I Pulled Out the Excalibur - Chapter 408

WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 408

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Land of the Abyss (1)

No one knows when or where it began.

It had always been there.

Hundreds of years ago, a thousand years ago, ten thousand years ago when that same millennium had repeated itself ten times over... from an antiquity difficult even to imagine, it had been rooted in that place.

A land planted at the edge of the world.

Where those who fall without end come to rest.

What countless religions call hell.

"The Land of the Abyss."

The Land of the Abyss, Camlann.

That is what this place is called. As mentioned before, Camlann is a land that has existed for tens of thousands of years or more, and when one considers the history of humanity, there is something deeply unsettling about that fact.

The history of humanity that survives today is, in essence, the history of the Empire. The Empire's history began a thousand years ago, and before that, not a single record remains.

History from before King Arthur founded the British Empire is classified as ancient history and does survive in fragments, but even that amounts to barely a decade's worth of records. Everything further back was burned away by the Witch of the Abyss.

History, consumed by fire.

So how does humanity know? How did people come to learn that the Land of the Abyss had existed for tens of thousands of years or more?

"Traces."

A certain Transcendent had an answer.

Traces remained, he said.

Originally an explorer, he had not stopped exploring after becoming a Transcendent. He had wandered every corner of the Outland, and when historians pressed him with their questions, this is what he told them.

"Wander the Outland long enough and you will find a number of unusual ruins. The architectural style does not belong to any period of recorded human history. There are places where ruins remain that were clearly built well over a thousand years ago."

Like something a beast had swallowed and failed to fully digest before spitting back out, ruins melted and smeared with soot.

"Explore those ruins and you will find what appear to be murals. Whatever they were meant to depict..."

The Transcendent shared the images.

A black wave surging forward. From the wave, hands burst out, and teeth burst out. What took shape was a picture of the wave chewing people alive.

And at the crest of that wave stood a woman.

A woman whose mouth was torn open in a grin. Thirteen dark-red stars rose behind her, which made guessing her identity no great difficulty.

"The Witch of the Abyss."

In ruins believed to have been built thousands of years before the present era, in ruins ten thousand years old, in ruins older still, similar images appeared.

And in one ruin, the oldest of them all:

"■■■ ■ ■■ ■■, ■■."

A single line of text, obscured by soot. When someone possessed of mystique restored it, humanity came face to face with words left behind by an ancient hand.

"An inevitable descent, the Abyss."

Because it cannot be resisted, it can only be accepted.

Narak.

That is why it is called the Abyss. When it comes, humanity has no choice but to meet its inevitable descent. The mural on which those words were carved showed people falling into a vast pit below.

Falling, and falling again.

Countless people plunged into the pit. They fell toward a place where no end could be seen.

"So this is that place."

Najin looked ahead.

Walk far enough along the Boundary Line of the Abyss and you will encounter an enormous pit. A pit with no visible bottom. In that space where only pure black darkness dwelt...

Creeak. Creeeak. Creeeak.

There were those climbing up the walls. They reached their hands toward the sky, making grotesque sounds as they climbed.

Beings who had once been human, now fallen.

Unable to remember who they had once been, unable even to hold their original shape,and yet they still had fingers. No, perhaps "had fingers" was not quite right.

Only their fingers remained.

They climbed the cliff face with nothing but their fingers. Dripping black filth, they scaled the rock.

Up and up and up they went.

But they never escaped the pit. At the edge of the cliff, they fell again. They reached for the stars and never touched them.

'Tens of millions. Hundreds of millions.'

Beings like that, easily numbering in the hundreds of millions. It was as if someone had thrown an entire nation into that pit.

"......"

Najin watched for a time as the nameless nation swallowed by the Abyss met its end, then moved on. He felt no fresh shock, no nausea rising in his gut. This was a common sight along the Boundary Line of the Abyss.

Several months as a warden stationed at the line.

It was a view he had long since grown used to.

After visiting the Eternal City, Najin had spent most of his time at the Boundary Line of the Abyss. He hunted those who crossed the barrier and studied knowledge of the Abyss under Bedivere's instruction, preparing himself for the journey ahead.

Months had passed since then.

Najin was gradually developing a feel for what the Abyss was. He adapted quickly no matter what environment he was thrown into, but even for him, it had taken months just to dimly grasp Camlann.

"Because basic common sense simply does not apply here."

"That really is the biggest problem."

Najin nodded at Merlin's words.

"Near-immortality is a given here, same as the Outland, but here it's more like... how do I put it..."

Crunch. He crushed a demon beast underfoot that had crossed the Boundary Line and kept talking.

"Stubborn. Horrifyingly so."

On the Continent, a beheaded enemy died. A stabbed enemy died. An enemy that bled too much died. The Continent ran on thoroughly ordinary logic.

Step beyond its borders into the Outland?

In the Outland, you could not easily kill anyone. Beheading or hacking away with a blade was not enough. No matter how much blood someone lost, it was common for them not to die but to become one of the dead instead.

To kill someone in the Outland, you had to shatter their heart, crush them with a difference in rank, or go further and deny the very concept that defined them.

Killing a Constellation meant exactly that.

So what about Camlann?

"......"

What was it like in the Abyss?

Najin looked at the demon beast pinned under his foot. He had severed its head. He had shattered what appeared to be its core, the organ that functioned like a heart. Even so, the demon beast did not die. It was still alive.

It simply would not die.

More precisely, it was closer to a state in which death was not permitted. A curse, Najin muttered. Those who belonged to the Abyss seemed unable to choose even death by their own will.

'Death requires the Witch's permission.'

Even this small demon beast that belonged to the Abyss was no different. Without the Witch's permission, it revived endlessly. The only way to kill the cursed ones of the Abyss was to sever that connection.

Over the past several months, Najin had been learning how to do exactly that.

Shhk.

He swung his sword lightly, severed the connection, and the demon beast dissolved back into black filth and ran down with a wet slap.

"Hnn."

Najin exhaled briefly and surveyed his surroundings. The whole area was stained with black filth. And that stain had spread wider than yesterday, wider than the day before.

......More and more were crossing the Boundary Line.

He knew why. He could not help knowing. The reason was none other than himself, standing here on this very ground.

"From that day a thousand years ago."

"The Abyss has been waiting."

Najin recalled a conversation he had recently had with Bedivere. On the subject of the binding seal of the Abyss, Bedivere had said:

"The barrier the King erected with her own life to hold the Abyss in place is by no means a perfect seal."

"It is nothing more than time forcibly held in check. And time, as it tends to do, cannot truly be held by force."

No matter how tightly you plug it, time flows.

"A thousand years have passed."

"The seal has held through those thousand years, but I do not expect it to hold much longer."

"The trembling of these past few years far exceeds everything that shook it across the thousand before."

A few years back.

From the moment Najin pulled out Excalibur, a change had come over Camlann. And on that very day he drew the sword, Najin had felt it instinctively.

Time was flowing.

What had been stopped was flowing again.

It was not only Arthur's story. The story of the Abyss, which had stopped alongside Arthur's story, was the same. The Abyss too had been waiting only for this day.

"The stronger you become."

"The closer you draw to the Abyss."

"The more the seal will tremble."

Tap. Bedivere pointed to the map.

The map of the Abyss he had drawn.

He pointed to the region past a certain point, classified as the innermost depths of the Abyss, and said:

"The moment you reach the innermost depths of the Abyss, every seal will break."

The seals would break. Najin understood what that meant. The cursed ones imprisoned in the Abyss, the monsters, the immortal host that could not die,all of them would be released into the Outland, and beyond that...

The Dragon of the Abyss.

The Sword Demon, Siegfried.

Mordred.

The Witch of the Abyss.

They too would be free. They would march through the Outland in a sea of fire, cross the Outland, and reach the Continent. And on that day, the Witch of the Abyss would finish what she had failed to complete a thousand years ago.

'The end.'

If that happened, humanity could not escape destruction. If Najin could not stop them, the world would perish. That was a fact, with no exaggeration.

"I had suspected as much for some time."

Najin smiled, a bitter thing.

"But having it right in front of me makes it feel different."

Standing at the Boundary Line, he stared into Camlann. He had not yet crossed into it. He had only been walking the line, doing a warden's work.

He was the sort to boldly shove a foot in first and figure it out from there, but even that side of him hesitated before the Abyss.

'The moment I step inside.'

From the instant his foot touched the Abyss, it would begin to stir. Not every monster would break free at once, but more cursed ones would pour into the Outland, and the effects would reach the Continent too.

Every step he took carried the fate of the world with it.

He had known that in his head, but having it thrust right before his eyes made it land differently. Najin breathed out slowly.

"Even so."

"Yeah."

"I can't put it off forever."

Najin had ten stars. There was no one left in the Outland who could match him. To rise any higher, he had to move on to the next stage.

'And.'

He fixed his gaze on the Abyss.

'If I don't go there.'

It will come here first. That was the intuition he felt.

"Not intuition,that's just how it is."

"Sorry?"

"That feeling of yours, that if you don't go the Abyss will come to you instead,that's not a feeling. That's the truth."

Merlin said.

"You know my strength is being used to maintain the seal, right? Spending a thousand years holding it together has taught me things I would rather not know. And..."

She pointed at herself with a bitter smile.

"You know what a Night Fairy can do?"

Simulation. Shut inside dreams, she had run countless scenarios, and the Merlin who had carried all those memories had come to know certain things.

"From the moment you pulled that sword,or perhaps even before you pulled it,the seal was already at its limit."

"......"

"It will break someday. I can say it with certainty. Before long, the seal will shatter and the Abyss will be freed."

You are only hastening it a little.

It would have happened regardless, she said.

"So?"

Merlin looked at Najin.

The guide looked at her Companion.

"What are you going to do?"

Merlin's eyes were clear, as they always were. Like the surface of a still lake. Najin held that gaze for a moment, then let out a small laugh.

"Preparations are mostly done."

He rolled his shoulders, the Free Knight's coat settling over them.

"Finished what needed finishing on the Continent, made the reports, and both the Outland and the Continent are making their own preparations on that end... so I think it's time to head to the next destination."

"Yeah, looks that way."

No matter how much you prepare, you cannot truly know until you collide with it. As far as Najin was concerned, he had prepared everything he could.

What remained he would have to learn by hitting it head-on.

Najin pointed beyond the Abyss.

"Shall we go. To what comes next."

It was time to move toward the next step he had been putting off.

"One day, someone who can save this land will come."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what I said. Someday, though I cannot know how much time will pass... a being who can save you will appear."

"You mean King Arthur."

"......"

"No. Surely not. Did that man not meet death in the end herself? It may have been the best she could do, but that does not make it the best outcome for us."

He exhaled.

"Do not speak of hope to us. Do not whisper sweet dreams to my people. We are tired, we have suffered for far too long, and we no longer wish to think or to hope for anything."

"......"

"I want to rest. Will you let me rest?"

"That is beyond my power."

"Of course it is. Beyond anyone's power in this world. The Witch wished for me to live forever and did not even permit me to lose my mind."

Laughter echoed.

"I have lost all sense of how much time has passed. Can you hear it? The screaming of my people?"

"......"

"Yes. I cannot blame you for that."

He opened his mouth with great effort.

"Can you promise me that? That someday a being who can save this land will appear,can you promise me that?"

"I can."

"On your honor?"