WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 448

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Special Instructor (7)

Siegfried is already dead.

Before any talk of a star's fall or corruption, Merlin had said it plainly: as a living being, he truly died once.

"The horseman of death, Leviathan."

Merlin extended a finger.

Beyond the thick fog of the Abyss, something vast stirred in the haze. Not because the distance between them and that presence was small, but because the presence itself was so enormous.

......The Dragon of the Abyss.

An ancient dragon coiled in the Abyss like a great mountain range. A being that had existed for thousands of years, one that had never once been defeated even as the witch's apostles fell one by one. Its infamy was well earned.

Records from more than a thousand years ago were said to have vanished, yet what remained about the Dragon of the Abyss was more than enough to paint a picture even from a thousand years back.

A size large enough to swallow an entire country whole. A body so long it could bridge heaven and earth if it lifted its head toward the sky. The fully grown sky whale, the largest living creature in the Outland, was no more than an ant beside the Dragon of the Abyss.

Longer than the longest river.

Larger than the largest giant.

The single greatest creature in the world. The largest and oldest dragon had become the world's most dreadful apostle of a star, so its strength needed no exhausting explanation.

"Its strength is one thing, but it's also an apostle of the Abyss, isn't it? The Dragon of the Abyss has its own Authority. A stupidly blunt Authority, really."

Najin asked what it was, and Merlin answered.

"Death. In the presence of the Dragon of the Abyss, concepts like immortality and regeneration are meaningless."

The horseman of death.

"It bestows death fairly on all things. In a land where death is not permitted, the Dragon of the Abyss is the only being that can bring death."

"Death, meaning......"

"I know, it sounds like nothing. Fight something that powerful and of course you die, of course you get annihilated, so what's the point, right? It's a bit like saying: when fighting an ordinary human, you can kill them by cutting off their head or piercing their heart. Feels like stating the obvious."

Merlin shrugged.

"But where do the dead go?"

"Are you asking about the Sword Order's view on religion?"

"No. The old religions."

"Depending on one's sins, the virtuous go to heaven and the wicked to hell, I would think."

"Right. Either way, it all leads to the afterlife."

Merlin drew a line through the air.

"The Dragon of the Abyss is a walking afterlife. Call it hell if you like, heaven seems a stretch."

She continued.

"Anyone swallowed by the Dragon of the Abyss is imprisoned inside it forever. They suffer within for eternity. They melt down together with the souls already trapped there, becoming one mass."

The Sword Saint did not ask how she knew that. But Najin had asked that very question once before, and Merlin's answer had been this:

Because I saw it.

My companion being swallowed.

Recalling the solemnity that had settled over him then, Najin listened to Merlin's words in silence.

"Siegfried challenged the Dragon of the Abyss a thousand years ago, was defeated, and was swallowed. But perhaps his body was simply too strong? Or perhaps even after being swallowed, he kept cutting away from the inside."

There was no way to know which.

"Siegfried was never digested by the dragon."

The Dragon of the Abyss spat out the Siegfried it could not consume.

"Not that he was alive, either. He had been swallowed by the afterlife and spat back out. It wasn't a metaphor, he literally ended up standing on the boundary between this world and the next."

The boundary between the living world and the dead.

A bridge between this shore and the other.

"That is why Siegfried cannot interfere with the Dragon of the Abyss. Death only yields to the living. A being that has already died once cannot stand against death."

He was the Dragon Slayer by trade, a man who had cut down countless dragons and sharpened his life to a razor's edge in pursuit of slaying the greatest dragon in the world.

And yet, by a cruel irony.

The Siegfried of today could no longer kill dragons. Worse, even the chance to try had been stripped from him. Karon listened to that in silence, expression tight with something bitter.

2.

Ten Days.

Throughout that time, Najin devoted himself to crossing blades with Karon. He swung his sword all day long, and the places where they trained were covered in sword marks.

Karon grew through it.

She had not yet touched the realm of Unity of Body and Sword, but her blade had become sharper than ever. Like steel being forged, every clash burned away impurities, and her Sword Aura grew keener with each exchange.

Fitting for someone once called an Incomparable Genius.

And fitting for the Transcendent who had still grown faster than anyone else, save Najin.

Karon's growth was steep.

Trading blows with someone who hungered to learn, Najin honed his own blade sharper as well. Fill your days with something worthwhile and time moves quickly.

One day passed, then two, then three.

As the days flowed by, Najin found himself thinking back. To the Sword Demon he had faced in the Abyss, to the great hero named Siegfried. He traced in his mind the trajectory that terrifyingly strong swordsman had carved.

Siegfried.

The man who had carved dragon blood tattoos across his entire body, seized a demon sword that cut through everything, and come charging in like a thunderbolt. Thinking about the opponent he would have to face before long, a quiet curiosity stirred.

"Merlin."

"Yes?"

"About Siegfried."

It was curiosity about Siegfried as a person. This was perhaps Najin's oldest habit. He had always made a point of looking into the lives and convictions of those who clashed with him.

The Star of the Funeral March asked.

About the man called Siegfried.

To conduct a funeral, you first had to know where the deceased belonged. A funeral procession was, at its heart, the act of carrying the departed to the resting place where they ought to be buried. So the right resting place had to be found first.

And.

Najin had done this many times before. This time was no different. Only, since he had no way to read the man's life directly, asking someone who had known him was the only way.

"Why did he learn the sword?"

"Out of nowhere?"

"Yes, out of nowhere. I got curious."

Najin said.

"Why does anyone learn the sword? Most say it's to become stronger. Plenty say it's to protect themselves. Neither answer is wrong, that's just how most people start training."

People who had lost something because they were weak.

Or those who had watched their parents suffer from that same weakness.

Or those who had simply admired strength.

"The starting reason is rarely grand. Even for me, it was more or less just to survive. The fact that my teacher was a swordsman probably had something to do with it too. If he had been a spearman, maybe I would have learned the spear."

That's how it starts for most people.

"But."

But, Najin said.

"Once you grow strong enough, even just reaching Sword Seeker after pushing past Sword Expert, things become roughly visible."

"What things?"

"The road ahead. And where you're standing right now. We play on such an enormous stage that it can distort your sense of scale, but a Sword Seeker is still a tremendous fighter by ordinary standards, isn't that right?"

That was simply true. A Sword Seeker was recognized as formidable wherever they went. They could live without want and without suffering injustice. Enough to take care of themselves, enough to earn respect as a martial artist.

"Most people are satisfied there."

Because there was no need to go further.

"Because going beyond that point means giving something up. And then the thought comes: I'm already strong enough, already satisfied enough, so why push further?"

Looking ahead, the road grew harsh. The path leading to Transcendence. That road was brutal, grueling, and demanded carving away at yourself through trial after trial.

"It's a path of suffering. No reason to walk it if you don't have to."

"That's true enough."

"If someone chooses to walk that road anyway, they'd need a reason to endure it. Something always comes up. A reason."

That was what Najin was asking about.

"What was it for Siegfried?"

A sworn ambition to master the sword? A desire to surpass every swordsman in the world? Or a grander goal, to one day cut down every dragon alive?

"Arthur asked him something similar once. Why do you want to grow so strong? You don't have conviction like the Knights of the Round Table, no purpose worth dedicating your entire life to. So why?"

"What did Siegfried say?"

"Because it was shit."

"......Pardon?"

The answer Merlin gave was none of the above.

"He said it was because everything was shit."

Even she seemed faintly exasperated at her own words as she laughed and told the story.

"The stepfather who used to beat him, the stepfather's belief that beating the weak and taking from them was only natural, the people who saw acting like that stepfather as the right way to live, the city filled with those people, the stronger fighters who trampled that city, the mercenaries......"

All of it was shit, Siegfried had said.

"I'm not going to live like that. I'm not going to become like them. If they live that way because they're weak, then I'll become strong. If I become strong enough that no one can look down on me, I can live differently."

That was how Siegfried trained his sword.

"But then."

Merlin let out a breath.

"People grow up into what they've seen and been taught. Even after becoming strong enough, Siegfried ended up acting just like his stepfather. He realized it too, eventually."

"Because Arthur pointed it out to him."

"Yes. From that day on, Siegfried changed."

He left behind the places teeming with weaklings who came picking fights with him, the places where he could feel his own superiority, the comfortable places right in front of him, and turned toward the harshest battlefields he could find.

"He charged at the strong. Got knocked down and charged again. The things he had despised, Siegfried threw himself headlong into them. He probably just meant to keep crashing in until he died."

But Siegfried won.

"He won. He lost sometimes, but he won more often. Won, and won, and won again."

He won, and won, and won again.

"Then Arthur met him again and asked."

Why are you here.

Why are you walking this path of suffering.

You weren't this kind of man before.

"He said this."

Because what you said that day was shit.

Your words were shit, but even more shit was me, who couldn't say a single thing back after hearing them. Me, who could only live like that, was so unbelievably shit.

So he changed it.

The direction of his life.

"That was ultimately it. Siegfried's driving principle was always simple. Pure spite."

Arthur laughed at that answer. She laughed hard enough to clutch her stomach, so hard that Merlin and the other Knights of the Round Table standing nearby were startled, because it was a laugh completely unbecoming of the dignity she usually carried.

"Let me give you the chance to take back what you said before."

Then Arthur said.

"I love people like you."

"No, I more than love them."

Dropping every trace of her formal speech and any tone befitting a king's dignity, Arthur said it just like that. Like a girl her own age who had just met someone who set her heart racing.

"Siegfried."

"Won't you join me?"

Arthur reached out her hand to Siegfried.

"Want to know what Siegfried said to that?"

"What did he say?"

"Don't be surprised. This time, Siegfried turned her down. Said he had no intention of joining her. Told her to go on ahead, and that this time she could try chasing after him, then walked deeper in."

That was the kind of man he was.

"He cut down dragons simply because he didn't like them. He couldn't stand the dragons that dared block his path, that cast their shadows over his head."

Cutting down demons, cutting down dragons, cutting down witches, it was all the same. He didn't like it. That was the reason Siegfried swung his sword.

The things that didn't suit him.

To cut them down, Siegfried had taken up the sword, trained, and sharpened his blade without limit to cut down the one thing he hated most of all: the Dragon of the Abyss.

"I see."

Listening to the story of Siegfried, Najin nodded. He felt he now understood, at least roughly, what kind of man Siegfried had been, and what his final wish might look like, if he had one.

The Star of the Funeral March shone.

The ten days had passed.

Now it was time to conduct the funeral for the dead, who had spent a thousand years searching for a place to be buried.

3.

"By the way."

"Say it."

"Why are you still here?"

Siegfried said it while tapping his wooden training sword.

"The others bolted, didn't they? Took one look and knew it wasn't worth the trouble, so they ran. Quick thinkers, those ones. Not swordsmen, more like merchants or politicians."

Many had come seeking to learn from him. But none of them lasted even a full day, or three days at most, before they fled. Siegfried made no effort to stop them.

He only sneered, as though he had known it would come to this.

His teaching was that harsh, and even enduring that harshness didn't feel like it would amount to anything.

"So why haven't you left?"

With one exception.

"Hmm."

That one person, the young swordsman who had stayed to the end and somehow managed to catch Siegfried's attention, scrunched up his face and replied.

"Because it's shit."

"What?"

"I said you're shit and that's why I'm staying. You have absolutely no idea how to hold back, do you? Do you have any idea how many places on me are bruised or broken from getting beaten by you?"

"I was holding back."

"Good for you, you son of a bitch."

"Why are you swearing at me?"

"You swore at me first."

The man gripping the wooden training sword let out a sigh.

"I think I'll only be satisfied once I've broken one of your arms. I plan on staying until that happens."

"Ha. This one's out of his mind."

"You're one to talk."

Only then did Siegfried ask him the question.

"What's your name?"

"Dietrich."

Dietrich of Bern.

The name of the swordsman who would one day succeed Siegfried and take his place as the second Sword Saint.

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