WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 456

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Sword Saint, Siegfried (8)

A long time had passed.

Even so, he was still in the Abyss. His hand still gripped a sword. He was still swinging it.

He could no longer even remember why he was swinging it. He did not know why he was here. He could not even remember who he was to begin with. Thought refused to string itself together, and whatever remained of his will had worn past thin and crumbled to dust.

Nothing was left in him but instinct.

He cut whatever appeared before his eyes. He swung his sword without remembering what he had meant to cut.

The Sword Saint had become the Sword Demon.

He was not among the living. A being that had left this world, yet could not close its eyes in the next. He drifted between this shore and the far shore, neither dead nor alive. And so he was a wraith, and because he had never let go of the sword, he was the Sword Demon.

Because he still had regrets.

Because he had not kept his promise.

Because he could not bear to face her like this.

A wraith cannot give up on life. Already dead, it refuses to accept that fact. He wandered through hell searching only for a place where he could be buried. He had no choice but to wander. No one had ever told him where he was supposed to go.

And so he was the Sword Demon, a wraith among the dead.

A thousand years passed.

Time in the Abyss had stagnated. No change occurred here. The time of the Abyss, which Arthur had nailed into place at the cost of her own life, did not flow.

Outside the Abyss, though, the story was different.

Countless Constellations had appeared in the Outland, risen, and fallen away again. The Continent developed without pause. The once-feeble Empire had grown into a nation spanning the whole of the Continent. Over those thousand years, humanity had steadily advanced, pushing forward, little by little.

At the end of it all, one person appeared.

He was a swordsman at times, a knight at others, a hero, an adventurer, a mercenary. Taking on countless roles, he crossed the Continent and the Outland alike and finally set foot in the Abyss.

He went by many names.

But what he did was always the same.

To those who had lost their way, he always extended a hand. With his own starlight, he showed them the path. To the dead wandering in search of a place to be buried, he pointed out where they needed to go. The place he pointed to was not necessarily the right answer, but to the dead it shone with a brilliance like nothing else.

The Star of the Funeral March shone.

The Sword Demon's blade broke. Caught in the shockwave, he lost his grip on the sword. Starlight crossed the fallen sword and slammed into his body, and did not stop at that, burning through to his soul.

The death he had been putting off finally caught up with him.

He had lost his sword. There was no escaping death. Without a sword to hold and no longer a wraith, he was no longer the Sword Demon. The moment death arrived, he became Siegfried at last.

...Siegfried saw.

The swordsman who had broken him.

...Siegfried saw.

A starlight that resembled her, the one he had missed so desperately. He saw that the story he had thought was over was still going on. And at the root of that newly continued story, unmistakably, was her star.

...Siegfried understood.

The meaning of words Arthur had once thrown at him.

"Siegfried."

"What if."

"What do you think you would feel, if a human appeared who surpassed you?"

A conversation they had shared one day.

"Surpass me? There's no one capable of that besides you. Leave you out of it, and maybe the entire Round Table charging at once might barely manage it."

"No, not many. One person."

"One person. If someone like that existed, the world wouldn't be in this state. With you and me and that remarkable individual, the Abyss would have been conquered long ago."

Arthur shook her head with a small laugh.

"They won't appear now. Not yet."

"You speak as if you've seen the future. So just how remarkable is this person?"

"Stronger than anyone in the Round Table. Stronger than all the Knights of the Round Table combined. And stronger than me. To be precise, that's how it will turn out. Without fail."

Her voice carried absolute certainty.

"Standing on the history humanity has built up as a stepping stone, he climbs to the highest place. Somewhere no one has ever reached, he'll use even me as a stepping stone to get there."

"An arrogant human."

"Maybe. But imagine it, Siegfried!"

All trace of her usual composure was gone. When speaking of a future not yet arrived, Arthur would smile like a girl her age. Smiling, she said it.

"Doesn't your heart race? Isn't it exciting?"

"Not because of that person, but yes, it is exciting."

"If he exists, all the history humanity has built carries meaning. Nations that were destroyed, heroes who failed, the countless knights who fell before the Abyss..."

She looked happy talking about her dream.

"My life carries meaning too!"

"Your life has plenty of meaning even without someone like that."

"That's kind of you to say. Still, I suppose just knowing there's someone to hand things off to puts a person at ease. What do you think, Siegfried?"

Someone stronger than himself, someone who would surpass even the Round Table and Arthur. If anyone other than her had been saying it, he would have dismissed it as nonsense. But because it was Arthur, Siegfried gave it thought.

"If someone like that truly appeared."

After a long pause, he let out a short, dismissive laugh.

"I'd show them."

"Show them what?"

"The greatest wall in the world."

If they dared to use him as a stepping stone to leap higher, they would have to clear a wall like this first. That was Siegfried's way of being a sore loser, of course. It was why Arthur's eyes had lit up when she spoke of someone in the distant future rather than the person standing right in front of her.

Ah.

Recalling that conversation.

I see.

Siegfried looked at the swordsman who had broken him. The one who had cut him down with a sword of incomparable beauty, who had left him with no choice but to admit defeat.

Is it you, then? The person you spoke of, Arthur.

Then.

Siegfried was no longer a wraith. He could now face death. Death had drawn close enough to touch, yet he had not died, which paradoxically meant he was alive. In a sense, it was closer to having come back to life.

A life that would go out with the next gust of wind.

The time given to him was a mere moment.

Where to spend that final moment had already been decided in the conversation he shared with Arthur that day.

"I'll show you, heir of Arthur."

The greatest wall in the world.

2.

He had cut down Siegfried.

He had broken his sword.

He shattered the Thousand Swords, Ten Thousand Forms, and then went one step further, Najin cut through the Sword Demon's soul and flesh both.

"Kuh, ugh..."

He had succeeded in cutting Siegfried down, but his own condition was far from good. Still holding the sword in the same stance he had swung it, Najin coughed up a violent surge of blood. The feeling of his lungs being wrung like wet cloth, the natural result of unleashing an Absolute Technique from a body already carved to pieces.

Moving was out of the question. Even breathing was a struggle. Just staying on his feet was agony. He had lost too much blood; a chill crept slowly up his spine.

Even so, Najin did not fall.

He was still standing on two feet, and there was no grand reason for it. Pure stubbornness, the refusal to go down before his opponent did. Barely managing to exhale, he turned to look back.

Siegfried was collapsing.

A single platinum line was drawn across his body. The sword mark Najin's strike had left behind, a blow that had cut through not just flesh but soul. A fatal wound that should have meant instant death. Sure enough, Siegfried's body began to tilt.

Just as he was about to topple to the ground...

Boom.

The earth shook. Najin's eyes flew wide. Siegfried, who had been on the verge of falling, slammed his foot into the ground and forced his body upright.

What the...

Getting up, even in that state? This went beyond astonishment into something else entirely. There was a limit to how tough a body could be, and this had blown past the line by an absurd margin.

Creak.

But the situation had not changed. He had to respond. Siegfried had not gone down yet, but "yet" was all it was. Siegfried's body was coming apart. One more hit was all it would take.

But there was no one left to land that one hit.

Merlin had burned through every last drop of her mana and, having poured out everything she had, was completely spent. She was trying to pull herself up, but the movement was slow. Her mana was not gathering as it should, and she could not time it right.

The Sword Saint.

Out of the question. Karon was hovering between life and death. Being grateful just to still be breathing was the right attitude, let alone getting up.

"Ugh."

In the end, there was only himself. He forced his unresponsive body to move, but it was not easy. His arms were heavy and his breathing was ragged. Managing to turn himself around was the most he could do.

Struggling to move his body.

Najin locked eyes with Siegfried. The man was looking at him. With a face where nothing remained but his eyes, the only thing readable was his gaze, and from that gaze Najin felt something.

Watch closely.

It was as if his gaze were saying that.

A moment later, Siegfried lifted his arm. He had lost Gramr. Was he trying to call it back? No. Gramr remained where it was, still driven into the ground.

Then what?

Siegfried reached out and closed his hand around empty air. Of all his stars falling away, one remained that had not come down to the last. It was perhaps the one regret Siegfried had never been able to let go.

The dragon-slaying star.

Siegfried reached out toward his own star.

...He was, at his core, a dead man.

Because he was dead, he had stopped. Failed to move forward, drifted in stagnation. His will had been ground away until he could not even realize what he had been trying to do. He could not gain new understanding or grow.

He should not have been able to.

But Najin had awakened his will with the starlight of the Star of the Funeral March. He had given him the gift of death. Before the death now approaching, a human no longer a wraith felt that he was alive. In the final moment, he felt life for the first time.

Because he felt death, he felt life.

Because he was alive, he could move forward.

Siegfried reflected on his life. The thousand years spent swinging a sword in the Abyss, those endless stretches of time, had given him understanding. If someone could accumulate that depth of experience and still gain nothing from it, they would have to hand back the title of genius.

Siegfried was a genius.

Even after a thousand years.

Still.

The moment he reclaimed his will, his thousand years bore fruit. He seized hold of a fragment of enlightenment. With his sanity recovered, he did not speak last words, did not do any of that. He raised his arm to swing a sword one final time.

Siegfried was a swordsman.

A writer speaks of their life through sentences. A singer through song, a painter through paint, a person of power through power, a merchant through gold coins. Each in their own way expresses their life.

Then how should a swordsman speak?

Through a sword.

If a swordsman had a final testament to leave behind, it should not be words, it should be a sword. But the sword was gone. So just how was it supposed to work?

"It's right here."

Clench.

He closed his hand around his star. Whatever came into his hand became a sword. In that case, could a star not become a sword as well? At the edge of life, he set foot in a realm that had only ever seemed like an illusion.

That was why Najin and Karon had given him the clues.

Heart Sword, or confidence in oneself.

He swung the dragon-slaying star. It could not cut Najin. It was not even capable of cutting him to begin with, and he had no intention of cutting Najin either. The outcome had already been decided. Siegfried acknowledged his defeat.

He was simply showing something.

A fragment of the understanding he had gained. The place Najin would one day need to set foot. The insight he had won at the end of a thousand years of wandering, he spread it out and let it be seen.

He swung a sword, but nothing was cut.

For a Sword Demon who had spread a blade that cut through everything in sight, it was a humble thing to call a final strike. But if this was a sword swung not by the Sword Demon but by the Sword Saint, that story changed a little.

Najin saw it clearly.

What should have been cut was not. But what could not have been cut, was. Faced with a strike that seemed to have transplanted a contradiction whole, Najin fell silent, opened his eyes wide, and finally burst out laughing.

"To the very end."

He had followed so hard, finally caught up, finally overtaken him.

"And you've gone and stepped one foot ahead again."

That was what geniuses did. Chase them until you catch up, and they move that much farther away. Even in defeat, not even giving the winner a moment to savor victory, landing one final hit. Watching this swordsman with the most insufferable personality imaginable, Najin could not help but laugh.

Siegfried's body scattered.

To the end, he did not let go of the sword. His testament delivered, he crumbled along with the star in his hand. But what he had left behind was unmistakable.

The dragon-slaying star shone.

The life of one stubborn fool who had struggled toward dragon-slaying for a thousand years had not been without meaning. Because the one who would carry on that great work had appeared.

3.

"Siegfried."

"You called, Arthur."

"One last thing. Let me ask you something."

The Witch of the Abyss was coming.

The Dragon of the Abyss was coming.

At the center of a hell where the whole world churned black, standing back to back with Siegfried, Arthur spoke. Uncharacteristically, her voice carried no certainty.

"Do you have any regrets?"

"About what."

"Following me."

"None."

He answered without a pause.

Siegfried let out a short laugh.

"What, do you regret it now? Then you should have given me a proper answer sooner, you difficult woman."

"That... I couldn't have..."

"I know. I know that, so forget the dull answers. Give me a real one. We've come this far, that precious duty of yours doesn't matter anymore, does it?"

Laughter is contagious. Arthur let out a sound that said this was absurd, adjusted her grip on her sword, and laughed. It was not exactly the sort of conversation to be having with enemies more than capable of ending the world standing right before them.

"I'll tell you one thing."

Arthur took one step forward.

"If I had no duty that had to be done."

The backs pressed together came apart.

Turning to look at her, Siegfried saw Arthur wearing an expression that was almost impish, her eyes smiling at him. It was the most captivating smile he had ever seen from her.

"I would have confessed first, you idiot."

That was answer enough. With those words left behind, Arthur threw herself toward the Witch of the Abyss. Siegfried watched her back growing distant, then a helpless laugh slipped out of him.

"Damn woman."

What was he supposed to do with something like that, said at the very end?

Siegfried gripped his sword.

He had one more reason not to die.

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