Sword Art Online - Volume 27 - Chapter 8

8

“It was in the year 441 of the Human Era, sixty years after the founding of the Unification Council, when the second commander of the council’s sacred artificers brigade, Selka Zuberg, along with the Integrity Knights Tiese Schtrinen Thirty-Two and Ronie Arabel Thirty-Three, entered a very, very long sleep in this place.

“That was the year the hallowed Integrity Knighthood was disbanded, and the similar Integrity Pilothood was established in its place. The knights could either transfer into becoming pilots, complete their duty and live freely, or choose of their own accord to undergo the Deep Freeze art and be put to sleep.

“There were Integrity Knights who chose to become pilots, Integrity Knights who chose to find a new life, and many Integrity Knights who chose to be frozen. After some time, in the year 475 HE, Fanatio chose sleep after serving Their Majesties the longest…and three years later, the Star King and Queen chose to relinquish all their authority to the Human Unification Council and abdicated the throne.”

When Alice reunited with Airy at the Cloudtop Garden nine hours earlier, that was how Airy had conveyed the events that had led to the end of the Integrity Knights’ historical record.

At the time, Alice’s head had been so full of thoughts about Selka that she hadn’t had the leeway to think about any of the other knights, but now that she saw them all petrified like this, she did find emotion rising to her throat.

The Otherworld War had ended in November of 380 HE, so for nearly a century after Alice left for the real world, Fanatio had helped Kirito and Asuna maintain the Underworld and assist its progress. What must have been going through her head when she chose indefinite sleep in this chamber?

Faint footsteps approached. Alice turned to see Airy, hands folded in front of her apron, staring right at her with eyes the color of the predawn sky. Her lips moved, emitting a sound with the slightest of echoes.

“His Majesty and Her Majesty left me a message to give to you, Lady Alice. They said that if you should return to this world, and the time came to awaken Lady Selka, Tiese, and Ronie, you should discuss with them whether or not to undo the seal upon the Integrity Knights.”

“…And is that the ‘choice’ you mentioned earlier?”

“Correct.”

Alice turned away from Airy to look at Fanatio again.

The vice commander of the Integrity Knights, who had once hidden her face at all times behind a helmet fashioned after a bird of prey and slain countless enemies with the Heaven-Piercing Blade, wore an expression of peaceful release from pressure. If Fanatio had chosen the deep freeze after feeling that she had completed every last duty upon her shoulders, then Alice could not disturb her sleep for selfish personal reasons.

She pulled away from Fanatio and headed left.

Standing next to her was a male knight whom Alice did not recognize. This was probably one of the knights in the single digits who’d already been frozen away somewhere in Central Cathedral by the pontifex’s hand before Alice awoke as an Integrity Knight.

Next to him was a woman, another knight Alice had never met. But as soon as she saw the fourth face, she gasped. That imposing face could only belong to Deusolbert Synthesis Seven, user of the Conflagration Bow.

Knowing his meticulous nature, Alice figured it had to have been endlessly exhausting having to deal with Kirito’s freewheeling nature. That made her hesitate to bring him back to life, for a different reason than with Fanatio.

What should I do, Sir Deusolbert? she asked in her mind, just as new footsteps approached from the stairs.

She spun around to see Tiese and Ronie, the latter with Natsu on her shoulder.

They had guessed what was on the ninety-ninth floor, then. After gazing around the pure-white room under the light elements’ glow, they headed to one particular location with purpose.

Alice hesitated, then followed them. After a point, Ronie stopped, leaving Tiese to continue farther, toward a small, slumbering knight…

“…Sir Renly…,” she murmured, and then understood.

The man whom Tiese had married and whose children she bore. Renly Synthesis Twenty-Seven, wielder of the Double-Winged Blades.

Tiese stopped in front of Renly, traced his stone cheek with a finger, and said something to him, though Alice couldn’t hear what it was.

She lined up next to Ronie and stared at Tiese’s back. Neither Selka nor Airy offered any comment. Even Natsu, who had been noisy even in the quietest of moments, seemed to understand that now was not the time.

Beyond the thick walls, a bell-like sound tolled faintly.

On that cue, Tiese pulled away from Renly and walked back to where Alice and Ronie stood.

Her expression was peaceful, but it seemed like there were notes of loneliness and uncertainty in the mourning in her eyes. Alice wanted to say something, but she couldn’t. The weight of all the time Tiese had lived was too heavy upon her.

Recognizing Alice’s awkward position, Tiese took pity on her with a trace of a smile. “Lady Alice, thank you for protecting the Underworld. Because of you, Renly and I were able to lead happy lives, not just as knights, but as people and as parents.”

“…You were the ones who protected the Underworld. All I could do was flee from Emperor Vecta…,” Alice managed to say.

Ronie stepped forward and turned around to face Alice, shaking her head. “That’s not true. In the Battle of the Eastern Gate, it was the way you shouldered the weight of being the human army’s light of hope that helped us survive that day. And after the Otherworld War, during the Rebellion of the Four Empires and the Black Emperor War, many knights and men-at-arms fought with the inspiration you gave them.”

“Black Emperor War…?” Alice repeated, sounding out the unfamiliar term. At the very least, she had never heard it from Stica, Laurannei, or Eolyne.

“It’s the fight against the Black Emperors, Alice,” Selka said helpfully, which only deepened the mystery. But before Alice could pepper her with more questions, Selka asked Airy, “By the way, what did happen with the Black Emperor War?”

“Roughly thirty years after you went to sleep, Lady Selka, in 475 HE, the final Black Emperor was vanquished. Only the Abyssal Horror succeeded in escaping as a shard of its former self.”

The year 475 was when Fanatio had been frozen. Perhaps seeing the Black Emperor War to its conclusion was her cue to submit to the Deep Freeze art.

“Thirty years…,” Tiese murmured. She approached Airy and placed her hands over the other woman’s. “I’m sorry I couldn’t fight with you to the end, Airy.”

“There is no need to apologize. You and Lady Ronie and Selka achieved many great honors in the course of the Black Emperor War.”

At last, Alice could no longer hold back her curiosity. She asked, “Tiese, did you receive the life-freezing art because Sir Renly did the same?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Tiese admitted. She explained, “The reason the four emperors raised their flags in rebellion against the Axiom Church is because they wanted the life-freezing art for themselves. Ronie and I always felt that the eternal life such a thing created was in violation of the laws of the universe, and we did not want to receive something that had been the rationale for a terrible war. But…”

She trailed off, and Ronie continued the story.

“…As a basic rule, Administrator chose to allow knights whom she synthesized young to reach their maximum life value before she utilized the art of life-freezing. Only Fizel, Linel, and Renly were frozen in age at the same time that they were synthesized. Even after we were married and had children, Renly remained young in appearance, but Tiese got older and older… When I realized this was starting to cause real problems for them, I went to Kirito and begged him to bring back the life-freezing art. Even if it was against the laws of the universe, I hoped that it would help Tiese and Renly be happy forever. That was when he told me that Lady Ayuha and Selka had actually succeeded in bringing back the life-freezing art…”

Attention turned to Selka, who looked a bit uncomfortable. “I didn’t keep it a secret of my own accord. In order to bring back the petrification art, we first needed to revive the life-freezing art, which is its basis…But when we were first successful, Lady Ayuha said that it would lead people astray and that we should tell no one but Kirito and Lady Asuna.”

“I’m not criticizing you, Selka. It sounds just like something Lady Ayuha would say,” Ronie admitted, grinning with fond memory.

Alice asked softly, “Ayuha didn’t use the life-freezing art…on herself?”

“Not as far as I know. Lady Ayuha was always concerned about you, Lady Alice. She always said that you were her sacred arts teacher.”

“Teacher…? I never taught her anything…”

“That’s not true. The formula for Hollow Sphere Shape, which you taught to Lady Ayuha, she taught to Lady Asuna, and then to me and Selka and Airy. If not for that formula, Airy claimed that we would not have been able to develop a stable sealed canister for eternal-heat elements.”

Airy nodded gravely. “That is correct. Of the many, many sacred arts formulas, it is my favorite, after the one to unleash wind elements.”

“Now you’re just exaggerating…”

Alice felt awkward. She had discovered the Hollow Sphere Shape formula, it was true, but it was really a rather simple form of sacred arts, forming a hollow three-dimensional sphere with steel and crystal elements. On the other hand, it didn’t feel bad knowing that the sacred arts formula she had left behind two centuries ago was now the cornerstone of all kinds of devices here today, from indoor heating and cooling to dragoncraft propulsion. Especially because the formula had been developed for the reflective-cohesion-beam art that was meant to cause merciless slaughter.

“I’m very happy to hear you say that, though. Thank you,” Alice said, beaming at Airy. “So I understand why Tiese underwent the life-freezing art. And you and Selka did it at the same time as Tiese?”

“Yes. We’re friends,” said Ronie at once.

Selka nodded, too. “That’s right, Alice. And in my case, I also hoped that I would see you again someday.”

It must have been a very difficult decision, in fact, but Selka said it with such a confident smile that Alice wanted to grab her and hug her fiercely right there.

So that explained why the three of them had frozen their life amount right in their mid-twenties.

After that, Selka worked with Ayuha to bring back the petrification art, and after many years of work, they succeeded. About fifty years later, in the year 441 HE, Selka went into a long, long sleep in the Cloudtop Garden with Tiese and Ronie. At the same time, Renly and the other knights were given the choice to be frozen in the ninety-ninth-floor chamber of their own accord, to join the new Integrity Pilots, or to quit and find a new way of life. In 475 HE, Fanatio, the final remaining knight serving the Star King, chose to go into deep freeze, signaling the end of the Integrity Knights…

But there were still a few details that were unclear.

“…Where were the older knights over there hidden, exactly?” Alice asked, pointing at the single-digit knights to the left of Fanatio.

Airy replied, “They were hidden in a ringed space surrounding the senate on the ninety-sixth floor, seven knights in an eternal sleep while locked in unmelting ice. But while he managed to thaw the ice eventually, Lord Kirito said that the state of their souls was unstable, and even using the Deep Freeze art that Lady Selka brought back might not be enough to reawaken them…”

“The art that Lady Ayuha and I recreated probably differs from Administrator’s original petrification art in the finer details,” Selka explained, gesturing with her hands. “From what I heard from Lady Fanatio, in the days of the Axiom Church, the leader of the priests, the honorable Prime Senator Chudelkin, was able to use the petrification art just with the initiation, the Deep Freeze formula, and the target. But when we chanted the same exact formula, nothing happened. I suspect that he was using some kind of catalyst that strengthened his sacred arts.”

You don’t need to call him “honorable,” Alice thought, but resisted the urge to interrupt.

“We searched for that catalyst,” Selka continued, “but couldn’t find it…which is why the art we recreated, both to freeze and unfreeze, requires over a minute to fully cast. Of course, there are bound to be a number of differences in the details, so if we used it on the knights frozen by Administrator and Chudelkin, there could be complications. That’s why they gave up on bringing back the seven knights slumbering in the senate and moved them to this floor instead, I think.”

“So that’s the story…”

Alice gazed at the petrified knights once more and found a new mystery.

“Wait…you just said there were seven knights sleeping in the senate. That doesn’t add up, does it…? Yes, if they’re arranged in number order, there should be four between Fanatio and Deusolbert…”

It was very clear that there were only two knights standing between Fanatio, the second, and Deusolbert, the seventh.

This time it was Airy who answered, her long lashes downcast. “That is correct. The only knights whose locations we know are Nergius, the sixteenth, and after. The seven Ancient Knights frozen in the senate were the fourth, fifth, ninth, tenth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth. If you ignore Lady Sheyta, the twelfth, the locations of the third, sixth, eighth, and eleventh are unknown. Lord Kirito hypothesized that the life span of their souls ran out long, long ago and that they no longer exist in this world.”

“……I see……”

His hypothesis was probably correct.

Alice closed her eyes, praying that the fluctlights of the four knights had found peace in the Main Visualizer, the font from which the soul sprang. She looked up and asked Airy, “What happened to Lady Sheyta? She does not seem to be here, either.”

Sheyta Synthesis Twelve should have had her life frozen as well, she assumed. But to her surprise, Airy answered, “Lady Sheyta slumbers in the government building of Obsidia in the Dark Territory—what was once Obsidia Palace.”

“In Obsidia?! Why there…?”

“Because after the war, Lady Sheyta married Iskahn, the commander of the pugilists guild in the Dark Territory,” said Tiese dreamily. Alice’s mouth fell open in shock. The Sheyta she knew with a pugilist? What in the world happened to cause that sequence of events?

She wanted to ask every single question that came to mind about it, but it seemed inappropriate to ask what amounted to gossip in such an austere and stately place. Instead, she limited herself to a simple “Oh, I see.”

That left two questions on her mind.

One was that if Tiese married Sir Renly, whom did Ronie marry?

But Alice couldn’t ask that question. She took a deep breath and pushed it down, down, down, gave another scan of her former comrades turned statues, and faced Airy once more.

“Can you awaken all the knights in this room right away?”

Airy nodded firmly. “Yes. The nine aside from the seven Ancient Knights should be ready to awaken by simply reading the formula on the scroll Lord Kirito brought back from Admina. Alternately, Lady Selka could convert the formula into a potion that would also work, I believe.”

“I’ll do whatever you want, Alice. It might take a little time, that’s all.”

“Thank you, Selka.” Alice beamed at her sister. Lastly, she asked Airy her final question. “But what about the life span of the soul? I believe that Lady Fanatio and Sir Deusolbert were already over a hundred years old at the time of the Otherworld War. If they continued their duties as knights for another hundred years or so, would they not have surpassed the limit of the soul already, at the point they were frozen? And on that note, you are no exception, Airy.”

Words she once heard in the hundredth-floor chamber above came back to her now:

My poor Alice, let me explain something to you. Bercouli did not start worrying about such tawdry things just now. In fact, he said much the same thing about a hundred years ago. So I fixed him.

I looked into Bercouli’s memory, found the mass of troubles and anxieties, and erased the whole lot of them. And not just him…I do the same for any knight who’s been around a good hundred years or so. I helped them forget all about the pain.

“…You mean Kirito did what Administrator once did as well and erased their memories and yours?”

He wouldn’t have done that, she prayed. After a moment, Airy slowly but firmly shook her head.

“Lord Kirito achieved many great things as the representative of the Human Unification Council and as the Star King, but one thing that he spent as much care in creating as the dragoncraft and the terraforming of the demi-humans’ lands was the memory-compression art.”

“Memory…compression?”

“Yes. By compressing the storage of long-past memories that are not frequently accessed, he was able to increase the capacity of the soul and protect against degradation and collapse. If one tries to recall compressed memories, they will take some time to thaw, but the process does not cause memories to go missing, or alter anyone’s personality,” Airy stated flatly. Alice intuited that she, too, had undergone the memory-compression art.

“…How far does that sacred art extend the life span of the soul?”

“It depends on the amount of daily memory committed and the intensity of compression, but if you value stability, two hundred years. Whereas at maximum, Lord Kirito said it might go to around three hundred years.”

“Three hundred years…”

She was stunned. In her own subjective time, Alice had been alive for only six years and a matter of months; she could not fathom a length of time like that.

But if there was that much time on hand, then it should be safe to undo Fanatio and Deusolbert’s petrification and not have any issues with their fluctlights.

“And all the knights sleeping here had their souls bolstered with the memory-compression art before they went into deep freeze?” Alice asked, just to be sure.

Airy shook her head. “No. Because we have no means of asking the wishes of the seven knights who had been frozen and sealed by the pontifex, the art was not used upon them. All the other knights who had roughly a hundred years of activity have undergone memory compression.”

“Ah, I see…You haven’t been able to awaken those seven anyway. I understand now. Thank you.”

All of Alice’s concerns had been addressed. The only question now was whether to bring back those nine knights, excluding the seven Ancient Knights.

Actually, the message the Star King and Queen left for Airy said that we should discuss the question with Selka, Ronie, and Tiese. It’s not a decision for me to make on my own.

“Tiese, Ronie, Selka—do you think we should bring back Fanatio and the other eight?” she asked, looking at the women in turn.

They all seemed to have made up their minds. Ronie spoke for the group.

“Yes, we do, Lady Alice.”

“May I ask your reasoning?”

“We believe we will need their strength in the days ahead. As Kirito said down on the eightieth floor, it should not be possible for there to be any attack on the Integrity Pilots. Underworlders like us are fundamentally unable to fight against people or groups in superior positions.”

“…That’s right,” said Alice. She understood what Ronie was talking about painfully well: She had once resisted the Seal of the Right Eye.

Ronie’s expression was the gravest she had worn since her awakening earlier. “Presently, the Integrity Pilothood has the authority to coordinate both the Underworld Ground Force and Space Force, and only the Stellar Unification Council resides above them, according to what Laurannei said. Meaning that the only people who can plan and carry out an attack on the Pilothood are members of the Unification Council or people in an equivalent position. And if such a person should make themselves known, the Integrity Pilots might not be able to fight back against them.”

“I see…But if there were knights, instead of pilots…”

“Exactly. All of the Integrity Knights swore our swords to none other than Lord Kirito and Lady Asuna. Outside of those two, there is no one we cannot possibly fight against. And I have a feeling that such a force will be necessary in the not too distant future.”