Jaxon quietly melted himself into the surroundings.
'Assimilation.'
It was a technique of melting his presence into the environment. It was a fairy's specialty, but if you made assassination your trade, it was a skill you had to learn.
Once you reached the level of a knight, you could move Will and erase your presence itself, but even before that, if you trained, it was a skill you could learn as much as you wanted.
So it was the basics of stealth. An assassin's essential skill.
'Assimilation and silent kill thrust.'
It was Jaxon's specialty. He knew the answer was to sharpen the basics and go beyond the limit.
He had been confident that no one in the order, including Enkrid, would be able to stop it.
'It doesn't work.'
The moment he confirmed Enkrid's skill, dozens of methods came to mind in Jaxon's head. In his imagination, he targeted Enkrid over and over.
Ways to catch him from behind, ways to approach and cut the back of his neck, ways to stab deep from afar with a long longsword, ways to wrap a cord around his neck and snap it, even ways to poison his nails and brush past and kill.
'Blocked.'
None of it worked. Starting from that, Jaxon naturally began to tear apart what he had, one by one.
Sparring with that bastard Rem was a struggle to face his own limits and break out of them. He thrashed to go forward. Enkrid had done it until now, but this time it was his turn.
'Assassination is carried out in a total of five methods.'
Perception, psychology, deception, calculation, realization.
Perception is knowing the target.
Psychology is reading the opponent's mind at the moment you want.
Deception is using the gap in that opponent's mind.
Calculation is putting every element up to execution into the range of prediction, and killing the opponent countless times in your head.
Realization is going out on the mission using everything you have prepared so far.
Because he used those five methods best, Jaxon was the Master of the Morning Dew.
And he was the top among the assassins of the assassin guild Dagger of Geor.
Even though he had gone beyond the level of being the master of an assassin guild and had deepened and tempered himself to reach the present, it still wasn't satisfying.
'Assimilation and silent kill.'
And then he added a sensory technique—coating his five senses with Will and perceiving everything around him with super-senses.
Jaxon chewed over his specialty. A voice cut in between.
"Are you there?"
It was on the road climbing the mountain range. Between massive trees that could easily smash a house if they fell, gray eyes were seen. The bastard who had found his exact position threw an axe.
There was no sound. Before sound, a hand axe that looked like a disc flew in and lodged in the tree Jaxon had been hiding behind.
BANG!
The air tore and the tree exploded. The side of the tree burst and fragments scattered in all directions.
Jaxon had already left his original spot, but he knew that if he took that head-on, he wouldn't die cleanly.
'I'm getting pushed back.'
Assimilation works, and silent kill gets blocked. He had tried countless times to catch him from behind and use the silent kill thrust, but the gray eyes drew a long line and chased him.
That bastard Rem blocked the thrust with instantaneous reaction speed. It was something he had experienced over and over.
'If I'm not prepared to kill.'
It's not easy to land a hit. That bastard fought Enkrid too, and his senses had gotten sharper than before.
Should it be said the water rose?
The owner of those gray eyes hid his momentum like he was some kind of beast, and he found the hidden Jaxon well. A bastard who moved while habitually taking the headwind. It was a fighting style that showed the face of a hunter.
Jaxon didn't stay in one place long. If he lingered, Rem's axe would fly in.
Even as he kept moving like that, his head repeated thoughts. He repeated calculations and aimed for the moment the other let his guard down.
His predictions were beyond the track of an ordinary person. In this state, Jaxon glimpsed a future that would change as time passed.
"Hey, aren't you a washed-up feral cat?"
Rem spoke, convinced he had the upper hand. It showed in his attitude. He raised his nose and looked down. The corners of his eyes bent as he held laughter in them. Eyes that made you want to gouge them out even if you had to pawn your soul to a devil for three days.
"Ah, you, yeah. What was your name again?"
Ragna ignored him. As if Jaxon didn't exist in the first place.
"Youngest brother, don't be too hurt. Being the Youngest isn't a problem, is it? The Youngest is just the Youngest. In some ways, the Youngest might be good."
In a single stretch of talk, he said the word Youngest five times.
Audin would keep flipping someone's insides over like that, again and again.
'Ah.'
He felt that bastard Rem had been hanging around him for a few days and had realized something, edging into a new realm.
The future drawn by anxiety stimulated Jaxon.
Jaxon's realization came at that moment. If he got pushed back by these crazy bastards, he had no future. Nothing would be more painful than that.
'Crude Will is useless.'
Following the flash of inspiration that came to him, Jaxon erased the color from the Will inside him. He removed the shape, and in the end, he emptied it.
"What is it?"
Even Rem flared his eyes and stopped.
Jaxon moved with everything emptied like that. Right now, he was detached from the world.
'Absence from everything.'
Forget the world, forget myself, forget what I'm holding. Forgetting even where this place was, Jaxon moved for a single goal.
'Stab.'
Will flared up, but it was buried and concealed by the colorless Will.
Thunk—
Jaxon made a hole in the place he wanted, just like that.
***
"That damned bastard did something weird."
At Rem's words, Enkrid examined the wound carefully. There was a hole in Rem's left thigh. It wasn't a deep wound, but it was true he had gotten hit properly. Anne had applied medicine and wrapped it with a bandage, so you couldn't tell the angle the blade went in.
That was something he could ask Rem directly and hear.
"He stabbed you from outside your perception range?"
"It's not that—I only knew after I got stabbed. Shit, how do I put it… it felt really nasty. A lot, really a lot. Watch out for that sneaky bastard."
Rem, as usual, slandered Jaxon. Enkrid nodded. It wasn't that he agreed with Rem—he understood that Jaxon had done something.
'Rem would already have prepared for silent kill thrust.'
So it was something new again. Every time he heard something like this, his heart pounded. He wanted to fight it, to experience it.
"You can't yet. It's hard to control, so if I mess up, I kill."
Before he knew it, Jaxon was there, tossing out the words in his usual arms-crossed posture. He was speaking just from reading the pressure Enkrid let out.
Hearing that, the ends of Rem's eyebrows rose.
"If you mess up you kill? Then what, did I stab you so you could die? In the first place, can you even kill me?"
"If you want to die, say so. I'll do it for you for free, specially."
"Hey, you think I'm just lazing around eating and sleeping?"
Rem put strength into the hand gripping his axe. Veins bulged up over the back of his hand. Jaxon, too, before he knew it, was gripping a dagger in the hand that was crossed.
A murderous pressure passed between them like never before. A few of the soldiers watching swallowed hard.
They had fought often before, but this time was different. The sharp pressure pinned the air down. If it was a soldier with weak guts, his legs would have trembled.
Fortunately, this was the training yard of the Mad Order of Knights. Even if you were a soldier, if you didn't have some backbone, you couldn't even come in here.
Once you came in, it was a place where you had to digest a training intensity that made you think, so this is hell.
"That's a shame."
Enkrid showed emotion as he spoke between their murderous exchange. As always, he meant it.
He had beaten everyone in the order, but he wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted to go further, and he wanted them to follow. He was truly consistent.
The reason he said it was a shame right now was his sincere regret that he couldn't cross blades with the new technique Jaxon had used.
"Wait."
Jaxon's killing intent died. Instead, zeal rose. The Captain's words were like magic that touched a person's heart.
"Hey, I've gotta polish it a bit too, so wait."
Rem chimed in too. He scratched his neck with his axe for no reason. Considering that that murderous axe blade could cut steel if needed, the fact that he scratched his neck with it seemed to show just how tough his neck was.
"A letter?"
Only then did Rem take interest in the letter. He and Ayul sometimes exchanged letters through a merchant association. He expected it wouldn't be anything that big and looked.
"Mm?"
A low groan came out of Rem. It was that reaction people have when they hear unexpected news.
Rem's eyes moved left and right as they followed the contents written in the letter. After reading it all at once, he said,
"I need to go out to the west for a bit."
Enkrid also didn't have that much he had to do while staying in Border Guard.
In the first place, Kraiss ran this city. Enkrid was the decision-maker, but most of the time he just nodded.
And right now was a quieter period than ever. A short peace gained after the fight with the south.
However, in some places, rough fights were breaking out, and what was written in this letter was that kind of thing.
It was news that some of the giant clan who had deserted from Rihinstetten had pushed out to the west.
Of course, if it was only that, Rem wouldn't have to move himself. He read the nightmare part written in the letter over and over, then said he would go west.
"Let's go together."
Enkrid said. Using what he had newly realized only in sparring situations made his body itch. And Ayul was Rem's companion, and didn't he have many ties in the west too?
"Well, let's do that. Looks like we can just hurry up, get it sorted, and come back."
"With that leg?"
Dunbakel asked. When it wasn't training time, it was her daily routine to roll around on the ground like a lazy cat. Even now, she had spread a heated blanket on the floor and was half-lying down.
"Is that a bed to you?"
When Rem threw out a line, Dunbakel tilted her head.
"No. The bed is inside the lodgings. This is just the floor."
Dunbakel's tone was serious.
"Doesn't it seem like she's doing that to mess with me?"
Rem turned his head and asked Enkrid. Enkrid put the truth in his mouth.
"It looks sincere."
Rather than intending to tease, it was like she was really trying to tell him, a word for a colleague saying stupid things.
"That makes me even more pissed."
Rem muttered. Dunbakel shut her mouth. She had learned already after being made to look bad over and over that if she jumped in at times like this, it wouldn't end well.
Rem showed a look like he'd roughly let it go, then tried to immediately get ready to leave. He looked like he was going to walk out on a limping leg.
"Like Dunbakel said, going with that leg would be too much."
Enkrid said and tried to get a horse, and Kraiss happened to arrange it, saying the Lockfried Caravan was leaving for the west, so they should join it.
"Something happened in the west? Tsk, they said weird things from the south kept bursting out in all directions. I'll tell them to pack up and go as fast as possible."
To Kraiss, the west was a treasure house of resources. The obsidian they mined had already become one of their specialties.
After two days, Rem was able to walk decently too, and like that, the two of them joined the caravan heading west. It was a caravan Leona Lockfried personally commanded.
"It's an honor, sir."
Leona smiled and welcomed Enkrid.
"If Shinar saw that, you're smiling so wide she could rightfully snap and tell you to lower the corners of your mouth immediately."
Rem evaluated her smile like that.
"If she'd get mad enough to be angry at my smile, then I feel like she would've buried Sir Aurelia, who you brought this time, somewhere in the mountains."
She was the owner of the caravan, and she knew the importance of information. Especially because Aurelia was someone who had newly joined the Mad Order of Knights, the group that guarded this city and was the core of its force. She couldn't not be interested. It also meant she already knew how outstanding Aurelia's beauty was, and who Aurelia's grandfather was.
"Cut the nonsense. Why are you moving personally? Is the caravan idle?"
As Enkrid spoke, Leona moved to the carriage. After the two got on the carriage, Dunbakel climbed onto the carriage roof saying it felt stifling, and Rem took the passenger seat. The guard sitting in the passenger seat looked at Rem.
"What, why?"
"…Nothing."
Rem's sulk still wasn't completely gone. Because he had taken a knife stab to the leg because of that bastard Jaxon, if he tried to run in earnest, he felt discomfort. He didn't like that at all.
'That bastard's knifework was really weird.'
It wasn't right before he got stabbed—he only felt the existence of the blade after he got stabbed.
Rem closed his eyes on the driver's bench. Right now, recovery came first. Enough rest would heal his body quickly. Just from Ayul's letter, it didn't seem like a big problem, but since the letter even brought up nightmares, setting aside giants and whatever else, it was filled with an ominous feeling he couldn't name.
Feeling the carriage's swaying, Rem just went to sleep.
***
"Not Border Guard soldiers—troops raised by the caravan?"
Enkrid asked as he swept his gaze around. It was said while assessing the state of the soldiers surrounding them.
Inside the carriage, only Enkrid and Leona were riding. Since Leona was the caravan master of Lockfried, it wasn't like she had no guards who stuck close morning and night, but right now, the person by her side was the Mad Order of Knights' captain.
If he decided to harm Leona, it would be useless to stop it, and conversely, if someone wanted to harm her by getting through the disaster called Enkrid, then guarding her would also be meaningless.
For those reasons, only the two of them were inside the carriage. It was a personnel choice that showed Leona's way of thinking, taking responsibility for the caravan.
She valued efficiency. If necessary, even accepting loss was ultimately something you did because it was necessary. If it became a bigger profit later, that was efficiency.
No matter who looked, she was a woman with a big vessel.
For example, she became the owner of the city Lockfried and had Border Guard troops behind her, but she did not spare investment in raising warriors who escorted the caravan and protected the city.
If you only looked from the outside, it looked like wasting gold coins, but if you looked at what was inside, it was full of valid reasons.
"It sounds like you're asking why I don't borrow the strength of Border Guard's troops. A caravan that can't stand on its own will go under someday."
Leona said, flicking her finger.