Grand Foreigner (Chapters 201+)

Chapter 216

Darkness. Pain. Despair. Madness. Fear.

And hate.

So much hate that you'd think he'd gone mad from it, no, that's not entirely true, he had indeed gone mad from that hatred. But more than anything, his insanity was more directed from the fact that he didn't know what his hatred was directed at this moment.

At the squire, Gareth, whose head he had smashed like an overripe fruit? At Gawain, who had called for his execution when he learned of both his younger sister's death and Lancelot's folly? Or was it supposed to be directed at Guinevere, who seemed so fragile, lonely, and suffering, needing a strong shoulder, and then a long conversation, and at the end a kiss and a romantic promise of everlasting love? Cementing his betrayal of his liege in perhaps the worst way possible.

After all, Mordred might have plunged his sword in the King's chest, killing him, and Morgan might've plotted for it to happen. But it was him that had made it all possible in the first place.

So maybe he should've aimed it at himself, the one that had succumbed to the weakness of his heart, making all sorts of bargains with his own mind and conscience? Allowing him to take that final step in betraying his king.

'He didn't do anything wrong, could you blame him—he didn't mean to do anything wrong after all...'

Or... perhaps, Arthur?

Of course not, certainly not Arthur. How could Lancelot hate his king, the very King Arthur under whose command Lancelot had become a knight, under whose command Lancelot had performed his legendary feats, and under whose command Lancelot had won glory. The same King Arthur whom Lancelot had always revered and protected, the king of all knights, whose honor, pride, and aspiring ideals led Lancelot through life.

Of course, the very same king whom Lancelot loved and revered, in whose honor he fought and to whom he remained loyal to, had sentenced him to a hell worse than death...

Doesn't that make sense for him to hate...? No, of course not.

He felt no hatred for King Arthur, never in his life, and never after it. His only regret at the end of his life was that he had not been able to die beside Artoria on that very cursed hill, blade in hand, doing his duty to the king. Couldn't lay down his life in atonement for his sins and for the ideals of his king.

But then why did he feel so much hatred now?

At himself, at Gawain, at Gareth, at Guinevere, at the entire world. So much bile, black hatred, so much hatred that it seemed to Lancelot as if he were drowning in an impenetrable blackness. Its inky depths seeping into his eyes and ears, depriving him of the ability to experience the world as anything but impenetrable darkness and endless malice.

But Lancelot continued to hold Artoria's blade in his hand.

Excalibur. Its golden glow that cut through the darkness, that could bring him out of even that impenetrable evil. As long as he held on to Excalibur, this impenetrable darkness could not consume him completely.

Because Lancelot remained a loyal knight, never rebelling against his king, never wanting to hurt him, because Lancelot never felt hatred for King Arthur. In his final moments, Lancelot was consumed by his anger at everything, the world, himself, the woman he loved that he had betrayed everything for, his brothers in arms and his consistent henchman – but not Arthur.

In his last moments, that loyalty had been the only thread holding his mind together. Then, clinging to his king's favor, Lancelot was able to return, not at all the knight he had fallen into madness and anger and rage in the end – but still as Lancelot, a knight in King Arthur's service.