WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 271: Not Everything Goes as Planned (2)
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Finn lifted her head slightly and looked toward where Jaxon had gone.
‘Is he heading straight to the headman’s house?’
From what she could tell, this village had far too many suspicious points.
Had there not been a woman among the people on the road whose footsteps stood out?
Even to Finn, that woman was no ordinary person.
‘Anyway, those bandit bastards.’
After all she had gone through with Sinar, she knew how deeply the Black Blade Bandits had sunk their claws into the kingdom.
They were likely tied to central nobles, or lords with large territories.
And the biggest problem among all that was, as expected...
She walked through the darkness, lost in thought. Her ranger habits made her move out of sight on purpose.
It was the kind of step that avoided attention while checking whether anyone was tailing him.
That was how she headed for the windmill on the mound, and when she was almost there, something slammed into her head.
Finn reacted. She twisted away from the impact point and minimized the blow.
Reacting right before getting hit was half luck.
And if half of it was luck, the other half was skill.
After meeting Enkrid, she had trained Ael Karaz-style Grappling nonstop with Audin and Sinar.
Out of all of it, she had focused especially on defense.
That was less intention and more necessity.
“If you get hit, you will meet your god, sister-nim.”
If Audin’s fist landed wrong, it was no different from knocking on heaven’s door.
“You have too many openings.”
Sinar would casually strike the back of her head or the nape of her neck from outside her awareness.
For those reasons and more, Finn had grown more sensitive than before, her senses had sharpened, and her reaction speed had increased.
Thud!
She heard the impact, but Finn neither blacked out nor fell.
She tucked her chin and tightened her trapezius, so the blow aimed at the back of her head only clipped near her ear.
Her head still rang from it.
His opponent did not wait.
He immediately came in with a follow-up. This time he hooked Finn's leg.
He was a skilled fighter. The first ambush targeted high, then he went low. It was hard to respond to.
Finn did not get caught this time either. She bent her knees and drove strength into her legs.
It was an Ael Karaz-style Grappling technique.
When the opponent’s foot whipped at her shin, she half-turned and shed the attack again.
‘You filthy bastard.’
Her skull was still buzzing, but the thought that she would go down at this rate made her yank out the shortsword on her sword belt in one motion.
Clang!
The instant he drew it, he slashed sideways without even looking.
The blade caught nothing. She felt the one who struck her retreating.
Finn frowned as her vision swam.
“Do not move. Move and you die.”
The voice came from behind her left. She also heard the creak of a cocked crossbow.
‘Goddammit.’
She had been caught badly. They were practiced at ambushes. More than anything, they had seemed to be waiting. They were prepared enemies. Dangerous.
“What, did you think we were blind idiots? You bastard, maybe we should chop your limbs off and sell you somewhere that would not pay a few copper coins for you.”
The man who had struck her spoke while holding a short club. His mouth was not just rough, it was filthy.
Instead of answering, Finn focused.
Sweat ran down past her temples. She could not even feel the winter cold.
Her head still spun, but it was better than before.
What mattered now was escaping this crisis, and to do that she first needed to read the situation.
“Do not shoot.”
Finn said it and slowly raised both hands. The shortsword she let go of dropped and stuck into the dirt at an angle with a dull thud.
“Crazy bastards. You have no clue where you are.”
The club-wielding bandit twisted his mouth. It was a sneer.
‘This is bad.’
By raising her hands as if surrendering, she roughly grasped the situation.
Broken down, there were three points.
First, the villagers were not fools and morons.
Second, that meant they were the ones who had ended up looking like idiots.
And third, not everything went the way they thought it would.
The original plan had been to watch the village for two days, then immediately sweep it with the troops they had waiting.
‘Find evidence.’
Using that, getting permission from the lord who ruled this region came first.
Border Guard was a territory, and outside that territory there was basically nothing that could be called their land.
If anyone had to classify it, this side was another noble’s ground.
In truth, this job had several political factors mixed in.
Marcus wanted to turn Border Guard into the lordly domain that ruled the surrounding region, and he believed this was needed to project that influence.
It was true he was furious after seeing the drug users and the assassination group sent by the Black Blade Bandits, but calculation lay under that too.
Even if he did not want to, his mind moved there on its own. That was the kind of political operator Marcus was.
He planned to use this case to liberate the village and rebuild it around innocent people.
He aimed to transform it from a Black Blade Bandits village making drugs into a village under Border Guard’s protection.
The noble who officially owned this regional territory would throw a fit, but there were plenty of ways to block that.
The best one was evidence tying that lord to the bandit group, but if they found it, good, and if not, so be it.
Marcus knew how to exert influence, and if needed, he could handle one noble and swallow a village first.
The opening mattered. Once you took one, the next became easier.
Give up one village and it would never end with just one.
But who would know this and prepare? The lord ruling this area was just a pig with shit for brains, was he not?
That was the background behind this operation, along with all the preparations and connections they had already set.
Yet it had twisted from the start.
Of course, Finn could not have known all that.
Even in this situation, she only reviewed her mission. She was every bit a soldier.
Finn thought.
Finding evidence had likely become water spilled on dry dirt.
‘I got nailed hard.’
She had walked into an ambush.
Sweat poured down Finn’s face as she prepared her next move.
Being caught did not mean she could just lie down and take it.
Struggle, then struggle again.
She had learned from Enkrid too.
He advanced because he did not know surrender, and he changed because he advanced.
Finn had watched Enkrid up close.
Her foot kicked the sword stuck in the ground.
The embedded blade popped loose and sprang forward.
At the same time, Finn drew and gripped the two daggers, each a little over a handspan long, hidden on her forearms.
It was time to fight. Even without odds, if the moment demanded it, she had to.
* * *
After Jaxon moved out through the window.
Enkrid looked outside without expression.
‘How did he get out through that hole?’
The window was small. Jaxon had slipped out as if his body were oiled, and the way he did it was truly strange.
He did not grunt and squeeze through. He sized up the window and his body, then hopped and popped out in one go.
Like he had straightened his body in midair, like someone outside had pulled him, he vanished as if he were flying.
Jaxon’s kinesthetic sense was astonishingly sharp.
‘See with his eyes, judge, and map his own body exactly.’
It was a trick only possible for someone with perfect awareness of his own body and movement.
Could Enkrid do that himself?
He was not very confident.
His curiosity ended there. Enkrid looked through the window Jaxon had vanished through.
The moonlight outside looked like crushed powder scattering apart. It was a bright moonlit night.
He watched outside for a moment, then turned his gaze back into the room.
It was a winter night, so cold air should have been there, yet heated stones sat in the brazier, red coals glowed, and logs as thick as half a forearm were laid beneath.
Enkrid dragged the brazier in front of the bed and stared at it blankly.
When he dropped in one log, the red coals caught it, the surface began to char with small ticks, then flames rose with red tongues licking up.
He watched one log begin to burn with a dry crackle. Enkrid’s eyes were unfocused.
He simply sat there staring at the fire. Half hunched, he released all tension from his body.
The fire flared and sparks popped. Crack, crack, the sound of burning wood, the flame in the brazier, the heat pushing back the cold air.
Warm air born where heat and chill met.
Everything wrapped around him. Enkrid’s body dropped toward the bed as if someone gently held him and laid him down.
Soft straw bedding caught him.
The floor was cushioned, his belly was full, and his back was warm.
That calm warm air wrapped around him, and it felt like being held in a mother’s arms.
Enkrid was an orphan, so he did not know a mother’s embrace, but he felt something close to that comfort.
He curled up like a child. The bath in warm water and a wooden tub he had bought for six copper coins made his body loosen completely.
Enkrid dreamed a short dream.
There, he became a child whining to his mother.
Then he left home to set off on a long journey, and in ten days his life was already in danger.
After barely surviving, regret hit him anew.
‘Why did I even leave home?’
Once he stepped out, there was only hardship. Hard things everywhere.
One small mistake and his life was at risk.
It was like crossing between cliffs while relying only on a thin rope.
‘Will you still cross?’
Someone asked him.
He could have just gone back home, but Enkrid did not.
He still did not, even while enjoying peaceful air and a pastoral meadow. Even with all the things he loved behind him, he did not turn around.
He still did not, though he missed his mother’s arms and his father’s large hand.
‘I will cross.’
‘Why?’
‘Do I need a reason?’
‘Are there not things people do for no reason?’
‘No. You just do not realize it. Every action has a reason. Why are you walking that path?’
He had thought it was a question without an answer, yet dream-Enkrid replied without pause.
‘Because it is fun.’
‘That is all?’
‘Which is better, smiling or frowning? Which is better, pain or joy?’
‘What?’
He could not see the face of the one who asked back. The final line came out in his own voice.
“I am walking the path I believe is joyful and right.”
There was no hesitation in that. Enkrid did not even call this belief.
He opened his eyes.
It had truly been a short dream. The log fire had not even burned out yet.
It had not even turned fully black, so yes, just a very short rest.
Even so.
His body felt light. His feet were light, and strength flooded into his hands.
Normally you did not wake with strength immediately filling your body, but not now.
Power overflowed through him as if someone had breathed strength into every strand of muscle.
Then someone knocked on the door.
Knock, knock.
He heard it clearly.
“Are you there?”
The voice that followed was the tavern servant’s.
“You are in there, right?”
He asked again. Enkrid got dressed. He wrapped the inner armor around himself like a bandage in an instant, then put on thin leather armor over it.
He fastened on his sword belt too.
The speed of his gearing up was beyond excellent.
Why would it not be.
If your swordsmanship was poor, you ended up doing lots of grunt work. Enkrid had done plenty of waiting and service for other mercenaries too.
Even then, he had to gear himself carefully just to stay alive.
That speed was astonishing.
And right as he finished arming himself.
“Come on, you are there and not answering.”
There was laughter in the servant’s tone.
“Hey, idiot.”
Then came another voice. Click, the door opened. A lock meant nothing.
Centered on the opened door, the brazier light from inside and the light from outside met and clashed.
The lights did not fight. Each did its own job.
They lit the surroundings.
The inn corridor was narrow. Beyond it stood the tavern servant and owner, and beside them a man with a thick beard like a bush.
Every one of them had glittering eyes and swelling confidence.
“Three?”
Enkrid skipped the middle and asked. He lowered his head, then looked up sideways with only his eyes. While speaking, he adjusted his sword belt. He pulled it a little forward to an easier draw position, shifting it to whatever gave even a little more ease.
The servant saw Enkrid and sneered.
That moron was flailing while strapping on gear.
“What? Three? This crazy bastard has lost his mind.”
The servant sneered. Enkrid kept adjusting his gear. Had he not just learned again how important small preparations were?
He did not like the angle of the dwarf’s gladius on his right hip.
He changed it by hand, tugged it, and tightened it.
“You can use a sword, right? Fuck, then what is with that half-assed act?”
Kraiss flashed through his mind.
The nagging about not trying to act brushed one corner of his thoughts.
For a moment, Enkrid hated a world that failed to recognize his acting skills.
Surely in some territory there was a playwright who would appreciate his outstanding talent.
“No need to talk long, right?”
The servant said with a sneer.
Normally he was the type to exploit openings and carelessness, but to him Enkrid looked too clumsy.
That elf beside him might be a bit troublesome, though.
‘Do they even know where they are.’
The servant was confident. He was sure he could chew up every one of these bastards who had entered the village.
“Hey, kill him already.”
The rough-bearded man who had been standing back and watching said it.
Talk for what, this was not some playful salon.
Enkrid pulled his sword belt forward one last little bit.
That placed Tutor so the sword hung in front of his pelvis.
Now his armed state finally felt right. Only then did he raise his head and straighten his back.
While he did that, the tavern servant watching him flicked his hand. The cocky lift at the corner of his lips and those eyes that had looked harmless at first now glittered with killing intent.
All of that entered Enkrid’s sight. In slowed time, he took in expression and gaze.
The distance between them was only three or four steps.
The man threw a dagger, and Enkrid tilted his head to the side.
At the same time he gripped his sword hilt. He did not draw right away.
One spinning dagger whizzed past his hair and buried itself deep in the rear wall.
“...So you can do a little, huh!”
The servant shouted and raised both hands. He held one dagger in each.
By instinct, Enkrid measured the opponent’s physical ability from his behavior, attitude, and the act of throwing knives.
That led straight into a small preparation.
He slid his left foot forward. His leather boot scraped ahead with a tearing sound. It was a tiny movement no one noticed.
Now it was perfect. The small preparations were done.
Confident in his knife-throwing skill, the servant rolled his shoulders again, and the tavern owner behind him drew a shortsword.
Metal spat noise, each piece proving its own existence.
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