Chapter 426
On the surface, the reason King of the East, Anu, came to the Border Guards was Martai, but of course, he had other intentions as well.
“Is Naurilia insane, or is the newly crowned king insane? I need to find that out. But first, let me see the face of this so-called Demon Slayer.”
Anu had made a name for himself by hunting lions on the Eastern Plains at the age of eighteen, and before he turned fifty, he had gathered his own people in the East and founded a nation. He was a true hero.
But he had one bad habit.
Whenever he saw someone capable, he wanted to bring them to the East. It was a thirst for talent.
It was not necessarily a bad thing for them.
“Do you regret becoming my brother? Then you can go back!”
Was he not the kind of man whose generous nature could be called the greatest on the continent?
Once people were brought in and put through all kinds of experiences, they often ended up becoming Easterners.
They fell for his charm and became intoxicated by his ambition and dreams.
His dreams sounded grand, lofty, and even fantastical, but he was in the middle of making them real.
Thus, even now, every settlement on the eastern frontier could be considered a place touched by Anu’s own hands and feet.
From the age of eighteen until now, he had thrown every moment of his life into opening up the East.
Anyone who knew his life and saw him would acknowledge his charm.
‘Though he is a bit stubborn and rough around the edges.’
His brown-skinned adjutant, Asaluhi, adjusted his turban as he thought that.
No matter what anyone said, he respected his king, who was open-hearted and never held grudges.
Asaluhi believed it was his duty to fill in the gaps his king showed.
“Let’s go. To see the fellow who dreams of slaying demons.”
By now, the rumors about Encrid had spread in a somewhat twisted form, but the King of the East held no prejudice.
A man obsessed with killing demons?
Well, that was possible enough.
Martai was only an excuse. It was plainly his thirst for talent acting up.
Because of several recent incidents in the East, the king had been frantically busy, but now he was in a brief period of rest. The timing was good.
Arriving at the Border Guards, coming up with a plausible excuse to enter the city, and then finding this man named Encrid had not been difficult at all.
Getting into the inner training yard of the barracks had not been particularly difficult either.
“He accepts sparring requests? From anyone?”
At Adjutant Asaluhi’s question, the soldier gave the two of them a scrutinizing look, but did not seem inclined to stop them by force.
Anyone who had made it this far could not be stopped by an ordinary soldier anyway, so the General had given a direct order.
Do not stop them. Just let them through.
Whether it was an assassin or a request for a spar, if a soldier could not stop them anyway, there was no point in confronting them for nothing.
Of course, there was an addendum that if they truly wanted a fight, they would not be stopped, but soldiers itching for a fight were exceedingly, absurdly, terribly rare.
The soldier opened his mouth, intending to let them pass.
“That’s right, but…”
Anu let out a hearty laugh and stepped inside first. The soldier did not stop him. If he had been a new recruit, it might have been different, but he was a soldier among the veterans.
After all, they must have already passed through Frok named Maelrun, who guarded the city.
The General had also said this: if you were not confident you could take down Maelrun, it was better not to even think about picking a fight.
“Yeah, a kid with great spirit.”
The king muttered to himself as he passed the soldier. A king striding forward without the slightest restraint.
Looking at him, the soldier thought that, for some reason, he seemed strangely excited.
The king stepped into the training yard.
‘Interesting.’
The king felt a pleasant emotion rise within him.
The moment he saw the Demon Slayer and let a little of his presence slip out, the other man showed his competitive spirit.
It was a fighting spirit he had not felt in a long time.
And such a pure, upright fighting spirit at that.
Normally, he would not resort to using his hands right away, but the momentum the other man showed stirred the king’s heart.
“I don’t know. Me neither.”
To be precise, he simply liked the other man’s audacity. That was why he ended up using his hands.
===
That was after the Mercenary King of the East had ended up staying with the company.
‘Now, let’s see.’
The king looked over the members of the company and repeatedly let his greed show.
First, Rem.
‘His natural senses are excellent.’
He wielded two axes, and his skill was nothing ordinary.
The king called those he acknowledged his brothers, and that habit dated back to when his group first entered the East under the name Yellow Turban Brotherhood.
That had become firmly established over time.
Even among those brothers, skill like this was rare.
Not that he had never seen it before.
The East is a harsh land. A place not unlike the Demon Realm. Uncharted lands are always like that.
Giant Monsters appear often, and there are beasts even more dangerous than those.
If that were all, it would have been fortunate. There are Magical Beasts that fly through the sky, and even Demon Spawns that toy with people.
In any case, the East was the East, and yet Rem was a standout powerhouse. The kind not common even there. And this man was not the end of it.
What about the man named Audin?
“Let’s test our strength!”
In the middle of a spar, he suddenly clasped hands to test strength.
‘Stronger than a Bloodskin Bear?’
Anu inwardly marveled. Above all, this human-shaped bear called Audin was not a man who relied on strength alone in battle.
‘I’ve seen plenty of strong men.’
When Anu subtly tried to twist his wrist, Audin responded with refined technique.
Strength aside, where do you find a man who has that kind of skill as well?
Even among his brothers, he was the kind of powerhouse you could count on one hand.
Then there was the swordsman named Ragna.
Those with exceptional talent are called geniuses.
This bastard was undoubtedly a genius.
A lump of talent bestowed by heaven.
A man who could see the essence of any technique shown to him and imitate it.
His fundamentals were not bad either.
The swordsmanship he displayed with a single black greatsword was fast and heavy. Any knight who had risen sloppily would not be a match for him.
All of this stimulated Anu’s greed, but it was not exactly surprising.
Excellent senses.
A trained body.
Terrifying talent.
Rare. Truly rare, but not things he had never seen before.
So there was no need to be too surprised.
Not being surprised did not mean he was not covetous.
There was also one Beastkin with considerable potential.
The Half-Giant named Teresa was equally desirable.
And the rest, including the man named Roford and the shepherd named Pell.
Each one had talent enough to stir his greed.
‘Interesting.’
Anu felt pleasure once more.
And there was also one existence that stood outside the norm.
“There’s even a mage.”
Esther, transformed into a human, glanced at the king once and then cut off her attention. She did not even bother pretending to care. She seemed to have no interest in him whatsoever.
All of that was more than fascinating enough, but for Anu, there was something even more fascinating.
There was a man who led all of them.
‘Defeat.’
What does it mean to lose?
Those who reach a certain level of skill all possess towering pride.
Everyone was the same.
Men like Rem, Ragna, and Audin should have fallen into that category too.
But what was this?
‘What is this man?’
All of that negative emotion was overturned by a single man.
“Can we spar?”
Losing means having your skill denied.
Before fighting spirit can rise, what a person feels first is the sense of defeat. It lingers in the heart longer, gnawing and corroding a person like the whisper of a demon.
That is the nature of negative emotions.
Those who had been thoroughly broken right before his eyes felt it all the more keenly.
Anu had accepted the other man’s stubbornness, but not gently.
He crushed every technique the man brought out.
And yet.
“Are you busy?”
He kept coming at him again and again.
Defeat corrodes a person. The more outstanding the skill, the more so.
But not this man.
He was not particularly fond of the whole idea of a Junior Knight, but even by that standard, this was a man at a very considerable level.
Even by the standards of Anu’s own brothers, would he not rank in the top ten?
A man of that level did not care about losing.
‘Does he have no pride?’
Or perhaps he possessed something greater than pride.
Anu recalled his own past defeats.
They had not been pleasant, but he had never had time to dwell on them.
Because he had to move forward.
His opponent was the same.
Anu caught the scent of kinship.
“Let’s do it. Spar.”
King Anu nodded.
The opponent, who did not even seem to consider defeat, picked up his sword.
Encrid lost, and Anu won.
Even though the result did not change.
“Thank you.”
That was what the loser said. Looking at the longing and fervor in his eyes, it was not that losing meant nothing to him.
He dreamed of something even greater.
“I will pioneer the East.”
Anu said that.
Encrid stared at him blankly, clearly wondering what he was talking about.
“We’ll talk more next time.”
Anu let out a hearty laugh.
If he could just scoop up all these men and drag them to the East as they were, he would be overjoyed.
===
After a few more days passed, no one needed to ask why the King of the East had come.
“Your skill is remarkable. How about walking the path of exploration with me?”
He coveted talent. And he did not hide it.
At those words, Rem blinked.
He was in the middle of making a log chair, having felled a thick tree to get used to his newly made axe.
Every time the axe flashed, fresh wood was cut and shaved away.
Amid the growing pile of sawdust and wood chips,
Anu could tell just by watching him make a simple log chair.
‘This bastard’s skill with an axe…’
At first, he thought it was a technique he had seen somewhere before, but the more he watched, the more he realized that this man’s senses were exceptional.
“If I’m remarkable, then what about you?”
Rem asked in his usual indifferent tone. Whether the other man was a king or a knight, if he were the sort to care about that, he would not be Rem.
“Comparing yourself to me, is that it?”
Anu shook his head as he replied.
What was he even talking about, comparing himself to him?
“Somehow, the way he talks sounds even worse than our captain’s.”
“…Asaluhi, is this disrespect? Is this lèse-majesté?”
It was a joke.
Even if someone really made a fuss and called it an insult, Rem would not have cared.
‘Let’s go to the West.’
Rem reaffirmed his resolve.
Without Sorcery, no matter what this King of the East man did in front of him, he felt the urge to swing his axe first. That irritated Rem to no end.
Well, if he fought seriously, he probably would not simply lose, and he had learned something from sparring too.
But still, it got on his nerves.
‘Let’s go to the West.’
Rem found himself reaffirming that decision again and again.
The king was no fool. He knew how to probe a person’s weakness.
If he exchanged banter with Rem like some kind of comedy act, then with Ragna, he said exactly the thing Ragna least wanted to hear.
“Yeah, the East needs a lot of pathfinding. Won’t you come help out a bit?”
“You need a Pathfinder?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Finding shortcuts or making new paths is my specialty, but I’m busy right now.”
Once he got annoyed, Ragna was worse than Rem.
So once he decided not to listen, Ragna’s heart became like Audin’s fist.
Made of steel.
The king did not tire. He kept saying similar things to everyone, over and over.
And when he saw Dunbakel, he made a proposal that could only be called bold.
“Do you want to be my daughter?”
“Why would I?”
Dunbakel snapped back in Rem’s style.
“Then do you want to be my wife?”
“Sorry, but I don’t need a partner.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t like old men.”
The King of the East was not hurt by words like that. He merely laughed heartily.
Everyone thought more or less the same thing. What kind of man is this, to be the King of the East?
The most obvious among them was Krys.
“Your Majesty, King of the East! Is it true? Is it really true that gold is piled up like mountains in the East?”
The king laughed again and said,
“I don’t need you.”
It was obvious who he did need.
Men who were good at fighting.
Adjutant Asaluhi remained composed, as if all of this was perfectly familiar to him.
===
Ragna watched the two who had just finished sparring before his eyes.
‘By changing the tempo, even an ordinary thrust can look like an incredible technique.’
What is technique?
In the end, it only exists to thrust into and cut what is in front of you.
Ragna sank deep into his own thoughts.
His talent did not merely surpass excellence. It was outstanding and extraordinary. To the point that one might wonder whether anyone possessed greater talent than he did.
The fights he had seen so far had stimulated that talent.
Even without a catalyst, he was the kind of man who could progress, but what if that catalyst was right in front of him?
Recalling, discarding, and reimagining everything he had learned so far.
Ragna lay on his bed and looked outside.
The Madman Company’s training yard was directly connected to the barracks, which made this possible.
There was a bit of dust, but Encrid had insisted that being close was better, and Krys had anticipated that and designed the structure this way.
Thanks to that, Ragna could forget himself and lose himself in the sword while watching the training yard.
And because of that structure, from the outside, Ragna now looked like he was simply sleeping or lazing around.
“That bastard is slacking off again. I wondered how long it would last.”
Those were the words of Rem, who had finished making the log chair and was now making a table.