The Youngest Sword Seeker (5)
A sword aura in which white and gold coexisted.
He could have blended the two colors if he wished, but Najin deliberately kept them separate as he unfurled it. The instant he revealed a platinum-gold sword aura, even the thinnest excuse would vanish from his lips.
I could unify it into pure white, but…
That would make the form of the aura waver.
Of course the tremor would be so fine that most people would never notice—but right now Najin stood under the eyes of three Sword Masters at once.
Sword Masters. Transcendents who had mastered the sword as a weapon. Their senses had long since left the realm of ordinary men; they would pierce even the slightest quiver in his aura. And in that instant they would know.
Ah. This brat is hiding his power.
The Emperor had just commanded him to prove his worth. To conceal his strength in front of that man would be a deception that could see him executed without another word. So Najin chose to separate the colors—just enough that the form of the aura itself would not shake.
Still, I can’t deny that it resembles King Arthur’s sword aura.
“It might not necessarily be that way,” Merlin said.
“Arthur’s symbol was the platinum sword aura. But gold and white auras aren’t unheard of in history. No one ever held both at once, but… anyway.”
She let out a long breath.
“The form of your aura is different from Arthur’s. I’ll stake my word on that. I watched Arthur’s aura closer than anyone, and I can say for certain—the difference is fundamental. Most people get so dazzled by that distinctive platinum color that they never notice, but…”
From the moment he drew the aura, Najin felt as if Merlin stood right beside him. It was no illusion; her figure was faintly visible to his eyes alone.
One of the changes that came with reaching the realm of Sword Seeker—Merlin, visible only to him.
She stretched out a finger and pointed at the Emperor, the sun of the Empire who was staring this way with eyes wide open. Merlin continued as she indicated him.
“The Emperor sitting there is different. Even if he doesn’t share Arthur’s blood, he descends from the Wise King that Arthur herself chose.”
If the blood of that brilliant Wise King had not thinned, if it had not stagnated and rotted with the centuries—
“He’ll recognize it. For a ruler, nothing matters more than the eye that sees through all things.”
And if he failed to recognize it? If he grew afraid that Arthur’s descendant had appeared and tried to suppress him? Merlin posed the question to herself, then gave a cold little snort.
“Then we take it back.”
Take what?
“The name of Pendragon—and Briton.”
The Emperor of the Briton Empire. The sun of the Empire, Eldwin Pendragon.
He rose from his seat without thinking, eyes wide. Staging exaggerated reactions was part of an emperor’s daily craft, but this time there was no performance. Genuine shock had moved his body of its own accord.
A platinum sword aura!
No—more precisely, white and gold coexisting. Yet the aura the boy had drawn took the shape of a constellation.
Something that resembled platinum. A sword aura shaped like a constellation. Anyone who saw it would think of the stars of the night sky, and there was no need to say what a star-evoking aura symbolized. In all of history, only one person had ever possessed such a thing.
The true master of Briton. The great hero Arthur.
The aura the boy had kindled resembled hers. Had her true heir somehow crossed a thousand years to stand in this hall? The Emperor’s thoughts churned; his pupils began to tremble—
Then a single heavy beat, and his heart went cold in an instant.
“……”
Before he knew it, his eyes had narrowed. Shock had moved him first, but he recovered his breath at once. He poured ice water through the chaos in his mind and set his thoughts racing, assessing the situation.
It was a habit drilled into him since childhood. The Emperor who stood above all others must never show panic or excitement—so the previous sovereigns had taught.
Once his breathing settled, Eldwin calmly studied Najin’s sword aura. His pale blue eyes moved slowly. After only a few seconds, he reached a judgment.
If one is dazzled by the color alone, one might call them similar. But look at the foundation…
They were different. The form was clearly distinct from the Arthur’s aura recorded in history. The image of Arthur’s sword aura engraved on the imperial artifacts handed down through the generations was not this.
The boy’s aura was a constellation.
Arthur’s had been only a star.
The great one’s aura had been a single star—a fiercely shining platinum star. One that was all, and all that was one. By comparison, the boy’s aura did not signify the singular.
And yet.
The resemblance could not be denied. Anyone who saw that boy’s aura would think first of King Arthur. That fact was inescapable. The Emperor exhaled a long breath.
“You may withdraw the aura.”
Najin sheathed his blade, slid it home, and dropped back to one knee with his head bowed. It was a perfect knight’s courtesy. No one present was petty enough to scold a non-knight for observing a knight’s forms.
The Emperor felt a throb behind his temples.
When he first heard that the youngest Sword Seeker had appeared, he had clapped his hands, thinking a treasure had walked into the Empire of its own accord. Now that he had peeled back the wrapping, what was this?
Eighteen years old. Youngest Sword Seeker. Active for half a year. Possessor of a sword aura that evokes King Arthur.
Half a year. A laugh slipped from the corner of the Emperor’s mouth.
How very conveniently half a year.
Half a year ago, an event had shaken heaven and earth alike—the historic moment when someone completed the Trial of Selection.
Half a year ago, Excalibur had been drawn. By some unknown hand.
The world had buzzed that one of the three inland Sword Masters had pulled it and that the Empire was concealing the fact. That rumor was wrong. Even now, half a year later, the Empire had not found the owner of Excalibur. It had merely pretended to know.
That truth was shared only by the Emperor of the Empire and his innermost circle.
But…
The Emperor looked at the boy before him.
An absurd record as the youngest Sword Seeker at eighteen. Activity beginning half a year ago. A sword aura that resembled King Arthur’s. By pure coincidence, every thread overlapped in the figure standing before him.
Reasonable suspicion was more than warranted.
Is this boy the master of Excalibur?
He would not be the only one to harbor that thought. The same idea would flash through countless minds. Of course it was only conjecture; there was no hard proof.
No constellation noticed anything, and even the Lord of the Platinum Tower’s precise examination found no connection to Excalibur.
But sometimes conjecture alone is enough.
From the Emperor’s position, the boy was an extremely dangerous existence. What he had thought an imperial treasure turned out to be a bomb packed with gunpowder.
Depending on circumstance, the boy could claim a legitimacy that surpassed even the Emperor’s own. Even without material proof of that legitimacy, conjecture alone could forge a cause. Should he ever fall into the hands of rebels, he could become a threat to imperial authority itself.
No proper foundation. Unknown origins. No oath of loyalty sworn to the Empire. Not so much as a speck of anything trustworthy.
Every element needed for a seed of great strife was present in abundance. The politically correct judgment here would be to put a collar on the boy or kill him on the spot. The ruler of a kingdom—or of the allied nations—would decide so without hesitation and act at once.
That was the correct judgment for a sovereign.
But for the Emperor of the Briton Empire, it was a clear and absolute error.
“……”
The Emperor sat. Chin propped on his hand, he regarded Najin. In his mind countless pieces of information combined and options were struck away, yet in the real world scarcely a few seconds had passed.
Eldwin Pendragon, Emperor of the Empire, recalled the will of the Wise King that was handed down to every Emperor of Briton—to every bearer of the name Pendragon.
I merely borrowed the name from that person.
I only took charge of Briton for a time at her request. I am not the true master of Briton.
The master of the Briton Empire is that person alone.
The first Emperor, Arthur Pendragon.
The second Emperor—who had inherited the Empire together with the name Pendragon from that great Knight-King, and who had been called the Wise King—had left a will to his own bloodline. That will had been carved into the heart of the Empire and had endured for more than a thousand years.
The great Arthur Pendragon.
Her name must never be stained. Be just. Be upright. Be good. Know honor. Live with pride. Though our blood does not connect, we are the descendants of the great hero. Never forget that fact.
Should you forget it—
the Round Table will strip away every right.
It was a contract, an oath, and a warning.
The moment one acted in a manner unworthy of the name Pendragon, the Round Table above the heavens would intervene in the Empire itself and take everything away.
Thus an Emperor of the Empire always had to be good, always had to be just and upright. Imperial authority was something that could be seized at any time by the stars above the sky.
Temper yourself. Never forget honor and pride. That is the fate of one who inherits the name Pendragon.
Eldwin recalled the cry that had been poured into his ears until they bled since childhood, and smiled bitterly. Being Emperor was truly a filthy hard job.
“You. Raise your head.”
Still on one knee, Najin lifted his face. Eldwin met his gaze.
The moment he looked into those sunset-colored eyes, the Emperor felt the uncanny sensation of being pierced through—as if some vast presence stood behind the boy and looked back at him.
Those are not the eyes of an ordinary man.
Well. Who in the world would call someone who reached Sword Seeker at eighteen an ordinary human?
“I have not yet heard your name. I have only read it as a line of text. Speak your name.”
“Najin, Your Majesty.”
“Very well, Najin. I will make plain to you that I am deeply troubled.”
The Emperor smiled bitterly.
“Your sword aura resembles that of the great King Arthur. The foundation may differ, yet it is more than enough to call her to mind. You cannot be unaware of this.”
At the Emperor’s words the Sword Masters drew sharp breaths. They had thought the same, but speaking it aloud was another matter entirely. To utter such a thing before the Emperor would spiral into something hideously complicated.
Yet the Emperor himself had spoken it first.
“If you belonged to a particular house or a particular faction, they would gain a cause. Danger would be born. Of course the Empire of today is peaceful and far from strife—thanks to the labors of the previous sovereigns, is it not?”
The Emperor smiled.
“But the flames of rebellion, the seeds of strife—they always begin in the smallest of places. And in my eyes, you are a flame. A flame that might yet burn the Empire.”
Whether the boy held Excalibur or not changed nothing. He already shared far too many points of resemblance with Arthur.
“So.”
The Emperor looked at Najin.
“Persuade me. Give me a reason not to regard you as a flame.”
Under ordinary circumstances, regardless of his own wishes, Najin would have been forced to become a knight of the imperial household. That would have been the greatest mercy the Emperor could extend.
Instead the Emperor had given him a chance.
He had told him to persuade him.
Najin was not so dense as to miss that fact. A whistle from Merlin sounded at his ear; she muttered that there would be no need to mention the oath after all. Setting that murmur aside, Najin drew a long breath.
This was the moment.
Here and now, he was certain, his life would be decided once again. The words exchanged in this place would surely be recorded somewhere and carved into the Empire’s histories. When people spoke of his life in later years, this would be a passage they could not omit.
Declaring one’s ambition to the world.
For a hero, it was a necessity.
This hall was too small to call a world. Only four people and a single constellation were listening to him. Yet when he considered the weight of each of those four, this place was a world entire to Najin.
Master of the Sword Church, Sword Saint Caron.
Executioner of the Holy Blood Church, Yuel Razian.
The Empire’s first pillar, Gerd.
Emperor of the Empire, Eldwin Pendragon.
And the Mage of the Lake, Merlin.
Three were Sword Masters, one a constellation, and one the Emperor of the Empire. They were figures more than worthy of the word “great.” An opportunity to declare his ambition before such people would not come again. Against the gravity of the moment, Najin felt his heart pound.
Did it not feel like a scene from a hero’s tale?
Even now, Najin was still a boy who yearned for hero’s tales.
“To the sun of the Empire I declare—”
In this instant, he chose with his own mouth a sentence that would be written into history.
“I have no intention of belonging to any faction. If there is a place to which I must belong—if there is a name that must be spoken before my own—”
How could his heart not race?
“It is———”