WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 344: Picking Sides
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“Do people really drink this and call it tea?”
Marcus said, lifting the teacup in front of him. It tasted awful. Even a faint grassy scent would have been a mercy.
“If that’s how you felt, you should have come to the lord’s office instead.”
Lord Graham replied to Marcus.
“This place was closer on my way in, and I heard people fighting, so I stopped here first. Did that offend you?”
“Not at all.”
Marcus went to Enkrid first. So what?
Graham stayed calm. Lately, he had been completely absorbed in the joy of crossing swords.
Should everyone respect him first just because he was the lord?
Like he was some noble.
He did not care.
If anything, if he had time, he wanted to cross blades with Enkrid too.
It looked like they had just finished a round, so would it be fine to ask for another?
Enkrid would accept a spar any time, but probably not now. Marcus had come and taken a seat.
Only four people sat in the dining hall, the lord, Marcus, Enkrid, and Kraiss.
As for the company members, none of them looked remotely interested in joining a headache-filled conversation.
“Looks like he came to kill time, so go entertain him a bit.”
Rem said that and turned away. That was all.
While Marcus was still complaining about the tea, Enkrid watched the two guards standing behind him.
He paid special attention to the one on the left.
The man was tall, with long arms, and had a whip coiled at his waist.
There was a sharp weight on the tip, so getting hit by that would not end with just “it hurts.”
How would he react if someone rushed in and closed the distance?
Enkrid got curious. A whip was a long-range weapon. The farther the distance, the more favorable it became.
Its whole point was to keep a range where it could hit without getting hit, so in skilled hands it would be that much more dangerous.
That was why Enkrid wanted to fight him.
He was using an unusual weapon.
“You, I heard you did not even spare our Kin a glance?”
Marcus suddenly said that to Enkrid, and Enkrid did not understand.
He did not even know who Kin was.
“The beauty from our house who came to see you before, do you not remember?”
“Ah.”
It had not been that long. Of course he remembered. He just had not cared much.
“Kin was hopping mad that you did not even ask her name.”
Marcus took a sip of tea and set the cup down. He seemed to have no intention of drinking more, so he shoved it aside.
Enkrid accepted what Marcus said.
It was true. He did not ask her name. He made her wait two days, then told her to leave as soon as she arrived.
“Was that so?”
“You have no interest at all.”
“Do I need to?”
“There is no need.”
Marcus gave a faint chuckle. Did he come because he was idle? No.
Kraiss sat beside them and discreetly watched Marcus’s expression.
At the same time, he read the man’s intent.
His sharp mind spun tight, throwing out questions and answers in turn.
Why did he come all the way here at this timing?
To tell them to stop expanding the city?
Probably not.
No, that would have been the excuse he used to slip out.
He must have left saying he had been a former lord and would go explain things so they would listen.
That was a valid reason, and also a perfect excuse for a trip.
More importantly, why had Border Guard summoned Lord Marcus in the first place?
Because they suspected rebellion due to growing military strength, and told him to come to the capital if he had something to answer for.
But even without Marcus, the city had grown bigger. Troop numbers had risen. It was still swelling.
You could reasonably call it the formation of a threatening warlord force.
“See, this is not my fault, right? So I’ll go over there and make them listen.”
He probably phrased it elegantly on the surface, but the real message would not have been any different.
If he pushed a little, slipping away would not have been hard.
Then did he really come to warn them?
It did not look like it. That was Kraiss’s instinct.
What was the real reason he came here now? There had to be a reason he left the capital.
What did he want?
What was he hoping for?
What was here in Border Guard?
Kraiss’s gaze naturally shifted to the side.
He saw Enkrid’s profile. Black hair, blue eyes, a dangerously insane company commander.
From the royal palace’s perspective, he was an unexpected blade that had appeared out of nowhere.
Ah.
Only then did Kraiss grasp part of the situation.
The captain was here.
Enkrid’s existence was like a meteor dropped from the sky.
A red-hot meteor drew eyes by mere presence. The number of eyes on him would never decrease, only increase. Some were friendly, some were hostile.
Marcus was on the friendly side, but trusting someone in politics was one of the stupidest things a person could do.
Kraiss knew that from books he read as a child, from experience, and from instinct.
In the same way, Marcus could not fully trust Enkrid either.
So this was a check.
What did that mean?
While Enkrid, Marcus, and the lord traded a few meaningless lines, Kraiss kept thinking.
It was a process of building hypotheses and matching them against what had happened.
Things he already knew, and things he inferred and confirmed.
Things he had not known, or could now easily know because they had reached this point.
Things he still had to leave blacked out because he truly did not know them.
Those pieces lined up in his head, stacked one by one, and formed a conclusion.
Only after reviewing what he knew did Kraiss open his mouth.
The captain needed to know this too, so he could respond.
If they left it alone, they would be dragged along. Maybe not the captain, because he was the captain.
Still, he could not leave visible danger alone.
Why did he suddenly remember the captain’s back blocking the path in front of him? He did not know.
Either way, things that had to be challenged had to be challenged.
If you missed the moment, you accepted disadvantage.
Kraiss knew that. So he spoke.
“Did you come here to confirm something?”
At the sudden question, Graham turned first.
Outside training, the lord had been sleeping well and resting well. He dumped all work on his Lieutenant. In reality, lately Kraiss had handled almost everything, and the Lieutenant had only assisted.
Under the lord’s tacit approval, Kraiss had even selected several people to work under him.
All of them were for administration. In that process, help from the Rockfreed Trading Company had also been huge.
At least in number-crunching, no one beat them.
Because he had rested so much, the lord’s eyes were clear. Those eyes turned to Kraiss.
“What are you trying to say?”
The lord asked. Marcus had not put him in the lord’s seat for nothing. Graham knew exactly when to step in.
Marcus only watched in silence.
“Why do they leave a man who claims to be king alone, and why do they leave territorial defense this weak?”
Kraiss raised his voice slightly.
Graham’s brow furrowed. That line had crossed a boundary.
Depending on how you took it, this could become talk of treason.
That was a problem. They were already under pressure and hearing all sorts of things because of expanded forces.
They had held out so far largely thanks to Marcus.
He had blocked things in the center where needed.
So what was this now?
Kraiss put his hands on the table, clasped them, leaned in slightly, and spoke.
“Even if we raise an army here, the center will not send troops. No, they cannot.”
Marcus looked at Kraiss. Before the lord could speak, Marcus asked first.
“Why do you think that?”
“Did I not just say it?”
“About leaving a king pretender alone, and leaving territorial defense weak?”
Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts were running rampant, and people were even calling it a low-grade Cursed Ground, yet they left it alone.
If a mad company member who had not become a knight could solve it, the knight order could solve it too.
Kraiss had seen Junior Knight Eisia and Frog Ruagarne before.
If they could send those two, could they not also handle a low-grade Cursed Ground? But they did not.
No, they could not.
They could send one junior knight, but they could not send part of a knight order. Why?
They did not have the room.
That was Kraiss’s conclusion.
“There is something going on in the center, something more dangerous and threatening than crushing a frontier king or cleaning up Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts.”
Look at this bastard.
Marcus’s eyes swept over Big Eyes.
Was he always this sharp?
He had to admit it, he was impressed.
When Marcus came to Border Guard, the city’s scale had clearly changed.
Most striking of all was how they had placed one squad at each nearby outpost.
Was that just a measure against Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts?
No. There were more effects attached to it.
First, it could earn traveling merchants’ trust.
If these outposts stabilized, even small peddlers could start using this route.
Especially once they built more outposts in a tighter network.
And that seemed likely to happen soon.
Marcus himself had seen it.
A bottleneck of people gathering here from surrounding areas.
Merchant trust would make the city’s blood, gold coins, circulate fast and hard.
The more Copper Coin, silver, and gold circulated in larger flow, the larger and richer the city would become.
At that point, it was not strange at all for nearby lords to throw fits.
Territorial subjects were territorial power.
But now the farmers were running away. They were leaving for neighboring lands.
Border Guard had more than enough capacity to take them in.
Did it not have Green Pearl?
They simply had not developed it because they lacked hands, food, lodging, and living space. There was no other reason.
All of that could be solved with krona.
Earn gold through trade.
Gather people through rumors.
It was an exceptional scheme.
And the outposts did not have only that effect.
The second effect was clear too.
A pretext.
Military expansion drew attention from the center.
At times like that, this gave them something to say.
“We need numbers because of Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts. In return, look, we can secure a safe trade route like this.”
“We are not gathering troops to fight.”
Those outposts made that argument possible. They could say, “Can’t you see it? We are not concentrating troops, we are spreading them out.”
Would someone who had pushed things this far stop here?
No. Marcus would not, if it were him.
He would widen and extend the trade routes more. He would connect outposts into neighboring territories.
He could not connect everything. That was impossible.
Instead, he could just build a few more frontier cities.
Marcus could picture it, trade territories spreading like a spiderweb around Border Guard, with Green Pearl’s massive farmland at the back and troop numbers too large to ignore, a great territory.
A land broader, richer, and better stocked with power than Count Molsen’s so-called frontier king’s domain.
Had they looked that far ahead?
Of course they had.
If not, why do all this?
He wondered whose idea this was, and it seemed to have come from the big-eyed bastard in front of him.
Marcus knew this only because he had seen results. If someone asked him to come up with it himself from scratch, no chance.
Marcus rested his elbows on the table as well. He clasped his hands and set his chin on them.
“You said there is something happening in the center. What do you think it is?”
“No idea.”
Kraiss shrugged and leaned back.
Would he avoid speaking recklessly about what he did not know?
Even while still making rough guesses?
This bastard was really interesting.
“You are speaking too insolently to my lord.”
As Kraiss leaned back with a sly shrug, one of Marcus’s guards stepped in and said it. Kraiss did not even look at him.
Instead:
“Feels like the roles are reversed.”
Enkrid spoke while thinking.
Usually, his own subordinate should step in and say this on his behalf.
Well, it did not matter.
Enkrid continued.
“Do not step in. Your head will fly off.”
He threw those words out without even looking, and veins stood out on the back of the guard’s hand.
The guard grabbed his sword grip and raised his momentum, like he might charge any second.
A junior knight? No. But he carried the air of someone who had spent plenty of time in dangerous places.
Enkrid knew the man was underestimating him.
No matter how far rumors spread, some people never believed.
Had Enkrid not seen that over and over?
Sometimes, on Frog Maelrun’s days off, or when Maelrun said he did not want to deal with someone, people like this came.
Men clearly above normal soldiers, men at roughly junior-knight level.
Usually caravan guards or noble guards.
Like the one in front of him.
“If you draw, you are really getting hit. Keep running your mouth, and you get hit too.”
Enkrid warned him again.
Marcus watched with interest and did not stop it, so the guard made up his mind.
He would discipline this rude bastard.
He would strike him with the flat, not the edge.
Click.
The scabbard latch came loose. The guard was planning to smack Kraiss’s cheek, not Enkrid’s.
“Stop.”
Graham said it with concern, but it was useless.
The guard drew his sword. Just as he moved to point it forward, Enkrid shoved his chair back and rose.
The chair scraped back, then flipped over.
As the chair fell, Enkrid’s body vanished.
That was what the guard saw.
It was Instant Will.
Enkrid closed the distance right to the guard’s face.
“Uh!”
Startled, the man pulled his sword. Enkrid lightly pressed down the hand holding the sword, then drove in his opposite elbow.
Thud.
That elbow hit between the lower belly and heart.
“Ghk!”
He had struck the breathing path. It was a vital point Enkrid learned from Audin.
The guard made choking sounds, flailed, and collapsed to the floor.
The other guard did not charge.
His ass seemed heavier than this one’s.
He just stood behind Marcus and watched steadily.
Enkrid left the fallen man where he was and straightened his posture.
He had something to add too.
Kraiss asked whether Marcus had come to confirm something, and Marcus did not answer.
Confirm what exactly?
Kraiss judged it dangerous and held back the final line, but Enkrid did not.
He honestly did not care.
“Is it a civil war?”
So he asked.
Confirming what?
It was splitting sides.
My side or your side.
Why split sides like that?
A fight, a war.
If it were a war against an external enemy, none of this would be necessary.
So it meant civil war.
“Quick-witted.”
Marcus said it. Enkrid watched the fallen guard, wondering if he would charge again. The man hesitated, got up, stepped back, and only rubbed his stomach. His eyes were vicious, but maybe he was not an idiot. He seemed to have clearly felt the gap in skill.
“As expected, a man worthy of snubbing Kin.”
Marcus added that line, and Enkrid thought, what did that have to do with anything?
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