"You'll die like that too."
The ferryman said it. Today's ferryman had his face covered by a rippling purple light. From some point on, you could roughly make out what he looked like, but not today. It was like he was wearing a mask. Or was it makeup?
"Did you dress that face up, in your own way?"
Enkrid said it. It was a question asking if he was hiding an ugly face with something.
The light covering the ferryman's face wavered for a moment. He didn't reveal that he'd been flustered by asking back.
"What a nasty joke."
Enkrid pushed his back off the side of the boat and stood up. The railing was higher than before. The boat was bigger than the one he was used to.
One of the places he'd brushed past in the dream within a dream just now came to mind. On a boat shaped similarly to this, a swordsman wrapped something like a strap around his sword and fought as he swung it.
All around, monsters about the size of human heads kept rushing in and biting and tearing at bodies.
'Jaws and teeth that could crush human bones in a single bite.'
Of course they were monsters. Like how people said that the monster bestiaries countless scholars rushed to compile were always unfinished, you couldn't know every monster in the world. That was why it was a form he'd never seen before.
'Each individual was dangerous, but.'
The number was truly horrifying. A few thousand? No, it was tens of thousands. Everywhere except the boat was their territory.
Trapped in the middle of that territory, fighting and fighting until he died. A dream like that had also passed by.
Even though the 'me' in that dream was also a fairly skilled fighter, he couldn't hold out.
His end was him planting his sword into the floor and dropping to one knee, in a posture of acceptance. It was the attitude of someone who had accepted something.
"Do you think your end will be any different?"
Even if you weren't sharp, it wasn't hard to know what the dreams he'd gone through meant.
'The ferryman's dreams.'
More accurately, they were the ends of countless ferrymen.
By revealing their own ends, they were saying Enkrid's end wouldn't be beautiful either.
If he couldn't understand it through words, they gave examples, and if he still couldn't accept it through examples, then you could say they'd shown him the real thing.
"You're working hard."
It was a line spoken because he'd seen through all of it. The ferryman also knew that Enkrid had seen through his intent.
"Your future is a drop of water placed on a swaying line. You can't keep going forever."
At even a small shake, it would fall and become part of the pitch-black river.
The purple wave covering the ferryman's face writhed. Enkrid stood up from his seat and stared straight at the ferryman's eyes. He looked at the face hidden inside the mask covered in purple.
"What are you trying to say?"
His heart wasn't going to change because of this much. There was no way the ferryman didn't know that.
His true feelings were like the filling of a well-baked pie. If it was apple pie, the fresh scent would let you guess what was inside, and if it was finely minced meat, the savory smell would tell you first what was inside.
What the ferryman was doing now was like that. The only difference was that he didn't want to let it be known what he had inside.
But can you really hide a smell by covering it?
What was the identity of the faintly rising smell?
'Hesitation? Indecision?'
Something like that showed through. The moment Enkrid observed it and recognized it, the ferryman tore off the purple mask covering his face with his left hand.
No sound came out, but Crack— that kind of sound rang in his ears like an auditory hallucination. The purple mask stretched long as if it had turned into sticky mucus, then went thud and fell as if it had snapped off.
The ferryman, having torn off the mask, threw it into the black river.
"How stifling."
His tone had changed. He revealed his face, but to Enkrid's eyes, the gray skin looked like another mask.
The ferryman's green eyes glittered as he spoke. A gaze that would pierce through whatever was covering his face.
"If you had to choose one of the two, what would you do? It's time to solve the hard problem, mortal."
This time, for some reason, his voice sounded excited.
Thunk.
That was what woke him from the dream. A dream was only a dream, and Enkrid didn't put much meaning into it as he got out of bed.
Another today. Time to prepare for the swordsman Kraiss had spoken of, and to build up what he needed to face demons.
A servant who took on all the small errands like drawing water every dawn asked at the door,
"For breakfast today, which would you like, lamb or pork?"
A knight eats a lot. And among them, Enkrid ate far more than an ordinary knight.
To maintain abnormal strength and reflexes, it was basic that his body had to be supplied with a lot of nutrition.
And naturally, his digestion would be developed too.
The servant in charge of breakfast, matched to Enkrid's schedule, knew that well. That was why the answer from the knight order's captain he served today didn't sound that awkward.
"Both."
Both lamb and pork, in full. That was Enkrid's choice.
'Is this maybe the hard problem where you have to choose one of the two?'
Choosing what to eat was a problem you had to worry about every single day. Enkrid mostly chose to eat everything.
-There's no way.
Somehow, the ferryman's illusion seemed to click its tongue.
***
"What kind of people live in Zaun?"
Lawford asked as he bent his knees and stabbed the neck of a venomous serpent monster hidden at his feet.
Thud.
If he took out the engraved weapon he'd named Rampart, he wouldn't have had to bend his legs, but he deliberately pulled out a short sword and stabbed. It was because he thought it was a waste to smear the beast's blood on his sword.
"If a weapon isn't familiar in your hand, you should swing it even at empty air."
Ragna answered. It wasn't an answer to the question, but an answer to the action.
"I see."
Lawford accepted it easily. If you spared an engraved weapon just because it was an engraved weapon, it would instead not become familiar in your hand and cause danger. A lesson packed into a short line.
Lawford repeated it several times and engraved it into his heart.
To an ordinary person, it was a mountain range you'd have to risk your life to cross, but to these two, it wasn't a rough road.
From time to time a few monsters and beast beasts came out, but both were knights. And one of them—though he'd been broken recently—was a genius of geniuses everyone acknowledged.
The other one too, if it weren't for the Mad Order of Knights, was a skilled fighter enough to compete to be the successor of any knight order.
"Just people live there. It's not any different."
Only then did Ragna answer about Zaun, but even as he spoke he felt awkward. The words he'd let out made him feel like he'd eaten a stew that tasted horribly bad.
"I see."
Lawford didn't ask more, and the two headed for Zaun as they were. Ragna insisted on a shortcut while looking between the trees, but Lawford, having heard words close to brainwashing from Kraiss and even gotten a map from Enkrid for guiding the way, didn't listen to that even with half an ear.
"Yes, that's the shortcut."
He just answered and kept going his own way.
"Your answer and your actions are different, Lawford."
"Ah, were they?"
Looking at Lawford like that, Ragna somehow thought everyone was starting to resemble some part of the captain's qualities.
Lawford was sly, but calmly led Ragna as he moved. And just like he said, every time a monster or beast beast came out, he swung his weapon.
"When you swing from above to below, use force all the way to the end. If you ease up because you cut, the next move gets blocked. If the opponent you thought you killed used a trick, you just died. Don't blindly trust your senses."
To Lawford, every word Ragna said was more precious than gold.
The phrasing was rough, and the explanation was sloppy like a seven-year-old sewing up a torn shirt, but.
'The core is clear.'
Once you're a knight, your reliance on instinct rises. It was him saying not to fight believing only that.
He didn't understand it all. Some of it sounded like words he couldn't make sense of. Even so, it didn't matter.
Lawford had also spent a long time in the Mad Order of Knights. He'd learned the attitude of listening from Enkrid.
And he didn't disregard the experience from the Red Cloak Order of Knights either, and he chewed over what he needed.
'If you can't understand it, memorize it.'
Back when he stayed in the capital, he memorized everything he didn't know and mulled it over. Back then, it was rare for someone to kindly tell you the path forward. There were many who made it their goal to get even a single line from the knights who visited now and then.
If Pel was specialized in senses, Lawford was clearly specialized in intellect. He knew how to use his head.
Maybe that was why Kraiss looked for him whenever something happened.
Anyway, some key part of what Ragna said went right into his ears, and in an instant it crossed into the realm of understanding.
Of course, this too was only possible because there had been days he'd worked and piled things up every day.
'How to prepare for a deceiving sword.'
It was him saying to obsess over the completeness of technique more than what you saw on the surface.
'Even if you swing once, put intent into it.'
Use a technique that matches the intent. Lawford repeated and chewed over what he'd realized again and again. If he slackened even a bit here, he'd get surpassed by that bastard Pel.
'That can't happen.'
And Ragna wasn't someone who cared about other people. It was rare for him to teach anything like this at all. Lawford didn't miss the chance.
"It was fine to swing the sword and follow."
The meaning of what he'd thrown out this time was to use the sword before your feet. In the phrase "fine to follow," the subject was missing, but Lawford understood the words as if possessed.
Whether you held a sword or a spear, the basis of fighting was your feet. Of course, but Lawford was also a knight, so his basics were solid. Then just now, Ragna spat out words that went against those basics, and.
'Why the sword first?'
It was a technique where Ragna reinterpreted Oara's Connecting Sword.
'If it connects, that's that.'
A knight shows motions an ordinary person can't even dream of. Even if you lean your waist back and extend your sword, you split a skull like cracking a ripe pumpkin.
'The point where force acts changes without rest.'
That was the core Ragna was making and conveying.
Even if you didn't blindly trust a knight's senses, it was stupidity not to use what you could do as a knight after becoming one.
"Your way of using Will is crude."
He agreed with those words. Up until now, Lawford had fought like that. Faithful to the basics, he didn't cross the line.
It was the opposite of Pel, who crossed lines without rest.
'Wasn't that my weapon?'
Ragna didn't explain. He just threw out the words needed in that moment.
Taking it in was his job.
'Is it better to have many weapons?'
Suddenly, the words Enkrid had said came back to him. Night came early in the mountains, and it was also the moment when the sunlight that had tilted to one side made a winter sunset. The sun tilted.
The speed at which the light faded was very fast. Shadows stretched out, and the continuing light looked like it was divided into dozens of colors.
A day ends. It announces the end of the time called today. Lawford felt the fixed way of thinking he had break apart.
"Excel at one thing, but then change it so that that excellence becomes ordinary, and when everything becomes balanced, break the balance again."
It was words someone could say only because he'd crawled up from the bottom, because he'd looked at every peak and climbed up.
Lawford felt those words hit his chest now.
'Break the world I made, and fill it again.'
Once it's filled, empty it again. If you want to go forward, you have to do that.
Making everything you have into something ordinary couldn't be easy, but.
'Still do it.'
Because that's how you go forward, and that's how you achieve what you want.
Neither Ragna nor Lawford could feel boredom or anything like it. Each had their own thoughts. If Lawford was fixated on swordsmanship and technique, Ragna mulled over what he'd said.
'Just people, huh.'
It was the answer to the question of what kind of people lived in Zaun.
It was a line he'd spat out without thinking because Lawford asked. As he said it, his mouth felt very rough.
For some reason, the thought wouldn't leave his head the whole way. In the past, he would have turned away with the excuse that it was annoying. That too was part of him, but now he didn't do that.
'Don't use my weak parts as an excuse.'
Saying you lost because you had no time, because you lacked talent, because you had nothing—those were only excuses to Enkrid.
Then to himself too, those were excuses.
'If I'm lacking, then I do what I can while lacking.'
Wasn't that the most impressive part of what his captain had shown?
That was how Ragna looked back at himself.
Had he ever watched the people who lived in Zaun with interest until now? He had no memory of anything like that.
'Walking a fixed path is a boring thing.'
Boredom was a shackle that strangled Ragna's life. Using that as an excuse, he hadn't looked back at anything, and he hadn't taken interest in anyone.
It was while he walked sunk into that thinking.
"Little brother?"
It was near the city of Zaun. Someone who recognized Ragna approached readily.
"Grida."
Ragna also recognized the other person.
"What is it?"
A woman holding a greatsword strode up. There was no wariness showing. She only spoke with a faint disappointment showing.
"You didn't come together? And our Enki is doing well?"
Lawford could tell what she'd been expecting without even asking.
'The enchanting knight.'
Maybe you could say the nickname of Captain Enkrid was shining.
"If he came this time, I was thinking of trying again."
Grida Zaun said it like a joke. There was no need to ask what the "trying" was. Ragna nodded roughly. It was a tone like he was half listening.
Neither of them cared about the other's words or attitude. After exchanging greetings with Lawford for a moment, Grida guided the two into the city.