Enkrid stared at the Ferryman in silence.
"That guy is someone even 'we' didn't expect."
The Ferryman spoke with sincerity. When you present your opinion and put forward your argument to someone else, there is no weapon as powerful as truth.
The lamp he held up swayed, and violet ran over the black river. The light became ripples and spread all the way into the distance.
The Ferryman spoke with gestures mixed in, and explained with truth. That swordsman was not the wall they had prepared. So, join forces.
In the end, it was time to explain why his proposal was valid.
"Go back and struggle again. I told you to stay in that 'today,' but isn't it enough if you overcome 'our' will?"
Half-Truth.
The Ferryman's real intentions were still sinister.
In reality, the Ferryman could not turn back five days of time. Instead, he only knew a way to end this pain.
If Enkrid agreed, he planned to manipulate his mind. That way, only in the dream, he would return to five days ago and repeat today.
Any struggle or resistance is meaningless. He would simply repeat today inside his head.
Be frustrated, despair, and give up.
And if you become one with us, a today like this ends as well.
That was the meaning hidden in the Ferryman's words.
Enkrid did not see the trap the Ferryman had hidden. He only got a thread from the Ferryman's words.
There were two things Enkrid focused on.
'He said we.'
And he said you could overcome it with will.
Enkrid ignored the proposal the Ferryman threw at him and sank back into thought.
Before threads, grasping came first.
Did he feel powerless because he could not move his body?
'Is that really so? Is that all?'
And could he really not move anything? That was not true.
"...Hey."
The Ferryman called him again, but it became the same state as before. In other words, no matter what he said, it went in one ear and out the other.
"Can't you hear me?"
The Ferryman spoke again, but Enkrid's pupils had already gone slack. He had repeated his thoughts and sunk inward.
"I really, no more and no less, just want to hit you twice."
The Ferryman muttered. This time, it was a line spoken with nothing but sincerity. Inside him, voices of agreement rang out one after another.
***
"Still."
It was what he said every time he opened his eyes for a moment. Enkrid vomited blood and endured the pain. In that extremely short span of time, he searched for what he had to do.
'The reason I'm dying.'
It was because Regeneration was not activating. Thinking about it now, he understood the core of the technique called Regeneration that he had learned from Audin.
"Inside the body, everyone has something called vigor."
Audin's words briefly surfaced.
'Accelerating blood flow and high-speed recovery through Will.'
His heart pounds explosively, the blood vessels throughout his body widen, and blood whips through his whole body like it's gone mad. In the middle of that, he tightens and blocks the muscles to stop the bleeding, and mixes in Will. In the end, it is not blood but Will that stays on the wound and accelerates regeneration.
That was the principle of Regeneration. It was a technique that had become more active after he became a knight. So, he should not be dying from an ordinary wound.
'But Regeneration doesn't work.'
If you dig into the reason he was dying all the way to the end, there was one thing.
'The wound worsens.'
Absurdly, the same place that had been pierced in the spring of his twenty-seventh year was pierced again.
'Back then, I didn't die, so why is it like this now?'
Were all his insides torn apart? Was there a hole in his lung? Was his heart split?
None of that.
It was only one hole in his stomach. He just took one stab.
'It pierced even Balrog's hide, so I can't call it just a stab, but.'
The conclusion came out. It was because the wound did not heal. Then why did the wound not heal?
Enkrid repeated waking up and passing out. Each time, he endured the pain. It was an unbroken stretch of agony.
"Are you dull, or are you enjoying even that?"
The Ferryman asked.
"I don't enjoy pain."
It was an indifferent answer.
Enkrid kept repeating the same thing. It felt like the repeated todays had rushed past without rest.
If you look out the window of a carriage running across the plains, everything you can see whips by, and that was how Enkrid felt now.
It was impossible to count how many todays had passed. When he opened his eyes, he either saw the Ferryman or he was on the bed.
So many todays passed that it was hard even to count them. That was how it felt to Enkrid.
"If time passes like this, it will be no different from being trapped in today anyway. Is that fine with you?"
The Ferryman asked again.
From him, who spoke to him at the drop of a hat, he felt familiarity. Was it because there was no longer a need to separate that Ferryman 'group' and the individual called Enkrid? Was he showing familiarity because similarities had formed between the two?
That was what he felt from the Ferryman's attitude.
"You'll have to endure a painful today. Until the next host appears."
As Enkrid spoke, beyond the Ferryman who was snickering, he saw himself in a ruined state. The apparition appeared for a moment, then shattered like grains of sand and vanished.
Then, when he woke on the bed for a moment, he checked those surrounding him. Not a single one had left their place.
'Rem uses sorcery, and Audin uses holy power.'
Even if not those two, there was Shinar.
'Even if it's poison.'
In Ragna's arms, the medicine Anne gave him would still be intact.
'Sorcery, holy power, medicine, vigor.'
Looking at the current situation, it meant none of it had worked.
"The proposal to go back to five days ago is still valid."
In the middle of that, the Ferryman's words kept coming. It felt like standing on a vague boundary of whether this was a dream or he was awake. His focus loosened, and the Ferryman's proposal lodged itself between tangled thoughts.
"If not that, you could also just endure like that and become one with us."
"The human mind is not something that can be used without limit. If you come in after it's worn down, you won't even be able to enjoy the next 'today.'"
"Come in while your mind is still intact."
The Ferryman spoke one after another.
Enkrid deliberately let his words wash past and focused.
What did he miss? What made this result come out?
After how many todays had passed, from rolling his thoughts around, the answer to the question came out.
'Something that prevents the wound from healing remained in my body.'
Then he just had to shake it off. Overcome the helplessness and raise his will. That was it.
If he found the answer, he just had to keep working without stopping. Enkrid did that. He moved Will. It was not that there were no results. Will reacted.
'Even if I can't move my hands and feet.'
His will was firm. His resolve was the same. If necessary, he could overcome it even through a vow.
Countless time passed. Between waking up and blacking out again, meeting the Ferryman and opening his eyes again, Will moved, but Enkrid could not feel any change.
The sensitive five senses and sixth sense and instinct he had gained through Jaxon seemed to be saying it. Again, he saw an apparition.
"This is the end. Our destination."
It was his ruined self coming out and speaking. It was the Ferryman's meddling. Enkrid quietly closed his eyes.
A memory that suddenly surfaced pushed away and erased the apparition in front of his eyes.
The faces of a few people he had met in his life rose up, and they spoke.
"Thank you."
It was before he was cursed to repeat today. It was a day that, to his senses, was unbearably long ago.
"Thank you so much."
It was a woman with her face full of tear tracks. The woman who had taken up her son, whose leg had been pierced by a ghoul's claw and would limp for the rest of his life, cried, with grime running down her face.
From her mouth, only the same words kept repeating.
"Thank you. Thank you so much."
To someone else, it was the result of him doing reckless, stupid things one after another. He saved the child. But the leg of the child he saved was ruined, and he became crippled.
Even so, he lived. The woman showed gratitude for that.
"Yeah."
With a calm answer, Enkrid turned away and left. His leg limped as well, but luckily, tendons and nerves were not hurt, so it was an injury that would heal with time.
"Thank you for saving me. Really."
It was a seventeen-year-old girl. She had said she would become a peddler in place of her parents, or something like that.
She hired mercenaries, but the bastards went crazy and tried to take advantage of her. Enkrid volunteered to escort her.
It was something you could call barely saving her. Fighting with mercenary bastards who had become bandits, the road back to the city was a continuous stretch of rough paths.
In the city they returned to like that, what the woman said with her legs giving out was something else.
"I can live with you."
It was a confession.
"It's fine."
The girl who had been sobbing nodded and expressed thanks.
"I'm really grateful. That's why I said it. It's not like I'm in love. Let's be clear."
There were many people he had barely saved like that.
"Thanks."
A mercenary with loyalty.
"I will not forget this favor."
A merchant who did not talk much.
"Thanks to you, I lived. Hoo."
There was also a soldier called Bell.
There were also several mercenaries who followed reckless him.
'If I were alone, I couldn't have done anything.'
Enkrid had never thought he was alone.
'Alone, I was nothing.'
Those he had to protect behind his back, and those who fought together at his side.
Everyone flashed through his mind. They were not everything, but it was certain they were one of the foundations that protected his will.
The past speaks of the present, and the present is a prediction of tomorrow.
Enkrid recalled his past and faced the present.
'Not yet.'
With that firm will, the apparition vanished, and the Ferryman shut his mouth.
"Let's see how long you endure."
The Ferryman said. Enkrid started what he was doing again.
'Why did I feel helpless?'
Because he felt it by instinct. Because he already knew Will would not work.
The dizzy feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff was probably for the same reason.
The head that sought an answer and schemed was busy.
'I need a trigger.'
If it cannot be solved with what is inside him.
Help from others? Enkrid knew well that he was not alone.
He opened his eyes. It was another new today.
'The knight order.'
People were all around him. It was like that every time he opened his eyes.
In that today where a brief time was given, Enkrid put strength into his eyes. He swallowed the blood that surged up. He could not stop the worsening of the wound, but the technique of controlling his body by moving Will grew even more.
Just like that, he opened his mouth.
"Hey, help."
What he could see was a gray-haired barbarian. Rem blinked.
"Is that an order?"
With the corners of his stiff mouth lifting, he smiled.
"If it sounds like that, then it is."
He was barely speaking while moving Will.
"I'm here too. Fiance."
From beside his head, Shinar said.
"Please try anything."
He asked her too, and met eyes with Audin.
"Sing a song or something."
It was something he threw out because Teresa was visible by his side.
"Ragna, you help too."
After speaking to the pale-faced genius on one side as well.
"Crang, pray or something."
After finishing the last words, he closed his eyes. Enkrid sank inward.
Like that, to Enkrid's senses, dozens more todays passed.
"Still?"
The Ferryman waited for the time.
Sometimes a disappointed Ferryman came out, and sometimes a smug Ferryman stepped forward.
Most of the time, it was a Ferryman who did not show emotion, only coming out to press him.
"Still?"
From the Ferryman's question, he felt pressure. It was not simply that repeating today was the problem. If his heart broke, that was the end.
The Ferryman was waiting for Enkrid's heart to break.
Enkrid realized that, but ignored it. He did not steady his heart, and he did not renew his resolve. If it were something that could be solved with oaths and vows, he would have done it long ago. He endured.
"Don't you die!"
In a few moments when he opened his eyes, Rem poured sorcery into him. It was bold enough not to care whether he became a malicious spirit or not.
Then holy power poured down, and a useless elixir ran down the corner of his mouth.
To a fairy, vigor is like life itself, and Shinar poured out vigor without holding back.
She was resolved to give up her life.
After sending several such useless todays, moments, Enkrid recognized that something that never stopped moving was remaining in his wound.
'He wrapped Will around the sword and shoved it into the wound.'
In that simple motion, what else was there?
A few more thoughts followed.
If, from the 'we' the Ferryman said, he learned that he had to get help from others rather than being alone.
'And what he meant by overcome it with will.'
In the end, was it not saying that something was blocking him?
It was like when he became a knight. Even in all that time of constant effort, time that felt like he was walking the wrong path, he thought there was meaning.
'Everything I've learned and trained is me.'
Maybe that was why the genius swordsman Ragna easily lost his path. For him, everything around him becomes inspiration, and the path he walks becomes the process of reaching the destination. For him, there is no wrong path. In other words.
'There is no futile effort.'
That was the conclusion.
He did not know why his thoughts suddenly leaped this far. It was only that the leaped thought found the answer and dragged it out.
The todays he repeated until now, the days he trained while being called a madman, condensed, and what he realized gathered together.
Everything became a journey toward a single light. After that, thoughts naturally continued.
'What makes power is a circle.'
More precisely, circulation.
If circulation is cut, that is dead. It has stopped. Will must move without ceasing.
'Not something that stands still, but something that moves without ceasing and changes.'
A change in nature.
That change in nature is called Indules, and its core was fluidity.
'Movement without breaks.'
If Uske is something you are born with or build up stubbornly, Indules is something you gain through realization from inspiration.
'Real Indules.'
What he had done before was close to an imitation. What he recalled and recognized now was real Indules.
Because change comes from unbroken movement.
Inspiration swelled up and burst. Exhilaration shook him from head to toe as it passed through.
The Ferryman stopped shaking the lamp, and the flow of the river became gentle.
"This."
The Ferryman clicked his tongue. It was the first time he showed that.
The dream shattered to pieces, and as if lifting his mind up, his body rose with it, and he opened his eyes. In a new today, he contemplated inside his body and moved Will.
He understood why his wound did not heal.
'The Will that remained in my body moves without rest and responds.'
The core of Indules was contained in the stab that pierced his stomach. Enkrid spun his Will inside himself and moved it. He grabbed, bent, and twisted the endlessly flowing river. Since the Will left inside his body flowed fluidly, he changed his own Will as well and responded.
Thud.
The wound burst, staining the bandage red.
"Captain brother."
Audin covered the wound with that huge hand of his. Enkrid could not even answer and focused.
Learning the knack was something he had done countless times while repeating today. Had he not struggled to somehow do something by moving Will? This was the result.
'There is no futile effort.'
With that thought, he crushed and scattered all the Will imbued in the wound.
"Ughk."
Enkrid vomited blood. He moved Will too violently, and part of his insides were damaged.
"Huh?"
Seeing that, Rem opened his mouth in surprise. Shinar too.
The two who handled sorcery and vigor sensed Enkrid's change keenly.
"What did you do?"
Rem asked.
To them, it was a miracle that happened in five days.
To Enkrid, it was a moment he met after passing through hundreds of todays, so many that it was hard to count because his mind did not properly return.
"Indules."
Enkrid said, filled with exhilaration, and passed out.
Maybe he really should be called a madman.
What he said after coming back from the brink of death was something else.