Chapter Text
The blade cut through the air.
For an instant, barely a second, the world was nothing but a song, a vibration of death, a surge of violence concentrated on a target so precise that…
Enkrid's sword was blocked by an axe. The impact traveled up his arm with such violence that he felt his entire body shudder. A cut on his bicep, deep enough to have been stitched, began to radiate with pain.
Rem yawned. The sound did far more damage to the corporal than the still-fresh wounds from his last battle.
He couldn't help but glance to the side, even though he knew he'd regret it. The rest of his platoon was there, as they were for most of his training sessions. But they all wore the same expression as Rem, worse than hatred or contempt: boredom.
The corporal raised his sword again, forcing his bruised muscles to obey him. He had to try again. He had to do better!
"Again!"
But instead of returning to his fighting stance, Rem rested the handle of his axe across his shoulder.
"I'm hungry. We're done here."
"Again", Enkrid insisted.
His hands tightened around the grip of his two swords, keeping his arms from trembling with fatigue. He had deliberately downplayed his injuries in front of his comrades so that no one would stop him from training. He would pay the price for that — there was always a price to pay — but that wasn't the sort of thing that frightened him.
Rem glanced at him sidelong, careful not to get caught by the blazing blue of his eyes. He was always struck by Enkrid's determination, drawn to his fervor like a moth to a flame. He knew that if he let himself truly look at him, even for a moment, he would give in to that burning "again". Except it was plain that his corporal was injured and exhausted, not to mention that night had fallen while they had been training since dawn, that he was hungry, and that they would get nothing more out of the day.
"Nah", he refused, with a nonchalant air.
He spun his axe around his wrist and rejoined his comrades, who were already discussing the dinner to come. Kreise had heard that hunters had brought several boars to the 443rd platoon that afternoon, as thanks for a mission completed. Sachsen already had a plan to steal one. Or rather, to "relieve them of this inconvenient burden," as Audin would put it — he never admitted out loud the true nature of their crimes.
They began to walk away. Enkrid watched them go, jaw clenched. Orders burned on his tongue. He wanted to force them to come back and fight him…
But he swallowed his words. The harmony within his team rested on a delicate balance, a mutual respect for the roles they granted one another. The training his men offered him was exactly that: an offer. A gift, not a duty. They had every right to refuse him their expertise.
Or, as in this case, to grow weary of his incompetence.
His team disappeared around the bend of a tent. He was alone now, at the edge of the forest, where he had been training since dawn. Realizing that the others would not return, he finally allowed himself to loosen his grip on his swords and slid them into their sheaths. His arms were trembling. His wounds ached. But the pain was nothing, only a reminder of how he had made a fool of himself in the last battle, which had barely even been a skirmish. And since he hadn't died from it, he hadn't been able to start over. Everyone had seen him lose like that, like the weakest and most inexperienced soldier in the ranks.
He ran a hand through his hair, trying in vain to push back his dark thoughts.
It had been more than a month since he had stopped improving. Whatever he did, however hard he trained, he was completely stagnant. Impossible to refine even the least of his techniques.
He wasn't the only one to have noticed, of course. It had been days, perhaps weeks, since any member of his platoon had argued over the chance to spar with him, or spontaneously offered to train. They looked more bored with each passing day, and less and less invested in his nonexistent progress. Their looks of resigned disappointment were like brands seared into his skin — though, having actually tested that particular sensation, he found he still preferred the white-hot metal.
His frustration escaped in a snarl of rage, and his fist struck the nearest tree. A gesture he immediately regretted as he felt a stitch pop in his bicep. A warm wetness spread through his sleeve, but he paid it no mind.
It had been two months since he had last died.
Who would have thought that his most insurmountable trial, his highest wall… would be the very absence of a wall? Perhaps that, in the end, was his true curse: to have been granted an extraordinary gift and to be unable to make use of it. To have come to the point of missing death.
But he couldn't let himself go. He had to keep training…
A furious rumble rose from his stomach. How long had it been since he had last eaten? Audin's voice scolded him in his thoughts. "A healthy body makes for a healthy battle, brother corporal."
He had to admit he wouldn't make any further progress by passing out in the undergrowth. And besides, now that he thought about it, this business with the boar was making his mouth water. The idea of sitting with his men by the fire, eating, drinking, and listening to them argue, suddenly seemed so appealing that his body began walking of its own accord in the direction they had taken.
He made his way toward the 443rd platoon's quarters, resolved to help his team in their thieving. He supposed Ragna and Rem would launch into a spectacular argument to create a diversion — their specialty — while Sachsen and Kreise made off with the prize…
As he approached, however, he was surprised to hear no indignant shouting or cursing coming from the 443rd platoon. Surprised… and perhaps a little uneasy. He had learned over time that silence, from his team, was far more ominous than noise.
Slipping from shadow to shadow between the tents, he extended his senses to probe the surroundings…
"How much monsters?!" exclaimed Rem's familiar voice, not far off.
Enkrid smiled imperceptibly as he moved toward it.
"I've never seen anything like it", Sachsen added.
His voice was calm and measured, as always, but Enkrid knew him well enough to detect the spark of excitement smoldering beneath.
"I wouldn't have believed it, if you hadn't brought back the head", Kreise admitted.
"And you say they fight with swords?" Ragna marveled, intrigued enough to shake off his usual lethargy.
Puzzled, Enkrid peered between two tents, and finally caught sight of them.
All five were there, their plan to steal a boar apparently forgotten or postponed. They were talking with a woman in red leather armor, whose bearing radiated a formidable aura. Someone the corporal had never seen before. She wore a hunters' guild emblem on her chest, however, one he had come across in the past.
He couldn't help but widen his eyes when he spotted the black mass looming behind her, so tall it rose above the tents. A heap of green, slack flesh hanging around horns, spikes, and fangs…
The head of a gigantic monster.
Adrenaline surged through Enkrid's veins. What an experience that must be, to fight an enemy like that! What were its weaknesses? Its preferred techniques? Did it truly fight with a sword, as suggested? Would Beast Heart be enough to counter its strength? And above all... where could he find a living specimen to face?!
He knew the men of his team were thinking the same thing. Despite their differences, every member of the 444th platoon was driven by the same battle fever: the fierce hunger for combat, for victory, for surpassing oneself.
"Where do we find one?!" Rem demanded, as if to confirm the thought.
The woman in red let out a laugh.
"Not around here! It was a nightmare hauling that heap of meat all the way back, believe me. We had to use stasis artifacts just to stop it from rotting. But then, given the reward…"
"Good money?" Kreise immediately perked up.
"Incredible money!" the warrior exclaimed. "The teeth alone sell for more than diamonds!"
"Perfect!" Kreise cried, clapping his hands together. "Let's go!"
"She hasn't told us where to find these things yet", Ragna reminded him.
"Or what they are", Audin added, looking just as intrigued.
"They're one of the great chimeras of the west", the huntress explained, clearly sharing their taste for bloodshed. "They take many forms, so every battle is unique!"
"The west?!" Rem bristled. "But our damned army is heading south…" He stamped his foot, frustrated. "Fed up with following this regiment's worthless orders! Two months wandering around with nothing to fight!"
"Nothing interesting anymore…" Sachsen sighed.
"What's stopping you from coming with me?" the woman remarked. "Someone will come to collect the head here. I'm heading back west in a few hours. I'm sure you'd be invaluable to me."
Enkrid felt his blood turn to ice in his veins.
He took a step back. Then another. Then a third. Then he slipped away entirely, moving in silence between the tents.
His legs carried him back to the forest, and he pushed on without slowing, disappearing between the trees draped in darkness.
They've had enough of having nothing worth fighting…
Bitterness seeped into him with every step, seeping from his heart like blood from his wounds.
He stopped suddenly, overwhelmed, and drove his fist into a tree. The pain relieved him a little — like an old friend, a familiar blanket smothering his thoughts. But he would have had to flay himself alive to forget the intensity of what haunted him.
His men were going to leave.
Of course they were going to leave. The madmen cared nothing for this war or this kingdom. They had joined the army by chance, to fight or to make money, in Kreise's case. Enkrid wasn't sure he understood how he had managed to win them over, but he knew, deep down, that his men were only interested in him for what they could teach him. Because he was a challenge in their eyes, an interesting anomaly… And he wasn't worth it anymore.
He pressed his forehead against the bark of the trunk.
He wasn't the sentimental type. He hadn't cried since childhood. And yet his eyes burned and his throat was tight.
He had let himself believe the illusion of friendship. He had allowed himself to think that he had a place within a group — him, Enkrid, the man without talent, who never quite knew how to conduct himself in society, and whom no one ever truly understood. He had thought… what? That the madmen would stay with him forever, even when he ceased to be interesting to them?
But without the time loops, he would have stayed weak, and Rem, Ragna, Sachsen, Audin, and Kreise would never have given him a second glance. Their entire friendship rested on his curse. On his death.
A strangled laugh escaped him, and he slid down to sit against the trunk. He was terribly tired. His body felt weak, too heavy and too useless.
He had always dreamed of becoming a knight. He was discovering now that he had no desire to become one alone.
He needed to go back to the camp, in case his men decided to leave right away. He owed them a goodbye at least. He should thank them. Try to wrangle a promise from them that they would meet again someday…
But he who had faced overwhelming enemies, who had found himself one against a thousand, who had died hundreds upon hundreds of times, suddenly found no courage left in his heart. He knew all too well the taste of abandonment, of rejection, of silence, of the disappointment in other people's eyes. He could picture it far too clearly: his men drifting away with a careless wave goodbye, as though this departure meant nothing to them.
He closed his eyes. Blood was still flowing from the reopened wound on his arm. He was tired. He was hungry, and cold.
He had forgotten what it felt like to be alone.