Our clothes were very simple—clothes for an ordinary family are usually very simple.
Through our respective phones, the current point in time has been confirmed—July 13, 2014.
It was midsummer, and both Mordred and I were wearing simple pure white short-sleeved shirts and short…
If this were back in China, this whole outfit wouldn’t cost more than 20 yuan; they’re just street stall goods.
The sizes were also slightly ill-fitting, but it wasn’t a big problem; at least they were comfortable to wear.
Mordred had no interest in the modern city; she was absent-minded the whole time, thinking about her own concerns.
Even when we arrived at KFC and the air was filled with the aroma of fried chicken, she remained absent-minded and had no appetite.
She kept a long face throughout, very unhappy and upset, and since I didn’t know what to say, we just started eating like that.
This KFC wasn’t to my taste—I don’t know if it was to cater to the locals, but even for junk food like fried chicken and fries, the flavor was quite bland, as if no salt had been added.
If the texture of the chicken hadn’t been okay, I would have somewhat regretted coming here—actually, I regret it now; it would have been better to find a Chinese restaurant or something and order some lamb shaved noodles.
In the tradition of the Britons, talking while eating is the most normal thing in the world.
So Mordred and I started chatting in the shop.
Of course, to avoid some trouble, I deliberately used latin.
As a dead language, only a very small number of people in Europe can still speak latin, let alone in Japan.
“…In other words, the relationship between Father and me is twin sisters here?
Because our parents passed away in a car accident, we had to return to Japan to attend school here?
And because the school start dates in Britain and Japan are different, we’re joining as transfer students?”
“That’s about it,” I said.
“Is Mordred very uncomfortable with this era?”
“…The era is fine…
it’s just the forms of address…”
So she was bothered by the change in how we address each other…
No matter the era or the nation, parents have specific titles.
Once one gets used to a form of address, it’s very difficult to adapt—it’s like suddenly changing your name; it takes about a year for the new name to become a habit.
“When speaking English, just call me by my name.
When speaking Japanese, either my name or ‘Big Sister’ is fine.”
“…It’s still a bit awkward.
We’re clearly father and son, yet I have to call us sisters or something…”
“Calling us sisters is actually not a problem.
My prototype is Vortigern, and your prototype is me.
As beings born through unnatural means, we don’t really have parents in the biological sense.
We were called father and son only because of the kingship of Albion.
Now that I am not a king and you are not the heir to the throne, it doesn’t matter how the titles change.”
Mordred didn’t answer, instead slowly chewing on a fried chicken drumstick.
The logic was sound, and I think she understood it.
But changing and adapting was another matter entirely.
Setting aside psychological age, when the Battle of Camlann broke out, I was indeed already thirty years old.
How should I put it…
it feels like I’m trying too hard to act young, to the point where my sense of shame is acting up.
—How does that blue fellow have the thick skin to treat herself like an ordinary young girl?
I really couldn’t imagine it.
As a result, Mordred and I didn’t say much after that.
It wasn’t until both she and I had finished the cheap fast food that I spoke some ordinary words to her: “How was it?
Did you find the food in this shop okay?”
“It was okay, I guess…”
That meant it wasn’t very good.
After all, she was different from me; she had been pampered and grew up with the highest standards for her diet, never having suffered much.
As long as she was in a bad mood, no matter how delicious the food was, she wouldn’t find it particularly good—besides, this KFC really wasn’t good enough.
“What are you thinking about?
Can you tell me?” I asked softly.
“I…
it’s nothing.” She hesitated and ultimately remained silent.
“Just say it.
This isn’t fifth-century Britain; there’s no harm in saying it,” I said gently.
“Or is it that even at this point, Mordred still wants to keep things hidden from me?”
Mordred took a deep breath and clenched her fists again, as if gathering all her courage—
“Father…
Sister, what did the life of King Arthur mean to you?
And what did I, Mother, Merlin, and the knights mean to you?” New chapters come out on g.com first.
Mordred paused, her hesitation and inner conflict visible to the naked eye.
“…Are you saying that you always felt we were a burden?
Was the life of King Arthur nothing but pain, with nothing else?
If that was the case…
why did you choose to become King?
Why lead everyone to conquer so many nations and build such a prosperous country?”
I blinked, feeling somewhat lost.
It seemed I had never considered this question.
Deep down, I only thought of myself as an actor playing the role of King Arthur.
An actor’s personal thoughts aren’t important; what matters is performing the script well and becoming the King Arthur that everyone recognizes.
And as for pain…
“…I suppose I just got used to it.”
Mordred froze, pondering the meaning of my words, but she couldn’t possibly understand, as the first half of the sentence was missing.
Fortunately, things are different now compared to the time of the Holy Grail War.
I had indeed played King Arthur, and the story of King Arthur had reached its definitive end.
I no longer needed to deceive others with lies; instead, I could summarize my motivations and reasons based on the scenes that had already played out.
“Mordred, you didn’t experience that era, so you don’t know the situation in Britain at that time.”
I said softly.
“Many people think that I must have received Merlin’s education in my dreams from a very young age, which is why I possessed so much knowledge that ordinary people couldn’t grasp—but that wasn’t the case.”
“Before I went to that small town and pulled out the sword of selection, I had no interaction with Merlin whatsoever.”
“I don’t know if she couldn’t find me, or if she was simply afraid of a replica of Vortigern…
Regardless, after losing my parents at the age of eight, I lived alone until I pulled the sword at sixteen.”
Mordred didn’t speak.
Her eyes were glistening, seemingly gathering tears.
I smiled gently and handed her a napkin.
She understood what I meant and wiped away her tears with the napkin.
“Actually, I had a general idea of my fate…
I really didn’t want to become King.”
“The work of a King is arduous, and the responsibilities are immense.”
“Not only must one constantly achieve victory, but one must also ensure the people under one’s rule live better lives.”
“But, you see, reality is quite cruel.
No matter how much you don’t want to, as long as there is something pushing you, you must eventually walk the path you are meant to take—Mordred, care to guess why I became the King of Albion?”
Mordred lowered her head, not daring to meet my gaze.
She was thinking, she was hesitating.
She thought for a long time, but still couldn’t answer.
Seeing her looking so distressed, I couldn’t help but exhale and speak of my initial thoughts.
“—Because I didn’t want to starve anymore.”
“At the time, I thought that if I just pulled the sword and became King, I wouldn’t starve to death in the future, right?”
“That was a King, after all; the entire country was the King’s private property, and all the land belonged to the King.”
“Then, I discovered that wasn’t the case.”
“Everyone was starving.
Even excluding the abandoned fields, the land’s output decreased year by year, and there was absolutely no hope of escaping hunger.”
“Fertilizer didn’t work, breeding seeds didn’t work, and the rest—such as crop rotation, pest control, and developing water power—were all useless.”
“This land was cursed, and the people on this land were cursed too—so, from that moment on, I began to conceive how to conquer Gaul.”
“The path that followed became a matter of course.”
Mordred opened her eyes wide, looking at me and then at the clean-picked bones in front of me, looking utterly stunned.
There were many other things I didn’t tell her; saying them would have been meaningless.
For instance, the rheumatism and rhinitis caused by long periods of rain and cold, the scars I had never shown to anyone, and why I was so short and light—and so on; I’m afraid I couldn’t finish even in a day and a night.
Even if I told her, Mordred hadn’t experienced it personally, so naturally, she couldn’t understand.
“…Besides, even if I really hadn’t wanted to become King, things wouldn’t have been any different.”
“Under Vortigern’s rule, the population of Britain had dropped by 40%.”
“The island was filled with chaos, slaughter, hunger, and suffering.”
“I pulled the sword, and since I didn’t want everyone to continue living like that, I had no choice but to become a villain, constantly expanding, constantly conquering.”
“I gained the warriors of the North, the mysteries of Iceland, the grain of Gaul, the craftsmen of the Low Countries, and finally the wealth of Italy—even though it was a brilliance destined to be as fleeting as fireworks, it was still better than dying in hunger, pain, and humiliation.”
I hadn’t expected myself to be able to say such a long passage on this topic.
Moreover, these words were truly rather shameless, making it sound as if I were so wise and virtuous.
In reality, my actions were not nearly as noble as I made them sound. Get faster updates on g.com.
There were few Britons, and after the chaos caused by Vortigern, the population was even smaller.
This forced me to adopt extremely radical methods to achieve the conquest I envisioned—far more cruel than the Romans, almost as cruel as the Mongols.
By any standard, it was absolute plunder, slaughter, and enslavement.
The rule I established wasn’t solid at all; it was just that the conquered, having lost the courage to resist under the terror I spread, made the kingdom look passable on the surface.
I didn’t tell Mordred these things.
Her political acumen was not low; she should be able to discern these things.
However, Mordred didn’t speak; she remained lost in thought, silent.
On that face so similar to my own, there was only confusion.
Her golden slit pupils were still trembling, as if she might cry at any moment, as if I had done something that deeply aggrieved her.
She didn’t look like an heir to a kingdom at all; instead, she looked like a little girl who had been bullied but was trying to hold it together in front of her parents.
“…So, Mordred, even if you had taken over this country normally, it would have collapsed very quickly.”
“Even if you constantly suppressed rebellions and defeated all your enemies, it wouldn’t have lasted more than thirty years after you.”
“Since that’s the case, it was better for me to continue; you just needed to be my knight and follow my orders.”
“That promise to let you inherit the throne…
I’m sorry, but in the end, I couldn’t fulfill it.”
“I truly didn’t dare to imagine what you would be forced to become when the country collapsed…”
“Why are you apologizing?”
Suddenly, Mordred’s gaze became incredibly firm, as if all the gathered tears had frozen over.
“The one who should be apologizing is me!
It should be all of us!
It should…!!”
“Mordred, keep it down; this is a public place.”
I had to lower my voice to remind her.
The peculiarity of Japan is that as long as no one is drinking, places where people eat are always very quiet.
With her sudden outburst, not only the staff in the shop but even the customers eating here looked over.
Fortunately, I was clever enough to use latin to converse from the beginning.
And there was clearly no one here who could understand latin.
Mordred clenched her fists and placed them gently on the table—the sound wasn’t loud, but it was enough to make others look away.
Even though it was the modern era, both she and I still possessed dragon cores.
The damage the Battle of Camlann did to her was simply too great.
And for me and her, only two days had passed in subjective time.
If it were me, I couldn’t just let it go either; I would also want to ask the questions in my heart clearly and speak the words in my heart clearly.
But in the current state, before she regained her calm and reason, those things couldn’t be said clearly.
“…Mordred, there is still a Queen in Britain now; that country belongs to her and her people.”
“Since we have come here, it means this is a new life…
Don’t think about so much; let those things be in the past.”
Mordred bit her lip, not saying a word.
Her emotions were still very agitated, and her eyes were still gathering tears.
…I suppose I talked too much, didn’t I?
Mordred is an excellent child, but she had just experienced the greatest tragedy of her life.
Killing her father with her own hands, destroying her father’s kingdom with her own hands, and ending her own life in guilt and rage—that must have been an incredibly painful, torturous, and maddening emotion, right?
Thinking of this, I instinctively opened my mouth.
Apologies were about to spill out, but I stopped in time—Mordred didn’t want to hear my apology.
So, after hesitating for a moment, I stood up.
“It’s time to go somewhere else, Mordred…
For the next place, let’s go to the library.”
Mordred nodded, didn’t speak, and stood up silently.
I took out the map of this “Misaki Town” from my satchel and planned the route to the library.
However, what books should we look at in the library?
I hadn’t decided.
I just felt that it was a place where knowledge was accumulated.
People can gain wisdom from knowledge and peace from reflection.
Perhaps…
there would be a way to resolve Mordred’s current state?
I could only pray in my heart…