Chapter 153 - Unchanged, as Ever

“What do you think, brother?”

Ragna, the Frog, and Vengeance had left. Audin addressed the empty air. His words were a question, but his tone and manner suggested a prayer.

Rem answered while picking his nose. “Hell, he’ll figure it out.”

As he answered, Rem thought about how the Platoon Commander, who dreamed of becoming a knight, had been told that dream could never come true. He had told Vengeance there was no need to worry, and he believed it. Even so, a trace of unease was bound to remain.

How would he have felt if someone had said that to him?

‘Not a damn clue.’

It had never happened. Back in the West, few could rival his talent, and even among those few, he had always been the best. It was a pointless hypothetical.

‘He’ll be fine.’

What good would worrying do? What good was unease? Instead, Rem decided to think about how to help him train the Heart of the Superhuman.

‘I’ll put him through hell when he gets back.’

Renewing that resolve, he let his unease slip away. That put him more at ease.

SCRITCH, SCRITCH.

Jaxon moved his dagger absently along the grain of a piece of wood. He was carving it, working it into some sort of pointed shape. As his hands worked, he mulled over Audin’s question.

‘You can never become a knight.’

The words would carry different weight depending on who spoke them. What if they came from a Frog known as a talent reader?

‘Would that be a shock?’

By ordinary standards, yes. Those words could change a person’s life. What if someone told him that what he wanted now, what he had worked toward with all his strength, was something he could never achieve in his lifetime?

‘I’d probably slit the bastard’s throat.’

But what about Encrid? What about their Platoon Commander?

‘Would he waver?’

SCRITCH.

Jaxon kept thinking as he worked his dagger. What if the Platoon Commander came back and said he was leaving?

‘It might be a relief.’

Then he could simply go his own way, too.

SCRITCH.

Jaxon steadied himself through his carving. It would be a relief, but there would be some regret, too.

Could Encrid truly become a knight? He did want to see how it ended. He had at least some curiosity about what all that effort would produce.

Esther gave her forepaw a lick. As she groomed her fur, she imagined someone telling her that, come tomorrow, she would no longer be able to cast spells.

‘I’d probably set the bastard’s mouth on fire.’

In her younger days, she would have done that and more. Those were days when she had occasionally been called a witch.

Worry? Unease? She would spend that time reciting another spell instead. It was a silly concern.

Even if Encrid left everything behind and went away, it would make little difference to her. What she needed was the curse-breaking effect that occurred in his arms, not his sword or his fighting prowess. His dream was of no concern to her.

Still.

‘It would be a shame.’

She had never seen anyone live with such burning passion before, so she would feel some regret. That did not mean she intended to influence his decision. She had no intention of appearing in his dreams to persuade him, or spending her accumulated mana to do anything about it.

‘Even so.’

She did find herself considering appearing in his dreams tonight. She wanted to sing him a lullaby she had heard when she was little, very little. It was a melody that soothed the heart.

Audin, the bear-sized platoon member who had posed the question, thought there was a good chance their Platoon Commander would change.

‘Is that only natural, Lord?’

It might have been easier when he was doggedly swinging his sword without knowing anything. Those seeking to become paladins often faced the same trial. Audin had watched them do so.

When they began to understand a little. When they could feel themselves changing. That was when the most terrifying trial began.

How did someone without talent feel when they saw the gifted race past them? What if they were just beginning to open their eyes, hearing themselves called a late-blooming genius? Envy and jealousy had given some the heart of a serpent, driving them from the Lord’s embrace in the end.

‘Lord, did You say You send trials to those who need them? Then this, too, must be a necessary trial. Mustn’t it?’

He recited the prayer inwardly.

An uneasy silence lingered in the quarters, though no one showed their anxiety. It might have been better if someone like Vengeance came in and made a fuss. At least then they could tell him he was wrong, that he did not know their Platoon Commander.

Ragna must have followed him out because he was worried, too.

Spring sunlight pushed through the square window, fading as time passed. Dust hung suspended in the weakening light. Had Krais been there, he would have said it was time for a thorough cleaning.

By the time evening came and the dust was no longer visible in the sunlight, they were beginning to feel hungry and think about getting a meal. The platoon members and Esther kept silent, each occupied with something.

Rem stood tossing his axe into the air and catching it.

WHOOSH. THWACK.

The sounds spread through the silence: the axe spinning through the air and the dull slap of his hand catching it. Audin knelt without moving a muscle. Jaxon carved with scritches and scrapes, while Esther licked her forepaw.

It was about that time. Training or not, eating mattered, too. It was also time for their Platoon Commander to return.

THUNK. CREAK.

As the door opened, every gaze turned toward it. The sounds of an axe cutting the air and a carving blade shaving wood stopped, leaving perfect silence.

“... What? Were you waiting for me?”

Pin stopped halfway through the doorway. The mood was strange enough that she could only stare.

“Could you stop blocking the doorway?”

Encrid’s voice came from behind her. Pin stepped inside and moved aside, and everyone’s gaze naturally shifted to him.

* * *

The sword. Knighthood. His dream. What he had seen and experienced through Aesia.

Longing burned anew in Encrid’s eyes. That heat, that yearning reached Ragna, too. He could feel its warmth just by looking.

‘As expected.’

If Encrid were the sort of man who wavered and gave up, he could never have stirred any motivation in him.

“Even a knight cannot make a sword emit light or cut down hundreds with a single blow. But someone granted the rank of knight, or someone who has attained an equivalent understanding, can cut and stab hundreds to death in succession, whatever they hold in their hand.”

Ragna was surprised at how much more eloquently the words came than ever before. Really, it was only natural. Encrid had said he dreamed of becoming a knight, so Ragna had expected to say this someday. He had prepared these words.

Once, he had told Encrid it was not time yet, that he should wait. Had that been just after they watched a proto knight in action on the battlefield? Now it was time to keep that promise, to give something resembling an answer to the man who had waited.

“How is that possible?”

Ragna had once wondered that himself. Of course, he had soon found his answer. There had been no reason to hesitate. It was a set route. He only had to walk it and reach the end.

What was so simple for him was a path someone else had to shed blood and sweat to follow. That gulf, and the yearning it kindled in the other man, lit a fire in Ragna’s own heart. As it always did.

“They say that to find a knight, you must gather a thousand people with one-in-ten-thousand talent, then select a hundred from that thousand. Only after narrowing those down to ten do you begin to see one. Many people are skilled with a sword. Quite a few surpass their limits. But few grasp ‘Will.’”

That was why a knight order had only a few dozen members.

“Well now, won’t knowing that only discourage him further?”

The Frog added the needless comment from behind them. At some point, he had sat down on the ground with his arms resting on his knees, openly settling in to watch. Ragna ignored him. So did Encrid.

Encrid concentrated on Ragna’s words. He listened closely, engraving them in his mind. A new signpost was being set along the road he would walk.

“Will is the collective name for all the power that lets a knight display strength beyond human ability. Again, Will is determination, and determination is Will. The first step toward grasping it is to reach the limits of a human being.”

Gather the gifted together, then select the most gifted among them, and only a few would ever experience surpassing their limits. After crossing that threshold, some of those few would go on to grasp Will. It might be one in ten thousand. Sometimes, not even one in ten thousand would succeed.

Will. Some called it willpower, others a kind of strength. It was something unknown. One could call it the power a knight gained after surpassing human limits.

The conclusion was simple: without Will, one could not become a knight. That was what Ragna was saying.

“And once I reach the limit?”

Ambition and desire, tangled together, moved Encrid’s lips.

“That is where it begins. As for grasping Will after that, well...”

Ragna swallowed the rest of his words. Was his own method right? He did not know. Then should he tell Encrid everything he knew? His knowledge seemed too narrow. Would it be enough? The doubt stopped his words.

Unexpectedly, the Frog filled the gap.

“Some grasp it after ten thousand solitary swings of a blade. Others after meditating over and over. And some awaken the ability the moment they encounter Will. So, how was it? Aesia’s intimidation?”

The Frog explained, then asked his question. Encrid turned his gaze toward those bulging frog eyes.

“I saw an illusion of blades coming at me.”

What should he call it? Putting it into words made it sound childish. A storm of blades? A tidal wave of blades?

“You have good instincts.”

The Frog gave a gurgle after speaking. It was laughter.

“Whatever you say, my opinion stands. You can’t do it.”

Still seated, the Frog propped up his chin as he spoke.

When it came to reading talent, could a Frog’s judgment ever be wrong? Yes. Nothing in the world was perfect, Frogs included. They were neither perfect nor infallible. They were not gods.

Even so, there were things they could see. There had to be potential, however slight, for it to be possible. He saw none in the human called Encrid. None at all, not the slightest trace. In truth, even his current level of skill was astonishing.

‘He must have survived countless brushes with death.’

The Frog’s keen instincts told him that at least hundreds of such moments lay behind this man’s skill. He had gained it by barely surviving each one.

And yet.

The man before him, strikingly handsome with his somewhat unusual black hair and blue eyes, had no wavering in his gaze. How could that be?

GURGLE.

The Frog’s cheeks swelled, then subsided. This time it was admiration. Changes in a Frog’s emotions showed in his cheeks. Of course, a human had no way of knowing whether that meant anger, joy, admiration, or sorrow.

Old memories came back to Encrid. Everyone who had ever told him he could not do it. It had always been this way.

They said the road he had walked, the ground he had trodden, was wrong. The whole world told him no. Yes, it had always been this way. So this time was no different.

“Is that so, sir?”

An indifferent answer, phrased politely out of respect for the other’s standing. Nothing more.

Whatever the Frog’s purpose, Encrid would walk his own road. That was what he had to do: journey toward the dream he could not forget. He was a pilgrim wandering in search of a dream, following the signposts he found along the way.

“Then can I ask about the next step? How to reach my limits, for instance?”

Encrid turned back to Ragna and spoke again. Ragna marveled at how he remained unchanged, as ever. He marveled despite knowing him, and because he knew him.

“You hone every skill you possess. Only you can know when you have reached your own limits, and in that way you reach the limits of a human being. At the moment you reach those limits...”

Ragna’s words began to tangle. Just as usual. Encrid nodded and cut him off.

“Ah, I understand.”

Keep doing what he had been doing. That was how Encrid understood it. Ragna had started with a fine explanation, only to finish with another tangle of difficult words. Why make “keep doing what you’re doing” so complicated?

“Hey, isn’t this where you fall to your knees and lament, ‘Is this all my talent amounts to?’”

The Frog asked, rolling his eyes this way and that.

“I don’t have time for that.”

Encrid answered simply and swung his sword. Looking back over what he had, conducting his Review, moving forward. What he always did. He kept doing it.

‘That bastard really is insane, isn’t he?’

The Frog’s cheeks swelled further.

GURGLE!

The sound grew louder. This time, it expressed intense curiosity.

Ragna watched Encrid. So did the Frog, looking at the man who had made him stay here. The black-haired, blue-eyed man. Ragna had never been his purpose. It had been Encrid from the start.

This was not talent reading, but an instinct born entirely of experience.

‘That type does tend to stir things up.’

He could not become a knight. Then what would he become? That piqued the Frog’s curiosity.

‘I could watch a little longer.’

And so the Frog decided to remain. Encrid swung his sword. As always, once more, again and again.

Whether the Frog watched or Ragna watched, he trained his fundamentals. He could see another signpost. His faded dream was beginning to take on color.

While everyone worried about discouragement and despair, Encrid alone saw hope.

They called it Will. Some called it willpower, but it was said to be something mysterious. He simply had to learn it.

They had told him to reach his limits and surpass them. Was that such a big deal? He had done it over and over, all this time. That was all.