Chapter 434 - Training, Luagarne Style

For an entire month, Luagarne closely observed the changes in Encrid. She watched him every single day.

She had some of the keenest eyes and senses of any Frog on the continent. When it came to judging people's talent and teaching them, she could be called a knight's superior. Watching alone was enough.

Encrid had already reached his limit. The end. This was as far as he could go. He was like someone eating steamed potatoes only to have one suddenly lodge in his throat.

The conclusion was obvious.

'He's stuck.'

Stagnation.

'What a pity.'

That feeling came at the same time.

For an entire month, he had lived as though scraping together every last moment of time that would never return. Like a man told he had only so long to live.

"You'll die at this rate," the Fairy sparring with him said.

"You mustn't overdo it," added the human who wielded his blade like a knight.

The bear of a man even had to persuade him with his hands and feet to take a day off in between. Whether beating someone up during a spar to make him rest, rather than talking to him, was really right was another question.

"This is one of the traditions of martial priests."

Knocking people out to put them to sleep?

Audin was telling the truth. The God of War's martial priests often ruined their bodies through excessive training, and when that happened, they needed care administered with fists and feet. That was a senior priest's duty.

Luagarne was an open-minded Frog, so she nodded. The others, however, reacted somewhat differently.

Watching beside her, Dunbachel rounded her eyes. "He's taking a beating like that and still staying instead of running?" Pell declared stiffly, "A Shepherd can easily endure this much," but no one paid him any attention.

"I'll make sure to get my rest," Roford said with resolve. He might challenge Ragna to countless spars, but getting a good night's sleep courtesy of Audin's fists was another matter entirely.

In a way, it was a wise response. The knight order hadn't chosen him for nothing.

In any case, Luagarne watched Encrid struggle.

'Despite struggling so desperately.'

He was stagnating, not improving. Even that stagnation was precarious. He was barely keeping himself from slipping backward.

What kept him from regressing in the end?

'It's thanks to all the arts he's learned.'

The training method with which he punished himself every dawn had made his body different from an ordinary person's. Since he had already grasped Will, his body would have changed accordingly as well.

Will was willpower. Techniques wielded through willpower placed a burden on the body, and enduring that burden made it tougher. There was a reason becoming a proto knight brought one's fighting strength into an entirely different realm.

Luagarne took a fine, wriggling grub from her leather pouch and set it on her hand, then flicked out her tongue and swallowed it whole. The mind needed food to work.

Throughout that month, she watched Encrid and considered various approaches.

'What would help him?'

She could give no definite answer. She racked her brains.

She sat on a chair Rem had made, hugging one knee to her chest. Apart from occasionally puffing out her cheeks with a croak, eating grubs, and sniffing epiphrimum, a herb that produced a pleasant sensation specifically in Frogs, she did nothing else.

Frogs generally preferred summer to winter. They had no pathological aversion to cold, but dry weather left their skin parched and made them deeply uncomfortable. Their skin cracked like drought-stricken earth and even bled in severe cases. How could that be pleasant?

For a human, it would be like having someone cut their skin with a knife every day, both in pain and in physical condition. Cold and wind inevitably dried a Frog's skin, so naturally they preferred summer.

Luagarne was glad it was summer now. She could watch and think without even having to stop to splash water on her skin.

Why did that man struggle so desperately?

'I do understand.'

Luagarne heard what Encrid said through his bearing and actions: he would move forward even if heaven refused him permission. It was a cry he hurled at the world with his entire body. At least, that was how she saw it.

Then what should she do for him now? Something to help him break this stagnation. Thinking alone would accomplish nothing. Action was what mattered. Luagarne rose.

"This won't work."

Encrid was training with a sword ten times heavier than an ordinary blade.

WHOOSH!

Unable to control its weight perfectly, he brought the blade to a trembling halt. Sweat flew from his forehead with the motion. Blue eyes shone between strands of wet black hair.

"You know that, don't you?" Luagarne spoke again.

"Is there another way?" Encrid replied calmly. He already knew.

Luagarne had recognized that his growth had stopped, that he was stuck, but Encrid had seen it coming. He had known it would happen sooner or later. He had wrung progress from talent he didn't have and tasted the exhilaration of growth unlike anything before, but his limits always caught up with him. It was familiar, too.

He recalled the ferryman's words the previous night.

["Tsk, tsk. You should have stopped at a pleasant today. Do you want the joy of moving forward? Could there be a today like that? Surely there was? If you hadn't wished for tomorrow, that's what you would have had. A today that returns you to yesterday's today, over and over, letting you feel the exact same joy each time."]

The ferryman had scolded him. Before that, of course, he had finally revealed the identity of the ominous threat. It had happened in Encrid's next dream after their wordless parting.

["Nothing in this world is perfect."]

He had said it with a show of confidence. Encrid hadn't cared.

Did he hate stagnating enough to wish even for a wall to appear? Rather than hating it, he had simply been looking for a way. He had expected this, so instead of entertaining other thoughts, he kept his body moving, refusing to stop.

He understood fragments of the road to knighthood.

'Watch other knights' swords and learn even one more thing.'

And at the same time, hone what was his and move forward. That was the path Encrid had discovered.

Was this right? He didn't waste time wondering. In the time he could have spent worrying, he withstood another of Ragna's black thunderbolts, dodged Sinar's invisible blade, or tried to understand Jaxon's Intentless Stab. He literally tried everything. Or so he had thought.

"Long ago, there was an exceptionally gifted Bard. To compose a truly remarkable poem, he never left his room. He kept doing what he had always done. He thought that was best."

It was the old tale of the foolish Bard who never used his feet. Its lesson was that inspiration came from experiencing and seeing a new world. Encrid knew the rest of the story, too.

"And the one who made him realize his mistake was a friend who had spent his whole life baking bread. A single remark from that friend inspired him to write 'The Frog Trapped in a Well,' which is still sung across the continent. Yes, I know the story."

The Bard had been a Frog. He had recognized his mistake clearly and written a song. These days, everyone knew it, from children to adults.

Did you think the sky was round?

Did you think the world was round?

Was my world so very small?

Frog, little frog, you'll gain nothing unless you leave your well.

Similar lyrics repeated throughout the song. Its meaning was clear.

"Will you try doing as I say?"

Luagarne was the finest teacher on the continent, but she had never had a pupil like this. What should she do, then? She decided to try everything. Everything she could.

"Let's do it." Encrid nodded.

He could hardly do otherwise. He had experienced this sort of stagnation time and again. It didn't make him frantic, but it wasn't welcome, either.

It was like walking by moonlight when dark clouds suddenly gathered. Those sudden clouds obscured his sight. Like a perfectly sound suspension bridge abruptly breaking in the middle.

He saw a marked path and walked along it, only for the world to tell him to go no farther. That was all. Whenever that happened, Encrid walked on even with his eyes shut, or braided a rope across the broken bridge and hauled himself over. This time was no different.

* * *

Summer was unusually long this year. The heat did more than beat down; it seemed determined to barbecue people whole.

"This seems a little insane, Instructor."

Before the torture called a march began, one soldier raised his hand and spoke. He was the son of a noble family, sent from the capital to study here. Though he belonged to a branch line, his family was among the retainers of none other than the noble of Fertile Lands who had recently become a duke.

He had come to Border Guard confident in his abilities. With a little training and luck, he had thought he would soon distinguish himself even among the so-called Lunatic Unit. But what was this?

The crazy bastards expected him to march with a longsword, two daggers, a heavy simple wrist-mounted crossbow, armor reinforced with linen and leather, forearm guards, shin guards, at least three throwing knives, a hand axe, a round shield modified to a smaller size, a helmet, and even a short club.

And that wasn't all. He had to wear a pack, too. They called this full battle gear.

'This isn't battle gear. It's torture.'

Most things here were torture to him.

At the front, the commander in charge of the scouts' training tipped her head and gave a single reply.

"Then fuck off."

She was merciless. The soldier couldn't protest any further. More than a few men had challenged that woman instructor and been beaten to a pulp. Even beating her would be a problem.

'That monster would come out next.'

If that man Rem showed up, there was no hope.

He rarely appeared these days, but at one point he had turned up constantly, saying their training was too easy, and called them out one by one for a beating. It was nothing but one-sided violence. And he always singled out the noble-born.

'That damned Noble Killer.'

The noble-born soldier knew Rem's nickname well. He was fairly notorious among the nobility.

"Run!"

They were in full battle gear, from sword belts to packs, and she wanted them to run, not walk. The soldier gritted his teeth and set off.

"You're training to be scouts. If you can't even handle this, go off and die."

It was a three-day exercise. They would cross the mountains, dig a pit at their destination to cook without giving off smoke, eat, and return.

'Even the Demon Killer couldn't do this training.'

This was just torment. How was it training?

The soldier pressed doggedly on, panting. He cursed anyone and everyone, then blamed his father for being so dazzled by that bastard Demon Killer's exploits that he had sent him here. Next he cursed the Demon Killer, until at last he was too exhausted to do anything but put one foot in front of the other. That was when he noticed another soldier.

'An iron helmet?'

Everyone else wore leather helmets, but this man alone had an iron one, along with a larger, heavier pack.

He carried three hand axes and two longswords, as well as a gladius strapped horizontally across the back of his waist. It was shorter than a longsword, but more than adequate as a primary weapon. That wasn't all. For some reason, he also had two javelins resting on his shoulder.

'Is he a spearman?'

By now, everyone in Border Guard's standing army knew that equipment differed between branches. Training in full battle gear taught you that whether you liked it or not. If anyone lost so much as one piece of equipment, the entire unit could be beaten senseless as collective punishment.

So he was certain this was scout training. It was hard enough to drive him out of his mind, but he couldn't forget that. Why, then, was the man carrying spears?

Looking closer, he saw solid iron guards strapped around the man's legs, too. This lunatic had made their already heavy load at least three times heavier than anyone else's. Was he seeing things? Was exhaustion making him hallucinate?

As he trudged on with those thoughts, he caught a glimpse of the man's face. The noble-born soldier recognized him.

"The Demon Killer!"

He exclaimed in surprise, but his voice wasn't very loud. He was too exhausted. At the sound, the ruler of the region, the man granted the rank of general by the king himself, turned his head.

"Dragging your feet will only make it harder."

With that brief piece of advice, he moved on.

The soldier was speechless. The Demon Killer was marching with a load several times heavier than his own. The rebellious mood that had briefly formed around the noble-born soldier vanished in an instant.

Pin, their commander and training instructor, moved up beside Encrid at the front.

"It's been a while." She brought her right hand to her waist in a brief salute. She, too, was in full battle gear.

"Looks like you've improved?"

At Encrid's words, Pin thought he hadn't changed at all, judging her swordsmanship and such the moment he saw her. She brought up Torres.

"Torres says he's made the Border Guard training in Martai even tougher, and you'll see. You should pay him a visit."

Torres. Encrid had already seen him once, when he had become a general. He hadn't held an inauguration ceremony or anything, but he had needed to meet the lords of each city. They had met briefly then.

"When I have time."

He had planned a training course following Luagarne's advice. For now, he had no time to get away.

Pin marveled. Even after all this time, he was still a monstrous training fanatic. Then again, that must have been how he became the Demon Killer.

Once she had been this man's superior, then she had served under him, and now she was merely one commander under a man who had become a general. Yet, for some reason, all of it made her proud. Encrid had a peculiar charm that made those around him feel their efforts had been worthwhile.

* * *

"Variety is what opens a blinkered view. Try everything."

Following Luagarne's advice, Encrid walked and ran among soldiers in full battle gear, wearing an even heavier load than theirs.

"Jump."

SPLASH!

He also climbed into the mountains and jumped off a cliff into a lake.

"How to break your limits? I don't know a damned thing about that. But I do know that holding a sword all the time won't do it."

The broader your view, the more you could see. That was Luagarne's perspective.