I Pulled Out Excalib Chapter 241

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On Those Brave Yet Ridiculous Ones (4)

Becoming a knight was no simple thing.

Alonso Quixano, our eccentric gentleman Don Quixote, had managed to pin the title of knight to his name by trading on his family's prestige. But if you asked whether he was truly a knight, most people would shake their heads.

That was a question that came before any matter of character or martial deeds.

Strength alone didn't make a knight, but every knight still needed a certain floor of martial ability.

And Don Quixote was weak.

Weak enough that even back-alley drifters gave him real trouble. No surprise there. From around the age of nine, Don Quixote had shut himself in his room and refused to come out for over a decade.

Nine to nieen.

Among warriors, this was what they called the Golden Years. The window when a person's body and mana capacity grew at an explosive rate. Those years, Quixote had spent locked in his room, buried in fairy tales.

「He missed the window.」

「It's too late.」

「He'll find it hard to become a truly great knight.」

When Don Quixote declared past the age of twenty that he would become a knight, not a single person expected anything remarkable of him.

"Does it matter if you're a child or a grown man when it comes to dreaming?"

Quixote laughed.

"Watch, Sancho."

He smiled, took his Squire along, and set off on an adventure.

"Let's see how far I can climb."

A day. A week. A month. Months. A year.

Four years passed.

Four years from the first time he picked up a spear, Don Quixote had already climbed to the Expert rank. Enough ability that anyone who saw him would call him a knight without a second thought.

Ten more years after that.

At thirty-four, Don Quixote reached the Sword Seeker rank. Barely fourteen years since he had walked out of that room with a spear in hand.

"Come, Sancho! Today, as always, we drive back the giants threatening Quixano Domain and sing for our lady!"

Quixote was a genius. Not in swordsmanship, combat instinct, or technical skill. Where he truly excelled was Imagery. His Imagery stood so firm it held its own against Transcendents, overflowing with self-assurance.

Absolute faith in oneself was the shortest path to Transcendence.

More than anything else, Don Quixote carried that faith. He believed in himself. In his dreams. He was certain that his wild fantasies would one day become real.

"I am Quixote."

Don Quixote raised his spear.

"The eccentric gentleman of Quixano, Don Quixote!"

He ran forward and never looked back. Before long, no one dared laugh at his charges. His spear could shatter windmills without effort now, could genuinely break the legs of giants and run demons through.

"What's that? A dark mage kidnapped someone's daughter? Unforgivable. But fear not. The gentleman of Quixano, Don Quixote, never turns a blind eye to evil!"

The laughable knight who had once thrown himself at flocks of sheep began throwing himself at dark mages instead.

"Come at me, demon. I, Don Quixote, shall face you."

And he won.

"Don't weep, any of you. Your daughter has come back safe. Is that not cause for celebration? Shed tears of joy if you must, but better yet, smile. A smiling face suits you far more."

Not once, through any of it, did he lose that laugh.

"Ahahahahaha!"

At some point, Quixote no longer needed to push the corners of his mouth up with his thumbs. The laughter came on its own. The man who had once forced himself to grin through the pain could now laugh with genuine happiness.

"Let us earn glory for our lady today as well, Sancho."

"Who exactly is this lady you keep talking about, my lord?"

"Who else? Dulcinea. Ah, Dulcinea, the most beautiful woman in all the world. She is my lady."

"Is she a real person?"

"My friend, you truly don't understand the joys of adventure."

And at his side was always Sancho. Even after more than ten years, Quixote still fumbled with his armor, still had that air of helpless clumsiness about him.

Sancho was there for every bit of it.

In place of a lord who knew nothing of the world, he punished merchants who tried to cheat Quixote, negotiated with others, and sometimes turned them to their own advantage.

"What would you have done without me, my lord?"

"I am forever grateful to you, Sancho."

"If you're grateful, keep the promise you made me."

"Of course! A knight never breaks a promise."

On the day they first set out, Quixote had made Sancho a promise. Travel with him. Help him achieve his dream. And he would reward him without fail.

"Once I earn enough glory and receive a domain, you shall be its lord. Sancho."

In truth, it was a promise that had long since stopped being a constraint.

By now, both Sancho and Quixote had earned enough merit that either of them could claim a domain if they wanted. But Sancho kept traveling with Quixote all the same.

"Let us go, my lord."

Somewhere along the way, he had simply come to enjoy the adventure alongside this absurd knight. The promise was just an excuse.

"My lord."

"Yes, Sancho."

Now and then, Sancho would ask.

"That dream you spoke of back then, have you fulfilled it?"

Have you achieved your dream? Quixote always laughed at that question. And always gave the same answer.

"Not yet."

"Still not?"

"Is the world not still dull? There is too little laughter in it. Far too little. Things need to grow a little more joyful. And for that, should we not keep running harder?"

Today, as always, Don Quixote raised his spear.

Today, as always, he laughed.

For those somewhere in the world who could not laugh, Quixote willingly played the fool. Ridiculous and ungainly, yet impossible to dislike, he burst into hearty laughter and carried on with his adventure.

An adventure that seemed as though it would last forever.

But everything has an end.

"Please."

Don Quixote's adventure came to an abrupt halt one day.

"Uncle, please!"

The domain burned. The work of a witch.

The people who had cheered on his adventures, the mercenaries who had laughed and talked over his tales, the farmer who pressed a cup of apple juice into his hands before every departure with a cheerful "Have a drink before you go, my lord!" All of them became a fistful of ash.

Grip.

In the ruins of the burning domain, someone seized Don Quixote by the collar. He was yanked out of the fairy tale he had chosen to live inside and hauled back into reality.

"Please, just live in the real world. How long are you going to keep losing yourself in some old story that even children mock! The domain is gone. If we, the knights of this domain, don't take revenge, who will settle the grievance of these people?"

Anton Quixano.

"That damned La Mancha, that damned fairy tale, that damned, that accursed delusion, wake up from it already. Look at reality, Uncle. Everyone is dead. Everyone!"

Ash and ruin.

"Fine. Do as you will. If you want to wander searching for a land that doesn't even exist, I won't stop you. But I can't. I need revenge. Someone has to settle the score for these people."

The smell of char. Hatred. A twisted expression.

"......"

Don Quixote.

No. Alonso Quixano's face went rigid.

He pressed his thumb to the corner of his mouth and pushed it into a smile.

The smile he forced was awkward.

The journey Najin had shared as Quixote's Squire flashed before his eyes at blinding speed. Like a brief summary of plot and backstory before the main act began.

Over forty years swept past in an instant.

Then the rush slowed. Time found its proper pace again. The moment Quixano Domain was reduced to ash. As if to say: the real play started here.

'This must be the incident Anton mentioned.'

Najin knew this story. Anton Quixano had told him about it. The entire Quixano Domain, burned to ash by a witch. And at that moment in the story, this figure called Sancho had been outside the domain, waiting for Quixote's return.

'They'd promised another adventure.'

When a day passed, then another, and Quixote still didn't appear at their meeting place, Sancho made his way to Quixano Domain. There he came upon Quixote, trudging out of the ruins.

"......"

His expression was rigid. The Quixote who always smiled was nowhere to be found. Only Alonso Quixano, walking with great difficulty.

That much was the prologue.

In the prologue, Najin had moved as one body with Sancho. He followed the set plot, and whatever lines or actions came out of him were naturally shaped to fit.

'But.'

Najin opened and closed his hand.

He breathed out slowly, and moved.

'Not anymore.'

His body moved naturally. Time had settled back to its normal pace. He couldn't stray entirely from the plot, but some degree of freedom had been granted.

Najin took stock of himself.

Brief as the flashing memories had been, the adventure with Don Quixote had left its mark on him. He knew well what kind of man Quixote was.

Quixote wasn't truly delusional.

He dressed himself in laughter and lived inside dreams, but he kept his feet on the ground. If he were genuinely mad, he'd have burst out laughing even in the middle of this tragedy. But Quixote wasn't that kind of madman.

"Sancho."

Alonso Quixano spoke.

"What should I have done?"

He asked.

"Would it have been right to go with Anton? Would it have been right to take revenge for my friends and family? I don't know. Revenge is like a fierce fire. It burns everything down. I don't want my story to be a story of revenge."

He groaned.

"A story about Don Quixote can't be that. It has to be joyful. It can't be a wretched, dragging, mournful revenge tale. But the story of Alonso Quixano, of Alonso the knight of the Quixano family, has to be exactly that."

Alonso agonized.

"What should I do, Sancho?"

The stage gave Najin no answer about what Sancho had actually said in reply. But he knew. He could tell.

"What do you want to do, my lord?"

Sancho only ever asked questions.

As he had done in every adventure.

"I..."

Alonso looked at the jar in his hand. Filled with the gathered ashes of those who had burned. A kind of funerary urn. Staring at it, he squeezed out his voice.

"I want to take them somewhere."

"Where?"

"To heaven."

"Is there a heaven?"

"There must be. Somewhere in the Outland."

Is that so, Najin answered.

"Then."

Najin lifted the bag packed full of provisions.

"We should go. To heaven."

"......"

"What is it, my lord? Don't we have a long road ahead?"

"You plan on following me, Sancho?"

Najin shrugged.

"I've yet to receive my domain from you."

"That's..."

"This heaven, I imagine it's a broad place?"

"...It must be. Broad enough for everyone to rest."

"Then carve off a piece and give it to me."

"......"

After a long silence, Alonso smiled. Bitterly.

"I'll do that."

Najin smirked.

"I can't afford to miss my chance at being lord of heaven."

Let's go, my lord.

Heading toward heaven with no clear direction.

"Hey, you two actually know where La Mancha is before you set off, right?"

'No? Not at all.'

Of course neither Najin nor Quixote knew the way. Both were heading into the Outland with nothing but intention. From the Guide's perspective it must have been a frustrating sight, because Merlin let out a sigh.

"A directionally hopeless knight and a pack-laden Squire. If those two actually make it to heaven, that's a comedy worth watching all on its own."

Either way, Najin walked. Alonso said nothing during that walk. He hadn't found his smile again yet. Then again, the memory of an entire domain burned to ash was bound to sit heavy.

He walked, and walked.

Eventually they arrived at the boundary between the continent and the Outland. A last rest stop had been set up there for those crossing over, a tavern that seemed to go by any number of names: The Last Stop, The Final Inn, The Frontier Tavern.

"Let's rest here for a moment, my lord."

Najin and Quixote rested briefly inside. They were washing away their fatigue with cold water when someone pressed himself between the two of them.

"A knight and a Squire, now there's an unusual combination. Where might you two be headed?"

A middle-aged man. He helped himself to the food laid out on the table as naturally as breathing and struck up conversation.

"The Outland is rough terrain. You absolutely need a Guide. I don't know how well your Squire there knows the roads, but heading out without an experienced Guide is a serious undertaking. Monsters everywhere, and the Forgotten Ones, who are worse than monsters, crawl all over the place."

There was an undefinable weight to the man's words.

Something in the easy flow of his voice drew both Najin and Quixote in.

"So then."

The man snapped his fingers.

"Why not hire me?"

"Hire you?"

"That's right. My fee would be, well, a mug of beer ought to cover it. I'm quite thirsty, you see. Throw in a bowl of stew and I'd be even happier. Chances to hire a talent like me for the price of a single beer don't come along often."

Najin asked the man, who was laying it on thick.

Who are you?

At that, the man shrugged.

"Rocinante."

The man who had introduced himself as Rocinante turned up the corner of his mouth.

"The finest Guide in the Outland, and an adventurer still chasing a Mystique that vanished tens of thousands of years ago."

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