WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur
Chapter 332
──────
Breaking Dawn (3)
There was a sacred starfield called the Round Table.
It was a gathering of constellations positioned closest to Camlann, guarding the border between Camlann and the Outland. At the center of that gathering were the constellations of the Knights of the Round Table, but the Round Table was not made up of only their stars.
There were only thirteen fixed seats in the Round Table.
That did not mean it had only thirteen members.
Countless heroes who had followed Arthur, who had been captivated by Arthur's conviction, and who had run beside him willingly entrusted their stars to the Round Table, hoping that even in death, their lives would become beacons lighting humanity's path.
Their stars remained with the Round Table.
The broken weapons laid around the Round Table, the shattered armor, the torn banners and symbols, those were their stars. For ages, they had only been used to suppress Camlann, and no one expected anything more from them.
Thunk.
But the moment Najin drove Excalibur into the Round Table, the moment the starlight Excalibur produced lit it up, a change began.
Rumble.
A spear that had been left broken regained its original form. A banner torn to pieces until its emblem was unrecognizable fluttered as if brand new, and the crest on the war flag shone clearly. Armor locked together with a clank, and suits shaped like heroic figures rose to their feet.
Things that had lain dead for a thousand years.
Boom, boom!
As if they had been waiting for this exact moment, they rose one by one. The armors lined up around the Round Table and raised their swords. The instant those raised swords struck the ground with a heavy thud, a bell tone began to ring through the Round Table.
Rooooom......
The moment he heard that sound, Bedivere's eyes widened, his mouth opened, and then he closed it again without saying anything. Only after a short while did he finally speak.
"I never thought I would hear this bell again."
A thousand years ago, in their brightest era.
When King Arthur announced the start of a Round Table council, this was the bell that rang across the Round Table. Whenever this bell rang, the knights of the Round Table spoke freely, and even the always stern king would laugh and talk with them.
「Sir Bedivere? I think you can be a little more at ease with me. You seem to find me too intimidating.」
「How could I ever dare before you......」
「That's exactly what I mean. We're comrades, aren't we? Besides, Sir Bedivere was my first companion. Sometimes I miss the day we first met. You were quite an arrogant man back then.」
「That was youthful rashness.」
「Haha. Still, it wasn't bad. Sometimes I still remember you shouting at me, "Shut up and swing your sword, you idiot bastard!"」
With a laugh, the king would lightly pat Bedivere's shoulder. Yes, he did that even on that final day.
「Please take care of the Round Table, Sir Bedivere.」
「If it's you, I can trust you with it.」
「I can only apologize for always asking difficult things of you.」
Those words, every one of them, kept Bedivere from leaving the shattered Round Table for over a thousand years.
Most of the comrades he had fought beside chose death, one former comrade robbed those comrades' stars, another vanished, and so this Round Table could no longer truly be called the Round Table... even so, Bedivere protected this place.
Because one day, their king would return.
Because the king had been certain someone worthy to succeed him would appear.
And so, a thousand years passed.
"......"
Bedivere raised his head and looked ahead. A young man stood there. He was not the king Bedivere once knew. His appearance, his way of speaking, his mindset, the path he had taken to reach this place, all of it was different from the king.
Even so, Bedivere felt fragments of Arthur in that young man.
His eyes dyed in starlight, and the direction those eyes faced, were the same as Arthur's.
"Ah."
Bedivere dropped to one knee before Najin.
"Knight Bedivere greets the master of the Round Table."
The leader of the Round Table had returned. Time, which had stood still, began to move again in the Round Table. As the stars of the Round Table stirred, Bedivere's star also began to move.
"I will wait in Camlann."
Bedivere offered Najin a salute.
Najin, too, raised a sword salute toward Bedivere.
"Yes, then......"
One was a knight who had waited a thousand years, the other was a knight who had broken a thousand years of silence. The two knights smiled at each other.
They both knew what needed to be said.
"On a day not far from now, again."
That time, on the same battlefield.
2.
Time that had stopped in the Round Table began to flow.
The stagnant stars of the Round Table surged.
As hundreds of stars connected to the Carnival King fell with her death, the Round Table's stars shone more brilliantly than ever amid the pouring meteor shower.
Just like the day Najin pulled out Excalibur.
The celestial bodies in the night sky shook.
Because time that had not moved for ages, time shackled to the past, had now begun to flow forward.
Constellations, the Gray Tower, knights, soldiers, from the very lowest to the very highest, everyone looked up at the sky. Constellations swept up by the movement of the giant stars screamed, and even constellations that had held their places through the great current could no longer stay silent.
They realized it.
They were standing at a turning point where the era would overturn.
Time that had been frozen began to move. Time that had stood still for a thousand years would now crash down like a torrent. Those who remembered Arthur's age, that age from a thousand years ago, looked up at the sky.
......In a land forgotten by all.
A woman reached her hand toward the sky.
Her fingers traced a forgotten past. She too had once known a radiant age. Remembering a past she could no longer relive, she looked at the Round Table.
At her side stood a man looking up at the sky.
He could no longer call himself a knight, and had given up being one himself, yet he looked at the Round Table. He stayed silent before the Round Table's stars that had finally begun to move again.
"His Majesty has, in the end......"
"It seems he found the next sacrifice."
Lancelot let out a hollow laugh.
It was all futile. The events of a thousand years ago would only repeat, and in the end, their destination too would not differ from the past by even a little. Lancelot closed one eye.
"......"
His remaining eye was still fixed on the sky, but Lancelot could not cover that eye either.
Because it was not his.
......Land of the Abyss, beneath the split sky.
A sword-wielding wraith looked up at the sky.
He could no longer feel anything at all when he looked at stars. No feeling, no emotion could remain in one who had forgotten everything. Even so, he could not tear his gaze away from the surging stars.
He had forgotten everything.
But there was one thing he could not forget.
He gripped his sword.
Still gripping it, he began to swing.
Because he had to cut down a dragon.
He had cast away the achievements he built, his life, even himself, but there was one star he never let go.
The Star of Dragon Slaying.
He honed the one and only star he had.
To cut down the dragon of the abyss.
Siegfried, Sword Demon of the Abyss, only swung his sword.
......Land of the Abyss, dwelling place of the dead knights.
In the ancient castle filled with death knights made by the Witch of the Abyss, the knight of betrayal seated on the topmost point looked at the sky. At the constellations of the Round Table that had begun to move, Mordred rose from his seat.
Stagnant time had started to flow.
Then he too had to fulfill his role.
Mordred looked at the symbols of his old comrades embedded on the highest floor. They were Star Relics he had gathered by digging through graves, tearing open corpses, and insulting their lives. For Mordred, this place was his Round Table.
「You will deny me three times.」
「You will defy providence.」
「And you will place the period at the end of my story.」
Mordred waited. He waited for the moment to fulfill the role the king he once served had entrusted to him, for the moment that prophecy would come true.
......Deep in the abyss, the very deepest place of the abyss.
Nailed into the lowest and deepest place in the world, she looked at the sky. The star of the usurper that had seized her sky as it pleased was shining there. A laugh slipped from her lips.
How could she not laugh?
The Witch of the Abyss mocked the Selection Sword.
Will the blade you found after a thousand years work on me? To find a blade called you, this world had to waste over ten thousand years. Even you, a blade honed across those ten thousand years, did not reach me...... and now you try to pierce me with only a thousand years.
You will fail in the end.
You will realize the thousand years you bought were meaningless after all, and on that day, your life will finally become worthless. Then I will gladly weep for you in sorrow, and laugh in joy as well.
Witch of the Abyss.
The first witch, and the one who proclaims the end.
Morgan le Fay.
Her laughter echoed from the bottom of the abyss.
......From the abyss, from places in the Outland, from hidden lands, from forgotten lands, each of them watched the stars of the Round Table with their own eyes.
The feelings they carried were all different too.
Some felt regret, some emptiness, hatred, fury, some patience, some mockery and joy, and......
"......"
A girl wandering the Outland looked up at the sky. After standing still and watching it, she gave a faint smile. The girl with platinum hair hanging down and a sword at her waist nodded once.
Time that had stopped was flowing.
Then now, her time had to stop.
She touched the sword at her waist. It was time to return it to its rightful owner.
3.
That was it for the afterword.
Even after defeating the Carnival King and ascending the Round Table, Najin still went through several big and small incidents.
There was Dieta arriving in the Outland after gaining a new star, and Yuel Razian joining Merlin's procession while glaring at Dieta with open displeasure......
「Uh, N, Najin?」
「Yes, Dieta. Congratulations on getting a star.」
「Thank you, really, but can I ask why those two are staring at me like they want to kill me? I'm, um, kind of scared......」
「Ah, it's nothing.」
「No matter how I look at it, that really doesn't seem like nothing......?」
In the middle of all that, there was also the minor incident of Merlin picking a fight with Yuel by saying, "And what are you?" but anyway.
One story had ended.
The boy born at the very bottom of Underground City, Artman had now become a young man. He escaped the underground city, set foot on the continent, carved his name across it, and then stepped straight into the Outland.
Because his story could not end on the continent.
Because he had to keep moving forward.
That young man heading into the Outland faced countless dead. He faced fallen stars, and heard about the fall that even those who once shone brilliantly could not avoid, about decline no one could stop.
「If you wish to be a knight.」
「Then you are a knight.」
Those who had forgotten themselves, those who had fallen, Najin made them knights once more in the end. In the Outland, Najin realized what road he had to walk. It was not a path Excalibur had selected for him, but a path Najin himself chose by his own will.
The boy who had once been nothing in the underground city had now become a Sword Master, and his name had spread through the Outland too.
Demons now feared Najin's name. Enemy stars shrank back when they saw the light of the Dawn Star, and even stars that had stood with the enemy scrambled to hide where the Dawn Star's light could not reach.
......On the continent and in the Outland, there was now no one who did not know Najin's name. So there was no need to ask where he had to go next.
Camlann.
The place where Arthur's story ended, and the trial that had to be overcome to reach the utopia Avalon. Of course, there were a few places he needed to stop by first before heading there, but either way, Najin's gaze was fixed on Camlann.
"Merlin."
"Yeah."
"Shall we go?"
"Of course. Your Guide is only me, and your companion is also only me. Yes, an undeniable truth. If not me, then who......"
"Should I do that thing again?"
"......"
"Nice. Let's go."
"Aren't you a little too much with me?"
"You need to respect me a bit more."
Muttering that, Merlin walked with Najin.
As always, forward.
Because to reach the highest place, he still had about four steps left.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried