Chapter 716 - Where Are You Wandering Around?
Ragna thought that Enkrid would tell him where he was supposed to be.
It was a kind of trust — yet Enkrid said nothing to him.
'Why?'
Broadly speaking, if one divided the battlefield, his father, mother, and Rhinox were holding the front line, while Ragna was slightly pulled back to the rear.
So although he had cut down a few monsters, he had never really stepped into the front lines.
Should he go to his father's side?
Looking ahead, he could see threatening enemies approaching.
In front of his mother, a death knight was lifting its head from the ground, crawling upward.
Where was he supposed to be?
Why wouldn't the captain tell him?
As he stood there, occupying a somewhat ambiguous position and observing the battlefield, he started to vaguely understand.
Why the captain hadn't said anything.
'Is this battle the captain's fight?'
No.
He was only a supporter.
'The reason I'm angry is because this is my home.'
He had already decided he would live as part of the Madmen Unit at Border Guard.
That resolve hadn't changed.
But Yohan — it was the place where he was born and raised.
'What I leave behind.'
Now he understood.
He would leave behind Anne.
He would leave behind Enkrid.
Broadly speaking, it meant he would leave behind people.
And he hoped that his father and mother would also be among those left behind.
Ragna moved his feet.
He now knew where he had to go.
The object of his fury was beyond the battlefield.
The crisis facing his father and mother — they would overcome it themselves.
The howling rainstorm threw off his sense of direction.
Saaaahhh.
The wailing of the Scalers dulled his senses.
The ritual serpents floating overhead pressed down on his body, twisting his five senses.
And far off in the distance, because of the Medusa — a monster worthy of being called a lord of the Demonic Realm — he couldn't even open his eyes properly to look straight ahead.
In the midst of all this, Ragna felt the shining talent within himself.
'I can see the path.'
No matter how his senses were twisted, no confusion could block the path guided by his innate talent.
Ragna started walking.
This was beyond even Enkrid's expectations.
To be honest, Enkrid had hoped that Ragna would stay in the rear and only jump in when necessary.
But things don't always go as planned.
That's war — and life.
That very uncertainty was what sometimes made people happy and sometimes made them sad.
This time, thankfully, it was a moment to smile.
"Where are you wandering around like that?"
After walking for quite a while, using the monsters as landmarks, someone spoke to Ragna.
A familiar voice.
Swoooosh.
In the pouring rain, a middle-aged man appeared, his hair soaked and sticking to his forehead and face.
Brushing the hair off his face, he waited for Ragna's answer.
Ragna replied.
"I was on my way to find the one who caused this mess."
"Did you get lost?"
"No, I think I'm on the right track. Finding the way is kind of my specialty."
Hescal was a man of a calm nature.
It was rare for him to show any excitement, even once a year.
Even when bickering with Rhinox, he never once raised his voice, nor did he shout when arguing with the family head — he always remained composed.
Few had ever seen him get angry.
But even Hescal now spoke with a slight edge in his tone, showing a rare bit of irritation.
"Why didn't you stay put and just wait?"
"I saw a path, so I walked it."
Ragna's casual attitude carried the kind of confidence that came from someone who trusted himself.
And that twisted Hescal's mood even further.
If Ragna had stayed put, he would have found him easily — but thanks to this brat moving around, he had to wander quite a bit away from the battlefield to find him.
Hescal had gone through quite a roundabout search himself.
How could anyone just trudge through a swarm of monsters that had been gathered up for reserve forces?
He was insane — no other word for it.
And yet, Ragna insisted this was the right path.
'If I hadn't found you, you would've gotten lost and only come back after everything was over.'
From Yohan's perspective, it was fair to say that an uncertain coincidence had turned into luck.
If Hescal hadn't come to find him, Ragna wouldn't have made it back in time.
But if Enkrid had been here, and if he had seen the path Ragna had walked — he would have understood his intent.
Well, to Heskal, it was an incomprehensible act.
While everyone else was locked in dangerous battles, why was he here alone instead of helping them?
From a tactical standpoint, it was a mess, and even from a human perspective, it was truly the worst.
Ignoring the threats from his father and mother, why had he come here?
"If I were TempeST, I wouldn't have let you off."
"You are smaller in stature than my father."
Ragna replied indifferently.
When looking at Enkrid, one inevitably ended up talking about the size of one's vessel.
With that, Ragna reflected on the path he had walked until now.
'I've learned a lot.'
Truly, he had.
When he picked up the sword, the path laid out before him, the way forward, had seemed clear.
But without actually walking it, he could not know the shape of the path.
The road he had taken so far had its climbs.
It had its descents.
Sometimes it was rugged, sometimes it was a well-paved road.
Walking it with his own feet had changed what he learned.
There was no such thing as a predestined path.
As the process changed, everything changed.
'Who defines one's limits?'
Unless one was a fool who allowed themselves to be bound by the words of others, one's limits were defined by oneself.
"If I say this is as far as I go."
Then that would be the end.
Enkrid faced his limits and denied them.
Ragna learned that too and followed it.
The path of pushing beyond one's limits—
'Is fun.'
The exhilaration he felt when he first held a sword flooded his entire being once again.
Could anything compare to the joy of moving forward, advancing, and encountering a new world?
HesCal's gaze landed on Ragna's greatsword.
Its blade was stained and dirtied by muddy water.
"Sunrise is not here."
Sunrise was a longsword.
It didn't look like Ragna had anywhere on his body to hide such a sword.
"I'll take it later."
"Is it because you're not confident you can beat the head?"
The condition for acquiring Sunrise was earning the head's acknowledgment, and Tempest Yohan was not the kind of man to entrust the family heirloom to someone lesser than himself.
Even if it was his own son, he would not simply hand it over.
"My weapon is an engraved weapon."
Heskal said.
Yours is not an engraved weapon.
That meaning was omitted from his words.
Ragna ignored him and gripped his greatsword with both hands.
The tip of the sword still touched the ground, not raised to the sky, but hanging behind his waist.
"Are you laying down your sword out of fear of lightning?"
Hescal tried to size up Ragna with just a few words—or rather, he attempted to.
'He doesn't take risks.'
A habit formed in childhood did not change easily.
Ragna had a habit of not deviating from the set path.
Hescal remembered that.
'If it's an opponent he can beat given time, he won't bother trying to win today.'
Ragna had no intensity.
Thanks to his talent, he always learned and mastered things easily, and so the habit of avoiding risks had ingrained itself in him.
Would a few battles on the continent's battlefields have erased that habit?
Unlikely.
For someone to break that habit in him, they would have to instill a sense of danger into a genius.
But how many people had talent on par with that Ragna?
Very few.
Even in Yohan, none came to mind immediately.
'Has he ever met an opponent worth risking it all against?'
Probably not.
Having someone of comparable talent nearby to train with was one of Yohan's greatest strengths.
But Ragna had not experienced that.
His talent, which provoked others' envy, had shaped him that way.
"Have you learned how to give it your all?"
Hescal asked.
Ragna did not answer.
His red eyes pierced through the darkness, gleaming with light.
It was proof that his entire body was now brimming with Will.
'Let's rate his skill even higher than I expected.'
Hescal had a habit of overestimating his opponent's skills rather than judging them accurately.
That's why he never fought with full strength.
Instead, he always waited for an opening.
He believed that if he went all-out in a straightforward clash, he would be at a disadvantage.
He abandoned any thought of overpowering his enemy with sheer Will or brute strength.
His strategy was simple: trap the enemy with a solid sword, and strike with an illusionary one.
It sounded simple, but for those on the receiving end, it was anything but.
The pin-point focus was originally a technique passed down through the House of Yohan.
Meaning, he was capable of both techniques.
As they exchanged a few words, both began thinking at high speed.
'I'll kill you and throw your head at the clan leader's feet.'
That was what Hescal thought.
Ragna, on the other hand, had no thoughts at all.
He only felt the sensation of the greatsword in his hand—and soon even that feeling disappeared.
The one who moved first was Hescal.
With a quick push off the ground, he leapt—not at the speed you'd expect from a knight—and stabbed his sword forward.
With his left hand twisted behind him, he spun his body horizontally and thrust his sword.
His body became a line, his sword a point aimed straight at Ragna's forehead.
Ragna shifted to the side, still gripping his greatsword.
Crack, ting.
The tip of the greatsword scraped against the edge of a boulder, firmly planted in the earth, sending a few shards flying.
Dodging the thrust, the two changed positions and faced each other again.
Hescal still kept his left hand hidden behind his back.
Whatever he had hidden there, it was clearly not a trivial trick.
His engraved weapon moved again.
Everyone close to him—including his foster son Riley—knew the name of his sword.
The sword was called Routine.
It moved with predetermined paths and predetermined force, and yet was nearly impossible to block—hence the name.
"Even now, while we waste time like this, your father is dying, Ragna."
Hescal spoke in his usual benevolent tone—soft and familiar, as if genuinely urging Ragna to hurry to his father's side.
Of course, the true aim was to shake Ragna's mind and seize a psychological advantage.
"Do you really believe that?"
Ragna asked back.
"The clan leader has been suffering from illness for years now, wasting away. Haven't you seen his shriveled body?"
He had seen it.
But that was only part of the story.
Ragna remembered the father he had seen when he was a child.
"Alex is fighting the Death Knight right now."
Hescal picked words that would irritate rather than encourage.
Ragna, however, remained completely unaffected.
Perhaps in the past—before meeting Enkrid, the barbarian bastard, that sly stray cat, and the fanatic—he would have been shaken.
But now?
No.
Enkrid's words were sharper, and that barbarian brat knew how to stab deeper.
"Hescal."
"Speak."
"You've lost a lot of hair. The rain makes it even more obvious."
Ragna provoked him with casual ease.
Hescal wasn't the type to lose his composure over something like that—but he was slightly surprised.
"You've gotten quite good with words since we last met."
"My swordsmanship has improved even more."
"That remains to be seen. But are you really planning to fight me without an engraved weapon? I'll give you a chance. Run. Abandon Yohan again, just like you did before. It's fine. No one will blame you."
A seasoned tactic.
When it came to scratching at the enemy's heart, Hescal was on par with Enkrid.
Clearly, a bald joke wasn't enough to rattle him.
"I never abandoned them."
"Really? Then was it us who abandoned you?"
There was no point in trying to win with words.
Ragna didn't want to stoop to this level, but just this once, he borrowed Rem's style of speaking.
"Shut up and fight, you bald bastard. Stop flapping your mouth like that, will you? I can feel your breath from here, it stinks."
Ragna immediately felt some regret for speaking that way—but this time, it seemed to work a little.
Hescal's brows furrowed for a split second before smoothing out again.
"Such remarkably cheap words. Even in the hunter's village, you wouldn't hear such filth."
"That's because you're a frog stuck in a well. Go out into the world. Head west—you'll find whole crowds whose breath reeks worse."
Especially a certain someone named Rem.
Hescal inhaled sharply, as if preparing to say something, but then suddenly thrust his sword forward.
It was twice as fast as before.
Ragna dodged again.
The blade grazed his shoulder, slicing off part of his leather pauldron.
They traded blows, each looking for an opening, and Ragna swung his greatsword—an upward slash.
Boom!
The air burst with the force of the swing, forcing Hescal to step back.
Once, Hescal had been one of the three greatest prodigies of the Yohan house.
He dodged the slash that could blow away even raindrops, and immediately lunged into another thrust.
Ragna moved sideways again—but this time, Hescal's sword suddenly extended.
An attack entirely outside of Ragna's expectations.
Hescal had never revealed the true name of his sword to anyone.
The real name was not Routine—it was Camouflage.
Deceit hidden within a straight blade—a technique perfectly suited to him.
Camouflage revealed its true form, sinking its teeth into Ragna's shoulder.
Thud!
The sound of tearing flesh echoed.
The blade had pierced through the leather and punched a hole in Ragna's shoulder.
***
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