LN excerpt: Kiritoās rage towards Rath
I stared at the tab for a while. āObserversāāthe ones who created,Ā operated, and watched over this world. These people, the staffers at the tech start-up named Rath, had lied to meĀ only onceābut it was the biggest lie imaginable.
In June 2026 in the real world, which felt like an eternity ago, IādĀ participated in a long-term continuous test of their next-generation full-diveĀ machine, The Soul Translator, or STL.
The test period was three days. Through the Fluctlight Acceleration (FLA)Ā feature, the subjective time I spent in the VR world would be 3.3 times asĀ long as real time, or ten days in total. At the end of the test, they had blockedĀ my memories of the event to protect company secrets, or so theyād explainedĀ to me. But that was a lie. I hadnāt dived into a test environment; they had sent meĀ into the same Underworld I was in now. And it wasnāt ten days I spent here. IĀ estimated it was over three hundred times that amountā¦for a span of tenĀ years. Yes, during that three-day test, I experienced an entire second childhood,Ā from infancy to the age of eleven, in a tiny village at the northern end of theĀ world. I spent every day playing in the mud with my best friends, the flaxen-haired boy and the golden-haired girl, and at the end of each day, we trudgedĀ home along the riverbanks to the village, side by side.
Two years ago, when Iād just woken up in this place, I saw a vision of thatĀ sunset at the bank of the river in the woods.
When fighting against Eugeo, IĀ had a sensation of kids swordfighting.
And just now, at the moment ofĀ Eugeoās death, I saw the scene about the platinum-oak sword.
These thingsĀ werenāt illusions. They were fragments of the memories that had been deleted, things I hadĀ really experienced. I grew up with Eugeo and Alice in the village of Rulid,Ā and I had forgotten all about it until today. Eugeo and Alice, too, couldnāt access their memories of living with me.Ā They both got synthesized by the supreme ruler, but perhaps that memoryĀ issue was responsible for both of them recovering their own free will from theĀ process, unlike the other Integrity Knights. It didnāt matter to me anymore why Rath would have inserted an outsideĀ element like me into their civilization simulation. But there was one thing IĀ couldnāt forgive. Iād been there eight years ago.
Iād been there when Deusolbert had taken young Alice away.
Eugeo had blamed himself for that for years. Heād never stoppedĀ regretting that he couldnāt save her. And half of that regret shouldāve beenĀ mine to shoulder.
But Iād forgotten the pastā¦and Iād never understood theĀ depth of Eugeoās suffering until the moment he gave up his lifeā¦
āNnā¦guhā¦khfā¦!ā Bizarre sounds escaped from my throat. I clenched my jaw shut as hard asĀ I could, my molars creaking and groaning with the pressure. My stiff left hand rose, the fingers trembling, and pressed the button to callĀ an observer.
A dialogue box in Japanese appeared with a warning sound.
I hit the OKAY button without thinking twice.
The meter twitched, producing a rainbow-gradient bar. Then it shotĀ upward, just as a rustling static noise reached my ears. This was sound from the real world, I sensed. The world on the āother side,ā where things were no doubt peaceful andĀ totally unconnected to the madness happening in the Underworld. The realĀ world, where this blood and pain and even death were merely events ofĀ interest, at best. A great storm of numerous emotions that Iād been keeping under controlĀ came bursting up from inside me, rocking me where I stood. I leaned towardĀ the monitor and, in as loud a voice as I could manage, called the man who hadĀ brought me to this place.
If my hand could reach Seijirou Kikuoka or any of the other managersĀ right now, I might actually attempt to strangle them to death. Such was theĀ helpless rage I felt as I slammed my left fist against the marble table andĀ screamed:
LN source: Chapter 13 Part 7, Volume 14 Alicization Uniting
