Chapter 341: A Heavy and Fast Sword
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 341: A Heavy and Fast Sword
Rem spun on his heel, deflecting a spear with his axe.
Clang!
The spearhead spun through the air, bouncing away. Though trolls were monsters of monstrous strength, Rem was a man who possessed a physical power that rivaled them.
Audin lunged forward, snatching the flying spear out of the air with a sharp whoosh.
Though the spear had been flying with heavy momentum, it came to a dead stop the moment it touched Audin's hand. For something that had been moving so dynamically, it was brought to a halt with jarring ease.
It was an abnormal scene born of abnormal strength. It almost looked as if he were defying the laws of physics. There was a saying that strength transcending its limits could look like magic.
That was exactly the case here. It was the result of mind-bogglingly disciplined physical training. In terms of pure, raw strength, Audin surpassed even Rem.
The Five Troll Brothers didn't even have time to register the anomaly.
“Hahaha!”
As Audin burst into laughter and kicked off the ground, a loud boom erupted where his foot landed, sending a geyser of dirt upward.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Not once, but three more times, geysers of earth erupted from the ground. Audin’s body drew a long line through the air, leaving afterimages in his wake. His massive frame closed the distance at an unbelievable speed.
To an ordinary person, it would have looked as if he had vanished into thin air. It was a charge born of repeatedly tempered thigh muscles combined with the knack for perfectly controlling his own weight.
It’s comparable to an Associate Knight’s charge, Encrid thought the moment he saw it.
Audin, having closed the distance, used the spear shaft as a blunt weapon and bashed one of the trolls' heads. With footwork faster than anything it had ever seen, the troll couldn't even attempt to dodge.
And when he added the Gather and Burst technique that Encrid had recently realized...
Crack! Bam!
The troll's head shattered instantly, spraying black blood into the sky. Fragments of skull and brain matter splattered in all directions. A stream of blood sprayed radially from the point of impact, shooting diagonally upward.
The surroundings were rapidly growing dark as the sun set, but none of them had night vision poor enough for it to be an issue.
Therefore...
“Don’t let them escape,” Encrid commanded.
Dunchabel and Teresa dashed forward. Audin laughed as he continued to pummel the trolls. The sight of the monsters—the very epitome of regeneration—having their arms ripped off and their eyeballs crushed came into view.
Once again, Encrid had no need to step in.
The five trolls didn't even dare to run. If even one escaped, it would hide away, and they would have to hunt it down like a game of tag. Even for Rem, that would be a headache. Chasing a monster determined to hide was a different matter entirely.
So they couldn't let any escape. Naturally, they didn't.
Audin mercilessly dismantled and dismembered three of them. Rem swung his axe and chopped one of the remaining two into nine pieces.
“What’s up with him?” Rem asked after slicing his target, gesturing toward Audin. His question carried an underlying meaning: Why is that big bear so excited?
“Haha, it is a fine night. The Lord watches over us,” Audin merely offered a laugh in response.
The last one was left to Dunchabel and Teresa. The two of them tore, crushed, and split the beast as if competing with each other.
And that was it. There was no time for the troll to display its signature regeneration.
Sinar had only watched. No, she had been busy putting out the fire. Then, crouching down, she poked her head up and asked, “Should I light it again?”
Encrid looked up at the sky to gauge the time. Evening had passed; it was now the dead of night. If it were dawn, it would make sense to rest before moving on, but did they absolutely have to? Nothing in the world was set in stone.
Encrid wanted to wash up, and he thought he could use the journey as another training opportunity. Above all, there was no reason to endure the discomfort of camping.
“Let’s head back.”
If they ran through the night from here, they would reach the Border Guard in two days. If they pushed their speed, they could arrive by tomorrow night.
Was it pushing too hard? Perhaps, but this kind of endurance training was also necessary. After getting injured and resting previously, he hadn't pushed his body enough. This was the perfect opportunity to exhaust his body through running alone.
This, too, would be excellent training.
Through this line of reasoning, he decided to postpone resting until they reached the city. No one objected.
*
The rumors of those who had cleared three low-grade Demon Realms—specifically, two colonies and five troublesome monsters—quickly spread to the surrounding areas.
“I’m speechless.”
Those were the first words of Krais, who had heard the news before anyone else. Who wouldn't be shocked? It wasn't in a bad way, though. The moment Krais heard what Encrid had done upon his return, his mind began spinning rapidly.
If such a thing was possible...
Meaning, there was more than one powerhouse capable of roasting, bashing, frying, slashing, slicing, and killing any decent monster that dared approach—and if they would step up whenever asked...
Ah, except for one. Wait, another one was on leave, so he had to exclude two, but even so, it was an incredible force. Weren't Rem and Audin also stepping forward more readily than ever before?
Dunchabel and Teresa are also forces to be reckoned with.
There were also Esther and Odd-Eye, but he excluded them from the main count for now.
“I must go meet the Castellan,” Krais said.
Encrid gave a vague nod. He could see Krais’s eyes sparkling, indicating another idea had struck him. He had likely envisioned a way to rake in some Krona.
Encrid soon washed, rested, ate, and once again immersed himself in the Isolation Technique.
Gather and Burst was, ultimately, a technique that required the body to keep up. Its core lay in the condensation and explosion of muscles. If he became proficient, he would be able to pull off what had just been demonstrated.
After beating the trolls to death, Audin, wearing a smile even deeper than before as if highly pleased, personally demonstrated the technique to Encrid.
“Once you become proficient, even this is possible.”
He said this as he approached with a hammer in his left hand. The sight was quite chilling, but conversely, anticipation welled up within Encrid—and that anticipation was met.
At point-blank range, a frame comparable to a giant's looked down at him. Encrid himself was not short, but their eye levels did not match.
“Watch closely,” Audin said.
Audin extended his fist, stopping it barely a knuckle’s width away from Encrid’s stomach. Just as Encrid wondered what he was doing...
His Sense of Evasion flared.
There was no time to dodge. He instantaneously tensed his abdominal muscles.
Bam!
With an explosive sound—more precisely, a blast right in front of his abdomen—Encrid felt a sensation of weightlessness. His feet left the ground. He floated for a brief moment before flying back a couple of steps and landing.
He didn't roll unsightly. He maintained his balance. Being beaten with a hammer all this time hadn't been in vain; his physical resilience had increased significantly.
“What is this?”
“It is Gather and Burst.”
Encrid’s eyes drifted to the ground. A clear trace remained on the dry dirt floor of the training ground. The deeply indented ground was twisted, as if a small vortex had formed.
The rotation of the ankle.
The condensation and explosion of the entire body’s muscles. Channeling everything to unleash destructive power from barely a knuckle’s distance away.
Because it was a brutal yet fascinating technique...
“Impressive,” Encrid genuinely admired, then immersed himself once more. Both his body and mind were fully occupied.
For he wasn't just learning Gather and Burst. Audin was still hammering his entire body. Excluding his head, Audin struck every area where muscle resided.
Afterward, he roughly mastered Dunchabel’s full-body elasticity swordsmanship. He then procured a shield from the blacksmith’s forge, sparred with Teresa, and learned how to handle other weapons from Rem.
“Is learning such a hodgepodge of things really going to help?” Rem asked.
Though some said depth of learning was all that mattered, such words did not apply to this madman. In other words, Rem asked despite already knowing the answer.
“It does.”
The reply was short. Within the realm of experience and intuition, Encrid was finding his path. Was this the path to becoming a knight? He didn't know.
However, one thing was certain.
This is driving me crazy.
He was utterly captivated by the sheer joy of it. Elation welled up in his body. Learning and mastering new things—and the speed at which his body absorbed them—was extraordinary.
“I think your body is a bit stupid, Boss. I mean, you can use Will and all, but you’re struggling with this?”
Rem’s sharp tongue cut in, but it was fine. Compared to before, his current rate of growth was unbelievable.
*
From one side, Ragna watched them with languid eyes. It wasn't that he had lost his drive. Rather, because he had seen the knight’s sword and clearly faced the path he had to tread, he was simply doing what needed to be done right now.
Organizing and sorting. It was time to gather what he possessed, calmly stack it, and wrap it up.
Ragna had wandered the continent for a long time. Though half of that time was spent lost and unintentional, he had crossed paths with many people. They displayed various techniques in their own ways—mercenaries and warriors of merchant guilds alike.
Ragna was a genius; he could grasp and master their techniques almost instantly upon seeing them. He could replicate a technique after seeing it once, reach the level of the original user after repeating it a couple of times, and surpass them in less than two days.
“A demon. It’s the talent of a demon.”
He had even heard such words from a guard warrior of a merchant guild. From those words, Ragna realized he was different from ordinary people. And with that realization came a question.
Is it alright for me to go further? When no one by my side can keep up? Is that a path worth treading?
Questions and doubts. Doubts soon gnawed away at Ragna. Thus, at some point, he had stopped advancing. Even when he felt motivated, he limited himself to merely practicing what he had already learned.
He needed a catalyst. That catalyst was his battle with Associate Knight Aya. Through it, he had surpassed his limits. The reason he could become like this? Because the thing that had been gnawing at his heart had vanished at some point.
“How long are you going to play around? Let’s have a spar.”
Yes, it was because of this man. Encrid stood before him, gesturing with his sword as he spoke.
Ragna nodded. He had finished organizing his mind, and he had also finished sorting through the miscellaneous techniques he had acquired over time. For Ragna, too, had begun to forge his own path, much like the man before him.
That was the birth of the Ragna-style swordsmanship. Instead of being trapped in Jeong-Jung-Hwan-Kwae-Yu, Ragna opened a new path.
“It is a heavy and fast sword.”
He spoke, and in that very instant, Encrid was reminded of a knight’s sword. With a whoosh, the vanished sword folded space and reappeared. Its speed was on another level. Its weight was also different.
The moment Encrid raised his sword horizontally to block—Clang!—a shockwave reverberated through his entire body along with a roaring sound.
Snap Strike?
It was different from Gather and Burst, yet possessed a similar destructive power. Just by seeing a technique, he incorporated it into his own swordsmanship. He adapted and applied it to suit his own body. The hallmark of a genius.
“Crazy bastard.”
Seeing this, Rem laughed and lifted his axe.
“Right, now I can finally beat your ass,” Ragna said slyly to Rem, looking at Encrid who had retreated from the single blow.
“What is this lazy bastard talking about?”
“I said I can now beat him without killing him. Is that hard to understand? Do I need to use hand gestures?”
“Fine. Let’s do this. Let’s see who dies.”
Soon, Ragna and Rem clashed. Encrid, having stepped back, did not bother to intervene. It was different from their previous fights. Rem was being pushed back. Ragna had crossed a certain line.
Yet, Rem did not back down easily. Encrid engraved that spar into his mind as well. There was an overflowing abundance of things to learn. What had been invisible to him before was now clear.
A heavy and fast sword—Ragna demonstrated his words exactly. Though it looked light, Ragna’s sword clashing against the axe was heavier than anything.
Boom!
At the continuous roaring sounds, the surrounding soldiers peeked over. Some were shocked, while others, though surprised, acted as if it were only natural. Since when were the members of the Mad Company ordinary humans?
Watching the spar between the two, goosebumps broke out all over Encrid’s body. He was thrilled to death. Therefore, he couldn't hold back.
“Are you just going to watch?”
Encrid pulled in Sinar, who had approached at some point. Her sword, imbued with delicacy—he wanted to watch and learn from it through a spar.
“My greedy fiancé, if I give you this, what will you give me in return?”
Anything but the engagement.
“You’ll go on a date with me at least once, right?” the elf asked.
Encrid could not resist his desire for growth. “Sure.”
A swordsmanship lesson in exchange for a single date. It was almost like a joke, but it was a deal that satisfied both Encrid and Sinar.
*
“To clear the swamp?”
At Count Molsen’s question, the reporting butler bowed his head.
“My apologies. I did not expect them to move so quickly.”
The one who had released the monsters into the swamp was the Count himself. Using the insect called Bell and blood-sucking flies, he had blocked people’s access and conducted several magic experiments there. It was also an excellent place to gather rare magic ingredients, including herbs.
He knew that the bastard Encrid had struck the Gray Ghoul Forest after leaving the city. Intelligence networks weren't kept for nothing. Even if that bastard Frok was running wild, surely they wouldn't fail to obtain any information.
So he had been aware, but...
“They have also disposed of five trolls.”
“What on earth are these bastards...”
The Count was utterly dumbfounded. Do they not even sleep? The path was rough, not even a road for carriages. Did they run around places where no highway was paved?
He was so flabbergasted that he was temporarily speechless. A brief feeling of discomfort arose, but he quickly brushed it off.
It is indeed absurd.
It was already too late to take action. And he couldn't exactly admit to releasing the monsters. In any case, once he obtained what he desired, all of this would become useless.
“The Language Restoration Guild has infiltrated the territory.”
“Dispose of them.”
“There are a few troublesome mercenaries mixed in with them.”
This meant the territorial security force alone could not handle it. The Count erased the Mad Company from his mind. Then, his sharp mind formulated an answer.
“Send Mats.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
The butler bowed his head. The Count sat in his chair, quietly lost in thought. His preparations were still insufficient. Therefore, he had to wait. But how long would he have to wait?
At most, a year or two.
Was climbing to the place one wished to reach a human instinct? Or was it his own desire, born and raised as a man of power? He did not know. He would find out once he ascended. Until then, he didn't even care to know. His current ignorance would only provide the pleasure of fulfillment through experience later on.
Until then...
They will still be alive, won't they?
The Mad Company, Encrid.
What a peculiar human. An impressive fellow. So, when the time came, he had better not stand on the opposing side. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to spare him.
If possible, the Count wanted to keep him alive. For humans who brought him this much amusement were rare indeed.