While Enkrid spent his days training and sparring, and Grida disappeared and returned, Anne hadn't been idle either.
"I need to look around the area a bit."
It was a casually spoken remark, but she didn't just talk—she actually wandered around, familiarizing herself with the paths and meeting people.
"Cough, what?"
"When did you start coughing?"
"I don't know, was it around last summer?"
Disease onset period: six months.
'Main symptom: hemoptysis.'
Though there was a little blood mixed with the cough, according to the patient, it was a symptom that only appeared intermittently when his physical condition was poor.
Three people showed similar symptoms.
"Sometimes my body feels weak, but other than that, there's nothing particularly wrong. Ragna's back safe. Want to have a match?"
There was also someone who said this.
He immediately engaged in sparring with Ragna. From outward appearances, Anne couldn't tell the difference in their skill levels.
However, she could infer from listening to their conversation.
"You've improved tremendously."
When the man with drooping brown hair said this, Ragna retrieved his sword and answered. Shing—the greatsword slid back behind his back.
"Work hard every single day. Then you'll succeed."
"...And you've come back as quite the madman."
Zaun was a place where the talented gathered. No, if you lacked talent, perseverance, and drive for improvement, you couldn't remain.
Those who couldn't adapt here went to the hunters' village.
When their vigor waned with age, they headed to the retirees' village.
That retirees' village was also filled with those who lacked talent.
Facilities like blacksmith shops were gathered in the intermediaries' village, where they lived by trading with the Empire or merchant groups that visited the area.
This was the structure of the Zaun family.
In other words, it was a place where only those with proven talent gathered, and naturally they were people devoted to swinging swords day after day.
To such people, telling them to work hard was like saying.
"You have no talent, so quit."
The man bristled, but the difference in skill was evident.
Anne observed that man carefully and also asked Ragna.
"How was it?"
"Not a terrible level, but I don't know what he'll leave behind behaving like that."
"No, not that. I mean how was his physical condition? Was there anything strange, or did he seem oddly weakened somewhere?"
"There wasn't. He would have been in peak condition."
Though sparring wasn't fighting to the death, it was conversation through swords.
Someone at Ragna's level could roughly gauge his opponent's condition from crossing swords.
"Intermittent manifestation."
Anne muttered. From Ragna's perspective, this girl was also doing something now, and he was helping her with it.
'This too would be one of the things I leave behind.'
Enkrid protected people. He had seen that many times. At first, only questions remained.
'Why?'
It was a sword swung not for oneself but for others.
What meaning did that have?
He understood part of that meaning intellectually, but it hadn't yet touched his heart. The path walked by sword was easy. That's why he'd never experienced losing someone.
It had always been that way.
Children commonly born without status or possessions grasp iron. First agricultural tools like sickles, then when they realize they're quite strong among their peers, they grasp spears or swords.
Regardless of nobility or whatever, it was the fastest path to social advancement on the current continent.
You just had to be good at fighting.
If you fought as well as a Squire, most merchant groups would eagerly recruit you with extra pay, and you'd be able to swagger in mercenary circles too.
If you fought as well as a quasi-Knight?
You could receive part ownership in a merchant group and live comfortably patting your belly.
It would also be possible to become a mercenary guild leader or form a mercenary company and then be incorporated into a noble house lacking military strength.
If luck followed, entering as an adopted son of nobility was fully possible.
Of course, the disadvantage existed that you had to be younger than the father.
No matter what, you couldn't become a son older than the father.
He'd heard such things happened occasionally on the continent in the past, but if you valued external appearances, it wasn't possible.
In other words, just becoming a quasi-Knight could be said to completely change one's status.
Becoming a Knight meant stepping into an entirely new world.
Most nobles couldn't even raise their heads before a Knight.
This was such a world.
A world where you could achieve almost anything if your hands were full of the power called violence.
The violence in Ragna's hands had rarely been blocked until now. So he didn't know the pain of loss. He'd never experienced losing something he wanted to protect.
"Why are you working so hard?"
As soon as a small question arose, Ragna asked. Time was precious. Human time was finite. Ragna felt this with his skin.
Anne inwardly repeated things like intermittent manifestation and symptoms, even taking notes with a pencil made from ground charcoal, then raised her head to look at Ragna.
In her eyes, he could see red eyes shining between blonde hair. They looked like the eyes of one thirsting for knowledge. Wasn't the beginning of all curiosity the thirst for knowledge?
So she should answer honestly.
"I hate this kind of thing."
"This kind of thing?"
"It's not complete, but someone is conducting 'experiments' here. He must be a real son of a bitch, and I really, really, very, extremely hate that alchemy is being used for such things."
Anne's words carried power. If Enkrid had been here, he would have said Will had settled in Anne too.
Will settled in people who were sincere about their work and truly gave their best every moment, and Anne was like that.
She was always sincere.
Now too, and the words that would come from her mouth again were the same.
"And this is Ragna's home."
Could that be a reason?
Ragna asked with his eyes.
Anne wanted to immediately say "You clueless bastard" and kick his shins, but she spoke calmly.
Hadn't he always been like this? She hadn't started without knowing that.
If you put into words all the reasons why a person likes another person, they'd all sound awkward and strange.
Her heart had simply been moved.
While looks close to one's ideal type could make the heart stir, they couldn't become the anchor that kept it moored in place.
But now Anne's heart was moored.
"Because I want to protect your father and mother, friends, brothers, and sisters."
It was a slightly more specific target than Enkrid's vague promise to protect her back.
"Because they might become the grandfather and grandmother of children I bear someday."
Anne blurted this out with a spirit of desperation. The threats to her life while coming here were probably one of the levers making her open her mouth now.
If you didn't know when you might die, shouldn't you avoid wasting this moment?
It wasn't really about dying. She wasn't desperately struggling before actual death either.
Just.
'Today.'
She would live like Enkrid did.
Anne also had discerning eyes and an exceptional brain. In other words, she too had learned much.
How to live in the moment, perhaps.
Such a mindset became the reason she opened her mouth now.
Also, that wasn't all of Anne's wishes.
Walking on the boundary between alchemy and healing arts, she sometimes thought of the day when those like family would die. The thought that came each time. No, the wish.
'I want to have children.'
Someday she would pass on her healing arts to that child.
She would have children and become a mother, spending time laughing, crying, getting angry, and thrilling.
While doing so.
'I will spread Remede Omnia far and wide.'
It was both aspiration and dream.
A person's dreams aren't singular. Anne wanted to become a mother, wanted to establish healing arts in a new form on the continent, and.
'I want to become Ragna's wife.'
She dreamed such dreams.
Anne's eyes sparkled as she spoke. The light seeping between her freckles touched the eyes of one who had once lost his way, carrying sincerity.
Ragna was also a man and no fool, and he recalled what Anne had shown during this time.
A freckled girl who stayed around him talking about her dreams.
Ragna answered because he now agreed with those dreams.
"If I return alive, let's talk about it again then."
Anne frowned. Was this a yes? Or a no?
It was ambiguous. Though Ragna himself saw it as the best answer he could give.
"Will you die here?"
The now prickly Anne asked again.
"No, but swordsmen never know when they'll die."
"If you're going to refuse, you should give a better reason."
Having said this much, Anne temporarily put one of her dreams in a drawer of her heart.
'For now, only treating the disease.'
This wasn't what she should focus on.
Ragna continued following her around after that, and Anne spent several days wandering and discovered several facts.
'It's been modified. The disease.'
It wasn't the disease she knew. The manifestation forms had become diverse.
'The reason?'
They hadn't simply used what was obtained from mice or other animals.
'The types of seeds increased.'
Seeds referred to what became the source of that disease. There were things extracted from mice, things extracted from monsters or magical beasts, and things made using rotten corpses.
Using plants or animals carrying poison was natural.
That way they mixed materials and decided how to spread it. When infected, fever would rise, the whole body would suffer from muscle pain, then death.
Anne had researched and delved into diseases until now. She knew this had been a disease that used fever flower seeds, pain seeds, and such.
'Coughing should be a secondary symptom.'
Now it sometimes started with coughing.
'And feeling lethargic too.'
This was why symptoms beyond her knowledge occurred. It was proof that someone was still researching and modifying the disease.
'Who?'
The teacher who raised her, Laban, was dead. Laban's teacher wasn't at an age to be alive. Then who on earth?
"The continent is vast and geniuses are many."
Anne spoke and snorted. She hadn't known before seeing it directly, but now she was certain.
Pitch-black storm clouds blocked the light above her head. Ragna only quietly stayed by her side.
Though it was an unknown symptom.
'I can cure it.'
Thanks to the generous support she received from the Border Guard, research had made great progress.
'I just need to develop treatments for each disease.'
They didn't exist now. But given time, she could treat them. Of course, there was more she needed to know for that, but Anne was confident she could do it.
Her eyes held an even brighter light than when she'd confessed.
It was a sight where Will naturally emerged from confidence in herself.
When too many things are intertwined, sometimes it all seems like someone's plan.
But in fact, when you examine the inside, sometimes it's just coincidences overlapping.
Or someone might have utilized those coincidences.
'From a tactical thinking perspective, couldn't that be possible?'
Not leaving coincidence as coincidence would be the privilege of those with exceptional minds.
Last night in his dreams, the ferryman appeared again making noise about protecting Anne or not.
Enkrid asked that ferryman.
"Why should I do that?"
"It's goodwill."
Looking at the ferryman calling it goodwill was truly sinister. That was the feeling. Since there were no expression changes or anything, he couldn't tell from expressions.
Waking from sleep and moving his body while thinking various thoughts, this was what occurred to him.
'Are the person working inside Zaun and the one gathering monsters outside and spreading disease the same?'
Couldn't they be different?
What if one side discovered and utilized the other?
"Is thinking about other things while facing me looking down on me, or is it provocation?"
Heskal, standing before Enkrid, asked.
Not leaving coincidence as coincidence. He hadn't intended Heskal's current reaction, but.
"Let's say it's both."
Enkrid took this as an opportunity for provocation.
Heskal was a calm and composed person. His swordsmanship was the same.
According to Rynox's words, he hid his fangs, but he'd never seen them until now.
"Oh, that's good?"
Anahera, watching—the greatest beauty in Zaun limited to giants—said. Naturally, she was the only giant in this family.
She smiled, showing her fangs.
"Don't die from fooling around. I'm next."
She meant she was lined up as the next sparring partner.
Enkrid pushed aside the idea of not leaving coincidence as coincidence and concentrated.
Heskal wasn't an easy opponent. Even without showing his fangs.
Enkrid opened his mouth toward Heskal.
"If fangs won't work, just showing molars would be fine too."
Heskal smiled at those words. His light brown hair swayed in the wind.
The weather was still gloomy, but today the sunlight had found gaps in that black curtain and ultimately pierced through, subtly spreading light.
Heskal, backlit by the twilight glow even in broad daylight, said.
"Showing molars is harder than showing fangs."
Having said this, he thrust his sword straight forward. An honest thrust.
But if you saw it as simply a thrust, you'd be caught. Enkrid knew this from several experiences.
Fighting calculation against calculation was like pushing shield against shield.
Though he'd won that way before, even if beaten to death, he couldn't say it was exhilarating.
"I lost."
Because Heskal had acknowledged defeat first.
"It's Wusgero."
He had also figured out the identity of the inexhaustible Will just from seeing it once.
'What is instinct?'
Swinging a sword according to intuition.
'Then how do you train instinct?'
Both Wave-Blocking and Flash had chosen the method of thought training.
The sword of intuition and instinct also needed training methods.
The things he'd realized while racking his brain to establish a system had helped.
'Empty the mind.'
Not calculation, but repeatedly 'reacting' to the movements the opponent showed.
In other words, it was fine to say movements carved into the body came out naturally.
'React.'
Thanks to Alexandra's help, he'd already experienced it. He knew well how precious that one experience was.
Walking a path without knowing it and walking a path you'd walked even once by chance were different.
'Not leaving coincidence as coincidence.'
Suddenly the words he'd set aside earlier came to mind. Was it natural? He didn't know. Right now he was simply not going against the flow.
Enkrid repeated and showed the swordsmanship called 'reacting sword.'
Wave-Blocking was defense, Flash was offense.
What he was doing now, if categorized, was 'counterattack.'
Clang, swish!
Tri-Iron, deflecting the thrusting sword, advanced forward drawing a small semicircle. It was a trajectory like a skipping stone bouncing sideways. Defense and attack simultaneously.
An unexpected strike outside calculation?
For ordinary knights it might be, but not for Heskal.
He wouldn't be caught by a sword slower than Alexandra's.
Heskal's left gauntlet spread like wings, becoming a small shield.
Clang!
He skillfully blocked the sword with the shield attached to his left arm. If you could hide weapons on your body, couldn't you hide shields too?
"Wow!"
Anahera exclaimed in admiration. Both attacking and defending were amazing.
"Impressive, right?"
Anahera asked, unable to take her eyes off. The family head, who had approached at some point, answered.
"Yes."
From the family head's perspective, it was truly a rare sight. When had he last seen Heskal spar so passionately?
He couldn't even remember.