"What are you doing?"
Ann, covered in blood, asked. Encrid, holding a burning log, replied.
"Playing with fire."
With those words, he threw the log into the dry underbrush. Since it hadn't rained for days, the heap of brown, thorny shrubs caught fire almost instantly.
Fwoosh!
In just a few breaths, the flames shot up to Encrid's waist.
"...Huh?"
Ann asked again, but the others already understood why he was doing it. It was dark, he was lighting up the surroundings and flushing out whoever was hiding.
As they watched, the flames grew larger than anyone present. If someone claimed that a giant of fire had come to visit, they might have believed it.
Encrid sharpened his senses as he watched the rising flames.
'Where are you?'
Encrid stood in front of Ann, remaining vigilant. The scent was still there.
Ragna, seeing where Encrid had positioned himself, approached and stood behind Ann.
"Why?"
Ann failed to recognize the killing intent, but she could tell that something was off.
She wasn’t foolish, anyone could see that these two had taken protective positions around her.
A monster had been cut down above her head, and blood had spilled.
"It seems you're being targeted. You didn't happen to swindle Krona and run, did you?"
Encrid asked, lacing his words with a joke. Then he glanced at Ann. He didn't want the one he was protecting to be too frightened, so why had he said that?
However, Ann did not fall into panic. She was not the kind to be easily shaken.
She was a woman who had traveled with a merchant caravan alone and even sought out the Border Guard, her nerves were not fragile.
"Not much."
Ann wiped the black blood running down her face.
"Did you owe them?"
"Just a little. I was desperate at the time. If they come looking for me, pay them back a bit."
"Oh, sure."
Before joining the Border Guard, Encrid had worked as a bodyguard.
Most of the time, that job involved playing the role of a noblewoman's escort doll, but he had still learned a few things.
When the enemy's target was clear, it was easy to determine where to stand to protect them.
"What is it?"
Ragna instinctively felt a sense of unease. Encrid, relying on experience, recognized the source of that unease.
"A spell."
That was all the explanation needed.
Ann understood her role well, she shut her mouth and stayed still.
The attack had come just before midnight, yet they remained on alert through the entire night.
The fire did not spread too far. There were only a few bushes in the area, and the space wasn’t wide enough for the flames to spread unchecked.
"You’re not planning to burn us all alive here, are you?"
At one point, Grida had cleverly set up a backfire to extinguish the flames. They spent the dawn amidst gray smoke, but the enemy remained silent.
It was a great opportunity to strike when the smoke was thick, obstructing visibility. And yet, no attack came.
No one voiced it aloud, but Grida had been aiming for such a moment as well. Extinguishing the flames had been part of the plan, but it wasn't the only reason.
And yet, they didn’t attack. Encrid fell into deep thought.
'Are they being cautious? Or are they scared?'
Perhaps both. Since he couldn’t see the enemy, predicting their movements was difficult. But even if he could, Encrid would never assume he understood his opponent’s reasoning.
No one here was exhausted, yet standing guard throughout the night was far from pleasant.
It was a night that frayed the nerves, or gnawed at them.
"This is boring."
Odinkar commented as he watched the rising sun. Encrid did not reply. He remained lost in thought.
'Are we being hunted?'
As daylight broke, the thick, sickly-sweet scent that had lingered around them vanished.
Had the scent of dried petals simply faded with time? Or had someone deliberately removed the flowers that had been right in front of them?
The answer was obvious.
It felt like they had spent the night locked in a standoff, swords at the ready. An enemy whose position could not be determined…
'What is this?'
He didn’t know. There was only one thing he was certain of.
Odinkar had found the night dull, but Encrid did not feel the same. Encrid never refused a fight.
Neither Grida nor Magrun had fully grasped this about him yet. No matter what form a battle took, Encrid never turned away from it.
If not for this nature of his, he would never have survived the battles he had endured thus far.
Had he not possessed such a spirit, he would have given up after losing to a boy more than ten years younger than himself.
A fight wasn’t just about clashing swords. Battling against a world that demanded surrender, struggling against one’s own despair, these were fights, too.
Uncovering an enemy’s hidden tricks and dealing with their schemes was also a battle.
"We need to find a place to use water. We should wash up."
Encrid spoke. Ann was drenched in monster blood, it was best to clean up first.
Everyone agreed with that. Grida, who had scouted ahead the night before, led them toward a stream.
"There’s a creek ahead."
She was an excellent guide.
Encrid himself had worked as one before, but even among the best he had seen, Grida’s skill stood out.
She quickly and precisely grasped the terrain.
Though Magrun had led the way, it was Grida who had guided them this far. Even now, she quickly found the direction of the creek.
She had already taken note of the moisture in the soil, the way the trees grew, and the presence of green plants to determine where the water would be.
Even though they hadn’t needed water the previous night, she had still checked.
If she went to the Guide’s Guild, she could immediately become one of their best.
She had also noted the paths where monsters might lurk, the traces of beasts that had survived the wild, and the droppings of wildlife.
And yet, despite all this, the ambush last night had been strange.
Normally, there wouldn’t have been an attack at all. Or at the very least, there should have been warning signs.
That’s why she had chosen this route. It felt like someone had set a hidden trap.
Intuition could sometimes be as sharp a weapon as a sword, and Grida knew that well.
Something about this situation ticked in her mind, but she couldn’t put her finger on it yet. As she pondered, they reached the stream.
A narrow flow of water, just deep enough to reach their ankles, trickled beneath them. Grida turned to the others. Her gaze landed on the freckled healer—Ann.
'Why target her?'
She had barely turned twenty. Maybe younger. She was a brilliant healer, but that was all Grida knew about her.
It made sense for someone to be after her. Maybe revenge, maybe something else.
But the enemy had remained hidden despite having nowhere to hide.
'Is that common?'
A presence that had eluded even their sharpest senses?
Not easy.
Why would such a skilled enemy go after her? Nothing made sense.
The group washed up at the stream, filled their waterskins, and let their horses drink.
Once they were done, they set out again.
"The weather is nice."
Ann looked up at the sky and then forward.
"But we have a long way to go."
The sun shone through thin clouds. Ahead, the land stretched out open and vast.
Far in the distance, a rugged ridge rose, part of the immense Pen-Hanil mountain range.
"Let's rest here for a while."
Grida, speaking as their guide, suggested.
Encrid agreed.
They had spent an entire night on guard. It was an unexpected situation. So, to maintain their best condition, taking a break was a wise choice.
It was a guide’s decision.
There was also no need to push ahead with the schedule.
"That disease people call a curse doesn’t cause seizures overnight, nor does it kill someone in a day. Before death, the person suffers for at least two weeks, unless something has changed beyond my knowledge."
Ann looked toward Odinkar and Magrun, as if asking them to confirm. Magrun nodded.
"That’s right. They waste away before dying. There are also warning signs that only we talk about."
"Is that so? That’s a relief."
It was Ragna who responded.
Magrun glanced at him.
Why call it a relief? Was he worried about him? Magrun had never had any personal interactions with Ragna. When Ragna left, Magrun hadn’t even been capable of holding his own.
"It means we can take care of any unfinished business before we die, doesn’t it?"
Ragna added.
Since Magrun didn’t know how Ragna had been before, he simply assumed he had always been that kind of person.
But was this really the same man who supposedly left Zaun because he found sword training dull?
'Is there something I don’t know?'
Magrun felt a flicker of doubt, but it was a pointless suspicion.
"...Yeah. That’s right."
Magrun answered Ragna, and with that, the group paired up to take turns keeping watch.
Encrid and Ragna would take turns sleeping in shifts.
"I hate this kind of thing."
Odinkar muttered as he checked his gear.
In one-on-one combat, he was one of the best in House Zaun. But tracking or dealing with hidden enemies? He had no interest in such things.
‘If you weren’t going to fight openly with swords, why even engage?’
That said, a Knight’s instincts didn’t just disappear. He had learned basic tracking skills in Zaun.
He just hadn’t cared enough to master them.
Encrid and Odinkar took the first watch.
In broad daylight, they had unpacked some of the supplies from their horses and set them up as makeshift tents, leaving them open for ventilation.
The two of them sat in front of the setup, yawning to pass the time. Even Encrid couldn’t suggest sparring in this situation.
"We can’t spar to pass the time, can we?"
So when Odinkar asked that, Encrid had every right to scold him.
"Are you out of your mind? Or do you want to dull your focus and just swing a sword around?"
You couldn’t properly spar while maintaining maximum vigilance.
Conversely, if you focused on sparring, your awareness would naturally lapse.
"I know we can’t."
"You have a habit of asking questions when you already know the answer. It’s a bad habit. Fix it."
Odinkar had a tendency to choose his words carefully.
Not because he feared misspeaking or causing misunderstandings, but because he hated having to repeat himself if someone failed to understand.
But Encrid always understood him perfectly. And on top of that, he even picked up on Odinkar’s intent. Because of that, Odinkar could speak freely with Encrid.
"You have a habit of sounding like an ass."
"Yeah, I do. But if you’re worried about something, you can just say it."
Just like now, Encrid cut straight to the heart of the matter. His speech made it pointless to dance around a subject.
He had an uncanny ability to detect when someone hesitated due to uncertainty. Finding this strangely impressive, Odinkar voiced his concerns.
"Unlike that heir sitting inside, Zaun is everything to me."
That was true.
Odinkar had always been prepared to return, never hiding his devotion to his family.
"And?"
Encrid prompted him to continue.
Odinkar exhaled, then spoke.
"I have a bad feeling."
"A bad feeling? Tell me."
"Just a gut instinct. Like something’s happened to my family."
He knew what the situation was.
As Magrun had said, this wasn’t Zaun’s territory yet—nor was it imperial land.
Beyond those hills and mountains, one could start calling it the empire’s domain, but even then, it wasn’t fully controlled by the empire.
Odinkar pointed at the distant mountains with his left index finger. The daylight made it easy to see far.
Little was known about the empire’s inner workings.
Even someone raised in House Zaun like Odinkar didn’t know much. But that wasn’t what he was talking about.
"Even so, I feel like I have to go protect my family."
A conflict of loyalty and unease. Encrid didn’t offer any empty words of comfort.
"Shouldn’t I be where I belong?"
Odinkar continued.
From the way he spoke, it was clear that he had never wanted to be involved in this mission in the first place.
"Ragna Zaun… Yeah, I’ve heard of him. But did it have to be me who brought him back?"
"If you think that way, then why did you come?"
Encrid asked as he idly drew lines in the dirt with a stick.
The sharp end of the stick traced several marks, all of them related to swordsmanship.
"There was no one else to send."
"And?"
There had to be another reason. Encrid knew Odinkar always left the most important part unsaid until the end.
It wasn’t hard to notice. If you really paid attention, it became obvious.
"The lord ordered me to leave."
So it was half a command.
Encrid understood immediately.
They let the conversation die after that, each falling into their own thoughts.
A few hours later, their watch ended. Ragna and Magrun woke up to take over.
"Get some more rest. We still have a long way to go."
Magrun said as they switched shifts.
Even if they took a short break, the situation wouldn’t change. Encrid already knew that.
And when he lay down, using his backpack as a pillow, and closed his eyes under the makeshift tent, he realized he was on a rocking boat.
It had been a while since he’d seen this particular ferryman. At the edge of the swaying boat, a purple lamp cast its glow.
Through the dim violet light, he saw gray skin and a sharp jawline.
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