Accel World - Volume 24 - Chapter 7

7

“Wake up—it’s time,” a voice whispered as his body was shaken, and Haruyuki’s eyes snapped open.

He normally slept for an average of seven hours, so he’d thought that half that time wouldn’t be nearly enough, but his head was strangely clear. When he sat up in the blue darkness, Seri’s face was immediately to his left.

“Good morning,” he said before looking to his right, where Kuroyukihime and Rin were sleeping peacefully. Even though it was about three seconds past 1:30 AM, they showed no sign of waking.

“Huh? Their alarm’s not going off?” Haruyuki muttered.

“I woke up five minutes early and took off their Neurolinkers,” Seri said unexpectedly.

“Huh…? Why…?”

“Kuroyukihime can’t go into the Unlimited Neutral Field, and it’s not like Rin’s training, so let’s just let them sleep until morning.”

“I…guess you’re right. But they’ll probably be mad when they wake up.”

“If all goes well with your training, they’ll be glad.”

“Okay.” Haruyuki nodded, and Seri offered him a glass of cold water she had gotten at some point. He thanked her quietly as he took it and then drank about half of it. When he returned the glass, Seri finished off the remaining water without any hesitation and put the glass on the table without a sound.

“You okay for the washroom?”

“Yes, I went before we went to sleep.”

“Okay then, let’s get started.”

She laid down once more. He also returned his head to the cushion, and after they had both set timers to disconnect automatically in three hours, he looked to his left. Seri held out her hand and folded one finger down at a time. At the same time and at the quietest possible volume…

““Unlimited Burst.””

July 23, 1:30 AM. Haruyuki visited the Unlimited Neutral Field with the objective of the longest continuous dive he had likely ever done. When he opened the eye lenses hidden behind Silver Crow’s shining mask, dazzling sunlight burned his virtual retinas.

The sky above his head was dyed a deep blue, and the sun glittered brightly in the middle of it. His own condo building had turned into a whitish mountain, and he appeared to be standing on the top of that. The fact that he had been moved from indoors meant the mountain had no interior structure, so this wasn’t a Sandstorm stage. It didn’t seem to be a Wasteland stage or a Desert stage, either.

“What stage is it?” he muttered, and the response came from behind him.

“Pulled a rare one. This is a Salt Lake stage.”

Haruyuki whirled around and was momentarily at a loss for words.

A diamond-shaped visor covering the face mask. Thin armor that looked glued to the avatar’s naked body. Long hair flowing down the back—they were all just as he’d seen them on the Highest Level. But the contrast between the clear sapphire blue that colored the armor and the platinum hair that reflected the sunlight was far more beautiful than he’d imagined. He had seen too many blue-type duel avatars to count, but he felt like he had never seen such a clear hue as this before.

“Bluer than the Blue King,” he murmured in awe, and the Ruthless Omega Weapon of an Asura hell, aka Centaurea Sentry, smiled wryly.

“And yet that knave took the blue name before us. Although we do not particularly desire it.” She sniffed. “We are proud to have been born and gifted with the name of a flower.”

“Then you’d probably get along with Rose Milady and Orchid Oracle, huh?” he remarked nonchalantly, but Sentry neither assented to nor rejected the idea.

Instead, she broke the silence that followed with a footstep.

As she began to walk on high heels (that were only slightly shorter than Purple Thorn’s), Haruyuki chased after her, cutting across the flattened peak of the mountain toward the southern edge.

The instant he looked down on the stage, he gasped again.

The other buildings had all been transformed into rocky white mountains, and while this was not an unusual sight, the wide Kannana Ring Road reflected the blue sky like a mirror. When he looked closely, it appeared to be covered in a thin layer of water, but the reflectance was not normal. Normally, Kannana turned into a gentle hill in front of his condo, but in this stage, the slope of the terrain appeared to have been flattened.

“Whoa,” he said. “It looks like a water stage, but the blue’s totally different, huh? So Salt Lake…Does that mean that’s all salt water?”

“It’s not just the water.” Sentry kicked at the surface of the mountain with the heel of her right foot. She picked up a small fragment from where it cracked and thrust it toward Haruyuki’s mouth. When he reflexively opened it, the lower part of his mirrored goggles slid smoothly downward, and she tossed the fragment in.

“Mmph— Whoa! Salty!!” He reeled at the intense sting in his mouth.

“Ha-ha-ha!” Sentry laughed agreeably. “You see? The mountains here are rock salt. Fortunate that you are silver. This stage is powerfully corrosive for steel-type metal colors.”

“Gah! Silver can be corroded, too!” He tried to spit out the rock salt, but he had already swallowed it. All avatars had the same naked body underneath their armored exteriors, so it shouldn’t corrode him from the inside, fortunately. Or so he told himself as he looked out at the stage again.

If the entire ground was covered in salt water, then it would make training a little hard, he thought. And then…

“This air…This feeling of the wind hitting your armor,” Sentry murmured next to him. She spread out her arms and took a deep breath. “We have returned.”

Haruyuki finally remembered that this was her first time in the Unlimited Neutral Field in three years, so he turned toward her and said, “Um. Uh, welcome back, Seri.”

“You dare to use such names on this side?” Sentry scolded before taking a step toward him, her arms still spread.

Suddenly, he was wrapped in a forceful embrace. Even though they were both clad in hard armor, he felt a supple elasticity for some reason, and his breath caught. He timidly raised his arms and put them around Sentry’s back.

After a moment, he heard a voice murmur into his ear.

“Thank you, Silver Crow. We had prepared for this for many long hours, but we did not truly believe that the day would come when we could look upon this scene once more. It is thanks to you.”

She squeezed him so tightly, the embrace threatened to make his health gauge drop, then released him at last. She retreated two steps and cocked her head, puzzled. “Why do you grow so rigid?”

“O-oh, uh, it was just an unexpected action, so…”

“Our parent often told us that we were unexpectedly emotional.”

“Your parent…”

Sentry didn’t give Haruyuki the chance to ask who that was and instead clapped her hands together. “Now then, although we have plenty of time, it is not the case that we have more than enough. Shall we begin what we came to do?”

“O-okay!” Just when he thought he was finally going to start his Omega-style training—

“First, let us look a moment.”

Now it was Haruyuki’s turn to cock his head. “Look? At what?”

“At the ball, obviously. Inti.” Sentry had no sooner spoken than she was throwing herself gracefully off the edge of the mountain.

“A-ah! This is the top floor!” Haruyuki cried, stunned. He hurriedly looked down and saw Sentry’s long platinum hair spread out in a semicircle as she drifted downward at an impossibly gentle speed.

He deployed his wings and jumped before asking as he glided after her, “Wh-why aren’t you just dropping like a rock?”

“The Feather Fall ability.”

This calm answer had him at a brief loss for words. Although she couldn’t fly in the strictest sense of the word, if this ability was always activated, then it meant she wouldn’t take damage falling from great heights, even if she jumped from the top of the old Tokyo Tower.

“Th-that’s an amazing power,” he stammered.

“We do not require you to tell us this.”

While they talked, the blue surface gradually grew closer. It wasn’t only the road; the condo building grounds were also covered in water, and there was no outcrop of terra firma for him to land on. I hope it’s not too deep! he prayed as he dropped into the mirrorlike water. Sploosh! His legs bisected the upside-down sky.

Fortunately, the water was only about ten centimeters deep, and his armor did not immediately corrode. He lifted his face with a sigh of relief, and Sentry’s face, which had previously been five centimeters higher, was now fifteen centimeters above him.

When he looked down, he saw her feet weren’t sinking into the water. She stood on the surface, small waves rippling out from her heels.

“Wh-why aren’t you sinking?”

“The Surface Walk ability.”

“…”

Haruyuki couldn’t find anything to say in response.

Going by ground, it was over ten kilometers from Koenji in the Suginami area to Kitanomaru Park in Chiyoda Ward, where the Sun God Inti was fixed in position. And all the roads were submerged in concentrated salt water, which made walking impossibly difficult. Thus, Haruyuki suggested that he carry Sentry and fly them there.

“No, perhaps best not to do that.”

His proposal was rejected, and he blinked several times beneath his goggles. “Huh? Wh-why not?”

“Oscillatory are no doubt monitoring Inti’s environs through some means,” she told him. “If we approach via the air, we will be discovered in an instant.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Th-that’s true.”

“Well, even if we are discovered, they would not attack immediately. But given that you are on the cusp of an important mission. It would be irritating should we stir their caution.”

“Understood.”

We didn’t come to play, he told himself. All this was to rescue Kuroyukihime. Walking ten or twenty kilometers in salt water was nothing.

“Okay then, let’s go!” Haruyuki lifted his face resolutely and started to splash down the sidewalk along Kannana.

“Oi! Who said you could walk?”

“…Huh?”

When he looked back, Sentry kicked at the salt water with her toes.

“Run, run! And do not merely jog. You must put your left foot out before your right sinks and strive to run along the surface for as long as possible.”

“…Isn’t that the thing that only basilisk lizards can do?”

“Then be one with the lizard!” she cried. “If you are able to take ten continuous steps on top of the water, perhaps Surface Walk will flash inside of you.”

“What? Really?” Suddenly fired up, Haruyuki faced forward again and concentrated his attention on the mirrorlike water. He pulled his right foot out and gently set his sole on the surface. Irregular waves rippled out, and a faint sensation of contact came through to him.

While Silver Crow was a metal color, he was a light one, so even if he put all his weight on his right foot, it should take some amount of time for it to reach the bottom. During that time, he would put his left foot forward and step on the water in the same way. Ten steps all of a sudden was probably out of the question, but at least three—no, four.

“Hngah!” With a battle cry, Haruyuki stepped with his right foot and attempted to put his left foot forward at the same time.

But the resistance of the salt water was even greater than he’d thought, and so he promptly lost his balance and fell face-first into the water. Kasplooosh! A spectacular jet shot up, and Sentry’s laughter was lost in the sound of it.

As they moved onto Okubo-dori Street via Nakano Station and headed toward Chiyoda Ward, Haruyuki intently continued to practice running on the water. After falling several times, he hit upon the idea that maybe the trick was not to step hard on the water’s surface, but rather to try to minimize his own weight as much as possible. By the time they merged with Waseda Street in Kagurazaka, however, the number of steps he was able to run on the surface, albeit imperfectly, was a mere two.

With only a kilometer to go, he had to at least increase the number of steps by one more before they arrived at their destination, and so he wanted to keep practicing.

Sentry had other ideas, however. “Your water-running training is at an end for the moment,” she told him. “Walk normally from here.”

“What?” He let out a cry of dissatisfaction. “There’s a kilometer left, Ser—I mean, Maestro! I feel like I’m gonna get it with just a little more!”

“Your attitude is excellent, but we must assume that a radius of a kilometer is within Oscillatory’s sphere of vigilance. Best to move forward with as low a profile as possible.”

“Oh…I guess. That’s true…”

“But, Crow, there truly is something off about you.”

“Huh?”

Seri patted the back of a stunned Haruyuki. “Pay it no mind. Let us go.” She started to walk again as though gliding across the surface. Her movement, which caused almost no waves, was more typical of a monk than a swordmaster. How long exactly had she trained to be able to manage this kind of composure? he wondered as he chased after her, trying to make as little noise as possible in the water.

Their destination of Kitanomaru Park was at the end of Waseda as it ran south, but this was blocked by countless towers of salt standing like a forest, so he couldn’t see it. Even so, he felt like the sky ahead was somehow shining more brightly. When they went south down Kagurazaka, the steep incline of the real world was now so flat, it was like it never existed in the first place; upon passing the west side of Iidabashi Station, a conspicuously taller mountain came into view ahead to the right. He was pretty sure it was the mixed-use building Iidabashi Grand Bloom.

“Good. We’ll climb that,” Sentry said, spreading her arms, and Haruyuki waited for something to happen. He assumed she would now show off some wall-climbing skill like Pard’s. But… “What are you doing? Carry us to the top at once.”

“Oh…S-sure…”

Hmm, this absurdity’s starting to feel familiar…

Haruyuki gently wrapped his arms around Sentry. During his training to run on water, he had slammed into and broken several pillars of salt with his head, so his special-attack gauge was more than 80 percent charged. He deployed the silver wings on his back and slowly ascended on a course that stuck to the wall of the rocky mountain, so as to be as inconspicuous as possible.

“So this is your aviation ability, hmm?” Sentry said. “Would it not have been better to focus on refining this than taking a sword and some such?”

“Th-that’s…I mean, now…”

“Oh-ho, a jest.”

They steadily gained altitude, and finally, the peak of the mountain came into view. He hovered for a moment and confirmed there was nothing at the top before landing on the flat summit. Crow released Sentry and stepped to the side.

“…Aah…” He heard a cracked sound slip out of his mouth.

A mere eight hundred meters ahead, in the center of the salt lake spreading out on the north side of the Castle, was a massive ball of flames shining red. The Legend-class Enemy the Sun God Inti.

The truth was he’d harbored a slight hope in his heart. Inti didn’t appear in the Storm stage or the Ocean stage. If the reason for this was that the Sun God didn’t care for large amounts of water, then maybe the Salt Lake stage, covered in liquid, albeit a thin layer, would weaken the power of its fire somewhat.

But the bright flames of nuclear fusion had not changed at all from when he’d seen them thirty-six hours earlier in the real world—1,500 days earlier in the Accelerated World. When he looked closer, wondering about the fact that there wasn’t even any steam, he saw that a white wall of a meter or so had been built around Inti, and this appeared to be blocking the salt water.

“What’s that wall?” he muttered.

“Inti’s heat caused a large amount of water to evaporate, leaving only a circle of salt,” Sentry told him. “It appears to be true that the flames of that ball cannot be extinguished with water.”

“Not even in the Ocean stage…I guess?”

She shrugged. “Unknown. The depths of the Ocean stage would swallow it completely. One cannot say what would happen there unless one witnessed it.”

“I…guess so.” Haruyuki looked once again at Inti.

The massive ball of flames, twenty meters across, engulfed seven death markers: Black Lotus, Green Grandé, Blue Knight, Purple Thorn, Yellow Radio, Black Vise, and Wolfram Cerberus. Now completely fused with the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, and transformed into the terrifying berserker Wolfram Disaster, Cerberus had managed a draw in a fight with the Green King immediately before Inti dropped down. The young genius who had sharpened his sword against Haruyuki in normal duels was gone now. Even if Inti were to disappear, the one who regenerated would not be Cerberus but the Disaster. In which case, maybe it was better for him to sleep inside the flames.

Haruyuki pushed the thought aside. They had to destroy Inti. Even if that meant Black Vise and Wolfram Disaster also came back to life, their biggest priority was rescuing Kuroyukihime from the Unlimited EK. Because although she could still participate in normal duels and the Territories, the Unlimited Neutral Field was the true Accelerated World.

“Crow,” Sentry said abruptly.

He looked up at her. “Y-yes?”

“We are sure you are aware of this, but cutting into that ball will be no easy feat. Not only is it vexingly large, it’s also a sphere, and thus, although you may seek out the minuscule, as you’d done with Einherjar’s armor, you won’t be able to see the actual body, given that it is covered in dazzling flames. In other words, you will have to manifest the deepest secrets of Omega style without relying on your vision.”

“Ah…”

She was exactly right. But up until now—when he cut Glacier Behemoth’s horn, when he cut Einherjar’s armor—he had focused all his mind on his vision and sought out the singular point to cut. If she was asking if he could do the same thing with his eyes closed, he would have to say it would be absolutely impossible.

“Could you do it, Maestro?” Haruyuki asked without thinking, and Sentry glared at him through her visor.

“And if we were to say we could indeed, what would you do with that?”

“…”

He hung his head.

Give her Lucid Blade and get her to be the attacker instead. There was no way he’d be allowed to do that. His comrades in Nega Nebulus trusted him, placed their hope in him, and even went so far as to throw him a send-off party.

“I’m sorry. Please forget I asked.”

“Hmph.” Sentry turned her gaze to the massive ball of flames in the distance once more. “We, too, spoke words of no use. Whatever the situation, you have no choice but to do it. Do not fear. We will train you to a level where you will be able to cut it.”

“Please and thank you.” Haruyuki bowed his head, and she patted his shoulder lightly.

“All right. Now you’ve seen what you needed to see. Shall we withdraw?”

“Okay. Are we going back to Suginami?”

“It’s not necessarily the case that that is required. Anywhere is acceptable as long as we can train for extended hours without interruption…But if we move too far from Tokyo, it would be a problem were an irregular event to occur.”

“That’s true.” But no place that met their requirements immediately came to mind. In the Unlimited Neutral Field, it was possible for Enemies to pop up anywhere, and wherever the two of them could go, other Burst Linkers could, too. About the only exception was inside the Castle, but they’d get nowhere if they died trying to crash the four gates.

“That settles it. We’ll go there?” Sentry murmured.

Haruyuki looked up intently at the sharp visor. “Where is ‘there’?”

“Come.” The word had no sooner left her mouth than she was jumping from the roof. Haruyuki chased after the shadow that drifted gently downward.

After landing on the ground, Sentry started to head back to Waseda. They passed Iidabashi Station, crossed Sotobori Boulevard, and started down Kagurazaka. But this time, they didn’t turn left onto Okubo-dori Street. Instead, they continued northwest. When they hit Gaien Higashi-dori, they turned right and headed farther north. Haruyuki didn’t neglect to practice his water walking, and around the time they approached Shinmejiro-dori, he had a sudden thought: He was pretty sure they’d gone down this road when Fuko had dropped him at Kansenen Park. Which meant…

“Are we maybe going to your house, Seri?” he asked the back of the Burst Linker walking ahead and got the mysterious reply “Half-correct.” Still unable to grasp her true intent, he chased after the swinging platinum hair.

If they were going to Seri’s real-world house, then they would turn left on Shinmejiro-dori, but Sentry crossed the street and kept going straight. Soon, he saw a mountain range even larger than Iidabashi Grand Bloom. It was not only tall but running north-south in a line, and he was pretty sure it was a famous old hotel in the real world.

Without hesitation, Seri headed toward the mountain and passed through a narrow ravine that opened up in the center. On the other side, a pond about two hundred meters across appeared. This was likely the garden at the hotel where countless trees grew in reality, but in this stage, the mirrorlike salt lake reflected only the blue sky.

No. There was some kind of white mist hanging about the center of the water, and Sentry walked straight toward it. Sensing a solemnity in the air, he stopped his water running. His feet splashed as he advanced, and the mist abruptly grew thicker, blanketing his field of view.

Ting! The faint sound of a bell rang out.

No, it wasn’t a bell. The source of the noise was a large key that had come to dangle from Sentry’s right hand at some point. Ting! The key made the sound again, and the white mist parted to either side.

“Ah!” Haruyuki let out a small cry.

In the place where, from the outer edge of the salt lake, there had looked to be nothing, a bungalow surrounded by a tall wooden fence materialized. With a proud gate and a tiled roof, it was a Japanese-style manor.

When Sentry approached the tightly closed gate, she put the key into the steel lock. Chak! He heard the sound of it unlocking and finally understood.

“This is your house?!” he cried. “Is this a player home?!”

“Indeed.” Sentry nodded and pushed opened the gate.