Encrid nodded. He certainly hadn't gathered these things as gifts, but somehow Ragna was the only one he had nothing for. Krais, after all, considered the jeweled sheath and the trading company that would eventually arrive gifts enough.

Esther, sitting off to one side like a figure in a painting, had taken out one of the things Encrid had given her. It looked like a demonic beast's tooth.

"I got mine."

No one had asked, but she said it anyway. Just then, Sinar entered the barracks.

"I can consider that dagger you gave me an engagement gift, can't I?"

She arrived with a Fairy joke.

Strictly speaking, Roford and Pell hadn't received anything either, so Ragna wasn't particularly hurt.

"Outside, barbarian. I'll take your head off."

He merely thought the barbarian bastard must have meddled somewhere along the way. Knight or not, irritation was irritation. Being good with a sword didn't make a man a sage or a saint.

"Sure. Come at me."

Neither of them actually went outside. They were just picking fights as usual.

"So where did you go, anyway?"

At Encrid's attempt to change the subject, Ragna looked away from Rem. He genuinely wasn't hurt, so his reply was matter-of-fact.

"I went out for some air. On the way back, I found Odd-Eyes wandering lost, so I brought him home."

"Who brought who home?"

Rem scoffed beside him. Luagarne nodded. Rem was right.

Jaxon said nothing, and Audin was still praying. Krais merely yawned, apparently growing drowsy.

It was peaceful. With the seasonal rain pouring outside, Encrid posed the question he'd been saving until everyone was together.

"If you suddenly found yourself in a desert, how would you get out?"

It wasn't an idle question. What would a knight do? What if one's physical abilities were different? Encrid had escaped the desert, but he believed luck had played a part. How could he have escaped without it? Ever since waking after his escape, he'd wondered what these people would have done differently.

Ragna answered first. Finding his way was his specialty, after all.

"You find your way by the stars."

The greatest lie in the world, though the statement itself wasn't wrong.

"You've got a sickness, you bastard. Besides, you wouldn't see them. The sky's blocked out there."

Rem added that, and Encrid nodded. Ragna continued placidly.

"Then I use my instincts."

Utter madness. Encrid hadn't expected anything from Ragna to begin with. Rem muttered something about a hopelessly lost lunatic, then offered his own thoughts.

"Pick a direction and keep walking. Every place has an end."

That likely came from his general understanding of the desert. It wasn't some legendary labyrinth. It was simply land. All you had to do was endure and keep walking. Rem had intended to go looking for Encrid himself if it came to that. Once the Bird of Supplication showed him the direction, he'd planned to head in.

"At my level, I can last a month without food or water. But there's really no need. Just run."

That was only possible because he had his spells. It was implicit in Rem's words. Invoke a Velopter spirit, and he could run for days.

Audin was next.

"I would ask God and receive an answer."

Audin possessed divine power, which performed the miracle of healing ordinary people. For someone with divine power, miracles were an everyday occurrence. Asking God and receiving an answer might sound like nonsense to anyone else, but Audin meant it. If such a thing happened, God would grant him a revelation. Listening to him, Encrid knew he was completely sincere.

Instead of answering, Jaxon asked a question.

"You said you couldn't get your bearings. Was there truly nothing you could have done?"

There was no turning back a today that had passed. But through Review and reflection, he could avoid repeating the same mistakes. That was why Encrid had asked, though he also simply wanted a glimpse of how they thought. Jaxon had put his finger on the heart of it: Had that truly been the best he could do?

Jaxon spoke with his legs crossed in his chair. Rain had darkened the sky, but the fire burning in the middle of the barracks provided ample light. It illuminated their surroundings, and before they knew it, everyone had gathered around it.

"Did you hear nothing? Not even the wind? What was the wind like in the West?"

Hearing that, Rem thought he truly was a Sneaky alley cat. There were guides in the West who could travel the desert. Rare, but they existed. That didn't mean they could find someone lost in it, however. If they'd been able to come and go as though the desert were their own home, Rem would have persuaded them with the Fist of Supplication rather than the Bird of Supplication. He'd left them alone because they couldn't.

Those desert guides had a saying: they walked the paths of the wind. It was only possible for those born with a special sense that went beyond keen ordinary senses, beyond even Sixth Sense.

"The wind's direction, its scent. Everything leaves traces and clues. With those, I cannot lose my way."

Jaxon could find his way even through a labyrinth. Most magic and spells couldn't affect his senses. His Will-based perception was one of the weapons that had brought him to his present position. He hadn't won the titles of Master of Georg's Dagger and Master of the Morning Dew in a card game.

"An interesting subject."

Sinar joined in. She knew the desert, a world opposite to the forest. But did that mean there was no spiritual essence there? To wield spiritual essence was to see spirits. Sinar had been born with the gift of receiving its blessing. There would be spirits in the desert too. Or at least traces of their energy.

"Even a desert has spiritual essence. I would follow the path it showed me."

"But must we go and get lost in a desert? I'd simply make sure that never happened."

"Don't be stupid. This whole discussion assumes you've entered the desert."

Roford had chimed in as soon as Sinar finished, and Pell objected. Roford smiled, though the smile looked rather stiff.

"That's what I'm saying. I'd make sure it never happened."

"And I'm saying your premise is wrong. A Shepherd doesn't lose his way, so I would get out somehow. Besides, I always carry several days' worth of food."

"And I'm saying you just don't go in to begin with."

Roford repeated himself, this time without smiling.

"That's stupid."

Pell folded his arms.

"Want a beating?"

"Idol Slayer doesn't discriminate. You know that, don't you?"

"So I just don't let it touch me? Easy."

When had it started? Perhaps when the cracks first formed in Pell. He and Roford didn't get along. It was much like the old days of the Lunatic Squad. Perhaps it was because they were aiming for different things.

Roford placed importance on calculating his moves, while Pell favored split-second judgment. With their differing views on swordsmanship, skill would be the evidence that proved their arguments. On top of that, Pell the Shepherd didn't know how to choose his words, and Roford, a member of a knight order, had little experience dealing with people who lacked manners. For all those reasons, their relationship had grown abysmal.

Encrid watched them for a moment, then spoke.

"Enough."

One word was enough. Both reined themselves in. They didn't even glare at each other. In that respect, they were alike: neither wasted mental energy on pointless things.

Pell suppressed something boiling inside him. His confidence might be crumbling, but that was a separate matter. Right now, he wanted to smash the head of this Roford, a pampered bastard who'd done nothing but learn swordsmanship. There was no reason he couldn't. He only had to catch up to a bastard who'd lucked his way a single step ahead.

Roford felt much the same. That bastard had no manners. No respect for other people. He needed a lesson. To beat him, all Roford had to do was live every day the way Encrid did. Ragna was back too, which meant more chances to stick close and learn swordsmanship. Somewhere along the way, Roford had completely forgotten about returning to the knight order.

Watching them, Encrid wished Rem, Ragna, Audin, and Jaxon would listen this well.

'Not a chance.'

He'd asked his question and heard their answers. Everyone thought differently. Some would doggedly force their way through; others would make use of their abilities.

'Could I have smelled the wind too?'

Jaxon had told him to try smelling if he couldn't hear anything. He couldn't see spiritual essence or spirits, whatever they were, the way Sinar did. But had there truly been nothing for his Sixth Sense to detect? He didn't know. There might have been.

"Studying it beforehand would have helped."

Luagarne's contribution was right too. Knowledge was strength. Encrid sorted through his thoughts.

Everything they'd said had helped. One thought led to another, bringing to mind the soldier who had challenged him as soon as he'd reached the barracks. Marco, whose name Encrid didn't even know.

'He used Will.'

How? The soldier had bolstered his mental strength by refusing to back down. He'd steeled his determination by warning his opponent, then tried to seize the psychological advantage by opening with the attack he trusted most. It didn't matter if that single stab failed to win. It would impress upon his opponent just how fierce his spear was. His first blow would be his strongest, most forceful attack.

The warning, the stab, even his posture and attitude. All of it was tactics. Everyone had their own tactics, and Encrid could learn and find insight in them.

"There's more than one way," he murmured to himself.

"When you're filled with Will, your stamina will change too."

Ragna was right about that. After what should have been his last step in the desert, every step that followed had only been possible because it held Will.

Encrid organized his thoughts, committing each lesson to memory. Anu, the King of the East, the Mercenary King, had told him to experience many things. Why? In everything he'd seen and experienced, Encrid found differences. Only differences? No, similarities too.

What he'd realized while escaping the desert. What he understood now. What he'd gained by asking questions. To Encrid, it was like moonlight. He could see it but couldn't grasp it. There was still a piece missing. Thinking harder right now wouldn't bring it to him, so there was no need to hurry.

"Since we're all gathered, tell us your story, my betrothed."

Sinar drew one knee onto her chair and hugged it as she spoke. Encrid looked up.

"What did you do to earn names like Savior of the City and Pioneer of the West?"

She spoke again, looking far more relaxed than usual. That was how she appeared to Encrid, at least.

He didn't know it, but his deeds had indeed earned him several new epithets. There was no reason not to tell them, so he began: the story of how the Demon Killer had become the Savior of the City and Pioneer of the West.

He told it well. Soon everyone was listening intently, swallowing in suspense.

"Why didn't you become a bard instead of a knight?"

Krais was impressed all over again.

"Not bad."

Luagarne puffed out her cheeks as she spoke. She'd lived through it herself, but hearing Encrid tell it made it more entertaining.

Not that he was the finest bard on the continent or anything. It was just that, apart from Krais, the others were terrible storytellers. Krais's well-timed interjections helped flesh out the tale too.

Of course, the biggest surprise was the story of Rem's wife and child.

"Scum."

Krais's timing was exquisite. Many children had been abandoned by their parents. He was one of them, and he despised parents who abandoned their children.

"Want to die?"

"Leaving your wife and child behind..."

"Ayul's a strong woman. And she has things she wants too."

Ayul had, in fact, urged Rem to leave. She was a wonderful woman who knew how to support someone with great ambitions.

"Married? Did you threaten her?"

Ragna asked, and Rem answered with a swing of his axe.

Jaxon dug in his ears a few times, as though he must have misheard. An axe came his way too, but he easily dodged it.

Audin offered a prayer of blessing.

"They say even a bat missing a wing has a mate. Surely God will bless this union."

For a blessing, it seemed to contain a touch of personal opinion.

"Fuck, you call that a blessing?"

That was why Rem protested so fiercely.

They talked until dawn. Even Sinar, uncharacteristically, told them of her wanderings through a forest of spiritual essence. Her tale ended in a labyrinth made by a demon.

"Fall into it, and you die. Every last one of them died."

Hadn't it begun as a pleasant story about a forest? Looked at this way, Sinar was a dreadful storyteller too.

Audin told them how Teresa had turned to God. Teresa said she could never forget the past, but she'd learned to look toward tomorrow rather than yesterday.

As she said it, she looked at Encrid with considerable intensity. Rather than romantic affection, her gaze held gratitude toward the man who had taught her, mingled with a desire to best him.

"Cultists should be killed on sight," Luagarne added.

Eventually, Roford and Pell spoke too. Pell talked about the Shepherds. Roford remarked that even joining a knight order rarely meant seeing a knight, then looked around. Somehow, there were three people here who could fight at a knight's level.

Jaxon told a story about the Carmen Collection. Though warmth still lingered in the air, it sent a chill down their spines: a tale of one person's harrowing revenge. He was surprisingly articulate. He rarely spoke, but when he did, he spoke well.

"Cut down a few people who knew their way around a sword while I was out walking."

Ragna reduced his entire misadventure to that one line. Apart from that, he'd done nothing but train, sleep, and laze around, so there wasn't much else to tell.

Encrid's absence had been the reason he'd gone walking in the first place. His motivation had seemed to be fading, so he'd forced himself to go out in search of some stimulation.

"Are you fucking crazy?"

Rem supplied the interjection. This time, instead of an axe, Ragna sent a fist flying.

Naturally, Rem wasn't hit. He tilted his head aside, then began throwing punches without leaving his seat. Audin, who happened to be sitting between them, restrained them without getting up either. With his hands, of course. Knight-level or not, a master of close combat was something else.

While they laughed and talked, a few soldiers brought in food and several bottles of liquor. Krais had ordered them. Everyone ate and drank. It was an impromptu feast.

Only now did Encrid truly feel he'd come home. Silly jokes, stories, each of them having their say. The night deepened around their talk.

At some point, even the scuffling stopped. Now they were simply talking.

"A balrog. A difficult opponent."

Ragna said that after hearing Oara's story. He took it for granted that Encrid would go to kill the balrog.

No one told him to give up. No one even said it was dangerous. If it was something that needed doing, they would do it. They all thought the same way.

"Not yet."

Encrid's reply followed the same line of thought.

Krais sighed.

"Someone try to stop him. We're talking about a balrog."

Wasn't that a monster most people would go their whole lives without even hearing of? What? It wielded a whip of flame and a sword that burst into fire?

The god of the Knolls hidden in the Demonic Realm. The Cult of the Sacred Demonic Realm. Childhood stories. Jiba and her mother, whom he'd met in the West, and the man who loved her mother. Fragments of what Oara had left behind. Those were the stories that passed between them that night.

Deep into the night, rain fell, cups passed from hand to hand, and the blazing fire kept the damp at bay.