Mages are said to be cold-blooded architects by nature. They fight with their heads, pressing the enemy only after every calculation is done. For a mage, excitement is far and composure is near.
The man in the black hat was a mage. A mage whose appearance hadn't changed at all since the days Esther knew him. Clearly, he had lived a very long time.
Blue veins rose on the mage's face, no doubt from the blood rushing faster in his excitement.
In contrast, Enkrid only prodded the ground with the tip of his sky-blue sword—the one he called Dawn—and gazed at his opponent with indifferent eyes.
Their utterly opposite stares crossed.
The black-hatted mage was consumed by anger, but he did not lose himself; it was anger wrapped in reason. Now was not the time to act on impulse. Still, was it right to let this pass without saying a word?
"Ignorance is a sin."
It was a common maxim among those who handle mana, a world that runs on a track different from ordinary people's thoughts.
"If you don't know, you suffer for not knowing."
They are ignorant; therefore, they are sinners. So wouldn't it be permissible to accompany one sharp remark with a light slap on the wrist?
***
Enkrid looked at his opponent with indifferent eyes and thought:
"Rem's reaction speed has gotten faster."
The bout from a moment ago lingered vividly in his head: explosive strength driven through the stepping foot, Heart of Might, Giant Cleave— a display of all manner of sorcerous arts.
"And the axe that shot out in that sequence—"
It was faster than what he'd once called a flash. Faster than the sound of air tearing, it fell like a bolt of lightning, leaving only a blurred afterimage.
Someone who didn't know, or someone of lesser skill, would say it looked the same as before. They don't have the eyes to tell.
But at Enkrid and Rem's level, it was different.
"A slight difference."
That slight gap is what decides victory and defeat, life and death. How could it be faster?
"Optimization of movement."
He shortened the path of every motion to the extreme, then detonated explosive power at the moment he swung the axe.
"Condensation and explosion."
In the end, it was the use of Will. It's astonishing to control the body by instinct and intuition alone, but once you reach a knight's level, you can copy this just by watching.
Even Enkrid—who'd been berated so long for having no talent—could now likely imitate it in a day or two.
Because becoming a knight had given him strength, agility, and athletic ability that run on a different track from ordinary people.
Of course, he'd have to devote the whole day to training—but for Enkrid, that wasn't hard.
In any case, the point to note here was the application of Will.
"It was Endure."
For an instant, there must have been a qualitative shift in the Will coursing through Rem's body. Strictly speaking, he used sorcerous power rather than Will, but hadn't Esther said their root was the same?
"Like a lightning bolt falling from the sky."
Whether Will or sorcerous force, Rem had drawn on the power of lightning itself.
How had he done it?
He must have invoked a specialty—Spirit Summoning. He had called upon one of the Eight Gods guarding the West. Not through training but by borrowing their experience through sorcery.
"If you fight with your life on the line, I'm the best."
That was something Rem often said, almost as a catchphrase. The root may be the same, but the result changes depending on how you make use of that power.
There is a stick. One person ties a fishing line to it and catches fish, another uses the very same stick to commit robbery.
"And yet another might hang jewels from the stick and declare himself king."
There is no end to the imagining. Enkrid let his thoughts wander freely, even as he realized his mind was chasing its own tail.
Imagination freed from control sometimes breaks past unconscious boundaries and expands the vessel. It broadens concepts and brings new perspectives.
The day was brilliantly clear. The sunlight was not only warm but hot, and the dirt of the training ground was dried out and steaming with heat.
A few clumps of cloud drifted by, and the sky was a deep blue.
Sunlight cut between Enkrid and the man in the black hat. One side stood in that brilliant light, the other beneath something like a thundercloud—though nothing had truly changed in the sky, the atmosphere made it feel so.
"Nice day, tsk."
Rem muttered. As much as Enkrid was thrilled, Rem was too.
Ever since arriving at the Border Guard, he had done nothing but dedicate himself to recovery until now.
Thud.
Enkrid lifted Dawn, which he had stuck into the ground, as though drawing a line forward, and said:
"Enough."
Then the gray-haired barbarian also spoke:
"Hey, don't do it."
And the beastman with golden eyes spoke as well:
"You reek."
The man in the black hat still said nothing. He had only intended to stir his mana and give them a light warning.
His intent had risen, and he was just about to release his power when all three of them spoke up, one after another, as if predicting he was about to use magic.
"They can sense me that well?"
There are occasionally such men—swordsmen strangely sensitive beyond reason.
And now there were three of them?
Esther looked at him and said:
"Best to say what you have to say first."
It almost sounded like she meant that if things went badly, they would bury him here regardless of his purpose.
"How dare you."
How many people in this world could treat him that way?
Certainly not these dregs of the continent, not when this wasn't even the Demon Realm.
"If I so much as willed it, half of you would die with a flick of my hand."
The man spoke, and the knight with the greatsword shifted into battle stance.
The greatsword's wielder drew every muscle in his body taut. Tension can be a weapon, and he knew it.
The momentum of the two humans and one beastman before him hadn't changed, but if things went wrong, a fight would erupt.
It was his instincts speaking, and more than that, it was the warning of another self settled within his heart, radiating heat.
The man from the Rengadis Caravan had no idea what on earth was happening. He just kept glancing about, then quietly slipped backward. He hadn't come here to fight with them in the first place. His job was only to offer peaceful dialogue and proposals.
The man in the black hat lifted the brim that had been shading his eyes. By then, his eyes had already turned pitch black, without a trace of white.
"I'll just take one eye. A one-eyed man's wish fulfilled."
He spoke. Esther felt a flicker of admiration—though not the good kind.
"No progress at all."
This was an opponent she already knew. The patterns and flow of his mana, the process of spell activation, even his incantation words, were exactly the same as before.
Esther, too, was a genius. He could never imagine it, but she never forgot a mana pattern once she had experienced it.
Her opponent cast one of the proverbial curses: the spell that made worms burst from a person's eyes.
"Reject."
Esther moved her mana and broke the curse. She wasn't the only one to react.
"Begone, wicked thing. Bastard."
Rem spoke as he raised his axe vertically. The intangible lump of malice formed from mana was crushed into fragments before him and scattered away.
Dunbakel flinched at the unbearable stench. She moved right behind Rem.
"Who told you to hide behind me? Picking up only the bad habits, huh? You'll have to sweat out some of that Eastern laziness later."
"Tch, couldn't you at least help block while you're at it? You nag too damn much."
"A beastman whelp talking back?"
The two bickered, while the enemy ahead paid them no mind.
The mouth of the black-hatted mage hung half open.
"What the hell is this?"
They broke the curse? And so easily?
Even more, Enkrid hadn't resisted in the slightest. By now, he had plenty of experience handling all sorts of spells. He had also trained tirelessly with Esther in curse-breaking drills. Through that, he'd learned that most curses no longer worked on him.
It meant he didn't need to rely on intuition to defend.
Esther hadn't brought these two along for nothing. It wasn't because they were a threat. If she fought them both alone, it would be troublesome—
But Enkrid?
He could handle them by himself without any issue. And if left alone, they might cause trouble inside the city, leading to injuries or deaths.
At that point, Esther felt a strange emotion.
"Am I worrying about people?"
Or perhaps cherishing them.
Somehow, this city, the Border Guard and its people, had become part of Esther's life as well. The child who once dreamed only of stars had known nothing but magic and lived only to study spells, but now she had come to know the worth of people.
"To protect one's back."
Now she understood the meaning of those words so strongly it made her heart ache.
She didn't want a soldier to die from pointless resistance. That soldier's name was Marco, the lover of one of her own subordinates, and that man's wish was to become a squire of the Mad Order of Knights.
"Is all this unnecessary information?"
Yes, her head said so. To a person devoted to studying magic, it had no importance.
No. Her heart said otherwise.
Can someone who doesn't know how to live truly pursue truth?
"No."
Esther suddenly sank into herself, arranging her thoughts, and Enkrid watched her.
The man whose eyes had turned black was a mage. The woman he knew was also a spellcaster called a witch.
And yet her blue eyes were incomparably clearer than the man's before them. They were like a lake holding purity, untouched by the filth of the world.
"So why did you come?"
Enkrid asked. The man in the black hat was only a subordinate, a messenger sent to deliver words. That duty could not be shirked.
"Why else? I came because I wanted to die."
"The stench is unbearable. Couldn't we just beat him a bit to knock some of it out?"
Right beside him, both the barbarian and the beastman added their own lines.
"Am I really supposed to leave these lunatics alone?"
The mage had to steady his reason again and could not help sighing. And what, beating someone takes the smell out? That beastman wasn't just mad—he was overly mad.
"You killed Balrog, didn't you?"
Enkrid had never hidden it when asked, but he hadn't spread the word either. It wasn't the kind of story a stranger should come up and ask about out of nowhere.
Enkrid simply waited for him to go on.
"He was a peculiar being. Even with the power to carve out his own domain in the Demon Realm, he wandered. Well, that's a separate matter. Thanks to that, my master has taken an interest in you."
Hardly had he finished speaking when the man from the Rengadis Caravan wiped his sweat and interrupted.
"My master's terms are not bad either."
Before Enkrid could reply, the man with the greatsword opened his mouth.
"My master as well. But personally, I must confirm whether your skill is real."
In fact, he did more than open his mouth. He swung his greatsword as he spoke. His blade came down before his foot even lifted. In a blink, the weapon was already falling toward Enkrid's head.
Even before all of that, his knees had bent ever so slightly, and that subtle movement alone had closed the gap.
The distance between Enkrid and the greatsword wielder had been such that voices could carry but the sword still needed three more steps to reach. That distance collapsed in an instant.
Enkrid lifted Dawn.
The man in the black hat and the one from the Rengadis Caravan could not follow what happened next.
More precisely, they didn't see the process, but they did see the result.
Bang—
It was like a giant drum bursting under unbearable pressure. That sound came with it.
"Ugh."
The man with the greatsword drove his blade into the ground.
Thud.
The earth shook as the weapon slammed down. At the same time, his waist bent forward. Somehow, Enkrid's fist had touched his stomach and withdrawn.
He collapsed forward from that single strike. Dropping his sword, he braced his hands on the ground and vomited up a torrent of blood.
Just that result made both onlookers' eyes widen.
The mage's black eyes had already reverted to ordinary ones. And the man from Rengadis was the first to begin the contest of offers.
"Immortality. We promise you immortality."
The mage snorted.
"Immortality, my ass."
Enkrid didn't understand what their words even meant.
Then heat surged across the greatsword wielder's back, and something like a mouth appeared there and spoke.
"I will give you land."
Rem, watching, dug a finger in his ear and muttered:
"What the hell are these lunatics babbling about?"