WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Ryuu

Editor: Ilafy

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 166

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The Clown with a Helmet (6)

The sky, stained with paint, tore apart, screaming like a living creature in a cry that resembled the sound of shattering glass, bleeding.

Drip.

Blood fell, red, but not entirely red—it was a mix of red, yellow, blue, green, purple—every color imaginable. The paint dying the sky flowed down through the cracks.

Plop, plop, plop…

Falling like rain, it coalesced into the shapes of stars of pain in the sky, lower than the heavens, so close that it felt like you could reach out and touch them.

Tak.

Footsteps echoed across the wasteland.

Tak.

Heels hitting the ground reverberated. With each step, the laughter grew louder, no longer an auditory hallucination. Shadows wearing masks rose from the ground, synchronized with the footsteps.

Tak.

The shadows were dressed in ridiculous outfits, each holding a musical instrument—clowns.

Tak.

They danced to the rhythm of the footsteps and played their instruments clumsily, bursting into laughter and playing as they pleased. There were dozens of the clowns playing their instruments, but their music was discordant.

Rather than a harmonious melody where notes intertwined, it was a cacophony where every sound ran wild, creating chaos. A noise that would make listeners frown and cover their ears filled the wasteland.

Tak.

Even amidst the noise, the sound of footsteps—click—could not be drowned out.

“…” A woman walked, leading the dozens of clowns. Her steps were slow, but speed is relative.

From the moment she appeared, Najin couldn’t even breathe.

She walked toward him as he remained frozen in place.

Rustle.

The demon’s long, flowing black hair and trailing garments all lent to her form as a beautiful woman.

She bent down and picked up something that had fallen to the ground: a helmet, the one Aldaran had thrown off.

Holding the helmet, she walked toward Najin. Every fiber of his being screamed.

Breaking free from the bindings that held him, he leaped backward, grabbed the sword he had dropped, and immediately took a stance.

Tremble.

His sword shook. Was it the aftereffects of the battle with Aldaran or the instinctive fear he felt toward the being before him? He couldn’t tell.

She was overwhelming. No, she was something on a completely different level.

Najin instinctively knew that the being before him was the Carnival King, the demon with ten stars, the ruler of the Outlands; the one who had defeated Aldaran.

-…

Merlin, standing beside Najin, also maintained an unusual aura. Her eyes were wide open, and the eleven blue stars in her hand shone brightly, as if they were about to descend at any moment.

“Ah.” The demon spoke. She smiled as she looked at Aldaran’s corpse, not at Najin. “So, you met your end as a knight, did you?” Her voice was soft, as if greeting a long-lost lover or welcoming a dear friend. It tickled the ears.

“I lost the bet. A promise is a promise, right? What a pity. The beast that blows the horn, the golden-horned ram, the sword that shines like the sun… It’s a shame to give them up. Truly, it’s regrettable.”

She laughed. “I have you now, so I’ll be satisfied with that.”

Najin couldn’t understand her, but he soon would.

When the Carnival King gestured toward Aldaran, a giant curtain descended. Like the curtain falling before the start of a play, it covered half the night sky. Wrapping the curtain around her like a cloak, the Carnival King raised her arm.

Rustle.

Thin threads flowed from her fingertips and wrapped around Aldaran’s body and his Fallen Star. Erasing the period that marked the end of the story, the Carnival King turned the page and began writing a new sentence.

『A clown lives by laughter, so even their death must be ridiculous.』

『Laugh, chatter, sing, and dance, clown.』

『Forever, forever, forever!』

Aldaran’s body rose. His Fallen Star, pulled by the threads, hung in the fake sky created by the Carnival King, on the curtain she had draped.

There, Aldaran Vasaglia’s constellation was preserved. At the same time, his body began to move, making creaking sounds. Not by his own will, but controlled by the threads of the Carnival King, he moved like a puppet.

Three figures face colorful constellation rings as Carnival King controls the scene

Najin watched it all in a daze.

His pupils shook.

‘What am I seeing right now?’

He couldn’t understand what he was witnessing. No, he didn’t want to understand. His mind refused to comprehend.

The Carnival King didn’t let Najin remain in that state. She gestured. Picking up the helmet tied to the threads, she gently cradled it in her hands, as if it were a precious treasure.

Then, clank.

She placed the helmet on Aldaran’s head.

Carnival King tenderly places the cracked helmet onto Aldaran's head; close embrace.

Helmet Knight had become a knight by removing his helmet. By throwing off his helmet, he had declared himself Aldaran Vasaglia.

What was he now that he wore the helmet again?

Aldaran Vasaglia became the Helmet Knight once more. No, he couldn’t even be called that anymore. He was just a clown wearing a helmet, a clown who danced ridiculously to entertain his master, an instrument without a will of its own.

Grin.

The Carnival King smiled as she stroked the helmet-wearing clown. The corners of her mouth stretched wide. Her eyes, stained with paint, half-opened in crescents holding mocking and ridicule.

She ridiculed Aldaran Vasaglia’s final moments.

She laughed at, mocked, and insulted the noble end he had met as a knight. A noble death? What does that matter? Who says nobility can’t be a laughingstock? Everything is a matter of presentation and expression.

She turned the stage into a farce.

Hahahaha.

The master of the stage turned the knight’s death into a joke. Laughter echoed from the audience. The clowns dancing on the stage hysterically laughed at Aldaran’s death, rolling on the floor.

—————From the beginning.

From the beginning, Aldaran Vasaglia himself was not part of the deal.

What the Carnival King had offered was only Aldaran’s comrades. She had never intended to let go of the hero who had pierced her heart and made her star fall. No matter what end he met, it was of no concern to her.

‘Struggle. Writhe. Suffer and suffer again.’

‘I will turn it all into a laughingstock.’

‘Your 150 years are nothing but a ridiculous farce, dancing on the stage I created.’

“Ah.” Najin, who had witnessed it all, felt his mind go blank. It was a feeling he had never experienced before.

Just moments ago, his mind had been filled with thoughts of how to escape the Carnival King, how to survive, whether to call Merlin, whether to draw Excalibur—countless calculations and judgments.

Not anymore.

A massive flame consumed all those thoughts, judgments, and reason. In their place was rage… A rage he had never felt before. It turned his mind white and paralyzed his reason.

Grind.

He gritted his teeth, his eyes bloodshot.

“…Stop.” His voice cracked. Najin dropped the sword in his hand, but it wasn’t because he had given up the will to fight. Quite the opposite.

His hand gripped the air over where Excalibur was stored as if he wanted to crush it. The space around his fingers distorted.

Merlin’s eyes widened as she grabbed Najin’s wrist. She shouted into his ear, but her voice didn’t reach him.

With bloodshot eyes, Najin watched Aldaran, wearing the helmet, creaking beside the Carnival King. He watched his teacher, who had endured 150 years to meet the end he desired, only to have that end insulted. He watched the clowns laughing, mocking, and letting the world drift away.

The place where Aldaran had gloriously triumphed, the sanctuary where he had closed his eyes as a knight, the end Aldaran Vasaglia had desired…

The Carnival King was turning it all into a ridiculous farce.

Najin couldn’t bear the insult to the knight, the mockery of his final moments.

Soon, Aldaran’s body moved, pulled by the threads.

Creak, clatter, grind…

The clown wearing the helmet danced ridiculously. From the mouth that had once spoken of chivalry, ridiculous laughter spilled out. The sword that had been a symbol of the empire’s hero and the helmet that symbolized the Golden Horn Knights were stained with paint, losing their original colors.

The First Horn of the Empire had become a clown.

Hahahaha!

Pulled by the Carnival King’s strings, Aldaran moved and swung his sword ridiculously in the air, laughing.

Snap.

Something in Najin’s mind broke.

———

He let out a roar. He didn’t understand what he was shouting, but he knew what he had to do.

Bang.

He charged at the Carnival King. Calculations, rational judgments, plans—none of it mattered now. If he didn’t charge, he wouldn’t be able to endure.

Excalibur was about to be drawn from the void, and Merlin’s star was ready to shine from the sky above. It hadn’t happened yet, but with one more step, the future would become reality.

Flash.

When the situation was about to reach a point of no return, another star shone before Najin and Merlin.

The Thorned Martyr, the constellation with eight stars who had ascended to the heavens long ago, burned brightly.

The authority known as ‘Descent’, an authority possessed only by high-ranking constellations, lived up to its name.

The authority could focus starlight to move the true body to a specific location, akin to teleportation. Although it had the limitation of only being possible where the starlight reached, it was still an overwhelmingly advantageous ability.

However, few constellations used the authority for a simple reason…

Descent consumed an enormous amount of starlight, and the moment it was used, the constellation’s true body would weaken. Revealing the true body was akin to exposing one’s weakness, attracting the attention of other constellations.

A weakened constellation, massive as they were, was a tempting pray.

Exposed to countless stars that would hunt them, Descent was akin to suicide for a constellation.

Still, the Carnival King attempted it.

She did so in the place where she had been defeated by Aldaran Vasaglia, a forbidden zone for her. The moment Aldaran’s death blurred the boundaries of the forbidden zone, the Carnival King descended her true body there.

She’d been defeated there, and her body and soul would erode just by standing there, yet she willingly ascended in an act close to suicide.

The Carnival King, who had not shown a single crack in hundreds of years, revealed her weakness at that moment.

Flash.

A star did not miss that opportunity. A star that hated demons, a star that had devoted its entire life to killing demons, and even after ascending to the heavens, created a sect to continue hunting demons…

That star had been watching the Carnival King’s star and did not miss its chance.

The constellation with eight stars, the Thorned Martyr, the Fire that Burns for a Thousand Years.

It was a fire that would continue to burn, a flame of hatred that would not extinguish until all demons in the world were burned to ash.

Whoosh!

The star cloaked in flames called her apostle. Not just her apostle, but also the stars bound to her by contract. Even if it meant consuming all her starlight, she would not miss that moment.

Screech!

As the sky tore apart, a massive sword strike split the space between the Carnival King and Najin. The threads the Carnival King had extended toward Najin, along with her clowns, were shredded into pieces by the Sword Aura.

In the wasteland where only the Carnival King’s star had shone, six stars suddenly appeared.

The Heaven-Slaying Star, Yuel Razian, appeared with them.

“Bow.” As she fell toward the ground, she swung her sword. A Sword Aura hundreds of meters long split the battlefield. The sword’s cry, resembling a human scream, drowned out the laughter of the clowns.

The sword strikes did not stop there. The sword, swung repeatedly, aimed for the Carnival King’s head, falling like a guillotine.

Amid the Sword Aura ravaging the area, another star appeared in the sky. Though it did not have multiple stars like Yuel, its brightness was no less intense.

That single star shone a cold blue.

Thud.

A man suddenly appeared in front of Najin, grabbing the back of his neck and throwing him backward as if to say, ‘This is not your battlefield.’ After cutting down the swarm of clowns with a single swing of his sword.

The man spoke. “Carnival King.” Najin had heard that voice before. Unlike then, it was filled with deep anger. “Do you remember me?”

The Sword Master of the Forgotten Kingdom, Kirchhoff, pointed his sword at the Carnival King, one of the three constellations involved in the fall of Londinel.

Two Sword Masters had entered the battlefield.

The Carnival King burst into laughter, covering her face with five fingers. When her fingers left her face, a clown’s mask appeared in their place.