WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 195: Handle It Yourself (3)
= = =
Right after Enkrid left, Marcus quietly called in the Frontier Defense Captain.
“Are the preparations done?”
Marcus asked in a relaxed posture, leaning back in his chair, but his eyes were like a predator watching prey.
“They are men who are used to this kind of work.”
“Good. Then we proceed as planned.”
“You will not inform the Independent Company Commander?”
“I already gave him a hint.”
That was all, just enough of a sign, but he would handle the rest.
There was no need to burden him by spelling out that they would be killing a noble anyway.
This was Marcus’s intent.
Take that noble bastard who took Black Blade gold and run him in circles.
They were taking a prisoner along too, were they not.
They could use the captured Beastkin for whatever tricks they wanted.
In other words, he had read Marcus’s intent.
No need to explain any further.
A crazy bastard who could keep that madman satisfied while never falling behind in skill.
How many people like that were in the unit.
Marcus had raised him to Independent Company Commander, but he still was not fully recognized, so people treated him as lower ranked than the 1st Company Commander or the Frontier Defense Captain. In terms of skill, though, he was more trustworthy than anyone.
So he was the perfect choice.
On top of that, Marcus had sent Enkrid out with a kind of anticipation he could not explain.
No, that was not the only thing he was after. He was after many things.
Marcus also wanted to hide Enkrid’s ability.
Even if he stayed in the unit, no one would suddenly develop eyes sharp enough to see everything, but it never hurt to be careful.
Those Martai bastards kept sending spies, so Marcus wanted him out of sight for several reasons.
He really did not want their strength exposed through pointless feats.
A core fighter in a small elite force, personally excellent, and even capable of command. Obsessed with training, yet not bad-hearted from what he did.
And he even knew how to humor petty nobles.
That was something.
No wonder he was such desirable talent.
More than that, he was the one who had lit a fire in Marcus’s chest.
These days, Marcus was living with real energy for the first time in years.
Not repeating empty days, but living to seize something new.
He was thrilled to death.
Unlike that excitement inside him, Marcus kept a serious face and silently focused on his work.
Work that did not suit the nickname he had given himself, War Maniac.
It had always been like this. War Maniac was a mask.
A mask to deceive the other side.
In truth, Marcus was not especially gifted in combat or war.
He knew that himself.
Still, lacking talent did not mean he could not do it.
Marcus knew how to use people openly. He knew how to trust. He placed his own people where they mattered.
The 1st Company Commander, the Frontier Defense Captain, the Elf Company Commander, and Enkrid too.
His hand was full of jokers. He had aces too.
With that many cards to play, taking the chips from the bastard across the table was easier than it looked.
He did not need to weave complicated knots, so Marcus moved simply and directly.
He only waited for the moment that would break the opponent’s expectations.
Those Black Blade Bandit bastards, what were they trying to scavenge that they kept shoving their snouts in.
Magic Beast bastards.
There was a Magic Beast drooling as it eyed the city he had to protect.
Should he just leave such a Magic Beast alone?
“Then.”
The Frontier Defense Captain saluted, and Marcus spoke to the back of his head.
“Kill them all.”
“Of course.”
Border Guard was a fortress city and a military city.
It was a place that had spilled savage blood in wars with Azpen.
So if they came lightly and tried their luck, it was time to give them fitting punishment.
* * *
“Not even a squad’s strength, only three?”
The moment Baronet Bansento saw Enkrid, Rem, and Ragna, he glared at them and spat abuse.
“A commoner and two barbarians? What a trash combination. You stink. Do not come near me.”
That was the first thing he said, right in front of the city gate they were guarding.
Rem’s hand gently wrapped around his axe handle.
Enkrid reached out with his right hand and caught Rem’s wrist.
With his other hand, he pressed down on Ragna’s left thigh.
He shook his head at both of them.
“What? You dare stand before a noble without even showing proper courtesy!”
Bansento was practically begging the heavens to let them kill him quickly. He begged with all his heart.
Enkrid had expected this to some extent, so handling it was easy.
“Yes, sir.”
He gave a military salute and stepped fully in front of Rem and Ragna, blocking them with his body.
“Like subordinate, like commander.”
Bansento mocked him to the very end.
“My axe is crying, and my pants are getting damp. Let us not make my axe sad.”
Rem barked that out with a serious face.
“Do not.”
At least not inside the city. Assaulting a superior was one thing, murdering a noble was another. If that happened, even a royal extermination unit from the palace would have full cause to come.
And from what Enkrid was seeing now, this would not end with a simple beating.
“Ragna, you too, no.”
Same on that side. Blond hair, red eyes, dangerous mood.
“Let’s go.”
At least one thing was fortunate. A black-cloaked escort over leather armor led the petty noble forward.
Only the noble and his escort got into the carriage. Enkrid’s group had to walk.
And another member was added to the group.
“Why are we taking this one?”
Ragna said as he tugged the end of the rope in his hand.
The Beastkin called Dunbakel, standing beside him, was dragged by that motion.
Both wrists were tightly bound with thick cord, and rope was wound around her arms and torso too.
The loose end trailed down, and Ragna held it.
Blood had seeped out where the rope had rubbed her wrists raw. Beastkin skin should have been harder and tougher than a human’s, so if it looked like this, they probably had not loosened her bonds even once since capture.
Not that anyone planned to loosen them now.
“She is the guide.”
Enkrid did not trust the noble trash traveling with them.
That did not mean he trusted Dunbakel, a prisoner, any more.
She wanted to live.
Enkrid took a simple approach. He asked the Battalion Commander to hand over the prisoner, then went straight to her and asked:
“Do one job, and I will let you live. Think of it as a contract.”
She had called herself a mercenary, so a contract fit.
The payment was her life, and the choice was hers.
“...You will let me live?”
Her eyes were full of suspicion. But the more he looked, the stranger they seemed. A Beastkin with a golden glow in her pupils.
Was there not some legend on their side about golden eyes?
Enkrid remembered things he had heard during his mercenary days.
But looking at her now, she looked like a drenched stray dog, like someone cast out and kicked around.
He noticed it, but asked nothing. What would asking accomplish.
A deal was enough. Once this was over, they would have no reason to see each other again. For Beastkin, things ended one of two ways, they died or they left.
“Will you do it or not? Believe me or not, do it or not, that is your choice.”
After saying that, Enkrid shook his head and corrected himself.
“No, in truth you do not have a choice. Just do it. Better to do something than get executed. Once we are outside, you might get a chance to escape.”
“Why go this far?”
Enkrid did not answer that question. He could not.
How could he say it?
That those eyes, that desperate hunger to live, looked like him when he had thrashed around chasing his dream.
If Frog were drawn by desire, Beastkin clung to breeding and instinct.
So it was natural for a Beastkin to want to live.
Humans were no different.
But in that moment, those eyes were different.
It went beyond simple pleading to be spared. They were the eyes of someone so desperate to live that she would do anything.
It was pure instinct, pure feeling, but he did not want to ignore it.
“You got a taste for Beastkin?”
The Battalion Commander had started as a joke, then said this too.
“One Beastkin, handle it yourself.”
Free her, kill her, make her a slave because it suited his taste, do whatever he wanted. That was what he meant.
The Battalion Commander was always that bold in matters like this.
Enkrid planned to free her if she obeyed well enough.
Was attacking them itself a crime?
By that logic, everyone would have to die once war broke out.
He did not want her backstory. It was a whim. And if he could make use of her, even better.
That was why he made her the guide instead of that half-baked noble.
He could cross-check whether she really knew the road and whether she was trying any tricks.
After Ragna asked why they were taking her, this was where Enkrid’s train of thought ended, and the answer came.
Enkrid measured whether he could explain all that to Ragna.
Not a chance.
Even if Enkrid explained it, would Ragna listen?
“She looks like she can find roads well.”
So he compressed it into one line.
Ragna looked oddly hurt.
“I may not be good at finding roads, but I am good with a sword.”
Who did not know that.
“I know.”
Enkrid answered flatly and stepped outside the city gate.
Dunbakel watched all of this and found the whole situation strange.
The man with the axe who had tormented her before did not even look at her now. He treated her as if she did not exist.
He only stroked the axe handle and watched the one he was guarding.
Her Beastkin instincts sent a warning.
If left alone, he looked like the type to chop someone into six pieces.
Enkrid seemed to know that too, and kept warning him.
“Tone it down.”
“Stop.”
“I said stop.”
“Rem.”
Even then, Rem did not take his hand off the axe handle.
He was insane.
Dunbakel understood this human named Rem at a glance, and she was exactly right.
“If you lead us wrong, I will cut you.”
The one holding her rope was the same. There was not a trace of emotion in his voice.
It was just fact. He would do it. It was the most natural thing in the world.
Like saying the sun would rise tomorrow morning.
If she ran, she would die too.
More than anything, the way they had tied her up was a problem.
What a taste.
One wrap below her chest, then around her forearms, then up to her neck and wrists.
It was beyond uncomfortable. She could do nothing except walk.
They set off, and before they had gone many steps, the noble opened the carriage window. The walls of Border Guard were still visible behind them.
Meaning any patrolman with sharp eyes could still tell who was here.
The noble at the window spoke.
“You look fun. Beastkin, come to my carriage tonight.”
The way he flared his nostrils made her wonder what would happen if she jammed her fingernails into them.
“Then will you untie my ropes?”
“Sounds more fun not to untie you.”
The desire and lust that radiated plainly from the speaking man did not disgust her as much as make her think he was easy prey.
At least much easier than the one holding her rope, the one with the axe, or the one who had captured her.
A smile rose at the corner of Rem’s mouth when he heard the noble’s words.
She understood clearly then how dangerous he was.
Ragna said little, but spoke in a steady voice anyway.
“Move without permission and I cut you.”
Same tone as saying the moon rises at night.
So if she obeyed the noble, they would kill her.
In all of this, Dunbakel saw the calmest human of all.
Enkrid, was it.
When the carriage started moving, he drew his sword and began swinging it beside the carriage.
What was he doing?
Whoosh, whump.
The blade cut through the air.
Training while walking? Practice? Drills?
Watching his feet shift side to side, he seemed to be practicing his steps too.
The noble’s escort, who also drove the carriage, saw it and sneered.
“A maggot does not become a butterfly just because it crawls.”
Did he even know what he was saying?
Dunbakel had fought Enkrid. That man had terrifying skill.
But seeing this now sparked curiosity more than fear.
She glanced back and saw Ragna watching his commander closely, so she could not hold back and asked:
“He already has that level of skill. Why does he still push himself like this...”
She trailed off, unsure how he would react, but Ragna answered more easily than expected.
“The captain used to be hopelessly bad. He could not properly handle even one ghoul.”
One ghoul? No way.
Dunbakel had fought Enkrid. She knew his skill better than anyone, because she had faced it directly most recently.
“And he still swung his sword like that every day. Even if all it did was harden his palms a little and add a little muscle, he still did it. Every day was the same. Always, every time. How can someone do that?”
At first Ragna seemed to be answering her, but by the end it sounded like he was talking to himself.
No, had it been a monologue from the start?
Dunbakel looked into Ragna’s eyes, wondering what had gotten into him.
Those eyes looked like they were burning.
Eyes of someone absorbed in something, obsessed with it.
This was not the moment to speak to him.
He could not even handle one ghoul?
And still he kept swinging a sword? Every day? The same thing again and again?
“That is the kind of man he is. Always was. A man it was a miracle to see alive, a man we could not understand making a living by the sword, and then somehow he had grown this much.”
Rem added that too. He had shown no interest, but the moment the talk turned to Enkrid, he walked over and spoke.
The tone that had mocked her and dug at her wounds was gone.
Still, he was insane, so Dunbakel quietly shifted a step to the side.
Then she looked again at Enkrid, still swinging his sword while walking.
Dunbakel thought.
Since when had she stopped?
After she was cast out by Beastkin, she struggled wildly just to survive.
Then she realized she was only half Beastkin.
She decided too quickly that she could not learn Beastkin techniques or anything like that, so growing further would be hard.
After that, she could see no more growth, no more potential. She saw no road ahead, so she stopped training, stopped drilling.
That man once could not even handle one ghoul?
Beside her, Rem the madman muttered, “Did not even take a year. Was that guy actually a genius? No, he was not, definitely not.”
One year?
Could someone go from not even killing a ghoul to this in one year?
Before she realized it, Dunbakel was staring at Enkrid’s back.
He was strange, unsettling. He had not climbed through extraordinary talent. He had swung his sword every day despite lacking talent?
There was no reason for them to lie to her, so it had to be true.
To Dunbakel, this entire situation was strange.
And between that strangeness and curiosity, envy rose up too.
Along with regret. What if she had lived like that too?
She ended that brief regret and swept her gaze left and right.
Hmm.
She showed nothing on the outside, but she confirmed the Black Blade mark.
A choice was needed here.
Should she tell them, or let it pass?
A crossroads.
That was where she stood. Dunbakel kept thinking, and the carriage came to a stop.
“We rest here before moving on.”
The black-clothed escort who doubled as driver said that.
And Enkrid stopped swinging his sword.
= = =
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