“It’s because you’re bigger than Balrog.”

It was such an abrupt remark that he couldn’t understand it right away. The lamplight shone quietly over the ferry on the rippling river.

“I don’t think you’re talking about a physical organ.”

Half as a joke, half to confirm, he asked the question, and the ferryman replied. His tone was infinitely serious. Since he was conveying his words through Will, it meant that the serious tone was his intended nuance at the moment.

“What filled the hide with thought was a will to fight born from regret.”

Balrog had died leaving behind attachments. Those attachments condensed, leaving only the hide. Enkrid briefly recalled an old proverb from the West. A demon, not even a tiger, had died leaving its hide.

Pushing aside the trifling thought, his eyes landed on the ferryman before him. What about today’s ferryman? No—what kind of being is the ferryman?

‘Complicated.’

It is often said that there are simple people and complicated people. Of course, if you look closely into the inside of a person, everyone is complicated. As is often the case with those in whom intellect and instinct coexist.

But among them are those whose complexity is visible even on the surface.

‘Too changeable.’

The ferryman is like that.

‘Says something different every time.’

The ferryman is like that.

Even without deliberately dwelling on it, his thoughts meshed together on their own. The faces of the ferrymen he had met and seen so far flashed through his mind. Something he had noticed earlier rose to the surface. It was as if the broken pieces of a ship that had sunk to the bottom of a deep lake were coming together one by one to reveal their form.

‘The ferryman is not singular.’

The famous line from a novel that once swept the continent—that humans are not singular—meant seeing humans not as biological individuals but as beings existing within social relationships.

But the conclusion that came from Enkrid’s inner thoughts right now had a far more literal meaning.

‘The ferryman is not just one.’

He is a mass formed by the binding of multiple thoughts. That is why he is fickle, why he says something different each time, and why reading his true mind is impossibly complex.

Just as his thoughts were continuing and he was about to perceive something beyond them—

Tap.

The ferryman raised the hand that was not holding the lamp and drew it down from above. There was nothing particularly threatening about the knife-edge of that hand, but Enkrid sensed the line it traced and turned his body aside to avoid it.

“That’s far enough.”

The train of thought was cut. The chain of reasoning halted. The ferryman was cunning. No—he had to rephrase that.

Today’s ferryman was cunning.

His gesture looked like swordsmanship. It was closer to sleight of hand, but enough to pique interest.

“No need to know more.”

Enkrid agreed with that. He had not lunged in with a desire to learn something in the first place. It was simply the natural result of thoughts flowing according to past experience and the ferryman’s actions.

“Possibility...”

The word seemed to carry a deep lingering aftertaste. Even without deliberately pondering it, one could feel that the regret contained in those three syllables was truly deep.

After that, the ferryman began to recede. To be exact, Enkrid realized that his own body was somehow rising.

“Remember. And struggle. I will watch with pleasure.”

The dream broke. The river vanished, and an unfamiliar white ceiling came into view. That ceiling would have been made by attaching thin boards with glue and firmly fixing them with nails, then mixing slaked lime with crushed white chalk stone.

A memory from when he had worked on a construction site to earn a bit of krona clearly told him where he was now. The identity of the dream and the ferryman could be roughly set aside.

Knowing why the armor had no effect on him was enough; the rest was not something he needed to know right now.

***

After waking, Enkrid filled his stomach with well-boiled duck meat and roasted duck eggs, then loosened up his body in the royal family’s training hall.

Those who usually devoted themselves to training approached to greet him with nods or formal salutes.

Enkrid was a knight commander recognized by the royal family. His position alone was an honor. Moreover, his renown was even more impressive. And to see that his face was so handsome up close—

All the more so, he was the man who had entered the royal family with the nickname of “monster slayer” this time.

Everyone kept ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) a certain distance as they looked at him. Enkrid, however, paid no attention to the gazes around him.

It had always been that way. In the past, he had only been told he was talentless and clueless for not noticing people’s eyes.

And now?

What remained was reverence and respect. No one dared to challenge him. There was no one glaring at him, no one consumed by jealousy. That was proof that he had earned that much fame.

Of course, Enkrid still wouldn’t have cared even if someone did envy him. He would not have spared them a glance.

He focused on what he had to do. In other words, it was the same as always.

Lua Gharne had said countless times that Enkrid’s greatest talent was repetition. That diligence, the ability to steadily do what needed to be done in any situation, was his greatest weapon.

When his skill had suddenly improved after repeating the same day, Lua Gharne had found it remarkable, yet recognized it as the result of that daily repetition.

Frokk’s eye for such things was indeed formidable.

‘The arm still shouldn’t be pushed too hard.’

Enkrid repeatedly tensed and released his lower-body muscles. In the midst of this, Frokk rolled his eyes round and round as he approached, and suddenly spoke.

“Let’s go over it.”

No greeting, no checking his condition. His condition had already been examined earlier in the morning by Audin and Teresa.

Enkrid had gotten somewhat used to Frokk as a species by now. More precisely, he had gotten used to the Frokk that was Lua Gharne.

Even without puffing out her cheeks, her eyes rolling like that meant her anticipation was boiling over to the point where she’d gladly pin someone in place with a knife to make them stand here and talk.

Her desires and wants were showing more vividly than ever. Enkrid didn’t particularly mind that.

“Sure.”

He nodded readily.

At her suggestion to go over it, Enkrid began to place all the conversations they’d had on the way to Naurill into a single flow. It had been a stream of disjointed talk along the way. Lua Gharne had recommended compressing, organizing, and aligning that entire process within himself.

Though he had done some of that while walking, he had now had a full day of rest, a hot bath, and a good meal.

This was the best time to dig inward and establish something.

‘Minotaur.’

‘Colony-class monsters and beastman packs.’

‘Black lightning and a mage, Thorn Castle and its castellan.’

‘Balrog’s labyrinth, the knight bound to him, Oara, Balrog.’

Even when broken into large categories, it was a considerable list of events. And he had gained no small amount from it all.

Especially the swordsmanship that had culminated in what he called “Extinguishing the Embers” — an unprecedented advancement.

And before that, the change in Will known as Indules.

‘It’s people who wield swordsmanship.’

There was also a change in the way he swung the sword. The concepts of swordsmanship that had been divided into Precision, Mid-Tempo, and Swift Blows were now blending again around the body as the focal point.

‘Swing the sword you need at the moment you need it.’

All of this required the support of refined perception.

He reviewed and reflected on what he had experienced, apart from the day’s repetition. It was a post-mortem. Lua Gharne assisted him with that.

“Show me.”

When she told him to recreate how he had subdued an opponent by making triple-layered walls of pressure, Enkrid immediately moved his Will.

‘Shaping of intimidation.’

More precisely, it was pinning an opponent with sheer presence. Like a mouse unable to move before a cat, it was crushing the opponent’s heart with killing intent.

Sapient beings, including humans, went further here — beyond just using killing intent, they also exploited the opponent’s unconscious.

By shifting the position of his feet or letting his hand hang down, the opponent would see the illusion of their neck being cut.

The three crushing walls were not far from that principle — showing through small gestures and movements that the wall would not easily be broken.

“...Excellent.”

Lua Gharne voiced her admiration over and over.

While the two were at it, Teresa joined in, her body seemingly recovered.

“I also learned a lot this time.”

After that came Rophod and Pell.

Then Rem sat to one side to watch, and at some point Jaxon had appeared, leaning back against a column of the training hall’s surrounding gallery with arms crossed as if it were his natural posture.

His slightly open eyes were turned toward Enkrid, and just watching him was like looking at a picture. The way a few maids whispered about him made perfect sense.

Ragna, off to one side, was swinging Sunrise still in its scabbard, trying something. It wasn’t easy to tell what. Even though they’d been told to rest, somehow everyone had gathered here.

Marcus, passing by and seeing it, outright ordered that a table be set here — because it was obvious they wouldn’t stop even at dinnertime.

Enkrid brushed past the captain of the Royal Guard whom he knew by face. The man, busy with work, only gave a nod in greeting before quickly disappearing.

They ate dinner right there and kept at it until the sun went down. Everyone demonstrated their own movements and shared with one another.

What was ordinary to one could be special to another.

Even within the royal family, there were times when people would share what they knew to improve each other’s skill.

But that was only to a certain extent. They never revealed the intimate parts, the core of their techniques. These people, however, did not hold back. They freely laid out everything they had.

To those watching, it was something extraordinary. To the Mad Order of Knights, it was just another day.

One of the soldiers watching found the courage to speak.

“May I join in at the side?”

Their level was not equal. But the Mad Order of Knights did not scold someone for that.

“Think you’ll get it just by watching?”

No, there was one person who did throw out a barbed comment — Rem. But he didn’t refuse. Having already opened his mouth, he even corrected the soldier’s stance a bit.

In other words, even if watching wouldn’t make them understand, he gave explanations.

Of course, the explanations couldn’t be called kind, but Rem had learned something from teaching Enkrid up to now, so he could manage to be a somewhat passable instructor.

Above all, compared to the Madmen, the skill gap of those in the royal training hall was far, far too great. Watching their stance was nothing difficult.

“Why’d you spread your feet that far apart?”

Rem asked bluntly. The Royal Guard soldier found this barbarian intimidating, but spoke up anyway. You couldn’t become Royal Guard without at least that much nerve.

“That’s how I was taught.”

“Forget what you were taught and tell me what you know in your own head.”

This was a foundation, a basic, that had been forgotten, but knowing the reason for each part made the basics look different.

The best way to improve skill in a short time was to change the way someone looked at things — like telling someone wandering north and south when they needed to go east, “East is this way.” It was the process of setting their direction and opening the path.

Of course, they still had to walk it on their own legs.

Rem actually found this fun. In his own assault unit in the Border Guard, if someone couldn’t even do this, they’d start by beating them half to death — but coaxing them with words had a different kind of enjoyment.

“Hey, what, are you praying for the other guy to kill you? Relax your grip on your sword? And you think you’ll smoothly parry the attack like that? Yeah, go ahead. But if you can’t block it, I’ll split your skull, got it?” 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

After “noble hunter,” Rem had now gained another nickname: “skull crusher.”

His way of coaxing didn’t lack for intensity. But the soldiers stood their ground, which was impressive in its own right.

More precisely, it was Rem’s teaching method that was remarkable.

If some of the men from his assault unit saw this, they’d be sure an evil spirit had possessed their captain and would have their axes at his throat.

In just one day since the Mad Order of Knights had arrived, a training frenzy had swept the royal training hall — lasting until the moon was high. No one stopped or rested. But there was no forcing.

Everyone went to their duties, took breaks, or joined training of their own accord.

It was the same for the Madmen. Those who wanted to rest could rest.

“To cause this ruckus the moment you arrive...”

Into the corner of the training hall stepped a blond man. He wore a thin but vividly red shirt and navy trousers. The fabric itself was fine, but it was still no more than casual wear.

Who would guess that someone dressed like that was the king?

The formal audience was three days away, yet the king of Naurillia had come to the royal training hall.

The uproar was surprising enough, and with his friend having come, he’d taken the chance to come see him.

It was also a night heavy with accumulated fatigue. The past several days had been a string of headaches — most of them of his own making, but that didn’t make them any easier.

“Hey.”

Crang called to Enkrid. It was already deep night. Moonlight shone on the ground, and moths made crackling sounds as they burned against the torches.

It was a night with many moths drawn to the flames.

“Yeah.”

Enkrid wiped his sweat and raised a hand to return his king’s greeting. The king was holding a bottle of liquor he had just brought from the royal family’s storage.

“How about a drink?”

It was a liquor that wasn’t brought out unless there was something worth celebrating, and only three bottles remained in the royal vault.

Its nickname was “Founding Liquor” — because it had been brewed at the founding of the nation and so few bottles remained, and because of a legend that the Sun God, the royal family’s guardian deity, had taught them how to brew it.

“Sure.”

Enkrid gave another plain reply. He wasn’t surprised at the king’s sudden appearance — there was no reason to be surprised at a friend coming to see him.