Chapter 291 - Duty and Responsibility (3)

["I doubt you attacked because you wanted to die."]

The leader spoke. Encrid listened to find out what he could possibly have to say now. He was trying to win him over, asking him to join his band and rob people under him. Oh, and hadn't he demanded that Encrid service him at night, too?

He couldn't remember. His memories came in fragments, especially those of this part. All he could see were the bastards in front of him with dogs' heads. They looked like dogs in heat.

They snickered among themselves. Their mouths split and stretched all the way to their ears. His vision blurred. Among them, the leader approached, flicking his tongue from his dog's head. Everyone had been subdued. Normally, as he always had before, Encrid should have held out for another chance.

He only had to stay alive. Then tomorrow would come. Another opportunity might come with it. Just as his thoughts turned from today to tomorrow, he saw the child's corpse and heard the leader's words.

The man seemed to say something more afterward, but Encrid wasn't listening. The last thing he remembered was a dog-headed man stripping the dead child.

Why was he taking her clothes off? WHOOSH.

Valen Mercenary Sword Technique. The Hiltless Blade. Encrid held only the blade of a knife, its hilt removed. Blood poured from his torn palm, but no one realized that the blade in his hand was responsible.

He drove it in. THUNK.

He stabbed deep.

CRUNCH.

Then twisted. THWACK!

The leader swung his fist. The blow lifted Encrid off his feet and sent him flying sideways. He landed shoulder-first, wrenching the joint. His left arm felt as though it were dangling loose. He raised his head from where he lay. The leader was clutching his belly with one hand. The dogs' heads had all vanished, leaving their real faces. ["You son of a bitch. If you want to die that badly, fine. Die."] ["Ger, now."]

Encrid worked magic with his tongue. He spoke as though he could see Ger alive behind the leader, swinging his axe. The startled leader ducked and rolled forward.

Of course, Ger wasn't there. He was already dead. A dead man rising to swing a sword would be undead. He would have to become a zombie or a skeleton soldier first. Encrid smirked at the sight. Savage killing intent filled the leader's eyes. His sudden movement had opened the wound in his belly farther, and blood streamed out. ["You won't die easy."]

It wasn't as though he'd lived easy, either. A fitting end, really. Encrid felt indifferent. He had done everything he could. All that remained was to bite anyone who came near him.

And he intended to. 'This feels so...'

Fucking awful. Like dogshit. A goddamn nightmare. He hadn't been skilled enough to protect a little girl whose dream was to die far from home. Two comrades were dead. Villagers were dead. He would die, too. ["What the hell did that bastard put his faith in, acting up like that?"]

One of the bandits spoke. ["I'm not religious."]

Encrid answered as he always did. At that, the leader and his bandits declared that he had to be mad.

Spouting that sort of nonsense at a time like this? He must have suffered a serious head injury as a child. THWACK.

Then came a sudden noise. A flying head, spilling blood, a headless corpse crumpling to the ground entered his vision.

It was the man who had been taking off the child's trousers. SWISH. THWACK. WHOOSH. CHOP.

The heads of the two men standing beside him, as though waiting their turn, flew off as well. Encrid couldn't see how any of it had happened. ["What the fuck!"]

The mercenary company? No. Even if they had returned, this was beyond them. It was impossible. It was as though a gust of wind had literally blown in and swept several heads away. That was how fast it had been. He couldn't even see it.

The source of that wind spoke. Someone was suddenly standing nonchalantly among the bandits. A cloth covered the stranger's entire face, leaving only the eyes barely visible, but Encrid knew this was a woman dressed as a man.

Not that it mattered in the slightest. ["You're the ones who messed with my campsite, right?"]

The woman in men's clothing spoke with a longsword resting on her shoulder. She wore black leather armor and looked slender overall.

Her sword strokes, however, were brutally at odds with her build. Severing a human neck wasn't easy. Even here, few of the dead had lost their heads in a single stroke.

Yet she had sliced the heads off three bandits—three strapping men—in quick succession, even if she had caught them from behind. ["It was you, wasn't it?"]

Her sword moved with those inexplicable words, and each movement added another corpse. Encrid swallowed the blood running from his swollen, split lips and wheezed for breath. A bad blow to his lungs during the fight had injured him internally.

Still, it wasn't enough to kill him. He had taken so many beatings that he knew which injuries threatened his life. This much he could endure. He wouldn't die.

Forgetting the pain, he watched the rampaging swordswoman. ["Kill her! Arrows!"]

TWANG!

Several arrows flew toward her. Of course, they didn't stand a chance. He couldn't even follow her movements. All he saw was the men who had been death itself to the villagers—and to Encrid—beginning to fall amid the rain. ["All because you lost one fucking rabbit you were roasting!"]

The leader shouted. The swordswoman answered with her sword. In other words, she cut him down.

["You vermin. You should've thought about who you were picking a fight with."] There was neither hesitation nor mercy in her hands. She slashed, severed, stabbed, and killed in an instant.

Encrid watched it all, right up until the surviving bandits fled. Then he passed out. He had already lost a great deal of blood, and his injuries were severe. ["You happen to know a blond bastard with red eyes, about this tall, with a sleepy sort of air?"]

He drifted in and out of consciousness. Those were words he heard during one of those moments. The swordswoman also spent a moment looking at him as he lay unconscious. When their eyes met, she spoke.

["Never mind if you don't."] He later heard that she had taken a few gold coins from the villagers and left. They weren't payment for saving them. She had accepted because they offered, attaching no significance to what she had done. In short, she hadn't done it to save them. She hadn't saved or protected anyone. She had cut down an annoyance while passing through.

That was all. After waking, Encrid buried the dead with the villagers. He buried Ger and Pitt. He buried the child. ["Why did you do it?"]

It felt as though the dead child were asking him. Left alone among the graves, Encrid answered without emotion. After he recovered and returned, people even began calling him "the man who gets his comrades killed."

It was a fight in which he had gained nothing and protected nothing.

But it was a fight he could not have walked away from.

* * *

"Because they piss me off."

"What?"

"I don't like what they're doing. Makes you want to give them a beating. Running away now would feel like losing. Ah, I couldn't stand that." There truly wasn't a trace of feeling in his words. His even pace and flat tone made him seem utterly indifferent. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"And you can say that so calmly?"

"I've always been a man like a cold flame."

"Ah. Yes. Of course you are." Krais gave up. If Encrid had been someone who could be talked around, they would never have come this far in the first place.

Encrid rose. It had been a long time since he'd remembered that day. "I won't ask you to run away. Just tell me. Why, really?"

Somehow, it was the same question he had hallucinated the little girl asking from her grave. "Because it's what I want to do."

The same answer he had given then. What was a knight?

They were said to be people who kept their oaths. Encrid had grown up listening to poetry and dreaming of the tales it told. His childhood dream had become the dream he held now.

To him, knights were people who kept their oaths and did not betray their own hearts. He had faced situations like that often afterward. Whether it truly was the goddess of luck watching over him or not, he had barely survived.

Then, in a village of slash-and-burn farmers, he had received the talisman that made him repeat today. 'You really never know how things will turn out.'

So he would do what he had to do. He would act as his heart wished and his oath demanded. "Ah, so in the end, you're saying you'll protect the people behind us? Because most of Border Guard's people will suffer if we pull out? Some will die, and with Cultists involved, yes, it'll be a disaster. You're saying you'll protect them. Right now." "No, I'm telling you, I just don't like their faces."

"Oh, come on! That's not it! You're doing this to protect people!"

"You keep forgetting your manners."

"Fine, sir. Fine. I give up. Let's say that's it." Krais truly gave up. Encrid let out a small laugh.

Yes, he wanted to protect them. Wasn't that his responsibility and duty? If he couldn't even protect the people behind him, what was he supposed to wield this sword for? What, or whom, could he protect in the future?

If he couldn't take responsibility for so much as what lay behind his back, he could do nothing. That was the nature of Encrid's oath. "May the Lord's blessing be with you."

Audin prayed without smiling. Ragna quietly cleaned and oiled his sword. Jaxon had already slipped away. Neither Teresa nor Dunbachel had anything to say. Esther went without saying. The panther looked as though she couldn't care less what they were talking about. "Seriously, have you all lost your minds?"

Only Krais grumbled, but no one, himself included, seemed to have any intention of leaving. Night passed, and Encrid judged that he couldn't use his right arm just yet. Well, he would if he had to, but for now, he would leave it be.

His shin injury was surprisingly manageable. 'As long as I don't move around too much.' During the night, Audin had asked him,

["Shall I heal you?"] Encrid was quick on the uptake. Luck had often favored him, but his perceptiveness had also saved his life many times. That was why he had a rough idea of what happened when Audin exercised his divine power. More importantly, should he force Audin to do something he was reluctant to do? Should he make this devout, bear-like soldier sacrifice something of himself merely to heal Encrid's arm a little faster? ["No need."]

He turned the offer down. Audin smiled again at those words. A strategy meeting was held during the night. There were many urgent matters to address.

["We need to counter their attacks. Make them play their hand first. Hold out for one more day, then stake everything on the third."] Graham nodded as well. He considered when to deploy the heavy infantry, while Krais took everything into account, imagining every ominous possibility across the battlefield and picking them apart one by one. Krais stayed up nearly all night, leaving dark circles beneath his eyes.

["Sleepless nights are terrible for your skin."]

He kept thinking even as he complained. The battle resumed at dawn the next day.

"Kill them all!"

Rather than stepping out onto the battlefield, Lycanos shouted his order. "We need to hold out. In one piece."

As Krais spoke, Encrid went where his instincts and his heart led him. To the front line. The very foremost position.

He held his sword in his left hand alone. "Hold!"

"The pain that doesn't kill me!"

"Makes me stronger tomorrow!"

The distorted slogan had found its proper wording again. No sooner had the battle begun than the stabbing troops hurled themselves at Encrid.

Lycanos merely watched. Now one-eyed, his remaining eye gleamed, but Encrid paid him no attention. Once again, Encrid barely held out. He wouldn't die, but neither could he push forward recklessly.

As he stood his ground, his allies' morale soared. Mere injuries couldn't stop the Lunatic Company. Besides, the men and women under Encrid had yet to truly enter the fray.

Both sides were fighting with their final move still concealed. "Kill them aaaaall!"

"Fucking shit!"

Amid curses and battle cries, the soldiers fought hard. Encrid survived again, but allowed three sword strikes to land on his abdomen. That had partly been intentional. Fighting with his left hand alone tangled his movements, forcing him to overreach.

The armor he had obtained from the explorer's tomb was a treasure. He had trusted it. TAP, TAP.

Encrid patted his belly and smiled.

"Solid protection." There really was no end to the insane things he said.

Krais's face said it all. With a deep sigh, he saw out the second day. The next morning.

"Do you really have to go this far? Really?" Small cuts had left Encrid's face, forearms, and the rest of his body a mess. Medals from the day before.

A dab of spit would heal these, so they didn't matter. But apparently they weren't a pleasant sight, because Krais was already at him first thing in the morning. "They kept hitting me and running away. Just blocking them was pissing me off."

In exchange for letting them strike his belly, he had slit two throats. One with the Snake Sword, the other with a sweeping blow from the Heavy Sword Technique. "... Let's stop talking." When battle began again, Encrid saw something he had never imagined.

"Uuuuuugh!"

A child who couldn't even manage a proper scream or shout stood on the battlefield, at the head of the enemy army. Not merely at its head. The child stood well within bow range, as though asking to be pierced by arrows.

Not a bandit, a soldier of Viscount Tarnin's army, or a Cultist. He knew that face. He vaguely remembered seeing the child in passing. A child from Border Guard. A child who had lived under the territory's protection—a face he was supposed to protect—was there. "A present for you, fucker!"

Lycanos shouted from far behind. Even as he spoke, he showed no sign of any great expectation.

It was nothing more than a dirty trick to dent their morale. "Vengeance."

Vengeance immediately understood Encrid's meaning.

"Don't shoot!"

At his shout, the archers lowered their hands. The enemy didn't fire either. The child ran toward them, somehow managing it on trembling legs.

Encrid stepped forward. He intended to knock aside and block any arrows that might come from behind the child. He held a round shield in his left hand. Just as the child, running steadily on, reached him, a brilliant flash erupted.

Light burst from the child's belly. And then.

"Do you really have to go this far? Really?"

Encrid opened his eyes to Krais's reproach. Today had begun.

The today he had experienced yesterday.