WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 251: What a Windfall

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To the wild horse, the Burning Skeleton was a threat it could not deal with.

That was why it asked for help.

And this was that moment. On top of that, the Burning Skeleton was out of luck.

Fwoooosh!

A burning halberd, and behind it a long line of skeleton hounds and skeleton soldiers.

There were thirteen in total.

Twelve, if you excluded the flaming skull itself.

"Profane and corrupt."

That was one reason they were unlucky.

A religious zealot soldier was here, the kind who had fits at the sight of undead.

Fwoosh!

The flaming halberd came down. Audin knocked it aside with his palm.

For an instant, the fire jumped to his hand. Audin swung his arm through the air.

Whoom!

He had only swung his arm, yet the air burst like wind. The flame on his hand went out, snuffed in midair.

It was not magic. It was a stunt done with raw physical force and speed.

After knocking the burning halberd aside, Audin started smashing the skeletons charging from behind.

One punch was enough to shatter a skeleton's skull into flying bone fragments.

The skull burst into around sixteen pieces.

"...That dumb bastard."

Even Rem was impressed by the fire-snuffing stunt.

Audin kept going, cracking skulls and splitting ribs wherever he saw skeletons. He grabbed a skeleton soldier by the spine and yanked it out, then swung that spine like a club and crushed a skeleton hound's head.

The Burning Skeleton raised its halberd high, as if aiming for Audin's back.

Ragna, who had been watching, suddenly stepped in.

He took one step forward, drew his sword, twisted his waist, and swung.

Heavy Sword Style, Drawing Cut.

Ragna's blade cleanly sliced through the skeleton's neck bone.

Its severed head dropped with a thud. As it fell, the fire on it vanished.

All that remained was a blackened skull, rolling between vines and short grass.

The skull stopped when it bumped into a jagged rock.

Even without a head, the Burning Skeleton still flailed its arms and legs.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

Then Rem stepped in and chopped apart the burning thing's limbs with his axe. He cut, kicked, and smashed.

Even so, as if resisting, the Burning Skeleton swung its halberd left and right.

It was nothing but bones, but it was strong.

Rem ducked lightly and swung his axe upward from below.

The flashing blade cut through the skeleton's elbow bone, and the force sent the halberd flying.

It spun and spun, scattering sparks.

Enkrid raised the back of his hand to shield his eyes from the sparks, then reached out on reflex.

The halberd was just about to drop in front of him.

He had two choices, dodge it or catch it.

It looked like it was flying at him with a will of its own.

Enkrid trusted pure instinct and chose to catch it.

If it was too hot, he could just let go and throw it.

He was confident he could do all of that in an instant.

He had also judged that its flames did not spread outward, since they were not setting the area on fire.

Of course, all of those calculations were part of instinct.

So Enkrid followed that instinct and grabbed the halberd.

Fwoooosh!

Thud!

It was not as hot as he expected. When he gripped the handle, it was not hot enough to make him drop it.

Instead, he heard voices.

"Burn!"

"Burn to death!"

"Turn to ash!"

"Burn and die!"

In an instant, a dead man's life flashed through his mind, a man tied to a cross-shaped stake.

A man had burned to death. He had been executed for using magic. Ignorant villagers had betrayed him, and a lord had led it.

A kind of curse? No, slightly different.

'It's similar to Pel's sword.'

It was resentment. That resentment had been embedded into a weapon. A dying grudge had become human willpower.

It looked similar to what he had seen in Will.

Enkrid reflected on that man's life, accepted his will, and then...

He refused it.

He refused to burn to death.

The resentment in the enchanted halberd scattered and vanished.

It was purification by a stronger Will.

Pop, the flames on the halberd went out.

As if it had been plunged into cold water.

Though no steam rose, unlike that image.

The fire had simply snapped out, all at once.

What was this?

Audin was the only one who understood the full context.

From the start, he knew what kind of resentment and grudge that weapon had been made from.

In the end, the flames had come from the weapon itself, only making the skeleton look as if it were burning.

He had planned to chastise and purify it. To do that, he would have to release divinity and endure pain.

Because of his binding, using divinity brought extreme pain. Even so, it was too dangerous to leave alone.

'I might pass out.'

To purify resentment at that level, that could happen.

Enduring pain was not something you could control by will alone.

In truth, the people who had bound Audin had intended to block him from using divinity entirely, but Audin ignored that and used it anyway.

That was the situation. He had been ready to pass out if needed.

So he had deliberately dealt with the other profane things first.

Then Enkrid grabbed the halberd, and the flames went out in a snap.

By then, all the skeletons had already been wiped out.

Teresa stepped on the skull on the ground. It crushed with a crack.

In the silence, only bones breaking echoed.

Even the wild horse stayed quiet and watched.

Then Rem's voice broke the silence.

"...Your palms sweating that much?"

Did he put out fire with sweat? Ridiculous.

"Sometimes your head is honestly admirable."

Jaxon said it in disbelief. His line of work had exposed him to plenty of objects like this.

'Is that flame supposed to go out?'

It did not look normal.

"What are you even saying, you crazy wildcat bastard."

Rem said it and looked at Enkrid.

In other words, explain what happened.

"It said it'd burn me to death, so I said no."

What kind of explanation was that?

Rem's eyes said exactly that as he looked around for agreement.

Ragna looked uninterested, and Audin only marveled, since he roughly understood the principle.

'How long has it even been since he awakened Will?'

And yet he handled it that skillfully.

It was simply astonishing.

"Well, that worked out."

Jaxon brushed it off. Had Enkrid ever done anything normal anyway?

In this place, he was the only normal one.

"Jesus."

Saying, "Let me see that," Rem snatched up the halberd.

The remaining grudge in it attacked Rem too. It did not show him the past, it only lashed out with a command to burn to death.

Of course, it was only residue, a faint resistance.

Flame seemed to rise from Rem's hand, then died instantly.

"Hm?"

Audin was surprised again. What now? This was not Will crushing it down.

"Someone tampered with this thing. Can I use it?"

Rem muttered. He looked like he knew something. Enkrid did not ask. What would asking change?

"Yeah."

He had no greed for weapons anyway. Rem inspected the halberd closely, then chopped the shaft around the middle with his axe.

Thunk, the magic weapon's handle was cut in half. It was now hand-axe length. Aside from the spike-like tip for thrusting, it could pass for a hand axe.

The balance was still a complete mess, though.

"If I add a weight to the end of the handle, it'll work."

He could tune the cut section while doing that.

Enkrid gave that advice, and Rem nodded.

He clearly liked it.

"Feels like I hit the jackpot."

Rem said it out loud, and Enkrid nodded too.

To say it again, those skeleton bastards had terrible luck.

Who was gathered here?

The Madmen Company.

A gang of brutes who could swing the course of a battlefield.

Enkrid retrieved his drawn sword. Shring, he slid it into the scabbard and spoke to the horse.

"Is that all?"

The horse hesitated. What are these humans? The skeletons were a huge threat.

Then again, this human had stabbed a sword into that dangerous centaur's head before.

The horse accepted it.

Hiiing.

It let out a neigh of joy.

"Good."

Enkrid stepped forward as he spoke.

Whose grave had this been? At least it had not belonged to someone poor. So what? It felt unlikely that this idiotically burning halberd and a few skeletons were everything.

Maybe because of the wild horse herd and those skeletons, there were no signs of grave robbers either.

"Should we dig around a bit?"

More precisely, what if they dug near the structure that looked like a wall?

When Enkrid said that, Jaxon answered.

"There are a few boxes inside."

So that wildcat bastard had already circled the inside instead of fighting.

"Your hands are quick as hell, wildcat."

Rem praised him. As usual, Jaxon ignored him, and the group moved inward.

The terrain was rough from rain collapsing the ground, then snow falling and melting, then drying again and baking hard in the sun.

The ground was uneven, and sharp stone shards jutted up everywhere like natural traps.

Of course, it was no problem.

"All right, let me show you something neat."

Walking beside them, Rem stopped and swung his axe through the air.

Whoom.

Down from above, then up from below.

The second swing was different from the first.

Fwoosh!

Flames rose along the axe blade with that second swing.

"Fire Axe Rem. What do you think? Good nickname for me?"

He seemed to have figured out how to use it after fiddling with it a few times.

"Yeah."

Enkrid gave a calm nod.

If he fought with that, he would probably go from a crazy axeman to a crazy fire axeman.

He did not say that out loud. People always needed comfort.

"Heh heh, nice. Real nice."

If he was satisfied, that was enough.

Everyone ignored him and entered the deepest part of the basin.

The ground gradually became easier to walk on, and then a stable flat area appeared.

Far inside that deep section.

He wondered where the warm air was coming from, then saw one half-open chest.

A soft heat was coming from inside.

"Warmstone? Sun God's Blessing? Lord."

Audin muttered.

Enkrid realized that whoever had built this tomb had been drowning in gold.

"Take everything."

Inside the chest, there was no silver at all. It was all gold coins, plus items that could be called relics.

Starting with the Warmstone called Sun God's Blessing, there was also a bandage-like strip with a strangely metallic feel.

"That is a rare item."

Those words came from Jaxon, who reacted bluntly to almost everything unless it was an assassin's dagger planned with a life on the line.

That meant it was truly valuable.

Enkrid examined the thick black bandage. It was about palm-width, and there was not much of it.

If wrapped carefully, maybe enough for a torso.

"It's specially treated soft magic beast hide, made to wrap around the body. Think of it as inner armor."

Jaxon explained with unusual persistence.

There were no other special relics. They also found glowing stones, but everyone had good night vision, so no one cared much.

There were boots and gloves too, but they were broken, plus a few gems and a diary.

The diary's contents were nothing special.

It was full of absurd adventure tales, like how he used to ride a Pegasus.

Then it ended by saying he settled in this land because it was his friend's hometown.

A lifelong wanderer, with no home and no roots, rests here.

The diary ended with that kind of line.

The writer had written his own name and then scratched it out with charcoal, and Enkrid felt that the buried man, the diary's author, had been laying out his dream.

The diary was filled with that tone.

Adventure was his dream, and every place in the world was full of wonder and mystery. That was what he wrote again and again.

In that, Enkrid caught a scent similar to his own.

A person moving toward a dream.

Only this man had achieved his goal, found satisfaction, then sought out his friend's hometown. Maybe erasing his name meant he had left, satisfied with himself.

'Romantic, or stupid.'

Was romance always one step away from foolishness?

He had had a swordsmanship teacher who said things like that.

Enkrid only compared it to himself and thought.

Of course, it was a bold guess. It was not important.

He kept the diary.

For some reason, he liked it.

Meanwhile, Jaxon checked the surrounding walls and possible mechanisms, but there was nothing hidden.

Before, in a similar situation, Enkrid had been trapped once and gotten the sword he now carried, but this place had open sky above it.

A strange terrain. Even before the ground collapsed and exposed it, maybe it had been designed so the sky would still be visible from here.

That might have been why the chests and everything else were preserved so well.

Hiiing.

The horse came closer. Enkrid placed a hand on its forehead.

"Done now?"

Before they knew it, the sun was sinking. Maybe because of the Warmstone, it was not cold.

It was not just the Warmstone, though. Seeing that things like a Burning Skeleton had been left here, it seemed the place had been designed as a rest stop for travelers.

Jaxon said there were strange letters on the walls here and there.

'Weirdo bastard.'

The diary also explained why the skeletons had been made.

"Adventures need obstacles too! I hope whoever finds this can clear at least this much! Then use my legacy well!"

After reading the diary, "legacy" was not much to boast about.

'They are expensive and good items, though.'

If the diary was to be believed, should there not have been at least some legendary relic or holy object?

Anyway, it said he had wandered the continent giving away the rest of his belongings here and there.

Oh, and it also said he did not have just one grave.

"If you're an explorer, find my other graves too."

The guy was a weirdo, but the fact that he had run toward his dream still made Enkrid's heart race.

It was fun.

"We sleep here tonight and return tomorrow."

It was fair to call this grave a rest stop. Its unseasonal warmth seemed to urge them to rest.

He also wanted to give this horse time to part with its herd.

"Let's do that."

Rem sounded fine with anything.

He held the fire axe in his left hand and the Warmstone in his right.

The warm leather was valuable too, but that one stone alone could heat an entire tent.

If high nobles learned of it, they would pay a fortune for it.

It was that expensive, but no one here had much sense for money.

Enkrid gave it to Rem because Rem got cold easily.

Ragna still did not care, Audin began to pray, and Jaxon sat down and closed his eyes.

Teresa and Dunbakel were no different when it came to money.

Neither cared about Krona. In truth, they had no interest at all.

Their minds were busy enough with their own lives, changed fates, and what was coming next.

Night fell, and when they lay down without even a campfire and looked up, starlight poured into the tomb.

It was a fantastic night view he had never seen before.

Enkrid lay there, using the shower of starlight as a blanket. A gentle warmth wrapped around him.

Then he closed his eyes and met the Boatman.

As always, the Boatman mocked him. He sneered too.

"You always end up running with bastards just like yourself."

Enkrid wondered if that was a compliment. The dream was short.

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