Chapter 442: What is a Knight?
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 442: What is a Knight?
After filling his stomach with crumbly bread, watery soup, salted meat, and thin biscuits made of mixed grain flour, Encrid acted exactly as he had resolved.
"Gah! I’m drowning!"
Dunchabel resisted, but it was futile. Encrid shoved her head straight into the tub. Her head burst back out of the water, splashing droplets in every direction.
"Hey! I just washed ten days ago!" Dunchabel protested.
If splashing a bit of water on one's face counted as washing, then technically, she wasn't lying.
"I could put Rem in the same tub with you."
"I'll wash by myself."
While a defeated Dunchabel bathed alone, Encrid asked for another tub to be filled.
"I shall wash your back," Luagarne offered kindly.
"No need," Encrid declined.
Soaking in the warm water, the fatigue from the long journey seemed to melt away. He felt like he had forgotten something, but it probably wasn't important.
After thinking about his tasks and recalling Knight Oara, drowsiness washed over him. There was no need to resist it, so he closed his eyes. Encrid fell asleep with his neck resting against the rim of the wooden tub.
*
"You have come to an interesting place."
Splash.
Along with the sound of a flowing river, a violet lamp obscured his vision. The face of the shadow draped in a black hood blurred, then gradually, eyes, a nose, and a mouth began to form.
Skin like weathered gray stone, vacant eyes devoid of emotion—it was the Ferryman.
"Is misfortune approaching, by any chance?" Encrid asked.
The Ferryman made no outward movement. But if he had been human—if he were—he would have been clenching his teeth and balling his fists right now. Taking it a step further, he might have reflexively punched this bastard right in the face.
Violet veins throbbed on the hand gripping the oar.
"No?" Encrid tilted his head.
The Ferryman clung to his slipping sanity. This was the first time since he began steering his boat that his emotions had fluctuated so wildly. Until now, he had only felt a base, malicious pleasure from mocking and despising others.
But now, he was experiencing a completely different emotion. In a way, perhaps this was a positive shift. Had he not lived all this time having forgotten that he was even capable of anger?
The Ferryman thought rationally and suppressed his feelings.
"It's fine if you don't know."
Encrid harbored no ill intent. To him, the Ferryman was some kind of divine entity. Thus, he was merely voicing his honest thoughts. He had hoped for an answer, but if there wasn't one, so be it.
Because Encrid's tone and attitude made this painfully obvious, the Ferryman was able to speak calmly.
"Get lost, you crazy bastard."
He had intended to say: Since you have entered the Demon Realm, I shall bless your day. Only after facing the most brutal day of your life will you finally regret it.
But the Ferryman could not utter a single word of the mockery he had prepared.
* * *
Even if no misfortune was approaching, nothing changed. From the next day, Encrid adapted on his own.
"Good morning."
When he greeted the soldier—who was either Rowena's boyfriend or just a customer—cleaning up the dining hall, the man looked up.
Dunchabel, whose fur had turned from gray to white thanks to her bath the previous day, followed behind and spoke to the soldier.
"Hello, beggar soldier."
It was a novel way to address someone.
"...Why am I a beggar soldier?"
"I saw you in that alleyway, asking for a discount because you didn't have Krona."
Dunchabel mimicked a thrusting motion with her hips.
The soldier's face flushed red. It was indeed a deeply embarrassing act—including the moment he couldn't hold back and raised his hand.
"I'm a Decurion, for your information," the soldier muttered.
Encrid simply passed by with a nod, while Dunchabel didn't even pretend to hear as she followed him.
"Are there no roasted larvae?"
When Frok came down next and asked this, the soldier shook his head.
"We don't have anything like that."
"Right. Work hard then, you... soldier with the healthy lower half."
After the three of them left, the soldier spat under his breath, "...I'm a Decurion, you bastards."
But the reality was that if one lacked contribution points, they had to resort to manual labor like carrying food in the dining hall. It was because he had overextended himself to scrape together the Krona this time. Still, it wasn't something he regretted.
The soldier shut his mouth and went back to work.
Encrid went outside and claimed a spot in an empty lot. Since the entire city was essentially a massive military camp, wooden training dummies were scattered everywhere. Though houses were built sparsely, there were plenty of open spaces, and any of them could be used as a training ground.
Yesterday, he had bathed well and rested well. The fatigue of travel was completely gone.
"A sturdy body. Excellent," Luagarne praised.
Facing the morning sun, he repeated the same training dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. The Isolation Technique was a method of training the body to its absolute physical limit. Encrid did the same today.
Even if misfortune were coming, nothing would have changed, but since he was told it wasn't, he simply stuck to his routine all the more.
It was training. Moving his body, swinging his sword.
Luagarne drew her sword. Frok, holding his Loop Sword with a tring, was an opponent not to be underestimated.
As they warmed up with a light spar, the damp sun pierced through the clouds, casting its morning light. Centering himself in the light, Encrid utilized the footwork he had learned, drawing lines with his sword to disrupt Luagarne's balance through feints and pressure.
He feigned a strike to the right, only to unleash a thrust targeting her left shoulder. He employed the steps he had learned from Luagarne. Shifting his center of gravity to his left foot, he thrust with the sword held in his left hand.
It resembled the clumsy movements of a tense soldier. It was the Frog Step.
It was a technique derived from the stiff motion where the arm and leg on the same side move forward together. Thanks to his relentless practice writing and using his left hand for various tasks, the movement had become far more precise than before. All of those efforts culminated to make such a movement possible.
"Good!" Luagarne cried out in excitement. She wasn't someone with a strong instinct for combat, but when facing Encrid, she occasionally found herself getting swept up in the thrill.
It was after they had worked up a heavy sweat that a new voice joined them.
"Hey, shouldn't you at least look for someone when they go missing?"
The gray-haired barbarian approached the empty lot.
"...Ah."
Encrid finally realized what he had forgotten in the tub yesterday. It was Rem.
"Where have you been?"
"Were you even curious?"
"Not really."
Encrid figured Rem had just gone off to hunt on his own. Seeing the grass and dirt clinging to him, it was obvious he had been wandering the wilds. Moreover, there was a faint scent of charcoal on him. It seemed he had spent the night burning something.
He also carried a heavy pouch, seemingly filled with stones, some of which peeked out from the opening. Rem had been looking around the city for a decent whetstone, and upon hearing that he couldn't get one without contribution points, he had gone out to find one himself. It was a natural whetstone—the kind that grew harder when baked in a fire. To sharpen his Mount Lewis steel axe, he needed something like this.
After gathering a few whetstones, scouting the area, and going back to the smithy to bake them, he had stayed up the entire night.
"Anyway, I'm going to get some sleep."
Fatigue accumulated, so one had to rest when they could. Whether this was Thousand Bricks or the middle of the Demon Realm, Rem was not a man to be swayed by his surroundings. He simply did as he always did.
Encrid also paid it no mind and focused on his training. As he continued to swing his sword, a voice chimed in.
"I heard you're going to become a knight?"
She had arrived unnoticed—Knight Oara.
She was crouching on a tree stump at the edge of the empty lot, her elbows resting on her knees and her arms dangling down. Oara held a plum in her hand, her mouth chewing away. With a crunching sound, her lips were stained a deep purple. A single drop of juice trickled down her lip.
Seeing her under the sunlight, her hair was indeed brown. Her wavy hair had a natural, pleasing curl, and she wore a neat cloth band wrapped around her forehead. Her eyes were round, and her gaze was clear.
She seemed to have sobered up completely. Oara chewed a bit more before spitting out the pit with a ptui. The pit embedded itself in the dirt, which was a similar color to her hair.
"Yes, that is my intention," Encrid replied.
"Mmhmm."
Oara nodded and said nothing more. She simply watched.
Encrid resumed his training. Oara watched for a brief moment before quickly dusting herself off and standing up. She snapped a branch off a tall tree growing between the houses. She tapped the snapped branch with the edge of her hand, sending the leaves fluttering down. Then, she pulled out a knife and began to trim the branch properly.
"You should stay on guard," Luagarne remarked.
It happened the moment Oara, who had her back turned, spun around holding the trimmed branch.
Thud!
Dunchabel kicked off the ground and leaped back more than five paces. Having transformed into a white lion, she bared her fangs and lowered her stance. With her paws on the ground, she crouched so low her chin almost touched the dirt, keeping only her head raised. She was showing extreme wariness.
It was an absurdly oppressive intimidation.
While a knight's intimidation usually felt like a massive boulder crushing one's shoulders, Oara's went even further. Her pressure was like iron shackles. No, it was an intimidation that felt like being struck with a solid block of iron.
It didn't say, 'If you move, I will cut you down.' Instead, it felt like, 'Before you even move, you're going to take a hit first.'
"Ah, it's been a while since I've directed this at a person, so I'm having trouble controlling it."
She spoke as she took a step forward. Raising the branch, she stood opposite Encrid.
Encrid raised Aker.
Normally, moving should have been difficult. Oara's intimidation spanned a specific area—precisely five paces in a radial arc in the direction she was facing—and within this space, it exerted a pressure of an entirely different caliber than ordinary intimidation. It was enough to make an Associate Knight naturally falter.
Yet, as if raising his sword and taking a stance wasn't enough, Encrid unleashed his fighting spirit. The moment he felt the invisible block of iron strike him, the Will of Rejection activated within Encrid's body.
Willpower canceled out willpower. Thus, the intimidation was rendered meaningless.
Though Encrid hadn't done it intentionally, Oara's interest was piqued.
He's not even a knight, yet he shrugs off my intimidation?
Should she consider this an abnormal defensive measure? It was like a seven-year-old child holding a shield made of Ink Gold. Unless the kid was a giant, they shouldn't even be able to lift such a heavy shield, yet Encrid had somehow raised it to block. He had deflected it. That was impressive.
The corners of Oara's mouth curled upward. With a faint smile, she said, "That's a good sword."
"It is a royal treasure."
"So you really are a hero of the civil war. How stingy of them. They should have given me one too."
"Do you know His Highness?"
"No. Never even seen him."
Oara did not concern herself with the civil war, the royal family, or anything of the sort. Her duty was to protect this place, because that was the promise she had made to herself.
"Want to play?" she asked. Her voice sounded seductive, like an alluring woman inviting someone to her bed in the dead of night.
Encrid succumbed to the temptation.
Without a word, he took a step forward. He didn't use a single trick. He staked everything solely on a straight line, connecting point to point.
A probing strike to gauge his opponent's skill? He had no need for such things. His opponent was a knight. Therefore, he had to show his absolute best move.
The Heart of Monstrous Strength pounded. His Single-Point Focus made time feel as though it were stretching out. Pressure weighed down on his entire body as if he were sinking into a swamp.
Encrid overcame that pressure and swung his sword.
Watching from the side, Dunchabel's eyes widened. Unconsciously, she dug her claws in, cracking a stone embedded in the ground with a sharp creak. She had seen the technique he was demonstrating now. She had even been on the receiving end of it.
Was it called Giant's Strike?
But what he was showing now was something she had neither faced nor seen before. Encrid threw his entire body into a single technique, a single strike. He exploded every muscle in his body, honed through the Isolation Technique.
It felt as though someone had grabbed time by both ends and stretched it wide. Along that timeline, Encrid advanced alone, bringing his sword down. A flash of light cutting through the sunlight fell toward the knight's head.
Tap.
And then, a hollow sound echoed.
"Too much force."
Encrid froze in the middle of his swing. Oara's branch was resting right on top of his wrist.
Without pausing, Encrid pivoted his left foot to the side and moved. His blade drew a new trajectory. Oara pulled her branch back and struck his wrist again. She was a knight; she expected this would be enough to make Encrid drop his sword.
But being a knight did not mean one was perfect in every aspect.
Thwack!
The force behind the branch was enough to break an ordinary person's wrist, but Encrid endured it. His muscles, trained over a long period, now possessed a different level of density. Having learned how to take a hit countless times from Audin, Encrid tensed up at the moment of impact and pulled his hand back, disrupting her point of contact.
Then, he finished swinging the sword he had extended. Pivoting on his right foot, his muscles shifted to transfer force to the blade. The extending sword flashed like white lightning.
Oara let go of the branch. The moment she realized her attempt had failed, she gripped and drew her sidearm.
Clang!
Aker's blade was blocked. Oara looked at Encrid over her slanted shortsword. Her brown eyes met his blue eyes, which shone through his black hair.
Even though blade met blade, neither side pushed forward nor was pushed back. This was because she had applied force precisely at the center of the impact to halt it. It was a trick of Oara's. She exerted just enough force to bind Encrid's sword. It was a technique called blade-catching.
"You're pretty good," Oara said.
She meant it. At this level, he could be considered on par with the two Associate Knights she had personally trained. No, in terms of sheer fighting spirit, would he fight even better? There was no telling. Every fight had to be fought to be known.
But right now, she could tell even without fighting. She had intended to finish this with a branch, yet she had drawn her sword. Was it because she had failed to properly gauge her opponent's skill?
Oara had made two mistakes, and she realized them now.
It has been a while since I faced a human, after all.
Sparing itself was a rare occurrence. That was her first error. The second was...
I didn't look down on him, but...
This guy, Encrid, was... tough, to say the least. If an ordinary Associate Knight was a well-crafted steel sword, this guy was like a sword made by gathering scrap iron, melting it down, and pouring an absurd amount of devotion into it.
Now that she recognized this, it was only natural to change her approach.
"It'll hurt if you don't block this," Oara said, pushing Encrid's sword away.
Encrid tried to pull his blocked sword back to engage in close-quarters combat, but he was shoved back. The force pushing him away was immense.
"What is a knight?" Oara asked, letting the arm holding her shortsword dangle downward.
Instead of answering, Encrid took his stance once more.
"They are those who manifest the intangible power of will into reality."
It was an incredibly practical definition. Stripped of romance, it was entirely true. For one could not speak of a knight without speaking of Will.
And Oara proceeded to demonstrate the very definition of a knight she had just spoken.