"I'll see you when you're looking for a corner to run to, brat."
The ferryman ultimately failed to calm himself.
It truly seemed as if a devil had possessed that accursed mouth.
"Get lost."
The ferryman repeated, his voice sharper this time. Enkrid opened his mouth, likely about to spout something equally maddening.
And so, the madman Enkrid was thrown out.
Left sitting on the boat's edge, the ferryman stared into the lamp's light and contemplated the day ahead.
"Let's see how you move forward this time."
The words left the ferryman's lips, surprising even himself.
It wasn't like him to speak of the unclear future, especially when the painful clarity of today loomed so heavily.
"Am I hoping for something?"
Was it because of what Enkrid had shown thus far? Perhaps.
Yet, the ferryman still doubted that the outcome would be good.
Why wouldn't he?
He'd seen countless heroes and great figures over the years, some achieving far more than Enkrid had.
And yet, how did it end for them?
He sought counsel within himself, conversing with the many voices that resided there.
Most had similar responses:
"Everything will mix into the same end."
"Hope? What foolishness."
"Still clinging on?"
"Persuade him it's immortality, not this endless repetition."
A rare few offered different thoughts:
"Wouldn't it be amusing to see him tremble in agony?"
"Do you think he'll endure this time?"
Hope, if it could be called that.
Instead of despair or resignation, there was this lukewarm reaction.
The ferryman wasn't a singular being.
He was many.
That Enkrid often remarked on how the ferryman seemed different each day was no coincidence.
The ferryman was many, yet also one.
At his core, the ferryman desired a new companion.
Yet, the unity that once defined him now showed cracks.
A testament to the relentless obsession and madness of one human being.
"What are you trying to do? What are you hoping for?"
One of the voices asked.
Instead of answering, the ferryman—the one in control for now—smiled.
A sinister curve formed on his dull gray face, creating a grotesque expression.
If Enkrid had seen it, he would've called it the most ominous smile of all.
Enkrid's work was far from over.
In a single day, he dismantled three crime guilds, killed an evil eye—one of the cult's experimental monsters manipulating the city from the shadows—and slaughtered a vampire and three werewolves who had ruled the city while indulging in debauchery. Yet, the city still bore scars of corruption.
"Die!"
An assassin group lunged at him.
Moving as one, the three were clumsy.
Their ability to conceal their presence was amateurish, and shouting a battle cry while attempting an assassination revealed their poor training.
Their lack of discipline was apparent.
The reason?
The evil eye that had controlled the city turned it into a playground for its twisted whims.
Crime guilds and would-be assassins had survived not because they were skilled but because the evil eye found amusement in their antics.
Watching the would-be assassins charge, Enkrid shook his head.
"Jaxen would sigh at this."
He unsheathed his sword.
With a swift sound, the blade caught the sunlight, and in the same motion, split the three assassins.
Similar encounters followed.
"O Demon Lord!"
At a gathering of cultists, he found them plunging daggers into their hearts in a desperate bid to summon a demon.
Unsurprisingly, no demon appeared.
Such beings from the Demon Realm weren't so easily called.
Instead, the sacrifices birthed a wraith—an amorphous monster that could become a greater threat to common folk than the evil eye.
Luagarne puffed her cheeks as she observed.
"Idiots."
She muttered, lashing her whip and erasing the wraith in a single strike.
Shreeek!
Kyaaah!
The wraith let out a distorted cry as it tore apart. Its final moments carried a curse, but it was ineffective.
Enkrid noticed faint blue marks left where Luagarne's whip struck.
"A magic weapon?"
He asked. Luagarne nodded.
"Jealous?"
"Not in the slightest."
Enkrid's reply was immediate.
Normally, he might covet a weapon like hers, but not this time.
He didn't need to.
In another cult gathering, he dispatched another group and demonstrated that his own weapon, a long sword infused with Esther's magic, was also a magic weapon.
The sword, tempered with dark-gold alloys, shone with the enchantments Esther had personally imbued.
"Arghhh!"
The vengeful spirit let out a blood-curdling scream before dissipating into smoke.
"Not envious at all," Enkrid muttered.
The scene brought back memories of the first time he encountered the Whistle Daggers.
Back then, he'd felt a strange, almost obsessive desire to possess them all.
As he roamed the city, searching every corner, he encountered a name that sparked familiarity, even in the slums.
"Beelrog, the God of Battle, dwell within me!"
A deranged cultist screamed, brandishing a rusted sword.
The man chanted a spell invoking Beelrog's name, causing his eyes to glow.
One of his arms ignited in flames, morphing into an elongated whip.
Beelrog sometimes performed partial possessions through human vessels, lending them fragments of his strength.
This wasn't full possession—just a small, trivial display of borrowed power.
Yet, watching this farcical imitation made Enkrid's blood boil.
"I wish you could hear me. Tell him I'll come for him soon."
Enkrid's voice carried a hint of his true intent.
If he knew where Beelrog was, he'd already be on his way.
The cultist, now overtaken by the borrowed power, tilted his head as flames spilled from every orifice on his face—eyes, nose, and mouth. It wasn't even a genuine fragment of Beelrog, just traces of his power.
Such an opponent only needed one clean strike.
With a single step, Enkrid advanced, drawing his sword.
The blade flashed, carving through the cultist like lightning.
Flick. Thud.
The man's head flew cleanly from his body, and the faint trace of Beelrog's power dissipated along with his existence.
Enkrid moved on, cleansing the city of filth over the next two days, leaving no stone unturned.
The city lord followed him closely, gaining newfound respect for Enkrid with every action.
'He's on another level,' the lord thought.
It wasn't the swordsman's technique, reflexes, or physical strength that amazed him—those were beyond comprehension from the start.
What truly stood out was Enkrid's judgment and decisiveness.
What might take someone else days of deliberation, Enkrid resolved in an instant.
Was it because of the vastness of his capacity?
Or simply the extraordinary nature of his abilities?
The city lord believed it was the former. Enkrid's composure was unparalleled.
Between decision and execution, there was no hesitation—no second-guessing. It was a quality that bordered on awe-inspiring.
What puzzled the city lord even more was that Enkrid never once asked about the city's future. Did he lack ambition?
Surely, anyone else in his position could demand loyalty, even force others to kneel in submission.
et Enkrid didn't.
He cut through the city's problems and nothing more.
It wasn't greed that drove him—it was something else entirely.
Unable to contain his gratitude any longer, the lord finally spoke.
"My name is Louis. I know this sounds shameless, but thank you."
"It was nothing," Enkrid replied sincerely.
And he meant it.
To him, this had all been little more than an evening's exercise.
But to others, especially to Louis, it meant the world.
Now restored to his rightful position of authority, the former lord abandoned his opportunistic demeanor.
Instead, he treated Enkrid with deep reverence—a sentiment that wasn't unpleasant.
Enkrid didn't mind.
On the contrary, he found Louis' earnestness and actions agreeable, even admirable.
Over the next few days, Enkrid expanded the scope of his mission.
Clearing out cultists wasn't enough; he resolved to uproot every trace of their corruption.
Deeply embedded as they were, the cultists didn't stand a chance against the knight who wielded relentless strength and the unyielding
Will
By the fourth day in Cross Guard, the city's atmosphere had undergone a complete transformation.
It was almost magical how drastically things had improved.
"What's your name?" Enkrid asked a young boy who lingered near him at the inn.
"Delma," the boy replied.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I'm going to take over my uncle's inn," Delma said earnestly.
It wasn't greed that drove him but a sense of duty to the establishment.
His uncle nodded in agreement, bowing slightly.
"I never thought I'd see this day."
In a lawless city, where survival was a daily struggle, an adult protecting a child seemed like a miracle.
The innkeeper had once turned a blind eye to crimes, hoping only to save the boy and their livelihood.
Yet even in those dark times, he had risked his life by signaling to Enkrid that the food served was poisoned.
Enkrid didn't hold it against him.
'Should I blame him for what he couldn't control?'
He didn't think so.
While not everyone could live righteously, those who struggled to protect something dear deserved leniency.
"You don't have to do bad things anymore!"
A loud, cheerful voice declared this, a simpleton's cry of hope.
Those with the potential for redemption were taken by the lord to be trained as soldiers.
Others, like the loud simpleton, left, disinterested in fighting.
"There's an opportunity to open trade routes with Border Guard," one man said. "I'm planning to build ferries to cross the Pen-Hanil River."
Enkrid listened silently, unsure why the man felt the need to share this.
"Thanks for everything," the simpleton added.
Enkrid nodded, as unbothered as ever.
Later, I heard that despite being members of the criminal guild, they secretly protected the townspeople, sometimes turning a blind eye to certain things.
But when their fingers were cut off, it was hard to say they were entirely bad.
A few of them were like that.
"Eat this."
After several days of cleaning up around the city, a familiar face tossed a withered apple at me.
Taking a bite, a bitter taste mixed with sweetness, rough on my mouth.
It was the kind of flavor you couldn't even say was good, even in casual conversation.
"That's the last apple."
The fruit vendor, missing a front tooth, smiled, and that smile somehow replaced the taste.
I knew this city wouldn't change overnight.
The lord would have to struggle to make it livable, and there were still bad people in the city.
No matter how much Enkrid was trying, he couldn't just kill every bad person.
Sorting them out was a task in itself.
It wasn't something you could handle purely by intuition.
So, he decided to leave it.
It was now up to those who remained to take responsibility.
They would kill and be killed, cry, get angry, and be happy.
That was life.
It was the responsibility of those who wanted to protect the place they lived in.
"Shall we go tomorrow?"
After roaming the city all day, Enkrid spoke while looking at Lua.
"Sure."
Enkrid replied, and the day passed.
The uneasy, ambiguous gaze that had lingered for a while disappeared. It seemed like that Evil Eye had used some kind of spell to peek at me.
The next morning, after a good night's sleep, Enkrid patted Delma's head, trained as usual, and then leaned against a tree by the inn, gazing up at the sky.
A cool, early winter breeze blew and cooled his sweat.
Looking up, he saw the clear blue sky without a cloud in sight.
Ha ha ha!
The sound of children laughing as they played came from a distance.
Would it be a little cold if I slept like this?
It probably would, but feeling this moment,
I closed my eyes.
Sleepiness washed over me.
It wasn't a bad feeling.
The sound of children laughing, the clear blue sky, the cool breeze—everything came together in a calm serenity.
Perhaps this was why we wield swords, for moments like this.
It was still early, not even noon yet, but the people were already busy.
The bustle, even, sounded like a lullaby.
That was because the wind of hope was blowing through the city.
And beyond that peaceful breeze, a fire that would burn everything walked toward the city.

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