Chapter 605: Ice Elf
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 605: Ice Elf
The sheer depth of the Holy Order’s corruption was laid bare by this incident.
"The Gray God is benevolent and loves all. He is one who extends his mercy even to those standing on the opposite side of the scales."
They wove such nonsense into a new holy scripture, and many flocked to their side. It was proof that under the heavens of divinity and the Holy Order, corrupt priests far outnumbered the righteous.
"Behold, this is the truth."
If one worshipped the Gray God, their muddied divinity was proclaimed righteous once more.
Isn't it said that the loudest voice always becomes the truth? Their voices grew infinitely louder.
Originally, they had been slandered for losing their light, but wouldn't all their problems be solved if they simply acknowledged the existence of the Gray God? Did a god even truly exist? If so, shouldn't all those who sinned be punished? Had a god ever descended to do so? Had he punished the sinners, or at the very least, offered them forgiveness?
No such thing had ever happened. Not even once.
Divinity was a power borrowed from a god, yet that god granted power without imposing any duties. It was all empty talk.
There were likely many reasons why the holy war broke out, but one thing was certain: the absence of God.
Another was that too many people were desperate to insist that the gray holy light was right. It was the frantic struggle of those who, not content with merely holding onto their vested interests, also wanted to seize the moral high ground. Once they haphazardly established themselves, they would become a "legitimate" organization from then on.
Wasn't the founding of new nations in the past quite similar to this? People with similar intentions and aligned interests gathering to form a group.
"Behold. The people gathered here are the proof of our righteousness."
Mull was drunk on power. Her influence was already immense from managing the merchant guilds and roads controlled by the Holy Order, but now it had grown even larger. She felt like a creator opening an entirely new world.
She decided to indulge in that feeling. She would forge a new world just like this.
Anyone could dream, though that didn't mean all dreams took a righteous form.
* * *
Just before the holy war was declared, Encrid returned to the Border Guard.
The first thing he did upon his return?
"Rem, are you afraid of the cold? From today on, I shall become your cold. Come out! You too, Ragna! You stopped in your tracks because you were afraid of your own talent? You arrogant bastard, let me show you just how insignificant you really are!"
"...Did you hit your head?"
Rem asked, creaking the door open as Encrid shouted in front of the training ground. Encrid looked quite ridiculous, wrapped head to toe in winter leathers.
Luagarne understood Encrid's personality well by now, and she knew there was always a reason behind his words and actions. She translated for the others.
"Can't you tell? He's saying he's in a good mood and wants to spar."
Rem stared blankly at Encrid before speaking.
"Geez, if he gets in a good mood a second time, he'll probably start insulting my ancestors."
It wasn't actually that bad, but Rem was simply firing back in his usual manner. Ragna came out next, stared quietly at Encrid, and sighed.
"I think he really did hit his head. He's not filtering his words at all."
Despite the content of his words, Ragna's tone wasn't displeased. Neither Rem nor Ragna was ignorant of the fact that Encrid was acting this way because he was in high spirits. It was a bit out of nowhere, but who were they to complain when he was happy?
Should they call him excited? Or did he just look refreshed? In any case, it wasn't a bad thing for their leader to look happy. Everyone watching felt more or less the same way.
Sinar also entered the training ground after hearing news of Encrid's return. The elf, who usually wandered around slowly, seemed to be in a bit of a hurry. It looked as though she had something she absolutely had to say.
It was a night covered in dark clouds. He wasn't picking a fight after waking up; doing this at bedtime proved he was truly an uncontrollable, crazy bastard. Perhaps calling him a madman—or them the Order of Madness—suited them perfectly.
"If you're asking for a spar, your fiancée is right here," Sinar said, offering her own take on the situation.
"Who is my fiancée?"
"Me."
Sinar was shameless. Her elven joke warmed the chilly air.
Sachsen, standing in a corner of the training ground with half his body hidden in the shadows and the other half bathed in moonlight, spoke up.
"Did you gain something?"
Perhaps sharp senses also made one quick-witted.
"Naturally."
Encrid drew his sword as he answered.
Shring.
It was a longsword he had gone out of his way to retrieve from the training grounds immediately upon his return. He had no choice, as his Ink Gold sword was broken. He swung the longsword—which could be held with two hands—using only one. Though it was lighter than his Ink Gold sword, he had no trouble using it.
He had already adapted to its weight on his way back, and his coaxing for a spar was over. Encrid immediately swung his sword downward.
His first target was Rem. In a single step, Encrid's body tore through the air, and his blade sliced through the wind. It was a strike infused with a sudden burst of Will. Rem instinctively drew his axe to block.
"You crazy bastard!"
Feeling the power packed into the strike, Rem let out a battle cry that sounded like a curse. If he had held back even a little, his body would have been sliced in half. Of course, realizing this, he had immediately poured an equal amount of strength into his defense.
Boom!
With a deafening roar, a shockwave rippled outward in concentric circles from the point where the sword and axe clashed. A gust of wind whipped up, scattering dirt and small pebbles resting on the dry, frozen ground.
Squinting through the rising dust, Ragna reflected on what he had just witnessed.
‘He infused it with Will.’
Simply infusing Will was something Encrid could already do. In other words, there was something different about this. It couldn't be measured quantitatively, but to put it simply, the amount of Will infused had grown. A pale color had turned deep and rich.
The downward strike was a vertical slash from the Heavy Sword Style.
‘The foundation is the Will of the slash.’
It was a part of the swordsmanship Encrid had learned from him. Seeing it brought Ragna a sense of deep satisfaction. It seemed Encrid had used it to break through his weakness and shatter his wall.
"Let me join the fun too."
Ragna drew his sword and intervened, thrusting his blade at an angle. It was an angle that absolutely forced a dodge.
On his way back to the Border Guard, Encrid had trained himself to divide and distribute his Will rather than pouring it all into a single strike. Breaking the path was the hard part; once the path was open, mastering it was merely a matter of spending time to make it second nature.
Of course, that was only from Encrid's own perspective.
"Sloppy!" Rem shouted. In his eyes, it was far from perfect.
"Indeed," Ragna agreed.
"You must use it with more delicacy," Sachsen chimed in.
And Sinar, naturally, joined the fray as well.
"Fiancée Thrust!"
Her elven jokes had gone too far, and she slashed her sword while calling out a bizarre technique name.
"You said it was a thrust!" Encrid retorted as he twisted his body to dodge the slashing blade.
"Isn't that the technique you use all the time?"
It was Valen-style mercenary sword name-swapping. Experiencing it firsthand, it was a technique that was subtly irritating even when one knew it was coming. Valen, who was said to be a knight of the previous generation, must have been a man who couldn't live without teasing his opponents. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many techniques designed solely for that purpose.
It seemed entirely possible that some people held a sword just to mock their foes.
"Here I come again."
Encrid waited for his depleted Will to replenish before swinging his sword once more. In the meantime, he was kept busy blocking the alternating thrusts and strikes from Rem, Ragna, and Sinar.
His skills had indeed improved since they last saw him. That was why he was able to hold his ground to this extent. Even if his repeating days were short, it was the result of swinging his sword like a madman every single day, every single moment.
Whenever his Will filled back up, he swung with a full-power slash. After repeating this three times, Encrid's sword shattered with a sharp clang. It simply couldn't withstand the sheer force of his Will. With that, the spar came to an end.
"Do you think just mindlessly dumping your Will into a strike is everything?" Rem scolded him as he wrapped himself back up in his winter leathers.
Ragna, Rem, and Sinar all voiced similar criticisms. If Audin had been here, he surely would have added his own two cents.
“You just need to train your body, brother. If you can move every muscle as you wish, the delicacy of your Will control will naturally follow.”
“Is that from personal experience?”
“For me, it just came naturally, brother. But since that’s not the case for you, you must train, right?”
They would have had that exact kind of conversation.
As they stood around after the spar, Krais, who had arrived late, spoke up.
"You broke your sword again?"
"Yeah." Encrid nodded. He needed a new sword.
"I heard a lot of things happened. Is that true?" Krais asked.
"Indeed. A great deal must have happened," Sinar chimed in. "Including the story of him tightly hugging Esther. I am cold too, Enki. It seems it is someone's turn to hug me."
"Winter is supposed to be cold," Encrid replied calmly. He had been subjected to elven jokes so many times that he was no longer flustered.
"I am freezing to death."
At that, Sinar actually pretended to be pitiful. She hung her head and put on a sullen expression. Seeing her droop the outer corners of her eyebrows was quite a fascinating sight.
"Hey, share the hugs fairly," Rem grumbled.
Hearing Rem's grumbling, Encrid made a mental note to prepare a special gift for Rem someday.
"Why don't you tell us what you did in Cross Guard?" Sachsen said. More precisely, he was likely asking how Encrid had managed to acquire yet another trick.
"It's late. Let's do it tomorrow," Encrid said, looking around at everyone. What kind of story could they tell at this hour? It was time to sleep.
"You crazy bastard! You knew it was late? And yet you still demanded a spar?" Rem said, dumbfounded.
"Because sparring is important," Encrid replied, before heading off to wash up. It was absurd enough to leave them speechless, but they also just accepted it as typical of him.
"Did you not know he was always like this?" Krais said.
"I am cold," Sinar said, her expression returning to normal as she turned away.
Hearing that, Krais took a step and said, "You should stoke the fire in the hearth more."
"Fire is dangerous."
Then what was she supposed to do? Of course, she probably wasn't actually looking for an answer.
"Not bad," Ragna commented on Encrid's current state before heading back to the barracks.
*
After passing the night, starting from the next morning, amidst training and sparring sessions that broke several more swords, Encrid and Luagarne calmly recounted what had happened in the city. Though told in a matter-of-fact tone, it was a truly shocking tale.
Not that Rem or anyone else gaped in open-mouthed shock, of course. Only Sinar, off to the side, muttered nonsense like, "I am already ice."
The city, the cult, the walking fire.
Hearing this, Rem fell into deep thought. Recalling the moments when Encrid had made significant breakthroughs in the past, he noticed a strange common thread.
‘So, basically, he changes whenever he suffers to the brink of death, doesn't he?’
If he somehow managed to survive and return, his skills would skyrocket. Therefore, would it be a good idea to send him somewhere deadly? But were such places common?
Encrid possessed an inexhaustible supply of Will, and his experience was far from shallow. On top of that, his intuitive senses were incredibly sharp. In fact, at times, his sixth sense seemed even superior to Rem's own. Probably thanks to that sly wildcat. By now, it would be difficult for almost anything to pose a threat to Encrid.
But did that mean no such threats existed? There were. If they were to enter Silence, the western Demon Realm, even Rem himself wasn't confident he would make it out alive.
‘But throw him into a Demon Realm?’
There could be no greater madness. It was a pointless thought. It was just a passing thought born from the fascinating realization that as long as that man faced a mortal crisis, he would somehow shatter his limits.
Perhaps it was because of that thought. Or perhaps it was because of the mindless sword strikes Encrid had suddenly unleashed in the middle of the night a few days ago. While Encrid was away, Rem had also heard news of Audin and split his days to devote himself to training.
Thanks to that, rumors even circulated that the members of the Remsault Unit were singing Audin's praises. Hadn't they even been stopped from trying to build an altar to him? It was all because their training load had decreased thanks to Audin. They were truly crazy subordinates under a crazy captain.
Whatever the case, Rem incorporated what he had realized during their spars and pushed Encrid a bit too hard. It was akin to playing a game of pushing each other on the edge of a cliff—a game where one wrong move could send you falling to your death.
Fortunately, no such thing happened. Nor did Encrid show any dramatic, sudden transformation before facing any mortal danger.
‘Never mind.’
Rem simply thought that, but Sachsen, watching them, spoke with utter sincerity.
"Are you insane?"
"Are you in heat? That wildcat is howling and making a damn fuss."
It was a peaceful daily life.
While they were spending productive time after his return, news of the holy war arrived. Normally, regardless of whether they worshipped the Gray God or not, it wasn't something that required Encrid to move immediately, since it was an internal matter of the Holy City-State.
However, the problem lay in their target: they were aiming for Noah's Monastery.
The Border Guard learned of this situation through news brought by a peddler traveling along the newly opened Stone Road.
"I heard that monastery is a den of demons."
"Ah, I heard that too. They say they're raising a demon child, and that the abbess sold her eyes to a demon. That's why the Gray God has risen to punish them, or so they say."
This was the point when full-scale propaganda began to circulate. Mull, who claimed to be the pope of the Gray God, had used her head.
Krais was in the middle of gathering all available information, mobilizing the Gilpin Guild and requesting assistance from Leona. In the process, he realized that the monastery Encrid had briefly visited had been chosen as the scapegoat, and by analyzing the circumstances, he figured out what they were plotting.
‘Set up a scapegoat and gather people under the pretext of striking it down?’
Having a clear target to rally a group would be ten times more effective than simply asking them to gather for no reason. It was a calculated move to achieve just that.
And when Krais delivered this news to Encrid, this was all Encrid had to say:
"Let's go."
Simple and clear.
Originally, it was a fight he had no duty or reason to join, and it might be a battle where nothing would be gained even in victory. Even so, Encrid packed the new sword he had received from Eitri.
Since they had already taken care of most of the nearby requests, Rem, Ragna, and Sachsen had no other pressing matters. In other words, they were free. On top of that, Esther, Sinar, Luagarne, Teresa, Ropode, and Pel joined them.
"Everyone seems to have a lot of free time."
"It's thanks to our diligent work on regular days," Ropode replied.
"We're in a hurry, so we'll leave the unit behind and go by ourselves."
If they delayed, they would arrive only to see smoke rising from Noah's Monastery. Thus, it was a small, elite group. Encrid intended to leave behind anyone who couldn't keep up.
"Officially, this is the first expedition of our order," Krais said as he watched them prepare to leave.
"I suppose so," Encrid nodded. He didn't particularly need a slogan, but Encrid spoke as the mood took him. "Madmen, let's go run wild."
Hearing this, Rem added, "Let's do that."
Not a shred of tension could be seen on the smiling barbarian's face. He had heard that two paladins had joined the enemy's side, but his expression said, ‘So what?’
"The Ice Elf is also here," Sinar added.
Sinar added her piece, but Encrid pretended not to hear. She had been acting like that, begging for a hug, ever since he returned.
In any case, it was time to set out.