Stars shone in the night sky.

Najin gazed blankly up at them. The spurting dragon blood, the dragon’s final scream, and the voices of people finally breaking into cheers all felt impossibly distant. Even the pain wracking his body slowly faded.

In that stillness, where time seemed not merely to slow but to stop, Najin gazed at the stars.

Among the countless stars adorning the night sky, one shed a gentle light. A star belonging to no one else—his alone. He had long since put Excalibur away, but his eyes shone platinum.

["I promise, Ivan."]

["I’ll hang my star at the highest point in that night sky."]

["That you stood at the beginning of my journey. That sending me into the outside world was the right choice. That even though you fell, you were a knight who never lost his light."]

["I..."]

["I will prove it."]

Words he had recalled to himself time and again.

Words he had vowed to himself over and over, again and again.

"..."

Recalling those words, Najin slowly raised his hand. He spread it wide toward the sky. It was something of a habit; even in the underground city, he had often reached toward the ceiling.

But that gesture then and this gesture now meant precisely opposite things.

‘You know, I...’

Najin spoke to himself. Yet it was not truly a soliloquy, for someone was listening. Standing beside him, Merlin silently attended to his words.

I... I was... That is...

He had been trash buried in the underground city, the place those outside called the landfill. In that dark place where no stars could be seen, he had stared at the luminous stones embedded in the ceiling and could only imagine what starlight might be like... He had been a human being as far from the stars as anyone could be.

He had not even been allowed to see them.

Even reaching toward the sky could not bring them within reach.

But this moment was different. Looking up, he could see the vast expanse of the night sky and its stars. Reaching toward it, he felt as though he could grasp his own star shining there.

The star of his own he had so desperately longed for.

It did not yet hang at the center of the sky or high above the others, but it was unmistakably there.

Najin smiled at the star. Countless emotions mingled in that smile, too many to capture in a single word. As he wore it, Merlin broke her silence. Her voice was a little gentler than usual.

"You did well."

She touched his shoulder with her hand.

Merlin was slightly shorter than Najin, so she had to raise her arm. And even then, as an insubstantial apparition, her hand could not actually touch his shoulder...

But her feelings reached him nonetheless.

The Constellation with eleven stars spoke to the Nova who had just earned his.

"Two stars at once. You’ve gone and done something impossible again."

She laughed in disbelief.

"Then again, you did something as insane as jumping into a dragon’s mouth, so I suppose it makes sense. My heart nearly stopped just watching. Even in my day, lunatics like you were hard to come by. Honestly..."

Her words trailed off before she added,

"Still, you were magnificent."

"Get some rest. You must be tired."

Najin slowly exhaled. Time, which had been flowing so slowly, returned to its normal pace, and the noise circling him began resolving into human voices. Lowering the arm he had stretched toward the sky, he looked around.

Knights were cheering. Others stood gaping in astonishment. Roselin approached him, laughing as though she could scarcely believe it, while Richard applauded as if blessing the birth of a Nova.

Every last one of them was praising Najin’s achievement. It was a feat that deserved nothing less. The boy had staked his life on challenging a dragon and, at last, accomplished the feat of dragonslaying.

Those who had cleared his path and those who had blocked the dragon’s attacks had also earned fragments of a star. This battlefield had witnessed the birth of new stars and left behind fragments of stars yet to rise. Amid the cheers, Najin smiled faintly.

With a trembling hand, Najin lifted his sword, stained with dragon blood, high into the sky. Just as Arthur had done, he declared the hunt complete.

"Yeeeeaaaah!"

Even louder cheers rang through Stonehenge.

2.

After the dragon hunt ended, Najin naturally found himself confined to bed. It seemed to happen every time he fought, but the injuries from this battle were not easily healed.

"Release. Excalibur’s first star."

"That always happens after you use it. It pours out everything it’s gathered in one go, so after firing it once, its output drops sharply for a while, and its blessing weakens too."

Excalibur’s diminished restorative power played a part, but his injuries were also worse than usual: compound fractures, grotesquely bent fingers, and burns covering his entire body. The priests were so appalled they asked, "Is he even alive?" What more needed to be said?

‘I really did nearly die.’

Wrapped in layer upon layer of bandages, Najin murmured to himself.

He had been told that even allowing for his exceptional recovery, he would need several weeks of bed rest. Having acquired stars, he was bound to experience some changes, and he was privately disappointed that he could not try them out immediately.

"I know you’re excited, but be patient."

As he passed the time lying in his sickbed, several people came to visit. Roselin and Richard were the first.

"Well, if it isn’t the hero of the red dragon hunt."

With a hearty laugh, Richard set down the fruit basket he had brought as a gift. Roselin perched on a corner of the bed and chuckled at Najin.

"With all those bandages, you look undead."

"I thought much the same when I looked in the mirror."

"You jumped into those flames. It’s more surprising you didn’t melt. What was it like inside the dragon’s mouth?"

"Hot as hell."

Najin shrugged as he answered.

"There was nothing but fire. I’d wondered where its Breath came from. Turns out, all it had to do was take a handful of that and spit it out."

"Ha! So you swung your sword inside its Breath and split its heart?"

"More or less."

"You really are one crazy bastard."

Roselin slapped her knee and laughed extravagantly. She did not know whether Najin was exaggerating or telling the truth, but either way, the fact remained that he had jumped into the dragon’s maw and split its heart.

Only one person in history had done that: Siegfried, the Dragonslayer.

Najin had recreated a feat accomplished only by the first Sword Saint, the man hailed as a great hero. Things would be getting noisy again soon. With that thought, Roselin curled her lips into a smile.

"Thanks, greenh—no, Najin."

"Where did that come from?"

"I’ve gained far more than a thing or two thanks to you."

Roselin opened her palm in front of him. With a faint chuckle, she glanced at Richard. He nodded and spread his own hand wide, as though showing him something.

Then came a glimmer.

Small stars shone in their hands. Najin’s eyes widened. One shone in Richard Paulsen’s hand, and two in Roselin Ascalo’s.

"Old Richard and I had both piled up a few feats already, but this fight must have been the deciding factor. We earned new stars."

"My first, in my case. I quit being a knight because I didn’t want to step onto dangerous battlefields. To think I’d earn a star at my age."

Richard shrugged.

"It’s thanks to you. Thank you."

"I should be saying that. Thanks to you, I reached the red dragon with all my limbs intact."

"I don’t think your limbs were exactly intact."

"If I can run and swing a sword, doesn’t that count?"

Both Richard and Roselin burst into laughter at his answer. They chatted for a little while longer, then left the room.

"You really never go a day without getting hurt."

Dieta was the next visitor. Looking at Najin swathed in bandages, she sighed. For some reason, she seemed to have expected this.

"I heard what happened. You jumped into the red dragon’s mouth? Everyone’s making a fuss about it. The broken sealing formula at Stonehenge, two fully resurrected dragons, the witch’s intervention, the red dragon swallowing the other dragon and becoming whole..."

She spoke as she read the newspaper she had brought.

"And the Dragonslayer who killed it."

The youngest Dragonslayer.

"The adventurer who killed a dragon and earned two stars at once."

The youngest two-star holder.

"It seems you’re snatching up every title with ‘youngest’ attached to it."

"Word that I’ve earned stars has already spread, then."

"Of course. It was an enormous uproar. Apparently, the witch’s constellation appeared for the first time in a thousand years, and new stars rose in the middle of it all. Naturally, the observatory took notice."

By the observatory, she meant the Gray Tower.

"Do you have any idea how much Lady Nayuta, the master of the Gray Tower, was shouting? They say she ignored every imperial official demanding a report and locked the tower’s doors, insisting she had to name your stars."

"... Name my stars?"

Dieta nodded as she took an apple from the fruit basket and scraped away its peel.

"Naming stars is the Gray Tower master’s job, after all. Here you go."

Apparently unskilled with a knife, she offered him an unevenly cut slice. When Najin raised his bandaged hand to show her, she hesitated briefly before bringing the apple to his mouth.

Accepting the bite, Najin asked a question.

"When you say naming stars... do you mean an epithet? Like Arthur, the Sword of Selection?"

"Something like that. She brings a few candidates, and you pick one you like. Sometimes your epithet changes as you gain more stars later."

Najin recalled the epithets of the Constellations. Naturally, Arthur, the Sword of Selection, came to mind first, followed by Merlin, the Mage of the Lake. Both their epithets felt somewhat dull, though.

"They’re understated, excuse you."

Merlin grumbled.

"Hey, Arthur and I could both have had incredibly flashy epithets. The Mage Who Pierces Truth, the Sword That Cleaves the Heavens, the Staff That Felled the Stars, the One Who Silenced the End—those were all candidates, but we turned them down."

A Constellation’s name needed simplicity to bring out its flavor. There was beauty in restraint. Letting Merlin’s muttering go in one ear and out the other, Najin hummed thoughtfully.

"I am rather looking forward to it. To finding out what my epithet will be."

"Almost no one keeps their first epithet forever, so why not just think of it as a stage name? If you don’t like it, you can change it later."

"Still, the first one matters, doesn’t it?"

Dieta chuckled as she continued peeling the apple.

"Well, then you can ask her yourself."

"Pardon?"

"She’s coming in person. Lady Nayuta, the master of the Gray Tower."

"... Pardon?"

"You can’t move, can you? And apparently, she’s worried about all the attention if she summons you to the Gray Tower. Something about some riffraff snatching you away on the way."

"So," Dieta continued, "she says she’s coming here. In person."

There were many mage towers throughout the Empire. Could the person responsible for one of them really leave so easily? Wasn’t there something wrong with that? Wondering this, Najin asked,

"When will she be coming?"

"Tomorrow."

Najin was at a loss for words.

3.

A day later, Nayuta, the master of the Gray Tower, arrived at Najin’s room. He blinked at the tower master who had abruptly come to visit without a single escort.

‘Well, I suppose she doesn’t need one...’

Wasn’t a mage tower master powerful enough to rival a transcendent being? She might have reached her heights through studying stars rather than combat, but beyond a certain level, the disparity in strength was inevitable.

She had thrown the door open on arrival.

Najin’s first impression of Nayuta was somewhat gloomy. Her jet-black hair was tied carelessly into a single tail, as though even tidying it was a nuisance. Her eyes had a rather somber look, and her skin was beyond white—positively pallid, perhaps from spending so long shut away in her room.

"It’s you, isn’t it? You’re Najin? I’ve heard the rumors. A Sword Seeker at eighteen, the youngest Sword Seeker. I learned this while observing your stars, but you fought Ermina, the Witch of Flickering Flames, too, didn’t you?"

And then,

"You have so many feats related to challenge. So many. Not just one or two! You keep clashing with powerful opponents. I looked through them one by one, and the words attached to them are extraordinary. Crisis, death, injury, overcoming, awakening, struggle..."

She poured out words before they had even finished introducing themselves. After talking at length, Nayuta suddenly clapped her hands with an "Ah!" and smiled ruefully.

"Where are my manners? Honestly."

She settled onto the chair directly in front of Najin with a rather easygoing air. When he tried to observe the proper courtesies, she waved him off to say there was no need.

"I’m Nayuta, master of the Gray Tower. I’m responsible for observing and naming stars. The reason I’ve come today is, of course... to name yours."

She pulled a sheet of paper from inside her clothing.

It was exceptionally fine paper.

"I’ve picked out a few candidates. Would you choose one if you like it? Don’t worry about being rude. If you think, ‘This one’s kind of lame,’ tell me right away. It’s really fine! Surely you don’t think I’d cut your head off just for saying, ‘Your naming sense is pretty lousy’? I’m not that petty, so don’t worry."

Najin slowly nodded. Something about her was difficult to keep up with.

"Never mind all that. Let’s have a look."

With Merlin beside him, Najin unfolded the paper. On it were the epithets Nayuta had written down. There were more than ten candidates, and as he slowly read through them, his expression stiffened. Merlin’s did too.

『The One Who Cleaved the Flames and Slew the Dragon by Piercing Its Heart.』

『The One Who Leaps In When Fire Comes.』

『The Dragon Slayer.』

"These are a bit... well, how do I put it?"

『The One Who Forgot the Fear of Death.』

『The Sword That Cleaves Death.』

『The Death Slay...』

Najin closed his eyes before reaching the end.

For some inexplicable reason, his body hurt, and he felt his fingers curling in on themselves.

"Aren’t these way too grandiose, flashy, and awful? Seriously, even someone with more than five stars would look at these and say, ‘That’s a bit much.’ Every last one of them."

Merlin seemed to feel the same way.

Najin seriously questioned the Gray Tower master’s qualifications. But with Nayuta’s eyes sparkling so eagerly, he could hardly ask, "Why is your naming sense so terrible?" So he opened his eyes again.

He should at least read them all first.

As his gaze traveled down the page, he spotted an epithet at the bottom crossed out with two lines. A note beside it said it was too plain to be any good.

"This one sounds good."

Najin pointed to the epithet.