Chapter 233: Because the Weather Was Good
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 233: Because the Weather Was Good
"I don't know if you'll believe me, but I owe you one. I am Pel, the Shepherd of the Wilderness. I hope we can meet again whenever the opportunity arises."
Pel, the Shepherd, spoke with a heavy tone. Encrid, his silhouette framed against the moonlight, gave a simple nod.
Pel looked at Encrid, unable to suppress the words rising in his throat.
"I've never seen a genius like you before."
Encrid didn't bother to deny it.
In fact, even if Pel had asked, 'Is there something wrong with your head?' right now, he would have happily let it slide. That was how much ecstasy and joy filled his entire body.
He was intoxicated by the realization of something new—so much so that he wanted to test it over and over again.
"Will you slash me one more time?"
That was why he said it. Even though Encrid saw Pel's face crumple in horror, and even though he knew his words sounded like the ravings of a lunatic, he couldn't hold back.
"Uh, ugh... w-well, alright."
The loser had no say. He did as he was told.
The man known as the Soldier Who Ended the War was looking at him with eyes full of anticipation while getting stabbed in the forearm. Pel was certain his opponent was a complete madman. He had heard the nickname 'Mad Company Commander' before, and it clearly wasn't just empty talk.
That nickname suits him much better than 'the Soldier Who Ended the War,' doesn't it?
No... are all geniuses originally like this?
Come to think of it, there was someone of a similar breed in his own group.
To catch up to that guy, do I have to go crazy too?
It was the moment Encrid corrupted a perfectly good man. Of course, Encrid didn't realize this.
After being slashed once more.
"Die!"
It was pure coercion, a cry that hovered between a scream and a shriek. It was Will. It was pressure.
Encrid gathered his mind and replied.
"No."
He deflected it. It was only his second time, but he felt as though he didn't need any more practice.
It's not hard.
And that realization was incredibly delightful.
Every time he had learned something in the past, he’d had to roll and tumble. He’d had to struggle and flail desperately. To learn the Beast's Heart, he hadn't just transcended death; he had actually died.
Not a single thing had been easy.
He couldn't say this one was easy either—after all, there had been over four hundred 'todays.' Yet, once he realized it, 'rejection' felt as natural as if it had always been a part of his body. It felt like the easiest thing in the world.
After deflecting the second burst of Will, his head spun. It was a phenomenon that occurred when one concentrated too intensely.
Drip.
A nosebleed trickled down.
"...Are you alright?" Pel asked.
Encrid, gauging the time, said, "Can we do it one more time?"
Couldn't I try just one more time?
At that, Pel's face crumpled as if he had seen something he shouldn't have.
In the end, Encrid took a third slash. As if drawing a diagonal line across his forearm, another blade mark was left behind.
"Die."
Dizziness encroached upon his mind. The opponent's Will, coercion, and pressure suffocated his heart. It choked his throat and threatened to burst his chest.
Encrid replied with utmost ease.
"No."
Immediately after rejecting the pressure, Encrid’s eyes rolled back. He fainted on the spot.
"Huh? Mr. Madman?"
He thought he heard Pel calling him by a strange name before he lost consciousness.
"Captaaaain!"
He also thought he heard Bell's voice from somewhere behind him. At any rate, Encrid collapsed with a smile on his face.
*
The swaying black river water looked, in a way, like a thick, dark mist. A boat floating on black clouds, the ferryman aboard it, and a violet lamp.
It was the same sight as always, the scene he beheld every time he spoke with the ferryman. However, if there was one thing different from before...
"You."
The ferryman cut himself off.
Encrid looked at his face. The face, which had previously only shown a faint glimpse of a single eye, now revealed eyes, a nose, a mouth, and skin.
His skin was the color of gray gravel. He saw pitch-black eyes that matched the black river, a high-bridged nose, and dull, gray lips. No matter how one looked at it, it was not a human appearance. Yet, he didn't look like a Giant, a Frok, an Elf, or a Dragonkin either.
That was only natural. The being was something unknown, existing outside of Encrid's cognition. Or perhaps it was something akin to a god. Or maybe a demon.
"Is getting stabbed your hobby?"
Why did someone with that kind of appearance speak like that? Soon, Encrid realized that the ferryman's manner of speech changing was partly his own fault.
"I do prefer getting stabbed, to be honest."
Their conversations had always been like this, after all.
The ferryman quickly changed the subject.
"Because you are mad, you walk; because you are mad, you can see. How does it look? My face?"
Encrid answered honestly.
"You wouldn't be popular with either the opposite or the same sex."
Though perhaps you might be popular among demons or those called half-demons.
The ferryman cackled without replying. His mouth remained still, but the sound of his laughter echoed through the space.
Encrid’s consciousness grew distant, fading away along with his blurring vision. He thought the ferryman's laughter sounded somewhat dumbfounded, but there was no way to know the other's true thoughts.
In the place where Encrid had vanished, the ferryman muttered above the black river water.
"So, did you like crossing the wall?"
It was a question to which Encrid, had he been there, would have nodded a hundred times over.
*
When he opened his eyes, he could immediately tell that today was not repeating itself again.
"Why does a guy who went out in the evening come back with slashes all over his body? No, they said you got hit on purpose? Why didn't you tell me? I could have carved you up much prettier with my axe."
It was a statement he couldn't quite process the moment he woke up. Letting Rem's words go in one ear and out the other, he raised his head.
Pel would have left. And the one who delivered Encrid back here must have been Bell. Since Bell had watched the fight, he probably blabbed about this and that. Even if Bell hadn't wanted to, seeing Encrid carried back after going out in the middle of the night meant Rem and the others wouldn't have left him alone.
With a brief moment of thought, he finished grasping the situation. He also fully understood what Rem had said.
"Is there something dwelling in your axe too?"
"Murderous intent?" Rem retorted without losing ground. Is this bastard bored?
"Where is Dunchabel?"
"She fainted."
What on earth did he do to make a beastman faint? Dunchabel didn't seem like the type to have weak endurance, though she obviously couldn't compare to a Giant.
"Are you going today as well, Brother?" Audin asked.
Encrid realized he had skipped his morning training. The sun was already high in the sky. To think he had slept until noon despite having a Regenerative Body—a body that recovers and regenerates at an accelerated rate.
It places a burden on the body.
He was gradually getting a grasp of what 'Will' was. Though it was still difficult to define, simply manifesting the will to reject was now as easy as pulling a copper coin out of his pocket. However, doing it and enduring it were two different matters.
"Hmph!"
Feeling stuffed up, he blew his nose, and a blood clot came out.
"That's filthy," Rem grumbled.
With his axe slung at his waist and a light sweat on him, the fact that Dunchabel had fainted made it seem like Rem had just beaten her down and come back inside.
Only Rem and Audin were watching him wake up. No, there was also Esther, who was taking a nap in a corner. Since he wasn't someone who collapsed only once or twice, no one panicked just because Encrid had fainted. They merely asked who his opponent had been.
Of course, Bell, the delivery boy, had nothing to pass on.
"Who was it?"
It was a question about who had visited him yesterday evening. To Encrid, it was an opponent he had spent over four hundred 'todays' with, so the person felt friendly and familiar.
"Pel."
That was the reason he blurted out the name.
"Ah, Pel. Right, that bastard Pel," Rem babbled without a single change in his expression.
A mistake.
"The Shepherd of the Wilderness," Encrid corrected himself.
A crazy group that herded sheep against monsters and demonic beasts—they were the Shepherds of the Wilderness. For anyone on the continent who made a living by the blade, it was a name impossible to ignore.
"Hmm? Why did those bastards come all the way here?"
"How should I know?"
Whether he was wandering and training or had stopped by on business, Encrid hadn't asked at all.
"Seemed like you had fun?" Rem asked again. Why did he have so many questions?
"Quite."
"You fainted with a silly grin on your face, Captain. I don't think you ever did that even when your eyes rolled back while fighting me."
Fainting with a smile, huh...
Encrid chuckled softly and shook his head.
"You're distracting. Move."
Since he had skipped his morning training, he had to finish that first.
"I'm going to the market in the afternoon."
"Is that so, Brother?" Audin nodded with his usual smile.
No one stopped Encrid. Rem, having asked everything he wanted, tossed his axe aside and went to wash up.
After training with the Isolation Technique, Encrid briefly checked his equipment, swung his sword in the air a few times, and prepared to head out. In the meantime, Sachsen came in and went back out. Krais came in and asked if his body was alright.
"You are at an age where you should be eating good things, after all," he joked.
Encrid told him to hand some over if he had any, enjoying the new 'today.'
There had been over four hundred 'todays.' Within that time, he had sparred and trained with them, but being stuck in frozen time couldn't be entirely pleasant. And so, he welcomed this new today. A today that wasn't always the same, yet one only he remembered.
Because of that, he didn't converse with them further and passed by as indifferently as possible. He had already clearly realized why repeating a today that only he remembered was a curse.
That was why he could move past it. He could forget the time he had silently endured alone. Above all, the 'rejection' he had realized while overcoming that today had filled him with such a sense of fulfillment that his joy was far greater.
*
"What are you so happy about?"
Just as he was about to leave, Ragna asked. A single sword dangled at his waist, as if he intended to follow. It wasn't a good sword; he had picked up and used a blade that had been rolling around the previous battlefield.
It would be nice to get him a decent sword when the opportunity arises.
His tone was rough and, depending on how one heard it, close to provocative, but knowing that wasn't his intention, Encrid answered readily.
"Because the weather is good."
At those words, Ragna looked up at the sky. Yesterday had certainly been fine weather. But wasn't today a bit gloomy? The clouds were gradually taking on a dark gray hue. They would soon turn into storm clouds, and it looked like a shower might fall. Since autumn rain was also a symbol signaling a change in temperature, it was proof that summer was slowly fading away.
"This weather?" Ragna asked back.
"Since I've only been seeing bright days."
It was an incomprehensible answer. Though to Encrid, it was the obvious one. Even though he originally preferred bright days to cloudy ones, he had experienced the exact same weather four hundred times. Even if rain poured down and filled his boots with water, any change was welcome.
After warming up with the Isolation Technique and wrapping up his compressed morning training, he headed to the market.
*
When he entered the inn, the innkeeper, Allen, welcomed him.
"It's nice to see you often lately, but are you really alright?"
In the Border Guard, the position of Company Commander was almost the highest rank below nobility. Allen was polite.
Encrid found the comment about 'seeing him often' quite awkward. For him, today was a day that had finally arrived after nearly four hundred days.
"Indeed. I'm thinking of stopping my visits before we grow too attached."
Allen laughed at Encrid's reply, taking it as a joke.
As he entered the training ground, he saw the Rapier Swordsman leaning against the wall.
"Were you waiting?"
"Because I thought you would come today."
"First?"
"No, the other three friends didn't want that."
The Rapier Swordsman crossed his arms and continued.
"Today is the last day. It is a pain you do not need to experience. You do not have to challenge me."
"That is for me to decide. And if you are scared, you are welcome to run away."
Encrid's tongue was like the finest sword on the continent. Even a trivial, short remark became a fatal dagger when delivered with precision.
"Indeed."
The Rapier Swordsman detested the words 'coward' and 'flee' far too much. Upon hearing Encrid's words, he steeled his resolve.
With Intimidation.
Crushing his dream would be for his own good as well.
To aim higher, talent was required. From what he had observed so far, he didn't know what kind of luck had been at play, but this was the limit. The end.
The fellow named Encrid had completely drained the well of his talent.
No, rather than just draining it, he must have dredged up talent that shouldn't have existed in the first place.
Therefore, this was the end.
Encrid walked past the Rapier Swordsman. Watching his retreating back, the swordsman furrowed his brow. His stride seemed strangely different. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it had changed.
In just a single day? Even if something had changed, what could it be? It was likely nothing more than his mindset.
Beside him, the barbarian soldier who had followed Encrid spoke up.
"Our captain sometimes breaks down even worse in just a single day, so don't pay it too much mind. And be careful, because if you go too far, my axe might start dancing."
"Do not worry, Brother. He is not a man who would die from something like Intimidation."
Behind him, a soldier resembling a large bear also added his piece. The blonde soldier who always passed by with an indifferent air was there, and even the auburn-haired soldier who had already taken a spot in a corner, having slipped in unnoticed.
Everyone who was supposed to gather had gathered. The guests staying at the inn—those whom Encrid had faced nearly four hundred days ago, from his perspective—also emerged one by one.
Among them, Edin Molsen stepped forward first, his face stiffer than ever before.
"I request a spar."
Has he not had enough of a beating yet?
While everyone thought so, Encrid fell into deep thought.
What was this bastard's name again?
It had been four hundred days. He had forgotten the name.
"Uh, what was your name again?"
In a way, this was the trigger for Edin Molsen.
"What?"
For Encrid, it had been four hundred days; for Edin Molsen, it had been a mere few days.
He forgot my name? My name?!
Edin Molsen lost his mind.
"Fine, I'll kill you!"
Clang! Edin drew his sword and rushed forward with all his might.
The guard watching frowned. To fall for such a blatant provocation.
Encrid, thinking he shouldn't have asked for the name in the first place, used his hands and feet. Since there was no need to draw his sword, he didn't.
Watching the approaching sword, he took steps learned through the Soft Sword Style. He avoided the blade with fluid steps. It was like a choreographed spar. His evasive movement came first, and only then did Edin Molsen's blade cleave the space where Encrid had just been.
It was a feat made possible by observing, judging, and predicting in advance, but to an outsider, the movement looked like a rehearsed play.
Why on earth is he swinging his sword at empty space?
Then, the back of Encrid's hand struck Edin Molsen's wrist.
Thwack!
Striking with the back of his hand, he stepped inside and shoved his opponent's abdomen with his palm.
Thud!
It was the Valaf-style Martial Arts: Push Strike.
It was a blow infused with rotational force, traveling from his ankle, through his waist and shoulder, and finally to his palm. With Encrid's physical strength added to it, it was by no means a light blow.
However, that wasn't the only surprising thing. Previously—that is, the very first time he had knocked Edin Molsen down with a single blow—it had been half a gamble.
But not now. He was overflowing with composure. It was as if he had become a completely different person in just a single day.
After pushing his opponent away, Encrid looked at his palm and thought:
Why is this so easy?
Has the skill of that fellow whose name I forgot deteriorated?
Of course, that was impossible.