WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 268: He Imitated Kraiss.

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"You’re saying you’ll leave me behind? If you’re going to do that, step on me and go!"

At Rem’s words, Enkrid moved in a flash. He slid his left foot forward and smoothly drove his body out.

For an instant, it looked as if he had vanished.

Of course, no one inside the lodging missed Enkrid’s movement.

Still.

'My step?'

Jaxon was a little surprised when he saw Enkrid’s footwork.

'Snake Step?'

Audin felt the same.

Enkrid had taken both their steps, blended them, and made them his own.

What was a sword, and what was swordsmanship?

Through a chain of realizations, Enkrid had built a style that used his entire body, and naturally that included footwork.

In truth, anything that used the body, dance or martial arts, made the feet crucial.

More than half of it came down to how you used them.

So Enkrid paid as much attention to his steps as he did to his blade.

And now it showed clearly.

His left knee bent and straightened to produce an even push, much like Jaxon’s silent step. Then his right leg joints softened and curved, the Snake Step Audin had taught him.

More exactly, he had mixed the two in just the right proportion.

Enough that anyone unfamiliar with them would think it was something entirely different.

As he moved to stomp right over Rem, the barbarian snorted and rolled away.

Whatever trick he used, he spun sideways and slipped clear.

Enkrid stamped down with his right foot and asked, "In situations like this, aren’t you usually supposed to not dodge?"

"Who said I’d let myself get stepped on? Want to learn this too? This is a secret technique called the Unstep-on-able Dung Beetle."

He looked blatantly like he had just made it up.

"No."

Enkrid refused, and Rem threw a few more tantrums after that, but they still could not take him along.

Just because they had found the village producing drugs did not mean they could immediately march a unit over and smash it.

"I know I told you to wreck them, but we’re still in kingdom territory. You know that, right? People are already not looking at us kindly around here."

No kidding.

If things turned, Count Molsen would start scheming.

And was he the only one?

Everyone knew other nobles were drooling over this place too.

Enkrid had even heard that while he was away from Martai, one noble had fled.

"He went to throw himself under another noble’s protection. He’ll probably sell information from here and try to cash out. Idiot bastard."

Marcus spat and cursed, but when Kraiss repeated the rumors he had heard,

"They got beaten bloody over it, apparently. If they fail to handle their work properly, noble or not, they get whipped."

If they worked carelessly, they got caught and beaten. If they worked properly, the workload piled up like a mountain. Some nobles had used their wits and escaped.

If they ran while abandoning all the foundations they already had, the pressure must have been brutal.

Still, Marcus’s point also made sense, so Enkrid figured both reasons overlapped.

And then Kraiss said,

"If it were Marcus, he’d probably want all the nobles to run. Sure, he tormented them using manpower shortages as an excuse, but he might also be trying to replace everyone in the territory with his own people. But if this keeps going, hmm, I’m not sure this is okay."

"What isn’t okay?"

"Nothing. Just talking."

Kraiss was the worrying type. Enkrid did not ask further. The job in front of them came first.

To put it simply, they could not draw a sword just because they were suspicious.

The other side might send assassins and station bladesmen on the roads, but the Border Guard standing army could not act that way. Well, they could do it in secret, but not this time.

First they needed proof that the village was guilty.

At minimum, they needed evidence they could put forward, and more than anything else,

"There have to be innocent people in that village too, right?"

Marcus had a point. A few people causing trouble did not justify rounding up and crushing every innocent villager too.

Some might have been making drugs without knowing anything.

That was why.

"Only me, Company Commander Sinar, Finn, and Jaxon are going."

He decided infiltration and reconnaissance had to come first, so that was the plan.

The Elf Company Commander said she had been tracking this case for quite a while too.

Had she said almost a year?

"For that, only finding the village location now does feel odd. Right. Did you go out saying you were working and then wander into gambling dens?"

After hearing that, Kraiss tilted his head.

That elf at a gambling den? It did not fit at all. Still, what Kraiss said had some logic.

It sounded close to slacking off.

Of course, Maelrun’s Frog talent might be exceptional, but if the place was sloppy enough that passing travelers knew about it, they should have noticed much earlier.

"She fights well, but maybe she’s bad at chasing things. That’s why she brought Finn."

"Are you covering for your fiancée?"

Enkrid had learned many things from Audin, but the core was Valaf-style grappling.

Among those techniques were several joint locks that inflicted pain without breaking the body.

As part of training, Enkrid demonstrated one on Kraiss.

The key was to stand shoulder to shoulder, clasp hands like interlocked fingers, and tangle the arm so the end of the other person’s elbow touched the biceps area of your own forearm.

From there, you only had to pull backward.

It was not torture, but if you put force into it, you could break the wrist.

When Kraiss carelessly offered his hand, Enkrid immediately pulled the clasped grip.

Crack.

"Does it hurt?"

"Aaaaaargh!"

Kraiss screamed.

Enkrid pulled without expression, then let go.

"My arm, my arm almost became useless!"

"Ah, should I have just cut it off?"

Kraiss bolted away. Enkrid did not chase him. It was only a joke.

And then he regretted it.

'Just now, I sounded like Rem.'

That was bad. No second thought needed.

After brushing away the thought.

He sensed someone behind his shoulder, and when Enkrid turned halfway, he saw Ragna.

"Why can’t I come with you?"

Ragna asked. He was biting into an apple he had found somewhere, chewing as he spoke.

Audin and Teresa were behind him too.

For obvious reasons, those two large bodies could not be brought.

Dunbakel, who looked openly beastfolk at a glance, was the same.

And Ragna.

"If things go wrong, we might have to scatter and break out separately. Then we regroup at the meeting point."

"Is that a problem?"

That was how terrifying a person with no sense of direction who did not realize it could be.

"There’s no need to use your sword for this."

Instead of a long explanation, Enkrid just patted Ragna’s shoulder and said it.

Ragna accepted it. He was not someone who stepped in easily to begin with. He had gained some drive lately, but not enough to jump into this kind of work outside training.

Enkrid had only said he might be gone nearly a week, and that was what prompted this reaction.

Come to think of it, these people only got this proactive when it involved him stepping out.

Then what would happen if he was not there?

It was just a pointless thought brushing one corner of his mind.

"From today on, this Rem is going crooked! Bwaaaah!"

He shouted that while wrapped in winter thermal fur and clutching a warm stone in his arms.

At that point he had to be hot, but he held on stubbornly. It was strange seeing someone who hated the cold that much beg to come along.

Enkrid ignored him anyway. If he reacted to every line, they would just talk forever.

Leaving Rem yelling behind, Enkrid did what he had to do.

He confirmed the village location and checked equipment.

Two swords, plus six whistle daggers recovered from an assassin.

There were also a few bottles of poison powder and liquid toxin, but poison you did not know how to use could hurt you too. As Enkrid moved to throw them away without hesitation, Jaxon took all of them.

After finishing personal prep and everything else, they gathered in the Elf Company Commander’s room for the operations meeting.

The Elf Company Commander decided to station part of her company nearby.

Roughly two platoons, but to stay undiscovered they would need to keep some distance.

They also could not wait there for long.

It was winter, and they could not fight rampaging packs of demon creatures and magic beasts forever.

Holding outside the village with no fence would last at most a week.

And if things got too noisy, the village would notice.

"If we get inside, wouldn’t two days be enough to find out?"

Company Commander Sinar said that over a military map. Seeing that uncharacteristically serious elf, Enkrid nodded.

"If we’re delayed, we send them back, or maybe just surround the place entirely?"

Finn was there too, a former ranger and a gifted one.

Meeting Finn again after a while, she was still the same.

"Hey, looks like you’re still spreading that dangerous charm around."

That was the kind of greeting exchanged.

Enkrid let it pass without making much of it.

"We move at dawn tomorrow."

Sinar led the operation. Enkrid nodded.

They finished the meeting and stepped out, and Sinar called to Enkrid’s back as he left.

"Ah, your fiancée can sleep here tonight."

Enkrid walked straight out anyway. Behind him, Finn snickered.

'Is this funny?'

He thought that, but still let out a short laugh. Seeing that, Jaxon spoke.

"About that elf."

"Yeah?"

"At this point, just accept her once."

Was that a joke? Or serious?

Enkrid did not bother finding out.

After saying it, Jaxon seemed to realize what he had just said and quickly turned away, saying it was nothing and to ignore it.

Still, what was with him?

Normally, even if he thought something like that, he was not the type to say it out loud so easily.

To lose control of his tongue because he was focused on something else meant something.

Jaxon’s expression also looked heavier than before.

That was something you could only feel after living together this long.

Part of it came from Enkrid’s sensory art being honed to extreme sharpness.

To anyone else, it was probably the same blank face, but to Enkrid,

'His focus feels a little blurred.'

He did not seem likely to handle the task in front of him carelessly. Still, his gaze felt fixed on something beyond it.

Like taking someone to a wide plain and telling them to enjoy the view, but they only glance at it and look for what lies farther beyond.

At the same time, there was a cutting, razor-sharp edge in his air.

He looked like someone preparing something.

'Why?'

This was just a mission. Did he hate drugs that much?

Probably not. Jaxon handled all kinds of substances in daily life.

He did not take drugs himself, and did not even smoke tobacco, but when Kraiss brought things in, Jaxon identified them too.

So there had to be another reason.

Enkrid did not ask again.

Even if he asked, he probably would not get an answer, and even if he heard it, nothing would change.

When he returned, he saw Esther.

The wild horse was beside her. Somehow the two were together.

The wild horse saw Enkrid and neighed, hihiiing.

It sounded like it was asking where he had gone.

Enkrid felt that was what he should be asking.

This was the one that had run around like crazy everywhere as soon as it had been brought to the Border Guard.

"That’s my line, Odd-Eyes."

In the end, he still had not given it a proper name, so he just called it that.

Kyarrng.

Hearing that, Esther let out a small cry beside him.

"Ah, I’m heading out on a mission."

He said he might be gone about seven days, and Esther gestured that she would come too.

She lifted a forepaw, pointed at Enkrid, then at herself, then tapped the ground.

"Sure."

This panther was naturally good at hiding herself. They had been apart for a while before, and she seemed a little upset, so following him was no problem.

Sometimes Enkrid found it strange that this panther could turn into that woman with long black hair and blue eyes.

He had even seen it happen right in front of him, but it was still hard to look at the panther and see a woman.

Hihiiing.

"Odd-Eyes, you rest too."

The wild horse was very curious. And while it did not understand all human speech, it understood some of it.

It got very angry at the word used for itself.

Hing!

It stomped the ground hard with a hoof. Enkrid asked if it disliked the name, and the horse nodded.

Enkrid stared at the wild horse for a moment, then gave it a new name on the spot.

"Let’s call you Bulgul."

In continental speech, Bulgul could also be interpreted as iron will.

Bulgul was a word from the eastern continent, and Esther stared at him, surprised that Enkrid even knew it.

She had thought he was a man who only ate, slept, and breathed swords, then he suddenly showed an unexpected side of knowledge.

Enkrid liked old stories. If he met a storyteller who knew about knighthood and related tales, he would hand over a few silver coins without hesitation and listen.

That was why he had heard many things from many places.

"With different eye colors, Odd-Eyes fits perfectly though."

Hing!

The wild horse cried out roughly. Enkrid did not care much about names anyway.

At dawn the next day, Enkrid’s group left the territory and set out.

"I’ll guide the way."

Finn took the lead. Following Maelrun’s words, they walked for two full days.

After those two days, they saw the village the Frog had mentioned.

Near the village, they decided to pose as wandering merchants.

Enkrid would be a guard, and Jaxon would be the merchant.

Elf Sinar would also be a guard, and Finn would play the merchant’s underling.

"Will this work?"

After they settled on that, Finn asked with concern. It was pointless concern.

The moment Jaxon set foot in the village, he changed.

"What village is this? Can we buy and sell goods here? What a fine village!"

What the hell, that was scary.

Enkrid was startled watching Jaxon change in an instant.

Jaxon turned back and continued.

"No, can’t you tell just by looking? Look. People’s faces are bright, and you hardly see anyone skinny, so this must be a good place to live and eat, right? Then there must be plenty to sell, and the people must be generous too! Don’t you think?"

As he said it, he slapped Enkrid on the shoulder. Careless attitude, bold gestures.

It was a familiar way of speaking. The magical nonstop-mouth technique.

Jaxon was imitating Kraiss.

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