Chapter 316 - Anguish, Ignorance, Despair

Anguish, ignorance, despair.

Encrid's pursuers gave up. The commander at the very front could find no words. Seeing this, his adjutant spoke beside him.

"We lost him."

There was nothing they could do. They had thrown a rope and caught him, certain that would be the end, but he had snapped it through brute strength and escaped. Superhuman strength.

And that was not all. As though he never tired, he kept running forward, ever forward. The madman never rested. His feet never stopped. Watching him, they could not bring themselves to pursue him.

Their target never rested, never stopped moving. He kept running and walking to the very end. At some point, the commander's orders grew fewer, and his feet stopped too. The man called Encrid had escaped Abnaire's trap completely.

Even the Gray Hounds stopped. Their commander stared blankly at the traces left by the vanished man. Not only had he escaped the encirclement, he had reached enemy territory. Pursuing him now would invite a counterattack. It was over.

'Abnaire, Abnaire.'

The Gray Hounds' commander repeated the name of the man who had promised to bear all responsibility himself. Had he said it would be worth every soldier dying to catch that one man?

["Yes, call me a fool afterward if you like. Call me the fucking idiot who sacrificed a thousand soldiers to kill one elite soldier!"]

He recalled the impassioned speech Abnaire had delivered.

Would there have been something to say if they had all died instead? Not even half the troops had died. No, only a tiny fraction had. A shaman, two mages, a few mercenaries, two Hurrier family swordsmen. Few ordinary soldiers had been lost.

Their opponent had evaded them. He had carved out an escape route so absurd that no one would believe it if told. The Gray Hounds' commander conceded the truth.

'We can't catch him.'

All that remained was to report it.

Had Abnaire said he would sacrifice a thousand soldiers to catch him, and be remembered as a tragic, incompetent general? He could not even become that. He had been robbed of even that chance.

* * *

Abnaire accepted that something had happened to Galaf and the proto knight too.

"They're not coming."

At his words, spoken as he surveyed the distant battlefield, his adjutant Nilf bowed his head.

Abnaire had staked everything on this operation. It was as good as a gamble against the ruling prince. And the end was approaching.

"What about the bastards who were so confident in their assassinations?"

He had even employed men who fought without hesitation under cover of darkness.

"We can't reach them. They've either fled, or..."

"They were taken out."

Fled? They could not flee. Abnaire could destroy their clan with a flick of his hand. Which meant they had been taken out. By whom? It was simply absurd. He had been utterly defeated.

"Hahahaha."

Abnaire laughed. He would not be human if he did not feel hollow.

"Does the world hate me? Or has the goddess of luck turned her back on me? If neither, what did I miss? What have I missed?"

He spoke to himself. Each calmly spoken word was a dagger he drove into himself.

Nilf could hardly know what Abnaire did not. He kept his mouth shut. They were inside the command tent, the only two people left.

Abnaire sat in a chair beside the brazier and bowed his head. The hot flames singed a few strands of his hair. The fire crackled, scattering embers. Some struck his face, but he remained lost in thought, as though he could not feel the sting.

He thought and thought. Should he curse everything simply because none of it made sense? Or should he accept it? Accept what? What was he supposed to accept? That luck was against him? If it was not luck, how had the man escaped?

What had happened to Galaf and the proto knight? He had sent them to intercept the enemy. They were his second measure for eliminating the small elite force. Yet that measure had been cut short before it even began.

He had sent them to kill a few conspicuous figures in the enemy camp and return. Had they been killed instead? But was that possible? Aya? Galaf, He Who Holds the River's Course?

And what in the world had happened to the assassin clan? They were supposed to pick off enemy commanders, yet no such commotion had broken out in the enemy camp. They had vanished without a sound. How was that possible?

'Did Naurilia send a knight?'

"Nilf!"

His mouth opened the instant the thought struck him.

"Was it a knight? Scarlet Cloak? Cyprus?"

He cried out the names notorious in Aspen, but it was pointless. The most important part of Nilf's work was monitoring Naurilia's internal affairs. They could not send a knight right now. That was his conclusion.

"No, sir."

Nilf's voice sank very low. Abnaire fell silent again. His mind probed and sifted through possibilities, but how could it find an answer? Without knowing that Encrid was repeating today, the truth was impossible to understand.

Abnaire swept both hands back from his forehead through his hair, let out a great breath, and spoke.

"I lost."

An utter defeat.

Considering the possibilities, there were all too many things the enemy could have done. They might have grown to knight-level strength during the fighting. Or he might not have realized they were knight-level from the start. In that case, it was only natural that something had happened to Galaf and the proto knight. That was his conclusion about their fate.

The assassin clan had been taken out instead. Had the Fairy intervened? He had heard there was a Fairy swordswoman among the enemy. Still, it could not have been easy, even for a Fairy. Fine. Let him assume she had some hidden talent.

And then Encrid, Encrid, Encrid. Abnaire turned the same name over three times. That man had slipped clean out. That part he truly could not understand. What kind of human could do such a thing? Perhaps he really had been born lucky. Otherwise...

'A genius at intuitive judgment.'

A commander who moved by instinct rather than thought. He had only heard of such people. He had believed they could not exist.

Intuition was the sum of experience. Instinct alone could not account for military strategy. One might get lucky once or twice by sensing the shifting mood of an army, but fundamentally, intuition required knowledge. Only then could instinct become a basis for judgment. Thus, even a sense of foreboding required experience to support it.

But his opponent was a late-blooming genius, not a commander who had spent a lifetime at war. Even the most seasoned veteran could not do this. Abnaire could have trapped and killed a veteran of not a hundred but a thousand battlefields. Yet he had let this man escape.

"I can't simply give up because I don't understand."

Abnaire muttered. He had used every move at his disposal, but something he had obtained by staking his life still remained.

"Will you use it?"

Nilf asked because he knew, and Abnaire nodded because he knew as well.

"I've started this. I have to see it through."

When borrowing a mage and obtaining a proto knight from the ruling prince, Abnaire had brought back an unexpected ally. But using that ally would itself amount to admitting defeat.

Upon returning to the principality, he would face no small barrage of criticism. He would not be able to retain his former position. He would be lucky to escape execution. Even so, he could not let it end in defeat. Abnaire stepped outside.

'I don't think I've ever lost this miserably.'

Not one of his plans had succeeded. What had his original plan been? His foremost objective had been to diminish the enemy's main strength: its small elite force. Encrid came first, followed by the men under him.

'To think Aya would fail.'

Her eyes were special. In some ways, those eyes, her defining trait, surpassed even a Frog's talent reading. Imbued with "Will," they could gauge an opponent's ability at a glance. They had earned her the nickname "Aya, Who Never Fights a Losing Battle," though she went around calling herself Aspen's Greatest Beauty.

'And she was defeated?'

It truly made no sense, but he had to force himself to make sense of it. He could not stop here.

The proto knight Aya would find and kill her targets. Galaf would remain a trump card for later. Encrid would be trapped and killed. Those had been the primary objectives.

That had not been the end of it. There had been more to follow. He had not intended to stop after throwing away a thousand soldiers to kill one enemy. There had been a secondary objective too, but...

'What a shame. Such a shame.'

This battle could at least have allowed Aspen to advance into Green Pearl again. It might have, had things gone according to plan. His strategy had accounted for what would follow the elimination of the enemy's elite few, but it was useless now.

Was what remained stubbornness, or an inability to let go? He could not tell. Abnaire clenched his teeth.

* * *

"You call that a sprain?"

At Encrid's question, Ragna raised the forearm he had roughly wrapped in strips torn from his clothes.

"It's sprained."

Was insisting enough to make it so? Was that how it worked? Audin had called a broken arm a sprain too, and now Ragna was saying the same about an obviously serious injury. Without proper treatment, he might lose the use of that arm.

Of course, Encrid himself was hardly in good shape.

"I've sprained my whole body too."

He spoke after looking himself over. Ragna did not even smile. At their feet, Esther gave a low, incredulous growl.

Having made his feeble joke, Encrid looked back. There was no sign of the pursuers. Had he escaped? It looked that way. He could no longer feel the gloomy something hanging over his head, or the foreboding that had stabbed through his entire body.

What should he do now, then? Was it time to feel relieved? Perhaps it was.

"Heeey!"

Something like a battle cry sounded in the distance. A booming female voice. Squinting, he saw Dunbachel running toward them.

She too was covered in blood. With her white fur soaked in it, she looked like a dark crimson beast, mottled white and blood-red.

'Like a spotted cat.'

It was an idle thought.

She came racing toward them as though flying. Behind her, he could see allied troops moving. Krais had been unable to wait any longer and had sent the army.

"My betrothed, must you do this every time I take my eyes off you?"

Sinar followed Dunbachel. Even her light, bounding steps carried her remarkably fast. It was the light-footed grace unique to Fairies.

Only when she approached and spoke did it feel real to Encrid.

'Tomorrow.'

Today was drawing to a close. The low sun cast long shadows beneath the hills. It was the hour when the light that illuminated all things faded into the west. The orange-tinted sunset spoke of a today different from yesterday.

Encrid savored that light. He had survived, struggled with all he had, and was ready to greet tomorrow.

"Let's go back."

The words left his lips.

No one knew what had happened to Encrid. They could not know the details. But the battalion's soldiers had seen him fight. They knew he had plunged alone into the enemy at the very front and swung his sword like a madman.

What felt so long ago to the man afflicted with the curse of a repeating today had happened only a day or two ago for them.

"Waaaaah!"

Cheers tore through the air. A hymn to the hero who had cut through the heart of the enemy and returned alive.

"Pain!"

"Death!"

The ridiculous chant joined in too.

It all felt distant to Encrid. The sounds seemed to recede farther and farther. He wondered why, then realized his body was slowly tilting. Someone beside him caught him. Uncharacteristically, Ragna had offered his shoulder.

"Idiot."

Encrid said it to Ragna. With the sunset behind them, the two wounded men tilted together. Ragna was in no condition to walk properly either. Making it this far was a feat in itself.

GRRR.

Esther shook her head at their feet. She seemed to be calling them foolish humans.

"Here."

Dunbachel stepped forward. She was exhausted too. Why were there so many skilled swordsmen on the enemy side? She had not come close to dying, but she was physically spent. Not so spent that she would collapse while walking, though.

She simply hoisted Encrid onto her back. The soft feel of Beastman fur lifted him off the ground.

"Wow, you're soft."

Encrid spoke through his haze. She really was soft.

"Did you take some fucking drugs while you were fighting, or what?"

Dunbachel grumbled. Encrid looked back again. The distant enemy beyond the hill could come no closer.

"I could carry him in my arms."

Sinar said something beside her, but Dunbachel ignored it and kept going.

Ragna, who had staggered while trying to support Encrid, passed out on the spot. A few nearby soldiers caught him. The fact that he had walked this far at all was absurd. Hardly any part of his body was unharmed.

"Waaa... ah?"

The cheers soon died away. They were not pursuing the enemy, and one look at the returning men made it a wonder they had been walking at all. The quick-witted among the cheering soldiers acted first.

"Make way!"

"Get them inside!"

"Medic!"

The soldiers each did their part. Commanders stepped forward and took action. Encrid and Ragna were carried into the ranks.

Following close behind, Esther took in Encrid's condition and inwardly shook her head. He looked as though he had escaped death dozens of times. Ragna appeared more badly injured, but Encrid was actually in worse shape. Several of his bones were cracked or out of alignment. That was how hard he had pushed himself.

Not that Ragna was fine. But Esther had never had any interest in him in the first place.

Once the sunset faded into evening, they received treatment within the camp, along with the nursing attentions of a bright-eyed Garrett. Nursing in name only; his real purpose lay elsewhere.

"Your mouth isn't hurt. I bet you've got plenty of interesting stories."

He wanted to hear what had happened.

Listening nearby, Sinar gripped Nidle and spoke.

"I think you need to learn how to respect the wounded who led you to victory."

She looked ready to strike him if he pestered Encrid any further.

Garrett caught on quickly.

"Nurat, I made a mistake, didn't I?"

His adjutant Nurat, who always watched his back, answered at once.

"Yes. If you stay any longer, I may find myself with a different superior."

"Why would that change?"

"It would if you died."

"Let's go."

Did he bring her along just for the banter? Swathed in bandages, Encrid watched the comedy duo.

"Tell me next time."

Garrett insisted on leaving those words behind as he went.

"Focus on healing."

For reasons of her own, Sinar remained at his side.

"Aren't you leaving? I'm sleepy."

"Sleep. Let me admire you while you do."

He still could not get used to Fairy humor. Encrid slowly let his consciousness slip away. His return amid the cheers was, honestly, full of gaps in his memory. He had driven his body that hard.

He had come straight to the Medical Barracks, eaten a little porridge, and lain down covered in layers of ointment and medicinal herbs. He felt as though his whole body was growing feverish. And he prided himself on having a constitution second to none.

Encrid fell asleep. He closed his eyes, yet saw the black river. There was the ferryman.

"The first is anguish, the second ignorance, and the third despair."

Encrid could not understand what he meant. Today's ferryman was more solemn than usual, and Encrid was so exhausted that he could not move his lips even in a dream.