WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 321: The Boatman Finally Laughed
= = =
The Boatman finally laughed.
“Good.”
Just one word, good.
Silence followed, as expected.
It was cold.
Well, it was winter, so of course it was.
The brazier flared with a rush of fire.
Right then, wind swept in through the tent entrance.
A bitter winter wind.
If an ordinary person had been there, it might have felt like a dagger flying into their heart.
But no one here, including Enkrid, was ordinary.
“I could say that too.”
Kraiss added quietly.
He was not wrong.
Naturally, Enkrid did not panic.
Since when had Ragna ever been good with words?
Even when he taught that bastard Rem, who bulldozed ahead at his own pace, his teaching was nothing special.
So there was no reason to be flustered.
“Explain.”
“When lightning falls, how do you block it?”
For Ragna, this was his best.
For everyone else, it was the worst explanation possible.
Was that a problem?
Not really.
As always, Enkrid was an excellent listener, and he could be an excellent student.
He knew how to listen.
No, if the other person explained badly, he was the kind of listener who would keep pressing until he pried the answer out of them.
“You can’t block it.”
Enkrid answered first.
“You can.”
Ragna added.
“So how?
Not just ‘good.’”
It would have been nice if Ragna had gotten a little better at explaining by now, but that was asking too much.
Ragna had no sense of direction, could not speak well, was picky with food, and did not have what anyone would call a pleasant personality.
He did not care about reputation, and he did whatever he wanted.
Some days, he could not even be bothered to talk.
Put it that way and he sounded like a complete mess, but when it came to the sword, Ragna was the best.
The best of the best.
“You read the sign first, then strike.”
That was Ragna’s best explanation.
For him, this really was the limit.
It was a realm of instinct and talent.
Enkrid stayed relentless.
He threw question after question and listened to every answer.
Ragna explained as far as he could.
It still did not settle into a complete image.
Nothing truly clicked yet.
Still, this was not the end.
If he could postpone death.
He could use today more fully.
If he put Ragna in front to do that, he might even get to see Ragna receive the knight’s sword.
Of course, Enkrid would not do that.
Using today to the fullest and putting Ragna in front when he knew Ragna could not endure it were two different things.
That was a line he could not cross.
It was a line that had formed inside him from the very first day he started repeating today.
For some people, that line became conviction.
For others, it settled under the name of honor.
Honor.
Before the grim envoy who spoke of honor arrived, Enkrid had to do everything he could.
In that endless exchange of questions and answers, he worked to shape the image and think it through.
And this was not the end either.
“Sinar.”
The elf had also tried to receive that strike.
She had reacted to it.
How could she do that?
“Do you know how to block lightning?”
“Dodge before it falls.”
“And if you can’t dodge?”
“Use something as a lightning rod.”
She said it while tapping her Naidhl.
The half-joking tone still carried something deeply learned.
Something born from hard insight.
“Naidhl is easy to draw, good for cutting, and good for redirecting and blocking.”
“If you had to block the knight’s sword?”
The question came out of nowhere, but no one found it strange.
This was how Enkrid was.
Mad for the sword, clawing at a dream no one thought could be reached.
That was what made him who he was now.
Everyone acknowledged it.
So hearing this kind of nonsense had become normal.
Even Kraiss watched like it was just another part of daily life.
Dunbakel waited with a look that clearly said she hoped Enkrid would ask her too.
“Before the opponent lifts a foot, before their hand reaches their sword, I would draw mine first.”
As she spoke, Sinar felt herself getting pulled into Enkrid’s force.
What was this man?
He had been like this before, but now the fire was bigger.
In her eyes, it almost looked like a fire spirit had settled inside him.
No, not fire.
It was a whirlpool of yearning, passion, and exhilaration.
That fierce emotion stabbed at an elf’s sensitive heart.
If Frog saw talent, elves felt emotion.
That was a racial trait.
To survive on the continent, they had to dull that trait and ignore what needed to be ignored.
If Frog had to grow used to the word heart, elves had to learn to ride out waves of emotion.
By that standard, Sinar was an elf who had adapted to the continent exceptionally well.
Even so.
Hot.
Enkrid did not raise his voice.
He did not act desperate.
He did not flail his arms.
He only loosened up and spoke a few words.
He only walked over and opened his mouth.
But that heat still warmed Sinar.
It stirred elven blood.
That made her serious.
Her answer came without banter or jokes, though she usually did not wear much of a smile anyway.
“The knight’s sword is a disaster.
How do you intend to stop something you call a disaster?”
Throwing the question back was probably the answer needed now.
If an earthquake struck, could humans stop it by force?
What about a tornado?
A flood?
A typhoon?
A storm?
A drought?
Natural disasters.
A knight was called a man-made disaster, a calamity forged by human hands.
Humans were the most numerous ruling race on the continent, above dragonkin, elf, giant, dwarf, Beastfolk, and others, so knights were branded with that human-disaster title.
Even so, disaster was probably the more direct word.
Naturally, there were elf knights too.
Beastfolk had a similar concept and called them heroes.
Even among humans, some used different terms for knight-like beings.
The term itself was not the point.
Sinar recalled the past, looked at the present, and pictured the future.
A way to move further.
In the past, Sinar Kirheis gave something up and saw her own limit.
She lost the path forward.
But because she gave it up, she was also able to come this far.
It was contradictory.
Was this just the fish that got away looking bigger?
Or had she realized that to stand beside the man in front of her, she needed that very fish she had let go?
Maybe.
How would she feel if she watched this man die to the knight’s sword?
By chance, the elf’s sensitivity and sharp mind predicted exactly what was coming.
It would not be pleasant.
Then she would probably regret it.
She would keep thinking about that fish she had lost.
Useless thoughts.
Outwardly calm, Sinar shook her head inwardly.
Pointless noise.
Enkrid heard Sinar’s question and sank into thought.
Ragna had spoken of lightning.
Sinar had likely matched that frame.
At least the elf had tried to make the explanation considerate.
After hearing both of them, something close to a conclusion surfaced.
How do you block lightning?
That answer had to come first.
“You’re not asking me?”
While Enkrid was thinking, Dunbakel walked over and asked.
“Ask what?”
“That knight sword thing.”
“Go sleep.”
Dunbakel was still lacking.
There was no need to ask her, not even just in case.
And even without being asked, she was the kind of Beastfolk who spoke up on her own.
“You just go clang and block it!”
Right, got it.
Enkrid patted Dunbakel.
“That was very helpful.”
His tone carried no emotion at all.
“Really?”
“Really.”
He gave her a rough nod and sent her back to her bed. Watching this, Kraiss clicked his tongue in admiration.
“At this rate, if Captain worked in a salon, he’d be the top employee.”
Enkrid had no desire to become the best at charming noblewomen.
After that, until evening, they rested, ate, thought, practiced sword motions in empty air with bare hands, checked their gear, and exchanged a few words of effort and thanks.
It was mental preparation.
Today, there was no nonsense about demonic nature or anything else.
That was because of Enkrid’s strange pressure, and the look in his eyes.
He never said it out loud, but that look and that attitude kept striking Sinar in the heart.
Of course, she controlled her emotions well enough to keep her heart from pounding wildly.
Then the knight appeared.
“One time.
Block it just once.
That is the least duty I owe to keep my honor.”
Why did this bastard always say things no one asked for?
Enkrid gripped his sword and swallowed a breath.
How do you block lightning?
Shouldn’t the beginning be crossing blades first?
Flowing Sword, Enkrid’s first sword form, Snake Sword.
Even if it was lightning, why could it not be redirected?
“…You look as if you were waiting for this. Strange.”
The knight said.
Enkrid did not answer.
His concentration blazed and shattered the chains of dread.
After that, he gathered everything into a single point and watched his opponent.
He wanted to see the beginning of the blade that rushed in with no preparatory motion.
“Seriously.”
Sinar muttered behind him.
“Were you a prophet?”
Kraiss looked dumbfounded too.
“You told him to keep his sword in hand?”
Was Ragna any different?
Would Esther not be surprised too?
Dunbakel froze at the sight of the opponent.
“What is that?”
A monster that kicked a Beastfolk’s survival instinct, what else could it be?
Whoom.
The sword came flying in.
First, cross blades.
How to block lightning would come after.
Whirl.
Enkrid saw an illusion.
He saw a sword bend in front of him.
It looked like that wavering blade pierced his own sword, then collided with his edge.
It was so strange that he doubted what he had just seen.
Then his heart split apart.
* * *
The Boatman saw the world of mental images and the reality beyond it.
Even the present could not escape his eyes.
He was watching the cursed one die.
That was his only amusement and joy.
Still, this cursed target was truly unusual.
Laughing?
He smiled as he died.
He smiled through pain.
He smiled as agony raced through his whole body.
He smiled even while trapped in what looked like a dark cave.
Enkrid was only delighted because he had seen something new, but to the Boatman, this was neither familiar nor ordinary.
The Boatman kept watching.
Inside the repeating today, Enkrid died and died again.
He smiled as he died, agonized as he died, thought as he died, and wrestled as he died.
What joy could there be in such repetition?
None.
The Boatman knew that.
He knew it well.
He knew better than anyone why repeating today was a curse.
“That bastard is insane.”
The Boatman muttered to himself.
“Despair, and yet it cannot become despair?”
He asked himself again.
“Anguish and ignorance, even despair, cannot stain his will.”
The Boatman repeated to himself.
And so he watched Enkrid as he died.
He looked.
He kept watching.
Die, and die again.
“Are you still enjoying this?”
Sometimes he faced him and asked.
“Hmm?
What did you say?”
Enkrid did not even hear him properly.
He was giving everything to the moment in front of him.
He saw nothing else and heard nothing else, focusing only on one thing.
And he enjoyed even that.
The Boatman remembered an old proverb from the continent.
A memory from before he became the Boatman.
Because the gift of forgetting had been taken from him, recalling the past was easy.
The one who knows cannot match the one who likes, and the one who likes cannot match the one who enjoys.
To know is to understand.
To understand is to start believing what you know is the right doctrine.
That path leads not to effort, but to stagnation.
You stop and settle into the present.
To like is a force that makes you try.
Because you like it, you even put in effort.
So it is not stagnation, but progress.
Still, effort is made because you seek a return.
You try because you think about what comes next.
Liking is fuel.
It is the power of the heart that makes effort possible.
Enjoying is being consumed.
You forget yourself, forget the situation, and sink into the moment.
Like when you were a child and forgot time in your first game.
If someone could still do that after growing older.
If that were possible, they would plunge in without even realizing they had forgotten themselves and fully focused.
But could such a person really exist?
No.
He had never seen one.
Most people wore down.
They were eroded.
Their hearts faded.
Their effort dimmed.
They grew tired.
They grew sick of it.
Fatigue soaked into them.
They burned out.
Exhaustion devoured them.
Everyone had been like that.
But in the Boatman’s eyes, there was one who was not.
Without question, he had never seen a madman like this before.
So today repeated, and repeated again.
Repetition did not become shackles or a prison for him.
The bars could not confine a man named Enkrid.
Even so, the Boatman’s gaze did not waver.
He watched.
Today’s shackles were firm.
Heavy.
Unbreakable.
Then what should one do?
Enkrid gave the answer.
Shackles?
Then wear them and run.
In truth, he seemed not to notice he was chained at all.
“Ha.”
The Boatman finally laughed.
= = =
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