WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 429

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Traitor, Mordred (2)

When two opponents are evenly matched and neither can easily kill the other, the fight tends to follow a familiar rhythm.

'Confirm what cards the opponent holds.'

Blades meet, and through that exchange you read their techniques, their intended moves, their openings. You build a counter. Only when every card on both sides is on the table do you finally unleash your Absolute Technique and end it. That is how a standard fight goes.

Transcendents do not hold back their Absolute Techniques from the start out of stupidity. An Absolute Technique is exactly what the name says: an Absolute Technique. A killing blow. A trump card, and your single most powerful strike.

Once you fire something like that off, you naturally have to endure the recoil.

It is a blow wrung from every drop of mana and starlight you possess. If it gets blocked, if you fail to finish your opponent with it, you have to keep fighting in a disadvantaged state while you absorb the kickback. Transcendents do not guard their Absolute Techniques without reason.

A trump card loses its value the instant it is revealed. It is only worth something if you keep it hidden until the very last moment.

'Confirm every card the opponent holds.'

When you are certain there is nothing left they can counter with, that is the moment you release your Absolute Technique. That is the standard flow of battle. Najin knew this as well as anyone. He had fought that way in most situations.

'That is normally how it goes.'

But right now was different.

'If you want to feel me out first.'

Glaring at the opponent in front of him, Najin brought his raised foot down hard against the ground. He did not like being tested. He found it just as irritating that Mordred was still sizing him up.

This was not a teacher and student.

This was not a senior and junior.

We are in a duel. In this moment, nothing else matters.

Boom!

The instant his foot struck the ground, starlight flooded out with Najin at its center. Mordred's eyes contracted at the shockwave rolling outward. A platinum-colored sword aura surged along Najin's blade.

...As was just said.

The standard flow of battle calls for holding your Absolute Technique until the very last moment. That goes doubly true when your opponent is close to your own level.

Flash.

And yet.

Dawn Sword.

Only a few minutes into the fight, before either side had even confirmed all the other's cards.

Cutting Night.

No one could have predicted Najin would unleash his Absolute Technique now. Perhaps not even Najin himself. On pure impulse, he swung the sword.

Shaaaaaaaaash!

The sword strike that carved through the night spat out light. From the center of the fortress, a pillar of radiance shot into the sky. A sword aura that sliced through everything it touched bisected the keep. Walls crumbled, the castle structure collapsed, and shards of stone flew into the air.

Clank, sscreeeeee!

Mordred broke off his assault. Faced with the surging sword aura, he planted both arms forward as if shielding his heart. The Cross Shield mounted to his shoulder joint slid down with a clank and wrapped around his arms.

The shield expanded. Large enough to cover his entire frame.

Galahad's Star, which should have been engraved on the Cross Shield, was gone. In its place shone Mordred's star. Eleven stars rotating around the Blight Star lit up the surface of the shield.

Thud.

Shield driven into the earth, Mordred lowered his stance. The moment of impact, a thunderous boom tore loose. Fragments of the scattered sword aura and the recoil hammered Mordred's body again and again.

Grrrrrrrnd!

Even Mordred, who had not given an inch to Najin in a contest of raw force until now, could not hold here. His body was shoved back. His greaves scraped across the ground and chips of stone flew up.

Being pushed back. At this rate he would be cut.

Forced into full output by his opponent, Mordred activated the artifact embedded in his heart. The Blight Star standing in for his heart pulsed hard, and dark red veins spread out from it like a web.

In that instant, the nature of Mordred's movements changed entirely.

Output spiked. The Mordred who had been sliding backward stopped in his tracks, then began stepping forward. He walked straight into the repulsion force Najin's sword aura was generating and pushed through it.

Screeeeeeeeeeee!

The armor plating blazed red, then searing scarlet. Steam vented furiously. Enduring a heat intense enough to cook the skin off anyone who drew near, Mordred swung the shield outward in a shoving thrust.

And then, with a crack.

He took the Absolute Technique head-on. A fracture ran across the shield that bore the indestructible legacy said to never break. One more strike like that and the shield would shatter to pieces.

The power was staggering.

The heat packed into the armor cooked Mordred's flesh. Every vein in his body surged as if about to burst. Clank, the back panels of the armor split open and vented steam. The release of heat sent shimmering waves rising through the air around him.

...Where is he.

The vented steam and the rising dust blocked his field of vision. Mordred narrowed his eyes and estimated Najin's position.

Flash.

At that moment, a star flared somewhere beyond the haze. Mordred's swing of the greatsword and the moment the haze split open as a single sword strike drove through were nearly simultaneous.

"Impressive."

Najin walked out through the dissipating smoke. He spun Excalibur once and settled it over his shoulder, the corner of his mouth pulling up.

"So that is the hand you had hidden?"

Najin pointed at Mordred's armor. More precisely, at the dark red crystal embedded in its center.

2.

So that is the hand you had hidden.

Mordred did not deny it at those words. But he did not confirm it either. You forced my hand and I showed you what I had concealed. But do you really think that is all I prepared?

Ssssssssss!

Steam continued to vent from the armor without pause.

Hot. The heat was palpable.

Expelling that heat, Mordred moved his hand. The armor encasing him was no different from his own body. Feeling the warmth of the steel that had replaced his bones and flesh, he reached back over his shoulder.

He seized the greatsword strapped to his back.

Galatine, the sun sword.

It was the signature weapon of Gawain, the Knight of the Round Table who had created the sun sword style. He recalled the image of his old comrade, who had drawn in the heat around him, amplified it, and unleashed a sword aura like the sun itself.

The starlight of Gawain that had melted into Galatine shone.

Galatine drank in the heat Mordred was releasing and blazed like the sun. Najin's eyes went wide and a hollow laugh escaped him as Mordred moved.

Thud.

Fast. Using even the vented steam as thrust, Mordred slid across the ground. There was no need to stride forward. The steam and mana pouring out from behind were driving his body on.

He moved like something sliding across ice. No, more accurately, like something smashing through the ice as it advanced. His greaves ground into the earth as he surged forward.

"Like the sun hanging in the sky above!"

"I burn. I incinerate. Any who block the king's path, any who are unjust, I will burn them."

"That is my sword."

"How is my sword, Mordred?"

"Magnificently brilliant, wouldn't you say?"

Gawain's voice circled at the edge of his hearing. Galatine, the beloved blade in which that starlight had dissolved, told Mordred how to swing the sword.

Dawn Sword, Solar Fire.

Flames erupted from Galatine. The instant he swept those rising flames outward, the heat was unleashed. A scarlet blaze swept across the area. This was Gawain's technique, the one that had once incinerated even a giant the size of a house.

Fwoom.

Najin burst out through the burning fire. His body was covered in scorch marks. His eyes carried the look of someone who did not understand what he was seeing.

How can you, that was the question written on his face.

At that bewilderment, Mordred gave a dismissive snort and hurled Galatine up into the air. Floating in the open sky, Galatine absorbed the heat of the surrounding area and became a mass of flame. A blazing scarlet sun rose in the center of the fortress.

"Twelve seconds."

"If you cannot bring me down in that time, you die."

Galatine was a sword that absorbed and released heat. Gawain's sun sword style was a swordsmanship built to continuously accumulate heat in the surrounding area. Using both of those together was Gawain's method of combat.

High noon. Twelve o'clock. The twelve count.

Twelve seconds was the time it took to accumulate heat to its limit. In twelve seconds the sun would fall. Najin could not possibly be unaware of that famously well-known fighting style.

'But why?'

Yet this was Gawain's way of fighting. Even if Mordred was wielding Gawain's weapon, Najin could not understand how he was also able to use his sword aura and his signature techniques.

What Najin could not understand did not stop there.

With the sun hanging overhead, Mordred opened fire with the crossbow in rapid bursts. It was Tristan's arc shot. With one hand firing the crossbow, he seized Bedivere's spear with the other and leaped. Steam erupted furiously, and Mordred's body rose high into the sky.

Najin knew that technique.

Descent.

Bedivere's signature technique, and one that Najin had also mastered. High in the air, Mordred's armor clanked as it shifted the direction of its steam vents.

Screeeeeeeee!

Thrust added, Mordred descended. The massive spearhead crushed the air as it plummeted downward.

That cannot be blocked.

Najin kicked off the ground and opened distance. Tristan's arrows chased after him. One finally punched through his ankle and broke his balance, and in that same instant Mordred fell like a single meteor and shattered the earth.

A thunderclap. A sound that threatened to burst the eardrums.

Najin had not put enough distance between them, and the shockwave swept him off his feet. The weight of the armor, Bedivere's monstrous strength, and the added propulsion together created a Descent incomparably more powerful than anything Najin had ever performed.

Mordred burst out of the deep crater.

He beat his own breastplate with his fist.

One Blight Star, and among the eleven stars rotating around it, one shone with particular intensity. Najin read the concept engraved in that star.

"...The Round Table."

It was the star of the Round Table.

A star not held by Merlin, not held by Bedivere. Najin could not understand why a star symbolizing the concept of the Round Table was in Mordred's possession.

But what was happening before him he could understand.

What Najin was fighting was not Mordred as an individual. This was not simply some entity borrowing the weapons and armor of the Round Table knights. That thing was the Round Table itself.

The knights seated in the thirteen seats of the Round Table.

The being who could wield everything those knights had possessed was standing before him. Fighting Mordred was the same as fighting the entire Round Table at once. A hollow laugh slipped from Najin's lips. The strikes of heroes he had only ever known through the descriptions and lines of epic tales were being perfectly reproduced through Mordred's hands.

'It's coming.'

The sun began to fall from the sky. Tristan's arrows poured down like a rainstorm, blanketing his entire field of vision. Bedivere's spear shot out like a bolt of lightning, and six longswords hurled at random released sword auras as though they had will of their own.

Bedivere, Percival, Gawain, Tristan, Kay, Agravain, Gareth, Palamedes, Lancelot, Galahad.

And Mordred.

Every Knight of the Round Table save for Merlin and Arthur was leveling blades at Najin. Faced with the falling sun, Najin tightened his grip on Excalibur.

They are coming, the Knights of the Round Table.

3.

He had dug up his comrades' graves.

He had roused those who deserved to rest in peace, and stolen their stars and their relics. Before being a knight, as a friend to those people, as a human being, it was an act of utter disgrace.

And yet Mordred had done it willingly.

No act was too filthy. If anything, precisely because it was filthy, precisely because it was horrific, he could do it. Who else but himself, a vile traitor who had murdered the king he was sworn to serve, could carry out something like this?

...Mordred knew war.

He had fought countless wars on Arthur's behalf. In place of that busy king, he had fought war after war. He had led his own knights forward, and achieved his objectives through countless deaths.

Those experiences spoke to Mordred.

War is not a duel.

War cannot be made noble or beautiful by any justification. People die. You kill and are killed and you press on. Driven by the single-minded resolve to achieve your objective, you force endless sacrifice.

"I am one of the four horsemen of the Abyss."

And so, on that day a thousand years ago.

"I am Mordred, Knight of War."

When the witch bestowed upon him the banner of war, Mordred had burst out laughing. Could any banner suit him better?

War is not a simple duel.

You can win a fight and still lose a war. Mordred could not afford to lose. He had to win. He had to win, no matter what. And as war tends to go, for the sake of victory, Mordred could endure anything.

Infamy. Desecrating the graves of his comrades. Betraying them. All of it, every last bit of it.

Mordred endured it.

For victory.

For the sake of his objective.

"Come."

Descending alongside the falling sun, Mordred cried out toward Najin.

"Come, heir of the king."

The traitor who slew his king asks you this: can you surpass Arthur? Can you shine more brightly than the star he saw on that day?

'If you cannot shine.'

Then this place will be your end.

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