Chapter 310

               

Avnaier advanced slowly, but it wasn’t a leisurely march.
In truth, it was a very busy one.
It was like a swan that appears graceful above water while its legs frantically paddle below.

From the preparations of sorcery onward, there was a mountain of work to do.
It was more complicated than building a fortress halfway up a mountain.
That was the technique Avnaier had prepared.

“Nilf, go first and pile stones here. Make a wall.”

As he spoke while tracing the map, his subordinate nodded.

“That’s quite an insane schedule.”

“Move your mouth less and your feet more.”

He first sent out the most loyal commander under his command.
Nilf was meticulous—he would handle it well.

Then he dispatched another group disguised as scouts, though in truth they were closer to an engineering unit.
They built walls between the hills.
It was the same wall Encrid had faced.

After that, while maintaining the main force’s pace, he detached other troops as well.
Building walls of stone, digging the earth, and laying traps weren’t things that could be done in a short time.

‘There’s no need to do it on a large scale.’

It was only meant to capture a small number of elite soldiers—three at most, maybe two, perhaps one.
He had to plan carefully, calculating every variable and predicting every outcome.
That was what Avnaier did.

Since childhood, people had called Avnaier brilliant.
But what was the foundation of that brilliance?

Those who knew him well often cited his greatest strength as boldness.
Or rather, his daring precision that exploited human blind spots.

“You’re a bit insane. Your tactics are bold, but they’re nothing you could ever actually pull off.”

That was what a fellow student once told him during his days of learning strategy and tactics under his teacher.
The remark wasn’t wrong—Avnaier’s strategies were audacious and often lacked feasibility.

But what if he could pull them off?

Here was where Avnaier’s second strength shone—meticulousness.
Even when hunting a single rabbit, he always prepared a second and third trap.
He would invest excessive resources if that’s what it took to get what he wanted.
And he always got it.

“Isn’t this a waste? A rabbit barely gives us a bit of fur and meat, but you’ve spent far more than you’ll gain.”

His companion scolded him again.

That man knew one thing but not the other.
Avnaier’s thinking was different.

“It’s just a habit of being thorough.”

He brushed it off, but he wasn’t merely thinking about the one rabbit before him.

‘The traps laid in the hunting ground can be reused.
All I need to do is drive the next rabbit this way.’

Every hunt afterward would be twice as easy.
So it wasn’t a waste.
If he maintained his preparations, before summer he could catch much bigger game.

Meticulousness combined with a persuasive structure—that was the foundation of Avnaier’s strategy.

Of course, he couldn’t say all this aloud.
His peer was a noble, one from the Ekkins family that stood by the royal house.
If the Hurrier clan was the body of Azpen, then the Ekkins were its head.

Avnaier, on the other hand, was a commoner.
He was quick-witted and observant of his surroundings.

‘Even if I’m like this now, circumstances can change anytime.’

He was ambitious.
From a young age, he was sharp and knew how to seize what he desired.
A man who had acquired everything he ever sought.
Few things he pursued ever slipped away.

That confidence was justified.
Even his decision to study under a mild-tempered noble teacher of modest skill was a calculated move.

He had once provoked a group of vagrants to attack him right along his teacher’s path, then fought them off bravely.
That, too, was no coincidence. His teacher had believed it was fate.

“Follow me. A better life awaits you.”

“Yes.”

It was a calculated encounter.
And Avnaier continued to walk that calculated path ever since.

His ambition had always been the same since childhood.

“Why should Azpen be content as a duchy?”

He dreamed of a nation more prosperous, more powerful.
And it was possible.
Though a duchy, it had knights and knight-level forces.
Even if Naurilia was a concern…

‘Azpen’s only enemy is Naurilia, but Naurilia’s enemies aren’t limited to Azpen.’

He had a burning desire to prove his own worth.
That drive was further fueled by the influence of the man who had raised him like a true son—his teacher.

“I love this nation, my son.”

The man had finally adopted him as his own.
He knew nothing of politics, but he was a patriot.
Even after realizing he’d been used, he still gave his affection.
That man was Avnaier’s teacher—and his father.

Ambition mixed with paternal influence; Avnaier molded both into weapons.

‘I’ll prove myself on this land.’

And in doing so, he would inherit part of his father’s dream.

‘Therefore, you must die.’

No one in Azpen studied Encrid more obsessively than Avnaier.
He dissected him like a scholar.
And from that, he concluded—Encrid and his unit posed a grave threat not only to Azpen but to his own vision as well.

‘A future knight.’

Or perhaps something greater.

Though his reasoning differed from Krys’s, his conclusion was the same.
He placed great value on Encrid’s future potential.

Krys’s vision included bringing Encrid into the salon he would one day form, but in essence, both men saw the same thing.

To become a knight—by mere probability, it seemed far-fetched.
Yet Avnaier could list several reasonable arguments for why it wasn’t impossible.

Still, he couldn’t say any of this to the royal family.
They would have dismissed it as nonsense.

But what if—one in a thousand, one in ten thousand—a true knight emerged from Naurilia’s frontier?
And worse, what if that knight appeared right at Azpen’s border?

The emergence of a single knight could alter national power.
A knight born in the enemy nation could only mean disaster.

‘That can never be good.’

So he would kill him.

Avnaier devised the [Triangle Seal]—a formation of triple entrapment.

‘Three hills and man-made structures.’

To win a war, one must make the terrain their ally.
And that’s what Avnaier did.
He used artificial means to turn the land itself to his side,
making both earth and sky his strongest allies.

Then he wove sorcery into it.
He veiled the sky, making it impossible for the enemy to sense direction.
It wasn’t as complex as the [Mist of Annihilation],
and thus required fewer sorcerers—though even this much left them exhausted.

They only needed to maintain it for a single day, and for that purpose alone, the cost was acceptable.

In short, Avnaier used calculation to herd his enemy into a natural cage, then temporarily shrouded them in blindness with sorcery. He was certain that would trap his prey.

And indeed, it worked.

He poured over a thousand soldiers into that natural prison.

Was it an efficient battle?

‘Of course not!’

But he would absolutely kill his prey.
He would make sure it could never escape.

If you use twenty traps and five hunters to catch one rabbit, and that rabbit might one day grow into a fanged monster holding a blade— would that be a waste?

Avnaier didn’t think so.

He began sending dozens of messengers, one after another, ordering the standard-bearers:

“Move the white flag!”

Each flag-bearer became a channel of command.
Drums weren’t allowed, for even a sound could break the illusion of the prison.
And with that, the Triangle Seal formation was complete.

One side was guarded by the artificial wall, two by magic and sorcery, and the third by a thousand soldiers.

‘Even a knight could not easily escape this.’

That was the trap Avnaier had built.

—

The ferryman spoke.
Over the dark waters, the violet lamp flickered.
Between the shifting shadows of its light, shapes bent, stretched, and swayed.

“Was it not pleasant?”

The ferryman asked again.

Now his face was faintly visible.
Even as Encrid looked at that face, he remained silent.

The ferryman waited for an answer.
None came.

Time passed—though here in this mental world, it was impossible to feel.

The ferryman knew this encounter would soon end.
Moments later, he saw Encrid’s form begin to crumble like grains of sand.
It was the return from the inner world to the outer one.
Today’s repetition.

The ferryman watched as Encrid scattered like dust.

Then Encrid spoke.

“Ah.”

It was a strange sound.
As though he had only just realized something about himself.

Was his earlier silence not from a lack of words—but deliberate disregard?

The ferryman felt something stir within, but he buried it.
He was no longer the same as when he had cursed Encrid before.

“I shall ask you again next time.”

Only his voice lingered where Encrid had vanished.

—

Encrid had no time to answer.
Even at the brink of death—or within it—he never truly accepted death as certain.

Still, by habit, his mind recorded everything that had happened around him.
A reflex born of endless repetition—a preparation for tomorrow.

Too much had happened.
He absorbed the flood of information, memories, and fragments of sensation,
sorting through them in his head.

‘Too much.’

And yet, amid that sorting, one thought intruded.

Did they really send all those troops just to kill him?

He didn’t know.
But did the reason even matter now?

It wasn’t time to ponder.
It was time to act.

Casting aside such thoughts, Encrid began replaying events in reverse order.

While he was doing so, he heard a faint rustle.
The moment he opened his eyes, he sensed movement.
It was the same again.
Another repetition.

There was no time to reflect—each time he regained awareness,
it was already time to fight.

Still, it wasn’t despair.

‘Thin.’

He didn’t feel the wall as impenetrable.
If he endured one more desperate day, he would understand the patterns in this battlefield.

At most, two days.
That was all it would take.
This was a day he could overcome.

Avoiding danger was nothing new.
He had done it countless times—when fighting the Thorn Rose Lesha, the Lycanthropes, Azpen’s elite soldiers, and the raging mobs of beasts.
Even the first time he faced that deranged stabber—it had been the same.

Some things changed.
Others didn’t.

‘The great pattern remains.’

Having fought once, he could now grasp the enemy’s movements.

‘Would I really need a second today?’

So this wasn’t an impossible wall.
Compared to past repetitions, this one felt almost laughably manageable.

Encrid moved.
What if he ran in a completely different direction from yesterday?

‘Somewhere, there must be a gap.’

Surely they hadn’t deployed an entire battalion just for him.

But they had.

The same struggle repeated.
Yesterday’s battle, again.

“My name is Sent.”

Encrid was momentarily startled.
He had run in a different direction, yet the same man blocked his path.

‘How?’

It was another repetition.
Unless he made a drastic change, nothing changed.

His arms ached. His sword had snapped.
He now gripped the Gladius in its place.

The fight wasn’t long, but the man named Sent disrupted his route.

With his first self-created technique, the [Snake Sword], Encrid deflected and countered,
severing Sent’s fingers.

Tatatak!

Blood and fingers flew through the air as his blade struck the hilt.

A gap opened.
The instant he sensed it, his body moved on instinct.

It wasn’t [Will], but the reflexes he’d honed crossing blades with Lykanos.
Not mere intuition—purposeful reaction.

“Urgh!”

He drove the tip of the Blazeblade into his opponent’s throat.
It was almost one motion—strike with the Gladius, and by the time the Blazeblade followed, the sequence was seamless.
Fast, fluid, and precise.

Puk!
Splat!

He withdrew the blade, and a red stream shot from Sent’s neck.

“Grrrk.”

Clutching his throat, the man fell, blood spilling from the stumps of his fingers.
Headfirst, he hit the ground.

“Let’s not meet again.”

Encrid muttered, hoisting the corpse.
He raised it as a shield, and bolts thudded into the dead man’s back.

Thwip-thwip-thwip!

‘They just keep coming.’

There were so many.
He truly had no idea why.

Then more came—arrows, bolts, spears, heavily armored infantry, men of the Hurrier family, mercenaries who knew how to fight.
Another flood, same as yesterday.

Barely holding on, he charged in one direction—only for more to appear in front of him.

“Persistent bastard.”

“Careful.”

Four men stood in his way.
They wore quilted gambesons against the cold—to Encrid’s eyes, they were ordinary fighters.

And he was right.
They weren’t true warriors—they wielded something else.
Spells.

He had been fleeing along a stream when they appeared ahead.
Encrid regretted not bringing his [Whistle Dagger].

‘No, even if I had, I’d have used them all by now.’

Everywhere he turned, there were ambushes.
Every path he took, more soldiers blocked his way.
It felt as if ghosts themselves were toying with him.

And the result of all that running—was this.

“Close in and trap him.”