Chapter 428

The martial prowess of Knights often shattered conventional expectations.

Like the Knight from Azpen I encountered some time ago.

Encrid stood with his sword in hand, lost in thought.

‘If I had seen that Knight’s sword back then? If I had predicted his attack?’

Could I have blocked it even if I had predicted it?

If moving the body was important, then there was a time just as important as that.

The time for contemplation.

He sank into thought and pictured it in his mind.

The Knight from Azpen rose in his thoughts, and the path of the sword he had swung was drawn vividly.

‘It wasn’t some extraordinary swordsmanship.’

It had simply been a swing. But it was just too powerful and too fast. So much so that the very thought of blocking it made one hesitate.

So that is what a Knight’s single strike is like?

The kind of speed and power that cannot be blocked even when you see it?

Then how astonishing would it be to witness a proper battle between Knights?

It was a trivial thought.

===

What is a Knight?

It is a collective term for those who have broken through the limits inherent to humans.

The King of the East was not a Knight, but he was someone who possessed martial prowess on the same level.

And he displayed that martial prowess without restraint.

Though he did not reveal everything he had, it was still enough to astonish anyone watching from right beside him.

A troll swung a stone axe wrapped around a tree trunk.

It was too slow. The moment the troll’s shoulder moved, the King had already thrust his spear.

Thud!

The spearhead pierced straight through the skull, even bursting it apart. That was what happened when the thrust was driven with monstrous strength.

The King’s spear burst one troll’s skull and moved sideways.

With repeated thuds, every troll skull struck by the shaft or blade of the spear shattered.

The way to kill a troll was to burn its whole body or sever its neck.

Severing the neck ultimately meant cutting off the connection between the head and the body.

Shattering the skull had a similar effect.

Anu’s spear proved that.

Thrusting, slashing, striking, and swinging.

For the first few moves, he moved as if loosening up, but in barely one or two breaths, his spear grew faster.

And yet it struck only the trolls’ skulls with perfect precision.

It was like watching a swallow snatch fish in flight.

And one born with talent for hunting, at that.

There was not a single mistake, nor anything left undone.

It was a display of skill shown for Rem, who was watching.

Anu killed over twenty trolls, each with a single strike.

Black blood splattered onto his clothes, but for such a massacre, the traces left on him were minimal.

Rem, who had split the heads of three trolls, stood there dumbfounded and watched.

After putting away his spear, King Anu looked at Rem and tilted his head without meaning to.

‘Isn’t this the point where he should be impressed?’

Normally, it was. Watching his spear skills usually began in shock and ended in admiration.

But Rem’s eyes held a very irreverent light. They were full of dissatisfaction.

“You having fun doing it all by yourself?”

His tone was like that as well.

The King blinked once.

“It would seem so, my lord.”

Asaluhi, who had been watching, approached and whispered. He took the spear, carefully wiped down the blade and shaft, then wrapped it in cloth again.

The adjutant had more or less guessed the King’s intent. He had likely wanted to overwhelm the other man by showing off outstanding skill.

Wasn’t that why he had even drawn his second weapon against mere trolls?

Rem was about to grumble, but stopped.

If someone wanted to show off, then the answer was simple enough.

Just leave him to it.

“My body’s not loosened up yet, so I’m going to keep going for a bit. On my own. Alone.”

Rem said that and walked off, shuffling away by himself. His attitude suggested that whether this was the Pen-Hanil Mountains or somewhere else made no difference to him.

For Rem, it was a natural reaction.

It did not matter whether the other party was left speechless or not.

If he found the Sorcery he had left behind in the west, then what the King of the East had just shown was something he could do as well.

There was nothing to envy.

Those comparable to Knights used [Will], and although his method was a little different, in Rem’s eyes, it was all the same.

“Let me ask you one thing.”

The King threw a question at Rem, who had turned his back.

“Go ahead.”

“Why are you here? Why do you stay by that guy’s side? What is it you want, staying in this city?”

Rem answered as though it required no lengthy thought.

“Because it’s fun.”

What was the reason he had run away from the west in the first place?

To find something enjoyable.

Right now, Rem’s enjoyment was in watching where Encrid, who had crawled up from the very bottom, was heading.

When he thought about it, it wasn’t some grand reason.

It meant he stayed because he wanted to, because it was fun now.

It also sounded like he would leave at any time if something more entertaining showed up.

The King nodded at that answer.

“I see.”

His reaction was plain.

Rem headed deeper into the mountains just like that.

When the King finished hunting and returned with only his adjutant, the big-eyed guy who spoke in such an irritating way greeted him.

“Did you bury Rem somewhere and come back? Then gold coins probably won’t be enough. At the very least, it’d take gold bars…”

“He said he’d play a little more on his own and come back.”

The King cut him off and strode inside.

Then his eyes landed on Audin.

“Audin, was it? Why are you staying here?”

“My lord father commanded me to.”

“Lord? Father?”

A long conversation was unnecessary.

Asaluhi leaned in and whispered to the King, careful not to be heard.

“Is he a fanatic?”

The King thought the same. No matter what he asked, every answer came back to divine teachings and divine providence.

The King nodded and shifted his gaze.

His eyes found Ragna, fast asleep. And the Half-Giant walking past the barracks.

“Why do you remain here?”

The King asked.

“I owe a debt of life.”

Teresa answered in her usual voice, tinged with metal yet still strangely pleasant to the ear.

There was not even a trace of joking in her attitude.

A debt of life was not something anyone else could repay.

“My desire is to explore the unknown. Look at him. What a fascinating human he is. And handsome too. Pleasant to look at. Though I don’t mean you, of course.”

That was Frok Ruagarne’s answer.

The King of the East took pride in his face, but knowing Ruagarne’s sense of beauty, he said only one thing.

“Are your eyes injured? Take another proper look at my face. Ruagarne, the one with bad eyesight.”

“Does the East not have mirrors?”

Naturally, Ruagarne shot back without missing a beat.

Next was Dunbakel.

“If I run from this place too, then I’ll probably spend the rest of my life running.”

The offer to become his daughter had been half a joke and half sincere.

If she went east, there was much he could give her, but she rejected every proposal.

“You know I’m Beastkin too, right?”

The King asked.

“I think everyone here knows that except that idiot.”

By that, Dunbakel meant Squire Roford.

Once he had started, the King asked everyone he saw, one by one.

“I came here to straighten myself out. How can I, in my current state, go anywhere?”

Roford said that with one eye swollen from being beaten up by someone.

“I am a shepherd of the wilderness. I came here only on a brief matter.”

Pell hid his true feelings.

But the King of the East glimpsed a competitive spirit in Pell’s eyes that could not be hidden.

Those eyes were directed not at Ragna or Rem, but at Encrid.

That too was unusual, but not entirely incomprehensible.

There was something about Encrid that made people instinctively want to fight him the moment they saw him.

The King knew that as well.

The King also saw Elf Commander Sinar visiting.

So when he asked her,

“We are engaged.”

The Elf answered.

“It’s a joke.”

Encrid’s voice immediately followed.

Encrid once again said he could never understand Sinar’s jokes.

The King did not bother probing Sinar’s heart any further. Even without asking why, it was easy to guess the answer.

She would not follow him.

The King stayed for several days, and in that time, he also met Jaxson.

“I can more or less guess your origins. That skill could be called Master level.”

How many people had eyes sharp enough to see through what someone had hidden at a glance?

And yet Jaxson was not surprised.

Being around Encrid meant all kinds of things happened.

Wasn’t he himself doing something unimaginable right now?

His lover had said this:

“I didn’t know you’d change like this.”

It was the kind of remark that made him look at himself anew.

‘Have I changed?’

He did not know. But one thing was certain.

Jaxson had found the place where he belonged now, and he liked it.

So his answer to the King’s question, ‘Why are you here?’ was very simple.

“Because this is where I should be.”

The King asked nothing more.

He asked each of them one by one, and every answer was different.

Each of them stayed for their own reason, yet in the end, those reasons all converged on one person.

In the midst of all that, Ragna woke up and came outside in the morning. He was a man who had slept for over three days.

The King’s gaze shifted.

Ragna walked out as usual, but the King knew the man had crossed a wall.

That did not mean he had become a Knight on the spot, of course.

No one becomes a Knight in an instant. Knights are not made that way.

It takes relentless effort piled atop talent granted by heaven.

Still, there had been a change in the air about him, something only the King seemed to notice in that moment…

‘No, I wasn’t the only one who noticed.’

Well, even after the King had shown his skill to that Rem fellow, he had not been all that surprised.

That Rem fellow had noticed it first.

Even after seeing the King’s skill, he had not been shocked, yet the moment he saw the man who had awoken from sleep, he clenched his molars tight. His face was filled with some kind of frustration.

And the friend named Audin was much the same.

He was a man who endured even when the King showed his presence, but after seeing the man who had awakened from his sleep, he fell into deep thought, then soon began offering silent prayers. He clasped his hands, turned his back, and lowered his head.

The King’s gaze turned to Encrid.

‘Sharp eyes.’

That man had noticed it too.

Suddenly, he seemed like an exceedingly strange fellow.

A man who gets knocked down countless times, only to rise again and rush back in. Wasn’t he like an undead skeleton soldier?

The King knew it too.

That friend Ragna was in a state where he desperately wanted to use the power he had just gained right away.

Seeing all that, the King spoke.

“If you come with me, you can use that power to your heart’s content.”

He went straight to the point and struck the core. The words were like a spearhead piercing straight through an enemy’s heart.

The kind of words that could sway anyone.

Especially the kind that would undoubtedly move the heart of someone who had just crossed a wall.

The King folded his arms and looked at Ragna.

A natural dignity and presence radiated from him.

It was the bearing only a man who ruled a nation and possessed martial prowess on the level of a Knight could display.

“There are not many places where you can use your power as much as you want. Come to a place where you can satisfy your freedom and your longing. This nation cannot contain you.”

It was a statement urging him not to remain trapped within the confines of the royal guard, but to set his sights on a greater world.

Encrid, who had been swinging his sword off to one side, was also watching the changed Ragna.

Rem was there as well, and Audin, Teresa, and Dunbakel too.

Roford and Pell were absent because they were on duty.

Whatever their reason for staying here, that much was because Encrid believed that mandatory duties, namely guard duty, should not be neglected.

In any case, everyone present except those two was looking at Ragna.

Ragna, wearing his usual languid expression, frowned at the morning sunlight and spoke.

“It’s a bother.”

Ragna spoke as politely as he could, but unlike his tone, what he said was not polite at all.

“…A bother?”

The King forgot his dignity for a moment and asked back.

Many had shown hostility.

But this was the first time someone had said it was a bother.

“Just thinking about the trip to the east is a bother.”

Ragna clarified his meaning once more. No matter how good he was at finding paths, it would still take more than half a year.

Normally, it was a distance one could cross in half a month by riding a horse without rest.

The King let out a hollow laugh.

Adjutant Asaluhi watched the King’s face. He wondered if he might get angry.

Fortunately, the King neither exploded nor showed any sign of holding down his fury.

“Bothersome, huh.”

That was all he muttered.

Ragna found explaining everything to be a bother as well.

He had gained an enlightenment, and after going through the process of chewing it over, his senses were out of alignment.

To set them right, it felt like he would need to sweat profusely for several days.

More than anything, Ragna had not the slightest thought of following the King of the East.

It was not false to say it was bothersome, but—

‘If I have to put someone above me and follow orders.’

Shouldn’t that be the one who brought me this far?

Look at that madman over there, watching me with blazing eyes.

If not for that man, Ragna would never have found the drive to move.

Even now, everything felt bothersome, but seeing those eyes made his motivation surge again.

After spending nearly three nights awake, swinging his sword and syncing his senses, he now felt like striking that famous sword, Aker, with his own.

The King watched Ragna like that, then turned his head.

“Should we head back soon?”

The adjutant spoke, and the King nodded, though he did not seem to intend to leave immediately.

And so another day passed.

It had rained a little the night before and again that morning, and now the sun had risen and parted the clouds.

The sunlight was soft, and the air was cool.

It was a day unlike the usual summer days.

The afternoon after the rain was neither humid nor hot. It was cool and clear.

On such a day, Encrid kept the King occupied until evening.

“One more time?”

“Fine.”

Another spar, as if neither of them ever tired.

The King struck near the other man’s solar plexus with his elbow and won.

He had hit him fairly hard, but Encrid’s body was tough. He had endured it well.

After the spar, the King’s gaze rose to the sky.

Before he knew it, the sun was sinking lazily, and the world of twilight was unfolding.

The orange sunset filled the clouds and spilled down to the earth.

Beneath that twilight, which would soon fade, the King opened his mouth.

“What do you think is in the east? Gold? Silver? Iron? Treasure? I don’t know. No one knows. That’s what makes my heart race.”

It was a corner of the training ground, filled with the settling light of sunset.

The King spoke of his dream. Encrid listened to his words.

Goosebumps rose over Encrid’s entire body several times.

As the King spoke, visions appeared before him, of venturing into unknown lands and ruins from which anything could emerge.

Burning with the soul, like Krang, he spoke.

“Conquering new lands. That is my battle. That is my struggle. What do you think?”

Wrapped in fervor, the King asked.

Anyone would be swept away by that fervor.

It was a speech that made one sympathize with his words, respect his will, and want to believe in him and follow him.

And he delivered it with only a single listener before him.

The man called the King of the East exhaled fervor itself.

Encrid answered.

“Do you know the song ‘The Knight of the End’?”

Just as the other man had spoken of his dream, Encrid spoke of his own.

A story of a dream that began with a song everyone knew, one that had faded and frayed, yet was mended and held on to.