Chapter 263 |
City of the Abyss, Artman (2)
A city built underground.
The underground city, where no light could seep in, was where criminals were cast away, a hell the Starlight Order had created to punish sinners.
At least, that was what Najin had always believed.
But beneath that hell was another hell. The bottom beneath the bottom, the lowest layer where discarded things were discarded once again, a city built at the end of a bottomless abyss. Najin stared at the city built beneath the underground city.
It did not suit the word hell.
It was pure white. Pure white buildings stood atop pure white stone. Spotless and immaculate, the white city gleamed in sunlight under a blue sky.
At the very bottom, in an abyss where neither sunlight nor starlight should have reached, there was a sky, something that should not have existed in an underground city. Narrowing his eyes, Najin thought,
“Star's Tomb?”
“It is and it isn’t. Hard to say. More than a tomb... it feels like something locked itself away...”
She stared at the structures with a conflicted expression. Najin followed her gaze.
A city made of white.
But in one place alone.
Only the massive lighthouse at the center of the city was not white. At its top, not a white flame but a black-red flame flickered. Najin frowned.
“A lighthouse is symbolic architecture, pointing to the Starlight Order’s patron deity, the Lighthouse that Illuminates All Things.”
That was why the Order always took great care to make sure the lighthouse emitted pure white light. Even the fact that Eurypylus, one of the Order’s greatest powers, was called the Lighthouse Keeper showed how sacred the Order considered the lighthouse.
“A lighthouse that always shines with pure white light.”
Starlight, a lighthouse that shone with starry light.
So why?
The lighthouse built in the deepest part of the Order scattered black-red light instead of white starlight. If that counted as starlight, then yes, it was starlight. There was a Constellation with a black-red star, even if only one.
“...”
Merlin silently raised her hand.
Her fingertip pointed at the lighthouse.
“That is.”
Merlin’s eyes went wide as she forced the words out through clenched teeth.
“That’s the Star of the Abyss.”
The lighthouse shone with the same light as the Baleful Star held by the Witch of the Abyss, ruler of Camlann. It was no coincidence that Merlin had felt the Abyss when she fell here. Abyssal light was leaking from that lighthouse.
“What the hell is this... no, why is the light of the Abyss in the middle of the continent? This cannot exist. It should never exist.”
Merlin swept back her hair.
She looked like she was trying to calm down with deep breaths, but she clearly could not. Her emotions spilled into Najin.
“A thousand years ago, Arthur traded everything he had to seal Camlann. I and the Round Table have guarded that seal for a thousand years. The seal is still intact. Camlann’s cursed things can leak into the Outland, but...”
Merlin ground her teeth.
“Light like that cannot leak outside.”
Beyond the Outland, in the middle of the continent.
Seeing Abyssal starlight that had penetrated as far as this place, Merlin burned with anger. It was completely justified. Something had happened that might render meaningless the seal her companions forged with their lives.
“Merlin.”
“...”
Merlin steadied her breathing. She barely calmed herself and nodded. This was the moment for cold judgment.
Najin was just as shaken.
He had expected something to be hidden beneath the underground city, but the Abyss? Any link to the Carnival King had already become secondary. Something much larger stood behind the Order.
What should he do now?
Just as Najin was thinking that,
Creeeak, clank.
The huge iron gate blocking the city entrance suddenly opened. As if inviting Najin inside. Najin’s eyes narrowed.
...This place had, at least in part, the same nature as Star's Tomb.
In other words, the moment Najin stepped in, the owner of this space became aware of him.
“...”
Najin stayed silent. He had no idea how to leave this place. There was only one path, the one in front of him.
It was dangerous. He had no idea what would happen.
“But...”
Even so, there was still only one road.
Najin exchanged a look with Merlin, then nodded.
There was no way but forward.
2.
As if it had no intention of stopping anyone, the city gate stood wide open, and Najin stepped inside.
The moment he set foot in that pure white city.
「From now on, I’m going to build an Order.」
He heard someone’s voice.
「Human lifespans are short. Too short, don’t you think? What are people supposed to do with only a hundred years? Honestly.」
Najin looked toward where the voice was coming from.
「They say you become free from lifespan if you reach Transcendence, but even then, once you pass 150, you still have to go outside. That makes it meaningless. This continent, the starting point where all Transcendents are born, has to change for any of this to matter.」
A woman stood there.
A woman with long silver hair. Leaning against a wall, she was speaking to someone.
「So I’m going to build an Order.」
「If I build an Order, I can keep changing the continent steadily, for a hundred years, two hundred years, for hundreds of years.」
「Then I’ll be able to fulfill my plan too.」
Najin looked at the person she was speaking to. A man who resembled her sat there. He shrugged and smiled.
「Saving one country wasn’t enough?」
「Not enough. The continent is huge.」
「So you want to change this entire land?」
「Yeah. It’s chaotic. There are too many dark corners in this world. Places no one sees, places left behind. Bringing light to places like that, that is what I should do.」
It was a memory of the Constellation that must have created this city. Najin could tell who the figures in that memory were.
He did not know who the woman was.
But the man she was speaking with was someone Najin knew.
「So, will you help me, Eurypylus?」
Lighthouse Keeper, Eurypylus.
* * *
Eurypylus walked.
As he walked, he recalled the past. The past was always polished in memory, made beautiful, but Eurypylus had no desire to beautify his own. It was not a past that could be wrapped in words like beautiful.
It was a foolish story.
And not a grand one either.
It was the story of dreamers who believed they could truly change the world. Eurypylus walked on with one eye closed.
「I’m going to build an Order.」
「So, will you help me, Eurypylus?」
The beginning had not been bad.
「Thank you, Eurypylus.」
She had always been full of drive, a woman who acted first, unlike him, who moved carefully after weighing everything. Traveling with her, as she moved with certainty and without a sliver of doubt whenever she believed she was right, had been enjoyable.
They saved people suffering under tyrants.
They killed dark mages.
They slew demons and restored peace to cities.
At times they intervened in wars between nations and helped soldiers who wanted nothing more than to return to their families.
They never doubted they were doing good. They reached out to the neglected and pulled them to their feet. As those acts repeated, something that could be called a force formed naturally.
She called it an Order.
「Starlight Order.」
Borrowing the name of the long-ago Starlight Order, she built the Order. She gathered those who shared her purpose and pushed ahead.
「We’re doing what’s right.」
Certain that they themselves were good.
「No. They were wrong.」
「This war is wrong.」
「This is wrong.」
They kept moving forward.
「It is right, isn’t it? Eurypylus.」
At some point, she started asking Eurypylus that question often. At some point, Eurypylus began answering with silence. Even he could no longer tell.
Saving one human was easy. A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand? That could be done. He had done it. He had even built perfectly ideal cities. He had the ability.
But once it passed a hundred thousand.
Once it expanded beyond a city to the scale of nations, it became nearly impossible. No matter how ideal a city was, corruption came in an instant. The weak could never remain good.
“...”
The people who had suffered under tyrants became tyrants themselves and oppressed the weak. A village where dark mages were killed and peace was restored collapsed once the tribute they had secured by offering children to dark mages ran dry. They thought they had ended a war, but once it ended, internal conflict killed more people than the war itself.
In the end, that was what it came down to.
None of it truly meant much. Doing good did not guarantee a good result.
「What is this, really? Why? I can’t understand why they do that. Don’t they have hearts? Shouldn’t they at least do this much? It’s not like I asked for something difficult. Was what I wanted really that extraordinary?」
She had started to question.
Eurypylus, in turn, found his answer.
“You expected too much from humans.”
Eurypylus muttered.
“People aren’t that good. Sometimes there are very special people who are kind, but most humans only know themselves. I don’t even think that’s bad.”
She was an idealist.
Eurypylus had no ideals.
“Maybe it was a difference in starting points. You grew up seeing good things. You grew up seeing beautiful things. You lived through only good, beautiful, perfect things, so of course the world looked beautiful to you.”
Eurypylus let out a faint laugh.
He had been the opposite.
He was a man born in the lowest and filthiest place, abandoned by his parents, who climbed high by his own strength. So Eurypylus knew.
How filthy people could become, how far they could sink into ugliness, and that humans by nature were not all that good.
“I believed it could become beautiful.”
Eurypylus let out a long breath.
“But I guess it couldn’t.”
That had been the conclusion he reached hundreds of years ago. What expression had she made when he said it? That day, she grabbed Eurypylus by the collar and said,
「No.」
「I can prove it.」
She said she only needed time.
That she still lacked experience, had not yet seen enough, still had too much she did not know.
So she asked him for time.
「Wait.」
She said it to Eurypylus, who expected nothing from the world and found no particular interest in life, and made her declaration.
「I’ll show you.」
She would show him.
That everything could be saved.
So wait until then.
That was the pledge Eurypylus had made with her, with the Lighthouse that Illuminates All Things. Just waiting. Waiting for the day of salvation that would come someday.
“...”
Eurypylus stopped walking.
“So this is it.”
After stopping, he said,
“The salvation you spoke of.”
Eurypylus smiled.
3.
Najin moved forward while peering through those memories.
The closer he got to the lighthouse.
The closer he got to that lighthouse steeped in black-red starlight, the more he felt his senses scream. His hair stood on end. His nerves prickled, and his eyes turned bloodshot.
And there, where Najin arrived,
A woman stood.
A woman leaning against the lighthouse, the owner of this city, and the one who had called Najin here...
“Are you the Lighthouse that Illuminates All Things?”
The patron deity of the Starlight Order.
The Lighthouse that Illuminates All Things.
“I used to have that name.”
“Then I take it that is no longer true.”
“Isn’t the lighthouse still out there? It just isn’t me. I didn’t need it, so I gave it to someone else. Sold it off for quite a high price.”
“...The Carnival King?”
“I think that was the name.”
Pure white hair and black-red eyes.
“Then.”
Najin looked at the woman before him.
“What should I call you now?”
“I am still a lighthouse.”
“...”
“A lighthouse always lights the way. People look where a lighthouse points and realize where they should go. So yes, I am still a lighthouse.”
Nine stars shone in the sky.
“A lighthouse that illuminates the Abyss.”
The Lighthouse of the Abyss smiled.
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