Funeral Rites, the fifth star Najin had gained.

The term meant carrying the body of the dead to the place where it ought to be buried. It was used much like funeral, burial, or interment. But as Najin looked at the star rising into the sky, he interpreted its meaning a little differently.

The place where one ought to be buried.

That did not simply mean a grave. Najin took it to mean the end one ought to meet. A proper death. A desired end. Granting someone an end they could find satisfying by their own standards. That was what Funeral Rites meant to him.

The Outer Lands, where a proper death was denied. A land teeming with the Lost as a result. A place like hell, where even rest was forbidden.

In this land, the significance of the star of Funeral Rites would be far from small. Najin silently gazed at the star shining in the sky. With a heaviness inside him like indigestion, he pressed firmly over his heart, as though struggling to ease the constriction.

He still could not get used to it.

Whenever he parted with someone he had formed a bond with, whenever he witnessed their end, Najin felt his heart grow heavy. Perhaps that was inevitable. It was as though he had buried their very existence in his heart.

Najin firmly fingered his hair tie, the stellar relic left behind by the Star of Separation.

He could not tell exactly what power it held. He had only a vague sense of it. After tying it a little tighter, he let out a long breath.

Viola Ordina, the hero.

Violet, the musician.

Najin took one last look at the gravestone bearing those two names, then turned and walked away.

2.

After gaining his fifth star, Najin learned a few things.

“Usually, people become transcendent beings once they have about six stars, you know?”

The first was the relationship between stars and transcendent beings.

“Not every transcendent being has six or more stars, but everyone with six or more is transcendent. Oh, not quite everyone, actually. There have been a few exceptions over the past thousand years, but you could count them on one hand.”

“What about me, then?”

“I think you'll be an exception. You've still got a long way to go before becoming a Sword Master, haven't you?”

Usually, by the time someone had about five stars, they were either approaching transcendence or had already attained it. Najin was an exception. He was accumulating great feats overwhelmingly faster than he was advancing in skill.

“There was even someone who had ten stars without being transcendent. Only one in all of history, though.”

“Who was that?”

“Galahad.”

It was a name Najin knew.

Galahad, a knight of the Round Table.

Wasn't he the man called the strongest knight of the Round Table, excluding Arthur? A knight so powerful that he was said to have defeated all the remaining knights of the Round Table together.

“Really? The storybooks describe him as transcendent.”

“He wasn't transcendent, but he was stronger than transcendent beings. He really was absurdly strong.”

“But why?”

“Hmm. It's a little complicated to explain, but his case was unusual. Galahad could never become transcendent.”

Najin tilted his head.

“How should I explain this?” Merlin murmured, rubbing her chin.

“Perfect and flawless, a human who gave up being human, a manufactured being, a sort of stage prop...”

As she considered which expression fit, a complicated look crossed her face, and she shook her head.

“Hmm. It's complicated to explain, and even if I did, you wouldn't understand. Anyway, I was trying to say that accumulating great feats naturally leads to transcendence, but not always... Does that make sense?”

Najin nodded.

A human had to achieve the sublimation of their soul to become transcendent. Najin had accumulated feats on par with those of transcendent beings, but his soul had not yet fully matured. He himself felt the same way.

“Well, you just need to work your way up one step at a time.”

He had a long way to go, but as the saying went, the farther the journey, the more important it was not to rush. Hadn't the Helmeted Knight said so too? That being so impatient would ruin even things that should work out.

Najin tried not to grow impatient.

That was the first thing he learned.

The second came from someone who sought him out.

“A pleasure to meet you, Master Najin. My name is Soles, and I am an attendant to Lord Gerd, the Empire's foremost warrior.”

The woman who introduced herself as Soles had somehow managed to find Najin in the vast expanse of the Outer Lands. Even he found it astonishing. She had appeared without warning, shown him the insignia of the Empire's foremost warrior, and introduced herself by saying, “Lord Gerd sent me.”

“According to the original schedule, I should have met with you eleven days ago. However, your trail abruptly vanished in this area, delaying my visit. I apologize.”

Soles bowed her head, then looked intently at Najin.

“If you do not mind my asking, where in this vicinity were you?”

“I spent a little time inside a Constellation's grave.”

“Ah, as I suspected. My ability cannot reach that far.”

“May I ask you something too? How did you know where I was?”

“That is confidential, so I cannot explain in detail, but I used the Mystery and Masterpiece in my possession.”

Hearing that suddenly reminded Najin of his conversation with Gerd.

[“I have a way to get word to you wherever you are.”]

[“If I find information to share, I'll contact you myself.”]

So this woman was that means of contact.

That seemed to be the case. Soles cleared her throat before speaking.

“Over the past month of investigation, we have successfully uncovered significant information concerning the Emperor of Revelry. I am here to share it with you.”

Najin's eyes narrowed at once.

He had reacted reflexively to the words “Emperor of Revelry.” When he nodded, Soles began her report.

“Across the Empire's five-hundred-year history, records of 781 incidents were erased unnaturally. Of these, 754 concerned the Emperor of Revelry. We have managed to establish an outline of roughly two hundred by comparing them with other records from their respective periods.”

Soles did not bother reporting that the imperial historians' hairlines had receded drastically in the process, or that countless strands of hair had been sacrificed. It had been a necessary sacrifice.

“Minutes left by a knight order whose emblem was a horned helmet proved especially helpful. The order's name has been erased beyond recovery, but according to the records they left...”

It had to be the Order of the Golden Horn.

Najin bit down hard on his lip.

“At present, confronting the Emperor of Revelry within her domain is nearly impossible.”

“... Impossible?”

Najin recalled what he knew about the Emperor of Revelry. As a rule, she stayed holed up in her domain. She was extremely reluctant to show herself outside and would not step onto the stage herself.

A presence behind the curtain.

Quite literally, that was what the Emperor of Revelry was. Someone who schemed behind the stage, appeared only when her victory was certain, and held over a hundred stars as spare lives. Someone who never risked her own life.

'Her domain is both her main stage and her hiding place. Of course it would be difficult.'

He had expected as much, but what Soles told him about that domain surpassed his imagination.

“Multiple forbidden grounds overlap within the Emperor of Revelry's domain, all existing solely for her benefit.”

Forbidden ground.

A place that weakened, wore down, and destroyed uninvited beings. According to Soles, the Emperor of Revelry's domain held at least several dozen of them, and possibly as many as a hundred.

“Facing the ten-star Emperor of Revelry in such forbidden ground is nearly impossible. It would require the intervention of a Constellation on par with the Round Table... which, naturally, is also nearly impossible.”

“Then what should we do?”

“The knight order that left those records used a method of luring the Emperor of Revelry outside. But Lord Gerd judged that, having recently been injured, she will certainly be even more cautious, making it difficult to draw her out.”

Then what method could they use?

“Lord Gerd proposed dismantling the forbidden grounds.”

Gerd had chosen a direct approach.

“Among the forbidden grounds covering the Emperor of Revelry's domain, some serve as central pillars. Destroy those, and the others will naturally collapse, opening a path to her domain.”

“How do we destroy them?”

“It is simple. Kill the beings who created them—the Constellations who own those forbidden grounds.”

Soles spread her fingers, then folded her thumb inward. Holding up four fingers, she continued.

“The Emperor of Revelry has four Constellations known as apostles, or court jesters. They are her most powerful jesters and the centers of the forbidden grounds.”

“Court jesters.”

“Yes, court jesters. We have yet to identify two of them, but the other two have been revealed.”

She folded two more fingers, then lowered the remaining two one at a time as she spoke.

“One is Carpe Diem, the Demon King of Lamentation.”

Najin thought he knew who the other would be.

“The second is Quixote, the Star of Scorn.”

Quixote, the jester knight.

That dreadful being was seared into Najin's memory. As he clenched his sword hilt, Soles cleared her throat with a small cough.

“A message from Lord Gerd.”

She spoke in an imitation of Gerd's voice.

“I will kill Carpe Diem. You are to track Quixote, the Star of Scorn. Quixote has something that could be called a weakness. Find it.”

Soles extended a finger and pointed at the ground.

“Somewhere in the Outer Lands is a place called La Mancha. You will find a clue there.”

La Mancha. Najin turned the place name over in his mind.

“That concludes his message. Next is an item Lord Gerd instructed me to deliver...”

She took a wooden box from inside her clothing and handed it to Najin.

Opening it, Najin blinked, then burst out laughing. Indeed, it was exactly what he needed. He nodded.

“Yes. Please convey my thanks to Lord Gerd.”

3.

“Hah, hhng, haaaah!”

The knight Jowel ran, gasping as though his lungs would burst.

TAP, TAP, TAP!

He ran and ran without looking back.

There was neither grace nor dignity in his frantic, utterly unknightly running... but Jowel had no time to care about that. He concentrated on running.

'Why? How did it come to this?'

Jowel wondered how everything had gone so wrong.

He had originally volunteered for the battlefield.

Once he passed the age of 120 and could no longer remain on the continent, Jowel had enlisted. Rather than wandering the Outer Lands until he became one of the Lost, he intended to die gloriously on the battlefield fighting devils.

Even by his own reckoning, it had been a rather splendid thing to do.

As though fulfilling his duties as a knight on the continent had not been enough, he would continue serving humanity by fighting devils even after leaving for the Outer Lands. What a splendid choice! Jowel was intoxicated with his own decision, with his honorable, proud self.

And some said that in the Outer Lands, honor and pride were strong liquor.

Intoxicating to drink, but painful once you sobered up.

“Hah, hah, hah!”

They had been right.

Running like mad, Jowel looked back. Enormous magical beasts, the Lost, and all manner of monsters were chasing him. Regretting that backward glance, he squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on running.

Why? Why had it come to this?

The battlefield Jowel had volunteered for was nothing like he had imagined. The battles there were on an entirely different level from those on the continent. As a Sword Seeker, he had been a splendid knight who distinguished himself and made his presence felt in every battle he joined on the continent.

But not in the Outer Lands.

Here, he was an ordinary soldier, or something even less. On a battlefield where devils rampaged at every opportunity, Lost who had once been transcendent beings intervened, and monsters ran wild, he was merely one individual.

There was no honorable end there.

No beautiful death.

Naturally, no rest either.

He wanted to flee, but there was nowhere to flee to. Above all, the petty pride that told him a knight must never do such a thing prevented him from running away.

He had endured that way for a long time. Today, while scouting with his comrades, Jowel had encountered a pack of magical beasts and Lost. His comrades were terrified. Death seemed certain. In that moment, Jowel beat his chest and cried in a trembling voice.

[“L-leave this to me and run!”]

[“I will draw their attention. You must report this. Don't worry, I'm quite fleet of foot.”]

Having made that declaration, he summoned his starlight and began to run. Naturally, the Lost and monsters chased him, leading to his current predicament.

“Hhng!”

Now, running so hard his legs might break, Jowel regretted his choice. Why had he done it? Because he wanted to save his comrades? No, probably not. He knew he was not such a noble person.

He had simply wanted to die impressively.

He had seen so many people trampled by devils, smashed apart by the Lost, and killed like dogs. Their deaths had been worthless and meaningless. And Jowel knew that if he remained on such a battlefield, he would meet the same fate.

Rather than dying like that someday... wouldn't it be better to die an impressive death, sacrificing himself to save his comrades?

That was all he had thought.

But as death drew closer by the moment, Jowel felt fear. When he pictured those Lost chewing him alive, he could only sob.

He did not want to die.

What was so important about that damned honor and pride?

What was so important about an impressive end?

As he ran and ran, Jowel eventually stripped off his armor and threw away his sword and shield, all to run even a little faster. At last, he discarded his honor and pride as well, and was about to let out a disgraceful scream.

TAP.

A footstep sounded from somewhere.

Jowel raised his head.

A young man was walking toward him from the opposite direction. He held a sword in one hand and the shaft of a spear in the other. Jowel narrowed his eyes, looking at the young man's clothes.

He had seen that attire somewhere before.

It was not what the knights stationed on the battlefield wore. Where had he seen clothes like those?

“Ah.”

A brief sigh escaped Jowel.

He had seen them in a history book when he was an apprentice knight. The attire worn by the free knights who accompanied King Arthur a thousand years ago. But why was a knight dressed like that here? Weren't those clothes something out of a storybook?

Was this an illusion he had conjured to rebuke himself for abandoning even his honor and pride?

TAP.

No. The young man was physically there, approaching Jowel. On closer inspection, some details differed from the attire of a free knight. On his shoulder were an epaulet resembling a horned helmet and an old military standard Jowel did not recognize.

Still running, Jowel forgot even his predicament and asked the young man before him a question.

“Who are you?”

The young man answered briefly.

“Najin. I am Najin, a free knight.”

An instant later, Najin passed Jowel and charged into the pack of Lost pursuing him.