Chapter 46 - Countless Battles (2)

Chapter 46 - Countless Battles (2)

Enkrid's body was riddled with stab wounds and punctures.

He had heard that a healer had already tended to him.

"Fortunately, there won't be any permanent damage. You're lucky, squad leader," Big Eyes said with a grin.

"You sound like you were hoping I'd get hurt," Enkrid retorted.

"No, I'm just concerned. You should feel honored. You're the first man I've ever worried about," Big Eyes replied, still smiling.

"Alright, fine."

Enkrid had expected to be pulled back soon, but their forces were still facing off against the Duchy of Aspen.

Would there be another battle?

Even if there was, it wouldn't concern Enkrid.

It was impossible for him to return to the battlefield in his current state—unless it was just to watch.

***

Big Eyes had left behind an apple, which Enkrid was lazily chewing when Rem entered the tent.

The rest of the squad was away, leaving the tent empty.

Rem sat beside him, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his clasped hands.

He stared intently at Enkrid without saying a word, his lips pressed in a straight line.

"If you're planning to confess, I'll save you the trouble and reject you now," Enkrid teased.

"Don't you know I like women? If you and a random girl I've never met fell into a river, I'd save the girl—as long as she's pretty, of course."

"Don't worry about me. I can swim just fine. I'll survive on my own."

"Now that I think about it, I'm not great at swimming. So be sure to save me if need be."

What was this idiot thinking when he said he'd save a drowning woman?

Typical Rem.

"Sure, I'll throw you a rock," Enkrid joked.

Their usual banter carried on until Rem suddenly stopped talking and stared directly at Enkrid.

His gray eyes held an unusual seriousness.

"Do you have something to say?"

"How did you know it was sorcery?" Rem asked.

Huh?

Enkrid hadn't expected this question here and now.

"I saw it during reconnaissance."

"Just from seeing that, you guessed it was sorcery? You seemed to know the flagpole was the thing keeping it together."

He was right.

That had been the goal.

Enkrid knew everything, though he couldn't exactly admit it was because he had lived through the day repeatedly.

He needed a plausible excuse.

While considering a mix of lies and explanations, Rem's piercing gray eyes unsettled him.

Even if he told the truth, Rem wouldn't believe it.

But did he have to lie entirely?

A poor lie would be obvious to someone like Rem, and Enkrid didn't want to treat him that way.

So he spoke a half-truth:

"I used to know someone from the western tribes," he began.

It was true. Rem himself was from the west.

"I picked up a lot from them."

Also true—Rem had shared things about sorcery with him.

"So I thought about it and made some guesses."

This part wasn't entirely true but close enough.

Instead of thinking it through, he had figured it out by physically repeating the day over and over.

"The flagpole seemed like the medium for the sorcery. I noticed the enemy's formation looked strange before the fog rolled in. After that, I charged in."

"Hmm."

When truth is mixed with lies, it's harder to detect deceit.

That's because the speaker believes in what they're saying.

Enkrid spoke with sincerity, hiding only what he couldn't reveal.

Rem believed him—or at least didn't challenge him further.

"That's how it was, huh? It's impressive you figured it out so quickly."

"So, what about sorcery?"

"I was going to tell you not to meddle with those kinds of things recklessly," Rem replied.

"Got it."

Rem nodded.

Enkrid suddenly remembered that Rem had been absent during the battle.

He'd assumed Rem would come to his position after the charge, but he hadn't.

Instead, Rem rejoined the squad later.

"Where were you during the battle?" Enkrid asked.

"Nothing much. I was curious about who put up the flagpoles, so I went to check it out."

"You checked it out?"

"Yeah, he had a chat with my axe," Rem said with a grin before leaving the tent.

Enkrid thought back to the moment he had destroyed the flagpole.

The sorcerer had been shaking a bell and disappeared almost immediately afterward.

Enkrid had been too focused on destroying the flagpole to think about it.

It seemed the sorcerer had retreated but had run straight into Rem's axe.

Enkrid dismissed it as nothing unusual—Rem's reckless behavior was nothing new.

In a previous battle, Rem had charged into the enemy lines, claiming he wanted to take down some Hawk Claw or other.

The platoon leader had given up on keeping Rem's squad in line, treating them as an auxiliary force instead.

This time was no different, except for one detail:

Enkrid himself had broken formation first.

"Hey, you alright?"

The platoon leader entered the tent.

"Checking in on me? Are we heading back soon?" Enkrid asked.

The platoon leader shrugged.

"No orders yet. We're all on standby."

Winter was approaching, making prolonged battles unlikely.

While the position wouldn't be entirely abandoned, their battalion had done the heavy lifting here and was due for a rotation.

The delay in orders felt odd.

The platoon leader scratched his head, looking at Enkrid.

"You."

"Yes?"

At the time, the platoon leader hadn't thought much of Enkrid breaking formation—just figured he'd finally lost it.

But then came the shouted orders to duck and raise shields, which saved them from the fog.

Later, he learned that the fog was sorcery, dependent on a medium—something that had to be destroyed or the sorcerer killed to lift it.

The company commander had asked him directly:

"Who do you think did it?"

The platoon leader had thought of Enkrid.

It wasn't hard to guess that his squad had played a role, especially since Enkrid had charged out just before the fog rolled in.

And the voice shouting those orders had sounded like Enkrid's.

The platoon leader finally spoke:

"That fog—it was sorcery, right?"

"Yes, I reported it," Enkrid replied.

"Right. You did," the platoon leader muttered.

The platoon leader glanced at Enkrid briefly, then rose after advising him to rest well.

'Impossible.'

He knew Enkrid's abilities.

Certainly not the lowest, but at best, he was only fit to lead a village militia.

Among his subordinates, there were some fearsome fighters, but Enkrid wasn't one of them.

The medium for the spell must have been located deep within enemy lines—no competent foe would place it elsewhere.

That meant someone would have had to infiltrate that far.

"Through that dense fog?"

While facing barrages of bolts and arrows?

And it was that troublesome squad leader?

Unthinkable.

On the off chance, he asked if Rem had done it, but it wasn't him.

As for Ragna, it was out of the question.

By the time the fog had cleared, Ragna had been fighting nearby as though he'd always been there.

That left the other squad members, but they had also been fighting as part of the rear squad formation.

"Could reinforcements have come from the main force?"

Pondering this, the squad leader stepped outside the barracks.

The sharp drop in temperature made the cold bite at him.

"Are we ever retreating?"

He, too, missed the city air.

He wanted to see his home, his wife, and his daughter again.

He longed to roast potatoes over a fire and sleep soundly.

***

After two days bedridden, Enkrid was finally able to move around.

"Don't overdo it," warned Big Eyes, though Enkrid's condition was surprisingly good.

"That beast is gone, right?" Big Eyes asked.

Enkrid, who had been sitting upright on the bed, nodded while glancing around.

"Seems so. I don't see it anywhere."

"It looked like it followed you well."

"Weren't you scared?"

"Of course, I was! It's a beast! A beast."

"It seemed like a cub to me."

"You know that hunter, Enri, who used to go scouting with you? He was out with the squad leader," Big Eyes suddenly said.

Enkrid nodded, musing on how well-connected Big Eyes seemed to be—how did he even know Enri?

"That guy's from the Plains Hunting Guild," Big Eyes continued.

Enkrid knew that better than anyone, having learned much from Enri personally.

"Enri said there are many beasts on the Green Pearl Plains, but the most notable of them all—do you know what it is?"

"What?"

"A black panther with blue eyes, called a Lake Panther. They say its eyes resemble lakes, hence the name. While it hunts gazelles and gnus, it primarily feeds on the energies of the earth. It's a spirit beast, and just one of its claws is said to be worth over ten thousand krona."

Krona was the empire's currency. One bronze coin was worth one krona; a hundred bronze coins equaled one silver coin, and a hundred silver coins equaled one gold coin.

Ten thousand krona equated to one gold coin—more than Enkrid's salary.

"You think you could pluck out that claw while it's slashing your throat?"

"...No thanks. I'm not that greedy."

Big Eyes waved his hands dismissively.

Moving around a bit brought a light sheen of sweat to Enkrid's forehead, along with a dull ache. Still, this wasn't bad.

After experiencing death so often, gauging a wound's severity by its pain was second nature to him.

"Overdoing it will make it worse," warned Jaxen, who had been observing. With everyone else gone, it was just him and Big Eyes remaining.

"I'm pacing myself."

As Enkrid moved again, the memory of deflecting the mustached man's strike resurfaced.

How had he managed it?

Could he do it again?

He wasn't sure.

Maybe... but if he tried a few more times, it might come to him.

Lost in thought, he noticed Rem and Ragna returning.

"Walk a little farther away from me. Laziness is contagious," Rem quipped.

"And why are you always so eager to die?" Ragna retorted, doubling the intensity of the squabble.

Before their argument could escalate, Enkrid spoke up.

"I have a question. About swordsmanship."

Both men turned their attention to him.

"Speak."

"If it's swordsmanship, I'm the one to answer."

As they resumed glaring at each other, Enkrid quickly explained.

It wasn't a complicated story—he had observed an enemy several times, and it had become ingrained, manifesting unconsciously.

He spoke as plainly as he could.

"Well, isn't that just something that happens with practice?" Rem replied first.

"That's an interesting experience," Ragna added. "I wouldn't call myself special, having grown up with it, but for someone like you... hmm, yes. It must be divine providence. The goddess of fortune must've tripped and spilled a bag of gold coins over you."

Neither response was particularly helpful.

After some more bickering, the two offered additional insights.

"Sometimes, your vision opens up in battle. Usually, it takes countless, and I mean countless, repetitions in real combat for that to happen even once. If you've achieved pinpoint focus, the odds improve."

"The Heart of the Beast probably stuck with you a bit. It gave you the ability to stare your opponent down without blinking. If you had the chance to watch someone wield a sword right in front of you, you might've seen their technique or how they distributed their strength. Then, your body could've instinctively reacted. But that's only if you've mastered the basics."

"Basics aside, you'd also need hundreds of grueling battles."

Hearing this, Enkrid came to a realization.

"Ah."

For some, today was just another day.

But for Enkrid, today was the culmination of hundreds of relentless battles.

Not a single one wasted.

Each moment had been a desperate struggle, lived to the fullest, endured and savored.

That wealth of experience had granted him what others might call luck.

But it wasn't luck.

It was a natural outcome.

The price he paid—studying and experimenting even while being slashed, stabbed, and wounded—had borne fruit.

At its foundation were the Heart of the Beast and singular focus, granting him daring and clarity.

"Thank you," he thought, feeling gratitude anew.

These two had given him so much.

Ragna, in particular, had rebuilt the foundations of his swordsmanship.

The fight with Mitch Hurrier, the pursuit by the mustached man, today's battle on the field—they all coalesced into one desire.

He wanted to wield his sword again, to swing it and see how much of that last deflection had become second nature.

"I want to spar."

When Enkrid muttered this, both Rem and Ragna shook their heads.

Rem added, "I've been called insane since I was a kid, but you, Captain, are even crazier than me."

That was the last thing Enkrid wanted to hear—from Rem of all people.

This was a man who bullied soldiers for fun and tried to decapitate his superiors.

To be deemed crazier than him?

"I have to agree," Ragna said.

"Sparring in your condition is absurd."

Was wanting to spar so wrong?

Enkrid felt deeply wronged.

"It's too much for you to spar in your condition, Squad Leader."

The tent's flap parted, and a voice interrupted them.

Looking up, Enkrid saw the fairy company commander stepping in.

As Enkrid struggled to stand, the commander strode toward him.

"Was it you?"

Before Enkrid could even salute, the commander's sharp, cold, statue-like beauty loomed over him, piercing him with her words.

Enkrid licked his dry lips before answering.

He'd expected this question—not from Rem, but from her.

How had he broken the spell?

After all, that was a question for the command.