After Rem closed the distance, he struck Roman's jaw. The hand gripping the axe left an afterimage as it struck and withdrew. The jaw was a vital point.
If hit properly, the brain should shake and the person should collapse, but Roman endured it. He completely ignored the impact of the blow.
It didn't end with just enduring. He half-turned his body and swung his elbow holding the greatsword.
Thwack.
Rem had no need to panic, so he didn't.
He simply raised his arm to block it and swept Roman's legs. Roman tilted sideways and fell.
"He's tough? Really won't let me cut off a leg?"
Rem asked again.
"Cut it if you'll reattach it."
Enkrid's answer was firm. As he said it, he thought.
'But why is Roman here?'
And alone at that?
Was there a problem in the city of Oara? No, there wasn't. He'd been receiving information from there regularly.
If the city of Oara was in a situation where it was difficult to handle the remnants of the Demonic Realm called the Gray Forest, he'd been planning to step in personally.
He'd made Krais look into that side too, giving him so much work that Krais had even expressed his complaints.
"There's only one of me."
To conclude, the city of Oara was different from before. Not quite at the level of cities surrounded by Safe Roads, but—
'It's surpassed the level of most pioneer cities.'
It was also the legacy of Knight Oara, so Krang personally paid attention to the place.
'So why?'
He had a vague idea, but the more precise answer was right in front of his eyes, so there was no need to search for an answer.
"This one won't even pass out."
Rem's indifferent voice came through.
Enkrid didn't know about the monster called Parasite. But he could infer the situation based on the visible phenomenon.
'The brown lump stuck to his head.'
That was probably the main body. Seeing how his pupils were completely rolled back, it appeared he was being controlled while unconscious.
"Will he come back if we remove that?"
Enkrid muttered as if to himself. Lawford responded to those words.
"Fifty-fifty, I'd say?"
If he'd heard of Roman's death through some other incident, would he have thought nothing of it? Or would he have felt bitter?
What was certain was that Enkrid wouldn't waver over something like this.
'If I can save him, I will.'
Do the best one can.
It was also an answer obtained from what the Ferryman had shown and made him experience on previous days.
The Ferryman had forced cruel fantasies upon him. He urged Enkrid to remain in the present, in the now, not in a today that would meet the worst ending.
He was a conductor playing anxiety.
He'd composed a melody that raced from the overture of loss, through the middle section of resentment, to the climax of despair.
"Will you only regret after everyone around you is dead? Will you beg to return to the past then?"
All the way here, the Ferryman had shown persistence unlike before. And Enkrid—
"It's called Vortex. How is it?"
Had concentrated on swordsmanship unlike before. To the point of devoting himself to training even in dreams. So he hadn't wavered at all. Rather, what the Ferryman had shown made him even more solid.
If there was someone who fully observed and understood this relationship, they might have asked this:
Whether the Ferryman was conducting a test.
Naturally, Enkrid had sensed it too, but that was all.
It wasn't something to confront him about, and there was nothing more to do.
He simply reached a conclusion while training in parallel.
'Do the best I can.'
It was just a feeling, but Enkrid felt like he'd learned the conclusion he'd reached from the Ferryman. Or perhaps the Ferryman had pushed his back to reach this point.
Naturally, he didn't voice this either.
The thoughts were brief. Enkrid immediately opened his mouth.
"Jaxen, Audin."
The ultimate meaning of Enkrid-style Orthodox Swordsmanship, reborn based on Luagarne's Tactical Sword, was to walk the best path possible in the current situation.
This time was the same.
'Remove the parasite.'
Jaxen performed blade-work delicate enough to skin the surface of skin. And Audin was the sole possessor of divinity within the Knight Order.
"Rem, hold him."
Until just moments ago, the barbarian's axe-work had been beating vital points enough to render someone combat-incapable, but now it changed. From violent threats to gentle curves. Like a whip curling, it snatched Roman's greatsword and led it to the ground.
Thunk.
Rem, having planted the greatsword in the ground, stepped onto it.
What followed wasn't difficult. Jaxen, who'd approached before anyone noticed, cut and removed the monster called Parasite.
"The Lord watches over you."
Audin placed his bare hand on Roman's head. The blood spurting from the dozen or so holes left where the Parasite had been stopped, pushed back by white light. That was the end. Roman's body collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. Audin caught his neck with one hand.
It was meant as support, but it also looked like a posture ready to snap his neck bones at any moment if he acted up.
"I went to the trouble of keeping him alive, and now you'll kill him?"
When Rem said that after seeing it, Audin replied with a smile.
"It's a secret technique that supports and subdues simultaneously."
"Secret technique, my ass."
Rem retorted, and Ragna yawned beside them with his mouth wide open. There was no sense of danger.
"What should we do about those?"
Pel said, casting his gaze to one side. Monsters with forms similar to the one that had possessed Roman were wriggling closer from inside the brown forest, and what had looked like a brown forest was all their bodies.
Brown lumps that had descended to the ground wriggled closer. They looked like mud puddles that had gained consciousness and started moving.
"What are you even asking?"
Lawford chided Pel. You kill monsters. Isn't that the current objective?
"My fiancée. It turns my stomach."
When Shinar pretended to be weak and hid behind Enkrid, Rem tried to curse but held back. Enkrid noticed that.
"You've grown, Rem."
When he said it with admiration, Rem glared.
"Tsk, just shut up for a bit. You never keep your mouth closed."
It wasn't something Rem should say, but Enkrid was the leader of this group. He soothed Rem's feelings. Since he was told to shut up, he shut up and conveyed his meaning only with his eyes.
Is that something you should say?
Rem ignored it.
Anyway, seeing what could be called a monster army, Lawford and Pel stood side by side to face them.
If you let your guard down even a little, you could become a host for the Parasites. They were that dangerous.
"Will they burn?"
"Set them on fire?"
"Yeah."
To these people, they weren't a threat.
"Be careful with fire."
Shinar answered those words. It was difficult to shake off a trauma-inducing incident all at once. Fire was still a dangerous tool to her.
Of course, she wasn't an ordinary Fairy either, so she was in the process of overcoming her past.
"Use it carefully."
That's why she added those words.
Pel and Lawford cut down every single Parasite that charged scattered like a mud puddle, and they burned the forest that was the brown lumps' main base.
Though called a forest, it wasn't that large. After burning part of it, the rest just crumbled on its own.
In the middle, the colony head that ruled the Demonic Realm appeared—it was in the form of an earthworm. Against it, Pel swung a sword with a trajectory similar to Enkrid's Vortex.
Originally, a one-shot showdown with full power was Pel's specialty. Of course, it wasn't as good as what Enkrid had shown.
The earthworm survived even with its head split. In the end, burning it was the answer.
"I'll do it."
Luagarne stepped forward and finished it by wielding a whip of flames.
They'd cleared one Demonic Realm, but the actual fighting time hadn't even passed half a day.
Partly because the Demonic Realm wasn't that large, and partly because they possessed out-of-spec martial power.
Anyway, after cleaning up like that, Audin carried Roman on his back. The group proceeded toward their next destination. In other words, to find the next Demonic Realm.
Heading south, there were several places called small Demonic Realms. The act of burning and destroying them all would itself become something like a beacon sent to Balrog.
When they found a rough camping spot and settled down, Roman woke up. He blinked his eyes for a moment, then spoke.
"Are you dead too?"
He was speaking to Enkrid. There was time to explain the current situation.
"Ah."
Roman hesitated briefly, then recited his foolishness.
It was a common derailment. A desperate struggle to find the path toward Knighthood.
"My skills didn't improve further. Time passed while I remained stuck in place. I couldn't wait any longer."
It was an extreme choice. Roman, who had nearly eliminated the monsters and beasts remaining in the Gray Forest, felt stagnation.
How should he overcome this? Change was needed. To advance further, he set out alone on the road.
In the process, he learned that people lived even in lands belonging to no nation's territory.
It was a place he'd reached half by luck. If he'd only encountered the Cyclops that Enkrid had killed, it would have been close.
So had he fought for them?
"No, it was because of my greed. It was because of the vain hope that if I fought in a Demonic Realm, a way forward would become visible."
It was also a decision he'd made because he'd felt the Gray Forest experience had become something of a driving force for growth.
If you walk in the wrong direction without checking under your feet, you could fall off a cliff.
The path toward Knighthood wasn't a well-paved road.
Fortunately, Roman, who'd fallen off a cliff, was pulled up by another's hand.
It was foolishness, but there was no one in this group who couldn't understand him.
Especially Enkrid knew that feeling far too well to scold him.
There would truly be very few people who could speak carelessly in such a situation.
"What foolishness."
In that moment, Rem spoke.
"Right."
Ragna agreed.
Jaxen didn't even pay attention. He was gathering several pebbles on one side and filling his pocket with them.
"Do you believe in the Lord? If you'd believed, He would have shown you that path."
Audin also chimed in.
Hmm.
Roman's foolishness was criticized. Not by Enkrid, but by the entire Knight Order under him.
"I think it's because you lacked training."
Pel showed his training fanatic side.
"Being bold is good, but there was no need to go into a Demonic Realm alone, was there?"
Lawford pointed out reality.
Roman looked around at them.
"Who are these bastards?"
"The Knight Order."
At Enkrid's answer, Roman understood their identity. There were familiar faces too, so it wasn't impossible to recognize.
It was the Lunatic Knight Order.
Roman knew he'd done something foolish and knew they'd saved him. So he tried to shut his mouth, but the words wouldn't stop.
"Fiancé, even if I'm left alone in a Demonic Realm, you'd come rescue me, right?"
"Why would you go into a Demonic Realm alone in the first place?"
"That would be to regain previous pleasures. When I was captured by a demon, I saw visions of you coming every day."
"Didn't you tell me to go back as soon as you saw me then?"
"You have to know to listen to a woman's words backwards. And I'm joking. Do I look like a potato that couldn't even sprout?"
A potato that couldn't even sprout was a Fairy expression, which when converted to Continental language could be called moron, idiot, or dumbass.
Roman didn't understand it, but kind Lawford graciously added an explanation.
"I didn't really want to know that."
"Ah, is that so?"
Then that bastard Rem too, and everyone talked too much. Hearing them discuss him, something—something hot boiled up from deep in his chest.
"First of all, getting caught by that Parasite thing was because your willpower is too soft."
"Your body and mind are both weak."
"It's because you lack detailed training compared to your body size."
"Fools are just fools."
Gray-headed Rem, the blonde swordsman, the hulking man urging him to believe in God, and even the man who'd been silently handling pebbles.
Then the half-giant approached from the side and asked. Her name was Teresa, wasn't it?
"Did you have a plan?"
It would be a question close to pure curiosity, but—
"These bastards, really."
Rage surged. He knew he'd done something foolish, but couldn't they consider how he'd felt? Huh? How frustrated would someone have to be to set out on such an ascetic journey and do this? Huh?
Moreover, people—though you could only call them half-people—lived in the vicinity, didn't they?
But didn't they hear that part?
Yet his position was too ambiguous to speak loudly. In the end, he could only sigh deeply and say this.
"How would those lumps of pure talent understand my heart?"
As he raised his head saying that, Enkrid came into view.
He was a man who'd given his talent somewhere to a dog-faced demon and reached his current position through will and effort alone. He was now a Knight. It was a fact he already knew from rumors.
Roman didn't know this, but Enkrid wasn't just any Knight either.
Whatever the case, watching Roman struggle desperately, Enkrid saw this too as one of the conditions for becoming a Knight.
'You can't just teach and elevate anyone to become an Imperial Knight.'
In reality, personalities had to match and various conditions had to align for you to be able to pull someone up.
But Enkrid was different. He could guide Roman's path too. He could see the way.
It wouldn't happen with a snap of the fingers right away, but setting up signposts and opening the path—
'It's possible.'
This was what made Enkrid special. Because the path he'd walked was clearly different from others.
It was a path where he'd built stairs from the ground up where there was no road, and climbed while hanging from cliffs.
Roman saw Enkrid's eyes shining strangely and spoke out of embarrassment.
"People live in the Demonic Realm too. You didn't know that?"