A vicious fire-serpent sliced through his ankle, and a blade cloaked in black flame cleaved from shoulder down, cutting half his body apart.

—That was fun. Let’s meet again.

Balrog gave his usual farewell. His “let’s meet again” didn’t mean in the course of another repeated day—it meant he intended to trap Enkrid in the labyrinth.

Though the implied meanings differed, their intentions aligned. Enkrid nodded and died. That nod was his reply to the parting words.

And so came the nineteenth repetition of today.

The moon that bore fire lost its light and fell, and the ferryman on the boat welcomed him.

“Klik-klek-klek.”

The ferryman let out a chuckling sound. His mouth, black and formless like a hole without even a tongue, didn’t look much different from any gaping void. The laugh rang short and deep, then passed.

Then, in the moments where pitch darkness appeared and disappeared, the ferryman conveyed his thoughts through will alone.

“You are trapped in this day.”

“Is it painful? You brought this on yourself.”

“You’ll just struggle and fade away in the end.”

“No flame burns forever.”

Creak. The boat groaned as it swayed in the river. That sound brushed Enkrid’s ears.

“You will never escape this place.”

The ferryman appeared again and again, and each time he spoke of a fixed future. For once, Enkrid read the meaning hidden within the ferryman’s will. Not precisely—only vaguely. Was it because instincts and senses honed in reality bled into this realm? Or had he simply seen the ferryman so often that he now sensed more than before?

The reason wasn’t important.

“Do you want me to surpass this?”

Between the ferryman’s black eyes, a pair of irises spun in a murky gray. No—colors not easily defined. Gold, red, then blue, turning green, then blending together into black.

The eyes of monsters were black. So were the ferryman’s. The difference was, a monster’s eyes looked tainted black—while the ferryman’s looked intertwined, entangled, and compressed into blackness.

“Can you surpass it?”

The ferryman asked. Enkrid didn’t answer. Without opening his mouth, the ferryman continued to convey his thoughts.

“There is a way to surpass today. If you wish to know it—ask then.”

No coercion. No threat. No suppression.

No trace of force in his words.

A greenish hue flickered in the ferryman’s pupils—black tainted with green. A muddy shade of dark green. Compared to Shinar’s light spring-green eyes, it was far duller. Yet in those eyes, there was a will that hadn’t been seen before.

Pity. Compassion. A glimpse of sorrow.

Enkrid’s mind and will were always steady and upright. Even in moments like this, he /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ could center himself. Otherwise, he would’ve fallen long ago to Shinar’s teasing words.

“...Almost fooled me.”

He murmured, dismissing the ferryman’s meaning with ease. The murky green hue in the ferryman’s eyes seemed to vanish, only to writhe and settle in place again.

“You really are insane.”

This time, the ferryman’s tone was slightly different. The first ferryman had been an unfeeling entity, devoid of anything. This one, who now suggested a method, had shown a faint shard of emotion—pity.

Maybe Enkrid only noticed because he’d spent so much time watching Shinar’s emotional states. The fragment of feeling the ferryman had let slip was so small, so insignificant—but now, clear anger was present. Or to be precise: irritation, exasperation.

Why did that particular memory resurface now?

There’d been a time—during a streak of good fortune, when he’d gathered a decent amount of krona—not from selling sword skills, but through luck—that he’d ended up with a pouch of gold coins.

He used that money to visit a famous training hall. On this continent, where monsters and magical beasts were everywhere, it was normal to learn to wield a weapon from a young age.

That’s why cities were full of dojos and schools. With his gold pouch, Enkrid sought out a renowned instructor.

At first, the instructor—a woman—spoke kindly, trying to dissuade him from a life of swordplay.

Enkrid listened with one ear and let it out the other. He clung to techniques—obsessed.

“It’s better to quit. Even though I’m an instructor now, on the scale of the entire continent, I wouldn’t even qualify as a city-level stronghold. I only get by thanks to a bit of teaching skill.”

She’d said it humbly. But she’d once served with the Lengaedis caravan’s rear escort. Her skills were real. Enkrid wanted to learn from that realness.

“So, what should I do next?”

His question hadn’t strayed from that point.

At some point, her gentle tone had started to twitch. Her brows trembled.

“I said it’d be best if you gave up.”

Her speech had shortened.

“Enkrid-nim, you really do only hear what you want. How convenient your ears must be.”

Then came the criticism.

“Do you not understand what ‘give up’ means?”

Then, irritation.

That memory resurfaced. It felt like the current ferryman overlapped with that instructor.

That same mixture of pity and rising frustration. The scene struck something in his memory. Enkrid just shrugged. A reply to being called a madman.

His gesture seemed to say: Just figuring that out now? Or maybe: So what if I am?

Either way, it meant he wouldn’t be listening to anything the ferryman said.

“Fine. Then enjoy your prison of today. It’s not such a bad playground.”

With those words, the dark green eyes blurred and receded. Enkrid felt his body begin to float.

He hadn’t blinked, yet the world warped around him. He passed through the dark—and emerged, as if opening his eyes again.

Today began once more.

His talk with the ferryman dulled the pain’s lingering trace. Because of the lengthy conversation, Enkrid had less time to think. Delayed battle analysis, thanks to the ferryman’s unexpected behavior.

A strategy he believed would succeed—maybe not perfectly, but well enough—had broken down.

‘It wasn’t a miscalculation.’

Enkrid had calculated the optimal attack path. Balrog hadn’t. Therefore, his insight had been ahead.

“A guest has arrived?”

The enemy had just opened his mouth.

Enkrid had intended to cut him down instantly, but since he didn’t see him as a serious threat, he just stared blankly and replied:

“Wait a second. Let me think.”

“...What?”

He didn’t care about the enemy’s bewilderment.

“If more show up, I’ll start cutting. Just wait.”

Pressure—shaped, intangible weight—radiated from him. He had fought the demon of strife in the Demon Realm eighteen times.

Even that demon, Balrog, had always tried to crush Enkrid with raw pressure before any blade was drawn. Only after withstanding it could the true fight begin.

It was Balrog’s personal test. Enkrid had passed it every time.

And through those repetitions, the rejection that had once churned within Enkrid began to shift. The initial Will techniques he’d learned operated unconsciously—but that wasn’t enough to shake off Balrog’s pressure.

‘If the path from quasi-knight to full knight is using Will unconsciously...’

Then regaining knighthood meant learning to train Will consciously. One of the theories he was slowly building up—“Will Discipline.”

He kept training himself to consciously repel pressure.

Balrog’s pressure took the form of flaming chains. From the moment they met, the heat made flesh sizzle and burn. One lapse, and it felt like it could crush him to death.

Enkrid had broken those chains and unleashed his own pressure. He did so now.

His pressure took the shape of a wall—a thick wall of indeterminate depth. One that ordinary force, or a metal spike, could never pierce.

The opponent paused mid-step. The fact he didn’t flinch proved his nerve and skill.

But he still didn’t come closer. Facing the wall Enkrid created, he saw Balrog’s shadow. He recalled the truth: resisting fear etched into your soul is the very nature of intelligent beings.

To avoid submission, to keep your head high—one had to resist.

Still, was this the time to resist? He had bowed endlessly to Balrog—but now, he chose to stand against Enkrid’s pressure.

In the time he bought, Enkrid reflected on the fight.

Not by repeating the battle again and again. Instead, he dug deeper. Rather than running simulations, he examined the before and after of each motion, each psychological state.

But there was no need to overanalyze. The truth was simple.

He wrangled his scattered thoughts and organized them into clarity.

‘In permutations—I was ahead.’

He counted, measured, and struck—like someone who had spent their life dealing with numbers.

No waste. Every motion followed a defined path. The blade moved with grace. The steps to support it were clear. Swordsmanship blended with logic—it was almost beautiful.

In certain moments, the blade shimmered as though it might shatter one of the gemstones right then.

‘I can’t go any further ahead than this.’

And then Salamandra, the fire-whip, struck.

As if boasting its own consciousness, it enjoyed the tactical dance. Balrog followed up with wings, fists, feet, and his blade—moving freely within the predicted framework.

In that moment, Enkrid introduced chance—a blade of coincidence. He tried to bind the demon again in webs of calculation. But even so, he couldn’t stop Balrog within those bounds.

‘It was different.’

Balrog’s swordplay was different. At a certain point, it broke free of all calculation—faster, heavier, more powerful than expected.

—Behold.

Balrog transmitted the thought mid-battle.

Enkrid’s eyes were drawn to his right hand. The black-flamed sword—Surtr.

Its flames surged like breath, over and over. Enkrid already knew—it was a fire that never went out. He avoided every attack.

His hair was singed. He had to remove and toss his cloth gauntlet from his left hand—but he endured.

To analyze the fight now would take time.

‘It’s meaningless.’

There was no point assigning meaning to the process. The outcome hadn’t been decided by calculation.

Surtr’s fire stopped surging outward and instead sank inward. Then, it formed into shape along the blade.

‘A blade.’

Instead of burning wildly, it took form—refined into a blade. That sword couldn’t be blocked. It couldn’t be solved through logic.

That was what made it different.

And in that difference—Enkrid saw something.

‘Difference.’

He’d seen it before—not only in Balrog.

He saw it in Ragna’s blade. In Audin’s sacred armor. In Rem’s axe. In Jaxon’s thrust.

He had felt that difference in all of them.

What was different? What was that difference?

He thought of the people who had carried him to the present—those who had shaped parts of his dream. Over and over again, like a madman, he traced their memories.

He recalled each moment, each thing they’d shown him.

“Huah!”

His opponent had just broken through Enkrid’s pressure. He pulled blades from his sleeves and gripped one in each hand.

“Where the hell did you crawl out from?!”

Shouting, he lunged—then threw two daggers while feinting. Clever. Throwing knives while holding swords in both hands—it was a trick worth admiring.

Tadang!

In his right hand—Dawn Tempering. In his left—Penna.

Enkrid met the opponent dual-wielding. The fight wasn’t long.

Before the enemy could show off his specialty, Enkrid had already ended it. Repeating this more than ten times had made his weaknesses too clear. Strengths faded, weaknesses sharpened.

He pressed forward again. His thoughts never ceased. The analysis continued.

Enkrid faced yet another repetition—and died again.

The crimson blade forged of fire didn’t cut everything.

The blade of Will that Enkrid showed—could block it.

‘But...’

He lacked the strength. He was cut down again.

What was the difference?

Twenty times. Thirty. Forty. Over fifty repetitions passed.

In days filled with pain and agony, Enkrid possessed the one thing no one else could—limitless time to reflect.