Chapter 167
After one hundred and eighty-six repeated todays, Encrid became fully aware of the concept of coordination—his body now responded differently.
Thunk.
The moment he sensed the spearhead flying from behind, he turned his body and caught the shaft mid-air.
It was almost like a stunt.
A spear meant to stab him in the back—
Encrid twisted his body to avoid it and, in the same motion, reached out to seize the shaft.
It was as if the entire sequence had been pre-rehearsed in some grand performance.
What followed was a dull thud—the sound of a blade smashing into a skull.
The moment he processed the attack and visualized his reaction, his body had already moved.
– “The Isolation Technique is the foundation that allows you to control your body with ease, brother.”
Audin’s words now resonated deeply with him.
Had he not trained his body extensively using the Isolation Technique, he would never have been able to pull off such movements.
His envisioned motions were now executed flawlessly.
Naturally, he also began to notice the flaws in his own movements.
‘Minimize movement.’
This realization tied into his growing understanding of stamina management.
Excessive movement meant unnecessary energy expenditure.
And that meant he would not last.
There could be no wasted actions. Now that he was aware of this, all he had to do was adjust.
Even his training in the Proper Sword Style contributed to this.
‘If I predict their movements—’
He could eliminate wasted actions.
Unbeknownst to him, his swordsmanship was advancing to another level.
Not by intention, but simply as a byproduct of his desperate survival efforts.
Despite having repeated nearly two hundred todays, to the point where the stench of monsters and beasts made him sick—
Encrid laughed.
The thrill of growth filled him.
Even amid constant failure, he felt it.
And he did not stop struggling.
For the sake of moving forward, he never stopped searching for answers.
That search bore fruit.
At that moment, Encrid’s entire body tensed.
It was in the two hundredth today.
He saw the incoming blade.
Just past noon, he sidestepped with his left foot, allowing the blade to slice through empty air.
A spear thrust toward him from the side, while an axe came flying from behind.
Encrid crouched, pushing the spear shaft away with his palm—
And deflected the axe with his shoulder, redirecting its force.
Scrape.
His leather armor was grazed, but he was unharmed.
Then came another wave—spears, gladii, axes, and clubs.
One of the variants swung a club the size of a grown man’s thigh straight down at him.
He felt his sword getting in the way.
It was hindering his movements. It was a burden. It was a nuisance.
So Encrid sheathed his sword.
No—he went as far as undoing his belt while moving.
His body felt lighter.
Whoosh, swish, zip, slash.
He could not see everything, but he could react to each incoming attack.
Forgetting himself entirely, he focused solely on observing and responding.
Before he knew it, the sun had begun its descent past its zenith.
The wicked hyenas persistently tried to bite at his ankles.
Encrid dodged them all.
Sometimes he evaded backward, sometimes he advanced forward.
At times, he pivoted to the side and drove his knee into the gut of a lunging hyena beast.
He then threw himself into the arms of an approaching gnoll, using his shoulder to push it back.
The recoil from that push immediately stabilized his stance—
And as another blade flew toward him, he reached out and struck the wielder’s wrist.
– “Guh?”
The gnoll’s sword veered off course, slashing its own ally’s head instead.
– “Guuuuurk!”
Another gnoll, enraged, swung a hammer in retaliation.
Whoosh.
The motion was large, the trajectory broad—it was not hard to dodge.
The problem was that half a dozen such attacks came at him simultaneously.
What could he do?
He simply reacted to each one.
He pushed away the spear shaft.
He dodged another swing.
He evaded again.
At that moment, killing his opponents was not the focus—only Perception of Evasion mattered.
His instincts, honed senses, and natural reflexes all blended into a singular technique of pure evasion.
And before he realized it—
The sun had set, and the moon had begun to rise.
Encrid was unaware of the transition from day to night.
He only focused on dealing with the threats around him.
Dodging, deflecting, repositioning—
It was not a battle of death, but a game of tag.
From her vantage point, Esther had been silently watching from a rooftop for quite some time.
And she could only think:
‘What… is that?’
Trying to put it into words made it sound completely illogical.
Encrid moved through the tide of gnolls with perfect fluidity.
He did not fight.
He simply endured.
He was bound to die. He could not escape it.
But still—why? Why? Why?
‘Why are you smiling?’
A strange question formed in Esther’s mind. A fleeting thought that would vanish once today repeated.
But she was certain of one thing—what Encrid was doing was beyond mere stunts.
It was something else entirely.
He looked like he was playing among the monstrous waves of gnolls.
He should have died at any moment, but somehow, he didn’t.
He dodged axes.
He dodged clubs.
He blocked, deflected, redirected.
Sometimes, he even hugged the gnolls.
How could he not?
If he stood still, he would be beaten to death—
So he grabbed a gnoll’s arm from behind and moved it as if it were his own.
Using that arm, he blocked another gnoll’s attack.
He swung a stolen club to deflect a flying axe.
Clang!
A madman’s technique.
Rather than fighting back, he only dodged and countered.
The sunset ended, the moon rose, and as the carriage of time reached its destination—
The day finally came to an end.
The moonlight cast a soft glow over the battlefield.
A battlefield soaked in stench, filled with corpses, overheated metal, and the pungent odor of monsters.
Encrid had stayed awake all night.
More precisely, he had survived the entire day.
And yet, the leader had not appeared.
‘Ah.’
Only then did his immersion break.
Only then did Encrid realize what he had done.
‘Ah.’
He let out a second sigh in his mind.
No wonder.
He had discarded his weapons and focused only on dodging.
Why? Why had he done that?
It had been purely instinctual.
And in return—
He had gained something.
He had mastered the art of pure evasion.
He had learned to see and react.
It was a talent he had never possessed before.
His reflexes and athletic ability had evolved.
He had built a tower of skill, stacking his training in the Isolation Technique with Perception of Evasion, forged through repeated deaths and sharpened through hundreds of battles.
Hundreds of foes had swarmed him—yet he had endured.
He could not kill them all—
That was something only a knight could do.
But if it was just enduring, purely surviving—
‘It’s possible.’
A thrill, an electrifying euphoria, surged through his entire body.
The gnolls that had swarmed him all day long would have been dumbfounded if they could think like humans. Of course, they couldn’t.
Encrid’s body was covered in wounds. Blood trickled down his cheek.
It was impossible to go unscathed.
However, none of the injuries were fatal.
At the end of the day, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the moon rose, he realized the day was over.
– “See you again. But not here next time.”
With those words, Encrid closed his eyes.
Would this be the end? Would just surviving be enough? Not a chance.
He had already expected as much.
And when he opened his eyes again—of course, the world had changed.
A black river.
A ferry.
The Ferryman.
– “That won’t be enough.”
The Ferryman passed him by.
Then—darkness.
And when he opened his eyes once more, the ceiling of the hut greeted him.
Another today.
A single blink, and he was back.
This repeated today, one he had experienced countless times, proved that endurance alone was not the answer.
But that didn’t matter.
His heart still pounded with the thrill of progress—but this was not the time to enjoy it.
He had repeated today countless times, gathered information, formulated theories.
The moment he sat up, Encrid kicked Krys awake.
“Get up.”
“Ack—! What the hell?! It’s morning!”
What was it?
A day to run for his life, that’s what.
The idea had come to him around the one hundred and twentieth today.
A method that could be considered a shortcut—a little trickery, but why not use it?
After all, he had achieved his original goal.
He had survived today.
That minimum condition he had set—he had fulfilled it.
‘Perception of Evasion.’
Alongside Heart of Monstrous Strength, he had engraved it into his body.
He had mastered it.
So what now? Repeat this wretched today again?
There was no need.
People overlooked it because of how obsessively he trained with the sword, but Encrid was also good at thinking.
And, more importantly—
He had no issue with using tricks.
—
Encrid had set a goal—and achieved it.
He endured.
He lived through the full day and saw its end.
And he knew—intuitively—that the result would always be the same.
His instincts told him:
‘This isn’t how I break through the wall.’
Enduring was never the answer.
If it were, then he should have escaped during the battle against the mage Letsha and the werewolves.
If endurance were enough, he should have avoided the mad mage’s underground traps rather than confronting them.
This was a curse.
A cycle that had to be broken.
He didn’t know the exact answer.
But he had ideas.
He had spent many todays pondering how to escape this loop.
And so, a thought occurred:
If today repeated because of death, then—
What if the cycle never reached that point?
What if he prevented the entire process from even starting?
‘Let’s find out.’
Results followed actions—
That was all there was to it.
—
“Did I ever mention that I spent a long time as a mercenary?”
Encrid said as he grabbed his gear and stepped outside.
Sweat trickled down from his forehead, running along his jawline before dripping off his chin.
It was hot.
Even just donning his armor in the morning made his body temperature spike.
Perfect.
He didn’t even need to warm up—his muscles and joints were already awake.
Today, there would be no time for Isolation Technique or training.
So this was just right.
“Huh?”
Ruagarne tilted her head at his sudden remark.
What was this guy talking about first thing in the morning?
Her gaze seemed to ask:
‘Are you feeling lightheaded?’
Encrid ignored it and continued.
“I’ve fought cultists before. The Cult of the Demon Realm.”
The moment he casually mentioned the cult, Ruagarne reacted.
“…You mean the cultists?”
Her reaction was instant—
The air turned cold.
A murderous aura filled the space.
Encrid ignored it and pressed on.
“Do you know them?”
It felt a little unnatural.
Maybe he needed to work on his acting skills.
But Ruagarne didn’t notice.
She was too focused on something else.
The moment the word cultist was mentioned, her mind had zeroed in on it.
For her, they were an enemy to be killed on sight.
They were the object of her oath.
“There was one I let slip away.”
He tapped his forehead as if just now remembering.
Even he thought it felt a bit forced.
Maybe he really did need acting practice.
“You remember Deutsch Pullman? That guy had someone following him around.”
“Thick lips. Ugly.”
A Frok’s eye for aesthetics was sharp.
Yeah, that guy did have a face like a fish.
Encrid knew more than just one of them.
Hadn’t he repeated today over two hundred times?
Did anyone really think he only identified one cultist in all that time?
But that fish-faced cultist was definitely the biggest problem.
Every time today repeated, Ruagarne chased that bastard.
And she never returned.
“That’s the one.”
“Are you certain? That he’s a cultist?”
“Yes. I swear on my sword—and everything I am.”
Ruagarne knew exactly how much Encrid valued his sword.
To her, that was equivalent to a heart-sworn oath.
For a human, his words carried a weight she could trust.
“If you don’t believe me, you can ask him yourself.”
“Let’s go.”
That was all it took.
Faster than he had expected.
Ruagarne pulled out her whip, wrapping it around her hand as she strode forward.
She was headed straight for Deutsch Pullman.
If she didn’t find him immediately, she would search everywhere until she did.
“What the hell was that weird, stiff way of talking?”
Krys, who had been watching the whole thing, squinted at him.
Had it been that awkward?
Probably.
But that wasn’t the important part.
“You should start moving too.”
Encrid took his first step forward.
He had measured the timing over and over throughout his repeated todays.
How exactly did the monsters swarm in like that?
What caused it?
He had searched for the source of the problem.
If he hadn’t known, it would have been a different story.
But now that he did—
‘Stopping it is easy.’
At least, for Encrid, it was.
He had already tried it countless times—
There was no hesitation left.
