Chapter 222 - The War-Ending Soldier Who Ended the War

'I don't know what sort of rumors he spread, but...' Encrid saw something deeply objectionable in his opponent's eyes. This did not look like a man who had come simply to test his strength against another fighter. What filled those eyes was greed. Covetousness. "The War-Ending Soldier? Isn't that a little arrogant?"

The mercenary Ivarn raised his morning star as he asked. His stance and manner were threatening. He was ready for combat. 'You know I could crack your skull with this?'

That seemed to be what his body was saying. Yet Encrid simply stood there and answered. "It is."

"Must be pretty confident in your skills, then?"

He looked like the sort to charge in without questions, yet here he was, testing the waters. Encrid disliked that too. "Confident enough."

At the offhand answer, Ivarn furrowed his brow.

"Arrogant fucking prick." The insult was deliberate. A trick of the tongue intended to break his opponent's composure. It was something Encrid excelled at himself. There had been times when survival demanded he wield the blade in his mouth more often than the one at his waist. "Hraaah!"

Repeatedly ignored, Ivarn finally moved. He bounded forward and swung his blunt weapon. This was Ivarn the Constrictor? A city-level fighter?

His approach was so slow. Compared with Rem, it could only be called sluggish. Encrid wasn't quite yawning, but he had plenty of time to spare. Not that he intended to fight halfheartedly.

Once you chose to fight, you gave it your all.

Those were not empty words. Encrid truly lived by them, putting everything he could into everything he did. That was how someone without talent moved forward. Had he faltered even a little in pursuing his dream, he would never have become the man he was today. 'There may be more to him than meets the eye.'

He stayed wary and suspicious. All of this might be part of the man's tactics. Luring an opponent into carelessness was practically an essential skill for a mercenary, wasn't it? WHOOSH! Watching the incoming morning star until the last moment, Encrid stepped his left foot to the side. He turned halfway around and drew his sword. SHING! He swung as he drew. Ivarn hastily tried to pull his weapon back, but trying to arrest its momentum tangled his movements. "Ngh!"

The sword-scarred mercenary clenched his teeth and forced out something like a battle cry. In the end, he released his weapon and threw himself aside. The blade sliced through empty air. Deliberately.

Encrid thought his opponent might feign a dodge and charge, so he kept the swing simple and focused on defense. 'Why isn't he coming?'

He hadn't deliberately left an opening, but surely there was enough room to attack now? "Let's try barehanded."

That was Ivarn's response to losing his weapon.

What was this? Encrid understood instinctively.

'All chaff?' He subsequently learned that the nickname "Ivarn the Constrictor" came from the man's grip strength. But all it left on Encrid's forearm, trained to an absurd degree with the Isolation Technique, was a handprint.

When Encrid then broke his wrist with the exact same technique... "Aaaaagh!"

...all that rang out was a shrill scream.

The man was chaff. His reputation was built on lies. "Hmm."

Watching the fight, Krais swallowed a groan. Some of the company members had come to watch after hearing that their first guest had arrived. Rem shook his head. "We're just going to get a bunch of morons."

Jaxon said nothing. Neither Ragna nor Audin added anything. The plan had been to bring strong fighters here because Encrid wanted to travel the world and meet them. Instead, they had drawn chaff. "Want to keep going?"

Encrid asked Ivarn, whose wrist was broken.

"No! I don't!"

Ivarn was terrified. Even Bell could probably fight someone at this level. With that thought, Encrid turned away. "Don't be too disappointed. They say the adventure only begins once you leave the village, don't they?"

Krais meant that the beginning and the end couldn't happen at once. There was a related proverb in the east, too. Something about not filling your belly with the first bite. Encrid nodded absently, thinking.

Rem was fierce and feral. Jaxon threatened his life with casual indifference. Ragna pressed him with swordsmanship and excelled at the game of moves and countermoves. Audin possessed extraordinary natural strength and exceptional control over his body.

Despite having such men around him, Encrid craved new experiences. 'Something is missing.'

He was trying to gain something different. To fill that gap. The craving was almost instinctive. But his first opponent was, how to put it...

'Chaff.'

An idiot had come. Was he disappointed? No. He would never let something this trivial disappoint him. When it came to waiting and enduring, he might well be the best on the continent. "It's fine." Of those who came afterward, four in five were much the same: chaff. They were fools coveting Encrid's fame. "If I beat you, do I get made Company Commander on the spot?"

"You fought with that body? You look reasonably trained, but not enough."

"Not drawing your sword? You won't blame me if you die, then?" Encrid seasoned the meal Krais had laid before him to his own taste. Anyone who came at him with half-baked skills went away with one broken arm or leg. Some were mercenaries of modest renown. One claimed to be a wandering swordsman pursuing self-improvement, while another loudly boasted that he had once been a squire. Still, most were mercenaries. Quite a few coveted the epithet "the War-Ending Soldier who ended the war." Seven more guests came after that, but finding anything to learn from them was difficult. Many were quite literally worse than the soldiers. Only one made a reasonably good opponent. "Beastman. Barakal."

The Beastman's command of human speech was poor, but his natural athletic ability was extraordinary. For Encrid, he was one of the rare opponents worth facing. The Beastman used claws, bladed weapons shaped like pointed nails jutting from the backs of his hands, and was highly skilled at unconventional attacks. He would raise a knee to draw the eye, then sweep a claw down from overhead, or charge with his body lowered almost to the ground. His natural athleticism made such things possible. Encrid watched, experienced, and learned. It was time well spent. Though he wasn't repeating today, these were days spent absorbing, hammering out, and honing all he had accumulated.

The absence of threats or walls changed nothing. He lived as though he were repeating today all the same.

* * *

Rem was riding Dunbachel hard. No, it had gone beyond that.

"Do it properly or you die, Beastman."

What he had initially treated as a game now sometimes carried killing intent. Why wouldn't it? Did watching the Captain beside her make her feel nothing? The damned Beastman couldn't even control her own strength properly.

What was the answer, then? Push someone to the edge of a cliff and shove, and they'd put their strength into not dying, wouldn't they?

That was what Rem did. He also realized something in the process.

'She's talented.'

Her innate physical abilities were on another level. There were flashes of brilliance in how she used her body. In that respect, she was a little different from Encrid. No, very different. Her head was full of idiocy, but her body was exceptional, which made teaching her entertaining.

Not that this Beastman would ever turn out like the Captain. "I'm gonna die."

Put her through the wringer a few times, and she said that and passed out. Endurance? Willpower? If those things could be measured, the gap between her and Encrid would be enormous. After half killing Dunbachel, Rem thought of Encrid. He felt the man's skills had improved considerably by now. Enough that going easy on him as he once had was becoming awkward. Enough that the slightest lapse in attention forced him to get serious. As he gauged Encrid's growth, a word came to mind.

"A knight, huh."

The path Encrid sought to walk was open to Rem as well. Of course, it wasn't knighthood or whatever they called it on this side of the continent. Rem's tribe had its own ways. Lately, he had been doing an uncharacteristic amount of thinking. That was why he drove Dunbachel even harder. By pushing her, he was pushing himself. It was something that helped him. "Are you mad? Lying down? Sleeping? Are you actually sleeping right now? In the middle of training?"

At his haranguing, Dunbachel reluctantly got up. If anyone told her this devil had actually come out of the Demonic Realm, she would agree wholeheartedly.

* * *

The War-Ending Soldier who ended the war.

"So this bastard's the one." One of the key officials of the Cult of the Sacred Demonic Realm, which had been conducting all manner of schemes in northern Penn-Hanil, muttered inside a small pub. He occupied a worn wooden table. It was early, and the pub held few patrons. A picture of Encrid's face lay on the table. 'The bastard who keeps interfering with our work.'

The man who had destroyed the Knoll colony at Pioneer Village and ultimately killed their Cultist. The man who had also killed the Manticore and its handler when they were sent to assassinate him.

'An obstacle.' The evil cult's official made his decision. As it happened, hadn't he heard that this obstacle was spreading strange rumors and inviting people to come find him?

"Go kill him." The Cultist gave the order. Their side had fighters capable of destroying a Knoll colony, too. They had more than enough strength for that. And, of course, they had strength beyond it as well. At his command, the woman across the table rose. Her shoulders were twice as broad as other men's, and her thighs were as thick as logs. Her eyes were so narrow that their pupils were barely visible; her lips were narrower still. She was a warrior raised by the evil cult, a sword wielder who had reached her present position through physical ability alone, with no talent for spells. "Yes."

The female warrior stood up. She was so tall she looked like a Giant. In fact, Giants' blood flowed through her body. The Cult of the Sacred Demonic Realm had put that blood into her through experimentation. Setting Will aside, her physical ability and combat strength were easily...

'At the level of a proto knight.' She would have more than enough strength to kill this Encrid, then. There was no need to send an assassin. If he was spreading rumors to gather people who would kill him, they would oblige.

They would let him die fighting, just as he wished.

* * *

The Black Blade Bandits understood the importance of reputation better than anything else.

"We can't let this end with us getting beaten and slinking away, can we? Even if we retreat, we can't just pull out." Word of Marcus's trickery had already reached Black Blade's headquarters. And one of the bandits sent from headquarters devised something similar to the Cultists' plan. 'What if we kill the man Marcus put forward?'

Several nobles had connections reaching all the way to the capital. Black Blade had contracts with them. This would weaken Marcus's position. It was the fulfillment of a contract. If necessary, he was prepared to kill Marcus as well. But first, he would slit the throat of the man who had stepped forward.

Just as he resolved to do so, the man hiding in Border Guard began behaving strangely. The rumors of the War-Ending Soldier who ended the war had reached here, too. "Come if you want a fight, is that it?"

The Black Blade Bandits had plenty of skilled fighters. Headquarters decided to send one of them. He was a plain-looking man with brown hair, nicknamed Swallow Blade. He had earned the name through the wondrous tricks he performed with a single sword. "Why don't you go take care of a job?"

He was the sort to plunge a sword into someone's throat with a smile. A deranged pervert who found ecstasy in murder. "Sure."

The Black Blade official sent Swallow Blade. Swallow Blade had once been a squire. He was widely described as an ill-fated genius expelled for committing too many murders. Had he not joined the Black Blade Bandits, he would have died long ago. 'Keeping him around has cost us a fair amount of gold.'

They had placated nobles intent on killing him, and spent plenty of Krona hiding him and giving him what he wanted. But wasn't the point of honing a blade to use it?

Now they could put him to use. The Cultists and Black Blade weren't the only ones sending people. Several under Count Molsen's command also made their move. "What an amusing business. Is there no warrior willing to go and prove that the Count's blade is greater than his?"

At the Count's words, two of his children and one warrior stepped forward. One was the man Encrid had bested before. "I will go."

He made no effort to stop his son from volunteering. Whether the impression was good or bad, he needed to make his own presence known. That wasn't the end of it. News of Encrid also reached a place entirely unconnected to Count Molsen, Black Blade, or the Cultists. "He's improved that much?"

It was the rapier swordsman who had been unable to give his name during the Roquefried trading company escort mission. Out of habit, he brushed a hand over where his mustache had been. Now that he had shaved it clean, his hand felt oddly empty with nothing to catch. "That's what they say."

He had just finished various matters. In other words, he had some time to spare. 'Should I stop by?'

He had been certain the man would improve no further. If Encrid had suddenly improved that much, he might even have sold his soul to a demon somewhere. He couldn't simply stand by and let that happen. There was pure curiosity, too. Just how had he changed? Besides, it was on their way, wasn't it? "We'd have to make quite a detour, though?"

His subordinate spoke. The rapier swordsman stared at the map for a long while, then asked in return,

"Looks like it's on our way?" It wasn't. Not at all. The subordinate thought for a moment before answering.

"Yes, it is."

Everyone nodded in agreement. They must have realized they could hardly refuse him, given his force of personality and position. This was a chance to clear their heads. Such a stiff bunch.

Thinking that, the man set off. He was intensely curious to see how much Encrid had changed.

* * *

After Encrid beat Ivarn, quite a few mercenaries came to visit. At first, he accepted every one of them, but... "This seems like a waste of time. We'll have to make it a rule that they beat someone at least as good as Bell before you'll fight them."

Watching from the side, Krais neatly settled the matter. They did as he suggested. "Next!"

During training, not only Bell but several other soldiers stepped forward. Sometimes a soldier lost, in which case someone of Platoon Commander caliber took over. If that fighter seemed likely to lose, someone of Company Commander caliber stepped in. "You'll never get there with that much skill!"

The Second Company Commander shouted, a sword cut on his cheek. "Whoa!"

"That's our man!"

"Palto! Palto!"

These unexpected cheers had become a daily occurrence. For Allen, the innkeeper, what had initially been bewildering had also become routine.

"More beer!"

He was kept busy selling drinks to the spectators. The days seemed likely to pass without anything unusual happening. Then a warrior appeared who defeated even Second Company Commander Palto. "I've never heard the name before, but the skill is extraordinary. And she's a woman."

And so the female warrior stood before Encrid. They were in the training yard behind the inn. By now, numerous merchants from around the marketplace had also come to watch. "A Giant?"

Encrid asked as he looked at his opponent. He had never seen anyone taller than Audin before, but the fact that she was a woman made it even more surprising. "Mixed blood."

Her voice was husky, but unmistakably female. Encrid raised his sword, its point facing upward, his weight centered over the middle of his soles. Instinct told him this opponent would be anything but easy. The woman raised her own weapons. A sword and a shield. The shield was solid iron.

Her equipment alone made it clear: she possessed monstrous strength.