Artoria the Big Liar

In my blurred vision, through the helmet, I saw the figure of a knight.

She growled like a scream.Even through my helmet, even through hers, sadness hits my face.

"Why don't you hide! Why don't you use the holy spear to pierce me! Why...why! Father!!!"

The petite body seemed to have lost all strength and fell to the ground without any strength left.

Obviously she is the winner, and even I can maintain a standing posture, but she has lost all her fighting power.

[_【*

It was as if her spirit had been traumatized, and even though her body was intact, her soul was dying.

"...It really doesn't work, Mordred." The words spit out from my mouth.Hoarse, muffled, weak. "This sword... why did it miss? Are you aiming at my neck? As long as it hits, my head will be separated from my body. Or... Mordred, at this time, you still don't want me Die a happy death?"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

The screaming sound was like the roar of a dragon, spreading throughout the battlefield.

For a moment, the fighting knights and soldiers stopped, as if time had stood still here.

The knight, who fell to the ground crying, grabbed a stone and crushed it violently.

The plate armor gloves hammered the ground with all their strength, but they were limp and weak, completely unworthy of the title of "Strongest Knight".

"Since you don't want to escape, why don't you hand over the throne to me! Why do you have to have a civil war! Obviously...it's already like this...you just need to nod! Why don't you...don't want me to be king? Ah, Father King!!"

She didn't answer my question.She didn't know how to answer.

I'm not going to answer her questions either.Because the answer was too cruel for her, and now she was on the verge of collapse.

Also, things have gotten to the point where so many people have died, it's impossible for me to tell.

At the age of eight, I became Artoria. At 17, I drew the sword of choice.

At 22, I took the throne. At 27 I conquered all of Gaul.

Now 30 years old, I returned from an expedition to Rome and made half of Europa surrender.

For 22 years, I have been playing the role of Artoria Pendragon.I followed the script very closely, I did my best, I never overacted, I never let my emotions and feelings seep into the character - even though this Artoria was very different from the original.

Acting is a tiring thing.The role played is not oneself after all.A dozen hours of opera can exhaust an actor, and 22 years of non-stop acting has exhausted all my mental energy, and I even feel tired of the characters and the script.

I know how the script is written - "Because you don't have the stamina to be a king".All it takes is that answer, and my show is almost over.As long as I say that, my life as Artoria will be completely over.

Maybe the original King Arthur can really say that?

But I... I'm just an actor after all.

After all, I can't say it.

This kind of perfunctory rhetoric, this kind of rotten reason...

I really don't have any thoughts or willingness to speak out.

"Father... Tell me? Tell me! Why don't you tell me! Why? I want to know the answer, and everyone wants to know the answer. They want to know it like crazy! But you haven't said it... Why on earth!! !"

The hoarse voice exerted all its strength, not a single syllable was normal, all of them were broken voices with bad voice.

These broken sounds, like knives, pierced my chest, making me feel pain and sadness.

For the first time since sitting on that uncomfortable stone chair, I felt such pain and sadness.

However, no matter how painful and sad, I still can't say it.

It was because of the pain and sadness that I couldn't speak.

Be it the words in the script or the truth in my heart, I can't say anything.

As a result, I can only be silent.In this silence, blood kept gushing from the wound.

My consciousness gradually blurred, and my body shook involuntarily.

Whether it is physical or mental, I have reached the limit, there is no way to continue.

"Okay... okay! Since you won't say it, father... then don't say it! I didn't intend to live...so be it, father...so be it!!!"

The knight rushed over, grabbed my right wrist tightly, and held the tip of the holy spear with the other hand.

From the gap in the helmet, I saw a pair of crazy golden eyes.

From these eyes, I saw a soul that was about to break.

then……

"Pfft—!"

The holy spear penetrates【"["

Like a toothpick piercing a block of tofu.

Blood gushed out, and the knight instinctively coughed up blood.

The sound of the armor hitting the ground, and the sound of the sword falling to the ground sounded at the same time.

I never imagined that the child in front of me was already so extreme.

But the strange thing is that there is neither sadness nor resentment in my heart, only relief like relief.

That's actually pretty good, isn't it?

The Pendragons wanted to die, everyone did, even Morgan.

Wouldn't it be nice to just die here and finish this tragedy like this?

However, my body started to spin out of control.

"what……"

The voice was hoarse to the extreme.

The eyes that were already blood-stained and painful became even more sore, and the liquid gushed out of them uncontrollably.

-【!( My legs could no longer support my body, I staggered and fell to the ground.

The knight and I lay together on the blood-stained battlefield, looking up at the sunset-stained sky, silent, suffering, waiting for death to come, waiting for our respective fates to come to an end in this silent wilderness.

Consciousness became more and more blurred, and vague memories emerged in the brain uncontrollably.

I thought of Vortigern, my real mother and father.She was also pierced through the chest by the holy gun, and came to the end of her destiny.Before it turned into ashes and dispersed, I vaguely remember her smiling—but why did she laugh?What kind of feelings did she have in her heart at that time?Was she laughing at me, Uther, or herself?

I don't understand... now, and never will.

I'm different from Vortigern. I really can't laugh at all at this point in the script.

"... Mordred, do you hate me?"

The sound came from my throat, but the will to make it did not originate in me.

The knight didn't answer.But I heard the sound of metal cutting through the ground and crushing something.

So... it should be no hate, right?Otherwise, she wouldn't have asked me that way before, and she wouldn't be responding like this now.

"... Mordred, do you hate me?"

The knight didn't answer.My ears cannot hear a particular sound.

This makes me hesitate-if people really don't hate me, why do they want me to leave the throne so much?

Must have done something wrong, right?And it's unforgivable.But what am I doing wrong?Wars are not meaningless, and wars have brought practical benefits.Everyone stayed away from famine, got land, gained wealth, and won respect.And there were very few victims. I brought back more than 3 people out of a force of 8000 people—everyone should be very happy. Why are you so unhappy? Why do you have to let me leave the throne?

I have no idea.I can't figure it out.But the reality is that when this uprising happened, the rebels regarded the loyalists as traitors, and the loyalists regarded the rebels as thieves.Some of them are brothers, some are father and son, and some are close friends who have lived and died.But on the battlefield of Kamran, they regard each other as mortal enemies. No matter what happens to the front line, as long as they wear different colored cloaks, they must kill each other.Even the Loyalists didn't listen to my orders at all, and took actions without authorization, causing this civil war to break out completely—as if, everyone was crazy.

Suffice it to say, I did do it wrong, and a lot of it...

"Sure enough, everyone still hates me... A tyrant who keeps waging wars, as expected, no one likes me..."

What a failed show.What a failure.In the end, the tyrant didn't even know why he was hated, and died in the uprising.The civil war tore the country apart and destroyed it so completely that it would have to give up most of its land to foreigners in the future.

From this point of view, I am afraid that my level is not as good as Shakespeare's King Lear, right?

"...I'm such a stupid and incompetent king..."

"No! It's not like this! It's definitely not like this!" Like an electric shock, the knight couldn't wait to make a sound. "No one hates the father! Really not! Everyone loves the father like the sun! No one does not respect the father! It's just... It's just that everyone thinks that the father should not continue to suffer like this... ...so... so I..."

"So, did Mordred start this...rebellion?"

"This is not a rebellion! Really not! Everyone has discussed it... As long as the father and king compromise even a little bit, there will be no need for such pain in the future... It's just that everyone is discussing and discussing... it will be out of control... everything I feel that someone has coerced my father...that's why...that's why..."

To be honest, I can't understand what the Cavaliers said at all.

She was very emotional and confused, so that the words did not match the words.

Perhaps the reasons for this uprising were actually very complicated, and because of various chances and coincidences, it has evolved into the current civil war?

I don't understand, I can't understand, I really don't understand what's going on.

It always feels surreal, like a bad Greek play, all over the place forced and totally devoid of logic.

Unfortunately, I don't have much time to figure out what happened...

"That's it... sorry, Mordred... sorry, everyone..."

What the reason is is actually not important.

It is enough to know the fact that the tyrant was overthrown by the rebels and killed in Kamran.

It happened whether people hated me or not, whether Mordred hated me or not.I died here, Mordred died here, everyone died here... because of inexplicable hatred, because of all kinds of strange reasons.

It's absurd from beginning to end...but it happened after all, and I really don't understand it at all, I don't understand it at all.

It seems that what Tristan said was right - "King Arthur did not understand people's hearts".

For the original Arturia, this was an angry remark spoken on the spur of the moment.Because the context of the original rebellion is clearly visible, it is nothing more than that everyone can't pay infinitely for justice and reason, can't fight unrewarded battles forever, and can't accept infinite sacrifices for ideals and chivalry. That's all.

For me, Arturia, this must be the fact that has been summed up after careful consideration.What the Knights of the Round Table are thinking, what are the soldiers thinking, what are the nobles thinking, what are the ordinary people thinking, I don’t seem to be able to understand——I can’t even figure it out clearly. What did I do wrong to make everyone go crazy.

Probably... this is fate, right?

No matter how nice I was to Mordred, the Pendragon tradition happened.

No matter how good life I brought to the people, the same great rebellion as in the original "history" still happened.

"...Since this is the case, then so be it..."

It's just, a little sad, a little regretful.

Mordred didn't intend to live alone, and Morgan didn't want to continue living alone.

Merlin sealed himself in Avalon. Some of the Knights of the Round Table died in this civil war, and some went to live in seclusion.

But when I think about it carefully, I seem to have nothing to regret.

I'm a useless person, I'm just a vain actor.He tried his best, exhausted all his efforts, and walked in the opposite of the original King Arthur's domineering, and finally got the same ending.I don't have any dissatisfaction, and I even feel a little joy and honor at this time, as if the drama I performed was really recognized by everyone, so that I was confused at this time, and I heard applause, whistle, and cheers from the audience Voice……

No... I seem to have really heard it... Or, it was just a hallucination when I was blurred?

Eyelids were as heavy as lead, and the feeling of sleepiness became stronger and stronger.

Eventually, I closed my eyes.

"Sorry... Mordred... sorry... everyone..."

Then, the pain fades away, the regret fades away, and the cheers fade away.

I accepted my fate and embraced my own mortality.I want to end all of this in Kamran instead of being sent to Avalon to heal the wounds there and gain eternal life-because, I am not some noble knight king, I am just a Vortigern-like tyrant.I feel that I am not qualified to enter the pure land that belongs to goblins.

Like Vortigern, he died without a burial place, which is more in line with the death method of a tyrant.

With such a mood, my will relaxed and my soul was freed from pain and obsession.

Then, plunged into darkness...

Got it, eternal peace...

Chapter Five Blue Rose

(This chapter is from a third-person perspective.)

The lady in the blue dress walked across the battlefield under the setting sun, like a blooming blue rose.

She walked slowly, obviously walking on this land, but it seemed to be just a distant phantom.

The noble lady walked to Mordred's side, ignored the blood on the ground, and sat down on her knees.