WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 378

──────

Tomorrow (2)

Two crossed swords reached their destination.

That destination was, of course, the heart.

A Transcendent's core lies not in the head but in the heart. To secure a certain victory, the heart had to be pierced. And now, both swords had each fulfilled their purpose.

Thrust!

Excalibur pierced Lancelot's heart. The platinum blade punched through and emerged from his back. Najin said nothing, sword buried in Lancelot's chest.

"......"

There was nothing to say.

His own heart had not been pierced. That did not mean Najin had been faster, or that he had thrust his blade out ahead. Their speed was identical. To the very last moment, the two had been evenly matched.

Lancelot's sword had, in fact, reached Najin's heart. It simply broke at that instant.

Arondight, the Unfailing blade that could never be broken-broke. The reason was simple enough. Its owner had acknowledged his own defeat.

"Kgh, gck. Khh......"

Blood poured from Lancelot's lips. He released his broken sword. Head bowed, he reached up with bare hands and gripped Excalibur's blade where it ran through his chest.

The blood he had coughed up spilled across his hands. His palms split open on the edge, and red blood ran down Excalibur's blade.

"Ah."

Still with his head bowed, Lancelot looked at Excalibur piercing his heart.

Different.

The shape was different from the Excalibur he remembered, and the stars carved into the blade were different too. Different, and yet from the starlight flowing softly along Excalibur's edge, Lancelot felt the Round Table of the past.

'Still there. Even now.'

The stars of the Knights of the Round Table were carved into Excalibur. When Najin became its master, the old stars had been pushed to the outer edge, but they were undeniably still there.

'Bedivere, Merlin, Percival, Mordred, Gawain, Tristan, Kay, Agravain, Gareth, Palamedes.'

And.

'Lancelot, Galahad.'

Lancelot let out a quiet, dry laugh. He poured every last drop of his starlight into the star carved there with his name. Even as his palms split and his fingers were sliced away, he gripped Excalibur's blade tighter still.

Crack.

Ten of Lancelot's eleven stars crumbled to nothing.

"What are you......"

"A simple thing."

Lancelot raised his head. Eyes that held something almost like madness looked straight at Najin.

"I lost. You won."

He smiled. The blood and starlight flowing from his heart seeped into Excalibur.

"The loser loses everything, and the winner takes everything. That is the rule of a duel fought with one's life."

Having given away all his starlight, Lancelot stumbled backward. With a wet sound, the sword pulled free of his heart and blood began to pour. Even as he coughed blood, Lancelot kept his feet on the ground.

As if waiting for something.

Najin thought he understood what Lancelot was waiting for. Lancelot still saw himself as a sinner, and sinners should not be permitted a clean end like suicide.

'A sinner must be judged.'

Someone had to charge him with his crimes and pass sentence. Lancelot had spent long ages waiting for that someone to come.

And now, after a thousand years.

The judge he had waited for stood before him. Only that knight, who held Excalibur and wore the uniform of a Free Knight, could pass judgment on him. Lancelot had struggled against the death creeping up to his chin.

Because he could not die before the verdict was delivered.

"I."

Knowing that, Najin opened his mouth.

"I know now what your purpose was."

He understood.

"I know what this city was built for, what plan you had prepared, what kept you going through the last thousand years. All of it-I understand now."

He had seen Lancelot's memories. He had gathered clues while working through this sanctuary. Clashing with Galahad, fighting his duel with Lancelot, he had come to understand everything.

And so he understood Lancelot's life.

"In the end, we were looking toward the same place."

An ark to flee destruction if Najin failed. A city to remain forever in today. And yet, paradoxically, the one who had wanted tomorrow more than anyone was none other than the very man who designed that ark.

Lancelot's eleventh star, Tomorrow, was proof of that.

Najin respected the answer Lancelot had arrived at after long anguish. It was an answer that deserved respect. Yet he could not offer that respect to Lancelot himself. Understanding his choice was one thing; Najin's conclusion did not change.

"But I cannot affirm you."

Najin said it plainly.

At that, something like a smile crossed Lancelot's face for just a moment. Of course not. You must neither accept nor affirm me.

"The path you walked was wrong."

Yes.

"You walked a twisted road. Even if the answer you found at the end has worth... no, precisely because it has worth, I must charge you with your crimes."

That is your role.

"Lancelot."

Najin drew a slow breath. Calling the sinner's name, he drew up his starlight. The stars carved into Excalibur lit up one by one. As soft platinum light brightened the space around them, Najin gave the command.

"Kneel."

Lancelot went down on one knee.

As a knight kneels before their lord, he took a knee and bowed his head. The Round Table of the past willingly bowed before its rightful heir.

"Raise your head."

Lancelot looked at the sword leveled at him. From the platinum starlight spilling off that blade, from the sight of Najin holding it, Lancelot was pulled back into the past.

"Confess what crimes you have committed."

His king, merciful, and yet unyielding.

"I will hear it from your own lips."

No matter how cherished a knight, that king had never shielded anyone from judgment. If someone had sinned, he rebuked them without mercy.

"You have broken the knightly code."

The king had created the code so that knights, who carried strength beyond ordinary men, would not go astray. Those who broke it were judged, and the king served as the fence that kept the knights from straying. That was why he had been the Knight King.

"Confess what crimes you have committed."

Lancelot confessed his sins.

Without holding anything back.

He could not speak falsehood before the master of the Round Table, so he laid bare his entire thousand years. When his confession ended, the greatest of all knights spoke.

"You have broken the knightly code."

Lancelot's lips twitched. He had long since given up being a knight, and yet when the moment of judgment finally came, he was being judged as one. What a bitter joke.

"Therefore, as master of the Round Table, I pass sentence upon you."

Slowly, Lancelot raised his one remaining arm.

Ten stars had crumbled. One remained.

That last star Lancelot presented to the new master of the Round Table. Two stars bearing the same name became one. In his final moment, Lancelot looked up at Najin.

'Ah.'

The one pressing forward toward tomorrow shines. The king who had wagered everything for that light, the choice was not wrong after all. Thinking that, Lancelot watched.

The sword coming down toward him.

The verdict he had waited for, and waited for.

The sinner was sentenced to death. For a thousand years, that was the verdict he had longed for.

Of course, he knew he could not escape into death. What waited for him beyond death was hell. And it would be nothing like the hell spoken of in religion. Real, tangible punishment awaited him.

'To become part of the Holy Grail, for eternity......'

Knowing that end, Lancelot was composed. He had already made his peace with it long ago. If there was any regret, it was only one thing.

'I have burdened you with too heavy a load, Guinevere.'

He had loved her, but he had not thrown everything aside for her sake. He had already chosen where he would throw himself before he ever met her. Najin's words shouted at Galahad surfaced in his mind, and Lancelot smiled bitterly.

What a selfish, self-righteous man I was.

No life is without regret. Each person simply closes out their life in their own way. Lancelot accepted his end.

Najin swung his sword.

The sword of the Round Table cut Lancelot down.

2.

Yuel's sword cut Guinevere.

A long slash was carved across her chest. Bleeding from the deep wound, she stepped back.

The injuries stacked through battle, the exhaustion of facing two opposing Constellations at once, the shaken confidence of having control of her own sanctuary stolen and denied from within......

Multiple things came together, and the foundation of Guinevere began to tremble. When she wiped her lips with the back of her hand, dark red blood came away. She smiled, bitter. She could have held out longer if she tried, but further resistance was meaningless.

'So it's over at last, Lancelot.'

Because she could feel it. Lancelot's star falling, his existence scattering. He must have won through his defeat, and achieved what he set out to achieve.

'I'm glad, Lancelot.'

You got what you wanted.

She did not resent the lover who had left her behind. The farewell had already been said a thousand years ago, on the day this plan was set in motion.

The thousand years spent beside a Lancelot sunk in the lake of forgetting, who could not even remember her properly, had been the more painful part for her.

'I hope he was satisfied at the end.'

If you are at peace, that is enough. I wish I could have saved you the way you once saved me. Carrying that small regret, Guinevere let the strength drain from her body.

She had lived and endured for the sake of Lancelot's long-held wish. Now the meaning of her life was gone. The Constellations moved in to finish off the now-defenseless Guinevere.

Thud!

Something blocked their attacks. Guinevere, who had closed her eyes waiting for the end, blinked. When she opened them, she saw someone's back.

"......Ah."

Lancelot was there.

He stood shielding Guinevere, a buckler on his arm. The instant she saw that back, Guinevere's expression fell apart. This was Lancelot, and yet it was not Lancelot.

It was the lingering attachment Lancelot had left behind in this sanctuary, the remnant left after his existence had been broken down and drawn into the Holy Grail.

Not Lancelot the Knight of the Round Table, but simply Lancelot's soul as an individual. And that individual wanted one thing. For his final moments to be spent with her. Grasping his crumbling buckler, he stood guard over Guinevere.

Then he looked back.

Lancelot smiled at his lover. At the sight, Guinevere sank to the ground as though her legs gave out. She wept, and laughed, and her lips trembled.

"You really are something."

Guinevere took one step toward Lancelot, who knelt on one knee guarding her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into an embrace from behind.

"It's all right, Lancelot."

She whispered in his ear.

"It's over now. I'm all right, Lancelot. This is enough. Yes, this is enough for me."

Lancelot's presence began to fade. Guinevere's presence began to fade too. If you fall into hell, I'll fall with you. The promise exchanged on that day, Guinevere kept it.

Her soul started to crumble.

In her last moment she looked at the people gathered there. One who had overcome forgetting. One who had proved that even forgetting everything, happiness was possible. Successors who, unlike herself and Lancelot, had overcome their tragic endings.

A gift, that child had said, hadn't they?

A child who cannot be cruel.

She did not dodge the sword aura Kirchhoff and Yuel unleashed. Together with Lancelot, she was swept up in it. Both existences were consumed by the sword aura together.

In their final moment, at least, the two of them were together.

3.

The master of the sanctuary had met death. Lancelot, the guardian who had maintained the sanctuary, had also met death. Ordinarily this should have caused the sanctuary to collapse, but......

The City of Forgetting did not collapse.

The reason needed no searching. Where Guinevere and Lancelot had vanished, a single object that had fallen from Guinevere's arms explained everything.

It was the Sacred Object left behind by a dying Constellation.

And it was a Sacred Relic made of stars.

Merlin picked up the Sacred Relic lying there. She knew what this was, shaped so closely like a drinking cup.

"......The Holy Grail."

The Holy Grail that Galahad had reportedly obtained at the end of his search.

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