When anxiety surged, some people hid under their blankets and suffered on their beds, but Kraiss was the opposite.
When he felt uneasy, he moved more. He woke up hours early and laid hands on more tasks.
"The water and sewage works are almost finished. The wells inside the city have increased to six."
Nurat, already armed, said so at his side. It was dawn before first light. At an hour when half the citizens were still asleep, Kraiss was fully dressed and seated at his desk.
"Right, tell Edin—no, tell his younger sister to handle the final wrap-up on that. What was the sister's name again?"
"Rosalind."
Rosalind was a name from the continent's history. A female scholar who studied the ecology of the Demon Realm.
"Did her father dote on his daughter? He wouldn't have chosen the name himself."
There had once been a trend of blessing a child's life by naming them after a great figure.
"Who knows."
It was idle talk. Talent to shoulder administration was always a good thing. Thinking so, Kraiss leafed through his books.
Some say books are dead knowledge, while others say everything is in books. Kraiss stood squarely in the middle.
"There are things you need and things that are useless."
What matters is not the book itself but the reader's attitude.
"Like taking the attitude of attentive listening—like the Captain—and learning what you need."
Learn boldly what must be learned and discard coldly what should be discarded. That was Kraiss's approach to books.
Kraiss had changed much of his approach to life after watching Enkrid. He began to dream bigger and adjusted his direction a little.
Not merely making a salon to enjoy culture while playing with noble ladies.
"For that, doesn't war have to disappear?"
Kraiss asked inwardly and turned the pages. It was a book about the Demon Realm's ecological studies.
By coincidence, it was a book written by the late Rosalind. And together with it was another book—by the living Rosalind, daughter of the rebel province—compiling what she had seen, felt, and learned up to now.
"A gift. For accepting my brother."
She was unlike the high-nosed noble ladies, and unlike the energetic women bustling in the marketplace.
She had poise, and yet she wasn't intoxicated by being a noble. She simply did her work and carefully reached toward what she wanted.
Her manner was cautious, but her actions were bold. Her thoughts were deep, and she knew what her task was.
"She was an attractive woman, wasn't she?"
Nurat asked. Intoxicated by anxiety, Kraiss slipped.
"Uh, very."
He'd seen more than a few men steal glances at her. Both her looks and the air she gave off were far from ordinary.
It was strange she hadn't been married off for politics long ago. Was she too young? In noble society age wouldn't serve as an excuse.
At a lover's words, Nurat lifted a hand toward the waist. The sword's grip caught in that hand.
"Her skin was white, too?"
"It was."
Kraiss spoke while recalling Rosalind Molsen. She'd suffered quite a bit, yet her skin was fine. Compared to Nurat, it was whi… wait.
Kraiss reined in his thoughts. Ting—his ear caught the sound of the scabbard latch being loosed.
"Pretty, wasn't she?"
Nurat asked again.
If he slipped here, he'd die. Not by the blade of monster, beastman, demon, or enemy knight, but by his lover's.
Kraiss's keen mind spun taut. He did not let his guard down at the last moment.
"…Not more than you."
Late, but by a hair, he saved his neck. The nape of his neck felt cold. Nurat let the raised hand fall from the waist. The sword latch shut again with a click.
"I live."
It wasn't something to die over in truth. This was a lover's tease. This small joke loosened, just a little, the taut string of his anxiety.
With gratitude, Kraiss answered.
"That was the right answer, wasn't it?"
"If it were wrong, you'd already be dead."
Listening to the same old joke, Kraiss examined his books and piled up the knowledge he needed.
"Monsters within the Demon Realm often deviate from what we know as common sense."
Even if you grasp their ecology and check every few years, monsters never before seen within the Demon Realm appear.
"It's hard to pin anything down."
To the sapient beings living on the continent, the Demon Realm is, that much, a zone of the unknown. There is no help to be had from digging up past knowledge.
Kraiss pressed his temple lightly with his thumb. Doing so made the head that felt heavy seem a little lighter.
By now, Edin would have met the market head of the trade city, and Abnaier would be revising the standing army's organization.
"Nothing will go wrong, right? The road to the South has been well laid."
The civil works the Border Guard had been pouring the most effort into lately were precisely paving the road.
That work takes a lot of time. On rainy days it's hard to proceed, and it requires a fair number of hands.
"If we complete not only the name but a real Stone Road…"
It would be an innovation in trade and the movement of goods. For now, it merely connected four cities—Lockfried, Martai, Greenperl, and the Border Guard.
"When the war with the South ends…"
Kraiss now knew how not to be eaten by his anxiety. He drew the future. A hopeful future.
"Let's connect to the South as well."
Viscount Harrison's domain produced a lot of good grain, and his lands had many masters of brewing. Good wine is a good trade good.
The next task was a road connecting the capital, the South, everything.
For all of this—
"You have to win and come back, Captain."
Kraiss voiced what lay within. They had to knock down the likes of the South with a snap and return.
Nurat set a hand on the lover's shoulder.
"Don't dodge the point."
"Ah, mm, that's not what I meant."
***
Some monsters that live in the Demon Realm think. It was an honor bestowed because they went beyond surrendering to instinct.
So it was with the centaur that now led the colony. Fighting humans often on the Demon Realm's border, he awakened to the way of thinking.
The Demon Realm is harsh. Monsters also keep each other in check and kill. And it is divided into places whose borders are clear and places where they are faint.
The leader of the monsters driving this current pack was a being who had lived crossing such borders.
He crossed the Demon Realm's boundaries, and went in and out several times of the territory of those things called demons.
He could do that because he combined swift legs with the capacity to think. The monster leader had lived that way.
Then, beings who had recently established domains in the Demon Realm pressed him. As if all along they had only let him be out of magnanimity, those with abilities superior to his aimed for him.
Awakening to reason did not mean ignoring instinct. By instinct he perceived danger, and by reason he decided on where to flee.
Knowing there was land beyond the Demon Realm better than the place he was born and raised, he set his feet toward it.
In truth, cunning manipulation was at work, but such a thing was not something a mere monster could know.
"Land where hunting is easier."
Only that filled the colony leader's head. And also that he had to subdue the prey before his eyes.
"Dangerous enemy."
The leader entered human lands, and looking for other prey instead of those behind walls, he found Enkrid's party.
What most set the centaur leader apart from other monsters was that he had hunted foes stronger than himself.
"Slow prey is easy."
No matter how strong you are, it means nothing if you can't reach. Monsters know that. Therefore, if they do not give the distance, they win. Having done so until now, the monster did so again.
***
Monsters that formed colonies inside the Demon Realm were of a different grade than those on the continent. Was it someone's design that such a pack of monsters met Enkrid's party here?
There was no such thing. It was coincidence. A little of a demon's meddling was mixed in, but that was due to circumstances inside the Demon Realm, not because these specific people were targeted.
Everything was chance, but to one prepared, some chance becomes necessity.
"A trigger and a spur."
He thought of the day that made him a knight—the tower he had stacked until just before he became a knight, the day that made him one. He had seen the sunset, grown drunk, and all manner of thoughts had arisen in his head.
Enkrid knew Odd-Eye had not been idling while he was away.
"His Will is solid and his resolve is high."
Even without the Dragonkin's help, Odd-Eye's heart could be heard. Not literally heard. Only his Will was conveyed.
Odd-Eye ran with Enkrid on his back, and Enkrid pressed his body down tight, clinging to Odd-Eye's back.
It was the posture that interfered the least. Naturally, he knew how to do it.
Thok—the instant Odd-Eye set his first step, the air surged rough enough to flay his cheeks. Two steps, three—pushing forward—felt like bracing into a gale.
Kwooooaa—
Something like the sound of surf reached his ears, then even that sound vanished. Odd-Eye ran in earnest. The speed shook even a knight's senses.
"What on earth did you do and where, while I wasn't here?"
Thinking so inwardly, Enkrid pressed lower. Odd-Eye's mane pricked his head like thorns.
Without a helmet, it felt like they were jabbing into his scalp.
What would happen if they charged like this in a lance charge? They'd break even a fair wall. His intuition told him so.
Only, the charger wouldn't come out unscathed either.
"Wearing full plate."
Would he have to sheathe himself in iron armor—one of the arts of Will—to be all right?
He felt it was something he'd only know by trying.
A knight's blood and flesh do not become steel or molten iron. Through training they only appear similar.
Such was Odd-Eye's gallop. The centaur pack that had posted sentries like an army was soon right up in front.
Dots resolved into shapes and entered his sight. The forms wavered blur-like. Even with a knight's dynamic vision he could almost see afterimages. The centaur pack slammed hooves into earth at once. No—by nature they were always moving.
The moment they recognized Odd-Eye, they only increased their speed.
Enkrid stoked his Will and concentrated on his sight. He accelerated his thoughts. Even with accelerated thought, his mind did not flow easily. Such was the speed of the gallop.
The monster pack struck the ground and moved. In a space without sound, dynamic movement hard to see filled his view. Enkrid's gaze naturally examined their forms.
"The legs are thick."
At the same time, their muscles split and corded, their upper bodies were relatively thin, and their hooves looked hard enough to be called lumps of iron. It was a body specialized, through and through, for running.
That body was doubtless why they moved several times faster than ordinary monsters.
"They must have evolved that way."
With his body lowered and only his head peeking up, he saw that when the monster pack began to run using those characteristic muscles, the gap did not close easily.
On top of that, they loosed bone arrows as they ran. Judging by such tricks alone, "monsters doing feats" was exactly right.
"They're armored, too."
They were monsters that clearly had learned something human. They braided and carved bone to cover their man-like torsos.
And with bowstaves of bone, bowstrings of beastman or monster sinew, and bone arrows—
"A fully armed colony?"
Enkrid took Dawn Tempering's grip. It was not easy to swing a sword while keeping his body pressed low.
But if necessary, he had to. Wasn't Odd-Eye running?
The enemy pack turned their upper bodies with bone bows in hand. Half man, half horse—the legs ran while the upper body shot. Perfect division of labor.
"Odd-Eye is special."
So Enkrid thought.
Horses are, by nature, timid. And yet he did not buck and bolt from the arrows in panic.
The horses the party rode were pack-trip mounts for travel, not warhorses trained for battle or army—but they stayed calm. All of that was thanks to Odd-Eye.
And—
"He tramples and bites to pieces the likes of ordinary monsters."
Was that innate, or learned?
The centaur bastards loosed their strings. Arrows shot while running now flew for Odd-Eye.
Enkrid perceived them all. Keeping his posture pressed low, he drew his sword, clamped Odd-Eye's torso with both legs and braced, took Dawn Tempering in his right hand, caught the middle of the blade with his left, and swung it like a short club.
"If you reach far or try a wide sweep, you take the wind's drag."
With minimal movement, batting down the oncoming arrows was right. Their hit rate wasn't that high either. They were arrows loosed while being chased. What made them threatening was their number and the poison smeared on them.
Dawn Tempering's blade flicked every arrow aside.
"Run, Odd-Eye. I'll block the sky. You run. Run the way you want."
Speaking while galloping, he nearly bit his tongue, but spoke anyway.
Nor was it a situation where speaking would be conveyed as words—but he spoke anyway.
By speaking, he conveyed his Will. That was what Enkrid did.
Those words might have become a spur or a trigger to Odd-Eye. Enkrid did not see it, but light spilled from Odd-Eye's two eyes.
Will swelled to the brim.
With a wet rip, blood burst from Odd-Eye's back. Through the bright red blood, something thrust out with a fwack.
In the greenish vapor of young steam rising from evaporating sweat, something red was mixed.
They were wings. A pair of wings ran along Odd-Eye's back and flanks and spread side by side.
Blood spray flew backward. The wings, like blades laid on their sides, split the air's resistance.
Ssshhhkk.
From somewhere he heard the auditory illusion of something being cut.
At the same time, Odd-Eye accelerated further. For an instant, Enkrid felt his innards shoved straight back.
A knight's body is not the same as an ordinary person's. Even for him, it had been a long time since he'd felt this.
The end of the sensation of leaving his guts behind as he went forward.
A centaur with jet-black eyes wide open was right in front of his nose. He was within reach if he swung.
Instinct and intuition, training and tempering.
As all was brought to a point, Enkrid's arm moved.
The blade, joined to Odd-Eye's tearing sprint, flew crosswise.
Bang!
The sound came late. Before it, Enkrid's Dawn had burst the centaur's body.
Though the True Silver blade had cut precisely, the body burst. The speed of the charge had been transmuted into destructive power.
The monsters had their rumps caught. Enkrid felt ecstasy in the sense of speed, and the centaur pack felt terror and dread.