Krais did as Encrid instructed.
‘A way to deal with the Black Blade.’
Wasn’t that what he was told to find?
Krais pondered and racked his brain.
It was a given that the Black Blade was up to something.
So, what would they do?
No, before that, how did he come to know they had such intentions?
Simple. Because the enemy told them.
Thus, they were kind.
‘Or they’re just idiots.’He leaned towards thinking they were idiots, but that wasn’t important.
“Think about it, isn’t it obvious?”
“What is?”
“These bastards. They kindly say they won’t leave the Commander alone, and after killing the guy who said that, they send another one.”
Krais said this as he walked into a patch of sunlight.
Pulling his coat tighter to ward off the chilly morning air, Krais continued speaking.
Meanwhile, Encrid was swinging his sword around.
To Krais’s eyes, it looked like stirring a stew with a ladle. Literally, just aimless swinging.
“This time, they kindly send someone who’s not even part of their group and tell us not to kill him. Makes me think they’re actually really gentle folks?”
“Thieves?”
“Or idiots.”
The enemy was indeed idiots, kind idiots at that.
Despite this, Krais continued to have ominous thoughts.
Because of his upbringing and inherent characteristics.
‘What if they send a Knight?’
Could they withstand a Knight-level opponent?
He saw Encrid training. Behind him was the closed dormitory door.
A stone wall made of pebbles and plaster, with a dull brown door in between.
Inside, barbarians bundled up in heated stones and furs due to the cold, a brute who had beaten up a priest just yesterday out of spite, a troublesome human who wandered aimlessly despite being directionally challenged, a mood breaker who vanished at will, a half-blood Giant ex-Cultist, and an ex-thief beastwoman were all asleep.
‘Could they even handle a Knight?’
A flicker of hope briefly intruded into his ominous thoughts.
Nonsense. A Knight is a Knight. They are monsters, disasters.
Krais shook his head.
“So what’s the plan?”
Encrid was now stepping and moving while swinging his sword side to side, attempting some maneuver.
To Krais’s eyes, it looked like a dance.
A dance while stirring a stew.
Watching his Commander absentmindedly, Krais once again let his ominous thoughts run rampant through his mind and spoke.
“We have to do everything we can.”
It was literal.
The enemy kindly informed them of the impending attack.
‘If I were a thief.’
If I were the leader of the Black Blade group trying to kill them?
‘The Commander is a Junior-Knight who has realized Will.’
And his subordinates are all monsters.
The dwarf compares people to metals through insight.
The Fairy compares opponents to plants and animals with unique sensitivity.
And Krais saw his subordinates as gold coins.
‘How many coins?’
Incalculable, he couldn’t yet estimate their worth with his current abilities.
From one perspective, they were just troublemakers, but from another.
‘An incomparable force.’
Viewed externally, they would undoubtedly be considered an overwhelming force.
Krais’s rapidly turning mind calculated what the enemy, the Black Blade group, could do, might do, or would likely attempt, and he spoke it out loud.
“Assassination, ambush, poison, bribery.”
There were four main points.
Encrid was no fool. He stopped his sword for a moment. The next move didn’t come seamlessly.
He had just failed to mimic a Snake’s Step.
“It’s probably the way back that’s the issue.”
“What’s the plan?”
Still the same question, Krais made only one request.
“If we request support from Company Commander Torres, or is he now Battalion Commander? Will Battalion Commander Torres lend us troops?”
“Probably.”
There was no reason for him not to.
The duration would be the issue. They couldn’t leave the territory unattended for too long.
There was no need for Encrid to point out what Krais already knew.
Martai was also short on hands.
That’s why they were also progressing with the plan to hire mercenaries and privatize the forces.
This time, they were going all out.
They planned to spend the earned Krona to sweep away the monsters and beasts around the Grateful Forest.
Encrid pondered during Martai’s response, the fight with the colony, and his training time.
For the safety of the trade route, what could the Border Guard do?
‘If we expand the patrol area?’
What immediately came to mind was something vague. It needed deeper thought.
“Once we receive weapons from the dwarf, we’ll head back, right?”
“As soon as we receive them.”
If there were no problems, that’s what they would do.
“Understood.”
With that, Krais disappeared from the morning.
Encrid again had his own time. That is, time with his sword.
At dawn, he had practiced the Isolation Technique with Audin.
His words lingered in his heart.
“If you have found the answer to why you train your body, the next question is ‘how’, isn’t it? I believe I have already given you that method, haven’t I?”
Audin was a good teacher.
His words meant that Encrid should think for himself.
He said he had already laid the foundation.
Encrid was neither dull nor stupid.
The only problem was that his body didn’t always move as he wished.
So, now?
‘To move forward.’
To face tomorrow. To be able to face it.
That mindset remained unchanged.
The only difference was that he felt twice as joyful as before.
Encrid swung his sword. Even if it felt meaningless, it didn’t matter.
That was his way of thinking.
That was Encrid’s meditation method.
And that’s what he did.
He entered his own world. He submerged himself. He sank, observed, contemplated, and understood.
He added thoughts to his previous realizations.
‘No one tells me what swordsmanship to learn.’
Even Ragna, who taught him the Middle Sword Technique, didn’t particularly care if he used other swords.
Just then, Ragna appeared and stood beside him, swinging the absurdly heavy sword made in the Border Guard’s forge.
There were no ingenious moves. He struck straight down from above.
It seemed as if the sunlight was being sliced by his dull blade.
‘Cutting and cutting again.’
Cut through anything that stands in the way. That is Ragna’s sword, his swordsmanship. The essence of the Middle Sword Technique.
Encrid reviewed what he had learned.
The Valen Mercenary Sword Technique is an Illusion Sword.
The Nameless Swordsmanship is a Correct Sword.
What he learned from Ragna is the Middle Sword.
Later, he learned the basics of the Fluid Sword Technique from Ragna and practiced it alone to some extent.
He learned to flow and shake his sword by observing and realizing while facing the enemy.
‘No, I learned this from Audin as well.’
Valaf-Style Martial Arts.
Martial arts, in the end, use hands, feet, and the body as weapons.
They are the shortest weapons humans can use.
So what is the foundation of martial arts?
Flowing, fast, heavy, and light.
Everything is mixed.
It cannot be divided into ‘correct, middle, slow, fast’.
Valaf-Style Martial Arts encompass all techniques. It is an ideal form.
But it is not swordsmanship. However, parts of it could be incorporated into his sword.
While swinging in concentration, Encrid reflected on what he had and focused on the Fluid Sword Technique.
Even when training his body, he emphasized flexibility.
Lifting heavy stones or iron lumps was the same, but he also spent time meticulously loosening and stretching each muscle.
These were to develop flexibility.
Why the Fluid Sword Technique?
The reason was that he had properly opened his sixth sense.
‘The Fluid Sword Technique is defense, a defensive style.’
For that, the most important thing was the eyes.
In other words, it’s about senses.
One must see and understand correctly to twist the contact point of force and let it flow.
Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling everything.
The five senses are blurred and fused into one sense.
If the previous sixth sense was merely a branch of a new sense, an extension of the five senses, now it was closer to a truly new sense.
It wasn’t called opening the third eye for nothing.
Jaxon sat on a round stone chair at one side, which was a large rock roughly carved into a chair stuck in the ground.
It would be extremely cold to sit on in winter, but Jaxon seemed unfazed.
Why wouldn’t he be?
Jaxon’s own training was harsher and more grueling than this. Such cold didn’t even register as cold to him.
Jaxon’s eyes caught Encrid’s figure.
‘What.’
What makes him move like that?
It remained a question. But just as much as that question, there was now a reason to stay here.
‘It intertwines.’
That Commander had now become someone necessary for Jaxon to achieve his goals.
“Hey, wildcat, what are you staring at so intently?”
Rem, the barbarian, came outside, yawning widely.
It was a pointless provocation. Jaxon ignored it as usual.
Rem’s gaze turned to his Commander.
“…Look at that?”
The barbarian rarely showed surprise.
Ragna and Audin were no different.
Immersed in his own world, swinging his sword. They had all experienced that once.
Therefore, they could understand Encrid’s current state.
Engrossed and trapped in his own world.
Was it dangerous?
No, it was, in fact, an opportunity. A rare training opportunity in a lifetime.
A chance to realize his limits and advance several steps forward.
“Hey, wildcat, we need to secure the area. You too, navigator. Hey, bear?”
“I understand, Brother. Sister Teresa and Sister Dunbachel should join us too.”
Audin spoke, and they moved quietly.
Early on this unexpected winter morning, Encrid’s group formed a circle around their quarters.
What they did was simple.
“Do not approach. Do not make any loud noises.”
It was a restriction. They turned away anyone who approached.
“Hey, I heard you beat up a priest. I came to talk about that.”
Even when the Lord came by.
“That person was unworthy of being called a priest, Lord Brother. In any case, now is not a good time.”
Some people found it incomprehensible.
A few soldiers frowned, wondering what they were doing.
Those who understood Encrid’s state quietly stepped back.
More than half of Martai’s barracks were Easterners.
Easterners were known for being tenacious, tough, and loud.
“If you make noise, I’ll split your head open.”
“Silence is golden. The Lord said, ‘Shout on the battlefield and speak softly at home’. So please sew your lips shut and stay quiet.”
“Quiet. Or be cut.”
“Do not cross this line.”
They acted as usual.
Dunbachel quietly watched Encrid while moving her body.
Impatience tormented her.
So she had to train in any way she could.
Teresa found the man strangely fascinating.
‘I am the wanderer Teresa.’
After regaining her composure with her usual thoughts, what she saw was a man swinging his sword alone, grinning like a madman.
‘Does he find joy not just in battle but in training too?’
Born and raised in the bosom of the Cult, Teresa didn’t know the world.
Her world was narrow. Even now, she wasn’t sure of the rightness or wrongness of her choices.
Only one thing.
‘I want to fight.’
She wanted to swing her sword at the man occupying the small training ground in front of the quarters.
She wanted to split his skull.
She also wanted to charge at him with her shield.
She wanted to punch him and kick him.
She wanted to fight.
The desire boiled within her, making right and wrong irrelevant.
“Calm yourself, Sister. Control your heart.”
It was Audin’s constant advice. Teresa adjusted her mask and replied.
“I am Teresa the Wanderer, I can endure.”
Patience is a virtue.
She wasn’t born with such virtues, but now she aimed to keep and learn them.
Only then could she fight him and experience the thrill of the moment.
In his own world, Encrid sometimes wandered, sometimes ran, and sometimes crawled.
It didn’t matter.
He was contemplating swordsmanship.
Occasionally, an apparition of a ferryman appeared and spoke.
By now, seeing his face had fostered some familiarity.
Seeing him so often did that.
“Crazy fool, this isn’t a wall I built.”
What was he talking about?
It was an illusion, a hallucination.
So he ignored it. The ferryman wasn’t important right now, nor was the repetitive nature of today.
Correct, Middle, Fast, Slow, Light.
Out of the five divided sword techniques, Encrid had properly learned the Correct and Middle techniques.
However, despite mastering them, they felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t just that they were difficult, they never felt quite right. Why?
‘Clothes that don’t fit my body.’
A sword built on talent, led by talent, and stacked on the soil of talent.
It was not the path of a dullard.
He didn’t realize all of this immediately.
He was simply moving forward based on what he sensed in the realm of intuition and sixth sense.
He continued to walk, crawl, and run.
Just.
‘Where is my path?’
He used brief questions to determine his direction.
In this way, Encrid moved beyond the basics of the Fluid Sword Technique and sought a new path.
It was a process of creating a new swordsmanship.
Nothing happens all at once. When Encrid emerged from his immersion, he only understood what he had done.
He also knew that he still had to refine and internalize what he had achieved until today, and continue building upon it.
‘Swordsmanship.’
Becoming a Knight or creating a new swordsmanship might seem like madness, a false tale with no substance to others.
But so what?
When had anyone else’s view ever mattered?
As he emerged from his immersion, the sun was still high in the sky.
‘It was just a moment.’
Encrid thought this as he looked up and saw a dwarf girl pouting her lips in front of him.
“Hey, I’m busy too.”
And then the dwarf spoke.
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