Chapter 9

How many minutes—how many hours had passed?

Without a window to look out, being stuck underground where no bells from

Centoria could reach, there was no way to know the present time of day. The

swordsman delegate always said he wanted to produce a clock that could be

carried around, and while he'd been working on that with arsenal-master

Sadore, they were far from being finished.

Each time she heard that, Ronie thought, The bells always tell us the exact

time, so what would be the point of carrying such an item around? But now that

she was in this situation, she had to admit there was a point to it after all.

Plus, the thousands of bells across the human realm all played a melody called

"By the Light of Solus." It was a beautiful song, but knowing that the history of

the Axiom Church was full of so much falsehood made it much more difficult for

Ronie to get into that worshipful mood whenever she heard the hymn play

now.

The arts, such as music, painting, sculpture, and poetry, were still strictly

controlled by the Taboo Index. Only those given the callings to make them

could proceed down the creative path, and the imperial government had to

assess a finished work before it could be unveiled. If the content of the art had

any hint of negative sentiment toward the genesis legend or the Axiom Church,

or was aiming for too vulgar or amusing an effect, they would not be approved.

The swordsman delegate wanted to eliminate that standard's body

immediately, but there were countering votes on the Unification Council—chief

among them being Nergius—so it hadn't happened yet. Ronie found this to be a

tricky topic, but she hoped that someday people could sing what they wanted—

and paint and write the stories they wanted, without being tied to their callings.

But in order to see that world become a reality, she needed to escape this

place alive.

While she was gathering her resolve, a voice that was the utter opposite

grumbled, "Ugh, it's no good…"

Tiese had been attempting to open the lock using Incarnation, but now she

was lying flat on her back on the ground.

"And Kirito opened it just like that…"

The situation was perilous and not a joke, but Ronie couldn't help chuckling at

her friend. "C'mon, you know you can't just repeat what he does like it's easy."

"Yeah, I know…How about you?" Tiese whispered back. Ronie said nothing.

While her partner was attempting to unlock their cell door, Ronie was

studying the wall of the underground prison, but she did not find the hidden

door she was hoping for—or even any sections that might be easier to destroy.

The blocks were made of Norlangarth's special granite, placed without even a

single milice gap between them. An apprentice knight couldn't pull them loose

in silence, and if they tried to destroy any part of the wall or bars with force, the

sound would reach the mansion above.

Tiese sat up at last and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Shimosaki's

okay, right?" she murmured.

It was the fourth time she'd asked that. But Ronie knelt next to her friend,

rubbed her back gently, and said, "He's just fine. You'll see him very soon."

Tiese nodded silently. As she continued to rub, Ronie herself was secretly

worried about Tsukigake.

Between the mansion and the gate to Centoria, it was mostly flat grassland

with a few features here and there and the private imperial plantation. She

didn't think any animals that would attack a baby dragon lived there, but to be

fair, Ronie didn't know that much about the estate. There was no denying the

possibility of unexpected danger, but for now, all Ronie could do was pray that

Tsukigake made the trip safely.

Gods above…

She knew that the celestial realm beyond the clouds and the gods said to

dwell there did not truly exist, but Ronie prayed to them anyway.

…Please give your protection to Tsukigake and Shimosaki.

She heard no reply.

The only sound was that of heavy rocks scraping together.

The left end of the lantern-lit hallway began to part, and the thick stone wall

slowly rose. Ronie and Tiese shot to their feet and backed against the rear wall.

The goblins in the adjacent cell croaked and shrieked.

From the darkness beyond the hidden door came the figure of the robed man

that Emperor Cruiga called Zeppos, as smoothly as ink spilled from the black

void.

The key ring in his right hand jangled as he stepped into the hallway and came

to a stop before Ronie and Tiese's cell. He peered in with a creaky motion,

staring closely at the two girls, then straightened up again without a word. After

that, he took a few more steps down the hall and stopped before the adjacent

cell.

It was probably just a routine patrol, but Ronie carefully approached the iron

bars to watch him. He had selected a key from his ring and was just placing it

into the lock.

The cold, hard click it made was followed by more shrieking from the goblins.

The man opened the door anyway and, in a strangely twisted voice, said, "You

three. Out of the cage."

Instantly, their shrieking stopped. Then a whispery voice asked, "Are you…

letting us out?"

Three seconds later, Zeppos said, "Yes."

Ronie could sense it was a lie. The pause was suspicious, and they'd gone to

great lengths to abduct these goblins from the inn in South Centoria. They

weren't just going to release them now.

But the goblins walked out of the cell without any apparent doubt about his

words.

"Walk past that door," said Zeppos, pointing not to the exit down the right

side of the passageway that led to the surface but to the hidden doorway on

the left. The three began to walk, Zeppos following them to block their escape

route.

When he started to pass the iron bars, Ronie was unable to help herself.

"What are you going to do with those people?"

The goblins came to a stop, apparently completely trusting that they were

about to be freed, and looked at Ronie and Tiese with gazes of confusion and

apology. Behind them, Zeppos barked with laughter.

"Keh-heh…'people,' you call them."

"What's so funny?" demanded Tiese. Zeppos twisted forward to peer into the

cell again. His grin had vanished.

"Once a goblin, always a goblin—no matter how much the world changes."

Those words sounded somehow familiar to Ronie. But before she could place

the memory, Zeppos straightened and barked an order to his prisoners: "Now

walk. Go up the stairs, and I'll let you outside."

The goblins resumed their march, and Zeppos followed them into the

darkness of the hidden door. Four sets of footsteps went up the stone stairs and

faded. Lastly, there was a wooden creaking, and silence returned to the cells.

"...He's not actually releasing them…is he?" Tiese whispered. Ronie had to

agree.

"I think…they finished preparing for something. I don't know what it is…but

I'm sure it's going to involve doing something to those poor goblins," she

whispered.

Tiese bit her lip, her expression worried. "Kirito said the kidnappers might

commit another murder in Centoria and frame the kidnapped goblins for the

act. If that's true…then some innocent soul in Centoria is going to die again."

"...Yes."

Ronie's mind raced. If her partner's conjecture was correct, the kidnappers—

Emperor Cruiga and Zeppos—would commit another atrocity. But who would

they kill—and where?

Kirito had said something else, too. If the killer was able to murder Yazen in

violation of the Taboo Index, and it was because he was a former serf of the

private estate, then other serfs might be equally vulnerable.

He had come to that conclusion because Asuna had been able to hear the

killer's voice through past-scrying. The words the killer had said just before

killing Yazen:

Once a serf, always a serf. If you don't like that, then die right here and now!

"...Ah!"

The sound of Zeppos's voice, still fresh from just a few minutes ago, flooded

Ronie's mind.

Once a goblin, always a goblin.

Aside from the subject, it was the exact same phrase.

That was it. It was far too weak to be a certainty and didn't indicate any kind

of causality. But Ronie had absolute belief that her intuition was correct in this

case.

"…That man…Zeppos. He's the one who killed Yazen at the inn," she said, her

voice quivering. Tiese bobbed her head decisively, expression firm; she had

come to the same conclusion.

"Yes…I get that feeling, too. I don't know how much of the Taboo Index he

can break, but it's clear he's going to use the goblins to do something that's

much worse than what happened with Yazen. We have to stop him."

"Yes…"

Ronie stared at the darkness beyond the hidden doorway on the other side of

the bars. The door had not yet been returned to its closed position.

She didn't know the precise time, but if all was going well, Tsukigake should

be reaching the gate of Centoria by now. Sadly, she couldn't speak human

language. How many minutes would it take for the guards at the gate to notice

that Tsukigake was a dragon hatchling, send a messenger to the cathedral, and

deliver a report to Kirito or Asuna or one of the Integrity Knights so that

someone could come here to the private estate to save them…?

And the carriage that Ronie and Tiese took to get here was still at the east

side of the lake. Even the swordsman delegate wouldn't be able to guess that

they were actually deep in the woods on the west side of the lake and trapped

in a dungeon beneath the mansion there. They'd have to hope that Tsukigake

would be with the rescue team, but that would all take time, so even if all went

as smoothly as possible, they ought to assume help wouldn't arrive for another

hour, at least.

It was too optimistic to believe nothing would happen to the goblins that had

been taken upstairs before then. The girls needed to do something right now,

or it would be too late.

But it was impossible to break their iron bars quietly, and it remained to be

seen if they could accomplish it at all. Plus, succeed or fail, the sounds of the

attempt would surely reach the mansion, where the emperor and his crony

would hear. Such a thing could spell disaster for their hostage, Shimosaki.

What can we do? What is the best plan…?

Ronie squeezed her eyes shut, with no clear answer coming to mind.

She'd felt this awful feeling just one week earlier. It was when she'd visited

Obsidia Palace in the Dark Territory with Kirito, when Ambassador Sheyta and

Commander Iskahn's daughter Leazetta was kidnapped, with the demand for

her release being the public execution of Kirito. If they didn't do what was

demanded, Leazetta's life would have been taken.

As the time limit approached, Ronie had lost her cool. In Kirito's presence, she

had claimed that if he was to choose his own execution, she would demand to

receive the same fate right next to him.

And in response, Kirito had said, I won't give up. I'll find a way to rescue

Leazetta…and I'll return to the cathedral with you. That's our home.

He was right. She couldn't give up. She had to think for all she was worth.

What was something she could do here on her own, without waiting for

Tsukigake to make everything succeed? There had to be a way to avoid losing

either the goblins or her dragon.

"Tiese…," Ronie murmured, right at the same moment her best friend said,

"Let's break the bars."

"Huh…?"

That had been her last resort, not the first thing she expected to hear. Ronie

shook her head and protested, "B-but if they hear us up there, Shimosaki will be

—"

However, Tiese's lips pursed, as though she expected that rebuttal. She

looked up at the ceiling of the underground cell.

"…I don't think there are that many people in this mansion. Probably just the

emperor and Zeppos…Otherwise, there's no reason the emperor himself would

risk danger to appear before us."

It was true that, earlier, Emperor Cruiga had acted as a decoy, drawing the

girls' attention until Zeppos could sneak up from behind and capture Shimosaki.

If there were other followers, they would be the ones left to be the distraction.

"Yeah…that might be true, but…"

"I think if it's just two of them, we can get Shimosaki back safely if we catch

them off guard. Fortunately, they've probably left our swords just beyond the

hidden door."

"…"

Ronie stared at the darkness beyond the doorway again. When they dropped

their swords on the ground, Emperor Cruiga kicked them through the doorway,

but there hadn't been any sign of them being carried upstairs. If they could

escape from the cell, there was a good chance they'd have their swords back.

If she had her sword, she knew she could win the fight, whether that was the

true emperor or not. The real concern was Shimosaki. Even if it was only the

two men up there, they should at least know ahead of time where the dragon

was being kept if they were going to stage a surprise rescue, as Tiese suggested.

"Tiese," Ronie said, lifting her hands up to her friend, "give me your hands."

"Huh…?" She reached out, not understanding, and squeezed them.

"We might not be able to open the lock with Incarnation, but we can use

Incarnation to pick up a signal," Ronie said. Tiese's maple-red eyes widened.

In their Incarnation training, the power to affect other things was actually

equal in importance to the power to sense things. Their difficult meditation

lessons were meant to develop that part of Incarnation. They would sit in the

training hall, eyes closed, and extinguish their thoughts, expanding their ability

to perceive the world through the realm of imagination.

Kirito, who had the greatest Incarnation power in the world, said he could

sense a dragon from a distance of ten kilors, but for the girls, it wasn't even a

surefire guarantee that they could sense a person in the same room. Now they

were trying to do it through the thick stone ceiling. It was a reckless attempt,

but that was the only method they had for identifying the little dragon's

location.

Tiese started to say something, probably thinking the same thing, but then

she clamped her mouth shut. She pulled a firmer grip on Ronie's hands and

closed her eyes.

Ronie did the same and breathed in the cold air of the underground cell.

Across from her, Tiese inhaled, held it for a second, then slowly exhaled.

Incarnation was an individual power, but by holding hands and matching

breathing, the law of unity in body and spirit allowed for it to be amplified over

multiple people. It was a very advanced technique, and even with Tiese, whom

she knew so well, they'd only succeeded at it a few times before. But one

person's Incarnation probably wasn't going to be enough to probe through the

ceiling.

With each breath, their respiration rates grew closer to synchronization. The

sensation of touching skin melted into one, so neither could tell where her own

hand ended and the other's began. The boundary between self and external

world faded, ever so slowly, and their senses expanded…

There were three auras directly above the basement cell. They seemed to be

lying down side by side. That had to be the trio of mountain goblins.

A bit farther away were two more presences. They felt unbearably cold, too

much so to be living humans, but they undoubtedly belonged to Emperor

Cruiga and Zeppos.

And in a corner of the same room was a small but very warm aura. As soon as

they sensed that, Tiese's breathing went out of sync. The combination of their

Incarnation wavered briefly, then stabilized. They could feel Shimosaki's worry

and loneliness, but he didn't seem to be badly hurt.

Then they expanded their range. It gave them a broad understanding of the

mansion's layout. It lived up to the reputation of an imperial villa, as there were

many rooms on the first and second floor, but aside from the large chamber

where the five people and Shimosaki were found, they did not sense any other

inhabitants.

If they went up the stairs behind the hidden door, they'd be in what seemed

to be a storeroom on the ground floor. If they went down the hallway from

there, the door to the great hall was just five mels away. If they ran at top

speed, they could get there in fifteen—maybe even ten seconds.

Ronie and Tiese opened their eyes and stared at each other.

There was no need for words. They let go and turned toward the bars.

The iron was very tough, probably extremely difficult to destroy with their

bare hands, but they still had their empty sword sheaths. The sheaths' priority

levels were far below that of their swords, but they were probably still tough

enough to withstand a single swing.

"…Hey, do you remember the story of how Eugeo and Kirito escaped the

prison beneath Central Cathedral?" Tiese whispered, to Ronie's surprise.

"Of course. They cut the metal chains and used them to break the bars."

"At the time they told us, I thought it sounded so reckless…Who would have

guessed that we'd one day be trying to do the same thing?"

"Not me, that's for sure," said Ronie, grinning briefly. Then she removed her

empty sheath from her sword belt's fastener, moved it to her right hand, and

held it up in a vertical stance. Tiese prepared herself in the exact same manner.

They didn't know what the emperor and Zeppos were doing to the goblins

upstairs in the great hall. But once they engaged in the next step, they couldn't

afford to lose a single second to hesitation.

…I'm sorry, Ronie said silently to her sheath, sucking in a sharp breath.

She couldn't use one of her techniques with the sheath itself, but she

launched herself as if to do it anyway.

"Haaaah!!"

"Yaaaa!!"

The two burst forward with fierce shouts, swinging their empty sheaths

downward in the form of the Norkia-style Lightning Slash, also known as the

Aincrad-style Vertical.

The wood-and-leather sheaths seemed to take on faint-blue glows, which was

surely a trick of the eye. The two sheaths made contact with the steel bars and

shattered with a tremendous smashing sound.

But a moment later, the set of bars, two mels tall and four mels wide, bent in

two different places and came loose from where they met stone, flying to the

far side of the hallway. The entire underground passage thundered.

Let's go! was Tiese's silent message.

Ten seconds! Ronie thought back, leaping into the hallway.

They rushed through the open doorway and found themselves in a small

storage room. There were leather straps on the right wall that looked like

restraints and an assortment of oddly shaped blades and glass containers on

the left. It was clear what these tools were used for, but they pushed that

thought out of mind and scanned the floor by the weak light coming into the

room behind them.

Ronie's Moonbeam Sword and Tiese's standard-issue sword were tossed into

the corner of the room as if they were just sticks. Ronie spotted them first and

scooped up her sword in one hand and Tiese's in the other, tossing it to her

partner.

Three seconds had passed.

A stone staircase led up from the wall straight ahead of them. They leaped up

the stairs, skipping five at a time, blades in hand.

Ronie kicked open the door at the top, putting them in a larger storage space.

The windows faced north, but there was plenty of sunset light streaming

through them, making it much brighter than the underground chamber. The

many display shelves and armor racks lining the floor and walls were entirely

empty. When the mansion had been placed off-limits, all the treasures within

had surely been carried out. Turning to look at the door she'd kicked open,

Ronie saw that it was fashioned to look like a large shelving unit and would have

been difficult to spot from this side.

Seven seconds had passed.

The real doors out of the room were to the west and south. They'd learned

the general layout of the mansion from their invocation, so they rushed straight

for the western door and kicked it open, too.

The blow was so forceful that it broke the hinges, causing the door to smash

against the wall on the other side. They rushed through it into a long, opulent

hallway that went left and right. The red wallpaper was decorated with lilies

and hawks.

Fifteen mels down the left side of the corridor, the entrance to the great hall

stood on the right.

Eight seconds. Nine.

Using every bit of her knight's strength, Ronie charged down the hallway in

two seconds and delivered a backspin kick to the center of the huge double

doors. It didn't smash them off their hinges, of course, but they shot open with

nearly enough force to break them, revealing what lay beyond.

Ten seconds.

The vast room took up an entire third of the first floor of the mansion. It was

gloomy inside; black curtains covered all the windows on the south side. But it

wasn't entirely dark, because ten or twenty candles burned near the center of

the space.

The candles were arranged in a circle about two mels in diameter, within

which the goblins were laid. One black figure stood just outside the circle,

engaged in chanting some kind of art. It was clear something bad was in

progress, but there was a more pressing priority at the moment.

Ronie looked around, wide-eyed, and spotted a sack in the far left corner of

the hall—and a second dark figure starting to run toward it.

That shadow had to be Zeppos. They didn't need to think twice about what

was in the sack.

Tiese! Ronie shouted in her mind, thrusting out her left hand.

Tiese joined her, lifting her hand—transferring her sword to the left—to cross

over Ronie's.

"System Call! Generate Thermal Element!" Tiese chanted, as Ronie added,

"Form Element! Arrow Shape!"

The five heat elements Tiese created were instantly transformed into five

arrows by Ronie's art. This synchronized casting was a high-level technique for

halving the execution time. Tiese and Ronie were only apprentice knights, but

they'd been practicing this long before that, when they were primary trainees

at the academy. That was why they had a small chance of pulling off advanced

abilities like Body-Spirit Unity and Synchronized Casting, which even proper

knights found difficult.

It took just two seconds for them to finish preparing the art, and they spoke

the final command together.

""Discharge!!""

Five brilliant lights cut through the darkness.

The flaming arrows roared toward the black-robed figure, who leaped out of

the way with inhuman agility. The arrows hit the wall one after the other,

causing little explosions.

"Go, Tiese!" Ronie shouted, controlling the final two arrows with Incarnation.

Hands free, Tiese charged for the linen sack. Ronie curved the path of the

remaining fire arrows to chase Zeppos and push him farther away.

The fourth arrow missed as well. But the fifth one caught his flapping robe,

lighting it on fire.

Zeppos silently tossed off the robe and retreated farther. Tiese reached the

sack at that point and sliced the tightly wound rope with her sword.

"Shimosaki!" she shrieked, sticking her hand into the sack. The juvenile

dragon was out of it; some of his pale-blue feathers had fallen out from rough

treatment. But once clutched to his master's chest, he crooned softly. "Krrrr…"

Ronie was relieved but also worried about Tsukigake's late return. Both

emotions flooded her at once, but she pushed them down and shouted, "Tiese,

take Shimosaki outside! Leave this to me!"

"But…?!" her partner protested.

"Go!" she insisted.

To rescue the apparently unconscious goblins, battle with Zeppos and the

eerily chanting emperor was unavoidable. Tiese couldn't fight carrying the

dragon, and if their adversaries managed to capture him again, the girls would

probably never get him back.

"…All right! I'll be right back!" Tiese shouted, swinging her sword in a flat line.

A nearby curtain split, and the glass behind it shattered tremendously.

Red light flooded into the hall now that a rectangle had been cut out of the

darkness. Zeppos backed away farther without his robe, as if afraid of Solus's

power.

Beneath his robe, he'd been wearing what looked like restraints. Leather belts

covered in studs wrapped around his rail-thin limbs and torso, and at first

glance, it was impossible to tell if it was supposed to be armor or some kind of

punishment.

And even the flesh peeking through the leather strips was an unnatural color.

It was unclear, just from the reflected light of the sunset, but it appeared to be

bluish gray—not something you would associate with living human flesh.

I feel like I've seen that color before, Ronie realized as Tiese jumped through

the broken window and escaped into the front yard of the building. She ran out

into the woods nearby to find a safe place to hide Shimosaki.

Until her partner returned, it would be a two-on-one fight. She couldn't try to

take on too much, but she was worried about the goblins on the floor and the

unsettlingly long art that Emperor Cruiga was reciting.

She listened to his hoarse voice but did not understand a single word of what

he was saying. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to be pleasant when he was

finished.

With the point of her sword directed at Zeppos, Ronie started to generate a

fresh heat element for the purpose of stopping the emperor's cast.

But first, without a sound, Zeppos unsheathed two daggers from the leather

belts around his thighs. The one in his right hand was slightly larger, but the one

in the left was smeared with a green substance.

The left was the poisoned knife used to threaten Shimosaki in the dungeon.

And the right was probably the knife that took Yazen's life.

Zeppos made his way closer, circling around the candles in the center of the

room. As he passed through the light left by the now-bare window, it

illuminated a face that had been hidden up till now.

There wasn't a single thread of hair on his head. His long, narrow face, like the

rest of his body, was blue, and his eyes glittered with extremely small pupils.

She didn't recognize his features.

"You got out of that cell much earlier than I expected, girl," Zeppos rasped, his

lifeless mouth twisting.

"Expected…? Then…you left the hidden door raised on purpose?" Ronie

replied.

The skinny man gave her a thin smile. "But of course. As the Norlangarth

family's grand chamberlain, I would never be careless enough to simply forget

to close a door."

"Chamberlain…?!" Ronie gasped. Zeppos's smile deepened.

Before and after the battle at the palace, Ronie had never met the grand

chamberlain of the Norlangarth Empire, so of course she wouldn't recognize

him. But Ronie did know what had happened to him: In the meeting after the

suppression of the rebellion, General Serlut, leader of the Human Guardian

Army, had made an announcement that she still remembered vividly.

"The imperial grand chamberlain…is dead. I heard that he resisted surrender,

just like the nobility's officers, and was killed by the army."

"That was my duty and my pleasure. I would die and come back to life as

many times as His Imperial Majesty requires me," Zeppos announced, crossing

his arms over his chest, knives at the ready. He glanced briefly at the robed man

standing in the center of the great hall.

Speaking of people who were supposed to be dead, Emperor Cruiga

Norlangarth continued with his eerie chanting. And unlike Zeppos's case, Ronie

herself had been responsible for ending the emperor's life. She could still feel

the sensation of her sword driving deep into the man's chest.

If these two were not impostors, then as Zeppos said, they had come back to

life. But Kirito, who had the strongest Incarnation of the entire human world;

Asuna, who wielded the godly power of Stacia; and Ayuha Furia, leader of the

sacred artificers brigade—even the half-god Administrator, who ruled the world

for over three hundred years—could not achieve the feat of resurrecting the

dead. They couldn't have really come back to life. There had to be some trick…

some evil mechanism that Ronie couldn't even imagine.

Sensing something in Ronie's expression, Zeppos uncrossed his arms and said,

"I left the door to the basement open to lure you up here, naturally. You'll be

the perfect combat training partner for the goblins, but they can't get through

that little passageway, of course…"

"Combat training…? Can't get through…?" she repeated, her voice hoarse. She

threw a glance at the goblins lying down in the circle of candles. They were very

clearly smaller than Zeppos and the emperor—and even Ronie. And there had

been no problem with taking them out of the cell in the first place.

It defied all understanding, but there was one thing she knew for certain. She

had to stop that sacred art as soon as possible. And the first step in doing that

was eliminating Zeppos.

"…I've heard enough chitchat," Ronie announced. "If you've come back from

the dead, I'll just send you back to the depths of hell!" Bracing herself, she

brandished her weapon.

Zeppos carried a blade in each hand. That meant he couldn't use sacred arts.

But she could—and she was going to immobilize him, then close the gap and cut

him in two.

"System Call! Generate Thermal Element!" As fast as possible, she recited the

element generation that Tiese had handled moments earlier and called forth

five heat elements. Zeppos bolted forward, daggers at the ready. He probably

thought that without their synchronized casting he was faster—but this was

Ronie's trap.

She kept the elements floating where she'd generated them, then leaped

back and shouted, "Discharge!!"

The unrefined heat elements released their stored power, exploding with a

tremendous blast.

Processed elements were needed in attacking arts to actually strike a target.

Arrow Shape prioritized directional accuracy and puncturing power. Bird Shape

was good at tracking a moving object. There were other commands with other

effects, as well—but none of them were necessary if the enemy was going to

rush right into the element anyway. Simply discharging them was good enough.

Just as Ronie hoped, Zeppos wound up right in the midst of the explosion.

Those leather straps that could barely be called armor weren't going to help

him. Heat arts were basic, but five elements at once packed enough power that

even a young and hardy soldier could easily perish.

Even if he was still alive, he would be immobilized. This was her chance!

"Haaah!" she screamed, raising the Moonbeam Sword as she burst through

the black smoke floating in the air.

Kchiiing! There was an earsplitting rattle, and her sword came to a stop, a

shock running from her wrist up through her shoulder.

"…?!"

To Ronie's amazement, Zeppos emerged through the thinning smoke.

Most of the leather straps were burned and charred—and torn through at

several points. His right breast was the most damaged part, where the tattered

leather dangled loosely, revealing a hole deep enough to fit two entire fists

inside.

But that was it. There was not a drop of blood, and the larger knife that his

right hand held above his head was firmly blocking Ronie's sword.

It was impossible. How could he be standing, with a hole in his chest deep

enough to crush a lung as well as his heart? A member of the Integrity

Knighthood had swung her Divine Object weapon at full strength. How could a

chamberlain, not even a guard, block it one-handed?

Zeppos smiled, right into her face.

She jumped backward again, trying to evade the small blade, its sharp point

glowing that awful green. But it wasn't in time. The knife slid through space like

a green snake and into her vicinity. The edge of her cloak ripped without a

sound.

Shunk!

She heard a wet, nasty sound.

But it originated from a silver piece of metal that came flying from behind her

back—probably a stake made from steel elements—piercing deep through

Zeppos's stomach.

"Ronie!"

It was Tiese, jumping back through the broken window, standard-issue sword

drawn.

"Get away from him!"

She obeyed her partner's voice and jumped backward again, away from the

poisoned knife that had stopped just milices away from her solar plexus. Zeppos

tried to follow, no longer smiling, but then Tiese shouted, "Discharge!!"

A second stake came roaring closer, hitting Zeppos in the back and piercing

through him, until the pointed end was visible through the front of his chest.

Blackened blood sprayed from his mouth.

Surely he was dead this time. No human being could survive being pierced

through the heart by a three-cen-wide stake. Certain of their victory, Ronie

planted her feet and raised her sword to deliver the final blow.

"No! He's still moving!" Tiese called out.

If she hadn't, Ronie's head might have been cut clean off by the light-speed

slash from Zeppos's knife.

"Wha…?"

She whipped her upper half as far back as she could, stunned. The dull metal

blade passed by her neck close enough that she could feel the air from it.

The strike missing, Zeppos retreated with awkward steps—he wasn't dead,

but he wasn't unscathed, either. He stopped near the center of the great hall

and stretched out his weaponized arms, as if to protect the circle of candles.

Tiese used that moment to cross the hall and run to Ronie's side. She pointed

her sword at Zeppos and shouted, "He's not human, Ronie!"

"Huh…? What do you mean…?" she stammered.

Tiese glanced back at the broken window she'd just jumped through, then

forward again. "In the woods, I found a huge pile of those sacks. They were all

filled with soil…nasty-smelling clay."

"Clay…?"

The mention of that word caused something in Ronie's mind to flash.

Zeppos's grayish skin. The body that was only dented in by the fiery blast. The

dark, blackened blood.

Ronie had seen something with the same properties at Obsidia Palace in the

Dark Territory. It wasn't a human. It was a gigantic monster that appeared in

the treasure repository…

"...A minion!" she moaned. Tiese nodded, and Zeppos's black-stained lips

grinned.

Minions. Artificial life that only the dark mages of the Dark Territory could

manufacture. They only received simple orders, but their large bodies

contained massive life and were very resistant to heat and cold. If Zeppos was a

minion made of clay, rather than a person, that would explain why his chest

merely dented inward when hit with five heat elements.

But that just raised new questions.

"Minions…are mindless monsters that can't talk. But he…," she cried.

Then Zeppos spoke, his voice rumbling and difficult to discern with the steelelement stakes through his stomach and chest.

"The Axiom Church…were not the only people…studying sacred arts…

Emperor Cruiga—in fact, all four imperial dynasties, they of the oldest and most

regal blood, have been performing endless research for centuries, all to

complete one very special art…"

"All four imperial dynasties…together?!" Tiese gasped.

Ronie was just as shocked. As a member of a lower noble family in

Norlangarth, Ronie had long felt that the other three empires were such distant

entities, they might as well not even exist. The idea that she could simply fly

over the Everlasting Walls, which felt like the very end of the world, was

something she didn't come to appreciate until after she took part in the

Otherworld War.

But Zeppos was saying that the emperors of the four empires had been

cooperating on research of sacred arts for centuries. It was a shocking

revelation, but upon further reflection, it wasn't impossible. Even under the

pontifex's rule, a travel pass would allow its bearer to pass through the

Everlasting Walls, and the four imperial palaces that surrounded the cathedral

were, in fact, less than a kilor apart if viewed from above the walls. The actual

emperors might not pass through them, but their agents certainly could.

Someone like, say, a grand chamberlain…

"What kind of sacred art is that?!" Tiese demanded.

Zeppos just leered at her eerily. "Geh-heh-heh-heh…If you still can't tell at this

point, you truly are stupid girls. It should be obvious…I speak of the godly power

the pontifex monopolized, the art that confers eternal life…"

"Eternal…"

"Life?!"

Ronie and Tiese were stunned into inaction. Zeppos, meanwhile, shivered

with injured delight and framed his narrow head with the knives he held.

"Geh-heh-heh…We used every art, every drug, even virulent poisons, to

experiment with the process of stopping the natural decrease of life. And the

laboratory for our experiments was the underground cells where we held you.

All the serfs who died in those cells gave their lives to a great and honorable

purpose," he confessed, his horrifying admission adorned by grating cackles.

The deep, searing hatred and envy contained in his voice and gaze weighed

heavily on Ronie's mind.

The imperial family's grand chamberlain had status and power equivalent to

that of the highest nobles. Why would such a man feel envious of two mere

apprentice knights…? Then she gasped.

Zeppos wasn't jealous of Tiese and Ronie personally. He was jealous of the

very concept of the Integrity Knights. The undying souls whose lives were

frozen, such that they lived for an eternity…

The emperors and high nobles enjoyed every privilege and luxury a human

being could possess, but eternal life was the one thing that remained forever

out of their grasp. How they must have stared up at the towering white

structure that loomed over their own palaces, cursing and envying the pontifex

and her Integrity Knights. And because the Taboo Index forced their loyalty and

obedience to the Axiom Church, even the emperors could not make their

resistance known.

But the Integrity Knights suffered in their own way. Ronie learned this when

she joined the cathedral.

Those whose lives were frozen were fated to repeatedly say good-bye to

those whose lives were not. Even Commander Fanatio. She was undying, having

lived over two hundred years, but her son Berche was not the same as her. So

long as no one resurrected the life-freezing art that died with Administrator—

and so long as she did not implement that procedure on Berche—her son would

age and die before his mother did. It was an unbearably cruel fate for both

mother and son.

"Eternal life goes against all the rules of nature," Ronie declared, desperately

trying to keep her voice under control. "You've killed so many innocent people

in search of a thing that should not be…It's unforgivable."

Zeppos's artificial face twisted with rage. "You accursed knights," he spat,

spraying black blood from his lips. "You don't have the right to speak those

words."

If Zeppos was a minion, as Tiese suspected, there was no guessing how his

body worked exactly. He had huge stakes through his chest and stomach and

was still alive, so he clearly wasn't human, but that didn't mean he was simply

clay in human shape. For one thing, there was clearly blood flowing through his

body, so perhaps if he lost it all, he would finally die. His form was much smaller

than a true minion, so he must have much less blood, too.

Of the three minions they faced at Obsidia Palace, two had been punched to

dust by Commander Iskahn, and the third was split down the center of its brain

by Ambassador Sheyta's chop. Inflicting that kind of damage might not be

possible at Ronie's and Tiese's level of skill, but if they could avoid his knives

and cut off an arm or a leg, they could win.

The real problem was the man Zeppos was protecting with his life: Emperor

Cruiga. Over three minutes had passed since they barged into the great hall, but

his chanting continued. The longer the recitation, the more complex and

powerful the effects of a sacred art—and Ronie knew of no art that lasted this

long. Asuna's command for past-scrying felt very long, but even that was only

about two minutes.

They couldn't let the fight with Zeppos drag on. No waiting for him to die of

blood loss; just finish him off as soon as possible so they could stop the

emperor's art.

"Tiese, when I execute my technique, you stop him with light elements,"

Ronie whispered to her partner.

The two girls' abilities with the sword, sacred arts, and Incarnation were even.

In her heart, Tiese probably didn't want to put all the danger directly on Ronie's

shoulders—but there was one area where a significant difference of power

existed between them. Tiese's standard-issue army sword had a priority level of

25, while Ronie's Moonbeam Sword was at 39. It had to be Ronie who slashed

him.

"You're right that the Integrity Knights and Axiom Church may not have

absolute rights," Ronie shouted, brandishing her sword above her head, "but

we're always striving to be right and just, and no matter what anyone says,

what you're doing is evil!"

As though taking on its master's will, the sword began to glow bright blue.

When Tiese spoke the command of creation, she raced forward, pushing herself

off the ground.

Invisible wings beat on her back, slamming forward with great force. In an

instant, she had crossed over ten mels of distance toward the enemy. It was the

Aincrad style's ultra-speed charge technique, Sonic Leap.

"You will be fodder for our great ambitions, too, girl!!" Zeppos shouted,

baring yellow teeth as sharp as fangs. He spun his knives to hold them backhand

and prepared to meet her in combat.

White light enveloped his fierce features.

There were three sharp bursts in a row—Tiese's light bullets had shot past

Ronie in the air.

Light-based arts were not as powerful as heat or frost, but they featured

overwhelming speed and accuracy—ideal for blinding targets. It was also the

opposing element of the dark-built minion, so it would deal some extra damage

in that regard, too.

Purple smoke began to sizzle from where the fierce light burned Zeppos's

face. He stopped only for a brief instant, but it was enough for Ronie. Her blue

glow raced on a slant between the knives he was lowering.

The Moonbeam Sword cut deep through the former chamberlain's right

shoulder and through his left side. Zeppos froze in position with his hands near

his waist, mouth open in a croak.

"…Emper…or…Crui…gaaa..."

The top half of his skinny body slid downward to the left and fell onto the

carpet with a dull thud. A moment later, his lower half slumped to its knees.

Ronie had to jump out of the way of the spray of black blood that shot from

the two halves of the man's flesh.

The certainty that this time they had won threatened to flood her body with

relief, but the battle was not over. They had to defeat Emperor Cruiga before he

finished his sacred art.

Before her eyes was a ring of silent, flickering candles. In the middle were

three goblins on the ground, eyes closed. And beyond them, a man in a black

robe, his arms held high, in the midst of fervent recitation…

If the revived emperor was also a minion, then no half measures would defeat

him. Like Zeppos, they would need to cut his body in half or cut off his head.

Summoning all her willpower, Ronie took a stance to perform another sword

technique.

And in the next moment, several things happened at once.

"Ronie!!" Tiese screamed.

"Fulfill your duty, Zeppos!" thundered the emperor, pausing in his recitation.

Gahk! A shock ran through Ronie's right foot.

A moment later, severe pain shot through her body and into her mind. She

looked down and saw Zeppos's head and left arm stabbing its knife deep into

the top of her foot. The blade was mottled green.

She gritted her teeth as severe numbness followed the pain. She had to do

something before the poison made its way all through her body, but there were

a number of different arts for neutralizing poison, and she couldn't tell which

one to use without knowing the type of poison.

"Rrgh!" Ronie growled, slicing off Zeppos's arm with her sword. Then she

used the tip against the hilt of the poisoned knife to pull it from her foot. The

blood that spurted from the wound was already looking blacker.

In an attempt to slow the spread of the poison, Ronie generated five light

elements, then used her sword to cut deep into the flesh above her right knee.

More blood gushed out, but the color was still slightly reddish. She seeped the

light elements into the wound and executed Mist Shape to diffuse them into

her bloodstream.

The light elements would neutralize the poison to a degree, but to entirely

purify the toxins, she needed to use a special art that involved the medicinal

herbs in the pouch she carried on her waist. She'd just have to try all the curing

arts she knew, one after the other.

She reached back to open the bag with her left hand, but her fingers were

already losing sensation, and she couldn't undo the leather drawstring. The

strength was going out of her left leg just as it did for the wounded right one,

and her body toppled over.

"Ronie!" shouted Tiese, who came running up to support Ronie as she fell.

Wasting no time, she swung her sword at what remained of Zeppos on the

floor, slicing straight through his head where it still writhed.

In addition to the dull sound of a claylike substance being split, there was a

sharp metallic clang. Zeppos was cut in two from brain to jaw. This time, his life

was truly extinguished; the pieces lost their shape and melted into a sludge. The

lower half of his body nearby turned into black phlegm that spread across the

floor and began to evaporate.

Where Zeppos's head had vanished was a strange object. It was a silver disc

fashioned to look like a lily petal and a hawk feather—the special insignia given

to those who served the Norlangarth Empire. The petal and feather were

reserved for the highest honors.

The disc was split perfectly in two, broken by Tiese's sword. Purple smoke was

rising from the crack, issuing a faint sound like a wailing scream.

That was the core of the mystery—of how Zeppos and the emperor were

back as minions, when they should be dead. There was probably—no, definitely

—the same thing inside the emperor's head that related to him in the same

way, giving his clay body a personality and a memory.

"Tie…se…," Ronie mumbled, even her lips starting to lose their ability to

move.

Cut the emperor's head. That's how you beat him.

But she couldn't speak the words. Tiese was holding her up with one hand,

sword jammed into the floor, and rummaging through her own bag. She was

prioritizing Ronie's antidote over stopping the emperor. Ronie couldn't blame

her—she would be doing the same thing in that situation.

Deep within his lowered hood, Emperor Cruiga smirked, or so Ronie felt.

There was not a single shred of empathy for the second death of Zeppos, the

man who served him for so many years.

"Connect All Circuits! Open Gate!" the emperor shouted in a voice like a

cracked bell, throwing his hands as high as he could and leaning his tall, thin

frame backward.

She had no idea what those words meant. But struck by a kind of intuition,

Ronie did her best to crane her neck upward through the numbness.

The tall ceiling of the great hall was painted black. A number of expensivelooking decorative lanterns hung from it, but they were not lit. But what drew

Ronie's eye was something in the center of that ceiling—a circular hole directly

over where the goblins lay.

It was about thirty cens across. The work was not finely done; it was crude,

with broken wood ends visible along the edges. It looked as though the floor of

the upstairs room above had been broken through with an ax.

Why would they do such a thing? she thought. Within seconds, that curiosity

turned to horror.

Through the hole pulsed something black and gleaming. Something viscous,

something muddy. It was very similar to the claylike material that made up

Zeppos's body.

To Ronie and Tiese's shock, the black claylike substance hung down from the

hole. It moved like it was being pushed through by some great force or else was

oozing out of its own will. The liquid bulged like a balloon, pulsed, writhed—and

then burst with an awful sound.

It fell to the ground like a pitch-black waterfall, instantly engulfing the three

mountain goblins and forming a cover over them before Ronie's and Tiese's

eyes. Once the pile of material was over two mels tall, it stopped pouring down

from above at last, but its lifelike pulses did not stop. It began to shiver and

shake with the goblins wrapped inside it.

"…!"

Tiese shrieked internally and backed away in a hurry, still holding up Ronie.

The poison had spread all throughout her body; the only thing she could do

now was hold tight to the hilt of her sword with unfeeling fingers. If the poison

on that knife was fatal, then her body should be rapidly losing life, but the

sensations were so numb that she couldn't even feel pain.

She needed the healing art done at once, but Ronie couldn't take her eyes off

the writhing black mass. The amorphous pile shivered and separated into three

parts. The extended ends of the liquid engulfed the ring of candles, snuffing out

the flames one at a time.

Now the only light in the great hall was what little sunlight was coming

through the broken window—and the door to the hallway that Ronie kicked

open. Both sources were weak and barely reached the center of the room.

They watched with shock as the substance, now a trio of shadows, grew even

larger into humanoid forms. Their upper halves bulged with muscle, thick and

corded. Their arms were unnaturally long. Legs curved like goats'. Folded wings

on their backs and tails that hung to the floor.

They looked very much like the minions she'd seen at Obsidia Palace. Except

for one major difference:

True minions had circular mouths on the end of long, extended heads, like

swamp eels, with a pair of eyes on either side. But these monsters' heads were

far more human, with pointed noses and ears and just the two eyes, halfclosed.

"Those faces…Are they…goblins…?" Tiese murmured. The monsters did

indeed look very much like mountain goblins but without any of the rodent-like

charm. When they opened their mouths, sharp glittering teeth emerged. Two

horns grew from their hairless heads.

Now she remembered what Zeppos had said just minutes before.

You'll be the perfect combat training partner for the goblins, but they can't get

through that little passageway, of course…

If the three minions were the transformed result of the three goblins being

overtaken by the emperor's sacred art and the black substance, then it was true

that they couldn't fit back down the stairs to the basement. They were two and

a half mels tall now, and if they stretched their bent legs completely straight,

their heads might reach the ceiling.

Most likely, Zeppos and the emperor, after dying in the Rebellion of the Four

Empires, were placed within that black substance, too, so they came back to life

as minions. The three goblins were alive when they were absorbed, thus

transforming into gigantic minions.

There had to be an even greater evil lurking behind these phenomena.

Someone used the remains of the emperor to bring him back and taught him

how to manufacture these minions. And that person, whoever it was, had to be

the key between the string of events in the human realm and whoever

performed the kidnapping in Obsidia.

But at this very moment, the top priority was finding a way to return the

goblins to their original forms.

If they destroyed these minions in the same way as Zeppos, the goblins inside

would surely die, too. They needed to break down the black clay without

hurting the goblins. It might be possible by throwing enough light elements at

it, but ten or twenty wouldn't be nearly enough. And there couldn't be that

much sacred power still left in this hall.

"Ronie, drink this," said a whispering voice. A little bottle touched her lips.

She thought it was an elixir to recover her life, but the smell was different.

While Ronie had been pondering what to do, Tiese was busy creating an

antidote from reagents and sacred arts.

The liquid trickling into her mouth was powerfully bitter, but one mouthful

already had her tongue prickling with sensation once again. How had Tiese

determined which type of poison Ronie was afflicted with, though?

Her partner saw the question in her eyes and whispered, "I think that knife is

Ruberyl's poisoned steel. It's my first time seeing it in person, but the color is

exactly the way Lady Linel described it."

Ronie blinked to say, So that's what it was.

The Integrity Knights Linel Synthesis Twenty-Eight and Fizel Synthesis TwentyNine once tried to paralyze and kill Kirito and Eugeo with poisoned blades. Now

they were trustworthy senior knights and gave all kinds of interesting advice

that the other knights did not. At some point, they must have taught Tiese

about the poisoned dagger.

As the paralysis wore off of her mouth and jaw, Ronie managed to struggle

her way through a whisper. "Tiese…Can't kill…the minions. Have to save…the

goblins."

"…I know," said Tiese with determination, looking toward the broken window.

"But I don't have the ability to melt three minions' worth with light elements.

Once you can move again, we're going to get you out of here."

"…But…"

If they escaped, then the emperor and his minions might disappear. They

might not be able to sneak through the underground passage, but the minions

could fly. It would be impossible to pursue them without dragons.

"I know. But it's the only thing we can do," Tiese said, her expression pained.

She leaned close to Ronie's ear. "If arts didn't work, and we had to use our

swords on them…we still couldn't slice open those minions."

"…!!"

Ronie gasped with what little strength she had left.

It was true. The minions were the goblins. Cutting them meant killing them, so

even if they determined that they had no choice but to do so, their bodies

might not comply with the mind's order. It was the Seal of the Right Eye…

But that didn't just apply to the girls. The other Integrity Knights and the

soldiers of the Human Guardian Army were bound by the same rule: "You must

not harm the demi-humans, for the sake of the peace of both realms." So any of

them would be trapped in the same situation.

What if it weren't just the three of them?

What if tens—hundreds—of demi-humans transformed into minions attacked

Centoria all at once? The Integrity Knighthood would be unable to fight them.

In fact, something even worse might happen.

The reason Emperor Cruiga and Zeppos had kidnapped the goblins and turned

them into minions was to start a new war between the human realm and the

Dark Territory. If these minions attacked Centoria and killed several people,

only for them to be later identified as goblins, the effect would be far worse

than Yazen's murder. Fury and hatred that completely eclipsed that of the

Otherworld War would arise, and the humans would seek to invade the Dark

Territory this time.

In order to avoid that permanent break in relations, some of the knights

might be able to suppress their right-eye seals and defeat the minions.

But what if the emperor and whoever was behind him didn't want to make

the two worlds fight but simply desired to destroy the current peace—to bring

an end to the Unification Council's rule?

Wouldn't they try turning human beings into minions instead of nonhumans?

At most, there were two or three hundred visitors from the Dark Territory

present in the realm. Even if they kidnapped every last one of them, there was a

limit to the number of minions they could make. But the population of the

empires was over eighty thousand. As long as they had enough of that clay

material, they had all the human sources they needed.

Against humans from the empires transformed into minions, none of the

Integrity Knights could do a thing.

After pacifying the Council with an army of minions, they could lead an army

into the Dark Territory and wipe out the Dark Army, too. It would be the return

of Administrator's grand plan of sword soldiers.

In the blink of an eye, Ronie had her idea. She stared at the shadow of

Emperor Cruiga between the three unmoving minions.

He was resting one knee on the ground, seemingly spent from such a long

sacred art. But the invisible aura of evil that seeped from his black robe was not

diluted in the least. It was true malice, equal to or even beyond that of the

kidnapper who tried to kill little Leazetta in Obsidia Palace.

They couldn't let this man get away.

And in reaction to her resolve, the emperor moved. He got unsteadily to his

feet and made his way through the minions, who were waiting on standby, so

that he could face off against Ronie and Tiese.

"…I do not know your style, but it was an impressive technique, girl."

Ronie was so taken aback by these words that she had no response in the

moment. But the emperor was not waiting for one. From his hood, the croaking

voice continued.

"I can see how you were able to kill me and cut off Hozaika's left arm."

It was chilling to hear him say you were able to kill me so matter of factly, but

she didn't recognize the other name. Or more accurately, it sounded familiar,

but she couldn't place where she'd heard it.

But while Ronie struggled to remember, Tiese gasped. The arm holding Ronie

up tensed.

"Hozaika Eastavarieth…?"

"None other. I suppose he did not name himself to you, then."

At last, Ronie realized whose name that was.

The emperor of Eastavarieth, who perished in the Rebellion of the Four

Empires.

But Cruiga was under some mistaken impression. The battle where they

fought one year ago was at the North Centorian palace. They were never in East

Centoria. It was Nergius and Entokia who had invaded the East Centorian palace

and cut Emperor Hozaika down to size.

And besides, in all her life, Ronie had only ever cut three human beings with

her sword techniques, including the recently departed Zeppos. The first was

Emperor Cruiga, and the second was the robed kidnapper on the top floor of

Obsidia Palace.

Like just moments ago, Ronie had used Sonic Leap to rush at the kidnapper

and cut off his left arm.

Left arm…

Thanks to the antidote, Ronie's skin was regaining sensitivity, and now she

felt the hair stand up all over her body, from her toes to the nape of her neck.

She could hear the kidnapper's voice, faint in her ears.

Ah, so it was the swordsman delegate who cut the chain. You are more trouble

than even the stories say…

Now she realized that if the kidnapper had been from the Dark Territory, he

would not have heard about the swordsman delegate. Kirito's two previous

visits to Obsidia had both been in secret; the people in town had never even

seen him.

"Y-you mean…," she gasped, working her parched throat, trying to decipher

the emperor's words. "You mean the kidnapper in Obsidia was the emperor of

Eastavarieth, resurrected as a minion just like you…?"

Cruiga's pointed mustache twitched with mirth. "You never found Hozaika's

body, did you?" he said. Before Ronie could respond, he waved his hand. "Have

no fear—he is dead. When he hit the ground, his body melted into nothing…just

like Zeppos's."

He was admitting that the kidnapper was both Emperor Hozaika and a

minion. But that left her with a new question.

"…Why would you know that? You should have been here the whole time,"

asked Tiese, not Ronie.

Emperor Cruiga answered her not with words but by opening his robe.

Hanging on a delicate chain over his chest was a shining red jewel, the color of

blood even in the darkness. It was exactly the same as what the kidnapper,

Emperor Hozaika, wore around his neck, too.

"Hozaika's plot failed, and he died again. With his vessel broken, he will not

come back. But I have received that which he saw and heard, to serve as the

foundation for the next plan…Do you see now? These fusion-type minions are

part of that…In their original form, we learned, they would not stop you

knights."

He reached out to stroke the muscular arm of a minion with great

satisfaction.

Despite the succession of shocks, surprises, and horrors, Ronie tried her

hardest to think.

The "vessel" he mentioned was probably the insignia that popped out of

Zeppos's head. She had no idea how it worked, but it was clearly a vital element

of the minion-body resurrection method.

Emperor Hozaika had fallen out of the window on the top floor of Obsidia

Palace after Sheyta and Ronie had severed his arms. They didn't find his body,

not because he flew away to escape, but because the fall smashed his vessel

and caused his clay body to dissolve.

But if she took Cruiga's statement as truth, the red jewel around Hozaika's

neck survived the fall. And through some means, it had traveled three thousand

kilors from Obsidia to Norlangarth, where it gave Cruiga all of Hozaika's

memories and knowledge.

If all of this conjecture was correct, then that red jewel was the core of the

massive plot that threatened to engulf both worlds.

As the paralyzing poison was purified, and her hand could move again, Ronie

clenched her sword tight.

They couldn't run away now. And even if they defeated Emperor Cruiga, if the

jewel vanished somewhere, all that built-up malice would surely reappear

somewhere else.

"Tiese…find a way to lure those minions away for thirty seconds," she

whispered, so quiet that even she could barely hear it. "If I kill the emperor, it

might return the goblins to normal."

It was a faint hope, but if the one controlling them was gone, it might at least

buy them a little time.

The problem was that while the poison was wearing off, the wound on the

top of her foot wasn't healed. A strong, firm step was a crucial part of

swordfighting, and she would have only one or two chances to strike at her

strongest. One way or another, she had to do it.

"…Got it," whispered Tiese over her shoulder at the same volume.

She wiggled all her fingers and toes one last time, just to confirm they could

feel again. The emperor's lengthy and helpful answers gave her enough time for

the antidote to spread, but it also helped him, too. The emperor had recovered

from his mental exhaustion—however you defined the "mind" that existed in

the head of a minion made of packed clay and mud—and now the skin of the

fusion-type minions was gleaming with a texture that looked much harder than

when it was freshly finished.

Cruiga tapped the minion's arm again and nodded with satisfaction.

"Now, my plan called for Zeppos to be their combat training partner, but he

has already perished. You will have to assume that responsibility," he said,

backing away.

The original type of minion that Emperor Hozaika had used in Obsidia obeyed

only a limited number of very simple commands in the sacred or dark tongues.

Their intellect was at the level of a wild beast, and they could not match the

complexity of an Integrity Knight's combination of sword techniques and sacred

arts. In the Otherworld War, the dark mages guild's stockpile of eight hundred

minions were unable to recognize Bercouli's Perfect Weapon Control trap,

which had obliterated them in a single instant.

Whatever improvements this fusion-type minion acquired by absorbing the

goblins were probably found in this category, then. They would surely be

capable of understanding more advanced, complex orders. But it would take

him time to give many orders, of course. That would be her chance to strike

down the enemy.

Behind the line of minions, Emperor Cruiga raised his arm, as if giving orders

to imperial soldiers.

"Minions! Kill those two girls! Activate!!"

That was all he said. A short order in the common tongue and then a sacred

word to close it out.

There was a vibrating sound, and the minions' eyes flashed red. The two on

the right and left suddenly sprang into action, so fast that their huge forms

were nothing but a blur. The left minion jumped toward the broken window,

and the other took a position before the open doors.

Ronie and Tiese were trapped inside the great hall. In order to fulfill their

orders to kill, the minions recognized that they could not let their targets

escape and blocked the two places that served as escape routes.

That made it clear to Ronie that her expectations were wrong: The fused

minions' intelligence was far beyond just accepting complex orders—they could

assess a situation and act on their own judgment.

With the escape routes blocked, only one monster was still between her and

Emperor Cruiga. She couldn't cut through the minion because of the innocent

goblin stuck inside, but she could avoid its attacks and aim for the emperor.

Tiese! she thought, sending a mental signal to her partner. The arm

supporting her back pushed Ronie forward. With her wounded foot, she

pounced off the ground. Fresh blood spurted from her boot and knee, and the

dulled pain came roaring back like a hot poker, but she gritted her teeth and

endured.

The two knights together charged with electric speed, but the minion's

reaction was unbelievably agile. Its long right arm, like a thirty-cen-thick log,

came roaring toward them in a vicious swipe. There were scythe-like fingers at

the end of it that would surely cut their bodies into pieces if they struck.

But Ronie anticipated this attack.

No matter how advanced these fusion minions were, their overall shape was

not that different from the original minions. That meant that, like the originals,

their main weapon was their claws.

"Krrhh!" she grunted through gritted teeth, luring those wicked-sharp hooks

to lunge at her as far as possible and pulling herself backward at the waist just

short of where they would connect.

She slid along the floor on her legs, avoiding the swing. The pinkie claw

clipped her hair as it waved loosely, chopping three cens off the end, but that

was a small price to pay.

Having missed with its full-force swipe, the minion's momentum rotated it

left, exposing its back to Ronie. Since a minion's form was humanoid, it couldn't

attack from that position. She rose again, grabbing the friction of the carpet

with her left foot; Cruiga was just seven mels in front of her.

It was within the range of Sonic Leap. One good attack could split through his

head to break the vessel inside it, as well as the red jewel that hung over his

chest, and all of this would be over.

She pushed hard off her bloodied right foot once again, raised her Moonbeam

Sword for the attack—and then something black and long and thin leaped up

abruptly from the darkened floor like a whip. It went directly at Ronie's throat

with unbelievable speed.

On pure reaction, she lifted her left arm to protect her neck.

In a hundredth of a second, the black whip struck her forearm.

It's the minion's tail.

With the momentum of its full turn, the fusion minion used the one weapon it

had on the rear side—its tail—to swing around with even greater speed than its

arm.

Ronie's realization came at the same instant that her left forearm snapped.

And the tail, which might as well have been woven around a metal rod,

continued its momentum into her chest, knocking her into the air and pushing

her backward with tremendous force.

She flew over ten mels through the air, slammed into the wall with her back,

and fell to the floor on the rebound.

Her vision went black. She couldn't breathe. Several ribs were broken in

addition to her arm, but the shock to her entire body was so massive that she

couldn't even feel the pain.

She had to stand, but her body wouldn't listen. Despite her metal armor,

which was admittedly on the light side, the single blow had knocked her life

down into dangerously low territory.

"Ronieeee!!"

Somewhere, Tiese was screaming her name. With all her strength, she shifted

her face up off the floor, trying to see through fading eyes.

On the left, she could vaguely make out her partner running to her. And on

the right, a gigantic shadow zooming forward with great speed.

…Tiese…run.

But there was no strength in her throat. Only air emerged.

Tiese noticed the minion rushing after her and came to a stop to fight back.

But the moment she pulled back her standard-issue sword, she paused

unnaturally.

It was the right-eye seal coming into effect. Ronie's injury had caused her to

forget herself momentarily, and when she had tried to attack the minion, she

remembered there was a goblin trapped inside it.

Up until this point in her life, Ronie had never activated the seal. But she

heard that the pain it caused was like one's soul being cracked apart. As far as

she knew, the only ones to have ever surpassed the seal of their own will were

Eugeo; Alice; Lilpilin, chief of the orcs; and Commander Iskahn, who tore out his

own eye to remove it.

While Tiese was immobilized by that terrible agony, the minion struck her

with full force. Four trails of blood spurted into the air, and Ronie forgot her

own pain for a moment as she let out a silent scream.

Tiese's body crashed against the floor and bounced once before rolling over

close to Ronie. Her eyes were closed; she seemed to be unconscious. Blood

streamed from the wounds where the minion's claws had gouged her flesh.

"Tie…se…"

There was blood dripping from Ronie's mouth, too, as she crawled

desperately toward her partner, reaching with her broken arm to place a palm

on her friend's skin. If she didn't cast a light-element healing art now, Tiese was

going to die.

"Syst…Ca…ll…," she said, but there wasn't enough volume behind her voice,

and the command did not activate. Her hand was red up to the wrist where she

pressed against Tiese's wound.

Integrity Knights had weapon-equipping and magic-authority levels that were

far higher than the soldiers of the regular army, as well as the overwhelming

strength and stamina that those authority levels conferred, but their life value

was still not much different from that of an ordinary person. The hardiest elite

knights had a level of about five thousand, and seventeen-year-olds Ronie and

Tiese were only at three thousand.

She didn't need to be able to speak to open the Stacia Window; that only

required the sacred gesture. But Ronie did not have the fortitude to see Tiese's

number now. Through teary eyes, she maintained pressure on the wound and

tried repeatedly to invoke the art command.

There was a ringing sound on the far end of the room; that was the minion

that had knocked them both into a near-death state picking up Tiese's sword

from the ground and hurling it away.

The other two remained at their guard posts without moving. They must have

determined that one of them would be more than enough to kill the two girls.

With assured, careful steps, the free minion strode closer, ready to finish the

job.

"Heh-heh-heh…heh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Emperor Cruiga laughed from the

center of the room. "Splendid. Just one of them is this powerful—and from

fusing with a lowly goblin. It turns out that the more blood and bone you spill

into the ground, the stronger a minion it creates. This is beyond what I could

have imagined. I must offer praise to my serfs—they dedicate themselves to my

betterment even after death…Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

At this point, Ronie could not even process the meaning of what she was

hearing. Her eyesight was growing darker by the moment. The emperor's

laughter was fading. The only sensation she could still feel was Tiese's blood on

her left hand. Even that warmth was going away, moment by moment.

The minion was before them now. It lifted both its arms high.

And just then—she felt a faint warmth in her right hand.

At first, she didn't know what she was holding. It was hard, fine leather,

wrapped around…the handle of the Moonbeam Sword.

Ba-bump, ba-bump. Its warmth pulsed, speaking to her. Unleash me, it was

saying.

But she couldn't do that. The Moonbeam Sword was a very fine, high-priority

weapon, but it was not a Divine Object.

A Divine Object was not forged from refined metal by people. It was

fashioned from legendary sources, like Divine Beasts, birds, and trees. It was

why each one of them had its own unique memories and could forge a personal

connection with its master.

But a human blacksmith forged the Moonbeam Sword, so it had no memory

from a previous life. She might use it so much that it became an extension of

her own hand and arm, but it could never produce a phenomena beyond that.

It can't. It can't…

The words repeated in her mind, over and over, as time itself flattened,

growing thinner and longer in the face of Ronie's and Tiese's deaths.

But then she thought she heard a new voice.

It's not just swords. Clothes, shoes, silverware…even a single element

summoned by sacred arts will answer your call, if your heart and mind are

connected to it. Even people, I'd bet…

It was something she'd heard before, in the long distant past, from the late

Eugeo.

Connecting hearts.

It was Ronie, the master, who decided that the Moonbeam Sword couldn't

have a heart. But upon reflection, when Swordswoman Subdelegate Asuna

presented her with three swords and told her to pick one, Ronie did not choose

for herself but had allowed the swords to pick. It was this sword, with the silver

hilt fashioned into a crescent moon, that drew itself into the palm of her hand.

And now that its master's life was in danger, the sword she'd named

Moonbeam was speaking to her, trying to save her. Telling her to trust it,

connect to it, and unleash its memory.

The warmth in her right hand from the handle and the warmth in her left

hand from Tiese's blood traveled to the center of her body, and Ronie used all

that meager strength to shout "Enhance Armament!"

Or at least, she wanted to shout it. What emerged was so weak and quiet that

even she couldn't hear it.

But the sword—and the laws of the world itself—responded to her call.

From the hilt of the sword surged an impossibly bright silver light. The minion

stopped in the process of lowering its claws and let out a high-pitched scream

as the light flooded forward, jumping away. The other two minions and even

the cackling Emperor all covered their eyes and writhed.

At the same time, Ronie could feel the pain easing in her broken arm and

wounded foot. The blood coursing from Tiese's wounds was rapidly stopping,

too.

Perfect Weapon Control.

The true, core technique of Incarnation, the power that only senior knights

with divine weapons could wield.

Most likely, the Moonbeam Sword was expending its own life in the form of

ghostly light, a kind of augmented version of light-element healing arts. It was a

very simple kind of Perfect Weapon Control, as far as such things went, but for

Ronie, who'd been an apprentice knight for less than a year, activating it

without significant training was a virtual miracle.

The weapon shone for over ten seconds before the light slowly began to fade,

then blinked, and eventually extinguished. The deep cuts on Tiese's torso

stopped bleeding, and her face was regaining a touch of red. But she wasn't

waking up again, and Ronie's arm and leg weren't completely healed, either.

The three minions, meanwhile, were smoking where the light had touched

their bodies, but they hadn't completely dissolved. The damage was only on the

surface level, and they would probably recover any moment now.

She wanted to stop the emperor from getting away, but not at the cost of

Tiese's life. They had to get out of the hall—no, out of the mansion—before the

minions started to attack again.

Summoning all the willpower the sword gave her, Ronie stood up, cradling

Tiese with her left hand. The double doorway to the hall was a larger exit, but

she couldn't escape if the minions followed her. The only option was getting

into the front yard through the broken window.

"Hang in there just a bit longer, Tiese!" she whispered to her comatose friend,

beginning to run toward the window, fifteen mels away.

With each step, pain exploded in her arm and foot like sparks. It soon grew

hard to breathe, and the air wheezed through her lungs.

Ten mels to go. Eight. Seven…

"Minions, block the window!" shouted Emperor Cruiga, recovered from the

damage of the ghostly light.

"Shrohhhh!!"

The minion curled up near the broken window howled, its voice both

reminiscent of, and completely alien to, the sound of the mountain goblins. It

stood before the escape route, extending its arms and wings. The escape route

was now entirely blocked, as was the sunset light.

Behind them, the other two minions howled as well. In order to escape, the

one before the window would have to be eliminated. But Ronie couldn't attack

the fusions. Even if she wanted to slash at a leg to immobilize it, the right-eye

seal would activate and freeze her, the way it did to Tiese.

The only method left was to use Perfect Weapon Control again. That healing

light would burn the minion's body but leave the goblin within unharmed. But

how much of the Moonbeam Sword's life was left? There was no time to check

its Stacia Window.

If she attempted Perfect Weapon Control again and expended all of its life,

the Moonbeam Sword would shatter.

Even still…her sword would forgive her for trying to save Tiese.

Ronie tried to lift her arm as she ran, desperate.

And then she heard something.

Something like countless brass instruments in harmony. Like the stars that

blanketed the sky, sparkling with music.

Like hundreds upon hundreds of angels singing.

Laaaaaaaaaaa!

Rainbow light burst through the ceiling of the great hall, accompanied by the

thunderous chorus.

Light so pure it did not seem to come from this earth shone down—but the

minions were not pained. Their red eyes blinked in confusion as they stared at

the ceiling.

Then a thin lattice of lights ran through that ceiling. It grew thicker and

thicker. The ceiling itself was being broken down into dozens of boards, each

one completely separated from the others, yet they did not fall. They floated in

the air, then slid away in all directions.

But the ceiling was not the only thing being dismantled. The walls of the

upstairs, the roof, even the furniture was enveloped in the scintillating light,

silently moving away from their original locations. It was as though the house

were built of carefully assembled wooden blocks that were crumbling outward

instead of inward.

The waves of destruction reached the walls of the first floor. The sturdylooking edifices crumbled into pieces of gray stone that slid outward into the

yard. The glass windows followed them, the panes separated entirely from their

frames.

In less than twenty seconds, the enormous building was completely

disassembled, leaving just the floor. The sound of the angels faded, as did the

rainbow light.

And then, with a monumental crash, the plethora of floating materials

crashed to the ground.

When the most orderly destruction in the world was complete, Ronie was no

longer standing inside the mansion. The dark carpet was still beneath her feet,

but the only thing overhead was the deep-red evening sky. The burning disc of

Solus was partially blocked on the lower end by the End Mountains, and the

north wind still brisk with winter brushed their hair.

The three minions and Emperor Cruiga were frozen in place with shock. If

they were original minions with no minds of their own, they would ignore the

change in situation and keep attacking, but the smarter fusion-type minions

were paradoxically paralyzed with confusion.

Yet Ronie was equally at a loss. She'd gone from a desperate, doomed

attempt to escape the great hall, and now it—and the entire imperial villa, so

saturated with evil and terror—had been completely demolished in a matter of

seconds. She couldn't wrap her mind around it.

"…Ronie," said a faint voice in her left ear. That was enough to spur her mind

back into activity. Just as hoarse, she called back, "Tiese!"

But her friend, who was conscious again, wasn't looking at Ronie. Her maplered eyes were fixed on one point in the southern sky. Ronie's head turned to

look in the same direction.

At the boundary where the sky turned from golden yellow to red floated a

little shadow. It was one—no, two people. One was a woman in a pearlescent

dress, with long brown hair that fluttered in the wind. In her right hand, she had

drawn a rapier.

And the other, supporting her with a hand around her waist, was a blackhaired young man wearing a plain black shirt and pants. The hem of his jacket

had transformed into dragon-like wings that were beating slowly.

When Ronie looked harder, she noticed what was clutched in the woman's

left arm: an animal with pale-yellow downy feathers. An animal with a long

neck and tail and little wings of its own. A baby dragon.

"Tsukigake…"

Her voice was trembling, and when she inhaled, her throat trembled with hot

emotion. She also called the names of the two people.

"Lady Asuna…Kirito…"

Little Tsukigake had run her hardest all the way to Centoria and called for the

two of them. The scintillating light that broke down the mansion was none

other than the Unlimited Landscape Manipulation ability belonging to Asuna,

the only person in all the Underworld with the power of Stacia at her fingertips.

After Ronie and Tiese, Emperor Cruiga noticed the presence of the people

staring down at him from a great height. His dangling fingers curled like claws,

creaking and cracking so loudly that even Ronie could hear it.

"…Swordsman delegate…of the Human Unification Council. What won't you

do to confound me?"

His voice was so twisted and cracked that its very utterance felt like a curse.

The emperor's robe swooped, his sleeve swaying as an arm as thin as a dead

branch jutted toward the people in the sky.

"Minions! Strike down those insolent cretins!"

The three fusions quickly looked to the sky at the sound of their new order,

and their pointed jaws opened wide. Beyond the rows of sharp teeth, purple

miasma writhed and congealed.

Was it possible that the fusions had the ability to unleash breath attacks like

the heat beams of the dragons?

"They're aiming at you!" Ronie shouted, but her voice was still frail and tiny.

They couldn't have heard it from a hundred mels up in the air.

But Kirito reacted immediately after Ronie's shout, lifting his idle right hand

up toward the sky. In its grasp was a black longsword that gleamed gold in the

light of the setting sun. That was Kirito's Night-Sky Blade.

The trio of minions opened their jaws as far as they could, preparing to

unleash their darkness breath. The vicinity suddenly grew much darker.

At first, Ronie thought that the miasma coming from the minions' mouths was

blocking the sunlight. But she immediately realized this was not the case. It

wasn't just around the minions that was getting dark—the whole forest

surrounding the mansion was plunged into deep shadow. The vivid, crimson

sunset had abruptly turned into the dark purple of night, complete with

twinkling stars.

Even Solus on the western horizon lost all its light, as though Lunaria had

completely covered its passage.

But in the midst of this sudden arrival of night, there was one thing that shone

fiercer than before.

It was the Night-Sky Blade in Kirito's hand. The flat of the blade was emitting a

golden light so bright that you almost couldn't look directly at it.

Even Cruiga was taken aback by the arrival of another supernatural

phenomenon, this one far surpassing the dismantling of the mansion. But he

recovered, throwing his left arm into the air and boldly shouting, "Pay it no

mind! Shoot them!!"

The minions threw back their heads into the sky and unleashed the purple

miasma, which shone with a very dull glow of its own. Unlike the searing rods of

heat from the dragons, these were spheres that left a trail behind them. They

rose into the sky with an eerie sound like the screaming of a wild beast. Kirito

swung down the Night-Sky Blade at them.

Ronie's vision was filled with white.

It was so bright that she couldn't keep her eyes all the way open, but she

forced her face to stay in place so she could see it for herself.

The light was coming from a vast number of particles in the air. The dots of

pure-white light held no heat, but they filled the air all around. The miasma

breath continued ascending, devouring the motes of light along the way, but

like a chunk of ice dropped into hot water, they shrank rapidly and ultimately

blinked out of existence.

"…Are these…all…light elements…?" Tiese whispered. Ronie nodded silently.

The appearance, color, and movement of the points of light were exactly

those of familiar light elements. But generating any element, not just light

elements, was limited by the number of fingers of the caster: ten at once.

And there were thousands…even tens of thousands of light elements filling

the air at this moment.

She could guess at how they were generated. Kirito's Night-Sky Blade had a

Perfect Weapon Control art—technically, it was the higher version of that,

Memory Release—that absorbed the sacred power directly out of the space

around it. He used that power to suck up the light of Solus and turn that vast

sacred power into light elements.

But elements released from their caster's mental control either vanished or

burst. When you learned, you started with maintaining a single element on one

finger. Once you could control five on one hand, you were a proper artician,

and a master of the craft could control all ten fingers at once. Ronie and Tiese

could only manage five at once right now.

How could he possibly control ten thousand of those capricious elements at

once? Ronie simply gazed up at the floating lights in wonder; they looked like

glowing snowflakes all around her.

The minions, meanwhile, opened their mouths again for another round of

miasma breath.

That was when the floating lights all began to move. As though they

possessed one mind among them, the ten thousand dots flowed and swirled,

enveloping the three minions. Like when they were exposed to the ghostly light

of the Moonbeam Sword, their skin smoked and hissed, exuding foul-smelling

smoke. But that did not last long:

The dark-gray bodies were permeated by the light elements until the glowing

was coming from within them—and without so much as a scream, the horrible

monsters simply crumbled into liquid form.

As the substance splattered and flew, it evaporated into thin air, promptly

exposing the mountain goblins that tumbled out onto the ground. They were

unconscious and missing their clothes and accoutrements, but they were

unharmed.

Some of the light elements swirled around Ronie and Tiese as well, healing

their wounds. A warmth and comfort that was difficult to put into words

threatened to ease her entire body, but she focused hard and stayed on her

feet.

As soon as the fusions were gone, and the girls' wounds were healed, the sky

regained its sunset color.

The majority of the light elements had expired, having completed their role,

but the last few hundred or so arranged themselves into ten rings that floated

not far off the ground. They were placed in a parallel pattern rising vertically,

forming a tall cage holding none other than Emperor Cruiga Norlangarth. The

rings were just wide enough not to touch the edges of his robe. If he moved

even a little, the light elements would infuse his clay body and cause him to

dissolve, too.

In the light of the setting sun, a bit redder and darker than before, the man

was now an utter shadow, his face hidden beneath his hood. Of course, the

haughty, proud emperor would never become a meek prisoner by choice.

"Can you stand, Tiese?" Ronie murmured.

Her partner nodded crisply. "Yes, I'm fine now. Thanks, Ronie."

"I should say the same…Thank you, Tiese."

They hugged for a moment. After a quick examination of her injuries, Ronie

saw that there was only a slight scar left on her right foot and above the knee,

and her left arm and ribs were intact once more, if not perfectly so. Tiese had

been hurt even worse, but she was able to move again without trouble.

Tiese's sword was resting on the opposite end of the great hall floor, where

the minion had thrown it. She started to walk over to retrieve it, but Ronie held

out a hand to stop her.

"You can get it later. Don't take your eyes off the emperor."

Tiese nodded, her expression tense. They were worried about the mountain

goblins, too, but he might attempt to cast some art upon them again. Ronie

approached the rings of light carefully, sword held at the ready.

Kirito and Asuna were descending in a graceful arc from the sky above. Ronie

and Tiese's job was to make sure the emperor couldn't attempt any nonsense

before they landed.

When the girls came to a stop three mels away from the cage, the robed

figure in black shivered.

"Heh-heh, heh-heh-heh-heh…"

It was a horrible chuckling that snuck into the ear. She pointed her sword at

him, but the emperor did not stop laughing.

"Cruiga Norlangarth…your plot is at an end. Surrender peacefully this time,"

she said as menacingly as possible. He stopped laughing, but it did nothing to

change his arrogant demeanor.

"This is a repeat of one year ago, girl. I chose a death of glory then. Did you

think I would submit to indignity this time?"

"You don't have any other choice."

"Choice…? You don't understand. None of you understand a thing," the

emperor muttered. His hood tilted up just a bit. Ronie glanced up, too; Kirito

and Asuna were just over the mansion now. Merely ten seconds, perhaps, until

they touched down.

I won't let him do anything, she told herself.

She did not expect the method that the emperor used to slip past her watch.

"This is farewell for now, girl. May we meet again," he said, leaning forward.

"Ah—!"

Tiese gasped and reached out, but there was nothing she could do. The rings

of light, which were no more than a milice thick, sliced straight through the

robe and Cruiga's body as he tilted through them. The clay form was chopped

into layers that tumbled loudly to the ground in a pile, starting from the top.

Eleven black pieces promptly melted into a liquid substance that spread out

and began to evaporate. By the time Kirito and Asuna landed behind them, the

only things on the carpet were some scraps of black cloth and two accessories.

One was a golden ring carved with the family crest. The other was an eerie,

glowing red jewel set into a blackened chain.

Ronie was standing still in shock when Kirito rushed up and put a hand on her

shoulder. "I'm sorry I'm so late! Are you all right?!"

Instantly, her nerves loosened, and she nearly fell to the ground, but she

retained enough strength to stay standing and turned to the delegate.

"Y-yes, I'm fine," she said. "But the emperor…"

"E-emperor?!" Kirito repeated, looking utterly shocked. But she couldn't give

him a detailed explanation. As Asuna was reaching out to comfort Tiese, a little

yellow mass leaped free and smothered itself over Ronie's face.

"Kyurrrrrrrr!"

That sound, at last, brought tears to Ronie's eyes. "Tsukigake!"

She gave her sword to Kirito so she could hug her dragon with both arms.

Up close, it was clear that Tsukigake's feathers were smeared with mud and

blood in places, and her beautiful tail feathers were in a dreadful state. Centoria

was a long distance away, but just running through fields and meadows

wouldn't cause damage like that. Tsukigake must have gone through a terrible

ordeal to bring Kirito and Asuna here.

She caressed the crooning baby dragon, and soon there came another highpitched cry from the eastern woods.

A ball of light-blue fluff burst out of the brush and came rolling into the open.

It made its way through the stacked-up remnants of the mansion out in the

yard and bounded onto the carpeted floor in the middle, then leaped high into

the air toward Tiese.

"Shimosaki!!" she cried, embracing her dragon. Asuna stood nearby, watching

with a beaming smile.

"If we hadn't heard Shimosaki crying and seen the light elements flashing

through the windows, we wouldn't have noticed this place. You fought so well,"

she said.

"...Thank you…," Tiese said, her voice tearful. Shimosaki crowed "Krrrr!" into

her chest, Tsukigake added in a "Kyurrr!" of her own, and then there was a third

cry that went "Kyu-kyuu!"

"…?!"

To Tiese's shock, the extra voice was coming from a creature in Kirito's jacket

that was much smaller than the juvenile dragons. It raced up his body and

perched atop his head. The brown animal looked like a cross between a rat and

a rabbit, with very long ears. It looked around at the entire group and squeaked

"Kyuu!" with great insistence.

"K…Kirito, what is that?" she asked.

He rolled his eyes upward toward the rat on his head and said, "Well, uh…we

were flying over the fields on the southern edge of the private holding when we

saw Tsukigake fighting against some type of badgers…"

"I don't think they were badgers, more like coatis," Asuna pointed out.

"What's a…?" he murmured. "Never mind. Anyway, we drove off the…coatis

and healed Tsukigake's wounds. Then, when we were about to start flying

toward the lake, Tsukigake ran over to a wooden bucket…and this guy popped

out."

"From the bucket…?"

"Yeah. Based on the circumstances, it seems like Tsukigake helped it hide

inside the bucket before fighting the coatis. I thought it might be some kind of

quest flag…er, something important to keep around, so I brought it along, but

nothing really happened," the swordsman delegate explained.

Tsukigake looked back and forth between Ronie and Kirito, then crooned,

"Krrrr…"

The rat chimed in with a "Kyu-kyu-kyu!"

Ronie didn't know exactly what Tsukigake's chirping meant—and certainly not

the rat's. But she could get a vague sense of the implications and tried to put

them into human words.

"Ummm…it seems to me like Tsukigake made some kind of a deal with that

rat…"

"A deal…?" said Kirito and Asuna and Tiese together. The rat bounced up and

down unhappily on the delegate's head. It was such a funny sight that Ronie

burst into giggles.

But at just that moment, on the floor not far from them, there was a bloodred flash.

"Kii!" the rat shrieked, and it dived into Kirito's pocket. Tsukigake and

Shimosaki both growled a warning.

Ronie held up a hand to block the eye-piercing light and caught sight of its

source.

It was the jewel resting on the ground. The necklace that both Emperor Cruiga

and Emperor Hozaika had worn around their necks.

"Kirito! That's the root of all this evil!" Ronie shouted. Kirito took a step

toward the red light.

Then the jewel shot up into the sky with terrifying speed. The red light raced

upward faster than even the art that shot fire arrows. Kirito reached out with

his hand. The light slowed at once and came to a stop in the air about thirty

mels up.

He had grabbed it with Incarnate Arms.

His Incarnation could make an entire metal dragoncraft fly; of course, the

jewel couldn't shake it off, Ronie was certain. But the jewel did not descend. It

hung in that spot in the air, the chain trembling and taut beneath it.

The stalemate lasted all of three seconds.

With a loud, abrupt crack! the chain Kirito was pulling with Incarnation broke

into pieces and fell.

But the jewel, as though freed from shackles, burst upward and simply melted

into the red of the sunset. There was one last glimpse of it, nearly up to the

clouds, where it briefly left behind a little red trail. The direction of the light's

movement was where Solus was sinking…toward the empire of Wesdarath.