WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 265: A Misconception Is Sometimes a Grim Reaper.

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It was chaos beyond chaos.

People shoved each other. One laborer who had been working on a building got slammed by the crowd, knocked to the ground, and rolled toward Enkrid. Clutching his head, he curled up desperately. He was doing that to stay alive.

Boom!

"Shut your mouths and move!"

Beyond the crowd, a few patrol soldiers could be seen swinging spear shafts and roaring.

Enkrid's senses were sharper than ever.

Sensitivity and focus mixed together, each half sharpening the other, honing him to a razor edge.

How had he done it when he took down the centaur leader?

Everything around him had felt close enough to grab, and he had seen how to use all of it, where to step, and what to do.

Enkrid stopped in that exact state.

With his eyes half-lidded, he stood still and quietly steadied his breathing.

"Captain?"

Kraiss called out, likely because the sight of him looked deeply unsettling.

It was not only the laborer on the ground. A middle-aged woman and a young child had also been pushed down by the crowd.

Just like everyone else, they were desperate to get away from Enkrid. Nobody wanted to stay near him and get cut down.

Because of that, the laborer, the middle-aged woman, and the child all ended up lingering near Enkrid.

As the crowd tried to move away from him, a natural empty ring formed, and those three were left inside it.

The child had gone pale and was trembling. The cloth wrapped around his arm had torn, and blood dripped from his scraped elbow, likely from rolling on the ground.

"He's hurt," Kraiss said, looking at the child.

Even so, he did not step in. If it had been a little girl, maybe. But it was a boy, and Kraiss knew moving rashly right now would be a bad idea.

He could not fight, but he knew his role.

Right now was the time to trust the captain and hold.

The child kept his head down, unable even to sob, only darting terrified eyes left and right.

After one quiet breath, Enkrid threw the dart he had been holding.

His arm moved so fast his hand was barely visible. The instant his arm sliced through the air, the dart was already flying, aimed at the laborer's thigh.

The laborer twisted his ankle and dodged.

With a hiss, the dart grazed the thick cloth around his thigh and stuck into the ground.

At a glance, it might have looked like luck. It was that subtle.

But in a moment like this, was that really luck?

It was a reflexive, instinctive dodge, but that was as good as admitting what he was.

The laborer should have been startled by a dart flying in out of nowhere, but he moved right away.

Six darts left his hand.

Three at Enkrid's chest and stomach.

Three at Kraiss's forehead, chest, and thigh.

A setup.

Before the darts had even fully left his hand, the gladius in Enkrid's left hand moved.

Clack-clack-clack-clack-clang!

All six darts were knocked out of the air.

Then the child, who had somehow closed in from behind, suddenly thrust a sword.

His steps had been so quick and quiet it was hard to tell when he got that close.

Where had that small body hidden a sword like that? Where had that forearm-length shortsword come from?

The child gripped it with both hands and stabbed with all his strength. Fast. A vicious strike aimed right at an opening.

The instant Enkrid knocked the darts away, he turned smoothly.

It looked like he had predicted the attack from behind.

As he turned and extended his blade, the tip caught the shortsword. The moment they clinked, the short blade was shoved aside, and Enkrid's gladius slammed into the boy's chest.

Thud!

The boy seemed to be wearing sturdy leather armor underneath, so the strike did not cut deep.

But smooth did not mean weak.

After deflecting the shortsword, Enkrid's follow-through caved in the child's chest bone.

Enkrid's raw strength had now reached the level where people said he could arm-wrestle Frog, so even a glancing blow could be lethal.

"Ghk."

The child coughed harshly, clearly hit clean.

Even then, he shoved a hand into his coat. Relentless. But he could not finish what he intended.

A small panther that had already moved swung its forepaw and struck his chest again.

Crack!

The sound of breaking bones rang out.

The child convulsed, then stopped moving.

That forepaw strike broke his wrist and delivered a fatal second impact to his chest.

With his hand still inside his coat, the child died.

And then.

"You filthy bastard."

Only then did one of the assassins speak. The one disguised as a middle-aged noblewoman.

Enkrid heard her, but he was already moving. No, he had already finished the movement he had intended.

He had just come to a stop with his right hand extended forward, after batting away the flying darts and crushing the chest bones of the child who had ambushed him from behind.

Three actions in a single breath.

He knocked away the darts, shoved off and struck the blade from behind, then extended his right hand.

His fingertips pointed at the laborer who had thrown the darts.

As that man tried to pull something out, a knife slammed into his forehead.

The laborer's head snapped far back on impact. He dropped to his knees, then his head fell forward.

Instant death.

"What did you say?"

Only then did Enkrid answer, and the middle-aged woman in fine clothes threw something at her own feet.

Bang!

A smoke bomb. Gray-white smoke burst from the ground and spread in all directions.

"Esther."

With that one word, Enkrid entrusted Kraiss and listened.

Using his sixth sense and hearing as a base, he read the enemy's movements.

He could tell they were sprinting hard in one direction, likely heading out of the territory.

At the same time, he knew she was not alone.

'How many came?'

For no reason, the half-elf from before came to mind. The assassin who had given him a Whistle Dagger and left.

Like that elf, these people would also have hidden weapons, tricks, methods, and plenty of tools for killing.

When he fought that half-elf assassin, he had seen countless versions of today.

Then what about today?

Enkrid was confident. He had judged their level, and he knew exactly where he stood now.

Most of all, they were not the type to leave quietly just because he let them go.

Letting blades aimed at him walk away was not in his nature.

So Enkrid moved at once.

"Kraiss, clean this up."

He left only that abrupt order.

"Huh?"

A dumbfounded question came from behind, but that wide-eyed squad member's mind worked fast. He would handle it.

Enkrid chased the moving group of assassins.

* * *

'Clean this whole thing up?'

Kraiss stood stiff among people shouting through the smoke.

'Did all the assassins really leave?'

Had there not been one throwing darts at him too?

As he stayed still, the wind picked up and the smoke began to clear.

It did not seem to be poisoned smoke.

'If poison had been mixed in, this would not have ended so easily.'

"Damn it! Shut your mouths and keep your heads down!"

An uncontrolled crowd was no different from a mob. To suppress a mob, force worked.

Among people busy shoving each other, a patrol soldier smashed the head of someone flailing nearby with a spear shaft.

Whack!

The man took a hard enough hit to bleed and staggered sideways.

"Urgh!"

The scream was natural. One resident took that blow and got pushed aside.

The patrol soldier's neck veins stood out.

Public order was one of the things Marcus cared about.

The soldiers did their jobs.

An assassination here? An attack here? This kind of madness here?

If they handled this clumsily, they could end up dead too.

'That's right.'

Then those men would settle the chaos on their own.

Kraiss pictured what he had to do and turned his gaze.

He saw the dead child.

Looking closely, it was no child. The face was aged, with wrinkles around the eyes and mouth.

Like the hunchback, every one of them had an unusual appearance.

Kraiss's eyes shifted to the shortsword the man had been holding.

The sword on the ground had a greasy sheen from whatever had been coated on it.

'Poison.'

He had predicted this before.

What were the Black Blade Bandits trying to do?

'Win him over.'

If that failed, threats came next.

What would those threats look like?

The first had been the ambush on the road back.

Mercenaries, blades bought with gold from outside their own ranks. Only after sending those did they probably realize it.

'Even Swallow Blade and mercenary groups were not enough?'

Would they give up?

'If it were me?'

No. If they pulled back now, the name of the Black Blade Bandits would be dragged through the dirt.

It felt like they were saying:

So what, did you think we'd let it go?

He had not expected an assassination attempt on this scale.

Kraiss raised a hand and scratched his head. Still scratching, he looked over the crowd, now quieter than before.

"Esther, please watch over us."

He said it just in case any assassins remained. If one did, he was as good as dead.

Still, he could not abandon the task his captain gave him and leave.

He could roughly see their intent too. There would be no assassins left here.

Their target was Enkrid.

If this had been an attack on the territory itself, it would be a completely different story.

A deliberate massacre of royal domain civilians?

If they did that, the knight order might move. No matter how busy and overloaded they were, they could still mobilize to cut down a few bandits.

'A clean way to handle this without going that far.'

Target only one person.

So this was bait. Would Enkrid have chased them without knowing that?

'No way.'

"All right, everyone calm down. You there, do not step on other people's goods. Anyone who had a stall, gather your things first. Laborers, gather to one side and keep your heads down. Patrol soldier there, what unit are you from?"

"Under 2nd Company, 2nd Squad."

Under Vengeance.

Kraiss nodded and told the two soldiers, "Stop beating people and help clean this up."

Nearby soldiers, including patrolmen, gathered. With at least squad-level manpower and Kraiss's sharp eye, organizing the scene went quickly.

"Because of this, my goods, my goods..."

"Come on, you sold a few wooden arrows and now you're whining about goods? Only a handful even broke."

"You saw that?"

The merchant who had looked like he had lost the world changed expression instantly.

Kraiss shut down a few shameless merchants with words.

He soothed the others who had actually taken losses.

"Know what our battalion commander's strength is? He is overflowing with gold coins. We cannot compensate your losses right now, but plenty of places need hands immediately, so work as laborers for a month or two. The pay will be solid. You will probably earn more than selling what you brought, old man."

Kraiss knew how to turn a crisis into an opportunity. They had to widen the main road and build watchtowers anyway.

And they still had to finish digging the moat.

Then they also had to build a drawbridge.

So they needed many hands. The more labor, the better. They also had plenty of Krona to pay them.

"All right, anyone with construction experience, step forward separately."

If he was doing this, he would do it in a way that helped the territory.

People adapted quickly despite the sudden shift.

An attack was an attack, smoke was smoke, cold was cold, and Krona was Krona.

At a glance from Kraiss, who had turned the place into a labor market in an instant, two soldiers recovered the bodies.

Keeping people gathered, Kraiss shouted.

"If you've done construction before, hands up!"

* * *

You could not lure him with Krona.

You could not sweet-talk him into stepping aside.

When someone like that blocked your path, you put a piece of metal in a passerby's hand and said:

"Go stab him and come back."

If one line could solve it, what would you do?

Simple, but clear.

The Black Blade Bandits did exactly that.

Enkrid knew this was bait.

While sprinting, he endured more than five volleys of darts.

And between them.

Piiiing!

He heard a familiar sound too.

Assassins who used Whistle Daggers were uncommon.

By reflex, Enkrid pinpointed the one using a Whistle Dagger.

Hiding while chasing was not his specialty, so he ran straight and hard.

Naturally, that made him easy to target. All kinds of things flew at him from the assassins running together.

By knocking away every incoming projectile with the sword in his left hand, he proved that it served as a shield.

Some of the assassins panicked when they saw it.

'What the hell is that guy?'

'Weren't we told the people around him were the real problem?'

'Why is nothing even grazing him?'

Everything was coated in poison, so even a scratch would do.

But nothing touched him.

When they threw a Whistle Dagger, he casually snatched it out of the air and tucked it into his coat.

That was the only one without poison. Did he know that?

And how did he even do that? Catch a Whistle Dagger midair?

The Black Blade Bandits had several assassins respected within their ranks, but even they were not confident they could pull off that trick.

He kept batting away incoming bolts with his sword while his gaze snapped from side to side, and every look pointed straight at hidden positions.

Even so, the assassin group kept heading for the agreed location.

Northeast of the territory, between the upper encampment and the territory, in reeds rising to waist height.

The Black Blade Bandits did not know.

More precisely, they did not know enough.

They knew there were dangerous people around Enkrid, but they did not know Enkrid himself was dangerous.

A misconception can be dangerous.

For them, misconception, misunderstanding, and lack of information were all synonyms for the Grim Reaper.

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