Zarkan's head was severed.

With no neck left to support it, his head fell to the ground under its own weight. The earth, melted by Zarkan's spell moments before, was soft and mushy. His head plunged into it without resistance, landing with a wet splat.

That was Zarkan's end. A pitiful end for a dark mage who had lived more than a hundred years. There were few deaths in this world that were not pitiful, perhaps, but Zarkan's was a little more so than those of other humans.

CRUMBLE

Zarkan's headless body crumbled away.

Humans left their bodies behind when they died. Those who had bargained with demons, however, left nothing. Their souls and bodies had long since been offered as payment.

A death that left nothing behind. That, too, was the price of abandoning one's convictions and choosing the easy path.

"In a way, that Demon Knight you killed before might have been lucky," Merlin said as she watched. "At least he left a corpse."

Berheigen, whom Najin had killed with Excalibur.

Excalibur had cut down the demon itself—the one contracted to Berheigen. With the contract rendered void, Berheigen had been able to die as a human. If meeting Najin had been his misfortune, then being able to die as a human because of that encounter had been his good fortune. That was how Merlin put it.

'Does that really count as good fortune?'

"Depends how you look at it, doesn't it?"

Najin gave his sword a quick flick.

Whatever the case, he had won. He had won with his own strength alone, without drawing Excalibur. Feeling how much he had grown, he couldn't help feeling proud.

It was while he was enjoying that satisfaction that it happened.

A light briefly flashed at the edge of his vision. A dark mage who had survived the melee... No, could that really be called surviving? A dark mage dying from blood loss was pointing the tip of his staff at Najin.

Najin was just about to react.

SNICK

The dark mage's body split apart. A single line bisected both him and the ruins of the building where he had been hiding. As though that weren't enough, it gouged a straight line into the earth. The sound arrived a beat later.

SCREEEEEECH!

Sword aura fired faster than sound. It had crossed hundreds of meters from the top of the old castle. Najin blinked, frozen in the awkward position he had assumed just before moving. Even seeing it with his own eyes, he struggled to comprehend the sight.

'I've been thinking this a lot lately.'

"Yes?"

'Isn't the gap between a Sword Master and a Sword Seeker a bit too enormous?'

"They're called transcendent beings for a reason. The process of going from Sword Seeker to Sword Master isn't divided into three stages for nothing. There are effectively three whole levels between them."

Sprouting, Flowering, Full Bloom.

The three stages a Sword Seeker had to pass through to become a Sword Master.

"You know, Roselin Ascalo? That mercenary commander you're friends with. She's a Sword Seeker too, but she sliced up three other Sword Seekers in a three-on-one fight, didn't she? The only difference was that she'd passed through Sprouting."

'She did, didn't she?'

"That's how it works. Every stage you climb makes it harder to consider you part of the same realm."

Merlin continued rambling about things he hadn't asked to know.

"It's the same for mages. Oh, speaking of mages' circles, the concept wasn't actually properly established. It was a certain genius mage who defined it, and who might that be? None other than the person speaking to you right now..."

As always, Najin let most of it go in one ear and out the other. As he did, he heard a tap from far away.

Having leaped from the top of the fortress, Yuel landed softly in front of him. Unlike Zarkan's noisy landing, hers was graceful. Her snow-white hair swayed slightly, but not even her collar was disturbed.

"Well done."

She looked at Najin. Her face was as expressionless as a doll's, yet a faint smile rested on her lips. Then she clapped.

"You exceeded my expectations. It was an excellent battle. My patron deity is giving you a thumbs-up as well. She is describing at great length and in great detail how much she particularly enjoyed the part where you split those heads so satisfyingly. Yes, understood. I will pass that along as well. Pardon? Yes, yes..."

Yuel frowned slightly. After muttering into empty space, she spoke curtly.

"You're noisy. Shut up."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, not you. I was speaking to my patron deity, who is whispering in my ear."

Watching Yuel slap at her ear as though shooing away an insect, Najin felt an inexplicable kinship with her. Merlin was currently filling his own ears with yet another round of self-praise.

Anyone living with a Constellation that stayed beside them chattering all year round inevitably learned to let that voice go in one ear and out the other.

Yuel and Najin were two examples. Casually ignoring the voices of the stars in their ears, they looked at one another and talked.

"That was quite a spectacle. You seem to enjoy that style of fighting. Using the terrain and your surroundings. Creating unexpected variables. I enjoyed fighting that way myself before becoming a Sword Master. It brings back memories."

Yuel nodded emphatically, looking thoroughly satisfied.

"I understand it hasn't been long since you became a Sword Seeker. Yet you've already achieved so much? It makes me want to see more of you fighting."

"Pardon?"

"You still haven't used your full strength, have you? You seem to be hiding something. I don't know what it is, but you still appear to have strength to spare."

The Sword Master's eyes narrowed. Yuel glanced at Najin.

"Which brings me to something."

"Yes?"

"How about a duel with me?"

"... You do mean a duel, not a sparring match, correct?"

"Yes. I do not have much faith in my self-control. I am not confident I can regulate my strength while sparring as well as the Sword Saint does. I would limit my sword aura, but even then I cannot guarantee I wouldn't kill you. If you might kill your opponent, it isn't sparring, so we'd have to call it a duel, wouldn't we?"

Yuel stared straight at him as she spoke.

Her gaze was truly transparent. It positively dripped with anticipation, and the thoughts behind it were plain to see.

'I want to see everything you've got. Fancy a duel? You might die in the process, but still, how about it?'

That was roughly how Najin interpreted her words, and he had no desire to commit suicide.

"Well, what do you say?"

"I'll decline."

"What a shame."

Yuel sighed. She looked genuinely disappointed.

2.

Dark mages had once been compared to mold, and Najin thought it was a remarkably accurate description.

An operation to eradicate dark mages was, after all, much like cleaning away mold. Simply wiping away all the mold (dark mages) illegally occupying the wallpaper (city) did not finish the job. You had to remove the cause.

Strip off the wallpaper and lift the boards. Replace damp wood. Or air out the house to clear away the moisture.

The work that followed the extermination of dark mages was no different. Burn every scrap of research they left behind. Destroy their workshops and demolish their research facilities. Otherwise, new dark mages were bound to turn up in the same place, crying, "Is this the wonderful spot where we can get research handed to us on a platter?"

The workshop left behind by Kephalon, the Seventh-Circle dark mage who had once terrorized the Empire, had proved useful to those who followed in his footsteps. That alone was evidence enough.

"I hear you're leaving for the Outer Lands."

That was why Najin was walking with Yuel.

As she walked, she swung her sword casually. With every swing, a building presumed to be a dark mage's research facility split apart with a loud crack.

"Yes. I intend to head to the Battlefield of Stars."

"I see."

The split buildings collapsed, breaking into tiny pieces. Only fine dust drifted where Yuel had swung her sword.

"Then be careful."

The Outer Lands are dangerous, so be careful.

She wasn't about to offer that sort of warning anyone could give. A Sword Master who had reached transcendence, wandered the Outer Lands, and still visited whenever she had time spoke.

"The Outer Lands. Outside the world. The deeper you venture into them, the more you will be called into question."

"Called into question?"

"Doubt concerning your very self. You could also describe it as a denial of your existence."

It wasn't easy to understand. When Najin blinked, Yuel elaborated.

"You will no longer age. Are you aware of that?"

"I know that reaching the realm of Sword Seeker frees you from aging."

"Yes. Warriors and mages who reach a certain level no longer age. They are freed from aging. Though not entirely immortal, they become beings infinitely close to immortality, at least in that they will never die of old age."

"But," she continued.

"The world rejects this. It isn't natural. Biologically, and from the perspective of the ecosystem, it is clearly an error. Being born, dying, returning to nature, and then new life being born again. That is the natural order of the world. From the world's perspective, you and I are 'wrong' beings."

An error. Something wrong and mistaken.

Something that, being wrong, defied reason.

"So it rejects us. Pushes us out. Outside the world. The Outer Lands are where such people gather. Not everyone there is like that, but most are. That makes it a place where those who should have died remain alive."

A place infinitely close to the realm of the dead.

"It depends on your interpretation, but personally, this is what I think. The Outer Lands do what the world could not."

"What it could not do..."

"Bring death to those who do not die."

She stopped walking and stared directly at Najin.

"Do you know how a transcendent being dies?"

"No, I don't."

"A transcendent being does not die through ordinary means. On the continent it may be different, but in the Outer Lands, where they are free of the world's rules, they are infinitely close to immortal. However, that only applies to physical death."

And a death that wasn't physical?

Yuel tapped her head with a finger.

"The moment they doubt their own existence. The moment they deny their own story. When they can no longer believe in themselves, a transcendent being meets their death."

She swung her sword lightly.

A building split apart. It broke up and crumbled.

"In the Outer Lands, the body of a being who denies themself wears away and twists. They become something closer to a beast than a human. And in the end, they lose themselves entirely. They forget. Only then does a transcendent being truly die."

"Perhaps that is why."

Yuel raised her head to the sky. Looking at the stars filling the night, she murmured.

"Why do stars burn so brightly? To illuminate the darkness? I doubt it. Whenever someone looks at their stars and reflects on the great feats held within them, Constellations feel their own existence distinctly. They become free of the doubt eating away at them."

"So," she said expressionlessly, "look at me. Remember me. The light the stars give off is probably closer to such a plea."

Najin suddenly looked at Merlin.

She was silent. The things she had once told him came back to him.

「Constellations aren't as great as you think. They aren't as noble as you imagine, and perhaps they're even uglier beings than you humans.」

「They are beings trapped in the Outer Lands, in Camlann, yearning for the next step of a journey that never ends.」

Was this what she had meant? As he considered that, Merlin noticed his gaze and spoke.

"What she said isn't the whole story. That isn't all there is to the Outer Lands, and there are certainly other reasons stars shine. But..."

Merlin smiled bitterly.

"Most stars are like that. There are so many stars who were once heroes but aren't anymore."

'That doesn't sound bad.'

"What?"

Najin shrugged.

'Doesn't the genuine article shine all the more beautifully among fakes?'

Merlin blinked at his answer, then burst out laughing. Partly in disbelief, and partly in satisfaction.

Yuel stopped short.

While Najin was briefly speaking with Merlin, Yuel came to a halt and stared at him.

"That is why your choice surprises me. Most people begin preparing to leave for the Outer Lands when they have lived for about a hundred years. At the latest, they head there around the age of a hundred and twenty. From that point onward, their bodies begin wearing away if they remain on the continent."

But Najin was only eighteen. Far too young to leave for the Outer Lands.

Listening to her, he tilted his head slightly.

"If that wearing away begins at a hundred and twenty, how are you still on the continent, Lady Yuel?"

As Najin recalled, Yuel was at least a hundred and fifty years old. Historical records alone accounted for a hundred and fifty years, and the accepted view was that she was around two hundred if the unrecorded years were included.

If the wearing away began at a hundred and twenty, how was she still active on the continent?

"Oh, I'm an exception."

Yuel answered as though it were nothing important.

"My case is extremely unusual, so it won't be much help to you, but I live simply. Living simply means there is no need to worry, and without worrying, I have no need to doubt myself. I live by the maxim that ignorance and forgetfulness are blessings."

Yuel gave Najin a faint smile.

"I live for immediate enjoyment and pleasure. I have no particular desire to save the world, uncover the profound mysteries of swordsmanship, fulfill some cherished longing or wish, or pursue a grand goal. I don't know the precise mechanism, but that is probably why I don't seem to wear away."

Listening beside him, Merlin shook her head as though Yuel were hopeless.

"I don't know exactly how she does it either. She's an oddball even by our standards."

An oddball among oddballs, even to the Constellations.

On the continent, she was treated as a murderous fiend and a slaughterer; in the Outer Lands, an oddball. Najin laughed without meaning to.

"In any case."

They had arrived at Valdernos's front gate before they knew it.

The cleanup of the city was complete. The extermination operation was over. Stopping before the gate, Yuel looked at Najin from one step farther along the road.

"Do not doubt yourself in the Outer Lands. Many will try to shake you, question you, and break you. Do not waver."

"Or," she said with a smile, "becoming simple like me is another option."

"I'll decline that as well."

"What a shame. It was a chance to make another of my kind."

Despite her words, Yuel didn't look particularly disappointed.

3.

"Ah."

Yuel gave a brief cry as Najin was about to leave in the carriage. When he turned back, she spoke as though something had just occurred to her.

"I nearly forgot this."

Yuel extended a hand and pointed at the sky.

At her fingertip lay an enormous constellation made up of ten stars. They shone not in one color but in many, like fireworks.

Pointing at those stars, Yuel said,

"Beware of the Emperor of Revelry in the Outer Lands."

The Emperor of Revelry.

As she spoke that title, Yuel loosened her collar. Her order's uniform, which exposed almost no skin, slipped down at the shoulder, revealing its snowy whiteness.

A long scar remained there.

Tracing it with a fingertip, she spoke.

"If you were to choose the most dangerous person in the Outer Lands, it would unquestionably be that one. This scar was their doing as well. So if you encounter them, run."

Yuel added,

"Unless you want to become a clown."