That Is a Knight's Duty—Nay, a Privilege! (2)
The stars bloomed.
Five stars flowering like blossoms circled around Najin. His stage, which had been no more than a handspan wide, now expanded to a breadth of five paces centered upon him.
Five paces.
Mere five paces.
The stage Don Quixote had unfolded was an entire world. Beside it, Najin’s stage of only five paces looked pitiful—a tiny flower that seemed ready to scatter and vanish on a single gust of wind.
Yet the fact that a flower had bloomed remained unchanged.
Tak.
Najin stepped forward. The domain that had been five paces widened by one. Another step, then another—Najin’s domain kept expanding.
Hwiik.
Najin swung his sword lightly. From the aura that had finished blooming, starlight scattered like petals. Those drifting petals were Najin’s domain. The boy had taken one more step toward the rank of Sword Master.
“······.”
No further words were needed. Najin leveled his blade at Don Quixote. In a world stained with paint, an aura untouched by any stain shone platinum-gold.
And then—bang.
Don Quixote kicked off the earth and charged. His movement was still astonishingly fast and powerful. A lance charge unleashed by a transcendent upon his own stage—an attack that would have skewered anyone who had not yet reached transcendence in a single breath.
Until moments ago, Najin had been unable even to react properly to Don Quixote’s movements. This had not been Najin’s stage. There had been no place here for him to stand.
But not now.
He planted his feet on the ground. While he swung his sword, the trajectory his tip drew was Najin’s space alone.
Kaaaaaaaaaang!
Once more Najin struck the lance aside. Once might have been chance; twice was not. Of course he slid far backward at the moment of impact and failed to seize any chance for a counter, so he could not claim to have fully received it.
What mattered was that he had blocked it.
The situation had changed from the moment before, when he could not even mount a proper resistance and was about to be run through. Incongruously for the circumstances, a smile touched Najin’s lips.
Ah. So this is how it feels.
It was nothing new, yet Najin was a genius. His capacity to learn and adapt was without peer. The period of adjustment that anyone stepping into a new realm must inevitably endure, the process of fine-tuning one’s own aura—Najin needed none of it.
A mere two swings.
Najin had finished adapting.
2.
Transcendents were beings who stood outside the laws of the world.
Even Sword Experts, after all, drew forth aura that sliced steel like paper. Sword Masters—those who had reached transcendence—routinely ignored physical law and the ordinary common sense of the world.
Yuel Razian, who launched blades of aura dozens of meters across; Seongyuksin, who evaporated whole regions with the immense heat of Aurora; the Sword Saint who carved space itself with a single swing—each was such a being.
And the Don Quixote standing here was no different.
Upon his own stage he charged at a terrifying speed—so fast that even fellow transcendents would call it “ridiculously fast.” For something to register as fast to a transcendent’s eye meant that ordinary folk would struggle even to perceive it.
Swaaaaaaaaaek!
A lance charge that carried that speed intact would skewer giants, demons, even the flesh of other transcendents. In his prime, Don Quixote—accelerated by Rocinante and aided by the countless stars that followed him—had pierced every foe with that lance charge.
More terrifying still was that the charge was not a finishing blow.
Even if one luckily received the rush, the next was already waiting. Charging at such velocity should have made changing direction or preparing the next attack nearly impossible… yet as if mocking the laws of physics, Don Quixote wheeled about with contemptuous ease.
Twice, thrice, ten times, dozens, hundreds of times.
Don Quixote would not stop until the enemy was pierced. As the battle continued his speed did not diminish—it rose. Upon his own stage, Don Quixote was a being nigh invincible.
Even if his mindscape had been polluted.
Even if long years upon a sickbed had left him frail.
Kaang!
It meant Don Quixote was still a formidable transcendent.
Kaaaaaaaaang!
Don Quixote ran across the stage stained with paint.
He ran and ran again.
“Euha, euhahahahaha!”
Whatever delighted him so, whatever struck him as so amusing, Don Quixote ran while bursting into mocking laughter. He charged endlessly toward Sancho, the guest invited onto his stage.
Sancho, let’s go on an adventure.
There is no time to hesitate here. A splendid adventure awaits us, does it not? My lady Dulcinea has prepared yet another marvelous adventure for us. We must not keep the lady waiting, must we?
For the mad Don Quixote, normal thought was impossible. Whatever those around him said never reached him.
Words did not reach him.
But—
Kaaaaaaaaang!
The sword did.
Kang, kaang!
From the figure of Sancho swinging a blade right before his eyes, Don Quixote felt a strange emotion. Was it because Sancho, who should long ago have been pierced and fallen, still held his ground? Or was it that unpleasant light his sword created?
He could not tell.
Because he could not tell, Don Quixote ran without end.
Najin, facing him, likewise had no leisure for other thoughts. Senses stretched taut, eyes wide, he moved faster than ever before. To move after seeing was already too late. He had to predict first and then move.
More.
He was inferior in speed. Inferior in power. In every respect the opponent stood above him. Then what placed him ahead of the opponent? Or at least what allowed him to stand on equal footing?
More, more, more······.
Instant judgment. Dynamic vision. And foresight.
What had always saved Najin’s life in every fight were those things. His pupils darted. The instant he received one strike, Don Quixote—who had slid far back—soon charged again, aiming for Najin’s back.
Faster.
The moment Don Quixote brushed past him, Najin was already moving. As if the next scene were already visible to his eyes, he swung without even turning his head. The arm that wielded the sword went numb. His body, accumulating wounds, groaned.
Yet Najin raised his speed still further.
Because it was not yet enough.
He judged faster, moved his body faster, and raised efficiency by stripping away every wasted motion.
I already knew it wouldn’t be easy.
Najin was well aware how foolish it was for one who had not even reached transcendence to challenge a transcendent. Moreover, Don Quixote ranked among the strong even among transcendents. Simply holding out against such a being was already close to a miracle.
Without Rocinante’s acceleration he would long ago have been pierced by that lance and ended his life.
Had the Star of Challenge not strengthened his body to match a higher-grade existence—
Had the Star of Breakthrough not reinforced the power to shatter adversity and press forward—
Had the Star of Indomitable not supported the body that threatened to collapse at any moment—
the fight would have ended long ago.
—But, to put it another way.
Merlin seized Najin’s hand. She wrapped her fingers around the fingers that trembled as though about to drop the sword.
—It is everything you have built that is letting you hold on.
Najin swung. He swung and swung again. He continued to receive Don Quixote’s attacks as they grew ever faster. Unlike Najin, whose wounds multiplied, Don Quixote remained unscathed. Then was this mere stalling for time?
No.
Stalling, holding out, then being satisfied that one had “fought well enough”—that did not suit Najin’s nature. He intended to win in earnest.
But how?
The answer to that question was already fixed.
“A knight, Sancho, is this!”
Najin recalled the words he himself had spoken moments earlier. The stories Don Quixote had told him during their adventures. He turned over the belief that would sit in the most important place of this Graveyard of Stars, of Don Quixote’s stage.
“To dream the impossible dream.”
An opponent impossible to defeat.
“To defeat the invincible foe.”
An opponent invincible upon his own domain.
“To endure unbearable pain.”
He had endured the pain of being pierced by such a being.
“To die for a noble ideal.”
He had not even flinched from death for an ideal.
“To have faith, and reach the stars.”
Dragonslayer, Challenge, Breakthrough, Indomitable, Dirge.
Najin’s five stars blazed fiercely.
Flash.
In that instant an anomaly seized the stage.
Upon Don Quixote’s paint-stained stage, stars shone from the sky that had been painted over and hidden. They were not Don Quixote’s stars. They were the stars of the countless constellations who had adventured with him and shared his journey.
They had not suddenly begun to shine.
They had always been there, always shining. They had merely been veiled from sight by paint for a time.
“······Ah?”
For a brief moment Don Quixote’s movement halted. He looked up at the sky without thinking. While the master of the stage himself was flustered by the anomaly that had appeared upon it, Najin let his sword hang.
He exhaled a long breath, then—
“That.”
Najin shouted in a great voice.
The words he had not finished moments ago, and the words Don Quixote had always added after speaking of chivalry.
“Is a knight’s duty.”
“A knight’s duty.”
“Nay—a privilege!”
“Nay—a privilege!”
Crying it aloud, Najin raised his sword. The instant he lifted the blade high as though to reach the heavens, starlight poured down upon him.
3.
The Graveyard of Stars, La Mancha.
The moment he had witnessed the truth of La Mancha and the process of this place’s birth, Najin had thought: if it was here and nowhere else, there was a chance of victory.
Places originally called the tombs of constellations were strongly influenced by “an individual’s perception or narrative.” They were deeply affected by the life one had walked, the stories one had built, and the manner in which one defined oneself.
Because a tomb was, in essence, a constellation’s mindscape.
In the Glass Castle’s tomb as well, the evil dragon Ladon had grown larger or smaller according to Violet’s perception. Through that, Najin had once made a certain conjecture.
Then, in a constellation’s tomb, couldn’t one wield power beyond what one actually possesses?
Just as Ladon had, even he who had not yet reached transcendence might, depending on the situation, be able to wield transcendence—that was the question he had asked.
—It’s possible. Not only the Graveyard of Stars, but a constellation’s domain as well… but yes, it’s possible.
And Merlin had answered that question. That it was possible. The moment he heard those words, Najin had reached a conclusion: that here and nowhere else—in La Mancha—he could face Don Quixote.
The Graveyard of Stars, La Mancha.
This place was filled with the stars that had adventured with Don Quixote and been buried here at the journey’s end. The Revelry Emperor had called it a lie, yet Najin knew every one of those adventures had been true.
And those stars, those dozens of constellations… were beings captivated by Don Quixote’s adventures.
They had been drawn to the knight who never lost his smile.
Drawn to the Don Quixote who dreamed the impossible dream, challenged invincible foes, endured unbearable pain with laughter, did not even shun death for noble ideals, and always cried that it was not a knight’s duty but a privilege.
They had always cheered for such a Don Quixote.
And they would become helpers who aided him.
Helpers of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha.
And.
Najin looked up at the sky.
The starlights that had pierced through Don Quixote’s paint-stained stage and finally descended all the way here were illuminating him.
They must have judged.
The stars buried here had judged.
That in this place, right now, the true Don Quixote was not the “Star of Contempt that mocks and ridicules the world,” but rather the one pointing a sword at that Star of Contempt and crying out the chivalry he had forgotten—Najin.
Or perhaps they simply wished for it.
That he would restore the crumbling Don Quixote to his senses. And for that purpose they were saying they would lend him as much power as he needed.
He could not know which it was.
But what Najin had to do was the same either way.
“That indeed.”
Najin smiled—like the Star of Laughter, like Don Quixote.
“Is a privilege that only a knight may enjoy, is it not, my lord.”
Dozens of stars illuminated Najin’s body, and the power they brought pushed his back into the realm of transcendence that the present Najin could never reach on his own.
Borrowing Rocinante’s acceleration, the role correction Sancho had granted him, and beyond even that the stars of the sky—only then could Najin stand in the same place as Don Quixote.
Was transcendence truly so distant a thing?
Feeling a prick of shame at himself for resorting to a kind of cheat, Najin raised his sword. He knew there were sometimes fights one had to win by any means necessary.
The sword lifted high toward the heavens.
Drawing a deep breath, Najin settled into his stance.
I can swing only once.
Even having set foot in transcendence by means of a cheat, Najin was not a transcendent. The power he could fully wield was limited to a single stroke. Deciding how to use that one stroke was not difficult.
Najin’s most powerful strike.
The figure who had become the very symbol of the strongest to him.
The First Horn.
Though the Star of Contempt before him could not know it, Najin swung the sword of a certain knight who, in the distant future, would defeat him and take one of his eyes.
Triumph.
Don Quixote’s stage split apart.