Chapter 951 - Gauging Each Other
He had received Krang's letter, but there was still plenty of time before he needed to leave.
In the meantime, Aetri had sent a message.
"He asked that you wait just ten days."
Edin MolsAn had delivered Aetri's message before taking his leave.
Enkrid had received the letter the moment he returned to the Knight Order's barracks, and he hadn't even seen Krais's face yet.
Someone had mentioned he went out to a neighboring city on business.
With nothing in particular to do, Enkrid had come out to the training grounds to loosen up.
"Do these bastards know I'm back and are hiding from me?"
Rem, hyping himself up, was actively hunting for a sacrificial lamb to test out the new techniques he had recently realized.
That was when he locked eyes with Ragna.
Standing in the corner of the training grounds, Ragna completely ignored Rem's provocation.
His gaze bypassed Rem entirely and landed straight on the Captain who had spurred him to grow.
His mouth opened.
"Go to sleep for a day or two, barbarian"
Where had he been?
He hadn't been in the barracks, so he must have gone to see Anne.
It wasn't hard to predict his movements.
Furthermore, it was obvious that this deranged genius hadn't just been sitting around twiddling his thumbs either.
Because Enkrid knew all of this, he wasn't the least bit flustered by the clear, sharp intent radiating from Ragna.
What was he saying?
'Let's fight.'
The direction of his intent was unmistakable.
It was aimed squarely at Enkrid.
It was a moment that went beyond mere welcome; it was genuinely thrilling.
Just as Rem had gained and realized things in the West, Ragna had clearly learned something and returned from Yohan.
As Enkrid quietly observed him, Rem spoke up.
To be precise, he violently shoved his way into Ragna's momentum.
"I don't need to rest to handle a guy like you."
Ragna's focus blurred strangely as his gaze shifted.
His eyes snapped toward Rem.
The direction of his momentum shifted with it.
Ultimately, Rem and Ragna locked eyes.
It didn't matter who started it.
In a flash, Sunrise and the axes were drawn, and the two men crossed the distance between them.
Vwoosh—!
The weapons didn't even clash; they merely sliced through the empty space between them.
Yet, the sheer force generated a miniature tornado between the two men.
Dirt, dust, and small pebbles spun violently into the air.
"Are you two serious? You're doing this the second you get back?"
Just as Enkrid had predicted, Ragna had also just returned from spending time with Anne.
The voice belonged to Anne, who had followed him back to the barracks and was now letting out a heavy sigh.
"You'll get hurt if you stay too close."
Ropord grabbed Anne's shoulder from behind and pulled her back.
While Anne obediently stepped away, Rem and Ragna clashed in the center of the training grounds.
"They became even bigger monsters?"
Aurelia, who had taken a spot on the sidelines at some point, clicked her tongue in disbelief.
Even while Enkrid was away, she had been pushing her body to the absolute limit, drenched in sweat every single day.
She had trained as if her life depended on it, yet instead of the gap closing, those two had pulled even further ahead.
It was a sight shocking enough to make her mutter to herself involuntarily.
Her eye for detail truly was exceptional.
Hadn't she immediately realized that the skills of those two had increased drastically?
Of course, she couldn't see everything.
Instead, she could simply feel through her five senses—and her sixth sense—that they were now playing on an entirely different level.
Aurelia caught her breath and quietly observed them.
If there was even a single crumb of technique to pick up, she had to watch and learn.
That was the core teaching and foundation of the Madmen Knights.
Everyone, down to the lowest foot soldier, adhered to that mindset.
'I don't have time to be shocked or feel frustrated.'
While Aurelia was lost in her thoughts, a man who resembled a bear approached Enkrid's side.
"Brother, you have returned?"
It was Audin, who had arrived a day earlier.
He had also come out to the training grounds.
He was wearing gear on both hands that he hadn't possessed before.
Enkrid's gaze swept Audin from head to toe, assessing his posture, his momentum, and his new armament.
'He's changed.'
It wasn't just his momentum that was different.
"Those are?"
Enkrid asked, gesturing toward Audin's fists.
"These are my maces," Audin answered with a bright smile.
He looked like a man itching to show off his new toys.
It was a rare sight.
Audin was a monk.
Seeing him brag about gear or weapons was highly unusual.
Audin extended both hands, the backs of his hands facing the sky.
It was a silent invitation for Enkrid to take a closer look.
Enkrid did as he asked.
He meticulously examined the gauntlets presented to him.
They were gauntlets that covered not just his fists, but ran all the way up his forearms.
The color was a dull, matte white.
They were covered in scratches and scars.
They were weapons that clearly saw heavy use.
'Metal?'
At first glance, it looked like metal, but to be exact, it was the scales of a demonic beast.
It would be safe to say the material was as hard as steel.
Of course, that couldn't possibly be everything.
"Once, a demonic beast with three heads emerged from a lineage of Drakes. Several knights attempted to hunt it down, but failed, and ultimately, the Paladin Order of the Legion was dispatched to slay the beast."
Audin abruptly began his story.
Enkrid was the type of man who would gladly pay wandering bards a Krona just to listen to a good tale.
He listened quietly.
He adopted the posture of an attentive listener.
"The beast housed lethal poison in one of its heads, and used the other two heads like massive maces.
After slaying the Drake, they harvested its poison-filled scales and altered them to harbor divine power instead.
It would sound wonderful to say it was achieved through devout prayer, but in reality, a man hailed as the grandmaster of holy metallurgy spent decades forging them."
The scales had been altered to harbor divine power instead of poison, and after grafting metal onto the unprecedentedly hard scales, the inside was lined with sheepskin from the Wilderness, known as the toughest leather in the world.
Even Enkrid couldn't deduce the exact internal structure of the armament just by looking at it.
Well, Aetri might have been able to figure it out.
Just as the Fairy City had the master artisan family, and Enkrid had Aetri, the Legion possessed a lineage of metallurgy with a long, profound history passed down through generations.
As the Pope and the Apostle of the War God, Audin had received these maces—these hammers—from them.
The Engraved Weapons of Paladins were distinctly categorized as 'Holy Weapons'.
It was a fitting title for weapons that harbored as much divine power as actual holy relics.
"The left is the Lord's Love. You may simply call it 'Love'. And the right is the Lord's Mercy. Indeed, you may call it 'Mercy'."
Just by looking at them, Enkrid had no trouble gauging the sheer violence housed within those gauntlets.
They were named Love and Mercy, but considering Audin's usual thought process, the 'mercy' he spoke of was likely not the kind his enemies would be hoping for.
Sending them to the Lord was his mercy.
And subjecting them to penance to force an epiphany before sending them to the Lord was likely his love.
In other words, Love was for beating them, and Mercy was for killing them.
Thus, the left hand was Love, and the right hand was Mercy.
Enkrid was clever enough to earn Krais's admiration.
He instantly realized the true meaning behind the names Audin had chosen.
It was incredible insight.
You could certainly say he was quick on the uptake.
"So you beat them with Love and send them off with Mercy?"
Enkrid stated, having seen right through him.
Audin flashed his trademark polite smile, clasped his hands together, and nodded.
"Correct. That is exactly right."
As Audin answered, Enkrid sensed the divine power violently churning within him.
The divine power that had previously been overwhelmingly, almost ignorantly intense, now felt refined enough to be compared to his own Uske.
Was this all they had to talk about?
No.
They hadn't even touched on the Demonic Realm Silence, and Audin still had things to say regarding Theresa.
In short, they had plenty left to discuss, but Audin suddenly clamped his mouth shut.
Divine power cascaded from his entire body like golden sand, taking the form of armor.
It was the Holy Light Armor.
"Allow me to demonstrate the Lord's Love."
With those words, Audin shattered the ground of the training yard.
BOOM!
The earth exploded, leaving a massive crater.
Rem and Ragna were terrifying, but Audin was no less ferocious.
He only did this because he now fully understood that Enkrid could handle an attack of this caliber without breaking a sweat.
The spectators had long since backed away, largely thanks to Teresa guiding them to safety.
Enkrid's pupils constricted to pinpricks as he perceived the object rocketing toward him, leaving afterimages in its wake.
The left fist clad in the gauntlet was flying at him like a literal mace.
His instinct screamed at him to focus on the mace, not Audin's body closing the distance.
He did exactly that.
The moment Enkrid perceived the attack, he stepped into the gap in time.
His thoughts accelerated, finding the exact action he needed to take.
He drew Night Stroll and held it vertically.
He found the flow of the attack and pressed the blade against the gauntlet.
CLAAAAANG—!
The screeching sound of metal sliding against metal lingered in the air.
Enkrid spun his body and aimed his gaze at Audin's left thigh.
Schwing.
The blade sliced through flesh and reached the blood vessels.
With a flowing sword, he deflected the mace, and with a blindingly fast sword, he counterattacked.
It sounds simple to say, but considering the sheer speed of Audin's charge just a moment ago, Enkrid had successfully chained together a series of impossible, acrobatic maneuvers.
"You deflected and countered."
Audin remained completely unfazed.
In truth, he had seen it coming but still took the hit.
A blade capable of cleaving through the Holy Light Armor.
How fascinating.
The bleeding from the wound stopped almost instantly.
Golden light wrapped around his thigh.
A divine power several times thicker than before now enveloped Audin's entire body.
"That level of attack won't be nearly enough," Audin declared.
Through that brief exchange alone, he knew Enkrid had advanced even further than before.
But it wasn't surprising.
This man was someone who lived his entire life moving forward.
Choosing danger over complacency to forge ahead.
'He watches our backs.'
He rebuked the world under the title of the Hero of the End of the War.
Therefore, Audin merely had to do his part as well.
This was the moment to prove that he hadn't just been playing around, to show what he had gained, and to demonstrate how thrilling this very moment was.
Rattle, clack.
The gauntlets on his hands reacted to the divine power, emitting a bizarre metallic noise.
"The Wave?"
Enkrid asked.
Audin was both delighted and astonished.
Hadn't Enkrid just casually deduced the underlying principle of a technique he hadn't even fully unleashed during their clash?
Just by looking?
Audin was genuinely tempted to call this absurd.
To Enkrid, it was only natural.
The way he perceived the world had fundamentally changed, and right up until he arrived here, he had been obsessively practicing and researching the Wave techniques he learned from the Ferryman.
If he knew it was not only effective against Silence but also highly useful for general combat training, there was no reason not to use it.
That was why he had been refining his Will based on the Wave.
"Please, show me more," Audin said, twisting his lips into a smirk.
A terrifying set of fangs, convincing enough to belong to an actual bear, flashed into view.
Enkrid replied.
"Show me your tricks, Bear Beastkin. The bear does the tricks, and Krais collects the gold coins."
Whether it was a spar or a real fight, once blades crossed, Enkrid's silver tongue naturally went to work, striking at Audin's tranquil state of mind.
Audin easily brushed it off.
"Are we starting with nonsense?"
The conversation was over.
The two men clashed again, leaving afterimages in their wake.
One became a streak of golden light; the other, a blur of blue.
Every time the intersecting lines collided and separated, a shockwave detonated.
With every deafening BOOM that tore through the air, the soldiers scrambled further back.
"Damn it, control the perimeter! Keep the servants and attendants away, and pull back any clumsy soldiers!"
It was the shout of Squire Clemen.
She would normally just let them be, but simply getting caught in the crossfire of this spar could be fatal.
Of course, she trusted that they weren't fighting completely mindlessly and would stop if bystanders got too close, but...
'Then it's my job to make sure they don't have to stop.'
They were seriously testing each other's limits.
Therefore, ensuring the Captain and the others could fight as much as they wanted was exactly what a Squire of the Knight Order was supposed to do.
Clemen took charge of the situation, and naturally, everyone strictly followed her orders.
The ground was being torn apart here and there, and terrifying bloodlust and momentum clashed violently, but no one was particularly shocked by the spectacle anymore.
Rather, there were many who glared with wide eyes, desperate to learn even a single thing from the fight.
Ropord and Fel were doing it, Theresa and Dunbakel were doing it.
Aurelia and Clemen were doing it.
"I can't even fathom catching up to them."
Soldier Marco—who was now Platoon Leader Marco—shook his head in disbelief.
The sparring session, which had continued even after Clemen secured the perimeter, finally came to an end.
"That was entertaining."
Audin laughed and caught his breath as the fight concluded.
Rem and Ragna also stopped, glaring at each other.
In terms of actual time, the spars hadn't lasted very long.
They had essentially just gauged each other's current strength and called it a day.
Though it probably looked entirely different to the spectators.
Afterward, the gathering naturally transitioned into a time where everyone present showcased what they had learned and mastered.
"You two have improved as well," Theresa noted.
Ropord and Fel ground their teeth together.
They had been absolutely certain they could completely crush each other this time around, but things hadn't gone according to plan.
"Just wait a little longer, Ropord of the Crimson Cloaks."
"Does every piece of garbage that falls out of your mouth count as words? I wear the dark green cape of the Madmen Knights."
Their trash talk was also improving by the day.
Luagarne happily struck up a conversation with the returned Enkrid.
"So you're saying this Wave is an applied form of property alteration? Hmm, that's a good direction. You have a very unique perspective."
She had already finished conceptualizing the complete training system required to become a knight.
"Check it yourself."
Luagarne's claim that she was originally a scholar, not a warrior, was the absolute truth.
Well, it wasn't like anyone had doubted her anyway.
Enkrid took the booklet she tossed him and opened it.
It was the training framework created by Luagarne, the Frog scholar.
'Methods for Awakening Will.'
After becoming a semi-knight, what must one do to naturally allow Will to permeate the entire body?
'Rely solely on talent?'
What they needed was a method that anyone could achieve if they put in the time.
If it was only going to be about innate talent, there was no point in doing this.
Of course, the role talent played was still massive.
That couldn't be ignored.
This was a book that compiled and organized exactly those concepts.
***
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