WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 248: Blue-Sweat Wild Horse
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The centaur leader ran. This was no time to be cautious over wounds.
It was a Demon Creature that had already escaped twice.
Having intelligence also meant knowing how to flee when danger came.
So it fled.
In the Demon Creature’s mind, the first being that had forced it to run came back.
Deep inside the place humans called the Cursed Ground, all kinds of things lived.
Of course, the centaur leader understood neither the Cursed Ground nor any geographic meaning.
It only remembered the creature that had toyed with it.
Long arms, and if those hands caught something, they tore it apart.
It was called the Rending Hand. It enjoyed ripping things open even when it was not eating.
Thud, crack!
The leader smashed through branches hitting its shoulders with brute force.
Black blood streamed down from its front right leg.
Pain sharpened its mind.
Memory followed.
It had escaped the Rending Hand, crossed out of that boundary, and fought.
Then it lost and was chased.
In the end, even human groups drove it until it came all the way here.
Only one idea repeated in the Demon Creature’s head.
The one that survives is the strong one.
Then what should it do to survive?
Instinct urged it on.
‘Subjugate the wild horse herd on the plains and form a bigger group!’
If a Demon Creature could have ambition, this was it.
More exactly, the Demon Creature was learning things as it came close to humans.
Its intelligence allowed that.
It had learned how to hide and build strength.
This time, it had also learned how to measure an enemy.
From the human side, letting that thing go would obviously create a bigger threat.
No, it was already a clear threat.
If the leader survived this, it would subjugate every wild horse herd in the pasture.
After that, it would gather more Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts.
* * *
‘If it gets away, this is going to become a headache.’
His instinct told him that. Even without instinct, reason made it clear.
People said Demon Creatures that survived long turned into fiends.
What was a fiend?
Something that became crafty and vicious.
If a Demon Creature’s brutality got mixed with slyness and malice...
‘Yeah, this will be insanely troublesome.’
Most of all, this could turn into a funeral battle for Dunbakel.
He did not feel guilty about the Beastfolk woman’s death itself.
Still, from the moment he took her under his command until the moment she died, she had been his responsibility.
If he had never taken her in, that would be different. But he already had.
And if she was under his command, taking responsibility was right.
A death on the battlefield was naturally the person’s own responsibility, but what came after that was also something the commander had to handle.
Especially when Dunbakel had acted to save someone.
‘Why did she do that?’
If she were alive, that was the first question he would ask her.
He cast off the short thought and focused on running.
Leaves rushed at him. Roots rose from the ground like traps.
Everything here was built to slow footsteps.
The same was true for the centaur Demon Creature.
Because of that, he could not catch it in one burst, but he could keep it from escaping.
Enkrid exhaled and inhaled in short breaths, stepped on a rounded root, and swung his dagger straight down at a branch blocking his view.
Ping.
The dried branch snapped, hit his shoulder, and bounced off.
A twig flicked the edge of his face. A bead of blood formed on his cheek, then flew backward as he sprinted.
Everything in the forest came at him like an obstacle.
The Demon Creature had the same problem, but it had skin and a body far tougher than a human’s.
It could break through obstacles and keep going.
The leader was doing exactly that.
It ignored most things and charged.
Enkrid had already taken off his visor-blocking helmet and thrown it. It hit the thing’s back, but it did not budge.
Thung, the helmet bounced off its back muscles.
It did not even flinch once. It looked fully determined to flee.
Of course, he had thrown while running, so he could not put full force into it.
‘Should I train throwing while sprinting?’
He could think about that later.
Enkrid wanted to catch it now.
His responsibility for Dunbakel, the danger that would come next, he wanted all of it to end here.
At this speed, it would soon leave the forest. Past that was open ground and pasture.
This was the land with the most wild horses nearby, so if it reached there, it would naturally escape.
‘I hate that.’
He did not want to lose it.
He focused on one point alone. While running, he activated Focus Point, and his five senses sharpened to the extreme.
The sixth sense and instinct born from Sense of Evasion fired toward one purpose.
‘I won’t lose it.’
The instant he repeated that same desire in his mind, something entered his sight.
Twenty steps to the right, a half-broken tree, its twisted rings exposed where it had snapped.
His senses shook violently and showed him a path.
The Will he had felt and awakened through Refusal stirred, even if only a little.
It made Enkrid’s body move naturally along that route.
Tap. He stopped his straight run, planted his foot on a tree to the right, and launched himself into the air. At the same time, he drove his knife into a thick branch above his head.
His running speed threw his body forward.
He let go of the knife and, like a monkey, grabbed the next branch and flew again.
He flew through the air twice, then dropped upside down and threw his sword downward.
That was not merely close to a stunt. It was a stunt.
Body control gained from training harsher than training, close to torture.
Physical ability built on that control, explosive strength from Heart of Superhuman Strength.
Boldness that trusted that body, and sharpened senses that let him predict a split second ahead through sixth sense.
All of it stacked together.
He crushed everything into one and expressed it through his body.
From the side, it would have looked like he stopped running, shot upward in an instant, cut through the air twice, then fired a beam of light.
The centaur leader had just broken out of the forest.
The leader felt joy.
‘I’ve shaken him now!’
Just as it stepped outside the forest, a sword stabbed into its skull.
Enkrid’s thrown sword pierced straight through its head.
And at the exact moment the blade sank in, thud, something slammed into the leader’s side.
It looked like a black shadow.
A sharp numbness spread from Enkrid’s eyes through his head.
That was from over-concentration.
To be exact, it was the result of Will activating inside a concentration state, but he did not know that part.
Either way, while falling from a shoulder-first posture, he twisted and rolled into a breakfall.
Using that rolling force, he braced his ankles and stood.
Enkrid stopped with one knee down and stared at the thing collapsing with a sword in its skull.
The Demon Creature fell sideways because something had rushed in and rammed it hard.
The body of the dying creature twitched. Or was it already dead?
Enkrid turned his gaze.
He saw what had rammed the leader.
Hiiiiiiing.
A wild horse stood there, steam-like vapor pouring off its whole body.
The vapor rising from its back looked like wings for a moment, but the blue mist quickly thinned and scattered.
Enkrid was in a similar state.
Sweat covered his whole body, and once he stopped, that sweat was turning into vapor in thick curls.
One beast and one human stared at each other.
Off to one side, the fallen centaur leader kept trembling.
Black blood soaked into the dirt. The horse and human standoff lasted only a moment.
“You got it? Oh.”
Rem’s voice came from behind with a short exclamation. He was not alone.
“Brother, did you catch it? Well done.”
Audin gave rare praise.
Someone else was still far back, approaching while snapping branches.
Jaxon had approached silently.
The one breaking branches and arriving late was probably Teresa.
A giant had slow feet, and that was true even for a half-giant.
“Did Ragna come too, by any chance?”
Enkrid asked just in case.
“Ah, that bastard. He came in with us, then saw a shortcut and ran off on his own.”
Rem said.
Ah, Ragna.
Enkrid shook his head inwardly.
Aside from swinging a sword, that friend was hopeless at everything else, and he had gotten lost again.
“A Demon Creature? Hm?”
Audin asked. Was it because he carried divine power that he could easily sense demonic energy?
The way he spoke was full of curiosity.
Rem seemed to have felt something from it too and added a comment.
“That one’s vicious.”
Enkrid kept speaking, but never once moved his eyes away.
He kept staring at the horse whose blue sweat was turning to vapor.
Its body was black, but the sweat running over its hide had a blue tint. It was a strange sight.
That was why even the vapor looked bluish.
That was not the only unusual point.
Its eyes were different colors.
One was blue, one was red.
Even for odd eyes, could one get this bizarre?
At a glance, one eye even looked like a Demon Creature’s eye.
Enkrid looked at the colony leader, now dead after twitching on the ground.
‘How do Demon Creatures make Magic Beasts?’
Kraiss knew a lot of random things.
“Knowledge is a weapon that shows women a different kind of charm.”
Yes, what a grand reason.
Anyway, according to Kraiss:
“They scatter their own blood and make them eat it. Then the brain of a normal animal gets stained by demonic energy. Blood from a creature that forms a colony should be especially efficient. Otherwise it would be hard to command surrounding Magic Beasts.”
The same method had likely been used when another creature led a Magic Beast herd.
And this one leading a horse Magic Beast herd was likely the same.
That was why herbivores became Magic Beasts in bulk.
‘Even so, there weren’t that many horse Magic Beasts.’
Were there just few wild horses here? No, that did not seem right. The one in front of him proved it.
“Look at this one, it’s only halfway done.”
Rem said.
Enkrid saw the same thing.
Why it had odd eyes, why it had charged in while spraying vapor from its body and slammed into the Demon Creature.
Prrrrr.
The wild horse snorted again and gave a wary look. Enkrid received that gaze.
It felt like the beast was speaking with its eyes.
‘I will win. I will endure. I will not submit to this filthy blood.’
He could feel its pride, presence, and momentum.
Rem had seen and felt something similar, which was why he said what he did.
What did it mean to endure?
Funny enough, no words were exchanged and little time had passed, yet Enkrid did not find that horse unfamiliar.
‘Why?’
He asked himself and got an answer right away.
Enkrid saw himself in the wild horse.
A beast tainted by Demon Creature blood became a Magic Beast.
That was supposed to be an unchanging truth.
“Strange, brother.”
He heard Audin mutter.
Enkrid looked at one that rejected that unchanging truth. He faced it directly. He looked into its eyes.
Murderous intent breathed off it. Something like fighting spirit showed too. Fangs half-grown, unfitting for a horse, were visible as well.
Enkrid remembered the past.
“A knight? Pfft.”
Someone had mocked him.
“Stop saying ridiculous things. Wake up and live properly.”
Someone had spat bitter words.
“Give it up. I’m saying this for your own sake.”
Someone had worried about him.
All of them had seen the unchanging truth.
Enkrid stood and reached his hand toward the horse.
Even if he had not killed the Demon Creature by throwing his sword while running, this horse would have stopped it with that body slam.
So they had caught it together.
“You were aiming for it too?”
Enkrid asked.
It had to be very clever.
He spoke and took another step forward.
If the horse was resisting Demon Creature blood right now, that meant it had overcome that unchanging truth.
The horse bared its fangs.
Prrrrr.
It snorted again. If things went wrong, it looked ready to bite his hand clean through. Thinking of the Demon Creatures he had seen so far, his wrist might have been severed.
The horse, which had been about to bare its fangs further, shook its head and snorted once more.
Its eyes wavered, murderous intent one moment, caution the next, changing several times.
Enkrid approached, and the horse took one step back, but in the end it did not run.
Everyone, to be exact everyone except lost Ragna, fixed their eyes on Enkrid and the horse.
Only Teresa’s rough breathing could be heard as she arrived late.
No one spoke.
For some reason, it looked like something new had met something new.
Then Enkrid’s hand reached the head of the black horse with the dark mane.
Was the sweat on its skin blue because of Demon Creature blood, or had it always been like that?
No one could know.
And this creature, half Magic Beast and half wild by temperament, did not reject Enkrid’s touch.
That was all.
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