Chapter 140 - Sure, why not

“I’ll be learning a sense for evasion this time.”

If Ragna had told him to always keep two swords on his person...

Jaxon began teaching him something else.

It was probably one of the things he had shown him on the day they killed the giant.

Encrid learned them at the same time.

There was no need to learn them separately.

What Jaxon taught did not particularly interfere with his other training.

Basically, he said it began with improving dynamic visual acuity, so he would write something on a pebble, throw it, and Encrid had to see it and say what it was.

Of course, it was not easy.

Even so, little by little, stubbornly, he was improving.

Now he could even clearly see what was written on a pebble flying toward him.

The reason he could do this, too, was because of the experience Encrid had built up until now.

Experiences that awakened talent.

Experiences achieved together with the belief that it could be done and certainty in himself.

Just as a pebble was flying toward his forehead, at that moment...

“Surprise attack!”

A shout burst out.

Encrid snatched the pebble with a smack.

“It’s the enemy!”

FWEEEEET!

“Arrows incoming! Keep your fucking heads down!”

Between the commander’s voice and the startled soldier’s, Jaxon opened his mouth.

“What was the word engraved on it?”

This guy really is relentless.

His two swords were at his waist, and he was wearing his leather armor too.

No matter how relaxed they were, he couldn’t move around without even his basic equipment.

Because of that, the smell of sweat had soaked into his armor and Esther hated it, but this was still a battlefield, a place where battle could break out at any moment.

Encrid turned and said,

“Cra.”

“Good.”

Jaxon answered as he stood.

But there was someone who sprang out faster and more nimbly than either of them.

“Where is it!”

It was Rem.

It had already been eight days, and thanks to his sparring with Encrid and Andrew, he was not exactly frustrated with unsatisfied urges, but he had been bored.

The barbarian from the west ran out, excited at the thought of swinging his axe.

You never knew.

Another giant might come popping out from somewhere.

What then?

That would be far too exciting.

Rem’s feet were light, and his body was nimble.

Rem moved faster than any commander or soldier.

Encrid also headed toward the source of the commotion.

It was the outer edge of the unit, around the boundary line, in the direction of the enemy camp.

When he arrived, he saw Rem whipping his head left and right.

Encrid looked around in much the same way, but...

There were no convincing traces, and especially no enemy.

There was only a soldier lying all alone with an arrow through his skull.

“The enemy?”

At Encrid’s question, Jaxon also turned his head left and right before answering.

“None.”

Even to Jaxon’s eyes, the traces were faint.

What did that mean?

They had not charged in at all.

They shot an arrow from far away and left?

Because of that, one of their allies had died, but still.

Was this really effective?

RUSTLE.

Beyond the boundary of the allied camp, there was movement in the thick brush.

It was not the enemy, but their allies moving.

The owners of the eagle epaulets, the Frontier Slaughterers unit, were on the move.

“Chase.”

At the words of the one who seemed to be their commander, they moved their feet.

Watching them enter the brush, Encrid thought that every step they took resembled Pin’s.

In other words, should he say they all had the feel of Rangers?

At the very least, they had to be a unit with that sort of skill.

“What the hell.”

Rem was standing there in the meantime.

A Rem full of dissatisfaction, a Rem whose eyes had turned sharp with irritation.

“Don’t.”

Encrid put out the urgent fire first.

If he left him like that, he would cause another mess.

“Come here.”

He stopped him and called him over.

Rem seemed irritated enough that Encrid almost imagined his gray hair bristling up in spikes, but Rem snorted and turned around.

“Looks like those enemy bastards are playing dirty.”

As he spoke, Rem glanced at the ally whose skull had been pierced.

It was not a look of pity or anything like that.

He was looking at the arrow.

“They brought that crazy bastard again and pulled this shit?”

From Rem’s gaze, it looked like an arrow he knew.

“Who?”

“You don’t remember?”

Encrid tilted his head.

Even if Rem remembered, for Encrid, he had spent a different today from Rem.

Their perceived time was different, so it could not be helped.

“That bastard who called himself The Claw of the Hawk, or the Nipple, or whatever.”

Only then did Encrid turn his eyes to the arrow.

It was an arrow with a shaft longer than other arrows, and fletching that stretched far back.

He could tell even without checking the blood-soaked arrowhead.

It was not an ordinary arrow.

Rem slowly scratched his chin.

Something frustrating remained in him.

A target he had missed.

Rem had once lived as a hunter.

His eyes followed the target’s trail.

Should he chase or not?

If he chased from here, how long would it take?

As Rem was estimating the time, Encrid tapped his shoulder.

“How about a spar?”

Leave it.

They would meet someday.

When that time came, they would be able to have a conversation.

Of course, it would be a conversation using axes, not mouths.

“Let’s do that.”

Encrid calmed Rem down and turned away.

WHOOSH.

A stone flew from behind Encrid’s head.

It was a small pebble that flashed past his eyes in an instant.

It passed in front of Encrid’s eyes and grazed Rem’s forehead.

When had he picked it up, and when had he engraved something on it again?

“Zy.”

Encrid read the letters and answered calmly, though inwardly he was surprised.

If he had let his guard down even a little, he would have missed it.

“Good.”

Jaxon nodded and opened his mouth.

“You wanna die? Where do you think you’re throwing rocks?”

Rem reacted.

“Ah, you were there. I didn’t see you.”

Jaxon said it in a way that made it obvious to anyone that it was a lie.

It was an everyday quarrel.

“Stop.”

It was everyday, but something had changed from before.

Encrid did not push his body between them to stop them.

Now, words alone were enough.

“Stop it, Rem.”

He simply made it a little more forceful than before, putting a little more will into it.

It was something he had felt when learning the heart of the superhuman.

Rem followed his words better than he had thought.

The same went for Jaxon.

For this one, rather than saying it, glaring at him once was enough.

“Yes, I’ll be careful.”

Then an answer like this came back.

In any case, when they returned to the front of the barracks like that...

“Did something happen?”

Ragna, who had risen late, asked.

Unless he was watching Encrid or sparring with him, he was still a lazy fellow.

“Enemy surprise attack. They only shot an arrow and ran.”

“I see.”

Did this bastard even listen properly?

He looked completely uninterested.

Was he fearless, or was he thoughtless?

‘The latter.’

If Encrid had to bet crona, he would bet on the latter.

Thinking so, Encrid raised his sword upright.

He set it straight, steadied his breathing, and put his strength into sparring again.

In between, he also trained by looking at stones and reading the letters.

He loosened muscles here and there with the Balaf Style Massage Technique.

He learned close-quarters combat, hand-to-hand combat, and joint locks, and did not forget to train in the isolation technique.

Even while doing all that, he did not let the two swords leave his body.

“Posture. Your posture must not collapse. Whatever you do, posture. No matter what you do, posture. Posture first. If your posture collapses, you’ll get hurt, Brother. You don’t want to become an injured Brother Platoon Leader, do you?”

Was that a warning that he would play around with his title?

Keeping two swords on him while taking the posture for the isolation technique was quite grueling.

But it was only grueling.

It was not impossible.

Then, wasn’t there no problem at all?

At least, that was how it was for Encrid.

It was around the time the sun began to tilt westward.

“Surprise attack! Fuck!”

An allied soldier’s shout rang out.

The enemy tried to make contact one more time.

The first time, one could say they had been caught off guard.

The second time, they should have been prepared, yet again an arrow flew in and pierced an ally’s skull.

The Border Guard responded.

Among them, a platoon composed only of those who showed outstanding ability in terrain like this moved out.

Only, they missed again.

“This isn’t good.”

After hearing the situation, Krais frowned.

Encrid ignored it.

It was someone who only fired arrows from far away and fled.

He was hard to catch.

How were they supposed to catch someone who used a peculiar weapon, in other words, a longbow with abnormally long range even among longbows, fired just one shot, and then ran away?

Encrid focused only on training.

He did not think of it as his business.

He barely had enough mental strength to focus on this alone.

“Ian.”

Starting from “Cra,” he had read the letters on the fifth pebble.

Read together, they said, crazy barbarian.

“... I wrote all of that down before I said I’d be careful earlier.”

Jaxon offered an excuse that was not really an excuse.

He said it while turning his head and looking at the ground, and Encrid did not even feel like saying anything.

“Hold it in.”

Instead, he only restrained Rem.

Seeing him silently pull out his axe, if Encrid did not stop him, it seemed he would throw it just like that.

A day passed, and the next day was similar.

Training, or sparring.

Occasional enemy surprise attacks.

Beside him, Krais kept muttering that this was bad.

Encrid entered proper training with Jaxon.

“A sense for evasion is ultimately about developing the ability to avoid. You do that by building prediction through experience and increasing the body’s coordination. Seeing and moving the body at the same time to dodge. You can think of that as the goal.”

As Encrid watched, wanting to ask what he was supposed to avoid...

Jaxon drew his sword.

SHING.

The blade reflected the light, and Jaxon asked,

“Will you do it with two swords on?”

Was that concern, or a warning?

It might have been both.

“Do it.”

Encrid endured no matter what.

Because he knew that, Jaxon inwardly nodded and decided to pass on one of the things he possessed.

“If you can’t dodge, you die.”

After another word filled with warning and concern...

PING.

A sound cut through the air.

After that, Encrid saw a point.

A small point was fired.

Even though he had activated Concentrate on a Single Point, splitting time into fragments...

TING.

“Next time, you’ll really die.”

The tip of the sword touched his forehead.

He could not move at all.

Fast?

Speed?

No, it felt like a slightly different problem from that.

It was a thrust like a single point.

It was not something made possible simply by being fast.

What should he call this?

He had seen Rem’s axe swing bend like a whip.

He had seen it become a flash and cut through the air.

He had seen the enemy’s thrusts, and he had dodged flying Whistle Daggers before.

Jaxon’s thrust was different from everything he had experienced.

It even felt like magic.

As if space had folded, and the blade had arrived with a casual poke.

It was a sword thrust that had been driven in without showing any hint or sign.

“Again.”

Encrid’s eyes burned.

It was something new.

He was always ready to accept it.

“If you don’t dodge, you’ll really die.”

Jaxon kept saying that, but no one actually died.

Should one say it was just as always?

Or should one say it did not change?

Encrid...

Whether the enemy fired arrows three or four times a day and made little jabs at them or not...

Whether the allied unit paid attention because of it or not...

Even when the Border Guard kept stumbling every time...

Focused only on training.

Could he not see the thrust?

No.

He could see it.

He could see it, but he simply could not dodge.

What he needed from now on was coordination, just as Jaxon had said.

To reduce his reaction time to the extreme, all the way to seeing and dodging.

If he saw it, his body only had to react.

Then why could he not dodge Jaxon’s sword?

“It’s called a thrust without killing intent, but you probably don’t need to learn it.”

Jaxon said it as if tossing the words out, and at that, Encrid’s motivation burned even hotter.

“When can I learn that?”

“Say that after you finish this.”

“Sure.”

A “thrust without killing intent” was a high-speed thrust without murderous intent.

The reason his body, which had usually reacted to killing intent until now, froze was because of that.

Because there was no killing intent, he did not feel a threat.

So his body did not react properly.

Right now, they were training so that he could bring out that reaction at will, at any time, by raising his intent.

“Just see it and react.”

It was not as easy as it sounded.

However, there was progress little by little.

It was truly at the level of crawling, but Encrid could feel himself changing.

So how could this not be exciting?

Moreover...

“You are improving, at least.”

Compared to his other teachers, Jaxon was the kind type who did not hold back on praise.

In truth, that was the kind of training Jaxon knew.

Steady effort.

Training that could be done to some extent as long as one could keep going with about half one’s life on the line.

It was just that in all these moments, a question arose in Jaxon.

‘Why am I doing this?’

When he watched, he could not leave it alone, so he intervened.

But the reason he was helping Encrid bothered Jaxon because he could not understand it himself.

The training he had received since childhood was to attach a proper reason to every action.

Yet right now, he was acting in the exact opposite way.

‘Do it first.’

Jaxon pushed his worries aside.

Right now, simply watching Encrid was satisfying.

It was a kind of satisfaction he had felt for the first time since he was born.

He had killed and killed again.

After killing, he checked, and searched for information.

He had done such things.

In all those moments, he had been unable to feel anything.

This was the first time he had felt this way.

So how could he not be excited?

That was why a smile appeared on Jaxon’s face as he thrust his sword.

Encrid had no time to notice Jaxon’s smile.

He only saw Rem, Ragna, and Audin nearby.

“That bastard’s really going to kill someone.”

Rem said, oddly twisted inside.

“The sparring is too much. It seems like it’s my turn.”

Ragna voiced his own desire.

“Hoho, Brother seems to be enjoying himself. Still, balance is important in all things, so one must do things in moderation. For the Lord said, what happens if the scales tilt...”

Audin’s tongue had grown long as well.

All three of them had become sullen.

Krais was watching them.

‘This is really bad.’

They might be swinging swords like this without a care.

But the unit’s situation was turning into something like a dog’s dick.

It would be nice if the commanders or the Border Guard took care of it on their own.

Was there no one who could use their head, or did no one intend to use it?

‘No, seriously, how long are they going to just watch?’

As Krais saw it, there was a breakthrough.

If they left things as they were, they would only invite unnecessary danger.

Why were they just leaving it alone?

It could not be helped.

“Um, Captain.”

Krais did not want to sit here and shoulder danger like this.

More than anything, because it was something plainly visible, he did not want to let it pass.

“Yeah?”

Encrid, drenched in sweat, turned his head.

The heat lingering around his eyes and all that did not register to Krais.

“Do you have any intention of making a suggestion to the higher-ups?”

What was this about?

Encrid tilted his head.

“I don’t think anything good will come from letting time pass like this...”

Krais began to speak.

He laid out the possibilities of this small unit and what they could do.

“... So we do have mobility, and I think it would work as long as it can be controlled.”

It was an easy and simple story.

Having experienced it many times, Encrid knew that this big-eyed friend was not just a man who only cared about crona, so he nodded.

“Sure, why not.”

There were already many things he wanted to test.

This could be a good opportunity.

It was only natural that Encrid nodded easily.

“Nice.”

Krais said, seeming a little tense in his own way.

Encrid calmly nodded.

What was so difficult about this?

In any case, the judgment was something command would handle on their own.