Enkrid acknowledged that the Ferryman's antics had their novelty.
But he also felt like he was being shoved not to waste time indulging in the present.
Or perhaps it meant to stockpile strength through rest?
'If not that, is it telling me to do the thing I've put off?'
The Ferryman's words made sense, but Enkrid took them his own way. He'd reached a conclusion.
'Let's hunt the Balrog.'
The wish of the city Oara still lingered and remained in his heart.
Then it felt as if the Ferryman's phantom popped out and shouted. Of course, it wasn't real—just him imagining the reaction he'd get.
"You crazy bastard. I said stay in Today—who told you to go pick fights?"
In truth, the real Ferryman's reaction wouldn't be so different.
Enkrid had shown his resolve over the bonfire, and while not this instant, he meant to set out soon.
Crack, crack.
His resolve shone high above the firelight.
Just as he'd once said he would become a Knight, now he said he would take down the Balrog.
It didn't sound absurd. Every road he'd walked until now bore witness to the man he was now.
With stars in the night sky and the glow of the fire and the chirr of insects, moths and the like flew in as if to boast of early summer's vitality.
Luagarne's tongue flicked out and snatched a bug.
"Raw things have the taste of raw."
If a Fairy's staple was grasses and fruit, a Frog's was supposedly nutrient-rich insects.
'Luagarne has said it so much it just comes up automatically.'
Under starlight and moonlight, the group around the bonfire came into view. Each was their own. They sat where they wanted, and stayed where they wanted to be.
Rem leaned back on a slant and spun his axe with just his fingers, while Ragna hugged Sunrise to his chest, sheathed.
Friends and comrades who had not the slightest intent to become complacent amid the summer night scene.
The campsite set at one side of the Mad Knight Order's drill yard was quiet as ever.
The ones who normally chattered had shut their mouths, so a tranquil mood hovered.
Rem chuckled to himself as he spun his axe, while Ragna yawned and yawned as he held his sword.
They wouldn't be moving out right now, so was he set to slack again?
When Audin set his posture like a man raising a silent prayer, Teresa hummed a tune.
Lawford and Pel met eyes and gave a quiet nod.
In their midst, Shinar smiled. The hour of sunset had passed, and so moonlight rested on her face.
An inhuman beauty shook the air around her with a smile alone.
Catching Enkrid's gaze, Shinar spoke in a chant, like reciting a poem, like singing.
"If you leave me behind again this time, the Fairy city will chase you and give you a rare spectacle."
Through the warm, quiet air, a dagger made of ice came flying.
A chill ran through him. He hadn't felt such a crisis even when that so-called legendary alchemist he'd met in Zaun overlapped his voice to make it ring—this prickled his down to stand on end.
'This is.'
A threat. And while a Fairy might speak warped truths, they did not know how to lie.
The tone was beautiful, but a threat was a threat.
Lawford blinked a couple of times. The dissonance between tone and content had briefly confused him. Still, he came to his senses at once. Having separated out the dissonance, he asked the core point again.
"...The city?"
"Thanks to the experience of migration, the city Kirrheis has gained the knack of peeling off a part of itself and moving."
Shinar spoke blandly, but there was a faint pride in her voice, and though Enkrid perceived the Fairy's delicate emotional lines, he still wondered what there was to boast of.
Either way, if he ignored Shinar now, the city of the forest, with Woodguard at the lead, would really peel itself off and follow behind him.
"Come with us."
Enkrid answered. Shinar dipped her head.
Then Esther, who had been a panther, did a full turn in midair, showed off, and transformed into a human. Even seeing it before his eyes, it was hard to believe.
Fur elongated and became a robe, and under it white skin flashed and was soon covered by the robe.
It was a sight only visible from Enkrid's seat. The others would have seen only the back fur change into a robe.
"I'm sorry. I'm busy and can't go with you."
"It's fine."
Krais had said that if he was going to do something, to give notice in advance.
That was why he'd called everyone and said his piece. Enkrid hadn't planned to move with a large group to begin with.
He wanted to show his resolve to everyone, and half of it was simply doing as he felt like.
'Three at most?'
He could guide the way himself, so even including the task of finding the Balrog, he wouldn't need many.
In the midst of that, his eyes met Krais's.
"Don't tell me you're thinking of going with me?"
You're not that crazy, are you? Right?
Krais asked with his eyes, and Enkrid, annoyed, flicked the jerky in his hand.
It was only jerky, but the one throwing it was a Knight.
The flying strip of meat smacked Krais on the forehead.
"Ack!"
While Krais rubbed his brow and asked if it had put a hole in him, Rem tossed his axe into the air and said:
"I'm going too."
Lately, if you had to sum up that madman Rem in one phrase, it would be pent-up.
If his shock troops had been here, he would have bowed his head at Enkrid's feet and begged with boiling blood.
Please take me.
"If you don't use Sunrise regularly, it will scorch its master."
Ragna wasn't a Fairy, so he was a fellow who lied as a matter of habit.
"Try to at least resemble your father by half."
Enkrid chided him, but Ragna didn't so much as pretend to hear.
He'd make any excuse necessary to follow.
"So this will be our first sortie since becoming Knights."
At this, Pel joined in.
"Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. The opponent's the Balrog, no less."
Lawford added to the words.
"Brother, my place is ever by the Lord's side. If the Lord now seems to fix His gaze on you, who if not I should go?"
Audin threw in something like a sermon, and Teresa stopped humming and said:
"I'll go as well."
Listening to everyone, Luagarne puffed her cheeks and smiled. Even without saying it, that Frog would be sticking like glue regardless.
Last time, she said she'd stayed behind to review her techniques and help Teresa.
And she'd said it had been regretful—and delightful.
"If you come back after a long while and see what's changed, that's wondrous and fun, and there's joy in digging into how it happened. But the most fun is watching the process right up close."
Frogs were a race that got drunk on desire. If they turned their back on desire, they couldn't be called Frogs at all.
Of course, the desires of Frogs varied by the Frog.
For example, Maellun, now treated as a core executive of the Gilpin Guild, did train, but said he wasn't into bone-carvingly harsh regimens.
Moderate training, moderate sparring, moderate sense of achievement. That was what the Frog named Maellun pursued. Enkrid respected that as well.
Luagarne was different. With the single desire to watch at Enkrid's side, she endured and passed through a harsh process.
She didn't shy from brutal practice and drills. He'd already found, when he crossed blades with her last time, that her skill had advanced greatly.
'Frogs have no concept of Knight.'
Even so, there was a reason people called them a race born to fight.
Frogs had no limit. This was a theory Luagarne had recently established.
Peel back just a single layer of what an ordinary Frog feels is a limit, and it's a new world, she said.
Thus, cast off the fixed notions from the past and step into a new world.
"That must be the difference between those who showed exceptional ability and me."
He remembered Luagarne's white cheeks as she said it. In any case, she would certainly come. Looking around, it sounded like everyone here would be coming. He hadn't expected that.
"The Border Guard's standing army is strong; we won't collapse just because the Order is absent. There's no immediate threatening enemy. Even if the Empire moves, Zaun is close to our side now, so I see the Empire's threat being checked to some degree."
Abnaier spoke, as ever, clearly grasping the relations before and after.
"But you never know. What if suddenly a hidden cultist brings Knight-level force?"
"If you only go by possibilities, anything can happen in the world. Remember what we scattered around us until now, Krais. We built a safety road centered on the Border Guard."
This also meant they gathered every rumor and story that traveled along the safety road and spread around.
In truth, the Gilpin Guild had become an information hub set outside the Border Guard.
From the trivial rumors that wafted through a city, to, more deeply, the untoward things occurring recently in Nauwil, they were at the level of catching it.
After a few more exchanges, the two decided it would be fine even if everyone left with Enkrid.
If Krais was swayed by anxiety, Abnaier fell into the pitfall called conviction.
With the two together, there was no gap.
Enkrid nodded.
If they came along, what did it matter?
After their party was set, he recalled the demon they'd faced in Oara.
A being born to fight, who swung a fire-wreathed sword and whip.
Just remembering sent a faint thrill from the tips of his toes. Knight Oara had staked his life to kill that fragment. But Enkrid wanted to see the real body, not a fragment.
It would be a lie to say he wasn't excited.
Rem looked at Enkrid and said:
"There he goes grinning weird again."
Krais tilted his head.
"Balrog's nickname is God of War? Isn't that wrong? It would fit the Captain better."
Shinar said her piece with that same smile.
"If you all weren't coming, the two of us could have gone and been cozy."
That night passed. Enkrid planned to leave within two days at most. That had been the plan.
If Aetri hadn't called him the next day, that is. When he went to the forge, the madman with the hammer had a gleam in his eye as he said:
"I received good iron."
Having called him, that was the first thing he threw out without even a greeting.
"...True-Iron?"
"I already used that and failed; what I just received is a rare metal I've never seen."
Where had it come from, he asked.
"The Lockfreed Company brought it."
The color of the refined ingot looked ordinary, but Enkrid felt he knew what it was. It was the same material as the metal he'd tucked away on his person. Only, it didn't give off that fresh aura like before.
Rather—
'It's mixed.'
He knew it by feel alone. Put badly, it had been altered; put well, something had been added.
"No matter what I did, nothing came to mind but the form, but the moment I saw this, I hammered for three days. I felt it."
Like a youth fallen into first love, or a child who first tasted sweet fruit. A smile on his face.
Excited, Aetri babbled things you couldn't understand, then gripped his hammer, straightened his back, sat—and met Enkrid's eyes square.
Enkrid saw that the Will in those eyes was not a whit behind an ordinary Knight.
Aetri opened his mouth.
"Breathe Will into it."
An inscribed weapon was a weapon into which a Knight's Will had been imbued. Hence they were "inscribed."
"I will make your weapon."
At those words, Enkrid answered and sat before Aetri.
"You kept your promise."
Aetri answered blandly.
"Then."
At some point he'd let it loose; Aetri shed his smile and took up his hammer. He worked the bellows, feeding the hearth more heat, and the hot wind filled the forge.
An assistant prepared various things, then stepped out, and the Frog who made ornaments vacated as well.
"Four hours a day is enough."
That was how long Enkrid had to remain in the forge and keep breathing Will into it.
A sword wasn't made in a single day. That was why Enkrid postponed his departure.
He quickly learned the origin of the metal. He'd told them to deliver food to the recluse village, and in return they'd brought something precious back.
He hadn't saved them expecting anything, yet to see it return this way was a wonder.
Four hours a day, he watched a flame-laden hammer strike the metal, and sitting and watching that, his past life surfaced one by one.
When did it begin?
"Enkrid, you were a genius."
What a third-rate mercenary had said—that had been the beginning of everything.
"Why are you trying to become a Knight?"
There was a question he'd heard countless times.
"Give it up already."
"Quit."
There were days when he was urged countless times to give up.
"You think anything will change just because you go?"
There was a time he had struggled desperately to save someone.
"Damn it."
There were times he failed to save them and cursed the heavens.
Even when he looked outwardly calm, inside his heart sometimes seethed.
Thumm—
In between, the hammer-strikes rang on and on.
In the sound of hammering, memories of the past tangled and mixed and then scattered.
Enkrid knew how to move Will as he intended. Compared to some Knights who had not properly disciplined themselves, his level was a world apart.
Having learned Restraint and Explosion in Zaun, he handled Will freely.
He could even handle Will that had not yet dried.
"I'm immature, so you'll have to do it again and again."
Aetri asked as if it were natural. Enkrid did just that.
After spending four hours a day with Aetri, Enkrid worried a moment about what would happen after he left, and that worry led him to the drill yard.
Suddenly he had time, and it made him want to get involved with training.
Of course, when Rem saw him, he said, "Are you looking to bully someone?"
Clemen, who had fallen down, greeted him. Officially, she was the Mad Knight Order's only Squire.
In truth, there were a few more who could be Squires, but they hadn't been selected yet.
"I'm just looking around."
Enkrid spoke and studied Clemen. Her posture wasn't bad. It would be the result of the standing army's basic training.
Moreover, Clemen was also the unofficial instructor for the Guard.
Still, shortcomings showed. To Enkrid's eyes, he could see what she needed right now.