Sword Art Online - Volume 19 - Chapter 5

5 
There were over three thousand kilors of distance in total between the human capital of Centoria and the dark capital of Obsidia. That was a three-day trip for a dragon. A month by horse-drawn carriage—and at least twice that on foot. In the War of the Underworld, the dark general and emperor, Vecta, was able to move his army of fifty thousand from Obsidia to the Eastern Gate in just five days through secret elixirs and arts. But future examination showed a horrifying side effect: that the maximum life value of any human, demi-human, or animal who’d taken the medicine was steadily but continuously decreasing. The humans had used horses and wagons to travel and hadn’t been given the medicines, but the demi-humans, who’d had to march, were still losing life today. The sacred arts masters in the cathedral were busy trying to find an antidote. 
When Swordsman Delegate Kirito decided on a sudden visit to Obsidia to address the emergency at hand of the civilian slaying, Ronie assumed he was going to travel by dragon, of course. The wind elements he’d used to fly from Central Cathedral to the guard’s office in South Centoria used ample sacred resources, which would be in short supply in the barren Dark Territory. He wouldn’t be able to use them with any reliability for the long time it would take to reach Obsidia. 
But Kirito did not have his own dragon to fly, so he would need to fly with someone like Deusolbert or Renly. Two riders meant that much more fatigue for a dragon, so she thought it would be presumptuous of herself to ask to go along—until Tiese tried to light a fire under her. 
Ronie went from the dragon stables to the thirtieth floor of the cathedral, where Kirito’s private quarters were, in order to him prepare for the journey. Asuna met her there with a look of concern and resignation and told her that Kirito had gone to the arsenal. 
So she ran another long distance, sharing the subdelegate’s concern, back around the rear of the cathedral—the place where the prison had once been—then down a wide sloped path to a large door that was currently open. 
Beyond the doorway was a large space of at least thirty mels. Along each of the side walls, five or six young blacksmiths and craftsmen were clinking and clanking away with hammers. In the center of the space, lit by a myriad of light-element lamps, was an enormous man-made object. 
It looked much like Unit One, the metallic dragon that had exploded the other day. Beside the dragoncraft, Kirito and Arsenal Master Sadore were vigorously trading opinions—in the form of a shouting match. 
“How many times do I have to tell you, boy?! It’s still being fine-tuned! It’s not ready for full-power flight yet, and you know it!” 
“It’ll be fine, sir. I’ll be flying it horizontally this time, not vertically. As long as we switch out the primary wings for catching the wind, it’ll absolutely work!” 
“What do you mean, it’ll work?! I’ve heard what you’re doing—you’re going to the capital of the dark realm! We haven’t even done a successful test flight, and you think you’re going to fly it on a six-thousand-kilor round trip?!” 
“No sweat! The heat-element canisters on this one are twice as sturdy, and you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into this craft, Master. This thing could fly ten thousand kilors without a problem. Isn’t that right?” 
“W-well, I certainly didn’t outfit it to fall to pieces right away…but that’s not the point! I’m not going to let you talk me into this again, because whenever I do, I suffer more than if a greater swampfly bit me on the bum!” 
Ronie felt the blood draining from her face as they argued. Kirito was planning to travel to Obsidia not by dragon or carriage but by using Dragoncraft Unit Two. The incident from the other day replayed itself in her mind. She shook her head and rushed over to them. 
“N-no, Kirito, you can’t! Arsenal Master Sadore is right! What if there’s an accident?!” 
“Hey, Ronie. Keep your distance, or you’ll get oil on your clothes,” Kirito warned, pulling her by the sleeve until she was fifty cens farther away from the dragoncraft. He started off smiling but soon turned serious. “Look, if something happens, I’ll fly on my own. All the knights are busy, so I can’t ask them to take me to Obsidia, and it’ll take a month by horse…I get the feeling that the situation’s tighter than we realize. I want to tell the Dark Territory about this situation as quickly as possible, before it’s too late…” 
“……But there’s other danger involved, Kirito,” Ronie stated, stepping closer to plead her case. “Whoever killed Yazen and pinned the crime on Oroi the goblin isn’t bound by the laws of the Taboo Index. So they could be trying to get you while you’re away from Centoria and vulnerable…In fact, this whole crime could have been a trap to make you head to Obsidia!” 
“Ah…I see. That is possible…,” Kirito murmured. He paused for a few moments, thinking hard. 
Sadore broke the silence with a heavy sigh. “Well…it feels like my dream’s come true, with the ability to trade techniques and knowledge with the smiths of the dark lands. I wouldn’t want things to go back to the way they were before.” 
“Really…? A master like you still has things to learn?” Kirito asked. Sadore squeezed his gray beard and made a sour face. 
“Hmph! Of course. When the guardian army brought back swords and armor from dark knights, you’d better believe they were remarkable. For one thing, the type of steel they use is completely different from what I know…I can’t kick the bucket without learning about the ore and methods they use.” 
He smacked the shining silver exterior of the dragoncraft with large hands covered in scars. “Kiri, my boy, stop when the heat-element pressurometer hits eighty percent. Oh, and you’d better settle on a unit of pressure measurement already.” 
“Hey, good thinking! For pressure—let’s see…How about one kilom of weight per square cen of area…” 
“N-now wait a moment!” Ronie said, interrupting the two men. “The dragoncraft’s safety is one thing, but that doesn’t change the risk that someone might be after you! As your page, I cannot recommend that you go to the Dark Territory…alone…” 
But as she looked up at the head of the dragoncraft during her speech, Ronie noticed something and trailed off. The metal chair—a cockpit, he’d called it—behind the panes of glass looked much longer than that of Unit One. In fact, on closer examination, it looked like there was another seat attached to the back of the cockpit. 
“……Um, Kirito?” 
“…Wh-what?” 
“Does Unit Two seat two?” 
“Y…yeah. Unit One blew up because it couldn’t supply the frost elements fast enough, but we kind of knew that was likely to happen…This one is designed so that two people can generate frost elements instead, but as I told him earlier, one person should have enough cooling power to fly parallel to the ground, so…” 
He spoke faster and faster as he went on, sensing what she was about to say—and then she cleared her throat to cut him off. 
“All right, then. In order to neutralize the threat of assassination, you will require the presence of a bodyguard.” 
“B-bodyguard?” 
“But as you mentioned yourself, the elite knights are busy with their own duties, so as an apprentice knight, I shall have to fulfill this mission myself!” 
“Wh-what?” 
“And I can help monitor the status of the heat-element canisters!” 
“Whaaaat?!” 
Kirito lurched backward, but before he could argue, Ronie put her right fist to her chest and her left hand to her sword hilt in a formal knight’s salute, announcing her acceptance of the mission he hadn’t actually given her. 
While Kirito was struggling to process what had just happened, Sadore belly-laughed. 
“You’ve lost this round, Kiri, my boy. But I have to say, this young lady’s really grown a spine, hasn’t she?” 
Ronie had succeeded in earning Kirito’s permission to accompany him through sheer momentum alone, but that was actually the easy part. 
This would be her first time visiting Obsidia, capital of the Dark Territory, and she was Kirito’s only travel companion—both firsts for her. She had no idea how one prepared for such a thing, so she returned to her room on the twenty-second floor and pulled out all her clothes and small items so that she could decide on what to bring, when— 
A knock came at her door. 
“Coming!” shouted Ronie, thinking that it was probably Tiese as she rushed to answer. “Thank goodness, I was just about to ask you to help me pack…” 
But when she opened the door, she didn’t see her red-haired partner, but rather, a beautiful swordswoman with chestnut-brown hair and pearly-white knight’s clothes. 
“Ah…! Lady Asuna!” she stammered, starting to do a formal salute, when Asuna reached out to stop her with a smile. 
“I’m sorry to intrude when you’re busy, Ronie. I was hoping you could come with me…” 
“Y…yes, anywhere!” Ronie said. She stepped out into the hallway and followed Asuna. 
If this had been the North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy, and it had been an upperclassman calling on her like this, she could easily have imagined being led out behind the school building into a group of students who would say something like Aren’t you getting a little too full of yourself lately? But this was Central Cathedral, so of course that was not going to happen. 
But Ronie could not deny that she felt some amount of guilt and awkwardness around Asuna. Not because she was the swordswoman subdelegate to the Human Unification Council or because she was a real-worlder who’d come to their realm from beyond. It was for a very personal reason that she could not reveal to anyone… 
It was one year and three months ago that Asuna had arrived in the Underworld, in the midst of the War of the Underworld. 
Ronie and Tiese were in the human army’s decoy force at the time, being chased by Emperor Vecta’s Dark Army with such ferocity that they might have actually perished before they could have fulfilled their decoy mission. Ronie fought against a dark knight who had slipped into the rear of their formation, but she was very quickly disarmed, and she expected death in that moment—when Asuna arrived. 
As she descended from the sky, shining pure and bright against the pitch-blackness of the night sky, Ronie saw nothing but the Goddess of Creation, Stacia, as depicted in the art she’d grown up around in the Arabel family home and on the academy walls. Asuna lifted a scintillating rainbow rapier, created a gigantic hole in the ground, and sent the dark knight trying to kill Ronie tumbling into its gaping maw. In the presence of such godly power, Ronie believed with all her heart that Asuna was Stacia. 
Later it was revealed to her that Asuna was, like Kirito—and a dark knight Ronie had fought, and Emperor Vecta himself—a real-worlder, but despite the year since the war, Ronie’s gratitude and reverence for Asuna had not dimmed in the slightest. 
And yet, when the two came face-to-face like this, Ronie felt an unpleasant twinge in her chest. 
That was because Asuna was Kirito’s significant other, as everyone now recognized. She had come to the Underworld in the first place in order to save Kirito from the state of mental absentia that had afflicted him. 
In the way that they chatted about nothing in particular in the sunlight from the window, the way they passed the salt at the table, even the way that she scolded the swordsman delegate for his reckless behavior, Ronie could sense the deep love that connected the two. 
She had never thought about getting in between them. One day…probably not long from now, they would have a wedding, and Ronie was ready to wish them well with all her heart. 
But………but. No matter how much time passed, the throbbing pain deep in her chest did not subside. And she felt like it never would… 
As they walked down the hallway and descended the stairs, Ronie was lost deep in thought, so she nearly collided with Asuna when the other girl stopped ahead of her. Accident averted, Ronie looked up and noticed that they were in front of the armory on the third floor of the building. 
It was said that, at one time, all but the prime senator, the knight commander, and the pontifex herself were forbidden from opening the armory’s double doors, which were carved with images of Solus and Terraria. Now anyone could enter as long as they signed their name in the logbook next to the doorway—but you still weren’t allowed to take anything out. 
The book, which was full of newly developed hemp paper made of snow-white hemp fibers, rather than the more traditional sheepskin parchment, came with a copper pen that could be refilled with ink, another new invention. Asuna wrote her name down and pushed her way through the doors into the chamber. It was evening, and no scholars were present, so the two were greeted only by darkness and silence. 
Asuna put her hands on the glass tube right next to the entrance and intoned, “System Call, Generate Luminous Element.” 
Ten light elements appeared within the tube. Then she lifted just one finger and made a wind element this time. The pressure it created pushed the ten elements through the length of the tube, which stretched along the wall, allowing their light to reach the entirety of the armory. 
Like the hemp paper and copper pen, this light-element tube was something that Kirito and Asuna had developed; the lamps in the arsenal worked the same way. Unlike with torches and oil lamps, there was no risk of fire, and the light was bright and stable. But even locked inside the glass tube, the light elements reacted to the glass’s presence bit by bit until they vanished, requiring someone to regularly refill them by generating more sacred elements. They could replace all the lights in Central Cathedral this way, given that it was full of people with mastery of sacred arts, but it wasn’t possible for this kind of item to make its way out into the Centorian market yet. 
The light of ten elements caused the armory to shine in glorious fashion. It wasn’t Ronie’s first time inside, but she was left breathless all the same. 
The room was the size of the great training hall at the academy, with sets of armor in all colors arranged along the floor, and a proliferation of swords, spears, and axes in all sizes hung upon the walls up to the tall ceiling. A few of those weapons were Divine Objects of the sort that were awarded to senior Integrity Knights, but Ronie was still an apprentice, and she couldn’t tell the difference. 
“…It really is a breathtaking sight.” Ronie sighed. 
“It is,” Asuna agreed, “and quite a lot of them have already been distributed to Liena’s—er, General Serlut’s—army. Kirito wants to sell the majority of them and use the funds to assist the remote towns of the realm and the Dark Territory, but Deusolbert and the others have been quite vocal in their opposition to that.” 
“Y-yeah, it’s very tricky…,” Ronie said, the sort of answer you gave when you didn’t know what else to say. 
She had seen starving mountain goblin children with her own eyes. She knew the importance of sending aid to their realm. Indeed, Kirito’s words whispered to her even now: At this rate, there is going to be another war. 
If that actually did come to pass…she wanted her family in North Centoria, her fellow pupils, the cathedral’s knights and artificers, and of course Tiese to stay safe. The weapons and armor here would be very valuable tools for ensuring their safety in that event. 
Asuna patted Ronie on the shoulder and gave her a mischievous grin to break the mood. “Having said that, Apprentice Integrity Knight Ronie Arabel…what is your equipment authority level now?” 
“Wh-what?! Why would you ask me something like—?” 
“Go on—you can tell me.” 
The second-most-exalted warrior in the human realm was expecting an answer, so she couldn’t refuse. But in fact, Ronie realized that she hadn’t checked in a while, herself. What if it had gone down? She drew the symbol in the air with her left hand, then tapped her right wrist. 
The gently shining Stacia Window that appeared displayed that person’s core identity—Kirito called it personal information—so custom dictated that you never look at another’s, outside of emergencies. Asuna stepped away politely, and Ronie read off the number next to the label written in sacred language: OBJECT CONTROL AUTHORITY. 
“Um…it’s thirty-nine.” 
“Wow! That’s almost as much as the numbered knights already,” Asuna exclaimed with a grin. “In that case,” she murmured, heading for the wall in the back. She inspected the wide array of one-handed swords, picked out four, and brought them back two to a hand. She laid them down on a nearby work table. 
“All of these are of priority thirty-eight or thirty-nine. Pick whichever one you want,” she said. Ronie was shocked. 
A sword with a priority level of thirty-nine was at least at the level of a famous named blade—and possibly even that of a divine weapon. All four of the weapons on the table had finely crafted details and burnished blades that shone like mirrors of different colors. Commander Fanatio’s Four Whirling Blades were still using standard-issue swords, however—a mere apprentice like her couldn’t possibly take a weapon as fine as these. 
“N-no, Lady Asuna…I can’t!” Ronie protested, waving her hands and shaking her head. 
Asuna giggled. “That’s the same kind of gesture Kirito would make.” 
“Uh…i-it is…?” 
“Tee-hee! Don’t be shy, Ronie. I already have Commander Fanatio’s permission, and remember, you’re a hero who saw the war all the way to the end.” 
“……I’m…not…,” she stammered, looking down at the floor. “All I did…was receive the protection of you and Sir Renly and all the men-at-arms—and the soldiers from the real world who came to help…I was completely helpless, even when that black knight was doing such awful things to Kirito.” 
“That’s not true. It just isn’t.” 
Asuna glided over to her and gently put her arms around Ronie. The girl stiffened up in shock, but the sweet, soothing scent of jasmine and Asuna’s warmth eventually calmed her nerves. 
“It was you and Tiese and Alice who made sure Kirito was protected at all times. To me, you three are the real heroes…I can never thank you enough…” 
To her surprise, Ronie found that tears were coming to her eyes. She mumbled, “What is…Lady Alice doing…now…?” 
After a pause, Asuna said crisply, “She’s alive and well in the real world. After all, she’s the hope that connects our two worlds. I’m sure…I’m sure we’ll see her again…” 
Her arms briefly squeezed tighter, then released Ronie. Asuna smiled for her. “Come—choose your sword. It’s not just your weapon, remember; you’re going to use it to protect Kirito.” 
At that point, there was no refusing it. 
Ronie stared at the swords Asuna had chosen. All of them were one-handed longswords, but the handle and blade of each were on the slender side. It was clear that she had chosen them not just for the priority number but for how they fit Ronie’s build. 
From what Kirito had discovered recently, through lots of painstaking experimentation, any piece of combat equipment with a priority level over thirty had not just the life value listed in its Stacia Window but also a power that he called its hidden bonus. When equipped, it might confer an elemental attack of some kind or offer resistance to poison, fatigue, or curses. Some of them made it easier to generate elements of a certain type, increased life regeneration under special circumstances, or conferred greater visibility in the dark or even odd effects like making dogs more friendly. 
On top of that, divine weapons that the late Administrator had given to her Integrity Knights were revealed to have enhanced elemental bonuses and other hidden parameters that strengthened sacred arts to match the particular strengths of each knight. In other words, she’d known more about both the weapons and the knights than could be seen with a Stacia Window alone. Central Cathedral’s top minds were working hard to produce a sacred art that identified those hidden metrics, but Kirito suspected that it would be a long and difficult process. 
The four swords Ronie could choose from must have hidden abilities of their own, but it was impossible to tell by the look of them. She might be able to sense the difference if she tried generating all the elements one by one while holding each sword in turn or running laps around the building to test her life-recovery speed, but there was no time for all of that when she was leaving early in the morning tomorrow. 
She stood there, racked by indecision, with no idea of what to use as a basis for her choice, when a faint voice played back from memory. 
…This sword used to be so heavy to me, I could barely even pick it up, much less swing it. 
The words had been spoken by Eugeo the Elite Disciple when Tiese had been his page at the academy, as he worked on polishing and caring for the beautiful white longsword tinged with the faintest hint of blue. Kirito had grinned at his side, polishing his own black sword, as cups full of steaming cofil tea and exquisitely scented honey pies sat on the table nearby. It was a fond memory from nearly two years ago. 
At the time, Tiese and Ronie had been brand-new primary trainees at the North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy. Their high scores on the entrance test made them prime candidates when it came time to choose trainee pages, an honor that went to only twelve out of each class of 120. But the priority-level-fifteen platinum-oak wooden swords were difficult to handle, so they had asked the older students they were serving how to use heavy swords. 
Despite its delicate appearance, the Blue Rose Sword was far heavier than a two-handed steel greatsword, Eugeo had said. He lifted it easily and continued, “According to theory, if a swordsman’s equipment authority level is higher than the priority of the weapon, it will no longer be too heavy to use. But I don’t think that the relationship between a sword and its wielder comes down to simple numbers. Let’s say you use a weapon with a much lower priority level than your authority, but you treat it poorly and take care of it less often than you should. When it matters most, that weapon isn’t going to do what its owner wants. The reason I couldn’t use this sword in the past isn’t because I lacked the authority—it’s because I lacked the affection for it that I ought to have had…I think.” 
““Affection…for the sword,”” Ronie and Tiese repeated, mulling over the unfamiliar phrase. 
They were both from sixth-ranked noble families, the lowest rank, but their parents spared no expense in getting them good sword training, dreaming of the possibility that they might one day be promoted to fourth-ranked nobles, which would mean they wouldn’t be subject to the abusive judicial authority of higher ranks. If they trained so hard that their wooden swords broke, their parents would gladly pay for replacements, rather than scold them for wasting supplies. To them, swords were tools to make dreams come true—not their own, but their parents’—as well as shackles that confined them to futures they did not necessarily choose. So the idea of showing affection to a sword hadn’t made sense at first. 
But Eugeo had just smiled at the girls and explained, “It’s not just swords. Clothes, shoes, tableware…even individual elements generated by sacred arts. All these things will treat you kindly if you open your heart to them. And so will people, I bet.” 
Kirito had been listening to the conversation without comment. He paused in his polishing of the Night-Sky Blade—at the time, he still called it the Black One—and smirked a bit. 
“That’s right. Eugeo and I have opened our hearts to each other, too. I can eat his slice of pie at dinner, and he’ll just chuckle and let me get away with it.” 
“I’m sorry, Kirito, but the moment you eat my pie, our bond is broken forever.” 
Ronie and Tiese had laughed at that. But what Eugeo had said was starting to make sense already. 
From that day on, with the dorm manager’s permission, the two girls took their platinum-oak training swords from the training hall to their rooms so they could polish the swords and heal the damage they’d done at practice. It did not take long before they were swinging the wooden swords around as if they were extensions of their own arms. 
If only those strict but enjoyable days at the academy could have lasted forever. But just a month and a half later, Eugeo and Kirito had used the Blue Rose Sword and the Night-Sky Blade to attack other Elite Disciples in order to save Tiese and Ronie, and they were taken to the Axiom Church as punishment. They escaped from the underground cells and launched an attack on the Church itself, defeating the almighty Integrity Knights one after the other, culminating in the unthinkable toppling of Administrator, the absolute ruler of humanity. And during that fight, Eugeo had perished. 
The memory of Tiese sobbing and wishing she could see Eugeo again nearly brought tears to Ronie’s eyes anew. She fought them back and reached out with her right hand. 
A swordsman doesn’t choose their sword. The sword chooses its master. No matter the sword, as long as I give it affection and open my heart, it will respond in kind. 
She felt as if her hand were being drawn toward the third sword from the left—one with a black leather handle the same shade as Kirito’s hair, but with a silvery guard and pommel that shone softly. The brand-new grip was a bit rough to the touch, but she could tell that if she cared for it, it would soon feel very comfortable to her. 
Ronie inhaled, exhaled, and lifted the sword. 
It was heavy. The weight made itself known throughout her entire arm, expressing the sword’s sense of being, from her fingers up through her wrist, elbow, and shoulder, and into the core of her body. 
But it was not an unpleasant feeling. Much like the platinum-oak training sword and the standard-issue sword that she had fought through two wars with, Ronie could sense that this, too, would soon open itself up to her, once she showed it some love. 
She squeezed it around the handle and rested the flat of the blade on her left hand, appreciating its presence, when a voice said gently, “Is that the one, then?” 
Ronie turned to Asuna and nodded firmly. The subdelegate put the other three back into their sheaths, returned them to the racks on the wall, and circled around the table to stand on Ronie’s left. 
“You should give the sword a name, Ronie. Once you’ve decided, go to the management office and have them record your decision in the knighthood’s armory registry.” 

“I…I will.” 

She felt confused about this at first—she’d never had a sword that needed a name—but it made sense that naming one’s sword was the obligation of the owner. In the past, Administrator had apparently created, destroyed, distributed, and confiscated Divine Objects on a whim. But now all the weapons, armor, and accessories in the entire Central Cathedral were accounted for on paper. 
Asuna gave her a smile and glanced at Ronie’s left side. “What will you do with that one? If you’re returning it to the army, I can send it to the command office with tomorrow’s courier.” 
“Uh…ah, g-good idea…,” she mumbled, caught off guard a bit by the question. 
The standard-issue sword she always kept at her side was indeed owned by Ronie—on the Stacia Window, her name appeared near the sacred letter P, for Possessor—but according to the Human Guardian Army’s rules, it was only on loan. If she replaced her weapon and did not need the old one anymore, it had to be returned to the army. 
The leather hilt and sheath were a simple dark brown, and there were no decorations or frills of any sort. It was a practical weapon but was of good make, with a priority level of twenty-five, made of southern croisteel. That wasn’t cheap to produce, and Ronie took good care of it, so there was plenty of life left in it. 
And truth be told, she should have been given a standard knight’s sword a year ago, when she’d been made an apprentice Integrity Knight, but because things had been so hectic at the time, it had been put off. Ronie and Tiese were so attached to their swords that they’d just kept using them. 
But now that the swordswoman subdelegate was providing her with a new sword, the moment to move on had arrived. Still… 
“……” 
Ronie stood there, new sword in one hand, old sword’s pommel under the other, frozen in place. Asuna nodded in understanding. “It’s only natural to feel that way. I made things very difficult for Kirito because I didn’t want to give up my very first sword.” 
“Huh…?” Ronie said, startled. She stared. “You didn’t, either, Lady Asuna…? Was that…in the real world?” 
“Well, not exactly. A long time ago, Kirito and I did battle in a place that was neither the real world nor the Underworld. In fact…I knew nothing about the place, and Kirito showed me how to fight.” 
“To think that someone with your godlike powers was once a novice…” 
“Well, of course I was! I’m just a regular human being like you, Ronie…just a regular girl,” Asuna announced with a chuckle. And yet her features were so beautiful, they were beyond human, and Ronie had to squint at their brilliance. 
“Um…what happened to that first sword of yours, Lady Asuna?” 
Asuna looked down at the palm of her hand, as though reminiscing about the feel of that very blade. Her head rose again. “On Kirito’s recommendation, we melted it into ingots—bars of metal—and used those as the material for a new sword. He said, that way, the soul of the sword would be carried on…He can be very sentimental when it comes to swords, you know.” 
“Hee-hee…That sounds like him.” 
The girls chuckled together for a few moments. When the moment passed, Asuna said, “But I suppose that doesn’t help you right now…We can’t melt down a sword belonging to the army, and you already have a new sword…” 
“…Actually, after what you said, I’ve made up my mind. I’ll return this sword to the main forces.” 
She set the new sword down on the table and undid the fasteners on her sword belt. She took the standard-issue sword off, sheath and all, and handed it to Asuna. 
“Are you sure…? If I ask Liena, I’m sure she’ll arrange for you to keep this one, too…” 
“Yes, I’m sure. I’ve been thinking that this sword is too light for me lately anyway…I’m sure the next person will need it more than me.” 
“All right,” said Asuna. “Then I’ll return this to army command with the courier tomorrow.” 
She deftly took the sword and hung it from the right side of her own belt. An ordinary army sword might be light, but combined with the divine Radiant Light on her left hip, that was a lot of weight. Yet Asuna continued around the work table, as light as a feather, and picked up a black leather sheath with fine silver inlay that she handed over to Ronie. 
Ronie took it and bowed her head, stuck the new sword inside, and clasped it onto her belt. She straightened up, feeling the new sense of weight around her body. Asuna stared her straight in the eyes and said, “Ronie…take good care of Kirito.” 
“Oh…y-yes, my lady!” she replied, a bit taken aback, but she managed to perform a knight’s salute. “Apprentice Integrity Knight Ronie Arabel will put her life on the line to protect the swordsman delegate!” 
Asuna returned the salute and beamed at her. “Well, don’t waste your life out there. I want you both coming back alive, but if Kirito tells you to run, I want you to listen to him.” 
Ronie sensed a flicker of emotion behind those words. She lowered her hands and asked, “Um…are you sure you don’t want to accompany him…?” 
“Just a bit,” Asuna teased, but Ronie was sure that it was an honest answer. The subdelegate just shook her head, though, and continued, “Kirito and I can’t both be away from Centoria at this time. There are so many decisions for the council to rule upon, and the former nobles’ discontent with us isn’t going to disappear anytime soon…” 
“I’m so sorry…,” Ronie said on reflex. Asuna blinked with surprise, then recovered with a smile and shook her head. 
“No, Ronie. It’s nothing you need to apologize for. Not at all.” 
“But…I’m of noble birth, too, and until I became Kirito’s page, I had never held any doubt or misgivings about the system of nobility…” 
“Still, your father and Tiese’s father worked important jobs for the city garrison and government, didn’t they? You weren’t like the higher nobles who forced serfs into hard labor on your private estates so that you could live in the lap of luxury.” 
“……” 
Ronie silently bowed again, this time in apology. 
On top of a hill not far from Central Cathedral sat the old Imperial Palace, where the imperial government and imperial guard barracks still functioned as before and her father continued to work as a platoon captain. 
But the Imperial Knights, who ranked above the imperial guard, had been completely dismantled, and much of the functions of the guard had been transferred to the Human Guardian Army under General Sortiliena Serlut’s leadership. In the future, the garrisons belonging to the four empires would be melded into the guardian army so that the military itself could be shrunk to a minimal size. That was because the threat from the Dark Territory had passed, of course—but Ronie did not know whether her father would still have the same job when it came to that. 
She knew that if her hardworking father did get reassigned with the unit or transferred to a managerial position, he would continue to perform his duties. He wasn’t like the higher nobles who’d lost their massive unearned incomes and had to take first-time jobs that they despised and neglected…she thought. 
But within him, and perhaps within Ronie as well, there still had to be that understanding, the self-concept I am a noble, not a commoner. And as long as that inherited sense of class consciousness existed, Ronie and the other Arabels were fundamentally no different from the upper nobles. 
“Lady Asuna, maybe…,” she started to say. But she couldn’t follow through. 
She couldn’t suggest, Maybe we should eliminate not just the ranks of nobility, but the concept of nobility itself. Not when she was in a position to become an Integrity Knight, the most exalted class of all, thanks to her privileged head start. And she couldn’t separate herself from that ambition. Receiving an Integrity Knight’s number, silver armor, a dragon to fly, and the chance to serve Kirito for the rest of her life…It was the one dream Ronie had. It was what drove her. 
Asuna inclined her head, urging her to continue. Ronie shook her head and murmured, “I was just going to say…would it be possible to allow Tiese to choose her own sword, too…? She’s also been using an army sword this whole time…” 
“That was my intention. I’ve received permission to grant Tiese a sword as well.” 
“I’m glad to hear that. Thank you.” 
Hopefully it would help Tiese start fresh and begin a new chapter…Though Ronie knew that it wasn’t up to herself to decide that. 
They left the armory as the light elements began to fade out and the seven o’clock bells rang. Asuna wrote down the exit time in the book and headed down the great stairs for the general affairs office on the second floor. Left alone again, Ronie gazed at the night sky, with its last tinge of purple, through the huge windows next to the armory entrance. She let out the breath she’d been holding. 
At Swordcraft Academy, where she’d spent only half a year, there was a rule that dinner should be eaten by seven o’clock, and if you were late without a valid excuse, you did not receive any. There was no such rule at Central Cathedral, of course, so you could get a hot meal at the mess hall on the tenth floor any time before nine. After that, the kitchen next door had smaller premade dishes that could be eaten whenever. 
She should have been hungry after all the running around she’d done over the course of the day, but for some reason, she wasn’t in the mood to eat, so Ronie went back to her room instead. 
Usually she would ride the automatic platform up to the twenty-second floor, but with the weight of the new sword at her side, she chose to take the stairs and let herself get used to it. 
Nearly two years ago, after Kirito and Eugeo had escaped from prison, they’d supposedly raced up these stairs to the fiftieth floor, fighting Integrity Knights along the way. There was no trace of that battle now, but she tried to adopt their mindset as she rushed up the flights until she reached the twenty-second floor, breathing heavily. 
Her room was a few doors down, on the right side of the hallway. Because they were apprentices, she shared quarters with Tiese, but her partner was not inside. Assuming she was getting dinner, Ronie crossed through the living room to her own bedroom. 
Coincidentally, the layout—a living room with two individual bedrooms—was exactly the same as Kirito and Eugeo’s suite in the Elite Disciples’ dormitory, though the bedrooms here were much larger. Her space back home before she’d moved to the academy had been only half this size, so Ronie felt quite uncomfortable having so much space. But as she acquired furniture to her liking and changed the design around, she was finding that it felt more and more like home to her. 
On the right wall as she passed into the room was a large window facing toward East Centoria. The bed and dresser were on the left, with a small table on the right. On the wall across from the window was a pair of mounting hooks like those in the armory. She walked over, removed her new sword, and placed it there. The black leather sheath fit right in with the interior of primarily dark-brown furniture. 
“I’ll think it over and give you a name that suits you,” she assured the sword, then removed her gray armor and placed it on the stand to the right of the sword mount. Now that she felt much lighter, she wanted to just flop onto her bed. But tomorrow’s journey needed preparations, and she had to pack. 
Kirito had said she had to keep her belongings within one midsize standard-issue suitcase, which meant she had some hard decisions to make. As a girl turning seventeen this year, she wanted to bring as many clothes as possible, but this wasn’t just a journey for travel’s sake; she was going as Kirito’s bodyguard, so medical items and sacred arts reagents took priority. 
Ronie would need to examine what she had on hand so that she’d know what she should stock up on at the apothecary. But first… 
“……I want a bath…,” she mumbled, leaving the room and bringing just a change of underwear. 
The residential quarters of the cathedral spanned from the twentieth to thirtieth floors, with a shared bath for each floor. Normally, Ronie and Tiese used the one on their floor, but every now and then…especially knowing she was about to leave the cathedral for an extended time, there was a different place she liked to go. 
Ronie continued all the way down the hallway to the vertical shaft at the northernmost point of the floor. She set the metered knob to its highest point, the ninetieth floor, then pressed the metal button. That released the necessary number of wind elements to fill the canister at the bottom of the levitating disc and soon sent Ronie upward. 
Half a minute later, the platform’s ascent began to slow until it came to a stop, and she opened the metal door again. 
There was another short hallway ahead that ended in a split to either side. White curtains hung from the ceiling just before the split, and mysteriously enough, the curtains were painted with a very stylized form of the character for bath. 
The hanging curtains had been Kirito’s idea, and he’d painted the character on them, but no one knew exactly what the purpose of it was. Only Swordswoman Subdelegate Asuna seemed to recognize it, and she kept her silence with nothing more than a stifled, slightly annoyed smirk. 
Each time you walked down the hallway, you approached the curtain in bemusement, lifted it up and out of the way—the bottom had a long vertical slit in the middle—then arrived at the split. After that, there were more hanging curtains for the left and right paths. 
The dark-blue curtain on the right side said MEN in white. The rouge-red curtain on the left said WOMEN. These displays at least made a certain kind of sense, aside from why they needed to be written on hanging curtains. So Ronie headed through the curtain marked for women. The hallway turned to the right toward a spacious room. 
The room, which featured large shelves running across it like partitioning walls, was not empty. Three women from the artificers’ department were dressed in the one-piece outfits of the eastern style, drying their wet hair as they sat in wicker chairs along the wall. They started to stand when they saw Ronie, but she held out her hands to keep them in place. 
The women paused, half-risen, then sat back down and bowed their heads in greeting. 
“Good evening, Lady Knight.” “How are you, my lady?” 
“Good evening,” Ronie replied politely, then scurried away to the far side of the room. Once she was behind the shelves, she heaved a sigh of relief. She hadn’t been raised to the level of apprentice knight all that recently, but she still found it very strange to receive deferential treatment from older women. Even if she became a full-fledged knight, Ronie felt certain that the bold, proud manner that Commander Fanatio wore would never come naturally to her. 
She quickly took off her clothes and placed them in a basket on the shelf, along with the change of fresh underwear she’d brought, then grabbed a white towel and pressed it to her front as she opened the glass door in the back. 
She was met with a sudden onrush of thick white steam, so she quickly stepped in and shut the door behind her. The steam dissipated, and she was greeted by a sight that never failed to take her breath away. 
The huge space took up about half of the ninetieth floor of Central Cathedral. The floor and pillars were made of pure-white marble, and the south and east walls were one huge pane of glass, creating a full night view of Centoria. This alone made it even more luxurious than the old imperial throne room, but even more stunning was the incredible amount of heated water that covered the floor, which sank down in a series of steps. 
The bathing chamber was 40 mels from north to south and 25 from east to west. The walkways that surrounded the bath were 2 mels wide, and it was about a mel deep, giving a rough calculation of 874 cubic mels. Converted into liquid measurement, that was an astronomical 874,000 lirs. And in fact, on the other side of the western wall—the side beyond the men’s curtain—was a symmetrically arranged bath of the same size, so the total amount of water was twice that volume. 
This was the Great Bath, or as Kirito liked to say, “The most luxurious facility in Central Cathedral.” 
Before the War of the Underworld, only thirty Integrity Knights had been allowed to use this space, and there had been no dividing wall, so it had often been the case that only a single person had twice as much water to themselves. But with the restructuring of the institution, the bath was opened up to all the other faculty members and split into men’s and women’s sides. 
There were about twenty people using it now, but since the bath was the size of a small lake, there was no sense of crowding at all. Regardless, Ronie walked to the empty southeast corner and dipped her toe into the crystal-clear water. It felt hot at first, but her skin adjusted as she stepped down the rows until she sat on the final step. 
With hot water up to her neck, she felt an overwhelming sense of release that simply didn’t exist in the practical-sized baths on the residential floors. It numbed her head and caused her to moan, “Unhhhh…” 
“Great big baths are just the best.” 
“They really are…,” she agreed, then looked around in a panic. Somehow there was someone sitting just to her left. 
When the steam trailing over the surface broke apart and revealed the face of the person right there, Ronie backed away again. 
She had light-brown hair short enough that the wet ends of it stuck to the nape of her neck, and large light-blue eyes. She was sitting one step higher than Ronie and was as small and delicate as a child. In fact, she looked like a girl of about ten years old, but on the inside, she was nowhere near as innocent. 
“G-good evening, Lady Fizel,” she said, just as awkwardly as the women in the changing room had greeted Ronie. The girl flicked the surface of the water with her fingers. 
“Don’t give me that ‘Lady’ stuff. You’re older than me, Ronie.” 
“B-but…you are a proper knight, Lady Fizel…” 
“Grrr. Why do I feel like we’ve done this bit a hundred times already?” griped the girl, who lifted her legs level with the surface and kicked her feet to splash. Her name was Fizel Synthesis Twenty-Nine. 
During the War of the Underworld, she’d had a special “numbered apprentice” status, but afterward, she’d been given a proper promotion, and she was now a full-fledged Integrity Knight. She had silver armor fitted for her small stature and a dragon named Himawari, or Sunflower, which she used mostly for reconnaissance, all over the human realm. 
“I haven’t seen you lately, Lady Fizel. Were you out on another mission?” Ronie asked. 
Fizel sank down until her mouth was at water level. “Yep. The remnants of the western Imperial Knights are acting strangely, so I went to check on them. In fact, Linel is still over there—I just came back to report in and restock on supplies.” 
“I see…Aldares Wesdarath V was the only emperor whose body was never found—isn’t that correct? Do you suppose there’s a relation there?” 
“Mmm, Sister Fanatio’s Memory Release art completely burned the western Imperial Palace to the ground, you see. The emperor was already an old man at that point, so I can’t imagine he survived. But there are certainly people who would like to make you think he’s alive.” 
She might have been blowing bubbles into the surface of the water as she talked, but it certainly wasn’t the sort of thing a ten-year-old child talked about. Fizel, however, was not necessarily as old as she looked. She was born in the cathedral and, along with her partner, Linel Synthesis Twenty-Eight, had not undergone the Synthesis Ritual, but for some reason, when Administrator chose to make the girls apprentice Integrity Knights, she’d performed the art of life-freezing on them as children, rather than at the peak of their growth and life value, as was customary. In other words, the girls would maintain their current appearance without aging—visually, at least. 
The thought made Ronie want to hug the girls tight to comfort them, but she had never actually done so. Not only were they senior knights to her, but it was said that they’d had official numbers as apprentices because they had killed the previous knights with those numbers. Furthermore, they had reportedly tried to kill Kirito and Eugeo with knives coated with paralytic poison, and during the war, they had also slaughtered the entire invading goblin troop that had swung around to the rear of the Human Guardian Army, by themselves. In other words, the stories were innumerable, and all were horrifying. There was nothing frightening about talking to them, per se, but they were clearly people you wanted to make sure you were showing proper respect. 
“More to the point, Ronie—” 
Ronie snapped to attention awkwardly with the shock of hearing her name. 
“Y-yes?” 
“I heard the news.” Fizel grinned, floating on the surface of the bath. “You’re accompanying Kirito on his trip to Obsidia?” 
“Er, well, I…” 
Their trip to the Dark Territory was top secret, but Ronie soon realized that it was probably pointless to keep secrets from the cathedral’s best intelligence agent. 
“…Yes, I am,” she admitted. 
“If you could get me a souvenir, I’d appreciate a selection of arcane herbs from the dark mages guild.” 
 

“…I…I’ll try…” 
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! I’m just joking,” Fizel said, flashing an age-appropriate grin. She sat upright on the higher step and gazed at the scenery through the glass window. 
Ronie followed her lead and saw, at the bottom of the darkness, the lights of East Centoria flickering like stars. Many of its buildings were built in the traditional wooden style, and rather than oil lamps, they used lanterns made of paper or thin fabric. They made the light from the city feel a bit warmer, somehow. 
Far beyond, seven hundred and fifty kilors away, was the Eastern Gate. Obsidia lay over two thousand kilors beyond that. She’d learned from the academy that the city’s name came from the sacred word obsidian, but the teacher hadn’t known what it was supposed to mean. 
She found herself asking rather silly questions like Will I understand when I see it for myself? Am I really going over there, to the other end of the world? 
“When you go there…,” Fizel murmured. Ronie looked back at the youthful senior knight. 
“Yes…?” 
“Hmm…Well, the war’s over now, so hopefully I’m just overthinking this…” 
There was no one nearby, and the forceful flow of steaming water from the spout on the wall would have drowned out any sound that might have gotten through, but Fizel leaned closed to Ronie in a conspiratorial whisper anyway. 
“Keep your eyes open in Obsidia. Always watch yourself.” 
“I…I will…” 
“The Peace Pact of the Five Peoples is active now, but the dark lands are still ruled by the Law of Power,” Fizel warned. “Commander Iskahn is the most powerful man at present, and he’s in the faction for peace; Lady Sheyta is there, too, to help him keep things under control on the surface…But even here, there are loopholes and gaps in the many layers of the Taboo Index and Basic Human Law that bind us, which unscrupulous people can interpret to their own benefit. Over there, the law is much more vague, so there could be even more wicked folks lurking everywhere you go.” 
Ronie felt as though the temperature of the water dropped. She shivered involuntarily, and Fizel reached out to pat her on the hand. “Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” 
“N-no, I’m fine. I will take your advice to heart.” 
“Mm-hmm. By the time you come back, our missions will probably be over, so we can invite Tiese along for a little wrap-up party to celebrate.” 
“Yes, that would be wonderful!” Ronie agreed. 
Fizel grinned and stood up. “In that case, I’m getting out now,” she said with a wave. As the young knight’s feet slapped against the marble surface of the walkway, Ronie bowed to her one more time. 
Fizel was the twenty-ninth knight. The thirtieth was Alice, the Osmanthus Knight, but she had left for the real world at the end of the War of the Underworld. The thirty-first, Frostscale Whip Eldrie, had perished protecting Alice. Their numbers were now retired, so if Ronie and Tiese were promoted to official knights, one would probably be Thirty-Two, and the other, Thirty-Three. 
She longed for that day, without a shadow of a doubt. But it also filled her with a painful apprehension, a sure sign that she wasn’t ready for it yet. Ronie’s skill with the sword and arts, along with her mental strength, was still nowhere near that of the upper knights like Renly, or even Fizel and Linel, the child ones. 
One step at a time. 
Slow or not, the only way to move forward was one step at a time. As long as she did not give up on her self-improvement and tried earnestly to learn, she would reach the place she wanted to be. 
“……Ronie Synthesis Thirty-Three……” 
She looked around quickly to make sure no one was there. Nobody had heard her sample the name, but she let her head sink under the water out of sheer embarrassment. She blew bubbles in a steady stream until she ran out of breath at last.