WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 432

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Traitor, Mordred (5)

Mordred swung his sword.

Again and again.

Every time steel met steel, sparks flew. Fragments of shattered armor scattered through the air, and the hoses that replaced his veins were sliced through, spraying dark red fluid.

'Ah.'

Swinging the sword as if his arms might break, and actually breaking them in the process, Mordred laughed without meaning to. He could not help it. With the armor falling away piece by piece, he felt something like lightness.

The armor shattered. The overloaded mechanical devices shut down one by one. The heat packed inside his body seared his flesh, yet his mind was cool, as though cold water had been poured through it.

He was setting down a burden carried for a long, long time.

Every weapon of the Round Table was broken. As if to replace the stars of the Round Table that had gone dark, Mordred clutched at the blazing stars in turn and let out a wordless cry.

Clang, clang, claaaang!

Watching the junior knight grow stronger with every exchange, Mordred smiled. Still not enough. Take one more step. Let the star inside you shine.

'Show me.'

Mordred had chased stars.

'Show me your star.'

From that day a thousand years ago, he had chased stars without pause. He had lived his life led by brilliant starlight. The star that had guided him on that day was already gone, extinguished, but that did not matter. He could close his eyes and call it back.

But Mordred did not close his eyes.

Instead of reaching for memory, he looked straight ahead. There was a star there too. Different from the star of the king he had served, yet resembling it all the same. Watching that light, Mordred swung his sword the way a blacksmith hammers red-hot iron.

'More, more, just a little more...'

The more the hammer fell, the brighter the star burned. It grew, adding to its own light. Watching that, Mordred felt it all at once.

The time had come.

Crack.

Mordred took the full force of Najin's sword badly and staggered back. Most of the steel plating had fallen away. A battered body was laid bare. Looking down, the floor was stained with his own blood.

"......"

Breathing hard, Mordred raised his head. His opponent was a wreck too. Both of them pushed to their limit. That was exactly why the moment was right, Mordred knew.

He gripped Clarent.

The star of rebellion shone. Dark red sword aura surged and swirled, and Mordred opened his mouth.

"You will deny me three times."

To fulfill the duty assigned to him.

2.

"Arthur."

Mordred spoke.

"Arthur failed. She failed to kill the witch, and even the seal she traded her life to set is unstable. All Arthur ever managed was to buy time."

Najin's eyes narrowed.

Mordred curled his lip in a sneer.

"Because she was a flawed king."

He cried out with contempt.

"A man unfit for the throne. A man too lacking to be this land's savior. Countless people were sacrificed because they believed in that man's words. Did those sacrifices have worth? Does any of this, which ended in failure, have worth?"

He had never been deceived. The sacrifices had been worth it. Not one of those who gave them considered them worthless. But those thoughts were not put into words.

"Arthur is a failure. Nothing more than a hero manufactured by her age, nothing more than a loser who lost in the end!"

Mordred raised his voice.

"What a loser deserves is not respect. Never. A loser deserves contempt. Ridicule."

The Round Table lost. Arthur failed. What you should be doing is not respecting us. Trample over us and move forward. Shout that you are different from us. Seize an ending better than the one we got.

"Excalibur."

Mordred exhaled.

The star of denial shone.

Once, Arthur had said to Mordred: you will deny me three times. And that through that denial, you will instead make me indestructible.

The first had been before Arthur herself.

The second before Merlin, the king's guide.

And today, Mordred opened his mouth to carry out the third and last. He raised the sword of the final act and cried out.

"Excalibur has chosen a new master."

The moment Mordred spoke, Merlin pressed her lips together. It was a subject she knew well.

"Across decades, centuries, a thousand years, Excalibur has at last chosen the makings of a true hero. A genuine hero unlike Arthur, who was merely a hero manufactured by her time. A being who will surpass Arthur!"

Clarent pointed at Najin.

"Can you say it? That you are the savior of Britain?"

Najin did not answer. He raised his sword instead. A knight proved things not with words but with action.

"Good."

Mordred burst out laughing. He readied the blow that would be his last. The steel plating crumbled. Yet he kept his helm on to the very end as he settled into his stance.

Because he had betrayed his comrades.

Because he had fractured and brought down the Round Table.

Because he had stopped King Arthur's breath.

For those reasons, Mordred stood in that place as the wall the Round Table of the past could never cross. The Round Table did not lose to the witch. Arthur, the heroes who had shone long ago, were defeated by a filthy traitor.

"Then show me."

Arthur did not fall to the witch. She met her death at a human hand, not hers. The king they had served never bent the knee to the Witch of the Abyss.

"Mordred."

Yes, my king.

"I leave what comes next to you."

Of course. Walk your own path. You need not look back. I will always be here, watching over what you left behind.

"Here, before me, show me!"

Mordred kicked off the ground and wrung the last from his body one final time. Blood flew with every step. For the last blow, Mordred poured himself into the blade. To the very end, he was certain of himself.

Sword aura that mirrored the Blight Star surged upward.

The sword of the final act, which had once ended the story of King Arthur, burned red as if answering its master's wish. The stars floating around Mordred were drawn into Clarent.

Denial, negating what had been given to him.

Defiance of heaven, choosing to go against providence.

The final act, bringing the legend Arthur wrote to its end.

And last of all, rebellion.

The star that defied the role given to it shone. The stories held inside the star drifted past Mordred one by one. Mordred, who had been a knight sworn to serve a king, had gone completely against that role.

'He betrayed the king.'

He had hacked that body apart and committed treason. He had insulted and humiliated his lord and made himself a filthy traitor.

And as a knight? He had done what no knight should ever do. He had defiled the bodies of his comrades. He had dug up their graves and plundered them. Every act he took ran against everything that had been given to him.

He had walked the path that suited a traitor.

And so now, Mordred smiled. The star of rebellion still shone. To Mordred, who had been faithful to the role assigned to him for a thousand years, the star of rebellion whispered: the time has come.

"I am one of the Four Heralds of Destruction."

What was his role now.

"I am Mordred, Knight of War."

The star of rebellion shone. Watching him, Najin's eyes went wide. But quickly, Najin settled into his stance.

What had to be done had not changed.

He did not dodge Mordred charging straight at him. He finished readying Atanga's sword, the sword meant to break a knight who had made the wrong choice, and stepped forward to meet Mordred.

The platinum-colored star shone.

Once before, Mordred had asked Najin a question: whether he had the right. To answer that question, Najin had seized the Star of Selection and woven the story he had built into a single constellation.

And now?

What Mordred asked was simple and clear. Can you surpass the whole of the Round Table? Can you cut down me, the apostle of the Abyss, and sever the Blight Star? To answer that question, Najin drew up his starlight.

Cut what he meant to cut.

Countless sword paths spread open before him. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of sword paths unfolded. But soon every last one fell away. What he meant to cut was clear, and so the path of the sword was clear too.

Whatever the blade touched split apart without a sound. Scattering starlight, the sword pressed forward.

Clarent and Excalibur collided.

Neither gave an inch. One instant of deadlock, then the balance broke. Mordred stood fixed in the past, unchanged, while Najin took one more step forward.

The sword of the final act was cut.

The traitor's body was cut.

Eleven weapons, and the last remaining sword along with them, Mordred's star was cut.

3.

The last weapon was cut.

The long duel reached its end.

The sword marks left along the arc of Najin's swing remained there like a constellation. Mordred looked at the constellation that had passed through his own body.

"......"

The bisected Clarent crumbled to pieces. The sword that had ended King Arthur's story was cut down by the heir of the king. And so one story reached its conclusion.

Then Mordred touched his own chest.

The Blight Star embedded there had been cut too. The story of the Blight Star being severed was complete as well. As the stars that had been cut apart collapsed, Mordred raised his head and looked at Najin standing before him.

Perhaps he no longer had the strength to keep standing. Or perhaps it was his own wish. Mordred sank to his knee before him.

Like a knight kneeling before a king.

Najin was not the only one watching. Mordred felt Merlin's presence at Najin's side. To his old companion, who was looking at him with a complicated expression, Mordred brought up a conversation from long ago.

"You've changed, Merlin."

Those were the words he had thrown at her when they crossed paths in the Underground City that day. How had Merlin answered?

"What doesn't?"

Right, that was what she had said. She was right. Nothing in the world stays the same. But even so, Mordred could say it.

"Something does. Here."

He smiled.

"I have never changed. Not once, from that day forward."

In that last of last moments, right before it all crumbled, Mordred's star shone one final time. The star that chose to shine at the end was the star of rebellion.

The traitor rebelled one more time.

By acting against the role given to him, by committing rebellion, Mordred fulfilled his purpose. Laughing at the role the Witch of the Abyss had handed him, he completed his mission.

Crumble.

Mordred's body fell apart. The soul eaten through by the Blight Star crumbled with it and vanished. In the Domain of Dead Knights, the knight of rebellion closed his eyes.

"......"

Where he had been, a star remained. Najin reached out and took it. And so one story drew its curtain. And one story reached its completion.

The heir of the Round Table had cut down the traitor of the Round Table.

He had felled the traitor, severed the Blight Star, and cut down the sword of the final act that had ended the king's story. It was an achievement worthy of being called a great feat without reservation. Najin had crossed the threshold the Round Table could never cross.

A great feat becomes a star.

Najin had claimed his eleventh star.

* * *

"Mordred."

"Yes, my king."

"In your estimation, what sort of person does a war need most in order to win?"

A knight who had fought countless wars in Arthur's stead.

Mordred, who had led many knights to victory in those wars, answered without hesitation.

"Someone who can carry anything."

"Anything?"

"Yes. A person who can carry anything for the sake of victory, that is the most needed person in war."

Mordred said.

"If it is necessary, they become a traitor, a spy. They do not hesitate to shame their own allies. They do not care how history records them. A person who will endure any infamy for the sake of victory..."

He said it plainly.

"Isn't that the person war needs?"

Indeed, Arthur nodded.

"Then what reward should be given to such a person? Honor? The land they protected? Or glory?"

To every one of those examples, Mordred shook his head.

"One thing is enough."

Arthur asked what that thing was.

Mordred answered with a smile.

"Victory."

Victory in war.

Achieving what his lord desired.

"That is enough."

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