Chapter 224 - A Bumper Harvest

As soon as they returned to their quarters, Jaxon brought out some ointment. Pin spread it from its little wooden tub evenly over Encrid's body, while Krais wrapped the bandages.

"I thought you were going to bite the dust."

Krais spoke as he deftly wound the bandages.

"That happens when you hold back."

Krais let out an incredulous laugh at Encrid's reply.

"Didn't you see that woman's arms? They were thicker than our brother's!"

He glanced at Audin as he spoke. In other words, how could Encrid talk about holding back after seeing those?

"The size of your arms doesn't prove your skill."

Encrid's expression didn't change. He didn't even seem to be in pain.

No point talking to you. None at all.

Krais conveyed that with his eyes, then took his hands away. The dangerous wounds had more or less been tended to.

"Well, um. Don't take it to heart, even if things didn't go well."

Pin offered some encouragement from beside him. She still didn't understand Encrid.

Someone eager to improve would also have a fierce desire to win. Yes, that was usually the case. And Encrid wasn't without that desire. From what Pin had seen of her company commander, he wasn't particularly fond of losing. She wasn't wrong about that.

But things were a little different this time. Defeat wasn't the issue. Encrid had learned a great deal fighting the half-Giant warrior.

Something mattered more than losing. More than dying.

The fulfillment that slaked his seething thirst. The satisfaction of knowing he was walking toward tomorrow.

'Again tomorrow.'

Besides, it wasn't over. He wasn't dead, either. They had simply parted with a promise of tomorrow. Rather than dwelling on his defeat, Encrid was thrilled to have looked back on the road he had traveled and glimpsed the road ahead.

In short, he was delighted that he could fight again tomorrow. It showed on his face. A laugh, a smile escaped him. Seeing it, Pin cautiously rose from her crouch, turned away, and mouthed a question.

"Did he hurt his head, too?"

There was no answer. Audin, who had been watching quietly, stepped forward. The bear of a monster approached Encrid and lowered himself onto one knee to meet his eyes.

Was he going to use his divine power? With one eye bandaged, Encrid looked at him.

"Do you enjoy being beaten, brother?" Audin asked.

Of course he didn't. The answer was obvious, which meant Audin's real point was still to come. Was this his way of scolding him? It seemed so. That was how it felt.

"No one can dodge every attack. What should you do, then?"

Apparently not expecting an answer, Audin continued immediately.

"If you grow so drunk on the pleasure of having your body obey you that you stop here, you will find it difficult to take the next step, brother."

As he spoke, he tapped his temple with his index finger.

Encrid didn't grasp his meaning at once. He merely sensed that there was something to be gained from those words. So instead of speaking, he turned them over in his mind.

The religious monster stepped back, and the axe-wielding monster took his place.

"You don't need to lose in strength, either. Don't sustain it. Let it explode."

This brought no instant understanding, either. Encrid simply pondered it.

Then came Jaxon's advice.

"It hurts less when you know the blow is coming."

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

That was Ragna's question.

That last question, at least, he could answer.

"Very much."

Ragna gave a faint smile at Encrid's heartfelt reply.

Encrid smiled too, bandages covering one eye and his cheek. Ragna felt that merely seeing that smile could set a person's heart surging. Why wouldn't it? Watching Encrid fight like that had rekindled his own motivation.

It had been a very long time since he had felt this way. He wanted to swing his sword. With or without an opponent, he simply wanted to enjoy it. The sword, the present, each moment.

And so he wanted to tell his captain the same thing. To enjoy himself.

Encrid replied that he already was.

Ragna left their quarters and went straight to the private training yard. As he swung his sword, several soldiers nearby were doing much the same. One even spotted him and asked outright for a spar.

"I'd like to have a go against you. May I?"

Some people refused to break, no matter how badly they were beaten during training. Ragna hadn't noticed them before, but now he could see them. People like this would grow. They would advance. They would learn more.

"All right."

He didn't refuse. He gave the man a thoroughly earnest beating.

Ragna enjoyed today. That made him profoundly happy. Such moments were rare. He was content that it had become a rewarding day, one he could take pride in.

* * *

Encrid lay still and did nothing but breathe.

A regenerative body: by continually honing the body anew, one could make most wounds heal in no time. What was needed to improve the body's ability to regenerate? First, a well-trained physique.

Even at rest, an invigorated body naturally circulated blood swiftly throughout itself. That circulation helped heal wounds. This was why developing muscle and strength improved recovery: the heart tended to grow stronger along with the muscles. He had learned this firsthand through training in the Isolation Technique.

Next came proper nutrition. Food supplied the energy the body needed. Hadn't Audin said it over and over? You had to eat well for your muscles to grow. You had to eat well for rest to do any good.

Encrid had done just that. He had eaten well after returning to their quarters: finely ground meat formed into patties and pan-fried with vegetables. A meat dish with potatoes and firm root vegetables. Filling, plentiful meals were no longer beyond his means.

["Order whatever you want to eat, and take whatever you need."]

Marcus had said that after the fighting ended. He had put it more elegantly, of course, but the meaning was the same.

So Encrid ate well and rested well. He felt no pressure, either. And then there was Esther.

The Lake Panther climbed into his arms, her eyes calling him a foolish human.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Encrid scratched her head with his fingers as she settled into his arms. Esther didn't object.

They were more like friends or comrades than a man and a woman. That was how Encrid treated her, and Esther released her mana without making any particular show of it. It wasn't a healing spell, but the stimulation of mana naturally affected the body. She did what she could for him.

For all these reasons, his rapid recovery was only natural. But Dunbachel, who knew none of this, widened her eyes at how quickly he was healing.

"You're up already?"

He was getting that battered body out of bed after just one day? How could she not be astonished?

She knew what it was like, having taken beatings from Rem herself. She felt as though they would leave her damaged deep inside. That didn't mean she intended to run away, but there was no escaping the misery and pain.

Being Beastmen didn't make them accustomed to pain or particularly good at enduring it. Their race fought using innate athletic ability and reflexes. They couldn't be as insensitive as Giants.

Dunbachel had told Rem this over and over. Naturally, he hadn't so much as snorted.

["Right, twice the beating today."]

That was all he said.

["I thought this was training, not violence?"]

Hadn't that bastard Rem said it himself every time? That he didn't want to hit her, either, that it was simply necessary for training? Yet sometimes he seemed to forget that and let his true feelings show.

["Oh, right. Training. Let's train. Twice as much."]

Then he would shamelessly gloss over it in plain sight. Of course, Dunbachel couldn't take him to task for it.

Encrid answered as he twisted his torso from side to side at the waist.

"My ribs are still a little uncomfortable. Have you gotten any better in the meantime, former bandit?"

The words "former bandit" rankled, but Dunbachel wasn't in a position to complain.

"A little."

"That must be exciting."

What was he talking about? What was exciting? Desperately struggling to stay alive? She couldn't understand him.

Encrid was out of bed after exactly one day.

'The ribs have mostly knitted together.'

They weren't completely healed, but lying around made him restless.

What if that warrior simply left? Where she had come from no longer figured in his thoughts. All he could think about was that someone who could fight him was here, and he wanted to fight her again while she remained.

With that attitude, he deserved to be called a lunatic, but Encrid wasn't conscious of it. No, it would be more accurate to say that he had no time to think about it.

There were geniuses. There were brilliant minds and gifted prodigies. There were people born with talent. To reach a place that even the geniuses among them struggled to attain, to climb to those heights, ordinary desperation wasn't enough. Madness was necessary.

Fortunately, Encrid had achieved all this without being conscious of it. Anyone who knew his inner workings and circumstances would have been astonished. But no one could read everything inside him now. They could guess, but they couldn't know it all.

After a good sleep, Encrid put his clear head to work. More precisely, he thought as he walked. Ever since childhood, he had taken walks to untangle his thoughts when he got stuck.

As he trudged toward the marketplace, the answer to the question still tickling one corner of his mind came into view. This was no lightning flash of insight. If he had to describe it, it was an understanding that crept in like a gentle rising tide, its waters reaching his ankles before he knew it.

'Had I grown arrogant?'

What his company members had taught him had awakened his body. It had given him talent he hadn't possessed before. That was how it felt. Could that have also poisoned him? Had he thought he no longer needed to deliberate as hard as before?

Audin had been telling him to return to his original mindset. Think, then think again. Encrid did just that as he walked.

The warrior's attacks had been fast, powerful, and precise. They weren't easy to dodge.

["It hurts less when you know the blow is coming."]

Jaxon had told him to know the blow was coming.

'Read it with my senses.'

Trying to track everything by eye would leave him too slow. Had he grown confident in his ability to track movement? Because his body had changed? Even though it was still inadequate? Even though stopping here would turn his dream of knighthood into a mirage that simply dispersed?

No storm raged within him, nor did some tidal wave crash over him. He simply kept thinking.

'Open all five senses, and throw my Sixth Sense wide open, too.'

Had he done that, he would have read the first shield shove before it came.

So many of his challengers had been worthless that he had trapped himself in the well of his own experience. He broke out of it. It would have been exceedingly difficult for an ordinary person, but Encrid was accustomed to shattering his limits. Wasn't he more accustomed to it than anyone else in the world?

'Let it explode.'

The heart of the beast gave him courage. The Heart of the Superhuman increased his strength. Was he right to use that heart the same way he sustained his courage? No. Hadn't he already half understood this?

'From instant to instant.'

Release that tremendous strength in short, discrete bursts. Since he couldn't yet sustain the Heart of the Superhuman for an entire fight, that was the right approach. Break it into finer and finer intervals than before.

He didn't think it was impossible. Whether it worked or not, he would try. All of this was part of the way his thoughts flowed naturally.

'Catch it with Sixth Sense.'

Then make his heart explode in that instant.

He reached the marketplace while conducting his Review and working out how to fight.

"The mood's oddly tense."

"Not one of them looks like a pushover."

"I heard Bell nearly had his leg broken."

Picking individual voices out of the murmur, he gathered that something had happened. Only then did Encrid realize that he hadn't seen Rem or any of the others today. They were all here. They had gathered in this place.

"So this is where everyone went."

He muttered to himself as he walked, and people who recognized him made way.

"You're here, sir?"

First a soldier.

"Uh, already? Are you well enough?"

Then the cobbler.

"Have some jerky, at least."

Even a woman who ran a little shop.

He threaded his way through them. This was the central crossroads between the four inns that symbolized Border Guard. The road was blocked. He could see several carriages at a standstill.

Trading companies passed along this road. It couldn't be left blocked like this. He looked ahead to see what was causing it.

There was the woman from yesterday. Perhaps thanks to the hardiness of Giants, her minor wounds were no longer visible. Standing motionless, her sword planted upright in the ground and her shield propped beside it, she reminded him of a statue.

Several other faces stood beside her.

"Well, I'm called Swallow Blade. Anyone here know that nickname? I came to have a go at this War-Ending Soldier or whatever he's called."

He had thin eyebrows, and the corners of his mouth curled upward in a persistent grin. Something about his face was unpleasant. The smile didn't seem genuine.

A single sword hung at his waist, apparently an arming sword of moderate length. Encrid noticed his thick leather belt, and one look at his stance told him this was no ordinary man. His forearms alone showed how well trained his body was.

And this Swallow Blade fellow wasn't the only one.

"A gathering of nobodies. I am Edin Molsen, son of Count Molsen! I have come to test my skill against Encrid, commander of the Independent Company!"

A blond man stepped forward boldly. They had met before. He was the coachman from that day. More precisely, Count Molsen's son. Beside him stood a younger fellow with similar features, and behind the pair was a long-faced man.

'Not bad.'

The man who appeared to be their bodyguard looked quite capable. Edin Molsen also looked better now than he had standing beside the Count. That was Encrid's assessment.

And finally:

"So the fellow's too injured to come out?"

With the mustache gone, Encrid didn't recognize him at first. A second look made the face familiar. At once, a name came to mind: Leona Roquefried.

'That swordsman from back then?'

He had seemed a master of the Swift Sword. The man who had told Encrid to give up the sword entirely. Hadn't he been a guard for the faction of the Roquefried trading company opposing Leona?

"Just wait, all of you. If you don't like it, you can play with my axe. He had a proper scrap yesterday, but he'll be back out today, won't he? Our captain's a little broken up here."

Rem stood among them, pointing at his head. He even twirled his finger beside his ear.

'That bastard.'

Encrid had no reason to hide. People around him recognized him and cleared a path.

"You all came to see me?"

Well. How should he put this?

The moment he saw every gaze settle on him, Encrid understood how a farmer felt.

It was a bumper harvest.

Every one of them looked comparable to the half-Giant. And every one of them had come to see him.