Underworld, March 378 HE

The air had a certain scent.

That was the first thing I noticed, through the fragmented

thoughts I had just before awakening.

The air coming into my nostrils brought a wealth of information. The smell of sweet flowers. The smell of fresh grass. The

bracing, cleansing smell of trees. The tempting smell of water to a

parched throat.

Next I focused on my hearing and was overwhelmed by an instant deluge of sound: The rustling of countless leaves. The cheerful twittering of songbirds. The soft hum of insect wings. The distant trickling of a creek.

Where was I? Certainly not in my home. There were none of

the usual features of waking there, like the sunny smell of dried

sheets, the AC's dehumidifier's growl, or the distant traffic over

on the Kawagoe Bypass. Plus, the shifting patterns of green light

on my eyelids weren't coming from the reading light I forgot to

turn off, but from the shade of branches.

I pushed aside the lingering temptation of sleep and opened

my eyes.

Countless bits of light leaped into my sight, and I blinked

rapidly. I had to lift the back of my hand to rub at the welling

tears, and I sat up.

"…Where am I…?" I wondered.

The first thing I saw was clumps of light-green grass. Little

white and yellow flowers appeared here and there, and brilliant

pale-blue butterflies wandered among them. The carpet of grass

ended just fifteen feet ahead, replaced by a thick forest of gnarled,

decades-old trees.

I squinted into the gloom among the trunks, but as far as the

light allowed me to see, the trees continued. The flowing, textured

bark and ground were covered in thick moss that shone goldengreen where the sunlight caught it.

Next I glanced to the right, then rotated my entire body. The

ancient trees greeted me in every direction. Apparently I had

fallen asleep in a little grassy opening in the middle of the forest.

Lastly, I looked up and saw, among the reaching branches all

around, blue sky and trails of white.

"Where…am I?" I wondered aloud again. No one answered.

No matter how hard I tried to remember, I had no memory of

coming to a place like this and taking a nap. Was it sleepwalking?

Amnesia? I shook my head to dispel the disturbing possibilities.

My name was Kazuto Kirigaya. Age seventeen and eight

months. Living in Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture with my

mother and sister.

The easy recollection of that personal data brought me some

relief, so I reached for more.

I was in my second year of high school. But I would reach the

credits necessary to graduate in the first semester of next year, so

I was preparing to move on to college that fall. In fact, I had been

talking with someone about that. The last Monday of June—it

had been raining. After class, I went to Agil's Dicey Café in the

Okachimachi neighborhood to talk with my friend Sinon—Shino

Asada—about Gun Gale Online.

After that, Asuna Yuuki met up with us and the three chatted

for a while, then left the café.

"Asuna…"

I spoke the name of my girlfriend, the partner in whom I

placed all my trust when my back needed watching. But the memory of her face and figure was nowhere to be seen here. There was

no one at all on the grassy enclosure or among the trees.

Struck by a sudden loneliness, I continued my recollection.

Asuna and I said good-bye to Sinon and got on a train. We

took the Ginza Line subway to Shibuya, then got on the Setagaya

Line that would take us to Asuna's neighborhood.

When we got off, the rain had stopped. We walked down the

brick sidewalk, talking about college. I revealed that I was thinking of going to school in America and made a desperate plea for

her to join me. She showed me that usual smile, brimming with

gentle love. And then…

The memories ended there.

I couldn't remember what Asuna had answered, how we had separated, if I'd gone back to the station, what time I'd gotten home,

or how many hours of sleep I had gotten—nothing.

Somewhat stunned by this realization, I tried desperately to

summon the memory.

But Asuna's smile merely blotted away, as if being submerged

in water, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't draw out the

next part of the scene. I clenched my eyes shut and dug as hard as

I could into that heavy gray void.

Blinking red light.

A maddening shortness of breath.

Those were the only two images I could surface, meager as

they were. I sucked in a lungful of sweet air instead. The thirsty

dryness in my throat resurfaced, stronger than before.

I was certain of it. I had been in Miyasaka of Setagaya Ward

just last night. So what brought me here to sleep in this mysterious forest, all alone?

But was it really yesterday? The breeze playing on my skin felt

nice. There was none of the humid misery of late June here in this

forest. This time, a true thrill of horror ran down my back.

Were the "memories from yesterday" actually real? I was

clinging to them as if to a life raft in the open sea, after a storm.

Was I really me…?

I rubbed my face all over, pulled my hair, then lowered my

hands to stare at them closely. As I remembered, there was a little

mole near the base of my right thumb and a childhood scar on the

back of my left middle finger. This brought me some amount of

relief.

At that point, I belatedly realized that I was wearing an odd

outfit.

It wasn't the T-shirt I used as nightwear, or my school uniform, or any of my personal clothes. In fact, they didn't look like

any kind of clothes you would buy at the store.

My top was a half-sleeve shirt of crude cotton or linen, dyed

pale blue. The consistency was uneven and rough. The sewing

along the sleeve was clearly done by hand, not a machine. There

was no collar, just a V-cut in the front, tied with a brown string.

By touching it, I could tell that the string was not corded fabric

but a piece of finely cut leather.

My trousers were the same material as the top, but an unbleached cream color. There were no pockets, and the leather belt

around my waist was fastened not with a metal buckle but with a

long, thin wood button. My shoes were also hand-sewn leather,

and the thick leather sole was studded with a few cleats for slip

resistance.

I'd never seen clothes or shoes like these before. In real life, at

least.

"…Oh, okay," I muttered, exhaling.

They were otherworldly clothes and yet quite familiar as well.

They were Middle Ages European garments—in short, "fantasy"

wear: a tunic, cotton pants, and leather shoes. This wasn't the

real world but a fantasy one. Just another virtual realm.

"What the hell…"

I craned my neck again. I had fallen asleep while in a full dive?

But why couldn't I remember what game I had logged in to and

when?

In any case, I'd find out by logging out. I waved my right hand.

A few seconds passed, and no window appeared. I tried with

the left hand instead. No results.

With the ceaseless rustling of leaves and chirping of birds in

my ears, I did my best to dispel the growing prickle rising up my

midsection.

This was a virtual world. It had to be. But it certainly wasn't familiar Alfheim. In fact, it couldn't be any of the AmuSphere's VR

worlds fashioned from the Seed engine.

Actually, I had just moments ago confirmed the moles and

scars of my real body. I didn't know of any VR games that re-created the body to such a degree of detail.

"Command. Log out," I ordered without much hope. There

was no response. Sitting cross-legged, I examined my hands once

again.

There were fine swirls on my fingertips. Wrinkles on the skin

of my joints. Fine body hair. Little droplets of cold sweat seeping

forth.

I brushed them aside with my tunic, then examined the fabric

again. The rough thread was primitively sewn into the cloth. Even

the fraying of the textile into little puffs was clearly visible.

Any machine that could generate a virtual world this detailed

had to be frighteningly powerful. I gazed forward into the trees

and swung my arm to snatch up a blade of grass and bring it before my eyes.

The detail-focusing system that all Seed-based VR worlds used

would be unable to handle that sudden action, creating a brief lag

before the fine texture on the grass could load. But the very instant my eyes caught the blade, they made out fine veins, jagged

edges, even a droplet of moisture hanging from the torn end.

That meant that every visible object here was being consistently generated down to the millimeter in real time. This blade of

grass alone had to represent a few dozen megabytes of data. Was

that even possible?

I had to stifle that line of thought before I followed it any further. Instead, I parted the grass between my feet and used my

hand to shovel through the dirt.

The damp soil was surprisingly soft, and featured the occasional tangle of fine roots. I spotted something wriggling through

the lattice and picked it out.

It was a little earthworm, maybe a tenth of an inch long. It

writhed desperately in its dangerous new surroundings, gleaming

and green. I wondered if it was a new species, and abruptly the

end that appeared to be its head split open to emit a tiny screech.

I put it back in the soil, feeling dizzy, and pushed the dirt back

over the hole. My palm was black with dirt, and I could make out

the individual grains under my nails.

After most of a minute sitting in stunned silence, I reluctantly

formulated three theories to explain my circumstances.

First was the possibility of a virtual world that was an extension of today's full-dive tech. After all, waking up alone in a forest

was a stereotypical opening scene for any fantasy RPG.

But as far as I knew, there was no supercomputer capable of

generating such a vibrant wealth of ultra-detailed 3-D scenery.

That would mean that in the time I had blanked out, years—perhaps decades—had passed in real time.

Next was the possibility that this was a place in the real world.

I was the target of some crime, or illegal experiment, or vicious

prank, dressed in these strange clothes and taken somewhere unfamiliar—perhaps Hokkaido or the southern hemisphere—and re-

leased in a forest. But I didn't think there were any metallic-green

worms that screeched in Japan, and I hadn't heard of any such

thing elsewhere in the world.

Lastly was the possibility that this was a true alternate dimension, alternate world, or life after death. It was a common trope in

manga, books, and anime. Dramaturgy suggested that I would

soon rescue a girl being attacked by monsters, fulfill the village

elder's requests, and eventually rise as the hero to vanquish the

dreaded sorcerer lord. Yet I didn't see that rudimentary bronze

sword I was supposed to start with.

I just barely overcame a sudden urge to belly-laugh and naturally ruled out the third option. If I lost sight of the boundary between reality and unreality, I would truly be losing my grip on

sanity.

That left two possibilities: the virtual world or the real world.

If it was the former, no matter how ultrarealistic, there would

be ways to identify this. Just climb the nearest tree to the top,

then jump off headfirst. If you logged out or were revived at the

nearest holy temple at a save point, it was VR.

But if this was the real world, that test would have disastrous

consequences. In a suspense novel I read years ago, a criminal organization decided to put together a video of a real game of death

by kidnapping ten or so people, taking them into the remote

wilderness, and forcing them to kill one another for survival. It

was hard to imagine that happening in real life, but then again,

the SAO Incident was just about as unlikely. If this was a game

taking place in the real world, committing suicide right at the beginning was a poor choice.

"In that sense, the other one was better…" I muttered aloud

without realizing it. At least in Akihiko Kayaba's game, he had

done us the courtesy of appearing at the start for a detailed explanation.

I stared up at the sky through the branches and called out,

"Hey, GM! Say something if you can hear me!!"

But there was no enormous face that appeared in the sky or

hooded figure that popped into existence next to me. Just in case,

I searched again over the little grassy opening and all over my

outfit, but I found nothing that might be a rule book.

Whoever had thrown me into this place wasn't going to answer

any calls for help. Assuming the current situation wasn't the result of some accident, at least.

With the oblivious twittering of the birds in my ears, I dedicated my mind to considering my next actions.

If this was all a real-world accident, then rushing around too

much probably wasn't a good idea. There could be rescue crews

heading for my location as I sat here.

But that raised the question: What kind of accident could produce this baffling situation?

If you had to come up with whatever seemed the least unlikely,

I could have been on a vacation or traveling in a vehicle—airplane

or car—that suffered some malfunction, throwing me into this

forest, knocking me out, and jarring my memory. It wasn't that

far-fetched—if not for the strange clothes I was wearing and the

lack of any scrapes or bruises.

Perhaps it was an accident with a full dive. Some trouble arose

with the transmission route, and I logged in to a place I shouldn't

be. But again, that failed to explain the tremendous fidelity of the

simulation.

It seemed more and more likely that someone had designed

this situation for me. In which case, I had to assume that nothing

would change unless I took some kind of action.

"In either case…"

Somehow I had to find out whether this was the real world or

a virtual world.

There had to be some way. It was often said that a nearly perfect VR world was indistinguishable from reality, but I didn't believe it was possible for absolutely every aspect of the real world

to be represented in perfect accuracy.

For nearly five minutes, I sat among the short grass, pondering the possibilities. But ultimately, I did not come up with a simple idea that I could test on the spot. If I had a microscope, I

could examine the soil for bacteria. If I had a plane, I could try

flying to the ends of the earth. But with only my own two hands

and feet, the best I could do at the moment was dig in the dirt.

If only Asuna were here, she could tell me some simple, unexpected way to ascertain the nature of the world, I lamented. Either that or she would get me off my butt and taking action.

Loneliness set in again, and I bit my lip.

I was paradoxically both surprised and unsurprised by how

helpless I felt, not being able to contact Asuna. Nearly every decision I had made in the last two years was made through discussion with her. Without her thought process to guide me, I was like

a CPU missing half of its cores.

As far as I knew, I had been talking with her for hours at Agil's

place just yesterday. If I'd known this was going to happen, I

wouldn't have wasted my breath on Rath and the STL but asked

her about ways to distinguish the real world from a highly de-

tailed virtual…

"Oh…"

I leaped to my feet. The sound of the clearing grew faint.

What in the world? I have to be crazy not to have thought of

that until just now.

Of course I knew. I was quite familiar with the technology to

create a VR world that far surpassed what was available today, a

type of "super-reality." Which meant this world had to be…

"Inside the Soul Translator…? Is this the Underworld?"

No one responded, of course, but I barely registered the lack of

an answer as I stared around, dumbfounded.

Knotted, ancient trees, indistinguishable from the real thing.

Waving grasses. Fluttering butterflies.

"So this…is the artificial dream it wrote into my fluctlight…"

On the very first day of my stint with Rath, I got an explanation (more like bragging) about the rough working of the STL and

the realness of its world from research/operator Takeru Higa.

On my first test dive, I realized that his words were not hyperbole in the least—and all I saw was a single room. While the desk,

chair, and various items were all indistinguishable from reality,

the space itself was much too small to be considered a "world."

But the size of the forest around me now had to be miles wide

in terms of real-world scale. In fact, if the faint outline of mountains in the far distance were real, then it was tens, hundreds of

miles in scope.

You'd have to scour together all the data space in the entire Internet to create and run such an environment using existing technology. It would have to be an entirely new form of tech…something possible only through the STL's pneumonic visuals system

—but even I'd never imagined that it would be like this.

And if my supposition that this was the Underworld, the STL's

virtual realm, was correct, then it would be essentially impossible

to confirm that through any kind of user action from within.

After all, every object I could see was no different from the real

thing, as far as my consciousness perceived it. If I pulled out

every blade of grass, my fluctlight would receive the exact same

information as if I did that action in real life. Discerning the difference from real life was fundamentally impossible.

If the STL was ever going to be put to a functional use, it

would definitely need some kind of notable marker that identified

its VR world as such, I noted to myself as I got up to my feet.

So I didn't have any certain proof yet, but it was reasonable to

assume for now that I was in the Underworld. Meaning that in

the real world, my body was lying in the STL test unit in Rath's

Roppongi lab, making two thousand yen an hour.

"But wait…is that right?" I wondered, after my momentary period of relief.

I could have sworn that Higa had told me my memories as

Kazuto Kirigaya were blocked during testing to prevent data contamination. But the only part of my memory that was blank was

the single day between seeing Asuna off and then getting into

Rath's STL. That was too narrow to qualify as a memory block.

Plus—yes, that was right! I'd decided not to visit Rath for a

while so I could study for my finals. Sure, the pay was tempting,

but I didn't want to think that it would take only a single day for

me to break a promise to Asuna.

So if this was an STL test dive, I had to assume that some issue

had arisen. I looked up at the sky through the branches and

shouted, "Mr. Higa! If you're monitoring this test, call off the dive

for a bit! I think there's a problem!"

More than ten seconds passed.

Countless leaves shook in the breeze beneath the pleasant sun.

Butterflies flapped their wings sleepily. Nothing changed.

"Man…I don't know about this…"

A possibility suddenly occurred to me. Was this situation actually a test I'd elected to undertake?

Perhaps they'd blocked only the brief bit of memory before the

dive and tossed me into the STL's ultrarealistic world to collect

data on what a person would do if he wasn't able to discern if his

setting was the real world or a virtual one.

If that was true, I wanted to smack my head for agreeing to

such an unpleasant experiment. If I had assumed that I would

easily escape my predicament through quick thinking and action,

then it was a breathtakingly thoughtless decision.

I used my fingers to list a number of possibilities that explained my situation, along with totally arbitrary percentages.

"Let's see…Chances that this is somewhere in the real world:

three percent. Chances that this is an existing type of VR world:

seven percent. Chances that this is a voluntary STL test dive:

twenty percent. Chances that there was a spontaneous accident

during the dive: 69.9999 percent. Which means…"

There's a 0.0001 chance I got summoned to a real alternate

world, I added mentally. Racking my brain for an answer wasn't

going to get me much further. If I wanted to be more certain, I

had to brave danger to interact with another person, be it game

player or test diver.

It was time for action.

The first step was to quench my thirst, which was reaching

persistent levels. I did a full 360-degree turn in the middle of the

grass. The sound of flowing water was coming from what I estimated to be east, based on the position of the sun.

Before I started off, I reached behind my back just in case, but

there was no sword or even a stick there, of course. I strode forward before I could start to feel lonely about that, and in less than

ten steps, I was out of the grass. Two huge trees stood at my sides

like natural gateposts, and I headed through them into the dim

forest.

It was mysterious and eerie within the woods, with their velvety carpet of moss underfoot. The canopy of leaves far above

blocked out nearly all the sunlight, so only the rare tendril of

golden light reached the ground. The butterflies of the grass

clearing were replaced with strange insects somewhere between

dragonflies and moths that hovered and slid through the air in silence. Occasionally I heard the cry of some unfamiliar creature. It

wasn't like any place I knew on Earth.

I walked for fifteen minutes, praying all the while that I didn't

run into any large, hostile animals or monsters. Relief set in when

an array of ample sunlight appeared in the distance ahead. Based

on the increased volume of sound, I could tell there was a river

nearby. My thirst spurred my legs into a quicker pace.

At the edge of the thick forest, there was a ten-foot buffer of

grass, followed by the reflective silver of a water surface.

"W-waddah," I moaned piteously, crossing the final distance

to the riverside and its soft undergrass. "Whoa," I grunted as I

stared into the water at point-blank range on hands and knees.

It was beautiful. The river was not very wide, but the water in

its gentle curve was stunningly clear. It was absolutely colorless

but for a drop of blue, the white sand of the riverbed clearly visible through the pure mountain water.

Given that, just a few seconds ago, I had been leaving room for

the faint possibility that this was the real world, it might be dangerous to drink unfiltered natural water. But I could not resist the

allure of a stream that looked like melted crystal in its pristine

beauty. I gasped at the cutting chill of the water against my hand,

but it did not stop me from scooping it up to my mouth.

It was practically nectar. The taste of such sweet, fresh, pure

water made me never want to spend money on a bottle of mineral

water at the store again. I scooped up the water over and over

with both hands, until eventually I just lowered my mouth to

drink directly from the stream.

With the intoxication of that life-water running through my

veins, I finally eliminated from my mind the possibility that this

was a standard full-dive VR world.

No existing unit, such as the AmuSphere, could model liquid

perfectly. Polygons were just a set of coordinates connected by a

plane and not well suited to depict the complex, random shifting

of water. Yet the water that rippled and spilled over my hands

was utterly natural in appearance.

It was tempting to dispel the notion that this was taking place

in the real world, too. I sat up at last and surveyed the area. The

beautiful stream; the fantastical forest that continued past the far

bank; the odd, colorful fauna of the woods—none of it seemed to

match up with a real-world location. After all, wasn't it true that

the more untouched by human hands a place was, the more severe it was likely to be? How could I be walking around in this

light clothing and not have been bitten by any bugs yet?

Thinking about that last question seemed likely to prompt the

STL into summoning a cloud of poisonous insects, so I pushed it

from my mind and got to my feet. I rounded down the likelihood

of a real-world location to just 1 percent and looked around.

The river flowed from north to south, curving gently. Both

ends visible from here vanished among the massive trees. But

based on the state and temperature of the water, I felt certain that

I had to be close to the source. I'd be more likely to find civilization following the river south.

I had just set off downriver, thinking it would be a much easier

trip with a boat to ride, when the breeze shifted slightly, bringing

a strange sound to my ears.

It was the sound of something large and tough being struck by

something even harder. Not just once. It was happening at a

steady pace of about once every four seconds.

It couldn't be an animal or a natural occurrence. It was a virtual certainty that a human was producing this noise. I imagined

someone chopping down a tree, perhaps. Briefly, I wondered if it

would be dangerous to approach them, then smirked at myself.

This wasn't a kill-and-steal PvP MMORPG. My best option was

clearly to make contact and gain information.

I turned around and headed back upstream in the direction of

the sound.

Suddenly, I experienced a brief, strange vision.

A glittering river on the right. A deep forest on the left.

Straight ahead, a green path advancing with no end in sight.

Three children walked down it abreast. A boy with black hair,

another boy with flaxen blond hair, and between them, a girl

wearing a straw hat with flowing golden locks. They threw off

dazzling light from the setting summer sun.

Is this…a memory?

Long-distant days that would never return. Days he'd believed

would continue forever, that he swore to protect and cherish, but

that vanished as easily as ice left in the open sun…

Those nostalgic, heady days.

2

By the time I blinked again, the vision was gone, evaporating as

quickly as it had come.

What was that? The image was gone, but the sensation of nostalgia it brought stayed with me, clutching my heart agonizingly

tightly.

A memory of youth…In the vision of the three children walking along the riverside, I was absolutely certain that the boy with

black hair on the right was…me.

But that was impossible. There were no forests this thick or

rivers this pristine in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, where I grew

up. And I'd certainly never been friends with a blond boy and girl.

Plus, all three of us in the image were wearing the same rustic

fantasy clothes.

If this was the STL, did that mean the vision was a memory of

my extended dive test last weekend? That seemed likely, but even

with the fluctlight acceleration of the STL, I would have experienced only ten days at most. And the aching nostalgia that

throbbed in my heart could not be caused by such a brief amount

of time.

Things were truly turning in a bizarre direction. I glanced

down into the nearby river, wondering if I was really myself, but

the stream was too warped to recognize the finer features in its

reflection.

I decided to forget about the prickling aftereffect and focused

on that steady, repeating sound. This, too, had a familiar feel to it,

but I still didn't know whether it was the sound of a woodcutter's

ax. I shook my head to clear my mind and headed back upstream

toward the noise.

By the time the steady pace of walking allowed me to enjoy the

beauty of the scenery again, I noticed my path was taking me farther to the left. It seemed the source of the noise was not at the

riverside but deeper in the forest.

As I walked, I counted on my fingers and realized that, oddly,

the sound was not constant. After exactly fifty times, it would

stop for three minutes or so, then resume for another fifty on the

dot. It had to be coming from a human source.

I would walk with a vague sense of direction during each

three-minute interval, then recalibrate when the sound returned.

Soon I had left the water behind and ventured back among the

trees. Silently I passed by the now-familiar dragonflies, blue

lizards, and enormous mushrooms.

"…Forty-nine…fifty," I counted, just as it became noticeably

brighter among the trees ahead. It could be the forest's exit or

even a village. I quickened my pace toward the light.

Climbing a set of rising roots like stairs so I could peer around

an ancient trunk without exposing myself, I was met with a sight

that was nothing short of breathtaking.

It wasn't the end of the forest or a human settlement. But the

scope of the sight was so jaw-dropping that I didn't have time to

feel disappointed.

It was a circular clearing in the middle of the forest, far larger

than the little patch of grass where I'd awoken—about a hundred

feet across, I guessed. The ground was covered in that pale-green

moss, but unlike what I'd been walking over all this time, there

were no ferns, vines, or low bushes at all.

Just one thing, standing in the middle of the clearing, commanded my gaze:

What an enormous tree!

The trunk of the tree couldn't have been less than thirteen feet

across. Unlike the gnarled, broad-leaved trees of the forest, this

was a conifer that stood absolutely straight. The bark was so dark

it was nearly black, and numerous layers of branches spread out

far, far above. It reminded me of the ancient Jōmon Sugi tree on

Yakushima or the giant redwoods of western America, but the

sheer presence of this tree gave it an unnatural air. It towered imperiously over everything.

I slowly lowered my gaze from the impenetrable branches

above to the roots of the tree. A lattice of massive roots thick as

anacondas stretched in all directions, right up to the boundary of

the rest of the forest. It seemed to me that the sheer life this tree

sucked up was the reason for the clearing—nothing but moss

could grow where the roots devoured all nutrients.

It was a bit nerve-racking to step into the garden of an emperor like this, but I couldn't resist the urge to touch such a

tremendous thing. I made my way forward, tripping here and

there over the mossy roots, because I couldn't stop gazing up.

Nearly every breath out of my mouth was a gasp. I had lost all

caution for my surroundings, so enchanted was I at the sight. So,

naturally, I didn't notice until it was far too late.

" ?!"

When I dropped my gaze to ground level, I met the eyes of

someone peering around the trunk. My breath caught in my

throat, and I twitched, stumbled, and crouched. My hand started

to reach over my back, but there was no sword there.

Fortunately, the first human I had seen in this world was not

hostile or even cautious. He just stared at me, mystified.

He looked to be my age—about seventeen or eighteen. His ashbrown hair had just a hint of waviness. Like me, he wore a simple

tunic and trousers. He was sitting on a root like a bench, holding

something round in his right hand.

The odd part was his appearance. His skin was cream-colored,

but he appeared neither fully Western nor Eastern. His features

were fine and gentle, and his eyes looked dark green.

The moment I saw his face, something deep in my head itched

again…deep in my soul. But the instant I tried to seize the feeling,

it vanished. I pushed aside that odd hesitation and decided to

speak, to make it clear I had no hostile intentions. But before I

could do so, I needed to know what language to say it in. I stood

there for so long with my mouth agape that the other boy spoke

first.

"Who are you? Where did you come from?"

There was something just barely alien about his accent, but it

was otherwise perfect Japanese.

I was just as stunned as when I'd first seen the pitch-black

tree. For whatever reason, I hadn't expected to hear my mother

tongue in this clearly foreign world. There was something unreal

about hearing familiar words come from the mouth of an exotic,

Middle-Ages-European boy, as if I were watching a dubbed version of a foreign film.

But I couldn't stand there dumbfounded. It was time to think.

My brain had been getting rusty recently, and I needed to get it

percolating.

If this was the STL's Underworld, that meant this boy was

most likely either (1) another test player in a dive, with memories

from the real world like me, (2) a test player, but with memory

limitations that made him just another resident of this world, or

(3) an NPC being run by the program itself.

The first possibility would make things easy. I'd just explain

the abnormality happening to me, and he could tell me how to log

out.

But the second or third possibilities would not be so simple. If

I started listing off a bunch of incomprehensible jargon about

Soul Translator anomalies and log-out methods to a human or

NPC who was functioning as a resident of the Underworld, it

would only put them on edge and make collecting information

more difficult.

So I decided I needed to open a conversation using only safe

terminology, until I could ascertain just who or what this boy

was. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants and tried to put on a

reassuring smile.

"Umm…my name is…"

I paused. I wondered whether the names of people in this

world were Japanese or European. I prayed that my own name

could fit either case.

"…Kirito. I was coming here from that direction and wound up

lost," I said, pointing to what I guessed was south. The boy's eyes

bulged. He set down the round object in his hand and got to his

feet, pointing in the same direction.

"You mean…from south of the forest? Did you come from Zakkaria?"

"Er, n-no," I said, fighting the instinct to let panic grip my fea-

tures. "I, um…actually, I don't know where I came from, really…I

just kind of woke up from being passed out in the forest…"

I was hoping for a response like, Oh, an STL error? Hang on,

I'll contact the operator, but the boy merely gave me the same

shocked response. He stared closely at me and said, "Wait…you

don't know where you came from? Not even…what town you live

in…?"

"Er, right…I don't know. All I remember is my name…"

"…I can't believe it…I've heard the stories about 'Vecta's lost

children' but never thought I'd actually see one in person."

"V-Vecta's lost children…?"

"Don't they call them that, wherever you're from? When someone disappears one day or appears in the forest or fields all of a

sudden, that's what the villagers call them. The God of Darkness,

Vecta, kidnaps people as a prank, stealing their memories and

placing them in a far-off land. In my village, an old lady vanished

years and years ago, they say."

"Ohhh…Then maybe that's what I am…"

On the inside, I found this ominous. It no longer seemed likely

that this boy was just a tester engaging in a bit of role-playing.

Sensing that some walls might be closing in around me, I decided

to test out a more direct tactic.

"Anyway…I'm in a bit of a bind, so I'd like to leave. But I don't

know how…"

Silently, I was begging for him to pick up my hint, but the boy

only looked at me with sympathy and said, "Yes, the forest is very

deep. If you don't know the way, you're bound to get lost. But

don't worry—there's a path out of here to the north."

"Er, no, I mean…"

I threw caution to the wind.

"…I want to log out."

My Hail Mary attempt was met by a curious tilt of the head.

"L-log? What about a log? What did you say?"

That settled it.

Whether tester or NPC, he was a pure resident of the realm

with no concept of a "virtual reality." I tried not to let the disappointment show as I hastened to clarify. "S-sorry, I think I

slipped into my local slang for a moment. Um, what I meant to

say was…I want to find a place I can stay in a nearby town or village."

I thought it was a very weak excuse, but if anything, the boy

was impressed.

"Ohh…I've never heard those words before. And that black

hair is uncommon in these parts…Perhaps you were born in the

south."

"M-maybe you're right," I said with a stiff smile. He smiled

back, all innocence, then crinkled his eyebrows with worry.

"Hmm, a place to stay. My village is just to the north, but we

never get any travelers, so there's no inn. But…if I explain the situation, maybe Sister Azalia at the church can take you in."

"Oh…I see. That's good," I said with all honesty. If there was a

village, a Rath staffer might be in a dive there or monitoring it

from the outside. "In that case, I'll go to the village. Just north of

here, you said?"

I glanced ahead and saw that in the opposite direction of the

way I'd come, there was indeed a narrow trail. No sooner had I

started walking than the boy held out a hand to catch my attention.

"Oh, w-wait. There are guards in the village, so it might be difficult to explain the situation if you show up alone. I'll go with you

and tell them what's going on."

"Thanks, that'll be a big help," I said. Inwardly, I was certain

he wasn't just an NPC. His conversational skills were too fluid for

him to be a low-level program with preset answers to general

questions, and an NPC wouldn't elect to be so active in my affairs,

either.

I didn't know whether I was diving from the Rath lab in Roppongi or their company headquarters at its undisclosed location

in the Tokyo Bay area, but I could tell that whoever owned the

fluctlight controlling this boy had a very helpful personality. Once

I had safely escaped this test, I owed him some thanks.

Meanwhile, the boy's face clouded again. "Oh…but I can't right

now…There's still work to be done…"

"Work?"

"Yes. I'm on my lunch break."

I glanced down at the bundle of cloth at the boy's feet, through

which peeked two round rolls of bread. That was what I'd seen

him holding at first. The only other object was a leather water

pouch—a very meager excuse for a lunch.

"Oh, I didn't realize I was interrupting your meal," I said, but

he only grinned back.

"If you can wait until I'm done working, I'll go to the church

with you to ask Sister Azalia if she'll let you stay there. That'll be

four hours from now, though."

I wanted to go to the boy's village as soon as possible and find

someone who could explain the situation, but more important, I

didn't want to be on thin ice with a bunch of conversations. Four

hours was a long time, but with the STL's fluctlight acceleration,

it was only an hour and change in real time.

And for some reason I didn't understand, I found that I

wanted to talk more with the helpful young man. I told him, "It's

fine, I can wait. I appreciate the help."

His smile grew a bit wider, and he replied, "I see. In that case,

you can sit anywhere you like. Oh…I didn't give you my name yet,

did I?"

He held out his right hand. "I'm Eugeo. Nice to meet you, Mr.

Kirito."

His grip was much firmer than his skinny build would suggest. I

rolled the name around in my head. I didn't recall hearing it before, and it didn't sound like it belonged to any language in particular, but the word was familiar on my tongue for some reason.

The boy named Eugeo let go and sat back down on the tree

root, took the rolls out of the cloth, and handed one to me.

"Oh, I'm fine," I said, waving my hand, but he didn't withdraw

the offer.

"Aren't you hungry, too, Mr. Kirito? You haven't eaten anything, I bet."

As soon as he said that, a pang of hunger hit my brain, and I

unconsciously clutched my stomach. The river water was delicious, but it didn't fill the belly like food did.

"True, but…"

I hesitated again, and this time he pushed the roll into my

hands. Eugeo grinned and shrugged.

"It's fine. I know it's ironic to say this after I just gave you one,

but I'm not really a fan of them."

"In that case…thank you. As a matter of fact, I'm about to pass

out from hunger."

Eugeo laughed and said that was what he figured. I sat down

on the root across from him and added, "Plus, you can just call

me Kirito."

"Really? Well, I'm just Eugeo, too, then…Oh, hang on," he

noted, holding up a hand to stop me from taking a bite of the

bread.

"…?"

"Well, that bread's only good point is how long it lasts, but it

never hurts to be sure."

Eugeo put his left hand above the piece of bread he held in the

other. With his index and middle fingers, he traced a curvy figure

in the air that was like a combination of an S and a C.

To my astonishment, he tapped the roll, and with a strange

sound like vibrating metal, a glowing, translucent light-purple

rectangle appeared. It was about six inches wide and three inches

tall. From a distance, I could make out the familiar letters of the

alphabet and Arabic numerals. It was a status window.

With my mouth wide open, I told myself, That settles it. This

isn't real life or a true alternate world. It's virtual reality.

That confirmation brought a wave of relief to my mind, and

my body suddenly felt lighter. I had been 99 percent certain before, but that last little bit of blank uncertainty had been weighing

on me, I realized now.

Of course, the circumstances of my dive were still unknown,

but with the reassurance that I was within the familiar embrace of

a virtual world came a bit of comfort and confidence. I held out

two left fingers to call up my own window.

I copied the symbol and tapped the bread. A purple window

appeared with a bell chime. I leaned in for a closer look.

The contents were very simple: just a single line that said

Durability: 7. It was clearly the life span of the bread. When that

fell to zero, what exactly would happen to it, though?

Eugeo asked, "Kirito, you're not going to tell me it's your first

time seeing the sacred art of a Stacia Window, are you?"

I looked up and saw him staring at me suspiciously, holding

his bread. I tried to put on a reassuring smile and brushed away

the window, which vanished in a little spray of light. It was a relief that I'd demonstrated some familiarity.

Fortunately, Eugeo seemed satisfied with that. "There's plenty

of life left, so no need to gobble it down. There wouldn't be nearly

as much left if it were summer, though."

I guessed that the "life" he mentioned was the durability of the

item. "Stacia Window" was the name for the status window.

Based on how he'd described the act of calling up the window as a

"sacred art," Eugeo understood this not within the context of a

computer system but as a religious or magical phenomenon.

There was a lot still to process, but I set that aside for the more

pressing concern of my hunger.

"Okay, here we go."

I opened my mouth wide and bit down. The toughness of the

bread was astonishing, but I couldn't just spit it out; I had to keep

chewing. The sensation was more real than any virtual food I'd

ever tasted, which I marveled at even as my teeth felt ready to

loosen in their sockets.

It was similar to the whole-wheat bread that Suguha liked to

buy, but harder and firmer. The effort necessary to chew it was a

bit much, but there was a rustic flavor to it, and I was hungry

enough to keep my jaw moving. If I just had some butter and a

slice of cheese—even having it freshly baked would be a considerable improvement, I thought, rather rudely for one who was getting a free meal. I glanced over and saw Eugeo smirking as he

himself struggled to chew.

"It's not very good, is it?" he said.

I shook my head. "N-no, I didn't say that."

"Don't try to hide it. I buy some from the baker as I leave every

morning, but it's so early that the only bread left is from the day

before. And I don't have time to go back to the village for lunch,

so…"

"Ohh…Couldn't you just bring lunch from home…?" I wondered idly. Eugeo looked down, bread still in his hand. I winced,

realizing it was none of my business, but fortunately, he looked

back up and smiled.

"A long time ago…there was someone to bring lunch fresh

from the village. Not anymore…"

His green eyes wavered, brimming with the deep sadness of

loss, and I was so absorbed in it that I forgot this whole world was

a creation.

"What happened to them…?"

Eugeo looked up at the branches far, far above in silence.

Eventually, he began to tell the story.

"…She was my childhood friend. A girl my age…When we were

little, we played together from sunup to sundown. Even after receiving our Callings, she brought me lunch every day. But then,

six years ago…in my eleventh summer, an Integrity Knight came

to the village…and took her away to the central city…"

Integrity Knight. Central city.

The terms were unfamiliar, but the context of his statement

suggested an agent for maintaining order and the capital of this

virtual world. I held my silence, urging him on.

"It was…my fault. On a day of rest, the two of us went spelunk-

ing in the northern cave…and we got lost on the way back and

wound up leaving through the other side of the End Mountains.

You know what the Taboo Index says—the land of darkness that

we cannot set foot in. I didn't venture out of the cave, but she

tripped, and her hand landed on the ground of the other side…

And just for doing that, an Integrity Knight came to the village,

tied her up in chains in front of everyone…"

The half-eaten bread crumbled in Eugeo's hand.

"…I tried to save her. I didn't care if he arrested me, too. I was

going to attack him with the ax…but my hands and feet wouldn't

move. All I could do was stand there and watch as she was taken

away…"

Eugeo continued to stare at the sky, his face devoid of emotion. Eventually, his lips curled into a self-deprecating sneer. He

tossed the smooshed bread into his mouth and chewed it viciously as he lowered his face.

I didn't know how to respond. I took my own bite of bread and

chewed it as best I could as I considered the information.

The existence of status windows meant this was a virtual world

created with modern technology, and that this had to be a test of

some kind. But if that was the case, why was this story event occurring? I swallowed my bread and asked, "Do you know…what

happened to her…?"

Eugeo didn't look up. He shook his head weakly. "The Integrity Knight said she would be questioned and sentenced…but I

have no idea what sentence she was given. I tried asking her father, Elder Gasfut, once…and he told me to assume that she was

dead. But I still have faith, Kirito. I know she's alive."

He paused.

"Alice is alive, somewhere in the city…"

I sucked in a sharp breath as soon as I heard that name.

Again, an odd sensation raced through my brain. Panic. Desolation. And most of all, a soul-shaking nostalgia…

It was an illusion. I told myself that and waited for the shock

to pass. I had no personal connection to this Alice, Eugeo's old

friend. My mind must have reacted to the generic name, that was

all. In fact, hadn't Asuna just been talking about it at Dicey Café

yesterday? Rath, the developers of the STL, the Underworld virtual realm—they were all taken from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The coincidence of the names repeating was startling but

probably meaningless. More important was another piece of information contained in Eugeo's story.

He said he was eleven years old as of six years ago. Which

meant he was seventeen now, and as far as I could tell, he had full

memory of all that time—about the same length of time that I'd

been alive.

But that was impossible. If the FLA's factor of time was three,

it would take nearly six years of real time to simulate seventeen

years' worth of time for this world. But as far as I knew, it had

been only three months since the STL's test unit was set up.

How should I take this information?

If this was not the STL but some other, unknown full-dive machine, then it had been functioning for seventeen years. Or perhaps the time factor of three for the FLA was a lie, and they could

run it over thirty times the speed of normal time. Neither case

was believable in the least.

Anxiety and curiosity welled up within me in equal measure.

Part of me wanted to log out at once and ask a human being what

had happened, while another part of me wanted to stay on the inside and track down the answers to my doubts directly.

I swallowed the last bit of bread and hesitantly asked, "Then…

why don't you go search for her? In this central city."

As soon as I said the words, I realized I had made a mistake.

The suggestion was too far outside of Eugeo's regular expectations. The flaxen-haired boy stared at me for several seconds

without reaction, then whispered incredulously, "Rulid Village is

at the very northern end of the Norlangarth Empire. To get to

Centoria at the very southern end of the empire, it would take an

entire week with the fleetest of horses. I mean, it takes two days

just to walk to Zakkaria, the nearest town. You couldn't even get

there in a day if you left at sunrise on a day of rest."

"Then if you prepared for a proper journey…"

"Listen, Kirito. You're about my age—didn't you get a Calling

where you grew up? You know I can't just abandon my Calling

and go on a journey."

"…Oh, g-good point," I said, scratching my head. I watched

Eugeo's reaction carefully.

The boy was clearly not just a regular old NPC. His wealth of

expression and natural conversation skills were absolutely human

in nature.

But at the same time, his actions appeared to be bound by

some limiting force far more effective and absolute than the laws

of the real world. Just like a VRMMO NPC, forbidden to act outside his approved boundaries.

Eugeo claimed he wasn't arrested because he didn't venture

into this area defined by what he called the "Taboo Index." So

that was the absolute standard he had to follow—probably hardcoded through his fluctlight. I didn't know what Eugeo's Calling

(his job) was, but it was hard to believe that it could be more important than the life or death of the girl he grew up with.

Deciding to get to the bottom of this, I chose my words carefully as Eugeo put the waterskin to his mouth.

"So in your village, are there others besides Alice who broke

the Taboo…Index and got taken to the city?"

His eyes widened again. He wiped his mouth and shook his

head vigorously. "Oh, no. In three hundred years of Rulid history,

the only time an Integrity Knight has ever come was that one

time, six years ago. According to Old Man Garitta."

He tossed me the water. I caught it, thanked him, and pulled

out the stopper, which looked like a cork. The water wasn't cold,

but there was a pleasant aroma to it, something like a mix of

lemon and herbs. I took three mouthfuls and handed it back to

Eugeo.

While I wiped my mouth in feigned self-control, on the inside

another storm of shock buffeted me.

Three hundred years?!

If that wasn't just a piece of background writing but indicated

three whole centuries of fully simulated time, then the fluctlight

acceleration factor would have to be hundreds…over a thousand,

even. If that was how quickly they had accelerated my personal

time when I went on that recent continual-dive test, how long had

I actually been inside the machine? I felt a belated chill crawl

across my forearms, and I was too preoccupied to even marvel at

how real it felt.

The more information I gleaned, the deeper the mysteries got.

Was Eugeo a human being or a program? Why was this world

built?

To learn more, I'd have to go to Eugeo's home of Rulid and

contact other people. Hopefully I would run into someone from

Rath who could fill me in…

I managed to put on something resembling a smile and said,

"Thanks for the bread. And sorry about taking half your lunch."

"No, don't worry. I'm sick of that stuff anyway," he said with a

much more natural smile, and quickly folded up the cloth. "Sorry

about forcing you to wait. I've just got to finish my afternoon

work first."

Eugeo stood up easily in preparation for his duty. I asked him,

"By the way, what is your job…I mean, your Calling?"

"Oh, right…You can't see it from over there." He smiled and

beckoned to me. I got up, curious, and followed him around to

the other side of the tree trunk.

Once again, my mouth fell open as I registered a different kind

of shock.

Carved into the midnight-black trunk of the enormous cedar

tree was a cut about 20 percent deep—nearly three feet. The inside of the trunk was as black as charcoal, too, and there was a

metallic gleam among the dense growth rings.

Then I noticed that there was an ax standing against the tree,

just below the cut. The blade was simple, clearly not designed for

battle, but it was striking how both the large head and long handle were made of the same ash-white material. It looked kind of

like stainless steel with a matte finish. As I stared at its strange,

shining surface, it dawned on me that the entire ax was carved

down from a single mass of whatever its material was.

The handle was wrapped with shining black leather, which

Eugeo grabbed with one hand, lifting it onto his shoulder. He

walked over to the left edge of the five-foot-wide cut, spread his

legs and lowered his stance, then squeezed the ax with both

hands.

His slender body tensed and spun, the ax thrust backward,

and after a momentary pause, it shot through the air. The heavylooking head landed firmly in the center of the cut with a dry

krakk! It was indeed the very sound I had followed to this place.

My instinct that it had come from a woodcutter was correct.

Eugeo continued his chopping with mechanical precision and

speed while I watched his smooth form in total wonder. Two seconds to pull back, one second to tense, one second to swing. The

whole motion was so smooth and automatic that it made me wonder if this world had sword skills, too.

He made fifty chops at four seconds each in exactly two hundred seconds, then slowly pulled the ax out after the last one and

heaved a deep breath. He stood the ax against the trunk again

and sat down heavily on a nearby root. Based on the pace of his

breathing and the beads of sweat glistening on his forehead, the

swings were much more laborious than I had thought.

I waited for Eugeo's breathing to slow down then asked, "So

your job…I mean, your Calling is a woodcutter? You cut down

trees in this forest?"

Eugeo pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his face,

which bore a dubious expression. Eventually he answered, "Well,

I guess you could say it like that. But in the seven years since I got

this Calling, I haven't actually cut down a single tree."

"What?"

"This enormous tree is called the Gigas Cedar in the sacred

tongue. But most of the villagers just call it the devil tree."

…Sacred tongue? Giga…Seeder?

A smile of a certain kind of understanding appeared on

Eugeo's face in response to my confusion. He pointed up at the

branches far, far above.

"The reason they call it that is because the tree sucks up all of

Terraria's blessings from the land around it. That's why only

moss grows beneath the reach of its branches, and all the trees

where its shadow falls do not grow very tall."

I didn't know what Terraria was, but the first impression I got

when I saw the giant tree and its clearing was largely correct. I

nodded, prompting him to continue.

"The villagers want to clear the forest and plant new fields. But

as long as this tree stands, no good barley will grow. So we want

to cut it down, but, as the name suggests, the demon tree's trunk

is wickedly tough. A single swing from a normal iron ax will chip

the blade and ruin it. So they saved up a bunch of money to get

this Dragonbone Ax carved from ancient dragon bone shipped

from the center capital, and they designated a dedicated 'carver'

to strike at the tree every day. That's me," he said without fanfare.

I looked back and forth between him and the cut, which was

about a quarter of the way through the giant tree.

"So…you've been chopping away at this tree for seven whole

years? And that's all you've managed in that time?"

Now it was Eugeo's turn to be stunned. He shook his head in

disbelief. "Oh, hardly. If you could get this far in just seven years,

I might feel a little better about it. I'm the seventh-generation

carver. The carvers have come here to work every day for three

hundred years, since the founding of Rulid. By the time I'm an

old man and I have to hand the ax to the eighth carver, I might

have gotten…"

He held his hands less than a foot apart. "This far."

All I could do was let out a long, whistling breath.

In fantasy-themed MMOs, it was a given that production

classes like craftsmen or miners were doomed to a whole lot of tedious repetition, but spending an entire lifetime to not even cut

down a single tree was taking it to a new extreme. Human hands

created this world, so someone must have placed this tree here

for a reason, but I couldn't begin to guess what it would be.

It still left a crawling sensation down my back.

Eugeo's three-minute break ended, and he stood up again and

reached for the ax. On impulse, I asked, "Hey, Eugeo…mind if I

try that?"

"What?"

"I mean, you gave me half your lunch. Doesn't it make sense

for me to do half the work?"

Eugeo was stunned, as if no one had ever offered to help him

at his work before in his life—which could very well be the case.

Eventually, he offered a hesitant, "Well…there's no rule that you

can't get someone's help with your Calling…but you'd be surprised how hard it is. When I was just starting out, I could barely

land a hit."

"Never know until you try, right?"

I grinned, then thrust out my hand. Eugeo offered the handle

of the Dragonbone Ax, looking reluctant. I grabbed it.

Despite being made of bone, the ax was tremendously heavy. I

added a second hand to the grip and shook a bit as I tested my

balance.

I'd never used an ax as my main weapon in either SAO or ALO,

but I figured I would at least be good enough with it to hit a stationary target. I stood at the left end of the cut and tried to mimic

Eugeo's form, spreading my feet and lowering my hips.

Eugeo stood at a safe distance, watching me with equal parts

consternation and entertainment. I lifted the ax up to my shoulder, gritted my teeth, summoned all the strength I had, and

swung for the cut in the trunk of the "Giga Seeder."

The ax head cracked on a spot about two inches away from the

center of the slice. Orange sparks flew, and a terrific shock ran

through my hands. I dropped the ax and cradled my numb wrists

between my knees, groaning.

"Owww…"

Eugeo laughed heartily at the embarrassing spectacle I'd put

on. I glared at him, and he waved in apology but continued laughing.

"…You don't have to laugh that hard…"

"Ha-ha-ha…No, no, I'm sorry. You put way too much tension

into your shoulders and hips, Kirito. You've got to relax your

whole body…Hmm, how to explain it…"

He awkwardly pantomimed swinging an ax, and I belatedly

recognized my mistake. It was unlikely that this world was simulating muscle tension based on strict physical laws. It was a realistic dream the STL created, so the most important factor had to

be the strength of the imagination.

The feeling was coming back to my hands, so I picked up the

ax lying at my feet.

"Just wait, I'll hit it right on the mark this time…"

I held up the ax again, this time using as little muscle tension

as possible. I envisioned all the movement of my body and slowly

pulled back the tool. Imagining the motion of the Horizontal

slashing sword skill I used so often in SAO, I shifted my weight

forward, adding the energy to the rotation of my hips and shoulders down to the wrists and ax head, slamming it into the tree…

This time it missed the cut in the tree entirely and twanged off

the tough bark. I didn't get the same numbing jolt in my wrists,

but I'd been so focused on my own movement that I neglected to

aim properly. I figured that Eugeo would laugh again, but this

time he offered honest feedback.

"Whoa…that was pretty good, Kirito. But your problem was

that you were looking at the ax. You've got to keep your eyes focused right on the center of the cut. Try it again, while you've got

the hang of it!"

"O-okay."

My next attempt was also weak. But I kept trying, following

Eugeo's advice, and somewhere a few dozen swings later, the ax

finally struck true, producing that clear ring and sending a tiny

little shard of black flying.

At that point, I switched with Eugeo and watched him execute

fifty perfect strikes. Then he handed it off, and I attempted another fifty wheezing swings.

After a number of turns back and forth, I realized the sun was

going down, and there was an orange tint to the light trickling

into the forest clearing. I took the last swig of water from the

large waterskin, and Eugeo set down the ax.

"There…that makes a thousand."

"We've already done that many?"

"Yep. I did five hundred; you did five hundred. My Calling is to

strike the Gigas Cedar two thousand times a day, over the morning and afternoon."

"Two thousand…"

I stared at the large crevice cut into the massive black tree. It

didn't look like any damage had been done to it at all since we'd

started. What a thankless job.

Meanwhile, Eugeo said happily, "You've got talent for this,

Kirito. There were two or three good hits in that last set of fifty.

And it made my job a whole lot easier today."

"I dunno…if you were doing it all yourself, you'd have been

done sooner. I feel bad; I was hoping to help out, but I only held

you back," I apologized, but Eugeo just laughed it off.

"I told you, I can't cut down this tree for as long as I live. And

after all, it will regrow half of the depth that we carve out over the

course of the night…Oh hey, I've got something to show you.

You're not really supposed to look at it, though."

He approached the tree and held up his left hand, making the

usual sign with his two fingers, then tapped the black bark.

I raced over to get a closer look, realizing that the tree itself

must have a durability rating. The status—pardon me, Stacia

Window—appeared with a chime, and we peered in at it.

"Ugh," I groaned. The number on the window was vast: over

232,000.

"Hmm. That's only about fifty lower than what it said when I

checked last month," Eugeo noted, similarly disappointed. "So

you see, Kirito…I could swing this ax for an entire year, and it

would only reduce the life of the Gigas Cedar by about six hundred. I'll be lucky if the total is under 200,000 by the time I retire. Do you get it now? A little bit less progress over half a day

doesn't make the least bit of difference. This isn't any ordinary

tree; it's the giant god of cedars."

Suddenly, something clicked, and I understood the source of

the name. It was a mix of Latin and English. The split wasn't after

Giga, it was Gigas—there were two S sounds in a row. Gigas

Cedar, the giant cedar.

Meaning that this boy spoke Japanese as his mother language,

while English and other languages were treated as the "sacred

tongue," like spells. If that was the case, he probably didn't even

recognize that he was speaking Japanese. It was Underworldian.

Or…Norlangarthian? But wait, when he talked about the bread,

he had used the word pan, the Japanese word for it. But pan

didn't originate from English…Wasn't it from Portuguese? Spanish?

My mind tumbled through a cavalcade of distractions, while

Eugeo tidied up the things he'd brought.

"Thanks for waiting, Kirito. Let's go to the village."

As we walked to his village, Dragonbone Ax slung over his shoulder and empty waterskin hanging from his hand, Eugeo cheerfully told me about a variety of topics. His predecessor was an old

man named Garitta, who was apparently quite a master woodcutter. The other children his age thought Eugeo's Calling was an

easy one, an opinion he resented. I muttered and grunted to show

that I was listening throughout his stories, but my mind was racing as it considered just one topic.

For what purpose was this world envisioned and put into practical use?

They didn't need to test the pneumonic visual system the STL

used. It was already perfectly functional. I'd already experienced

—to an unpleasant degree—just how indistinguishable from real

life this world was.

And yet, the world had been internally simulated for at least

three hundred years, and terrifyingly enough, extrapolating from

the Gigas Cedar's durability and Eugeo's workflow, it was slated

to continue running for at least a thousand more.

I didn't know what the upper limit of the fluctlight acceleration factor was, but a person who dove into this place with their

memories blocked was at risk of spending an entire lifetime in the

machine. True, there was no danger to the physical body, and if

the memories were all blocked at the end of the dive, it would all

be nothing but a "very long dream" to the user—but what happened to the soul, the fluctlight that experienced that dream?

Was there a lifespan to the photon field that made up the human

consciousness?

Clearly, what they were doing with this world was impractical,

implausible, impossible.

Did that mean there was a goal worth so much risk? Like

Sinon had said at Dicey Café, it couldn't be something the AmuSphere could already do, like making a realistic virtual world.

Something created through a nearly infinite passage of time in a

virtual world that was indistinguishable from reality…

I looked up and took stock of my surroundings. The forest was

trailing off just ahead, replaced by a larger amount of orange sun-

light. At the side of the trail close to the exit was a single building

that looked like a storage shed. Eugeo walked over to it and

pulled open the door. Over his back, I could see a number of normal metal axes, a smaller hatchet, various tools like ropes and

buckets, and narrow leather packages with unknown contents,

crammed messily into the shed.

Eugeo stood the Dragonbone Ax against the wall among them

and shut the door. He immediately started back for the trail, so I

hastily asked him, "Uh, shouldn't you lock it or something? That's

a really important ax, right?"

He looked surprised. "Lock? Why?"

"Er, because…it might get stolen…"

Once I said my fear aloud, I realized where I went wrong.

There were no thieves. No doubt in that Taboo Index there was

an entry that said, "Thou shalt not steal," or something along

those lines.

Sure enough, Eugeo gave me the exact answer I had just been

anticipating.

"That would never happen. I'm the only one who's allowed to

open this shed."

I figured as much. Then another question occurred to me.

"But…didn't you say there were guards in the village, Eugeo? Why

would that be a profession if there are no thieves or bandits?"

"Isn't that obvious? To protect the village from the forces of

darkness."

"Forces of…darkness…"

"Look, you can see up there."

He held up his hand to point just as we crossed the last line of

trees.

There was a full field of barley wheat ahead. The heads, still

young and green and not yet expanding, swayed in the breeze.

They caught the full light of the waning sun like a sea of grass.

The path continued on through the field, winding toward a hill in

the far distance. Atop the tree-dotted hill, as small as specks of

sand to the eye, was a number of buildings and one taller tower

among them. That had to be the village of Rulid, Eugeo's home.

But what Eugeo pointed at was far beyond the village—a range

of pure-white mountains faded with distance. The line of peaks

continued as far as the eye could see to the left and right, like the

sharp teeth of a saw.

"Those are the End Mountains. On the other side is the land of

darkness, beyond Solus's light. Black clouds cover the sky, even in

the daytime, and the light of the heavens was red like blood. The

ground and trees were all as black as coal…"

Eugeo's voice trembled as he recalled his experiences from the

distant past.

"There are accursed humanoids in the land of darkness like

goblins and orcs, and even more terrifying monsters…Not to

mention knights of darkness who ride black dragons. Naturally,

the Integrity Knights protect the mountain range, but every once

in a while, some of them sneak in through the caves, from what I

understand. I've never seen it happen myself. Plus, according to

the Axiom Church, every thousand years, when the light of Solus

weakens, the knights of darkness cross the mountains with a

horde of enemies to attack. When that happens, the Integrity

Knights will lead the village men-at-arms, the sentinels from

larger towns, and even the imperial army in the fight against the

monsters."

Eugeo paused, looked at me skeptically, and said, "Even the

youngest children in the village know this story. Did you even forget that when you lost your memory?"

"Uh…y-yeah. It sounds familiar to me…but some of the details

are different," I said, thinking quickly. Eugeo beamed in a way

that made me wonder if he even understood the concept of doubt

at all.

"Oh, I see…Maybe you really did come from one of the three

other empires, outside of Norlangarth."

"M-maybe I did," I agreed, and pointed toward the approaching hill to steer the conversation away from this dangerous topic.

"That must be Rulid. Which one's your house, Eugeo?"

"The thing in front is the south gate, and my house is near the

west gate, so you can't see it from here."

"Ahh. And the building with the tower? Is that the church with

Sister…Azalia?"

"That's right."

I squinted and made out a symbol at the tip of the narrow

tower, a combination of cross and circle.

"It's actually…fancier than I expected. Are they really going to

let someone like me stay there?"

"Of course. Sister Azalia is a very nice person."

I wasn't entirely convinced, but if Azalia was as much a personification of selfless virtue as Eugeo, then I could probably

manage safely as long as I kept the conversation on sensible

ground. Then again, I was totally in the dark when it came to

knowing what passed for "common sense" here.

Ideally, Sister Azalia would be one of Rath's stationed observers. But I doubted that any staff members charged with monitoring the state of their world would take on a vital role like the

village elder or nun. It was more likely they'd take the role of a

simple villager, which meant I had to find them. And that was assuming they had an observer in this tiny village at all.

I followed Eugeo across a mossy stone bridge spanning a narrow waterway and set foot into the village of Rulid.

3

"Here you go, a pillow and blankets. There are more in the

wardrobe in the back if you're cold. Morning prayer is at six, and

breakfast is at seven. I'll come to check on you, but please do

wake up on your own. There's a curfew once lights are out, so be

mindful of that."

I accepted both the onslaught of words and the heavy pile of

wool blankets with outstretched arms.

A girl of about twelve years was standing before me as I sat on

the bed. She wore a black habit with a white collar, and her light

brown hair hung long down her back. Her big, busy eyes held

none of the downcast obedience she'd displayed in the presence

of the sister.

Her name was Selka, and she was a sister-in-training, studying

sacred arts at the church. She was also charged with watching

over the other boys and girls living at the church, which was

probably why she bossed me around like a big sister or mother,

despite being several years my junior. It was hard to keep the grin

off my face.

"Umm, is there anything else you need to know?"

"No, I think I've got it. Thanks for all the help," I said. For a

brief moment, Selka's expression softened, and then it was back

to fussy business as usual.

"Good night, then. Do you know how to put out the lamp?"

"…Yeah. Good night, Selka."

She nodded briskly and spun to leave the room, the hem of her

slightly-too-large habit swaying. Once her quiet footsteps trailed

away, I let out a long sigh.

They had put me in a little-used room on the second floor of

the church. The room was about a hundred square feet, with a

cast-iron bed, matching desk and chair, a small bookshelf, and a

wardrobe next to it. I moved the blankets and pillow off my knees

and onto the bed, then put my hands behind my head and rolled

back onto the sheets. The flame in the lamp overhead briefly sizzled.

"What the hell…"

Is going on? I replayed all the events that had transpired between entering the village and now.

The first thing Eugeo had done was head for the guard station

right next to the gate. There was another youngster in there

named Zink, who glanced at me suspiciously at first but accepted

Eugeo's story that I was a "lost child of Vecta" with almost laughable ease and granted me entry to the village.

The entire time Eugeo was giving the story, my eyes were

locked onto the simple sword hanging from Zink's belt, so the

specific words all went in one ear and out the other. I desperately

wanted to borrow the aged sword to see if my skills—technically,

the virtual swordsman Kirito's skills—would still function here,

but I valiantly resisted that urge.

After leaving the station, we walked down the village's main

street, attracting a slightly unnerving amount of attention. Several villagers asked who I was, and Eugeo stopped to explain each

time, so it took us nearly thirty minutes to get to the small village

square at the center of Rulid. One old lady carrying a large basket

got teary-eyed when she saw me. "You poor thing!" she exclaimed, and pulled an apple (or something close to one) out of

the basket for me. I felt a bit guilty about that.

By the time we got to the church standing on the small hill

overlooking the village, the sun was almost entirely gone. Sister

Azalia, a nun whose picture ought to be in the dictionary under

the word stern, answered Eugeo's knock on the door. She looked

so much like Miss Minchin from A Little Princess that I was certain our plan would end in disaster. But at odds with her appearance, Sister Azalia welcomed me in almost instantly and offered

me dinner to boot.

Eugeo promised to meet me in the morning, and thus left me

at the church. Aside from Selka, the oldest, there were six children to meet, and we shared a quiet but peaceful meal of fried

fish, boiled potatoes, and vegetable soup. As I feared, the children

assaulted me with questions afterward, which I hoped I answered

without dropping the ball. After that, I was sent to the bath with

the three boys, and after undergoing all of these many trials, I

was free at last to lie here, in the bed in the guest room.