Najin was sensitive to changes in other people's expressions. His childhood had left him no choice but to be, and the eyes he had been born with missed not even the slightest shift in another person's face.

"This is the first I've heard of it. The order did such a thing? That can't be right."

And from what Najin could see, Eurypylus did not seem to be lying. The changes in his expression were natural. Najin had checked twice, but found nothing awkward about them.

Of course, he could not rule out the possibility that the man was a master actor and all of this was deception... but judging by Eurypylus's words and actions so far, that seemed unlikely.

Above all, wasn't the very fact that he was making this offer now clear evidence that he knew nothing of what the order had done? He would never have approached Najin this way if he knew.

"Then was offering me command of the paladins your own decision, Lighthouse Keeper?"

"Just as the Empire's foremost warrior represents the Empire, I represent the Order of Star Radiance. I dislike your suggestion that I acted on my own. This is the will of the Order of Star Radiance..."

"I mean, did you act alone, without instructions from Star Radiance's patron deity or High Priest?"

"Don't interrupt me."

The Lighthouse Keeper clicked his tongue and nodded irritably.

"Why should I obey the High Priest's instructions? Only our patron deity, the Lighthouse, can give me orders. And even then, I am under no obligation to obey everything she says."

Apparently, his relationship with his patron deity was not strictly hierarchical.

The Lighthouse Keeper folded his arms and said, "Yes. It was my own decision."

"May I ask why?"

"You've suddenly become cooperative. Have you finally decided to have a conversation?"

"Yes, somewhat."

"Your attitude still displeases me, but since I'm the one making the offer, there's no reason I cannot explain it."

When Najin yielded a little, Eurypylus's eyebrows twitched. Apparently, his mood had improved somewhat. As proof, the arms he had tightly folded were now uncrossed.

"Great change breeds confusion, and confusion naturally brings chaos with it. You, who are shaking a thousand years of history to its foundations, stand at the center of that change. What, then, should be done?"

"Eliminate me?"

Eurypylus recoiled at Najin's words.

"You've been saying these grim things about killing and eliminating people all along. That must always be a last resort. It isn't a choice to make so lightly."

With a brief sigh, he continued.

"Change is ultimately the course of the world. Human hands may dam it for a while, but not forever. If it cannot be stopped, shouldn't we at least keep it close? We must guide that current so that it flows gently rather than becoming a torrent."

His explanation was long, but it amounted to: You look rather dangerous, so I'll recruit you to our side.

"You went to all this trouble just for that? Someone whose very epithet is 'the Unmoving'?"

"... I'd been thinking I ought to meet you ever since you were called the 'youngest Sword Seeker.' Who could have expected you to acquire four stars in barely half a year after that?"

From Eurypylus's perspective, it was unfair too.

He had intended to take his time, only for Najin to acquire four stars in less than half a year. The boy rarely appeared in public, either, making a meeting difficult to arrange.

Moreover, whenever he ordered the order's underlings to contact the boy, all he received was, "We'll try, but it won't be easy." It was immensely frustrating even for the Lighthouse Keeper.

Then he heard that Najin would be attending a banquet. Eurypylus immediately hauled himself to the imperial capital, deciding he could delay no longer.

And what had he found upon arriving? Far from showing respect, the boy merely glared at him. An imperial Sword Master threatened him, and an imperial archmage even ordered him out.

He felt rather—no, very—hard done by.

"The order attacked you."

"Yes."

"Tried to kill you outright, you said. According to you, they even sent outsiders they had leverage over?"

Najin nodded, and Eurypylus pressed a hand between his brows. His face creased as he let out a long breath.

"Wait. I need to think."

2.

Najin remained silent while Eurypylus gathered his thoughts. He, too, needed to reconsider things.

Until now, Najin had considered the following his primary enemies:

High Priest Orlan, the Order of Star Radiance's patron deity, the Lighthouse That Illuminates All Things, and the Lighthouse Keeper, Eurypylus.

A fair amount of time had passed since Najin drew Excalibur, and during that time, the Order of Star Radiance had attacked him. Under these circumstances, its patron deity could hardly plead ignorance of what was happening. Naturally, Najin had assumed the High Priest and Star Radiance's patron deity were in league.

'And if the High Priest and patron deity are in league, the Lighthouse Keeper, whose authority exceeds the High Priest's, must be too.'

That had been Najin's assumption, and a reasonable one.

'But... '

Najin looked at the man before him. He appeared to be a young man in his mid-twenties at most, yet he was actually a transcendent being who had lived for four hundred years.

He seemed unaware of what the order had done. No matter how Najin looked at him, he did not appear involved.

Was that possible? Najin wondered, but Eurypylus did not seem to be lying. Venting his anger at someone who knew nothing would only leave Najin feeling hollow. He regarded the Lighthouse Keeper with mixed feelings.

———The Lighthouse Keeper should have been the greatest wall standing in the way of Najin's revenge.

Najin had devised countless plans to deal with him. In his mind, the Lighthouse Keeper was a powerful, formidable, merciless enemy. But the man he now faced was nothing like the one he had imagined.

He was passive, conservative, and someone who could be reasoned with.

Of course, he bore responsibility too.

Najin could hold him accountable for any number of things. How could the order's champion allow its corruption to go unchecked? What had he been doing while the order rotted so thoroughly? Najin could rage at him that way... but it would be anger for anger's sake.

His anger was directed at those who had deliberately tried to crush him. It was difficult to feel murderous toward someone who had made a mistake without knowing anything.

'By that logic, I'd have to kill everyone connected to the order.'

He did not want that.

He intended only to tear down the order's structure and kill those who had planned this, not everyone who belonged to it. That would make him nothing more than a mass murderer.

"Hmm."

As Najin wrestled with those feelings, the Lighthouse Keeper slowly spoke.

"I cannot be certain whether what you say is true. I'll have to confirm it myself. I need to return to the order and investigate."

"... Once you do..."

Najin asked, "Once you've investigated, will anything change?"

"Who knows? I do want to establish whether the order did such things, but I'm more interested in why they tried to kill you."

"What if their reason is absurd? If, for instance, the order committed an unmistakably evil act, what happens then?"

Eurypylus stroked his chin at the question, then gave a short answer.

"Well. I'll have to see when the time comes, won't I?"

"... What?"

"You seem to be mistaken about something. I'm not the sort of man who cries out for justice or upholds the law. If I were, I'd have gone to the Outer Lands long ago."

Eurypylus spoke matter-of-factly.

"Fundamentally, I'm on the order's side. You could call me an old friend of the order—a close friend of some four hundred years, in fact... You don't immediately stab a friend in the back just because they've done something bad, do you? There's no harm in hearing them out before deciding."

He folded his arms and leaned back.

"From the look of things, you want to bring down the order entirely, don't you? The Lighthouse, the High Priest, the whole framework of this Order of Star Radiance—you seem to want to smash it all."

"..."

"I'll take your silence as a yes. This has become complicated. Ah, I feel I've gotten caught up in something messy. That's not good."

He scratched his snow-white hair as though it were all a nuisance.

"Najin, was it?"

"Yes."

"I'll make one final offer. Will you become commander of the Order of Star Radiance's paladins? I'll give you the authority. If you dislike the High Priest, kill him. I have no intention of interfering with your personal grudges."

"But," the Lighthouse Keeper continued, "no further than that. I must preserve the framework of the order itself. For my own well-being, and because I owe a debt to my friend."

He drew a line on the table.

That was his proposed compromise. After tapping his finger against that boundary, Eurypylus stopped and gave a small tilt of his chin with a thoughtful hum.

"I suppose I can give you a little more. You may tear down the framework to some extent. I'll allow that much. I don't mind, provided you leave one thing untouched."

"What is that one thing?"

"The underground city, Atman."

TAP.

His finger touched the table.

"Do you know about the underground city?"

"I do."

"Good. Well, it's a place where people guilty of grave sins are confined, but it serves a purpose of its own. As long as you leave it alone, I have no particular intention of interfering."

"... And the people trapped there?"

"Do you know someone there? Unfortunately, that's out of the question. They're necessary."

"Why are they necessary?"

"I can't tell you that. Even telling you this much is a kindness on my part, because it appears the order really did attack you and wrong you. Accept a kindness for what it is. Demanding more would be shameless. Wouldn't you agree?"

Najin looked at the line Eurypylus had drawn.

Eurypylus was warning him not to cross it, but Najin's answer to that warning was already decided.

"Then I'm afraid that won't work."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. My master was most insistent that 'if you see a line, cross it first.'"

"Sounds like he was one hell of a master."

"He was, a little."

"Negotiations have broken down, then. Ah, what a nuisance."

Eurypylus sighed and tilted his head back. Resting his neck against the chair's backrest, he looked up at the sky. His gaze was directed toward the Lighthouse's stars hanging overhead.

"Nothing to show for coming all this way. What a waste of time. Such a waste it makes my stomach ache."

"Now that negotiations have failed, will you kill me?"

"No? Didn't I tell you? Killing is strictly a last resort. Still, well..."

Eurypylus lowered his head to look at Najin.

"If things get tangled up, it may come to that."

Murder might be a last resort, but that did not change the fact that it was a resort. If there were no other way, he would do it. That was what Eurypylus was saying.

"Still, as I said, we'll have to see when the time comes. I might oppose you then, or I might cooperate with you."

"That's an ambiguous stance."

"That's life. It isn't divided into black and white, nor neatly separated into this and that. Is there any being as inconsistent as a human? You might change by then yourself."

Eurypylus shrugged.

"Then I'll see you again. No, preferably, I hope we'll have no reason to meet."

Eurypylus rose and trudged away.

Watching his retreating back, Najin suddenly asked, "What does the Order of Star Radiance mean to you?"

Eurypylus stopped at the question and turned to look at Najin.

"An old friend."

He resumed walking after answering, then glanced back once more and added, "My reason for existing, too."

3.

After Eurypylus left, Najin remained seated, lost in thought for a while.

'Merlin.'

-Yeah.

'You heard all that, right?'

-I was listening.

'How does he look to you?'

-What? You mean how strong that Lighthouse Keeper is?

Najin nodded, and Merlin answered briefly.

-I doubt anyone on the continent could beat him.

'... What?'

Blinking, Najin asked again. Was that including the Empire's three Sword Masters?

-Of course I meant including those three.

'Doesn't the Lighthouse Keeper have six stars?'

-I told you before, stars aren't an absolute measure of strength. Stars are weapons. Having more weapons to use certainly gives you an advantage... but that doesn't necessarily decide who wins, does it?

Things did change somewhat when the number approached ten, she said, but stars were not necessarily an absolute measure of strength.

-And that Constellation, the Lighthouse Keeper, is an exception among exceptions.

An exception.

-I don't know whether it's by remaining unmoving or through some other means, but the Lighthouse Keeper accumulates his time somehow. Using that accumulated time, he's made himself an exception to the laws of the world.

The Lighthouse Keeper was free of erosion.

By some means, he had escaped it. Merlin declared that this was by no means easy.

-I don't know how much time he's accumulated, but I've done something similar, so I know...

Merlin counted on her fingers as she calculated.

-If I remember correctly, the Lighthouse Keeper started accumulating time when he was a little over a hundred, so he should have a little over three hundred years saved up, right? He's remained unmoving all this time, so he wouldn't have had much reason to spend it.

Having finished her calculations, Merlin said:

-Assuming he burned all three hundred years... he could put up a decent fight even if all Five Pillars of the Empire came at him.

'He's that powerful?'

-In terms of raw output, yes. There would be variables once the fighting started, of course.

Merlin's words aligned with what Dieta had told him. She had said that the Lighthouse Keeper's very existence served as a kind of deterrent on the continent. His power was so overwhelmingly great that it actually maintained the balance.

"..."

Najin mulled over the Lighthouse Keeper's parting words.

An old friend, and his reason for existing.

For a long while, Najin pondered what those words meant.