Curtain Call (3)
Distinguish what must be cut.
There was no need to cut down the entire stage called La Mancha. What needed cutting was the Carnival King’s paint spread over it. As if stripping off paint, Najin brought his sword down.
First Horn, Triumph.
A single stream of sword aura crossed the stage. It split the paint staining the sky. It swept away the paint soaking the ground. It severed the paint rushing in like waves. The sword aura amplified through Excalibur crushed everything in its path.
Long ago, the Star of Scorn lost to the Sword of Triumph.
Aldaran Vasaglia shattered the Star of Scorn’s stage in one blow and took one of its eyes. More than a hundred years later, borrowing the sword of his disciple, the supre art of the Sword of Triumph shone once again.
But this was not the sa as before.
Unlike Aldaran’s Sword of Triumph, which had smashed the stage itself, Najin’s Sword of Triumph only cut away the paint covering the stage. Maybe “stripping away” suited it better than “cutting.”
The paint, the threads draped over Don Quixote, the Carnival King’s gaze, her touch and breath, the script of a third-rate playwright trying to interfere with this stage...
Craaack.
All of it shattered in a single strike. It had to shatter. Don Quixote, the protagonist of this stage, wanted it, and in the “script” he had chosen, the Free Knight had already stripped away the Carnival King’s paint once before.
Repeating what had happened once was not difficult.
The sword aura that cut what needed to be cut scattered into starlight. Wherever the platinum aura swept past, starlight blood in abundance. That overflowing starlight reached Full Bloom, and looked like flower petals fluttering in the air.
Through the overflowing starlight...
“......”
Don Quixote looked up at the sky.
“Ah.”
He sighed.
For the last several hundred years, the sky he had looked at was either pitch-black night, or a sky stained with paint. But now, the sky he saw when he raised his head was blue.
A blue sky. Warm sunlight.
Of course, it was not the real sky. This was the inside of La Mancha, the stage he had laid out. The sky outside was probably still black and split apart. But for Don Quixote, that did not matter.
La Mancha.
The ideal land he had found in the Outland, and the place where his story reached its end. With the Carnival King’s interference gone, La Mancha had returned to its original form, and Don Quixote took it in.
Blue sky, green fields stretching far into the distance, a stream babbling as it ran...
And.
The Knights of La Mancha, who had sunk beneath the paint, were rising one by one, brushing off the stains on their bodies. They smiled as they looked at the sky, then turned their gaze to Don Quixote.
“My lord.”
Standing at the very front was Sancho.
The squire who had always followed along with a helpless grin whenever Don Quixote caused so absurd uproar smiled and said,
“Are you finally in your right mind now?”
2.
The end of the story.
A brief passage before the curtain fell on the stage.
There was a ti like that, sothing that had to be called an afterword, or an epilogue. Only after more than three hundred years could the play called La Mancha finally reach that ti.
“My lord? First, we should settle accounts before anything else.”
The one who announced the start of the afterword was Rocinante.
“This one is mine.”
Rocinante swung his staff first. The staff smacked Don Quixote in the jaw. With a yelp, Don Quixote’s head snapped back, and Rocinante’s staff, now even boosted with Acceleration, ca crashing down.
Crack!
A crisp sound rang out, and Don Quixote scread.
“This one is for Sancho, my lord. Tsk, tsk. Why do you always make life so hard for people?”
Rocinante stood with his arms crossed, clicking his tongue like he had a lot built up inside. He swung his staff a few more tis, as if annoyed that Don Quixote had even used his corpse, but really, it ant he was letting it go with just this much.
Don Quixote knew that, so he quietly took the beating. Bones snapped here and there in the middle of it, but that was a minor issue.
“Co on, gather around. I have a drink I saved just for this day. Now where was it? I think I buried it around here...”
The drunkard Constellation suddenly started roaming around La Mancha, digging into the ground. He said he had buried a jar of alcohol before he fell asleep. Of course, this place was a stage, not the real La Mancha where they had been buried, so there was no way a jar would be here.
“Ah, here it is.”
If the cast believed in it that much, the stage gladly prepared the prop. The Constellation pulled a jar from the earth. He thumped the jar with his palm and gestured.
“How can we talk about an afterword without drink? Everyone, have a cup while we talk.”
“That is the first sensible thing you have said in a while.”
“Even that drunken rambling feels kind of nice once in a while.”
The Knights of La Mancha gathered around the jar one by one. Don Quixote moved his lips a little but could not approach easily...
“What are you doing, my lord?”
Drawn by Rocinante’s snickering glance and tugged by Sancho, Don Quixote walked to where his companions were gathered.
“Najin.”
And Najin, who had been standing with his hands behind his back, too.
“Yes?”
Sancho, Rocinante, and the Knights of La Mancha sitting around the jar gestured to Najin as he tilted his head. As if it were obvious, they had left a place open for him.
“What are you doing over there? You should co too.”
“Right. Don’t stand there, co over here.”
“I think you should tell us so of your adventure tales. Otherwise this drunk over here will repeat the sa story we have heard till our ears bleed.”
So once the protagonists sat down, they naturally began to talk. How their first eting with Don Quixote had gone, what adventures they had shared with him, and how fun those adventures had been.
“Cheers!”
Clink, their cups struck each other.
“Whew, this keeps making reach for drink.”
“Has there ever been a ti when you did not reach for drink?”
“It feels like just yesterday you were drunk and whining to my lord, ‘What does life even an? Why should I not die right here?’”
“That is all in the past! Now we can laugh and talk like this.”
Loud booming laughter. Noisy, cackling laughter. The soft laughter of a princess covering her mouth. All kinds of laughter filled the space.
In a way, it was an extension of the curtain call.
It was no different from actors briefly introducing their own stories, talking about how wonderful those stories were, then bowing and greeting the audience.
And after greeting, actors exit.
“It was a joy to be with you, my lord.”
Those who had finished their stories turned into starlight and scattered one by one. Where the drunkard Constellation disappeared, only an empty cup sat alone.
“My life was unbearably dull, but thanks to you, teacher, I got one last fun adventure. I did not show it, but I had a great ti. It is enough of a mory to carry on my road to the afterlife.”
One by one.
“My knight, I still cannot forget the day you knocked on the tightly sealed tower door. Thank you for saving while I rotted in there. And... yes, I really did have fun!”
One by one.
“I always lived thinking only about the shortest path. This is efficient, that is faster, this is more rational. Living only that way left with nothing in the end. I was only running toward death. Thank you for teaching soone like the joy of the road back.”
One by one.
The barber, the gardener, the princess trapped in the tower, the Transcendent who had chased only efficiency.
“I never wanted to be a knight, but thanks to you, benefactor, I ca to like being a knight at least a little. Isn’t it cool? A knight.”
The knight who had not wanted to beco a knight.
“Now, one last drink!”
As they clinked cups with Najin and Don Quixote, the protagonist of this stage and also an audience mber, they scattered into starlight.
Each ti the cups struck with a clear ching.
The number of actors sitting around the liquor jar decreased. Before long, only four remained, the ones who had been together since the beginning of this story.
Najin, Don Quixote, Rocinante, Sancho.
As if it was his turn, Rocinante shrugged.
“It was a long adventure, my lord.”
“It was all thanks to you. You taught the road and gave legs to run. Because of you, I could run anywhere.”
“Wahaha, hearing you say that leaves at a loss for words. So... how was our story?”
“What is there to say?”
“It was the best.” At Don Quixote’s words, Rocinante laughed out loud. The old man laughed heartily, then raised his cup.
“At the end of my hard road, I found my god. And now that god speaks to . The drink tastes incredible, so how could I not laugh?”
The old man poured drink into his mouth, then finally looked at Najin and curled up the corner of his lips. Offering Najin a splendid farewell salute, Rocinante scattered into starlight.
“......”
“......”
Sancho silently touched his cup.
“My lord.”
“I am listening, Sancho.”
“As for , I was not actually an apprentice. I was a knight. A fairly famous one too, belonging to a ducal house.”
Sancho smiled bitterly.
“I had talent. It felt like I could achieve anything. But once I beca a knight, fear suddenly hit . The title of knight was not what I had imagined. A situation ca where I had to kill soone, and in that mont, I hesitated.”
Disobeying orders, failing an operation. Held responsible, Sancho was stripped of his title and cast out of the ducal house. In the end, he returned ho and lived by farming.
He had gone back to being a poor farr’s son.
He had dread, but when reality showed him that dream was not as beautiful as he thought, Sancho abandoned it early.
“Then I t you, my lord. You were different from the knight I imagined, but because of that, you looked even brighter, a man who dread of becoming a knight.”
“Was that so?”
“Yes, even now it makes laugh. You could not even ride a horse properly, yet you were running around saying you would be a knight. At first I followed you wondering when you would give up. I thought you would break after facing reality, just like I did.”
“And then?”
“Well, after that, as you already know.”
Sancho shrugged.
“You never gave up, and you never broke. Adventuring with you, my lord, made feel like I beca the knight I had dread of. It was fun.”
Still touching his cup, he looked at Don Quixote.
“You knew, did you not? That I was a knight.”
“I had a rough idea. You knew practical knight matters suspiciously well, and you were the one who taught how to wear armor, mount a horse, handle a lance, and salute.”
“But you did not ask.”
“Because the past does not matter. What matters is whether the adventure we are on right now is fun or not.”
Don Quixote tilted his cup. Sancho smiled and raised his own. That was exactly it. The past did not matter. What mattered was whether they could enjoy the adventure now. Drawn by that line, countless stars had followed Don Quixote.
“Thanks to you, I had fun, my lord.”
“Thank you for always following , Sancho.”
With a smile, Sancho gave Najin a glance.
Three cups struck each other with a ching.
“Najin, the adventure with you was also the best. The knight I wanted to beco... maybe it was a knight like you. Talking about ideals is easy, but pursuing those ideals without yielding in any situation is hard.”
Sancho smiled.
“You are walking the hardest path, so you will gain the most precious ending. Just like La Mancha now.”
“I will cheer for the road ahead of you.”
With those words, Sancho scattered. Where he vanished, a single spear was left planted.
“......”
“......”
Now only one remained.
Don Quixote.
Only the Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha remained.
3.
Najin looked around in silence.
The props left behind by the exiting actors were everywhere. Turning his gaze while dwelling on the stories resting in those props, he saw Don Quixote slightly bowing his head and touching his cup.
“A lot happened.”
“It did.”
“I committed many sins, and I walked roads I should not have walked. I let myself dance to a demon’s whisper. Shaful for a knight.”
He smiled bitterly.
“I cannot make those sins never happen, and I cannot compensate those people, but there is still sothing even I can do.”
Don Quixote crushed all his stars. His faint body beca even fainter. Najin realized what he was trying to do, but said nothing.
That would have been uncool.
“The story you told .”
Don Quixote looked at Najin.
“The ending you changed for us.”
He smiled.
“It was a good story. So fun that just rembering it makes laugh.”
Don Quixote stood up.
Najin stood up as well.
“Is this farewell?”
Najin asked. Don Quixote laughed out loud and shook his head.
“It is not farewell.”
He handed Najin the one star he had created by crushing all his stars, the star that had always been the core of his story.
The star of Jovial Laughter.
It was the sa star Najin already had. The mont he accepted that identical star, Najin’s star flared fiercely. The number of his stars did not increase, but he felt the authority of the original star strengthen.
“If you rember our play, if you tell our adventure with a smile, we will always be with you.”
Don Quixote gave a playful smile.
“How was La Mancha?”
How was the play called La Mancha?
Asked for a review, Najin could only laugh in disbelief.
“It was hard. Damn hard. I dragged in everything I had and canceled everything out, and even then you were still that strong. It was close. Really close.”
“Wahaha! And then?”
“Still.”
Najin raised his cup.
“In the end, it was a story we could smile at.”
Clink, their cups struck.
Don Quixote drained his drink in one shot, let out a long breath, then saluted Najin. To the only audience mber who would rember this story, and to the playwright and actor who had led them to a happy ending, Don Quixote gave a salute.
The curtain call ended.
The epilogue was complete.
Their story, a three-hundred-year search for a happy ending, had finally reached its conclusion. The play called La Mancha would close its curtain here. Standing at center stage as the curtain fell, Don Quixote left his farewell.
The story was over. Applaud.
With the sound of applause, the curtain fell.
A great actor’s exit is always followed by applause. Don Quixote stepped down from the stage nad after his life, La Mancha. Until his final mont, he did not lose his smile.
If life is a stage, there is no reason not to smile at the final mont.
Don Quixote, the Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha.
His long story reached its end.
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