Chapter 213 - Black Spire (4)

Najin recalled the day he first met Merlin.

To be honest, neither could have made a worse first impression. To Merlin, Najin was an insolent brat who had insulted Arthur. To Najin, Merlin made him wonder, 'That's the legendary archmage?'

Merlin, openly displaying her hostility. And himself, looking back at her.

The only difference between then and now was that Merlin's eyes no longer shone.

'No, there's one more.'

Back then, he had been wary of Merlin. Now he wasn't.

'There's no need.'

Najin abruptly plopped down. Knowing that Merlin disliked looking up at people, he lowered himself to eye level so she wouldn't have to raise her head.

"..."

Merlin narrowed her eyes at him. She looked as though she had been about to tell him not to look down on her, only for him to lower himself before she could get the words out, leaving her with nothing to say.

"I'd only heard stories about you being the greatest mage, Merlin. I'd never seen it for myself."

Najin spoke as he surveyed the frozen ground.

"You certainly deserve the title. It looks like over a hundred stars have fallen."

"Three hundred eighty-one."

"Oh. So roughly sixty constellations?"

"About that many."

Merlin exhaled, her breath misting white.

"I thought I told you to run. Why are you still here?"

"I wanted to know what the greatest mage was like as a person."

"What a ridiculous child. You risked your life coming all this way just because you were curious about that?"

Merlin laughed in disbelief at his answer. Before long, her hollow laughter turned derisive.

"Well? What do you think?"

"About what?"

"Now that you've seen this supposedly great mage for yourself, what do you think? Nothing special, am I? I'd imagine you're disappointed."

Merlin sneered.

"Greatness, stars, Mystery, the Ten Circles, whatever... In the end, it's all empty. What's the point if I can't achieve even the one thing I want?"

"That doesn't sound like something a person who fought over a hundred Constellations and buried sixty of them should say."

"I'm venting my anger. Wasting my emotions on something meaningless. None of this changes anything."

The devastated ground.

Merlin murmured as she looked across the frozen earth. Her eyes remained hollow. Empty eyes that could find value in nothing.

"..."

Najin had seen eyes like those before.

"You..."

Many, many times.

"You're planning to die."

2.

"..."

Merlin remained silent, and Najin looked into her eyes. He had seen eyes like those often. He knew very well what people who looked at the world that way chose to do.

He had seen it far too often in the underground city.

Eyes that found no value in life. Eyes emptied of any reason to keep living, any reason not to die, or any lingering attachment.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yes."

"Well, you're right."

Merlin did not deny it.

"Then leave. This isn't something I want anyone else to see."

"..."

"I said leave."

Najin didn't move. He simply sat beside Merlin, silently looking at the frozen ground. Watching his profile, Merlin eventually let out a laugh.

"You're a strange child."

"You look like you have a lot to say. If there's something you want to talk about, go ahead."

"To you? Someone I've only just met?"

"Wouldn't that make it easier to talk freely? You wouldn't have to worry about what I think."

"You have a point."

Murmuring those words, Merlin let out a long breath.

"The truth is..."

"Yes?"

"People call me a hero, a savior. But I'm not any of those things. I've never wanted to save the world."

These were feelings she had never shared with anyone at the Round Table.

Merlin spoke of things she had been unable to tell her closest companions precisely because they were so close. It was the end anyway, she thought. What did it matter?

"None of that mattered to me. Truly, none of it."

"Then what did matter?"

"Reality."

Merlin added, murmuring,

"A reality more beautiful than dreams."

"This is a secret, but... well, what do secrets matter when I'm going to die anyway? I'm half fairy."

"... Fairy?"

"Yes. A fairy who lives in the night, to be precise. Put more simply, a fairy who lives in dreams."

Merlin gazed at the world with dreamy eyes.

"We can create anything we want in dreams. Truly, anything. Then is there any need to abandon a perfect dream and live in reality? That's what my kin thought."

And so they chose to live in dreams. They had no reason to leave a dream that held everything and venture into reality. Reality was filthy, messy, confusing, and full of pain, while dreams were incomparably beautiful.

Then why insist on living in reality?

Was there any reason to endure that pain?

They could find no answer to those questions. And so the fairies who dreamed became fairies who lived in dreams.

"But..."

But, Merlin said.

"I'm half fairy, but my other half is human. And that half refused to let me live in dreams. Humans are a race that lives in reality, after all."

One of Merlin's eyes was dreamy, but the other was clear.

"I wanted a reality more beautiful than dreams. I wanted to see things I'd never seen in dreams, things I couldn't imagine. And Arthur and the Round Table showed them to me."

A gentle smile settled on Merlin's lips, as though she were remembering the past. But it did not last long.

"It was wonderful. But in the end, it was over."

Her eyes grew hollow.

"The Round Table split apart. The knights betrayed us. People who had been comrades drew their swords to kill each other. And Arthur looked so sad. Then he left the Round Table behind and went away alone. As though he'd been alone from the beginning."

Her voice trembled.

"Don't follow me, Merlin. This is the end of my journey. You knew it too, didn't you? That this was the ending I would choose. Put a full stop to my story with your Mystery. That's what Arthur says. He said that, then left. Then he ended his story however he pleased. However he pleased, all on his own!"

With a trembling hand, Merlin clawed at her forearm.

"I can't even take revenge, no matter how much I want to. I can't enter Camlann. Arthur sealed that place, and that's what he decreed. Why? Why...?"

As though she couldn't bear it unless she clawed at something.

"He promised me."

Merlin murmured weakly.

"He promised to show me a utopia I could never conjure in my dreams. And he broke that promise. Aren't knights supposed to keep their promises, no matter what? Why...?"

Why, Merlin repeated, biting down hard on her lip.

"Why did you leave me behind and go alone?"

She opened her hand.

Twelve stars shone there. Merlin closed her hand around the twelfth, the brightest of them all.

"In the end, this is my final destination."

The star of Terminus.

"Everything points to the end of the story. Is there any reason for me to keep living?"

The star of Terminus.

Her Mystery, Full Stop.

"So I have to end it."

"..."

"Arthur asked me to protect the world. But why should I? This world holds no value for me anymore. That's gone. What do I care whether it perishes?"

Merlin sneered.

"Well? I'm more horrible, selfish, and wicked than you thought, aren't I? Sorry. Did I shatter your illusions?"

Seeing Merlin's taunting smile, Najin shrugged and answered lightly.

"Sorry, but I never had that many illusions about you."

"... What?"

"My circumstances make it rather hard to have any."

No matter how grand a hero history made Merlin out to be, spending twenty-four hours a day with her made it impossible to harbor such illusions.

"So, are you planning to kill yourself?"

"Are you going to stop me?"

"If I tried, would you let me?"

"Who knows? I don't think so."

"Then I'll at least keep you company."

Najin rose to his feet.

"There's nothing wrong with having someone to talk to on your final journey, is there? I could even be your guide, if you'd like."

"My guide?"

"I happen to have a star like this."

The star of Funeral Rites twinkled above Najin's hand.

Looking at it, Merlin let out a hollow laugh.

"Are you offering to guide me to the afterlife?"

"If you need me to."

"Ridiculous. I'm the guide, you know."

"Even a guide needs a guide sometimes."

Najin held out his hand to Merlin, who was still sitting on the ground. She looked up at him. She disliked looking up at anyone, but for some reason, just this once, it didn't feel unpleasant.

"Yes. You're not wrong."

Merlin took Najin's hand and stood.

3.

The dream repeatedly broke off and resumed.

Whether a floor showed the most powerful memories or the most painful ones, no matter which floor he visited, Najin continued to have the same dream.

He blinked.

Whenever he closed his eyes and opened them again, he was on the frozen ground. When he looked beside him, Merlin was there. As he climbed the tower, the dream continued.

"You know..."

Merlin spoke as they walked toward some destination.

"I hated my Mystery. Full Stop. Even the name sounds ominous, doesn't it?"

"Does it?"

"Yes. Ending a story. Bringing it to a close. It almost sounds like a hint of death. Unpleasant, isn't it? That's why I hated it. I tried not to use it at all if I could help it."

Those who have chosen death no longer feel the weight of life, and often walk with a light step. Merlin was no different. Her steps were far too light.

"When my kin were all killed by a witch, I had a thought. Ah, perhaps my Mystery is a curse. Perhaps I was the one who put a full stop to their stories."

Her voice was light as well.

Walking lightly, speaking lightly, she even shared her secrets lightly. Not because she trusted Najin or considered him important, but because she thought none of it mattered anymore.

"That's why I hated it so much. Loathed it."

She smiled.

"Now I find it lovely."

"..."

"Perhaps, the moment I understood my Mystery, I foresaw an end like this."

Putting down a full stop. Ending a story. Bringing it to a close. Arriving at the final destination. Murmuring such phrases, Merlin laughed lightly. Najin listened without saying a word.

TAP.

Merlin walked and walked. She brought down every false, filthy star she saw, using her Mystery without restraint to cast them down as she went.

TAP.

Stars plummeted.

TAP.

Shooting stars fell wherever she set foot. Falling one after another, the stars filled the night sky of the Outer Lands. Witches trembled in fear, and Constellations whose light held even the slightest murk suppressed their starlight to avoid drawing Merlin's gaze.

Just as they feared the Witch of Camlann, they feared Merlin too.

And so silence filled every place Merlin walked. Only her voice and Najin's footsteps as he walked beside her echoed through it.

"I told you. I'm venting my anger."

Merlin smiled.

"There are quite a few bastards I need to kill before I go. I don't think I'll be able to close my eyes in peace until I've done them all in. So I'll kill them even if I have to grind up every last one of my stars."

She slaughtered witches, drowned devils, and stripped dragons of all their scales before mounting their corpses.

"The one I want to kill most is in Camlann, but unfortunately, I can't enter that place. What a shame."

She called it venting her anger.

But to Najin, it seemed far removed from that. The more she wielded her power, the more she festered inside. Though she spoke of death, she also looked as though she were begging someone to stop her.

Merlin was slowly going mad.

"Ah..."

Perhaps she had already gone mad. Merlin walked on endlessly. Najin could not stop her. He had only offered to be her companion, after all.

"Ah."

Then, one day...

"Merlin."

Someone appeared to bar her way.

He was a one-armed knight, battered and broken. He looked so exhausted he might collapse at any moment, and seemed incapable of stopping even a small child.

"..."

Yet that knight stopped Merlin.

He knelt before her.

"I report to you, the next master of the Round Table, that I have fulfilled the king's final command and completed my duty."

With his remaining arm, he raised a sword. The instant Merlin saw it, her eyes widened. Najin's did too.

"The return of the holy sword..."

The holy sword, Excalibur.

Only then did Najin realize who the knight before him was. The knight who had protected the Round Table until the very end. The oldest knight, and the First Knight to follow Arthur.

Bedivere the One-Armed.

The knight known for recovering Excalibur from Camlann and returning it to the lake. He held Excalibur out to Merlin.

"Please, return the holy sword."