Of the Remarkable Adventures Experienced in La Mancha (2)
"So, if I didn't mishear you,"
Seongyuksin pressed her fingers to her brow.
"You went into the star tomb of La Mancha alone, experienced Don Quixote's entire life story inside it, and at the end of it all, you defeated the Don Quixote who had become the Star of Contempt?"
"That about sums it up."
"And you expect me to believe that?"
It was an entirely reasonable doubt.
No matter how far Najin could fly or how far he could run, he had yet to reach transcendence. And yet he had faced a transcendent—and from the sound of it, a powerful one who held something like seven stars—and won?
What kind of story was that supposed to be?
Seongyuksin harbored her doubts. Yet she seemed to be the only one at the fire who did.
"Oh, you've accomplished something astonishing once again. Is that your sixth star? Now you and I share the same number. In the truest sense, I could call you an equal. How about a duel while we're at it?"
"Didn't you say you'd challenge me once I became a Sword Master? I believe you said you would wait until then."
"Did I? Hmm. I don't seem to recall."
"…"
"So, a duel?"
"No."
"A pity."
Watching Yuel and Najin chat as if none of this were anything special, Seongyuksin felt her common sense crumbling.
What is this? Am I the strange one?
No. Those two were the strange ones. Seongyuksin considered herself a thoroughly sensible person, and as a sensible person she hurled the obvious question at them both.
"Hold on—some guy who hasn't even transcended yet is fighting a one-on-one against a transcendent? And winning? There have only been four cases like that in all of history, right?"
"Now there are five. Just curious—who are the other four?"
"Ah, allow me to answer that."
Yuel cut in.
"Arthur, Merlin, Siegfried, Galahad. Those four, I believe."
"Then my name goes on the list as well."
"Arthur, Merlin, Siegfried, Galahad, Najin. Like that?"
Najin gave a satisfied little hum and nodded. As he and Yuel shook hands, Seongyuksin's face crumpled.
"Does this even make sense?"
"To be fair, I didn't win entirely alone. The nature of the stage that is a star tomb played a part, along with the roles, the acceleration, and the power I borrowed from other stars."
"I'm already factoring that in. Heh. You don't even seem to be lying. La Mancha is gone, and looking at that new star of yours, it really does seem to be true…"
As she stared at Najin with a look of pure disbelief, Yuel, sitting beside her, held out a sweet potato. It was a roasted one, golden-brown from the campfire. Seongyuksin took it naturally and peeled the skin.
"You two seem to have gotten closer."
"I've always been close with Seongyuksin, Najin."
Judging by the way Seongyuksin's expression twisted further, that was not the case. She took a big bite of the sweet potato and spoke around it.
"Well, something of that scale would count as a great achievement. So? Does that mean the job is done? The dispatch from the Empire's First Horn only said to cooperate with the assault on La Mancha. Now that La Mancha has fallen, it seems my part is finished."
"Seems so."
"Brat under the protection of the Empire's First Horn. What's your take? Have I fulfilled my duty?"
Najin nodded. Seongyuksin had not taken part in the assault on La Mancha directly, yet it was true that he had been able to enter because of her and Yuel.
"Then you won't forget the promise either, will you?"
She cast a sidelong glance at him.
Promise? Najin tilted his head, then let out a short ah of recognition. Perhaps because he had spent what felt like months or even years inside La Mancha, the memory had been slow to surface.
"Of course. I'll put a word in with Guildmaster Dieta."
"I like a man who understands. A fine trade."
Seongyuksin beamed and shook Najin's hand. She declared that she was thoroughly sick of the Outer Land and intended to return to the Continent at once; Yuel likewise said he had matters to report to the main church.
"Najin, what will you do?"
And as for Najin—
"I still have work left to do, so I think I'll remain in the Outer Land a little longer."
"Is that so?"
Yuel raised no particular objection. He simply asked a brief question.
"Do you require my aid?"
"No."
Najin shook his head.
"It seems this is something I must do alone."
2.
By conquering La Mancha, Najin had obtained the star of Dalso and a Star Relic. They were proof that he had taken La Mancha—and proof that he had shattered the Revelry Emperor's stage.
Carrying that proof, Najin went to meet several people.
"…Is it true?"
First was the Sword Master of a fallen kingdom, Kirchhoff.
Upon hearing Najin's tale, the man's eyes went wide; then he burst out laughing—whether from sheer incredulity or from the sense that it was exactly the sort of thing Najin would do.
"Astounding. Truly astounding. I like to think I live each day to the fullest myself, yet next to the density of your life it feels like nothing at all."
"You flatter me."
"Flatter? Not in the least! You still don't seem to grasp what you've done…"
Kirchhoff threw his arms wide, as if to make Najin look at the scale of his own feat, and continued in a voice edged with excitement.
"You only began searching for La Mancha half a year ago. In a mere half year you solved a riddle that constellations had been tearing at with bloodshot eyes for centuries."
You're allowed to take a little more pride in it.
Kirchhoff looked genuinely pleased as he said so.
"How could I not be? At last… after three hundred years, I finally feel as though we're moving forward."
He clenched a fist.
"It's been three hundred years since the three constellations led by the Revelry Emperor destroyed my homeland. Three hundred years is a long time. For all those long years I had no idea where I was supposed to go."
No idea? When Najin tilted his head, Kirchhoff gave a bitter smile.
"I couldn't know where to go or how to get there. Think about it. Three constellations took part in Rondinel's fall. One is the Revelry Emperor you know so well; the other two are the Star of Oblivion and Lancelot, once a knight of the Round Table."
He held up three fingers.
"No one knows where the Star of Oblivion is. We don't even know its true name, let alone an epithet. And the Round Table knight Lancelot? Likewise missing. The last anyone saw of him was three hundred years ago, when he helped destroy Rondinel."
He folded two fingers. Only one remained.
"That leaves the Revelry Emperor. Right now she's the only one I can actually take revenge on. Even that is half-hearted. I can't set foot in her territory, so I have to wait for that damned demon to come outside. And does the Revelry Emperor ever show herself willingly?"
Not at all. Such occasions were rare to the point of being almost unheard of.
"I had to take revenge, yet I couldn't even approach the object of that revenge. That went on for three hundred years. But now—at last—I can see the path."
La Mancha had fallen. The weakness of the Star of Contempt had been laid bare. A road toward the Revelry Emperor was steadily being paved. In that knowledge Kirchhoff even felt a kind of joy.
"You are giving meaning to the three hundred years I spent wandering. Because of you, I even feel certain that I will be able to fulfill my duty. I thank you. Sincerely."
Kirchhoff bowed his head.
"When the day comes to subjugate the Revelry Emperor…"
"Yes."
Kirchhoff smiled.
"For now I live as the kind and splendid hero Kirchhoff that my liege wished me to be… but when that day arrives, the story will change."
He gripped the hilt of his sword.
"On that day, the last knight of Rondinel will exercise his rightful claim—the right of the avenger."
With those words Kirchhoff produced a sheaf of papers from somewhere and handed every last document over to Najin.
"These are everything I uncovered about the Revelry Emperor over three hundred years. Better that you hold them than I. I hope they're of use."
Najin cross-checked Kirchhoff's materials against the knowledge he had gained by conquering La Mancha. Information dug up over three centuries by a knight who had lost his country held real value.
"Well then."
"Yes. Well then."
"We'll meet again before long."
On the day that was coming—again.
Leaving that promise behind, Najin set out for another place.
"Oh, a welcome face. How have you been, Najin?"
This time he went to where Anton Quijano and Lapis lived. Visiting their cabin, Najin told them everything he had learned and everything he had seen.
"…"
The easy smile Anton had worn at first stiffened with every word of Najin's account. When the tale was finished, Anton stepped outside the cabin for a while and smoked. He returned only after some ten minutes had passed.
"That flag—it's my uncle's, all right."
He pointed to the banner Najin had brought.
"He made it in imitation of the crests that appear in the tales of La Mancha's knights. Sunflower and sun. There's no one else in the world who would carry a flag like that except my uncle."
He gazed at the banner with a complicated look.
"So that was what became of him."
Anton murmured, turning Najin's story over in his mind.
"On the day Quijano fief burned, I did my uncle an unforgivable wrong. I should have apologized, but I missed the chance. Yes… I was far too late."
He pressed his fingers to his brow, sighed, and dragged a palm down his face. When the hand fell away from his chin, what filled Anton's eyes was rage.
"Late as I am, there are still things left that I can do."
Anton Quijano spoke as if chewing the words.
"I was already of a mind to, but now the motive is ironclad. All the more reason to kill that whore with holes punched through her ten times over. Lapis?"
"I'm not stopping you. No reason to."
Anton Quijano and Lapis promised to join the fight.
"When that day comes, find me. This time I'll be the one at the oar."
"I'm not sure you'll need me to find you."
"I'll know?"
Anton blinked; Najin smiled.
"When the day comes, you'll know."
Whether you are in the Outer Land, on the Continent, or even at the edge of the world—it will not matter. Wherever starlight reaches, you will know it as naturally as breathing.
"Until next time, then."
Najin took his leave. After meeting a few others with whom he shared ties besides Anton and Kirchhoff, he set out once more for a certain place.
3.
"Come to think of it,"
Najin said as he walked.
Yeah.
"The Revelry Emperor layered four Forbidden Territories along the road to her domain. And she entrusted those Forbidden Territories to the four constellations called the Court Jesters."
That's right. One is the Star of Contempt, one is the Demon King of Lamentation, and the other two are unknown.
"Yes. About that—doesn't it strike you as a little strange?"
It is strange, Najin said.
"Call them Court Jesters or whatever you like—in the end they are the Revelry Emperor's apostles. That means they receive her starlight. So of course they should be under her influence… and yet we can't find them. Doesn't that seem odd?"
The Revelry Emperor's star was exceedingly peculiar. She possessed a star of many colors, as if paints had been mixed together, and every jester under her influence bore a similar star.
And yet they could not locate the stars of the Court Jesters, who ought to have been under the strongest influence of all? Was that not peculiar?
"Not knowing where those constellations are—that I can accept. But not even knowing what constellations they are? Something about that feels wrong."
Nothing strange about it. If the Revelry Emperor sets her mind to hiding them, is there a way to find them? Starlight can simply be concealed.
Najin smiled.
"Exactly. She hid them."
Tak.
"Just like La Mancha."
The moment La Mancha fell, the Revelry Emperor's star had trembled. Something had changed. The change had lasted only an instant, yet Najin had not missed it.
And now he fitted the pieces together.
The Revelry Emperor distorts perception.
Just as she had warped the road to La Mancha, just as she had shattered Don Quixote's recognition of the world. Taking that as a clue, and with Merlin's help, Najin began to reason.
"She placed a distortion upon her own star itself. So that no one can observe her constellation—or the other stars gathered beneath it."
Afraid of revealing herself, the Revelry Emperor always worked from behind the stage. The same was true of her constellation. The ten brilliant stars visible when one looked up at the sky were nothing more than the mask of an actor standing in the footlights.
Najin had realized that truth the instant La Mancha fell.
The moment La Mancha—which had been supplying starlight to the Revelry Emperor's constellation—was conquered, a tremor had run through that constellation. The tremor had looked exactly like a curtain swaying.
Then
Merlin said,
we'd better pull the curtain aside and look behind it. See just what she's been hiding so carefully. Right?
Najin nodded. How to draw the curtain. How to tear away the distortion the Revelry Emperor had laid over her own constellation. He already knew the method.
Tak—his footsteps stopped.
This was a place he had set foot in once before, the place where he had been taught the secret techniques of the Triumphant Sword.
The sanctuary of the Golden Horn Knights.
And the place where the Revelry Emperor had been driven back twice.
To her it was a Forbidden Territory—the place in all the Outer Land where her influence reached least.
Standing at its center, Najin looked up at the sky. He fixed his gaze on the spot where the Revelry Emperor's constellation hung. Just as he had expected, an unnatural shimmer lingered there.
The weakness she revealed for the briefest instant when La Mancha fell.
Outside she had covered the flaw again in a heartbeat, but here she could not hide it. On this ground she was the defeated. Najin stretched a hand toward the heavens.
Challenge. Dragonslaying. Breakthrough. Indomitable. Dirge. Dalso.
Najin's six stars blazed.
To the Revelry Emperor this place was forbidden ground; to Najin it was holy ground. In the sanctuary of the Golden Horn Knights, the stars of its sole remaining member flared with fierce light.
The black curtain that veiled the sky. The rippling veil.
Najin seized the curtain that divided the stage from what lay behind it.
Flash.
In that instant the Revelry Emperor's authority resisted with savage force. The Najin who had first met her—or even the Najin who had not yet obtained the star of Dalso—would never have been able to break that power.
But not now.
The narrative held within Najin's stars trampled the Revelry Emperor's authority underfoot. On the stage where only mockery held value, in the world she had painted over, Alonso Quijano—who had at last reclaimed a laughter that was his own—burst into laughter.
In that moment the curtain was drawn aside.
The instant the veil that distorted the Revelry Emperor's constellation and concealed its truth was pulled away, Najin saw.
The Revelry Emperor's true form.
The hideous visage hidden behind the beautiful mask.