Ch.198Free Knight (3)

Jowell looked around. Looking at his surroundings, this wasn’t the northern border. It was somewhere much farther away, deep in the Outer Continent that Jowell didn’t recognize.

Next, Jowell saw the dead who had been chasing him. They had indeed been pursuing him, but that wasn’t all. Jowell belatedly realized that he had been leading these dead ones.

‘Pierce, Olante, Bazz…’

Looking closely, he could see his subordinates and comrades mixed among the crowd of the dead.

Only then did Jowell understand.

He realized that he was already dead. He realized he had become the very undead he so feared, or something even worse, wandering the Outer Continent.

When he closed his eyes and opened them again.

What he saw were rotting, decayed fingers. A festering corpse. He was a spirit that should have died but couldn’t. A bitter laugh escaped Jowell’s cracked lips.

“I see.”

Jowell looked at the Star that Najin was holding.

The Star of Mourning.

While looking at that Star, Jowell could remain himself. As the fog in his mind cleared and memories surfaced, Jowell smiled bitterly.

“I was no longer among the living.”

That day, Jowell had sacrificed himself to buy time for his comrades to escape. But Jowell’s sacrifice was worthless. His fleeing comrades were massacred by a jester wearing a bizarre mask.

His comrades moving with creaking sounds.

His friends who had become the dead.

The sound of his own hollow laughter as he watched them echoed in Jowell’s ears. His memory ended with that jester approaching him. Perhaps his life had ended at that moment too.

“How… how much time has passed?”

“Probably about half a year.”

“Half a year, six months. Hahaha, Sir Najin, you’re impressive. To gain three more Stars in just six months?”

Jowell slapped his knee and laughed.

“That’s somewhat fortunate. I thought at least a decade must have passed for Sir Najin to gain three more Stars… but half a year? That’s fortunate. At least that’s fortunate.”

“……”

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine.”

“Can you remove the mask?”

“Of course. I was just about to take it off anyway, it’s stifling.”

Jowell felt his face. The mask that had seemed inseparably attached to his face came off surprisingly easily the moment Jowell recalled his memories.

“Do you know what this mask is, Sir Najin?”

“I do.”

Najin explained about the mask. About the Empress of Bliss, the jester, the puppet. After hearing the explanation, Jowell exhaled a long “hmm.”

“It seems I became a puppet of the demon. How shameful.”

After a long sigh, Jowell looked at Najin.

“What happens to me now?”

“You have two paths.”

Najin held up two fingers.

“One is to continue wandering the Outer Continent as a jester. In this case, I intend to consider you a jester and eliminate you.”

“And the other?”

“I will give you a funeral. So that you can meet the end you desire.”

“…Why give me a choice? Isn’t it obvious which one I’ll choose?”

“Because it only has value if you choose of your own will.”

Najin smiled.

“In your final moment, I shall ask you this.”

Holding the Star of Mourning in one hand.

Najin looked at the undying knight and asked:

“Were you a knight?”

A phrase that any knight would recognize.

Words left by King Arthur.

To those words, Najin added one more line.

“What do you wish to remain as?”

“…I.”

Jowell bowed his head. He raised his palm and wiped his face. His withered hand, and all his movements, trembled.

“I became a squire at 17, and lived as a knight for over 100 years. I cannot say I was a knight in every moment, but I tried to be a knight in every moment.”

The 122-year-old knight spoke as if sobbing.

“I wanted to be a hero. But I couldn’t become one. Then I wanted to be a capable knight who made his presence known on the battlefield. Sadly, that too was difficult. Everything was difficult. Nothing went as I wished.”

Such was his life.

“It was even more so after setting foot on the Outer Continent. Nothing went as I wished, and I was only tossed about by the many things of the Outer Continent. It was beyond my will.”

Jowell slowly raised his head.

“But for my final moment, by my own desire.”

Jowell’s already dead body was withered in places, and his face revealed after removing the mask was hideous. But his eyes were shining.

“I want to die as a knight.”

Jowell stood up.

Najin also stood up.

“I am Jowell. Knight of Drevu, Jowell.”

“I am Najin. Free knight Najin.”

A brief sword salute.

Immediately after, both drew their swords.

“Sir Jowell, do you know the expression that honor and pride are like strong liquor?”

“Of course. It’s a famous saying in the Outer Continent, isn’t it?”

Good when you drink and get drunk.

But painful when you sober up, like a terrible hangover.

“Then, how about one last drink?”

To one who wished to die still holding onto his dream, Najin was willing to serve this potent drink. Seeing Najin’s sword glowing with the Star of Mourning, Jowell burst into hearty laughter.

“Hahaha! To receive a drink from a hero like you? What an honor. How could I refuse?”

Jowell raised his sword.

A sword aura emitting a soft light shone. Though insignificant and shabby compared to Najin’s sword aura, it still shone with its own color.

“I’m coming.”

“Come.”

2.

The duel was not long.

Not only was the difference in level between Najin and Jowell severe, but this was more of a ritual (ceremony) than a duel where the process itself had meaning.

Clang, clang!

Several exchanges passed. Swords entangled. It was closer to sharing swords, accommodating each other’s techniques, than an actual duel. Eventually, the duel ended.

Thunk.

Najin’s sword pierced Jowell’s heart.

Smoothly, yet decisively. Despite having his heart pierced, Jowell wasn’t in pain; rather, he was smiling. As if he had put down all his burdens.

“…Thank you.”

Jowell’s last words.

“Thank you, Sir Najin.”

In his final moment, he was able to die as a knight. Thanking Najin for fulfilling that wish, Jowell closed his eyes.

Crumble…

His body turned to dust and crumbled away.

Normally, Jowell’s end as a jester of the Empress of Bliss should have been miserable, and even with his heart pierced, he shouldn’t have died so simply. That’s the kind of beings jesters are.

But Najin’s Star of Mourning bypassed the Empress of Bliss’s power and gifted Jowell a complete death. Jowell was able to find peace.

“……”

Najin silently lowered his sword.

Looking down, there was Jowell’s sword. Though Jowell’s body had turned to dust leaving nothing behind, as a knight, he left his sword.

Rustle.

Najin dug the ground with his bare hands and gathered soil. Not minding that his clothes were getting dirty with soil, Najin gathered earth to make a small mound. Then he stuck Jowell’s sword into it.

It was Jowell’s grave and sword tomb.

Najin completed the funeral by giving a brief salute before the grave. Perhaps it was also a burial. When the funeral ended, Merlin, who had been silent until now, spoke.

-Mourning, literally mourning.

As if seeing Najin differently, Merlin poked his side with her finger and smiled.

-How much do you know about free knights?

“I know they were honorable knights who accompanied King Arthur. And that they were knights who acted according to their beliefs without needing to serve anyone.”

-Yes. And let me add one more thing…

Merlin said.

-They are also the origin of the Knights of Atanga.

Knights among knights.

Those who uphold honor, pride, and the knight’s code, protecting the value of the word “knight.”

-Did you know? Atanga was actually the name of a free knight.

‘…What?’

-Although the name Atanga is now used almost as a common noun or idiom because it became so famous, it was originally a name referring to one person.

‘That’s… the first I’ve heard of it.’

-Well, it’s not a well-known story.

The first free knight, Atanga.

Merlin said there was a knight with such a name.

-A knight who makes knights knightly. If Arthur was the king of knights who showed knights their path, Atanga was the pillar that supported knights so they could remain as knights.

Merlin explained that while Arthur King only looked forward and charged ahead, Atanga looked after what Arthur King left behind.

-Atanga raised up those who fell while chasing Arthur King, those who gave up, those who surrendered. He offered them another chance to become knights.

You are a knight. Stand up. This place is too shabby to end your journey.

-That’s what he said as he raised them up. Perhaps that’s why, despite not being exceptionally powerful, Atanga was called ‘the most knightly knight.’ Even surpassing the illustrious knights of the Round Table.

Merlin patted Najin’s shoulder.

-I think Atanga would be very proud if he saw you now. Because you’re the ‘ideal knight’ he aspired to.

Najin smiled unconsciously.

“I hope so.”

3.

“By the way. How was Sir Jowell able to maintain his sanity? Usually, once someone becomes a jester, that’s the end, isn’t it?”

It was a sudden question.

Despite being transformed into an undead and having a mask placed on him to become a jester, Jowell was able to converse with Najin. Najin felt no awkwardness in that conversation.

-Normally, that would be the case, wouldn’t it?

Something normally impossible. But Najin wanted to know why it was possible.

-Don’t you already have a guess? Why it was possible.

Najin nodded.

He had a rough idea.

“Is it because of the Star of Mourning?”

-Yes. It has to be, since your fifth Star has been deeply connected to the Empress of Bliss from its very beginning, hasn’t it?

That was true. The Star of Mourning was almost completed during the journey with the Helm Knight. A Star completed by gifting those who had forgotten themselves the end they desired but had also forgotten.

-The story contained in that Star and its meaning are antithetical to the Empress of Bliss. The Star of Mourning itself practically denies the existence of the Empress of Bliss.

The Empress of Bliss mocks and insults others’ ends, saying that even in death the play doesn’t end, that they must become jesters and dance forever.

But Najin’s fifth Star says:

Heroes deserve an end befitting them. Not wandering the Outer Continent as the dead, but being buried in the place they should rightfully rest.

A Star that is both antithetical and contrary.

A Star originating from the Helm Knight.

Najin sensed it. That the Star of Mourning would be the trump card to bring down the Empress of Bliss. Najin clenched his fist tightly. Holding the Star of Mourning, Najin moved forward.

“Somehow.”

Najin narrowed his eyes.

“When I hold this Star, I can see something.”

-What a coincidence. I was about to say the same thing.

Merlin shares the same vision as Najin. Najin’s eyes are also Merlin’s eyes, and through Najin’s eyes, Merlin could find a faint flow in the world she observed.

What is that flow?

Najin, and Merlin, could vaguely understand what this flow visible when holding the Star of Mourning might be.

“No matter where the Star is, if you make a wish toward the Star, it will listen to your voice.”

A sentence from the first fairy tale Najin had ever seen. That sentence was half right and half wrong. Stars don’t listen to human voices. They simply respond to their desires, their intense wishes.

Though Najin had not yet become a constellation.

With 5 Stars, he could feel someone’s wishes.

The flow visible when holding the Star of Mourning was the flow created by those who desired mourning. Tangled and twisted, finding a path through this flow was difficult for Najin.

-This way.

But not for Merlin.

Merlin knew how to catch that flow. She was a guide, a magician who knew how to grasp the flow and create a path.

-Let’s go, to the next one.

Merlin showed Najin the path he needed to take.