Shinar listened to what the dragonkin was saying and opened her mouth.
"It's re-inputting the grammar and rehearsing it."
It was a process like recalling an old memory by repeating it.
You learn it once and make it your own, but if you don't use it for a long time, you drag up the forgotten memories one by one. It's like heating a dull blade in the fire to put an edge back on it.
For those who live eternally, it's an essential skill.
Eternal life without forgetting is nothing but hellish pain.
Even among elder-class fairies who rarely showed their faces within the city of Kirheis, there were such beings.
They hadn't shown themselves even when the city was on the verge of being eaten by a demon, but it wasn't because they were apathetic; it was because they were already half in eternal rest.
Very rarely, one of those elders would awaken, and it looked similar to what she'd seen then.
Just as Shinar guessed, the dragonkin dredged up his memories and spoke again.
"Flee. You may run. I will hold it back."
An edge formed on the dull blade. The grammar became clear and the pieces fit.
No one responded to the dragonkin's words. Everyone only glanced at their own captain.
Even Shinar waited for his order.
Enkrid had just fought this being. Should it be called a conversation of swords? Because of that, he had faint impressions, and no matter what the dragonkin said, he said what he had to say.
"You're a bit peculiar."
They'd been fighting moments ago, and now he says he'll block it? He himself was the one who blocked the way to go kill the Salamander.
To call it a light whim—there was too much weight in the sword for that.
The other wasn't someone who lived on lies. That was how Enkrid saw him. His instincts weren't always right, but on this point he was certain.
Temares judged there was still time and answered Enkrid.
"Is that so?"
A return question. Temares knew he was special because he was dragonkin. But right now, he thought the man who said those words was even more unusual.
Look at this steadfast core.
Enkrid wasn't the only one who had measured his opponent by crossing blades. Much more so, a dragonkin had an exceptional sense.
'An uncommon human.'
Temares saw Enkrid that way as well.
That human does not waver. He's like a ship at anchor without even a single mooring line. He looks like he could endure even when the tempest surges.
It's mysterious. That mystery stirred the dragonkin's root. A being of intellect with a grand dream and will—truly a human worth watching. He amuses and delights, and he gives rise to expectation. What is this one's duty, and upon what is this will's foundation built?
Since birth, the dragonkin had never felt such curiosity, and a first time is always intense.
You could see it if you fed a sweet cookie to a child who had never once eaten a cookie and then watched the child's face.
He had seen people with firm will before and had shown them favor, but never something this stimulating.
Like seeing the sea after only ever looking at small ponds and a lake.
Temares's heart swelled with that much delight. Therefore, he all the more wished he would not die.
A human who could rouse such feelings in a dragonkin was truly rare. Extremely rare.
Whatever the vertically split yellow eye up ahead said, Enkrid's thoughts kept turning on their own. One thread of them was briefly replaying the fight from a moment ago.
There were two reasons he'd called him peculiar. One was his temperament, and the other was his skill. More precisely, skill that was changing.
'Was he hiding his skill?'
A strand of thought branched off, reconstructing the situation. Enkrid recalled what the opponent had shown. The white longsword bent to parry aside his blade, and before that, he'd exerted compulsion with word-speech.
'No, more than that, wasn't the fighting itself awkward?'
It was. It had been. How to express this more simply?
If he were to reduce it to a very simple sentence—
'His ability to measure distance kept improving.'
At the first strike, his spacing fight was dreadful. He made up for it with absurd physical ability.
Measuring distance is the basis of fighting. Whether you hold a sword in your hand or throw punches, it's the same.
That technique of gauging distance changed. Using that as a pivot, everything began to shift.
'The position of the feet and the way he jutted his shoulder.'
After distance, his posture changed.
The forms were unfamiliar, but the motions followed the logic of combat. Swordsmanship developed to fight, to win, to kill. The opponent adhered faithfully to that aspect.
'All three of the last attacks were sharp.'
Especially the third, which Enkrid avoided by the narrowest hair. The white, snake-bent edge had gone for his forearm.
'Receiving on the blade while cutting.'
A textbook motion, half a beat fast. He toyed with tempo and mixed in technique.
Like someone who read a swordsmanship manual cover to cover, then trained each part properly, and then mixed them together again.
'Is that the right impression?'
He's that peculiar. Where does that peculiarity come from? As if speech were something he'd done for the first time in ages, is fighting also something he's doing for the first time in a while? So is he in rehabilitation?
If so—
"Let's finish this and have another go."
Everyone heard the two of them talking, but no one said anything.
It wasn't the first time Enkrid acted like this.
He showed favor for no clear reason, and his capacity went beyond being hard to measure; it changed in real time. Just as Temares felt interest, Enkrid felt the same. He wanted to dig into the dragonkin's depths.
"I have to carry out my duty."
And the dragonkin said what he had to say. Duty comes before anything else.
If a dragonkin has no duty, there's no reason to live. For them, duty is like that.
The anchor of their life, the will that lets them moor in today.
Enkrid felt something akin to pressure from Temares as he spoke. Because it was something he could not yield, the words were suffused with will.
Of course outwardly, his tone was calm and ordinary. Enkrid sensed the will inside because he had keen senses.
Enkrid could read a fairy's feelings. This much was nothing.
Enkrid, who also felt interest in the duty the other spoke of, asked back:
"What duty is that?"
His tone was unusually familiar. In fact, even while fighting, he hadn't felt any malice or murderous intent at all. What there was, was only joy and goodwill—he was a curious fellow.
If the other's duty were reasonable, wouldn't it be worth hearing out?
It was similar to when he accepted Dunbakel. He did as he felt like. Maybe, instinctively, he knew the being before his eyes wouldn't lead with malice to assault the city or harm civilians.
"Protecting the being behind me is my duty."
Said the dragonkin. His tone was flat.
There was no fierce emotion. Nor did it seem like he had some creed or conviction. What showed was merely a sense of duty.
'And yet his Will is full.'
He was a truly curious opponent.
The word he chose struck the heart. It was what Enkrid always said.
If the other spoke of duty, then he could speak of duty as well.
And if duty and duty stood opposed, whose should take precedence? Truth is decided by the law of the continent. Meaning, the strong one's words are right.
However, is it the best choice here to beat this guy down and kill the Salamander?
The thought simply occurred. Enkrid knows the principles of the world. There is completion, but there is no perfection.
If you obsess over perfection, you'll be trapped in today. If you hope to go to tomorrow, you must not remain with the element called perfection. But then, does a day simply spent letting things pass have any value?
A day done as best as you can.
Wanting such a today, he deliberated. For that best, Enkrid asked:
"Protect?"
Who, protecting whom?
As if in answer to those words, something came flying from above. Enkrid's sixth sense reacted. Even though he wasn't fighting, his thoughts accelerated. Something unseen was falling.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't that it was invisible—he sensed something that hadn't yet happened.
His body reacted to death, or a threat tantamount to it.
A red line thunked down from over his head. It was as if someone had swung a very long, very thin whip. Because his intuition had triggered, his body left an afterimage as he moved three steps to the side. The red line scored the ground where Enkrid had dodged from.
There was no thunderous crash or explosion. With a fizzing sound, it only left a thin hole whose depth couldn't be gauged.
Above the hole, a haze-like smoke rose. Where the red line had passed, a heat so hot it warped even the hot air remained. A hot gust brushed Enkrid's cheek.
If it had hit, anything would have been severed in an instant.
'About as sharp as Ragna's Sunrise.'
It was sharp and hot. Its length could have spanned about five average humans strung together.
Deep and long. If he hadn't avoided it, he would have offered up an arm. Of course, no one took that long lashing.
It was while they were watching, wondering what in the world this was.
It wasn't hard to spot the source of the whip. It had darted out from within a clump of flaming cloud that had somehow sunk lower than before and come closer to the party.
"The tongue."
The dragonkin spoke short and blunt, and Enkrid understood easily.
"You're saying this is the Salamander's tongue?"
He glanced at the ground and asked. The dragonkin nodded. He didn't know what precisely he meant by protecting.
Enkrid understood at least one thing.
"So long as I don't kill it, it's fine, right?"
The dragonkin had told them to withdraw and, in the middle of a fight, turned his back to part the fireball and tried to protect the party. Enkrid read the situation by feel.
The other was protecting the Salamander and also stopping that mass of fire from wreaking harm around it.
To the question that resulted from all that thinking, the dragonkin answered:
"Correct."
Then what the dragonkin was about to do now—was it discipline? He could tell it was something like that.
'A damn, stubborn brat who won't listen.'
Was he going to lay hands because sometimes the rod is the remedy?
"Then let's do it together."
Enkrid proposed a temporary alliance. The dragonkin nodded. This one's will was pure as could be. A fairy who didn't know how to lie wouldn't join him for nothing.
"Not going to clear him out and go?"
Rem asked from behind.
By clearing out, he likely meant the dragonkin. The name was Temares, wasn't it? The dragonkin had reached the point of knowing names after hearing them muttered.
If Enkrid willed it, subduing the dragonkin wasn't impossible. If even one of the party joined in, the fight would be easy.
"All units, prepare for combat."
Enkrid ignored it and spoke. The amusing point was that no one even showed anything like resistance. Back when he was the Mad Platoon leader, these were people who followed his stubbornness well.
It was the same now.
They did not cast doubt on what their captain did. They only did what they had to do.
In truth, if things soured, it was possible to subdue a dragonkin and even kill the Salamander, which was the confidence they showed.
***
The parasite of flame that entrusted its intent to the Salamander sneered at them.
'If I can't eat it, no one else will.'
Among the monks of the Demon Realm, this was something only he could do.
To awaken a Salamander that had entered dormancy or a torpid state.
He intended to burn to death every last one of the ones who had fallen out of his favor. If in the process a portion of the continent burned, that wasn't his concern.
Other beings who exerted influence over this continent would voice complaints, but he would simply ignore them.
Now that the Salamander had opened its eyes, this region would likely be ruined for a while—beyond recovery.
'Even so, it always returns someday.'
Where the Salamander has burned through, a new vitality stirs. For he has the authority of regeneration.
In the meantime, countless ones would burn to death.
The parasite of heat cackled even though he was nothing but intent.
"Die, all of you."
He drew his intent to goad the Salamander. Agony, pain, and torment traveled along intent to the body.
That, he found thoroughly delightful.
The parasite of heat knew that if he didn't shake off this delight, he wouldn't achieve what he wanted.
'How could I give this up.'
Exhilarating. If he were human, his eyelids would have quivered sweetly from a pleasure several times stronger than what is felt in sexual union.
"Now, die, all of you."
Let's add a further seasoning here. Lay on the screams, pain, and torment of humans—that's how you do it.
Because intent cannot control the Salamander, he watched, and he savored the sight of the otherworldly beast that had lashed its heat-line tongue now swinging its two forelegs.
Intent perceived them as forelegs, but those directly suffering from below would see them differently.
The Salamander's forelegs were fireballs themselves, to stamp and mash the gathered ones and burn them.
'How will you burn to death?'
Regrettably, the demon's expectations were not rewarded.
A cerulean light flared and split one of the fireballs away into nothing, and the other side, a white light, held against the blaze without yielding, and then the flames dwindled out.
'Hm?'
The Salamander's two feet were pushed back as they were.