Zaun could be described as a group of people who were twisted and twisted again.
They had strength but chose not to use it, believing that anything was acceptable as long as it helped them refine their swordsmanship.
Among them, Grida once said something that stuck in his memory.
"If you trace our lineage back through the generations, you'll find our beginning. I heard that someone who lacked something started swordsmanship to fill that void."
There was no need to ask what kind of void it was. Because, in the end, everything led back to the sword.
For example, how does a man overcome the pain of unrequited love after being rejected by a woman?
If he were from Zaun, he would be told to swing his sword.
What about a child who lost their parents?
The way to resolve grief and sorrow? Swinging a sword.
There was a child who often lost his way from a young age. That child yearned for the right and proper path.
His talent pushed him forward, ensuring that he never lost the path of wielding a sword.
His desire to find the right path manifested through the sword.
Another child couldn't remember people's faces. But as she grew, she developed an exceptional ability to remember techniques.
Grida had an almost perfect memory, when it came to swordsmanship.
So then…
"Oh, Ronny? What brings you here?"
It wasn’t unusual for her to mistake someone’s name, even when looking directly at Krais. If you understood her, if you knew the House of Zaun, it was an expected thing.
"Why do you keep getting my name wrong? You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?"
When Krais grumbled, Grida would always laugh and reply,
"Sorry, I never crossed swords with you."
If she had, she would have remembered through swordplay. If she couldn’t, then she simply couldn’t remember a person’s face.
Would it make sense for someone to fill their deficiencies with the sword? To outsiders, it seemed absurd, but for them, it was natural.
Because they had one last missing piece.
Talent.
Born with talent, they gathered, twisted, and obsessed over their swordsmanship.
That was the House of Zaun.
Among the spectators who knew how to assess a fight, everyone understood the trick that Grida was using.
Encrid, who was facing her, understood as well.
‘A tailored counterattack.’
This wasn’t so different from what Sinar had done.
Sinar had devised a method to counter the Wave-Blocking Sword, while Grida had brought something that overturned calculation itself. A counter that crushed a single technique.
"I’ll show you the result of two months."
This was the result of what Magrun had said before the match began.
‘Anomalies.’
By continuously making meaningless movements, she disrupted calculations.
She was supposed to push off the ground and lunge, but the motion didn’t follow through.
She spun around and stabbed from under her arm, randomly slapped her thigh, and shook her head side to side, some actions had meaning, and some didn’t.
As a result, her movements didn’t align, twisting calculations out of shape.
‘It's fun, though.’
This wasn’t a fight to win, it was purely about dismantling techniques. Disrupting calculations and even making that disruption part of swordplay.
What a fascinating group of people. Did they consider the Wave-Blocking Sword as well? That technique also belonged to the realm of thought.
‘What happens if I keep applying pressure like this?’
Still, it wouldn’t work against the Wave-Blocking Sword. It would become two parallel lines progressing forward.
The Wave-Blocking Sword was entirely dedicated to defense, and its endurance was unparalleled. Even if the sword was trained through thought, its essence lay in its defensive nature.
Both Magrun and Grida understood this, so the obvious answer was that they wouldn’t challenge the Wave-Blocking Sword.
They sought to dismantle techniques and found joy in the art of swordplay itself.
Odinkar, watching from the side, shook his shoulders, excited.
Meanwhile, Encrid adjusted the position of his sword.
Grida was adept at striking weak points. That was her specialty.
"Here I come again."
Encrid spoke while looking at Grida. He raised his sword above his head. With both arms lifted, his chest, sides, and underarms were exposed.
Grida identified several vulnerable spots on Encrid. The moment she saw them, her body moved on its own.
A quick downward thrust of her sword would do the job. And yet, despite knowing this, she hesitated.
‘Why?’
Because of Encrid’s raised sword.
‘If I go in, I’ll be struck.’
She withdrew her sword. It was an instinctive decision.
The moment she pulled back, her sword reflected the sunlight, gleaming white as it aligned vertically with the ground.
Encrid had altered the form of calculation. Not through sustained movement, but through an instant.
If defense was about blocking waves, then offense shone in a single moment. That was the principle he decided upon for his swordplay.
Zzzt.
He pushed forward with his feet planted, dry earth scattering into the air beneath his boots.
His left foot moved, and his right foot naturally followed. With that, he controlled the space and took the distance he wanted.
"Don’t block it!"
Odinkar shouted just before the attack. A sense of dread compelled him to speak.
Magrun widened his eyes in surprise, fixated on observing. Rem, Audin, Ragna, and Jaxon all stepped forward simultaneously.
But they were too late.
Zzzt, zzzt.
Encrid scraped his right foot against the ground, moving diagonally forward.
He twisted his sword and placed his right index finger on its side in a thumb grip.
Then he swung.
For just a fraction of a second, he had calculated every possible defensive reaction Grida could make.
And then, he struck.
Encrid’s Three-Iron Sword clashed against Grida’s white blade, striking it aside.
Bang!
A thunderous impact rang out as Grida let out a stifled groan.
Encrid had executed an upper horizontal slash.
The advantage of this attack was that even if it was blocked, it could smoothly transition from an overhead stance into a bull stance, leading immediately into a thrust.
And he did exactly that.
He spun his sword around his head, sweeping Grida’s white blade to the left. Then, pressing his blade against hers, he locked her grip and slid forward into a thrust.
The force drove Grida’s knees to bend slightly.
Everyone watching could almost see the illusion of a gaping hole appearing in her skull.
But that never happened. Encrid had already stopped his blade.
"…I need to pee."
Grida muttered.
Behind Encrid, a shadowed figure loomed.
"If I intended to kill her, I wouldn’t have used an upper horizontal slash. I would’ve gone for a diagonal cut followed by an upward slash."
"We knew that, so we didn’t intervene."
Rem added a remark that was unnecessary but truthful.
Odinkar had already drawn his sword at some point, standing at the ready.
The situation was clear. Encrid had won. Grida had lost.
Grida let out a laugh, exhaling before collapsing onto the ground.
"Hey, you should’ve kept fighting with insight until the end."
"I never agreed to that."
"True enough."
Grida nodded, and Encrid smiled, lowering his sword.
"It looked fun, but it wasn’t really a sparring match, was it?"
Ragna commented.
"You’re the last person who should say that."
Rem shot back.
Meanwhile, Lawford, who had barely absorbed what he just witnessed, didn’t hear any of their words. Inspiration had struck him.
‘If my calculations are read, what do I do?’
Encrid had just provided the answer.
‘Change the form of calculation.’
Just then, Magrun let out a cough and vomited blood.
"What kind of curse?"
Encrid looked at Magrun and asked, while Grida scratched near her lips with her finger before answering. There was no urgency in her tone.
If this was the first time witnessing someone coughing up blood, she wouldn’t have been so indifferent.
"It’s a curse that sometimes affects a few unlucky ones. Some survive after spitting blood, while others die. Usually, their breathing becomes shallow, and then… they just stop."
Her tone was calm. Ragna seemed to understand as well.
"That’s exactly what it is."
Though it didn’t seem like he knew much beyond that.
Odinkar, half-supporting Magrun, merely checked his condition with a composed expression.
"Jaxon."
"Yes?"
"Go bring Ann. Audin."
"Understood. I’ll take a look in the meantime, brother."
Audin knew that curses didn’t work on Encrid. Moreover, he wasn’t afraid of curses himself.
He gathered golden light in his palm and placed it against Magrun’s chest.
"Hmm."
Magrun groaned softly.
"If this is a curse, it seems to be one that doesn’t respond to my abilities, brother."
Audin remarked.
Was divinity the natural counter to curses? Not necessarily. Divine power could heal wounds inflicted by a curse, but curses themselves were more akin to sorcery. That’s why Encrid had looked at Rem, but even he didn’t step forward.
"It doesn’t have that foul, lingering smell."
Rem said before turning to his axe and asking it,
"You think so too?"
For someone often mocked for talking to his axe, he spoke to it with a remarkable level of familiarity.
Grida couldn’t help but make a remark.
"Doesn’t your axe ever say it just wants to sing?"
"Hey, my axe does express itself."
She could tell, but from an outsider’s perspective, it all looked the same. Grida kept that thought to herself and said nothing more, it wasn’t the right time.
Encrid wondered if Magrun’s condition had been this bad over the past two months, but that wasn’t the case. This was a sudden symptom.
While they waited, Jaxon returned with Ann.
"If someone’s arm got cut off, you should have called Seiki too, right?"
Ann commented as she approached.
"No, it’s an old curse."
Grida tossed out the explanation as if it wasn’t a big deal. Ann fell silent and stepped forward.
She sat in front of Magrun and pulled back his eyelid to examine him.
"Open your mouth."
Ann instructed, and Odinkar helped open his mouth.
Having suffered injuries in sparring before, they all knew this, Ann was an exceptional healer.
To be frank, she was more skilled than anyone they had ever encountered, even in their main houses.
She seemed to be checking his tongue, but instead, she closely inspected the inside of his mouth.
Then, she pulled a rounded metal spoon from her pouch and scraped the inside of his cheek before wrapping the residue in a piece of paper.
"You said it’s a curse?"
Ann asked.
"Yeah."
Grida nodded.
"It’s not a curse."
Ann let out a breath and stood up. Then, after a brief moment of hesitation, she turned and walked away.
Her steps seemed slightly unsteady—not physically, but mentally shaken.
"Wait."
Ragna caught up to her and grabbed her arm.
"What?"
"You look like you’re struggling to walk."
"…Yeah, I guess I am. I’ve been up for days working on research."
With that, the two left the scene, and Grida spoke up.
"He should be fine with some rest. The head of our house lasted over ten years with the curse. He’s still going strong, isn’t he?"
"The symptoms are progressing faster than before, but yeah, he still fights like a monster."
Odinkar responded.
Encrid grew curious about this head of the house they spoke of, but he didn’t ask.
Would he ever meet him? Probably not.
The next day, Magrun woke up.
"I’m fine now."
He spoke casually and got up without issue.
Later that afternoon, Ann sought out Encrid, with Ragna standing beside her.
Seeing them together like that, they almost looked like a well-matched pair.
"I need to take a quick trip."
Ann spoke first.
"Where to?"
"You said Zaun, right? There. Ragna’s guiding me, so we’ll be fine."
Encrid reflexively asked,
"Is your dream to be a healer or a wanderer?"
"Huh?"
Ann blinked in confusion before Ragna interjected.
"I need to visit my house as well, so I’ll accompany her."
They spoke as if they were just going on a casual errand.
Of course, they couldn’t just let the two of them go alone. Ann wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed traveling.
From what Encrid had heard, she nearly died several times just trying to reach the Border Guard.
She even joked that she had used up all her luck during that trip.
"It’s about time for us to head back too."
Grida commented from the side.
"Yes, you should."
Ann added, as if it was an obvious fact. She glanced at Grida, Odinkar, and particularly Magrun before saying,
"It’s honestly surprising you all lasted this long."
That was all she said.
Encrid didn’t fully understand what she meant, but at this moment, he knew exactly what he had to say.
"I’m coming too. I can’t just ignore the crisis of your family, especially since it’s Ragna’s home."
Encrid declared without hesitation. He owed Ragna a lot.
If Ragna was going to defend his birthplace, there was no reason for Encrid not to go with him.
Jaxon, Rem, and Audin were all away at the moment.
Only Sinar was nearby, and upon hearing Encrid’s words, she smirked and interpreted his true intent.
"He’s dying to meet this ‘head of the house’ of yours, so he’s tagging along."
Grida nodded in agreement.
It was simply a madman speaking like a madman.
And though Ann found it surprising that they had survived this long, Grida wasn’t particularly shocked.
If that curse was truly fatal, they all would have died long ago.
Still…
"You know what this is?"
Grida couldn’t help but ask. This curse had taken many lives.
No one had ever had the grand ambition to fight the curse, but if it could be removed, they certainly wanted it gone.
"I do. But I need to see it for myself to be certain."
Ann replied.
Encrid added weight to her words.
"I trust Ann’s judgment."
"Translation: He’s just determined to go so he can meet your house leader."
Sinar once again provided an accurate interpretation of Encrid’s intentions.
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