Ragna thought Enkrid would tell him where he should be positioned.
It was a kind of faith, but Enkrid said nothing to him.
'Why?'
Looking at the battlefield broadly, the front was held by Father, Mother, and Rynox, while he should consider himself slightly behind in the rear guard.
So until now, he had been cutting down monsters in his own way, but hadn't stepped to the front lines.
Should he go to Father's side? Looking ahead, he could see threatening enemies approaching. In front of Mother, a Death Knight was sticking its head up as it rose from the ground.
Where should he be?
Why wasn't the Captain telling him?
Standing in this somewhat ambiguous position and contemplating the battlefield, he vaguely began to understand.
Why the Captain had said nothing.
'Is this fight the Captain's?'
No. He was a supporter.
'The reason I'm angry is because this is my home.'
He would live as part of the Mad Knight Order after leaving the Border Guard. It was a decision he'd made long ago. This wouldn't change.
However, Zaun was where he was born and raised.
'What I leave behind.'
Now he knew the answer. He leaves Anne behind. He leaves Enkrid behind. In broad terms, he leaves people behind.
It would be good if his father and mother's places were included in that.
Ragna took a step. He knew where he should go. The target he needed to vent this anger on was beyond the battlefield.
The crisis his father and mother faced, they would overcome themselves.
The driving wind and rain shook his sense of direction.
Saaaaaaaa.
The cries of the Scaler horde dulled his senses themselves.
The spell snakes floating overhead pressed down on his body and tangled his five senses.
Far away, literally wide-eyed, because of the Medusa—a monster sufficient to become the lord of a demon realm—he couldn't even open his eyes properly to look ahead.
In this situation, Ragna felt the talent shining within himself.
'I can see the path.'
No disrupted sense could block the path guided by natural talent.
Ragna began to walk.
This was beyond Enkrid's expectations.
Honestly, he had hoped Ragna would stay in the back and leap out to fight when needed.
Well, not everything flows as expected. That's the battlefield, and that's life.
That uncertainty is what makes people sometimes happy and sometimes sad.
This time, fortunately, it was something to smile about.
"Where are you wandering around like that?"
After walking for quite a while using monsters as signposts, someone spoke to Ragna. It was a familiar voice.
Swoooosh.
He could see a middle-aged man completely soaked by the pouring rain, with hair plastered to his forehead and face. He peeled the hair stuck to his face while waiting for Ragna's answer. Ragna replied:
"I was going to find the bastard who caused this mess."
"Did you get lost?"
"No, I think I came the right way. Finding paths is my specialty."
Heskal had a calm nature. So much so that he wouldn't show excitement even once a year.
Even when bickering with Rynox, he never reddened his face once, and even when confronting the family head, he never raised his voice once, speaking calmly to the end.
Very few people had seen him angry. Yet even such a Heskal now had slight irritation, putting an edge in his speech.
"Why didn't you stay put and came out?"
"I saw the path, so I walked."
Ragna's calm attitude showed the confidence unique to those who trust themselves.
This twisted Heskal's mood. If he had stayed put, he could have been found quickly, but because this bastard moved, hadn't they come to a place quite far from the battlefield?
He had also taken quite a detour to find him.
Why was he walking alone through the monsters gathered as reserves?
There was no one crazier. Yet the guy himself insisted this was the right path.
'If I had ignored you, you would have gotten lost and only returned after everything was over.'
From Zaun's perspective, it could be said that uncertain coincidence had become fortune.
If Heskal hadn't looked for him, Ragna wouldn't have met him.
However, if Enkrid had been in this place and seen the path Ragna had walked, he would have understood his intention.
Well, it was something Heskal couldn't understand.
Why was he here alone instead of helping them continue their dangerous battles?
From a tactical perspective it was a mess, and from a human standpoint, wasn't it really the worst?
Why come here ignoring the threats to his father and mother?
"If I were Tempest, I wouldn't have left you alone."
"Your capacity is smaller than my father's."
Ragna answered matter-of-factly. Watching Enkrid made one debate matters of capacity. Along with his words, Ragna reflected on the path he had walked so far.
'I've learned a lot.'
Really, that was true.
When he held a sword, he could naturally see the set path, the path to advance. But without actually walking it, he couldn't know the shape of the path.
The path he had walked so far had uphill sections. Downhill sections too. Sometimes the path was rough, and sometimes it was straight and well-paved.
By directly setting foot and walking and advancing, what he learned changed.
There was no such thing as a predetermined path. As the process changed, everything changed.
'Who determines limits?'
Unless you're a fool who lets others' words constrain you, you set your own limits.
"I'm done here."
If you say that, that's where it ends.
Enkrid faced his limits and denied them. Ragna also learned and followed that.
The path of advancing beyond limits.
'It's fun.'
The exhilaration he felt when first gripping a sword filled his entire body.
What could compare to the joy of advancing and advancing again to meet a new world?
Heskal's gaze touched Ragna's great sword. It was a blade dirtied with muddy water.
"You don't have Sunrise."
Sunrise was a longsword. There didn't seem to be space on Ragna's body to hide a sword.
"I'll get it later."
"Don't you have confidence in beating the family head?"
The condition for obtaining Sunrise was receiving recognition from the family head, and Tempest Zaun wasn't someone who would entrust a family heirloom to a man inferior to himself.
Just being his son wasn't reason enough to give it readily.
"My weapon is an Inscribed Weapon."
Heskal said.
Yours isn't an Inscribed Weapon.
That meaning was omitted from the sentence. Ragna ignored it and gripped his great sword's handle with both hands. The sword tip still touched the ground. It wasn't a sword pointing to the sky but one hanging behind his waist.
"Are you lowering your sword because you fear lightning?"
Heskal grasped Ragna with just a few words. No, he tried to grasp him.
'He doesn't take risks.'
Habits formed in childhood don't change easily, and Ragna had a habit of not straying from set paths. Heskal remembered that.
'If it's an opponent he can beat given time, he doesn't try to win today.'
Ragna had no such thing as fiercer. Because of his talent, he always learned and mastered things easily, so the habit of not taking risks stuck to his body.
Would that habit disappear after experiencing a few battlefields on the continent? It wouldn't.
For someone to enlighten him of that habit, they would need to instill a sense of crisis in the genius.
But how many people had talent similar to that Ragna? It would be truly rare. It would be even more so in places other than Zaun.
Even in Zaun, no one readily came to mind.
'Has he ever met an opponent worth fighting while taking risks?'
He wouldn't have. Having an opponent comparable to one's talent nearby for training was one of Zaun's strengths.
Ragna couldn't experience that. The talent that invited envy from others would have made him that way.
"Have you learned how to give your all?"
Heskal asked. Ragna didn't answer. His red eyes pierced through the darkness and radiated light. It was proof that Will was fully filling his entire body.
'Let's rate his skills higher than I expected.'
Heskal habitually viewed opponents' skills higher than he estimated.
So he didn't fight with full power but always aimed for gaps. He moved judging that fighting with full power would be disadvantageous.
He gave up on winning with the size of Will or physical strength burst out in an instant.
Contain with a straight sword and stab with a phantom sword. This was his strategy.
It seemed simple if you looked at it simply, but from the victim's perspective, it was absolutely not a tactic you could call simple.
Point concentration was originally a technique passed down in the Zaun family. So both of them knew how to do it.
While exchanging words, both began thinking at high speed.
'I'll kill you and throw your head to the family head.'
Heskal thought.
Ragna had no thoughts at all. He just felt the sensation of the great sword in his hand. Soon he forgot even that.
The first to move was Heskal.
He kicked the ground with a thud and leaped, thrusting his sword at an unbelievably slow speed for a knight.
It was a sword thrust while turning his left hand back and rotating his body laterally. His body became a line and his sword became a point, aiming for Ragna's brow.
Ragna moved sideways while gripping his great sword.
Scrape, ting.
The tip of the great sword touched and scraped against the end of a stone embedded in the ground that had firmly held its position despite the wind and rain, sending several stone fragments flying.
Having dodged the thrust and changed positions, the two faced off again.
Heskal still kept his left hand folded behind him.
Whatever he had hidden in that left hand, it was obviously no trivial trick.
Heskal's Inscribed Weapon moved again. Everyone who had been by his side, even his adopted son Riley, knew the name of his sword.
The sword's name was Routine.
A name given because it was hard to block despite moving with set routes and set power.
"Even while we do this, your father is dying. Ragna."
Heskal spoke in his usual benevolent tone. That tone was utterly gentle and friendly. It seemed to say he was worried, so go take a look quickly.
Though the actual content was meant to gain psychological advantage over Ragna.
"Do you really think so?"
Ragna asked back.
"The family head has already been weakened by illness for several years. Didn't you see his withered and twisted body?"
He had seen it. But these were words that knew one thing but not two. Ragna remembered the father he had seen as a child.
"Alexandra is probably facing Death Knights."
Instead of telling him to go protect her, he only chose words that scratched at his insides, but Ragna was truly unaffected.
If it had been before—that is, before meeting Enkrid and that barbarian bastard, that sinister wildcat, and that fanatic—he might have wavered, but not now.
Enkrid's mouth was more venomous than that, and that barbarian knew how to speak more viciously.
"Heskal."
"Speak."
"Your hair has thinned a lot. It's become quite visible now that you're wet from the rain."
Ragna casually provoked his opponent.
Heskal wasn't someone whose mind would waver from this degree, but he was a bit surprised.
"Your eloquence has improved while we haven't seen each other."
"My sword skills have improved even more."
"That remains to be seen. But do you really intend to face me without even an Inscribed Weapon? I'll give you a chance. Run away. Leave Zaun behind once more like before. That's fine. No one will blame you."
Seasoned and seasoned again. Looking only at his skill of scratching at opponents' insides, he would have to be called Enkrid-level.
He was an opponent unaffected by bald attacks.
"I never abandoned it."
"Really? Then did we abandon you?"
It was right to give up on winning with words. Ragna really didn't want to do this, but he briefly borrowed Rem's speech pattern.
"Shut up and come at me, you bald bastard. Where do you get off flapping your mouth when you're nothing? Your breath stinks."
As soon as he spoke, Ragna felt displeasure, but this time it seemed to have some effect.
Heskal's brow furrowed briefly inward before smoothing out again.
"What a remarkably cheap way of speaking. It would be hard to hear even in a hunter's village."
"That's because you're playing in a well. Go out to the continent. Go west and there are plenty of guys with rotten breath."
Especially that guy named Rem.
Heskal breathed in and moved his lips as if to say more, then suddenly thrust his sword.
It was twice as fast as before. Ragna dodged this time too.
Swish—the blade grazed his shoulder. Part of his leather shoulder guard was cut.
Offense and defense targeting gaps and openings continued, and Ragna also swung his great sword. It was a sword drawn from bottom to top.
Bang!
At the sound of air bursting, Heskal retreated.
Heskal had once been one of the three most outstanding geniuses in Zaun.
Having dodged the slash that pushed away even raindrops, Heskal took the same thrusting stance and thrust his sword again.
Ragna moved his body sideways again, but Heskal's sword suddenly stretched long.
So it was a completely unexpected attack.
Heskal had actually never told anyone the real name of his sword.
Originally, the name of the sword he possessed wasn't Routine but Camouflage.
Deception hidden in a straight sword—it was a fighting method perfectly suited to his weapon.
Camouflage, that sword revealed its true form and sank its teeth into Ragna's shoulder.
Thunk!
The sound of tearing flesh rang out. It was the sound of the blade piercing leather and making a hole in Ragna's shoulder.