WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 425

──────

Motive or Origin (3)

Something is wrong, he thought.

The more Najin heard about Mordred, the more he glimpsed the memories surrounding him, the more that single word kept circling through his mind. Wrong.

Mordred is the traitor of the Round Table.

He had become the Witch's apostle and turned against the Round Table, desecrated the graves of the Knights of the Round Table, grave-robbed their stars and Sacred Objects, and beyond even that...

He had run his blade through Arthur's heart.

The one who ended the Knight King's life was not the Witch's own hand but the sword of a knight who served her. That was the figure history recorded under the name Mordred.

The very synonym for betrayal.

There was one more knight bound up with Mordred as a traitor. In certain ways a knight who resembled him. Najin turned the name over in his mind.

Lancelot.

The one most responsible for fracturing the Round Table, and a sinner who slaughtered millions by destroying Londinel. Najin had no intention of defending what Lancelot had done, but he also knew it had not been a betrayal of Arthur.

Even if the method was wrong.

Lancelot had tried, in his own way, to make Arthur's plan succeed. That much could not be denied.

He had his reasons.

That was true of Lancelot, at least. And Mordred, as glimpsed through Lancelot's memories, had given off more than one or two suspicious signals.

If he had truly sided with the Witch.

Mordred would have had no reason to stop Lancelot. Letting Lancelot go there, letting him die at Merlin's hands or at the hands of the Knights of the Round Table, would have been the best outcome from Mordred's position.

Yet Mordred had helped him.

Mordred had acted as though he already knew everything that would come afterward. And he did. Mordred had a habit of speaking as if he could see the future.

"Excalibur will choose a new master."

"Even if it takes decades or centuries, it surely will."

"It will select one worthy of a great hero."

"A true hero unlike Arthur, who was merely a product of her age. A being that will surpass Arthur."

"Ah, that one is Britain's salvation!"

Words Mordred had spoken before Merlin.

"A true king and guide who will lead us beyond Camlann, to the world's end we once dreamed of!"

"Merlin, you blind-eyed fool! Can you not see this glorious future before you?"

Mordred, who was said to have worshipped Arthur so deeply, had denied Arthur and spoken of a savior. And given the circumstances, that savior was Najin himself.

"......"

Najin stopped walking. He had stopped on the road leading to the Underground City, Artman.

After the Starlight Sect collapsed and evidence of communication with the Abyss was discovered at the bottom of the Underground City, Artman had been sealed off. Everyone who had lived there relocated outside, and the abandoned Artman lay silent.

"Hah, ah, l-loyalty!"

The soldiers guarding Artman's entrance recognized Najin and snapped to a salute. He patted them on the shoulders and walked through into the sealed section.

Stepping inside, Najin breathed out.

Familiar air. He looked around the ground he had grown up on. Some years ago, he had clashed with Mordred here. They had crossed swords, and at the end of a desperate struggle he had seized the star of Selection.

It remains.

The traces of that day's battle were all still there. Najin's eyes narrowed as he took in the sword marks gouged and slashed across the walls and floor.

This was exactly what he had come to see.

The Najin of that day and the Najin of now were different. He had gained three more stars since then, and grown as a swordsman. From the marks the swordplay had left behind alone, he could reconstruct that fight with precision.

Tap.

He ran his fingers along the sword marks and let the memory of that day return. Mordred driving him back. Himself, desperate just to survive. The duel replayed in his head. After going over it again and again, Najin's brow creased.

He had not been mistaken.

He had not felt the brush of death because he was weak back then. Mordred had truly tried to kill him that day. He had pressed in without holding back, without pulling a single blow.

No matter how many times he replayed it, the answer was the same.

If he had been even a little slower, he would have died. His story would have ended right here. Mordred had given everything to kill him.

That was what left Najin confused.

Which side did Mordred stand on?

The Witch's side. Or still humanity's. Did he carry some greater purpose. At the very least, the Mordred of a thousand years ago had seemed to be working from a plan. Had the passage of time simply broken him, then.

He could not tell.

Mordred's attitude was ambiguous. He had pressed in as if to kill Najin, yet when Najin won, Mordred had handed over his own heart with an unburdened expression.

"I'll be waiting."

Najin recalled the look on Mordred's face as those words left his mouth. It made Mordred even harder to read than before.

"You."

Najin murmured.

"Just which side are you standing on?"

2.

Much had changed since Najin returned from his first descent into the Abyss, and the greatest change was in the sky.

The center of a night sky once packed full of constellations.

Every star had been pushed out from the middle of the heavens. What had driven them aside and claimed that space was the Crimson Blight Star. Three Blight Stars now occupied the center of the sky. As if fleeing those terrible stars, every other constellation had drifted far from the middle.

At the heart of the heavens, the Witch's stars burned.

As though that place had always been theirs.

"......"

Children who had loved looking up at the night sky bowed their heads now, frightened of the Crimson Blight Stars. Scholars who had delighted in stargazing gave up their observations. The crimson stars did not go out during the day, and so they watched over humanity without rest, day and night alike.

"An ill omen," someone said.

"Disasters keep coming. Floods keep coming. The Turum Mountain Range suddenly collapsed, and the Kalotin Volcano, which had not erupted in hundreds of years, erupted. An avalanche struck the Trek Region."

All of it happened within just ten days of the Blight Stars rising. A volcano shattering centuries of silence, floods breaking out, disasters coming one after another. It was an ill omen.

Ten days later a plague spread, and then a wildfire broke out across a mountain range, and from that fire a great conflagration was born.

Lightning struck. Torrential rain fell. Snow came to places that had never seen it. Overnight, crops withered. Livestock died.

"An ill omen."

Ill omens were spreading. Since the Blight Stars appeared, they had not stopped. Only three of the thirteen stars had been unsealed, yet their influence reached all the way to the Continent.

"Quite the chaos, wasn't it."

If the Continent was like that, the Outland, which felt Camlann's influence more directly, was another matter entirely.

"The Great Lake overflowed. When Camlann started expanding its territory, the demon beasts of the Outland began to warp and twist, and the dead and the wraiths started screaming and running wild."

Anton Quijano said.

"The Curse is spreading. A Constellation that had been dwelling at the Boundary Line of the Abyss, the far edge of the Outland, had one of its stars begin to rot and decay. It abandoned that star and fled, apparently."

Some had managed to escape, Anton said, and others had been swallowed whole by the Abyss.

"The Boundary Line is expanding fast. The Outland is being pushed back too. The effect on the Continent can't be ignored either."

The Abyss expands. The Outland expands. With it, the Continent, the land of humanity, was shrinking.

"......"

Najin stayed silent as he listened to Anton's account, the accounts of the Constellations dwelling in the Outland, and the accounts of ordinary people living on the Continent alongside those of the Empire's officials. The newspaper he had unfolded carried a headline in massive print.

"The peace sustained for a thousand years has crumbled."

The person who wrote that line was punished for stirring up needless panic, but Najin knew the words were not wrong.

The peace that had held was crumbling.

The Continent was shaking.

Going forward, it would shake far worse.

Officially, Najin's descent into the Abyss had not been disclosed. The imperial house, which had always been the first to announce and boast of Najin's adventures and achievements, kept silent this time. They knew it was not something suited for public knowledge.

"......"

The public did not know. Those who did were very few. The fact that this change had begun with Najin. But everyone would be making guesses. Najin had always stood at the forefront of every upheaval the age had brought.

Najin looked up at the sky.

Three Blight Stars burned.

The Crimson Blight Stars seemed to whisper to him. Will you truly challenge us. Will you stir up chaos even greater than this. They seemed to say that everything happening now had started because of him.

Disasters come.

People swept up in those disasters begin to die. When word reached him that someone had died here or there, Najin could not simply look away. He crushed the newspaper in his fist.

"Najin."

"Yes. I know."

To Merlin's worried voice, Najin breathed out. The water was already spilled. The die had been cast, and a fire once started cannot be called back.

Do what must be done.

And.

Do what can be done.

Najin moved his feet.

3.

The Boundary Line of the Abyss is being pushed back.

The Abyss is expanding its territory.

And at the very front of that expansion stands none other than Mordred, herald of the end. He advances at the head of the knights of death. He marches without pause, and not one soul dares stand in his way.

The reason is simple.

Mordred is advancing by pushing the Boundary Line of the Abyss back. In other words, to stop him, one would have to leap inside the Boundary Line, into the Abyss itself.

Leap into the Abyss.

The Constellations understood what that meant. It was hell. A vast swamp that could swallow even Transcendents who had lived for centuries.

Even if someone found the courage to leap into the Abyss.

Mordred held eleven stars and was an apostle of the Abyss drawing on the power of the Blight Stars. He was more than a match for even the strongest fighters in the Outland. Against him inside the Abyss, the odds of winning were close to zero.

Everyone was busy fleeing. The stars that should have lit up the night sky were busy hiding themselves away.

Thud.

Yet not all of them were.

"......"

The stars of the Round Table were not. Bedivere stepped to the front line and looked at Mordred. Their eyes met across the Abyss's barrier.

Boom.

Mordred halted his advance. He drove the flag he had been carrying into the ground. With the flag planted, Mordred's Domain spread.

It took the form of a fortress.

A stronghold shaped like an old castle rose up.

A fortress filled to the brim with knights of death. At its peak, a banner bearing the Witch's symbol snapped in the wind. Mordred had built a fortified position at the front line and stopped his march.

"Still the same as ever, aren't you."

Bedivere smiled bitterly.

He knew this was not a halt.

This was nothing more than establishing a forward base from which to advance even more fiercely. Vast numbers of troops would gather there. Before long, Mordred would begin marching again, and when he did, he would not stop.

"So then."

Thud, someone stepped up beside Bedivere.

"Now is the right moment."

Bedivere said nothing to that.

He turned to look, then slowly opened his mouth.

"Do you understand?"

"......"

"I asked whether you know what will happen the moment you face Mordred."

There is no going back. The moment one step is taken here, the fire will grow beyond controlling. Time will accelerate, and no other choice will remain. Bedivere had thrown out that question to ask whether Najin knew that.

"Of course."

The answer that came back was short.

"I know."

"Even so?"

Najin let out a short breath.

"Yes. Even so."

This was not acting without knowing.

He knew, and acted anyway.

If it is something that must be done, do not hesitate.

"Because it is something that must be done."

Najin gripped his sword. At that sight, Bedivere said nothing more. He stepped one pace to the side and raised a salute.

"Good luck."

He took his stance one step behind.

"Look only forward and run, my king."

The first knight of the Round Table smiled.

"I will make certain no one reaches you."

Najin nodded and looked ahead. The Domain of Mordred, a territory filled with knights of death. At the peak of that vast fortress, the banner was still snapping in the wind.

Mordred was calling to him.

The same as in the Underground City.

Mordred was forcing a choice on Najin. He would never forgive Najin for standing still, for hesitating, for stagnating.

"Show me."

He had said it then too.

"Show me your right. Prove to me you have the right to hold that sword."

Mordred was throwing a question at Najin.

"Whether you have the right to succeed Arthur."

Prove it to me.

In the end.

This was the continuation of a conversation that had never been finished that day.

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