Snuffing the embers is an extension of Wavebreaker. The foundation is cutting the flow.
Enkrid devoted his entire walking time to contemplating swordsmanship.
This helped as well—understanding with the head before moving the body.
Because he grasped this principle, Enkrid kept a similar approach when teaching swordsmanship to others.
"Understanding first."
For those who had reached a certain level, this worked well. For those below that?
"Run first."
Stamina is the basis of everything. In terms of building city walls, it's like tamping the ground even before laying the foundation stones.
Thus, training stamina is training the self, and such training helps no matter what you do.
Enkrid believed in these fundamentals as firmly as he believed in his own creed.
In his view, anyone preparing for something should already be running.
When he stepped into Cross Guard, Enkrid saw a man in front of him running hard, drenched in sweat.
The moment he saw him, his mouth opened naturally.
"So you were here?"
Some people refuse to be forgotten. Thinking on it, the impression this man had made on him might not have been that intense, yet the memory remained vivid.
"The first time we met, he came at me like a naked brat at his father's side."
In Western parlance, you'd call him a "pup." The meaning is a newborn, a dog within a year of birth.
More intimately parsed, they used the same word for a person who had just begun to live properly.
"It's a dual meaning—that someone who has just begun to live right is newly born."
So Rem had said. Western words often carried dual meanings.
The word "dark-dawn" could both mean that darkness covered the sun and, at the same time, refer to dawn, the darkest moment before daybreak.
Some also called it "dark-sky."
If it's "dark-dawn," it leans toward dawn; if it becomes "dark-sky," it lays more weight on the darkness.
Whatever the meaning, if the speaker puts a positive intent into it, even "dark-sky" becomes dawn before daybreak.
He didn't know why that complex Western turn of phrase sprang to mind now.
It popped up unbidden while he was thinking of swordsmanship.
The running man stopped. At Enkrid's words, he turned his gaze. A few passersby recognized Enkrid's face.
The man who stopped didn't care that eyes around them were gathering.
"Just ended up here."
He spoke. To Enkrid's eye, what should he call it—his gaze looked alive.
The man's name was Edin Molsen.
He was the son of Count Molsen, who had once held a demon of the Demon Realm, and the master of the civil war that had given Enkrid the epithet savior of the realm.
A drop of sweat fell—splack—from his sweat-wet blond hair. It struck the neatly laid flagstones and sank in.
Outwardly his build was much leaner than before. Had he put down the sword?
It was a knight's eye. The body's balance was better than before, there was no extra flesh, his stance gave a sense of stability, but—
"He did put down the sword."
Strictly speaking, he still gripped a blade for fitness and self-defense, but real training had stopped.
He was keeping it only at the level of basic literacy.
The muscles peeking from his short sleeves looked tough and dense, but—
"He trained the body, not swordsmanship."
He must have run every day. In rain or snow, wherever he was.
There was a scar on his face he hadn't had before—a line from his left cheek down to his jaw.
"Not from a blade."
It looked like it had torn on something he'd caught on. Did he slip on a mountain?
Just from build, stance, and gaze, Enkrid glimpsed Edin's past. He had not lived patting his belly in ease.
Enkrid recalled the last time he had seen Edin. He had left with his younger sister—for the sake of a peaceful life.
Though the observation and thoughts seem long, they happened in an instant. A knight's thinking speed cannot be compared to a common person's.
"Your face looks better."
Enkrid said. Edin Molsen looked at him for a moment and then opened his mouth.
"Thanks to you, Sir."
And he bowed his head. That posture was nobility itself. He was a different man now from when he had been under his father.
So it looked to Enkrid's eyes. As for the dragonkin, the Frog, and the fairy, they showed interest in their own ways no matter whom Enkrid spoke with. So the fairy didn't care because the other was a man; the dragonkin observed with a cool eye and murmured "surprised, but stabilized quickly"; and the Frog, lacking curiosity, only repeated the name, "Edin Molsen?"
Luagarne searched her memory.
When she had stood by the queen's side, the most troublesome presence had been Count Molsen. The man before her was his son.
Frogs did not judge people by blood relation, so she had no particular preconception.
She simply thought,
"Better than expected."
That was all. He had a scar on his face, but he was rather good-looking. Perhaps because he'd shed extra flesh and filled in with fine muscle, his jawline was sharp, and overall he was quicker-cut than before.
It made his looks shine. Not quite a beautiful youth, but quite handsome.
If Kraiss saw him, he would at least mull over whether to invite him to the salon.
A person's face doesn't change easily, yet his temperament had altered and his air with it. The man must have gone through all sorts of things to arrive at the present.
Curiosity pricked her, but not enough to speak.
The last member of the party, Odd-Eyes, was simply ambling through the city off to one side. He didn't whinny; with eyes of different colors, he looked over the city and its people and learned the roads.
No one knew it in detail, but Odd-Eyes memorized and internalized the lay and geography wherever he went. It was a habit from his wild-horse days.
Many were startled to see this curious company. Most startled of all was the castellan of Cross Guard.
"U-uhk, wha—no—why—here—welcome!"
The castellan ran out without even tying his bootlaces. The four soldiers who came behind him as guard widened their eyes in surprise.
Why on earth was the captain of the Mad Order of Knights here?
"Inspection."
Enkrid tore his gaze from Edin and answered plainly.
"If it were just the two of us, it could have been a date."
The fairy kept saying it without ever tiring.
At this rate, whoever they met and whatever they talked about, she would bring up that line.
"Struck dumb by surprise. Tension. Secret. Dizziness."
The dragonkin spoke, looking at the castellan's state. He watched the changes in people as they reacted upon meeting Enkrid.
"Why do those who stand by this man's side change?"
For a dragonkin to raise such a question was a very rare thing. Naturally, no one knew a dragonkin's inner thoughts, so no one was surprised.
In any case, he read the castellan's mind and spoke.
"Eh? Wh-what?"
The one with vertically-slitted eyes suddenly blurted something strange. It was hard for the castellan not to be flustered.
"Discomfort. Tension."
The dragonkin said again.
"Enough."
The Frog checked him.
The castellan of Cross Guard was a sound person, but not a man of extraordinary ability. Rather, he was a worrier.
It had been a placement touched by Abnaier's breath. This castellan, as much as he worried, was also warm-hearted and knew how to cherish people. In Abnaier's observation, he was exactly the sort Enkrid would favor.
Even if he didn't win the Mad Order's goodwill in particular, he wasn't the sort to commit anything strange in Cross Guard.
Abnaier had placed him here with those calculations in mind.
"Eh? I—um. What brings you?"
The castellan repeated the same question.
"An inspection that fell short of becoming a date, human."
Shinar answered in his stead. In the meantime, Edin slipped away and started running again. Enkrid glanced at the running Edin. His clothes were soaked. It was the mark of a man who had run unremittingly, and many around them recognized him and greeted him.
So he hadn't stayed here just a day or two.
"Edin has been staying here?"
Enkrid asked, watching Edin depart. The castellan's complexion went even paler. He took a few breaths and answered.
"I know. That he's Count Molsen's son. I also know it could be a problem."
So why keep such a man? People act with reasons.
Especially a castellan—even if he's a good man—knows politics. And right now the thing Azpen minds most is the Border Guard. A whole, intact order of knights was quartered in a city that shared a border.
If the king went mad tomorrow or the captain went mad—if one of the two went mad and war began—Azpen would, at best, be reduced to a vassal.
The castellan of Cross Guard knew at least that much. If his head didn't work even to that degree, Abnaier would never have seated him here.
"I've received a great deal of help. In return, what that man wanted was only a small house and a place to stay with his younger sister."
Did Edin still desire peace? Was all he wanted to live in a space separate from what his rebel father had done, free of his father's embrace?
"I see."
Enkrid shrugged. The gesture meant: understood, I'll let it pass.
The castellan had at least that much sense. It meant he would let it pass for now—what might happen later, who knew.
"I'll show you inside."
Even at best, Cross Guard was not a wealthy city. It was closer to a fortress city that watched the Border Guard.
"For that, though—"
It wasn't on the Border Guard's level, but it was a solid, stable city. It hadn't been, before; now it was.
Enkrid saw that a Temple of Plenty had been built where the slum he had once infiltrated to see had stood.
"Not bad."
If this was the castellan's judgment, he had to be quite the operator.
Poverty had been Cross Guard's chronic disease. Enkrid didn't know it, but several small crime guilds had taken root among the slums and been a headache.
Why had a Temple of Plenty gone up there? He didn't have to think long.
"The Temple of Plenty needs to clean up what they did."
Earlier, a new religion—more precisely, someone claiming the title of the Gray God—had stepped forward, and an Apostle of Plenty had been entangled in it. Afterward, in the sacred city of Legion, their voice would have been diminished. In short, Plenty had lost power.
Where does a temple's strength come from? Of course, from believers. Their faith is the temple's very reserve of power. The Temple of Plenty clung to the scripture that said they would gather people up from the bottom and care for the needy.
"No—now they had to cling to it."
It was exactly that time. Whether poor or not, they had to survive even if they poured out all the wealth they'd stored in their granaries.
"Was it Noah's suggestion?"
Perhaps. At any rate, these temples picked up and cared for the poor among the poor—the children, the powerless. In doing so, they neatly erased the space where slums could stand.
No matter how badly they'd been hit, they would still have force and resources enough to send to a single city.
"A few of those Rusted Chain fellows were a problem, but they've been dealt with too. We had the Border Guard take the commission."
The castellan went on about things that hadn't been asked. It meant he had made smart use even of the soldier-mercenary system of the city right next door, the Border Guard.
Kraiss acknowledged Enkrid's quick mind. Just by listening to the castellan, he sketched how the city had changed.
"If needed, borrow strength from anywhere."
Borrow Legion's strength to push out the slums and stretch out a hand to the Border Guard as well to cut out the city's problems.
"The hand of the trade city reached in too."
He caught sight of a few of the banks and shops they boasted.
The city's roads were cleanly paved, and a Lockfried caravan wagon rolled along them at leisure.
"That road was a gift from the head of the Lockfried Caravan."
Leona was an excellent merchant. She wouldn't lay roads at a loss. What had she wanted from this city?
"So you opened trade with Azpen."
Lockfried's expansion wasn't simply because it sat at the junction where the Stone Road came in from the West.
"From the trade city on out, they stretched hands everywhere."
Was trade with Azpen a great profit?
"She must have had her eyes on what came after as well."
Azpen had ties with the Empire. She meant to open trade routes that way.
Leona's inner mind could be read. However, who had made all this fit so neatly together? Who had made the city this firm? Was the castellan before his eyes the protagonist of this work?
"Doesn't feel like it."
Sitting in the receiving room, Enkrid scratched his chin. The guards had been reduced to two—a narrow-eyed man and a man whose right forearm was conspicuously thick.
The difference in forearm size meant long hours spent swinging a weapon and training.
"Both mercenary stock."
Enkrid had spent considerable time in the mercenary world as well. He observed the two who had entered as the castellan's guards; whatever their skill, they looked like men one could trust.
To hire mercenaries like that, you needed a keen eye.
That too was a kind of resourcefulness.
The reason the castellan was saying things that didn't need saying was that he knew he had done something wrong. He had taken in the son of a man who had raised rebellion in Naurillia.
Seen one way, it was something for which he could lose his head with no complaint.
And just now, the captain of the Mad Order had shown up and run into him—ill luck beyond ill luck. That was the core of his tension and unease.
"Did you receive help from Edin?"
Enkrid asked. The castellan swallowed with a gulp. From here on, a single wrong word meant straight to the abyss.