Romanticist (3)
A vast, boundless sea stretched out before them.
Merlin had called that endless expanse a “lake,” but to Najin the word felt all wrong. No one would ever look at a sea that rolled beyond the horizon and call it a lake.
—No one? In my day we called it a lake.
“How big was it?”
—Hmm? About the size of the Empire, I suppose.
Najin gave up trying to understand.
Then again, where were they? The Outer Land, where common sense held no sway. He already knew that out here it was wiser to accept a phenomenon and move on than to wrestle it into sense.
And yet they still had to cross it.
Merlin insisted that if they meant to find that witch they would have to cross this sea. The absolute certainty in her voice suggested she was right, but that did not make the first step any easier.
How, exactly, were they supposed to get across?
An ordinary ocean he might have tried to swim. This was the Outer Land’s sea, separated from anything ordinary by tens of thousands of years: a maelstrom of whirlpools and lightning where leviathans that belonged in the abyssal deep swam openly on the surface—a true demon realm.
“Beasts that devour stars.”
Even Anton Quijano, a transcendent, seemed little better off. He too stared at the water with a look of blank dismay.
“Every last monster swimming those waters is a star-eater. You’ve seen the sky-whales that drift overhead, the ones the Wandering Stars ride?”
“A few times.”
“Those things out there are their ancestors.”
Anton pointed at the creatures floating on the surface. Each was uniquely grotesque—so much so that merely describing them turned the stomach.
Can you really call something with hundreds of tentacles a whale?
Anyway.
Najin exhaled and began to loosen up.
“Whether the far shore or the middle of it, this direction at least seems correct.”
“Any reason for that certainty?”
“My inner guide says so.”
“I’m the one they call a madman, so maybe I shouldn’t talk—but I have to ask. You sure you don’t have some kind of mental illness?”
“Sometimes I hear voices from inside, and someone whispers in my ear, but it isn’t a mental illness.”
“Oh hell. That only makes me more nervous.”
He said so, yet he showed no real unease. Anton followed Najin’s lead, stretching, then began pulling up trees and grass from the surroundings.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think? If we’re going to cross that sea we need a boat first. You weren’t planning to swim it bare-handed, were you?”
“You know how to build a boat?”
“Hey, I spent four hundred years roaming the Outer Land. Even if it wasn’t this big, I’ve crossed a few famous great lakes. Give me a hand.”
Najin started splitting timber under Anton’s direction. One transcendent and one human who was nearly his equal—when the two of them set their minds to it, the boat was finished in no time.
“Right then, let’s launch her. Oars ready, Guide?”
Najin lifted a board he had shaped into something respectable. Anton clucked his tongue and shook his head.
“You can’t put mana into a plain wooden plank. What’s that thing on your back for if you leave it idle?”
“This is a spear. Not an oar.”
“Depends how you use it. Nice and broad—looks perfect for rowing.”
With a dubious expression Najin untied the spear. He had never imagined using it for this.
Splash.
They pushed the boat into the water and climbed aboard. Preparations complete, just before they began to row, Najin glanced at Anton. The man showed not the slightest hesitation; it looked strange to Najin.
“I know I’m the one who pointed the way, but… aren’t you worried?”
“Worried? About what?”
“I’m certain this is the right direction, but I have no real proof. What if I’m wrong?”
“Then you’re wrong. So what?”
Anton shrugged.
“I’ve searched for her for four hundred years. Scoured every corner of the Outer Land and still came up empty. I’ve staked my life on the tiniest possibilities—why wouldn’t I trust your word? If you’re right, wonderful. If not, a pity.”
His expression truly had not changed. With a cheerful grin he clapped Najin hard on the back.
“And isn’t it all experience anyway? One more story to tell her when we meet again. Hey, Guide—no, now that we’re on a boat, Navigator suits you better.”
Anton strode past him and planted one foot on the prow. He leaned forward slightly, pointed toward the distant sea, and bellowed.
“Onward, Navigator! Row! That sea awaits us!”
Utterly merry. Watching Anton shout like some stage-play captain, Najin let out a short laugh.
“Wrong direction.”
Waves slapped the prow as Najin rowed hard. Each stroke of the mana-wrapped oar cut the current and drove the boat forward.
Kruenbel would have a fit if he saw this.
Looking at the Cross-Star Spear serving as an oar, Najin thought the original owner would probably clutch the back of his neck. Still, it was a matter of perspective.
Wasn’t the Cross-Star Spear meant for carving a path?
As long as it was being used to move forward, its purpose wasn’t entirely wasted. With that thought he kept rowing. Beside him Anton was using his own staff-like weapon the same way.
The open sea. One tiny sailboat.
And two oarsmen.
Those two oarsmen also served as navigator, guide, captain, and first mate—an utterly chaotic voyage. Yet the boat pressed on vigorously, cutting through the treacherous currents of the Outer Land’s sea.
Splash!
Trusting one’s life to a small boat on the open water is a lonely, tedious business—yet Najin had no room to feel lonely or bored.
“She had a big chest.”
The captain sharing the boat simply would not stop talking. As if every stroke of the oar required an equal stroke of the tongue, Anton chattered on with gusto.
“She had a big chest.”
Was it important enough to say twice?
Anton spoke in a dead-serious voice.
“I loved every part of Lapis, but among them all I loved her looks a little more. Honestly, I don’t think there’s anyone in this world prettier than Lapis.”
“You fell for her because of her looks?”
“Not only the looks. That fiery, almost blazing temper of hers mixed with that face—it created a charm I can’t even put into words. Picture it. A face as refined as any noble young lady’s, and the second she opens her mouth she drops curses that would make the mercenaries in a tavern flinch.”
The best, Anton murmured.
“Hair with a faint violet sheen. White, slender fingers. But maybe because she gripped her staff so hard, calluses had formed on every joint. She always wore gloves as if embarrassed by them… yet whenever she took my hand she made a point of taking the gloves off.”
To you alone I will show everything of myself.
That was the meaning.
As he spoke, Anton’s face was vivid. There was none of the tragedy or weariness one might expect from a man who had spent four hundred years searching for his lover.
“One thing I’m curious about,” Najin said while rowing hard.
“You said it’s been more than four hundred years since you parted from that witch Lapis, and that you’ve been searching for her all that time.”
“That’s right.”
“Yet you don’t look the least bit sad or worn down. If anything, the opposite.”
“Ah. I know what you’re getting at. You’re asking why I don’t go around wearing the half-dead expression you see in famous plays and tragedies, right?”
Najin nodded. Anton burst out laughing.
“Well, a tragic, wasted man does have a certain appeal… but Lapis once told me I look damn charming when I smile. My lady said so—what am I supposed to do?”
“So that’s why you’re smiling.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m faking the smile. I’m simply enjoying every step of this. Whether it takes a hundred years, four hundred, or a thousand, I will meet her again. Does the road there have to be a tragedy?”
Anton declared it like a line from a play. He paused his vigorous rowing, threw both arms wide, and smiled.
“Comedy or tragedy—what decides it is something very small. Even the most tragic situation is only as heavy as the way you take it. If I laugh, it becomes comedy, not tragedy. And I prefer comedy to tragedy.”
So laugh. Don’t cry—laugh. Laugh until it clears the air. Better to sing four hundred years of comedy than four hundred years of tragedy. With those words Anton took up the oar again.
“I can’t stand my uncle, but there’s one thing he said that I actually agree with. Laugh. What reason is there not to laugh? Life is a comedy!”
Najin flinched, a short tremor running through him.
Life is a comedy.
Turning the sentence over, his face twisted.
“……I don’t particularly like those words.”
“Why not? Hate comedies?”
“More precisely, because of the demon who says them.”
Najin’s expression stayed sour.
“Do you know the Revelry Emperor? That woman says the same thing. Life is a comedy. Everything is nothing but a farce. And while she says it she mocks people’s lives.”
He ground his teeth and rowed harder. Strength flowed naturally into his hands.
“I hate it. I loathe it. I cannot bear the idea that the lives of people who poured everything they had into living are reduced to some cheap clown show.”
“Well, you’re not wrong either. But did you know? That too is exactly what the Revelry Emperor wants.”
“What?”
“Comedy was never originally her concept. That damned demon polluted it.”
Anton went on.
“Comedy isn’t mockery. Just as a spoonful of sugar makes bitter coffee drinkable, a single drop of laughter makes a hard life livable—that’s why comedy was born.”
How can anyone live every moment heavy and solemn? Sometimes you have to laugh lightly, shake it off, the way you open a window to air out a room thick with gloom. That, Anton said, is comedy’s role.
“So I laugh. I try to live cheerfully. That way, when I meet Lapis again, I can give her the best smile—one that makes the four hundred years of waiting feel like nothing at all.”
He smiled as he spoke, and even to Najin the smile looked rather fine.
“Enough of the serious talk. Where was I? The bit about Lapis’s chest being big? Right, let’s chatter a little more about that. You see, boy, when it comes to chests—are you listening, boy?”
As Anton launched into a philosophy of proper chest size and shape, Najin let the words go in one ear and out the other. In any case, the voyage showed no sign of growing dull.
Splash!
The waves churning far ahead clearly had no intention of leaving them alone. Najin flicked the oar up out of the water.
“Save that story for later.”
The Cross-Star Spear returned from oar to its original purpose in his hand. Its tip pointed straight at the monsters. Eyes fixed on the star-devouring beasts drawn by the stars, Najin said:
“We’ll have to deal with those first.”
Watching the star-eaters ride the waves toward them, Anton frowned.
“Tch. Right in the middle of an important conversation, and of course the beasts have to barge in and kill the mood.”
He lifted the weapon he had been using as an oar—less a spear than a staff.
He spun it once, flinging off water, and settled into stance. One foot planted on the prow, he leveled the staff’s tip at the beasts as if aiming a spear. Eyes narrowed on a creature’s heart, Anton thrust his arm forward.
That was all.
He had merely extended the staff, yet the result looked less like a thrust and more like a hammer blow. The center of the beast’s body caved in with a wet, crushing sound.
“Whew. I may not look it, but I am a transcendent. Even if a whole pack of those things swarmed us it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Having dispatched the beast with ridiculous ease, Anton flicked his staff clean and boasted.
“Still, for someone who’s only a Sword Seeker it must be a tough opponent, no? I can hardly dump combat duty on the man who’s already guide, navigator, and oarsman, so as captain I—”
While he was muttering, Najin half-listened and drove his spear forward.
Ramming.
The wave itself was pierced through. The smaller beasts riding the swell were shredded in the storm; the ones large enough to weather it had gaping holes punched clean through their bodies.
“……”
Anton blinked.
He looked from the newly opened path through the sea to Najin and back, then spoke in pure disbelief.
“You… said you were a Sword Seeker, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I’m a Sword Seeker.”
“Don’t lie to me. What Sword Seeker in the world punches a hole through a wave in a single strike?”