The ground trembled under the wind and red haze.
It was because the opponent moved.
In a world washed in gray, she alone glowed with a rich brown light.
There was a vicious liveliness to her.
Put another way, even the way she drew the axe from her belt had a lightness to it, like a dance.
Then ca the vertical axe strike.
Enkrid’s eyes followed the arc of the blow.
No hesitation.
It wasn’t overflowing with killing intent, but the will to split sothing—anything—was clear.
Like splitting firewood, the axe carved a long, unwavering line.
The axe sliced through the air with one clear purpose: to crack open Rem’s skull.
"Hey, bastard—" The curse left her mouth just as the axe ca down.
There wasn’t even a breath of ti, but naturally, Rem responded.
The axe in his hand t his partner’s in mid-air.
Clang. Krrrk.
Lua Gharne and Dunbakel’s eyes whipped back and forth.
Every ti the blades collided, their expressions changed. Their gazes were drawn to the dance of the two axes.
Enkrid remained calm. He saw everything clearly.
As the axes clashed, they rebounded off each other.
Rem had subtly twisted his wrist to deflect the blow.
"Hmph."
Rem’s wife snorted.
She tugged her rebounding axe back with arm strength.
It seed to be secured by a leather strap coiled around her forearm. Her muscles swelled, and the tendons dug in like cords.
The axe leveled horizontally, aiming for Rem’s jaw.
"Owl."
Rem casually slipped aside and murmured the na.
The woman called Owl pulled her axe back and thrust it forward.
Rem received it as if practicing a drill and shoved back with a smile.
No one had told him.
But that woman instantly recognized it. The technique Rem had just shown was a variation of body-shifting movent.
And he blocked it barehanded.
Enkrid might be able to defeat Rem—but to see sothing like that once and mimic it instantly? That was sothing else.
It was the difference in talent. To grasp the form and have a body that could imdiately replicate it.
Enkrid could stop a blade barehanded now too. But to pull it off so intuitively in the mont? That would be difficult.
It wasn’t sothing Rem calculated—he did it by instinct.
Even so, Enkrid didn’t feel anything particular.
No deep admiration, no grand emotions. Just… the technique caught his eye. It was worth practicing later.
A gesture that was half-strike, half-sweep.
"I chose my partner. I swore on my axe. I haven’t laid roots anywhere else."
Rem said calmly.
As his axe glimred, the woman—Owl—slowly returned hers to her belt.
"Fine. I’ll let it go for now."
"Slly beastkin. And a Frokk. The one I shared a night with is a man."
Rem added.
A response to the unspoken accusation—had he been with another woman?
The context made it clear.
It sounded like a clumsy excuse, but it was the truth.
"If testimony’s needed, I can provide it."
Enkrid interjected.
It was the power of friendship. A single word, born from the bond of fighting side by side through life-or-death.
"I don’t know who you are, but maybe don’t butt in? Unless you want an extra ornant in your skull?"
Enkrid chose to respect her opinion.
Dunbakel was about to say “Now’s not the ti to defend Rem,” but closed her mouth.
The woman in front of them didn’t seem like the type to make empty threats.
Lua Gharne watched with interest.
“So that’s Female Rem.”
That’s how she saw it.
Dunbakel interpreted it the sa.
“Two dumb axes.”
Enkrid, too.
“She’s Female Rem.”
Owl, with her hand on her axe, stared at Rem. Her eyes were thick with quiet killing intent.
"We’ll talk later."
Rem’s expression darkened slightly.
"Yeah."
There were always things in life you couldn’t avoid.
Like a husband who’d left ho—he owed his waiting wife an explanation.
Once Owl’s axe swing, her "symbol of wrath," had ended, a few more people from the West approached.
They didn’t show the slightest sense of danger.
They must’ve known Rem.
One of them, a man with a lotus-like pattern carved on his face, ca forward.
It looked like a sharp thorn or spike design.
“Man… why does this always happen with you.”
He looked truly startled.
That kind of design was called a shadow beast mark—a mythological symbol from Western lore.
Enkrid watched him silently, observing with intent.
“Record everything I see. Understand it.”
It was a habit from his earliest days learning the sword.
His gaze swept the man.
The skin was dark, likely sunburned—but the natural tone underneath leaned red.
You could see patches of that reddish hue at the border between sleeve and hand.
He had high cheekbones, narrow eyes—but didn’t look sinister. If anything, he looked gentle.
Handso, too.
Owl was the sa—clearly a beauty.
Behind him, Lua Gharne let out a puff of air, cheeks bulging.
Frokk liked attractive humans.
That was likely her way of expressing satisfaction.
It must’ve been a cultural trait of this group.
By contrast, Rem had more of a continental appearance.
Why? Because he was born differently.
Just by seeing a few Westerners, Enkrid had pieced together part of Rem’s secret heritage.
It was a guess—but a solid one.
Rem clearly looked different from the rest.
"Yo. Been a while, huh?"
Rem put away his axe and raised a hand.
"Was about to forget how many tis the flood ca."
"Six."
Owl replied flatly from behind. The man nodded.
"Yeah, been a while. What the hell have you been doing?"
"Started with traveling. Then conscripted. Then fighting. Now I’m back to take a break."
So words were hard to understand, but Enkrid grasped the gist.
"What’s he saying?"
Dunbakel tilted her head, confused.
Lua Gharne, who understood the Western dialect, seed to follow it.
"Well, there’s only one thing to say in tis like this. Welco back, Rem."
One of the n said.
"Thought you’d croaked sowhere, but you made it back."
Owl offered her blessing—blunt as ever.
Only then did the stoic man finally look toward Enkrid.
"Are you with Rem?"
He asked, three steps away. A subtle caution flickered in his tone.
"Still deciding whether I should confirm that or explain why we ca instead. Mind if I delay the answer?"
Enkrid replied, and the man laughed.
Seed like it was his kind of joke.
“Interesting guy. I’m Juul.”
“Enkrid. From the Border Guard.”
“Enkrid? Hard to pronounce, and the na’s long.”
Though the Empire had spread its language across the continent, subtle differences in accent were common.
The way this man—Juul—spoke was just like that.
Saying the na was hard to pronounce was part of that, and regional dialects had ford for the sa reason.
“Is that so?”
Enkrid brushed it off without much concern.
Rem cut in, asking,
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
“What about the village we saw outside? It looked like it was attacked. We ran into so giants.”
It wasn’t that he had just rembered it. Their reunion had simply delayed the question.
“That’s a long story. For now, let’s head into Great Wing. Owl?”
Juul looked to her, but Owl just stared silently at Rem. The other Westerners simply looked on blankly.
Enkrid glanced around at them and inferred the hierarchy.
“Female Rem holds the authority. Juul’s probably a squad leader or sothing.”
He was mostly right.
They’d been out herding livestock and scouting the surroundings, and among them, Owl was the most formidable fighter.
“Alright.”
Rem had returned.
Owl felt both happy and angry. Either way, his return at this ti was sothing to welco.
Sothing guided by divine favor, perhaps.
“We’re heading to the Great Wing chieftain.”
Soon, the remaining Westerners whistled and began driving the sheep and cows forward.
They tapped the ground lightly with long staffs, lining up the livestock. Even a seasoned herder from the Wastes could’ve learned a thing or two watching them.
Enkrid made that comnt aloud, and Lua Gharne chuckled softly.
“Kurrk. That’s not how a herder in the Wastes does it. You’ll see later. Ask Pen when we get back.”
“If he’s alive, sure.”
Enkrid nodded.
The phrase “if he’s alive” might’ve sounded jarring in another context, but neither Lua Gharne nor Dunbakel batted an eye.
In fact, a newcor from One-Man tilted his head.
Was this so kind of dry Continental humor? Or perhaps simply a matter-of-fact acceptance of risk?
Both, really.
As they walked, Rem drew closer and whispered just loud enough that Owl wouldn’t hear.
“Yao, I nearly died back there.”
“Would’ve been better to take the hit, maybe?”
Enkrid whispered back.
Sotis it was better to just get hit.
“If it had been a gentle swing, sure.”
Enkrid agreed. That axe had enough force to lop off a forearm.
“Rem? Are you… the Rem? The one who left ho a while back?”
A nearby Westerner, who had been quietly observing, asked.
“Yeah, that’s .”
“Was it the Curse of Bloodfate that made you leave?”
“Who told you that?”
“Owl said it.”
“And you are?”
“I’m Irem.”
His skin was scorched, but his eyes were clear. His body, shaped by controlled als and hard labor, was solid like river-stone.
The way he tapped the ground with his staff as he walked suggested he knew how to fight.
It wasn’t that he lacked fighting spirit—his trained physique was unmistakable.
Enkrid’s eye for skill had grown considerably. Just a glance was enough for him to estimate soone’s level.
That was sothing he was actually better at than Rem or Ragna.
Like the difference between soone who watches thigh movent while hiking up a mountain, and soone who just charges straight up.
Because of that, Enkrid saw Irem’s ability most clearly.
“He’d be considered a top-tier soldier in the Border Guard.”
In an actual fight, who knew how things would go—but at a minimum, he had the fundantals.
He’d held a sword before, and there was no unfamiliar scent about him.
It was the sa kind of feeling you’d get from soone who had nearly beco a Juhi or had been a low-rank soldier once.
Anything could happen in a battle where your life was on the line.
But through that lens, Female Rem’s ability was far beyond his.
At a glance, she was probably sowhere around Skry level.
Rem answered the younger man.
“It wasn’t anything like that.”
Explaining what had happened # Nоvеlight # back then would take too long—and wasn’t sothing to tell soone who knew nothing.
“Hmph.”
Owl snorted from the front.
She probably didn’t hear the whispers, but she definitely caught the rest of that conversation.
Female Rem had sharp ears.
They continued walking past groups of Westerners herding livestock.
The people looked up as the party approached.
It was obvious that outsiders were passing through—there was no blending in.
So of the glances recognized Rem.
As they walked, a smoky, acrid scent wafted over from sowhere. Not a pleasant sll.
Enkrid glanced sideways and saw Dunbakel twitching her nose.
If he had noticed, Dunbakel would’ve picked it up first.
“What do you think that is?”
“Slls like soone’s burning a bunch of plants together.”
Rem seed to notice it too and looked up.
Far ahead, a column of gray smoke was rising.
“So sothing did happen.”
Rem muttered.
“We’ll find out once we’re inside.”
Owl answered tersely. She still sounded mad.
Would that anger ever cool down?
Enkrid wondered as they walked on.
A gently sloped mountain blocked their path.
Once they crossed it, a wide clearing ca into view.
“It’s been a while since we had outsiders. Welco, foreigners who crossed the boundary.”
Juul said.
The clearing was filled with tents—round ones, angular ones, all sorts.
Too many to count.
And with that, a crowd of people.
Easily hundreds. A massive settlent.
In other words—a Western city.
“In Continental terms, you could call it ‘Elder Bear’ or sothing like that. We’re said to be descendants of the goddess who beca a bear.”
Rem had explained before they ca.
There was a myth of a bear-god that slew a serpent bigger than a city.
One about animals gathering in a cave and turning into humans.
And one about a human rged with a bear—the first of the Western people.
Each tribe had their own myth.
Now Enkrid saw it with his own eyes.
The Western city Rem had spoken of.
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