Ch.296Knights of La Mancha (2)

La Mancha.

The paradise where Don Quixote and his company arrived at the end of their journey. Though Don Quixote was the one who discovered La Mancha, he did not forget the promise he had made to his friend long ago.

That fanciful tale of gifting him a domain.

But having accomplished the fanciful feat of “arriving at a paradise that shouldn’t exist,” there was no reason not to keep a fanciful promise. Don Quixote kept his promise to Sancho, his dear friend, servant, and unparalleled companion.

And so Sancho became the lord of La Mancha.

The Lord of La Mancha, Judge Sancho.

Even if the concept of La Mancha has been tainted, the Laughing Star transformed into the Star of Contempt, and Don Quixote’s story has been distorted and misinterpreted…

The fact that Sancho is the master of La Mancha remains unchanged.

Najin and Sancho had made a certain promise. Najin had not forgotten that promise, and he knew exactly where to use the one opportunity he had received.

“I, Sancho, master of La Mancha, swear.”

And Najin sensed it.

“La Mancha will surely answer your call.”

That now was the moment to use that opportunity.

“Judge Sancho.”

The flag of La Mancha tied to the cross-star spear fluttered. Though there was no wind, the flag flapped noisily.

And then.

Buuuuuuuuu…

The sound of a horn echoed from somewhere. It was the horn announcing the start of battle, the horn signaling deployment, and also the horn calling for assembly. The moment that sound echoed, Najin felt a star rising behind him.

The military flag of La Mancha.

Another name for a lord is military commander.

Najin naturally let go of his flag spear. Even though Najin released his hand, the flag spear did not tilt. It was because it was caught in someone else’s hand.

“La Mancha.”

Someone stood beside Najin.

Even without looking back, he knew who it was.

“Never forgets a promise.”

Judge Sancho. The lord of La Mancha raised the cross-star spear with La Mancha’s flag tied to it. At that moment, starlight burst from the flag. Like fireworks exploding, the starlight spreading in all directions eventually formed human shapes.

And then.

“I was having a good dream, but you insist on waking me. What exciting adventure have you prepared this time that you wake me so urgently?”

A voice.

“I never expected to be able to sleep soundly in the first place. Who do we serve? Isn’t he that eccentric who suddenly grabs your shoulder, shakes it, and says, ‘I have a good idea, this adventure will surely be enjoyable!’ while pointing to some random destination?”

“That’s part of his charm.”

“I can’t deny that, hahaha!”

Voices.

“Ah, certainly. Then we would reluctantly smile and ask, ‘What adventure is it this time, Sir Knight?'”

“The barber would sigh.”

“And the gardener would predictably ask, ‘Are there flowers there?'”

Their laughter.

“Hehe. Having woken from a long sleep, I want to drink. Does anyone have alcohol? I’ll prepare the snacks! I have plenty of adventure stories.”

“We’ve heard your adventure stories to the point of boredom.”

“A truly enjoyable adventure story is enjoyable even after hearing it hundreds of times. Hahaha!”

“My goodness. Who would have thought that drunken voice would be welcome. What a surprise.”

Laughing and chattering voices resonated at various pitches.

“Still.”

“Yes.”

“Indeed.”

“Right.”

Their eyes grew serious.

“We have something to do first.”

“Chatting about epilogues can wait until after we’ve decorated the finale. No, it must be so.”

“Talking about epilogues during the play would be tasteless.”

Tap.

Someone among them tapped a staff.

“Well said.”

The one who approached Sancho’s side was an old man.

Despite having grown younger upon reaching transcendence, he was an eccentric who deliberately disguised his appearance as an old man with magic. Rocinante, the magician of acceleration, twirled his staff.

“Wouldn’t it be disappointing without the protagonist of the stage?”

He pointed his staff at Najin.

They saw through Sancho.

How this young man named Najin had changed La Mancha, which had been like an endless nightmare.

“…”

Though they were silent, their eyes conveyed reverence, respect, gratitude, awe, and above all, great affection. To them, Najin was no longer an outsider.

Eyes looking at a comrade.

Feeling their gaze, Najin couldn’t help but smile. Now he could understand Sancho’s words that what happened in La Mancha was not meaningless.

“Najin.”

Sancho smiled while holding the flag.

“We will not forget your efforts. We will never forget the amazing adventure you had in La Mancha.”

Behind him stood numerous transcenders.

The barber, the gardener, unnamed stars, the princess trapped in the tower, the transcender who wished for death, the star who wished for peace, the thief who dreamed of becoming a hero, the star who wanted to see a flower garden one last time. And many, many more stars.

Standing at the forefront, Sancho spoke on their behalf. Sancho looked up at the sky and shouted.

“No one dares question your qualification. I, the master of La Mancha, and the stars that make up La Mancha, testify to your qualification.”

The Empress of Bliss’s scheme to drive Najin away was thwarted by that alone. What the Empress claimed was that Najin had no right to stand on this stage, that he was a character who did not appear in La Mancha.

But to that claim, Sancho says.

Who dares speak of La Mancha’s qualifications before me? I myself testify to this person’s qualification.

“Did you say this is a stage, clown?”

Judge Sancho bursts into laughter.

“Then, all the more reason we cannot drive him away.”

The actors of La Mancha lined up behind Sancho raised their voices in their own ways. Some stomped their feet, some burst into laughter, some struck their weapons.

“The one who decorated La Mancha’s finale!”

Sancho shouted amidst the cheers.

As if introducing the protagonist of the stage.

“The one who turned a story that was about to end in tragedy into a comedy. Honor to those who lost honor, pride to those who lost pride, dreams to those who lost dreams…”

And.

“Laughter to those who lost laughter.”

Sancho thought. The role to be given to the young man before him could only be that. Before mentioning the role, Sancho couldn’t help but laugh.

A play named La Mancha.

A nightmare repeated for hundreds of years.

The story that ended in tragedy was given a completely different ending by the young man before him. It was the ending that Sancho and his comrades had desperately wished for. La Mancha decided to accept that ending as the official history.

“It sounds like a lie.”

“But that’s not important.”

Whether it was truth or falsehood, reality or dream, that distinction didn’t matter.

“What if it’s a dream? What if it’s a lie? What if it’s a fantasy or a delusion? In the end, the enlightenment you and I gained from this adventure is real.”

“And, above all, this story…”

Because their leader, their lord, their teacher, their knight, their benefactor said so.

“Has become something worth telling with laughter!”

Because it’s a story that can be told with laughter.

The choice was obvious.

Thus, with the reversed ending, a new role was prepared in the play called La Mancha.

“Najin.”

Sancho spoke the name of that role.

“Free Knight, Najin.”

The one who makes a knight truly a knight.

The knight who will conclude this story as a comedy.

Whoosh.

Sancho handed the flag spear to Najin. Originally, standing at the vanguard with La Mancha’s flag fluttering was Don Quixote’s role. The person who could replace him now, standing opposite, was not Sancho but Najin.

Najin, who took the cross-star spear, exhaled.

At this moment, Najin didn’t need to act. Because the role he was assigned was himself. Najin moved as he usually did.

Boom.

The moment Najin struck down the flag spear, the knights of La Mancha burst into laughter. As if they had been waiting for this moment, they drew their weapons. Stars flashed behind Najin.

“Don Quixote.”

Najin’s sword aimed at Quixote.

“What is a knight?”

To that question, the Star of Contempt, Quixote, answered with mockery. As if it wasn’t worth answering. As if he had never deeply thought about it.

Then the answer to give was simple.

Star of Contempt, Quixote.

Your inability to answer this question will be the reason for your defeat.

2.

The stage of the Star of Contempt, Quixote, La Mancha, was not strictly a place name.

His stage is a story.

The adventure of searching for La Mancha, the Star of Contempt was using that long adventure itself as his stage. So the La Mancha he unfolded is not a place name but a play.

Originally, a play is fiction.

But Quixote had repeatedly brought fiction into reality and realized his dreams in reality. The stories he had built up firmly supported his stage.

【Life is a play!】

【So, laugh and chatter.】

【Until the very moment the curtain falls.】

Thus, the stage unfolded by the Star of Contempt is different from the stage unfolded by the “incomplete Quixote” that Najin had encountered in La Mancha. The Star of Contempt, who has passed hundreds of years since then, is complete and is receiving assistance from the Empress of Bliss.

Here, everything becomes truth.

The boundary between dream and reality is blurred.

Fake and real cannot be distinguished.

The clowns that surge from the Star of Contempt’s stage all become real. All of them wearing clown masks and dancing are transcenders, the La Mancha expedition that traveled with Quixote.

They do not fall.

They do not die.

They will definitely reach the ideal land.

As long as Quixote, the master of the stage, believes so, they never lose. The script of the arranged stage does not allow the protagonist to be defeated.

—This was why the Star of Contempt was powerful.

From the point when his stage and the Empress of Bliss’s power combined, he was no longer an individual. He was a collective of transcenders with dozens of immortal transcenders.

‘To defeat such a Quixote.’

Najin recalled.

The words once spoken by the Empire’s Best Swordsman, Merlin.

‘Either mobilize enough transcenders to overwhelm the immortal transcenders with quantity.’

Or else.

‘Shatter the stage at once with the output of someone like Icarus or Alderan Basaglia.’

Both were impossible for Najin.

That’s why Najin chose a third path.

‘What stands against La Mancha is La Mancha.’

A path only Najin could choose.

‘And this is the gap you missed, Empress of Bliss.’

The Empress of Bliss wanted to make the Star of Contempt Quixote’s strength her own, and so she chose to “reinterpret the story” rather than making Quixote a dead person.

It was a choice worthy of the Empress of Bliss. If she twisted only the ending while keeping the core of the story intact, she could wield Quixote’s power without loss.

But that point now acted as a weakness.

Because she did not change the core of La Mancha, the narrative she scattered on this stage also applies to “the army of La Mancha led by Sancho.” The dagger she prepared to kill Najin aimed at the Star of Contempt, changing direction.

Here, in La Mancha, they never break!

An immortal army clashed with an immortal army.

You are alone.

Unlike the Star of Contempt, the protagonist of this stage, you have no knights following you.

You cannot defeat them!

The Empress of Bliss’s narration, confident in Najin’s defeat, was shattered the moment Sancho appeared. Her scheme, the stage she directed, the narrative she bestowed, all shattered.

From now on, no one knows.

How this story will end, how it will unfold.

“Rocinante!”

“Ah, of course I’m ready.”

When Najin called out, Rocinante tapped his staff. Najin was not surprised by the acceleration he created. It was magic he had already experienced once.

“Run, run!”

“Let’s go!”

“For the knight!”

“For the lord.”

“Well, he wasn’t the type to smile like that before.”

It wasn’t just Najin who was running with acceleration.

When Rocinante tapped his staff with a click.

Sancho charged with a spear he had produced from somewhere, the barber raised a giant pair of scissors, and the gardener lifted a large sickle. They did not panic at the increased speed, as if familiar with Rocinante’s acceleration, and charged across the battlefield.

Click, click, click.

With each tap of the staff, the constellations kicked off the ground and ran. The charge that began with Najin at the forefront eventually became a march with dozens of stars.

On the opposite side, Quixote was also charging.

“Run Rocinante, run!”

Rocinante, transformed into a beast, pranced, and the spear with Sancho’s twisted body taxidermied screamed. As if drawn by that scream, transcenders wearing clown masks rushed forward.

It was as if a mirror had been placed in the middle of the battlefield.

Transcenders with the same appearance, the same build, the same weapons, and the same powers, despite wearing clown masks, rushed toward each other.

Only three people were different.

The Star of Contempt Quixote, the donkey Rocinante, and Sancho who became a spear.

Morning Star Najin, Rocinante of acceleration, and Lord Judge Sancho.

“Hahahahaha!”

No, perhaps.

“Let’s go Sancho, let’s run Rocinante.”

“And my dear friend, Najin!”

Four.

The Laughing Star shone.

In the end, what settles this story is the duel between the Morning Star and the Star of Contempt, the two of them.