The setting sun lit half of each man's face, making the other half seem darker. Sunset light crossed between them, as though drawing a line that placed them on opposing sides.

Encrid's smile had vanished. His face was expressionless now. Rem looked even more indifferent. Both stood with their arms hanging loose, their weapons still undrawn.

Dunbachel and Luagarne felt intimidated by the two men's stances.

'The calm just before a storm,' Dunbachel thought.

'Waves rising in a mire,' Luagarne thought.

Their perspectives were similar, yet different. They were looking in different directions. Dunbachel saw what was about to come crashing down. Fighting by instinct and intuition, she judged that a split-second choice could decide victory or defeat.

Luagarne, by contrast, enjoyed the game of moves and countermoves. She believed whoever prevailed in the clash of presence beneath the surface, before any action began, would hold the advantage.

Both were right. A quiet battle, yet one roiling with waves. This was the most serious and slowest of all their sparring matches. Usually Encrid simply lunged in, or else Rem suddenly swung an axe to start things off.

Billowing clouds spread broadly and evenly across the sky. As the sun sank beyond the western horizon, two faint moons began to emerge. The orange sky softly shaded into purple. Looking at the horizon, one could almost feel the sky touching the earth.

A strong wind swept between them, seemingly blowing from that horizon.

WHOOOOSH.

It was a powerful wind. In the West, they called a day like this a "low sky," and such a wind an "urging wind" or a "barring wind." Rem had told them about it on the way here.

As a headwind, it felt like a wall blocking one's steps. Blowing from behind, it seemed to brace one's back and push. It was a peculiar weather phenomenon.

Facing the wind, Encrid casually raised a hand and gripped his sword hilt. Meanwhile, Rem drew his axes.

SHING.

Encrid drew Aker, took it in both hands, and fixed his gaze on Rem again. With an axe in each hand, Rem let his arms hang loose once more.

Encrid had raised Aker parallel to the ground. Now he lowered its tip a little, tilting the blade to an oblique angle.

"Oh." Luagarne's large eyes rolled as she voiced her admiration.

Rem slid his left foot back a little and shifted his weight onto his right. Aker's tip was aimed at his left thigh; he had adjusted his stance so he could evade at any moment.

Similar moves and countermoves followed. To borrow Luagarne's description, waves raged within a mire, a pit of mud. When Encrid sent a wave forward, Rem evaded or blocked it.

"Think we'll ever finish at this rate?"

Encrid inwardly agreed with Rem's taunt. This was only a test, after all. How effective would everything he had learned and practiced prove? He had exerted intimidation, but that was never going to work on this thickheaded barbarian.

Then what about using moves and countermoves to break his opponent's momentum? It was a kind of technique he had learned from Luagarne.

["You already know how to prepare to win from the outset, don't you? Just do it a little more overtly."]

Adjusting a sword belt, changing one's stance, repositioning one's feet: all were preparations for victory. If choosing where to point one's sword or holding a dagger ready could secure an advantage, wasn't that the right thing to do? Of course it was. Rem simply wasn't letting it work so easily.

Sword and axes moved without warning.

CLANG!

Aker's blade descended as though curving, and the two axes crossed to block it. Rem tried to hook the sword with his axe blades and wrench it from Encrid's grasp, but Aker withdrew the instant it struck. Encrid had read his intention to bind the blade and used a snapping strike.

A chip broke from an axe blade and flew through the air. Neither man paid it any mind.

"Not bad, are you?" Rem grinned.

"Neither are you." Encrid grinned too.

Soon sword and axes were cutting, thrusting, striking, and battering mercilessly at throats, bellies, chests, thighs, forearms, and fingers.

CLANG! CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

In the moonlit evening, shading into purple, the weapons proved their worth against one another. Flying sparks declared their hardness as they darted this way and that, seeking to bite into flesh.

Several exchanges later...

CLAAANG!

With a deafening crash, Encrid closed in on Rem. Seeing him come, Rem drove up a knee, which Encrid blocked with his left forearm.

THUNK. THUD. CRACK! WHACK.

Luagarne and Dunbachel saw Aker embedded in the ground. The thunk had been Aker striking the earth. The thud had been the axe in Rem's left hand falling to the ground. It had all happened the instant axe and sword met.

Encrid retreated, rubbing his left forearm with his right hand. The crack had been Rem's knee striking that forearm.

"... You've gotten a whole fucking lot better," Rem said.

"I think so too," Encrid replied.

Why wouldn't he? Experiencing a knight's strike had changed him in ways he had never imagined. It was both a stepping stone for growth and an acceleration of it.

He had knocked an axe aside with Aker, closed in on Rem, and struck his jaw with his right palm. Rem had instantly read the move, driving up his knee to impede the charge and trying to twist his torso out of the way.

At that moment, Encrid's hand had produced something akin to a knight's strike. In other words, it shot out at an utterly unexpected speed. Rem had been unable to dodge in time.

The whack had been the blow landing on Rem's jaw. He had never expected this to happen while sparring with Encrid, but it had. His head spun. He could hold out if he wanted, but a loss was a loss. He sank down where he stood.

"Whew. Going to puke." A solid blow to the jaw tended to bring nausea with it.

"You did turn your head at the last instant," Encrid said, retrieving Aker from the ground.

It hadn't landed squarely, but it had been an effective hit. What if they had kept fighting?

'I can win.'

Which meant the outcome had been decided here.

"Crrrrroak." Luagarne's cheeks puffed out as never before. Even to her, his improvement was astonishing.

Dunbachel was even more shocked. Her golden eyes widened larger than the moons overhead. She stared at Rem for a long while before asking, "Have you gotten weaker?"

CRACK.

Rem tilted his neck from side to side a few times, then rose and answered, "Come here. Let's test whether I've gotten weaker."

Of course he hadn't weakened. He recovered from the blow without even needing to take a breath. In a real fight, though, it would have been a definite opening.

"Gack!"

Dunbachel took several blows that day while Encrid quietly steadied his breathing. Something inside him threatened to burst and boil over, only to lose steam and cool.

He was pleased, but no wild surge of ecstasy followed. He was happy, but not enough to burst out laughing. It was simply confirmation.

'I've made it this far.'

Simply proof. Having seen Oara's death and her battle, having overcome today once again, Encrid could now imitate a knight's hand movements.

"Nobody at the proto knight level will be a match for you now," Rem said after beating up Dunbachel.

"Another round?"

"... Fine. Let's do it."

Luagarne was deeply surprised, but she accepted the result. In a way, it might have been only natural. Hadn't she already seen him fighting that monstrous Ghoul? Why was she surprised nonetheless?

'Why wouldn't I be surprised?'

Whenever she looked at the man called Encrid, she could see that he had reached his limit. His improvement was beyond comprehension. He was literally like someone who had fought with his life on the line thousands of times, then spent hundreds more days honing what he had learned.

'Even in his everyday life.'

He poured all his time into swinging his sword and thinking things through. She had helped him and watched him do it. In experience alone, Encrid already far surpassed anyone on the continent.

'The sum of all that experience, a conditioned body, meticulously practiced techniques, and ideas that catch his opponent off guard.'

That was what had allowed him to surpass Rem.

In their second bout, neither man took a blow to the jaw or fell. But Encrid was certain.

'I can take him.'

He could defeat Rem if he set his mind to it. Equals? They were no longer equals. He held the advantage.

"Looks like you just thought you could take me whenever you pleased. Forget it, eh? You know it'd be different if we fought to the death."

"You know I haven't been sparring as if my life depended on it either."

"... You have this way of talking that really gets a man's blood boiling."

Before long, it was their third bout. The look in Rem's eyes changed. So did Encrid's presence.

"One of you will end up dead." Dunbachel's keen senses had picked up on their presence.

This was their second campsite, reached after a full day's walk. With the fire made from gathered dry grass behind them, sword and axes moved again.

This bout was short. Every technique, however, was deadly.

CLANG-CLANG!

Their weapons rarely met. Rem's weapons were nothing like Aker, and every clash only chipped their edges further. Before long, the axe blades looked like saws. Calling them axe-saws would hardly have been wrong.

They fought almost as though it were a real battle. In the midst of it, Encrid found himself surprised anew. Rem showed yet another side of himself, as if to demonstrate that sparring wasn't everything.

Killing intent passed between them. Then, before they knew it, both had stopped. Their shoulders heaved, harsh breaths spilling from their mouths. Neither lacked stamina, yet here they were. That was how much mental energy the fight had consumed.

Sword and axe had stopped, each aimed at the other's heart.

"Get cocky, whew, hah, and you'll get a hole. Right there."

"Whewww. You're already dead," Encrid answered.

"Bullshit."

"Fuck off."

They stared at each other, then broke into laughter.

"All right, fine. We've got more than ten days left to travel, and you'll keep asking to spar. Hell, I'll let you win a few." Rem stepped back.

"You're not letting me win. You're losing." Encrid made a point of correcting him.

"Sure, sure. Fine. Let's say I lost." Even as he spoke, Rem found it strange.

'What a weird feeling.'

He had lived a life in which defeat was rare indeed. He wasn't called a genius for nothing. There had been days when he was called the strongest in the West, the greatest talent among the western peoples. Few of his teachers had lasted more than a month.

'Learning spells gave me a bit of trouble, though.'

Even those, he had learned, practiced, and mastered. Several shamans had discussed making him their successor. Then he had left that land.

Even after leaving, he had rarely lost. Recently, there was that directionally challenged lunatic, and the alley cat had suddenly gone crazy and run wild too. Before that, even the notion of losing had been vague.

Naturally, he wasn't used to defeat. It ought to have been unpleasant. Yet he didn't feel bad. This was different from facing that directionless bastard.

'Why doesn't this feel bad?'

There were probably several reasons. One might have been that his crazy Captain still showed no sign of stopping. He hadn't made Rem a mere milestone to pass, nor an ultimate goal to reach.

'Just something that happened.'

Something that had happened on his way toward his dream. That was why he was still swinging his sword like that.

"Camping here seems inconvenient in all sorts of ways," Dunbachel said as she built up the fire.

"And I'm thirsty," Luagarne added. The farther west they went, the drier the weather became. A Frog was bound to struggle.

"Well, let's see." Rem began digging into the ground. Encrid and everyone else turned to look at him.

"Just wait a bit. How about something sweet to drink?"

This was the West, the land where he had been born and raised. Countless headaches awaited farther in, but...

'It'd be a waste not to enjoy the moment.'

Always have fun. Hadn't that always been his creed?

After roughly digging out the earth, Rem thrust in an axe and hooked something behind its blade, hauling it up.

CRRRUNCH.

The ground crumbled more easily than expected, and something came up out of it. It was a round fruit, large for one hand but a little small for two.

"Fruit grows underground?" Was it some kind of root fruit? Encrid asked in puzzlement.

"A specialty of the West. Ground-squirrel fruit."

The hard outer shell was made of hardened earth. Rem cracked it open to reveal a wrinkled fruit. He brushed off most of the dirt, drew his axe blade across it, and split it in half. Liquid sloshed inside.

"Try it. Once you've tasted it, you won't forget it even in death. Merchants in the old days called it paradise water."

Encrid took the fruit first and had a sip. As he swallowed, sweetness seemed to spread from his mouth through his whole body. It was intensely sweet, but not unpleasantly so. The sort of sweetness that made him want to keep drinking.

"Too much will only dry your mouth out more. One per person per day should be about right."

"I've decided. You're our guide to the West."

Encrid offered the compliment in admiration. Rem let loose a string of curses. Merely hearing the word "guide" brought the swearing out by reflex.

Of course he was their guide. Who the hell had been showing them the way until now? Sometimes that bastard of a Captain could turn a man's stomach with a single remark.

This was a separate matter from admitting defeat. It felt as though he was being compared to that directionless bastard for no reason, and he found it deeply offensive.