The demon called the Pure White Destroyer, one of the lords of the Demon lands, felt the death of its servant.
'This bastard.'
What it had been planning to offer was help in fighting the group called the Empire.
It had even pinpointed exactly what the bastard wanted most right now.
'And he won't even listen?'
Stillness formed in its heart that had lain sunken and undisturbed. Like a small stone dropped into a lake, it sent ripples spreading.
'How long has it been?'
Along with a strange sense of welcome, irritation came rushing in. It had spent a long time in discipline, restraining desire and emotion, and now cracks had formed in that composure.
If the reason for its irritation was this clear, then the reason it felt pleased was clear too.
'Then I'll become someone who won't be shaken even by this.'
Once this was over, that would happen.
If killing the other party settled its mind, then it only needed to do that. If what it needed was to watch and discipline its heart, then it only had to keep watching.
Among those called the lords of the Demon lands, there was not one that held no interest in Enkrid.
The Burning Crow had also seen the servant it sent after the Pure White Destroyer's subordinate perished before it could even speak.
'If I strike him, it'll probably cost me strength.'
But leaving him alone was irritating. In that case, the best answer was to bring him over to its side.
But he would not even listen.
'What a troublesome bastard.'
The Promiser of Plenty and the Lonely One of Distrust looked at him in much the same way.
Only the Father of the Dead was a little calmer.
'If I leave him be.'
It believed that, in patience alone, it surpassed all the others put together.
If one of the others finally made a move, then it only needed to strike from behind at that moment.
Had it not already subtly planted feelings of goodwill in that one who rampaged under the nickname Demon lands Destroyer for exactly that reason?
The light tone, the joking plea to please leave it alone already, the mock shivering—those had all been for the same reason.
As long as it looked like the least bad of the five lords, that was enough.
And then it waited. Waited, and waited again. Then the chance would come.
The five lords of the Demon lands would never gather in one place, but even without gathering, they could read one another's intentions.
They were all that devious, and their thoughts were all that similar. In the end, they merely split into those trying to offer the other party what he wanted, and those who chose to watch.
So if one were to ask how Enkrid was doing—
"You need training too."
"...This isn't because I beat you at cards, is it?"
He was carrying on with everyday life as if nothing were wrong.
***
The road stretched endlessly ahead along the Safe Road.
Esther rode in the carriage for a while, then mounted her black horse again, and Kraiss, who had shown anxiety before, found his hands restless after several days passed in total calm.
"How about a few rounds of cards?"
Travel was usually dull and wearisome. You had to keep moving day after day while staring at the same scenery.
All the more so when it was not a forced march, sacrificing your bottom and lower back while galloping on horseback, but a steady trip instead.
That was one reason merchant caravans heading out on a run were always so happy to meet a wandering troupe.
A wandering troupe naturally came with a wandering bard, so there were stories to hear and music to listen to.
A bard traveling alone was hard as hell to find, so of course bards usually traveled as part of a troupe.
Even without a wandering troupe, people who spent long stretches of time on the road knew well enough how to kill time.
One way was cards or dice, wagering a few small coins for fun.
Even if Kraiss's anxiety had surged, he had not lost himself.
'If it all goes to hell, it goes to hell.'
Right now, you lived in the present. That was life. It was a truth he had only recently come to understand. So enjoying the moment mattered too.
"Fine."
Esther responded first. Being a witch did not make boredom unknown to her.
They had brought the carriage to cut down on the work of setting up camp separately. In other words, they did not have to spend much time building a campsite.
Besides, Rem, Enkrid, Kraiss, and Esther were all people with more than enough experience living on the move.
Rem was used to sleeping outdoors as a hunter, and for Enkrid too, sleeping outside had been routine in his days as a guide and mercenary.
Esther had been a witch who lived with nature as her companion to begin with, not someone tied to a house.
And was Kraiss any different? He had seen battlefields, joined caravans, and lived while fighting bandit groups.
"Then."
There were four experienced hands. The campsite went up in no time, and a thick cloth was spread in front of it. Cards were dealt across the top.
Kraiss handled the deck with practiced ease. It was a familiar game to Enkrid too, one he had played back in his mercenary days.
It was a card game called King and Demon. The rules were simple. The King card beat every card. A King and Knight combination simply beat a lone King. It was one of the strongest combinations around, enough to beat almost any hand.
Then there was the Assassin card, which killed a King standing alone.
The Spy card blackened a Knight if the Knight stood alone, turning the card over to the Assassin's side, and if Assassin, Spy, and Strategist were joined together, that became the Demon card. It was the only hand that could kill a King protected by a Knight.
But once used, that hand could never be used again. Until the entire deck ran out, it would not appear a second time.
'The only way to beat the Demon...'
Was for the King, the Knight, and the Strategist to stand together.
If those three became one side, the Knight and the Strategist died, but the King survived.
A game made by a few idle peddlers had spread all over the continent, and now there was no one who did not know it.
It looked complicated, but it was simple.
If the King came out, you usually won.
After a few rounds, it did not take long for a sizable pile of krona to end up on the line.
"You're all gamblers. At this rate, my pockets are going to get cleaned out."
Kraiss complained.
"Isn't this all luck from the start? Anyone who works sorcery avoids bad luck and good luck alike, kid."
Rem snickered as he answered. They said there was no concept of gambling in the West.
Part of that was probably because life there was too busy and brutal to leave room for it, but people who talked about sorcery believed that bad luck came as much as good luck, and good luck came as much as bad.
It was the same as saying everything existed under the law of equivalent exchange, though from a sorcerous point of view it was apparently a bit more complicated than that.
From that angle, the pile of krona in front of Rem, who had honed sorcery, neither shrank much nor grew much.
After a few more hands, Enkrid had stacked a fair amount of gold in front of himself.
"I've always felt like the Goddess of Fortune and the Goddess of Destiny were watching over me."
Enkrid muttered. Whether demons courted him or not, he would do what he had to do. Rest as much as he trained, and pass the time with people through useless talk and games like this. It was after several more rounds.
"I'll wager a magic stone."
Esther set down a stone infused with her own magic. Its shape resembled a leopard's claw.
It was an object she had made from time to time by turning into a leopard and gathering magic in her claws.
There was no easy way to judge how many gold coins something like that would cost. Kraiss quietly bowed his head.
A sigh came out of him. Another garbage hand this time?
Without much thought, Enkrid sized up the cards in his hand.
'King and Knight.'
Won.
Apparently the Goddess of Fortune and the Goddess of Destiny desired krona.
Enkrid laid five cards face-down on the ground, including the King and Knight cards.
"Let's call it there and get some sleep. Looks like I'm the one losing tonight."
Kraiss spoke as he laid his cards down. The stakes were high in this round. He genuinely looked like he had given up. Even to a knight's eyes, that was how it looked.
Movement, posture, inhalation and exhalation, the wavering of the pupils, even the heartbeat if you listened closely—Enkrid had checked it all.
A knight playing a card game. The whole thing had been wrong from the start.
Rem honestly thought it was unfair, but he did not interfere.
It was only a light game, wasn't it?
All he could see was that the lunatic who served as his captain hated losing like hell.
Esther looked much the same.
Rem stayed a spectator and kept watching. He had dropped out of the cards early on. His pile of krona looked about the same now as it had at the start. It had not changed.
Then, after the cards were turned over, Enkrid's fingertips trembled slightly in a way that did not suit him.
A man who grinned while facing a demon's servant or Balrog, reacting like this over something like cards?
Of course, it was such a tiny, microscopic tremor that no one but someone with Rem's eye for things would have noticed.
"Were you the demon?"
Enkrid said.
"Ah, well, somehow that's how it turned out. Hm. So I guess I'm lucky."
Kraiss said it with a bright smile.
Enkrid realized his mistake. In other words, he had forgotten for a moment. This big-eyed, cocky bastard was a crazy son of a bitch who could control even his own heartbeat for the sake of krona.
The next evening, Enkrid checked Kraiss's ability.
"You're a member of the order too."
"No, this is just you messing with me, isn't it? Esther, right?"
Esther's gaze was icy. In the end, she looked at the insolent human who had won her claw.
"You had your eye on my claw."
"How long ago was that?"
"I should've dealt with you back then."
Esther turned her face away from Kraiss. After that came light conditioning, followed by time spent checking swordsmanship. Enkrid worked through the fundamentals, correcting Kraiss's stance and blade work.
"When you parry a diagonal cut, if it feels soft, drive your sword in. If it feels strong, pull your sword back as if releasing a bind."
Then he stepped his left foot diagonally forward and struck down at the head.
It was the most basic of the basic parries against a diagonal slash. In a standard swordsmanship manual, it would be around the third lesson.
Drenched in sweat, Kraiss sprawled out on the ground.
A soft breeze blew by and cooled the sweat on him. Even his underwear was soaked, but they had made camp with a stream just ahead, so washing up was no problem.
It was a good thing he was not usually lazy about conditioning.
This insane Border Guard army would stare at you with ringed eyes if the person above them—whether administrator or strategist—could not outrun them.
Thanks to that, even Abnaier had joined training with him, and Edin Molsen, for all that he was an administrator, had run well too.
'At this rate, even a ten-year-old in Border Guard must be good with a sword.'
Now and then, it really did stand out—if not ten-year-olds, then twelve- or thirteen-year-olds with talent.
'The kids we brought in this time too.'
After the slums were wiped out and public order restored, a lot of households had room to breathe. Children learned many things, and since it was a city steeped in a martial spirit, many of them had taken up the sword.
A few faces came to mind.
"Before I turn twenty, I'm going to become a squire of the Mad Order of Knights."
Was the kid thirteen? Fourteen? Somewhere around there. The kid had said it with shining eyes.
A war orphan, sleeping and eating in the temple at the heart of the city. What had the name been again?
Personally, Enkrid had liked the kid's sprit and the way the kid acted, so he had been giving support.
"Feels like there's going to be a lot to do once we get to Naurillia, right?"
Lying back on a patch of suitably grown grass, Kraiss asked.
"Probably."
Enkrid answered while standing with his unsheathed sword planted against the ground like a cane.
Hearing the answer, Kraiss thought,
'If I do well, that little brat will probably get the chance to become a squire too.'
He had shaken off yesterday's anxiety and gotten past the demons' courtship, and now he was getting through ordinary daily life.
There was a lot to think about, but in the middle of it all, he had measured everything he needed to measure.
The sunset wrapped around him. The sunlight faded, covering half of Enkrid's face and casting orange across it. Watching that, Kraiss continued thinking.
'If I do well.'
No, I have to do well too.
It was not just that little brat. There was more than one child he was sponsoring. He wanted to protect them. Everyone standing behind him.
He did not want to see any one of them die. That feeling was absolute. His whole body trembled.
When he held cards, he could control even the finest body hair perfectly, but now his body would not obey him.
It trembled.
Out of fear? Because foreboding had swallowed his whole body?
Not this time.
It was only because he was supporting the will that said he absolutely would do it, and so his body trembled on its own.
Starting the next day, the easygoing carriage picked up speed. Once Esther recited a few spells, the horses ran astonishingly well.
They had always run well, but now they ran like some legendary breed out of a tale.
Still slower than Odd-Eye, though.
That one was not like a legendary horse. It was an actual mythical horse with wings. And now it was one of Enkrid's friends, and one of the order's members too.
"Welcome back."
Enkrid looked at the familiar face waiting for him in front of the castle gate.
Just as before, a duke of the kingdom should not have been this idle, yet somehow the man always seemed to come in person.
"Duke Marcus."
"Yeah, that's me. Welcome back."
Several escorts stood behind Marcus.
Enkrid had no real sense for his own position, but now that he was the captain of the Mad Order of Knights, there was no one who could treat him carelessly anymore, never mind that he was the king's close friend.
There was no grand welcoming ceremony, but every single gate guard looking at him had eyes full of respect.
Even the looks turned toward Rem held goodwill before fear.
And then there were a few who saw Esther and completely lost their minds.
"Those eyes, I ought to—"
Before Esther could finish, Kraiss stepped in.
"Thank you for the welcome, Your Grace. This isn't the best place to talk. We'd be even more grateful if you'd spare us a few cups of that tea you're always bragging about."
He said it loud enough for everyone to hear. Meaning this was an official visit.
Then they took the direct outer road and entered a reception room inside the castle, where Crang, flipping through several sheets of paperwork, greeted him.
"Oh, you're here?"
It was a casual tone that, before anything else, proved where he had come from, and it was full of the ease and affection he showed a close friend.
"Yeah."
Enkrid answered just as casually and sat in a chair without even changing out of his dust-covered clothes.
"A demon's servant hid inside the kingdom."
Crang said while still flipping through the paperwork. He had gone straight to the point. Imperial envoy or no Imperial envoy, this came first.
The moment he heard that, Kraiss realized everything—from the letter sent this time to the timing of when Enkrid had been called—had been a trap Crang had laid.
'This king too.'
A man with a brilliant head. Since he had become someone responsible for an entire kingdom, of course he had to know how to lay a vicious little scheme like this too.