No matter what Shinar said, Enkrid was already sunk deep into his own thoughts.
"About half."
He felt his communion with Dawn Tempering was lacking. As if only half of it connected.
What about with Penna? That one had felt like a "guest" from the very start.
That was what his trained senses told him. Saying it was exactly half felt awkward, but what was certain was that he felt a lack.
"Is there a reason?"
Was it that the sword refused to open its heart? Or was his own attitude the problem? Was it lack of skill? Lack of talent?
His thinking dove straight to the core, down to the depths, and he searched his past for an answer.
Whether it's the right answer or the wrong one, humans are always wandering in search of the right one. Enkrid was human. Naturally, he too wanted an answer. He kept gripping and releasing the hilt of Dawn Tempering.
"Kkikyo!"
Up ahead, Rem, thrilled, was swinging his axe. His shout cut Enkrid's ruminations for a moment. Enkrid lifted his head and sent his gaze forward.
A dire wolf is a monster that can bite a grown man in half. The head of such a house-sized wolf flew up into the air. The monster from the West lopped the wolf's head clean off. His axing was so fast and fierce that the decapitated wolf, not knowing it was dead, struck with its forepaw at the spot where Rem had been.
Boom! The ground blew open. Dirt spattered and vomited pain. If the earth had senses, that's how it would have felt.
With a single kick the wolf's body listed sideways and collapsed. With a thud the ground rang. A hefty carcass. Black blood poured everywhere like rain and soaked the ground.
Before they knew it, the sunlight had faded and the day was choked with a dingy air. The sky was packed with black clouds and pitch-dark. It was a day when you'd be hard-pressed to find any trace of the noonday sun.
Rem bared his front teeth in a grin at the monster he'd killed.
"Come more, yeah? Come on, more."
He was reveling in the fight, rampaging. Was Rem the only one rampaging? Of course not. Pel, who had slipped into the pack of human-faced dogs, drew his Idol Slayer, planted a foot on the forepaw of the wolf that targeted him, and sprang upward. In that same motion, the black blade chopped down as if splitting along the crown of the wolf's head. The marriage of the blade's sharpness and his power split the monster's head into two.
The blade moved like living lightning. It cut and split and came back out. Balancing in the air, Pel kicked one half of the severed wolf's head and dropped back to the ground.
One per strike.
An attack worthy of Pel, who swings a kill-for-certain blade—a sure-kill sword—every time. A technique that fit him and his sword too well.
"The blade's gotten blacker."
Even as he watched, Enkrid contemplated. An answer didn't come easily. No—it felt like pondering a question that had no answer to begin with.
Why is God harsh to humans? Why can this land not escape the influence of monsters and the Demon-lands?
It was no different from throwing out such questions and chasing answers. So should he just stand here and brood? No, there was no need. Enkrid shook off the brooding. He didn't gnaw on problems that couldn't be solved immediately. He went past suppressing the instinct to demand an answer and simply released it.
He would remember, but not let it lodge deep in his heart. Enkrid could do that.
What he lacked right now—he could take time and find a way.
Just as he always had.
"Dawn Tempering is a sword Aitri forged."
It was also a sword that held his Will. There was an answer. Not knowing it now didn't mean there was a problem.
"If my talent is the problem—"
Then he'd seek out the lack and fill it. As, again, he always had.
Enkrid turned his gaze to his unit's fight. It was truly exhilarating to see.
And impressive, and there was much to learn, and a string of moments to admire besides.
The sky looked as if soot had come down. Through that, Ragna's Sunrise drew a line across the earth.
"Looks like Odd-Eye's charge left an impression."
Enkrid said it with a sparkle in his eyes as he watched.
"He's shaken off his brooding."
The Dragonkin said it as if savoring a sight.
"You don't have to say it. Dragonkin. I can read my fiancé's heart too."
Shinar said from beside him.
Enkrid let the two's words in one ear and out the other and fixed his gaze. This was a moment that demanded focus.
Lose it for a moment and you'd lose him from your sight.
Ragna slipped between three giant wolf monsters. It was a slash wholly focused on speed.
The base was Oara's Linking Sword, with severing mixed in. He accelerated the Will coursing through his body and hammered both feet into the ground. Bending knees and ankles, then straightening them, he sprang forward as if being launched. He looked half airborne, about to fly.
Should one call him a genius, after all.
He took what had struck him deeply and embodied it exactly with his body. In place of mounted charge, he showed a divine skill with his own two legs.
"More precisely, did he even mix in the torque of twisting his torso?"
Into a slash thrown on the run, he stuffed the gallop of a mounted charge. Ragna flaunted his talent. Sunrise drew an orange line, and everything caught on that line burst.
Of course he couldn't keep running endlessly like Odd-Eye. He only spiked his speed for an instant.
"Good."
Enkrid admired it. There were more amusing sights after that. This time it was Audin. He too, after watching Odd-Eye, crafted a new technique.
They were the sort who, once deeply impressed, showed it immediately in their bodies and faces. You could tell that much without even climbing inside their heads. Even without being Dragonkin, it wasn't hard to infer their intent and hearts. They were ones he had shared a great many things with.
One of those people moved now—Audin.
"Rotation."
Enkrid had taken the basics of his technique called Vortex from the principles of Valaph-style martial art.
Audin knew that too. He spun his body like a top, then thrust himself out to one side.
It was a way of condensing rotational force and sending it in one direction. Different from Vortex, but similar in principle.
If Ragna drew a line of speed with Sunrise, Audin used his body in place of a blade. Frankly, it wasn't even a blade.
"Brutish, but efficient."
Audin became a boulder of iron.
Puh-bubum!
Air burst and tore along the path he passed. The boulder punched straight through eight monsters. Five had their bodies run through; three were caught in the vortices born of Audin's instant acceleration and were ripped apart and killed.
Kkyeeeek. Kkae-gae-gaeng.
Monsters with a height greater than a giant's quailed in terror.
So then—who's the monster now?
Was that what they wanted to say?
Would Rem be any different? He too paused his axing and, taking what he'd felt from watching Odd-Eye, digested it in his own way and showed it.
The barbarian from the West drew a hand-axe bound with cords twisted from beast-hide and sinew. He didn't make long bounds like Ragna and Audin. He regulated his breath, made a short dash, then gathered that force and threw the axe. A residual image lingered where he moved. The curious thing was that the motion broke into parts so that the afterimages looked like a continuous sequence.
It all happened from barely five paces away. Like a mirage.
He stamped the ground with his left foot, drew his right hand back, then shot it forward. At the end of the motion his body curled forward as if he'd wrung every muscle in it. In that way Rem hurled the throwing axe he held in his right hand.
All the muscles of his body swelled as if exploding, then released. His sorcerous power surged in step with it.
BANG—
The axe turned into a disc and detonated the air. Before that report reached them, the axe-edge had already punched through a wolf's skull.
Enkrid's eyes sparkled. The sun, hidden by the black clouds, nested in his two eyes.
"He loaded the hand-axe with the force he'd stored from pounding the ground."
Rem threw the axe in his right hand by wringing every muscle in his body. He did that dynamic sequence while running. With a running start, he could have jumped farther. Rem loaded that power into the axe he threw. Hence the result.
"Well, a sling is better."
Rem straightened his posture and muttered. If you're going to throw something to begin with, you use centrifugal force. So throwing a hand-axe like this is something you'll rarely resort to unless it's absolutely necessary.
For those three, that was play. Watching them, Enkrid felt his blood boil anew.
"They're pushing and pulling each other, spurring one another on."
The Dragonkin said.
"That's that man's greatest trait."
Luagarne added.
"No objection that he's a stimulating man."
Shinar said it at Enkrid's side for him to hear. Lawford and Teresa, and even Dunbakel, had joined the fight. The battle was one-sided. It was close to a massacre.
Before coming here, Dunbakel had received a sword forged by a dwarf. Her sword was a curved scimitar. Longer than before, and a clear wave pattern ran along the blade. The dwarf, handing the sword over, had been confident it wouldn't break under most circumstances.
"Recently, a metal called Muhyeong Steel — literally 'Formless Steel' — came in from Dempsan. In terms of hardness alone, it's not inferior to True Iron."
One of its features, they said, was that even without blackening it separately at night, it blended with its surroundings so the blade was hard to see.
The dark-ash blade had the property of absorbing light.
Dunbakel didn't know or care about the rest; that the sword was sturdy—that delighted her greatly.
"Good. I like it."
On the way, hadn't she drawn her sword again and again, stroking the blade and showing how taken she was.
Her feet were quick to begin with. Dunbakel, like a lightning bolt, zigzagged across the field. That speed couldn't be compared to Odd-Eye's gallop, but it was very fast.
Even a knight, if the least bit careless, would lose her movement from sight. Few monsters could react to Dunbakel's movement.
Running, Dunbakel swung, using the elasticity of her whole body. A blade carrying full power drew a half-circle. It was packed with force and speed. The killing power was sufficient.
SPLORCH!
In her wake, a human-faced dog split vertically and sprayed vile entrails and black blood.
Whirling and whirling, her blade rampaged on, cutting a dozen more monsters in succession.
"Hahahaha! I am Saint Dunbakel!"
Dunbakel shouted in glee.
"You've lost it?"
Rem tossed a jab.
The battle was short, thick, and hot. A day when the dingy sky hid the sun. Only black blood and a fishy reek hung in the air.
With Odd-Eye absent from the ranks, the mounts snorted and stamped as if uneasy.
"It's fine. It's fine."
In Odd-Eye's stead, Shinar patted the mount. She was a fairy. Outwardly, trained not to show emotion, she could seem numb, but no race was more sensitive to others' feelings.
A horse's skittishness is something fairies are familiar with. Because of that sensitivity, hadn't she trained to kill her emotions since childhood.
"Shh, shh, it's fine. No one will get this far."
While she soothed the mount and they moved on, a pack like this popped up two more times.
"A considerable number. Still, Viscount Harrison's domain should be fine. Rem's Assault Unit should be garrisoned there."
Lawford said it while wiping a blade soaked in black blood. Muttering that he was glad he'd brought several cloths for wiping blades. He enjoys analyzing force composition. So it's a habit and a hobby.
By his lights, Rem's Assault Unit wouldn't be beaten by a monster unit like the one that just charged. If luck turned, a few might die, but they weren't the sort to retreat because men died.
"There just aren't any who'd get beaten at all."
Within the Border Guard standing army's order of battle, there was no unit that would be beaten by monsters of this level. Lawford broadly oversaw standing-army training.
In this group, few knew the state of the standing army's training as well as Lawford did.
"You mean we don't have to stop by?"
Maybe it was the black clouds, but an ominous feeling came over them. He felt it would be better to revise the plan to visit the viscounty and press straight on.
If the viscounty were even a little in danger, they couldn't, of course.
"Lawford's judgment can be trusted."
This was different from Ragna guiding the way. Ragna was always curious about everything around him. That was both his strength and his flaw.
"If you're at the level of a knight, you should sublimate flaws into strengths."
There's a reason he's called a calamity for nothing.
Enkrid thought well of Viscount Harrison. More than an ally, he respected the man's intent and will.
Therefore, if he were in danger, Kraiss would step in.
"The viscounty puts out a good wine."
Kraiss had put care into protecting him. All of that had led to the stationing of standing troops, and Lawford was speaking with that in mind.
With the standing army behind them as they set out, if trouble arose, Kraiss would act.
"If they got done in by this level, all the effort I put in would've been for nothing."
Rem twisted his mouth as he said it. If the men of the Rem Assault Unit heard, they'd foam at the mouth, but viewed coolly, Rem had invested an extraordinary amount into cultivating his unit.
If Audin was the best at building up the soldiers' stamina and bodies, then Rem was unsurpassed in tempering their mental strength.
Ragna and Jaxon, from the start, weren't used to teaching large numbers.
The party moved on. Enkrid seated Shinar in front. Even after two days, Odd-Eye did not return.
Instead, monsters flocked to them in droves. The sky packed with black clouds went on into a second day, and then the rain came.
Even though it was midday, the sky was pitch-black. At first the drops fell in a drizzle, but they grew steadily thicker. The rain went on for a while. The party drew on oil-treated hoods and the like.
The road toward the South was strange. It was filled with an ominous, unsettling, gloomy air.
Not that that meant Enkrid's party got entangled with that ill omen.
"How is it, fiancé? Splendid, isn't it?"
Beside him, Shinar, uncharacteristically for a fairy, spoke with shining eyes. The cloak gifted by the city Kirheis shed rainwater on its own.
"What's there to say."
Enkrid affirmed her, and the Dragonkin opened his mouth again beside them.
"That fairy, as expected, says she is his only mate."
At this point Luagarne could only suspect that this Dragonkin bastard simply enjoyed reading others' insides and saying them out loud.
Rem snickered. Ragna gave a quiet snort.
All the cloaks of the Mad Order of Knights came from the fairy city. More than half the Order wore cloaks that sloughed off rain as if ignoring all this unrest and ill omen.