WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 293: Training Began.

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"So what exactly is the reason?"

Hmm, this guy still had not left.

Kraiss was still standing in front of him.

He raised a palm and waved it in front of Enkrid’s face as he spoke.

"Can you see me? Ah, can you at least hear me?"

"What are you doing?"

"Looks like you can hear me now."

"My ears are fine."

"Your head doesn’t seem fine, though."

Should he smack him if he kept needling him like this?

Was Kraiss acting up because Rem was out having fun?

Before Enkrid could move, Kraiss spoke first.

"If this is about that weird question from earlier, ask Esther. And do you realize we have a mountain of more urgent things right now?"

"I’ll give you full authority. Handle it yourself."

"Ah, shit, then I’m running away!"

"Anything but that."

Kraiss turned away, mouthing a curse too filthy to repeat.

"Why is my life like this..."

The complaint sounded oddly familiar and warm. At least he was not saying he would run right now.

Enkrid put his hand on Esther’s head again.

She might never become human, but the knowledge inside her would not just vanish.

The Esther he had seen so far was no ordinary mage.

Even among spellcasters who embodied mystery, she seemed special.

So maybe she knew something.

He did not ask with much expectation.

"Esther, you heard that, right?"

He just tossed out that one line.

Esther slowly raised herself, starting with her upper body.

If she were human, there might have been a string of cracks and pops, but her supple panther body only bent and unbent like a drawn bow.

Once she was up, Esther scratched something onto the ground with her claws.

Scratch, scratch.

It was a simple drawing.

One shape, then three lines behind it.

What was this supposed to be? Her drawing skill made him think.

Was this abstract art?

Esther drew something long and pointed a little away from the first shape.

Yeah, abstract art.

Enkrid took a moment to appreciate Esther’s artistic world.

So she had never learned to draw. Spells and drawing were separate things. He had heard there was a mage who said spells were art. That had been nonsense.

Esther smacked the long pointed shape with her palm, then swiped the other shape with her palm too.

The dirt floor scattered in an instant.

The easel representing her artistic world went back to being plain dirt.

Enkrid knew how to listen, and he caught on fast.

Even if the teacher was a mess, he knew how to learn. It was the same this time. He read the hidden intent between those abstract shapes and lines.

"Cut it before it activates?"

Esther let out a low growl, then curled up.

It was cold. She wanted more sleep.

Enkrid figured Esther was whining about the cold, so he carried her back inside the barracks.

Fwoosh.

He laid the panther beside the torch stand, then twisted and stretched his body to loosen his muscles when Audin came in.

Kraiss was probably running around trying to come up with something.

Ragna had more drive than usual, so he was likely nearby doing sword training.

No idea about Jaxon. He was probably fine wherever he was.

That left only Audin and Enkrid.

"Brother."

Audin called him. Enkrid already knew what he was going to say without hearing the rest.

It was about healing.

Audin had divine power, so he could probably heal the injuries still left in Enkrid’s body.

If only his right arm and left leg came back right now.

It would be much easier.

But was that really right? Could he call that the right path?

Enkrid really was quick-witted.

That was why he had figured out some things too.

Audin had not laid out his whole past, but from his actions, his usual attitude, and what he had said so far, some guesses were not hard.

Either he had been cast out, or he was under a Prohibition Seal, or for some other reason, he could not freely use divine power.

After Audin used healing on him before, he had acted calm about it, but Enkrid had still noticed there was backlash from using divine power.

"I can’t fully restore you, but I can at least reduce the pain."

"I’m good."

The refusal came fast. More than anything, it was pointless.

It was not full recovery, and pain relief meant nothing.

Pain was proof he was alive.

Now more than ever.

When that scroll, whatever it was wrapped around the child, exploded, he had felt his own body being torn to pieces.

Was it only him?

That kid must have hurt even more.

The thought irritated him.

He did not know which bastard came up with this stunt.

He absolutely did not want things to go the way that bastard wanted.

He did not want to avoid it while calling it some impossible dirty trick.

He wanted to cut from the front, smash, stab, carve, and beat.

He even found a method in one day. Thanks to Esther.

Cut it first.

It could not be simpler. For a wall, it was almost disappointingly plain.

He pulled out seasoned jerky from his coat and put it into Esther’s mouth.

The panther bit down and chewed it neatly.

"As you wish, brother."

Audin said that and turned away.

Interesting brother.

He seemed to have sensed Audin’s condition directly.

Things like the Prohibition Seal and limit on divine power.

He could not know perfectly. Audin had never told him.

So he must have figured it out through instinct alone.

And then he still considered Audin?

In this situation?

Not running, choosing to face the fight, and still showing no sign of trying to fix his injuries first.

Not even a little.

That made him interesting.

My Lord Father above, what is it that steadies this man’s heart?

Of course there was no answer.

He did not need one.

Audin prayed silently so no one could hear.

My small and precious brother, if that is your wish, then on this battlefield I too shall offer what little strength I can.

His target was clear too.

Audin believed his god-given task was to crush the skull of the one leading the wolf magic beast pack.

After Audin left, Enkrid thought about a fast sword. He kept layering thought on thought.

Reviewing and organizing was one of his specialties.

So he did exactly that.

A fast sword.

There was what Zimmer of Martai had shown him, and even before that too.

Rem was fast, and Ragna was fast.

"I shall advance through pain. I shall not offer prayer to forget pain, I shall endure the suffering my Lord grants me and move forward."

Even that bear outside the barracks suddenly reciting scripture was fast.

Who had been slow, really?

And what about that swordsman who had pressed him with sheer presence?

Fast. Fast again.

The most recent one he had seen was that bastard Lykanos’s sword.

Too fast.

He could say it for sure, it had been the fastest of all.

Speed. What he needed now was pure speed.

Enkrid sank into that thought, met another identical day, and swung his sword as he moved forward.

"Pain that cannot kill me!"

"Only makes me stronger!"

Enkrid stood among the soldiers shouting those chants.

It was the path of moving forward while carrying what he had studied and gained.

It exploded around there yesterday.

He moved out to meet it earlier than that.

"Huh!"

He suddenly jumped toward the frontline, and a startled soldier cried out beside him.

He ignored it and ran.

As he pushed faster, his left shin throbbed, but it was fine. It was not bad enough to stop walking.

He saw the child’s eyes go wide while running toward him.

Cut.

He saw the scroll. Dull red parchment wrapped around the child’s body.

It was not hard to swing and slice only the parchment.

Once, he could not even attempt it. Now it was easy.

Right before he did it.

His blade was about to touch the child’s body.

Flash, light burst. The spell exploded again.

He had clearly been faster than yesterday. He had rushed out sooner and swung before arrival, but it still went off first.

Someone behind the scenes was adjusting the scroll’s activation timing.

The burst of light burned and crushed the child’s eyeballs. Skin split and tore open, and entrails with broken bones sprayed out in every direction.

His head burned hot. The heat reached his eyes. His heightened focus forced him to see every piece of it.

He saw all of it, endured it, and died again.

Fucking hell.

When a new today started, what he had seen still seemed burned into his retina.

Still, one more repeat was enough now. He had learned everything he needed.

The third identical morning came.

"Yeah, that’s what I’m doing."

"Do you really have to go this far? Huh? Seriously?"

He answered what Kraiss was about to say before he said it, then got up and grabbed his sword.

Esther, tucked in his arms, let out a rumbling complaint, then slipped right back into where she had been lying.

"Hoo."

Enkrid steadied his breath and walked outside the barracks.

"...What is this."

Kraiss stared blankly, baffled.

"What else? Training."

Dunbakel gave the clear answer.

She looked at Enkrid and decided to follow him. From his movement, Dunbakel guessed what he was about to do and got up too.

She planned to swing her scimitar hard for a while.

With Rem gone, her body was itching for action.

As Enkrid stepped in front of the barracks, he brushed away what clung to his retina and organized his thoughts.

He had seen the path forward, so all that was left was to walk it.

"What the hell, seriously."

Kraiss’s hollow mumble came from behind, but Enkrid ignored it as blithely as ever.

Then he gripped his sword and extended it forward.

That sameness was what made him look crazy. He started training.

* * *

He always did his best in the today he had been given. Enkrid did it even when he did not mean to.

He began in thought, then made it real through his body.

As always, Audin offered to patch up his body.

"I’m good."

He refused.

It was daily life. In this repeating today, some things changed, and some did not.

Audin’s bearing was one of those things.

Every time Enkrid refused recovery, Audin would recite scripture or pray and set his stance.

He looked like he might cause some kind of incident, but from what Enkrid had watched, he still spent each day quietly.

"Recovery?"

"I said no."

It was a repeating day.

Each time, Audin did not ask why and moved on.

Enkrid also stopped pressing anything and accepted it as part of daily routine.

"Change."

On some days, he lightly threw Esther at a wall while chanting something spell-like.

He wondered if she might transform when pissed off, but all he got were more claw marks on his face.

He had not really expected anything anyway.

He also wandered around the battlefield like he was poking through every corner.

He even asked an archer with excellent aim.

"From this distance, can you peel off only the cloth wrapped around a body?"

What if it worked, and the arrow tip hit only the very edge of the cloth.

"How could that possibly work?"

The soldier looked so dumbfounded that Enkrid dropped it right there.

So that meant he had to stick close and do it himself somehow.

Then what about infiltrating before the scroll courier even moved out?

What if he rescued the child before any of this began?

"Where is Jaxon?"

"Don’t know. Haven’t seen him since last night."

From Kraiss’s answer, Jaxon had been gone since yesterday evening.

Come to think of it, through all these repeated days, only Jaxon never showed up.

Throwing Esther or snooping around elsewhere had become almost a habit.

There were gaps in this wall that forced today to repeat.

Had he not used those gaps many times before?

That was why he kept checking.

He also asked around to see if there was any mage in the unit.

But when were mages ever that common?

Though for something rare, he did seem to meet them pretty often.

He scratched his chin at the thought for no real reason.

Other than a short look around at midday, he swung only his sword.

Sometimes he forgot the time, forgot today, forgot even his purpose.

Ah.

He stabbed and swung until he dropped into a state of no-self, almost forgetting who he was, but he never succeeded even once.

Nine todays passed like that.

He never relaxed in any of them.

Still, failure.

It felt like he could reach it, but he could not.

Why?

He held that question and threw it at himself. There had to be a way. There was no wall that could not be crossed.

Enkrid mulled over what he had found.

Thanks to repeating nine todays, there were things he had confirmed and become certain of.

First, it was a scroll, and a spell.

Esther gave a warning cry before it exploded.

Someone was watching and triggering it remotely.

Even if he charged straight in to save the child, he could not be faster than magic activation.

That was what he had learned. There were still things he did not know.

If he only cut the scroll, would it really not activate?

Was this the right path?

On the fifth today, doubt and distrust surged up, but Enkrid brushed them aside lightly.

Right or wrong, if this was all he could do now, then this was what he had to do.

"Run instead of thinking. If you have no talent, at least have stamina."

It was something a swordsmanship instructor told him in a mid-sized trade territory.

That man had been the first proper teacher Enkrid ever met.

Stamina being the base of everything was obvious.

The body that carried all of it also had to be sound, that was obvious too.

"Don’t get hurt. If you’re lazy with body care, you flail when it matters. Flail, and you die."

That was from someone who taught practical mercenary swordsmanship based on countless real fights.

The merchant family kid listening beside him had said this.

"Drop the obvious lines and teach for real."

Even so, Enkrid listened to that former mercenary teacher.

He did not dismiss it because he had paid only a few krona.

He walked the opposite path from the merchant brat who mocked it as cliché.

He listened, then acted.

He swung his sword instead of spending time in worry.

Their words, their advice, and the lessons he gained from swinging the sword, he melted all of it into his life.

Do not neglect body maintenance.

He had followed that one pretty faithfully too.

His shin and right arm were injured, but he was fine.

After being forced to use his left hand, Enkrid trained that left hand hard too. He never stopped.

If he did one hundred downward cuts with the right, he did one hundred fifty with the left.

That was why the left hand did not feel awkward now.

"It’s training in case you ever lose a leg."

He had learned things from Rem too. In a fight, anything could happen. What if one leg suddenly stopped listening?

"Then this is how you fight."

It was footwork with no name. He curled and uncurled only one sole, then changed stance and position.

It was brutally hard, and trying to fully fuse it into his body felt like dying, but what he did back then had not been wasted at all.

"A perfect way to kill time."

Had Jaxon not praised it while watching?

If he had really thought it was useless, he would have told him to spend that time dodging daggers instead.

After learning how to kick off the ground with one foot, he gave it a name too.

"Let’s call it Limping Step."

He hammered what he learned into his body, then refined it again.

Through nine todays, Enkrid was in the middle of creating a sword with his left hand that was faster than his right.

It was not easy.

Failure repeated. At times, his sword came within a hair of touching the child’s body, but wherever that watcher was, the scroll exploded instantly every time.

Enkrid drew virtual scenarios in his head again and again.

I need preparation.

He applied what he learned from Jaxon.

What did he need to draw out the fastest sword?

Could he blind the watching eyes somehow?

By the fifteenth today, that wall that looked crossable blocked him right in front, the kind of moment that could make anyone think of despair.

"I will take pity on you and tell you a method. You have two paths."

The Boatman spoke.

Pity? That was a word that did not suit the Boatman at all.

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