WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 317: Black Lily

= = =

As his body demanded recovery, Enkrid kept repeating the same day in relentless battles.

Dunbakel and Sinar moved quickly to intercept the light cavalry striking the rear, then clashed with the enemy in bloody fights.

While Ragna excitedly babbled about finding a trigger and called it "brown shit," Jaxon was busy too.

"Hm."

For the first time in a very long while, the scent of his own trade pricked his nose.

There was no real smell.

Jaxon's sharp five senses blurred together and fused, stimulating his sixth sense, so he caught that "scent" as a feeling.

Silent footsteps. A blade approaching.

What he felt through his sixth sense took shape in his mind.

Jaxon slipped out from among the soldiers.

The other group recognized him too.

They were the ones called an assassin clan.

They were the people who founded Azpen's assassin guild, Monterre's Swamp, and its true masters.

Three assassins on an entirely different level from the figurehead guildmaster.

Each of them was fully confident in their own skill.

The moment they identified Jaxon, they moved.

"There's one sloppy one over there.
Kill him and move on."

The will of all three connected through eye contact alone.

Jaxon deliberately leaked his presence, deliberately leaked sound, deliberately lured them.

That was right.

He was seducing them.

Urging them to kill him.

It was temptation broadcast with his whole body, saying he was used to this kind of fight, but still weaker than they were.

"Three."

Jaxon gauged their number from the faint killing intent trailing him.

He moved like a tango of seduction and slipped out of allied ranks, and the three tracking him made their move.

One soldier in the allied formation broke ranks.

An old soldier in a poorly fitted helmet stumbled with a spear hugged to his chest.

He drew the eye in a strange way.

Even the way he fell was loud.

Thud, he dropped to his knees first, then even shouted, "Oof!"

Enemy or ally, nearby soldiers all turned to look at the old man.

Ridiculous as it was, he wore a Border Guard uniform, and no one knew when he had stolen it.

Without even looking, Jaxon knew the old soldier had not made that sound with his knees. He had slammed the ground with thick gloves.

At the same time, he felt a blade flying in from behind.

It was a skewer-thin sword.

Watching what the old soldier did, Jaxon answered with a similar trick.

"Ah!"

He moved as if startled, then fell forward.

The clumsy wobble looked exactly like a stupid recruit.

"You idiot!"

An allied commander watching from behind shouted.

To that commander, it looked like Jaxon had broken formation and an enemy had stabbed at his back.

It looked like he had barely dodged, so it made sense to bark at someone who had left the line.

Jaxon did not drag the fight out.

He had fought this kind of battle enough to be sick of it.

As he fell, he had already thrown a silent dagger, the Soundless Throwing Dagger.

Thunk.

The old soldier raised a hand to guard his chest.

The dagger pierced into it like a flower arrangement.

"You blocked it."

Jaxon muttered flatly.

He stayed half bent at the waist.

The old soldier, who had blocked the Soundless Throwing Dagger with his hand, saw Jaxon raise his head with his chin tucked.

Those eyes were armed with pure indifference.

A red tint ringed the pupils, with a deep reddish-brown core.

The moment he saw those eyes, goosebumps ran all over him.

The clansman yanked out the sword that had pierced the back of his hand and moved his fingers.

[Kill him.]

An order in sign language.

It was reflex.

Dread had already crawled down his spine.

The other two clansmen immediately used their specialties.

They threw poisoned daggers and burst poison smoke at Jaxon's feet.

The allied commander stopped as he moved to save the "recruit."

He was one of the Border Guard men.

A closer look showed the one who had fallen was not a dumb recruit, but Jaxon.

In truth, Jaxon had shown his face on purpose to say do not interfere, but the commander could not have known that.

If someone still approached and died after all this, that was their fate.

Not his concern.

He had left enough distance that they would not die if they stayed away.

That was why he had left formation.

Using allied soldiers as shields would have made this easier, but he did not do that.

At this level, even if Enkrid, the captain, saw it, he would not look at him strangely.

The captain hated seeing allied soldiers used as meat shields.

"He cares about all kinds of things."

Jaxon felt the blade in his heart dull for a moment.

Still, that did not dull the techniques carved into his bones.

Shhk, shhk!

Daggers split the air, and steel wire had already been pulled taut, aiming for his ankles.

Jaxon read all of it and avoided all of it.

His senses were monstrous.

Naturally.

Sense of Evasion and Gate of the Sixth Sense were both things Jaxon had taught.

In pure sensory ability, Jaxon was a genius who had surpassed elf-level perception through effort alone.

After that, the rest was obvious.

The assassins resisted and tried to flee, and Jaxon chased them one by one, giving each either a second mouth across the neck or a flower-arranged dagger in the heart.

Before long, they were far from the main battlefield.

Meaning no one, enemy or ally, properly saw this fight.

Even if they had stood right in front of it, all they would have seen was things flashing by.

"Fuck, are you from Georg's Dagger?"

That came from the final opponent.

The one disguised as an old soldier asked while dying.

He sounded wronged.

"Would knowing make you feel less wronged?"

"Shit."

Blood streamed from the corner of his mouth.

If he left the dagger in his chest, he would live a little longer.

Jaxon had no reason to grant that.

He pulled the dagger out, then jumped back.

In one last act of resistance, the man fired a needle he had hidden in his mouth.

It cut through empty air and flew off uselessly.

"You bastard."

How did this man never let his guard down, not even a little?

No matter the assassin's attitude or glare, Jaxon stayed the same.

He stood a short distance away, watching with indifferent eyes.

Until the trembling man died, Jaxon checked his own wounds.

Poison marks were obvious.

Black foam bubbled up over his skin.

It was deadly poison, but not the kind fatal to him.

He knew this poison.

By the time he finished checking his wounds, the last assassin was dead.

Out of habit, Jaxon searched the body.

Needles, poison powder, smoke bombs, and similar tools came out.

Then he saw a tattoo on their bodies.

It was one emblem.

Black Lily, one of the traces Jaxon had been pursuing.

He had not expected to find it on Azpen assassins.

Jaxon stared at it for a while.

He could not just let this pass.

Which meant it was time to leave for a little while.

"For a little while?"

It felt strange to realize he was already assuming he would come back.

Since when had he lived with a home, or a place to rest?

A place to return to.

What a full-bellied thing to say.

Yet separate from that thought, he also knew he would do his best to return.

For now, for now, he still wanted to see what Enkrid would do.

That man had something that made him impossible to look away from.

"I should at least say something before I go."

So a report asking for a short leave would be enough.

* * *

Enkrid repeated sleeping and waking.

When he was hurt and in pain, eating well and sleeping well mattered. No one knew that better than he did, so he did exactly that.

Most of all, every time he opened his eyes, he was hungry.

The body built by the Isolation Technique made its demands for recovery.

It was a very forceful demand.

The message was simple.

Hunger.

He was absurdly hungry.

"Any food?"

That was the first thing he said right after waking from being half dead.

"Y-Yes?
Yes, please wait a moment!"

The disciplined medic bolted away from his side.

He came back with thin porridge in his hands.

"I'll feed you!"

"No need."

Someone had wrapped both his arms in thick bandages, but he was not helpless enough to be unable to lift porridge.

He took the bowl and spoon and finished it in no time. The medic said:

"You should not eat that quickly."

"I'm fine."

Even before the Isolation Technique, digesting food had been one of his strengths.

If you did not want to die, knowing how to sleep and eat well was mandatory.

No skill and no stamina?

Perfect setup for dying as a mercenary.

Then what about now?

Maybe he could digest dirt, if not iron.

"Brother-nim, eating well and shitting well are basics."

The Isolation Technique was a method for building the body.

It did not just harden muscles on the outside. It controlled the inside too.

So of course it included how to eat and how to rest.

Enkrid ate, then closed his eyes.

He planned to rest deeply.

He kept eating and sleeping like that.

When he opened his eyes for a moment, he saw Jaxon.

Dried blood in his hair, and his expression looked unusual.

The smell of dirt and blood hit his nose.

Enkrid had wondered where he went right after the battle without even a send-off, and it looked like he had been busy somewhere.

"I need to step out for a bit."

Jaxon said.

"If I stop you, will you stay?"

Enkrid asked without blinking.

Pointless curiosity.

He normally would not ask that, but he was half drunk on sleep.

Even then, Jaxon's expression did not change.

He was going either way.

Enkrid did not need to hear the answer.

"Go, then come back."

Squad members, Jaxon included, had things they could not compromise on.

Enkrid did not know what those things were, but he knew they existed.

He respected that.

They were his squadmates, and also the people who had brought him this far.

He had built today on top of their techniques and reached this point.

Meeting Jaxon's eyes, Enkrid added one more line.

"Don't be late."

"I'm not directionally challenged."

No smile in the reply, but it was a joke.

Neither Enkrid nor Jaxon smiled, but they used that joke as their farewell.

After only a few words, exhaustion crashed into Enkrid.

"Sleeping."

"Yes."

When he opened his eyes again, Jaxon was gone.

Come to think of it, it had also seemed like dawn when he woke earlier.

This time Sinar stood there holding a spoon.

"Ah."

An inhumanly beautiful elf held out the spoon with a blank face and urged him to open his mouth.

She meant to feed him.

The intention was obvious.

"Aren't you busy?"

What was this elf even doing here?

"My fiance almost died and came back to life. I should at least do this much."

An elf-style joke.

Enkrid blinked, then got too lazy and opened his mouth.

The elf really pushed the spoon in.

"Want me to chew it for you?"

"Why would anyone chew porridge for someone?"

"It means my heart feels that way."

"Elf society is indecent."

"Was that an insult?"

"Not really."

"I'm the only one like this.
And only with you."

Enkrid still found elf-style jokes awkward.

He had adapted this much at least.

"Should I prepare an elf-style meal for you next time?"

"What's in it?"

He had seen Frog eat bugs.

"Green nutritious porridge full of high-quality fiber."

"How does it taste?"

"Nothing less than heavenly."

"I'll pass."

No matter how he thought about it, it sounded like torture for his taste buds.

He really liked the porridge he was eating now too.

Finely ground meat and onion, plus spices on top.

Whoever made this did excellent work.

Since returning that evening, he had mostly been laid up.

Enkrid slept through more than half the day.

In between, he saw Jaxon off and got fed porridge.

During one brief wake-up, he even saw Ragna sleeping.

Dunbakel came by and grumbled too.

"This fight was bland.
I can do better."

Why was she telling him that, though?

Yes, he knew she fought well.

Even seeing her get beaten up by Rem made that clear.

"I'll do better next time."

He still had no idea why she kept stressing that point.

Sleep, eat, rest, repeat.

His body demanded recovery.

Enkrid listened.

Since he stayed awake only in short bursts, he had no chance to review the fight.

Once in a while, he wondered where Jaxon had gone, but knowing would not change anything, and he did not particularly want to know either.

If it was something Jaxon meant to say, he would say it.

Enkrid focused on eating, drinking, and resting.

"Do you work hard at this too?"

When he woke briefly, a female soldier asked that.

Enkrid blinked twice and remembered her name.

"Helma."

Beside her stood the seasoning-master soldier.

That guy had bandages wrapped around his head and shoulder, probably from getting hurt in battle.

Another hesitant face stood nearby too.

Who was that again?

"Uh, why were you hiding who you were?
I was shocked."

Helma spoke, and the soldier beside her nodded.

"I-I committed a crime worthy of death!"

The third soldier suddenly slammed his forehead to the floor.

Dust puffed up a little.

"For what?"

"I spoke out of line..."

"Ah, leave it.
It's in the past.
You didn't even know who I was, so I was the one deceiving you."

"N-no, that's not..."

It was that soldier who had kept running his mouth before.

The one saying if you wanted to fight, step up to the front.

Enkrid brushed it off.

His eyes went instead to the bowl beside Helma.

A rich savory smell reached him.

He was hungry again.

"It really feels like the god of beggars moved into my stomach."

In reality, his body was demanding recovery for the blood he had lost.

His body had already become a Renewed Body, optimized for healing.

Audin would have been proud to see it.

"Brother-nim, they say the ground hardens after rain, so once you heal from injury, you'll be tougher.
Shall I break your leg once?"

He probably would have thrown out a brutal joke like that without hesitation.

That thought almost made Enkrid laugh.

Every one of those squad bastards pretended otherwise, but they were all desperate to trade jokes with him.

Rem was the worst of the lot.

What would he say if he saw this?

"Hey, hurts?
Mind if I stab it to test?"

Probably something like that.

Crazy barbarian.

Rem got cursed in Enkrid's head without doing a thing.

Maybe he was picking his ear with his pinky right now.

Enkrid drifted into thought for just a moment, and Helma raised the bowl and asked:

"Want to eat?"

Enkrid opened his mouth by reflex.

Only after the porridge went in did he think he could feed himself, so why was he doing this?

That weird habit came from Sinar.

Still, after being fed once, it felt awkward to suddenly take over himself.

One spoonful, then another. This one had a different taste.

Soft-cooked beans and savory meat chewed together.

"We put in slow-boiled chicken and beans."

The soldier beside her said that.

The seasoning-master soldier had talent in cooking too.

"Tastes good."

"Thank you."

He looked embarrassed.

"I want to feed you too."

The third soldier said something insane.

Did he lose his mind?

"Are you crazy?"

Helma blocked it immediately.

Good.

Well done, Helma.

Enkrid had only woken for a short while.

After eating and sitting there briefly, he got sleepy again.

His body still wanted recovery.

"It was an honor."

Just before he fell asleep after finishing the bowl, Helma said that.

Enkrid only nodded with his chin.

He was drowsy again.

"I'm going to apply for a transfer.
I want to fight beside you."

The mouthy soldier said that too.

Transfer or not, that was his own business.

Right before sleep took him, he faintly heard Ragna from nearby.

"No one feeds me?"

Helma answered him.

"Your arms seem fine."

Actually, Enkrid's arms were fine too.

In his dream, Enkrid swung a sword with his toes, with no arms at all.

Ragna appeared and asked why, and Enkrid answered that he had no arms.

A nonsense dream.

Like that, he kept sleeping, waking, and eating.

The next afternoon, Kraiss came and said Azpen was pulling back.

"Good news."

"Well, no idea whether they'll try another trick."

Kraiss's face was full of suspicion.

Like he was staring at someone who had taken his Krona and never paid it back.

Did he feel like they had been played this time?

Enkrid did not ask. He went back to sleep.

After resting for two straight days, he felt able to move.

"How did you even..."

Sinar was genuinely surprised when she saw that.

Of course her expression stayed as blank as usual.

Still, surprised was surprised.

What kind of body got up this soon?

A normal person with injuries like his might not have ended up half dead. They might have just died.

Was that ointment she gave him some cure-all that healed everything on contact?

He had heard of medicine made with holy water loaded with divine power, but the elf secret ointment had no divine element added.

"Did you secretly eat something good without telling me?"

"What are you talking about?"

Enkrid ignored the pointless comment and checked his body.

"Let's see."

If his usual condition was a ten, his current state was around a five.

He was not fully healed yet, but he no longer needed to stay in bed all day.

He was also getting restless.

= = =

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