Wings of Icarus (4)
The breath he exhaled turned to white mist.
The frozen ancient castle was frigid.
Najin headed for the castle gate. Crunch, frost cracked underfoot with every step. The whole world had been painted pure white.
“......”
Najin silently looked around.
Everything rlin’s magic had swept through was frozen white. Whales frozen together with entire pillars of water hung preserved in midair. Waves that had been rolling were frozen in that exact shape.
Beyond that, he could see the Battlefield of Stars.
Outside the frozen sea, near the outskirts, stars were smashing into each other in battle. Their movents looked absurdly slow to Najin. It was not because he was special. They were actually that slow.
“This is the center of the stage.”
Najin looked down at his feet. He stood at the entrance of an ancient castle built atop the largest whale, the mother of all the frozen whales.
“This place is the Heaven-Wandering Star’s Starfield, and the center of the stage the Heaven-Wandering Star unfolded. That ans ti flows differently here.”
rlin had been right.
Najin turned his gaze forward again. He walked toward the tightly shut gate. The castle was enormous, big enough to remind him of the imperial palace in the capital.
Crunch, crunch.
For a while, only the sound of snow being crushed echoed. Just like the na rlin had given her spell, only Stillness filled this place. That silence broke when Najin pushed open the gate.
Guuuuung......
With a heavy groan, the iron doors opened. What ca into view was a vast garden. Najin scanned it, then fell silent.
“......”
It was full of corpses. The garden was adorned with bodies preserved exactly as they were, spears and blades still thrust into one another. Najin looked at their rage-twisted faces for a mont, then quickened his pace.
Ahead, a towering ancient castle rose high.
Najin walked toward where Icarus would be. He did not run, leap, or jump over anything.
It was like when he had conquered La Mancha.
The situation was similar. He had to follow the set procedure and move inward. A straight path stretched ahead as if inviting him onward, and Najin followed it.
Step.
The mont he crossed the garden and stepped inside the castle, the scenery began to shift. The frozen world vanished without a trace, and a green adow stretched past the horizon.
Petals scattered on the rustling breeze.
At the center of that warm field, soone was standing.
2.
The scenery changed. The instant Najin felt it, his eyes narrowed. This felt less like a Constellation’s stage and more like the exact sensation of entering a Star’s Tomb.
“Icarus is a forgotten star.”
And then rlin said,
“He is the strangest forgotten star. Even though he forgot himself, he never fell.”
That was different from becoming an inverse star through corruption. The only end given to forgotten stars that lost themselves was a fall. They would degenerate into the sa state as Forgotten Ones who only craved stars, and every forgotten star Najin had seen had been no different.
The Hornblower, Crunbelle, was one example.
Even though Crunbelle had once been a noble knight, he had done nothing but rampage like a beast. He could not use the Authority born from his achievents in life, and he could not use transcendent powers like a stage.
“But......”
The Heaven-Wandering Star Icarus was using all of it.
The stage only a Transcendent could create, and the Authority scattered from the story inside his star, the Heaven-Wandering Star wielded it all naturally.
“The Heaven-Wandering Star’s true body is a Forgotten One, but.”
rlin pointed under Najin’s feet.
“In the place you are standing, all of the Heaven-Wandering Star’s mories and imagery are preserved.”
Preserved, that was the word rlin used.
“What current Transcendents call the ‘Heaven-Wandering Star’ is not Icarus as an individual. This ancient castle itself, the one borne by the largest whale, is the Heaven-Wandering Star.”
“This castle itself is the Heaven-Wandering Star?”
“Yeah. More precisely, this ancient castle serves as a storage vault for the Heaven-Wandering Star’s mories.”
rlin continued.
The Heaven-Wandering Star had separated his mories from the body that was becoming a Forgotten One and locked them inside this castle, so that even if he forgot himself, this story would not be damaged.
That was the true nature of the ancient castle Najin stood in.
“Originally, this should have been absolutely impossible. Making a vault to store the mories of a being as vast as a Constellation is almost impossible.”
“But......”
“Right. Everyone thought it was impossible, but there was a once-in-an-age inventor who made it possible, right beside Icarus.”
Najin asked who that was.
rlin answered briefly.
“Daedalus, the inventor who challenged the Masterpiece.”
Najin had heard that na before.
Like the Masterpieces forged in the earliest age, he had studied how to embed Mystique into matter... and in the end, he succeeded, a legendary inventor.
“This ancient castle is the Masterpiece Daedalus created.”
Masterpiece, that was the word rlin used.
“A castle that holds mory, and now a prison that traps Icarus, a labyrinth.”
The Great Labyrinth, Labyrinth.
That was the na given to this ancient castle.
“......”
Najin shifted his gaze in silence. His eyes settled on the boy standing in the field. He felt he could now identify who that boy was.
“Then that boy is.”
“Yeah.”
rlin nodded.
“Icarus, most likely. More precisely, Icarus’s mory preserved in this castle, and Icarus’s past.”
She let out a breath.
“Using that Icarus of the past as our clue, we have to break through the Great Labyrinth from here on out. That is the only way to reach the top floor of the ancient castle, where Icarus’s true body is.”
Now he only had to follow the strategy they had discussed in advance. But for so reason, Najin felt there might be another way.
“Hm?”
Step, Najin walked toward the boy in the field. rlin blinked.
“What are you going to do by getting closer?”
He would not be able to make contact anyway.
That was what rlin said, and it was the obvious conclusion. What stood there now was only Icarus’s reproduced past, nothing more than a preserved mory in this castle.
He could see it with his eyes and hear it with his ears, but touching preserved things should have been impossible.
“It should be impossible, but......”
For so reason, Najin thought, I can touch him. The mont he stepped toward Icarus, light leaked from the La Mancha flag tied over his shoulder.
The Star Relic La Mancha had left behind.
The Star Relic left by a knight who turned reality into a dream, then in his final mont turned that dream back into reality, glowed softly. A certain knight who always took on and perford “the role most needed by the story,” no matter what stage appeared, seed to smile.
“Life is one stage, a magnificent play.”
“What role do you think you will take this ti? A hero? A champion? A prince? Still, the best is a knight. Honor, pride, and a knight full of romance.”
It felt like he heard that voice. He also felt soone’s hand push his back.
“Let’s go, Sancho.”
“A thrilling adventure is waiting for us.”
And the mont he was pushed forward and took a step,
a mass of light wrapped around Najin.
By the ti the light faded, Najin realized his clothes had changed. He was no longer in the Free Knight’s outfit. He was wearing the worn, shabby clothes of an old inventor.
“You were here again, Icarus.”
His mouth moved on its own. With a weary look, as if the boy was hopeless, Najin looked at him. Icarus turned and looked back.
This was not a display piece and a spectator.
Najin stood in the sa place as Icarus. He realized he had stepped onto the sa stage as an actor, not a spectator outside it. Then what role had he been given?
“Ah, Daedalus!”
The instant he heard Icarus speak, he understood.
Daedalus.
Designer of the Great Labyrinth, Labyrinth.
That was the na of the role Najin had to play on this stage.
3.
The instant Najin naturally acquired that role, rlin, who had been watching him, widened her eyes.
“No, what is this......?”
This was different from La Mancha. Back then, it had worked because La Mancha was a special case, a Star’s Tomb shaped like a stage, but the place Najin stood now was not a Star’s Tomb.
Then how was this even possible?
It was unexpected, but rlin quickly made her judgnt. This was not bad. If anything, it was good.
“It is unexpected, but not bad. This got simpler.”
“Simpler?”
“Breaking through this labyrinth. You only need to follow the Icarus in front of you.”
From the mont Najin stepped onto the stage as an actor, he no longer had to grope around trying to find where to go. He only had to follow the story he had been given.
rlin nodded, and they exchanged a brief glance.
Right after that, Najin focused on his role. Information about the man called Daedalus, and the boy called Icarus, flowed naturally into his mind.
It was the sa as La Mancha.
Najin organized the flood of information.
Daedalus was a close friend who had grown up in the sa neighborhood as Icarus, and a helper who supported him.
“Daedalus, I am going to fly through the sky.”
“You are saying that again?”
And he was also the only person who listened whenever Icarus told absurd stories.
Then who was Icarus?
Najin could not answer that right away.
“Look at that star shining high in the sky. It is the star of the great hero King Arthur. Thirteen years before we were born, King Arthur saved the world. And then he beca that star in the night sky!”
As boys often were, Icarus was full of dreams and childish wonder.
“That star shining in the highest place.”
A boy who heard stories of heroes and dread of becoming one.
Icarus was born around the ti Arthur had just beco a legend, when the whole world was filled with tales of Arthur. In that era, Icarus dread.
“I am going to fly into the sky and reach that star.”
He dread of reaching the stars, of reaching Arthur, who shone in the highest place.
It was not a particularly special dream.
Any child around Icarus’s age had probably imagined it at least once, and it was the kind of dream most people naturally gave up as they got older. Dreaming absurd dreams was a child’s privilege.
Still, there were a few differences.
“You want to fly? In the sky?”
At Icarus’s side was a genius who would later be called a once-in-an-age inventor, Daedalus.
“That idea still has not changed?”
“Of course not. I am going to the sky, Daedalus.”
Ten years passed, Icarus was now seventeen, and he was still dreaming.
“I hear dozens of invitations from the Magic Tower have flown to you, and you ignored all of them because you want to leave on an adventure?”
“Ah, do you think I would live so boring life trapped in a windowless tower researching magic? Even if I fall, I will challenge it, that high sky!”
And Icarus himself had overwhelming talent. He had the aptitude to beco an Archmage if he worked for it, and with that aptitude, Icarus did not abandon his childhood dream.
Talent, ties, and obsession.
When those three ca together, Icarus’s dream did not remain a dream. He began developing magic to make it real.
“That is not how you do it.”
“Like this?”
“No. Haa, put it down. I will do it.”
Unable to just watch his old friend anymore, Daedalus joined that foolish endeavor.
“If you help , I will grant you the honor of becoming the second person to fly in the sky. Ah, of course first place is mine. Even for you, I will not yield on this, Daedalus.”
“I do not care. So what are you going to do with this?”
“What do you an, what?”
Icarus pointed to the sky.
“I am going to fly.”
Three years later.
Around the ti the two beca adults, they unveiled an invention to the world.
And the whole world was thrown into uproar.
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