Chapter 45

“Bring it on!”The Vengeance Platoon Leader shouted as he swung his sword down. The Mustached man held his sword horizontally to the ground, cutting through the middle.

The swords of the Vengeance Platoon Leader and the Mustached man met.

Clang!

The moment the swords clashed, the Mustached man stepped forward, putting his weight into pushing his opponent back.

Vengeance, who was focused solely on swinging his sword, was helplessly thrown backward.

“Ugh!”

Losing his balance, he not only stumbled but rolled backward entirely. Dust rose from the spot where he rolled.

With his head between his legs, Vengeance’s body came to a stop right next to Encrid.

The eyes of the Vengeance Platoon Leader and Encrid met.

A brief silence hung between them.

A cold wind blew from somewhere, whistling through.

Vengeance’s face turned bright red.

Encrid carefully chose his words.

“…You said you came to save me.”

Vengeance’s pupils trembled violently.

“Why is that bastard so strong?”

Encrid let out a hollow laugh.

No, you came to save me, so why are you knocked out with one hit?

The Vengeance Platoon Leader, who rolled his body once more to stand up, grabbed the sword that had fallen to the ground and took his stance again.

“Damn, this bastard.”

He glared at his opponent and then shouted.

“Shoot!”

Half of Vengeance’s platoon were archers.

“Shoot freely!”

At his command, arrows flew.

“Block it!”

“Raise your shields!”

A few enemy soldiers, closely following the Mustached man, rushed forward and raised their shields.

Thud!

The arrows were blocked by the shields.

It was perfect timing.

The Mustached man peeked over the shield, glaring at Encrid with fierce eyes.

Then he snatched a shield from one of his subordinates.

This is insane.

Encrid gritted his teeth and stood up abruptly. A burning pain shot through his leg and back where quarrels had struck.

There was no time to groan.

Growl.

A panther bared its fangs next to him.

In the meantime, the shield held by the Mustached man drew closer.

“That crazy bastard!”

Vengeance shouted in surprise. Encrid endured the pain and drew the shortsword from Vengeance’s belt.

Clang.

By then, the Mustached man was right in front of him. There was no chance to retreat.

Whoosh.

Vengeance slashed his sword, aiming to intersect the opponent’s blade. He intended to block the charge with force.

The Mustached man pretended to clash swords but twisted his wrist, pulling his sword back and deflecting Vengeance’s blow.

Whoosh.

Vengeance’s sword sliced through the air. Behind him, the panther pounced with a thud. The Mustached man was different from ordinary soldiers.

He lowered his shield diagonally, blocking and deflecting the panther’s path.

“Yelp!”

The panther, letting out a cry, was thrown aside. All these actions occurred within mere seconds after the charge.

Gripping the shortsword, Encrid focused intensely. Soon, it was just him and his opponent in his mind.

It was a Focus Point.

The injury, the relief, the emotional shifts all heightened his concentration.

For a moment, time seemed to slow down.

Encrid saw the bloodshot eyes of the Mustached man. At the same time, he saw his opponent’s hand.

The Mustached man gripped just above the pommel, extending his reach for a decisive strike.

He drew an arc with his sword, from top to bottom.

He couldn’t even remember when he raised his sword, but it was coming down now. The blade was descending. It felt like the blade of a guillotine.

The Mustached man’s blade seemed to say that today would repeat once more.

Encrid hated that.

He swallowed his breath. There was no time to exhale. There was no time to whine about the pain.

He had practiced heavy swordsmanship, but now he couldn’t rely on the basics he learned from Ragna.

So then.

Among the dozens of sword techniques he had learned, practiced, observed, and imitated, which one could he use now?

He had been struck countless times, studying and researching over and over again.

He always maintained an attitude of watching and learning.

His body instinctively raised the sword. A shortsword was weak against impact. Blocking with force would shatter it.

The Mustached man was confident of his victory.

He believed he could take the life of the annoying person in front of him.

Swish. Ting, chiiing. Thud!

To put it simply, the Mustached man’s strike failed.

He only managed to cut Encrid’s shoulder.

The cut was deep, and blood gushed out, but he didn’t die. He wasn’t killed.

“You.”

Instead of attacking again, the Mustached man opened his eyes wide in surprise.

His eyes were filled with disbelief.

“Where did you learn that!”

The Mustached man shouted. Encrid answered honestly.

“I learned it while fighting.”

Mitch Hurrier had shown Encrid countless times the technique of deflecting and redirecting blows.

His deflecting technique was truly superb.

In a dangerous moment, it had unconsciously come out.

When the Mustached man’s sword came down, Encrid deflected it to the side with his shortsword.

He intercepted the middle of the blade, absorbing the force, and loosened his grip to redirect it.

The distribution of force and timing had to be perfect. If anything had been wrong, it wouldn’t have ended with just a shoulder cut.

Encrid, who answered, was inwardly surprised.

‘This actually works.’

He had studied and endured it countless times, but it was his first time actually using it.

No, it was his first time using a technique successfully without rigorous training.

It was a truly amazing thing.

For Encrid, who lacked any remarkable talent, it was unbelievable.

His heart raced at this first experience. The technique of deflecting a sword was something that couldn’t be imitated without considerable training.

“You bastard!”

Behind the Mustached man, Vengeance, who had swung his sword in the air, turned around and shouted as he charged.

The Mustached man turned, deflected Vengeance’s sword, and raised his shield to guard the front again.

Thud!

An arrow embedded itself in the shield.

A skilled archer had targeted him, but he blocked it.

Clang! Clang!

The Mustached man exchanged a few more blows with Vengeance in place.

He glared at Encrid with fiery eyes.

Encrid was only looking at the shortsword in his hand.

It was already too late to charge again and kill.

On the contrary, if he got stuck here, they could all die. The Mustached man turned around.

“Retreat!”

He shouted and withdrew. As he retreated, he finally spoke to Encrid.

“You, I won’t forget you.”

Encrid responded sincerely.

“You can forget me.”

He meant it. What good would it do to remember him?

Vengeance’s platoon didn’t pursue further. Even though they had been at the forefront, they were now far ahead of their own troops.

If they went any further, Vengeance’s platoon could be annihilated by a counterattack.

“Hey, your shoulder!”

Vengeance, having glared at the retreating Mustached man, turned to check on Encrid.

Blood was flowing steadily from his shoulder.

He had blocked and deflected the blow, but it wasn’t perfect.

Still, Encrid smiled.

‘This actually works.’

He repeated the same thought he had when the technique succeeded earlier.

He tried to recall how he had deflected the opponent’s sword, but he couldn’t remember clearly. His body had moved on its own.

A surge of exhilaration rose within him. It was his first time feeling this way.

“Hey, you crazy bastard, is this the time to smile?”

Vengeance came over and wrapped his shoulder with cloth.

“No bandages! Fall back immediately. Move behind the 3rd platoon!”

Vengeance ordered his platoon to retreat. The battle was already won. The company commander had instructed them to pursue the enemy’s rear but not to go too deep.

Having been severely affected by the enemy’s magic before, they needed to regroup.

“You’re bleeding too much.”

Vengeance said as he supported Encrid. Encrid looked at Vengeance, who was holding him, and spoke.

“We need to bring the panther, too.”

They had saved each other’s lives. They couldn’t just leave it behind now.

“You crazy fool, worry about yourself first.”

Even as he said that, Vengeance took care of the fallen panther.

He looked to see where it was injured and noticed blood flowing from between its teeth.

‘So that’s what was trickling down its back.’

Despite bleeding from its gums, the panther hadn’t let go. Encrid held the panther in his arms.

It didn’t feel heavy. How could such a body exert such strength?

Whimper.

The panther let out a soft groan in his arms.

“Let’s go!”

Then Vengeance supported Encrid and they left the battlefield.

From the midway point, Encrid was semi-conscious. He had lost too much blood.

The ferryman of the black river appeared in the air and asked.

“Hey, why go to such lengths?”

He was hallucinating from excessive blood loss.

He stared blankly, too weak to answer, and the ferryman continued talking.

“You can just start over.”

“It repeats endlessly, countless times.”

“Why do you go to such lengths?”

“Why not just live carelessly in a day that will repeat anyway?”

“Settle down, stop, refine yourself and face today again. If you die, you can start a more perfect ‘today’.”

“Ah, is it the fear of death? No, you’ll get used to it if you keep at it. What’s the harm in letting go a bit, who cares? That today is entirely for you.”

Encrid had no strength to speak. He could barely walk, half-dragged along.

So he answered inwardly.

Why should one settle?

Even if it repeats, even if there’s another chance, why shouldn’t you give your best today?

Otherwise, even if it repeats countless times, you’ll remain in the same place.

Living like that, you’ll be trapped in today.

Then there will be no tomorrow.

Without tomorrow, there’s no dream. Without a dream, it’s all meaningless.

‘I don’t want to stop.’

Even if each painful step was only a fraction of what others could take.

I wanted to move forward. I wanted to live like that.

Even if I couldn’t become a knight, I wanted to struggle to become one.

Thud.

He had no strength left to walk and stumbled over a rock.

“Don’t die.”

Vengeance muttered right next to his ear. His vision was blurry. He couldn’t see clearly ahead.

At some point, the ferryman of the black river had disappeared.

Encrid suddenly realized what kind of curse this was.

“If I start over, I feel like I could do better?”

Repeating today often brought such thoughts.

But not Encrid.

He always wanted to walk towards tomorrow.

He instinctively knew that a failed tomorrow was better than a perfect today.

‘Settling is the end.’

That’s why this wasn’t a blessing but a curse. If today is repeated countless times, one can never face the next day.

At the end of his thoughts, Encrid asked himself.

‘So was this the best I could do?’

He didn’t know. Only the gods knew what a perfect ‘today’ was.

The ‘today’ Encrid spent was partly due to luck.

There was no guarantee that this luck would come again in the new ‘today’.

If so, then, as always, he would just keep walking towards tomorrow.

He felt the warm body in his arms.

Looking down through blurred eyes, he saw the black panther looking at him.

He saw eyes as blue as a lake.

And then Encrid lost consciousness.

He thought he might die.

Then today would repeat again.

He wouldn’t be disheartened by not reaching tomorrow.

He would repeat it, struggling to live once more.

Darkness came and enveloped Encrid. He lost consciousness, becoming a wanderer invited to the world of darkness.

* * *

“Did I make the wrong choice?”

The ferryman of the black river appeared.

Encrid heard him mutter to himself.

He turned his head.

All he saw was the same, smooth, black, mirror-like surface.

“Let’s wait and see.”

At his words, Encrid came to his senses. When he opened his eyes, he saw the ceiling of a tent.

“Oh, you survived? This time, I really thought you were going to die.”

He heard Rem’s voice.

His shoulder, back, leg, and side hurt. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t ache.

His head was spinning too.

“The last cut on your shoulder was bad. I don’t know who did it, but they cut deep.”

Rem kept talking. Encrid, who was half-conscious, blinked several times.

Then he soon realized he felt warmth at his side and reached down.

A sharp pain came from his shoulder.

His hand touched soft fur.

“Grrr.”

The black panther made a pleased sound, enjoying the touch.

‘We made it through today.’

“You’re getting into the habit of passing out.”

“Who wants to pass out? I’m thirsty.”

“Is that so?”

Encrid saw Rem sitting with his arms crossed.

Standing behind him was Big Eyes.

Big Eyes brought him water. A few sips and his parched throat felt refreshed, like dry land absorbing rain.

“Wow, our Squad Leader is tough. Look, he survived.”

Big Eyes commented, seeing him drink.

“You lost a lot of blood.”

Jaxon remarked casually.

In the background, a squad member devoted to religion offered prayers.

“Lord, we thank you for hearing our prayers.”

Ragna watched over him quietly and then spoke.

“Are you alright?”

“It’s not fatal.”

Because he was alive, he could say that.

Because he had made it through today and was facing tomorrow, he could say that.

Encrid smiled modestly and then lay back down again.

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