“Something ominous is approaching.”

A violet lamp, a ferry floating on black river water, and the ferryman. The place was so familiar now that Encrid could draw it with his eyes closed. He was dreaming, aboard the ferryman's boat.

“What ominous thing?”

Encrid asked from his perch on the end of the boat. Could he cross his legs? As he considered it, the ferryman's eyes turned toward him.

“I can tell you no more.”

That was the response of a profoundly fickle creature. At least, that was how Encrid regarded the ferryman. Every time they met, his personality and manner of speaking changed. He simply said whatever struck his fancy.

Encrid had little trouble handling such capricious sorts. His years roaming the continent just to learn swordsmanship had not gone to waste. Fighters, mercenaries, noblemen's guards, trading-company swordsmen, sword instructors at training schools: plenty of them had been peculiar, eccentric bastards. The strangest of all were the Company members now under his command.

He had more than enough experience. Judged purely by temperament, the ferryman might even be better than Rem. At times like this, there was no need to agree with the other party or show emotion.

“I see.”

Encrid acknowledged his words, waited a moment, then asked,

“How do you know this ominous thing is coming?”

The ferryman did not answer. He truly seemed to have no intention of saying more. His gaze fell on Encrid, and Encrid's vision abruptly went dark.

When he opened his eyes, it was morning. The summer sun rose early, so his surroundings were already bright by the time he practiced the Isolation Technique. As always, he devoted himself to training.

Jaxon had been brooding over something since their time at the palace. Apparently, after their spar, he had suddenly started acting friendly and speaking to the others, but now he was back to his old self. In fact, he had gone further than that: he was not even here, having left for a few days on some business.

A shame. Had he been around, Encrid would have asked for another bout like their last one.

“Good morning, brother.”

Audin came out after him a little later, followed by Teresa, Dunbachel, Roford, and Pell.

“You're relentless, even first thing in the morning,” Pell remarked.

It was obvious at a glance. This was no training for show. Encrid simply did it.

“When are you going to take me on?”

Pell would do in Jaxon's absence.

“Not yet.”

Clearly, Encrid was possessed by the evil spirit of someone who had died for lack of sparring.

Pell's hands were itching too. He simply had no wish to attack when defeat was so obvious. A Shepherd always acted efficiently.

'Still, he really does have something that gets your blood boiling.'

Just watching the man made something seethe in his chest.

Encrid could hardly force someone unwilling to fight him. He turned away and began putting his body through its paces with Audin. They began with the striking method, then assumed strange poses that stretched the muscles throughout their bodies almost to the point of tearing.

“Muscles without flexibility are useless lumps of flesh.”

Audin's lessons continued. Teresa supervised Roford's training, while Dunbachel copied Encrid's exercises, sweat dripping from her.

Morning training after a dream that might have been a nightmare or the ferryman's trickery. Ordinary life.

Afterward, various matters awaited Encrid. Fifteen days had passed since his return to Border Guard, and he was gradually growing accustomed to his days here. Even to things like the Battalion Commander addressing him as General.

There was plenty of work, but with Krais tackling it in earnest, Encrid himself had little to do.

“I think we should standardize the soldiers' equipment. What do you think? Then we can divide them into branches and train them.”

Training, for a start.

“We'll expand those posts into proper fortified checkpoints. They only hold twenty men now, but we'll make them large enough to garrison at least a hundred. Giving each one a name should foster a sense of belonging and make the men defend it better. That's my thinking.”

Public security.

“The nobles keep sending gifts. I'll take care of the replies.”

Diplomacy.

“The Roquefried trading company has been doing good work, and now they want to open branches in the surrounding cities. Will you permit it? Leona might sulk if you don't.”

The economy.

“I've raised the soldiers' pay, and I'm planning to select a few capable people and make them landholders. There's plenty of good land. It would be a waste to leave it idle. The trouble is, it's in Green Pearl, so I was thinking we could build a few posts at the approaches.”

Even finances.

At this rate, even ten Kraises would hardly be enough.

“Are you remembering to eat?”

Encrid wiped away his sweat as he asked. He had been practicing weapon control with a training sword five times the weight of an iron sword.

“Pardon?” Krais asked, turning his head.

“Aren't you busy?”

Even the Fairy who emerged when someone rubbed a lamp in a tale from the eastern continent probably did not work this hard.

“Reasonably busy.”

“Why not raise your own pay?”

“It's already at the limit. Any more and I'd be earning more than the lord of Border Guard.”

Of course. He was hardly the sort to neglect his own purse. Encrid nodded.

“Besides, am I doing the work myself? All I have to do is oversee it.”

That was precisely what Encrid was doing now. Krais had even had a seal carved for him somewhere.

Being a general did not ordinarily make one a noble, but Encrid's present case was different. Naturally so, when he wielded enough power to slap most nobles across both cheeks two hundred and eighty times. An entire domain that had belonged to the leader of the rebellion had passed into his hands. He was known as the Savior of the Kingdom, the Demon Killer, and the king's friend.

“I've brought Gilfin in to work too. I'm drawing on people from here and there. The Roquefried trading company has helped a great deal with that as well. They handle a lot of the work involving numbers.”

Encrid left him to it. Frankly, he doubted he could do this well himself. He boldly entrusted the work to Krais, scrutinizing only a few matters in detail. One was the soldiers' equipment.

“Spearmen, swordsmen, and shield bearers. Divide them into those three branches, but have everyone learn to use all the weapons in basic training. And equip them like this.”

A swordsman's standard kit consisted of a longsword, a dagger, a simple wrist-mounted crossbow that Krais had produced by hounding a master smith and several workshops, leather-covered armor padded with oiled linen, arm and shin guards, three throwing knives, a hatchet, a kite shield, a leather helmet reinforced with cloth, and a short club, among other things.

The compact crossbow had been developed after someone tried one a bandit had used and got the idea. Spearmen and archers would carry much the same equipment apart from their primary weapons.

'In full kit, wouldn't putting a pack on top of all that be torture in itself?'

Krais looked at his Captain as the thought crossed his mind. Encrid caught on quickly and answered.

“Send back anyone who says this much is too hard.”

There had been a time when Border Guard's standing army was so short of men that it had to accept anyone who came and send them onto the battlefield as best it could. That was no longer necessary.

“Rather than a large army, we'll train a limited number of elite soldiers.”

Krais agreed. Everything they were discussing had been devised to improve the soldiers' combat ability in the first place.

An office had been prepared, but Encrid never used it. Instead, this discussion in a corner of the training ground was deciding the soldiers' futures. Swordsmen, spearmen, archers, shield bearers, cavalry, and even mounted archers. Encrid laid out the broad framework, and Krais added his own wisdom.

“While we're at it, I'll gather some decent soldiers for you. Why don't we reorganize the units under your command? You realize you can't remain an Independent Company now, don't you?”

Encrid nodded.

He passed on what he and Krais had decided.

“Rem, pick out some promising men and form a unit.”

Assault troops. Men who could strike and tear through the enemy if war broke out.

“Eh? You serious, Captain?”

Encrid hesitated briefly. Rem might leave the soldiers half crippled instead of forming a unit.

“I said form a unit, not torment them.”

“I'll do my best,” Rem said, rising.

“Don't do your best.”

Encrid could not help feeling sorry for the soldiers.

When he gave Ragna the same task, the answer was,

“Too much trouble.”

“Cavalry would be fine. Or swordsmen.”

“Too much trouble.”

After returning from the palace, Ragna had thrown himself into training for a few days, only to go back to dozing and lounging around the barracks. Apart from the occasional appearance at the training ground when Roford dragged him out with great effort, he had become as lazy as before.

Roford seemed to know no fear. He repeatedly challenged Ragna to spar. Naturally, this got him beaten up or threatened with murder.

“Keep bothering me and I'll cut off an arm.”

“I'll work hard to make sure you don't!”

Still, Roford would not yield. He had remarkable spirit. At least, that was how it looked.

Ragna was the sort to follow through on his words, but he would not actually cut it off. Probably.

Even so, Encrid was worried enough to add a word.

“Don't cut it off.”

“We'll see.”

That was one hell of an unsettling answer.

Still, assigning Roford to the man who found everything too bothersome to do was somewhat reassuring. Having trained and studied in a knight order, Roford was better at organizing a unit anyway.

He assigned Dunbachel to Rem. If Rem was busy tormenting her, he would torment the soldiers a little less.

When he told Audin, he readily agreed.

“Very well, brother.”

That willingness made Encrid a little uneasy, so he assigned Teresa to him.

He trusted this would go some way toward raising elite soldiers. They would not need a large force, after all.

Encrid was not one to shirk the work given to him. He did everything he could without cutting into his training and conditioning. Thanks to Krais, he did not really lose any training time.

“Let me watch you train. Carry on as usual.”

Luagarne had formally joined Encrid's command after requesting permission from the palace. Since then, she followed him everywhere like a duckling trailing its mother.

Apparently, she had run into Meellun, the Frog living in the city who had joined the Gilfin Guild and beaten up everyone who challenged him. The two had ignored each other. Neither seemed to have the slightest interest in the other.

When Encrid asked why, she said,

“I'm a Frog.”

“And why does that explain it?”

“Everyone lives according to their own desires, and that Frog's desires are no concern of mine?”

He had noticed it before: Frogs did not bother learning about anything outside their interests. A Frog who knew as much as Luagarne was unusual. Her desire was to explore the unknown. That breadth of knowledge was possible because she was, if anything, a scholarly Frog.

“What do you think is the essence of the Righteous Sword Technique?”

Luagarne helped him in many ways. Whatever her fighting ability, the substance of her teaching was especially good. An excellent sparring partner was not necessarily an excellent teacher. Rem, Ragna, Audin, and Jaxon were ample proof.

He might ask them to train soldiers, but their aptitude for teaching itself was abysmal. Geniuses tended to be like that. In that respect, Luagarne was a truly outstanding teacher.

“Calculation?”

“Suggestion and restraint.”

The point was this: without even needing to swing his sword, he had to make his opponent move as he intended through a few suggestive cues.

“Swinging the sword is merely the motion you show once you've already confirmed everything.”

“Even when I corner Rem with the Righteous Sword Technique and strike, he counters immediately. What about that?”

“That axe wielder is a monster.”

Luagarne's eyes could read talent. To her, Rem was a monster.

“And Ragna?”

“That bastard is a sword-wielding monster.”

“Audin?”

“His very body is monstrous.”

“Jaxon?”

“A sneaky monster?”

Luagarne's vocabulary was not particularly impressive, but Encrid actually agreed.

“And you are an incomprehensible monster.”

“Oh, am I?”

Sinar sometimes came to spar with him, demonstrating techniques that sent a chill through him at unexpected moments. Even those did not seem to be all she had. She appeared to be holding something in check.

“What? Did you think someone like me would be easy to beat, my betrothed?”

“I think it's about time you changed what you call me at the end of every sentence.”

“My betrothed General?”

“Let's leave it as it is.”

Simply from Encrid's requests, Krais even deduced what Krang was thinking.

“These are preparations for war.”

“Probably.”

“Hmm. Against Aspen?”

“Probably.”

Encrid gave vague answers and moved on, but Krais seemed to have figured it all out already. Who knew what went on inside that head?

As the days passed in this fashion, the ferryman appeared whenever he slept.

“Something ominous is coming.”

Encrid had been hearing the same thing for fifteen days. Perhaps the ferryman wanted to hear him say he was sick of it. After all, whenever he saw Encrid, he called him relentless and tiresome.

But Encrid was not really tired of it.

“Don't you know how close it's gotten?”

“I cannot tell you.”

He was simply curious. If the ferryman was talking about it, it would be a wall. That was his feeling.

In truth, even the ferryman did not know precisely what this ominous thing was. Once events unfolded and today began repeating, he could see the fixed future, but he could not know everything that had yet to happen. Not even a god could do that.

The ferryman thought to himself,

'No. Even the repeating today changes.'

The man before him had shown him that. This was his repayment.

“Something ominous approaches.”

The ferryman offered him kindness.

“Yes. I can't wait to see it.”

Watching the bearer of the curse answer so calmly irritated the ferryman a little, just a little, but he did not withdraw his kindness.

“That ominous thing is close.”

“Oh, is it?”

Encrid was as unruffled as ever.

“Take this seriously, foolish one, who walks the mortal path only to arrive at a today of ruin.”

“Yes, I'm taking it seriously.”