Chapter 640 - Only the First Word
Even though today was the same as always, his mindset was different.
'Cut the neck and get some distance.'
That was the first objective—to sever the neck and break free from the demon's grasp.
Naturally, it was easier said than done.
As always, Enkrid never wasted a single day.
There was no such thing as dying to gather information or improve his judgment.
He spent every repeated day tirelessly searching for a way to win, determined to end it.
Was that why the Ferryman found him impressive?
Perhaps.
"You can't even walk, yet you're trying to run."
The Ferryman clicked his tongue.
If he were human, he might've bitten his tongue.
But he wasn't.
He conveyed his will through sheer intent, not vocal cords.
Moreover, this place was either within an image world or a dream.
Biting one's tongue while speaking here should've been impossible.
And yet, in this second "today," the Ferryman spoke as if he had done just that.
It was strange, but Enkrid didn't dwell on it.
His mind was too occupied with the demon, One-Killer.
'He wields two swords with equal strength.'
He could even adjust the power behind them.
When Enkrid shattered the sword in his left hand, the force had been lacking.
Because of that, the sword in his right hand managed to graze his shoulder.
That sly demon bastard slashed his shoulder, then retreated.
'If I had done it right, I could've blocked and gone straight for his neck. Damn bastard.'
Enkrid cursed the demon's trickery with a calm expression.
To use deception so frequently—should he call it demonic?
Or simply disgraceful?
Not that he had room to talk as someone who wielded the mercenary swordplay of Valen.
Techniques always seemed fair when used by oneself but cheap and despicable when employed by the enemy.
'Well, it's a demon. Of course it fights dirty.'
But so what?
Was it unbearable?
Difficult?
Exhausting?
Should he collapse?
Should he just lie down and breathe?
A pitch-black night, darker than even moonless skies.
A wall of shadow barred his way.
But despair and resignation weren't necessary.
If he couldn't see, he'd grope forward, climb his way up.
And that was exactly what Enkrid did.
When he feigned defeat using Balen-style mercenary swordplay, he managed to sever the demon's neck first—but his foot was crushed.
When he tried trickery again, the demon reversed the deception, leaving him unable to claim its head and instead stabbing him in the thigh.
His forearm, fingers, legs, shins—every part of him was cut at some point.
He couldn't always seize the moment to end it first.
They said skill was decided by a razor-thin margin, but frankly, he was slightly outmatched.
And so, victory and defeat repeated.
Of course, as the days cycled, Enkrid began to read and memorize his opponent's patterns.
The battle that once took 180 clashes, he later finished in just three.
Other times, after over 300 exchanges, their clashing swords sparked a battlefield dance.
"You're soft like silver. Too soft."
Between fights, the Ferryman hurled scathing remarks.
"To ignite a fire, you need wood and straw."
Sometimes, he spoke as if mimicking a sage.
"Your greed is excessive. Save everyone? Protect your comrades? Overwhelming, too overwhelming."
Through those words, Enkrid repeated tens of thousands of todays.
"Then, will you save me?"
The conversations with Shinar mirrored those moments.
Of course, the words weren't always the same.
The future was fluid.
One today would never be exactly like another.
"Would you wield that sword for me?"
"Can I stand behind you as well?"
"You came fully prepared for marriage, right? If we survive, we're getting wed immediately."
And so, such words were exchanged.
At times, Enkrid responded with firm resolve.
"Should I just go back like this?"
"No, help me."
Each time, Shinar's words struck straight to his core.
As much as he relished fighting and competing against the demon One-Killer, her words remained crystal clear.
Like rain he couldn't avoid, her voice carried a pain that seeped deep within him.
A pain condensed over years of being close.
Then, the Ferryman spoke again.
"You fool. You think you don't know how to give up? What nonsense. Change your way of thinking. Repeating the same today will drive you insane. That is the path you walk."
But Enkrid was too focused on a singular direction.
He didn't listen to the Ferryman's words.
This wasn't the first time.
Still, he used them as a daily marker.
By tracking what the Ferryman said, he counted how many todays had passed.
That was why he had memorized his words.
On the second today, the Ferryman had clicked his tongue and mocked his ability to walk.
What came next?
Enkrid sifted through his memory.
He had used the Ferryman's words as time markers before.
"Answer me. Don't you need advice? Even if you don't respond, I shall speak. That is my generosity. Now, the way to escape today."
And then, it happened.
As he repeated the cycle, fighting again and again, Enkrid had determined that One-Killer's pure bloodlust was yet another deceptive tactic.
'He even hides blades at his toes?'
Even its human-like form was a trick.
Blades could emerge from any part of its body.
Despite not wearing a helmet, it never aimed for his head, instead leaving shallow wounds elsewhere—only to suddenly reveal a strike that could split his skull.
'Strong.'
Not just strong—among all the enemies he had faced, this one was among the toughest.
Its strength, speed, judgment, and weapon control—everything about it was precise.
It didn't adhere to any strict form or technique.
It simply stabbed, slashed, and struck as needed.
'Which makes it even more difficult.'
Lost in thought, he hadn't responded, but the Ferryman revealed his true intent.
"If you ignore me, you'll remain trapped here. So listen, prisoner."
Enkrid was engrossed in analyzing the present, searching for a way forward.
But the Ferryman's voice drilled into his entire body.
He didn't know how, but it was impossible to ignore.
If he had to describe it, it felt like someone grabbing his ears and whispering directly.
Yet the content itself wasn't much different from a barking dog.
"Raise a shield."
"A shield?"
When he reacted, the Ferryman's next words were outright absurd.
"Put the Frog in front of you, put a fairy in front, and block the strike. Then you can kill it."
They say a devil's whispers are sweet.
So, was the Ferryman a devil?
Probably not.
Because to Enkrid, those words didn't sound sweet at all.
"Ah, sure."
So, he ignored them.
In a way, the words were logical and reasonable.
If he used those around him as meat shields or fodder, he would win.
That's why he took part of his advice and put it to use.
He kicked the corpse of a monster rolling on the ground, lifted it with his sword, and used it as a shield.
It made for a ridiculous sight.
It was just another one of the countless days.
While intentionally prolonging the fight, Luagarne's words reached his ears, and he couldn't deny them.
"Humans are irrational, but the devil acts rationally."
The devil was cunning, but it was always logical in its responses.
Enkrid, on the other hand, was not.
He constantly did insane things to break through the walls of logic.
Holding a dagger in his mouth while swinging his sword, using monster corpses, smashing stone floors for advantage—he did it all.
Anyone watching would say the two were complete opposites.
And so, Enkrid repeated another day.
He walked an irrational path.
With feints, he drew the enemy's attention, clashed again, and killed.
When he mistook something for poison, he pushed it away with the Will of Rejection.
It worked.
It could be eliminated.
'The problem is, my body freezes in place.'
In a battle where even a blink wasn't allowed, there was no time to leisurely push something out of his body.
Even a brief opening would be enough for One-Killer to slice him into neat pieces.
So, resisting what had invaded him was difficult.
It was dark.
The way forward was unclear.
Yet he kept moving.
With desperation came knowledge.
His senses sharpened, his vision expanded, and he saw more.
'The source is the same.'
Esther's words surfaced in his mind.
The devil also used a formless power.
Its source was magic, something drawn from the atmosphere.
'It refines magic before using it.'
That seemed to be the method.
It was an understanding he gained through instinct, piecing together sensations.
And with it, he came to know something he wished he hadn't.
'She was planning to kill that Demon by sacrificing herself.'
That was Shinar's resolve.
Through countless repetitions of today, he had gathered enough information to reach that conclusion.
"If you all left and waited, I would have ended it."
Whether it took a hundred years or a thousand, she intended to remain by the devil's side and die together.
The fairy clan was no different.
They were willing to sacrifice themselves to kill the devil.
It was said that fairies didn't act out of vengeance.
Then why were they fighting so desperately?
'The choice was wrong. They shouldn't have ignored the monsters. They should have fought and found a way to kill them.'
Those were words he once heard from Bran.
If he applied that logic, then the fairy clan had deliberately turned the ship's rudder toward war for the sake of peace.
'Not patience for peace, but the determination to fight for it.'
They must have been preparing step by step.
Sending some fairies outside, establishing trade—these were all part of that preparation.
Enkrid processed the information, selecting what was useful and discarding what wasn't.
Yet he still hadn't found a way to kill the devil.
That didn't mean he had done nothing.
Not a single day had been wasted idly.
If he didn't know, he had to keep going until he did.
At least, through fighting One-Killer, he learned that it refined magic and used it as a foundation.
And that functioned similarly to Will.
'Monsters are born with the ability to refine magic.'
When that refined magic imbued a beast, it became a magical beast.
Beyond combat thinking, other ideas seeped in through the gaps in his high-speed thought process.
Enkrid didn't reject them.
What is the boundary between Will, divinity, sorcery, and magic?
Where do we draw the line?
'It's not a boundary I need. I need a definition.'
That was his conclusion.
Will was the accumulation of effort through a trained body.
Magic aimed to transform everything.
Esther's demonstrations made that clear.
She could change her clothes, turn magic into fire or ice, even create icicle spears.
Magic was fundamentally about change.
Divinity?
It was endurance.
Like a stone, steadfast and unshaken.
'Because faith itself is a shield.'
And when a true god's power was infused into it, it could alter another's body.
Healing was part of that.
'Which is why those gray fools can't spread the Light of Healing.'
Understanding followed observation and experience.
The so-called Gray Divine Corps couldn't use healing light but retained their offensive power.
Their divinity had been corrupted, so it was no longer divinity at all.
He also came to understand how sorcery differed.
If Will utilized what had been trained, then sorcery drew from more than just training—it pulled from the future, from potential yet unrealized.
'Heart of the Beast, Heart of Might.'
It forcefully brought forth what was yet to be achieved.
But there was a cost.
Be it severe muscle pain or even sacrificing lifespan.
None of this was immediately necessary, but it helped organize his thoughts and served as a guide for what needed to be done.
He repeated today once more.
Hope lit the faces of the fairies.
Then One-Killer appeared, and they fought.
The hope in their faces turned to despair.
Enkrid silently observed everything and endured.
'Condensed muscles.'
The demonic One-Killer possessed a different density of muscle, something beyond the normal range.
It was closer to a chimera.
'Is this hellscape meant to create unique monsters?'
Had One-Killer been born at the peak of that purpose?
Perhaps.
With a mix of luck and skill, he had once managed to sever its head.
And from that, he learned—
One-Killer didn't die even when beheaded.
'A Heartless has no heart.'
So stabbing the heart wouldn't kill it.
It was like the undead drowners—things that refused to die.
How could he win?
He sought an answer.
Endlessly, he searched, and then he craved it.
And then, he had a dream.
A dream entirely unrelated to the Ferryman, one that seemed utterly random.
It was after another day like any other—after he endured and then died.
Even after using the Will of Rejection and every skill he had, in the end, he perished because of a single wound.
It was a brief dream.
A man appeared—blond hair, blue eyes, thick forearms, and a kite shield with a pointed bottom that covered half his body.
"Just the first words."
What was that supposed to mean?
When the dream ended, the same thing happened—the Ferryman came to Enkrid again.
"So, you'll remain in this pain-filled today."
He had gone through this more than two hundred times.
"Just give up already."
Something about his words felt off to Enkrid.
He had noticed this dissonance before.
There were certain words that always gave him that same feeling.
The Ferryman could not bite his tongue.
He communicated by asserting his Will to convey meaning.
When he had once said, "Walk before running, you fool," he stumbled over the word "walk," that was not like him at all.
His accelerated thinking skipped steps, recognizing the situation and deducing an answer.
He searched his memory.
It was difficult to recall words spoken months ago, but not impossible.
After all, he had used his words as a means of counting his days, even while letting them pass through one ear and out the other.
"Walk before running, you fool."
"Silver is too soft. Far too weak."
"Fire starts by wood and straw."
"Excessive greed. Save everyone? Protect those behind you? Too much—far too much."
"Opposed? You say you don't know how to give up? What a joke. Change your thinking. Repeating the same today will drive you mad. That is the path you walk."
"Answer me. Don't you need advice? Even if you don't respond, I'll give it to you. That is my generosity. Now, here is how you escape today."
Just the first letters.
'걷, 은, 불, 과, 반, 대.'
Walking, silver, fire, excessive, oppose, answer.
The opposite of 'walking, fire, and Excessive'?
What did that mean?
The same receptiveness now took in the ferryman's words.
He didn't reject them outright just because they came from the Ferryman.
'The opposite of walking, fire, and excessive.'
When today began anew, Enkrid saw a faint glimmer.
Perhaps this was just another of the Ferryman's tricks to deceive him.
But his intuition told him otherwise—this was light.
A crack formed between the dark, unyielding walls, and the light shone through, reaching his fingertips.
The reason why facing an insurmountable wall was exhilarating—was because overcoming it brought ecstasy.
Once again, exhilaration surged through his body. Twice as much joy as when he faced the last wall.
"Hey, Demon. Shall we have ourselves a real intense round?"
That joy turned toward the demon.
To those who hadn't repeated this today, Enkrid looked like his usual, insane self.
***
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Many thanks to my friend Tulips for proofreading the chapter :)
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