It was the same day, yet a little different.
A day when Enkrid realized that the technique learned with the right foot was applied differently with the left, and then another day of repetition.
Sometimes, the ferryman would show up, and Enkrid would still respect his opinion and remain silent.
The ferryman no longer got angry over such things.
He had accepted that Enkrid was just this way.
The ferryman would only speak his mind.
"It's already over."
He spoke as a bard singing of despair, a farmer planting the seed of defeat.
Enkrid naturally ignored the boatman's words, focusing solely on recalling how to gather Will in his left foot, just like with his right.
He did it the same way despite what was said in front of him.
When gathering it in the right foot, it felt like striking the sword straight down, so he tried the same with the left, but it didn't work.
Why?
In the end, it was a matter of control.
Moving his hands and feet should be enough, but
though it came from his own body, it didn't move as he wished.
All he could do was repeat it over and over.
The expression on the ferryman's face subtly shifted as he thought, his eyes widening slightly and his chin lifting.
That alone made him look different.
With this changed expression, the ferryman spoke in a tone and content different from before.
"Shorten it."
It was a vague statement.
Enkrid blinked, wondering what the boatman meant.
Although he sometimes felt the boatman's personality was not singular, this was the first time he saw him change so dramatically before his eyes.
The ferryman quickly returned to his usual self, and today's boatman seemed to enjoy speaking nonsense.
"Go. Go and enjoy today, full of nothing but suffering, with no fun."
It was only after repeating today over fifty times that Enkrid finally mastered the technique for gathering Will in his left foot.
It felt like learning how to move each finger from the beginning.
He could feel it, he knew it was on his body, but he had to focus on each movement, then forget about it to make it natural.
To grip the sword at his waist, how should he move his fingers?
How to apply force to the third, fourth, and fifth fingers, and hold the grip with his thumb and index finger.
It was all about learning from scratch, or rather, learning how to breathe again.
What was once unconscious had to be repeated consciously, and then placed back into the realm of the unconscious.
It was a completely unfamiliar process, but if it was something he could repeat, it should be easy.
Could he throw a boulder like a pebble?
That would be easy.
He thought about that.
While repeating today, Enkrid saw many things.
Was it the light emitted by Audin that marked the beginning?
"Take it."
He had misfired the Will and was gasping for breath when Jaxen offered a strange pill.
He didn't know what it was, but it seemed like a very rare medicine.
The pill was about twice the size of a thumbnail, round, pink, and seemed firm on the outside.
The scent of the pill was unlike anything he had ever encountered.
The moment he inhaled, his head cleared, and everything became sharp in front of him.
It didn't seem like it would kill him, his instincts told him that much.
"It's a medicine that can bring the dead back to life. Forget about the Will."
Jaxen said that if he took it, he would become a criple, but at least he could survive.
There was a kind of fervor in Jaxen's eyes, one that hadn't been there before.
He was clearly determined to force the pill into Enkrid's mouth if he refused.
This was Jaxen's final resort, unable to watch Enkrid die.
Enkrid rejected it.
He kept his mouth shut and endured.
As Enkrid was dying, he saw Jaxen's face contort.
It was a twisted expression, one he never expected to see from Jaxen.
That was one of those days.
And there were other such days.
When Enkrid was moving toward death again, having gained only a brief respite from the pain, it happened.
"Come out!"
Rem took a rough approach. With Will burning through his intestines, he was close to his final breath.
In front of him, Rem's hair began to flutter.
Enkrid couldn't tell exactly what Rem was doing, but he could feel it instinctively.
Rem was doing something similar to what Audin's light and Jaxen's medicine had done.
He was right.
It was a resurrection spell.
It was a technique that consumed one's lifespan, similar to the teleportation magic Enkrid had experienced.
In what way?
It required luck.
Rem failed.
Even with his exceptional talent and lifespan, he couldn't capture the soul of a dying person.
Enkrid's body stiffened again.
"Tch!"
Enkrid heard Rem's irritated voice.
The wrinkles on Rem's face appeared in an instant.
The three of them weren't done yet.
While Enkrid learned how to send Will to different parts of his body, he died countless times.
If there was even a single breath left, they all made similar attempts.
"Take it. Stay with me. You can live."
Shinar tried to give Enkrid her life force.
It was a green, fist-sized light that touched Enkrid's back but was useless.
"Cough."
As the fairy's life force scattered meaninglessly, part of Shinar's body also disintegrated like dust.
Her arm vanished in the process.
Still, her expression remained calm.
No, she even showed a faint smile.
"Go ahead."
Today, Shinar showed a sorrowful smile, something that was unlike her usual demeanor.
"Father, Lord—!"
Teresa sang a chant loudly.
"I will carry you within my world."
Esther said, her eyes filled with twinkling stars.
The stars shone and attempted to carry Enkrid's barely breathing body somewhere.
Esther intended to trap him in her spell world, avoiding the eyes of the grim reaper.
It was a trick using a curse, but of course, it didn't work.
"Where do you think you're going?"
The curses were the ferryman's domain after all.
Moreover, Esther wasn't prepared to cast the spell properly.
The spell failed, magic backlash occurred, and as a result of forcing the world into existence, Esther's two eyes suddenly burst.
It looked as though Esther was crying blood today too.
For some reason, Fel stabbed his own stomach with the idol killer.
It was pointless.
Fel only coughed up blood.
These days, those days passed before Enkrid's eyes.
They flowed like pieces of cloth dropped into the river, soaked and submerged, disappearing from sight.
The days sank, flowed, and vanished.
In the vanished days, everyone did something.
Enkrid died watching them.
Died and died again.
"Did you enjoy watching?"
The ferryman asked.
Enkrid didn't answer.
"Give up. Move on. I've prepared a wall for you to climb over one by one. Is this not the path you desire?"
The boatman spoke.
How many days had passed?
He hadn't counted.
It didn't matter.
This day could be escaped from at any time, should Enkrid wish to.
But was he still being stubborn?
The boatman insisted that the path was wrong, that Enkrid was clinging to a futile pride, unsure of whether it was the right way, asking why he kept going.
The boatman was probably right.
Maybe his choices were wrong.
So what?
If he had to go to find out, then he would go.
Enkrid did just that.
"Do you resent the heavens?"
The boatman asked.
"Don't you hate the world?"
The boatman asked again.
"A god who made you be born into such a world, with such talent? Don't you hate them?"
It's easy to find something to resent.
The boatman constantly encouraged him.
Then, in the middle of it all, as before, another personality suddenly emerged, and this was what it said:
"Shorten it."
What was supposed to be shortened?
The brief emergence of this personality disappeared quickly.
At some point, the boatman stopped speaking with words.
He dug into Enkrid's memories.
The ones he failed to protect appeared in his dreams.
A nightmare began.
Darkness approached.
"You'll struggle alone in a land where the sun never rises."
The boatman said, but it was already a road Enkrid had walked before.
It was something he had experienced in the desert.
What the boatman wanted to take away were people, values, and meaning, and what Enkrid lost was only comfort.
Just because something couldn't be seen didn't mean it disappeared—values, people, meaning didn't vanish.
"Better to hope for death."
He dreamed of an arrow flying and piercing his heart.
"Face the darkness within you."
Even if one becomes a knight, what can a swordsman change?
Can one cross the desert?
What's so great about protecting a few people with a sword?
The boatman kept muttering.
He constantly shook Enkrid's resolve.
Even if there were no illusions, wasn't there still a little scorch?
Yes, there were scars, wounds, and suffering.
But still, Enkrid knew how to move forward.
So, he moved on.
Enkrid took another step, toward the sun, toward his dream.
To gamble your life on something uncertain? For what?
Enkrid had seen something in the nightmares, in the repeating today, in the past where he failed to protect someone, and in the boy dreaming of the herb gatherer he once protected.
He saw something that could be called light, or flower, or star, or dream—whatever it was, it became whatever you called it.
Repeating the words "light," "star," and "dream," he muttered, and in that moment, his vision widened and he could see himself objectively.
It was as though he had caught some flow of energy. It was a sensation, difficult to express in words.
"Wrong."
Will wasn't something to be forced.
No, it would be more accurate to say that having cleared the way, he now knew which direction to take.
The fragments of realization he had gained while crossing the desert connected with past revelations.
From the first stabbing learned in his initial today to what was gained in escaping the desert, complexity and simplicity, discarding and mixing.
Enkrid couldn't discard anything he had learned, studied, or awoken to.
Though Oara had told him to discard, instead, he mixed it all together.
"Shrink it."
The ferryman spoke.
Shrink what?
It didn't matter.
Whether it was will, dream, goal, ambition, or greed, the ferryman was telling him to discard it.
But Enkrid had no intention of doing so.
He would not reduce or discard anything.
What he had dreamed of as a knight, what he had sworn to protect, was everything behind him.
He would not let go of a single one of those things.
He had sworn to keep that vow, looking up at the stars, the sky, the sun, and the two moons in his childhood.
The song of the bard had given a dream to a boy.
A single line of the song pierced his heart like a shooting star, leaving a mark.
Enkrid had repeatedly told himself that a dreamer deserved to make that dream come true.
He believed it.
Even if it was blind faith, he would not break his will.
He would no longer stand idly by while a child died behind him.
"No."
Enkrid replied.
He would not shorten it; it was a declaration of his will.
At that moment, a storm raged within him.
It wasn't forced movement; he had to let it go.
What was needed was to hold onto it.
Enkrid felt the wind.
The wind that passed through his body.
He felt the sunlight, the warmth it gave him as it entered his body.
The wind and sunlight mixed, painting everything before him in orange light.
The today that Enkrid had repeated over five hundred times, though blind and trapped in a maze, he had finally escaped by feeling his way through.
"Quite mad."
The ferryman's exclamation faded, and his presence disappeared.
When Enkrid blinked, it was his favorite time of the day—the time when the sunset bathed the sky in its warm glow.
The orange hue that filled his sight was the sunset.
If he reached out, he could grab a cloud, and with a sword, he could strike anyone down.
His whole body was filled with energy.
The sensation of omnipotence filled him.
Every gaze upon him became crystal clear.
Amidst the sensation that he could do anything, Enkrid distinctly and precisely knew what he should do and what he shouldn't.
He also understood how to maintain the will within him, the source of his omnipotence.
"I should sleep."
Enkrid spoke and closed his eyes.
Those who were watching him had no smiles on their faces.
One of them came and gently supported his back.
"Did he do it?"
Supporting Enkrid's back was Ropord, who had happened to be nearby.
The others did not move.
It didn't matter.
No one would be injured even if they fell backward.
More importantly, they were all too surprised to say anything.
During this time, Shinar's voice rang out.
"Did he do it?" she asked.
More precisely, she threw the question into the air, toward everyone.
"I think so," Rem answered.
"Yes," Jaxen confirmed.
"Did you help him, father?" Audin asked in surprise.
Ragna repeatedly gripped and released his sword hilt.
Luagarne puffed her cheeks but remained silent, too shocked to speak.
There were two people who didn't understand what had happened. Ropord and Fel.
"What's going on?" Ropord had no idea, he had simply reacted to the words "just sleep" and moved accordingly.
Fel, still gripping the idol-slayer sword out of habit, tilted his head in confusion.
Clearly, something had changed, something had happened, but what it was, he didn't know.
Still, the sudden surge of motivation was undeniable.
After eating, sleeping, and resting, he had stared at the sunset and then slowly blinked before collapsing.
As he looked at the fallen Enkrid, he felt a shiver down his spine.
He felt the overwhelming urge to stand and swing his sword.
He had to do something.
Fel got up and left for the training grounds.
He could no longer suppress the feeling of exhilaration.
Ropord was in a similar state.
He, too, had felt some kind of shiver and had gained something of a realization.
Both of them had naturally been influenced by the will that Enkrid had released.
Esther, sitting quietly, opened only one eye.
She saw a large star in the vision she conjured from the world of spells.
'What did he do?'
She didn't know.
But one thing was clear
That man had achieved the dream he always spoke of.
"Seeing everything," Rem said.
Everyone felt the same way.
Jaxen, Audin, Ragna, and Luagarne.
The frog, who possessed the talent to discern, felt as though she had just had a dream.
It was that absurd.
Something impossible had happened.
Enkrid had lost consciousness and didn't wake up until a week later.
Several things had happened during that time, but they were not as important as what Enkrid had experienced.
When Enkrid awoke, he thought to himself, "Nothing has changed."
He had simply taken one proper, significant step forward.
The will that naturally remained within him made him think this.

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