Chapter 197 - He Had. That Was What He Had Thought.

Vancento devised the best plan he could under the circumstances. No, he had devised it.

Kill the escorts—that bastard Encrid and all his companions—then seize the opportunity to join forces with Martai and overthrow the city. He had added that they should have done this long ago. Now Vancento could no longer speak. A man buried in the ground with his head split open had nothing left to say. "Let's go."

Encrid searched the two bodies and the carriage, took everything worth taking, then dug a hole and buried the corpses. 'Not bad.'

A bulging purse of gold coins, a few gems, and several black stones whose purpose he couldn't guess. The black stones didn't seem to be gems, but he sensed a strange energy the moment he saw them.

Would they sell? Since they might be worth gold, he took practically everything. He dumped the coins and other valuables into his pack, then took the bodyguard's black daggers. That accounted for everything worth taking.

He felt as though he'd stripped them clean. "I feel like a bandit," Encrid said.

"The Encrid Bandits. How about starting that up when you leave the army?"

Rem offered a stupid joke. For all his talk, he wasn't the sort to rob ordinary folk. Encrid and his companions set off immediately, without another rest. With them moving, Dunbachel naturally had to follow on her tether. There was no chance to escape. She had told them they were walking into an ambush. She had even said some of Black Blade's core fighters would be there, yet they couldn't have been more relaxed. "Rugged wastes, black sun, crumbling earth, shattering sky."

The man called Rem began singing as he walked, something one might hear in a western frontier settlement. It wasn't much of a song, but his voice was surprisingly good. "Breaking the sky, charging forth to bring it down."

As she let his singing go in one ear and out the other, she heard the other two talking up ahead. "The sword movements—have you gotten them down?"

"I've memorized them all."

The question seemed obscure, but the answer was clear. The blond man who had asked the question hesitated for a long time, seemingly choosing his words. Then he spoke abruptly.

"You reach left to send your opponent right. You mustn't disregard the purpose of a movement."

"Yes. I understand."

The captain called Encrid nodded. 'He understands?'

Dunbachel could only marvel. What on earth were they talking about? Encrid spoke again.

"You mean there's a purpose to the steps and to the hand holding the sword. Right?"

The blond man gave a light, brisk nod.

"That's right. Every movement has a purpose." She couldn't follow the details, but she understood one thing.

'They're talking about swordsmanship.'

Dunbachel remained incredulous. How could they be so relaxed? Something tickled and stirred inside her chest. She couldn't quite identify it, but one thing was clear: curiosity had suddenly welled up within her.

Just who were these people?

* * *

Listening to Ragna, Encrid gained a small insight. These were the words he needed right now. Ragna had recognized that from a single fight.

His way with words was abysmal, so he'd explained it terribly, but... 'I just need to understand what he means.'

That was no problem. Encrid reflected on the lesson by putting it back into words himself. 'Every movement in swordsmanship has a purpose.'

He needed to grasp all those purposes. There was something he had felt while fighting the Beastman behind him, too: the harmony between the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique and his other swordsmanship.

After all, it was the wielder who delivered the strike. 'Understand it and make it second nature.'

Once he understood it all, he would be able to break it down and use its parts, drawing on whichever movement he needed at the necessary moment.

Ragna had begun with the purpose of movements, but for Encrid, the lesson came back to his approach to learning swordsmanship. "The Heavy Sword Technique—once you fully understand the swordsmanship you've learned. Then," Ragna said beside him.

"After I understand this and make it second nature," Encrid added.

Both nodded, looking ahead. "I told you there's an ambush ahead!"

Rem's song and the conversation with Ragna had both ended when the Beastman spoke from behind them. No, she asked. Her voice was forceful, her bewilderment plain. "What was your name again?"

Encrid turned his head slightly to ask. How many times was he going to ask? The thought crossed the Beastman's mind, but she answered with a look that said her name hardly mattered.

"Dunbachel."

"Right, Dunbachel." Encrid was going to explain why they were heading straight into the ambush. Why they were taking the risk.

He didn't consider the ambush ahead a crisis.

Why? Who would have told the other side how strong his party was? The dead noble and his bodyguard, most likely. All the Black Blade attackers had died except this one Beastman.

It would be a different matter if she had secretly passed them information. 'But there's no sign of that.'

They hadn't given her a chance, but there were also things he could sense simply by looking at her. Doubt, curiosity, something like longing—all mingled in those golden eyes.

Dunbachel was simply asking why they were heading into the ambush. The answer was simple. If a small elite force was waiting without knowing their strength...

'Then it won't be much of an ambush.' Of course, all his calculations might go awry and leave them in danger. That possibility always existed.

What if Black Blade had gone half-mad and committed more than half its strength here?

'Not a chance.'

The odds of that were far too low. Even Krais acknowledged that Encrid had a fairly good head on his shoulders when he actually used it; he simply didn't use it much.

The wording rankled, but it wasn't a bad thing to hear. Encrid knew that himself. 'If it were me.'

If he were Black Blade's leader, he would send exactly twice the strength he'd sent before. That alone should be sufficient.

If he still had concerns, he would add someone who specialized in killing rather than fighting. In other words, their force would be ill-suited to the task from the outset. Encrid wasn't alone here. He had Rem and Ragna. Ragna opened his mouth wide in a yawn, muttering that he was sleepy. Rem walked along kicking loose stones. Neither showed the slightest tension.

Both were still overwhelmingly stronger than Encrid. That was why the enemy's estimate of the necessary strength would be wrong.

That was what Encrid believed. When Dunbachel repeated that there was an ambush ahead, she was asking why they were simply walking into it.

He had an answer, but explaining it all would take a while. There was no need to persuade the golden-eyed Beastman before him, either. "If you're asking why we're going where the ambush is, no particular reason."

He paused, then added just one thing as he looked into her yearning eyes.

"I want to swing my sword some more."

It wasn't a lie. He had made his calculations, but that was also a genuine desire in his heart. At those words, Dunbachel's golden pupils trembled wildly.

"... Why?"

Why, for such a trivial reason?

Yet that very reason made it right. Krimhalt's teachings erupted from deep in her heart like a fountain and struck her in the head. It was as though someone had rung a bell right beside her ear.

'In the end, I shall bloom and fade upon the battlefield.'

Krimhalt, the god she believed in, had told her to bloom and fade upon the battlefield. The man before her was trying to do just that. At the same time, she remembered what the old fortune-teller had said when she was driven from her village.

["Someday, when you seek death, a Guide shall be at your side."]

Back then, she had dismissed it as mere words of sympathy, offered out of pity. Now it felt somewhat different. Dunbachel had resigned herself to death, yet she lived. Whose whim had made that possible?

The man before her. Amid the envy, jealousy, and admiration in her heart, a quiet wish began to grow.

'I want to bear his child.'

In practice, that would probably be impossible. Children of mixed Beastman and human parentage were not easily born. That wasn't her only wish.

'I want to belong there.'

She wanted to stay beside him. To learn from his life. To die at his side.

A complex, subtle yearning set her heart ablaze. Encrid glanced at her eyes.

'What's wrong with her eyes now?'

He'd seen so many people with crazed eyes lately that he'd thought he was used to it, but this was a new one.

Something sultry, yet intense? "Anyway, why didn't Esther come along?"

Rem abruptly asked while Encrid was looking into Dunbachel's eyes. Turning away from that gaze, Encrid answered him.

"How should I know? Our Esther is a fickle one."

He meant it as a joke, and Rem snickered. "If Esther heard that, she'd scratch a musical score into your face, Captain. Can't say you're wrong, though."

Sometimes she acted as though she'd never leave Encrid's arms. Other times she wandered out of their quarters on a whim and didn't return for days.

Judging by her behavior, 'fickle' seemed a rather apt description. Walking at their leisurely pace, they climbed a low rise. A few small trees appeared, then enough to block their view on either side.

The path was rough, too, with rocks jutting from the dirt. Ants marched in lines between them, carrying things like dead insects. Industrious little creatures. It wasn't an easy path to walk. As they continued, it proved closer to a small hill than a mere rise.

Beyond it, another two days on foot would have brought them to the agreed meeting place—the place where the envoy was supposed to meet Black Blade.

Of course, that appointment no longer meant anything. RUSTLE.

Leaves stirred in the wind, sunlight spilling through the gaps. It was fine weather. The breeze wasn't too stifling, and the sunlight filtered through the leaves wasn't too hot. A little farther ahead lay a clearing, with dense foliage and thorny brush beyond it.

There was no path leading out of the clearing. A dead end. "This is as far as you go."

About ten people stood within the clearing. One of them had spoken.

Three women and seven men. One wielded an axe. Another watched with both arms hanging at his sides. One sat on a fairly large rock, staring blankly, and another perched on a branch directly overhead.

Quite an assortment. An icy atmosphere passed between them. The speaker glared, and Encrid's party stopped.

Well, what now?

Tension hung in the air. Then Encrid opened his mouth. "Wow. An ambush."

His delivery was theatrical. His acting was also atrocious. "Wow. They've got us," Rem joined in.

"What a shock."

Ragna offered something similar. He was picking sleep from his eyes as he said it, so he certainly looked astonished. Watching them, Dunbachel was still dumbfounded.

A sudden bit of theater? Here? "Waiting for us here. What meticulous bastards," Encrid continued.

The way he picked his ear while discussing their meticulousness was impressive. "Never saw this coming. My knees are shaking something awful."

Rem picked his nose as he spoke. Even that couldn't erase his good looks. "I nearly bit my tongue off from the shock."

Encrid crunched a piece of candy as he spoke.

CRUNCH. That must be sweet. Where had he gotten that candy, anyway?

Watching him, Dunbachel couldn't help wondering. "Ooh, I want to run away."

Rem, who always took teasing people seriously, played along with Encrid.

What were the two of them doing?

Provoking the enemy. They had begun needling their opponents the moment they met. Listening to it was irritating even Dunbachel.

How must the targets feel? "Are they insane?"

One man looked incredulous.

"You're all just dying to get yourselves killed, aren't you?"

One bitch put on an unnecessary show of composure.

"They're dead either way."

One man hadn't been interested in them to begin with.

"You fucking bastards."

And one was angry. Seeing those reactions, Encrid nodded and looked at Rem. Rem looked back, snorted, and nodded too.

Both seemed quite pleased by the response. "Stay here. Don't run."

The red-eyed blond called Ragna moved her back after speaking.

If there was ever a moment to escape, this was it. But Dunbachel chose to watch instead. She wanted to know. She wanted to see. What exactly had given the three of them the confidence to come here?

Their opponents were renowned fighters even within Black Blade.

Dunbachel still didn't truly know what Encrid, Rem, and Ragna were capable of. "Never in my life have I met people like you. Vancento's nowhere to be seen, so I assume you've already dealt with him. You came even though you knew we'd be waiting?"

The speaker was the thick-bearded man at the front. His weapon was a halberd. It had a pointed tip and an axe blade the size of a palm attached beside the spearhead. The way he stood holding it at an angle was enough to mark him as a formidable opponent. A skull caught by that axe blade would burst like ripe fruit. "How did you know?" Encrid asked.

"... You have a natural talent for mocking people, don't you?"

The halberd wielder stared at him, eyes wide. Rem snickered.

"Correct! I've never met anyone with such a poisonous tongue in my life." Encrid felt wronged.

"I was only being sincere."

Of course, he'd meant to tease the man a little, but wasn't that the sort of thing one said in this situation?

How did you know? That line. It had been perfectly appropriate. "So stop trying to beat him with your tongue. Better come at him with a blade."

Rem spoke as though wrapping things up.

The halberd wielder furrowed his brow. He considered it briefly. Very briefly.

'They came knowing about the ambush?' He had no time to think for long.

"What's there to think about?"

The brawler moved first, flat-plated iron knuckles fitted over both fists. Encrid had resorted to this ploy, this provocation, in case his opponents grew suspicious and hesitated. Their reaction was therefore exactly the result he'd hoped for. With the brawler stepping forward, the halberd wielder had no choice.

'Kill them first.' He and the Black Blade fighters gathered here were renowned within the local branch. Excluding the branch leader, they were also known as the Ten Blades.

With all ten together, he couldn't imagine losing to anyone in the region.

Provided their opponents weren't a knight order. There was no way the Scarlet Cloak Knight Order could come under the present circumstances. That was why the halberd wielder had accepted the job, certain of victory.

Yes. He had. That was what he had thought.

Right up until the moment before the brawler and the axe wielder exchanged their first blows.