Chapter 295 - What Is Your Dream?

Encrid stopped on his way out and raised his head. Dark clouds crowded the dim sky.

'Looks like something's going to fall.'

How many times had today passed? This was different from before. Before, no matter how many times he repeated a day, he had kept track. Each day, he had found a different way to remember that today. But not this time.

Why had that changed? Why had he taken it differently this time?

'Because my vision narrowed.'

Because he had thought he could deal with what lay before him in one stroke and move on. Encrid was only human, too. He had grown impatient. That impatience had eaten away at his vision, blocking his view of the situation.

He felt like a racehorse, its eyes blinkered on either side so it would look only ahead as it ran. Who had done that to him? His circumstances. And the ferryman had added a spoonful of seasoning.

'Was I played?'

Or had he learned something? He had learned. There was something to learn from everything.

Encrid gazed at the dark sky, felt the wind, and smelled the battlefield where fighting had continued for two days. He did not stop at seeing, hearing, and feeling.

He forgot the eyes watching him. For a moment, he even forgot where he was. He set his present circumstances aside. Then he began his Review, going over and over the todays he had lived through.

This was a first even for Encrid. However slowly the child approached, there was little time. In that brief span, his Review began and ended.

'The ferryman's words were a problem, but...'

More of the blame lay with him for looking at only one thing, immersing himself in it, concentrating on it.

'Concentrate on a Single Point can cloud my vision, too.'

Everyone wondered what Encrid was doing. Stepping forward because a single child came running was strange enough. So was going out alone as though to greet the child. Then, instead of approaching, he had stopped and stood there blankly. That was the strangest part of all.

In short, his bewildering actions kept giving everyone watching more to puzzle over.

"What the fuck is he doing?" one of the enemy soldiers muttered.

"Just watch." A mercenary from Black Blade tapped the soldier on the head.

Friend or foe, everyone found the situation baffling. How could they not? A child had run out from one side. From the other had emerged the man called Border Guard's hero, who had fought the enemy commander.

Absurd as it all was, the onlookers expected Encrid to take the child into his arms. Or else treat the child as an enemy and cut them down. People looked at a situation and inferred what would follow. That was called prediction. Now Encrid had drawn every eye with behavior no one had predicted or expected.

"It's going to snow."

Encrid murmured the words as he stood alone on the battlefield, but no one heard him.

Seriously, what was he doing? Confusion and bewilderment stayed hands on both sides, making everyone watch.

The old mage, who had connected a magical thread to activate the scrolls, remained focused. If he looked away for even a moment, the thread of spell power linking him to the scrolls would disappear. Then he would be unable to activate them remotely.

The child had no attention to spare for what was happening nearby. They had said to run, so the child ran.

'I want to live.'

The child wished desperately for it. From the moment of capture, instinct had said survival was impossible, yet a sliver of hope pushed the child onward. Somehow, whatever it took, there would be a way to live. Who knew? Perhaps even the goddess of luck would shed a tear. Luck was always a variable, people said.

'I'll survive somehow.'

The child's survival instinct set feet in motion instead of bringing tears.

And the moment Encrid took in his surroundings and conducted his Review, he recognized several things he had missed. The scrolls...

'Someone's watching and setting them off. They can't be far away. Somewhere with a clear view of me. They didn't have much hope for this trick to begin with. Yet it's turned into a fine fucking ploy. How? They know me.'

His intuition shone once more. This was not the time to concentrate. If someone was watching him, he only needed to conceal his intent and buy time.

'How to hide my intent from an opponent.'

Distract them by doing something unexpected. It was a fundamental of the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique. And so Encrid displayed his swordsmanship.

He mixed in what he had learned from watching Krang. Krang knew how to capture people's attention and project a presence. Encrid imitated him.

With gestures and subtle movements, he drew his injured foot back and gathered strength in his right for the Limping Step. Anyone watching would think he was gathering power in his legs to spring forward.

Where Krang had commanded attention with speeches, Encrid drew every eye with movement. Poised as though to leap at any moment, he laid his hand on his sword's grip.

'He's drawing it.'

'He's going to cut.'

His movements led everyone to those conclusions.

Only then did the child notice Encrid.

'Oh. I'm going to die.'

The child gave up on living. The small footsteps slowed.

The mage caught Encrid in his sights. He prepared to activate the scrolls, widening his field of view to pinpoint his target. He intended to unleash the magic once the child took five more steps.

From that stance, Encrid used a technique. It was called swordsmanship, yet could hardly qualify as such. Whether this could truly be considered swordsmanship was debatable, but the man named Valen had called it both a technique and an art.

Valen Mercenary Sword Technique: Look Away.

Encrid flinched. Poised to leap forward, he gave his shoulders a sudden twitch and turned his head aside. He was too far away for anyone to see his expression, but to all appearances, he had turned in surprise.

People could convey intent through actions without ever opening their mouths.

'Don't hide my intent. Cover it with another.'

All he needed was a momentary opening. At the turn of his head, even the mage's attention faltered briefly.

Was something over there? Everyone's awareness shifted to the side, if only for an instant. Lycanos and every enemy fell for it. So did Graham, the allied commander, Audin, and even the members of the Lunatic Company.

It was perfect. And there was nothing there. Only a gust of wind carrying dust, dry and rough and bitingly cold.

"We've been fooled!" Lycanos shouted.

In that interval, Encrid leaped forward.

The dodging sense worked on instinct. Encrid layered intent over it. His sword shot out faster than it ever had in all his todays.

Every joint of his left fingers held just the right amount of tension, and the muscles extending his arm were supple. In contrast, his body felt heavy. The air pressed against him as though he were mired in mud. Within that muddy pressure, his head and eyeballs grew hot.

He saw the child's startled eyes, the runny nose, the open mouth. Everything looked slow. Alone in a world where everyone had slowed, Encrid extended his sword.

The wind rushed backward. His blade cut the cords securing the scrolls. Stabbing in and curving sideways, it severed every fastening. Small cuts appeared on the child's body where the blade passed.

These strokes favored speed alone, not finesse. He could not perform the miraculous feat of cutting only the outer clothing.

SNIP.

Cut free, the scrolls flew into the air. Encrid gathered the child into his arms and leaped sideways as though taking flight. The strain reopened the wound on his left shin, but now was not the time to worry about that.

The old mage had not looked away entirely, but a gap had opened in his awareness. That delayed the magic's activation slightly. The scrolls flashed, releasing light once more.

Encrid rolled with the child in his arms. Searing heat swept over his back, as though a tongue of flame were licking it. His back burned. But he was alive. And he had saved the child in his arms.

"Whew."

He let out a breath, its heat brushing the child's hair. He lay at an angle, facedown on the ground.

"... Ah."

Everyone fell silent. What Encrid had just done left them speechless. His allies were no different.

Meanwhile, still holding the child, Encrid caught his breath for a moment and asked, "What is your dream?"

"... Huh?"

Still too dazed to know whether they were alive or dead, the child could not give a proper answer. It seemed the child had wet themself, too. Their thighs were damp.

Ignoring the urine running over his armor, Encrid asked again, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

It was a casual question, meant to reassure the child, prompted by a moment from his past. He had meant nothing profound by it.

"A-an h-herb gatherer. I'm going to be an herb gatherer like my mother."

The child spoke. Those eyes, so filled with terror before, now spoke of life. Of the days still to be lived.

This was a spirited child. One who had kept moving stubbornly forward, running toward death while yearning for life.

Encrid wanted to become a knight. That rash childhood dream had brought him to the present. He would ask himself what he wielded his sword for. The answer was not fixed.

But today, his sword would swing for a child with a dream.

"Then do that."

He rose and pushed the child behind him, almost tossing them away.

"Your back, your back..." the child murmured in a trembling voice.

"Run. Don't look back."

After answering the child's murmur, Encrid shouted without even pausing to steady his breath.

"Ragna!"

Come support his flank. Ragna would understand without a lengthy explanation.

Encrid turned his gaze forward. The magic had just failed in its purpose. Lycanos was charging at him with a fearsome expression.

Around him ran men with bloodshot eyes, each carrying nothing but a skewer-like sword. Something was wrong with them, as though they had taken drugs. Their eyes were red, and the muscles in their limbs had swollen more than ever before. Their thickened legs kicked off the ground as they surged forward fiercely.

"Kill him!"

Lycanos shouted and discarded his mace sheath. He had seen that last strike. If he approached carelessly, he would be the one to suffer. His opponent's injuries were not what mattered.

Encrid raised his sword as well. The blue-tinged longsword in his left hand pointed toward his opponents. He met the approaching enemies with its tip leveled at them.

Skewer-like swords came at him from four directions: left, right, above, and below. Lycanos was directly ahead. At a glance, the blades targeting him seemed to arrive simultaneously, but they did not. There were differences, however slight. He could see them.

Points appeared in Encrid's vision once more and connected. Then he wrung strength from his muscles and swung.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

Five swords bounced away. His terrifyingly fast blade devoted itself to defense, and not a single enemy blade reached his body.

When the five swords stabbed toward him, Encrid had moved his feet before his blade. He extended his left foot sideways and kicked off with his right, taking a slope step. His body naturally made a half-turn.

Shifting to the left, he knocked aside the two swords approaching from that side. He kept his feet moving, retreating a step and a half before deflecting the two strikes from the right. Last, he caught Lycanos's stab on the flat of his blade and diverted it.

'A mistake!'

Blocking the four subordinates' attacks should have created an opening. Intending to exploit it, Lycanos had not used his fastest strike. He had stabbed at what, by his standards, was only a moderate speed. That had let Encrid block all five swords.

Above all, the speed of his opponent's blade shocked Lycanos.

"You bastard!"

Had he suddenly improved this much? His strikes, at least, had never been this fast. Now they were suddenly comparable to Lycanos's own.

In truth, this was the fruit of countless repeated todays and the experience accumulated throughout them, but his opponent had no way to know that. It only looked as though Encrid had copied his specialty, his fastest sword strike, after seeing it once.

Of course, Lycanos himself had gained it by watching someone else's sword and training over and over. But did that matter now? All that bothered him was the movement his opponent had just shown.

Lycanos was confident he could kill Encrid with just a few more swings here. But things did not always go as one intended.

THWACK!

It began with a crisp impact.

SLASH!

Then came the sound of flesh and armor being cleaved together.

THWAAACK!

"Aaargh!"

More noise followed, mingled with a dying scream. Something crashed in from the side, crushing Lycanos's troops. It was no unit of soldiers. He saw a human charging utterly alone.

Blond hair streamed through the air. The man had discarded his helmet and was swinging a sword as long and large as his own body with terrifying force. Red eyes left streaks in the air. Above them, blond hair flew, followed by the sword.

He swung so fiercely that the greatsword's thick, massive blade seemed to bend.

WHOOSH, THWACK!

Downward chops, sideways blows, wheeling stabs. Every stroke was an art of killing. The troops Lycanos had personally trained died without pause.

"Aaargh!"

They were being overwhelmed despite the drugs he had fed them just before the battle. This opponent was a monster, too.

"I'll take this side."

Ragna spoke as he reached Encrid, then swept past. Blood pattered onto his blond hair. His last upward slash had split a soldier's body, scattering blood and entrails.

"Fuck."

Lycanos's eyes widened. This was a crisis. Danger. A threat. But surely this could not be the end. Black Blade was not alone here.

* * *

"Now!"

The Wolf Bishop judged that waiting any longer would make it difficult to reap the benefits.

"Destroy the unbelievers!"

At the bishop's cry, the fanatics rose. In truth, there were not many of them. The wolf demonic beasts were their main strength.

The Wolf Bishop commanded the lead demonic beast linked to him.

'Kill them all.'

The demonic beasts surged forward like a wave. There were twice as many as Border Guard had predicted. Hundreds upon hundreds emerged here and there and charged.

"You will have to move as well."

The bishop spoke to the man beside him, a pagan of barbarian origin brought along as something of a mercenary.

Standing idly, the man twirled his short spear several times and said, "It's not my turn yet."

"You insolent..."

The Wolf Bishop disliked the man intensely, but acknowledged his skill. Had he said he had come to obtain something in pursuit of immortality and eternal youth? What a ridiculous fellow.

If he truly desired something, he should devote himself to the faith. Trying to gain it through a bargain was laughable. Utterly laughable.

Scorning the man, the bishop followed the demonic beasts. Soon he saw enemy soldiers charging toward them.

"Heavy infantry, forwaa ard!"

Some fools had come forward to bar their path. Ridiculous.

'Brother.'

When he called to the brother linked to him in his mind, a demonic beast far larger than the rest rose among the wolves.

AWOOOO!

A wolf's howl erupted. The howl of a wolf that had become a monster, no longer a demonic beast, crushed the air and spread an oppressive presence.

The mere sight of the creature could make one's knees tremble. A wolf born as a monster: a dire wolf.

Its dull, pitch-black fur swallowed the surrounding light, seeming to make everything nearby even gloomier. Sleet had begun falling overhead, but the heat radiating from the dire wolf melted the snow in midair before it could touch its body.

It seemed a vision of their own future. They, too, would simply melt away. The soldier at the head of the heavy infantry swallowed at the sight.

Could they even stop that thing? Doubt crept in.