WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 175: Quick

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Enkrid could sum Ruagarne's fighting style up in two words.

Crash. Bang.

She ran straight in and charged, a pure, headlong rush with no more thought behind it than a Gnoll's worth of brain. When a Knight on a proper warhorse thundered into an enemy line, you called that a charge.

Could what Ruagarne was doing right now be called the same?

'I think it counts.'

The effect was more than enough. She ignored every scratch she picked up on the way in, whip cracking in her right hand, sword swinging in her left.

Crack! Crack!

Each time the whip sliced the air and connected, from Gnoll heads, shoulders, and bellies ,

Clang! Bang! Boom!

, it erupted. Skulls burst. Black blood and grey matter scattered in every direction.

With the sword in her left hand, she jabbed at the short-muzzled Hyena Beasts pressing in.

Thuck, thuck, crack, thud, one after another. Thrust and pull, thrust and pull, until three or four Hyena Beasts crumpled and bled black into the dirt.

Graaugh. Grrk.

Ruagarne ran on past the beasts dying with black foam at their lips. In that single charge she killed nine Gnolls and fifteen Hyena Beasts.

After that, the Gnolls began grouping up in fives and sixes and sevens.

"Grrrk!"

Ruagarne puffed out one cheek and cracked the whip hard.

It sailed out and didn't strike, it coiled around a Gnoll's throat. Wrapped, pulled, thrown.

Wham.

Had anyone seen a Gnoll fly? They had now. Just now, in fact.

The airborne Gnoll came down headfirst with a crash, and while it was falling, Frog's whip and sword kept right on serving as executioner's blade.

Kill and kill again.

An angry Frog's strength was something to behold. Raw power and a born feel for combat, all of it on full display.

Groaaugh!

The Gnolls' wail rang out sharp and high.

Through all of it, Enkrid walked forward. Steady. Unhurried.

Ruagarne had been something to watch. A Frog channeling provoked rage and letting it pour out cleanly through force. Genuinely impressive.

But with each repetition of the day clicking further into place, something had begun to come into focus.

'Could I not fight her?'

Frogs were a warrior race, but not uniformly so. Ruagarne had said it more than once, she was a scholar. Not someone who'd given herself over to combat.

Right now.

'I don't think I'd lose.'

The thought surfaced from nowhere.

Arrogance? Or confidence built from the weight of everything he'd survived?

Every fight had to be fought before you knew. But if the intent was to kill.

'I think I could do it.'

That was what he thought.

"I can teach the Correct and Precise Sword. But a Knight, or your pack of lunatics, that's another matter. Fairly troublesome opponents." Ruagarne, the talent reader, spoke plainly. She knew exactly where she stood and said so without hesitation.

"I tend more toward curiosity than competitive pride."

Which Frog wasn't curious? She said it with those large, round, protruding eyes catching the light, brightness seeped into them as she spoke.

When Enkrid laid out the strategy for the Demon Creature horde, Ruagarne made a soft grrk and tilted her head to one side. Accustomed to living among humans, she expressed herself through gestures close enough to human to read. The tilt said: what kind of madness is this?

"We did it yesterday."

He said it, and felt his heart, his chest, his hands, his feet, his whole body, heat up. He wanted to run wild. Sprint through sudden heavy rain. Roll through a snowfield gone white in every direction. Some combination of all of that, pushing to get out.

More precisely: he wanted to swing a sword.

"So I just need you two watching my back."

Said to both Ruagarne and Esther. The village was on the verge of falling as it stood. Ladders already on the way, that was as good as done. So what, then?

'Break what they believe in.'

What did the Gnolls and Cultists believe in right now? Numbers and tools. Ladders and headcount. And alongside that, he wanted to let whatever was boiling up inside him pour out. Something burning. Something rising to the surface.

"Looks like it's going to be a short, brutal fight."

He murmured it as he stepped forward, the way a Boatman might murmur a verse, half to himself, then walked out.

While Ruagarne drew every eye with her strength, Enkrid closed the distance to the edge of the Demon Creature and Magic Beast horde. She fell back then, catching her breath. She'd already laid waste to nearly thirty Gnolls and Hyena Beasts combined. The Frog who returned had small cuts on her arms, legs, thighs, and belly.

She was strong. But strong enough to be untouchable?

He wasn't sure he thought so anymore. He thought Ruagarne could be reached.

Enkrid stopped inside the press of Gnolls, Hyena Beasts, and Ghouls.

Groaaugh!

Kiah! Kaah!

Gnolls and Hyena Beasts.

Kraack!

The Ghouls greeted him first. Enthusiastically, warmly.

He looked at them and thought: was a Knight's strength truly beyond reach? If it was, did that mean it could never be reached? No one knew. The future was anyone's guess.

But.

Short. Brutal.

He could show them something.

The enemy was many, an uncountable press of Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts. Among them, the ones carrying ladders. Roughly thirty-odd.

Fine. Thirty.

He clocked the number and drew his swords.

Shiiing.

One in the right hand.

Ting.

One in the left.

One sword was still far more familiar. Two was the right call here. Many opponents. So he swung.

* * *

'What was he planning?'

Ruagarne didn't ask.

There were several reasons. For one, she was Frog, even surrounded by a Gnoll and beast horde, she was confident she could pull herself out. If things went wrong, she'd give an arm and escape. Arms grew back. No real problem. That was why she hadn't questioned it when Enkrid said to go in.

The other reason was the change in Enkrid.

'Why did he change?'

She'd only been away for half a day. But Enkrid's posture and bearing were different.

'How?'

Ruagarne was Frog, a talent reader. Her eyes and senses naturally took in Enkrid's gait, his hands, his stance, and measured him.

'How?'

She was asking the same question twice. That was how much this man had changed. Skill could surge suddenly, yes, that happened, but this was different. Different from anyone she'd watched over the years. Clearly so.

"I have a salon appointment."

Geniuses were like that. She'd been baffled before, watching a layabout suddenly shoot up in ability. That was genius for you. But even then, had there been no signs beforehand? No tells?

No. There had been.

She could see those things. The faint signals that appeared just before a skill broke through. Growth following those signals was natural, expected.

'Nothing.'

She saw nothing. No signal, no tell.

Nothing at all, and he'd simply changed.

Was that even possible?

And on top of it all, in her estimation, Enkrid hadn't even counted as a genius to begin with.

So how?

Same question, again. She was here now to find out whether he'd truly changed, or whether her own senses had broken down.

'If it goes sideways.'

She'd grab him and run.

Beside her, Esther extended her claws and pressed them into the ground, one by one. That impudent panther seemed to have the same idea.

Worry and anticipation, curiosity and the pull of the unknown, all of it layered together as she fixed her gaze forward. And then the worry was gone.

Ching, ting.

Enkrid drew both swords and moved. Into the Gnolls and Hyena Beasts, into the pack of Ghouls.

The goal was clear.

'Ladders.'

Straight at the ones carrying them.

She'd aimed for the same herself. But she wasn't a true Knight, one of those monsters. And even among her own kind, only those who'd devoted themselves entirely to combat could manage it. A horde was a horde. The ladder-carriers had positioned themselves behind the mass, intent on staying there. You could kill everything rushing you from the front. Chasing the ones retreating was something else entirely, and the problem was sheer numbers. Far too many.

Gnolls. She could kill them in her sleep, but there were too many even for that.

She wasn't a Knight. She was Frog, and even Frogs had limits. She could take down one Cultist. Not an entire horde. That was common sense.

What shattered common sense was what the continent called a Knight, or someone of knight-level.

And right now.

Fwoom, thud, crack, slice, whip, stab, crunch.

Enkrid's swords carved a path. Through the road that common sense had laid down.

'Ah.'

Skill didn't improve without signs. Even for a genius, that was impossible.

How?

His swords moved when they needed to, as much as they needed to. He thrust and slashed. Cut and jabbed. He split the crown of an incoming Gnoll's skull with a light stroke, and the same sideways swing cleanly severed the spear shaft another Gnoll was holding. The one whose spear was cut opened its mouth, sharp fangs lunging for his shoulder, and a flash of light streaked upward from below.

Crack. The flash split the skull down the middle. A head split in two couldn't bite. The severed halves spread apart, and the Gnoll crumpled, two pieces where one head had been.

The force behind the blade.

Ruagarne recognized it, equal to her own right now. It was the strength Enkrid had flashed in sparring, from time to time. In sparring Enkrid had only ever known how to pour it out while losing his balance. Now he used it through perfect balance. Gave what was needed. Pulled back the rest.

Vertical slashes, forward thrusts, feet moving without pause to claim space. When a ladder came into range he swung and shattered it. From the side, five or six Ghouls rushed him as one tangled mass. Their posture said: even if we die, we'll drag you down with us. The Cultists' brainwashing at work.

It didn't matter.

Before the Ghoul mass could close in, Enkrid stepped the left foot forward and the right foot back, and swung his sword around in a wide arc, easy, natural, as though he'd been waiting for exactly this.

Boom, fwoom, crack-crack-crack!

Bone, muscle, sinew. None of it made a difference. The Heavy Sword Style's spinning cut cleaved through the Ghoul mass in a single sweep. Arms, legs, heads, chests, bellies, their tangled parts scattered across the ground.

And through all of it, he drove one sword into the dirt.

Whirr!

With a strange high whine, he released the sword, and from his moving hand a Throwing Knife flew.

Whistle Daggers.

Ten blades scattered like wind and pierced in every direction. Every one found the skull of a ladder-carrier.

Gnolls knowing how to use tools didn't mean they knew how to guard them. When the ladders hit the ground, others stumbled and stepped right on them. The improvised equipment shattered.

"Grooouu!"

Variant Gnolls charged in. A full head taller than the rest. Three or four boxed him in from all sides, a Hyena Beast thrusting its head through the gaps.

Then Enkrid reached for the sword planted in the dirt, and vanished.

Ruagarne's eyes didn't miss it. Even so, they were left with an afterimage.

'A charge technique?'

The kind squires commonly showed. Around that speed, at least.

Gone just before the encirclement closed. Reappeared behind the rightmost Variant. Both swords crossed into a stabbing thrust.

Thwud!

Both blades punched through the Variant's heart and came back out. Right through the heart. Her cheek swelled involuntarily, but she pushed past it. She was an experienced Frog.

Even within all that experience, though, there was a human in front of her she had never seen before.

The unknown moved something in her chest.

Enkrid pulled both swords free. Black blood ran down the blades as they slid out.

"Gruuk!"

The Variant died.

Gruuk.

A Hyena Beast lunged. A kick sent it tumbling; the pommel came down and burst its skull.

"Kaa!"

A Ghoul came without hesitation. Claws out. Poison-coated, those claws were lethal on their own.

Thwack.

He swung the sword at it like an afterthought, and the top of the Ghoul's head was gone. Common lore said Ghouls had no brains. Looking at what was exposed, that wasn't quite right. Small, though. About the size of a finger.

The time Enkrid spent out there swinging his swords wasn't long. Not half a day. Not even measured in hours. Long enough to drink a cup of tea, maybe, the kind where the sun's position doesn't shift. What a Dragonkin or an elf, having lived for centuries, would call a blink.

In that blink, Enkrid broke most of the ladders. Close to a hundred Magic Beasts and Demon Creatures combined he turned into rotting meat. The Ghouls were all but annihilated.

Ruagarne was Frog. Instead of goosebumps, her heart muscle ached. Admiration and awe, the joy and exhilaration of discovering something beyond understanding. The happiness of having that unknown thing standing right in front of her. All of it together brought tears to the corners of her eyes.

A cruel kind of happiness.

"Aah."

She let the wonder spill into the Frog's song, the Battle Song, and began to sing.

Before the song had even started, Enkrid staggered backward and went down. One knee to the ground, a sword planted in the dirt. Even that motion, his body swayed. Then he spoke.

"Just..."

Wait. Wait. She'd just been moved to tears. She was just starting to sing, just about to let it all pour out. Why was someone who'd just performed like something close to a squire suddenly..."...quick."

His lips had gone pale blue.

Ruagarne snapped out her whip by reflex. It sailed and coiled around Enkrid's wrist. She yanked, and Enkrid came dragging across the ground with a grinding scrape. The ground was littered with corpses, so partway through she flicked her wrist and launched him into the air. She caught the airborne Enkrid against her chest with a thud, bending her knees to absorb the impact.

"Let's go."

The dark-haired, blue-eyed man in her arms said it.

The feeling was interrupted. But what had first struck her didn't go away.

A nod.

Ruagarne nodded.

The remaining Gnolls and beasts charged, but her mind was already made up. She was running.

And then..."Shoot! Shoot!"

As they pulled back, arrows rained down from above in support. Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts charged again. Even with arrows through their skulls they came back at the wooden palisade, clawing and swinging axes and whatever else they held. Arrows and chunks of rock rained back down on them.

A few managed to raise ladders.

"What are you all standing around for!"

At Kraiss's shout, the former mercenaries under Deutsch, now the village's self-defense force, snapped into action. They shoved the ladders back and fought. When Ruagarne and Esther rejoined them, the fewer than ten remaining ladders became worthless.

"He's insane. He's completely insane."

Deutsch Fullman muttered it, watching the Demon Creatures retreat from the palisade.

Ruagarne agreed.

'Insane, yes.'

For a brief stretch, Enkrid had performed like something close to a squire. Without a single sign or tell. Half a day, and this was what had become of a man Ruagarne had dismissed as talentless.

Ruagarne's heart muscle moved the way it had in her youth.

For a moment, she felt young again.

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