"What are you doing?"
Anne, covered in blood, asked. Enkrid, holding the flaming piece of firewood, said,
"Playing with fire."
With those words, he tossed the wood into the dry brush. As it hadn't rained for the past few days, the pile of brush mixed with thin, brown thorns caught fire in an instant.
Fwoosh!
In the time it took to take a few breaths, the flames shot up to Enkrid's waist.
"...Excuse me?"
Anne asked again, but the others knew why Enkrid was doing it.
Since it was dark, his intention must be to light up the surroundings and draw out whoever was hiding.
After watching for a moment, the blaze grew larger than anyone present. One would believe a giant of fire had come to play.
Enkrid watched the flames rise and sharpened his senses even further.
'Where are you?'
Enkrid stood in front of Anne, guarding the area. The smell was still there. Ragna, seeing Enkrid's position, came and stood behind Anne.
"Why?"
Anne couldn't perceive the killing intent. But just from the atmosphere, she could tell something was wrong. Unless she was a fool, she couldn't fail to notice that the two of them had taken positions to protect her.
A monster had been cut down above her head, and she had been drenched in its blood.
"It seems you're the target. You didn't run off after cheating someone out of Krona, did you?"
Enkrid said, mixing in a joke.
Grida glanced toward Anne. It wouldn't do if the person they had to protect got too scared, and she wondered why he would say such a thing.
But Anne didn't fall into a panic at his words. When it came to having guts, she wouldn't easily lose to anyone.
Hadn't she traveled alone, entrusting herself to a merchant caravan, all the way to the Border Guard?
"It wasn't much."
Anne said, wiping the black blood from her face.
"You had a debt?"
"Just a little. I was in a hurry back then. If they come looking, pay them back for me."
"Uh, sure."
Enkrid had also worked as a bodyguard before coming to the Border Guard. Although most of that work involved playing the part of a doll for noble ladies, it wasn't as if he had learned nothing.
When the opponent's target was clear, the bodyguard's position was also clear.
"What is it?"
Ragna instinctively felt a sense of wrongness, and Enkrid, through experience, identified the source of that feeling.
"A spell."
That answer was enough.
Anne was faithful to her role. Which meant she shut her mouth and sat still.
The attack had occurred before midnight, and they stayed up all night.
The fire did not spread far. Although there were a few clumps of brush, it wasn't a wide-open area.
"You're not planning for us all to burn to death here, are you?"
Partway through, Grida skillfully set a backfire to extinguish the flames.
They spent the dawn with gray smoke filling the area, but even then, the enemy remained silent. When the backfire was set, the smoke had just begun to rise, obscuring their vision, which would have been a perfect opportunity.
Though she hadn't said it, Grida had done it with that in mind. Of course, controlling the blaze was also one of the reasons.
And still, they didn't attack.
Enkrid was lost in thought.
'Are they being cautious? Or are they scared?'
Could it be both? Since he couldn't picture the opponent, prediction was difficult. No, even if he knew, he wouldn't have recklessly predicted the enemy's judgment.
None of them were lacking in stamina to that extent. But staying up all night on high alert was hardly enjoyable.
It was an irritating night. Or one could call it a nerve-wracking night.
"This isn't fun."
Odinkar said, looking at the rising sun. Instead of answering, Enkrid continued his thoughts.
'Do they think of us as prey?'
The cloying sweet smell that had lingered around them disappeared as dawn broke. Had the scent lingering on the dry flower petal reached the end of its life, or had someone intentionally removed the flower that was right under their noses?
It had to be the latter. It felt like he had been in a standoff with his sword drawn all night.
An enemy whose location couldn't even be pinpointed.
'What is this?'
He couldn't know. He only knew one thing.
Odinkar had said it wasn't fun, but for him, that wasn't the case.
Enkrid doesn't shy away from a fight. This was a part of Enkrid's nature that even Grida and Magrun had not yet grasped.
Whatever the form of the fight, Enkrid is a fighter who never refuses any battle. If he didn't have this disposition, he would never have been able to begin the history of struggle he had drawn up to the present.
He would have quit when he was defeated by a kid a dozen years younger than him.
A fight isn't just about holding swords against someone.
Fighting against a world that tells you to give up, against the despair that rises within yourself, is also a fight.
Of course, uncovering the schemes of someone hiding like this was also a part of the fight.
"We need to go somewhere with water. I need to wash up."
Enkrid said. Anne was soaked in the monster's blood. The plan was to wash up first.
Everyone agreed. Grida, who had gotten up, led them all to a stream she had spotted the previous evening.
"If we go this way, there should be a stream."
She was an excellent guide. Enkrid also had experience as a guide, but Grida's skills were superior to any guide he had seen then.
She assessed the surrounding terrain in detail and quickly. Magrun was the one guiding the route, but it was Grida who had led the party this far.
It was the same now. She found the direction of the stream in no time.
She had already scouted the path when gathering firewood by smelling the surrounding soil and observing the growth of the trees and the direction the green grass was growing.
Why had she done it then when they didn't need water?
If you went to the Guides' Guild, you would get an answer like this.
Because guides are people who prepare for all sorts of things.
In addition to this, Grida had identified paths where monsters were likely to appear, traces of beasts, and even the droppings of animals that had survived in the wild.
And in her judgment, as someone who could immediately become a top-level guide at the Guides' Guild, last night's attack was awkward and strange.
Normally, there should have been no attack at all. If not, there should have been some sort of precursor.
Because they had chosen a path where that was the case.
'It feels like a trap someone has hidden.'
Intuition can sometimes be as fine a weapon as the sword in one's hand. Grida knew that too. Something was nagging at her mind.
But for now, there was nothing she could say.
While walking and thinking, Grida came across the stream just as she had expected. It was ankle-deep water that trickled downwards.
Having found the stream, Grida turned to the party. In her line of sight was the healer with freckles on her cheeks. Her name was Anne.
'Why are they targeting her?'
Was she just twenty? Or maybe younger. A child who could barely be called an adult, and an excellent healer.
That was all she knew.
She could be a target. A grudge or some other reason, there could be something she didn't know.
But thinking this way also didn't make sense.
The enemy had watched them from hiding, even though there was nowhere to hide.
'Is such an enemy common?'
A being that wasn't caught by her senses, nor by the senses of everyone present?
Not easy. Why would someone with such abilities?
There wasn't a single thing that wasn't strange.
The party washed at the water's edge and gathered drinking water. The horses also drank their fill. After roughly washing, drinking, and filling their waterskins, they started walking forward again.
"The weather is really nice."
Anne said, looking at the sky, then turned her gaze forward and continued.
"And we have a long way to go."
As she said, it was a day where sunlight streamed down through a thin layer of clouds.
Except for the small forest they had entered to find the stream a moment ago, there was nothing to obstruct their view.
This was especially true for the path ahead.
Several bumpy, uneven hills could be seen in the distance, but for now, the area was open on all sides.
To the left and right, black soil that looked like it had been kneaded by hand was visible in abundance.
"I heard this area used to be a volcanic zone. There's also a story that a fire monster summoned by the Magyeongseongjigyo settled here for a while."
Enkrid said, looking around. He had heard a story that the volcano had erupted because of that monster.
The terrain was gradually rising. If they continued straight, they would head towards a path that climbed the mountain range.
Beyond the hills in front of them, a seemingly gentle mountain range was visible. It was a part of the Pen-Hanil Mountains, like the spine of a giant beast that spanned the entire continent.
"Let's get some sleep here before we go."
Grida offered her opinion as the guide. Enkrid agreed. They had spent a day on high alert. It was unexpected.
In that case, they could rest to maintain their best condition.
It was a guide-like judgment.
Also, there was no reason to push the schedule unreasonably.
"The disease you believe to be a curse doesn't cause a seizure overnight, nor does it kill overnight. Right before death, the person suffers for at least two weeks before dying. If it hasn't changed from what I know."
As if to ask for confirmation of that fact, she looked at Odinkar and Magrun, and Magrun nodded.
"That's right. They suffer before they die. Before that, there are precursory signs that we only talk about among ourselves."
"Is that so? That's a relief."
And it was Ragna who answered. Magrun looked at him.
Why was he saying it was a relief? Was he worried about him?
Magrun had never interacted with Ragna separately. When Ragna left, Magrun was not yet old enough to pull his own weight.
"It means you can get all your postponed work done right before you die, doesn't it? Am I wrong?"
Ragna added.
Since Magrun didn't know the old Ragna, he just assumed that's the kind of person he was.
But was it true that a guy so full of motivation and passion had left Zaun because sword training was boring?
'Is there something I don't know?'
Magrun had his doubts, but they were in vain.
"...Uh, you're right."
After Magrun replied to Ragna, the party decided to take turns on watch in pairs, and Enkrid decided to sleep in shifts with Ragna.
"I hate this kind of thing."
Odinkar said while checking his gear. In terms of one-on-one combat, Odinkar was one of the most talented in the Zaun family, but he hated dealing with hidden enemies or pursuing them.
If you weren't going to fight openly with a sword, why bother attacking at all?
Of course, that didn't mean his knightly senses were gone, and he knew basic tracking skills from what he had learned in Zaun.
It was just that he had no interest, so he had learned it roughly and moved on, meaning his skills were insufficient.
Enkrid stood the first watch with Odinkar. During the day, they had unpacked the luggage tied to the horses, set it up as a makeshift tent, and left it open for the wind to pass through.
The two of them were spending time squatting in front of it, yawning.
Even Enkrid couldn't suggest sparring here.
"We can't just spar, can we?"
So when Odinkar asked this, Enkrid was able to scold him harshly.
"Are you in your right mind? Or are you suggesting we set our minds aside and just flail around with our swords?"
You can't have a proper spar with your alertness raised to the highest level.
Conversely, if you focus on sparring, your alertness is bound to drop.
"I know we can't."
"You have a habit of asking things you already know. That's a bad habit. Fix it."
Odinkar had a habit of choosing his words carefully with everyone, not so much because he was worried about misunderstandings from misspeaking, but more because he hated having to repeat himself because his words weren't understood properly.
But Enkrid understood whatever he said just fine, and on top of that, he grasped his intentions.
Thanks to that, Odinkar also spoke comfortably only to Enkrid.
"You have a knack for speaking obnoxiously."
"Uh, that's right. You can tell me what's worrying you."
He could cut to the core in an instant like now, a way of speaking that made it fine for him to beat around the bush.
To notice that he was circling the topic because of a worry, his perception was truly extraordinary.
With the thought that he was a strange guy, Odinkar let out the words he had been holding inside.
"Unlike the Head's child in there, Zaun is what I would call my everything."
That was likely true. Odinkar was always prepared to return, and he didn't hide his respect and devotion to the family.
"And so?"
When Enkrid prompted him to continue, Odinkar blurted out.
"I just have a bad feeling."
"A bad feeling? Let's hear what it is."
"It's just an intuition. A feeling like something might have happened to the family. I know. As Magrun said, this isn't the family's territory yet, nor is it Imperial territory. We'd have to cross those hills and the mountain range over there to call it Imperial territory. Of course, that's not completely Imperial territory either."
Odinkar said, pointing with his left index finger towards the distant mountain range. It was broad daylight, so even distant places were clearly visible.
Little is known about the form of the Empire. Even Odinkar, who grew up in the Zaun family, didn't know the details, so there was nothing more to be gained by asking.
Besides, what he wanted to talk about now wasn't about the Empire.
"Still, I feel like I have to go protect the family."
A sense of belonging and anxiety seemed to intersect. Enkrid didn't offer any particular comfort.
"Shouldn't I be where I'm supposed to be? I have that thought too."
From what he heard, Odinkar hadn't wanted to get involved in this from the beginning.
"Ragna Zaun. Yes, I've heard of him. But wasn't it enough for someone other than me to bring him back?"
"If you think so, why did you come?"
Enkrid said, picking up a twig and doodling in the dirt. The sharp tip of the branch drew several lines, all related to swordsmanship.
"They said there was no one else to go."
"And?"
He was trailing off because there was more to it. Enkrid knew that Odinkar always had a habit of saying the important things last. It was something you could know without exchanging many words. It's something that's easy to see if you approach with an attitude of listening attentively.
"The Head told me to leave."
So it was half-forced.
Enkrid understood intuitively. After the trivial talk, they both fell into their own thoughts.
A few hours later, when their watch was over, Ragna and Magrun woke up.
"Get some sleep. We still have a long way to go."
Magrun said as they switched.
Even if they took a short break, the task at hand wouldn't change. Enkrid knew that too.
And when he closed his eyes, using his backpack as a pillow under the tent roof, Enkrid knew he was on a rocking boat.
The ferryman he hadn't seen in a while was before him. At the edge of the swaying boat, a purple lamp scattered light. Through the faintly shining violet light, gray skin and a slender jawline came into view.