“What do you enjoy more?”
Dying like a skewer, pierced full of arrows? Being squeezed by a mage’s vines and stabbed by their thorns? Getting your whole body torn apart by a lycanthrope?
The ferryman spoke and laughed as he appeared. A laugh I could recognize only because he allowed it. It was strangely fascinating, even now.
What should I call this? It was like… someone was standing next to me, telling me, “The ferryman laughed.” I knew the ferryman was laughing, and yet I hadn’t actually seen a laughing face.
I hadn’t heard a laugh either. All I had in my head was the awareness that the other side had laughed. Since I’d heard the question, Enkrid answered.
To the Black River, the little boat, and the ferryman. He couldn’t even tell if the answer coming out of his mouth was for the ferryman, or for the boat, or for the river. Still, his mouth could move, so— “Arrows are the best, I think.”
Better than being torn apart by a pack of lycanthropes or strangled by a mage’s vines.
“…Go mad. Lose your mind like that, and make me enjoy myself.”
Was it his imagination, or did the ferryman’s words catch for a brief moment? Enkrid wasn’t mad. Not at all.
He’d just had no need to hesitate, so he answered right away.
“I answered calmly.”
“You crazy bastard.”