Accel World - Volume 10 - Chapter 1.1

1

YOU WIN!

Haruyuki Arita held his breath and stared at the flaming letters that popped up in his field of view, followed by a display of burst points being added to his total.

It was a two-against-two tag team match, but since the total value of the player levels on each team was equal, he earned only the basic ten points. With the delightful metallic sound echoing through his ears—a sound that never failed to please him no matter how many times he heard it—he watched the number indicating his current total points climb. From 298 to 308, up it went.

Below this appeared a system message he had never seen before: YOU CAN NOW LEVEL UP.

“All…right!” Haruyuki thrust the arm of his avatar, Silver Crow, up into the air and unconsciously struck a victory pose.

Although they seemed somewhat irritated, the level-two and level-three players of the opposing team offered their congratulations.

“Hey, congrats!”

“Think carefully before you choose your level-up bonus!”

Haruyuki hurriedly bowed his head several times in their direction as the pair burst out together. The members of the Gallery occupying the surrounding buildings’ rooftops also clapped and shouted their congratulations before disappearing one after the other.

In the end, only his tag-team partner remained, level-four Cyan Pile, clad in blue heavy armor with his piercing-type Enhanced Armament. He, too, nodded his head deeply. “Congratulations, Haru. You’ve really fought hard these past two weeks.”

“…Thanks, Taku.” This was the best he could do with his impoverished linguistic abilities, despite his desire to truly communicate all the feelings welling up in his heart. He repeated the sentiment in a louder voice: “Seriously, thanks.”

Over the past two weeks, Cyan Pile (aka Takumu Mayuzumi) had assisted Haruyuki with anything and everything in a way that was impossible to quantify. Duel avatars’ color characteristics and the attributes of duel fields, with strategies to handle each…places and times where duels were plenty, alongside the local rules and customs of each area…and he didn’t stop at sharing this sort of Brain Burst information, either: He even helped Haruyuki with real-world homework and school reports.

Even if Haruyuki—Silver Crow—was the first complete flying-type duel avatar to appear in the seven-hundred-year history of the Accelerated World, without Takumu’s kind assistance, he could never have saved up three hundred points in this short a period of time. In fact, without Takumu, he could easily have been attacked right out of the gate and lost all his points.

And that was because his parent Burst Linker, the one who would normally be giving him this kind of instruction, was currently in the hospital. Not only could she not duel, she couldn’t even connect to the net except for the briefest instant each day. This was only natural, given that patients in HCU were monitored at all hours. Haruyuki wanted her to avoid full dives and just rest quietly, but she grumbled and complained about it every day when she called him.

At any rate, given the situation, seeking instruction from his “parent,” Kuroyukihime—the Black King, Black Lotus—and meeting her in the Accelerated World was naturally impossible. She was supposed to be transferred to a general ward the following week, but she likely still wouldn’t be up to dueling for a while after that, either. Which was why Takumu withdrew from the Blue Legion, Leonids, transferred to the Black Legion, Nega Nebulus, and took on the temporary role of instructor. Haruyuki couldn’t begin to express his gratitude, but he tried desperately to cram all his feelings on the matter into those two words.

Takumu laughed from beneath his edged face mask. “Okay, but seriously, this level of thing doesn’t even erase a single sliver of my crimes.”

“…Taku…”

Takumu averted his eyes from the mumbling Haruyuki and looked up at the full moon of the Ancient Castle stage. “And, like, Haru, if I hadn’t attacked Master—the Black King—all those times in such cowardly ways, I’m sure we wouldn’t have ended up like this. So it’s my responsibility, my duty, to help you on behalf of the king.”

It was true. Haruyuki definitely couldn’t say that Takumu had used honest means to continually challenge Kuroyukihime to duels within the Umesato Junior High local net after summer vacation had ended. He had set up a backdoor program in the Neurolinker of Chiyuri Kurashima, their childhood friend, and used that as a stepping-stone to one-sidedly challenge Kuroyukihime.

Having realized the trick, Haruyuki had fought Takumu to protect Kuroyukihime, in the hospital she had been taken to, while she was in a coma after sustaining serious injuries. In the ferocious battle, they had clashed with all the emotion and power they could muster, and at the end of it, Haruyuki awoke as a flying avatar and destroyed Takumu. But rather than striking the final blow, he forgave his friend.

In the end, Takumu hadn’t been able to steal a single point from Kuroyukihime. Her being in the hospital and Takumu’s attacks, directly or indirectly—

“Th-they’re not connected, Taku!” Haruyuki shouted, waving both hands earnestly. “Kuroyukihime was so seriously hurt because I was an idiot from start to finish! A-and think about it: If you hadn’t kept challenging her, she’d still be hiding in the local net. And she wouldn’t have tried to make a child or anything. So I wouldn’t have become a Burst Linker, right? So then, if we trace it back to the beginning, it’s also thanks to you that I’m here fighting in the Accelerated World right now.”

It was a little too heavy-handed to say that one followed from the other, but even so, Takumu’s shoulders relaxed just the tiniest bit as he stared up at the pale moon. “Ha. Ha-ha! You never change, do you, Haru? Not a bit, not since elementary school.”

Haruyuki cocked his head questioningly. “So, I can take that as a compliment…right?”

“Ha-ha! Of course.” Takumu laughed briefly, shoulders shaking, and this time turned away completely. Haruyuki muttered “Thanks” once more to that broad back, so like Takumu’s in the real world, and checked the timer in the top center of his field of view.

They had settled the tag-team match unexpectedly fast, so the timer still had nearly two hundred seconds of the original 1,800. And once a duel was over, players had to use an extra burst point to play around with the Brain Burst menu. He still had three minutes left; that ought to be plenty.

This decided, Haruyuki reached a hand toward his own health gauge and opened the main menu—nicknamed “Instruct.” This strange name came from the fact that in the very distant past, the manual embedded at the top of the control panel of the large game cabinets at amusement shops (apparently known as “video game arcades” then) were called “instruction cards.”

With a light effect and sound, a holowindow, designed much like those found in commercial VRMMO-RPGs, opened in the center of his view. In the initial settings, a simplified silhouette of his duel avatar was displayed. If he touched a button on the same screen, that silhouette would move and teach him the motions for his normal and special attacks. But he only got depressed watching Silver Crow’s attacks, so he ignored it.

At the top was a row of tabs for moving to STORAGE or POINTS screens. He didn’t have a single item, so he ignored that tab, too, and moved to the POINTS screen.

As soon as he touched it, the number 308 was displayed in large type at the top center of the window. This, of course, was the number of points he currently possessed. No matter how many times he looked at it, the corners of his mouth curled up beneath his helmet. It made him even happier than the first time he’d saved up ten thousand yen in the real world—because he had literally earned these points with his own hands and feet (and sometimes wings).

I wonder if Kuroyukihime will be happy for me when I tell her I made it to level two…But nah, she’ll definitely look at me calmly and say something like, “You’re still a little chick.”

As he thought about this, Haruyuki touched the button to use his points, and on the menu that appeared, he pressed the LEVEL UP button glittering brightly at the very top. An English confirmation dialog opened to ask if he was sure he wanted to use three hundred points and advance to level two. He thought this was strange, given how curt the basic user interface normally was in Brain Burst, but still Haruyuki stretched a finger toward the YES button.

Instantly, Cyan Pile, who had his head tilted back at the night sky a little ways off, whirled around, as if sensing his action. He caught sight of Haruyuki’s gesture, a shudder raced through his entire body, and then he took a hasty step forward. “H-Haru!” he shouted. “You can’t! Stop!!”

But by the time the desperate cry reached his ears, Haruyuki’s finger was already pressing up against the three letters of YES.

The cool, thrilling melody of the level-up fanfare filled his ears. In the center of his field of view, a message announced that he had gone up to level two. And then finally, the total burst points he possessed changed from 308 to eight.