"By the way, where is Sir Enkrid, the King's close friend, the demon slayer, the hero of the nation, the guardian of the Border Guard, the demonic knight, the heartbreaker, and the commander of the Madmen Knight Order?" the messenger asked.

Krais looked at the messenger, who was catching his breath after spewing out the words from across the table, and thought, 'Isn't he out of breath?

There are a few nicknames mixed in there that the commander wouldn't like.

And 'Beelrog Slayer' is missing.'

Was it not yet time to reveal that?

It might be.

If they were to fight the south, it wouldn't be advantageous to reveal all of their own forces.

Originally, a war begins even before the clash of steel on the battlefield.

'Hide myself.'

And grasp the enemy.

The south was a volcano that could erupt at any moment.

Their king constantly picked fights, and the demon realm was also entangled between Naurillia and Lihin-Stetten.

'So, is this fight inevitable?'

Or is it someone's intention?

From a political perspective, it would be right to say it was incomprehensible like Krang did, but Krais was not a statesman.

To be precise, he had never thought of himself as such.

Therefore, he imagined the man who was the king of the south.

What did he want?

'Does he wish for the unification of the continent? There's no way to know.'

It was pointless to imagine a person he did not know.

He could only guess at the other's wishes.

Some people bet everything for their dreams.

Krais had seen such a person right beside him.

'If his purpose is different from the commander's.'

Whether that dream is right or wrong, even if people die in the process and it becomes an era where those who live on the continent live with suffering…

'If they want it, they move forward. That's what people are.'

That's how Krais saw it.

This was a war that was heavily influenced by the intentions of the southern king.

That's what he surmised.

"When you meet him, please just call him Sir Enkrid. I've never seen him look happy hearing the nickname 'heartbreaker.'"

"Is that so?"

"The commander is currently on inspection."

He said, taking a sip of tea.

An air of leisure was in Krais's gesture.

The Salamander had rampaged, and a magician's union called Astrail had targeted the city.

Few people were unaware of these facts.

Many had seen the fight with their own eyes.

Were they so moved as to write songs?

It was Krais himself who had hired several bards.

'They must be anxious.'

It was natural.

No matter how reassured they were, there were people who had watched the fight with their children, their wives, their parents behind them.

Krais judged that a soothing touch was needed.

The best of which was to send Enkrid out into the city.

There is no method more effective than showing the people of the city who it is that protects them.

If he went around the city and stopped here and there, many would be relieved just by that.

That sense of relief would spread quickly, and it would give the entire city a sense of stability.

That was Krais's calculation.

And his calculations were rarely wrong.

"There are things to be done for various reasons," Krais said, omitting the detailed explanation.

The messenger probably hadn't requested him to move immediately.

The reason he had remained was simply to deliver Krang's message in person.

"I see," the messenger nodded.

Krais turned his gaze out the window.

The reclaimed land, and the people living there.

Beyond the window was the house, the land, the city where such people lived.

'War.'

The continent is always at war.

Recently, they had fought fiercely with Aspen just beyond the border.

Local skirmishes with the south also occurred constantly.

'Is a fight really necessary?'

Could the winner not be decided in a different way?

'For example, what if they competed to see who dances best at a salon?'

If that's too unfair, couldn't they decide on several events?

It was a futile thought.

You can't fight for the hegemony of a nation with such things.

'But.'

What about people dying in a war?

Resources are limited, and if someone is full, someone else starves.

He knew.

It was a principle Krais had learned as a child.

'So is war the only answer?'

He didn't want to nod his head.

Though it was a fact he had known for a long time.

'It seems I've also put one foot in the commander's dream.'

There is a knight who dreams of an end to war and an end to the demon realm.

There is one who wishes to live like the protagonist of that song.

Krais knows such a person.

That is why, even if anxiety arises from the prospect of 'war,' he would not be swept away and shaken by it.

'No, even if I'm shaken a little, as long as I don't collapse, it's fine, isn't it?'

It was in the midst of his thoughts.

"I will wait," the messenger's words broke him from his short reverie.

Turning his gaze from the window to the front, Krais replied, "Please do. He will be here within the day."

His face still held an air of leisure.

The messenger looked at Krais and was inwardly impressed.

He didn't even bat an eye at the word 'war,' or the movement of the south.

Of course, the reality was a little different.

Krais was just barely suppressing the surge of anxiety within him.

'It seems it would be fine to collapse once, as long as I get back up.'

He thought, continuing his stray thoughts.

Nurat, noticing her lover's anxiety, watched him intently from the door.

When the messenger left, he would probably throw another joke about running away.

Her lover was a pillar that endured by speaking that way.

Nurat knew that.

That is why, to her, it was natural for the messenger to show an expression of admiration.

If someone looked at Enkrid and felt relieved, calling him a hero, Nurat called her lover a hero and respected him.

***

"Hey, you bas—no, you're the knight commander now, guess I can't keep talking like that to you."

The city of Martai was once a neighboring city of the Border Guard and a symbol of the power struggle with Aspen.

Now, it had been completely subjugated by Naurillia and had become one of the fortress cities of the Border Guard.

The lord of the city was Torres, a man who had once been a member of the proud Border Guard.

A combatant who had skillfully used the technique of hiding a dagger in his sleeve, called the Hide-Knife.

But now, anyone would agree that it was appropriate to call him a lord.

He had gained some weight, and he had a wife and a child.

"Talk with me comfortably," Enkrid said.

"Is that alright?"

"I remember Torres the Slaughterer of the Frontier, not Torres of the potbelly."

At the casually thrown joke, Torres smirked.

This bastard's tongue hasn't changed.

"So, what brings you here?"

"A picnic."

"It could have been a date if it were just the two of us," the elf said from right behind him.

Torres's gaze turned to her.

He wondered if she was the same elf company commander from before.

'She seems to have softened a bit.'

She had told many jokes back then too, but now it seemed to have gotten even more excessive.

Well, something must have happened while he hadn't seen her.

Torres was an adult.

He knew that people have their own circumstances.

"Would you like a drink?"

An old comrade-in-arms.

They had once stood on the same battlefield.

That is why Enkrid was also comfortable with this man.

"I'd like that."

He didn't usually enjoy alcohol, but he knew how to raise a glass for a comrade.

It was not a strong drink.

His wife personally brought a bottle of wine and poured it.

He heard that his wife was the daughter of a master brewer.

The taste of the wine was excellent.

It was moderately astringent and sour, and a fruity aroma wafted between the sweetness.

Torres was a man who faithfully carried out his role as a lord.

He knew why Enkrid had suddenly visited.

He had walked into the city, brazenly showing his face from the start.

Those who saw him would be chattering about how the commander of the Madmen Knight Order had come to Martai.

Compared to the deeds he had accomplished and what he possessed, Enkrid did not go out often.

'He's probably just training all day.'

That was the correct answer.

Enkrid spends most of his time gripping his sword, swinging it, and training his body.

"The name of the Frontier Slaughterers is a thing of the past. It's gone now. Still, for a unit like that, this is the best retirement possible."

Torres, after wetting his lips with three glasses of wine, said, chewing on thinly sliced, fried potatoes.

Units that represented their region, like the Frontier Slaughterers or the Grey Hounds, had always existed.

They were units that were quickly remade even after disappearing.

"You know what it means to go on the most dangerous missions on the battlefield, don't you?" Torres asked.

Naturally, Enkrid also knew.

A dangerous place has a high risk of death.

So…

"The end of such a combat unit is to disappear after most of its members are dead. Then, after some time passes, a new unit is formed."

Nothing in the world is eternal.

Especially the lifespan of a military unit that existed as a pawn for war is even shorter.

"Thanks to you," Torres says.

If he had lived as he had, he would have eventually laid his body down in a war.

Torres had mastered the technique of hiding a dagger in his sleeve.

Why?

To survive.

And everyone in the Border Guard, who had struggled to survive, felt the same.

That thanks to this man, they had been given a new life.

"For someone who says that, the unit looks pretty sharp."

Enkrid had seen the soldiers who filled the training ground on his way in.

"...Are those words that should come from your mouth?"

Torres had seen the Border Guard's standing army.

In the past, the Frontier Slaughterers had gathered only those who were high-ranking or above by the Naurillian soldier ranking system.

But what about the standing army now?

A skilled individual who could spread his name in a city, even if not at the so-called continental level, stood as just one of the standing army soldiers as if it were nothing.

There were also a few squire-level soldiers scattered about.

'What in the world are you making?'

It was enough to make one say such a thing.

***

Enkrid left his old comrade behind and departed from Martai.

"For the great knight."

Torres raises his glass towards the departing man.

Behind him, the Martai security forces, former members of the Frontier Slaughterers, gave a military salute.

They press their left hand to their waist and bow their heads.

These were men whose lives had been changed by the existence of that man.

***

It was a day with a high sky.

A day with few clouds and a cool breeze.

The air was full of a refreshing clarity.

"It's a good day," Shinar said.

The Dragonkin just observed all of this without a word. Luagarne said, puffing her cheeks continuously, "I am happy for you."

Was Enkrid's heart any different?

It was the same.

He was happy.

He had just seen the lives of those who stood behind him flow like a proud river.

The inspection was to give everyone a sense of relief, but it was Enkrid's own heart that had swelled up like the Frog's cheeks.

"Yes, it's not a bad day."

Just as they left the city, a wild horse came running from the side of the safe passage.

Heeeeeigh.

It was a horse with different colored eyes.

He had given it the name Indomitable, but his friends called it Weird Eyes.

"I didn't forget. I didn't," Enkrid said, stroking the horse's mane.

Weird Eyes tried to bite his hand a few times.

The sound of its teeth snapping was quite menacing.

"Peculiar, very peculiar."

The Dragonkin's interest extended to the horse as well.

To him, this man and everything around him was a stimulation in itself.

If a scholar who studied Dragonkin from the Empire or a kingdom had seen this, they would have been so surprised their mouths would have hung open.

A Dragonkin is originally a spectator who observes the world impassively and stoically.

That is the nickname attached to them, another name for them.

And that Dragonkin…

"Do people normally get bitten by horses?"

…was even showing an interest in a horse.

A beast that had overcome the blood of a monster.

The purity of its will was extraordinarily high.

"No, they don't. It's a sign of affection. Hmm."

As Enkrid spoke, he was bitten on the back of his hand.

The teeth marks were clear.

"It bites," the Dragonkin said and read the horse's mind.

If it was a being with a clear will, there was no reason he couldn't read its mind, even if it was an animal.

'Frustration.'

Suffocation.

Such things were glimpsed.

If such an emotion was a small dot, the joy of seeing him was like a large sun that covered all the dots.

"Why does your back look more painful?"

Enkrid said, seeing a blue bruise on Weird Eyes' back.

The swelling was also worse.

Heeeeeigh.

Weird Eyes just shook its body as if it were nothing.

"Let's go together."

Enkrid took Weird Eyes as a companion and headed for the city of Rockfreed.

There, he met the merchant lord and city lord, Leona.

"What brings you to such a humble place?"

Just by her sarcastic skills, Leona was a woman of great talent.

"Yes. It's good to see you too."

At Enkrid's response, Leona smirked.

This bastard was always so willful.

Well, that was quite charming.

If this man weren't the commander of the Madmen Knight Order, but just an ordinary soldier…

'I would have tried to seduce him in earnest.'

The Dragonkin reads her inner thoughts.

"She holds ulterior motives. That woman is after you."

At those words, Leona's cheeks briefly flushed, and Shinar's eyebrow twitched.

It was not a common occurrence for an elf's eyebrow to twitch.

"Where do you think you're looking? His fiancée, the Golden Flower is here."

The elf did not feel ashamed to call herself that.

Leona shook her head.

"It's not like that."

The elven city was one of the merchant guild's key clients.

The various items they made were popular throughout the continent.

The relationship between the two had been smoothly maintained in places others could not see.

It was a relationship where she could hear the words Shinar had just spat out as a joke and let it pass.

"His demonic charm is the problem," Shinar clicked her tongue.

It was not an easy sight to see an elf click her tongue.

After that, it was just pointless conversation.

The key members of the city of Rockfreed had also faced the previous threat, but now they saw Enkrid and their lord walking the streets affectionately.

"Coming here was Krais's idea, right? His head really works well."

After a short conversation with Leona, Enkrid moved on to Cross Guard.

Since he was already on the move.

And in the city he arrived at, he met an unexpected person.