Chapter 495

“Let’s send out the Grime.”

It was on the fifteenth day since Enkrid’s disappearance that Rem spoke.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she was already prepared to make her case.

Grime was the name of a hero—but it also referred to a sorcery, the black bird of earnest desire.

There was even a legend that when the hero died, he was reborn as a black bird and protected the West.

Regardless, Rem had decided it was time to take a drastic step.

What is an earnest wish? It is the desperate desire and prayer for something.

Would that desperation bring about a miracle? No, not exactly.

Sending the bird of desire wouldn’t instantly reveal Enkrid’s location, but it would indicate whether he was alive and which direction he was in.

The issue was that to use this spell, they had to sacrifice food.

Both the hero and the bird were said to be ravenous.

So they would have to offer up their food as a sacrifice.

‘Using this now means we’re in for a rough stretch.’

If they endured it somehow, they might survive. A hard, impoverished life was ahead, that much was certain.

But it had to be done. If he truly was the hero who saved the West, then he deserved to be treated as such.

That was the Western way.

Just as Rem prepared to explain all this, the chieftain nodded without hesitation.

“Now, listen—this is…”

Rem reflexively began speaking but trailed off.

Why did he nod so quickly?

“Yeah. Let’s send it.”

Rem halted mid-sentence again.

“Call the shaman,” the chieftain said.

Ayul moved immediately, and Juol, who had been in the corner of the tent, followed.

Gennarae and Hira nodded deeply.

“The chief shaman is bedridden, so I’ll lead the ritual,” Hira said.

She stepped forward to oversee the ceremony herself.

Even her eyes, which had cast aside her sacred staff at the start of the year, now burned with fierce resolve.

Rem’s sorcery talent was exceptional—but only in combat.

In a ritual like this, her nature was far too coarse.

To put it simply, it would be like asking someone for a favor in a tone that sounded like they were picking a fight.

It wasn’t something Rem could fix.

So they needed another shaman—and Hira stepped up.

Even though performing this ritual would leave her bedridden for at least fifteen days, she didn’t show a hint of hesitation.

“But if we call the Grime now, what will we do next time?”

Rem asked, pretending to worry about consequences.

“We’ll think about that when the time comes. The Sky God will help us,” the chieftain replied.

Even in his eyes, there was a belief that would not bend.

But shouldn’t a chieftain consider the whole tribe?

Wasn’t this descendant of the divine bear putting the entire tribe at risk just to save an outsider?

The Westerners were loyal, sure—but wasn’t this going too far?

Rem had planned to convince them herself, but now, watching them act even more decisively than she would’ve…

It left her with mixed feelings.

‘Didn’t they all oppose it back when I first suggested releasing the Grime?’

Even during the Great Tribal War.

Even when strange weather plagued all of the West.

The bird of desire had never been used until the last possible moment.

Had they suddenly found a way to use less for the offering while she was gone?

No.

A massive pyre was lit.

Offerings were piled high atop it.

It began with sacred words, but precious food was being turned to ash as ritual fare.

The food was gathered, the shamans all knelt in a circle, and the ritual began.

“It’s the same as ever,” Rem muttered.

“What is?” the chieftain asked beside her, wearing a calm expression as if simply doing what must be done.

“I’m just wondering… is it really okay to summon the bird of desire so easily?”

The chieftain bowed his head slightly as smoke began rising from the stacked firewood.

A moment to embed his own wish.

Then he raised his head and looked at Rem.

“With no other options, we must do whatever we can.”

A life for a life.

A common phrase in the West.

Gratitude had to be repaid in kind.

The chieftain followed that principle.

So did every other Westerner.

In the end, this was something Rem herself wanted, too.

These were the same people who had once refused, no matter the excuse.

And now, they were more active than even she was.

That part still felt strange.

It meant Enkrid had left a strong impression on them.

They weren’t just throwing around words like “honored warrior” or “savior.”

They were betting the entire tribe on finding him.

Smoke billowed upward.

Flames soared high.

And the soot rising like flames began to clump together in the sky, refusing to scatter.

No one dared approach the pyre.

Entering the smoke meant death.

People would suddenly lose control, convulse, or collapse on the spot.

And then die.

That’s why no one approached.

Over the heads of the retreating tribesfolk, the soot began to gather.

Fifty shamans called forth the bird of desire.

KaaaAAAAAA—

Black smoke coalesced into wings and a beak.

It was a spectacle.

The soot above became a bird in the sky.

It was like a dark cloud, but unmistakably shaped like a bird with wings and a beak.

The bird lingered briefly in the sky, then vanished.

That was enough.

“He’s alive!”

Hira cried out. That was all for the first day.

The bird of desire flew for three days in total.

The tribe burned all their food supplies.

“There!”

Hira collapsed from exhaustion, but pointed toward one direction.

Rem turned her head to follow her finger.

Not the River of Sand from Which None Return—but a little to the east.

‘What kind of lucky method could you possibly use to survive the heart of the desert?’

Rem’s mind quickly proposed several possibilities.

She knew the desert.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Not enough to wander it freely, but she knew a few ways to cross the River of Sand and a few backroads.

Some minority tribes lived in the heart of the desert.

But surviving there was another matter entirely.

An average person—eight or nine out of ten—would have to rely entirely on luck.

If she were in that situation?

‘To hell with it.’

She’d charge in one direction and blast through.

Exhaustion? Just break through before it hits.

So what would the captain have done?

He wouldn’t have sat still and waited to die.

He’d have walked.

Forgetting even to rest.

A slight misdirection could lead deeper into the desert.

If he escaped, it would be in the direction Hira pointed.

‘Was the goddess of luck his ex-wife or something?’

It would only be possible if luck wasn’t just following him—but clinging to him.

The direction pointed to meant he was already past the desert’s core.

Rem had been considering crossing the desert herself once the bird pointed the way.

“One legend I was supposed to make just disappeared,” she said aloud.

Ayul frowned beside her.

“What nonsense are you spouting?”

“Nothing. I’d better go meet him.”

Rem stepped toward the direction the bird had indicated.

Even if he had endured and escaped, he would be dying of thirst.

Over a hundred Westerners followed behind her.

“That’s too many,” Rem muttered in annoyance.

“We’re worried too.”

“As his future wife, I have to go.”

“If he’s under magical threat, I can help.”

“I just want to come along.”

Ziba’s mother, Ziba, some unnamed shaman, and even a few warriors who were just good at fighting—all of them acted as they pleased.

“Magnetic charm, huh.”

Lua Gharne murmured nearby.

Once, Enkrid had been called the magnetic squad leader.

Everyone had fallen for him.

Even now, they were all under his spell.

In a way, it made perfect sense.

Westerners never forgot those who fought for them.

And now, the one who had saved them was in danger.

How could they just stand by and watch?

“I don’t know either. Let’s all go.”

With those words, Rem took the lead.

***

“It was isolation.”

The Ferryman spoke.

Enkrid blinked.

He instinctively knew it was a dream—but the setting was different.

It felt like the Ferryman had reshaped the scenery to torment him one last time.

Instead of the black river, everything around him was sand.

It was the River of Sand he’d seen while dying.

Everything in sight was sand, and atop it, a small ferry rocked and scattered grains beneath its hull.

Should he be having a panic attack just from seeing sand?

But Enkrid felt nothing.

A violet lamp lit the sand, and the Ferryman, holding it, spoke again.

“You really did walk well.”

So today’s Ferryman was the serious kind.

Was it the result of living too long and fracturing his personality? Or was he just naturally strange?

Rustle, rustle.

The sand shifted, and the ferry rocked.

Only then did Enkrid realize he was seated in a stone chair, complete with a backrest.

The Ferryman sat across from him in the same kind of chair, with a stone table between them.

Cracked gray skin and violet eyes stared straight at him.

Did he say something about walking well?

Well, he did walk well. Was there some reason he shouldn’t have?

“Even though you had nothing to protect.”

“There was something.”

Enkrid cut him off.

The violet eyes stared fixedly at him.

The Ferryman’s gaze felt deeper and more intense than before, but Enkrid didn’t avert his own.

He used to feel a kind of vertigo when meeting the Ferryman’s eyes—but now, it just felt dull.

Was that familiarity?

Maybe.

“By not stopping, I protected myself.”

It was the truth.

He hadn’t attached any grand meaning to walking, but after walking so long, that was the thought that emerged.

Isolation, loneliness—those things didn’t really matter.

So was there any meaning to this walk?

Wouldn’t it be easier to just endure moderately and stay comfortable?

Then why was he still walking?

Why else?

To live uncomfortably rather than die comfortably.

He’d arrived at that answer in his own way.

It wasn’t some profound philosophy. Just a thought he always had.

Not some noble source of resolve.

If he’d intended to answer roughly, he could’ve simply said, “I walked because I walked.”

That walk—those steps to escape the sand—each one had been to protect himself.

Enkrid spoke, and after a brief silence, the Ferryman murmured:

“...A path that also protects oneself.”

To Enkrid, that voice sounded strangely far away.

As the Ferryman’s voice faded, the sand became black water, and the ferry dissolved like smoke.

Enkrid felt weightless.

He floated, rose upward—toward light.

Droplets fell, seeping through the light.

Then came the pain—like someone had raked his throat with a plow.

He shut his eyes from the blinding light.

When he opened them, he woke up.

“You’re awake?”

A face appeared in front of him, and Enkrid felt a burning pain in his throat.

Still, he had to speak.

“Still dreaming?”

His voice was as rough as his throat felt.

Was this still part of the Ferryman’s prank?

Had the dream simply shifted its scenery, like before?

Had he only thought he’d woken up?

Reality didn’t feel real yet.

“I was surprised too, Captain.”

The person replied.

A name surfaced in Enkrid’s mind—a hunter under his command.

Enri. A plains hunter.

The friend who’d retired saying he’d settle down with the widow from the flower shop.

Some memories remain too vivid to forget.

That name had stuck for that reason.

“What are you doing here?”

His speech was terse.

Speaking even a few words felt harder than swinging a sword for three days straight.

The desert’s searing heat and freezing nights had eaten away at his strength, and the sweat he’d lost had left him heavily dehydrated.

Even for a knight, entering the Western desert unprepared was suicide.

A true knight might make it out—but still.

As far as Enri was concerned, the desert was a place even knights died.

And from that desert, someone had staggered out—half-dead.

That someone was Enkrid.

“To explain why I’m here would take two books,” Enri said.

Enkrid nodded—then immediately passed out.

Watching his captain faint, Enri fetched water and began cleaning up around him.

They were in a village formed around an oasis on the desert’s edge.

Monsters and beasts were rare here, so the walls weren’t very high.

It was a place where outlaws, hunters, and drifters gathered.

Enri had only one reason for being here: Krona.

After being dumped by the flower shop widow, Enri had taken up work as a caravan guard for a time.

He was good with a bow and had a cautious, reliable nature, earning high praise in that role.

Over time, he gained an eye for trade routes—and heard stories about the West.

Something about grabbing a few gems and getting rich.

Was that even believable?

Stories always get more exaggerated the further they spread.

After digging around, he learned it wasn’t exactly a path to riches, but if he hunted rare beasts and gathered specialty goods from the West, it could be a way to start a business.

So he invested all the Krona he had and bought a Bellopter—a desert-traveling beast.

He was fairly confident.

While most waited on luck, Enri had been studying animal behavior.

And that wasn’t all.

He even had a sense this could be the start of a new life.

His dream, since getting dumped, was to start his own merchant caravan.

And while wandering the desert’s border, he’d found Enkrid.

It was an area where skeletal monsters often appeared.

Adventurers, explorers, and treasure hunters would venture into the desert, clueless—die—and return as skeletal monsters.

And from among them, Enkrid had emerged.

At first, Enri thought he was a monster.

The gaunt eyes, the dry, dead-looking appearance—he looked like a mummy.

But his eyes still gleamed—bright blue, shining clearly.

“What the hell is this…”

Enri had been startled, but he gave up chasing the jewel-eared fox and rushed to save Enkrid.

The moment he saw those eyes, he knew exactly who it was.

The gear had changed, the aura was different, but there was no doubt.

Sometimes, in life, there are people or moments that leave an impression so deep, you never forget.

Why did he save him?

He didn’t even think. His body just moved.

After all, once—he’d owed this man his life, too.

So there were no regrets.

Enkrid opened his eyes again two days later.

Around that time,

Rem and the Westerners arrived at the small oasis village.

“Thought you were dead.”

Enkrid’s voice had mostly recovered when he replied,

“Came close.”

In truth, he’d died more times than he could count—but to those unaware, he just looked like a man blessed with absurd luck.

“O, Honored Warrior of Luck.”

That was why the chieftain had given him such a strange nickname.

Enkrid didn’t make a big deal of it.

He simply reflected on what he had come to realize through his solitary walking.

Yes, he had been isolated.

Yes, the Ferryman had told him to walk in solitude.

And somehow, even through that, he had trained—as if it were a habit.

Now that his mind was clear, he understood.

It meant that alongside the knight’s strike, he had also attained a form of insight.

What path would he walk to become a knight?

Now, he saw it.

More clearly than ever before.

It was thanks to wandering ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ the desert.

The entire experience had been like watering the fruit called experience.