Sword Art Online - Volume 26 - Chapter 7

7

C’mon, Kirito. Wake up.

The sound of someone whispering near my ear caused my eyes to slide open.

There was immediately a full curtain of stars before my eyes. Did I fall asleep outside? I wondered groggily, until I noticed the gentle vibration running through my body.

I wasn’t indoors or outdoors. I was inside the cockpit of the dragoncraft X’rphan Mk. 13.

Ahead of me was Commander Eolyne’s helmet, visible in the pilot seat. He was totally still, not because he was sleeping, but out of concentration. I didn’t want to bother him, so I leaned my head back against the headrest.

I closed my eyes and tried to recall the dream I was having before I woke up, but my memory was as delicate as a snowflake in the hot sun and melted clean away. I exhaled in frustration, and right on cue, a gentle voice said, “Did you wake up, Kirito?”

“Y-yeah. How could you tell?” I asked, bolting upright.

“I wouldn’t make a very good commander if I didn’t notice small details like that,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking. Eolyne pointed to the left of the craft’s nose. “Look, we’re nearly there.”

I raised the seat back to its upright position and looked where he was pointing through the canopy. Immediately, I grunted, “Whoa…”

Down below the craft on the left was a massive spherical body. It was difficult to grasp size and distance in space, but there was no doubt this was Admina, our destination.

It glowed a soft yellow where the sunlight hit it, and the opposite side was utterly dark, which told me this was indeed the same body, Lunaria, that I had seen from the human realm two hundred years ago. I had a vague memory of talking to someone about the possibility of there being people living in cities on the moon, but I couldn’t remember who it was.

“…How many people live on that planet…?” I asked softly.

Eolyne whispered back, “About five thousand, between five races.”

“Whoa…that’s it? Just five thousand on an entire planet…?”

“The human realm and dark realm have more than enough space for everyone, and there’s also the Outer Continent beyond the Wall at the End of the World. It’s almost entirely undeveloped. With the greenification of the Dark Territory proceeding well, very few people would actually desire to move to Admina.”

“But if the settlers there have children…,” I protested.

Enigmatically, Eolyne replied, “Having children won’t change the overall population.”

“Huh…?”

“The number of those who leave the world and enter the world is always the same…Isn’t that the way it works in the real world, too?”

His meaning eluded me at first, and I spent several long moments blinking in confusion before I finally understood.

The Underworld had a hard population limit.

The souls of the people here, their fluctlights, were all stored within the Lightcube Cluster on the Ocean Turtle. The total number of cubes in the cluster was around two hundred thousand, as I recalled, so there couldn’t be more fluctlights than that.

Two hundred years ago, the population of the human realm was eighty thousand, so if the Dark Territory’s was around the same, it would leave only forty thousand unused cubes. With no more war plaguing the world, that leftover slack would be filled up in no time—and that was indeed what had happened, it seemed. The population of the Underworld had reached two hundred thousand, its physical limit, so unless someone died so their cube could be reinitialized, there would be no new souls to load in. That was what Eolyne meant by “the number of those who leave the world and enter the world is always the same.”

“…No, there’s no limitation of that sort in the real world,” I replied, drawing a suspicious look from the pilot commander.

“Huh…? Then your population will simply grow and grow without end?”

“Yes, that’s right,” I confirmed. He would just have to take my word on this one. “In the real world, the total population is over eight billion.”

“Eight……”

Even coolheaded Eolyne was frozen for a good three seconds after that one. He turned as far to the left as he could, until his shocked face was visible over the side of the pilot’s chair, which sat slightly lower than mine.

“D-did you say eight billion? As in, ten thousand times eight hundred thousand?”

“Ummm, hang on,” I said, trying to count up the zeroes in my head. “Yeah. Ten thousand times eight hundred thousand.”

“……Goodness gracious,” he murmured, shaking his head and turning forward again. “It is written that during the Otherworld War, an army of tens of thousands of real-worlders came here, so I had a feeling you must have a higher population…but in the billions? Which means that if…”

He caught himself there and muttered, “Er, never mind.”

I was on the denser side, but even I could guess at what Eolyne was about to say: If a new Otherworld War broke out, and the Underworld and real world had a conflict far greater than the one from two centuries ago, it would be two hundred thousand versus eight billion.

Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka, Dr. Koujiro, Alice, Asuna, and I and all of our friends were working hard not to let that happen, but I couldn’t be irresponsible enough to guarantee that we could prevent a war. So I inhaled, let it out slowly, then changed the topic: “Is a day on Admina the same length as on Cardina?”

“Yes, it is. But the position of Ori, the capital of Admina, is the polar opposite of Centoria’s, so it’s the middle of the night there.”

“Ori…”

I pondered what the source of the name might be but had no idea. If Yui were here, she’d be able to list a whole load of potential sources from different languages, but she was busy monitoring the network while Asuna, Alice, and I were in this dive. Plus, she couldn’t log in to the Underworld anyway.

Upon a closer examination of the night side of Admina, I could see flickers of what looked like man-made light. But the dragoncraft was not heading straight for them; it seemed to be pointed at a spot far to the east of there.

“Ummm…I’m guessing we can’t just go and land right on the pad in town?” I asked.

Naturally, Eolyne replied, “Of course not. Even with our deceptive measures, there’s no hiding the light of the craft’s exhaust.”

“So if we land a long distance away, how are we getting to the city?”

“What are those big, long legs for, Kirito?”

Are you serious? Also, they’re not that long.

He chuckled, seemingly reading my mind, and pushed the control stick forward.

The silvery dragoncraft began a smooth descent toward the boundary line between day and night.

The reason for Admina’s yellow color turned out to be a surprising one.

I had assumed it was the color of the atmosphere, but on the ground, the sky was the same clear blue as on Cardina. It was the majority of the surface that was colored pale yellow—it was covered in yellow flowers, to be precise.

As the craft descended to three thousand feet, I stared at the flower fields stretching all the way to the horizon in absolute wonder.

“Did…did people plant these flowers?”

“No, it was already this way the first time the Star King landed here,” Eolyne explained, as though he’d been expecting this question. “It’s hard to tell from this height, but there is actually a mixture of several kinds of yellow flowers growing there. The particular species change depending on the season, so Admina appears yellow all year round.”

“Huh…”

It was tempting to say that if someone at Rath had designed Admina’s terrain, they were slacking off, but I had a feeling that was not the case. Most likely, as soon as someone from the Underworld—the Star King, as the story went—approached Admina, the heavenly body previously called Lunaria, the Cardinal System generated its own detailed map for the planet. If so, then only Cardinal, the sage from the library, could possibly say why it chose this particular design—but she no longer existed. The only remaining traces of her and Administrator, her offshoot, were the names of the two planets.

I took my eyes off the endless flowers to look at the sky ahead of us. The spectrum spanned from red to navy blue, not as a sunset but as a sunrise. Our backs were to the rising sun, and we were flying toward the night. There was no artificial light visible ahead of us yet.

“…Hey, if we’re sneaking up on the capital, wouldn’t it be better to do it from the night side, rather than the day side?” I asked.

“Well, yes, but in order to do so, we’d have to spin all the way around the planet,” Eolyne explained, tracing the path with his finger, “which would take twice as long. But we’ve come on a course that ensures the curvature of the planet blocks the city from seeing us, so the chances of being detected are almost infinitesimally small…I think.”

True, at the spot where the dragoncraft entered the atmosphere, there was absolutely no way to see the light of the city. And there was no radar or satellites in this world. The only means of long-distance observation were massive telescopes, which meant detecting dragoncraft that were just tiny dots in the vast sky would be incredibly difficult.

The X’rphan Mk. 13 glided over the yellow fields of flowers, sounding so smooth, you’d never guess it had just been dusted off from a decades-long slumber. Even the occasional tree we passed had all-yellow leaves. I wished I could show this to Asuna and Alice, but the dragoncraft seated only two. If we completed our mission on Admina and managed to wake Selka, Ronie, and Tiese, we should eventually have the chance to visit this planet as a group.

As the craft traveled onward, the red in the sky moved behind us, and the dark of night grew larger. That meant we were flying faster than Admina’s rotational speed. Yet there was almost no sensation of air resistance. Either because it was just a virtual world or because of some special property of the dragoncraft.

I did seem to recall that when I tried flying at maximum speed with Incarnation during the Otherworld War, I’d had to make a wind-element barrier to keep from being absolutely buffeted. So even without the existence of air molecules, the system still simulated the concept of wind resistance. That meant this dragoncraft had to have some kind of mechanism similar to a wind-element barrier. In fact, when we had plunged into the atmosphere from space, there weren’t any of those usual signs of atmospheric entry you saw in movies and anime, like the ship glowing red or shaking itself to pieces.

“Hey, Eolyne…,” I said, about to ask the illustrious pilot commander how the craft was canceling out the wind resistance, when an urgent alarm filled the cockpit without warning, and red lights turned on here and there on the instrument board.

“Wh-what’s that?!” I yelped in a panic.

His response was tense but controlled. “An Incarnation reading. Did you do something, Kirito?”

“N-no, I didn’t do anything!”

“Then it’s an attack. I’ll look above us. You keep an eye on what’s below.”

“G-got it!”

I had so many questions—Who’s attacking? Why? How?—but the situation was too urgent to bother him with them. I just kept my eyes peeled, alternating between left and right below the craft.

On the left side ahead, right around the boundary between night and evening, I saw a number of red lights approaching our position.

“I’ve got lights at ten o’clock!” I shouted, then worried he might not understand clock positions.

Fortunately, Eolyne replied, “Yes, I have visual! Those are…Incarnate-guided missiles. It’s gonna get bumpy!”

A high-pitched whine arose around us. The X’rphan shuddered like a living thing, then shot upward and to the right, as though it had been struck. I was pressed so hard into the seat that I could feel my body creaking. I’d thought our acceleration when leaving Cardina was the craft’s maximum, but the Star King’s personal vehicle was capable of more. We moved so fast that I could barely breathe, but I was still able to turn my head and look through the clear canopy behind us.

The red lights were still clearly visible. In fact, they seemed to be creeping closer.

“We’re not pulling away, Eolyne!”

“I didn’t think so! Let me know if they get within five hundred mels!”

How do I tell? I thought. But despite the blank canvas of the sky, with no other indicators of depth, I found that I could accurately perceive the distance between us and the lights. Seven hundred mels…six hundred…

“Five hundred!” I shouted, and the engine roared once again. The craft did a backflip at an extreme angle, practically launching itself off of thin air. I was momentarily terrified that the delicate X’rphan might break apart, but the force pressing me against the seat made it clear that the frame beneath us was indomitably firm.

Gritting my teeth against the pressure, I stared at the gloom overhead. I could catch a red gleam out of the corner of my eye. There were at least twelve or thirteen of these Incarnate-guided missiles. About a third of them seemed to have lost sight of us and went veering off in other directions, but the other two-thirds made the turn like living things and continued pursuit.

“Is…is someone controlling them?!” I cried.

Even in this dire situation, Eolyne made sure to answer my question. “No, they’re Incarnate weapons that automatically track their target! Somewhere there’s a mechamobile or dragoncraft that fired…them!”

He rolled the craft to the right and banked into another sharp turn. Another few guided missiles lost their bead on us and fell away, but five or six still stayed on us. They were less than three hundred mels away now. At this distance, I could see that they were tubelike objects made of gray metal—exactly like regular missiles. The red light was because of a lenslike part on the tip of each projectile.

They were each over three feet long, which seemed very small in comparison to real-life air-to-air missiles. But if an object that size exploded close enough, even the X’rphan was bound to take some damage. I kept an eye on our rear and warned Eolyne, “If it looks like it’s going to hit us, I’m using Incarnation!”

“I suppose you won’t have a choice. Just keep the effect to a minimum!”

It seemed, based on the reaction, that our assailants already knew we were here, but it wasn’t clear if they knew we were the Integrity Pilot commander and the former Star King or just thought we were unidentified trespassers. If the latter, using my Incarnation at full power would essentially be announcing my identity for all to see.

The X’rphan did a third loop, dropping the number of missiles in pursuit down to three. But they were now less than two hundred mels away. If we kept trying to loop and lost enough speed, they would make up all that distance, and we’d be unable to get away.

There were two ways I could stop them with Incarnation: I could generate a ton of heat elements through the canopy and attack with them, or I could set up a simple defensive wall in the same way. It would feel good to shoot them out of the sky, but if it caused a huge explosion, the blast range might reach us.

Best to just rely on a barrier, I decided, and told Eolyne, “I’m defending us!” Then I generated an Incarnate wall that surrounded the craft, only a tenth as strong as when I’d blocked the Abyssal Horror’s light beam.

Half a second later, the three guided missiles made contact with the wall in quick succession.

There was an explosion. Then another.

A yellow flash filled the evening sky. The blast spread out along a ball-shaped surface, the contour of the Incarnate wall I’d made. There was some level of feedback on me from the shock wave of the explosion, but the force was only as much as five or six heat elements bursting at once—a far cry from the spacebeast’s attacks.

Three guided missiles made contact with the wall, but there were only two explosions. The third one was either destroyed before it could detonate or got tossed far, far away, I guessed. Just in case, I kept the wall deployed as I informed Eolyne, “All guided projectiles remo—”

Before I could finish, something with an alien texture, chilly or perhaps slimy, licked my conscious mind.

Something was trying to wriggle through the Incarnate wall. It felt like something eroding the firm, hard wall I created in my imagination, gouging a tiny hole and infiltrating through it. Like some kind of parasite sheathed in a viscous lubricant.

I twisted around and stared over my right shoulder. In a corner of the sky, now that the blast had almost entirely faded, writhed a very bizarre object. A long, black, tubelike object about three feet long and two inches wide. It was not a weapon made of metal, but a living thing, like a snake or a worm, but at the same time, not exactly either.

Its eyeless, mouthless tip was glowing red from the inside. The other guided missiles were definitely just made of gray metal, so this happened to be the one living-type weapon out of the bunch, as far as I could tell.

The black earthworm had already wriggled about half its body through the Incarnate wall. I reached out with my left hand and tried to close the hole, but no matter how much pressure I added, the secretion coating the earthworm’s body seemed to just melt the Incarnation. I had no idea it was possible to do such a thing, but Incarnation was basically just a manipulation of matter through the power of imagination. Eolyne mentioned Incarnation-Hiding Incarnation earlier; if Incarnation-Eroding Incarnation also existed, then I could make my wall as strong as I could, and it would have no effect on that bioweapon.

Eolyne seemed to have noticed the writhing black worm in empty space, too. He couldn’t conceal the disgust in his voice. “Wh-what is that thing?”

“Don’t ask me. Also…it’s going to get inside our defensive wall soon!”

“Got it. Hold out just a bit longer,” he said, and pressed his left hand against the canopy shield.

Ten glowing blue frost elements appeared on the outside of the thick glass. It was an ultra-high-level technique, not only eschewing the spoken command but also ignoring the basic rule of sacred arts that one must generate a single element with each finger.

He waved his hand, and the frost elements shot toward the black earthworm, leaving behind blue trails. The instant they made contact, it created huge masses of ice.

In just seconds, the front half of the earthworm that had infiltrated the defensive wall was trapped inside a floating iceberg. Eolyne’s Incarnation was controlling the elements, but the ice itself was solid, so a substance that invaded Incarnation shouldn’t be able to melt it. Sure enough, while the back half of the worm was still struggling and writhing, the front half was completely still. The warnings in the cockpit continued blaring; they probably wouldn’t turn off as long as the worm was alive.

“Okay…I’m going to land the X’rphan now. Keep that defensive wall up,” Eolyne instructed.

I nodded nervously. “G-got it.”

Having the black earthworm violating my Incarnation felt horrible, but I’d have to put up with it for now. Just in case, I imagined the defensive wall around the earthworm being even stronger.

But right on cue, just as I did that, I felt another slithering, slippery feeling from directly below.

By the time I realized what was happening, a long, soft body had penetrated the Incarnate wall.

“Eolyne! It came from below—!” I shouted, but before I could finish my thought, a massive explosion drowned me out.