WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 294: The Boatman Said.

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He was on a ferry crossing a dark river.

A violet lamp hung still and shone alone, but its light did not spread far.

It barely let him see his own hands.

He had seen this backdrop often, yet today it felt more ominous than usual.

The boatman’s tone was heavier too.

It felt like it struck his heart and rattled his head.

Of all the words he heard, Enkrid asked again about the part that caught him most.

"A path?"

Did he not enjoy watching him suffer against a wall? Then why tell him anything?

"Step back and watch. If you avoid it, the path opens."

Normally, once today ended, it started again. In other words, avoidance could never be a way to reach tomorrow.

So why was he telling him to avoid it?

The boatman’s voice grew heavier and heavier.

"Avoid it."

That ringing voice dug through his whole body.

It felt like his guts were being stirred.

There was no pain. It was a sensory issue. No, not even that, this was a world of the mind.

So it was mental.

What mattered was probably not whatever the voice itself caused.

Enkrid did not doubt the boatman.

He did not doubt his purpose either.

The boatman had to keep him trapped in today.

Maybe because he understood that,

"The devil always comes in the form of an angel."

A line Audin recited from scripture every day suddenly came to mind.

"Avoid it."

The boatman kept throwing those words at him, words that still churned his insides and scrambled his mind.

With that, the black river suddenly drew far away, and even though Enkrid had already opened his eyes, he had the strange experience of opening them once more as he stepped into a new today.

The boatman’s words stayed in his head more vividly than ever.

It was different from usual. His normal dreams faded into hazy memories, but not this one.

It felt like he had been brainwashed.

'Run away. Turn around. If you abandon just one child, you can get through this today easily. That is enough.'

So that was it. Enkrid grasped the situation clearly.

The boatman had given him a chance to pass today easily.

He mulled those words over and over, and felt the urge to follow them.

"Do we really have to go this far?"

Kraiss’s slightly changed voice passed by him. The boatman was right. Desire and reason both pointed to one path.

So why, at this moment,

"I'll act like I know you later, okay? If I make some famous potion, I might even give you one, so try to get on my good side."

Why did he remember that little child chattering away, hands on hips, chin raised?

Will, Refusal, was originally meant to react only to that same kind of pressure.

So it was only meant for things like intimidation born from willpower, or primal fear that demonic creatures gave humans.

Enkrid knew that instinctively, but muttered to himself.

'I refuse.'

The "easy path" still repeated in his head. Again and again, reason said it was right. Instinct said the same.

Even limping, Enkrid stepped to the front of the battlefield.

"...You're going out again today?"

A soldier beside him asked.

Fine scratches covered Enkrid's face.

"I'll go out tomorrow too."

As he answered, Enkrid pulled off his leather helmet and tossed it away.

A helmet narrowed his field of view and blocked part of his senses. This time, he would thrust his sword in before the spell activated.

'Through the fastest path.'

He traced the route, then pictured the movement that would make it real.

Wind swept in and brushed his cheek.

Even in daytime, the sky was dim, and the wind against his face was a bitter, cutting gust.

Through that chill, the smell of the battlefield stabbed into his nose.

Blood, iron, excrement, fear, terror, excitement, tension.

Everything became scent, then was interpreted by his brain.

The senses split across five channels fused into one and opened the Gate of the Sixth Sense.

Focus Point activated, his brain burned, and everything on the battlefield seemed to slow down.

Soon, one child ran toward him. He shut out the surrounding noise.

He did not need to hear it.

He fixed his eyes on nothing except the child.

He did not need to see anything else.

Seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, all of it blurred together and drew a single line.

Point and point.

'I am also one point.'

He perceived himself as a point, and the line of the child’s run as another.

The fastest path connecting those two points.

His right knee bent hard, then snapped straight. Even without Will in it, his brutally trained thigh launched Enkrid’s body at terrifying speed.

At the same time, he thrust forward the sword in his left hand.

To the soldier watching, the blade appeared before the body did.

The blue-tinted edge shot forward faster than an arrow. At least, that was how it looked to the watching soldier.

Enkrid reached this today faster than any other today.

He saw the child’s face. The eyes. The nose. The shape of the mouth.

Over that face, he saw another one layered on top, the face of the already dead child who had dreamed of becoming a herbalist.

The sword stabbed near the child’s shoulder. With delicate control, it cut the strap over the shoulder. It snapped, and the scroll dangling on the child’s chest spilled light.

He failed.

* * *

"How stupid."

The boatman’s tone had no rise or fall. No emotion could be read from it.

Enkrid did not answer. He acted just as before. He repeated the same today.

When do people despair?

If you are told from the start that something cannot be done, you can stay calm instead.

You accept it. You understand it is over.

But what if it seems close enough to touch, almost reachable, yet never reached?

That is when despair comes.

And what if, at that moment, someone shows you a side road, quietly points out a shortcut?

After changing as he had now, the boatman began to wonder about one being he had never seen before.

Why did this human not give up?

Why did this human not break down?

Why, why, how could he be like this?

Questions brought doubt. That doubt made the boatman offer a second proposal.

That was after eighty-six todays had passed.

"It is too late for regret."

At those sudden words, the human called Enkrid tilted his head.

In the world of the mind, that level of emotional expression was unusual.

It was surprising, but this man in front of him had too many surprising things about him, so this much was nothing.

"But I am generous."

"Generous?"

Even the way he threw in that little response made it obvious his will and intent were firm.

In the world of the mind, you spoke by will, not by a physical body.

His manner and attitude were deeply disrespectful, but that was fine.

The boatman already knew this, and knew that if he danced to that rhythm himself, he would only look ridiculous, so he ignored it and said what he had to say.

"I will give you one more chance."

"Again?"

That little response was still irritating to hear. Even more so because he tilted his head and frowned, looking like he was mocking him.

Still, the boatman had already gone beyond being human, so he stayed calm.

If he had been some bastard living in the real world, he would have cursed first.

But he was not like those humans.

"Do not let the one behind the wall come near you. Make it cross the river before it reaches your side."

The boatman held his breath. Enkrid asked back in the same posture as before.

"The river?"

The boatman took a breath he normally never took because he had no need. He breathed deeply. Then he drove the other side out.

Only after Enkrid vanished from the world of the mind did he let his own will show.

"Son of a bitch."

A short but forceful expression of will.

Even after all his pressure, even after forcing his own will into Enkrid’s head,

'That son of a bitch will do whatever he wants.'

He sensed Enkrid would betray his intent.

And as he realized that, the boatman smiled without meaning to.

"Huh."

It was his first real emotion since becoming the boatman.

Half empty, half amused.

* * *

'He keeps talking bullshit. Is he bored.'

Enkrid was someone who trampled everything and moved forward, never taking the road back.

Naturally, he ignored this proposal too.

Only one thought filled his head.

'Can I be faster than this?'

He connected point to point, focused until his brain burned and his eyes felt ready to pop out.

Still he failed.

Then what was speed?

He thought he had seen plenty of swords of speed in Correct, Heavy, Illusionary, Quick, and Flowing.

The answer came suddenly, and easily.

"When I used to pick pockets, my hand wasn't the fastest. But I was the best. My hand was a little slower, but I was faster at reading people. You just do it when they are not looking. Why try to decide it by hand speed while they are watching? Only idiots do that."

That was something Kraiss said in passing while Enkrid traded the fastest sword strikes with Ragna and asked Audin about opening techniques in Valaf-style grappling.

It was a trivial remark. Kraiss had not said it with any deep meaning.

No, what he said next was probably what he really wanted to say.

"They came here knowing us. This is like trying to steal a Krona pouch by moving your hand fast while they stare right at it."

He meant the situation was that bad, and they needed a variable. Enkrid did not answer.

No, he could not.

Lightning struck in his head at Kraiss’s words.

'Outside their awareness range.'

Speed was relative.

If you showed your intent, no matter how fast you were, you were slow.

If they knew your intent, they would prepare for it.

"Uh, here he goes again? You can't hear me? Hey? Enki, you bastard?"

Kraiss waved both hands and jumped in front of him, but Enkrid did not hear.

Enkrid sank into his own world. His mouth hung half open, saliva running down.

Even so, his thoughts did not stop.

"Enough."

Ragna pulled Kraiss away.

Enkrid was breaking something that had locked in his thoughts.

The opponent’s intent and his own intent.

Humans could convey meaning with a single gesture.

The technique of stealing an opponent’s gaze with hand movements developed from that. Tricks done by sleight of hand, not magic, worked that way.

It was common even in gambling dens.

That was what intent was.

'Deceive.'

You could deceive the opponent by intent alone.

Speed was doing it outside the opponent’s awareness.

Was this a fight to compete in speed while staring each other down in plain sight?

No. At least Enkrid did not take it that way. This wall was about whether he could save the child or not.

He defined it that way.

So what he needed was Illusionary Sword or Trick Sword.

Vallen Style Swordsmanship had countless techniques like that.

'Ah.'

Realizations kept coming. Lightning struck his skull again and again.

What was speed?

Doing it outside the opponent’s awareness.

Ending it without ever showing the opponent a fast sword.

Jaxon’s Pierce Without Killing Strike brushed through his mind.

He added something new.

'Sense of Evasion puts instinct first.'

Sense of Evasion avoided everything that fell into the range of the sixth sense. What if he laid intent on top of that?

What if he gave direction to instinct?

It was a path he had never seen until now.

It felt just within reach. That was why, exactly why, he had crammed only speed into his head.

No. There was not only one path.

'And if it is absolutely fast too, even better.'

People said if you chased two rabbits, you caught neither.

But all the experience he had stacked, his left arm trained through misjudgment, and speed,

all of it now showed him the running routes of both rabbits. It looked possible to catch both.

Most of all, the training he had done earlier with Jaxon helped.

Had he not trained using Sense of Evasion at close range?

What meaning had that training of dodging stones carried?

A question needed intent.

Training too was a path where process moved toward result.

Enkrid had only one result.

'Intent above instinct.'

Sense of Evasion was a feast of instinct. It made the body react through sixth sense and intuition.

That was why it was Sense of Evasion. It was an art born from the instinct to protect the body.

Enkrid twisted that art.

'Put intent into it.'

It was a concept that could just as well be called Sense of Attack.

Crack.

The psychological shackles the boatman had planted shattered.

A wall that seemed close enough to touch.

Yet still impossible to cross.

Then came the proposal.

Everything was a trap. Everything was a prison squeezing him.

But Enkrid did not even place a foot near that prison.

He ignored the proposal, then found and opened a new path.

'Ah.'

At the end of realization, a new today had arrived before he knew it, and the battlefield was waiting for him.

"Today too..."

"Pain that cannot kill me..."

At the front line, he cut off the soldier who asked the same thing every day beside him.

The soldier stared blankly at him, then answered.

"...only makes me stronger."

The original saying was, "Pain that does not kill me makes me stronger,"

but he liked this version better now.

Enkrid pushed through the bitter wind and stepped out.

From the far side of the battlefield, a child wrapped in scrolls came running.

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