Chapter 171 - He Just Didn't Like the Knoll's Grin

"I've wanted to face you just once without any injuries."

Satisfaction put the words on Encrid's lips. If he crept any closer, the Knoll leader might notice him—or it might not. But he wanted to make his presence known. Not out of competitiveness or a desire for a fair fight. What sort of fair contest could you have with a monster? It was simply...

'A test.'

He only wanted to see what everything he had built up over these repeated todays amounted to. At Encrid's voice, the leader, flanked by two mutants like bodyguards, whipped its head around. Nor was that all it did. It raised both daggers and pointed them forward. Everything happened in the blink of an eye. 'Fast as ever.'

Encrid was impressed. "Grruk!"

The leader cried out. Its two mutant bodyguards responded.

GROARK!

This cry sounded rather like a Ghoul's. One of the mutants lunged forward, swinging its club down from above. Encrid raised his sword, crusted with black blood, at a diagonal. The heavy club came whistling down. His gaze was unfocused. Just before the club struck his head, his sword moved.

No, his feet moved with it. CRACK!

He twisted the blade, drove it into the middle of the club, and pushed straight forward. Wood rasped away as though shaved by a carving knife. His sword surged onward and cut into the mutant's neck. The strike shaved along the club before cleaving into its neck, severing halfway through muscle, bone, and tendon. "Graah, hah, ghah."

Air wheezed from the Knoll's slashed throat. Gurgling, it dropped to its knees. Its yellow eyes slowly dimmed, and it toppled forward. Unconcerned by the other's death, the second Knoll charged. Encrid feigned raising his sword upright, then moved his feet. He turned left to evade the club and delivered a high horizontal cut. With the grip held above his head, he turned his wrist, sending the sword through a semicircle, parallel to the ground, and across the middle of the Knoll's skull. That was the result of superhuman strength married to technique. The mutant's skull split roughly in half with a crack. It looked like a pumpkin with its lid cut off. Of course, instead of seeds and flesh, it was full of brains and black blood.

The severed top fell to the ground. "Run, and you'll die with one of these in the back of your head."

Encrid flicked his hand as he spoke. A whistle dagger flew with a shrill whistle and lodged in the skull of an ordinary Knoll lingering to one side, undecided whether to attack. It sank so deep that no trace of its blade remained visible, but blood spurted out. The impact knocked the Knoll backward to the ground, where blood kept welling from its head and soaking the earth. GROOOARK!

Sensing their leader was in danger, the creatures reacted. Encrid hoped the leader would attack him. He had never taken this path before. This was a today he had never experienced. Even he didn't know what would happen. The leader might simply turn and run.

What then? What else? Chase it down and decorate its skull with a throwing knife.

But what if it attacked instead? 'Can I survive today?'

He asked himself. He had no answer yet. He had looked forward to this, prepared for it, and sized up his opponent, but who could ever know how a fight would end? Above all, this leader never showed itself unless Encrid had a hole in his thigh, a deep slash across it, or a puncture beside his navel. In other words, he only got to see its ugly face when his mobility was compromised or he was critically wounded. 'One hell of a dirty bastard.'

It was a private compliment. Only stepping in when victory was assured—how clever was that? And the Knoll leader did not retreat. It moved just as Encrid had hoped.

"Grrrook!"

He thought he heard a sharp snap. That was how fast it was. He had experienced its speed before and prepared for it, but it really was fast. The instant the Knoll leader kicked off the ground, its body seemed to stretch like a shadow lengthening in the sunlight. Encrid caught that stretching shadow with his eyes. He never lost sight of his opponent.

He had been able to 'see' it before, too. The problem was that it was too fast to defend against. He could not allow even a graze from the gleaming daggers in its hands. They were poisoned. One scratch and it was over. Today would repeat again. SWISH! SWISH!

Of the two strokes, the first grazed Encrid's shoulder. Only grazed it. It never touched his skin. His armor wasn't something a paltry dagger could slice open. The cut only marked its outer leather covering. He dodged the second stroke entirely. The Knoll slashed with its right hand and stabbed with its left, but he twisted aside, leaving the stab to pierce empty air.

His reaction speed was astonishing. The instant he saw it, his body moved. The attack resembled Valen-style Misaligned Blades; despite the different rhythms, it was truly, incredibly, blindingly fast. 'It works.'

It had gone as expected. He could dodge it. He might not keep the blades from brushing him altogether, but he could keep them from cutting or piercing his skin. 'Dodging sense.'

This was less a sense than outright reaction-speed training. At least, that was how it felt. They had named it wrong.

The stray thought flashed through his mind and vanished. In any case, if he let his body react solely to evade, perhaps he could avoid even being grazed. But was that necessary? Probably not. It was time to move on.

The day had come to get past today and see tomorrow's sun. "Krruk!"

The Knoll leader was furious. Its reddened eyes said as much. A red tinge seemed to creep into its yellow pupils. Having swept past Encrid, it turned and charged again. This time it crouched low and aimed for his thighs. The trajectories were difficult to dodge. One blade even veered toward his groin, the daggers striking to staggered beats.

One badly placed hit might leave him a eunuch. Encrid did not react after seeing and recognizing the attack. The instant he saw it, the instant he registered it, he moved.

A small difference, but a vast one. This was almost his first time using it while actually swinging a sword. Coordination had transformed his reaction speed.

It was a new world. A step into an entirely new world.

At least, that was how Encrid felt. The change in reaction speed brought a change in reflexes. His body, tirelessly honed through the Isolation Technique, gave full expression to that altered perception.

In other words, the instant he saw it, he brought his sword down. WHOOSH! CRACK! THUD!

The moment the Knoll leader charged, his blade became a flash of light that split the air vertically. Naturally, the air was not all it split.

THUD!

It cleaved the leader from its head to the middle of its back. The creature's hands continued their futile motions. Not knowing it was dead, it extended both arms. Its left hand stabbed uselessly into empty air, but its right went for his hip as intended.

Encrid bent his knees, taking the dead Knoll's stab on the armor over his abdomen. TAP. THUD.

Strength leaves a dead hand. The dagger struck his leather armor uselessly and fell. Still moving despite being split in two, the leader soon collapsed, its halves falling to either side. Entrails and blood soaked the ground. The cut had been so fast that blood had even sprayed in a straight line behind it. He had meant to split it through the head, but it had dodged reflexively. So he had cleaved it in half on a slant, starting at the shoulder. "Whew."

Encrid breathed out, exhilarated.

'I'm moving forward.'

The exhilaration of growth, proven by results. His dodging sense had let him evade the poisoned daggers; trained coordination and reaction speed had let him cut the creature down in one blow. Before that, his eyes had caught its movements, and the heart of the beast had given him boldness. "Groooark!"

Of course, this couldn't be the end. Knolls and demonic beasts still filled every direction.

Now the problem was getting back out. "Hah!"

With a shout, Encrid swung his sword powerfully at two Knolls blocking his path.

The Righteous Sword Technique? Who had time for that? He had already learned the swordsmanship best suited to killing monsters.

The Northern Heavy Sword. The north was said to be a bitterly cold land overrun with monsters and demonic beasts. Its swordsmanship had evolved into the form best suited to cutting down demonic beasts.

And Encrid had learned it. WHOOSH! CRACK! THUD!

Ankles, knees, waist, shoulders, wrists.

With every ounce of force channeled perfectly into the centrifugal strike, the two Knolls' upper and lower halves parted ways. Naturally, they would never meet again.

Having split the pair apart, Encrid ran. 'Can I get out?'

Dodging all day? He could do that.

But dodging after exhausting himself in combat?

That was difficult. If this ordeal had taught him anything time and again, it was that a prolonged battle demanded careful stamina management. Yet he had crawled all the way here to kill the Knoll leader, then fought a brief but intense battle. Now he had to cut a path back to the village? That was a different matter from simply dodging and holding out in one place. "Can't we meet again tomorrow?"

Encrid spoke as he dodged, knowing the words wouldn't get him anywhere. Naturally, the Knolls didn't answer.

A hyena demonic beast attacking from behind answered instead. It sprang at his back with its jaws wide open. Encrid reacted instantly, driving his elbow into its skull. THUD.

Hit squarely, the beast crashed to the ground. In one fluid motion, he plunged his sword into its skull. Two more demonic beasts and a Knoll rushed him in that opening; he slashed horizontally with the sword in his left hand. The Knoll wore something like leather armor. The blow landed with a thud and sent it stumbling back several steps. He hadn't cut through it in one stroke. He was short of breath and hadn't put enough force into the blow. His broken stance was partly to blame, but so was fighting with the Heart of the Superhuman active. 'Well, damn.'

Just a little overexertion, and his hands shook. Of course, a short rest would fix that.

Time to dance with his dodging sense again for a while. "Grooorg!"

The Knoll's cry sounded like, "Kill him! Kill that human!"

Encrid calmly retrieved his sword and put his feet to work. Dodge what needed dodging. Deflect what needed deflecting.

He was like a master of attack and defense. Anyone watching up close would have thought so, but the movements were impossible to make out at a distance. Encrid felt a certain satisfaction at killing the leader. Along with the exhilaration, it felt as though he had overturned the ferryman's carefully laid plans.

How so?

What had the wall originally been? In Encrid's view, it had been fighting that hyena-headed demonic beast with its poisoned daggers while contending with his own injuries.

No—winning that fight without so much as a scratch from those poisoned daggers.

Encrid had twisted that premise. Because killing the leader while injured was impossible? No, it was possible. He could have taken that path.

But he hadn't wanted to. Even if that was the wall set out for him. 'That bastard's grin just...'

He hadn't liked the Knoll's grin. Refusing to appear until it had confirmed he was critically injured might deserve a compliment for fighting dirty, but that didn't mean he liked it. What to do, then?

He had given it some thought. He hadn't needed Krais's help. It was too simple.

Block the gate, hold the wall, and face the leader. Arrange it all deliberately.

This was the result. The leader was dead, and no one in the Pioneer Village had been killed by the Knolls or hyena demonic beasts. If someone had been killed by a thrown rock, that couldn't be helped. But at least as far as he had seen, no one had died that way. He absolutely hadn't done this to protect the people of the Pioneer Village. Things had simply turned out this way. If he had to give a reason, it was only that he really, truly hadn't liked the Knoll's grin.

Above all, wasn't this more efficient than fighting through injuries? Of course, to put a fine finish on things, he would have to see this through properly.

In other words, he had to make it back alive. He conserved his breath and strength. After failing to open a path with several Heavy Sword Technique strikes, he returned to compact attacks, but his way remained blocked. At that moment, he wondered whether he should hold out and wait for something else to change. Or should he pour out his remaining strength, unleash the Heart of the Superhuman, and cut his way through?

Neither option had much chance of success. Encrid felt that instinctively. Yet there didn't seem to be another way. In the midst of his brief deliberation, a shout rang out.

"Clear a path!"

What now? It came from the village entrance. The main gate rumbled open. Part of the thick log wall gave way to a passage. With Esther and Encrid's rampage drawing the Knoll horde back around, none remained battering the gate.

Having watched it all, Deutsch Fullman could no longer restrain himself. He stepped outside. "Come if you've got the guts! But if you're backing out here, pack your things and fuck off!"

An offer befitting a mercenary captain. Why become a mercenary if your life was so precious to you?

Deutsch's men rushed outside one after another. Outside the village, Deutsch Fullman swung his glaive with all his might. Ten militiamen who had shared his hardships since their mercenary corps days followed him.