WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 377

──────

Tomorrow (1)

"A great knight is, inevitably, a madman."

"What do you mean by that, my king?"

"It's a simple thing, Lancelot. Think about it. How could anyone who willingly throws their own life away for a greater cause be in their right mind? There must be something broken in them."

Arthur laughed.

"Broken by a dream, an ideal, or something else entirely."

Arthur's star shone.

"It is because we are broken that we shine. Because we are broken that we sit here, and because we are broken that we keep moving forward. Then let me, Arthur the Knight King, the greatest madman of the Round Table, say this."

Arthur's Excalibur pointed toward the rising sun.

"My proud knights."

Let us march.

For a brighter tomorrow.

* * *

Blink. Lancelot's eyes closed and opened again.

His consciousness had slipped away for just a moment. The accumulated injuries must have clouded his mind. Clinging to what awareness remained, Lancelot moved his feet.

Even a single step was agony.

He pushed down anyway. Hard. His opponent was charging at him from across the field, after all. So he had to charge too. You could not stand and wait while your enemy came running.

"Lancelot."

With that step forward.

"I told you, didn't I? That knights are madmen."

A conversation he had once shared with his king drifted past his ears. Arthur had often exchanged those rambling, Zen-like riddles with Lancelot. Back then, Lancelot had not understood them.

"You call yourself unworthy of being a knight, but I don't see it that way. You are a fine knight. Perhaps not yet, but you have every quality needed to become one."

"And what quality is that?"

"Ah, why spell it out."

Arthur tapped his own temple twice.

"The readiness to discard everything."

"I don't mean your life. That goes without saying. The 'everything' I'm talking about is truly everything."

"Your life, your honor, your pride, your beloved, every single thing you have built over the course of your existence. Put another way, every piece of proof that you lived and were present in this world."

Lancelot ran, that memory turning over in his mind.

"You are prepared to discard all of it."

"You are not unworthy of being a knight."

"You are simply someone who can abandon being a knight at any moment and throw yourself straight into hell."

He laughed as he took a long stride forward. The words he had not understood back then made sense to him now. Just how far ahead did you see, my king.

'Yes. My king.'

It turned out just as you said.

"For the sake of a single purpose."

For this very moment.

I threw everything away.

Psht! The instant Lancelot stepped forward, his wounds tore open and blood burst free. Red flooded his vision. He reached up and wiped his face, then curled his lips into a smile. It hurt. The pain kept his mind from slipping away.

"Did you find the answer, Lancelot?"

His earliest self had answered: no.

His past self had answered: I am still searching.

And now, the Lancelot of this moment answered.

'I found it.'

He had found the answer. He was running hard right now to deliver it. Just as his king had run before him, so too was he running.

"For the answer you have chosen, you will hone your life into something sharp."

So it turned out.

"It will not be easy."

"It will be immensely difficult."

"And yet you will not stop."

So. It. Turned. Out.

"So then, Lancelot?"

Yes, my king.

"Do you have any regrets about that choice?"

How could I not.

I do. Quite a few, actually. But everyone carries a handful of regrets through life. I don't think mine are any heavier than anyone else's.

"Truly. That was the wrong question."

"Let me ask a different one."

"Are you satisfied with the answer you chose?"

Lancelot lifted his head and looked ahead.

'You ask whether I am satisfied.'

Najin was there, charging straight at him. As if he meant to match Lancelot stride for stride to the very end, Najin was smiling, feet planted deep in the mud. Come on then. I will not yield a single step. That was what his expression seemed to shout. The sight of it made Lancelot burst out laughing.

'Ah.'

He let out a long breath and gave his answer to the king of the past.

"Without question."

Lancelot ran. His breath came ragged, nothing like the perfectly controlled breathing expected of a Transcendent. His footwork was a mess too. No proper technique, just driving himself off the ground and forward.

There was no room to think about any of that.

And his opponent was in exactly the same state.

Both of them were wrecks. They had been evenly matched from the start, neither one gaining ground. No decision had come until they had wrung every last drop of strength from themselves.

Thud!

A decision still had to come. One had to break the other for the duel to end. So both men squeezed out everything they had left and took that final step.

'......'

Maybe it was his dimming mind, but phantoms flickered before Lancelot's eyes. The phantoms of his companions.

'Gawain, Percival, Tristan......'

Comrades who had lived as heroes and died as heroes drifted past him. Their ends had been noble to the last, and beautiful. There had been a time when Lancelot had longed for an end like that. Even envied it.

But that was all in the past.

Lancelot snorted. Get a grip, Lancelot. Are you coveting that kind of death now, of all times? That is not where you are going. Where you are going is hell.

'If I had wanted a death like theirs, I would have died that day a thousand years ago.'

He had prolonged his life because there was something he wanted. He had chosen to fall into hell. Then do not look back, Lancelot.

Splash!

He stepped on waterlogged ground and mud sprayed up. He slipped and rolled across the earth, pushed himself upright mid-roll. Covered in filth, Lancelot ran.

The distance closed.

Even through blurred vision, his opponent's face was sharp and clear. Two people who had stepped into the mud for that final stride drew their swords at nearly the same instant. Two blades crossed. They scraped along each other's edges and drove forward.

The two crossed blades reached their destination.

Each sword pierced a heart.

2.

The River of Oblivion flooded.

The great river's tributaries, spread like cobwebs throughout the Sanctuary of Oblivion, all converged into a single point, then burst their banks and became a flood.

Ten stars. Over a thousand years of life. A Grand Mage who had poured herself into this spell. As if to prove she had not won her stars by chance, the flood Guinevere raised was grotesquely vast.

A torrent large enough to swallow an entire nation whole and still have room left over.

Kwagagagagagak!

The raging current carved the earth away. The sheer physical force looked capable of collapsing fortress walls and crushing even Transcendents to death under the water pressure alone. But everyone present knew this spell was not so simple a thing.

The River of Oblivion. Lethe.

The mystique Guinevere possessed, Oblivion, had taken the form of a river within her sanctuary. The floodwater now surging forth was essentially the core of Guinevere's Authority itself. The power of Oblivion, which swallowed whatever it touched and erased it without a trace.

"The power Transcendents fear most."

Kirchhoff drove his spear shaft into the ground.

"Stand back."

The Londinel banner tied to the tip of the Blue Spear snapped in the wind. Kirchhoff took position at the very front and set his stance. He stared straight into the oncoming flood and raised his sword.

Because the king asked me to smile.

Because the king commanded me not to bow my head.

Kirchhoff lifted his chin and showed the finest smile he could manage. He felt a pang of regret that there were no bards here to witness this moment. But it was fine. Even without bards, there were those watching.

"The lord of Londinel, Her Highness Yuria, has a message for you. Guinevere."

The floodwater came. The same flood that had once taken everything from Kirchhoff was coming again. Back then, he had been forced to turn his back and flee. That was when he lost his lord, his teacher, and beyond that, his nation.

Three hundred years had passed since then.

Three hundred years later, Kirchhoff stood here again. He opened his mouth and shouted his sovereign's words.

"Londinel does not flee!"

He would not flee anymore.

"We never retreat. When the threat of destruction bears down on us, Londinel must be the ship that sails against it."

The light of the Grand Culmination star scattered and spread. The scattering starlight took the shape of Londinel. The citizens of a nation made of starlight watched over Kirchhoff.

"Then there is no reason I cannot push back against a flood like this."

Grinning, Kirchhoff stamped his foot down. He planted it deep into the ground and began swinging his sword.

Chaaaaaaaaash!

The current churned. With every swing, droplets of water scattered into the air. Blue petals bloomed in full, and even as the floodwater swept them away, they did not wilt. They kept blooming. Kirchhoff swung and swung again.

The blade split the current. Fighting up against the raging water, he forced a reverse flow into existence. Even as the River of Oblivion wore away at his body, he did not lose his smile. There was nothing left to fear.

Into the flow Kirchhoff carved open, Anton's sword energy joined, then Lapis's magic, Rena's support, Roselin's echo. Merlin gathered them all into one and opened a path.

"......"

And someone who had finished preparing to run that path was there.

Rustle.

She gathered her white hair, which had come loose at some point, and tied it down in a single tail. A greatsword longer than she was tall hung at her side as she let out a long, slow breath. The breath that escaped between her faintly red lips was hot.

Crack. She seized the sword.

Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik!

A Sword Cry that resembled a human scream echoed out. She was ready. The moment that sound rang out, Kirchhoff swung his sword wide. Chaaaaaash, the current split. A path appeared, just for an instant.

Tap.

She kicked off the ground. The step she launched into was light. Light meant fast. White hair streamed behind her. She became a single gust of wind and sprinted.

Yuel Razian ran.

The closer she drew to Guinevere, the more the power of Oblivion amplified. Space itself seemed to warp, and the floodwater rose fast. The rising water battered her body, but she did not care.

Of everyone here, the strongest resistance to Oblivion belonged to Yuel Razian. She had been an apostle of the Star of Omniscience, then its master, and she had also been a contractor and apostle of the Star of Oblivion.

Above all else.

She was no longer afraid of forgetting.

Tap.

Yuel Razian the executioner of the order, Yuel the warden of the Sealed City, ran. The one holding the reins of this body right now was the executioner. All the warden had claimed was a single eye.

"I'll be watching."

'I'll make the cut.'

The distance closed. Guinevere came into view. She was staring at Yuel with wide eyes. Meeting that gaze, Yuel let her mind drift back to the past.

"Make a bet with me."

"I'll help you."

"I'll help you forget your memories and become human, help you bury the Blight Star in this land. In return, you will have to prove something to me."

A conversation and a wager made with the Star of Oblivion.

When Yuel had asked what she needed to prove, the Star of Oblivion had answered.

"Whether you can lose all your memories and still be happy."

"Whether you can live without grieving for a lost past, without regret, looking only toward the future with joy."

That was what she said Yuel would have to prove.

"I hope you find happiness."

That wager in mind, Yuel blinked. Her eyes were as clear as ever. Empty, no emotion behind them-the eyes of a doll.

If she had never met him. If it had not been him. If there had been no promise. If that had never happened. If even one piece of the countless fragments that had stacked up were missing.

Yuel would still be empty.

But the Yuel who had built all of those things into who she was now, that was a different story. The clear eyes that had been empty shone. She smiled, even if the gesture was still clumsy. The smile was awkward. But it was not forced.

"Yes."

The doll that had felt nothing spoke.

"I lost my memories, but I have no regrets."

One step toward the being who had been like a mother handing her a new life, and Yuel swung her sword.

"Right now, I am happy."

That was the answer Yuel Razian gave to the Star of Oblivion. Guinevere's face shifted into something complicated, as if she did not know what expression to make. But in the final moment, she smiled.

Thank goodness.

Guinevere gave a willing smile to the successor who had come back with a different answer than her own. Cutting through the surging River of Oblivion, Yuel's sword came down toward Guinevere.

Like a guillotine passing judgment on a sinner.

3.

The distant past.

"You're asking how to strengthen a star?"

"Yes, Merlin."

"You could connect several stars that share the same concept, or take an identical star from someone else or have one transferred to you. But why are you asking?"

"I thought it might help the king, even a little."

Lancelot had asked Merlin.

What was the method for strengthening a star.

"Then is it possible to transfer my own star to someone else?"

"It's not easy, but it is possible, when the star in question shares an identical concept. I've done more taking than receiving transfers myself, so I can't say for certain, but there are a few recorded cases."

"What cases?"

"What was it... there was one woman who spent decades carefully shaving away a star, just to hand it to the son she believed would someday come find her... do you want me to look up the records?"

"I would appreciate that."

Lancelot settled into a chair as Merlin turned and went digging through the archive. She came back carrying a few books and tilted her head at him.

"What, are you thinking of shaving down a star for Arthur?"

"No. It's purely a hypothetical."

Lancelot let out a small laugh.

"The king gained stars by conquering tombs of stars. Watching that, it occurred to me that it might be possible to deliberately build one for him."

"Excuse me?"

"Listen carefully, Merlin."

Like a boy talking about some impossible, beautiful dream, Lancelot grinned and began.

"You pick a theme. You build a maze, a set of trials, that can only be passed by someone who has that theme engraved on their heart. And at the end of those trials, a final battle against the master waiting in the tomb. Design a star's tomb with that kind of structure."

Lancelot spread his arms wide as he talked.

"Of course, every trial in it has to feel real. No-not feel real. It has to be real. Trials where you might actually die, where you face a genuine crisis, where you have to throw your life on the line. Go through enough of those and a star will naturally form."

"Well... if you're facing trials all unified under one theme, I suppose it would."

"Right. And only then does the final trial carry real meaning. There is nothing more valuable than a duel against someone who holds the same conviction."

Conviction is like heated iron, the more you beat it, the harder it becomes. There was warmth in Lancelot's voice as he said it. It was a rare thing to see, so Merlin crossed her arms and listened.

"Hmm. And then?"

"Two beings who hold exactly the same star face each other. The final trial is to defeat the other. One breaking the other is the proof."

"And after that?"

"The master of the tomb acknowledges the challenger. And passes their star on to them. When that happens... wouldn't a tremendously powerful star come into being? More solid than anything that could be compared to other stars."

At the sight of Lancelot so animated, Merlin laughed despite herself.

"In theory, it makes sense. Why? Are you actually thinking of building a tomb for Arthur? And who would you get to be the master?"

"Obviously, me."

"Oh, wonderful. You'd fall far short of being a proper trial for Arthur. Now Siegfried, maybe."

Lancelot laughed. That's certainly true.

"Still... you never know, do you."

Could even someone like me be of use to him.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried