Chapter 361 |
Argonaut (1)
After parting ways with Blue Spear, Linden Valterhorn, Najin headed straight for the second tier. Climbing the stairs, he turned over the story Blue Spear had shared with him.
In that story, Galahad had said the tower bore the name Argo.
Argo. Najin had heard the word before. It was the name of the ship that had carried the heroes of distant legend across the sea. And the heroes who sailed that ship were called the Argonauts.
The Argo-a ship that carried Argonauts.
Why would this tower be given that name? Why had Galahad called it an ark?
"An ark that will one day cleave through the Abyss and press forward."
That phrase stuck with Najin.
The word ark originally meant a rectangular vessel, but its meaning had long since shifted. The ark spoken of in ancient myth was never a simple boat.
A ship that, when the world stood on the edge of destruction, selected and carried those worth preserving into the end. That was what the ark of myth meant. So in time the word had come to carry the meaning of a refuge against annihilation, something like a final hope.
Argo. Argonaut. And ark.
Najin turned the three words over in his mind. He let out a long breath and ran his hand along Excalibur's hilt.
"I think I have some idea."
"Of what?"
"How Guinevere intends to use her sanctuary. What she was planning to do with the power of Oblivion."
He had a rough guess. He did, but he set aside the business of testing whether it was right. Whatever the purpose of this Domain turned out to be, what he had to do right now had not changed.
"For now, let's go up."
The goal given to him was simple and direct: climb the tower.
Ascending the stairs toward the second tier, Najin steadied his breathing. It was going to be a hard road, he was certain. A place where physical death meant nothing, where victory was only possible when the opponent acknowledged defeat.
And those imprisoned here were all heroes who had each defined their own era. Even if their records had been erased and forgotten, people once called heroes were gathered in this place.
More than a hundred floors. He would have to wrest victory from more than a hundred heroes.
Najin knew well how difficult it was to make someone with an unbreakable spirit say the words "I have lost." This won't be easy. Bracing himself with that thought, he moved forward, and...
"I yield. Go on up."
Blink.
His expectations shattered the moment he set foot on the second tier, the twentieth floor.
2.
"My name is Trex, a champion of the Allied Nations. Are you acquainted with Sir Albert, the Champion of the Echo? I'm from the same era as him, though I don't know how much time has passed out there."
The hero of the twentieth floor, Trex.
He introduced himself as a champion who had served the Allied Nations and lived in the same age as Albert.
"Sir Albert was a man from around six hundred years ago. It seems roughly six hundred years have passed."
"Ha, six hundred years. A staggering span. Still, it eases my mind that you remember Albert's name. Makes me think, well, even that wretched country of mine managed to produce at least one hero!"
"Did you dislike the Allied Nations?"
"Oh, absolutely. I despised them with everything I had. I was called a champion, but even by my own reckoning I was a man too shameful for the title."
Trex smiled with a bitter twist.
"The so-called champions were there to line the pockets of the rotten higher-ups and guard their storehouses. There were some who weren't like that, but I wasn't one of them. I lived a shameful life."
"......"
"Ah, I've run on too long. I had no intention of blocking your path. Step right past me, go on up."
"Please, don't."
Najin shook his head and sat down.
Trex blinked. Then he murmured, "Well, I'm grateful for that," and began to tell the story of his life. Najin listened in silence.
"If there is one thing I truly liked about that wretched Allied Nations, it would have to be Sir Albert! He was a real champion. Unlike me, a man genuinely worthy of respect. I used to wonder how such a remarkable figure could come out of a country so rotten..."
He fought witches, killed dragons, and defended the Allied Nations. Trex smiled as he recounted Albert's deeds.
"I looked up to him. There were moments, shameful as it is to admit, when I felt proud that I held the same title of champion as he did. He was the Allied Nations' pride. He was my idol."
That was why, Trex said with a bitter smile.
"When the order came down to hunt him, I had no choice but to stay silent. In love with a witch? Sir Albert? I thought I couldn't understand it, but when I actually stood before him, my thinking changed."
"Changed how?"
"Sir Albert was still Sir Albert. A champion worthy of the name, always speaking of justice with a straight back. Not a man tainted enough that I could bring my blade to bear against him."
Once you know that, what else can you do?
Trex gave a short laugh and drummed his fingers against his sword's hilt.
"Rather than kill my own idol with my own hands, I decided I'd simply die instead. I told Sir Albert to run, then stood in the way of the Allied Nations' forces and the witches. Looking back, it was madness."
"And at the end of all that..."
"That's right. Something caught me, and when I came to my senses, I was here. Hearing from the heroes in this place, I learned that everyone who ends up here has been erased from history."
Trex let out a short breath.
"I thought, well, good. A man like me is better off erased. Still, Sir Albert seems to have gotten what he wanted. The fact that you remember his name tells me that much."
"...I'm actually acquainted with his wife and children."
"Hahaha! Glad to hear it! Her name was Rena, I believe? That country did terrible things to her. I always meant to apologize to her someday... well, I'll ask you to pass that along."
Najin blinked.
"Did you know?"
"Know what?"
"That I'm not one of the forgotten. That I'm someone who can actually leave this place."
"Of course."
Trex pointed at Najin.
"Unlike the forgotten ones, you're still shining, aren't you? There's a radiance that only belongs to those living in the present."
"......"
"Why else would I acknowledge defeat before we even crossed swords? The ghosts of the past have no business grabbing at the heels of someone still living in the present. That would be wrong."
Go on up, then.
As Trex said those words, Najin gave a short bow and lifted his sword. The light of Excalibur caught Trex's eye, and he stared, then breathed a sound of wonder.
"This... is an honor."
"Sir Trex."
"Ah, don't do that. I'm really fine..."
"I'd like to ask you for a bout."
"......"
After a moment of silence, Trex wiped at the corner of his eye.
"...You honor me far beyond what I deserve."
"Not at all. Not in the slightest."
Najin took his stance and gave his name. If one side had offered their name before a duel, the other had to do the same. Trex struck a fine pose and called out:
"I am Trex, champion of the Allied Nations and brave companion of Sir Albert!"
I'll take you up on that bout.
Blades clashed. In that splendid duel, Najin learned Trex's swordsmanship.
Twentieth floor, cleared.
Najin had assumed Trex was a special exception, but through the twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third floors, through the entire second tier and up into the third, the same thing kept repeating.
The floors beyond the thirtieth were not much different.
"Excalibur! So the one who drew that sword has finally appeared. Truly worth celebrating. Tell me, is the world a little more livable now? Has the age of sending children to the battlefield ended?"
They asked Najin about what lay ahead. To them it was the future; to Najin it was the present. Hearing it, they smiled with satisfaction.
"Then my efforts were worth something. Nothing turns my stomach like children wandering onto a battlefield. Children should be children. They should laugh and play with friends their own age, and grow up under their parents' love."
Some said that and stepped aside.
"Descendant of a great knight, would you grant me the honor of crossing blades with you?"
"Of course."
Others were satisfied with a brief exchange and opened the way. Even when they did not ask for a spar, Najin went out of his way to request one.
"You're free to walk past. Don't waste your strength here. Your time is too precious to spend on something like this."
"It isn't a waste."
Even when they declined, Najin did not back down, and eventually they agreed, however reluctantly.
"Really..."
Even pulling out their weapons against their will, they could not hide their smiles. Showing the martial arts they had built up to someone who came after them, they found joy in it. And Najin did not let that joy stop there.
He learned their swordsmanship, their spearwork, their weapon arts.
He showed them their own techniques reflected in his movements right before their eyes, and however briefly, he became their student. The martial arts of people erased and forgotten from the world, leaving nothing behind anywhere, Najin willingly carried all of it into his own blade.
"Ah..."
Some heroes rejoiced, some wept, and some were speechless yet still tried their hardest to teach Najin everything they had. The years they had lived, Najin carved into his own star.
Passing through the third tier and stepping into the fourth at floor forty, Najin had to finally admit it.
His predictions had been wrong.
He had been thinking about it the wrong way.
"Why do I acknowledge defeat so easily? You're asking why I'd open the path for you without even fighting?"
"Yes, that's what I asked."
"That's an obvious thing to ask about."
The one settled on floor forty-one.
Abraham, a pillar of the Empire who had been active four hundred years ago. He laughed at Najin's question as if the boy had asked something self-evident.
"Like I said, you're a man of the present, aren't you? You're not one of the forgotten, and you've set foot here to bring down the Star of Oblivion. Am I wrong?"
"You're not wrong."
"Then let me ask in return: what reason would we have to stand in your way?"
Abraham looked at Najin.
"We are already finished."
He ran a hand over his rusted armor.
"Beings of the past, is what I mean. There's still regret, of course. We didn't settle things properly, and none of us met an end worthy of a hero. On top of that, our very existence was erased from the world? That's a truly sad thing. So everyone clings to climbing this tower."
"Then why..."
"Even so, we are heroes. Boy."
Abraham smiled.
He tapped his temple with a finger.
"What makes up who I am right now is not only my own memories. How that era recorded and remembered the existence called Abraham, all of it, together, has come to form who I am today."
He continued.
"I was a pillar of the Empire, and I was a hero. I couldn't always live like one, but at the very least I tried to appear as one in front of others. That was the role of the Empire's pillar."
"......"
"Not just me. Everyone gathered here would say the same. Each had their own reasons for becoming a hero. Those reasons may have varied, but the essence is similar."
He raised a hand.
"I want to fix what's wrong with the world. There is a tragedy I cannot ignore. I don't want to pass this tragedy on to the next generation. I cannot leave this hellish world to the children who come after us."
And so they took up swords, shields, weapons.
"May tomorrow be better than today."
With that wish.
Not for the present, but for a future they would never see, they threw themselves forward.
"May tomorrow be more peaceful than today."
Abraham extended a finger.
It pointed at Najin.
"We risked our lives for the future and threw ourselves into it. Even if the end we met was tragic, we never forgot that purpose. Perhaps we might have, in time, but at least in this space, forgetting is not permitted."
Ironic, isn't it? That forgetting is the one thing forbidden in the sanctuary of Oblivion. Abraham said that and looked at Najin with a gentle smile.
"We who devoted our lives to a better tomorrow... blocking the path of someone who will actually live that tomorrow? What could be more contradictory, more absurd?"
And even if we did, it would only be to teach you something, not to stop you.
"......"
Najin was silent.
"Child who sits in the place reserved as the Empire's cornerstone, heir to the greatest knight."
The look in his eyes was that of an elder watching a grandchild.
"What is the Empire like now? Is it a little more livable?"
Abraham smiled, a touch of bitterness in it.
"I'm ashamed to say I wasn't strong enough to carry my era forward on my own. I tried, but the Empire was still in turmoil inside and out. I was never sure whether anything I accomplished actually helped."
"...You said you were a pillar four hundred years ago?"
"That's right. Calculating from what you've told me about the Imperial calendar, that would be about right."
Abraham's story was not written in any history outside this place. But after working out the timeline from what he had shared, Najin opened his mouth with a quiet smile.
"Not long after your death, a hero was born in the Empire."
Najin told him the history of the Empire. He told the story of a hero who appeared in the era that followed Abraham, a knight who wore a golden-horned helm.
Wars ended. The chaos settled. The Empire reclaimed its peace. That peace had continued for three hundred years, down through Gerd and all the way to his own generation.
Finishing the story, Najin smiled.
"Yes. It's livable."
He gestured to his own coat.
"And since I've taken the pillar's seat, it should get a little more livable still. I'm more capable than I might look."
"Well, you did pull out Excalibur. Your capabilities speak for themselves."
Abraham laughed.
"So that's how it is. Those friends I glimpsed back then must be the Golden Horn Knights you're talking about..."
While he was turning Najin's story over in his mind, Najin rose to his feet.
"Cornerstone of the Empire, Dawn Horn, Najin."
Najin gave his name. Abraham blinked, then let out a short laugh and stood.
"First Pillar of the Empire, Tomorrow Pillar, Abraham."
I'll take you up on that bout.