Regarding Those Peculiar Companions (5)
The genre of the story had changed.
It had become a light, cheerful, ridiculous comedy. That was the true nature of the dissonance Najin felt. He tapped his chin with a fingertip.
Exaggerated actions. Buffoonish gestures. The absurd contradiction of a transcendent—someone with superhuman balance and perfect command over their own body—throwing up. All of it made Najin feel as if he had stepped onto a stage.
An actor. Or a jester who had climbed up onto the boards.
Tuk.
“I don’t claim to know much about transcendent beings,” Najin said. “But one thing, if I may venture a guess.”
He stretched out a finger and pointed to the ground beneath his feet. Then he pointed along the path they still had to walk to reach La Mancha. Come to think of it, even that was strange.
Why did we all assume there was only one road?
There had to be detours that still led to the destination, yet Najin, the Star Incarnation, and Yuel had all been certain, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that there is only one path.
“La Mancha is a star tomb and a domain created by a constellation—in other words, a stage upon which a mindscape has been unfolded. And La Mancha also functions as a paradise, the ‘terminus of the story.’”
La Mancha.
A place that shared the same essential character as Avalon from the Arthurian cycle, and that carried the meaning of a story’s final destination. In the original fairy tale, Don Quixote had overcome hardship and adversity and arrived at La Mancha only at the very end.
And Alonso Quijano, who had modeled himself after that figure, must likewise have overcome every trial to reach La Mancha.
“In that case,” Najin exhaled briefly, “I believe La Mancha is not merely a destination. The entire road that leads there is almost certainly part of the constellation’s stage—La Mancha itself.”
They were already inside its sphere of influence.
Perhaps they had already set foot inside the star tomb.
“A reasonable conjecture.”
Yuel nodded.
“La Mancha has never been discovered in hundreds of years. We are hardly the first to hunt for it. The fact that the name ‘La Mancha’ still exists even among records that have been erased and defaced is itself proof that countless attempts have already been made.”
She continued, “Put another way, it means that despite those countless attempts over the centuries, La Mancha was never found. Even if it is a star tomb, how could so many transcendents scouring the land with bloodshot eyes fail to locate it? That is strange.”
Yuel Razian narrowed her eyes.
“A place that can only be entered by a specific method, through specific stages. That is the only view that makes sense. Therefore, I believe your conjecture is correct.”
“……I honestly didn’t understand a single word of that, but I think you’re right too.”
The Star Incarnation, who had been listening in silence, nodded. Only now did her expression clear, as if a lingering question had finally been answered; she slapped her own knee with a sharp tak.
“I knew something felt off. There’s no way I would scream and thrash around that pathetically. The Star of Contempt’s domain must have been seeping into my mind without my noticing.”
She smiled with a satisfied little hum.
“I am the Star Incarnation. Always dignified, refined, and perfect—an idol worthy of worship without the slightest—”
“Ah, forgive the interruption, Star Incarnation, but you were always like that.”
“……”
“When you dueled me, you screamed and rolled around on the floor. Tears and snot streaming. You’ve always been prone to exaggeration.”
The Star Incarnation’s face crumpled. She clearly wanted to seize Yuel by the collar and shake her, but the memory of having her arms cut off again made her swallow the urge. Watching her, Najin gave a bitter little smile and spoke.
“Still, as the Star Incarnation says, certain things do seem to be getting exaggerated. Even I was never this full of mischief, never this fond of teasing the people around me.”
—No, you’ve always been like that. You do it to me all the time.
He cleanly ignored Merlin’s aggrieved voice.
“And you, Lady Yuel……”
“Ah. I am largely unaffected. My perception has taken a slight hit, but my personality remains unchanged. In the first place, I possess nothing that could properly be called a personality.”
Yuel pointed at herself with an utterly blank expression.
“I have complete immunity to every form of domain, authority, or stage that interferes with the mind. A grand magician once described it this way: ‘Whether it’s interference or brainwashing, you end up using the target’s mind as a canvas and painting on it—but your canvas is already so violently red that nothing will take.’”
In other words, she was already so mad that no one could drive her mad. Najin nodded with a complicated look.
“Anyway.”
Najin summarized.
“As long as we remain aware of this, it shouldn’t be a major problem. If anything, it feels like proof that we are heading in the right direction.”
They were walking the correct path; that was why Merlin hadn’t pointed anything out. And the circumstances suggested that the road they were on was, in fact, the answer. They were drawing closer to La Mancha.
But……
This doesn’t feel like the whole of it.
There was no basis. No evidence. Only instinct. Instinct told him that something more was still required. What that something was, he did not yet know.
“Let’s keep moving.”
For now, there was nothing to do but press forward.
2.
“What sort of being the Star of Contempt is, you ask.”
Yuel tilted her head.
“A difficult question.”
On the way to La Mancha, Najin had asked her about Quixote, the Star of Contempt. She had fought him before; she ought to know something. Her answer was dry and simple.
“An opponent I have no desire to fight.”
Coming from a battle maniac who lived for combat, who loved nothing more than drawing her blade against those stronger than herself, the reply was almost unbelievable.
“You enjoy battle, do you not?”
“A fight with the Star of Contempt is not a fight. It is a kind of play. You feel as if you have become an actor performing on a stage.”
Yuel’s brow furrowed.
“You hear laughter. The pain that should accompany a fight, the contorted faces, the blood, the screams—none of them exist. There is only laughter.”
She raised one arm.
The same arm she had once cut off herself after it was pierced by Quixote’s lance.
“The moment the Star of Contempt’s donkey snorts, the moment its hooves strike the ground, that place becomes the Star of Contempt’s stage. Windmills turn. Tens of thousands of sheep let out uncanny cries. The severed heads of giants litter the ground.”
And then, she said,
“Spears with humans taxidermied upon them begin to bleed. And you realize: every single one of those things is a Star Relic.”
“……What?”
“The Star of Contempt’s donkey, his lance, his armor—all of them are Star Relics. And those relics sustain and reinforce his domain.”
Najin found himself touching the cord that bound his hair—the Star Relic Viola had left him.
“If the lance pierces you, the arm rots and falls apart. The donkey’s cry confuses your sense of direction. The stained armor scatters sword aura. And every one of those effects is amplified while you stand on Quixote’s stage.”
Yuel rubbed her arm.
“The domain the Star of Contempt creates is dangerous.”
She stated it as fact.
“If you cannot shatter the stage he has built, you cannot defeat the Star of Contempt. Upon that stage he is the lead of a comedy, and the protagonist of a comedy does not die. Even his death is wrapped in laughter.”
Only laughter fills the air.
And as long as the laughter continues……
“The Revelry Emperor can revive the Star of Contempt as many times as she likes. Death is not the end, and as long as laughter rings out the story does not conclude—that is how the Revelry Emperor has defined it.”
“Sounds troublesome.”
“Yes. Extremely. And this is troublesome as well. I think we need to bind this side more tightly—what do you think?”
“Ah. I was thinking the same thing.”
While they talked, Najin cinched the ropes tighter around the Star Incarnation’s body. By now she seemed almost used to it; she even offered advice—“Ah, bind me here too, would you? It loosened earlier and I nearly flew off.”
“I’m throwing you now, Star Incarnation.”
“Gently, if you please.”
“I’ll try.”
“Oh, and you, little one? When you use that ramming technique or whatever it is, aim for my back whenever you can. It hurts less when I take it on the back.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Once again the Star Incarnation sailed into the sky.
She made an excellent lure.
Using her as bait to fish for giants, Yuel and Najin continued their conversation.
“In any case, when you face the Star of Contempt, beware the lance above all. Of everything he possesses, that is the most dangerous.”
“The one with a human taxidermied on it?”
Najin had seen it before—the lance said to have been forged by melting down his own vassals. He was listening carefully to the description when it happened.
Kack-kack-kack.
From somewhere.
Aha, ahahahahah!
Laughter.
Kack-kack-kack, ahak, hahahahaha!
The raucous peals of a jester made Najin’s brow crease. His senses snapped taut. Hand on his sword hilt, he whipped his head around, searching for the source of the laughter.
But no jester was anywhere to be seen.
And still the laughter continued.
In the midst of that eerie situation Najin looked at Yuel. She was looking back at him, eyes narrowed. Her lips moved, but the laughter drowned her out.
—Najin.
A voice did reach him. Merlin’s voice cut cleanly through the laughter and touched him. With quiet eyes she looked at him and stretched out a hand. The finger pointed at Najin himself. Only then did he understand.
“Ah.”
He was the one laughing.
3.
The instant he realized it, Najin moved.
Crack.
He slammed his palm into his own jaw. Bone gave with a wet crunch and the jaw dislocated. Even then his tongue kept working, trying somehow to manufacture more laughter, so he jammed his fingers into his mouth and held it shut.
One. Two. Three.
Counting silently, he steadied his mindscape.
He summoned the image of the day the Helmeted Knight had been humiliated. He filled the mindscape with the hatred and rage he had felt in that moment. Blood boiled; flame rose. The fire burned away the laughter that had infiltrated his mind.
“Kh—cough. Khh……”
Najin spat out a breath.
He reset the jaw and drew on his regenerative power.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine now.”
Najin let out a long breath. The closer they drew to La Mancha, the more farcical the story became—but what had just happened was of a different texture. It was nothing like the laughter La Mancha itself seemed to pursue.
What is the difference? he asked himself.
The laughter of La Mancha’s knights, the laughter that appeared in that fairy tale, was the kind that made a hard journey bearable. Sweet sugar stirred into the bitter coffee of life. The laughter just now had been nothing of the sort.
Laughter for the sake of mockery alone.
No context. No meaning. Its sole purpose was contempt. Najin’s expression hardened. He knew that kind of laughter all too well.
“It seems……”
“Yes. I am thinking the same thing.”
Yuel rose slowly to her feet.
She gave a sharp yank on the fishing rod (borrowed from Najin’s Cross-Star Lance). The Star Incarnation, dangling at the end of the line, was reeled up like a fish.
“Uha—hihihihihk! Kack-kack-kack!”
She too was laughing. Yuel and Najin conversed with their eyes alone.
Will you do it, Najin?
Even so, she’s the representative of an entire sect. It’s a bit awkward for me.
Hm. A fair point.
Yuel nodded and drove her fist into the Star Incarnation’s jaw. The woman who had just been punched stared at her with a look of profound injustice—until she realized, a beat too late, that her mind had been contaminated. She rubbed her jaw.
“Well,” the Star Incarnation sighed, “only a fool would leave his own weakness unguarded. If he’d been that kind of fool, he would have been hunted down centuries ago.”
She rolled her shoulders in a slow circle.
“Hiding laughter inside comedy. Hiding mockery inside laughter. A method that suits the Revelry Emperor perfectly.”
Yuel drew her sword.
“……”
The three of them stood in silence, gazing down at the giants arrayed below. As if sensing those stares, the giants that had been standing still turned their heads and looked straight up at them.
Then, with a sly curl of the lips—
their mouths split wide. Smiling so hard the corners of their mouths tore, they began to turn their heads. Dozens of giants burst into simultaneous laughter and twisted their necks.
Around, and around, and around again.
Giant heads spun. One revolution, two, three—endlessly. Even as they spun they laughed. Even as necks wrenched and flesh tore they never stopped laughing.
Laughter echoed.
Through the echoing laughter, heads tore free and shot into the air. From the neck stumps of the headless giants blood fountained—but it was not red. Yellow, green, sky-blue, deep blue: multicolored blood splattered like paint.
A landscape stained in every hue.
Giants that had lost their heads yet still danced in grotesque comedy.
Heads that tumbled across the ground yet never stopped laughing.
A space dyed in laughter.
And within that comedy, the revelry that had been waiting in ambush finally revealed itself: jesters who abused laughter for the sole purpose of mockery.