Chapter 622: Words Conveyed by the Sword
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 622: Words Conveyed by the Sword
"It really is strange," Rem said, retrieving his axe.
"What is?"
Encrid rotated his ankle, feeling a dull throb from the strain. It wasn't broken, and the pain wasn't severe.
Not bad.
Even though his ankle had twisted at an unnatural angle during his repeated, forced maneuvers in the spar with Rem, it hadn't snapped or sprained.
An ordinary person would have been left with a permanent limp without immediate treatment, but Encrid was different. This resilience was the fruit of the grueling flexibility training he had undergone with Audin.
It was also because Endure, a knight’s technique, had evolved into Iron Armor, hardening his skin and muscles, and because he had mastered a technique called Holding Will.
Holding Will was a skill he had learned from Audin, who claimed it was a fundamental discipline for all paladins.
"It’s about infusing your Will into your joints to protect them when they twist under impact or unnatural movement. A paladin uses divine power to protect and heal simultaneously, but since you cannot do that with Will alone, you must settle for simply holding the joint in place."
That had been Audin’s explanation. Of course, learning it had been anything but easy.
To put it bluntly, he had gone through hell. Not that he had actually died—it would have been rather awkward to die during training and meet the Ferryman again.
“Hey, you’re only supposed to die at the wall I built. What the hell am I supposed to do if you go and die on your own, you bastard?”
Wouldn't he say something like that?
Encrid didn't know. The Ferryman he had met in his recent dreams didn't seem like the type for such banter anyway.
“Enjoy it. In the moment of despair that will inevitably find you, I shall personally stand by your side and watch.”
He only said things like that. It didn't sound like a blessing, but Encrid didn't think of it as a curse either. It just was. There was no point in dwelling on the Ferryman any further.
The training method Audin had proposed for Holding Will was brutally simple.
"Now, I am going to break your bones. Hold them together and endure."
That was what he had said, gripping Encrid’s forearm with one hand and raising his other like a blade, ready to strike.
"The big bear has finally lost his mind," Rem had commented while watching.
"If it breaks, Seiki will help heal it. I believe this is also a good opportunity to teach Seiki how to use divine power," Audin had replied, naturally ignoring him.
Hearing that was enough to make Encrid break into a cold sweat. Audin’s voice carried a clear, terrifying determination to break his bones no matter what.
"If you have nothing better to do, go to sleep," Ragna had offered his own lazy commentary.
"Useful," Luagarne added, the kind of pragmatic remark one expected from Frok’s perspective. Meanwhile, Ropode and Pel had turned pale.
"Do we really have to go that far?" Pel had muttered. But in hindsight, both Pel and Ropode ended up undergoing similar training anyway.
In any case, through being beaten and twisted, Encrid awakened Holding Will. He sometimes thought that if he ever wrote an autobiography, he could fill ten thousand characters describing this process alone. That was how grueling it had been.
Afterward, drawing inspiration from unique elven swordsmanship, he had poured everything he possessed into this spar with Rem. And the moment it ended, Rem had remarked that it was strange.
Encrid’s reflections felt long, yet they were brief—merely a flash of the days of training he had endured. By now, a mental review of this level took only an instant. The time it took to ask what was so strange was more than enough.
Rem replied to Encrid’s question.
"Sometimes, it feels like you have about as much talent as a polite ghoul—which is to say, none at all. But then, looking at you now, you almost seem like some kind of genius."
He scratched his head with the handle of his axe. Encrid listened quietly before replying.
"It's not talent; it's the experience I've accumulated. A few unorganized concepts in my head have condensed, and I've established a direction based on them."
"But isn't that exactly what people usually need talent for?"
"You just need to accumulate a lot of experience."
"What? What, do you die, come back to life, and repeat it all or something?"
"How did you know?"
"Damn it, forget I asked."
Rem had no idea he had hit the nail right on the head.
Encrid didn't bother trying to convince him. He simply reflected on what he had gained from the spar, consolidating everything he had realized recently. It was a routine he repeated every day now, and the reason why his meditation sessions had grown longer.
Among his realizations, the greatest was this:
There is no such thing as Single-Point Focus.
In extreme situations, when concentration spiked, one often felt as if time had slowed down. This was thought acceleration. In reflecting on this, Encrid realized that, regardless of the name of the technique, the knights under his command were all capable of something similar.
Not just Ragna, but Rem, Audin, and Sachsen could all do it. Yet, none of them had formally learned the technique called Single-Point Focus.
And yet, they did it. When he asked why, the only answer he got was that they did it because they could.
He pushed their annoying attitudes to the back of his mind. In truth, he didn't care. He was too busy reflecting on his own progress.
Then why do techniques have names?
Because without clarifying and defining them, they were difficult to master. That was when it finally clicked.
"You don't use things like Single-Point Focus, do you?"
Encrid had cornered Ragna once to get the answer he needed. The response from the very man who had taught him the term was absurd.
"No. I don't."
Encrid hadn't asked why. There was no need to confirm. Since then, as he verified his own abilities, he realized there was no need to give fancy names to his sword strikes.
Let it flow naturally.
While he had trained with intense focus to condense and gather his Will, the priority now was to practice until it triggered reflexively, before he could even think.
Yes, it was a well-known fact—the absolute basics of swordsmanship. It was just that he had only now truly understood those basics. At first, he had known it in his head; then, his body had reacted; and now, he understood it from the depths of his heart.
"How many times do I have to tell you to do it as naturally as breathing?"
He could finally understand Rem's irritation. It was easy to say, but executing it with the body and understanding it with the heart were entirely different matters. Especially for someone not born with natural talent, doing something "as naturally as breathing" was an incredibly difficult task.
This was also why he had hit a wall while trying to create a new style he called the Wave-Blocking Sword.
Waves were water. He had to use his sword to manifest a barrier that could perfectly block formless, incoming attacks. That was the meaning behind the style. But how was he to manifest it?
A great swordsmanship style required three things: a meaning, a method of manifestation, and a method of training.
Until now, the Wave-Blocking Sword within Encrid had only possessed meaning.
A sword that blocks even the waves.
Now, his thoughts had reached the method of manifestation, and naturally, they extended to the method of training as well. Although it wasn't perfectly established yet, it felt as if his vision had suddenly cleared. That was the result of today's spar with Rem.
His accumulated experience was melting together, naturally manifesting as he mastered new concepts.
Could all of this be explained in words?
It's difficult. No wonder it's so hard to convey a realization through speech.
Even so, Encrid vaguely believed that he could, in some form, codify the path he had walked. He didn't know the exact method yet, but he had a premonition.
Naturally, a thought occurred to him.
So that's why Sinar conveyed her words through her sword.
Because it was too difficult to say.
Only then did Encrid realize that Sinar showing him each of the unique elven sword forms had been her way of saying goodbye. He also understood the hidden intention behind the letter she had left, saying she would wait for him to come propose.
She's telling me not to look for her.
Why else would she mention a proposal if he were meant to find her easily? Since he had always rejected her jokes about an engagement, her use of the word "proposal" was a sign telling him to stay away.
Of course, Encrid couldn't know Sinar's true feelings perfectly, but he felt it in his heart. It was a reasonably accurate guess. Sinar had indeed left the letter with that very intention.
*
Winter was in full swing, but heat was rising within the Border Guard.
The standing army, including the Remsault Unit, had cleaned up almost all the trouble caused by the cultists. Around this time, Krais, taking Abnayor's advice, had begun reorganizing the units.
Reorganization meant restructuring the entire military hierarchy. They had sketched a rough outline before, but this time they went into meticulous detail.
First, they restructured Encrid's unit, creating what was dubbed the Mad Guard. The unit commander was Pel.
"Why do I have to take charge of that?" Pel had asked.
"I thought it was a position for the most talented person. Am I wrong?" Krais replied.
Encrid heard that the conversation had gone something like that. In reality, there would have been a longer persuasion process, but that was the core of it. And so, Pel became the commander of the Mad Guard.
"Anyone with less talent than me, start rolling!" Pel shouted.
He drove his unit members even harder than Encrid ever had. Luagarne assisted him; in the realm of individual tactics and utilizing the environment, few were as outstanding as her. It was a field that required experience and research, regardless of whether one was a knight. Everyone watched Luagarne and picked up whatever they could.
Next, it was announced that the Remsault Unit, the assault squad under Rem, would be maintained in its current form. Because of this, Krais received a letter threatening his life. It demanded the immediate disbandment of the unit.
Krais promptly ran to Rem with the letter to ensure his own safety. Rem immediately summoned his men.
"Oho, I'm not going to hunt down the bastard who wrote this. You lot are one. If one of you messes up, you all roll together."
"Isn't that unfair?" a unit member rebelled. He was a man who had mastered his skills through sheer stubbornness and had made a name for himself before joining. He was fine with the training, but he hadn't sent any letter, so why should he be punished?
"That's just my standard. If you don't like it, beat me and take over as commander."
That was Rem. He didn't bother with persuasion; he ruled through sheer power.
"You crazy bastard!" the man spat.
Rem let it slide. Profanity during training was a daily occurrence. He tormented his unit with things like Ten-Day Sparring—taking turns fighting Rem for ten days straight. And Rem did not go easy on them.
"Do you really think I won't end up killing you? You guys aren't like the Captain. It doesn't matter if a few of you die."
Rem’s sorcery was specialized in handling formless power. The terror he instilled seeped into their bones. Fighting with everything they had just to survive was their only option. And they survived.
Naturally, despite his words, Rem held back, but those on the receiving end truly felt as though they had crossed the threshold of death. In fact, if they had let their guard down for a second, they really might have died.
Rem had become obsessed with the theory that beating someone half to death could make even the talentless awaken to something. It wasn't entirely wrong; it was highly effective. Anyone who survived being run ragged to this extent was bound to become a natural-born fighter.
Even after that, there were still members of the Remsault Unit who glared at Krais, but...
"Rem!"
Krais always subdued them with that single word. They seemed determined to torment Krais, and they were a foul-mouthed bunch, but discipline was firmly established. Mutiny was unthinkable; they were faithful to their duties and followed orders to the letter.
"A unit with broken discipline is a rotten apple. A rotten apple spoils the ones around it," Abnayor had said. His help was significant in this regard.
Even when a commotion arose in Rem's unit, Krais did his job. He also assigned a unit to Ragna. Of course, one couldn't expect the duties of a commander from that lazy bastard, but that didn't mean there wasn't a way.