A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 296

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 296: I Ask the Father in Heaven.

= = =

'I ask the Father in Heaven.'

Audin knelt and offered a quiet prayer.

From that posture, he saw Enkrid turn his head in that impossible way.

Then he saw the sprint that made him doubt his own eyes, the charge, the sword strike, the scroll, the spell, and the explosion.

Kyaaak!

The instant she saw it, Esther bolted out, but Audin did not bother stopping her.

She was no panther who could not even take care of herself.

He also saw Ragna step in after that.

The dimwitted swordsman who got lost at every turn ran in a straight line toward Enkrid.

His footsteps looked absurdly light.

Was he jealous?

Of that blond, dimwitted soldier running over there?

"Wandering Teresa asks. When do we fight?"

What a lamb, thirsty for battle.

Even so, Audin did not turn away from his own heart.

"It is said that unripe fruit is sour and astringent. Father told us that waiting ripens fruit, and ripens the heart as well. He said He wished to give you good things, so He told us to endure, and endure again."

"Patience, yes."

Teresa quietly knelt beside him.

Even kneeling, she was still large compared to the soldiers around her. Audin was the same.

It looked like two bears waiting in silence for their moment.

Learn endurance, then move forward.

Audin gave Teresa a brief blessing in his heart, then calmly continued praying.

What was the shepherd and mad lamb leading the Madman Company doing now?

Holy scripture said to help the young and weak. It told the shepherd of the flock to protect and guide the sheep.

His captain seemed to be doing exactly that now.

He had saved the child, somehow noticed it, cut off the ominous thing wrapped around the body, and detonated it.

Father.

As he murmured his prayer, far away, groups of Magic Beasts suddenly raised their heads and began rushing in all at once.

Yellow-brown dust billowed under the dark sky.

"If they break through with those Magic Beasts, we all die! Hold them!"

At Graham's shout, the heavy infantry moved out.

Audin began a new prayer. It was short and blunt.

I ask the Father in Heaven. Do You perhaps need a dog to guard Your side?

There was no answer. Still, he thought that He did.

For a Magic Beast, being sent to God's side would be the greatest blessing.

Audin stood.

"I should go bestow that blessing myself."

"Wandering Teresa will join you."

Audin stepped forward, and Teresa followed.

The two of them strode toward the Magic Beast horde. The allied soldiers waiting behind naturally opened a path.

Those two large figures walked through the cleared lane.

* * *

Awooo! Grrrrr! Krrng!

Three or four wolves, enlarged by beastification, pounced as if to block the soldiers' path.

"Hold!"

Bang!

A wolf slammed its forepaw onto the rectangular shield covering more than half a soldier's body. The shock numbed his forearm.

"Stab!"

Block and stab. The most basic of basics in heavy infantry tactics.

Several Magic Beasts were skewered by the spears of strong soldiers. Heads burst with wet pops, or holes opened in their chests.

There were too many Magic Beasts. It was dizzying. Calling it a wave of Magic Beasts would have been fair.

Paul, a soldier from a coastal village, knew how terrifying the sea was.

He used to joke with the others and say that even if a giant wave crashed over your head, a real man of the sea had to beat it.

That was exactly this moment.

This was not the sea, and not the coast.

But monsters were crashing over their heads like a wave.

"Aaaaaaah!"

Paul dragged strength up from the pit of his stomach.

Back in his village, few could match his strength.

If he had not lost his temper and half-crippled the village headman's son, he never would have ended up here.

Now that same strength, the strength that half-crippled that bastard, was the tool and bulwark keeping him alive.

He swung the lump of iron in his hand with everything he had, down to his last drop.

It was a mace with a round head.

Whoom, thwack!

The wolf at the crest of the wave got caught by it and flew off.

Blood and brain matter sprayed out through the shattered skull and splashed over his face.

Paul blinked once, yanked the mace back, and swung again.

"Haaat!"

With a shout, he brought it down from above.

Thud! Crack!

The mace crushed a Magic Beast's shoulder bone and slid off to the side. The weapon struck the ground, and he ripped it upward this time.

Thwack!

This time it smashed the jaw of another one that had waited for an opening below.

Kkiing!

The one with the broken jaw rolled aside. Another Magic Beast filled its place.

"Aaaaaah!"

Paul roared after killing three Magic Beasts with brute force.

"Holy shit, Paul!"

"Nice one, you country bastard!"

"Hold! Hold!"

Paul had gone so far that he threw his shield away and kept fighting.

A few soldiers beside him covered his openings with their shields.

He steadied his breathing and braced himself to keep doing this damned thing over and over, and right then it happened.

"Mom!"

One comrade, usually quiet and fearless, screamed for his mother and went flying through the air.

Half his body had been torn off.

Patter, patter. Entrails and blood fell from the sky, mixed with sleet.

What the hell was that now?

Grrrr.

Among the Magic Beasts, Paul saw something horrifying.

What is that?

Its body was twice the size of the others. No, comparison itself felt wrong. Even crouched low, it was still above his eye level. He had to tilt his head up to see its face. A giant Magic Beast?

No.

It was not that kind.

Magic Beasts were animals changed after being tainted by demonic energy.

What he was looking at now was a Demon Creature. A monster carrying ancient demonic energy since primordial times, mankind's natural enemy.

A Demon Creature, a Dire Wolf.

The gray-furred Demon Creature looked down at Paul with red eyes.

One comrade blocking the front started trembling violently.

Fear crashed over them just from seeing it. The urge to run away rose in an instant.

Even so, they held their ground and raised their shields.

They endured because they had trained for years to the point of coughing blood.

That alone deserved praise.

Grrrr.

When the Dire Wolf let out a low, heavy growl, the soldiers' legs shook even harder.

They wanted to resist, but they could not beat their primal fear, so their whole bodies trembled.

Paul was the same.

The hand gripping his mace shook. His knees went weak. Goosebumps rose over his skin. Fear darkened his vision.

Am I going to die?

Paul thought of the weaver girl.

I loved her.

If he made it back, he had planned to propose.

If she could accept a man like him, he wanted to ask her to live with him.

He wanted to leave his hometown and settle here, living close and warm together.

One day, he wanted to show her the sea.

He wanted children too.

He wanted to teach those children how to fish.

There was too much he still wanted to do.

Paul sensed death.

He was going to die.

So if there had not been a bear-like man striding up behind him, he would have died.

That bear's hand landed on Paul's shoulder.

"May the Lord protect us."

Strangely enough, that one line made the crushing pressure on Paul's whole body vanish.

"Hoo, hoo, hoo."

Paul gasped, cold sweat pouring down, and the bear spoke again.

"Even to little creatures tainted by evil, I grant blessing."

Blessing? What blessing?

He barely had time to wonder. The huge mad soldier, Audin, burst forward.

For his size, his speed was absurd. To Paul, Audin suddenly blurred and seemed to vanish.

More than ten wolf Magic Beasts blocked the path to the Dire Wolf, but it was pointless.

Bam! Yelp! Crunch! Crack! Snap! Thud!

What was that?

Confusion filled Paul's eyes. Fair enough.

The vanished Audin was already standing in the middle of the Magic Beasts.

Only then could Paul track his movement.

Without slowing his run, Audin threw out fists and kicks.

He looked like a battle wagon.

Or an armored assault wagon.

Those two club-like strikes from that charging body turned the Magic Beast pack into street mutts, no, into stray curs rolling around a market floor.

Their heads were tomatoes. He smashed, burst, and shattered them.

Paul used all his strength to kill three. Audin killed five or six just by passing through.

Some of them were launched into the air.

Then Audin, who had been rampaging, blurred again and disappeared.

It was momentary acceleration, like he was showing it off to someone. As if he were demonstrating what speed really meant.

Crunch, boom!

Footprints remained where he had been. The yellow earth caved in, leaving a deep mark where he had vanished.

It was a charge carrying monstrous force.

The Dire Wolf's eyes tracked the disappeared Audin.

Whoosh, its forepaw moved. The Demon Creature moved at a speed that did not suit its huge frame.

That massive paw snapped with explosive force.

Then the body of the monster pretending to be a man met the body of the monster pretending to be a wolf.

Craaang!

The collision of the two monsters sent out a shockwave.

A ring of dirt spread in all directions.

Everyone saw the wolf monster and human monster facing off.

In that moment, what should they call the feeling that replaced fear and terror?

Some great figures were hard to approach in ordinary times, but on a battlefield, if they stood beside you, nothing felt more reassuring.

Enkrid's Madman Company was exactly that.

"Blessing!"

Audin shouted again and swung his fist.

The Dire Wolf dodged with unnaturally quick footwork, then lunged to bite.

Craang.

Fist and claw clashed while missing each other by a hair. He had thrown away his clubs long ago. Then why did a fist striking a Demon Creature's claw make that sound?

And what blessing was this supposed to be?

The blessing Audin spoke of was obviously sending the wolf up to heaven.

So what he held in his hand right now was that very thing.

Violence built on brute strength.

For a Demon Creature, the greatest blessing was to die and remain by God's side.

Audin intended to grant that himself.

"You just going to stand there and watch?!"

The commander's roar from the infantry line exploded.

At that shout, Paul raised his hanging mace.

"Let's wipe them all out!"

"Shut up, idiot, form up! Anyone who jumps out first dies!"

"Paul, you backwoods bastard. If you want to go back and finish things with Desiang, shut your mouth and hold formation!"

The squad leader bellowed in anger.

Paul obeyed him.

Only then did the joy of still being alive swell up in him.

Of course, this was not the time to enjoy it yet.

The battle was still going, and he was standing in the middle of it.

Still, Paul felt like he would not die.

He had stood right in front of a Dire Wolf and survived.

No way he was dying to these mangy mutt-like Magic Beasts.

"Raise shields!"

The heavy infantry, the proud permanent force of Border Guard, spread their ironwall defense again.

They were not the true heavy attackers, so the best move now was to defend and hold formation.

Their effort was rewarded soon enough.

"If you have anything, use all of it."

That was what Kraiss had said in the third battle.

Graham did exactly that.

"Deploy."

At his one word, spearheads flew into the flank of the Magic Beast pack.

"You think only you bastards have a trump card?"

Hiiiing!

Now the cavalry appeared, the one never shown up front until now.

"Fweeeee."

A former mercenary riding at the front blew a long whistle.

At that signal, the horses charged.

The ones hidden inside the wall rushed out in a single line.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!

As one horse after another thundered out, the ground shook from their hooves.

It was an improvised unit made of mercenaries confident in mounted combat.

Improvised, yes, but not stripped of mobility.

Their training was lacking and their technique was lacking, but charging and smashing into the enemy was still enough.

Most of all.

Hiiing!

A wild horse bigger than the ordinary warhorses that had just joined the fight moved to the front and did something insane.

What is this now?

The mercenary was stunned, but his hands and feet, honed by a life of killing for pay, still did their job.

He matched the wild horse's charge and swung his greatsword.

He angled the blade with his speed, and a Magic Beast's head caught on it.

Thwack!

The beheaded beast flew sideways.

For whatever reason, the wild horse looked thrilled. It rammed a Magic Beast with its forehead, whipped to the side, then re-accelerated and charged again over a short distance.

It repeated that several times, and honestly.

He had never seen a horse like this in his life.

Is this a trick show?

The mercenary was dumbfounded, but he let it go since that horse was an ally, and it was Enkrid's horse.

Trying to understand it would only make his own head hurt.

Amid the chaotic melee, Teresa passed beside the Magic Beast pack and headed to the rear.

A few beasts saw her moving alone and rushed her, thinking she was easy prey.

Teresa handled them quietly.

She blocked with her shield, gripped her blade, and swung the sword like a club, batting them away.

Yelp!

Several that got hit circled around her. Fearless little bastards.

Should she kill them and move on?