There are things that, if you don't know them, remain in darkness, but once known, become light.
He grasped it and recognized it.
Having seen the path lit by light.
In this 'today', he placed intention above the Sense of Evasion.
It was the best way to save the child.
This time, he had to mix intuition with intention.
'The thought that I have to win with force.'
A narrow perspective.
He discarded that thought.
The wall is free.
What confines 'today' isn't just spears and swords.
Of course, spears and swords are direct weapons.
They are physical entities that cut through flesh and bone.
But was that all?
Were they the only reality?
The real thing that confined him was the strategist's mind.
He had merely danced in the palm of their hand.
'So, where do I begin?'
In this repeatedly relived 'today', there was only one thing for Encrid to do.
How does one struggle to break free from 'today'?
The answer was in what he had already experienced.
Encrid now realized that his mind wasn't as clever as he thought.
It felt like a repetition of the same mistakes.
Before, his vision had been narrowed, deceived by the ferryman's words.
This time, if the ferryman hadn't helped, he wouldn't have been able to see the real wall beyond the false one.
No, it would have taken more time.
So, was that a problem?
No.
Even without the ferryman's help, if he had to repeat this 'today' tens or even hundreds of times.
He would have done it.
He would have struggled indefinitely.
He wouldn't have known how to give up.
And eventually, he would have surpassed it.
Suddenly, he felt the urge to see the young herbalist boy.
The boy he saved, though he received thanks from the boy's mother, he never saw the boy himself.
Was what he said at that time something he blurted out?
Or did he genuinely want to live a life gathering herbs?
What a strange question to ask—what's your dream? Isn't it odd?
In a world like this, discussing dreams, even though it might be a luxury.
"Amusing."
Yet, still worth discussing.
Yet, still worth asking.
Muttering to himself, he stood up and immediately spotted the enemy soldiers.
A rare late wake-up compared to other days.
"Here-!"
He didn't finish his sentence.
Encrid rushed over in an instant, gripping the man's mouth shut.
But the shout of a nearby soldier rang out.
"Ambush!"
No, it's not an ambush, you came while he was having a good sleep.
Encrid thought, wrenching the man's jaw out of place with his grip.
With a crack, he felt the sensation of the jawbone dislocating through his fingers.
A trick Audin might have shown off now came naturally.
In this repeatedly relived 'today', the skills that had become ingrained in his body had grown cleaner and more refined.
"Take that!"
The enemy soldier resisted.
Even with his face gripped, he swung his fist.
Encrid grabbed the incoming wrist and twisted it.
Then, with a swift motion, he spun around and locked the enemy in a hold from behind.
Crack.
The sound of bones misaligning came from the wrist he had gripped.
"Gggrgh!"
With his jaw dislocated, the enemy couldn't even scream.
All he could do was drool uncontrollably.
It was no surprise that his face turned pale.
Would taking a hostage work?
He had tried it before.
It didn't work.
"Fire!"
As expected, it didn't work.
Ratatatatatat!
Dozens of bolts flew toward him.
Encrid tossed the enemy forward and leapt to the side.
Thunk-thunk-thunk!
More than ten bolts lodged into the dislocated-jawed soldier's body.
The enemy collapsed, drooling, and died on the spot.
As he dove, Encrid drew his sword.
He saw the wide-eyed enemy soldier where he had dodged to.
Without hesitation, he swung his sword.
A blue trail traced a short arc.
Whoosh, slice!
With a quick vertical slash to the top of the head, both the helmet and skull split open at once.
It was like a split orange, still attached to its peel, except the contents weren't fruit, but brain matter and blood.
Splat, blood splashed onto his face.
Encrid didn't care.
Instead, he sharpened his Sense of Evasion, honing the edge of his intuition and instincts.
He had already experienced this.
There had been a similar 'today'.
At least, that's how Encrid felt.
It was the day inside the shoemaker's house in the market of the Border Guard, beneath which a wizard had once stayed.
That day.
'Pure instinct.'
He had to sense the spell trap using nothing but intuition.
Though today's scale was larger and the situation is different.
He was different, too.
Very different.
Was it thanks to the ferryman's advice?
Or was he simply lucky?
Encrid understood one thing but realized two.
There was something more valuable to add besides just instinct and intuition.
'Strength is also necessary.'
It wasn't enough to simply uncover the enemy's strategy.
It wasn't enough to just recognize it and avoid it.
You needed to add force to it as well.
That was the answer.
Honing his Sense of Evasion to perfection, Encrid embraced the ominous feeling throughout his body.
He instinctively calculated his strength into the equation.
'Here.'
Encrid began to move.
After that, Encrid died six more times.
As always, he never wasted a single day.
Even so, seven more repetitions of 'today' were needed.
It was only possible because he had already experienced close to four hundred 'todays'.
Encrid had seen every method the enemy strategist had prepared at least once.
He didn't know how they coordinated everything.
Nor did he understand what kind of tactics they were using.
Encrid relied solely on his instincts and intuition.
He made decisions based on his gut feeling.
The standard of judgment wasn't reason but the sensations he felt in the moment.
He detected the ominous feeling and gauged its severity.
Whenever he saw even the slightest gap, he struck there.
Disguising himself as an enemy soldier was pointless.
Hiding was even more useless.
Whenever that sorcerer appeared, no matter how well hidden, they would always find him.
If hostages were also useless here.
'As always.'
He would have to fight his way out with his arms and legs.
Burn marks remained on his back, and the shock from previous battles hadn't fully healed either.
The aftermath of the battle, which now felt like it happened ages ago, still lingered in his body.
"This is really driving me crazy."
The words slipped out by themselves.
Seeing the path ahead, Encrid's entire body tingled.
It was thrilling.
It felt like he could die from the sheer joy.
The excitement was driving him mad.
Taking one step forward didn't necessarily mean just physical growth.
The euphoria of progress, of growth itself, surged through his entire being.
Realizing this, all he felt was joy.
"Chase him!"
That was the result of his persistence.
With the confident start of 'today', Encrid's first move was decided.
He moved by climbing the trees.
Scanning his surroundings, he searched for his target.
It wasn't easy to find.
"There he is!"
He was being chased.
"Where do you think you're going!"
He stomped on the head of the approaching enemy soldier, slicing the head of the archer beside him with his sword.
Fighting without hesitation, enduring while wandering aimlessly, he finally saw it.
"Urgh!"
It was the sorcerer.
The moment they locked eyes, an invisible shockwave hit his body.
His Sense of Evasion activated, and Encrid saw the sorcerer's magic clearly.
He didn't see it with his eyes, but with his senses.
Thanks to the blade of his sharpened instincts, so sharp it felt like it could break.
He had seen it once or twice before—the blade of his intuition visualized the magic the enemy had cast, showing him exactly what the sorcerer had done.
Sensing the approaching invisible pressure precisely, it was no challenge for Encrid to dodge by bending his waist at the last possible moment.
He ducked his body, avoiding the sorcerer's trick.
The sorcerer didn't stop, continuing to mutter incantations under his breath.
At the moment Encrid ducked, he had already gathered strength in his toes.
He concentrated that power in his toes.
The frozen ground beneath him sank slightly with a soft thud.
A burst of 'will' erupted in that moment.
Boom!
The ground exploded as he charged forward.
When Encrid kicked off the ground, dirt shot up like a fountain.
Shards of rock shattered and flew in all directions.
It was a charge so powerful it could rightfully be called an act of brute force.
Now, he no longer envied the charge of the Knight he had seen before.
Whoosh! Everything around him was blown back.
While sprinting, he slashed with his gladius.
Relax, contract, explode.
The power from his legs carried through his twisting torso and into his sword. The Middle Sword Technique's Steel Slash cleaved through the sorcerer's torso.
Boom!
A thunderous sound exploded from the slash.
The sorcerer's upper body shot upward as if it had burst.
It was the result of a slash that followed his tremendous speed.
Though not yet fully refined, the strike's power was devastating.
'That's one down.'
This was just the beginning.
The sorcerer brought a constant sense of dread throughout the entire process.
There would be no next step unless this one was gone.
So, this was where force came into play.
Now, for the next step.
Amid the looming sense of dread from all directions, Encrid moved toward the least ominous area.
From the enemy soldiers' perspective, it seemed like madness.
It looked as if he was intentionally charging toward where the heavily armored infantry was holding the line.
Running toward the denser part of the enemy formation made him look like a madman to anyone watching.
"Stop him!"
The Commander's shout pierced the sky of today.
For some, it was their one and only today.
For others, like Encrid, it was 'today' for the hundredth or even thousandth time.
* * *
"Nilf, report!"
Avnair had Encrid completely cornered.
At least, that's what he believed.
He had killed him hundreds of times.
But for someone who repeats 'today', death is merely a deferred opportunity.
Of course, Encrid had almost been trapped.
The trap Avnair had set was that deadly.
An unseen dagger had already embedded itself in Encrid's heart.
And yet, there are always those who pull the dagger out and keep going.
"Not good. Even an eel couldn't slip away like this. It's as if he knows everything we've prepared."
Avnair was receiving real-time reports on Encrid's movements.
That's how serious he was about killing this man.
Avnair's brow twitched.
It was a habit he had when things weren't going according to plan.
His fingers tapped his thigh.
Was it anxiety?
No.
It was a movement that came from intense concentration.
Avnair had no intention of letting his prey escape.
"Keep pressing him. Do not let him get away. What about Gray Hound?"
"He's being pursued. He's been weaving through densely packed groups of soldiers, causing confusion."
'Does he know what he's doing?'
Is that even possible?
With countless troops chasing him, it's only natural that he would move through the gaps.
His instincts would drive him toward those openings.
That's just human nature.
Avnair had orchestrated things that way.
He left small openings and placed Gray Hound there, along with wizards and sorcerers.
The figures on the map before him were scattered in disarray.
Avnair quickly repositioned them.
'If he's figuring out our tactics and moving accordingly?'
Then they'd have to move in reverse as well.
Originally, the swordsmen of the Hurrier family had been stationed in less dense areas.
But now, that changed.
He moved all of them to chase Encrid.
'You're not a Knight.'
Therefore, you cannot break through a wall of a thousand soldiers on your own.
What about the barricaded areas fortified by engineers?
The cliff sides?
The hidden traps scattered throughout?
More than eighty pits had been dug.
The slow advance wasn't without reason.
Bang!
Avnair slammed his hand down on the platform.
"After all this effort, if we let him slip away, it would be absurd, wouldn't it?"
This sense of foreboding—it's a skill everyone has to some degree.
Encrid's instincts and intuition were closer to premonition than rationality.
He hadn't figured out Avnair's intentions.
It was more like…
'Something feels wrong about going this way.'
He moved based on such simple, almost brute, thoughts.
And that was what confused Avnair.
Time passed, and more reports came in.
"He's retreating again."
What kind of move is this?
They had set up traps for him near the outskirts, and now he was suddenly heading back to the center?
He should have had a good sense of direction by now, since he'd moved outside the range of the sorcerer's spells.
But instead, he was heading right back toward the original encirclement.
Of course, there were traps waiting for him.
They had everything ready to catch him if he came charging through.
But how did he know to pull back?
"What about his injuries?"
"He's been hit by two quarrels in the back."
"The poison?"
"It wasn't applied."
They had given the best marksmen poisoned arrows, but not all of them had been equipped with it.
'Did he know?'
Did he intentionally avoid the poisoned arrows?
'That's paranoia.'
It was an exaggerated assumption.
A baseless delusion.
No human could possibly grasp all of this.
'Or could he really be a Knight?'
No, that wasn't it either.
Based on the reports, his skills had clearly improved since yesterday.
But he was no Knight.
And yet, they still couldn't catch him.
Even though he was right in the palm of their hand, ready to be crushed, he kept slipping away.
It was as if he were coated in oil, sliding effortlessly between their fingers.
How is this even possible?
The next news left Avnair even more bewildered.
"Commander."
Nilf's voice was urgent.
"Speak."
After hearing the report, Avnair's smile disappeared.
That man, Encrid, had been trapped in his palm, but somehow, he pried it open and escaped.
But this wasn't the end.
There was still more that had been prepared.
"What about Galaf and the Junior-Knight?"
"I've sent a messenger."
"Tell them to come immediately!"
Galaf was a wizard they had summoned by pouring gold into it.
It wasn't just the gold they had invested.
They had made countless promises for this mission.
Even the King had given permission to borrow such a valuable asset.
But still, as the Commander, Avnair knew he would come when summoned.
That was the agreement.
It wasn't just a matter of sending his apprentices and then wiping his hands clean.
Galaf, along with the Junior-Knight, were the second line of defense if Encrid somehow managed to escape.
Of course, before that, each of them had their own tasks to complete.
Avnair had a sharp mind.
He was intelligent and quick to think.
He wouldn't leave his forces idle.
And it wasn't just that—he had even considered the future after they had killed Encrid and his elite group.
'We will turn everything around.'
He would shift the tide of the battle.
Reverse it.
Turn the victory in their favor.
If everyone did their part, that's how it would play out.
At least, that was Avnair's intention.
"Call in the Assassination Squad as well!"
In addition to Galaf and the Junior-Knight, he would use everything they had prepared.
Avnair's resolve was firm.
However, not everything in this world goes as planned.
* * *
'Everything feels ominous.'
Still, there was a way.
It might be a stretch to call it a gap, but what did it matter if the gap was small?
He could widen it with force.
At the same time he sensed the looming danger, Encrid also mobilized his strength.
He deliberately targeted the stone wall.
Swinging his gladius at the artificial barricade built by the enemy soldiers.
'This much won't break it, right?'
The Dwarf who handed him the sword hadn't seemed too confident, but Encrid was half sure.
The gladius he held now was the strongest weapon he had ever wielded.
Wham!
Instead of using the edge, he struck with the flat side.
Part of the stone wall cracked.
He kicked and pulled at the broken pieces with his hands.
Meanwhile, he dodged some of the arrows coming his way, while enduring the rest with his body.
He did everything purely on instinct.
It was better than trying to avoid everything.
Hadn't he learned that through a week of failures?
Indeed, he had.
Glancing to the side, he saw several longbow-wielding Fairies with arrows coated in poison.
Had he dodged recklessly, he would have been pierced by even more arrows.
They were swift-footed and annoying to chase.
In the first place, that direction felt extremely ominous.
The hundreds of days and deaths he had experienced had all contributed to this intuitive knowledge.
It was a tower built from accumulated experience.
The foundation of his intuitive sense of danger.
Encrid struck the stone wall again.
Wham!
A second explosion echoed.
Crack.
Finally, he created a gap just wide enough for him to crawl through, and Encrid continued pounding the artificial stone wall.
Even though more enemy soldiers were rushing toward him, Encrid eventually found his gap.
At the edge of the poorly constructed wall, where it met the cliff, the stones gave way with a crash.
At that moment, it seemed like Avnair would finally be convinced that Encrid had slipped through his fingers.
As the wall crumbled, dust rose into the air.
The winters in the north had been dry and warm lately.
The dust clouded everyone's vision.
"Wizards!"
Leblanc Hurrier shouted.
They had just lost two of their comrades.
Of the four wizards, only two remained alive.
That battle had been awkward as well.
Even though Encrid could have killed the remaining two if he had pushed harder, he retreated.
Of course, if he had hesitated back then, his retreat would have been cut off.
But how could someone make such a decision to pull back in that split second?
Through the dust rising from the crumbled stone wall, Encrid's blue eyes gleamed brightly.
As his senses sharpened, his Sense of Evasion opened a new path for him.
So, then.
'I can see the path.'
His five senses blurred, merged, and visualized into a clear image before him.
A virtual line was now vividly visible.
A path made of blue light.
It was the path that would finally end this long day.
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