“Kneel and beg. Balrog won’t kill you.”

So beg, and beg again.

Plead for your life.

That’s how you escape today and run. Show your back. Fighting head-on isn’t the only answer. Grow stronger, and face him again later.

Isn’t that a tactic too?

The ferryman’s face seemed to shift at least five times as he spoke.

A dark green glint flashed across his black pupils, and within the hood, a faded gold shimmer appeared briefly. Still, his expression remained unchanged. In other words, he merely laid out his words in a flat, expressionless tone.

It felt like reading a book written in rigid academic prose. Not driven by intrigue, but by plain facts. Just like such a book, Enkrid found the ferryman’s words reasonable.

“Are you going to be devoured by today like this? Mauled by a dog that killed all its own siblings and ran away—hardly a dignified end.”

There were some parts he didn’t quite catch.

Killed its siblings? Fled?

Judging by context, it sounded like an accusation aimed at Balrog.

But then to suggest begging that same opponent—what sense did that make?

The logic didn’t line up, but considering the ferryman’s intent, it wasn’t all that strange either.

“Escape today.”

More precisely: Don’t remain in today.

That’s what the ferryman wanted.

Enkrid’s curiosity was unpredictable. Like inspiration striking a brilliant artist without warning, his interest flared suddenly. Most of the time, he let words wash over him, but now and then, something someone said would catch his attention and spark a question.

“A dog that killed all its siblings and ran? What’s that supposed to mean?”

The shape of that curiosity was always tied to fighting, training, learning, or his own goals—but the ferryman couldn’t know his thought process.

Even the ferryman couldn’t dissect the full depths of Enkrid’s mind.

Truthfully, even Enkrid couldn’t fully understand himself. That’s just how people are.

In any case, Enkrid asked. The ferryman answered. His tone remained stiff.

“It’s not important.”

The ferryman’s lantern swayed faintly from side to side. With that small motion, a violet glow spread slightly, and the shadow in front of him stretched and shrank.

The boat had doubled in size compared to normal. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen that.

When he had recently fallen into training even within dreams—replaying what he’d learned from the three instructors who hadn’t even accepted krona—the ferryman had enlarged the boat.

And still, one conclusion remained in Enkrid’s mind. The ferryman didn’t want him stuck in today, facing Balrog. His actions conveyed that more clearly than words could.

The meaning was unmistakable.

Come to think of it, Enkrid had been with this ferryman for several years now.

He was even the sole confidant of Enkrid’s greatest secret—one no one else believed.

Enkrid’s thoughts began to turn. No need to draw them out. This was, after all, a mental realm—an inner world.

Inside here, thoughts moved like flashes of light. Instantaneous. Enkrid simply let the tree of thought soak up water and grow.

If left alone, it would reach its own conclusion. That was something he’d learned from experience.

“The ferryman is helping me train.”

He was pushing him forward, urging him to climb over the wall.

“Why?”

As soon as the question formed, the answer came naturally. No—he already knew. It was a truth he’d repeated thrice now.

The ferryman despised the “today” with Balrog. Why? Because it was anything but a pleasant day.

It wasn’t the kind of today the ferryman wanted.

What he sought was a peaceful, gentle day. Even if it involved fighting, it should be free of such desperation.

“You’ll never overcome this. If you end up trapped here for a hundred or two hundred years, this becomes the end. This becomes your final today.”

The ferryman spoke again, interrupting his thoughts as if to interfere. Enkrid listened quietly. From an outside perspective, it might seem like one side was pleading while the other remained aloof.

“Mad beastman—if you want to dwell in immortality, now is not the time.”

Isn’t it always the desperate one who talks the most?

Having heard all that, Enkrid scratched the back of his neck with his left hand and casually answered.

“Mm. No thanks.”

A response with not even a hint of hesitation. His attitude and timing were just as relaxed.

“So you’ll stay in this today?”

The ferryman pressed.

“Ah, no. That’s not it.”

Enkrid shook his head.

“You... you think you can overcome this alone?”

The ferryman’s Will crashed into him, layered dozens of times over, resonating through his entire body. The river stirred violently at those words, and the boat rocked.

This might be a mental world, but to Enkrid, it functioned like reality—he could move his body here.

Standing balanced atop the swaying boat, the corners of Enkrid’s mouth lifted softly. A smile full of certainty spread across his face.

“No.”

That was his final answer. The churning river swallowed the ferryman atop the boat. The ferryman’s body dissolved into dark-blue particles and scattered like beads. Enkrid, meanwhile, rose weightlessly into the air and was drawn upward into the flickering light above his head.

“You’ll have to prove your words.”

The ferryman’s voice lingered like an echo shouted from afar.

Just moments ago, Enkrid had said “no.” That answer carried a double meaning.

One: a vow not to remain in today.

And the other:

“Why do you assume I’m alone?”

He wasn’t alone.

That was his point.

Well, something like that.

Beyond that, impure thoughts—or perhaps naturally surfacing fragments—began to extend outward on their own, eventually coiling together like snakes biting each other’s tails.

Enkrid skillfully gathered all those thoughts into one and drove them toward conclusion.

To kneel and beg before Balrog ultimately meant to break his own Will—even discard the way of life he’d upheld just to survive.

So in the end, the ferryman hadn’t changed. His offer now was no different from the one he made on an earlier today. No matter what “today” it was, the ferryman only ever proposed a meaningless path to survival.

“And what’s fun about that?”

To live such a today held no meaning at all for Enkrid.

It wasn’t fun. And more than that, it was an insult to the dream he’d nurtured since childhood—to become a knight, and to some degree, a dream he had already achieved.

Life and death are always two sides of the same blade. And since it’s he who walks it, it must also be he who determines the attitude with which he lives.

And to beg? That was far too passive. It meant leaving the choice to Balrog.

Even if he survived like that, someday his heart would shatter. After prostrating himself, pleading for his life, there would be nothing left inside him.

If the tower of Will he’d built so far were to collapse—then what?

To an outsider, Enkrid might have looked like someone who lived for just this one day. But that wasn’t it.

He was always someone who moved toward tomorrow.

Whatever the ferryman’s proposal, Enkrid had his own way.

“If you stay like this, you’ll be trapped in this today.”

That’s what the ferryman had said.

He understood what that meant.

If it were only about escaping today, then he had long since found a way.

That he couldn’t do it alone? That too, he accepted.

Having tried to leap over the wall countless times, Enkrid’s thinking had grown freer, and his understanding broader.

He had let go of the idea that he had to do it all alone.

A freer mindset allowed him to factor in many situations, to calculate and figure out what had to be done.

How had he learned to sense the flow of battle through instinct?

It was thanks to Abnaier—the genius strategist who, though now a hostage in the care of the Border Guard, had once trapped him.

After repeating today so many times, it had simply become part of him.

That experience had built up into a lighthouse of intuition, and that light still shone clearly, illuminating the world around him.

Repetition and experience.

That thought circled back again.

Then—how many “todays” had Enkrid repeated?

It was hard to even count. The fact that his mind hadn’t eroded was reason enough for the ferryman to acknowledge him.

In truth, part of the ferryman’s consciousness respected him for that reason.

Of course, Enkrid could never know the ferryman’s inner thoughts.

And so, after repeating today so many times, what can he say—his sense for things had sharpened. If he found himself trapped in today, he could already see what lay ahead. It was dark, pitch black, with no end in sight—but he also came to trust that if he endured long enough, the lighthouse’s light would faintly guide him forward.

That was a secondary ability even the ferryman hadn’t anticipated.

The light absorbed him once more, bringing him back to today.

Before the familiar repetition of today and reality, Enkrid simply revisited what he had learned.

How to utilize weapons.

He applied what he had learned from his first instructor.

That included not only how to wield physical weapons and tools, but also how to use the evolved power he now possessed.

“If the power you hold changes, then the tactics to use it must also change. Obviously.”

Lua Gharne’s words crossed his mind.

Then, the techniques of the second instructor, Donapha, came in handy too. With a single, simple thought, he erased all impurities. By swinging his axe that way, he surpassed his limits.

And from the third, the One-Edged Sword Wielder, he learned how Will and breathing changed with emotional state.

Enkrid repeated more than thirty “todays” after that.

And finally, at the end, Balrog had said something strange.

Well—strange from Balrog’s point of view. From Enkrid’s perspective, it was only natural.

—Is your tactic to die slowly?

Enkrid had only smiled in response. Because he had finally understood the difference between the Will of Ragna and the others, the Will Balrog showed, and the Will he himself possessed—and had finally adapted.

And even to the end, he’d tried to win with that alone—but lost.

The fight had been fierce, violent, and brutal—but it was just another today that had passed.

A today no one needed to know, vanished just like that.

But Enkrid knew. Those todays had piled up to illuminate tomorrow with a lighthouse’s glow.

That’s why, at the start of the two hundred twenty-sixth today, he looked at Rino and asked a question.

“This your instructor’s domain?”

“This your instructor’s domain?”

In the labyrinth, there were places lit with fire and places shrouded in darkness. And these beings lived here.

In terms of sheer number of todays, Enkrid had spent more than half a year in this place. During that time, he had instinctively observed his surroundings.

And that was the conclusion he’d drawn.

These beings had their own territories. The fact that they maintained some degree of ego—was that due to Balrog’s generosity?

No. It’s his amusement.

The demon of struggle, who had made endless battle his goal, confined them in the labyrinth and had them challenge him.

Because that was his joy.

Fragments of Balrog, torn off in shard-like form, claimed territory throughout the maze. They provoked the intelligent races, drew out their skill, and ultimately hunted them down.

And to the ones who gathered there, he gifted personal space.

A private room within the labyrinth, so to speak.

It wasn’t ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) anything special like what one might find in a grand city inn—just a bare space inside a cave—but it was unmistakably their domain.

“...Hm? You seem to know a thing or two. But instructor? That’s an odd title.”

Having learned a bit more, Enkrid chose to call him that.

“I do know a bit,” he replied.

“Ah, I see.”

Rino tilted his head side to side and let his arms hang. The signal he gave before attacking.

Enkrid silently revealed his fortress of Will. A provocation—to see if Rino could break through it. Rino’s brow twitched. His forehead creased, and a crooked smile tugged at his lips.

“Where’d you learn that little trick?”

He drew one of his flame-blades and settled into a stance. The kind of stance that looked like he’d lunge the moment his pressure was broken.

It wasn’t a clumsy stance—but Enkrid knew it was a feint.

If Rino had been one of the Mad Order of Knights, Enkrid might’ve told him:

“It’s better to ditch the deception and just focus on technique.”

His eye had improved. He’d trained Pell and Rophod. He’d even helped Roman find a new path.

He had taught and learned in turns, over and over, and had selected only the most essential pieces to rebuild anew.

To Enkrid’s eyes, the path Rino ought to walk was already visible.

Of course, that didn’t mean he’d say it. The opponent before him was an enemy—not someone to guide or protect.

Let alone...

“Not even someone alive.”