I Pulled Out Excalib Chapter 247

It Is a Knight's Duty, No, a Privilege! (2)

The stars blossomed.

Five stars bloomed like flowers and began to orbit Najin. His stage, barely wider than a handspan before, now stretched five steps in every direction.

Five steps.

Just five steps.

Don Quixote's stage was a world unto itself. Next to that, five steps was nothing, a small flower that might scatter on the first breath of wind.

But it had bloomed. That much was real.

Tap.

Najin stepped forward. His domain, once only five steps wide, spread by one more. Then another, and another, his territory kept growing.

Swish.

He swung his sword lightly. From the Sword Aura that had completed its Blossoming, starlight scattered like flower petals. Those drifting petals were his domain. The boy took one more step toward Sword Master.

"......"

No more words were necessary. Najin leveled his sword at Don Quixote. In that paint-stained world, his Sword Aura shone platinum white, untouched by any color.

Then, crash.

Don Quixote kicked off the ground and charged. His movements were still astonishingly fast, devastatingly powerful. A Lance Charge launched by a Transcendent on their own stage, the kind that would run anyone below Transcendence clean through in a single blow.

Until moments ago, Najin hadn't even been able to properly react to Don Quixote's movements. Because this wasn't his stage. Because there had been no place here for him to stand.

Not anymore.

His feet were on the ground. While he swung his sword, the arc traced by the blade's tip, that space at least belonged to Najin.

Claaang!

He knocked Don Quixote's lance aside once more. Once might be luck, but twice was something else. He had slid back at the moment of impact and found no opening for a counterattack, so calling it a clean block would be generous. But what mattered was that he had stopped it.

Things were different from moments ago, when he couldn't even mount a proper defense and simply got run through. Out of place as it was, a smile found its way to Najin's lips.

So this is what it feels like.

Not that it needed saying, but Najin was a genius. His capacity for learning and adaptation had no equal. The adaptation period every fighter needed when stepping into a higher realm, the careful tuning of a newly awakened Sword Aura, Najin had no use for any of it.

Two swings.

That was all. Najin had already adapted.

Transcendents are beings who have broken free from the laws of the world.

Even a Sword Expert can already produce Sword Aura that cuts through steel like paper. Sword Masters, those who have risen to Transcendence, routinely broke the laws of physics and everything the world took for granted.

Yuel Razian, who projected Sword Aura dozens of meters wide, was one such case. The Star Incarnation, who evaporated entire swaths of the battlefield with the overwhelming light of Aurora, was another. The Sword Saint, who carved out space itself with a single swing, was one more.

And Don Quixote, standing before him now, was no different.

On his own stage he charged at a terrifying speed, so fast that even a fellow Transcendent would call it "impossibly fast." When something reads as fast by a Transcendent's reckoning, an ordinary person can barely perceive it at all.

Whooooom!

A Lance Charge carrying that speed had pierced giants, demons, and even the bodies of Transcendents. In his prime, with Rocinante's acceleration behind him and countless stars lending their support, Don Quixote had driven his lance through any enemy he chose.

What made it even more terrifying was that it wasn't a finishing move.

Survive one charge and the next was already coming. At that speed, switching direction and readying another strike should have been next to impossible, yet Don Quixote wheeled about as though mocking the laws of physics.

Twice. Three times. Ten. Dozens. Hundreds.

He didn't stop until the enemy was run through. As the fight dragged on, his speed didn't flag. It climbed. On his own stage, Don Quixote was as close to invincible as a being could be.

Even with his Imagery corrupted.

Even after years of bedridden weakness.

Clang!

He was still a formidable Transcendent.

Claaang!

Don Quixote ran across his paint-stained stage.

Running, always running.

"Heh, heh-heh-heh-heh-heh!"

He charged at Sancho again and again, laughing as though something was terribly funny.

'Let's go on an adventure, Sancho.'

No time to linger here. A magnificent adventure awaits us, doesn't it? My lady Dulcinea has prepared another splendid one just for us. We can never keep the lady waiting.

Deep in delusion, Don Quixote was beyond rational thought. Whatever was said to him, it didn't reach him.

Words didn't land.

Claaang!

But the sword did.

Clang. Claaang!

Watching Sancho's sword move right before his eyes, something strange stirred in Don Quixote. Was it because Sancho, who should have been run through and long since fallen, was still holding his ground? Or was it the unsettling light Sancho's sword kept throwing off?

He had no answer. Don Quixote just kept running.

Najin had no room for other thoughts. Every sense sharpened, eyes wide open, he was moving faster than he ever had. React after seeing and you're already too late. He had to predict first, then move.

'More.'

Speed, losing. Power, losing. In every respect the opponent was his superior. Then where was his edge? What could put them on even footing?

'More. More. More...'

Split-second judgment. Dynamic vision. And foresight.

Those had always kept him alive, in every fight.

Najin's eyes moved quickly. The moment he parried a blow, Don Quixote, who had shot past him, wheeled and charged for his back.

Faster.

The instant Don Quixote swept by, Najin was already in motion. As though the next frame was visible to him before it arrived, he swung his sword without even turning his head. His swinging arm went numb. His wound-ridden body groaned.

Still, Najin pushed himself faster.

Not enough. Not yet.

Quicker judgment. Quicker movement. Cut every wasteful motion, wring out every drop of efficiency.

'I knew it wouldn't be easy.'

He knew exactly how foolish it was to fight a Transcendent without having reached that realm himself. And among Transcendents, Don Quixote was one of the strong. Simply surviving this long was borderline miraculous.

Without Rocinante's acceleration, that lance would have ended him long ago.

Without the Challenge star reinforcing his body to fight opponents far above his station.

Without the Breakthrough star lending him the strength to smash through obstacles and keep moving forward.

Without the Indomitable star holding up a body that wanted to collapse on the spot.

It would have been over a long time ago.

"But look at it the other way."

Merlin gripped Najin's hand. She wrapped her fingers around his, closing around hands that were shaking hard enough to drop the sword.

"What you've built is what's holding you up."

Najin swung. Swung and swung again. He kept parrying Don Quixote's attacks as they kept accelerating. Unlike Najin, who was accumulating wounds, Don Quixote was untouched. Was this nothing more than buying time?

'No.'

Stalling, enduring, then telling himself it was a decent fight anyway, that wasn't who he was. Najin intended to win.

But how?

The answer had already been decided.

「That's what it means to be a knight, Sancho!」

He thought back. To the words he had just spoken out loud. To the stories Don Quixote had told him over the course of their adventure. He turned the creed over in his mind, the conviction sitting at the very core of this Stars' Graveyard, of Don Quixote's stage.

「To dream the impossible dream.」

An opponent he could not possibly defeat.

「To fight the invincible foe.」

An opponent invincible on their own ground.

「To bear the unbearable pain.」

And yet he had borne being run through by that lance.

「To die for a noble ideal.」

To throw your life away without hesitation for something worth dying for.

「To believe, and reach the stars.」

Dragon-Slaying. Challenge. Breakthrough. Indomitable. Requiem.

Najin's five stars blazed.

Flash.

Something shifted in the stage.

In Don Quixote's paint-stained world, a star shone in the sky that had been buried under layers of paint. Not one of Don Quixote's stars. These belonged to the countless constellations who had adventured alongside him, who had shared his journey.

They hadn't suddenly lit up.

They had always been there, always shining from that place. The paint had only covered them for a time.

"...Ah?"

Don Quixote stopped, for just a moment. He looked up at the sky without thinking. The master of this stage, thrown off by the change in his own domain. In that opening, Najin let his sword drop to his side.

He exhaled, long and slow.

"That is."

He called out in a clear, carrying voice. The words he hadn't been able to say before. The words Don Quixote always added after he spoke of chivalry.

"The duty of a knight."

「The duty of a knight.」

"No, it is the privilege."

「No, it is the privilege!」

Shouting it, Najin raised his sword. The moment he lifted it high enough to touch the sky, starlight poured down onto him.

Stars' Graveyard. La Mancha.

The moment he witnessed La Mancha's truth and the story of how this place came to exist, Najin had thought: here, of all places, there might be a chance.

A place called a Constellation's Tomb was, from the start, powerfully shaped by "individual perception, or narrative." It was molded by the lives they had walked, the stories they had accumulated, the way they had defined themselves.

Because a tomb was, at its core, the Imagery of a constellation.

Even in the Detached Star's tomb, Evil Dragon Ladon had grown larger or smaller according to Violet's perception. From that, Najin had once formed a hypothesis.

'Then, inside a Constellation's Tomb, could someone use power beyond what they actually possess?'

Just as Ladon had done. Might even someone who hadn't reached Transcendence be able to wield it, depending on the circumstances?

"It's possible," Merlin had answered. "Not just in a Star's Tomb, but in a constellation's domain as well, actually... but yes, it's possible."

Hearing that, Najin had reached his conclusion. That here, in La Mancha of all places, he could face Don Quixote.

La Mancha. The Stars' Graveyard.

This place was filled with stars who had adventured alongside Don Quixote and been laid to rest here when those adventures ended. The Carnival King had called all of it a lie, but Najin knew those had been genuine adventures, every last one.

And those stars, those dozens of constellations, were beings drawn in by Don Quixote's adventures.

Drawn to a knight who never stopped smiling.

Drawn to a Don Quixote who dreamed impossible dreams, challenged invincible foes, bore unbearable pain with laughter, threw even his life away without hesitation for what was noble, and always called it not a duty but a privilege.

They had always cheered for that Don Quixote. Always stepped in as his helpers, his companions.

Companions of the Ingenious Gentleman of Quixano, Don Quixote.

'And.'

Najin looked up at the sky. Starlight that had pierced through Don Quixote's paint-stained stage and descended all the way here was falling on him.

'They've made their judgment.'

The stars buried in this place had judged. That in this moment, the one who was truly Don Quixote was not the Star of Scorn, who mocked and looked down upon the world, but Najin, who stood with his sword pointed at that Star of Scorn and called out the chivalry the knight had forgotten.

Or perhaps they had simply wished it. For the Don Quixote who was coming apart to return to his senses. And for that, they were saying they would lend their strength freely.

There was no way to know which of the two it was.

But what Najin had to do was the same either way.

"That, precisely."

Najin smiled. Like the Star of Mirth. Like Don Quixote.

"Is this not the privilege that only a knight may enjoy? My lord."

Dozens of stars shone down on Najin's body. The power those stars carried pushed him toward the realm of Transcendence, a realm the Najin of right now could never touch on his own.

Rocinante's acceleration. The role bonus Sancho had given him. Even the stars borrowed from overhead, and only with all of that could Najin stand on even ground with Don Quixote.

So this was how impossibly distant Transcendence truly was.

A quiet shame at pulling every trick he had. He raised his sword all the same. There were fights where you had to win regardless of what it took, and he knew it.

The sword, raised high.

One deep breath. Najin settled into his stance.

'I only get one swing.'

Even brushing against Transcendence through borrowed power, he was no Transcendent. He could wield this strength fully exactly once. Deciding how to use that one swing wasn't difficult.

His most powerful single strike.

The figure who had become, for Najin, the symbol of absolute power.

First Sword.

The Star of Scorn before him would have no way of knowing. But somewhere far ahead, a certain knight would one day bring him down and claim one of his eyes. Najin swung that knight's sword.

Triumph.

Don Quixote's stage split apart.