Questions and Answers (1)
The captain of the Holy Fire Guardian Knights, Schlein.
After facing him, several changes came over Najin. One was that his sword aura had grown a little clearer—proof that he was drawing closer to Sprouting.
"It's absurd that you're already approaching Sprouting," Merlin said with a complicated look, "but when you think about the trials you've endured since becoming a Sword Seeker, it's almost stranger that your realm hadn't risen until now..."
As she said, Najin had faced countless powerful foes ever since he first became a Sword Seeker. The moment he reached that rank he had already clashed with two Sword Seekers of equal caliber, sparred with a Sword Master, and gone toe-to-toe with the Witch of Flickering. On top of that he had dueled an empowered Red Dragon, a sixth-circle black mage, the crows of the Outer Land, and even a Helmet Knight who had once been a Transcendent.
Trials that an ordinary Sword Seeker might take decades to accumulate, Najin had packed into a scant few months. So when he finally glimpsed through Schlein what sword aura looked like at the threshold of Sprouting, he could feel that the realm was right before his eyes—hovering so close that it seemed he might grasp it if he simply stretched out his hand.
That was the first change.
The second was one that unsettled even Najin himself.
As a rule, Najin never slept deeply and almost never dreamed. Yet after facing Schlein he began to dream often. Exhaustion alone might have explained the frequency... but the content of those dreams was another matter entirely.
Schlein appeared in them.
Najin watched him laughing and clinking cups with comrades, watched the domain he had sworn to protect go up in flames, watched him make his fateful choice. "Watched" might not even be the right word. Najin became Schlein and lived those moments.
He felt the same emptiness and despair Schlein had known while staring at comrades turning into the undead. He felt the same guilt that twisted Schlein's gut every time he swung his sword and hunted humans.
"There is no reason to grieve, no reason to despair. Life is a comedy. Dance. Laugh. Sing. Is reality too heavy? If it weighs you down so much that you cannot smile, then I shall lend you a hand."
And Najin saw the knight Schlein had encountered.
"I am Quixote. The Knight of Revelry."
Whether the man truly deserved the title of knight was doubtful, yet he called himself one all the same. Laughing and chattering like a jester, he fell upon the Holy Fire Guardian Knights. Every man pierced by his lance became undead.
Schlein barely survived, but the few comrades he had left all turned into the undead. That was the decisive moment Schlein began to break.
"There's something I'd like to ask."
After waking from the dream, Najin put the question to the Helmet Knight. Did he know a man named Quixote? He needed to confirm whether the dream was pure delusion or truly Schlein's memories.
"Where did you hear that name?"
At once the Helmet Knight's voice grew heavy. It was not only the voice—the air around them settled like lead. When Najin hesitated to answer, the Helmet Knight let out a short breath and spoke.
"The Knight of Revelry, Quixote. Apostle of the Revelry Emperor."
The Revelry Emperor—the constellation Yuel had warned him about.
Najin nodded slowly. So the dream really had been a glimpse into Schlein's memories. The stranger he had first met in a dream existed in the waking world as well.
"They say he was once a knight of some kingdom, but that history has been erased, so there's no way to know. What he is now, though, is no knight. Call him a jester and it fits better."
The Helmet Knight spoke with a scornful laugh.
"He dances and sings and flatters before his master, pandering to every whim. Quixote is the sort who would throw away every last scrap of conviction for a single glance, a single gesture from the Revelry Emperor."
"You know him well."
"Yeah. I've met him. I'm the one who put a hole through one of his eyes. Punched a nice clean hole right through those useless pupils of his."
Indeed—the Quixote Najin had seen in Schlein's memories had a hole through one eye. Najin felt a quiet flicker of admiration. The Quixote of the dream had been strong—overwhelmingly so, to the point that Schlein could not even mount a proper response.
"He looked pretty strong."
"He is. He's a Transcendent too."
When Najin gave him a questioning look, the Helmet Knight shrugged.
"Hey. I used to be a Transcendent myself. I'm just a pathetic wreck now, that's all."
"Looks that way."
"The Transcendent part? Or the pathetic part?"
"Both."
"Tsk." The Helmet Knight clicked his tongue and leaned back against the wall. He had stood watch while Najin rested; now it was time to switch. As Najin fed the campfire, keeping the flames from dying, he spoke to Merlin.
It seemed he had dreamed Schlein's memories. Did she know anything about the phenomenon?
"No, I don't. What is that?"
Not much help, as usual.
Najin thought, Figures, and was about to turn away when Merlin hurriedly added:
"H-hey! What am I supposed to do if I don't know either?"
I didn't say anything.
"You just made that 'figures' face! You thought I was useless, didn't you?!"
You could hear that?
"I was testing you and you really thought it? Wow. Wow!"
Of course it had been a joke; he had never once thought her useless. He added a belated "Just kidding," but Merlin's sulkiness refused to ease. She thumped her chest with her fists and heaved a sigh.
"Wait. Something's ringing a bell."
She groaned and muttered for a while, then snapped her fingers as if the answer had struck her.
"Excalibur! Isn't it a function of Excalibur? Excalibur is a sword that absorbs starlight, and a star is a person's story. There might be a connection."
Merlin nodded to herself.
"Come to think of it, Arthur used to do the same thing. She fought a lot of fallen knights in the Outer Land, and whenever she buried them she would recite exactly who they had been in life and what deeds they had accomplished."
Even for frontier knights with whom Arthur had never crossed paths—knights she had no reason to know—she had done the same, Merlin said.
"Back then I just figured Arthur knew a lot of things... but hearing you talk, maybe Arthur peeked into their memories the same way you do?"
She did not sound certain.
"Don't look at me like that."
Merlin answered with a sigh.
"Unlike with you, I didn't share everything with Arthur. There are things about her I don't know. Maybe more that I don't know than that I do. Arthur almost never talked about her worries or about herself. She kept a lot of secrets too."
Her gaze lowered.
"That's why she dumped everything on me without a word of discussion and left alone. She was the kind of person who thought a long conversation was unnecessary as long as there was trust."
Her voice held a faint note of grievance.
She muttered a little longer, then abruptly shoved her face close to Najin's. Poking his chest with a finger, she stared straight at him.
"Don't you do that. Got it?"
Huh?
"Don't go making secrets between us. Not that you could even if you tried. I'm watching you, after all."
What was he supposed to do with someone who declared to his face that she would spy on him? Najin laughed helplessly and poked at the campfire. Watching the sparks leap, he glanced toward the Helmet Knight.
The man still had his head bowed, but he was not yet asleep.
"Are you sleeping?"
"Not yet."
"Then may I ask one more thing?"
"What."
"What exactly is the Revelry Emperor for a constellation? Her notoriety is... considerable."
A brief silence.
Then the Helmet Knight lifted his bowed head.
"The Revelry Emperor—exactly what the name says."
The voice that echoed inside the helmet was twice as heavy as usual, each word steeped in hatred.
"A demon who gained a self. Because she is the king of demons—a Demon King—the character for 'Emperor' is attached to her name. So what of the 'Revelry' that comes before it?"
He spat the words as though chewing them.
"It means a jester who turns every story into a laughingstock. No matter how noble the tale, the moment it passes through the Revelry Emperor's lips it becomes a farce."
A constellation more vicious than any other.
Having said that much, the Helmet Knight fell silent, as if he had no desire to speak of that being any longer. He lowered his head again and closed his eyes.
Crack.
Only the soft crackle of the campfire lingered in the air.
2.
The strange companionship with the Helmet Knight continued for some time. Najin had no particular reason to refuse it. If anything, he was enjoying the journey.
"How do we handle this next raid?"
"Raid? We're simply paying a visit through the front gate. The word 'raid' doesn't quite suit."
"Right! So what's the method?"
"Is there anything besides a frontal breakthrough?"
"You get it."
The Helmet Knight burst out laughing and thrust a fist toward Najin; Najin bumped it with his own. At first the Helmet Knight's eccentricities had left him baffled, but by now Najin was enjoying the eccentricities himself.
KRAAAAANG!
Lance in hand—picked up from who-knows-where—Najin charged alongside the Helmet Knight. The black mages and demon-worshippers who suddenly found themselves receiving guests screamed, but Najin's sword and the Helmet Knight's spear were a little faster than those screams.
"Why are you doing this to us?!"
Their protests of injustice fell on deaf ears. One look at the corpses of the humans they had been torturing and experimenting on, and any desire for conversation simply vanished.
"A black mage that talks, huh."
"Conversation is something you have with people. Not with beasts."
"That's a pretty good line. I'll have to quote it. Hear that, beasts? By the way, I used to win hunting tournaments for breakfast. Means I'm a master at hunting animals."
An impromptu hunting contest was declared on the spot, and the beasts' screams rang out for quite a while.
"Mm. Another fulfilling day."
Traveling with a knight who understood romance was, for Najin, a genuinely enjoyable affair. When they hunted black mages and the undead together, the Helmet Knight made an excellent companion...
"Ah, grip the spear like this in that situation. Drop your stance a little more..."
"Like this?"
"Huh? No—wait, that is correct, but... how did you do that? That technique isn't something you pick up so easily."
"I'm pretty good at this sort of thing."
"Annoyingly true. I can't even deny it. Haaah."
...and a teacher who passed on techniques and common sense of the Outer Land. A fine comrade and a fine mentor. Najin admitted that meeting the Helmet Knight in the Outer Land had been pure luck. There was so much he could learn from the man.
"Najin, it's coming that way!"
"I know without being told!"
"If you know, then block it already, you brat!"
The Outer Land was not home only to demons, demon-worshippers, and the undead. There were also the mutated magical beasts that had survived long enough to change—beasts that, like the undead, hungered for stars. The Helmet Knight and Najin were often chased by such creatures.
"How the hell—fuck—do we—!"
Fleeing wild dogs, Najin screamed. What Sword Seeker in the world got chased by wild dogs? But when those dogs stood as tall as a castle watchtower, the story changed somewhat.
SHRAAAAAAK!
Sliding down a slope, Najin unleashed his sword aura.
"You want me to stop it?!"
"You can, can't you? I'll finish it."
Najin's sword aura sliced clean through the dog's ankle. As the beast tumbled down the slope and tried to rise, the Helmet Knight leapt onto its back and severed its neck.
"By the way, your speech has gotten lighter. Didn't you used to put on more weight?"
"That was me pretending to be a knight. This is closer to my real way of talking."
"That so? I like this better. The other one was too stiff."
"Your own way of speaking isn't all that different."
"Hey. I've got the gravitas. Look at this magnificent helmet and the voice that echoes inside it. Weight appears all by itself."
"Ah... yes..."
How to fight beasts that were not human. How to swing a sword against a colossal opponent. Najin absorbed those lessons as naturally as breathing. Traveling with the Helmet Knight was good for his growth as well.
Then, one day during their companionship, Najin suddenly asked the Helmet Knight a question.
"What do people eat in the Outer Land? Besides human hearts, I mean."
"What do they eat?"
"Meals. Meals. Ever since I entered the Outer Land I don't think I've eaten anything... and I don't even feel hungry."
The Helmet Knight paused for a moment, then let out a short "Ah."
"It's such basic common sense I forgot. In the Outer Land you don't need to eat or drink as long as you have a star."
He pointed at the stars overhead.
"Stars are nourishment—food itself. Just basking in starlight settles hunger and quenches thirst. The body evolves that way. Didn't you feel your body change when you first gained a star?"
"I did."
"That's the process of leaving humanity behind. You and I are both drifting farther from ordinary people."
In short, meals were unnecessary.
Najin rubbed his chin in mild wonder. Beside him, Merlin—perched on his shoulder—opened her mouth.
"But sometimes you still want to eat some—"
"But sometimes you still feel like eating something."
By pure coincidence their voices overlapped. Merlin, robbed of her line, whipped her head around and glared at the Helmet Knight; he ignored her gaze and continued. Strictly speaking it was not so much ignoring as the simple fact that Merlin was invisible to his eyes.
"A grand feast after so long wouldn't be half bad."
"Sounds good. Is there anything edible?"
"No? We go get it now."
The moment he spoke, Merlin rapidly patted Najin's shoulder. She clearly had something to say.
"I know. There's something I used to eat a lot in the Outer Land. I'll teach you. It tastes better than you'd think."
After asking the Helmet Knight's leave, Najin stepped into the forest with Merlin. Excited, she pointed out this tree and that, teaching him how to forage.
"That one—if you split the trunk in a perfect cross, honey flows out. Catch it in a bottle and it's good to eat. Has to be a clean cross! Otherwise poison comes out."
Because they were Outer Land plants, the gathering methods were anything but ordinary, but Najin followed Merlin's recommendations and wandered the woods for a while. Before long his arms were full of honey, fruit, and berries.
When he returned to the Helmet Knight with his haul, the man tilted his head.
"What's that?"
"Food."
Najin crunched into a fruit. The taste was surprisingly decent. Merlin smiled in satisfaction while the Helmet Knight scratched the side of his helmet.
"Does that fill you up? Fruit alone isn't enough for a proper feast. That's snack food."
He rose to his feet.
"A real feast needs meat. Follow me."
"Isn't this the direction of the giants' territory?"
"It is."
"Didn't you say fighting giants is a pain and we should avoid getting involved?"
"I did."
"Then why here?"
"Today we raid the giants' food stores."
"Excuse me?"
"Let's go."
The Helmet Knight strode forward with grim determination.
"No, why are we raiding their food stores?"
"Those bastards prepare their meat really well. The seasoning is first-rate. One of the Outer Land's finest delicacies."
3.
Giants, along with dragons and witches, were beings born with Mystery. Yet just as dragons and witches had been broken, so too had the giants been broken by the flow of the ages—and the direction of that breaking was even more severe than the other two.
The giants of the mythic age had possessed intelligence on par with humans and truly deserved the name "giant." The giants of the present day, however, possessed intellect that fell short of beasts, never mind humans.
Uooorgh.
Euuurgh.
Intelligence on the level of a troll. In this era, giants were nothing more than oversized trolls. They vaguely resembled humans, yet no human wanted to admit kinship with those drooling, lumbering hulks.
And so the land where these creatures—who perhaps ought to be called giant trolls rather than giants—lived.
Najin and the Helmet Knight slipped into the giants' territory. Avoiding the eyes of the giants that stomped about with earth-shaking thuds, the two made for a certain cave. Having raided the place more than once or twice, the Helmet Knight located the food stores in an instant.
"Keep watch outside. I'll grab what we need."
While the Helmet Knight stuffed jars of meat into his arms, Najin stood lookout at the cave mouth. Every time a giant the size of a castle wall took a step, the ground went boom.
There were dozens of them.
One or two he could handle if he had to, but if that many giants charged at once the thought alone was nightmarish. Najin urged the Helmet Knight on.
"Hurry up and grab them. Something's coming this way."
"Ah, wait. I need to take this one too—"
That was when it happened. One of the giants loitering in front of the storehouse bent down. The giant lowering itself to pull out a jar of provisions locked eyes with Najin.
"..."
"..."
A brief silence.
Then Najin slapped his own forehead. Oh, fuck. The moment he muttered it, the giant opened its mouth.
UOOOOOOOOOOORGH!
A roar that summoned its kin. Amid the bellow that felt as if it would tear his eardrums free, Najin scraped his scabbard and roughly drew his sword.
"We've been spotted! Get ready quick—?"
Sword drawn, he glanced back—and fell silent. The Helmet Knight, one jar clutched to his back, was sprinting at full speed. Toward where? The opposite side of the cave.
It was a perfect running form, the kind that could be printed in a soldiers' training manual. Najin stared blankly at the Helmet Knight fleeing for all he was worth without so much as a backward glance.
What the hell is that guy doing?
"What are you—"
"What are you doing, not running?!"
the Helmet Knight shouted.
Watching him tear toward the cave's far exit at full tilt, Najin found himself utterly speechless.