Chapter 221 - Because They Endured the Training

As Encrid stood motionless on the platform, there was something in the soldiers' eyes as they trained. Something like resentment. "When they come back from running, at least pretend you're resting. I'm telling you, that works better."

That was Rem's advice, and Encrid did as he was told. Did it give them the drive to run harder? Who could say? "Listen, I'm an expert at working people into the ground."

Rem insisted, so Encrid simply obliged his request to stand and watch. Nor was he wrong. Rem certainly knew how to work people into the ground. Otherwise, their eyes could hardly have become so possessed by evil spirits in a mere week. A fierce blue light almost seemed to blaze from the eyes of the soldiers running onto the training ground. SHHHHHHH! The pouring rain only heightened the impression. Encrid wasn't particularly fond of the relentless rain, but...

'Good.'

He couldn't have been more pleased with their eyes. Simply making them run had filled those eyes with ferocity. There was no longer any reason to stand watching. Even before he began repeating today, Encrid had been a half-mad training fanatic. Day after day, he had worked his body and swung his sword until his palms split open. Was he any different now? If anything, holding himself back had been a struggle. With the men running for their training and Count Molsen on his mind, it was only natural that he wanted to swing his sword. And so he drove his body hard outside his own training hours as well, both on the platform and below it. "At this point, I think you have to call it mindless brute effort."

Encrid was so unchanged that Krais quietly muttered this as he watched. A succession of such moments had brought them to the present. Encrid liked the furious looks in the soldiers' eyes, and he liked knowing that he, too, was making progress. "Now let's swing those weapons."

After seven days of making them do nothing but run all day, he finally had them take up their weapons. There were no defensive squares, formations, or coordinated attack drills. Those weren't his specialty, nor were they something he could teach. He intended to further develop their basic abilities. Marcus watched it all from a distance.

"All I did was give him another title."

Why was he working so hard at it? His adjutant nodded beside him.

"Indeed, sir." "Any deserters?"

"... They certainly seem eager to, but..."

When the adjutant trailed off, Marcus prompted him.

"But?"

"They don't seem to have the strength." As the saying went, a man couldn't run away if you left him no strength to run. That was Encrid's training. As Marcus saw it, Encrid enjoyed cheers and praise. But something else took precedence. He was a man who ran straight toward his goal, a man who would do what needed doing before concerning himself with applause and acclaim. 'What must I do to become a knight?'

Hone his swordsmanship. Then that was what he had to do. Every day, without change. And that was what Encrid did. Watching him, one couldn't help but admire him. Couldn't help but marvel. Then what was driving him now?

'It's as though he'd been waiting to become training company commander.'

Wasn't that precisely how he was behaving? Looking at him now, he seemed to enjoy murderous hostility as much as cheers and praise.

'Or does he simply enjoy tormenting people?'

It was a reasonable suspicion. Marcus was merely thankful he didn't have to go down there himself.

* * *

Bell had a history with Encrid. The man had saved his life, and they'd seen each other several times since. Which was why he'd thought:

'He'll keep it reasonable.'

Surely any human being would. Encrid himself wasn't normal. Surely he wouldn't expect everyone to manage his own training regimen. So he'd keep it reasonable. He would. Surely he would. Bell had believed that. That notion shattered in two days. The tower built of his faith vanished without a trace. Erased clean. Demolished. "Hah, huff, urgh."

He was gasping for breath.

"Fall behind and you get a beating, all right?"

Behind him, a lunatic axe murderer gave chase with a smile. The man grinned and swung his axe through the air. Even if he didn't actually kill them, he certainly seemed ready to beat them. And it went without saying that being hit by that would lead to suffering far worse than running. "Shouldn't you be running?"

At first, they'd only run laps around the training ground. Now the axe murderer chased and tormented them from behind. They had to run for their lives. In fact, the whole ordeal was a cycle of falling behind, being beaten, and running again. "Want to kill me? Then do it. Sneak up on me, catch me by surprise, whatever you like. Come at me, comrades."

His cackling words made a few of the soldiers' shoulders tremble. They truly wanted to beat him to death. Bell didn't. No, he couldn't. Running alone left him struggling for breath. After conquering several hills at a full sprint, they reached the training ground.

"Weapons up."

What followed was simple repetition of the fundamentals. "I'll fight you whenever you want. Come on, I'm begging you!"

The axe murderer's taunts continued at intervals. A few soldiers challenged the blond swordsman instead, since he at least seemed calm and manageable. "If we last five exchanges in a spar, we can rest?"

"You'll have proven your ability."

His name was Ragna. And he was, well, not what he seemed. Bell had expected him to hold back. THWACK! CRACK! He couldn't even properly see the wooden sword swing. If it had been steel rather than wood, even without a sharpened edge...

'He'd be fucking dead.'

Looking down at the unconscious challenger, Ragna spoke indifferently.

"Weak." No, for fuck's sake. Wasn't it less that they were weak and more that these bastards were ridiculously strong? The words rose to Bell's throat, but he didn't let them out. "Don't like it? Come at me. Please, someone come at me too. I'm begging you."

The axe murderer's words cooled Bell's temper. Attack him and die. Understood. Sprint at full speed all morning. Eat lunch. Swing weapons with all their strength all afternoon. Simple training. But having to repeat it every single day made it a living hell. "Is he a demon?"

A comrade said it before they fell asleep, and Bell inwardly agreed.

'Demonic bastard.'

Yet they couldn't really complain, either. The man trained longer than they did, and his training was harsher and rougher. "Watch us spar, brothers."

There was Encrid fighting the hulking religious fanatic of a soldier.

"Here comes the axe murderer."

There was his spar with Rem, who had somehow taken to using the soldiers' nickname himself. He fought Ragna and Jaxon too. He put up a valiant fight, but that didn't mean he won. No, he was often beaten even more soundly. Audin kicked his ankle and, in the same motion, struck him with a spinning back kick delivered at a speed no one would have expected from such a massive body. That single blow sent Encrid flying. He became a bird. He flew backward and crashed into the practice swords stacked along one side of the training ground. WHUMP! He landed headfirst in ground turned to mud by days of rain. Wasn't that going to kill him? Sometimes the soldiers were so startled that their hands stopped of their own accord. "You can rest when you're fucking dead."

Then Rem, watching in his role as instructor, would address them. Or the fellow named Jaxon would appear beside them without warning and jab them in the ribs. Keep moving, in other words. Even as their arms moved and their weapons swung reflexively, they couldn't take their eyes off the fallen Encrid. The demon of training and conditioning rose again, looking as though he'd returned from hell. His head was split and bleeding. Dark brown filth dripped from his mud-covered body. Their gazes traveled instinctively from a clump falling from his forearm to his face. Was he all right? They all wondered. "Hmm. That hurt."

And that was what he said. He was insane. Insane about swords.

'Sword lunatic.'

Bell chewed over the thought that suddenly came to him and swallowed it. "It's difficult to hold back as I used to now, Brother Company Commander. Especially when you come at me like that."

Encrid seemed to have crossed some line in his attack. They saw scenes like this almost daily. At first they were shocked, then horrified, and after a month they began to grow accustomed to it. And so, as summer passed and autumn approached, word came that demonic beasts needed clearing out. It interrupted two months of relentless training with no days off, save half a day's rest roughly once every ten days. "The number of demonic beasts in the area has increased lately. Apparently there are horse demonic beasts with fangs. We're going on an extermination operation."

The battalion commander gave the announcement, and they set out under the Second Company Commander's lead. "Whew, fuck. Does this mean no training today?"

It was Platoon Commander Vengeance. His eyes were venomous, and a blade-sharp menace rose from his entire body. A mere two months had changed the man. "We'll be fighting all day, so shouldn't it?"

Bell answered beside him. His own bearing had changed as well. It was either that or desert. There could be nothing more ridiculous than dying in training. "Let's kill those crazy little foals first."

Vengeance waved his longbow as he spoke. He'd grown stronger and been issued a new one. It was half again as large as his old bow, with a sinew string tougher and stronger than any he'd used before. All the archers under him were similarly equipped. Marcus spared no Krona when it came to equipping his troops. That, at least, was very much to their liking. Putting the Lunatic Company Commander in charge of training had been the worst decision, though. "Over there!"

Three soldiers acting as scouts spotted an approaching herd of demonic beasts. Carnivores were usually the ones to become demonic beasts, but herbivores occasionally transformed as well. Horses were the most troublesome of those. With their fangs bared, even their charge was a threat. Their charging bodies were weapons in themselves. "More than ten!"

At the scouts' report, the Second Company Commander shouted:

"Archeeers!"

Vengeance faithfully obeyed. Despite being a company commander himself, the man had participated in the training. He stood by his men. Vengeance had heard the First Company Commander had skipped it. Vengeance's platoon moved at the call for archers.

"Loose!"

As he gave the order, he nocked and drew an arrow himself. The longbow bent with a groaning creak. The days when his muscles screamed were behind him. It had only been two months, but he'd spent them with a demon worse than these fiendish horse beasts baring their fangs and snorting. And those days had not been in vain. FWEEEESH! The arrow sprang from the string and buried itself in a horse beast's head. Both its flight through the air and the thud of its impact bursting the beast's skull were delightfully crisp. The blow snapped its head up. The charging horse fell and rolled across the ground. Vengeance was seized by a strange sensation. It felt as though every fiber of his muscles obeyed his will. His increased strength and the stamina reserves built by brutal training gave him a new perspective. Above all, though it had only been two months, the experience of being pushed to extremes had even given him composure. 'One more shot.'

Enough composure to judge that he still had time despite the charging horse beasts.

"Loose!"

As he drew, the horse beast seemed huge. Its head in particular. His concentration burned brighter than ever. Watching it, he released the string. THRUM-THRUM-THRUM! He drew and released in concert with his men. Their arrows made short work of ten demonic beasts, piercing heads and bodies alike. NEIGH!

A horse beast's dying cry rang out. "More coming!"

Before anyone had time to marvel, a scout's shout rang out. No sooner had they killed ten than another dozen or so charged from behind them. They closed the distance without even giving the archers time to shoot. "Engage!"

The Second Company Commander shouted, and the humans and horse beasts clashed. Two months couldn't produce a tremendous leap in ability. But their strength and stamina had increased, and their concentration had improved. Bell felt it too. His body was light. Besides, weren't horse beasts far easier opponents than a monster like Encrid? "Kill them!"

"Fuck them up!"

"Wipe them out!"

Shouting whatever came to mind, they punched holes in the beasts' skulls and cut through horse muscle hardened by demonic transformation. They thrust spears and swung glaives taken as spoils in the previous battle. WHOOSH! The Second Company Commander swung a glaive as well, with exceptional force. Its blade severed a horse's foreleg. Purple blood gushed out. Monsters had black blood, while demonic beasts could bleed blue or purple. That distinctive blood splattered everywhere. In a sense, the fight was anticlimactic. One infantryman, painted head to toe in blood, spoke.

"... Why are these things so easy?"

He meant it. They had never been in danger. SCREEEE! A griffin swooped at them afterward, but Vengeance's missile troops shot its wings, and the soldiers swarmed it and hacked it to death. It was a creature that could fairly be called a high-tier monster, but they could handle it. After all, it wasn't a whole group. Only one. After the battle, none of them disputed that their abilities had changed. Border Guard's standing army had always lived with battle close at hand. They had already been exceptional fighters, and now they'd gone further still. When the unit returned, Encrid commended them in his own way.

"You haven't run yet today, have you?"

Hunting demonic beasts was one thing, but they still had their running to do. "What a fucking bastard. Seriously."

Bell let out the curse he'd held back all this time. He'd been privately reflecting that this training was what had changed him when Encrid said something so absurd that his true feelings slipped out unchecked. "That's a request to spar, right?"

Curse or talk back, and it counted as a sparring challenge. Rem had made that rule. "It's been a while, Bell."

Encrid nodded and called him forward. There was no backing out now. Nor could he ask him to go easy. If you chose to attack, give it your all. Encrid always stressed that. Now was the time to charge headlong. Training continued. Aside from beating the hell out of Bell, Encrid did what he needed to do. And training wasn't all he did. "He's here. Our first guest."

Krais came to find Encrid before evening. He wasn't tired of the daily repetition of training, but the arrival of a visitor gave him a brief thrill of joy. "A big name right from the start," Krais added.

That sounded promising. Encrid followed him into the marketplace. His opponent was apparently waiting at Vanessa's Pumpkin Inn. As Krais had confidently said, spread the rumors and they would come to him, rather than the other way around. This was the first guest to arrive that way. "Are you him? The fellow they call the War-Ending Soldier?"

A man stood in the training yard behind the inn. Two sword scars stood out on his face. One crossed the bridge of his nose; the other cut a deep furrow through his cheek. It was an imposing face. The weapon in his hand was equally imposing: a morning star with pointed spikes at its head. Every spike looked needle-sharp, and the mass of metal itself looked unusually heavy. "I'm Ivarn."

The man introduced himself, and Krais supplied more from behind Encrid.

"Ivarn the mercenary. He's extremely famous. A city-level fighter, nicknamed 'Ivarn the Constrictor,' apparently." "I think my nickname sounds grander."

Encrid murmured as he looked at his opponent. Krais answered as if that were nothing remarkable.

"Yes, of course. Showy flowers attract bees and butterflies, after all." The nickname in the rumors Krais had deliberately spread was indeed grander. The War-Ending Soldier, the man who had ended a war. Embarrassing though it was, this was what Encrid had wanted. He stepped up before the man. Before he could speak, Ivarn, the mercenary with the strikingly scarred face, spoke first.

"Let's test ourselves against each other."

Encrid nodded.