CHAPTER 39

"Eyes, feet, hands."

Ragna spoke.

"You start with your eyes, move with your feet, and end with your hands. The sword."

He did as instructed.

By using his eyes, he predicted the enemy's movements, positioned himself with his feet, and used the sword to finish.

Swish.

In the next real battle, he put it into practice.

Instead of reacting to what he saw, he predicted and evaded. The enemy's attack line could not reach Encrid, but Encrid's attack line reached the enemy.

Thrusting the sword was just a confirmation.

Thuck!

The sword pierced the throat. As he pulled the sword out to the side, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels were severed, causing blood to gush out.

As soon as Encrid killed the enemy soldier, he rolled on the ground and struck another soldier's shin with his pommel.

Crunch!

Since there was no guard, it was natural for the bone to break.

"Ugh!"

The falling enemy flailed. Encrid pulled a quarrel from the ground and stabbed it into the soldier's heart.

Due to the armor, the arrow only went halfway in. He stood up and pressed it down with his foot.

With a squelching sound, the quarrel buried itself in the shaft.

He lifted the dead body with one hand and tilted it to the side.

With a thud, the quarrel embedded into the corpse.

Here, Encrid made a small mistake.

A quarrel nicked his thigh. Reduced mobility made it hard to rampage among the enemies.

Still, he did what he could.

Thirty-two.

He had killed two more in one day.

Even though he had made a mistake in the middle.

'Eyes, feet, hands.'

See with your eyes, move with your feet, end with your hands. He thought a few more real battles would help him master it.

Encrid continued this way.

By repeating today's actions, he roughly understood the enemy's movements.

'They protect the flagpoles.'

And they always circled in one direction. If he charged head-on one day, he would run to the left the next.

He had never broken the flagpole, but he came close enough to almost touch it.

Encrid felt a thirst.

He felt that something was missing in himself.

'Can't I do it alone?'

If that were the case, he could bring Rem or Ragna along, but stubbornness took hold.

He had learned and mastered proper swordsmanship.

He wanted to take one more step forward. It wasn't impatience, but the thought of advancing kept coming to him.

'Let's see.'

If this was just being stubborn, he could reassess afterward. Encrid had an opportunity gained through repeated 'todays'.

"Hey, who are you?"

After several battles, he faced the enemy's platoon leader. It wasn't a familiar face. It was someone he had never seen before, with a rat-like beard.

"What do you think?"

Encrid replied with a slight smile. Facing death, he couldn't act so boldly. The rat-bearded soldier of the Duchy of Aspen swallowed hard and thrust his spear.

"Unlucky bastard."

* * *

After dying and reviving, it was back to training.

As the concept of eyes, feet, and hands became familiar, Ragna moved on.

What started as getting used to the basics soon included the history and concepts of swordsmanship.

"Fortunately, the roots of what you learned align with mine."

Of course, since Ragna had taught him.

"I imitated one of the particularly good instructors, and it seems I'm really lucky."

Encrid said something absurd, but Ragna had no choice but to believe it.

Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense.

The fact that his skills improved in one day could be accepted. He had been continuously training the basics alone, but if he didn't know how to apply them, this could happen.

Of course, this was also very unusual, but it wasn't worth worrying about.

The basics of northern-style swordsmanship settled into his body, and he decided to move on to the same concept.

What was the point of questioning it?

The Squad Leader had never questioned his past. So he should do the same.

"Do you know? Respectful and prompt recovery."

Encrid nodded at Ragna's words.

Respectful and prompt recovery.

This refers to the principles of the straight sword, the heavy sword, the illusory sword, the swift sword, and the gentle sword.

To elaborate:

A correct and precise sword.

A heavy and vigorous sword.

A mesmerizing and deceptive sword.

A fast and faster sword.

A soft and flowing sword.

Five hundred years ago, an unparalleled genius was born. He was a child born in a small farmhouse, truly a genius among geniuses.

At the age of nine, this genius killed a group of bandits attacking the farmhouse with just a wooden stick.

At the mere age of nine, he killed twelve adult bandits, some of whom were quite skilled with swords.

"This is swordsmanship."

The nine-year-old child was precocious. It was said he lost his parents early.

By observing the bandits wielding their swords, the child understood the principles of swordsmanship.

After hearing that a young boy had killed twelve bandits with just a wooden stick, a nobleman sought out the child.

He adopted the boy.

Thus, the child was given the surname Oniac.

Leonesis Oniac.

This genius thus gained a name.

Leonesis was blessed with a heaven-sent talent, but he was also born with a matching misfortune.

At around the age of ten, he developed a disease that caused his limbs to lose strength.

It was an incurable disease that no magician, doctor, or healer on the continent could cure.

The disease paralyzed his entire body before he turned twelve.

Despite his illness, the Oniac family did not abandon Leonesis.

The unfortunate genius was almost forgotten.

But at the age of twenty, paralyzed from head to toe, Leonesis made a mark in the history of swordsmanship.

He synthesized all existing swordsmanship into five distinct categories.

These are the principles of the straight, heavy, illusory, swift, and gentle swords.

Despite being unable to use his body, he rewrote the history of swordsmanship.

This marked the beginning of the Oniac family's rise to the top of the empire.

The school of swordsmanship created by Leonesis was passed down through generations and became the established norm.

Today, it is commonly referred to as the northern heavy sword, the central straight and gentle swords, the western swift sword, the southern illusory sword, and the eastern technical sword.

The continent is largely divided into five regions, each with its own development in weaponry.

"I have developed a technique to use the northern heavy sword. It's more useful than the beast's innards."

It was another sunny and windy day. On this day, Encrid learned a new technique from Ragna.

From Rem, he learned The Heart of the Beast.

From Jaxon, he learned the sense of the blade.

And from Ragna, he learned something called the Focus Point.

"The principle is simple. Forget everything around you, focus on your opponent with your eyes, and concentrate on what you are doing. Don't take in anything else, just focus."

The explanation was a mess.

"The basics of the heavy sword lie in its foundation. It's called the sword that breaks even when blocked, the sword you can't avoid even when you know it's coming, and the sword that pours all its power into a single strike. That's how you do it. With focus."

If that could be achieved through concentration, then what did it mean for those who couldn't do it?

"I'll teach you a little trick."

With those words, Ragna's sword turned into a beam of light. Even though he had just changed swords and it was not yet familiar in his hand, the blade was invisible.

Even his arm, swinging like a whip, was not visible. In just a flash, something passed by his neck.

Swish.

The blade grazed his neck skin.

It was only after his skin was cut that he realized how fast the sword had been.

His nape felt warm. Blood trickled down.

"Are you harassing the Squad Leader, you bastard?"

Rem appeared out of nowhere, glaring.

Encrid put his hand to his neck.

'I almost died.'

It was a perilous strike, cutting through the skin with such unseen speed.

"They say a person concentrates dozens of times more in the moment of death. I'm helping you."

"You crazy bastard, what use is learning such a technique after you're dead? Do you even know how long it took the Squad Leader to master The Heart of the Beast, huh?"

He was oddly emphasizing something. Wasn't the 'looooong' too long?

As Encrid tried to say something, Ragna snorted.

"Because the teacher was bad."

"What? Are you saying you want an axe in your head?"

Rem raised one hand to his ear.

"I'm not an ignorant barbarian. My teaching methods are rational."

Rational, Encrid pondered the meaning of that word.

To him, Rem and Ragna were the same.

"But if you're from the Polar Tribe, aren't you also a barbarian?"

Ragna's skin was pale, and his eyes were red. These were characteristics of the Polar Tribe, the northern people.

"Don't put me on the same level as the western barbarians. It's very unpleasant. Extremely."

"...Fine, just die. After you're dead, I'll personally go north and bury you."

It seemed like they were about to have another argument. Encrid intervened.

"You know what I'm going to say, right?"

Despite his interruption, Ragna's gaze remained fixed beyond Encrid.

"I know the Squad Leader is as dull as a northern ox, but I didn't realize he had mastered the basics this well."

"What the hell, you bastard, stop twisting your words and get ready. I'm going to stick an axe in your head."

"Crazy barbarian bastard."

The northern ox minimizes its movements to withstand the cold. It's a metaphor used to describe someone incredibly dull. Although both of them kept calling him dull, Encrid didn't feel wronged.

"You said you'd teach me a trick."

Encrid held Ragna with his words and turned his head toward Rem.

No words were necessary. Just a look was enough.

Rem, who had been fuming, snorted and yelled as Encrid stared at him.

"I said gather up!"

Then he turned and strode back toward the camp.

"I guess we should return."

Seeing this, Ragna said. As he tried to gather his drawn sword, Encrid grabbed his wrist.

"The trick?"

The thirst for learning was the driving force behind Encrid's actions.

Especially now, as he was about to learn something new.

He called it the Focus Point.

Concentrate One, a technique Ragna had refined from an old secret art.

He was eager to learn it.

"It won't be easy."

Even the basics were not easy. Adopting new stances, learning new steps, discarding old habits, and mastering new thrusts and slashes were all challenging.

Yet, it was enjoyable.

Joy followed. The pleasure of growing day by day filled his entire being. He had dreamed of becoming a knight, but it might have just been because he loved the sword so much.

When he held and swung the sword, Encrid found such joy that he forgot all worldly matters.

As he held Ragna's wrist, Ragna spoke calmly.

"You need to be in a life-threatening situation. When you feel like you're going to die, a person's nerves become extremely alert. You need to repeat that heightened sensation countless times."

The trick was similar to when he learned The Heart of the Beast.

However, while The Heart of the Beast required boldness even in the face of death, the Focus Point technique that Ragna spoke of was the opposite.

You had to struggle desperately to avoid death. The fear of death would make a person's nerves stand on edge like needles.

'Combine it with real combat.'

Encrid made a plan in his head and moved.

"Just learning the trick won't be enough."

"Tell me what it feels like once you master it."

"It feels like everything around you disappears, and the sword moves as you will."

Ragna spoke readily. Encrid looked into Ragna's red eyes. He saw a seriousness he hadn't seen before.

'What has suddenly gotten into him?'

Ragna was known for his whims. But it was the first time he had shown such enthusiasm.

With a hidden passion, a fire burning deep in his eyes, Ragna spoke.

"It's time to go."

Encrid nodded.

"Indeed."

The battle resumed, and fog rolled in.

"Magic? Damn bastard."

Rem was angry.

"Lower your stance!"

Ragna shouted at Encrid, who was running.

Previously, he was busy trying to stop him, but not now. Now, he knew that Encrid wouldn't fall to some mediocre soldier.

As Encrid charged, he faced the enemy soldiers once again, following the sequence of eyes, feet, and hands.

'Start with the quarrel squad.'

What had changed from before was that, through the repetition of many days, Encrid had memorized the enemy's formation.

Well, to be precise, it wasn't that he had memorized it consciously.

He had internalized it naturally.

Before the first enemy soldier could even thrust his spear, Encrid was already close, stabbing upward with a dagger.

Thud! The dagger pierced the chin and roof of the mouth. He abandoned the dagger and pushed the dead soldier with his shoulder.

"Ugh!"

"Ah!"

The soldier pushed back and was startled. In that moment, Encrid threw two daggers.

The flying daggers struck the necks of two enemy soldiers.

It was an extraordinary feat.

He then drew his longsword and slashed it diagonally.

Clang!

A spear shaft blocked it. Anticipating this, Encrid used the rebound from hitting the spear to retrieve his sword and slashed the neck of the enemy soldier on the opposite side.

Slash!

The well-sharpened blade cut through the soldier's neck.

It was another fight. Another battle. Another repeated day.

Fighting and dying again.

In doing so, Encrid struggled desperately. He understood the trick the moment he heard it.

It wasn't about boldly facing death but about desperately trying to avoid it.

That was crucial. Ultimately, he couldn't escape death.

But that was fine. He would get what he wanted anyway.

Of course, he had to accomplish his mission in the process.

'The flagpole.'

Attacking the flagpole that served as the medium for the magic.

He layered the goal over the real battle. Encrid charged toward his objective.

Through the repeated days, Encrid knew the movements of the enemy soldiers in advance.

The soldiers, trusting the fog, were startled by a single attacker.

Encrid took full advantage of that.