Chapter 425
Encrid felt the hairs all over his body stand on end.
It felt as though the opponent’s sword could slash across his neck at any moment.
Could he block it?
Before the question could even properly form, his hands and feet moved first.
He adjusted the angle of his footing and placed a hand on his sword belt. It was the most comfortable stance for drawing his sword at any moment.
As Encrid shifted his posture, dozens of attack methods rose in his mind and vanished just as quickly.
‘Throw a [Whistle Dagger] to distract him?’
Or charge in and use [Pressing Blade]?
Try [Giant’s Strike]?
A single point of concentration sharpened on its own, not even allowing him time to blink.
He saw the opponent’s eyes.
Those yellow eyes seemed to hold a trace of mischief. That mischief alone could kill.
Yes, it could.
But did that change anything?
As his focus flared, [Eyes That See an Inch Ahead] activated on its own.
Every means of attack would be blocked. That was how it would be.
So? What did that matter?
Standing hairs, a pounding heart, sweat running down his skin, a chill that did not suit the season.
Encrid decided to forget everything.
The tactic he had used to hold his ground against the Knight before had been to move first and strike.
Because he had not been confident he could block even a single attack otherwise.
That had been the best he could do back then.
‘And now?’
Encrid had walked and walked, chasing a faded dream despite being beaten and broken countless times.
He swung his sword all day without rest, often until his palms split open.
There had not been a single day he had not lived like that.
The sun rose anew each day, and Encrid had never wasted even one of them.
‘Will it work?’
The urge to try anything surged up in an instant.
Wouldn’t it be fine to do it now?
He wanted to. As his fervor boiled over, everything around him faded away, and only the opponent remained.
‘Is this arrogance, or conceit?’
Even the time before he had become the notorious squad leader, thanks to the repeated todays, now felt like the distant past.
Even back then, Encrid had possessed something like confidence.
How could he not?
He had swung his sword like a madman, over and over again.
He had not known that the rewards of effort were not given equally to everyone.
No, he had known, but turned a blind eye to it.
The confidence born among the rabble had stirred in him a desire to challenge.
‘How far have I come now?’
Thinking that, he had gone out in search of someone worth fighting.
It was a step taken based on the baseless belief that he was not the same as before.
And what had been the result?
In the spring of his twenty-seventh year,
Encrid realized that his talent was insignificant.
That was the conclusion forced on him by the outcome of a trivial quarrel he had been dragged into.
In five exchanges, the sword in his hand had flown away, and a hole had opened in his stomach. Pressing a hand to the wound, Encrid asked,
“How old are you?”
“Twelve.”
Twelve. Not even a teenager.
That was what a true genius looked like.
“Sorry, it was my first real fight.”
The child had said that.
That memory was still vivid. He could not forget the face of that genius child.
‘Even so.’
With a sword that had forgotten confidence, he could cut an opponent, but he could not defeat one.
– “Instead of wasting time wondering whether to strike or not, just swing.”
That was what Rem had said.
– “You just keep cutting until it works.”
That had been Ragna’s advice on how to cut through a rock that would not be cut.
– “If your heart is lacking, train your body. If your body is lacking, train your heart, Brother.”
Audin had said the answer was training so hard there was not even time to think.
– “You can just stab them in secret.”
That had been Jaxson’s answer to the question of what to do when facing a stronger enemy.
Even now, it might be nothing more than a desire to test his strength born from baseless confidence.
‘Then am I not allowed to?’
He had built a tower of effort, found it lacking, desperately scaled walls, and reached this point.
Encrid wanted to test it. He wanted to quench his thirst. He wanted to point his sword at the opponent.
‘How far have I come now?’
Compared to when he met the Knight of Azpen?
Compared to when a young genius’s blade pierced a hole through his stomach?
It was stubbornness and obstinacy, defiance and tenacity.
The opponent knew it too.
He had already relaxed his strength, and yet this one was still trying to counterattack.
The man in the vest looked straight at Encrid and laughed.
There were many things that amused him.
Not only that fellow’s stubbornness, but also how the ones around him had naturally fallen into the same current.
“I don’t know. Me neither.”
The man moved. With a thud as he kicked off the ground, his body shot forward as if stretched out.
It was acceleration beyond human limits.
The moment Encrid recognized it, his sword moved as well.
It was not [Giant’s Strike], nor was it [Pressing Blade].
His body had simply reacted before any such thoughts could even form.
Bang!
A loud crash rang out, and Encrid felt his body being pushed back, but he bent his knees, lowered his center of gravity, and endured it.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
His feet shoved through the dirt. In that very state, Encrid drew back the deflected sword and thrust forward. It was only natural to aim for the opponent’s opening by minimizing the path of every movement.
It was a response born from the realm of instinct, carved into him through countless sparring sessions with Rem.
“Hiyah!”
With a shout, the man knocked it aside again. His weapon was a thick, curved dagger about a handspan long, a zambiya.
Even after clashing against Aker, it neither chipped nor broke. It was clearly a weapon that belonged to the class of renowned blades.
Rem, Ragna, or Audin could have stepped in, but none of them moved.
Thud! Clang clang clang!
Their weapons collided several more times.
Instead of retreating, Encrid fixed his eyes on the dagger’s trajectory.
Strangely, the dagger seemed to vanish from view moment by moment, yet each time he predicted it through [Eyes That See an Inch Ahead], driven by [Will].
It was like seeing the starting point and predicting the destination, but in this case, he was still tracking part of the blade’s movement and using [Eyes That See an Inch Ahead] to bridge the gap.
Because of that, he could not unleash any large attack technique, but he could at least hold on and barely keep up.
After dodging and deflecting twelve times, Encrid instantly dropped his left hand to his waist and then thrust it forward. It was a stab with Blazeblade.
Faster than ever before, the sword that suited the word swift more than anything shot forward as a single point.
And the blade of Blazeblade was caught in the man’s hand.
Thud.
The seized blade did not budge at all, as though jammed between boulders.
Meanwhile, the zambiya in the man’s other hand had already reached Encrid’s neck.
Holding Blazeblade with one hand, he had deftly twisted his body into Encrid’s embrace, slipped past the hand holding Aker, and extended the dagger until it rested at his throat.
“This is far enough. You’re an amusing little one.”
The man spoke.
Only then did Encrid’s vision clear. Until that moment, he had seen nothing but the man before him, but that was no longer the case.
The surroundings came back into view. The familiar training ground, the three trees, and the rest.
At the same time, a faint ache spread through all of his muscles. It felt as though a burden had suddenly been laid over his body, like after pushing himself to the limit and devoting days to training.
“Which Knight order are you from?”
Encrid asked.
“Knight? I’m not one of those.”
The man answered with a shrug. His attitude seemed carefree and easygoing. It did not quite suit a body covered in scars and a roughly grown short beard.
“Shouldn’t you introduce yourself first?”
A brown-skinned man in a wide cloth hat and turban stepped forward belatedly and spoke as he looked around at everyone.
His tone was far too composed, as if the uproar from moments ago had been nothing important.
“Allow me to introduce him. This is the one commonly called the King of the East, Lord Anu.”
Even Encrid stiffened for a moment at that sudden introduction.
“Surprised?”
The King laughed heartily and continued.
The Mercenary King of the East, the greatest explorer on the continent, the Master of the Griffin, the man who killed a lion with a single sword at the age of eighteen.
“Now then, let’s see. I hear you enjoy fighting. I also hear you said you’d stake your life on killing demons. Come under me. I’ll grant you martial prowess on the level of a Knight capable of slaying demons.”
Those were the words of a man burdened with many epithets, a man who had already proven himself.
The reason Rem and the others had not interfered was obvious.
That fellow called the King of the East had not shown even a shred of killing intent.
He had accepted the stubbornness Encrid displayed. It had been a kind of lesson, a fight that was difficult to interrupt.
But the weight of the words he had just thrown out was different.
It was enough to make even Ragna, who had been lost in thought with a blank look on his face, shift his gaze.
“You’re awfully full of confidence.”
Rem, who could not simply stand by and watch, said that, and Audin let out a loud laugh as well.
Although he had not called himself a Knight, the martial prowess he had shown was such that anyone could see he was a man who lacked nothing to be called one.
On top of that, he stood with his back straight and confidence spilling from him. There was an aura about him naturally similar to Krang’s.
Ruagarne closely observed the man who was proposing to do something even a Frok, who boldly pursued the unknown, had never done.
How exactly did he intend to do it? It was not the sort of thing she could let pass without hearing the answer directly.
The hot sun beat down over a corner of the training ground that held not a shred of shade, and the dust scattered over the bluestone rose and settled again following their movements.
The sunlight radiating heat beyond mere warmth swept over the dust and the people standing among it.
A brief silence passed, and before Encrid could even say anything,
“My lord, one should not make promises one cannot keep.”
The man in the turban, who had followed him in, finally spoke again.
‘Hm?’
At those words, Encrid’s eyebrow twitched slightly.
“You think I can’t do it?”
The King asked sternly.
“And how do you plan to do it?”
The man in the turban shot back.
“Well.”
“That is not enough.”
“Diligently?”
“That still will not do.”
“If I keep at it long enough, maybe it will work.”
The King’s eyes blazed with passion as he spat out those last words. It sounded like the sort of thing anyone ought to believe. But his adjutant was not easily swayed.
“What cannot be done cannot be done.”
“You give up too easily!”
“It is not giving up. One simply should not recklessly make promises one cannot keep.”
“Hmph.”
The King snorted.
Watching that, Encrid caught a glimpse of Rem in him.
The type was different, but he was definitely another crazy bastard.
“The rumors were widespread, so we requested a visit, but it seems we ended up barging in like this. My sincere apologies. Still, we mean no harm.”
The adjutant spoke in a tone tinged with a thick Eastern accent.
Anyone there could probably understand one thing from that.
That they meant no harm.
Even Encrid knew immediately that the other man had accepted the stubbornness he had shown.
“You’re welcome.”
So when Encrid gave a simple greeting,
“May we stay a few more days?”
the King of the East asked.
“Judging by your face, you’d stay whether we told you no or not.”
Rem cut in.
The King burst into laughter.
“That one’s got good sense!”
He was not the sort who would listen even if told not to. Encrid did not particularly dislike that either.
Perhaps he was simply very sociable, since he was already striking up conversations with Rem, Ragna, and Audin.
Not that they were the type to casually let others stay close, either.
“Look at that build. You must be strong.”
“Only to a modest extent, brother from the East.”
“I have one of my brothers, Geshterian, who’s quite strong. It would be nice to see you all together. You’re all capable fellows. How did you all end up gathered here?”
His way of speaking was odd. In a light tone, he treated them all as though they were much younger children.
“This really has caused a great deal of trouble.”
The man who seemed to be the adjutant said that with a troubled expression. Encrid fell into thought for a moment.
What remained with him from the earlier exchange was not the burden on his body.
It was the techniques released from the realm of instinct, the ones Rem had tried countless times to teach him.
No matter how much one polished them, if they were not used in real combat, they were not yet proper techniques.
Could he test them against this man?
Judging by the way he spoke, he seemed like the sort who would accept a sparring request at any time.
Above all, unlike Rem, Ragna, and Audin, he had handled every one of Encrid’s techniques and received them all without issue.
It meant, in the truest sense, that Encrid might get the chance to fight with all his might and with killing intent.
Encrid had already thought that far before uttering the two words, “You’re welcome.”
“About five spars a day…”
As Encrid muttered that, the adjutant blinked and asked,
“Hm? What did you just say?”
“Ten might be possible too.”
Encrid said, thinking that would not be bad either if his body could endure it, and then looked at the adjutant.
“You heard all of that.”
“I heard it, but…”
The adjutant thought to himself. Until now, he had believed the King he served was the craziest man alive, but here was someone similar.
And with that, it was decided that the King of the East would stay.
“Take care of us, youngsters.”
The King said.
“How old are you?”
Seeing that, Rem asked.
“I’m over a hundred.”
At that age, which did not suit his appearance at all, everyone clicked their tongues. It was not a lie.
The man who had led mercenaries and all kinds of talented people, and who later founded a kingdom in the East.
The stories of that founding era were already more than fifty years old.
And from then until now, he had lived on as a vigorous monster.
That was the Mercenary King of the East, Anu.