Chapter 782: A Different Person Then and Now
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 782: A Different Person Then and Now
The moment of excruciating pain is brief, yet it stretches into eternity.
Encrid opened his eyes, the lingering aftereffects of that agony still clinging to his soul. He steadied his ragged breathing within two heartbeats. Dwelling on the suffering would only invite madness; no matter what he did, the pain never vanished instantly.
‘It hurts.’
He could never truly get used to the sensation of near-death.
But did that even matter?
A chain of thoughts linked together as he endured the phantom pain pulsing through his body. Encrid looked ahead, swaying to the rhythm of the ripples. He saw the Ferryman standing silently upon the ferryboat. The lamp in the guide's hand was like a still-life painting—perfectly motionless despite the swaying of the vessel.
“Is this the 'end' you spoke of? Fighting and dying, only to fight and die again? Your brain will melt from the agony.”
With those words, the Ferryman waved his free hand. At the gesture, Encrid felt his body thrown backward before he could utter a single word. It had to be his imagination that the Ferryman’s attitude seemed somewhat sulky.
When he opened his eyes again, he was standing upright. The Ferryman’s boat and the river were gone. This was reality, not a dream.
He had already repeated this day more times than he cared to count. Encrid took in his surroundings and checked his physical condition to determine exactly where he was in the timeline.
‘Is this the start of today?’
The benchmark for the beginning of his day had become tangled ever since the Balrog unleashed its authority to create the Labyrinth. Still, where there was an end, there was always a beginning. The Ferryman had set that beginning to the moment just before Encrid stepped into the Labyrinth's passage to face his first opponent.
In other words, the moment of the first encounter.
“Ah, a guest?” the opponent said.
Encrid looked at him blankly, his mind racing with other thoughts. If the Ferryman had given him even a moment, he might have organized his mind, but the guide had kicked him out immediately. Because of that, he felt a jarring sense of cognitive dissonance. Had he not been gritting his teeth and enduring a battle against the Balrog just moments ago?
The phantom pain had not yet faded, and the scent of his burning entrails still lingered in his nostrils.
‘But it’s fine.’
Encrid had experienced this countless times. Every time it happened, he knew exactly where to focus.
His sword. The flow. The shifts in his Will. The results of his training. The movements of his body. The process of the fight.
And so, he did.
He locked his thoughts onto a single path. It was his way of shaking off the phantom pain—by focusing on the elements that brought him ecstasy.
‘The blade of black flames burns with just a graze.’
The Flame Whip moved as if it possessed a mind of its own. And...
‘The Ferryman’s blessing is still active.’
Though the Ferryman himself would likely scoff at the idea of this being a "blessing."
Even in the face of a demon’s authority, Encrid remained unchanged. He was the same now as he was when he first died to a single thrust. The only difference was that back then, he had clung to the Beast’s Heart to break through his wall; now, he was reaching for something yet to be fully established.
“What’s with you? Are you mute?” the opponent asked, stepping closer.
He was a man who hid countless weapons inside his fluttering sleeves, which danced in the darkness. Encrid reached toward the two swords sheathed at his waist, but instead of drawing them, he let his hands drop. He judged that approaching seemingly unarmed was more advantageous than raising his opponent’s guard by drawing steel.
Encrid appeared to be looking at him, but his eyes were out of focus. Rather than looking at the man in front of him, his gaze was fixed on some distant point. To any observer, he looked lost in thought.
To anyone with the sharp senses of a knight, this was an unmissable opening. The opponent noticed it too. Yet, Encrid simply continued to ponder.
‘Swordsmanship is a tool.’
‘What happens when those tools blend?’
‘When transitioning from a Squire to a Knight, one naturally uses Will. At the level of a Knight, one condenses and wields Will with conscious intent.’
He had even formed a blade out of Will. The Balrog knew how to do that as well.
Encrid’s thoughts delved deep into himself. There was so much to learn, practice, and realize—both from the world and from within. And so, he did exactly that.
Just as the phantom pain from his previous attempt finally dissipated, the approaching man blinked and muttered.
“Good grief. If you took a wrong turn, just leave quietly.”
His voice sounded deflated, but his actions betrayed his words. Narrowing his eyes, he feigned shifting his weight backward as if to retreat, only to suddenly lunge forward.
His body left afterimages, tracing a lethal line through the air. Encrid’s eyes tracked him. It wasn't particularly difficult. The man was fast, but not so fast that Encrid would lose sight of him.
His sense of danger was remarkably low.
There had already been a gap in their skills to begin with, and Encrid had just been desperately struggling to land even a single blow on the Balrog. Though the phantom pain had faded, the residual sensation of battle remained razor-sharp.
Encrid’s reaction was instantaneous. However, it wasn't a conventional strike. His premise of countering the opponent with the opponent’s own specialty remained the same as their first meeting.
‘Deception.’
He was confident in that area as well.
Encrid stared blankly at his opponent, then widened his eyes in mock horror, as if he had only just noticed the threat. Believing his feint had succeeded, the opponent pressed the attack. Encrid, putting on a masterful performance, kept his eyes wide with feigned shock while moving his limbs with a speed and trajectory completely detached from his expression.
He reached out with his left hand and seized the opponent’s wrist. Then, he pulled and twisted.
Since he had never once neglected his strength training even before meeting Audin, his physical power had always surpassed that of other mercenaries. On top of that, he now possessed the Isolation Technique devised by Audin, and he could wield Will. With a simple flick and pull, Encrid achieved exactly what he wanted.
Crack!
The wrist holding the dagger snapped like a dry branch. Because Encrid pulled with immense force simultaneously, the opponent was dragged headfirst toward him.
In the midst of this, the swordsman who specialized in deception flicked his other wrist to draw a new dagger, but he never got the chance to use it. Pulling his foe in, Encrid stepped forward to close the distance. Pivoting on his lead foot, he snapped his head back and thrust it forward.
No matter how fast a hand could be, it could never outspeed a forehead lunging from such close quarters. Encrid slammed his forehead directly into the man's philtrum.
Smash!
A sound like rock striking rock echoed through the passage.
“Urgh.”
Instead of blood, black mist poured from the man’s face, and several front teeth clattered to the ground. Encrid’s forehead was also cut by the impact, but this was entirely intentional.
The blood trickling down his forehead sprayed backward. He moved so quickly after the headbutt that the blood didn't even have time to run down his face. Even as he broke the opponent’s wrist, Encrid was already drawing and swinging his sword with his free hand.
Every single movement fell perfectly into his calculations. His precision had reached a level far beyond Aker’s Spiderweb. It was a harmony of deception and the orthodox sword. Before the deceiver—who had been thoroughly deceived himself—could even begin to recover...
“...!”
Without even the time to gasp, the opponent could only stare with wide eyes. Black mist gathered in his mouth and sprayed out like blood, but before it could hit the ground, Dawn Forge severed his neck.
Encrid briefly observed the expression on the severed head. Compared to the shock he had feigned earlier, this expression was far more realistic. Naturally so. Encrid had acted with the intent to deceive, but the man whose head had just been lopped off was genuinely, utterly dumbfounded.
‘There is quite a lot to learn.’
He wasn't just referring to the dead man’s expression. This was the thought that had crossed his mind as he extended his sword. Even in that simple slash, his blade had naturally extended like a flash of light, blending the Sword of Chance and incorporating the principles of Vortex.
‘Most of all, I was ahead in the calculations.’
Even without fully grasping the opponent’s intent, he could counter with the Sword of Chance, swinging his blade through optimized thought.
‘What else can I blend into this?’
It was a vague feeling, but now, even that vagueness didn't seem like an insurmountable wall. The Encrid of today was a completely different person from the one who had died to that very first thrust. He was now capable of learning something valuable from every single exchange. Just as he had in his fight with the Balrog.
“This is good,” Encrid muttered to himself.
It wasn't a common occurrence. He wouldn't say this unless he was exceptionally thrilled. The Balrog wasn't the only one capable of feeling ecstasy and joy in battle.
In his inner world, the Ferryman could only click his tongue, muttering that he was a crazy bastard regardless.
*
Chronologically speaking, the moment the battle ended for Rem and the others was the exact moment Encrid’s ‘today’ began.
Thus, around the time Encrid was advancing toward the Balrog once more, the members of the Order of Madness were taking a brief breather. Even so, they were well aware of the entities squirming into view. The number of creatures gathering in the distance was enough to make counting them a chore.
Not all of them were like the one Rem had faced or the one Audin had blown apart. Most had been eroded by the Labyrinth for so long that they had lost all reason, their eyes turned pitch-black as they mindlessly swung their blades. Of course, humans would still die if struck by those blind blades, so the threat level was anything but low.
“There are quite a few. Is that brother still asleep?” Audin asked, clenching and unclenching his fists.
Beside him, Teresa, holding a shield in her left hand and a sword in her right, glanced back toward the subject of Audin’s question.
Rem, who had just crushed the skull of a lunging foe, had tossed aside the burden he carried on his shoulders as soon as he arrived. The one who caught the thrown bundle was Roman. In his confusion, Roman had set the man down behind him, and so he was currently sleeping soundly.
A few of the residents huddled together in a corner, warily watching the situation, while Ropode and Pel simply stared ahead, exchanging brief remarks like, “They keep coming,” and “Indeed.”
“Slacking off even at a moment like this is exactly why that bastard never gets promoted to vice-captain,” Rem replied, feeling the stiffness in his muscles.
“Haha,” Audin chuckled, while Luagarne, standing on one leg after losing the other, was busy assessing the situation.
“It must be the Balrog, right?” she spoke, but no one answered. Everyone simply took it for granted.
Was this a moment of soaring crisis? Roman thought so. To say he wasn't afraid would be a lie. Looking at the sheer numbers and the various wraith knights swarming ahead, he felt his throat go dry.
But these people did not feel that way. It was as if they had forgotten what fear even was. At least, that was how it appeared to Roman.
“I do not see my fiancé,” Sinar said calmly, casting her gaze into the distance.
The man who would normally drool in his sleep at the prospect of such a battle and rush out to run wild was nowhere to be seen. Naturally, he had to be fighting elsewhere. She tossed out those words and spoke again, as if completely detached from the current situation. The elf, possessing an otherworldly beauty, spoke in a manner that far exceeded the boundaries of human expectation.
“Then you all hold this place. I shall be where I need to be.”
Essentially: You guys handle this, I’m off to do my own thing.
At Sinar’s words, everyone except Roman frowned. As for Roman, he was already committed to standing his ground and protecting Ragna behind him. For an injured man limping on one leg—and the least skilled among them—this was the absolute best he could do. Just because one resolved never to give up did not mean they should foolishly fight where death was certain. He stood in this spot because he had resolved to hold the line.
Ahead of them, those damn wraiths continued to approach, each displaying the martial prowess of a knight. Of course, they weren't actual knights. He could tell by watching how the others fought them. If he put his mind to it, he could probably handle one or two himself—though even among them, there was a wide variance in skill. Some possessed a level of mastery that made him dizzy just looking at them.
One of those had already had his head crushed by the beastman Audin, and another had been slain by Rem. Amidst the stray thoughts filling Roman’s head, a response to the elf’s words came.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rem muttered, scratching his ear.
“Elderly sister, where do you think you are slipping away to by yourself?” Audin said, bringing his hands together in a prayer-like gesture.
“Elderly?” Despite being an elf, Sinar was gradually becoming accustomed to expressing her emotions. She repeated the words of the beastman, which grated against her. “Who is elderly?”
Audin merely maintained his smile, while Sinar’s green eyes turned ice-cold. In the midst of this, Rem chimed in.
“The lazybones is asleep, so if you two are going to bicker, do it while holding off those things here. This vice-captain is going to take the wildcat and head on ahead.”
This time, both Audin and Sinar turned their gazes toward Rem.
“Just because words come out of your mouth doesn't mean they make sense.”
“As I have said before, it is only right that the captain’s partner holds the position of vice-captain.”
While they bickered, the horde of wraith knights closed the distance. Among them, those who had turned into death knights could be seen, along with Dullahans riding horses with their heads tucked under their arms, and even a Minotaur like the one Encrid had slain.
Roman blinked. All sorts of thoughts crossed his mind, but watching them, any reason for him to feel afraid seemed to vanish. For some reason, there wasn't even a shred of urgency to be found among these people.