Chapter 535 - If It Seems Possible, Do It

"... Everyone, retreat!"

The Frog general struggled to overcome the intimidation and spoke.

Sir Jamal was dead. Could the remaining troops kill that monster?

The reason knights were called calamities was seared into the Frog general's "it."

Beneath the heart guard, it thrashed wildly.

"What? Want to keep going?"

Encrid spoke as he reined in the intimidation he had unconsciously released in his excitement. Before him, the Frog stood rigid, weapon raised.

If the Frog attacked, he would cut him down. But he didn't look as though he would.

That was what Encrid's sharpened perceptions, beyond the five senses—his Sixth Sense and intuition—told him.

Encrid savored the moment. He felt he had grown a little more through Jamal, and that joy filled him now.

His fight with Sir Jamal had been a duel, and its outcome was clear. There was no need to kill these men too.

Just because a knight could kill a thousand men alone didn't mean he should chase down soldiers and slaughter them one by one.

That wasn't a knight. That was simply a blood-crazed madman.

"The blood-drinking knight will get you."

It was the sort of thing parents routinely told disobedient children. Much like saying a demonic beast would carry them off in its jaws, or a Ghoul would snatch them away.

Hadn't Aker mentioned in passing that the blood-drinking knight had actually existed?

He had heard of a lunatic obsessed with blood, slaughter, and killing people.

["Giants are satisfying to carve up, humans are nice and soft, and Frogs are tough enough to make it fun."]

Wasn't that something the man had supposedly said?

Encrid had no intention of becoming that. Was he fighting out of necessity, or shedding blood for satisfaction?

The distinction mattered.

Leaving the Frog streaming oil in his tension, Encrid retrieved his swords and took Jamal's sword as well.

'I didn't even use the javelins.'

He also collected the javelins he had propped to one side on entering the clearing.

'Not bad.'

Training with Aker had made wielding his Will easier than before.

As for Plunder failing to work?

Jamal had every right to feel wronged.

The magnitude of the Will within Encrid equaled that of the legendary Uske. It was a lake that never dried, a well that never stopped springing forth.

Trying to defeat someone like that by whittling him down with Plunder was madness.

Of course, had Jamal known Encrid, he wouldn't have fought that way. He would have changed tactics, seeking an opening to land one decisive blow.

Had a lack of information caused his opponent's defeat?

Out of habit, Encrid began his Review.

["If you grow stronger and faster, shouldn't you also learn to use that strength and speed more efficiently?"]

Luagarne had said that to him. Rem and Ragna weren't his only sparring partners.

It had been when she slipped in a quick stab to his belly despite his vastly superior strength and perception.

Was it because she excelled at the game of moves and countermoves? Or had he held back because she wasn't a knight?

Neither.

She knew how to fight. She knew how to use what she had. A Frog's body regenerated, which meant she could afford to give up an arm. She had shown him how Frogs fought.

She would sacrifice bone even to take flesh.

It hadn't been a critical hit. At best, the damage would have amounted to a scratch.

But what mattered was that she had reached him.

What was efficient combat?

It meant thinking. Using the terrain. Reflecting on what fighting was. This was the realm of individual tactics.

Encrid hadn't stopped learning just because he had become a knight.

That remained true now.

He thought these reflections resembled the unit tactics used against him earlier.

The Frog before him must have devised that strategy. It made clear a willingness to give up both flesh and bone just to take a single fingernail from the enemy.

"Go on, leave."

Encrid addressed the Frog, who was still watching him warily.

"... You're telling me to just leave?"

"Is there some reason you have to die here?"

If not, shouldn't he go?

The Frog's eyes shifted suspiciously before he backed away. Could he really leave? It was obvious his head was full of that question.

Encrid let him go. Killing one Frog here wouldn't change the outcome.

'Given the board Krais has set up, it's better to leave someone with a working brain alive.'

There was a plan involving Krang as well. Come to think of it, Krais—that Big-eyes bastard—was a strange one. He claimed to be anxious, yet had already planned what came afterward. Anyway, from that perspective, was killing this Frog the right choice?

'I don't want to, though.'

He liked how the Frog had sent all his men away and stayed behind alone. And judging by his reaction now, he didn't seem the sort to insist on fighting to the death.

'So I'll let him go.'

It was half whim, half a judgment that doing so would help Krais's plan.

No, to be honest, it was more accurate to say he hadn't wanted to kill the Frog from the moment he stayed behind alone after sending all his men away.

Aspen had already suffered a heavy blow with the death of a knight. Letting one Frog live wouldn't suddenly send him rallying an army to attack.

An all-out battle in these circumstances would only mean pointless sacrifice.

He had reached that judgment in a brief moment, drawing on his intuition.

Honestly, if Krais had been there and asked, "Aren't you just doing whatever you feel like?" he wouldn't have had much of an answer.

The Frog had once kicked him in the side, but he had completely forgotten that already. So he held no grudge, either.

With his weapons gathered, Encrid set off, intending to head toward his other companions.

But someone had moved before him.

A gloomy man with reddish-brown hair stepped from the shadows at the edge of the clearing.

To Rem he looked sinister and gloomy, but by conventional standards of beauty, he was handsome enough.

"Are you finished?" the man asked.

"On my end."

"Hmm."

Normally, the next suggestion would have been to go to Rem or Ragna. Instead, Jaxon shook the blood from his dagger and wiped it clean without saying anything more.

Encrid gave him something he would like to hear.

"Let's go see how badly Rem or Ragna is getting beaten."

"Let's."

As they walked, Encrid heard about the enemies who had attacked Jaxon.

"Moonlight Fairies?"

"They specialized in fighting from concealment. The scouts are safe."

Sure enough, as they continued forward, Pin and the scouts approached.

"We barely escaped with our lives," Pin said, glancing at Jaxon.

The way that man had fought was still vivid in her mind.

The Moonlight Fairies specialized in slipping daggers into people's backs without a hint of their presence.

Whatever training they had received, they were agile even for Fairies.

When those Fairy swordsmen, with their nimble bodies and deft blades, came rushing at them, Jaxon had abruptly vanished.

["What the hell!"]

At first, she had cried out in alarm, thinking they would have to hold their ground and fight.

Then three or four Fairies had suddenly collapsed.

["Hah!"]

One Fairy reacted, swinging a crescent-shaped sword in that direction, but there was already nothing there.

From that moment, the man named Jaxon became a reaper moving between shadows.

The dagger in his hand ceaselessly slit throats, pierced lungs, split hearts, and sliced thighs.

Blood sprayed, but no bone fragments flew. Only blood, again and again.

His blade never lodged in the Fairies' wooden armor, either. All he had to do was stab through the gaps.

Of course, there remained the minor problem that his targets were nimble Fairies who could leap into trees in a single bound like mountain birds. But that really was only a minor problem.

Pin had seen proto knights fight and experienced a great deal, but she had never seen a fight like this.

Should she call it impressive?

She didn't know.

The enemies simply kept collapsing and dying.

All Pin and the scouts could do was step back and watch.

At some point, the one who appeared to be the Fairy commander fell backward with a dagger in his forehead. She hadn't even seen it fly.

Naturally, that spot became his coffin.

A dagger flying silently, and a reaper who vanished just as silently to wield another.

However fearless the Fairies were, some things were simply beyond them. Especially after they had lost their commander.

The fight was shorter than expected. The Fairies soon scattered and disappeared.

Then the man reappeared where he had stood.

Honestly, Pin was a little frightened.

Should she feel relieved that he was on their side? He looked like someone who could slit her throat without her ever knowing.

That dangerous man hadn't offered a word of reassurance.

["Moving out."]

He had simply said that and immediately started walking.

["He's on our side, right?"]

One of her subordinates had even asked from behind her.

Pin had nodded. Only then did she realize that she and all the scouts had unconsciously retreated several steps.

Why had watching their enemies die inspired fear rather than relief? Partly because of Jaxon's overwhelming power, but also because there seemed to be no emotion whatsoever in his knife work.

His blade held only a dry indifference: he did it because it was work that needed doing.

That frightened Pin.

"Well, um."

Briefly recalling what had happened, Pin searched for words, unsure where to begin.

Encrid casually poked Jaxon in the side.

"You've got blood here too."

"... What was that?"

Jaxon furrowed his brows as he asked. Fair enough. With his senses sharpened by the fight against the knight Jamal, Encrid had just deceived Jaxon's Insight to poke his side.

It was like introducing noise into sound. Mixing in noise and static to conceal the words one actually meant to convey, so to speak.

More precisely, before poking Jaxon's side, he had raised his Will and feigned touching his neck and tripping him.

Of course, Jaxon could have stopped him if he had set his mind to it. He had knowingly let it happen.

In other words, both knew what the other had done, and this was something between a joke and picking a fight.

"Doesn't that lover you left in the city complain about the smell of blood?"

"Unlike a certain someone, I wash properly."

"That certain someone might have a grave in the East by now."

"I doubt that Beastman would die so easily."

"You think more highly of Dunbachel than I expected."

"Not just anyone could keep surviving under that barbarian."

He rated Dunbachel highly because she had survived Rem?

Then was everyone under Rem supposed to die?

Entertaining these idle thoughts, Encrid looked at Pin.

She was a ranger. Moreover, she had practically lived in the Penn-Hanil Mountains preparing for this battle. She would be better at finding the way than he was.

So why was she standing still?

Pin's feelings were complicated.

Seeing a man who could become anyone's reaper exchange silly jokes unsettled her. Knowing that Encrid was the one who had sent him made it all the more so.

Shouldn't someone with that kind of power have been deployed elsewhere rather than protecting her and the ranger unit?

Somewhere like Encrid's side, fighting alongside him.

A good outcome didn't make everything right.

War involved sacrifice. Pin understood that in her bones, and she had thought this time it was her turn.

Wasn't she happy to be alive? She was. But it would be more accurate to say her feelings were a complicated mixture of fear, joy, relief, and more.

Those tangled feelings moved her lips.

"Why did you do it?"

All that confusion had tangled together, spilling out as a question before she knew it.

"Do what?"

"This is like sending a hundred infantrymen to kill a single Ghoul. No one summons a knight order to kill one demonic beast."

To save their lives, others on different battlefields would be fighting at a disadvantage.

That was what Pin meant.

She would have been right. Normally, that would be true.

Krais had said there could be no battlefield without sacrifice.

Yes, he had said that.

Recalling those conversations, Encrid plainly revealed his thoughts. These were words he hadn't even told Krais.

"Because I thought we could do it."

"... Pardon?"

"I thought we could win without losing a single one of our people."

Someone who didn't know him would rightly dismiss that as nonsense.

But Encrid had just killed a knight. Pin didn't know that, but she had seen the traces of battle and what Jaxon had done.

Which meant...

"We can do it?"

Half dazed, Pin echoed him.

"Yes. We can."

This wasn't a sense of omnipotence. It was confidence.

This wasn't recklessness. It was a calculated fight.

After training with Aker, Encrid had hounded Rem and Ragna.

["Barbarian. Stay as you are, and you'll fall behind."]

["Me? Fall behind who? You, Captain?"]

["No."]

["Who, then?"]

["Ragna's sword has gotten heavier."]

["... Fuck. Get up and grab your sword. That was a good taunt."]

That was how he had spoken to Rem.

["Ragna, you can lose your way. But I don't think I'd enjoy seeing you cry after Rem beats you up."]

["Who did you say would beat me up?"]

He had said Rem, but Ragna wasn't listening.

Instead, his formerly lax presence became like a freshly honed blade.

["Want to try me?"]

["You'd better block properly. You could get hurt."]

Firing them up was easy. Until then, Encrid had merely trained, and those around him had found motivation on their own. This time, he had deliberately set about it.

Why?

["Fight more. Face them more."]

That was Aker's advice.

Through fighting him over and over without rest, Encrid had gained something.

This wasn't something Aker had arranged for him. Encrid had won it himself.

First was how to wield his Will.

Was it like learning the trick to pushing an immense, immovable boulder in the direction he wanted? Or to catching water from a ceaseless spring and gathering it in his cupped hands?

Strength alone wasn't enough.

He needed a knack for it, literally.

Like using leverage to roll a boulder, or tilting his hands to catch water bubbling from a spring. That sort of knack.

Since he was likely the only one with Will like this, it wasn't something he could learn from anyone else.

Encrid knew instinctively that this was what he needed to delve into.

So he had.

That was how he learned the knack of wielding his Will.

Next came the experience gained from sparring with knights.

Aker had told him to fight knights more. Not as a student, but looking at them as an equal.

["Fighting someone evenly matched with you once is better than cutting down a hundred weaker men."]

Encrid had followed that advice. He had felt its truth firsthand, too.

Right up until he left for the war against Aspen, Encrid had practiced Balaf-style martial arts with Audin, the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique alone, sparring with Rem and Ragna, and stabbing Jaxon in the back under the pretense of a game called Catch the Tail.

That was where his confidence came from. That was how he had assessed their strength.

'I think we can do it.'

There might be times when he would have to sacrifice allies to advance, but perhaps this time he wouldn't have to.

Above all, every one of them was exceptionally good at getting themselves out if things went wrong.

Would Rem risk his life to kill an Aspen knight, only to die himself?

Not a chance.

They would try holding the enemy here and hitting back. It seemed possible, so that was what they would do.

If it didn't work, they could discuss sacrifices then.

["Which option are we taking?"]

["The first."]

That was how he had answered Krais's question.

He had seen Krais muttering that he was going mad when Encrid said he wanted a battlefield without sacrifices. But what could he do?

In matters like these, words couldn't earn trust. He could only show it through action.

Now Encrid was proving his intentions and his words.

It was his determination to make this a war in which no one died. A determination like a light that had shone clear and constant from the start, however fanciful it sounded to some.

But those who followed Encrid, those who had watched him, naturally believed in him.

This was the result.