Chapter 70 - Isolation Technique

The foundation of the Isolation Technique was load. Repeating movements while lifting heavy objects developed physical ability. In other words, training with heavy weights did more than simply increase strength.

“Shall we?”

A month had passed. In a corner of the training ground where the cold still lingered, Encrid proposed a spar. Audin smiled and nodded.

“Would you prefer an arm or a leg, brother?”

A declaration that he intended to twist one or the other.

“You talk too much, Audin.”

Both were unarmed. The Isolation Technique was not all Encrid had learned over the past month.

They stared each other down. Encrid had to tilt his head back to meet Audin's eyes. The difference in their builds was unmistakable. Even so, Audin moved first.

He pushed off the ground, lowering his body as he rushed in, so fast he seemed to leave an afterimage. It hardly suited the nickname Praying Bear.

Once, the best Encrid could have done was raise a knee to meet him. Now things were different.

He lowered his stance as well, clenched a fist with his thumb extended, and aimed it forward like a stab. If Audin rushed in, it was positioned to burst his eye.

Audin cut his charge short and sprang sideways. Kicking hard off the ground, he shifted his enormous bulk as swiftly as Esther. Like a nimble panther, in other words. His agility and explosiveness belied his size.

The fight would be over if Audin got behind him, so Encrid turned again and again to keep up. Then, at some point, Audin threw a punch.

He was already within arm's reach. Encrid could not tell when he had let him close the distance.

He was using Concentrate on a Single Point. Within those slivers of time, he judged and acted. He thrust his forehead forward, trying to intercept the fist before it reached its intended point of impact. Taking a hit without getting hurt was one of the wrestling techniques.

Mid-punch, Audin opened his hand and grabbed Encrid's hair. Then he yanked it downward, drove his left elbow into Encrid's back, and bore down with his weight.

For a moment, Encrid withstood Audin's strength and weight. He even tried to throw him over his back.

Audin did not obligingly climb onto his back. He leaned his weight into Encrid while pulling his hair forward. The uncanny timing of that pull threw Encrid's center of gravity off. He could no longer make his body move as he wanted. He had lost his balance.

There was nothing he could do now.

THUD.

Encrid shielded his face with his hands as Audin landed on top of him.

“You offered your whole body instead of an arm or leg, Brother Squad Leader.”

Audin let out a hearty laugh.

“I'd have been wearing a helmet on the battlefield.”

He meant the hair grab. Still pinning him down, Audin answered with a smile.

“Then I would have used another method.”

True enough. Encrid had not been complaining. He had asked because he wanted to know what that other method was.

“Had you been wearing a helmet, I would have grabbed the nape of your neck instead of your hair, or pressed my palm against the back of your head and pushed down in one motion.”

“I see.”

He was still trapped under Audin. The Praying Bear's weight felt ready to burst his guts at any moment, but this new lesson mattered more to Encrid. Leaving him to concentrate, Audin got up and brushed himself off.

A month. A daily routine that might have driven someone else mad with boredom had become something Encrid took in stride.

He learned the Isolation Technique in the morning and wrestling after lunch. Then he practiced swordsmanship until dinner. After eating, he reviewed what he had learned: the heart of the beast, the sense for the blade, Concentrate on a Single Point.

There was room to improve all of them. Why stop when he could get better?

Even so, he learned slowly. Even with Concentrate on a Single Point, the sense for the blade, and the heart of the beast supporting him. And so Encrid crawled. He was a slow snail, a turtle come ashore.

“You really do improve slowly.”

Standing now, Audin straightened his clothes. With the cold still lingering, white wisps of steam rose from his shoulders. The same was true of Encrid's. Both the Isolation Technique and wrestling left them drenched in sweat.

Encrid went over Audin's lessons again and again. They were worth it.

'How to gauge someone's ability.'

The body held all the information. A right-handed swordsman, for instance, tended to have more developed muscles in his right arm. It was an eye for reading an opponent's experience and conditioning from their build and physical development. Encrid had come to understand it only after beginning his training in the Isolation Technique.

What he learned afterward was valuable, too. Once he had laid his body's foundations with the Isolation Technique, he learned wrestling. Audin divided wrestling into three broad categories: strikes, joint locks, and throws. He said that if an opponent was smaller, simply throwing and slamming them could make a fight much easier.

[“What if I'm smaller?”]

Encrid knew how to listen, but he asked just as many questions. When learning, he never let anything pass lightly. Each time, Audin thought that this was precisely the Squad Leader's strength.

[“There are ways to fight when you are smaller, too. Those skilled in joint locks, strikes, and hand-to-hand combat can even use their opponent's strength against them. Counters are one form of that.”]

The Fairy Company Commander must have used something of that kind. His words brought to mind the technique she had used to topple Encrid with a single gesture. Audin actually demonstrated such methods as well.

Audin was kind. A devil during the Isolation Technique sessions, he was positively gentle when teaching wrestling.

[“Apply any more force here and the arm breaks and the joint is destroyed. Without Divine healing, it will never recover. You would be left with a crippled arm.”]

The slightest mistake could have left Encrid's body dismantled with bare hands. Naturally, the wrestling lessons were the milder version.

[“Strength and speed are essential, of course. Beyond that, you must learn to identify vital points, bring an opponent down, break bones, destroy joints, and so on. None of those can be learned in a slapdash fashion.

“That is why you must practice what you have already learned more, rather than learn something new.

“And yet you still wish to learn more?”]

Sometimes he scolded Encrid, and with good reason. Rather than master a single technique, Encrid was trying to learn as many as possible and hammer them into his body.

'This is the right way.'

Encrid had his repeating todays. He could not expect to master these techniques merely through his current lessons. To Audin, he simply looked greedy, with a body that could not keep up. But for Encrid, this was the right path.

Audin's voice broke into his review of what he had learned.

“Why do you think I managed to grab your hair just now?”

“Distance.”

Encrid answered simply. Ignorance was not why he had fallen for it.

“Exactly. Distance. I have told you countless times, but you really are dull and slow, Brother Squad Leader.”

Encrid was unchanged. Words like that did not hurt him. He had no time to be hurt. He was too busy going over the day's lessons again.

There were dozens of joint locks alone. Just memorizing them and hammering even a rough version into his body pushed him to his limits. On top of that, he had to learn throws and strikes, and engrave the basic principles into his body.

“I have told you again and again. Physical fitness is essential. Reading distance is no different from swordsmanship. And finally, without agility, none of it is any use.”

Audin was a good teacher. Not because his methods were excellent.

'He doesn't know how to give up.'

Even when progress was too slow to see, he kept patiently teaching. That sort of teacher suited Encrid best. Such steadfast instruction was bound to leave something in his body and mind. Putting proficiency and mastery off until later, Encrid learned and practiced just as doggedly.

“Fitness, distance, physical ability.”

Encrid repeated Audin's words. Whether using a sword, a spear, a blunt weapon, or wrestling, strength and speed were essential. He had grown quite accustomed to judging distance, but Audin was better at it. That was why he had lost.

“Rolling around on the bare ground again today?”

When he returned after wrestling, Rem was waiting.

“Taking the day off?”

The same question every time.

“No.”

Now it was time for the sword. Sometimes he used a wooden one, but he was more comfortable with a live blade now. His familiar longsword sought targets all over Rem's body. It was not Rem he faced every day, though.

Some days it was Ragna.

“Watching you makes me want to have a bout, Squad Leader.”

Other days, Jaxon stepped forward.

“I have time to spare. Bring your sword outside.”

Not one of them refused Encrid's requests. And they all had similar thoughts as they helped him. Rem, for instance:

'How can anyone have so little talent? Does he need real combat experience?'

On the battlefield, his skill had certainly seemed to improve by the day. Back in the city, he was standing still again. Of course, he was better than before. But there was no dramatic growth, at least as far as Rem could see.

What improvement there was came from the heart of the beast, Concentrate on a Single Point, the sense for the blade, and the Isolation Technique. The Isolation Technique was changing the quality of his muscles. Naturally, a single month could not bring dramatic changes. He advanced little by little, half a step at a time. Like a slow snail crawling onward.

Ragna had similar thoughts.

'His fundamentals are solid. Why is he so slow to improve at applying them?'

Hadn't his talent blossomed at thirty? Why had he become an idiot again? There was no telling.

Even so, Ragna showed enthusiasm. Encrid was someone who inspired it naturally.

Every day, whether he had duty or something else came up, he somehow repeated the same punishing training. If he had morning duty, he would lift rocks and strike those strange poses even late into the evening. The same went for wrestling and swordsmanship. If duty conflicted with them, he would finish his shift, return, and begin training. He carved time out of his sleep and meals.

During unit drills, Rem, Ragna, Jaxon, Audin, and Krais all either slacked off or did the bare minimum. Encrid gave those drills everything he had, too. Afterward, he would return to the quarters, head out to the training ground, and repeat his own regimen. His consistency was almost frightening.

That was why watching his Squad Leader spurred Ragna on. The same went for Jaxon.

'His senses.'

His hearing was as good as having eyes in the back of his head. Yet his sensory acuity had not improved beyond that.

'Why?'

Was the fault his as the teacher? Or did the problem lie with Encrid, the student?

'The student is the problem.'

He knew from having taught others several times before. That was what made it so peculiar, the agonizing slowness with which Encrid improved.

'And yet he doesn't give up. Unusual.'

Jaxon almost smiled with satisfaction, then restored his usual impassive expression.

'What does the Squad Leader matter, anyway?'

Despite that thought, he always did his best. As they took turns teaching, a rotation formed on its own. Of them all, Jaxon worked the hardest.

Esther watched the man she had chosen. His figure was reflected in the black panther's blue eyes. How could someone be like that?

She, too, had once lived utterly obsessed with the world of spells. There had been a time when immersing herself in it all day left her needing nothing else. She had wanted neither food nor sleep nor anything at all.

'And this is how I ended up.'

After dwelling on the past, Esther followed Encrid with her eyes again.

'He's different from me.'

The man's days were simple and repetitive. Even eating, sleeping, and resting were things he did as part of his routine. The phrase “working hard at resting” suited him remarkably well.

Watching him, she thought:

'If there's anything I can do, I want to help, too.'

He made people want to help him. That was the sort of person he was.

Encrid himself had no time to look around him. He was quite literally too busy engraving all manner of things into his body. He had always been a training fanatic, but lately he had become even worse. The Isolation Technique was partly responsible.

'The quality of my muscles is changing.'

It almost made him want to strip off his clothes and look at himself in a mirror. Who could feel that change better than anyone? Encrid himself.

When a movement he had once struggled with came smoothly, he was more than pleased. He was almost mad with delight. From stabs to the fundamentals of the Heavy Sword Technique, everything felt different with his changed body. Smoother, more fluid. Even deflecting with the Flowing Sword Technique was beginning to feel familiar.

CLANG.

Blade met blade as he deflected his opponent's weapon. He had just knocked Rem's axe aside.

“That's a bit better.”

His deflecting had earned Rem's approval. It was not perfect, but...

'It's better than before.'

Encrid himself could feel the difference in the technique's execution. Underpinning all of this was the method that built his body. The Isolation Technique.

[“Do you regret not learning it sooner?”]

Audin had asked him that once. Did he feel he had started building his body too late?

[“No.”]

Encrid had shaken his head. He had no regrets about the days gone by. If any such regrets had remained, he would already have been trapped in “today.”

Back then, what he had learned at the time had mattered. And so he would devote himself to the present. That was the right way.

Over that month, he had dreamed of the ferryman only once.

[“You live no differently than if you were trapped in today.”]

Resting his chin on his hand, boredom radiating from his entire being, the ferryman had said that and faded away. Where had the fellow who had mocked him so fiercely gone?

The ferryman was right. Encrid had spent a month that was no different from repeating today. Only his duty hours and the weather changed.

[“Had you learned it earlier, your body would not have been able to handle it.”]

Audin had told him that, too. Encrid did not dwell on it. What mattered was today. Right now.

Before he knew it, winter, the fourth and harshest of the seasons, had passed its midpoint.

“A word.”

On one such day, the Fairy Company Commander came to see Encrid. When he stepped outside the quarters, she stood with the cold at her back and stared at him with her green eyes.

“You have a mission.”

Soldiers in Border Guard's standing army were often assigned wherever they were needed. Fighting on the battlefield was not their only duty.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You are to escort the heir to a trading company. Choose just one member of Fourth Squad to accompany you, and report with them.”

The Company Commander delivered her business as an order. It came from above. Encrid had to obey.

Commissions and missions. He had never been particularly fond of them. But now he had begun to take an interest in earning merit, too. Build his skills and earn distinction. That was the path to knighthood.