A second cry jolted me out of that thought. Two more gargoyles had descended from the terrace and were circling around, waiting for their opportunity to strike.
“Alice, draw your sword! The monsters are coming for you!”
I glanced below and saw that the Integrity Knight was not yet over her unexplained shock. If they attacked now, she’d be either skewered by a tail or knocked off the hook.
Should I try to climb the remaining dozen or so feet to the terrace while the gargoyles are still hanging back? I had only one hook left in my belt—and I suspected the furious beast with the hook stuck in its stomach would not be kind enough to give it back.
If the current high-pitched screech was any indication, the three hissing monsters were getting ready to attack again. I could potentially be forced to let go of the lifeline chain and jump down onto a gargoyle if it swooped on Alice. I felt my belt for the chain’s clasp. Then my eyes went wide.
The length of the chain was over fifteen feet. And there were only about twelve feet between me and the ledge.
“Alice…Alice!!” I bellowed as I slid my sword back into its sheath. The Integrity Knight twitched and turned her blue eyes to me at last.
“Hold tight to the chain!”
She frowned, looking confused. I used both hands to grip the chain connected to her sword sheath and pulled, lifting her off the hook. She belatedly grabbed the chain and gasped, “Wait…are you…?”
“If we both survive, I’ll give you all the apologies you want later!!”
I sucked in a deep breath, then yanked—no, hurled—the knight hanging on the chain upward. Her long golden hair and white skirt billowed through the air as Alice swung in a semicircle.
“Eyaaaa!!” she shrieked, a surprisingly amateur reaction, as she passed between the gargoyles on her way to landing on the ledge above. Landing not in the active sense, but the passive. I decided to ignore the very unladylike Murgk! that ended her scream.
The exertion of my wild throw hurtled me off the hook I had been balancing on. If Alice didn’t hold firm up on the ledge to support my weight, we’d both plunge off the side of the building.
Thankfully, the Integrity Knight sensed what needed to be done: She grabbed the chain with both hands and dug in her feet, although the first brief moment of weightlessness sent a shiver down my back.
“Why…youuuuuu!!” she raged, pulling as hard as she could. Just as Alice had, I flew through the air, and though the impact of my back slamming against the marble wall knocked the breath from my lungs, I’d never been as relieved as when I felt the terrace floor under my feet. I could’ve lain there on the flat surface forever, until Alice kicked me in the ribs.
“Wh-what in the world were you thinking, you madman?!”
“I didn’t have a better choice to…We can talk later! Here they come!”
I drew my weapon again and pointed the tip at the gargoyle trio rising toward us. With what little time we had before combat resumed, I looked left and right to get a grasp of the arena.
The high-wire circus act we’d executed to get up there granted us a ledge about three feet wide around the building. There was no decoration, just flat, simple marble jutting horizontally out of the tower wall. In fact, it literally served as a shelf, and it occurred to me that this was just meant to be a resting place for the gargoyles.
Since Alice hadn’t known about the terrace, I maintained hope that there might be some special door or window along the wall nearby, but sadly, there was nothing. The only features in sight were the other monstrous statues that hadn’t come to life yet, lined up all the way down to the corners of the building. It was a horrifying thing to see, but fortunately the only ones currently active were the three flying up toward us.
With her confidence returned from being on solid ground, Alice slid her Osmanthus Blade from its sheath. But that hadn’t solved all her questions. “Yes, I’m sure of it,” she rasped. “But why…would they be here…?”
The gargoyles were back on our level again, but they were keeping their distance, wary of our weapons. Without taking my eyes off the hovering creatures, I asked Alice, “What has been bothering you? Do you know something about those monsters?”
“…Yes…I do,” she replied, to my surprise. “They’re wicked beasts that serve the evil sorcerers of the Dark Territory that created them. We know them to be called minions. It is a word in the sacred tongue that means follower or subordinate.”
“Minions…Well, I can tell they’re from the Dark Territory based on their looks—but why would they be lined up on the walls of the holiest place in the world?”
“That’s what I want to know!” Alice grunted. She bit her lip. “Obviously, they should not be here. It’s inconceivable that these minions would cross the End Mountains without attracting notice, converge on Centoria, only to fly this high and land on Central Cathedral itself. And…”
“And it’s completely impossible that someone powerful within the Church might have intentionally placed them there…?” I asked, filling in the blank. Alice shot me a nasty look but did not offer a rebuttal.
I looked at the gargoyles hovering close by and asked, “Just tell me one thing. Are those minions intelligent? Do they understand human words?”
Alice shook her head. “That would truly be impossible. Minions are not living things like goblins or orcs. They are agents without souls, created by sorcerers who worship the god of darkness, Vecta. The only things they understand are a few simple commands from their master.”
“…Ah,” I said, breathing a secret sigh of relief. I knew that I was overlooking the present danger, but I still couldn’t help but feel resistance at the thought of killing a being with the same kind of fluctlight as a human.
Cardinal had told me that babies were born only to men and women whose marriages had been ratified by the Axiom Church—probably because they had the particular system command that executed it. The denizens of the Dark Territory had to work the same way. Therefore, the minions generated by dark arts would run on the same program code as wild animals, rather than artificial fluctlights.
With that in mind, the hostility I sensed from those insectoid eyes had the same kind of digital fakeness that I’d experienced with so many monsters in the SAO days. Something in their routine switched from hang back to attack, and they beat their wings and rose in unison.
“Here they come!” I shouted, holding up my sword. The minion with the golden rod stuck in its chest swooped toward me first, thanks to the accumulated hate value.
This time, it started by swiping at me with its claws rather than its tail. It wasn’t particularly fast, but it’d been so long since I’d fought a monster that it was hard to judge the distances involved. I was focused on blocking the claws, waiting for a good opening to strike, when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the other two descending on Alice.
“Watch out—the other two are going for you!” I warned.
“Who in the world do you think I am?” she snapped, holding the Osmanthus Blade at her left side.
With a tremendous slice, the golden blade flashed outward, practically lighting up the night. It wasn’t a feint or a combination attack, just a single, medium-height slash: In the Aincrad style, it would be known as Horizontal. But it was so fast and devastating that I could feel a subconscious cold sweat break out on my skin from standing next to it. The utter perfection of this single attack had me entirely overmatched, with no room for defense or evasion, in our battle on the eightieth floor. My years of VRMMO life had turned me into a permanent proponent of combination attacks, but her single attack had absolutely crushed that conviction.
Alice paused at the end of her swing, and the four arms of the minions toppled off. Even their trunks, which were well out of her sword range, silently separated across the chest.