WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Ryuu

Editor: Ilafy

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 165

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The First Horn, Aldaran Vasaglia (5)

When Najin brought his sword down, a surge of Sword Aura erupted from the blade’s tip. It didn’t cleave the world like Aldaran’s attack, nor did it rend heaven and earth or smash everything in its path.

Even so, it was undoubtedly the Triumph Sword’s secret technique.

Had anyone else witnessed the strike, they wouldn’t have been able to label him as a mere Sword Seeker. His Sword Aura tore through the ground, racing toward Aldaran. A mere Sword Seeker could have never wielded such a technique.

The blow neared the realm of a Sword Master and approached transcendence.

He, a mortal who had yet to ascend, dared to challenge a Transcendent. He hurled himself at that insurmountable wall.

Everything had its price, and Najin bore the full brunt of the technique’s backlash.

Burst capillaries stained his vision red, the wounds across his body burst open anew, scattering blood, the leg bracing his weight snapped with a sickening crunch, and he felt the muscles in his sword arm tearing apart with a wet rip.

The price paid, his Sword Aura hurtled forward. Opposite it, Aldaran’s Sword Aura charged in like a tidal wave, destroying all in its path.

At last, the two linear forces collided.

Both attacks bore the name ‘Triumph’, a technique that symbolized victory and returning home triumphant. In a head-on clash, they could not both be victorious. Where one prevailed, the other must fail.

The result was obvious.

Tchuk.

It was Najin’s defeat. The clash of their Sword Auras failed to hold for even a second before cracks branched across Najin’s aura like fractured glass before it shattered.

Such an outcome was hardly surprising.

Though he had nearly touched transcendence, Najin was not truly Transcendent. He could not inscribe laws into the sword he wielded, nor fully comprehend the weapon as an extension of himself. A vast gap lay between him and Aldaran.

Even should he borrow mana, starlight, and Sword Aura, he could not fully bridge that chasm. Could not… yet…

Pasaak.

He could at least lay down a bridge to cross.

Najin’s Sword Aura left a flaw in Aldaran’s. It turned what had been a flawless strike into a slightly imperfect one. Though it lacked the power to obliterate everything in its path like, Najin’s attack succeeded in creating a small opening in the transcendent technique.

As ever…

Step.

Najin did not miss that opening.

Following the sound of shattering glass, his Sword Aura splintering all around him, Najin stepped forward with great force, then leaped with the second step, charging toward the onrushing wave.

In that single motion, he moved faster than Aldaran. From the outset, he had prepared for a second strike. Aldaran had intended to end it in a single blow, but Najin had planned for what came after.

The surging wave, that towering obstacle in his path…

By chance, Najin possessed the very technique to pierce it. Planted in the ground before the fight began stood a single lance: the Lance of the Crossed Star he had received from Silent Knight Crunbelle.

Kwoom!

Using the momentum of his dash, Najin slammed the ground. The lance, half-buried, sprang back toward him with a thump.

Snatching it in one hand, he spun once in place, driving that rotation into the lance’s tip.

He pictured the storm Silent Knight Crunbelle had shown him. Drawing on that memory, he thrust the spinning spear forward.

Battle Ram.

Like a horn mounted at a ship’s prow, it split the oncoming wave of Sword Aura. Crashing against the slight fracture Najin’s first strike had left, the storm unleashed from the lance deepened that crack with a sharp “tchuk!”

In that moment, one of Najin’s stars blazed forth. Breakthrough: the star that collides head-on and smashes through. The star Najin gained from surpassing Crunbelle shone more fiercely as he borrowed Crunbelle’s technique.

Crack!

Again, the sound of shattering glass, and a portion of Aldaran’s Sword Aura ripped away. It didn’t destroy the entire wave, but it opened a gap wide enough for a single person to pass through.

Following the opening carved out by Battle Ram, Najin bolted through.

Najin ran, but not nearly as fast as he normally would.

He stumbled, nearly falling as he tried to put weight on his broken leg. Over and over, he almost toppled, managing just barely to steady himself. Dragging that injured limb, he pressed forward in an awkward run.

By any standard, the charge was a poor one. Be it through the eyes of a Sword Master or by his own judgment as a Sword Seeker, it was painfully inadequate.

In combat, one’s physical state is always relative.

Aldaran was no different. He, too, was in no condition to fight normally—likely even worse off than Najin. With each move, bits of his body flaked away like dust, while Najin poured blood from his wounds. Neither could move swiftly.

They were both wrecked. They had both long since reached their limits, yet the duel was not decided.

Kaaaaang!

At last, Najin closed the distance and swung his sword. Their blades clashed at close quarters. In such tight proximity, there was no space for grand techniques. In the mere moment it took to breathe out and inhale again, their swords crashed into each other multiple times.

At that range, the outcome hinged on pure skill.

Kang, kagagagak!

The blades tore at each other as though vying to devour each other.

Normally, it would be impossible for someone of Najin’s level to best a Sword Master in such an exchange. The Master’s swordsmanship would always reign superior.

But from the start of this duel until then, he hadn’t been utterly outmatched at close quarters. Against a different Sword Master, it would’ve been hopeless.

The difference was that his opponent was Aldaran, who had taught Najin everything, including how to fight him, where his weaknesses lay, and how to handle and exploit his style.

Clang!

Throughout the time he was instructed, and even earlier than that, Najin had sensed that his journey with Helmet Knight would end in just that way.

Ka, gagagak!

It was both a spar between master and disciple and a journey’s close for a knight and his squire…

“Hhk—ugh!”

At the same time, it was a kind of funeral. In preparation for his final moments, Aldaran transferred all he had to Najin. He had given him Crunbelle’s lance, taught him the Triumph Sword, and shared his own story.

Najin knew the existence of the one called ‘Helmet Knight’ and remembered the hero of the Empire known as Aldaran Vasaglia.

All that remained was to ensure Aldaran did not become one of the Forgotten so that he could die a knight. Hoping that his master would remain a knight to the very end, Najin swung his sword.

Claaang…

His limbs felt heavy. The world seemed to shrink before his eyes. The clang of colliding blades echoed through his mind like distant thunder. Half-conscious, his body moved on instinct.

He parried, deflected, lunged, and retreated.

‘Dodge this. Block that…’

Each moment required a decision. Blocking a Sword Master’s blade again and again, he kept pressing forward. As ever, he refused to bow before overwhelming odds, pushing. The heavens acknowledged that as a grand feat.

The fourth star, on the verge of completion, flared: Indomitable.

What it needed to fully ignite was just one final step. Paradoxically, it was not Najin himself who provided that step but the very foe crossing swords with him.

Aldaran’s Fallen Star shone fiercely one last time. A star that had never retreated, never yielded.

He once bore it but lost it the day he knelt to the Carnival King. It glowed again. It, too, bore the name of ‘Indomitable’. A Fallen Star was drawn to a rising one, a dead star serving as sustenance for a new birth.

Drinking in that starlight, Najin’s star was completed.

Koong.

He slammed his foot down hard. The starlight propped up his failing body, pushing him past his limit. The difference it made was slight, but one step was all it took.

He moved that one step faster than Aldaran. His sword, suddenly accelerating, reached its target a single heartbeat sooner than Aldaran’s. Wreathed in that constellation’s light, Najin’s blade slashed forth.

Srrk.

Najin’s sword carved through Aldaran’s heart. The pursuing starlight scorched Aldaran’s body.

The duel was over; a victor and a loser were decided.

Aldaran’s body collapsed, and Najin dropped his blade to catch him.

Along the line his blade had traced, Aldaran’s body began to crumble. White flames ate away at him, leaving him frighteningly light—so light that Najin was startled.

“…Ah.” Aldaran parted his lips. His monstrous features made his expression unreadable, but the sigh he released was soft. “I lost.”

It was the knight Aldaran speaking, not the Helmet Knight who had traveled with Najin. The one lying there had no memories of Najin, only those from his life as a knight.

“I lost,” Aldaran said again, voice strangely buoyant even as he acknowledged his defeat. It was as if he had finally set down a burden he’d long carried. He let out a small, gentle laugh.

“Well done… truly.” Those were his last words. His body grew limp.

Death had caught up to him.

Najin sat in silence, holding his master’s remains. Though he had won the duel, there was no joy—he clenched his teeth.

He looked to the sky. Up there shone his own constellation, four stars. With Aldaran’s end, Najin gained another star, and it didn’t stop at one.

Alongside those four, new radiance gathered, making a fifth.

In a single battle, Najin had achieved two heroic feats: one star was ‘Indomitable’, and though the other had yet to fully rise, Najin sensed its name already.

‘Requiem’.

Ever since setting foot in the Outland, he had granted death to the Forgotten Ones: Holy Fire Knight Schlain Beigelmann, Silent Knight Crunbelle, and the Empire’s First Sword, Aldaran Vasaglia. He had bestowed upon each of them the end they desired.

Those who had forgotten themselves or were on the verge of forgetting.

It wasn’t easy to grant the dream they’ve lost sight of, even to themselves. It was an incredibly difficult thing, yet Najin had done it several times, enough to be called a feat.

A single trigger would finalize the fifth star.

The battle had yielded much: one star fully awakened, another at the threshold, the swordsmanship of a Sword Master, the Triumph Sword’s secret technique—countless new skills. Najin’s swordsmanship leapt forward by several stages.

He had gained so much, yet…

He felt no elation.

As much as he had gained, he had lost as well. He slowly set Aldaran’s remains upon the ground and removed the military flag of the Golden Horn Knights, the one so tightly fastened around Aldaran, clutching it in his own hand.

“…” After a long exhalation, he knelt on one knee before Aldaran.

“His name was Aldaran Vasaglia. He bore the title of Empire’s First Sword, the star named the One-Horned Star, and he belonged to the Golden Horn Knights.”

Najin spoke a eulogy. “He was the commander of the Golden Horn Knights, a knight who understood pride and honor. He never yielded to anyone. Not even a hundred and fifty years of time could force him to his knees. He was a hero of the Empire until the very end.”

He knew little of proper funeral rites. He didn’t know how best to extol someone’s deeds, nor how to polish them into a stately tribute. He lacked elegant words and refined phrasing.

Even so… he recited the eulogy as best he could, echoing what Aldaran himself had once done. Partway through, his words petered out.

No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t want to mimic someone else’s words for Aldaran’s final moment. He would speak them in his own way.

Clutching the Golden Horn Knights’ standard, Najin continued, “Up to your last breath, you remained a knight.” He managed a small smile. “Down to the very last moment… you were truly a knight.”

“Rest in—…”

‘Rest in peace… Master.’

Najin would have said so, but he never finished. His voice was drowned out by a sudden din.

Kakak, kakakakakak!

Laughter rang out.

Kiiik, dungeureok, koong! Kwarrung! Jiriririk! Hik, ihihihik! Kal, kyarururuk! Ah, ahahahaak!

The mad cackles of clowns echoed all around. From somewhere came the sound of instruments playing, raucous and wild—less music than a clashing cacophony, a jarring disharmony reverberating in his ears.

Flicker.

A star glowed in the sky.

Like a firework exploding in radiant colors, that single star’s light spread across the heavens. The sky above seemed splashed with paint, no other stars visible than the constellation of ten stars.

The Carnival King.

The sky, blotched with swirling pigments, ripped apart.