Epilogue: August 2026 AD
At the bottom of the sea, where no light could reach, a shadow slowly
crawled along.
It looked like a large, flat crab. But it had only six legs, a string extended from
its stomach like a spider, and its form was covered in a pressure-resistant metal
shell painted gray.
The metal crab was a deep-sea maintenance robot designed to administer to
the transpacific optical cable that connected Japan and America known as
FASTER.
Since being placed at its sea-floor protective terminal three years ago, the
crab had slept without once being called into duty. Until today, when at last it
received a wake-up signal, and it stretched grease-crusted joints and left the
safety of its home.
The crab had no way of knowing or understanding, however, that the order
was not coming from the company that owned it. Following the unofficial
orders from this mystery source, it headed straight north, hauling the FASTER
repair cable behind it.
A faint, repeating artificial sound was calling the crab. Once a minute, it
stopped, ascertaining the location of the sonar signal, then resumed forward
progress.
How long did it repeat this process?
At last, the crab determined that it had reached the indicated location. It
turned on the light equipped to the front of its body.
The ring of light it produced captured the sight of a silver humanoid machine
resting on the sea floor.
A number of brutal holes were opened in its simple aluminum-alloy exterior.
Exposed cables were burned and severed here and there, and its left arm was
practically ripped loose. The head was even half-crushed, apparently from the
water pressure.
But in its right hand, lifted the tiniest bit, was a fiber-optic cable of the same
deep-sea line that the crab was pulling from its stomach. The cable stretched
straight upward, vanishing into deep darkness, and what it went to was unseen.
The crab stared for a while at the remains of the robot, one of its own kind.
But of course, it did not feel any emotion or fear toward this object. It just
followed its orders, extending a manipulation limb to grab the end of the cable
held in the humanoid robot's hand. With its other manipulator, it pulled out the
endless cable stored around the reel in its own stomach area.
Then the crab pushed the connector ends of the cables together.
That was the end of its orders.
It did not spare a single thought for where the cable the humanoid robot held
was going. The metal crab just turned around, six legs working in alternation,
and headed back to its sea-floor terminal for another long period of
hibernation.
Leaving behind it the remains of an utterly destroyed humanoid robot.
The heavily insulated optical cable remained firmly clutched in its metal hand.
2
Two PM, Saturday, August 1st, 2026.
A typhoon had passed over the Kanto region the previous night, and blue
skies abruptly returned when the morning came. At Roppongi Hills Arena in
Minato Ward, media companies of all kinds from within and outside of Japan
had gathered, waiting for their now-delayed payoff.
TV variety shows and online live streams were already covering the press
conference. Reporters and commentators breathlessly spoke over the
murmuring of the crowd.
The talking heads' tone was skeptical. "You see, no matter how close you get
to the real thing, a fake can never be real. It's like alchemy in the Middle Ages.
No matter how you burn or boil iron and steel, you can never turn it into gold!"
"But, sir, according to their press release for this conference, they've
succeeded at re-creating the structure of the human brain itself…"
"And I'm telling you that what they're saying is impossible! Listen, our brains
are made up of tens of billions of brain cells. Do you think that a piece of
electronics, or some computer program, can re-create that kind of complexity?
Do you?"
"Pshh, listen to this guy…acting like he knows what he's talking about before
he's seen it in action," sneered Klein, nursing a midday gin and tonic, his tie
loose around his neck.
The coffee shop and bar known as Dicey Café, located in a back alley of
Okachimachi in Taito Ward, was so packed that there almost wasn't any
standing room. They didn't need the CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY sign out; nobody would
want to squeeze in anyway.
Sitting at the counter, across from Agil, the proprietor, were Sinon, Leafa,
Lisbeth, Silica, and Klein. The four tables were packed with ALO leaders, like
Sakuya, Alicia, and Eugene; the Sleeping Knights, like Siune and Jun; and former
SAO players, like Thinker, Yuriel, and Sasha.
Every person had their own beer, cocktail, or soft drink as they watched the
large TV on the back wall.
Lisbeth sighed as Klein continue to kvetch. She told him, "I don't blame the
guy. I didn't even believe it until I saw it for myself. How could I believe that
those people were artificial intelligences and that world was just a virtual
creation on some server?"
Sinon brushed the temple of her glasses and murmured, "I know. The smell of
the air, the texture of the ground—in a sense, it was almost more real than real
life."
Leafa nodded in agreement, and Silica winced. "That's only because you had
the privilege of diving with those…STLs? Those machines. We were stuck using
our AmuSpheres, so to us, the environment and items were just normal
polygonal models."
"But nobody ever believed that the Underworlders themselves were just
NPCs, did we?" Agil said, the most crucial point of all.
Just then, the sound of the newscaster's voice on the TV rose in pitch. "Ah, it
looks like the conference is about to start! We're going to return you to the
media center so you can watch it live!"
The building went quiet. Over a dozen VRMMO players held their breath as
the camera flashes went off at the conference. They were about to witness the
moment that the thing they'd worked so hard to protect was revealed to the
public at last.
The first person to appear before the rows of TV cameras and photographers
was a woman in her late twenties wearing a relaxed pantsuit. Her makeup was
reserved, and her hair was tied back in a ponytail.
She came up to the podium and the dozens of microphones arrayed there,
where a placard read DR. RINKO KOUJIRO, OCEANIC RESOURCE EXPLORATION & RESEARCH INSTITUTION.
She squinted at the flood of light from the flashing cameras but bowed firmly to
the crowd before speaking.
"I appreciate your time in the midst of your busy schedules. Today, our
institution announces the birth of what we believe is the world's first true
artificial general intelligence," she said, getting right to the point. The crowd
buzzed.
The scientist lifted a hand to point to the other side of the stage and coolly
announced, "And now I would like to introduce you…to Alice."
Into a maelstrom of attention both hopeful and skeptical, a figure emerged
from behind a silver partition set up on the stage.
It was a girl in a navy blazer. She had long, shining golden hair. Skin whiter
than snow. Long legs and a slender build.
On the TV, there were so many flashes going off that the image was
practically blanked out. The girl didn't even turn to the reporters, much less
bow to them. She just walked forward, her back straight, looking proud. The
stream of shutter sounds and the murmuring of the crowd drowned out the
faint mechanical whirring that her steps produced.
She crossed the stage smoothly and came to a stop next to Dr. Koujiro. It was
at this point that the girl finally turned. Her blond hair gleamed as it swayed in
the spotlight.
The girl stared down at the reporters in silence. Her eyes were a brilliant
crystal blue.
Her beauty had an almost unearthly quality, not quite Western and not quite
Eastern. The crowd steadily began to fall silent.
The intuition of everyone at the conference and of the countless viewers at
home said that this was not the appearance of an organic human being. It was
most definitely something created by humans—a robot with a metal skeletal
structure covered in silicone skin. You could go to the closest theme park or
event hall to see similar feminine robots.
But the smoothness of her walk and the perfect posture, plus something
about that golden hair, shocked the audience into silence for some reason no
one could articulate.
Or perhaps it was the deep brilliance that illuminated those blue eyes. It was
a sign of intelligence, something that could not reside in a simple optical lens.
When the reporters fell completely silent, the girl's mouth curled into a
suggestion of a smile, and she performed a strange gesture. She made a soft fist
with her right hand, then touched it level to her left breast. Her left hand hung
down and brushed her side, as though resting atop the hilt of an invisible
sword.
Then she returned to a neutral posture, swept the hair off her shoulders and
over her back, and parted her light-pink lips. A clear, clean voice with a hint of
sweetness traveled over the speakers in the hall and those of countless
television sets.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, people of the real world. My name is Alice. Alice
Synthesis Thirty."
"Oh…hey, that's our school uniform!!" shouted Silica. She looked from her
own blazer to the one Alice was wearing on the screen, stunned.
"She asked for it specifically," Lisbeth noted, tweaking the ribbon of her own
uniform. "She wanted to wear the uniform of the knight brigade that came to
the aid of the Human Guardian Army, apparently. But her first choice was the
same golden armor that she was used to wearing over there."
"Even Rath can't make something like that happen," Leafa said, sending
chuckles through the room.
On the screen, Alice had taken a seat just behind Dr. Koujiro's podium. In
front of her was another nameplate, reading A.L.I.C.E. 2026—ALICE SYNTHESIS THIRTY.
"…The level of detail in her re-creation is amazing. I only spoke with her a bit
in the Underworld, but I can barely tell the difference, looking at her now,"
Sinon remarked.
Dr. Koujiro cleared her throat and addressed the crowd. "Now, while this
might seem a bit exceptional, I would actually like to start with a question-andanswer demonstration."
Hands shot up from the reporters' seating area; they had been briefed on this
already. The first man Dr. Koujiro called on was from a major newspaper.
"Well, uh…I'd like to ask you something basic, er…Alice. How are you different
from other programming-dependent robots?"
Dr. Koujiro stepped in to answer that one. "At this conference, Alice's physical
appearance is not the primary concern. It's her brain…or what we're calling her
brain. Her consciousness, which is stored in the photonic brain contained inside
her skull, is not a program that is compiled from binary code, but in essence
works the same way that human brains do. That is the absolute difference that
separates her from existing robots."
"In that case…it would be nice to have that demonstrated for us and our
viewers in an easy-to-understand way…"
Dr. Koujiro's eyebrows knit in annoyance. "I believe you have the Turing test
results in the materials we distributed."
"No, ma'am, I'm referring to her head…If you could open her skull and show us
this photonic brain you're talking about."
The scientist looked stunned for a moment, and she would have said
something rather cross if Alice had not answered for herself.
"Of course. I don't mind," she said with a natural smile. "But before I do that,
can you prove to me that you are not a robot?"
"Huh…? I-I'm a human being, of course…I don't know how to prove that."
"It's simple. Just open your skull so you can show me your brain."
"Oh, wow…Alice is pissed!" Leafa giggled, her shoulders shaking.
All the players at Dicey Café had already had a chance to interact with Alice in
ALfheim Online, so they understood her dignified and sometimes acerbic
personality.
Naturally, because Alice needed to generate a new ALO account, her avatar's
appearance was a bit different from how she looked now. But she still had her
superhuman technique with the sword, and her innate knight's pride and honor
struck fear and awe into the hearts of many players.
On the TV, the reporter sat back down with a disgruntled look, giving the next
person a chance to stand.
"Uh, this question is for Dr. Koujiro. We've heard concerns from some labor
unions about a side effect of advanced artificial intelligence in the industrial
space leading to a rise in unemployment…"
"Those suspicions are unfounded. Our institution has absolutely no intention
of providing true AI for use in simple labor," she said flatly.
The reporter mumbled for a moment but regained her poise and continued,
"It seems as though the financial world has its hopes fixed on this, however. The
stocks of industrial-robot manufacturers shot upward on the news. Any
comment about that?"
"Unfortunately, these true AIs—or 'artificial fluctlights,' as we call them in the
notes you've been provided—are not the kind of thing that is mass-produced on
a short turnaround. They are born as infants, as we are, and grow into unique
individuals under the care of their parents and siblings as they age from children
to adults. We believe that it would be wrong to place intelligence of this kind
into industrial robots to force them to perform repetitive labor."
The conference hall went silent. Eventually, the reporter asked, more than a
little harshly, "Doctor, are you saying…you acknowledge this AI as having
human rights?"
"I'm well aware that this is not the kind of topic that can be argued to a
conclusion in a day," said Dr. Koujiro. Her voice was soft and even, but there
was the firmness of resolute purpose at its core. "But we must not commit the
mistakes of the past again. That much is very clear. Years ago, many of the
developed countries we called the Great Powers used colonization to impose
their will on undeveloped countries, selling their people as products and forcing
them into labor. Even now, a hundred, two hundred years later, this history
casts a long shadow on international relations. I'm sure the majority of people
listening right now would take umbrage at the suggestion that we should
immediately accept artificial fluctlights as human and give them full rights. But
in one or two hundred years, we will live in an equal society that accepts them
as ordinary. We will interact with them, even marry and start families with
them. That is my personal view, but I am certain of it. Will we need to
experience the same bloodshed and sorrow that came with the process the last
time? Do you want human history to contain another chapter that no one
wishes to remember—that we try to hide?"
"But, Doctor!" the reporter cried, unable to help herself. "Their existence is
too different from ours! How are we supposed to accept a common humanity
with something that has a mechanical body without warmth of its own?!"
"Earlier I said that Alice's physical body is not the point," Dr. Koujiro answered
calmly. "We are different beings with bodies that work on different mechanisms.
But that is only here, in this world. We already have a place where we and the
artificial fluctlights can entirely accept one another as equals."
"What…place is this?"
"The virtual world. A very large percentage of general-use VR spaces that we
use in society today are shifting over to the system of standards supported by
The Seed Package. In fact, much of the press requested that we conduct this
conference today in a VR environment, but at our institution's insistence, we
held it here in the real world. That is because we wanted you first to be aware of
the differences between the artificial fluctlights and us. In virtual reality, it will
not be this way. The photonic brains of artificial fluctlights like Alice are built to
be perfectly compatible with The Seed's VR spaces."
The conference room buzzed again. Many of the reporters understood
correctly that if an AI could dive into a virtual space, then there would be no
way to tell the difference between a human and a sufficiently advanced AI.
The reporter sat down at last, speechless, and a third person rose. The man
wore lightly tinted sunglasses and a flashy jacket. He was a well-known
freelance journalist.
"First, I'd like to confirm something. I'd never heard of your Oceanic Resource
Exploration & Research Institution—I assume this is an independent entity
within the Ministry of Internal Affairs? Meaning that the funds you used to
complete your research came from taxpayers' pockets. Wouldn't that make the
product of your research, that…artificial fluctlight…the property of the citizens of
this country? Why is it your institute's decision whether to use this true AI for
industrial robots, and not up to the people?"
Dr. Koujiro had handled all the previous questions with grace, but this was the
first point at which her mouth pursed with displeasure. She leaned into the
microphone, but a pale hand stopped her. It was Alice, who was ready to break
her long silence.
The girl with the mechanical body bobbed her head, making her long blond
hair shift. "I accept that you real-worlders are our creators. I am grateful to you
for creating us. But another person born in my world once said, 'What if the real
world is also just a creation? What if there is yet another creator behind it?'"
Lightning flashed in the depths of her cobalt-blue eyes. The journalist pulled
back, intimidated. Alice stared at him and the other members of the press and
rose to her feet.
She puffed out her chest and folded her hands in front of her, looking for all
the world like the knight she was, despite her high school girl's uniform. Her
eyes were downcast, and in a clear, crisp voice, the world's first true AI
continued, "What if one day, your creator appeared to you and ordered you to
become their property? Would you place your hands upon the ground, pledge
your allegiance, and beg for mercy?"
Then the fierce look in her eyes subsided, and a hint of a smile appeared on
her lips.
"…I have already spent time with many real-worlders. They have helped
encourage and support me as I find myself all alone in a strange world. They've
taught me many things and taken me places. I like them. And not just that…
There is one real-worlder whom I love. The fact that I cannot see him now…is a
thought that tears even this metal breast apart…"
Alice paused, closed her eyes, and hung her head. Although her body wasn't
equipped with the function, many people swore they could see a drop run
down her cheek.
Then her golden eyelashes swiftly rose, and her gentle gaze pierced the
conference room. The golden knight smoothly lifted her hand and said, "I have
a right hand, as you can see, for reaching out to the people of the real world.
But I do not have knees meant to fall upon or a forehead for grinding into the
dirt. I am a human being."
3
Takeru Higa watched the conference from Rath's Roppongi office, not far
from the building where it was being held.
His gunshot wound from the attack on the Ocean Turtle was healing up at
last, and his cast had come off. But he still had an ugly scar from where the
pistol bullet had passed through his shoulder. Another round of plastic surgery
would get rid of that, apparently, but Higa was planning to leave it the way it
was.
The TV station switched from their live feed back to the studio, where the
newscaster began to deliver an explanation of the "incident."
"…The Oceanic Resource Exploration & Research Institution in question was
conducting research with autonomous submersibles for exploring the sea floor
on the Ocean Turtle megafloat, but in recent days it's been much more famous
for the reporting on the attempted armed takeover that happened there."
The commentator nearby nodded and added, "Yes, and according to some,
the purpose of that invasion was to steal this artificial intelligence. It's very hard
to say what the truth is, however, when the invading group hasn't even been
identified…
"Also, the state-of-the-art defense ship Nagato was roaming that stretch of
sea at the time, which raises the question of why it did not rush to help for an
entire twenty-four hours. The minister of defense claimed that they were
prioritizing the safety of the hostages, but apparently that did not save the life
of one security member who perished in the attack…"
The program displayed a photograph of a man. He was dressed in the pristine
primary formal wear of the Japan Self-Defense Force. With his hat pulled low
and his black-framed glasses, it was hard to make out his expression.
Next to the photo was a caption.
Killed in the attack: Seijirou Kikuoka.
Higa let out a long breath and murmured, "It's hard to believe that if there
was going to be a single casualty…it would be you, Kiku…"
The person standing next to him shook his head. "Yeah, no kidding…"
The man wore sneakers, cropped cotton pants, and a hideous patterned shirt.
His hair was cut short, and a fine layer of stubble covered his face from his ears
to his chin. He wore reflective sunglasses to hide his eyes.
The mystery man pulled a cheap little plastic tin of hard candies out of his
shirt pocket, popped one in his mouth, and grinned. "This was for the best, Higa
—it really was. Either they were going to haul me in front of a court to put
everything on me, or they were going to make sure I was never seen again. Plus,
having an official casualty as a result of the attack is what allowed us to put so
much public pressure on the domestic forces trying to sabotage our goal.
Though I didn't expect that it would go all the way up to the administrative viceminister of defense."
"Sounds like he was getting quite a lot of money from the American weapons
companies. But…that aside," Higa said, shrugging and looking at the screen
again, "are you sure it's a good idea to announce the artificial fluctlights this
publicly? This is totally going to screw up Rath's ultimate plan of putting them
on drone weapons, Kiku."
"It's fine. The real point is that we want the Americans to know that we can
do it." Kikuoka grinned. Rath's commanding officer had taken an assault rifle
bullet through the side of his protective vest but had recovered sooner than
anticipated, because he'd luckily avoided any organ damage.
"Now their weapons manufacturers won't be able to force us to hand over
our tech under the guise of 'joint development,'" he continued. "We've already
perfected the artificial fluctlights, so we don't need their help. They'll have to
give up after this press conference…and my word, but Alice's beauty goes
beyond that of any human being's…"
His narrow eyes squinted through the sunglasses when Alice showed up on
the TV screen again.
"That's true…She truly is the jewel of Project Alicization…"
They said nothing for a time after that, giving Higa a chance to think.
Their finished project was code-named A.L.I.C.E. after the specific kind of
highly adaptive artificial intelligence Rath was hoping to bring into existence.
Was it just a miraculous coincidence that the girl who ended up fitting that
definition was given the name Alice as a child in the Underworld?
If it wasn't sheer coincidence, there must have been a reason for it. Was it the
result of some staff member secretly interfering with the project, the way Yanai
had? Or was it someone not on the staff…like the one man who had logged into
the Underworld all alone…
Higa turned to look at the two Soul Translators at the back of the spacious lab
room. Resting on the very same unit he'd used for a three-day dive just two
months ago was none other than Kazuto Kirigaya.
There was a drip-feed catheter in his left arm. EKG electrodes were stuck to
his chest. During the three weeks of his comatose state since being shipped
here from the Ocean Turtle, his face had become even more sunken than
before.
But his sleeping face was peaceful. It even looked like he was smiling with
satisfaction, maybe.
The same could be said of the girl sleeping next to him: Asuna Yuuki.
The STLs were continually monitoring their fluctlight activity. Not all brain
signals had vanished. If their fluctlights were totally destroyed, they ought to
stop breathing entirely. But their mental activity was at an extreme minimum
and hopes of a recovery were dying out.
It wasn't a surprise. Kazuto and Asuna had experienced an unbelievable two
hundred years before the maximum-acceleration phase ended. Higa had lived
for only twenty-six years; he couldn't imagine that length of time. It was already
a biological miracle that their hearts were still beating after they had long since
passed the theoretical life span of the fluctlight.
Higa and Dr. Koujiro had gone to explain and apologize to Kazuto's and
Asuna's parents as soon as the two had been transferred to Roppongi. They'd
told the parents what they considered to be the truth—all except for the part
where Rath was partly staffed by elite researchers connected to the SDF and
the national defense industry.
Kazuto Kirigaya's parents cried, but they did not fly out of control. They'd
already heard most of the story from his sister. The real problem was the father
of Asuna Yuuki.
For one thing, he was the former chief director of RCT, a major Japanese
company. His anger was considerable, to the point of threatening to take them
to court that very day. Surprisingly, it was Asuna's mother who stopped him.
The college professor had stroked her sleeping daughter's hair and said, I
believe in my daughter. She would never simply get up and leave without telling
us. I know that she will come back to us safe and sound. Let's wait a little longer,
dear.
Their parents were probably watching the press conference now, seeing the
new form of humanity that their children had fought so hard to protect. It
wouldn't be right for this momentous day, the first step for Alice and all future
artificial fluctlights into the real world, to be crowned with sadness.
Please, Kirito, Asuna…just open your eyes, Higa prayed, lowering his head.
Suddenly, Kikuoka elbowed him.
"Hey, Higa."
"…What, Kiku? I'm focusing on something right now."
"Higa. Higa. Look…look at that."
"The conference is basically over. I can already guess what all the questions
will be," Higa grumbled, looking up. Then he saw that Kikuoka was gesturing
with the candy container not to the TV screen but to the little sub-monitor to
the right.
The two windows on the screen were displaying real-time data from the two
STLs. A faint, white ring was floating against a black background. That
unmoving, faint shape gleamed with the light of the sleeping boy's and girl's
souls…
Bink.
A little tiny peak rose from a part of the ring and vanished.
Higa's eyelids blinked violently, and he gurgled as something caught in his
throat.
Dr. Koujiro's voice filled the vast conference hall again.
"…It will require a tremendous amount of time. There is no need to rush to a
conclusion. We want you to get to know the artificial fluctlights who will be
born through new processes and methods in the future. Interact with them in
the virtual world. Feel and think. That is all this institute truly wants the people
of the world to do."
She took her seat at the end of this speech, but there was no rousing round of
applause. If anything, the reporters looked even more concerned than before.
The next person promptly raised a hand and stood. "Doctor, what can you tell
us about the potential dangers of this development? Can you guarantee that
these AIs will never attempt to wipe out humanity and take over the planet?"
Dr. Koujiro stifled an exhausted sigh and said, "It absolutely will not happen,
outside of one possibility. And that would be the case that we attempt to
exterminate them first."
"But it's been a longtime trope in books and movies…," the reporter
protested, until Alice suddenly shot to her feet. The man backed away in alarm.
Alice's blue eyes were wide and staring at nothing, as though she were
listening to some faint, far-off sound. After a few seconds, she said, "I must go. I
will leave you now."
Then she spun, golden hair swaying, and made her way to the edge of the
stage and vanished at the maximum speed her mechanical body could manage,
leaving behind a speechless room full of reporters and a national TV audience.
What could be more important to Alice than this very conference, her
introduction to the world? Even Dr. Koujiro seemed to be alarmed by the
interruption, but she quickly altered her expression, coming to an apparent
understanding. She inhaled, then exhaled, and not one of the reporters noticed
the faint smile on her lips.
It was no trick of the eyes.
There was a pulse in both Kazuto's and Asuna's fluctlights, happening at
distinct intervals of about ten seconds and getting slightly higher each time.
"K…Kiku!" Higa exclaimed, turning around to look at the STLs.
There was no change in their sleeping faces. Except…
Even as he was watching them, the blush of blood seemed to be coming back
to their cheeks. Their pulses were growing stronger. The monitoring equipment
was indicating that their internal temperatures were rising slowly, too.
Could he dare hope? Through some miracle, they were waking up. Their souls
were being resurrected from the dead.
The ten minutes from that point on felt as long to Higa as the maximumacceleration phase had while it'd been happening. He summoned spare staff
from around the office and checked the monitors frequently to ensure that the
fluctlights were returning to a normal condition while they made preparations.
It felt like the pulsating rainbow ring was going to vanish like some vision in the
desert if he didn't keep an eye on it at all times.
They got oral rehydration solution, nutrient-replenishing gels, and whatever
else they might need ready. Then, when there was nothing left to do but wait,
the entrance door slid open, and a person no one expected to see entered the
lab. Higa and Kikuoka yelped in unison.
"A…Alice?!"
The young blond woman was supposed to be in the middle of the press
conference of the century at Roppongi Hills. But here she was, actuators
whirring as she hurried to the two STLs.
"Kirito! …Asuna!" Alice called out, her voice just a bit tinny and electronic. She
knelt beside the gel beds.
Higa swiveled to the TV screen, dreading what he might see there. The
program had cut to the studio, where the newscaster was breathlessly
describing how the star of the conference had suddenly vanished.
"…Well…I'm sure Dr. Koujiro will manage for us," Kikuoka said with a stiff grin.
He turned off the TV. It wasn't the time to be watching the conference. Higa
checked on Kazuto's and Asuna's vitals first, then watched Alice as she
performed what seemed to be a prayer for the two.
While she'd hibernated within her lightcube package, Alice had been taken
from the Ocean Turtle to the Roppongi office. They had produced a modified
version of Niemon that was meant to approximate Alice's appearance called
Number Three and had loaded her in, and that was when she woke up in the
real world.
As she had said at the press conference, the shock of suddenly waking up in
an unfamiliar world must have been great. The fact that she'd adapted so well
to a dramatically different environment in just three weeks was surely due to
the single powerful drive that possessed her: to see Kirito and Asuna again.
And now that time had come.
Alice's hands rose, motors whirring faintly, until they enveloped Kazuto's right
hand where it lay on the gel bed.
His bony fingers curled slightly.
His eyelashes twitched.
His lips opened a bit, closed, opened again…
Then his eyelids slowly, slowly rose.
His dark eyes reflected the dimmed lights of the room, but there was no
conscious focus to them. Speak—just say something, Higa prayed.
A breath escaped through his parted lips, almost like a sigh. In time, the
vibration of his vocal cords gave it voice.
"…I…dil…"
A sudden chill colder than ice ran up Higa's spine. The sound he made was
eerily similar to the creepy utterances made by fluctlight copies shortly before
they collapsed.
But this time…
"…be…all…rie."
…different sounds followed.
It'll be all right. That was what Kazuto said. It had to be.
There was utter silence in the lab room until another quiet voice replied.
"Sure."
That one belonged to Asuna in the other STL. Her lids were rising slowly.
Their eyes met, and their heads tilted.
Then Kazuto turned to face the other direction and smiled at Alice, who was
holding his hand. "Hi…Alice. It's been a while."
"…Kirito…Asuna…," she whispered, smiling back at them. She blinked furiously
—almost like she was chagrined that her body did not have a crying function.
Kazuto gave her a benevolent look and said, "Alice, your sister, Selka, chose to
go into Deep Freeze to wait for your return. She's still sleeping even now, atop
that hill on the eightieth floor of Central Cathedral."
"…!!"
Higa didn't understand any of that, but Alice's body jolted with shock, and her
blond hair fell onto her shoulders, hiding her expression.
She placed her face against the sheet. Kazuto rested his hand on her back—
and looked at Kikuoka and Higa for the first time.
At that exact moment, Higa experienced a very mysterious feeling
somewhere deep in his consciousness. It wasn't emotion. It wasn't fascination.
It was…awe?
Two hundred years.
A soul that had experienced almost endless time.
Kazuto told the frozen man, "Go on, Mr. Higa. Delete our memories. Our roles
have ended."
4
My eyelids rose.
Like always, I was hit by momentary hesitation—where and when was I?
But that strange feeling was growing weaker by the day. Like flowing water,
the past was drifting further and further away from me. It was a sad, lonely
thing.
I looked up at the clock on the wall across from my bed. Four in the
afternoon. I'd finished my after-lunch rehab session, showered, and fallen
asleep for about an hour and a half.
The sunlight filtering through the white hospital curtains cast a clear contrast
on the room's interior. If I listened hard enough, I could hear the buzzing of
cicadas in the distance—as well as the dull roar of the city, with all its machines
and humans.
I breathed in deep the scent of sunny linen and disinfectant, slowly exhaled,
and got out of the bed. The room wasn't very large, so it took me only a few
steps to reach the southern-facing window. I spread the curtains with my
hands.
The western sun was blinding. I squinted and beheld the massive city below
me. The real world, which continued to function in complex and turbulent ways,
consuming vast resources. The world where I was born.
It filled me with a feeling of return and wholeness yet also a wish to go back
to the other world. Would there ever come a time when I wasn't grappling with
homesickness of some kind again?
There was a faint knock at the door behind me. I called out an invitation to
open the door, turning around to see it slide open and reveal my visitor.
She had long chestnut-brown hair collected into two bundles. She wore a
white knit top, an ice-blue flared skirt, and white mules. I couldn't help but
stare. She looked like the summer sun, lingering in the air.
Three days ago, Asuna had left the hospital ahead of me. She carried a small
bundle of flowers and grinned. "Sorry, I'm a bit late."
"Actually, I just woke up," I said, returning her smile. Asuna walked into the
room, and we embraced. She rubbed my arms and back with her free hand.
"Hmm, still only about ninety percent of the normal Kirito. Are you eating
enough?"
"I am. Tons. It's just going to take a while; I was bedridden for two whole
months," I said with a wince and a shrug. "In better news, I've got a leave date
now. Three days from today."
"Really?!" Asuna's face lit up. She walked over to the flower vase on the side
cabinet. "Then we'll have to celebrate. First in ALO, then in real life."
She deftly changed the water in the vase, took out the wilted flowers, and
added the two new pale-purple roses she'd brought before putting the
container back on the cabinet.
The roses seemed to be doing their best to reach a pure-blue color, but they
weren't quite there yet. I murmured my agreement, staring at the flowers.
I sat on the bed, and Asuna plopped down next to me. Another wave of
homesickness hit me. But it didn't have the same sharp pain that I'd felt
moments ago.
Asuna leaned against me, so I put my arm around her shoulder and let my
mind wander through distant memories.
On the day we'd been left behind in the Underworld as it plunged into the
maximum-acceleration phase, we'd flown off the World's End Altar with its
abundance of flowers, crossed the black deserts and strange reddish rocks, and
first rejoined the Human Guardian Army at the ancient ruins where the last
battle had taken place.
Already Klein, Agil, Lisbeth, and the other players from the real world were
gone. They'd been booted off the simulation when the acceleration resumed.
I calmed down the weeping Tiese and Ronie, then got an introduction to the
young Integrity Knight named Renly, courtesy of Sortiliena. He and I reformed
the group, then led them back north along the path until we reached the
Eastern Gate again.
Vice Commander Fanatio, Deusolbert, and the apprentice knights Fizel and
Linel were still stationed there at the gate. We shared a nervous reunion, and I
also met the knight named Sheyta for the first time. She gave me a message
from a man called Iskahn, who was the champion of the pugilists and temporary
commander of the Dark Army.
He said that the Dark Army would be pulling back to the Imperial Palace far to
the east, and once the surviving generals had finished cleaning up and
reorganizing after the war, they would come seeking peace with the human
army in one month's time. Sheyta volunteered for the role of envoy. Once she
had left on her gray dragon for the east, the remaining members of the Human
Guardian Army resumed marching back to Centoria.
Somehow, the people at the towns and villages on the return trip already
knew that peace had arrived. We received great cheers and welcomes from
local residents wherever we went.
When the trip to Centoria was finished, the days passed in a blur. We helped
Fanatio, now the highest-ranking Integrity Knight in the wake of Bercouli's
passing, to rebuild the Axiom Church, offer reparations to the families of the
soldiers who had died in the war, and rebuff the attempts of the four imperial
families and other high nobles to seize power in the chaos and vacuum of the
postwar order. A month passed by in a flash.
When we returned to the site of the Eastern Gate for the peace talks, Asuna
and I were introduced to Iskahn, who was now the official commander of the
Dark Army.
The warrior was a bit younger than I was, with fiery-red hair. He said to me,
"You're the brother of Leafa, the Green Swordswoman? I hear you cut Emperor
Vecta in two. Not that I doubt your story…but let me test you with just a single
punch."
And for some reason, Iskahn and I decked each other in the cheek, right there
in the midst of peace talks. He seemed satisfied by it, though. Then he said,
"Yeah…you're tougher than the emperor…and even me. I hate to admit it, but I
will…You're the…first…"
That was where my memory cuts off.
The next scene I could recall was waking up on the STL's gel bed as Takeru
Higa announced, "I've finished the process of deleting your memory."
According to Dr. Rinko Koujiro, from the day that we established peace in the
Underworld, Asuna and I had apparently remained active for two hundred
years, well beyond the capacity of the fluctlight. But I couldn't recall a thing
about what we did during all those years or how we avoided the destruction of
our fluctlights. Even more frightening, I had completely forgotten the
conversation I'd had with Higa and Kikuoka right after waking up in Roppongi.
The same was true for Asuna. But she just gave me one of her usual fluffy
smiles and said, "Knowing you, I'm sure you stuck your head into all kinds of
squabbles and had to go on the run from the advances of girls everywhere."
That sapped any interest I had in trying to remember, but no matter what, the
painful sense of loneliness never went away. That was because as the
Underworld ran (in real time) to this very moment, Fanatio, Renly, and the
other Integrity Knights; Iskahn and the dark lords; and Ronie, Tiese, Sortiliena,
and Miss Azurica were no longer alive…
Asuna sensed what I was thinking and whispered, "It's all right. Your memory
might have vanished, but the memories still linger."
That's right, Kirito. Don't cry…Stay cool, said a tiny, familiar voice deep in my
ear.
The voice was right. Memories weren't saved only in the areas of the brain
dedicated to storing information. They were a part of the fluctlight network
that spread across all the cells of the body.
I blinked to blot away the tears in my eyes and caressed Asuna's hair. "Yes.
I'm sure…I'm sure we'll see them again someday."
A few minutes of gentle, silent tranquility passed. The sunlight began to color
and darken against the white wall. Every now and then, the shadows of birds
returning to the nest crossed its surface.
It was another knock on the door that broke the silence.
I looked over, curious; there weren't any scheduled visitors at this hour.
Eventually, I let go of Asuna's shoulder and said, "Come in."
The door slid open, right as a familiar—and obnoxious—voice said, "Well,
well, I hear you're going to be released soon, Kirito! We'll have to throw you a
party— Oh! Oops! Am I interrupting something?"
I sighed and replied, "I'm not going to demand you tell me how you already
know my discharge schedule when Miss Aki just told me about it…Mr. Kikuoka."
The former Ministry of Internal Affairs Virtual Division official, former Ground
SDF lieutenant colonel, and former commanding officer of the fake company
Rath was thankfully not wearing the same hideous shirt he'd had on the other
day. Seijirou Kikuoka slipped into the hospital room.
He was dressed in a sharp, expensive suit with a necktie, despite the summer
heat. His short hair was in perfect order, and there wasn't a drop of sweat on
the skin behind his narrow, frameless glasses. From every angle, he was an elite
businessman working at a foreign capital firm—if not for his usual smirk and the
cheap paper bag he was carrying.
Kikuoka lifted the bag and said, "This is for you. We need you to build up your
strength again. I was really thinking hard about what to get you, but Dr. Rinko
demanded that I bring you proper store-bought products. At any rate, to get
your energy back, you need fermented food—that's a must. So I've got a grab
bag here. First is some salted and fermented goldfish sushi from Lake Biwa, and
they're hard to find, because they don't catch many anymore. Then there's
some fermented tofu from Okinawa. That's perfect with some aged awamori to
drink. But the best is the cheese—and it's no ordinary cheese. This is superfancy washed-rind cheese straight from France called Époisses! They wash it in
marc every day during a long aging process, until it begins to support a
wonderful array of microorganisms on its surface, giving it the most stunning
bouquet of—"
"The refrigerator's over there," I said, pointing to the corner of the room to
stop Kikuoka from going on.
"Huh? Why?"
"Thanks for the souvenirs. The fridge is over there."
"C'mon—let's open them up."
"The windows are sealed! What do you think will happen if you open all that
stuff in here?"
There was already a peculiar fragrance coming from the paper bag, and Asuna
began to inch away with a look of terror on her face.
"I think it smells nice…Also, I know I keep saying this, but you don't have to be
so stuffy around me. It feels awkward," Kikuoka said casually, sticking his food
in the refrigerator and moving to the chair for guests.
The grin returned to his face. He crossed one leg over the other and steepled
his fingers atop them. "I'm really very glad about all of this. I mean, you were in
a physically comatose state ever since the Death Gun accomplice attacked you
at the end of June. I suppose it's a sign of your youth that you're doing this well
after just a single week of PT."
"Well…uh…I suppose I should thank you for the help," I admitted, crossing my
arms. It was the STL's fluctlight-stimulation therapy that had helped heal me
when I fell into cardiac arrest after the attack. This man had used a falsified
ambulance to ferry me from the hospital to a helicopter that took me all the
way to the Ocean Turtle, out at sea near the Izu Islands.
I understood why he couldn't use official methods. I needed STL treatment at
the soonest possible moment, and Rath was a secret organization that couldn't
be made public. If anything, Kikuoka deserved my full gratitude for going to
such dangerous lengths to save my life.
And yet…
"…Mr. Kikuoka, when I dived into the Underworld the second time, and I
woke up in that little northern village without having my memory blocked—was
that really an unexpected accident?"
"Of course," Kikuoka said, his smile waning. "There would have been no point
to dropping the real-world you into the Underworld. It would have
contaminated the simulation. In reality, of course, Yanai had already corrupted
it, and you ended up putting the world back on the proper track…"
"To think that someone who worked for Sugou was hiding in plain sight at
Rath," I said, glancing over at Asuna. She was rubbing the back of her arms with
disgust, this time over something other than smells.
"It gives me chills to think that I was in a dive for hours while that slug-man
was in the next room over. And then he shot Mr. Higa…I wish that we could
have arrested him and forced him to admit to all his crimes…"
"It may have been for the best that he died that way, actually," Kikuoka said
quietly. "If Yanai had met up with the attackers like they planned and managed
to flee to America, I can't imagine that his clients in the NSA and Glowgen
Defense Systems would have kept their agreement with him. If anything, they'd
probably use whatever means necessary to make him spill everything he knew
about the STL and artificial fluctlights, and then they'd dispose of him. No one
man can hold his own against the darker side of the American military
business."
"Is that why you're officially dead, Mr. Kikuoka?"
"You could say that," he said, admitting that when it came to facing a massive
enemy alone, playing possum was the obvious choice.
Asuna was concerned about his aloof manner, given the very serious topic.
"What are you planning to do next? Dr. Rinko's been put in charge as Rath's
public face. You can't really hang out around the Roppongi office anymore, can
you?"
"No need to worry. There are still many things for me to do. For now, I need
to pour all my efforts into securing the Ocean Turtle and the Underworld."
That was the topic I wanted to know about most, and I leaned forward with
interest. "Yes, that! What's going to happen to the Underworld now…?"
"We can't be too optimistic about the current momentum," Kikuoka said,
rearranging his legs and looking out the window. "The Ocean Turtle is still in the
Izu Islands, anchored and locked down. There are only a few people on board to
maintain and protect the reactor. There are defense ships patrolling the area
constantly…which all sounds good, but that's just a holding pattern. The
country doesn't know what to do next."
"In all honesty, the government would love to immediately shut down Rath,
or the 'Oceanic Resource Exploration & Research Institution,' and assume
control of all artificial fluctlight tech. If you mass-produced them, you could
create all the ultra-low-cost labor you would ever need. Even the biggest
factories on mainland Asia couldn't keep up. But if they do that, it will
retroactively reveal the truth of the assault on the float. It would be a massive
scandal—an attack by the NSA and American military contractors, with the
acting administrative vice-minister of defense taking dirty money to delay a
military response for twenty-four hours. That money also trickled to Diet
representatives of the ruling party—men who have financial connections to
major domestic weapons companies. If all of this goes public, it will rattle the
current administration to its core."
But despite the force of his words, Kikuoka's expression was anxious.
"Rattle…That's it?"
"Exactly. It will rattle them but probably not be enough to overturn them
entirely…The party will simply decide to cut loose the vice-minister and a few
Diet members. Rath will be dismantled, and its property will be absorbed by
one of the major zaibatsu conglomerates. Alice will be taken, and there's no
way they won't reinitialize the Lightcube Cluster on the Ocean Turtle…"
"No…no, they can't!" cried Asuna. Her hazel eyes flashed with righteous fury.
I pressed my fingers against her arm and urged Kikuoka to continue. "You've
got a plan in mind for how to head this situation off, don't you?"
"It's not a plan…as much as a hope," Kikuoka said. His smile had a rare
honesty to it. "The hope is that while the government grapples internally with
the decision, we are able to formulate an effective public argument…That's it. In
other words, to convince people that artificial fluctlights deserve human rights.
And to do that, we need as many real people in the real world as possible to
have as much contact with artificials as possible. That, in fact, is the very
purpose of The Seed Nexus, you might say."
"…Yeah…I see."
"But for that to be feasible, the Underworlders will need high-capacity
connections to The Seed Nexus first. The government shut down the satellite
connection on the Ocean Turtle. I'm going to try to get that restored next. We
took the initiative with that press conference. That's given us a bit of time to
work with for now."
"The connection…," I murmured, gazing at the orange sky outside the
window.
Beyond the sunset were countless communication satellites, each traveling its
own orbit. But only a few of them would have the kind of throughput needed to
communicate with the Underworld. I didn't have to think about it very hard to
understand that Kikuoka's plan was going to be tremendously difficult.
But now that it had come to this, there was nothing that a mere high school
student like me could do. My only option was to have faith and leave it in morecapable hands.
I turned away from the window, took a step forward, and bowed my head.
"Mr. Kikuoka…please. Please save the Underworld."
"You don't need to ask me," Kikuoka said, standing and smiling. "The
Underworld is a dream I'm willing to put my life on the line for, too."
Former lieutenant colonel Seijirou Kikuoka left as quickly as he arrived,
leaving behind his tempting bag of delicacies.
Asuna exhaled and said, "His statements and attitude are very bold and
reassuring…but I guess it wouldn't be Mr. Kikuoka if I didn't feel like there was
something else behind it…"
"Oh, I'm sure there's more. Several layers." I chuckled, sitting back down on
the bed. "Despite what he says, I'm sure that he hasn't given up on the idea of
giving the SDF domestic jet fighters with artificial fluctlights for pilots."
"Wh-what?!"
"Of course, he wouldn't think of forcing AI to operate them without free will
—not anymore. But what if the Underworlders voluntarily agree to serve? The
Integrity Knights and dark knights are born to be warriors, for example."
"Oh…that's true…Hmm."
While Asuna pondered that, I got to thinking as well. What was Seijirou
Kikuoka's true intention? It was probably something I couldn't even imagine at
this point. Something vast and distant beyond the boundaries of government
and national defense, something like Akihiko Kayaba's vision…
"Ah! Oh no! Look at the time!"
"Hmm? Visiting hours don't end soon…"
"No, I mean…it's today! The meeting of the nine fairy leaders of ALO!"
"Oh…that's right," I said, clapping my hands together.
In the invasion of the Ocean Turtle last month, about two thousand Japanese
VRMMO players had attempted to fight back against PoH's plot to insert a large
number of foreign players into the Underworld, by converting their own avatars
in a suicide rescue operation. Except for a few hundred survivors, all the rest of
those characters had died.
Today there was going to be a major meeting within ALO for the purpose of
revealing the full truth to those players who had served as heroic volunteers.
Since Asuna and I were in the center of that whole situation, we had to be in
attendance, of course.
"Hmm, I don't think I have time to get all the way home," Asuna said, rather
unconvincingly, and pulled an AmuSphere unit right out of the tote bag she was
holding. "Guess I'll just have to dive from here."
"…"
I blinked a few times and noted, "Um, Asuna…it would seem to me that you
fully intended to do this…"
"Oh, no, this was just a precaution. Let's not get hung up on minor details!"
she insisted. Then she smiled and suddenly flopped onto the bed on top of me.
Despite being alarmed at the thought of what would happen if Miss Aki came in
to take my temperature, I put my arm around her waist and squeezed.
The only sound in the silence was our breathing.
There was no way for us to know how we'd gotten through two hundred
years in the Underworld—longer than the supposed limit of the fluctlight itself.
Perhaps, like Administrator, we'd spent a very long time sleeping, or perhaps
we'd been able to manipulate the STL from within to continually organize our
memories. But one thing I could say for certain: I made it back to the real world
only because Asuna was at my side.
I thought I could hear her voice through our skin contact.
No matter what world we're in or how much time passes…we'll always be
together…
"Yeah…that's right," I said out loud, stroking Asuna's hair as she beamed. I
placed the AmuSphere over her head.
Once the harness was locked, I did the same with my own.
We shared a look, nodded, and spoke our command together.
"Link Start!"
5
"Papa!!"
A small person leaped onto me the moment I logged in to ALO. I caught her
with both hands, lifting her high up first, then clutching her to my chest. She
rubbed her cheek against me, purring like a cat.
Yui was an advanced AI of the top-down variety—and my adopted daughter
with Asuna. Since I'd been allowed to use an AmuSphere for a week now, I'd
been seeing her every day. It seemed like she was more needy and affectionate
each time I saw her.
I wasn't going to scold her for that, of course. Yui had helped track down my
location after I vanished, predicted that the people who attacked the Ocean
Turtle were going to use VRMMO players from other countries, and helped set
up countermeasures. She'd played a massive role.
Once she had gotten her fill of physical contact, her childlike form in the white
dress vanished in a burst of light, replaced by a palm-sized pixie. She fluttered
translucent wings and rose to alight on my left shoulder, her favorite seat.
I took another look around my house: the log house on the twenty-second
floor of New Aincrad within ALO. This place, too, I had visited every night, and
the wave of nostalgia it gave me hadn't dimmed yet.
Perhaps it was because it was a bit similar to the cottage on the outskirts of
Rulid in the Underworld where I had lived with Alice for half a year. At the time,
I was in a largely unconscious state, so my memories of it were vague, but the
gentleness of that period of time still lingered in my heart.
Alice's sister, Selka, had come with food just about every day. Apparently, she
had chosen to be frozen long-term so that she could see Alice again one day,
and that was the one thing I had told Alice before my memories were deleted.
Since then, Alice had been awaiting an opportunity to return to the
Underworld, although she did not speak of this. I wanted to make it come true
for her. But as of this moment, the Ocean Turtle was on lockdown near the Izu
Islands, and there was no satellite connection to reach it. We could only wait for
Kikuoka's plan to bear fruit.
I sighed, putting the thought out of my head, and turned around, Yui still
sitting on my shoulder. Asuna met my gaze with a gentle, all-knowing smile. The
blue-haired girl took my hand and led me out of the house.
Alfheim's curtain of night was beginning to fade. We spread our fairy wings
and took flight into the first rays of sun peeking through the outer aperture.
Many players were already together at the open space before the massive
dome at the roots of the World Tree. I spotted a group of familiar faces and
sped over to land among them.
"You're late, Kirito!"
I lifted my fist to strike Klein's incoming knuckles, which shot at me the
moment I made contact with the ground. The katana user was grinning, wearing
his usual ugly bandana. "You can't go teleporting around here, so you gotta give
yourself more time for travel, hero!" he teased.
"That wasn't teleportation. It was ultra-high-speed flight."
"Same damn thing!!"
He smacked me on the back. Next to him, Agil unfolded his arms and
extended a huge fist toward me. I gave him a knuckle salute, and the bearded
man smirked and added, "Did you get too used to that superpowered
character, and now you've gone on us? We can give you a little refresher after
the meeting."
"Ugh," I grunted guiltily. If I fought in ALO now, I would probably forget I
didn't have Incarnation attacks and element generation, and I would end up
trying to block sword blows by yelling at them.
"A-actually, you'd better prepare yourself, because I've got some Underworld
tricks you haven't seen yet," I bluffed back. Then I turned and saw Leafa, her
long ponytail glimmering in the morning sun, and Sinon, who was smiling with a
huge bow slung over her shoulder. We traded quick high fives.
I'd seen both of them several times since waking up, too, of course. Leafa—
Suguha—told me how she'd saved Lilpilin, chief of the orcs, and fought at his
side. I rubbed her head and told her she did well, and she scrunched up her face
and cried. It was hard for me to reconcile that with the mental image of the
furious Green Swordswoman whom the Dark Territory soldiers would go on to
speak of in legend. But at the same time, I could totally buy it. Suguha was the
one who'd continued with kendo long after I'd dropped out. She was a true
devotee of the sword, unlike me.
At the peace talks, the orcs announced that they would wait eternally for the
return of the one they called the Green Swordswoman. I was certain that even
now, two hundred years later, that tradition was continuing strong.
Sinon described her one-on-one combat with Gabriel Miller in brief terms and
revealed that he was none other than Subtilizer, who'd defeated her in the
fourth Bullet of Bullets tournament. Gabriel's Incarnation attacks numbed her
and nearly sucked her mind away, except that her good-luck charm protected
her—and she wouldn't tell me what that was when I asked.
I told her about the path of my battle with Gabriel, too, as well as the fate of
the man in the real world. After the attackers fled in their submersible, Gabriel
and the other enemy—PoH, leader of Laughing Coffin—were not found in the
STL room, but the STL logs told some of the story.
After Gabriel Miller's duel with me, the majority of his fluctlight was lost in
the pressure of a tremendous flood of information. His heart stopped
immediately after that; he was surely dead.
PoH's situation was a bit more complex. His mental activity was retained for
about ten years of internal time after the maximum-acceleration phase began.
From that point on, his fluctlight activity lowered over time, until he essentially
lost all conscious thought around the thirty-year mark.
It was frightening to consider, but after I had defeated PoH, I transformed the
structure of his avatar into a simple tree, to prevent him from logging back in to
use it, and left him there. In other words, he spent decades with no sensory
inputs beyond the sensation of "skin." Of course his fluctlight would break
down; Higa said that even if he was physically alive, his mind would no longer
be present.
Although it was only an indirect consequence in each case, I was clearly
responsible for taking their lives. I could accept that sin, but I did not want to
regret it. To do so would be an insult to Administrator, whom I'd also killed, and
the many Underworlders who'd died in the course of acting on their beliefs.
After greeting Sinon and Leafa, I shook hands with Lisbeth and Silica next.
"I heard you were the one who recruited the Japanese players, Liz? I wish I
could've heard that speech," I said.
Lisbeth just chuckled nervously. "Speech? Oh, gosh, it wasn't anything that
fancy. Honestly, I wasn't even conscious of what I was saying…"
"It was amazing!" Silica interjected. "Her speech was masterful!" Lisbeth
grabbed her triangular animal ears and pulled.
"Thank you, too, Silica," I said, bowing to the little beast-tamer. She grinned,
revealing small, sharp fangs.
"Um, in that case, give me a present," she said, rushing to hug me. Her little
blue dragon, Pina, trilled and leaped off her shoulder to land on my head.
"Hey, you! What do you think you're doing?" Lisbeth demanded, pulling
Silica's tail this time. The smaller girl let out a bizarre yelp like "Hgyuh!" sending
the others into fits of laughter.
There were several groups of players nearby, in fact. Lady Sakuya and the
sylphs. Alicia Rue and the cait siths. Eugene and the salamanders. Plus Siune,
Jun, and the Sleeping Knights.
I'm back.
It was the strongest I'd ever felt that statement to be true since waking up in
Rath's Roppongi office.
This wasn't a complete and total happy ending, not at all. The route back to
the Underworld was unclear at best; repairing the damage in online relations
with American, Chinese, and Korean VRMMO players was crucial; and there
were other problems beyond that.
Lisbeth hung on my other arm in playful competition with Silica. I asked her
quietly, "Do you think there's any way to get back the items that were lost in
the Underworld?"
"Oh…um…"
Her cheerful face clouded over a bit. Thankfully, the accounts of the players
who'd converted over from ALO, GGO, and other Seed worlds hadn't been
totally lost after death, and they were able to convert back to their original
VRMMOs.
Unfortunately, however, their weapons and armor that were destroyed or
stolen in the battle did not come back. As they'd gone in with their finest gear,
these were items that could not be easily replaced, and Lisbeth was leading a
group of players negotiating with the operators of the different VRMMOs to try
to find a way to restore that data.
"Most of the developers have a hands-off stance that says, if you lost items as
a result of conversion, it's your own responsibility. But Mr. Higa from Rath says
that if the data is still on the Underworld server, it might be recoverable, so I
asked him to check that out when he can. That just means waiting for the
connection to come back online…"
"I see…I'm sure Higa will find a way to work it out. And…what about the
Chinese and Korean players…?"
"It's a very bad situation," Lisbeth said, looking gloomy. "It was a really awful
battle…But people are agreeing that we bear some responsibility for things
being that bad before the incident. I mean, The Seed Nexus cuts off all
connections from outside Japan. There's some discussion about opening ALO as
a means of facilitating talks with them. I'm sure it'll be a topic of debate today."
"That sounds good. Walls can make relations worse, but the reverse is never
true," I replied, thinking of the End Mountains, which had separated the human
realm and the dark realm in the Underworld for hundreds of years.
I gazed at the hazy horizon of Alfheim for a while, then turned back to the
roots of the World Tree. The marble gates were wide open now, ushering the
players into the dome within.
"C'mon—let's go," I said to my friends. But before I could take a step toward
the doors, I noticed a flashing icon that indicated I was getting a voice-chat
signal from outside ALO. "Oops, I'm getting a call. You guys go ahead."
Asuna and the others continued onward while I took a few steps in the other
direction and tapped the icon. "Hello?"
A very familiar voice answered. "Kirito…it's me…Alice."
"Alice! Hey…it's been a while. I heard that you were coming to the meeting in
Alfheim, too…"
"I'm sorry…I can't. This party isn't going to be ending anytime soon…Tell
everyone that I'm sorry."
"…Okay," I murmured.
But I was a bit perturbed. As the first true artificial general intelligence, Alice
was put on a busy schedule that had her in attendance at receptions and parties
every single day in an attempt to place her at the forefront of society's
attention. Dr. Koujiro apologized for it, and Alice seemed to know that she
didn't really have a choice anyway, but I knew there was no way the proud
knight would enjoy being treated like some sideshow.
"All right, I'll let everyone know. Don't hold it in too much, Alice. If you don't
like something, let them know."
"…I am a knight. I exist to fulfill my duty," she said rigidly, although not with
her usual crispness. Still, there was very little that I could do for her at this point
in time.
"Well, Kirito…until later."
"All right…talk to you then," I replied, waiting for her to disconnect the call.
Instead, there was a brief silence, and then I heard her say faintly, "Kirito…I
feel…as though I may wither away."
The voice chat disconnected before I could answer.