WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 316: Anguish, Ignorance, Despair

= = =

The people chasing Enkrid gave up.

The commander at the very front could not get his words out.

His lieutenant, watching from beside him, spoke.

"We lost him."

There was no helping it.

They had thrown a rope and caught him, thinking it was over, and he still snapped it with brute force and ran.

It was superhuman strength.

And that was not all.

As if he never tired, he kept running forward, only forward.

That madman never rested.

His feet never stopped.

After seeing that, no one could even bring themselves to keep chasing.

The target never rested and never stopped moving.

In the end, he ran and walked, ran and walked.

At some point, the commander's orders grew sparse, and then his feet stopped too.

The man called Enkrid had completely escaped the trap Abnaier set.

Even the Gray Hounds stopped.

Their commander stared blankly at the traces left by the vanished man.

He had not only broken out of the encirclement, he had even pushed into enemy lines.

If they chased from here, they would be hit by a counterattack.

So it was over.

'Abnaier, Abnaier.'

The Gray Hounds commander repeated the name of the man who said he would take all responsibility alone.

Had he not said it was fine even if every soldier died, as long as they caught that one bastard?

"Fine, call me an idiot later.

Call me a moron who sacrificed a thousand soldiers just to catch one elite enemy!"

The commander remembered Abnaier's speech, spat out in burning passion.

If they had all died, maybe then there would have been something to say.

But not even half the force had died.

No, only a tiny fraction had.

One sorcerer, two mages, a few mercenaries, and two Hurrier swordsmen.

The number of regular soldiers lost was small.

The enemy slipped away.

He carved out an absurd escape route, one no one would believe if they heard it.

The Gray Hounds commander admitted it.

'We can't catch him.'

All that was left was the report.

Had Abnaier said he would sacrifice a thousand men, catch him, and go down as a tragic incompetent commander?

Abnaier did not even get to be that.

He was robbed of even that chance.

* * *

Abnaier accepted that something had happened to Galaf and the junior knight too.

"They're not coming."

He said it while looking toward the distant battlefield, and Lieutenant Nilf lowered his head.

For this operation, Abnaier had staked everything.

It was almost a gamble against the Duke himself.

And the end of it was closing in.

"What about the ones who bragged they were masters of assassination?"

He had even deployed men who fought without hesitation under cover of darkness.

"We can't make contact.

They either ran, or..."

"They got taken out."

Run? They could not run.

With one flick of Abnaier's hand, their entire bloodline would be ruined.

Which meant they had been taken out.

By who?

It was absurd.

He had been completely outplayed.

"Hahahaha."

Abnaier laughed.

If you could not feel emptiness in a moment like this, you were not human.

"Does the world hate me?

Did the goddess of fortune turn her back on me?

Or did I miss something?

What did I miss?"

He talked to himself.

In that calm tone, every sentence was a dagger turned on himself.

Nilf had no way of knowing what Abnaier himself did not know.

So Nilf stayed silent.

They were inside the command tent.

Only the two of them remained.

Abnaier sat in a chair beside the brazier and lowered his head.

The hot flame singed a few strands of hair.

Crackle, crackle, sparks popped from the brazier and flew out.

Some landed on Abnaier's face, but he did not even seem to feel them, staring ahead in thought.

He kept thinking.

Should he curse everything just because none of it made sense?

Or should he accept it?

Accept what?

What exactly was he supposed to accept?

That luck had abandoned him?

If it was not luck, then how did they get out?

What happened to Galaf and the junior knight?

Those were the men he sent to intercept.

They were his second measure for catching the enemy's small elite force.

But that measure was cut off before it even began.

He sent them to kill a few visible targets in enemy lines and return, and they were captured instead?

How was that possible?

Aya?

Galaf, who held the river in his grasp?

And what happened to those assassin clansmen?

They were supposed to pick off enemy commanders, yet there was no such disturbance in enemy territory.

They vanished without a sound.

How could that happen?

'Did Naurillia send a knight?'

"Nilf!"

His mouth moved the instant the thought rose.

"A knight?

Red Cloak Knights?

Cyprus?"

He shouted names feared in Azpen, but it meant nothing.

Nilf's most important duty was monitoring events inside Naurillia.

The conclusion was simple.

Naurillia could not send knights right now.

"No."

Nilf's voice dropped to its lowest point.

Abnaier closed his mouth again.

His mind tore through possibility after possibility, but there was no way he could find an answer.

In truth, without knowing Enkrid had been repeating this same day, there was no way to know.

Abnaier ran both hands up from his forehead through his hair, let out a long breath, and said,

"I lost."

A clean defeat.

Looking at the possibilities, the enemy had too many options.

Maybe he grew to knight level in the middle of battle.

Or maybe he had been knight level from the beginning, and they failed to notice.

Then it made sense that something happened to Galaf and the junior knight.

That was the conclusion on their side.

The assassin clan had been countered.

Did an elf intervene?

He had heard there was an elven swordsman in the enemy army.

Still, even for an elf, that should not have been easy.

Fine, assume they had hidden talent.

And then Enkrid, Enkrid, Enkrid.

Abnaier chewed over one name three times.

That man Enkrid slipped out cleanly.

That part he truly could not understand.

What kind of person could do that?

Maybe he was truly born with impossible luck.

If not...

'A genius of instinctive judgment.'

A commander who moved by sense, not by thought.

He had only heard of such a thing.

He believed that kind of person could not exist.

Instinct was the sum of experience.

You could not discuss military tactics with sense alone.

Maybe you could get lucky once or twice by feeling the flow of battle, but fundamentally, instinct required knowledge.

Only then could sense become a basis for judgment.

In other words, experience had to support it before you could even feel a bad omen.

Yet the opponent was a late-blooming genius, not a lifelong commander hardened by war.

Even a veteran among veterans could not do this.

Even an old commander who had crossed a thousand battlefields, not a hundred, should have been able to catch and kill him.

Yet he slipped away.

"We can't just give up because we don't understand."

Abnaier muttered.

He had used every card he had, but one thing remained, something he had gained by staking his own life.

"Will you use it?"

Nilf asked because he knew, and Abnaier nodded because he knew.

"We started this, so we finish it."

When he borrowed mages from the Duke and brought in the junior knight, Abnaier had also brought in an unexpected ally.

But using that would itself amount to admitting defeat.

When he returned to the duchy, he would face a storm of accusations.

He probably could not keep his position.

He would be lucky if he avoided execution.

Even so, he could not let this end in defeat.

Abnaier stepped outside.

'I think this is the first time I've been crushed this badly.'

Not one of his plans had worked.

What had his original plan been?

Top priority was reducing the enemy's core combat power, that small elite group.

The first target was Enkrid, and the second was his subordinates.

'I never thought Aya would fail.'

Her eyes were special.

In some ways, they were even better than Frog's Talent-Reading Eyes.

Eyes imbued with Will could read an opponent's level at a glance.

That was why she was called Aya Who Never Fights a Losing Battle.

Though she personally liked to go around calling herself Azpen's greatest beauty.

'And that Aya got taken down?'

He truly could not understand it, but he had to force himself to.

He could not stop here.

Junior Knight Aya was supposed to find and kill the target assigned to her.

Galaf was supposed to be kept as a hidden trump card for later.

Enkrid was supposed to be trapped and killed.

Those were the top-priority objectives.

And that was not all.

There was more after that.

He had never intended to end this by spending a thousand soldiers just to kill one enemy.

There had been secondary objectives too.

'What a waste. What a waste.'

At minimum, this battle could have let Azpen push into Green Pearl again.

If things had gone as planned, it might have happened.

His strategy had accounted for what came after capturing the enemy elite, but now it was all useless.

What remained now was stubborn pride, or lingering attachment.

He could not tell.

Abnaier ground his teeth.

* * *

"So that's just a sprain?"

At Enkrid's question, Ragna raised his forearm, roughly wrapped in torn cloth.

"It's sprained."

Could he just insist and call it that?

Was that how this worked?

Audin had called a fracture a sprain too, and now Ragna said the same when this was clearly close to a major injury.

Without proper treatment, it was bad enough that he might lose use of the arm.

Of course, Enkrid himself was not in good shape either.

"Looks like my whole body's sprained too."

Enkrid looked himself over once and said it.

Ragna did not even smile.

Below them, Esther let out a rough growl, like she found this absurd.

After throwing out that useless joke, Enkrid turned around.

No sign remained of the ones who had been chasing him.

Did he really get out?

It looked that way.

That heavy gloom over his head and that ominous prickling through his body were both gone too.

Then what now?

Was this the time to feel relief?

Maybe it was.

"Yaaah!"

A shout almost like a cheer came from far away.

A loud female voice.

He narrowed his eyes and saw Dunbakel sprinting toward them.

Dunbakel was covered in blood too.

Her white fur was soaked and looked like dark red hide.

White and dark red mixed across her in blotches.

'She looks like a spotted cat.'

Enkrid had a pointless thought.

She ran as if she were flying.

Behind her, he could see allied movement too.

Kraiss could not hold back and sent troops.

"Fiance, is this what happens every time I take my eyes off you?"

Sinar came in behind Dunbakel too.

Even with light, springing steps, she was incredibly fast.

That was an elf's light-footed movement.

She came close and said that, and only then did Enkrid feel it clearly.

'Tomorrow.'

This day was finally fading.

The stretched sun cast long shadows beneath the hills.

It was the hour when the light that had illuminated all things dimmed and slipped past the western edge.

The orange sunset said that this today was different from yesterday.

Enkrid took in that light.

He had survived, struggled, and finished preparing to face tomorrow.

"Let's go back."

Enkrid finally spoke.

No one knew what had happened to him.

Not in detail.

But the battalion soldiers had seen Enkrid fight.

They knew he had torn into enemy ranks alone at the very front and swung his sword like a madman.

For the man cursed to repeat this day, it had happened long ago.
For them, it was only a day or two old.

Waaaaah!

The cheering tore through the air.

It was a hymn for the hero who pierced the center of enemy forces and returned alive.

"Pain!"

"Death!"

Even that trivial chant came with it.

All of it felt distant to Enkrid.

The sounds seemed to drift farther and farther away.

He wondered why, then realized his body was tilting.

Someone caught him from the side.

Unusually, Ragna leaned in and took his shoulder.

"Idiot."

Enkrid said it to him.

With the sunset behind them, the two injured men tilted at the same time.

Ragna was not in condition to walk properly either.

It was a miracle he had made it this far.

"Grrr."

Esther shook her head below them.

She looked like she was calling them idiotic humans.

"Here."

Dunbakel stepped in.

She was exhausted too.

Why were there so many bastards in enemy land who could use a blade that well?

She had not been at death's door, but she was drained.

Still, she was not so tired that she would collapse while walking.

Dunbakel simply lifted Enkrid onto her back.

The soft Beastfolk fur supported his whole body.

"Hey, you're soft."

Enkrid said through fading consciousness.

She really was soft.

"Did you pop drugs in the middle of the fight or what."

Dunbakel grumbled.

Enkrid looked back once more.

The enemy visible over the far hill did not come any closer.

"I can carry him, you know."

Sinar said something at Dunbakel's side, but Dunbakel ignored it and kept moving.

Ragna, who had been staggering while trying to support others, collapsed unconscious.

A few soldiers nearby took care of him.

It made no sense that he had walked this far at all.

Very little of his body was uninjured.

Waaah...huh?

The cheering cut off quickly.

This was not a pursuit, and seeing the men who returned, it was shocking they had walked back at all.

Among the cheers, the quick-witted ones moved first.

"Clear the way!"

"Get them inside!"

"Medic!"

The soldiers each did their jobs.

Commanders stepped in and set things in motion.

Enkrid and Ragna were taken straight into the unit lines.

Esther, trotting behind them, saw Enkrid's condition and shook her head inwardly.

He looked like someone who had crossed dozens of death lines.

At a glance, Ragna looked more injured, but in reality Enkrid was in worse shape.

Some bones were cracked or shifted out of place too.

That showed how hard he had pushed himself.

Not that Ragna was fine either.

To begin with, Esther had no interest in Ragna at all.

As sunset gave way to evening, they could receive treatment in the unit, and Garrett arrived too with bright, shining eyes, offering bedside care.

They called it bedside care, but his real purpose was elsewhere.

"Your mouth isn't hurt.

Feels like you've got a lot of fun stories."

He just wanted to hear stories.

Sinar, listening beside him, gripped Naidhl and said,

"You should learn how to respect wounded warriors who led a battle to victory."

She looked ready to hit him if he pushed further.

Garrett read the room fast.

"Nurat, I messed up, right?"

Nurat was the lieutenant who always covered his back.

She answered immediately.

"Yes. If you stay any longer, I might have a different superior."

"Why would that change?"

"If you die, it changes."

"Let's go."

Did he keep her around for comedy routines?

Wrapped in bandages, Enkrid watched the two comedians.

"Tell me next time."

Garrett left with that line in the end.

"Focus on healing."

Sinar stayed by his side, whatever she was thinking.

"You're not leaving?
I'm sleepy."

"Sleep.
Let me enjoy watching you sleep."

He still could not get used to elf-style jokes.

Enkrid slowly let his mind go.

He returned to cheers, but honestly his memory of it came in fragments.

That was how hard he had pushed his body.

He entered the medic tent, ate a little porridge, and lay down with ointment and herbs plastered all over him.

It felt like heat was rising through his whole body.

If physical toughness was the question, he was second to none.

Enkrid fell asleep.

He closed his eyes and saw a black river.

It was the Boatman.

"First is Anguish, second is Ignorance, third is Despair."

Enkrid did not understand what that meant.

Today's Boatman carried himself with even more gravity than usual, and Enkrid was so exhausted that even in the dream, his mouth would not move.

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