Who Am I? (2)
The master of the Order of the Sword, Sword Saint Karan.
There were many ways to describe him.
Najin had taken most of those titles by now, but Karan had still once been called a once-in-a-generation genius. Before Najin appeared, Karan held the records for the youngest Sword Expert, Sword Seeker, and Sword Master.
Master of the Order of the Sword.
The one who had mastered a thousand sword arts.
The Thousand-Sword Star had countless epithets, but people who truly knew Karan, and truly knew the Order of the Sword, often described him like this.
A man obsessed with swords.
The Order of the Sword had always been a place where only lunatics ready to throw their lives into the blade gathered. There was no way soone who climbed to the top of that order could think like a normal person.
“I can kneel, you know.”
Karan ant it. He could not have ant it more.
This was Excalibur. Excalibur!
The legendary holy sword wielded by King Arthur, the Star Sword forged from starlight. Any swordsman had dread of this blade at least once. If he got the chance to touch a sword like that, kneeling was cheap.
‘And not just kneeling.’
He could bow his head too.
What was the big deal?
To Karan, a Sword Saint was soone who could gladly lower both his knees and his head for the sake of the sword. Just as he was about to drop to his knees to put that belief into practice, Najin hurriedly stopped him, breaking into a cold sweat.
“You really do not have to kneel. I am not into making my teacher kneel, so please...”
Najin sat Karan back down, sighed, then reached into empty air. Excalibur, usually stored away in space, flashed into view.
“Hrk.”
Karan swallowed hard. Even with its light suppressed, Excalibur still shone like a star. His pupils trembled as he looked at the Sword of the Star laid before him.
“It looks different from when it was stuck in the rock.”
“I think it changed to match .”
“It did not even shine like this back then.”
This was not Karan’s first ti seeing Excalibur. He had seen copies that appeared across the continent, and he had tried pulling them out too. But this was his first ti seeing the original.
It was different. The long, smooth blade, the keen edge it held, everything was on another level. The sword’s very nature felt like a star. It resisted the impure and severed the false.
A Holy Sword. It truly was a Holy Sword.
Karan asked Najin with his eyes.
Can I hold it?
Najin nodded. If soone unqualified tried to wield it, it would scatter into starlight, but simply holding it was possible. rlin and Bedivere had done the sa.
“Ah...”
The mont Karan gripped the sword, tears stread down his face. Najin froze in confusion while Karan cried in pure awe. Sotis sothing was so beautiful that people simply broke into tears.
“This... this is art.”
“Sorry?”
“How can one sword be this beautiful? Even master smiths and legendary craftsn, after dedicating their whole lives to hamring steel, could never make a sword like this. Is this a miracle born from chance? Or harmony of principles...”
Karan spent more than ten full minutes praising Excalibur before he finally cald down. Najin made a strange face as he rembered sothing Karan once said: “Among all the Transcendents on the continent, I am probably the most normal.”
I do not think that is true.
“Whew, thank you. That was a truly excellent sight.”
“Yeah, well...”
“And.”
Leaning back in his chair, Karan spoke.
“It seems I will be traveling with you soon.”
“...”
Najin knew what he ant.
He would fight the Carnival King alongside Karan too, but Karan’s words pointed beyond that. Beyond the Outland, in Camlann, was the first Sword Saint.
Siegfried, the Sword Ghost of the Abyss.
Karan’s goal was to free him, and Najin also felt he needed to et that man.
“Then let us et again soon.”
As if seeing Excalibur had truly been his only goal, Karan stood as soon as his business was done.
“Ah.”
Before leaving.
As if he had rembered sothing, Karan turned back to Najin.
“Be careful of Yuel.”
Karan patted Najin’s shoulder with pity in his eyes.
“She is really out to get you.”
That was not good news. Not at all.
2.
Dieta, ruler of Arbenia and Duke Dieta of the Golden-coin Eyes, screened visitors again and again, yet there were still quite a few. There was no need to say each of them was a heavyweight who could shake the Empire.
Of course, heavyweights were not the only people who ca to see Najin.
So had ties to Najin and ties to Dieta as well, so they could at least be given a short audience.
“Bravo, bravo, bravo! This is how investnt should be done! I knew it in advance. I knew the greatest knight here would absolutely pull off sothing this magnificent!”
Marquis Edelmar was one example. He brought the most expensive liquor in the domain, chatted away with Najin and Dieta, boasted that he would push his theater troupe all the way to the imperial capital, and then left still talking.
“...”
“Why are you looking at like that?”
“You know... I reached Blossoming not long ago, right? That was still a pretty high stage, I thought.”
“Yeah, I saw it. You did it right in front of .”
Roselin spoke awkwardly in formal speech because she simply could not talk casually to Najin anymore.
“Were you not at the Sprouting stage back then, Sir?”
“I was.”
“Then what did you just say you are now?”
“Full Bloom.”
“...”
“And if I hold Excalibur, I am a Sword Master.”
“No, what the hell, how is that even possible?!”
Roselin finally dropped formal speech and scread. Her face turned bright red, as if she had just rembered what she herself said not long ago.
“I will compete with you. ? I am not so easy woman. Half my blood is from one of the greatest witches in the world, and the other half from a famous hero, you still confident? Ha, keeping up with will be hard, ha...”
That was what she had said back then. And the young man in front of her now? He was the owner of Excalibur, the one who proved to the whole continent that he had the sa qualities as the great hero from a thousand years ago.
“Aaaaaaaaaagh!”
After screaming, Roselin left. Tonight, her blanket would probably have to withstand the kicks of a Sword Seeker in Blossoming.
Several others ca too, but those stories were better left as interlude material. Among all those visitors, there were two more worth telling. One of them was Argo, Knight of Atanga.
“I greet the greatest knight.”
Argo saluted Najin, then burst into laughter. He considered it the pride of his life that he had personally knighted the greatest knight, the one who drew Excalibur.
He also told Najin that Ivan’s false charges had been cleared. In a way, it was the natural outco.
The Starlight Order could not escape punishnt. Even their high priest had fallen, and the fact that they had colluded with the Carnival King and with Camlann sparked public outrage. The Empire decided to make an example of them.
“Dig up everything.”
“Miss not even the smallest detail.”
The Emperor issued the order himself. Amid the chaos left by war, the Starlight Order had to face imperial knights. During the investigation, most of its upper ranks were executed, and the Starlight Order was effectively dismantled.
Believers who lost their place were absorbed into the Starblood Sect or the Starbody Society, and at the site where the Starlight Order’s main church once stood, only one lighthouse remained.
To honor the Lighthouse Keeper, Eurypylus.
Most of the Order had fallen, but Najin directly asked the Emperor that Eurypylus at least not be branded a traitor, and the Emperor readily nodded.
“Your proposal certainly has rit.”
“I will do so.”
That was how it ended. As the Order was dismantled, all convicts were retried, and most were found to have been falsely accused and set free. Ivan and Offen were among them.
Those two had been thrown into the underground city for allegedly insulting the Order, and through Najin, they recovered their honor.
Even though their bodies were never found.
“...”
Najin bowed his head before the graves made from their belongings. Offen was recognized for the rit of teaching Najin the sword, and he was granted a place in the Empire’s public cetery where national contributors were buried.
Ivan, with his honor restored, was granted a place in the cetery where the Knights of Atanga were laid to rest. Najin visited Ivan’s grave with Argo, spoke with him briefly, then remained at the grave alone.
“Ivan.”
A sword grave made from Ivan’s sword.
Najin let out a small laugh and sat in front of it.
“A lot really did happen.”
Where should he even start this story?
“I guess I should start here. Thanks to you, I did escape, but... yeah, life was not easy. No identity, no money...”
In front of the sword grave, Najin told his adventure story.
“I went to Cambria. You know Cambria, right? Cambria, the city of opportunity! That is where I started.”
A story that began with you.
“Who am I, after all? Ivan’s hound, right? rcenary work was actually pretty similar. I did this and that, then my rank shot up fast. Ah, and I beat down a Demon Knight too. Guess what I said there?”
And a story that was able to begin because of you.
“Knight of Atanga, squire of Ivan. Damn, even now that line sounds perfect. What do you think? Pretty good, right?”
Najin spoke with a smile.
The Star of Pleasant Conversation glimred softly.
“I killed dragons. Two of them, no less!”
He told the story of Dragon-Slaying.
He told the story of Breakthrough.
The story of Indomitable.
The story tied to Requiem.
And adventures worth telling with a smile.
“That is what happened.”
Najin kept talking.
“I drew Excalibur again, ended everything, and finished my revenge.”
He spoke until sunset, but he could not give the tale an ending. Maybe that was only natural.
“I will tell the rest next ti.”
Najin’s story was not over yet.
His star still did not hang at the highest place, and the ending of his story was still far away.
“I will co again next ti, Ivan.”
Turning his back to Ivan’s grave, Najin walked on.
To move to the next stage.
3.
To move to the next stage, yes, that was a stylish way to close the story, but not every story could end that cleanly.
“Oh, nice to see you, Najin. I was waiting.”
Najin looked at the woman standing in front of him. Iron bars stood between them, but considering who she was, those bars might as well not exist.
Snow-white hair. Red eyes like blood.
If soone ntioned beauties in the Empire, this woman would always rank in the top three. Her looks were almost perfect.
The Inquisitor General of the Starblood Sect, Yuel Razian, had been knocking on the main gate of House Arbenia in broad daylight.
Gripping the bars of House Arbenia’s gate with both hands, she leaned toward Najin.
“How about opening the gate?”
If you do not open it, I will break it.
That was what Yuel’s eyes said. A faint madness flickered in them.
Smack, Najin slapped his own forehead.
User Comments
0 comments from readers