WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 284: If They Lacked Experience, Make Them Gain It, If They Had Weaknesses, Remove Them
= = =
A few small battles had shifted the mood on the battlefield in a strange way.
'Do they want to fight or not?'
That was what both the Black Blade Bandits and the cultist army wanted to ask.
They had expected brutal clashes, but the momentum kept fizzling out. That kind of fight had happened over a dozen times.
Even so, rushing in first was risky.
"The Master of the Cursed Ground said we should never trust thieves."
It looked like the Black Blade would pull tricks from behind. Baronet Tarnin's army was no different.
"Don't charge first. Hold for now."
"Ah, are they charging again today? Don't those bastards ever get tired of this?"
At Lykanos's words, Tarnin spoke while stuffing jerky into a piece of bread.
The bastard never stopped eating, not even for a moment.
The old tension was gone.
The Border Guard standing army kept doing such bizarre things that everyone naturally loosened up.
Lykanos was different.
'What are they hiding?'
He could not name it exactly, but instincts honed over years on battlefields told him one thing.
The other side's scheme was not ordinary.
It felt ominous. Deeply, terribly ominous.
The pig baronet beside him started yapping again.
Probably spewing nonsense like, let's just crush them now, we outnumber them by a lot.
"Shut your mouth."
Lykanos was not an idiot who ignored his own instincts.
The baronet shrieked something back, but Lykanos ignored him.
"Defensive posture."
Lykanos had to keep the same strategy.
He had no choice. He could not trust the cultists, and he could not trust the Azpen side either.
Take a knife in the back?
'Then the name Black Blade would cry in shame.'
The place he belonged to was meant to become the greatest bandit force on the continent.
A group like that could not afford to get dragged into something that would clearly get them killed.
So on a winter day, with the clouds cleared and clean sunlight falling, a new day of battle dawned.
* * *
"The pain that kills me stands before me!"
"Kill the pain!"
Bell thought the slogans were getting weirder by the day, yet without realizing it, he helped make them worse.
"Pain that kills damn well!"
It had turned even more grotesque, but the slogans were not the only thing that had changed.
The soldiers moved differently now.
They no longer needed orders that were half curses and half commands.
Of course they didn't.
These men were already trained. They had been tormented and beaten by the Madmen Company.
Anyone who had not even received basic training had not been put into formation to begin with.
That was Kraiss's idea too.
'As if we're not short on manpower already.'
Bell had thought it was fresh bullshit. He had wanted to say real battlefields did not work that way.
In the end, he said nothing.
"Do it that way."
Enkrid stood behind them, and Graham approved it.
"The point is simple. If they lack experience, make them gain it. If they have weaknesses, remove them. That's what this is for."
If poorly trained soldiers were mixed in, the whole force weakened.
Gather only those hardened through training and keep hammering them. Like iron that only gets stronger when struck, they would be hammered by real combat.
Kraiss's theory had become reality, and Bell was one of those results.
Soldier after soldier, men who had broken through training that felt like hell itself, then got tempered by the hammer of live battle.
"The flower of the battlefield is!"
"Infantry!"
"The flower of pain is!"
"Fucking joy!"
The corrupted chants, the heat, the cheers, and the surge boiling in their chests burned hot.
"Kill them all!"
Bell shouted.
If the last battles had been one step, this one was two. No more probing and stalling. They were attacking first and hard.
Bell stood at the front.
He saw the eyes of a Black Blade mercenary charging in, murderous eyes glittering beneath a low-pulled iron helmet.
The man swung a large sword overhead.
A heavy blow loaded with weight and force came crashing down. Bell did not react.
At this rate, he should have died.
Instead of blocking, Bell drove his left foot into the ground, twisted his waist back, and poured strength into both arms.
His arm muscles bulged under crackling strain. He focused, pushed harder, and thrust his spear forward.
He had built that strike after days of thought. A full-body twisting thrust.
The mercenary panicked. Is this bastard insane? Even so, he completed his swing.
It was practically mutual death.
He only had to cut first. He planned to cut Bell and slip past the spear in the same motion.
But the falling sword never did its job.
Two soldiers had already moved up beside Bell and covered the space above his head with thick round shields.
Bang!
The blade slammed into shield metal.
Then a strike no ordinary gambeson, leather, or chain armor could stop exploded into the mercenary's torso.
Thud!
The sharpened spearhead punched through gambeson and leather and opened a hole in his stomach.
The spear shaft stuck through his midsection like grotesque decoration.
"Y-you... crazy bastard."
Blood gushed from his mouth as the enemy soldier spoke.
He dropped his sword, grabbed the shaft through his body, staggered, and fell backward.
Scrraaape. The spearhead scraping the ground as he collapsed, his body tilted and dropped to the side.
He died slumped at an angle.
"That's called strategy, you dumb monkey bastard."
Bell let go of the spear as he spoke.
Pulling it back out would take too long. He fell back and grabbed a new spear.
Three men made one team.
One opened holes in enemy bodies with thrusts. Two blocked and held.
"One spearman and two soldiers who can handle shields. That's one unit."
An improvised tactic below squad scale.
Improvised did not mean impossible. Most of the training they had bled and sweated through, training that worked their bodies like golems, had been for personal physical improvement.
The tactic itself was not complicated either.
After adapting for around two weeks, the first large-scale battle between the Border Guard standing army and Baronet Tarnin's forces clearly pushed the enemy back.
"Fucking cut them down! Smash through their shields! Crack skulls with maces!"
"Archers! You just gonna watch?"
Until now, both sides had fought infantry against infantry by unspoken agreement. The enemy deployed archers first.
"Bullshit. Kill them."
And the Vengeance archers, who had been waiting for exactly that, moved.
A platoon of fast-footed, sharp-eyed men quickly nocked arrows, then released taut strings in a furious volley.
Thududududung!
Fifty longbows.
A rain of arrows poured into the enemy flank.
"Fall back! Fall back now!"
Bell shouted in the middle of the fight. The Border Guard standing troops quickly pulled back.
Anyone watching would have had to admire it.
The total numbers were not massively different.
The standing army had barely over one thousand men.
Baronet Tarnin's army had somehow swelled past two thousand five hundred.
Troops had gathered and clumped in from all over.
Of course, neither side committed all forces.
Both armies sent in only appropriate portions.
The Border Guard standing army deployed about 250 men, while the opposing baronet side threw in close to 400.
There was a numbers gap, and Tarnin's side had several famous mercenaries scattered through their ranks.
Their Punitive Rearguard Officers stood behind them with drawn blades and killing intent, so the soldiers fought ready to die.
Even so, the result was clear.
"A trained army beats individuals."
On a hill, Kraiss spoke under his breath.
Finn, guarding him, answered.
"What kind of bullshit is that."
It was not something he would understand.
"I'm just saying."
"I should be attached to the captain, not doing this guard duty crap."
Finn grumbled.
At that same time, Enkrid was doing his part too.
* * *
"Here it is."
Jaxon trudged forward and said it, and Enkrid spoke.
"Ragna?"
"Why are you calling me?"
Good. He had arrived. If Ragna was here, they had everything they needed.
He spotted Teresa, face hidden under her helmet.
Is she okay?
He had told her she could sit this out, but she refused.
"I am Wanderer Teresa. I only walk the road my sword and shield must walk."
With Jaxon guiding them, the Madmen Company moved without even trying to hide.
They did not need to.
A large-scale battle was underway, and everyone's eyes were fixed there.
So as they moved, they killed every scout they met.
If there were no eyes to see, there were no tongues to report.
While the Black Blade and the standing army fought and bled, Enkrid's company reached the cultist encampment.
"I thought I was gonna die of boredom."
Rem said it. His eyes gleamed. He looked like a man who got thorns in his mouth if he did not cut throats every three days.
"Let's go."
Enkrid said it and approached the rough Palisade.
The moment he got close, he heard growling. A rank beast stench punched into his nose.
His gaze turned. Yellow eyes stared back.
A wolf magic beast braced on four legs and bared its fangs.
Grrrrrr!
The instant they met, it kicked off with a thump and lunged.
The wolf became a single streak and shot forward head-on, fangs exposed.
It came from the left, where Dunbakel stood.
The moment the wolf magic beast struck the ground, a metallic ting rang out.
In midair, the beast met a silver line.
Naturally, it was Dunbakel's work.
The scimitar drawn from her waist traced a half-moon.
The slanted silver blade split the beast from right shoulder to below the left leg.
With a wet burst, blood and innards spilled onto the ground as the split corpse twitched and sprawled.
Blood splashed everywhere.
"Try killing cleanly."
Rem said it after watching. Dunbakel flicked her scimitar in the air. Drops of blood pattered down. Then she spoke.
"This is clean enough."
"This kid doesn't know anything."
Rem snorted.
Grrrrrr!
Before his words even ended, yellow eyes multiplied from every direction.
It was broad daylight, not midnight, and they had just stormed in after wiping out the scouts.
The stench was strong enough to numb the nose. The smell of filth and droppings already made breathing hurt.
It was not that the cultist army had read the Madmen Company's movement.
No one could have predicted this. It was a knife thrust at the exact moment that made people think, no way they'd hit here.
So the wolf magic beasts flooding out was not prediction at all.
Wolves were simply what guarded the stockade.
The cultist camp sat between uneven mounds, and the surrounding ground was rough.
A bumpy patch of small hills with plenty of hiding spots.
Wolf packs appeared one after another between them. Yellow-eyed heads popped up. Beasts tainted by demonic energy bared fangs from all sides.
Grrr!
Rem raised both axes level with the ground.
"Watch. This is what clean looks like."
Then he kicked off and ran.
No one had time to speak. His charge was half a beat faster than the wolves could react.
He closed the distance instantly and appeared right in front of the nearest beast.
He rushed in and cut. His axe arm seemed to bend, then thud, a wolf head shot into the air. Then several more heads followed.
Rem fought the way he always did.
He hacked, split, and chopped everything in reach.
"How is that clean?"
Dunbakel watched and said it. Enkrid agreed.
It was not clean at all. But it was destructive.
"Impressive vigor, brother."
Audin said under his breath. It was exactly that.
The wolf magic beasts stayed faithful to their guard role and were cut down in heaps.
After that, Enkrid watched cultists appear beyond the stockade and adjusted his sword belt.
Small preparation. Against any opponent, in any fight, preparation to do his best.
He fixed his sword belt.
"It's a raid!"
He watched the shouting enemy soldier and took a stance that looked ready to draw his sword and charge in one motion.
Some enemy soldiers saw that and raised crossbows.
"The Master of the Cursed Ground watches over us!"
With fanatical shouts, the cultists loaded and aimed.
From that sword-drawing stance, Enkrid flung both hands left and right.
It looked random, but the result was not.
Pheeeeee!
A whistle tore the air, and the throats of four crossbowmen tore with it.
"Khk!"
One clutched his neck and dropped. A new hole in his throat, large enough to see from outside, spilled blood in streams instead of air.
All four cultist soldiers with crossbows hit the ground.
"He really fools them well."
Jaxon said from behind.
Hard to tell if it was praise or mockery.
Enkrid did not care.
Pretend to draw the sword, throw Whistle Daggers instead. It was an excellent tactic.
Adjusting the sword belt and setting that stance had all been for that one move.
Stance was preparation too. Deceiving the opponent was preparation too.
Awoooooooo!
From deep inside the cultist encampment came a chilling wolf howl.
It carried magical force that made bodies stiff for an instant.
"Hey, can we stop with the damn dog barking."
Rem said it while covered in black beast blood.
He grinned with his front teeth showing, and the white teeth, axes, and black blood combined into a pure symbol of fear.
No one here froze from a howl.
Even Dunbakel only grumbled.
"Just because you blow heads off doesn't make it clean."
"O, O, O God of the Cursed Ground."
One zealot watched them with a shaking jaw.
"Hm? What was that? Can't hear people who worship a shit-for-brains god."
Rem said it with an axe in hand, cupping his ear.
After that, he rampaged even harder.
From the enemy side, it looked exactly like insanity unleashed.
Enkrid and the others did their jobs too.
Jaxon set fire to tents and supplies, Ragna cut down enemies charging Enkrid from behind, and Teresa and Dunbakel ran left and right, smashing and breaking heads of beast and human alike.
There was no need to drag the chaos out for long.
As soon as he confirmed black smoke rising, Enkrid gave the signal.
He threw a Whistle Dagger into the sky.
Pheeeeeeeeeeeee!
At the long whistle tone, the entire company pulled back. The objective from the start had been one hard hit, then immediate withdrawal.
While the enemy commander increased bodyguards to protect himself, this side burned supplies and got out.
Simple, but effective.
"Rem!"
Enkrid shouted while retreating.
"Go ahead first!"
Rem was not following, so Enkrid called him, and that was the answer.
Was he just too fired up?
That was half the reason. The other half was that someone had to hold the rear.
By then, four other magic beasts, each about twice normal size, were charging in.
Someone had to cut them down, or at least block them and fall back.
"Let's hope he dies here and now."
Jaxon said something he did not mean.
"Then I'll stay instead."
Ragna said something unacceptable.
If that one stayed behind, would he even make it back before winter ended?
Enkrid did not worry about Rem.
That was Rem, after all.
Getting himself out alive was easy for him.
"We're moving first."
= = =
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