A star had risen over the underground city of Atman.

With a ceiling blotting out the sky, Atman was a place no starlight could reach. That made the star rising within it all the more striking.

A brilliant light, neither obscured by thick fog nor drowned in the dim glow of ore lamps.

The platinum starlight that nothing dared conceal was what the boy had yearned for so desperately. Gazing at the star in his hand, he blinked in a daze.

'I drew it. I really did.'

In his hand was the Sword of Stars.

Excalibur, the holy sword that was practically synonymous with King Arthur. As Najin gazed at the shining sword, his eyes turned platinum.

He had taken a gamble, prepared to let whatever happened happen.

His only grounds had been the voice echoing in his head and his own intuition. Yet he had actually drawn the sword. None of it felt real, but the weight of the blade in his hand told him that it was.

'Then...'

If this was real.

If he wasn't dreaming.

"Hakan the Junkie."

There was something he had to do.

The dreaming boy returned to reality. Feeling the cool hilt against his fingers, Najin slowly raised the sword.

Its point came to rest on Hakan.

He smiled as he aimed his blade at the outlaw who had dared invade Ivan's territory.

"Any last words?"

The boy was battered and broken.

The only thing that had changed since a moment ago was the sword in his hand. But the boy was a swordsman, however fledgling, and for a swordsman, a change of sword could mean a change of everything.

The battle had turned on its head.

The scales had tipped.

The boy stood, while Hakan sat on the ground. She still had countless addicts left, but such things could never obscure the star in his grasp. Hakan let out a hollow laugh.

"... How is this possible?"

Who could have imagined it?

That a boy from this filthy underground city, filled with nothing but discarded things, would draw Excalibur. Hakan had spent no fewer than seventeen years preparing for this day.

Seeing the boy standing in her way, she could only laugh in disbelief.

Najin kicked off the ground.

With his sword trailing platinum starlight, he advanced toward Hakan. The addicts rushed him even without their master's orders, but those already doomed could no longer bar his path.

SHAAAAASH!

The addicts were swept aside as though he were parting a current.

Hakan watched blankly. There was the dream she had left behind in the world above. The thing she had longed for so desperately, yet never managed to possess.

'A star.'

A brilliantly shining star.

Not everyone who had fallen into this city was like that, but at least the powerful figures who represented its districts had once dreamed of stars.

Horse the Spider.

One-Eyed Ivan.

Hakan the Junkie.

All had dreamed of possessing a star of their own. They had yearned to hang their stars in the lofty night sky. They had reached toward that sky only to fall into this city, and so they could never forget starlight.

"Ah..."

Hakan groaned before the approaching star.

At last, the star stopped directly before her. Hakan raised her head to look at the boy.

His body was battered from the explosion. Soot and the addicts' blood stained his clothes. Yet his eyes had lost none of their light. If anything, they held a clearer light than before.

Hakan sensed her end.

Knowing it had come, she sneered. At her own fate. And at the miserable future awaiting the boy.

"... You little brat."

Hakan smiled at him.

It was the smile of a failure who had dreamed of the same thing as the boy, only to fall into this city.

"That light should never have appeared in this city."

You have drawn far too much attention.

You may have been worthy of drawing the sword, but...

"It's a light you have no business possessing when you're still unfinished."

You have gotten too far ahead of yourself. You have taken hold of something far too brilliant without being ready.

"The high and mighty up above don't bless those who possess starlight. If someone unprepared gains that light, they simply crush them."

She raised her right arm.

A brand seared into it with fire remained. It was the same as the right eye taken from One-Eyed Ivan, the same as the fingers taken from Horse.

"You'll be crushed, too."

Since you have grasped a greater light than ours,

you will lose something greater still.

"You'll lose everything."

It was a curse, a prophecy, and advice.

Listening to Hakan, Najin recalled the not-so-distant past. The curse Trixie had hurled at him upon sensing his own death.

「Najin, you'll rot in this city for the rest of your life!」

Back then, he had been unable to refute those words.

He had always wanted to argue, but knowing they were true, he had simply let such words wash over him.

'But...'

Not anymore.

Najin had crossed the line and begun to run. He had reached for the unreachable and grasped it. Now it was time to start running with his sights set higher still.

No one could block that path.

"That's your story," Najin said.

"The story of those who failed and fell into this city..."

Success and failure were separated by the narrowest margin.

He could only discover what his future held by facing it head-on. Rather than resign himself, give up, and dwell in bitterness as he had before, he would choose to clash with it, even if it broke him.

The shackles that had bound his feet for so long were shattered. His eyes were colored not by the murky sunset glow cast over the underground city, but by the platinum light of the Sword of Stars.

"I have no intention of listening to failures."

"... Ha!"

Failures. The word made Hakan burst out laughing.

"Yes, you're not wrong."

Her lips twisted upward in a sneer.

"Let's see..."

Najin raised his sword.

"Once you've experienced it yourself..."

Would he still be able to say that?

Hakan shouted at him to experience for himself just how cruel the world above, which he knew nothing of, could be—and how boundless its cruelty was.

And Najin swung the sword he had raised.

Hakan the Junkie's body toppled. Looking down at the blood flowing across the ground, Najin released a long breath. His whole body ached. It wasn't only because of his injuries.

There was a draining weakness, as though something were leaving his body.

It had worsened from the moment he swung Excalibur. Breathing hard, he let the sword hang at his side. He had defeated Hakan and cut down every last addict. It would have been nice if that were the end of it, but...

"..."

Najin silently lowered his gaze.

There were residents who had fled amid the chaos, and others watching him from their hiding places inside buildings. They were looking.

At the sword in his hand.

At the star that had risen in the underground city.

But not everyone was looking at the star. Some were watching the boy who held it instead. They were soldiers sent from above—the guards who had stood watch around Excalibur.

The moment their eyes met, Najin understood.

He had to chase them down and kill them. He had to silence them. But he had no strength left to pursue them as they vanished into the crowd. Limping, Najin made his way toward the back alleys.

This was reality, not a dream.

And because it was reality, Najin had to make a decision. If only to avoid being crushed as Hakan had warned. He began fleeing toward a place beyond the reach of people's eyes.

2.

The Orders of the Stars, which worshipped the stars.

Starblood, Starbody, and Star Radiance.

Once a single order in the distant past, they had now split into three. Orlan, the high priest who headed the Order of Star Radiance, frowned.

"What brings you here so early in the morning, Berlo?"

Berlo, a knight of the order, had come to his office with two soldiers. After making them kneel before Orlan, he bowed in greeting.

"There is news you must hear."

"Is this about the holy sword being drawn last night? If so, I've already heard more than enough. Letters have been arriving from every site, and I can scarcely keep up. I'm very busy right now."

Orlan tapped his desk.

"Is it important enough to warrant a report to me personally?"

"Yes. More important than anything else."

If the taciturn knight Berlo went that far, it had to be important information. Orlan let out a long breath and gestured for him to continue.

And the account that came from Berlo's lips was more than enough to make Orlan set down his quill and widen his eyes.

"Berlo."

"Yes. Your orders?"

"If there is even a shred of falsehood in what you have said, you will lose your voice and be cast down into the very place you just named."

"I swear to God that it is the truth."

"How could this possibly—!"

Orlan slammed his desk.

"I told you to keep watch so that no one laid a hand on that sword! How can someone from that city of sinners possibly have drawn the holy sword?"

His eyes wavered.

Pressing his fingers against the bulging veins in his forehead, Orlan slowly exhaled. Moments earlier, Sir Berlo had told him that a boy from the underground city had drawn Excalibur last night.

It was the testimony of the soldiers who had guarded the sword.

And the eyewitness accounts of the sinners in that city.

'The Sword Saint of the Order of the Sword, the murderous fiend of the Order of Starblood, the empire's Sword Master. I thought it would be one of those three...'

The drawing of the holy sword had thrown the continent into an uproar.

Those three were the only people the public suspected of having drawn it. They alone were considered closest to Arthur, and worthy of drawing the sword.

One of them had drawn it and was concealing the fact. That was what everyone believed. Orlan, high priest of the Order of Star Radiance, had believed it too.

'And yet...'

The one who had drawn the sword was none of those three.

It was a boy living in a city of sinners, beyond the reach of people's attention or even starlight. Orlan simply could not believe it.

But whether he believed it or not, it had happened, and he had to make a decision.

The position of high priest, leader of an order, always demanded swift judgment. The elderly priest chose to judge the situation rather than understand it.

"... The witnesses? How many know about this?" Orlan asked.

Berlo answered him.

"Countless people in the city of sinners. But of those who can set foot in this city, only these two."

He indicated the two soldiers kneeling before Orlan. Orlan narrowed his eyes.

"Only these two?"

"Yes. They were the two soldiers on watch last night. They neglected their duty and failed to prevent a sinner from approaching the holy sword."

"Dispose of them."

Orlan flicked a finger.

Before the two soldiers could plead for mercy at the verdict, Berlo's sword moved. His blade swept across their throats.

SH slash!

Without so much as looking at the soldiers collapsing in a spray of blood, Orlan addressed Berlo.

"It's fortunate that the murderous fiend of the Order of Starblood did not draw the sword, but this is an even greater problem."

Orlan pointed to the ground where Berlo stood.

"This is where the main church of the Order of Star Radiance stands, and where its tribunal resides. That a sinner judged in such a holy sanctuary should be worthy of possessing the holy sword... Surely that is absurd?"

Star Radiance, Starbody, Starblood. Each order had its own tribunal, and each passed judgment in its own way.

The Order of Starblood judged sin through blood.

It punished sinful heretics by making them bleed to death beneath the gaze of the greatest number of stars.

The Order of Starbody judged sin through the body.

It punished sinful heretics by tearing their bodies to pieces and scattering them.

And the Order of Star Radiance...

The order that judged sin through light stripped sinners of the chance to see starlight and imprisoned them underground. Their punishment was to rot for the rest of their lives without receiving the grace of the stars.

"For a sinner judged beneath the light of the stars to draw the sword..."

Orlan declared,

"It shakes the very foundations of the Order of Star Radiance's tribunal and defiles the essence of our order. Something that should never have happened has happened."

He narrowed his eyes.

"I trust you understand me, Sir Berlo."

Dispose of him. That was what Orlan was saying.

The mighty figures across the continent, its extraordinary superhumans, even the stars in the night sky still did not know who had drawn the sword. So now was their only chance.

Make it as though it never happened.

Quietly, and cleanly.

Of course, Orlan had other options.

He could make an exception to the order's practices, absolve the boy of his sins, and keep him at his side. Or he could acknowledge that the order had passed a mistaken judgment.

But Orlan did neither.

He was the high priest who led the order, and his faith in it was stronger than anyone else's. He knew that there must be no flaw whatsoever in the path his order had taken. Thus he chose to bury the flaw that had appeared. There would be no compromise in that decision.

Because Orlan had always lived that way.

Because that was how he had always settled things.

The head of the Order of Star Radiance's main church, which stood above the underground city, had passed judgment on the boy.

"Can I trust you?"

"I will meet your expectations."

Bowing his head, Berlo left the office. As those who entered afterward dragged away the soldiers' bodies, he walked through the church corridors, thinking.

Atman, the city of sinners.

Managing the church soldiers sent there was his duty, and so he knew very well who ruled that city.

'Ivan, knight of Atanga.'

The knight who had once looked toward the same goal as him and stood upon the same battlefield, only to fall in the end, was now that city's ruler. A smile spread across Berlo's lips.

"It's been a long time. I suppose I should pay my junior a visit."

Berlo, former knight of Atanga.

Having cast aside his honor and pride with his own hands, he could no longer speak the name of Atanga. The order's hound smiled.