WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 250

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On the Ingenious Adventures in La Mancha (2)

"So, unless I heard wrong."

The Star Incarnation pressed her fingers to her brow.

"You went into the Star's Tomb of La Mancha alone, lived through Don Quixote's entire saga inside La Mancha, and at the end of it all, you defeated Don Quixote after he became the Star of Scorn?"

"That's about right."

"And you expect me to believe that?"

A very reasonable thing to question.

No matter how remarkable Najin's abilities were, he had yet to reach Transcendence. And yet he had defeated a Transcendent, a powerful one who, from what she'd heard, held something like seven stars?

How could that possibly make sense?

The Star Incarnation had her doubts. In that moment, she seemed to be the only one who did.

"Oh, another remarkable feat. Is that your sixth star? We have the same number now. I'd say we're equals in the truest sense of the word. Shall we have a duel while we're at it?"

"Didn't you say you'd challenge me to a duel once I became a Sword Master? I believe you said you'd wait until then."

"Did I? I genuinely can't recall."

"......"

"So. A duel?"

"No."

"A shame."

Watching Yuel and Najin chat away as if nothing were the matter, the Star Incarnation felt her common sense caving in on itself.

What's going on? Am I the strange one here?

No. Those two were the strange ones. She considered herself a perfectly reasonable person, and as a reasonable person, she had every right to pose the obvious question.

"I mean, someone who hasn't even reached Transcendence challenging a Transcendent to single combat? And winning? There are only four cases like that in all of history."

"Five, now. Out of curiosity, who are the other four?"

"I'll answer that."

Yuel cut in.

"Arthur, Merlin, Siegfried, Galahad. Those four."

"Now my name joins the list."

"Arthur, Merlin, Siegfried, Galahad, Najin. Like that?"

Najin gave a satisfied nod. While he and Yuel exchanged a handshake, the Star Incarnation's face twisted.

"No, how does this make any sense?"

"To be fair, I didn't win entirely on my own. The Star's Tomb had its own rules as a stage, and I borrowed my role, the acceleration, and the strength of other stars."

"I'm saying that even accounting for all of that. Good grief. It doesn't sound like a lie. La Mancha is gone, and looking at that new star, it seems real enough..."

She was staring at Najin with pure bewilderment when Yuel, seated beside her, held out a sweet potato. Golden from the campfire. The Star Incarnation took it without thinking and started peeling it.

"You two seem to have gotten closer."

"The Star Incarnation and I have always been close, Najin."

The look on the Star Incarnation's face suggested otherwise.

She took a large bite and said, "Well, I suppose that qualifies as a feat. So? Is the job done? The directive from the First Horn of the Empire only said to assist in the conquest of La Mancha. La Mancha has been taken, so my part is finished."

"So it seems."

"Kid under the First Horn's protection. What do you think? Have I fulfilled my obligation?"

Najin nodded. The Star Incarnation hadn't taken part in the conquest directly, but thanks to her and Yuel, he had been able to enter La Mancha in the first place.

"Then you won't forget the promise, either?"

A sidelong glance. The Star Incarnation cut her eyes toward Najin.

A promise? Najin tilted his head, then let out a small "oh." He'd spent what felt like months, maybe years, inside La Mancha. The memory had been slow to surface.

"Of course. I'll put in a word with Chairwoman Dieta."

"Good. Glad we understand each other. It was a good deal."

The Star Incarnation smiled brightly and shook his hand. She announced that she was more than done with the Outland and would be heading straight back to the continent, and Yuel said she had matters to report to the main church as well.

"What about you, Najin? What will you do?"

And Najin,

"I still have things to take care of. I think I'll stay in the Outland a bit longer."

"Is that so?"

Yuel didn't press further. Only one short question.

"Do you need my help?"

"No."

Najin shook his head.

"This one I need to do alone."

By conquering La Mancha, Najin had obtained the Star of Banter and a Star Relic. Proof that he had conquered La Mancha, and that he had shattered the Carnival King's stage as well.

With that proof in hand, Najin went to see a few people.

"...Really?"

First: Kirchhoff, the Sword Master of the Forgotten Kingdom.

After hearing Najin out, he widened his eyes and burst out laughing. As if he couldn't believe it. Or like: of course it's you.

"Remarkable. Truly remarkable. I'd like to think I live each day to the fullest, but set against the density of your life, mine feels like nothing at all."

"You flatter me."

"Flattery? Not at all. You still don't seem to realize what you've actually done."

Kirchhoff spread both arms wide, his voice edged with excitement.

"It was barely six months ago that you started looking for La Mancha. In just half a year, you solved a problem that had driven Constellations into a frenzy for close to three hundred years."

Be a little more proud of yourself.

He looked genuinely pleased.

"Of course I'm pleased. For the first time in over three hundred years, I actually feel like I'm moving forward."

He clenched his fist.

"It has been three hundred years since the Carnival King and two other Constellations brought my homeland to ruin. Three hundred years is a long time. All that while, I had no idea where to go."

He had no idea? Najin tilted his head. Kirchhoff smiled bitterly.

"Where to go, how to get there. Think about it. Three Constellations were involved in Londinel's fall. One is the Carnival King, which you know well. The other two were the Star of Forgetting and Lancelot, Knight of the Round Table."

He raised three fingers.

"The Star of Forgetting, I have no idea where it is. I don't even know its alias, let alone its true name. Lancelot, Knight of the Round Table? Equally missing. The last anyone laid eyes on him was three hundred years ago, when Londinel fell."

Two fingers folded down. One remained.

"All that's left is the Carnival King. Right now, she's the only target I can take my revenge on. But even that is no simple matter. I can't enter her domain, so I have to wait for that damned demon to show herself outside. And the Carnival King, does she ever show herself willingly?"

Not at all. Rare didn't begin to cover it.

"I had to take revenge, but even approaching her was impossible. Three hundred years of that. And now, finally, I can see a path."

La Mancha had fallen. The Star of Scorn's weakness had been exposed. Step by step, a road toward the Carnival King was being built. In all of this, Kirchhoff felt something he hadn't expected: joy.

"You're giving meaning to three hundred years of my wandering. Because of you, I'm even convinced I'll be able to fulfill my duty someday. I'm grateful to you. Truly."

Kirchhoff bowed his head.

"When the day comes to bring down the Carnival King..."

"Yes."

Kirchhoff smiled.

"Right now, I live as my lord wished, as the kind and gallant hero Kirchhoff. But when that day arrives, the story will be different."

He gripped his hilt.

"On that day, the last knight of Londinel will exercise his rightful claim. The right of a man owed his revenge."

He produced a bundle of papers and handed them all to Najin.

"Three hundred years' worth of research on the Carnival King. Better with you than with me. I hope it's useful."

Najin cross-referenced Kirchhoff's materials against what he had learned from the conquest of La Mancha. Three hundred years of digging by a knight who had lost his kingdom was worth a great deal.

"Then."

"Right. Until next time."

"We'll meet again before long."

On the day to come, they would meet again.

With that promise made, Najin moved on.

"Oh, a welcome sight. How have you been, Najin?"

The next stop was Anton Quixano and Lapis. Najin went to their cottage and told them what he had learned, and what he had witnessed.

"......"

Anton had been smiling warmly, but the warmth drained from his face with every word Najin spoke. When the account ended, Anton stepped outside and smoked for a while. He returned some ten minutes later.

"That flag. It's my uncle's, no question."

He pointed to the flag Najin had brought.

"It's modeled after the crest from The Knights of La Mancha. A sunflower and the sun. There's no one else in the world who'd carry a flag like that except my uncle."

He stared at the flag.

"So that's what happened to him."

Turning Najin's words over in his mind, Anton murmured, "That day, when the Quixano Domain burned, I did something to my uncle that I'm not proud of. I should have apologized, but I missed my chance. I was too late."

He pressed his fingers to his brow, exhaled slowly, and dragged his hand down his face. By the time his palm dropped beneath his chin, what filled Anton's eyes was fury.

"I'm late. But even late, there are still things I can do."

Anton Quixano bit off each word.

"I'd already been thinking about it, but now I have a far more solid reason. A reason to put down that ten-holed whore. Lapis?"

"I'm not stopping you. No reason to."

Anton Quixano and Lapis pledged to fight when the time came.

"When that day comes, find me. This time, I'll be your Oarsman."

"I doubt you'll need me to come find you. You'll know."

"I'll know?"

Anton blinked, and Najin smiled at him.

"When the day comes, you'll know."

It wouldn't matter whether you were in the Outland, on the continent, or at the very edge of the world. Anywhere starlight reached, you'd know without being told.

"Then, until next time."

Najin left. After calling on a few others besides Anton and Kirchhoff, he made his way somewhere.

"Come to think of it,"

Yeah?

Najin spoke as he walked.

"The Carnival King placed four Forbidden Zones layered along the path to her domain. Each one was entrusted to a Constellation known as one of her Jesters."

That's right. One is the Star of Scorn, one is the Demon King of Lamentation, and the other two are unknown.

"Yes. But thinking about it, isn't there something strange about that?"

Strange, he said.

"Whatever you call them, the Jesters are the Carnival King's apostles. They receive her starlight, which means they fall under her influence. So it should be strange that we can't find them."

The Carnival King's star was unlike any other. Born of merriment distorted beyond its natural shape, she held a vivid, multicolored star, like pigments swirled together, and every Jester who received her influence bore something similar.

Yet the stars of the Jesters, who should carry her influence most strongly, couldn't be found at all. Something didn't add up.

"Not knowing where those Constellations are, that's one thing. But not being able to identify what Constellations they are at all, isn't that strange?"

Not necessarily. If the Carnival King decided to hide them, what could anyone do? Starlight can simply be concealed.

Najin smiled.

"Exactly. She's hidden them."

Click.

"Just like La Mancha."

The moment La Mancha fell, the Carnival King's star had shaken. Something had shifted. The change lasted only an instant, but Najin hadn't missed it.

And now he put the pieces together.

The Carnival King distorts perception.

Just as she had warped the path to La Mancha, just as she had broken Don Quixote's perception. Taking that as a clue, and with Merlin's help, Najin reasoned it out.

"The Carnival King has placed a distortion on her star itself. On her entire constellation, and on every star gathered beneath it, so that no one can observe them."

Afraid to show herself, the Carnival King had always lurked behind the stage. Her constellation was no different. The brilliant ten stars visible when you looked up at the sky were nothing but the mask of an actor.

Najin had realized this the moment La Mancha fell.

The instant La Mancha, which had been feeding starlight to the Carnival King's constellation, was taken, her constellation had shaken. It looked like a curtain swaying.

Then.

Merlin said,

We'll have to look behind the curtain. Whatever she's buried so carefully, we need to find it. Right?

Najin nodded. How to lift the curtain. How to tear away the distortion the Carnival King had draped over her own constellation. He already knew the way.

He stopped.

The place he had stood once before. The place where he had received the supreme technique of the Triumphal Sword.

The Starfield of the Golden Horn Knights.

The place where the Carnival King had been driven back twice.

To her, it was a Forbidden Zone. In all the Outland, the place where her influence was weakest.

Standing at the heart of that ground, Najin looked up at the sky. He fixed his gaze on where the Carnival King's constellation hung. Just as he had expected, an unnatural shimmer hung there.

The weakness the Carnival King had exposed for just an instant when La Mancha fell.

Elsewhere she had covered it up almost immediately. But here she couldn't. On this ground, she was the defeated one. Najin reached his hand toward the sky.

Challenge, Dragon-Slaying, Breakthrough, Indomitable, Requiem, Banter.

His six stars blazed with light.

To the Carnival King, this place was a Forbidden Zone. To Najin, it was a Starfield. In the Starfield of the Golden Horn Knights, the star of its sole member burned fierce and bright.

A dark veil over the sky. A shimmering curtain.

The curtain dividing the stage from the space behind it. Najin seized it in his hand.

Flash.

At that instant, the Carnival King's Authority surged back in fierce resistance. The Najin who had first met the Carnival King, or the one who hadn't yet won the Star of Banter, would never have broken through.

But.

Not anymore. The narrative within Najin's stars crushed the Carnival King's Authority underfoot. On a stage painted over by the Carnival King, in a world where only mockery held value, Alonso Quixano, who had clawed back his own laughter in the end, laughed out loud.

In that moment, the curtain lifted.

The instant it was drawn back, Najin saw it.

The Carnival King's true form.

The hideous face hidden behind a beautiful mask.

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