Chapter 599 - How Far Will You Protect them?
"If you do something bad, it may feel easier at the moment, but you'll find it hard to sleep at night.
And as that repeats, your heart will never be at ease.
Why bother? It's better not to do it."
This was said by one of the five who guarded the underground.
Though he seemed foolish, his words were wise.
"What if you get used to it, and the discomfort fades away?"
Enkrid responded to the statement.
"I don't want to get used to it."
The friend replied instantly, without a moment's hesitation.
There was no sign of doubt.
"I see."
This exchange happened one morning after a grueling training session left them drenched in sweat.
The friend came simply to say thank you.
That was it.
A few words exchanged here and there led to the conversation.
Soon after, Delma brought water, asking if anything was uncomfortable.
Despite the tension in the air, her uncle didn't push Enkrid away.
He only observed him with eyes full of respect and reverence, just like Lord Louis.
Many in the city viewed Enkrid in the same way.
But that didn't mean everyone looked upon him with admiration.
"They say if you do something bad, he'll hunt you down and kill you. That rumor's going around.
Some say you should strike before he does."
Delma mentioned this as if sharing gossip.
Those who saw him as a threat murmured amongst themselves. Yet, none dared act on such thoughts.
The lord had mobilized the city's forces, keeping a sharp eye and maintaining order.
Even if that weren't the case, Enkrid knew no harm would come to him.
But, as Delma pointed out, malice and danger still lurked in the city.
"The Demon God will descend and purify everything!"
There were crazed women muttering such things.
Others hid knives in their sleeves, glaring at Enkrid with murderous intent.
Some watched him from the shadows.
There were beggars, drug addicts, and those who observed him out of fear.
"Even after saving them, this is what we get?"
Luagarne muttered, looking at those people.
"Let it go. They're fools."
This was something the fool himself had said earlier.
"I don't really know. I understand things are better now, but it still makes me anxious,"
Delma added, expressing fear of change—a sentiment not uncommon for someone who had never truly felt safe.
Indeed, there would always be people like her and those unlike her.
Enkrid thought of his old swordsmanship instructor.
"I was an executioner," the instructor once said.
"I didn't need to know whether the person before me was guilty, falsely accused, framed, or just a scapegoat. I just had to swing my sword and kill. A helmet with eyeholes was both my armor and my greatest weapon."
At the time, his instructor looked deeply troubled, as if he wished he could rewrite or erase his past.
When asked after a few drinks, the instructor admitted he would if he could, though he knew it was impossible.
Thinking back, Enkrid realized no one could return to a specific moment in the past.
Even repeating today's actions doesn't mean you can change what came before.
"There was even a child among those I killed. Yes, a child. Her mother begged me, asking why her child had to die."
The instructor admitted his past was far from honorable.
"I swung my sword without thinking."
Yet, as time passed, his skill in killing only grew.
Through his work as an executioner, he discovered a certain truth.
It became clear he had a talent for killing.
But one day, the question from the grieving mother altered his life forever.
"I regret it," he confessed.
After that, the instructor never indiscriminately killed again, especially not those who offered no resistance.
He left his post as an executioner, became a mercenary, and eventually reached a remote, independent city at the edge of the continent.
During that time, he focused more on saving lives than taking them.
"Does this mean the people I killed will come back to life? No. But this is how I choose to live."
Did he save more people than he killed?
No one could say.
Enkrid believed it wasn't his place to judge someone's life as good or evil, nor was it his role to forgive or condemn.
What mattered was something else entirely—his guiding principle.
It was the anchor in his life, the moon that led the starlight, the signpost on the path ahead.
"Your goal is to protect those within the bounds you've set for yourself, isn't it? If that's the case, it's simple. Take everyone to the underground shelter. You should have the ability to do that."
The boatman interrupted, speaking as though summarizing the day. Enkrid turned to look at the vague vision of the boatman who had appeared.
At some point, everything had stopped—people, air, wind, and sunlight.
When all movement ceased, the surroundings turned gray.
This was the end of a replayed memory.
The boatman's words rang true.
It was the correct path.
If Enkrid followed them, he could save Delma, the fool and his friends, Delma's uncle, Luagarne, the lord, and a few others.
The walking fire would burn the city, consuming everything in their path.
Once there was nothing left to burn, the fire would extinguish itself.
If Enkrid could protect them until that point, his task would be complete.
There would be no need to risk his life or attempt to scale an unseen wall.
In the gray world, Enkrid gazed quietly at Delma.
"What do you think that child will become?"
He asked the boatman, without shifting his gaze.
The boatman couldn't answer—he was no fortune teller.
Enkrid himself didn't know either.
No one could.
Delma might become an innkeeper.
She might become a hunter.
Or perhaps she would wander the tumultuous continent, harboring great ambitions and founding a kingdom.
Who could say?
"No one knows. Not a single person,"
Enkrid said, continuing.
The boatman, with his gray eyes, silently observed the one cursed to live an eternal life.
Among the grayness, this figure alone retained color.
"Then?"
The ferryman asked, and Enkrid unexpectedly brought up the words that had stirred his heart.
"How much should I protect?"
The ferryman played along.
"Indeed, how much will you protect?"
People, lives, behind his back.
In other words, the lives of those living behind him.
That was what he had decided to protect.
But was it enough to just protect that?
If so, if that was all, there was no reason to live such a tumultuous life.
To rescue the saintess of the Holy Nation?
There was no reason.
To save an unfamiliar child?
That child wasn't standing behind him, so there was no reason to save them.
Enkrid knew he had wavered.
For the first time, the ferryman's words had resonated with him.
To save only those within his reach, only those who mattered to him.
This city?
Only a four-day connection.
It was true.
Unquestionably true.
Slap.
Within the gray world, Enkrid slapped both of his cheeks with his hands.
The blurry world receded, and he returned to the dream's origin—the black river.
On its rippling waters, the ferryman stood with a lamp, looking at him.
Enkrid did not protect a mere three-day bond.
What he protected was something else entirely.
"These people deserve a chance. I will protect that possibility."
Among them, there were those hiding daggers in fear of his sword, assassins, and others intoxicated by heresy.
There were unforgivable evildoers—husbands who beat their wives, mothers who struck their children.
Children who stabbed their parents, thieves living off others' possessions.
But there were also...
A child dreaming of becoming an innkeeper.
An adult who cared for that child, ensuring they wouldn't starve.
Fools who, having joined a thieves' guild, lost fingers protecting the townspeople.
A lord who could have fled but stayed, claiming to love everyone within the castle.
And those who remained by that lord's side, gaining nothing in return.
There were righteous people.
There were flawed people.
And all of them were living this moment, this fleeting present.
Enkrid sought to protect that instant.
The future might change them, but the current blaze—magic forbidden and unleashed to kill him—threatened to erase everyone's tomorrow.
How could he allow that?
He desired the end of war.
Why?
To plant the seeds of tomorrow for all.
He desired the end of war.
Why?
Because even he didn't know how he might change tomorrow.
He could not bear to erase such possibilities.
He wanted the demonic domains gone.
Monsters and beasts always obliterated tomorrows and lives.
The ferryman asked again.
"What will you protect?"
"My tomorrow, and theirs as well."
Standing on the boat atop the black river, Enkrid raised his hand.
Though it held nothing, the ferryman saw a sword.
The formless blade represented his will.
Those words embodied his resolve.
Enkrid had given his answer.
Heh heh heh.
Ha ha ha ha.
Hahaha!
You fool.
An idiot, aren't you?
If that is your resolve, I respect it.
The ferryman did not speak, but the voice was heard.
It came from an innumerable and unfathomable being disguised as the ferryman.
Countless meanings overlapped and entered Enkrid's mind, attempting to corrupt his will, but it was futile.
The Will of Rejection had already deeply taken root within him.
No matter what others said, even if it made him an enemy of all on the continent, he would refuse anything he deemed wrong.
"A madman indeed."
The ferryman, his gray face illuminated by the lamp, spoke.
Enkrid knew the moment had come; everything was pulling away, and he was waking from the dream.
Yet, in that fleeting moment of departure, he thought he saw the ferryman's face smiling.
"Must be my imagination," he thought.
The idea of the ferryman smiling—impossible.
It was nothing like the smiles of Shinar or Esther.
And with that, Enkrid was expelled from the black river.
The ferryman, left behind on the boat, laughed as he pushed Enkrid away.
That laughter was sincere, devoid of falsehood.
I
t had been so long since he had imparted a lesson.
What a joy.
Swordsmanship?
That was not a lesson.
The techniques of the body could be learned on one's own.
But awakening the spirit, igniting the courage that resided deep within the heart—that was true teaching.
If this was not enjoyable, what in the world could be?
Immortality?
In truth, it was a prison of today, a ceaseless scream merging with the self in endless struggle.
The ferryman had come to enjoy witnessing such struggles.
Of course, not all ferrymen shared the same sentiment.
"A practical problem remains, prisoner dreaming of mortality," the ferryman said to the empty air.
Somehow, those words seemed to reach the awakened Enkrid.
"A practical problem remains, prisoner dreaming of mortality."
As soon as he awoke, Enkrid heard those words.
A short phrase, repeated several times—the beginning of today.
His thoughts accelerated, connecting in an unbroken chain.
And with them came his response to the ferryman's statement.
"I know that too."
"Practical issues remain, the Walking Fire."
A spell that had, for over a hundred iterations of this day, left him watching helplessly as people burned to death—sometimes as they burned alive.
Yet strangely, Enkrid felt that some of the suffocating frustration he'd carried up until the previous iteration had lifted.
'It's a matter of the heart.'
Without a chosen path, reaching a destination was naturally impossible.
Now, however, he had chosen a path.
He cleared away the smoldering doubt lingering in his heart, voicing his resolve to make it concrete.
Only one thing remained—to cut down the Walking Flame.
How does one cut down the uncuttable?
If the answer had been obvious, he wouldn't have felt the suffocating weight in the first place.
So, what to do?
"I'm going to die."
The groan escaped Enkrid's lips without thought, a rare occurrence for him.
But it was understandable.
The answer to his dilemma was depressingly singular:
try until it works.
This time, however, he decided to alter his approach.
"Lua, tell me everything you know about the Walking Fire."
There was no time to spare.
With accelerated thoughts, he asked, listened, and then charged.
Swinging his blade, he poured everything into the strike.
His entire will—his full strength, bolstered by a near-divine surge of focus—was unleashed against the Walking Flame.
Fwoosh!
Enkrid threw himself completely into the attack.
Of course, the single swing was all he could manage.
As his body collided with the Walking Flame, its fire engulfed him and set him ablaze.
Bubble, bubble.
The scale armor melted under the searing heat, fusing to his skin.
The pain was excruciating.
His eyes boiled, his vision turned blood-red, and all that remained was the unbearable heat that consumed him.
Enkrid died again.
Only after twenty-five more fiery deaths did he finally reach a realization.
"You can call me a fool."
The words slipped from Enkrid's mouth as soon as he awoke, an uncontainable mutter of exasperation.
"What?"
Lua, with her cheeks puffed out, approached him, rolling her eyes.
What nonsense was this all of a sudden?
"I mean it."
Enkrid repeated himself, pulling out a hidden trump card from his pocket—a mirror.
It was Esther's mirror, the one she'd handed him with the instruction to use it in dire times to reflect on himself.
Who understands magic better than anyone?
A mage—or perhaps a witch.
And among them, there was one whom even Enkrid considered exceptional: the witch Esther.
The raven-haired beauty blinked back at him from the other side of the mirror.
"Do you know about the Walking Fire?"
Enkrid asked.
The raven-haired beauty in the mirror nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
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