Chapter 510: He Who Dreams Is Worthy of Achieving It
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 510: He Who Dreams Is Worthy of Achieving It
The same day, yet a subtly different day.
It was a cycle of realizing that the trick he had learned with his right foot applied differently to his left, followed by yet another repeating day.
Occasionally, the Ferryman would appear. Encrid, respecting the entity’s presence, kept his mouth shut. The Ferryman was no longer even angry at this silence. He had realized this bastard was simply that kind of man. Instead, the Ferryman simply said what he had to say.
"It is already over."
He spoke like a bard singing of despair, a farmer planting the seeds of frustration.
Encrid naturally let the Ferryman's words drift away. He focused entirely on recalling how to gather Will in his left foot, just as he had in his right, and how to hold it there. No matter what was said to his face, he did only that.
When gathering Will in his right foot, it had felt like striking straight down with a sword. He tried the same with his left, but it failed utterly.
Why?
Ultimately, it was a matter of control. He should have been able to move it as easily as his own hands and feet. Though invisible, it originated from his own body, yet it refused to move as he wished. All he could do was repeat the process over and over again.
As the Ferryman watched him, lost in thought, his expression shifted subtly. His eyes widened slightly, and he pulled his chin in a fraction. That small change alone made him look like a completely different person.
With this altered countenance, the Ferryman opened his mouth, speaking in a tone and with words unlike anything he had uttered before.
"Reduce it."
It was completely out of the blue. Encrid blinked, wondering what the Ferryman was talking about. Though he had occasionally suspected the Ferryman possessed more than one personality, this was the first time he had seen the shift happen so violently before his eyes.
The Ferryman immediately reverted to his usual self. Today's Ferryman was the type who enjoyed endlessly spouting useless words.
"Go. Go and enjoy it. This 'today,' devoid of any fun, filled only with suffering."
*
Only after living through this repeated day more than fifty times did Encrid finally grasp the trick of gathering Will in his left foot. It felt like relearning how to move each individual finger. He could clearly feel the limb and knew it was attached to his body, but to move it, he had to focus on each part individually—and then, he had to forget that very focus.
Only then would he be able to use it naturally.
How must one move their fingers to grasp the sword at their waist? Between the simple motion of placing the grip between the thumb and index finger and squeezing, to the specific pressure applied by the middle, ring, and pinky fingers, to how the web of the hand braced the hilt—he was relearning everything.
Beyond just relearning, it felt like he was learning how to breathe all over again. He was taking what was once done unconsciously, repeating it consciously, and then pushing it back into the realm of the subconscious. The entire process was incredibly foreign, but he believed that if it was something that could be achieved through repetition, then it was easy.
Could he throw a massive boulder as if tossing a pebble? If so, it would be easy.
Such thoughts crossed his mind.
As Encrid repeated "today," he witnessed many things. Perhaps it had started with Audin radiating light.
"Take this."
In one iteration, Encrid was gasping for breath due to a misfire of his Will. Sachsen tried to feed him a strange medicine. He didn't know what it was, but he could tell it was incredibly precious. It was a round pill, twice the size of a thumbnail, pink and hard-shelled. The scent alone was divine; the moment he smelled it, his mind cleared and his vision sharpened.
His intuition told him that if he took it, he wouldn't die.
"It is a medicine that can save anyone, so long as they aren't already dead. Give up on your Will."
According to Sachsen, it was a medicine that would leave him a cripple, but it would keep him alive. An unprecedented intensity burned in Sachsen's eyes—a heat that suggested he would beat Encrid to death himself if he didn't take it. It was Sachsen's last resort, born from the agony of watching him die.
Encrid refused. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and endure. Through his dying eyes, Encrid saw Sachsen's face contort. It was an expression so crumpled that he wondered if he was seeing correctly. He hadn't known Sachsen was capable of making such a face.
There was a today like that. And there were others.
In another loop, as he headed toward death once more, granted a brief reprieve by the pain, a voice barked out.
"Get out!"
Rem chose a harsh method. Encrid's internal organs had been scorched by Will, and he was drawing his final breaths. Standing before him, Rem's hair began to flutter wildly. Encrid couldn't tell exactly what Rem was doing, but his intuition felt the weight of it. Rem was attempting something similar to the light Audin had radiated and the medicine Sachsen had produced.
He was right. It was a sorcery called Life Return.
It was a secret art that shaved away one's own lifespan. In a way, it was a sorcery similar to the spatial teleportation Encrid had suffered—in that it required luck.
Rem failed. Even with his outstanding talent and sacrificed lifespan, he could not grasp the soul of the dying man. Encrid's body began to stiffen once more.
"Shit!"
That was a today where he heard Rem's furious, cracking voice. In an instant, wrinkles had multiplied across Rem's face.
These three were not the end. While learning how to send and maintain Will in his right arm, his left arm, and every other part of his body, he died countless times. If even a shred of life or a single breath remained, everyone made similar attempts.
"Take it. Let it dwell in your body. You can live."
Sinar tried to give him the essence she harbored within her. That essence, a green light the size of a fist, touched Encrid's back, but it was useless.
"Cough."
The moment the Elven essence scattered in vain, a part of Sinar's body also dispersed like dust. One of her arms vanished just like that. Yet, her expression remained calm. No, she wore a faint smile.
"Go on ahead."
There was a today where he saw a sorrowful smile that the usual Sinar would never show.
"Father, Lord—!"
Teresa would sing hymns at the top of her lungs, her voice straining.
"I will harbor you within my world," Esther said, her eyes holding twinkling stars. As those stars shone, they tried to drag Encrid's barely breathing body somewhere.
Esther intended to temporarily lock Encrid inside her Spell World to hide him from the eyes of the Grim Reaper. It was a trick utilizing a kind of curse, but of course, it didn't work.
"Where do you think you're going?" the Ferryman mocked. Curses were his domain.
Above all, Esther was not yet prepared to wield such spells. As a result of the spell failure, the mana backlash, and the price of recklessly manifesting her world, Esther's eyes burst with a sickening pop.
There was a today where Esther looked as if she were crying tears of blood.
For reasons unknown, Pel even drove the Idol Slayer diagonally into his own stomach. It was useless. Pel only coughed up blood alongside him.
This today, that today—they flashed before Encrid's eyes. They flowed away. Like a scrap of cloth dropped into a river, soaking up water, sinking beneath the surface, and vanishing from sight, "today" sank, flowed, and disappeared.
In those vanished days, everyone did something. Encrid watched them as he died. He died, and died again.
"Is it entertaining to watch?" the Ferryman asked.
Encrid did not answer.
"Give up. Move on to the next. I have prepared walls for you to overcome, one by one, as you advance. Isn't this the path you desire?"
Which today was this? He didn't count. It was meaningless. This was a today he could escape whenever he wished. And yet, was he being stubborn? The Ferryman said his path was wrong, that Encrid was being stubbornly foolish. He asked why Encrid kept moving forward without even being sure it was the right path.
The Ferryman was probably right. His choice might be wrong. But so what? If the only way to know was to go, then he had to go. Encrid did just that.
"Do you not resent the heavens?" the Ferryman asked. "Do you not hate the world?"
The Ferryman asked again, "What about the gods who allowed you to be born into such a world with that kind of talent? Do you not hate them?"
Finding someone to blame was easy. The Ferryman coaxed him endlessly. Then, in the middle of it, that other personality suddenly popped out again, whispering:
"Reduce it."
Reduce what?
The briefly appearing personality vanished quickly. From a certain point, the Ferryman did not stop at words. He rummaged through Encrid's memories. Those he had ultimately failed to protect appeared in his dreams. The nightmares began. Darkness descended.
"You shall flounder, left all alone in a land where the sun never rises," the Ferryman declared.
But it was a path Encrid had already walked. It was what he had experienced in the desert. What the Ferryman tried to take away were people, values, and meaning, but all Encrid had lost was comfort. Values, people, and meaning did not disappear just because they were invisible to the eye.
"You will find yourself wishing for death instead."
He dreamed a nightmare where an arrow flew and pierced a hole through his heart.
"Face the darkness within you. Even if you become a knight, what can a single swordsman change? Can you make your way through the desert? What is so grand about protecting a few people with a sword?"
The Ferryman muttered endlessly, shaking Encrid without pause. Even if there were no delusions, could there be no soot? There was. There were wounds, scars, and suffering. Yet, he knew how to move forward. So, he simply moved.
Encrid took a step. Toward the sun, toward the goal called a dream.
To live, or to die? Would you risk your life on something uncertain? For what?
Encrid saw something in his nightmares, in his repeated todays, in his past where he failed to protect someone, and in the boy dreaming of becoming a herb-gatherer whom he had protected.
If called light, it became light; if called a flower, it became a flower; if called a star, it became a star; and if called a dream, it became a dream.
It was the moment he repeatedly murmured of light, stars, and dreams. Only then did his field of vision expand dramatically, allowing him to view his own body objectively. It was as if he had caught hold of a certain flow. He had found a sensation that was difficult to express in words.
I was wrong.
Will was not something to be moved by force. No, perhaps it was more accurate to say that because he had paved a path and moved forward like this, he now knew how to go. The fragments of realization he had gained while carving his way through the desert connected and fused with his past realizations. From the thrust he had desperately grasped during his very first today, to what he had realized after escaping the desert.
Complexity and simplicity. Discarding and mixing.
In the end, Encrid could not discard anything he had learned, practiced, and realized. Oara had told him to discard, but instead of discarding, he had mixed them together.
"Reduce it," the Ferryman said.
Reduce what? It didn't matter what it was. Whether what the Ferryman spoke of was his will, his dream, his purpose, his ambition, or his greed. The Ferryman was telling him to discard it.
But Encrid had absolutely no intention of doing so. He would not reduce or discard anything. What he had resolved to protect when dreaming of becoming a knight was everything behind his back. He would not let go of a single one of them.
He had vowed to keep the oath he made in his childhood, pledging to the stars, the sky, the sun, and the two moons. The song sung by the bard had given a boy a dream. A single line of the lyrics had flown in like a shooting star, piercing a hole in his chest and leaving a mark.
Are those who dream not worthy of achieving it?
Encrid had repeated this to himself countless times. He held onto that belief. Even if it was blind faith, he would not let his will be broken. He would no longer stand by and watch a child die behind his back.
"No," Encrid answered.
He would not reduce it—an expression of his will.
At that moment, a storm raged inside his body. It was not to be moved by force. He had to let it be. All that was needed was to hold onto it.
Encrid felt the wind. The wind passing through his body. Encrid felt the sunlight. The sunlight entering his body and bringing warmth. The sunlight and the wind mingled, dyeing everything in orange and filling his vision.
The "todays" Encrid had repeated numbered over five hundred.
He had been a blind man, and the place confining him was a maze, but he had felt his way through, wall by wall, remembering everything, and finally escaped.
"A madman indeed."
The Ferryman's exclamation faded from his ears, and his presence vanished.
When Encrid blinked, it was his favorite time of day. The hour of sunset, when the sky felt incredibly close. The orange light filling his vision was the sunset. If he reached out, he could grasp the clouds, and if he swung his sword like this, he could cut down anyone, no matter who they were. Power boiled over throughout his entire body.
A sense of omnipotence filled him. Every single gaze watching him stood out in sharp clarity. Amidst the sensation that he could do anything, Encrid distinguished what he had to do and what he had not done with absolute clarity and precision. Furthermore, he knew how to maintain the omnipotence constantly welling up inside him and the Will that served as its source.
"I need to sleep a bit," Encrid said, and closed his eyes.
They were watching him without a trace of laughter. One of them stepped forward and caught him as he fell.
*
"Is it real?"
The one who caught Encrid was Ropode. He just happened to be nearby. The others didn't budge. That was fine; Encrid wasn't the type to crack his skull just from falling backward. More than anything, everyone was too shocked for words.
In the silence, Sinar's voice rang out. She asked if it was real. To be precise, she threw the question out into the air, to everyone.
"Seems like it," Rem answered.
"It is," Sachsen confirmed.
"Did the Father aid him?" Audin muttered in astonishment.
Ragna repeatedly gripped and released his sword's hilt. Luagarne puffed out her cheeks but couldn't make a sound. She was too shocked.
There were two people who did not understand what had just happened: Ropode and Pel.
What is this? Ropode had no sense of what was going on; his body had simply reacted and moved when Encrid said he was going to sleep.
Pel tilted his head, his hand habitually gripping the hilt of the Idol Slayer. Something had clearly happened, and something had changed, but he didn't know what it was. However, out of nowhere, his motivation suddenly surged. Watching Encrid—who had stuffed his face, slept, and rested like crazy, only to stare blankly at the sunset, blink slowly a few times, and collapse—sent a shiver down his spine.
He wanted to get up right now and swing his sword. He had to do something. Pel lifted his rear, stood up, and left. He headed toward the training ground. He simply couldn't contain this surging feeling. It felt as if someone had forcibly shoved motivation into his body.
Ropode felt similarly. He, too, felt a certain shiver, as though he had gained something akin to a realization. Both of them had been influenced by the Will that Encrid had naturally radiated.
Esther opened only one eye while remaining seated. Through the eye that summoned a portion of her Spell World, she saw a massive star.
What did he do?
She didn't know. However, one thing was certain. That man had achieved the dream he always talked about.
"I've seen it all now," Rem said.
Everyone felt similarly. Sachsen, Audin, Ragna, and even Luagarne. Frok, who possessed the sense to read talent, felt as if he were dreaming. That was how absurd of an event had just occurred.
Encrid lost consciousness just like that, and he woke up a week later. A few things had happened in the meantime, but that wasn't what was important to everyone.
And upon waking, Encrid thought: Nothing has changed.
He had simply taken one proper, giant step forward. The Will naturally residing within his body made him think so.