A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

”Cold that devours breath.”

Eudokia’s mouth opened. It was another Word-Command spell.

If Walking Fire was a bipedal form that moved while burning everything around it as a fire-aspect spell, then this spell was a fatal mist to every breathing creature.

Invisible cold, condensed through mana, spread through the air. Even without going near it, that chill froze the fine hairs on the skin. Take a single breath within the domain of that freezing mist, and your organs would freeze solid and die. Even if it merely touched the skin, it would seep inside.

It was a wide-area spell you could neither evade nor cut.

The flow of mana ran broad and heavy, but to cut it, you would have to come past the mist. And it was not the kind of spell that ended just because one current was severed.

’Will you cut this one too?’

The freezing mist, already realized into reality, would not vanish immediately just because the mana was cut. Therefore this could not be cut. Because it took the form of mist, it was weak to Drmuler’s Gale, but to a swordsman it was a deadly spell.

’Or will you evade it?’

If he evaded it, it would only head for the others.

Eudokia threw those two questions inside his head and reached the conclusion on his own.

The ones behind him, the ones he wanted to protect, would not endure it. Therefore he could not evade. The Cold that devours breath would remain in this area for at least half a day.

’Freeze to death, all of you.’

He wished it and desired it. Magic was the projection of one’s wishes onto reality, and the method chosen for that projection was the spell.

Ahead of him, Enkrid saw the mist of cold forming vague crystals. It was said not to be properly visible, but even without a sense for recognizing spells, anyone could feel air so cold it stung.

Then how do you stop that?

The deliberation was brief.

His accelerated thoughts, singular insight, and the sense that felt spells combined and dragged up the answer.

Enkrid went still and let his sword hang.

At the same time, dozens of afterimages appeared around the arm and sword he had lowered.

In a way, it only looked as though he were standing in place with his arm trembling, and in time with that vibration the blade merely seemed to split into several copies.

’This bastard?’

Eudokia’s eyes widened further.

Knights were disasters, people who did things that made no sense. Enkrid did the same.

His sword carved through empty air countless times. With the flat of the blade, he shoved the wind away. Cold that devours breath did not stop unless its caster died, but it was affected by the surrounding environment.

Kwoooooosh.

The sword strokes piled up, and piled up again, until they became a wall of wind.

They were fighting on one side, yes, but it was hard not to notice a sight like that.

Watching Enkrid’s swordsmanship, Esther admired it.

’There’d be no need for Drmuler’s spell.’

If someone asked Enkrid what exactly he had just done, the only simple answer would be this:

He had driven the spell back with the wind created by swinging his sword.

More precisely, he had mixed the stage of shaping with Residue.

Residue was a technique Rem basically used as a matter of course when he used a sling, a sublimation of the concept of transfer.

Enkrid had put that into the wind created by swinging his sword like a fan.

The idea was brilliant. All of it had been tempered during the time he spent sparring with the Mad Order of Knights, through contests of who could swing a weapon and send wind farther.

The result was simple: Enkrid generated wind with his sword and pushed the freezing cold away.

Eudokia’s face was still expressionless, but that did not mean the situation was good.

If he left it alone, the Word-Command spell would turn on him instead. A mage was also human, and humans breathed. If that breath mixed with the cold, he would not die, but he would still take damage.

Eudokia released the cold spell.

Kwoooosh, kwoooosh—the wind Enkrid had made struck an invisible curtain before him and scattered left and right.

So was that the end now? Of course not.

Eudokia was not some clumsy fool who panicked just because his calculations had gone a little off. He poured out the spells he had prepared one after another.

’Sorrow is poison.’

It was a spell he had developed. It seeped melancholy and sorrow into the target. A spell called Emotion Poison.

Enkrid swung his sword toward the flow of that emotion-poison. The invisible spell was severed.

The cold was a phenomenon manifested into reality, but this one targeted a single person. There was no visible substance, but something like a thin thread had to stretch out and touch him.

But it was cut before it could even reach.

”I see.”

At last, words like that slipped from Eudokia’s mouth. Even so, the spells he had prepared did not stop.

Kwarrrr!

Guhinna’s Fallen Fruit.

It was a spell that pulled down part of an otherworldly being made of lightning. Intangible spells, on the contrary, had an even denser flow of mana.

Therefore, elemental spells that affected reality were appropriate.

His judgment was swift, and the speed at which he chanted spells was like a ray of light.

If Enkrid was a knight, then this side was a Master who had completed dozens of spells.

The heat-blast from Walking Fire and the harmony of the cold stirred the atmosphere and formed dark clouds, and from above, rain began to fall. Before the first raindrop touched the ground, the lightning showed itself first.

A white bolt zigzagged down, aiming for Enkrid. Enkrid raised his sword, took the lightning on it, and guided it aside.

***

’Everything through swordsmanship.’

From some point earlier, Enkrid had seen every spell that way. What the Ferryman had told him really had been advice.

Take the lightning that had just fallen. It resembled one of Ragna’s cuts, so he received it and guided it away. The bolt he redirected flew off to the side and slammed into the ground.

Boom!

The white burst that exploded with a roar lit everything around them for an instant.

And how had he blocked that cold from just before? Instinct had come first, and only afterward did he awaken to the process.

’The cold was hundreds of people thrusting their swords at once.’

So before those swords could reach him, he shoved away the owners of the swords. He had done that by using Residue, one concept of Will, and it had worked well.

’If I fix the form with swordsmanship.’

A spell was not formless. It was tangible.

And if something had form, it could be received.

That was one of the things Enkrid liked most.

Because he liked it, he had wanted to be good at it, and now that he was good at it, it was something he enjoyed all the more.

”You can see spells, can’t you?”

Eudokia asked.

He meant more than just roughly sensing a spell’s power and range. He meant seeing them accurately. He had noticed it earlier, but at the time he had only guessed that the man possessed a sense for recognizing spells and that it was just somewhat unusual.

No.

This bastard grasped spells down to a finer domain.

As Eudokia spoke, his hands moved. For the first time, both his hands busily formed seals. With those hand movements, a long line appeared behind his back, then split wide open with a rip.

”Devour!”

Every living thing was someone’s prey.

This was one of his own Word-Command spells, a mix of Hungry Stomach, the Death Warrior, and a golem-creation spell.

An arm with only three fingers, black and packed with barbs, shot straight out and aimed at Enkrid.

It was a heavy thrust, like using a great wall-breaker as a spear.

Enkrid thought of it as siege weaponry and received it that way. He raised his sword over his head, then brought it down in a vertical cut.

Craaang!

The forearm Eudokia had summoned was harder than steel, but today Enkrid’s sword was one that cut steel without concern.

That forearm split lengthwise. From the split cross-section, chunks of flesh wriggled out and tried to reattach themselves.

Enkrid stepped on the arm he had just cut as a foothold, leaped up, and ran.

Toward the mage.

Every one of those movements went beyond mere swiftness and left afterimages. Eudokia, too, responded without pause.

”Agrava’s Embrace!”

It was a spell famous by the nickname Thorn Crown. Intangible pressure and thorns squeezing in from all sides crushed the target to pieces.

Enkrid did not evade.

’Everything through swordsmanship.’

His senses differentiated further. Beyond merely seeing, hearing, and feeling, he identified the core of the spell. Then what was he supposed to do after that?

Cut it, and that was all.

The blade tinged with blue light struck once each to front, back, left, and right, then returned.

It looked as though he had stabbed empty air, but what mattered was that he had severed the texture of the spell. With a sword stroke that was not even particularly fast, another spell collapsed.

Clap!

Instead of evading Enkrid’s approaching strike, Eudokia clapped his hands. Then a pitch-black hole opened in the air ahead of Enkrid’s path, and from inside it sprang a maw packed with sharp teeth, large enough to swallow even a giant whole.

’Everything through swordsmanship.’

At some point, Enkrid forgot reality.

It had not been this severe until just a little earlier, but the way he saw and felt the world, every sense, was gradually becoming simpler.

Before he knew it, there were no people left in the world around Enkrid.

’Everything through swordsmanship.’

Each time he repeated those words, he sank deeper into the mire.

Now the world was made only of countless swords.

Those countless swords came at him one by one. A being left as only a vague outline swung a sword and used a technique. It was Outward Glance.

Outward Glance was a technique where, while blocking the opponent’s sword, you shoved that sword outward from your body and pressed it down, then used the back edge of the blocking blade to cut near the shoulder.

The instant the blade touched his own and they pushed and pulled, Enkrid switched the form of the fight into half-sword fighting.

That broke the technique the opponent had used.

He grabbed the blade with his left hand, shoved it away, then used that force to bring his own cut down as if pressing. The thing holding the sword was a shape made of blurry lines. He cut its neck, and that sword technique ended.

’Next.’

This time, a blade flew in aiming for the instant of stance change, splitting a half-beat and then splitting the rhythm again.

It was a technique that stole timing by slyly adjusting speed.

It was exactly the kind of technique that would get you counterattacked if you used it on someone with great insight.

So Enkrid did exactly that. Instead of pretending to read it in advance and pull away, he raised the tempo first and struck.

Tung!

The blade cut through another swordsman made of lines.

’Next.’

This opponent waited for his sword.

When Enkrid brought his blade down toward the waiting opponent, the other thrust straight forward. Two blades advanced stubbornly toward their targets through empty air, met, and brushed past each other. The blades stuck together with a snap and ground against one another. There were no sparks and no sound of metal scraping, but the two blades crossed while touching.

It was a technique of blocking and thrusting at the same time.

A derivative of the technique called Parry and Redirect.

’A deepening of the basics.’

If he stayed as he was, he would offer his neck, shoulder, or chest to the blade. Enkrid twisted his body and moved forward. At the same time, he seized the opponent’s sword hand.

That stopped the thrust, and he drove his forehead forward in a headbutt.

While the hit drained the strength from the bastard’s body, Enkrid set the sword in his right hand against him and drew it. His sharp engraved weapon cut straight through the swordsman made of lines.

Swordsmanship was not only about cutting with a sword.

’Use everything.’

Use it straight and true.

Swing it heavy and fierce.

Deception was also a kind of technique.

There was nothing as efficient as fast, nimble thrusts and cuts.

Receiving a sword softly was a way of using the opponent’s force.

And added to that, fists, feet, steps—everything became part of swordsmanship.

This time the opponent tried a downward strike first.

From a low stance, Enkrid swung upward, and before the line-made bastard’s descending sword could land, Enkrid cut through the forearm. While the one whose arm had been severed fell back, Enkrid closed the distance and cut the neck.

The upward cut had been with both hands. When he closed in, he held the sword with only his left hand and used a horizontal slash. The flow never broke. It was like a sequence of movements that had been promised in advance.

When things happened just as he thought they would—

how could this not be joyful?

Because he liked it, he had wanted to be good at it. Because he had worked to become good at it, he could enjoy it even more now.

’Don’t let this end.’

Lost in the moment, he swung his sword. The enjoyment crossed some line and soaked through his brain.

’Don’t let this end.’

That desperate wish rose up, and his Will responded to it.

Enkrid sank into the now, into the moment, into the time spent handling the sword.

It was so fun that something as trivial as breathing did not matter.

Maybe because he had been hit several times, several swords gathered together. Then they became a mass with the strength to press down even a giant with a single finger.

Just like that, the bastard swung his greatsword.

Enkrid raised his sword above his head until it was parallel with the ground and received the giant’s greatsword.

Thump.

He heard a sound like that, though not truly with his ears. It was an inner sound.

There was no sound here.

’Heavy.’

Perfectly, deliciously heavy.

Enkrid adjusted the strength in his wrist and altered the angle of the blade. The greatsword that had been blocked slid off to the side. The bastard caught it with force and tried a horizontal cut.

Enkrid naturally raised his falling sword until it stood vertical to the ground, received the incoming greatsword, and lifted his feet.

The heart of a soft sword was proper control of force. Enkrid’s body was pushed three steps sideways.

The greatsword merely shoved empty air.

Through that brief gap, the sword Enkrid held became a point. He planted his left foot and thrust out the sword in his right hand.

After guiding it away softly, he thrust as fast as a ray of light.

Every movement flowed as naturally as water.

And so he pierced the neck of the bastard made of lines.

’This is fun too.’

Could he just live here forever?

That would be fine too.

This was a space full of joy and full of fun.

Was there any reason to reject it?

—You said you only wished for peace.

Then, from between his thoughts, a voice reached him and shook Enkrid’s heart.