Chapter 341
Rem turned around and struck one of the spears with his axe.
Clang!
The spearhead spun away through the air. Trolls were monstrous beings of great strength, but Rem was a human who possessed monstrous strength of his own.
Audin dashed forward and snatched the spear mid-flight with a whoosh.
The spear, flying in with considerable weight, came to an abrupt halt the moment it touched Audin’s hand.
Considering how forcefully it had been thrown, the way it stopped felt almost absurd.
It was an unnatural scene created by unnatural strength.
It even looked as though it ignored physical laws.
There’s a saying that strength beyond one’s limits can look like magic.
It fit perfectly here. An absurdly trained brute strength.
In terms of raw power, it meant Audin surpassed Rem.
The Troll Brothers had no time to even feel something was wrong.
“Hahaha!”
As Audin burst into laughter and kicked off the ground, an explosive boom erupted beneath his feet, soil shooting upward like a fountain.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Not once, but three more bursts of dirt erupted as he moved.
Audin’s body carved a long line across space, leaving afterimages behind him.
That huge frame shortened distance at an unbelievable speed.
To an ordinary person, it would have looked as though he vanished.
A charge created by endlessly trained thigh muscles combined with perfect control over his own body.
Comparable to a Junior Knight’s charge—Encrid thought so the moment he saw it.
Audin approached and swung the spear shaft like a club, smashing one troll’s skull.
The troll couldn’t dodge his fastest footwork yet.
And when Encrid added his realization of “Gather and Burst” to the mix—
Crack! Boom!
The skull shattered, black blood shooting high into the air.
Bone fragments and pieces of the skull scattered everywhere. Blood sprayed in a radial pattern from where the spear shaft struck.
The surroundings were darkening as the sun set, but no one here had trouble seeing in the dark.
Thus—
“Don’t let them escape.”
Encrid said.
Dunbakel and Teresa bolted forward.
Audin laughed while beating down another troll.
He tore off their arms—trolls, the symbol of regeneration—popped out their eyes, and smashed their heads flat.
Encrid had nothing more to do.
The five trolls didn’t even dare to run.
If even one escaped, it would burrow somewhere and hide, forcing them into a game of hide-and-seek. Even for Rem, that would be annoying.
Tracking a monster that intentionally hides is a different matter.
So they could not afford to let even one get away.
Naturally, none did.
Audin mercilessly dismantled three of them.
Rem chopped one of the five into nine pieces with his axe.
“What’s with him?”
After slicing his troll apart, Rem asked while glancing at Audin.
The question carried the meaning: Why is that big oaf so excited?
“Haha, it’s a good night. The Lord watches over us.”
Audin only offered a smile.
The last troll went to Dunbakel and Teresa.
The two tore, crushed, and ripped apart their target in competition.
That was the end of it.
There was no opportunity for troll regeneration to manifest.
Sinar merely watched. No—she was busy putting out fires. Then, crouching, she timidly peeked up and asked:
“Shall I relight the fire?”
Encrid looked at the sky to gauge the time. Evening had passed, and night was settling in.
If it were just before dawn, resting would have been correct, but did it have to be so? Nothing in the world ‘had’ to be a certain way.
He wanted to wash. It was also a chance for training. More importantly, there was no reason to endure the inconvenience of camping.
“Let’s head back.”
If they ran through the night here, it would take two days to reach the Border Guards.
If they pushed faster, they could arrive the next night.
Would it be too much? This kind of training was necessary.
After getting injured and resting before, his body had been worked less.
This was the perfect opportunity to push it again—running alone could overwork the body well enough.
It would be good training.
With that reasoning, he decided to postpone resting until reaching the city.
No one complained.
—
The news of them clearing three low-grade Danger Zones—more precisely, two colonies and five troublesome monsters—spread quickly.
“I have nothing to say.”
Krys, who heard the news first, spoke.
Who wouldn’t be shocked hearing this?
He didn’t mean it negatively.
From the moment Encrid returned and he heard what had happened, Krys’ mind was racing.
If such feats were possible…
If numerous individuals existed who could burn, crush, roast, cut, slice, and kill anything that approached, and they would act if simply asked—
Ah, except for one person.
Ah—no, two, since one was still on vacation.
Even so, the combat power was immense.
Even Rem and Audin were stepping forward more than before.
‘Dunbakel and Teresa are also forces to be reckoned with.’
There was also Esther the mage and Esther the panther, though he counted them separately.
“I should go meet the Lord.”
Krys said. Encrid gave a vague nod.
His eyes were sparkling with some new idea again.
He must have seen a way to earn Krong.
Encrid then washed, rested, ate, and immersed himself once more in the Isolation Technique.
“Gather and Burst” ultimately required the body to keep up.
The core was the contraction and explosion of muscle.
If he became familiar with it, he could replicate what had just been done to him.
Audin, still smiling widely after pulverizing trolls, approached Encrid and demonstrated the technique himself.
“Once you’re proficient, you can do things like this.”
He approached holding a hammer in his left hand.
It was eerie to see, but equally exciting—and that excitement was justified.
A giant-sized man approached, looming over him. Even though Encrid wasn’t short, their eye level didn’t match.
“Watch.”
Audin thrust his fist forward and stopped it just one knuckle-length from Encrid’s abdomen.
For a moment, Encrid wondered what he was doing.
Perception of Evasion activated.
There was no time to dodge. He reflexively tightened his abdominal muscles.
Boom!
With the explosion—rather, the blast that occurred right in front of his stomach—Encrid felt his body lift. His feet left the ground. He floated for a moment, then flew back a couple of steps and landed.
He didn’t tumble embarrassingly.
He kept his balance. Being beaten repeatedly with a hammer hadn’t been for nothing. His durability had improved greatly.
“What is this?”
“It is Gather and Burst.”
Encrid looked to the ground. The dry dirt of the training yard bore a clear mark.
The ground was deeply indented and twisted. Like a small vortex had formed.
‘Rotation of the ankle.’
The contraction and explosion of every muscle in the body.
All that force unleashed barely a knuckle-length away.
It was a brutal and captivating technique.
“Good.”
Encrid muttered in pure admiration and immersed himself again. His body and mind were both busy.
He wasn’t only learning Gather and Burst.
Audin continued beating his entire body with the hammer. Everywhere with muscles—except the head—was struck evenly.
Afterward, Encrid roughly learned Dunbakel’s full-body elastic swordsmanship.
He fetched a shield from the forge, then sparred with Teresa, and later learned the handling of other weapons from Rem.
“Will learning this many random things actually help?”
Rem asked.
Sometimes depth mattered more in training—but that didn’t apply to this insane man.
In other words, Rem already knew the answer when he asked.
“It will.”
The answer was short.
In the realm of experience and instinct, Encrid found his path.
Was this the path toward knighthood?
He didn’t know.
But he knew one thing.
‘Crazy.’
Joy, excitement—it intoxicated him. Learning something new, mastering it—and mastering it fast.
“It’s like the Captain’s brain is stupid. Doing [Will] and everything else—yet he struggled with this?”
Rem’s sarcasm cut in, but it didn’t matter.
Compared to before, his growth rate was unbelievable.
From the side, Ragna watched lazily.
It wasn’t that he lacked motivation.
But after seeing a knight’s sword, and recognizing the path he must walk, he focused on what he had to do now.
Organizing and refining.
He had wandered the continent for a long time.
Half of that was because he lost his way unintentionally, but he also met many people.
They each displayed their own techniques.
Mercenaries, traders’ bodyguards—their skills varied.
Ragna, being a genius, immediately understood their techniques upon seeing them.
Seeing once was enough to imitate. Repeating twice or thrice raised him to their level. Within two days, he surpassed them.
“You monster. That’s a demonic talent.”
A guard from a trading group once told him that.
From that, Ragna realized he was fundamentally different from ordinary people.
That led to a question.
‘Should I continue advancing?’
No one beside him would be able to follow. Was it a path worth walking?
Doubt and uncertainty—those thoughts gnawed at him. Eventually, he stopped advancing altogether.
Even when motivation returned, he only reinforced what he had learned.
He needed a catalyst. That catalyst was his battle with the Junior Knight Aya. Through her, he broke his limits.
Why?
Because what had gnawed at him vanished at some point.
“How long are you going to fool around? Let’s have a bout.”
Yes—because of that man.
Encrid stood before him, tilting a sword.
Ragna nodded.
His heart had been organized. The disordered techniques he’d accumulated were now neatly arranged.
Like Encrid, he had begun pioneering his own path.
That would soon become Ragna-Style Swordsmanship.
Instead of being trapped in rigidity, Ragna opened a new road.
“It is a heavy and fast sword.”
He moved the moment he spoke. Encrid instantly recalled the knight’s sword.
With a swoosh, the vanished blade folded space and appeared.
The speed was different. The heaviness was different.
Encrid raised his sword horizontally to block.
Thud! A deafening crash rang as the shock traveled through his entire body.
‘A severing strike?’
Different from Gather and Burst, yet similar in power.
Ragna integrated techniques just by watching them—adapting and applying them to his own body.
A true genius.
“You crazy bastard.”
Rem laughed as he lifted his axe.
“Good. Now I can beat your ass properly.”
Seeing Encrid get pushed back, Ragna quietly muttered to Rem:
“You lazy bastard, what are you talking about?”
“I said I can beat you without killing you now. Is that hard to understand? Want me to explain with hand gestures?”
“Sure. Come on, die.”
Soon Ragna and Rem clashed.
Encrid, who had moved aside, didn’t interrupt.
This fight was different from before.
Rem was getting pushed back. Ragna had crossed a line.
But that didn’t mean Rem yielded easily.
Encrid absorbed their duel with his eyes.
There was endlessly much to learn. Things he couldn’t see before were now visible.
A heavy and fast sword—Ragna showed exactly what he meant.
Light-seeming yet striking against an axe with overwhelming weight.
Boom!
The continuous crashes made surrounding soldiers peek over.
Some were shocked, others shocked yet unsurprised.
The Madman Company was not made of ordinary humans.
Encrid watched their duel, goosebumps covering his body, excitement threatening to burst.
He couldn’t hold back.
“Are you just going to watch?”
Encrid pulled Sinar toward the fight.
He wanted to observe and learn her delicate sword as well through sparring.
“Greedy fiancé—if I give you this, what will you give me in return?”
Anything but the engagement.
“Perhaps a date?”
The elf asked, and Encrid couldn’t restrain himself.
“Very well.”
Swordsmanship in exchange for a single date. A ridiculous deal—yet satisfying for both Encrid and Sinar.
—
“You’re going to clear the swamp?”
Count Molsenn asked, and the reporting butler bowed his head.
“My apologies. We did not expect them to move so quickly.”
It was the Count himself who had scattered monsters in the swamp.
Using bell-like insects and bloodsucking flies, he blocked people’s access and performed various magical experiments there.
Rare magical ingredients and herbs were also easy to obtain in that area.
He knew Encrid had left the city to clear the Land of the Gray Ghouls. Gathering intelligence was not pointless.
Even if Frok rampaged, would he fail to gather information?
So the Count was aware.
“They also dealt with five trolls.”
“These bastards…”
The Count was speechless. Did they not sleep?
The path was rough—carriages couldn’t even travel there.
Had they sprinted through an unpaved wilderness?
He was too stunned to speak. A flicker of discomfort rose but he immediately brushed it off.
‘It is absurd indeed.’
It was too late to act anyway.
He couldn’t admit he had released the monsters.
Besides, once he achieved what he wanted, all of this would be meaningless.
“One from the guild that seeks to reclaim the Kingdom’s language has infiltrated the territory.”
“Eliminate them.”
“There are troublesome mercenaries with them.”
Meaning the territorial guards alone couldn’t handle it.
The Count mentally erased the Madman Company from consideration.
With his mind clear again, he arrived at an answer.
“Send Mats.”
“Yes.”
The butler bowed.
The Count sat in his chair and quietly contemplated.
Preparations were still insufficient. He must wait. Until when?
At most a year or two.
Was it human instinct to climb higher? Or the desire of someone born into power?
He didn’t know. He would know once he reached the top.
Until then, he didn’t care. His current ignorance would make the experience more enjoyable.
Until then—
‘You will still be alive, won’t you?’
Madman Company. Encrid.
What an unusual human. A memorable one.
Thus, when the time came, he hoped the man wouldn’t stand on the opposite side.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to spare him.
But the Count would prefer to keep him alive.
It was rare for a human to interest him this much.