It was just after he had learned how to handle Will. Leaving it permanently open in the depths of his unconscious seemed to make his body tremble. At that very moment, Encrid knew he needed rest.

More precisely, he needed to build things up slowly, piece by piece, but it amounted to the same thing. His body would have to rest throughout the process. He had to coax his rampaging Will into staying still.

A dam riddled with cracks and holes could not hold back a river swollen by floods. The dam Encrid had built so far was far too flimsy, while the floodwaters surged and battered it, pouring down from above and welling up from below. It felt less like a river than a raging storm.

That was its scale. Within it lay another problem entirely.

'It's complicated.'

Rather than a simple, straight line, it was as though a tangled skein had settled inside his body. Simply gathering it up would disrupt his blood flow and burst his organs.

That did not mean anything had gone wrong. Like a child taking its first steps, he now knew by feel alone. Putting his body into enforced rest was part of that. An easy solution had immediately come to him.

He could cut things away, reduce them, discard them. But what if he did not want to? His resolve to uphold his oath still burned within his chest. He needed another way.

The sense of omnipotence helped. Once he believed he could do anything, all sorts of methods came to him of their own accord. Oara had told him to discard complexity, while Ragna had told him to build up his fundamentals. Ragna had said as much once when telling him to start by abandoning the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique.

The problem was how much he had learned in his desperate struggle to get this far. Was having so much wrong? Surely not.

Will, the formless power filling his body, seemed ready to destroy his organs, muscles, and bones and burst free at any moment. In other words, he was barely holding on to it.

He could endure like this. He had learned that much. But he could not use it freely. What, then? If there was so much that it had become a mess, he could put it in order. If it sprawled in a tangled heap, he could stack it neatly.

He thought of the walls of Pioneer Village, which he had seen because of the Knoll colony long ago; the walls he had recently seen around the city that would bear the name Roquefried; and the walls of Thousand Brick he had seen in between. Towers rose among those walls, solid and sturdy.

Encrid pictured a tower in his mind. Then he began stacking the Will inside his body. One piece at a time, slowly and calmly, little by little.

He found it enjoyable. Enjoyment was not all he felt, of course. There was some regret as well.

'With more time, I think I could shape it properly before stacking it.'

Rather than roughly piling up unhewn stones, he wanted to square each one, cutting it into a neat block before setting it in place. But even lying there for a year instead of a week would not give him enough time for that.

More importantly, it did not feel like the right way forward. The shaping and trimming would have to go hand in hand with training his body. That was how it felt.

'That's what I'll do.'

If he was dissatisfied, he could take his time finding another method and revisit it later. He was not building an actual tower, after all. It was merely an image he had conjured within himself.

Once begun, that calm stacking of stones would continue on its own throughout the week Encrid slept like the dead. This was how Will was meant to be handled. At least, this was how one had to handle it to become a knight. Rather than forcing it, one had to let it settle into the depths of the unconscious.

Even so, a part of his consciousness remained awake somewhere between dreams and oblivion.

"I told you to reduce it, and you went and added more. You brute."

The ferryman with the flippant manner would appear now and then to keep him company.

Somewhere between dreams and oblivion seemed like just the place for the ferryman to roam. His ferry drifted slowly, ever so slowly along the placid river like a floating leaf, seeming the very embodiment of peace. The two of them, seated on little block stools aboard the boat, almost seemed to share a kind of closeness.

"Not even a little impatient?"

The ferryman's question pierced straight to Encrid's heart.

What Encrid wanted could fairly have been called a delusion dressed up as an oath, a star, a dream. To become a knight with his meager talent. To live by the sword. To protect everything behind him. It might all have been so much nonsense.

Now he needed only to open his eyes to fulfill that dream. Yet he felt no impatience. If asked why, he could have said it was because he knew something mattered more than becoming a knight.

He wanted to become a knight who protected what stood behind him. He had never wanted merely to become a knight. So there was no reason to hurry. The road ahead would be longer still.

Encrid shook his head.

"How does it feel to walk a path that needs neither permission nor agreement from anyone?"

Encrid merely looked at the ferryman impassively. The ferryman spoke again.

"You can open your mouth now, you stubborn bastard."

"Nothing special."

Encrid answered casually, as though he had been about to speak even without the ferryman telling him to.

Whatever the case, he meant it. Nothing had changed, as far as Encrid was concerned.

"I bless your relentless stubbornness. Today, at least, I shall."

At the ferryman's words, Encrid opened his eyes. The ferryman pulled on his oar. The boat moved faster, and Encrid felt his consciousness float away.

It was time to wake. Watching the ferry, the river, the ferryman, and the violet light disappear far below, Encrid found various thoughts coming to mind. Had his estimate been right? He had thought it would take about a week. Had it? It had only been an intuition that struck like lightning after his breakthrough, just before he closed his eyes.

Then he opened his eyes again and returned to reality.

"You really know how to sleep."

A pair of gray eyes stared blankly at him. The barbarian sat with his legs spread wide, chin propped on one hand, idly tilting an axe with the other.

"Now that you're awake, just listen. You'll feel like you can do anything, but you can't. Got it?"

"How long has it been?"

Encrid asked instead of answering. Confirmation came first.

"A week. Though I did wonder if anyone else had ever slept this damn much at a time like this."

By a time like this, he meant awakening as a knight. After seeing Encrid awake and exchanging a few words, Rem reconsidered his own remark. It seemed possible enough. Why shouldn't someone pass out for a few days? Awakening could hardly be the same for everyone.

Rem himself had never experienced anything so dramatic. As he learned spells and repeatedly practiced spirit invocation, his understanding had opened up naturally. Perhaps his land had never had a fence to begin with. He had broken through the fence called a limit before ever feeling that limit.

The directionless bastard's experience would have been a little different. He had clearly been intoxicated by the sense of omnipotence while learning to control himself.

"If you've caught his laziness, though, that's serious."

Rem spoke without changing his posture.

Behind him, Jaxon looked down at Encrid with his arms folded.

"Dampen your senses. That comes first."

Encrid stared at him blankly. Jaxon shook his head.

"Take that to heart."

He rarely repeated himself for emphasis.

"You'll feel as though you can do anything, but you can't. For instance, it may feel as though you could reach the East in a single step right now, but you can't. You arrive only after finding your way and walking there. Don't forget that there are things you have to do before reaching the result."

Encrid turned to look at Ragna. Only his head poked out of his bed. His hair was flattened into a bird's nest, as though he had just woken up.

"Yaaawn."

The yawn he added after finishing made that certain.

He had never been so eloquent. Honestly, Encrid wanted to applaud him. Though the example would have struck home more if he had not chosen finding his way, of all things.

"A young child drawing water once asked, 'Father God, why must I draw water?' God answered, 'You must bring water if you wish to drink and wash, must you not?' Brother Squad Leader, we must draw water to wash and drink."

Audin delivered his sermon while blocking the barracks entrance. He would have fit right in as the priest of some country temple. Of course, regardless of its size, that village would also be rather frightening: any ordinary band of brigands that attacked would leave as good Ghouls.

The only good Ghoul was a dead Ghoul, and they would be returning to God's side. It would certainly be a village some people feared.

Only Jaxon had spoken plainly. Encrid wondered what the rest of them were getting at. Still, he understood perfectly. He remained an excellent listener.

"I'm fine, though."

Whether they were called knights or Heroes, everyone experienced much the same feeling upon awakening: omnipotence. The feeling that they could do anything. Learning to distinguish what they could do from what they could not was the first order of business.

Had they all been waiting for him to wake so they could tell him that? Or had they simply happened to gather here?

"You're awake? Don't overdo it, my betrothed."

Even Sinar was there. A gentle warmth at his side drew his gaze. Esther, in panther form, was touching the back of his hand.

"I'm fine."

Encrid repeated himself.

"Saying you're fine doesn't necessarily make it so."

Teresa stood beside Audin, and it was Luagarne, just beside her, who spoke.

Was it really his imagination that they all seemed to have been waiting for him to wake? Surely it was not just his imagination. They would have waited for him after he collapsed.

Their faces flashed through his memory. Rem, aged beyond his years. Jaxon's contorted expression. Audin vomiting blood. Parts of Sinar's body fading away. Esther with both eyes lost. Pell stabbing his own stomach. Those faces had existed in the todays gone by.

Encrid sat up, planted his feet on the floor, and rose. Standing there, he looked down at his hands, opening and closing them to gauge his condition. Light. His body felt lighter than ever.

That did not mean he could flap his arms and fly. That was something he could not do. But getting up, walking outside, and practicing the Isolation Technique was something he could.

"Huh? You really are fine."

Rem looked up from his seat. There was no sign that Encrid intended to do anything insane under the influence of omnipotence. He noticed one other strange thing, but in any case, Encrid did look fine.

"I told you I was."

Encrid repeated it and walked outside. He was fine, but he was not the same as before. The sunlight filtering into the barracks. The breeze brushing his cheek in slender streams. The burnt smell of firewood reduced to charcoal overnight. The feel of his shirt against his skin.

He saw, heard, and felt everything in finer detail than before. It seemed he could grasp the wind. Of course, he could not catch the wind in his hand. But he could probably walk with it.

He did not intend to try right now. These were simply things he came to know naturally. Running like the wind, swinging his sword like sunlight. By conjuring those images and stirring the Will within his body, he could do such things.

Outside, Encrid began to move. He had confirmed that he had woken after a week. Now came the next step.

'Has it really settled into my body properly?'

He was certain. He had felt that omnipotence, too. Even so, wanting to confirm it was only natural in a way. He had pressed onward, yearned, called it his dream, and enjoyed the repeating todays in pursuit of it. Yet he still needed confirmation. The time he had lived through, his experiences, made him do so.

As he warmed up with the Isolation Technique, his Will naturally followed his movements. He could perceive it, but it moved on its own even without his attention. In other words...

"A knight."

Luagarne had followed him outside. Everyone came out behind her.

"The real thing. Not a single cheap trick."

Rem said it once more.

When Encrid had collapsed, Will had already erupted from him. Sinar's Fairy sensitivity had merely made her the first to recognize that he had crossed the wall. Everyone had known the moment they saw him. At some point, Encrid had surmounted it.

Even so, it only truly sank in when they saw him awake again, walking and moving before their eyes.

"He really pulled it off."

Rem murmured. When had it been? Had it been when Encrid asked to learn the heart of the beast?

When Encrid said his dream was to become a knight, Rem had laughed at him mercilessly. He had genuinely thought it absurd. Yet Encrid had done it.

Meager talent. An ordinary body. There had been a lunatic who spoke of his dream, saying those were merely conditions. And that lunatic had become a knight.

"Whew."

Encrid drew a deep breath and let it out. The weather was lovely. The wind was cool and the sunlight warm. As the morning dew dried, the sky seemed to promise a truly beautiful day.

Hadn't the ferryman called it a path that needed no one's permission or agreement? He was right. Encrid had never set out on this road to gain anyone's permission or approval.

"So, are you going to track down everyone who mocked you and give each one a good smack on the head?"

Rem asked.

What would he do now that he was a knight? After everything they had done to him, why not pay them back? There had been people who criticized him. Plenty had insulted and laughed at him. Wouldn't they all go into fits of shock, even without a smack? That alone might be fun to watch.

"Why bother?"

Encrid flexed his wrists from side to side as he answered. His joints cracked. A week had left him quite stiff.

"Wouldn't it be justified?"

That was Jaxon, dropping his customary politeness as he sometimes did. The Master of the Morning Dew believed grudges existed to be repaid.

Long ago, when he had been willing even to beg to learn swordsmanship, everyone had laughed at Encrid. Yes, those things had happened. Should he have despaired, then? Should he have wept in hopelessness and blamed some god?

Encrid had not. And because he had not, he stood here now.

"Not really."

He shook his head. He truly had no desire to do so. His judgments and the path he walked differed from those of ordinary people. Quite apart from his skill, he was a different sort of man altogether.

"Then what will you do?"

Ragna asked, coming out belatedly.

"Train."

As he answered, Encrid took his left fingers in his right hand and pulled them back toward the back of his hand, stretching his muscles and tendons under tension. With a steady pull, the muscles gently lengthened and loosened.

Hadn't they said the body changed once Will dwelled within it? It seemed so. No, it was so.

"Train?"

"I'm a little stiff."

This was who he was now, and this was the path he would walk. So that was what he would do. Nothing special. That was all.

They had all known long ago that he was a different sort of man, no matter who was judging. Even so, they could not help being amazed anew. He had become a knight. The knight he had spoken of so insistently. Yet he did not change.

Then again, that was why they all followed him.

'He'll be hard to beat.'

That was Jaxon's thought.

What if he had to stand against Encrid? He was confident he could kill him, but he would have no desire to do so. That was the kind of man Encrid was.