Artoria wants to read people's hearts

Listening to the girl's words, everyone felt their faces were hot, their palms were covered with cold sweat, and their hearts felt ashamed as if thousands of ants had crawled over them.

"I could have given up on you, even if you denounced me and cursed me for this, but you should know that you will never be able to do anything to me." She paused here, her eyes scanning their faces one by one, " I could do it if I was even a little bit selfish, and I'm not."

Amidst the silence of the players in the clearing group, she restrained her serious expression.Then he slowly revealed a gentle smile.

"I say this not to condemn anything, so please hold your head up."

"!!!"

With their eyes wide open in shock, they suddenly raised their heads and looked at the blond girl in the distance in disbelief, feeling extremely puzzled in their hearts.

Isn't it... condemning?

--of course not.

Arturia shook her head, her voice softened.

"I just want you to know that what's wrong is wrong and it can never be right."

"Please also engrave it in your life, and remember everything that happened today." She sighed, her tone was like green buds, pale flowers, and dark red fruits.

"Then use my strength to stick out your head and liberate your imprisoned self. I hope you can create a new land and grow into a great soul."

"In this way—" she smiled slightly, as if the ice had broken and a spring flower had just bloomed, "——it is worthy of my dedication in the past six months, and the dedication of my life in the end."

There are some deeds in the world that go beyond language and writing.

Originally they didn't understand, but when they heard these words and saw her again, everyone immediately understood.

There really is such a person in this world, as long as there is her existence, the cold winter will end and the galaxy will always shine.

The golden-haired king has stars and seas in his eyes, thousands of hills and valleys in his chest, and flowers like brocades in his heart.

Perhaps such a thing will undoubtedly happen in the future, everyone thought: "Whoever saw the gold, green, or blue later, everyone will recall this time, and the rough fate presented him with a flower called Pteris." The orchid flower, and its wondrous, never give up hope of blooming. '

The sword she swore to win is a weapon made by God, and Artorilia firmly believes that the sword has a spirit.It is the carrier of one's own resentment, sorrow, joy, and glory.

Carrying every expectation, every wish, and all will and desire, and these have never stopped because of my own death.

For King Arthur's body is what dies, but his will is immortal.

Therefore, using such a weapon to execute self-judgment is a great shame and humiliation for Arturia and the sword of the vowed victory.

So she moved her hands, and finally took out a spare refined long sword from her storage bar that she didn't know which number it was.

The clear wind lifted her hair, and the blue skirt was scattered into flowers.

Silently, slowly, and solemnly, under the watchful eyes of everyone, she erected the tip of the sword on her abdomen.

After taking a last look at Kirito and the others, she shifted her gaze to Asuna and said softly.

"Asuna, I hope your days will be warm and gentle in the future, always gentle and shining, may you be firm and soft, confident and humble, sunny and bright, and finally..."

From this moment on, all sounds from the outside world gradually faded away.

"...From now on, please take care of yourself."

After saying this, she exerted force on her wrist, and the sharp long sword pierced straight through her abdomen.

So in an instant, the blood volume on the top of Artoria's head began to drop rapidly.

"no, do not want!"

Asuna finally cried out, and she rushed to Arturia's side, her eyes fell on her belly with the sword stuck in her eyes in bewilderment.

"I have medicine, I have medicine for replenishment/blood volume, you drink it, as long as you drink it..."

but.......

"It's useless." Shaking her head, Arturia reached out and stroked the top of the other's hair, "Props like this kind of recovery don't work for me at all."

"But, but..."

The girl couldn't cry, she just felt that her heart seemed to be involved in the vortex of nothingness, falling into the bottomless deep sea.

There are too many powerless things in the world, such as the past that cannot be returned, the future that cannot be predicted, and the people who can never be met again.

Artoria's figure has begun to slowly dissipate and become transparent. At the moment of dying, the seal in her body was finally lifted, and the blocked magic power flowed smoothly again.

The voice that had been indistinctly indistinct until now became clear at this moment.

After finally hearing it clearly, a flash of understanding flashed in Arturia's eyes, and then a smile appeared next to her.

——Ah, so it turned out to be like this.

Turning her head sideways, she looked at the young girl who was crying beside her. She lowered her eyebrows softly, extremely gentle, as if she had fallen into the soft waves, and then gently leaned her body forward.

Just beside the girl's ear, she whispered the words that hit the heartstrings softly.

Her golden hair hangs on both sides of her temples, as if endowing the whole world with thousands of strands of silk.

"!!!"

Eyes widened in shock, Asuna suddenly stopped crying.

"This is for you, and then..." With a chuckle, Arturia stretched out her hands and handed them to the flaxen-haired girl, "...Give it to this world .”

It was a seed, a seed that could affect the real world. It was the source code of the game "SAO". Akihiko Kayaba gave it to Artoria, and now she wanted to give it to Asuna.

"Don't forget what I just said." She smiled, stretched out her hand and summoned the sword of the vowed victory, and then loosened it lightly, and the sword fell into the ground with gravity.

However, the strange thing is that the golden long sword sank into the ground in an instant and disappeared without a trace.

With Asuna's slightly excited expression, she solemnly made a promise, "Asuna, we will meet again in the end."

After saying this, she finally closed her eyes slowly.

So in the next second, the blond king dissipated into particles all over the sky, and disappeared from Asuna's sight.

Chapter 43 Do you dare to appear in front of me again? ! (two in one)

Colorful clouds are in the sky, while people stand on the ground.

It was a transparent platform, suspended in the endless sky, looking down, all you could see was the abyss.

Just closing her eyes, and then opening them again, Artoria has arrived at the current place.

Raising her head and looking around, Artoria's eyes finally fixed on a city of steel not far away.

The spiral city floats in the air. Standing here and looking at it from a distance, you can feel the independence of the universe just by looking at it.

However, such a majestic sky city that looks like a dream is currently collapsing layer by layer from the bottom.

The rumble of the wind can be clearly heard in the ear, and perhaps in a short while, it will completely dissipate in the collapse and destruction.

What is that castle?

When such a question appeared in her heart, suddenly a man's voice sounded from behind her with great emotion.

"This scene looks gorgeous, doesn't it?"

"........."

Arturia followed the voice and turned her head to look for it. It turned out that at some point, less than six meters away from her, a man who looked relatively young suddenly appeared.

He was wearing a white shirt, tie, and a white robe. At this moment, he was watching the gradually crumbling city of steel with gentle eyes.

Seeing this scene, she stood quietly on the spot without any movement, she just narrowed her eyes slightly, and the expression on her face was somewhat unreal.

After two or three seconds of silence, she suddenly said, "Are you Kayaba Akihiko?"

Although it was an interrogative sentence, Artoria spoke with the tone of a declarative sentence.

"That's right, it's me." Nodding, Akihiko Kayaba admitted very simply at the moment.

With his hands in the pockets of his white coat, he walked slowly to her side.

Then she stopped and stood not far from her, looking at the castle in the sky that was constantly disintegrating and collapsing, with an inexplicable melancholy in her whole body.

"As the AI ​​of the game, you may not be aware that that castle is the main stage of the entire game—Aincrad."

As he spoke, he pointed out that only two-thirds of the remains of the castle remained.

"You could have survived," he said, "but in the end you gave up."

"I really didn't expect it." Under Artoria's expressionless gaze, he sighed from the bottom of his heart, "You chose to self-destruct in order to end the game, and you have such a great awareness."

"This is really amazing." Kayaba Akihiko turned around and looked at the blond girl steadily, with excitement and admiration flashing in his eyes.

"Although you are an AI, you undoubtedly possess the most precious quality in the world."

The more he looked at it, the more he found Arturia pleasing to the eye, and finally he couldn't help showing a triumphant smile of "as expected of me".

At this moment, Artoria, who had been silent all this time, suddenly asked, "Have they all returned to reality safely?"

"Of course." Nodding, Kayaba Akihiko said, "Just now, all the surviving players, a total of 930, have logged out." Kayaba Akihiko looked back at Al Toria's eyes.

"What about the others? What about the remaining 1000 innocent lives?" She continued to ask.

Hearing this question, Kayaba Akihiko was silent for a moment. He looked sideways at the blond girl and said in a calm voice, "No matter which world you are in, you are dead if you die. This is the rule."

"......"

After a long silence, Arturia suddenly sighed and said.

"...So that's the case, I understand."

She moved her wrist slightly, a strand of golden fan-like hair hung down from her neatly pulled hair, her eyes were bright and moving, and her expression like frost and snow was frozen with deep hatred.

"Hey, I've always wanted to ask you, why did you do such a thing?"

This question has been on her mind for a long time, she really can't figure it out, why would she do such a thing that destroys the future even though she is such a genius with a bright future?

What is the significance of imprisoning nearly 1 players?

What was the reason for him to make such an inhuman choice?

As for the blonde girl's question, Kayaba Akihiko suddenly laughed.

"Why do you do this?" He repeated the other person's question, then shrugged slightly.

"So where do we start?"

He pondered for a few seconds and organized the words in his mind.

"After I developed the full stealth environment system, no, it should be said that it started earlier, I lived to create that city, a world that surpassed all the frameworks and regulations of the real world."

"???"

Arturia was confused when she heard it, she blinked her eyes in confusion, obvious confusion appeared on her face.

So she asked blankly, "So what does this have to do with your imprisoning players?"

"Of course it has something to do with it," said the man in a white coat, "because everything is to create a real world."

"..." The girl seemed to understand something.

"I also forgot how old I was, and I was obsessed with the fantasy of this floating castle in the air." Kayaba Akihiko continued to explain the reason to Artoria, "It has been a long time since I went there. My only wish."

He stepped on the thick crystal floor, and under the transparent floor flowed clouds that were dyed red by the setting sun.

Kayaba Akihiko raised his head and looked towards the distance, and he could clearly see the sky dyed red by the setting sun extending to the distance, extending to the castle that was only a third left.

Sighing lightly, he said in a dreamlike tone.

"Listen to me, Pendragon, I still believe that even now, I believe that in a certain world, there really will be that castle."

Arturia: "......"

To make such an epoch-making game for childhood ideals, and to make it like a real world, players are deprived of the right to die infinitely.

This may sound shocking, but Artorilia only felt full of absurdity at the moment.

"In order to see the castle in my childhood dream, I killed more than 1000 lives..."

Parents lost their children, wives lost their husbands, young children lost their parents..." When she said this, her voice was very heavy, "Do you know that the family behind their death How many tears will there be? "

"Whether men, women, or children, they just lost their precious lives for no reason just for such a ridiculous reason." Speaking of this, the girl's expression became serious, "Akihiko Kayaba, is it in your heart? In the world, is the value of life so cheap?"

Regarding Artoria's words, Kayaba Akihiko chose to remain silent.

Maybe he knew in his heart that it was not right to do so, but what if he knew it?

Even though he knew it was wrong, he still knew the mistake and did not correct it, and he firmly chose a path to the dark.

Seeing Kayaba Akihiko not saying a word, there is something that Artoria doesn't understand.