Spirit Road (1)

After running without pause for roughly a day and a half, Guts slumps against a tree stump to catch his breath. As the sun sets, a boy named Isidro finally catches up, having begged a spot on a refugee wagon bound for Albion just to keep pace. Spotting the enormous Dragon Slayer resting beside the sleeping warrior, he quietly tries to heave it up by the grip, but the blade refuses to budge no matter how he strains.

Puck's voice suddenly pipes up from the stump, and the elf coaches the boy through the proper way to hoist something so heavy. Following the advice to pull with his legs, back and arms all at once, Isidro finally gets the weapon airborne and ducks underneath to brace it. Puck then hops onto the hilt, and the extra weight drives the sword back down, pinning the boy flat against the earth.

The racket wakes Guts, who plucks the blade off the boy with no effort and slings it across his back. When he asks why he is being shadowed, the awestruck Isidro can barely speak. Puck guesses the boy hopes to become an apprentice, which sets Isidro off, insisting he would never bow beneath anyone. Guts asks his kill count and gets a sheepish confession of only a couple, prompting a warning that the boy should not tag along.

On the horizon, dust begins to churn as strange figures roll closer. The region's usual nightly spirits have claimed the bodies of men lashed to wooden wheels, spinning themselves toward the Black Swordsman. Guts and Puck, long used to such grotesque shapes, watch with curiosity while Isidro shakes in terror. When one of the rolling corpses veers off to crush the boy, Guts slices both the body and its wheel apart in a single stroke.

Refusing to let anything stall his march, Guts channels his rising fury into cutting the attackers down at speed, with Puck and the boy scrambling behind. Because Isidro cannot match his pace, Guts calls out for him to reach rocky terrain where the wheels lose traction, but the boy stubbornly keeps chasing. Isidro draws his own blade and strikes a spirit with everything he has, only for the weapon to snap in two without slowing it at all.

Guts doubles back to save the now-weaponless boy, clearing the remaining spirits with ease. With a brief window of safety, he lifts Isidro up by the collar and flings him over a cliff, letting him tumble down a slope unharmed and out of danger. Guts glances back once before resuming his run as the spirits give chase again. The installment introduces Isidro as a recurring figure and plays his eager, comedic energy against Guts' grim single-mindedness.