Chapter 718 - Talent and Guarantee
Hescal's gaze turned to Ragna's eyes.
The eyes, once cast downward, rose like the sun lifting from the horizon and locked directly onto Hescal.
The light flowing along the crimson pupils seemed to scatter the surrounding darkness.
With golden hair and red eyes, his appearance evoked memories of a woman who had once been hailed among the finest swordsmen born and raised in Yohan.
"You."
Before Hescal could say anything more, Ragna spoke with an astonishingly composed tone.
"When I hold a sword, I can see the path. And walking along that path is really easy, remember?"
It was something Ragna had said when he was a child.
Hescal searched his memory and realized those words had been spoken back when he had first begun to teach Ragna the basics of swordsmanship.
After just a single day of learning, Ragna had refused to continue lessons with him.
After that, Hescal concluded that Ragna lacked something essential.
Those without ambition cannot survive in Yohan.
Ragna Yohan fit that description perfectly.
Eventually, he left Yohan.
He had been a flower that showed off his talent among the mediocre, but was destined to wither before ever reaching his limits.
But what if that flower, despite the danger, had chosen to live fiercely?
The answer was right here.
Ragna saw a path whenever he held a sword.
Thus, it was easy for him to drive an opponent into a dead end.
And Hescal had been driven into just such a corner.
Distance, position, posture—all had become walls that formed a path.
Hescal believed it was a path he had opened himself, and had walked it without hesitation, only to find himself trapped in a maze.
Now, the choice was no longer Hescal's—it was Ragna's.
One could say Hescal was trapped in a spiderweb where he dared not move recklessly.
It wasn't due to lacking physical ability or being drawn into a psychological battle.
Judging by his willingness to take risks, it was clear he had fought life-or-death battles before.
Ragna's sword was already fully prepared to strike.
'Was I wrong about him?'
Ragna had cornered Hescal to such a degree.
Deception was no longer an option; the only choice left was to strike directly downward with the sword.
'Move anywhere and I'll be cut.'
Dodging would be the worst choice.
Not that the current situation was any better.
If he parried head-on, the hidden blade of the camouflage technique would slash through the air.
But there was no room left for such tricks.
The only thing Hescal could do now was overpower his opponent with brute force.
Thus, he had to add strength to his basic sword technique instead of relying on illusions.
Ragna slightly shifted the direction of his toes.
With that, there wasn't even time left to catch a breath or exchange words.
It may seem long when described, but the thought process after calling him clumsy was extremely brief.
In real time, as Ragna uttered the word and Hescal responded, Ragna shifted his stance, and the greatsword scraped against the ground.
The sword launched forward, following the trajectory Ragna intended.
The rain-soaked ground opened up without so much as a scream.
A wide-open, even path.
No pebbles, no obstacles, solid ground easy to tread upon.
That was the path visible to Ragna's eyes.
Szzzt.
In the instant the air was torn, Ragna's sword reached right before Hescal's nose.
Hescal reacted too.
He struck down with all his strength.
In that final moment, he made his best choice.
Pouring all his Will into the camouflage technique, he attempted a weapon cut.
His weapon was engraved; Ragna's was not.
Using that advantage, he would cleave through Ragna's sword and split his opponent from jaw to forehead.
It was the best move he could make.
At that moment, Hescal saw Ragna's blade emit a soft, milky light—and he immediately realized it was over.
'Ah.'
A knight's insight reveals his own end.
More precisely, it was a high-speed mental process recognizing his imminent death.
At that moment, all that remained was the final choice.
That final choice would define the knight's life.
If survival was his desire, he would struggle fiercely against death.
If he were fighting an enemy he must absolutely destroy, he might swing his sword until mutual destruction was achieved.
Rarely, some made unique choices based on their will and convictions.
Ragna's greatsword struck Hescal's blade, pushing his arm back.
Then, without pause, Ragna's blade drove forward, slicing through Hescal's left thigh, probing through his body.
The moment Hescal recognized death, he twisted his body with the last strength he had left.
Chronologically, this was immediately after the greatsword struck his weapon.
He gathered the strength he had intended for a final desperate strike and used it instead to twist away.
In other words, he reacted before his body was completely split.
'Not the heart.'
Crackk!
Booom.
The greatsword swung so fast that the sound lagged behind; it struck the space the blade had already passed through.
Flesh tore apart and blood sprayed sideways.
Hescal managed to hold onto his sword, but his arm was lifted high, and he collapsed backward, almost looking like he was bracing himself with the sword.
A single word burst from Ragna's mouth.
"Why?"
Hescal had been cut from his left thigh up to his shoulder.
Survival was impossible.
The reason Ragna questioned "why" was because of Hescal's final action.
There had been a clear opening to strike, but at the last moment, Hescal twisted his body away.
"Khak!"
With a cough, blood splattered from Hescal's mouth.
Compared to the amount of blood pouring from his body, it was a tiny fraction.
His body was already bleeding so profusely that even the rain couldn't dilute it, and his innards—exposed for the first time since birth—spilled out into the open.
"Get away from me."
Hescal, gathering the last of his Will, forced air into his lungs and spoke.
Ragna instinctively obeyed.
The spot where they had been fighting was right next to a reserve group of monsters.
Whether they had been spectating or waiting for an opening, hundreds of monsters had gathered.
Ragna yanked his greatsword free and leapt backward.
After more than twenty strides, he finally stopped.
The distance was enough to call it a retreat, and when Ragna glanced back—he saw Hescal's body explode.
Boom—
It wasn't a particularly loud sound.
But the aftermath, regardless of the volume, had a massive impact on everything nearby.
Screeeee—
The mass of Scalers let out a piercing wail.
As Hescal died, blood droplets burst outward from his body, and every monster touched by that blood flipped their eyes back and died on the spot.
It was as if Hescal had stored poison inside his body and detonated it at the end.
Why had he given Ragna the chance to escape?
That was a mystery for later.
Ragna turned his head.
He had killed Hescal.
Was that enough to call his goal accomplished?
No.
He had never been lost in the first place.
It was Hescal who had misunderstood.
When the target was so clearly visible in the distance, how could one possibly get lost?From the beginning, Ragna's goal had been the monster adorned with serpents for hair.
So, truly, he had stayed the course.
Hescal was merely an interruption.
Nothing had changed.
Ragna continued forward.
***
Swoooosh.
The wind had eased, but the rain still poured down.
The deluge washed away the viscera and brain matter of the monsters Enkrid had killed, thinning the black blood and soaking it into the ground.
Right after Panito's death, a few Scalers with psychic abilities tried something reckless: they stretched out their hands, manipulating psychokinesis, while shooting their hardened nails like arrows.
The nail-arrows, black as if dipped in ink, were obviously not literally dipped but bore a similar appearance.
Three of them had attempted this.
Each launched four to six nails, and each one was like a venomous snake packed with deadly poison.
Accelerated by psychokinesis, the nails sliced through the rain and wind, curving and weaving like snakes.
Enkrid sensed it all—not through sight, but through hearing.
He twisted his head at the last second to dodge the first volley, then swung his triple-forged blade to shatter the ones that came slightly later.
One nail that survived the blow arced around to strike at the back of his head, but Enkrid charged forward in the brief moment it reversed, slicing the heads of the monsters in half one by one.
Once the monsters died, the nails lost power and fell to the ground.
And there were more monsters pulling unusual tricks.
They were elite selections, no less.
Those who shot nails and controlled them with psychokinesis, those who burst their own skin to scatter blood droplets—Enkrid cut all their heads off without exception.
Dodging or destroying the nail-arrows, retreating before the blood exploded—it wasn't anything extraordinary for him.
His solid legs and reinforced frame increased his speed, while his trained balance allowed him to move freely in any direction.
If he could confuse the Scalers' eyesight with unpredictable movements, there was no way they could land their psychokinetic strikes.
As he slaughtered the monsters, a thought intruded.
'Are they difficult to deal with? Sure. But they're not threatening.'
The ghoul Jericks came to mind.
Was it Jerix? Or Jeris?
Either way, back in the city of Oara, Enkrid had met that peculiar ghoul, one who had lived long enough to earn a name.
Compared to that ghoul, these monsters felt clearly inferior.
And it wasn't simply because the ghoul had survived longer.
Jericks had been a creature that truly knew how to fight.
Compared to that guy, thiese monsters were far easier to deal with.
'All I have to do is take care of their abnormal abilities.'
Even if they happened to catch him with its telekinesis, he could simply shake it off with brute force, and the poison-coated claws could be dodged.
Looking back, Enkrid could now guess the nature of the monster horde.
Rather than their true nature, it would be more accurate to say their purpose was obvious.
'Chimeras meant to wear me down.'
They weren't natural anomalies but creatures manufactured through someone's personal research.
After reflecting briefly while standing over the monster's corpse, Enkrid swung his arms in circles to loosen them.
It's said that a knight can cut down a thousand enemies.
But to do that, certain conditions must be met.
Time is essential, along with equipment designed to conserve stamina and prevent the wasteful use of Will.
After all, no one's going to just fall over dead because you swing your sword once.
A knight's superhuman combat ability is constrained by time.
Of course, if one is skilled at managing their stamina and controlling their Will, they can fight for quite a long time.
'That's where it starts to vary from knight to knight.'
Some might wipe out enemies in a short burst and rest between battles, while others would pace themselves to steadily chip away at the enemy's numbers.
At any rate, Enkrid could tell his body wasn't in perfect condition.
It felt like impurities were clogging his muscles.
Fighting soaked to the skin under the pouring rain didn't help either.
The battle was still ongoing, and he had already exerted himself considerably.
In short, it was only natural for his body to feel like this.
Sensing someone approaching from behind, Enkrid opened his eyes.
For a moment, the rain lightened.
Given that the thickness of the clouds—what Alexandra had called "black storm clouds"—remained unchanged, it must have been a brief lull.
Opening his eyes consumed some of his Will due to Medusa's Curse, but for a meeting like this, it was worth the small price.
With that thought, Enkrid looked at the approaching figure and spoke.
"You're late, Ragna."
"You expected me to come?"
"I hoped you would."
To be honest, he had expected that either he would join the main battle after it ended, or Ragna would come to him.
There were still too many enemies left for him to be satisfied just holding his ground.
Besides, Ragna was the type of man who would move to find someone to vent his anger on.
As Ragna drew closer, he continued.
"Heskal tried to block my way."
"Did he block you?"
"I cut him down."
"Did you now?"
Including the head of the house, Alexandra, Rhinox, and now Hescal, none of them probably knew Ragna's true strength.
But Enkrid had a good idea.
A few monsters or even Hescal wouldn't have been enough to stop Ragna.
"Hescal wasn't an easy opponent, was he?"
"He left a hole in my shoulder."
"And the medicine Ann gave you?"
"There was no poison, fortunately."
Despite the nature of their conversation, their demeanor was so casual that it seemed like an ordinary chat.
Around them, several monsters hovered cautiously, trying to form a formation.
Enkrid could sense several new presences nearby as well.
They were skilled at hiding both their bodies and their presence.
He had heard that there were many like that in the Hunter's Village.
The Hunter's Village had formed when people who had heard legends of Yohan gathered there but lingered out of lingering regrets.
It was a town of bounty hunters, mercenaries, and others who lived by the sword, surviving off the scraps of Yohan.
It could fairly be called a place where outsiders who couldn't officially belong to Yohan had gathered.
Given that, betrayal was always a possibility.
Ching.
Enkrid sheathed Samcheol back into its scabbard.
'Let's suffer a little more, Samcheol.'
Samcheol was so outstanding that Enkrid sometimes wondered if Aetri had lied about it being an ordinary sword.
Maybe it was actually an engraved weapon, and Aetri had pretended otherwise to avoid disappointing him.
The True Silver part of the blade seemed capable of cutting through anything, and the Black Gold blade felt like it could crush anything.
The sensation of the sword speaking to him whenever he held it wasn't just due to Enkrid's madness.
"Let's go," Enkrid said in a brisk tone.
It would have been perfect if the rain had stopped and sunlight had broken through, but of course, that wasn't going to happen.
The storm would rage on for at least three more days.
There would be lulls and intensifications, but the tempest currently blowing had not yet run its course.
Hearing Enkrid's words, Ragna realized the commander shared the same goal as him.
Moved, he spoke up.
"You saw the same thing I did? As expected, you have a guide's instinct as good as mine, Commander. I guarantee it."
"...That's about as unpleasant as being compared to Rem."
"Sorry, what?"
Ragna tilted his head in confusion.
"Shut up and follow me. It's time we showed what just two swordfighters can do."
Anyone overhearing them might call them petty.
'Would two swordfighters and a little girl really make any difference?'
The words spoken by Dmule, the false god, still lingered in their minds.
But Ragna couldn't fault Enkrid for being petty about it.
He remembered those words just as well.
"Of course."
Ragna and Enkrid walked side by side.
Their target was the stunning beauty from the Demon Realm standing tall ahead, her uniquely styled hair catching the faint light.
***
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