WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 199: Boss, We Got a Gift.

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The difference was clear.

One side talked about technique, form, and meaning.

The other talked about crushing everything with overwhelming force.

If one leaned toward swordsmanship, the other was a mass of instinct and sharpened senses.

Both mattered, and both were necessary.

It was not as if Ragna never used instinctive moves.

It was not as if Rem never borrowed the forms of swordsmanship.

'Their traits are just distinct.'

So there was something to learn.

And there was also a shared point between them.

Swordsmanship, senses, steps, offense, defense.

'Precision.'

Maybe it was like stitching with a needle.

Maybe it was like spearing a grain of wheat with a fork.

That was their common ground. Even while fighting like that, they kept adjusting posture, handwork, and footwork by tiny margins with exact precision.

"These bastards."

Defeat had already settled in. The halberd bandit's face had gone dark.

The strength had drained from his muttering voice. He sounded like a man who had already sensed his own death.

He had felt the gap in skill down to the bone. The five facing Rem were no different.

Two had their swords broken and drew shortswords, and the one who kept trying to throw daggers into openings died with his own dagger lodged between his eyebrows.

He had trembled at first as he fell, but now his body was growing cold.

Of the four who kept charging even with a dead comrade beside them, one had his arm cut off.

And all of this happened even though they were attacking loosely, just to show Enkrid.

In the middle of all this, the female bandit with a dagger in her thigh, still trying to shoot arrows from the tree, had to stop every time she felt Enkrid's eyes on her.

It annoyed him enough that he threw another dagger and hit her forearm.

He was already busy observing those two, and she kept splitting his focus.

"Ughhh."

A groan spilled from the female bandit in the tree.

The halberd bandit, maybe from burst blood vessels in his eyes, charged with bloody tears running down his face. At the last moment, he threw his spear while risking death and tried to grab Ragna.

At that point, Ragna stopped showing the precise orthodox sword style and revealed his true specialty.

The arming sword's blade flashed like a streak of light and cut diagonally across the bandit's body. A Heavy Sword Style downward cut.

The body split like a bundle of straw under the union of power and skill.

Then he moved sideways in an instant and punched the woman with the slender sword in the face.

Smack!

"Gkh!"

A few teeth flew through the air.

As the female bandit clutched her face and staggered back, he followed with a horizontal slash.

Slice!

Her neck flew through the air. Ragna did not stop there.

As if he had switched places with Rem, he dropped the form he had shown moments earlier and used a Heavy Sword Style that was rough but precise, precise but loaded with force.

"Kyaat!"

It was the brown-skinned female bandit who could be mistaken for a man at a glance. Her spear shot forward.

Ragna used his feet to evade it. It was the kind of feat only possible because he had perfectly read the spear's path and speed.

He dodged the flying spear, stepped forward in one bold stride, and followed with an overhead slash.

With a Heavy Sword Style stopping strike, Ragna's sword smashed into the woman's skull.

Thud!

Her head broke apart like a soft apple being crushed.

That was the end.

He killed them all. Afterward, Ragna calmly flicked his sword to shake off the blood and turned his head.

Naturally, his eyes went to Enkrid.

'Did you watch well?'

He did not say it, but the words were there.

Enkrid nodded.

Precision, the meaning of swordsmanship, and the power of form.

Another signpost for the road ahead.

He was deeply pleased. More than anything, Ragna was not even the end of it.

"Why did you finish first!"

No idea why that was worth getting mad over, but Rem suddenly burst out and swung his axe.

After pressing and shoving with raw force several times, his opponents went into total defense.

Another one rolled his eyes around.

He clearly had a trick in mind.

Rem dropped his force-overwhelm approach and began swinging his axe slowly, in proper form.

'Step, gesture, posture.'

Then the falling axe blade.

It was not meant to take a life.

Enkrid noticed, but the bandits did not.

The one with the trident raised his spear to block the axe.

In that gap, another man spun sharply to the side and opened his mouth.

"Pbubut!"

Poison sand. He had held it in his mouth and spat it out. It must have been his hidden move, but Rem had already stepped back as if it were a prepared motion.

"Damn it."

The bandit with blue-stained lips let out something close to a lament.

Rem smirked.

"Too obvious, bastard."

The axe blade danced and slit the bandit's throat.

Then one of them suddenly stabbed his own comrade, the one who had lost a leg, straight in the neck.

"Spare me! I'll tell you everything!"

A filthy end.

"Really? Nice, so you'll endure anything?"

He had said he would tell everything, had he not?

Rem's ears worked differently from other people's.

Most of all, he heard things the way he wanted to hear them.

"Huh? Yes?"

"Where should we start? Hands first? Feet first?"

"...Yes?"

"I'll mince you. This much at a time."

Holding the axe, Rem showed a tiny gap with his thumb and index finger.

"...Yes?"

The bandit did not understand.

Rem kept the same smiling face and swung the axe. Whoosh, thud. A head flew, and the body dropped.

"Just kidding. I don't have that kind of bad hobby."

He looked like he might. He really did.

Enkrid thought that as he watched Rem, and Rem turned and said,

"Watch well?"

That one question showed the whole intent.

Ragna and Rem had both fought slowly to show their captain.

'These two.'

If they revealed everything, how far would it go?

Every time he thought he had caught up, they seemed to have moved ahead again.

When he knew nothing, he thought they were around high-rank soldier level.

When he reached high-rank soldier level himself, he thought they were beyond what soldier grades could measure.

Now that he had become elite and stepped toward his dream.

'Strong enough to kill a squire.'

At minimum, they had squire-class strength.

Rem had said himself that he could not kill a hundred out of a hundred.

Still, who knew. When he said it, it sounded like he meant he could definitely kill them if he had some other means.

So he did not look like a man considering defeat at all.

Not arrogance, not vanity. It was the attitude that leaks out when someone faces reality and reads it exactly.

Ragna was the same.

Audin and Jaxon were similar too.

Those four were monsters.

Enkrid admired his own luck again.

'Four monsters.'

And four teachers.

That meant four times more to learn.

Wasn't that the best?

"Hm."

While Enkrid nodded in inward admiration, Dunbakel, who had watched every fight, stood there with her mouth open.

Drip.

Spit ran down and fell to the ground.

She was so shocked she did not even realize her mouth was hanging open.

'Black Blades Ten.'

Ten members, the top force besides the branch chief, capable of handling almost anything.

Those were the opponents.

And that halberd man had switched over from mercenary work, and even before that he had been famous.

A mercenary who bragged he could face anyone short of squire level, then raised his fame by surviving a clash with an actual knight order squire.

'They toyed with him.'

Dunbakel had eyes. She saw Ragna's skill. It was painfully obvious his blade work was no ordinary thing.

No, it went beyond that. He had toyed with him.

She realized again that their level could not be measured by her yardstick.

Rem looked at stunned Dunbakel and said,

"Close your mouth. It stinks."

Only then did Dunbakel close it.

Enkrid walked to the female bandit with holes in her thigh and forearm.

The woman writhed like a bug under the tree and spoke.

"I, I'm useful. If you spare me, I can, huh? Really."

With that huge frame, what was she even saying?

If the phrase female bandit made someone picture a pretty woman, that person had something wrong in the head.

This woman looked like a bandit.

Black front teeth, one missing, skin rough enough to look vicious, and eyes that smelled of blood.

She must not have washed for days. A sour stench came off her, and now a stale piss smell was mixing in.

The woman who had wet herself looked up at Enkrid.

What should he read in those eyes?

A will to live? Or just survival instinct?

Not long ago, he had looked into Dunbakel's eyes and spared her.

He did not regret that choice or chew on it afterward.

Right or wrong, his heart had moved. Back then, there had been no soot in Dunbakel's eyes.

Then what about now?

Thrust.

He drove his sword straight into the female bandit's neck.

Her plea to be spared was no different from a plea to be treated.

Her injuries were already severe. She would only have a chance to live if someone treated her and carried her out.

And the dagger wounds were in bad places, thigh and forearm.

He had thrown those daggers to restrict movement. They had cut the muscles needed to move.

So saying "spare me" here meant, "Please summon a high priest immediately," or, "Take me with you, treat me, and keep me alive."

The opponent was a bandit. Black Blades sounded grand, but what great group were they really part of?

No chance.

Their original name had been things like Red Blade or Blood Blade.

Over a long time, that hardened into a troublemaking group, and when people said their blood had turned black, they became the Black Blades.

If she was one of their main fighters,

man or woman, she would still be a bastard.

He had relied somewhat on instinct too, but this was a world where killing and being killed were normal.

A world crawling with battlefields, Demon Creatures, and bandits.

And the people here were more than worthy of being called experts in slaughter.

People even used "killing machine" as an insult for real knights, and Enkrid, who was walking toward that path, saw no reason to turn away from that insult.

He pulled his sword out. No residue remained in his heart.

No, he shook it off and turned away.

"So that's the end?"

Rem asked. Maybe his body had loosened up, because he looked less savage than before.

Enkrid did wonder why Rem had been so edgy lately, but instead of asking, he said what needed to be said.

"Their base is probably in even bigger chaos now."

"What else is happening?"

Rem tilted his head, and Ragna asked.

Enkrid was not stupid.

He had already read the mood before Kraiss explained every detail.

How could he not?

Even before they came out here, unrest had been hanging over the barracks.

Sure, dull people let it pass, but even someone like Vengeance had noticed.

"Anything going on lately? Doesn't the mood feel strange?"

He had asked that.

Enkrid had felt it too, and he knew where that feeling came from.

'They're not coming.'

One unit that used to request sparring now and then had suddenly vanished.

Frontier Guard.

Despite the name, they were a combat unit used for special operations.

The Frontier Defense Captain held company commander rank on paper.

In reality, besides Battalion Commander Marcus, he was the highest-ranking field commander.

'Then it's obvious who could move them.'

From there, Kraiss's meticulous guesswork was added.

"Bold move. Marcus, this guy."

Since when the battalion commander became his friend was a separate issue.

"From what I can tell, he's planning to thin out the Black Blades first, while letting eyes be drawn elsewhere."

As he said it, Kraiss looked at Enkrid.

Who the distraction and bait were did not need to be asked.

"Hit from behind. Brilliant. This man is a schemer, huh?"

It was almost more shocking that Kraiss had figured it out.

So Enkrid judged that something bigger would be happening at the Black Blades main branch.

And Enkrid's instincts and Kraiss's prediction were correct.

* * *

"You think you can live easy on this land after making enemies of the Black Blades?"

The branch chief in charge of this area coughed blood and spoke. Bright red blood streamed from the corner of his mouth. His insides felt like they were burning away. It was not just a sensation. He was in real physical agony. His organs were damaged.

"Who cares."

The Frontier Defense Captain spoke calmly and played with a knife in his hand.

Whirl, whirl, the knife spun in his palm, its blade reflecting torchlight. It was so sharp it looked chilling.

The captain thought the man was the type to hide tricks.

So there was no reason to close the distance.

"Kingdom dogs."

Resentment soaked the branch chief's words. Maybe he had his own story, but it was none of the captain's concern.

The captain's knife cut through the air.

Thud!

The thrown knife lodged precisely between the branch chief's eyebrows. The body tipped backward and fell with a heavy crash.

"Take everything worth taking and burn the rest."

This happened while Enkrid was heading to the ambush site and fighting like mad.

The Frontier Defense Captain moved at night with the Frontier Guard.

For this kind of work, the guard was exceptional.

While the Black Blades were focused on the front, on that half-wit noble called Bansento and on Enkrid,

they closed the distance as much as possible and stormed the Black Blades base directly.

Their stronghold was a mountain den around mid-slope. Since they also had to face Demon Creatures, its defenses were fairly solid.

'If your fighting strength is trash, there's a limit to what defenses can do.'

Most of all, their main force was gone. There was no sign of the Black Blades Ten.

"The ones who ran?"

"They know this terrain inside out, so we lost them."

'That's not good.'

While the captain searched the Black Blades den and then the treasure cave up the narrow back path, more than twenty escaped.

The one at the front looked pretty skilled too, but he ran without hesitation.

'If that was on the leader's order.'

That alone proved the Black Blades were no common bandit gang.

Still, what got away got away. Rather than cling to what he could not catch, the captain focused on the result.

"We won."

Marcus's operation had worked beautifully.

* * *

One of the fleeing Black Blades members was a man dispatched from main headquarters.

'It's a raid. This branch is finished.'

As he ran, his mind raced. What was the best move to get out alive?

'Black Blades Ten.'

By tradition, the system used at headquarters was mirrored in each branch.

He had heard those ten in this branch had gone out for an ambush.

The branch chief had committed more force than necessary to make sure this operation did not fail.

That was why headquarters got stripped clean so easily.

With the burning mountain den behind him, the escapee ran straight to the ambush site.

More than twenty bandits followed him.

Join the Black Blades Ten, break out, then head back to headquarters. That was the plan.

Huff, huff, huuk, huuk!

With rough breaths mixed with fear, they pushed through the steep mountain shortcut.

A cleverly hidden forest path was their escape route.

After forcing through that rough trail and reaching the ambush site, what they saw was this.

"This'll be useful."

People rummaging through dead bodies.

Among a black-haired man, a gray-haired man, and a blond one.

'Dunbakel?'

There was a woman even he knew by name. A Beastkin they had hired as a mercenary.

The first one to notice him as he appeared through rustling brush was the gray-haired bastard.

"Captain, a gift arrived."

The man who spotted him said it with a wide grin.

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