They were talking about Oara, who had been like sunshine.

The funeral was over. None of the townspeople wailed. They shed their tears quietly.

"Oa!"

Now only the cries in her honor remained.

"In honor of Knight Oara!"

The survivors' cries continued. Knight Oara's wishes would be engraved in the city forever. Just as every knight possessed an imprinted weapon, Oara now possessed a city imprinted with her name. The city of Oara: Thousand Brick's new name.

"It's been a while. Have a talk. I'll head back first."

As Encrid and Krang became absorbed in conversation, Luagarne left them to it.

They talked until they reached the city gate. Encrid opened and closed his hands a few times. His forearms were still sore, enough to make gripping and swinging a sword difficult. Checking his condition, he abruptly asked,

"Leaving right away?"

Krang might have rested for a day, but he hadn't even unpacked. His guards' expressions had been growing darker for some time. They looked anxious, too. What did it all mean? He meant to return immediately rather than stay. He had come to mourn a fallen knight and console her people, but he was an exceedingly busy man.

"Check the carriage. The last thing we need is a wheel breaking on the road."

Krang turned to give the order to a guard, then answered Encrid.

"I dropped everything to come here. If I don't go back right away, someone might die of overwork because of me."

It was probably half a joke, but the other half sounded serious.

"Well, then."

Krang had come like the wind and was leaving the same way. He seemed ready to go without even a proper send-off. Then, just as he was leaving, he looked back over his shoulder.

"Will you come as a knight next time?"

Light gleamed in Krang's eyes. Even amid the sunlight, they shone distinctly, revealing his intent. Those eyes asked whether they could meet, each having reached his own rightful place. Whether Encrid would make it that far.

Encrid met his gaze.

"Do you really believe you can rise that high without even wearing a scarlet cloak?"

Krang spoke with a smile. It was a question founded on trust, a question that asked for an obvious answer. His unwavering eyes betrayed his certainty that Encrid would rise to that height.

"Do I need to answer?"

"No."

Krang burst out laughing and turned away. Before they left, one of his guards approached.

"I'm Lug, a squire. Is Roford doing well?"

"Probably."

After all those repeated todays, the name Roford felt like a distant memory. He was the fellow who had followed them to Border Guard after the civil war. Encrid remembered him constantly challenging Ragna. Unless Ragna's sword had killed him, he would be alive and well.

"He spent so long floundering, then suddenly changed. He said it was all thanks to you, Sir Demon Killer."

That was a strange way to be addressed. Now there was a "Sir" attached, and the nickname Demon Killer seemed to have stuck. He wasn't in the knight order, but he had proven his ability. Of course, Encrid merely thought it a nasty nickname.

"Might I receive some instruction from you someday?"

Lug spoke again. His eyes held a competitive gleam, the desire to cross swords with someone renowned.

"Lug, if you want to quit guarding me and become Enkie's attendant, just say so. You're free to go anytime."

"No, Your Majesty! I have no such intention!"

"I'd wager an entire year's budget that that's a lie."

At Krang's smiling joke, Lug offered Encrid a farewell glance and turned away.

"Come to Border Guard whenever you like," Encrid called after him. Lug briefly looked back, gratitude in his eyes.

"Now I'm really leaving. I'm dead tired. What was that saying? Whoever wears the crown must bear its weight? All lies. They should have said to bear the work, not the crown."

With that, Krang really did leave in a hurry.

Feeling the sunlight and the peaceful air, Encrid set off as well. He had seen Krang's exhaustion after rushing all the way here, but even after several days of rest, his own body was creaking just as badly. It was the price of facing Jerix.

On his way back, he looked around as he walked and saw soldiers busy with the cleanup. They were full of life. Some carried materials to repair the broken gate. Off to one side, several people had lit a furnace and were firing molds and making arrows.

He had heard the spider monsters' hard shells made good shields, and he saw people dismantling the corpses to make things. The stench was so foul that they worked with cloths wrapped over their mouths, just below their noses.

Everyone looked busy and worked hard. A funeral was a funeral, and work was work. This liveliness was what suited the city.

"Oa!"

The spirited cries hadn't changed, either. Soldiers called out as they carried logs on their shoulders.

So the city would be called Oara now? The knight's name would live on as the city's? The city of Oara. It had a fine ring to it.

Sleepiness kept washing over him on the way back. His muscles ached, his abdominal muscles pulled tight, and the area around his shoulder blades was sore. It almost felt like the pleasant ache of exercise, yet he also felt that one wrong movement might do damage.

"Rest when you need to."

Luagarne was waiting at their lodgings. Encrid nodded at her words. She was right. Now was the time to recover. To close his eyes and sleep. Still, something had to be said.

"Dunbachel, if you don't go wash right now, I'll bathe you in blood."

He had sent her scouting to help with the work, but after killing a few monsters, she hadn't washed at all. The stench of spider corpses now filled the lodgings.

Dunbachel recovered even faster than he did. Apparently, some poisonous fumes she had inhaled had turned out to be good for her body. Even after hearing the details, he couldn't make sense of it.

"Do I smell?" Dunbachel asked, feigning innocence.

"How is your own stink the only thing you can't smell?"

Rem scolded her from where he lay recuperating off to one side. But Dunbachel was unashamed.

"What's it to you?"

Something had made her even more fearless than before. At the last moment, she had even thrown herself in front of Encrid to take the blow for him. He had blocked it because he already knew it was coming, but otherwise, Dunbachel might have died.

It struck him anew. This was a battlefield. Anyone could die.

GRIND.

Rem smiled and ground his teeth.

"You think I can't kill one brat like you just because I'm laid up?"

... Even off the battlefield, having a furious barbarian for a companion could get you killed.

"I'm going to wash. I'm going now."

Dunbachel quickly rediscovered fear and bolted outside. Rem spoke, gripping the haft of his half-shattered axe.

"I think she's got a disease that makes her listen only after a beating."

And you seemed to have a disease that made you beat people first and ask questions later. Encrid thought it, but Rem caught on.

"Feels like you're insulting me."

"I've been meaning to ask what's in the West. Now's a good chance to hear about it."

They both needed to recuperate anyway. Their bodies were creaking from battling monsters. Rem's injuries verged on serious. He lay there talking as though nothing were wrong, but anyone else would have been howling in pain.

"Low skies, interesting clouds. High skies, too, and rivers of sand you never come back from. What, want to hear some old stories?"

"If they're interesting."

"I know a few I heard as a kid."

Encrid had deftly changed the subject, and Rem began telling old tales handed down in the West. They were legends tied to mythology. Among them were the origins of the Dusky Sky, along with a few archaic words. Encrid wondered whether they spoke a different language in the West, but that wasn't the case.

"The whole continent's spoken the same language since the Language War."

The Language War had been started by the Empire. In other words, it was a story from the days when the Empire was still the Three Kingdoms, divided into three separate realms.

Rem proved a surprisingly engaging storyteller, and Encrid listened attentively. For instance, he said "purse snooper" was quite an insult in the West, because they deeply despised stealing things in secret rather than taking them through an open challenge.

"What's a purse snooper?"

"A thief."

"So taking things through an open challenge is acceptable, but isn't that robbery?"

Luagarne posed the question. Rem shook his head.

"It's a bit different. Robbery's just taking something by force. This is more like a wager."

Encrid listened quietly. Soon Dunbachel returned, washed, and joined their lively conversation. Tales of the West were fascinating in all sorts of ways.

"We don't ride horses there. We've got something else. They've got as much stamina as camels in the desert. They're not as fast as horses on the plains, but they run well over most terrain. We call them Velopters."

There were also stories about creatures Encrid had heard of somewhere but never seen.

* * *

The ferryman watched the fellow chatting with his companions.

"You look happy," he said. He truly did look that way.

Some walls encountered in a repeating today left wounds even after they were overcome. Those scars lingered, eating away at a person. It happened when they faced someone they could not save, no matter what they did.

The ferryman had thought this today tailor-made for the madman. But once again, he had been wrong.

"When does a person die?" the ferryman murmured.

When their life ran out? Then when did a knight die? When the sword called conviction broke. When they failed to protect what they wished to protect.

The knight named Oara had fulfilled her duty, kept her oath, and died smiling. That mad fellow had let the past, the things he could not undo, pass by. Instead, he had acted to make the choice he had already made the best it could be.

That attitude awakened a memory in the ferryman. He scattered it into the river and let it drift away. He had no desire to bring it out. Besides, it was something so old he had already forgotten it.

"Dwell in regret upon the road you could not take, and remorse is all that remains."

The ferryman murmured as though reciting poetry. His words spread in a lilting cadence.

He continued watching the subject of his curse. Before he knew it, the man had risen again. Once more, it struck him: this was a man who cast off dead yesterdays to live tomorrow. Viewed from within a frozen today, he was dazzling.

That was why the ferryman could not look away. Those who lived in darkness craved the light. That was why he wanted to seat this man in darkness. Wasn't it only natural to want something that shone beside him?

Amid the lapping waves and the violet lamplight, the ferryman stood upon his boat, gazing at the cursed man. This human did things no one he had ever watched had managed. It stirred something in him, a change born from watching that unwavering attitude all this time.

What remained, then? Still plenty. If even one of those obstacles caught his toe and kept him from crossing the wall, it would be over. That was why this was a curse.

Watching, the ferryman let out a short exclamation.

"Hah."

Well, look at that. His body had only just seemed mostly recovered, and he was already moving like that? The man swung his sword, sweat pouring off him. It hardly looked normal.

"A madman. A madman."

The ferryman repeated the words. And seeing him now, he naturally understood. That mad fellow had let nothing from the person who had died before him slip past. He was reflecting on what the dead had given him, and carrying it on.

* * *

After two more days of rest, Encrid's body had mostly recovered. Even moving a finger had sent sharp pain through his wrist, but that had vanished completely.

'A regenerative body, was it?'

He had fresh cause to thank Audin. His body had recovered so quickly. He got up, gathered his equipment, and went outside the lodgings.

"You've held out a long time."

Luagarne was already outside, basking in the sunshine with her white cheeks exposed. It was muggy today, just the kind of weather Frogs loved.

"Yes."

Encrid answered and revisited the thoughts that had been drifting through his head. There was much to consider. His mind was filled with what Knight Oara had left him. A smile wasn't all she had left behind.

Oara and the balrog fragment. Every single movement from their fight remained in his memory. Killing the balrog would come later. Only through daily repetition could he reach tomorrow. Encrid knew that all too well, so he did what he needed to do now.

He reviewed the movements Oara had shown him. He studied what she had taught him in his dream. He also examined the balrog's movements, which he had barely managed to follow. It had been a fight at the level of knights, not proto knights. He had missed more than he had seen.

Even so, there was a mountain of things to review and learn, one by one. Luagarne helped him.

Slowly, one thing at a time. Encrid reaffirmed that resolve and began moving.

"No need to tell you not to rush, either."

Luagarne was pleased. This man was rewarding to teach, slow though he was to learn. The Frog's words described an approach to life Encrid already knew well.

'Everything begins with one step.'

He studied what he could not understand. What little he did understand, he made his own through slow but endless repetition and practice.

"Gain experience, then train to make it your own," Luagarne said. It was what he had already been doing.

He reflected and reviewed. This was part of Oara's legacy. During her fight with the monster, the two had at times hung motionless in midair. Their swords had even emitted actual light, not metaphorically or figuratively.

Oara had performed a succession of rigorously simple movements, but the balrog fragment had not. It had flipped its body and moved in strange ways. Then how had Oara's sword managed to counter it? Encrid began reviewing it all.