Chapter 358 |
City for the Forgotten (2)
Excalibur was a sword made by the Witch of the Abyss.
Najin's brow furrowed. He tried to read her intent by looking into her eyes, but those cloudy, mirror-like pupils reflected nothing but his own face.
"The Witch of the Abyss created Excalibur?"
"That's right."
"And why are you telling me this?"
"Because you were chosen by that sword without knowing anything, forced into a fate not of your own making. You have the right to hear this."
Guinevere spoke.
"People call Gramr a demonic sword and Excalibur a Holy Sword, but to me it's the other way around. Gramr at least changes depending on the nature of whoever holds it. Excalibur decides everything the moment someone grips it."
"Whoever is selected by Excalibur goes on a great adventure. They walk the Path of the Hero, singing of humanity's beauty, adorning the tale with the nobility and sublimity of people."
Chronicles of Arthur.
"And all those stories become stars, carved into Excalibur's blade."
Guinevere gestured toward Excalibur. She spoke while gazing at the blade where Najin's stars,the stories he had accumulated,were inscribed.
"And then."
She tapped the table lightly.
"The completed volume is offered up to the Witch of the Abyss."
Offered up. Like tribute.
"The Witch of the Abyss is, at her core, decline. When humanity develops and grows and enough history accumulates, she is the being that swallows all of it and resets everything... no, she is a phenomenon. The decline of civilization is a phenomenon that invariably accompanies history."
A being that embodied the fall, decay, and end of civilizations. That was the Witch of the Abyss at her core.
"And Excalibur comes to contain all the history of that age. What Excalibur selects is the one standing at the very front, pulling that era forward. Naturally, the history of humanity concentrates in that single person."
Decorated with the brightest stars, destined to become history itself,the symbol of its age. That was Excalibur's true nature, she said.
"Do you understand now?"
"......"
"What Excalibur selects is not a hero. It is a scapegoat to be offered to the witch in the name of that age."
"So what you're saying is."
"You are nothing more than a scapegoat. Being offered to the witch to postpone the inevitable end,that is your fate."
That was what it meant to be selected by Excalibur.
Guinevere watched Najin with pity as she spoke. Her gaze was full of compassion.
"Does any of it mean anything?"
Guinevere said.
"How many have there been over the past tens of thousands of years? How many were offered to the witch? And still, the world was pushed to the very brink of its end. Nine-tenths of the world was swallowed by darkness."
History from a thousand years ago.
"Arthur, our great king, was a miracle that appeared once in tens of thousands of years. That great hero knew he was a sacrifice, and yet..."
He had an adventure more radiant than anyone.
He drove back the darkness, expanded the domain of humanity, and pushed Camlann all the way to the edges of the Outland,a breathtaking feat.
"Even Arthur, who achieved all that, failed. He could not escape his fate and simply closed his eyes as a scapegoat. That is the history that has repeated itself for tens of thousands of years."
And the one who inherited what came after.
"Is you."
"......"
"I witnessed all of this history. Through the Holy Grail, I watched. The day even our king could not escape this fate, I made a decision."
"What decision?"
"That I had to prepare a way to avoid the worst."
She gestured to the city spread out behind her.
"I realized I had to prepare a contingency for the future in which you,the one who inherits Arthur's legacy,fail. That city is exactly that."
The Sediment City of human history.
The Sediment City.
2.
Pointing to the city she had named the resting place of human history, Guinevere stared at Najin. Even after hearing such a shocking account, his expression had not changed.
A brief silence.
It was Najin who broke it, as before.
"A contingency for my failure?"
"...Arthur appeared amid tens of thousands of years of repeating history. He was something exceptional. Expecting someone like him to appear again would be foolish."
Guinevere said.
"It took a hero of Arthur's caliber to bring a thousand years of peace. But that seal will break before long. If you sacrifice yourself, how many years can you actually hold things back?"
A hundred years? Two hundred?
"Within that short a span, would a hero worth sending out appear? Someone at least your equal? There's no guarantee of that. None anywhere. Camlann will keep expanding its territory and swallow the whole world just as it did a thousand years ago."
"......"
"This is a brutal war of attrition. You might even fail to seal the Witch of Camlann. Just as countless heroes before Arthur likely did."
"So?"
"So we have to prepare what comes next. Shouldn't we have a contingency ready for when you fail?"
Najin pointed past her.
"And that city is it,is that what you're saying?"
"Yes. The Ark of Humanity."
Guinevere nodded.
Najin had no way of knowing how that city functioned as an ark, or how it was meant to work. But there was still a question that had to be asked.
"I see."
Najin spoke, his expression flat.
"I find it difficult to understand how a Sediment City built by killing millions of people, destroying nations, and stripping the memories from countless heroes could possibly serve as a contingency."
"I already told you. Lesser Evil."
Lesser Evil. Not the best outcome, not the second best,a contingency designed solely to avoid the very worst.
"We know it is not a righteous act. It is something that can never be forgiven. Something that deserves condemnation."
But, she said.
"When you weigh the end of the world against millions of lives, doesn't the scale tip one way regardless?"
"So you made the Selection?"
Did you select where humanity would be sacrificed? Did you kill millions of people as though you were a god? Guinevere did not dispute what Najin's blunt questions implied.
"Yes."
No excuse. No rebuttal.
Instead she held his gaze.
"I am,and this city is,a question posed to you. A question directed at the one who inherits Arthur's legacy."
She did not deny that she was the villain here.
"The path you walk is surely righteous. Beautiful and glorious. But if that glory cannot pierce the Witch of the Abyss, is it not glory without purpose?"
Tap.
"The world is about results."
Tap.
"Results come first; process comes after. No matter how beautiful that process is, if it ends in failure, the process has no value. A truth so obvious it barely needs saying."
Tap, tap, tap...
Rain fell through the mindscape. Whether it had begun in the Underground City or in the Sediment City, he could not tell. He did not know, but rain was falling here.
"Condemn me. Resent me. The child who entered my city alongside you has every right to resent me. The vengeance that child pursues is just."
"Are you prepared to die?"
"That wouldn't be possible, would it? Even if I die, it will be after all of this is finished. Once the world's end is averted, I intend to face judgment for what I've done."
Najin nodded.
"So the reason you told me all of this is... that you want me to leave things be? Since this is a contingency prepared for my failure, wait until everything is over before seeking judgment,something like that?"
"That's about right."
"We are not exactly at odds with you. No intention of obstructing you, and no intention of siding with the Witch of the Abyss. So leave us alone. That's what you mean."
"You're easy to talk to. Yes. You're right."
Guinevere nodded.
As she said, Najin was not someone who was hard to reason with. He listened when spoken to and did his best to understand the other person's position. He was not the kind of person who simply refused to see another's perspective.
"Understood."
Even now, Najin understood Guinevere's choices. He understood what she was trying to say, and why she had made them.
Guinevere and Lancelot.
They too had been heroes. They had once crossed the continent alongside Arthur, sprinting with everything they had toward the best possible ending. But at the end of their journey, they witnessed something that convinced them: a best ending could never exist in this story.
And so they chose the Lesser Evil.
Najin understood that, and in part he even sympathized.
"I do understand."
But.
"Even so, I cannot leave it be."
"......"
"Unlike you two, who retreated toward a Lesser Evil, I know people who kept their eyes on the Best and endured for a thousand years. For their sake, too, I cannot leave this alone."
Standing amid the falling rain, Najin looked at Guinevere. His eyes were cold.
...He could understand another person's choices.
But that would not change his own. Understanding and deciding were separate things. If anything, having heard her out, his resolve had only hardened.
"In the end, there's only one real point of contention, isn't there?"
Najin drew his sword.
He drove the raised Excalibur into the space between himself and Guinevere. With a crack, the table shattered, and Excalibur buried itself in the ground.
A point where neither compromise nor retreat was possible.
His hand resting on Excalibur where it stood between them, Najin held Guinevere's gaze.
"If I prove right here that I am more capable than your Lesser Evil, that settles it. There's no need to prepare a Lesser Evil when the Best plainly exists. Wouldn't you agree?"
For the first time, Guinevere laughed.
She looked at him as though she could not quite believe it.
"Not wrong."
"Right. A simple matter."
"I,we,will doubt you, and we need only prove here that you could never be the Best."
"And I need only prove that I am more capable than you. That's all it comes down to."
She nodded.
"Yes, a duel, then. The winner takes everything and the loser loses everything. Fair warning: I will not go easy on you just because you are Arthur's successor. The moment you set foot in this city, there are only two outcomes."
Her pupils glowed red.
Those cloudy eyes were sharp now, for the first time.
"Kill me and Lancelot. Or if not that, become part of this city yourself."
Those were her last words before both of them rose from their seats.
The negotiation had broken down.
All that remained was to stake their lives on proving their own rightness.
"Ah."
Before the mindscape collapsed, Najin spoke.
"It would hardly be fair if only I walked away with information. You told me quite a bit about Excalibur."
"That was your rightful due. Not something I granted you,something you should have known from the beginning."
"Even so, you showed goodwill. So let me share one thing in return..."
Najin pulled Excalibur free from the ground.
"I was not exactly selected by Excalibur."
Blink. Guinevere went still.
"...What?"
Najin pointed up at the sky.
His stars were there, and among them the seventh shone brilliantly.
The Star of Selection.
A star that could never have been earned by merely being selected by Excalibur. Pointing at it, Najin spoke.
"I chose Excalibur."
Guinevere stared at him, plainly at a loss for what that meant, and Najin smiled.
"You'll understand soon enough."
3.
Close your eyes, open them, and no time had passed at all. He had only just set foot in the Domain of Forgetting and was still falling toward her sanctuary.
Falling, Najin looked.
At the city Guinevere had built.
She had called it a contingency. An ark of her own making. A Lesser Evil prepared against the possibility of Najin's failure. How this city was meant to be used, he still had no idea.
That was something he would have to learn from here on.
Merlin was beside him as he fell.
"Merlin."
-Yeah.
"Did you hear?"
-Hear what?
Apparently Merlin had not. Guinevere surely knew Merlin was inside Najin, and she had invited only Najin to that place.
The things Guinevere had told him.
Najin turned the story of Excalibur over in his mind. It would be the truth. Guinevere had not seemed to be lying, and there was no reason for her to lie.
Then had Lancelot betrayed Arthur because he knew that truth? If so, it looked less like betrayal and more like an attempt to stop Arthur's sacrifice.
In Najin's view, that was not the whole of it.
A few things about the story nagged at him. Guinevere had not lied, but she did not seem to know everything either. To begin with, the Arthur Najin had seen in his memories...
He was not the kind of person who would learn his own future and choose, without resistance, to offer himself as a sacrifice.
There was something more.
Something that Guinevere, Lancelot, and Merlin did not know. Arthur had kept something hidden right up until the very last moment.
"......"
He could not know yet what that was,but what he had to do now was clear. Najin gripped Excalibur. Falling, he thought.
Fate was forced upon you, she had said.
"Give me a break."
His story had not been swept along by some grand current beyond his control. He had seized that current with his own hands.
Clutching the Star of Selection.
Najin set foot in the Sediment City.