Chapter 429
The sky, thick with clouds, felt lower than ever before.
It almost looked as though the clouds were brushing against the small hill rising behind the training ground and barracks.
While everyone else was busy with their own matters, the King and Encrid spoke of each other’s dreams.
They talked as they breathed in and out the cold, refreshing air left behind after the rain had passed.
“I want to become a knight and wield a sword.”
His tone and attitude were utterly plain and detached, enough to make it sound like someone else’s dream.
He was speaking of the things he wanted to do on the continent, beginning with becoming a knight.
The King listened to Encrid’s dream and thought,
‘There is no despair in him. No frustration either.’
He did not speak of other people’s mockery.
He would simply move forward, and because he would make it happen, he did not doubt it.
This man did not consider failure.
The King’s own past flashed through his mind.
– “Stop spouting nonsense about founding a country! Do you really think that’s possible?”
Those were the words of the younger brother who had followed him most closely.
Anu could not blame him. His younger brother was merely someone who faced reality head-on.
And he had not been wrong. There had been many more people who said the same.
– “It’s impossible. To invest in something like that…”
– “Are you trying to become a bandit? A thief? What exactly is there in the east?”
– “Why waste your strength on that? Use your power to block the Demon Realm. I’ll give you anything you want.”
King Anu did not listen to all of them. He rejected every last word.
None of it made his heart race.
‘I will do what makes my heart race.’
And for him, that was founding a country in the east.
In the end, Anu accomplished it. He poured his life into laying the foundation of a nation.
Everyone said it could not be done. Everyone said it was meaningless. Everyone mocked him.
Anu had no time to waste on any of that. There was too much to do. Far too much.
He just kept moving forward.
And as he walked and advanced like that…
– “That sounds interesting. Let’s do it together.”
The number of people who stayed by his side gradually increased.
“You seem to have a lot of gaps. Let me try filling them in.”
And so it became what it was now.
It was not over.
It was only the beginning.
Though he had not intended it, weight settled into the King’s voice and heat smoldered in his gaze.
“The Kingdom of the East? That’s only a stop along the way. The nation is nothing more than a foundation. My goal is to conquer the entire east.”
He would explore the unknown, press onward into it, open paths one by one, and plant flags on that land.
The King bared his teeth as he spoke. It was a smile, but it was also an expression of fighting spirit.
“You want to become a knight? Are you talking about the knights of old?”
“Yes.”
“You want to erase war from the continent? If the Demon Realm is the enemy, erase the Demon Realm. If demons stand in your way, kill the demons. And if the Empire blocks your path, then crush the Empire too?”
It was a dream greater than conquering the east.
This was delusion.
The King respected other people’s dreams.
But wasn’t this too much?
Encrid’s attitude did not change. The sweat on him had already cooled. The wind blew, scattering his black hair, which had grown long enough to brush against his neck.
He had no great bloodline. He was not royalty. His talent was not exceptional either.
He was merely a man who had walked and advanced with nothing but a single dream.
“You really are an interesting fellow.”
Now Anu himself spoke the very words others had once said in admiration of him.
Wasn’t this a man whose dream was on a different scale?
“If I ever start a war on this continent, you’d fight me too, wouldn’t you? Then, thinking of the future, perhaps I should kill you here and now.”
It was not a statement born of genuine intent to kill.
The King had recalled something he had forgotten in the other’s words.
And for the first time since his stay began, he saw the other’s true will.
That was why.
This should be taken as a lesson wrapped in words of killing.
The excuse he wrapped around his unwillingness to explain all that whimsy in words was simply, ‘I’ll kill you.’
Of course, no one could know the King’s true thoughts.
Wasn’t he a man of wild whims who acted exactly as he pleased?
With those words, the King rose from where he sat and reached back. The adjutant hesitated for a moment.
He had followed Anu for over twenty years.
‘Is he serious?’
That was why he hesitated, but he still obeyed. As he moved to hand the spear to the King, the King spoke.
“Bull.”
The adjutant stopped entirely.
That was the name of a weapon not to be drawn unless it was against an enemy that had to be killed, or one worthy of being treated as such.
“My lord?”
Asaluhi asked again without thinking.
“Give it to me.”
The King was firm.
The adjutant drew another weapon from his back and unwrapped the cloth covering it.
The shaft of the spear was a deep brown, making the material impossible to identify at a glance, and the spearhead was split in two in a peculiar shape.
The spearhead, both in shape and material, looked like horns. Dark gray horn-blades. In darkness, they looked so black they might not even be visible at all.
The two horns were the bull’s head, and the shaft was the bull’s body.
The moment the King gripped the spear, an unprecedented pressure poured out from him.
It was a pressure that made one instinctively want to lower their head and prostrate themselves.
Encrid, who had been sitting beside him while they talked, felt as though he were sinking into the ground even while seated, but he immediately activated [Will of Rejection].
The will Encrid possessed pushed back against the pressure the other man revealed and proved his own existence.
It was rejection and defiance, because even if something tried to crush him down, he would not yield.
Encrid pressed his palm against the ground and rose from his seat as well.
The act of standing alone was enough to make Asaluhi glance at him in surprise.
To stand there without the slightest tremor before the King holding Bull.
More than that, this man had already been brought down twice by the King’s hand that day.
He should have been tired. His heart should have wavered.
But it had not.
Encrid stood holding Aker.
What the other man’s words truly meant did not matter.
That his legs were weakened from two sparring sessions did not matter either.
The other man had heard his dream and said he would break it. He openly revealed killing intent and said he would kill him.
So Encrid did what he always did.
He raised his sword and defied him.
As always, he mended his tattered dream.
He took his stance and faced his opponent head-on.
As always, he looked only toward his dream and walked.
He put strength into his legs and steadied his breathing.
As always, he chose to live a moment where death did not matter.
The King’s spear moved.
At a speed that blurred even its afterimage, the two horns stabbed toward his chest.
Encrid tilted Aker upright to block.
It was an attack that, if he had been unlucky, he would never have been able to stop.
Ting.
The spear that arrived in an instant scraped against Aker’s blade, which was held before his chest, and stopped. Then, slipping the blade between the two horns, it twisted sideways.
Stopping was an even more astonishing skill than thrusting.
After thrusting that quickly, it left behind only a single ting, stopped, and then tried to snap the blade caught between the horned spearheads with a twist.
Creeeak.
The blade trapped between the two horns let out a scream.
Encrid gripped the sword tightly as it tried to wrench itself from his hands, enduring with the grip strength he honed every morning, along with the [Heart of Monstrous Strength].
Aker neither broke nor slipped from his grasp.
As Encrid endured, the King spoke.
“Try blocking this too.”
With complete ease, the King spoke as he pulled back the spear and thrust it again.
In Encrid’s eyes, the bull’s horns multiplied into six.
As the spear thrust out, splitting into three paths, all of them looked real.
Because they were.
Speed is relative.
To Encrid’s eyes, the three currents of thrusts were all real. It was a marvel created by the King’s repeated thrusting and withdrawal.
There was not even time to shout.
Encrid relaxed, then instantly tensed every muscle in his body and slashed with his sword.
If there had been a soldier there capable of recognizing the technique mixed into Encrid’s swordsmanship at that moment, that man would have been qualified on the spot to receive Ruagarne’s teachings.
A slash that blended [Pressing Blade] and [Will of the Moment] met the bull’s horns.
As before, the horns only grazed the blade and slipped back.
Ting.
Encrid drew Aker back.
It was time to catch his breath.
For some reason, the sword felt heavier than before.
No, more than that, the weight of Aker was being transmitted to his arms more clearly than ever before.
He wondered if it was simply because of fatigue.
Instead of attacking, the King spoke.
“Once you realize a [Will], you create techniques one by one, and beyond that, you begin to fight with the [Will] itself. That is the knight you speak of.”
Encrid had no room to answer. The King continued speaking.
“If you can fight with the [Will] itself, then naturally you need a weapon worthy of it. The answer is obvious. Bull is such a weapon. It is what people call an Imprinted Weapon. My [Will] is contained within it.”
Even while speaking, the King thrust the spear again.
It was impossible to tell when he had even taken a breath.
Encrid raised his sword to meet it once more.
Ting!
Again, the blade and the horns merely grazed.
Encrid could not even tell whether this was the moment to stake everything or not.
Even though [Eyes That See an Inch Ahead] was active, the next movement was blurred as though hidden by fog.
He should have been reading shoulder movement, the shift of weight into the feet, and the rest to predict the next attack, but the opponent showed none of that.
That was why it looked as though fog had settled in front of him.
The sword in his hand felt heavier than before.
Each time it clashed against the spear, it felt as if someone had secretly tied pieces of iron to it.
The fog, the weight, all of it was irritating, but—
‘So what?’
Encrid ignored it, drew air into his mouth, and held his breath. His cheeks puffed up.
He would do everything he could.
As always.
With a whoosh, Encrid’s sword seemed to vanish into thin air.
A thrust that mobilized everything he had.
It was the activation of speed.
A strike that gathered breath-holding, single-minded concentration, [Heart of Monstrous Strength], and even his attacking sense all at once.
“Where do you think you’re aiming?”
The King extended his spear and bent the path of the blade.
Ting!
The same kind of sound rang out again.
Encrid forcibly dragged the altered blade back into line.
If once did not work, then twice. If not twice, then three times. If needed, ten times.
If you stopped because an endless wall blocked you, then you would never cross it.
Aker’s blade began dancing through the air, tearing apart the sunset colors.
The King deflected every single strike with Bull’s horns.
Plip, plip.
A few raindrops fell from the dark clouds drifting past.
Ti-di-di-di-di-ding!
Aker and Bull met again and again, then broke apart again and again.
A brief moment of entanglement, then separation.
Encrid staggered back.
A thin line of rain fell onto his sword, then hissed into steam.
“You really ought to die.”
The King spoke, and even as he staggered, Encrid did not loosen his grip on the sword.
They glared at each other for a brief moment.
“Axe, I know you’re behind me, so don’t throw anything unnecessary.”
The King’s mouth opened again.
“Your senses must still be unstable. If you go down the wrong path now, you’ll suffer for the rest of your life.”
He kept speaking.
“You look like the type who tries to force a hold when things don’t go your way, but I wasn’t going to give you the distance to begin with.”
The King planted Bull upright in the ground and withdrew his killing intent.
“And I’m a King, and I haven’t even went all out yet!”
That final shout made everyone’s hair stand on end.
It was not arrogance, but confidence proven through long years.
Because his life had been long, the King’s temperament was erratic and his words came out however he pleased, but the meaning within them was clear.
“Why all of a sudden?”
Ruagarne asked.
She too had been fingering the hilt of her loop sword from off to one side.
Ruagarne had clearly looked ready to jump in if things turned the wrong way.
The King knew that, but pretended not to as he answered.
“Whim. Asaluhi.”
“Yes.”
The King picked up Bull and tossed it back.
Asaluhi caught it, shook the spear that still felt hot, cooled the horn-blades, and wrapped it once more in cloth.
“Let’s go now.”
The King decided and moved.
It was as impulsive a departure as his arrival had been.
Not that anyone tried to stop him.
The King passed Encrid, who was standing there on the verge of collapse, then stopped, whispered something, and slapped him once on the shoulder with his palm.
Then he trudged forward again.
“Then, if another matter arises, we shall meet again.”
Adjutant Asaluhi said that as he turned back.
No one answered.
Asaluhi met Dunbakel’s eyes, stiff as she watched from beside a tree, gave her a gentle smile, and withdrew.
Every last one of them had been ready to jump in.
On the way out, Teresa stood there holding a shield.
“That’s all.”
Asaluhi followed the King and left.
===
“Why did you do that? They didn’t seem like the kind who would come east.”
Asaluhi matched his pace from behind and asked.
He had followed the King for a long time.
He had been flustered for a moment, but looking back, he had roughly grasped the King’s intent.
What the King had given was a gift.
Including what he had whispered at the end, he had left Encrid a gift.
“I received the gift first.”
“What do you mean?”
When Asaluhi asked again, the King chuckled and answered.
“The moment I first picked up sword and spear, I wielded both with ease. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
There had once been a time when the King was called the Mercenary King because of his innate talent.
He had inborn physical gifts, and he had human charm as well.
“Born the child of slaves, and yet before I even turned sixteen, I had already freed my parents from slavery.”
After that, he won fame by killing a lion with a single spear.
“And yet.”
The King swallowed the rest of his words for a moment.
The brief rain had already ended once more.
The air and sky were cold but crystal clear.
A cool breeze brushed against his cheek.
‘I once thought I might not be able to devote my whole life to conquering the east.’
The King swallowed that inward thought and spoke aloud instead.
It was a harm done by time.
For a moment, he had forgotten the vigor of his youth.
He had thought he needed talented people, but was that really true?
Why couldn’t he just keep advancing alone?
Why had he begun to think it was not enough even after building a kingdom in the east?
Because he had lost his vigor.
In those ten or so days, whether short or long, the King had watched Encrid and realized it again.
He had awakened once more the vigor he had forgotten.
“The will shown by a man clumsily wielding a sword is greater than mine.”
Asaluhi tilted his head, then suddenly asked,
“Do you think that friend will become a knight?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not an easy path.”
Asaluhi had eyes as well.
He could not become a knight.
He saw no such talent in Encrid either.
The King laughed at his adjutant’s words and opened his mouth.
“His talent is indeed low. It’s the first time I’ve seen someone so lacking in talent.”
Compared to others, he had nothing that could be called talent.
From what the King felt through sparring directly with him, the other’s talent was pitiful.
And yet, the King thought he would become a knight.
“Can someone become a knight just by swinging a sword all day? Or does it require overflowing talent?”
“Wouldn’t it require both?”
Effort and talent.
Weren’t those the two greatest conditions?
With his usual smile, the King answered.
It was a remark born from remembering the man who had reawakened what he had forgotten.
“If he is someone who loads dreams onto a sword, then he will surely be able to surpass his limits.”
That was how the King saw him.