"So you've made five Sword Styles, and all five become paths toward Knighthood, right?"
Rem summarized what Enkrid had been explaining and teaching over the past several days. Hearing Rem's words, Enkrid's eyes widened. The emotion held in those round eyes was surprise. The kind of surprise that fell just short of shock.
"Why are you staring like that?"
Rem asked, feeling displeased.
"You were terrible at teaching and explaining, so why are you so good at summarizing?"
Enkrid said with his eyes still wide. By this point, you could tell he was doing it on purpose. Rem frowned.
"What's terrible, it's the listener who's the problem, huh? And would you put those eyes away?"
"I'm just so surprised."
Rem, who'd been scowling, twisted up one corner of his mouth. A fierce smile. He swung his axe as he was.
It was axe-work so fast you couldn't even see him draw. The timing didn't match his walking pace either. In other words, it was an attack delivered in a way that was hard to predict. Off-beat, not on-beat.
Enkrid reacted to the axe-work without difficulty. He too had drawn his sword at some point and swung. A diagonal slash rising to meet the axe's trajectory.
Clang!
Steel wielded by human flesh met steel, and a gust of wind whirled around the two of them.
Flap-flap-flap— Enkrid's dark green cloak fluttered backward. It wasn't a fight. Just a demonstration.
After one exchange, Rem spoke with an indifferent expression.
"So you mean something like that, right?"
Inwardly, Rem was a little surprised. 'He blocked my sudden axe-work so easily.'
Now he couldn't say Enkrid was below him at all.
The man before him had received his axe far too calmly. If he'd dodged it, Rem might have thought nothing of it.
He'd swung his sword later than Rem, yet met the axe at the same speed.
And it wasn't a promised spar—similar strength and speed meant he could do even more than this.
Of course, Rem himself could deliver faster and harder axe-work, but the key point was that compared to before, Enkrid had improved beyond comparison.
Rem set aside his brief thoughts and snorted.
"Correct."
Enkrid's simple answer returned.
In the motion just now, Rem had eliminated variables and concentrated force into a single movement.
Enkrid understood the meaning contained in Rem's demonstration.
'A speed so fast you can't even calculate it.'
Not off-beat, but ignoring the beat entirely.
The optimization of thought happened instinctively. It was truly an amazing talent. When you thought of all this being replaced by the two syllables "talent," it was deeply unfair.
"Show us the Heavy Sword Style too, Brother."
Audin interjected. The explanation they'd been giving for days was finished. It had started with the statement: 'Wave-Blocking is based on the Orthodox Sword.'
Luagarne had exclaimed countless times along the way, her cheeks puffing up as if they'd burst.
"Show me. What's next? You used the Tactical Sword that way. I already sensed it, but it's marvelous."
She'd kept adding remarks like that.
Correct, Heavy, Deceptive, Fast, Smooth—five lineages matched to the Sword Styles.
The Wave-Blocking Sword and Orthodox Swordsmanship, Flash and the Sword of Instinct—
Among these, the demonstration of the Heavy Sword hadn't happened yet. He'd clearly shown the others, but the Heavy Strike was difficult to demonstrate casually.
He couldn't show it in the realm of imagination either. Only predictable techniques could be shown in that realm. Therefore, what he hadn't yet shown couldn't be demonstrated in the realm of imagination.
Naturally, Audin had shown interest in the method of concentrating force into a single strike. Was it a blend of Valaf-style Martial Arts and Zaun-style Heavy Sword?
Pel and Lawford watched with sparkling eyes. Before they knew it, the moving group numbered nine.
"I was just about to do that."
Enkrid answered, looking at a monster approaching without knowing any better.
It was a one-eyed giant called a Cyclops. Barehanded, but even barehanded, it was a monster that tore through iron plates like freshly baked bread.
If such a monster appeared in a city, it would be enough for the emergency bells to ring constantly.
Had they really drawn closer to the southern Demonic Realm, making it possible to encounter monsters you'd never expect?
Or had they ground through all the Ghouls and miscellaneous monsters and beasts on the way, leaving only this one?
Or was it just coincidence?
None of it was Enkrid's concern.
He'd had plenty of intention to seek out this monster anyway, so he was only glad it appeared on its own.
Moreover, it was a good opponent for testing techniques.
By the time the Cyclops approached, their conversation ended. Enkrid's feet moved forward. He stepped forward a few paces and welcomed the monster.
"Now, watch."
His attitude was calm even with the monster before him.
The Cyclops's arms were long enough to touch the ground, and its thigh muscles were as thick as an adult man's waist.
When it bent forward at the waist, its knuckles dragged on the ground.
Thud-thud-thud, thud-thud.
On the dry earth, long furrows formed along the creature's hands. Just from light steps and dragging movements, the hardened ground was gouged out. It was hard to even guess how hard and heavy its skin must be to do that.
"This will be a fine spectacle."
Luagarne pulled out a dried caterpillar to chew and settled in to watch. She became a spectator, plopping down on the ground. Pel and Lawford, though they'd recently become Knights, had grown even more ambitious than before, so they spread out left and right with Enkrid as their center, not wanting to miss a single moment.
Both rested hands on their weapons, lighting the candle of concentration.
Their blazing eyes were proof of that.
The Cyclops approached, looking only at Enkrid. It didn't even roar. Its habit was to enjoy tearing with both hands rather than subduing with roars.
Not all monsters had the same preferences.
Enkrid strode forward to meet the monster. No hesitation in his steps. Fear was even less visible.
To the monster, it looked like a suicide attempt. Coming forward to be torn apart and killed.
Crunch— The Cyclops's feet dug into the ground. Its center of gravity shifted and power entered its waist. Immediately, both hands that had been dragging on the ground moved at a speed beyond an ordinary human's perception range.
Two hands flew in like hooks. The left aimed for the waist, the right for the thigh.
'Clever.'
With stretched thought, Enkrid perceived the state of the Cyclops as a monster.
Not immediately aiming for the head or neck was likely due to experience gained through countless battles.
This was why long-surviving beasts became more dangerous individuals. They too saw and learned.
This was a theory—no, a fact—confirmed by Imperial Knight Valpir Valmung.
Enkrid passed by the monster's hook-like hands. He just needed to move forward faster than the incoming hands.
Infusing Will through his whole body, he pushed his body into the creature's embrace, evading the hand-strikes.
It also meant stepping into the embrace of a monster at least three times larger than a human.
The Cyclops immediately opened its mouth. Crooked and uneven like a twisted wall, teeth each the size of a human fist were revealed. It looked ready to bite right into his head.
Whoosh— The monster's hands swept through empty air, and just before those completely asymmetrical teeth closed and its breath, fouler than rotting corpses, reached him, Enkrid's body began to turn.
With his left foot as the axis, his body coiled like a whirlwind. The cloak wrapped around his body shortened and clung flat to his back. To the Cyclops's eyes, Enkrid's black head seemed to spin around.
Enkrid gathered the concentration that had started from a single point and reached the realm of stretching thought—gathered it into one.
'Rotation.'
Training the body alone had clear limits. To extend beyond that, to add more power, what must be done?
This was the path to take if you weren't satisfied with shattering rocks with a single blow.
Mix what you've seen, learned, studied, and personally practiced until now.
The experience of creating several Sword Styles opened new perspectives for him.
'What's needed is a single Sword Strike.'
With his left foot as the axis, his body twisted like a writhing dragon. Tightening and releasing all his muscles, he mixed in the explosion of a point.
'Only as much as the body can handle.'
With inexhaustible Will, pouring in too much would tear the muscle fibers instead. He knew this from experience.
The rotation that started from his toes climbed up his calves, transformed into force with his waist as the axis, was transmitted to his sword, and surged. The blade dug straight into the monster's body.
'It cuts well.'
That was the impression felt with divided thought.
Though he'd felt the Inscribed Weapon Dawnforge lacked the sharpness of Penna, when he actually swung it, the blade cut through the monster like slicing boiled potatoes. The resistance felt in his hand was less than any sword before.
The Cyclops was a monster, so its skin was hard as rock and its bones would be too, yet the blade entered and exited the creature's body more easily than the True-Silver Sword Aetri had made.
After gathering the rotational force and slashing, he pulled out to the side.
To those watching, it seemed as if the blade had surged from inside the monster's body right after both arms crossed.
Along the line drawn by that blade, black blood, entrails, brain matter and such poured down.
And so, in this region, a monster deserving the name "nightmare" died. The Cyclops was a creature nicknamed the Wandering Demon in the southern lands.
Why did it carry the title of demon when it wasn't even a real demon?
Partly due to the monster's individual strength, but more so because many had died by its hands.
Wandering-type monsters were harder to find and harder to kill than stationary ones.
And it had likely avoided a Knight's hand through luck until now.
Enkrid split the monster vertically and pulled away. A few drops of black blood splattered onto his cloak, but the dark green cloak absorbed the blood drops without a trace.
It was a living cloak. And the sword was the same.
Enkrid felt it clearly.
'It responded to my will, didn't it?'
Enkrid spoke inwardly to his sword. He usually oiled it and stroked it with his fingers, and back then it seemed dull, but when he actually swung it, it responded like this.
It felt like fighting alongside a perfectly compatible friend.
So that's why they're called Inscribed Weapons.
Inscription—meaning you've carved part of yourself into it.
"Brother, you called it Vortex, right?"
Audin's words.
Those with insight and the ability to see had noticed the subtlety hidden in Enkrid's single strike.
It was a strike that wrung out and burst the entire body. It was like bending a branch until just before it broke, then snapping it back.
'More precisely, you're swinging the branch with all your might while releasing it like that.'
Or else it was like holding a drawn bowstring and running full speed, then shooting at three paces.
At that distance, the force imbued in the arrow would be fully transmitted.
Audin's eyes sparkled continuously. It was a technique that touched the fundamentals of Valaf-style Martial Arts and evolved beyond it.
"It was an excellent lesson."
Audin said. He even examined the dead monster's corpse. The traces where the vortex had passed were clearly visible.
The size of the wound didn't correspond to the size of the blade. It was torn and split.
'It wasn't just the sword thrust—he burst Will too.'
Could he do something similar with Divine Power? How should he go about mimicking this and displaying such might?
It was a point requiring contemplation.
It wasn't just Audin. Ragna was reverse-calculating the meaning of the actions, like calculating backward the "calculation" done through talent and instinct.
Rem was the same, and everyone was similar.
Even when they were at Border Guard, they could have done this, but when the environment changed, their mindset changed, and when their mindset changed, what they saw and accepted changed too.
It could be called a time when they dug into techniques, Sword Styles, and training methods more seriously than ever before.
Enkrid taught again what he'd learned from his unit members, and Rem and everyone else had no reservations about learning anew from Enkrid.
Watching everyone re-chewing what they'd learned, Enkrid learned from that too.
In a way, it was a strange and marvelous sight.
Sharing each other's knowledge, then watching and learning from each other again.
"I heard it was around here."
Lawford muttered while walking, almost to himself. At those words, the gazes of Enkrid and everyone turned.
About four days after turning direction southward, Lawford had compiled a piece of information based on rumors.
He'd found an old Demonic Realm rumored about in this area. Simply put, something like the Gray Forest of the city Oara.
You couldn't say cases like this were common, but drawing closer to the Demonic Realm, you couldn't call it special either.
Once, a scholar had said that approaching the southern Demonic Realm was like passing a hundred islands.
He'd seen the sea and even ridden boats in coastal waters, but the metaphor of a hundred islands didn't quite register.
Still, the meaning was clearly conveyed. Near the Demonic Realm, there would be about a hundred small Demonic Realms.
"If there really are a hundred, how many are you planning to clean up?"
At Rem's question, Enkrid answered with a firm attitude.
"All of them."
A declaration of intent that he would, if he could. Not that he necessarily would.
Rem nodded. The Captain was originally this kind of person.
If they hadn't encountered the Cyclops this time, he would have tracked it down deliberately.
How could they pass by a monster nicknamed a demon?
That wouldn't do.
Even out of curiosity, they had to meet it.
"Over there."
Jaxen pointed in one direction, and Shinar nodded.
Among the group, she had the most sensitive senses and the ability to identify what something was based on its strangeness.
It was a forest dense with dark brown leaves. Not a gray forest, but a brown forest.
However, that color was ominously eerie.
"It's full of inedible things."
Luagarne said, puffing her cheeks slightly.
Even without entering the forest, Enkrid's eyes saw things wriggling and crawling on the ground.
There were things resembling earthworms and others more rounded in form. An ecosystem corrupted by the Demonic Realm's influence. Even the insects looked different.
A headwind blew, and the smell that had lingered in the forest approached the group. A rotting stench wafted strongly.
"I heard it's a place where a monster called a Parasite has taken root. If you're careless, even those above Squire Knight get caught..."
Using Lawford's words as a marching song, a swordsman revealed himself from inside. One side of his face was covered with brown veins, and only the whites showed in his eyes.
Lawford changed his words and added.
"There's already someone who got caught."
The appearance was clearly closer to a monster, so Rem's hand moved without hesitation. The moment he saw, a hand axe flew through the air.
Whoom— The hand axe slicing through the air flew as if it had teleported, right before it embedded itself in the swordsman's head.
Clang!
The swordsman held his greatsword diagonally and blocked it, and Enkrid watched closely before speaking.
"Don't kill him."
"Why?"
Rem turned around and asked back. It was confidence that whatever that monster ahead was, it wasn't his match.
"I know his face."
Enkrid answered.
It was true. His name was Roman, his level was Squire Knight.
Squire Knight Roman, who should have been in the city Oara, appeared here with his eyes rolled back.
"Should I just cut off the legs?"
Rem asked.
"No, just subdue him."
In a way, it would seem quite difficult.
Originally a Squire Knight, Roman swung his greatsword, and the air compressed by the pressure burst with a boom.