Chapter 31 - Set It on Fire

'Setting tents on fire seems to be turning into my specialty.'

With that thought, Encrid briefly explained the plan from behind the tree. None of the squad members interrupted; they simply listened. By now, they might as well have been riding an arrow already loosed. Then Encrid moved.

"I'll go first."

He stepped forward so quietly that not even his footfalls made a sound. Then he lowered himself, finally lying flat and crawling. The entire squad watched him crawl along the ground. His plan was simple: make noise in the east and strike in the west. A straightforward deception. Mac and the rest of the squad would provide the noise. Only three were exempt: Encrid, Andrew, and the former thug. "I'll do it."

Mac volunteered to draw the soldiers' attention. He offered readily, without a word of complaint. His attitude had changed abruptly, but Encrid thought little of it. Having him obey was a good thing, after all. After quietly loosening up in the darkness, Mac picked up a stone and hurled it. It struck a soldier in the head.

CLACK!

The stone bounced off his helmet, and the soldier cried out in pain. "... Fuck."

"What was that!"

The four guards turned in the same direction. Encrid held his breath and watched. There was no need to say anything. "Intruders!"

A soldier shouted, raising a commotion. Encrid timed his move to it, trying to slip right up against the tent, but—

"You little rat."

He had been spotted. There was no reason to panic. He had learned this over several todays.

'I can't do it alone.'

A spearman glared at him from beside the tent. Encrid rose before the man could charge, loose dirt falling from his chest. With a torch stand at his back, the soldier thrust without so much as a battle cry. Encrid watched the spear hiss toward him until the last instant, then twisted aside.

No, he did more than dodge. He gambled half his life on the move. It was madness made possible by the boldness the heart of the beast gave him: he advanced as he dodged. The spearhead grazed his shoulder. He had barely avoided it. Searing heat flared there, but in exchange, he was right in the enemy's face. As soon as he closed the distance, he slashed upward. Seeing the blade, the soldier lowered his spear shaft to block with it like a shield. Encrid drove the knife in his left hand toward the man's collarbone. He had kept it hidden ever since charging in.

THUNK!

The blade sank in, cutting through flesh and bone alike. "Urk!"

The soldier groaned. Encrid immediately slammed his forehead into the bridge of the man's nose.

CRACK!

The soldier toppled backward without another sound. This was the Three-Sword Style of the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique. The first blade was a feint; the real attacks were the left-hand knife and the Headbutt. This was why he had charged the spear with half his life on the line. He had brought down the soldier. But now that he had been discovered, setting the tent ablaze seemed a distant prospect. Another soldier emerged behind the fallen man, carrying a torch and a sword. The man had a scar near his eye and looked like serious trouble. His gait and bearing alone made it clear: he was no amateur. "Pathetic."

He spoke with a click of his tongue, approaching at an unhurried pace. An attacker had just sprung from the darkness, yet he showed not the slightest fear. "Whew. Taking their time."

Encrid muttered the words. The man furrowed his brow. WHOOSH!

It came from behind the man. Flames were rising. The tent had caught fire. "... Put it out!"

As the man shouted, Encrid lunged forward with a stab. He pushed off with his right foot and planted his left. ["Everything starts with the feet."]

It was a basic principle of swordsmanship that both Rem and Ragna had impressed on him. Encrid did exactly that.

Feet first. He drove off the ground. In an instant, the soldier with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other loomed large before him. The man was still looking behind him, leaving himself wide open. Encrid stabbed. He put the spring of his entire body into it—the same stab the soldier had used to kill him so many times at the beginning.

HISS!

The blade sliced through the air and reached its target. It happened in a single instant. Of all the countless stabs he had made, this was his best. The best across all his repeated todays.

Encrid thought he had killed the man. Through his intense concentration, everything seemed to move slowly. Everything slowed—his sword, the man's hand.

In that slowed world, the soldier's hand twitched. His sword surged upward from below. WHACK!

SNICK! Encrid shot past the man as if flung sideways, then stopped, clutching his stomach. The soldier turned back from looking over his shoulder. He looked at Encrid and raised his eyebrows. "You insolent little shit."

He looked furious. Of course, his anger was no problem. The problem was his astonishing swordsmanship. 'In that instant?'

The stab had been perfect. He could not have been more satisfied with it. Even Rem could not have hoped to block it without that axe of his that curved like a whip. Yet the man had dodged. Encrid had left a shallow cut on his neck, but it was nowhere near fatal—barely more than a scratch. Meanwhile, the sword the enemy had swept up on reflex had cut precisely across Encrid's side. The wound was not deep. It had not touched bone. It would not kill him, but...

'He had his guard down.'

And this was the result. Besides, how familiar was this "today" to Encrid by now? Yet even so... It felt as though a great river lay between them. His opponent could cross it at any time to stab and slash him, while he could barely dip his feet in the water. There was a clear gap in their abilities. So what was he to do? When had he ever fought only those weaker than himself?

Encrid steadied his breathing and tightened his grip on his sword. If this was today's turning point, he would simply do his best. The gap in their skills was daunting, but that changed nothing. Where others might have seen despair and an impassable cliff, Encrid saw stairs. Stairs he would one day be able to climb. Exhilaration surged from his toes and filled his chest.

Look. How could repeating today be a curse? After overcoming all those countless todays, he would eventually defeat that extraordinarily skilled man. He certainly would. He would never settle for today.

That was why elation filled him. Those feelings showed on Encrid's face.

"You're smiling?"

The enemy swordsman's face twisted. Where Encrid's face showed exhilaration, his showed rage.

"I'll tear you apart and feed you to the dogs." Encrid sensed his death approaching. Right now, this was an opponent he could not defeat, no matter what he did. Not that he intended to go quietly.

He braced for pain. He would not retreat. As he gripped his sword and steeled himself— WHOOOOSH!

Flames roared skyward behind the man. They made the earlier blaze look like a joke, as though a dragon were breathing fire. The whole tent caught. Sparks crackled and spat in every direction. Several frantic voices came from beyond the flames rising from the tent.

"You bastards! Put it out!"

"Someone poured oil on it, Platoon Commander!"

"A torch stand's been knocked over!" Well now, they were doing a fine job.

Encrid had drawn attention twice to get this tent burning. First with Mac and the squad, then in person. Andrew and the former thug had set the fire. The former thug was putting his experience making trouble in the city to excellent use. "The flagpoles are burning!"

A man shouted at the flames surging right beside the tent. Strange tattoos covered his face.

"Platoon Commander! Don't you know what matters here?"

He rebuked the man standing before Encrid. Watching this, Encrid eased backward. However inferior his skills, he would not die to one or two swings. His opponent knew that too. If Encrid committed himself to holding out, he could last until the flames consumed the tent and the flagpoles inside. Honestly, he could not understand why anyone would risk their life over a few flagpoles. He knew only one thing: the enemy valued them. Far more than the lives of a handful of hostile soldiers. "I'll remember you."

His opponent, the Aspen unit's Platoon Commander, glared at him, then wheeled around. He had decided that dealing with the arsonists behind him took priority over fighting Encrid. Encrid inwardly sighed with relief. He truly felt as if he had come back from the dead.

Death was something he never grew used to, no matter how many times he experienced it through repeating today. Having to endure that horrible moment again and again could certainly be called a curse. Of course, all that pain and the anguish of facing death were no great problem for Encrid. If they let him move forward, if they made him better, why couldn't he endure them? "We need to go."

As he briefly kept watch on his surroundings, Andrew's voice came from behind. A glance revealed a face covered in soot.

"We're retreating."

Encrid spoke and moved out. The former thug followed. As they ran, Andrew pulled a whistle from inside his clothes and blew it.

FWEEEE! FWEEEE!

At the two long blasts, Mac came running from the distance with the remaining squad members. Henri's arm was bleeding. No other soldiers followed Mac. The squad that had begun with ten men was down to half that number.

And the escape route Encrid had wanted was open. "They've got their hands full now. We won't have a large pursuit force after us, will we?"

Mac seemed to be asking whether this was what Encrid had aimed for. His forehead was split and bleeding, as if to prove that his group had had a rough time too.

"Probably not."

Encrid answered and kept running. Blood continued to flow from his side. He had thought the wound shallow, but running without stopping to staunch it gave the bleeding no chance to stop. For now, all he could do was press a hand firmly against it and run. From here on, today was unknown territory, so Encrid kept watch behind them. Enemy soldiers pursued them. Five men.

"You crazy bastards!"

They were relatively fresh. Their faces were sooty, but they had no wounds. Encrid, Andrew, and Mac were enough to handle those five. Henri had a hole in his belly and staggered, perhaps from the blood he had lost through it. Supporting him kept the former thug from fighting properly. "Goddammit, we'll all die at this rate. Get a grip!"

The former thug scolded Henri, but he did not abandon him. Fighting the pursuers widened the wound in Encrid's side, though it was still not fatal. Mac took a cut to the thigh while killing two of them. He pulled out a linen bandage, bound it, and kept up without falling behind. Andrew seemed to have improved dramatically after only a few battles.

'No.'

Encrid realized that his skill had not suddenly grown. It would be more accurate to say that intense battlefield experience was bringing out the ability he already possessed. Had Andrew's sword not whirled through a ferocious flurry and killed two pursuers in an instant, their escape would probably have failed. Or at least proved more difficult. Blood seeped again from the first wound he had taken on his cheek. They were all battered, but none of them died there. As they kept their bearings and fled through the night, Henri spoke in a dying voice.

"Head west from here, and we'll reach plains fox and snake territory. They won't have an easy time following us there." Many animals lived on these plains known as Green Pearl, including foxes and snakes. Foxes were one thing, but many of the snakes were venomous, making the area dangerous. "Go there, and we'll die of snakebite before we shake the enemy off," Mac said.

Henri answered with a faint smile.

"There's a place where the fox and snake territories overlap. I know it. It's safe there, along the boundary between them. A hunter's path." Looking at Henri, Encrid marveled that he could still smile when he was deathly pale. Giving directions in that condition—his willpower was no ordinary thing either. Everyone looked at Encrid. The decision was his.

"That way, then."

He spoke and moved without hesitation. As he walked, his thoughts turned elsewhere.

'I've never seen him before.'

The enemy Platoon Commander had left a deep impression. Had that man appeared every time, Encrid would have spent all his time dying. But this was the first. Perhaps he had appeared because Encrid had pushed things this far. 'Or have I?'

Now that he thought about it, he felt he might have heard that voice before. It had been during an earlier repetition of today, when he had sneaked into the tent they had just burned. After barely slipping inside the guarded tent, he had seen a peculiar sight. Flagpoles and flags. A bowl giving off strange smoke. A man whose face was covered in tattoos.

He had wondered whether they were telling fortunes or something. But their reaction had been far too fierce. ["Get him!"]

They had been horrified when he kicked a flagpole. That was when he realized these flagpoles meant something important to them. And someone had cut his throat from behind then.

["Who the fuck is this?"]

Thinking back, he seemed to be the same man who had spoken those words. Lost in thought as he followed Henri's directions, Encrid noticed the world around him beginning to turn blue. Blue light spread downward from above, enveloping their surroundings and heralding a new day.

It was dawn. Day had begun to break before he knew it.

Encrid realized he had made it past today once again. They continued toward the main force until the sun rose and their surroundings grew bright. Then Encrid's patrol encountered the main body of scouts.

"What happened to you lot?"

The scout Platoon Commander asked as soon as they met. Encrid had plenty of matters more urgent than explanations. There were too many wounded men. He could give his report on the way back.

For now, being alive was enough. "Whew. I'll pass out now."

Henri spoke from behind him. Encrid did not answer. There was no point saying anything to a man who had already fainted.