If you asked whether it was comfortable on Odd-Eye's back, it wasn't. That didn't mean he couldn't close his eyes and sleep there, though.
A swordsman, by nature, had to know how to rest even in a field of thorns.
'Maybe I should sleep a bit.'
How long would they be flying? About half a day? If he slept even a few hours, his condition would be better by the time they reached the battlefield.
Enkrid judged so and closed his eyes.
Odd-Eye did not fly by flapping its wings. It spread wings larger than its own body and met the wind. It rode the air the way an eagle larger than a person would.
The cloak the Dryas clan of the fairy city Kirheis had given him covered his back and head.
The wind blowing fiercely against him was like spears made by a mage, so he had to hunch his body down tight.
Enkrid closed his eyes in that state. The wind that went kwaaa, tirelessly trying to tear his eardrums apart, was his lullaby.
If anyone saw it, they could have called just that alone a truly great feat, an acrobatic stunt, a trick. Enkrid's specialty was being able to fall asleep anywhere, but even he had never expected he would one day sleep on the back of a flying horse.
'At least it's warm.'
Odd-Eye's back was hot. That warmth and the fairy cloak kept in his body heat. Just like that, Enkrid fell asleep.
It was right after he fell asleep.
Slosh.
Black river water filled the surroundings. Sitting on a ferryboat, Enkrid opened his eyes and looked ahead.
A violet lamp, the hand holding it like a gray wasteland, and a face that would not show easily, cast in pitch-black shadow even though the lamp's light brushed the inside of the hood.
"It's amazing you can feel sleepy up there."
The Ferryman spoke.
"Experiencing sleep on a flying bed isn't something you get to do easily, so I couldn't pass up the chance."
"...Is that so?"
Today's Ferryman was old-fashioned and easygoing.
Enkrid noticed that at a glance and spoke to match his counterpart.
"Should I call you a truly amusing human, or should I call you the prison that locks all of us up? Or else, what should I call you?"
Enkrid thought there was something to add to today's Ferryman besides being old-fashioned and easygoing.
'Today's Ferryman is a bit.'
Sentimental?
You couldn't tell just from the tone, but if you chewed over the content, that was how it was.
"I doubt you're asking whether I'm human, and if I have an answer at all, that's the only one."
Answering "Enkrid of the Border Guard" would not be appropriate right now to the question the Ferryman was asking. That was giving his affiliation and name.
Also, Enkrid had never once lost his sense of self, so he had no need to drag that answer out into the open and drop an anchor just to keep from being swept away by the churning current.
"Take it as a warning, or as advice."
Inside the Ferryman's hood, Enkrid saw some woman's face. He wasn't sure. When he tried to look more closely, dingy darkness covered the Ferryman's face like a veil.
"It will come when you're least prepared."
"What's coming?"
"It will come in the form you least desire."
"A wall?"
"You won't be able to call it merely a wall."
It was the Ferryman's prophecy. When the Ferryman spoke things related to misfortune, his accuracy rate was high. If it wasn't that, maybe his intention was to give fear to every tomorrow he went out to meet from here on.
"'I' want you to stay in today even now."
Up to now, the Ferryman's voice had flowed on calmly without rise or fall, but only the word that referred to himself reverberated in layered echoes.
"Do your best to fall as far as you can. That is definitely advice. And it will be needed for a 'nearby matter.'"
Enkrid had no chance to answer.
Woom—.
A sound like a drum beating somewhere rang out, and right after that he woke from sleep.
Seen from the sky, what was happening on the ground went into your eyes at a glance. As soon as he woke, Enkrid looked down to gauge his position.
Night had passed and they were into the late morning. He had flown all through the night. In between, he had chewed on the long strips of jerky Aurelia had prepared, and he had chewed the fruit dish called the Fairy's Grace that Shinar had given him. In the fairy city Kirheis there really was something called fruit dishes, and he had eaten them a few times, but the fruit Shinar had given him was richer in nutrients than other fairy fruit dishes.
It was very sweet, and even eating just one made his stomach feel hot.
'Marcus once served a tea like that too.'
Was it when he'd been a battalion commander?
It was tea made by drying a few berries that grew in the mountains and boiling them. The color had been pitch-black, and he had said it was a method he had learned in the north and improved. To be honest, it had tasted awful. Bitter and spicy.
"You're supposed to drink that while it's hot."
You even had to drink it when it was so hot your tongue tingled for it to mean anything. It was, if he remembered, a medicinal tea that made heat rise up naturally in the bodies of those who stayed in cold places.
That tea tasted awful, but among the other teas he served on other days, there had been many excellent ones.
He was the only one nearby who enjoyed tea and brewed it well, so Enkrid had not exactly been thrilled about him dying. Nor did he want to see the orange-haired woman who had followed after him die either.
Whoooooosh—
The wind still brushed past his ears with the goal of killing him by tearing his eardrums apart.
"Odd-Eye, let's go faster."
Talking while flying lessened the worry of biting his tongue. Simply gliding like this didn't make his body heave up and down.
The sound of his voice wouldn't easily carry, but the only member of the Mad Order of Knights whose specialty had once been running on all fours and who now had gliding as its specialty was more than capable of picking up Enkrid's intent.
In truth, it was also thanks to Enkrid pouring plenty of Will into both hands and yanking hard on the mane to convey his will.
Flying and flying like that, he arrived. Enkrid did not take in every last detail of the scene, nor did he pour all his energy into reading the tide of battle.
'Aisia.'
He confirmed the presence of the orange-haired knight, saw Marcus's and the allies' positions, and saw the two calamities with limbs.
That was enough to decide on a direction for his movements. Enkrid tightened both legs and clasped Odd-Eye's belly.
"Start there."
He spoke at the same time. It was something he was telling Marcus to hear, and at the same time it was his will conveyed to the enemy knight.
It was a technique of conveying his voice with Will. His tireless training until now had been worth it.
Enkrid was certain his voice had reached Marcus and the calamity with the spear approaching from ahead.
As Enkrid tightened his legs, the clever comrade Odd-Eye understood his intent at once. From a gliding state, it dropped its altitude sharply. It felt like his guts were shooting upward, but for his innards to actually leave his body, they would first have to break through his trained muscles and skin and, on top of that, tear through the champion's leather armor made from Balrog's hide.
All he had to watch was that nothing flew out of his mouth, so for Enkrid it was enough to just grit his teeth.
Of course, there was no real chance of his guts flying out. There had merely been a descent similar to a sudden fall.
A javelin came flying at him as he flew. It was a throw with the timing calculated all the way to the speed at which Odd-Eye would be coming in to land, the work of someone who seemed well used to throwing javelins.
If he left it alone, his intervention would be delayed, and then he would only get to see his orange-haired friend as a gravestone.
Enkrid took in the situation and threw himself. Odd-Eye twisted its waist and helped his fall.
The cloak flapped noisily and then plastered itself to his back.
His falling speed increased, and the javelin thrown from below rushed up toward his eyes like lightning.
'Do your best to fall as far as you can.'
Enkrid accepted the Ferryman's advice. Dawn, already drawn, struck the javelin that resembled a bolt of lightning.
Bang!
Even if he had only struck it, it would have been an impressive feat, but Enkrid, as he hit the javelin, used its force too to propel his body.
His body turned in midair, and his falling speed increased further. His target was the head of the owner of the greatsword—right above the greatsword that was about to reach Aisia's neck.
'The best defense is attack.'
He didn't know if that saying really fit here, but as long as the meaning got across, he figured anything was fine.
'You could say the best rescue is attack too.'
A thought slipped in amid his stretched-out cognition. If he ignored the Dawn he was swinging, Aisia would die. In return, the greatsword's owner would have to give up an arm or be prepared for a fairly deep wound.
If she trusted in the hardness of her pauldrons and armor and simply held on, that was exactly what would happen, but the greatsword's owner behaved rationally.
Knight Matia did not blindly trust in defensive techniques that used only armor. Instead, she always trusted in the thick blade that acted as her shield. That trust was rewarded.
Kwaaang!
Dawn slammed down on top of the greatsword. Knight Matia adjusted the angle of the greatsword just right and let the force flow away.
It was the slash of a man who had fallen from the sky like a meteor. Trying to receive that blow, which did not care in the slightest for his own body, purely with strength would have been idiotic. This was the correct answer.
Enkrid's Dawn slid along Matia's Rock-Cutter.
Kagagagagak!
The two engraved weapons met and immediately rejected each other and parted. The meeting was short and the parting was quick.
After roughly letting the force flow away, Matia shoved her greatsword forward and pushed her opponent.
Enkrid did not reject that force and flew backward. If he landed on his back, it would hurt a bit, but if that was enough to save Aisia, it was a deal that left him in the black. However, Enkrid's expectation was a little off.
Instead of landing flat on his back, someone put a hand on his back and reduced the impact. That was enough, so Enkrid used that force to plant both feet on the ground.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
The rest of the force was endured by the soles of his boots. Enkrid and Aisia, who had stretched out her hand from behind, were both pushed far back. In the spot where the two of them had been standing, four furrows were gouged in the ground.
"You."
Aisia asked him from behind. She looked pretty ragged. She had cuts here and there, her hair was a mess, and especially her left forearm was a mortal wound. Right now she ought to be wrapping it tightly in bandages and going to find a high priest, making offerings about three times her usual, kneeling, singing of the god's mercy, and looking up to his divinity.
"If you don't take care of your looks, getting married is a pipe dream, Aisia. Beating a man half to death won't make him fall for you."
"...You son of a bitch."
The greeting he gave his orange-haired friend he was seeing for the first time in a while awakened her will to fight. Since she was just at the moment of facing the enemy and having to fight, it was a very appropriate measure.
Aisia had just crossed the death line. More than three times over.
'My luck was good.'
The fickle goddess of fortune was on her side today. The first stroke of luck was that she had recently had inspiration for a few techniques, and she had honed them.
'It could have been the wrong direction.'
If every inspiration were right, there wouldn't be a single person in the world who wasn't a genius.
It was a famous philosopher—a fellow whose name she couldn't remember—who had said that. Fortunately, this inspiration fit her body like a suit of clothes, and it seemed to be something like a signpost with the letters heading toward the destination called knight somewhat erased.
It didn't tell her the road she had to walk from here on, but it was like a marker that told her the path she had walked so far was the right one.
'Squeeze and bind.'
Based on a heavy sword, she gave suppressive power to the enemy knight's entire body. She went beyond manifesting killing intent by triggering Will and spread an intangible, sticky spiderweb.
She pressed with her momentum, likening it to intent, and gained a little time. Her first stroke of luck had grabbed one of the calamity's trouser legs.
Her second stroke of luck was that the enemy knight took an interest in her. She did not swing her sword at full power all at once. She swung as if testing. That alone put Aisia's life in danger, but luck was luck.
Her third stroke of luck was purer than the two before.
In the exchange of blows, she let the enemy's strength flow off and shook her sword tip to scatter her focus, and the woman with the greatsword saw through that in an instant and kicked Aisia's ankle with her foot.
Aisia, using the force from that kick in the moment, spun in midair and slashed. That made the arc and vibration traced by her sword tip larger than what she could have scattered by just swinging it.
The technique she tried, half staking her life, held the enemy's limbs in check once in just the right way. Then she learned for the first time that a greatsword was useful for thrusting, and thanks to that, her left arm had nearly said goodbye to her body and gone off.
To be honest, she didn't even know when she'd gotten the scratch on her neck. A knight was a knight. The fact she had held on this long was already a miracle.
At the moment when she had braced herself to die like that, the final stroke of luck fell like a meteor.
In a form she hadn't imagined, at a moment she hadn't imagined.
At the words that followed, Aisia got angry instead of laughing. That was what the enemy wanted.
You could call it Enkrid-style cheering that said "don't give up."
He was not the sort of guy from whose mouth you'd expect things like "Hang in there," or "This isn't the end."
He was the kind of lunatic who would fight even on the brink of death and, in the end, crawl forward if he had to.
Aisia caught her breath and focused her attention on the two standing in front and behind her.
In front was a knight with a greatsword, and behind her, the guy with the long spear had at some point come back up. In other words, there were two knights. If someone asked whether being surrounded by only two counted as being surrounded, she would tell that person a story about a single knight surrounding a thousand soldiers alone.
"What, a Pegasus? Did you ride that in?"
The knight with the greatsword asked. Her short hair and square jaw gave such a sturdy impression that at a glance you could have believed she was a man.
Aisia had been inwardly surprised at what Enkrid had ridden in on, but this was no time to be surprised, so she ignored it and focused on the thoughts she needed right now. Namely, she asked herself whether she could buy time.
'No chance.'
Even when both arms had been intact, she had hung on thanks to luck. She couldn't anymore.
'If I stake my life?'
Would that at least buy the time for a single swing? That felt difficult too. The force the two knights were giving off now felt different from before.
"Get out."
Enkrid spoke. Aisia ground her molars. She said what she had to say.
"There are two enemies."
Enkrid answered with a casual attitude.
"Yeah, there are two."
He left Aisia where she was and turned his body. It was a stance with enemies to his left and right. At the same time, he subtly put Aisia behind his back.
Between knights of the same kind, the side with two was overwhelmingly advantageous. It was an obvious thing. And yet, in this situation, the man called Enkrid smiled. The corners of his mouth went up. It was a boyish smile, the smile of someone looking forward to what was about to happen.