Chapter 3

With lunch on the ninety-fifth floor concluded, Ronie returned to her private

room on the twenty-second floor. As her best friend tried to slip through the

shared space into her own room, she called out to her.

"Oh, Tiese, I was going to ask you how you made that sheaf of papers you

carry around with—"

"Notebook."

"What?"

"I'm going to call it a notebook in the sacred tongue. It's shorter that way.

And I think it suits it better," Tiese proclaimed, pulling out her notebook to

show it off. Ronie gave her a searching look.

"…What, Ronie? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Oh, no reason. It's fine…It's just that if you keep using every new sacred

word you've just learned, Sir Deusolbert is eventually going to grumble about

you and say something like 'Young people these days…'"

"Well, then I can teach him what they mean."

"That's not my point…Anyway! Can you show me how you made it?" Ronie

insisted. She didn't want her friend to pull too far ahead of her and leave her

behind.

Tiese smirked and clutched her booklet to her chest. "Of course I can, but I'll

warn you, it was pretty difficult to bind such thick hemp paper together like

this…"

"…Fine. I'll give you one raspberry tart from Honis's Bakery."

"Deal," Tiese said solemnly, pulling out a sheet of folded paper from her other

pocket. Based on the flimsiness and color, this was normal paper, not white

hemp, but nevertheless, it was crammed with tiny writing.

"There. Kind, considerate Tiese has already written down the instructions to

create a notebook for poor, helpless Ronie. The most important part is using

thread that is fine but tough."

"…Th-thanks…"

Ronie took the paper, surprised. Tiese must have created this little sheet—

called a memo in the sacred tongue, if she recalled correctly—for her sake a

while ago.

"Thank you, Tiese," she repeated, firmly this time, taking her friend's hand in

both of hers. Now it was Tiese's turn to blink a few times in surprise. She

laughed awkwardly.

Now that Ronie knew how it was made, she wanted to rush right down to the

paper-processing room on the twelfth floor to get a scrap of the new stock, but

sadly, that would have to wait. She changed into her knight's uniform to go out,

put her gray cloak around her shoulders, and joined her friend in heading

downstairs.

They left the main doors on the ground level, the gentle afternoon sun

warming their skin. The February breeze was cold, but you could sense that it

was getting balmier with each successive day.

After crossing the neatly laid white tiles of the entry plaza, they walked over

the grassy lawn in a southwest direction. Normally, they'd go to their juvenile

dragons, Tsukigake and Shimosaki, at the stables and spend time with them

until the evening, but that would have to wait today. They had a very important

duty to perform first.

The girls rushed on until the spacious lawn turned into a fruit garden lined

with trees. Of course, nearly all the trees were bare in this season, but there

was such a variety here that even winter fruit like black apples and ice figs were

available. A sweet scent wafted through the area.

Despite just having eaten a very filling lunch, they had to resist the urge to

pluck just one of the rare figs, light blue and translucent, on their way through

the trees, until at last a huge wall came into view before them. It was the

marble wall that separated the Central Cathedral grounds from the rest of the

world.

Near the corner where the south wall and western wall met, Kirito and Asuna

were already waiting for them. They wore plain brown cloaks and waved their

hands when they saw the girls approaching. Ronie and Tiese rushed the last few

dozen mels and came to a screeching halt with their heads bowed.

"We're sorry we kept you waiting."

"It's fine; we just got here ourselves," Asuna reassured.

Kirito smirked and added, "We jumped down out of the cathedral and saw

you below us."

Apparently, while they'd been running, Kirito used his ability to fly with

Incarnation to zip past them through the air. If I can't do it with Incarnation, I

want to at least learn how to fly with wind elements, Ronie swore to herself.

"So, um…why did you choose this as our meeting place?" she asked, looking

around.

Their destination was in the middle of South Centoria, which would require

them to pass through the gate that was in the middle of the cathedral's

southern wall. But this was the corner where the two marble walls met, with no

form of passage anywhere to be seen.

Maybe we're going to use some hidden doorway I wasn't aware of? she

wondered.

But Kirito just shrugged. "Opening and closing the main gate causes a scene…

There will be a bunch of visitors in the square just beyond the gate at this hour,

so there's no way to get past without drawing attention to ourselves."

"Then why don't we fly like the other time?" asked Tiese hopefully. Four days

ago, when word of the murder in South Centoria had first arrived, Kirito had

picked up Ronie under his arm and flown through the air from the terrace at the

top of the cathedral, using wind elements to reach their destination. The trip

took less than a minute, and flying unsupported through the open air was a

thrilling experience. You couldn't blame Tiese for being excited.

But Kirito just grimaced and shook his head. "Actually, that draws plenty of

attention, too," he said, then quickly added, "but I was thinking we might test

out a secret shortcut today."

"S-secret shortcut?" Tiese repeated, too surprised to feel disappointed by his

answer. The swordsman delegate gave her an impish smile and provided no

explanation.

Instead, he raised his arms and said, "Okay, let's all hold hands in a circle."

"…?"

Bemused, Ronie extended her left hand to hold Kirito's and her right hand

toward Tiese. Opposite her, Asuna did the same, looking a bit resigned. The four

of them were now forming a circle.

Then a series of green lights blinked in succession in the center of the circle,

and a strong gust of wind flattened the grass at their feet. Ronie squeezed with

both of her hands instinctively as the wind pressure pushed her into the air

from below.

"Whoa! Whoaaaaaaa!" Tiese shouted, kicking her feet. But she did not return

to the ground; they continued to rise at a speed of about one mel per second.

Even Ronie, who was a bit more familiar with Kirito's nature than her friend,

held her breath at this unfamiliar experience, but she had enough presence of

mind to watch what was happening. The wind elements burst beneath them

again and again, creating powerful gusts of wind, yet the branches of the trees

around them merely swayed as if in a gentle breeze. Further examination told

her there was a very faint rainbow sheen surrounding their circle. That was the

light of Incarnation—most likely, Kirito was using his knight's skill of Incarnate

Arms to form a cylindrical, transparent wall around them that blocked the wind,

forcing the unleashed wind elements into a strong upward current that was

lifting them vertically. It operated on the same principles as the elevating disc

inside the cathedral.

Despite her initial panic, in less than ten seconds, Tiese had regained her

poise, and she swung her head around to look at the sights. "Ha-ha! This is

amazing, Ronie! We're flying!" she marveled.

"Be careful, Tiese; don't let go of our hands!" Ronie scolded, strengthening

her grip. The four of them were picking up speed now. The ground was far

below, but the white wall that blocked their side view showed no signs of

ending. She looked up with trepidation and saw that the crisp line that marked

the boundary between wall and pale winter sky was still far away.

What if Kirito's concentration lapses, or the spatial sacred power dries up? she

wondered, then forced those thoughts out of her mind and focused on the

space above them. Their ascent continued for twenty more seconds, tilting a bit

diagonally at the end, until they were on top of the wall at last.

Suddenly, the wind pressure vanished, and they promptly dropped about two

mels to land. That wasn't a very tall height when Ronie and Tiese did their pillarbalancing training, but their legs weren't ready for the sudden ground, and they

nearly fell onto their bottoms.

With Kirito's support, Ronie managed to straighten and see what lay just

ahead of them.

She couldn't help but gasp "Ohhh…"

In terms of height, they had only ascended about ten floors of the cathedral—

maybe fifty mels at most. But from the cathedral itself, the city was hazy and

distant, and now it was all laid out before her, close enough to touch. And not

just that—they were standing at the intersection point of the southern and

western walls, and at that same height, the wall continued into infinity in the

southwest direction.

"…We're atop the Everlasting Walls…," Tiese murmured with wonder. Kirito

nodded.

The Everlasting Walls: the white-marble wonders that split Centoria into

cardinal quadrants—and all of the territory that extended beyond the city as

well. The walls were not built by stonemasons stacking blocks but through the

divine work of Administrator, supposedly in a single night.

From the external corners of Central Cathedral, the walls continued all the

way to the distant End Mountains, which surrounded the lands of humankind, a

distance of 750 kilors. Like their name suggested, they were essentially

indestructible and impervious to everything. The Taboo Index forbade climbing

them or harming them, so no one would have attempted to cause damage, but

Ronie was certainly violating the other taboo.

While she might have been freed from the Taboo Index when she became an

apprentice Integrity Knight, that didn't erase the years of fear and reverence for

those rules. Ronie found herself standing on her tiptoes to lessen the trespass

she was committing. She looked down at her feet.

The marble was stacked and arranged without so much as a milice of space

between any block, and despite hundreds of years of exposure to wind and

rain, it shone as smooth as if it had just been polished. The nearby corner of the

wall was as sharp as a blade's edge, defying any who would be rebellious

enough to attempt to scale it.

Just then, she heard the light fluttering of wings. Overhead, two pale-blue

birds descended upon the top of the wall. They hopped back and forth atop the

marble, staring at Ronie with beady black eyes.

"…Hee-hee. I guess the Taboo Index doesn't have any effect on birds," Asuna

remarked. The tension went out of Ronie's neck and shoulders; she looked at

her best friend, and the two of them laughed.

She looked at the city below again and said, "Oh, I see…You want to move

atop the wall until we reach the inn in the fourth district of South Centoria,

right?"

Kirito turned to her and grinned. "Correct. They can't see us walking up here

from below, so once we find a good place to jump down, it'll be surprisingly

easy to avoid notice from the citizens, you'll find."

"From the way you say that, I take it you've done it before?" Asuna noted

promptly, causing Kirito's eyes to bulge briefly. He cleared his throat

awkwardly.

"Er, w-well, you know, confirming your escape route is the bedrock of

strategy, so…Anyway, let's hurry," he said, rushing away. Asuna shook her head

in exasperation, but she and the girls followed nonetheless.

The Everlasting Walls, which split the human realm into four pieces, each had

their own unofficial names.

The northeast Spring Wall separated Norlangarth and Eastavarieth. The

southeast Summer Wall separated Eastavarieth and Sothercrois. The southwest

Autumn Wall separated Sothercrois and Wesdarath. And the northwest Winter

Wall separated Wesdarath and Norlangarth.

Not even Fanatio and Deusolbert, the oldest of the Integrity Knights, knew

how the four walls wound up with this unified naming scheme. Until the Human

Unification Council started up, the Everlasting Walls were absolutely inviolable

national boundaries, and the citizens of the four regions of Centoria were

basically prevented from mingling. The only ones who could traverse the single

gate in each wall were traders or wealthy tourists who had passes that

authorized such travel.

The regulations about using the gates had been greatly relaxed, but it still

wasn't completely free. That was because the aftershocks of the Rebellion of

the Four Empires had not entirely settled yet. Somewhere in the realm, the

remainders of the Imperial Knights who fought back against the Axiom Church

still lurked, possibly following orders from the emperors. Yazen's murder and

Leazetta's kidnapping might have even been their work.

Ronie considered these things as she walked atop the Autumn Wall. The wall

was four mels wide, so as long as she didn't get too close to the edge, there was

no worry about slipping, and no one could see them from the ground. Soon the

cold winds blew her concerns away, leaving her mind empty of all thoughts

except taking in the sight of the city around her.

On the left side of the wall was South Centoria, with its buildings made of

reddish sandstone, and on the right was West Centoria, where the homes were

constructed of blackish slate. Separated by a single wall, the cities were wildly

different not just in color but in decoration and design. In South Centoria, the

red rock was cut in clean squares that stacked up with plenty of space, creating

an air of openness, while in West Centoria, the delicate sheets of slate were

reinforced and rearranged, with precisely fitted roofs covered in tiles like

dragon scales, with all the care and complexity of fine art.

According to Kirito, the four Centorias didn't just look different, their food

was completely distinct from one another as well. Ronie and Tiese could go

anywhere throughout the four quadrants if they wanted, but they felt a bit self-

conscious about doing so, and when they went into the city, it was always to

their home of North Centoria.

Perhaps it wasn't right for the Integrity Knights sworn to protect the entire

four empires to show such favoritism, Ronie was going to tell Tiese, when Kirito

stopped them short.

"The fourth district is right around here…I wonder where that inn is…," he

muttered, looking over South Centoria. Ronie turned to her left to examine the

reddish-brown town beneath her.

Inn, inn, inn, she thought, gazing at the city, until she realized she hadn't

actually visited the inn where the crime occurred. By the time the report had

reached the cathedral four days ago, Oroi the mountain goblin was already held

at the city guard's office on suspicion of the murder, so Kirito had gone straight

there.

"Um…Kirito, did you bring us here without actually knowing where the inn

is?" Ronie asked quietly. He looked away and kind of sort of nodded.

"Erm, w-well, I suppose so. But you know, there's going to be a sign that says

INN, so I figured we could see it from above…"

"When you have an entire city's worth of buildings down there, there's no

guarantee we'll just conveniently spot the one sign we need!" Tiese snapped,

quite reasonably. Kirito turned a different direction this time and mumbled that

she was right. Asuna shook her head once again, then pulled out a folded piece

of hemp paper from her cloak.

This one, of course, wasn't holding baked goods inside. It unfolded to reveal a

map. And this one was much more detailed than the kind sold in the city. It had

details not just about each street, but even individual buildings.

"Whoa…where'd you get that?" Kirito wondered.

Asuna turned to him with a smug expression and said, "Soness happened to

find a collection of maps while sorting through the library, and she copied it

between study sessions. She said that the original map book wasn't drawn by

hand, but the previous scribe had created it through some mystery arts."

"…Ah…the previous one…," murmured Kirito, looking momentarily pained,

but it passed quickly, and he leaned closer to examine Asuna's map. "Let's see.

So this is the fourth district…and this is that street. Which would mean the inn is

around here…"

He straightened and looked at the eastern side of the wall they stood upon.

"Oh, it's probably on the north end of that intersection there. Thanks, Asuna,"

he said, expressing his gratitude with a word in the sacred tongue.

"You're welcome," the subdelegate replied in the common language instead.

She folded the map and put it back into her cloak.

Now they knew their destination, but that didn't solve all their problems.

They had to descend a fifty-mel wall into the city without attracting the notice

of any citizens. And if they used wind elements the way they did to get up in the

first place, they would absolutely be spotted.

Ronie looked to Kirito, wondering what his plan was. The swordsman walked

to the edge and peered over the side.

"Okay, nobody's down there. I'll go first. Once I give the signal, you guys jump

down."

"Jeeee?!" Tiese screeched mysteriously. Kirito just thrust out his fist with a

thumbs-up, then leaped over the side of the wall. His brown cloak vanished in

moments, leaving the three women with nothing but a dry breeze for company.

After several seconds, they hadn't heard any huge crashes from below, so

Ronie joined Asuna and Tiese at the edge of the wall, and they peered down.

There on the street, an entire fifty mels below, stood Kirito, casually waving at

them.

"Good grief…," Asuna muttered. She held out her hands toward Ronie and

Tiese.

"I swear I'm going to learn how to fly," Tiese promised, a mirror of Ronie's

thoughts earlier, taking Asuna's hand. Ronie gave up and grabbed the other

one. It was stunningly fragile, her skin as smooth as the finest silk, and just a

little bit warm. Asuna squeezed Ronie's hand back, and the next second, with

just as much boldness as Kirito had shown the first time, Asuna leaped off the

marble wall.

The moment of floating weightlessness lasted only an instant, after which the

three plummeted like rocks. The wind howled in their ears. Ronie wanted to

scream, but she had to grit her teeth to fight the urge, lest someone hear them

falling.

Even an apprentice Integrity Knight wasn't going to survive a fifty-mel fall

onto hard stone tiles. I'm trusting you, Kirito! she screamed inwardly.

Just at that moment, right near where they were going to land, Kirito lifted his

hands to form a bowl shape. Suddenly, it felt like something invisible was softly

enveloping her body. Her falling speed slowed, and the howling of the wind

quieted down. Kirito had used Incarnate Arms to grab the three of them.

It was said that even the senior Integrity Knights could do no more than move

a single dagger, but he had just slowed down three people in a free fall—a

tremendous use of Incarnation that was surprising despite his many prior

exhibitions. Kirito spread his hands open when they were just ten cens off the

ground, and they plopped downward to the surface. All three of them exhaled

deeply, and Ronie quickly turned against her former tutor.

"Um, Kirito, if you could do this all along, what was the point of using the

wind elements on the way up…?"

"Well, catching something falling and something flying straight upward are

completely different levels of difficulty to imagine. Just on my own, I have to

transform my clothes into wings so I can fly with Incarnation…," he said,

shrugging.

"I want to jump down on my own next time!" Tiese cut in. "Please teach me

how to use the wind elements like that!"

"Huh?! Th-that's not as easy as it looks…B-but I guess it's good to be

ambitious. Anyway, let's hurry and get to that inn," Kirito said, without actually

replying to her request. He started walking north, but Asuna grabbed him by

the back of the collar.

"Wrong direction, Kirito."

They turned left down the darkened alley in the shadow of the Everlasting

Wall, and once they were on the wider street, there were suddenly more

people around. It was February, so you'd figure that long cloaks wouldn't be a

rare sight outdoors, but the South Centorians were dressed surprisingly light.

North Centoria wasn't even a single kilor away, so the temperature couldn't

change that much, but for some reason, the sunlight shining on the sandstone

city seemed warmer than it did at Central Cathedral.

Fortunately, no guards stopped them, so the four were able to cross the

fourth district of South Centoria to arrive at the inn in question.

It was a very large three-story building, explaining how they were able to host

so many visitors from the Dark Territory with an inexpensive nightly cost, as

listed on a sign at the front entrance. Kirito pulled back the hood of his cloak,

gave a brief glance to the red sandstone exterior of the inn, then opened the

door without a second thought. A high-pitched bell rang.

"Welcome!" cried an energetic voice.

The owner of the voice, a woman who looked only a little older than Ronie,

stood behind a long counter on the other side of the entrance lobby. Her

reddish hair was tied up with a dark-green scarf, and she wore an apron of the

same color.

As Kirito approached the counter, she smiled and asked, "Are you staying?

Party of four?"

"Uhhh," he mumbled at first, then nodded. "Yeah. Four. Just for the one

night."

"That can certainly be arranged. Will you be staying in just one room?"

"Yes, same room. Preferably on the second floor."

Ronie assumed that he was going to identify himself and demand her

assistance in the investigation, so this initial conversation left her surprised.

Within moments, he had rented a room, paid six hundred shia for it, and they

were led up to the second floor.

They'd been given a corner room on the southeast side of the building, where

much of Solus's light filtered in through large windows. There was a large,

round table with a selection of fruit on top, and four beds were lined up in a

row along the back wall.

After a detailed explanation of the room's features, the innkeeper bowed

deeply and left. Tiese promptly exclaimed, "I've never been in an inn outside of

Norlangarth before! The way the room feels and the way the furniture looks are

completely different from the north!"

"Tiese, we're not here to have a good time," Ronie scolded her friend, then

turned to Kirito. "Um…what are you planning to do now? This isn't the actual

room where it happened, is it…?"

"No, I would assume not. But there's a way for us to figure out which room it

was. Let's take a break for now, though," Kirito replied, stretching luxuriously.

Asuna took off her cloak and shook out her long hair. "I'll prepare some tea,"

she added, heading for a cupboard in a corner of the room. Ronie trotted after

her to help.

According to the innkeeper's explanation, if they wanted hot water, they

should visit the dining room on the first floor and bring it back, but Asuna

ignored that, pouring some cold water from the pitcher into the teapot and

generating a single heat element with an easy incantation.

Heating up room-temperature water was one of the fundamental lessons of

sacred arts, but there was a trick to it. Simply dropping the heat element into

the water would cause an immediate reaction on the surface of the water,

boiling it away into steam without actually raising the temperature of the

remaining water much. There was another step needed to effectively transfer

the element's heat into water.

A proper sacred artician would use a valuable reagent from Sothercrois called

a firesucker stone to absorb the heat element and then place the stone in the

water. You could also just lift the container and hold the heat element below it

until the water boiled, but that took time. Ronie watched the swordswoman

subdelegate, wondering what she would do. Asuna's first step was to generate

two steel elements.

Using steel to form a sphere was a good idea as a replacement for a firesucker

stone, but unlike the stones, which instantly absorbed a heat element, a metal

sphere did not heat up that easily. And of course, unlike a sacred element,

metal balls did not float in the air, so they required a support while heating.

Something convenient like tongs or a spoon would do, but using another tool

aside from the medium was considered uncouth. The best use of sacred arts

was when its task was completed from element generation to command,

without anything extra involved. Many artificers liked to create a tiny whirlwind

with a wind element to float the ball, fusing fire with the wind—it looked flashy,

too—but triple-element arts were difficult, as was controlling the whirlwind,

and any loss of concentration could easily fill a room with flying sparks.

I'd better be ready to neutralize any flames with frost elements, Ronie told

herself. Meanwhile, Asuna stilled the heat element with her right hand and

controlled the steel elements with her left, bringing them closer to the heat.

Just when it seemed as though the two would react, sending hot droplets of

metal spraying everywhere, Asuna uttered a command Ronie did not recognize.

"Form Element, Hollow Sphere Shape!"

The two steel elements fused into one, transforming into a sphere about

three cens in diameter. As soon as the weightless elements turned into actual

steel, gravity pulled the object to splash into the teapot.

"Um…Lady Asuna, where is the heat element…?" Ronie wondered. Looking

around, she couldn't spot the element, which should have been somewhere in

the air. Asuna prodded her with an elbow and pointed at the ceramic pot.

Ronie leaned over and saw, at the bottom of the water inside, the ball of steel

glowing red. Little bubbles formed through the water around it, and steam was

beginning to rise from the surface.

"You mean…the heat element is inside that ball?"

"That's right. I made a hollow sphere with the steel elements and trapped the

heat element inside."

"I didn't know you could do that…," Ronie murmured in amazement. The

water in the pot was now bubbling away, nearly at a full boil.

Normally, to create a hollow ball out of steel elements, you had to make a

solid one with the Sphere Shape command, then use the Enlarge command

while heating it up. But this was difficult to control, would easily break, and

couldn't be filled with anything if you actually succeeded.

But if you could create a hollow ball from the start and simply form it around

the spot in the air where the heat element was waiting, you could trap it inside.

That was safer and more effective than cooking the steel ball over a flaming

whirlwind.

"That…That sacred word you used…Hollow? Is that something you

discovered…?" Ronie asked, marveling at this new idea.

But the subdelegate just shook her head. "No, Alice was an expert at empty

spheres, and she taught the command to Ayuha and no one else. It was Ayuha

who told me."

"Lady Alice…" Ronie was again speechless.

In the Otherworld War, Ronie had the chance to speak with the Osmanthus

Knight, Alice Synthesis Thirty, on a number of occasions. What was most

memorable of all was the night they spent in the tent with Asuna and General

Serlut in front of the sleeping Kirito, trading stories. But just as vivid was the

memory of Alice's terrifying wide-ranging light-element attack that fried the

Dark Army in an instant during the battle to defend the Eastern Gate.

As someone who could use a few arts of her own, Ronie sometimes

wondered what kind of command could produce so much power. It wasn't

something an apprentice knight like herself could know, of course, but she

could imagine something like a countless number of light elements being

accumulated somehow, then unleashed all at once. If the secret to that art lay

in the Hollow Sphere Shape command, then it made sense that she wouldn't

teach it to anyone else but Ayuha.

"Ummm…It wasn't a bad thing that I overheard it, was it?" she asked

hesitantly. Asuna just smiled at her.

"It's fine. I think Ayuha trusted me…She felt I wouldn't misuse it. So when the

time comes, you can tell that command to someone you trust, too."

"...I will...I will," Ronie repeated, feeling something hot surging up inside

her chest.

Just then, Kirito peered over her shoulder. Very much contrary to the emotion

of the moment, he noted, "Man, you're doing it the slow way…If you want to

boil water, just shoot two or three fire arrows into a basin, and—"

"You do realize that if you do that, the entire room's going to fill up with

steam!" Tiese interrupted. Asuna and Ronie laughed.

They were relaxing and enjoying the red tea, apparently a product of the

southern empire, when the two o'clock bells rang outside. The melody was the

same as in North Centoria—and even in the Dark Territory, for that matter—but

the tone felt lighter and crisper. Before the resonance of the melody had died

out, Kirito was already on his feet, looking toward the door.

"Okay. The break period for this inn's employees is two to two thirty, and all

the cleaners gather in the spare room downstairs. The guests should all be out

sightseeing and shopping, so there won't be anyone in the hallway."

"…How do you know that?" Asuna asked him. Kirito explained that he'd asked

during checkin.

Approaching the door, he cracked it open and peered out, then nodded and

beckoned them over. It wasn't clear what he was going to do, which was

worrisome, but their only choice was to trust that he wouldn't do anything too

crazy indoors.

He walked through the doorway and headed north, away from the stairs,

checking each door on the right-hand side as he went. The fourth door featured

a piece of parchment paper pinned up that read Not currently in use. Above it

was a metal plate with the number 211 carved into it.

"This is it," Kirito murmured. Asuna nodded back. It was the room where

Yazen the cleaner had been killed.

The swordsman delegate reached for the brass handle, but he stopped short

for some reason. Then he raised his hand up to his face and stared closely at his

fingertips.

"…What are you doing, Kirito?" Ronie asked quietly. He mumbled something

nondescript but nothing else. Asuna leaned closer to him and whispered, "Don't

worry, I'm sure they don't model down to unique fingerprints." He seemed to

accept this and grabbed the doorknob this time.

He turned it left and right, but it was locked, of course. What now? Kirito

stared at the keyhole—and a few seconds later, there was a sound of metal

clinking and unlocking.

"Oh no…You can do that with Incarnation?" Tiese wondered in half

amazement and half annoyance.

Kirito just shrugged. "The keys and locks of this world aren't actual

mechanical devices; they're system-based…er…I'll explain it to you one day."

Tiese did not look satisfied with that vague answer, but given the

circumstances, she wasn't going to bother him any further. Kirito grabbed the

knob again, and this time, it turned all the way, opening the door. He peered

through, then pushed it wider and motioned for the rest to go through.

After Asuna had entered, Ronie saw that it was a very ordinary two-person

room. There was only one window on the eastern wall, with beds on either

side, and across from them, a table just a bit smaller than the one they'd been

drinking tea around moments ago.

There was nothing immediately out of place about this room. If anything, the

only differences were the lack of fresh fruit on the table and the fact that the

curtains were closed. But Ronie could feel that this was the scene of a murder

by the way her skin crawled.

Kirito was the last to go inside, and he shut the door behind him. Asuna

turned back to him from near the table and nodded.

"…You're sure this is safe, Asuna?" he asked, worried. Ronie felt the same

way, and she was sure Tiese did, too.

Ayuha Furia, captain of the sacred artificers brigade, said that the art of pastscrying, discovered just yesterday, was too much strain. As one of the greatest

wielders of sacred arts in the world, if she said so, then even Asuna with her

godly power would not find it easy to attempt.

But Asuna simply gave him one of her usual gentle smiles and said, "Yes, it'll

be fine. We have to find whoever did this and catch them. It's what we owe

Oroi for keeping him prisoner…and for poor Yazen."

Her voice was warm but encompassed a core of iron resolve. She took a

folded-up piece of hemp paper from the leather bag hanging from her simple

knight's sword belt. It featured many lines of very fine writing in the sacred

tongue.

"...All right. Go ahead," Kirito answered briefly, full of trust. He gave the

others a signal and backed up against the wall.

Asuna stood in the center of the room, reading the words on the paper in

silence for most of a minute, then folded up the paper carefully and returned it

to her bag. Apparently, she'd already memorized the words and was just giving

it one last refresher.

It was true that when it came to sacred arts, reading them off of a piece of

paper and chanting the commands from memory made a huge difference in

success rate, precision, and power. Kirito said that was because the power of

Incarnation played a part in sacred arts, too. So memorizing a sacred art was

always the baseline assumption, but when Asuna started to recite the pastscrying art, Ronie was stunned at how much longer it was than she suspected.

She understood the first step—generating crystal elements to create a thin

round disc—but every sacred word after that was new to her and totally

indecipherable. But Asuna recited them anyway, her voice lilting and flowing

like she was singing.

Suddenly, the room went dark.

"…!"

Tiese gasped and grabbed Ronie's sleeve. The darkness was as amorphous as

mist, flowing along the ground and chilling their legs where it touched them.

Asuna's voice started to darken, too, and she briefly paused. Her upper body

swayed. Kirito moved toward her but paused as well. The recitation resumed,

and the darkness grew thicker.

Then the crystal disc resting on the table abruptly floated in silence. An eerie

purple light shone out from it, lighting up Asuna's face from below.

Her expression was tense, fighting against pain; it made Ronie bite her lip. She

wanted to help, but the formula was only Asuna's to speak. Yet, this was a

divine act she was attempting, to see into the past. A secret of secrets that

Administrator had created—and locked deep behind the senate's door…

Asuna swayed again and reached for the disc with both hands. With each

twitch of her slender fingers, the purple light glowing from the surface flickered

unevenly.

Then, out of nowhere, there was a voice, distorted and alien, like it came

from underneath the very earth.

"…ou are…eror's priv…serf Yaz…n't you…?"

It was a man's voice—that was all she could tell. Then came another man's

voice, this one hesitant and nervous.

"A-ah…no, I'm…not…holding's tena…anym…"

"…ce a serf…ways a serf…If you don't like that, then…," said the first man's

voice, suddenly growing clearer and crueler, "…die right here and now!"

There was a dull, heavy thud, and the second man screamed.

Then the crystal disc shattered into a million tiny pieces. Asuna started to fall

to the floor. As if by teleportation, Kirito was there, his arms extended to grab

her before she hit the ground.

The four of them left Room 211, which was lit again, and hurried back to their

original room.

Kirito hoisted Asuna up on his shoulder and helped lay her down on one of

the beds.

"I-I'm all right," she said hastily, trying to get up, but he pressed down on her

shoulders and turned to look at Ronie.

"Can you get her a cup of water?"

"S-sure, right away," she said, hurrying to the cupboard to pour some of the

cold water in the pitcher into a glass. Kirito took it from her, lifted Asuna up

slightly, and brought the cup to her lips.

After three separate careful sips, the subdelegate looked at Ronie, slightly

revitalized, and smiled. "Thank you, Ronie."

"It's nothing…," she murmured, looking down. She felt frustrated that this

was the most she could do. Her only course of action was to reassure herself

that there would be a time where she could be of more help.

Asuna's fatigue was not something caused by the loss of her life value, so

sacred arts could not replenish it. Kirito should have known that, but after he

gave Ronie the glass back, he lifted his hand and generated three light elements

without a spoken command. He let them float in the air around Asuna; they lit

her beautiful face and chestnut-brown hair as her eyes closed.

Once released from Kirito's control, the light elements expended all their

meager light in less than a minute, but the faint warmth seemed to give some

life back to Asuna. Her eyes opened just after that.

"Yes…I'm fine."

"Don't tell stories. You should be resting," Kirito admonished.

But she shook her head and sat upright. "No, I have to hurry…"

A tense look crossed his face, and Ronie and Tiese shared a glance.

"…What did you see?" he asked. "Could you find out how the killer evaded

the Taboo Index to murder Yazen?"

She blinked, holding her eyes shut for a moment to be sure, then whispered

hoarsely, "The first thing I saw in the glass disc…was a man cleaning that room. I

think it was Yazen. Then, just in the front of the image, a second man said to

Yazen, 'You are from the emperor's private holdings, the serf Yazen, aren't

you?'"

"The emperor's…private holdings," Kirito repeated in a whisper. She nodded.

"Yes…Yazen started to nod, but then he said, 'No, I'm not the private

holding's tenant anymore.' Then the second person was…almost mocking him

by saying 'Once a serf, always a serf. If you don't like that, then die right here

and now,' and he stabbed Yazen in the chest with a dagger…Yazen fell to the

ground, and the man left the room with the dagger. That was as far as I saw…"

She said nothing more, but no one rushed to fill the ensuing silence.

Even the greatest of artificers could not falsify the events of the past, so this

made it clear that it was not Oroi who had killed Yazen. That was good to know,

but it was undeniable that this also raised more mysteries.

Kirito straightened up from his kneeling position at the side of the bed and

looked around the room. "The man who killed Yazen dropped the bloody

dagger in the hallway, knocked on a nearby door, and disappeared," he

explained. "Oroi the mountain goblin was sleeping in that room, and he got up

and saw the dagger in the hallway and had picked it up to examine it when the

Centorian guards spotted him and arrested him. That's what I think happened

after Yazen's murder."

That made sense to Ronie, but Tiese had some thoughts on the matter: "But,

Kirito, wouldn't that be too early for any guards to arrive? I would think that

from Yazen's murder to the knock on Oroi's door to Oroi picking up the dagger,

it could only have taken a few minutes at most…"

That was a good point. Kirito frowned and puzzled over it.

"True, true. The guards rushed to the inn after the fourth-district guard

station received a civilian report that a demi-human was rampaging with a

blade, I believe. But in fact, Oroi had only picked up the knife and wasn't doing

anything with it. Which would mean the report came from the killer or a

companion of his…And you couldn't see the killer at all, Asuna?" he asked.

She shook her head regretfully. "I couldn't. It was like he was always just

behind the view of the glass disc. Or…in fact…" She paused, mouth partly open,

as though searching for the right word. Then she sighed. "No…I'm sorry, I can't

really explain it."

"You don't have to apologize," Kirito said quickly, approaching her and gently

rubbing her back. "You didn't see the killer, but you did hear his voice, and we

learned some other things, too. Such as…the killer didn't utilize some complex

trick to kill Yazen while evading the Taboo Index's rules. He just stabbed him

right in the heart…"

That was true. Asuna braved danger to use the past-scrying art to find out

how and why the killer attacked Yazen. The "why" part was still unclear, but the

"how" was very simple. No tricks, no cleverness—just a stab from a dagger.

Meaning…

"The killer isn't bound by the Taboo Index," Ronie murmured.

"That's what it means," Kirito agreed, his voice dark and heavy. "Though we

don't know how…"

"About that, actually," Asuna interrupted. The other three looked toward the

bed. The swordswoman subdelegate looked almost entirely recovered now. She

stared at them in turn with eyes the color of tea softened by milk. "I think the

killer's words are the reason he killed…he was able to kill Yazen."

"His words…? 'Once a serf, always a serf'?"

"Yes…What if the reason the killer was able to ignore the Taboo Index is

because Yazen came from the lands privately held by a noble, and he was

subject to judicial authority…?"

"…Oh!" Kirito inhaled sharply. He stared at the window, as though he was

going to see the culprit standing right there. "Then the culprit can kill not just

Yazen, but any of the old former serfs we freed…That's why you said we ought

to hurry."

"Yes…My first thought was that we ought to strike before another person

becomes a victim…but…"

Ronie could tell why Asuna was hesitant to continue speaking. She took a step

forward, barely conscious of it, and said, "There are nearly a thousand former

serfs in the northern empire alone—and four times that in all of the realm…We

can't provide protection or safety for all of them."

Tiese came forward next to her and gestured with her hands. "Plus, not all the

people who were released from servitude stayed in Centoria. Over half left the

capital and chose rural places where they could have their own land, I've heard.

It would take weeks to track them all down…"

"And it's not like this place has a unified census registry," muttered Kirito,

although that term was unfamiliar to Ronie. Asuna joined him in thinking hard,

her brows knit, but after a while, her face shot upward.

"But…the culprit is attempting to start another war between the human and

dark realms, so they wouldn't just be looking for any old former serf to kill.

There's no point in doing it unless they can pin the act on a visitor from the Dark

Territory."

"Meaning we should be protecting…the dark-worlders…?" Tiese asked.

Kirito nodded firmly. "Yes…I was always planning to come to this inn, either

today or tomorrow. I was going to invite Oroi's companions to the cathedral.

It'll probably help ease Oroi's homesickness, too…"

"But there are so many more tourists out there," Ronie added, eliciting a

shrug from him.

"That's true. But fortunately, we have their numbers and inn locations all

recorded, so they'll be much easier to handle than the former serfs. We can't

bring every last one of them to the cathedral, so I think we'll push the schedule

a bit and start sending them home as early as today. If we put together armed

caravans to take them to the Eastern Gate, I don't think the killers will be able

to mess with them."

"Then let's get a move on," said Asuna, slipping her legs over the side of the

bed and standing up. Kirito quickly moved to give her support, but she seemed

to be fine. She still gave him a smile and a quiet word of thanks, however,

before composing herself and getting down to business.

"So…do you know the room where the other three mountain goblins are

staying?"

"Of course. It's a four-person room on the first floor, so it's probably right

below us. There should be a guard on duty in front of the door—half to guard

them, half to keep an eye on them…"

"That's unavoidable. It won't be necessary once they're safely moved to

Central Cathedral. Let's get going," Asuna commanded, quickly walking off. The

others hurried after her.

But when they descended to the first floor, they found only an empty hallway

and a cleaned room. Kirito asked the innkeeper at the counter, and with a

surprised expression, she informed them that a carriage had brought an agent

of the South Centoria city government to the inn that very morning, and it had

taken the three goblins away with it.