with red face. His carefully trimmed mustache trembled and he was just about crying something loudly but his eyes captured the shoulder of Ronye. The expression changed drastically again, and at the same time the color of the blood completely gone from their faces. The captain and his man quickly kneeled and drooped heads against Ronye rather than Kirito. The opportunities of such worship from the people of Centoria have actually increased considerably. But she did not feel like getting used to it. Anyway, Ronye was only a student until one year and three months ago. She applied to the Human World Defense Army as a result of a Foreign World War, fought it feverishly with her sword and immediately became appointed as a knight trainee, so she could not learn something like resolution or dignity at all. Even if he is dressed properly, I couldn’t avoid this unbearable wish to disappear, thought Ronye watching over Kirito’s actions. A young man who could be easily seen as one of the citizens living in the central capital, first of all, nodded to calm down the mountain goblin youth who was quietly shaking the whole body and asked with a gentle voice. "You, your name?" The goblin blinked yellowish eyes violently, but soon responded feebly. "............Oroi" "Oroi? That decorative feathers, are they from the clan of Uboli of the hill?" Goblin nodded carefully touching blue and yellow feathers extending from the leather wrapped around the forehead. "Ok, my name is Kirito and I am the Prime of the Human World Union Council." As soon as the two head-down kneeling guards backed step after step, the youngster named Oroi widely opened the eyes and shouted. "Kirito....knows, me knows! White ium who played irritating insects collection contest with Uboli and won!" ── Ronye was amazed to the deep of her heart with what he was doing, but of course she did not let it to reflect on her face. Kirito said to that nodding gracefully. "I still keep properly the medal of Centurion I got at that time. Well, Oroi, from now on, I’ll listen to

your stories in order, first from these guards, then from you. Since I will not punish by just their content, please calm down and tell me only the things that have happened."

The guard captain who stood up as requested by Kirito said with a face reflecting both anger and awe, as follows. ── Today at around 11:30 am, a report from the citizen came to the guards central office of South Centoria on 4th Avenue, "The fellow is ramping with knives in Karoo street inn". We advanced immediately, and on the second floor in the corridor of the inn, the goblin stood with blooded dagger and a man in the back room was bleeding. The man was a cleaner at the inn, his heart was stabbed, and by that moment his life completely depleted. Judging from the situation we decided that the goblin killed a man with the dagger, instantly took him over to the office and started interrogating ──. In contrast, the mountain goblin Oroi explained as follows. ── Oroi, with five young people of the same family, came to Centoria on sightseeing trip three days ago. Fellows went to the town after breakfast, but Oroi was sick and was sleeping in the inn's room. Someone knocked the door late morning, when he got out, there were no shadows, but a dagger was falling in the hallway. He picked it up and realized that blood was on it, he was looking at it for some time, then a guard came up from the stairs and he was caught before he knew what was going on.

"...... Me, do not do anything ....... Wonder what happened, just look..." As soon as Oroi concluded that story, the captain shouted impatiently. "Well, I guess you had to say so! That dagger is not from the human world! The only ones who use such a bad casting are sub-humans!" "Diff, different! That sword, it looks alike but is different! Goblin sword, it contains the emblem of the clan in the pommel! That sword does not, it is a fake!" When Oroi refuted screechingly, the captain tried to respond again. Kirito stopped him with his right hand raised and said. "It will be known if we investigate. Captain, where’s the dagger now?" "...... is kept in the weapon store on the first floor." "Sorry, will not you show it to me?" Then the captain looked to his subordinate. A young guard officer rushed out as if he had been chased but kept them waiting for nearly five minutes before reporting back with pale face and no

dagger. "…………There is none" "What, what you say!" The captain yelled this loudly, and the guard who shrunk his neck to the limit, repeated. "So, the dagger in question cannot be found in the armor store anymore."

Two hours later. Kirito gathered key members of the Human World Union Council in the Central Cathedral — this time it was a coach — and explained the situation. Ronye who accompanied him to the guards office was also allowed to attend a round table as a special case. It was the Vice-Prime Asuna who first broke the silence spread in the vast space of the main conference hall on the fiftieth floor. "...... Where is that mountain Goblin, Oroi-san?" "Oh, I brought him here from the guards building and he’s asked to occupy the vacant room on the fourth floor for the time being, we keep the door guarded, but it is virtually impossible..." To frowning Kirito, Asuna responded with similar depressed look. "Until the incident is settled, that is also unavoidable...." And from the other side of the round table, the knight Dusolbert’s faint voice echoed. "Apparently both of you seem to be sure that goblin actually did not commit a murder?" "── Aha, I think so." Kirito nodded and continued quietly after putting fingers of both hands combined together on the desk. "The sightseeing trips from the Dark Territory to the Human World is what the Union Council is doing as an exchange project between the two worlds. When crossing "The great Eastern Gate", visitors are obliged to acknowledge the prohibition list. It is a simple rule collection, ban on murder, stealing and injury, but the name of the Dark Army commander is clearly stated in it. In other words, if Oroi who is supposed to be bound by the "Law of the Strongest" of the Dark Territory broke the prohibition and killed the inn cleaner..." "His right eye has to be bursting."

It was the knight chief Fanatio who finished his phrase. A lot of people sitting at the round table silently nodded to these words. For every one living in the Underworld, whether it was a human or a sub-human, there was a technique called "CODE 871". It was a terrible thing that caused a fierce pain to occurs in the right eye when trying to overcome any laws and regulations resulting in the eyeball blowing away without any trace of actually taking damage. In the first place, ordinary people did not even have the idea of violating the law. Ronye herself faced the unreasonableness of "Taboo Index" once and many times of "Imperial Fundamental Law", but never tried to break them. Of those holding such thoughts or actions and had reached the stage where the right eye is actually destroyed, there were only three confirmed people in the entire three hundred years history of Underworld — well, four people if you add someone who pulled out the right eye themselves — and only them. And there was nothing wrong with both eyes of mountain Goblin youth Oroi. Ronye saw that with her own eyes. "……however." The cautious voice belonged to the Integrity Knight Renri. Tiese’s groom, the young knight, who waited for an opportunity to reply, whatever caused it, was sitting with completely depressed expression and any color has left his face. "The murder act should also be the greatest violation for all humans not only that Oroi. It’s us Integrity Knights who is given the right to ultimately ignore most laws, but even we are not able to deal a total loss of the innocent human's life. That means... if anyone other than Oroi killed the inn cleaner, that person......." "── would have broken the seal of the right eye" Kirito muttered with a bitter smile on his face. "Ironically, if we had the "automated elders’ council" that once existed, we’d able to detect the culprit in a moment." Asuna immediately shook her head. "No, I’d never rely on such an inhumane system." Automated Elders’ Council, the predecessor of the Human World Union Council, was operated by the Axiom Church and consisted of a dozen of high-level clerics with frozen life and selfconsciousness that permanently performed a remote search for persons who disobeyed the law, in other words, it was a human monitoring device. After the war, the sacred art that had bound the "elders" was canceled, but they gave up the ghosts after sleeping for several days without returning

to consciousness. Having remembered that, Kirito answered exhaling a heavy breath. "Aha, I get that... Anyway, I’m rather bothered with the strangeness." "What do you mean?" Black eyes aimed the questioning Fanatio. "How should I explain...? In the past all three people who broke the seal of the right eye did not do so just to kill someone. The intense will to resist ultimately unacceptable situation helped them. When it comes to the point of view of, let’s say, the criminal, the victim then is perceived as...... the absolute symbol of evil that must be destroyed at all costs." Kirito continued looking through documents on the table. "But, the killed cleaner named Yazen is a figure not likely to cause anyone's resentment in the investigated range. For many years he grew wheat in his aristocrat’s private territory, then worked at an inn since being released last year, and it seems that customers from the Dark Territory received kind treatment without any sign of discrimination. Even that Oroi we captured, this says that Yazen was quite familiar with him." "In other words, in case of Yazen-san it was impossible for anyone...... to exercise unreasonable power, right? Kirito energetically nodded to Asuna’s question. "Not even close... and also there’s the case of missing weapon..." After the dagger which, based on the report, was apparently used for the murder of Yazen disappeared from the armor store of the guards’ office building, Kirito immediately gathered all the guards in the office dungeon and queried directly in the name of the Human World Union Council. But there was no one, who nominated to take it. It would be impossible for a human guard to resist the command of the representative of the Union Council which further directs the Human Word army to which Guard Service belongs. In other words, turns out that the dagger in question was brought from the inn, then stored in the armor store, and then stolen by something external —— or disappeared by itself. "What is your opinion on this subject?" When Kirito looked across the round table and asked so, Dusolbert said at once. "As you said, it was a crude weapon of poor quality, almost ran out of life in a single use, and completely lost it during storage...... couldn’t that be the case?" "No..... If it is a metal weapon, it wouldn’t be completely annihilated immediately, I feel like there

would be some metal scrap left for a while..." "Hmm...... certainly" Suddenly an idea came to Ronye's mind as she watched the giant folded his arms with a groan. She quickly gazed left and right sides of the round table to make sure that no one is going to speak and shyly raised her hand. "O, Ronye, please?" "So...... yes. Um ... instructor, no, Dusolbert-sama, if the arrows prepared for the quiver are exhausted, will you replenish with a sacred art?" When asked, the archer confidently nodded. "Well, the priority will be much lower than of an arrow made from genuine steel" "Perhaps, it’s same thing here..... The dagger criminal used, was a "temporary weapon" created with a metallic element...... like that......" The idea Ronye pointed out has led to a moment of silence in the main conference hall. It was Kirito's motion, not voice, that broke it. He casually extended the right hand over the table, narrowed eyes. Although he omitted even the starting phrase of the sacred art to generate metallic element, three glowing silver light spots appeared under his palm. They quickly melted into one and started to change its shape, glittering. One end curved and thickened, the other side became sharp and elongated. It was a single-edged dagger that Goblin tribe preferred, which Ronye saw many times, dropping down to the round table making a distinctive sound. The thick blade and the roughly scraped handle were full of small details crafted with exceptional attention — but still, there were some differences seen compared to the real one. First, the texture of the surface was too smooth. Besides, the handle of a real one should be wrapped with dyed leather, and here it was made entirely of metal, same piece with the blade. Should one take a closer look, it was obvious that it was a metallic element-crafted substitute. Kirito picked up the dagger he made and said. "Although I’m closely familiar with Goblin tribes’ daggers, this degree of detail is the limit, but the weapon in question was so precise that even Oroi thought of it as genuine. That would mean that it took a number of high-level clerics plenty of time to generate it." A faint metal sound “ki~n” overlapped the end of his words. Kirito hit a dagger with a light incarnation. It was enough for "temporary weapon" to lose its entire life, it crumbled into pieces like

a glass, scattered as grain over the table and disappeared. There was no single piece left after it. "...... If so, we’ve got a serious problem." Knight commander Fanatio whispered rocking her wavy black hair. "Currently, all high-level clerics of Centoria are supposed to be under the command of Human World Army or...... or duirectly of this Union Council. So, it’s either we’ve got rebels among our staff or…" ── Dark Territory's sacred art master work? Everyone immediately understood words that were omitted. If a dark arts master intruded Centoria and killed an innocent civilian for the purpose of some plot, it is many times worse scenario than if the goblin Oroi murdered Yazen by sudden impulse. If so, the exchange project of tourism to the Human World and commerce with the Dark Territory can cause another war between the two worlds that are finally coming down. "But... ... it that’s true, what’s the purpose...?" Kirito started muttering something, but immediately he shook his head and said it aloud. "Everything is still just speculation. At the same time, we need to minimize the impact of this case on citizens. Even though rumors can be prevented from spreading so far, it will be absolutely impossible to prevent them should the second and third cases happen... Asuna, human force army?" The questioned Vice-Prime quickly nodded. "I have asked Rina...... I mean, General Selrut to refrain from maintaining security activities other than regular missions. General gave her consent to accept it...... But still there seem to be strong rumors regarding the binding between all travelers from the Dark Territory and the faction of former great aristocracy. It will be suppressed for a while because we have issued an order form the name of the Union Council...." Asuna interrupted, but strong light filled her hazel eyes. "... But, if the same incident happens again, the order will bring overwhelming dissatisfaction and distrust of the Union Council. And if I am perceived as a mastermind manipulating this incident from the shadow, I will definitely be seen as causing the next one." "Aha, so will I, too." Kirito sighed and gently stroked his hands in a closing gesture. "── Then, the summary of this Union Council meeting is as follows. First, officially announce that the criminal of the incident is not identified. Second, provide sufficient explanation and compensation for Yasen's bereaved family. Third, investigate the incident with maximum possible mobilization. Fourth...... we will consult as soon as possible with the leaders of the Dark Territory. Any other

notes?" Fanatio immediately raised her hand and pointed out with embarrassment in a voice. "Even if we ask for...... soonest possible time-frame, it's still a month before the next meeting with the Dark Territory, are you going to move the schedule sooner?" "Nope" Kirito suddenly shook his head and said quite casually. "I will go to Obsidia and meet Isukan."

When the meeting was over, Solus was already disappearing over the western horizon. Ronye rushed to the dragon stables to the west of Cathedral and waved cheerfully to Tiese was taking care of Tsukigake. "I'm sorry, I got late!" Having heard that voice, a young pale-yellow dragon raised her face quickly from the grassland, sang “kururu” and came running up. Holding the fluffy body and scratching beneath her chin, Ronye said to Tiese. "Thank you, Tiese. Of course, I owe you one." "You’re talking more and more like Kirito-senpai." Her redheaded friend, stood by for a while turning her head around, then asked changing her expression. "So... how was the meeting?" Sitting on a bench placed along the walls of the stable, Ronye told her the summary of extraordinary meeting. Tiese finished listening with a difficult face and eventually muttered. "Somehow .... I have a bad feeling..." "Well... in Human World a person cannot kill other person, at least it seems that is what knights thought…" "There are some people who make use of gaps in laws and regulations and twist them conveniently..." Indeed, during the "Rebellion of Four Empires", Emperors reigning those days issued edicts

decreeing that the newly organized Human World Council was an army of rebels to the old Axiom Church. The binding force of the twisted law was intense, so in order to suppress the mobilizing armies of four empires of Norlangarth, Wesdarath, Eastabarieth and Southacroith, there was no other way but to discard the edict. To reach this, Ronye and Tiese intruded into the Imperial Palace of Northern Centoria, and in the course of events had to cross swords with the emperor Kruger Norlangarth VI himself, who shocked them by demonstrating selfishness so endless and strong it was unclear how it fits into a living human. Tiese relaxed her arms she unintentionally hugged herself with and told Ronye switching the tone. "Well, if that is the way things go, I will have to take care of Tsukigake a little more." "Huh? Why?" When Ronye looked back at her face, her best friend smiled and said something completely unthinkable. "Because, I mean, will you not? Go with Kirito-senpai, to Obsidia."

Footnotes: 1. “Hold right there” would be more appropriate localized version, but that’s how original reads, plus this is the reason for Ronye’s next phrase. 2. The goblin says “me” as オイラ (“oira”), which can be a version of properly-written “oira” - おいら so it should be probably male. However, in this line, the guard uses め (“me”) which can be a female pronoun or maybe a shortening of てめえ (“temee”). In other words, I’m totally confused with the gender of the goblin. I’ll treat it as a male for now.

Part 5 The distance from Human World capital Centoria to Dark Territory capital Obsidia was about three thousand kilolu. This is three days even by dragon that can fly a thousand kilolu a day. One month in the horse-drawn carriage, double that if walking. During the former Foreign World War, Emperor Vector, the commander of the Dark Army, moved 50000 troops from Obsidia to the Great Eastern Gate in five days using the dark art masters’ secret elixir and technique, which later was proved to be a terrible matter that permanently decreased the maximum value of life for every sub-human who drank it. Humans did not take elixir because they used horses or horse-drawn carriages, but sub-people who were walking were till that days in a state of reduced life, and Cathedral clerics were striving to find curation methods. Human World Prime Swordsman Kirito who quickly decided to visit Obsidia in response to this emergency situation, of course, would use a flying dragon, Ronye thought. The aerial element flight technique used to travel from Cathedral to the guards’ office in South Centoria consumes a lot of space sacred power, so it cannot be used for a long time in Dark Territory with low amount of resources. But he does not have his own mount, so he needs to ride Dusolbert’s or Renri’s dragons. With a twoperson ride, a dragon will be exhausted even faster, so I cannot ask to take me with him ─ and Ronye had given it up even before being instigated by Tiese. However, willing at least to help with preparations for the trip, Ronye went from Flying Dragon Stables to the 30th floor of Cathedral where Prime Swordsman's room was. Asuna greeted her and said that "Kirito-kun is in the arsenal" with a face expressing the mix of concerns and acceptance. Sharing worried of Vice-Prime Swordsman, she had to run a long distance again, down and behind Cathedral ── to the place where there was a former prison ── and upon getting there and moving down the wide ramp, she looked inside through a left open huge door. Inside was a large space that seemed to be about thirty mel deep and on the left and right sides there were five or six young blacksmiths and clerics filling the space with powerful sound of hammering and swishing. And in the center, there was a huge artifact illuminated by countless light element chandeliers. It was a "machine dragon", a metal dragon similar to Prototype 1, which had a big explosion the other day, and by its side chief of engineering master Sadore and Kirito were actively exchanging opinions...... strictly speaking, just yelling at each other. "So, how many times should you say it, Kiri-boy! This baby is still in the process of adjustment, full force flight is impossible, even blockhead like you should be able to understand it!" "Relax, master, this time I will only fly horizontally instead of vertical launch. Just replace those with wider wings so it can glide the air!"

"What the monkey is going on? So that’s what you say, the destination of my baby is the capital of the Dark Territory! No, we haven’t run flight tests yet, but suddenly I’m acknowledged there is someone who will fly it 6000 kilolu round-trip!" "But it’s fine, this time thermal-element sealed container’s density is double the one of Version 1, and also master has carefully improved the fuselage. Even if I fly ten thousand kilolu, it won’t blow up. Don’t you think so?" "Well, that's the case, this one you won’t break so easy, the level of fragility... No, no! Forget what I said. Every time I accept that kind of wheedling from your mouth, it is getting more troublesome than getting my ass stung by Oonumaab1!" Having heard their arguing, Ronye felt blood left her face. Kirito will neither use a dragon nor a coach, he intends to fly to Obsidia with this Machine Dragon v. 2. The recent catastrophe vividly revived in her mind, so she swayed her head and rushed towards those two. "It’s dangerous, Kirito-senpai! As chief engineer Sadore says, what would you do if something happens!" "Oh, hey, Ronye, don’t get closer or you’ll have oil on your clothes" Pulling Ronye's left arm away from the dragon for about 50 cen, Kirito laughed gently but then tightened his expression. "Well, in these circumstances including the you-know-what thing, I have to, regrettably, fly by my own means. Because all the knights are busy and I cannot order anyone of them to get me to Obsidia, and if it is a horse it will take a month.... The situation seems to be tenser than we thought, if we do not warn the Dark Territory regarding the situation as soon as possible, it may be too late..." "............ But, there are other dangers, senpai." Ronye tried to persuade Kirito hard approaching one step closer. "The one who killed the inn cleaner Yazen-san and tried to put the crime to the mountain goblin Oroi was not bound by a Taboo Index. Then, they may also target Kirito leaving Centoria...... No, perhaps, this event itself might be a trap to compel senpai to go to Obsidia!" "Oh...... Indeed, there is a possibility of that..." When he muttered this with a serious look, Kirito closed his mouth to think about something. What broke the silence was a loud sigh of master Sadore. "……so, me too, you know, exchanged a great deal of skills and knowledge blacksmiths from the Dark Territory. These days the world is like in a dream, and I don’t want to go back to old days." "Hey...... Even such an old man as master, do you still have to learn anything?"

To the question of Kirito, Sadore made a frowning face squeezing his gray beard. "Unfortunately, yes. The swords and armor of Dark Knights the Defense Army brought back from the battlefield, it was wonderfully crafted. To start with they have used original steel, type of which is unknown to me... Until now we don’t know the source of ore and the manufacturing method." Sadore hit the outer plate of the silver-shining machine dragon with a big hand covered with countless scars and said. "...... Kiri-boy, the thermal elements pressure meter says we’re up to 80%. So make sure to set injectors opening lower." "Oh, that’s truly master! The pressure is...... That's right,...... one kilome per one square cen." "Wait a moment, please!" Ronye hurriedly broken in the conversation between them. "Aside from the safety of the dragon, there is still the danger of senpai being targeted! To go alone to the Dark Territory, it is pretty much..." As she was saying that, Ronye looked up at the head of the dragon and noticed something that made her suddenly close mouth. The glass part surrounding the metal chair — what seems to be called "the cockpit" — was quite longer than the one of Version 1. Staring eagerly, she saw another chair attached to the back of the cockpit. "............ hey, senpai." "...What is it?" "Can this Version 2 possibly ride two people?" "Um... err, well. Although the supply of cryogenic element for Version 1 wasn’t catching up and it had exploded, which was expected to some extent...... here it's supposed that two people will be able to generate enough cryogenic elements, but as I said earlier, the cooling power is enough to fly horizontally even with one person......." Ronye interrupted that twisting more and more away explanation of Kirito, who probably felt some bad premonition, with a cough. "I understood, senpai, to deal with the danger of assassination, suggesting to take an escort." "You as an escort?" "Well, as senpai said earlier, everyone among higher-rank knights is busy, so as a knight trainee, I will fulfill this mission responsibly!"

"Er… err?" "Besides that, I can also help you monitor thermal element cans!" "Eeeee~~r!?" Before the reluctant Kirito says anything, Ronye's right fist hit her chest and left hand laid on the sword’s handle in the official knight salute, declaring an unvoiced command acceptance. Next to perplexedly blinking Kirito, master Sadore made “Gahhahha” and smiled happily. "I say, you lose, Kiri-boy. Nevertheless, Ronye-jochan2 has become quite resolute."

Although somehow Ronye managed to get an attendance permission from Kirito, from there it became serious. Of course, it was the first time for her to visit Obsidia, the capital of the Dark Territory, but she also had no experience of the situation where she was going to be the Kirito’s only assistant. She had no idea on which exactly preparations should be done, and while she was grooming through a lot of small clothes accessories in her room on the twenty-second floor after returning back from the arsenal ── Someone knocked the door suddenly, and Ronye who thought it would be Tiese ran to the entrance shouting “Yes!”. "I’m OK, just lend me a hand to help packing......." She started like that, but once the door opened, who was standing behind it was not her redhead friend, but a beautiful female swordsman with chestnut hair dropped over a pearl knight outfit. "Ah ...... Asuna-sama!" Asuna smiled gently and quickly stopped Ronye who was trying to hurriedly make a formal salute. "Sorry for taking your time, Ronye-san. There is a place I want you to come over for a moment..." "...... Yes, wherever you say" Ronye nodded, exited to corridor and started walking behind Asuna. Should it be the Sword Mastery Academy in North Centoria, if a higher ranked student would call her this way, the expected development of the situation would involve surrounded by several students behind the school building saying something like "You are not getting a little rude lately, are you?", but of course such things didn’t happen in the Cathedral. However, Ronye still felt quite uncomfortable having a one-on-one with Asuna. Even though the

other party is a Vice-Prime Swordsman of the Human World Union Council, that was not a reason for her to come to Underworld from different world outside it. The reason was quite personal, such that couldn’t be confided to anyone ── It was in the middle of the Foreign World War one year and three months ago that Asuna descended into the Underworld. The Human Army decoy platoon Ronye and Tiese participated which was focused on distracting the Dark Territory army led by Emperor Vector was forced into a situation of complete destruction before it could fulfil the role of decoy. Ronye herself attacked the dark knight who had infiltrated behind the headquarters of the Human World military, but her sword was beaten in a blink of an eye, and she already prepared for death — and then Asuna appeared there. Floating in the jet-black night sky, Asuna with her pure and radiant appearance, was seen as no one else than Genesis God Stacia, drawn on the murals of the Arabel family house and pictures in the Sword Mastery Academy. Asuna raised a rainbow shining sword and created a huge hole in the ground banishing the dark knight who was about to kill Ronye to the bottom of the earth. Ronye who witnessed that miracle believed without any doubt that Asuna is Stacia God herself. Later Asuna as well as Kirito ─ and additionally, Emperor Vector and the dark knight Ronye fought ─ turned out to be "real world people". Nevertheless, Ronye's gratitude and respect never faded at all even after more than a year after the war. But facing each other alone in such a way made Ronye's heart to throb fast. That is because Asuna was "someone special to Kirito", which now was clear to anyone. Asuna got down to Underworld because she wanted to help Kirito who lost his consciousness at the time. Whether they were talking casually at a sunny window, or passing a small vial of salt at a lunch, even when she was scolding the unreasonable Prime Swordsman, Ronye strongly felt that Kirito and Asuna are tied with deep love. _I never thought of interrupting between the two of them. And should it occur in the future...... that is not so far, probably, that the ritual of their marriage will be carried out, at that time I want to just sincerely bless them. But............... but. No matter how much time passes, the day when pain deep in my heart disappears, I feel like is never to come............__ Walking after her, Ronye had sunk so much in thought even during descending the stairs, she nearly walked into the back of Asuna when she had stopped in front. She managed to avoid a collision and looked around, they were standing by a large armor storehouse on the third floor of Cathedral. The relief over the massive gates depicting gods Solus and Terraria once stated that only Chief elder, knights’ commander and the Highest Priest herself were allowed to open it. Now anyone could

visit if they write their name on the table next to the door, but of course it was not allowed to take the contents out. Asuna wrote her name with a newly developed ink-filled copper pen on the sheet of "hemp paper", which was recently manufactured in the central capital from snow-white hemp fibers as a substitute for parchment, without hesitation opened the door and went inside. Since it was already the evening, there were no visitors, and the calming darkness welcomed them. Asuna touched the glass tube beside the entrance and chanted a sacred art. "System Call, Generate Luminous Element" Using only one finger she generated ten light sources in the tube and then one wind element. Under its pressure ten light sources moved in the tight pipe running along the wall and brightly illuminated the entire large armor store. Just like hemp paper and copper pens, this "light tube" and the light element chandelier of the arsenal were also developed by Kirito and Asuna. Unlike torches and oil lanterns, there was no danger of fire and light was also white and stable, however as it is contained in a glass tube, since the light reacts little by little with the glass and disappears, it was necessary for who can use sacred art to regularly supplement those. Although it is possible to completely replace oil lanterns in the Cathedral full of clerics, it seemed still impossible to spread it to entire city of Centoria. As soon as it was illuminated by as many as 10 lights, the whole armor storehouse glowed brightly, and Ronye who barely entered here breathed lightly. Many colorful armors were lined up in the area wide as a large training ground of the Sword Mastery Academy, and numerous large and small swords, spears and axes were hung on high walls. There probably were some divine-class weapons awarded to senior Integrity Knights, but it was still impossible for trainee Ronye to distinguish them. "... as usual, it is a wonderful view" As Ronye let out the admiration voice, Asuna nodded. "It is true. But, even this is quite a few to fulfill the needs of Rina’s, I mean, general Selrut’s Human World Army. It seems Kirito wanted to release the majority and let them to be used equally for the support of Human World and Dark Territory, but it was really opposed by Dusolbert." "Well, that's a difficult problem, is not it?" She could only give that sort of an answer, as she felt shivers piercing her shoulders. The importance of support of the Dark Territory was well understood to Ronye who saw the hungry mountain goblins children by her own eyes. But in her mind, words of Kirito still echoed: 『The war will start once again』.

Should this ever be the case... I want families and students in the North Centoria, Cathedral knights and clerics and of course Tiese to be absolutely safe, and to guarantee that we should leave these weapons that are valuable assets, — she thought. Asuna standing behind her patted Ronye’s shoulder and said with a mischievous look on her face. "So, hmm.... Integrity Knight trainee Ronye Arabel, how much is your current weapon control authority?" "Er, wha…? Why does Asuna-sama asks such a thing..." "It’s all right, it’s all right." One looking into the face of the second greatest swordsman in the Human World has to obey. Hey, I did not check it recently, what if it went down.... thinking this way, she drew a sign in the air with her left hand and lightly taped her right hand. "Stacia’s window" appeared with a faint glow, was the representation of the ultimate essence of a person — something Kirito was calling "personal stats" — so was not polite to peep at other’s windows except for the cases of emergency. To protect her window from Asuna’s look, Ronye went one step behind her and then told the number in the row titled 【Object Control Authority】. "Err, it is 393......" "Amazing, it's almost the same as numbered knights have." Asuna smiled sweetly and went to the far wall murmuring "Well then.......". She moved through countless displayed one-handed swords of various colors and designs one after another, chose as much as four and holding them by two in each hand, arranged on a nearby bench. "These are priorities 38 and 39. Choose whichever you like, Ronye-san." The unexpected words of Asuna made the other one speechless for several moments. Speaking of Priority 39, it does not extend to the level of divine objects, but such a sword is still unique and categorized as a legendary one. Indeed, all four lined up on the bench were decorated with a wonderful decoration, and all polished like a mirror blades shined with different shades. Even "Four Oscillation Blades" reporting directly to Fanatio were using official style swords, the knight trainee could not even dream of such a gift. "I ... could not .... Asuna-sama!" When Ronye swung both hands and head at the same time, Asuna grinned and said. "That gesture, it looks a bit like Kirito-kun" "Well ... yeah... maybe ... ...."

"He-he, you do not have to hold back, Ronye-san. I got permission from commander Fanatio and above all you are a brave person who fought through that war until the end." "............... It’s such a..." Once again, wiggle and waving. "...... I was protected by Asuna and Renri, and many Human World swordsmen, and swordsmen who came to the rescue from Real World...... When that black knight did terrible things against Kiritosenpai, even though I was there, I could not do anything." "Not at all, for sure." Asuna suddenly made a step towards Ronye and gently pit her hands to Ronye's back. Although at first her body became completely stiff, sweet and refreshing scent of melati4 and gentle warmth quickly melt the tension. "It was Ronye-san and Tiese-san, and Alice, who protected Kirito when he couldn’t move. For me, you are the true heroes... I won’t ever be able to thank you enough..." Feeling tears covering her eyes from these words, Ronye muttered. "Alice-sama...... Why did she leave......." After a while Asuna responded with certainty. "She is fine in the real world. She is the hope that ties the two worlds....... I'm sure, someday, we’ll meet again......" Having applied some strength to both arms hugging Ronye, Asuna released her and smiled again. "Now, pick a sword, this is not just you, it's also a weapon to protect Kirito-kun." After such words she couldn’t refrain any longer. Again, she looked at swords selected by Asuna. All four were straight swords for one hand, but grips and blades are somewhat slender, and it is understood that her selection matched not only the priority but also Ronye’s stature. As it was discovered recently through steady Kirito’s analysis, top-ranking weapons, accessories and decorative items with priority exceeding 30, in addition to the value of the life displayed in the Stacia’s Window, it seems, were granting certain "hidden natural power", so to speak. It included a wide range of increased absorption of attribution attacks, poison, fatigue, dark arts, or, on the contrary, it could help to generate a specific element, in rare cases, the life recovery speed is increased or one becomes able to see in the night; they said, even strange effects such as being liked by dogs were discovered.

In addition, it turned out that divine objects the deceased Highest Priest Administrator had given to the Integrity Knights, had hidden natural power to strengthen the sacred art of those attribute which one was good at, which means not only weapons but also the capabilities of knights were available to Administrator in much more detailed form than the Stacia's Window. Currently, Cathedral's highlevel clerics seem to be doing their best to implement the "sacred techniques to uncover hidden natural power", but it will take a long time... Kirito had said. Four swords lined up in front of Ronye's eyes should also have different hidden natural powers, but from the appearance it couldn’t be seen at all. She could try using sacred art of all attributes equipping them in turn, or run around the Cathedral and then examine the recovery speed of her life, but this way she will feel faintly, which was not possible to afford as they were departing tomorrow early in the morning. She felt that a faint voice came back from the depths of her memory when she was standing in the same way without knowing what to choose. ......In the past, this sword was too heavy, even hard to lift, rather not to swing it. The one who said that holding a beautiful long sword with a slightly bluish white blade, was the same person whom Tiese served as a valet, elite swordsman-in-training Yujio. Next to him elite swordsman-in-training Kirito smiled polishing his own black sword, and nearby table had just boiled tea and freshly baked honey pie spreading a nice scent. It has been so long time ago, nearly two years have passed already since that old scene. At that time Tiese and Ronye were first year students just entered the Northern Centoria’s Sword Mastery Academy. Although it happened so that the results of their entrance exams were good and they were able to get the place among twelve people chosen from one hundred twenty applicants, they still had troubles handling as expected those platinum oak wooden swords of priority 15 they were given, so they asked senpais how to handle heavy swords. Yujio easily lifted the "Blue Rose sword" that although looking delicate and slim was much heavier than steel made big two-handed swords, and continued. 『In theory, if swordsman’s weapon control authority exceeds the priority of the weapon, the sword will not be too heavy. But I think that the connection between a sword and a swordsman is such a thing that cannot be expressed by numbers only. Even weapons having lower priority than their owner’s authority will not respond to the will of the owner at the time of need if they don’t treat them seriously or do not handle normally. I could not swing this sword a long time ago not only because I did not have enough authority, but because my connection to this sword was not enough... I think that’s the way it is. 』 "Connection...... to the sword" Hearing such words for the first time, Ronye and Tiese were greatly puzzled. Both of them were children of the sixth, lowest class aristocracy, and their parents dreamed that

their kids will grow up and succeed enough to be granted the forth class so they won’t be living in fear of the aristocratic right of senior aristocrats anymore, so they spare no expense to train their children sword technique. Foremost, if a wooden sword is broken with intense training, they will be happy to take a replacement. For both of them the sword is a dream...... or rather a tool to realize the dreams of their parents, not really their own, and at the same time they were the handcuffs that tied them prescribing their future. So even if one said that a connection to a sword is essential, they could not understand that immediately. To such two people, Yujio talked with a gentle smile. "Not only the sword. Even clothes, shoes, tableware...... every single particle generated by sacred art, if you open your heart and share your love they will surely respond. Maybe, people too." Then, Kirito who listened last two sentences silently stopped polishing "the sword of the night sky" — at that time simply called "black" ─ and deepened the mischievous smile. "Yes, Yujio and myself have our minds open. For example, I have a connection to Yujio’s pie, and I hear it happily permits me to eat it." "I'm sorry, but the moment I eat my pie I will be executing my connection with yours, Kirito." When listening to that exchange, Ronye unexpectedly smiled and laughed. Laughing, she felt like she could understand the words of Yujio. From that day on, with the permission of the dorm guardian those two decided to brush and polish platinum oak wooden swords from the training ground every day to heal the damage caused by training. It did not take a while until they become able to freely swing a wooden sword. They hoped secretly that those enjoyable days at the Academy would continue forever. But only a month and a half later, Yujio and Kirito attacked other elite swordsmen-in-training with the Sword of the Blue Rose and the Sword of the Night Sky to help Tiese and Ronye and were taken to the Axiom Church. After that, when they escaped from the dungeon, they challenged the Axiom Church itself, breaking through the world's most powerful knights, and finally even defeated the Highest Priest Administrator who was the ruler of the Human World. But in that fight Yujio lost his life and became the one who will never return. Recalling the voice of Tiese striving to meet Yujio-senpai, Ronye stretched her right hand without touching the tears that appeared once again. Swordsman does not choose a sword. It is the sword that picks the owner. Should I open my heart and pour love to them, any sword will surely respond. Ronye's hand caught the third from left — a long sword with silver guard and pommel, with handle wrapped with rough black leather resembling Kirito’s hair, emitting a soft sheen. Brand new handle

leather was a little hard feeling, but she thought that if she handles it with care it will soon become familiar with her palm. She breathed in and exhaled, then gently lifted the sword. Heavy. A heavy feeling of dense and resistant thing strongly transmitted from fingers through her wrist, elbow and shoulder to the core of the body. But it is not an unpleasant weight. Just like platinum oak wooden sword I was using as a junior swordsman trainee, just like an official sword of Human World Defense Army we fought through two wars together, I feel like I’ll be able to handle this one freely someday if I take care of it with love. She grasped the handle with her right hand and felt the essence of the sword by placing a blade on her left, then a gentle voice sounded. "...... Is this sword OK?" She firmly nodded to Asuna’s words. The Vice-Prime Swordsman put all the other three in sheaths, rested on the wall support, and then went around the bench and stood on the left side of Ronye. "The name for this sword should be assigned by Ronye-san. Go to the administration department once you decide, have them register it in the knight equipment ledger." "......Yes." It was the first time she had a sword that must be registered due to its significance, so she was a bit confused but nodded thinking that it is also an obligation of the owner. In the past it was the Highest Priest Administrator’s whimsy to build or destroy divine objects, give it to someone or take it back, but now all kinds of weapons and armor accessories in Cathedral are carefully managed by ledger. Asuna nodded smiling, glanced at the left side of Ronye’s waist. "What will you do with that sword? If you wish to return it to the Human World army, I can deliver it to the headquarters with a tomorrow's messenger." "Oh, ye... yes, I should..."

She would involuntarily begin to stammer in response to unexpected words. The standard sword, which was always on her left hip, was owned by Ronye ── the sacred letter "P" would be shown indicating that she is the owner if she opens the Stacia’s Window ── but in the light of military rules of the Human World Defense Army, it was a loan only. When we renew our weapons and old ones become redundant we have to return them to the army.

Both handle and sheath were made of dark brown leather, and although its creation involved practically no decoration, it was still a sharp sword of priority 25 made from Crois steel5 which was southern specialty. It by no means was a cheap production, and because Ronye had carefully maintained it, plenty of life was still left. Actually, it should have been exchanged to the standard sword of the Knights Order a year ago when she was appointed as an Integrity Knight trainee, but at that time she kept postponing it as she was too busy, so eventually both Ronye and Tiese remained attached to their previous sword and kept using it as it was. However, if a new sword is offered from a Vice-Prime Swordsman in such a way, she had to finally bid it farewell. ── However. ".................." Holding a new sword with her right hand, she was still gently touching the handle of the standard sword with the left one; Asuna nodded and said. "I understand that feeling. I also didn’t want to let go my first loved sword, so I annoyed Kirito-kun." "Er…?" Surprised, she stared at the face of Vice-Prime. "Asuna-sama...... is that about Real World...?" "Well, not exactly. Long ago, Kirito-kun and I were fighting together in a world that is neither a Real World nor an Underworld. To be precise...... Kirito-kun taught me how to fight when I knew nothing at all." "So even Asuna-sama who is strong like God, had times like that......." "That's right, I am not a god but same as Ronye-san...... a human girl." Looking at Asuna's smiling face, which seemed to be more beautiful than any human being is allowed to have, Ronye narrowed her eyes for a moment and asked. "Em...... Asuna-sama, so how did you make yourself to let go your first sword?" Asuna looked down at the palm of the right hand as if to miss the sensation of the sword, raised her face and answered. "With the recommendation of Kirito-kun, I melt the sword... into a metal bar, its original form, and I made a new sword from that material. This way, he said, the soul of the sword will be transferred....... That person, he can be so badly sentimental about swords." "Hehehe...... It looks very much like Kirito-senpai."

Two people were laughing and giggling for some time, but eventually Asuna murmured "But". "This story in current circumstances won’t help Ronye-san...... I cannot melt the sword of the human world army, and furthermore, there is already a new sword in the first place..." "...Well, I could decide after listening to your story. This sword will be returned to the human forces army." She put the new sword back to the table, removed the standard sword together with the sheath from the clasp on the sword belt and handed it out to Asuna with both hands. "Is it really okay...? If you ask Rina-san, I think it is also possible to continue to own it......" "No, it's really fine. I knew this sword is too light for me long ago....... I guess, someone next needs it." "I understood. Well then, I will return this to the Human Army Headquarters with a messenger tomorrow." Having received the standard sword with a gesture full of respect, Asuna hung it on the right side of her waist. Although the standard sword of the Human World Army is said to be light, when it is combined with the sacred instrument "Radiant Light" on the left of her waist, it should be a considerable weight, but she returned to the opposite side of the bench with a gait that does not suggest any weight at all and presented a black leather sheath decorated with silverwork that she put there. Ronye who lowered his head lowered his clasp to the sword belt when he put the sword in it. While feeling new weights throughout the body, Asuna suddenly stretched his spine straight and stared straight at Ronye. "...Ronye-san. Regarding Kirito-kun, thank you." "Ah... sure!" She answered reflexively, but remembering the situation, Ronye returned to the attitude of knight recitation. "Integrity knight apprentice Ronye Arabel, will protect the Prime Swordsman at the cost of my life!" After Ronye replied correctly, Asuna smiled. "Do not discard your life though. It is the best that you both come home safely, if you see Kirito-kun runs away, please escape as well." Feeling something like a trembling of emotions in her words, Ronye asked still hesitating to lower his hands. "......Er, really, does Asuna-sama wish to accompany him herself..?"

"Just a little bit" It was a jokingly answer, but it was clear that the meaning behind her words was different. However, Vice-Prime Swordsman shook her head a little and said even before Ronye opened her mouth to answer. "Both me and Kirito-kun cannot leave Centoria at the same time now. There are a lot of decisions we have to take every day, and former senior aristocrats’ dissatisfaction with the Human World Union Council is not going to disappear any time soon..." "....... I’m sorry, it’s such a shame......." As she reflexively lowered his head, Asuna blinked her eyes and smile to her. "There’s nothing to apologize, Ronye-san, what is it?" "You see... I also came from a noble family and I never had any doubts about the aristocracy system of the Human World until I met Kirito-senpai..." "But fathers of Ronye-san and Tiese-san were doing important work in the guard and the executive branch for a long time, did they not? It is entirely different from great aristocrats enjoying each day thanks to the forced hard labor of people living in their territory." "............" Ronye remained silent, keeping her head low feeling a great appreciation. In the former Imperial Palace rising above the hill not far from Central Cathedral, former Imperial administration and Imperial guards were still operating at that time, so her father worked as a guard platoon leader the same way as before the war. But the Konoe Knights order that was previously present on the imperial guard was completely dismantled6, the functions of guard offices were mostly transferred to the Human World Defense Army led by General Solterina Selrut. In the future, it seemed, all of the four platoons remaining in four empires will be integrated into the Defense Army and the size of military itself will be reduced. It is natural since the Dark World threat has already passed, but should this happen, Ronye was not sure whether her father will remain in his present position. If he is ordered to rearrange within the platoon or transfer to an administrative office, her father will continue to fulfill his duties properly. Even if we lose the enormous amount of income from labor of lenders by the Private Estate Liberation Act and he is going to work in the executive branch or the Human World Army, it will still be different from great aristocrats trying not to serve themselves at any cost...... so Ronye thought. But even this way her father, and perhaps Ronye herself, will still feel it in their hearts. Perception that they are noblemen and different from general people. As long as that class mindset passed from generation to generation has not disappeared, both Ronye and people of Arabel family would remain

essentially the same as the senior nobility. "Asuna-sama, better to......" Ronye managed somehow to interrupt words that were almost out of her mouth. Not only the noble grades, it would be better to abolish the aristocratic system itself. She thought so, but it wasn’t a good thing to say while aiming at the Human World highest rank of Integrity Knight herself. And the wish to become a knight can never be thrown away. Being given the glorious knight number, the silver armor, and the dragon, she would continue to serve Kirito for the rest of her life... because that was the only true dream of Ronye. Asuna tilted the neck encouraging her to continue, and Ronye answered after shaking her head a little. "No, it’s nothing...... But uh, if possible, could you let Tiese to get the same sword as this one...? Because she also still continues to use the sword of Human World Army......" "Yes, I'm going to get permission for Tiese-san as well." "That’s great, thank you very much." If after that Tiese also makes it to the same conclusion...... thinking this way, Ronye swallowed the words she could not admit herself at all.

When two of them came out of the weapon storehouse where the light of luminous elements started to fade already, the 7 PM bell echoed around. After writing the exit time in the journal, Asuna said that she would go to the general affairs section on the second floor and went down the main stairway. Ronye left alone again looked up at the night sky still shaded light purple through the big window in the front of the armor store and let out a heavy breath. In the Sword Mastery Academy where she was studying for only half a year, there was a rule that dinner must be finished by 7 PM, and if one was late without a good reason, that day they would be left without dinner. Of course, there was no such rule in Central Cathedral, it was possible to eat hot food at any time until 9 PM while big dining room on the 10th floor is open, and even later snacks are available in the large kitchen next to the dining room. Today she ran around up and down, so supposedly she should had been hungry because of all those various activities, but somehow, she did not feel like eating that very moment, so Ronye decided to return to her room. She used to ride an automatic elevator to Cathedral 22nd floor where her room was located, but that

day she climbed the main stairs to get used to the weight of the new sword as soon as possible. Kirito and Yujio, who escaped from the dungeon nearly two years ago, flew this staircase up to the 50th floor fighting Integrity Knights. There were no signs of fierce battle left, except for the feeling of two people being chased at that time, and just like them she moved her legs and eventually arrived to the 22nd floor with a little dyspnea. A private room on the right side of the corridor a little ahead was still a double room shared with Tiese because of their trainee rank, but her friend was not in the room. She thought that Tiese has probably gone to dinner, and went to her bedroom through a shared living room. As a coincidence, the living room and two bedrooms structure was exactly the same as the room of the elite swordsman-in-training dormitory where Kirito and Yujio were living, but each room was quite large here. Her room at the parents' house where she spent her childhood until entering the Sword Mastery Academy was about half of these, so Ronye felt too restless because of its size from the very beginning, but in the end, took her time to arrange favorite furniture and restyle it many times, as a result it finally felt comfortable to live. Looking from the entrance, the wall on the back had a large window facing East Centoria, a bed with linen was on the left and there was a small table on the right. And the wall on the opposite side from the window there was a lighting device like the one in the armor storehouse. She entered the room, removed the sword from the waist and gently placed it by the wall; the black leather sheath fitted well to the interior with many dark brown furniture. "I’ll think carefully, and will give you a name that suits you." She whispered to the sword, removed the gray light armor and fixed it quickly on the armor stand on the right side of the sword rest. She would want to throw the body that immediately felt lighter to the bed, but had to endure. In preparation for a long trip from tomorrow, she must pack things well. From Kirito she learned that the luggage should be one medium-sized bag available to knights, so she had to select things quite carefully. As girl reaching 17 years old that year she would of course like to take as many dresses as possible, but as a guardian of Kirito she knew it was not just a trip, she should give priority to medicines and sacred art media. First of all, she checked the medium at hand and would have to refill missing items with the management department, but before that ── "............... bath, let’s go..." Muttering that and having prepared the changing underwear, Ronye left the room. Bathrooms were located on each floor of a residential area from the 20th to the 30th floor of Cathedral, so both Ronye and Tiese usually bathed there. But occasionally...... especially before leaving Cathedral for long, she would definitely want to go over there. She walked along the aisle to the elevator area in the northern part of the floor. Aligned the control knob to the mark of 90th floor at the top and pushed the metal button; the aerial element contained

in a sealed can at the bottom of the elevator was released as requested, and began to raising Ronye. After several tens of seconds, the elevator gradually slowed down and eventually locked in, and Ronye opened the metal door. When she exited there was a short passage divided into the left and right ways ahead. And, before the branch, a pure white cloth hung down from the ceiling with strange text "ゆ"7 written in black with a strange font. This hanging cloth was attached by the Prime Swordsman Kirito, and it seemed he had written the character himself, but no one knew what it was intended for. They said, Vice-Prime Asuna seemed to be the only one who knew it but remained silent and just laughed with surprised expression. Tilting her head as she was walking through this passageway, she lifted the cloth with "ゆ" lower half of which was cut into strips, and reached the branch point. More hanging cloths of same design appeared on the left and right. The blue cloth on the right side had "men" written in white letters. The pink cloth of the left had "women". The meaning of these signs can be understood with no effort ─ which didn’t help at all with the mystery of “ゆ” ─ so, she went through the cloth with "women". The aisle bent to the right and ended with a little wider room. The room with a large shelf installed as a partition wall was not empty, three female clerics wearing only thin eastern style kimonos sat on wall chairs wiping wet hair. As they noticed Ronye they hurriedly got up and put hands together. Women bowed to the level of their waists and greeted her keeping their head down. "Good evening, knight-sama" "Greetings, knight-sama" "Good evening" Ronye returned the greeting bowing to the waist as well, and hurried toward the opposite side of the room. When she reached the shade of the shelf, she breathed out. It was not yesterday or the day before yesterday that she was appointed as a knight trainee, but she was still not getting used to such admiring attitude especially from older people of same gender. She couldn’t grasp how to display such a dignified demeanor how knights’ commander Fanatio and even ordered knights do. Having undressed and put her clothes together with the change she brought into basket inside the shelf, Ronye wrapped white towel around her body and opened the glass door in the back. White steam immediately started pouting inside so she quickly did a step ahead and closed the door behind her. The steam dissipated unhiding a scene that she could not stop to adore even though she saw it number of times.

A vast space taking almost half of the 90th floor of the Cathedral. Both the floor and pillars are made of pure white marble, the southern and eastern walls were huge solid pieces of glass, so one could overlook the night view of the central capital Centoria. Even this alone would be a luxury exceeding one of the former Imperial Palace, but the truly amazing thing was the huge amount of hot water filling all the floor surfaces falling down in a staircase pattern. The length of the elongated hall from north to south was about 40 mel, the width reached 25 mel. The width of the surrounding track was 2 mel, and since the depth from the floor to the bottom of the bath was one mel, simple calculation suggested that total amount of hot water in the bath was equal to 874 cubic mel, and converted to the "lil" which was a unit of the liquid volume, the result would be a huge figure of 874000 lil8. Moreover, the west side across the marble wall — that is, the one marked with hanging cloth with "men" on it, had completely symmetrical structure, so the total amount of hot water is doubled. This place was a large public bath that Kirito called "the most luxurious facility in Central Cathedral". Before the Foreign World War, only thirty Integrity Knights could use it, there was no middle wall, and it seems it was quite often case that only a single person was soaking in this bathtub. However, along with organization restructuring, it was opened to all Cathedral clerics and staff, and at the same time male and female sections were separated. About twenty people were bathing at that time, but there was no impression that the bathtub wide as a little lake was crowded. Still, she walked to the southeast corner where fewer people were, slowly submerged her toe in transparent water. At first it felt hot, but soon she got used to it, went down the marble staircase and sit on the last step. Immersing in hot water to the neck brought a feeling of deep relaxation to the core of the head that cannot be enjoyed in a bathtub of common size in the residential area, and she let a breath out. "Huu............" "Well, a huge bath is good, is it not?" "It really is…………" She nodded, then opened her eyes wide. Someone was sitting on the left completely unnoticed till that moment. A tear appeared in the steam raising from the hot water, and as soon as that person's face was exposed, Ronye was once again bend backwards, surprised. Light-brown hair so short that wet ends were sticking to the nape, crisp large light-blue eyes. The body of one sitting higher than Ronye was a child delicate ─ but behind that appearance suggesting a girl of about ten years old was something by no means as innocent as it looked.

"Good… good evening, Fizel-sama" The girl flying her fingertips over the water surface reacted the way similar to Ronye herself greeted just now by three clerics in the undressing room. "There is no need in that “-sama”. Ronye is older." "But...... but Fizel-sama is a numbered knight......." "Ugh, I feel like I had this dialog for about a hundred times already." The name of the girl who floated her stretched body on the water surface kicking the water with both feet was Fizel Synthesis Twenty-nine. During the Foreign World War she had a special titled being "numbered trainee", but after it she soon got publicly promoted and now she was a genuine Integrity Knight. She was given silver armor made according to her physique and a dragon named "Himawari"9 and recently she was mainly flying around the Human World with intelligence missions. "Fizel-sama, I haven’t seen you for a while, have you been at a mission again?" To Ronye's question, Fizel nodded and brought her mouth from under hot water. "Yeah, the latest movements of the western Emperor’s Konoe Knights’ remnants were somewhat suspicious, so we were sent out explore. Linel is still over there, I have just returned for reporting and picking up some supplies." "Thank you very much for your hard work...... Ardales Wesdarath V of the Western Empire was the only one of the four emperors we could not find traces of...... Is it related to that?" "Hmm, the Western Imperial Palace was destroyed and burned out to the ground by Fanatioonēsama’s memory release technique. I don’t think that the Emperor-ojiichan10 survived that explosion, but there were other people who wanted to save their miserable lives." It couldn’t be imagined that such words were spoken by a ten-year-old kid blowing bubbles on the water surface, Fizel was certainly not of the age she looked like. Her friend, Integrity Knight Linel Synthesis Twenty-eight, and her were both born within Cathedral, but never received the "Synthesis Ritual"; they said that when the Highest Priest Administrator appointed them as Integrity Knight trainees, for some reason a sacred art had been performed to freeze their life before it had a chance to reach its maximum value. In other words, one couldn’t judge their age from their appearance ─ they simply did not grow any more. Considering that, even though Ronye for some reason had a wish to tightly hug Fizel & the other one, she would have never done it. Apart from the fact that they were Integrity Knights, to become a numbered trainee they had killed knights who previously took that number; they tried to paralyze Kirito and Yujio with a poisonous sword and take head off their neck; those two got rid of the

majority of goblin troops that had invaded the back of the Human World Defense Army at the time of a Foreign World War, — there were a number of horrible rumors. If one speaks directly like this showing not even a glimpse of fear, there is no doubt that she is a kind of person requiring appropriate respect. "So then, Ronye-chan…" Unexpectedly her name was called, and Ronye straightened his spine in hot water. "Ye…yes!" "I heard that~" Fizel grinned floating on the water surface. "…as a companion of Kirito, you go to Obsidia?" "Err, well, that......." Kirito and Ronye's route beyond the Dark Territory boundary was supposed to be a secret mission, but she thought it would be useless to try hiding it from a Cathedral's best intelligence agent, so she nodded. "......Yeah, I do." "Souvenirs should be a selection of secret elixirs from dark arts masters’ guild~" "................ I will do my best..." "Ha-ha, I’m joking, joking." After displaying an innocent smile suitable for her age, Fizel sitting on the higher step turned her gaze outside the glass window.

In the direction Fizel was looking, the light of East Centoria city was blinking like stars in the abyss of dark. Traditionally in East Centoria there were many wooden buildings, so wooden and stone torches were used instead of oil lanterns, which made the city light to gain a kind of soft color. Far away beyond that light, "The Great Eastern Gate" rises in over 750 kilolu and the capital of Dark Territory Obsidia is even further, in more than two thousand kilolu. They taught us at the Sword Mastery Academy that its name means "the capital made of obsidian" in ancient sacred words, but the teacher did not seem to know its origin. Will I understand it when see with my own eyes, will I really go to the end in the first place to reach that city, or will it be too late and the overwhelming emotions will capture me same way as ── "When you get over there......."

As Fizel muttered closely, Ronye returned her gaze to a young senpai knight. "Yes……?" "Hmm... the war is over and I do not care too much, but ..." There was no person in the vicinity and no one could hear the conversation of two people with the sound of all the hot water flowing down vigorously from gates in the wall, but when Fizel approached Ronye and whispered with a serious face. "In Obsidia, keep your eyes open, be careful everywhere." "Ye...yes...." "Although the "Peace Treaty of the Five Peoples" has been signed, the Dark Territory is still dominated by "Law of the Strongest". The strongest one now is the Dark Territory United Forces commander Isukan, and there’s Scheta as well, so I guess from the surface it looks like they firmly suppress it, but...... Even on this side that is supposed to be bound by many ties of the Taboo Index and Human World Fundamental Law, there are still people who are disinterested in obeying them and find loopholes in the text interpreting it conveniently. So, if it is a Dark Territory that obeys much more ambiguous things than taboo or law, there is no wonder if some bad guys are hiding there." Realizing the words of Fizel, Ronye was attacked by a feeling of hot water suddenly dropping the temperature. She started to shake a little, but Fizel stretched her right hand and tapped Ronye’s head. "Sorry, sorry, I did not mean to scare you." "No, it's okay. I will carve your admonition in my heart." "Since our duties will be over by the time Ronye-chan comes back, let's invite Tiese-chan and have a party." "Yes, by all means!" As Ronye nodded, Fizel smiled and stood up. "Well, then, I will have to get up early." Waving with her right hand, the girl knight stepped on a slippery marble and left, so Ronye relaxed again. Fizel's knight number is 29, thirtieth was the "Knight of the Fragrant Olive" Alice who left for the real world in the end of the Foreign World War, thirty-first was the "Frost Scale Whip" Eldrie who had fallen defending Alice. Since the numbers will continue after these two will be missing, if Ronye and Tiese are appointed as Integrity Knights, one of them will get the number thirty-two and the

other one becomes thirty-third. She certainly couldn’t wait for that day. But at the same time, the feeling of uncertainty was strangling her because she could not decide yet if she’s ready. Ronye at that time had sword skill, sacred art mastery and strength of mind way lower than even those of children Fizel and Linel, not to mention higher ranking knights like Renri. Step by step. I’ll move one step at a time. If you continue to train every day and learn seriously, you will definitely be able to reach where you aim. "............ Ronye Synthesis Thirty-three ............" She unwillingly muttered such a name and hurriedly looked around. Even though no one seemed to hear, Ronye dived in hot water to hide from embarrassment that was too big and continued to spit out bubbles until the air ended up.

Footnotes: 1. Poisonous plant, unique to Underworld, used in manufacture. 2. 嬢 means unmarried woman, girl; 嬢ちゃん, respectively, cute little girl, “cutie”. 3. BTW, the priority and OCA here and below are written using western notation, e.g. "39" instead of "三十九", in other words, it’s “sacred numbers” that characters pronounce "thirty-nine" or something like this. 4. Indian jasmine, Jasminum sambac 5. クロイス, probably a reference to “Legend of Heroes” series. 6. Here “Konoe Knights” should be treated as “personal Emperor’s guards”; the “Prologue III” from vol.18 contains a spoiler that unveils what will happen in Underworld with this role in the future. 7. “Yu”, or specifically kanji “湯” means hot water or hot springs. Based on the following paragraphs it seems that hot springs are not simulated by Main Visualizer — which I personally find hard to believe given who built it, but OK — so the only “yu” in Underworld should be “弓”, a bow, which is actually pronounced “yumi” but can be shortened to “yu”. You can have a glimpse of the look of cloth here. It is quite obvious that it serves as a pseudo-door to hot springs/hot tub area. 8. The quick #KawaharaMath calculation is obviously wrong because it ignores the fact of the “floor surfaces falling down in a staircase pattern”. Depending on whether those steps are included in 25m calculation or excluded, and on the form of steps, we get significantly more or less than 874 m3, but under no condition exactly that number. Well, at least these numbers suggest the width of Catherdal’s outer wall: ~55m (25+2+wall+2+25). 9. 閑割, something like Leisure Splitter per kanji, however in this case furigana ヒマワリ is also an homonym to ひまわり which means Sunflower. 10. Fizel calls Fanatio “higher ranked older sister”. Emperor is more complicated. It’s like Fizel calls him her direct beloved grandpa, but in a somewhat official form that would be probably used by someone who is visually older than her.

Part 6 Dawn of the next day, 19th February. In the huge dragon stables by the western end of Cathedral site, Ronye was stroking the neck of her beloved Tsukigake again and again. Young Tsukigake was making sound of “Kurururu”... narrowing the eyes, half from the pleasure, half because she was simply still sleepy. Not only the young dragon, but also Tiese leaning against the silvery fence was sweepingly rocking the red hair. Last night, Ronye thought about going to bed early but could not fall asleep, so she talked to Tiese about a lot of things in the living room. It is strange that topics for long talks wouldn’t run out even though they were together every day for nearly two years, but her best friend was that kind of person. Kirito and Yujio also had to leave northern Rulid village, traveled to the central capital, entered the Sword Mastery Academy, took a year to become Elite Swordsmen, but it was always fun with those two people: talking about swordsmanship, and fights, and sometimes even sharing the silence was perfectly cozy. Now Tiese is at the crossroad of adult life. Whether she accepts the proposal of Integrity Knight Renri, or refuses, I think we can at least remain best friend forever. "... Well then, Tsukigake, I’ll go, I guess. Listen carefully to Tiese and be a good girl." Ronye stood up, and the young dragon lifted her neck and replied "Kyuru~".

When they finally moved to the arsenal behind Cathedral together with Tiese who finally looked awoken, the Machine Dragon Version 2 was already drawn out to the cobblestone yard. It was not standing vertically like Version 1, but laid on the ground with three legs, just as it was inside the arsenal. Looking closely, one could see that tips of legs weren’t claws like that of a real dragon but had wheels attached. Kirito, Asuna, Fanatio, chief of engineering master Sadore were standing close to its head, and there was one more person, a woman of the same age Ronye wearing the arsenal work clothes was standing by the side of a dragon, casting some sacred art with her hand touching the fuselage. Ronye recognized aerial element generation expression and turned to her friend who stood next holding a bag. "Hey Tiese, is that girl......." "Oh, yes, that's her. This young woman was the elevator operator before it has been automated." "Oh...... she’s cute, is she not?"

"She is, but there is a rumor that this cute girl lives as long as Dusolbert, at least." "That… that's also true..." Kirito noticed two people stopped a little away and having a conversation and waved his hand. "Hey Ronye, Tiese, over here." "Ah... yes, good morning!" "Morning!" They said greetings walking up to him. Although the sky was still dark, the Machine Dragon Ver. 2 seen outdoors was bigger than she imagined. In addition to having two cockpit seats, left and right wings were elongated to the size of real dragon’s ones, and nozzles in the back were larger as well. The total length would be 40% more than that of Ver. 1, reaching about seven mel. Will I ride this? I guess feeling nervous is expected though, but there is no time to show fear as I volunteered myself. And trying to push the suddenly resurrected in vivid colors image of the last moments of Version 1 out of her mind, she lowered her head again in front of Kirito and Asuna. "Sorry, we’re late." "No, it’s still well before the five o'clock." Kirito answered in a relaxed tone even though it was a while after the bell had rang 4:30 am, then he got a glance at the new sword on the Ronye’s left waist and smiled. "Ronye, my escort guard, I kindly ask you to take care of me." "Ye...... Yes!" Even at the cost of my life.... After she began to reply...... she remembered the words between her and Asuna last night. As a result, she got it out of her mouth. "I, I will do my best!" Although it was a childish word, both Kirito and Asuna nodded again with smiles. Girls greeted Fanatio and Sadore as well, then she took package from Tiese. Because it was packed up tightly with supplies and clothes a medium-sized bag was pretty heavy, but should be fine since it’s going to be put into the machine dragon...... she was thinking. "Kirito-san, the aerial element charge has been completed"

Having heard such a voice from behind, Ronye and Tiese turned around at the same time. The owner of the voice was a girl who had been previously called an elevator operator; one could say that instead of work clothes of the arsenal or clerics’ robes, an aristocratic dress would more likely to fit her fragile beautiful face. "Thank you Airy, you saved me." A girl called Airy to whom Kirito addressed these words bowed without changing a face expression and went by Sadore. Immediately afterwards, Cathedral's bell gently played the 5 o'clock melody, Kirito clapped hands energetically. "Well, then, let us be off! Ronye, hand your luggage over here." She handed the bag that would be her luggage to the stretched-out hand, and Kirito opened a small door on the side of the machine dragon and placed it inside. After seeing it, Ronye firmly hugged Tiese. There was no need to say anything, Ronye's "Well, see you soon" and Tiese’s "Come back safely" thoughts instantly came across between the two of them.

As she released the hug, looked at her best friend's face and nodded, Kirito had already moved to the head of the machine dragon. He urged to get up the ladder extending from the ground to the head, and she obeyed; up there she found a small oval room with two chairs: one in front and one in the back. Because the backrest of the front chair was collapsed, Ronye removed the sword from the waist and squeezed the body behind the chair. Chairs were simple, just leather stretched over the metal frame, but made of highly valuable red horn cow leather rich in flexibility and comfort, so it was overall not as bad as expected. Kirito immediately came up the ladder after her, returned the back of the front chair to its original angle and sat there. Sadore removed the ladder, then Kirito pulled the handle, the glass canopy came down and closed. Same moment Ronye’s heart began to pound and she gulped the saliva. Tsukigake was still young and couldn’t fly, but there have been many times she was allowed to ride Renri’s Kazenui1, Fizel's Himawari and Linel's Hinageshi2. As expected it was scary for the first one or two times, but the pleasant feeling of flying through the air soon grew above fear. However, she never thought of flying in the sky by herself, or specifically with the artificial dragon made of metal, moreover, flying inside of it rather than riding on the back, so a feeling of incongruity completely engulfed her. In the first place, there are no wings for flapping, so how would it return to the ground anyway after taking off?

That moment she again remembered the scene where Version 1 exploded and after calming down her trembling body she asked. "Ah ... that, Kirito-senpai." "What's it?" Ronye bent ahead and asked the Prime Swordsman who returned relaxed voice from the front seat. "Like the previous dragon, this one releases its thermal energy to fly, right?" "That's right." "In the early morning, if you fly in the sky with a loud sound like the one before, won’t people in the capital be surprised and scared...?" "I guess it could be the case......." After nodding, Kirito continued in a little difficult to understand words. "But since the length of the runway is not enough here in the first place, we cannot take off horizontally. Which means, for Version 2 taking off and landing, unfortunately, we’ll have to cheat a bit." "Chee… cheat...... a... bit...?" Kirito did not reply to that question but only laughed, and then firmly grasped two metal rods placed in the front of the chair. His hands began to suddenly emit light, and Ronye breathed in. It was not the light of a sacred art. Kirito's will, directly connected to the matter of the world itself, was visible as light. In other words, it was the radiance of incarnation3. The steel dragon shivered like a living thing. Immediately afterwards, the feeling of the body getting lifted away arrived. Ronye hurriedly looked out through the glass lid. The gray cobblestones and figures Tiese, Asuna and others were slowly moving away. Kirito was lifting the huge machine dragon entirely with the incarnation power. Watching the ground Ronye was thinking that this was certainly a cheating. As the rising speed increased, the size of those seen outside decreased accordingly. Eventually the white morning haze concealed them, the rose garden spreading north of the arsenal and the white wall of Cathedral occupied the sight. She put both hands together and looked straight ahead; the dark-blue before dawn sky had spread far and wide. Ronye lost her words to the beauty of the horizon that was starting to slowly illuminated with red.

When the dragon had risen as high as the large public bath on Cathedral’s ninetieth floor, it stopped the elevation and began to move horizontally. It was quite different from the powerful flapping of the real dragons, more like gliding on the water surface. Nothing else could be heard than a low humming wind noise. This way the citizens of Centoria would not notice them unless they were looking up at the sky at dawn. But as soon as one concern cleared up, another one came to her head. "...... Kirito-senpai, will you be fine as you move such a big thing with the power of incarnation?" After asking the one in the front seat, she panicked if she had disturbed the Kirito’s concentration, but soon the answer was returned with an unchanged tone. "Well, for a while I will. But it is hard to fly this way as you leave Human World." "Oh, I see......" Again, she was amazed by the unrelenting willpower of the Human World Prime Swordsman. Ronye also practiced as a knight trainee, but not only practical results of "Standing straight on the top of a pillar" which required standing on a thin pillar with one foot, "Controlling the created element" teaching of handling the element created in the air with pure will, but even "Tanza mind emptying" which is basically just sitting on the floor and trying to get rid of all the thoughts — could hardly proceed to the next stage. Even for the senior knights like Fanatio or Dusolbert, trainings only included secret incarnational techniques like "Arm of Mind" allowing to move things of the size of about a dagger with one’s will and "Blade of Mind" which swings invisible blade, so Kirito's incarnation allowing humans to freely flight a huge machine dragon that carries two human riders was way beyond of normality. "...... Even with such a strong senpai’s mind power, the "end wall of the world" can still not be crossed...." When Ronye muttered that, Kirito nodded with a bitter smile. "Maybe it’s due to a lack of training, but... but it is still meaningless if in the end only I can cross the "wall". In the future it is necessary to set up scheduled flights via large dragons, or make a mechanism like a Cathedral elevator so that all the inhabitants of the Dark Territory... no, entire Underworld can freely come and go." Ronye looked out the window, astonished by Kirito's idea of attaching an elevator to the "end wall of the world", height of which was not known to anyone, but she thought she is getting used to this feeling of astonishment. The machine dragon seemed to have passed through the city of East Centoria unnoticed, and fields and meadows covered with snow that had fallen a while ago spread before her eyes. Although it was still a cold view, wheat will start to grow in March, the ground will be covered with new green.

Ronye had been imagining that view for a while, then asked a new question. "Oh, senpai...... Even if we cannot go over "end wall of the world" eventually, wouldn’t it be good to have people from Dark Territory moved to Human World? There are a lot of non-cultivated lands in the Human World, I think there is still room to make new fields and villages yet...." This time, Kirito did not answer for a while. Eventually, she heard a voice low like a muttering. "If people of Human World all think like Ronye......." "Er... what do you mean...?" "Hmm....... Well, yes, we currently estimate the total population of Human World around 82,000. Per recent reports, Dark Territory seems to be about the same. The area of Human World is about 1.77 million square kilolu, since more than a half of them are undeveloped forests and wilderness, certainly Ronye is right, even if the population doubles or becomes even more, there is no problem at all from the land's perspective...... I think." Among that words, certain information came as a big surprise for Ronye. "Err....... You say the total population of Dark Territory is around eighty thousand!? But at the time of a Foreign World War, didn’t emperor Vector prepare as many as fifty thousand army?" "Do not be surprised like that....... In Dark Territory, as Fanatio-san says, everyone who can fight should become a soldier, but yeah, I agree at any rate it is a terrible story. However, that is surely the custom of Dark Territory. It's kind of world that you simply cannot survive unless you fight and rob." Kirito cut off words and put his body to the back of the chair. The concentration of consciousness broke off for a moment, the dragon shook slightly, but then immediately regained stability. "...and just like in Dark Territory, people of Human World have common mindset built for over 300 years. The inhabitants of Dark Territory are horrible monsters, going across the Mountain Range at the Edge and stealing children and livestock. The flow of tourists and merchants traversing between the two worlds are increasing little by little, but the mindset of people does not change that easily. Even if I try to bind them with a new law or taboo, instinctive fear and disgust will not disappear..." His voice trembled with deep sadness, and Ronye did not have a good answer. Kirito was the one having a power of incarnation enough to float a huge metal dragon, the one defeated Highest Priest Administrator and Dark Territory emperor Vector, but he was never a god. He was a human being — suffering, hesitating, worrying just like me, simply born in a different world. Kirito always stood up no matter how bad he got and saved the Underworld from the danger of annihilation; he has not been honored for this officially but he’s still struggling for our world even

now. I wish I’d have his strength enough to trying to extend my hand to the far-reaching goal of the harmony between Human World and Dark Territory that nobody could have imagined before — but Ronye who was one of the best to imagine the steepness of that road, could not give any advice to him. Although they came to this topic spontaneously, there would be no way of this sad dialogue occurring should she not accompany him...... but the moment she felt depressed, Kirito said as though he had sensed it. "I’m glad that Ronye came along. I would be frightened by those children there if it was my first time meeting them." "Oh ... is that so?" "It seems, there are various ways rumors take to reach our minds...... but they still remain senseless because we finished the war that way..." She breathed out lightly, and Kirito said in a different, clear voice as if switching his feelings off. "Well, now that we’re away from Centoria, let’s switch from incarnational flight to elemental flight." "Yes, please!" After nodding vigorously, she asked the front seat. "Well, what should I do...?" "Just keep your connection to elements and watch their state like during the first test flight, and please let me know if anything is going to happen." "I understood!" Kirito heard Ronye’s voice and showed her thumb up, then grasped two metal bars with both hands. He continued with sacred art initiation phrase. "System Call, Generate Thermal Element" Both hands of Kirito glow red and it looked like thermal elements are generated one after another inside hollow metal pipes. They were manipulated by incarnation through the pipe and placed in the sealed can in the middle of the dragon. It seemed, even for the Prime Swordsman, it was not that easy to simultaneously control the giant dragon and small elements at the same time, as the dragon began to shake again. Suddenly Ronye, not quite realizing what she was doing, bent forward and put her hands onto Kirito’s shoulders. She did not cast any art, but there was a feeling that the flow of the sacred power spiraling in the surrounding space calmed down a little. The tremor of the dragon decreased and ten thermal elements fit firmly into the sealed can.

"Thank you, Ronye" Kirito gently tapped Ronye's right hand, slowly breathed in and whispered. "Discharge" Hot elements discharged in the sealed can created a tremendously powerful flame. The flame pushed out from the can to the rear part of the machine dragon driven by its own pressure. In the middle of the way, it mixed with the airstream of aerial elements placed in another can before takeoff, got compressed and blasted out from rear nozzles as a straight torrent much alike to the flame of real dragons. The intense acceleration pressed Ronye’s body hard against the chair pushing air outside of her lungs. Clouds drifting outside the window rushed backwards. Comparing only the speed, it was faster when they flew from Central Cathedral to the guards’ office in South Centoria using Kirito's aerial elements flight technique, but the dragon was at that moment under little control of incarnation. In other words, if a high-level cleric trains enough, they could become able to fly as fast as Kirito. Rather than challenging the "end wall of the world", perhaps, that's more important...... thought Ronye for a moment, as vibrating thunderous roar filled the narrow room. She shouted out loudly holding the frame of the chair hard. "Se...... senpai! This dragon, how fast is it flying now!?" "Hmm, let’s see." Kirito replied with a voice that did not show any tension. "The highest speed of an Integrity Knight’s dragon is roughly 120 kilolu per hour, and if one has to fly long distances without problems, then you have only about 80 kilolu per hour. But I guess this guy is currently having 250 kilolu per hour..." "Er...... twi… twice as fast as a real dragon!?" "I think it can go up to 300 kilolu if I push it down the floor. But I was told by grandpa Sadore to keep around 80% at all times" While saying that, Kirito pointed to one of several disks lined up in front of his chair. The attached needle certainly trembled slightly before the upper limit of the scale. "Three… three hundred kilolu in one hour..." Ronye repeated that shaking her head again and again, trying to comprehend such speed. Now I understand, yes, if the machine dragon can fly that fast and far away from the ground ── it

would take just half a day to arrive to Obsidia Castle that lies in 3,000 kilolu away. Then, there could also be nobody able to attack such a machine dragon soaring at this ridiculous speed. And also, beyond that there’s a huge benefit of… thinking in such a way, Ronye finally got used to surrounding rhythmic vibrations.

About fifteen hours have passed since they crossed the Mountain Range at the Edge and started flying the red sky of Dark Territory. Despite they made two breaks, buttocks and backs already began to hurt, but that moment Kirito pointed ahead. "I see it." Looking over Kirito's shoulder, she saw a faint light ahead on the ground already covered with darkness. At first it was only a blurred point, but as they got closer it turned into countless lights. "That is...... the capital of Dark Territory, Obsidia..." After mumbling so with a hoarse voice, Ronye asked the Prime Swordsman. "...... Kirito-senpai, have you been there?" "Yeah, only once. However, because it was an informal visit, I could hardly see the insides of the castle or the capital city." "It seems to be alike again this time..." Ronye's words sounded disappointing, but Kirito turned back and finally laughed. "No, let alone this time it’s informal, to the degree that we did not even contact Isukan, but something tells me we’ll have a chance of doing it." "Something… tells you...?" She looked outside the window again trying to push down the well-known "bad feeling" that occurred at a considerable frequency when anyone interacted with Kirito. The machine dragon has reduced the speed to less than half, but still the city light ahead remained somewhat blurred. Unlike the circularly organized city of Centoria, countless lights were gathered in a shape of a crescent without any regularity. Behind them, a huge black rock rose like a spear. A lot of lights lit up the rock, because that was the former emperor Vector's castle Obsidia. It seemed that it was dug out in a huge rocky mountain to finally obtain its current castle shape over an enormous number of years, no less than Axiom Church's Central Cathedral ─ so only its outline

was visible in the darkness. "It's about 10 kilolu remaining... All right, it's time to switch to incarnational flight and land." Surprised with the words of Kirito, Ronye asked back. "Why are we going to get off that far?" "Well, it's going to make a fuss if we go down to the city or castle suddenly with this guy..." Answering so, Kirito grasped a metal rod that seemed to be a "control stick" and gradually attenuated the thermal elements flame in the sealed can with incarnation. A roaring sound that was filling the small room (which is also officially called "cockpit") became quieter and finally disappeared. Kirito's incarnation strongly supported the machine dragon which lost propulsion and started to descend. While it was descending, nervousness did not leave Ronye and she was strongly gripping the frame of the chair in both hands. When we return to Centoria, I’ll ask them to install a handle to hold on the back of a chair...... thought Ronye endured a steep falling feeling quite different from one experienced in Cathedral's elevator. Eventually the machine dragon stopped with a small impact, Kirito stretched out greatly in the front seat and said. "That's it, Ronye. From here we will fly by human power."

Two swords, one large and one small bag, a human called Ronye and heavy baggage of one — embracing this all with both his arms, Kirito quickly moved the distance of 10 kilometers by aerial elements flight technique. He mentioned that the limit distance he can fly in a stable way in Dark Territory where spatial sacred power had been sparse, was ten kilolu. During the flight she was inevitably in close contact with Kirito, so her heart pounded at first, but since the treatment and hanging sideways within his arms was completely the same as those of luggage, the heartburn in her chest could not help being dramatically extinguished. They landed on the broad road that led to Obsidia castle town. The cobblestone was polished as marble, as in the daytime numerous humans, sub-humans, and carriages were going one after another, but at that time that would probably be after 10 o'clock in the evening there was no shadow there. As Ronye was usually in bed by that time, as soon as her feet touched the ground, she was attacked by intense sleepiness coupled with tiredness of a long journey, but shaking her head a lot helped fighting it away. Her escort mission begins from this moment ──── Or, so she thought.

"So, let's look for an accommodation right away." Kirito told such a thing while fixing the Sword of the Night Sky in the fastening on his left hip, and Ronye repeatedly blinked. "Well... aren’t we going to the castle?" "The gate is already closed, and Isukan will also be sleeping soon. If guards find anyone sneaking in at such a time they surely think it is an assassin." "...... certainly ......" Although they have traversed all the Underworld to cope with a mysterious murderer who took the life of the inn cleaner Yazen in South Centoria and tried to put the crime on the mountain goblin youth Oroi, if they are mistaken for assassins, it will not be a funny story. "I understood. But the inn who can accommodate us being Human World humans without any troubles..." Before answering, Kirito put his hands in his leather bag and took out something small. Looking down to it lit with the city lights, it seemed that it was a small bottle with a lid to keep ointment in. "Sorry, Ronye, please excuse me..." While saying this, Kirito opened the lid of the vial and took out the contents with a fingertip. That was the moment she moved her face closer. "Uni~a!" Kirito's hand quickly approached and rubbed something sticky over her face, so Ronye screamed. On the face of Ronye, completely frozen because of surprise, Kirito spread the greasy patch with both hands. After passing through the forehead, cheeks, ears and under the chin, Kirito went one step away, looked at Ronye and nodded. "Yeah, this looks good." "..............what… is this... thing..?" She tried rubbing her face with her fingers, but the sticky feeling had disappeared, and nothing was sticking to her fingertips. Kirito did not reply, just once again took out ointment from the vial and painted it on his own face. His skin, averagely white as for a Human World human, even though its color was naturally slightly darker compared with Ronye and Tiese both born in Norlangarth, was dyed in dark black. In just a few seconds, the face of Kirito turned into a color of kohiru tea4. It was now of a Southacroith people color, no, even ones of Dark Territory......Thinking that far, she finally realized.

"Ah...... this thing is to disguise us as Dark Territory humans?" "Yep. Both Ronye’s and mine hair is dark, and its winter now, so I think that it will be impossible to distinguish if we also change the face color." Listening to that words, Ronye noticed that his face had been colored as well with both hands passing down the cheeks already. As Kirito who glanced at her face said that she was "cool, looking great" with a smiley face, she felt bottom of her palms got hotter. "Then, senpai, I hope its washable, is it not?" She asked with a blunt sharp voice, and Kirito hurriedly frowned and nodded. "Well, of course. Kutokonia-san, a pharmacist, said it would naturally disappear in about eight hours." "Naturally... what is it made of?" "It seemed better to not know that." Having mumbled that last words, Kirito reached out his hands again, corrected Ronye's disturbed hair and turned his eyes to the east. In Centoria, there was a big gate and a guard room at the border of the city, but it seems that there is not such a thing in Obsidia outskirts, the building number gradually increased on both sides of the road and seemed to continue to the city as is. No guards could be seen. "...... So far so good, I think, if anyone asks me for identity...... that's right, we came from Faldera to find a job in the northern fu... and let's say we’re brother and sister." Ronye finally released both hands from cheeks and asked about unfamiliar words in Kirito’s phrase. "Umm, what is Faldera...?" "It's a city in the dark world in about 30 kilolu southwest from here." In truth, she wanted to know the meaning of the 'fu' that he mentioned before part of brother and sister, but enduring curiosity it a lot, Ronye nodded. "I understand, let's go, senpai." She covered head with a hood, took a long sword that has not been assigned a name yet from the top of the bag standing on the stone pavement and hung it on her waist. After that she reached for the bag, but Kirito lifted it a little too soon. "Ah...... senpai, let me handle my own baggage myself..." "Oh no, I’m now your brother and you’re my sister. Your brother will bring his sister's luggage."

With a happy smile, Kirito took Ronye's bag in his right hand, hung his leather bag on his left shoulder and started walking. Ronye bothered her head as to what she should call Kirito when they enter the city and ran after him.

After they had walked for a while in the late-night road, the surroundings gradually became bright, and at the same time the number of people and the sub-people passing by increased, so Ronye felt relief and tension at the same time. The Obsidia Castle Town which she saw for the first time, had most buildings made of dark stone, there were fewer trees and waterside, and it generally had a crowded feeling compared to Centoria. However, lanterns attached to the walls of the houses and pillars along the road had red, yellow and purple lights in spite of late night, so there was something like a festival atmosphere. "What is burning in those lanterns?" Kirito immediately answered Ronye's question. "It's an ore that can be found in nearby mountains, it seems that a piece of a fist size will keep burning for ten days." "Well, that's useful, is not it?" "You would think that it could be sold at a high price if anyone brings it to Human World, but handling it is troublesome because it starts to burn naturally unless it is submerged in water, so it is quite difficult to transport long distances..." They walked ahead having such a conversation and eventually a place of a lively atmosphere appeared in the front. There was a small square, with numerous tents around, and many people were drinking having surrounded tables lined in the center. About half of them were humans with the dark skin, and there were not a few orks and goblins, but they occupied another table. Even after the "Peace Treaty of the Five Peoples" was supposed to have been concluded in Dark Territory, the confrontation between tribes has not yet disappeared..., thought Ronye peeking from behind of Kirito’s head, but he told her. "Hey, just being drinking in the same place is a big change already. Look, that fist-fighter and a group of orks are talking to each other at neighboring tables, aren’t they?" "Oh, that’s true, it seems they are toasting......." When a fist fighter who barely covered his sturdy upper body, even though it was February, protruded a wooden jug screaming something, an ork sitting next to him vigorously hit his mug. Watching this situation from the square entrance, Ronye muttered as if continue her monologue of thoughts.

"During the Foreign World War, the orc forces came to rescue an almost wiped out fist fighter group....... The "green swordsman" who led it, orcs are exalting her like a goddess." Ronye never met her, but she knew that the "green swordsman Leafa" who disappeared with the finish of the war was Kirito's sister from real world. Kirito’s painted dark face distorted as if he considered to cut it off for a moment but soon he returned to his usual expression and nodded. "Yes...... It was the reason why we were able to get that treaty with Dark Territory so quickly, all thanks to Leafa without any exaggeration. That's why, we must protect this peace at all costs." "……Yes" Ronye answered realizing that each time he tried to forget, that fundamental anxiety was waking him up like everlasting waves. It didn’t take long though before Kirito continued in a normal way. "Well, it's a bit late but let us have some too. I’m never tired of street food." "Oh... are we going to eat here?" "Look, it is such a delicious smell from all the tents...... Enduring it would be as hard as an everyday anger of both Fanatio-san and Dusolbert-san." Kirito grabbed the bag and stepped in to the square after saying something that did feel like a theory. Unavoidably she followed him, and the fragrant smell immediately tickled her nose reminding her of hunger. There were six tents over the outer row, but from the first glance it wasn’t clear which one is selling what. At times like this one, when Ronye was hard to make a choice, she relied on Tiese who quickly decided...... normally, but there was no her redhead friend next to her. Neither could she trust the taste of Prime Swordsman who was muttering "That’s skewer grill, it's tasty......but it's such a time already, maybe to take that noodle soup they prepare over there......no, no, the buns on the other side are quite..." going from one tent to another. By the way, it was Yujio-senpai who usually decided for Kirito-senpai so no surprise he got lost...... After she noticed that and smiled a little, Ronye pulled the cloak of Kirito. "Oh, senpai... Before we eat, do you have local money in the first place?" "............" The face of Kirito looking at Ronye was gradually changing from startle to despair. There were four kinds of money circulating in Human World: thousand shear golden coins, hundred shear silver coins, ten shear copper coins and one shear iron coins. Strictly speaking there were also

ten thousand shear white gold coins, but they were not spread among general people and lower aristocrats because they were only used for transactions between the government and biggest merchants. For Ronye, it had always been shear coins all the time she could remember, but since it bore the profile of goddess Stacia and an emblem of Axiom Church, it could not be used in Dark Territory. Of course, separate money should exist here. Kirito seemed to have finally realized the situation because he dropped his shoulders and said. "......You know, in the Cathedral we don’t use money, so I completely forgot......." "Are...... are you saying that you have not brought a single shear with you... or ...?" Looking like a child scolded by a teacher, Kirito nodded. Ronye had no idea what to say, and she could only look at the face of Prime Swordsman for several moments. In the back of the sword belt that Ronye always wore, there was a thousand shear golden coin sewn for a case of a need but there was no use to it in this town anyway. She realized there was a further problem and asked Kirito again. "Well, does it mean we cannot stay in the inn...?" "Umm, well, looks like that." Ronye deeply sighed closely to being for unknown reason gravely positive Prime Swordsman. "And if we have got stayed penniless, how were we going to pay exactly?" "Well, you know, sharing automatically from the storage......."5 Kirito stared at tents with a such face as if he had not given up even in these circumstances, and finally looked up at the gigantic castle piercing through the night sky. "It cannot be helped, let’s pray that Isukan is still awake and sneak into Obsidia castle......" ── said her senpai who mentioned a moment earlier that it would be tough if they got treated as assassins! Ronye breathed in heavily to express in words all she was thinking about this idea, and that time. Above two whispering heads in the corner of the square that came so close that almost touched each other, a big human figure emerged. "...... !?"

Ronye raised her face, restraining her hands from stretching to the sword on the left hip. It was a giant standing in front of them, as tall as one mel and ninety cen6. Rugged muscles covered the naked upper body crossed with leather bands and countless old wounds running across red copper skin proved him being a fist fighter. The pale light of a lantern was not enough to understand whether he is drunk that much, or is it his face beneath stiff hair simply naturally red enough. "Hey bro7, got no money to eat?" At least hostility was not felt in his voice, so Ronye ceased the alertness a little. On the other hand, Kirito nodding with a miserable look, with a voice that seemed to be very hungry ─ he might not be acting but behaving as he was though ─ answered. "Well...... Yes, that's right. I came to find a job with my sister from Faldera, but ran out of it on the way." "Huh, Faldera is big, my old man is still over there." Listening to the word of the giant, Ronye chilled to the liver as it would be quite hard to start talking about memories of the city only known by name, but fortunately it did not develop that way. Fist fighter slammed Kirito's shoulder with a thick and heavy right hand as if fitted with leather gloves, and said generous thing. "Yeah, lemme give a treat to fellow countryman." "I, no, ...I'm kind of going…" Already regretting his acting, Kirito tried to refuse, but fist fighter pushed his back to the corner of the square. Kirito moved his legs reluctantly, and Ronye followed. It was the smallest and the most dimly-lit place among the six houses that the fist fighter led them to. The only thing that can be said for sure about the shopkeeper stirring a large pan of seasoning with a long ladle, with the majority of his face hidden with growing forelock, was that he is a human. The faded cloth hanging from the counter’s eaves’ corner bore the writing "Obsidia boil" with wry small letters, apparently it was the name of a dish. "This place is the best in this square. Well, even though nobody of my friends agree!" The drunk fist fighter laughed “ga-ha-ha”, and Kirito attempted to retract with a face full of horror. "Ah, that, uncle, I have a kinda bad feeling......." "All of them said so at first. Well, I dare you to try and don’t think you have been fooled. Hey, father, gimme three cups." He picked out three coppers from the pouch hung by the fist fighter’s belt and dropped them with a

“cha~linn” sound a on dark long board. If the value of the coin is the same as that in Human World, the mysterious “Obsidia boil” will be worth of ten shears, which was way too cheap as for a light street food. The shopkeeper without any reply arranged three wooden bowls on the long board, poured with the sound of “dobobo” the contents of the pan with a long ladle, and accompanied the spoon of the same wood. Again, without saying a word, he collected coins and returning to his stirring work. Whether was accustomed to that or simply being drunk, but fist fighter took bowls one by one in both hands without any concern of the shop owner's correspondence which was extremely frustrating, and presented them to Kirito and Ronye. There was no option to refuse left any more once this is done, so they accepted it saying "Thank you very much" at the same time. There was something inside the bowl that could only be described as a thick brown soup. It seemed that various items were contained in it, but since the liquid was almost opaque, what was being boiled could not be determined by looking down. Ronye sat down with Kirito at a vacant table, urged by a fist fighter with his bowl, and prepared her spirits. She scooped up some liquid concentrated like stew cooked for three consecutive days, blew it and put in the mouth. Spicy! she thought at first, but at once felt sourness, and after that the taste brought complicated richness with a shade of bitterness, and ended with a faint sweet aftertaste. "............ Kirito-senpai, what a strange taste is this.......?" When Ronye asked with a loud voice, Kirito who ate a bite as well, was muttering staring at the wooden spoon with a complex expression. "There is no doubt ...... It is the taste of "boil", both marvelous and disgusting, or rather it seems like a horribly subtle......." "Oh...... Had senpai eaten this before, then?" Finally noticing that Ronye turned to him, Kirito shook his head. "Oh no, not quite....... There is a shop that serves similar dishes in the city I used to live. The shop owner resembles him either, but still it is...... The "boil" I know is something I was hardly able to eat because one had to fight though it’s spicy and sour and bitter and sweet tastes. But this Obsidia boil orders or rather wraps tastes, making it indescribably mellow and......" "Oh, so I see you tasted it, bro!" A fighter who reduced the contents of the bowl to as much as 30% already he hit the Kirito’s back vigorously. "They say, from since the Imperial City of Obsidia was built, this Koitsu guy continues to add

ingredients and simmer the soup for more than two hundred years every day. I guess this is not a Human World cuisine, ga-ha-ha!" "Tha… that's right......." Next to Kirito nodding with delicate face, Ronye unexpectedly shouted in surprise. "Two… two hundred years......!? How, how does cooking's life last for so long? Soup and stew will be damaged usually after 5 days even in the midwinter..." "That is where that fella’s spiffy." And as if he was some kind of relative of the shopkeeper, the fist fighter proudly hit his thick chest. "This fella is not going a step away from the counter every day, he keeps on adjusting the fire so the pot does not become empty or burnt. If you do keep doing it constantly, it seems that the content of the pot will not lose life. Naturally I eat here three meals a day......I am thinking that this is only this fella not only in Dark Territory, but in entire Underworld, that can cook such a thing." "Well, every day, that is......." She stared on the counter in question. An unfriendly shopkeeper kept stirring the pot with his face down, and his face could not be seen again. "....... So, has his life been frozen if he is alive for more than two hundred years...?" To Ronye's question, the fist fighter, who apparently came up with such a possibility for the first time, looked at the bowl and counter a number of times with a serious look and then shook his head from side to side. "No way, I heard rumors that it is the highest priest of Human World only who can do it. I guess here it has surely been generation to generation inherited." "Well, that's probably right." Ronye nodded and scooped up some larger lump settled in the middle of the bowl and fearfully put it in her mouth. It is probably a meat of a bird that gives this extremely light crunchy feeling when it collapses with every bite overflowing with rich flavor. Also, complicated strange flavor, if you get used to it — there is nothing you’ll like more. Kirito who emptied the bowl with considerable momentum probably got used to it faster than Ronye, exhaled contentedly. "Haha, it was horrible...... it may not be an overstatement......." He stretched his spine and lowered his head deeply to a fist fighter sitting opposite. "Thank you for the meal, a kind man. I will never forget this kindness."

"Nothing, that’s for good." The fist fighter who had finished eating a long ago nodded with his smiling face. "When you find a nice job here and a day comes when you can eat Obsidia boil as much as you want, please give one to me... speaking of which..." Rubbing the face thoughtfully with a thick palm, he kept on smiling. "...... It might be a bit difficult for you to find work for both brother and sister in Obsidia now, bro." "Oh ... is that so? It is lively in the streets even at such time and it seems to be nice..." "It looks like it looks, but that's because the number of residents is increasing ... and I do not think it will last for long..." The fighter who told them so with a sigh bought a dubious vial from the goblin that passed nearby. He squeezed it and gulped, then held it out, frowning. Although Kirito seemed to be dealing fine with it for a moment, he immediately coughed violently as soon as exhaled. The fist fighter to whom the bottle has been returned, smiled and continued the explanation. "This hooch is made by the flat goblin tribe that settled near the city recently. It is tasty, and because it is cheap like nothing at all, it sells great. The town liquor store is shabby and sales are falling, and the commercial guilds seem to be crisp. If it is before the war, the guard soldiers would attack the goblin village and kill them all, but now there is a Peace Treaty of the Five Peoples......." "...... That is, as long as sub-humans move to Obsidia, humans will be robbed of work...?" "It's not just fault of sub-humans, the number of people is increasing considerably......That's what bro should see." In response to Kirito's question, the fighter shrugged his shoulders and answered, looking up at the dark sky. "If you came from Faldera I don’t need to tell you...... the land is just killing everything in this dark world. Humans and subhumans have always been suffering from hunger and thirst. Even the big war that ended the "era of iron and blood" began with a fight for a lake of some tribe’s origin..." Ronye and Kirito, who were not familiar with the history of the Dark Territory, must only silently nod. Fist fighter drank another gulp and kept on talking diligently. "......Our ancestors managed to survive in this Dark Territory because there was a legend we believed. Someday the Human World gate will open and we will move to a promised rich land." As soon as she heard the words, Ronye unintentionally strengthened her body, but the fist fighter did not seem to notice.

"...Neither my small brother nor sister would not have survived till that age, but as Emperor Vector recovered a little over than a year ago, it was awesome excitement when I was attacking the Human world. Finally, the time of legend came, we thought... ── But, Human World Integrity Knights, rumors say, were worse than any monster...... Besides, then suddenly an army of a different world emerged. I did not understand anything, but the emperor was kidnapped by some swordsman of the Human World, and the war was over......" Ronye looked at "some swordsman" next to her who had already cold sweat spreading over his forehead with a face more delicate than when he tasted Obsidia boil. A fist fighter who hopefully had no way of knowing the true identity of the young man sitting in front of him opened his mouth again slamming a spoon on the table. "...If the war continued as rumors say, this time the God of the Dark Territory may have perished for good. So, there are no complaints about peace with Human World, but it is also true that there is no hope of getting rich land someday left.... That is why goblins, orks and human youth are flowing into Obsidia...... They think here is fine, they say, they will be able to find a better life. However, no matter how much those hunkys are impatient, there is no infinite work appearing. Perhaps if you are a human being, you might be hired by a knights’ order.... but both bro and sis are a bit too weak, so ..." Looking at the fist fighter sleepy winking drunken eyes directed towards two people, Kirito who seemed to be thinking once again, dropped his head down. "Thank you for everything, uncle. Obsidia boil, it was delicious ...... Someday, we’ll treat you." "Oh...... Good luck, both of you……" Finally, they got up carefully as not to wake up a fist fighter who had fallen asleep earnestly. Overlooking the plaza, it seemed a group of goblins and orks had left unnoticed, and only a few drunk groups of fist fighters remained. Most of the counters are also starting to close, and only the shopkeeper who cooked Obsidia boil kept stirring the pot. It seemed like their chat of staying over there was becoming reality. "... Well, aren’t we supposed to be looking for an inn?" Kirito, who made a big yawn, murmured such a thing in a confused tone. "But what do you do for paying rent? Indeed, I think those who will pay will not appear." "Well, I’ll manage somehow." Finally, Kirito laughed and started to walk to the east exit of the square; Ronye inevitably chased him.

The number of ore lanterns increased and the bustle became louder as they got closer to the center of the city. However, after listening to the story of a fighter, the colorful lights reflected the modest resistance to the killing ground, and the bustle felt filled with the complaints accumulated by people. Kirito solved the penniless problem by unexpectedly modest means of getting a knife in his pocket to be bought by a roadside street vendor; from the shopkeeper he learnt a location of a cheap inn and began to walk again. Ronye talked in a bright voice to a Prime Swordsman who was somewhat less talkative than usual. "This currency, "beck"8. Is the value of one beck the same as one shear in Human World?" "Ehm...? Oh, yes, I have such a feeling. The thing is that the cup of Obsidia boil is still quite cheap though..." "Well, I guess you would want to eat it again, senpai?" "As expected, a swordsman-dono cannot hide any secret from his former valet." After putting a hand on the Ronye’s head with a glad face, Kirito pointed to the building on the right front side with that same hand. "Apparently this is an inn recommended by that old weapons vendor." It looked like the Human World inns, except from the dark stone walls, with a signboard of cast iron symbolizing sacred letters I, N, N protruding. When Ronye saw it, a strange doubtful feeling appeared in her heart, but it was swayed away like a ripple before she chose words to express it. "...? ....What happened, Ronye?" She shook her head quickly towards Kirito who tilts his head. "No, it’s nothing." "OK.... It was a hard day, let's get down early." That said, Kirito grasped two large and one small pieces of luggage and walked over to the door under the sign. Fortunately, despite the near midnight time, the inn was still open. The innkeeper was a woman of about forty years old who looked at Kirito and Ronye for a few seconds with a suspicious face, but did not seem to doubt the story of brother and sister who came to find a job from Faldera. But it seems that Kirito could not anticipate that the fictional story would create new problems. After saying “One room is good if you are brother and sister!”, the woman did not want to listen anything more and guided, or rather pushed two people ─ moreover, requiring to pay double of 100-beck one-

night accommodation price upon leaving the inn ─ to a room on the second floor. "Be sure to leave by the ten bells in the morning! The bath has already dropped the heat, so if you want to wash, you go to a bathhouse next to it. They will give a discount you if you say you’re a customer of my place!" And, mumbling over words, which were unlikely kind or cheerful, hostess disappeared downstairs. Ronye was stunned for a moment, and Kirito said in a somewhat awkward voice. "Err.... I'm sorry, Ronye. Because I was particular about the cheap hotel, it's like this..." "No, thanks to senpai..." "I can sleep properly outside, so Ronye can use this room." "Well, properly probably..." "Either somewhere on the eaves or in the park, nothing will happen to me. Please take a good rest today. I will come back tomorrow morning." Ronye hurriedly pulled the cloak of Kirito going out through the window. "It’s, it's useless, senpai! It is so cold out there, you will catch a cold if you imitate fist fighters!" She looked around the room. In addition to a simple bed, one sofa for two people is placed. It seems that it may be a bit too short for legs, but can’t say I won’t be able to sleep, thought Ronye. "I will go to sleep at the sofa there, senpai please use bed." "Well, no, but... Isn’t there anything in Taboo Index of Imperial Fundamental Law? Isn’t there a ban on unmarried men and women sleeping in the same room? "There is no such thing. What is prohibited is kiss… kissing in the lips and also... as well as............" "Well, what is it?" Ronye firmly grasped shoulders of Kirito who moved his ear closer with a puzzled face, and pushed him with all her force in the direction of the bed. "Whatever it may be, senpai is Human World Prime Swordsman, and I am Integrity Knight trainee, so it does not matter!" "Wow~!" Kirito’s legs slipped on the floor, he crumbled backside and set on the bed. Without even a shortest delay she untied strings of his cloak and pulled it away, removed boots from both feet, and pushed him down into a laid position allowing no further questions.

She then pulled up the cotton-top cover up to his neck, and when thumping in her chest started to cease, the Prime Swordsman said to her through wry smile and laughter. "... Ronye, you are like my mother, in a way." "Ah... I'm sorry, my mother always did this when I was a child." "I see...... Would be great to see Ronye's parents, someday..." As Kirito said such words looking up at the ceiling, Ronye remembered her last month homecoming. It obviously revived the memories of a number of proposals from her relatives, but somehow, she pushed them back. ".......Yes, I'm sure my parents will be happy." It would be my youngest brother that would be pleased the most, but when she decided to voice this thought, Kirito lightly smiled and closed the eyelids. In just a few seconds, gentle snuffle could be heard. He had much more calm face all the time, but I think that the tiredness from flying 3000 kilolu from Human World with a machine dragon still remained. Relieved that Kirito quietly slept in the bed, Ronye took off her cloak and after a bit of struggle with an ore lantern ─ turned out she had to pour water into it ─ turned it off. Sitting on the sofa that was standing by the wall, she carefully removed her shoes and put them on the floor, and lied down. Although her toes protruded as expected, she didn’t mind the cold covering with a cloak made of a cotton cloth and a good western region wool instead of a blanket.

Ronye immediately felt drowsy, but against it she stared at the profile of Kirito lit by city light coming through the window. What really happens if my senpai really comes to my house...... she though and let her imagination to play for a while. It would not be that Kirito's family is only his sister known as "green swordsman Leafa". In the real world she returned to, there should be parents, possibly other brothers and sisters, and friends. But until now, Kirito never spoke of his family. Does he want to go home…… I wonder is he thinks of this. There was no reason not to. Even Ronye, who had a family house in the same city of Centoria, sometimes wanted to see her parents and brother. But Ronye could not have the courage to ask Kirito about it. If I wait for too long and say that...... do you want to go back home someday? — I do not know whether what the answer would be any good. Initially, I do not even know whether there is a way to return to the real world. I wonder what kind of place it is.

The Underworld people who fought in the Foreign World War almost without exceptions felt fear and disgust rather than familiarity to the real world which is only known by name. Ronye was no exception. Just thinking that horrible red knights that caused many lives to be lost to both the Human World Defense Army and the Dark Territory Army made her feel terrible and limbs became cold. On the other hand, real world is home to Kirito, Asuna, and swordsmen who came to the rescue to the Human World Army during the Foreign World War. Even in Underworld there are good people and bad people. The real world may be the same. However, I do not think I want the way in to open again. Integrity Knight Alice traveled to the other world, what did she saw there, I wonder? Could it be that the day will come when I can meet her again and hear her story.......? When she thought that far, the same strange feeling as when she saw the sign of the inn once again shook her heart, but finally she could not bear the weight of the eyelids, so Ronye went down to sleep in the foreign land far away.

Footnotes: 1. 風縫 – Wind Stich or Stiching Wind. 2. 鄙消, “Rural Neutralizer” per kanji, but just like in case of Himawari (“Sunflower”) here it is probably meant to be a homonym to ひなげし which means “Poppy”. 3. …which we also know as “overray”. However, here the Underworld term is used. 4. Kirito’s favorite Underworld flavor of tea. Comes from Southacroith. Pitch-black quite bitter liquid, normally other people add milk there. Reference from vol.11, ch.2. 5. Kirito here falls back to Sacred Language (“sharing” and “storage”), probably referring to the Obsidia treasury. 6. No it’s not a translator’s exaggeration, this person is literally presented as 巨漢 — a giant. 7. Originally “onii-chan” but I don’t feel natural leaving an equivalent of “my dear big brother” coming from the “giant” fist fighter. His following phrases, along with Kirito’s ones when he tries to adjust to his talk, are adapted respectfully. 8. ベック.

Part 7 When she awoke to the heavy sound of a bell, the bright light was already falling through the thin window curtain. After blinking several times, she scratched the eyes and set in the sofa. With the cloak wrapped instead of a blanket around the body, she looked around the room with drowsy eyes. First thing she saw was the figure of a black-haired swordsman sleeping deeply in the bed in front of the sofa. Eight hours passed, and the effect of the ointment had gone out, so the sleeping face that regained whiteness was surprisingly inconvenient, and Ronye smiled a little. Finally, she realized that she had stayed overnight in the same room with Kirito ─ even though, of course, the beds were separate ─ and all the drowsiness immediately faded away, the face got hot. She put her cold hands, which were out of the cloak, on her head and took a deep breath to somehow regain calmness, then got up vigorously. Moved to the side of the bed, gently shook the shoulders of sleeping Kirito. "Senpai, please get up, it's eight o'clock." When Ronye heard it last night, she noticed that the melody of the bell was exactly the same as that of Central Cathedral’s ones. Why do the bells installed in the Human World Axiom Church and the bells of the Dark Territory capital far away from each other playing the same sound..? At the time of such thoughts, Kirito revealed ambiguous mumbling and tried to get in under the blanket. "Ugh...... a bit more ............" "Ah, sleeping is waste!" In a hurry she tried to pull off the blanket, but Kirito did not let it go, firmly holding the edge with both hands like a child. "Five minutes more...... No, let me sleep for just three minutes, Yujio..." When she heard that name, Ronye inhaled a small breath. Pulling a hand away from the blanket, she walked one step away. About two years have elapsed since Elite Swordsman-in-Training Yujio, who was a close friend of Kirito, lost his life in battle with the Highest Priest Administrator. For Kirito, however, the days spent with Yujio have not been left in the past. Just like for Tiese. On her tiptoes, she returned to the sofa and sat again. Asuna, a Vice-Prime Swordsman who is waking up in the same room as Kirito, knows Kirito's heart...

Does she know the existence of deep sorrow that he is hiding? And if she does, I wonder how does she keeps her gentle, kind smile standing by Kirito....... She decided to talk to Asuna properly upon the return to Centoria. Of course, not about the feeling kept secretly in Ronye’s mind, but because both of them feel they want to be the power of Kirito. While she was thinking about such things, surprisingly Kirito woke up in about three minutes as declared asleep, and looked the room around with both eyes closed more than half. When noticing Ronye, he had a great yawn “Fuwa\~~” and called out "Good morning Ronye". "...... Yes, good morning, Kirito-senpai." "Bad, I overslept... What time is it now?" "The eight o'clock bell has just rung." "Oh, so for checkou... ehm, it looks like we will be on time to leave the inn." Once again, he gave a short yawn and then got up from the bed. Moved to the window and drew a gray curtain vigorously. "Oh, Ronye, come here, you can see the castle." "Really?" As she moved away from the sofa and stood by the side of Kirito, to the slightly right side of the front of the window and beyond the cluttered cityscape, she could clearly see the big black castle towering up against the sky. Its appearance piercing the morning glow of the Dark Territory, which was much redder than one of the Human World, although it is built from mostly natural rocks, was far more violent than Central Cathedral, which in reverse created a kind of beauty. Kirito, who should have been visiting for the second time, also exhaled a long breath as if admiring. "... Unlike Central Cathedral built by Higher Priest Administrator’s sacred art, that castle was carved out of a rocky mountain with human hands." Having heard the words of Kirito, Ronye also sighed unwillingly. "How many months... years did it take?" "It took more than a hundred years. ── Now, let's leave soon. We don’t have time to rest till lunch." "Hey, the one who overslept was senpai!" Kirito began collecting his luggage when he replied to Ronye's point with a mischievous smile.

After painting the faces with brown ointment again and paying the rent the left, and morning sun dyed red greeted them with a light similar to that of ore lanterns. There was a distance of more than 5 kilolu from the inn to Obsidia castle, they walked enjoying the scenery of a foreign country feeling great impatience. As they got closer to the castle the road became wider and the buildings on both sides also became fine. However, the number of passers-by decreased rapidly, in particular the sub-humans are completely absent. Eventually, a river rich in water, black as everything else in this dark world, and a fine stone bridge appeared. After it, there was a big gate, and the way ran gradually uphill, to a sharp obsidian mountain ─ to the imperial castle of Obsidia. Ronye asked Kirito who stopped at the beginning of the bridge. "...... So, senpai, have you come up with an idea on how to enter the castle?" Then Prime Swordsman tilted his painted dark head lightly. "Hmmm...... Even if we pretend to be Dark Territory dwellers, that alone will not open the way into the castle... or if we fly to the top of the castle, it seems, guards will find us..." "In other words, you have no idea ...." Kirito rushed to deny Ronye's words. "No, no. I still have a last resort!" Shouting so, he pulled Ronye's hand, and they went along the left bank of the river. As the bridge that leads directly to the castle keeps getting away more and more, he surely wants to swim across this river which seems to be not easy at all, climb up the hill full of rocks and intrude into the castle. Kirito stopped at a place where the river got a little wider, put two bags on the ground and looked up again at Obsidia castle. Obsidian-black rocky mountain looked like a tower rather than a mountain because its base was about 300 mel in diameter, while its height was about two times that. Most of the side facing the town was presented as a castle, with magnificent columns and large windows glittering in the morning sun, but the back side was almost a rocky mountain, only a large terrace was hanging high above which was probably the dragon departure ground. Unexpectedly Kirito lifted his right hand and drew it straight towards the top of the castle. Moved five stretched fingers as if looking for something small. "That, senpai...... what on earth...?"

A feeling of disturbing little by little came up, and Ronye said so. However, Kirito did not answer, after continuing to hold his right hand for about five seconds, he nodded as if he suddenly got something. He aligned the fingers of the right hand as if his hand was holding a sword. Held it up, stretched the left leg and lowered his waist. Ronye opened her eyes wide watching as in his right hand appeared something like a sword, wrapped in weak white light and emitting a faint vibration sound. Kirito did not cast any sacred art. So, this is a secret mystery of Integrity Knights who directly interact with "the matter of the world", a technique of incarnation. But, usually invisible, it shines with light and emits sound, how much will is concentrated here? "............\~~Fu!!" With a short shout, Kirito swept his right hand with tremendous momentum. A white light flickered as if it was one of knight Renri's “Twin Edged Wings” and instantly flew a distance of half a kilolu, hitting the handrail of a small terrace near the top of Obsidia castle. Ronye's trained eyes clearly recognized that a small obsidian fragment spilled from the handrail struck by the blade. "What a......., se-se-se-se-se-senpai, what are you doing?! You scratched the castle!" Although being astonished and surprised to a great extent by the blade of incarnation, she pulled a black cloak a bit more turning to Kirito who straightened body and answered with his usual relaxed tone. "Don’t worry of that damage, it will disappear if they smear a piece of a charcoal with glue and stick there…I think. Now, look there." As Kirito lifted his right hand again, she looked up to where he pointed. Then, she saw a small figure emerging from the terrace struck by Kirito's "blade of mind". As expected the distance was too far to see the face, but a slender body belonged to a human. Noticing the scratch of the handrail, the person looked below bending the upper body over the terrace’s border. Even though it was more than half a kilolu away, there is no place to hide in the open riverside where Kirito and Ronye were standing. The shadow of the terrace kept her eyes on the two of them... and that moment. The figure suddenly put a right hand to its mouth. Ronye noticed that a gray dragon appeared on a large landing block protruding from the back of the castle, spread its wings and took off. The dragon flew around the side of the castle and stopped near the mentioned terrace. A shadow

quickly jumped on its back and pointed straight to the riverside where Ronye was standing. "…ba-ba-ba-ba-bad, senpai! They have found us already!" "That was fast, as expected." "You can’t say such things carelessly! We have to get away quick......!" But Kirito pulled Ronye’s cloak, and stood in front of her. As he did this, the dragon suddenly descended next to two people. If that is the case, I have to fulfill the role of escort! And Ronye grasped the handle of the long sword just granted, but three seconds later... A swooping down gray dragon beat wings violently and suddenly braked, and the rider flew from the back like a hurricane. The vision of the slender figure landing on a stony riverbank making no sound at all was quite spectacular. Like Ronye, the person wore a cloak with hood so the face could not be seen. It seemed that the sword was not pulled out, but it should be a senior dark knight in order to be able to control the dragon. Standing in front of Kirito, Ronye felt the tension ready to pull out her sword as soon as the opponent’s sword appears. ── However. A little later than a rider, a gray dragon landed with a big earthy sound, it stretched the long neck, first smelled Ronye, then Kirito. Afterwards..., with the sound of “furururu” it rubbed the side of a horned stout against Kirito’s head. "Er…………?" Ronye looked at the impossible scene. The dragons of the Dark Territory are also very proud, like Human World dragons, I heard that they are from a related genus. It is impossible that it treats a first-time seen human like this... At that time, on the body of the dragon covered in gray scales, she noticed countless spear marks are left. "Ah ... may… maybe......." Faster than Ronye put the words together, Kirito spoke himself rubbing under the chin of the dragon with both hands. "There, there, long time no see, Yoiyobi1. Were you doing well?" Ronye could not forget this name. It is the name of a legendary dragon who fought hard without rest against a red knights’ army during the Foreign World War. It was not a dark knight in front of her, but a Human World Integrity Knight. The rider, also known as a legendary "silent" knight ──

"...... perhaps, is this… Scheta-sama?" When terrified Ronye asked this question turning her gaze to the rider’s hood, the rider answered removing it with both hands. "Kirito...... Ronye. What are you doing in such a place?"

Scheta Synthesis Twelve. Among current integrity knights, she was a senior knight following Fanatio and Dusolbert in the hierarchy, and her sword power was so strong that rumors lined her up with the former headmaster Bercouli Synthesis One. They said there is nothing that cannot be cut by her divine object "Black Lily Sword" given by the Highest Priest, and in a Foreign World War, first she countered the main force of fist fighters, and then bravely2 fought a fierce battle against the large army of red knights. However, by the end of the battle, she left Central Cathedral and stayed at Obsidia castle as a full authority representative for the Human World Union Council. In other words, she was the best person for Kirito and Ronye to contact first — but, the question, how did Kirito bring her here, remained unanswered. Kirito swung the blade of mind against the castle, and Scheta was the single person who noticed it and flew to them — it seems to be only a result of a lucky coincidence that this haphazard strategy happened to be successful. Holding back the desire to question Kirito, Ronye kept watching the interaction between the two of them. "Sorry for bad surprise, Scheta-san. But I only came up with this way of calling you......." When Kirito who also removed the hood scruplingly apologized, Scheta nodded with a bitter smile on a cool beautiful face. "Be sure, I was surprised, when I realized that someone had delivered a blade of mind from the other side of the river, I thought that commander Bercouli had resurrected." The way she spoke was simple and straightforward as before, but it seems that there were a lot of words and notes in her speech that softened a little since before. "……but, why in that same room where I was?" To Scheta question, Kirito shrugged his shoulders. "Because from there I felt the most… uneasy feeling."

She repeated the same gesture with a slightly unsatisfied face. "......I thought I was stopped to sweat, but my training is still noticeable from such a long distance." By that conversation, Ronye finally realized that Kirito was not releasing a blade of mind by a lucky chance. With the gesture of spreading five fingers of the right hand that preceded it, he searched for the presence of Scheta. For Ronye it was a mystery that could not be reached at all, but ── "Oh, senpai. Even though you own such amazing skills, all you could come up with is to imitate a child throwing a pebble in a friend's room window......" She released these words unintentionally, then turned to laugh at Kirito who also turned to her. "Well, did Ronye experience such a call from a boy?" "I, I did not say it's my story!" "Well, so then maybe it was you calling him......." "It’s, it is not about me at all!" Ronye who desperately denied it, saw a small smile appearing on Scheta’s pale face. "It might have been a long and hard trip, Ronye. You better take a break at the castle." She signaled with her right hand, and Yoiyobi laid down. There was no saddle, but thanks to that, all three of them could get on packed together. With Ronye in front, Kirito behind, and Scheta in the middle they rode the dragon which easily took off after running a bit on the riverbank, not frightened at all by the weight of the two of divine object-class long swords and three human beings. Powerfully flapping wings, it quickly raised, aiming at the upper part of Obsidia castle. The guards noticed them, but it was known that it was a dragon of full authority ambassador, so there was no appearance of a fuss. Yoiyobi flew to the mentioned terrace in about two minutes, and when three people descended, it sang them good-bye3 and flew back to the departure point again. When the dragon's large body disappeared, Ronye walked over to obsidian handrails and looked at the place where Kirito hit it with the blade of mind. As she had feared, scratches that are likely to be more than a centimeter deep were engraved clearly. They will certainly be angry, this is no... then Ronye raised her eyes towards the view in front of her and unexpectedly shouted completely forgetting what she was worrying about one second ago. "Wow...... it’s amazing......!" She could see the entire city of Obsidia in front of her eyes. It was a cluttered and disorganized townscape, completely different from the Centoria city separated radially in four equal fragments,

but what she saw almost shined with the power of life. "Hey that area of the city, where it seems the ground itself is stacked in numerous layers...a-ah, is that a stadium? It is big, senpai!" Astonished Ronye heard Scheta's voice from behind. "I know plenty of other places to see, so I'd like to suggest a sightseeing if there is time......." Having removed her eyes from Ronye and turned around, Scheta pointed her sharp gaze towards Kirito. "It feels like you came incognito, right? Had something happen in Centoria?" "That's right." Nodding, Kirito straightened the spine. "I'd like to ask an urgent consultation with both Scheta and Dark Army commander Isukan."

The room behind the terrace was full of soft colors, too bright for the Dark Territory. Walls and ceiling were painted light pink, curtains were pale yellow, carpet had the color of young grass. It was not wood but ore that burnt red in a big fireplace heating the room so much that one would sweat wearing a coat. If this is the Scheta's private room, it is a bit of a surprising that she has such taste...... thought Ronye, but immediately realized that the room was existing not for her. There was a small bed about 1 mel long on the other side of the fireplace, and as Scheta walked up there, her profile was brightener by a gently emerged smile. Scheta silently beckoned Ronye and Kirito standing still at the entrance. They approached, tiptoeing, and looked into the bed, where a baby wrapped in a white cloth was fast asleep. It was about three months after birth, dark red hair looked soft like fluff, nose, mouth and both hands gently held on both sides of the head are incredibly small. I have heard rumors, then this baby is a child of Integrity Knight Scheta and fist fighter Isukan. That would have certainly been a girl…… thinking this way, Ronye was asked the mother in a very, very quiet whispering. "... What is her name?" "Lisetta." Scheta replied quietly and proudly added, throwing a short gaze at Kirito.

"We took the first sound from a green swordsman Leafa." "Was it so? ...I did not know." Murmured Kirito smiling while looking at the sleeping baby. What broke the gentle silence that lasted for about 20 seconds was the sound of the door on the corridor side opening and in addition a soft voice slowly singing: "Lisa-chan, it's time for milk4..." Who entered the room was a young man holding a tray with both hands. A simple silvery headband ran around burning-red curly short hair; although it was winter, his upper body was covered only with a thin hemp shirt. Underneath short trousers he wore sandals, strong muscles and countless scars ran through exposed shoulders and arms, his right eye was missing as if it was taken out; his look overall showed that he is a mighty warrior. But on the other hand, a happy loose smile floated on his young face, very much as one of Kirito when he eats a honey pie; Ronye opened her mouth quietly to such a vision. Immediately afterwards, the man with one eye also noticed Ronye and Kirito standing near the bed and the smile gradually left his face. His thick eyebrows faintly knited, and the line of sight began to jump back and forth between Scheta and two others. Before the man tried to say something, Kirito raised his right hand and greeted him. "Hi there Isukan, it’s been a while!" Then, the commander of the Dark Army and fist fighter group leader Isukan opened the left eye so wide it almost jumped out. "Thee.. ees is, Ki-ki-kirito? What happened to the color of your face…. No, rather, what are you doing in this place? The next meeting had been scheduled in March!" "Well, I have a slightly urgent business. Sorry for intruding." "Yeah, it's okay, but... no, wait, wait a moment." A deep valley engraved between frowned eyebrows of Isukan. Scheta moved softly and took away the tray from her husband's hands. Not reacting to this, fist fighter lowered his gloomy head. "Kirito, okay, have you heard anything a little while ago...?" "A little while ago....... Ah, yeah, the milk thing... Heh... Well, Isukan is totally daddy now, ha-ha-ha!" "Ha-ha-ha... well, if you heard that, you cannot return home unharmed. With this blow, I will punch

off your memories from your head!" Shouted Isukan clenching his right hand. A light like a semi-transparent red flame wrapped his powerful fist. "Wha…, se-se-se-senpai......!"

Kirito moved Ronye, who didn’t know what to do as an escort in such a case, away with right hand. Standing in front of Isukan, he thrusted the left palm ahead. "There, come on!" "U~ra-ra-ra…!!" Along with this shout, Isukan kicked off the floor. Drawing a burning red trace in the air, his fist was thrown out at a speed that could not be caught by Ronye's eyes, and hit Kirito’s palm. Explosive blasting sound roared, the shock violently threw asides curtains and decorative cloth. It was obviously a blow of a terrible power, but Kirito standing firmly on the spot bent his upper body a bit, and handled the fist of Isukan with one palm. The Fist Fighters’ Leader and the Human World Prime Swordsman kept quiet for a while keeping the right hand and the left palm in contact, when Isukan soon lifted his face and laughed. "It looks to me, you’re getting weaker, Kirito." "In your dreams, Isukan." Besides two smiling men, who shook her head in amazement was Scheta, still holding a tray. Ronye approached the bed and looked into it to check if the baby woke up, but Lisetta, the child of the strongest knight and the strongest fist fighter, kept happily sleeping without noticing the big fuss.

Isukan pushed out the guards who ran inside through the door after hearing the roar and blocked it with two legs from a chair, then lined up some other chairs by the window. Of course, the guards were doubtful of Kirito and Ronye, but either due to the "Law of the Strongest" or maybe because of Isukan’s authority, they were convinced by the commander's comment "Worry not, I’ll explain later". As the guards had gone away the nine o'clock bells rang and the baby woke up as if it was a signal for getting up, and began to cry. Scheta lifted her up from the bed and they sat together on one of the chairs; the child began to drink milk from a baby bottle made of fibo fruit, same as in Human World.

As the fibo fruit is ripened, it becomes semi-transparent and hollow like a glass bottle, and because of its elasticity and water impenetrability as well as the part of the lid protruding like a nipple, the plant was said to be created by the goddess of the earth Terraria specially for babies. But as long as we know about the existence of real world, it is probably ─ the real world people actually created it rather than Terraria goddess ─ one couldn’t help thinking this way. Watching Lisetta purring “n\~ku, n\~ku”, Scheta raised the face and said. "Will you try?" "Is that ok?" "Sure." Ronye held the past baby with a left arm. She got the baby bottle with her right hand, brought it closer to the mouth. Lisetta stared at Ronye for a moment with gray eyes very similar to her mother’s, but immediately began drinking milk again. In Cathedral she had given milk to Berchie as well several times, but because this was a girl, the feeling holding her was quite different. "I wanted to raise her with breast feeding but it seems that there’s a secret formula milk within the fist fighters group." Hearing words of Scheta, Isukan, who was exchanging reports on the recent status with Kirito sitting across the small table, looked at them and said: "Well, if you drink that thing you will not catch a cold, your bones will become harder and grow stronger." Used as well in Human World, a general-purpose sacred language ─ sacred words widely used by the public like "curtain" and "table"5 ─ word "milk" meant specifically cow milk or sheep milk warmed to the human body temperature with additions of various types of medically-effective ingredients used exclusively for babies as a replacement for breast feeding. What are those additions exactly — has been transmitted within families or areas from generation to generation, and in that sense, it can be named a "secret formula". As Scheta said, they often tell stories that breast milk is the best and it might be actually the truth, but without a bottle made of fibo fruit filled with “milk”, raising babies would be much more difficult to busy farmers and merchants. Anyway, Lisetta herself seemed to have no dissatisfaction with milk containing secret fist fighter ingredient, and when she finished the bottle in a blink of an eye, she made a small burp. She became sleepy, so Ronye gave her back to Scheta who lied her down on the bed. Scheta who came back soon had already an expression of a knight rather than a mother, and as soon as she got on the chair, she said.

"So, what happened?" Kirito nodded and started talking about the murder case occurred in South Centoria two days ago. Isukan and Scheta listened silently, but at the moment when the story ran over to the mountain goblin Oroi who was accused as the murderer, two people sharply breathed. But without saying a word, they finished listening to where Kirito and Ronye flew out of Human World with a "dragon" and arrived at Obsidia last night. "……I see……. Spreading this would incur undesired attention......." To the commander sitting next to him, Prime Swordsman shook his head gently. "No, I thought of sending a message as the first thing to do, but... the time for delivery and waiting for the reply to come back, it will be next month." Currently, the communication between Centoria and Obsidia relies on a horse riding messengers passing through ten cities and fortresses. The number of days it takes one way is really two weeks. Moreover, there is a danger that a messenger will be attacked by numerous huge monsters inhabiting the Dark Territory. "That's right……I wish I had found a parent skull......." Isukan sighed and Kirito nodded with a sad face, so Ronye blinked and asked. "Sorry, that parent skull ...what is it?" "Oh, I learned about it when the war ended. There is a divine object used by the emperor Vector to give orders to ten armies at the time of a Foreign World War. One big parent skull and ten smaller children skulls in one set; when you talk to parent skull, that voice would reach instantly to child skulls at a remote place." She instinctively rounded eyes hearing the description from Kirito. "Wait a moment...... There is such a thing so one won’t need a letter or horses?" "They wouldn’t... Well, it's a one-way from parent to child, so you cannot talk with just one set." "And in the first place, the parent skull and some child skulls have gone missing after the war, so it is a useless toy now." Isukan sighed and added. "The problem is that human being killed... It would be impossible......For everyone who are going on sightseeing in Human World, I have letters in writing saying that fighting and killing is prohibited by the name of Dark Territory tribe leaders and the commander of the Dark Territory himself. One by one, I have signed all of them... As long as there is a "the law of the strongest", only one person can ignore that order in the Dark Territory."

The moment Ronye thought it was, of course, that Isukan himself, Scheta added: "Two persons" "............ only two persons" Looking at Isukan frowning for being corrected, Kirito let a quick smile run across his face, but immediately returned to a perplexed expression. "Yes, I think so too, in fact, the dagger that Oroi seemingly used to kill the cleaner from Human World have disappeared from the arsenal. Probably it was a "temporary weapon" produced from metallic element......It is not myself that noticed it, but Ronye, by the way." "Heh, you have a nice disciple, don’t you think so?" "I… I’m not a disciple, I’m rather..." As Kirito tilted his head looking at her, Ronye also seemed to be thinking of what she is now to Kirito, but quickly shook that out of her head, raised the hand and spoke. "Well, I thought about that a bit more... but the weapon in question was reproducing the mountain goblin dagger fine enough for Oroi-san to mistake it for the real one for a moment. So, we guessed that the dark arts master was involved in the incident... but......." She closed her mouth, looking at Scheta and Isukan in order, asking with courage. "...... but before that, what the dark arts masters’ guild is doing now ...?" The couple exchanged glances, and Isukan coughed and answered. "I was going to report this properly at the next meeting......It’s a shame, but we are unable to grasp the current status of the dark arts masters’ guild." "What do you mean……?" Kirito also raised eyebrows. "D.I.L. who was the former guild master was slain by the Green Swordsman and died, after that the female arts master named K.U.V. succeeded. But even my eyes can see that she is not quite open to dark arts, she is indeed insufficient in strength." Scheta confirmed the words of Isukan. "Looking at her, my skill is better than hers." "So, we investigated secretly, and K was at best tenth in the guild hierarchy when D was alive. In other words, the whole lot of top guys are quietly missing."

"...... the dark masters’ guild, in the battle by the "Great Eastern Gate", didn’t they lose nearly 2000 people killed? Weren’t those guys joining the troops?" Isukan denied Kirito’s point, frowning. "I do not think so....... Their obsession to survive is monstrous. Even D would be alive now should she not have fought with Green Swordsman. They are not so gentle people that nearly the whole top ten are killed in battle together." Isukan returned the line of sight to Ronye and finished the explanation. ".......In consequence, the dark arts masters’ guild that is currently participating in the Five Clans Conference, perhaps, is just an empty shell. It’s possible that really skilled dark arts masters with real power have hidden somewhere in the cellars. And then there is also a possibility that they are involved in the incident that happened in Human World.... ── But you seem to disagree, Ronye? You do not think so, do you?" "Well, you know, I’ve got no basis to deny it, but... I just thought it was strange. Even if the dark arts masters’ guild hides in the basement behind the curtain, isn’t it possible for them to get a real goblin dagger, so they do not have to bother generating a fancy weapon from the metallic element..." "... It certainly is. Sure, for goblins, the dagger with the clan crest embellished should be an important symbol, but even so, they are casted massively by smiths. Would they need, they are able to quickly get one or two, either steal it, or buy it." Kirito nodded to Isukan’s muttering. "If the goal of the real culprit was to raise the tension between Human World and Dark Territory by putting the guilt of murder on Oroi, it would be more effective to prepare a real dagger....... ── Something the real culprit could not do if it is someone within Human World......" "This would bring us to an even bigger mystery." Scheta pointed out sharply narrowing grey eyes. "People of Human World are bound by far more rigid laws than those of Dark Territory. The murder is a violation of an explicit entry of Taboo Index, which means, if the one who killed the cleaner is a Human World person, that he can ignore the Taboo Index." Simultaneously with Kirito saying that, Ronye silently nodded. It was also pointed out in discussion with Fanatio immediately after the incident. Even Integrity Knights who are not bound by the Taboo Index cannot take away the whole life of an innocent civilian like a cleaner Yazen by any means. Kirito shook his head slowly, muttering something regarding him still not understanding anything.

Isukan nodded quietly and thought for a while, but soon clapped his hands as if to change the atmosphere. "── OK, anyway, I understand the situation. It’s a pity, it seems better to interrupt the tourism with Human World for a while..." "Well...... at the moment we are preventing the spreading of this information within Centoria, but if the second and the third incidents happen, we won’t be able to control it even with the power of Union Council. Then we’ll temporarily block the Great Eastern Gate and tourists staying in Centoria will also be sent home as soon as possible." Although his tone sounded already full of wholehearted regrets, Kirito continued with even more heavier voice. "......and also, the mountain goblin Oroi who is currently secured in Central Cathedral... he cannot return soon. Maybe I’m still missing something, maybe there is a reason why he was caught. ── Oroi, he belongs to clan Uboli from the hill. I'm sorry, but..." "All right, I will contact Uboli myself and explain the circumstances." After nodding, Isukan glanced out of the window and turned back to Kirito again. "── As for tourists going to Human World from here, this is fine... How about merchant parties coming from Human World? Certainly, every party should stay away from Obsidia." "Ugh, and this also..." Kirito groaned with his arms folded. As a part of exchange project, in addition to the acceptance of tourists visiting Human World from Dark Territory, the dispatching of merchant parties from Human World has begun. Although it was still in trial scale, only including buying and selling goods via several horse-drawn carriages, but in Dark Territory there are lots of rare items not found in Human World like luminescent stone used for lighting, so great merchants who sniffed the smell of money were flooding officials with requests for dispatch permission. "...... If the culprit of the incident is an organization, they may have companions in Obsidia, then the reverse of cleaner murder may happen...... In other words, there is indeed a possibility that a human merchant might try to kill a resident of Dark Territory. However, in the merchant parties there are skilled men from the Human World Army and clerics as escorts, additionally merchants are following regulations so they cannot dispatch without permission, so that wouldn’t be easy, I think..." Scheta also nodded to the words of Kirito. "I do not think there is a need to stop the trade business right now also because the merchant parties carry a lot of valuable medicine and media of the human world, so they are welcomed more than I had expected....... As a precaution, during merchants’ stay in Obsidia, one of my disciples will

be attending them." "Eh, disciples......? Scheta-san wasn’t transferred with a company.... Hmm, I was under impression you have come here alone by yourself...?" To Kirito who had a surprised expression on his face painted dark, Isukan answered in a voice that mixed pride and concern. "That means, Scheta is now not only an ambassador but also a guest instructor for the dark knight team" "What, a guest instructor...?" "When I went to visit the Knights Order, a young captain dragged me into a game, you know, a borrowed sword ......And well, I succeeded with only sheath without its contents. Now I have my own dojo at the headquarters of the Order." "There are only about ten disciples, but everyone is quite good." "Yep, they are......" Scheta added with a serious look towards Kirito who seemed to have no words. "I would like you to come and join the dojo and practice with disciples." "No, no, I have not practiced traditional swordsmanship for quite a while..." The shoulder of Kirito retreating as far as the chair back allowed was gently patted with Isukan’s stretched left hand. "Well, then come to the training hall of the fighting team after the knight team as well. There are quite a few people who doubt your strength, so please take this opportunity to force the “Law of the Strongest”." "I do not care about it! I have civil ambitions!" Oh, this guy won’t let you to escape already....... thought Ronye watching the agitated Kirito.

Kirito and Ronye who borrowed a personal bathtub of Scheta and Isukan and washed off the face paint and dirt of the long journey, were introduced to the guest room on the same floor. It seemed that the two sudden visitors were made known inside the castle as couriers from Human World. Because it was hidden that Kirito was the Human World Prime Swordsman himself, the guards were looking suspiciously at the light clothing that would not be normal for a messenger, but they

changed attitude after noticing swords hanging from the waists of the two people. After all, in Dark Territory, weapons of the divine object-class seem to be rarer than in Human World. They did a short break in this two-rooms apartment, then had lunch with the couple of Isukan and Scheta at noon. In the afternoon they were taken by a horse-drawn carriage to see the Dark Knights Order Headquarters and the training center of the Fist Fighter group in the center of the city; Kirito seemed to be able to really make a game with the fist fighter headmaster assistant called onehanded giant, but "Because we’re incognito!" made an appearance of fighting for his life and avoiding his blows in the last moment. After that, they saw the central market and the big stadium, but of course, it wasn’t just going on a pleasure jaunt from beginning to an end. Kirito and Isukan used every opportunity they saw to exchange opinions on the incident and Ronye continued paying attention to the surroundings to fulfill the role of escort. However, since she was accompanied by Scheta, a high-ranking Integrity Knight, called "Silent", there would have been no opportunity for Ronye to act should any attack happen, but — Now that she considered, she had noticed it way too late. Scheta, both when she was riding Yoiyobi and during the city tour, did not carry a sword at her waist. While being shaken by a horse-drawn carriage on the way back to the castle, Ronye shifted her body a little towards Scheta on the couch, and called. "Oh, Scheta-sama. Your sword seems to be missing, can’t help asking.......?" The knight nodded and narrowed both eyes as if remembering something nostalgic for a moment. "Yeah... For me, the "Black Lily Sword" is the first and last loved sword." "............" Ronye still could not infer the way of how the Integrity Knight could lose the beloved divine object. Scheta faintly smiled slightly touching with her fingertips the hands of Ronye, who was in the loss of words. "I am now not a "silent" but rather "unarmed" knight6. But I am pleased with what I have accomplished....... Sometimes, I remember my Black Lily, and then I feel lonely." "So… it is……" ── This person is totally unreachable and incomprehensible to me. Yet again, she felt how deepens and widens the abyss of difference between the her being a knight trainee and the high-ranked knight, and that moment it was the turn of Scheta to ask an unexpected question. "Had this sword just been given to you?"

"Y-yes, I have not decided on its name." Nodding, she gently stroked the silvery guard. "Right, your connection to this sword is still very weak, but it is a very good sword. Be careful...... Although the war is over, the battle of the knight never ends." "── Yes!" When Ronye responded with a clear voice, Kirito and Isukan sitting in front looked back in surprise. Eventually the carriage passed through the city area and returned to the Obsidia Castle in the normal way of passing through the gates across the bridge. Although Obsidia Castle with its height of 500 mel and fifty floors was only slightly below the Central Cathedral, there was no automatic elevator as in Cathedral. In other words, it is only a matter of going up the stairs to reach to the upper level, which was also a countermeasure against the raiders. To the 49th floor where the Isukan lived, four people climbed up without a single stop. The couple and Kirito did not seem to lost breathe, but Ronye said after having several “\~ha…\~ha…” after arrival, that even in such a place she realizes the lack of training. Ronye, still panting, thanked the three who waited and that moment she noticed that the big stairs were still on and tilted her neck. "Hmm...... Scheta-sama, what is up there?" It was not the full-authority ambassador but the commander who answered the question. "There is a throne seat on the fiftieth floor. I only entered once or twice, though." "Oh...... is that the emperor's throne?" Now when Kirito asked, Isukan nodded, frowning. "It is, it is exactly what the Emperor Vector came down a year and few months ago." "Would you mind me taking a quick...?" Isukan jumped ahead and spread both hands in front of Kirito whose face became dangerously curious. "Of course...... of course, the door on the fiftieth floor was closed again with the "sealing chain" the moment Vector was killed, and it cannot be sliced with anything anyway. From the fiftieth floor, there is a legend, one can see the Mountain Range at the Edge and the Great Eastern Gate, so I tried to get in myself again, but...." Listening to the fist fighter explanation, when he said “it cannot be sliced”, the Integrity Knight

nodded once and added. "I borrowed a sword from the treasury and tried it, but the chain could not be sliced. If it was a Black Lily Sword I could probably slice it though." "...... Bad luck7............" Ronye who felt that "I want to challenge it with the Sword of the Night Sky!" said with the voice of Kirito will be the next phrase to sound, quickly pulled his right sleeve twice. It seems that Kirito also felt Ronye's "Absolutely unacceptable!", and after he looked up at the stairs once, he nodded again. "Okay, then I’d say the tour is over." "Sort of, this dinner some rare things8 will be cooked so I have high expectations." "Looking forward to it." Seeing that the story was over, Scheta went down one step. "I will give milk to Lisetta. See you at the dinner." "Oops, I will also go. I still have seen her face only once today." Kirito, who waved his hands to the parents, immediately looked up the stairs to the top floor again. When Ronye silently shook her head, he said with a bitter smile. "I understand. ......Well, shall we go back to the room?"

Footnotes: 1. 宵呼, “Evening Call”. 2. Original says: “…and then literally one against thousand fought…” using the term 一騎当千 (ikkitousen) meaning “brave warrior” and “one worth of a thousand”. 3. Original: ひと声鳴いてから, which literally means “after singing them with a human voice”, ¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯. 4. Here and onward, unless it's origin specified (e.g. "cow milk"), they name milk in sacred language, “miruku” (ミルク). The explanation for this will be given below. 5. It is ”katen” (カーテン) and “teburu” (テーブル) respectfully. 6. Originally: 無音 (no-sound; silent) and 無手 (no-arm; empty-handed). 7. This sounds “fūn” in Japanese, so Kirito might as well say sacred word fun. 8. (this footnote was altered post the chapter had been translated) モン, "thing" is a specific of Isukan's speech. He uses it to refer to dishes, people, artifacts and even events.

Part 8 There were only five of them at the dinner: Isukan, Scheta, Kirito, Lisetta and Ronye, but it was warm, lively and as enjoyable as a dinner in latter’s family house in Northern Centoria. It seemed that Isukan in half-mischievous mind arranged many dubious delicacies such as "Broth lizard on skewers" or "Spark mushroom wrapped in fried bean curd", which Kirito energetically and courageously challenged getting as the result bizarre high voice, so Lisetta laughed “kya-kya” each time he spoke afterwards. Looking at their loved daughter, Scheta and Isukan also happily smiled. After finishing the meal that brought her to the feeling of “a baby, a family, it is all good”, and bathing the second time today, Ronye returned to the room they were given. The bathroom was truly small compared to the public baths of Central Cathedral, but considering that this is roughly the top floor of a gigantic castle with a height of 500 mel, fresh hot water available throughout the day seemed to be a miracle. As they did not use sacred art like in Cathedral, she wondered how the massive amounts of hot water were transferred, but turned out when it was just a rocky mountain in a very beginning, hot water gushed from near the top and the water canals were still used for cooking, bathing and heating even after the mountain became a castle. Compared to last night's cheap hotel, the room was warm, the bed was soft, and sleepy Ronye changed to prepared sleepwear before hearing the 9 o'clock bell. I will be coming home to Human World early tomorrow morning so it's better to go to bed early, although somehow it is regrettable that the day is going to an end, she though while lying down and staring at the northern wall. Beyond the wall, Kirito is also preparing to sleep soon. Or had he gone to bed already? We were talking to each other for over forty hours since departing from the central capital but I feel that I still haven’t told him anything important yet. Of course, what is the most important is the escort mission, I offered to accompany him not to chat, nevertheless ── and Ronye felt the strong urge to get up from the bed and knock the next room door. But Kirito had a loved person, and the name of her was Asuna. They were both people from real world, she was as beautiful as goddess Stacia, friendly without discrimination to anyone, stronger than anyone if we’re talking swords. At the time of a Foreign World War, Ronye could only tremble in a horse-drawn carriage, but Asuna, even terribly injured, protected Kirito with her blood and sweat. There was no way she could possibly compete with such a person. Do not let those feelings reach your mouth. No way. Ronye wrapped her head in a thick blanket and strongly closed the eyes. However, the drowsiness that had left was hardly coming back.

Ronye who finally fell asleep, and due to tiredness of a long journey had even forgot to turn off the ore lantern, was awaked by the feeling that she heard a faint cry. Outside of the window was still dark night. It was about 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock by her sensations. She listened carefully while lying on the bed, then closed the eyelids again thinking that it was a dream. But then, this time certainly, a dismayed voice came from behind the door. And multiple busy footsteps sounded. Remaining in a nightwear, she got up to the floor and pushed an ear against the door. When the footsteps which seemed to be from guards quickly moved in towards the stairway and she slowly opened the door, Kirito’s face shown from the next room. Still half asleep, the Prime Swordsman approached her in small steps. "Senpai ... what happened?" "Don’t know... but it seems all the guards have gone to the lower floor..." Kirito seemed to have finally awakened after blinking several times, and said while covering Ronye’s shoulders with the cloak he wore. "Let’s go as well." "Er...eeeer? .... Is it okay?" "We might be able to help with something." He lightly tapped her shoulder, so Ronye could only nod. "But if you continue standing in the doorway, I will have to go back!" Ronye rushed behind Kirito who began running immediately and followed him. They ran down the stairs and arrived on the 48th floor, and at the same time, a scream could be clearly heard. That voice crying "Down there!" definitely belonged to Isukan. They nodded each other and ran through a wide corridor. On the right side at the end of the corridor, they saw a large two-sash door in front. The obsidian door decorated with silver, clearly guarding a considerably important area, was opened wide, and the voice of the guards filled with fear and hatred were constantly heard from the inside. Kirito and Ronye quickly passed through a corridor of about 20 meters and jumped into the room. Immediately, innumerable bright lights glowing on both sides dazzled the eyes. In light of ore lanterns, the guards of about ten people were standing in the passage, and ahead of them, was a large room filled with a myriad of decorated weapons and armor, all sorts of jewelry and ornaments.

It must be an armor store of Obsidia castle, or a treasury. "It's monsters......!" From the other side of the guards, the voice of Isukan resounded again. Kirito who had stopped the movement, jumped over the guards and disappeared behind them. Ronye also agreed, and having checked that the cloak covers her pajamas, she made a short run-up and kicked off the floor. Aincrad sword style followed by Kirito and Asuna emphasized the importance of running and jumping besides the characteristic continuous sword skill, and Ronye practiced every day. Thanks to that effort she succeeded in jumping over a group of guards and could hear men's surprised voices behind, but didn’t pay attention to that. A few mels ahead, there were Isukan and Scheta in night dressing. And beyond them, there were two black things. They could only be named monsters. Although the shape in the whole was close to a humans or subhumans, the neck and arms were profusely long, and in front of a head resembling some sort of fish, was a round restlessly shrinking mouth in which countless fangs grew inward. Four eyes were placed on both sides of the conical head, the wings with a thin membrane flapped on the back and the long tail loosely fell from the waist. "Is that....... minions!?" When Kirito screamed, Scheta and Isukan glanced back. "Ah, have you woken up? However, we cannot involve visitors in our internal problems! Such a monster, I will beat up with one hit!" A fire-like glow wrapped Isukan’s clenched fist. But Scheta standing next to him quickly drew the right hand to stop her husband. "The blood of minions is a poison. Unarmed man cannot attack." "Even if so, I......." As Isukan groaned, two minions, as if they understood the talk of two people, spew out the air with sound “fshaaa, fshaaa”. This was the first time to see with her own eyes, but Ronye had some knowledge about minions. They were artificial creatures used by Dark Territory dark arts masters thrown in large quantity into the early stage of the “Battle by the Great Eastern Gate” of the Foreign World War, successfully annihilated by the use of complete armament control of the divine object "Time Piercing Sword" of the knight commander Bercouli. So, human forces soldiers did not suffer any damage at all, just saw the glimpse of slightly oversized bats, but the real thing was far more frightening than that. The length of the body was nearly 2 mel, and the claws blackening at the ends of the long arms were long and sharp like knifes.

Moreover, it had strong resistance to a sacred art of any attribute, as well as puncturing and crushing damage, and it seemed that the most effective would be to slash with a sharp blade, but Scheta did not have a sword, of course. Ronye and Kirito, regretting to not have brought the sword from the room, both were unarmed. "Honorable commander, leave it to us!" One of the guards shouted from the back, but Isukan stubbornly did not move. Same for minions, apparently, they only received instructions from those who controlled them not to attack but just give out threatening sounds. On both sides of monsters, several shelves collapsed, jewels and accessories were scattered on the floor, but it did not try to steal it. And Ronye finally noticed that in the first place those two had been able to invade the treasury close to the top floor without being noticed by many guards.... There are huge wings on their back so they did not have to climb up the stairs. They flew in the dark of the night and invaded through the window. Taking a closer look, one could see that windows behind minions were destroyed and only metal frames left. And all these factors, that means...... that means ── When she thought of it something similar to a sharp spark blasted in the center of Ronye's head, an that moment Kirito sharply inhaled air. "You two, avoid!" The same time he shouted, he stuck the right hand out. A sparkling bright light spread around the palm, generating as much as thirty instances of cryogenic element at once. Scheta and Isukan who saw it quickly jumped aside. Suddenly Kirito released cryogenic elements and burst them all around two minions. Normally, cryogenic element just diffuses its power in a wide range, but since it was controlled by an advanced technique, cold air clung to minions, and black giants were frozen white. "Gshaaaaa!!" Minions, shouting their round mouths on conical heads froze immediately and stopped moving. It was terrible freezing power, but minions made from clay had strong resistance to fire and ice. Even if it freezes for a moment, the life is not supposed to be reduced much ── But, of course, Kirito was thinking about it. Keeping his right hand sticking out, he continued giving instructions. "You two, now!" "Yshaaaa!!"

Isukan shouted and kicked off the floor. Scheta also followed him. "Ura-ra-ra-a-a!" Isukan's fist wrapped with incarnation punched the trunk of the minion on the right. Immediately afterwards, the Scheta’s hand vertically sliced the minion on the left. In a moment, the minion on the right exploded into countless fragments, the left minion was split into two and fell to the left and right. Both were completely frozen, so not a drop of a toxic blood spilled. The guards cheered behind, and amazed Isukan turned around and said with a smile of admiration. "You are amazing beyond those rumors, Kirito. I was told, even high-ranked clerics can generate only five elements with one hand, one per finger..." "The story will be later, Isukan!" Voice of Kirito, who cut the praise short, was feeling more tense than when he instructed the couple to attack. "Minions, despite possibly taking some treasure here, did not try to attack us. The purpose of the dark arts master who released them is surely a diversion to hold us off!" The moment she heard it, the dim guess Ronye got turned into a specific fear, and at the same time Scheta quickly paled. "Oh no......" She muttered so with a faint voice and started to run fiery. Like a wind she rushed between Ronye and Kirito, through the guards, and jumped out of the treasury. "We too!" Kirito shouted pulling Isukan’s pajamas of Human World Eastern Empire style and began running. "Wha…, what is goi…, going on?" Kirito blushed and shouted to a fist fighter who leaked bewildered voice while kicking a polished obsidian floor barefoot. "Perhaps, the real purpose of the arts master is much more important than treasure" "More impor..." Isukan repeating after him suddenly opened the eyes wide. Ronye felt that she heard the sound of red golden hair standing upright.

"Lisetta" Immediately after he murmured the name of the baby in a low voice, both feet of fist fighter radiated a light-red glow. Gaan! And the obsidian floor where he kicked off cracked like a spider's web. Rushing up skipping four or five steps he quickly separated from them by enormous accelerating and reached the top of the stairs few seconds after dashing ahead Scheta. Just behind him, Kirito glided in an ashihakobi1 style. Resisting the shiver that tried to make the whole body numb, Ronye ran hard after them. She climbed the stairs and jumped into the corridor of the 49th floor, but there was already no appearance of the three, only footsteps can be heard. Following the sound, she ran further and passed the child room first, then to the room behind it which probably was couple's bedroom. When she rushed into the open door, an unusual odor struck her nose. The light of one small ore lantern dimly lit the wide room, but still she clearly saw a big window shattered into pieces, the pool of pitch-black blood that spread before it and the two fallen guards. Probably the guards touched the blood pool smelling of minions. Both of them seem to still have a breath, is it wasn’t clear whether they were panting because of an injury or was it an action of poison. Apart from the guards, there was only Isukan in the room. "Guido, Gaiol, what happened!" A guard held a hand trying to hold off screaming Isukan from approaching. "Commander, don’t touch this......" Another one reported with more a chagrin on his face, than pain. "After the two of us went down for a while, when the window cracked...... when we entered, was a black monster…. We managed to fight it off, but unexpectedly a dark arts master appeared in the room, and he used dark art to make Guido and myself dizzy......." Then, as the second guard began breathlessly panting, the first one continued the story. "We got poisoned by the monster, and couldn’t move anymore. The arts master took Lisetta from the bed, and rode the monster out the window...... I saw it with my own eyes..." "………… I… see……" Isukan nodded to their words creaking his teeth. At the right side of the room, there was a bed for two people at the wall and a small baby bed behind

it. Most likely Lisetta spent the day in bright sunshine of the kids’ room and in the night she slept with her parents. Cute little baby, only three months old, was kidnapped. Unsure how to act in those terrible circumstances, Ronye was just standing still, when Scheta and Kirito came into the room from the terrace behind the destroyed window. "...... I couldn’t find them." Scheta said this loudly, and Kirito gently shook his head. "I could not perceive them either......." Still in a bad mood, he glanced at the two guards laing down on the floor. He raised the right hand and generated elements just like previously in the treasury. But this time it was not cryogenic but white sparkling luminous elements. There were about a dozen, they divided further into and flew to the guards’ bodies. A warm glow wrapped the two of them, and most of the black liquid that had accumulated on the floor disappeared as if it was evaporated by the light. The guards strangely shook their bodies and took a deep breath, then abruptly stood up and drew their heads down towards Scheta and Isukan. "Commander, authorized ambassador, we could not fulfill our responsibilities and there’s no excuse for this!" "As long as they kidnapped Lisetta whom we should have protected at all costs, with our lives we..." Isukan in response to these words strongly shook the guards' shoulders. "This won’t return Lisetta. Better lend me your strength to regain my daughter." Even though his heart was probably shattered, the fist fighter said so with suppressed voice, and two of them stood straight again. "First of all, we need to hear, what was the appearance of dark arts master that has broken in here. Have you saw that person's face? Heard his voice?" "Well…" The first to answer was a tall guard who would be named Guido. "A deep black draped hood covered his face, it was invisible....... The voice was either of a man or of a woman, wasn’t clear..." "I see……" When Isukan bit his lips, Kirito opened his mouth instead.

"How long did it pass since the arts master fled outside the window and until we entered the room?" The question was answered by a wide Gaiol. "Three...... no, at best it was two minutes......" "Two minutes...?" Kirito with a doubtful face turned his eyes towards the night sky outside the window. Scheta also knitted eyebrows, muttering. "He got on a wounded minion and disappeared in just two minutes...?" According to lectures by librarians of the large library, minions' flight speed is about the same as people run. We are at a height of 500 mels, it seems impossible to completely disappear in just two minutes in any direction, but if the opponent is a highly-ranked dark arts master, a hiding technique or something alike may be used. However, if Kirito and Scheta weren’t able to find them, Ronye wouldn’t be either. Being helpless, Ronye crossed the floor and approached the baby’s bed. The bed shaped like a box was, of course, empty, except for pretty pacifiers and stuffed bear and dragon toys left behind; she was suddenly attacked by a feeling that her heart is being torn apart. She deflected her eyes, and that moment. Noticing that something strange fell on the stuffed dragon's figure, Ronye reached out her hand. It was a parchment rounded and fastened with a red string. Anyway you look, it was not a baby's toy. "Here...... In bed, there is......." While saying that, she wanted to pick the parchment, but the one who did it was Isukan moving at the speed of a lightning bolt. He easily cut a string that looked quite strong with fingertips and spread it. The left eye of Isukan opened wide, then he let a crooked groan from his throat, staggered and crushed on the bed. From his hand, Scheta took the parchment next. The expression of astonishment also spread over the face of the knight, and after gently biting her lips, she handed it over to Kirito. Standing beside Kirito who received the message, Ronye ran her eyes over the black characters. 【By the sunset of the 21st day of the 2nd month, publicly execute the Prime Swordsman of the Human World Union Council at the Great Stadium due to the attempted assassination of the Dark Army General Commander, and send back the head to Human World. When that is not done, the head of the innocent baby will be delivered to Obsidia castle】

"............ Tha-t-t is............" Leaking such words, Ronye shook her head several times. Today is the 21st day, just like it said. There was only about 13 or 14 more hours until the sunset which was set as the execution time limit. At first, she thought that Isukan and Scheta could not do such a thing. But quickly she understood that it was the life of the daughter of the two that was the price. Was there anything more important for the couple at that time? Ronye’s left hand slowly moved and touched the left hip. But there was no sword. It remained in the bedroom, just like Kirito’s one. Besides, even if they had swords...... If there’s a chance that Isukan obeys the threatening of the kidnappers, then what, fight with those two? And if Kirito and Ronye escape, Lisetta will die. I definitely do not want to forsake that innocent baby. However, it cannot excuse me from fulfilling my role of Kirito’s escort. No way. Ronye stood, caught in a conflict tearing her apart that she could never imagine before. She tried to see the face of Kirito still holding the parchment, but couldn’t even move her neck. "That...... Your Excellency..." One of the guards standing side by side with his colleague by the wall said this in a faint voice. They surely wondered about the content of parchment, but Isukan lifted his gaze and pointed to the door with his right hand. "Guido, Gaiol, go out in the hall, do not let anyone inside." "Yes…" Saluting the Dark Territory army commander, two guards headed to the door. However, Gaiol stopped his legs and turned around. "There’s… one more thing......" When four people gazed him quickly, the guard kept shrinking his short neck more and more. "It's not a big deal... but as soon as the dark arts master and the monster left through the window, I felt like I heard some strange sound." "Sound... what kind of sound?" To Scheta's question, Gaiol answered after opening and closing the mouth several times as if searching for words. "It’s like a turning of stone mill drums, kind of “gorigori”..."

"Stone mill drums...?" It seemed that even Isukan familiar with this castle could find nothing to think about. Gaiol saluted again and closed the door behind himself. In the bedroom filled with a heavy silence, the voice of Kirito sounded soon. "....... I’m so sorry, Isukan, Scheta-san. It is my responsibility that Lisetta was kidnapped..." "...What are you talking about, do not blame yourself?" He was in such a condition that even standing up was hard, and Isukan set down on the bed again, but still denied Kirito’s words. "The problem is, in addition to dizzy guards of Lisa, it's me who has been dazzled. The demon... minion of the dark arts master is supposed to be unable to fly until this height, or at least so I thought. Only the dragons of the Dark Knights Order can fly to this point, but they are prohibited from coming anywhere other than the departure and arrival platform at the back of the castle. So, I was convinced that there were no dangers coming in through the window..." Both hands firmly gripped knees, and creaking added to the groaning. Scheta came to her husband and placed her slender hand on his. "But after all, I guess I provoked this situation." Kirito said again with a threatening letter in his right hand. "Ronye realized the possibility that the murder in Human World is a trap for make me go to Obsidia. But I decided that if I move to Obsidia in a day, no conspiracy could catch up with me. However, the guys who kidnapped Lisetta are good ones... they have a group in both Human World and Dark Territory and they have a means to contact each other faster than with machine dragon." "Machine... dragon? You used it to be able to move from Centoria to Obsidia in a day?" Kirito nodded to Scheta’s question. "Yes...... I will show it to you properly later. But now it's about Lisetta..." He turned his eyes to parchment and continued with a lower voice. "......Their goal is probably to make Human World and Dark Territory hostile again, and if you ignore, they will surely carry out their threat. I will do my best to find Lisetta from now on, but...... if I fail to return her, I should be......." "Shut up!!" Isukan sharply cut Kirito’s words when he was going to say “executed”.

Ronye was aware that Kirito and Asuna moved from the real world to Underworld. They are lying in something called "estiel" that exists in the real world, and they said that only the soul is moved to Underworld. Therefore, even if the whole life is lost in Underworld, the two will not die. It is expected that the soul returns to the real world and they wake up there. Now Kirito is thinking about that. However, once they come back to the real world, they probably won’t be able to return to Underworld anymore — and they both said that. For Ronye it was synonymous with Kirito’s death. Of course, same went for all the people who have met Kirito and spent some time together. …Human World... No, the entire Underworld still needs him. She could not put all the fears and thoughts swirling like a storm into words, but Ronye just came closer to Kirito and firmly grasped the hem of the black shirt. Scheta, who noticed the gesture, relaxed her mouth a little. She nodded to Ronye as if she could feel slightly relieved and said in a low voice. "First, I will go to the dark arts masters’ guild headquarters in the northern district to get the information. First of all, the one who broke into this room is surely a stray master who does not belong to the current guild, but if minion was improved, I might be able to trace from that fact." "I understood... that, I will go with you. If Scheta is alone there, the arts masters may try to mislead." Isukan abruptly stood up and lifted the silver ring from the table by the bed and put it on the forehead. Scheta also began to change from her pajamas so Ronye hurriedly adverted her gaze away. Speaking of Kirito, he turned towards the broken window. He seemed to rubbing his lips a little, thinking of something, but as soon as the couple finished changing clothes, he turned around and said. "Is there any possibility that the arts master and minion who kidnapped Lisetta returned to the castle through another floor?" Isukan frowned and mumbled in a disturbed tone. "Um...... At this time all the windows should be locked, so if they broke in from outside the guards on each floor would have noticed. But...... if there was a stranger in the castle, he might have opened the window from inside..." Scheta nodded and added in a crisp tone. "Make all the guards search all over the castle." "Can me and Ronye help with that?" When Kirito offered, Isukan nodded without hesitation.

"I beg you, I need your power when the minion comes out. Here, take this." He opened a small drawer in the top of a table, took out a silver necklace and passed it. When Kirito received with one hand, he put the thumb of the right hand to the silver ring of his forehead. "This is a testimony of the army commander assistant. Show it and give my name, this will open most of the closed doors." "I understand, thank you." When Kirito hung the chain with a coat of arms engraved on a silver plate on his neck, Isukan came up to him and strongly grasped the shoulders of Prime Swordsman. "──── relying." With this short word, he quickly left the room together with Scheta. When the door opened and closed, as if waiting for it, the 4 o'clock morning bells quietly rang.

Footnotes: 1. 足運び, characteristic way of moving, keeping the center of gravity low.

Part 9 Kirito and Ronye returned to their apartment, changed from sleeping to regular clothes, equipped swords and began searching first from the forty-ninth floor. However, they did not open the doors of all the rooms. Kirito has a mighty mind power to find the location of Scheta from the other side of the river, because he could sense the presence of humans and monsters through doors and walls, it was sufficient just to concentrate on the center of each floor for a while. For two hours they continued the search running down from floor to floor occasionally showing the coat of arms plate every time guards seen them. Finally, at the third basement floor, which was the lowest level of Obsidia castle and contained a large storehouse, Kirito closed the eyelids standing at the center of the passage crossing — and slowly shook his head. "No, they are not here either." Having deeply sighed, he put his back against the black rock wall. The storehouse was completely unmanned, only the light of ore lantern shook weakly in the silent pathway. Looking at Kirito’s worried face, Ronye nervously asked him. "Then, doesn’t it mean that they weren’t still inside the castle but escaped to the outside...?" "Ugh......... but that means that a hurt minion flew more than three kilolu in just two minutes..." "Th-three kilolu......? Do senpai’s senses reach so far...?" "It depends on the target, but it's definitely about that if the opponent is the size of a minion with nothing around it. It’s 1.5 kilolu per minute, so ninety kilolu per hour...... I do not think minions that can fly at such a furious speed exist." "It's almost like a dragon.... After all, maybe a dark knight on a dragon cooperated...?" When Ronye asked, whispering, Kirito shook his head again. "I can perceive a thing of a dragon size even if it is ten kilolu away1. It’s not really a dragon that can fly so much in two minutes2, it is rather a machine dragon..." He cut off the word, and murmured "It can’t be", but immediately denied it. "No...... If you use machine dragon, you should hear a terrible roaring sound. Not so much of a "stone mill drums" sound.... ── To start with, what sounds like a stone mill drum?"

Listening to it, Ronye thought hard, but I could not invent anything. Instead she recollected the warmth of Lisetta drinking milk in her arms and laughing at the dinner. When Ronye pressed a hand to her chest, Kirito said it to her. "Lisetta is the hope for two worlds, never gonna let this child be killed..." In his deeply concerned voice, she felt a clear determination, and Ronye breathed in. The face of Kirito who was leaning against the stone wall was down and covered with shadows so she could not see it. However, Ronye feverishly walked to him and grasped both shoulders of Kirito. "....... unthinkable, senpai. It is absolutely unthinkable to sacrifice Kirito-senpai." After keeping being silent for a while, Kirito answered, pausing after each phrase. "I said before. If I die in this world, I won’t really die. If Lisetta cannot be secured, I......." Ronye cut his words about that he should die by screaming at him. "Senseless! Whatever a reason is, it does not matter... I can’t even think of never meeting my senpai again......!" She pushed her face straight into Kirito's chest. The silver coat of arms plate bit the forehead, but such a pain was nothing compared to the tearing apart aching in the chest. "For my entire life, to follow and serve my senpai. I decided to stay at senpai’s side forever. I do not want anything more than that.... But if senpai is sacrificed, I will follow you as well. Let us be executed together!"

She was consciously saying it in a way that suggested her becoming a hostage. But at the same time, it was Ronye's true thoughts, without any bargain. ".......Ronye..." Calling the name with anguish, low, hoarse voice, Kirito lifted both hands and put them on Ronye's shoulders. Kirito felt that way because he understood, it was possible to completely detain Ronye or put her to sleep even for two or three days — until everything is over. But such a thing had no meaning. If Kirito was executed when she awoke, she would follow him immediately. However, Kirito moved his right hand to Ronye’s head and gently stroked her hair, whispering. "...Thank you, Ronye. I will not give up. I’ll certainly save Lisetta... And then, Ronye and I, we’ll return to Cathedral. To the place of our home..."

As soon as she heard the words, tears flowed from Ronye’s both eyes. She nodded desperately struggling to speak over the crying. "............ Yes...... Yes......." Given up trying to say anything, Ronye just squeezed Kirito's body even stronger. Kirito had been stroking her head all the time until Ronye calmed down.

Soon after that, listening to the six o'clock morning bells they ascended to the hall of the first floor above the ground, to meet Scheta and Isukan coming back from the dark arts masters’ guild headquarters. They got together and shared stories but unfortunately it seems that it wasn’t possible to get any information directly related to kidnappers. "The current guild master has nothing to do with the dark arts masters mysteriously disappeared in a Foreign World War, and she did not run minions improvement experiments. I asked them as the commander, they couldn’t overcome the “law of the strongest”." Scheta added to the words of Isukan after nodding with a depressed expression. "However, there’s one thing...... About one month ago, it seems that from the clay production site managed by the guild, large quantities of the best-quality prepared clay disappeared." "Large quantities...... how much exactly?" When Kirito asked, Isukan answered with a bitter face. "Just about of three minions size. They handled the matter internally and did not report to the Five Clans Conference...... well, even if we had heard it in advance, we could not have predicted today's raid...." "A month ago or so...... after all, it seems that this is linked with the affair in Human World..." This time it was Isukan who asked muttering Kirito. "I already received reports from the guards... but how was your search?" "Bad...... I searched the entire castle from the top floor to the lowest storage room, but neither minions nor Lisetta were found. If there are hidden rooms that even Isukan does not know about, it did not matter...... They couldn’t avoid my detection unless they hide in a completely disconnected portion of the space." "Well if you say so... That means, they already escaped somewhere far..." Isukan crushed the head with the silver ring on. His hands were gently held by Scheta who wrapped

them with both hers. In the silence of the hall, the sound of the castle’s large front door closing sounded gravely. Not only the door itself but also the hinge around it seemed to have been carved off from obsidian, and the sound of heavy minerals rubbing each other was unique. It felt like she heard this sound reminding of a distant thunder recently, and Ronye traced her memory. It was that...... yes, at the time of the flight experiment of the machine dragon version 1 by the Central Cathedral. In order to save the dragon which would otherwise collide with the top of Cathedral, Asuna utilized the power of goddess Stacia and shifted the top of Cathedral from the 95th floor and up. Giant pieces of marble rubbed against each other, and it was just like that sound. Rock and rock...... Sound of rubbing. Just like a stone mill. "...... That! Scheta-sama......." Ronye ran over and stood in the front of the senior Integrity Knight and spoke excitedly. "Is there a large obsidian door, like that big door, near Scheta-sama and Isukan-sama's bedroom?" "Obsidian door......? ── No, all the doors in the vicinity are made of wood and the exterior window bars are made of iron." "Well, then is there any mechanism involving a rock rubbing against rock...?" Kirito also opened his mouth when he heard this. "The sounds of stone mill drums heard by the guards....... If there is something like a hidden door on the outer wall of the castle, it would sound this way... but......." "If it's just a hidden door, they couldn’t cheat Kirito's nose... right?" Isukan groaned this with arms folded. "...Also, I’ve never heard that there is such a thing near our bedroom. Moreover, even if you make a hidden door on the outer side of the wall, no one can use it. Only someone who can fly." "…hidden door... isn’t it perhaps...?" Kirito who mumbled it turned his eyes to the ceiling of the hall. "Isukan, you were saying that yourself. On top of that, 49th floor, there is a real top floor." General commander and authorized ambassador inhaled at the same time. ".....Fif.... fiftieth floor you say....? But it's been always sealed, and the guards have confirmed the chain has not been touched."

"How about the outside? Isn’t there no window on the 50th floor?" "............No ......... no ...... certainly......" Isukan turned his head with awkward expression on his face. "...... When Vector came down and ten clans of Dark Territory were gathered at that time, I certainly saw a window in the throne hall. But now, looking from the outside, there are only rocks above the 49th floor, no windows...." "Well, that’s your answer." Kirito said this in convinced tone. "When Vector died and the sealing chain restored, the rocks of the outer wall moved and all the windows were blocked. The space became completely separated. The stone mill's sound heard by the guards was the sound the rock moved again." "But... if that’s the case…" Isukan, whose red copper skin suddenly became pale, continued in a quiet whispering. "It is only Emperor Vector who can break the seal of the fiftieth floor ............... It means that he kidnapped Lisa............" But although the face of fist fighter was covered with fear, he creaked his teeth. Scheta broke the shivering silence with resolute words. "Let's go, on the fiftieth floor" Immediately, Kirito also nodded. "Yes... we can find out something if we examine the door." Isukan nodded shaking off the fear. Four of them again ran up to the top of the castle without a single stop. Due to the extreme situation, at the second time Ronye was able to keep up without losing breath. She stopped at the 49th floor and looked up at the continuing stairs. Whether the castle's hot water heating did not reach here or there were other reasons, cold air falling down from the dark staircase wrapped Ronye's legs. "……let's go" Isukan who declared this bravely, stepped on the stairs. Three people followed. Even though it was only one more floor, going up the stairs felt longer than from the first floor to the

forty-ninth floor somehow, but eventually they saw a black double door ahead. As they said, there were huge chains that seemed to have more than ten centimeters in width binding left and right doors. It's tightly wrapped, not hanging at all. Isukan, who slowly walked down a short corridor in front of the big door, touched the gray chain with his right hand, and moaned "cold" and pulled it back. But then he reached out again and held the chain tightly this time. He dropped it down and pulled with all his might, but the chain did not move, even a faint metal sound didn’t echo. "...... After all, I cannot break the seal......." He touched the black door with his right hand close to the chain, then put his left hand there as well, then clung to the door with his right ear. "I don’t hear anything...... But, if Lisa is in the castle, she can only be here..." Fist fighter retreated several steps and slowly lowered his waist, taking the stance of a fist shoot. A red flame wrapped his clenched right fist. The cold air trembled and shook, so Ronye unconsciously took a few steps back. And when she thought he was going to destroy the sealing chain with a naked fist...... Kirito made a step ahead. Walking up without any notion of being pushed back by the incarnation swirling around fist fighter's hand, he put his palm on the left shoulder of the latter. "I'll do it, Isukan." "No...... let me do it." "We’ll need your fists when fighting a minion and a kidnapper, and I am good at this kind of things." Hearing the words of Kirito that were calming down his fighting spirit, Isukan deeply breathed several times, then turned back and walked away, saying. "As usual, leaving the best for yourself, asshole. I understood... go on." With a bitter smile, he went back and stood by the side of his wife. Kirito stood in front of the chain in his place, carefully stroking the dully shining chain with the spread ahead right hand. After repeating this exercise several times, he tapped a point in the center part of the chain many times with his index finger. "Here... it is too small to be seen with one’s eyes, but there is definitely a scratch. Scheta-san, isn’t it?" Kirito asked the question without turning, and the Integrity Knight firmly nodded.

"Yes, I told you before. Should it have been a Black Lily Sword, I’d cut it through." "I guess so...... This scratch, I’ll use it." Kirito nodded and stepped three steps away from the chain, then finally grasped the sword at his left hip. Looking at the sword pulled out with a sharp, clear sound, Isukan and Scheta faintly sighed. The divine object-class equipment "Sword of the Night Sky" was not made of metal, rather of a jet black slightly transparent material. It looked a lot like obsidian forming Obsidia castle, but it’s blade radiating clearly felt tremendous weight, was once a branch of the huge cedar tree rising in one of the forests of Norlangarth empire. Master Sadore, currently appointed as a head of engineering in Central Cathedral, polished the branch to become a long sword spending the time of an entire year and six grinding stones; with this sword Kirito had defeated numerous Integrity Knights, banished Chief Elder Chudelkin and the Highest Priest Administrator, and eventually slashed Emperor Vector of the Dark Territory. Indeed, the legendary sword that saved the world. But probably, no matter how high is sword's priority, it alone cannot cut the sealing chain. There was no doubt that the chain was given the same "non-destructive attribute" as the exterior wall of Central Cathedral and the Immortal Wall dividing the capital of Centoria into four parts. Even Asuna with her god-like power could move Cathedral's wall but wasn’t able to destroy it. It was not sword skills or sword priority that could cut the chain, but the miraculous ability to rewrite "the matter of the world" — the power of incarnation. Kirito went away three more steps, then stretched his left hand forward and pulled the right hand holding the Sword of the Night Sky behind his shoulder. Firmly pressed the floor with both legs spread forward and backward, breathed in deeply, and held it. Kirito’s body who took a stance not of a traditional school was covered in red light. A tornado-like wind blew up from his feet, and Ronye was almost blown away, but stomped hard and kept on her feet. Eventually the red light gathered in the sword he held in the right hand and made the jet-black material shine brightly. Newborn vibrating sound of a dry timbre, gradually increasing the volume, eventually became a booming metallic sound reminiscent of the dragon’s roar. The air trembled, obsidian floor and even walls shook a bit. "Un...Unbelivab...le" Moaned Isukan. "This is... Kirito's incarnation..." Even Scheta leaked a surprised voice.

Suddenly, the appearance of Kirito wearing only simple black trousers and shirt swayed in the raging wind and changed like a mirage ─ and became... The hem of the long black leather coat violently fluttered. The right side of the chest and both shoulders became dully glowed with steel armor. "OOOOOO\~!!" Kirito kicked the floor with a brief shout. The sword in his right hand shot out in a straight line carrying all of his will. The roaring sound rose to the limit, and a fine crack ran on both left and right walls. The distance to the chain was about 5 mel. It was clearly out of the range. However, as though it had extended the sword itself, crimson light formed a solid spear, that pierced through a point in the middle of the sealing chain. The sound has gone, the light has gone, the wind has gone, the appearance of Kirito returned to his normal look. In the silence, the sealing chain, without a sound, loosely dropped, divided into two in the middle. A heavy door trembled ── as if the door itself was revived, and a short heavy sound echoed. Kirito fell on his knees on the floor and Ronye quickly ran to him. "Senpai!" She held him under the left arm with both hands and helped to stand up. Scheta and Isukan also ran to them. "Hey, you OK, Kirito?" To the voice of Isukan, Kirito lifted the left hand and answered. "Ah...... I will recover soon. But that’s nothing, the door, quickly...... if the system, I mean, if the matter of the world finds something unusual, the chain may be repaired." "Yeah!" Scheta nodded, ran up to the big door and pressed both hands against obsidian panel covered in sinister carvings. Gogon, the door trembled and slightly moved to the inside. "……opened." Kirito told Scheta who turned around in a blurred voice. "Both of you hurry! If a kidnapper is inside, they are already aware that the door was opened... I will follow you soon!"

"Oooo...oh\~!" Isukan nodded and kicked a huge door open with his right foot. The passage continued ahead, but was filled with darkness of a kind different to the place where Ronye stood, and freezing cold air flew out. But Lisetta’s parents jumped into the passage without hesitation. Few seconds after the backs of two people disappeared in the dark, Kirito straightened, apparently only with his willpower, and looked at Ronye. "Let’s go as well." Hiding the concern of Kirito pushing himself to death, she nodded. "……Yes!" She also thought that maybe they should get the guards searching downstairs before entering the passage, but as Kirito said, it was a situation when every moment counted. Besides, if the enemy was a high-ranked dark arts master, there is a danger that there will be no help from guards who are swordsmen and less resistant to the dark arts. What she could do at the very least, was to take out the small bottle of the sacred medicine from the bag on her waist, pull out the stopper and hand it to Kirito. Kirito drunk a bitter-sour taste liquid with a wry face, but said "thank you" leaking a bit of blood back to the bottle. He passed the doorway together with Ronye and they stepped into the dark passage. It felt as if they passed through a transparent membrane. Hot water heating appeared not to not function here at all, and the whole body was caught in the air so cold that the white vapor was exhaled, but after a while they heard a faint voice that made Ronye forget the coldness and fear. It was no doubt that the baby cried. "............!" They exchanged gazes with Kirito and began running. The passageway bent to the left ahead. After turning, they saw a second door aside. A crying sound came from behind that open door. When they jumped in, it was a huge space. A dark red carpet on the floor. Columns with ugly monsters embossed on both sides. On the wall, a pale light-emitting ore lantern. And in the front, placed in the middle of double-height stage, a luxurious chair. No doubt that it was the throne where Emperor Vector had descended. Isukan and Scheta stood side by side in the center of the hall. Further, a black monster was stretching out its wings — a minion.

And by the throne, there was someone like a shadow. Shadow wore a black hooded robe, but the skirt and sleeves of that robe were blurry like smoke and the figure could not be seen clear. It was slim, and quite tall. In the right hand, a dagger shining in a venomous purple, with its tip stretching to a baby held by the left arm. The voice of crying Lisetta is so weak. She has been kept for over two hours in this cold, her life would have decreased considerably. I think, I should help immediately, but in this situation I cannot move even a bit. The anger and irritation also transmitted from the backs of Scheta and Isukan. Black robe kidnapper, have turned his gaze to Ronye and Kirito from the darkness behind the hood ─ or so it seemed. Immediately afterwards, a strange voice sounded, as if a beast or bird talking human words. "...Well, so it was the Human World Prime Swordsman who slashed the sealing chain? This person is more troublesome than his reputation..." From that voice, age and race could not be estimated. However, there was something that can be certainly felt. "You bastard...... male! You’re not a dark arts master!" When Isukan shouted, the kidnapper leaked a strange laughter. "There are men among the Human World clerics, aren’t they? Then, can’t a man be a dark arts master?" "...No, that poisonous blade, it has a familiar look......Bastard, you are that dick from the assassins guild!" "Sword, what about it...... Such a sword, anyone can use it, no? Maybe I’m a fist fighter you threw out of the team......?" Again, the kidnapper laughed as if mocking, but suddenly gave a cold voice as if the person who was talking changed. "The talk is over. This way you left no opportunity for public executions, but you can still deliver the head of a Prime Swordsman. Authorized ambassador, your hands are great in slicing, so cut the head of the Prime Swordsman now. Or your daughter won’t live." His gray right hand protruded from the black robe bringing the dagger close to Lisetta’s face. The backs of Isukan and Scheta strained as if made of stone. That moment ── Kinn\~! A sharp sound echoed, and the tip of the poison dagger was thrown away. The whole body of Lisetta was covered with a sphere of white light. The kidnapper almost dropped the baby but

immediately caught the ball. Lisetta did not do anything. But next to Ronye, the right hand of Kirito stretched straight in the direction of the throne emitting light of the same color. He was protecting the baby with an incarnational barrier. "Scheta! Isukan!" Kirito cried with a somewhat painful voice. "I will not keep it for long! Lisetta......!" "O\~oyo!!" The whole body of Isukan who shouted back was covered with a light resembling a burning flame. At the same time, a man in a black robe said a strange word. In response, the minion began to move. "Bushshaaaaa\~!" The roar of the monster was interrupted by the shout of a fist fighter. "U-ra-ra-ra-ra────!!" Isukan rushed and hit a belly of the minion with a burning fist. The monster's bulky body, bulged from the belly to the limbs and swelled── And like a leather bag filled with liquid, it exploded with a large amount of dark black blood sprinkled around. Isukan accepted poisonous blood covering his entire body with his arms crossed. Immediately afterwards, a slim shadow flashed from the back of Isukan. Scheta who avoided the direct hit by poisonous blood rushed to the throne at the speed which made her look like a gray spot. "............ !!" With the only sound being the sliced air, she made the sword blur through his right hand. The right arm of the kidnapper holding a purple dagger was cut off from the shoulder and fell to the floor. Scheta threw her right hand to also cut the left arm that held Lisetta. ── However Something small showed under the black hood, at the mouth. Blowing needle. Scheta quickly pulled up the left hand to stop the needle, but a delicate body immediately began to fall on the ground.

Firmly holding Lisetta protected by the sphere of light, a man in a black robe ran to the left side of the throne trying to slip away. But there was only a black wall extending there, there was no escape anywhere. I won’t let you……. A storm of thoughts formed in her head, and in that moment, Ronye pulled out the sword and ran. On the other side, kidnapper was rushing towards the wall with his black robe flipping. In his chest, a large jewel shined brightly in a red color. The light of the same color ran through a part of the wall. A square separated from the obsidian wall and lifted resounding...... like an enigmatic stone mill drum, such as heavy rocks rubbing together. The kidnapper holding Lisetta dashed towards the window that should have not existed. The distance to the kidnapper was more than 10 mel. With Ronye's leg strength, it is not an option to reach him in a single leap. But I’ll get him. I’ll reach. "Yaaaaa────!!" Ronye kicked off the floor, squeezing out everything from the bottom of the body. A right hand brandished the sword. At that moment when the arm and sword melted in a solid move fit into a very precisely determined position and angle, the blade released a dazzling light-blue light. Ronye's body accelerated as is pushed by an invisible hand. Drawing a pale trajectory in the air in a moment she covered the ten-mel distance in one go. Aincrad style high speed rush technique, "Sonic Leap". A secret sword move, which Kirito said to mean in sacred words "jumping with a speed of sound", cut the kidnapper’s left arm from the body. Shortly after, Kirito's mental barrier disappeared, and Lisetta was thrown into the air. The man in the black robe, even after losing both arms, did not stop his feet and spilling a lot of blood, rushed to the window. It may have been possible to knock the kidnapper down, should she proceed with further sword skill. But Ronye chose to stop moving and catch the Lisetta.

The kidnapper jumped into the window with the head in front. His figure disappeared, melting in the morning light.

At the same time, Ronye firmly caught the body of Lisetta with her left hand and hugged her to her chest. She crouched, put the sword on the floor, and wrapped the crying baby with both arms to warm the child. "......Lisa-chan, don’t be scared. It’s all right now...... all right now......" Whispering and softly stroking her cheek, soon she made whining to gradually come down and then a little hand touched Ronye's arm. On the left side, the sound of the closed window sounded again. Until someone touched her back, Ronye kept holding the baby hard.

Footnotes: 1. #KawaharaMath In vol.18 Kirito has been revived about 1500 to 2000 kilolu to the north of the World End Alter (see illustration). Not only was he able to locate the “huge heterogenous object” at least 1000 kilolu to the south (Alice would reach Alter in \~6 hours if Kirito flies at \~300 km/h, so Subtilizer who is slightly faster than 120 km/h being dragon’s max speed, let’s say, 150 km/h, would be in about 1100 km from Kirito at the moment of him finishing off Vasago), but also to fly these 1500 to 2000 kilolu with Asuna in hands (and 3 super-highpriority swords!) over even less productive area than “normal” Dark Territory where he can “fly in a stable manner” for 10 kilolu only. 2. #KawaharaMath Nope, it could, remember, 120 km/h max?

Part 10 Despite the fact that hundred guards spent half a day searching, the corpse of the kidnapper wasn’t found. He jumped out with his arms lost from a height of nearly 500 mel. It seemed that there was no chance for him to survive, but Isukan, Scheta, and Kirito seemed not to be optimistic that the incident was over. At four o’clock in the afternoon when all the operations inside the castle were finished, four people gathered again in the child's room where the window had been repaired. In the arms of Scheta, Lisetta was cheerfully drinking milk as if she had completely forgotten about an incident. The castle doctors, together with Scheta, who is herself a high-level cleric, after thoroughly ascertaining the influence of poison and dark arts, fortunately, could not find any problems. On the other hand, it was equal to not learning anything about kidnappers as well. The way to open the window of the 50th floor which should not be manipulated by anyone except the emperor Vector remained the greatest mystery. "...... It may be totally irrelevant, but ..." Ronye said, seeping a scented tea that resembled an apple aroma, non-existent in the human world. "When the man tried to open the window, a big jewel fixed in his chest glowed red." "Red jewel......?" Kirito muttered, tilting his head at the same time as Scheta. There seems to be no idea coming to both of them. However, Isukan, who was trying to chew a large cut of the fruit pie, knitted his eyebrow and muttered. "That red gem...... Do you remember what the color was like, Ronye-jochan?" Ronye replied, thinking this was the first time when the fist fighter leader called her name. "Well, it wasn’t too bright... it was dark red, reminiscent of blood, or a sunset." "Bloody red............... bloody hell......" "Hey Isukan, it is foul play to stop at just "bloody hell", you know!" Said Kirito resting his chin on hands1.

"I’m not playing fool......" Despite having a confused expression, Isukan explained. "A stone like that was in the crown of the emperor Vector when he descended before the Foreign World War. The jewel he wore was just like that, I remembered somehow." "Vector’s crown... It really does not make sense. That person was a thousand kilometers south of this place, killed by the knight chief Bercouli on a rock and died at once. When he later resurrected, he did not wear such a crown anymore. So, everything should have disappeared on a that rock." "But you did not see it, did you?" To Isukan’s point, Kirito only nodded "Well... ". At that time, Kirito was in a state of unconsciousness. Integrity Knight Alice was the only one present in the vicinity of the Knight Chief Bercouli and the Emperor Vector, but she was no longer in Underworld. Bercouli's body was carried by Alice with the dragon2 almost to the "Altar of the Completion"3, and Kirito later took him back to Human World. He was resting under a tombstone built in the center of the flower garden spreading in the southeastern part of Central Cathedral. "...Indeed, there was no search for the place where Bercouli fought against Vector. It would be hard to identify now..." Saying so with a tough face, Kirito turned his gaze to the window. "...But if the power of a gem opened and closed the window of the fiftieth floor, there is definitely a possibility that it was belonging to Vector, as Isukan says. Although, who would know how to use it... and there is still a question of who that man who had it was in the first place.... ── What is that assassin guild you mentioned in the throne hall?" Kirito asked so and turned around, Isukan replied with a voice full of disregard, after drinking a cup of tea4. "That's those guys who commit assassinations for living. Using poisons....... One of former Dark Territory Ten Clans, their head Fu Za was hit by the rebellious attack of the dark general Shuster and died. That is why the organization was ultimately weakened, and now they have not even joined the Five Clans Conference. I almost forgot of their existence, but... It is completely unbelievable that the black robe bastard is a guy of the assassin guild, and he managed to control a minion......." "Together with the missing dark arts masters, we’ll investigate them better." Scheta nodded deeply to his words. "Yes, I will discuss this with the Knights Order and the Commercial Guild. I will not let such a mess

occur in Obsidia anymore." Kirito leaned forward to Isukan who declared this. "In such a case, should you not ask for a cooperation from the dark arts masters’ guild? We all wellremember the deeds of D.I.L., and the obvious inhospitality of dark arts masters can’t be helped, but... it is better for them to protect the castle as much as possible. Only guards are unreliable for defending against arts." "I wonder if the ear pain pays off." Despite the bitter smile, Isukan shrugged and replied. "But yes, certainly that's a way to go. That added to quarrels between humans around Obsidia, the problems of sub-humans trying to settle in shared areas, and problems alike.... ── Kirito, okay, how long can you stay here?" This time it was already Isukan who tilted ahead, and Kirito strengthened his upper body. "Well, of course I want to cooperate to the utmost, but... I will return to Human World tonight, the problem over there has not been solved yet..." "Oh, well, that's right, but... you see, I kinda… did not properly thank you for saving Lisetta, and there is still so much things to eat ..." Looking at Isukan puffing his lips like a child, Kirito just smiled with an expression exposing a little bit of grief yet somewhat nostalgic. "...... what is wrong?" "Nothing...... The talk of Isukan reminded me an old friend. Well, a future meeting is scheduled next month, is not it? That time, I will get in with more people." "All right, then, I’ll at least make arrangements for the last evening delicacy, something like a pile of Meh snake or maybe a living eel....... Anyway, this time I was really taken care of. I will never forget this kindness in my life." Kirito firmly grasped the right hand which rising Isukan had stretched. Seeing those two, Lisetta joyfully laughed “kya, kya” in Scheta’s arms.

Kirito and Ronye, who took a few hours of nap in their apartment and finished a simple meal, departed from Obsidia Castle at 8 p.m. This time, there was no need to paint the face with ointment, or to fly with incarnation. Scheta sent them to the place where the machine dragon was left by her loved dragon Yoiyobi.

She seemed to be surprised seeing the steel dragon, but apparently, she realized the possibilities of the machine dragon at once. Saying that if this is mass-produced, the day will come when the travel between Human World and Dark Territory is simple and enjoyable, Scheta returned to the castle of Obsidia which was her place of assignment and home as well; Kirito and Ronye also got into the dragon and flew to the western sky. When the flight stabilized, after exhaling a long breath, Kirito in the front seat said. "Anyway, that "Sonic Leap" when you secured Lisetta from the kidnapper was awesome, Ronye. When did you raise your skills so much?" "T-that... w-was, like they say, just trance......" Shortening her neck, she touched gently the silver guard of the loved sword laid in the gap between the chair and the wall. "...At that time, it seems that the sword has lent its power. In your shoes I could not jump that distance, absolutely." "W-well... that's a good sword." "Yes." He nodded, and Ronye entrusted her body to the back of the seat. As they flew, through the transparent windshield one could see the night sky of the Dark Territory. There were fewer stars compared to Human World, but a big crescent moon was shining white in the middle of the sky. Human World and Dark Territory are far apart, but the people living in both worlds are watching the same moon.... At the moment when she thought so, the same mysterious sensation came as when she saw a sign of an inn in Obsidia castle town and when she heard the melody of the hour bells, but this time Ronye caught the thought. "Ah... that, Kirito-senpai." "Hmm? What is it?" "Um...... Why are people using the same words and letters in Human World and Dark Territory? Since the birth of Underworld, there were few exchanges between the two worlds, so it would be no wonder even if we use completely different languages..." She could have never thought of this before, until she saw the world with her own eyes, so Ronye wanted to know the reason and asked this to Kirito. A swordsman born in a real world answered after keeping silent for a while.

"Thing is... the real world people who created this world were to bring Human World and Dark Territory into conflict, so it was better for them to have two lands speaking completely different languages. If we cannot communicate, we cannot negotiate peace. But they...... or something other than Real World persons intentionally made the language common. I do not understand why. But perhaps it may be because it creates the world able to overcome hostility and conflict............" The words of Kirito were too difficult for Ronye. However, she did not seek further explanation and kept thinking hard. Kirito said, Lunaria floating in the night sky is a giant sphere like this planet. That's why it’s waxing and waning in response to the light of Solus. If people live on Lunaria, they should see a crescent Earth just like me living here. If so, maybe they speak the same words. Maybe, like humans of this world, they live their lives making a lot of mistakes, fighting and shedding blood, yet still striving for a better world? Feeling as if the crescent moon floating quietly in the night sky was a cradle growing many lives, Ronye gently stretched her left hand towards Lunaria. Returning her hand to the handle of the loved sword again, Ronye said. "Oh, senpai." "Hmm……?" "I decided on this sword's name, “Sword of the Moonlight”5, I will name it." "Oh, yes, it's a nice name, I'm sure it will protect Ronye." After smiling and nodding "Yes!" to Kirito’s words, Ronye wiped away the running tear with her fingertip. I want to see Tiese soon. I want to tell my best friend who is swaying between missing the deceased elite swordsman Yujio and the proposal of the Knight Renri, what I had learned in this trip. As if feeling Ronye’s thoughts, Kirito slightly increased the speed of the dragon. Under the pale moonlight, the steel dragon continued its run on and on, to the west. (THE END)

Footnotes: 1. 口を挟む, also means a specific gesture, confused look while holding a pen or pencil horizontally between a nose and an upper lip, but doesn’t look like they had pencils there. 2. Vol 17 says she mounted his body on some dragon to pass it to Fanatio (which means sending it North). Vol 18 says she was flying alone (South). Maybe I messed OCR so hard, or missed a

paragraph, let’s wait for Defan to verify, but I’m pretty sure she was trying to reach the Altar ASAP, so additional weight would have been redundant. 3. I had remark on this in v18, but for English readers who decided not to fight the horrors of v18 enlate: the name Alice used there is not in the sacred language “World End Alter”, but rather translated version, where 果て(ha-te) is the word for utility-style work or operation finalization, mission fulfilment, e.g. the Underworld program success, so the translation should be ignorant and rude to all the Underworld dwellers. However, here Kawahara still uses it for some reason, probably for the same reason as using "sub-humans" term, to highlight the early days of Underworld multi-nation culture development. 4. Actually his voice is full of disgust, but I adjusted the adjective so it doesn’t read like the tea is awful. 5. …and now Ronye owns Tsukigake (dragon) and Tsukikage (sword).