Chapter 166 - What Can One Human Standing Alone Do?

Chapter 166 - What Can One Human Standing Alone Do?

What is the sense of evasion?

It was not simply a technique of avoidance.

Thinking about it, there were many strange things.

Enkrid had left a scratch on Rem's cheek.

But had he ever seen one of his own squad members get hurt like that before?

Neither when facing me nor on the battlefield had they ever been easily hurt.

They didn't get wounded.

Unless they were deliberately letting themselves get hit, they fought without injury most of the time.

How could that be?

'The sense of evasion.'

It wasn't simply a skill of dodging.

I had a vague grasp of it, and I intended to dissect it piece by piece, starting now.

Facing the charging gnolls, Enkrid scattered his hands in the air.

To someone who didn't know, especially Krais, it looked like he was just waving his hands around, but it wasn't.

Thud, thud, thud.

Using his hand as a bow, his chest as a launching pad, and the elasticity of his whole body, he threw his daggers.

The daggers, like rays of light, pierced the heads of the charging hyena beasts and the necks and heads of the gnolls.

The action of drawing and throwing was so fast that it was almost invisible.

I wondered if my throwing skills had improved over time.

And they had.

Thanks to my isolation technique, strength training, and overall improvement in body control.

Three of them died at once.

Their bodies rolled across the ground, still at the speed they were running.

Other gnolls and hyenas tripped over them.

The other gnolls and hyena beasts trampled over the pile.

The pitter-patter of feet was irritating.

"Scatter!"

Luagarne shouted, pulling out her whip and repeating the same command before running out.

"Damn it! What the hell!"

Krais's surprised voice could be heard.

"Kyaa!"

Esther was guarding the side as well.

"Th, th, ughh!"

Even the worker who had come out to pee was shouting.

It was the same day.

But he met it differently.

Enkrid's hands moved ceaselessly.

It was the second day.

This time, there was a bit more leeway compared to the previous days.

I already knew the indiscriminate wave of monsters was coming.

I threw every dagger I had.

Beep!

Whistling daggers and all.

I killed dozens of monsters and beasts that charged at me.

But there was one fact that didn't change.

There were many.

The horde of monsters and beasts formed a wave once more.

Those that leaped over the corpses lunged at Enkrid.

"Watch out, Captain!"

Krais shouted, drawing his shortsword with a clang.

Enkrid adjusted his breathing.

The realization he'd had in the previous days, something he could only feel by risking his life.

He sharpened his senses.

Entering a realm of intuition and instinct.

He parried, blocked, and thrust his sword into the gaps in the gnolls' attacks.

More forcefully than ever before.

If nothing else, Enkrid was confident in his stamina.

With his past experiences added to it, he was like a press that crushed monsters and beasts.

Crack!

One would die with its neck severed.

Another would die from being stabbed.

Meanwhile, the sounds of metal clashing, flesh tearing, and bones breaking overlapped: clang! thud! smack!

Krais's eyes widened as he watched.

'Is he a monster?'

The same thought he'd had when seeing Rem and the other squad members popped into his head.

That was the level of his movements.

He blocked everything, struck down everything.

With each swing of his sword, gnolls and hyenas died helplessly.

Whether Krais was impressed, admiring, surprised, or spouting nonsense,

Enkrid heightened his concentration.

No, he entered a world of his own.

He cut off his senses of his surroundings.

A world where only the sword remained.

Time slowed down, leaving only the enemy and him, the sword and the world, and his sharp intuition.

Facing the overwhelming wave of monsters, the best a lone human could do was to swing his sword.

Enkrid did just that.

But the outcome didn't change.

Noon again, the sun shining down.

This time, his injuries were less severe, but...

Both of his thighs were deeply slashed.

He couldn't dodge that damn pair of daggers.

Krais's corpse was nowhere to be found this time.

Enkrid endured for the same amount of time in this repeated day.

'Should I call that lucky?'

Esther had somehow climbed onto the roof of the hut.

There seemed to be some kind of emotion in her big blue eyes, but there was no time or space to discern it.

"Grrrr!"

The characteristic howl of a hyena, and then the colony leader appeared.

The leader of the monsters.

It was the same as before.

With his thighs injured, he couldn't dodge as well, so perhaps this situation was worse than before.

However, Enkrid was certain that his skills had improved in just one day.

It was harsh and cruel, but his senses had become sharper.

"See you again."

Yelling incomprehensible words at the gnolls, he died writhing in poison.

***

Cut to black.

The ferryman didn't appear, and a new day began.

This time, I didn't ask Luagarne any pointless questions.

She was going to leave anyway.

There was no point in asking unnecessary questions out of curiosity.

There's nothing more futile than asking why she didn't stay and protect this place.

Telling her to come back would be meaningless.

If she was going to come back, she wouldn't have left in the first place.

Running away means that matter is more important to her.

Instead.

Clank, clank.

"That's a unique way to wake someone up, isn't it?"

I need to wake everyone up while I'm getting my gear ready.

"It's a beautiful day. It would be good to get up early."

"Ugh, it's still dawn. The moon hasn't even set yet."

Krais complained from beside me, but I ignored him.

Once again, I broke into a sweat.

This day was short.

Or rather, the time I could dedicate to training was short.

So, what was I to do?

I could only use the battles as a training ground.

And that's what Enkrid did.

The pain of the poison, the terrible agony?

It was a matter of endurance.

In fact, what made me forget the pain?

The thrill of growth, even if it meant crawling forward.

More than anything, it felt like I was walking now, not crawling.

A slightly faster pace, that's how it felt.

How could I not be happy about that?

'A little further this time.'

You could call it a series of challenges.

Enkrid set his own goal.

It was a simple but clear goal.

To delay the moment he got injured for as long as possible in each repeated day.

At first, he was hit in the shoulder after only a few battles.

The next day, both his thighs were slashed, and after that, he was struck in the abdomen by a spear.

Thanks to his sturdy armor, he didn't die, but if his reaction had been a little slower, it could have been fatal.

'I'm still lacking.'

It was a form of self-awareness.

Enkrid, through his experiences, recognized his own shortcomings.

"Squad leader, the most important thing in martial arts is to repeatedly ingrain it into your body. It's about making your body remember, not your head. So, roll around," Audin's words echoed in his mind.

"The moment you see it, your body should react. Then you can dodge. There's no need for some lazy person's strange focus technique," Jaxen's words came to mind.

Originally, Enkrid would have trained to improve his coordination, where his body would react instantaneously based on what his eyes and senses perceived.

But he was approaching it differently.

'What if I made my muscles remember in every situation?'

That's what he did.

Within the repeating today, in the midst of the waves of monsters.

On the third today, the fourth today, the fifth today.

Every today, he struggled and struggled again.

More than twenty today's passed like this.

Training was a given, but the wave of monsters the ferryman had spoken of was like a wall that seemed insurmountable.

Unless he became a knight right away.

Or had an army of similar strength.

But Enkrid didn't let himself be distracted by such things.

He was simply building today for tomorrow.

There were no distractions.

He simply carried out what he had to do in the repeating today.

At first, it was less than ten.

But after twenty days, I could parry and dodge attacks from dozens of gnolls in the middle of their pack, even while wielding a sword.

"Wow," the worker who was supposed to be fleeing exclaimed in astonishment.

It wasn't like I could dart through them without a scratch, though.

So, what do I do?

I just repeat it.

Thirty-something days passed.

And then forty-something more.

I was getting so used to being poisoned but the pain was still excruciating.

But I learned a trick.

Even when poisoned, I would endure and swing my sword.

What would happen if I charged into the pack of gnolls right after being poisoned?

Blades, hammers, axes, and spears would fly at me from all directions.

Slash, slash, slash.

Being hacked to pieces was better than dying a slow, painful death from poison.

So, I rolled and rolled, risking my life among the gnolls and hyenas.

In between these days, I had opportunities to ask about the cult.

"Have you heard of the Cult of the Demon's Sacred Ground?"

It was a half-intentional question.

With each repetitive day and limited time, I had no choice but to ask something new, and I used this as a reference point.

Every ten days, I asked about the cult.

That's how I kept track of time.

And since I was asking anyway, I asked a meaningful question.

"They're a rotten, fanatical cult,"

Luagarne replied, showing her hatred without hesitation, as a Frog would.

It was hatred.

A hatred so intense it made the center of her puffed-up cheeks look blood-red.

"I'm going to kill them all. Every last one."

I wondered why she had left.

"I swore it on my heart," she said.

Luagarne sounded like a seasoned Frog when she uttered those two words, 'my heart'.

She hesitated a bit, but she spoke up eventually.

Just that was enough to show how extraordinary of a Frog she was.

The Cult of the Demon's Sacred Ground.

I don't know if that's the official name, but they were a bunch of crazy people who believed their god was imprisoned in the origin of monsters, a place inaccessible to humans.

The most extreme of cults.

The greatest heresy on the continent.

It was said that they actually used humans as sacrifices in strange summoning rituals.

What did they summon?

Monsters.

Sometimes evil spirits too.

And not all monsters are created equal.

There was a quite famous monster on the continent, and it was rumored to be the result of a summoning ritual.

I thought it might just be a rumor circulating among mercenaries, but Luagarne confirmed it wasn't just a rumor.

"You know about the Salamander, right?"

It was a monster that couldn't be unknown.

It was nicknamed the Fire-Breathing Demon, not only for the flames that erupted from its entire body but also for its ability to spew fire.

"That was the work of those bastards."

The rumor was true.

"I was there."

Luagarne was a witness.

So, why is this important?

It wasn't.

It was just a milestone to remember as I repeated the day.

Training and tempering began anew.

I also reflected on the mistakes I had made in previous iterations of today.

After more than fifty repetitions, I realized,

'I pushed myself too hard.'

Confident in my stamina, I had poured everything I had into the beginning.

'I need to manage my stamina better.'

I'm learning how to fight when surrounded by multiple enemies.

Those things became second nature to him.

The days of being sickened by the stench of the gnolls were long gone.

Enkrid had repeated this same day eighty-nine times.

Yet, he still couldn't face the leader without a single wound.

Or rather, it was more accurate to say that the leader wouldn't intervene unless he was injured.

He had extended his survival from noon to evening.

Still, nothing changed.

Aside from being able to die watching the sunset, the outcome of death remained the same.

"You're so sneaky."

He needed to be injured.

He needed to suffer a fatal wound for the leader to appear.

Like a hole in his stomach, for instance.

Or maybe his ankle half-severed and dangling.

Of course, it was a pointless conversation.

On the ninety-sixth day, he was killed by the leader's dagger.

The end of his struggle was death, a destined fate, day after day.

Over time, he naturally saw the habits of the gnolls.

'The gnolls have long torsos and short legs.'

Learning from the creature's physique.

Slow on their feet, but quick with their hands.

Though they wielded human weapons, there was no form to their fighting.

They simply swung wildly.

Despite having the strength of a normal adult male, their short legs made their charge slower than expected.

They enjoyed attacking from blind spots and would bite without hesitation once he entered melee combat.

Being bitten was something to avoid at all costs.

Their bite force was extraordinary.

Not even a hyena or a wolf could easily be torn away if bitten, unless he activated his heart of the beast to tear himself free.

There was something more he learned.

'Two blades.'

With his two swords and his heart of the beast activated,

Even the most unbelievable feats were possible for that brief moment.

"You'll cut them all down," Krais would say with such ease.

The problem was sustainability.

No matter how well he managed his stamina, he couldn't sustain this indefinitely.

Repeat.

Dodge and dodge again.

Originally, the sense of evasion was somewhat of a talent.

Though Jaxen tried to replace it with training, naturally, only those with talent succeeded.

Enkrid solved it by engraving it into his body, one action at a time.

In other words,

'Muscles have memory.'

By endlessly repeating the process of seeing and physically reacting, he imprinted it into his muscles.

It became an evasion technique etched into his body, not his mind.

Through repeated practice, he could now react immediately upon seeing something.

His body's coordination had finally settled into place.

The moment he saw it, he could dodge and react.

It became possible.

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