WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 298: I Won't Lose the War of Words.

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"That damn bastard. I can finally move a little now."

Rem cursed someone who was not even there and pushed himself up.

His ribs were still a mess, and his ankle still clicked, but.

'I'm definitely going to kill you.'

This body was good enough. It was not like he needed to cling to him and wrestle.

More than anything, if he was any later, that bastard would either die to someone else or kill someone else first.

If some alley-cat punk, slacker, giant, or beastfolk died, he did not care. But not the captain.

'It'd be a waste if he died now.'

It would be a waste if that lunatic who dreamed of becoming a knight died here.

Watching him thrash and struggle was entertaining. For now, at least. Rem was still curious whether that man might really become a knight.

'Well, he probably won't die easy anyway.'

Still, this opponent was bad news. A bad matchup, you could say.

If they fought now, there was a high chance he would die. A high chance he would lose, too. So Rem had to be the one to face him.

Most of all, the one called the Ageless Madman, crazed over never growing old, would be wary of him.

'After letting me get away once, he won't rampage recklessly.'

He would not. He would feel too uneasy about his back. The moment he left an opening, he would get hit.

Thinking that, Rem scanned the area. Luckily, he found a good tree.

He stripped the bark, rubbed and twisted it between both hands, braided it like rope, and made it long.

Then he repeated the same work.

When he got hungry, he caught and ate snakes or badgers. Along the way, he even got lucky and found a bear that had not gone into hibernation.

To others, it was a savage beast, but to Rem.

"Special meal?"

It was just quality meat and tough hide.

He flicked his one remaining axe into the air, caught it, and hurled it straight ahead.

The axe cut through the air with a sharp hiss, split the bear's skull in half, and lodged there.

The bear wobbled, then collapsed with a heavy thud.

The ground trembled. The thing was as big as Audin.

He wanted to skin it and wear the hide, but he had no energy to tan it, and his ribs still hurt, so he could not waste strength on labor like that.

So he killed the bear, tore out and ate the gallbladder raw, wet his throat with blood, then roasted and ate meat again.

It reeked, but what could he do.

He cut part of the hide into squares, layered two or three pieces, and punched holes in the corners.

The axe he had made by cutting up the Centaur leader's halberd was even more useful at times like this.

He had left the spear point jutting above the axe head for weight balance, and it paid off.

He used that point to punch holes in the hide.

Then he threaded bark cords through them.

He trimmed the hanging end to about the width of both arms spread.

He lifted it and spun it through the air a few times.

Not bad.

The venom he got from snakes, he carried in a rough pouch.

After that, he gathered several stones of similar size and packed them.

He also made small pouches from bear hide and snake skin, then turned them into a bag he could wear.

It was a cross-body sling bag from shoulder to opposite side.

'This is labor. Real labor.'

It had been a long time since he had done work that soaked him in sweat.

Even in winter, sweat ran down his forehead. Only then did he find a stream.

He hated cold to death, but if he left his body like this, he would get sick. Cleanliness came first.

He lit a fire and took a deep breath.

"Hoo, let's go."

This took resolve. The moment he dipped his toes in the cold water, his whole body shuddered.

'Ah, you fucker.'

The colder it got, the more hatred swelled. He thought of the one who had pushed him this far. That Ageless Madman bastard.

'I will kill you. I'll kill you like a dog.'

The longer he soaked in the icy water, the deeper his grudge grew.

He clenched his molars, washed up, crushed herbs and rubbed them over his body, then warmed himself by the bonfire.

Rattle, rattle, rattle.

His jaw trembled. His front teeth slammed together without mercy.

Rem had abnormal strength, but that did not mean he could beat the cold.

'Should've taken sorcery.'

At times like this, he regretted it.

It was freezing like hell. If he had inherited even a little sorcery, he would not be this cold.

Nothing could be done about it now.

Rem endured while gripping a Warmstone. Once his body dried a bit and he wrapped himself in warmed hide again, he finally felt human.

'Wow, I'm definitely going to kill you.'

The grudge remained. No, it had only deepened.

After he finished what could be called preparation,

Rem headed toward the main force. He was not Ragna. Retracing the path he came was easy, and tracking traces was one of his strengths.

Little by little, battle cries reached him.

He judged the distance and checked the situation, slipped out of the forest, and approached the battlefield at a fast walk.

It was crawling with Magic Beasts. Red-eyed wolves stared at him.

A few of them growled and charged, building an air of terror.

Wild ferocity mixed with demonic energy, their whole bodies proclaiming what brutality looked like.

Not just ordinary people, even trained soldiers would have panicked, but not Rem.

"Get lost."

Rem unleashed pressure. Different from what the junior knight had shown, but similar in form, he crushed the atmosphere around him.

He declared who he was through sheer force of will.

A few Magic Beasts flinched, but they did not run. Rem kept walking and swung his axe with the smallest possible motions.

Vertical, horizontal, diagonal.

Three short swings cut down four Magic Beasts. Not three, four.

The second horizontal cut caught two heads at once.

After killing a few, he finally spotted the one he had been looking for.

The one making throwing spears float in the air.

He had already figured out that trick.

Elastic thread wrapped around the spears. It was not thread from the West. No, who imitates an Inherited Weapon with a stunt like that? That was why he had not recognized it at first glance.

Now that he had figured it out, he understood the man's personality and fighting style too.

People stepped out with confidence for a reason.

That weapon was that man's strength and weakness. At least, that was Rem's judgment.

'So all this continent taught you was cheap tricks, bastard.'

The threads were hard to see, so it looked like the spears were floating.

"Hey!"

Rem shouted. The man running forward looked back.

He turned his head halfway, and his pupils widened.

'When he was chasing me he ran like hell, and now he came to me on his own?'

That was what his face seemed to say.

"You're dead."

When Rem said that, the Ageless Madman gave an incredulous smile on a face that looked half young and half old.

He had been rushing out because the Wolf Bishop looked close to going down.

A few zealots nearby charged at Rem.

"Unbeliever!"

"Ohhh, for the Lord!"

The axe in Rem's right hand moved again. Two quick swings, and two heads shot into the air.

The Madman's eyes tracked Rem's movement in detail.

No way he had fully recovered from his injuries.

Did he sharpen that axe blade separately? It was absurdly sharp.

Still wearing that baffled smile, the Ageless Madman stopped.

Then he turned. One of the Wolf Bishop's strengths was stubborn vitality. He would not die easily. Handle this one first while the bishop held out. He could not fight with his back exposed.

A few zealots watched and hesitated.

No matter how they looked at it, this was not their fight.

Rem rubbed his ribs and checked his ankle.

He planted his toes and twisted.

Not bad.

"So you came here to die," said the Ageless Madman.

"Yeah. I came to kill you."

Rem would not lose in words.

* * *

The Ageless Madman floated spears in the air.

Seen from the side, it looked like pure mystery.

Sorcery was what people called western magic.

At this level, you could say he had inherited a true branch of it.

Of course.

"Hey, that's not an Inherited Weapon either, right?"

Once you saw the trick, it was not that impressive.

"Crazy bastard."

Rem's hometown senior denied it and threw a spear.

Even if you could not see it, once you knew the principle, tracking its movement was not hard. At least not for Rem.

Invisible threads launched the spear forward. Probably connected to forearms and fingers.

Clang!

Rem knocked away the spearhead with his axe, and pain throbbed in his side.

The moment he lowered his stance as if to charge, the Madman drew a second spear.

It did not stop there.

The spears increased. Two became three, three became four.

He floated every spear he had carried on his back.

Nice trick. Sly bastard.

Rem added the throbbing pain in his side to his grudge.

Pain from blocking, all because of that bastard.

"Die, halfwit."

Four spears, plus bear forearms and leopard legs.

Just because he had not inherited sorcery did not mean he could not recognize it.

It was the trace of spirit descent.

He had elevated spear handling into an art by mixing in sorcery.

"You son of a bitch, poking from far away."

Rem left that as his form of admiration and praise for his hometown senior's technique, and the Madman sneered.

That halfwit had terrible combat sense. He was dumb too.

Had western warriors gotten weaker? Maybe.

When he left, he had killed too many men considered capable.

Beyond that, they had spilled too much blood fighting among themselves.

Either way.

'If you wanted to win, you should've closed in.'

He should have done that.

Of course, there had been preparation for that too.

This was the man who had failed to block two spears in their previous fight.

At this distance, around fifteen steps, his spears could perform at full strength.

In other words, the Ageless Madman had never lost this kind of fight.

Rem slowly drew his foot back. The Madman watched.

A little farther would be better.

The attack range of the threaded spears was over twenty steps.

'Not an Inherited Weapon?'

You idiot. Through experience and training, my spear became a divine weapon beyond an Inherited Weapon.

The Madman was sure of victory.

Four spears moved in response to the threads tied to his fingers.

Boing, boing, they floated lightly, two to either side of his head, and two to either side of his forearms. Four spears roamed the air.

As they moved back and forth, they looked like they were twitching, eager to shoot out and pierce the opponent's body.

'And this fool dares charge me without sorcery.'

The Ageless Madman was a wanderer who had spent his life searching for a way not to die.

His actual age was over one hundred.

He had gained a great deal in that time.

Part of the sorcery he had acquired in the past was what made this his beloved weapon now.

Etching sorcery into thread had been grueling, but.

Look.

It had become a weapon that pressured and killed opponents like an Inherited Weapon.

Rem watched him in silence.

'He thinks he's already won.'

Certain of victory. Careless because he believed this was his distance.

"You fucking idiot."

With that, Rem pulled out the weapon he had prepared.

No sorcery, no invisible thread. But if pure muscle could launch a projectile ten times faster than his throwing spears, then this was Rem's distance too.

What he pulled out was a weapon made by twisting bear hide and tree bark.

A sling.

Rem took a stone from the crude leather bag on his body, set it in the cradle, and began to spin.

The leather whirled around shoulder, arm, and hand, then rose above his head.

The sling, loaded with a stone and centrifugal force, formed a spinning disc above Rem's head.

Wheeeeeee!

The noise tore through the air.

For Rem, the sling was a toy he had played with since childhood.

That meant it was a familiar weapon.

So there was no way he would miss.

He aimed and extended his arm. The stone flew out, destructive force multiplied by centrifugal power.

Even Rem could not properly see the stone in flight.

No, no one here could.

"Huh!"

Startled, the Madman snapped all four spears upright like a wall.

Instant judgment and quick wit.

And he got lucky.

Boom!

The stone slammed into the spear blades.

The fist-sized rock shattered into dozens of fragments and rained onto the Madman's body.

Stone shards struck his thick leather armor and scattered.

"You lunatic!"

The Madman's hands moved in a panic.

That one strike shoved the spear wall hard backward. A mere rock displayed force stronger than sorcery.

No, was that even possible?

No matter how skilled, with just one rock?

Strength alone could not do it.

You could only pull off something like that if you handled a sling like your own hand.

How could anyone throw that accurately at that speed?

He was still shocked even as he blocked.

Wheeeeeee!

A second disc rose over Rem's head. The horrific sound battered the ears.

"You here to watch?"

With those words, the second stone flew.

The Madman lowered his body. The spears split left and right and dropped low with him.

Even with perfect aim, a lower target was harder to hit.

He also sent out two spearheads.

They skimmed along the ground. A throwing technique that rose from below, Dragonfly Wing.

He sent out two spears and kept two to protect himself, just in case.

Ageless Madman. A nickname born from not aging and not wanting to die.

His body was more precious to him than anything.

Rem knocked away the incoming spears with his axe.

This was different from before.

With minimal movement, he deflected and guided them away.

It was axe work close to Flowing Sword Style.

At its core, that style was a weapon-handling art, not something limited to swordsmanship.

Still, this kind of flowing technique did not suit Rem very well.

"Where did you pick up a trick like that?" the Madman muttered.

"I've got a bastard right in front of me who keeps flowing my axe."

Rem was a genius. He had seen that technique dozens of times up close, and it had been used on him repeatedly. There was no reason he could not learn it.

There was also no reason to make it his main style, so he had not shown it before.

Right now, he brought it out for defense with minimal movement.

If there were four spears, maybe it would be different, but two. He had blocked two before. Not enough to be a real threat. It was an attack he had already experienced.

After easily flowing away the two spears,

Wheeeeeeee!

A third disc rose.

The Madman's face turned pale blue.

No matter how strong a bear was or how fast a leopard was, neither could match that single stone in speed and force.

Rem had judged the result of this fight from the beginning.

Why fight up close while hanging a chain of injuries all over his body? No reason.

It also helped that his opponent was a moron.

'You fucking idiot.'

If they closed in and fought with half their lives on the line, even Rem could not say who would win. Those bear arms and leopard legs were spirit-descent sorcery built for exactly that.

But what was this?

Was he personally demonstrating what stupidity looked like?

If he had braced himself, closed the gap, and fought with spear in hand, swinging and throwing, no one knew what might have happened.

If he had sacrificed part of his lower arm or body and charged in, closing distance, sling shots would not have been easy to land, especially against someone with spirit-descent leopard legs.

But his opponent treasured his own body and focused only on blocking.

He kept his distance and fought like a timid little child.

No, not even western children fought like that.

He had lived too long and gathered too much, so now he could not give up anything.

The result was decided first by mindset.

'Ah, idiot.'

If it were Enkrid, he would have risked his life and charged.

This opponent was a halfwit. A halfwit who had forgotten how to fight properly.

"To a halfwit who can't even use sorcery!"

The Madman roared in anger, but it was a lie. That was not anger. It was fear.

Enkrid never showed fear, no matter the situation.

He was a pilgrim who moved forward, a wanderer who never stopped, a drifter searching for a signpost.

And so he was also a madman walking his own path.

"You're no good."

Rem spoke. The comparison was too glaring.

The man had lined up his spears and blocked the third stone again.

From the impact, stone dust met sleet in the air, formed a strange gray whirlwind, then vanished.

Wheeeeeeee!

He spun up a fourth disc. Snap. But before it could complete its role, the strap broke.

This weapon had to endure Rem's strength with centrifugal force piled on top.

This was normal.

The broken strap drooped to the side, and when the Madman saw it, joy replaced fear in his eyes.

"Stupid fool! A good weapon is part of your strength too! You challenged me with trash like that! Hahaha!"

What was he even saying.

Leaving that delighted idiot where he stood, Rem pulled out a second sling from his chest.

Did he really think Rem had not expected one to break?

The diagonal sling bag was full of stones.

He had at least five more slings of the same shape tucked inside his clothes.

'Still, it lasted three.'

He had thought it would snap after two throws.

"Huh? Huh? You have more?"

The Madman's eyes trembled.

"Idiot."

Rem sneered at him.

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