WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 200: Wise Response

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Enkrid also raised his head and recognized the enemy. In that brief instant.

"Kill them all!"

The one who seemed to be the gift bundle's leader shouted, a slit-eyed bastard.

The moment he yelled to kill everyone, one man immediately turned and ran for his life. That bothered Enkrid enough to chase him.

"Handle the rest yourselves."

He tossed out the words and sprinted. If he activated Heart of Superhuman Strength, he could imitate the dash that squire had shown him.

And from what he had just seen, if he added precision to it, he could probably run faster for longer.

What he thought through in his head, he now executed with his body. That process felt different from before.

At first it was rough, but it settled into him quickly after that.

He could not call it familiar yet, but he could not call it awkward either.

Enkrid kept chasing the fugitive.

Catching up was naturally easy. The guy was forcing his way through brush, trees, and thornbushes with his body.

Once Enkrid got on his back, the man resisted. He handled an Arming Sword beautifully.

It was technique-centered swordsmanship.

If he had to classify it, it leaned toward the Illusionary Sword line.

'Still worse than Vallen-style mercenary swordsmanship.'

He mixed in several feints and aimed to finish with a thrust.

In that case, dual sword draw would be better.

In terms of technique, Enkrid felt the beastkin Dunbakel was better.

That did not mean this man was weak.

Dunbakel was rough. Her technique lacked form and meaning, and she relied on crafty tricks and strength.

This one was different. He clearly had not neglected training, and there was no hesitation in his swings.

That still did not make him Enkrid's match.

Ting, thud, crack!

Before the incoming blade could play its tricks, Enkrid stepped in first and smashed his own sword across.

He had already seen this pattern once. No need to watch it twice.

His rising diagonal cut hooked the enemy blade and opened the man's chest line.

At once, Enkrid drove his shoulder into the solar plexus. Air leaked from the man's mouth.

Even then, the bastard's eyes flashed. His hand went to a knife at his waist.

While shoulder-checking him, Enkrid drew his Guard Sword and shoved it up under the man's jaw.

Several movements in a single breath, an imitation of the trick Ragna had shown him.

When Enkrid stopped there, the man let out a groan and exhaled.

He had frozen with his hand still on the knife, left arm twisted oddly backward.

"Who are you?"

No answer came. Enkrid slid the blade in a little, and a bead of blood formed below the Adam's apple. Then he pretended to slip and pushed harder. Blood streamed out.

"B-Black, from the Black Blades Main Branch!"

The man blurted it out.

"Main Branch? For what?"

"Patrol!"

A lie, his sixth sense told him. Enkrid neither narrowed his eyes nor glared at him.

"Let me ask just in case. Are you planning to answer honestly?"

"...What?"

No, probably not.

Enkrid drew the Guard Sword straight across.

A new mouth opened under the man's throat, and death followed naturally.

There was no time or room for a full interrogation.

Even if he had done it, he likely would not have gotten anything important.

The situation was already clear, so what mattered about the Black Blades Main Branch now?

Avoiding the gush of blood, he shoved the corpse aside and turned back.

After killing him and returning, the scene was obvious.

They had fought, and they had won.

Corpses scattered everywhere after victory, as expected. Bodies were strewn all around.

Three survived, and those three had been set aside.

Enkrid immediately started patting down dead bandits for loot. Rem and Ragna did the same.

If there was anything to salvage, leaving it here would be wasteful.

He gathered a wrist-mounted arrow launcher, poison sand, half-eaten bread, a few silver coins, a few copper coins, and small blades.

Every weapon in their hands could be turned into Krona.

The problem was carrying it all.

If they shoved everything into one backpack and hauled it, the trip back would be brutal. The weight was no joke.

It would not all fit anyway.

"You carry it."

"You wanna die?"

He heard Ragna and Rem start bickering after reading the situation.

"Enough."

He stopped the two, then looked at the three bandits he had left alive on purpose.

He tossed a question to one of them.

"So. Your main force got wiped out?"

Of the three, one knew nothing and was just crying.

The other two had sharp, darting eyes and made it obvious they were quick on the uptake.

Three mouths. More than enough to talk.

"Y-yes, sir. It's all over. We saw from the rear, everything was blazing. Looked like they set it on fire."

He said it while sweating buckets.

The weather was humid enough, and rain looked likely within a day or two.

'Doesn't look like it will spread into a major fire.'

He had not expected an assault this aggressive, but he knew whose blades those were.

The Frontier Guard. If it was them, they would not use fire sloppily and leave a mess.

"And you lot?"

"A man from the Main Branch said we'd be finished at this rate, said some of us had to survive and deliver word, so..."

His sentence trailed off. It sounded like they had run without even fighting.

There was no blood on their weapons, and they were drenched in sweat. It was obvious.

One more guess: they were probably all the survivors. A few scattered through the forest might remain, but those would just become demon creature meals.

"You made it all the way here?"

"There is a shortcut!"

The two sharp ones fired back one after another without even breathing.

The Black Blade Bandits were people who nested in the mountains while enduring demon creature attacks.

If they went into the wilderness and rode horses, they became mounted raiders.

If they went to sea and boarded ships, they became pirates.

But the real sea already had groups more famous than them.

And the vast eastern plains had no room for half-baked raider bands.

In practice, that made the Black Blades the largest inland bandit group.

And if they had lived around here all this time, they would naturally know the roads.

"I know the roads inside out!"

As soon as Enkrid showed interest in routes, another bandit jumped in fast.

"That beastkin bitch knows nothing! That bitch is a dumb whore who still thinks she's a mercenary, so..."

He ignored the useless rambling.

"Let's go to the city and talk."

They would be handed over directly to the city. After that, the city would handle it, execution, prison, flogging, whatever they wanted.

"Ah."

One bandit let out a short groan. He knew that if he got dragged in like this, his end would be no joke.

"P-please."

He sounded desperate, so Enkrid decided to be generous.

"Want me to end it here?"

The bandit's eyes shook like he had gone insane.

"No."

After that, they finished stripping gear. Since they had no spare bags, they tore clothes off dead men, tied them into bundles, and stuffed in every weapon and every item they had picked up.

Next came digging.

"You dig too."

In the middle of that, Ragna cut the cord on Dunbakel's wrists.

That had been the deal from the start. Once the job was done, they would release her.

Enkrid did not bother paying attention to the beastkin.

By the time the three remaining bandits had dug holes and buried the bodies, the sun had already set.

Camp? No, no need for that.

"Night march."

"Sounds good."

"Yeah."

After Rem and Ragna agreed, they started the return trip.

On the way, they found a wagon and loaded the loot onto it. There were no horses, so the three criminals pulled it themselves.

At that point it was less a wagon and more a human cart.

Rumble, rumble.

The three criminals dragged that wagon across rough ground in the dead of night, panting hard.

Dunbakel pushed from behind.

Enkrid started thinking that beastkin woman could leave whenever she wanted.

She did not carry the same damp, shady vibe the other bandits had.

That pure will to live had honestly made an impression.

It changed nothing, though.

He had decided to let her go because he had promised. That was all.

He did not intend to care about Dunbakel beyond that.

More urgent matters came first.

He had questions to ask Marcus once he got back to the unit.

The road back to the city took twice as long as the trip out. No horses, more cargo.

When they reached the city gate.

"Who goes there!"

A soldier shouted from the gallery. Three archers were also visible, bows trained on them.

They were several times more tense than usual.

"Company Commander Enkrid, Independent Company."

The moment he gave his affiliation, torchlight flickered above and a voice called down.

"You?"

It was Vengeance. Soon the side door near the gate opened. The wagon could not fit, so they started unloading everything, and Vengeance came down.

"You, what is all this? Where did you loot? Did you start robbing people?"

"Not robbery. Just a counterattack against robbers."

The winner took spoils. Common sense.

The amount was a little much for spoils, maybe, but he was not wrong.

Vengeance tilted his head at Enkrid's answer.

This was no time to explain every detail.

"Why are you so jumpy?"

Enkrid asked.

He had only been gone one full day at most.

Dawn was close now, so that was really all. Yet a strange tension had filled the city.

"You're going to the Battalion Commander right away, right? Hear the details inside."

Vengeance did not explain either.

Enkrid had not told him much, and Vengeance gave the same treatment back.

"Petty bastard."

Enkrid snorted with a faint grin and walked in.

Rem and Ragna trailed in right behind him.

As they entered, Rem handed over the three bandits.

"Handle them yourselves."

"Who are these guys?"

"Black Blade Bandits."

Why was that name showing up here?

While Vengeance blinked, the white-haired beastkin followed right behind Rem and Ragna.

Can he really leave that one alone?

No one said anything, so it was probably fine.

After sending Enkrid's group on their way, Vengeance turned to his subordinate and asked in a careful, serious tone.

"Am I petty?"

The subordinate swallowed hard. Honesty was a virtue, yes, but sometimes a white lie was an even bigger virtue.

"No, sir. Platoon Leader, you are broad, no, normal."

He still could not bring himself to call him broad-minded. That was his final scrap of conscience.

From the moment he got jealous of Company Commander Enkrid over popularity with women, wasn't it obvious he was narrow and petty?

"Right? I'm not that petty, am I?"

The subordinate nodded. It was a wise response.

* * *

Standing before the Battalion Commander, Enkrid threw out the question that had been sitting in his chest.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Even if he had known, it should not have caused trouble. If anything, they could have responded more proactively.

That was why he asked.

Marcus's eyes widened, as if to say, Why wouldn't you know? Then he spoke.

"Company Commander Enkrid, you can't act."

Had Marcus really been watching Enkrid act this whole time?

No, probably not. He had likely judged from Enkrid's usual speech and attitude. The moment he heard it, Enkrid admitted it inwardly.

'If you want to deceive, deceive your allies first.'

A basic strategy.

"What if I had ended up in danger?"

"Didn't you say you were taking Rem and Ragna?"

A short silence passed. Right, it was not that dangerous.

"Why is the city atmosphere like this?"

Enkrid smoothly changed topics, and the one who answered was the Elf Company Commander, who had taken a seat before he noticed.

"Twice, reconnaissance teams tried. Four times, groups believed to be spies tried to cross the wall. Three times, they tried to pass the gate in disguise."

None of that had happened in a single day. He was summarizing events from this stretch.

"Who?"

"Do I need to say who?"

At the Elf Company Commander's question back, Enkrid dropped the dumb act and answered.

"Martai."

Marcus responded to that.

"Yes, Martai declared war."

Was it incredible timing?

No, they likely made the first move before the moment they had been waiting for slipped away.

In one full day, the biggest thing had happened in the city.

War, again.

This time it was not a war with another nation, but a war between cities.

A fight between Martai and Border Guard.

At that point, even if the center had the strength to send reinforcements, they could not.

A pretext was always buildable, and Martai was not full of idiots. They had likely already prepared a plausible case.

"They sent forged documents claiming Border Guard had been Martai territory since the previous generation."

Marcus said it with a laugh edged in irritation at how absurd the enemy's pretext was.

"So we sent the same thing back."

The Elf Company Commander said they had paid them back in kind.

Meaning they forged documents claiming Martai was this side's property as well and sent those over.

You could call it a war of forged official records.

As Enkrid thought, Wise response, he also started wondering why they were telling him this in such detail.

"I'll be looking forward to your performance on the battlefield."

Marcus said it. The expectation in his eyes had crossed seriousness and looked almost like he was staring at an idol, and Enkrid did not find that look unpleasant at all.

"Let's have fun with it."

The Elf Company Commander said that, then added her usual elf-style joke.

"Should we name it the honeymoon war?"

"Is Battalion Commander getting married again?"

Enkrid fired back without yielding, human-style, and Marcus laughed out loud.

A schemer hid behind the nickname war maniac.

That man did not look afraid of the coming war.

Meaning he had something he believed in.

Enkrid found himself a little curious what that was.

After finishing the full report and returning, just before entering the barracks.

"Aren't you leaving?"

Dunbakel had been tailing along, then stopped.

She stood blankly in front of the barracks. Did nobody stop her?

War was right in front of them, and discipline was a mess.

Enkrid thought that as he looked at Dunbakel.

Dunbakel made up her mind and spoke.

Her voice was the low husky tone typical of beastkin, but unmistakably female to anyone who heard it.

"I have something to say."

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