WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 260

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War (4)

The moment Kabin saw Najin's face, his body went rigid.

In that instant, countless thoughts flashed through his head. Why was this guy here? Was he seeing things? But those thoughts did not last long.

"It's been a while, Kabin."

Sunset-colored eyes. The second he met those eyes, only one scene circled in Kabin's mind.

"I'm sorry, Tricksy."

"If you run, it won't end with just you."

That day two years ago. The boy who had cut off his comrades' arms and legs and killed his hyung. Remembering that monster-like figure, Kabin swallowed dryly.

"...What brings you here?"

"Talk comfortably. Relax."

Najin joked as he patted Kabin's shoulder, then led him deeper into the tavern and dropped onto a sofa.

"......"

Kabin shot him a look, cold sweat running down his back.

That boy, no, that young man now, Najin, had left the Underground City, and after that the place was completely cut off from the outside. They used to hear outside news through people from the upper district, but after Najin left, the Order cracked down even harder on the Underground City.

They sent shadow operatives and holy knights to watch the place so no information came in and none from here leaked out.

That was why Kabin did not know. He did not know what Najin was called outside, what kind of figure he had become, or how far he had risen.

"You told me to be comfortable, so can I ask comfortably?"

Najin nodded. Only then did Kabin let out a breath and sit across from him.

"Why did you come back here? Don't tell me you got branded a criminal again and dumped back down here."

"No way. If they want to brand me a criminal out there, they'd need someone like the Emperor."

"That's a big claim. Then again, is that fair now that you pulled Excalibur?"

Kabin chuckled as he said it.

Excalibur. At that word, Najin fell silent for a moment. Right, thinking about it, everyone here probably knew he had pulled Excalibur.

"So what is it? You here to punish the sinners in the Underground City?"

Kabin swirled a cup full of cheap liquor.

"Or did you come to laugh at us?"

He emptied the drink in one go and let out a long, drunken breath. The Underground City had become a suffocating hell. The one who had made it into that hell was standing right in front of him.

"Najin."

He was afraid of Najin, yes, but fear was smaller than everything he wanted to say to that smug boy.

"After you left, this place became hell."

"......"

"Land Spider Horace is dead, Drugmaker Hakan is dead, even Ivan hyung, that monster of a man, is dead. The three rulers who had at least kept minimal order in this city all died. What did you think would happen?"

"...Ivan died?"

"Of course he did. Why are you asking the obvious?"

Kabin sounded baffled.

"He drew a blade on the Order. You think they'd let him die clean? One of their great holy knights cut off both his arms, gouged out his one remaining eye, and hung him in the plaza. Stubborn bastard took three days to die."

"...What about the body?"

"No idea. They probably threw it in the landfill."

The landfill. The lowest part of the Underground City, where they dumped corpses and trash. A place full of bodies all mixed together.

"You know..."

Kabin stared at his empty cup as he spoke.

"I resent you. Because you killed the hyung I served? No, that doesn't matter much now. Because you ruined the Underground City? No, I don't care much about that either."

A bitter grin spread on Kabin's face.

"My life was already ruined. Already thrown in the gutter. Getting shoved a little deeper doesn't change much. Sure, living is fucking miserable... but that's not why I resent you."

"Then why?"

"That damn starlight."

Kabin lifted his head. His eyes were blurred with drink, but deep inside them there was light.

"I can't forget the starlight you showed us that day. It's been almost twenty years since I fell into this city. I thought I'd forgotten everything. It had gotten to the point where even remembering was hard... and then it all came back."

Sunlight, starlight, and the beautiful world above.

"Fuck."

Kabin muttered.

"I want to see it again. I know I never will, but I want to see it. What I saw that day keeps flickering in front of me. It's driving me insane."

A bottom-feeder life. The only light people in the Underground City were given was the dim glow of ore lamps. Until that day two years ago, people had taken comfort in those sunset-colored lamps. But after the radiance that covered the Underground City that day, they could not find comfort in them anymore.

The artificial sunset glow of ore lamps.

Dim, dull light.

They had seen a brilliance that could not even be compared to that. Knowing they would never see it again for the rest of their lives, the residents still longed for that day's radiance.

"It made me dream a dream that doesn't suit me."

A dream that did not suit him. Hearing Kabin mutter that, Najin remembered someone else. He himself had also dreamed a dream that did not suit him.

"Fuck..."

"Kabin."

"What."

Najin did not speak at length.

"You said you want to see the stars. Can you bear the weight of that?"

"Bear it? What are you talking about?"

"I'm asking if you can bet your life on it."

Kabin blinked. Najin's lips curled up. Then he gave Kabin one proposal.

Even if it killed him, would he still reach for the stars?

If not, would he end his life here, rotting day after day, soaked in liquor?

"......"

Kabin looked at the cup in his hand, then at the hand Najin held out to him. He did not need long to decide.

2.

After some time passed, Najin stepped out of Kabin's tavern. He walked while turning over the information he had heard.

Why he had come to the Lilac Tavern was simple.

First, he needed information, and taverns had always been where all kinds of information gathered. And at the Lilac Tavern, Najin got more than he had expected.

"The Order's shadow operatives and holy knights are spread all over. They're making sure not even one rat can leave the Underground City."

"A few holy knights are mixed in too. One of them was especially nasty. What was his name again? Berlot, something like that."

"Why do I know this?"

"Because this is exactly where those bastards come to use."

Kabin's Lilac Tavern was no longer used by Underground City residents. It had become a place used by holy knights and shadow operatives dispatched from the upper district. Thanks to that, Najin got plenty of information from Kabin.

"By the way, don't you suspect me?"

"What if I tell all this to the holy knights who come here?"

When Kabin asked that, Najin just shrugged and said he could do that if he wanted. The choice was his. Kabin only chewed his lip and said nothing more.

In truth, Najin did not care.

Even if Kabin told the holy knights, it would not change much.

No news was going to leak out anyway.

With his robe pulled low, Najin stopped walking. He had stopped at the central plaza of the Underground City. It was once managed by Ivan, and it was the place where Najin had pulled Excalibur.

The scene looked very different from back then.

Every shop in what had been the only busy district underground was shut, and the once brilliant ore lamps were all out, leaving only silence.

Najin moved on without a word.

No footsteps sounded, and no presence leaked out. Even though shadow operatives were placed all over the Underground City, they did not notice him even when he passed right beside them.

"......"

Najin stopped at the only path leading to the upper district.

It was the elevator set at the center of the Underground City.

Najin climbed the wall of the vertical shaft where the elevator moved, a structure like a tower stretching all the way up to the sky. When he reached a suitable height, he drove his sword into the wall. Sshk, as if slicing paper, his blade carved out part of the wall without resistance.

Behind it was an empty space.

He could see the elevator far below and the steel cable linked to it. Najin brought his sword to the cable.

Tik, tidik...

He had minimized his Sword Aura, but the instant it touched, the steel cable began to split with ease. When it was cut about halfway, Najin extinguished the aura.

Now, the moment they tried to pull the elevator up from above, the cable would snap. The only route from the Underground City to the top had effectively been cut off.

By the time he finished that work,

Najin jumped down the wall. It was not time to go up yet. He still had something to check here. Landing soundlessly, he started walking again and replayed Kabin's words.

Ivan was dead.

He had died in the plaza in a horrible state.

Najin had expected Ivan's death, but hearing about that gruesome end still made his face harden.

Not just Ivan.

Kabin had said Offen had met a similar fate. He had ambushed shadow operatives on their way to Ivan, got tracked down, and had his head put on display.

One person had led all of it.

"Berlot."

Berlot, a holy knight of the Order.

Repeating the name in his head, Najin walked on.

"I don't know why, but those bastards..."

"They've been guarding the entrance to the landfill these days."

"Even more lately. About a month now?"

"Like there's something there people aren't allowed to see. If you so much as go near, they rip your eyes out."

It seemed the man would be at the place Najin was heading.

The very bottom of the Underground City, the landfill.

That had originally been Drugmaker Hakan's territory, but even Hakan had not settled at the absolute bottom of the landfill. Her workshop had been around the middle of the passage where trash, corpses, and filth were dumped.

From there, she used to intercept bodies thrown to "the bottom" and use them as research material.

Which meant this.

The very bottom of the Underground City, where discarded things were discarded once again, an abyss where even the light of ore lamps did not reach.

No one knew what was down there.

No one even wondered.

-Best place there is to hide something, right?

Merlin said it, and Najin nodded.

Najin guessed.

If a Constellation was hidden somewhere here, it would definitely be at the bottom of the landfill.

3.

Berlot, knight of the Order.

He had once belonged to the Atanga Knights, but he gave his honor and pride to god and entered the Order. Some might call that choice devout, but people who knew the inside story always shook their heads.

Berlot only moved to chase power.

He became a holy knight not for the glory-only post of an Atanga knight, but for practical gain. There was no faith or conviction in it.

He was High Priest Orland's hands and feet, Orland's hunting dog. If it was Orland's order, he did not hesitate to do any dirty thing. He believed following the powerful was the fastest road to becoming powerful himself.

That choice was half right and half wrong.

He rose quickly in status inside the Order after becoming Orland's close aide, but all that standing crashed to the floor on that day two years ago.

"How could that be your fault?"

"You were tricked by a wicked schemer. That wasn't your fault. It was a mistake. A small mistake, wasn't it?"

"Still, even if it wasn't wrongdoing, mistakes must be paid for. That's discipline, Berlot."

High Priest Orland threw Berlot into the Underground City. Officially it was a dispatch, but ordering him to stay there all 365 days without coming up and monitor movements was no different from dumping him there.

Even the shadow operatives sent there no longer followed Berlot's orders. They listened to other holy knights who moved between this place and the upper district, not Berlot, who was buried underground.

Crk.

Berlot ground his teeth. Everything that had reduced him to this state irritated him. Even so, he carried out the Order's commands, believing they would call him back one day. He had no other path.

The bottom of the Underground City.

The place the High Priest called "the abyss."

Berlot's task was guarding the entrance leading there.

The one small comfort he had...

Berlot glanced sideways.

Five knights newly dispatched by the Order stood there. All of them were Sword Seeker-level powerhouses, top-tier holy knights directly below the Holy Knight Commander.

Forces counted among the Order's best.

The fact that he stood there with knights of that level gave Berlot comfort. Yes, he was carrying out a great mission. Weren't such outstanding knights assigned to the same duty as him?

It was while Berlot was standing guard with that thought.

Tap.

He heard footsteps. Berlot frowned at the sound. What fearless bastard was trying to step into this place the Order had designated a Forbidden Zone? Not long ago, he had ripped out the eyes of a brat who wandered near to make an example.

His mood was already foul, so this was perfect. Berlot's mouth twitched as he found someone to vent on.

"How dare!"

Just as Berlot opened his mouth to roar, he heard "Kakang!" behind him, the sound of swords being drawn.

When he turned, every top-tier knight of the Order had their weapons out.

They had their blades leveled at a young man walking this way. Their shoulders were rigid with tension.

As if they were on edge.

Why?

Berlot looked over in confusion. Why were top-tier holy knights reacting like this? Berlot, only a Sword Expert, could not understand.

But soon, Berlot understood too.

The young man walking toward them gave his robe a light shake. At that moment, the disguise magic on it unraveled and returned to its original form.

The coat of a Free Knight.

In the Empire, in this land, a uniform allowed to one person only.

Free Knight Najin aimed his sword at the holy knights.

When a Free Knight points a sword at another knight, the reason is usually simple. When that knight has lost honor, lost pride, or seeks to reclaim what was lost, the Free Knight gladly becomes their opponent.

But this case was different.

Najin did not point his sword at "knights."

He pointed it at twisted, sinister, wicked, filthy things. Cutting what must be cut was also the Free Knight's duty.

"......"

Najin did not even state his name.

They were not worth hearing it.

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