WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 292: A Tailor-Made Dirty Trick

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"Who the hell is that bastard?"

Lykanos had heard Enkrid's name, and he had a rough sense of his skill. No, he thought he understood it.

That was why he revealed his hidden move.

It was supposed to be a guaranteed win.

But Enkrid dodged.

All he got was one arm. He did not even cut it off, just stabbed it badly enough to leave it useless for a while.

"Ha."

Lykanos was simply baffled. It was his first time drawing his sword and failing to get what he wanted.

It was a secret sword art whose name only two people in the world knew.

A speed-based thrust, a hidden blade inside the mace, and the target was not even a knight, yet he dodged?

And that was not even the end of it.

Even while losing an eye, Lykanos sent a hand signal.

It was the second blade he had prepared just in case.

"Kill him."

The unit he had raised with his own hands rushed in, but they still could not kill him.

"And I lost an eye too."

Half the world was swallowed in darkness.

He had crushed medicinal herbs and packed them over the wound, but they did nothing for the pain.

It hurt.

Unless a high-ranking priest appeared right now, becoming one-eyed was inevitable, and that made it even worse.

Failure and injury.

Two disasters hit at once, and irritation surged up, but

"This situation is fucking filthy. Hah."

Lykanos reined in his emotions with one curse and one deep breath.

"Did the kids move?"

He asked, and

"Yes."

the answer came back immediately.

Lykanos calmed himself by recalling what he had ordered.

Nothing changed just because he got worked up.

So what if his hidden technique and his hand-raised unit failed? Did that mean there was no next move? Of course there was.

Lykanos was a simple man, not some strategic genius, but he had still learned things while surviving on this land.

"Humans are animals with weaknesses."

There was no such thing as a being without one.

No matter how great someone looked, no matter if people called them a genius, same thing.

They had openings too. How did you find them?

You stabbed around in every direction. You used every method. You tried this, then that. If just one worked, that was success.

No one had a body that steel could never pierce.

Even knights were the same. If they slipped, a blade could break skin, dig into muscle, and stab into organs.

"Probe him. Do whatever it takes, and find out what kind of bastard he is."

Even before stepping onto the battlefield, the Black Blade had gathered information.

The hands of that bandit group rooted in the kingdom were quiet and relentless.

They removed Marcus, drew in Azpen, put cultists at their side, and dug into the men called Border Guard's elite.

They dug into Enkrid too.

"Being good with a sword isn't everything."

At first, they tried to win him over.

The Black Blade could offer anything.

Beautiful women, gold, power.

It was taming. Once he got used to that, he would become a slave to the Black Blade.

But he would not even listen. Not a chance.

"It doesn't work?"

Lykanos had wondered what kind of freak this was.

If persuasion failed, then remove him. That was the easiest way. A waste, sure, but he thought driving one piece of metal into his gut would be nothing.

But that failed too.

"This doesn't work either?"

Assassin blades, poison, persuasion, everything failed.

So did he have no weakness?

The leader of the Black Blade stepped in.

He investigated Enkrid's past, his current attitude, his emotions, his odd points, then built a model of him in his head and passed it to Lykanos.

"Is this guy insane?"

Lykanos was dumbfounded. This bastard was a romantic.

The type who drew his sword to save people.

Absolutely insane.

There was a reason people called him a madman.

He even heard about the end of Swallow Blade.

For a few copper coins, there were plenty of mouths willing to tell what they had seen.

If someone wore a bard's mask and said they were collecting stories, plenty of fools would gladly talk.

"He listened quietly just because a few hostages got taken?"

Because he trusted his own skill?

And maybe because he wanted to save people.

Everything they had gained through every possible method.

And the man they identified from all of it.

"Will this work?"

Lykanos was not sure either. He was just trying it.

He never thought this was the answer from the start. If Enkrid had died to Lykanos's blade or his subordinates' blades, this method might never have come out.

It was nothing special. Infiltrate Border Guard, kidnap a few brats, wrap scrolls around their bodies, and send them in. The scrolls wrapped around them were Mobile Explosive Spells.

It was one of the old kingdom's tactics, now from a fallen age.

There had once been a flash explosion spell with excellent power that only worked at close range.

It hit even the nearby caster so hard that even the mage who made it called it a failure.

If you did not protect your own body before chanting, the user died first.

But what if the caster dying did not matter?

What if you turned it into a scroll and wrapped it around a body?

What if you only controlled the scroll's activation?

It took a lot of work. Considering the resources, it was inefficient.

But the ones who changed a battlefield were elite few.

Even if you could not kill them, it was enough if you could pin their feet down.

That was how the tactic was born.

Lykanos chose action over worrying whether it would work.

Sometimes acting first mattered more than thinking harder.

This was one of those times.

An old kingdom strategist had first unveiled this tactic, and Lykanos brought it out again.

"Will this really work?"

One subordinate voiced doubt.

In a world of killing and being killed, what could a brat he had barely spoken to do?

Most people valued their own life above everything, even if their mother were killed.

No, did he even know that kid? Brats ran all over the territory.

"Want me to wrap it around your body and send you?"

Lykanos bared his fangs as he spoke. Herbal juice dripped from his mouth, green liquid trailing down his lips.

It looked grotesque.

The subordinate lowered his head and moved.

"Fucking idiot."

Lykanos hated that half-baked resolve.

This was what it meant to use any means necessary.

You kept poking from every angle until you found an opening.

That was what the Black Blade did.

Several bandits infiltrated Border Guard at night.

Some got caught by some frog-looking bastard, got beaten senseless, died, or ran.

A few managed to kidnap one brat.

Even that had barely worked, they said.

When he heard that, Lykanos felt the back of his neck go stiff for a moment.

"Are these bastards really Black Blade bandits?"

From the kidnapped side, sure, it was sky-splitting terror. But would this tiny thing really shake a battlefield? Would it matter? No chance.

A mother who lost a child despaired, but even she knew the child might never return. Deep down, she accepted it. That was the kind of world this was.

"Fuck. Will this really work?"

One subordinate wrapped the scroll around the brat's body without believing in it himself.

A spellcaster with hollow eyes muttered something behind them.

No one could understand him. He was a filthy, gloomy bastard.

"Preparation is complete."

"Send him."

He was an old mage with a strawberry nose, black spots all over the bridge and nostrils.

At his words, they shoved the kidnapped brat forward.

"P-please, s-save me."

At the child's tear-and-snot plea, a bandit drew a dagger.

Then he lightly sliced the brat's cheek.

A quick spray of blood burst out.

"If you don't want to die, do as you're told. We'll send you that way."

The child ran forward on trembling legs.

The child did not cry, only clenched their molars and endured. Dragging those shaking legs, the child kept moving.

Baronet Tarnin saw them bring the child and passed by without interest.

What was special about children dying one by one?

He would not have cared even if they were his own people, and this one was said to be a rebel brat taken from Border Guard.

If sacrificing his territory's people could win the war and make him a great lord ruling this region?

Of course he would force that sacrifice.

Tarnin was greedy.

"Great lord!"

A hazy desire and ambition were just before becoming reality. His heart boiled.

That was why joining hands with the bandits meant nothing to him, and whether they wrapped scrolls around children or strapped iron spikes to them was none of his concern.

He would have accepted even a thorn crown on their heads, so what of it.

"Go."

A bandit urged the child on. The child walked forward.

The child crossed beyond arrow range and headed straight into enemy ground.

Still shaking, the child walked and ran to the end.

Toward the territory where that child had once lived.

Arrows did not hit the child.

No one blocked the child's approach.

Instead, someone stepped forward. Who it was did not matter.

The mage had linked his World of Spells to the scroll wrapped around the child's body.

Even one small mistake would deal severe damage to his own World of Spells. That was how dangerous it was. Even success left scars in his World of Spells. That was how brutish it was. Which was why it worked.

What kind of mad mage would do this?

Only an old, sick mage could. A man ruled by greed rather than pursuit of spells, reduced to a bandits' tool.

"Explode."

The mage whispered.

* * *

He saw the boatman's eyes. The man shook a violet lamp and spoke.

That voice still drove itself into his head.

"Is this fun too?"

He still had not recognized what had happened. Enkrid had only recognized death.

He spoke to the being in the dream.

"Long time no see."

He greeted him warmly, but the boatman showed no emotion. Indifferent as ever, he spoke.

"It will not be fun."

The black river pulled away, he opened his eyes, and faced the repeated day again.

"Are we really going this far?"

After hearing Kraiss, he got up and ate in the morning.

He ate well and checked his condition. The injuries were still there. Which meant he had to get through this day in this body.

He replayed the final moment.

The Black Blade had kidnapped a child and put something in the child's hand.

More precisely, they had wrapped something around the body and sent the child in.

He had at least confirmed where the light started.

"A scroll?"

Nothing else made sense. Right before the child's body exploded, dizzying dread struck his mind.

Light, flicker, pain burning through his whole body.

It felt like his body was being torn apart, chunk by chunk.

He had felt this dread before. A magic trap, something he had already experienced when he opened the eye of the sixth sense.

The problem now was that this one rushed straight at him, impossible to avoid.

Ridiculous. What if the child just dodged? What if someone had shot the child with an arrow before the child got close?

But for something like this, they used a scroll, and an expensive one at that, infiltrated Border Guard, and kidnapped a child?

None of that could have been easy.

"This is absurd."

"Yes?"

"Nothing."

"I'm the one who's even more shocked."

Kraiss said with a sigh.

"Uh, right."

Enkrid ignored him and kept thinking.

It was absurd, but Enkrid had no intention of looking away.

"Method."

If something was placed in front of him, he pushed through and broke through.

Same as always.

Enkrid deliberately focused his thoughts in one direction.

How to face explosive magic, how to endure it, how to overcome it.

And in the middle of that, how to save the child too.

What should he do?

He was used to facing repeated days.

The first person who came to mind was Esther.

Mages gave form to mystery. That scroll was magic too.

If Esther was there, would that not solve half the problem?

The problem was that the panther had to become human to use spells. She had said that herself.

Enkrid's gaze dropped beside his thigh.

A Lake Panther lay quietly on the floor.

He set a hand on her back and stroked lightly, and she purred in pleasure.

"Shouldn't it be about time you turned human?"

Enkrid stroked Esther from head to back and said,

"Turn into a human, yup."

He just tried it. He did not mean much by it.

Still, everyone heard it, and eyes turned toward him.

Dunbakel walked over, put a hand on Enkrid's forehead, and muttered,

"...Do you have a fever?"

Watching from the front, Kraiss slowly shook his head.

"Ugh, ugh, I'm the crazy one."

Then he lamented.

Esther only looked at him with drowsy eyes.

What are you doing?

That was what her face seemed to ask.

"Nothing."

Enkrid pressed Esther's head again. Under the soft pressure, Esther lowered her head and returned to her original posture.

He had not done it with high expectations.

Esther still spent more time as a panther than as a human.

When she was human, Esther herself had said the time she could stay human was very short.

"It didn't even seem to be once a week."

How nice it would be if she turned human right now, not just during speeches from a platform.

"Greedy thought."

When they had smashed one of the Black Blade's business villages before, Esther had still rushed in and beaten up a lightning mage.

Her help was a separate matter.

Since when had he escaped today with someone else's help?

"It's something I have to do."

He thought about it all day.

Once that spell activated, the child exploded first.

He dragged over a chair, sat, bent forward, rested his chin, and sank into thought.

Next to him, Dunbakel kept muttering at Esther to turn human, then got a hand bitten.

"Ouch!"

Teresa stayed quiet. Ragna and Audin were the same.

In the short silence, as he stayed buried in thought, Kraiss asked in a drained voice,

"What are you thinking so hard about?"

Enkrid knew Kraiss's quick wit. He raised his eyes to Kraiss and spoke. He explained the situation roughly.

He asked what they should do if someone came charging with a scroll wrapped around a human body.

"What do you mean what? If you know in advance, dodge or intercept with arrows."

"That won't do."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Why do you keep saying nothing? Ah, seriously, what is it?"

Kraiss got sulky, but Enkrid ignored him.

Big Eyes, cold-blooded as ever, had given the correct answer.

Just dodge it.

But he could not.

He had drawn his sword, swung it, cut people down, killed people. He had cut demon creatures. He had cut magic beasts too.

It was for responsibility and duty.

He could not say there was no joy in it, but if he had wanted only to go mad in slaughter, he would never have dreamed of becoming a knight.

"Because I said I'd guard their backs."

That was why he swung his sword. That was why his people mattered. That was the source of his wish to become a knight.

If he had to sacrifice his own child, if that was truly the only way, then Enkrid would do it too.

But if he had to abandon a child in desperate struggle just to escape this day,

that was unacceptable. The start of an oath was conviction, and conviction came from the heart.

Enkrid could not beat down his own heart and look away just to achieve his dream.

The dream he wanted, the knight he wanted to be, was not that.

So there were things he could never give up.

What the enemy had shown was truly a vile trick,

but it worked on him.

It was a tailor-made dirty trick.

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