Ch.205The One Who Remembers (7)

Najin didn’t really believe in human nature.

She believed that a person’s character was determined by their background and growth process, and that innate disposition had little influence on the formation of personality.

That was because Najin herself had been that way.

When she was young, Najin rummaged through garbage, stole, and didn’t hesitate to do all sorts of dirty things to survive. Looking back now, she had clearly been an “evil person” in the underground city. Najin had no intention of denying that fact.

For whatever reason, she had killed people. She had made examples of traitors by drowning quite a few of them, and the most dignified name people called her back then was “hunting dog,” which said it all. Most people called Najin a human butcher.

Human butcher. Filthy hunting dog. Executioner.

How did someone who was called such names end up here? Najin thought about it. It was because she had met good people. Because she had learned good things from good people and experienced the wider world.

Najin thought that human nature was no different from clear water in a paint jar, with its color determined by what paint was mixed in.

That’s what she had always thought, but…

“Use me as a stepping stone to climb higher.”

“Please use me as a stepping stone to climb higher.”

Seeing The Blue Spear say the same words even after losing all his memories, even forgetting himself… Najin had to acknowledge it.

That there are people who are born that way.

That there are people whose most fundamental nature is good.

“I don’t really believe in innate nature either, but there are some who are born broken somewhere. To use your metaphor, sometimes the paint jar contains ‘murky sewage’ from the beginning instead of ‘clear water’.”

Merlin said as she listened to Najin’s story.

“As you said, people can change through their environment and the people they interact with. But I do think there’s something like nature, or a color that’s in the paint jar from the beginning.”

‘Color, you say?’

“Yes. But I don’t think it’s the person’s essence or an unchangeable nature.”

Merlin wiggled her finger.

“Even pitch-black sewage can turn pure white if you keep adding white paint, right? It would take tremendous effort, though.”

“Conversely,” she continued.

“Someone born pure white would turn black with just a drop of black paint. To maintain that whiteness would also require tremendous effort.”

‘What do you think I am?’

“How would I know? I’m a magician, not a psychologist.”

Merlin laughed heartily.

“But still.”

She looked at Najin, who was sweating profusely while wielding the spear. Merlin’s gaze as she watched Najin was gentle.

“I may not know your nature, but what’s in your vessel now is quite a pretty color, don’t you think?”

‘What’s that? So cheesy.’

“You make a fuss even when someone says something nice.”

Leaving the grumbling Merlin behind, Najin swung her spear. Even as the end approached, The Blue Spear’s spear technique remained incomplete. It couldn’t be helped. Najin couldn’t fill in parts that even he himself couldn’t remember.

And in this case, the situation was somewhat different from that of the Helm Knight.

The Helm Knight had Gerd, another disciple who had learned the Sword of Improvement, and he regained his memory at the last moment to complete his swordsmanship… but The Blue Spear couldn’t do that. The miracle of him regaining his memories couldn’t happen.

‘I’d like to complete it if possible.’

That’s what Najin thought. But to such thoughts, The Blue Spear simply said:

“What if it remains incomplete?”

“It’s a bit disappointing.”

“Haha, so what if it’s disappointing? If you find it so disappointing, why don’t you complete it yourself?”

He laughed freely.

“It’s already a miracle that I’ve come this far. I’ve laid the foundation, and you can build your own on top of it. Fill in the remaining parts yourself.”

I prefer it that way.

I like it better that way. The Blue Spear wore a gentle expression as he said this.

“This is the last time, isn’t it?”

The Blue Spear murmured, looking around the desolate desert.

“You said I had three days left? Tomorrow will be the last day. So, today will be the last time I say this greeting.”

The sun set over the desert. A brief moment before night arrived. At the boundary between day and night, The Blue Spear opened his mouth.

“Then, Najin?”

He greeted her.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The hourglass broke.

All that remained in the broken clock was a handful of sand.

2.

The next day, The Blue Spear’s eyes were different when he opened them. Not the empty, transparent eyes as usual, but hazy ones. With eyes that seemed not fully awake, The Blue Spear looked at Najin.

Even the Star of Mourning couldn’t fully wake him from his sleep.

It only helped him remember how to read. He read the diary he had been writing. After reading the diary for a while, he eventually closed it with a hollow laugh.

“I can’t remember the beginning.”

He murmured.

“I forgot while reading. There’s no point in reading the diary. But according to what’s written at the end.”

The Blue Spear looked at Najin.

“It says to ask you. That you will give me the answer. Who are you?”

“Najin, the free knight Najin.”

“Who am I?”

“You are The Blue Spear, a knight of Rondinell. You are also the master who taught me the spear.”

The Blue Spear’s memory now couldn’t last even a day.

He forgot his memories in less than an hour, and even that interval was getting shorter.

“Who are you?”

“I am your disciple.”

A question asked who knows how many times.

An answer given who knows how many times.

“Why am I in this situation? It’s painful. I can’t remember anything, anything at all. Why did I make this choice?”

He groaned. His wavering eyes were full of fear. The composure he had shown just the night before was now gone. Najin was about to say something to The Blue Spear, who was trembling with fear, but then stopped.

Instead, she raised her spear.

A warrior speaks through the weapon they wield. Najin decided to convey through her spear what couldn’t be fully expressed in words.

Thud.

Instead of answering, Najin stomped her foot. Her footprint was left in the desert sand. The Blue Spear, who had been trembling with fear, raised his head to look at Najin. Under the watchful eye of The Blue Spear, her master, Najin began to swing her spear.

Najin doesn’t know much about the weapon called the spear.

Najin is a swordsman, not a spearman. All the spear techniques Najin has learned so far are the basics taught by the Helm Knight and the Charge Horn (衝角), the symbol of the Golden Horn Knights. And all of those were techniques specialized in thrusting.

Not techniques for swinging the spear to dominate space.

But techniques for piercing through enemies blocking the way.

But the spear learned from The Blue Spear is different. The spear technique of Rondinell that The Blue Spear had preserved focused not on a single point but on controlling lines, and further, space. It was a spear technique that anticipated being surrounded by multiple enemies.

Najin swung such a spear.

Whoosh.

Every time she swung the spear, the wind followed the tip. The wind scattered the grains of sand. Once airborne, the sand didn’t fall. It moved like a dance, following the direction of the spear blade.

‘Now it’s just grains of sand, in a barren desert, but…’

Kirhov had said.

That whenever The Blue Spear swung his spear, blue petals scattered. Kirhov had said that the sight was so beautiful that his own sword energy came to resemble it.

“What is the blue hydrangea?”

Najin spoke as she swung the spear.

What Najin was about to say was what Kirhov had told her, and what The Blue Spear had told Kirhov 300 years ago.

“A hydrangea, you see, if you look at just one petal, it’s quite unremarkable. Small and humble. But a hydrangea doesn’t bloom just one flower. Dozens of flowers bloom at once. They bloom in full.”

Grains of sand scattered.

Najin infused her aura into the spear tip. The essence of aura is the same as sword energy. Najin’s aura resembled constellations. The sand grains imbued with starlight shone like stars.

“Why is the national flower of Rondinell the blue hydrangea? I think it’s because it’s made up of small flowers, not one large, lush flower.”

Najin had already reached the stage of sprouting (發芽). Though she hadn’t yet reached blooming (開花), she could vaguely outline its form.

“It’s because of knights like you that Rondinell can be beautiful.”

The sand grains imbued with starlight sprouted.

“You are The Blue Spear. The knight of Rondinell, The Blue Spear.”

“……”

“Did you ask why you’re in this situation, for what purpose you sacrificed your memories, what value there is in that?”

Najin swung her spear widely.

“There is one knight you saved. That knight’s name is Kirhov, and there is no one in the Outer Continent who doesn’t know his name.”

The Sword Master of Ruin.

The last knight of Rondinell, Kirhov.

“That knight, who remembers Rondinell when everyone else has forgotten, wields his sword for Rondinell. That’s why Rondinell has not been forgotten.”

Whoosh, the sand grains scattered.

Staring at the sand grains scattering like flower petals, Najin gripped the spear shaft tightly. The flow created by swinging the spear until now. Trying to connect that flow into a single line.

Najin doesn’t know the name given to this technique. There’s no way she could know. Even The Blue Spear himself doesn’t know.

“Petals scattered.”

“I can’t remember how he swung the spear, but I remember that much. Wherever he walked, fully bloomed flowers always scattered.”

“And he gathered the fully bloomed flowers into a bundle. It was a technique that drew in the surrounding flow itself.”

But judging from its form and the stories heard from Kirhov, she could guess the name of the technique. The clue already existed.

Blue hydrangea.

A technique resembling a hydrangea, where fully bloomed flowers are woven together to form one. Of course, Najin’s aura was neither blue nor flower petals, but that wasn’t important.

Grip.

Najin pulled the flow-drawing spear towards herself. As if reaching out to grasp the wind. The sand grains scattering in all directions were instantly drawn to Najin.

Crack!

The drawn sand grains collided with each other, crumbled, and scattered in all directions. The scattered sand grains collided again and again… As this process repeated, starlight flickered like fireworks in front of Najin.

Though the flower petals didn’t fully bloom, starlight overflowed.

Najin, who had imperfectly but admirably reproduced what she had learned from The Blue Spear, caught her breath. Keeping her posture from collapsing until the end, Najin twirled the spear once and thrust it into the desert.

“So.”

Then she smiled at The Blue Spear.

“Your sacrifice had value.”

The Blue Spear’s eyes were sparkling with the starlight Najin had created. With eyes dyed with starlight, The Blue Spear looked at Najin.

“That.”

He asked.

“Whose spear is that?”

Pointing at the remnants of the spear technique, he said.

“It’s beautiful. It’s a scene I want to remember. I want to resemble it. Truly, beautiful…”

To that question, Najin answered.

“It’s the spear of a knight who fought against oblivion.”

And.

“It’s your spear.”

Najin pulled out The Blue Spear’s spear that he had once abandoned and handed it to him.

“I will teach you. Take the spear.”

This time, I will teach you.

3.

“……”

The Blue Spear silently gripped the spear.

He imitated Najin’s movements. It didn’t matter if he lost his memories. Because as long as he was swinging the spear, he was The Blue Spear. The Blue Spear swung the spear again and again.

Blue flowers bloomed from the spear tip.

Blue flowers formed on the blue spear.

Flowers bloomed in the barren desert where nothing existed. One, two, ten, dozens, hundreds of flowers bloomed in full.

Sprouting, blooming, and full bloom (滿開).

Fully bloomed blue flowers filled the desert. The Blue Spear extended his spear toward the flowers. For a first-class warrior, their weapon is no different from their own hand. So, The Blue Spear was reaching out his hand toward the flowers.

He grasped the flowers.

He wove the fully bloomed flowers together to create a hydrangea.

The hydrangea was blue. A blue hydrangea bloomed in the middle of the barren desert. Looking at that flower, The Blue Spear smiled. He smiled for a long time. He smiled with genuine satisfaction.

“Ah.”

He raised his head.

His gaze, which had moved from the blue hydrangea to the desert, and from the desert back to the sky, finally turned to Najin.

“Najin.”

He looked at Najin.

He seemed to be contemplating what final words to say to his disciple, but the contemplation wasn’t long. He left words similar to the greeting he had always used.

“Move forward. Toward tomorrow.”

Those were The Blue Spear’s last words.

Rustle.

The handful of sand remaining in the broken hourglass scattered in the wind.