Chapter 360
Silent Pierce.
Jaxson’s specialty.
No presence. No killing intent. The silently advancing blade is simply faithful to its original purpose.
Born to pierce, cut, and tear flesh, it is used for that purpose.
The silent blade closed in on Encrid’s back.
If it pierced clean through, the request would be complete.
“Let’s spar?”
Jaxson met Encrid’s eyes as he turned. The sword executing Silent Pierce stopped mid-thrust, his right hand frozen in the air.
‘He sensed it and reacted?’
Silent Pierce had failed.
Clang.
Encrid had already drawn his Silver longsword and lightly swung it, tapping the halted blade aside. It was barely more than a gesture.
Jaxson pulled his sword back in front of his body.
The vibration that started at the blade ran through his arm.
“I named it Silver. My sword.”
Encrid said, holding the longsword upright. The blade caught the moonlight at an angle.
Watching that, Jaxson realized what had really happened.
Silent Pierce hadn’t been broken.
He simply hadn’t been able to use Silent Pierce.
‘Because I held back?’
He hadn’t put his full intent into it. He hadn’t completely erased his presence.
Why?
“Jaxson.”
Encrid called his name. Blue light flickered in eyes that reflected the moon. Momentum rose along the sword in his hand. Encrid’s shoulder twisted, and Jaxson reacted at once.
Reading the stance, he retreated.
Whoosh.
The Silver longsword traced a short arc where he had just been standing.
Encrid swung, right hand on the grip, left hand on the ricasso, cutting a tight, efficient line.
It was a swing that only made sense if you trusted completely in the blade’s sharpness.
It wasn’t a slash relying on centrifugal force, but a cut that fully exploited the weapon’s edge.
“If you get careless, you’ll lose a limb.”
Encrid said. In the darkness, his blue eyes shone between the hands gripping the sword.
Words heavy with pressure. Eyes full of killing intent.
Jaxson drank in that momentum and broke down his opponent’s attack. After finishing the analysis in an instant, he said,
“You’re going to lean into the weapon’s strengths?”
Normally, he’d move first and talk later, but Jaxson spoke.
He knew he wasn’t acting like usual, but didn’t bother to dwell on it.
He just did as he pleased.
Was this for the request?
For revenge?
Was stabbing him in the back the right thing to do?
‘I don’t care.’
Jaxson, without meaning to, echoed Encrid’s usual tone in his mind. That too hadn’t been a conscious choice.
Encrid let out a steady breath.
“Hoo.”
It almost seemed visible in the moonlight. He carried that much momentum now.
“I mean it, Jaxson. You’ll get hurt if I hold back.”
Encrid was no longer the man he had been.
He was different now.
Far beyond the first time Jaxson had seen him.
The man who had been pushed around and beaten everywhere, a high-ranker only in name, was gone.
His presence now felt twice as large.
Jaxson dropped the sword he was holding. The blade stabbed into the dirt with a thud.
Then he drew another weapon—a stiletto.
“That?”
Encrid recognized it.
The item Leona Lockfreed had put up, and eventually won.
The one Encrid had given away without hesitation.
The stiletto from the Carmen Collection.
Jaxson’s indifferent eyes scanned the blade.
Did he understand the value of this dagger when he handed it over?
At the time, Encrid had shown no ulterior motives at all.
Now, the tip of that gifted blade was aimed at its former owner.
“Don’t let your guard down. I’m asking you.”
A request—something Jaxson had never once heard from his own mouth before.
The corner of Encrid’s lips curled. He laughed.
“Half a life.”
He said it as a promise of how dangerously he would come at him.
It was also a declaration that this would not be like their spars up to now.
Encrid’s eyes blazed as he locked his gaze forward.
Their eyes met, and Jaxson lowered his hand.
At that moment, a Silent Flying Dagger shot toward Encrid’s forehead.
Sensory Art—his sense of evasion—activated.
Even without seeing or hearing it, he could feel and avoid it. That was the realm of a sixth sense.
Encrid felt it and tilted his head, letting the silent dagger slice past. Then, he sensed another flying dagger in the space where he had dodged.
‘A time gap.’
It was a timing trick from the Flicking Blade Technique, the throwing method Jaxson had taught him himself.
He just hadn’t expected him to open with it right away. You couldn’t predict everything.
He couldn’t predict it, but his body moved.
Encrid turned Silver’s flat into a shield.
Clang!
Blade struck blade, and sparks burst, carving across the moonlight.
As those two blades closed in, Encrid drove his left big toe into the ground.
He’d done it casually, drawing the opponent’s eyes to the sword first.
Then he kicked forward with that foot.
Thwack.
Dirt flew ahead. A clump of weeds lifted too, helping to screen his approach.
Jaxson instinctively dropped his gaze, reversed his grip on the stiletto, and slipped to the side.
Ping.
Silver’s edge pierced forward, following almost directly behind the flying dirt, but Jaxson had read it and slipped past.
Jaxson’s major was Proper Sword Style.
Facing an opponent head-on, he always enjoyed calculating and keeping them where he wanted them.
It was the same now.
Of course, other things were mixed in too.
That was why, to Encrid, Jaxson looked like a beast keeping its claws hidden.
Conversely, to Jaxson, Encrid looked like a smooth, hard pebble.
No obvious gaps. He had grown that much.
So—
“This’ll be fun.”
Jaxson murmured. Encrid heard and answered,
“You can say that again.”
—
“…Wow. Who’s been beating you senseless?”
Andrew had given each of them a room, but there was only one staircase leading up.
Rem was playing with his axe in front of it, tossing and catching it, when he saw Jaxson’s subtly swollen left cheekbone and grinned.
“You didn’t stab him from behind and went at him from the front? That’s not like you. Why, did you get dumped? Is that why you’re out of your mind?”
He was just throwing out whatever popped into his head. He had to be in a good mood.
Normally, Jaxson would have ignored him, and earlier he hadn’t even bothered to pretend to listen, but now the mood was different. His loosened tongue moved more than when he’d first arrived.
“Dumped? Am I you?”
With just a few words, Rem felt strangely defeated.
Jaxson’s face was handsome enough that “striking” came to mind without effort. He could easily have been the face of a high-end salon.
“Men are all about wildness, brat.”
Rem said, replying out of habit.
He could tell Jaxson had come back loosened up.
“I don’t have the energy to stop you today. If you’re going to fight, do it outside. Don’t smash the furniture.”
Encrid came up behind Jaxson and said.
Andrew was stingy, so he hadn’t put many candles in the mansion.
Lamps were rare.
Judging from the meals and his general state, he wasn’t rich.
You could tell just by the wooden practice swords the trainees used.
Because of that, the mansion grew very dark at night. It almost felt like Encrid had stepped straight out of the shadows.
Of course, Rem had already sensed him.
“You fought the captain?”
Rem asked from the stairs. As he reached the wall-mounted candle holder, Encrid’s state came fully into view.
If Jaxson’s left cheek was puffy, Encrid had one eye swollen and was limping.
There was also a small hole in his forearm. Blood seeped through the tightly wrapped cloth. It was obvious he’d been stabbed and the blade pulled out.
Huh?
Even to Rem, Encrid’s body had reached a level far past merely “strong.”
His skill? That couldn’t be ignored now either.
And yet they’d left him like this?
The two of them had gone at it for real—Jaxson and Encrid.
“Did you attack him from behind?”
Jaxson decided Rem wasn’t worth answering and stayed silent.
“Move before I pull that useless head off your shoulders.”
“Try it, brat. I’m not going easy on you just because you got worked over.”
“Rem, come here for a bit.”
Encrid cut in. Rem clicked his tongue and stood, drumming the stairs with his heels.
The old wooden steps creaked.
He hopped up and landed on the floor with a soft thump.
Landing with barely a sound while holding an axe and with that build—
It was like a big cat dropping from a wall.
“Relax, I’m joking. I was only going to pay them back if they beat up someone from our unit. I’m Rem, the loyal guy, remember? So, what, it was just a spar?”
By then, Jaxson had already slipped up the stairs. He was several levels above Rem when it came to moving silently.
Rem noticed that too and glanced up once. Jaxson was already near the top, only his heels in view.
Rem turned his head back and said,
“You got hurt pretty bad.”
“It’s nothing.”
Pain throbbed around Encrid’s left hip, but he judged it wasn’t serious.
He was limping for quicker recovery, not because he couldn’t walk.
And one of those wounds had been deliberate.
You could say they were all within the range he’d expected.
“So, what’s going on?”
Was he asking without realizing it had been a spar?
No. He knew.
The question he was asking now carried more weight than that.
He wanted to know why they’d sparred like that, fully aware of Jaxson’s state.
Because Jaxson had been different from usual.
Encrid inwardly thought, Ah.
Rem, for all his looks, was quick on the uptake, sharp at reading the room, and knew his work.
– “I killed a noble’s son and got chased for it. I spent my time running.”
Rem’s old words came to mind.
If he’d killed a noble’s son and run, it meant he’d done it because he could.
If he’d needed to kill him quietly and disappear, he could have done that.
But if he’d killed him openly and made sure everyone knew it was him, there had to be a reason…
The image of Rem up to now flashed through his mind.
It came suddenly, but Encrid now understood why Rem hadn’t slipped away immediately after killing the noble’s son.
He’d pulled all the heat, all the nobles’ eyes, onto himself.
He had to.
“You made yourself look like the source of every problem.”
Encrid muttered.
Rem blinked.
What was this guy making up in his head now?
He was talking nonsense.
“Get a grip. Is your brain acting up again?”
Rem tapped his own head with his index finger.
Encrid ignored him and followed the thread.
Krys’s words resurfaced.
Whenever he was bored, Krys would watch the unit’s behavior and say things like,
– “Captain’s lazy when it comes to thinking, but Rem’s a bit different.”
– “Different?”
– “Rem knows everything, but pretends not to and just lets it pass. He only shows his hand when he has to.”
If Rem had killed the noble’s son quietly and vanished, what would have happened to the commoners that noble had abused?
Rem had stepped into the spotlight so they wouldn’t bear the backlash.
So they’d come for him instead.
He would have left clear tracks and kept fighting.
He would have dragged them around until they were obsessed with chasing only him.
Then, the moment he decided he’d bought enough time, he would vanish and run all the way to the frontier.
This little bastard really was cunning.
Rem stared at Encrid for a long time, then spoke again.
“You’re spouting weird things. And what’s with your eyes? Huh? They look off.”
Encrid shook his head.
It’s nothing.
He kept thinking.
Come to think of it, that was right. Before Encrid joined the unit and became the mediator, Rem had only caused manageable trouble.
He only started serious mischief after Encrid arrived.
‘Because it was safe to.’
Because that was how he’d be seen as a certain kind of person.
So that others wouldn’t meddle with him lightly, and would let him live the way he wanted. He’d carved that image deliberately.
A sly stray cat. Which one of them was more sly?
“See? Your eyes look weird right now.”
“Let’s play a bit more.”
Encrid didn’t bother matching his tone.
Rem was sharp and quick, so he already knew what Encrid was thinking.
Rem didn’t drop his suspicious gaze, but he still went along.
“Because of that stray cat’s business?”
“Well, that too.”
Jaxson’s room was right at the top of the stairs. He hadn’t bothered hiding it, so he must have heard everything.
“A damn cat that only drags in trouble.”
Rem grumbled like always. But he didn’t say he’d pack up and leave.
Encrid set his foot on the stairs.
As he did, he replayed the fight from before. More precisely, the moment after the spar had ended.
– “Pierce.”
That was what he’d said to Jaxson right after they were done. Jaxson had not extended his sword.
– “That’s enough.”
Jaxson had shaken his head.
Encrid had looked at him and said once more,
– “It’s okay to do it once in a while.”
The man in front of him was the one who had taught him Sensory Art.
It would have been fair to say, “Let me take one stab in return.”
Encrid had meant it.
When Jaxson had first drawn his sword behind him, Encrid had felt killing intent.
He’d also felt hesitation. Concern. Worry. All of it clung to the tip of the blade.
He had read all of that in a single swing.
After answering those doubts and fears with a spar, Encrid thought,
Whoever it is, they’re pulling a lot of strings.
– “There was a request to stab you.”
That was what Jaxson had dropped in the middle.
Encrid was curious about the one hiding behind the veil.
Warnings, requests, tricks.
The assassins he’d met on the way here and the attempts on his life—all of it had been that man’s handiwork. (T/N : I bet thats Count Molsen )
Creak.
The wooden stairs groaned. As Encrid climbed toward his room, he thought,
In the end, he’d have to give some sort of answer to everything thrown at him.
And that answer was exactly what the enemy wanted most.