WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 244: You? Not Even If I Die.
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As beastfolk grew, they developed Dynamic Visual Acuity far beyond humans and springy, elastic muscles, letting them pull off movements past normal limits.
Like now.
The instant the charging Horse Magic Beast met the speed of Dunbakel's own rush, she drove her left big toe into the ground.
She pressed down and twisted. There was a narrow gap between the two beasts, and her golden eyes caught it.
Then her boldness carried her straight into it.
"Weren't you a beast type from the start anyway?"
Bold and reckless.
That was one of Rem's teachings. Dunbakel followed it faithfully.
So she slipped between the two beasts.
If she was even slightly off line, her head would fly off, but because she was bold, she had room to move.
She turned sideways, used her exceptional body control, and threaded through one gap after another.
At the same time, she tightened her grip on her scimitar.
The blade, held level with the ground, met the beast in a violent harmony.
Krrrraaaaaaack!
A crushing load hit the muscles in her right arm, but she had expected that and prepared for it.
She grabbed her right wrist with her left hand and held.
Passing the beast took an instant, and Dunbakel's response took an instant too.
No, she had fixed her scimitar's position before she even leaped, and the effect was clear.
The blade carved across the beast's body and passed through.
Even without being a magic weapon, it held.
It was the kind of move that could have snapped the blade, and she knew it. Dunbakel had expected this.
'Keep the blade horizontal and drive force into an edge that can bear force.'
Her scimitar had a thick edge. Like most mercenary weapons, it was built more for toughness than sharpness.
At this terrifying speed, lacking razor sharpness did not matter.
So the blade split the beast's body and came out.
Sssplllat!
It had been running so fast that black blood and entrails from the collapsing beast stretched long across the ground like a trail.
Its guts, flesh, blood, and shattered bone sprawled over the earth. At a glance, someone might mistake it for art.
"Hoo!"
Dunbakel let out the breath she had held, then drew one in. Right after that, she turned.
A horse is not an animal that can reverse direction easily.
Becoming a magic beast did not change that body structure.
Dunbakel stamped her right foot, flipped her body around, and sprinted.
The beast that had brushed past her realized it had missed and swung wide.
Hiiiing!
It cried out, cut left, and charged again. Dunbakel ran straight across its path and swung her scimitar from high to low, putting her whole body's elastic force into it.
From far away, it looked like a slash thrown at empty air.
Because the beast ran exactly into that arc, it became a perfect neck-severing blow.
Thud!
Thump, thud! Boom!
The beheaded body rolled once or twice on the ground.
Its head flew back and dropped.
Black blood sprayed into the air and splattered Dunbakel's hair.
It looked like black water had speckled her white hair.
She flicked her scimitar through the air and ran again.
After slaughtering two Horse Magic Beasts, she was swarmed by a pack of Man-Faced Hounds.
Without losing speed, Dunbakel's scimitar danced.
Whiang! Whoong! Hwang!
The half-moon blade whipped savagely left and right, and each swing took off a Man-Faced Hound's neck, foreleg, or part of its skull.
"What is the weapon in your hand?"
Rem started with questions and ended with violence.
Dunbakel had to find the answers herself in between.
There were days she nearly stepped into the river of death and came back just because she tried a thrust with a scimitar.
"Do you never think about weapon utility? Are beastfolk heads only interested in mating? And for the record, if you strip naked and come at me, I'll split you with an axe."
Even that mating business only worked if there was attraction.
No matter what, it would never be Rem.
Dunbakel remembered that and shouted.
"Not you, even if I die!"
Not what, exactly?
The watching soldiers stared in bafflement, but what did that matter?
With that shout, the curved half-moon blade danced a massacre.
Chunks of Man-Faced Hound skull and torso flew through the air.
To the soldiers, the blade moved too fast to see.
A line appeared in empty air, then pieces of Demon Creature flesh lifted and scattered.
The process vanished and only the result remained. The soldiers who had felt threatened might have sighed in relief, but.
"Formation!"
These were Border Guard standing troops, soldiers trained by Enkrid.
Do your best where you stand.
That was always on Enkrid's lips. They did the same.
At the shout from the acting commander, they quickly formed up.
By chance, every one of them was holding a spear. They stood in a straight line and leveled their spears forward.
If Horse Magic Beasts charged, they would be skewered.
Not dozens, only three or four.
'We can handle that.'
It was not arrogance. It was confidence.
Who had trained them all this time?
Even Dunbakel in front of them was one of those trainers.
"Goddamn it!"
One soldier shouted.
Two Horse Magic Beasts were charging straight toward their appetizing cluster.
They could not do what Dunbakel did.
Instead, they braced with spears leveled. Trusting their own toughness, the Horse Magic Beasts drove in anyway.
"Tu-urn!"
The acting commander shouted at exactly the right moment.
A heavy impact slammed into the spearheads, twisting arm muscles.
The soldiers shoved their shafts left and right around the center point. Crack! The shafts embedded in the beasts snapped. One soldier, left holding only half a shaft, rolled forward like he had fallen.
Taking a frontal charge head-on was stupidity.
"Would you meet cavalry charges like that too?"
That was Instructor Ragna's line.
He did not teach much, but every word was a blade.
A blade you would never expect from those sleepy eyes and lazy attitude, and the soldiers etched it into themselves.
No, if they did not, they died.
They had to face the charging half-giant Teresa, so what choice did they have?
The soldiers fought with everything they had.
Without regular training it would have been impossible, but they broke the charge of two Horse Magic Beasts.
They did not plant and hold to absorb the force. They turned it aside. Of course, that only worked with fundamentally strong bodies.
These soldiers had bodies hammered and hardened through Audin's training.
That made this possible.
"Holy fuck, this actually works. Ptoo."
A soldier spat at a beast's head, the creature collapsed sideways with a broken spear shaft buried halfway in it.
"Khhiiing!"
The Horse Magic Beast had gone mad. Even with more than half a shaft buried in its chest, it bared its fangs.
Black bloody tears streamed from its bright red eyes.
The soldier who saw it felt his knees weaken.
It was not his first time fighting magic beasts and Demon Creatures, and with numbers this small he would not normally piss himself over one beast.
The beast in front of him was not normal. Something was off.
There was no time to think. No room to question it.
"Fuck! No time to watch!"
Another soldier drove his spear into the beast's skull.
The thrust landed hard.
Thud!
Now it was the Man-Faced Hounds again.
There were too many for Dunbakel to handle alone.
In the end, the soldiers had to fight too.
They would not die. They could hold this much. They were hardened by Enkrid's training.
If they had been elite troops before, now they were hardened troops.
Setting tactics aside, their individual combat ability had developed to a shocking level.
One of the three soldiers who had lost spears drew a shortsword. Another drew an arming sword. The last held his broken half-shaft. One soldier even swung his bow like a club.
"Goddamn it!"
They cursed nonstop and still fought well.
They beat, stabbed, and smashed the approaching Man-Faced Hounds to death.
They also formed a ring to protect each other while edging backward.
If they held a little longer, reinforcements would see this mess and come. They believed the fight was nearly over.
Dunbakel fought even better.
Her scimitar looked like a half-moon guillotine.
She went completely wild.
Once the Horse Magic Beasts were dealt with, only the Man-Faced Hounds remained.
Any opening, she cut. Anything that came close, she punched or kicked away.
Every movement was fast and powerful. Her light, elastic muscle work stood out in each motion.
Even so, she did not look tired.
A monstrous level of force.
The words Madmen Company came to mind on their own.
Had they killed around half the Man-Faced Hounds? The other half should have gotten scared and pulled back, but they kept attacking as if cursed into a berserk frenzy.
"Kaat!"
"Krrr!"
The ugly cries of the Man-Faced Hounds grated on the ears.
While fighting, Dunbakel heard a strange rumble from the forest side.
Dudud! Dudud! Dudud! Dudud!
It was heavy.
Hoofbeats?
Then a black shadow shot out of the forest.
It seemed twice as fast as a Horse Magic Beast.
More than that, it was not a horse. It looked like one, but it was something else.
A horse did not have hands, so it could not wield a weapon.
A huge body gripping a club carved from a log swung it down hard.
Whoong!
A heavy wooden club passed right over her head. If she had not ducked by reflex, would her skull have burst?
At minimum, her stance would have broken.
Keeping low, Dunbakel rolled forward and dove into the Man-Faced Hound pack.
The excited hounds shoved wrinkled faces forward, baring sharp teeth.
She knocked most aside, shoved them away, beat them down, but one still got through and opened its jaws.
Dunbakel offered her forearm guard, grabbed its head, and swung it like a blunt weapon.
Whoong!
Thud! Thunk! Boom!
After knocking away three or four like that, she thrust her scimitar into the torso of the one biting her forearm and ripped downward.
Entrails and black blood spilled to the ground.
Even then, its teeth stayed buried in the guard.
'Annoying.'
The one that had targeted her turned and came back.
For a moment it looked like a cavalryman, but this one too was a Demon Creature.
Half man, half horse. A Demon Creature centaur.
Its lower body was like a horse's and its upper body like a human's.
Its torso was exposed, hard chest muscles bulging. Seeing those heaving pecs made her nauseous.
"What a mess."
Dunbakel muttered.
It charged again savagely, gripping a thick wooden club.
Bam-bam-bam! Crack, thud! Whack!
Ignoring the Man-Faced Hounds in front of it as if they were nothing, it smashed skulls and bones and surged through.
Hwaang!
The club split the air again.
Dunbakel leaned back and dodged.
It was close.
No, not so close she could not dodge.
At least it had smashed through the hound pack, so she had a moment to breathe...
"Oh, shit."
She did not. It was not just one.
More were bursting out of the forest.
"Kiyoyoyot!"
Several centaurs shouted.
Their bright red eyes, with no clear border to the pupils, locked onto Dunbakel.
A few looked toward the soldiers.
'I want to live.'
She wanted to live, badly.
A craving. When had it started?
After meeting Enkrid, it had burst out and overflowed all at once.
That was how the craving for life worked.
It wrapped around you when you least expected it.
Enkrid, she had to see that bastard's face again.
Should she run?
Could she?
He would not blame her.
But.
'Them.'
Enkrid had memorized every soldier's name.
She still had not memorized even five of theirs.
Was it right to leave people to die when she could save them?
Was it right for her to live, or right to risk her life and save them?
There was no correct answer.
Like life itself, there were only choices.
Was surviving alone the best option?
Enkrid, Enkrid, Enkrid.
His name repeated on its own.
She wanted in with that group. She wanted to be someone who belonged there.
Then was surviving alone in emptiness really what he would want?
Was that what someone in that group should do?
Was that truly the best choice?
Enkrid was the kind of man who always moved by finding his own best.
After seeing that, what had she wanted for herself?
This was not the moment to judge right or wrong. She only had to move.
She cleared her stray thoughts.
After that, Dunbakel focused on one thing.
'Did I ever thank him for accepting me?'
She did not think so. She would survive and thank him.
Not just survive any way she could. She would survive the way he wanted, then say it.
The thought process was long, but in reality it took only a moment.
In crisis, the brain sharpened.
She had chosen and reached her conclusion, so Dunbakel moved.
"Look at me!"
Dunbakel shouted as she activated her unique transformation.
A fierce pressure swept in every direction. Golden eyes fixed on the centaurs.
In an instant, fur grew, and Dunbakel took on a lion's form and released a low, deep growl.
"Grrrrrr."
With a sound that would grate on any enemy's ears, Dunbakel leaped in front of the nearest centaur and swung her scimitar.
Whoong!
A centaur was a rider and cavalryman superior even to riders praised as one with their horses.
It twisted its upper body. Its lower body twisted with it, and the blade missed.
For ordinary horse cavalry, that kind of movement would be unthinkable.
Dunbakel swung her scimitar with her right hand. The instant it dodged, she snapped out her left hand and slashed. Clawlike nails scraped across the centaur's eye.
"Ggaaaak!"
A scream rang out.
"Follow me, you sons of bitches!"
Was she saying that to the Man-Faced Hounds, or to the centaurs?
The watching soldiers had no chance to ask.
Dunbakel ran straight into the forest, and the centaur pack chased her.
The Man-Faced Hound pack followed too.
The soldiers lived.
Centaurs were among the most troublesome mid-grade Demon Creatures.
Especially when they formed a colony, they were widely known as more dangerous than flying Demon Creatures.
"...This is bad."
One of the surviving soldiers said.
* * *
"So it's been four days since Dunbakel disappeared into the forest?"
Four days after Dunbakel vanished, Border Guard sent reinforcements directly.
A fast vanguard arrived first.
It was one small company.
At the company commander's question, a soldier nodded.
"Yes."
"And right now the centaur pack has formed a colony and taken the plain in front of the forest?"
"That's right."
This time, the answer came from Martai's new lord, formerly the Frontier Defense Captain.
Everyone looked at Enkrid's face.
It was the same expressionless face as always.
No one knew why it still looked angry.
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