WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 231: You Really Won't Go to the Temple?

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Today, wall, threat, crisis, hurdle, obstacle.

Just as there were many ways to name it, there was more than one way to get past it.

One of them was the easiest.

The temple-born demon, the axman, the sly assassin, the prickly leopard mage, the lazy swordsman.

Comrades, subordinates.

If he told them to follow him, some of them would gladly follow.

With just them, a threat would stop being a threat.

Even without their help, there were many paths.

In the end, all he had to do was not get cut.

He could also fight until he won without getting cut.

Because of the curse, even if Enkrid died, he would end up living only today again.

Calling him a soldier who lived only for today would not be wrong.

He could repeat, and repeat again, and repeat countless times. In the end, those repetitions would open the door.

But none of that stayed in Enkrid's head.

Some people find the thing they choose as their goal, then look only at that and move forward.

Enkrid stood at the extreme end of that kind of person.

Most of all.

The wall looked like it was provoking him, as if telling him to climb over it.

Even if there were hundreds of methods.

Even if there were an easier route.

Even if there were a faster route than this.

Enkrid had the stubbornness to head for the destination he chose.

That was why people said his head was broken.

'That does piss me off.'

That was not something he wanted to hear from Rem of all people.

He did not want to hear it from the Boatman either.

One liked beating superiors or chopping them with an axe.

The other locked people inside "today" and enjoyed watching them go mad.

Neither of them had any business commenting on someone else's head.

Of course, even if it had not been those two, Enkrid still would never have accepted that.

'My head is broken?'

Nonsense.

He just had a clear dream, and he was an ordinary person.

Anyway.

"What? You had it?"

"You were already carrying it?"

"If you have it, you can avoid dying. Ah, what a relief!"

"Ah, that scared me for a second."

Those were the reactions he got when he was cut by the Shepherd's sword and then spoke with a calm face.

It was the kind of response that made you ask what exactly he had to have. So he asked. The word he heard was this.

"Will."

The Shepherd said it, and Enkrid felt the need for it.

Something stood in front of the road he wanted to walk.

As Enkrid traced the wall blocking his way, he found a clue. He felt it.

Faint, but clear.

After sorting out his thoughts through the entire Isolation Technique session, he returned to the lodging.

The sunlight was bright, the sky was blue, and the clouds were white.

A beautiful sky spread behind the lodging door. With that as his backdrop, Enkrid raised his left hand and said,

"Who here can use Will?"

At the question, everyone fell silent for a moment.

* * *

Leopard Esther was a mage, so she naturally ignored him.

From early morning, that human was spouting crazy words again.

It was routine.

"Grrr."

Esther gave a light rumble in her throat to show her intent, then rolled over on soft fur.

It was the fur Kraiss had brought before, and he had also been the one most shocked when he saw her turn human.

"Why? Why are you turning into a person? You were a leopard."

"Arrogant human."

After she said that to his face, Kraiss had gone pale and brought her all kinds of things.

This was one of them.

Sitting in beast form on beast fur looked a little strange, but Esther was satisfied.

Heated leather was nice, but softness was still the best.

One beast stayed indifferent like that, and everyone else had their own reasons too.

To put it plainly, Rem could not be said to handle "Will."

'That is what people on this continent use.'

Instead, Rem could reach a similar destination in a different way.

Knightly force and "Will" were completely different things, but if he said that out loud, would Enkrid accept it?

Enkrid had been clear.

He was not asking for a method to reach a destination.

He had said that one word, "Will," exactly as it was.

Rem thought for a moment, then answered while wearing one boot, the other still half on.

That was how much Enkrid's question had made him think.

"I do not think I can."

If it was not Will, he might still manage something similar in a different way.

Still, no was no.

Rem answered like that, bent over, and finished putting on his boot.

Jaxon had never become a knight, never wanted to, and had never trained to awaken Will.

Still, when he looked at people around squire level, he felt something instinctively.

There was something vaguely similar inside him too. But was this Will? Was it that "willpower" they talked about?

He did not know.

You could not teach something you did not understand yourself.

Jaxon shook his head.

Audin had Divine Power in his body, and he said a body carrying Divine Power did not allow profane things inside.

That did not mean only evil things were included in the word profane.

Even humans awakening their own power through willpower counted as profane in the eyes of God.

It was not exactly wrong, but it was not the path for someone who took Divine Power first.

Those who awakened Divine Power first opened their own path and rose above knights in their own way. They did not awaken Will.

Audin was the same.

Divine Power alone was enough for him.

"Are you in a hurry, brother?"

It was a gentle question. Enkrid had looked lost in thought the whole time he trained with the Isolation Technique.

Even so, he still trained faithfully while doing it.

Enkrid was an ascetic who witnessed his own limits every day and challenged them.

At least, that was how Audin saw him.

He kept breaking through the limits of his body's talent as if it were nothing and moved forward.

That kind of person wanted this. Audin wanted to give it, but he did not have it, so he had nothing to give.

'Taking Divine Power would be faster.'

Without true faith, though, it would only get in the way.

Audin shook his head too.

"I am not in a hurry."

Enkrid answered in a clear voice. At some point, he had lowered the hand he raised. His arms hung loose, his shoulders were not tense, and true to his words, he did not look rushed.

Only Ragna remained.

Ragna woke up at Enkrid's voice.

Sleeping late was practically one of his trademarks.

Still crusty-eyed, the blond man raked his hair with his hand.

"Dandruff is falling, you lazy bastard."

Rem grumbled, but Ragna ignored him and said,

"If you want, I can teach you, but it will be pointless."

"Why?"

Enkrid asked while standing there.

Ragna continued calmly.

"If I explain, it is like your hair is black and my hair is blond."

After saying that, Ragna nodded to himself a little, like he was impressed with his own line. He seemed to think it was a very good explanation.

How should anyone put this.

It sounded like a full-grown puppy trying to explain something.

"You call that an explanation?"

Rem, the second highest authority in trash explanations, stepped in and mocked him.

Jaxon let out a short laugh, and Audin turned his head away as if he saw nothing.

That one little laugh made sparks fly between Rem and Jaxon again.

"If you are going to fight, go outside and do it."

In the past, Enkrid had jumped between them without knowing better. He blocked them with his body. That was when he knew nothing.

Now he could tell just by watching. Were they really going to fight, or were they just posturing because they were annoyed?

This one was posturing.

Ragna continued in his plain tone.

"Even if you dye your hair blond, your original hair grows back. And even if both are blond, the shades are subtly different. In the end, you have to live with your own hair."

If this bastard could not use a sword, he would have been dumped somewhere long ago.

He could not find directions, his explanations were terrible, he was lazy, and he was not even quick on the uptake.

But put a sword in his hand, and he was like a lone white crane flying over a flock of chickens.

No, not a white crane, maybe a golden crane.

That thought came because he kept stressing his blond hair.

"Stop talking and show me with your body."

Enkrid still had not cooled down from sweat. Ragna looked at him and got up slowly.

"Fine."

The two went outside.

Rem and Jaxon also stopped their own posturing by exchanging blessings toward each other.

"May you catch a disease and die, bastard."

That was Rem's blessing for Jaxon, who visited red-light districts.

"I pray you die before this year ends."

That was Jaxon's blessing.

Audin watched the two warmly as they encouraged each other.

"What are you looking at, bear?"

Naturally, Rem's sparks reached him too, but Audin ignored it.

A sulking Rem was more dangerous than a dog in heat.

"Let us go. Sister Dunbakel, you should watch too. Sister Finn has been away often lately."

"She said she is busy."

Kraiss answered, and everyone headed outside.

They saw Enkrid and Ragna just pressing training wooden swords against each other.

"I cannot do something like Oppression."

Ragna said it while their wooden swords were locked.

The line about explaining with blades instead of a tongue was more fitting than anything.

Enkrid was thinking that exact thing. Of course he was, with this right in front of him.

"Instead, I can do this."

Whoong.

Ragna's wooden sword vanished. That was how it looked to Enkrid.

It was that fast. A long afterimage remained like streaking lightning, but he could not track it in real time.

He only heard a quick snick.

That unseen wooden sword left its result in Enkrid's hand, his own wooden sword cut in half.

A wooden sword had cut another wooden sword.

Enkrid could do it too. But not like this.

It was not broken, it was cut. He only heard a snick, and it came at a speed he could not answer.

Ragna said he could not use Oppression, but the force felt similar.

Even with that one swing, Enkrid felt an explosive something from Ragna for an instant.

When he looked into Ragna's eyes, they looked like gems throwing off light.

"It is Severance."

It was the thing Ragna had told him to learn before. After that, he had told him to train Steel Cut and Lion Cut for this.

"At present, this is my Will."

There were things that could not be understood through a simple spar alone.

Enkrid asked, and he listened.

Even if the speaker's tongue was clumsy, the truth inside did not change.

Because the listener's ears and mind were open, it was hard, but he could understand.

Most of all, Rem, Audin, and Jaxon gave advice as they watched.

What was "Will."

It was "willpower." That was the base. But if it was only willpower, how could Will let humans go beyond their limits?

Why had it become a symbol of knights?

A formless force forged on a foundation of willpower.

That was what they called Will.

"It is different for each person. Just like hair color."

Ragna liked that hair-color comparison a lot and kept repeating it.

Right, now Enkrid could understand.

Will could not be taught.

Through the form called Baptism, you could offer a clue to realization, or help someone blocked at a wall.

But you could not awaken Will through that Baptism.

Awakening and mastering were separate things too.

You could master through Baptism, but you could not be made to awaken by it. Even so, you could master it.

If you went through it again and again, maybe you could feel it. They said that was what Baptism was for.

"For Severance, I trained Lion Cut and Steel Cut more than a thousand times a month at minimum."

Based on what Ragna, who overflowed with talent, had said,

'Will is not taught, it is awakened.'

Then yes, it sounded like a very long road, but he had also heard about Baptism in the middle of that road.

"Baptism."

It was not the original temple meaning.

A formless force forged from willpower.

You built a technique on that, then got exposed to it.

"To awaken Will, squires in knight orders receive Baptism, at most once a month, but usually once every three months."

"Is that not too few times?"

"Even with that, some bastards come out looking like they are about to go insane. That is why that rapier bastard's Oppression is dangerous."

Why had Rem and the others reacted so sharply to the Oppression of that squire named Eisia before.

This was why.

"Resisting Baptism is one way to master Will on your own."

Ragna knew surprisingly much. Enough to make you wonder why he had not explained like this from the start.

"Then why did you use that hair-color analogy?"

"To make it easier to understand."

I hope he quits that kind of effort, Enkrid thought, and nodded anyway.

He could not dismiss someone else's effort as worthless.

Even if not today, that effort would shine someday.

Just as he was learning the sword, Ragna might be learning something too, like how to speak, or how to find his way.

"But why are you grinning?"

Rem asked after watching closely. Enkrid rubbed his face.

'Ah, I smiled without noticing.'

The smile had come out on its own.

They said even with Baptism, even if you endured it, you still could not master Will, and it was hard to grab even a tiny clue.

That was why Enkrid smiled.

It felt like he had already seen something.

It would not be an easy road. Of course not. He knew that too.

So what? When had it ever been easy?

To Enkrid, the sword and his dream had never once been an easy road.

The Shepherd said he needed Will to overcome the unknown power from that blade.

The answer was not far away.

This repeating today, and the sword in the Shepherd's hand, that was Baptism and opportunity.

He had already gone through it more than eighty times.

When he did not know, he could not help it. But now he had gained a vague understanding through explanation.

The same went for the sixth sense and intuition, they were unseen too.

When he learned those, did he start with full understanding?

Had it not been similar when he trained his senses and opened the Gate of the Sixth Sense, and when he broke through spell-made traps?

Then what if he did the same this time too.

How do you resist an unseen force? He did not know.

The path? He could not see it.

Did that make it a problem?

No, it did not.

Enkrid smiled. Until he died, no, while dying, he planned to keep rolling through it. No matter how rough that path was, he could smile.

Because it would lift him one step higher.

Rem watched the smiling Enkrid closely, then spoke with real concern in a serious tone.

"Are you really not going to the temple?"

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