Accel World Vol. 24: Sword Sage of the Blue Flower Read online

  Copyright

  ACCEL WORLD, Volume 24

  REKI KAWAHARA

  Translation by Jocelyne Allen

  Cover art by HIMA

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  ACCEL WORLD Vol. 24

  ©Reki Kawahara 2019

  Edited by Dengeki Bunko

  First published in Japan in 2019 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2021 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kawahara, Reki, author. | HIMA (Comic book artist) illustrator. | bee-pee, designer. | Allen, Jocelyne, 1974– translator.

  Title: Accel World / Reki Kawahara ; illustrations, HIMA ; design, bee-pee ; translation by Jocelyne Allen.

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2014–

  Identifiers: LCCN 2014025099 | ISBN 9780316376730 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296366 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296373 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296380 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296397 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316296403 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316358194 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316317610 (v. 8 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316502702 (v. 9 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316466059 (v. 10 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316466066 (v. 11 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316466073 (v. 12 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975300067 (v. 13 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975327231 (v. 14 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975327255 (v. 15 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975327279 (v. 16 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975327293 (v. 17 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975327316 (v. 18 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975332181 (v. 19 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975332716 (v. 20 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975332730 (v. 21 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975332778 (v. 22 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975332754 (v. 23 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975321338 (v. 24 : pbk.)

  Subjects: CYAC: Science fiction. | Virtual reality—Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.K1755Kaw 2014 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2014025099

  ISBNs: 978-1-9753-2133-8 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-2134-5 (ebook)

  E3-20210311-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Insert

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Afterword

  Yen Newsletter

  1

  “Two-zero-three-two, zero-nine, three-zero.”

  The eight numbers Haruyuki murmured sent the water just below his mouth rippling. Small concentric waves spread out, hit the edge of the tub, and disappeared. He’d slid his whole body down deep into the bath so that the water was right up to his nose, allowing him to blow bubbles as he sank into thought.

  I’ll probably never forget those numbers.

  He’d had them memorized for a while now, as September 30, 2032, was the birthdate of his Legion Master and parent, Kuroyukihime. But the previous evening, the meaning of those numbers had changed forever, in the moment the purple bar code printed on the nape of her pale neck had been revealed.

  For Haruyuki, as an eighth-grade boy sound of both mind and body, having a bath with a girl a year older should have left him wrestling with the physical shock of it for a week or two. But carved deep into Haruyuki’s memory was not the elegant naked body he saw through the steam nor the smooth feel of the back he washed with the bath sponge, but rather Kuroyukihime’s shocking confession.

  “I wasn’t born from my mother’s stomach. I was an embryo raised in an artificial womb after being fertilized outside the body—a so-called machine child.

  “I was equipped with a Neurolinker while I was still in the artificial womb and soul duplication measures were implemented. The bar code on my neck is a vestige of that. Meaning that on the soul level, I have no connection with my parents whatsoever.”

  Kuroyukihime had told Haruyuki all of this while they soaked in the bath, facing each other.

  Her confession should have stunned him, but it also made certain things click into place. The recklessness Kuroyukihime demonstrated from time to time—for instance, whenever she acted with no consideration for her own safety, like when she saved Haruyuki from an out-of-control car—perhaps that came from knowing hers was an artificial birth. In which case, that was a very sad thing. Even if she had been born from an artificial womb, that didn’t devalue her existence and purpose as a human in the slightest…

  …because she was the one and only Kuroyukihime, loved by so many in both the real world and the Accelerated World.

  The previous day when she’d told him all of this, he had tried to get that message across with all the words at his disposal. But now that he was back at home and thinking about it alone, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t said nearly enough. He should have told her more, should have repeated himself until he was blue in the face, should have insisted on how much he cherished her, how grateful he was to have met her.

  He transformed another sigh into bubbles before plugging his ears with his fingers. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sank down, his face turned toward the ceiling.

  The Arita bathroom was large for a condo, and the bathtub itself was also quite big, allowing Haruyuki, who was fairly short, to be completely submerged if he just bent his legs slightly. He’d run the bath on the lukewarm side, so the boundary between the temperature of his skin and the bathwater grew ambiguous. The water silenced the noise of the air conditioner, so the only sound he heard was his own heartbeat.

  Was this what it was like inside an artificial womb?

  Naturally, even the great Kuroyukihime didn’t remember the time before her birth. But there was a theory that human beings maintained a so-called prenatal memory until they were two or three years old. If even just a hint of the memories of the artificial womb remained in the deepest recesses of her mind, then he wanted to try to understand them and share this with her.

  He was running out of air, but he forced himself to stay underwater. Finally, when he felt like his chest might explode, he pushed his head up through the surface of the water and gasped for air.

  I want to be stronger, Haruyuki wished fervently as he inhaled ragged breaths.
r />   He’d been wishing for this since he became a Burst Linker—and maybe even long before that. But this longing that spurred him on was so deep and intense that he wanted to shout it out loud.

  He didn’t only want to become stronger as a Burst Linker. He wanted to be stronger as a person. Strong enough that he could permanently dispel everything that tortured the heart of his beloved.

  He thrust a fist up out of the bath, high into the air. He swung his clenched hand back down but then stopped himself on the verge of punching the water.

  He wouldn’t get anywhere by rushing. He had to keep moving forward, keep persevering, one step at a time. Or if that was too much, a half step. Or even a finger inching along. He had so much to do. In the real world and in the Accelerated World.

  “Kuroyukihime, I’m absolutely going to…”

  He swallowed the rest of this declaration, stood up, and got out of the tub.

  2

  When he returned to his bedroom after drying his hair, the midsummer sun reflecting on the floor of the balcony dyed the whole room white.

  July 22, 2:00 PM: It was only the second day of summer break, but it felt like more than a week had passed already. And that was because so many things had happened since the last day of school.

  Yesterday, Black Vise and Wolfram Cerberus had barged into the meeting of the Seven Kings—or to be more accurate, the White King’s full proxy, Ivory Tower, had finally revealed his true identity—and dropped the Legend-class Enemy the Sun God Inti onto the Nippon Budokan, the meeting venue, thereby pushing the Blue King, Blue Knight; the Green King, Green Grandé; the Yellow King, Yellow Radio; the Purple King, Purple Thorn; and the Black King, Black Lotus, into a state of Unlimited EK.

  Fortunately, the Red King, Scarlet Rain, and the others at the meeting had managed to escape, but the whole incident was a serious blow to Haruyuki and Nega Nebulus. Nevertheless, they were looking ahead rather than back and, at a Legion meeting, had come up with a strategy to rescue the Black King. They were ready to leap into action the very same day, and this was when Haruyuki received a message from Rose Milady, the third of the Seven Dwarves, which was the executive branch of the White Legion.

  Trusting Rose when she said that she wanted to rescue Orchid Oracle/Megumi Wakamiya, who was a pawn in the plan of the White Legion—well, the Acceleration Research Society, really—Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime went with her to the National Center for Child Health and Development, where Megumi was hospitalized. Direct-linking with the unconscious girl, who had been in a coma for nearly two days, Rose and Haruyuki dived into the Unlimited Neutral Field and rescued Oracle from Tokyo Midtown Tower, a place deeply connected to all of the Society’s scheming, where she was being held prisoner.

  At the time, Haruyuki had also liberated the wandering blacksmith NPC Mr. Smith—a drone—who was being held captive there for some reason, and gotten his Enhanced Armament Lucid Blade modified to nullify fire damage. Naturally, he did this as a countermeasure for the Sun God’s intense heat, but the strategy the attendants of the meeting of the Seven Kings hammered out for the Black King’s rescue had cast Trilead Tetroxide and his Arc of Infinity in the attacker role. There had been no time for Haruyuki to do anything else, however, and now attacking Inti was his job.

  Can I really take on an important role like this the way I am now…?

  He was seized by a moment of weakness as he stared out at the midsummer sun burning down on the veranda outside. Then he heard a faint ding, and his mail icon flashed.

  The message was from Kuroyukihime. He hurriedly tapped the icon to open the message.

  THEY FINISHED MEGUMI’S TESTS EARLIER. THEY DIDN’T FIND ANY ANOMALIES IN HER BRAIN, SO THEY’RE LETTING HER GO HOME TOMORROW. I’LL TELL YOU THE DETAILS LATER. I JUST WANTED TO THANK YOU ON BEHALF OF MEGUMI AND ROSE, TOO. HARUYUKI, THANK YOU SO MUCH.

  It was her usual brief message, but Kuroyukihime’s relief still came through loud and clear. Haruyuki heaved a sigh of relief and replied, THAT’S GREAT. PLEASE TELL WAKAMIYA TO FEEL BETTER SOON.

  Megumi had woken up just after ten that morning. Kuroyukihime and Rose Milady, aka Tsubomi Koshika, had stayed at the hospital, but Haruyuki had figured it would be difficult for Megumi to change clothes or eat with him in the room, so he’d left a little earlier than the girls. On his way home, he’d stopped by school to tend to Hoo, but he still made it back to his condo before lunch. And since his mother was away until the next morning, he had his first pocket of free time in ages.

  Haruyuki lay down on his bed and wondered whether he should read the new manga magazine or maybe clear that retro RPG he was in the middle of before pushing all such temptations aside and moving to the living room. He poured himself a glass of cold barley tea, sat down at the dining table, and launched the Umesato integrated study app.

  He’d worked pretty hard at Kuroyukihime’s the night before, but he still had plenty of summer homework left to do. His goal was to finish it all in July—or if that was impossible, in the first week of August—so he couldn’t exactly skip a day now. He decided to go for it and tapped the math tab, then started to solve the simultaneous equations, virtual pen in one hand.

  The old Haruyuki hadn’t been able to concentrate for even a full ten minutes, but lately, he felt like he had pretty decent control over the gears in his head. The basic reason he hadn’t been able to focus was because somewhere inside of him, he resisted the whole endeavor—he didn’t want to do it; it was boring and annoying. But if he shifted his mind to a deeper level like when he was training in the Accelerated World, those extraneous thoughts disappeared—well, not exactly, but he could push the intruding ideas far away into the background. One hour of focus was more productive than three hours of scattered thoughts.

  Wetting his throat from time to time with tea, Haruyuki plowed through the problems on the page, his mind clear and focused. For this assignment, not only did he have to give the answer, but he also had to write down how he arrived at that answer (not on real paper, naturally, but on e-paper), so he couldn’t cheat using a calculator app. When he got stuck, he opened his textbook and glared at the solutions to similar problems, looking for a hint. At some point each time, when he thought about it hard enough, he would get a flash of insight and his hand would start to move in a rush.

  He took care of five pages of math homework this way. He let out a sigh before drinking the rest of his now-lukewarm tea.

  Ding-dong! He heard the chime announcing a visitor. It wasn’t the front doorbell, but rather the intercom on the first floor of the condo building. A visitor window popped up, and there he saw…

  “Huh? K-Kuroyukihime?!”

  The girl wearing a white, wide-brimmed hat and a teal dress was without a doubt Kuroyukihime. Since she was wearing different clothes than when they’d said good-bye at the hospital, she must have stopped at home before coming over. But why?

  “Uh, um, wh-what’s the matter?” he asked automatically.

  The Kuroyukihime on the screen shrugged. “What do you mean? I said in my message that I would tell you the details later, didn’t I?”

  “So by ‘later,’ you meant immediately afterward?!”

  “You can’t really interpret it any other way.”

  I don’t know about that, he thought, but naturally, actually saying this out loud was not an option. He quickly tapped the unlock button. “Um, c-c-come on in!”

  “Mmm. Thanks.”

  She waved and disappeared through the automatic doors to the left of the screen. Haruyuki hurriedly stood up and looked down at himself. He was in shorts and a T-shirt that he kept for lounging around the house, but since he’d just had a bath before changing into them, they didn’t stink of sweat. While he was at it, he scanned the living room and checked that nothing was lying about.

  He dashed to the front entryway and set out the nicest slippers at the perfect angle when the chime rang again. When he undid the electronic lock and opened the door, he was greeted by the scent of citrus and a bl
ast of hot air.

  “H-hello, Kuroyukihime. You must be hot.”

  “Mm-hmm. Makes me worry what August will be like,” the older girl said as she stepped inside, but she wasn’t sweating in the slightest. Haruyuki wondered if this was another thing she had conquered with the power of her Incarnate will as he moved to close the door.

  However…

  “Hey! I’m here, too, you know!”

  “Oh! I’m sorry. Come in…”

  He pulled the door back open and found a petite young woman in a dress-type school uniform standing there. Tsubomi Koshika/Rose Milady. He’d parted from her a mere five hours ago.

  A previous incarnation of Haruyuki would have jumped in surprise, but he managed to curb that impulse as he asked, “Y-you came with Kuroyukihime, Koshika?”

  Tsubomi looked at him through the gap in her long fringe. “You’re not surprised? And I even went and crouched down below the camera so you would be.”

  Now that she mentioned it, it had only been Kuroyukihime in the visitor window.

  “Wh-why would you do that?”

  “Just playing around.” She shrugged.

  “That’s…I deeply apologize for not living up to your expectations.”

  I mean, I can’t go jumping at every little thing for the rest of my life, he thought as he set out another pair of slippers.

  “Ah!!” Someone hit his back, and Haruyuki jumped high into the air, letting out a pathetic shriek.

  “Ngaaaaaah?!”

  He fell backward onto his butt in the entryway and looked up to find his childhood friend standing in front of the door, wearing a knit shirt and culottes.

  “Ah…Chiyu?! You too?!”

  “We ran into each other in the elevator,” Kuroyukihime explained from behind.

  Chiyuri Kurashima grinned. “That was exactly the reaction I expected, Haru.”

  “…You didn’t actually just come to scare me, did you?”

  “I would never.” Her jovial expression turned to exasperation, and she held up the tote bag in her left hand. “I figured you were eating like crap, so I brought you dinner, see? Bow down to me!”