Q&A (2)
After setting foot in the Outer Land, every day became a continuous lesson. Najin gained new insights almost daily, and those moments of realization tended to arrive without warning.
This moment was no different.
Najin realized that the giants, for all their massive frames, could run with surprising agility and speed—and that when their food was stolen, that speed edged up even further.
Wooooooooo!
The giant whose provisions had been taken bellowed. There was a note of genuine grievance in the cry. Najin felt every ounce of that injustice, yet he could hardly sit down and weep along with it.
The living have to live.
You still had to do what needed doing. Najin sprinted at full power, glaring at the root of the whole mess.
Tak, tak, tak!
The Helmet Knight tore across the ground with a jar the size of his own body hoisted on his shoulder. How he managed that pace while lugging the thing was a mystery, but Najin shoved the question aside and shouted after him.
"Fuck, if you were going to run for it, you should've said so first!"
"Come now, what sort of knight speaks of flight? Tsk tsk. Looks like you still have plenty left to learn."
"Then what the hell is this right now?"
"A true knight must always advance toward the light. Light lies that way. Run toward the light!"
"What kind of bullshit is that…"
"Or else go settle it with the giants yourself."
"What are you doing? Aren't you running?"
With the thunderous thud-thud of giant footfalls rolling behind them, Najin and the Helmet Knight poured everything into their flight.
Wooooooo…!
Mournful giant voices echoed at their backs, but Najin ignored them. They had looked well-stocked enough—surely they could spare a little of the good stuff. Greed alone never filled a table.
"But isn't this just theft? Are knights allowed to steal?"
"Tsk. Theft? We received sponsorship from the giants. Look back there. They're even seeing us off, wishing us a safe journey."
"…"
Najin glanced over his shoulder without a word. The giants were stretching their hands toward them in a piteous, pleading reach.
Wooooooo.
Looked at that way, it almost passed for a farewell. And since the farewell was rather forceful, Najin waved back at them.
The giants pursued with grim determination, yet they were simply not equal to the chase. In the age of myth there might have been such creatures, but no giant of the present era knew light-foot arts; catching two men whose footwork belonged to a different realm was beyond them.
"Is it really that hard? They were coming after us pretty hard."
"When your precious stores get stolen, the eyes go wild. That's natural."
"Stolen? You said they sponsored us."
"Don't sweat the small things. It only wears you out."
Once they had returned to the outpost, the Helmet Knight set the jar he had taken from the storehouse down with a solid thud. Then he fetched firewood and kindled a blaze.
"You worked hard, so I'll handle the meat."
He snagged a sword that had been lying about the Outer Land and skewered the meat on it. While the Helmet Knight turned the sword into a spit and roasted the cuts, Najin laid out the dishes. On their modest feast table he arranged the fruit and honey he had foraged, giving the spread at least a touch of color.
"Looks a bit more presentable now."
The Helmet Knight smiled in satisfaction and began plating the properly browned meat. The flavor, just as he had promised, was worthy of being called a true delicacy.
"Hey, this is actually good."
"Told you. The giants season meat like artists. The reason those fellows can be called giant humans—giants—rather than oversized trolls is partly that gourmet streak of theirs."
The seasoning was spot-on: moderately sweet, moderately salty, just the right depth of savor. Compared to trolls who ate everything raw, the giants' palate seemed almost refined. Even to Najin the seasoned meat tasted more than decent.
"Aren't you eating?"
"It's been far too long since I put food in my mouth. If I tried now, something would definitely go wrong. You eat plenty."
The Helmet Knight only cooked and served; he did not join the meal. Because there was more meat than one person could finish, Najin packed the leftovers back into the jar and buried it in the earth.
"Ah, rough storage is fine. The jar itself is a magic tool. Neat, isn't it?"
While finishing fruit for dessert, Najin studied the Helmet Knight in silence—more precisely, the helmet. Even after traveling together for some time, he had never once seen the man's bare face.
"Why do you keep wearing that helmet?"
"Because I'm ugly."
"What?"
"A handsome fellow like you gains more by going bare-headed. Someone like me, with no confidence in his face, is better off covering it. Hiding the face stirs curiosity, you could say. There are advantages of a sort."
It was impossible to tell whether the words were a joke or the plain truth.
The Helmet Knight spoke with an easy, rambling air.
"Think about it. Why do knights wear helmets in the first place? The moment an opponent becomes a Sword Expert—once they can draw out sword aura—the benefit of a helmet vanishes. Armor that gets sliced like paper by aura… what meaning does it have?"
High-grade artifacts and expensive steel might hold against aura for a while… but even that became meaningless the moment one reached Sword Seeker.
"Armor, helmets—truth is, they're all pointless. Just cumbersome and annoying."
He rapped his own helmet.
"The head grows heavy. Vision narrows. And if any emblem is carved into the helm or plate, you're simply announcing your affiliation to the enemy. Extra information is a liability in a fight. If that emblem happens to be precious… you'll try to protect it, and suddenly you have a weakness as well."
He stroked the horn fixed to the helmet.
"In the end those things are useless, inconvenient, and nothing but a nuisance. Something to look cool, to appear decent from the outside. That is all they are."
"Then why do knights still wear armor?"
"I already said. Because it looks decent from the outside."
He laughed.
"Being a knight… it isn't easy. You take the title shouting about honor and pride, yet reality is never so kind. It's filthy. It's wretched. The more you face that reality, the clearer it becomes how empty the ideals you once held really are."
His voice sounded half-sigh, half-grumble.
"Why am I doing this? Is any of it necessary? Why did I become a knight in the first place? Do I have to walk a road this hard? Honor, pride—what even are those? Even if I keep them, what do I gain?"
"…"
"You ask yourself those questions countless times. Every time the doubt rises, you waver. That is why older knights cling harder to the outer things—armor, helmets, the visible trappings."
He knocked the helm with the back of his hand, thunk-thunk.
"They hide the rot inside and play at being knights on the surface. They polish the plate, hang ornaments, and shout about romance and chivalry in loud voices. They no longer know what any of it means, yet while they act that way they can still call themselves knights."
He let out a long breath—hoo—and smiled bitterly.
"The ones who can truly call themselves knights need neither armor nor helmet. They can name themselves knights without those things."
He lifted a finger and pointed at Najin.
"Meaning people like you. The ones who still find honor and pride beautiful and carry ideals. Those people have no need to cling to outward show. If the inside is already a knight, what does the surface matter?"
A thread of envy. A thread of longing.
The Helmet Knight lowered his finger with that same bitter smile.
"You know—Kirchhoff walks around bare-faced too, doesn't he? Confidence. Though honestly, both of you are disgustingly handsome, so maybe that's the real reason."
"Do we have to?"
"Huh?"
"Do we really have to do any of that?"
"…What?"
Najin cut into the light joke the Helmet Knight had been using to close the talk. He fed another stick into the campfire and spoke without ceremony.
"I asked whether we really have to."
"What are you talking about?"
"Clinging to the outside, saying only then can you count yourself a knight— is that so important?"
"That's because you still don't know the world well…"
"Yes. I don't know it well."
Najin shrugged.
"Compared with you I haven't lived long, I have little experience, I know almost nothing of the Outer Land, and I don't know what you've endured."
But, he continued,
"Even someone like me knows a few things."
"…"
"It doesn't matter how you regard honor and pride. You can doubt them. Agonizing and wrestling with those questions is something everyone does. That isn't what matters."
"Then what does?"
"What one chooses to be."
Najin looked straight at the Helmet Knight.
Those eyes were platinum. Starlight-pale platinum eyes fixed on the man without wavering.
"Whether one wishes to be a knight."
It was a line written in the autobiography of Arthur, the King of Knights.
It is fine to agonize. Fine to hesitate. You need not always be knightly. But at the final moment I will ask you:
Are you a knight?
At the very least, do you wish to be one?
Those words lived in Najin's heart. They were also the words a certain knight—who had first made Najin dare to dream—had proven with his own life. Recalling that blue knight who had held the brightest star in the lowest place, Najin spoke.
"Even if you lose honor and fall, even if filth stains you, even if pride is broken, even if you come to doubt those very things… if in the end you still cannot let them go."
There is nothing to gain by protecting them.
No one will blame you if you do not.
Yet some people still cannot release their grip.
"If you dream of being a knight while still holding on, if you at least strive to be a knight…"
Najin knew exactly what such people were called.
"Isn't that person already a knight enough?"
At those words the Helmet Knight fell silent.
For a long while he could not speak. He did not lighten the weight with a joke the way he usually did; he did not claim it was merely because Najin had lived less of the world. He simply closed his mouth.
Crack. Crackle.
Only the campfire's voice filled the space. At last the Helmet Knight managed to open his lips. A long breath escaped him, and a faint smile touched his face.
"Even without clinging to helmets, armor, banners?"
"Yes. Even without them."
"What's important is how one thinks of oneself."
Najin tossed another log onto the fire. Fresh wood made the dying flames leap high again. Watching the blaze, the Helmet Knight turned the words over carefully.
"I can't deny it. After all, they are words left by none other than the King of Knights."
"Right. If you're going to deny them, you'd better pull Excalibur first."
"A dirty trick. How am I supposed to refute a quotation from the King of Knights? That's a foul when discussing chivalry."
"If it bothers you, go pull Excalibur yourself."
"Hah! Sharp tongue for a brat who doesn't even have the sword. In my day I 'almost' pulled Excalibur. When I gripped it the blade even sparkled."
He jabbed a finger at Najin and raised his voice.
"A greenhorn who's never even laid a hand on Excalibur, tsk!"
Najin only smiled in silence.
And beside him Merlin, clutching her stomach, was laughing herself breathless.
"Do you know about Fallen Stars?"
"To some extent."
Najin nodded at the Helmet Knight's question.
Fallen Stars. Stars that had plummeted. Corrupted constellations.
Merlin had spoken of them, and while leafing through history texts he had come across a few records of such stars.
"I've heard the tale of the Ten Thousand Moons. And the stories of the Reverse Stars that barred Arthur's path."
"Ten Thousand Moons? Ah, you mean the Star of Myriad Moons. Word is the continent's Sword Masters brought it down. Hmm. That one was a Fallen Star as well, yes."
He nodded, then cut himself off.
"What you're talking about, though, are Reverse Stars—stars that turn against providence, invert, and blacken. Corrupted stars. People call them fallen stars too, but the fall I mean is more literal."
"Literal?"
"Yes. Constellations that have lost every last star and truly fallen."
He drew a finger from high to low in a single slash.
"Fallen Star—or Forgotten Star."
Stars that fell.
Or stars that forgot themselves.
"When a constellation denies itself, or has its great deeds denied, it loses stars. Each star lost fractures the mind further, and erosion grows savage. Sound familiar?"
"Same process that turns people into the undead."
"Exactly. Constellations aren't free of erosion either. They have to be even more careful. The moment a constellation loses every star, things become truly horrific."
Beside Najin, Merlin made a low sound of agreement.
She muttered, "It gets a bit horrific. No—not a bit. A lot." How bad, exactly? When Najin blinked, the Helmet Knight continued.
"A Fallen Star can no longer keep a human shape. Becoming a constellation in the first place is already becoming a transcendent beyond humanity."
"What does it mean to become non-human?"
"It means they acquire a very… distinctive appearance."
You'll understand when you see one.
Saying so, the Helmet Knight rose to his feet.
"Najin. Second demand."
The victor's right to demand three things of the loser.
He declared he would use the second.
"From this moment we go to subjugate a Fallen Star. Cooperate with me. There is one star that absolutely must be put down."
Which star?
To that quiet question the Helmet Knight answered.
"The Silent Knight, Kruenbel."
He spread his fingers wide.
Five on the left hand were not enough, so he borrowed one from the right and made the number six.
"A constellation that once held six stars. Constellation name: the Horn-blower—Horn-blowing Star."
He tapped the horn on his own helmet, thunk-thunk.
"The bastard who snapped the horn off this magnificent helm."