1029. Because blocking it won’t make it go back.
Did Primahild, the mocking boatman and knight of the dawn, enjoy jokes from the beginning?
That was not the case. She was a taciturn fighter.
It’s a fight.
In the time she lived, there were more monsters than people. The number of demons was also significantly higher than it is now.
During this period, fighting to survive was the daily routine once one was born. They lived in hiding, chased by monsters and beasts, and killed to secure territory.
“Let’s go!”
Primahild first wielded a sword at the age of seven and went into her first battle at twelve. Leading her in that first battle was a warrior old enough to be her older sister, who had taught her all along. In that first battle together, she was impaled by a scorpion’s tail and died.
“Ugh!”
Primahild shattered the scorpion beast’s shell with a broken blade. She did so without a moment to feel sorrow.
Tears flowed only after the battle was over. Beastman society operates on communal upbringing. Since it was the same back then, the person who died was the one closest to Primahild.
Her reputation grew little by little as she fought her second and third battles afterward.
Strangely enough, Primahild’s skills improved dramatically the moment she turned her gaze, surprising everyone. It was a rate of growth that astonished anyone.
That’s what that older sister gave me. Today’s curse.
It was an elaboration. Encred nodded at the words spoken by the apparition of Primahild. Life went on.
“Prima!”
A man approached and hugged her. He was her first lover, whom she dated when she was fifteen.
She had many lovers. She would meet this man and that at the drop of a hat. Even when she had a boyfriend, she would flirt with other men. There
was a time when she was dating seven people simultaneously, yet none of them expressed any particular dissatisfaction. It was difficult to be picky at this and that during a time when death could have occurred at any moment.
All seven of her lovers died in battle. Around that time, the words coming out of her mouth began to change. She started telling more jokes.
“Hey, if you die in the battle tomorrow, you’ll be dying without even getting a chance to fight, right? Fine, you can come to my barracks tonight.”
He also cracked a mischievous joke like this.
“Let’s just hold out until tomorrow, then we can fight again the day after.”
He also said something unpredictable.
Are you making fun of me?
Above all, it was not something to say in front of a warrior with a severed leg.
“No, don’t you want to fight more? It’s support.”
“I thought it was mockery.”
The times were different. Back then, it was a world where even such words sounded like a joke rather than mockery.
People were dying at the drop of a hat, yet he alone would come back to life even if he died. No matter what you did, you couldn’t save everyone. No matter how many times I repeated today, it was the same. It was the perfect environment to go insane.
Let’s kill just five devils.
She set a goal. She decided on a way to live today without being consumed by madness.
“Do you think that’s grandiose?”
It is a question of welcome once again. I know from looking at the memories. Unlike Zion, her talent was not particularly outstanding.
“That doesn’t mean you should be compared to me. You arrogant mortal.”
Encred inwardly agreed with what Hwan-nyeon was chattering about.
Even though Primahild might not meet the standards of a so-called genius, compared to an ordinary person, her physical talent was certainly outstanding.
“No, my eloquence is the real talent.”
Primahild muttered again. It was nonsense. She walks the line between joke and mockery. She dies and comes back to life to fight again. A new lover dies. She struggles to save today over and over again. She
has saved many. It is just that they die again next time.
Everyone dies. You cannot save everyone. It is something she realizes once again.
Encred peered into Primahild’s heart.
Let’s not live a boring life.
She made a vow. That was the reason she ceaselessly cracked jokes and mocked others. It was the same reason she continued to date and love her boyfriend. She sought fun. No, she had to. Because it was a world where she would have given up on everything long ago if she hadn’t. While
others die once and it’s over, she kept repeating today. That was her way of enduring life. To walk through the dreary darkness without a single light, she spoke jokes.
Let’s not live such a dreary life since we only live once.
The Knight of the Great Transformation bears the title of having split the darkness of the world, but it merely means that he lived through an era that was just as dark.
It is a dark age, an era filled with humans as gloomy as the Age of the Giant. The days are short, and the majority of the world remains engulfed in a demonic realm.
It’s such a depressing world, so I really needed something to laugh about.
The apparition speaks.
In her memory, the dying colleague and lover spoke while held in her arms.
As expected, your smiling face is the prettiest.
Primahild laughed while weeping. Having lived through the darkest times, she longed for light. She wished for the world to shine. She prayed that she herself might become a light for someone. Her
uninhibited jokes were her shield, her sword, and her armor for survival.
You are exactly the fifth one.
She fought steadfastly, resisting the boatmen’s temptations. She charged toward her goal. Some of the boatmen helped her, since she only needed to capture five demons.
She erased a part of the demonic mirror, and only then did she find a peaceful today. Trapped in this day, she became a boatman.
Encred glimpsed her life, and at the same time, saw the process of her awakening and training. Of all the boatmen he had seen so far, she was the most similar to himself.
“I said that was a bit unpleasant. You talentless swordsman.”
The boatman mocked him. Encreed now realized that the boatman’s mockery was a desperate struggle to find even a little laughter and pursue pleasure while living in a dark world.
* * *
“Krimhalt’s first daughter, Primahild. That is me.”
The knight who split the darkness, hence Gaebyeok.
A knight who fought with will rather than talent. That is why he was somewhat similar to Encred. Although there are certainly differences that are unpleasant enough for her.
“Don’t do anything meaningless. Huh? You punk who’s all but alive.”
The mockery continued. Reflecting on what she had learned in her life, Encred faced a new day once again.
Watch closely.
Zion speaks.
Think it over.
Jitte is cheering.
“R-Yeah, good burn to death.”
Primahild is still a mockery.
Just before leaving the mental world, three boatmen saw him off. The ferry looked unusually crowded. Naturally so. It was as if three had gathered in a place where only one boatman was usually present.
Enkrid woke up just like that, climbed the mountain again, and died while dodging a ball of fire after seeing the bird’s feet.
This time, he died after being struck by a rock of fire. Because his blood turned into red steam and filled his vision, all he saw just before dying was a crimson world. To Enkrid’s eyes, the pure white fire wrapped around the phoenix had turned red again.
Then came unspeakable pain. Although death is instantaneous, the pain lingered in his memory and tormented him until he caught his breath time and time again after waking up.
“Look. It hurts like hell, doesn’t it?”
The boatman mocked Suin.
“I’d love to comfort you, even if it’s just with my body, but I can’t do that here. It’s such a shame. Isn’t it? What? You fell for me? Didn’t I tell you it’s not allowed? You’re deaf, you rascal.”
It was somewhere between a joke and mockery. Enkrid exhaled and stood up. He forgot the pain once again. He repeated this day several more times after that.
Was it a pitiful sight?
“Hey, let’s just go back.”
Zion tried to dissuade him. It wasn’t that he was urging him to stay where he was today as before; he was genuinely worried.
At least buy yourself some time to think.
Jitte, the knight who is a Yongin and explorer, also stops.
Stop being stubborn, mortal.
Was this stubbornness?
Since the mocker—no, the optimist Primahild—made his appearance, Encred had died twenty-nine times.
On the twenty-sixth time, luck was on his side, and the blade grazed the instep of the Phoenix, slicing it with a swift cut.
Encred saw that his sword could strike even a being that, merely by existing, rained fire upon its surroundings and burned the earth to make it flow like lava.
Yet, that was not some sign of a meaningful victory. It certainly wasn’t. It was a story that both Encred and the boatman knew.
“Why do you really go that far?”
Primahild asked. Normally, she would have just brushed it off by saying that she was naturally like this, or simply answered briefly with “just because.”
“If I had lived like that—turning around when stopped, resting when it was hard, and giving up when things were difficult—I wouldn’t be who I am today.”
Encred let out his inner thoughts. Had he ever shared his innermost feelings like this before? Probably not.
He had glimpsed the lives of those three boatmen. Before that, he had also seen the life of a spellslayer.
Because they had shared their inner thoughts and lives with one another, his true feelings spilled out without hesitation. Perhaps this was because he had become half-spirited.
“But you know this isn’t right, right?”
Primahild asked again, and Encred answered obediently once more.
“Is it predetermined that it won’t work? Does it really not change? Is it fate? If you have no talent, no luck, and nothing to your name, is it only natural to give up?”
Enkrid took a deep breath and continued speaking. It was the first time he was speaking his true feelings so freely.
“That’s nonsense. It’s because not everyone is born with that. Everyone fights with their own weapon. And this is my weapon: not turning back, not resting, and not giving up.”
One more thing was added here.
“Since it’s a spirit, it doesn’t eat, sleep, or poop, so that’s good.”
Primahild burst into laughter at the truly madman-like ending.
“Look at the way this bastard talks, you’re kind of funny.”
It occurred to me once again that the Knight of the Great Transformation resembled someone Encred knew.
To be precise, he glimpsed the image of the knight, whom he could no longer see now that he was dead, in the boatman. She was
the smiling Oara; a knight who smiled because life was weary, and who never lost her smile because she knew she was dying.
She was the knight who became the name of the city, and even her alias was the smiling Oara. It would likely be a name that would never be forgotten.
Since glimpsing the life of the beastman boatman, her words no longer sounded like mockery. As is naturally the case with people, one’s feelings change as one’s knowledge changes.
“So you’re not going back and just going to keep dying? I mean, you only fight when there’s even a tiny bit of a chance of winning. You’re just a moth flying into a flame right now.”
“Then I just need to increase my chances.”
Unlike when he was spitting out his inner thoughts, Encred changed his tone to a softer one and raised his voice.
“He’s always been this stubborn. Yeah, I know better, but I’m doing this anyway.”
“It can’t be helped. I could see the trajectory of the flames. Watch for them, dodge, and hit me.”
A pessimist interrupted.
You always insist on a head-on battle, so let’s try breaking through from the flank.
This is what the worryer says as well.
Going around requires charting a new path to ascend, but finding a different way requires a new attempt.
The pattern of climbing headfirst has lost its meaning due to the repetition of the past, but if there is no breakthrough, one will find one by any means necessary. The resolve was clear.
Both the pessimist and the worryer overlooked one fact. To be precise, should I say they believed it would work out on its own?
Only the mocker and the optimist knew this precisely.
“Enovatio?”
Encred and Primahild’s eyes met.
“I guess you guys just let it slide because it came naturally to you, but she can’t do that. Can’t you tell?”
If Jitte was a good teacher, then Primahild was a teacher well-suited to Enkrid. When considering the relationship between a master and a student, what constitutes an ideal one?
A scholar who had trained hundreds of students said this.
[The best teacher is the one who suits you best.]
What he said became a maxim of the continent.
“Hey, did you learn your lesson?”
It was a question asked by Primahild again. An answer immediately burst from Encred’s mouth.
I think Uske is state, Indules is change, and Enovatio is foundation.
It was not a polite attitude, but it was the correct answer. Was it because I had vented my true feelings earlier? Or was it the boatman’s whim?
Whatever the case, the mocker’s attitude had changed.
“You’ve established the concept well. But don’t you think your foundation isn’t set yet?”
From the moment he first wielded his sword until the very moment of his death, Shion Bant was never deeply engrossed in the concept of Will. No, he hadn’t even pondered it at all. That is why he had nothing to say.
He was the opposite of the Jitte, whom he called a Worrier.
Jitte Reduin, a Dragonkin, his alias was the Inquiring Knight. He had explored Will. Thus, he helped establish the concept, but mastering and practicing it himself was a different matter.
He was a Dragonkin. From the moment of his birth, his Will had already completed its transformation of purity.
One cannot teach a person without wings how to fly.
Just as everyone knows how to breathe naturally on their own, the very word “transformation of purity” felt awkward to a Jitte.
Why attach the two letters “transformation”? Purity alone would suffice.
Nevertheless, understanding the human plight, he was trying to somehow cram in what he had continuously explored, urging him to achieve this transformation of purity. And for that very reason, he spoke only the established truth.
“You think you won’t go back just because I stop you? Fine. Fine. I’m going to watch you sob your eyes out in pain as you burn to death in the end. I don’t think that would be a bad sight in its own way.”
“Primahild,” Suin said, drawing a staff from her waist. Her weapon was a short, jet-black stick. Although
it looked light on the outside, the stick possessed a weight that instilled a sense of challenge just by lifting it. It was a branch of the World Tree, coated with molten iron dozens of times, and it was her engraved weapon.
Its name was “Discipline.” In this respect, she was quite different from Oara.
Oara laughed sincerely, but Primahild laughed because she had no choice. Perhaps it was because of such differences.
Moreover, it was a name given to her thanks to the countless people she had taught in her time, striving to save even one more life.
Come here.
Exactly.
The blade striking the stick stuck firmly in place. She had endured countless days. She was one of the boatmen who had spent more days than anyone else. With the stick still attached, she pushed Encred away.
“You tried to achieve a change in purity little by little, right? Is that correct?”
A question came in. It was a concept of a new direction and the beginning of another round of contemplation.
