WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 301: Because He Wasn't Wrong

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"Waaaaaaah!"

The cheers slammed into his ears the moment they entered Border Guard.

His whole body tingled. Everyone had poured out into the streets and was shouting at the top of their lungs, so how could it not?

"My eardrums are going to burst."

Between the exhausted soldiers and the falling snow, people roared in celebration.

The Black Blade Bandits had threatened them, and cultists had swarmed in.

On the surface it had looked like Baronet Tarnin's army, but it was no different from dressing ghouls in human clothes.

An obvious trick. Anyone could see it. Even the innkeeper knew.

Azpen was still out there, but some moments could not be put off.

When was life most precious?

When you overcame a threat. When you escaped danger. When you felt, truly, that you were alive.

That was what the people of Border Guard were feeling now.

All of them had survived danger and beaten back a threat.

Some could not endure it and fled in the middle of the night.

Some broke earlier and ran first.

Others stayed in the city.

They did not spare their voices. They screamed like their hearts would burst.

"You! If it's you, I'll give you something I've kept for twenty years!"

Innkeeper Vanessa shouted.

She had lost her first husband at twenty-five and had not taken another man since. She guarded her body fiercely.

If someone tried anything, she swung an iron pot at them.

"Who wants that!"

A burly mercenary beside her shouted back. He must have been hurt in battle. His face was wrapped in thick bandages from his left eye to his chin, and blood had soaked through red.

As if he felt no pain, he kept yelling and laughing. The wound was bound to split open again.

"I wasn't talking to you!"

"Get a grip, innkeeper ma'am!"

Everyone laughed.

The mercenary kept bellowing.

"You fight like a damn monster!"

"Filthy good! That's how good you fight!"

At his lead, rough male voices exploded.

Women's near-screaming cheers mixed in between. Everyone was drunk on victory.

"Oh, come on, did you all forget Azpen is still out there? Is now really the time for this?"

Kraiss grumbled.

Rem reached over and rubbed the back of Kraiss's head.

Smack!

He moved a little too fast for a gentle pat.

Kraiss rubbed the spot and tilted his head, and Rem snickered.

"You enjoy it when you can, punk."

"You'll be enjoying things right before you die too?"

"Look at you. You're enjoying it right now. I'm about to split your skull into six pieces with an axe."

"Enough."

Enkrid stopped them. If he let it continue, Kraiss might not get his skull split, but he would definitely get hit a few more times.

"Bullying the weak because you're weak yourself is a bad habit."

Ragna said that as he watched.

Somehow, with Enkrid in the middle, the injured were on the left and the uninjured on the right.

So on the left stood Rem, Audin, and Teresa.

On the right stood Ragna, Jaxon, and Dunbakel.

"Huh? What was that? Hard to hear. Sounds like another idiot who gets lost every ten steps."

Rem said, cupping a hand behind his ear. This time, Jaxon answered.

"Bullying weak. Bad habit. Don't."

As he spoke, he added a side-to-side hand motion, like he was explaining something to a pet.

Whether people were cheering or calling him Undying Rem, Rem pulled out his axe.

"Come say it up close."

"No, wait. Tsk. No."

Jaxon crossed his arms in an X and kept gesturing.

If they left this alone, it would blow up.

Ragna saw it too and added another line.

It was like pouring dozens of oil drums onto a fire.

"One broke an arm on a single dog, and one barely survived."

Ragna did not sound like he was trying to provoke anyone.

That was both his strength and his weakness.

His strength was that he spoke sincerely. His weakness was that he never bothered to hide it.

Right now, it was definitely a weakness.

"Ha, brother. Are you asking for eternal rest?"

Audin did not flare up. He just moved quietly.

Ragna genuinely thought they were weak.

Enkrid had heard all this before.

If he let it go, they would march in to cheers and come out in blood.

All of them were quietly raising their momentum.

It had been a while.

Come to think of it, they had gotten along strangely well until now.

In a way, that looked like progress.

At least this time they were split into sides.

Rem and Audin on one side, Ragna and Jaxon on the other.

Then again, looking at it that way made it look even more like a disaster.

"Aren't you going to stop them?"

Even sharp-eyed Kraiss looked faint as he nudged Enkrid's side.

Enkrid was an expert at stopping these people now. One line was enough.

"I think I'm faster now, Rem."

The heated tension dropped at once. Rem asked back.

"What did you just say?"

"Check later."

The killing intent faded.

Enkrid turned to the horse leading ahead.

The panther that had gone in first after briefly showing itself was unhurt, but looked tired.

The one-eyed wild horse walked proudly without reins, busy scanning the surroundings. With this many people gathered, it should have spooked, but it stayed calm.

Horses were usually timid, but this one had endured magic beast blood and kept its nerve.

It was the kind of confidence that came from trusting its own ability to break out if things went wrong.

After seeing it run and fight on the battlefield, that confidence seemed justified.

"This one is part of the unit too."

Enkrid admitted it inwardly.

They entered the city with cheers behind them, and Rem stepped in front of Enkrid.

"Ta-da, ta-da, time to verify. Let's see it. What's faster."

"Your body's okay?"

Enkrid asked with genuine concern. He did not mean it as a taunt.

"Fuuuck."

Rem answered, stretching his mouth wide to both sides, displaying pure annoyance with remarkable skill.

The expression was grotesque.

It was a warm, harmonious conversation.

"Let's see it. If you're slower than me, this won't be fun."

Ah, what a fun bastard.

Enkrid took his stance.

In front of the barracks, with everyone watching, he repeated the process he had realized.

He still could not release it in one clean burst, and he was still clumsy at loading Will into it.

But once he loaded it, he was faster than Lykanos.

It was similar to the Will of Refusal.

His control was rough, but once activated, it was overwhelming.

Relaxation, contraction, explosion.

He repeated the same process as before and thrust his sword.

The straight thrust seemed to fold space and split sound.

Kang!

Rem tried to sweep the sword aside with his axe, but failed.

He had no choice but to block with the flat of the axe.

The result was a clash of steel.

"You block well."

Enkrid said it with sincere admiration.

He had not aimed to kill, but it was not an easy speed to stop.

"...What did you do while I was gone?"

Rem did not hide his shock.

And was it only Rem?

"Hm."

Ragna gave a short, dry cough.

Jaxon's half-open eyes widened.

Audin froze with the same smile still on his face.

He looked like a well-made statue.

Ragna was calmer than the rest only because he had seen it once before.

Seeing it once did not make it familiar.

If anything, it proved that killing Lykanos had not been luck.

His shock was no different from anyone else's.

Two words crossed Ragna's mind.

"Fast."

It was fast even now. Speed was relative. Seen that way, how many people could block that thrust?

A barbarian, that bear-like zealot, and those three feral cats could.

A Beastfolk fighter or Teresa would struggle.

Well, Teresa could do it if she committed and took a shield stance.

A Beastfolk fighter could not. Not because of a pure skill gap, but because of the difference in fighting style.

He could see other weaknesses too.

"But the gap after one thrust is too long."

The instant acceleration stood out more than ever.

"Bind it properly to your body and try again, yeah?"

Rem was right. It was not fully bound to his body yet.

His arm trembled, his stance slipped, his balance wavered.

That still did not diminish the strike he had just shown.

"Will focused on speed."

That meant Enkrid's thrust had reached a level worthy of a Squire.

Without realizing fragments of Will, a technique that surpassed old limits would not come out like that.

"Refusal and thrust."

Two fragments of Will.

Strange, but not impossible. Still, this was the first human of this type he had ever seen.

Then again, if Enkrid had been ordinary, Ragna would never have stayed by his side this long.

"Let's do that."

Enkrid stayed calm.

Under the heavy snowfall, each of them stepped into their own world.

Everyone here was the same. Watching Enkrid drove ruthless stimulation through them.

"Father."

Audin said it like a prayer. Dunbakel's eyes burned.

Teresa forgot her injuries and burned to fight.

And Kraiss, who had watched all of it, said:

"Are you serious? You're casually sparring right now?"

"Then what, should we clear snow instead?"

Rem shot back.

Kraiss steadied his breathing instead of sighing, then looked at Enkrid.

"Captain, I'll ask one last time."

"Ask."

"Bite down and rip him."

Dunbakel muttered nonsense from the side, and Rem kicked her in the rear.

"You didn't get hit enough, huh?"

"Why do you only pick on me?"

"Why do you think?"

Leaving those two behind him, Kraiss continued.

"You're going to keep fighting, right?"

That question carried a lot.

They could run as they were. If they gave up only Green Pearl, holding Border Guard was not difficult.

They had passed one major hurdle, so Martai's forces could move now.

The cultist unrest had kept them from withdrawing carelessly, but by now they should have marched and started this way. They would probably arrive tomorrow.

Even so, would they still choose to go out and fight?

"What if we leave it?"

Enkrid asked back.

"Hah. You sound like you already know, but if we leave it, this city will be hard to defend."

That was Kraiss's judgment.

Inside Naurillia was in chaos. Otherwise, reinforcements would have arrived long ago.

At the very least, Count Molsen should not have been able to ignore this to this extent.

"The center's power isn't reaching this far."

And they had quietly pulled out Battalion Commander Marcus too.

No matter how he looked at it, there was no good sign.

The conclusion was the same.

If they wanted to survive and protect the place,

they had to strike first. They could only gain by attacking while terrain and timing still favored them.

"What do you think those Azpen bastards are doing over there?"

Enkrid retrieved his sword, glanced over the falling snow, and asked.

The snowfall had grown stronger again.

If this kept up, everything nearby would turn into a white kingdom.

Bad news for the soldiers. Battle fatigue or not, snow clearing would come first.

If left alone, the drainage channels would freeze, and accumulated snow would collapse the roofs of poorly built wooden structures.

The barracks were stone, so they were fine, but if fences cracked, repairs would take extra work.

Better to clear snow before that happened.

Kraiss thought about the damage from snowfall while also thinking through why Azpen had waited and what they wanted.

The conclusion was plain.

"I don't know. If they wanted Green Pearl, they should've struck long ago. We need to watch a little longer."

He had ominous guesses, but all of them had low odds of happening.

"When the snow stops, we march."

Kraiss finished.

Enkrid nodded. What else was there to do before then?

Rest.

They ate and slept. But as snow kept falling until evening, complaints broke out among the soldiers.

"Let's drink and enjoy ourselves, you damned snow!"

Kraiss called that full-belly whining.

They were only getting this rest because of the snow.

Even so, anyone who wanted to drink and loaf did exactly that.

Instead of drinking, Enkrid reviewed what he had gained. He replayed the battle. He traced each event back one by one.

Had he missed anything? Was there anything to learn?

If you kept reviewing and replaying, there was always something to learn.

He spent about a day resting while working only his mind, then from the next day on, he slowly loosened up his body.

"Put this on."

Sinar came and tossed him ointment made by elves.

He did not know how it was mixed, but it was good medicine.

Once applied, small wounds healed quickly. It worked especially well on the burns on his back.

"I'll apply it for you."

The company commander even spread the ointment across his back herself.

A sharp sting and a cool sensation swept across him at the same time.

His recovery was quick because the Isolation Technique had activated his body's natural healing.

A renewed body, one that healed easily even when broken.

"Give me a few more. We have a lot of injured people."

At Enkrid's request, Sinar looked around and said,

"At that level, spit on it and it'll heal."

With that, the company commander strode out.

No matter how he looked at it, Rem seemed far more heavily injured than he was.

"This is discrimination, plain discrimination. Why only treat the captain like that?"

"You're not asking because you don't know, right?"

Dunbakel said from the side with total seriousness.

"I don't know. I don't. Since I don't know, let's train. Beastfolk. Beastfolk, come play."

Rem growled, and Dunbakel instantly bolted out of the barracks. Her movement was exceptional.

Tap. She kicked off the ground and shot through the door like a white blur. She had improved. It was obvious.

In front of the barracks, between falling snow, Dunbakel stuck out her tongue.

"What a joke."

Her voice reached Rem, but Rem did not run after her.

His heated leather had worn out, so he had stitched it again into a vest. Wearing that vest, Rem thought.

It's snowing and cold. Should I go out and rip that Beastfolk's throat or not?

Chasing a Beastfolk who stuck her tongue out and ran was easy.

Everyone was injured anyway. Let it get a little worse.

"Hold back, brother."

At Audin's gentle restraint, Rem snorted and lay down. She would come back eventually. When she did, he could beat her then.

The fact that she alone was unhurt proved she still had not dropped the habit of fighting while pulling back.

So he needed to drill proper fighting into her again.

That was the duty of the one in charge of training. Rem swore inwardly.

He would beat her down for sure.

Audin, one arm broken, checked the wound on Enkrid's shin.

"It'll heal soon."

The one saying that did not look like his own arm would heal any time soon.

Even in this situation, he did not use divine power. There was probably a reason. Enkrid did not ask.

Enkrid gave a rough nod and stepped outside.

He wanted to warm up a little.

He had heard that a few mercenaries had also fought for the city, so he planned to at least see their faces.

The snowfall had eased a little.

Several soldiers recognized Enkrid, stiffened, and gave sharp salutes.

Considering what he showed on the battlefield, their attitude made sense.

It was limited to this battlefield, but on that field, he had stood out more than anyone.

As he walked around outside the barracks, he saw a woman at the camp entrance, her nose red from the cold.

When Enkrid came out, she lifted her face.

"Ah."

She seemed to recognize him.

She approached, knelt, and bowed her head.

"I was taught that no matter how lowly I am, I must never pass by grace without gratitude."

The woman spoke. She looked over forty.

"Thank you for saving my son."

The woman thanked him through tears.

Everyone had told her to give up. He had saved that child. Her child.

To her, Enkrid was a god. Salvation. Grace. Everything.

A child she would trade her own life for.

Enkrid felt a strange surge rise in him. His heart trembled. It felt like someone whispered in his ear.

"You weren't wrong."

It sounded like the voices of dead Ger and Pit.

Then another voice overlapped.

"I'm cheering for your dream, mister."

He wanted to end war across the continent.

Enkrid wanted to become a knight and bring that end with his own hands.

To ensure no mother lost a child to war again. That was why he wanted to become a knight.

He helped the mother up, then calmly sent her back.

His fight, his dream, had only just begun.

If this were a road, he had only just reached the starting point.

No, he had not even reached the starting point yet.

He wanted to become a knight.

The faded, torn dream now stood before him, patched back together and holding light.

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