Chapter 170 - A Joyful Crawl

“Can't you open the gate? Just a crack. Enough for one person to get through should do.”

Encrid's words prompted a bewildered question from the soldier.

“Now?”

Their eyes met. Encrid nodded.

“Yes, now.” The soldier blinked. Where was he even supposed to begin? By explaining that opening the gate now would let the Knoll horde outside pour in? Or that opening it was impossible in the first place? Should he ask whether Encrid could see them holding it shut so it wouldn't open? While the soldier searched for words, Encrid offered a compromise.

“Didn't you build a little side gate next to the main one?”

His tone was casual. Outside, Knolls and hyena demonic beasts swarmed thickly, charging even as arrows bristled from them like porcupine quills, yet he sounded as though he were out on a picnic. Encrid thought getting worked up wouldn't change anything. And indeed, it wouldn't. Hadn't he experienced over two hundred todays? He knew all too well that left alone, those creatures would keep doing exactly that. Still, he couldn't very well say what he was thinking:

'I've fought surrounded by those bastards. They keep charging like berserkers even if you kill a few.' More importantly, he'd stopped them from getting in. That was a good start. It would be foolish to expect things to keep going well simply because they'd started well. But it was much better than a bad start. Certainly was. In any case, they couldn't open this gate every time someone came or went. They must have built a smaller one for when they were in a hurry. That was standard practice when building something like a fortress on this scale. It might be a Pioneer Village now, but there were plenty of signs that they intended to build a castle later. The quarry, the workers and craftsmen they'd gathered, and the fact that they'd brought in people involved in construction first made that easy to surmise.

Of course, Krais had done the surmising. Encrid had listened and nodded, finding it plausible. It was hard to pay attention to every little detail when he was absorbed in training and practice. But besides what Krais had told him, he'd repeated today more than two hundred times. Surely even a bastard with no more perceptiveness than a Ghoul's brain could have figured out this much by now.

In any case, Encrid had to sever the knot of repetition. To do that, he had to get outside. “There is a side gate.”

The soldier was still bewildered.

“Then open it a crack. That's an order, of course.”

It was clearly absurd, something he felt he shouldn't obey, but Encrid's utter composure spurred the soldier to move.

“It's over there, but...” He still hesitated. Encrid headed toward the side gate. There it was, just as he'd expected. To the left of the main gate, it looked wide enough for two or three people to pass through when fully open. GROOOORK!

A Knoll's cry came from just beyond the wall. At last, the militiaman guiding him seemed to gather his wits enough to speak.

“If we open it now, we'll all die trying to stop them rushing in.”

They could open it, but they'd all die if they did, so no. A tactful refusal. Encrid spoke without needing to give it any thought.

“Esther?”

They couldn't exactly read each other's minds with a glance, but right now, they understood each other to some extent. Esther nodded. The little panther had grown a bit in the meantime, but she was still small. That didn't mean she could be dismissed. [“That thing's a supernatural creature. No ordinary beast.”]

As Rem had said, Esther was no ordinary animal. She proved it again now. With a few light bounds, Esther scaled the wall that the short-legged hyena demonic beasts were struggling desperately to climb, and reached the top. She dug her claws into the wall and used it as footing, just as she would the ground. Even allowing for the sharpness of those claws, she moved with incredible agility.

To someone who didn't know better, she would have looked as though she were walking up the wall like level ground. Even Encrid, who did know, thought that was how it looked. “It's climbing the wall?”

The startled soldier muttered, his eyes seeming twice as wide as before.

Considering how she normally roamed through trees and over rooftops, scaling a wall like this was nothing to her. Still, anyone who didn't know her would be surprised. Though the wall stood more than three times an adult's height, Esther cleared it with ease. And she didn't stop there.

“Uh, th-that...”

The watching soldier gaped, unable to finish. No wonder he was surprised. Esther had leaped straight over the wall. In short, she'd plunged into the chorus of monsters and demonic beasts. Her job was to introduce discord, to pour oil over the ensemble they were playing. Encrid was counting on that, and Esther met his expectations. GRRRR!

A low, heavy animal growl came from beyond the side gate, unlike the cries of the Knolls and hyenas. It thrummed through the air and hammered at the heart, seeming to carry enough force to make anyone who heard it weak in the knees. “Don't shoot the panther!”

Deutsch Fullman's shout followed. The hyena demonic beasts' yelps mingled with the Knolls' roaring. GURK!

There were a few Knoll death cries, too.

GROORK! GROOOORK!

The sounds from the Knolls' muzzles grew a little more distant. The horde blocking the side gate had moved away from it. Listening intently, Encrid caught the change. “Now.”

At Encrid's murmur, the soldier merely asked, “Huh?” without moving.

Did this bastard need to be trained again from scratch? What use was he with reactions this slow? “The gate.”

Encrid grabbed the soldier's wrist and pulled as he spoke. Naturally, he tightened his grip. He also projected his presence: the fighting spirit, akin to killing intent, that he'd learned to control upon unlocking his Sixth Sense. “Hic.”

The militiaman began to hiccup, but did that matter right now? Reluctantly, his hand reached the latch.

“If something goes wrong while we're opening it...”

“I'll take responsibility. I'm in charge of this village's military.” Then why was the man in charge trying to kill himself like this? Even as he wondered, the soldier finally moved his hand.

CLICK.

The side gate was unlatched. “Don't lock it. Just brace it and hold on. I'll ask you to open it again later.”

“What?”

What on earth was he talking about now? The side gate opened a crack. Esther must have caused quite a stir among the monsters and demonic beasts, because they were all looking back. Encrid saw the backs of Knolls' heads.

Was it fortunate that none of them wore helmets? The fact that most of them carried weapons was enough of a threat already. Truthfully, helmets wouldn't even have caught his attention. Encrid stepped through the side gate, letting his arms hang loose. The instant he was fully outside, he relaxed his body as much as possible and hurled his throwing blades in every direction, keeping the whistle daggers in reserve.

Shooting a bow and throwing blades were entirely different things. He gauged their weight with his fingertips and whipped his arms out. Four blades buried themselves in the heads of Knolls looking the other way in rapid succession. No Knoll could survive a knife more than a handspan long driven into its skull. That was a given. As those four Knolls died and one demonic beast turned around, Encrid was already upon it.

WHOOSH.

His blade descended from a middle guard, a short, concise stroke stripped of unnecessary movement. It split the demonic beast's back. CRUNCH.

His sword sheared through spine, entrails, and more bone in one stroke. In other words, he cut it in two. At the same time, he stepped left and drove his knee into another demonic beast's head. Powered by a twist of his waist, the knee strike caved in its skull with a crunch. Perhaps because its head had collapsed inward, its eyeballs popped out, dangling by their optic nerves.

With those two demonic beasts dead, Encrid began swinging his sword without a care. Training his dodging sense had given him bodily coordination. The moment he saw, sensed, and reacted, his body moved on its own.

He plunged among the demonic beasts and danced. That brief sword dance left three Knolls and two demonic beasts sprawled on the ground. A skull, a chest, another skull. One Knoll even had a hole the size of a silver coin punched through its body. These were the results of combining short, sharp cuts to the crown with stabs. THUD.

Only then did the gate he'd come through close.

'Were they enjoying the show?'

They'd been slow to shut it, as though they'd been staring in a daze. CLANK, CLANK!

The sounds of the gate being locked followed.

'I told you not to lock it.'

Well, as if they would leave it unlocked just because he'd said so. Getting back was a problem for later. Now he had work to do. Knolls and hyena demonic beasts fell in droves to Encrid's sword and deadly hands. Seeing that, the creatures charged him and Esther.

Naturally, even with only two of them, they were better off fighting together. Esther moved toward him. She didn't simply run to him, either. The panther's exploits were dazzling. Astonishing, even.

TAP-TAP.

She pushed off the ground and slashed with extended claws. Knoll or demonic beast, anything they caught went from one piece to two, then from two to three. It made no difference whether it was a head or a chest. Overwhelming strength combined with cutting power. As Esther charged in and Knolls and hyena demonic beasts thrust weapons, teeth, and claws at the two of them, Encrid spoke.

“Esther, watch my back, then.”

What was that supposed to mean? Esther asked with her eyes, but he didn't answer. 'This bastard!'

Anger flared within her. Just when Encrid seemed to be drawing their attention, he abruptly suppressed all sign of his presence. And that wasn't all. He rolled in the blood of the Knolls and hyenas he'd killed, then flattened himself with his belly against the ground. Who would the enemies focus their attacks on now? It had all happened in an instant.

Esther and Encrid had burst in in an instant. They'd cut down monsters and demonic beasts by the dozen in an instant. Esther had approached and drawn their attention in an instant. And then Encrid had vanished in an instant. The eyes of the Knolls they'd attacked turned red. They looked like berserkers.

“Grooooork!”

With their eyes rolling red, the Knolls vented their fury and charged to kill Esther. She deftly pulled back. She wanted to ask Encrid what the hell he was doing, but saw that he was already crawling flat along the ground. Even when several Knolls stepped on him, he held his breath and kept crawling. Clearly, he was up to something. 'Idiot.'

That idiot had asked her to watch his back. Esther snorted and moved her mana-enhanced body. Her monstrous strength and the mana infused in her claws gave them an uncanny cutting power. She sliced the heads of two charging hyenas into three pieces each, then bought time by keeping herself tantalizingly out of reach. This must be what that madman had meant by watching his back. Surely this was why he'd dumped this fucking horde of monsters on her and left. Esther had guessed right. That was exactly what Encrid had intended.

Trampled by Knolls, masking his scent with enemy blood, flesh, and entrails, he crawled while suppressing his killing intent in imitation of Jaxon. His target was clear: the Knoll bastard that appeared to be their leader.

* * *

Encrid recognized that his talent had changed.

'It's different.'

The difference was enormous. He wasn't so dull that he could fail to feel such a change. He felt it, and he understood it. Before, he'd had to repeat something countless times just to barely learn one thing. This time was different. Unmistakably so. These todays had been devoted to his dodging sense. Among the days he'd repeated were some that might have seemed pointless. Even on those days, he'd struggled desperately and crawled. He hadn't stopped. He'd added every one of those days to a single step forward. And what had he gained? Changes in his swordsmanship, and in other areas, too. [“If you know how to project killing intent, you know how to hide it, too.”]

That was when he'd asked about the Intentless Stab, the peculiar technique Jaxon used.

[“You don't need to learn it, but understanding the principle might be useful, I suppose.”] That was what his mouth said, but his eyes said otherwise. They seemed to rebuke Encrid for still not having a proper grasp of his dodging sense, to scold him for taking so long.

Encrid hadn't let it bother him. What could he do about something he couldn't yet manage? He would simply keep at it until he could. He'd asked then because he wanted to know, and he'd received an answer. A stab executed with physical movement alone, with killing intent erased completely. A stab with no killing intent or presence whatsoever, so that even someone watching it would wonder whether it was actually aimed at them.

That was the whole explanation. During the two hundred-odd todays devoted to his dodging sense, he'd also needed the ability to control his own killing intent. Something had come to him physically in the course of dodging, again and again.

He'd reacted through his senses alone, not killing intent. To improve his reaction speed, he'd desperately explored only his body's capacity to respond, rather than his presence. That was when he'd realized it. Encrid put that something to use: the method of concealing and suppressing his presence. It could be called a technique similar to an assassin's.

Of course, it couldn't be perfect. He merely imitated it by hiding his presence a little and taking slow, long breaths. 'This isn't enough.'

He rolled on the ground spattered with Knoll and hyena blood, then crawled while actually clutching a Knoll corpse. Anyone seeing him now would have been unable to contain their admiration. Even with a demonic beast on his back, he crawled at a frightening pace. 'Crawling is my specialty among specialties.'

When it came to moving on his belly, Encrid was beyond first-rate. He crawled and kept crawling. Behind him, he heard Esther give a loud hiss. 'Sorry. I'll give you two pieces of jerky when we get back.'

He kept crawling steadily as he thought it. By the time he reached the rise, only a few Knolls and demonic beasts remained around him. He crawled straight up. Rolling on the ground had left him reeking with a foul, rank stench. As always, the bloody stink of monsters was almost unbearable. Encrid was all too familiar with it. This had been an everyday occurrence when he'd earned his living by the sword as a mercenary. That was also when he'd learned that monster blood concealed more than one might think. Once he'd crawled all the way to the top of the rise, he felt a sense of satisfaction. His target was there. How could he not be happy?