WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 394

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Merlin (5)

The Eternal City crumbled.

She had finally woken from a dream she had believed would last forever, and she no longer needed to dream at all.

"......"

Najin watched the city fall without a word. Merlin was not beside him. She would be waiting outside the dream. He let out a slow breath.

One story was ending.

Before the curtain came down to close it out, Najin lingered in the quiet stretch just before waking. He liked this part. He turned the experience over in his mind and asked himself a question.

'Any regrets?'

None. He was certain he had made a choice he would not regret.

'And the cost?'

The risk that Merlin could become a Blight Star at any moment, and that when that moment came, not only Merlin but he himself would be swallowed by it. From the outside, it was a situation with nothing but losses.

Both Merlin and Najin would be carrying that risk.

The reward for shouldering it was simple.

She would not die. Merlin would recover the half of herself she had lost. And through that, they would earn the right to reach a happy ending where no one died and no one grieved.

"That's enough."

The words slipped out before he meant them to. It was enough, plenty, for a reward worth carrying a risk like that. He smiled to himself and asked one final question.

'Was it the right choice?'

Before he could answer, Najin looked up at the sky.

Merlin's stars were shining there.

A constellation of twelve, not eleven. Her newly appeared twelfth star gave off no light. Not platinum, not black, not dark red. It sat with its light extinguished, waiting for the day it would shine again.

That was because his and Merlin's constellations were holding it down.

But they could not hold it down forever. Someday the Terminus Star would shine again. And when that day came, Najin had no way of knowing what color it would be. He only hoped it would be platinum.

'For that to happen......'

He would have to work for it.

The future was unknowable. Because it was unknowable, he had to give everything he had to reach the outcome he wanted. That was the only way he could face it without regret.

Fwsh.

The dream collapsed completely. The crumbling Eternal City scattered like snow. Platinum-colored flakes drifted through the air, and Najin took a step forward.

Tap.

And there, as always.

"You're back?"

She was waiting for him. Merlin sat perched on a rock, her blue hair hanging loose, and tilted her head slightly.

"I've been waiting."

A thousand years, and perhaps forever after.

After waiting that long and reclaiming everything, Merlin smiled. It was a beautiful smile, fairy-like, and yet somewhere in it was a certain endearing awkwardness. Najin smiled back and nodded.

"Feels like I just woke from a dream."

"Yeah? What kind of dream?"

"An adventure with a fairy."

Is that so, she said, tilting her head, and then a mischievous smile crept onto her face.

"Well, I am fairy-level beautiful."

"Can't really argue with that."

"True... wait. Hold on, what did you just say?"

Merlin's eyes went wide.

She looked genuinely caught off guard that he had agreed, flustered in a way she could not hide. Najin shrugged and started walking, letting her calls to repeat himself wash right past him.

And just as always.

Grumbling the whole way, Merlin fell into step beside him. Not trailing behind, not walking ahead. Side by side, looking at the same scenery, the two of them walked.

"No regrets?"

Instead of answering, Najin held out his hand. Merlin hesitated, then carefully took it. She slipped her fingers between his, lacing them together, and let her head dip slightly.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

The Eternal City became snow and drifted around them. Through platinum starlight, the two walked in silence for a while.

2.

Several things changed about Merlin.

If you asked for the most noticeable ones, the first was her appearance. When the half that had been separated rejoined her, her looks changed too.

Something that looked half fairy, half human.

Caught between unfinished and complete, suspended in the in-between. One day she ran her fingers through her hair, which had grown longer, and put a question to Najin.

"Which do you like better?"

"What?"

"Human me versus fairy me. Which one. I can go either way."

She snapped her fingers.

"The one who traveled with you all that time, the one who could smile with pure joy because she kept all her darker feelings buried. The version you know best?"

She shifted into that familiar shape and smiled. She smoothed her short hair with one hand, then snapped her fingers again.

"Or this one, a bit of a handful, a little dark and self-destructive, but that much more obsessed with you?"

She gestured at her longer hair, at the more mature figure she wore now, and tilted her head.

"Which do you prefer?"

Najin was tending the campfire. He glanced at her once and answered shortly.

"Either way, it's still Merlin."

"Right?"

"Then both are fine."

"What?"

"There's no need to pick. Isn't the way you looked after coming out of the Eternal City the most comfortable for you? Neither one thing nor the other."

"That is the most comfortable, honestly."

Is that right, Najin said lightly.

"Then I like that one best too."

"......"

Merlin turned the word over on her lips. Like.

"You should really be more careful."

"Feels like I've been hearing that a lot lately......"

"Be careful."

"I'm not sure what exactly I'm supposed to be careful about, but I'll try."

That was the first thing.

The second change was in her personality. Nothing dramatically different from the Merlin Najin had known, but she was more honest than before. In the past she would go silent from embarrassment, unable to say what she meant. Now she still got embarrassed, but she said it anyway.

"H-hey. That thing I said. At the end."

"The end?"

"You know. That."

"Oh, the confession......"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Merlin let out a shriek and slapped her hand over his mouth. Her face had gone completely red, her eyes spinning. Pressing her palm against his lips, she worked to get her breathing under control.

"O-okay. First, forget that. No, don't forget it. Keep remembering it, just don't bring it up in front of me."

He had no idea which one she wanted.

"Here's the thing, back then I'd already made up my mind to die, and I figured it was going to be the last moment anyway, so what did it matter? That's why I said everything, things I should have said and things I probably shouldn't have. So......"

Merlin fidgeted with her hands.

"I'm going to do it properly. So wait until then."

She did not deny it, different from how she would have acted before, when embarrassment alone would have made her take it all back. She was being a little more honest with herself. Not a bad change, Najin thought.

"And the most important thing."

She lifted her hand from his mouth and started easing away. She looked down at herself and curled in slightly, self-conscious for no clear reason.

"......Forget what you saw."

"What? What did I see?"

"Just forget it."

"No, but what am I even supposed to...?"

The memory surfaced in her mind: traveling with Najin inside the dream, the two of them living together, her tossing her clothes aside without a second thought. Merlin's ears went scarlet.

"Just forget it, I said! Something like that, when it happens again, I'll set the mood properly first, so just pretend it never happened for now!"

What exactly she planned to show him again, he had no idea.

He could not make heads or tails of it, but at this rate the conversation was never going to end, so Najin gave in and nodded.

Things like that happened.

There were other changes too. The distance between them had closed. She reached for his hand at the slightest excuse. She laughed more often. The Blue Knot that had been tied at her waist had moved to her neck, and its other end had come to be tied around one of Najin's fingers......

Many things had changed.

Even so, Merlin had not become unrecognizable. She was still Merlin. She was still Najin's Companion, and she was still his guide.

"So, Merlin."

"Yeah."

"Shall we go? To the next destination."

"Yeah. And the next destination is......"

She was Najin's guide.

3.

Before leaving for the next destination, Najin and Merlin stopped somewhere else for a time. Not the Outland, but a place on the continent.

The Lykal Mountain Range, where snow fell in every season.

A thousand years ago it had been called the Barkilid Mountain Range. Side-by-side footprints appeared in the white snow field spread out before them.

"You figured it out, it seems."

"You mean that the journey we took inside the dream was based on the search for Parshi's legacy?"

"Yeah. When did you realize?"

"The moment the words treasure hunt came up. And then the name Barkilid Mountain Range confirmed it."

The adventure Najin had shared with the fairy Merlin inside the dream.

The scenario of finding the legendary adventurer Derrick's Treasure Vault hidden in the Barkilid Mountain Range. That scenario had been drawn from the adventure Merlin said she remembered most fondly.

The search for Parshi's legacy.

It was a story from before Merlin had become a Transcendent, before she had earned her first proper star. That adventure had ended at a great snow-covered mountain range.

"We went through every hardship you can imagine to get here. When I found the ancient city hidden in the mountains, I remember shouting, 'See, it's actually real!'"

The ancient city hidden in the mountains.

In the past it had not been buried under snow, just an ordinary city where ordinary people lived. The reason the treasure map pointed here was nothing especially remarkable.

"But I found out later this was just Parshi's hometown. The place where he was born and raised."

Merlin walked through the snow-covered city.

"He hid a treasure in his parents' house. And what was that treasure? You know."

"There was a letter saying that the adventure you went through to get here is the real treasure. Something ridiculous like that."

"Yeah. I was so let down."

She made her way to the spot where she had found Parshi's treasure box long ago. There, wrapped in several layers of preservation magic, a single letter was waiting.

"So I played the exact same trick."

Merlin unfolded it.

Fwp.

A letter her past self, her self from a thousand years ago, had hidden there. A letter left by the her who had only just set out on her journey. She read the single line written on it aloud.

"The adventure you lived through is the real treasure!"

One line written in imitation of Parshi's words.

Having delivered it with full dramatic flair, Merlin burst out laughing. As though this moment delighted her, as though she could not have been happier, she laughed.

"It really is. A treasure."

Still laughing, she talked through the adventure she and Najin had shared, you did it that way that one time, and that other thing went like this. The two of them stood in the snowy mountains and talked for a long while.

"Merlin."

At some point, Najin asked her something.

"Right now, are you happy?"

In answer, Merlin lifted their joined hands into view. She swung them back and forth and smiled.

"Yeah!"

It was different from the smiles she had shown him inside the dream.

A smile born of genuine joy, of joy she could not contain. It was exactly the kind of smile that belonged at the end of a happy ending.

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