On the Ingenious Adventures in La Mancha (1)
The story had ended. The actor had taken his leave.
Alone on the stage he'd left behind, Najin stood in silence and looked up at the sky. The sky that had been stained with paint had returned to its true color. Stars hidden beneath it were visible now.
The countless stars sleeping in La Mancha.
Stars buried in this graveyard.
Among them all, Najin fixed his gaze on the brightest one. The star of a Squire who had accompanied Don Quixote through every story and, at the journey's end, had beco the lord of La Mancha. The star at the very heart of La Mancha. Its owner, too, was watching Najin.
Wind ca.
The fields swayed in it. Petals scattered. The water pooled in the lake rippled gently. With both Don Quixote and Rocinante gone, La Mancha held no sign of life.
No sign of life, yet.
The gaze of soone who had always been there, he could still feel.
"......"
Without a word, Najin turned.
"It's good to et you."
Standing there was a young man.
Najin already knew who he was.
The lord of La Mancha.
The one who owned this place. The one who had assigned Najin his role. His na ca to Najin's lips.
"Sancho."
Don Quixote had kept his promise.
Just as he'd promised from the start, Don Quixote had granted Sancho a domain at the adventure's end. The lord of La Mancha was not Don Quixote, but Sancho.
Sancho Panza.
The Constellation bearing that na rummaged through the ruined cottage and ca back with two chairs. He set them in the field and waved a hand. Sit, get comfortable.
"You said your na was Najin."
"That is my na, yes."
"Right. Najin." He smiled bitterly. "As you said, I'm Sancho. Sancho Panza. Lord of La Mancha, and the original of the role you played. And unlike you, a coward who couldn't do a single thing."
"......"
"It's alright. You don't have to deny it on my behalf."
A long breath. He looked back at the cottage.
The cottage Najin had destroyed while deflecting Don Quixote's spear. In the original history, Sancho had died there. Run through by the lance of a Don Quixote gone mad.
"As you saw, I died there. My star fell and was buried in La Mancha, my body beca a Star Relic forged into Don Quixote's spear. All that remains of here is my soul. I suppose I should count myself fortunate even that much survived."
Rocinante hadn't even been that lucky. Sancho murmured as much and looked down.
"At first I thought it was a dream. A terrible nightmare, and if I just closed my eyes and opened them again it would all be over. So I did, and when I opened them, I was back at the beginning. That day, decades ago, when I first set out on an adventure with Don Quixote."
Sancho started the adventure over from scratch.
Telling himself it had only been a nightmare, he enjoyed the journey alongside Don Quixote once more.
"But the mont I arrived here again, I knew. It hadn't been a nightmare. What I was living through now, that was the nightmare."
"......"
"The sa ending was waiting for . I tried to fight it, but I couldn't. Of course I couldn't. A coward who'd done nothing the first ti wasn't going to be handed a second chance."
Too terrified. Too overwheld. The "original story," in which he had done nothing, held him fast.
"No matter how many tis it repeated, nothing changed."
Don Quixote's maddened spear runs Sancho through. Don Quixote tears Rocinante apart and flings the pieces into the lake, reborn as a demon beast. And so Don Quixote departs La Mancha, crying out Dulcinea's na.
"It was a nightmare. But I couldn't end it, either. This land is mine, yet sothing far greater holds it in its grip."
"...The Carnival King."
"Yes. This place is both a graveyard for those who adventured alongside Don Quixote and a Starfield belonging to Don Quixote himself. Even appointed as its lord, this land was always his at heart."
It wasn't Sancho who had led the stars buried here. Don Quixote had led them all. Sancho had only ever been appointed. The true owner of La Mancha was Don Quixote.
"And Don Quixote serves the Carnival King. The real owner of La Mancha is the Carnival King. That lunatic has been siphoning the starlight of this place to fuel her rrint and bolster her own power."
Sancho ground his teeth.
"Defiling the adventure, breaking Don Quixote, corrupting every last piece of this story, and now she's even using his corpse. Despicable, every last bit of it."
He spat it through clenched teeth, then exhaled slowly and looked at Najin.
"But."
"But," he said, and smiled.
"Things changed because of you."
"What changed?"
"A great deal. Truly, a great deal."
He spread his arms wide.
"You created a completely different ending. You did what I so desperately wanted to do, what I couldn't manage in hundreds, thousands of repetitions."
Bringing Don Quixote back to his senses. Making him smile his old smile, not a sneer.
"The story of La Mancha, ant to remain the origin of the Star of Scorn, was overturned. You denied it. This is no longer the place where the Star of Scorn was born. Don Quixote was laughing and talking until the very end."
Don Quixote had taken his leave from the stage as the Star of Pleasant Conversation.
"You can't know how remarkable that is." He threw his arms wide, voice ringing with joy. "Of course this is still a Star's Tomb. What happens here is nothing but a dream woven by the stars buried within it, and changing history here won't undo what happened in the real world. But, as Don Quixote said, the adventure you had here wasn't aningless."
Sancho reached out and pointed to the flag Najin was holding, the one Don Quixote had passed to him in his final mont.
"Because Don Quixote and I have no intention of leaving things as they were."
"What do you an?"
"This is a Star's Tomb. And those who conquer a Star's Tomb deserve a reward. Don't you think?"
Sancho smiled, then snapped his fingers. In that instant the sky over La Mancha shimred. Najin looked up on instinct.
The stars were shining.
Every star buried in La Mancha shone with its own light, watching Najin. A different kind of gaze from any he had ever felt from the stars before.
"I, Sancho, lord of La Mancha, do swear."
Not the gaze one gives a stranger. Not the look sent toward an unfamiliar star. Not the re glance of idle curiosity.
"La Mancha will answer when you call, Star of Dawn."
Eyes that saw him as one of their own.
Filled with kindness, goodwill, reverence, and respect, the starlight poured toward Najin. More precisely, toward the flag he was holding.
"That flag is now a Star Relic, not just of Don Quixote the Star of Pleasant Conversation, but one carrying every star in La Mancha."
Najin's eyes had gone wide.
"You understand what this ans? You can only use it once, but I trust you know exactly where it should be spent."
"Of course."
"Good. That's all I needed to hear."
"So La Mancha simply disappears now?"
"I'd like that, but..." Sancho shook his head. "We can't rest yet. The true master of this land hasn't returned."
"Does the Star of Scorn have to fall?"
"Yes. Only then can we close our eyes."
So they'd have to live through the nightmare again. Najin's expression said as much. Sancho answered with a bitter smile and shook his head once more.
"I told you. A great deal has changed."
He looked up at the sky.
"After thousands upon thousands of repetitions, the story has finally reached its ending. I'm going to accept this as the ending. No need to start the play over. When you've witnessed a truly magnificent story, sotis you have to rise from your seat, applaud, and walk out of the theater."
He rose.
"Najin."
Then he bowed to Najin, a deep and proper bow.
"Infinite gratitude to you for accomplishing what I could not, what none of us could. The highest praise for the story you showed us. And..."
The rest wouldn't co.
Saying any more than that felt shaless.
"Don't worry about Don Quixote."
But Najin didn't let the hesitation linger. He said what Sancho had wanted to say himself.
"I'll drag him back even if I have to beat him half to death."
Sancho burst out laughing.
With the Star of Pleasant Conversation shining overhead, La Mancha began to dissolve into light and scatter.
The curtain fell.
The story had ended.
As everything dissolved into light around him, Sancho, the theater's proprietor, bowed toward Najin. Like an actor saying his farewells to the audience.
The story titled La Mancha had ended.
The theater would remain closed for a ti, and the play called La Mancha would never be staged again. A masterpiece is best left a masterpiece. Tacking on a "revised edition" or "expanded version" and sullying it was not to Sancho's taste.
「The story has ended.」
Sancho placed his period.
The story of La Mancha was over, but Sancho had left a page open for the epilogue. Soday there would co a mont to write the finale.
「Applaud.」
Najin clapped. So that the actor who had perford his role so brilliantly could step down from the stage. With a satisfied expression, Sancho stepped down.
La Mancha dissolved into light and scattered.
The Star's Tomb called La Mancha hadn't vanished. But no one would ever enter it again. A finished story cannot be touched. The stage that was ant to repeat forever had abruptly drawn its curtain.
"......"
Where everything had dissolved into light, only Najin remained.
La Mancha had vanished without a trace, true to its original aning: a place that exists nowhere.
It felt like a dream. But Najin knew it hadn't been. The flag in his hand, a Star Relic that had not dissolved with the rest, was proof enough. Gripping it, he stood for a mont in silent tribute.
The Star of Requiem shone softly.
When the silence passed, Najin looked up at the sky. With the story of La Mancha concluded, the sky had changed. Seeing it, he smiled. He thought he understood now why the Carnival King had reacted so sharply to La Mancha, why this place was treated as a weakness not just for the Star of Scorn but for the Carnival King herself.
That was a story for another ti.
Right now, there was sothing else to do.
Najin looked around. Ti flows differently inside a Star's Tomb than outside it. He had spent at least several months within, but how much ti had passed outside, he had no way of knowing.
Before entering the Star's Tomb, he had been...
Fighting the endlessly regenerating jesters.
He rembered leaving the jesters to Yuel and the Star Incarnation and charging straight at the windmill. What had happened to the Star Incarnation and Yuel? Looking around, he suddenly t soone's gaze.
"Oh."
It was the Star Incarnation, sitting beside a campfire and chewing on demon beast at. She blinked at him.
"...Huh?"
Her eyes went wide. She jabbed a finger at him.
"Oh! Hey! Look! Over here!"
When the Star Incarnation jumped to her feet and pointed, Yuel, who had been roasting sweet potatoes over the fire beside her, spotted him too. A small smile crossed Najin's face as he walked toward them.
"Hey, shorty! You disappeared all of a sudden, nearly gave a heart attack. What on earth were you even doing..."
"Have we arrived at La Mancha? Or have you found the entrance? Good, then let us go. Dealing with nothing but jesters who don't even feel satisfying to cut down, I would gladly slash just about anything right now."
The Star Incarnation, fussing loudly about what had happened. Yuel Razian, watching him with expectant eyes. Najin settled down beside their campfire and shrugged.
Then, without a word, he pointed at the sky.
Both of them followed his finger upward. Their eyes went wide at exactly the sa mont.
The sixth star. Pleasant Conversation.
That was answer enough. Najin let the star shine and opened his mouth, a small smile still on his face. And so, for the readers or the audience wondering about the adventure, Najin began to tell the tale.
About the extraordinary adventure that had unfolded in La Mancha.
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