He Who Forgot (1)
A constellation could sense the wishes of mankind. rlin had said that fierce winds, desires, and even resentnts could be perceived as a kind of current.
– It’s neither a clear nor an absolute phenonon. It just happens now and then. Right now, there are two of them.
Najin looked around to see a wasteland. Within a radius of at least several hundred ters, the only sentient beings were rlin and he.
rlin chuckled at the way Najin craned his neck.
– Soone once said it Arthur was a man who rode the winds of his age.
Najin flinched, giving a slight shiver.
rlin shot him a sullen sideways glance.
– That was what you shouted up at the sky, rember?
“Er, well, that was because…”
– I know. You didn’t an it. Still, it counted as a way a ‘wish’ was heard, didn’t it? When you cried out, you wanted to leave the Underground City and head outside, didn’t you? You wanted to beco a hero.
“I did, yes.”
– So that wish reached the ears of a star whose concepts cover heroes, roads, the outside world, journeys, and the like. Your outstanding aptitude helped, of course.
rlin added that because everything—the concept held by the star, the rank of the constellation that wields it, the aptitude and circumstances of the petitioner, and so on—intertwined, it was impossible to define ‘in what situation, through what steps, what result will occur.’
– In your case, the Star of Requiem shows you the wishes of those who want a death they can accept.
That was what appeared before Najin’s eyes: starlight running like a thin brook. He had been walking with that flow as his signpost, and by tracking it, he had managed to et Jowel.
– It’ll benefit you as well—it lets you strengthen your Star’s concept and expand its size.
“It’s not like I’m doing it for a reward.”
– It’s nice to gain sothing anyway, isn’t it? At any rate, I don’t think this kind of work is bad.
Grinning, rlin pointed.
- Ah, this way.
Because Najin was still clumsy at reading the flow of starlight, rlin guided the way.
– Hng, hm-hm.
She even humd a tune, hopping lightly beside him—a sign she was obviously in high spirits. The reason was clear enough: ever since arriving in the Outland, she kept having her role as guide snatched away from her.
She still rembered the days when even her role as adviser had been stolen by Helt Knight, leaving her a useless spectator—days that had wounded her pride terribly and been downright painful…
Things were different. From that mont on, she intended to prove her usefulness so that he could not live without her. Her eyes narrowed as she glanced sidelong at Najin.
‘Heh.’ While she was chuckling wickedly over such thoughts, Najin simply moved on.
‘There she goes again.’ He had two major objectives…
One: grow strong enough to confront the Carnival King.
Two: locate La Mancha.
On a grand scale, the aim was to slay the Carnival King; on a smaller scale, to pave the road that led to her.
‘For that alone, at least…’ He had to beco stronger—far stronger. With a clear goal, his pace naturally quickened. Following the river of stars, he t Forgotten Ones and sotis knights, and of each he asked two questions: “Do you know anything about La Mancha?” and “Who are you?”
The questions were intended to help him find La Mancha and adorn their final monts.
“Yurik, the Hunter of Aklem.”
“Ascetic Orem. Rember as such.”
“I am Bolam, knight of Lucanov—Bolam the Brave!”
“Setes. Setes the Piercing.”
Each declared his na. Crying out the self they wanted rembered—or wanted to be—they t their end.
Granting death to those who could not die, Najin travelled the Outland.
Then, one day, as he was roaming, he ca to a halt—he had no choice. A fierce, violent current entered his field of vision in a raging flow he could not possibly ignore.
He walked toward where that flow gathered and soon arrived at a vast desert. A tawny wind laden with sand blew past him. That was no natural wind—soone was making it.
Far off, he heard a whoosh as sothing cleaved the air—likely the source of the wind.
The Star of Requiem pointed toward the sound.
If he walked that way, if he crossed the small rise and followed the wind… there, in the middle of the desert, a young man brandished a spear.
The youth swung the spear in a wide arc; his eyes t Najin’s.
Najin spoke first. “Who are you, that you swing a spear out here in the desert?”
Giving an awkward laugh, the youth answered, “I forgot… long ago.”
With that, the youth left Najin alone and went back to what he had been doing—swinging the spear in the middle of the desert.
Watching the stance and the current the spear produced, Najin thought to himself, ‘That fellow is a Transcendent.’
The basis for the judgnt was simple: after watching him at close range several tis, Najin felt sure he could not imitate the man’s movents—any movent he could not imitate belonged to a Transcendent, so the man before him had to be one.
– What kind of criterion is that…?
rlin exhaled in disbelief, yet she did not deny it.
‘More precisely…’ Najin narrowed his eyes. ‘He’s a Transcendent who has fallen.’
His technique was flawless, yet sothing essential seed missing, much like with Helt Knight. It felt like the aura of soone who had once been a Transcendent but lost his Star and fallen.
The spear’s shaft sliced the wind; the spearhead sheared the air. Each swing carved marks in the sand, but the blowing wind filled them at once.
“Phew.” After swinging for quite so ti, the man lowered the spear and looked at Najin. “My apologies. Even with a visitor, I cannot skip my routine.”
“Your daily routine…?”
“Ah, yes. Swinging the spear is my routine—one I must never neglect.” Caressing the worn shaft, he let his gaze drop, as though counting ti. In the Outland, ti held no aning, but he was nevertheless keeping track.
“The sun will be setting soon.” There was no rising sun there. With the sky shattered open to night, the sun had no place, yet he looked up as though he could see it. “The desert at night is dangerous. Would you care to rest a while before you go?” The color of the world shifted.
When Najin lifted his head, the sky above was no longer the broken night sky but a sunset dyed scarlet.
‘How?’ The desert blushing beneath the sunset, Najin’s pupils narrowed. He had experienced sothing like that not long ago. He muttered inwardly, ‘A tomb.’
A Star Tomb. Sothing similar had happened inside Violet’s dream. Had he slipped, without knowing, into another such tomb?
– I don’t think so.
rlin shook her head.
– The fact that I don’t have a physical body right now proves it. Still, it does feel similar.
She pointed at the desert.
– This entire desert is a Forbidden Zone.
‘A Forbidden Zone is supposed to turn people away, isn’t it?’
– Most of them, yes. This one is the opposite. It’s made so that the one inside cannot leave, and that ‘one’ is a single person.
It was obvious who that single person was. Najin looked at the youth, who was smiling pleasantly while kindling a campfire on the sand.
‘Then this entire desert…’
– Is a Forbidden Zone built to imprison that man.
‘By whom?’
– I don’t know.
Did that an he was that dangerous? Najin let his hand rest naturally on his hilt, ready to draw at a mont’s notice, and spoke. “Very well. May I rest here a while?”
“Of course! Please, sit.”
The sun set, and night ca to the desert. In the cool wind, the man erected a small lean-to and retrieved a diary from inside, held it in his hands, and faced Najin. “May I ask my guest’s na?”
“Najin. Free Knight Najin.”
“Na-jin… Is this how I should write it?” He showed Najin the diary.
Najin could not decipher the letters written there—they were not the Imperial common script he knew.
– It’s right. He wrote it properly.
rlin recognized it. When Najin looked at her, she shrugged, as if to say she simply knew many things.
“That seems correct.”
“Very well. Na-jin, Najin. ‘Free Knight’ is… please wait a mont.” The man flipped rapidly through the diary, then stopped at a page and read it aloud. “Free Knight: a knight who serves no master and who acts upon what he believes is right. A knight among knights… my, you are an admirable person?”
He spoke in genuine admiration, as if he ant every word. “I envy you. Introducing oneself with such confidence is truly splendid. I would like to introduce myself, too, but I sadly don’t know much about myself.”
“Have you lost your mory?”
“Hm, it seems I have.”
“Pardon?”
He scratched the back of his neck and laughed sheepishly. “I would love to talk with you for a long ti, but with the sun down, we cannot. What a sha. I must pass the joy of speaking with you to tomorrow’s .”
“What do you an by that?”
“You’d better ask tomorrow’s . Hm, just a mont. The ti that remains… yes, this should be enough.” Even while speaking with Najin, the man kept glancing at the hourglass set beside him. The grains within were falling fast.
“I do not know my na. What I know is that I was a knight. It is written here.” He tapped the diary. “On the very first page, it says that… when others ask about , I am to answer like this.”
Tracing the diary’s pages, he said, “Knight of Londinel. Yes, I was a Knight of Londinel. Whether I still am, I cannot say.”
Londinel was a na Najin knew as well. It was the holand of Sword Master Kirchhoff and a nation erased from history by a star whose Authority was ‘Forgetting’.
“If you intend to spend the night here, and thus speak with ‘’ again in the morning,” he said, writing in his diary, “would you please tell to open page 781 of this diary?”
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