A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 312

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 312: What Is a Wall?

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"I took the wrong path."

Inside the mindscape, Enkrid picked at his ear.

Did I hear that wrong?

"Face the wall head-on."

The Boatman continued.

Doubt came first, but the words were still crystal clear.

Face the wall head-on.

Look at it properly.

What was a wall?

It was the number of people blocking him.

It was the quality of their forces.

Hurrier family swordsmen, mercenaries, Gray Hounds, mages, sorcerers.

It was even the terrain itself.

That had been the answer Enkrid had reached so far.

Grow stronger by force and break out.

And every time, a new obstacle waited.

Just when he thought he had barely escaped once.

"Gray Hounds never lose their target."

Bastards even worse than Rem in sheer stubbornness blocked his way.

Even with their heads cut off, their bodies still slammed into him.

The Gray Hounds had arrived, obsessive as ever.

Once he beat them, they were added to today too.

Included now.

At first it was the mercenary Cent and three Hurrier swordsmen. Then came the mages, then the sorcerer, and once he beat all that, the Gray Hounds appeared.

In the middle of all that, regular soldiers kept charging over and over.

He repeated what he had already experienced, yet every today was different.

The order of approach changed, and their fighting style changed.

Enkrid was not deeply versed in military strategy.

Still, one thing was certain.

Something had him trapped.

Then what should he do?

What did he need to get out of here?

He still thought the answer was force.

Some days he did not meet the Gray Hounds. Some days he got through without meeting the sorcerer or the mages.

Other days he did not even meet Cent.

At this point, seeing him was almost welcome.

Naturally, there were more days when he did meet him.

"Oh, it's Cent. Good to see you."

"You know me?"

Vallen Style Mercenary Sword, pretending familiarity.

Cent was good practice material for Illusionary Sword training.

Enkrid pierced Cent's neck with Spark, broke through the human wall closing in from all sides,

died again,

faced today again,

died crawling down a cliff searching for a way out below,

and even threw himself into the valley stream only to be battered badly by mages.

Around then, Enkrid decided there were five walls.

Mercenary Cent and the mercenary group.

Three Hurrier family swordsmen, whose names he now knew.

Rochi, Merier, and LeBlanc.

The four mages were the ones who summoned water ghosts or fired water cannons.

The water whip was especially dangerous.

If it caught an arm, the spinning current shredded arm guards in an instant. Even the users ended up gasping for breath.

He had seen their faces go pale more than once.

Then there was the sorcerer.

It mostly used a spell called "Invisible Force," and compared to the others, this one was not that hard to deal with.

Invisible did not mean no presence.

Sense of Evasion was enough to dodge it.

Still, plenty of its methods were annoying.

It would suddenly make the ground under his feet sticky, like glue had been smeared there, and it had plenty of other irritating tricks.

On top of that, the sorcerer was always with a large formation of heavily armored infantry carrying long spears, which made it especially troublesome.

Last came the Gray Hounds.

In raw force alone, Gray Hounds felt the weakest.

But in relentless viciousness, they were the worst.

For tenacity and sheer nastiness, they deserved a thumbs-up, no, two thumbs.

No matter what he did, these were the ones waiting for him in today.

Those five walls.

Mercenaries, Hurriers, mages, sorcerer, Gray Hounds.

It felt like he just needed to break through all five at once.

Impossible.

No matter how he looked at it, impossible.

Then archers, crossbowmen, spearmen, and heavy infantry got mixed in too.

Some were elf soldiers with excellent aim, and some were beastfolk who attacked with irregular movements.

At least there were no Frogs, Dragonkin, or Giants.

Then should he call it six walls?

Should those troops be counted too?

Not good.

Unlike his muttered thought, Enkrid was still enjoying himself.

He used the newly given time faithfully as he repeated today.

He struggled, then struggled again.

He used what he gained, then used it again.

Under winter sunlight mild for the season, this was the result of doing everything he could.

It was not good.

The experience of slaughter.

The experience of dying and killing had become completely familiar in his hands.

He killed and killed until the smell of blood numbed his nose.

But he still could not see a way out of today.

So the Boatman's words lodged deep in his ears.

He stared straight at the five walls, or six.

Did that change anything?

No.

Then he dreamed between repeated todays, and the Boatman said,

"If you do not know, you cannot cross it.
There is one wall."

Enkrid took those words to heart.

Several todays passed.

Taking it to heart did not change things all at once.

He could only think.

Then he met the Boatman again.

"Hey, doesn't this bore you?"

This time the Boatman spoke nonsense.

"More than boring, I think it's difficult."

That was why it was not boring.

Did an uncertain future consume his mind?

If he were the type to collapse from this much, he never would have dreamed in the first place.

Enkrid kept turning his thoughts over and over.

What was the wall?

It was right after returning to square one.

"How much do I have to spell out, and how far do I have to go before you understand?"

The Boatman spoke with open mockery.

Enkrid found it strange that he could read that emotion and asked back,

"Are you mocking me, by any chance?"

Maybe he had misunderstood.

"Do I have to say even that out loud?"

The Boatman immediately made a blank face of disgust.

He only knew it was disgust because the Boatman conveyed it.

With his path blocked and more time spent meeting the Boatman, Enkrid decided to satisfy an old curiosity.

"Why a ferryboat?"

Wouldn't a warden dragging hellhounds suit him better?

Why a river, why a ferry, why a Boatman?

"Because a boat can go anywhere."

"What does that mean?"

"Those words are not for you to understand."

After meeting him again and again, Enkrid came to one conclusion.

The Boatman had multiple personalities.

His temperament changed as it pleased.

"Do not be curious."

On days when he put on needless gravitas.

"I call you a son of a bitch."

On other days, his tone fluttered.

"Did you face the wall?"

There was a Boatman who talked about nothing but the wall no matter what was said.

"You sure are curious."

And there was a kinder Boatman who at least gave answers.

When Enkrid asked what he normally did, the kind Boatman answered,

"I row a boat."

He did answer, but that did not mean the answer was understandable.

"I see."

"You too will row a boat."

The Boatman said it, and Enkrid let it pass.

After more than three hundred todays, Enkrid felt the limits of his own technique.

It was hard to improve further.

He had felt the same when he faced that thrust freak.

There was a limit to what he could gain in a given moment, in a given situation.

Without reaching tomorrow, nothing changed.

So he had to cross the wall called today.

Five walls, or six.

No, one wall.

Turn five into one?

Gather them in one place and take them all at once?

He did whatever came to mind, whatever felt right.

He barely managed to gather the five groups and fight them together.

He died.

The four mages and the sorcerer worked well together.

They did not seem to know each other, yet they synced up quickly.

He also reconfirmed Cent's specialty.

He was better at stabbing from behind than fighting head-on.

Enkrid had been forcing frontal fights every time they met.

Come to think of it, Enkrid had always spotted him first through his senses.

So he had been aiming for Enkrid's back every time.

Enkrid had not known.

He learned it only after more than three hundred todays.

Either way, that was not the answer.

Next, he kidnapped an enemy soldier.

Normally enemy soldiers moved in groups of ten, but those going to relieve themselves moved in groups of three.

"I gotta piss."

That was the result of hiding himself and enduring right after waking up.

"All three go together."

Following the order from one who looked like a squad leader, Enkrid moved with them.

Of the three soldiers, he snapped the neck of the one urinating, then punched holes in the other two throats with Spark.

Enkrid hid the dead soldiers in the brush, then stripped one of their uniforms.

Changing clothes took more effort than killing them.

After roughly draping the soldier's clothes over himself,

Enkrid improvised.

"We're under attack!"

He shouted at once and headed somewhere other than his original unit.

What would happen if he escaped this way?

Would it judge this as evasion and send him back to today?

Did he really have to cross those five walls for it to count?

But the Boatman had said there was one wall.

He had said that if you did not know, you could not cross.

What was he missing?

He did not know that either.

His joy faded little by little, but despair did not take its place.

Enkrid searched everywhere for a method.

Wandering, digging, and enduring were also among his strengths.

"Are you the one who shouted?"

That was when he encountered another unit.

The enemy soldier gave him no opening.

He stayed on guard.

Why?

They wore the same uniform.

Did every soldier really know every other face?

That was not it.

"Withered Flower."

There was a password.

Could he figure it out by repeating a few more todays?

In any case, he was exposed.

Time to struggle again.

A mad battle followed.

Then, on the next today, he stole enemy clothes the same way and asked first this time.

"Withered Flower."

"Enemy!"

The other side shouted at once.

What had he done wrong?

Enkrid could not tell what was different.

The truth was simple.

Abnaier did not underestimate Enkrid.

He kept digging into him again and again.

He studied the man named Enkrid.

And what he got from that was this.

"He is skilled at tricks.
He is skilled at deception, a natural-born tactician."

This was one method prepared in case Enkrid tried to escape through deception.

The key to the password was not saying "Withered Flower." The key was performing the motion.

Words and motion had to be done together.

Once they saw that action, all they had to do was state unit affiliation and answer.

It was not complicated, but if you did not know it, you could never figure it out.

Abnaier was thorough.

He blocked any chance of Enkrid overhearing the password and slipping out.

At the same time, he made nearby units learn each other's faces.

He also created differences in uniforms so they could verify identity.

These were things Enkrid could not learn just by repeating today.

More than anything, after trying it a few times, even Enkrid had a gut feeling.

This was not the path.

This is a headache.

Enkrid calmly steadied his mind.

What had he missed?

Thinking, review.

He repeated it because he did not forget his own strengths.

He replayed the Boatman's words.

Only because he had repeated today and experienced death over and over could Enkrid realize it.

There is one wall.

What is a wall?

Something to cross.

There is one wall.

After repeating that line again and again, he understood.

He finally knew why the Boatman had said it.

"I got it."

"What?"

The realization came to him right in front of Cent.

The mercenary's eyes flew wide in surprise.

What was staring going to do now?

Enkrid smashed Cent's jaw with the hand holding his sword.

Crack!

The jawbone shattered, teeth scattering through the air.

Then he cut the bastard's neck with his gladius.

Slash!

The severed head fell to the ground.

"Kill him!"

He fought again, and fought again.

Right before dying, he shook enemies off again and again to catch his breath.

As for how to fight a long battle, he had now mastered it.

Each time he reset his breathing, his thoughts sorted out.

Enkrid needed to know the method to move forward.

If you do not know, you cannot cross.

Of course.

What he had to realize first was not the wall, but the method.

It was not five walls.

Strategy.

Or tactics, or military art, that kind of wall.

He had to escape the trap the enemy commander had laid.

How?

He was not Kraiss.

Then what should he do?

Enkrid searched his memory.

He had once had a similar conversation with Kraiss.

When that conversation came back to him, so did the method.

No, the road ahead was still long, but now he could see how to find the method.

"In my view, people who use their heads split into two types.
One predicts everything and prepares.
The other moves by instinct in the moment.
Both still need sharp brains."

Then Kraiss had added,

"Captain, you're strongly in the second group.
You're far from the first."

Enkrid did not ask why.

Still.

He reviewed each of the more than three hundred todays one by one.

Moments he had skimmed past because he was fighting like a madman stacked up.

Things that slipped through gaps in his senses and rang warning bells.

Why had he passed over them, why had he ignored them, why had he needed to?

Because he had to cross the wall in front of him.

His field of view did not narrow.

This was different from before.

He had only failed to cross because he did not know the wall.