WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 187: Will You Really Become a Knight?

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Whenever people watched Enkrid, their fists clenched before they realized it.

Most soldiers felt the same when they looked at him.

They knew he had crawled up from the very bottom.

They had seen his effort rewarded with their own eyes.

Looking at Enkrid, the soldiers, Vengeance included, clenched their fists. Those fists gripped spears, swords, and maces.

The soldiers gathered. Weapons swung.

A sudden heat set the barracks ablaze again.

"Feels like the soldiers have been working harder than before lately. Why all of a sudden?"

The mood was different from before.

Enkrid felt it in his skin and asked.

Kraiss, listening from the side, snorted.

"You're asking because you really don't know?"

If he knew, would he ask?

"The mood around the market isn't great, so I'll go check it out."

Instead of answering, Kraiss left. Still, passion and heat were words Enkrid liked. He did not care about the reason.

If they trained hard, it would help save their lives one day.

Because of that,

"Please spar with me!"

More people started coming to him like this. Something similar had happened before, and Enkrid welcomed every one of them.

The only difference now was this.

Tap, crack.

Every fight ended in one or two exchanges.

What was the point if it was not even worth fighting?

The openings were too obvious, and his body moved on reflex.

When a blade came down, he did not even need to block it with his training sword. A shove was enough.

The swordsmanship he had newly learned was based on Correct Sword.

He shifted his body left and swung his sword right, creating a blind angle in his opponent's field of vision.

People got uneasy when they lost sight of something, so they immediately turned to clear that blind angle.

Then he reversed and thrust into that gap.

Just two simple moves, but even against Frontier Guard level fighters, it worked again and again.

"You've changed."

Even with a blunt-tipped sword, a clean hit left his solar plexus aching. Torres held his stomach and muttered.

No, this was beyond just changing.

Squire? Yeah, around that level.

How had his skill grown this much?

The Frontier Guard were people who challenged the limits of the human body.

They were a collective of fighters armed with every kind of technique and sword art.

Torres was one of them, and one of the people who had watched Enkrid up close.

This bastard might really become a knight.

There had been a time when talk of becoming a knight sounded like a faded dream people mocked.

Now, even in other people's eyes, Enkrid's dream no longer looked like empty fantasy.

"Shouldn't you add -nim after Company Commander? Soldier? Member Torres?"

"Huh?"

"I'm a Company Commander. Temporary, but still."

Enkrid said it while pointing his thumb at himself.

"...Company Commander."

"Just kidding."

"You bastard."

Torres said it with a grin.

Status was status, relationships were relationships.

With Torres and Vengeance, there was no need to force a strict superior-subordinate line. They were not his direct subordinates anyway.

The Border Guard standing army had a loose hierarchy to begin with.

He had heard that in the capital garrison, if you misread rank insignia, you got beaten half to death. But that was there, and this was here.

"You're starting to look like the Elf Company Commander."

Torres's words made Enkrid think about a lot of things.

That elf-style joke?

"Hah, anyway, I'm off."

After Torres left, several Frontier Guard soldiers kept asking to spar. Enkrid had no reason to refuse.

He woke in the morning and trained the Isolation Technique and swordsmanship.

After lunch,

"Let's have a round."

Rem came charging in. He was still absurdly strong. If he fully triggered Heart of Superhuman Strength, then maybe, just maybe, Enkrid could get close enough to threaten him.

'If I overdo it, I won't make it through the afternoon training schedule.'

He had already paid for getting too excited and going wild a few times.

Enkrid controlled himself. This was training, not real combat.

Rem controlled himself too.

He did not want to get worked up and split heads open like before either.

Once lunch sparring ended, familiar faces started showing up one by one.

"Check my skill too."

Vengeance dropped by now and then too. He clearly wanted proper instruction. Enkrid agreed with the saying that you learn while teaching, so he did not refuse.

"But the way you address people?"

He never forgot to joke.

"You turning into the Elf Company Commander too?"

It was the same line Torres had thrown at him.

In a quiet way, it was irritating.

For days, the sunlight stayed perfect. After he returned, aside from a brief dawn shower on the third day, every day was bright and clear.

"Nice weather. Perfect for training."

"I feel like you said that on rainy days too. Is there even a bad day for training for you, Captain?"

He muttered because he liked the bright morning sun, and Rem asked from behind.

Enkrid thought for a bit and answered.

"There isn't."

"...If you take one more hit to the head, you can go back to normal. Even a Company Commander never gives up, so you can become a normal person too!"

Rem shouted with full passion. Enkrid snapped back that he should wipe the eye gunk out first, then carried on with another usual day.

The next day it rained, and the schedule was exactly the same.

It was yesterday copied and pasted.

Plenty of eyes in the barracks watched it.

Maybe they were not even tired of it anymore.

Rain or snow, he had always been that kind of man.

His skill had grown, he was different from before, he had become a Company Commander, but none of that changed who he was.

So Enkrid was Enkrid.

Half a month after returning.

On one of those bright days, after lunch sparring ended, Rem wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and sat on the ground.

"That apple cider was good."

Rem tossed it out, and it caught in Enkrid's ear. Instinct, or maybe sixth sense.

It sounded like he had something to say and was circling around it.

Rem was talking in circles?

That was rare enough that Enkrid stayed silent and waited for Rem to keep going.

"If there's any left, slip me some in secret."

There was none. All that remained was a little of Enkrid's own share for true emergencies.

He had told them to sip and share, but Rem had chugged it like a maniac, so there was nothing more going into that bastard's mouth.

Even Ragna had given that drink rare praise.

Everyone said they liked it.

Jaxon had two or three sips, and Audin seemed to have had about five.

Still, that Rem bastard had talked in circles twice.

Enkrid figured something had happened.

"Did you kill someone?"

He asked the most suspicious possibility first.

"Huh?"

"I asked if you killed some superior from another unit while I wasn't around."

Could that even be cleaned up? If it had not been discovered yet, maybe it had been hidden well.

The real problem would come after that.

"What are you even saying?"

So not killing.

"You beat someone? Crippled them?"

That was also a huge problem. Better than killing, sure, but he still hoped it had not gone that far.

"It wasn't 1st Company, right?"

When he asked again,

"...I have to ask this now, what exactly do you think I am?"

A rabid mad dog that exploded when poked.

A lunatic who beat people first if he disliked them, superior or not.

A pervert bastard who harassed nearby soldiers when bored, and doubled it if he liked them.

"Your eyes, damn, I think I just got seriously wounded. That's the first time I've seen that look."

The fact that it was the first time surprised him too.

He had suspected it a little, just a tiny bit, but it was still a joke.

This kind of exchange, catching his breath before lunch, was part of their daily routine. During that breather, Rem had started talking.

"Hm, as long as you didn't kill or beat anyone, we're good."

Enkrid said it, and Rem let out a long breath, looked up at the sky once, then finally spoke.

His gaze was thrown to one side, toward the tree about five steps away instead of at Enkrid.

Had Battalion Commander Marcus transplanted that tree beside the training ground?

"A training ground without shade is too bleak."

He was a surprisingly meticulous person.

They sat apart with the tree between them, one on each side, and Rem's voice started.

"When I was little, my father first taught me how to use a spear. It was fun."

What was he trying to say?

For no reason, Enkrid remembered all the things the evil spirit in the Demon Sword had rattled off.

Family, swordsmanship, bloodline, wishes that never got passed down.

Those things had bound him to the ground.

Did Rem have things like that too?

Weren't humans always tied down by something?

Dreams, status, power, Krona, whatever it was.

"I learned hunting too. That was fun."

This bastard.

"I learned the sword too, and that was fun."

Maybe someone needed to teach him how to talk. He spoke just fine when teasing people and messing with them, but right now he was awkward, stumbling through every line.

At times like this, he looked even rougher around the edges than Ragna.

Then again, all the remaining company members were similar when they talked about themselves. Awkward, stumbling, and only truly clear when teaching the sword.

Enkrid did not know everything, but he had heard bits and pieces here and there, whether he meant to or not. Things like Rem being from the west and Ragna from the north.

Even among those stories, Rem's this time was different.

The way he told it was clumsy, but the content was worth hearing.

"Around then, the Western War broke out. It wasn't pretty, but what could we do. They came rushing to kill us, so we couldn't just offer our necks quietly."

Even now, countless wars broke out across the continent. Naurillia itself had just expanded the scale of war with Azpen and taken the Green Pearl Plain.

Given time, that one would get a name too, something like the Green Pearl Plain War.

And the Western War Rem mentioned had been especially brutal.

Dozens of pioneer villages each claimed their own king.

Some people even called it the War of the Throne Strife instead of the Western War.

One tribe eventually won, but it was a victory made of scars.

After that, they had to submit to the Empire for devastating the west and leaving it ruined.

"Back then I used a sword too, and that was fun. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Damn genius bastard.

Every weapon he grabbed felt fun to him, apparently.

From the rough outline, it sounded like Rem had also made his mark during the Western War.

Looking at his age now,

"Back then, around fifteen?"

"Yeah, about that."

Only fifteen.

'What was I doing then?'

Was he thrashing around, trying to leave his village?

Did he still believe he had talent?

Was that when he believed time was fair to everyone, so effort alone would do it?

Time was not fair.

You could tell just by hearing Rem's story.

The clock of someone with talent could run far fuller than the clock of someone without it.

"So I got something I want to ask."

No context, no clean flow, and even if unintentional, it mixed in bragging about being a genius.

Somewhere in there, he also said he had killed some bear-like guy from a neighboring tribe during the war.

No clue who that was, and no reason to care.

Then he threw out the final question.

"Will you really become a knight?"

It was a truly out-of-nowhere question, but Enkrid was not surprised at all.

Maybe because it was a question he always asked himself.

How could Enkrid not have asked himself the same thing?

'Can I become one? Is it possible? What is a knight?'

No answer lived inside those repeated questions. So he kept stepping forward, because there was no other road.

Literally in rain, in snow.

Even under blazing sunlight.

Even on the road out for a mission.

Even knowing that this very day would end in death.

Calling that stubborn still would not be enough.

"Yeah."

There was not even a trace of hesitation in his answer. Enkrid stayed calm. It was the same as any other day, and the same as any other answer.

To Rem, that felt fresh all over again.

"And you can?"

"Who knows."

That was the honest truth. Nobody knew the future. Not even prophets were worth trusting.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

"I see."

"That's right."

A few pointless lines went back and forth.

After that, it was ordinary. Eat, rest, spar.

Rem did not ask that kind of question again. He stayed casual. There was no way to know what was inside him anyway.

Rem thought about it.

If that guy really became a knight, if it really happened.

'Should I go back and retrieve what I left behind?'

It was a serious question for him. The thing he had left behind when he left his own land. If he retrieved that, then even if he could not become what these people called a knight, he could at least become knight-class.

The slick continent bastards narrowed the road to knighthood to one path, but Rem thought differently.

And in truth, that was how it was. In the west, they used Hero instead of knight. A Hero who would pioneer the continent, a word from old legends.

And Rem had been the top candidate of the next generation of Heroes. He had been the top one.

After a short burst of thought passed through his mind, he watched Enkrid swing his sword day and night and made up his mind.

"Then I'll become a knight too."

Rem tossed it out like a passing comment. If it were the usual Enkrid, he might have teased him, maybe twisted it into a joke.

Like,

"Why bother?"

"You can't become a knight by knocking down your superior."

"Does your head hurt?"

He thought he would hear lines like that, but instead,

"Yeah?"

A calm reaction. Then came words that felt completely natural.

"Spar?"

That made Rem strangely happy again.

Wasn't this man unbelievably consistent?

And in the way he spoke, in the tone under it, Rem caught something like respect. He liked that a lot.

* * *

Around when Rem shared that resolve with Enkrid.

Outside the city, a man with his face wrapped in a black hood looked up at the Border Guard wall.

It's high.

For most demon creatures, it would be hard to leap over.

But what about high-rank Magic Beasts.

And on top of that.

"It's a temporary alliance."

Ten bandits from the Black Blades.

With this much, wasn't it enough to stir up one hell of a commotion.

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