Accel World Vol 4 Chapter 8 (2/2)

When he raised his head up with a start, his childhood friend was still giving an unchanged s down her suntanned cheeks

“……You don’t understand Haru, you don’t understand me at all”

“Eh……?”

“Even though you don’t understand anything…anything at all!!”

Suddenly shouting in a teary voice, Chiyuri then did an unexpected action

With the fingers of her tre hands, she started to undo the buttons of her white shi+rt from the top one after another

In front of the Haruyuki’s eyes as his breath caught and he froze, Chiyuri, after showing a o Her upper body, which only had a si it, was exposed to Haruyuki’s eyes without anything obstructing it

Several days ago, Haruyuki had been tricked by a visual marker and entered into the female shower room, and as a result had seen her stark naked forht in front of hie implications and knocked down Haruyuki’s consciousness

“……If I do this, do you understand?”

Chiyuri whispered in a tre voice

“Even if my avatar in Accel World obeys Noumi, the me here in the real world…is in a place where you could touch me if you wanted to, Haru Do you still not understand with this? I haven’t been stolen away or anything like that”

Gazing at Haruyuki with eyes that shi+ned intensely despite being ith tears, Chiyuri spoke as if to engrave every word upon him

“I act according to my oill Both until now, and from now on”

Haruyuki—

Couldn’t understand

Chiyuri was acting according to her oill What was that supposed to mean? Did she ed that, as a Burst Linker, it was eous to join with Nou with hiet more points?

Suddenly, Haruyuki understood that the feeling that had been squir inside him since he saw her at the entrance was jealousy It seeh he liked Kuroyukihiether, that black feeling hadn’t been exhausted and had sprung up fro that Chiyuri was on Noumi’s side

However, Haruyuki shook off that feeling, and merely looked down deeply and spoke

“……Sorry Please put your clothes back on”

He didn’t understand Chiyuri’s aim and intentions

But, he decided he would believe Chiyuri was also probably fighting She was trying to eliminate this crisis with her oer He had to believe just that If he couldn’t believe what she had said until now, he was already unqualified to be her friend

After getting up and turning towards the door in order not to look at Chiyuri who still didn’t move, Haruyuki spoke one final time in a firm voice

“…I believe in you That’s why, please believe in me as well I won’t lose to so that he took away”

Then, Haruyuki opened the door and began walking with a long stride in order to return to his own apartment

After going out onto the veranda fro room, Haruyuki put both his arh-rise co in the sky to the east

The clusters of high-rise buildings including the littered brightly in the slanted sunlight At this very instant as well, a «duel» should be enthusiastically taking place at that skyscraper’s stage

Right now, there was nothing he could do about Dusk Taker steadily increasing his battle power and row

However, unable to give up here, Haruyuki strongly gripped the handrail and mumbled

“…There is so even I can still do”

That so

To scrutinize, consider and make conjecture from all the information

Just any kind of plunderer couldn’t steal that kind of weapon While letting the cold wind that blew through the 23rd floor breeze through his uniforan to remember in detail all the occurrences that had happened since the cause of all this—Nouo

After it becaht, Haruyuki learned from Takumu that the place that Dusk Taker had appeared today wasn’t at shi+njuku but instead shi+buya

But although the area was different, what happened was completely the same as yesterday Burst Linkers that could oppose Nou» and «long-range firepower», when they fought for the first tie

This tag tea for two days, had obtained a vast quantity of points once again As a result, Dusk Taker was at Level 6 Lime Bell had reached Level 4

It wasn’t a phenomenon that fit inside the frame of «duels» anymore

It was already so wasAccel World

As the sky in shi+buya was blazing red like the fire of battle, Haruyuki continued thinking intently while leaning against the veranda’s handrail

The playback of his le with Noumi on Tuesday, and came to the scene at Akihabara yesterday

The saw» Just like Nou the privilege of list interception, he wason points within the Akihabara BG’s local network

Looking at it like that, it wasn’t necessarily far-fetched to think that there was sosaw and Dusk Taker either At the very least, the possibility that they were using the sah That he had saw’s real forretful

While once again tasting the bitterness he had felt so many tiht of Jigsaw’s back that he had seen for an instant

A gray stadium jacket A white neck that was distinctly tanned- a Neuro Linker all the ti that place with his right hand as if it were in pain

Just before he disappeared froht hand at the passerby in front of hih they hadn’t really been in his way—

His memory playback stopped exactly on that scene

He rewinded back several frames

The boy quickly cleared away the space to his right that was at about the height of his chest, with his right hand that had his fingers extended

Why did this scene bother him so much?

Haruyuki tightly grasped the veranda’s handrail with his hands, and strained all his thinking power The feeling that faintly bit into the center of his head when he touched upon the beginning to answer in a riddle-solving-type game intermittently struck him

Think Think

While repeatedly playing back the sight of the boy’s back, Haruyuki unconsciously performed the same movement as well

He raised his right hand and quickly waved it to the right

He felt as if that ely familiar to his arm as well

Quickly waving his right hand Waving his right hand Waving

This was—this wasn’t the gesture ofaside someone in front of you

Wasn’t this thes on a virtual desktop?

But that ti a Neuro Linker Then, was it some kind of retinal projection-type wearable device? No, according to the ie in Haruyuki's memory, he hadn’t had any such apparatus on him at all

Had he been looking at a holo-ithout using a Neuro Linker nor any other device?

…Impossible As far as Haruyuki knew, devices like contact lens-type miniscule monitors had yet to be developed, and a device that was embedded in one’s eyeball shouldn’t exist either

‘Maybe I’ht, he suddenly recalled the words he had once had heard from Noumi

‘…Do you think that the Neuro Linker is the only portable device in the world?’

Those were the words he had said while pointing at the sital ca of Haruyuki in front of the Umesato Middle School shower roo to his words than that Yet, why did it bother him so much now?

“Devices…Devices other than the Neuro Linker…”

Haruyukithe aluminum-silver Neuro Linker that was attached to his own neck

A VR device that wasn’t a Neuro Linker They certainly existed In the 2020s before Haruyuki was born, there should have been huge headgears that were equipped to the head But, the , and the Neuro Linker should have been the first device that had an AR (Augmented Reality) function which allowed for a virtual desktop to be operated whilearound in the real world……

“…No”

Haruyuki suddenly frowned

“No, that’s not it The first device that iht, was…”

His h the air Within his uncertainat hiear-type and the present Neuro Linker, another kind of device should have existed

After wavering for a while, Haruyuki quietly ers and struck the Drive icon on his virtual desktop

He rapidly passed through the endless number of data folders that existed in his Neuro Linker’s local memory Eventually, at an absurdly deep level, a folder with only the title [F] appeared

F was the F for ‘father’ There, all the information, no, meotten in touch with once since he left their faraphs Voice files Text memos And the data folders related to his father’s work, which he had duplicated from the home server just before his mother completely erased them all

His father had worked as a business er in a company related to the backbone of the network Even if his father had hardly come back to the house and had only stayed at home for an occasional rest, the data of his work spread out wide in Haruyuki’s vision, and he wasn’t even looking at the other files there besides that

Having res like the history of VR device develop the documents his father had left in the server, Haruyuki desperately went through the folder while shaking off the prickling feeling piercing his chest Finally, he found the target file and opened it He scrolled with his finger through the string of characters that suical format

The first headgear-type VR y was marketed in May 2022

The first generation device of the present Neuro Linker was put on the market in April 2031

The aze was drawn to the name of a certain device that described in small script between them

His heart ju his skin grow rapidly cold across his entire body, Haruyuki grasped the handrail tightly with his hands

—No way That can’t be It’s impossible But

—It’s possible If this was used One could also see a virtual desktop without having a Neuro Linker And, one could also connect to a local netithout using a Neuro Linker

His lips trele phrase into the air with a hoarse voice

“…Brain…Implant Chip……”

Brain Implant Chip Abbreviation, BIC

It had existed for only a short time in the history of wearable VR machines, a ‘demon child’ as it were

The body of the device was a small neuro-electronic chip that was implanted between the surface of the cerebru terminal port around the sensory area of the brain’s surface, the possessor was able to use the AR display of a virtual desktop and Full Dive without equipping any external devices In a certain sense, you could call it the ultimate VR machine, even more so than the Neuro Linker

It was developed and marketed in 2029 However, its use was forbidden within this country only a few years later

The reason for this was because, unlike the Neuro Linker, the BIC couldn’t be unequipped, not tounable to have its power disconnected In the case where one receivedit would be accompanied by extraordinary difficulty

Conversely, if the possessor used it with malicious intent, there were various ways to evade the laell An extre the entrance exa various kinds of qualification exams Since the Neuro Linker didn’t yet exist in those days, carrying VRentrance exams was prohibited in principle, but if one had the BIC implanted in them, full marks could easily be taken on memorization-type subjects Since it wasn’t any different fro all the dictionaries and reference books with you

Inevitably, cases where parentschildren ihout the whole country, andoccurred in bar exaovernovernment had no choice but to make laws about the manufacture and use of BICs

That’s right—in the current year 2047, the BIC was an illegal VR device

That was exactly why Haruyuki had not even considered exa, when Nouht that there was no other conclusion than this now Although the general use of the BIC was regulated, he had heard that its manufacture itself was continued for special uses and that there were also hospitals which perforh the black ine how alike that, but he could certainly believe that Noumi of all people could have done it

Nousaell, possessed a second VR machine in his brain

Nou List while connected to U, his Neuro Linker in which Brain Burst existed was not connected to the network

In other words, it was like this His Neuro Linker was usually operating in stand-aloneso, he avoided «unavoidable duels» that were a risk that cae of a Burst Linker’s «acceleration ability», and furthermore could still connect to the network as well due to the BIC

For exaainst Takumu That time, Noumi was connected to the local netithin the school by using the BIC in his craniu his Neuro Linker in its unconnected state on the other, letting his easily avoid Taku List, his name naturally wouldn’t be there

Only, in order to get a high score in his social studies test using «acceleration», he had to connect to the examination application with his Neuro Linker instead of his BIC, but if you excluded that instant—

“So…that’s how it is……”

After getting rid of all the countless s that were displayed in his vision with a sweep of his hand, Haruyuki squeezed out the words in a hoarse voice

At last —At last, he had finally arrived at it The only correct answer

What’s more, this information was fatal to Noumi Seiji The existence of a BIC could be determined with an X linear scanner And if the chip was discovered in Noumi’s brain, his entry into Umesato Middle School would certainly be revoked

If he used this card, he would drag out Noumi into the saes Then, after that, there would be only one thing to do «Duel», fight with all his strength—and win

Staring out at the evening sky in the center of Tokyo where Nouht now, Haruyuki said a short sentence, as if firing a bullet from a rifle

“Nou to settle this”

References

↑ Bamboo sword, used in kendo