WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 272: Not Everything Goes as Planned (3)

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Enkrid muttered and moved.

"Esther."

Tap. He loaded power into his left big toe and dropped his hips low. From that compressed stance, he leaned forward.

In that one short movement, two daggers skimmed past him and buried themselves in the inn wall behind him.

Enkrid drew his sword in the same motion.

The inn room was not wide enough to swing a longsword.

The wall by the entrance made it even worse.

They were counting on that.

So what if he drew a sword here? How was he supposed to cut anything?

He could almost hear the servant saying it.

Enkrid pressed the scabbard with his left hand and set the angle.

Instead of a horizontal draw cut, he switched to a vertical one.

He drove force into the blade and carved upward from below, cutting the servant from the groin to the middle of the chest.

Ssk!

The sound of cloth, leather underneath, muscle, and part of the bone being cut was like a low whisper.

That was how fast the sword had been.

Enkrid judged the distance and cut exactly one finger-joint deep.

That was enough to kill.

Adjusting the sword belt and shifting his step had all been preparation for this single strike.

He was satisfied.

"Ghk, urk!"

The servant, his lungs and vocal cords still intact enough for a short death cry, spilled blood and entrails as he collapsed.

"You bastard!"

The tavern owner, who was also a bandit, shouted from the back as he drew a Shortsword.

Even then, he did not step in.

He had just watched the servant die in one stroke.

At that moment, a black shadow dropped from above and slammed into the tavern owner's head.

Thud, crack!

The blow half-shattered his neck, carved three claw marks across his face, and ruined his nose bone and eyeballs.

A beast's forepaw had done it.

It was the strength of a Lake Panther, usually calm but terrifying in a fight.

After killing the bandit in one strike, Esther landed beside Enkrid.

Her landing was light. Watching her move, she seemed far quicker than usual.

Enkrid could feel his own condition from that single draw.

'I'm seriously light.'

His body felt good. Very good.

"Hm."

He let out a small sound of admiration and raised his gaze, spotting the scruffy-bearded man's wide eyes in the back.

Then the man shouted.

The cry was mixed with tension, fear, dread, and excitement.

"Kill him!"

At the same time, something snapped with a harsh crack.

Enkrid's sharpened instincts found the source at once. Up and behind.

"Fuck, what is this!"

Another shout followed.

It came from the bed. There were two beds, and the sound came from the one Jaxon had chosen.

Then came the sound of cloth ripping.

Jaxon had tried to do something but had been blocked by cloth tacked to the ceiling.

The moment it tore, something dropped with a thud.

"Kya!"

Esther cried out. What fell looked like a leather bead, and then it burst with a pop.

It was hard to call it an explosion.

There was no pressure wave, no flash.

Only green smoke rushing out.

He had not even smelled it yet, but dizziness already crept in. Poison smoke.

On top of that, an arrow shot in through the window.

Enkrid made a short swing and knocked it aside.

Tak. The shaft split in the middle and bounced to the floor.

Blind arrows were always dangerous, but he was a man who dodged daggers thrown right in front of his face.

This was not a threat.

The poison smoke was another matter.

As his attention shifted back, the scruffy-bearded man slammed the door shut behind the dead servant and tavern owner.

'Block the door and kill us with poison?'

Enkrid held his breath. Then he turned aside without hesitation. Arrows were aimed from outside the window, and the bearded man was bracing at the door.

Should he break the door and force his way out?

No. If things had already gone crooked, they were probably prepared on that side too.

Instinct told him that. So did his sixth sense.

He was right.

The scruffy-bearded bandit had popped the poison bead the moment he saw Enkrid's sword skill.

Two or three breaths would twist your guts, make you vomit, then kill you.

Still, the spread was narrow, and it did nothing if you did not inhale it.

If Enkrid pushed through the door, he planned to spread more of the same in the corridor.

The bearded man thought:

'Stupid bastard. Where the hell do you think this is?'

He did not know who his opponent was. He just saw a fool who had wandered in clueless.

This village was one of the Black Blade Bandits' main operations. Did he think drifters guarded a place like this?

A top officer had recently gathered first-rate assassins and taken them out, sure, but plenty of strong fighters still remained.

More than anything, this was one of their bases.

Despite his appearance, the scruffy-bearded man was a strategist who stacked plans in layers.

He predicted, judged, and constrained his opponent's actions.

At least, he believed he had.

No matter what the bearded man did, no matter what was happening right now, Enkrid did not dwell on it.

That could all wait.

Esther's reaction alone told him the poison smoke was dangerous.

But it was not spreading quickly. It was heavy smoke.

Smoke did not literally have weight, but that was how it looked.

It did not drift far. It spread thick and low.

The problem was that it overlapped with where Enkrid had been standing.

Then he just had to stop it from overlapping.

Enkrid turned. He did not even need to steady his breathing.

The inn was a rushed structure. Wooden, with thin walls.

Thin enough that he could hear Sinar and Finn talking.

The bandits had built it that way on purpose, so sound carried and they could monitor people. Enkrid had no need to know that either.

He turned and swung at the wall.

He did not even need Ragna's Severance.

The blade cut straight through.

He slashed twice more, then kicked the wall.

Support posts and wall planks snapped with a heavy crack, and soon there was enough space for one person to pass.

He broke through the wall into the next room.

That should have been where the Elf Company Commander and Finn were, but only three men with glittering eyes were there.

"Fuck?"

One muttered. Their mouths were all filthy.

Enkrid did not hesitate. The smoke had not reached this room yet, so he exhaled calmly and swung.

Slice, slice, stab!

Two short swings took two necks, and he drove through the last man's heart.

If Frog saw this, she'd lose her mind.

Setting that thought aside, Enkrid slammed the wall by the window with his gloved fist.

Bang!

The frame and part of the wall shattered.

Even in a wooden structure, bits of brick were mixed in here and there, but Enkrid crushed all of it by force.

A few more arrows flew in from outside, but he dodged and broke through them and jumped out.

He landed on the roof of the house next door and rolled sideways.

As he rolled, arrows thudded into the spot he had just been. One had been fired at where they expected him to roll.

While rolling across the roof, Enkrid struck the roof with his palm.

Boom. The roof broke open, and the rebound launched him farther sideways, faster.

Arrows still lodged in places he had already passed.

After that, he rolled smoothly off the roof and came down, leaning his back against the wall.

As if waiting for it, a hand shot out from the window.

He had expected it, so Enkrid grabbed the wrist and twisted without hesitation. Breaking a wrist took no technique. He did it with pure strength.

A crisp crack and a scream rang out together.

Crack!

"Aaaagh!"

These people had less endurance than the assassins from before. Screaming from this much pain.

Enkrid yanked the broken wrist forward as hard as he could.

A bang from beyond the wall and a choked groan came at the same time.

Either unconscious or dead.

Enkrid let go of the broken wrist, shook out his hand, and stepped into the wide clearing in front of the inn.

Things always get tangled.

Not everything goes as planned.

That was natural.

Then what came next had to be handled as it came.

The Black Blade Bandits guarding the village did not know it, but with Enkrid's ability, stamina, and skill, he did not even need the unit the Elf Company Commander had prepared.

The bandits did not know that.

"What the hell is that bastard? Kill him!"

Someone shouted.

Enkrid found himself thinking again that these bastards were impressive.

It was not just one or two men showing themselves.

At least twenty. More were still appearing.

Men with gleaming eyes and blades kept popping out from all over.

"No, you're way too good at fighting..."

He spotted one of them blocking the front. It was the guard who trailed off at the ends of his words.

He was the one who had stood out most to Enkrid when he first entered the village.

By Enkrid's judgment, that trailing guard was the best weapon user here, the most skilled one in this place.

"Sigh... You should've just died quietly..."

That manner of speaking did not sound like an act.

Kyaaak!

Esther, now outside the inn, landed beside Enkrid.

"The rest of your group are probably already dead..."

Enkrid did not smile and did not react.

He simply scanned his surroundings once.

Then he asked.

"Was it the whole village?"

"Sharp too."

The answer came from behind his back.

It came with clack-clack sounds. Someone wearing Claw on both hands came into view.

More precisely, a young woman.

The three pointed blades on each claw glinted.

Enkrid looked at her face and thought:

'Was that what she had hidden in her thigh back then?'

Those claw blades were long enough to punch through a human torso.

She was the woman whose movements had stood out when he passed through earlier.

So she was the second person Enkrid had marked.

The third person he had noticed was nowhere to be seen.

"Where are you from? Looking at you, you seem ex-military. You don't look like a mercenary. Whose orders are you under? Which idiot sent you?"

The woman asked again.

Enkrid opened his mouth.

"Not a single one missing? Did you hide a honey pot here or something?"

The woman's brow furrowed at his answer. They were both answering questions with more questions.

"You still don't understand your situation, do you?"

"If not a honey pot, then maybe you hid a drug stash."

Enkrid said it while scanning around him. He did not answer her question, but he had mostly grasped the situation.

The number surrounding him had passed thirty, close to fifty now. Every one of them moved lightly.

They were all at least somewhat capable with blades.

Even so.

'They all look below the level of the kids who came to Border Guard for fun.'

A few looked sloppy. People who had only just started handling blades.

Among them, some movements looked familiar.

They had the same scent as the assassins who came before.

That was only natural. Where else would the Black Blade executive have gotten first-rate assassins?

All of them came from bases the Black Blade Bandits built.

These were places they called Den sites.

Of course, even among them, a few exceptional fighters had stayed behind to guard the village.

Two of those took positions in front of and behind Enkrid.

"From the clumsy act to the awkward attitude, what are you people really?"

The woman did not get angry. She had tried to needle him and failed. She was good at pulling herself together.

"Either kill him, or capture him and ask..."

The former guard behind him said it. Enkrid still found them impressive.

The growing number of men, what they were doing now, how the situation was turning.

What was the conclusion?

This whole village was a bandit group.

'They turned an entire village into a bandit organization.'

That proved just how strong the Black Blade Bandits were.

Where were all these thieving bastards even multiplying from?

So should he be afraid?

No.

Enkrid let out a quiet smirk without realizing it.

Esther glanced at him from the side.

'Why is he smiling?'

Inside, Enkrid was enjoying this. The power Black Blade held was far from ordinary.

Hardship, trouble, difficulty, crisis, obstacles, walls, death, the Boatman, even that suffocating darkness where you could not see ahead.

Enkrid knew how to enjoy difficulty.

It was hard, so it was fun. It was fun, so it made him want to keep moving.

So if someone asked whether the people pinning him front and back felt threatening.

'Not really.'

That was Enkrid's judgment.

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