Chapter 201 - The One Who Forgot (3)

Constellations define themselves in their own ways.

For instance, Quixote, the Star of Scorn for Time, made looking down on everything, scorning it, and belittling it his identity.

The Emperor of Revelry, whom Quixote served, defined herself along similar lines. She perceived an individual life—and beyond that, the entire world—as a play. If everything was merely a play, she asked, what reason was there not to make a mockery of it? And so she laughed at all things in the world.

In this way, Constellations viewed the world in their own ways. They defined everything to suit themselves, establishing their identities. Unshakable confidence in oneself led, in turn, to strength.

“Merlin.”

And Najin...

“There’s somewhere I need to visit tonight.”

Whether by chance or inevitability, Najin had come to stand at the opposite pole from the Emperor of Revelry. He had yet to define himself, but he knew very well which path he ought to walk.

A path diametrically opposed to hers.

If the Emperor of Revelry slipped into knights’ hesitation and anguish to tempt them, leading them to deny their own lives with their own hands... then Najin intended to walk a path that was the very opposite of that goddamn devil’s.

「Are you not already knight enough?」

Your anguish has value.

Your hesitation is not worthless. Those things give your life value. Even if no one else remembers, I will. Your life is not so insignificant that it deserves to be reduced to a mere farce.

It was a path Najin had been walking all along, but the Emperor of Revelry’s existence had made it all the more certain. Having resolved to walk that path, he could not turn his back on Blue Spear.

“Where to?”

“Let’s head outside first.”

While Blue Spear slept, Najin crossed the desert and left the forbidden ground. He drew in the cool air, then let out a long breath.

“I don’t know much about Blue Spear. He probably doesn’t know much about himself, either. But one thing is certain.”

Najin took a step forward.

“We can’t leave him like that.”

Living for a day, dying for a day.

Every day, he lost his memories. Every day, he felt fear. And he repeated the same task without even knowing what value any of it held.

“That’s just not right.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I think we need to learn more about Blue Spear first... Only then will we know what to do.”

“That’s true. Whether you’re going to grant him funeral rites or resolve his lingering regrets, you have to know about him first...”

“Then we need to find someone, don’t we?”

When Merlin asked whom, Najin answered.

“Someone who might know Blue Spear.”

Blue Spear’s homeland, Londinel, had fallen. As if that were not enough, it had also been erased from history. With only a tiny fraction of its records remaining, discovering who “Blue Spear” was would be all but impossible.

But Najin knew someone.

Someone who remembered the forgotten nation of Londinel. Someone who might know about Blue Spear as well.

“Kirchhoff.”

Kirchhoff, the last knight of Londinel.

2.

Kirchhoff, Sword Master of the Forgotten Kingdom.

This Sword Master, who was occasionally sighted along the Boundary of the Outer Lands or on battlefields, was naturally a towering figure even among the great. Though he possessed only one star, he was powerful enough to have slain a seven-star Constellation single-handedly.

Ordinarily, meeting someone of that stature was not simply a matter of wanting to. One would have to hope for a chance encounter...

“Why, isn’t this Sir Najin?”

But Najin was an exception.

Najin went to one of the battlefields relatively close to Blue Spear’s forbidden ground and sought out its commander. The commander was from the Empire and knew Najin well.

“I’ve heard much of your reputation. You distinguished yourself on the western front too, I hear? Your recent assistance on the northern front has given us some breathing room.”

With an affable smile, the commander shook Najin’s hand. He doubtless wished to make a good impression on the Empire’s next hero, who enjoyed the support of the Empire’s foremost warrior, but that was not the whole reason.

While traveling through the Outer Lands, Najin would occasionally stop at nearby battlefields to lend his aid. That assistance was so well-timed and effective that the commanders knew his name well. The commander speaking with him now had also benefited from his help.

“You have a favor to ask? Of course I’ll help! Let’s talk inside first.”

Thanks to that, the commander showed no discomfort or resentment at speaking respectfully to a young man several decades his junior and bowing his head to him.

On the contrary, pleased that he could help Najin, he ushered him into the tent.

“You wish to see Sir Kirchhoff? Ordinarily, he isn’t the sort to come just because someone asks to meet him... But a request from you might be a different matter, Sir Najin.”

Najin had met Kirchhoff a few times. They had encountered each other during the battle against Ermina, the Witch of Flickering Flames, and again during the battle against the Emperor of Revelry.

“Please tell him I have something to discuss concerning a knight of Londinel.”

“Ah, certainly, if that’s the reason...”

The commander nodded and sent a telegram somewhere. Some time later, Kirchhoff arrived at the tent where Najin was waiting alone.

“I’d like to say it’s been a long time, but we saw each other only a few months ago, so it hasn’t been that long, has it?”

He chuckled and dropped into a chair.

“Good to see you, boy. No, I suppose I should call you Najin now. Unlike then, you’ve earned stars. Would you prefer Dawnstar?”

“Please feel free to call me Najin.”

“All right, Najin. Since we each took a friendly turn driving sword aura into the Emperor of Revelry, I’d like to have a drink and chat about that over a glass, but...”

Kirchhoff narrowed his eyes.

“It seems there’s something we ought to discuss first. You asked for me? I hear you have something to say about a knight of Londinel.”

Najin nodded. Kirchhoff listened, inviting him to continue, and Najin told him about the Blue Spear he had encountered by chance.

“... And so I came to find you.”

Having finished his explanation, Najin looked at Kirchhoff.

“Do you happen to know Blue Spear, the knight of Londinel?”

“Blue Spear, you say.”

Kirchhoff took out a sheet of paper and drew a picture.

“Does his spear happen to look like this?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Then I believe he is the man I know. I wondered where he had gone. So that’s where he is.”

Kirchhoff’s expression darkened as he murmured those words. He sighed deeply and pressed a hand to his forehead.

“He loses his memories every day.”

And yet he still wielded his spear, day after day.

Kirchhoff ground his teeth.

“First, let me thank you for finding him, Najin. Unfortunately, though, I don’t think I can fulfill your wish.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even knowing where he is, I cannot go there. To me, that place would be forbidden ground. And the moment I approached it... my memories would probably be in danger as well.”

What did that mean?

Seeing Najin tilt his head in puzzlement, Kirchhoff gave a weary smile and spoke.

“I suppose I need to explain Londinel’s fall first. How much do you know about Londinel?”

“I know it fell three hundred years ago, and that the Emperor of Revelry and the star of Oblivion were involved. I also know that most of its records were erased as a result.”

“To add one more name, Lancelot, a former knight of the Round Table, was involved as well. My homeland met its end at the hands of those three stars and several witches.”

A destruction in which no fewer than three Constellations had intervened.

Yet Londinel had still managed to leave behind a record that such a nation had existed. Having faced the Emperor of Revelry and those she had caused to be utterly forgotten, Najin understood just how remarkable that was.

“Londinel was once a great nation that rivaled the Empire. Just as the Empire has its Five Pillars, Londinel had three spears. They were bestowed upon the noblest knights.”

Kirchhoff held up three fingers.

“Red Spear, Blue Spear, and Golden Spear. The bearers of those three spears were all great. All three were transcendent beings, worthy of being called paragons of knighthood.”

Perhaps that was why, Kirchhoff mused, folding his fingers down one by one.

“On the day Londinel fell, they sacrificed themselves. They sought to leave some trace of the nation of Londinel, whatever the cost. Two of them gave their lives to let a single knight escape the dying kingdom.”

There was no need to ask who that knight was.

“And the remaining one sacrificed himself to protect that last knight’s memories, so that he could retain them intact and would not forget Londinel. He declared that if even a single person remembered Londinel in its entirety... Londinel would be eternal.”

That man had been the bearer of Blue Spear.

As he spoke, Kirchhoff—the last knight of Londinel, the only person who remembered it in its entirety—smiled bitterly.

“But his words were a lie.”

“A lie...?”

“My memories aren’t intact. I remember everything else, but I cannot recall the bearer of Blue Spear, the very man who protected my memories. That must have been the price he paid.”

To be remembered by no one.

Not even himself.

That, Kirchhoff said, was the price Blue Spear had paid.

“Blue Spear’s very existence is a kind of forbidden ground to me. I can neither approach those memories nor approach him.”

Kirchhoff’s expression as he said this was unlike his usual one. The man who was always brimming with confidence, who always looked as dashing as a hero from a fairy tale, was nowhere to be seen.

“I told you once before why I wield my sword, didn’t I?”

“You said it was your liege’s final wish.”

“I did. To add to that, it’s also a compulsion. It is something I must do, having survived through so many sacrifices.”

A man groaning beneath the burden he carried.

A man who felt the weight pressing down on his shoulders was there instead. Kirchhoff gave a sheepish smile and spoke.

“Najin? May I ask you a favor?”

When Najin asked what it was, Kirchhoff answered.

“I’m going to tell you as much as I can about the title ‘Blue Spear’ and everything connected to it. I cannot remember who its bearer was, but I should at least be able to tell you the things surrounding him.”

He would tell Najin that story.

“Please pass it on to him. And...”

Kirchhoff thumped his fist against his heart.

“Tell him that I am who I am today because of him. That the greenhorn he saved still wields his sword as a knight of Londinel. That I am moving forward, step by step, to reclaim Londinel...”

Letting out a long breath, Kirchhoff smiled.

The forlorn man of a moment ago was gone. Once again wearing the dashing smile of a fairy-tale hero, he declared,

“Tell him his devotion was worth it.”

That was the message he wished Najin to deliver.

3.

After spending several days traveling back and forth between the battlefield and the forbidden ground, Najin headed into the heart of the desert. The sun had already set there, and Blue Spear was asleep with his head bowed near the tent at its center.

Najin sat down before him.

Recalling what Kirchhoff had told him and organizing it in his mind, he took the cross-star spear from his back and planted it in the middle of the desert.

Then he considered what he ought to do, and what he could do.

Time passed.

The sun that had set slowly rose again. As morning came to the desert, Blue Spear opened his eyes. He gazed at the world with clear yet empty eyes, then turned over the hourglass and opened his diary.

RUSTLE

Born anew, Blue Spear leafed through the diary as though searching for who he had been. But the answer was not written there. Only what he had to do.

“Good to see you, Blue Spear.”

Najin stood before him.

“I am Najin. Najin, a free knight. There should be an entry about me on page 781 of your diary.”

“Yes, there is.”

“I’ve come because I have a message for you, and a favor to ask.”

A favor? Blue Spear blinked.

“Please teach me your spear arts.”

Holding the cross-star spear, Najin knelt on one knee before Blue Spear.

“Teach me the spear arts of Londinel—the arts you have preserved for three hundred years.”

That would be the first step.