WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 396

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Interlude, Question (2)

Was King Arthur a woman?

It was a question Najin had never once thought to ask. Portraits and statues throughout the Empire had always depicted Arthur as male. Not exactly muscular or rugged-looking, but male nonetheless.

On top of that, Najin had glimpsed Arthur through Lancelot's eyes during his memory-viewing, and once from Arthur's own perspective.

What had Arthur looked like then? Different from the figure described in imperial history.

The voice was androgynous. It could have belonged to either sex without seeming wrong, and the appearance matched it. The Arthur in those dreams had carried a strange quality that made the very act of assigning a gender feel pointless.

So at the time, Najin had not given it much thought. Arthur simply looked a little different from what he had imagined, nothing that truly departed from his existing understanding.

The first real doubt took root when.

"Who are you?"

"A ghost."

He met a certain woman in the Eternal City, one who introduced herself as a ghost. Her voice stirred a sense of déjà vu in him.

"Oh, certainly. You could even say inevitably."

"It just won't be today."

A voice full of conviction. Words delivered with weight. Light, yet impossible to brush aside-a strangely compelling voice. Najin had heard one like it before.

From Arthur in the dream.

From Arthur trading riddles with Lancelot.

He felt it in his gut: the woman he had encountered there was none other than Arthur, or at the very least someone modeled after Arthur. Going back to the historical texts with that assumption in mind, he found one oddity after another.

Nowhere.

Not a single source specified Arthur's gender. Arthur was always referred to as Arthur, King Arthur, the Great Hero, the Knight King. No pronoun pointing to he or she was ever used.

He had never thought to question it before, but once the question surfaced, the loose threads were everywhere.

"Was King Arthur a woman?"

And so now.

The moment Najin asked, Bedivere's face creased with something like discomfort, and Merlin tilted her head.

"Neither a woman nor a man, really. That was Arthur."

"Pardon?"

Merlin, seated beside him, spoke.

"Arthur was just Arthur. How to put it? Trying to assign a gender felt meaningless. A woman from one angle, a man from another..."

She trailed off, as if the words were hard to pin down. She collected her thoughts for a moment, then continued.

"Arthur had a star called Idol among those stars. You know the phrase idol worship? Same word. After gaining the Star of Idol, gender simply stopped meaning anything for Arthur."

Idol. An object of worship.

Or an artificially fashioned image of a god.

"At that time, Arthur was humanity's last hope. A light still burning in a world that had nearly gone dark entirely."

Nine-tenths of the continent had been swallowed by the Witch of the Abyss. Every star had been buried under darkness, and in a world filled with nothing but shadow, Arthur alone raised a lantern.

"The only light shining in the dark, to ordinary people, Arthur must have looked like a god. Quite a few people genuinely worshipped Arthur back then."

Every religious order that exists today had its origins in that era, Merlin said.

"And as religious doctrine tends to go, gods are beyond gender. It comes down to interpretation. Arthur's attitude was that it didn't matter how others saw them, so long as it brought those people comfort and hope."

Assigning a gender was meaningless.

Because either was possible.

The Star of Idol was partly responsible for that, Merlin explained, it made Arthur appear differently depending on who was looking.

"The Star of Idol no doubt played its part, but... His Majesty was simply like that by nature. Detached from the mundane world, transcendent somehow. Perhaps that is precisely why he was able to obtain the Star of Idol."

Bedivere added his own words.

"Still, thinking back to the early days of the journey, before the Star of Idol was obtained... you are correct, Najin."

Merlin nodded as well.

"Arthur was a woman at the start, wasn't she? Though even then she went around so casually that Bedivere later went wide-eyed and yelped, 'Wait, you were a woman?!' "

Bedivere looked away with a slightly sheepish expression. Embarrassed by that rough-edged, undignified stretch of his past, he moved the conversation along quickly.

"Toward the later years, most people either regarded his Majesty as male or simply as a being beyond gender, one to be revered rather than categorized. There was, however, exactly one exception."

Who was that exception?

Bedivere answered.

"Siegfried."

He smiled, a bitter curve of the lips.

"He kept confessing his feelings to his Majesty until the very end, and charged all the way to Camlann for it."

2.

"The first Sword Saint, confessing to King Arthur?"

"Yes. Siegfried would always mock the rest of us, saying, 'These idiots must be blind. How does that look like a man to anyone? Are your eyes purely decorative?' "

More rough-tongued than expected. That was Najin's thought, while Merlin laughed in disbelief.

"Arthur refused him over and over and he still kept at it, didn't he? Just counting the times I personally witnessed, it was over thirty."

"I counted forty-seven, myself."

"He was persistent."

"At some point, his Majesty grew so tired of refusing that she said, 'Bring me the head of the Witch of the Abyss and I will consider it,' at which point Siegfried genuinely leaped straight into the Abyss."

That part had never appeared in the Chronicles of Arthur. In those pages, Siegfried and Arthur were depicted more as rivals than anything else.

"So then."

Bedivere looked at Najin.

"Is there something weighing on you?"

Najin glanced at Merlin. She had seen the same thing in that place. Merlin let out a short breath and nodded.

"The thing is..."

Najin and Merlin described the figure they had encountered in the Eternal City, the one they believed to be Arthur. As the account drew to a close, Bedivere wore a deliberately grave expression.

"Merlin. What do you make of it?"

"Going purely by appearance, it's identical to Arthur. And what was hanging at the waist was the same as Excalibur."

"If you say so, there is no room for doubt. But his Majesty..."

"I know. That she's dead."

Both Merlin and Bedivere looked grim. Merlin stared at the binding seal holding Camlann in place as she spoke.

"If Arthur were alive, there's no way that seal would still be holding. It was made by offering everything: Arthur's star, soul, and the very foundation of her existence."

The seal itself was a miracle. It was impossible for someone who had already been spent as the price of that miracle to return to life.

"And if Arthur were truly alive..."

Merlin's voice went cold.

"There would be no reason not to come find us, and no way she would have stood by while the Round Table fell apart."

Bedivere was silent.

His own thoughts ran along the same lines. Even granting that toward the end of the journey the king's actions had grown difficult to read, the king was not the sort of person to abandon companions so coldly.

"If that truly were Arthur, she would have come to us. The fact that she didn't means either there's a reason for it, or... that it's someone who only resembles Arthur-a different being entirely."

Merlin leaned toward the latter.

"You said they told you that you would meet again someday?"

Najin nodded.

Merlin exhaled.

"If, just if... that really is Arthur, then there's something I'd want to ask."

She looked toward the Round Table, her gaze troubled.

"Why she left alone, without a word to anyone."

3.

Shocking as everything he had heard was, the identity of the platinum-haired woman remained an unsolved mystery. She had left him nothing but a promise that they would meet again, without even a hint of when.

In the meantime, Najin stood watch at the Boundary Line of Camlann, dealt with the cursed things that crossed over, received training from Bedivere, and steadily built up his knowledge of Camlann.

He was making solid, reliable progress when.

Najin had a dream.

It was a dream connected to Arthur, one of Arthur's memories. Why these dreams kept coming to him he still could not say, but Arthur's memories had a way of delivering useful information.

"Like with Lancelot and Guinevere."

Najin frowned while still inside it. The moment he woke, he pressed the heel of his hand hard against his eyes. So this is what you meant by meeting again someday.

It seemed it would not be a matter of the other side coming to him. He would have to go find them himself.

"What shall we name the order?"

"Let me think."

In the dream, Arthur had said this to a certain priest.

"Star Body, the Sacred Body Church would suit it well."

A clue lay there.

* * *

Lately, the Star Incarnation had been enjoying every single day.

It was because she had made a new friend, and the fact that this friend happened to be the wealthiest person in the Empire made her even happier.

"Star Incarnation-nim, the Duke Hwaan has sent another gift. Shall I bring it in?"

"Again? Didn't we just receive one last week?"

Grinning, the Star Incarnation tore open the package. Inside was an assortment of luxury goods and premium confections. She immediately reached for paper and began writing Dieta a thank-you letter in her own hand.

She had a deep loathing for drafting official documents and writing in general, but right now she could pen every word with a happy smile.

"Glad I worked hard back then."

If she had to name the single best decision of her life, it was joining the La Mancha campaign. It had been grueling, but thanks to the person the esteemed Sir Najin had introduced to her during that time, she was having this much fun now.

A very wise investment.

The wealthiest person in the Empire, the chairman of the great trading house whose grip covered the distribution networks of the entire continent, and one of the Empire's pillars: Duke Hwaan, Dieta Arbenia.

The Star Incarnation had become close friends with her.

Both sides gained something from the relationship.

The Sacred Body Church lent Dieta its influence, and Dieta became a superb investor for the Sacred Body Church.

The Sacred Body Church had always consumed enormous sums to maintain and operate, yet the return on that investment was not particularly impressive compared to what it cost, what you might call a "poor-value" proposition.

It lacked the prestige of the Starlight Sect and did not carry the overwhelming military character of the Sacred Blood Church either. Its middling position meant the prevailing opinion was: "Why put money into the Sacred Body Church when you could just invest in the Sacred Blood Church instead?"

That was the view of ordinary people, of course.

From Dieta's perspective, someone with wealth to spare who could afford to ignore the question of cost-efficiency, it was not a bad investment at all. It was a chance to get her hands on one of the three great orders of the continent, well, two now.

"Ah, life!"

Either way, the Star Incarnation was happy. She nibbled at her sweets and sprawled across the sofa, rolling around lazily.

Lately, ever since the death of the Carnival King, hadn't the continent been more peaceful than it had ever been? The demons weren't causing trouble, and the Inverse Stars had retreated deep into the Outland, keeping a wary eye on the Dawning Star.

No work coming in, but investments kept flowing.

Hoping these days of ease and plenty would go on forever, the Star Incarnation crunched away at her snacks.

"Star Incarnation-nim."

Then.

"There is, um, a visitor."

"I want to rest today. Send them away."

"The thing is..."

The priest was sweating profusely.

"The Dawn Horn has come to call."

At that name, the Star Incarnation's spine went rigid.

What. The Dawn Horn?

As it happened, the previous La Mancha journey had left the Star Incarnation with a brand-new trauma. The horrifying memory of being tied up and hurled at a sky whale, several strands of her hair ending up in the creature's mouth.

"N-n-n-nobody's home! Tell him I'm not here. Hurry!"

The Star Incarnation shrieked.

"Oh, there you are."

It was not much of a resistance.

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