The Essence of Three Hundred Years (6)
“Why did you become a jester of revelry?”
There was no strength left in Bernstein’s voice as he spoke. Unlike moments before, even anger had drained from it. Rage is like fire; without fuel it cannot burn. Bernstein had nothing left worth burning.
One hundred and fifty years. Fully one hundred and fifty years.
He had now spent more of his life feeling anger than living normally. Bernstein was exhausted. He no longer truly raged because fury rose of its own accord; he was wringing emotion from himself out of a sense of duty—because he believed he was obligated to be angry at his former idol.
“Why…”
Bernstein raked the ashes together and tried to light them again, but the spark could never last. It flared for only a breath. What remained afterward was emptiness.
“Did you want to live that badly? Were you so hungry for life?”
“I had to live, even like that.”
At last the Helmed Knight answered the hollow echo of Bernstein’s voice.
“I had no choice but to live, even like that.”
“So why?”
This exchange was nothing new. For the past hundred and fifty years, every time they met in the Outer Land, Bernstein had hurled the same question with the same fury, and the Helmed Knight’s answer had always been the same.
I had to.
There was a reason I had to.
In that fashion the Helmed Knight had always deflected. Bernstein resigned himself to the same evasion now. Yet contrary to his expectation, the Helmed Knight seemed prepared to give an answer this time. He glanced at Najin. Najin nodded without a word and withdrew.
Bernstein’s eyes went wide.
He means to answer? Truly?
Why, after one hundred and fifty years of silence, would he suddenly speak? Because Bernstein’s broken, sobbing tone looked pitiful? Because pity had finally stirred in him? The thought was humiliating, yet Bernstein still wanted the answer even on those terms.
But it did not seem to be for his sake. Bernstein guessed the boy named Najin had somehow shifted the Helmed Knight’s heart.
It appeared he was right.
The Helmed Knight did not open his mouth until Najin was completely out of sight. Only when the distance was great enough that no voice could carry did the Helmed Knight begin to speak.
2.
Najin’s senses were sharp. Even at this distance he could have reinforced his hearing and stolen their conversation, yet he chose not to.
Everyone has one or two things they would rather keep hidden. Najin had no intention of eavesdropping on words the other man did not wish to share. He settled on a convenient rock and turned over the words Bernstein had spoken only moments earlier.
A jester, the Helmed Knight?
Najin now understood well enough what a jester was. Those who lost to the Revelry Emperor and were turned into puppets. That was how the Helmed Knight himself had explained it.
“….”
Najin stroked his chin in silence.
In the past? He might have pressed for answers. Or shaken his head at the request to leave and stayed behind to listen in.
But now… he wasn’t so sure.
Traveling with the Helmed Knight had changed something in Najin’s convictions. Cracks had formed in walls that had once been rigid and unyielding. Room had appeared to accept other things.
That room made him think.
Bernstein had said the Helmed Knight could have remained a hero yet chose not to. That he had chosen to cast aside honor and pride. That a man called a hero of the empire had knelt in abject surrender and chosen to survive.
Once, that would have been hard to accept. Now Najin could consider it a second time. He recalled the people he had met in the Outer Land.
Schlein, Knight of the Sacred Flame, had chosen duty over honor and pride. Countless hunters he had seen out there chose survival because they feared the hell that waited after death. And those who refused to cast honor and pride aside—like the Howling Star—had become the undead and fallen into beasts.
Then what of the Helmed Knight?
What was he trying to protect? What had driven him to that choice? Turning over their first meeting, Najin murmured without thinking.
“…Hunter.”
Had Najin not chosen to issue a challenge that day, he might truly have been hunted. The Helmed Knight had genuinely been deliberating then—
whether to strip the star from him.
So why take a star? In the Outer Land there was only one reason to seize another’s star.
Survival.
He sought survival. Not mere survival—there seemed to be a goal that required him to remain alive. A goal heavy enough that he would willingly discard even his honor and pride for it.
“Tsk.”
Najin clicked his tongue for no good reason.
He could guess. But he had no desire to judge the Helmed Knight on idle speculation. As he cleared his thoughts, his gaze drifted sideways. A flash of bright blue hair kept catching at the edge of his vision.
Where he looked stood the guide who had lately taken to sticking close to him, as if determined to reclaim the role the Helmed Knight had stolen from her.
—Hm?
It was the Great Constellation Merlin. Pressed tight against Najin’s side, she brightened her eyes at his glance, as though she had been waiting for him to look her way.
—What? Got something you want to ask?
He hadn’t particularly, but given that reaction he felt he ought to ask something.
No, nothing much.
—What is it? Spit it out. Even if it’s nothing, I don’t mind!
After a brief hesitation Najin spoke—though “spoke” might not have been accurate. In the real world his mouth remained shut. This was more like monologue, like thought.
Demons existed in the age Merlin lived in, and long before that as well, didn’t they? Primordial beings that appeared with the birth of the world, alongside dragons and giants.
Najin monologued.
And as far as I remember, demons fatten themselves on the souls of intelligent beings. They raise their rank that way. The reason ancient demons are powerful isn’t because their concept is strong; it’s simply that they’ve spent long ages gorging on others’ souls.
—You know it well. That’s the essence of a demon. Demons can never stand independently. They must parasitize concepts, parasitize others’ lives, parasitize the world itself just to survive.
Merlin agreed.
Najin continued.
Does that logic apply to the Revelry Emperor as well? In other words—borrowing Merlin’s phrasing—to a Demon King, a demon who has transcended the limits of her species and risen to transcendence?
Demon King: a demon who has attained transcendence.
Unlike ordinary demons who live without self according to the concept they are given, these are demons who have acquired a self. Just as humans overcome their limits to reach transcendence… a demon who surpasses the limits of its species and becomes a transcendent is a Demon King.
Even such a Demon King—was she still bound by that logic?
Najin asked, and—
—She isn’t bound by that logic. A Demon King is an independent being. But it remains the easiest method. Even without needing to, Demon Kings still covet souls. Because that is their essence.
Merlin answered that it was not so. Yet she added that there was also no necessity not to.
—Even a Demon King is still a demon. Just as a constellation who has reached transcendence is still human. They cannot forget their own nature.
Then the way they fatten themselves is the same as well?
By now Merlin seemed to have realized what Najin was driving at. She nodded.
—Yes. The method by which a demon fattens itself has not changed in a thousand years.
The method treated in countless fairy tales and heroic epics, and in even more history books—so thoroughly that it had become a figure of speech itself. Najin spoke the word aloud.
“A deal.”
A deal with a demon.
3.
How much time had passed?
At the Helmed Knight’s call, Najin rose from his seat. Returning, he found Bernstein sitting on a rock as if his soul had left him.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Who knows. My story seems to have shocked him.”
The Helmed Knight shrugged.
Najin looked toward Bernstein. Head bowed, muttering continuously as though his mind had gone elsewhere—it looked as if he would need time.
“….”
Yet contrary to Najin’s expectation, Bernstein lifted his head before long. The earlier heat no longer burned in his eyes, but neither had it fully died. A flame that could flare again at any moment still flickered there.
“What you just told me.”
He spoke while looking at the Helmed Knight.
“Is all of it true?”
“If you choose not to believe it, that is the end of the matter. There is no way to prove it here and now.”
“That… is so.”
Bernstein pressed his lips shut.
“Then I will not take back my words either. In my eyes you are still a coward. You stained the name of the empire and fled without fulfilling your duty to the last…”
But, he continued.
“If every word you just spoke is true, and if things come to pass exactly as you said, then I will take back every one of those words. And I will kneel, bow my head, and apologize to you. Gladly.”
“There is no need. Your anger is just, and you were entitled to it. In the eyes of others I am indeed a cowardly runaway. In truth, it is not so different.”
“No. That is not it.”
Bernstein shook his head.
“Do not belittle yourself. That attitude only makes me angrier. Do not try to understand me. Do not pity me. I have no wish to become more wretched than this.”
With that, Bernstein rose. He picked up the sword he had dropped and turned his head to look at Najin.
“Do you have something to say?”
“….”
Bernstein found it hard to speak.
He still had pride. Smiling and addressing the victor after a wretched defeat was no easy thing. Yet in this moment another value took precedence over pride.
Bernstein briefly took into his heart a virtue he had long abandoned. Chivalry. The courtesy a knight was bound to observe. Holding that faded value close, he opened his mouth.
“Najin, was it?”
“Yes.”
“I cannot yet apologize to that man, but I ought to apologize to you.”
Najin’s eyes widened slightly.
Because Bernstein bowed his head to him.
“Insulting a master in front of his disciple is not something one should do. I was hasty. You had every right to take offense. I apologize.”
“…For acting insolently, I apologize as well.”
“You were a bit insolent, yes. Still… you had the skill to back it up.”
When Najin bowed his head, Bernstein finally smiled. Chuckling, he clapped Najin lightly on the shoulder.
“You were excellent. I did not fight at full strength, yet even if I had, the match would not have been decided easily. And seeing that swordsmanship after so long…”
His words trailed off.
The moment Bernstein witnessed the swordsmanship Najin had displayed—the Helmed Knight’s swordsmanship—he had felt rage. It was the inferiority of one who had once sought instruction from the Helmed Knight and been refused, and the betrayal of a man who had broken his oath. Yet those were not the only emotions.
“It was good to see. A swordsmanship I had missed.”
He had felt longing as well.
A sword that called up the past. A blade that could, if only for a moment, let him recall days of glory. Remembering that past, Bernstein murmured.
“Learn it well. That man was once called the empire’s greatest swordsman. These days it is hard even to recall the name of that style, yet…”
Bernstein pointed to the sword bound at the Helmed Knight’s waist.
“I still remember this much: whenever that single blade shone, the empire always won. I hope you master that sword splendidly. It is a sword worth learning.”
With those words Bernstein looked back at the Helmed Knight one last time. The Helmed Knight’s gaze was hidden behind the helm and unreadable. Yet Bernstein gave a hollow laugh toward him as if he could guess the heart within.
“Your destination has not changed, I take it?”
“No more than it has in a hundred and fifty years.”
“Then we shall meet again there.”
“I cannot promise how long it will take.”
“I have wandered for a hundred and fifty years. Adding a few more will change nothing.”
Bernstein left.
He walked without strength. Najin could not tell where he was headed. Yet Bernstein walked with a clear goal. After watching that retreating back for a time, Najin spoke.
“You seem to have been quite famous.”
“I was rather famous, yes.”
“A hero of the empire, it sounds like.”
“It turned out that way somehow.”
Najin looked at the sword bound at the Helmed Knight’s waist. A blade wrapped tightly in chains. In all the time they had traveled together, it had never once been drawn.
“An honor. To learn the sword of an imperial hero.”
“You don’t even know my name.”
“What does that matter? Later, in front of other people, I’ll just shout that this is the sword of an imperial hero, and that’ll make it so.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“If a hero wields it, it’s a hero’s sword. What’s so special about a hero’s sword anyway?”
The Helmed Knight burst out laughing.
“That only works if you become a hero yourself, doesn’t it? Planning to become one?”
“I am.”
“Don’t. It’s nothing but exhausting and not nearly as worth it as it sounds. I know—I’ve done it.”
“Still, there is glory, isn’t there?”
“Glory is all there is, more like.”
“That’s enough for me.”
The Helmed Knight laughed; Najin did not. Shrugging, Najin exhaled a short breath.
Then, almost casually, he asked the question.
“Did you make a deal with a demon?”
A single strike driven into the light flow of conversation.
The Helmed Knight failed to react. At Najin’s question his breathing faltered. An unnatural silence settled between them. The moment was not long, yet among first-rate martial artists it was an eternity.
By that silence the Helmed Knight had answered.
That Najin was right.
“You made a deal with the Revelry Emperor.”
Najin added.
The Helmed Knight smiled bitterly.
“Your instincts are damnably sharp.”