“Let's send Grime up.”

Rem said it on the fifteenth day after Encrid disappeared. The moment he spoke, he was ready to argue his case.

Grime was the name of a Hero, but it also referred to a spell called the Black Bird of Supplication. One legend held that the Hero had been reborn as a black bird after death and protected the West.

In any case, Rem had spoken because he had decided they needed to take a drastic step.

What was supplication? To think of something desperately and pray for it. Would that desperation work a miracle? No.

Sending up the Bird of Supplication would not let them find Encrid immediately, but it would tell them whether their target was alive and roughly which direction he was in.

The problem was that the spell consumed food. Both the Hero and the bird named Grime were said to have enormous appetites. Food had to be offered as a sacrifice.

‘Using it now will mean some very hard times ahead.’

Still, they might manage to scrape through somehow. Even if hardship and privation awaited them.

But what needed doing had to be done. They had called him the Hero who saved the West, and they had to treat him accordingly. That was the western way.

As Rem prepared his arguments, the chieftain nodded without hesitation.

“Now, hear me out. This...”

Rem had begun speaking reflexively, only to stop himself. Why was he nodding already?

“Yes. Let's send it up.”

Rem stopped mid-sentence.

“I'll fetch the shamans.”

Ayul moved as soon as the chieftain finished speaking. Juol followed her out from the corner of the tent.

Geomnarae and Hira nodded emphatically.

“The eldest shaman is bedridden, so I will stand at the center.”

Hira volunteered to lead the ritual herself. She had even set aside her tobacco stick, and fierce determination blazed in her eyes.

Rem's talent for spells was exceptional, but only when it came to fighting. His shamanic temperament was simply too rough to participate in a ritual like this.

Put plainly, it was like asking someone a favor in a tone that picked a fight. That was not something he could control.

They needed another shaman, and Hira had volunteered. She showed not the slightest hesitation, though the ritual would leave her bedridden for at least fifteen days.

“But if we summon Grime now, what'll you do afterward?”

Though he had brought it up himself, Rem spoke as if concerned about the consequences.

“We'll worry about that when the time comes. The Sky God will help us.”

The chieftain's eyes, too, held an unyielding conviction as he answered.

But wasn't a chieftain supposed to consider the whole tribe? Was this descendant of the sacred bear about to endanger his entire tribe to save an outsider?

Westerners might prize loyalty, but wasn't this going a little too far?

Rem had meant to persuade them himself, yet he felt strangely conflicted.

‘Didn't everyone object when I suggested sending Grime up before?’

During the great tribal war. When abnormal weather struck the entire West. Hadn't the Bird of Supplication always been held back until the very last moment?

Had someone found a revolutionary way to reduce the sacrifice while he was gone?

No.

They built a great wood fire and piled sacrifices onto it. Lucky fish and other precious provisions vanished as ritual offerings.

Once the food had been gathered, all the shamans knelt and began the ritual.

“Nothing's changed,” Rem said.

“What hasn't?”

The chieftain stood beside him, his expression calm, as though they were simply doing what needed to be done.

“I'm asking whether we ought to be summoning the Bird of Supplication so freely.”

Watching smoke begin to rise from the stacked firewood, the chieftain bowed his head briefly, adding his own prayer to the ritual. Then he raised his head and turned to Rem.

“We have no other way. We must do whatever we can.”

A life for a life.

It was a common saying in the West. Kindness had to be repaid with kindness.

The chieftain acted accordingly. So did every other westerner.

It was what Rem himself wanted, anyway. Still, it felt strange to see them more eager than he was, when in the past they had refused to send it up no matter what reason he gave.

That was how deeply Encrid had impressed them. They did not merely call him an honorary Hero or savior. The westerners staked their entire tribe on finding him.

Smoke billowed and flames soared. Flame-like soot spread across the sky, gathering instead of dispersing.

No one could go near the bonfire. Entering the smoke meant death. Your eyes would suddenly roll back, and you would convulse or collapse. Then you were fucking dead.

For that reason, no one went inside.

Above the heads of the tribespeople who had stepped back, the soot coalesced as fifty shamans summoned the Bird of Supplication.

CAAAAAW.

Black smoke gathered into wings and a beak. It was a magnificent sight: black soot massing in the sky and taking the form of a bird. It resembled a cloud covering the heavens, yet its shape was unmistakably a bird's, complete with beak and wings.

It lingered in the sky briefly before disappearing. That was enough.

“He's alive!”

Hira shouted. That was all they learned on the first day.

The Bird of Supplication flew for three days in total, and the tribe burned all the food it had.

“That way!”

Even as she fainted, Hira pointed. Rem turned in the direction of her finger.

Not toward the River of Sand from Which None Returned, but a little farther east.

‘What lucky break could get someone out of the heart of the desert alive?’

Several possibilities flashed through Rem's mind. He knew the desert himself. Not well enough to come and go as he pleased, but he knew a few ways across the River of Sand and a few back routes. Some of the smaller tribes lived mainly in the desert.

But escaping its heart alive was another matter. Eight ordinary people out of ten—no, nine—would have to set off and leave their fate to luck.

What if he found himself in that situation?

‘Who gives a damn?’

He would head straight in one direction and stubbornly force his way through. Exhaustion? Just break through before he got tired.

Then what would the Captain have done?

He wouldn't have sat quietly waiting to die. He would have walked, forgetting to rest. The slightest deviation might have taken him deeper into the desert, but if he had made it out, he would be in the direction Hira indicated.

‘Is the goddess of luck your ex-wife or something?’

For that to happen, luck would have to do more than follow him. It would have to cling to him. Judging by the direction, he seemed to have already escaped the desert's heart.

Rem had been considering crossing the desert himself once the Bird of Supplication gave them a direction.

“There goes one legend I could've made.”

He voiced his thought, and Ayul frowned beside him.

“What nonsense is that?”

“Nothing. I'd better go meet him.”

Rem set off in the direction the Bird of Supplication had shown them. Even if Encrid had endured long enough to escape, he would be dying of thirst.

More than a hundred westerners followed Rem.

“Too many of you.”

Rem scolded them, but they replied:

“We're worried too.”

“As his future wife, I can't stay behind.”

“If a spell has put him in danger, I can help.”

“I just want to come.”

Jiba's mother, Jiba, an unnamed shaman, and a warrior who was simply decent at fighting. Every last one did as they pleased.

“Irresistible.”

Luagarne murmured beside them.

Once, they had called Encrid the irresistible Squad Leader. Everyone had been captivated by him. This place, too, was full of people under his spell.

In a way, it was only natural. Westerners never forgot those who fought for them; they honored them. And now the man who had saved them from danger was in danger himself.

How could they simply stand by?

“Ah, whatever. Come along, then.”

Rem took the lead.

* * *

“It was isolation,” the ferryman said.

Encrid blinked. He knew instinctively that this was a dream, but the setting was a little different. It felt as though it reflected the ferryman's desire to torment him to the very end.

Instead of black river water, sand filled his surroundings. It was the River of Sand he had seen while dying. Sand lay in every direction, and the ferry rocked atop it, scattering loose grains.

Was he supposed to be so traumatized that the mere sight of sand sent him into fits?

Encrid felt nothing of the sort.

Violet lamplight shone over the sand, and the ferryman holding the lamp spoke again.

“You certainly kept walking.”

The ferryman was rather serious today. Had living so long split his personality? Or was he simply peculiar?

SHHHH.

Sand scattered as the ferry rocked. Only then did Encrid realize he was seated in a stone chair with a backrest.

The ferryman sat in an identical chair across a stone table. With deeply cracked gray skin and violet eyes, he stared straight at Encrid.

Had he asked about walking well? Of course Encrid could walk. Why wouldn't he?

“Even with nothing to protect.”

“I had something.”

Encrid cut him off.

The violet eyes stared at him. The ferryman's gaze felt deeper, more intense, but Encrid did not look away.

Looking at the ferryman had once made him feel a certain dizzying terror. Now he was rather untroubled.

Was he getting used to this too? Perhaps.

“By refusing to stop, I protected myself.”

He meant exactly that. He hadn't assigned a particular reason to walking, but the thought had come to him as he walked. Isolation, loneliness—none of that shit mattered.

So what meaning did these steps have? Wouldn't simply enduring as best he could be easier than this? Why was he walking now, anyway?

Why else?

To live in discomfort rather than die in comfort.

He had found that answer of his own.

It was no profound contemplation. Just his usual thoughts. Nothing like the source of his determination.

If he had wanted to give a casual answer, “I just walked” would have served perfectly well. That was all the thought amounted to.

Those steps, every step he took to escape the sand, had been an act of protecting himself.

Encrid spoke, and after a brief silence, the ferryman murmured:

“... A path that protects oneself as well.”

To Encrid, those words seemed to come from very far away.

The ferryman's voice receded. Sand became black river water, and the ferry dispersed like smoke.

Encrid felt himself floating. He rose and rose until he saw light. Droplets seeped down through it.

Pain began in his throat, as though someone had scraped it raw with a plow. Dazzled by the light, he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was awake.

“You're awake?”

A face appeared before him. Encrid's throat felt as if it were burning, but he still had to speak.

“Still dreaming?”

His voice was as rough as his throat felt.

Was this still part of the ferryman's prank? Like changing their surroundings into the River of Sand? Had he only thought he had awakened?

It still didn't feel real.

“I was surprised too, Captain.”

As the man spoke, the name of a hunter who had once served under him came to Encrid.

Henri. A plains hunter. The fellow who had left the army to set up house with the widow who ran a flower shop.

Some memories were too vivid to forget, and that was why the name had stayed with him.

“Why're you here?”

His words grew clipped. Uttering a few words was harder than swinging a sword for three days and nights.

The desert's scorching heat and nighttime cold steadily ate away at one's strength, and the resulting sweat easily led to dehydration.

Entering the western desert unprepared was suicide even for a knight. A true knight would somehow find a way out, but as far as Henri knew, the desert was a place where even knights died.

Yet a man had emerged from that desert half-dead, and that man was Encrid.

“The story of how I ended up here would fill at least two books.”

Encrid nodded and immediately passed out.

Looking at his Captain, Henri fetched water and tidied up around him.

This village had grown around an oasis beside the desert. Even in the West, it was an area with few monsters or demonic beasts, so its walls were not particularly high.

Criminals, hunters, and others gathered here.

Henri had come for one reason: Krona.

After the flower-shop widow dumped him, Henri had spent a while accompanying a trading company as a guard. His skill with a bow, cautious nature, and trustworthiness had earned him a good reputation in that line of work.

Over time, he developed an eye for trade routes. Along the way, he also heard stories about the West.

They said you could be set for life with just a few jewels.

Did that make any sense? Stories always grew more exaggerated in the telling.

After asking around, he concluded that while it wouldn't set him up for life, hunting for precious jewels and selling them along with western specialties could give him enough capital to start a business.

So he invested every Krona he had saved in a Velopter and rode here.

He had some confidence in his prospects. While most people simply waited for luck, Henri studied the animals' habits.

And that wasn't all. If things went well, he felt he might begin a new life here. Ever since the widow dumped him, his dream had been to establish a trading company.

That was how he had discovered Encrid while roaming the desert's edge.

Skeleton monsters appeared there often. They were what became of adventurers, explorers, and treasure hunters who blundered into the desert without knowing a damn thing and died.

Encrid had emerged among them.

At first Henri thought he might be a monster. His sunken eyes and parched appearance resembled a mummy that had dried to death. Yet his eyes alone still shone. Vivid blue.

“What in the world happened?”

Henri was bewildered too, but without hesitation he abandoned the jewel-eared fox and rescued Encrid.

The moment he saw those eyes, he recognized him. His equipment was different, and so was his bearing, yet Henri knew him immediately.

In life, some people and events stayed with you forever after just one encounter.

Why had he saved him? His body had moved before he could even consider that.

He had once owed this man his own life. And so he had no regrets.

Encrid opened his eyes again two days later. Around then, Rem and the other westerners entered the small oasis village.

“Thought you'd croaked.”

His throat better now, Encrid replied:

“Nearly did.”

In truth, he had died countless times, but to anyone who didn't know that, he looked like luck itself in human form.

“Oh, honorary Hero of Luck.”

That was why the chieftain gave him the odd nickname.

Encrid paid it little mind. He simply reflected on what he had realized while walking, alone, on and on.

He had been isolated, and the ferryman had told him to walk in solitude. Yet even then, he seemed to have trained out of sheer habit. Once he awakened and his mind cleared, that was how it struck him.

Along with a knight's strike, a certain realization had come to him.

What path would he take to become a knight?

He could see that path. More clearly than ever before.

It was thanks to his wandering in the desert. The act itself had been like watering the fruit of experience.