I Pulled Out Excalib Chapter 217

Witch of Distrust, Lapis (1)

Anton Quixano's life was grey.

Not the grey of a fog-draped city, but something closer to ash, the kind left behind when every last log in the hearth has burned down to nothing. That ashen hue was what Anton's life had become.

It had not always been that way.

There had been an ordinary life. A life filled with beautiful color. Days spent honing himself, learning the honor and pride of a knight, training with a sword in hand. Days lived earnestly, one after another. Anton had known those days too.

"Brother, are you swinging that sword again?"

"I'm not as sharp as you, so I have to make up for it with the sword. That's the only way I can be of use, isn't it?"

"Same as ever. Honestly."

Idle chatter with his younger brother, asking after his wellbeing.

Spending a little time playing with his nephews and nieces.

A life spent strolling through the estate, mixing freely with the knights and soldiers.

"What kind of life has no laughter in it? Smile more, Anton."

"Like this?"

"No. Pull those corners up properly. Like this, with some spirit."

"That just makes me look like a jester. Shouldn't a knight carry himself with a little more dignity, Uncle?"

"A handful of laughter is worth more than dignity any day."

Ordinary days spent sharing a drink now and then with his uncle, a man whose name was known across the continent. Those days, which had seemed as though they would go on forever, came to an abrupt and sudden end.

"..."

The estate went up in flames.

"Ah... no..."

Everything melted away.

The people of the estate he was meant to protect, the soldiers, the knights, his friends, his family. All of them burned. The fire crept through the estate slowly, consuming it over the course of days.

"Ah."

When the flames finally died, nothing remained but ash. Standing in the middle of the estate as grey ash drifted through the air, Anton laughed. It was a hollow laugh, a bitter laugh, a scream. He wept until his throat tore itself apart, and then he collapsed.

Anton's life lost all its color and became ash.

The only ones to survive that inferno were Anton and his uncle, Alonso Quixano. Alonso asked Anton a question.

"Anton. What will you do?"

"..."

"Anton."

"What do I do? The answer is already set, isn't it."

"No. Nothing is set. Everything depends on how you choose to see it. What answer have you arrived at?"

"I will kill the witches."

Anton took up his sword.

"I will kill every last witch. Just as they stripped everything from me, I will strip everything from them."

"Is that so."

"And what will you do, Uncle?"

"I intend to take them to La Mancha."

La Mancha. At that word, Anton's eyes narrowed.

He stared at his uncle. In Alonso's hands was a jar filled with ash, gathered from the ruins. But what Anton was looking at was not the jar. It was his uncle's eyes.

"Uncle. Are you serious? La Mancha, you can't mean La Mancha, can you?"

"Is there another La Mancha I don't know about?"

"Uncle, please!"

Anton cried out through clenched teeth.

"Please live in reality. How long do you intend to drown yourself in those old stories that even children laugh at? The estate has burned. If we, who were its knights, don't take revenge, then who is going to settle the grievances of our dead?"

Come with me. Let us kill every witch. That is the only atonement left to us. As Anton said all this, Alonso simply shook his head.

"I will walk my own path."

Alonso Quixano set off on a journey of his own.

"Anton, you walk your own path."

Leaving only those words behind, Alonso departed, and Anton walked in the opposite direction. Forward, stepping through ash. He needed nothing for the road. A single sword was enough.

Anton set his own life ablaze.

The fire devoured his life and burned on.

He killed anyone connected to the witches. Wherever a witch had been sighted, he went. He killed indiscriminately and tortured indiscriminately.

He killed and killed and killed again.

Even as his own body burned, as pus oozed from his wounds, as his skin blackened and charred, Anton swung his sword and killed witches. Living that way for decades, his skill naturally reached a new height. By burning through his own life, Anton reached the realm of Transcendence.

On the path to Transcendence, he cast aside countless things.

How to laugh. How to breathe without tension. The words to express wonder at a breathtaking sight. How to enjoy life. How to rest. Everything that wasn't needed for killing witches, Anton willingly threw away. He made them into kindling, fuel for his own fire.

Decades passed that way.

Crackle.

The fire that had burned for decades went out without a sound.

"..."

He had killed and killed, and still witches remained. Anton knew better than anyone how powerful the remaining witches were. Witches who had lived since the age of myths. Even staking his life, the odds of victory were pitifully low.

There was no end to it. He would live like this and die like this.

With nothing left to burn, Anton felt no attachment to his life. All that remained was a bitter sense of obligation. Anton wandered in search of a place to die.

"Hey, kid."

Then, one day.

"You're that witch hunter, aren't you?"

Someone spoke to him.

"Just look at the state of you. You'd give a beggar a run for his money. You really do live hard, don't you. Doesn't that get exhausting?"

A voice that carried a touch of sympathy and a touch of amusement.

"Hey, I've lived like that, you know. And let me tell you, there's no future in it. Living that way isn't any fun. You'll just have a miserable life and a miserable death."

"..."

"Look at this one. When someone talks to you, you at least have to pretend to listen. What, am I not a person to you? Funny guy, this one. Hey. Hey."

Tap, tap. A light weight against his back.

And then, thwack!

A hand smacking him on the back of the head made Anton turn around.

"Now we can actually have a conversation. Hello there? Ah, I can tell just from looking at those eyes. The kind of eyes that absolutely refuse to listen to anyone."

A pale violet.

Hair like morning glories.

"You've burned yourself down this far and you still want to keep burning? Well, if that's how it is..."

A pale, slender hand.

"I'll be your kindling. You killed the Witch of Scorching Heat a while back, didn't you? You need something new to burn for. Don't you."

A slight pain, and then half of his heart was drawn out.

"Then make me, the one who has taken your heart, your new kindling. If you have something to burn for, life becomes bearable enough, doesn't it."

A woman with a mischievous smile.

For the first time in decades, Anton met someone's eyes, and he asked the woman standing before him who she was.

"Me?"

At that question, the woman smiled, truly and genuinely charming, and answered.

"Lapis."

She said.

"The Witch of Distrust."

The Witch of Distrust, Lapis.

Anton Quixano began to pursue the witch who had stolen half of his heart.

Though to call it a pursuit would be an overstatement.

Lapis always stayed at her sanctuary, and it was not difficult to find where she was. On top of that, Lapis didn't even try to stop Anton from entering. Her attitude was that he could come as often as he liked.

So was the sanctuary at least fortified like a stronghold?

Not at all. Far from a fortress, it was nothing more than a cottage built on a hill. A peaceful, sun-drenched little place beyond compare. Anton, who had come prepared with every sort of equipment for dealing with a witch, couldn't help but be thrown off.

Standing before the cottage and deliberating for a moment, Anton knocked on the door.

"..."

There stood Lapis, not in a robe or anything of the sort but in comfortable everyday clothing. She rubbed her eyes as if she had just woken from sleep, looked at Anton, then pressed her fingers to her forehead and sighed.

"When calling on a lady, the very least you do is give advance notice. And you're supposed to arrive with a bouquet in hand at minimum. Are you seriously showing up at a lady's home looking like that?"

Lapis widened her eyes.

"Again."

And with a light wave of her hand, she shooed him away. It was only after a day had passed that Anton was allowed back into the sanctuary.

"Damn it, don't you want your heart back? I'll just boil this thing and drink it down if you keep this up."

Again, and again, and again.

After similar incidents repeated themselves again and again, Anton found himself wondering what on earth he was doing, and yet he began meeting Lapis's demands all the same. He cut his hair. He trimmed the beard that had grown wild and unkempt.

"..."

"What is it. Is it still not enough?"

"No. This is... surprising? I did think back then that if you just got a haircut and cleaned up that beard a bit, you'd be presentable... but what's your deal? You were hiding a face like that under all of that?"

"Didn't exactly need it for killing witches."

"Right, sure. I suppose not."

"Is this good enough now?"

"What about flowers?"

"..."

Lapis waved her hand.

"Again."

In the end, it was only after Anton came back with a flower in hand that he was finally allowed inside the cottage. The cottage he stepped into was filled to the brim with all manner of books.

"So, do you intend to return my heart now?"

"Depends on what you do."

"Look. I'm a witch hunter. The man sitting in front of you has killed at least thirty of your kind..."

"What is this little punk on about."

"What?"

"Hey, do you know Merlin? Merlin?"

"The Archmage of the Round Table?"

"That's right. I'm a witch who went toe-to-toe with that very Merlin and came out alive. I've lived long enough not to be taken down by a little brat like you."

Lapis smiled lightly and snapped her fingers.

"Well then. Care to try?"

Nine circles. Nine stars.

Anton's every sense sharpened at the force radiating from Lapis. She was the strongest opponent he had ever faced among all the witches he had encountered. But that didn't mean she was impossible to defeat.

If he devised a strategy, staked his life, and sacrificed something else... somehow...

At that point in his thoughts, a question crept into Anton's mind. What are you planning to throw away this time. Is there anything left in you to discard? And after you kill the witch in front of you, what then? Anton had no answer for it.

"That face says it all. You're scared, aren't you."

"...You."

"Yeah. What."

"You're not going to kill me? I've slaughtered your kind. Tortured them. Am I not something like an enemy to you?"

"Not at all."

Lapis tilted her head.

"Sorry to break it to you, but the number of humans my kind have killed is somewhere between a few million and tens of millions, at minimum. They died because they deserved to die. And I don't particularly like my own kind."

"Why?"

"Because they live consumed by hatred, and that doesn't really look like much fun to me. What's enjoyable about spending your days resenting, irritating yourself, raging, hating, cursing?"

Lapis sipped her tea as she spoke.

"I lived that way once, and it wasn't fun at all. Sitting somewhere sunny with a good cup of tea, looking at pretty flowers, reading an enjoyable novel, that's so much more satisfying."

"..."

"I've killed humans too. I've dealt with plenty who tried to take what was precious to me, so you and I aren't so different, are we? If I were to curse you, it would be the same as spitting in my own face."

With a soft pour, Lapis filled a cup with tea and held it out to Anton.

"Drink."

"..."

"Don't want it, that's fine. What, is it because a witch brewed it?"

In the end, Anton drank the tea. He had spent his life hating witches, and yet for some reason he couldn't bring himself to be angry at the woman in front of him. If anything, he felt as though he was becoming a fool.

He sipped the tea, and his expression stiffened.

Not because it was poisoned or anything like that. It was simply, purely, terrible. So incredibly awful that Anton spat it out.

"You call this tea?"

"Excuse me? The nerve of complaining when you're the one being served..."

"Here, hand it over. That's not how you make tea."

"What? Tea is tea."

"Just drink it."

"What a fuss. We'll see if there's any difference."

Lapis sipped the tea and fell silent.

She looked back and forth between Anton and the cup with an expression of genuine shock, and then slowly, she nodded.

"It's different. I have to admit it."

"Obviously."

"How did you make this? What's the method?"

The way to brew tea. Ordinary conversation. And small talk.

In the end, Anton left after a whole day of chatting, having completely forgotten his purpose of reclaiming his heart. The sunset he glimpsed as he parted from Lapis that evening was beautiful.

Anton was surprised to find that he still had that capacity within him, to look at something and feel that it was beautiful. And equally surprising was the fact that he could lose himself in idle chatter to the point of forgetting his own purpose.

"..."

"You're back? Let's see, what flowers did you bring today."

And so.

"Hey, witch."

"What flowers today? Any other gifts?"

Using the excuse of searching for his heart,

"Hey."

"Where are my flowers?"

Anton went to find Lapis every single day.

"Lapis."

"Back again?"

From silence to witch, and from witch, back to Lapis.

The feet that had wandered endlessly in search of witches now walked toward Lapis's cottage, and the hands that had gripped a sword and tortured witches now searched for flowers to bring her as a gift.

"So, Lapis, I found out what happens next in that novel you were asking about..."

"Oh? Really? So what happened?"

Unlike the past, when he had hunted for information to kill witches, he now gathered the kind that would delight Lapis.

"So..."

He talked. He chatted.

At first he had moved under the pretext of winning her favor in order to reclaim his heart, but at some point it became nothing more than that, just a pretext.

The conversations he shared with Lapis were a joy.

He looked forward to seeing her laugh.

He had thought he had discarded all of it, the ability to breathe at ease, the feeling of finding a landscape beautiful, the emotions, all of it. But they had only been buried beneath the ash.

"Lapis."

"Yes, Anton."

When you cleared away the ash, there was color beneath it. Color had returned to a life that had been grey. A pale violet. Anton smiled as he gazed at the morning glories blooming among the ash.

"Thank you."

He didn't know exactly when it had happened.

Was it the first meeting? The moment she took his heart? The moment she handed him tea? The first time he saw her laugh? Or perhaps all of it?

Anton had fallen in love.

Lapis had become everything to him.

The man who had lost his life to a witch had, paradoxically, found life once more through a witch.

To catch one of Lapis's laughs, Anton would venture into rough terrain to bring her flowers, and to draw even a single gasp of admiration from her, he took care of his appearance. The near-beggar state he had been in gave way to something human, and his tattered clothing transformed into something clean enough to attend a ball that very night.

"You know, to be honest."

The closer Anton drew to Lapis, the more openly she began to speak to him in return.

"I said otherwise to you, but I don't really like humans. Why do you think I'm the Witch of Distrust? I've been burned by humans more times than I can count."

Distrust.

"To be honest, I don't trust you either. Fundamentally, I can't trust anyone. That's my mystique. I was born this way."

A witch betrayed by humans, by other witches, by the world itself.

The witch, who bore as many wounds as she had placed trust, smiled bitterly and held out his heart to Anton.

"Let's stop here. I don't want to be hurt by you."

"..."

"Here. Just up to this point. Let's not cross any lines. You're doing alright now, aren't you? I return your heart, you keep the good memories, and that's that. Clean, isn't it."

Half of his heart.

Anton smiled faintly and said,

"Then keep it. My half."

"What?"

"If you think I'll betray you, just burst that heart. I'm not asking you to trust me. Be suspicious. Stay suspicious all you like."

"..."

"I love you, Lapis."

A brief silence. And then a flustered voice.

"That was quite the out-of-nowhere confession. No atmosphere at all."

"Atmosphere is something you make."

Anton went down on one knee.

He had brought a ring, but right now there was a far more tangible proof. Anton held out his heart to Lapis.

"...Dating me won't end well for you, you know."

"Don't worry about that. I happen to like spirited women."

"This is a love between a witch and a human. There's no greater taboo than that. And you're a knight, aren't you?"

"Then I'll just quit. Simple enough."

"After going on and on about chivalry and honor and pride all this time?"

"Something more important than all of that is right in front of me."

"I..."

"Lapis."

Anton smiled.

"Nothing you say will change anything. You are already everything to me. Whatever excuse you make, I will simply shake my head."

"If we're together, I'll have to leave you eventually."

"Then I'll come find you."

"It'll be hard to find me. It'll take a very long time."

"Hmm, that does sound like it could be quite difficult. In that case, can you give me a memory worth keeping, before you go? One that won't fade no matter how much time passes."

"You're really something else, honestly."

Lapis ran a hand down her face.

Just a little, and for the first time, a faint blush crossed her face as she took Anton's outstretched hand.

"This is your choice."

"The finest choice I've ever made, and not a regret in sight."

"I swear, if you could just keep that mouth shut."

As things were meant to go.

"Anton?"

Here, Anton was to spend the night with Lapis. And the following day, Lapis was to leave Anton behind. That was what had happened in the past.

But in this moment, Anton made a different choice.

A brief kiss.

And then, Anton stepped back from Lapis.

"Let's put what comes next on hold for a little while."

With a dashing smile, Anton handed Lapis a flower, a red rose he had tended with the intention of giving it to her when he found her again.

"I'm still in a dream, you see."

Anton opened his eyes in the real world.

When he looked back, the path he had walked stretched behind him. Every single step pressed into the ground, not one skipped. And when he looked ahead, all that remained were the stairs leading to the topmost floor.

He had completed the trial.

The trial had demanded he choose between dream and reality, but Anton had refused to give up either. How could he? He had endured 400 years always dreaming of Lapis. To give up that dream. How could that possibly make sense?

This was the answer Anton Quixano had given.

He chose neither, and yet somehow broke through the trial all the same. One step at a time, sinking into the dream and waking in reality again and again, until he finally reached the end.

Thud.

The strength left his legs, his steps tangled, and just as Anton was about to pitch forward, someone grabbed his arm. Anton shifted his gaze without a word. To his side stood the Guide.

"Have you woken from your dream?"

"No, I'm still dreaming."

Supported by Najin, Anton rose to his feet.

Up the stairs toward the final floor.

Toward his own destination, where Lapis would be waiting.