"Inside."
Enkrid didn't speak at length.
Nor was there any need to smack each of them the way he had with Harkvent.
There were plenty of other ways.
"Where to?"
Jerry asked. He was a man with a firm backbone, but now there was the faintest tremor in his voice.
A measured intimidation was pressing down on him. In his eyes, Enkrid looked far more dangerous than usual.
'If it goes wrong, he'll cut us down.'
Meaning that needed no words to be delivered.
Harkvent glared sharply at Enkrid while limping, but what filled that look was less anger than a frantic attempt to hide his fear.
Before them yawned a deep pit. It was a trap prepared to catch a big magical beast should one appear.
The sharp stakes they had driven inside had been removed, but the depth was no joke.
From Jerry's eye, even if he stood on Harkvent's shoulder, his hands wouldn't reach the surface.
They hadn't dug it perfectly vertical, so it slanted a little, but that didn't make it something one could just crawl out of.
Everyone started glancing at one another.
Really, go in there?
Why is this outsider suddenly doing this?
Wasn't he here to help us?
Didn't the meeting end with Harkvent going to ask him for help?
Enkrid said nothing and only changed his stance. He could project presence without doing even that, but then he'd get a little too rough.
Uncontrolled intimidation made people's legs give way.
What was needed here wasn't overwhelming terror, but the kind of threat that had come right up to their noses.
When he opened his chest and turned his waist, the Tri-Iron grip at Enkrid's hip came into everyone's view.
It was the moment everyone realized what Harkvent already had.
The magical beasts' threat was far away, but the sword before their eyes was very close.
There was no need to weigh which of the two was more dangerous.
Jerry went into the pit first. A rope thumped down from the rim of the hole. Standing directly over it, Enkrid said:
"Climb."
Even if they leveraged the territorial fights between magical creatures and magical beasts, you couldn't live here without being tough.
Even without trying to train, muscle stuck to your bones and you developed backbone.
That didn't make climbing out of a hole on a single rope any easy task.
"Huff! Huff!"
Jerry used every ounce of strength to haul himself up. He'd strained so hard it felt like the muscles in his palms were throbbing.
"Run. To there—quick."
In a bored tone, Enkrid pointed off to one side with a finger.
The pressure was the same as ever. It was as if he were saying he could cut them down at any time, and that doing so would be nothing to him.
Panting, Jerry ran.
"Here! Hit this mark and then there!"
Here and there, children stood like signposts and shouted.
He looped round and round, circling by a few trees as reference points, and by the time he came back, the sky had gone yellow.
"That's one round. Next."
Enkrid's voice carried over. Next was a sturdily built woman. Stronger than Jerry, good with a bow, and with a forceful personality.
She too was just as frightened, so she asked nothing, argued nothing, and went into the pit.
Next came the timid man who'd been at the meeting.
He tried to be clever. He was scared, but this didn't seem like the sort of thing he'd be scolded for.
After he climbed out of the hole, when it came time to run, he pretended to be out of breath and jogged at a moderate pace.
He'd been good at running since he was a kid, so this was nothing to him.
Enkrid kicked the man's thigh when he returned.
Thwack.
Just a light low kick. The man collapsed to the ground with a flop and then pounded the earth with his fists—thump, thump.
From the choking, hiccupping sounds, it was clear it was from the pain.
"If you try to be clever..."
Enkrid didn't even finish the sentence.
Everyone who knew how to fight climbed out of the pit and ran.
After repeating that more than ten times, their legs were trembling and their arms wouldn't lift.
If magical beasts came now, they'd meekly become feed and nourishment.
"Dig one more pit."
With that brief order, Enkrid went back to Brunhild and the children who had been watching.
Then, as always, he taught them how to handle a spear or how to throw an axe.
"Someone I know is even better at this, though."
He even said that as he taught how to throw an axe.
What is this? What does he want? They couldn't ask or argue.
And even if they asked, it didn't seem like he'd answer.
Even Harkvent kept his mouth shut.
The same thing repeated for three days.
"Are you a demon?"
The timid man asked, half in tears. He was so exhausted he could see nothing.
Enkrid smiled at him and replied.
"Think whatever you like."
If he walked into the capital Nauwil—especially into a salon—and smiled like this, he'd put a blush on the faces of more than a few ladies.
Even at the Border Guard's marketplace, plenty would turn their heads mid-stride.
If Leona Lokfried saw it—
"That's a smile made to be misunderstood. Stop it. I don't want to die to the Fairy's blade."
—she might have said.
But in the man's eyes, he looked like a hornless demon.
If someone drove people to the brink of death and smiled like that, and wasn't a demon, then who was?
[* * *]
The Ferryman narrowed his eyes.
In his gaze, he could see Enkrid's present. Should he say that the last three days of what Enkrid had shown were truly surprising?
'This brat.'
Ordinarily, Enkrid would have struggled desperately to save them, and seeing that, the Ferryman should have said this:
'You think they'll listen?'
To which he could have added:
'You think it'll turn into training?'
Such words should have gone back and forth, but the entire process had been skipped.
Enkrid made it so. With a few words he grasped the situation, looked a few moves ahead, and put it into practice.
He already had first-rate decisiveness, and now he was thinking as well, with keen feel to match.
This was the result. He anticipated what the Ferryman would say and moved first.
'You little—'
Even so, there wasn't much the Ferryman could do right now. At night, the only thing he could call him out to say was this:
"You think things will go your way?"
They likely would. He couldn't see the future, but the Ferryman had lived a long time and experienced very many things. That concentrated experience let him infer from before and after to read what lay ahead.
'They will.'
Looking at the fellow's actions, a new turn of phrase came to mind.
'A deft wrangler of Today.'
Enkrid blinked and answered back.
"Yes."
"Go."
"Yes."
"Get lost."
After two terse replies, he drifted away from the ferry.
The Ferryman shut his eyes. It was a string of things he didn't quite like, and yet he felt a subtle expectation as well.
'Will it truly turn out as he wishes?'
The Ferryman heard another voice within himself, but he didn't answer.
Whether a thing succeeds or not, you only know by going and seeing.
'So you've gone soft enough to think such things.'
The Ferryman agreed with that.
Repeating Today would one day be the anchor that moors the man named Enkrid. That fact wouldn't change.
And yet, was he seeing hope?
No. It was only that even this had become part of the amusement.
The Ferryman laughed. The laughter he shed on the boat rode the river, flowed on, and came back as an echo.
To a prisoner, there was originally only a confined space, and so his laughter would ever meet a wall and reflect.
[* * *]
If you didn't do as you were told, you died.
In the middle of this madness, there had been three assaults by magical beasts, including wolf packs.
"You lot are slow on the uptake."
This merciless swordsman butchered, sliced, and pulped them every time.
He didn't only use his sword; he used fists and feet as well, and the skill was truly demonic.
You couldn't even see him move and yet magical beasts' heads burst—pop-pop.
Even if gathering everyone in one place had narrowed the defensive perimeter, it was still astonishing.
He alone had the might to kill an entire pack.
"Ah."
Watching, someone breathed out half air, half sound.
Was it admiration? No. It was just that the fight had ended too quickly.
Right now his blade felled magical beasts, but once the fight was over, he'd jab at the backs of those moving about.
In fact, the demon called Enkrid had prodded the backs of the exhausted and panting. He hadn't ever drawn blood, but that alone sent a chill down spines.
"Stop?"
He'd say it with that.
It felt like some kind of magic.
With the sharp feel at their backs and that one word, even strength they didn't have came up.
"Huaaah!"
Only three days ago, faces had gone ashen whenever magical beasts broke in, but not anymore.
When the smell of blood spread everywhere in the village, Jerry took courage and said:
"We should clean up the surroundings."
Enkrid just nodded.
Then everyone could take a brief rest.
But if they dawdled, somehow he'd know, and he would walk up wearing a smile.
Then rest was over, and hell started again.
They had to do it breathing in the magical beasts' reek. When it was over, they had to clean again.
They'd been tough to begin with, and repeating this made them that much quicker and crisper.
Naturally roles fell into place, with Harkvent, of course, stepping in the middle to coordinate.
Only after three days of this did Enkrid order something different.
"Everyone, grab a spear and form up."
Now, his word was law.
Otherwise you'd have to be ready to die, and even the toughest—Harkvent—obeyed him.
The timid man by his side seconded him as well.
"Try taking one hit. Dying would be better."
In a way, he had great courage.
Even after getting hit like that, he again tried to be clever while cleaning up magical beast corpses.
Enkrid kicked him a few more times.
He sobbed and crawled on the ground, and the curious thing was, his leg didn't break.
No, rather than not breaking, after a little time he had bruises but wasn't even limping.
'He knows how to hit.'
The timid man realized that. And that the man smiled while hitting.
This was something he could repeat hundreds of times.
Without killing. People who've never been tortured have no tolerance. To the timid man, Enkrid's kicks were torture.
"Quit fussing and do as you're told."
He threatened everyone.
Harkvent actually knew the meaning of what Enkrid was doing.
Broadly, there were two things.
'One, to erase the fear they felt toward magical beasts.'
Start by smothering it with a greater fear, and next, get them accustomed to keeping a calm face even before magical beast corpses.
'Two, to make everyone move like a single body.'
The number of people who could fight didn't even reach seventy. And among them, there wasn't a single person who had ever received proper military training.
Harkvent too only had natural strength; he'd never been trained as a soldier.
Being responsible didn't conjure abilities you didn't have.
But he could see and feel. That was likely because he bore responsibility for the village.
They began to read one another's rhythm and understand one another's state with just a look.
Only then did Enkrid gather them, put spears in their hands, and teach them formations.
They followed well. The results of training increased visibly.
Naturally. Hadn't they spent three days rolling themselves half to death?
Beyond pits and running, all they'd done was march in step while shouting calls.
Anyone with knowledge would have called everything so far close-order drill.
[* * *]
'Interesting.'
Putting them through their paces, there was a certain fun to training recruits.
It wasn't easy, but it was fun in its way.
The Ferryman's guess had been right.
His experience in Zaun had broadened Enkrid's view. From there, he looked a few moves ahead.
He also knew that the Ferryman couldn't see the past but predicted the future based on the present.
'Insular, but people worth protecting.'
Endless packs of magical beasts whose numbers he couldn't even guess constantly targeted them.
The position in the mountains, the resources they had, Brunhild's talent, the absence of combat training, and so on.
It was a vast set of information.
All of it settled in his head and pointed out the path to take.
Thus time had been compressed, the near-wrestling match of words with the Ferryman had been skipped, and they had come to the present.
If a month was short, it was short, but concentrated, that time was plenty.
What the Ferryman wanted was for Enkrid to get entangled with them and spend his life repeating Today here, but that had been a lost cause from the start.
About half a month in, a fierce light settled in everyone's eyes.
All that time, Enkrid had ruled over them with fear.
Brunhild was a child, but quick on the uptake. Her eyes asked questions, but she focused more on learning spearwork than on that.
As before, once training for the village members began, she immersed herself even more.
She was quick. Sensing that the time Enkrid had prepared was nearing its end, she spoke.
Only, a few piled-up misunderstandings made the child take Enkrid for an enemy.
"Stop bullying us."
The genius's spear leveled at Enkrid.
It was almost nostalgic.
When he'd first left the village, he'd lost to a child half his size. Now, many things had changed.
"Hah!"
Brunhild thrust her spear for the villagers.
Enkrid snatched it and flicked his middle finger against the girl's forehead.
Tock!
"Ow!"
She clutched her brow and rolled on the ground.
"Don't get cocky."
No matter how much of a prodigy, there was a gap she couldn't possibly bridge.
In any case, the child's sense that the end was near was correct. This was one step in preparing for that end. Enkrid judged it was time for practice like the real thing.
"Bring out all the stored food."
At Enkrid's order, Harkvent nodded.