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around forty centimeters from the wall with both hands and treated it as a horizontal bar as I did a kip3.
Although my physical ability in the Underworld didn"t reach mine at the end of the SAO period that would make a B movie"s ninja ashamed, it still far more nimble, yet brawny, when compared to the real world. Placing my right foot on the bar, I steadily placed my left hand onto the wall while lifting my body up in a single stroke and succeeded in standing atop the thin, metallic rod.
"Are... are you all right?"
After lowering my sight at that hoa.r.s.e voice, I saw Alice gripping tightly onto the golden chain with her free hand and looking up at me with a somewhat pale face. That expression gave off an unexpectedly childish impression and made me want to pretend I was fal ing against my better judgement, but killed that thought, knowing this wasn"t the place for it.
"I"m fine... I think."
Casually giving a signal with my right hand, I chanted the art again and brought forth a new piton. Driving it into the next gap I could see overhead with plenty of strength, I climbed up with the same process as earlier. While embracing a modest sense of accomplishment over final y advancing, though it was merely two meters, I cal ed out to Alice below.
3 A manoeuvre used in gymnastics.
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"Alright, looks like it works! Like what I did, come up that first piton... no, that metal rod."
However, the integrity knight remained still while looking up at me. Her lips made a smal movement before long and a faint voice reached me.
"...an"t."
"Hah? What did you say?"
"...I can"t, that"s what!"
"No... no, you can. With that strength of yours, pul ing your own body up would be..."
"That"s not what I meant!"
Alice strongly shook her head and repelled the encouragement I crudely gave her.
"...As it is my first time stuck in such a situation... i-it might be a disgrace, but it"s already taking everything I have to hang off like this. An unspeakable act like climbing onto that thin foothold would simply..."
I was briefly rendered speechless at Alice"s fragile voice that again seemed as though it would vanish.
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Chapter 10 - Integrity Knight Alice.
In general, the people of the Underworld tended to react poorly towards situation beyond their expectations or common sense. Their adaptability towards "original y impossible circ.u.mstances" was especially low, with extreme cases like the elite swordsman-in-training, Raios, whose two arms were severed by my sword, getting his fluctlight crumbling away his Life extinguished-or so I conjectured.
I suppose not even an integrity knight should be capable of dealing with this situation of getting hurled out into the empty skies from a huge hole opened up in the tower"s wall, that should have been unbreakable, and stuck dangling from a super high area without a single foothold where even flying dragons did not trespa.s.s. Or possibly-Alice Synthesis Thirty, who boasts of boundless skill with the sword, was just a single girl at heart too.
Whichever it was, hearing this proud integrity knight plea for help would probably be strictly restricted to a situation like right now. Having judged that, I shouted.
"Got it! I"ll pull you up to the foothold with the chain, then!"
Alice chewed on her lips with a look that appeared like she was weighing her pride against her fear when I did, but apparently had no intention of reversing her previous order of priorities as she gripped the golden chain with a very mild nod.
"...I"l be in your hands."
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While enduring the impulsive urge to tease her incensed by her nearly mute voice, I caught hold of the chain as wel .
"Right, I"ll lift you up slowly, then. Here I go."
I cautiously pulled up the chain after that single line. My foothold, the piton, creaked softly, but it seemed it could bear the weight of two if it was for a short time. Taking care not to jolt it, I lifted the great golden knight a meter before holding the chain still for the moment.
"...Alright, you can pull your sword out now."
Alice nodded and delicately extracted her Fragrant Olive Sword from the stone wall it had been thrust into. The chain weighed down anew in that instant, but I kept it under control somehow.
Upon confirming she had sheathed her sword, I continued pulling up. I cal ed out once more after Alice"s boots got onto the first piton.
"Hold onto the wall with both hands... yeah, alright, I"ll be letting the chain go."
I couldn"t see her expression from this angle, but Alice desperately tried to stick onto the wall and haphazardly shook her head. While imagining her expression likely present below her golden hair, fluttering in the wind, I gently lowered my right arm. The knight ended up reeling a little atop the thin piton, but immediately regained her balance.
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"Whew..."
I let a deep breath escape.
I had no idea how many meters away was that "Morning Star Lookout" place, said to be on the ninety-fifth floor, but anyway, we should eventually reach there if I repeated this process. The problem would be how it would likely turn night before we got there, at the rate we climbed a single block, so we should get mentally prepared to settle down for the night while dangling off the wall.
"I"ll be climbing up another, then."
After I declared downwards, Alice glanced up with a rigid face and replied with a barely audible whisper mostly swept into the noise from the wind.
"...Please be careful."
"Got it."
I made a distinct thumbs-up with my right hand-though that gesture wasn"t used in the Underworld-then chanted the system command to create a third piton.
Despite how Centoria should have been closing in to midsummer, the sun mercilessly sank quicker and quicker once it got started.
The white wal glowing with the setting sun"s orange shifted through a fiery vermillion, then violet, before it settled on
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indigo, and I could see the mountain range at the edge cutting a lonely horizontal line far-away in the west when I swept through with a glance.
A mult.i.tude of stars had already been flickering into existence overhead, but our climbing progress was by no means fast. An unforeseen limit in the system had been tormenting us since an hour ago or so.
Scaling up had been simple indeed. Creating a single piton with sacred arts, securing that in the gap between the marble blocks, and clambering atop it. Followed by pul ing Alice up by the chain and placing her onto the piton I stood on earlier; that was all to it. Each set was reduced to below three minutes after repeating it over ten times.
However, the problem laid with creating that crucial piton.