Sword Art Online - Volume 28 - Chapter 12

12

Integrity Pilot Commander Eolyne Herlentz did not know his own parents’ faces, nor their names.

It wasn’t until his third year at North Centoria Primary Juvenile School that Eolyne learned he was only the foster son of Orvas Herlentz, chairman of the Stellar Unification Council—though at the time, he was the commander of the ground force. He got into a fight with his one-year-older brother, Ruglan, about something stupid, and it reached the point that Ruglan furiously told him he was just adopted.

Apparently, Orvas had told the older two of his three children—Ruglan and the sister, who was two years older—that they were strictly forbidden from saying Eolyne was a foster child.

That meant that in that moment, on impulse or not, Ruglan had broken an order from a higher authority. He collapsed to the ground, holding his bloodshot red eye, and ended up in bed for three days with a terrible fever.

Eolyne’s parents, Orvas and Jill, asked him what happened, so he was honest. They talked among themselves in a hushed tone, then sat Eolyne down on the middle of the sofa and flanked him, squeezing him tight, as they admitted the truth to him.

Just as Ruglan said, Eolyne was not their real son. His true parents were no longer alive. And even if they weren’t related by blood, they still considered themselves his father and mother and loved him deeply.

He was very happy to hear that, but he also felt a bit apologetic—because when he first learned he was a foster child of the Herlentz family, Eolyne did not feel shock or sadness, but acceptance. Life in this family had involved the occasional strange feeling of wrongness, of being different, and finally he had an explanation of why.

Now that he was twenty, he also understood the reason why his brother Ruglan had always been so antagonistic.

The Herlentz family was a proud house founded by the first commander of the Integrity Knights, Bercouli Herlentz, a legendary warrior in his own right. The swordfighting talent that belonged to Bercouli and his heir, Berche Herlentz, hero of the Black Emperor War, carried over to the sixth patriarch of the family, Eolyne’s foster grandfather, and the seventh, his foster father Orvas. But of the three biological children Orvas had, that talent was most keenly embodied not by Ruglan or the youngest, Idris, but by his oldest, Feurphice, the only daughter.

She was currently stationed in Obsidia as the vice commander of the Obsidian Army, one of the three armed forces in the Underworld. The Obsidian Army was the modern-day form of the dark forces that fought against the human army in the Otherworld War. After peace had been forged between the two sides, the hostility stubbornly remained between the residents of the human realm and the demi-humans and humans of the Dark Territory’s army. But through the tireless efforts of first commander of Dark Territory headquarters Iskahn, his wife Integrity Knight Sheyta Synthesis Twelve, and their daughter Leazetta Zarre, the second commander of the group, the Dark Territory army and the human realm forces stationed in the Dark Territory merged into the Obsidian Army in the early 400s.

Since then, tradition held that the commander of the Obsidian Army was a dark-worlder, while the vice commander came from the human realm. Last year, in the spring of 581 SE, Feurphice Herlentz, captain of the ground force’s Third Front Regiment, was named to the position of vice commander.

She was just twenty-one years old at the time. At sixteen, she’d joined the ground force, and in just three years had been promoted to regiment captain in charge of a thousand soldiers. This promotion came just two years after that. And yet there were almost zero cries of nepotism over the Stellar Unification Council’s chairman’s daughter being chosen. This was because of her record of unimpeachable excellence, starting with her victory at the Stellar Unification Tournament at the age of fifteen. But her record of being the youngest-ever champion did not last long, because it was broken just a few years later by the genius swordswomen Stica Schtrinen and Laurannei Arabel.

Regardless, Feurphice had displayed great skill and scholastic aptitude from a young age, and it seemed the eighth head of the Herlentz family was all but decided. The firstborn son had always inherited command through Orvas’s generation, so Ruglan’s feelings of pressure and inferiority had to be severe. The only person he could take his darkest thoughts and feelings out on was the brother who was not related by blood.

Eolyne figured this out in his mid-teens, but even before he had been called “adopted,” he’d always sensed his brother’s darkness, even at a very young age, and had subconsciously avoided standing out because of it. He had basically no friends, returned straight home after school, and chose to spend the rest of his day swinging his wooden sword beneath the massive dark cedar tree in the backyard of the Herlentz home.

But a few months after that incident, the very day he advanced to the fourth grade at school, his sister Feurphice actually appeared in the yard for once and watched Eolyne swing for a while. Then she dragged him to the training grounds. From that day on, his older sister gave Eolyne personal lessons when she had the time. Her instruction was exceedingly strict, and even their father Orvas, a great warrior in his own right, complained she was going too far. But Eolyne was overjoyed. No matter how hard she hit him with a wooden sword, he never once complained. He absorbed and devoured the techniques of the Herlentz family, which had been passed down directly from their sire, Bercouli.

Eventually the instructions encompassed sacred arts and Incarnation. The fierce but satisfying lessons continued until Feurphice’s promotion to regiment captain at age nineteen. Eolyne was sixteen then, and had become the first seat elite disciple at North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy.

That year, Eolyne won the Stellar Unification Tournament, one year older than his sister when she did, and was given a special exception to graduate immediately and join the space force. So if not everything Eolyne had was thanks to his sister Feurphice, then at least 90 percent of it was.

But how could he have guessed he would be named by the previous commander of the Integrity Pilothood as next in the position, thus placing him in command over his sister, the vice commander of the Obsidian Army?

And that it would be the cause of such discord with his brother Ruglan, now a first-class soldier in the ground force, and their father, Orvas…

Kshunk.

The sound of melting ice shifting echoed off the walls, causing Eolyne’s eyes to flicker open behind his mask.

The interior of the room was plain, but it was about as big as his private room on the space force base. It was furnished with a bed, table, sofa, writing desk and chair, and wardrobe. All were made with light metal and bolted firmly to the floor. That made sense, because this was inside a dragoncraft that flew in the sky.

On the table was a lunch tray a soldier had brought by some time ago. The meal was so decadent, he assumed it had been taken to the wrong cabin. The main dish was a venison roast with a rich fruit sauce. But a prisoner couldn’t just go devouring such a fanciful meal; a Norkian squash sandwich would do. So instead, he ate the bread, soup, and ice water, and left the rest.

But I bet if Kirito were in this situation, he would finish off every last bite, Eolyne thought, chuckling to himself as he envisioned it, and leaned back on the sofa.

Over six hours had passed since he’d fallen unconscious in the office of the space force base. The clock on the wall said it was two o’clock in the afternoon, but nothing else suggested a date, so there was no guarantee it was December 8, the day after the attack. All the soldiers told him was that this was the Principia, the mega-sized dragoncraft of Emperor Agumar Wesdarath VI, and that Eolyne was their prisoner.

There were no windows in the room, so the situation outside and the craft’s location were unknown to him. Most likely, they were hovering over Centoria, he guessed. He worried about the state of Central Cathedral and the base, but the cathedral had Alice Synthesis Thirty guarding it, and the base had Kirito. Those two had power Eolyne himself could only dream about, and they would keep both of those places safe.

It was that certainty that made his own weakness, falling unconscious in battle and being taken prisoner, so galling.

Eolyne became aware of his issues with fatigue about five years ago, when he entered Swordcraft Academy. It was around that time that the skin around his eyes became weak to Solus’s light, forcing him to wear a mask during the day, but the fatigue was an even bigger problem. When he pushed himself too hard, his entire body felt strangely frail, regardless of how much or how little numerical life he had lost. It was a very strange feeling, as though his very existence was becoming rarified and sparse.

He had supposedly slept almost eight hours between passing out in the office and waking up here, but he could still feel that exhaustion to a small degree. But he couldn’t sit around complaining about it. The longer he was held prisoner, the more likely Kirito would come from afar to rescue him. Eolyne wanted to get out of there on his own, before Kirito used his monstrous Incarnation to rip the Principia in half.

There was only one door, and two soldiers stood watch outside it. If he could just open that door, then he could use Hollow Incarnation to hide his presence from the minds of others. But the soldiers would soon realize Eolyne wasn’t in his room, so the alarms would start immediately. The only question was if he could reach a door to the outside air.

Performing Hollow Incarnation tired Eolyne out even more than fighting did. He still had difficulty believing he’d used it for so long on that secret base on Admina.

He had been hand in hand with Kirito to ensure its concealment affected him, too. Despite how delicate Kirito looked, his palm was powerful and warm, and seemed to be feeding some kind of power into him. Eolyne kept the Hollow Incarnation going for over twice as long as he expected, and he still had some strength left with which to fight Tohkouga Istar. If that really was thanks to Kirito, then discovering the cause of that phenomenon might lead him to the answer to his issues with exhaustion.

“…What a truly mysterious man,” he murmured dryly.

Eolyne realized he was smiling once again. Just remembering the warmth of Kirito’s hand seemed to bring back some small measure of power to himself.

He still couldn’t be sure if that was truly the same person as Kirito the Star King.

The Star King was a real person who had ruled the Underworld until a hundred years ago. Eolyne’s foster grandfather, Dylian Herlentz, had heard stories from his father and grandfather, who had served Kirito as knights. Yet, in a sense, the mystery of his existence was even greater than Bercouli’s. In recent years, many children thought of him as a character in a fairy tale, according to Stica and Laurannei.

It was hard to accept at face value that the legendary ruler had suddenly returned to the Underworld and had no memory of his time as the Star King. When Eolyne talked to Kirito, he just seemed like a normal boy of the same age…but that tremendous Incarnation and his triple-digit authority level were remarkable and inexplicable.

Eolyne wanted to take Kirito to his favorite place in the whole world—the forest hideout near the space force base—and have a long, friendly chat over wine and cheese. He wanted to know more about Kirito, and to talk about himself. He wanted to reveal all his innermost secrets, including things he had never told anyone, such as his anxiety over not knowing who he truly was…

He actually shivered at the power of this sudden impulse. But at that very moment, a uniformed soldier opened the door and walked inside.

Eolyne expected him to take away the meal tray, but instead, the soldier stood at the door, saluted, and said formally, “Please come with me, Integrity Pilot Commander.”

“…Very well.”

A part of him was curious as to what would happen if he refused, but he didn’t even have a knife, much less a sword, and there was a large electroblade on the soldier’s belt. He obediently rose from the couch.

It gave him a moment of lightheadedness, but Eolyne pressed onward, determined not to let it show. The soldier saluted him again at the door, then headed out.

The hallway outside the room was abnormally long, speaking to just how large the dragoncraft was. Two sets of footsteps clanged on the metal floor for about a hundred mels to the end of the hall. Then they turned right and went up a set of stairs. After another few dozen mels, they finally reached their destination.

The grand double doors had glass windows and silver trim, and looked nothing like anything you would expect to see on a dragoncraft. The right door featured a sigil of a shield and dragon, while the left featured an octagram consisting of eight sharp, jutting spindles. The sigil on the right was the long-dead Wesdarath Empire’s insignia, but he had never seen the left one before. Soldiers bearing actual swords, rather than electroblades, flanked the doors.

The soldier who escorted Eolyne saluted. The soldier on the left returned it and pressed a button on the wall. The faint hiss of a wind-element canister sounded, and both doors opened on their own.

“Right inside, if you please,” said the soldier, stepping back. Eolyne nodded to him and stepped through the doorway.

The room was quite lengthy. It was carpeted in black with silver lines, and the side walls appeared to have windows on them, but all were closed with armored blast shutters. Only the light-element lanterns on the ceiling offered any illumination.

Eolyne held his head high and walked down the center of the carpet. Ahead of him, on the other side of the room, the floor rose in steps. Four armed soldiers stood before them.

Two steps higher, there was a chair with an extremely high back, upon which sat a man. He wore a white shirt with a pleated collar and black pants. His face was sharply featured, as though carved, and he sported a thin mustache. His eyes were a gray as cold as ice.

On the right behind the chair was a young man wearing a dark gray coat. Eolyne recognized him even without seeing his brilliant, flowing black hair and shockingly good looks. This was the very person he’d known since his days at Swordcraft Academy: Tohkouga Istar.

Eolyne’s gaze headed straight forward again, just as the man said, “I will not demand you kneel, but the least courtesy you do is remove that tasteless mask…Eolyne Herlentz.”

“Forgive me, but I will need to keep the mask on to protect my fragile skin, Lord Agumar Wesdarath VI,” he replied, eliciting a snort from Emperor Agumar.

“Very well. I trust I need not introduce Istar to you?”

“No, Your Excellency,” Eolyne said, glancing again at Istar. The other man’s face was a blank mask.

Agumar nodded and tilted his head to the left this time. “Then I shall only introduce her to you.”

…Her?

Eolyne peered to the left of the throne. Then he sucked in an alarmed breath.

Somehow, there was another figure, standing in the same flanking position as Istar on the other side. But there was no door at the back of this room, and there had been no footsteps. It was as though she had been there the whole time, and he had simply failed to notice her presence…

It was a woman. She wore a pure white robe and cape, like the sacred articians of old. On her chest was a silver medallion with that pointed octagram. It was exactly the same as the symbol on the door.

Her long hair was deep purple, and her small, delicate face had an inhuman beauty to it, just like Istar’s. The eyes that looked down upon Eolyne were purple, too, but seemed like mirrors that only reflected, and gave away none of her inner thoughts.

There was a little smile playing across her thin lips. “I can introduce myself, Your Excellency,” she said, her voice as melodious and cold as a bell made of ice.

“Very well,” Agumar said, motioning to her. She stepped forward and gave a swishy bow. When she raised her head, those deep violet eyes fixed upon Eolyne.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Eolyne Herlentz. I am a descendent of the Norlangarth imperial family…Mutasina Muicilli.”

(To be continued)