"If you send one of your servants, they'll use a sword no matter who it is, but I'm just a messenger. I'd appreciate it if you didn't kill me. I'm half entranced right now, so I don't even know what I'm saying."
Even without that, Enkrid would not have acted right away.
Now he could tell just by looking.
'Not a servant.'
A courier.
Demons really did have all sorts of tricks. A spell that seized a person's mind and made them deliver only the words it wanted spoken.
Because he understood that, he merely sat in the stiff wooden chair and watched the other side with dull eyes.
Rem stretched off to one side, and Esther pulled her fur coat tighter around herself as she looked their way.
From a distance, neither of them looked interested in the slightest, but both kept their eyes there.
Kraiss had planted himself right behind Enkrid.
"Doesn't seem to be a servant after all."
Kraiss muttered, and Enkrid nodded.
It meant that even though the sheer nastiness of some demon bastard using a kid who could not have been more than fifteen pissed him off, he was not going to cut him down on the spot.
Soon the courier's eyes rolled back with a flick, leaving only the whites, and it asked:
"Will you really fight for those things?"
The tone did not suit the voice of a half grown child.
It was flat, hard, without highs or lows, and stripped of anything like emotion.
Demons did not know how to give up.
And in everything they did, there was never just one intention. There were always several.
Kraiss had expected that too.
Enkrid had also grasped it, more or less, from watching how things were moving.
What had their first aim been?
They had planted suspicion in Enkrid. They wanted him to distrust.
More precisely, they wanted him to lose the meaning of what he was doing.
By pushing the situation until he had to recognize the innate malice possessed by intelligent beings, they had tried to taint the very act of protecting them.
What those people had said came at him in a form he could not simply ignore, so Enkrid, Rem, and Esther had all been forced to face that malice head on in this affair.
The servants were one piece of the ugliness intelligent beings carried within themselves.
They were not people dragged in by force. They were people who had gone to demons of their own greed and for their own gain.
Among those short on krona, some still borrow from loan sharks even knowing what they are doing. There are those who, after failing to repay what they borrowed, are told to do other work and refuse to the bitter end, ruining themselves for it.
But there are others who do not.
No—there are more who willingly harm others for their own sake.
The world was not inhabited by good people alone.
"When you see people who sold their own children and killed their parents for personal gain, what do you think?"
The demon whispered through the messenger's mouth.
It wasn't us who made them do it. Your kind chose it. Didn't they?
Look at that. I can hear your heart clear as day.
Thinking that, Enkrid answered.
"I think they're pitiful."
The demon heard that answer and thought, What the hell is with this bastard? Why does he seem completely unaffected?
Which was exactly right.
Enkrid was unaffected.
Those who became servants for gains that small would never feel the far greater joy they might have known later in life.
The joy that came from living selfishly for one's own benefit was smaller than the joy that came from being selfless.
That was how Enkrid saw it.
So they were pitiful.
That was all.
"You'd protect even people like that?"
The demon still did not know how to give up.
Again it drove a dagger toward Enkrid's heart.
Weren't all the people he meant to protect exactly like that?
Was it really right to raise a sword for things like them?
Enkrid was still unmoved.
The world the blond swordsman who had punched two holes through his stomach had lived through had probably been much the same.
At first, he must have simply fallen in love with the joy of wielding a sword.
After that, he must have thought about what he could do with the extraordinary talent he possessed.
'After thinking it through, after turning it over in his mind.'
He must have fought for someone at times, and at other times fought driven by his own feelings.
And after killing and killing again, when he finally looked back at what he had protected—
there must have been intelligent beings there more grotesque, filthy, wicked, and miserable than the things called demons.
All at once, Enkrid found himself guessing at the change in the blond swordsman's state of mind, and met the demon's gaze.
The two of them were looking at each other through the body of a child.
Which of the five was the one on the other side?
Whoever it was, it would not matter.
Would he protect even people like that?
Enkrid answered.
"No. If there's someone I don't like, I'll beat the hell out of them. And if I like them even less than that, I'll cut them down."
"Then you're no different from us! If you kill people to get what you want, how are you any different from us? We too are only moving toward what we desire—we do not kill people blindly!"
They did not do things that did not serve their purpose.
That was one of the defining traits of the lords of the Demon lands.
It was a statement that admitted that fact, asserted it, and turned it into a blazing speech.
It was the sort of talk that stirred the heart.
It had the same kind of appeal Crang possessed.
If you kept listening, the demon started to sound almost like some noble seeker.
Enkrid crushed that lofty image with his next words.
"Right now, I dislike you the most."
"Were you even listening to what I said? If what you want and what we want are the same—"
"You repulsive bastard."
"Listen, you lunatic. The world you want—"
"The things you do make me sick every single time."
"...You really aren't listening."
The demon gave up trying to persuade him.
Talking to a rock passing by would get it further than this. At least a rock would listen in silence instead of hearing him out and then spitting insults.
Enkrid's position was simple.
Yeah, I'm not listening. Say whatever you want. I'm not hearing it, and I'm only going to say what I came to say.
Why was he so unaffected by the demon's words?
There were probably many reasons, but if he had to name one, it was this:
he had not forgotten what he had lived through or the people he had met.
The one legged mercenary full of swagger who had looked after orphaned children.
The apple seller who had shared rotten apples with him.
The old waitress who had roasted potatoes for him even though she had nothing to eat herself.
The old woman who had cooked stew for all the children in the village.
The female mercenary who had hidden him because he reminded her of her little brother.
The swordsmanship teacher who had settled in the coastal city.
Ger and Pit from the mercenary band.
What profit had any of them stood to gain by reaching out to him?
'Nothing.'
They had only pitied another human being, carried themselves without shame, and acted according to what they believed was right.
The hands they had extended to him, the kindness they had shown him—those people still lived vividly in his heart.
The warmth they had given him was not hotter than the sun, but it was like a campfire that would never go out, no matter how deep the winter night.
The world was not that dark.
Clouds passed, and the sun came back out.
That was only natural.
As if on cue, the falling rain stopped.
The sky cleared as though by a lie.
Bright sunlight broke over the soaked ground.
"Wait for me. I'll come find you."
Whatever they said, Enkrid only stated his own intention.
He had been doing nothing but saying what he wanted from the start, but in truth, this whole conversation had happened because he meant to deliver those words in the first place.
The demon clicked its tongue.
The messenger clicked his tongue too with a breathy, "Huh—," and collapsed on the spot.
"They've really got every dirty trick in the book."
Rem caught the messenger's body and laid it off to the side as he spoke.
Esther only snorted.
Had they wanted the sight of malice to shake his heart?
As if a man like Enkrid would ever let that happen.
He did not.
The demon's first aim had been to make him distrust all intelligent beings, to fill him with suspicion, and to drain all meaning from what he was doing.
But it had been useless.
Enkrid believed that if he cut down things like that with his sword, then Crang, behind him, would care for the world alongside upright and decent people—not people steeped in that kind of malice.
Well, no one was saying they had to take care of the whole world from the start.
It would begin with family and home.
Then one's city.
Then one's country.
That was how it spread—from small things to large—until everyone could at least live in a world where they could still smile.
At the very least, it would become a world without war.
It was while he was thinking that Kraiss opened his mouth with a vacant look in his eyes.
That unfocused gaze was the sign that he was deep in thought.
"How devious."
Quietly murmuring to himself, Kraiss left his mouth half open and stared blankly into the air as he sorted things out.
This operation to wipe out the servants.
The messenger collapsed in front of them.
And the mage they had faced this time.
All of it tangled together in his head, and from that knot, he began to glimpse the demons' intent.
"This means we've gained another enemy because of this."
That was his conclusion when he spoke again.
Kraiss took a breath and continued.
"And I think that may have been the point from the beginning. We've made enemies of the magical society called Astrail now."
The demons' servants had deftly drawn in one of Astrail's masters.
And because of that, the mad knights of Border Guard had gained another enemy.
Astrail was a secret magical society.
If they started scheming against them, things would become several times more troublesome than they already were.
And the Empire was still out there too.
Kill all the servants—was that the end of it?
No.
Even in failure, they found a way to profit.
That was how the lords of the Demon lands operated.
Of course, none of that mattered to Enkrid.
If Astrail were the kind of bastards who did that sort of thing, then they were something that needed to be cleared out sooner or later anyway.
"Don't worry. Once they see the traces this battle left behind, they'll have a hard time even daring to come at us."
Esther spoke with certainty.
She bore the title Witch of Strife, the Fighting Witch, and that name had been given to her because she looked down on ordinary warlocks as beneath her notice.
'I taught him how to deal with them, but...'
With this battle, Enkrid had crossed far beyond a certain line.
Now, any halfway decent spellcaster would not even dare wag their tongue carelessly in front of that man.
Enkrid's swordsmanship rendered more than half the spells a mage could use meaningless.
A protective barrier alone had already lost its meaning in front of his blade.
If a mage exposed mana to reinforce the barrier's exterior, he cut that down on the spot.
If the mage hid the mana flow inside, then the outer barrier thinned, and he simply shattered it by force.
'You can't go one way or the other.'
That was the conclusion.
"So there's nothing we need to worry about right away?"
Kraiss said and let out a breath.
Right. What would worrying accomplish anyway?
First bandits, then cultists, then civil war. After that came monsters famous enough to be called legends, rushing at them like an endless tide.
Meeting every one of those waves, crossing them, then crossing the next—that was simply what they had to do.
'The Empire's envoy...'
Kraiss shifted the direction of his thoughts.
He could not get rid of every anxiety, but he could set pointless worry aside by focusing on something more useful.
That was something he had learned from being around Enkrid.
***
"The mad knight commander is going to train us personally?"
At his comrade's question, Riervan nodded.
Riervan had known Enkrid from before Enkrid entered Border Guard.
During the civil war, he had looked at him and called him his hero in his heart.
Later, he had even learned from him once.
Every part of that experience remained etched into his mind.
If he ever had to name a moment he would remember until the day he died, meeting Enkrid would definitely be on the list.
"Then I can't miss this."
His comrade said, but Riervan could not nod so easily.
Hadn't they trained together once before?
Back then, Enkrid had told him it would be good to strengthen his wrists more.
What kind of swordsmanship made your wrists throb and loaded your forearms more heavily with every clash?
It had felt like smashing a castle wall with a single steel sword.
And not only that—because Enkrid always met the blade at such devious angles, it had felt less like crossing swords and more like swinging his weapon around like a club.
By the time Riervan had sparred with him and tried to keep up with the training, he had felt half dead.
Enkrid had seen that and, in a completely ordinary tone, explained training methods that could be done while in pain.
He had even told him things like how to think in his head and how to rest with total focus so the body recovered faster.
He had shown sincerity.
And though he had no obligation to, he had done his best.
Riervan knew how earnest that effort was.
That was why he was afraid now.
It was not exactly a secret, but Riervan knew one fact the world did not really understand.
Enkrid was a complete training pervert.
"I've always wanted to see how he trains in normal times."
Even now, several of his comrades were showing open competitive fire.
The Royal Guard was not an order of knights, yet it was a group made up of people who wanted to walk the same path.
Only those who survived a brutal selection process were chosen, so their pride was enormous.
It was not that they meant to challenge the prestige of the Mad Order of Knights, but they were people who had more than enough right to be recognized in their own way.
At those confident words, Riervan began to wonder whether maybe it would be smarter to decline today's invitation.
'If the other side comes in eager, he'll go at them even harder, won't he?'
Yes.
Enkrid was exactly that kind of man.
"Are those idiots trying to die today?"
Aisia of the Red Cloak Order of Knights muttered from nearby.
Right beside her stood Baron Andrew Gardner, said to be the foremost of the rising young nobles.
He answered her.
"My stomach suddenly hurts."
Riervan felt a strange kinship with the two of them.
What was more, neither of them cared in the least who might overhear.
"Are you trying to secure the first turn with talk like that?"
That came from the commander of the Royal Guard as he stepped forward.
He, too, had never trained with Enkrid before.
At the words directed toward Aisia, the orange haired junior knight smiled.
A broad grin spreading over her face, she replied,
"Then why don't you go first?"
At that, the commander nodded.
When he removed the dark gray helmet that usually served as his symbol, brown hair fell down over his brows.
Then he stepped into the royal training grounds.
Other than those currently on duty, almost half the Royal Guard had gathered here.
And in their sight stood Enkrid.
Beside him, Rem the Noble Killer of the Mad Order of Knights swung his axe and sweated through his training, while off to one side a witch nicknamed the Black Flower sat leisurely drinking tea.
Sitting opposite the witch, a handsome man with large eyes looked at him and said,
"He's here."
Twenty members of the Royal Guard.
With Aisia and Andrew added, that made twenty-two in all.
Twenty two people Enkrid had called together with the words: let's do some training.
"Then."
The commander of the Royal Guard stepped forward first.
There were things to learn from merely sparring with someone like this.
'I'll learn a lesson from him.'
Helmet off, he leveled a training spear tipped with a metal weight.
The basics of spear technique were block, pin, and thrust.
Using the long shaft, you knocked aside incoming attacks, then pinned down the opponent's weapon, leaving no room to defend against the thrust that followed.
'How will he come in?'
While the commander of the Royal Guard considered dozens of possibilities, Enkrid simply strode straight toward him.
'He's just coming?'
The commander was caught off guard.
But he could not retreat either.
He chose to attack.
The spear shot forward in a straight line—
and Enkrid grabbed the shaft with his bare hand.
The thrust halted after passing over Enkrid's left shoulder.
Enkrid seized the shaft with his right hand, yanked, and drove up his knee.
A knight's strength was several times that of an ordinary soldier.
Comparable to a Frog.
That knee slammed straight up into the commander of the Royal Guard's abdomen and lifted his legs off the ground.
Thunk!
"...Urk!"
The cry came a beat late.
His breath had been cut off first.
With the man still draped over his knee, Enkrid twisted his hips and, using nothing but the strength of his waist, threw him to the side.
Thud.
The weight of a grown man striking the floor rang out.
"Not enough strength. Add a strength building course."
Enkrid said flatly.
"Got it."
Still swinging his axe, Rem wiped his face with a towel and answered.