Centoria

«Central Capital Centoria» (央都セントリア, Hisashi to Sentoria?) is the largest and capital city of the «Human Empire», located at its exact center, in Underworld. The city is divided into four equal parts: «North Centoria», «East Centoria», «South Centoria» and «West Centoria», each being the capital city of a respective Human Empire Empire. The total population of this grand city exceeds 20,000 people.

Appearance

Centoria is a fortified circular city, surrounded by a circular wall 10 kilolu (kilometers) in diameter, the same size as the 1st Floor of Aincrad. The sturdy city walls meet at an X intersection, dividing the streets in the city into 4 equal fan shaped parts, separated by the «Immortal wall» (不朽之壁, Fukyuu no kabe?). At the center of Central Centoria, and thus the center of the Human Empire, stands a giant pure white marble tower, the «Axiom Church's Central Cathedral». The squarish Church's ground is separated from the rest of the city by the Immortal Wall as well, which seemingly extends from the tower to the four corners of Central Centoria and reaches 750km further up to the «Mountain Range at the Edge». Most of the buildings in the city are made out of white stone and are surrounded by large trees. There exists not even a spec of litter in the streets, which gives the city an overly beautiful and tidy appearance.

Districts

Each of the 4 Centorias are further divided into 10 districts. Counting from the district closest to the Central Cathedral:

1st district - The Imperial City.
2nd district - The Imperial Governmental area.
3rd and 4th - Noble mansion area.
5th - Imperial facilities, including the Imperial Knights Headquarters, the Imperial Arena and the «Imperial Master Sword Academy».
6th and 7th - business districts. The 6th being a district meant more for food markets and restaurants.
8th, 9th, and 10th - residential area for regular citizens of Centoria.

Notable Locations

«Axiom Church's Central Cathedral» - center of Central Centoria.
«North Centoria Imperial Sword Mastery Academy» - 5th district of North Centoria.
Satore's metalcraft shop. - 7th district of North Centoria.
«Jumping Deer Inn» - a restaurant in the 6th district of North Centoria, known for their irresistible honey pies.

Chronology

Alicization Arc

History

When Underworld was created, Centoria was just a small village and, possibly, the village where the first Artificial Fluctlights were raised. Tens of years after the Rath employees logged out, the number of Artificial Fluctlights had already reached 1,000 and were already ruled by several lords, who inherited egoism from one of the employees. As the lords earnestly expanded the lands they owned, they deprived the youth of land for cultivation, forcing some of the youth to work as tenant farmers for the lords and others to move out of Centoria to find new lands to cultivate.

The lords ruling over Centoria held enmity towards each other, which is why there were not any marriages between them for a long time. However, one day, when the village of Centoria was more at the scale of a town than a village, a political marriage was finally made between 2 families of lords, which resulted in the birth of a single child, Quinella. As Quinella developed her knowledge of the Sacred Arts and gained control over such commands that seemed like miracles to most other people, she decided to use her new skills to satisfy her desire for power. Under the guise of a god, she performed numerous "miracles" which made everyone believe that she truly was sent by gods. Using this belief, Quinella had a white marble tower erected in the middle of the village as a place to "pray to the gods". Though the tower was only 3-stories high at the time, it was the foundation of the Central Cathedral.

With the progression of architecture techniques via large-scale Sacred Art commands, the village of Centoria quickly grew into a splendid city and the grounds of the Axiom Church, as well as the height of the Central Cathedral tower, increased steadily in the following centuries.

After Quinella accidentally fused her own Fluctlight with the Cardinal System and inherited the Cardinal's primary instructions of maintaining regularity, Quinella proclaimed a single edict of splitting the Human Empire into four empires. She then used a command to instantly create a massive wall, called the «Immortal Wall», to separate the four empires and restrict the movement and interaction of the masses. Thus the city of Centoria, along with the rest of the Human Empire, was split into four parts.

Alicization Running

Half a year after the Zakkaria Sword Arts Tournament, Kirito and Eugeo enrolled for the Master Sword Academy and got accepted into the Academy as 7th and 8th ranked students, and started living in the Academy dormitory. At some point after first arriving at the city, they visited Sadore in the 7th District of Centoria and showed him the Gigas Cedar branch they had brought with them from Rulid Village and Sadore agreed to make the branch into a fine sword in a years time.

During their first Academy year, Kirito and Eugeo were only able to leave the Academy grounds on the rest day each week. During such rest days, the boys usually went out to the city, stopping by the «Jumping Deer Inn», where Kirito spent a lot of his money on delicious honey pies. Nearing the end of their first Academy year, they visit Sadore again to claim the finished Wooden Sword.