Chapter 215
Esther understood exactly what tricks the five enemy wizards had used and what their intentions were.
It was because she herself was a wanderer who indulged in the world of spells. More than anything, all of them were wizards of a lower tier compared to herself.
‘Illusion magic and mental magic.’
A combination of the two.
Even if she couldn’t tell the exact names of the spells, she understood their mechanisms.
It was the true form of the spell called [Dream of the Abyss].
It created an illusory atmosphere that induced comfort, gifting a sense of peace thereafter.
The idea was clever.
It was difficult to drive someone mad, but it was all too easy to gift comfort to those already under mental pressure.
They would naturally crave peace and comfort, making mental spells easier to accept.
Breaking it was even easier. One just had to scatter their mana. But Esther chose not to.
She decided to let the ones destined to sleep, sleep.
She had no intention of flaunting her transformation into human form unnecessarily.
Of course, that didn’t mean she would kill to silence witnesses either.
‘Even if they know I’m originally human, nothing changes.’
She was a devotee of the world of spells.
She had chosen a different path from that of ordinary humans.
So even if others found out that the panther was a human, she would still seek Encrid’s embrace. That wouldn’t change.
‘It’s funny that I’m even worrying about this at a time like this.’
There was no reason to abandon the power that blurred her curse.
She couldn’t help but be bothered by the possibility of more women gathering around him.
Ordinary humans tended to harbor jealousy and envy; if women gathered around him, he might start to avoid her.
If that happened, she would have to force her way back into his arms.
It was better to block the problem beforehand.
‘If not, I can just overpower him.’
She even considered the possibility of knocking Encrid down and forcibly snuggling into his arms.
Various thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant, and Esther finished her rationalization.
The conclusion: it didn’t matter if anyone found out.
Her blue, deep eyes—similar to a panther’s yet subtly different—turned toward the owner of the voice.
“You thought I was a beauty, huh?”
It was Rem, grinning slyly. A handsome young man with gray hair.
Short in stature but not to be underestimated in ability.
“Is that so?”
Esther replied indifferently.
At the same time, she roughly figured out why he had resisted the spells.
‘He’s learned a Mystery.’
Not magic, but a different branch.
She didn’t bother showing she had noticed.
He wasn’t the only one still awake.
“Interesting brothers came to play.”
Audin—the human-shaped monster with a build that could rival a bear beast.
He had faint yellow eyes and was strikingly good-looking.
Looking at his well-balanced body, Esther thought, ‘Having a golem like this wouldn’t be bad.’
‘Didn’t even have time to bring out Bonehead.’
The Flash Golem she had obtained through Encrid was still peacefully sleeping inside her world.
Of course, it needed lots of modifications and improvements, so it wasn’t ready to be used yet.
Anyway, she roughly understood why Audin was awake too.
‘Divinity.’
A force she disliked. Something derived from a god.
Soon after, Jaxson and Ragna also opened their eyes, unaffected by the spell.
“Going back to sleep.”
Ragna, it seemed, had partially awakened [Will].
As for Jaxson? He was an enigma. He gave off the feeling of someone who had transcended human limits through extreme training.
While she glanced at everyone—
“Mmm.”
Encrid let out a drowsy groan in his sleep.
“He’s sleeping well.”
“How dull. A sign of poor training.”
“There’s no need to bother a sleeping man. We just need him to fight properly when awake.”
“Haha, our Captain Brother must have been tired. All because the body lacks strength.”
Starting with Rem, then Jaxson, Ragna, and Audin—everyone had a comment for their sleeping captain.
Meanwhile, Rem, looking at the sleeping beastwoman, added another remark.
“She’ll be a nuisance if left alone.”
While Finn respected the standards of a Ranger, the beastwoman’s skills were limited to fighting.
And yet she slept soundly at a time like this?
Even though beastkin naturally had strong magic resistance?
But it couldn’t be helped.
Dunbakel’s self-esteem was very low, and spells granting peace and comfort were her fatal weakness.
Of course, Rem didn’t care about that.
He simply thought about how to deal with the situation.
Esther had no intention of showing off her magic, but neither did she intend to leave the corpses lying around.
She waved her hand through the air.
Using [Telekinesis]—a basic spell for any wizard—she rolled the five corpses to the entrance of the tent.
“The illusion spell will break soon.”
She informed the remaining members.
Rem said something, but the other three didn’t pay her any attention.
Did they notice ahead of time?
Partially, yes.
But also—
“I’m going back to sleep.”
There were guys like Ragna. Whether she turned into a human, a panther, or a fur-covered giant, they wouldn’t care.
‘Strange.’
Esther felt a truly strange feeling.
She had expected at least some shock or surprise.
Or maybe, deep down, she had hoped for it.
These people were bound together under the same banner.
At the center of it all was the black-haired man sleeping soundly, even in such a situation.
The time limit ended. Esther turned back into a panther and slipped into Encrid’s arms. The black robe that had wrapped her disappeared like smoke, sinking into the ground.
After she became a panther again and the illusion spell wore off—
“What the hell is this?”
Benzense, part of the patrol unit, entered the tent and spoke in shock.
The smell of blood and the sight of corpses rendered him speechless.
“Hey, since you’re here, help clean this up.”
Forgiving a commander who lost in battle was one thing, but failing in security was unforgivable.
Benzense couldn’t understand how they had gotten in this far.
There was no way he could know that wizards had been involved.
“Huh? Uh, uh.”
He simply thought that assassins had targeted them.
However, looking over the dead bodies, they didn’t seem particularly well-trained.
It was just an absurd night.
Reporting this would probably make Battalion Commander Marcus furious.
But it wasn’t something he could ignore either.
Benzense relayed the report through the night’s guard to the commander.
And when Marcus woke up in the morning—
“Leave it. No matter what assassin they send, it’s a death trap for them anyway.”
He brushed it off nonchalantly.
In truth, Marcus had deliberately stationed Encrid’s company at the outskirts.
He had thought that if the Olf of Martai made a final desperate move, they might send assassins.
At the same time, he also thought it was a hopeless effort.
‘We even caught the half-blood elf last time.’
That assassin had supposedly been quite famous too.
Marcus was someone who poured effort into gathering intelligence. He believed that such efforts were what brought victory on the battlefield.
“Let them send more. Some people have to get burned to know the pot’s hot.”
Marcus laughed as he spoke. He didn’t know that wizards had come, but for some reason, he had developed an absolute, baseless confidence.
That Encrid would somehow survive and prevail.
At the same time, another thought crossed his mind.
“A knight.”
The dream Encrid had spoken of.
At the time, Marcus had thought it sounded half like a pipe dream, but now it really seemed possible.
If so, what should he do?
If Encrid became a knight, truly entered a knight order—
‘Under Cypress?’
It didn’t seem like a fitting picture.
Who knew. It was the future’s problem; he would see when the time came. Until then, Marcus would do what needed to be done. He might not even live to see Encrid become a knight.
In fact, he was on the verge of stepping into extremely dangerous matters himself.
“So let’s take care of our own lives first.”
Marcus was doing just that.
—
Pitch-black darkness, like a canvas painted in black, with no starlight, no moonlight, no light of any kind.
Only the flowing river, the boat, and the boatman sitting atop it.
If there was anything different from before—
‘I can see eyes.’
Encrid could see something like an eye on part of the boatman’s face. Only one.
If asked whether it resembled a human eye, he would probably say he didn’t know.
The moment he saw it, he simply knew it was an eye.
It was a dream.
The boatman gazed at him intently. That’s how he realized it was an eye.
One needs eyes to gaze at someone.
“You’re a truly strange one.”
The boatman spoke. Encrid felt as if his lips had been sewn shut with thread.
So he forced strength into his mouth to open it. After all, thread could be ripped away with force.
“So, when’s the wall coming again?”
He asked bluntly.
The wall was a curse, something that tormented humans, cornered them, and made them suffer.
That was the curse. That was the wall.
The boatman knew this too well. Yet the one before him was asking for more walls.
You crazy bastard.
The boatman muttered under his breath, then, staring at Encrid, said—
“Madman.”
At that familiar designation, Encrid opened his eyes. The dream faded. The river, the boatman, the pitch-black darkness—all vanished.
Growl.
The moment he opened his eyes, he felt warmth in his arms. Esther.
As he woke, the panther also opened its eyes. Somehow, they looked even more human than yesterday.
“Did you sleep well?”
He greeted her, got up, and started morning training. Just because they had surrounded the enemy city didn’t mean they could skip training.
“Sleep well?”
Rarely, Rem asked about his sleep.
He lay down, slept, and woke up properly. That meant he had slept well.
Dreams didn’t matter. Even nightmares could be shaken off after waking.
“Any reason not to?”
“…You’re annoyingly smug.”
Whatever that was supposed to mean.
“Your sense training is lacking.”
Another rare occurrence—Jaxson nagged at him early in the morning, and Audin was more energetic than usual.
“One more rep! You can do it, Brother!”
Did this idiot forget they were on a battlefield? Was he trying to push their bodies to the brink?
They repeated squatting and standing while carrying massive stones on their backs.
It felt like his thigh muscles would tear and snap, but as Audin said, he could do it.
“Didn’t you feel anything last night?”
Rem came over and asked again.
“The weather was nice.”
Neither too hot nor too cold—a perfect night for sleeping.
He had vaguely smelled blood when he woke up, but he chalked it up to lingering battlefield traces.
It wasn’t until after lunch that Encrid heard about the assassination attempt.
Benzense came to tell him.
“I didn’t even wake up?”
“They were wizards.”
Rem finally opened his mouth, teasing him all day about how dead his nerves must be not to wake even when assassins came.
It bothered Encrid more than he let on.
‘Why didn’t I wake up?’
Spells? Sleeping incense?
But what about the others? Why were his subordinates awake?
It meant he lacked something. Something the others had.
He already knew.
‘[Will].’
What they called strength of will.
He wasn’t in a rush, but he still desired it. And he knew what he had to do to get there.
Swing his sword every day.
Training and refining himself in the middle of the battlefield. No one frowned upon it.
Knowing your own shortcomings meant wanting to move forward.
Passion and determination flared up again. Some fiery energy filled Encrid’s chest, pounding his heart.
“When do we fight?”
The heat drove him to ask the elf company commander who visited.
“We’ll advance this afternoon.”
“No ladders? What about the gates?”
“I was just told to pass the message. Will you take the lead?”
Encrid nodded.
Inside Martai, Olf might be up to something, but at this point, why not just break down the gates?
Contrary to expectations, the battle was anticlimactic.
“Raise your shields!”
Encrid, Rem, Audin, and the others raised their shields and advanced.
They carried large rectangular shields. Although they looked hastily made, they were sturdy enough to block a few arrows.
And so they advanced.
The reason the battle was so anticlimactic was simple.
Rumble, clatter!
As they approached, the sound of pulleys turning echoed—and the gates swung open.
The rain of arrows from the towers and the gallery atop the walls became meaningless once they pressed tightly against the gate and walls.
By sticking close to the walls, they moved out of the line of fire.
“Why’s the gate open?”
Rem muttered. Encrid also found it puzzling. Troops split to the left and right of the gate.
The First Company Commander, who followed behind, spoke to Encrid.
“It’s the battalion commander’s magic.”
It certainly seemed like magic.
Encrid could roughly guess the reason.
‘He planted spies.’
Not just ordinary spies, but ones influential enough to open the gates from within Martai.
A truly remarkable feat.
And it didn’t end there.
As Encrid entered through the gate, he gained a brief but sharp realization.
He had learned from the swords of both allies and enemies, but even Marcus’s strategy taught him something.
A short yet electrifying flash of insight struck through his mind.
* * * * * *
(T/N: Im back! Lol, kidding. I had a free time so I’m trying to do some TL work. Mind you, we are still not on the regular upload schedule!)
