Chapter 192 - Are You Crying?

A close-quarters move from the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique.

Headbutt.

Encrid was surprised. Yes, surprised—but the road he had traveled was far too rough for a blow like this to catch him. His dodging sense activated, and his body moved on its own. He tilted his head aside, evaded, and immediately hooked her leg.

His foot struck her ankle with a sharp tap, and the white lion rolled straight forward. Encrid's sword swept through the space where she was falling. Had she stayed there, the blade would have cut some part of her body, but rolling all the way forward saved her.

Good reflexes. Good judgment, too. Encrid naturally picked up speed, stepping and swinging his sword, then changing how quickly he reacted. The entire tempo shifted. This was the greatest change in him of late.

Even with his waist twisted, he launched a diagonal cut twice as fast as his previous swings. Dunbachel clenched her molars. There was no dodging that angle. She raised her elbow.

CLACK! THWACK! SPLASH!

She tried to strike the flat of his blade with her elbow bone, but he saw through it and turned the sword. The edge that had pointed down suddenly faced sideways, leaving Dunbachel to drive her elbow into it. Still, her Beastman reflexes had not deserted her. Though it sliced into her elbow, she managed to knock it aside.

"You actually pulled that off?"

The quiet voice was sharp and clear. Above all, it was close.

Dunbachel had thought she could at least hold out for a while in her beast form. Not a chance. Already upon her, the blade descended toward her head. Frankly, she could not even tell how he had closed the distance and swung so quickly. It was all she could do to block and dodge.

Dunbachel swung her scimitar upward, feeling the muscles in her arm tear. Resolving to die did not mean she could die as anything less than a warrior. After death, she wanted to enter the sanctuary where their god dwelled.

'Krimhalt.'

Dunbachel invoked her god's name. Said to govern war and reproduction, Krimhalt was worshipped by all Beastmen—their one and only god.

Do you wish to be embraced by Krimhalt?

Die as a warrior.

Die as a warrior, and you shall live as Krimhalt's blade within the eternal vortex.

CLANG! CLATTER-CLANG!

The sword slid along her scimitar's blade on contact, scattering sparks. Amid the moonlight, the red sparks seemed to illuminate their surroundings.

In that fleeting instant, Dunbachel aimed where she expected his foot to be and kicked at his ankle with a move from the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique. Look the other way, feint with the weapon, and casually kick the opponent's ankle. A calculated ploy, but he raised the sole of his foot to block her instep.

Then the sword descended behind her neck. At the tap of cold steel, Dunbachel thought of the end.

'Will I be able to go to Krimhalt's side?'

With death upon her, stray thoughts suddenly intruded. Why wouldn't they? Those who had lived trembling at life's injustices always had much to cling to.

Her village had cast her out, and the city had abandoned her. No Beastman had readily accepted her. She had lived rejected by her own kind. As a mercenary, she had tried to prove herself with her blade, but even that had been far from easy. She had believed it her only path, yet that, too, was barred.

It was unfair that she had never borne a child. Unfair that she had been born this way.

'Why only me?'

Why was she alone forced to live like this?

That sense of injustice turned into a desire to live. Lingering attachments seized her ankles, and rage pounded at her heart.

Having just set his sword against her nape, Encrid held it still, struck by a strange feeling. What was it? Instinct, perhaps, or Sixth Sense. A feeling that sparing her would be better than killing her. To add one rational reason to that...

'We do need someone who can tell us who they belong to and who sent them.'

At first she had attacked as though she wanted to die, but when he paused with the sword against her neck, her body began to tremble. Encrid could see the white lion's fur quivering. He glimpsed fear and anguish, things like that.

The Beastman planted her palms on the ground and drew her hind legs in, curling up.

'That's like the pose Esther takes when she's tired.'

Wasn't it oddly similar? With that thought, he spoke.

"Do you want to live?"

At his abrupt question, Dunbachel raised her head, his sword still resting against her nape. Had this fellow's eyes always been so blue? Tears streamed from her own faintly golden eyes.

'... She's crying now?'

Naturally, this was not something he had expected.

"Grrh, grrh."

The Beastman cried. He could not quite put his finger on what had changed within her, but one thing seemed certain.

'Sounds like she's begging me to spare her.'

He withdrew his sword. The moment he did, a familiar voice reached his ears.

"What? You're not killing her? Yaaawn."

Rem. He spoke with his mouth opened wide enough to split his face. Now that was a proper yawn.

"When did you get here?"

"Just now, when you were trading blows with that beast. So is this a lion-person or a Beastman?"

She looked more like a Lycanthrope, but surely no monster would shed such copious tears after losing a fight.

"Hey, are you a crybaby?"

Rem smacked the back of the white lion's head. His usual behavior. Bullying. He even squatted down, poked her head repeatedly, then slapped the back of it again.

"Stop crying. He said he won't kill you."

Rem was not the only one there. Audin had come down at some point, and Jaxon, Ragna, and Krais had arrived too.

"What's all this in the middle of the night?" Krais asked.

"Were we being loud?" Encrid asked in return.

Jaxon pointed to one side and answered, "Esther called us."

His tone was as flat as ever, yet Encrid sensed something subtly different in it. Admiration? Something like that?

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Did you see the fight?"

Jaxon nodded and said nothing more. In truth, he had arrived before Rem and seen everything, watching with even greater care and precision than Audin.

An expert's eye recognized an expert's skill. That was why he was inwardly marveling. He already knew, yet whenever Encrid demonstrated how far he had come, it felt as though something akin to magic had occurred. Nor were the others any less surprised.

"How did you perform that last maneuver?" Ragna asked.

"I mixed the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique with the swordsmanship I learned recently."

Ragna's expression changed subtly at that.

"Did the Frog teach you that?"

"Hm?"

No, Luagarne had told him to learn a variety of sword styles. Mixing them this way was simply something he had tried quite naturally. That was how it had felt in the moment.

As he replayed and mulled over that moment, Encrid himself began to wonder why he had done it.

'Why did I do that?'

He had done it because it seemed the move he needed most just then. Did that make it wrong? No. Surely not. That was how he felt.

They had been weaker opponents than him. He had gone out feeling as though he were testing his newly returned sword. He would only know for certain once he learned where they had come from, but...

'At least on par with the Border Guard's elite.'

The Border Guard consisted entirely of special-grade soldiers. Its elite were particularly skilled, even among them. He had often heard that one member, currently away on some mission, had until recently been Border Guard's strongest blade.

In other words, the carnage Encrid had just wrought was roughly equivalent to taking on ten of the Border Guard's elite. The last Beastman had been better still. When had he become capable of seeing them this way? He did not know. Truly.

'I'm still not good enough.'

Even so, his thirst flared anew. He was not satisfied with this. No, he could not be satisfied. What if that proto knight had been here? Aesia, the woman who had made her name impossible to forget.

'It would have been easier for her.'

Whatever the battle, whatever the moment, there was no end to learning. Encrid had known that since childhood. The problem had been his body's inability to keep up with what he learned, but his attitude had always been right. He craved learning and never stopped.

"Who did you say you belonged to?"

As Encrid finished gathering his thoughts, he saw Krais speak from behind Rem. He kept his distance from the Beastman, doing nothing but talking.

In front of him, Rem was running his mouth with a sneer. No, his hands were busy too. He tapped her head and prodded toward her shoulder—right where the sword had cut her.

"Does that hurt? Doesn't hurt me."

"Hey, are you a crybaby? A Beastman crybaby?"

"Why do you look like that? Did they feed you curses instead of meat as a kid?"

"First time I've seen a lion cry. Cry some more. Want me to dig into the wound? Pain should make it easier, right?"

"Hey, I said cry."

Encrid realized anew that Rem had the foulest personality in the world. If he ever needed to provoke someone on the battlefield, he would gladly put that bastard up front. Encrid himself used words partly to gauge his opponent's intentions, but wasn't this practically a mouth possessed by an evil spirit?

"Why the fuck did you come here in the middle of the night to mark your territory, huh? You think I should have to get out of bed for that?"

There were two errors in Rem's words. First, crying was not marking one's territory. Second, no one had called him.

'Why did he even come out here?'

Just as Encrid was about to step in, the white lion reached her limit and raised her head. Something like anger glimmered in her tearful eyes. Resentful fury might have been more accurate.

"Grrh, fuuuck, who the hell are you, you son of a—"

The white lion never finished her indignant outburst.

CRACK! THUD!

Rem was merciless. Still squatting, he slid his left foot out to the side and swung his right elbow horizontally, twisting at the waist to drive it home. Under any other circumstances, one would have marveled at the perfect striking form he produced from that crouch.

"Excellent."

Even Audin voiced his admiration.

In any case, the elbow slammed into the back of the white lion's head and sent her rolling forward.

"Urk!"

Something like a groan escaped her as she rolled.

"Come on, let me talk to her for a moment," Krais said, restraining Rem.

Encrid had to take Krais's side too. Left alone, Rem looked ready to beat her to death.

"This little fucking cat thinks she can hiss at me."

Judging by Rem's grumbling, he was more than capable of it.

"Don't kill her."

At Encrid's quiet intervention, Rem raised both hands.

"What? I just gave her a little tap. Just a light tap, like this, see? Like waving hello because you're glad to see someone."

Two such happy greetings would leave several people dead.

"So, who did you say you belonged to?"

Beaten until she cried, taunted until she erupted, then beaten again, the white lion resigned herself.

She wanted to live. It was unfair. And in truth, she owed no one any loyalty. She had never wanted the fearsome reputation she had gained among mercenaries. She could afford to lose it. Nor did she have so much as a pouch of Krona hidden at the bandits' base. She had spent everything as soon as she earned it.

That made it easy for Dunbachel to talk.

"Black Blade."

"The bandits? You mean them?"

"Yes."

Dunbachel nodded, and Krais's expression hardened.

"Well, now."

Encrid listened in silence. A series of coincidences had let him stop this attack, but he had no way of knowing what lay behind it. Battalion Commander Marcus had asked whether he loved the city. Having ended up protecting it at a time like this seemed a fairly good outcome, and that pleased him.

Still, something troubled him.

'They're weak.'

Weren't the sentries woefully inadequate in combat? His standards had risen, certainly, but wouldn't it be a problem if enemies like these came again? In another such attack, the patrolling soldiers would die without putting up a proper fight.

Above all, there had been someone dressed as a soldier trying to open the postern. Having many spies in a city was unavoidable, but brazenly opening a gate was a problem. It had happened right under Encrid's nose, in plain sight, so he did want to do something about it. But there was nothing he could do immediately.

"Captain, I think we should report this first."

Krais had come over without him noticing. Watching him, Rem asked, "We're really keeping this thing alive?"

"We need her alive," Krais said hastily. Apparently he thought Rem would actually leave her head dangling if left unchecked.

Encrid nodded, backing Krais up, then added, "Take her into custody."

They could simply hold her for now. The battalion commander would handle the rest.

With that settled, he moved, noticing the soldiers who had gradually become mere spectators. He turned and met an officer's eyes. The man wore epaulettes and immediately saluted him. A platoon commander. Encrid had seen him in passing.

Though Encrid had been given the position of company commander, it had not yet been officially recognized. This was the first time he had received so crisp a salute. He sheathed his sword and acknowledged it with a tap of his palm against the pommel.

"Thanks to you—"

"It's all right."

Encrid spoke and turned away. The platoon commander, who had been utterly astonished, was now deeply moved.

If not for Encrid, if not for that Lunatic Platoon—no, Company—he would have died like those attackers. He would have become a cold corpse, leaving his wife behind. And not just him. Many of the men he considered brothers would have died too.

While he was lost in thought, Krais hurried over.

"Keep the part about Black Blade secret."

"... Mm. Understood."

Right now, he was willing to agree to anything.

"We'll make the report ourselves."

Krais kept talking, saying they should clean up the area, yet refused to move away from the bodies. The platoon commander wondered why.

"Surely it's only right that our company collects the spoils?"

His eyes shone, and his manner could not have been more confident. Of course, he was right.

The platoon commander personally ordered his men to carry the Manticore's carcass and search the dead. There were no pouches of Krona, but all their weapons were made of quality iron. A tidy profit awaited. And Krais was not the sort of man to let such an opportunity pass.