WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 168

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"Esther, come with me. Kraiss, go find the village headman right now."

"What?"

Kraiss asked again, disbelief written across his face. Well. The awkward pretending was over. No need for it, no point to it anymore.

"Go and inform him. From now on, all forces in this settlement answer to me."

"Just like that?"

"Yes, just like that. If they won't comply, show them this. Tell him insubordination means immediate execution."

Enkrid handed over the order and turned.

"Where are you going, boss?"

Kraiss caught things fast. He'd already sensed something in Enkrid's manner.

"To the gate. If the headman's side pushes back, take the man hostage or something and hold your ground."

"...What?"

The last part was half a joke.

Enkrid ran. With each step, the armor draped over him clanked and rattled.

Running in it was genuinely uncomfortable.

But there was no taking it off.

Esther kept pace beside him, her footsteps twice as light as his. She glanced over.

"Don't ask. Just follow. We're out of time."

The panther nodded. More like a person than most people.

The main gate, when they reached it. The sun hadn't risen yet, so he wasn't late.

Not too late.

He'd made it in time, at least.

The Self-Defense Force normally posted five men at the gate. Two in the watchtower, two at the base, plus one squad leader. The squad leader would be inside the guardhouse built beside the gate. Set him aside and you had four, and all four held the watchtower when a fight broke out, shooting arrows into the faces of any ally trying to climb up while they stood on the Demon Creatures' side.

Faces Enkrid knew all too well.

"Huh? What's this?"

One of them, a man with an easygoing face, asked.

Enkrid faced the two standing guard at the palisade gate and spoke.

"Effective immediately, command of this post has been transferred to this squad leader."

"...What?"

The man stared, baffled. Enkrid continued.

"I'm the new security officer for this village."

This was exactly what Doitchi Fullman had feared, wasn't it. Now it had come true.

The man wearing the mask of Doitchi Fullman's subordinate went rigid.

"Did you clear this with our captain?"

Someone poked their head out of the guardhouse. A mercenary with a short spear, one of Doitchi Fullman's men. The squad leader.

Not that it mattered.

"Any objections? Walking in with a written order makes me the one in charge. That's how it works."

"Since when? No, more importantly, how long are you planning to play captain?"

"Starting now. Until the colony problem is resolved."

A straight answer. The man's brow creased, and with that scowl, the face went downright fierce.

"The hell, you joking with me? You think I'm someone to mess around with, you little dandy?"

About what he'd expected. Enkrid had his answer ready.

"If you've got a complaint, you're welcome to skip the words and go straight to your fists."

"This guy's out of his mind."

The man stepped forward. He didn't reach for a weapon, but his intent was clear enough. He threw a punch.

The fist came fast, and Enkrid didn't seem to move at all. Then, just before contact, he tilted his head to one side and swept his left foot into the man's ankle. The dodge and the sweep flowed together like a single motion.

The unexpected trip sent the man lurching forward, off balance, and Enkrid gave him a light shove with his left hand.

"Wh, wha..."

Crash.

He went down sideways. Face red, the man tried to use his short spear as a crutch to get back up.

Shink.

The sound of a sword drawn, and at the same moment, a blade at his throat.

"Don't get up. Don't resist. Insubordination means summary execution."

With a blade at your throat, especially one that sharp, speaking freely wasn't an option.

The man said nothing. He swallowed, and barely managed to open his mouth.

"Do you have any idea how many men the Self-Defense Force has? You, you can't handle all of them."

A threat, but it didn't sound like one. Anyone could hear the fear in it.

Enkrid had no intention of killing him. He'd simply expected this would draw a response.

A simple principle.

How did the Gnolls and Hyena Beasts get inside? How did a thick log palisade become a cage for the humans inside it? Why did this place turn into their feeding ground?

Because they got in.

Over the wall? Unlikely. Gnolls are Demon Creatures with underdeveloped lower bodies. Hyena Beasts the same. A palisade neither Demon Creatures nor Magic Beasts could scale.

Did they smash through? Not a chance.

One answer. The gate was opened.

Then why was there no warning at all as a horde of Demon Creatures that size approached?

He'd formed a theory first, then confirmed it over several loops.

Whoever opened the gate. Guilty.

The ones in the watchtower, who saw and said nothing. Guilty.

Sword still in hand, Enkrid's eyes found the alarm bell. Beside the gate. That bell had rung, which meant there was one innocent person here.

The one lying on the ground right now.

So, what would their response be?

Exactly what he'd been waiting for.

Up in the watchtower, a female soldier raised her bow. Silent. Drew. Fired. Enkrid, already aware of his surroundings, pushed lightly off the ground.

Thud!

The bowstring snapped and an arrow punched into the spot where he'd been standing.

"...Are you insane! Stop shooting!"

The squad leader who'd been taken down screamed it, but nobody was going to listen to him.

"Kill him."

One of the easygoing-looking ones who'd been standing at the gate.

At that, both archers in the watchtower notched arrows again. Two up there, one woman and one man. The woman was the better archer. He knew that from experience.

Cultists, these ones too.

No room for mercy, and no desire for it.

Whee! Wheeee!

Two whistles cut the air. Throwing knives sliced through.

Two sounds from the watchtower, one after the other.

"Ghk."

"Kgh."

Those were their last sounds. No one survives a hole through the throat.

The male archer toppled forward and hit the ground with a thud. The woman sank down clutching her throat. The cultist archer who'd fallen headfirst had his neck bent at a broken, unnatural angle. Blood dripped from the watchtower where the woman had been. Drip. Drip.

All of it in an instant.

"What the hell!"

The squad leader shouted.

Enkrid ignored him and leveled his sword.

"Insubordination and attempted murder of a commanding officer. Both of you are looking at summary execution, but throw down your weapons and surrender and I'll let you live."

Words that would never land.

"Like hell."

The two cultists wearing the mask of Self-Defense Force guards let their eyes gleam. Something off in them, something strange. Above all, both of them were genuinely capable. Fast, and their coordination was sharp.

Clang.

Shortswords, both of them. They split left and right and came in at identical speed, cutting through the sharp blue air of pre-dawn, bearing down on him.

Before he ever stood here, Enkrid had survived countless loops. Day after day, training repeated. Sense of Evasion. Sharpened Coordination. Everything gained from honing Dynamic Visual Acuity and every other sense alongside it.

A change in reaction speed.

What does a change in reaction speed make visible? What does it change?

A whole new world.

Hard to describe exactly. Like moving at twice the speed of anyone around him.

Rem, Ragna, Jaxon, Audin.

What they could do, Enkrid could do now too.

So.

Clang!

A result like this wasn't all that surprising. Knocking aside two blades coming in from opposite sides at the same time with a single sword.

Easy. Swing right once, then left before it mattered. That was all.

Naturally, the other side was baffled. Both cultists with shortswords stared wide-eyed. What was that? How did he block it? The blade had looked like it disappeared.

Enkrid didn't stop.

He swung his sword hard, a small celebration of stepping into a new world. What those repeated loops had given him wasn't only Sense of Evasion and Coordination. In a single breath he woke Heart of Superhuman Strength, doubled his speed, and the moment he saw and felt it, his body moved on its own.

Whoosh. Slice! Slice!

Two more swings. Right side, low to high. That same momentum carried into the left, high to low. Both cuts aimed at the wrist. The results matched.

"Ugh, aaah!"

"Ghaaak!"

Both sword-gripping wrists were cut through, and two hands dropped to the ground with a dull thump.

Between the two of them bleeding freely, Enkrid stood still, sword in hand.

"...What, what is this, why are you just swinging that sword around like you've lost your mind."

The squad leader, sitting alone where he'd fallen, said it with a face full of bewilderment.

Enkrid looked at him.

"There's a smell. Is that gate actually shut tight?"

He'd seen the gate open by pulley when he first arrived. That had to be the lock.

"Huh?"

"Check it. Don't get up right now and I'll take you for an accomplice and cut you down."

A light threat, from someone who'd already shown he meant it.

The squad leader scrambled to his feet. Lying there with shaking legs at a moment like this would only end badly. He moved straight to the pulley and checked it.

"Why is this thing undone!"

He shouted, then threw himself into locking it back in place. With the lock undone, that gate wasn't a barrier anymore. Push it and it opens. The man strained at the pulley until his arm muscles screamed, then stood there panting.

"Hah, hah. What smell, though?"

Only now did he get around to asking.

Boom!

Something outside crashed against the wall and the ground shook. The stench of it seeped through the thick gate, that smell Enkrid had long since grown tired of.

"Grooook!"

A cry burst from outside. A Gnoll's roar. Heavy force, unseen pressure, all of it bleeding through from beyond the gate.

The squad leader, standing near the gate, backed away step by step. At this rate he was going to wet himself. Fortunately, the man had more spine than that.

A quick glance, then Enkrid turned to the two with severed wrists.

"Are you cultists?"

Their eyes went wide. You don't always need words to answer.

Let them live? No. Real cultists supposedly used strange Sorcery, but these two clearly couldn't, so they weren't anyone important. Leaving them alive, on the other hand, meant a knife at his back.

Thud. Thud.

Two thrusts through the throat. Two bodies.

Enkrid climbed up to the watchtower. To gauge numbers, get a look at the surroundings. High ground was always the right call.

Dawn was breaking. The light helped.

In the rising sun, hundreds upon hundreds of Magic Beasts and Demon Creatures stretched out before him. A horrifying number. Enkrid was surprised, again, that he'd survived in the middle of all that.

He'd barely held on without dying.

Still. Way too many.

From up here, the sheer volume of them was obscene. They were slamming against the palisade and the gate. The watchtower had already been cleared, but the sentries who should have been on the wall were nowhere to be seen. What he found instead were a handful of Self-Defense Force members who should have been standing guard, collapsed as corpses. Cultists' work. Or more precisely, the work of the ones he'd just killed.

"What the, what the hell is this?"

A voice from below. Kraiss.

The joke had come back as reality.

Kraiss had a blade to the village headman's throat and was shouting up at him. Behind him, several Self-Defense Force members with grim expressions.

"No really, what the hell."

Kraiss looked like he might cry.

Why did seeing that make him want to laugh.

"Esther."

He called for her and had her hold the gate.

"Grrr."

A response like she understood. Sometimes the panther seemed better than any person.

"I'll need an explanation for what this is."

Behind the headman came Doitchi Fullman and a crowd of his men. Most of them were plainly confused. Demon Creatures outside, a blade to the headman's throat inside, dead comrades on the ground. Even Doitchi Fullman's pupils trembled. Understandable, but not Enkrid's concern.

He said it like it was nothing.

"I give the orders and I hold command. No objections. We hold the Demon Creatures. Get the remaining Self-Defense Force onto the wall. Anyone who can shoot a bow goes up."

Nobody moved.

Doitchi Fullman was a man with iron nerves. Separate from the pounding outside, he stared at Enkrid with hard eyes.

Enkrid knew exactly what needed to be said here.

"Kraiss. Do it."

He had the headman's life in his hands.

"The hell, don't! What is everyone doing! Get arrows into those Demon Creatures' heads, now!"

Deutsch shouted. Kraiss, of course, didn't actually do it. Enkrid shrugged.

"You're going to have to explain all of this later!"

Deutsch snapped.

Enkrid ignored it.

This was the shortcut. Making sure none of it happened in the first place, moving quickly enough to stop the Gnoll invasion before it began. If he could stop it this way, what would happen to the loop?

He'd thought through how to get past this loop, but whether it would go as planned was another matter entirely. First time trying. Ruagarne was still nowhere to be seen, and neither were most of Deutsch's men.

"Damn it, Enki."

He was still holding the situation together, the headman's life as collateral, watching the fight from above, when Finn crawled out from the side.

The Finn who'd gone out on patrol had come back with a hole in her stomach.

So that was it.

She'd fought someone and taken a wound. Not a light one. A hole in the stomach hurt, and walking wasn't easy.

Either way, Finn being injured was why the warning about the Demon Creature and Magic Beast attack couldn't be given. Otherwise, a colony that size couldn't have moved without her spotting it.

"Kraiss, let the headman go and get Finn treated first."

Not a fatal wound. But not one she could walk off. It needed treatment.

"The colony." Finn managed it anyway, face pale. "Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts. Close to a thousand."

Enkrid nodded.

"Would you care to explain?"

The headman spoke up, his color gone. The Pioneer Village's headman, indeed. Nerves on this one too. Asking for an explanation in a situation like this.

"Let's hold them off first."

Enkrid said it and moved toward the wall.

Every arrow counted, even from shaky hands. And this loop's wall needed to be broken.

The day had only just begun.

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= = =

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