WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 513: Dawn, the Star That Heralds the End of Night (3)
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A Star that had expanded for ages began to contract.
Until Najin obtained his fourteenth Star, the End Star had been the largest constellation in the world. Its thirteen Blight Stars contracted into a single point, warping space around them.
Beyond the distorted scenery,
Najin met the gaze of the Witch, who clutched the Blight Star in her hand. Even as her body collapsed, she did not let it go. Morgan could not release herself, so until the very end, she chose to remain the Witch.
"You said you would cut me down."
No sound reached him. Even so, Najin understood what she was saying. Holding the Star that had converged into a single point, Morgan spoke.
"This is me."
A mass of horribly twisted resentment.
Hatred aged over tens of thousands of years.
The sins of humanity the Witch had witnessed and gathered.
"......"
Najin took his stance without a word. He did not run. He did not turn away. Without retreating even a step, he faced the Witch head-on. Najin had lived that way, and so he remained the same until the end.
Morgan smiled at the sight.
This was her defeat. She accepted it.
But she had no intention of quietly handing victory to her opponent. Just as Arthur had done to her in the past, the Witch who had come to resemble humanity made the same choice as a human in her final moment. She would not submit to defeat. She would struggle in disgrace. If she was going to fall anyway, then she would fall in the grandest way possible.
Her physical form collapsed.
The Star that had contained her power collapsed.
The Witch of the Abyss still wished for the end. Even if it cost her life, she wanted the end to come to this land. Swallowing everything the Witch possessed, the End Star finally met its own end.
And then it came.
The grandest explosion of all.
2.
The Star's death and explosion happened at once.
An immense torrent of light, heat, and power burst forth in a single instant. The force erupted in the shape of a huge sphere, as though the sun had risen right before them.
A supernova, an explosion born from a Star's death.
The greater the Star, the greater the explosion.
Yuel had driven Omniscience, who possessed ten Stars, to the brink of death by detonating a single Blight Star. She had also turned one section of the Outland, including her sanctuary, into a wasteland. Considering that... it was impossible even to imagine the aftermath of the explosion the Witch would create.
An explosion created by thirteen Blight Stars.
If left alone, it would turn not only the Abyss and the Outland, but most of the Continent into hell.
'I can't let that happen.'
As a certain noble who loved plays had once said, a character who overcame hardship and adversity had to be able to smile at the end. At the very least, it had to be a story you could laugh about, didn't it? No one could smile at an ending like this.
That was why Najin grasped his Star.
Boom.
Najin planted his raised foot on the ground. Fixing his feet firmly in place, he lowered his arm. He moved while staring directly at the approaching explosion.
'See what must be cut.'
He had to cut away the aftermath of the explosion. He had to cut away the resentment the Witch had gathered. He had to cut both what could be cut and what could not.
'Once you see it, remember.'
How should it be cut, and with what? Najin already knew the answer.
'With my life.'
With the life he had sharpened to an edge.
'Once you remember.'
Swing it. As he always had.
The Star in his hand shone.
From the first Star Najin had obtained to every Star he had gathered since, they lit up one after another. The story that had begun with challenge continued through Dragon Slaying, Breakthrough, and Indomitability, then Funeral Rites, carrying on until it reached Transcendence.
What followed was Merlin's Star.
She said it was time to put a full stop to this long story. Only when one story ended could a new story begin. She had said that was precisely what her mystique was for.
Now, she could say it with a smile.
The Terminus Star shone.
A full stop upon the story that had continued for so long. A full stop meant one story had ended, but...
The Star of Transition shone.
It was also the turning point where a new story began. Having reached that turning point with her and written a new story found nowhere else, Najin spoke.
The Star of Dawn shone.
This was the starting point. It was dawn's role to announce the beginning of a new day. People began their days with the dim light growing bright. Grasping a Star opposed to the end, Najin surged forward.
He did not need to take a great stride.
One step.
One step was enough to begin a story. Come to think of it, Najin's own story had also begun with that one step. Remembering the day he had stepped toward Excalibur, Najin smiled.
Who could believe it?
That this story had begun that way.
If he wanted to cut something, he cut it.
Whether it possessed form or not did not matter to Najin. What mattered was that Najin wanted to cut it. The heart cut down what had no form, and the Star sharpened like a sword cut down what did.
Without a sound, a single line was drawn.
The enormous sun created by the supernova split apart. Heat was cut. Light was cut. The gale-force pressure that had raged like a storm faded, and even the sound following it split apart, leaving silence behind. Najin moved forward through that silence.
He took one more step.
Because there was still something left to cut.
He cut the split sun again. There would be people watching this battle from beneath the ground. So their eyes would not be blinded, so they would not be swept up in the explosion, Najin cut the light again.
He split the heat again and cut away the sound that would follow like thunder. What could not be cut and what could be cut, he cut it all.
Even Merlin, watching him, could not understand what was happening. A sight beyond comprehension was unfolding before her eyes. Najin had swung only once, but the trajectory he had drawn continued without end.
Stars were etched into the ground as footprints.
The connected footprints became a constellation.
What Najin faced after carving that constellation was the Witch's origin. Once the light and heat were stripped away, the Witch's resentment remained within. It was resentment that no one had understood or resolved over tens of thousands of years.
Darkness burst forth in place of light and heat.
Dark red flames flooded outward.
As if declaring that unless this was cut down, it would become an inextinguishable flame and burn the world, the Witch's origin roiled. The screams she had gathered echoed out, and sticky hatred became red paint that stained the sky.
And Najin had said it before.
That he would cut her down, including all of that.
The Terminus Star placed a full stop upon the Witch's story. The overflowing flames stopped. At the place where the full stop had been placed, the Star of Transition shone. There was only one thing that could come next.
Like the day he pulled Excalibur from the rock where it had been firmly lodged, Najin swung his arm as though drawing a sword from empty air. It was the strike that had become the starting point of this entire story.
If this strike were to be given a name,
It would surely be Dawn.
The final technique of the Dawn Sword needed no sword. Dawn itself was a blade, so there was no need to attach the word sword after it.
Najin swung Dawn.
Upon the night that had continued for tens of thousands of years, Dawning Star declared the end.
3.
Blinking, Najin closed his eyes and opened them.
Where he had cut through the night, Najin found himself facing a horizon. In a blue expanse that stretched endlessly into the distance, where sky and sea seemed to meet, Najin suddenly realized something.
This must have been the sky of the beginning.
The sky before the Witch had swallowed it and stained it with her own color. In other words, this must have been the sky from when countless rulers had waged war to ascend here. Then was the throne somewhere in this place?
The throne the prophet had spoken of long ago.
Najin found it quickly. In this vast space, only the throne stood there in solitude. And Najin could see the person seated upon it as well.
Morgan le Fay.
She was not the Witch Najin had cut down. The King of Avalon, ruler of the ideal nation and the woman who had chosen to remain a fairy, sat there. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say she was bound there. Having become one with the Sky Throne, she existed in that place.
Their eyes met.
She was the first to speak.
"...Ah."
As though waking from a long sleep, she opened her eyes. Her lips moved as if counting the years she had slept, then as though realizing there was no meaning in counting them.
"I see."
She looked at Najin.
"Is there anything you desire?"
It was a question without context.
"I have watched you all from here. Watching was the only thing I could do, after all. That was the punishment she gave me."
"And if you watched?"
"From the beginning of your story until you reached this place. If your story were a novel, then having read every sentence, I suppose I would be one of your devoted readers."
The fairy smiled softly.
"She is dead, so I will disappear as well. Her sins are also my sins, so it is only natural. But before that, I can grant at least one of your wishes."
"A wish," said the King of Avalon.
"I will ask again. Is there anything you desire?"
Together with the throne, she was crumbling away.
Najin recalled who she was.
The woman he had seen in Morgan's memories. The King of Avalon, the ideal nation's ruler and the remaining half of the Witch, was a being who answered humanity's wishes. The King of Avalon who had gathered the most beautiful things in the world, sat upon the Sky Throne, and sought to turn this land into an ideal nation.
The god spoken of in the first religion.
Facing her, Najin tilted his head and looked around. Merlin was not here. It seemed Najin alone had earned the right to come to this place.
"What can you grant?"
"I can revise your story."
The god spoke.
"I can give you the chance to correct everything you consider filthy, everything you believe was wrong, everything you regret from the life you have lived."
"It sounds like you're offering to send me back in time."
"If the purpose of going back is to correct one's mistakes, then I can do something similar in the end."
Najin instinctively understood how that was possible. A Star was the continuation of a story. If Najin, who had become the greatest constellation, wished for it, this world would be rewritten around him. Like creating a sanctuary.
In the process of being rewritten, Najin could correct his story as much as he pleased. He might not be able to do it alone, but with Morgan, a Night Fairy, helping him, he could write the most ideal story.
If he could look through countless possibilities and choose only the most beautiful ones to fill it with, Najin's story would become the most ideal story.
"I see."
Because he understood that,
"I refuse. I don't need it."
Najin refused without the slightest hesitation.
The fairy was not flustered by his refusal.
She simply looked directly at Najin and asked,
"Wasn't it painful? Watching your life, I found it quite painful. From the beginning, it was one trial after another."
"It was painful. Of course it was."
"The world forced unfairness upon you. It was one hardship after another for a child like you to endure, and you had to grow up early in the middle of it all. You saw filth, drank filth, and survived through hardship as you grew."
Najin did not deny her words.
"Even afterward, the trials continued. It was pain you would have been better off without. Weren't they hardships you never needed to suffer through? I can make all that pain disappear."
She was right. It had been painful. It had been hard.
"Don't you regret it? You can set things right. You can turn them back. You can bring the dead back to life. Ivan, Alderaan, your master, all those you had to see off. This time, you can choose to save them."
He had regretted it too. What if he had done better then? What if he had made another choice? What if he had been as strong as he was now? What if he had gained enlightenment just a little earlier? It was not as though he had never thought those things.
He had thought them countless times.
But even so,
"I told you, I don't need it."
Najin still did not deny those choices.
"Why?"
"Because all of that is part of my life."
Najin smiled.
"My story is complete as it is. It needs no revision and no additions. There may be parts I regret, but including those parts, this is my story."
It was a work complete in itself. Najin would not allow anyone to touch his story, add to it, or revise it. Even if that someone was himself, it would be the same.
If the Najin of today went to his past self and said he would revise his story, the young boy Najin would sneer and raise his middle finger.
Get out of my sight.
Every version of Najin would say this was his story.
"So I don't need it."
He did not wish to be rewritten.
He did not wish to become a god and ruler.
Najin was still Najin.
"I see."
Then the fairy smiled.
As though she had realized something, she laughed.
"This must be why you accomplished what I could not. This must have been the difference between you and me."
One who endlessly sought to revise their life, and one who called their life complete as it was.
"All those years of enduring were worth it."
Having realized the answer after tens of thousands of years, the woman let out a long breath. Her body crumbled together with the throne. Before she disappeared, she unconsciously saw someone else's image overlap with Najin's.
「There are filthy and ugly parts.」
「But doesn't that make them shine even brighter?」
Remembering a certain general who had moved forward without denying either side, the fairy closed her eyes. Where Morgan disappeared, a single path remained.
The end of the Abyss.
A path toward the ideal nation appeared.
Author's Note
I'm a little late!!
Footnotes:
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