WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 307: The Dumbest Commander in the World

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Jaxon, the dumbest commander in the world, stood right behind the vanguard line.

Enkrid drew all the eyes.

So what should he do?

He studied the enemy soldiers.

More precisely, he read the entire enemy mass through his senses.

He did not need to see every last one with his eyes.

His trained five senses let him judge skill just by listening.

No hesitation in their steps, confident battle shouts, the speed of their approach, even the calm in their eyes.

Jaxon judged their level in his own way, different from Audin's, then slid his sword between the ranks.

A long blade shot out from waist level and stabbed forward.

"Kill them all!"

His first target was a man holding a heavy war hammer.

The hammer, weighted at the end, slammed into an allied shield.

He used the rebound from that strike to pull the hammer back.

Thud. Jaxon's blade punched through the hammer soldier's belly.

In and out.

"Huh?"

What was that?

What else would it be? A blade.

From behind a shield, cold eyes watched the enemy soldier.

Shhk.

The moment their eyes met, the bending blade whipped like a snake and slit the hammer soldier's throat.

He had built that move after watching Enkrid's Flowing Sword Style and roughly interpreting it his own way.

By the blade's path, it was closer to a trick sword, so it could be seen as separate from Enkrid's Flowing Sword.

"Ghk... gurgle."

The man who tried to speak grabbed his neck and fell backward.

Whether he foamed blood or not, allied and enemy boots trampled the soldier who dropped his hammer.

Jaxon kept doing the same thing.

He hid among allies and repeated single stabs.

He only targeted elite soldiers or above.

Among them, he let a few standouts go, the ones awkward to kill in one hit.

Jaxon did his job to the end.

The allied soldiers had no clue, but some commanders felt a strange flow.

"Why does it feel like we're winning?"

That came from an allied Squad Leader.

Weren't they behind in overall strength?

Then why were they winning?

No one knew.

Did that matter right now?

No.

"Fight!
Push them back!"

The commander did his job.

He screamed until his throat tore.

"Stay tight, don't scatter!"

Infantry battles on the continent were basically chaotic melees.

The tighter you stayed, the better. If you split, you were in danger.

Both sides fought in that same shape.

The Border Guard regulars who came as support were fighting just as fiercely.

"They're swinging around the side!
Don't let those bastards through!"

"What pain cannot kill me!"

"Only makes me stronger!"

"Pain!"

"Strength!"

Everyone who survived earlier battlefields was a veteran.

That was what a unit full of seasoned soldiers looked like.

They were a different breed from the battalion that had been stationed at Green Pearl.

They blocked the enemy forces curving right.

"It's the Gray Hounds!"

"Persistent dog bastards!"

Even allies knew that enemy unit by name.

The Gray Hounds were trying a flanking maneuver.

The Border Guard regulars blocked them.

"Crazy bastards."

The Gray Hounds were still the Gray Hounds.

Even with more numbers, the Border Guard regulars looked like they were getting pushed back.

It was still fine.

There were maniacs tearing things up at the front.

Enkrid rampaged with Heavy Sword Style as his base, and Jaxon hid inside the Green Pearl Unit's battle line, picking out only skilled fighters and men barking orders, then killing them.

That was why.

Normally they should have been pushed by Azpen's elite troops, yet the field settled into a strange balance.

Ragna moved to Enkrid's left rear.

He planned to do his part by taking one enemy at a time.

While swinging his sword, Ragna slowly worked up his fighting spirit.

He had lived for years without anything like motivation.

He still needed a trigger before he could truly come alive.

Ragna was the type whose engine started late.

Then it happened.

Killing intent brushed in from the left, and the instant he felt it, metal flew past his face.

Ragna snapped his head back.

He barely dodged.

He had warmed up too slowly.

Luckily, early or late, his body reacted on its own to attacks like that.

A blade skimmed his cheek and flung blood droplets.

The leather helmet covering his cheek got sliced by that sharp edge, and the lower part hung loose.

"You dodged that?"

The man who stabbed at him pulled back right away.

Ragna recognized it at a glance.

'He's good.'

He did not know why, but gladness came first.

Had he not wanted an opponent who stirred desire by nature?

There was a hunger Enkrid alone could not fill.

Blood on the line, life on the line, that was what Ragna wanted now.

He did not need to find a path.

So there was no way to lose one.

He only had to chase the retreating man's back.

Ragna tore off the uncomfortable helmet and threw it aside.

A few steps later, an enemy soldier holding a Shortsword blocked his way.

"You bastard!"

Where else would the man who tagged him with a blade retreat?

Back to his own side.

To follow him, Ragna had to drive straight into enemy ranks.

The enemy reacted.

Ragna reacted faster.

He stabbed while stepping forward and pulled the sword free.

One strike, and a hole opened in the enemy's throat.

As if the force of his own thrust was still there, the enemy body tipped forward and collapsed.

Before he even hit the ground, Ragna cut down five more and punched through the enemy line.

It was a brutally stupid charge, but it had one clear effect. It tore the enemy formation apart.

So the nearby allied commanders felt once again that the battle had gotten strangely easier.

'This is manageable?'

They had prepared to move the rear forward if things went wrong, meaning retreat prep, and now that looked pointless.

"Fight!
Fight and kill them all!"

The front ranks had been broken for a while already.

In a chaotic melee, the side that killed more won.

The Squad commander knew that well, so he kept shouting without pause.

"Pain is!"

That slogan had already spread everywhere.

"Our side is getting pushed."

At his lieutenant's words, Abnaier smiled.

Everything was turning as planned, so how could he not smile?

"Exactly as planned."

The lieutenant bit his lip.

He could not understand this operation.

Wasn't success here almost the same as failure?

"I'm going to become the legendary idiot who got a thousand soldiers killed."

Abnaier said it himself.

"Is this truly right?"

"It is."

There was not a trace of doubt.

The genius spoke in a clear, straight voice.

The lieutenant lowered his head.

He could not even try to stop him anymore.

'Come on, show me what you hid.'

Kraiss watched enemy movement.

They would do something.

Wasn't Enkrid rampaging out there?

Jaxon had also crushed enemy momentum.

And Ragna was off who knew where.

'This isn't the end, is it?'

He had kept Sinar and Dunbakel as hidden cards.

Until you saw all your opponent's moves, you were not supposed to show all of yours either.

"Big Eyes, I want to fight."

Dunbakel stood beside him with a hand on her scimitar hilt and nudged his side.

"Wait."

"What am I, a dog? You tell me wait and I wait?"

Beside them, Sinar stood silent with arms folded and eyes half closed.

"Try calming down like the Elf Company Commander."

"I'm Beastfolk, not an elf."

Even while soothing Dunbakel, Kraiss never took his eyes off the battlefield.

The whole battlefield held a strange balance, but in the smaller clashes, the odds were rising on their side.

Those small fights would pile up and bring victory across the field in the end.

That was the picture Kraiss had drawn.

He did not leave variables as just variables. He made them affect the whole battlefield.

He had prepared to pull back and stall for time if the enemy made a move, but he had not needed to use it.

That was how things stood so far.

Then why was Azpen only watching?

Why were they not playing the card they had hidden?

There was something. There had to be something.

If not, then why did they advance slowly and start the fight at the end of winter?

'No hidden trick?
Are they just idiots?'

Of course not.

"Messenger!
Messengerrrr!"

A runner came sprinting from the rear.

They had pulled Nurat back on purpose with a bright-eyed, fast-footed unit.

Garrett stayed behind at the command tent as a symbol.

The real combat commander of the Green Pearl battalion was Nurat.

Her eyes were sharp and her mind worked fast.

And this was exactly what they needed right now.

"Some enemy forces are flanking, and it's not a small number!"

As soon as Kraiss heard the report, a map rose in his head.

Terrain he had memorized, enemy movement routes.

What were they aiming for?

Border Guard.

They were going for the rear.

Some of those forces might already have slipped out.

"To the rear!"

Dunbakel and Sinar moved.

It was time to block the card the enemy had played.

"The second flanking force has been detected."

"Good!"

Abnaier clapped once at that report.

Not everything could go exactly to plan.

A battlefield lived and moved.

Still, if you aimed at only one objective.

You could achieve that.

The battlefield was ruled by small elite groups.

Abnaier knew that saying well.

Then what if you killed those elites?

Talent was finite.

Not endless.

How many geniuses came out in one era?

Not many earned that name.

The small number of knights proved it.

So.

Give up one battlefield.

Win the war.

Even if he got called the butcher of an era, the dumbest commander in the world, Abnaier would still smile.

"Preparation?"

"Finished."

"Good, proceed."

The lieutenant bowed and withdrew.

# # #

Just as Kraiss predicted, Abnaier sent part of his cavalry to Border Guard.

"Enemy!"

Border Guard had not dropped its guard, so they spotted them early.

Rem had been grumbling all day, then shot to his feet.

That news made him forget the cold in a heartbeat.

"Who came?"

Even if a lover he had split with ten years ago came back, he would not have looked this happy.

"Brother, they say if your heart rushes, you miss puddles and soak your shoes."

Audin stepped up from behind as he said it.

"Then you should've said it while leaving your club behind, right?"

"Heh heh, brother-nim.
The Lord says guarding your own body is the start of all things."

He sounded like an apostle of the God of War.

That attitude all but said he planned to beat everyone to death.

Teresa also tried to stand, but she stopped when she saw Audin's eyes.

The injury she got while killing the Wolf Bishop was severe.

Fighting in her current condition would ruin her body.

Audin would not allow that.

"Sister, you wait."

"...Yes."

Teresa regretted it deeply, but endured it.

Rem was excited, Audin was excited in almost the same way, and both went out to meet the enemy, but they did not get what they expected.

"What is this?"

Something felt off.

For a force that came to attack the wall, only a pitiful number of cavalry was visible.

They stayed far off and only tested the line, as if they might charge or might not.

Rem waited for two days.

"These bastards."

The enemy did not attack.

They only dragged out time.

It was one of Abnaier's tricks.

Earlier, Marcus had once pretended to head for Azpen's city, Cross Guard, and played a nasty trick on them. The situation was different now, but the result was similar.

Abnaier tied up Border Guard.

With this much cavalry, they could not strike the walls or cut supply lines.

If anything, Azpen's cavalry had more urgent supply problems.

And their numbers were not high either.

When Rem looked closer, each cavalryman had two or three horses.

It was a unit full of bluff, using horses to fake a larger force.

"Don't these bastards have anything to do?"

That left Rem badly frustrated, but Abnaier clearly got what he wanted.

He temporarily blocked the path for reinforcements from Border Guard.

He bought a little time, and for Abnaier, that was enough.

Esther smelled the scent of magic.

It was the scent of a fairly high-level spell.

She moved after that scent.

Step by step, she climbed a small hill and saw people gathered there.

One of them opened his eyes wide and stared at her.

"You."

A mage. A man known for his spell world that controlled river currents, Galaf.

His short brown hair and neat face stood out.

No one knew his real age, but he had worn that same face for ten years.

Had people said he drank from the river of life?

Only rumor, of course.

Esther looked at him in silence.

"I heard a curse ruined you.
Was that rumor nonsense?"

Galaf said in surprise when he saw Esther in human form.

Esther just kept looking at him without replying.

She had come all this way because she sensed traces of this man's spellcraft.

It was chance.

Along with mana flow, traces of a prepared spell had also been there.

And those traces happened to catch in Esther's senses.

Guidance of stars, call of fate?

No.

She did not believe in gods.

She believed in herself and her spell world.

She trusted only what she built, that was why she was a mage.

"Master."

One of Galaf's disciples stepped forward.

He was famous for raising many disciples.

Even now, he had six with him.

"You lot go."

Galaf said and examined Esther.

He could feel it just by looking.

'She hasn't fully undone the curse.'

The witch could not bring out even half her original strength.

"Witch of Strife.
Are you going to fight?"

His disciples alone could handle the prepared task, so he did not need to stay himself.

Still, he also had no reason to fight the witch on purpose.

Esther did not know what exactly they were doing here, but it was obvious it would harm the nest where she stayed.

If not, why would a mage of his level be here?

The nest where she was now was the man called Enkrid.

Magic would be dangerous to that man too.

She had gained things by staying in that nest.

At least this much, she had to stop.

"Dmueller's Scythe."

Instead of answering, Esther recited the spell she had prepared.

Following her fingertips, a vacuum-type cutting spell manifested physically and split the air.

Even though it was one of her specialty spells.

"Bartan's Shield."

A blue Magical Barrier rose and blocked the scythe wind.

The Magical Barrier rippled like water.

With that round blue membrane between them, the two mages opened their Worlds of Spells.

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