Chapter 85 - Sixth Sense

“Jaxon.”

The moment he woke, Encrid sought out Jaxon.

“What is it?”

“This Sixth Sense thing also lets you instinctively sense danger, right?”

“That is where it begins.”

That was also why Jaxon had been firing off bloodlust at random all this time.

Survival instinct.

Something every living being possessed.

If that was the beginning.

‘So that was it.’

The sensation that had been tickling at his heart.

Should he call it faint? He had definitely felt something similar to it.

Of course, he could not carve it perfectly into his body after just one time.

That was thanks to his lacking talent.

Even so, he did not lament it.

Because reminding himself that he had no talent changed nothing, he simply moved again.

Encrid rose to his feet. Today had begun again, and it was time to move diligently.

“I’m going.”

He accepted the same request, took one torch, and headed for the shoemaker’s store.

This was now the fourth time.

This time, he arrived before even the first hammer blow had begun.

“Let’s break through it together.”

“Eh? What?”

Encrid joined forces with the bewildered craftsman and opened a hole in the floor.

And so he faced the six-way fork again.

It was the moment he faced the first and second passages.

He felt a tickling sensation.

A sense that would rightly be called ominous.

In that moment, Encrid smiled without realizing it.

‘This.’

This place, a place he had entered only because he could not stand by and watch the craftsman die.

A place with a Spell trap that he should have sealed off if a few attempts made it seem impossible.

Encrid had no intention of being bound to this “today.”

This was an accident, and if one had the will, this accident could be avoided.

Even now, he could simply force the craftsman and his daughter out if necessary, then request troops to investigate the hole.

Of course, that was the last resort.

Because there was a Spell trap, anyone who entered without knowing anything would definitely die.

Even if the one who died was not him, he could not just stand by and watch.

That said, he could not exactly say there was magic cast here, so they should bring in a magician whose body was said to be worth more than gold.

Not only was there no way a magician would come trotting over here just because a mere Squad Leader requested it.

Even if he said there was a Spell trap, who would believe that?

Most would probably react by asking what kind of nonsense he was spouting.

‘Though my squadmates or the Company Commander might believe me.’

In any case, the conclusion was this.

This place was the perfect place to train the Sixth Sense.

The moment he realized that, a thrilling delight surged up in him. Had a crack not formed in the Sixth Sense in just four tries?

Now all that remained was to throw it wide open.

And so he set foot in the third passage.

In that moment, Encrid experienced a different kind of pain. An invisible blade split his body vertically from above his head.

Horrendous agony, pain, the sound of wind going *hissssss*, a chill lingering in his body, blood gushing onto the floor, and a sense of weakness as though every ounce of strength inside him was draining away.

Not a single one of those pains and sensations was something he wanted to experience twice. It was tormenting. Of course it was.

However, the newly realized trail of experience allowed him to forget the torment.

So the repeating today was not only painful.

He merely ran forward and struggled for tomorrow.

* * *

The moment he greeted his fifth morning, Encrid set a goal so he would not settle into today.

‘Open the Sixth Sense, and pass through this tunnel.’

If someone knew, they would surely call it madness.

But to Encrid, this too was merely a moment of training.

Moving forward.

Growing.

It was different from struggling for tomorrow.

“Uh, they say there’s a hole under my shop, so why are you smiling?”

The shoe craftsman asked when he saw Encrid smiling.

“I have a hobby of exploring the unknown.”

He was about to spit out whatever came to mind and head down, but the craftsman grabbed his arm.

“I heard something passing underneath, so you should be careful...”

“Yes, I will.”

There were many things he wanted to test.

He descended and faced the passages. The Sixth Sense did not immediately ring a warning, as if an ominous feeling were stabbing through his entire body.

‘I’ll consider it as the door only partly opened.’

From now on, he intended to open it the rest of the way.

He abandoned the thought of stupidly throwing himself into the traps.

After trying it, he understood. That method would not work. This was the fifth today.

Even if he could not end it here, he still intended to struggle.

Just because he could repeat it easily did not mean he would waste the present, this moment. He had not the slightest intention of doing so.

Then what did he need to do?

All day, truly all day, Encrid walked back and forth in front of the passages at an unhurried pace.

From in front of the first to the second, from the second to the sixth.

Then he repeated going back again from the sixth to the first.

Until all five torches had burned out.

Until enough time had passed that spending a day like this might make today end just like this.

“What in the world are you doing?”

The craftsman, who had been bewildered at first.

“Shouldn’t you eat lunch first?”

He took care of his meals.

“But why are you only going back and forth from side to side like a duck crossing a river?”

Later, the daughter came and voiced her question.

“He said he came on a request, so why is that soldier doing that?”

“I don’t know either. He’s been like that all day.”

Even the owner of the herb shop next door came to watch.

From the outside, it was an act with no meaning whatsoever.

Encrid spent the whole day activating Concentrate on a Single Point as he struggled to find the strange part.

By what principle did the Sixth Sense that detected ominousness activate?

According to Jaxon’s explanation, the process of seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling activated in the realm of instinct.

The Sixth Sense seized danger first, danger that had not yet been recognized.

This was the start, the work of finding that sense of wrongness.

Even after he watched all day like that, nothing happened.

Then a thought suddenly came to him.

‘What happens if I don’t die like this, and a day passes?’

It was a question that occurred to him anew. After that, even though he had gone back and forth in front of the passages countless times all day, he gained nothing.

‘The height is about half again as tall as me.’

That meant it was a fairly deep tunnel below.

Since he could not go inside, he did not know how far the tunnel continued.

Though it was crumbling and dropping dirt dust, the walls and ceiling were fairly sturdy.

There were no pillars, but it did not look like it would collapse any time soon.

What else was different?

The air was damp, but wind passed through.

Even when he tried relying on the torch, the darkness farther inside was difficult to see through.

‘What else?’

What about the smell? There was a fishy scent, but not to the point that it bothered him.

Could there really be some undead-type monster?

If he were a priest, he might have been able to tell from just the air lingering around the place.

But Encrid, who had lived until now obsessed solely with the sword, had no such skill.

He searched, and searched again.

As he observed endlessly until he felt a sense of wrongness, it was deep night before he knew it.

“Aren’t you going back?”

From behind the passage came the craftsman’s call.

When he turned back, he saw the craftsman’s face above the sloping path that connected at an angle.

Encrid climbed up and answered.

“I don’t know what’s inside, but there doesn’t seem to be any immediate danger. Let’s block the entrance and wait until tomorrow. I’ll bring reinforcements.”

“Wouldn’t it have been better if you had called reinforcements instead of spending time wandering around?”

Originally, that would have been right.

But if he called reinforcements and someone stepped into the passage and triggered the explosion, would that not be the end of it?

That was a path to all of them dying together.

“There was something I needed to examine.”

When he acted like an expert, as if he were used to this kind of work, the craftsman nodded even while looking doubtful.

He blocked the hole again and was on his way back to the base.

He saw the moon hanging overhead.

It was a full moon.

The weather, which had eased a little during the day, became chilly again at night.

Encrid, tightening the coat made from beast hide around himself, glanced behind him.

It seemed the shoe craftsman had not broken through the blocked floor and gone down below.

He had seemed like a curious fellow.

‘If he had, the explosion would have gone off.’

Here, the question came to him again. What happened if night passed like this?

He could not call it a secondary matter.

Because one day, he would need a moment to end the repeating today.

‘I should have tested this long ago.’

Well, until now, it had not been an environment suited for testing.

It had been a today repeated on a battlefield where he died if things went wrong.

It had been a today spent dodging an assassin’s dagger.

After going through days like that and then facing a day like this, it could have felt bland, but Encrid was calm.

He had always trained and repeated the same way.

That did not change just because it was “today.”

“You said you were going to catch beasts, didn’t you? But did you go kill boots instead? Did you kill them?”

When he entered the lodging, Rem asked.

He already seemed to know what request Encrid had taken and where he had gone.

Brushing the dirt dust off the seat of his pants, Encrid answered.

“I killed about three of them. It was a rewarding day.”

“... Let’s not talk.”

Rem did not begin a war of words he was obviously going to lose.

If Encrid decided to go at it, he showed far greater talent when it came to running his tongue.

After suffering Jaxon’s bloodlust until bedtime, Encrid lay down on the bed.

He did worry that perhaps someone might kill him in order to repeat today, but nothing happened, so he slept without incident.

* * *

When he opened his eyes the next day, Encrid looked at the situation unfolding and murmured inwardly.

‘It’s a repeat.’

It was a repeat of today. It seemed there was no difference between sleeping and waking up, and keeling over dead.

And so today began again.

Encrid loitered in front of the fork again.

It was a repeat of today without the pain of death, but he remained the same.

He still did his best, and he still struggled.

Because being bound to today was the worst situation for Encrid.

Then what did he need to do to escape this?

He knew even without the Boatswain telling him.

‘I have to get past this place.’

* * *

When the torch went out, his eyes had grown used to the light, so everything around him looked only pitch-black.

FLARE.

He struck the flint again, lit the torch, and held it up. Encrid looked at the six-way fork.

‘In a case like this, one of the six must be real, right?’

The easy method was to throw his body in and check.

Each and every one of all six.

Instead of using that method, Encrid tried to refine and polish the Sixth Sense.

And that had some effect.

‘Ominousness.’

Something that stimulated survival instinct.

Because on the sixth today, he faintly felt it.

Encrid once again spent a day similar to before.

“What in the world are you doing all day?”

To placate the bewildered shoe craftsman, he used the excuse he had thought of during the previous today.

“I’m checking what’s inside. From the look of it, traps have been laid. It seems the Thieves Guild secretly made some sort of hidden passage, so please do not go inside.”

The city did not only have the Gilfin Guild as a Thieves Guild, but in any case, Encrid said it while thinking of them.

In other words, he used their name.

It was a plausible excuse. It was the result of thinking it over, if not exactly agonizing over it, while pacing in front of the passages.

The craftsman nodded.

“Understood.”

At the lodging he returned to again, Encrid received Jaxon’s stare.

And he had to feel the bloodlust Jaxon fired at him.

It was something repeated every evening.

Even after enduring it with cold sweat on his forehead, Encrid had no thought of falling asleep.

If it repeated because he slept, what would happen if he stayed up all night?

He was curious.

So he endured and endured, trying to see the next day’s dawn break.

“Meow.”

Esther approached beside him and tapped his back with her paw.

It seemed like a protest asking what he was doing instead of sleeping.

“You sleep first.”

Encrid said as he stroked the crown of Esther’s head.

And so he waited for dawn to break.

Encrid blinked for a moment.

And soon saw the black river.

“Meaningless.”

The Boatswain was not visible, but the words he had spoken remained.

When he opened his eyes again.

“What’re you doing?”

His head was heavy as if he had stayed up all night, and fatigue remained in his body, but it was today repeated again.

‘What if I don’t even blink at all?’

Then would the day continue on as it was?

But how could a person endure without blinking?

That was something one could not do even after becoming a knight.

Therefore, the repetition of today was something he could not avoid.

‘So you’re telling me to live only today.’

That was fine too.

In any case, he already knew how to move on to tomorrow.

Encrid headed to the shoemaker’s store again.

And he endured today while more tired than before. It was not that difficult.

After all, he had a record of fighting and fleeing while staying awake for several nights.

Like that, he repeated today, and repeated it again.

Since there was no pain of death, should he call it peaceful?

Would he become drunk on the peace and settle into today like this?

No, Encrid did not do that.

He did not change.

Thus came today’s today’s today’s today’s today’s today.

Seventy-eight repetitions.

After living through the today that flowed the exact same way every day.

Encrid returned to the lodging and avoided the bloodlust Jaxon fired.

Two steps to the side.

It was a trick one could perform if one precisely sensed the other person’s bloodlust.

Since it might have been coincidence, Jaxon fired bloodlust again. A localized area, looking with the will to kill the opponent if they crossed it; that was the principle of scattering bloodlust.

The bloodlust scattered like that.

Encrid twisted his body and let it flow past. It was something he could not even imitate unless he opened the Sixth Sense.

And not just opened it clumsily, but threw it wide open.

“... What is this?”

‘The efficiency of survival instinct is incredible.’

The answer he gave inwardly.

“It suddenly worked.”

Was different from the words he spoke aloud.

Of course, the words he said inwardly were the truth.

A trap that led to death.

There was no better training tool than that.

Encrid had chewed that tool, ripped it apart, tasted it, and enjoyed it.

And that had thrown open the Sixth Sense.

As a result, he had now been able to make Jaxon’s eyes open that wide.

“Suddenly?”

Could this happen? It could not. But it had actually happened before his eyes. Jaxon was deeply flustered, but he did not show it outwardly.

He merely nodded.

What else could he do, when Encrid said it worked?

He had been thinking about how to stimulate him because it seemed there was no progress at all.

He had come up with all sorts of methods.

All of them had become useless.

“It’s thanks to you.”

Encrid said, and Jaxon felt pleased for no reason.

Of course, after that, he soon murmured inwardly as usual.

‘What meaning is there in this?’

Even as he thought that inwardly, Jaxon felt pleased again.

Whatever the process had been, Encrid had thrown open the door just as Jaxon had hoped.

The corners of Jaxon’s mouth rose for a moment, then dropped again.

That was his sign of just how happy he was.