WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Ryuu

Editor: Ilafy

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 180

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The Knight Demon (1)

Najin finished preparing to depart for the Outland.

There were a few loose ends to tie up on the continent, so he stayed in the capital for about three weeks to handle most of them. He spoke with the current First Horn of the Empire about the previous First Horn of the Empire and requested cooperation.

Gerd Isabalt accepted Najin’s proposal. “Leave the rest to me. You just do what you must.”

True to his words, he was stirring up the Empire on all fronts. Leaving the continent to Gerd would suffice.

‘As for the Starlight Order…’ Najin had gained something from the visit. Thinking back on his conversation with the Lighthouse Keeper, Eurypylus, he lightly stroked the hilt of his sword.

Eurypylus was clearly a formidable power, an individual whose mere presence served as a counterbalance against the entire Empire. Whether they would end up clashing or cooperating remained unknown. As Eurypylus himself said, they wouldn’t know until the time came.

Still, Najin always had to prepare for the worst—a scenario in which he might collide with Eurypylus. He envisioned it in his head and let out a long breath. He still had a long way to go, but his path was certain. Neither his direction nor what he had to do had changed.

‘Shall we head off?’

- …

‘Merlin?’

- What?

‘Did I do something wrong? Why are you like this?’

- I’m not mad.

Merlin was oddly sulking. Ever since he had bid farewell to Dieta that morning, she had been in that mood, though she wouldn’t say what her gripe was. It left Najin feeling rather helpless.

- That girl.

‘Dieta?’

- Never mind. That girl… actually, forget it.

Even though Merlin had heard Dieta’s name multiple times, she still referred to her as “that merchant” or simply “that girl.” Merlin glanced at the side of Najin’s neck and grumbled.

That was precisely the place where Dieta had leaned her face while embracing him in their parting.

She silently stared at that spot, then suddenly hopped onto Najin’s back. She had no weight, he couldn’t feel any pressure. Resting her chin on his shoulder, she made a gesture as if to say, “Let’s go.”

Najin still had no idea why she was acting that way, but at least her mood seemed to have improved. Just as he was about to board the carriage, he noticed someone waiting for him in front of it.

A man stood there, wearing armor adorned with a unique emblem—a pair of crossed swords beneath a shield. The man waved at Najin. He had a bold, lively face, one that he recognized right away.

“Sir Argo?” Argo, a Knight of Atanga. They had become acquainted during Demon Knight Verheigen’s subjugation.

“It’s been a while, young man with no name.”

“I’m here to see you about something simple. I’ve got a proposal for you.”

“A proposal, sir?”

“That’s right. It takes me back, reminds me of when you were still a mercenary in Cambria. Though calling it ‘the past’ is funny since it was only about half a year ago.” Argo looked somewhat exasperated as he eyed Najin. “You took an Atanga request to subjugate Demon Knight Verheigen, yes?”

“I did, indeed.”

“This is similar. We’ve discovered traces of a knight demon, one that slipped away long ago, out in the Outland. We want to subjugate it, and I’m offering you a chance to join us. Interested?”

A knight demon, not a demon knight. Najin tilted his head in puzzlement. “A knight demon? That’s different from a demon knight?”

“A demon knight is someone who has formed a contract with a demon. A knight demon is another story, it devours a knight’s corpse and mimics a knight. Ages ago, the continent launched a massive subjugation campaign against it, but it slipped through our grasp.”

Argo briefly explained knight demons, and Najin drew in a breath at a certain part of his explanation. He couldn’t help it. “When I was still just an Expert, I pursued it with my seniors and peers but lost track. A number of Knights of Atanga were killed, and one ended up branded a criminal because of the aftermath.”

As Argo spoke, he listed the names of the knights who had participated in that operation. “Marchel, Yurik, Heblitt, Oshwell… and Ivan.”

Hearing that name instantly shook Najin’s composure. Argo, skilled as any Sword Seeker, surely noticed that tremor but pretended otherwise, touching his chin in a natural gesture and closing his eyes, as though reminiscing.

“It’s embarrassing to admit, but for the Knights of Atanga, ‘the knight demon chase’ remains a deep stain on our record. We have few failures as disastrous as that one, and the biggest reason for it was internal betrayal.”

Then he added, “At last, we have a chance to wipe out that stain. So I’m here to offer you a spot. Care to join?”

The moment Ivan’s name came up, Najin’s answer was practically decided. He nodded. “I don’t like the fact that ‘knight’ is paired with the word ‘demon.’ If we just knock that ‘demon’ part right off, it’ll sound a bit more tolerable, wouldn’t it?”

“As expected of you. You’re speaking my language.”

Najin and Argo exchanged grins, and after a brief handshake, they got into the carriage together.

“I hear you’ve been making waves in the Outland. Rumor has it you even had a big scrap with the so-called Demon King, who supposedly holds ten stars. That’s one rumor I find hard to believe…”

Argo pulled a small ration pack out of his pouch and offered Najin a snack. With a conspiratorial little nod, he urged Najin to tell him something entertaining for the long journey to the Outland.

Najin chewed on some jerky and readily began recounting his story. “The first person I met after entering the Outland was a knight named Graf, a Knight of Kurutan.”

“A Knight of Kurutan, huh? We do have at least one Kurutan knight in Atanga, he might be glad to hear about it. How did it go?”

“Um… I doubt he’d be pleased.” Najin gave a rueful smile and continued. He told Argo about the knight who had fallen and become a Forgotten One yet still clung to his duty in undeath, about a silent knight, about the knight in the helm, and so on… stories of what he had encountered in the Outland, though he left out certain details.

When Najin finished, Argo let out a long breath. “In just four months, you’ve been through a lot, haven’t you, Najin? Then again, you’d need experiences like that to gain two more stars in such a short time.”

Argo nodded. “That knight in the helm—I find him admirable. I might not know much about the Outland, but I’ve carried out a few missions there. I know how unforgiving that land is, and I know the depths of cruelty to which people can sink there.”

Anyone who has spent time in the Outland, even briefly, comes to understand that it isn’t some sacred battleground where stars clash but a graveyard of stars where those same stars are laid to rest.

“For a human who has lost all his stars to survive there for 150 years and hold onto his honor and pride all that time… that’s just…” He gave a short laugh. “Amazing. Truly amazing. I like to call that sort of tale ‘the triumph of humanity,’ and this one fits perfectly, wouldn’t you say?”

“He certainly was extraordinary.”

“A story that grand is a tough act to follow, but I’ve got a story worth telling, too.”

Clatter. The carriage jolted slightly.

“It’s about the knight demon we’re going to hunt, its name is Orgis. Its ability is simple—it can assimilate and make use of physical traits from any corpse it devours. For demons like that, the key is those first steps. If you clip them at the start, they’re no big deal.” Argo continued gravely. “But that’s exactly where things went wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Orgis’s very first victim was a human who’d become one with a Masterpiece. That’s what set this all in motion.”

A Masterpiece, a weapon imbued with Mystique. Having once fought a dark mage who wielded such a weapon, Najin knew how formidable they could be.

“Which Masterpiece was it?”

“You probably know it. It’s notorious. One of the most infamous of them all.” Argo held up four fingers. “Masterpiece No. 4: ‘Bookmark.’” He added, “It’s also infamous for being behind a never-before-seen incident in which a mere child killed a Sword Seeker.”

Which Masterpiece is the most useful? Answers differ. Some might say Masterpiece No. 16, ‘The Inextinguishable Flame,’ or Masterpiece No. 27, ‘The Tattered Cloak.’

Which Masterpiece is the strongest? That, too, varies depending on what one considers ‘strength,’ ‘utility,’ and so on, but if you ask which Masterpiece is the most dangerous, everyone agrees on the same answer: Masterpiece No. 4: “Bookmark.”

The first to discover the Bookmark was a young girl from a small village. She found a dazzling bookmark in an old library and treated it like a personal treasure. Without a second thought, she slipped it between the pages of her storybook and closed the book.

Book + Bookmark + Covering the book = A perfect condition to activate it.

Completely unaware, the girl unwittingly fulfilled the activation condition for the Masterpiece. She paid dearly for that ignorance. That night, 324 villagers simply vanished into thin air.

A Sword Seeker was dispatched to handle the aftermath, but the moment he approached the girl—who was weeping alone in the empty village—he, too, disappeared.

In response, they sent in entire squads of knights to retrieve the Masterpiece, but the losses they suffered exceeded anything imaginable. Eight knights died just trying to figure out the artifact’s activation trigger. Another thirty-two perished as they attempted to deduce the nature of its Mystique, and twenty-eight more laid down their lives to confirm it. That didn’t even count the fallen soldiers.

When it was all over, the village’s 324 residents were gone, sixty-eight knights were dead, and one hundred seventeen soldiers perished.

It was eventually reported that the Bookmark had been secured, but that turned out to be false.

“It was never recovered,” Argo said firmly. “During the retrieval effort, dark mages got involved. The knights and soldiers were so weakened by heavy losses that the dark mages were able to seize the Masterpiece and flee. By all rights, their escape should have failed, but they got lucky, unbelievably so.”

Fleeing with the stolen Masterpiece, the dark mages hastily attempted to summon a demon to bolster their forces. The summon should have failed outright, but coincidence upon coincidence piled up, and they managed a partial success.

They summoned an ancient demon. Orgis. Had that been the dark mages’ only lucky break, perhaps they would have survived, but because the summoning was incomplete, it was also their undoing.

Though only a fragment of Orgis was summoned, the demon’s essence was overwhelmingly powerful. Orgis would not be controlled by those dark mages. It immediately devoured them, and in the process also consumed the corpses of the sixty-eight knights and soldiers who had died because of Bookmark.

During the rampage, the demon “accidentally” consumed the Masterpiece. Since demons are fundamentally beings of Mystique, and the Masterpiece was likewise brimming with Mystique, Orgis underwent a transformation upon devouring it.

Coincidence after coincidence—three times. By then, it was no longer chance but inevitability. Orgis turned into something entirely different: A demon comprising dozens of knights. Hence the birth of the knight demon.

“Defiling the bodies of knights and mocking their title? We couldn’t let that slide. Immediately, Atanga and countless other knightly orders organized a pursuit… which ended in disaster.”

Argo gave a bitter laugh. “In that chase, the knight demon devoured another thirty or so knights before escaping. About half of them were Knights of Atanga. I owe it to those friends to see their remains laid to rest.”