WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 460

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Afterword, Preparation (4)

A Constellation. A Transcendent who has hung a constellation in the sky.

A superhuman who has surpassed the bounds of humanity.

So far beyond what one could simply call a mere human, they are so extraordinarily great that the world often addresses them by the name of god. Those who raise waves with a gesture, shake the earth, never age, and reign for centuries are, to common eyes, beings no different from gods.

Najin had thought so too.

Before he became a Transcendent himself.

Once he became a Constellation, and once he had faced other Constellations, certain things became clear. Constellations are not particularly omniscient or omnipotent. Even the Transcendent who bore the name Omniscience had met death in ignorance, had he not?

A Constellation is, in the end, still human.

Imperfect. Full of lacks. Capable of love. They carry regrets, feel remorse, sometimes hate, and sometimes spend long ages wandering simply because they cannot arrive at an obvious answer.

They can do more.

They hold more power.

The Constellations Najin had known were imperfect beings no different from ordinary people. Far removed from the perfect, omniscient, omnipotent figures depicted in ancient religion. Present-day orders worship Constellations as gods, yet even those orders' patron deities fall well short of perfection.

The lighthouse fell because it was imperfect.

The Martyr of Thorns is a broken avenger.

The Star Incarnation is nothing but a fabricated Idol.

Constellations and gods are different things. A Constellation is ultimately human, and humans cannot become gods. Which naturally leads to a question.

"When you look at the ancient religions," Najin said.

"A being called a god appears. Perfect, complete, omniscient, omnipotent."

There is a religion known as the ancient faith. It existed from a time far older than a thousand years, from the dimly distant past when stars were not yet visible. The religion's very name has been forgotten, yet the contents written within it were never erased.

"During my reign it was called the 'Religion of the Beginning.' Yes, I know it."

The ancient faith is both the source of the three orders and the root their doctrines grew from. What exists today as the orders is a reinterpretation and revision of that ancient faith's teachings, adapted to suit the modern age.

"Doesn't that seem strange?"

"Strange in what way?"

"In this world, Transcendents can be born by any number of means. Even with the Witch of the Abyss veiling the sky, Constellations still came into being. Stars must have been born and fallen since the most distant past."

Arthur had simply been that era's first star.

He was not the first star in any absolute sense.

Stars had existed in the world before him, and before that even further back. Even ten thousand years ago, in the age when Leviathan lived, stars had certainly shone in the sky.

"Transcendents are far closer to hand than the vague gods the ancient faith describes. And to those who know nothing about Constellations... what other beings could come as close to the image of a god?"

As modern people think now.

So too would people have thought in the past.

"So," Najin said.

"It would be natural for the earliest religion to worship Constellations as its patron gods, just as they do today. Worshipping a Constellation that actually exists is far more rational than worshipping a fictional being."

"Go on."

"Yet it's strange. The ancient faith, the Religion of the Beginning, worships not a real Constellation but a vague entity called a god. It even separates Constellations into their own category, using the expression 'masters of stars.'"

Leviathan smiled in a way that gave nothing away.

He nodded as if to say keep going.

"It's only a guess."

Najin looked up at the sky.

Stars are close at hand. A Transcendent who can topple nations with a gesture, who thousands upon tens of thousands of ordinary people could never kill even rushing all at once, would have existed at least once in every age throughout history.

If you left such a being aside and founded a religion around something called a god instead, what would happen? There was no way those Constellations would sit quietly and watch.

This is a world where even faith becomes power.

Constellations are still human. From Najin's perspective, not many Constellations would stand by while a fictitious god that didn't even exist claimed that much power for itself. Someone would covet it. Someone would tear it down and seize it by force.

And yet the ancient faith had endured.

Ten thousand years ago, a thousand years ago, and even now, its teachings were passed down. They survived as written records.

"In the age when the first religion was created, in the incomprehensibly distant past," Najin said.

If that is the case, he reasoned.

"Doesn't it mean a god actually existed? Something perfect, complete, omniscient and omnipotent, entirely separate from any Constellation?"

Having said that much, he asked again.

"Is that god the Witch of the Abyss?"

2.

The Immortal King. Leviathan.

A sovereign who had once founded a nation spanning the whole Continent, and a rebel who had challenged the Witch of the Abyss. For that very reason, the being who understood the Witch more deeply than anyone else.

"You're suggesting the god the Religion of the Beginning describes is the Witch of the Abyss. What a horrifying guess."

He laughed when he heard Najin's theory.

"The god that religion describes is a being who embraced humanity, loved it, and turned a barren wasteland full of savagery into a place where people could live. That is, assuming the being actually existed."

Leviathan fixed Najin with a hard look.

"You're saying the god who created the world for humanity is the same witch who is trying to exterminate humanity. That's what you want to say, is it?"

"......"

"Is what I would say, if I were deeply religious! But fortunately for you, I have no particular faith. I don't believe in gods. If anything, I'm of the persuasion that if something called a god exists, it should be dragged down from the heavens and nailed to the ground."

He exhaled.

"Do you remember what I said? That in order to oppose the Witch of the Abyss, I chose to become a Mortal King."

"I remember."

"And how did I describe the Witch in that context?"

"You called her an absolutely immortal god."

"Yes."

Leviathan nodded. From their very first meeting, he had been giving Najin clues.

"I reached a similar conclusion to yours in the past. The god the Religion of the Beginning describes is the Witch of the Abyss. By adhering to a method diametrically opposed to how that religion depicts its god, I challenged her."

He had failed, but victory had been within reach.

"Your guess and mine are correct. The fact that my plan caused meaningful damage rather than being a wasted effort supports that."

"Then......"

"The Witch of the Abyss is the same figure as the god described in the Religion of the Beginning. At the very least, the same in essence. Whether she took that place, seized it, swallowed it whole, or had some other reason entirely, I couldn't say."

The god who had cultivated the world for humanity.

Now desires the end of humanity.

"That's a horrifying story."

"Which is why I never told anyone."

Leviathan shrugged.

"So."

He looked Najin directly in the eye.

"What do you intend to do now?"

"......"

"Here before you stands a fool who challenged a god. That fool even carries the god's blessing. He stands in your path, granted the concept of death by the god herself."

The horseman of death, Leviathan.

The Immortal King, Leviathan.

"How are you going to bring me down? An immortal being assembled from every life on the entire Continent. By what method?"

Even Dragon Slayer Siegfried could not kill him. Even the alliance of countless heroes from a thousand years ago fell in defeat. A dragon no method had ever managed to kill, a dragon no one had even been able to face, and Najin intended to face it how, exactly? That was what Leviathan was asking.

"You are a king," Najin said.

"Yes. Still a king."

"What is a king?"

"One who bears responsibility. A being who represents."

Leviathan is a king. He had been king of an empire spanning the whole Continent, and he had made a covenant with every human living on that Continent ten thousand years ago. The representative of humanity in the most literal sense.

"Throughout human history, many kings have been replaced. Sometimes when their time ran out, sometimes through assassination, sometimes through betrayal, and sometimes..."

Najin smiled.

"Because they could no longer represent anything, and so had to step down from the throne. There is one type of nation that came into being when a king stepped down like that. Have you ever heard of a republic?"

"That is a concept new to me. What is it?"

"Humans elect a new representative. That person need not be anything special to begin with. They become special because they were elected, because they represent each faction. A republic is what you get when the people who have become special in that way come together and govern."

Weak as they were, such republics had existed. They had since vanished into the pages of history, and the Empire held the heart of the Continent now, but they had certainly existed once.

"Time has passed. A great deal of time."

Najin rose to his feet.

"You were king of all humanity, and beyond that the representative who unified the will of every living creature on the Continent, but......"

He said it plainly.

"Isn't that a little outdated? Ten thousand years have gone by, after all. The world has changed considerably over ten thousand years."

"You can't possibly be suggesting......"

"If a stale old king is still going around claiming to represent everyone and running things his way, what is to be done? He needs to be pulled off the throne."

Leviathan's eyes went wide. Then he burst out laughing, the laugh of someone who couldn't believe what he was hearing, who felt like he was looking at a man who had lost his mind entirely.

"You intend to become the new king? In my place? If you're thinking of challenging the Witch the same way I did, forget it. That method can't win, and not even I could overcome her."

"No."

Najin shook his head.

"I'm not a king. I have no intention of becoming one. Did I not say it? Human history has something called a republic."

A republic's representative is not a single person. The representative of the merchants' union, the representative of the mercenaries' union, the representative of magical scholarship, the representative of academia, countless representatives together steer one nation.

Of course it is not without its faults. It has far more drawbacks, and historically republics have failed. Najin, being a man of the Empire, has no particular fondness for republican governance either, but that applies at the level of a nation.

If that concept transcended the nation and encompassed the entire Continent and all living things within it, he was prepared to nod in agreement.

"As I said, some time has passed."

Humanity has developed with the passage of time. They have branched into forms too varied to bring under a single banner, and as the Witch of the Abyss tore their languages apart, they came to hold many different meanings.

"A thousand years ago they were not yet grown enough, but now there are those who have grown, each in their own field, each in their own way. And a great many of them."

Najin smiled.

"Representatives of nations. Representatives of religions. Representatives of Swordsmen. Representatives of knights. Representatives of merchants......"

From countless fields, countless representatives had emerged.

"I intend to gather them all and issue a challenge."

He looked at Leviathan.

"To you."

The old king.

The king seated on the throne with a worn and ancient crown upon his head.

The Immortal King, Leviathan.

"And to Leviathan."

The humanity of the old age. The tens of millions who came before.

3.

The Witch of the Abyss's proud horsemen.

One by one, the horsemen who raised four flags to herald the end begin to fall silent. The apostles of destruction who should have cast the entire Continent into terror are crumbling.

One.

The horseman of Conquest, who should have spread plague and devoured the Outland and then the Continent itself, had his head taken by Najin.

Two.

The horseman of War, who should have ignited the fires of war across the entire Continent, betrayed the Witch and was defeated by the new Round Table.

Three.

The horseman of Famine, who should have spread hunger and thirst, was freed from that hunger by the knight who carried on that will.

"......"

Looking around, only one remained. Of the four flags, three had already been broken. At that fact, the Witch tilted her head without expression. Where her gaze fell, the oldest apostle waited.

The oldest horseman.

Through the long thousands of years that had passed, while the other horsemen fell and crumbled and were replaced again and again, there was one who had never been replaced even once. A horseman who had never handed his flag to another, never been broken.

The horseman of death, Leviathan.

Or rather, the Immortal King, Leviathan.

The Witch of the Abyss reached out toward her proud apostle. Each time a flag was broken she had grown freer from the Seal, and now she could do more than extend a hand, she could look out at the world with her own eyes and speak with her own voice.

Snap, snap, snap snap snap......

Her hand severed the net draped over Leviathan's body. To her apostle, thus set free, she whispered.

"Rise."

The beast listened to its mother's whisper.

"Do what you do best."

The oldest death opened its eyes.

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