WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 345: What Kind of Person Should a King Be?
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“What kind of person should a king be?”
Marcus asked out of nowhere.
Enkrid did not think long.
As someone who had always lived by taking what he wanted, he simply gave the answer he always would.
“Whoever wants to do it, does it.”
Marcus did not judge the answer. He said something else instead.
“Until a few months ago, I thought the same.”
“Then?”
If not the one who wanted it, then who should do it?
“May I answer that myself?”
They were outside the dining hall.
Marcus had not come alone. Enkrid’s eyes shifted toward the entrance.
“Looks like I drew attention without meaning to, Marcus Baisar.”
A man outside called out.
“It was my intention too. I enjoy this kind of attention, so no need to worry.”
Marcus answered and turned aside.
Now everyone could see the man standing outside.
To the territorial lord, he was an unfamiliar face. Kraiss felt like he had seen him somewhere. Enkrid knew exactly who he was.
A blond man.
As he lingered there, one of the soldiers guarding the entrance asked with his eyes if he should let him in.
There were no spectators nearby.
This was not a spar. They were just gathered for tea, so there was nothing to watch.
Kraiss had already told people to clear out.
Since no one knew what would be said, fewer ears were better.
That was also why two trustworthy soldiers had been posted at the entrance.
The man outside gave those two soldiers a soft smile.
It was the kind of smile that asked to be let in.
He was not dressed like a noble, just a plain brown shirt and loose pants.
The soldier hesitated.
Should he drive him away?
“Let him in.”
Enkrid answered first. The lord said nothing. The man clearly seemed to know Marcus too.
The man’s boots tapped over the stone floor of the dining hall.
The blond man walked up and stopped in front of Enkrid.
He was of average height, with easygoing eyes and striking blue irises.
Then he spoke.
“It has been a while.”
“Did you come as a noble?”
Enkrid stood and spoke more formally.
Back when they had briefly shared a barracks, he had been a soldier. So what was he now? That was what Enkrid’s question meant.
“Be at ease. Right now I am just a drifter, a wanderer.”
“Same name too?”
“Crang.”
He brushed back his blond hair and gave a proper greeting. He held out his hand. A handshake.
A handshake was a greeting born from proving neither side held a weapon.
Enkrid took the hand, gave it a light shake, and let go.
Only then did Kraiss place him.
Kraiss rarely forgot a face, but he had seen this one so long ago. They had only crossed paths in passing.
Remembering even this much was because it was Kraiss.
“That duty barracks from back then?”
Kraiss asked on reflex.
“That is right. You were a soldier with an excellent memory.”
Crang answered, then gave a light nod of greeting to the lord as well.
“Who exactly are you?”
Graham awkwardly pushed up his large body and asked. Marcus copied Crang’s phrasing when he answered.
“A drifter, a wanderer, and if I add one more thing, ahem.”
He started speaking, took a sip of tea, realized it tasted awful, cleared his throat, and continued.
“A bastard.”
Marcus did not look like he intended to stand. Seeing that, the lord also stopped halfway through rising and sat back down.
Enkrid and Kraiss sat too. Crang naturally took a seat as well.
The lord did not catch it, but at the word bastard, Kraiss’s expression shifted for a moment, as if he had realized something.
Crang looked at everyone one by one, then gave a slow smile. The same smile as before.
It had a slippery edge, yet also a warmth that made him seem easy to befriend.
Enkrid noticed a faint scar on his cheek, but his expression was unchanged.
“This winter was especially cold. Is your body holding up?”
Crang asked.
It was such an unexpected question that Enkrid answered at once.
“When you keep crashing and rolling through things, you forget the cold.”
“I heard you spent a very hot winter.”
“Looks like your side was not exactly cool either.”
“In winter, I wanted to spend my life hugging heated leather and loafing around. In spring, I wanted to stroll through flower festivals.”
Crang said it with the same smile, and Enkrid simply found him strange.
A bastard son. Whose bastard son?
As he had said, a bastard who could use a member of House Baisar as bait for attention.
Blood that could use a member of that noble house, the Thumb House.
“You are royalty.”
Kraiss gave the answer.
From the start, the other man had not looked like he wanted to hide it.
Their conversation had left enough clues.
When Crang said winter was cold, he was talking about the battlefield Enkrid had come through. In return, Crang was saying that even if he had not stepped onto a battlefield himself, he was fighting a war of that scale behind the scenes.
At Kraiss’s answer, Crang only smiled.
Graham began wondering if he should even be in this room.
“Graham, did you prepare good tea in the office? Let us go have a proper cup.”
Marcus rescued Graham from that spot.
“Yes, I did. It will suit your taste perfectly.”
He had gotten expensive tea leaves in case he had a chance to offer something to Marcus, the man who handed him the lord’s seat.
Under Marcus’s lead, everyone rose except the guard with the whip.
“What is this, Lord Marcus?”
As they left, Graham whispered to Marcus.
“What does it look like?”
“It looks like it would be best to pretend we know nothing, even if we do.”
“Then do that.”
Graham was a man who knew his place. Marcus valued that most of all.
Even with someone like Enkrid under his command, he was the kind of man whose core would not bend or break.
“Just pour the tea.”
“Yes, let us go.”
Graham moved without another word.
Even after Marcus, the guard who had taken a hit, and Graham left, Kraiss did not move.
Even if he left now, his captain would not suddenly say anything foolish.
No, even if the captain said something strange or did something strange, he would not suddenly declare allegiance to one side.
Still, what if.
There was always a chance.
As uneasy thoughts rose, Kraiss decided he would at least keep watch.
From the moment he recognized that this man was a royal bastard, dozens of possibilities had already opened in his head.
Naturally, the counters to those possibilities came with them.
For example, what if the man told him to enter his service right now.
What if he talked about joining some worthless knight order.
What if he demanded loyalty to the royal house.
Or what if he offered a mountain of Krona.
‘No, is that actually a good one?’
If there was enough Krona, was it not fine to sell loyalty for a little while?
What if it was enough money to open five salons in the capital?
‘No.’
Kraiss thought as fast as Enkrid swung a sword, and as simultaneously as Rem handled multiple weapons.
Which meant the moment the dilemma appeared, the conclusion did too.
‘Never trust the words of political people.’
This man sat here with Marcus behind him.
He was the one who brought the famous Center Pole, one of the five houses said to uphold Naurillia, the Thumb House, as a decoy for attention.
Kraiss could also understand why this royal had entered this place the way he did. His clothes and behavior said one thing.
‘He is traveling while hiding his identity.’
Why hide it?
‘He is being hunted.’
If his life was under threat, then Enkrid’s sword, his hand, everything he had built would look tempting.
So how should he view this man now?
If this led to civil war, was this bastard in front of him someone claiming another king’s throne?
Was it the king of the frontier and a king born a bastard both reaching for the throne?
‘Which side should I stand on?’
Which choice brought more profit?
For now, hold. That was right. No matter what the king’s bastard offered, even if he put down a mountain of gold, the correct move was to refuse through blood and tears.
‘Or should I take the advance payment first and then wipe my mouth clean?’
The idea appeared, and Kraiss abandoned it at once.
His captain would never do that.
Without changing expression, Kraiss finished sorting his thoughts.
Just when he was fully ready to parry whatever came next,
“Did you know our kingdom lost its ‘language’?”
What kind of random line was that.
It was hard to read what he really wanted.
No, it was not even a question.
Crang was not speaking in riddles.
He simply kept talking smoothly. Kraiss thought Crang’s voice was easy to listen to.
It had a strange tone that slid right into the ear.
His projection was like that, and his diction too.
It was as if there was magic in it that made people listen.
Kraiss had seen people like that a few times.
‘Inborn talent.’
People who could seize others’ attention.
Their voices did it, and even a single gesture did it.
Crang gave the table a light tap and continued.
“Why is every language used across the continent the same?”
Kraiss had lived by using his head since childhood.
He did it to survive. He used his brain for survival and for Krona.
So he had never thought about this. He had never even heard it framed that way. If he had thought once, he could have guessed roughly, but he never cared.
He only knew what everyone else knew.
“The language is the same?”
Enkrid said, almost to himself.
“Yes, it is. This is frustrating. Shall we walk? The sky is clear today. After living under assassination threats, it feels wasteful to stay shut inside on a day like this.”
Enkrid stood without a word.
Assassin. He was used to that word now. He had faced that kind of malice many times himself.
The first time he had faced an assassin had also been because of Crang.
Either way, if Crang was still being hunted, then someone wanted the king’s bastard dead.
Though the current king was a queen. So who gave birth to whom? It was a minor question. He put it aside for later.
That was not what mattered.
“Have you never wondered how most of the continent uses similar language?”
“No.”
“Right, most people do not. Then have you heard of the Royal Language Recovery Corps?”
“In passing.”
He had actually seen a few people around markets carrying something like a dictionary stitched together from words instead of scripture.
Kraiss had seen them too.
Borrowing Gielpin’s words, they were not troublemakers.
He had also heard they were just people who kept to themselves.
Crang rose from his seat and went outside.
Just as he said, the weather was bright.
“It may be more dangerous outside.”
The guard said.
“But it is stifling in there.”
Crang pulled a canteen from his waist and wet his throat.
That act alone revealed something.
He could not even eat or drink at ease.
He had likely survived only on food and water he prepared himself, not what others offered.
Enkrid walked beside Crang, matching his pace.
“Do not get too close.”
The guard warned.
“Do not step in.”
Crang silenced him instead.
“Will you follow?”
Crang asked Kraiss. Kraiss looked at his captain for a moment.
“Follow.”
“Yes.”
Kraiss made it clear who he took orders from.
He moved behind only after Enkrid allowed it.
“Do not worry too much, soldier. I did not come to force anything.”
Crang said, his eyes narrowing slightly. A soft smile that suited him very well.
If he had not come for his captain, then why come here at all?
“I came to visit.”
Crang said with that same smile.
Enkrid said nothing. On the outside, Kraiss nodded as if he understood, but inside his suspicion grew.
A royal bastard, a player in civil war.
What kind of man like that came here to visit for fun?
Yet maybe because he meant those words, Crang acted exactly that way.
He only talked as they circled inside the military camp with the training ground on their right.
On top of that, he never once asked them to stand on his side.
“It is because of the Empire. The Empire buried the royal language. Erased it.”
“Unifying language is remembered as a great achievement.”
Kraiss asked a natural question during the conversation. The Empire’s language unification was praised as a great accomplishment.
Yes, that part was true.
But to do that, they should have respected the royal language too.
“What is language, soldier?”
“Language is language, language is... hm.”
Thinking deeply even in a short moment was one of Kraiss’s strengths. His thought process differed from others. It was similar to how people called sages also thought differently.
“Culture, so part of a culture disappeared.”
“That is right, soldier.”
Crang smiled. Looking at that smile, Kraiss thought if this man were not royalty, he would have been perfect as a salon host.
The royal language had been buried by imperial tyranny.
Why? To strengthen control.
Then why did the Empire do that?
To unify the continent?
No, to watch kingdoms fight each other and profit from the chaos.
Not continental unification, but some other gain.
What gain? He did not know. But the broad structure became clear.
Erasing language? A way to move kingdoms as they wished through control.
From a political view, that was very impressive.
“It is a troublesome matter.”
As Crang spoke, Kraiss felt a dissonance.
In other words,
‘He is speaking of the future as if his becoming king is already settled.’
This man had already defined the Empire as the enemy.
That was true. Crang was sure of victory. He treated inheriting the throne as obvious.
If he failed?
What did it matter. The royal house after his death was not his concern.
“Count Molsen is pretty vicious though.”
Enkrid also hit the core. He was asking if Crang was not worried at all.
“Well, somehow it will work out.”
So he had no plan?
Crang looked like he genuinely did not understand the question.
“Somehow?”
Kraiss asked in disbelief.
At that moment, Crang stopped walking.
He stood there and held out his palm behind him.
Enkrid, the guard, and Kraiss stopped.
He took one step forward, leaving two steps of distance from the group.
Then he spoke.
“The kingdoms fight one another, and many seek to be king. Demon creatures and magic beasts flood the continent. Inside the royal house, the voices of nobles pass over the queen’s head, and there are too few hands to discipline them. Those called knights struggle just to fill the gaps of the Cursed Ground. Men who abandoned loyalty for their own greed are everywhere.”
His voice, neither loud nor soft, spread through the brush beside the camp.
It struck the ears of the three who had stopped.
It was like gathering light on a dark stage and shining it on him alone.
He had a pull that swallowed nearby attention.
With only a few steps, a few hand gestures, and a few lines, Crang made that happen.
After drawing in the gaze around him, Crang opened his mouth again.
“My task is to make sure it does not stay that way.”
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