Chapter 83 - Heat

As the ferryman of the black river had said, Encrid's everyday life was much like repeating today. His days consisted of nothing but training. “Control, control, control yourself.”

His sparring with Rem focused on gaining complete command of his body and sword. The killing intent that occasionally sent chills through him was a trick of Jaxon's gaze as he watched from some hiding place. Jaxon had a knack for making a man waste away simply by looking at him.

Let his guard down for even a moment, and he felt he would die. Jaxon wasn't actually doing anything, yet his eyes alone could make Encrid think that. It was maddening. Finding Jaxon whenever he released that killing intent was another part of the training. Encrid tried extending the reach of his hearing and his other senses, but failed every time. He couldn't grasp the concept of the “Sixth Sense.” “It doesn't come easily.”

Jaxon doggedly repeated the same exercise, and Encrid began losing weight. That was how hard the training was to endure. Even so, he never asked him to stop. “Enough already, you sneaky wildcat. You're really getting on my nerves.” “A mere barbarian sensed my killing intent? I wasn't subtle enough.” “You let it leak on purpose. Always got an answer, don't you? My axe, where's my axe? My aaaaxe to split that wildcat's skull.” Watching Encrid grow thinner, Rem would speak up on his behalf, and a quarrel would naturally follow. Then Encrid would stop Rem as he chanted and searched for his axe. “I'm doing this because I want to.” “Fuck's sake. I'm saying he should know when to stop. That's all.” For all Rem's talk of knowing when to stop, not a day went by when Encrid's body wasn't covered in bruises, courtesy of Rem's fists and axe. Rem didn't know when to stop either. Encrid wondered how he could talk, but didn't ask him to stop, either. What would have happened if he hadn't conditioned his body with the Isolation Technique? He probably couldn't have held out as he did now. Audin brought it up whenever he had the chance.

“You may rest if it's too much, brother.” This bastard definitely seemed more like a priest of a demon than of a god. Rest if you're tired. You can stop. He was always saying things like that, but they truly were a demon's whispers. “Maybe I will.”

If Encrid said that, Audin would reply, “We must train your mental fortitude as well,” and come rushing at him. “Mental fortitude comes from physical strength. This is a secret, but I'll share it with you alone, brother. In truth, mental fortitude comes from the muscles.” One joking remark would not only increase the weight he had to lift that day, but make the Isolation Technique and wrestling more brutal as well. The crazy priest bastard enjoyed playing the demon and tormenting people. Not that Encrid minded. Sometimes, very occasionally, when the exertion was so grueling that he thought he might like a rest, Audin's demonic whispers did help snap him back to his senses. “I'd like to rest today.”

Sometimes he said it deliberately, knowing how Audin would react. Then Audin would reply with a broad smile.

“It seems you've found it manageable.” Recognizing the provocation, he would devise a fitting regimen and ram it into Encrid's body. It was grueling, utterly grueling. No one could have called it anything else. Yet the fruits of his training accumulated in his body more steadily than ever. He still couldn't block Rem's axe when it became a streak of light, but he could now block two out of three of its whipping strikes without losing his balance. He also grew better at reading moves while sparring with Ragna. Where he had once struggled just to see what was immediately ahead, he was now more adept at linking several feints to make his opponent move as he intended. Ragna and Rem were distinctly different opponents, but both helped him. He was still getting nowhere with Jaxon's killing-intent detection, though.

'The Sixth Sense.' How many times had he been through that full-body shudder? The thought of having to endure that gaze, that killing intent, at any moment sent chills through him. It was horrific. As horrific as dying over and over while repeating today. He had encountered assassins twice so far. Both encounters had forced him to repeat today, but he had never felt killing intent like this. Hadn't he heard that a well-trained assassin showed no killing intent at all? Encrid recalled the assassins he had faced. The first had been in the Medical Barracks.

'I heard a sound rather than sensing killing intent.'

Had that one been inept? The second time, against the mixed-blood Fairy who threw whistling blades, he had tried not to miss a single movement, not even the twitch of a fingertip. He had had to stare with his eyes wide open. Neither encounter had involved anything remotely like using a sixth sense. Before he knew it, the bitter cold of winter, the last of the four seasons, had begun quietly bowing its head. It couldn't be called warm yet, but the weather was gradually easing. When rain fell where snow should have, it would become spring rain, a signal heralding a new year. Still, the cold would linger for a while. That was how this region was. The cold lasted a long time. Thinking of the assassins naturally led him to another thought.

'They said those bastards were persistent. Are they not coming anymore?' The Gray Hounds, the special unit Aspen took such pride in, were vicious bastards. Hadn't he experienced that firsthand?

'Sending assassins just to kill one soldier.' He kept them in mind, but there had been no sign of an attack. To be honest, he wondered whether he could even react if someone came after him now. He was too busy being tormented by Rem, Ragna, Audin, and Jaxon. 'It'll work out somehow.'

Now wasn't the time to worry about Gray Hounds or gray cats.

'This is a gift to my future self.'

The time he poured into his body today, and the training it brought, was always a gift. Tomorrow's self would receive today's pain as joy.

* * *

In the middle of the sparring grounds, Mitch Hurrier drove away winter's chill. Steam rose from his whole body as he moved and swung his sword. He forgot the cold. He pictured only his sword, himself, and his opponent.

He swung, and swung again. As soon as he had risen from his sickbed and recovered, Mitch Hurrier had begun acting like a man obsessed with the sword. His practice blade had been made thick to add weight, specifically for training. It traced several lines through the air before stopping, its point angled upward as if to pierce the sky. Then veins bulged along Mitch's arm muscles, and the sword's tip cleaved the air. WHOOSH From top to bottom. Anyone with a discerning eye would have felt chills at that stroke. The sword traced a line perpendicular to the ground, its tip drawing a perfectly straight path without the slightest tremor. That he could execute such a stroke after hours of swinging a sword three times heavier than most longswords was astonishing in itself. Mitch Hurrier had become a tree nourished by defeat. 'So you can't die like that.'

He had heard that while he lay in bed, an assassin had been sent after the man who had beaten him. How that had infuriated him. But the assassination had failed. That made Mitch happy. 'You have to die by my hand.'

On the battlefield, no less. Ever since his defeat by the soldier named Encrid, surpassing him had become Mitch Hurrier's reason for living, his goal in life. “This is good to see, yet bad to see as well.”

His father had sternly rebuked him. A sword-crazed ruffian running wild was hardly the sort of family member its head wanted. But what did that matter? Compared to invoking the Gray Hounds' name to send assassins in the name of family honor...

'My way is far more wholesome.' Mitch smiled, eagerly awaiting the day he would meet the man who had stabbed him on the battlefield. Nor would that be an empty fantasy. Mindful of what an enemy Knight had done to them in the previous battle, Aspen was assembling troops on a massive scale. 'I'll see you on the battlefield.'

His opponent's face remained vivid in his memory. He would never forget it. He had never lost like that before. Thanks to that defeat, for the first time in his life, he had become a training addict who never left the sparring grounds. There had originally been plans to send more assassins, but the commander of the Gray Hounds had stopped them after seeing Mitch's condition.

“You can get him if you meet again, can't you?”

“I will meet him. And I will kill him.” After hearing Mitch's answer, the commander had closed the matter of the assassins. Nothing more would be sent after that soldier.

* * *

“I take back what I said about you changing. Seems only right.”

Rem spoke after they finished trading blows in a spar.

“Looks like you've hit a plateau.” For once, the foul-mouthed barbarian directed his venom at Encrid.

“Is it a habit, stopping as soon as you seem to be getting better?” Encrid didn't bother arguing. It wasn't hard to understand why Rem was acting that way. This was how it always went. Just as his teacher began showing enthusiasm, his progress stopped. It could be frustrating to watch. Nor was Rem the only one.

“It's astonishing how poorly you handle the applications. You ingrained the fundamentals so quickly. When someone improves in a short time, you'd normally call them talented, but how should I put it? You seem to be forcing yourself to keep up, Squad Leader. And yet you definitely improved in a short time.” Ragna could be perceptive at times. At any rate, he was saying the same thing as Rem. Audin was much the same. “Brother, training is the only way to make your body move as you intend. Repetition will do it. Well, ordinarily it does, but, hmm, you are rather slow, Brother Squad Leader.” What a long-winded way of saying he was getting nowhere. Jaxon didn't say much about it. Whether the Sixth Sense was a door or a hole, Encrid hadn't had the slightest idea how to approach it from the start. It was the morning training period. For soldiers of the standing army, conditioning their bodies was essentially their livelihood. They weren't called professional soldiers for nothing. Everyone here trained their bodies. Rem, who had taken a spot in the middle of the long corridor and devoted himself to training, suddenly stopped.

“Let's call it a day.”

“All right.” Leaving Encrid behind, Rem went into their quarters. He hadn't given up. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind. It was simply that ordinary sparring wasn't what Encrid needed now. “Real combat.”

At his mutter as he entered, Esther lifted her head slightly to look at him. The other squad members' eyes flicked toward him as well. Soon, for the first time since joining the squad, Ragna, Audin, Rem, and Jaxon were in agreement. When Encrid came inside afterward, Jaxon caught his arm.

“Take a commission.”

“Hm?” “It's time for some real combat. Ideally, we'd throw you onto a battlefield and have you come back alive, but that's not something we can do right now.”

Rem added his piece. They all seemed to share that opinion. Once again, their attitude surprised Encrid.

'I knew they wouldn't give up.'

But he hadn't expected them to come together like this to suggest something. Lazy Ragna taking the initiative was astonishing enough. Now all four were of one mind. Encrid had thought it a sight he would never see even in his dreams. “Meow.”

Esther cried at his feet. Encrid picked up the panther and said,

“I was thinking the same thing, actually.” He wasn't planning to throw his life away to repeat today. But he had always honed his body and swung his sword on battlefields and in real combat. After all that practice and training, it was only natural to want to test his skills. Those brimming with talent might shrug off a plateau and move on, but he had no such talent. He could only learn what he lacked through hard experience. 'If I'm stuck, if I've stopped progressing...'

He would do something, anything. As always, whether he had to struggle desperately or dance, Encrid would grasp at straws. That was how he had lived. “Go find a commission first thing tomorrow morning. A demonic beast hunt would be good.”

“I think they said there was one.”

Encrid had already looked into it. “You already had something in mind,” Jaxon said.

Scratching Esther's head with his fingertips, Encrid answered, “Yes.” Hadn't Jaxon said it countless times? What was the Sixth Sense? To open it, one had to glimpse the realm of instinct. Was it possible to perceive something with an unseen sense other than the five senses? [“It is. But it's not truly an unseen sense. Where do you think the intuition that lets a beast make decisions in seconds while hunting or running comes from? What about the sense that lets herbivores avoid predators?”] That was Jaxon's explanation of the sixth sense. Human senses weren't limited to sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Balance, spatial awareness, movement, warmth, and more: the human body possessed a variety of senses. He said that if one kept fighting with every sense honed to a blade's edge, one would naturally learn to read killing intent, anticipate it, and react on an instinctive level. At that point, one could evade even a knife flying at the back of one's head. [“Anyone at the level of a knight can do it. Knights actually receive this sort of training, too.”] Encrid had sensed Jaxon's awkward consideration in that final remark. It was unlike him, yet a kindness very much his own.

[“Understood.”] Knights trained this way too, so he shouldn't give up. He had even received encouragement. Since Jaxon had used wild beasts as an example, he intended to encounter their demonic counterparts. Their instincts would be similar, and the killing intent they gave off would be rawer than Jaxon's. Of course, not everything went as Encrid intended.

* * *

“A commission? Then take care of this one first. We're desperately short of people.”

The next morning, Encrid went straight to looking for a demonic beast hunt, only for a Squad Leader from the neighboring Platoon to squeeze in with a request. A shoemaker wanted someone to investigate the strange noises coming from his shop every night. He suspected an undead monster was living underneath it. “If there were something like that in the city, all hell would have broken loose long ago.” “I know. But what can we do? Finishing a commission earns us merit, so that's good, isn't it? Let's get it out of the way. Do me a favor if you have the time. I did some sewing for you back then, remember?” Right. It was that Squad Leader. The fellow who had done some sewing for him when he made it past his first repeating today, the one who liked his drink. In the end, Encrid nodded. Having agreed, he intended simply to put the craftsman's fears to rest and leave. What monster could possibly emerge from beneath his shop floor? While he was back at their quarters getting ready, Jaxon asked, “What about the demonic beast hunt?”

As was his habit, he dropped the polite ending. “I'll go after this.”

He had already said he would take the demonic beast commission too. He could probably go straight there once this was finished. This real combat would help him in many ways.

'My sword, my senses, my heart, how I use my body.'

He felt he would grasp something as he cut down demonic beasts. And so he arrived at the shoemaker's house.

“Here, look. I finally tore up the floor, and this was underneath!” The craftsman was excited. Encrid was surprised too. There was a hole beneath the man's house. Inside it, he could see an artificial cavern. “Wait. I'll go take a look first.”

He listened for anything inside, but heard nothing. With that, he stepped into the hole the craftsman had opened. 'I'll need a torch.'

It wasn't completely dark. Light seeping through the hole let him see a little way ahead. There was a sloping passage, so descending wasn't difficult. After entering and walking a little farther, he felt as if he were exploring a dungeon made by a mage or a monster. He had barely taken a few steps. The light of the candle lit above still filtered in behind him. Then he came to a six-way junction.

“What lunatic made this?”

The words escaped him unbidden. Everything about it reeked of deliberate construction. Encrid stepped into the first of the six passages on the left. There was no sign of anything. He walked a few steps farther inside. TAP, TAP Aside from the wind passing through the tunnel, there was no sign of anyone, no sound. Except... HUM Soon came a tiny vibrating sound, and Encrid saw light erupt before his eyes. BOOM He heard an explosion. It felt as though red-hot iron skewers had plunged into his lungs and were tearing through his innards. Then his memory cut out, and morning dawned again. Naturally, Encrid knew why this had happened.

'I died.' The last sensation left in his body was burning. Heat, in other words. Now he would have to find out how he had died.