Once again, he rode the wind and flew. Enkrid, as usual, tried to sink into thought while recalling the techniques of the knight he'd faced, but drowsiness rushed over him at once.
It felt like he'd walked for three days and three nights without sleeping, then stopped and sat down.
'Rest. Rest comes first.'
Esther's hallucinated voice came. She had cast the spell on the premise that Enkrid would rest atop Odd-Eye.
If it were a situation where they were wary of each other, it would be a spell that wouldn't even work properly, but Enkrid didn't doubt Esther. His heart was open, and the spell took hold more easily than ever.
The tension in his muscles loosened and he slackened. The moment of lying down on grass and falling asleep under languid afternoon sunlight flickered through his mind. Was even this Esther's consideration? Or was it instinct, trying to shake off fatigue by flying for three days and three nights?
He didn't know. It wasn't that important, either.
'Let's sleep a little.'
And didn't it even feel like Esther was beside him, glaring indifferently every time he tried to endure?
'Why are you resisting when I cast a spell for you to rest?'
Another hallucination.
His body swayed, then settled onto Odd-Eye's back. Over that, the cloak stretched and wrapped around him. The dark green coat extended down to Odd-Eye's belly and fixed Enkrid's body in place. This time, he even heard Shinar's hallucinated voice.
"Don't overdo it, fiancé. Who do you think is here?"
A fairy who had turned all the enemy knights' heads into potatoes on the southern front laughed as she spoke. Hallucination plus illusion.
He swept the stray thoughts away. Right before falling asleep, Enkrid recalled the ones he'd just faced. Every one of them had been threatening, but there had been nothing impossible about fighting them.
With only himself and Jaxon, they had killed five knight-class combat powers, and before coming here, he had cut down two.
'Then why?'
As if Krais had possessed him, unease wouldn't leave one corner of his heart.
With even the cloak wrapping his body, it was harder to endure. Enkrid closed his eyes and fell into sleep.
He had a short dream.
"Do you think you're late?"
The Ferryman asked. A purple lamp swayed over black river water.
"Am I late?"
"Who knows."
"Why don't you know?"
Slosh—
The ferry rocked. It should have made his body sway left and right, but both the Ferryman and he were unchanged.
At some point, the Ferryman's robe had slipped half off. From within, eyes like emeralds stared straight at Enkrid.
Thud.
The Ferryman gripped the oar and struck the bottom. He had no idea where that oar even came from. He wasn't curious, either.
Short blond hair and eyes like emeralds—when the oar's tip struck the bottom, a heavy reverberation rose from his soles to his head.
"Fate is cruel and the world is vicious. Ah, that wasn't something I said. I played to my heart's content and left."
The Ferryman's words were often kind and gentle, yet difficult to parse, but this time it was worse.
"Sleep. Rest. Catch your breath."
The Ferryman who had taken off the robe said it, and Enkrid closed his eyes. His body scattered like grains of sand and vanished. Watching it, something like a smile formed on the Ferryman's face.
"Interesting bastard."
If you heard her tone as she muttered and saw the expression that surfaced, it wasn't hard to guess what emotion she held. She showed anticipation.
***
"We blocked what the enemy was aiming for, so why does this feel like the end isn't here, but the start?"
Marcus muttered.
"Why are you telling me that?"
That was Aisia's answer.
"You can't show that kind of unease to other people, can you?"
It wasn't wrong. You couldn't show a commander's anxiety to ordinary soldiers or officers.
"You're uneasy even after seeing Enkrid cut down two knights?"
"Yeah. I'm uneasy."
Was it because it was war—war with the south, at that? To Marcus, Rihinstetten wasn't a place you could simply call an enemy nation.
What had his father's wish been?
"Do you want to kill everyone living in the south? What, do you see me as some slaughterer who'll be written down in history books for generations? We have to stop fighting the south. In the process of stopping, I won't say I don't feel like hitting them a few times, but more than that, I want to say we should stop humans fighting humans over the Demon Realm."
Marquis Baisar's vessel hadn't been small. He was a man worthy of the grand duke's seat, worthy of leading one of the five families that supported Naurillia. Among the talks Marcus had shared with his father, it was the moment he remembered most.
"Ceasefire."
His father's words held two syllables. Wasn't it like a dream someone recited?
So many people on this land wanted that, that perhaps the gods of the heavens had agreed and sent someone to have it resolved. Marcus was more devout to the god of the scales than he looked.
"If you're uneasy, wake early. One of the few good pieces of advice my dead father left. Let's do what we have to do."
That was what Marcus added. It meant: instead of trembling with unease, use that strength to carry one more rock, grip a shovel one more time.
Aisia only nodded. She had nothing more to say. For a moment, Aisia looked at the southern sky.
The day was good. The sunlight was clear and the clouds were few. The air was cold, but it was a day where warm sun blocked a little of that cold.
***
"Is it okay that we're not going to Border Guard?"
"For now, we have to wait. He said to hold here no matter what."
Count Harrison had escaped the threat. And the standing troops left at Border Guard didn't leave their position. That choice was right.
Some of the soldiers who had been bound in Esther's swamp came back around, aiming for this territory. They meant to occupy the count's land and hold it. If it went as they wanted, it would mean a bandit gang would be born that had taken land.
"Kill them all!"
They charged in from far away without hesitation, and the standing troops met them, thinking what the hell these were.
Among them were plenty of soldiers who had sucked down that drug called Carny Festa, with muscles swelling and reason blurring, but this side was Rem's direct unit.
"Looks like when the captain goes berserk."
"Ah, every time that happened, I wanted to smack him so bad."
These were the kind who expressed their respect for Rem in their own way. Now they expressed some of that respect toward the enemy.
Drugged or not, the gap in skill was clear. An axe split an enemy soldier's head.
"Split their heads or burst their hearts."
They didn't only resemble Rem's violence. The vice-commander quickly figured out how to bring enemies down. The fight was one-sided.
After things were roughly wrapped up, a unit member asked.
"Think Captain Rem is playing with stuff like this?"
"He'll be playing with worse than this."
That was the vice-commander's answer. He'd said it without thinking, but it was correct. Rem was currently killing elephants, hanging around with masked weirdos, and even knocking lightning off course.
***
'Did he die? Barik?'
The High Pontiff recalled the Mud Knights' commander. The crystal ball that was supposed to shine at set times had no response. The tool that conveyed words through the number and length of blinks remained silent. What did that silence mean?
'Failure.'
Failure after failure. Barik, and the two from the Ruby Knights he'd sent to strike the capital—none of them had contacted him. And the vanguard unit—more precisely, part of the vanguard—had been blocked.
There was nothing good, but the High Pontiff didn't even twitch an eyebrow. He simply observed.
'How well they fight.'
Attitude, momentum, presence, skill, spirit, will.
He examined everything. The conclusion? Excellent. Enough to admire.
In particular, the knight who had blocked the vanguard left an impression.
The High Pontiff's expression stayed the same. Even his breathing didn't change. Just by outward appearance, it was hard to guess his mood or thoughts.
If he got angry, wouldn't that act also be mixed with calculation? Everyone under the High Pontiff thought the same.
He made countless plans. A man who stacked stones and built towers. A great man who enjoyed that.
Even him coming here wasn't because of the opponent's provocation—it was part of a plan he'd already drawn. Only, each time he took out those prepared strategies and tactics, the opponent smashed them again and again.
Someone might have been irritated at their plan being broken, but the High Pontiff wasn't.
'Interesting.'
In this moment, the High Pontiff felt enjoyment. How long had it been since he'd watched an opponent who surpassed what he'd prepared?
If you excluded the lords of the Demon Realm, there were very few people who could even do something like a fight with him.
He grasped the process of failure, pondered, worried, and found detailed reasons. It was reflexive behavior. A habit hardened over a long time.
'The rear's failure was a misjudgment in assessing enemy strength.'
The griffon's failure wasn't even something he had assumed. That wasn't failure—it was the natural result. The opponent was Cypress of the Red Cloak. Draining his strength was enough for the griffons and three knights' role. It seemed they hadn't even done that properly.
His eyes peeled through the opponent's insides layer by layer. From the start, that vanguard had only been meant to drain the knights strength.
What was revealed in the process stacked up, neatly, in his mind.
'The Madmen Order of Knights.'
The ones who shook the board he'd set.
"My lord, Cypress didn't even step in."
Beside him, the leader of the newly formed knight order spoke. He was also Rihinstetten's supreme commander and one of the south's strongest knights.
As the common saying went, if Naurillia had Cypress, Rihinstetten had Beharlikh.
Puff.
The supreme commander puffed his cheeks. A light emotional expression unique to his race. He was showing his will toward the opponent he'd targeted.
The goal that stoked his will was killing someone. That someone had the name Cypress.
"Beharlikh, your wish will be fulfilled."
Frogs rarely became knights. Their talent appraisal also made them face their own limits.
Once you reached a certain age, you naturally knew how far you could reach and where you ended.
Knowing something can, at times, become a greater obstacle to doing it. It meant the Frog's talent thickened their limits.
Knights were those who went beyond that limit.
That was why Frog knights were rare.
Beharlikh puffed his cheeks twice as much. He made no effort to read the High Pontiff's heart. Like other Frogs, he lived for his purpose and desire.
For that, he stayed by the High Pontiff. For that, he had been his sword until now. He fiddled with the loop sword at his waist. His body itched.
"You're always lucky, Cypress."
At the Frog's mutter, the High Pontiff spoke as if answering.
"I intend to test that luck. At dawn tomorrow, line up the entire Faceless Order of Knights and show them to the enemy."
On the continent today, one of the easiest ways to raise an army's morale was to put knights in front.
The High Pontiff chose the straight path. He moved one of the knight orders under his command.
Once, Rihinstetten's knight orders were five: Ruby, Amethyst, Sapphire, Mud, and Onyx.
Among them, Sapphire and Onyx were wiped out fighting one of the lords of the Demon Realm, and Ruby, Amethyst, and Mud remained.
When only three knight orders remained, the High Pontiff judged he had to tear apart and rebuild the current system. He held nothing back. He didn't weigh methods. He mobilized everything he could.
Thus he reorganized the knight orders. Those who would replace the Ruby, Amethyst, and Mud orders.
One of them was the Faceless Order of Knights, and their strength was in numbers.
***
"Madman Lawford!"
Cheers rang out. Lawford judged that the wounds left on his body were more serious than he'd thought.
'I didn't underestimate them.'
Should he say the southern knights' level was higher than expected?
'Still better than getting hit by that bastard Rem's axe.'
If it was bastard Rem, it was bastard Rem, and if it was Sir Rem, it was Sir Rem—but when you were in the Madmen Order of Knights, even forms of address went mad.
Lawford drank the potion Anne had given him as the soldiers cheered.
"If you're hurt, drink it. It's a knight-only potion, so don't give it to soldiers."
Anne's gift. There had been three potions. He drank one of them.
The taste was the worst. Like ground lizard tail. Sour, and the thick smell was like someone had mixed ash into it.
Even so, he swallowed. The effect was excellent. His stomach grew warm, and strength surged through his whole body.
Lawford raised one hand in response to the soldiers' cheers.
"Madman Lawford!"
And then he turned and returned to the original place. As he went, Lawford checked the rear. More than half the enemy unit was dead, and the blood spilled by the fallen elephant, if you exaggerated a little, looked like it had made a stream made of blood.
And he could see that even though the enemy had lost the first engagement, they weren't all that shaken.
"Hey, where'd you get hit and come wobbling around bleeding?"
Pel came up and spoke. Anne's medicine had worked well. Thanks to it, he hadn't collapsed on the way back.
"It's kind of deep."
Lawford said it like it was nothing.
"Who did it?"
"Don't know. I didn't even see his face properly. He hid among the soldiers, just stabbed at the timing he wanted, then slipped out."
"That's why you're a prude. Getting hit by something like that."
"Don't underestimate me, idiot."
Pel supported Lawford quietly. He didn't sling an arm over his shoulder, but he walked with his leg pressed to the outside of Lawford's leg so he wouldn't fall.
"If you collapse here, the morale we just raised goes to shit."
"I know."
Lawford endured and returned to the main camp's tent. Audin met him.
"Did you drink the medicine Sister Anne gave you? Don't worry. You won't die."
After that, the priesthood Audin had secured stepped in and treated him. They pressed cloth to the wound and applied medicine.
"Hoo."
Lawford let out a heated breath. Each time they spread the medicine, a burning pain made the hair on his head stand up.
"Now you rest a bit, prude."
Pel said. In Pel's eyes as he spoke, killing intent and fighting spirit filled them. He had seen the scene at the end where Lawford got cut. He had only caught a glimpse of the blade too. Meaning, he hadn't seen the opponent. Instead, he had seen something else.
Lawford could have avoided it. He could have. He could have just pulled back. The opponent knew that too—that was why he cut like that.
You can dodge. But if you pull back, dozens of soldiers will die in an instant.
Wasn't that what it seemed to be saying?
'Ah, what a really irritating bastard.'
Pel became curious about the owner of that knifing.