WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 362

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Argonaut (2)

The pillar that upholds the Empire.

The Empire's hero.

The Empire's current pillar is embodied in a man named Aldaran Vasaglia, expressed through the character for "horn," but naturally, pillars had existed before Aldaran as well, and they carved their names with the character for "pillar" rather than "horn."

The man standing before Najin now was one such example.

Tomorrow Pillar, Abraham.

The First Horn of the Empire from four hundred years ago, or rather, the First Pillar of the Empire.

To this hero who had devoted his entire life to a tomorrow better than today, Najin asked with genuine reverence.

"What is 'tomorrow'?"

"A tomorrow better than today."

Abraham smiled, then asked his own question in turn.

"And what is 'dawn'?"

"The light that announces the end of night."

With swords leveled at each other, the two men turned the other's epithet over in their minds. Tomorrow, and Dawn. One smiled at how a distant successor had come to carry an epithet so similar to his own, while the other smiled knowing his predecessor had thought along the very same lines.

"One match, if you would."

"One match, if you would."

They crossed blades. In a duel that bridged four hundred years, Abraham saw the future of the Empire, and Najin saw its past.

Swinging his sword, Abraham reflected.

Over these four hundred years, the Empire had clearly changed beyond recognition. The sword Najin wielded resembled Imperial swordsmanship, yet it was not the Imperial swordsmanship Abraham remembered. Well, of course it wouldn't be, he thought, and smiled.

Imperial swordsmanship was never a rigidly fixed art to begin with. It was a style refined and improved upon by the heroes of each age, advancing as the times moved forward.

Clang, clang!

And as always, it was the role of geniuses to drive that art to great new heights. But even those geniuses stood upon a stepping stone built by countless ordinary people.

The stepping stone called history.

Endless trial and error, the accumulated record of failures and setbacks left by all those who had lived through ages past, people who kept throwing themselves against the wall and leaving their marks, stacking up until they formed the stepping stone that waited, unmistakably, beneath every genius's feet.

Ah.

Abraham looked ahead. There stood a genius. One who had pulled Excalibur, one who would go on to write new legends, a once-in-an-age talent standing right before him. He watched the sword Najin swung, again and again.

What a beautiful sword, truly.

Watching the sword paths the genius traced, Abraham found himself laughing before he knew it. A smile broke free past his lips.

"Ha..."

Because from the sword this once-in-an-age successor was showing him, four hundred years removed, Abraham could faintly feel his own sword in it. He realized all at once that his own name was written on the stepping stone that genius stood upon.

I thought I had been forgotten.

He had thought himself unrecorded anywhere, erased from history, but apparently that was not so. Somewhere in the world, traces of him remained. That knowledge made Abraham glad.

Clang, clang!

He swung his sword, and swung it again. Through their crossed blades, Najin caught glimpses of the old hero's life and poured what he saw into his own sword. With each clash, he turned over the story Abraham was telling him.

"May tomorrow be better than today."

Tomorrow, a tomorrow better than today.

"May tomorrow be more peaceful than today."

Najin absorbed the sword of a hero who had fought and struggled for tomorrow. He received the Absolute Techniques Abraham unleashed, sought his teaching, and carved the life of a hero recorded nowhere in history into his own sword.

"Does the sword have a name?"

"I've never thought to name it, but if I had to put one to it, the Tomorrow Sword, I suppose."

"I see."

Najin smiled.

"When I make it back outside, I'll record it as such."

"...Ah."

Abraham let out a long breath.

"Yes. Please do."

Floor 41, cleared.

2.

"I think I had the wrong idea about this."

, The wrong idea? About what?

"That climbing this tower would be difficult, meaning that winning against the heroes would be difficult. Half right, half wrong, it turns out."

Najin laughed ruefully.

Through his time with Abraham, Najin had come to understand.

"Winning against the heroes will be easy. Because for them, whether they win or lose, it amounts to victory either way."

He said it plainly.

"If they lose to me, that is proof that a better tomorrow has arrived, proof that the time they spent their whole lives buying was not meaningless. Losing is the same as winning to them..."

Defeat would be no different from victory for them.

"And if they win against me, they will have gained something to teach the next generation, which is a worthy thing in its own right."

Win or lose, they would willingly open the path for Najin. Or help him climb higher. He was certain of it.

Because.

"They are still heroes."

In the Outland, heroes sometimes broke down, made compromises, and eventually forgot their own purpose. But paradoxically, not here in the sanctuary of Oblivion.

Here, heroes were heroes always.

What they were made of was not only their own memories, but also the awareness of how the age they had lived in regarded them. As long as that awareness remained with them, they would be heroes to the very end.

"So winning against them will be easy. But climbing this tower is still going to be hard."

, Why?

"Because simply winning isn't enough."

Najin revised his thinking.

He changed his approach and straightened his stance.

"I have to prove something to them."

Prove what?

"That the future you protected is this beautiful. That I, standing before you now, am proof of that."

Even if the world had forgotten them, he would remember them. He would carry their existence out into the world beyond. That was what Najin had to prove. Proving anything was never easy, of course, but...

, Well, have you ever walked an easy road?

"Fair enough."

He nodded and headed for the next floor.

Floors 42, 43, 44...

He talked with those who dwelled on each floor, sometimes told them stories of the future, and at the end of every conversation he always crossed weapons with them.

"A hundred words are never as sure as one action. Shall I show you how far humanity has come?"

45, 46, 47... 49.

"Magic. I don't know much about it myself, but as luck would have it, I happen to have a Grand Mage with me. Merlin?"

"You called?"

"Oh!"

"You want to know how far magic has come? Well, you're from six hundred and forty years ago, let's see, you were the developer of Pauram's Light, weren't you? The magic you created was forgotten, but the mages of your school never stopped. And in the end they finally..."

"Is that true? Really, the children of the Emission School?"

"Yes. The Emission School would later establish the Red Tower. One of the five most powerful magic towers on the continent. These days it's based in the Imperial capital."

"Ah..."

50, 51, 52, 53... 57.

"My name is Parcel. I didn't do anything grand like the other heroes. I built an educational institution for children. Do you happen to know of an academic city? I'm not sure whether it still exists..."

"Ah, would you mean Arcana?"

"...Pardon?"

"It still exists in my time. Arcana. The foremost city of learning on the continent. A kind of neutral territory jointly held by the Empire and the allied nations. A place where students are treated as equals regardless of birth or rank."

"It still exists. Even now."

58, 60, 68, 72.

"Half the blood in my veins is demon blood. My mother was violated by a demon, and she had to give birth to a child she never wanted. That child was me."

"..."

"She cursed and resented me until the very moment she died. It must have been horrible. How she must have hated me, this thing that had ruined her life. And yet she couldn't bring herself to abandon me."

She could have left me to die, but she didn't, the woman said with a bitter smile.

"Hatred, resentment, and yet, perhaps because I was still half her daughter. Even as she beat me, my mother would hold me in her arms once I fell asleep at night. She would hold me and weep, saying she was sorry, sorry, sorry."

My mother was only nineteen at the time. She murmured that, then looked down at her hands.

"I didn't understand it then, but time passed and I came to see it. We were both young. Her, and me. Once I grasped that, other things came into view."

"What things?"

"That my mother loved me anyway. That every time I acted on my demon instincts, she beat me to stop it because she wanted me to live as a human being."

And so, she said.

"I am human. Half my blood may be wicked, but it was not a demon who raised me, it was my mother. So I will live as a human. My mother never let me go until the very moment she died..."

She looked straight at Najin's Excalibur. The Holy Sword that should have made any demon recoil, she did not fear it.

"I am not a demon."

She grabbed Excalibur with her bare hands. Nothing happened. The sword that burned demons did not burn her. Which was only natural.

She was not a demon.

That fact made her laugh out loud.

"Thank you, Najin. You helped me prove it. That I am not a demon. That my mother raised a fine human being."

Even with demon eyes, she had looked at the world like a human, and laughed like a human. Then there was no real difference at all.

73, 74, 79, 80... 97.

"My name is Sentry."

The one on floor 97 was not human in shape. Between words came a hissing sound of steam, and every time the figure moved, gears and mechanical parts ground together with a series of metallic clicks.

"My homeland was a nation known for its arcane engineering. Not a particularly powerful nation, but one with outstanding technical skill. The nation's name was Sentry."

Yes, that is my name.

With pride, the figure touched its own chest. Where human skin should have been, there was iron plating. Running fingers over the national crest engraved on the iron, it spoke.

"We could not escape our end, but all the technology of our nation was concentrated in my single body. My bones and flesh are made of iron, and instead of blood, mana flows through me."

Clank, hiss.

Releasing a breath of steam, it spoke.

"A body that cannot be called human, and yet my lord called me a knight. Was proud of what I was. Even when enemy nations, enemy soldiers called me a monster, my lord always called me a knight."

A frame three or four times the size of a person. The knight built of steel and mana instead of bone and flesh looked at Najin.

"So there is something I wish to ask you."

"Of me?"

"Yes. You are a descendant of the greatest knight, a knight who protects knights, the Free Knight, are you not?"

To the one most worthy of the name knight, the figure asked.

"Am I a knight?"

The body was rusted, and where the steel had worn away, not blood and flesh but clanking machinery lay exposed throughout. By any measure, a grotesque sight that looked nothing like a human being.

"To fulfill my king's wish, to become a knight, I fought on and on even after the nation fell. I went out into the Outland with our nation's banner raised, and never stopped fighting until my body broke apart."

And so, I ask you.

"Can I be a knight?"

Can I be a knight, as my lord wished?

"..."

Najin did not answer. Instead of words, he raised his sword. He gave a formal salute, requesting a duel. The sword salute was the kind a knight gives to another knight, and in both his eyes there was unmistakable respect.

One action, worth a hundred words.

At the sight of it, Sentry's body shook.

Unable to smile like a human any longer, the figure nonetheless felt that if it could smile, it would have smiled enough to flood the whole place. Steam hissed from its frame as it settled into a fighting stance with its mechanical body.

"Sentry."

You are a knight.

3.

Najin broke through the ninth tier and set foot in the tenth. After facing countless heroes and climbing without rest, he paused on the tenth tier to catch his breath.

"By the way."

While he rested, the hero on floor 101 pointed at Najin's shoulder and asked.

"That thing you're wearing there."

"Ah, this?"

Najin pointed to his own shoulder. Attached there was a pauldron shaped after the Helmeted Knight's helm.

"Yeah, that. I've seen something that looks exactly like it."

"...Pardon?"

Najin blinked. The hero before him had been active eight hundred years ago. There was no reason this person should have any connection to the Golden Horn Knights.

"Out in the Outland?"

"No, no, right here. In the tower."

He shook his head at Najin's question. Then he pointed upward.

"I was originally stationed on the eleventh tier. But one day some absolutely insane people came tearing up through the tower like they were going to smash the whole thing down. The one leading the charge was wearing a helm shaped exactly like that..."

Najin pulled out the cross-star spear strapped to his back.

"Did you happen to see a spear like this as well?"

"Oh-oh, yes! Seeing that, it's all coming back."

He slapped his knee.

"The Golden Horn Knights? Something like that, I think. Terrifyingly strong, they were. About fourteen or fifteen of them moving together, it was something to behold."

The actual duels had been one-on-one, and the one at the front had beaten him like a dog, he said with a bitter laugh.

"They're probably on the twelfth tier."

The twelfth tier, the place closest to where Galahad waited.

The Golden Horn Knights were there.

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