Silence dominated the hall, and not a single person found themself able to say a single word.
There was only one person who could speak.
“Like I said, a fake Knight.”
He was the one who had caused the silence in the first place.
Lee Jun-Kyeong.
He had stopped Lancelot’s charge with Muspel’s Spear.
It wasn’t that he had shown any impressive shows of strength. All he had done was stop Lancelot’s lance in place.
Nevertheless, Lancelot couldn’t move.
Drip.
Sweat trickled down from his forehead.
‘I can't move.’
Although Lancelot was clearly flustered by his charge being stopped by Lee Jun-Kyeong’s spear, as expected of an experienced Hunter, he quickly tried to recover his lance to attack his opponent again.
However, he still couldn’t move.
No matter how hard he tried, it was as if his legs had been nailed to the ground.
Tremble.
It didn’t matter how much effort he put into it. His lance wouldn’t move.
It was at that time.
“It would be greatly appreciated if we could just end this now,” said someone with an elegant and graceful manner of speaking.
It was one of the people who had been watching all of what had transpired with their arms folded.
“They call me Gawain.”
Gawain.
He, like Lancelot, the Knight of the Deathblow, also had a nickname.
‘The Knight of the Green.’
Unlike his graceful mannerisms and elegant tone, he was a horrifying man. When he had first awakened as a Hunter, he cleared gates like a crazed barbarian. Whenever he left the gates he had cleared, his whole body would be soaked with the blood of orcs and goblins, eventually leading to people referring to him as the Knight of the Green.
Lee Jun-Kyeong pondered for a moment.
Should he do as the Knight requested or pressure them even further?
However, soon, the wait was over.
Shing!
Lee Jun-Kyeong made his decision and lowered his spear.
Thud.
Once the spear holding the lance in place disappeared, Lancelot lost his strength and fell to the ground.
His face flushed red, but he didn’t act out any further as he quietly listened to Gawain scolding him.
“Learn how to gauge the gap between you and your opponent, Lancelot.”
As Lancelot bowed his head, Gawain apologized to Lee Jun-Kyeong politely, “I apologize for the disrespect.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong watched the knight as the knight watched him in return.
‘He’s been measuring my strength from the beginning.’
The reason why the knight hadn’t gotten himself involved in the commotion that had occurred within the Round Table seemed to be because he had already expected that the loser of this duel would have been Lancelot.
However, his trembling eyes betrayed that Lee Jun-Kyeong’s skills had been better than he had expected.
“It’s nothing.”
As Lee Jun-Kyeong accepted Gawain’s apology, the people of the Round Table fell silent.
“...”
“Sir Galahad,” Gawain said, calling out to another knight.
“Help Lord Lancelot deal with his internal injuries.”
“Understood.”
Then, another Knight of the Round Table named Galahad helped Lancelot stand, who was struggling to put strength in his legs.
Eventually, Lancelot bowed his head and submitted, "It's my defeat."
***
“...”
In a room full of silence, Merlin and Lee Jun-Kyeong were looking at each other as they sat in front of a round table.
The first person to speak was Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“It will only be this once,” he said. “Although I had gone with the commotion because I wanted to see something myself, I won’t let things go this easily again.”
What he was referring to had been the duel with Lancelot.
The unique thing about the Round Table was that the head, Merlin, had complete control over the entire organization.
No matter how much power the Knights of the Round Table were said to have, they were still, in the end, knights, and would follow Merlin, their leader.
More importantly, that meant that if Merlin had wanted to, the duel with Lancelot would never have happened.
Merlin had wanted the conflict to happen, so Lee Jun-Kyeong had accepted it even knowing what she had wanted.
“A debt has been created. By you, I mean,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said.
“How shameless you are,” she replied.
He shrugged. “Wasn’t the reason you didn’t avoid that which you had ample opportunity to avoid because there was something you had wanted as well? You even just said that you had accepted the duel because you had wanted something, didn’t you?”
Lee Jun-Kyeong was a guest at the Round Table.
Moreover, as he wasn’t a knight, he hadn’t been obliged to accept the duel. The duel had been a conflict that wouldn’t have happened if he had desired.
“My pride is a little strong, you see.”
Although Lee Jun-Kyeong responded in that way, in truth, he was incredibly calm inside.
As Merlin had said, Lee Jun-Kyeong had also accepted Lancelot’s duel because there was something he had wanted as well: to gauge his own ability.
‘Have I reached the level to easily take down the weakest of the Knights of the Round Table?’
He wanted to understand the current power of the secret organizations. Furthermore, he wanted to see how far his own skills could be compared to theirs.
That was one of the reasons he had accepted Lancelot’s duel.
However, that wasn’t the only reason either.
He had also accepted it in order to erase his debt to Merlin.
“Regardless of how it happened, it’s still true that you’ve formed a debt as I completed things the way you had wanted,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said.
Because Merlin had wanted Lee Jun-Kyeong to duel with Lancelot, Lee Jun-Kyeong had made sure the knight had lost.
“Didn’t I teach Lancelot a lesson, just like how you wanted?” he asked.
Merlin must have already measured his increased strength to some extent and would have stopped the duel if she hadn’t wanted Lancelot to lose. Letting things continue even after that meant that she had been asking Lee Jun-Kyeong to make the knight suffer a defeat.
“Hmm.”
Merlin mused for a moment.
“Although I already expected this from you, you really aren’t just physically strong. In fact, your resourcefulness and wit are also formidable.”
Her words were filled with a hint of laughter.
“You’re right, I did want you to defeat Lord Lancelot.”
She continued, “Sir Lancelot has great potential, but his annoyingly arrogant temperament and his incomprehensible obsession with me… I needed an opportunity to make him grow. And you set the stage for that as well.”
To think she would say she didn’t understand it.
He wondered, was it that Merlin was just blind, or…
‘Could she be pretending she doesn’t know?’
Either way, it was none of Lee Jun-Kyeong's business.
Merlin continued further, "I admit that I owe you, as you say. But…"
Some sort of haze bloomed around Merlin’s body. After a moment, instead of a mature woman a boy appeared. He seemed arrogant to the point of irritation.
“That would be a debt you would be able to settle after you keep your promise to me.”
It was the other alter ego of Merlin.
The two were one, and split apart, two.
That was why Merlin was unable to become whole.
Lee Jun-Kyeong called out the boy’s name, “Arthur.”
***
"Heung,” said the mannerless little brat.
Lee Jun-Kyeong thought of Park Jae-Hyun as he looked at him.
He wondered, ‘Why do all of the bastards who are in the form of children?act like brats?’
Then he remembered something.
‘Or maybe not.’
There was only one who was different.
At least Ungnyeo hadn’t had this sort of personality.
He wondered if it was some sort of inferiority complex or a persecution fetish.
He sat there, looking at one of those very brats who had such an infuriating personality with such incredible audacity.
The two of them sat in the midst of the lake where Merlin lived, and before anyone realized it, they had shifted locations from the Round Table.
“Does that mean you’ve kept your promise?” Merlin, or now, Arthur, said.
“Well. For now, at least.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong had also forgone his manners as the opposing side refused to keep them as well.
It was the golden rule.
“How rude. Looks like you’re trying to say you have pride too,” Arthur said.
A heartstopping amount of mana began to emit from the brat’s body.
It was a sign that he was ready to exchange a blow at this very moment.
“The ability you used on Lancelot won’t work on me.”
‘He noticed that as well?’
Even now, as Lee Jun-Kyeong was speaking with Arthur, the Round Table was in an uproar. Everyone was talking about how Lee Jun-Kyeong had blocked Lancelot’s lance.
No matter how hard they thought about it, however, there was no answer.
The Knight of the Deathblow had been given that nickname because of Lancelot’s specialty: a charge that could smash anything with a Deathblow.
However, when Lee Jun-Kyeong had met with the lance, he had simply stopped both the lance and Lancelot with a toothpick-like thin spear.
Moreover, there was that as well.
‘Gauge the gap between you and your opponent.’
Because of Gawain, who had appeared elegantly and tossed out a remark, the Round Table was in chaos with stories about Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“Although I’ve never seen mana move in that manner before…” Arthur said.
The method Lee Jun-Kyeong had used to stop Lancelot had been the mana stream. Lancelot’s charging method had a similar aspect to Galdr, the skill of the giants.
One had to burst out with all of their might and put all of one’s energy into a Deathblow.
Lee Jun-Kyeong noticed the similar principle in the blow and felt the flow of mana.
“To think you cut through the flow with your mana.”
He had caused a brief stoppage in the flow itself that had been connected to the knight’s mana, which had caused the lance to stop and paralyze Lancelot.
Arthur had seen through Lee Jun-Kyeong’s skill even though he knew nothing about mana stream.
“It won’t work on me,” the brat said confidently.
‘Would it really not work?’
Lee Jun-Kyeong became curious for a moment.
A skill that had even worked on Lancelot.
“It seems you’re right.”
He soon admitted it and shrugged.
There was a level difference.
He thought back to what Gawain had said.
.
“I already know how to gauge the gap between my opponent and me,” he replied.
“Tsk.”
Arthur pouted as if he had been irritated, but it didn’t look like the brat had been offended.
“Either way, I’ve kept my promise for now.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong finally moved past the meaningless conversation and opened his inventory.
Arthur's eyes trembled.
“...”
Soon, Lee Jun-Kyeong drew out a sword embroidered with colorful decorations.
Arthur's face hardened.
"You’re saying that’s... Excalibur...”
Lee Jun-Kyeong had borrowed Merlin’s Necklace after promising to get Excalibur for Merlin and Arthur. Now, he had come back to England to keep that promise.
However, distorted mana began to emanate from Arthur.
“Are you…”
The lake began to seethe.
“Are you trying to mess with me right now?”
Arthur’s body, which was in the shape of a young boy, began to distort. Momentarily, his appearance shifted and clearly became that of a fully grown adult.
The distortion of mana began to worsen over time, and the figures of Arthur, Merlin, and another man began to flicker and disappear repeatedly.
The lake was boiling, and the sky of the Round Table began to fluctuate.
The region was being affected by Merlin’s and Arthur's anger.
“To think you would play me…”
When Arthur couldn’t take it anymore, and his mana was about to explode…
Swish!
…Lee Jun-Kyeong tossed the sword at him with an uninterested expression.
Arthur naturally caught onto the sword and spoke, his voice trembling with anger.
“Did you really think this little trick would work…”
Excalibur.
It was the divine item that could solve their curse, and it was an item synonymous with their fate that they had to find. That was why they had lent Merlin’s Necklace to Lee Jun-Kyeong, someone they had never met and had also given him various benefits.
However, what had been brought back seemed just like a fancy decorative sword filled with mana.
It was only natural that Arthur should be so angry.
“How about you actually look at it first before you get angry?” Lee Jun-Kyeong said coldly. “You little brat.”
As he finished speaking, the angry Arthur was running toward him.
“AHHHH!”
"A, Arthur…"
But, after hearing a voice, Arthur froze.
With trembling pupils and hands, he slowly looked back.
There, Merlin stood there with a face full of disbelief.
“Merlin?”
The two who had been one finally looked back at each other as a perfect pair.
1. Orcs and goblins bleed green. Also, this is a reference to one of Sir Gawain’s most famous tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
2. Heung is a sound someone makes when they sulk in Korea. It has no English equivalent.
3. Korea, like most Eastern nations, has a large emphasis on respect. One of the types of respect they really emphasize is respect based on age. Generally speaking, all of the ‘children’ Lee Jun-Kyeong has met have ranged from a little annoying (Mister calling Ungnyeo) to outright “would be punished by an entire village of grandmas if anyone heard you talking to an adult like that”(Park Jae-Hyun, Park Yu-Jin, and now Arthur).
4. In Arthur form, Merlin/Arthur has abandoned all courtesy and is speaking down to Lee Jun-Kyeong. It’s incredibly rude to speak to someone like this when you’re an adult, let alone a child.
5. Excalibur is not an adorned sword in mythos, as it is a sword meant for battle. A sword like this would more likely be similar to Clarent, the knighting sword that Arthur carried. His anger here is twofold, as Clarent was also the sword stolen by Mordred, who then used it to kill him.
Silence dominated the hall, and not a single person found themself able to say a single word.
There was only one person who could speak.
“Like I said, a fake Knight.”
He was the one who had caused the silence in the first place.
Lee Jun-Kyeong.
He had stopped Lancelot’s charge with Muspel’s Spear.
It wasn’t that he had shown any impressive shows of strength. All he had done was stop Lancelot’s lance in place.
Nevertheless, Lancelot couldn’t move.
Drip.
Sweat trickled down from his forehead.
‘I can't move.’
Although Lancelot was clearly flustered by his charge being stopped by Lee Jun-Kyeong’s spear, as expected of an experienced Hunter, he quickly tried to recover his lance to attack his opponent again.
However, he still couldn’t move.
No matter how hard he tried, it was as if his legs had been nailed to the ground.
Tremble.
It didn’t matter how much effort he put into it. His lance wouldn’t move.
It was at that time.
“It would be greatly appreciated if we could just end this now,” said someone with an elegant and graceful manner of speaking.
It was one of the people who had been watching all of what had transpired with their arms folded.
“They call me Gawain.”
Gawain.
He, like Lancelot, the Knight of the Deathblow, also had a nickname.
‘The Knight of the Green.’
Unlike his graceful mannerisms and elegant tone, he was a horrifying man. When he had first awakened as a Hunter, he cleared gates like a crazed barbarian. Whenever he left the gates he had cleared, his whole body would be soaked with the blood of orcs and goblins, eventually leading to people referring to him as the Knight of the Green.
Lee Jun-Kyeong pondered for a moment.
Should he do as the Knight requested or pressure them even further?
However, soon, the wait was over.
Shing!
Lee Jun-Kyeong made his decision and lowered his spear.
Thud.
Once the spear holding the lance in place disappeared, Lancelot lost his strength and fell to the ground.
His face flushed red, but he didn’t act out any further as he quietly listened to Gawain scolding him.
“Learn how to gauge the gap between you and your opponent, Lancelot.”
As Lancelot bowed his head, Gawain apologized to Lee Jun-Kyeong politely, “I apologize for the disrespect.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong watched the knight as the knight watched him in return.
‘He’s been measuring my strength from the beginning.’
The reason why the knight hadn’t gotten himself involved in the commotion that had occurred within the Round Table seemed to be because he had already expected that the loser of this duel would have been Lancelot.
However, his trembling eyes betrayed that Lee Jun-Kyeong’s skills had been better than he had expected.
“It’s nothing.”
As Lee Jun-Kyeong accepted Gawain’s apology, the people of the Round Table fell silent.
“...”
“Sir Galahad,” Gawain said, calling out to another knight.
“Help Lord Lancelot deal with his internal injuries.”
“Understood.”
Then, another Knight of the Round Table named Galahad helped Lancelot stand, who was struggling to put strength in his legs.
Eventually, Lancelot bowed his head and submitted, "It's my defeat."
***
“...”
In a room full of silence, Merlin and Lee Jun-Kyeong were looking at each other as they sat in front of a round table.
The first person to speak was Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“It will only be this once,” he said. “Although I had gone with the commotion because I wanted to see something myself, I won’t let things go this easily again.”
What he was referring to had been the duel with Lancelot.
The unique thing about the Round Table was that the head, Merlin, had complete control over the entire organization.
No matter how much power the Knights of the Round Table were said to have, they were still, in the end, knights, and would follow Merlin, their leader.
More importantly, that meant that if Merlin had wanted to, the duel with Lancelot would never have happened.
Merlin had wanted the conflict to happen, so Lee Jun-Kyeong had accepted it even knowing what she had wanted.
“A debt has been created. By you, I mean,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said.
“How shameless you are,” she replied.
He shrugged. “Wasn’t the reason you didn’t avoid that which you had ample opportunity to avoid because there was something you had wanted as well? You even just said that you had accepted the duel because you had wanted something, didn’t you?”
Lee Jun-Kyeong was a guest at the Round Table.
Moreover, as he wasn’t a knight, he hadn’t been obliged to accept the duel. The duel had been a conflict that wouldn’t have happened if he had desired.
“My pride is a little strong, you see.”
Although Lee Jun-Kyeong responded in that way, in truth, he was incredibly calm inside.
As Merlin had said, Lee Jun-Kyeong had also accepted Lancelot’s duel because there was something he had wanted as well: to gauge his own ability.
‘Have I reached the level to easily take down the weakest of the Knights of the Round Table?’
He wanted to understand the current power of the secret organizations. Furthermore, he wanted to see how far his own skills could be compared to theirs.
That was one of the reasons he had accepted Lancelot’s duel.
However, that wasn’t the only reason either.
He had also accepted it in order to erase his debt to Merlin.
“Regardless of how it happened, it’s still true that you’ve formed a debt as I completed things the way you had wanted,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said.
Because Merlin had wanted Lee Jun-Kyeong to duel with Lancelot, Lee Jun-Kyeong had made sure the knight had lost.
“Didn’t I teach Lancelot a lesson, just like how you wanted?” he asked.
Merlin must have already measured his increased strength to some extent and would have stopped the duel if she hadn’t wanted Lancelot to lose. Letting things continue even after that meant that she had been asking Lee Jun-Kyeong to make the knight suffer a defeat.
“Hmm.”
Merlin mused for a moment.
“Although I already expected this from you, you really aren’t just physically strong. In fact, your resourcefulness and wit are also formidable.”
Her words were filled with a hint of laughter.
“You’re right, I did want you to defeat Lord Lancelot.”
She continued, “Sir Lancelot has great potential, but his annoyingly arrogant temperament and his incomprehensible obsession with me… I needed an opportunity to make him grow. And you set the stage for that as well.”
To think she would say she didn’t understand it.
He wondered, was it that Merlin was just blind, or…
‘Could she be pretending she doesn’t know?’
Either way, it was none of Lee Jun-Kyeong's business.
Merlin continued further, "I admit that I owe you, as you say. But…"
Some sort of haze bloomed around Merlin’s body. After a moment, instead of a mature woman a boy appeared. He seemed arrogant to the point of irritation.
“That would be a debt you would be able to settle after you keep your promise to me.”
It was the other alter ego of Merlin.
The two were one, and split apart, two.
That was why Merlin was unable to become whole.
Lee Jun-Kyeong called out the boy’s name, “Arthur.”
***
"Heung,” said the mannerless little brat.
Lee Jun-Kyeong thought of Park Jae-Hyun as he looked at him.
He wondered, ‘Why do all of the bastards who are in the form of children?act like brats?’
Then he remembered something.
‘Or maybe not.’
There was only one who was different.
At least Ungnyeo hadn’t had this sort of personality.
He wondered if it was some sort of inferiority complex or a persecution fetish.
He sat there, looking at one of those very brats who had such an infuriating personality with such incredible audacity.
The two of them sat in the midst of the lake where Merlin lived, and before anyone realized it, they had shifted locations from the Round Table.
“Does that mean you’ve kept your promise?” Merlin, or now, Arthur, said.
“Well. For now, at least.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong had also forgone his manners as the opposing side refused to keep them as well.
It was the golden rule.
“How rude. Looks like you’re trying to say you have pride too,” Arthur said.
A heartstopping amount of mana began to emit from the brat’s body.
It was a sign that he was ready to exchange a blow at this very moment.
“The ability you used on Lancelot won’t work on me.”
‘He noticed that as well?’
Even now, as Lee Jun-Kyeong was speaking with Arthur, the Round Table was in an uproar. Everyone was talking about how Lee Jun-Kyeong had blocked Lancelot’s lance.
No matter how hard they thought about it, however, there was no answer.
The Knight of the Deathblow had been given that nickname because of Lancelot’s specialty: a charge that could smash anything with a Deathblow.
However, when Lee Jun-Kyeong had met with the lance, he had simply stopped both the lance and Lancelot with a toothpick-like thin spear.
Moreover, there was that as well.
‘Gauge the gap between you and your opponent.’
Because of Gawain, who had appeared elegantly and tossed out a remark, the Round Table was in chaos with stories about Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“Although I’ve never seen mana move in that manner before…” Arthur said.
The method Lee Jun-Kyeong had used to stop Lancelot had been the mana stream. Lancelot’s charging method had a similar aspect to Galdr, the skill of the giants.
One had to burst out with all of their might and put all of one’s energy into a Deathblow.
Lee Jun-Kyeong noticed the similar principle in the blow and felt the flow of mana.
“To think you cut through the flow with your mana.”
He had caused a brief stoppage in the flow itself that had been connected to the knight’s mana, which had caused the lance to stop and paralyze Lancelot.
Arthur had seen through Lee Jun-Kyeong’s skill even though he knew nothing about mana stream.
“It won’t work on me,” the brat said confidently.
‘Would it really not work?’
Lee Jun-Kyeong became curious for a moment.
A skill that had even worked on Lancelot.
“It seems you’re right.”
He soon admitted it and shrugged.
There was a level difference.
He thought back to what Gawain had said.
.
“I already know how to gauge the gap between my opponent and me,” he replied.
“Tsk.”
Arthur pouted as if he had been irritated, but it didn’t look like the brat had been offended.
“Either way, I’ve kept my promise for now.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong finally moved past the meaningless conversation and opened his inventory.
Arthur's eyes trembled.
“...”
Soon, Lee Jun-Kyeong drew out a sword embroidered with colorful decorations.
Arthur's face hardened.
"You’re saying that’s... Excalibur...”
Lee Jun-Kyeong had borrowed Merlin’s Necklace after promising to get Excalibur for Merlin and Arthur. Now, he had come back to England to keep that promise.
However, distorted mana began to emanate from Arthur.
“Are you…”
The lake began to seethe.
“Are you trying to mess with me right now?”
Arthur’s body, which was in the shape of a young boy, began to distort. Momentarily, his appearance shifted and clearly became that of a fully grown adult.
The distortion of mana began to worsen over time, and the figures of Arthur, Merlin, and another man began to flicker and disappear repeatedly.
The lake was boiling, and the sky of the Round Table began to fluctuate.
The region was being affected by Merlin’s and Arthur's anger.
“To think you would play me…”
When Arthur couldn’t take it anymore, and his mana was about to explode…
Swish!
…Lee Jun-Kyeong tossed the sword at him with an uninterested expression.
Arthur naturally caught onto the sword and spoke, his voice trembling with anger.
“Did you really think this little trick would work…”
Excalibur.
It was the divine item that could solve their curse, and it was an item synonymous with their fate that they had to find. That was why they had lent Merlin’s Necklace to Lee Jun-Kyeong, someone they had never met and had also given him various benefits.
However, what had been brought back seemed just like a fancy decorative sword filled with mana.
It was only natural that Arthur should be so angry.
“How about you actually look at it first before you get angry?” Lee Jun-Kyeong said coldly. “You little brat.”
As he finished speaking, the angry Arthur was running toward him.
“AHHHH!”
"A, Arthur…"
But, after hearing a voice, Arthur froze.
With trembling pupils and hands, he slowly looked back.
There, Merlin stood there with a face full of disbelief.
“Merlin?”
The two who had been one finally looked back at each other as a perfect pair.
1. Orcs and goblins bleed green. Also, this is a reference to one of Sir Gawain’s most famous tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
2. Heung is a sound someone makes when they sulk in Korea. It has no English equivalent.
3. Korea, like most Eastern nations, has a large emphasis on respect. One of the types of respect they really emphasize is respect based on age. Generally speaking, all of the ‘children’ Lee Jun-Kyeong has met have ranged from a little annoying (Mister calling Ungnyeo) to outright “would be punished by an entire village of grandmas if anyone heard you talking to an adult like that”(Park Jae-Hyun, Park Yu-Jin, and now Arthur).
4. In Arthur form, Merlin/Arthur has abandoned all courtesy and is speaking down to Lee Jun-Kyeong. It’s incredibly rude to speak to someone like this when you’re an adult, let alone a child.
5. Excalibur is not an adorned sword in mythos, as it is a sword meant for battle. A sword like this would more likely be similar to Clarent, the knighting sword that Arthur carried. His anger here is twofold, as Clarent was also the sword stolen by Mordred, who then used it to kill him.
