WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 215: A Brief Lightning Strike

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Esther understood every trick the five enemy mages had used, and exactly what they intended.

She was a wanderer who reveled in the world of spells. More than that, every mage in that group was below her tier.

Illusion magic and mental magic.

A blend of the two.

She did not know the exact spell name, but she understood how it operated.

It was the true nature of Abyssal Dream.

First, it cast an illusion that made the target feel comfortable. Then it gave them peace.

The idea was good.

Driving someone mad was hard, but giving comfort to people under mental strain was easy.

Those people already longed for peace and comfort. That was how mental spells worked in the first place.

The more the target wanted something, the more easily they accepted it.

Breaking it was even easier. She only had to scatter the mana. But Esther did not do that.

She intended to let those who could sleep, sleep.

She also had no reason to show everyone her human form.

Of course, that did not mean she would kill them to silence them.

Nothing changed just because she had originally been human.

She was a devotee of the world of spells.

She had already committed herself to a path unlike ordinary humans.

So even if others learned the leopard was human, she would still curl up in Enkrid's arms. She would not stop.

She knew it was ridiculous to worry about this at a moment like this.

Still, she had no reason to give up the power that blurred the curse.

She could not help caring about the women around him.

Ordinary humans felt envy and jealousy. If more women stayed by his side, he might start rejecting her.

If that happened, she would have to force her way into his arms.

Better to block that problem in advance.

If that failed, she could overpower him by force.

She had even considered knocking Enkrid down and climbing into his arms that way.

Countless thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant, and Esther finished rationalizing.

The conclusion was simple. It did not matter who found out.

Her deep blue eyes, similar to a leopard's yet different, turned toward the voice.

"I thought it'd be my beauty."

Rem was grinning in that slippery way of his. Gray hair, delicate features.

He was short, but no one could ignore his ability.

"Really?"

Esther answered as if it were nothing.

At the same time, she roughly grasped why he had resisted the spell.

So he had learned a mystery discipline.

Not magic, but another line entirely.

She did not bother acting like she knew.

He was not the only one awake either.

"Looks like some fun brothers came to visit."

Audin. A humanoid monster big enough to rival a bear Magic Beast.

His pale yellow eyes stood out, and he was handsome too.

Looking at his balanced frame, she briefly thought it would be nice to have a golem like that.

She had not even gotten a chance to bring Bonehead out.

The flash golem she had gained through Enkrid before was sleeping peacefully inside her world.

It was not ready yet anyway. It still needed modifications and a lot of work.

In any case, she could also guess why Audin was awake.

Divine power.

A force she disliked. Something that came from a god.

Then Jaxon and Ragna were also awake, as if fainting had nothing to do with them.

"I'm going back to sleep."

Ragna seemed to have awakened part of his Will.

And Jaxon? He was impossible to read. Maybe something trained to the absolute limit had pushed him past his boundary.

As she looked over everyone in turn.

"Mmn."

Enkrid groaned in his sleep.

"He sleeps well."

"To be this dull means he lacks training."

"No need to bother someone who's sleeping. He just has to fight well when he's awake."

"Haha, our company commander brother must be tired. This is all because power has not filled his body."

Starting with Rem, then Jaxon, Ragna, and Audin, each tossed out a comment while looking at their sleeping commander.

In the middle of that, Rem added one more line when he saw the sleeping beastkin woman.

"Leaving that one alone will just cause trouble."

Finn at least had ranger discipline, but that beastkin woman was only good at fighting.

Yet she was snoring at a time like this?

Even though beastkin had natural magic resistance?

In truth, it could not be helped.

Dunbakel had very low self-esteem, and spells of rest and calm were a fatal weakness for her.

Rem did not care about any of that.

He only thought they had to deal with it somehow.

Esther had no interest in showing off her spells, but she also had no interest in sleeping beside corpses.

She waved a hand through the air.

With an invisible force, a basic telekinesis spell every mage used, she rolled the five bodies to the tent entrance.

"The perception-hindering spell will break soon."

Then she spoke to those who remained.

Rem kept talking, but the other three did not care about her presence at all.

Because they had noticed ahead of time?

That too, yes.

"I'm sleeping."

Someone like Ragna existed. The kind who would not care whether she turned human, turned leopard, or suddenly became a giant covered in fur.

How strange.

Esther really did feel strange.

She had expected at least surprise, if not shock, when they saw her.

No, maybe she had secretly hoped for that reaction.

These people were tied together inside one fence, the central ones.

At the center stood the black-haired man who slept soundly even now.

Her time limit ended. Esther became a leopard again and climbed into Enkrid's arms. The black robe around her scattered like smoke and vanished as if it seeped into the ground.

After she became a leopard again, and after the perception-hindering spell disappeared.

"What is this?"

Vengeance entered the barracks, likely part of a patrol unit, and said in shock.

Then he saw the smell of blood and the corpses, and went speechless.

"Since you're here, clean that up."

You could forgive a commander who lost a battle. You could not forgive one who failed to keep watch.

Vengeance could not understand how they had gotten this far inside.

He had no way to know mages had intervened.

"Uh? Uh, right."

He just assumed assassins had targeted them.

Still, as he examined the dead men, they did not look like highly trained killers.

It was simply an absurd night.

If he reported this, Battalion Commander Marcus would explode in anger.

But he had to report it anyway.

Vengeance passed the message through the commander's escort in the middle of the night.

And when Marcus got up in the morning.

"Leave it. Even if a decent assassin came, it'd still be an antlion pit."

He brushed it off.

In truth, Marcus had deliberately placed Enkrid's company barracks on the outskirts.

He had thought Olf of Martai might send assassins as a last desperate move.

At the same time, he also thought it was a hopeless trick.

He had already taken down a half-blood elf before.

That assassin had been pretty famous too, or so he had heard.

Marcus was zealous about gathering information. He believed things like that piled up into victory on the battlefield.

"Tell them to send more. People only learn a pot is hot after touching it."

Marcus said it with a grin. He did not know a mage had come, but he had begun to carry a strange, absolute trust for no clear reason.

If it was Enkrid, he would survive and win somehow.

Another thought came with it.

"A knight."

It was Enkrid's dream.

Back then, Marcus had honestly thought it was mixed with fantasy. Now it felt like it might truly happen.

Then what should he do for him?

If Enkrid became a knight, if he truly entered a knight order.

Under Cyprus?

That picture did not feel very fitting.

No point guessing now. It was the future. He would know when he got there. Until then, Marcus would do what he had to do. He might die before he ever saw Enkrid become a knight.

He was also right on the edge of stepping into dangerous work himself.

"So take care of your own life."

Marcus was doing exactly that.

* * *

Pitch black. Darkness. A canvas painted black. No starlight, no moonlight, no light at all.

There was only the rocking river, the boat, and the boatman sitting on it.

One thing had changed from before.

He could see an eye.

Enkrid saw something like an eye on part of the boatman's face. Only one side.

If someone asked whether it looked like a human eye, he would have said he had no idea.

The moment he saw it, he just knew it was an eye.

It was a dream.

The boatman stared at him. That was how he knew it was an eye.

To recognize that kind of gaze, eyes had to exist.

"You really are a strange bastard."

The boatman spoke. Enkrid found it hard to part his lips, as if someone had stitched his mouth shut with thread.

So he forced his mouth open. If it was thread, he could rip it apart by force.

"So when does the wall show up again?"

He asked without warning.

The wall was a curse, meant to torment humans and drive them into a corner.

That was the curse. That was the wall.

The boatman knew that better than anyone. Yet the one in front of him was asking for the wall instead.

What a lunatic.

The boatman muttered that, looked at Enkrid with that eye, and said,

"Madman."

With that familiar title, Enkrid opened his eyes. The dream blurred out. The river, the boatman, and the pitch-black darkness all vanished.

Grrr.

The moment he opened his eyes, he felt warmth in his arms. Esther.

As soon as he woke, the leopard opened her eyes too. Somehow her eyes looked even more human than yesterday.

"Sleep well?"

He greeted her, got up, and began morning training. Besieging an enemy city was no reason to skip training.

"Did you sleep well?"

Rem asked about his sleep, rare for him.

He lay down, fell asleep, and got up properly. That meant he slept well.

Dreams were just dreams. Even if it was a nightmare, he could shake it off and stand up.

"Why wouldn't I sleep well?"

"...You're annoyingly smug."

What was that supposed to mean this time.

"Your sensory training is lacking."

That too was rare. Jaxon started nagging from morning, and Audin burned with even more zeal than usual.

"One more! You can do it, brother!"

Had this bastard forgotten they were on a battlefield? Was he really trying to grind his body down this hard?

He repeated squatting and standing with a huge stone on his back.

His thigh muscles felt like they were tearing and snapping, but as Audin said, he could do it.

"Didn't you feel anything last night?"

Rem came over and asked again.

"It was good weather for sleeping."

It was neither hot nor cold, so he had slept deeply.

When he woke up there had been a faint blood smell in the barracks, but he figured it was leftover from the battlefield.

Enkrid only heard about the assassins after lunch.

Because Vengeance came and told him.

"I didn't even wake up?"

"There was a mage, a mage."

Only then did Rem finally start running his mouth, teasing him all day about what kind of nerve bundle he had if he did not wake up even when assassins came.

It bothered Enkrid.

Why didn't I wake up?

A spell? Some sleeping scent?

Then what about the others? Why had his men stayed awake?

It meant he was lacking something. Something different from them.

He had already known that.

Will.

What people called willpower.

He was not in a rush, but he still wanted it. He also knew what he had to do for it.

Swing his sword every day.

He trained and tempered himself in the middle of a battlefield. No one frowned at that.

Knowing your shortcomings meant you wanted to go farther.

Drive and passion flared again. A pounding heat rose and filled Enkrid from the inside.

"When do we fight?"

That heat made him ask the Elf Company Commander the moment she came to see him.

"We advance this afternoon."

"No ladders? What about the gate?"

"I was told to relay only that. Will you take point?"

Enkrid nodded.

He did not know what that man Olf was doing inside Martai, but since things had come this far, maybe a gate-breaking strategy would work.

The battle turned out flatter than expected.

"Raise your shields!"

Enkrid, Rem, Audin, and the others raised shields and advanced.

Large square shields. They looked hastily made, but enough to block a few arrows.

Then the advance.

There was one reason the battle felt flat.

Rrrr, creak!

As they approached, the gate opened with the sound of pulleys turning.

Once they pressed tight against the gate and wall, the rain of arrows from towers and the wall gallery lost its bite.

By sticking to the wall, they moved out of the kill zone.

"Why is this open?"

Rem muttered. Enkrid wondered the same thing. Part of their force split left and right at the gate.

The 1st Company Commander following behind said to Enkrid,

"The battalion commander's magic."

That really did feel like magic.

Enkrid could roughly guess why.

He had planted spies.

Not just any spies either. People influential enough to open the gate from inside Martai.

That was a fine trick.

And it did not end there.

As Enkrid stepped through the gate, a brief realization struck him.

He had learned from allied swords and enemy swords alike, but Marcus's strategy taught him something too. A short, crackling bolt struck through his mind.

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