26. Sacred Forest (5)

["... No."]

A gloomy voice rang out. It was Merlin’s, rough and raspy.

["You cannot take that sword!"]

["W-wait, Sir Merlin!"]

Ignoring Nimue’s protests, Merlin lunged at me, his face a mask of fury.

I rolled sideways, rose to my feet, and raised Excalibur.

As though he had lost his mind, Merlin raised every nearby branch and launched them at me. Their numbers and ferocity were on an entirely different scale from before.

Facing Merlin’s savage advance, I said,

“I’m not taking it.”

Then I undid Excalibur’s Weaving.

CRUNCH!

Merlin’s branches pierced through me and plunged into the ground. Beside me, Selena’s eyes widened.

["Oh no..."]

Merlin was uncharacteristically flustered. He had not meant to kill me.

But, just as he had intended, I wasn’t dead. I didn’t have a scratch on me.

“That won’t work on me.”

Mere branches from Merlin couldn’t hurt me.

Because to my eyes, Merlin’s “dream” was plainly an illusion.

["How can this..."]

“I can see it. What I create is an illusion, too. The trees you made, the wild animals, and...”

I gave Nimue a warning look.

“Even Excalibur.”

["...!"]

Nimue’s eyes flew wide at my words.

["What do you mean?"]

Merlin’s voice had dropped even lower.

“... Sir Merlin.”

I fell silent for a moment. As I prepared to tell him, a tangle of emotions soured my insides.

“For whose sake are you guarding this lake?”

["What do you mean by that?"]

“The sword sleeping within the lake. Who are you guarding it for? Who are you waiting to give it to?”

Merlin blinked his wrinkled eyes at me. Looking as though I had asked something perfectly obvious, he answered.

["King Arthur, of course. I am waiting for him to come."]

“Huh?”

It was Selena who had spoken. Merlin’s answer would make no sense to her.

I closed my eyes, then opened them.

“Sir Merlin.”

Then I said it.

“King Arthur is dead.”

* * *

Merlin, archmage, sage, and prophet, had received a prophecy.

One day, King Arthur would need a “second sword.”

He had to wait for Arthur so he could give him that sword when the time came.

But Merlin did not know how long he himself would live. What if he was already dead when Arthur arrived? What if there was no one left to guard the lake?

And so Merlin inscribed his “dream” upon the lake.

To fulfill his promise even after his death.

To guard the lake and become the final sword at his king’s back.

“You are the being created within that dream,” I told Merlin.

The Merlin before me was a single personality that the archmage Merlin had installed in his “dream” long ago.

... In other words, an illusion. He merely believed himself to be Merlin.

["... Ha."]

Merlin gave a hollow laugh.

["I thought I controlled the dream, yet even I am an illusion."]

["Merlin. Don’t believe him. It’s a ploy to confuse you. It’s absurd, isn’t it? Sir Merlin, have you forgotten your promise to King Arthur?"]

Nimue spoke hastily.

I approached Merlin while Nimue continued chattering away.

“Would you like to test it? Try touching me.”

Now I could perceive Merlin as nothing more than an illusion.

He could touch anyone else without a problem, but not me.

["..."]

Without a word, Merlin moved his hand. He swept it down toward the hand I held out to him.

It passed smoothly through me.

Just like a ghost.

“...”

Everyone watching was speechless. Even Nimue, who had been talking so insistently beside us, fell silent.

I looked at her.

“Miss Nimue. About that sword embedded in the bottom of the lake.”

Nimue looked at me and caught her breath.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you? ‘No one can draw that sword. No one.’”

["Th-that was excluding King Arthur, of course—"]

“Then who are you waiting for, in an age without King Arthur?”

Nimue bit her lip at my retort. Again and again, her lips moved as though she was about to speak, only for her to stop.

Selena, who had been watching, spoke up.

“Then the sword embedded in the lake is actually...?”

“A fake. The two legends got mixed together.”

The lake was real.

In other words, the lake was the only real thing here.

The sword King Arthur drew from the stone and the sword the Lady of the Lake gave him were clearly different.

Even if both were called “Excalibur,” that was only a name.

["... Everything."]

Then Merlin’s tightly pressed lips parted.

["Do you know everything?"]

“Well, more or less.”

["Then please tell me all of it. The truth."]

Merlin remained calm despite being told he was a “fake.”

Was this what made him an archmage? Even the Merlin born from him retained his wisdom and contemplative composure.

I took a brief breath and began.

I addressed Selena. Saying all this directly to Merlin was simply too daunting.

“This is a dream Merlin created, but it probably wasn’t originally this big. Back then, there would have been an intact forest here, and it would have been human territory.”

But when enough time passed to be called an era, things changed.

Humanity’s territory shrank, the monsters grew stronger, and Merlin expanded his dream to protect the lake.

“The trees, plants, and animals in this forest are all far too pretty, too beautiful. But not one of them exists in reality. Over the years, even the dream changes. Those are traces of embellishment.”

Monsters didn’t enter this forest. Or rather, they had no reason to enter.

Monsters were living creatures that needed to eat, too, but eating anything here would do them no good. Besides, Merlin himself drove them away.

“No monsters came in, the forest remained a forest, and all he had to do was wait for King Arthur to arrive someday. Everything would be settled. But there was one problem.”

“What was it?”

“Merlin didn’t have Excalibur.”

“...!”

In Arthurian legend, Merlin was never the one who gave Arthur Excalibur. He was King Arthur’s companion and adviser, a guiding light on his path.

Selena asked another question.

“Then why did the original Merlin design the ‘dream’? How was he supposed to give Arthur Excalibur when he didn’t have it?”

“... He trusted Nimue. She was the one who had Excalibur.”

While alive, Merlin had designed the dream with faith in Nimue. It was meant to repel other intruders before King Arthur arrived, and, should Arthur die, to select someone worthy of Excalibur.

“But Nimue lied. ‘The sword is embedded at the bottom of the lake. Only the worthy will obtain it.’ It was probably something like that.”

["Y-you! If you don’t stop this...!"]

WHOOSH!

I fired a spear with Weaving in Midair. It skimmed past Nimue.

“Shut up. I already know you’re real, bitch. You didn’t think you could keep fooling him forever, did you?”

My tone was threatening, but of course I had no intention of actually killing Nimue. She might be a witch, but she was a necessary one.

“Anyway, Merlin believed her. And because Merlin, the master of the dream, believed that lie, a sword really did come into being at the bottom of the lake. At least within this forest, the Excalibur in the lake is ‘real.’ Though of course, no one can draw it.”

“... But Nimue has the real Excalibur.”

“Right. Even now.”

Hearing our conversation, Nimue retreated some distance. She moved backward across the lake, then took a fighting stance.

["Y-you. If you intend to take Excalibur, I will never—"]

“I’m not taking it.”

My answer was immediate. Nimue made a foolish, bewildered sound.

“You saw it earlier. I already got it.”

With that, I wove Excalibur once again, then immediately canceled it.

I pretended to be nonchalant, but I was worried about my mana.

“Merlin can’t leave this forest. He exists within the dream. But Nimue is different. As a fairy, she knows how the world has changed. Yet she never told Merlin. She kept telling him that King Arthur was still alive and would come here someday.”

The Merlin here was only a personality created to guard the lake. His thinking was therefore not as complete as a human’s.

Just as we never question anything when we are dreaming, the Merlin within the dream questioned nothing as long as he remained in the forest.

“And she had the monsters attack Teibeon.”

“What? Nimue did?”

“Yes. Though rather than having them attack Teibeon, it would be more accurate to say she adjusted the timing of attacks they were going to make anyway.”

With or without Nimue, the monsters of the Outside were bound to invade Teibeon.

But she had instigated the recent frequent, small-scale attacks that disrupted repairs to the wall, as well as the all-out offensive timed to strike when the wall was weakest.

She didn’t need to side with the monsters or become their leader. All she had to do was use magic to pass along useful information, and the highly intelligent monsters of the Outside would act on their own.

“Wh-why would she do that?”

“Because you can see the wall from the forest.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Then Merlin would find it strange. ‘If humanity has reclaimed territory this far, why hasn’t King Arthur been able to come?’”

“... Oh.”

Nimue had attacked Teibeon to prevent that.

To keep human territory from expanding any farther north. To make lies like “King Arthur is too occupied holding back the monsters of the Outside to come to the forest” convincing.

... In the game, Nimue’s actions eventually led to the worst possible outcome: the monsters breached the wall and swallowed Teibeon whole.

Of course, Nimue probably hadn’t intended to go that far, but the players’ outrage when they learned the truth had been tremendous.

“So the only things that truly exist in reality are the lake and Nimue, the so-called Lady of the Lake. Everything else is an illusion Merlin created and Nimue nurtured with lies.”

Having summed it up, I looked at Merlin.

“That is the truth.”

Even after hearing that, Merlin showed no reaction.

But after a while, he lifted his aged eyes and gazed across the empty air, his eyes clearer than before.

["I see."]

That was all.

For so many years, he had lived bereft of substance and purpose. Yet even after learning the whole truth, Merlin remained quietly composed.

“... Let’s go, Selena.”

“What? Just like this?”

“There’s nothing more for us to do. More importantly, we’re out of time. Time passes a little more slowly here because we’re inside a dream, but the danger hasn’t changed.”

Even now, blood would be spilling at the wall under the monsters’ all-out assault.

Even if Nimue stopped contacting them, that would only deprive them of strategy. They would still come swarming.

We had to repel this offensive, at the very least.

I mounted the Cassian. Selena kept glancing at Merlin and Nimue before climbing on behind me.

“Let’s go, Cassian.”

The Cassian moved without hesitation, and as we rode away, I glanced back.

The receding figures of Merlin and Nimue looked like a frozen image.