Chapter 1

"This way, Ronie!"

She turned and rose on tiptoe, looking in the direction of the voice, and soon

saw fiery-red hair bouncing up and down from across the crowd.

Ronie made her way through the mass of arts casters and staff members from

Central Cathedral, apologizing all the while. Some of them turned to her in

annoyance, but they all leaped back out of the way in alarm when they noticed

Tsukigake running behind her.

Only when she finally slipped through to the very front did Ronie exhale in

relief.

"You're so late! It's about to start!" her red-haired friend fumed, cheeks

puffing with indignation.

"I'm sorry," Ronie apologized one last time. "I just couldn't pick out what to

wear…"

"You couldn't pick out…? You're wearing the same thing you always do!"

Tiese Schtrinen exclaimed in disbelief.

Like Ronie, Tiese was an apprentice Integrity Knight. Her glinting maple-red

eyes were close in tint to her hair, and she wore a navy-blue skirt and a cute

printed top that hugged her slender torso. A red leather scabbard hung from

her waist, but even that was more like an accessory to complete her outfit.

Ronie realized with regret that she should have worn the southern-made

shawl she'd bought last week. On the other side of her friend, Tiese's own

dragon, Shimosaki, was rubbing snouts with Tsukigake. Nearby, a young man

was watching the display with a gentle smile.

His appearance was closer to a boy than a man, but on his sword belt was

quite an impressive longsword, as well as two throwing blades that were bent

in the middle. The priority level exuding from the sword was considerable, but it

was nothing compared to the throwing weapons. They looked as thin as paper,

but they were divine weapons, a class of item that could be found only in tiny

numbers throughout the entire world.

Ronie raised her right fist level to her chest and placed her left hand on the

hilt of her sword, the formal knight's salute. "Good morning, Sir Renly."

The Integrity Knight Renly Synthesis Twenty-Seven smiled awkwardly at them

over the heads of the dragons. "Good morning, Ronie…You don't have to be so

stuffy today. It's a festival, after all."

"You call this…a festival?" she wondered. It was February 17th of the year 382

of the Human Era, a perfectly ordinary day on the calendar. There wasn't a

single sentence about any celebrations on this day in either the Basic Human

Law issued last year or the Taboo Index, which was presently under

modification.

But a look around the spacious front plaza of Central Cathedral revealed a

crowd that was so large, it might have contained the entire faculty of the tower.

Everyone was in a celebratory mood, holding drinks and snacking on food.

Also, the front gate of the cathedral, which was typically closed tight, was

open to the people of the capital today. Impromptu standing spaces designated

along the inside of the gate were packed with a crowd of at least a thousand

onlookers.

"…Yes, I suppose you can't call it anything but a festival," Tiese admitted. "But

we should probably expect this whenever Kiri…whenever the swordsman

delegate does something."

Ronie nodded in agreement. "Of course…I just hope today's events don't

knock down the building…"

The three of them glanced toward the plaza—at the center of attention—

which was very difficult to describe.

The object was tied down with thin yellow ropes in the middle of the white

stone plaza, floating in the block of square-shaped sky a hundred mels to a side

and howling eerily as the wind passed by it. The simplest description would be

to call it a metallic dragon sculpture.

But as a sign that it wasn't just some art installation, the upper half of its

pointed head was made of clear glass. Short wings were attached to either side

of its rather long, flat body, and rather than legs, two thick cylinders extended

from its enlarged rump. There was no tail.

The object was about five mels in size, standing up so that the cylinders

pointed down, and had orange flames licking out of the rump. It was impossible

to say exactly what it was supposed to be.

…All I can say for certain is that I get a very bad feeling from it, Ronie thought.

She tore her eyes from the metal dragon and looked at the three people

nearby.

One of them—a young swordswoman with long chestnut-brown hair that

rustled in the breeze and a rapier to the left of her pearl-white skirt—turned to

Ronie, sensing her eyes. She grinned and raised her right hand to beckon the

girl over.

"Go on—she's calling," said Tiese with a grin, prodding Ronie's back. The girl

hesitated briefly before summoning her courage and stepping over the yellow

rope in front of her. Tsukigake followed her, as always.

Trying to make herself as small as possible, aware that the crowd was

watching, Ronie trotted across the open space and came to a stop in front of

the swordswoman, giving another crisp and diligent salute.

"Good morning, Swordswoman Subdelegate."

"Good morning, Ronie. Because today is similar to a festival day, you can go

ahead and relax a little bit," said the breathtakingly beautiful young woman

with a smile. Ronie let the tension in her shoulders ease a little.

"…Yes, Lady Asuna."

"You don't have to do the whole 'Lady' thing, I keep telling you." The other

woman pouted. Unfortunately, it was still a very difficult request to oblige.

The woman before her—who looked only a few years older than Ronie—was

Asuna, swordswoman subdelegate to the Human Unification Council. And in

some ways, she was an even more exalted person than the delegate himself.

Every person in the human realm believed that she was the Goddess of

Creation Stacia reborn, one of the three goddesses from the world's creation

legend.

She herself steadfastly denied being a god in human flesh, but Ronie had

witnessed in person, at close range, the sight of Asuna creating a tremendous

ravine in the earth with a single swing of her sword during the War of the

Underworld. After seeing something like that, calling her anything less than

Lady was unthinkable.

If they added a rule to the knighthood's rule book that "no formal address

should be recognized," that would settle the matter. But until then, she was

going to continue no matter what, and she shook her trembling head to

indicate as much. Asuna grimaced awkwardly and changed the subject.

"Anyway, Ronie. I understand that when it comes to sacred arts, you're best

with heat elements. Is that right?"

"Y-yes," she answered, surprised. Asuna leaned in closer to whisper.

"In that case, I have a request. Can you commune with the heat elements in

there and give me a warning if they're about to go haywire?"

"Wh-what…? Heat elements…in there?" Ronie repeated in confusion, not

certain what exactly Asuna was referring to. She looked up at the metallic

dragon high above, then noticed two men nearby in an argument.

"…Listen to me, Kiri, my boy. The heat element canisters' life might be

capable of theoretically withstanding the heat that is generated, but only if

there is an ample supply of frost elements! I know you're not skilled at frost

arts, so let me be clear that if the generation of elements stops for even a

moment, the whole canister could blow at once!" shouted a whiskered fiftysomething man. His words did not mean anything to Ronie, but they sounded

dangerous.

Ronie knew this man well; he was Sadore, a metalworker who was said to be

the best at his profession in all of Centoria. He'd worked in the city for many

years, until he began to assist the knighthood during the Rebellion of the Four

Empires, when he was named arsenal master of Central Cathedral.

Across from Master Sadore, looking sullen from the browbeating, was a

young man of very average looks, with black hair and eyes.

He was wearing odd gray clothes, like a long-sleeved top with trousers

connected to it. There were no weapons at his sides. Brown-gloved hands were

clenched behind his head as he argued back at Sadore with annoyance.

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard that so many times, I feel like I've got pester-bugs in

my ears. Also, sir, can you stop with the 'Kiri, my boy' thing already?"

"Hmph. I'll never stop. Ever since you brought me that hideously tough

branch three years ago and made me ruin six valuable blackbrick grindstones to

hone that blade, I swore to myself that I'd call you 'boy' for the rest of eternity."

"Sheesh…If I didn't have that sword, the world would be in a terrible state

right about now, you know…" Muttering to himself, the young man abruptly

spun around and spotted Ronie.

As soon as she saw the big smile break out on that face, which looked as

much like a rambunctious child's as it had the day she'd first met him, Ronie felt

something clenching her chest, deep down.

She bowed so that if it showed on her face, at least he wouldn't see. "Good

morning, Kirito."

She would've called him "Sir," too, but in his case, there really was an official

rule against calling him that. So Ronie had no choice but to refer to him as her

senior, the way she had when they were both students at the academy.

Kirito had once been an Elite Disciple at the North Centoria Imperial

Swordcraft Academy, and now he was the swordsman delegate to the Human

Unification Council. He raised a hand to wave and smiled. "Heya, Ronie! How ya

doin', Tsukigake?"

Behind Ronie, the juvenile dragon trilled loudly and flapped its tiny wings,

then leaped onto Kirito and began to lick his cheeks with abandon. She couldn't

help but smile at that.

Then Ronie said to the arsenal master, "Good morning, Master."

"Ah, morning, Miss Ronie," the old man said, his expression instantly

morphing into a soft, beaming smile. She scuttled over to him and asked gently,

"Um…what was that…heat-canister thing you were talking about?"

"Just what it sounds like. Look at the rump of Dragoncraft Prototype Unit One

up there."

"Dragon…craft?" she repeated. It was clear from context that he was referring

to the metallic dragon standing before them.

It felt strange for her to refer to this lifeless creation as a dragon. Upon closer

examination, the odd whistling sound seemed to be coming from the elliptical

rear of the object.

"There are two containers crafted from western adamantium in there, and

each one has ten whole heat elements trapped inside of it."

"Wh-what?!" Ronie yelped, shocked. Of the eight different elements that

made up sacred arts, heat was the most tempestuous. Unlike frost or wind

elements, which could be contained safely for quite a while, heat elements

would quickly exude their heat and light and burn up in mere moments. The

very first lesson that any child studying sacred arts learned was that if you

summoned a heat element, you had to focus on it until you applied or

unleashed its power.

"B-but…I know adamantium is supposed to be highly heat resistant, but

wouldn't being exposed to ten whole heat elements at once cause it to

eventually melt and explode…?"

"That's where the trick comes in. On the exterior of the container, we run

pipes made of Jorund-giant-centipede shell, which is highly frost resistant.

Those pipes are hooked to frost canisters that supply a steady stream of cold

that is designed to prevent the heat canisters from melting down, see."

"...Uh…huh..."

It was hard for Ronie to appreciate the "trick," because to her, heat and frost

elements were the building blocks of godly sacred arts—a far cry from the

crafting of metal and carapace that blacksmiths and craftspeople performed.

She had never once considered the concept of combining those two very

different things.

"...And is that…going to work…?" she murmured in shock.

Sadore's burly arms spread to his sides in a shrug. "I don't know."

"What?!"

"I'm not the one riding in it—the boy is."

"Whaaaat?!"

What does he mean, "riding in it"? She lifted her face toward the looming

dragoncraft, almost afraid of what she would see.

Then she noticed, in the part of the pointed head beneath the clear glass

pane, what was inarguably a seat. Metal pipes sprawled and writhed around

the seat, and little circular panels were placed here and there with tick marks

on them. Thin needles were attached to the center of the panels, twitching and

turning with each strange roar the craft produced.

"…D-do you mean…someone's going to sit in there…and release the heat

elements…to cause flames to shoot out of the rump canisters…to…"

"To fly, yes. Like a dragon," said Kirito, who had rejoined them. Nearby,

Tsukigake snorted with distaste at the smell of the craft's metal wings.

"Y…y-y-you can't do this!!" she shouted, tugging on the sleeve of Kirito's

strange outfit. "If twenty heat elements all go out of control at the same time,

it'll rupture this whole thing! Y-you should use wind elements, like the levitating

disc in the cathedral."

"Actually, that whole shaft is airtight, which is how there's enough pressure

from the wind elements alone to make it work. If you want to fly out in the

open air, you need the sheer propulsive power of a heat element's explosion,"

Kirito said, grinning and looking around. "Plus, look how many people are here

to watch. If we try to call it off now, we'll have a second rebellion on our

hands."

"Y-you're the one who invited them all to watch!!"

The crowd was here at the Central Cathedral front plaza because Kirito had

made a major proclamation that the cathedral's arsenal would be performing a

test demonstration for the public.

Now that peace had come to the Underworld, the biggest uproar to be found

was whatever the human realm's swordsman delegate was getting up to next.

The faculty members and citizens had quite enjoyed the test revival of the

northern cave's guardian dragon, so it was only natural for them to be eager

about the next experiment.

If Kirito's conversation with the revived dragon had gone any worse than it

had, the damage would have been far worse than just a few of the cathedral's

trees freezing. Ronie knew how close they had come, and the thought made her

lose her balance.

Thankfully, the subdelegate was right behind her to provide stability. Asuna

had known Kirito for a long time, apparently, and she said with all-seeing

resignation, "There's no point in arguing, Ronie. When he gets this way, you just

have to let him go through with it."

"B-but…you can't…Well…I suppose you're right…," Ronie mourned, pausing in

the act of shaking her head to nod it instead. In these few years, Ronie had

learned full well that when Kirito had his mind set on something, he was going

to do it one way or another.

Well, we might as well do everything we can to avoid a terrible disaster, she

thought, focusing on the heart of the dragoncraft.

While she was an apprentice Integrity Knight, Ronie had not yet reached the

point of free control over the secret art of the knighthood known as

Incarnation. Shortening sacred arts to a minimal length through Incarnation the

way that Kirito and the senior knights did was impossible for her, but lately she

was getting the knack of sensing the status of generated elements, at least.

Like Master Sadore had said, there were many heat elements trapped inside

the dragoncraft. But that didn't mean they were behaving themselves. They

shivered and trembled with indignation, pulsating as they awaited their chance

to break right through the shell around them.

If they were this unruly in their elemental state, what would happen if they

were unleashed? The thought sent a shiver down her spine—but at this point,

all she could do was watch and wait.

"Um…I've communed with the heat elements, Lady Asuna. It appears that

they are still under control for now," she reported at a murmur.

"Thanks," Asuna whispered back. "Maintain that circuit, then."

"I w-will," Ronie stated, right as she heard Kirito shout from a distance:

"Let's get started, then! Asuna, give me a countdown!"

"Wh-why does it have to be me?!"

"You always did one before we busted into the boss chambers, remember?"

Kirito said, which didn't make any sense to Ronie. But Asuna understood and

shook her head in disbelief.

She raised her hand and uttered the initiation of a sacred art: "System Call!"

Next, she smoothly built the command for a voice-enlarging art out of wind

and crystal elements. Asuna's control over Incarnation was still developing, but

as far as practical application of sacred arts went, even the most elite members

of the cathedral couldn't hold a candle to her.

Asuna faced the thin funnel-shaped swirl of glass floating in the air and said

loudly and clearly, "Thank you for your patience and interest, everyone! The

Central Cathedral arsenal is about to conduct a flight test of Dragoncraft

Prototype One!"

Her magnified voice filled the area, eliciting a roar from the cathedral faculty

beyond the ropes and the civilians crowded into the spectator area inside the

gate. To the north, the armor of the Integrity Knights gleamed and sparkled in

the sun from the large terrace on the thirtieth floor of the building itself.

Amid the applause and cheers, Kirito waved to the onlookers and began to

climb the long ladder leading up to the dragoncraft. He reached the head in just

seconds, opened part of the clear glass panel, and slid inside.

Kirito sat in the seat that pointed up toward the sky and strapped himself

down with strips of leather. There was rather large eyewear hanging around his

neck, and he brought it up to wrap around his head. Then he leaned over to

look at Sadore down below and pointed his thumb upward.

Sadore retreated to where Ronie and Asuna were standing, then ushered

them back another twenty-plus mels. Ronie had to gauge the distance carefully,

so as not to lose her connection to the heat elements.

"I will now begin the countdown! Feel free to join in, everyone!" Asuna

announced to the crowd, as comfortably as if she were used to doing this. She

raised her hands and extended all her fingers.

"Here goes! Ten! Nine! Eight!"

With each number, she folded in a finger, and the throng of thousands added

their voices to the chorus. Tiese and Renly were happily joining in, too.

Ronie squeezed Tsukigake around the neck and chanted, "Seven! Six! Five!"

Suddenly, the vibrating of the heat elements increased. Kirito had begun

controlling them directly through Incarnation. His astonishing power flowed

into Ronie, too, through the elements with which she was communing.

Once again, there was a clenching sensation deep within her chest.

This feeling is the one thing I cannot let leave me. As his page, I have to let it

sleep quietly, until the day my life eventually dwindles due to old age.

Ronie could feel her eyes welling up, and she blinked hard, keeping the

emotion away from Asuna's attention nearby, as she shouted, "Four! Three!

Two!"

Hwirrrrr! The roaring of the dragoncraft grew louder and louder. The shining

silver object began to shudder, and the light coming from the tubes at its base

changed from red to orange to yellow.

"One…Zero!!" the crowd cheered, shaking the cobblestones. Kirito's voice

could be heard distantly shouting, "Discharge!!"

That was the word to release the power of the elements.

At once, twenty heat elements burst, releasing the power they contained.

There was a tremendous blast, and white flames shot from the rear of the

dragoncraft. It burned the white marble stone that supposedly held nearinfinite life to the point of turning red, sending up plumes of bright smoke. The

crowd buzzed with alarm.

And through all that smoke, the metal dragon shot upward like a silver arrow.

The sky was full of a high-pitched tearing sound the likes of which Ronie had

never heard before. Jets of fire were roaring from the two tubes as the

dragoncraft soared higher and higher into the air.

The ferocity of the unleashed heat elements was so great that when Ronie

held her palms out, the sensation stung her skin. Ordinarily, any container

holding that kind of phenomenal heat would lose its life value instantly, melting

or burning away. The dragoncraft should have exploded. But because the

narrow piping embedded around the canisters was pumping ultracold frost

elements through at all times, the heat was contained. As a result, the

incredible power of the heat elements was funneled directly toward the open

end of the tubes, pushing the huge dragoncraft straight upward.

For the first time in the history of the Underworld, a person was flying

through the sky on something other than a dragon.

"...It's incredible…"

Tears appeared in Ronie's eyes for a different reason than they had moments

earlier.

Through her blotted vision, the silver dragoncraft shot up and up, seemingly

cresting beyond even the top of Central Cathedral.

If the dragoncraft stayed in one spot on the ground, the requirements to

generate endless frost elements would quickly sap all the spatial sacred

resources nearby, but moving at high speed meant the craft would consistently

be traveling just fast enough to stay within an adequate supply of fresh new

resources. That meant that—hypothetically—the man-made dragon could

reach heights that even an ordinary dragon could not approach.

At last, Ronie felt as though she understood the true intention of the

swordsman delegate. Kirito wasn't just trying to get that thing to fly—he might

be trying to use it to cross the obstacle that no living thing could surpass: the

Wall at the End of the World…

But no sooner had the thought occurred to Ronie than she sensed the heat

elements expanding.

The canisters were beginning to warp. The heat was melting them. For

whatever reason, the supply of frost elements meant to keep the metal's

temperature low had stalled.

"Ah! Lady Asuna! The heat elements—," she cried, but then there was an ugly

sound from above—bowumm!—and black smoke began to issue from one of

the thruster tubes.

The dragoncraft abruptly entered a rotational spin as it rose. The course of

the object drifted southward—right toward the wall of Central Cathedral,

around the ninety-fifth floor.

"It's going to hit!!" screamed Ronie, clutching her hands to her chest. The

crowd shrieked with alarm.

Shang!! Asuna drew the rapier from the sheath at her side. She pointed the

breathtaking blade, shining with Solus's rainbow light, straight at the cathedral

above.

"…Okeydoke!" she cried, which did not sound like the sort of thing a god

would say, and she waved the tip of the sword to the left.

As though she'd just dragged it herself, the ninety-fifth floor and those above

it in the enormous Central Cathedral shifted loudly and heavily to the west.

In the span of a single moment, the dragoncraft shot through the space this

created, black smoke trailing behind it.

There was a bright flash in the sky far to the south.

Then came the explosion.

Although some of the power had no doubt been expended in the upward

flight of the dragoncraft, the simultaneous eruption of twenty heat elements

was nonetheless a tremendous thing to behold.

Because elements could ordinarily be controlled by only one finger at a time,

even the greatest of casters could manage to generate and maintain only ten

elements at once. According to stories, the head of the senate that had once

controlled the Axiom Church could also use his toes, for a total of twenty

elements. The late pontifex, Administrator, could even use the ends of her hair

as terminal points, giving her command of nearly a hundred elements at once—

but of course, Ronie had never seen those things for herself.

If that was true for a knight like Ronie, then the civilians who had packed

themselves into the cathedral were understandably shocked. An orange light

like a second Solus flashed high above, and an earth-trembling roar hit their

ears as nearly the entire crowd lifted up their arms to cover their heads.

Of course, it was only unprocessed heat elements bursting high up in the air,

so despite the eye-popping light and sound, there was no actual damage to the

people hundreds of mels below on the ground.

The onlookers slowly looked back up and saw thick black smoke puffing

outward, hiding the top of the cathedral, which had slid back into its rightful

place.

The explosion had been several times the size of the fireworks that had been

shot off to celebrate the new year two months earlier. Everyone must have

wondered what had happened to the swordsman delegate who was riding that

steel dragon. Ronie was one of them, of course, and she watched wide-eyed,

with her hands clutched before her breast.

"K—!"

She was about to shout his name when Asuna tapped her on the shoulder.

"He's all right," the other girl said, without a hint of worry, just as a small

shape plummeted right through the bottom of the thick black smoke cloud.

It was a person. All the material making up the dragoncraft had evaporated

into spatial sacred resources, but there wasn't a single visible burn mark on the

dark clothing of the figure who spun and tumbled downward.

The silhouette spread its arms. The fabric of the sleeves seemed to melt

behind it, forming thin wings that extended directly from the shoulders. Those

dragon-like wings beat a few times, slowing the figure's descent until it

eventually came to a standstill in the air.

It appeared to be the sacred art of flying, thought to be lost forever with the

death of the pontifex. But in fact, this was not an art. He had overwritten the

ways of the world entirely, using Incarnation to transform the material of his

clothes into actual wings and turn himself into a living being capable of flight.

There was no other human being in existence who could achieve this feat. A

murmur rippled through the watching crowd, and it quickly turned into a

tremendous storm of applause.

The dragoncraft flight test, which had been the purpose of this event, had

largely been a failure, but Kirito smiled and waved as he slowly descended

toward the ground. Ronie found herself clapping wildly at the sight of him, too.

Kirito's ability to put preposterous ideas into motion and achieve preposterous

results had not changed in the years she had known him.

Despite the fact that she was smiling, Ronie could sense liquid pooling at the

edges of her eyes. She clenched her eyelids shut and wiped the tears away,

making a silent prayer for no one's ears but her own.

If possible, I hope that these days can last for eternity