A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 304

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 304: Anytime.

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304. Anytime

Standing outside alone, Ragna was reflecting on the past.

"A thousand times. Don't even think about coming in until you finish all of them."

A thousand downward strikes did not sound difficult to him.

But Ragna was curious.

'Why do I have to swing a sword?'

His arm hurt. His body hurt. It was not fun. Had it been fun when he first held a sword?

He did not know, and he did not remember.

"Why? You asked why? If you were born a man of House Zaun, this is naturally what you must do."

They called it natural. Could that really be a reason?

The same things kept repeating.

Why did he have to do it?

"Raise the prestige of House Zaun."

Why should he do that?

"Become a knight."

Why did he have to become a knight?

"Kill."

Why did he have to kill?

Ragna had never found his path, not since childhood.

For him, finding a path had always been the hardest thing.

Why had it been so hard?

Because he did not know the right road. Because there was no road he knew. Ragna had no destination.

That was why he was always curious.

How could a man like Enkrid be that way?

Shouldn't everyone, at least once, doubt the path they were walking?

Whether this road was right. Whether this was a valid reason, whether it was enough to be the reason for a life.

Until now, Ragna had never once seen the confusion of lost direction in Enkrid's eyes.

Anyone could wander sometimes, but not Enkrid.

He was always certain. So Ragna wanted to ask.

Why do you want to become a knight?

* * *

Enkrid looked at Ragna and scratched his chin out of habit.

The answer itself was obvious.

He just did not know whether it was the answer the other man wanted.

'Rem is easier to deal with, honestly.'

Rem's thinking was flexible. It was hard to see because he was insane, but his mind bent and never broke.

Audin was sturdy. His mental endurance was so solid that nobody else could compare.

'He looked unstable at first.'

Even now he wavered sometimes, but that wavering had refined steel inside it.

That was probably the best way to put it, the kind of toughness that made you sure he would never collapse.

Jaxon was steady. Because he was steady, he was cold. He did not show passion easily, no matter what happened. Even so, now and then, heat flashed in that coldness, hot enough to burn just by looking at it.

That was how Enkrid saw the insides of his company members.

Then what about Ragna?

'A blade that can cut anything, yet can break just as easily.'

He was unstable and dangerous. He was the man most worthy of the word talent, and the man who used that talent in the most unstable way.

Enkrid did not choose his words carefully.

He did not bother thinking hard either.

"It comes from here."

He just tapped his chest and spoke.

Ragna stopped when he heard that. Maybe he had forgotten to breathe for a moment, because he held his breath for a long time.

Enkrid watched quietly. A little later, Ragna let out a steady breath and spoke.

"Is that why you want to become a knight?"

As a child, it had been a dream. As he grew up, it became a yearning goal. At one point it was an obsession. Now it was the path he had already walked and would keep walking.

The War-Ending Knight, the one who ended wars, had started as a bard's song and turned into his dream.

If he had to say it out loud, that was the reason.

But if he sank deeper and dug further in, this was work his heart told him to do.

Saving children, protecting the weak, keeping oaths, they were all the same.

How could there be only one reason for wanting to become a knight?

So this was the answer.

"Does my 'why' really matter?"

He answered a question with a question. Ragna fell into thought once again.

His eyes were on Enkrid, but his thoughts were drifting elsewhere. Enkrid caught that by instinct.

Rem, Audin, Jaxon, Ragna, they were all the same. They looked at him and searched for answers. They got something from him. Esther was similar too.

If he had not had at least this much sense, he would never have become the captain of a troublemaker squad. He would have ended up as a crow's meal in some corner of a battlefield.

"I'll go in first."

A fun question, a fun answer, that was what Enkrid thought.

As he started back in, a paranoid thought hit him that if he left Kraiss alone, Kraiss might plot with Garrett and come up with an escape plan. Then Ragna's voice came from behind.

"After this battle ends, let's have a match."

"Anytime."

"With more than half a life on the line."

He meant a serious fight.

"Anytime."

Enkrid gave the same answer again and walked into the tent.

Left behind, Ragna quietly felt the explosion and eruption rising inside him.

It was almost like a volcano bursting.

Something boiling up from his lower belly slammed into his chest and pounded at his heart.

'Why am I alive?'

Once his question about why he had to swing a sword reached the reason for his life, Ragna lost his drive.

He became lazy. He became a lost sheep. If he had never met a shepherd, he would have lived like that forever.

"Let's fight."

Ragna spoke to empty air. No answer came. The one who could answer had already gone into the tent.

Ragna focused on the voice rising from inside himself.

It was the voice of his mind. The cry of his inner world.

'Hey, can you finally hear me now?'

He heard it. The scream he had ignored until now, the rebuke, came through clearly.

At some point, even when he met decent opponents, it stopped being fun.

'So this was killing.'

He no longer saw it as crossing swords. He saw it as killing people along a predetermined road. It was not a contest, it was labor.

That did not mean he felt guilt about killing.

If someone had picked up a weapon and stepped out, should they not always keep death in mind?

The other side had drawn a sword too, so they had to accept it.

Ragna had thought he would wander all his life and die in a nameless field, but life did not always go as expected.

'Idiot, do you finally get it now?'

Hearing that scolding voice inside him, Ragna laughed. A smile spread across his face.

"Ah, yeah, I get it."

He even muttered to himself.

Through his inner self, Ragna faced his own desire directly. He confirmed his longing. He found his path.

He wanted to fight an opponent who made his heart pound.

'I want to fight someone who will push my limits.'

Sinar had come out of the tent a while earlier, and she had heard their whole conversation from off to the side.

An elf's hearing was like magic that ignored ordinary distance.

From her perspective, Ragna's question had been strange, and Enkrid's answer had been strange too.

Then Ragna muttering to himself was even stranger.

Everything was strange.

Yet she could not explain why listening to the two of them felt so pleasant.

It felt fresh just to hear them. It warmed her chest. Feeling that emotion for the first time in a very long while, Sinar smiled without realizing it.

If anyone had seen her, it was a smile she never would have shown.

* * *

He looked at the map and read the terrain.

Inside his head, Kraiss sorted through dozens of possible outcomes and picked the ones with the highest probability.

'Still not enough.'

Their strength was lacking, and the information on the enemy was badly lacking too.

'How do we win? No, this is a fight where we win just by holding.'

It would be enough if the Palisade did not collapse. Then the answer was clear. Defense. Not a push, but defense.

'No.'

If they only defended, they would lose. Unless Azpen was a gathering of morons.

If they were that stupid, they would have already struck the rear from the start.

His thoughts chased each other and then tangled.

"This is why it doesn't work. Still, the best option is defense."

That was what Battalion Commander Garrett Gairo said. The guard called Nurat muttered something behind him.

Kraiss did not catch it.

He was getting dizzy thinking how many times this had happened already in this battle alone. Running away would have been easier.

'Why do we have to protect this city?'

Why could they not run?

The most important thing in the world was your own life.

The second most important thing was Krona.

Somewhere around third came Enkrid.

So this was all because of the captain.

"Ah, whatever."

In the end, Kraiss gave up completely. This strategy meeting had started out of nowhere.

They had already been sweating and arguing for three or four hours.

When he turned around, Enkrid was there. He seemed to have gone out, then come back and listened in.

"The best option is defense, hold out until winter passes, so do you think Azpen doesn't know that and is still creeping over here anyway?"

Garrett asked.

"Yes, that's why I judged their slow advance as the real problem."

Kraiss answered. Repeating the same points was part of finding an answer.

This had been the first exchange between Kraiss and Garrett when they met.

"How's their speed?"

"Slow."

"That's bad."

"Very bad."

That was the conversation.

Garrett said they were slow. Kraiss said that was bad.

Why was it bad?

Because if they were advancing slowly even though they knew this place favored defenders, it meant they had some hidden scheme.

Enkrid had been watching quietly, then he asked, "What's the worst case?"

"A dragon pops out over our heads and starts breathing fire right away."

Kraiss answered without pause.

"A dragon is too much. That's impossible."

Nurat cut in.

Garrett did not stop her. Kraiss spoke again.

"Another one is that a knight-level force suddenly shows up."

"We've tracked knight-level movements as much as possible."

This time Garrett answered.

"At their pace, they'll reach us in four to five days at most. Until then, we endure while organizing and sending out recon units."

Enkrid looked at the map too.

He grasped the terrain and roughly memorized it. His memory had never been bad since childhood. On top of that, he had worked as a Pathfinder, so memorizing a few routes was easy.

"What do we need most right now?"

"Variables."

The answer came at once. If you did not know what was inside a barrel, you shook it. Kraiss thought the same, but what did variables mean here?

Did they need to sacrifice troops just to see the enemy's reaction?

That would just be idiotic.

Then what should they do? Hit the supply line? That would not work either. Their preparations were airtight. Their slow advance existed for that exact reason.

They were literally walking while checking what lay on the ground, looking at every single pebble, stabbing, poking, and collecting as they came.

There was a proverb on the continent: when crossing a stone bridge, if knocking on it did not reassure you, turn back and take another way. If something felt off, do not do it, even if it cost time.

Thoroughness mattered more than speed.

That was exactly what the enemy was doing now.

So the best they could do now was endure, and next was to shake them.

"Sometimes, if you watch the reaction, you can see the intention."

"Good method, but how easy do you think that is?"

Garrett said with his arms crossed. Nurat added to his point.

"They're coming very slowly, without showing even the tiniest opening. We formed a Ranger unit and sent them to hit their supplies, but it did nothing. Not one came back alive."

Enkrid nodded. It was not like he had some special trick either.

"We should rest and prepare."

That was the decision. Garrett nodded in agreement.

"When this battle ends, could you tell me some stories from your past?"

After the meeting ended, Garrett came over and said that.

What kind of person was this man? He was no ordinary man.

He was the one who built the defenses at Green Pearl and reorganized the army the moment Azpen appeared. His readiness was solid and reliable.

"What stories do you mean?"

"Stories of your fights, what happened in the Troublemaker Squad, the moment you became company commander in the end, the battle from then, all of it."

Garrett's eyes shone. He looked excited. He had the eyes of someone waiting for something fun. Enkrid scratched his chin.

He would have plenty to do after the battle ended.

Surviving came first, though.

Enkrid also had things to think about.

If Azpen came like this, what could they do to give the enemy commander a headache?

"Yes, later."

He answered roughly while thinking about something else. Garrett seemed satisfied with that and nodded.

Maybe it was a relief that Garrett was not a traitor.

From Enkrid's point of view, his best move would have been defection. Wouldn't it have been much easier if he had stood with Azpen and pointed his blade at this side?

Enkrid asked without hiding what he was thinking.

"If running is the only answer and at best you'll be treated as a war criminal, why didn't you defect? Azpen must have made you an offer."

It could have sounded like a sensitive question, but Garrett did not care.

"Romance."

"...What?"

"Because the romance is here."

What was romance, then?

Garrett's dream was to be a poet. He had real talent for rhythm too.

To him, everything happening in Border Guard was material. It was story. It was romance. It was his dream.

And Enkrid in particular looked exactly like the lead in a play.

He loved heroes. So he could not help liking Enkrid even if Enkrid did nothing.

The more he dug in and learned, the more Enkrid kept accomplishing impossible feats one after another.

"Living like this and dying like this sounds several times more fun."

Garrett smiled. In a way, he was a madman similar to Enkrid.

Basically, if he got inspiration to recite a romantic poem today, he did not care if he died tomorrow.

Enkrid did not know every detail, but instinctively he knew this man would not betray them.

If Garrett had drawn the blade of treachery, this situation would not even exist.

"He's kind of like Captain."

"What is?"

"That, you know, here."

From the side, Kraiss said it while poking his own head with his index finger. For some reason that irritated Enkrid, so he drove his elbow into Kraiss's skull.

"Agh!"

Kraiss grabbed his head and rolled. Nurat saw it and rushed over to support him, asking if he was okay.

"I'm fine. Ah, you're Nurat, right? Shall we have tea and talk?"

Even in this situation, he was flirting. Yes, that was Kraiss. At least he was not wandering around in a panic, so this was better.

Whether he was acting like that because he had half given up, or because he thought they still had a chance, Enkrid did not know.

He stepped out of the barracks. He planned to take a look at the fortifications Garrett had built.

While he was looking around, he spotted a cluster of soldiers.

They had lit a fire and were grilling something, and the smell was incredible.

When he got closer, he saw long chunks of meat skewered on long branches.

One side brushed on seasoning, the other side grilled.

Their division of labor was excellent.

"Let me sit with you."

Enkrid squeezed into the group.

"Huh? Never seen you before."

"I joined today."

More than half the soldiers did not know Enkrid's face.

This was a battalion specialized in supplies. Everyone was working with practiced hands.

Garrett's unit had always been like this. His strength was support, not combat.

"Fine, I'll give you one."

There was a female soldier among them, and she stared straight at Enkrid's face. It might have been natural for her to turn friendly. Enkrid's face could work like a weapon sometimes.

"Stop staring, it'll wear out."

A soldier who was brushing seasoning teased her.

"Hey, they're my eyes. Let me enjoy something nice. Looking at you guys every day was making my eyes rot."

"You're full of crap."

The way they treated each other was warm. The fact that they still worked in perfect sync while talking like that proved they got along well. Enkrid shoved his way in between them.

Even with thick blankets laid on the ground, the cold still crept up.

Soon, he put freshly grilled meat in his mouth.

The moment he chewed the bite, thinking it was snake meat, it melted softly in his mouth.

"What is this?"

When he asked, the soldier grilling the meat grinned and answered.

"It's good for men."

Enkrid judged them one level above Martai's bread-baking unit.

That was how good it tasted.

He learned one more thing too: Garrett managed his unit incredibly well.

'They say fighting isn't his specialty.'

There was room to breathe among his soldiers. It was a well-managed unit.

Enkrid grabbed and ate several more pieces of meat right there.