WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 309

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What She Wished For (2)

From that day on, Yuel's life changed.

Not everything changed.

She was still the City Lord of Sealed City, still someone the residents feared, and criminals' heads were still displayed in the plaza.

"Najin."

Then what had changed?

"You know, Najin?"

"You do not have to call me like that. I can hear you."

"How about just living here?"

"...What?"

"I mean, well. You keep coming in through the window, and it looks a little strange. This room is too big for me to use alone. And also, um, so..."

"If you are fine with it, then sure."

What changed was this: her bleak office now had a roommate. A Free Knight's coat hung on the rack that used to hold only Yuel's clothes, and the sofa only she used to lean against now always had that man sitting there.

Scratch, scratch.

The office used to echo with only a fountain pen scraping paper and one person's breathing. Now there was one more set of breaths. Even when she groaned through piles of documents and worked, if she looked up at the other side...

"..."

He was there, leaning against the sofa with a book in his hands. Yuel watched him in silence, then smiled faintly and went back to work. During breaks, she would lie on the sofa across from Najin and stare at him.

It was a little burdensome.

Thud. Najin closed his book and gestured with his eyes at Yuel. Why are you staring like that? Do you have something to say? Yuel gave him a small grin and answered.

"I just like it."

Merlin, sitting beside Najin, screamed. Merlin blew up, and Najin was flustered too. Was she always like this? Watching him get shaken for the first time, Yuel burst into laughter.

"I meant I'm happy because I made a friend. Did you think I meant something else? Did you think I was confessing? Hmm?"

She sprang up from the sofa, sat beside Najin, and kept poking his side.

"Looking at your face, I think you did."

Yuel smirked.

"Not yet, so don't get your hopes up. We've only known each other a few months, haven't we? Wait at least a year before you start expecting things."

"I was not expecting anything."

"Ah, that is disappointing in its own way."

Light jokes back and forth.

Jokes with a little sincerity mixed in.

"Najin."

"Yes. What is it?"

"About your coat, it definitely had blood on it before, right? You didn't even wash it, but it looks clean."

"It has dozens of built-in spells. Auto-repair and self-cleaning are basic."

"Huh. Sounds fucking expensive."

"It is not really something you can price, but a merchant I know said selling just that one set could run an entire territory for ten years."

Whenever work wore her down, Yuel chatted with Najin. It was trivial conversation, light conversation. As time passed, the distance between them shrank exponentially.

"..."

"..."

And that was not only emotional distance.

During breaks, Yuel had sat across from Najin, but after a few days she started taking the seat right beside him. There were two sofas, but she deliberately sat on the same one as him.

The first few times, Najin moved away, but after seeing Yuel trail after him each time, he gave up.

They grew closer, emotionally and physically.

"Yuel."

"You called?"

"Move your head a little. I cannot see the book."

"Do you really need to read it? It doesn't even look interesting."

At some point, Yuel started resting her head on Najin's shoulder. Her hair slid down and covered the page, so Najin had to raise his arm awkwardly to keep reading.

She started smiling more.

She had been expressionless, stiff, always prone to sneering, but at least in front of Najin, she showed all kinds of expressions. She laughed, she grumbled, and sometimes she cried.

"The person I executed today was someone I used to see often. He worked as an attendant when I was raised under the former City Lord. He was a good person. He wasn't someone who would commit this kind of crime, or die like this."

"I see."

"He wasn't, so why. Ah, fuck, seriously..."

At least in front of Najin, she did not hide her feelings. If she was happy, she laughed. If she was sad, she cried. Some days she cried until she was exhausted and fell asleep on his shoulder.

Sealed City itself did not change much.

But her life definitely did.

Until then, she had nowhere to escape. She spent all twenty-four hours as City Lord, never even given a brief moment to breathe. That was why Yuel's life had been gray. Dry and flavorless, with nothing to enjoy, a life lived only to prevent the worst.

'Ah.'

Now it was different. No matter how hard the day was, no matter how crushing things got, that man sat in one corner of her office. Only in front of him could Yuel be Yuel.

"Najin."

Yuel smiled.

"Thank you."

2.

Time passed like that.

And as it passed, the city grew even more chaotic. People killed people. Children killed parents, and parents killed children. Blood spilled in the city day after day, and even more blood than that spilled in the plaza of the Lord's Keep.

Yuel was a capable City Lord.

She somehow held Sealed City together as it ran straight toward ruin. She could not stop it, but she could at least slow it down.

In the middle of a city where Transcendents above the sky incited humans and sang of human destruction, Yuel, a mere human, resisted.

"Carry out the execution."

She stained her own hands with blood, earned resentment, became feared, endured every insult, and still she never bent. She kept her back straight, shoulders squared, chin raised, and quietly did what she had to do.

Thin arms and legs. A slender frame. Pure white hair falling to her lower back, and red eyes visible between long lashes.

She looked less like a City Lord and more like a noble lady, someone better suited to books than to a sword slick with blood. But now, no one could look at Yuel that way anymore.

"..."

She narrowed her eyes at the citizens. Her gaze was sharp to begin with, and when she narrowed it, it felt as if she were stabbing people with her eyes.

A City Lord holding a blood-soaked code in one hand.

Some rose up under the banner of liberating the city from her, and they formed a rebel force. But only one ending awaited them.

Blood flowed. It flowed and flowed again.

Her pure white hair was stained with blood. Her thin white fingers were stained red. Her red eyes grew redder still. She remained the City Lord.

And so.

Time kept passing.

"Najin."

One night, Yuel swirled a glass and looked at Najin. Her eyes were unsteady. She had executed nearly a hundred people that day. Holding her glass with trembling hands, she gave a desolate smile.

"Do you know what's good about math?"

"What?"

"The answers are clear."

Yuel took a sip.

"There is a right answer. There is a wrong answer. No matter how fucked up the problem is, even those damn things people call century-long or thousand-year riddles, an answer exists. I just couldn't find it because I wasn't capable enough."

"Is that so."

"Yeah, but."

She tilted her head. A pleasant buzz had set in. Breathing out air thick with the smell of alcohol, she continued.

"In this world, there are no right answers and no wrong answers. Everything is ambiguous. You can follow proper procedure and keep making the best choices, and there's still no guarantee the best outcome will be waiting at the end."

She smiled bitterly.

"That's why I hated it. I felt like an idiot for trying to find answers, so I buried myself in the Ivory Tower. But this fucking world dragged me back out and sat me in a place like this."

She trailed off with a low chuckle. She had brought up the subject absentmindedly, but she did not seem to want to talk about it for long. Normally, Najin would have followed her lead and not dug any deeper.

"No wrong answers, no right answers, huh."

But not this time.

He remembered the conversation he had with her future self, outside this place. Najin smiled.

"That's true. No matter what you choose, you can't be sure it's best, and there's no law that says someone who lived doing their best has to receive an ending worthy of that effort."

He had seen many people like that. People who lived with everything they had, only to have their ending humiliated. Yuel smiled bitterly and nodded.

"Yeah, so we should just muddle through and..."

"Then does that life have no value?"

The hand swirling her glass stopped.

"Does a life lived doing its best, a life that struggled to find the right answer, have no value? No. It does not."

Najin looked straight at Yuel.

"As you said, there are no right answers or wrong answers in this world."

But.

"There are better answers. Unlike math."

"..."

"Some people devote their whole lives to finding one. Others, finding one life not enough, pass that work on to students and successors. Because they believe a better answer exists."

So.

"There will be one. A better answer."

"That sounds nice. And irresponsible."

"Maybe. But it won't be irresponsible."

Najin shrugged.

"If it doesn't exist, I'll make it. It's tragic when the lives of people who did their best are never rewarded."

"Wow, what am I supposed to do with this guy? Be honest. You're trying to seduce me, right?"

With an incredulous laugh, Yuel lifted her glass.

Clink. Najin's glass and Yuel's glass struck together.

"A better answer..."

Yuel rolled his words over in her mind, then lowered her head deeply.

"It would be nice if there were one."

She set down her glass and rested her head on Najin's shoulder. Then she placed her hand over his. Her pale fingers slipped between his, interlocking with them.

"I have so much I want to tell you."

Yuel closed her eyes.

"But I don't want to say it like an excuse while borrowing courage from alcohol, and I don't want to say it in a city like this that stirs up emotion. So if, by any chance, even one in ten thousand..."

She whispered by Najin's ear.

"If we make it outside."

Yuel gave a faint smile.

"I'll tell you then."

So.

"Please stay by my side until then. Please don't leave. Stay human to the very end, not a beast. If you do, I think I can hold on a little longer too."

It was a plea and a request.

And it was also a wish that could never come true.

3.

Time moved quickly.

Najin felt the stage nearing its end.

"No new residents are coming in."

Yuel said it lightly. The population had dropped below one hundred thousand a long time ago. Yet no new humans were falling into the city.

"One of two things, I suppose. Either that fucking Constellation gave up its goal, or if not..."

Yuel pointed at herself.

"I'm slowly becoming a beast."

The number of humans executed by Yuel, or killed under laws she proclaimed, had already passed one hundred thousand. She still could not draw Sword Aura or control mana, but Najin could see it.

A seed had taken root inside her.

If she wanted, that seed would bloom at once. She was already close to becoming a Transcendent. As the story approached its end, Najin had achieved his goal as well.

How the Carnival King intended to use Yuel.

What script the Carnival King had prepared for Yuel.

Najin had roughly figured it out, and he had finished preparing to tear that script apart. Waiting for the slowly approaching moment, he kept clenching and opening his hand.

"Najin."

And then.

"I heard that every Constellation and every Transcendent has its own concept. The one who commissioned impossible problems to the Ivory Tower, I mean that insanely great sponsor of theirs..."

"I'm listening."

"I wasn't interested, so I didn't remember. But today, while executing some zealots, I heard them screaming and it came back to me."

"Screaming?"

"Yes. They shouted, 'He knows everything. Do not resist. He is omniscient!' And that's when I remembered."

Najin was not the only one who had found an answer.

"The sponsor of the Ivory Tower was the Star of Omniscience. Judging by the circumstances, that son of a bitch must be the Constellation that made this city."

"..."

"You said each star has its own concept, right? Then if there's a star of omniscience, wouldn't there naturally also be a Star of Ignorance?"

One night, Yuel said that with a bitter smile.

"And I've heard that stars listen to human wishes. If it's their own domain, they'd probably listen with even greater interest."

Under normal circumstances, that would have been half right and half wrong. But because Yuel was the one saying it, it was completely correct.

Stars did listen to human wishes. But only to humans who had the qualifications. Yuel already had the seed of a Transcendent, and she now had qualifications overflowing beyond measure.

"If I want to screw over the Star of Omniscience, what do I do?"

Yuel looked up at the sky and smiled.

"I think I know now."

The better answer.

And so.

The story began hurtling toward its finale.

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