WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 237

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On Those Curious Companions (5)

The genre had shifted.

Light, playful, absurdly comedic. That was the nature of the discomfort Najin had been feeling. He reached up and idly tapped his chin.

Exaggerated movements. Clownish gestures. A being who had achieved Transcendence, with perfect balance and complete control of their body, vomiting. The contradiction. All of it had been giving Najin the distinct feeling that he was standing on a stage.

An actor on a stage. Or a jester.

Tap.

"I don't know much about Transcendents," Najin said. "But there's one thing I'd guess."

He stretched a finger and pointed at the ground beneath his feet, then at the road ahead to La Mancha. Come to think of it, even that was strange.

Why had they assumed there was only one road?

There should have been detours, other ways around, and yet Najin, the Star Incarnation, and Yuel had all been utterly certain that "there was only one road."

"La Mancha is the Star's Tomb, and a kind of domain created by a Constellation. In other words, it's a stage with Imagery spread across it. La Mancha serves as paradise, as the 'final destination of a story.'"

La Mancha.

A place with the same quality as Avalon from The Chronicles of Arthur, a final destination, the end of a story. In the original fairy tale, Don Quixote overcame hardship and adversity and arrived at La Mancha at the story's close.

Alonso Quixano, who had imitated him, would likewise have arrived at La Mancha after overcoming every trial in his path.

"Then," Najin breathed out. "La Mancha isn't simply a destination. I think it's highly likely that all of it, including the road leading there, is part of the Constellation's stage, La Mancha."

They were already within La Mancha's sphere of influence. Perhaps they had already set foot in the Star's Tomb without realizing it.

"A reasonable guess," Yuel said, nodding.

"La Mancha is a place that has gone undiscovered for several centuries. We are not the first to have sought it. The fact that information about 'La Mancha' still exists even in records that have been wiped and damaged is proof that countless attempts have already been made."

She continued.

"Put another way, that means: 'despite countless attempts over several centuries, La Mancha was never found.' Even if La Mancha is the Star's Tomb, scores of Transcendents hunted desperately for it and still came up empty. That's strange."

Yuel Razian narrowed her eyes.

"A place that can only be entered through a specific method, a specific sequence of steps. That's the reasonable interpretation. So I think your guess is correct."

"...I honestly can't understand a word of what you're saying, but I think it's right too."

The Star Incarnation, who had been quietly listening, nodded and slapped her knee with a crisp thwack, like a nagging question had finally been answered.

"I knew something felt off. There's no way I would scream like that, squirming around so disgracefully. The Star of Scorn's domain had been influencing my mind without me knowing."

She smiled.

"I am the Star Incarnation. Always dignified, graceful, and perfect, an idol worthy of wors..."

"I apologize for interrupting, but that is simply how you are."

"......"

"When you dueled me, you screamed and rolled around on the ground. Tears and snot everywhere. You have always been prone to exaggeration."

The Star Incarnation's expression crumpled. She clearly wanted to grab Yuel by the collar and shake her, but thought better of it, afraid her arm might get cut off again. She swallowed her frustration in silence. At that, Najin smiled wryly and spoke.

"That said, I do think certain things are getting amplified, as you said. Even for me, I'm not normally this mischievous or prone to teasing people around me."

-No, you were always like this. You do it to me all the time.

Najin ignored it.

"And Yuel-nim..."

"Ah, I've been barely affected. My perception seems to have been somewhat influenced, but my disposition is unchanged. Not that I have anything one would call a 'disposition' to begin with."

She pointed to herself, expression blank.

"I am completely immune to every kind of domain, Authority, or stage that interferes with the mind. An archmage renowned as a master in this area once described it this way: 'Whether it's interference or brainwashing, you're painting on the canvas of someone's mind. But your canvas is so searingly red that there's no painting over it.'"

It sounded, essentially, like: already so far gone there was nothing left to break. Najin nodded, expression unreadable.

"Regardless." He pulled the conversation back. "As long as we're aware of this, it shouldn't be a serious problem. If anything, it might be proof we're on the right path."

Walking the right road was why Merlin hadn't flagged anything. And given the circumstances, the road they were on seemed to be the correct one. La Mancha was drawing closer.

But...

'This doesn't feel like the whole of it.'

No basis for that. No evidence. Just instinct. Something more was needed, instinct told him. What that was, he didn't yet know.

"Let's keep moving."

For now, there was nothing to do but press on.

"What kind of being is the Star of Scorn."

Yuel tilted her head.

"A difficult question."

On the road to La Mancha, Najin had put a question to Yuel about the Star of Scorn, Quixote. She had fought him before, so she might know something. Her answer was blunt.

"He's an opponent I have no desire to fight."

From a battle-hungry fighter who relished going up against those stronger than herself, those words were hard to believe.

"Don't you enjoy fighting?"

"Fighting the Star of Scorn isn't a fight. It's a kind of play, and it feels like being an actor performing on a stage."

Yuel frowned.

"There's laughter. The pain that should accompany a real fight, the grimaces, the blood, the screaming, none of it exists. All that fills that place is laughter."

She raised her arm.

The arm she'd cut off after being stabbed by Quixote's lance.

"The moment his donkey brays, the moment the donkey's hooves stamp the ground, that place becomes the Star of Scorn's stage. Windmills turn. Tens of thousands of sheep cry out in strange voices. Severed heads of giants lie scattered everywhere."

And then, she said.

"A lance with a human preserved inside bleeds. And then you realize. All of it was a Star Relic."

"...Pardon?"

"The Star of Scorn's donkey, his lance, his armor. All of it is Star Relics. And those Star Relics sustain and reinforce his domain."

Najin reached up and touched the cord tying back his hair. The Star Relic he carried, the one Viola had left behind.

"Being stabbed by the lance rots and dissolves the arm. The donkey's bray scrambles your sense of direction. The stained armor disrupts Sword Aura. And all of those effects are amplified on the Star of Scorn's stage."

Yuel rubbed her arm.

"The domain the Star of Scorn creates is dangerous."

Flat certainty.

"If you can't shatter the stage he has built, you cannot beat him. On that stage, the Star of Scorn is the lead of the comedy, and the lead of a comedy does not die. Even death gets wrapped in laughter."

Only laughter fills the space.

And as long as laughter exists...

"The Carnival King can revive the Star of Scorn whenever he pleases. Death is not the end. As long as laughter echoes, the story does not end. That is what the Carnival King has declared."

"Tricky."

"Yes, tricky. And this part is tricky too. I think we need to tie it tighter here. What do you think?"

"Ah, I was thinking the same."

Talking as they went, Najin tied the ropes around the Star Incarnation's body. She'd grown accustomed to it by now and even chimed in with advice: "Ah, tie this part too. It came loose earlier and I nearly flew off."

"I'll throw you now, Star Incarnation."

"Take it easy on me."

"I'll try."

"Oh, and you there, kid. When you use that technique of yours, try to aim for my back if you can. Getting hit there hurts a bit less."

"Noted."

The Star Incarnation flew through the air again.

She made for excellent bait.

Using her as bait to fish for giants, Yuel and Najin kept talking.

"Whatever you do, be careful of the lance when you face the Star of Scorn. Of everything he carries, the lance is the most dangerous."

"The lance with a human preserved inside?"

Najin had seen it before.

The lance said to have been made by melting down his own Squire. He was listening closely to Yuel's description of it when,

Cackle.

From somewhere.

Hah, ha ha ha ha hahaha!

Laughter rang out.

Cackle, hahaha, ha ha ha ha ha!

Loud and echoing. Najin frowned. The laughter of a jester. Every sense snapped to alert. Hand on his sword hilt, he wheeled around, hunting for the source.

No jester anywhere.

The laughter kept coming.

In the strange silence beneath it, Najin looked toward Yuel. She was already looking back at him, eyes narrow. She said something, but the laughter swallowed her words whole.

-Najin.

One voice reached him. Merlin's cut through the laughter and found him. She watched him with calm eyes and stretched her hand out, pointing, not at something beyond him but at Najin himself. And then he understood.

"Ah."

He was the one laughing.

The realization came and his body moved at once.

Crack.

His open palm struck his own jaw. A pop, and the jaw dislocated. Even with it out of joint, his tongue kept working, trying somehow to produce laughter. He shoved his fingers into his mouth to stop even that.

One, two, three.

Counting silently, Najin steadied his Imagery.

What he brought to mind was the Helmet Knight, humiliated on that day. The moment he filled his Imagery with the hatred and rage he had felt in that instant, his blood surged and fire rose. The flames burned away the laughter that had invaded his mind.

"Cough. Gah... Ngh."

Najin exhaled hard.

He reset his jaw and pulled his regeneration up.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine now."

He let out a long breath. The closer they drew to La Mancha, the more absurd everything became, but what had just happened felt different in kind. Different from the laughter La Mancha had been pressing on them so far.

What's different? he asked himself.

The laughter in The Knights of La Mancha, the laughter that fairy tale spoke of, was a laughter that made a hard journey joyful. Like sugar dissolved into the bitterness of life's dark coffee. The laughter just now had nothing to do with that.

Laughter purely for the sake of mockery.

No context. No meaning. Existing only to mock. Najin's expression hardened. He knew that kind of laughter.

"It seems like..."

"Yes, I was thinking the same thing."

Yuel slowly rose to her feet.

She yanked the fishing rod (borrowed from Najin's Lance of the Crossed Star) sharply back. The Star Incarnation, dangling at the end of the line, was reeled in like a fish.

"Hahaha, heehee, hahaha!"

She was laughing too. Yuel and Najin held a conversation through their eyes alone.

Will you handle it, Najin?

Even so, she is a religious leader. It seems a bit much for me to be the one...

Mm. Fair.

Yuel nodded and drove her fist into the Star Incarnation's jaw. The Star Incarnation looked up at her with profound indignation. Then, realizing a beat too late that her mind had been contaminated, she rubbed her own jaw.

"Well."

The Star Incarnation sighed.

"What fool wouldn't prepare for their own weaknesses? A fool like that would have been exterminated centuries ago."

She rolled her arm in a slow circle.

"Hiding merriment inside Comedy. Disguising mockery as laughter. A fitting trick for the Carnival King."

Yuel drew her sword.

"......"

The three of them fell silent, watching the giants arrayed below. Perhaps the giants sensed their gaze. They stopped and stared back.

Then, a grin. Their mouths split wide at the corners. They began to turn their heads. Dozens of giants burst into laughter simultaneously, heads spinning and spinning.

Spinning, spinning, spinning.

The giants' heads turned. One revolution, two, three, without end. Even as they spun, they laughed. Even as the flesh at their necks tore and split, the laughter did not stop.

It echoed.

Through the echoing laughter, heads wrenched free and flew into the air. Blood fountained from the necks of the headless giants, but their blood was not red. Yellow, green, sky blue, deep blue, every color stained the earth like paint.

The ground, smeared in every color.

Giants dancing grotesquely without their heads.

Heads rolling across the ground, still unable to stop laughing.

A world smeared in laughter.

Merriment hidden inside Comedy. The jesters who had turned laughter into pure mockery finally showed their faces.

Note: 메아리 (merriment) appears in this chapter as a verb, 메아리치다, in the common sense of "to echo" or "to resound" (e.g., 웃음이 메아리쳤다..."laughter echoed"). This is distinct from 메아리 as the item name (Echoing Swords, Albert's weapon). The verb usage has been rendered as "echoed" and "echoing" throughout, which is accurate to context. The Echoing Swords item does not appear in this chapter.

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