WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 406

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Interlude, Tea Party (2)

"There's such a thing as karma in this world, kid."

When Najin was young, Ivan had said something like that to him. Whenever Ivan nursed a drink, he would pull Najin down beside him and ramble on about all manner of useless things, and karma was one of his favorite topics.

"What is karma, you ask? It means the sins you pile up through your actions and words will come back around to you someday......"

Ivan puffed out a long breath of cigarette smoke, pointed to a knife scar on his own body, and said, "Put even simpler, it means if you go around sticking people, sooner or later someone's going to stick you back. So don't rack up karma. Live decent."

"So Ivan's going to get stabbed and die, then?"

"Ahahahaha! This little brat never holds back. Yeah, I've stuck a fair few people myself, so one day some blade'll find me."

Ivan slapped Najin on the back and roared with laughter.

"Well, even so, there's a special kind of karma that beats all the rest. Sharp enough you can't dodge it no matter what."

"What kind?"

"What do you think?"

Ivan grinned and pointed to a corner of the tavern. Sitting there was one of his men, thigh wrapped in layers of bandage, wearing the expression of a man who had lost everything.

"Why are you pointing at Cedric?"

"You know his nickname?"

"Cedric the Philanderer?"

"That's the one."

Ivan nodded.

Cedric was notorious throughout the city. Word had it that even before he fell into the Underground City, he'd been stringing along noble daughters left and right, until he got caught, had a scar carved into his face, and got thrown underground.

Even after all that, old habits die hard, and Cedric had never managed to clean up his act.

"Can't change a habit. Guy made a mess of himself on the surface doing whatever he pleased, and here he is, still the same impressive idiot."

"Impressive is one word for it. So? What about Cedric?"

"That bandage on his thigh. Why do you suppose he's wearing it?"

"Did he get in a fight with the Horsay Family or something?"

"No, if that were it we'd have hit back already. They're family, someone stabs one of ours, you stab one of theirs back. That's just courtesy. If it were something normal like that I'd have stepped in myself."

The corners of Ivan's mouth twitched. Like he was barely holding in a laugh. He finally let it go, a big roaring laugh, and pointed at Cedric.

"That idiot was already seeing a girl from the tavern, but he wasn't satisfied with one, so he added a second leg, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and she found out! So in the middle of the night she came at him with a knife and said she'd cut it clean off!"

"Boss!"

"He ran around screaming until she finally got him in the thigh. Ha, damn! Would've been worth watching if she'd actually gone through with it."

Cedric let out a shriek in the background, and the assembled men burst out laughing. Najin stared at Cedric with a look of utter disbelief, and Ivan patted him on the shoulder.

"Listen up, Najin."

Ivan threw his arm around him and said:

"You've got a decent enough face on you, and a bright future ahead. If you put your mind to it, you could probably string along twice as many women as that sorry fool over there......"

Then Ivan gave him a perfectly sincere piece of advice.

"Watch out for women."

"What?"

"The scariest thing in the world is a blade that glints in bed. Remember that. You can't dodge it. You're still trying to figure out what's happening when it gets you. And you end up well and truly done for."

"...What does that even mean?"

"You'll understand when you're older."

Beside them, Offen sighed and muttered, "Really teaching the kid great things," while Ivan repeated his lesson about managing karma and watching out for women.

Young Najin, who hadn't understood any of it, had filed it away as another round of nonsense from the boss and let it go in one ear and out the other, but...

Sometimes, buried inside the drunken rambling, there is a truth that cuts straight to the heart of things.

The young Najin didn't know that yet.

2.

Why was an old memory surfacing now?

Najin tilted his head, puzzled by the sudden recollection of something Ivan had told him in childhood. It was an awfully random thing to be thinking about.

......When a person is pushed into a crisis, they instinctively search their own experience for answers. The memory that had just flashed through his mind was a clue produced by Najin's intuition as it searched, sensing danger, but Najin didn't know that.

'Looks like they've arrived.'

He had simply opened the door to his office to welcome the guests who had come to see him. And so, moments later, two women stepped inside.

"It's been a while, hasn't it? Najin."

Dieta waved at him warmly. She was smiling, as always. Her eyes were half-closed, though, making it impossible to read them properly.

"It has been a while."

Yuel greeted him next, just as expressionless as ever, though today the color of her eyes seemed to burn a little brighter red.

Thud.

The two of them settled onto the guest sofa and stared at him. The look clearly said sit down across from us, and for reasons he couldn't name, that stare sent a chill through him.

'What is this?'

Something was off. The fine hairs on his forearms were standing up. He brushed his arm absently. He was in the heart of the Empire, why did he feel like he was standing on a battlefield? His instincts must have truly gone haywire.

Shrieeeeeeeee!

His intuition screamed at him without pause, trying to save him, but Najin ignored it and greeted the two of them pleasantly.

"Yes, it has been a while. What brings you here today?"

They were both the kind of people who could bypass the usual procedures and visit the Dawning Tower directly, but they weren't the sort to drop by without any notice at all.

'If they came this suddenly......'

Something very important must have brought them here. That was what Najin thought as he looked at them, and then,

"We just came."

Dieta smiled brightly and answered.

"Pardon?"

"We just came. Just that. Wanted to see your face, so we came on a whim. Is that not good enough?"

There was an edge to her voice.

Najin slowly nodded.

"There's nothing wrong with that. And Yuel?"

"Me too, I was going to say the same thing... Hm? You want to take over, just 30 seconds, ah, yes. That's fine."

Yuel had been speaking to Najin when she suddenly turned to look at empty space and began murmuring to herself. After a moment she closed her eyes. The instant they opened again, something about her changed entirely.

"Huu......"

Exhaling a long breath, Yuel tugged at her collar. The sharp lines of her Sacred Blood Church uniform crumpled, and she yanked her necktie loose until it hung slack, then tilted her head roughly thirty degrees.

A distinctly lopsided posture. Even Dieta, sitting right beside her, blinked at the sight, apparently seeing this for the first time. Her expression was the face of someone about to ask, who are you, exactly?

"What the hell."

The shock didn't end there. Yuel's face scrunched as if she'd bitten into a mouthful of bugs, and she swore. Dieta's eyes went wide. Yuel paid the reaction no mind and fixed her gaze on Najin, smiling.

"Najin. As you know, I don't particularly enjoy taking control of the body. Because Razian has her own life to lead."

So, she said, and her eyes went sharp.

"I'll be brief."

Her red eyes gleamed. It was the look of the Warden of the Sealed City reading verdicts to the condemned. This was no courtroom, but Najin nearly felt as though he were standing in the middle of one.

"From this point on, you will choose each word you speak with great care. Everything you say in this room will be used against you at sentencing, you have no right to remain silent, and......"

A declaration that made a complete mockery of the Empire's procedural law went on for some time. When she finished, Yuel stuck out her tongue. She pointed to the deep red surface of it and smiled.

"This."

Explain yourself.

Carefully.

In a way that satisfies me.

"That is all."

She closed her eyes again. When Razian opened them, she nodded. Her own words were no different.

"So she says. Explain yourself. Najin."

"...Explain? Explain what?"

"Najin, my other self says, 'Oh, my. Don't play dumb. Do you genuinely wish to have your tongue cut out?'"

If you fail to explain, you die.

"Najin."

Dieta had gone quiet from the shock of it all, but she finally spoke. She smiled sweetly.

"Do you remember what I said to you? When I confessed."

"I remember."

I don't need to be your first. But if you ever come to like someone, you have to tell me without fail. Dieta had said that during her confession.

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Pardon?"

"If you and Merlin had become a couple, you should have told me. Wasn't that the promise between us? And if it was a promise, shouldn't you keep it, Najin?"

Najin had trouble following the conversation. What was this about? He and Merlin were a couple?

"No, that's completely unfounded......"

"So you're saying you swapped tongues with someone you're not even seeing? My other self says to tell you she cannot believe you, you faithless piece of work."

"Go on. Najin."

Najin shut his mouth at once. He had to choose his words carefully. That much he felt clearly. The intuition that had been screaming at him nonstop finally felt some relief that its owner was paying attention.

What should he say? Where should he go?

Najin looked to his guide for counsel. His guide, who had always shown him the way, Merlin was grinning that loose, carefree grin of hers, as though she were thinking, I'm dating him? Is that what it looks like?

"That's what they think! I guess from the outside that's how people see us. Hm, well, come to think of it!"

Merlin tugged on Najin's arm. Yuel and Dieta watched her do it, and their expressions turned several degrees colder. It seemed the guide who always pointed him toward the right answer was going to be no help at all in this particular moment.

......What was this situation?

He had no sense that he had been unfaithful. No sense that he had done anything wrong. Najin had simply given people what they needed, and behind that there had been no ulterior motive of any kind.

Yet karma has a way of working exactly like that.

It builds in places you never expect, then comes crashing down all at once. Ivan's laughter echoed in Najin's ear.

"That's why I told you to be careful, you idiot."

An invisible blade was leveled at the back of his neck.

3.

There were not many options available to Najin in a situation like this. One was to brazen it out.

'I am not seeing anyone right now. You both confessed to me unilaterally, and I never gave either of you an answer, nor did you ask me for one. Whatever I do and with whom is my own choice, not something for you to involve yourselves in.'

......That would make him a genuine piece of work.

Next.

Two: gauge the situation and talk his way around it.

How had this come about in the first place? Because of Merlin's broken sense of personal distance. Even granting that he had no romantic feelings to speak of, Najin had always kept a wall up against anyone who tried to close the gap past a certain point.

He might not feel desire or affection in that direction, but he believed there were lines that needed to be respected between people.

Najin had always held the view that doing something like that without being in a relationship brought no good to either party. It was a very sensible way of thinking, and because he had lived by it, Yuel and Dieta had never had cause to fault him.

Then what he needed to explain was simple enough.

Why had he allowed Merlin to cross that distance when no one else had, that was all he needed to address. Merlin was his guide. They had been constantly together, and if he explained the particular circumstances of Merlin's past, her unstable state, all that long history, he could persuade them.

Yuel and Dieta were not unreasonable people. If he explained that the situation had left him no real choice, they would understand and let it go.

That was the rational option.

A way to escape this situation.

"......"

A way to escape.

'Escape, hm.'

Najin turned the word over and rubbed his chin.

Yes. If he handled it that way, he could escape the situation. But what was escape, exactly? In the end it meant running away, and running away meant having to face it again someday.

And Najin didn't like running away.

Najin was a Free Knight, and a member of Atanga, the knight of knights. What was a knight? A knight did not walk away from a fight that came to them. A knight faced the enemy head-on at all times. He had lived a consistent life by that logic.

"Mm."

A true knight does not run.

Najin nodded.

"It is true that while Merlin and I are not in a relationship, I did do the sort of thing one does in a relationship."

No excuses.

The method Najin chose was the same as always.

A direct Charge.

The Breakthrough Star was wondering whether this was really the moment to shine, but Najin opened his mouth all the same.

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