“Eyes, feet, hands,” Ragna said.
“You start with your eyes, move your feet, and finish with your hands. The sword.”
He did as he was told. Predict the opponent's movements with your eyes, position yourself with your feet, and the sword simply moves to finish it.
Hngh.
In the next real battle, he put it into practice himself. Instead of seeing and dodging, he predicted and dodged, so the opponent's attack line couldn't reach Enkrid, and Enkrid's attack line reached the enemy. Thrusting the sword was merely a confirmation.
Thwack!
The sword pierced the Adam's apple. As he pulled the sword out to the side, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels were severed, and blood gushed out. As soon as he killed the enemy soldier, Enkrid rolled on the ground and struck the shin of another soldier standing beside him with his pommel.
Crack!
Since the soldier wasn't wearing any protectors, it was only natural for the bone to break.
“Guh!”
The falling man struggled. Enkrid picked up a quarrel that had fallen nearby and plunged it into the man's heart. Because of the armor, the bolt was only halfway in.
As he got up, he stomped on it with the sole of his foot. With a thwump sound, the quarrel was driven in up to the shaft. He lifted the dead man with one hand and tilted him to the side.
Thwack, thwack, thwack, quarrels embedded themselves in the corpse. Here, Enkrid made a small mistake. Fwip, a quarrel grazed his thigh.
If his mobility was reduced, it would be difficult to run rampant among the enemy forces. Still, he did what he could.
Thirty-two.
He killed two more in a day. And that was even with a mistake in the middle. 'Eyes, feet, hands.'
See with the eyes, move with the feet, finish with the hands. It seemed it would be good to practice it a few more times in real combat. Enkrid did so.
Through these repeated todays, he also roughly grasped the enemy's movements. 'They protect the flagpole.' While doing so, they circle in one direction.
If he charged straight ahead one day, the next day he rushed to their left. He had never broken the flagpole, but he had come close enough to almost touch it. Enkrid felt a thirst.
He felt he was lacking something. 'Can't I do it alone?' If that was the case, he could just bring Rem or Ragna along, but a sense of stubborn pride arose.
He had learned and mastered a proper swordsmanship. He wanted to take one more step forward from here. He wasn't being impatient, but the thought that it was time to advance kept coming to him.
'I'll try.'
If this turned out to be nothing more than stubbornness, he could make a different judgment later. Enkrid had the opportunity gained from repeating today.
“Damn, what are you?”
After several battles, he faced an enemy Platoon Leader. It wasn't a familiar face. It was a man he'd never seen before, with a mustache grown out like a rat's. “What do you think?”
Enkrid replied with a smirk. One couldn't be so bold in the face of death. The rat-mustached man from the Azpen Dukedom gulped and thrust his spear.
“You unlucky bastard.”
After dying and waking up, it was training again.
“Righteous, Heavy, Illusion, Swift, Flowing.”
Once the concept of eyes, feet, and hands became familiar, Ragna moved on to the next step. What had started as just getting used to the fundamentals had somehow progressed to the history and concepts of swordsmanship.
“Fortunately, what the Squad Leader learned has the same roots as mine.”
Of course.
Ragna had taught him.
“I followed one of the particularly good instructors, so I guess I'm really lucky.”
Enkrid spouted nonsense, but Ragna had no choice but to believe him. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense. His skill improving in a single day could be overlooked.
It could happen if he had continuously trained the fundamentals on his own but didn't know how to apply them. Of course, this too was a very peculiar thing, but it was fine as long as one didn't dwell on it.
He decided to let the fact that the basics of the Northern Heavy Sword technique had settled into his body slide with the same logic. What was the point of questioning it? The Squad Leader had never questioned his past.
Then he should do the same.
“Do you know? The Righteous, Heavy, Illusion, Swift, and Flowing.”
Enkrid nodded at Ragna's words. Righteous, Heavy, Illusion, Swift, Flowing. It refers to the Righteous Sword, Heavy Sword, Illusion Sword, Swift Sword, and Flowing Sword.
To put it simply. A righteous and precise sword. A heavy and powerful sword.
A sword that mesmerizes and sways. A fast and even faster sword. A soft sword that flows.
500 years ago, a genius of the century was born. A child born in a small farmhouse, he was truly a genius among geniuses. Because at the age of nine, the genius killed a bunch of bandits who raided the farmhouse with a single fire poker.
At just nine years old, he killed adult bandits, men who knew their way around a sword. Twelve of them, at that.
“So this is swordsmanship.”
The nine-year-old child was precocious. They said it was because he lost his parents at a young age. Watching the bandits swing their swords, the child understood the principles of swordsmanship.
Later, a noble who heard that a young child had killed twelve bandits with a single fire poker went to find the boy. He adopted the child as his son. And so, the surname Oniac was added to the child's name.
Lionesis Oniac.
The genius thus gained a name. Lionesis was born with heaven-sent talent, but his body was also born with just as much misfortune. Around the age of ten, he contracted a disease that drained the strength from his limbs.
It was an incurable disease that no magician, doctor, or healer on the continent could touch. It was a disease that would paralyze his entire body before he turned twelve. Despite his illness, the Oniac family did not cast Lionesis out.
The unlucky genius was almost forgotten. But at the age of twenty, Lionesis, with his whole body paralyzed, made a mark on the history of the continent's swordsmanship. He compiled and systematized all the swordsmanship styles that had existed up to that point, dividing them into five categories.
That is the Righteous, Heavy, Illusion, Swift, and Flowing. The Righteous Sword, Heavy Sword, Illusion Sword, Swift Sword, and Flowing Sword. Despite being unable to use his body, he rewrote the history of swordsmanship.
Furthermore, this was the beginning of the history that turned the Oniacs into the greatest family in the empire. The swordsmanship schools created by Lionesis were passed down through generations and have now become the established theory.
Now, they were often spoken of as the Northern Style Heavy Sword, Central Style Righteous and Flowing Swords, Western Style Swift Sword, Southern Style Illusion Sword, and Eastern Style Technical Sword. The continent is largely divided into five parts, and the development of martial arts differed in each of them.
“There's a technique I developed to use the Northern Style Heavy Sword. It'll be more useful than the guts of a beast.”
It was another day with the same sun and wind. On this day, Enkrid learned a new technique from Ragna. From Rem, the Heart of the Beast.
From Jacksen, the Sense of the Blade. And Ragna taught him something called Single Point Focus.
“The principle is simple. You forget everything around you, fix your eyes on the opponent, and focus on what you're doing. You focus without letting anything else into your sight.”
The explanation was a mess.
“The foundation of the Heavy Sword lies in its fundamentals. It has nicknames like the sword that shatters even when blocked, the sword you can't dodge even if you see it coming, the sword that pours all its strength into a single strike. You just have to do that. By concentrating.”
If it could be done just by concentrating, then what did that make the guys who couldn't do it?
“I'll teach you a little trick.”
With his words, Ragna's sword became a flash of light. He had just changed his sword, so it probably wasn't even familiar in his hand yet, but the blade was invisible. Even his arm, whipping like a lash, couldn't be seen.
There was just a flash, and in that instant, something passed by his neck.
Flick.
The blade grazed the skin of his neck. The sword was so fast that he only realized the skin on his neck was cut after it happened. The nape of his neck grew warm.
Blood trickled down.
“You bastard, are you messing with the Squad Leader?”
Rem appeared out of nowhere, glaring. Enkrid touched his hand to his neck. 'I almost died.'
It was that dangerous of a strike. To have sliced his skin at an invisible speed.
“They say humans concentrate dozens of times more in the moment of death. I'm helping.”
“You crazy bastard, what's the use of learning a skill like that after you're dead? You must not know the Squad Leader, but it took him a veeeeeeeery long time to learn the Heart of the Beast. Huh?”
He's emphasizing a strange part, isn't he? Isn't that 'veeeeery' a bit too long? Just as Enkrid was about to say something, Ragna snorted.
“Because the teacher was bad.”
“Huh? What was that? You want an axe in your head?”
Rem raised a hand and cupped it behind his ear.
“I'm not an ignorant barbarian. My teaching method is rational.”
Rational?
Enkrid pondered the meaning of that word. To him, Rem and Ragna were two of a kind.
“But if you're from the polar northern tribes, aren't you a barbarian too?”
Ragna's skin is pale and his eyes are red. A characteristic of the polar northern tribes, the northern tribes.
“Don't put me in the same category as the western barbarians. It's unpleasant. Very.”
“... Fine, just die then. After you die, I'll personally go all the way north and bury you.”
It looked like they would have another big fight if left alone. Enkrid stepped in between them.
“You know what I'm going to say, right?”
Even though Enkrid had interrupted, Ragna's gaze shot past him.
“I'm well aware that the Squad Leader is as dull as a northern ox. But I didn't know he had mastered the fundamentals to this extent.”
“What, you bastard? Stop changing the subject and just offer up your head. I'm going to plant an axe in it.”
“Crazy barbarian bastard.”
The northern ox minimizes its movements to endure the cold. It's a metaphor used to describe a very dull person. Enkrid was being called dull by the two of them, but he had nothing to feel wronged about.
“You said you'd teach me the trick.”
Enkrid held Ragna back with his words and turned his head toward Rem. No words were needed. Just a look was enough.
Rem was fuming, but when Enkrid stared at him, he snorted loudly and said as if shouting.
“They said to assemble!”
Then he turned and strode back toward the camp.
“We should be going back.”
Ragna said, watching him go. As he went to sheathe the sword he had drawn, Enkrid grabbed his wrist.
“The trick?”
The thirst for learning was the driving force that moved Enkrid. Besides, wasn't he just about to be taught something new? Single Point Focus, he had called it.
Single Point Focus, Ragna had said it was a technique he had improved from an old secret art. Greed stirred in him.
“It won't be easy.”
The fundamentals weren't easy either. Correcting his posture, learning the steps, abandoning what he had, relearning how to cut and thrust. Not a single one of them was easy.
And yet, it was enjoyable. A thrill followed. The joy of growing stronger day by day filled his entire body.
He had said he dreamed of becoming a knight, but maybe it was simply because he loved the sword that he had come this far. When he held a sword and swung it, Enkrid found it so enjoyable that he forgot everything else in the world. As he held onto his wrist, Ragna said calmly.
“You have to be on the verge of death. When you feel like you're about to die, a person's nerves become razor sharp. You just have to repeat that on-edge feeling countless times.”
The trick was similar to when he learned the Heart of the Beast. However, the Heart of the Beast required one to be bold even in the face of death, whereas the technique Ragna called Single Point Focus was the opposite. He had to struggle desperately, not wanting to die.
The fear of that death would make a person's nerves stand on end like needles. 'I'll do it alongside real combat.' Enkrid made a plan in his head and moved.
“Just learning the trick won't be enough.”
“Tell me what it feels like when you master it.”
“It feels like everything around you is erased, and the sword moves just as you wish.”
Ragna said obediently. Enkrid looked into Ragna's red eyes. He could see a seriousness in his eyes that he had never seen before.
'What's gotten into him all of a sudden?' Ragna was fickle. But this was the first time he had been so passionate.
With a hidden passion, a flame burning deep in his eyes, Ragna said.
“It's time to go.”
Enkrid also nodded.
“We should.”
The battle began again, and the fog rolled in.
“Sorcery? That son of a bitch.”
Rem got angry.
“Keep your posture low!”
Ragna shouted at the running Enkrid. Before, he would have been busy trying to stop him, but not now. He knew that now, Enkrid wouldn't fall to some mediocre soldier.
Enkrid rushed forward and once again faced the enemy soldiers in the order of eyes, feet, and hands. 'The crossbowmen first.' If anything had changed from before, it was that after repeating today several times, the enemy's formation had become familiar to his eyes.
Ah, to be precise, it wasn't that it was familiar to his eyes. He had naturally memorized it. Before the first enemy soldier could even thrust his spear, he closed the distance and stabbed upward with a dagger.
Thwack, he abandoned the dagger that pierced the chin and palate, and shoved the dead enemy soldier with his shoulder.
“Uh!”
“Ack!”
The enemy soldier pushed back is flustered. In that opening, he threw two daggers. The thrown daggers pierced the necks of two enemy soldiers.
It was breathtaking skill. He drew his longsword and performed a diagonal cut.
Clang!
The shaft of an infantry spear blocked it. Expecting it to be blocked, he used the recoil from hitting the spear shaft to retrieve his sword and slit the throat of an enemy soldier on the opposite side.
Slice!
The well-sharpened blade cut the enemy soldier's neck. It was a fight once more. It was battle yet again.
It was the repeated today. He fights again and dies again. And as he did, Enkrid struggled desperately.
The moment he heard the trick, he understood. He didn't have to face it boldly, but struggle desperately to not die. That was what was important.
In the end, he probably couldn't avoid death. But that was fine. He would get what he wanted anyway.
Of course, in the midst of it all, he still had a job to do.
'The flagpole.'
Attacking the flagpole that served as the medium for the sorcery. He superimposed a goal onto the real battle. Enkrid charged toward the target.
Through the repeated todays, Enkrid knew the enemy soldiers' movements in advance. The enemy soldiers, who trusted the fog, were flustered by the attack of a single man. Enkrid took full advantage of that.