WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 212: A True Delicacy

= = =

The moment the tide of battle fully turned, Marcus pulled back instead of closing an encirclement.

The retreat flag waved, the trumpet sounded on cue, and the frenzied Border Guard troops came to a halt.

"Enough. This is as far as we go!"

As their lines withdrew, starting with the Turtle Heavy Infantry Company that had been pushing forward, Rem grumbled.

"Damn, we were just getting started."

Blood dripped from the edge of Rem's axe.

With a smile on his face as he said it, a few allies who had been about to cheer quickly looked away.

Even Enkrid found him intimidating, but Rem was not the kind of madman who would swing an axe at his own side.

He might throw a punch, though.

Pointless thought.

Even those called knights wore down in prolonged combat.

Rem was no exception.

It was right about when the precision in his axe work seemed to dull a little.

The five of them had cut down dozens, no, more than a hundred.

And it had not even taken long.

Anyone who had witnessed this battlefield would never forget the names of the five now standing at its center.

Right after Enkrid spoke those names, the enemy stopped in place. They were terrified. Frightened. Their momentum broke.

Marcus had opened them a retreat route at exactly the right time.

From far away, Marcus cast one glance at Enkrid's group, then looked elsewhere.

A blue flag was raised high.

It was the signal from the Frontier Guard that had maneuvered to the right.

"They caught the detached force too."

Looking only at the damage on the front line, it almost felt absurd to call this a great victory.

The other side had lost to five people.

A political victory. A victory of tricks.

A commander's victory, won by hiding Enkrid well.

"Shouldn't we pursue?"

It was the 2nd Company Commander. He came up beside him, breathing hard, and asked. Marcus shook his head.

"Let them go. Even a rat bites a cat when cornered, and even a ghoul uses its handful of brains when cornered."

Kraiss had quietly settled near command, the place he considered safest on the battlefield. Hearing the battalion commander's words, he thought:

So he is letting them go.

Even in a fight to kill or be killed, was it because they were still under the same kingdom's roof?

What a waste.

It was the commander's call, so it was not his place to say anything.

Even without the Madmen Company, they had a chance to seize the enemy commander with either the heavy infantry or the Frontier Guard, yet they were letting him go.

So they had never planned to capture him in the first place.

Was Marcus trying to use this chance to show Border Guard's strength instead?

Still, a waste was a waste.

If they had captured the enemy commander, the payoff later would have been huge.

If they seized him and released him for a price, they could pull a lot from Martai.

Secure trade routes.

Border Guard had already finished preparing to remake itself into one of the major trade cities in both name and reality.

If so, securing trade routes, especially one through the Martai region, would be critically important.

That was the easiest gain from capturing and negotiating over the enemy commander.

Was that all? No.

Bounty money.

If he was the type who called himself a general or whatever, he had to be sitting on significant personal wealth too.

When someone of noble rank was captured, releasing them for krona was routine.

It happened often even between hostile nations that slaughtered each other.

And this one was the mayor of Martai and its general. Publicly, he was supposed to be an ally.

Martai carried the nickname of a mercenary city, and Kraiss knew exactly how krona piled up.

That was why this felt so wasteful.

He could have made an absurd amount of krona.

At this point, Battalion Commander Marcus was either stupid or not greedy.

He did not seem stupid.

Kraiss scratched his chin.

Everything Marcus had done so far made it clear. He had hidden Enkrid and deliberately lured the enemy in before crushing them.

A fool could not pull that off.

And what kind of person left all battlefield merit and the whole outcome of victory or defeat to one man?

His guts were beyond huge.

The strategy had been so bold it was practically insane.

And what stood before them now was the result after it worked.

A roar erupted into the clear blue sky.

"Wooooaaah!"

"Enkriddd!"

"If you charge!"

Spears rose high.

"You die!"

Thud!

They shouted as spear tips struck the ground.

The morale of the surviving allies was higher than ever.

That made it feel even more wasteful.

If they had chased the retreating enemy, they would have fought more efficiently than ever.

Was it not always the retreating side that took the heavier losses, compared to a frontal clash?

The side that pursued held the best position.

"The cavalry's mostly gone too, right?"

Marcus's voice rang out again. Kraiss pricked up his ears.

"Yes, we got almost all of them. Some cavalry were pulled to the rear from the start."

The lieutenant answered.

"If we hadn't opened a retreat route, those bastards would've charged out and extracted only that Olf bastard."

So that could have happened too.

Kraiss nodded inwardly.

Unexpected. Still, it felt like something worth trying anyway.

Marcus stayed silent for a while after that. The retreating enemy kicked up clouds of dust.

With so many humans massed on the field, neither magic beasts nor demon creatures came prowling.

In a battle this big, even a brainless ghoul would see it and run.

As the silence stretched, the lieutenant spoke first, sounding uneasy.

"Do we retreat?"

This could have been the moment to pull back, reorganize, celebrate victory, and call it done.

Opening wine bottles, wetting their throats with red wine, laying out all kinds of food, none of that would have been bad.

But Kraiss thought that was inefficient.

What did we gain from this battle?

To Kraiss, who measured everything around him in krona, this battlefield had yielded nothing.

The joy of surviving? The thrill of smashing enemies who charged in?

What was the point if none of it turned into krona?

Sure, some of it could become krona later, but there was no immediate reward. That was what felt so frustrating.

Even so, just as he thought the battle was over and it was time to go back.

Marcus, who had not answered the lieutenant for a long while, finally spoke.

"The whole army advances."

"...?"

Advance?

Kraiss tilted his head. This time he could not hide what he felt. Luckily, only Finn, who stood beside him as escort, noticed.

"Why?"

Finn asked.

"He said we advance."

Kraiss whispered back. But advance where?

Up front, even the lieutenant beside Marcus asked in surprise.

"Advance where?"

"Where else?"

At that moment, Kraiss got a clear look at Marcus's face.

It was not the face of a commander drunk on victory.

It was the expression a politician or merchant wore when events unfolded exactly as planned.

Meaning this was not over yet.

"Let's go."

Marcus said it with his fangs bared. That bright, clean smile let Kraiss read his real intent. Light reflected off his teeth.

Flash.

Ah.

He had never intended to end this as a battle with no profit.

That brief realization hit Kraiss hard. A small but sharp shiver ran through him. Not quite lightning, but close enough. A moment of understanding.

Kraiss learned something new.

Let them go, then follow.

The enemy would return home.

A rat cornered bites the cat, but if you let it go, it runs back to where its hoarded treasure is piled high.

A chance to take wealth.

Kraiss took the thought one step further.

He read what Marcus had in mind.

Was this only pressure?

A warning to never strike Border Guard again?

No way.

If Martai cooperated, they could gain trade routes and all kinds of benefits.

But what if they occupied the city?

Then it became a different story. The whole board changed. Trade routes were no longer the issue.

It would be like giving wings to the trade city of Border Guard.

Martai was nicknamed the eastern mercenary city.

Its military strength, its power, its position, all of it was useful.

If they could eat it. If they could digest it.

"A true delicacy."

Kraiss muttered.

Whether Marcus heard him or not, he spoke again, fangs still showing.

Light still flashed off his teeth.

Flash.

"We are going to strike Martai."

Marcus gave the order to advance, and the lieutenant relayed it through the ranks.

* * *

Enkrid, standing at the very front, naturally heard the same order.

"Advance from here?"

In a brief moment, he ran through several things in his head. What Kraiss had said, the current condition, allied morale and strength, and the problems with advancing as they were.

None.

No, one uneasy issue remained.

The five mages the enemy had hidden were nowhere in sight.

Was that their hidden trump card, or had they run when they saw the battle turn?

No way to know.

Rather than deliberate, Enkrid grasped Marcus's intent almost by instinct.

We're taking the city.

What would happen if the growing Border Guard swallowed Martai?

Should be good, I guess.

Whatever came after was not his concern. Enkrid did what he had to do in front of him.

"If you're exhausted, you can drop out."

At his gentle remark to the other four:

"Are you insane?"

"My name is Ragna. I can still run."

"Heh heh, Company Commander brother, let's go."

Rem, Ragna, then Audin spoke in order, while Jaxon said nothing. He swung his sword once through empty air, then tossed it away.

Then he scanned the ground and picked up an arming sword that was still in decent shape.

When Enkrid stared at him, Jaxon muttered as if to himself.

"The blade's damaged."

They were advancing, but there was no need to hurry.

Marcus, the commander, had made his intent clear.

Keep morale high and move at a proper quick-march pace.

Enkrid was naturally at the front.

"Ragna, were you mocking me earlier?"

Enkrid asked while walking, and Ragna tilted his head before replying.

"I only spoke sincerely. My name is Ragna, a man who does not retreat. That is who I am."

Hearing that, Rem chimed in from the side, saying, "My name is Rem," then started snickering.

They were never normal, but now they were definitely full-on lunatics.

Enkrid thought that and kept walking.

Sunlight poured down onto his back as he walked and kept walking forward.

They were heading east, and the sun leaned west.

For a moment, a Border Guard soldier watching Enkrid's back thought he was shining.

Of course it was an illusion, something like a mirage.

But it was true he had earned feats bright enough to seem that way.

A soldier with a knack for making lyrics on the spot began chanting a song.

The lyrics were crude and the melody ordinary. It was little more than a patchwork of tunes he had heard somewhere, but everyone shouted the last lines together.

"Who is the flower of battle?"

"Infantry!"

"Who is Border Guard's strongest?"

"Madmen!"

It was an annoying song. As Enkrid walked ahead, he let out a small laugh without meaning to.

Only then did it really sink in that his unit had become the first group in the force to be counted among the strongest in combat power.

Cheers and chants of "My name is Enkrid!" and other nonsense lines kept rolling through the song.

"You like it?"

Rem asked from the side. His smirking face was irritating, but Enkrid did not bother pointing it out.

"Not bad."

* * *

Marcus did not move in haste.

There was no need to show himself to the enemy.

After General Olf entered the city and half a day had passed.

Quietly, without a sound, like a lynx, he began setting up camp in front of the city.

Olf had no spare strength to send scouts to the rear.

Naturally. It was a defeat. A crushing one. He had only survived because the enemy opened a path for him. How could he afford to look back?

He had returned with slumped shoulders.

"Fucking bastard."

Olf swore that next time he would tear Marcus's throat out.

Bang!

In irritation, self-loathing, rage, and humiliation, he smashed his fist into the wall.

Part of the wood caved inward.

"The bathwater is ready."

It was the inner-castle steward.

"Got it."

It was time to remove his armor, wash up, suppress and bury the fatigue and irritation and every other surging emotion, then rest.

Olf headed to his office because he did not even want to see his wife and daughter.

Today I'll sleep on the cot. Better that way.

He entered with that thought, but sleep would not come.

Not long after.

"General!"

The office door burst open. They had rushed in so fast that the lieutenant seemed to have run in with the messenger.

Olf, now in plain clothes with a silk shirt on, raised only his upper body from the cot.

"What is it?"

The moment he asked, cold sweat ran down his back. Tension clamped around his heart.

"We are surrounded!"

The lieutenant said.

"By who?"

Did someone watch Border Guard's defeat and jump in? From where? Was this a board Count Molsen had laid out?

"The Border Guard standing army!"

The soldier's eyes trembled nonstop as he spoke.

He was not in his right mind either.

Olf had no room to notice that.

"...What?"

Olf's mouth fell open in shock. Why were those bastards here? They fought yesterday and let us go. Then why come here?

He asked with his eyes, and the lieutenant answered.

"What do we do?"

Drip.

Without realizing it, drool fell from the corner of Olf's mouth.

Things had become thoroughly tangled.

Defeat. Troops reduced in number and broken in morale. Even the forces of nobles he knew had been ground down. He had also broken the sword Count Molsen gave him.

That too was his own fault for misjudging Border Guard's strength.

Drip.

A second bead of saliva fell from Olf's mouth.

The lieutenant and messenger did not think it was disgusting.

They were in the same panic.

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