THUNK.

Encrid raised Aker vertically and drove it down into the approaching spider's head. The blade pierced the monster's skull and sank a handspan into the ground. He planted a foot on its back and pulled his sword free. Black blood ran along the blade.

'So many.'

Countless spiders filled the distance, still pouring out. But there weren't that many in his immediate vicinity. His intuition told him this was a battlefield where meeting their attacks was better than charging in. That meant he could afford to look away. His gaze turned toward the monsters gathered before Oara.

The spider spun its eight arms.

WHOOOOSH!

Wind surged forward with the sound of whirling blades. Their spinning movements formed a circular barrier in front of Oara, like the disc Rem had made with his sling. Rather than rush her, the spider advanced one step at a time. At that walking pace, its shield of blades began closing in on her.

Watching it, Encrid wondered, 'What would I do?'

This was a different way of fighting from before. Should he thrust his sword into it? He couldn't. No, it was more accurate to say he mustn't.

'I can't see an opening.'

Thrusting blindly and leaving it to luck wouldn't be trying to win. It would be giving up. And the spider wasn't his only opponent, was it?

The owlbear began to move. Its footsteps were eerily silent, its presence fading as it went. Darkness had fallen, but the red moons were out. There was enough light to see. Yet its massive body blurred as though merging with the dark. It was like watching Jaxon disappear before his eyes. A blade lying hidden, waiting for an opening. Just like the Intentless Stab.

The Ghoul strolled out from behind the spider and moved to the side, as though circling around. Its arms hung loose, the long nails at their ends capable of inflicting a fatal wound with a mere graze. What a fucking nightmare. That was his honest feeling.

Encrid imagined trading places with Oara. He would die. This was a wall. Even so, what should he do if he stood there?

He could see Oara's back. Her scarlet cloak streamed in the wind, and her sword pointed diagonally toward the sky. She held it in both hands.

"This is fun."

He heard her whisper. Though he could only see her back, he felt he knew what expression she wore. She would be smiling. Smiling far more brightly than that stolen imitation the Ghoul wore.

Oara of the Smile. How did a knight earn an epithet? By proving themselves. An epithet came from showing who they were through action, from living it.

"Watch closely, all of you. I'll show you how a knight fights."

Oara's voice carried, neither too loud nor too soft. Preparations to counter a knight. Traps. Special monsters. All of it posed a threat. This could rightly be called a crisis.

"Even I can't handle that," Rem said.

More precisely, he couldn't handle it yet. But what was the point of talking about something he didn't currently possess? He kept that last part to himself.

Oara's back and sword said the rest. From here on, they should just chew some jerky and enjoy the show. Encrid did just that, though instead of chewing jerky, he swung the sword he had pulled free. Two spiders that had approached in the meantime met his blade, their heads splitting open. As he drew back from the snapping strike, Oara moved.

For a moment, he lost track of her. A knight's reflexes and physical abilities were on another level. They struck from incomprehensible angles and moved at incomprehensible speeds. Trying to watch them didn't mean you could actually see. Encrid knew that from experience. Hadn't he already faced power on the level of a knight?

["You won't see it if you try to watch individual points."]

Luagarne's words came to mind. Instead of watching the movements, Encrid watched the flow. Only then did he begin to glimpse the fight.

Oara's sword fell upon the spider's barrier. A perfectly straight strike met the whirling wall.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

Dim red moonlight filtered through the pitch-black darkness. Golden sparks drove back both the darkness and the red light.

["My sword's name is Smile."]

Oara had said that during a spar. Knights possessed imprinted weapons: weapons they imbued with their Will. A master craftsman, a rare metal, and a knight's Will. All three had to come together before such a weapon could even be seen. They were called imprinted weapons because they were made by imprinting Will upon them.

["As long as I smile, my sword will never break."]

That was exactly what Encrid had heard. A weapon imbued with determination until it felt like a part of one's own body. That was what her sword was.

Something like white powder scattered amid the golden sparks. Her sword tore into the barrier formed by the spider's bladed arms and returned. Naturally, Smile hadn't suffered so much as a nick.

"Let's see how long you can block me!"

Oara's shout rang out. The white powder was fragments of the spider's blades. Smile had begun shaving away the arms it had turned into swords.

Then the owlbear suddenly appeared behind her. Encrid hadn't missed it because he was watching from a distance. But what if he had been right there? It would have felt like facing Jaxon. Wasn't a blade that shot out of nowhere his specialty?

Instead of a blade, the owlbear swung a fist. Its feathered fist struck Oara's back. No, just as it seemed to strike, her body bent fluidly. She rippled to the side like cloth fluttering in the wind. Her reflexes were astounding. To Encrid, it looked like a rehearsed exchange.

The owlbear's fist struck empty air with an explosive bang. The thunderous sound conveyed the force behind it. A fist that tore through sound.

At the same time, he saw Oara's face. Her feet. Her hands. A gentle smile, an advancing foot, a turning wrist, a curving blade. The blade swept toward the owlbear's neck. White light struck its throat.

The owlbear tucked its neck in as though shrugging. The feathers around it stood on end and blocked Oara's sword.

SKRRAAAPE!

The blade looked ready to slice through the feathers and cleave its neck. Droplets of black blood flew. Feathers shredded beneath the edge, breaking and scattering like shards of metal.

The spider dropped its barrier, strode forward, and swung its eight legs. Two arms slashed downward, two cut diagonally. Two more thrust at her thighs, while the remaining pair stabbed down at the tops of her feet. Each of its eight bladed arms did its part.

Oara abandoned her cut at the owlbear's neck and pulled her sword back, creating eight afterimages. Her blade met each of the spider's in turn.

Encrid felt his senses sharpen to an unprecedented degree. His ears caught eight distinct sounds.

CLACK, THUD, CRACK, TICK, RIP, CHOP, CRUNCH!

Concentrate on a Single Point, his sensory arts—he needed everything he had just to watch this fight. Oara knocked aside five of the eight legs. The other three she cut, tore, and smashed.

He couldn't see it all. But he could infer the process from the result. His mind raced.

'She turned her wrist to cut, stab, and strike.'

Was that possible with wrist movements alone? It was precisely because she could do it that she was a knight. She had thrust and twisted her sword free, ripping one arm into tatters. Then she had swung the withdrawn blade to sever a second leg with a powerful stroke, and struck the last with the flat, folding it in half. The spider's broken arm dangled.

How could anyone move like that? He didn't know. He couldn't understand. But that was the place he wanted to reach, the path he wanted to walk.

Ragna, Sinar, the Mercenary King, and the knight of Aspen. What would happen if those four fought with everything they had? Oara was showing him now. A mere wielder of a sword could speak of omnipotence. That was a knight.

'Ah.'

A gasp of wonder escaped him as the sight claimed his gaze. How could it not?

"Are you out of your mind?" Rem snapped beside him.

"There are too many monsters. An unnatural number."

Luagarne spoke with foreboding. If even a usually unperturbed Frog was saying that, the situation was serious. Dunbachel began trembling beside them. Yet Encrid kept watching Oara of the Smile. Every sense, his entire gaze, was riveted on her.

"Oa!"

A soldier cried out the rallying call. Oara answered it. The Ghoul had joined the fight and was thrusting at her arm. The speed and angle alone were enough to tell.

'A knight.'

The monster fought like a knight. Oara struck the owlbear's fist with the sword in her right hand and swung her left arm to block the Ghoul's nails. It was a feat of skill. She caught the nails on her left vambrace and redirected them.

SCRAPE.

The nails left grooves in her vambrace. In that opening, one of the spider's swordlike arms struck her torso. Oara endured it.

THUD.

She subtly twisted her body to deflect the impact. And she didn't stop there. The sword that had blocked the owlbear's fist was already buried in the spider's head.

'I missed it.'

He truly hadn't seen that attack. The spider died. The owlbear hid in the darkness again, and the Ghoul thrust with alternating hands. Head, chest, belly, thighs. Its intention was clear. Just let one strike land.

Oara blocked with sword and vambrace in turn. Meanwhile, the owlbear swung its arm in a wide arc from behind.

WHOOOSH!

Even at this distance, Encrid felt as though the wind were striking his face. The arm swept parallel to the ground. Its reach was far too wide.

Rather than block, Oara jumped straight up. She planted her sole against the swinging arm and kicked off, launching herself into the sky. Twisting in midair, she brought her sword down. The curving blade seemed to split into three. It was a combination of tremendous strength and speed.

The Ghoul moved both arms, seemingly copying the way Oara had parried with her vambrace. Attacks and defenses flew back and forth with almost divine skill. Either side could win.

And then.

CRACK. THUNK.

Oara's sword split the Ghoul's head at the same instant its nails pierced her side.

"I win, you miserable bastard."

She spoke with the same smile as ever. Her half-torn scarlet cloak fluttered in the wind. A scrap of it hung from the owlbear's hand; half its face had already been sliced away. Its skull split vertically, the Ghoul, Jerix, fell to the ground with a thud.

"Raaaaah!"

Roman roared in triumph.

"There are too many. Something must be pouring them out."

Luagarne spoke. Spider monsters were still emerging.

"Looks that way."

Aesia had gone in, yet the problem remained unresolved. Was it over now? At least they could say they had bought themselves a moment to breathe. While Encrid was reaching that conclusion, Dunbachel flinched, feeling every muscle in her body contract.

Why? She didn't know. Fear sometimes pushed intuition beyond its limits. That was what happened to her. She sensed it and spoke.

"Something's coming."

As she spoke, her gaze turned to one side. Oara looked that way too. Encrid was a little slower to turn.

CRASH!

It was right in front of Oara, who had killed the three monsters. A creature covered in red muscle. Two legs, two arms, wings like a bat's leathery membranes, and a broken horn rising from its forehead.

On the continent, certain exceptional monsters were also called demonic humans. This was the sort one might expect to see only in a great Demonic Realm.

Dunbachel smelled sulfur. The monster looked as though it had climbed out of hell. The instant it appeared, it streaked forward in a long line and fell upon Oara, bearing down on her after she had spent the last of her strength.

Oara barely blocked it. Gripping the blade with her left hand and the hilt with her right, she held back its knife-hand strike and spoke.

"... Everyone, run."

That was what Oara said.

"Fuck. Get out of here."

Rem said it too.

"A balrog? No, a fragment of one."

Luagarne recognized it. From the moment it appeared, it overwhelmed everything around it. The monster's presence dominated the entire battlefield. As if to say: this was intimidation.

Every soldier froze in place.

CRACK.

Some died beneath the spiders' legs in that interval. Others stood with their mouths open, speechless.

Dunbachel was drenched in terror. Her Beastman eyes let her see the situation more clearly than anyone. She saw Oara's arms shaking. The monster's overwhelming intimidation seemed to squeeze her heart. She had to flee at once without looking back. Fear broke something in her mind.

Before she knew it, she was charging forward. She ran at the newly appeared monster and brought her curved sword down. Without withdrawing its knife-hand from Oara, the monster struck Dunbachel's head with a high kick.

BANG!

Her skull shattered. Blood poured out.

"Dunbachel!"

Encrid shouted. The Will of refusal activated. His body moved.

"I told you to run."

Oara murmured and moved. With both hands, she pushed away the knife-hand pressing down on her. They exchanged several blows, but the outcome was far from good.

CRACK.

A blow to the head broke her neck. Was it because the Ghoul had pierced her side? No. Even without that, she had already exhausted all her strength. The vicious poison in her body made prolonged combat impossible.

That monster had set the stage so she couldn't even put up a proper fight, then attacked. A devious creature. A brutal creature.

Encrid advanced with his sword, knowing this was a pointless death. Yet his body wouldn't listen. He wasn't the only one. The moment they saw Oara die, Roman cried out:

"Let's die smiling!"

"Let's die smiling!"

"Oa!"

"Oa!"

Oa was the rallying cry taken from her name. This was Oara's city. The city the knight Oara had protected. Exaltation surged through him. Before, anyone who did this—charged in knowing they would die—was called a madman. But this place held nothing but madmen.

That balrog fragment, or whatever it was, stood roughly on par with a knight.

'The three monsters were below that.'

The gap in strength was clear. All the while, spiders kept attacking without pause, and arrows made of silk kept flying overhead. The same arrows that had killed Milio.

Encrid exchanged five sword strikes with the monster called a balrog fragment. Even that required almost miraculous swordsmanship and movement. In the end, a kick caught him in the side and sent him flying.

He saw Roman lying dead. Then Rem rolled beside him, vomiting blood, and he heard him mutter where he lay.

"Should've gone and come back long ago."

Starting with Dunbachel, everyone died. A total slaughter. The city Oara had wanted to protect was disappearing.

Encrid took it all in. As breathing gradually grew harder, his surroundings began to darken. He had died so many times that he could roughly tell.

'That hit landed badly.'

The impact, too much even for his bandage-like armor to withstand, had shaken his insides. Broken ribs had punctured and torn his organs.

"Urgh."

He coughed. Blood gushed from his mouth. He would die soon. Just before his eyes closed, he saw the balrog fragment slaughtering the soldiers. Each swing of its club killed two or three. It was wielding the weapon of Roman, whom it had killed.

BANG! THUD!

Bodies burst, broke, and flew.

"Aaaagh!"

"Let's die smiling!"

A soldier shouted through tears just before dying. Encrid didn't know his name, but he knew his face. Everything Oara had wanted to protect was crumbling.

Encrid closed his eyes. He passed through a tunnel of darkness, brief yet long.

The boat rocked with the rolling waves. When he opened his eyes again, he saw a violet lamp.

"You're going to love this wall."

The ferryman sounded positively delighted. Before he had time to answer, Encrid closed his eyes and opened them again.

SKREEEEEE!

This was a repeating today in which he now knew that cry belonged to a screaming spider. Though he had awakened before midnight, the day did not begin in the morning. Today began when he woke from sleep. Which meant this particular today was very short.