Chapter 625

Chapter 625

“Ah, Crang.”
Enkrid spoke up abruptly as they trekked forward.
“Come again?”
Pell shifted his gaze, appearing confused.
“I departed without giving him a proper send-off.”
“The nature of man is to be forgetful. It’s only natural,” Lua Gharne remarked.
“I suppose,” Enkrid agreed, maintaining his stride.
He hadn’t brought a mount. Although Odd-Eye was capable of navigating the path, their route required traversing both rugged peaks and flowing currents.
That choice alone confirmed he wasn’t sticking to established highways. He had opted for the most direct path instead.
It wasn’t a concern—the trio was more than capable of navigating the wilderness. Furthermore, the local monster population had plummeted recently, making travel significantly more secure. Even if they did encounter a threat, there were very few beasts that could actually pose a challenge to a group of this caliber.
The sky remained cloudless, and the midday sun provided a warmth that felt surprisingly intense for a winter day.
Roughly half a day had passed since their departure from Border Guard.
They had started at the crack of dawn and pushed through the sunrise. Maintaining this velocity, they could easily continue for several more hours before stopping.
Once darkness fell, they would establish a camp as a matter of course.
“If you can’t keep up, don’t expect me to wait,” Lua Gharne teased Pell.
“Do I look like some pampered squire who grew up on castle rations and only moved when told? Shepherds spend more time on their feet than most men spend with a blade.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Having spent his life as a shepherd on the open plains, Pell possessed total confidence in his endurance. He had spent years wandering the wilds, guiding his flocks.
And those weren’t exactly docile, cooperative sheep, either.
Like Pell, Lua Gharne was intimately familiar with long-distance travel on foot.
“True enough,” she replied.
Lua belonged to the Frokk, a people physically engineered for migration.
Their travel supplies consisted largely of dehydrated insects, which took up almost no room, and their biology was hardy enough to dismiss minor wounds.
They did require a steady intake of water—but unless one was venturing into a wasteland, following a river was the standard protocol for any wanderer.
That was the third cardinal rule of traveling the continent.
The first? Never journey alone.
The second? Avoid the untracked wilds.
Enkrid’s party was currently disregarding two of the three. However, they possessed the strength to do so.
Observing the sun as it began its westward descent, Enkrid adjusted their bearing slightly—aiming south-east, away from the fading light.
The path toward the fairy city pulled them away from the Pen-Hanil mountains.
Looking out from Border Guard, that entire territory—including the lands formerly held by Count Molsen and the settlement briefly associated with Enkrid before being named “The Gnoll’s Wail”—was situated to the north.
Pen-Hanil lay in that northern direction as well.
On a map, the mountain range loomed over the land like a massive ceiling. Some academics referred to it as the Roof Spine or the Skybeam Range.
It was commonly believed that the sheer presence of these mountains made the local climate much colder than surrounding areas.
Perhaps it was the way the wind moved? Kraiss likely had a technical explanation for it. Enkrid didn’t find the details important.
If the air was biting, it was biting. If it was mild, it was mild. Most people simply lived according to the weather.
Enkrid was no exception. He was moving in this direction because he had been informed the fairy city lay this way—not because he had pored over charts or developed a theory on its location.
His goal was simply to head south.
The initial day went by without trouble.
During their downtime, Enkrid focused on his drills. Lua and Pell engaged in a practice duel, and Enkrid found himself nodding in quiet appreciation.
“Your skills have sharpened.”
He wasn’t speaking to Pell—he was referring to the growth in Lua.
“I have endured agony intense enough to strip the skin from my bones,” Lua said with a grin.
It showed. During their exchange, Pell had brought his blade down in a heavy vertical chop—a move he had masked by hiding the steel behind his frame until the last second. It was a well-executed maneuver.
Lua had caught the blow with her left arm, slanting her curved blade to intercept the path of the strike.
Naturally, neither was trying to draw blood.
At their level of expertise, sparring was a way to gauge one another. Going full throttle would only lead to unnecessary trauma.
“I perform better when the stakes are real,” Pell grumbled, feeling unsatisfied.
Enkrid gave a small nod. He wasn’t wrong—Pell’s swordsmanship was built for the chaos of the battlefield. It lacked the subtle trickery of dueling.
*Though for someone who claims to dislike feints, he’s remarkably disciplined…*
Even if he didn’t care for mental games, his physical reactions were deeply ingrained. It was likely the byproduct of his constant training sessions with Rophod.
In terms of reading a battlefield, Lua was second only to Rophod. It made sense that Pell would find it difficult to secure a win in a controlled spar.
Enkrid made a mental note of it.
*I should help Pell shore up those weaknesses.*
It was a gesture of camaraderie, regardless of whether Pell recognized it as such.
They had eaten their morning meal at Border Guard, and their midday meal consisted of dried rations consumed while moving.
“You picked up this jerky because of the new spices, didn’t you?” Pell asked, sounding impressed.
“I didn’t choose it. Kraiss was the one who packed the bags.”
“Ah.”
Pell nodded. Kraiss was thorough, always anticipating the needs of a traveler. It made one appreciate his presence more than they might admit.
Both Enkrid and Pell had been so preoccupied with their training that they hadn’t realized the jerky shop that had become a sensation in Border Guard had already branched out into Martai.
They had only caught snippets of the rumors.
Their evening meal was a bit more sophisticated.
They produced a cooking pot, gathered water from a nearby stream, and introduced dehydrated vegetables like carrots and squash. They even added pieces of lucky fish to enhance the savory profile.
Once the liquid began to bubble, Enkrid sliced up some stale bread and dropped the chunks into the pot.
“What exactly are you making?” Pell inquired.
“In my days as a mercenary, when food was scarce, we would boil water and toss in underbaked dough. I’m just trying to make a version of that that actually tastes good.”
His skills as a camp cook weren’t exceptional—but they were far from failure.
“This looks less like bread and more like raw flour paste,” Pell noted.
Then, after taking a spoonful of the hot soup and the softened dough, he went still—before letting out a heavy breath, like a combatant catching his wind after a hard hit.
“K-kheugh.”
“I’ll improve the recipe tomorrow. I’ll add some beef.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t cook?”
It was a compliment wrapped in a question.
“I said I only know a few specific dishes.”
Enkrid replied with a shrug.
“Is it better than eating insects?” Lua interjected.
“Is that a serious question?” Pell looked at her as if she were mad.
“Would you like a handful anyway?” she asked, offering him a pouch of dried grubs.
Pell waved her off with a polite gesture.
“I’ll pass. I know they’re vital when the larder is empty, but we haven’t reached that point yet.”
He then enthusiastically returned to his soup, enjoying the softened dough that had transformed into something resembling dumplings.
“It really fills the stomach,” Pell said, offering a thumbs up. He even whispered something about Enkrid having a secret talent.
“Right.”
They settled in for the night after eating. They didn’t bother searching for caves—a thick cloak spread beneath a sturdy tree was sufficient.
The routine for the second day followed a similar pattern.
Morning and midday: preserved supplies.
The flavored jerky was tasty, but after about three days, they would inevitably grow tired of it and transition to salted meat.
Even that, while simpler, had been expertly cured by a city merchant. It was perfectly acceptable.
No one in the group voiced any complaints.
On the second day, they navigated near the location where the harpy ambush had occurred.
The site, which had once been drenched in blood and the smell of death, felt entirely different now.
“Greetings.”
They hadn’t encountered any sentries on the first day due to their shortcut. Now, however, a permanent outpost stood there.
A guardsman clad in a heavy gambeson identified Enkrid and snapped a salute.
Recalling the layout, Enkrid imagined three such stations forming a defensive circle. The heart of the operation was likely just over the next rise.
It wasn’t a perfect spot for a full city—the water source was insufficient—but it worked well as a temporary hub for commerce.
Lately, overland trade routes were being established alongside the traditional river paths.
Setting up a small marketplace here was a logical step.
In the past, such an idea would have been insane.
One would have to be suicidal to set up a market without massive stone walls—it would be nothing more than a dinner bell for monsters.
Simple tents and wooden palisades wouldn’t have deterred anything.
But the world had shifted.
The standing forces of Border Guard had effectively purged nearly every monster in the surrounding territory.
Guard posts had been erected. Routine patrols were established.
Even the sight of a monster was a rarity now. As for bandits? They were virtually non-existent.
There was no reason to risk a life of crime in Border Guard when one could earn a steady wage hauling stone to a building site.
Of course, there might still be some outliers forming small gangs or “clans,” but none of them dared to operate in the light of day.
Still, there was no such thing as a winter that was entirely devoid of monsters.
Occasionally, Snow Devils appeared during the heavy whiteouts.
Sometimes, a Yeti might wander down from the heights of Pen-Hanil.
But for the moment—yes, for the moment—there was serenity.
It was a fragile peace, carved out by blades, raw power, governance, and coin.
Was it a forced peace? Perhaps. But it wasn’t entirely artificial.
Behind the sentry, a group of four traveling traders walked in a cluster.
Despite seeing a Frokk and three heavily armed warriors, they didn’t flinch.
In years past, any merchant spotting armed strangers on the road would have fled in the opposite direction.
Or they wouldn’t have had the courage to travel in such a small group at all.
They were engaged in constant chatter. From what Enkrid overheard, they were telling tall tales of narrow escapes and heroic deeds.
“Would you care to stay the night at the station, sir?” the guard asked.
Enkrid gave a small shake of his head.
“We are on a tight schedule. Has it been quiet?”
“No trouble on my watch, sir. Although… there have been some strange reports of a giant recently.”
“A giant?”
“A few traders claim they spotted one sleeping under a tree. Another mentioned the creature looked right at him and said, ‘The color of your eyes is peculiar.’”
This guard hadn’t been promoted to a post commander for no reason—his reporting was precise and detailed.
“I’ll stay alert for it.”
Enkrid gave the man a friendly pat on the shoulder.
“Much appreciated, sir!”
To the men of Border Guard, Enkrid wasn’t merely an officer. He was a legend.
He was the man who had ascended from obscurity to the rank of knight.
It would have been easy for men to grow jealous of his meteoric rise and the way the entire region spoke his name.
But that moment had passed.
Whether it was his fearsome reputation or his genuine nature, the majority of the soldiers held him in high regard.
Both the grizzled veterans and the green recruits shared that sentiment.
“Let’s move on.”
“May your path be safe, sir!”
Inadvertently, this journey had turned into an impromptu review of the southern defenses.
Enkrid didn’t mind the diversion.
He was witnessing the peace that his own sword had helped create.
“Shepherds are taught to stand their ground and fight. But… this kind of stability isn’t a bad thing either,” Pell remarked as they hiked through barren fields and over twin hills.
He looked thoughtful—clearly processing everything he had seen.
“Agreed. Let’s have a match.”
Enkrid spoke without a second thought.
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
The sun was dipping lower. Since it was winter, the evening came quickly. Pell gave a nod, slowly drawing his weapon with focus.
Enkrid was currently focused on polishing his combat style. From his diverse repertoire, he selected a specific approach.
The Iron Wall was designed for defense.
His full-power strike was intended to finish an encounter instantly.
He decided to integrate a move from the Valen-style mercenary techniques.
Valen Style Mercenary Blade:
“Intimidation Without a Sword.”