Chapter 62 - A Knight Bears Not a Speck of Shame in His Heart

"Stand by for a while. I'll send someone."

Permission did not mean they could leave immediately. When Encrid returned to their quarters, his squad members looked like nestlings waiting for their mother. "Get ready."

Those two words told them all they needed to know. "Ah, I knew it! Knew you'd pull it off, Squad Leader!"

"Excellent."

Rem and Jaxon each chimed in, and the others began moving too. They needed to bring at least some equipment. "Stand by for now. Orders will come shortly."

"Fine by me."

Anything he said would have been warmly received right now. For once, every squad member was of one mind. BUMP

Even when Ragna and Rem bumped into each other, both simply went on their way. Not a single barbed remark passed between them. "You sneaky wildcat, got a spare cloak? It's fucking freezing."

Rem was particularly averse to the cold. Jaxon shook his head at the question. Normally, that exchange could have sparked a fight on the spot, but this time it passed without incident. 'Look how well they get along.'

How nice it would be if they could give each other a little ground like this every day. Wishful thinking, of course. Encrid sat on the edge of his bed, watching his squad members bustle about. Soon, the Company Commander's messenger arrived. "What did you do to get your entire squad assigned to an operation?"

It was the Fourth Platoon Commander, sent by the Company Commander. "I'm going to follow the assassin's connections. The thieves' guild."

"... Watch yourself. Even the greatest knight can't dodge a dagger in the back. Thieves are dangerous men."

Concern colored the Platoon Commander's words as he invoked an old tale. A dagger in the back. A general who had once held sway over the continent had died to the dagger of a subordinate he trusted implicitly. It was an ancient tale—not quite a legend, but hardly something one could call history. There was no knowing whether it had ever happened. Encrid was about to nod his understanding when Ragna said,

"Actually, a knight can dodge it." "You don't have to be a knight to dodge it," Jaxon agreed. "If you just stand there and get stabbed when someone comes at you from behind, you're a fucking idiot," Rem finished.

The three piled on the moment the Platoon Commander finished speaking. "Why do I bother?"

The Platoon Commander shook his head and left. In any case, they had their permission.

"Let's go."

Encrid rose as he spoke. It was colder than yesterday, leaving even their quarters like an icebox. Rem's equipment amounted to a single hatchet. Ragna had the arming sword he had traded with Encrid before. Jaxon, too, carried only one sword, apparently a shortsword. Audin tucked two short clubs, thoroughly soaked in oil and dried, into his belt and stepped forward. "Stealing is wicked. Let us go teach them a lesson," Audin said as he set out.

Rem chuckled at that.

"Right. Wicked." Their equipment was simple enough, but Jaxon had bundled himself in thick furs that made him look cumbersome. Ragna wore a hole-riddled cloak patched together from layers of cloth that even a passing beggar would not covet.

Rem, of course, outdid them all. "You're going like that?"

Jaxon's outfit was perfectly acceptable, and with a little generosity, one could approve of Ragna's too. But what was this?

Rem had wrapped blankets around his entire body. A walking bed, perhaps? He did not even seem to intend to stick his arms out. Only his toes peeked from underneath. "I hate the cold."

Would he listen if Encrid objected? Encrid chose the efficient option: he ignored Rem. "Let's go."

The troublemaker squad set off for the market as they were. "This sounds dangerous," Krais muttered to himself before following.

Faced with clearing snow until his forearms swelled or taking his chances with danger, he had chosen danger. He really did not want to shovel snow.

* * *

After any fight, Encrid would go over it countless times in Review. It was an old habit, and a means of survival. This time was no different. The mixed-blood Fairy had drawn his attention with whistling blades and Rotten.

'Misdirection.'

A simple but effective screen. What he had sought afterward was close combat, intending to finish the fight with a single killing blow. For whatever reason, the mixed-blood Fairy had been a heart enthusiast. That made his target predictable, and through the repeated todays, Encrid had already experienced the form of his weapon. He had been able to account for everything as he fought. 'What if I'd failed?' Encrid wondered.

'Was I relying on luck?'

The mixed-blood Fairy might not have acted as Encrid intended. Some degree of luck had been necessary for him to move according to plan. Encrid questioned himself. In that first repeating today, when he had killed the stab-obsessed bastard, he had relied on an all-out stab. Without considering what might follow, he had quite literally gambled his life. In his Review of that fight, he had reflected on his mistake. Had he made the same mistake again? Not this time.

'Even if he'd tried something else.'

Encrid would have won in the end. He had outmatched the assassin in individual tactics, but even before that, he was confident he could overwhelm him in sheer skill. Even if the mixed-blood Fairy had come at him in earnest, with Rotten still behind him...

'My chances of winning are better.'

Of course, it would have been difficult to win as cleanly, without any significant injuries. Review. Reflection. He repeated the process endlessly, visualizing the fight as he walked and trying out different circumstances. The patrolman who had found Encrid had been shocked twice: first at the corpses, and then at the troublemaker Squad Leader who had reached the level of a high-grade soldier.

High-grade soldier was one thing in name, but how many ordinary soldiers actually displayed such skill? All the more so for a man whose abilities had been abysmal until the recent battle. In short, both Encrid and everyone else acknowledged that his swordsmanship was no longer scraping the bottom. Still, he kept searching.

'There might have been an easier way.'

It was hard to believe that someone with this attitude could repeat today. Yet perhaps it was precisely because he held to that attitude that he always reached tomorrow. One thought led to another, until he recalled last night's dream.

'Does he have nothing better to do?'

An incomprehensible being, however one looked at him. The ferryman of the black river, that was. The ferryman who appeared in his dream had not sneered as before. He had simply stared for a while, then tossed out a question.

["What are you?"] It was the voice of one without a mouth. For that reason, the feeling within it came through plainly. No—it came through because the ferryman wished it to. Encrid sensed that instinctively.

The feeling in that single question was puzzlement. Pure curiosity, unmixed with so much as a trace of disappointment, anger, or any other emotion. He could not answer. It was a dream, after all. Though certainly not an ordinary one. "Squad Leader."

He must have been thoroughly lost in thought. Only when someone caught his arm from behind and called him did Encrid stop walking.

"Sorry, what did you say?"

He had let whatever they had just said pass him by. "I said you'll get yourself stabbed by a thief if you go in with your head in the clouds," Rem said.

It had not sounded like quite such a long remark. More importantly, the bastard himself looked ready to charge in and get stabbed to death without ever leaving his blankets. Jaxon ignored Rem and said,

"I asked whether you had a plan."

A plan? What plan? The same emotion Encrid had seen in the ferryman from his dream surfaced in his eyes. Puzzlement. "Were you going to just ask around for the thieves' guild and storm in? Do you know where their headquarters is?"

Jaxon folded his arms as he asked. His thick clothes forced his elbows up at a comical angle, but he remained perfectly composed. Their opponents did everything from pickpocketing to human trafficking. The guild's name was Gilfin, which meant exactly what it sounded like: an organization led by Gilfin. People commonly called it a thieves' guild, but it was really a criminal organization. Would such men operate with their base out in the open? No. Like the vermin they were, feeding off the city's shadows and back alleys, they kept themselves hidden. "I don't."

"Then I think we should start by making a plan."

"You really hadn't thought of anything?" Rem put in. Ragna stayed out of it, staring at the sky and breathing out one cloud of vapor after another. Audin merely smiled. "You really hadn't thought this through?"

Krais stared at Encrid with his enormous eyes as he asked.

"I figured you'd at least know where their base was."

"How would even I know where this guild is? Get close enough to try finding out, and it's a quick slice."

He drew the edge of his hand across his neck. A criminal guild killing a standing-army soldier? Did they wield that much power? Surely they would not go that far.

In truth, he had paid no attention. He had neither the time nor the energy to concern himself with such things. "Have you never carried out a small-unit operation?" Jaxon asked again.

It felt like a rebuke for moving the entire squad without any proper planning. Encrid found himself with less and less to say. What had his life been until now? He had been too busy struggling to survive, sacrificing sleep just to swing his sword once more. There had been no time to learn strategy in between. Of course, he had experience as a mercenary, had served as a Squad Leader, and had participated in small-unit operations several times. But the flow of a battlefield was entirely different from a small-scale operation conducted out here. Battlefield operations with small groups—such as leading the scouting squad before—were familiar territory. This situation was different. Besides...

'That was...'

The result of devising ways to survive, not acting on a meticulous plan. Everything he had learned had cost him his life. Did he have to do that again, then? Throw away his life and repeat today once more?

Encrid stopped walking. A brutally cold wind slipped through his cloak and brushed his side. A bitter, biting wind. 'I'd rather not.'

He did not want to use repeating today as one of his methods. The agony of death was hardly welcome. More than anything, instinct told him there was no need.

What should he do, then? He really had not come entirely without a thought. He had considered the usual approach.

"Can't we find out by asking around? No matter how well they hide, the locals will know." There were no secrets in this world. Only death made a secret complete: once the sole person who knew it died, no one else could ever know. A criminal organization could not hide itself that way. It followed, then, that someone knew. "That approach won't get us far. Gilfin's people are good at cutting ties, and they're infamous for being terrifying. Grab a few low-level members and grill them all you like, but they won't know anything. And if one does know something and lets it slip, they say Gilfin breaks all their limbs and cuts out their tongue."

He ruled his organization through fear of retribution, then. How, then? No answer came readily to mind. Encrid could struggle to survive and devise ways to do so all day long. On a battlefield, he also knew something about holding his position in accordance with the strategy. But this was neither of those situations. "Squad Leader, give us your orders."

As Encrid stood lost in thought, Ragna, who had been gazing at the sky, spoke. Encrid turned his eyes toward him. A genius of swordsmanship, with few who could match him once he held a sword. That was how Encrid saw Ragna.

In daily life, he was lazy and careless—the sort of man who constantly lost his way and dropped things from his pockets. Yet sometimes, very occasionally, Ragna knew how to strike at the heart of a matter, as though he had a sword in his hand. "The Captain only needs to give the orders. Leave figuring out how to carry them out to whoever knows how."

Those few words, quietly uttered by Ragna, carried tremendous weight for Encrid. He had called him Captain. That had been his position all along: Squad Leader, the head who led the squad. But had Encrid truly led them until now?

'Was I really their Squad Leader?' No. A man with wretched skills, desperate merely to survive, could hardly lead a group. Not when every one of its members was exceptional.

But Ragna's words had just changed things. "That's right," Rem acknowledged.

Jaxon gave a slight nod. "Indeed. Quite right, brother. That is what a Captain does," Audin agreed. "He's right. What's the matter?"

Only Krais seemed out of step with the mood. He had already accepted Encrid as his Squad Leader in his heart. "Yes. He is right. Jaxon, you know a way, don't you?"

Jaxon of Equivalent Exchange was also an information broker. Where Krais's information was broad but shallow, Jaxon's was narrow and deep. "I do."

"Tell me."

"Take a room at an inn in the market and wait. I'll be back before sundown."

Asked for a method, he was proposing to leave. "Leave it to me, and I'll find out."

"Good. Let's get a room."

Once he decided, he did not look back. That was how Encrid acted. On the way to the inn, Encrid finished explaining his thoughts as they walked along the well-packed dirt road. They had yet to reach the heart of the market, so there were few people around.

"We'll find the guild's base and wipe it out in one go." They were dealing with a criminal organization. Even without grounds for suspicion, no one would have cause to object to crushing them by force. Of course, it would mean tearing holes in the back pockets of the nobles and the Battalion Commander—the so-called higher-ups. 'What does that matter?'

A knight bears not a speck of shame in his heart. Just as he had seen, heard, learned, and dreamed as a child, Encrid had lived his life that way. He intended to do so now as well.