Chapter 102 - Just Because Luck Isn't on Your Side (4)

"What was more enjoyable?"

Dying skewered by arrows like meat on a spit?

Being squeezed by a magician's vines and stabbed by thorns?

Having your entire body torn apart by lycanthropes?

The Boatswain who had appeared spoke and laughed.

A laugh Encrid could perceive because he allowed it.

It felt extremely strange all over again. What was he supposed to call this?

It was as though someone were telling him that the Boatswain had laughed.

He knew the Boatswain was laughing, but he had not actually seen a smiling face. Nor had he heard laughter.

He had merely perceived in his head that the other party had laughed.

Since he had been asked a question, Encrid answered.

Toward the black river, the ferryboat, and the Boatswain.

He could not even tell whether the answer he gave now was meant for the Boatswain, or for the ferryboat, or for the black river.

Still, since he could open his mouth.

"The arrows were the best."

Compared to being bitten to death by a pack of lycanthropes or caught in a magician's vines, that was better.

"... Go mad. Go mad like that and entertain me."

Was it his imagination that the Boatswain seemed to be at a loss for words for a moment?

Encrid was not mad. Not at all. He had simply answered right away because there was no need to think about it.

"I answered calmly."

"You crazy bastard."

The Boatswain began with laughter and ended in anger.

Of course, this too felt as if someone were telling him so. He did not know whether the Boatswain had actually gotten angry. He had merely perceived that he was irritated.

That was the end of it.

Pitch-black darkness was painted over the black river.

He closed and opened his eyes.

It was the predawn hour before sunrise.

Still the same today.

Encrid rose lightly. There was no heaviness in either body or mind.

Of course, the pain of having been bitten apart by werewolves and dying with his intestines torn by claws still lingered.

"Whew."

He decided to forget it with one sigh.

Even if he could not truly forget, once he moved his body and swung his sword, it would be fine.

Encrid was calm. In both attitude and heart.

'Relax the shoulders.'

Ordinarily, this would have been the time to think up schemes close to desperate struggle in order to survive, in order to escape today.

Encrid was still. Like a quiet lake.

Had he not gained a new realization?

'Is struggling desperately the only answer?'

It probably was not. Walking for tomorrow had not changed. However, simply running at full strength no matter what was likely not the only way to reach the fastest path.

And there was probably no need to arrive the fastest no matter what, either.

'There are three paths.'

He got up and moved his body as usual. As he did, he began organizing his thoughts.

It began with the ghouls.

'Those bastards too.'

They had been strange. They looked as if they had moved under someone's orders, or as if they were a group that had experienced such a thing.

'A magician must be involved.'

That magician was on a different level from the one he had experienced before.

'Retsha of the Rose Vines.'

The name he had heard was clear in his mind.

Could he catch her?

There was no need to ask that question.

Because he had to catch her.

Then his thoughts reached the pack of lycanthropes. It was the process of reviewing what he had experienced in reverse order.

'That was a magician's trick.'

He was certain.

If they climbed over the wall, a magician greeted them.

If they headed for the Smuggler's Hole, a unit appeared and blocked them from the front and rear.

At the front were elite soldiers armed with broad shields and long spears, while the rear was blocked by a unit of archers.

It was a perfect preparation.

'Unless they knew in advance.'

He did not know how things had unfolded, but the conclusion was that the enemy had already read their movements.

So was there a spy?

If there had been, some sign would have shown somehow when the lycanthropes attacked.

Information might have passed through some other method.

It was a situation the Boatswain would find laughable.

All three paths could be called walls.

And they were not walls he could overcome simply by training.

'I suppose I really should say my luck is bad.'

How did there turn out to be a way to die every single time?

However.

Did anything change just because luck was not on his side?

No.

Encrid was the same. Unchanged. There was no such thing as his heart wavering.

CLACK.

Encrid tied the cord on his sword hilt again.

It was the sign that he was beginning a new today.

In his head, Encrid divided up the morning hours.

And he moved accordingly.

After the isolation technique, sword training.

Then he practiced the hidden knife again.

"Would you be willing to spar once?"

He spoke to Pin and trained the Balaf Style Combat Technique.

"Is someone chasing you? You look even more rushed today for some reason."

Torres said as he packed his gear. How many knives were hidden inside that body of his?

Encrid thought as he watched Torres put on a belt with eight knives attached, then answered.

"I'm just doing my best every day."

"You'll ruin your body like that."

His body was not so weak that this much would ruin it.

"Then shall we go?"

Pin, who had accompanied him through a bout from the morning onward, said.

It was also the point when Encrid's training, which had begun at dawn, ended.

He could not go while drenched in sweat, so he changed clothes roughly before setting out.

As they traveled, Pin said it would not be easy to spot Aspen's Recon Party.

It was something he had already heard.

As they pushed through the bushes, Pin looked at a fruit that seemed appetizing on the outside and said.

"That's poisonous."

"I'll have to be careful."

Encrid answered at once.

"You're kind of strange."

"What is?"

Torres, who had been cutting through the bushes with something like a dagger beside them, cut in.

"You act like you know something. You look like you've been here before, too."

Was this a woman's intuition, or a Ranger's instinct?

"It's my first time."

"Speak casually."

"I will."

Was she going to say they should sleep together again?

She had on the first today.

Fortunately, if that was the right word, Pin did not bring it up.

Instead, she merely looked at Encrid with a strange gaze.

Even when today repeated, not everything happened the same way.

A few small things tended to change.

And so they arrived at the entrance to the Smuggler's Hole.

"How deep does this go?"

Encrid asked just before they went in.

"Hm? If you walk steadily, it doesn't even take an hour."

"I see."

"Why do you ask?"

"I was curious."

"Are you scared of dark places? Don't worry. This noonim will hold your hand."

"That is not it."

Pin chuckled and opened her mouth.

"The Ranger goes first."

The path descending with the hillock as a shield.

The same thing as before happened.

Encrid gave the two of them no warning, nor did he make any separate preparations.

Instead, he remembered everything that occurred.

"What should you do when you're surrounded?"

He had never asked any of his squadmates such a question. In other words, he had learned nothing about it.

But there was something he knew from his experiences until now.

That he must not allow such a situation to happen.

If he could avoid it, then avoiding it was right.

Then what should he do if he could not avoid it?

That was something he would have to think about from now on.

Encrid was in the middle of finding an answer.

"Welcome!"

The enemy came into view. It was a unit armed with long spears and shields.

Their number was at least two squads.

Several torches lit up the front brightly.

CREEEAK.

As if they had been waiting, a group of enemy soldiers armed with shortbows blocked the rear.

'Looks like there are about twenty here too.'

He turned his gaze back to the front and looked at the man who seemed to be the commander.

The bastard had poked his head out between the shields, and because he wore an iron helmet that covered down to his forehead, only his eyes were visible.

It was faint, but something like delight could be seen in those eyes.

It felt as though he welcomed this situation.

"You wildcat bitch."

The commander opened his mouth.

"Shit."

Pin stopped turning her head between front and back, drew a dagger, gripped it in a reverse hold, and lowered her stance.

Her left hand blocked diagonally in front of her face, while her right hand was drawn back, hiding the knife from her opponent's view.

That figure did look like a wildcat hiding its claws.

Torres quietly moved beside the shadows cast by the torches.

From behind, the gazes of some soldiers holding shortbows followed Torres.

'Their eyes are sharp too.'

It meant they were properly trained soldiers.

As expected.

If they fell into the trap, it was over.

It was the kind of trap that could not be escaped unless one was knight-level.

Both Pin and Torres were excellent forces.

If only this place were not a tunnel.

If only they had not been blocked from both the front and the back.

'Then it would be worth trying.'

No. It would not work. They could resist, but they would die.

It was right before the commander shouted something.

"Wait."

Encrid stepped forward, showing his left palm.

He had not even drawn his sword. It was a gesture to show that he had no intention of fighting.

"I don't think they're the sort you can talk to."

Torres muttered.

Pin was still facing forward, her fierce gaze gleaming.

"What is it?"

It was the composure that came from being certain he had already caught them. The commander asked.

Encrid needed to close the distance with the other man.

Because, just as Torres said, he was not someone words would work on.

He simply needed a moment of leeway.

Right before the fight, before the other side moved violently, there was something he had to confirm.

TAP, TAP.

With both hands raised, showing that he had no intention of fighting, he stepped forward.

Encrid's gaze examined the enemy's equipment and clothes, now clearly revealed in the torchlight.

'Dust.'

Quite a lot had piled up.

It was a hole that took a little over an hour on foot.

The dust clinging to the enemy soldiers' bodies did not look as if it had accumulated in just one day.

'They weren't waiting only for today.'

So this was a question thrown out for confirmation.

"How many days have you been waiting?"

"... What?"

As if hit where it hurt, flustered emotion mixed into the enemy commander's voice.

That was a definite answer.

'They weren't waiting with certainty.'

What was it? What had made them wait here?

He was curious all over again. Of course, curiosity was not what mattered right now. The result mattered.

The fact that these men would wait here for days.

"You hid your presence well."

Encrid spoke again. Every word was meant to probe the other man.

There was no way the commander could know that.

"You bastard. What are you? Are you a magician too?"

Had a magician been involved here too?

What in the world was that bitch Retsha of the Rose Vines?

"Retsha, then."

Since he was at it, he took another step forward.

"... Fuck, I don't know what this is, but die."

That was as far as he got.

Soon, the enemy soldiers rushed in, and arrows and long spears aimed for Encrid, Pin, and Torres.

The commander ordered his unit with a hand gesture and stepped back.

Pin looked as if she wanted to kill that commander bastard.

But she did not have the skill to break through enemy soldiers who blocked the front with shields and stabbed with long spears.

Her specialty was difficult to display in a place like this. As a result, she showed only the level of fighting strength of an ordinary soldier.

Torres was different.

He kicked off the wall and showed a movement that slipped outside the enemy's expectations, then flicked his hand in midair.

Four throwing knives flew from his hand.

Even Encrid's eyes could not properly see where they flew.

It was a hidden move Torres had kept in reserve, but...

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK.

It was not enough.

The archers and the men blocking the front had all covered their whole bodies with shields wrapped in thick leather.

'If you're going to aim, you'd be better off aiming for their toes or something.'

That was as far as that went.

Putting aside the answer to scaling the wall, Encrid decided to carry out what he had been thinking.

Facing trained elite soldiers.

And more than one elite soldier at that.

For Encrid, this moment was an extremely unfamiliar experience.

When had those inferior to him in skill ever targeted him as a group?

He had never had that level of skill in the first place.

All this time, the means by which he swung his sword had increased.

He had killed the Stabbing Pervert and cut down a man named Mitch Hurrier.

An assassin had also targeted him.

But this truly was his first time.

A fight where he stood on the side of the few against a group, a unit, troops.

On a battlefield, he could use the allies around him.

But here, there was no such opportunity.

'In that case.'

Could this instead become an opportunity to improve his skill?

Once he thought that...

"Interesting."

The words came out on their own.

"You crazy bastard."

A long spearman with a sickened expression thrust his spear down at Encrid, who was smiling.

A man who smiled while muttering that it was interesting, with blood streaming from his mouth right before death, would hardly look normal.

Of course, Encrid paid no mind to such things.

His head was full only of thoughts about testing this and that right away.

'Concentrate on a Single Point and Sense of the Blade won't work.'

If his field of vision narrowed against multiple enemies, there was no answer.

What if he cut and crushed them with the Heavy Sword Technique, as he had when facing a group of ghouls, a pack of wolf beasts, or a pack of human-faced dogs?

'No.'

The opponent was not a beast, but an enemy in unit form that knew how to use strategy and tactics.

He used his head and thought it over.

The same as always. The only difference from before was that a little more tension had left his shoulders.

And so, for several days, whenever trying to enter through the Smuggler's Hole did not go well, he went to meet the magician on the wall.

When he was caught by Retsha's vines countless times and hit a dead end while thinking it over, he danced with the lycanthropes with the moonlight as his companion.

Of course, the end of that dance was always death.

Because Encrid had made up his mind, he felt no impatience.

He simply did his best in every moment.

Relaxing his shoulders did not mean he intended to spend the day carelessly.

And so, at the end of forty-two todays, he made the hidden knife familiar to his hand.

"Why does that work?"

Naturally, Torres's eyes became those of a startled rabbit.

From his perspective, Encrid had imitated his secret technique in a single day.

"I was lucky."

It was an excuse that did not even work, but Torres had nothing to say either.

"In one day?"

He merely muttered that kind of thing.

Showing Torres did not make Encrid any more skilled with the hidden knife.

So Encrid set Torres's mind at ease by passing beyond forty-two todays and then beyond seventy todays.

He no longer showed the hidden knife skill in front of him.

Now he only had to keep repeating it alone.

Day by day, he also grew more skilled with the Balaf Style Combat Technique.

It was thanks to his spars with Pin, who had learned the Ail Karaz Style Combat Technique.

After repeating today again and again like that.

The hidden knife, the Balaf Style Combat Technique, facing the magician on the wall, strengthening his grip while crawling up the wall, training his swordsmanship while facing the pack of lycanthropes.

'All of it.'

Encrid felt that he no longer needed to repeat them.

Then what would come next?

It was time to go beyond today and head toward tomorrow.