Accel World - Volume 10 - Chapter 2.08

8

The taming of an Enemy.

Kuroyukihime knew there were ways to do this, but only through secondhand knowledge. There were two methods: Either the Burst Linker used their own special taming ability—although she had never once met anyone with that rare ability—or they used a special item. With the latter, although she had just once seen something along those lines appear in a treasure box in a dungeon a long, long time ago, she lost the dice roll, and it was taken by someone in her party then; she had no idea if it had been used after that.

Her knowledge was extremely vague, but even so, there was just one thing she could say with certainty. It was impossible to tame Legend-class Enemies—because they were so absolutely powerful. They could even be said to be the rulers of the Accelerated World. They could instantly kill a midlevel duel avatar with a single blow, and with a special attack, these Enemies could easily send even a group of high-level players flying.

Additionally, whether you used an ability or an item, you needed to first pare away the Enemy’s health gauge until it was on the verge of being completely exhausted in order to succeed in the taming. Which meant that you had to attempt to break a Legend-class opponent running wild from being on the verge of death. It was simply suicide, an act that sent chills up her spine just thinking about it.

With these thoughts racing through her mind in the blink of an eye, Kuroyukihime turned to Crikin beside her and began automatically questioning him. “Who is it? What is the name of the person who managed this?”

But the answer was even more surprising. “Dunno.”

“What?! If you checked the matching list, in a second…”

“That— No matter how many times we look at the list, there’s no name there,” Mana murmured. The slender coral avatar stood rooted to the spot, her long hair parts shaking.

Squeezing her friend’s shoulders tightly, Ruka said quietly, “That’s why we say the one riding it is majimun [a monster]. Gunah majimun. [Small monster.]”

At about the same time these words reached Kuroyukihime’s ears, the sound of an incredible impact roared through the stage for the third time.

Two ruins standing in the west of the cluster had been smashed together. The distance between them and the destroyer had been already cut to a hundred meters. Should she retreat immediately like Crikin said, or should she stand her ground and carefully examine the true form of this “monster”? After a moment’s hesitation, Kuroyukihime made her decision.

“Crikin, Ruka, Mana, and I dived after setting a disconnection timer.”

“How long?”

“Inside, eighty-three hours.”

“In that case, it won’t get to them both before losing all their points. But that means, Lotus, you…you want to fight.”

“Retreating before I’ve seen the face of my enemy doesn’t sit well with me. That said, I don’t mind if the three of you leave before me.”

“You never change, huh, World End? Okay, then maybe I’ll join you. No matter how much of a monster it is, we got a king right here; we’ll nankurunaisa [make something happen].”

Ruka and Mana watched over this quick exchange, hugging each other, but finally, as if overcome by emotion, they shouted, “S-so cool!”

“Sister and Master, you’re both wonderful!”

“Huh? Y-you think? Nah, ah, dang. But I actually prefer older ladies, so…” Crikin remarked, self-satisfied at a time like this, and Kuroyukihime jabbed him in the side with her right elbow.

“Here it comes!!”

The final building separating them from the destroyer vanished completely as if it had exploded.

“A—a dinosaur?!” Kuroyukihime blurted as soon as she spotted what appeared through the cloud of dust.

The tapered snout. Enormous jaw. Eyeballs shining red to either side. Thick, short legs supporting a cannonball body and a long tail. It all resembled the carnivorous beasts of antiquity she had seen in full-dive lessons in biology.

“Its official name is Nidhogg. I just call it Nick, though.”

Abruptly, a voice came down at her, and Kuroyukihime quickly shifted her gaze upward. She saw on the back of the enormous dinosaur a fin like the sail of a yacht. It stuck out sharply, and standing right in front of it was a small human figure—a duel avatar. This was no doubt the gunah majimun Ruka had mentioned: the Burst Linker who did not appear on the matching list.

“You. Who are you?!”

At Kuroyukihime’s challenge, the knight on the giant dinosaur moved his right hand lightly. The slender chain in that hand shook, glittering silver. When she looked very closely, she saw that the chain was connected to a band of leather wrapped around the dinosaur’s snout. If this was the bridle it appeared to be, then it was very likely the item that tamed the legendary Nidhogg.

“Thou shalt not needlessly name thyself; that’s our society’s rule, but…” He cut himself off, his voice excessively bright, and after shrugging his shoulders, the knight continued. “I never dreamed I’d come across a fish as big as you way out here at the end of the world. Nick caught the scent of some huge prey, so I came to check it out just in case. Clearly, the right choice. At the very least, I must introduce myself.”

Kuroyukihime quickly analyzed the information contained in these words.

Of course, this was also hearsay, but tamed Enemies supposedly demonstrated various abilities for the sake of their masters. This dinosaur Nidhogg was likely equipped with a radar-type ability to search out the position of targets from a long distance. In other words, what had called the Legend-class Enemy and its knight to the little town was none other than Kuroyukihime herself.

“It’s not your fault,” Crikin whispered, as if reading her mind. “I mean, you could actually call this a good opportunity. In the sense of my particular abilities.”

“I’m counting on you,” Kuroyukihime returned briefly, as the mysterious Burst Linker on the dinosaur’s back bowed neatly.

“A pleasure to meet you, Black King. And greetings, people of the region. My name is Sulfur Pot. I look forward to knowing you better.”

“Strange. So you finally name yourself. I’ve been waiting for this day for the last three months, ever since you appeared! Listen. The mighty power before you is known as…” Crikin braced his simple legs in the shape of cylinders cut in half lengthwise and moved to proudly call back his own name.

“Oh, it’s fine. You don’t need to tell me. There’s no point, and anyway, you’ll be at total point loss soon enough,” came the humiliating reply, and the Strongest Name ended in a misfire.

Crikin trembled with rage, and Kuroyukihime held him back with a gesture before launching her thoughts into high gear once more. She had never heard the avatar name Sulfur Pot before. Which meant that he had become a Burst Linker during the two and a half years she had been in a state of semiretirement. But the swaggering way he carried himself was that of a veteran, and a major feat like the taming a Legend-class Enemy was impossible for a mid-ranking Linker, much less a newbie. He had either an incredibly rich history of battle experience, or the backing of a large Legion.

The instant her thoughts made it to this point, the thing that she should have remembered straightaway finally sparked to life in the core of her brain.

“Gunah majimun”—small monster. That’s what Ruka had called Sulfur Pot, because he didn’t appear on the matching list. Normally, this was completely impossible. A major principle of Brain Burst was that connected Burst Linkers would always be registered on the matching list given that they had to connect to the global net to dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field.

However, the previous fall, Kuroyukihime had suffered greatly because of an enemy who managed to skirt this principle. Takumu Mayuzumi—Cyan Pile—currently teamed up with Silver Crow as a trustworthy member of Nega Nebulus. He had used a program given to him by his parent Burst Linker to disappear and reappear in the Umesato local net like a ghost. The situation now was very similar. She might even say it was exactly the same.

She took a sharp breath and called out to the avatar lording over all present from five meters up in the air, “Backdoor program.”

Sulfur Pot’s shoulders twitched. “Now, what exactly is that?” His voice preserved its calm, but his upper body leaned forward slightly. Through this movement, the avatar, who had been in the shadow of the dinosaur’s dorsal fin, was exposed to the sunlight of the Weathered stage, revealing his color and form.

Sulfur—befitting the name, his armor was a fairly vivid yellow, but somewhat paler than Yellow Radio, Yellow King, and one of the Kings of Pure Color. Sulfur’s slender body had an orthodox form, but large holes in his shoulders, chest, and hips drew the eye.

Staring hard at her enemy’s face, designed to look as though he were wearing a mask and goggles, Kuroyukihime offered a few more words. “No, wait. If I remember right, that program can’t be used anymore with the server update, hmm? But I have no doubt you’re using a similar cheat technique. Which means, Sulfur Pot, you’re not in Okinawa, but rather diving at a distance from Tokyo, hmm?!”

The first to respond to this were the three members of the Okinawan group from Crikin down.

“Wh-wh-what?!”

“Akisamiyo!!”

“No! Way! No faaaair!”

At the three cries in succession, Sulfur Pot didn’t so much as flinch. Finally, he slowly leaned back and said, almost in a murmur, “I see, I get it. You may have withdrawn to your little nest for a few years, but you still have teeth. Well, that’s that, then. I didn’t have this on my schedule, but I’ll have you disappear here, Black King. Everyone’ll be so disappointed if our farming sees a setback here.”

“What? Farming?” Kuroyukihime murmured. In addition to the “crop cultivation” and “animal husbandry” listed in the dictionary, the word farming Sulfur Pot used also had meaning as a net game term: quick turnover in monster hunting to earn large amounts of money and experience points. That was precisely what he had been doing in Okinawa using the massive Nidhogg.

Putting it all together, she ended up with something like this.

Three months earlier, Sulfur Pot had visited Okinawa, probably on a school trip like Kuroyukihime, and set up some kind of cheat tool in the vicinity of Henoko at that time. After he returned to Tokyo, he dived into the Unlimited Neutral Field in Okinawa from a distance, together with the Nidhogg he had tamed in advance, and mowed down the Wild and lesser–class Enemies that lived there. Thus, he was protected by the same logic as Cyan Pile had once been, and no matter how many times Crikin and his team checked the matching list, his name was not there. If he did the same thing in Tokyo, he would become a target for subjugation by the major Legions in the blink of an eye, but that wasn’t a concern in distant Okinawa. If Ruka and Mana hadn’t risked their lives and tried contacting her while Kuroyukihime was there, she would never have even thought about diving into the Unlimited Neutral Field.

“I’m the one presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here, Sulfur Pot. I happen to have a personal grudge against all kinds of cheat tools. So I’ll make sure to expose your petty little secret here and make it so you can never use that tool again.”

Clang! Flinging out the sword of her right hand, Kuroyukihime called out clearly, “Don’t think the nickname Legend Slayer has been patented by the Blue King! Come! I will fillet you and your steed!!”

Her sharp tongue descended on him like a conflagration, and Sulfur Pot’s demeanor changed in response. His eyes, beneath round goggles, burned, and he responded in a low voice, “Now you’ve gone and said it. Even my own parent has never spoken to me like that. I don’t think any of the usual ways of killing you will do here. Let’s see if you can still puff out your chest like that when Nick has smashed a leg and an arm.”

The air in the field immediately became tense, and the temperature rose. Even the gusting-wind characteristic of the Weathered stage held its breath, as if sensing the impending clash.

Kuroyukihime glanced over at Crikin, prepared for battle next to her, and murmured quickly, “Crikin, we’re doing that.”

“Roger. Understood,” the crimson avatar responded briefly, his manner entirely different from when they had first arrived in the field. Briskly, he gave instructions to Ruka and Mana, standing to the rear. “Students, in the opening of this battle, my fine self and Lotus will be that giant’s opponent. When you fight something this large, the surrounding buildings are destroyed one after another and turned to rubble. What you two are going to do is gather up any metal objects from that rubble and bring it to this intersection.”

“What? We’ll fight, too—” Ruka started to raise her voice in protest, but Mana quickly blocked it.

“Understood, Master! We’re picking up scrap metal, right? Leave it to us!”

“Go all out. The amount of steel you collect will decide the battle! Here we go!”

“Haah!” With a battle cry, Sulfur Pot snapped the reins he clutched in both hands. On standby until that point, the dinosaur-shaped Enemy’s eyes gleamed a dull red, and it opened wide a maw lined with sinister teeth.

“Graaaaaaar!!” It had no sooner released the earth-shaking roar than the massive, twenty-meter-long dinosaur started to charge ferociously.