Chapter 298 - I Won’t Lose the War of Words

"Fucking bastard. Finally, I can move a little."

Rem got up, gratuitously cursing a man who wasn’t even there. His ribs were still a mess, and his ankle was creaky, but... 'I’m going to kill you.'

His body was good enough for this. He wasn’t planning to get close and grapple, anyway. More importantly, if he delayed any longer, that bastard might get killed by someone else—or kill someone else himself. He didn’t care if that alley cat bastard, the lazybones, the Giant, or the Beastman died. But not the Captain. 'It’d be a waste for him to croak already.'

It would be a waste for that lunatic who dreamed of becoming a knight to die here. Watching him run wild and struggle was entertaining. It still was. And Rem wanted to see whether the man would actually become a knight. 'Well, he won’t die easily.'

But this was a bad opponent for him. A bad matchup, perhaps. Rem thought the Captain would probably die if they fought now. He would probably lose, too, so Rem had to face the man himself. Above all, the man called the Ageless Madman, driven mad by his hatred of aging, would be wary of Rem as well. 'He won’t run wild after letting me slip away.'

He’d be too worried about his back, wouldn’t he? Leave an opening, and he’d get hit.

Thinking it over, Rem looked around. Fortunately, he spotted a suitable tree. He stripped its bark, rubbed and braided it between his hands, and twisted it into a long cord. He repeated the process. When he was hungry, he caught snakes or badgers to eat. At one point, he was lucky enough to find a bear that hadn’t gone into hibernation. To anyone else, it was a ferocious bear. To Rem... "A special treat?"

It was nothing but good meat and sturdy hide. He flipped his one remaining axe into the air, caught it, and hurled it straight ahead. It whistled through the air and lodged in the bear’s head, splitting its skull in half. The bear swayed, then collapsed with a thud. The ground trembled. It was as big as Audin, after all. He wanted to skin the bear and wrap himself in its hide, but he didn’t have the means to tan it now. His ribs still hurt, too. He couldn’t waste his strength on that sort of labor.

After killing the bear, he tore out its gallbladder and ate it raw, slaked his thirst with blood, then roasted and ate more meat. It smelled horribly rank, but what could he do? He cut squares from part of the hide, layered them two or three thick, and pierced holes in the corners. The axe he had made by cutting down the centaur leader’s halberd was especially useful for this. He had left the spearpoint protruding above the axe head for its weight, and now it came in handy. He used it to pierce the hide, then threaded the bark cords through the holes. He trimmed the long, trailing ends to roughly the span of his outstretched arms. Picking it up, he swung it through the air a few times. Not bad. He carried the venom from the snakes he had caught in a makeshift pouch. Next, he collected several stones of the same size. He also fashioned pouches from bear and snake skin, making a bag he could wear. It was a sling bag that hung diagonally from his shoulder. 'Hard labor. That’s what this is.'

It had been a while since he’d sweated this much over a task. Despite the winter cold, sweat streamed down his forehead. Only then did he seek out a stream. He hated the cold, but leaving himself like this would make him sick. Cleanliness was a basic necessity. He lit a fire and drew a deep breath.

"Whew. Here goes."

This took resolve. As he dipped his toes into the cold water, a shudder ran through his entire body. 'Ah, you fucking bastard.'

The worse it got, the more he stoked his hatred. He pictured the man who had driven him this far. This was all that Ageless Madman bastard’s fault.

'I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking slaughter you like a dog.'

The farther he immersed himself in the cold water, the deeper his grudge grew. Clenching his molars, he washed, crushed more spotted spurge and other herbs to apply to his body, then warmed himself by the fire he had lit.

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK.

His jaw shook. His front teeth chattered mercilessly. Rem possessed extraordinary martial prowess, but that didn’t make him immune to the cold. 'Should’ve inherited the spells.'

At times like this, he regretted it. It was so damned cold. If he had inherited even some of the spells, he wouldn’t be freezing like this. There was nothing he could do about it now. Rem endured, clutching a warming stone. Once his body had dried a little, he wrapped himself in the warming hide again. Only then did he feel human.

'Oh, I am definitely killing you.'

His grudge remained, of course. No, it had only deepened. His preparations, such as they were, were finished. Rem headed for the main camp. He wasn’t Ragna. Retracing his steps was no trouble, and tracking was one of his specialties. Gradually, he began to hear battle cries. Judging the distance and surveying the situation, he emerged from the forest and approached the battlefield at a brisk walk. It was crawling with demonic beasts. Red-eyed wolves stared at him. Several growled and charged, trying to terrify him. Wild instinct mingled with demonic energy, their entire bodies proclaiming what ferocity looked like. Not only an ordinary person but even a reasonably trained soldier would have been horrified. Not Rem. "Fuck off."

Rem unleashed intimidation. It differed from what the proto knight had shown, but pressed down on the surrounding atmosphere in a similar way. His presence announced who he was. Several demonic beasts faltered under that presence, but didn’t flee. Rem kept walking, breaking each swing of his axe into the smallest possible movement.

Vertical, horizontal, diagonal.

Three short strokes cut down four demonic beasts. Not three. Four. The second, horizontal stroke had caught two heads. After killing those few beasts, he spotted the very man he was looking for. The bastard who floated javelins in the air. He had figured out the trick some time ago. The man wrapped springy threads around his javelins to use them. Such threads didn’t exist in the West. Who the hell imitated ancestral weapons with that sort of trickery, anyway? That was why Rem hadn’t recognized it at first glance. Now that he had worked it out, however, he understood both his opponent’s character and his fighting style. There was a reason he had stepped forward so confidently. Those weapons were the man’s specialty—and his weakness. At least, that was Rem’s assessment. 'All you learned on the continent was cheap tricks, bastard.'

The threads were invisible at a glance, making the spears appear to float. "Hey!"

Rem called to him. The man, who had been running forward, looked back. His eyes widened halfway through the turn.

'The bastard who ran like hell when I chased him came back on his own?'

That was what his expression seemed to say. "You’re dead."

At Rem’s words, the Ageless Madman gave an incredulous smile, his face half young and half old. He had just started running to help the Wolf Bishop, who seemed about to fall. Several nearby fanatics rushed Rem.

"Unbeliever!"

"Oh, for the Lord!"

The axe in Rem’s right hand moved again. Two swift swings sent two heads into the air. The madman’s eyes scrutinized every detail of Rem’s movements. He couldn’t possibly have recovered from all his injuries in that time. Had he sharpened the axe? The edge was exceptionally keen. Still wearing that incredulous smile, the Ageless Madman stopped. Then he turned. One of the Wolf Bishop’s strengths was his tenacious vitality. He wouldn’t die easily. The madman would dispose of this one while the bishop held on. He couldn’t fight with his back exposed. Several fanatics watched warily. Clearly, this was no opponent they could handle.

Rem rubbed his ribs and checked his ankle, planting his toes in the ground and rotating it. Not bad. "You’ve come to die," the Ageless Madman said.

"Yeah. Came to kill you."

Rem didn’t lose the war of words.

* * *

The Ageless Madman floated his spears in the air. To an onlooker, it was a marvel. Spells were called the magic of the West. One had to manage at least this much to claim to have inherited a branch of that tradition.

Of course... "Hey, those aren’t even ancestral weapons, are they?"

Once you saw the trick, it wasn’t so impressive.

"Lunatic."

Rem’s elder countryman denied it and threw a spear. Even if you couldn’t see it, understanding the principle made predicting its movements easy. For Rem, at least. Invisible thread hurled the spear forward. Threads connected to the forearms, fingers, and such, presumably.

CLANG!

His side throbbed as he knocked the spearhead aside with his axe. When Rem lowered his stance as though to charge, the madman drew a second spear. He didn’t stop there. The spears multiplied. Two became three, three became four. He floated every spear he had strapped to his back.

Quite the trick. Cunning bastard. Rem added the throbbing pain in his side to his grudge. Blocking had caused the pain, but it was all that bastard’s fault anyway.

"Die, half-trained whelp."

Four spears, a bear’s arms, and a leopard’s legs. Not having inherited the spells didn’t mean Rem couldn’t recognize them. Those were signs of spirit invocation. The man had elevated his spear techniques into an art by combining them with spells.

"Bastard, taking potshots from a distance." As Rem expressed his admiration and praise for his elder countryman’s techniques, the madman sneered at him. The half-trained whelp had an atrocious feel for combat. Stupid, too. Had the standard of western warriors declined? Perhaps. He had killed far too many of the capable ones when he left. Besides, they had spilled far too much blood fighting among themselves.

In any case... 'You should have closed in if you wanted to win.'

That was what Rem should have done. The madman had prepared for that possibility, of course. The man hadn’t managed to block two spears in their previous fight. At their current distance of roughly fifteen paces, his spears could perform to their full potential. In other words, the Ageless Madman had never lost a fight like this. Rem edged backward. The madman watched. A little farther would be even better. The thread-bound spears had a range of more than twenty paces.

'Not ancestral weapons?'

You fool. Through experience and training, my spears have become divine weapons surpassing even those.

The madman was certain of victory. The four spears moved in response to the threads attached to his fingers. Bouncing lightly into the air, two floated to either side of his head and two to either side of his forearms, four spears in all drifting through the air. As they shifted back and forth, they seemed to twitch with eagerness to shoot forward and pierce his opponent’s body. 'To challenge me without even any spells.'

The Ageless Madman was a wanderer who had spent his life searching for a way never to die. He was, in fact, over a hundred years old. He had acquired no small amount in that time. What had become his beloved weapons owed their existence in part to spells he had obtained long ago. Inscribing spells into the threads had been a painstaking process, but look. They had become weapons that pressured and killed his opponents every bit as well as ancestral weapons. Rem studied his opponent quietly.

'He thinks he’s won.'

Certain of victory. Careless, believing this distance belonged to him alone.

"Oh, you fucking idiot."

As he spoke, Rem drew the weapon he had prepared. He had no spells, no invisible threads. But if sheer muscle could launch a projectile ten times faster than the other man’s javelins, then this distance belonged to him, too. The weapon he drew was made from bear hide and twisted bark. It was called a sling. Rem took a stone from his makeshift leather bag, set it in the hide, and began to spin it. The hide whirled around his shoulder, arm, and hand before he raised it overhead. Driven by centrifugal force, the stone-filled sling formed a disk above his head.

WHIIIIIRRR!

The noise rang out as though tearing through space. To Rem, a sling was a toy he had played with since childhood. In other words, a familiar weapon. Which meant he wouldn’t miss. He aimed and extended his arm. The stone flew, its destructive force multiplied by centrifugal force. Even Rem’s eyes couldn’t properly follow its flight. No, no one here could possibly see it clearly. "Huh!"

Startled, the madman stood all four javelins upright to form a wall. It was a split-second act of ingenuity and judgment. He was lucky, too.

BANG!

The incoming stone struck a spearhead. The fist-sized stone shattered into dozens of fragments that rained over the madman. They struck his thick leather armor and scattered.

"You lunatic!"

His hands moved frantically. That single blow had shoved the javelin wall sharply backward. A simple stone, propelled by monstrous strength, had demonstrated power greater than a spell. No, was this possible? However skilled he was, with a single stone? This wasn’t something strength alone could accomplish. It was a feat impossible unless he handled the sling as though it were his own hand. How could he aim accurately with a sling moving at that speed? While he blocked and gaped...

WHIIIIIRRR!

A second disk appeared above Rem’s head. The dreadful noise battered his ears.

"Enjoying the show?"

With those words, a second stone flew. The madman ducked low. His javelins spread to either side and descended with him, hovering close to the ground. However good Rem’s aim, a lower target would be harder to hit. He also launched two spears. The spearheads skimmed the ground. A throwing technique that sent spears rising from below: Dragonfly Wings. He sent two javelins out, keeping the other two to protect himself, just in case. The Ageless Madman. A nickname earned because he did not age and did not want to die. He valued his own body above all else.

Rem knocked the incoming spears aside with his axe. It was different from before. He deflected and redirected them with minimal movement. His axe work resembled the Flowing Sword Technique. After all, precision, weight, illusion, speed, and flow were principles of handling weapons, not exclusively swordsmanship. Still, the art of deflecting itself didn’t particularly suit Rem.

"Where did you learn such cheap tricks?" the madman muttered. "There’s this bastard who’s always standing in front of me, deflecting my axe."

Rem was a genius. He had seen the technique dozens upon dozens of times, and had it used against him. There was no reason he couldn’t learn it. He had no reason to make it his main style, either, so he simply hadn’t bothered showing it before. Now, he had brought it out to defend with minimal movement. Four spears might have been another matter, but he had blocked two before. They were too feeble to be called a threat. He had already experienced the attack once, too.

After easily deflecting the two javelins...

WHIIIIIIRRR!

A third disk appeared. The madman’s face went ashen. However mighty a bear’s strength, however swift a leopard, neither seemed capable of matching the speed and power of that single stone.

Rem had judged the outcome from the start. Was there any reason to fight at close quarters with his body riddled with injuries? None. His opponent being an imbecile helped, too. 'Oh, you fucking idiot.'

If the man had risked half his life to get in close, the outcome would have been uncertain. That was what the bear’s arms and leopard’s legs were for in the first place: spirit invocation meant for such a fight. Yet what was he doing? Was he giving a personal demonstration of idiocy? Had he committed himself, closed the distance, and wielded his javelins in hand as well as throwing them, there was no telling what would happen. If he charged in willing to sacrifice an arm or some other part of his body, landing a sling stone wouldn’t be easy. Especially with legs empowered by leopard spirit invocation. Instead, he treasured his body and scrambled only to block. He kept his distance, fighting like a shy little child. No, even a child in the West wouldn’t fight like that. A madman who had lived too long and acquired too much to give up anything. The difference between victory and defeat began with their attitudes. 'Ah, you idiot.'

Encrid would have risked his life and charged. Rem’s opponent was the half-trained one. A half-trained fool who had forgotten how to truly fight.

"Against a half-trained whelp who can’t even use spells!"

The madman erupted in anger, but it was a lie. That wasn’t anger. It was fear. Encrid never showed fear, whatever the circumstances. He was a pilgrim pressing onward, a wanderer who never stopped walking, a traveler searching for a signpost. And thus, a madman finding and following his own path.

"You just won’t do," Rem said.

The contrast was far too stark. The man had blocked the third stone by lining up his spears again. From the impact, stone dust and sleet mingled in the air, forming a strange gray whirl before vanishing.

WHIIIIIIRRR! Rem formed a fourth disk overhead.

SNAP!

But the cord broke before it could finish its task. This weapon had to withstand Rem’s strength, with centrifugal force added on top. This was only natural. The severed cord dangled to the side. At the sight, delight replaced fear in the madman’s eyes.

"You fool! A fine weapon is part of one’s fighting strength! To challenge me with a pathetic weapon like that! Hahaha!" What was he on about?

Ignoring the man’s excitement, Rem pulled a second sling from inside his clothing. Did he really think Rem hadn’t expected it to break? His diagonal sling bag was full of stones. Inside his clothing, he had at least five identical slings. 'Still, it lasted three throws.'

He had expected it to break after just two.

"Huh? Huh? You have more?"

The madman’s eyes trembled.

"Idiot."

Rem sneered at him.