WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 161: An Army Lacking Nothing

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The basics of Heavy Sword Style are weight and strength.

"Just crush them with force."

"Break through with force."

"Close the distance and press hard."

"Put your weight into it."

"Don't give them the chance to even think about dodging."

These were things Ragna often said.

Against spears. Against shields. Whatever the situation, most of his answers came out the same way.

Correct Sword was a little different.

"Refine your form, and drive your opponent into your intentions."

Ruagarne taught from the core outward, adding the finer details after. It was remarkably efficient.

He'd heard countless times that Frog could become the finest sword instructor there was.

'The gap is clear.'

There was a difference between Ruagarne and the squad members who'd taught him. That wasn't to say his squadmates were worse.

In some ways, their method suited Enkrid better. Getting knocked around was painful, sure, but it was simpler.

'Rough, but direct.'

He'd grown comfortable learning that way, he realized now. Hard and straight. That was just how it worked for him.

Either way, Ruagarne was a Frog who knew how to teach.

And Enkrid knew how to learn.

He listened with everything he had.

If there was one difference from before.

'I can keep up.'

There had been a time when he could listen and strain and still get nowhere. That time was past now.

The Isolation Technique was the art of commanding one's body at will. A technique that meant controlling every muscle fiber down to the last one.

Add Blade Sense and Focus Point to that.

Heart of the Beast gave boldness and calm.

He came to realize it anew.

'These four are the core of my talent.'

Something of his own, won through effort. Nourishment given by those who had stood beside him.

Because he had chewed on it, tasted it, torn into it, savored it, dug through it.

Today existed.

Because of all those repeated todays, he could now more or less keep up with Frog's teachings.

Not that he had become a genius.

Just better than before.

Ruagarne already knew about Enkrid's poor natural talent, so she was neither tired of it nor surprised. Composed, quiet. She simply taught.

In between, a great deal of general knowledge and talk about swords came through. Ruagarne knew a lot.

"There's a saying: Fast and Faster Sword is the easiest style for beginners to learn, and Correct and Precise Sword is the best to use against beginners."

Putting emphasis on speed made it easy to pick up. Against a weaker opponent, Correct and Precise Sword won ninety-eight times out of a hundred.

Then what was strongest against someone stronger than yourself?

"Heavy and Fierce Sword and Soft and Flowing Sword have the edge. If your opponent is a careless fool, Fast and Faster Sword works fine too. If they're timid and suspicious, Correct and Precise Sword isn't bad. But if I had to pick one, I'd go with Illusionary Sword."

A sword that tricks and bewitches the enemy's eyes.

All five had their uses. None was the definitive answer. How could everything in the world have one fixed answer?

Her words came from her temperament, her philosophy, the experiences she'd lived through. It was the same as saying the person mattered more than the swordsmanship.

To put it plainly.

"When you're up against someone stronger than you, the one who's quickest to read the situation and quickest on their feet has the best shot."

Croak, croak!

She laughed as she said it. Enkrid was gradually getting used to the sound of Frog's laughter.

Knowing she expressed feelings by puffing out her cheeks was one thing. Actually spending this much time at her side was another entirely.

Even after that.

"There's also a story that Heavy Sword Style was originally created for fighting monsters and magical beasts. Seems about right, doesn't it?"

"Correct and Precise Sword pairs well with Soft and Flowing Sword, and Heavy and Fierce Sword pairs well with Fast and Faster Sword. Only Illusionary Sword roams alone."

"Once you've trained long enough with a sword, other styles naturally start to stick. The best thing is to round yourself out evenly, and whichever you're exceptional at will grow on its own. That doesn't seem to apply to you, so you'll have to train harder."

She gave advice freely, always from her own blunt perspective.

"When you cut down that wolf beast earlier, you should have struck horizontally, not vertically. You wouldn't have that mark on your left arm right now. Shift your weight to the right foot and deflect with Flowing Sword Style. More specifically, like this."

Post-fight corrections and demonstrations followed, again and again.

"Now. Like this. Try it again, while blocking this."

Repetitive training. Ruagarne would take up a sword herself and swing, recreating the same situation over and over, all without slowing their pace.

The teaching was carved out of every available moment: meals, early hours, guard shifts, the moments before sleep.

Every single moment, Enkrid focused and dug in.

"Your reaction is slow. You saw it coming. You should have dodged, or at least blocked first."

Crack.

Three hyena beasts. Dangerous enough in a pack, but three was nothing, so he stepped forward. The fight ended with nothing more than a scratch along his ribs.

Ruagarne pointed out the problem.

Enkrid accepted it.

As he did, a thought took shape, one prompted by Ruagarne's words. Being called out for the same thing over and over naturally forced you to face the issue.

'Sense of Evasion.'

Jaxon had taught him about it, but it hadn't found its way into his body yet.

'Coordination, wasn't it?'

The more he learned, the more there was to do, to master, to train. This was one of those things. Not yet part of him.

Sense of Evasion.

Through training his dynamic visual acuity, he could read enemy movements several times better than before.

For instance.

The arc of a Ghoul's forearm as it swung, where the strike would land. He could read both before they happened.

"Correct and Precise Sword shines when you can predict your opponent's movements."

Because he could see it, he could predict it.

He swung.

Just as planned, he drew the blade up from the lower right in a long arc. The Ghoul's forearm caught on the edge and split with a sharp sound.

Without breaking the motion, he raised the sword overhead, twisted his wrist, pulled, and brought it straight down.

The Ghoul's head split diagonally. Enkrid's blade clove through the skull and into the collarbone.

There it stopped.

He had deliberately held back. Cutting all the way to the heart in front of Frog would have been rude.

Thud.

He kicked the Ghoul's body and wrenched the sword free. Two strokes. Fight done.

"Not bad."

Ruagarne's verdict.

From that point on, Enkrid threw himself into Sense of Evasion and the basics of Correct Sword.

As for Sense of Evasion.

'Can't get even a feel for it.'

He understood the concept, had learned the training method. But learning something didn't mean it stuck in the body. That was a fact he already knew well enough.

Like his first attempt at Heart of the Beast, maybe. Or the first time he'd gone at Focus Point.

How had he learned those?

One he grasped through the experience of death.

The other required the method of the slow, not the method of the gifted.

Did he need a similar environment this time?

When longing ran that hot, wanting a wall to smash through made sense. He could have wished for the Boatman to intervene.

But Enkrid didn't think that way.

As always, he simply did his best with what was in front of him.

That was Enkrid.

Every monster and magical beast that kept appearing was an excellent testing ground, so he inwardly welcomed each one and reached for his sword.

"Again?"

Finn's voice cut through as they climbed a hill dense with thorned brambles.

Just ahead, a pack of beasts had appeared.

"This isn't some cursed ground affecting the whole area, right? What the hell, how do they keep showing up like this?"

Anger. Plain, undeniable anger.

Monsters couldn't understand speech. Obviously.

So there had to be a reason for venting that fury at creatures who couldn't hear a word of it. What kind of moment drove someone to that?

The short answer: she wasn't angry at the monsters.

At first he'd wondered why she was acting like this, but Enkrid quickly understood. Things he'd been looking away from while absorbed in training.

He'd been saying it was good that monsters kept appearing because they made excellent sparring targets.

"Figured she was about to blow."

Kraiss muttered from beside him.

Gurgle.

Frog puffed out her cheeks in agreement.

"Achoo!"

Esther sneezed.

Finn was a Ranger.

What did Rangers do? Pathfinders found the route. Map Makers charted it. Rangers led the group along the safest path.

Why had the Glacier Rangers, guardians of the glaciers, made a name for themselves across the continent? Why were they considered something extraordinary?

They made their lives in deep forests where the cold could match a cursed ground's ferocity and monsters roamed freely. The best among Rangers, they sensed danger before it arrived and kept their party alive. People hired Glacier Rangers to venture into the heart of glacier territory and pull rare herbs and precious metals from the depths.

Finn was not a Glacier Ranger.

But she had her own measure of pride in what she did.

And at every stretch of the road, monsters and magical beasts had appeared.

She had every reason to feel her abilities were being doubted.

"How many days have we been out?"

Enkrid glanced at the fuming Finn and asked.

"Three days," said Kraiss.

On foot, walking hard, twenty days to the pioneer village. By wagon on the main road, six to seven. There were risky stretches throughout, but with a Ranger along it could be reasonably quick and safe.

Before they'd set out, Finn had poked Enkrid in the ribs and said something.

"A wagon can ignore slow Ghouls and just keep moving, but on foot that's not an option. Still! Having a Ranger like me along is something you should consider yourselves lucky for, don't you think?"

The Finn who'd said that with a grin overlapped in his mind with the Finn standing there now, tight with frustration.

She had every right to be angry.

"This isn't your fault."

At his words, Finn let out a slow breath.

"I don't even know what to say. Seriously, nothing."

She found it genuinely unfair. Still did.

Why had she chosen the thorned bramble hill? Monsters and magical beasts avoided uncomfortable terrain by instinct, so this path should have been clear. The undergrowth was dense with thorns, clawing at you with every step. Without a real talent for threading your way through, you couldn't easily get in. Even crossing it required hacking at the brush with a hand axe.

And yet here were the beasts. No matter how thick their hides were.

They'd fought through the thorns just to attack?

Spotted hyena beasts, common enough in these parts. One of them was limping, apparently having run into trouble before arriving. Another left a dotted trail of blood on the ground.

"Something's off here," Frog murmured.

To Finn, it sounded like an empty consolation.

Enkrid paid it no mind. He watched the beasts' movements.

Rather than charging in a frenzy, they showed wariness first. They were raising their guard, readying for a fight, so he readied for one too. He shrugged the pack off his back and drew his sword.

"I'll handle this alone. Stay back."

Eight hyena beasts. Not a small number, even with one of them limping.

A lot. Plenty.

Normally a group this size meant trouble, but no one worried. They had watched what Enkrid did over those three days.

A routine fight.

This time he took a scratch on the shoulder and nearly had his thigh bitten, but a flash of quick thinking saved him: he used his shin guard to kick one of the hyenas squarely in the skull and slipped free of the crisis without much fuss.

Two of the eight broke toward the group. One ran into Esther's claws and came apart in three pieces. Ruagarne kicked the other square in the torso, and for a brief moment the hyena got more air than most birds.

A breathtaking technique. Sending it airborne without rupturing its belly took precise force control and a particular knack.

Enkrid finished off the rest.

They set out again.

"Oh, come on!"

Finn's irritation had only grown.

Striped hyenas this time.

"They just keep coming. Unreal."

Kraiss clicked his tongue. Hard not to.

Shing.

Enkrid drew his sword again.

Twenty days since leaving the city. The group had found a stream and settled down to wash up when a pack of roughly thirteen or fourteen hyena beasts burst from the undergrowth.

Not a crisis.

They'd held their ground surrounded by a pack of Lycanthropes. Hyena beasts and Lycanthropes weren't even worth comparing.

Crack.

Frog added her support. The whip bit cleanly into the air.

"Have to loosen my hands before they rust."

She was right. For her, this was just warming up.

Thump.

Esther slapped the ground with a forepaw, staking her claim.

Not that anyone had forgotten. This was a Lake Panther, and a canny one who understood human speech besides.

It was a force that lacked nothing when it came to dealing with magical beasts.

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