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Interlude, A Tale (1)
In this story, Najin was a supporting character.
As befitted a supporting character, Najin watched the two of them from a step back. Relieved that their story hadn't ended in tragedy, he let out a long breath.
'Honestly speaking...'
Najin smiled bitterly.
'I really did think it would be a tragedy.'
Four hundred years of waiting, love between a witch and a human, a taboo. Every elent had pointed toward a tragic ending. Even until the mont he arrived at the top floor of the tower, Najin had expected tragedy. But contrary to his expectations, the story of the witch and the knight hadn't ended in tragedy.
The witch who had loved a human cast away everything she was. Her mystique of distrust, the part of her soul that made her a witch, and in doing so, she relinquished her identity as the Witch of Distrust. Just as Anton had once given up being a knight for her sake.
'And that part left hollow...'
The part that was hollow from being cast aside.
What filled it was Anton's star. Anton had accomplished the unprecedented feat of two people sharing a single constellation. Najin couldn't even begin to guess how such a thing was possible.
"Remarkable. Truly."
rlin, who had witnessed the birth and death of countless stars over a thousand years, reacted much the sa way as Najin. She gazed at Anton and Lapis as if utterly astonished.
"Two people sharing one constellation, and it perfectly sustaining a constellation that had lost its star? That's impossible by any asure of common sense. Nothing like this has ever happened before. This is truly a first."
It is the virtue of a wizard to analyze the cause and effect of all things and explore how such things are possible. But in this mont, rlin found herself not wanting to do that.
"Perhaps it's a miracle, after all."
Sotis it's necessary to accept a miracle simply as a miracle. Especially when it involves the stars.
'What's gotten into you? You're not breaking this down into causes and effects like you usually do.'
"What do you take for? I'm perfectly capable of being moved by a beautiful story and giving it the applause it deserves."
Najin smiled as rlin grumbled.
Ever since coming to the Outland, he had done nothing but witness people's final monts or see them off with a requiem. So an ending like this one, where he could laugh and talk freely, felt all the more welco.
Anton Quixano, the man who had given up being a knight for the sake of a witch.
Lapis, the one who had given up being a witch for the sake of a knight.
At the story's end, all that remained was a pair of people who had endured four hundred years for each other.
"What wouldn't I do for my lady?"
"When you truly fall in love, a person becos a fool. The most hopelessly foolish kind, willing to throw away everything, absolutely everything, for the one they love."
It was, just as Anton had said, a story of fools. Foolish, but precisely because of that foolishness, brimming with romance.
One story had drawn to a close. But the play was not yet over, and the lights on the stage had not gone out. Najin's story was still very much in full swing.
But every endeavor needs its mont of rest.
A brief pause between the curtain falling and the next story beginning. Ti given to catch one's breath, to savor the lingering feeling, and to prepare for what cos next.
An intermission.
Taking advantage of the intermission, Najin exchanged farewells with Anton.
"There's much to talk about, but I think this cos first."
Anton Quixano bowed to Najin, a proper gentleman's bow. Once the bow was done, Anton extended his hand for a handshake.
"Thank you. Though even that word falls short. You helped well beyond what was promised. I'm truly grateful to you. I owe you a great deal."
"Was the voyage to your liking, Captain?"
"Ah, what more can I say."
Anton's lips curved into a smile as he shook Najin's hand.
"The finest voyage of my life. Oarsman."
The two of them burst out laughing. The oarsman and the captain who had shared such an excellent voyage walked together for a while and talked, because there was a story that needed to be heard now.
"The terms of our deal were that you would bring to where Lapis was, and in exchange I swore to provide you with information about Quixote and La Mancha."
Anton nodded.
"A promise must be kept."
Outside the tower, catching the sea breeze, he began to speak.
"Talking about La Mancha, La Mancha, carries a great deal of risk even for . That's why I never shared it easily with others."
"If the risk is that great?"
"Because my uncle and the Carnival King will be watching ."
Anton shrugged.
"Think about it from the Carnival King's perspective. For a demon with the peculiar hobby of turning stars into her jesters, what candidate for a jester could be more tempting than ?"
The world's greatest romantic. A fool. An idiot. A man blinded by love. A knight who fell for a witch. Just looking at the epithets that described Anton was enough to make Najin nod in understanding.
"From my perspective, staying out of the Carnival King's sight as much as possible was ideal. Just finding Lapis was more than enough to deal with on its own. Imagine also having a demon with ten stars relentlessly trying to woo you. How exhausting would that be?"
"I imagine it would be more than just exhausting."
"Right. And if the Carnival King had truly moved in earnest, it wouldn't just be in danger, it would be Lapis as well. After all, the most efficient way to turn into her jester would be to get her hands on Lapis."
Not knowing where Lapis was. In that situation, Anton had also wanted to avoid having to compete against the Carnival King's forces at the sa ti.
"That's the gist of it. La Mancha has beco sothing of a taboo, so the mont I speak of it, I draw the attention of both the Carnival King and my uncle."
"..."
"Ah, no need to look so worried. Didn't I promise to tell you? Besides, having Lapis with now makes all the difference."
Anton shrugged as if it were nothing.
"My lady is quite the firecracker. At her peak she was an archmage with nine stars. If any woman dared to flirt with , she'd probably gouge their eyes out."
"I suppose infidelity is entirely out of the question for you."
"It was never sothing I intended in the first place, but given Lapis's temperant, I'd best be extra careful all the sa."
Having joked around, Anton snapped his fingers and shifted the mood.
"To talk about La Mancha, I'll need to start here."
He began his story.
"Originally, La Mancha was a setting from a play that was popular in the Quixano domain. The original was a fairy tale, called sothing like 'The Knights of La Mancha,' if I recall correctly."
Anton gave a brief summary of the fairy tale's contents, and though Najin had never heard it before, he felt strangely familiar with the story.
"That sounds like... The Chronicles of Arthur, doesn't it?"
"There are quite a few similarities. It was probably influenced by it."
The core of "The Knights of La Mancha" was the story of knights wandering in search of a place called La Mancha.
"In the fairy tale, La Mancha is a kind of sacred place. Not a Starfield but a holy land. A true utopia where all sins are forgiven and everyone can laugh and smile in happiness. It's described as sothing akin to paradise. I suspect it took its motif from Avalon in the story of King Arthur."
Muttering that it was a ridiculous, foolish, and altogether silly sort of adventure story, Anton smiled.
"Still, it was a good story. The kind that makes you think about what it ans to be a knight."
Anyway, he said, tapping his temple lightly.
"Alonso Quixano, my uncle, was a peculiar man in many ways. He went beyond being engrossed in fairy tales and genuinely lived his life like one. And his favorite story was precisely that, 'The Knights of La Mancha.'"
Anton spread his arms wide, then launched into a theatrical monologue.
"Laugh! No matter what tragedy befalls you, laugh till your sides split. For it is none other than I, Alonso Quixano, who shall decide whether this is tragedy or cody!"
Shouting things like that while behaving like the protagonist of a fairy tale, you could imagine what sort of person he was.
Perhaps it was because he was that kind of person.
Anton muttered that and smiled bitterly.
"Even before the ruins of the burned-out domain, my uncle didn't fall into despair. Far from it, he scooped the remaining ash into a jar and set out on a journey. He headed in the exact opposite direction from , who was bent on revenge against the witch."
To where? Najin asked, and Anton answered.
"La Mancha."
In that mont, a gaze was felt.
A sticky, lingering gaze.
But Anton, as if he didn't mind in the slightest, kept talking with a dismissive smirk, as if to say 'what are you staring at.'
"A holy land that shouldn't exist. A paradise that shouldn't exist. A place that exists only within a story. My uncle set out on his journey to lay the people of his domain to rest in that place."
What aning it held, what value it carried, was impossible to say. But Alonso Quixano had called himself 'Don Quixote,' the protagonist of the fairy tale, and continued his journey, Anton said.
"Since I didn't travel with my uncle, I don't know the detailed circumstances. But I heard he traveled with a squire nad Sancho and a guide nad Rocinante. And then one day, I was in the thick of hunting down witches when a letter arrived for ."
"It should be sowhere here."
He rummaged through his coat and pulled out a letter.
"To my dearest nephew, Anton Quixano."
Anton unfolded the letter and showed it to Najin.
"I have arrived in La Mancha. Once your revenge is finished, I hope you will co here as well. This is an invitation from your uncle Alonso Quixano, and from Don Quixote, the ingenious gentleman of La Mancha."
Notepaper with a drawing of a windmill on it.
Pointing to the letter, Anton said.
"When this letter arrived, I was in the middle of killing witches, so I couldn't pay it much mind. And then, after I t Lapis, it was already too late. By then, my uncle was already being called 'Quixote, the Baleful Star.'"
Anton let out a sigh.
"My uncle did have his eccentric side, but he wasn't the kind of man to beco a demon's jester and go around doing that sort of thing. I suspect the Carnival King pulled so trick on him shortly after he arrived in La Mancha."
"So that La Mancha is..."
"I don't know what it was like at first."
Anton handed the letter to Najin and said.
"Right now, that place is a Star's Tomb."
A Star's Tomb.
Najin's brow furrowed.
"A Star's Tomb... Quixote's?"
"I don't know for certain. But that place has beco a Star's Tomb, and it's the core of Quixote, the Baleful Star. It's also a place the Carnival King wants to keep hidden."
Anton chuckled.
"The fact that she went as far as erasing all of it, 'The Knights of La Mancha,' the Quixano domain, Alonso Quixano, every last piece of information, just to hide it... there must be sothing considerably important there."
He looked at Najin.
"For you, who are pursuing the Carnival King, this should be useful information. Was it any help? If you travel holding that invitation, you'll naturally find your way to La Mancha."
Najin took the letter and nodded.
"It's certainly useful information."
"I'm glad it was helpful."
Anton muttered this and looked up at the ten stars glittering in the sky, the Carnival King's stars, and said with a jesting air.
"I appreciate the passionate stare, but it's rather problematic. My heart is already mortgaged to Lapis. And even if it weren't..."
Anton said flatly.
"A woman without principles like you is not to my taste."
As if she had been waiting for the conversation to end, Lapis approached Anton and draped her arm around his neck. Clinging to him as if she had no intention of letting go after four hundred years apart, Lapis gave Najin a warm wave.
"So you're the guide? Thank you!"
She smiled, making jokes about how she was grateful Najin had dragged that clueless Anton all the way here, and that without him she probably would have had to wait a few more centuries. It was a genuinely happy smile.
"Anyway... Najin?"
Anton, cutting off Lapis before she could go on chatting indefinitely, called out to Najin.
"As I said earlier, you gave more help than what was promised. Even though I may have given up being a knight, I haven't forgotten the rules of a deal or the obligations of being a person."
Anton said to Najin, who blinked at him.
"I plan to rest for a while at that place where you first found . The cottage on the hill. There are conversations deferred four hundred years that need to be had, and a romance to be savored. But."
Anton thumped his chest with his fist.
"I swear on my heart."
His lips curved into a smile as he made his oath.
"Just as you rowed for , whenever you need , I will co and row for you."
"I'll help too. Half of that oath applies to as well."
The assistance of a Sword Master and an Archmage. Having secured the promise of two Transcendents, Najin shook hands with Anton, then suddenly blinked.
"Co to think of it, Anton?"
"What is it? Sothing you wanted to ask?"
"How many stars did you have? I don't think I ever asked."
"That's certainly a belated question. Well, right now we have them split in half between us, but..."
Anton snapped his fingers.
"Just gained one star, so eight now."
Najin's eyes went wide at the sight of eight shining stars.
"Wait, you were that powerful?"
"The number of stars doesn't necessarily guarantee strength, but I'd say I'm well on the stronger side of things. Why, did you think I was weak because I looked exhausted in the tower?"
Anton let out a short laugh.
"Humble as I may look, in my pri I was a hunter who killed dozens of constellations. It was not sothing you could do with a sound mind."
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