For the first time in his life, the boy faced the sky.

But the sky was not all he encountered. Najin listened to the sounds around him. Insects chirping. The river flowing. Blades of grass rustling in the breeze. All of it was unfamiliar to him.

The cool breeze tickling his hair.

The vast, unobstructed landscape.

The clear air, neither stale nor suffocating.

Above all, that immense night sky and its stars.

Everything he saw, felt against his skin, and heard was new. Because it was new, it was unfamiliar; because it was unfamiliar, it was wondrous. Najin drew a deep breath. Breathing the air of the outside world for the first time, he opened his eyes wide.

He could see. So very much.

With nothing to block it, his field of vision stretched on and on. When he looked up, he did not see the ore-studded ceiling he had always known. He saw stars adorning a night sky too vast to take in all at once.

The night sky. And stars.

What the boy had longed for so desperately.

Counting the countless stars, Najin looked toward the center of the sky. There was the constellation he had been searching for.

Hanging at the highest point in the night sky.

The largest constellation of them all.

Thirteen stars joined in the shape of a sword.

'The Constellation, the Sword of Selection.'

The constellation of the great hero, King Arthur.

Only today did Najin see with his own eyes the constellation he had studied so many times in his storybook's illustrations. The instant he beheld it, the world of the boy who had been trapped underground expanded.

THUMP.

Najin felt his heart pound.

The distance between him and that constellation was immeasurable, but at least he knew where he had to go. The stars were no longer some vague, invisible goal for the boy.

They were a goal he could see with his own eyes, whose distance he could gauge.

As he gazed at the stars, Najin's eyes shone with yearning, as the eyes of dreaming children so often do. It was a light he had lost long ago.

"Whew..."

In this newly expanded world, Najin let out a long breath. He had always resigned himself to giving up so many things. But he would let go of nothing now. No matter how high it hung, he would reach out and seize it.

Because Ivan had told him to.

To climb to the highest place.

Najin reached toward the stars hanging at the highest point in the night sky. Gauging the heights he had to climb, he murmured inwardly.

'Someday, without fail...'

For now, it was far too fanciful a wish.

So he buried it deep in his heart without speaking it aloud. It was not yet a wish he could share with anyone.

But.

『Remember.』

That voice...

『The stars are always watching you.』

Najin's voice, which no one should have been able to hear because it had remained unspoken, held within his heart...

『When you look to the stars and pray, know that they are listening to your voice.』

...reached a certain star.

SNAP.

Najin's senses sharpened abruptly.

Yet heightened senses did not mean he could move. He realized his body had gone rigid. He could not move. He could not so much as twitch a finger, let alone breathe.

Before long, however, Najin realized he was not the only thing that had stopped. The breeze died down. The grass swaying in it froze. The rushing sound of the water ceased. One by one, everything in motion began to stop.

And when everything had come to a halt...

["Found you."]

A voice echoed in Najin's ears.

Beside King Arthur's constellation, which Najin had been watching, the constellation that had resembled a tranquil lake suddenly seethed. Its stars shone, and Najin's vision flickered.

His eyes turned bluish white.

He felt something snatch at his body. With the sensation of being dragged beneath the surface of water, his vision lurched.

"... Urgh!"

Countless landscapes flashed before his eyes.

Only when the rapidly passing landscapes stopped could Najin breathe again. His vision was hazy, as though shrouded in mist. After blinking repeatedly, he finally made out his surroundings.

What he saw was a lake in a forest.

Until a moment ago, he had been lying on a riverbank with an open view. Now he was looking at a lake amid dense woods. Bewildered by the sudden change of scenery, Najin sat up.

"At last."

He heard a voice.

The same voice he had heard moments earlier. It was clear and gentle as it rang in his ears, but beneath it he sensed unrestrained anger.

"At last, I've found you."

Najin turned toward the voice. There stood a woman with flowing, water-colored hair and blue eyes resembling the lake. His gaze met that of the woman perched on a rock by the lakeshore.

Then she stepped down from the rock.

Her foot touched the ground with a soft tap, and she approached Najin. He narrowed his eyes as he watched her advance, one step at a time.

'Something's wrong.'

Najin was experiencing a strange sensation.

Whenever he tried to meet her eyes, his vision wavered, as though he was not permitted to look at her at all. Through his unsteady vision, he studied her clothes.

They resembled a mage's robes, yet also a knight's formal dress.

An emblem was embroidered on one corner of the fabric fluttering with her steps. Najin recognized it. He had seen it in a storybook.

'An emblem representing a lake and a staff.'

Only one person in the world could bear that emblem, and it had come to symbolize a certain Constellation.

The Mage of the Lake.

Or the Staff of Selection.

Just as Najin was about to utter the famous Constellation's true name without thinking, a hand reached out and clamped over his mouth. The fingers were slender, but the moment they seized him, he could not move at all.

"How dare you try to speak my name with that filthy mouth?"

Merlin's eyes widened in anger.

"What the hell are you?"

2.

"What the hell are you?"

Though she was pretending to be composed, Merlin was deeply bewildered. Even she could not understand what was happening.

The voice that had rung in her ears moments earlier...

It matched the voice of the deranged brat who had recently insulted Arthur as a "man who rose with his times." Reflexively, Merlin had reached out and snatched its owner. What she had snatched was the target's consciousness.

To be honest, Merlin had not expected it to work.

She was a Constellation who had ascended more than several hundred years ago.

She was not a human who remained in the mortal world while possessing stars, but a being who had concluded her story and risen to the heavens—a "completed" existence. The places where such a being could intervene were severely limited, and every movement was burdened with restrictions.

'Of course, I could ignore them and drag him here if I wanted.'

Naturally, that would provoke resistance. She had only made a casual attempt to locate him, intending to let go as soon as she felt any resistance. And yet...

'Why did that work?'

Merlin looked at the boy before her.

His figure was perfectly clear as he blinked in apparent bewilderment, still in her grasp. That meant he had been dragged here without any resistance.

The boy looked confused.

But Merlin was every bit as confused as he was.

"I asked what the hell you are."

The boy in Merlin's grasp blinked, then reached up and pointed at her fingers. His eyes seemed to say that she would have to let go if she wanted him to speak.

His brazen attitude was infuriating, but he had a point. Merlin released Najin with something close to a shove.

"Speak."

"I'm Najin."

"... What?"

"You asked what I was. Najin. That's my name."

Najin rubbed his jaw where she had gripped it with the back of his hand. Having calmly given his name, he was now thinking rapidly.

He was certain the person before him was Merlin. She looked exactly as the storybook had described her.

King Arthur's adviser, the legendary constellation who had accompanied him from the beginning of his journey to its end. His heart did race at seeing someone he had known only from stories at such close quarters, but...

'Set that aside for now.'

Najin assessed the situation.

He needed to understand why Merlin had brought him here, and why she was hostile toward him. Had she dragged him here because he had drawn Excalibur? As he desperately racked his brains...

"You're a funny one. When did I ask your name?"

Merlin laughed in disbelief.

"Arthur was a man who rose with his times, lucky to be born when he was. Those were your words, weren't they?"

... A man who rose with his times, lucky to be born when he was?

What was that supposed to mean? Not immediately understanding her, Najin slowly tilted his head. Then his body went rigid.

["Arthur was just a man who rose with his times, lucky to be born when he was."]

["If he'd been born in this age, he would've been nothing."]

Because he remembered.

["Does that piss you off? Hurt your feelings?"]

["Then come down here and smite me."]

He had remembered the outrageous words he had uttered. Najin's eyes briefly wavered. Cold sweat ran down his spine.

'Wait, she heard that?'

Najin felt a little wronged.

Wasn't it rather unfair that they could hear his voice when he couldn't even see the stars? But that was beside the point. He finally understood Merlin's hostility toward him.

"There's been a slight misunderstanding..."

"Misunderstanding, my ass. What I really want to know is this: where did you get the nerve to say that? No, why is your voice so clear in the first place?"

Merlin took a step closer.

"It's strange. Your voice being this clear, your coming straight to me the moment I snatch you, your maintaining your form and consciousness intact here in my stellar domain..."

She narrowed her eyes.

Her narrowed blue eyes glared at Najin.

"All of it is strange. Did you make a pact with that bastard Mordred or something? Otherwise, it makes no sense. No, even then it makes no sense."

With a tap of her foot, Merlin stopped right in front of Najin.

Close enough that their breaths almost touched, she stared straight into his eyes. His sunset-colored eyes were reflected in her blue ones.

"What the hell are you?"

A question she had asked again and again.

But Najin could not answer it immediately. Merlin heaved a long sigh and spoke.

"Forget it. Honestly, what you are doesn't matter much."

What mattered was...

"You insulted Arthur. And I have no intention of letting that insult slide."

"You're the one who told me to smite you."

Murmuring those words, Merlin snapped her fingers. This was her domain. Once someone had been dragged here, everything was as good as under her control.

So, from the moment she snapped her fingers, the boy before her would need her permission to move, to blink, even to breathe. Considering how she might punish him, Merlin reached toward Najin.

He seized her wrist firmly.

Of course, Merlin could easily shake off such a grip. She also had the power to break down the fingers around her wrist into particles as tiny as grains of sand.

She had that power—but she could not bring herself to use it.

Eyes wide, Merlin stared at the hand gripping hers. Her first reaction to a boy who could move without her permission had been surprise and interest. But the instant she looked at the hand around her wrist, those feelings evaporated.

What filled their place was shock.

Merlin saw it. The constellation emblem inscribed on Najin's wrist. Normally, that emblem was visible only to Najin. No matter how powerful someone was, even a Constellation in the night sky could not see the mark on his wrist.

But Merlin alone was an exception.

For she herself had designed the constellation circuit that stored Excalibur. She could not possibly fail to recognize what that emblem meant.

Merlin raised her head.

Her gaze shifted from the hand around her wrist to the boy's eyes. His sunset-colored eyes had turned platinum before she knew it. The shock in Merlin's eyes soon gave way to anger.

GRIND.

Merlin ground her teeth.

She shook off Najin's hand and seized his wrist instead. As she tightened her grip, platinum starlight flowed out of him.

Merlin snatched the starlight as it swept free.

Gathering together, the starlight formed a platinum holy sword. Having taken Excalibur from Najin, Merlin let out a long, very long sigh.

"Of all people."

She pressed hard around her eyes.

"Of all people...!"

Three days had passed since Excalibur had been drawn.

Throughout that time, neither she nor any of the countless Constellations in the night sky had been able to find the holy sword's master. Now that master stood before her, yet Merlin simply could not accept it.

The person before her was not a Sword Master.

Nor was he a powerful warrior approaching that rank.

He was not even a special being with a star of his own.

He was a brat with nothing remarkable about him save his outrageous claim that Arthur was merely a man who rose with his times, lucky to be born when he was. Merlin could not comprehend how that brat could be the holy sword's master.

"That..."

But the Sword of Selection had selected the boy.

That was an unchangeable fact.

"I believe that's mine."

Najin closed his hand firmly around empty air.

Excalibur crumbled into starlight in Merlin's hand. The scattered light returned to Najin's hand and took the shape of a sword once more.

"I'd rather you didn't take it from me like that."

Unlike when Merlin had held it, the sword shone brilliantly in the boy's hand, as though declaring him its true master. A vein bulged on Merlin's forehead as she watched.

"Wow."

Merlin marveled.

She sighed in what sounded like genuine astonishment.

"Who the fuck is this little shit?"