A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

It was the same today, but with a different mindset.

'Let's cut the neck and get out of here.'

That was the first goal. Slice the neck and break away. Of course, that was easier said than done.

As always, Enkrid didn't let any version of today go to waste.

There was no such thing as gathering intel or honing judgment by dying. Every repeated day, he tried to end it by finding a way to win, without growing weary.

Was that what made him so impressive to the Ferryman?

Maybe.

"You... can't even walk, and you're trying to run?"

The Ferryman bit his tongue. A person might bite their tongue. But the Ferryman wasn't a person. He conveyed meaning by will. He didn't use actual vocal cords. This was a mental space—or a dream. Therefore, it was impossible for him to bite his tongue while speaking.

Yet the Ferryman he encountered on the second today had spoken like a man biting his tongue. It was strange, but Enkrid didn't question it.

His mind was filled with nothing but the demon called OneKiller.

'He used both swords with equal force.'

He could even adjust the force imbued in his blades. When he broke the sword in the demon's left hand, it had been weakened. Because of that, the right-hand sword slashed into his shoulder.

That sly bastard had cut him and retreated.

'If I had just defended better, I might've gotten his neck. Filthy bastard.'

Enkrid muttered curses calmly at the demon's deviousness.

To use trickery this often—was that what being a demon meant? Or should he just call it disgraceful?

Not that he had the right to say that, as someone using Valen-style mercenary swordsmanship.

Techniques effective in his own hands felt far more underhanded when used by an enemy.

'Well, it's a demon. Of course it's like that.'

But so what? Was it painful? Was it hard? Was he tired? Should he fall? Was lying face down and just breathing enough?

A pitch-black night, one without even moonlight.

A wall darker than that night blocked his way. But that didn't mean he needed to speak of despair.

If he couldn't see, then he could climb by feeling his way with his hands.

So that's what Enkrid did.

The first time he faked defeat using Valen-style mercenary swordplay, he managed to cut the neck—but had his foot crushed.

The second time he tried a Valen-style feint, he was tricked instead, and stabbed in the thigh without even managing a decapitation.

Forearm, fingers, leg, shin—he was slashed all over, evenly.

He couldn't even always strike first in the moments of decisive exchange. They said the difference in skill was razor-thin, but honestly, he was slightly outmatched. That's why wins and losses repeated.

Of course, as he repeated today, Enkrid began to read and memorize the demon's patterns.

A duel that had once taken over 180 tries, he managed to finish in three exchanges once.

And for more than 300 tries, they had crossed swords with sparks flying, dancing as a backdrop.

"You're soft like silver. Too soft."

The Ferryman constantly hurled insults in between.

"To spark a fire, you need both wood and straw."

Sometimes he even spoke like a sage.

"It's excessive greed. Save everyone? Protect your rear? Excess upon excess."

While the Ferryman spoke, Enkrid repeated dozens of todays.

"So, will you save me?"

He exchanged words like those with Shinar. Of course, the exact phrasing wasn't always the same.

The future is mutable. A today experienced once wasn't guaranteed to be the same when repeated.

"You'll wield that sword for me?"

"I'm allowed to stand behind you too?"

"You must have come fully prepared for marriage? If we survive, let's get married right away."

That's how their conversations went.

Of course, when that last line came up, he once gave a firm answer.

"Are you just going to leave me?"

"No. Help me."

Shinar's words always pierced him deeply. As sharp as the thrill of fighting the demon OneKiller.

Like a rainstorm you couldn't escape, her words brought pain. A compressed agony he had clutched for a long time.

The Ferryman spoke again.

"You half-wit. You don't know how to give up? Don't make me laugh. Change your thinking. Repeating the same today will drive you mad. That's the path you walk."

Enkrid focused his thoughts on one direction. Because of that, he didn't listen to what the Ferryman said.

It wasn't the first time this happened.

Still, he used it as a marker for the day. He roughly counted the number of todays based on the Ferryman's words. That's why he memorized them.

On the second today, the Ferryman bit his tongue while saying he couldn't even walk.

What was next again? He traced his memory. Using the Ferryman's words as reference points was something he had done in previous todays too.

"Answer me. Don't you need advice? Even if you don't reply, I'll still tell you. That's my generosity. Now, here's the way to escape today."

It was on a day like that.

As he kept repeating and fighting, Enkrid concluded that even the way the demon OneKiller emitted only killing intent was part of his deception.

'Did he hide blades in his toes too?'

Even his humanlike appearance was a ruse. Blades could pop out from anywhere on his body.

He didn't wear a helmet, yet didn't aim for the head. He focused on leaving wounds on the body—then suddenly would go for a skull-splitting blow.

'Strong.'

Not just strong. Among all foes faced so far, he was one of the most difficult.

Strength, speed, judgment, weapon mastery—everything.

He didn't even stick to one form. He stabbed, slashed, and pummeled without pattern.

'Which makes him harder to deal with.'

As Enkrid thought this, the Ferryman finally revealed his purpose, even though he hadn't responded.

"If you ignore what I say, you'll be stuck here forever. So listen, prisoner."

Still focused on assessing the present and seeking solutions, Enkrid felt the Ferryman's voice pierce into his body. He didn't know how it worked, but it was impossible not to hear it.

If you had to describe it—it was like someone grabbing your ear and whispering directly into it.

The content was no different from a dog-faced man barking, though.

"Raise a shield."

"A shield?"

When he reacted, the Ferryman's next words were absurd.

"Put Frokk in front. Put a human in front. Use a fairy to absorb the blow. Then you can kill him."

They say demons whisper sweet temptations. So was the Ferryman a demon?

Probably not. Enkrid didn't find those words sweet at all.

"Ah, right."

So he ignored them.

Although, in a way, they were rational. Reasonable even. Use the others around you as meat shields or decoys, and you win—wasn't that what he was saying?

So Enkrid did adopt parts of the Ferryman's advice.

He kicked around corpses of monsters on the ground and held them up with his sword as makeshift shields.

It made for a ridiculous sight, honestly.

It was one of those dozens of todays. He was intentionally prolonging the fight, when Lua Gharne's words reached his ears—and he couldn't deny them.

"Humans act irrationally, but the demon acts rationally."

The demon was sly, but always reacted logically.

Enkrid, on the other hand, did not. He pulled insane stunts just to shatter that wall of logic. He held a dagger in his mouth, swung it wildly, used corpses, smashed cobblestones as improvised weapons.

Anyone watching it all would've seen stark contrast.

Enkrid kept repeating such days.

He walked the irrational path.

He drew the enemy's attention with feints, clashed again, died again. He mistook something for poison and tried to force it out with the Will of Rejection.

He got pushed back. Maybe it could be expelled.

'The problem is when the body just freezes.'

In the middle of a fight so fierce he couldn't even blink. There was no room to leisurely reject something invading his body.

Even a brief opening would let OneKiller carve him up and gift-wrap the remains.

So it was nearly impossible to fight off what wormed its way inside.

It was dark. The path was invisible. Yet he pressed on. The struggle gave him knowledge.

His synesthesia developed, his vision expanded, and he began to see more.

'The source is the same.'

Right after he remembered Esther's words: the demon also used a formless power. The source was mana—something drawn from the atmosphere.

'It's refined mana.'

That's how it seemed. Information gathered in the realm of intuition, by feeling around.

And then he learned something he didn't want to.

'She planned to kill them all, and Shinar too.'

That was Shinar's resolve. Information gleaned from repeated todays, tested with a thrust, brought out the truth.

"If everyone goes back and waits, I'll end it."

Even if it took a hundred years—or a thousand—she'd stay by the demon's side until they died together. The fairy kin were the same. They planned to sacrifice their kind if that's what it took to kill the demon.

They said fairies didn't move out of hatred. Yet why were they fighting so desperately?

"The choice was wrong. Instead of ignoring the monsters, we should've found a way to fight and kill them."

That was something he heard from Bran in passing. Based on that, one could see that the fairy race had changed the rudder, steering their ship toward struggle instead of peace.

'A will to fight, not patience for peace.'

And they were preparing for it, step by step.

Sending some fairies outside. Opening trade. Those were part of that preparation.

Enkrid selectively interpreted and absorbed information—kept what he needed, discarded what he didn't.

And still, he hadn't found a way to kill the demon.

But he hadn't wasted a single day doing nothing.

If he didn't know, then he just had to keep going until he did.

And so, fighting OneKiller, he learned the demon refined mana and used it as his core. It had a similar effect to Will.

'Monsters are born using refined mana.'

If that refined mana dwelled in a beast, it would become a magic beast.

Separate from battle instinct, thoughts drifted into the gaps of high-speed cognition.

Enkrid didn't push them away.

What divides Will, divinity, sorcery, and mana? Where's the line?

'You don't need boundaries. You need definitions.'

That was the conclusion.

Will is built through a trained body and personal effort.

Magic exists to transform everything.

Esther's actions showed that. She could change her clothes, transform mana into fire or ice. Visibly, she made things like icicle spears.

Mana's essence is change.

Divinity? That's durability. Like a stone that won't be shaken.

'Because it uses faith as a shield.'

If it contained a sliver of true divine power, it could even alter someone else's body. Healing was part of that.

'That's why those gray idiots can't cast the light of healing.'

From what he saw and experienced, understanding followed.

Those so-called Gray Holy Units couldn't emit healing light—but retained offensive capabilities.

Their corrupted divinity could no longer be called divine.

He began to understand sorcery as well. If Will used trained force, sorcery drew from future potential—assets not yet realized.

'The Beast's Heart, the Heart of Might—they're the same.'

They forcibly pulled out what wasn't yet achieved.

In exchange, you had to pay. Suffer extreme muscle pain or give up lifespan.

Not all of it was useful right now, but organizing it helped him understand what he had to do.

He repeated today again. Saw hope bloom on the faces of the ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don't copy, read here) fairies. As OneKiller appeared and they fought, their expressions changed.

From hope to despair.

Enkrid observed it all, calmly enduring.

'Condensed muscle.'

The demon OneKiller had muscle outside the norm. Different in density. Like a chimera.

'Was this realm made to create special monsters?'

Maybe OneKiller was the product of that purpose taken to the extreme.

By luck or skill, he had once managed to slice the demon's neck.

That's how he learned OneKiller didn't die from decapitation.

'Heartless has no heart.'

So stabbing the heart wouldn't kill him either. He was like the Undead that Pell had once fought and failed to kill.

So how could he win?

He searched for the answer. Endlessly. Desperately.

Then he dreamed. A dream completely unrelated to the Ferryman.

He had endured as usual, fought and used everything—including the Will of Rejection—and still died from a scratch.

It was a short dream.

Blond hair, blue eyes, thick forearms, a pointed kite shield covering half their body.

The person said:

"Just the first letters."

What?

When the dream passed, the Ferryman met him again.

"In the end, you'll remain in this pain-filled today."

That was after more than two hundred todays.

"Give up already."

Enkrid sensed a dissonance in the Ferryman's words.

And he'd felt that dissonance before.

There were phrases that just didn't fit.

The Ferryman couldn't bite his tongue. He conveyed meaning by will, not speech.

So the way he stuttered—"You... can't even walk, and you're trying to run?"—was not like him.

High-speed cognition skipped steps and searched for answers.

He recalled. Remembering things said months ago was difficult, but not impossible.

He had used the Ferryman's words as markers for counting todays.

"You... can't even walk, and you're trying to run?"

"You're soft like silver. Too soft."

"To spark a fire, you need both wood and straw."

"It's excessive greed. Save everyone? Protect your rear? Excess upon excess."

"You half-wit. You don't know how to give up? Don't make me laugh. Change your thinking. Repeating today will drive you mad. That's your path."

"Answer me. Don't you need advice? Even if you don't reply, I'll still tell you. That's my generosity. Now, here's the way to escape today."

Take just the first letters.

'Walk, Soft, Fire, Excess, Half, Answer.'

Walk... soft fire half answer? What?

Just before facing OneKiller, his acceptance—once used to absorb the fairy society's shock—also accepted this advice.

He didn't reject everything just because it came from the Ferryman.

'Walk... soft... fire... half... answer.'

Awakening into another today, Enkrid saw a glimmer of light.

Maybe the Ferryman was trying to deceive him. But his instinct said this was light.

Between dark, solid walls, a crack opened, and light touched his hand.

The reason you can enjoy facing an insurmountable wall—because once you overcome it, you know the joy.

Joy burned through his whole body again. Even more than before.

"Hey, demon. Wanna go all out this time?"

That joy turned toward the demon.

To anyone who hadn't been repeating today, he was just the same old mad Enkrid.