I Pulled Out Excalibur Chapter 326

Prologue (prologue)

Beyond the continent lay the Outland, beyond the Outland lay Camlann, and in the deepest, lowest place of Camlann, there was a being nailed in place.

She had once been a witch born of Mystique.

Now she had beco a concept itself.

The Witch of the Abyss looked up at the sky.

Stakes forged from starlight were driven into her body. Star stakes pierced both arms, both palms, both shoulders, both legs, both ankles, the nape of her neck, and her heart. The last stake pierced through her mouth.

Thirteen stakes in total.

Arthur's constellation, pinned to the bottom of the Abyss.

Every breath tightened the stakes. Every heartbeat threw the flow inside her body into chaos, and her hands and feet were fixed to the ground so she could not move at all. A thousand years had passed like that, yet the Witch of the Abyss's eyes were utterly calm.

"Ah."

She looked at a certain woman who was stepping on the stake through her heart.

Unlike the past, the witch looked up at her.

Unlike the past, she looked down at the witch.

Yet no one would dare think the witch was truly beneath her. The night sky of Camlann, and night itself, had originally belonged to the witch.

"What a pointless thing you're doing."

A sneer spread across the witch's lips.

"What do you gain by keeping here? This seal will break soon anyway, so what aning is there in holding it one or two days longer? It's all pointless."

Even with stakes through her entire body, her breathing was relaxed. Even after a thousand years, her eyes were still clear, and her dark crimson baleful star had not gone out.

"Wouldn't it be better to go protect that child you cherish? At this rate, that child will die."

Isn't that right, open-eyed blind one? The witch smiled at rlin, who glared as if she wanted to kill her.

How beautiful those eyes were.

Eyes that could see the future but chose not to, eyes that could have lived by dreams but refused to dream, eyes that were open yet worse than closed, foolish beyond asure. The witch liked them quite a bit.

"You're still the sa, then and now, blind with hatred and missing what's important. Aren't you worried? At this rate, what happened a thousand years ago will simply repeat."

At the witch's whisper, rlin let out a mocking laugh.

As if it wasn't even worth answering.

Crunch. rlin pressed down harder on the stake in the witch's heart. Then she bent at the waist. Blue hair fell forward, and between those strands, rlin's blue eyes glead.

"You think he'll die without ."

The fool's eyes that had long since lost their shine.

"You asked if I was worried about him?"

But now, rlin's eyes...

"Not at all."

They were shining. They were the eyes of soone looking at the future, not the past, and of soone certain that future would shine, even without prophecy.

rlin was not Najin's guardian.

That day, in a certain Star's Tomb, Najin had told rlin he would reach where she was. He had said he would beco her companion and show her a view she had never seen.

Najin never broke a promise.

Even separated from Najin, even though she could not see his star from here, even though she did not know what situation he was in, rlin did not worry about him in the slightest.

Because...

She had already shown Najin the road.

It's fine if you fall. It's fine if you lose your way. It's fine if you wander without knowing where to go. When that happens, lift your head and light your path with the starlight you have built. There will be a road I prepared for you there.

Even if she did not light it herself.

The Najin of now had many stars that could light the way ahead of him. That was why rlin had left his side for a while. He needed to realize it now.

'I'm not the only one beside you.'

You are far greater than you think.

Then it happened.

Even from far away, she felt it. Najin's constellation, the one seated at the Round Table, was convulsing violently.

The night sky shook.

Just like the day Najin pulled out Excalibur.

2.

In the lowest city, a boy was born.

Underground City, Artman.

In a city where discarded things gathered, the boy was abandoned once again by his parents, and so there was nothing in his life. It was a life where even the thought of becoming sothing never ca.

A life that had failed from birth.

A life shackled from the mont it began.

Chains were wrapped around that boy's body. Iron chains fell from the sky like puppet strings and bound him. Those chains whispered to him. If you challenge, you only fail. If you fail, you lose everything. Don't cross the line. Live as given, and be satisfied.

mories of failure flashed by. Burn scars from endlessly repeated dreams throbbed. The boy's shoulders curled in, and his head lowered. Afraid of failure, the boy no longer looked up high.

And when his gaze turned to the ground.

Soone's voice rang by his ear.

"The world is full of unknowns by nature, boy."

He wore an adventurer's outfit. Flicking the tip of his deeply lowered cone hat with a finger, he smiled.

"It's full of things you don't know, so even taking one step is scary. Being scared is only natural. But when you brave that fear and take one step... only then do you see scenery you couldn't see before."

He spoke with both arms spread wide.

"Brave your fear. Do not fear falling. Do not cling to the today where you place your feet this instant. Picture the vast tomorrow, and leap toward the sky."

Cheon Yuseong, Icarus, reached out his hand.

"A life tangled in chains like these is boring. A life flying free through the sky is the life that suits you."

Tap. The mont he touched the chains around Najin, they changed into thin threads. It was what Najin had once done for him. What was received had to be returned.

As you cut my chains.

This ti, I will cut yours.

"It's ti to go on an adventure, Najin."

The Star of Adventure shone.

An adventurer never left behind soone afraid to challenge. The world was too wide to stay seated in fear and hesitation.

A star shone.

That shining star lit the space right in front of Najin. It could not light far away, but it was enough to light one span ahead. Drawn by that rising light, Najin's Imagery began to surge violently.

Threads still hung over Najin's body.

He was still afraid to move forward.

But the Star of Adventure had no intention of leaving him there. Drawn by it, the stars settled inside Najin began rising one by one.

...Who saves the hero who saves others? It is a question that often appears in heroic tales. And one storyteller answered it like this.

By those he saved.

By the lives of those whom he himself had delivered into salvation.

"This stage doesn't suit you!"

A voice ca from sowhere.

Najin looked around, but no one was visible.

"Isn't this already a finished story? The story of a knight who lost honor but not pride, and the boy who promised that knight a star. A beautiful story beyond compare. Perfect as it is."

And then.

"So this stage doesn't need to continue."

The stage around Najin tore apart.

Solid bricks split as if cloth were being ripped. Tearing through the drape over the stage, a knight appeared. A knight decorated in splendid helm and armor raised his visor with a click.

"Isn't that right, Najin?"

A man wearing the kind of pleasant smile that made people smile without aning to. The knight who had never lost his laughter appeared by skewering the stage curtain with his spear.

"And a fine stage would feel incomplete without this."

Star of Mirth, Don Quixote.

With a laugh, he started running.

"Curtain call, friends!"

Holding his spear, Don Quixote ran. Behind him, scattering into starlight, actors climbed onto the stage one after another. As he ran, the black curtain wrapping the stage began to tear.

One thread hanging over Najin snapped.

Boom, soone stamped down beside Najin. He said nothing. He only cut the threads around Najin with the lighthouse in his hand, with the axe blade hanging from its end. As if saying you must not stay bound here.

Lighthouse Keeper, Euriphylos.

The instant his halberd swung, the darkness parted. The light made by the lighthouse illuminated the road in front of Najin. That was what lighthouses had always done. No matter how dark it looked, a lighthouse's role was to tell you there was still a path.

To the boy who resembled his old self, to the boy who still tried to move forward unlike his stagnant self that had lost its dream, Euriphylos only pointed ahead with his lighthouse. As if saying that was where he had to go.

One thread hanging over Najin snapped.

A soft wind blew.

That wind stirred Najin's hair. It slled of flowers. A certain knight, who had made flowers bloom in a barren desert where not even a blade of grass could grow, stomped down beside Najin.

The raging wind swept through the black curtain cast by the Carnival King. It shook off the Carnival King's attempts to interfere with Najin's mories again and again. In that storm, Najin heard his voice.

"Najin."

The knight of Londinel.

The knight who lost himself every day yet never let himself go until the end, the knight who resisted forgetting, smiled.

"Move forward. Toward tomorrow."

Another thread snapped.

Those who had passed through Najin's life, those among whom Najin had once stayed, those who had reached different endings because of Najin, passed by his side in turn.

Viola Ordina of Glass Castle swung her blade.

As if ending the performance that repeated forever, when she swung her sword, the final tone that closed the performance rang out. For Najin, who had pulled her from the hell repeated for centuries, she split the hell surrounding him.

The knight who removed his helm raised his sword.

His strike cut through darkness. It severed Najin's threads. He did not speak long. Had they not already said all that needed saying.

One line was enough.

"Rise."

Isn't Indomitability the very value of knighthood you and I both speak of? You raised when I was on my knees, so this ti I will raise you.

Najin slowly rose from his place.

He straightened his bent knees and braced his hand on the ground.

Horn Charge.

At the sa mont Najin stood, the sound of wind brushed his ear. Then a single storm pierced the pitch-black darkness in front of him. Everything blocking his path was swept away in an instant.

The Silent Knight said nothing.

He only opened the road Najin had to walk.

...Stars that had already completed their lives and reached their end beca nourishnt for a new star. Their stars had lted into Najin's Imagery and were lighting his way.

The stars shone.

Stars that could not exist in the underground city were shining.

Those shining stars illuminated the road etched into Najin's Imagery. It was the road rlin had prepared. So that even if Najin lost himself, he could return. Of course, even if a road was prepared, not everyone could walk it.

It was a long and harsh road. A road where even harder trials waited ahead. To walk it, he had to challenge, had to slay dragons, had to break through any obstacle, had to remain unyielding before any trial.

It was a road where he had to grant a funeral sendoff to one who could not die, leave stories that could still smile in any adventure, and never forget that he himself had chosen this life.

Najin had to adventure down that road.

He was afraid. Terrified to madness. But Najin walked it by his own will. Because on that day, in that mont, he had sworn.

That he would reach the highest place.

That at the highest place, he would cry out.

He fell again and again, rolled on the ground again and again, yet kept walking. Cutting away voices that denied him, he kept moving forward. How long did he walk like that?

Tap, sothing touched Najin's shoulder.

Najin lifted his head.

The mont he looked ahead, he fell silent for a while. Then he let out a smile. Right. You were always at my starting point. And he could not show a ragged state like this to you.

Children wanted to boast their growth to their parents, and in front of their parents, they wanted to look their best more than ever.

Najin's tattered clothes changed.

No longer a ragged figure that looked ready to collapse, no longer an abandoned boy from the underground city, Najin stood before him as a Free Knight.

Before he knew it, Najin had grown taller than Ivan.

He could now look at Ivan, whom he had always needed to look up at, at eye level. Ivan was offering him a sword.

Looking at that offered sword, Najin closed his mouth.

He had so much he wanted to say. So much that he did not know where to start.

He wanted to show him who he was now. That he had pulled out Excalibur and beco a hero of the Empire. That no one looked down on him anymore. That the whole world would co to know Ivan's na...

He wanted to boast to him.

He wanted to say that the choice Ivan made that day had not been wrong, that because Ivan existed there was a him now, that every beginning of his had started from Ivan, that he had wanted to beco a knight like him.

He wanted to say all that.

But Najin could not say a word. As if he understood, or had already known, Ivan only smiled at him.

Tap.

The sword placed on his shoulder.

Najin did not know what to say, but he knew what to do. He gripped the sword Ivan offered him. He seized Excalibur, now his own sword, engraved with his constellation.

At the end of the road lay none other than the starting point.

There, Najin asked himself again.

Who are you, and what are you trying to beco?

To that question, Najin answered.

In the end, the answer was at Najin's starting point. Cross the line. Do not be satisfied with what is given, reach your hand toward the high sky. Challenge, and adventure.

How could he ever forget that.

"That was the first star I ever saw."

A star seen in a place where no stars rose. Smiling at the first star he had ever seen, Najin spoke.

"So I should be going now."

"I still have a long road left to walk."

Saying that, Najin drew Excalibur. In that mont, it felt like he heard Ivan's hearty laughter saying, "You've grown well, brat."

Najin had confidence in himself.

Even through hundreds of denials, Najin did not bend. By enduring those hundreds of denials, he looked back at his starting point and made himself firm.

He was not alone.

Those who had passed through his life were holding him up. When he looked up at the sky, his Imagery was no longer dark. Because there were stars he had buried in his heart.

Even if Najin forgot himself.

They would never let him forget himself.

Najin connected their stars into one. A single constellation rose in the sky of the underground city. And Najin ascended to Transcendence. Now, even without relying on Excalibur, Najin could have confidence in himself.

Starlight flooded out.

That overflowing light drove away the darkness. The starlight shattered the stage around Najin. The Carnival King could no longer interfere in Najin's now-firm Imagery. There was no space there where a demon could dare set foot.

Crash.

With the sound of shattering glass, the stage around Najin collapsed.

What appeared was the Carnival King's stage.

rged with the false night sky of rippling black curtain, the Carnival King looked down at him. Her eyes were stained with shock.

Najin stepped forward.

The false night sky cast by the Carnival King tore apart.

Between the torn night sky, Najin's star shone. A platinum star that nothing could conceal and nothing could embellish shone brilliantly.

Holding Excalibur, Najin glared at the Carnival King.

The Dawn Star drove away the false night.