WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 264: What Are the Black Blade Bandits Doing?

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"So, how was it?"

Edin Molsen's father asked.

He sat at his office desk and moved only his lips without even looking up, so the man who had served as Edin Molsen's bodyguard answered while staring at the top of his head.

The guard stood straight and spoke.

"He opened Will. He is at least junior knight level."

Rise, open, reach, awaken, attain.

There were many ways to describe gaining the use of "Will," but only one thing mattered here.

That man could use "Will."

Black hair, blue eyes, someone worth coveting, but not someone who needed to be brought in right away.

"Will?"

The quill that had been scratching across paper stopped. The Count lifted his head. The change in his eyes was obvious.

The guard thought it was rare, and the Count asked again before sinking into thought.

'I knew he was behind no small rumors, but Will?'

That meant he had truly reached junior knight.

An actual junior knight and someone merely called junior knight-level were completely different.

Comparing a half-baked swordsman to someone who used Will made no sense at all.

Even so, people kept using the term junior knight-level.

So if there was no Will, it only meant someone might roughly match a junior knight.

The Count knew better than anyone how pointless that was.

He set down the quill entirely and straightened in his chair.

'Will?'

He repeated the words in his head. Not on purpose. It happened on its own.

This was not something he could brush aside.

The man had already seemed far beyond Squire level.

On the continent, what people called junior knight-level was usually only Squire level.

In other words, people who trained body and mind without Will.

Some lived indulgent lives and still awakened Will.

Others lived like monks, strict and austere, knowing nothing but training, and became junior knights.

Their common trait was simple, they were at least strong enough to command their own territory, and every one of them was famous for martial power.

So even becoming a Squire was practically a synonym for being a terrifyingly skilled swordsman.

By that standard, how hollow was the phrase junior knight-level?

And now this was not even that. He had become equal to a true junior knight?

The guard studied the Count's face. Other than the shift in his eyes, his expression stayed the same. He only adjusted his facial muscles in that detached, affected way of his.

The Count smiled lightly.

"This just got interesting."

The Count discarded most of the plans he had been building in private.

"What did you think of him?"

He was asking for the guard's judgment again. The guard hesitated.

How much should he say?

He could not read this man's insides. He could not trust him either.

'Crazy bastard.'

A Naurillia noble who had formed an alliance, not quite an alliance, with Azpen's Hurrier Family.

He himself was here as proof of that.

Officially, he was a guard attached to the Count's house, a guest retainer, but in truth he was a member of the Hurrier Family.

So his true identity was an Azpen junior knight.

This whole twisted arrangement was the result of political knots tied from above. He was a junior knight with no political insight, so that part was not his concern.

Still, he recognized one simple fact clearly.

This man was plotting something, and Azpen had accepted it.

'Does this man feel even a father's affection?'

He saw no sign of it.

Before he noticed, the stretched evening glow had crossed the window and entered the office. Orange light wrapped the room.

The guard chose what he could say, then said it.

"He was extremely difficult to deal with, and he exerted a strange influence over the people around him."

"So he is the type who gathers people under him?"

That was not it. It was slightly different.

"No. Not that. But..."

The guard trailed off for a moment. How should he put this?

"Even without intending to, it looked like everyone around him kept watching him, and seemed to enjoy being by his side."

The guard thought of the half-giant.

She called herself Teresa the Wanderer, but anyone who failed to recognize her had to be blind.

She had originally been an enemy. She clearly belonged elsewhere and caused trouble, yet where was she now? At whose side was she staying? How was that even possible?

He could not make sense of it.

And what about the others around him?

Lastly, the guard had also sensed a change in Edin Molsen.

He was about to speak about the son, but the Count spoke first.

"You said the Black Blade Bandits were targeting him?"

The evening glow touched the left side of the Count's face. For a moment, the guard saw two different faces on him, split by the line of sunset. Not one of them showed worry, concern, or even interest in his son.

For a brief instant, he thought the phrasing felt odd, but he held his tongue.

"That is what I heard."

"Yes, this is getting very interesting."

"Then I will take my leave."

The guard suddenly felt nauseous.

Whenever he dealt with this man, the same thoughts came back.

How far could human malice grow?

What could someone discard for ambition?

If someone opened the road of knighthood for him, how much could he give up?

'Family too? Children too?'

Did he have to offer everything as sacrifice and move forward for ambition? Or should he stop for the sake of his humanity?

The Count in front of him looked like someone who would never stop. It seemed like children, family, affection, none of it existed in his head.

When the guard opened the office door and stepped out, he saw the man standing watch.

A man with a black helmet pulled low, long silver hair spilling down.

The man tilted his helmet slightly. The guard answered with a small nod of his chin, then walked into the dark corridor where the sunset did not reach.

The Count's black-helmeted guard closed the door.

Thud.

The Count watched the closed door and rested his chin on his hand.

He wanted a smoke. He took out a pipe, bit down on it, and flicked his fingers.

A flame flared up and pushed back the sunset glow.

He moved the fire from his fingertips to the tip of the pipe, lit it, and smiled.

He drew in tobacco smoke with a sharp pull. It filled his lungs, then came back out and curled around his mouth.

The sunset and smoke mixed and looked orange.

"Those Black Blade Bandits."

This would not be easy for them.

If he was not junior knight-level but a true junior knight.

If, as the guard reported, the people around him were all difficult in their own right.

Then they would never get what they wanted easily.

'Still, success is fine too.'

If the Black Blade Bandits managed to damage Enkrid's group, then he could weigh the scales afterward.

Still, it did not seem likely. It was only a vague hunch, but his hunches rarely missed.

"This should be interesting."

The Count sank into thought, and nowhere in that mind was Edin Molsen.

* * *

The instant Enkrid grabbed the wrist, the opponent yanked backward with all his strength.

Naturally, the wrist did not budge at all.

It froze like an object. Veins bulged on the back of the hand. Enkrid was gripping too hard.

Everyone around Enkrid looked like monsters, yet Enkrid's raw strength never fell behind theirs.

Crack.

He pulled the wrist back and twisted. It bent at an unnatural angle and broke. Still, not even a groan came from the other man.

The crowd was packed tight.

The market was half people, half goods.

Few people nearby paid attention to this spot.

"Dammit, what am I supposed to do if you step on that?"

A peddler with a laid-out stall shouted harshly.

"There's no room to walk!"

They needed to widen the road too.

Maybe that was another reason they had poured in Krona. There were signs of it.

Work to widen the main road was already underway.

The territory was going to expand altogether.

The hunchback with the broken wrist reached out with his other hand.

Before that arm fully extended, Enkrid snapped a short right punch forward.

To an ordinary person, like Kraiss standing nearby, it moved too fast to see.

After a sharp whoosh, only a cracking noise followed.

Even though Esther was in Enkrid's arms, she barely felt any shake from the strike, and that surprised her a little.

'He's gotten cleaner.'

As a witch, she could not identify exactly what had changed in Enkrid, but that was what her instincts told her.

After shattering the hunchback's jaw,

Enkrid grabbed the hood of the thick robe and yanked it off, revealing a man with a bulging back and shaggy hair.

The whole sequence, breaking the wrist, throwing the punch, stripping the robe, took only a few breaths.

And the instant that short sequence ended, another projectile came whistling in.

His sixth sense was open. Enkrid opened his palm and swung at the incoming projectile.

It smacked down at a right angle into the ground.

A dart.

"Tough bunch."

Enkrid nudged the dart with his toe as he spoke.

"...You're saying that after dropping him like that in one go?"

Kraiss said, dumbfounded. What part of this was tough?

Esther sprang out of Enkrid's arms. A few people nearby gasped when they saw the panther land on the ground.

Some had seen the fallen hunchback. Some had seen the knife in his hand. They saw Enkrid and Kraiss too.

Traveling peddlers might not know their faces, but Border Guard locals had no way not to.

"A blade!"

"Ambush!"

"Assassin!"

They spotted it once and jumped straight to assassin?

That shout made the chaos worse.

Every direction was a mess, screams, merchants yelling, stall owners trying to protect their goods, complete bedlam.

While thinking, Enkrid widened the range of his senses around him.

Nothing caught.

That was why he had called them tough.

'I didn't feel anything until right before the dagger strike.'

The one who threw the dart had probably hidden in the crowd the moment he threw it. Impossible to find.

That meant stealth was burned into his body.

If there had been fewer people, he might have caught him, so Enkrid concentrated.

Where are you?

He asked it inside himself and used sight, hearing, smell, touch.

Seeing, hearing, sensing, and then adding his sixth sense gave him a rough direction.

A faint killing intent.

The moment he focused there,

something flew in from behind with a heavy whoomph. Slower than a dart, but weightier.

'A sling stone?'

That thought flashed through his head as Enkrid turned.

He caught the flying object in his eyes. With Dynamic Visual Acuity honed by relentless training, he saw exactly what had been thrown.

A leather pouch.

Enkrid followed a strange hunch, pure instinct.

He drew his gladius, twisted his wrist so the broad flat faced up, and swung hard upward into the flying pouch.

Thunk! Pa-pa-pa-pa-bang!

The pouch burst in midair and sprayed iron spikes in every direction.

'Huh?'

First time seeing that one.

"Aaaah!"

A few spikes fell downward.

Because it was winter and everyone wore thick clothes, few people were stabbed.

But there was no stopping the chaos from getting worse than before.

"Goddammit! Get inside the buildings, all of you! Anyone left outside will be treated as hostile!"

A patrolling soldier shouted.

It was the right call. In times like this, it was better to suppress with force and crush it under pressure.

Enkrid did not move. He only watched the surroundings quietly.

Kraiss looked around, decided this spot was safer after all, and stopped where he was.

Ping!

Two more darts flew in. One of them targeted Kraiss.

The incoming dart became a line. That extended line connected, and inside Enkrid's senses the endpoint and trajectory were fixed.

His focus exploded into a Focus Point.

Keen senses, concentration, and a bold heart moved in harmony.

Enkrid moved like a trick with a set sequence.

He only tilted his head to dodge the dart aimed at himself, then reached out and snatched the other one midflight.

All of it was one motion, within one breath.

If the assassin who threw it had seen that, his hair would have stood on end.

Enough to make his bladder tremble and make him want to run.

Of course, he had seen it.

Enkrid caught the dart, pinched the tip, and dangled it between two fingers.

'Look at these bastards.'

They were targeting Kraiss?

In the middle of that, another dart came in with a slight delay.

It targeted Esther, but the panther had already dodged.

How many humans could beat a beast in pure quickness?

Only the dart stuck in the spot where she had been, proving she had been targeted.

Grrrr.

Esther bared hostility, and Enkrid still kept his senses open.

The assassins, no, the assassin group, were very skilled.

'They leaked killing intent on purpose, then threw that iron-spike pouch.'

Wouldn't there be poison on top of that? Probably.

Killing intent appeared and vanished in different places.

"Don't push! Stop pushing!"

"Don't step on me!"

"Do you even know who I am, shoving me like that?!"

"Help me!"

"Aaaah!"

"Ahhh, move, move!"

And the market became even more of a disaster.

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