And they lived happily ever after.

That single line that closes fairy tales and heroic legends is a lie, a deception. Certainly, the hero of a fairy tale who accomplishes great feats might live a long life. But if asked whether that life was happy... Bernstein would shake his head.

It could never be happy. Never.

From the moment one passes the age of 150 and is banished to the Outer Lands, life can no longer be beautiful or happy. This place is hell.

Were your 150 years on the continent happy? Did you think that happiness would last forever? Step into the Outer Lands and look at the ground beneath your feet. Buried there are stars who arrived with the same thoughts as you, only to fall in the end. Do you think you will be different? You are no different. The very same end awaits you.

He knew. He knew full well.

And yet... Bernstein and countless other heroes dreamed of a beautiful end.

They wished for their final moments to be beautiful. To mean something. Even if they fell, they hoped to fall with grace. They knew how extravagant that wish was, yet they could never let it go.

“Human greed never does end, does it?”

Bernstein scoffed. He muttered those words with a sneer directed at no one but himself. As his laughter faded, he made his decision. The decision he had put off for 150 years.

THUNK.

He swung his sword and cut out his own heart. As the Helmeted Knight's eyes widened, Bernstein burned his severed heart with sword aura. The flames ravenously devoured the stars that had dwelled within it.

“Even now, I am being greedy. Greedy enough to want my name written at the end of your story, too. In truth, I've harbored that desire for more than two hundred years. Like any knight who admires a hero... I wanted to appear in his legend alongside him.”

Bernstein thrust his sword into the Helmeted Knight's heart. It was not a blade meant to kill him. Quite the opposite. It was a blade meant to save him. Bernstein shared his own fire with the Helmeted Knight's all but extinguished flame.

At that moment, the Helmeted Knight felt his long thirst quenched. Starlight filled his body. His wounds closed, and flesh filled out his shriveled arm. As the Helmeted Knight stared wide-eyed, Bernstein gave a little chuckle.

“A master must always look impressive in front of his pupil. That is a master's duty. You can hardly cut a fine figure when you cannot even walk properly, can you?”

Keeping only a single handful of starlight for himself, Bernstein gave all the rest to the Helmeted Knight. His body began to wear away rapidly, but his eyes remained clear.

“You lived like this for 150 years? Remarkable. You truly are the Empire's hero. This is what the Empire's hero ought to be.”

“Bernstein, you...”

“Well, my stars were worn down, too, so they won't help much. Still, you should at least be able to say a final farewell to your pupil.”

Bernstein pushed the Helmeted Knight away. Taking Quixote's lance in his place, Bernstein spoke.

“Go. Hurry.”

He did not look back at the Helmeted Knight.

Without looking back again, he stared straight ahead. A jester was charging toward him. Bernstein raised his sword against the jester who sought to turn this tale into a farce.

“Come, jester!”

He shouted, holding a sword that shone with sunlight.

Recalling the glorious days of 150 years ago, Bernstein declared his name.

“I, Bernstein Vanmore, knight of the Empire and Sword of the imperial family, shall face you.”

2.

The Helmeted Knight stepped into the forbidden ground. Beyond the opaque barrier, what greeted him was the burial ground of his comrades and the battlefield where he had won a glorious victory.

And there stood his pupil.

Sitting on a rock, Najin glared at the Helmeted Knight.

He had much he wanted to say, but said nothing. His gaze alone conveyed it. At that look, the Helmeted Knight smiled bitterly.

“It's dark. We should light a fire.”

Just as he had on the day they first met, the Helmeted Knight sat opposite Najin and kindled a fire.

CRACKLE.

The campfire blazed to life. With the flames between them, he spoke.

“Najin.”

“Yes.”

“Will you listen to what I am about to say without interrupting?”

Najin nodded silently. Looking at the campfire rather than Najin, the Helmeted Knight began.

“A hundred and fifty years ago, I made a bargain with the Emperor of Revelry. More precisely, it was a wager.”

CRACKLE.

The campfire burned.

“That day, when I brought down half the Emperor of Revelry's stars and lost all of my own, I could have fought on. Had I struggled further, I might have taken another star or two from her. But I saw no meaning in it. She would only come back to life. What meaning could such an act have?”

There was no god here, nor any priest to hear him, but he was making his confession. No, it was not a sacrament. Though he confessed his sins, he seemed to have no wish to be forgiven.

“As those doubts took hold, the Emperor of Revelry offered me a bargain. She said that if I stood down, she would not turn my comrades into jesters, and would willingly withdraw from this place. Perhaps she wanted to avoid further losses. Whatever her reason, the terms were good.”

There were ways to grant the Lost their rest.

The Helmeted Knight could perform their funerals so that they might die honorably. But if they became the Emperor of Revelry's jesters? That could never be undone.

They would dance for eternity. They would become puppets who insulted, mocked, and ridiculed others. The Helmeted Knight could not bear to see his comrades meet such an end. He could not permit history to record them as jesters rather than knights.

“I knelt before the Emperor of Revelry and accepted her bargain. At the time, I thought it was the best I could do.”

That was why the Helmeted Knight had accepted her offer.

“But every bargain has its price.”

He raised his head.

“The Emperor of Revelry could have accepted the losses, killed me, and turned everyone there into jesters. And she is a devil who will not be satisfied until she possesses everything she desires. A devil like that would never willingly release her prey.”

With his head raised, he pointed to himself.

“There was a condition to the bargain. As she made it, the Emperor of Revelry challenged me to a wager. A wager on my end.”

His end.

“The Emperor of Revelry said she would ask me a question in my final moments.”

["In the final moments, I shall ask you all."]

Quoting King Arthur's words, the devil had sneered.

“Are you a jester, or a knight?”

Najin's expression twisted.

He thought he understood what that meant.

“If I die as a knight, the bargain stands. But the moment I end my life as a jester, as one of the Lost, the bargain becomes void. The Emperor of Revelry will immediately gain the right to enter the forbidden ground and make everyone buried here her jesters.”

That devil had the power to do so.

“I accepted that bargain. I thought I could endure. I was arrogant. It was an utterly arrogant choice.”

“...”

“The Emperor of Revelry placed a curse of Oblivion upon me. A curse of erasure, too, and layered dozens upon dozens of other curses on top of them. As a result, the world no longer knows me, and even I have forgotten myself. That is why I cannot earn new stars.”

No matter how many feats he accomplished, he could not gain a star. Only worn stars remained, eating away at his flesh.

“Unless I prey on other stars, my soul wears away and I turn into one of the Lost. I cannot live without taking the stars of others. But can you truly call that living? What value is there in a life without honor or pride?”

A worthless life.

The Helmeted Knight could find no value in his own.

“I wanted to die. I would rather have become one of the Lost than live like that...”

Yet he could not even die.

The moment he met his death, he would become one of the Lost, a fallen star, a forgotten star. That would mean the Emperor of Revelry's victory—and that all his comrades would become jesters.

He had to live. He had no choice but to live.

“I had to live... but I was plagued by bitter doubts. I, who had been a hero, had to live like that? All my life, I had preserved my honor and pride. I had valued them more than my own life. And now I had to abandon it all and live that way? I could not. It was unthinkable.”

So he endured.

He said,

“I endured for ten years, fifty years, a hundred years, a hundred and fifty. I tried to endure. And in doing so, I realized that this was a wager I could never have won from the beginning.”

CRACKLE.

Sparks flew. Having exhausted its firewood, the campfire began to dwindle.

“I do not consider crows and hunters knights. So the moment I take another person's heart, I cease to be a knight, and the Emperor of Revelry wins. But if I endure as a knight? I become one of the Lost in the end. Either way, all that awaited me was defeat.”

He smiled bitterly.

“Eventually, I reached my limit. So I swallowed the corpses of dead magical beasts and survived on the remains of the Lost left behind by other people's hunts. I persuaded myself that this much was permissible, since I hadn't hunted them myself. But from that moment on, I could no longer call myself a knight.”

Because he could not take pride in his own actions.

His excessively high standards of chivalry, the weight he attached to the word knight, had shackled the Helmeted Knight. That was why he had always told Najin not to be so rigid.

To leave himself plenty of loopholes.

Otherwise, life would become exhausting.

“When I met you, I was already at my limit.”

The Helmeted Knight pointed at Najin as he spoke.

“So I seriously considered changing what the word knight meant to me, and eating your heart to prolong my life. After enduring for 150 years, hadn't I endured enough? Hadn't I done my best? Surely no one could blame me? I tried to close my eyes and shut my ears like that, but...”

TICK.

The last spark leaped up. Just as the campfire was about to die, Najin added fresh firewood.

“You stubborn little bastard.”

The flames rose again.

Fierce and brilliant.

“You wouldn't let me. Right there, you made me a knight. You made me remember my glorious days. So that I couldn't run away.”

There was no resentment in his voice.

Laughter colored the Helmeted Knight's words.

“You proved that I could still bring to life the lingering wish I was letting go of, the end I longed for. You let me dream again of something I had abandoned long ago.”

He had drunk strong liquor.

He had dreamed a pleasant dream.

“Now it is time to wake from that dream.”

Time to sober up and rise.

Time to return from dreams to reality.

“I wandered for 150 years. That time did not grant me enlightenment, but it has allowed me to make a decision.”

He stood.

“Now I can give my answer.”

It was time to pay the price for becoming drunk on that magnificent liquor.

3.

Bernstein Vanmore had admired a hero.

He had admired the hero who saved the Empire, and, growing up on tales of his deeds, Bernstein had become a knight. The Helmeted Knight would never know how happy he had been when he became the Sword of the imperial family and stood beside the hero he admired so deeply.

Bernstein smiled as he recalled the past.

Why was the past so beautiful when the present was so painful? Even as a lance pierced him and blood poured from his body, he could still smile.

“Why are you smiling? What is so enjoyable?”

“You were telling me to laugh before. Why does my laughter upset you so much now, jester?”

Quixote frowned.

Bernstein's smile was one Quixote could never wear. A light, unburdened smile. Some people yearn for what they cannot possess; others come to hate it. Quixote was the latter.

He thrust his lance harder. Quixote's lance tore Bernstein's arm off, but Bernstein still did not stop smiling.

... He had lived admiring a hero.

He could not become a hero himself, but his own story could now find a place in the tale that hero was writing. That satisfied Bernstein. Not everyone could be the lead, and Bernstein had never wanted to take the Helmeted Knight's place and become the lead himself.

He admired him and envied him, yes.

But above all, the man was Bernstein's idol.

A supporting character who made the lead shine. Someone who made his idol shine. That would have been enough. But when his idol ceased to shine, Bernstein lost his purpose. He resented his idol, and hated him. He wandered for 150 years like that.

After wandering and wandering, he found his answer.

CRUNCH!

With his bones crushed, Bernstein rolled across the ground and closed his eyes. What he saw with his eyes closed was his mental image. Gazing at it behind closed eyelids, he staggered to his feet.

Within Bernstein's mental image stood the Helmeted Knight.

The hero he had admired was there.

Now Bernstein knew that the man had never once given up being a knight.

“Yes, you were a hero. You never gave up. Not for a single moment...”

He looked at his body as it wore away.

It hurt. Had that man endured this pain for 150 years? Truly, he deserved admiration. Yes. That was the Empire's hero. The man he had admired.

“At last, I remember your name.”

Bernstein smiled, unburdened. After so much time, he could admire his idol again. He realized that the man still shone. In Bernstein's mental image, which had lost its sun, the sun rose once more.

He attained enlightenment.

Sprouting, Flowering, Full Bloom.

Having climbed those three steps, he faced a wall, but even that wall could not bar Bernstein's way. His 150 years of wandering had already given him ample experience. Finding his answer at the end of his wandering, he tore down the wall and advanced.

Bernstein opened his eyes.

At the end of his life, he reached transcendence.

Having burned all his stars and resolved to end his life here, Bernstein's sword was sharper than ever. He swung it into empty air, but its sword aura reached Quixote dozens of meters away. Quixote's eyes widened.

Bernstein swung his sword.

Again and again.

A scorching sun burned the wasteland. Sunlit sword aura barred the jester's path. As he swung, Bernstein murmured—not to the jester before him, but to the Helmeted Knight, who would be preparing for his end in the forbidden ground beyond.

“May you shine until the very end. May you meet your end as a hero...”

He wielded the Sun Sword, performing the swordsmanship devised by Sir Gawain of the Round Table. Of course, Bernstein's Sun Sword could neither shine as fiercely as Gawain's nor burn his enemies as his did, nor could it create a sun in the Outer Lands.

The light Bernstein's Sun Sword produced was faint.

Even so, it was enough to illuminate the handspan before him.

Had Gawain been here, he would have lavished praise on Bernstein. That was how beautiful his sword was. At the end of his life, Bernstein could be beautiful.

SHWAAAAASH!

Sunlit sword aura swept the ground again and again, but the end approached nonetheless. The Knight of Revelry charged through the flames. Yet his body was far from unscathed. With his face melted by the fire, Quixote let out a hideous shriek.

It was a tremendous feat, but Bernstein felt no admiration for it. He paid it no attention at all. He was merely recalling something that had happened not long ago.

'Ah, I never apologized.'

He had promised to apologize if all those words proved true, yet he had never delivered that apology.

There is no death without regrets. Everyone carries at least one small regret with them. Feeling a little wistful, Bernstein smiled.

For in his final moments, he had been able to be a knight.

* * *

“Am I a jester, or a knight?”

The Helmeted Knight asked himself. Only he could answer that question. He spoke the answer he had put off for 150 years.

“A knight.”

In his final moments, he chose to be a knight.