The Strongest Knight of the Round Table (1)
May tomorrow be better than today.
May tomorrow be more peaceful than today.
That had been the wish of the heroes imprisoned in this tower—the conviction that had driven them to cast their lives away without hesitation. And so, as the future those heroes had looked toward, Najin believed the task before him was simple.
Myung-il. The bright tomorrow.
As they had wished, Najin would shine.
He stood upon the history they had built. The present that had climbed atop the past was obliged to advance toward a better future. As the hero who now represented this era, that duty rested squarely on Najin’s shoulders.
“……”
Galahad fell silent at Najin’s answer. Without a word he studied the sword aura wreathing the youth’s blade. The platinum gleam summoned memories of the past; images flickered through Galahad’s mind.
“A better tomorrow, is it.”
A faint smile touched his lips. Laughter slipped through the half-shattered iron mask.
“Indeed.”
For the first time, Galahad laughed. The man who had seemed as emotionless as a stone statue finally revealed feeling. He exhaled a long breath and looked about him.
The highest floor of the tower.
From that summit Galahad gazed down upon the Sanctuary of Oblivion—a pond formed of pooled memories and records, a space where the most brilliant and beautiful moments had been preserved like specimens. Change was stirring through the sanctuary that had so long remained fixed in the past.
Gong… gong-gong…
The tolling of the bells that had begun here now resounded through the entire sanctuary. As if answering Najin’s star, two constellations rose above the sanctuary.
Kirchhoff’s and Yuel’s.
Nation and common folk had chosen their representatives by their own will.
What remains…
…is only the one who will represent the heroes.
Galahad looked ahead. There stood his radiant successor, speaking of a better tomorrow. A smile curved Galahad’s mouth.
Behold, my king.
In the end it has come to pass as you said. Recalling the king’s final words, Galahad sighed long and deep.
“Ah…”
For the challengers the past was ending; for them, today itself was drawing to a close. Then what of himself…
“……”
He slowly lowered his arms. The mana that had bloomed across his armor began to fade. At last the cruciform shield slipped from his grasp and struck the ground.
A heavy thud rolled through the air.
Najin frowned. The duel was not yet decided. Though the advantage still tilted toward Galahad, the gap had been narrowing by degrees. It was far too early to call a winner. And yet the man had discarded his weapon?
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Najin snapped.
“The duel isn’t over.”
“Yes. The decision has not yet been reached.”
“Pick up your shield.”
“I would, but it seems I no longer have the time.”
Galahad raised his arm. Najin sucked in a sharp breath. Everything below the elbow had already vanished. The cracks that had begun at his fingertips were spreading through his entire body.
“You—”
“Dominion over the sanctuary has changed hands. No doubt thanks to the efforts of your companions. And you yourself proved your qualification by reaching the tower’s summit.”
Galahad gave a small shrug.
“It appears tomorrow is finally arriving even for this land.”
“……”
“And tomorrow does not wait for the past to catch up. Tomorrow is a guest that arrives without warning.”
The entire sanctuary began to quake. Its outer shell was crumbling; the heart of the sanctuary was about to be laid bare.
Crack.
Galahad, too, was a being that belonged to the sanctuary’s exterior. He felt his flesh crumbling away. Sensing his existence dissolve, he looked at Najin. Najin returned the gaze with a complicated expression—as if he refused to let things end this way.
“What happens to you?”
“I will be absorbed into the true body, I expect. He may deny it, but I am still a part of him.”
Even as his form disintegrated, Galahad’s expression remained perfectly serene.
“Najin, was it?”
He rolled the name on his tongue and looked down at his shield. Scratches marred the surface of the cruciform shield. For a thousand years it had never permitted so much as a single blemish; now Galahad gently traced the scars that had been carved into it.
“You mean to surpass me. The Round Table. The entire history piled up since ages past.”
“Obviously.”
Obviously, Najin said. Was it so obvious? That single word, spoken without the slightest hesitation, drew a laugh from Galahad despite himself.
“Yes. That is enough.”
He nodded.
“I would have liked to watch you surpass me, but unfortunately I am short on time.”
“You make it sound as though you fully intended to lose to me.”
“I do not mean that I planned to throw the match. I am a being that stands still, while you are a being that moves forward. Given enough time, you would certainly have surpassed me.”
Galahad smiled.
He took one step aside.
“As master of Argo—the place where the memories of heroes gather—I acknowledge you. The one who must tow this vessel is not me, but you.”
A path opened. Looking toward the passage that led onward, Najin wore a complicated expression.
“I still haven’t heard your answer. You haven’t even managed to deny my words.”
“Regrettably so.”
“This is no satisfying conclusion.”
“Well, the end has not yet arrived, so of course it isn’t.”
Galahad raised a hand.
“The unfinished duel… the conversation we could not finish…”
His crumbling arm pointed beyond the passage.
“Finish them with the me who waits on the other side.”
I will be waiting for you there.
Not as Galahad, but as Lancelot.
Those were his final words. Galahad vanished. As the sanctuary’s collapse accelerated, Najin looked out from the tower’s peak. The nation, the city of the common folk, the tower of heroes—all were crumbling.
…They were not disappearing.
Only the one who bore them had changed. Najin gripped the banner bound to his shoulder. He exhaled a short breath and began to walk.
Toward the deepest part of the Sanctuary of Oblivion.
Toward the heart where the master of this sanctuary waited.
Forgotten, erased memories and records formed the outer shell of the sanctuary. What, then, lay at its center? Walking the path into the depths, Najin found his answer.
A river ran beneath his feet.
A vast current that pierced the entire Sanctuary of Oblivion, binding every memory—regardless of era or origin—into a single flowing stream. Following the river of memory, Najin walked on.
At the end of that path he reached a broad plain.
The river branches that had spread like the roots of a great tree reconverged across the plain and formed a pond. The beginning and end of every river—what Galahad had called the final stream.
The heart of the Sanctuary of Oblivion.
Najin was not the only one to set foot there. Two others had reached this place by different roads, by different means.
Great Synthesis—Kirchhoff.
Bearer of the Star of Succession and Heavenly Slaughter Star—Yuel Razian.
And between the three of them, at the center of the plain, she waited. A witch with cascading snow-white hair. The gaze of Guinevere, mistress of this domain, was fixed upon Najin.
“So you have come all the way here after all.”
She rose from the boulder where she had been sitting. The moment she took a single step forward, the sanctuary trembled around her.
Constellation of Oblivion—Guinevere.
For a thousand years she had swallowed countless memories and swollen her own existence; her rank and authority were terrifyingly vast. Merely by existing she blurred the memories of those who approached her.
The closer one drew, the more one forgot why one had come, what one’s purpose was—and finally even who one was. Over the past millennium, countless people had been erased from history in exactly this fashion.
Najin felt his own star creak under the strain.
This was why the subjugation force against the Constellation of Oblivion had been kept to the absolute minimum. No matter how powerful a constellation might be, without a means to resist oblivion… one could never even approach her. Najin drew up his starlight.
He possessed a means to resist oblivion.
Guinevere’s authority was formidable, yet even that power could not interfere with Excalibur. The story of Najin engraved upon the holy sword could not be damaged by any means. Therefore his memories would not be erased.
A spark of light.
The Lord of the Ruined City protected Yuel with the Star of Transmission. Transmission, the natural antithesis of oblivion, would never allow her to forget herself.
“I am—”
And Kirchhoff:
“—the last knight of Rondinel, and…”
He drove the Blue Spear into the plain. The national flag of Rondinel bound to the spear fluttered in the wind.
“—the noblest knight of all, Blue Spear Kirchhoff.”
The knight who had resisted oblivion for three hundred years recovered every memory. The knight who bore his master, his lord, and all of Rondinel would never forget who he was.
Each of the three resisted oblivion in their own way.
Yet even resistance did not change the fact that Guinevere was a constellation of ten stars and a witch beloved by magic. And above all…
KRAAAAAASH!
Something plunged from the sky. Her knight appeared at Guinevere’s side. Clad in the same armor as Galahad, yet wrapped in an utterly different, murderous aura, the knight took his place to guard her.
Guinevere’s knight.
The strongest knight of the old Round Table—Lancelot.
Two constellations of ten stars each rose into the heavens. Beside the white-haired Guinevere, a knight encased in jet-black armor that stood in stark contrast raised his shield.
The principal actors of the stage had all taken their places.
This play needed no narrator, nor did anyone need to announce its beginning. Najin looked at Kirchhoff and Yuel. A brief exchange of glances was enough. They already knew what they had to do.
“Merlin.”
“Yeah.”
Merlin materialized. Guinevere’s eyes narrowed. The moment her lips moved and she murmured “Merlin” almost unconsciously, Merlin moved.
…The subjugation force had conquered the Sanctuary of Oblivion.
They had not reached its deepest heart, yet they had won recognition from the memories that formed its outer shell. The dominion Guinevere had held was now shared. She was no longer the sole god of this space.
Common folk, nation, hero.
Yuel, Kirchhoff, Najin.
The three poured every scrap of dominion they had seized into Merlin. Borrowing that power, Merlin began to interfere with the sanctuary. The instant her interference took hold, the three charged toward Guinevere.
Thud.
Lancelot settled into stance, shielding Guinevere. Under his protection she began to chant. It was the same strategy that had brought down countless demons and fallen stars a thousand years ago: the mage and the knight who guarded her. Simple—and precisely because it was simple, devastatingly effective.
So then…
Najin adjusted his grip on the sword. Staring at the shield Lancelot thrust toward him, he steadied his breath.
We separate them.
Najin drove Excalibur into the earth. Just as Alderan had once done, he detonated a Ramming beneath the ground. The plain heaved; the surrounding earth was hurled skyward.
Crack.
Yet the moment Lancelot stamped his foot, the quaking ceased. When he brought that raised foot down, the tremors died and every clod of soil that had been flung aloft plummeted back to earth. Watching it happen, Najin showed no surprise.
He had known it would go this way.
And the true gambit still waited.
“Now.”
With a portion of the sanctuary’s dominion already transferred, Merlin could intervene. She could not touch the sanctuary’s core…
Rrrrrumble…
…but reshaping the terrain was well within her power. Najin sprinted across the shuddering ground. Into the earth destabilized by the Ramming, Merlin’s magic seeped. Then the land began to split.
And then—
CRACK!
The Sanctuary of Oblivion was sundered. One half of the divided sanctuary plunged as if determined to separate Guinevere from Lancelot; the other half rose. Lancelot tried to rejoin her, but the attempt failed.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
KAAAAAAAAANG!
“You’re falling with me.”
Najin closed the distance in a blink and smashed the knight’s shield downward. Lancelot and Najin locked together. Together they plummeted toward the floor of the sanctuary.
“We need to separate Guinevere and Lancelot.”
“Each of them is strong enough on their own, but when they’re together it gets a whole lot messier. I’d need to call out my true body just to make the fight fair, and that isn’t possible in this environment.”
“So what else can we do? We split the place.”
Once dominion was transferred, the sanctuary could be divided. The only question was where to drop them. While they were still climbing the tower, Merlin had laid out the plan for Najin.
“I can more or less see the structure of this place. There’s a discarded space at the very bottom of the sanctuary—probably where they dump the memories and records that aren’t worth keeping, the ones they truly want forgotten.”
“That’s where I’ll drop you two.”
“I’ll probably have to stick with Guinevere if we’re going to have a real fight… Will you be all right? Really?”
Merlin, Yuel, and Kirchhoff would face Guinevere.
Najin would face Lancelot alone.
That was the outline of the operation. Najin, who had always fought alongside Merlin, would this time—just as he had against the Revelry Emperor—have to confront the enemy alone.
“It isn’t a question of whether I can or can’t.”
Can you do it?
To that question, Najin had answered:
“It’s something that has to be done. So I’ll do it.”
The divided earth slammed into the floor of the sanctuary with a thunderous crash. The instant they landed, Lancelot swept his shield and flung Najin away.
Ssssshhhhhk!
Najin skidded backward, caught his breath, and fixed his stance, eyes locked on Lancelot. The knight was not looking at him. He stared at the floating land high above—worried about Guinevere, perhaps.
“Lancelot.”
Najin spoke the name. Only then did the knight turn his gaze upon him. Najin raised Excalibur and drew up his sword aura. Platinum light blazed.
“We still have an unfinished duel to settle, don’t we?”
This was the place where worthless memories had been discarded.
Ironically, it was filled with the memories that defined Lancelot—ruins, emblems of the convict corps, battlefields, weapons rusted and stained with blood. There, Najin leveled his sword at the knight.
“Draw your blade.”
The difference between Galahad and Lancelot was not merely atmosphere. The shape of the shield was subtly different. Unlike Galahad’s, Lancelot’s shield had a sword hilt thrust into it.
Najin pointed at that hilt.
If you wish to return to Guinevere, you must defeat me—and to do that, you must draw your sword.
“……”
Perhaps he felt the force of Najin’s will. Without a word Lancelot raised his arm. His hand clamped down hard upon the hilt embedded in the cruciform shield.
A flash.
As if answering that grip, the ten stars engraved upon the cruciform shield blazed. Then, with a fierce grinding of metal, the sword that formed one with the constellation began to be drawn free.
The sword imbued with the Mystery of Unbreaking.
Arondight shone.