WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 259: On Dealing with Morons (4)

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"Didn't I tell you morons always end up teaming up with other morons? Didn't I?"

Rem said, looking at one of the people blocking their way.

The man had thrown on a black robe to hide himself, but that bulging belly and exposed mouth made it obvious who he was.

"Hmph!"

The fallen priest snorted.

Rem had mentioned it before they set out. He had run into that fat moron at the market, and the way the man looked at him had been strange.

He had also said that idiot might join hands with another idiot.

That prophecy had just come true.

Of course, a little trickery had gone into making that prophecy come true.

"Call me Rem the Prophet."

His legs had tangled and he had nearly fallen on his ass, with an arrow flying over his head, but he still had room to swagger.

Things had happened the way Rem said they would, after all.

Enkrid called him what Rem wanted.

"Moron Rem."

"Your ears broken? I said prophet."

"Prophet and moron mean the same thing anyway."

"You just made that up, didn't you?"

"No."

That was how Enkrid usually thought. He was frank and shamelessly honest, and Rem gave up on the prophet title with an, "Ah, to hell with this."

"There are many confused and foolish people in this world, so sending them to God's side so they may repent and be reborn is this servant's duty."

Audin recited a prayer. It sounded like he meant he was going to beat them all to death.

Seeing that fallen priest always seemed to make him want to kill someone.

Enkrid stepped forward.

He was the representative of this group. His left hand rested on the pommel of the sword at his waist, and he stood with his weight on one leg.

To strangers, it looked lazy. To anyone who knew swords, it was a solid ready stance.

From the other side, behind the fat fallen moron priest, one man stepped out and spoke.

His posture was firm, and he looked like a man with no openings.

"The one who hired us said to ask you one last thing. Any interest in coming under Black Blade?"

Trying to recruit them in the middle of this? As if anyone would fall for that.

Kraiss snorted inwardly. At the same time, he watched the man who had stepped out with care.

The man was a full head taller than the fat priest.

Like Enkrid, he had stepped forward one pace to show he was the one in charge.

His eyes looked savage. A long sword, fierce eyes, and an attitude that at a glance almost looked annoyed.

A mercenary known for being good at planning out killings.

Kraiss guessed his identity just from his appearance.

"Prepared Blade?"

Enkrid heard it too.

He wondered if the man was a famous mercenary. That stirred a bit of interest. His arm hung loose, his feet were spread just enough, and his eyes were fixed on Enkrid's feet and legs.

He had even turned his body slightly into the best possible angle for drawing his weapon.

He knew how to fight, and he had skill. That was Enkrid's judgment.

"You know me?" the mercenary asked.

His voice had no rise or fall, which made his tone sound rough.

"I didn't realize you'd fallen low enough to take jobs from Black Blade."

Kraiss spoke with a fake look of surprise.

It was not much of a provocation, but the man frowned anyway.

He looked irritated.

"...You've got a skilled tongue."

"And you've got the skill to sell your body for a few gold coins."

A tall mercenary with sharp eyes who used a sword as big as his own height.

People said he was a territory-class fighter or better.

You could call him a squire-class mercenary.

He was especially famous because he always came prepared for every fight.

That was why he got that nickname.

Kraiss scratched right at the man's nerves. An agitated enemy was easier to deal with than a calm one. The reason was simple.

"I told you, those idiots wouldn't be thinking at all."

The fat priest shouted something from behind.

Kraiss had wanted the man to lose his temper and charge, but it did not happen. Prepared Blade only raised his left hand.

The moment he did, heads started popping up one after another on the hills to the left and right.

For two days now, troops had been lying in ambush here. Some were from Black Blade, and the rest were from the mercenary band led by Prepared Blade.

Prepared Blade had heard the rough details about this group.

He had heard Swallow Blade got taken down.

He also believed he was different from an idiot like Swallow Blade.

Relying on scrolls? Why would anyone do something so stupid?

Unless you were a real knight, no one survived a rain of arrows.

That was why he had prepared fifty archers. The hills on both sides were steep. Some among them could probably climb those hills.

To stop that, he had placed two heavily armed ten-man units around the hill slopes.

Over seventy men had moved just to catch fewer than ten opponents.

Was that all? No. Behind him stood a hard core of famed mercenaries, including Prepared Blade himself.

Getting here without being noticed had been hard, but the actual fight should be easy.

That was "preparation."

Prepared Blade spoke with his hand still raised.

"You people don't even know your own lives are precious."

How long did they think they could survive after making an enemy of Black Blade?

A mercenary needed to be clever and quick to read the room to live long.

He was that kind of man.

Then, from behind Enkrid, Kraiss peeked his head out and said, "That's a relief. I was worried you'd show up with a pile of mages. But this is sloppier than I expected. Guess you didn't get paid much?"

Kraiss made a circle with his thumb and index finger as he spoke.

Enkrid found himself newly impressed by how much Kraiss could run his mouth.

He was using the perfect way to turn the enemy's guts upside down.

"I'm peeling that bastard alive myself," Prepared Blade said.

Kraiss widened his eyes like he was scared, then stuck out his tongue and answered, "Go ahead."

Sometimes childishness became a fatal move.

This was one of those times.

"You little son of a..."

Kraiss had definitely made the enemy commander see red.

"Hm, nice."

Excellent trickery. Enkrid admired it.

Even in the middle of that, Kraiss kept thinking.

Spells always created variables, so he stayed cautious.

"Well, even Black Blade probably doesn't have dozens of mages anyway."

Seeing them use scrolls before had naturally made him imagine worst-case scenarios.

Still, to Kraiss, the enemy force felt too sloppy. Too low in level, too small in number.

Why?

The answer came to him as soon as he asked.

"They still don't know our real level."

Enkrid and every member of the company fought well enough for stories to spread.

They had performed on real battlefields. They had even crushed a colony.

"But once that goes mouth to mouth?"

That was how rumors worked. They swelled and got exaggerated. And idiots who believed they were smart noticed that exaggeration and built strategy around it.

If it were Kraiss, the moment rumors spread, he would have gone mad checking whether they were true.

From Black Blade's side, they had reason to feel wronged too.

They wanted to dominate Border Guard's nightlife immediately, but the Gielpin guild kept exerting influence.

If they tried planting spies inside the fortress, Marcus proved far more capable than expected.

Unlike the rumors calling him a war maniac, he kept internal discipline brutally tight.

After he arrived, even peddlers were saying the standing garrison at Border Guard had gotten much harsher duty schedules.

That too was a misunderstanding.

The people crushed by Enkrid's training simply worked harder and tried to stay longer on gate duty or patrol, just to avoid that training a little longer.

Either way, Black Blade did not know. They misjudged everyone, including Enkrid, and they did not even register Kraiss's existence.

Kraiss, on the other hand, recognized how stupid they were, and in some ways he even understood.

"Still, where would you ever find this many squire-class monsters all packed together?"

This was not even a knight order.

Lack of information. Marcus had used that to great effect in battle too.

And after this, there would still be people who doubted Enkrid's level.

"Most of all, there probably weren't even rumors about the company members' strength."

One squire-class fighter, a group of archers, and mercenaries who could all fight.

Not quite squire-class, but people with one foot planted near territory-class.

So no, it was not sloppy. Black Blade just had no idea who they were facing.

"Might have overprepared a bit."

Thinking that, Kraiss snapped his fingers.

Snap!

Naturally, nothing happened. A finger snap would never be heard past the hills.

"...What?" Ragna asked from beside him.

"Do we need to send you to the temple too?" Rem asked.

Kraiss cleared his throat and said, "The timing was a little off."

Kraiss felt no embarrassment. Things like this happened. So he said it boldly, and right after that, the hills erupted in noise.

"The hell is this?"

"It's an ambush!"

Those were shouts from the enemy soldiers who had been lying in ambush.

Some archers spun around.

A synchronized volley from top to bottom was already impossible.

Some armed men standing beside the archers turned immediately too. Then they rushed at the people who had somehow taken their rear.

"How dare you!"

One enemy soldier charged bravely and swung his sword. A mercenary using a Bastard Sword.

He gripped it with both hands and brought it down. Not a bad swing.

The man facing him was barehanded.

He ran straight into the incoming blade, collided with it, and stepped right into the enemy's chest.

Thud! Stab! Sounds like that rang out. The mercenary who swung the Bastard Sword toppled forward, and the man who had gotten inside his guard shoved him aside and came out.

Torres wiped the blood from his drawn dagger on the dead man's collar.

A thin leather armor was layered over a gambeson, and the emblem of the Frontier Guard was stamped on it.

"Oh, we're not late."

On the opposite side, another man showed fast footwork and leaped into the middle of enemy soldiers in one burst.

He drew and thrust in one motion, and the speed was like lightning. His step that closed distance and the sword that shot out were both so fast that the moment it seemed visible, a hole had already been punched through one enemy's neck.

"Ghk!"

A mercenary clutched his throat, staggered, and dropped to his knees. Bright blood streamed through his fingers.

With his neck pierced, there was no saving him.

Zimmer showed his specialty and stopped.

"Moron bandit trash."

He spoke up. The hill was not that high, so everyone could see his face.

"Hm, looks like it's over?" Kraiss muttered in an irritating tone.

For a mere bandit group, putting together this much force on short notice was impressive.

It showed how much room Black Blade still had.

Especially since they had not hired random nobodies, they had brought in an actual squire-class mercenary.

That was no ordinary move, even if there was still a gap between true squires and squire-class fighters.

How many people at that level existed, really?

In the north, there were probably only a handful.

Still, they had known far too little about their opponent.

Well, before seeing it with your own eyes, it was hard to believe anyway.

That was what Kraiss thought.

"Bit disappointing."

Enkrid muttered.

Kraiss ignored him.

Kraiss always imagined ugly scenarios and prepared for them.

So this was what he had arranged.

Frontier Guard forces and Martai troops began occupying the area around the ambush point.

With their rear taken, Prepared Blade's archer group fell into panic.

"Fuck, they hit from behind? Then what about the front? Is there an escape route?"

No.

From position selection onward, everything had been predicted and anticipated.

As Torres seized the archers from the rear, he quietly admired Kraiss's brain.

"Big Eyes isn't ordinary either."

Prepared Blade's options on the hills were finished.

The men who took the hills were elite among elites, the Frontier Slaughterers hidden behind the overwhelming presence called Enkrid.

Prepared Blade's face stayed expressionless.

Instead, the expressions that changed in real time belonged to the mercenary group holding behind him.

"Hell of a mess."

Some showed anxiety.

"Screw it, this ends once we kill these bastards."

Some showed fighting spirit.

"Shouldn't we break out?"

Some offered practical alternatives.

"So, who's the moron now?"

Kraiss asked, and deep lines formed between Prepared Blade's brows.

"This would have been solved if we'd used force from the start."

A huge man stepped out next to Prepared Blade. Looking behind him, there were around twenty men, and not one of them looked like a half-baked fighter.

Of course, that was relative to ordinary soldiers.

"Only the confident ones step up. I'll kill all of you."

Thud, thud. The mace in the charging man's two hands looked quite threatening.

They only needed to seize momentum here before the fight on the hills fully settled.

Unlike his dull appearance, he was a mercenary with a quick mind. Maybe years on battlefields had sharpened a special instinct for this.

"I agree with him."

A woman stepped out beside him, licking her lips. Her tongue looked long enough to reach her chin.

Her tongue was strange, and so was her face, stretched absurdly long from top to bottom.

She held three throwing knives in each hand.

They were imitation weapons copied after the Whistle Dagger.

Rem growled as he watched them approach.

"I'm going first. Whoever steps out before me gets an axe in the back of the head."

Enkrid was about to step in, then told him to go ahead.

Changes in perception and judgment, a new evolution of sixth sense beyond the five senses.

With help from all of that, Enkrid became a moron for a brief moment.

In other words, he predicted what was coming.

Among the ones charging in, there wasn't a single person who could withstand Rem's axe.

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