I Pulled Out Excalib Chapter 216

Black Spire (7)

He woke from a deep dream.

Najin blinked, trying to clear his hazy vision. After a few blinks, it finally came back to him. What met his eyes was a cold, pale floor. The interior of the Black Spire.

Press.

He pressed two fingers against his forehead. He had clearly been dreaming, but he didn't want to dismiss what had just transpired as a mere illusion.

'Merlin said she had lost her memories.'

After Arthur died and she obtained the twelfth star, she had gone through some kind of incident and carved out her own memories. Merlin had told him as much, once.

'Half of that was right.'

And half was wrong, wasn't it?

Merlin had never said anything of the sort, yet somehow he felt as though he could hear that voice. A smile escaped him before he knew it.

'She hadn't carved out her memories. She had split her existence.'

Into the self that lived as a fairy within dreams.

And the self that lived as a human in reality.

'All for the sake of burying the Star of Finality.'

He still didn't know exactly what the Star of Finality was. But Merlin had described it as something close to a curse, a star that would hinder the journey ahead and had to be buried at all costs.

He couldn't know yet, but it was something he would have to uncover in time.

Najin steadied his breath and turned his gaze.

"..."

There stood Merlin, fidgeting restlessly. She kept stealing anxious glances at him, her lips moving as if she was chewing on something she wanted to say. As though she had plenty of questions but feared the very act of asking them.

"Merlin."

"Mm?"

Najin didn't say much to her.

"You don't have to be that afraid. It wasn't the kind of story you're worrying about."

"And what do you know about what I'm worrying about?"

"I mean it wasn't brutal, horrifying, or grim. If anything, it was the opposite."

Najin repeatedly opened and closed his hand.

"Merlin, you were originally a prophet, weren't you? The name you first made for yourself wasn't as a wizard but as a prophet."

"That was so long ago... but yes, I suppose so. Before I met Arthur, I did make a name for myself as a prophet."

As she said it, Merlin seemed reluctant. She had never much liked the eyes that could see the future, and after meeting Arthur she had all but sealed that ability away, so it was only natural. More than once or twice, seeing the future had brought her nothing but grief.

"Can you still use it?"

"No? I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I lost the ability. I think I lost it when I let go of my twelfth star... although come to think of it, that is strange. Why would dropping a star make me lose my foresight?"

Merlin tilted her head to one side.

At the sight, a smile crossed Najin's face before he could help it. Of course he knew. He knew exactly why she had lost her foresight.

"Wh-what. Why are you smiling?"

"Just, I think I understand."

"Understand what?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

"Hey, are you really going to be like that? You promised me, no secrets between us!"

"What are you talking about? I haven't kept any secrets."

Najin answered with a sly grin.

"It's all a conversation I already had with the Merlin of a thousand years ago."

"What?"

Just what did you see?

Merlin seized the hem of his clothes and shook him as Najin let out a long, slow breath.

It wasn't a dream, after all.

Or rather, even if it was a dream, it didn't matter. For the Merlin of the past who had chosen to live within a dream, the dream was as real as reality itself. And so, for him, as her companion, everything was as good as real.

"I said our first meeting was terrible," Najin murmured. "I'll have to take that back."

It wasn't terrible.

If anything, the opposite.

"What on earth did you see? What exactly did you talk about with past me? Hey, heeey...!"

"I made a promise."

"What kind of promise?"

"That we'd meet again."

See you again.

Brief as it was, Najin had packed a great deal into those few words. When he had said them, he hadn't been looking at the Merlin of the present but the Merlin of the past.

Let's meet again. Not now, but in the future.

Because Merlin had understood the meaning behind that gaze and those few words, she had smiled when she answered at the last, saying she would wait a thousand years in the future. Recalling the face of Merlin as she laughed through her tears, Najin murmured.

"I'll have to keep that promise."

The Eternal City.

He now had a reason he absolutely had to go there.

"Who on earth are you talking to?"

Of course, from Merlin's perspective, not being able to follow what was happening was enough to drive her to the edge. She thumped her own chest in frustration.

"Haven't you already kept that promise?"

Merlin stomped her feet and pointed at herself.

"Right now! In front of you! I'm! Standing here!"

As Merlin shrieked, Najin let it go in one ear and out the other. Same as always.

"You really need to learn to respect me."

It took some time to soothe the sulking Merlin, but things settled down in the end. Najin looked up at the staircase leading to the top of the tower.

Beyond those stairs was the uppermost floor of the Black Spire.

Anton Quixano's destination, the place where the lover he had spent four hundred years searching for was waiting. But Anton had come to a halt with his destination right before him.

"..."

Najin looked at Anton.

Anton knelt with his head bowed, still lost in a dream. He showed no sign of waking. Najin watched him with a complicated expression.

The higher they climbed, the more Anton wore down. The higher the floor, the longer it took him to wake from his dreams, and even after waking he would stare blankly into the air for a long while.

「Huh? Ah. Right, right.」

「Got to climb.」

「Got to climb the tower.」

「Because Lapis is waiting...」

Muttering those words, Anton's eyes had no light in them. Clouded, hazy, like the eyes of someone still caught in a dream. As if drunk on wine, Anton was growing drunk on dreams.

"There's no way for you to help."

Merlin said.

"The Trial of Reminiscence can't be interfered with from outside. He has to overcome it alone. That's what makes it so vicious."

A few hours later, Anton finally managed to drag himself out of his dream. But it didn't mean he had broken through the trial.

"Ah..."

Anton groaned as he woke.

"It was a dream after all."

He gritted his teeth and got to his feet. And the moment he took a step forward, he fell into a dream again. Only after several more hours did he open his eyes, and the instant he stepped forward, he was pulled back under.

"..."

Najin, watching this, spoke up.

"The trial isn't just the once?"

"It's only one trial."

Merlin looked at Anton with a pitying gaze.

"It just keeps going without end until he overcomes it."

"Without end?"

"In the end, the one thing the Trial of Reminiscence embedded in this Black Spire demands is a single choice: to choose reality over the dream."

Merlin pointed at Anton.

"He's trying to wake from the dream, but he can't fully let go of it. Especially on this floor, the one that shows the happiest memories."

He wanted to wake from the dream.

But he couldn't bring himself to give it up.

"If he can't cut away one side, he won't be able to move forward."

That was why, Merlin explained, even when Anton woke from the dream, the moment he took a step he fell right back in. Najin watched Anton in silence.

"Lapis, Lapis!"

Anton's eyes flew open with a shout, and he gasped as he looked around. When his gaze met Najin's, he seemed to understand it had been a dream, and a bitter smile crossed his face.

"...How many times has it been?"

"Seven."

Anton looked back, checking how far he had walked. Then he turned forward, gauging how much further he had to go.

"Still far."

Exhaustion settled into his eyes. But he forced the corners of his mouth upward and put on a show of bravado.

"But not so far that I can't make it."

One step. Hours of dreams.

"For the past four hundred years I walked endlessly, not knowing where to go or where she might be."

One step. Hours again.

"Compared to that, my destination is right before me now. I can feel her up there. It really isn't much further."

Tap.

"So a trial like this."

Tap.

"Is hardly enough to stop my love."

Each step forward cost him hours, and completing his sentence cost him days. The time it took Anton to wake from his dreams grew longer with every step he took. In the beginning it was two or three hours, but by the tenth step it exceeded ten, and past the twentieth step he spent entire days wandering through the depths of his dreams.

And the time spent in dreams did not match the time of reality. Najin had spent dozens of days with Merlin inside a dream, yet only a few hours had passed in the waking world. He figured it must be the same for Anton.

"..."

When they were about halfway through the final floor.

"Ah..."

Anton finally stopped.

He sank to the floor where he stood.

"Just a little."

He held his face in his hands and groaned.

"Just a little rest. Let me rest, just a little."

The skin around Anton's eyes was hollow and sunken. He pressed two fingers into the corners of his eyes and exhaled a long, heavy breath that seemed to sink into the floor.

"This is hard."

The Anton who muttered those words was not the Anton Najin had seen until now. Gone was the Anton who was always brimming with confidence, who never let a word of hardship cross his lips.

"It's hard. I'm starting to lose track of what's real and what's a dream. I even find myself wondering whether there's any point in staying in reality."

What remained was a worn-down man. A man who had wandered four hundred years chasing a single dream.

"I know. I know I shouldn't think that way. But try to imagine it, oarsman."

"Imagine what?"

"When I close my eyes, it unfolds. Happy memories. Memories of loving her. From the day I confessed my feelings for the very first time, to the day she finally took my hand. And perhaps even what came after."

Anton groaned.

"In the dream, she's smiling. Smiling with happiness. The Lapis who spent her whole life hating herself, hating the world, hating everything, who didn't even know how to properly smile, she's smiling."

He smiled, bitterly.

"And when I look at that smile, I think to myself."

Whether she is disappointed in me.

That's what I think.

The expression on his face as he said this was dark.

"Disappointed? Why would she be?"

"Because it took too long."

"..."

"Four hundred years. A full four hundred years. She disappeared leaving only the words, 'Come find me, Anton.' She must have believed I'd find her quickly."

And four hundred years had passed since then.

"It's such a long time. I've been looking away from it all this while, but I can't any longer."

"Are you afraid?"

"I hate to admit it, but yes. I am afraid. I'm frightened. That after waiting for me all that time, Lapis may have broken. That she might hate me, or resent me."

Anton lifted his head and looked ahead.

The road ahead was still long. And it was not a road that anyone could walk for him. Not even the sturdy oar of his oarsman could row the water in his place. If Najin were to push or pull Anton along, the tower would judge it as "the wrong method."

In the end, it was something Anton had to resolve on his own. But he couldn't take that step.

"More than anything, I'm afraid of myself."

He looked at his own hands.

"Waking from the dream isn't easy anymore. It's taking longer and longer. I'm afraid that with each step I take I might sink completely into it, that I'll do something foolish like choosing to live in the dream forever."

Anton clenched his fist.

"Falling apart with my destination right before me. What a disgrace. The greatest lover of the century, crumbling in a place like this."

He tried to bluster. But it was only half-hearted. He was still afraid to move forward, wavering, unable to make up his mind.

"The Black Spire. This tower," Najin said.

"Not once, as we climbed it, did the witch called Lapis appear."

"...That's true."

"Not on the floor showing the most agonizing memories. Not on the floor of the most intense ones. Not on the floors showing the horrific memories, the sorrowful ones, or the fearful ones."

Najin listed the floors Anton had passed through. He wasn't trying to give Anton advice. He wasn't trying to lecture him on what he should or shouldn't do.

"And lastly, here. She isn't on this floor either, the one showing the happiest memories. All that remains is the top floor."

"What are you trying to say?"

"The witch you're looking for has already climbed to the very top of the tower. And in the four hundred years since, she has not come back down."

Simply the facts. Najin stated them plainly, and reminded Anton of what Anton already knew but had, drunk as he was on dreams, let slip from his mind.

"You know what that means, don't you?"

"..."

"She chose reality over the dream. And four hundred years later, that choice has not changed. That's what it means."

Najin didn't know the witch Lapis well. But he could see clearly that she had chosen to live in reality rather than the sweetness of a dream. The fact that she was still waiting at the top of that tower four hundred years later had to be exactly what it meant.

"So what will you do?"

Najin asked.

The role of the guide was to pose the question. Answering it was the task of the one who had to walk the path.

"..."

Anton Quixano fell silent. He bowed his head and ran a hand over his face. Then, slowly, a low and trembling laugh broke from him. And out of the silence, he answered.

"Cruel, guide."

"The rougher the road, the sweeter the reward. Isn't that how it works?"

"True enough."

Anton raised his head.

"Yes. You're right, guide."

Gripping his knees hard, he slowly rose to his feet.

"My lady has been waiting and waiting for me to come. I cannot let a paltry trial like this keep me chained in place."

Thud.

Anton stepped forward, hard and sure.