Chapter 231 - Are You Sure You Won’t Visit a Temple?

Today, a wall, a threat, a crisis, a hurdle, an obstacle.

Just as there were many names for it, there was more than one way to overcome it.

There was one particularly easy way.

The temple-spawned demon, the axe wielder, the sly assassin, the prickly panther mage, the lazy swordsman.

His companions. His subordinates.

If he told them to follow him, several would gladly oblige. Their presence alone would make the threat cease to be a threat.

Even without their help, there were plenty of paths open to him. Ultimately, he simply had to avoid being cut. He could keep fighting until he won without taking a cut.

Thanks to the curse, even death only brought Encrid back to live today again. He might well be called the soldier who lived only for today.

He need only repeat it, again and again, countless times. Eventually, that repetition would open the door.

But none of those possibilities lingered in his mind.

Some people, once they found a goal, looked at nothing else as they pressed forward. Encrid took that tendency to its extreme.

Above all, the wall seemed to be taunting him to climb over it.

Even if there were hundreds of ways.

Even if there were an easier path.

Even if there were a faster path.

Encrid possessed the stubborn resolve to head for the destination he had chosen. That was why people said his head was broken.

'That is insulting, though.'

It was hardly something Rem, of all people, had any right to say. Nor did he want to hear it from the ferryman.

One enjoyed beating his superior or hacking at him with an axe. The other trapped people in “today” and enjoyed watching them go mad, didn’t he?

Neither was in any position to comment on anyone else’s mental state.

Of course, Encrid would never accept the charge, no matter who said it.

'My head is broken?'

Ridiculous. He was an ordinary man who simply had a clear dream.

In any case.

["What? So you had it all along?"]

["You already possessed it?"]

["If you have it, you might survive. Whew, thank goodness!"]

["Ah, you gave me a fright."]

Those were the reactions he received when he spoke calmly after being cut by the Shepherd’s sword. Remarks like those left him no choice but to ask what, exactly, he was supposed to possess. So he asked. That was how he had heard the word.

["Will."]

The Shepherd had said it, and Encrid had felt the need for it.

Something barred the path he wanted to walk.

As he felt along the wall before him, he had glimpsed a clue. Sensed it.

Faintly, but unmistakably.

He had just returned to the quarters after sorting through his thoughts throughout his Isolation Technique practice.

It was a day of bright sunshine, blue skies, and white clouds. With that splendid sky behind him through the doorway, Encrid raised his left hand.

“Will. Who can use it?”

For a moment, everyone fell silent.

* * *

As a mage, Esther the panther naturally ignored him.

There went that man, spouting nonsense first thing in the morning again. Nothing unusual about that.

“Grrr.”

Esther voiced her opinion with a soft rumble in her throat, then rolled on the soft fur beneath her.

Krais had acquired it for her a while back. He was also the one who had been most horrified to see her turn human.

["Why? Why are you turning into a person? You were a panther."]

["Insolent human."]

After she said that to his face, Krais had gone deathly pale and brought her all sorts of things. This was one of them.

An animal sitting on another animal’s fur might have looked rather odd, but Esther was content.

Warming hide was nice, but nothing beat a soft cushion.

That accounted for the one indifferent beast. The others each had their own circumstances.

Strictly speaking, Rem could not claim to wield Will.

'That’s what the people on this continent use.'

He could, however, reach a similar destination by other means.

Possessing a knight’s martial might was an entirely different matter from possessing Will, but would Encrid accept that explanation?

Encrid had been explicit. He was not asking how to reach the destination. He had spoken that one precise word: Will.

Rem considered it briefly before answering. He had one boot on and had stopped halfway through putting on the other. That was how much the question had given him to think about.

“Count me out.”

He could manage something similar by a method other than Will. But whatever the case, no meant no.

Having answered, Rem bent over and finished putting on his boot.

Jaxon had never been a knight, never wanted to be one, and never trained to awaken Will.

Still, when he saw fighters on the level of proto knights, he sensed something instinctively. Something vaguely similar existed within him too. But was it Will? Was it the “willpower” they spoke of?

He did not know. He could hardly teach something he did not properly understand himself.

Jaxon shook his head.

Audin’s body held divine power, and it was said that nothing unholy could enter a body that housed it.

“Unholy” did not encompass only things that were harmful or evil. Humans awakening a power of their own through willpower was also unholy in the eyes of God.

It could not be called wrong, but it was not a path for someone who had first embraced divine power. Indeed, those who awakened divine power first forged a path in their own way to attain the rank of knight; they did not awaken Will.

The same was true of Audin. Divine power was enough for him.

“Are you growing impatient, brother?”

It was a gentle question. No wonder Encrid had looked so deep in thought throughout their physical training with the Isolation Technique.

Even so, he had applied himself faithfully to the technique.

Encrid was an ascetic who confronted and challenged his limits every single day. That was how Audin saw him, at least. He broke through the limits of his body’s talent and pressed onward as if it were nothing.

This was something such a man wanted. Audin wanted to give it to him. But he could not offer what he did not possess.

'Embracing divine power would be faster.'

Without devout faith, however, it would only get in the way.

Audin shook his head as well.

“I’m not impatient.”

Encrid’s voice was clear. At some point, he had lowered his hand. His arms hung naturally and his shoulders were relaxed. He was not tense, nor did he look impatient, just as he said.

Only Ragna remained.

Encrid’s voice had woken him. Sleeping late was something of a trademark of his.

The blond man shook his head, sleep still crusting his eyes.

“You’re shedding dandruff, you lazy bastard.”

Ignoring Rem’s grumbling, Ragna spoke.

“I can teach you if you want, but it’ll be a waste of time.”

“Why?”

Encrid asked from where he stood.

Ragna continued matter-of-factly.

“To explain, it’s like how your hair is black, Captain, and mine is blond.”

He gave a slight nod, seemingly impressed with his own words. He appeared to think he had put it remarkably well.

How to put it?

That explanation was pure dogshit.

“You call that an explanation?”

Rem, the second-greatest authority on shitty explanations, stepped in to rebuke him.

Jaxon snorted with laughter, and Audin turned his head, pretending not to notice. That single snort set sparks flying between Rem and Jaxon again.

“If you’re going to fight, take it outside.”

In the past, Encrid had cluelessly stepped between them and blocked them with his body. He had known nothing back then.

Now, a glance told him whether they were really going to fight or merely demonstrating their displeasure with each other.

This was a demonstration.

Ragna resumed in the same plain tone.

“Even if you dye your hair blond, your natural color will grow back. And even two shades of blond will differ subtly. In the end, you have to live with your own hair.”

If this bastard didn’t know how to use a sword, Encrid would have dumped him somewhere long ago.

He couldn’t find his way anywhere, his explanations were a mess, he was lazy, and he wasn’t particularly perceptive either.

But put a sword in his hand, and he was a white crane soaring alone above a flock of chickens.

No, not a white crane. A golden one?

All that emphasis on blond hair had prompted the thought.

“How about showing me instead of talking?”

Encrid’s sweat had yet to cool. Seeing that, Ragna slowly got up.

“All right.”

The two went outside.

Rem and Jaxon also ended their demonstration by exchanging blessings.

“Catch a pox and die, you bastard.”

That was Rem’s blessing for Jaxon, who frequented the red-light district.

“I pray you die before the year is out.”

That was Jaxon’s blessing.

Audin watched fondly as the pair encouraged each other.

“What are you looking at, you big bear?”

Naturally, Rem’s ire spilled over onto him too, but he ignored it. A sulking Rem was more dangerous than a dog in heat.

“Let us go. Come watch as well, Sister Dunbachel. Sister Pin has been away quite often lately.”

“She said she’s busy.”

Krais answered, and everyone went outside.

They saw Encrid and Ragna just bringing their wooden practice swords together.

“I don’t know how to use intimidation.”

Ragna spoke with their swords still touching.

Telling him to explain with his blade rather than his tongue had been exactly the right choice. Encrid was thinking that very thing. How could he not, with a demonstration like this unfolding before him?

“But I can do this.”

WHOOSH.

Ragna’s wooden sword vanished. That was how it looked to Encrid. It was that fast. A long afterimage lingered like the flash left by lightning, but he could not track the movement as it happened.

SNICK.

That was all he heard.

The result of that invisible wooden sword’s passage remained in Encrid’s hand: his own sword, cut in half.

A wooden sword had cut through another wooden sword.

Encrid could do that too. But not like this.

It had not snapped the wood. It had sliced through it, with only a snick, at a speed he could not possibly respond to.

Ragna had said he could not use intimidation, but his presence felt similar.

With that single swing of a wooden sword, Encrid had felt something explosive burst from him for an instant.

Looking into Ragna’s eyes, he found them like jewels radiating light.

“Scission.”

The same thing Ragna had told him to learn before. Afterward, he had told Encrid to master Steel Cut and Lion Cut for that purpose.

“This is my Will as it stands now.”

There were things mere sparring could not reveal.

Encrid asked, and he listened. However poorly the speaker expressed himself, the truth within his words did not change. And with the listener’s ears and mind open, understanding was difficult, but possible.

Above all, Rem, Audin, and Jaxon offered advice as they watched.

What was Will?

Willpower. That was its foundation. But if it was nothing more than willpower, how did Will allow humans to transcend their limits? Why had it become the hallmark of a knight?

An intangible power forged from willpower.

That was what they called Will.

“It differs from person to person. Like hair color.”

Ragna repeated the comparison, evidently quite pleased with it.

Yes. Now Encrid understood.

Will could not be taught.

One could offer the beginnings of insight through a process called baptism, or help someone who had reached a wall. But that baptism could not awaken Will for them.

Awakening it and learning to use it were separate matters, too.

Baptism could help one learn its use, but could not bring about awakening. Still, one could learn.

Through repeated exposure, one might come to feel it. That, Ragna said, was the purpose of baptism.

“To achieve Scission, I practiced Lion Cut and Steel Cut more than a thousand times a month, at the very least.”

Judging by the words of the abundantly talented Ragna:

'Will isn’t taught. You awaken it yourself.'

That might make it an exceedingly long road, but he had also heard mention of baptism along the way.

“Baptism.”

Not in the original sense used by temples.

An intangible power forged from willpower. Someone fashioned a technique from that power, and you were exposed to it.

“To awaken Will, squires in a knight order receive baptism once a month at most. Usually, it’s about once every three months.”

“Isn’t that too infrequent?”

“Even at that rate, some look ready to go mad. That’s what makes that rapier wielder’s intimidation so dangerous.”

Why had Rem and the others reacted so sharply to the proto knight Aesia’s intimidation before?

This was why.

“Resisting baptism is a way to acquire Will by force.”

Ragna knew a surprising amount. Enough to make Encrid wonder why he hadn’t explained it this way from the start.

“Why the hair-color comparison?”

“To make it easier to understand.”

Encrid inwardly wished he would abandon any such efforts, but nodded in acknowledgment.

He could not dismiss someone else’s efforts as worthless. Even if not today, surely those efforts would bear fruit someday.

Just as he was learning the sword, Ragna might be learning something too. How to talk, for instance, or how to find his way around.

“What are you grinning about?”

Rem asked, watching him closely. Encrid rubbed his face.

'Ah, I was smiling without realizing it.'

He couldn’t help it.

He had been told that even with baptism, even if he endured it, that alone would not let him acquire Will. That even grasping a tiny clue was difficult.

That was why Encrid smiled.

He felt he had already glimpsed something.

It would not be an easy road. Of course not. He understood that too.

So what? When had it ever been easy?

For Encrid, the sword, his dream, had never been an easy path.

The Shepherd had said he needed Will to overcome the unknown power of the blade.

The answer was not far away.

The repeating today. The sword in the Shepherd’s hand. That was his baptism, his opportunity.

Something he had already experienced more than eighty times.

There had been nothing he could do while ignorant, but now, through the explanation, he had gained a vague understanding.

Sixth Sense and intuition were equally invisible. What had he known when he learned those?

Had it not been much the same when he honed his senses and unlocked Sixth Sense, or when he broke through the trap created by a spell?

Then why not do the same this time?

How could he resist an invisible power? He didn’t know.

The path? He couldn’t see it.

Was that a problem?

No. It was not.

Encrid smiled. He intended to put himself through hell until he died. No, even as he died. However arduous that road might be, he could smile.

It would lift him one step higher.

Watching Encrid’s smile closely, Rem spoke with sober concern.

“Are you sure you won’t visit a temple?”