WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 217: [A Proposal, and]

= = =

The instant Zimmer's foot hit the ground and he burst forward, his body blurred like an afterimage. The speed was terrifying.

Fast enough to remind Enkrid of a squire's charge.

Still, it was not at squire level. That much was certain.

Enkrid raised his sword on a diagonal and braced, locking strength into his wrist and forearm like a solid wall. It was a defensive stance midway between the Correct and Precise Sword and Heavy Sword Style.

Klang!

The tip of the estoc struck the flat of Enkrid's angled blade. Sparks flew, and the sword in Zimmer's hand kicked sideways. Zimmer pulled it back at once.

Enkrid, of course, was not pushed back by force. He did not move an inch. Zimmer disengaged and stepped back.

A naturally light body.

A body honed to the limit, a lunging thrust, and not even armor for this one strike.

His blade was thin and narrow. The weapon looked modified for lightness, and even his boots were light.

Enkrid read all of that from a single clash.

The moment he recognized Zimmer's tactics, he knew this would not be a drawn-out fight.

He had just seen Zimmer do it, so he knew he could do something similar.

Without that gear or those tricks.

Then all he had to do was do it.

He slid his left foot back and drove forward. Not the same, but similar enough, a thrust that looked like it would pierce straight through the man in front of him.

He detonated Heart of Superhuman Strength, sending force from toe to ankle to thigh.

Then he layered in the thrust he had learned on his first battlefield.

Boom!

He kicked off and shot forward.

The air tore, and in Enkrid's narrowed focus, nothing else existed.

Only the sword, and the man holding it.

Zimmer tried to thrust back. To Enkrid, all of it looked slow. The extension of the blade. The shift of weight forward.

Enkrid knew his sword would land first.

Even so, the other man would not stop his attack. Knowing that, Enkrid drove his right-hand sword into Zimmer's shoulder, then drew his second sword with his left and smashed the estoc, more precisely the middle of Zimmer's blade, in a whipping strike.

A defensive move with razor timing.

To Enkrid, it was simply a sequence of moves. To the soldiers watching, it looked like a stunt.

Thud! Crack!

No sooner had Zimmer rushed in and pulled back than Enkrid rushed in, and the sounds of stabbing and striking came one after another.

That was the end.

The soldiers could not properly follow their exchange.

All they saw was a hole in Zimmer's shoulder, and him collapsing to the ground.

"Ghk."

Zimmer swallowed his groan. He was a man who knew how to endure pain.

The half of his blade that had snapped at mid-edge spun through the air, then stuck into the ground with a thunk.

It had been a thin, straight sword made for one perfect thrust. Naturally, it was weak against a side-smashing blow.

It was one of the Heavy Sword Style techniques, Weapon Break. Enkrid had done it with his left hand.

He did not celebrate the duel's victory.

He only looked up and asked,

"More?"

General Olf answered at once.

"I surrender."

It was no different from the surrender of all Martai.

It was also the battle that made the name Enkrid impossible to ignore.

Waaah!

The delayed cheers erupted. At the allied roar, Martai's soldiers turned pale.

Their commander had surrendered. Some of them would not escape beheading.

Cleanup belonged to Marcus.

"Drop your weapons, all of you!"

The commander shouted in every direction. The words marked the end of the war.

Tap, tap.

Rain began to fall through the late summer heat.

The sky was clear, but rain still came down.

Summer God's Prank.

Sunlight filtered through the rain, and Enkrid stood there with only his sword.

Not only Martai's soldiers, but Border Guard regular troops too.

At the end of every gaze, in the middle of Summer God's Prank, stood one man.

He was the man who had led this battlefield, ripped through it, and finished it.

His name was Enkrid.

* * *

"Will you die, or be imprisoned?"

Marcus left the choice to Olf. Olf, a man of the East, chose life.

"I will be imprisoned."

Killing him would burden Marcus in many ways. There was still plenty to squeeze out of a man like Olf.

This almost felt too easy.

Marcus handled the aftermath with the same crisp decisiveness.

"I was the escort captain."

He looked at the man who had surrendered at once without even stepping forward.

"Kill him."

"...What? I surrendered. I surrendered!"

"You call yourself an escort captain, and you bowed your head without even one act of resistance?"

Marcus was cold. Not even his usual smile showed. He condemned the man, yet it sounded like words meant for more than just him.

Then he calmly passed sentence.

"There is no such law...!"

Smack! Crack!

The 1st Company Commander moved personally. He smashed the man's neck bones with a mace. One strike killed him.

The man's skull hit the ground with a dull thump. His neck bent at an unnatural angle, muscles stretched and twisted, his head lolling to one side.

"Too much talk."

Just as that fear started to spread through the enemy ranks,

"Your name was Zimmer, right?"

Marcus called to Zimmer, who was still bleeding from his pierced shoulder.

The battalion commander glanced at Enkrid and whispered, quiet enough that only Enkrid and Zimmer should hear.

Of course, if someone like Jaxon or the Elf Company Commander listened closely, they could still catch it, but that was how softly he spoke.

"What do you think? Feels like a waste to kill this man."

The question was not for Zimmer. It was for his own side, for Enkrid.

Enkrid wondered what Marcus was after.

"I do not think we need to kill him."

Marcus had lowered his voice, so Enkrid answered quietly too. At that answer, Marcus gave a big nod, then raised his voice, loud and booming.

"You truly know how to acknowledge your opponent. Broad-minded, too. You are even pleading to spare the man who crossed swords with you."

Pleading? Since when?

To Enkrid, it was absurd.

Unlike before, Marcus now spoke loudly so everyone nearby could hear.

"I accept that plea. It was not enough that you led this battlefield to victory, now you show mercy to the enemy commander as well. You are the finest soldier I have ever seen. Am I wrong? What do you men think?"

That last question was for the allied soldiers.

He was clearly playing Enkrid up.

Even with victory in hand, the overwhelming force Enkrid had shown, plus the pattering rain and hazy sunlight between the drops, had made some allies miss the timing to cheer.

Now they finally shouted.

"We won!"

That short, brave cry quickly became a roar from the entire allied side.

"The flower of the battlefield!"

"Infantry!"

"The flower of Border Guard!"

"Madmen!"

Enkrid let out a short laugh.

That ridiculous chant keeps getting weirder.

Then again, maybe it did have its own consistency.

"We lost."

Zimmer muttered from below, then gestured behind him. Enemy soldiers gathered to one side.

"Do not resist. Do not die for nothing."

City wars usually ended with capturing the enemy commander for Krona, or trading some other compensation. This time was different.

It was a crushing defeat, a total defeat.

Their city had fallen, so this war would go into the history books.

"My name is!"

"Enkrid!"

"Waaaaaaah!"

As the soldiers' cheers grew louder, anxious civilians watched for signs. Everyone locked their doors and stayed inside, peering through window cracks and door gaps.

Those with weaker nerves did not look outside at all.

After a city fell, soldiers turning into bandits was common enough.

If the army chose to loot the whole city, who would stop them?

And once looting started, it would not end with property. Rape and plunder would break out everywhere.

Anxiety seemed to cover the entire city.

Some citizens even gripped fire pokers and wondered if they should rush out, but that would only get them killed.

"Zimmer, on your honor, this city now falls under Border Guard control. If we withdraw the regular army and leave only a portion of troops, do you think that will cause trouble?"

Marcus was a politician among politicians, even among central nobles.

He knew how to read the other side as well.

"If you give your word, we plan to withdraw today."

Zimmer blinked. What were they trusting? If only part of the force stayed behind, Martai's numbers would outgrow them.

Honor? Asking on his honor?

"If any other thought crosses your mind, look there."

Marcus stepped close and whispered. A few paces away stood a black-haired man by himself, sword in hand. His name was Enkrid, the one with a habit of shouting his own name on the battlefield.

Zimmer disliked his face intensely. Not pretty, exactly, but unnecessarily handsome.

"That is the Madman Company Commander. If your men vent their anger on our forces, those men will vent it on every citizen next time."

Trust required belief, but if belief was lacking, you could make trust happen anyway.

When people were cornered with no options, belief and trust appeared on their own.

"Yes. On my honor."

Zimmer gave his promise.

"We withdraw."

Marcus said it, then handled everything after that without delay.

Enkrid stepped back. On the march out, he heard the Frontier Guard would remain in the city as a whole.

"Hey, looks like we will not see each other as often now."

Torres came over and rambled. Several others from the Frontier Guard main force came too and chatted.

One of them was a guy named Hyoun. He traded a few pointless lines with Enkrid, meaning:

"Next time I will beat you, so do not neglect your training."

After saying nonsense like that, he turned and talked to Ragna.

Enkrid answered that he would, that he would keep pushing forward.

Hyoun had not meant it seriously anyway. That bastard was nearly as bad at jokes as the elf.

"So anyway, according to the battalion commander, this city is getting handed over to our commander now?"

Kraiss, who had been listening nearby, nodded.

"Looks like he wants this city to become fully unified on this side with the Frontier Guard at the center. I like the scale of it. Marcus did not settle for city cooperation. He swallowed the city itself."

Torres glanced at Kraiss and asked,

"Does this guy always throw around the battalion commander's name like that?"

"He always checks that the battalion commander's lieutenants are not nearby first, so do not worry."

That was not really the issue, was it?

Well, whatever. Not Enkrid's problem.

Torres gave a rough nod and said,

"You become a knight. I will become Martai's next commander."

That meant he intended to climb to the very top of the Frontier Guard.

The fact that he said something like that at all came from Enkrid's influence.

That was why Torres wanted to say it out loud.

"Take care."

That was the end of the goodbye. The army withdrew, and the Frontier Guard stayed there for a while.

Right after returning, Enkrid washed, rested, ate, and slept.

He had not properly rested since returning from the raid on the Black Blades.

"What did I always say was as important as training, brother?"

Was that not what Audin always said?

Rest was as important as training.

The allied side was still excited. For some reason, quite a few people hovered around the Madmen Company, but Rem was not there for nothing.

No one came any closer than that.

He rested deeply for two full days. Aside from simple drills and training, he gave his body real rest.

For the first time in a while, he woke from deep sleep without a single dream and saw a green-eyed elf in front of him.

"...A nightmare."

Enkrid muttered, and she said,

"If I showed up in your dream, that would be a wet dream."

"So this is reality."

An elf-style joke. As he sat up and asked what she was doing here this early, the elf stared at him and said,

"Finish training, then go see the battalion commander."

"Yes."

She came all the way at dawn just to say that? He really could not figure that elf out.

She kept that blunt expression while talking about wet dreams. Every time he saw her, he thought the same thing.

Inhuman beauty, and an equally inhuman personality and sense of humor.

After the elf left, Esther woke up and rubbed her eyes. The way she rubbed with her forepaws was cute.

"Good morning."

"Grrng."

After greeting Esther, he started training. Around sunrise, when he was about to head out, Rem came out, opened his mouth wide, yawned, and said,

"I will put that beastkin through the wringer myself."

It was not a question and not a request for permission. It was a notice.

"Why?"

"If we leave her alone, she will just become a parasite that eats meals. Better to let her die on a battlefield, right? Well, unless that is what you want."

"You are not just making excuses because you want to beat her up?"

At that, Rem shut his mouth. Sometimes he got blocked like that, and in those moments Enkrid could see he was human after all.

"...No, the commander took her into our unit, so I, huh? I am personally going to train her. What are you even saying?"

So it was an excuse to beat her up. Enkrid knew that, but he nodded without reaction.

She looked like she had nowhere to go, and the desperate fire in her eyes reminded him of himself somehow. That was why he had accepted her, but Rem was not wrong either.

Left like this, she would get stabbed somewhere and die.

"Audin, ask the beastkin what she wants. If she still says she will do it, leave her to him."

If not, he planned to transfer her to another unit.

"Will do."

Audin had just sweated through morning training beside them. For this group, it was normal.

Whether they had rolled through a battlefield the day before, whether they had fought with their lives on the line.

The day after returning, they trained their bodies and threw themselves back into the grind. That was daily life.

After saying that, Enkrid headed to the battalion commander's office.

As he walked, a thought came to him.

Am I really a company commander now?

Did he now have to manage soldiers under his command too?

Until now, it was hard to call it management. More accurately, he had been dragged along.

Then what about now?

He had formed battle lines on the battlefield, and afterward had given what were basically orders.

As he changed, they changed too.

Strategy and tactics, what a headache. Better to move with whatever worked in the moment.

"Tell him I am here."

He gave a small nod to the guard at the office and spoke. The guard opened the door and said,

"It was an honor to stand on the battlefield with you."

So this one had fought too.

Enkrid had fought at the very front and had no time to look back.

The battlefield high still had not faded.

The guard's words showed it, and so did the admiring looks from soldiers he passed.

Some boasted about their own heroic stories, and one lunatic said he would turn Enkrid's exploits into a song and sing it.

If the others had not smacked that idiot on the head and stopped him, Enkrid would have done it himself.

The soldier was a terrible singer.

A victory celebration had not even been held yet.

They had decided to prepare for two days, then eat, drink, and enjoy it properly.

Until then, everyone had been told to rest as much as they wanted.

"Oh, you came?"

Marcus greeted him with a smile.

"Yes."

No lieutenants, no Elf Company Commander, no one else around.

Still smiling, Marcus said,

"So, do you have any interest in becoming Border Guard's battalion commander?"

Then he asked.

It was a proposal Enkrid had never expected.

= = =

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried