Chapter 120 - They Must Be Doing Fine

'I think he's ready for the next step.'

WHEE-WHOO-WHEEE!

Rem walked along whistling.

'If I really push him hard...'

He was thoroughly pleased with how his Platoon Commander had turned out upon his return. The thought of going back and putting Encrid through the wringer excited him. Could he even advance to the next stage of the heart of the beast? To think he was excited about passing on a secret technique he wouldn't teach a mainlander for a mountain of gold.

'Strange. Very strange.'

Encrid was a strange man indeed. He didn't do anything in particular, yet it was impossible to dislike him. Simply impossible. He made you want to look out for him whenever you could.

Was it the way he doggedly swung his sword every day? Or how he quietly took on all the chores without a single complaint? Asked for a specific reason, Rem would struggle to answer. Those things were part of it, but...

'I just like the man.'

You met people like that in life. People you liked for no particular reason.

'Never thought it'd happen with a mainlander, though.'

As he walked, Rem called to Audin, who was blocking his path.

"Hey, big guy. You're always praying. Can't you use divine power or something? Do something about the Platoon Commander's wrist?"

"Shall I tear your mouth open, brother?"

"Huh? You want my axe to bring you down to eye level?"

Encrid wasn't here. Audin turned his head and met Rem's eyes. A chill settled between them, only for Ragna to shuffle straight through the gap, dragging his feet.

"... Brother, must you walk between us just because going around is too much trouble?"

"Crazy bastard."

Ragna's passage had taken the wind out of their sails. This wasn't their first squabble. The others generally just watched and left them to it.

Jaxon walked alone, off to one side. Take your eyes off Ragna for a moment, and he would veer off diagonally instead of walking straight. How could anyone have such a sense of direction? No, his sense of direction wasn't really the problem. It was more that he couldn't be bothered and walked wherever his feet took him.

They all did as they pleased, but each of them, Rem included, was thinking about Encrid, their Platoon Commander, in his own way.

'I should train him to make the sword part of his body.'

Ragna was no exception. With his Platoon Commander out of sight, his motivation had deserted him, but he was steadily compiling a mental list of things to do when they met again.

The same went for Audin.

'Now that his muscles have been reshaped...'

Was it time to work on his joints? Muscles, joints, then posture—change those, and the physique changed. Train the areas that were lacking.

'Bend and bend again. Refine and refine again.'

There was also a secret method for building a body that wouldn't buckle under joint locks or blows. But doing all that might leave Brother Platoon Commander's body in pieces.

'One thing at a time, Lord.'

Audin concluded his thoughts with a prayer. Was Jaxon any different?

'I'd like to fix the way he walks.'

He needn't learn to walk as silently as an assassin, but noisy footsteps inevitably involved unnecessary movement.

'Maximum efficiency with minimum movement.'

Jaxon reviewed his own training, searching for something useful. It wasn't swordsmanship, but...

'It should help.'

Jaxon had a remarkably keen eye. He knew that Encrid made everything he taught him his own. Only now and then, at the end of such thoughts, did a question occur to him.

'Why bother?'

He had no obligation to teach the man anything. Unless Encrid asked first. Until then, he would leave him alone. That was Jaxon's decision.

Of course, regardless of his decision, if the barbarian, the religious nut, or the slacker got fired up about teaching him, Jaxon might get swept along too. Still, he meant to exercise restraint as much as possible. The very idea of being lumped together with them offended him.

To an onlooker, they were all much the same. One blew an irritating whistle, then picked a fight. Another wandered along any which way with a vacant stare. The huge soldier kept muttering to himself and calling on his Lord. The last walked at a distance, absorbed in his own thoughts, as though he weren't with the other three.

Was this a normal military unit? Of course not. They had stood out even back when they were the troublemaker squad, but the change to an Independent Platoon made it glaringly obvious.

It was hard to call them disciplined soldiers. They couldn't even march properly. They were under the Fourth Company Commander's command, yet instead of marching with the Company, they tagged along separately to one side. Calling fewer than ten men an Independent Platoon was laughable in itself.

Not that any soldier dared pick a fight with them.

'Leave them alone.'

'Mess with them, and we're the ones in for hell.'

'Go ahead if you want to get fucked.'

Repeated experience had already taught them. These men were beyond troublemakers. They were lunatics. A unit whose skills were just as insane.

It happened as they walked. The rear camp was half a day's march from the forward base—for a unit on the move, at least. Traveling alone rather than in formation, one could get there faster.

They had set out at dawn and would go straight into battle on arrival, so their marching pace was being carefully managed. Still, the distance didn't warrant a rest along the way. Keep moving, and they could arrive before lunch. In other words, unless something was wrong, there was no reason for anyone to halt the entire march.

"Halt."

A soldier at the head of the formation spoke upon seeing the signal from up ahead. The march stopped. At the very front, the Fairy Company Commander had raised her fist.

"What's wrong?"

Rayon, the Third Company Commander, asked beside her. The Third and Fourth Companies were rejoining the front after pulling back to the rear.

"Something's strange over there," the Fairy said.

What was it? Rayon frowned. He couldn't see anything. Her finger pointed toward the riverbank. The Penn-Hanil River, Naurilia's lifeblood and the source of drinking water for all the neighboring kingdoms.

"They're hiding."

There were several rocks near the riverbank large enough to conceal a person. Ghouls sometimes sprang out from there. A little farther on, Tehom Forest lay to the right, and it held plenty of monsters too. But this was a battlefield now. Most monsters and demonic beasts had long since been cleared out. Few of them would attack an army anyway.

So if someone was lying in wait...

'Enemy troops.'

The Fairy Company Commander's instincts were correct.

"Fuck, they've got a Fairy bitch."

Someone poked his head out from behind a rock as he spoke. A man with short hair and a thick jaw. His helmet covered his forehead and head but left his ears exposed—the equipment of an Aspen soldier. Well within bowshot, he exposed only half his body from behind the rock.

The Fairy Company Commander looked past him. Her sharp eyes picked out one of Aspen's prized swiftboats floating by the riverbank. It was a long, narrow boat that could hold perhaps eight at most, with fixed oars concealed beneath the water. Once the rowers took hold and began to pull, it cut through the water at a terrifying speed.

It seemed they had brought it to flee if things went wrong. Once they were out on the river, her troops had no means of pursuit.

'That boat is far too fast.'

It was a poor excuse for an ambush. There seemed to be only ten or so of them.

'A provocation, then.'

Rayon followed much the same train of thought as the Fairy Company Commander and reached the same conclusion.

"They'll try anything."

"Undermining morale is a basic principle of warfare."

While they spoke, one of the enemy soldiers stepped out from behind the rocks.

"I am Lowell, a soldier of the Principality of Aspen! Does anyone dare fight me? Let's have a fair match!"

They had fallen victim to this tactic several times already. A challenge to a duel, rather than a clash of armies. Not even a knight, but a soldier picking a fight.

"Sending a commander to fight a single soldier? Don't you think that's cheap? Or don't you have any men who know how to fight?"

The man called Lowell added that with a snicker. Should she put an arrow through his head? The thought crossed the Fairy Company Commander's mind, but she didn't act rashly.

First, they had sent a soldier and lost. Next, they had sent a Platoon Commander and still lost. The enemy soldier's individual skill was far superior. Yet sending a Company Commander to fight would cost them face. A strategy that exploited an awkward gap, perhaps.

'Wasn't there supposed to be some genius strategist in Aspen?'

The strategy itself didn't noticeably reduce their numbers. But their morale kept plummeting. Why did the enemy have soldiers who fought so well, while their own side had no one to match them?

'If I step forward...'

When a Company Commander stepped in, the enemy ran their mouths. In truth, Naurilia hadn't lost every duel. Palto, the Second Company Commander, had reportedly flown into a rage and smashed one such challenger's head with his mace. Yet even that kill had lowered morale.

["Interfering in a fight between soldiers? You should be ashamed!"]

They had worked the battlefield into a frenzy with that sort of talk. Naurilia's soldiers hadn't cared at first, but after being pushed back on the battlefield day after day and beaten in duels, their morale was gradually hitting rock bottom.

With such a gap in individual skill and training, and roughly equal numbers, it felt as though the outcome had been decided before they even fought. That had to be why the enemy kept repeating this stunt.

She wanted them dead, but they had prepared their escape thoroughly. What if she ignored the duel and overwhelmed them with troops? Perhaps that would have worked at the start. Now it would only lower morale again. But just stand by and watch? That would truly be opening the gates of purgatory with her own hands.

"What, those guys came all the way out here?"

As she weighed her options, a soldier sauntered up from behind. Neither in formation nor in line, he was so freewheeling that one might question whether he belonged to the marching troops at all. It was Rem of the Independent Platoon.

"Care to kill that one?"

The Fairy Company Commander asked on the off chance. Hadn't the soldier called Big-eyes offered her some advice before she left?

["They should be somewhat more cooperative today, at least. Make full use of them. Things are looking grim enough as it is."]

If he refused, so be it. If he agreed, all the better. That was her thinking.

"Sure."

Rem nodded heartily. He seemed to be in a remarkably good mood.

"Hey, what'd you say your name was?"

"What? Are you here to fight?"

Rem strolled forward alone. Ragna absentmindedly followed until Audin caught his forearm.

"Hm?"

"Brother, those are the enemy."

"Oh, right."

Jaxon had already settled his backside on a smooth rock off to one side to watch. None of them showed the slightest sense of danger. Neither did the Fairy Company Commander. A faint anticipation even began to gleam in the eyes of the soldiers around them.

Who was Rem? A lunatic. An absolute bastard to his allies, but to the enemy, he could be the biggest fucking bastard in the world.

Anticipation rose into a palpable heat. The thick-jawed soldier peering around the rock gave a little smirk and stepped forward.

"No one else willing to step up? Sending some barbarian. You're not luring us out here to shoot us full of arrows, are you?"

Idiot. That was Jaxon's assessment of the man. He wasn't within reach of an axe swing, but he was well within range of that mad barbarian.

WHOOSH.

Rem threw his axe the instant the man stuck his head out. His hand moved like the wind. Ordinary soldiers couldn't even follow it properly. All they saw was a sudden up-and-down motion of his arm, so fast it seemed to leave an afterimage. Those afterimages looked like wings sprouting around his right hand.

FLAP—WHOOSH!

The sound of a sleeve fluttering in the wind was followed by something flying through the air. The axe whirled straight into the enemy soldier Lowell's forehead.

THUNK!

With that brisk sound, his feet left the ground. He flew. Wingless, he flew for a moment before landing flat on his back.

THUD. GRRRK.

Gravel scraped up by his back clattered together and scattered to either side.

"Ghurk."

The fallen man died with his head split open. The axe was buried between his eyebrows, his eyes still open. He could never have dreamed he would die like that.

Meanwhile, Rem was running with an axe in his left hand.

TAP-TAP, TAP-TAP.

A few strides closed the distance, and he slipped behind a rock.

THWACK!

At the sound, a spray of blood burst from behind the rock, on the side opposite where Rem had entered.

THUNK!

He darted straight to the next rock. This time, a heavy impact was followed by an enemy soldier's severed head rolling across the ground. And then...

"Aaargh!"

An enemy soldier burst out from behind cover and ran toward the river. Rem chased him down, caught his head, and slammed his face into the ground.

THUD!

"Ghhrrr."

A groan or a scream? Rem smashed the soldier's face into the ground a few more times. Each blow came with the same rhythm and force, making him look almost like a craftsman performing some repetitive task. Of course, Rem wasn't making boots or farming tools. Only death.

THUD, THUD, THUD.

After three or four more blows, he confirmed the man was dead and stood. With four of their number dead, the enemy fled without looking back. They ran for their waiting boat, piled in, and began rowing with all their might.

Rem didn't pursue them. Nor did his allies waste arrows.

"Dumbasses."

Instead, he thrust his thumb between his index and middle fingers and held it up—a rude gesture understood across the continent. It meant something along the lines of asking whether one's mother happened to sell her body for sex. The enemy saw it, but they were too busy fleeing for their lives.

"Shall we go?"

Rem retrieved the axe buried in the man's head and returned. The Fairy Company Commander chuckled. In the end, however, their soldiers' morale hadn't improved.

Overwhelming skill? That was all well and good, but...

'Ugh.'

'I don't want to die like that.'

'Why did he have to do that to his face?'

It was the way he killed, coupled with his long record of bad behavior.

["Want me to grind your face off?"]

The soldiers had heard threats like that come out of Rem's mouth at every turn. Watching him actually carry one out sent an involuntary chill through them all. His intervention had lowered both enemy and allied morale at once.

"Let's move on."

Once the bodies had been roughly gathered and cleared away, the Company Commander ordered the march to resume.

* * *

'They must be doing fine, right?'

Encrid was busy getting himself patched up in the rear. None of his injuries were fatal, but many could easily worsen without treatment. He couldn't join the others immediately.

Infantry reinforcements were due to arrive later, and he had decided to go with them. He should be able to set out in two to four days.

'They'll manage on their own.'

He worried about his men for a moment, then stopped. All he needed to do was look after himself. Were his platoon members the sort to go off somewhere and get themselves killed easily? They were far more likely to kill someone else.

If they stepped up to fight, they would lift their allies' rock-bottom morale a little too.

'As long as they actually fight.'

His men did step up and fight quite a bit. But things weren't turning out as Encrid had hoped. Enemy and allied morale were falling together.