Chapter 215 - A Brief Bolt of Lightning

Esther understood every trick the five enemy mages had used, and what they intended. She herself was a wanderer immersed in the spell world. More importantly, weren't they all mages of a lower tier than her? 'Illusion magic and mental magic.'

A combination of the two. Though she could not know the spell's actual name, she understood how it worked. That was the true nature of Dream of the Bottomless Pit. It created an illusion of comforting surroundings, then bestowed tranquility. A good idea. Driving someone mad was difficult, but offering comfort to those under mental strain was all too easy. They already yearned for peace and comfort. That was how mental spells worked: the more the target wanted something, the more readily they accepted it. Breaking it was even easier. She only had to scatter the mana. But Esther did not. She intended to leave those who fell asleep to their rest. Nor did she particularly intend to show them her transformation into a human. Of course, that did not mean she would go so far as to kill them to keep them quiet. 'The fact that I was originally human changes nothing.'

She was a devotee of the spell world, resolved to walk a different path from ordinary humans. Even if the others learned that the panther was human, she would still curl up in Encrid's arms. She would not stop doing that. 'Though it's ridiculous of me to worry about this at a time like this.'

Why should she give up the power that weakened her curse? She could not help being bothered by the growing number of women around him. Ordinary humans were prone to envy and jealousy. If he found himself a woman, might he not become reluctant to hold her? Then she would have to force her way into his arms. Better to prevent problems before they arose. 'If that doesn't work, I'll overpower him.'

She even considered beating Encrid down and climbing into his arms. All these thoughts flashed through her head in an instant, and Esther finished rationalizing it. Her conclusion: it did not matter who knew. Deep blue eyes, similar to a panther's yet different, turned toward the source of the voice.

"Knew you'd be a beauty."

There was Rem, grinning shamelessly. A handsome man with gray hair. He was on the short side, but his abilities were not to be underestimated. "Did you?"

Esther answered casually. At the same time, she grasped roughly why he had resisted the spell.

'You've learned a mystic art.'

Not magic, but something of a different kind. She did not bother to mention it. He was not the only one awake.

"Some interesting brothers have come to visit."

Audin. A monster in human form, no smaller than a bear demonic beast. He had pale yellow eyes, and he too was remarkably handsome. Looking at his well-proportioned body, she found herself thinking how nice it would be to have a golem like that right now. 'I didn't even have time to bring out Bonehead.'

The flesh golem she had previously acquired through Encrid lay sound asleep inside her world. Of course, it still needed modifications and a great deal of work, so it was not ready for use yet. At any rate, she had a fair idea why Audin was awake too.

'Divine power.'

A power she disliked. Something originating from a god. Then there were Jaxon and Ragna, their eyes open as though being knocked unconscious had nothing to do with them.

"I'm going back to sleep."

Ragna seemed to have awakened some portion of Will. Jaxon? She truly could not make that one out. It felt as though he had pushed something to the utmost through training and surpassed its limits. As she looked them all over, Encrid groaned in his sleep.

"Mmm." "Sleeping like a log."

"To be this oblivious, he clearly hasn't trained enough."

"No need to bother a sleeping man. As long as he fights well when he's awake."

"Ho ho, our Brother Company Commander must have been tired. All because his flesh lacks strength."

Starting with Rem, then Jaxon, Ragna, and Audin, each had something to say about their sleeping company commander. Meanwhile, Rem looked at the sleeping Beastman woman and added,

"Leave that one as she is, and she'll be a burden."

He respected Pin's skills as a ranger, but fighting was all the Beastman woman had to offer, wasn't it? And she was sleeping soundly at a time like this? Even with a Beastman's natural resistance to magic? In truth, it could not be helped. Dunbachel had very low self-esteem, and a spell offering rest and tranquility struck at a fatal weakness of hers. Of course, Rem did not care about any of that. He merely thought he would have to do something about her. Esther had no intention of showing off her spells, but neither did she intend to sleep beside corpses. She waved a hand through the air. Using an invisible force, the basic telekinetic spell any mage employed, she rolled the five bodies to the tent entrance. "The perception-disrupting spell will break soon," she told the others.

Rem had said something, at least, but the other three paid her existence no mind. Because they had noticed already? That was part of it, but... "I'm going to sleep."

There were also men like Ragna. Men who would not care whether she turned into a human, a panther, or suddenly became a Giant covered in hair. 'How strange.'

Esther did feel very strange. She had expected them to show some surprise, even if they were not utterly shocked to see her. No, perhaps this was what she had secretly hoped for. They were bound together within the same fold. At their center was the black-haired man sleeping soundly even in this situation. Her time was up. Esther became a panther again and slipped into Encrid's arms. The black robe wrapped around her dispersed like smoke, then vanished as though seeping into the ground. After she had returned to panther form and the perception-disrupting spell had vanished, Vengeance entered the tent, apparently on patrol.

"What's this?" he asked in astonishment.

The smell of blood and the sight of the corpses left him speechless. "Since you're here, mind clearing those away?" A commander defeated in battle could be forgiven; one who failed to keep watch could not. Vengeance could not understand how these people had made it all the way here. He had no way of knowing that magic users had been involved. "Huh? Oh. Right."

He simply assumed assassins had targeted them. Yet when he examined the dead, they did not look particularly well trained. It was a night of utterly bewildering events. Battalion Commander Marcus would probably be furious when he heard the report. But Vengeance could hardly leave it unreported. He sent word through the commander's guards during the night. When Marcus woke in the morning, however, he dismissed it casually.

"Leave it. For most assassins, that place is an antlion's pit anyway." In fact, Marcus had deliberately placed Encrid's company tent on the outskirts of camp. He thought Martai's Olf might send assassins in a final, desperate struggle. At the same time, he thought the attempt had no hope of succeeding. 'He even took down a half-blood Fairy before.'

That assassin had been quite well known too, hadn't he? Marcus had devoted considerable effort to gathering information. He believed that such details, accumulated, brought victory on the battlefield. "Tell him to send more. Some people have to touch a pot before they know it's hot."

Marcus spoke with a smile. He did not know mages had come either, but, how to put it? He had developed a sort of absolute, baseless faith that Encrid would survive and somehow overcome whatever came. Another thought occurred to him as well.

"A knight, eh?"

The dream Encrid had told him about. At the time, he had honestly thought it rather far-fetched. Now, it seemed it might really happen. What should he do for him, then? If Encrid became a knight, if he truly joined a knight order...

'Under Cyprus?'

That did not seem a particularly fitting picture. He did not know. It was in the future, after all. He would find out when the time came. Until then, Marcus would do his own work. He might die before he ever saw Encrid become a knight. In fact, he was just about to step into something that dangerous. "So let's each look after our own lives."

Marcus was doing just that himself.

* * *

Pitch-black. Darkness. A canvas painted black, without starlight, moonlight, or any light at all. There was only the rolling river, a boat, and the ferryman seated upon it. If anything had changed since before...

'I can see an eye.'

Encrid saw something resembling an eye on part of the ferryman's face. Only on one side, though. If someone asked whether it resembled a human eye, he would probably have answered that he had no idea. He had simply known it was an eye the instant he saw it. It was a dream. The ferryman gazed steadily at him. That was how he sensed it was an eye. For him to perceive that steady gaze, there had to be an eye. "You really are a strange one."

The ferryman spoke. Encrid struggled to part his lips, as though someone had sewn his mouth shut. So he forced it open. If it was stitched shut, he could simply tear the thread through brute strength. "So, when's the next wall coming?"

He asked without preamble. A wall was a curse. Its purpose was to inflict suffering on humans, drive them into a corner, and torment them. That was a curse. That was a wall. The ferryman knew this all too well. Yet the man before him was asking for a wall instead. This crazy fucker. Muttering that, the ferryman looked at Encrid with his eye and said,

"Lunatic." With that familiar epithet, Encrid opened his eyes. The dream faded. The river, the ferryman, the pitch-black darkness: all of it vanished. PURRR. The moment he opened his eyes, he felt warmth in his arms. Esther. As he woke, the panther opened her eyes too. Somehow, they seemed even more human than yesterday. "Sleep well?"

He greeted her, got up, and began his morning training. Besieging an enemy city was no reason to skip it. "Sleep well?"

Unusually, Rem asked him about his sleep. He had lain down, fallen asleep, and woken up without trouble. That counted as sleeping well. Dreams were nothing. Even after a nightmare, all he had to do was shake it off and get up. "Why wouldn't I?"

"... You're kind of irritating."

What was that supposed to mean? "You haven't trained your senses enough."

That was unusual too. Jaxon was barraging him with something like nagging first thing in the morning, and Audin was even more enthusiastic than usual. "One more! You can do it, brother!"

Had this bastard forgotten they were on a battlefield? Did he really mean to push his body this hard? Encrid was repeatedly squatting and standing with a huge rock on his back. His thigh muscles felt as though they were bursting and tearing apart, but as Audin said, he could do it. "Didn't notice anything last night?"

Rem came over for no particular reason and asked again.

"The weather was nice."

Neither hot nor cold. A night of sound sleep. There had been a faint smell of blood in the tent when he woke, but he had assumed it was a lingering trace of the battlefield. Encrid only heard about the assassins after midday, when Vengeance came and told him.

"I didn't even wake up?"

"Mages. They were mages."

Only then did Rem open his mouth, teasing him all day about what the hell was wrong with his nerves if he could sleep through an assassination attempt. It did trouble Encrid.

'Why didn't I wake up?'

A spell? Some sort of sleeping fragrance? Then what about the others? Why had his men been awake? He lacked something. Something that set him apart from them. He already knew what it was. 'Will.'

What they called the power of one's will. He was not impatient, but he still wanted it. He knew what he had to do to attain it, too: swing his sword every day. He threw himself into training and conditioning in the middle of a battlefield. No one frowned upon it. To recognize what he lacked was to want to go further. His zeal and passion blazed anew. A heat rose, pounding at his heart, and filled him from within. "When do we fight?"

That heat made Encrid blurt the question to the Fairy Company Commander when she came to see him. "We advance this afternoon."

"Don't we have ladders? What about the gate?"

"That's all I was told to convey. Will you take the lead?"

Encrid nodded. He did not know what that Olf fellow was doing inside Martai, but given how things stood, how about a strategy of smashing through the gate? Contrary to his expectations, the battle was rather anticlimactic.

"Raise your shields!"

Encrid, Rem, Audin, and the others raised their shields and advanced. Large, rectangular shields. Clearly hastily made, but sturdy enough to stop a few arrows. And so they advanced. There was one reason the battle was anticlimactic. RATTLE, RUMBLE! As they approached, the gate opened to the sound of turning pulleys. The rain of arrows from the watchtowers and galleries atop the walls meant nothing once they pressed close to the gate and walls. Hugging the walls put them beyond the archers' field of fire. "Why's that opening?"

Rem voiced the question. Encrid wondered the same thing. Some of the troops split off to the left and right of the gate. The First Company Commander, following behind, told Encrid,

"The battalion commander's magic." It really did seem like magic. Encrid could guess roughly what lay behind it, though.

'He planted spies.'

And not just any spies. He had placed people inside Martai with enough influence to get the gate opened. Impressive work. No, it did not end there. As Encrid passed through the gate, he had a fleeting realization. He had learned from allied swords and enemy swords alike, but there were things to realize from Marcus's strategy too. A brief, electrifying bolt of lightning struck inside his head.