WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 249: Because I Can
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Rem stared blankly at one man and one horse.
What the hell was this?
He was petting a beast that was practically a Magic Beast?
‘Won’t it bite?’
Even if it did, that man would not just stand there and take it, so Rem was not too worried.
Enkrid’s hand touched the horse’s head, stroked it, and the horse quietly accepted it.
Watching all of that, Rem felt absurdly baffled.
That horse definitely had Magic Beast blood mixed into it.
You did not need any special magic to see it.
The protruding fangs, the faint killing intent drifting off its whole body.
Everything about it said the same thing.
And still, he stroked its head and said,
“You did well.”
He was calming it down?
Rem watched and thought, wait, is he getting friendly with it right now?
Would a horse halfway through becoming a Magic Beast really listen like that? Without biting?
And that aside, why was he doing this instead of cutting it down?
Could something half-transformed really stay like that for long?
He had no idea. He had never seen anything like this before. What kind of beast could endure demon creature blood and resist full beastification into a Magic Beast?
Still, what stood before him was only one Magic Beast, his captain had always been odd, and this was Rem’s first time seeing this kind of case, so he kept watching.
While Rem blankly watched this exchange between a man and a beast that had failed to complete beastification, Audin sought his god.
‘Father, is that Magic Beast also overcoming its fate right now?’
Of everyone there, Audin was the most awestruck.
Was fate a fixed path? Something unchangeable?
There had been times he felt that way.
When he stood on the path of an Inquisitor, when he looked into the eyes of those who died by his hand, when he heard a high priest declare people heretics who were not heretics at all.
“That is their fate! The fate our Father has ordained!”
Even then, he had not believed those words were right. But he had not been able to break that wheel of fate or shatter those shackles either.
‘Father, what should I do?’
He prayed under the blazing sun. He recited scripture. That was how Audin came to carry doubt.
Then he met someone who shattered the very reason for that doubt.
That person was Enkrid.
Watching him and coming to know him, Audin had been troubled, yet found the strength to awaken and move forward.
And now.
He saw a man and a beast rejecting, defying, and refusing what people called immutable truth.
“In Father’s name, by Father’s will, I offer my life.”
A chant flowed from his lips.
Holy power stirred on its own, and a splitting headache tore through his skull, but Audin smiled through the pain and softly sang a hymn.
Hearing that song beside her, Teresa listened without meaning to.
It was a voice like gentle sunlight, something she had never felt while in the cult’s embrace.
‘A song.’
That deep voice entered her body and tapped at her heart.
With Enkrid and the horse in her sight and Audin’s hymn in her ears, Teresa felt her heart tremble in sharp pulses.
Naturally, she looked back on her own life.
Her life had begun in the cult and ended there.
So what should this newly reborn self live for?
She had meant to live again for struggle.
She thought that was everything.
It was not. Teresa felt a hollow emptiness inside herself. It was like a hole had opened near her heart.
Even so, she was neither depressed nor in pain.
“Father says that what is full and what is empty both exist within oneself.”
After finishing a short hymn, Audin recited a line from scripture.
Those words struck Teresa deeply.
Jaxon only watched the scene in silence.
What was with that horse? What was the captain doing?
Then a stray thought slipped in.
‘Now he’s taming beasts too?’
Because he was the Alluring Squad Leader?
Jaxon just kept watching.
A man had only rested his hand on a horse’s head.
Yet that scene left a mark in many hearts and minds.
And Enkrid felt something like a strange sense of kinship. It was a bizarre moment.
‘Why does this keep sticking in my mind?’
This Magic Beast pulled too strongly at both his gaze and his heart.
Why? Because it resisted becoming a Magic Beast? Maybe. In that struggle, Enkrid saw his own past.
Esther suddenly came to mind. On the battlefield, had she said they should play among themselves and stop following her?
A mage who rampaged while shifting between panther and human.
At first, he had thought she was just a beast.
Their first real bond had formed because they saved each other’s lives, and a story took shape between them.
Then what about now?
He had no such exchange with this wild horse in front of him.
Even so, Enkrid felt something close to affection.
His hand stayed on the horse’s head. The horse only lowered its head. It did not exactly seem to enjoy the touch.
It only stared at him.
Blue eyes were clear and steady, and red eyes looked like wavering flames.
Enkrid spoke from his chest, not his head.
“Want to come with me?”
Prrr.
The horse snorted as if it understood. It looked like agreement.
There was no shared history between them.
No time spent together either.
They had just met, and all they had done was recognize each other.
Enkrid had seen a horse that failed to become a Magic Beast.
The horse had only met a strange man who appeared out of nowhere.
“...You’re taking that with us?”
Rem asked from behind.
“Yeah.”
Enkrid answered while stroking the mane once, then turned his whole body away.
What stood behind him was a wild horse close to becoming a Magic Beast, but his movement carried complete certainty that it would not attack him.
“W-wait, fuck, even I find this amazing.”
If even Rem was shocked enough to say that, everyone else had to be too.
“Scripture says, even a lowly creature must carry something in its heart. Love life. Love as much as you have struck down.”
Audin spoke as the war god’s apostle.
Jaxon only watched, expressionless.
For some reason, Teresa’s eyes looked wet behind the mask.
What was with her now?
Enkrid gave the horse’s head a few light pats.
“It would be nice to go together now, but if we’re going to hold anything like a funeral, we at least need to find the body.”
He meant Dunbakel. Taking in the wild horse was a separate matter.
Enkrid had not forgotten Dunbakel.
“You’re talking like she’s dead already?”
Rem snorted at that. Then, after saying it, he pulled out his axe and continued.
“If she died this easy, then she’d die by my hand again.”
Was that certainty in Rem’s words, or hope?
Hard to tell. No matter how sharp your senses were, that barbarian was good at hiding what he really felt.
“The forest is wide.”
Even if she was alive, finding her would not be easy.
“If she’s alive, finding her is easy.”
Rem said that and sucked in a sharp breath. His chest swelled to nearly twice its size.
As Enkrid watched, Jaxon raised a hand and covered his ears.
Enkrid tried to cover the horse’s ears too, but the horse stepped back.
It looked like it was saying it was fine. Enkrid quickly covered his own ears.
Then Rem blasted out the air in his chest as a roar.
“YOU-STU-PID-BEAST-KIN!”
The shout felt like it tore through the air.
A monstrous yell, and a skill in itself.
It sounded like thunder.
A rumble shook part of the forest.
Hiiiiiing!
Even the clever horse staggered, though it had expected it. With loud flapping, winter birds startled by the thunder-like roar flew into the sky.
Kyaaak!
Far away, a crow shrieked as if answering Rem’s shout.
It also sounded like it was telling him to shut up.
Even with his ears covered, Enkrid felt his head ring.
“You brainless barbarian.”
Jaxon had the sharpest senses among them, and he said that with a rare frown.
“Could’ve warned us first.”
Enkrid tossed that out, and Rem answered.
“You should’ve figured it out by looking.”
“So?”
“If we walk through the forest yelling, she’ll pop out.”
Even Enkrid had to admit it was not a bad method.
More than anything,
“Ragna will find us too.”
They also needed to find the unit member who could do nothing but swing a sword and had gotten lost.
“Let’s go find the idiot Beastfolk.”
Rem said it, and Enkrid nodded.
They had killed the demon creature leader, so now it was time for that.
Enkrid made up his mind and turned away from the wild horse, but instead of following, the horse just watched him.
“You’re not coming?”
He said it as if he were talking to a person. Strange as it was, from the moment his hand touched the horse’s head, Enkrid had felt something like communion.
He thought the horse would understand him. Not language itself, but meaning.
Prrr.
The wild horse shook its head, then tapped the ground a few times.
After that, it turned and gestured behind itself with its head.
The ground-tapping looked like it meant it would wait here.
Then what did pointing backward mean?
Grateful Forest was wide. The path the demon creatures had broken through was near the border between forest and plain.
With winter approaching, patches of grass had turned brown across the wide land. This place was flat ground, an open plain.
Beyond it, a herd of wild horses was visible. Not just one or two.
At a glance, there were well over dozens.
Well, thinking about it, that was only natural.
On this continent, demon creatures and Magic Beasts were common.
To survive among them, forming a herd was the obvious choice.
That was why humans formed territories too, and villages, and communities.
Even a small village usually had at least fifty households. Defensive walls were essential.
In population terms, it was normal to have at least ten to twenty people available for combat.
Even villages like that were only possible in relatively safe areas.
If demon creatures appeared often, people usually had to live in larger territories.
Across the continent, that was why people gathered on a territorial scale.
It was also why free territories with no nation existed.
That was the kind of world this was.
A world where only a few could travel the continent alone.
So of course this wild horse herd had formed a group to survive on this plain.
Then what had this half-transformed horse been within that herd?
“Were you the leader?”
Were those left behind over there your subordinates and family, so you could not just leave them?
It did not seem exactly like that.
Then what?
Tap, tap.
It kicked the ground again. Enkrid could not tell. He decided that after finding Dunbakel and returning to Martai, he would come back here.
“Wait. My subordinates come first.”
Enkrid said it, and the horse that failed to become a Magic Beast stopped where it was.
It looked like it understood that it should wait.
‘Ragna first.’
Find him, then find Dunbakel.
“Rem. Shout.”
They entered the forest, and Rem shouted again.
“MO-RON-LOST-IN-THE-WOODS!”
He was definitely doing it on purpose.
“Wouldn’t calling his name be better?”
“Nope.”
His freedom. Enkrid let him be. Finding Ragna was not hard.
A few stupid Man-Faced Hounds rushed in at the shouting, but before they could even get close, Teresa’s blade melted them apart. They were cut down and scattered, and melted really did fit how they looked.
Like winter snow melting in sunlight.
Kaaak!
They lunged with shrieks no one wanted to hear, so Teresa blocked their teeth with her shield and smashed down with the flat of her sword.
One with a burst torso left a filthy stain across the ground.
The next one got hit by the shield, flew back, and got skewered through its protruding body, hanging there and twitching.
Even hanging like that, it kept screeching, so Teresa swung and split it vertically.
Giant blood was mixed into hers.
With the flat, with the edge, with the shield, she had more than enough force to turn Man-Faced Hounds into bloody pulp.
At first there was one, then several more appeared.
But no matter how stupid they were, was it normal for them to keep charging this way?
It was obvious they would die if they came.
Even if demon creatures were lumps of hostility, killing intent, and malice, did they not know fear?
And the colony leader was no longer clamping down on their minds either.
The reason revealed itself soon.
“That was the shortcut.”
Ragna. Blood was splattered across his armor, as if he had run into a fleeing pack of Man-Faced Hounds on one side.
Maybe he was annoyed, because he had taken off his helmet and held it in one hand, and black blood dripped from the sword in his right hand.
Ragna was uninjured.
Had the Man-Faced Hounds fleeing from his blade happened to run this way?
“You idiot, you goat-dung bastard, you dog-ball bastard, you bastard who’ll stay lost till the day you die.”
Seeing Ragna, Rem showed his delight, and Ragna returned the greeting with his sword without hesitation.
It was a light swing.
Rem had already pulled out his axe and blocked it.
Bang!
Sword edge and axe edge met and greeted each other.
“Want me to dig your grave too, while you’re busy getting lost?”
Rem said, twisting his mouth.
Rem’s presence was especially fierce.
Ragna was not one to yield either, so rougher flames than usual rose between them.
Why were those two so fierce?
Enkrid thought there was only one reason.
“Aren’t you looking for Dunbakel?”
The Beastfolk Rem had taught was missing.
Rem unexpectedly cared about the people shaped by his hand.
To begin with, one reason he ran through battlefields like that was to save those he thought had potential.
‘Though he beat the hell out of them while calling them promising.’
Most of the people whose lives were saved thanks to Rem did not know that.
Enkrid had only realized it after he developed an eye for such things.
“Crazy barbarian.”
Jaxon muttered.
And then.
“There’s blood coming out of my ear.”
The voice of the one they were looking for rang out.
It came from above, on a tree. It was a Beastfolk with a clotted cut across the forehead and a similar hole through the thigh.
“You idiot Beastfolk.”
No matter how wide the forest was, if Rem made enough of a racket, it was bound to carry. In the end, his madness worked.
Dunbakel came down to the ground. She landed with a thud, and from the way she stood, the injuries did not seem critical.
“Why did you come? I was going to kill that leader and come back on my own.”
Enkrid heard that and nodded.
He wondered if she was starting to sound like Rem because Rem had taught her.
“Sure you were.”
Jaxon reacted, and Audin only smiled.
After calling her an idiot Beastfolk, Rem showed a soft smile and said,
“When we get back, you start from the beginning again.”
Dunbakel’s face crumpled at that.
Why? She really had planned to kill that leader here.
She was Beastfolk. She was confident fighting in forests.
Part of her goal was to shift the battlefield onto terrain that favored her.
As for her other goal, she had copied Enkrid.
Saving allies had been part of that.
Enkrid looked at Dunbakel and spoke.
He saw no reason to circle around it or wait, so he asked bluntly.
“Why did you do it?”
He meant saving allies and using herself as bait.
Dunbakel blinked, understood the question, and answered.
“Because I can.”
It was not some grand declaration of belief or will.
Enkrid liked it more because of that.
After that, Dunbakel added one more line, and what she said was unexpected to Enkrid.
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