“Oh.”

The Marquis of Baisar reached out his hand. Even rising to his feet alone seemed beyond him.

The butler standing beside Kin hurried forward, took his master’s hand, and helped him up. Just standing left the Marquis a little short of breath.

“Keugh!”

When the Marquis coughed, the butler brought over a wide iron basin and held it to his lips. The Marquis spat phlegm with choking coughs that nearly stole his breath away—black and yellow mucus streaked with blood. When the fit subsided, it was Kin who wiped his mouth.

“Huuh.”

Finally catching his breath, the Marquis let out a sigh. He wasn’t even standing that close, yet Enkrid could smell death in the man’s breath.

It was musty, heavy, and damp.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Why me?”

Enkrid didn’t waste words. To drag things out with meaningless chatter would not be showing respect to a dying man.

“You know my purpose.”

For one so close to death, the Marquis’s gaze was still sharp and steady. It was nothing like the clouded eyes of senile old men who couldn’t even recognize their own wives.

This was the Marquis of Baisar—a giant of his noble house who had held sway over an era. Sometimes he had stood beside the king, sometimes against the royal family itself, but he had always preserved his house.

With the full weight of such a life, his mouth opened. The power in his voice alone seemed to push away the death god standing at his side.

“Wed Kin. That is my final wish before I die. A fine grandson in your arms would be even better.”

For a moment Enkrid nearly choked. He even wondered if the old man had lost his wits—but clearly, he had not.

Moments ago he had coughed like he was about to die and spat bloody phlegm. Now the corner of his lips curled faintly upward.

“Only jesting.”

Seeing Enkrid’s startled reaction, the Marquis burst into booming laughter. From the sound alone, one would never think this was a man at death’s door.

His ruse just now, compared to swordplay, was the pinnacle of deception.

Didn’t the Valen-style mercenary swordsmanship say as much? That the essence of deceit was a spirit willing to stake even one’s life on the lie. To press falsehood as if it were truth with overwhelming momentum—just as this old man had done.

It had been an unexpected blow. Enkrid thought himself inured to such jests, and that was why it struck deeper. For a brief moment, he had exposed a gap.

'If Jaxon had seen me, he would have scolded me for sure.'

Was he becoming too overconfident from recent battles? Not omnipotent perhaps, but wasn’t he beginning to believe he could hold his own against almost anyone?

Yet no one can foresee everything. That is true in combat and in life alike.

Thorns that slip through the cracks of insight can pierce the heart at any moment.

'Then if I am deceived, I am deceived.'

That means one must accept that sometimes you will be tricked. One must recognize that you can be struck by an unexpected blow.

Even then you respond. Even if startled, even if shaken, you react.

'What’s needed is training.'

Knights are called calamities. Through such training, step by step they move from the ordinary to the extraordinary. That doesn’t end even after becoming knights.

'To avoid becoming a half-measure, it isn’t enough to just swing a sword well.'

It had been nothing but a small, light joke, yet Enkrid had gained an insight. Perhaps it was thanks to all the experience stacked up until now—from Balrog to the battle at Thorn Castle. His talk with Lua Gharne may have played a part as well.

The concept of “battle arts” surfaced in his mind. An extension of earlier revelations. After all, it is always humans who wield them.

“You recover your composure quickly.”

The Marquis spoke. Enkrid’s thought process differed from ordinary men. What seemed like a long string of reflection had passed in the blink of an eye.

“I was surprised,” Enkrid admitted.

At that, the Marquis nodded, satisfied.

It hadn’t been a joke meant to lighten the mood. He had wanted to see what kind of man Enkrid had become—whether he still walked his own path, indifferent to power, or if he had changed.

So he had rattled him deliberately. And Enkrid could not help but admire it.

They say even an old blade remains sharp.

Though not a knight and a man Enkrid could kill with a flick of a finger, the force of one who had spent a lifetime as a noble, wielding power, was not to be underestimated.

The Marquis had caught the moment he faltered, and also perceived the instant he steadied himself again.

Then he said:

“The unrest stirring in the capital is the work of the South. Do not forget—they are ever preparing for war. I told His Highness as much, but I think you, especially, will not forget my words.”

He spoke as if anticipating that Enkrid would ask why he was confiding war plans to him.

Was this prophetic clarity born from wisdom, or simply intuition sharpened by experience?

The Marquis drove the conversation with answers that skipped over the questions.

The unrest—this dark current—was the South’s doing. And in the South lay the great kingdom of Rihinstetten.

That kingdom, bordering the Demon Realm, fought ceaseless battles against countless demons and beasts far beyond what the Central Continent could imagine.

And yet now Enkrid could no longer smell death on him. Gone was the thick, damp scent of decay. Instead, with the eyes of his vigorous youth, the Marquis said:

“Do not fall to those damned Southerners. That would wound my pride.”

So spoke one who had once made a name as a noble of the royal court. He seemed to have much more he wished to say, but this was as far ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ as he went.

“Then watch over me from the grave.”

A counter to the jest from earlier. Kin started and looked at Enkrid in shock.

How could he joke like that to a dying man? Was he even human? Was it possible Rem had donned Enkrid’s mask and come in his stead? Her eyes seemed to ask as much.

The Marquis, on the other hand, roared with laughter once more.

“My eye for people has never failed me.”

Then he waved everyone back.

“Go on.”

Enkrid had only come because the Marquis had wished to see him before death. There was nothing more to be said.

And yet, before he turned to leave, he asked:

“Is it vengeance? Or protection?”

Was this the keen instinct of a knight—or simply Enkrid’s own uncanny intuition?

The Marquis thought he had kept his true feelings hidden, but Enkrid had read something and spoken. The Marquis chose his words carefully.

“Let’s say it’s both. I’m a greedy man. And I should add—I have more lovely daughters besides Kin.”

Was the Marquis of Baisar always so eloquent?

Come to think of it, Marcus had never been lacking in words either. They say a tiger’s cub is never a dog, and this must be the Marquis’s true nature—or perhaps a glimpse of the brashness he’d carried in youth.

Time is like water drops boring through stone—it changes people. As the years passed and he had more to protect, the Marquis must have grown cautious, unable to speak carelessly. And yet, at crucial moments, he had made bold choices that had carried him to the present.

And what of him now, stripped of all such trappings? Hard to define with a single word. Enkrid left the chamber with a strange emotion stirring in him.

The Marquis, expression blank, gazed out the window.

Call it greed, but when he looked at Enkrid, he was reminded of someone long dead.

“I’ll protect it.”

That had been the dead man’s habitual phrase. He was the sword of House Baisar—and the Marquis’s childhood friend. Born with a natural gift for the blade.

Different in looks, different in temperament, yet why did Enkrid remind him of that friend?

'He never gave up either.'

That friend had been the same. Had House Baisar truly passed without storms? There had been many. Far too many.

A rough wind once shook the family’s businesses. A raging tide swallowed lives whole. And in the eye of those storms, his friend had taken up a sword and fought.

That was more than fifty years ago. The southern front was collapsing, and the crown had conscripted even the nobles’ private soldiers. His friend died in that war.

Had it been a fair and honorable fight, he would not have begrudged it.

“This was a duel,” said Baisar’s sword.

“No, this was war,” the enemy replied.

It could not be called cowardice. The truth was simple: they lost because they lacked skill, lacked power, lacked men. It had been an age of nothing but shortages.

If not for Cypress, that once-in-a-century genius, Naurillia would have fallen then.

From the wounds of that war, Naurillia began its slow decline, and in time Azpen fixed its gaze upon it.

Time is cruel. But—

'The scales are always fair.'

At the end of that cruel passage, the goddess of fortune had placed a heavy weight on one side of the balance.

Facing that weight now, the Marquis lay down with a satisfied face. Tonight, he would sleep well.

He had revealed a piece of what he had never confessed to anyone. And with that, he could rest easy. He let go.

“Father.” 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Kin’s voice called to him.

“Go to the Border Guard. And do not come back.”

They say all ten fingers hurt when bitten, but some hurt more than others.

He had taken in the child of his fallen friend’s wife and held her within House Baisar’s arms. He had raised her as he would his own, but perhaps that had been a wound in itself. Did the Marquis not know this? Of course he did.

He had grown into a wise old man. He knew everything—only that this was all he could give.

“Go, Kin. My daughter.”

Kin’s tears burst forth. She could see his breath thinning before her eyes. The vigor that had chased away death moments earlier was gone—only an old man, resigned to die, remained.

“Yes, Father.”

The Marquis closed his eyes. Tonight he would dream happily.

As the darkness pressed in, bright sunlight came, and a meadow. White clouds, a thatched cottage in the distance.

And there, at the meadow’s edge, his friend stood to greet him, just as he had wished.

“Have you been well?”

“Can’t you treat me as you did in our youth?”

“Shall I?”

He met all the others he had lost. His wife, who had long since died of illness, appeared with a smile—the gentle expression of one who would accept any complaint without resistance. It was the kindly smile of the woman who had always listened.

Between his friend and his wife, the Marquis walked.

***

As he turned away, Enkrid thought of the Marquis of Baisar and his house.

'To secure a place as a noble, military might is indispensable.'

Marcus had let slip as much once.

“Even now our house’s private soldiers are skilled, but this isn’t the height of their power. This is decline. The true golden age was when my father was young.”

It wasn’t hard to infer what he meant.

'There had been knights in their ranks.'

That could not have been common. But with that knightly force, the House of Baisar must have risen to its title.

And perhaps the Marquis’s lingering regret was because of their deaths.

It was only intuition, yet he had guessed it perfectly. Not that Enkrid himself pondered it deeply.

Only Kraiss could have pried into such thoughts, and if Kraiss had been here, he would have been exasperated.

“Why stop with half measures, sir? Use that fine head of yours. Take what can be taken, prepare for what must be prepared.”

And Enkrid, of course, would answer as calmly as ever:

“That’s your job.”

It wouldn’t be wrong, and Kraiss would be silenced.

Pat, pat—the rain was falling as he left the manor.

“Please, take the carriage.”

A squire approached him.

“It’s fine.”

Enkrid refused and kept walking, thoughts flowing.

The Marquis’s house had its sorrows. But who does not?

On this continent, all live with war, demons, and beasts ever at their side.

'Doom and end of war.'

It was a song sung by the dwellers of the Demon Realm. Humming it, Enkrid walked back to the training yard.

Though past noon, the sky was still dark. A heavy overcast day.

“You’re keeping busy, busy. Don’t tell me you went to see a woman?”

Knight Aisia greeted him as he stepped into the yard.

“Won’t you give me some instruction, Captain Enkrid?”

She joked lightly, but Enkrid nodded.

His arm was nearly healed. It wasn’t a life-or-death fight—sparring would be no problem.

“A woman? Hm, perhaps the scent of both an old man and a woman?”

Shinar, seated to the side with a chair, feigned sniffing the air.

“Yes, I know you’ve been to House Baisar,” Rophod spoke from the other end of the yard.

The sharp-eared fairy heard, and turned a flat, dispassionate gaze on him. It was a glare.

“Useless weed.”

An insult.

Rophod let it pass, but Pell caught it and threw down a challenge at him.

“Hey, weed, fight me!”

“Who are you calling a weed?”

“Useless grass is a weed, not a lawn.”

The rain kept falling. Fine drops, but long and steady, sure to last. The air was hot and heavy, sweat rising just from standing still.

Even on such a day, the knights, the Royal Guard—all of them trained without pause.

Once Enkrid had swung his sword alone. Now they all did it together.

“You shouldn’t push yourself yet.”

Audin spoke beside Shinar.

Enkrid answered lightly.

“Aisia is only a squire. There’s no danger in this.”

He meant a light sparring match.

Yet sometimes plain truth becomes its own violence.

Clench.

Aisia ground her teeth. The muscles along her jaw tightened, the resolve etched in her face fierce and unyielding.