Prologue: A Starless Sky
Countless heroic tales proclaim the same truth.
No matter where you stand, if you lift your gaze to the vast night sky, you will see the constellations. And those constellations are nothing less than the traces of heroes who once raced across this land—the very shape of their lives.
That claim was half right and half wrong.
Heroes who truly piled up great deeds did etch their stars into the night sky and became transcendent beings called Constellations. In that respect, the notion that “a constellation is a hero’s life” held true.
So where did the falsehood lie?
Right there in the words “no matter where you stand, if you look up at the sky, you will see the constellations.” I raised my head and stared at the sky. More precisely, I stared at the ceiling of the city I had spent my entire life treating as the sky.
What filled my eyes was no broad night sky, and it was certainly no brilliant map of stars.
Thick smoke. Countless ores wedged precariously into the ceiling. Only the artificial glow those ores cast lit my pupils. This city had neither sky nor constellations.
Well, of course.
A sneer slipped past my lips.
As if anything like a star would ever show itself here.
······The underground city, Atman.
A place even the sun—which shines equally on all things under heaven—refused to touch. And so a place drowned in darkness day and night, season after season. A city that, because the sun never rose, lived by the fake fire of mined ore.
The people from the upper town had a name for it.
The Landfill.
The place where discarded trash was dumped and buried.
The underground city, Atman.
Those who lived here generally fell into two kinds, sorted by a simple measure.
People banished down from the upper town.
Or the children those banished people made with one another once their eyes met.
I belonged to the second sort.
It meant that even though I had committed no particular crime, I had been born into a life sentence spent entirely inside this city. Of course that was only my own view; the folks above seemed to think a little differently.
Trash that breeds with trash naturally produces more trash. By being born you dirty the world, so birth itself is the crime.
That was the average mindset of the upper town and the ordinary way they treated this place. By their logic I had been a sinner from the moment I drew breath, and therefore I was meant to rot here for the rest of my days.
“···How pitiful.”
“What a shame for such a little one.”
Plenty of people pitied me for it. Their pity, though, never sat well with me. I had never even known what the outside world looked like.
The warm sun they spoke of.
The wide green plains.
The blue sea that supposedly stretched past the horizon.
I had never seen any of them, and I could not even picture their shapes. Longing for things the mind itself cannot form is a hard habit to keep. So, to be honest, the outside world held little interest for me.
There was just one thing.
If anything still caught my interest······.
“Stars.”
I muttered it under my breath.
“Stars. Constellations. Heroes.”
I reached out and took hold of a fairy-tale book.
It was a volume I had chanced upon when I was very small. A book titled The Chronicle of Arthur. I opened the pages that had grown soft and frayed from being read again and again.
The Chronicle of Arthur is a heroic tale.
A tale of a hero who lived centuries ago. In its pages Arthur drew the sword no one else could pull from the stone, then crossed the continent with nothing but that single blade.
As a knight. And as a hero.
Arthur saved countless lives, cut down countless demons, and at the journey’s end became a Constellation. The thirteen great deeds Arthur had piled up turned into stars and were carved into the night sky.
“Constellation.”
I turned to the final page of the fairy-tale book.
It was the page I had opened more than any other, because it held the illustration of Arthur’s constellation. I stared in silence at the pattern of stars that filled an entire leaf of paper.
Thirteen stars.
A constellation shaped like a sword, star joined to star.
While I looked at it, the short lines written beside the picture slid into view.
No matter where you stand upon this land,
if you look up at the sky, you will see the stars.
I lifted my head and looked at the sky.
Of course no stars appeared.
“I can’t see a damn thing, you bastard.”
A sigh slipped out. Yes—I cared nothing for the rest of the outside world, yet··· just once, I wanted to see those constellations with my own eyes.
I didn’t know why.
I simply wanted to look at a star.
It was pure curiosity, a daydream. A dream that could never come true, so it was no better than fantasy.
“Life.”
Staring upward, I suddenly remembered.
There was that saying too, wasn’t there? Do not insult the stars while you look at the sky. The stars can hear your voice no matter where you are, so long as you are looking at them.
How are they supposed to hear an insult when I can’t even see a single star?
Holding Arthur’s constellation in my mind, I raised my middle finger toward the ceiling. Along with the finger I mouthed a light curse—an insult Arthur would not have been able to ignore if it had been heard: that you were nothing but a lucky hotshot born in the right age.
One second, two seconds, three··· a full minute.
Naturally no divine punishment fell. Figures. I sighed and stood. There was a lot to do today.
“Ugh.”
I almost wished the punishment had come. It would have been better than living this boring stretch of days.
A short while after the boy left his place.
Above the underground city of Atman, above the vast city built upon it, in the broad night sky, a certain constellation flared. It was not the constellation of Arthur the boy had seen in his fairy-tale book.
Not the sword of thirteen stars.
But the one that kept watch beside it, calm as a still lake.
A quiet lake that cradled the stars so its king, sunk in deep sleep, might close those eyes in peace. That constellation, which had always been still, suddenly scattered a brilliant light. In a way it looked like the rage of a star.
Constellation: the Staff of Selection.
The constellation that had walked with Arthur from the first step of the journey to the last.
The Mage of the Lake, Merlin.
Merlin’s lake-shaped constellation heaved violently. Nested deep within it, her true form opened wide eyes and looked down upon the ground. In Merlin’s ears the voice of some insolent boy still echoed.
Arthur was nothing but a lucky hotshot born in the right era.
If born in this age, would have amounted to nothing.
Angry? Want to argue?
Then come drop some divine punishment yourself.
It was an insult so thorough she could not even decide where to begin correcting it. For the first time in a long while Merlin felt the back of her neck grow hot.
“Wow.”
She gave a hollow laugh and raked her fingers through her hair. Pale water-blue strands rippled along her slender hand.
“What kind of lunatic is this?”
Bloodshot veins stood out in Merlin’s eyes.