Chapter 292 - A Tailor-Made Dirty Trick

'What the fuck is that bastard?' Lycanos had heard Encrid's name and had a fair idea of his abilities. No, he had thought he did. That was why he had revealed his hidden move. It was a fight he was certain to win. But the bastard had dodged. All he had gotten was one arm. He had not even severed it, merely stabbed it badly enough to put it out of commission for a while. 'Ha.'

Lycanos could only be dumbfounded. Never before had he drawn that sword and failed to accomplish his purpose. It was an unorthodox sword art whose name only two people in the world knew. A thrust built on speed, a blade concealed within a mace—and someone who was not even a knight had dodged it? The sword strike had not been the end of it, either. Even as he lost an eye, Lycanos had sent a hand signal. This was the second blade he had prepared, just in case. ["Kill him."]

The unit he had trained himself had charged in, but they, too, had failed to kill the bastard. 'And I lost a fucking eye.'

Half the world was shrouded in darkness. They had packed crushed herbs over his eye, but those did not take away the pain. In other words, it hurt. Unless a high-ranking cleric appeared right this instant, he was certain to remain one-eyed. That made it all the more unpleasant. Failure and injury. The two setbacks together sent irritation surging through him, but... "What a fucking mess. Whew."

With one curse and one deep breath, Lycanos brought his emotions under control. "Have the boys moved?" he asked afterward.

"Yes."

The answer came at once. Lycanos calmed himself by recalling the task he had assigned. Getting worked up would change nothing. His hidden technique and hand-trained unit had failed, but did that mean he had nothing left? Of course he had more. He was a simple man, no strategic genius, but he had learned a few things in the years he had survived in this land. 'Humans are animals with weaknesses.'

Nothing existed without a weakness. No matter how exceptional a person was—even those called geniuses—it was all the same. They had openings, too. How did one find them? Keep probing. Try every means available. Try this, try that. If just one worked, it was a success. There was no body a blade could not pierce. Even knights were no exception. Caught off guard, they too could have a blade break through their skin, burrow into their muscle, and plunge into their guts. ["Dig. Whatever it takes, find out what sort of bastard he is."] Black Blade had been gathering information before ever taking the field. The bandit organization's reach, rooted deep in the kingdom, was secretive and persistent. As they removed Marcus, drew in Aspen, and brought the Cultists to their side, they investigated the people called Border Guard's elite. They had dug into Encrid then, too. 'Being good with a sword isn't everything.'

At first, they had tried to win him over. Black Blade could offer anything: beautiful women, gold, power. It was training. Once tamed that way, he would become Black Blade's slave. But he would not even listen. It was out of the question.

'That doesn't work?'

What sort of bastard was this? If he could not be bought, they could dispose of him. The simplest solution. A shame, but sticking a piece of steel above his navel should have been easy. Yet that, too, had ended in failure. 'Not that either?'

Assassins' blades, poison, persuasion—all had failed. Did that mean he had no weaknesses? Black Blade's leader had stepped in. He had investigated Encrid's past, his present behavior, the emotions he had shown, and his peculiarities. Then he had pieced together a picture of the man in his mind and passed it on to Lycanos. ["Is he insane?"]

Lycanos had been incredulous. This bastard was a romantic. The sort who took up a sword to save people. A truly crazy fuck. No wonder they called him a lunatic. He had heard about Swallow Blade's end, too. There was no shortage of mouths willing to recount what they had seen for a few copper coins. Plenty would eagerly talk to anyone posing as a bard collecting stories. 'He meekly obeyed because they took a few hostages?'

Was he confident in his skills? Beyond that, perhaps he had done it to save people. They had gathered information by every means available and used it to figure out the man.

'Will this work?' Lycanos was not certain, either. He was simply trying it. He had never considered it a sure answer. Had Encrid died by his sword or his subordinates' blades, he would never have resorted to this. It was nothing complicated. Infiltrate Border Guard, abduct a few brats, wrap scrolls around their bodies, and send them out. The scrolls would make them walking explosive spells. It was a tactic from an old kingdom that had since fallen. There was a flash-explosion spell with tremendous power that worked only at close range. It dealt severe damage even to the caster nearby; its own creator had called it a failure. Without thoroughly protecting their body before casting it, the user would be the first to die. But what if it did not matter whether the caster died? What if the spell was put into scrolls and wrapped around someone's body? And what if one could control when those scrolls activated? It took considerable work. Given the resources required, it was inefficient. But a handful of elite fighters could turn a battlefield. Even if it could not kill them, merely pinning them down would count as a success. That was how the tactic had come into being. Rather than agonize over whether it would work, Lycanos chose to act. Sometimes acting first mattered more than thinking things through. This was one of those times. He had revived a tactic first demonstrated by a strategist of that old kingdom. "Will this work?"

One subordinate voiced his doubts. In a world of killing and being killed, what could they accomplish with a brat the man barely knew? Most people would put their own lives first even if someone threatened to kill their mothers. No, did he even know this child? There were countless brats scampering around the territory. "Shall I wrap them around you and send you instead?"

Lycanos bared his canines as he spoke. Green herbal juice trickled down the side of his mouth. It made for a grotesque sight. His subordinate bowed his head and got moving. 'Fucking idiot.'

The subordinate's half-assed resolve disgusted Lycanos. This was what it meant to stop at nothing: keep probing from every angle until the enemy exposed an opening. That was how Black Blade did things. Several bandits had slipped into Border Guard during the night. Some had run into a Frog and been beaten, killed, or driven off, but others had abducted a single brat. Apparently, even that had been a close thing. At the report, the back of Lycanos's head had tightened.

'Are these bastards really Black Blade Bandits?' In any case, abduction might shatter the victim's world, but could something so minor shake a battlefield? Have any effect? Not a chance. A mother who lost her child would despair, but even she knew the child would never return. Deep down, she accepted it. That was the world they lived in. 'Fuck. Is this really going to work?'

One subordinate wrapped the scrolls around the brat without believing in the plan himself. Behind him, a hollow-eyed spell-slinger muttered something incomprehensible. A damned sinister fellow. "Ready."

"Send the child out."

The speaker was an old mage with a bulbous red nose, its wings riddled with black spots. As he ordered, they pushed their captive forward. "P-please, sp-spare me."

At the brat's plea, face smeared with tears and snot, the bandit drew a dagger. He lightly swept it across the child's cheek. Blood spattered. "Do as you're told unless you want to die. We're letting you go over there."

The brat ran forward on trembling legs. Without crying, the child clenched their teeth and endured, dragging those shaking legs onward. Viscount Tarnin had seen them bring in the child and passed by without a thought. What was so remarkable about a child or two dying? He would not have cared even if they were his own subjects, and this one was rebel scum captured in Border Guard. If sacrificing his subjects would win the war and make him a great lord ruling this whole region, would he do it? Of course he would force that sacrifice upon them. Tarnin was a greedy man. 'A great lord!'

His vague cravings and ambitions were on the verge of becoming reality. His heart seethed. And so joining hands with bandits was nothing. Whether they wrapped scrolls around children or covered them with iron spikes was none of his concern. He would not have batted an eye even if they put crowns of thorns on them. "Go."

The bandit prodded the child onward. The child walked ahead, passing through bow range and heading straight toward enemy ground. Trembling all the while, the child kept walking and running toward the territory that had been home. No arrows harmed the child. No one blocked the approach. Instead, someone stepped forward. Who it was did not matter. The mage had connected his spell world to the scrolls wrapped around the child's body. The slightest mistake would severely damage that world. That was how dangerous it was. Even success would leave a mark on his spell world. That was how crude a method it was—and why it worked. What mage would be mad enough to do this? It was possible because he was old and sick. Ruled by greed rather than the pursuit of spells, he had become the bandits' tool. "Explode," the mage murmured.

* * *

The ferryman's eyes came into view. He swung his violet lamp and spoke. His voice still drove straight into Encrid's mind. "Are you enjoying this, too?"

Encrid had yet to grasp what had happened. He knew only that he had died. He addressed the being in his dream. "Long time no see."

Despite his friendly greeting, the ferryman showed no emotion. As indifferent as ever, he said,

"You will not enjoy it." The black river receded. Encrid opened his eyes to another repetition of the day.

"Are you really going to take it this far?"

Hearing Krais's words, he sat up and ate breakfast first. After a hearty meal, he checked his condition. His injuries were unchanged. He would have to get through the day in this body. He went back over those final moments. Black Blade had abducted a child and put something in their hands. More precisely, they had wrapped it around the child's body and sent them out. He had at least seen where the light began. 'A scroll?'

Nothing else made sense. Just before the child's body exploded, a dizzying sense of foreboding had struck his mind. Light. A flash. Pain searing his entire body. It had felt as though he were being torn apart, shred by shred. He had felt that foreboding before. A magical trap—something he had experienced when he opened the eye of Sixth Sense. The problem this time was that it came running straight at him, impossible to avoid. Ridiculous. What if he simply dodged? What if he shot the child with an arrow before they got close? Yet they had used a scroll for this—an obviously expensive one at that—and infiltrated Border Guard to abduct a child? None of that could have been easy. "That's absurd."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I'm even more baffled," Krais said with a sigh.

"Uh, sure." Encrid ignored him and thought. Absurd as it was, he had no intention of looking away. 'A way.'

Whatever stood before him, he would work through it and break through. The same as always. He deliberately focused his thoughts in one direction: a way to face the explosive magic, overcome it, and move beyond it. A way to save the child in the process, too. How should he do it? Facing a repeated day was familiar territory. Esther was the first to come to mind. Mages gave form to mysteries, and the scroll involved a spell. With Esther, perhaps half the problem would be solved. The problem was that the panther had to turn human to cast spells. She had said so herself. Encrid looked down beside his thigh. A Lake Panther lay quietly on the ground. When he rested a hand on her back and gently stroked her, she purred, apparently pleased. 'Isn't it about time she could turn human?'

Stroking her from head to back, he said,

"Turn into a human. Presto." He simply gave it a try. He had not meant much by it. But everyone seemed to have heard, because all eyes turned to him. Dunbachel approached, laid a hand on his forehead, and muttered to herself,

"... Does he have a fever?" Watching from in front of him, Krais quietly shook his head.

"Oh, dear. Oh, dear. I must be mad," he lamented. Esther merely looked at Encrid with languid eyes, as though asking what he was doing. "Never mind."

He pressed gently down on her head again. Esther lowered her head under the soft pressure and settled back into her original position. He had not done it with any great expectations. Esther still spent more time as a panther than as a human. While human, she had told him she could maintain that form only very briefly. 'It didn't seem to be even once a week.'

How nice it would have been if she had turned human now, rather than during his speech on the platform.

'Now I'm asking for too much.' When they had smashed up the village that served as Black Blade's business, Esther had also beaten up a lightning-wielding mage without warning. He should set her help aside. Since when had he relied on someone else's help to escape today? 'I just have to do it myself.'

He wrestled with it all day. Once that spell activated, the child would explode. He pulled up a chair, sat leaning forward with his chin in his hand, and sank into thought. Beside him, Dunbachel was muttering at Esther to turn human when her hand got bitten.

"Ow!" Teresa was quiet, as were Ragna and Audin. During a brief silence, as Encrid sat lost in thought, Krais asked in a thoroughly drained voice,

"What are you thinking so hard about?" Encrid knew how good Krais was at coming up with clever little solutions. Looking up at him without lifting his head, he spoke and roughly explained the situation. What should he do if someone came at him with scrolls wrapped around their body? "What else? If you know in advance, dodge or shoot them down with arrows."

"That's not an option."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Why do you keep saying nothing? Oh, come on, what is it?" Krais grew surly, but Encrid ignored him. Cold-blooded Big-eyes was right. All he had to do was dodge. But he could not. He had taken up a sword, swung it, cut, and killed people. He had cut down monsters. Demonic beasts, too. He had done it for his responsibilities and duties. He could not deny taking pleasure in it, but if he had meant only to run wild in a frenzy of slaughter, he would never have dreamed of becoming a knight. 'I said I would protect those behind me.'

That was why he swung his sword. It was his reason for living, the source of his desire to become a knight. If he had to sacrifice his own child—if there was no other choice, if it truly had to be done—Encrid would do it, too. But abandoning a child in a desperate bid to escape today? That was unacceptable. An oath began with conviction, and conviction came from the heart. He could not achieve his dream by beating down his own heart and turning away from it. That was not the dream he had wished for, not the knight he had wanted to become. And so there were things he could not give up. The enemy's trick was utterly ridiculous. But against him, it worked. A tailor-made dirty trick.