WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 357

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City for the Forgotten (1)

There is a bridge connecting the Outland and Camlann.

When it was built, and for what purpose, no one knows. Only the fact that it had stood there for thousands of years and never once collapsed in all that time is known.

The Bridge Leading to the End.

Or, the bridge that stretches toward the Abyss.

On the far side lay the Abyss, thick with black fog. It looked almost like some enormous creature opening its maw wide.

"......"

Najin stood before that bridge. Behind him were Yuel and Kirchhoff. The three had stopped at the entrance and were studying it.

"So this is the famous bridge to the Abyss?"

"I had only heard of it. Seeing it in person is something else entirely."

Kirchhoff and Yuel stared with open admiration. The view earned it. A bridge spanning the gap between two sheer cliffs, the length was one thing, but the width was no small matter either. It was wide enough for several carriages to pass side by side.

Not a road built for humans to cross.

That was the thought it put in a person's head.

Not that they intended to cross it. Their destination lay not on the far side but beneath the bridge itself. Najin had been loosening up near the entrance when he spoke.

"Let's get ready."

He kept it short, then looked at Yuel and Kirchhoff. Both were dressed differently from usual, similar to when they had set out to subdue the Carnival King, every piece of auxiliary equipment in place. Najin was much the same.

Where they were about to enter was a place held by two Transcendents, each with more than ten stars. Najin steadied his breath and put one foot over the edge beyond the bridge.

Sheer cliffs dropping away.

Darkness with no visible bottom waited below. Najin looked straight down into the abyss, a depth of unknown limit. A pit so deep it seemed even starlight could not reach it. Down there, the sanctuary of the Star of Oblivion would be waiting.

A place that deserved the word Bottomless Pit.

Swish.

Najin gave the signal and jumped first. A beat later, Yuel and Kirchhoff followed.

Shwooooooosh!

Wind hammered at his ears. Light vanished in an instant, and thick darkness closed in. Plummeting downward, Najin felt a strange sense of familiarity, the same feeling as when he had descended toward the City of the Abyss built beneath the Underground City.

Was it because the Abyss lay right there? Or the similar structure to that city?

He could not say.

What he could say was that they were down there. Still falling, Najin closed his fist around empty air.

Flash.

Excalibur flew free, and starlight flooded out. Just as Siegfried's divine sword Gramr could cut through and pierce all things, the starlight Excalibur produced could not be blocked by anything.

Not the Bottomless Pit that swallowed light, not the abyss layered across its floor, not even those could swallow Excalibur's light.

The light surged, and the darkness retreated. Beneath that retreating darkness, Najin saw it: far below, an opaque membrane. A barrier, a veil, a boundary line blocking intrusion from outside. He swung his sword toward it.

Crack. A fissure split across the veil.

Kirchhoff and Yuel followed right behind, swinging their swords. Three overlapping streaks of sword energy tore a small hole in the veil. All three dove through.

The subjugation of the Star of Oblivion had begun.

2.

They had entered the sanctuary of the Star of Oblivion.

It was nothing like Hermann's sanctuary, and nothing like the Carnival King's either. When Najin had entered those, he had sufficiently weakened their authority and domain before going in.

This time was different.

Those two had been known quantities. The Star of Oblivion had required enormous effort just to pin down her location, and information about her was extremely limited.

The Star of Oblivion had erased her own existence.

Records, accomplishments, stories, anything that might allow someone to deduce her presence, she had wiped it all. Traces of the erasure remained, but what she had actually erased was unknowable.

'What made it even more unsettling.'

Despite having so thoroughly erased herself, she was still a Constellation with more than ten stars. She was a Constellation of such standing that the mere disclosure of information about her True Form could trigger an immediate descent on the spot.

'Those who lost their memories, or whose stories were forgotten, all fell and became the dead.'

The Helmeted Knight had been one. So had the countless knights played by the power of Oblivion. The memory of their ends settled across Najin's face like cold stone.

......He pushed that feeling aside for now.

What mattered at this moment was that they had stepped into the sanctuary of a Constellation with that kind of standing. The meaning of that was simple. It was as close to suicide as throwing yourself into the jaws of a dragon.

Even so, Najin and the other two had willingly thrown themselves into the sanctuary of Oblivion. To achieve something great, you had to stake your life on it.

And.

The moment they forced the gap in the veil open and broke through into the sanctuary, Najin felt someone's gaze.

Someone was watching him.

The instant they entered, time stopped. In that frozen world, only a gaze could be felt. It looked at Najin, then at Excalibur in his hand.

The gaze lingered on Excalibur for a long moment.

-Ah.

A deep, exhaled sigh.

Then someone whispered into Najin's ear.

-Would you be willing to talk for a moment?

An invitation, extended inside stopped time. Najin accepted willingly. Mind reached toward mind. A passage formed between one inner world and another. In a separate space cut off from the outside, two people faced each other.

He closed his eyes and opened them again.

He was inside his own inner world, or more precisely, a place where his inner world and the Star of Oblivion's had merged.

Behind Najin spread the landscape of the Underground City, Artman. But looking ahead were countless cities blended together, layer upon layer, sediment piled high over ages. It was not Najin's inner world. So whose was it?

Click.

Someone walked out from within that city. A woman with an impression so pale she was almost colorless. She looked at Najin and smiled. Even that smile was faint.

"What is the name of the city built behind you?"

"Artman. The Underground City, Artman."

The woman nodded.

Then she gestured behind herself and said,

"Those are Sediment Cities. You could call them buried cities, or nations, either would do."

"What are their names?"

"I don't know. I've forgotten."

She came to stand before Najin. It was an artificially created intersection of inner worlds. Murmuring that they would need somewhere to sit, she waved her hand.

Two chairs and a table appeared.

They sat down and looked at each other across the table. Najin spoke first.

"Guinevere."

"You know my name? I thought I had abandoned it entirely, but it seems it survived somewhere. It is a name I feel something for, but......"

Guinevere said it without expression.

"I would prefer you not call me by that name. It is a name permitted to only one person."

She reached out, and a teacup appeared.

"First, thank you for accepting my invitation. Being able to have a conversation is a good thing. Most matters can be resolved through conversation alone."

She poured tea for Najin, then sipped from her own cup and tilted her head.

"May I ask why you came to my sanctuary? You are Arthur's heir. As the owner of this land, I am allowed to ask a visitor's purpose."

"To ask you a question. You and Lancelot both."

"A question. About what?"

"Why you made the choices you made a thousand years ago. And why you destroyed one nation three hundred years ago."

Guinevere's expression did not change. She listened quietly, then tilted her head slightly.

"The first is difficult to answer, but I can tell you the second. You would find it out soon enough even if I did not."

Guinevere looked behind herself. Gazing at the cities, or nations, piled up there, she spoke without feeling.

"It was a necessary sacrifice."

"......"

Najin went silent. A necessary sacrifice? The destruction of an entire nation?

"Do you know how many people died?"

"I remember. 8,276,127."

"You call killing that many people a necessary sacrifice?"

"One could say so, yes."

Najin's eyes narrowed.

"Do you know the knight of Londinel? The Blue Spear?"

"A noble knight."

"Do you know Aldaran Vasaglia, First Horn of the Empire?"

"The one who resisted Oblivion for a hundred and fifty years and finally achieved his purpose. Yes, I know him."

Still, Guinevere spoke without expression. Najin's face had gone hard. He listed the names of the various knights and wraiths he had encountered traveling through the Outland.

"......These are the names of those who suffered under your power and died for it. Do you know them?"

"I know them. All of them."

"Most of them were played by the Carnival King, who made use of your power. I thought perhaps you might not have known that."

"Did you?"

"Yes. But......"

Najin looked directly at the woman before him.

"It seems I was wrong."

"I have no intention of making excuses, and no intention of lying. It would make the whole point of this conversation meaningless."

Guinevere nodded and spoke without feeling.

"I made a request of that child. To gather heroes with strong wills. I told her she could have their bodies, but to give their memories to me, discard them to me. That was the condition for lending her my power."

"That too was a necessary sacrifice?"

"It would be, yes."

By the time he had heard that much, Najin's expression had gone cold. He wanted to draw his sword right then and take the woman's head off, but he held the impulse back. The conversation was not over yet.

"A sacrifice for what?"

"A sacrifice for the next thousand years."

She set her teacup down and answered briefly. Then she extended a finger and pointed at Najin.

"It is a contingency for the future in which you fail."

3.

A contingency for the future in which you fail.

That was what Guinevere had said.

Najin held his silence for a moment. A contingency for my failure, what did that mean?

"You are Arthur's heir. Aren't you?"

Guinevere spoke in place of the silent Najin.

"Arthur's chosen successor, selected by Excalibur, appearing for the first time in a thousand years since his death. I have no intention of doubting your ability. If Excalibur chose you, then you truly have the worth for it."

Guinevere looked at Najin and gave a thin, bitter smile. Something like pity showed in her eyes.

"You poor child."

Najin's brow furrowed, and she continued.

"You are going to have a great adventure. A truly magnificent one. Perhaps it is already reaching its final chapter."

She spoke like a bard singing a ballad.

"You will fight the demons that threaten the world, stand against the witches, save people, save the Empire, and beyond that, save the continent. You will become a hero. No, looking at how far you have already come, you are probably already being called one."

She asked him,

"Has the journey been enjoyable, up to now?"

Has it been rewarding?

"All of that journey will become stars and be held in Excalibur. It will become a great epic, sung forever, and the wishes of countless people will rest in that single sword. It will certainly be so."

Because, she said.

"That is the only way for it to become a Stake."

"What are you talking about?"

"I am saying that Excalibur was not made to kill the Witch of Camlann."

Guinevere pointed at Excalibur hanging at Najin's hip. Then she gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

"Do you know who made that sword?"

He did not know precisely. There was only a guess, based on circumstantial evidence, that the one known as the Primordial Blacksmith had been involved in the forging. As Najin was about to voice that guess, Guinevere answered with a hollow laugh.

"You really know nothing at all."

She gave a bitter smile.

"That sword was made by the Witch of the Abyss."

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