WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 514: Dawn, the Star That Heralds the End of Night (4)

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One day, Merlin had said this.

Avalon, the ideal land.

That reaching it was her dream.

When she had first set out on her adventure, her dream had not been particularly noble. She did not know much about grand things like world peace. She simply wanted to see with her own eyes what a place called an ideal land looked like. That was what had driven Merlin.

"Because it's a place beyond imagination."

"Beyond imagination?"

"Think about it. I'm a Night Fairy, aren't I? I can create anything I can imagine in dreams. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't imagine what the ideal land looked like."

Avalon, the ideal land.

The name of the paradise that appeared in the first myth, the ideal land said to exist at the end of the Abyss.

"What could it possibly look like? An ideal land, paradise, a beautiful place at the end of the Abyss. I thought about it for days and nights, but I couldn't find an answer. So I finally decided. I'd just go see it myself! If I can't imagine it, I can go look at it!"

Merlin snickered and shrugged.

"That's how I started my adventure. My purpose changed a little along the way, but isn't that how it goes for everyone?"

Or so it should have been.

Merlin looked ahead.

"After going all the way around, I've come back to the beginning."

A single road lay before them.

The road leading to the end of the Abyss.

For tens of thousands of years, the Witch had blocked that path. Now, with Morgan's disappearance, it had finally revealed itself. Merlin stared down the road stretching into the distance and found herself smiling.

"I can't believe we actually made it this far."

"I told you I'd keep my promise. What, did you not believe me?"

"Who said that? I'm just impressed."

It was a dream from over a thousand years ago. If she counted the time she had spent as a fairy, it had been several thousand years since she first held that dream. It belonged to a past so distant that even the dream itself had become vague, yet now that it stood before her eyes, Merlin could feel her heart pounding wildly.

"Do you know what's funny?"

"What is it?"

"I'm about to achieve the dream I've wanted so desperately, but more than achieving that dream..."

Merlin took Najin's hand.

"I'm happier that you're here beside me right now."

"That's sudden."

"All the tragedies I imagined when I was a fairy have missed us. You didn't die, you didn't sacrifice yourself, you weren't sealed away, and you didn't lose your memories."

"What exactly do you usually watch?"

"Hmph. Sorry for being such an annoying woman who can only imagine tragedies. What can I do? It's my nature. The worst possibility always comes to mind first."

Merlin chuckled, then let out a quiet breath.

"We won."

"Like always."

"Yes. In the end, we won."

The Witch of the Abyss had fallen. They had stopped the world from facing destruction, and at last they had achieved what Merlin and her companions could not achieve a thousand years ago. Put another way, Merlin could finally place a full stop.

"Honestly."

Merlin glanced at Najin. There was so much she wanted to say, but she wanted to wait until the mood was a little better. Her lips moved, then she smiled.

"...You worked hard. And thank you."

"That's my line."

Najin shrugged.

"Shall we go? We've come this far, so we should at least see it. The ideal land the Witch kept hidden away."

"Yes!"

Merlin nodded eagerly. The two followed the long road. When they looked back, the darkness that had covered the Abyss was slowly fading away. Leaving behind the darkness as it flowed down like a falling curtain, they walked on.

Beyond the curtain.

After walking for some time, a vast lake appeared before them. At the end of the world lay a round lake. Though the Abyss had surrounded it, the lake was not polluted in the slightest and shone blue.

And at the center of that lake was an island.

"That looks like Avalon, doesn't it?"

"Yes. Another name for Avalon is the Island of Paradise. I didn't think it would really be an island, though."

Najin started looking around for wood to make a boat, but Merlin looked at him as if he were absurd and said, "Did you forget who's standing beside you?" Then she simply snapped her fingers.

There was no way the Wizard of the Lake could not cross a lake.

Splash.

As he walked barefoot across the lake, Najin thought that they had crossed the Continent, the Outland, and finally even the Abyss to reach the end of the world, but the end of the world was only a figurative expression. This place was not all that grand.

There was no cliff one might imagine at the end of the world. The world was round to begin with, shaped like a sphere. Anywhere could be an end, and anywhere could be a beginning. This lake, once surrounded by the Abyss, may have been an end for the Witch, but for someone else, it was no more than a starting point.

Whether it was an end or a beginning.

That depended on the heart of the one who saw it. When Najin reached that thought, he smiled without realizing it.

"Don Quixote-nim had it exactly right."

"Hm? Why bring up the Star of Mirth all of a sudden?"

"He said this. Whether the place we reached after our adventure was La Mancha or just an illusion was up to us. If we believed this place was La Mancha, then it truly would be an ideal land."

Splash.

Crossing the lake, the two reached Avalon.

An island in the middle of the lake.

There was no point in describing the scenery of the island. Paradise was paradise in the truest sense. Still, if one detail had to be added, the island was filled with apple trees.

「Lucius.」

「Yes, Morgan.」

「What kind of place is Avalon, the one from that fairy tale? It only said it was an ideal land, a paradise.」

「I do not know either. They say it is a place full of apple trees. They also say it is an island floating in the middle of a lake.」

Najin simply thought that whoever had created this island must have liked apple trees. He picked an apple and looked at Merlin. Her eyes shone as she looked around every corner of the island, until she finally burst out laughing.

"Avalon, the ideal land, is just an island where apple trees grow? That's so half-hearted. They said it was an island where fairies and heroes rested. Shouldn't there at least be fairies dancing?"

"Then why don't you dance?"

"What?"

"Merlin is a fairy, and I'm a hero. So if Merlin dances while I sit and clap, isn't that basically the same thing?"

Merlin stared at Najin as if he were ridiculous, then stroked her chin and slowly nodded.

"You have a point."

It was not exactly wrong.

What Avalon looked like did not matter.

What mattered was that they had reached the end of their journey, and that the Companion she could laugh and talk with was alive. By arriving here together with Najin, this had become, for Merlin, a place beyond even her imagination.

For now, that was enough.

Whatever came next was something they could begin from here.

"Hey. Do you remember the promise we made in the Eternal City?"

Merlin touched the Blue Knot.

"We put it off until the journey was over."

"Ah."

"Now it's over, isn't it?"

What do you mean by that, Merlin?

Merlin was just a little faster than Najin as he hurriedly tried to speak. Ever since accepting her other half, Merlin had endured and endured, but at last her patience had reached its limit.

Merlin grabbed Najin by the collar.

She rose onto her toes and tilted up her chin slightly. Before Najin could say something boring, Merlin sealed his lips with her own.

For a very long time.

"Hehe."

"Wait..."

"You're doing it again. Hmm?"

What happened afterward could likely be replaced with a line often used in fairy tales.

And they lived happily ever after.

2.

The Constellations that had gathered in the Abyss to help Najin.

They first felt the change when the Witch's spells, which had been pouring down without pause, came to a stop. The statues that had been offering prayers also stopped. What that change meant was simple, so the Constellations looked up at the sky.

The Witch had lost her composure.

The Blight Star scattering light endlessly through the sky, along with the Dawning Star that did not yield to it in the slightest, strengthened their guess.

"Ah."

The Constellations watched the sight.

The Dawning Star did not lose to the Blight Star. The larger the darkness poured out by the Blight Star became, the brighter the Dawning Star shone. They silently watched the sky, where a mythic battle was unfolding.

The fight continued for a long time.

And during that time, they witnessed it.

The thirteenth star rising.

Two more stars shining in Merlin's constellation, which had not changed for thousands of years.

Gleam.

At last, they saw the fourteenth star shine, a star no one had ever reached, not even the Witch. Then the sky was remade. They saw a scene that could only be described with those words.

The night split apart.

The night sky that had covered the Abyss for countless ages was cut open, and the Blight Star was split apart. Blue sky appeared at the center of the blackened heavens, and the darkness that had covered the Abyss was washed away by that blue sky.

"Waaaaaaaah!"

Cheers and shouts echoed out.

Even Transcendents who had lived for hundreds of years jumped in place like children. They shouted, embraced one another, and screamed with joy.

And this was not only the story of the Constellations.

Countless people praying on the Continent, rulers, believers, countless others, all shouted in celebration. As they watched the mythic sight with their own eyes, even a kind of religious ecstasy filled them...

On this day, even the observers of the Gray Tower shed tears of joy. The large-scale changes to the celestial bodies were tomorrow's problem. No matter how difficult it would be, was it not better for tomorrow to come? They cried because they could afford the luxury of worrying about the future.

The moment they became certain that tomorrow, which had seemed as if it would never come again, would return, everyone cried out.

They chanted the name of the Dawning Star.

Then time passed.

A day went by, then three, but the excitement did not fade. The whole Continent was in a festive mood, and the bards in the streets enjoyed a prosperity unlike any they had ever known. Songs of the mythic battle that had taken place only recently never stopped, and many changes came to the world.

There were changes centered on the Abyss and the Outland, changes within the Empire, changes among the Constellations, and more.

But let us set those changes aside for a moment.

Instead, let us speak of these two women chewing refreshments as if they wanted to kill someone with their eyes.

"......"

"......"

About two months after the Blight Star vanished, two women sat in the garden of a duke's estate, sipping tea with grim expressions. Yuel set down her teacup and spoke with a bright smile.

"So is this bastard even alive?"

Normally, Dieta would have made a sly remark like, "Ahaha, let's use nice and proper language. We should keep up appearances!" But today, she said nothing and simply nodded.

Defeating the Blight Star? Killing the Witch?

Fine. All of that was fine.

But why had he still not returned?

She had waited one day. Two days? Three days? She even waited ten days. But once more than a month had passed, Dieta's patience had reached its limit. Now that it had been over two months, it went without saying.

Shouldn't he at least send word, for conscience's sake?

After pressing the astronomers of the Gray Tower for an answer, Dieta had managed to hear, "He appears to be alive, but the form of his Star is somewhat strange, so we are not entirely sure." She tilted her teacup with a venomous expression.

"Exactly."

Dieta smiled sweetly as she bit into a refreshment with a crunch.

"I heard that the Constellations are guessing he might be recovering in the ideal land. Do you know anything, Yuel?"

"I would need to know what this ideal land looks like first. I don't know either. I don't know what it looks like or how to get there. From what I've heard, it seems you need thirteen Stars to go there..."

Yuel rested her chin on her hand.

"I thought your trading company slogan was 'We buy and sell anything.' Do you happen to sell Stars? I'd like to urgently buy about four."

"If they could be bought, I would have bought twelve already."

They spent some time sipping tea and making pointless jokes.

"But Yuel."

"Yes? What is it, Dieta?"

"Am I seeing things?"

Dieta pointed toward the gate of the duke's estate.

"Doesn't it look like someone is standing over there?"

Ah, this woman had really gone mad. They were rivals in love, but Yuel still felt sorry for her. Looking at Dieta with pity, Yuel reached out to pat her shoulder when...

-Wait a moment, Yuel.

"Yes?"

-They really are standing there.

No way. It seemed even her other half had gone mad. At least Yuel needed to keep her mind together. Even so, she casually turned toward the gate as if she had not heard anything, then blinked.

"...Hmm."

I guess I've gone mad too.

"Razian."

-Yes, Yuel.

"Let's use it."

-Use what?

"Dismantling Slash."

-A good idea.

The ultimate technique of the Star of Heavenly Slaughter exploded toward the Dawning Star, who had crawled back after three months. Sword Aura unleashed by a Sword Master in the heart of the Empire burst like fireworks.

"Wait a moment, I have an explanation."

"You'd better."

Their conversation began a short while after that.

Author's Note

I have an explanation.

Footnotes:

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