WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 347: It Couldn't Have Been Better

= = =

347. It Couldn't Have Been Better

Enkrid had said he would escort Krang, but that was not something to do right away.

"We'll stay here for ten days, maybe a week if things move fast."

Marcus said.

"If we stay longer, won't that be dangerous?"

Kraiss cut in with the question, but Marcus shook his head.

"Didn't you already think this was too big a gamble for a trip that was supposedly just to meet one person?"

Kraiss understood at once. Enkrid did too.

They had come to see him, yes, but that had never been the only goal.

If coming to the city of Border Guard itself was a risk, then there were other practical reasons too.

That made sense.

Count Molsen was a heavyweight whose influence reached even the noble circles of the capital.

Avoiding that man's eyes and ears alone was hard enough.

And the queen was still holding firm at the center.

No one knew whether she had no interest in succession, or had some other intention.

Yet in that situation, they were trying to seize her throne.

Would it be easy? Would it be hard?

They had started with no base, no position, no advantage.

All they had was the bloodline of a royal bastard.

'No, he's also got that strange charm of his.'

This was the second time Kraiss had seen someone who seemed to shine just by existing.

The first was Enkrid, obviously.

'The boss is unusual.'

To Kraiss, Krang was unusual in a different way.

He pulled people in, then walked forward using them as stepping stones.

Sometimes Kraiss pictured him as a giant sailing ship, carrying people within it as it moved.

Enkrid, by contrast, felt more like a flag than a ship.

He stood on his own and moved forward alone. A flag that could become someone's marker, someone's target, and sometimes even a shield that blocked what lay ahead.

'And he's got the skill to back it up.'

Anyway, that ship, no, Krang, was fighting from a bad position.

What did it prove if he had not only survived that kind of fight, but kept getting results?

It proved that both he and the people around him were no joke.

"So are we going now or not?"

The cold had faded, and Rem was bursting with motivation.

He had not understood a single word of the exchange.

He just picked his nose and complained.

"Wait."

Enkrid knew how to handle beasts. He raised a palm and spoke to Rem.

"Not yet. Wait."

It looked exactly like someone handling a puppy.

"..."

Rem silently lifted his axe. Then, naturally, axe swings came faster than words.

It was half deliberate teasing too.

And so they spent the spare time sparring.

Or training.

Or drilling.

Again and again.

* * *

If you dig one hole, it goes deeper than digging many.

Pick one and dig.

Anyone who first picked up a sword or an axe had heard that line.

Straight, heavy, deceptive, fast, soft.

Which one would you dig into?

Grab ten men who claim they can use a blade and ask them, and all ten would answer the same.

If you dig wells in many holes, no hole gives water, and in the end you die thirsty.

Of course, people also said the hole had to be one that could actually produce water, meaning you had to choose a path that suited you. But that was a more detailed side point, a slightly different conversation. The core point was this.

"Dig one well."

Ask a hundred men, and the answers would be similar.

But Enkrid had not done that.

He had touched many wells and dug many holes.

Heart of the Beast, Sensory Art, Isolation Technique, Focus Point.

He had learned all kinds of swordsmanship too.

A hundred out of a hundred would call that the wrong path.

Still, not one member of the Madman Company opened their mouth to criticize it.

No one argued.

When ten or a hundred people said something, it looked like truth, maybe even law. Once the number passed a thousand, then ten thousand, a few started giving different answers.

"Why does it have to be that way?"

They would ask back.

Or.

"Why bother? Just do what your hands naturally do."

Say things like that long enough, and you heard this too.

"Are all you genius bastards exactly like that?"

Most of them got treated like lunatics, or got envied.

No surprise there.

They refused the usual road everyone else took, yet moved ahead alone. They did not run at other people's speed.

Ordinary people watching their backs had to fight frustration and despair.

Talent was discrimination.

The world was not fair.

The goddess of fortune did not love everyone.

Everyone knew that.

Enkrid often heard similar things too.

"Dig one well."

Either commit to Vallen-style mercenary swordsmanship.

Or.

"Why not focus only on the fast sword? At least you'd be better than you are now."

He had heard plenty of advice telling him to learn the fast sword that bet everything on the first strike.

The ones who said that were people who respected Enkrid's persistence.

But Enkrid did not do that.

He did not dig only one well.

To be exact, he could not.

If he had, he would not have survived.

Then the curse-like blessing came, and he naturally absorbed all kinds of things into his body.

Did he never think of that "dig one well" line during the process?

He did. Then he ignored it.

Not everyone's answer could be right. Enkrid moved by his own instinct.

More than anything, enjoyment drove him.

'This is fun too.'

That is fun too.

It was thanks to repeating each day. Things that could have been painful were transformed into exhilaration.

Once he started enjoying it, there was no need to argue over one well or many wells.

He stacked swordsmanship on top of the techniques the Madman Company taught him. Every part of that process was fun, then more fun.

Every day felt new.

Waking up each morning felt like receiving a gift.

Growth, change, moving forward, all of it pulled him fully into joy.

It was possible because Enkrid himself was not normal.

Could everyone enjoy noticing themselves crawling forward on hands and knees?

No. Not everyone could.

Only Enkrid could do that.

He had learned never to settle, and he was sincerely grateful for that, so every day and every moment felt new and enjoyable.

All that drive. That curse that felt like a blessing. The Madman Company members, who had entered his life by chance and remained by fate.

With all of that added together, Enkrid drew water from every well.

"If you had to split weapon or hand-to-hand talent, I'd divide it into two."

That was from an instructor in a large city, a man with very firm standards and principles.

"One is this side."

As he spoke, he pointed at his own forehead with his index finger.

"It's the talent to use a sword with your head. You watch, judge, think, plan. The second is body talent. Does your body follow what you think, or not? Yours doesn't. You close your eyes when a sword flies at you? Even after bracing yourself, if it's still hard, what does that mean? Your body isn't following your mind."

So focus on one thing. If you're going to use a sword, strike first.

That same man had told him to prioritize a mercenary-style fast sword too.

But none of the Madman Company said things like that.

They were monsters who had shattered common sense from outside common sense. Even Sinar was treated as rare among elves.

Most of all, even in their eyes, the techniques Enkrid had built were all connected.

There was no need to cling to one well.

"That just now was good."

Just like what Rem had felt a moment ago.

Audin's hand-to-hand art, following Isolation Technique, had flowed into Enkrid's sword.

Ragna's Heavy Sword Style had been mixed into the Ensnaring Sword built on a plain Correct Sword base.

A moment ago, Enkrid had brought down the silver longsword in his right hand, placed his left hand on Spark, and pushed his left foot half a step forward.

Spark was a sword for fast, straight thrusts.

Its pressure looked ready to shoot out at any second, so Rem had to swing his axe.

Knock away, redirect.

Thoughts flashed through his head and reached a conclusion in an instant.

But Spark never came flying in.

The descending sword from above had no weight behind it either.

What kind of dirty trick is this, he thought for a split second, and Enkrid closed the distance by using his two main sword strikes as bait.

Then he forced ultra-close combat.

It was a method built by mixing in Vallen-style mercenary swordsmanship.

Both sword strikes carried momentum that made them look real.

That came from what he had learned through the Crushing Sword.

"That's insane!"

Rem shouted in excitement.

By then Enkrid's hand had already grabbed Rem's arm and twisted it the other way.

With his arm about to wrench, Rem kicked off the ground, leaped into the air, and spun.

It was almost acrobatic.

His arm twisted, so he rotated his whole body in the same direction.

At the same time, he struck Enkrid's forearm with a knife-hand and knocked it away.

Pushed backward, Enkrid moved as if it had all been calculated, grabbed the longsword he had let go, no, the one he had lightly tossed upward, and caught it again.

He gripped it and brought it down. Crushing Sword. He mixed in a Heavy Sword Style downward slash on top.

The method was so absurdly fun that Rem got fired up too.

He spun once in midair, hit the ground, and instantly kicked off with monstrous leg strength. His body blurred. An afterimage appeared.

It looked like his body had split into two.

One Rem standing still, one Rem retreating.

Enkrid's sword split the one that stood still.

The retreating Rem leaned his back away, then folded forward.

Every motion was fast, fierce, rough.

He stretched back, folded in, then threw both weapons in his hands, two axes.

'Crazy.'

Enkrid admired it inwardly.

What Rem pulled out was an improvised move.

Whoooom!

With an explosive roar, two axes flew like spinning discs.

Enkrid angled his sword diagonally.

That let him block both axes' paths exactly.

Boom! Boom!

He received the flying axes, and a blast-like impact shook his whole body.

The force behind them was monstrous.

The axes that hit his blade spun upward. After drawing strange arcs in the air, both axes stabbed into the ground.

Their weight sat in the blade, so they would never fall handle-first.

Enkrid stood with knees half bent, both hands on his longsword, still holding it at a diagonal.

"Let's stop here."

Rem saw Enkrid block the axes and stopped.

If they pushed further, one of them would leave with broken bones or critical injuries.

After all that, Rem's comment had been, "That just now was good."

Enkrid steadied his breath and said,

"You threw that on the spot, didn't you?"

"Why ask when you already know."

Rem answered with a grin.

Enkrid's method of throwing his sword had come after days of planning.

Rem's had not.

He watched his opponent and improvised a technique instantly.

Even so, its level of completion stood out.

"After that?"

"Sling, charge, hand-to-hand."

He meant what came after throwing the axes. It was a killing technique, not something to continue in sparring.

He would throw a stone by sling, kick off the ground into a charge, then close in and start throwing fists and kicks.

Rem's hand-to-hand was top class too.

Most frightening of all was that reckless charge closing the gap while the opponent was busy dodging and blocking stones from the sling.

He meant to exploit the moment your rhythm broke while defending and evading the stones.

"Nice."

Enkrid nodded.

Rem's movement drew itself in his mind.

"Very nice."

Rem nodded too. He was genuinely happy about Enkrid's growth.

Of course, Enkrid had not learned everything at once either. It was a very strange talent.

At some point he would suddenly come back having mastered something new, yet to anyone watching from the side, his growth looked painfully slow.

Still, he never hesitated, never stopped, and had no prejudice.

He reacted to his opponent's techniques with pure admiration, then reviewed them.

What better attitude could there be?

"Having fun?"

"Do I even need to answer?"

Other than Rem, he sometimes crossed swords with Ragna too.

His training with Audin stayed the same as always.

And in the middle of that.

"Take me too!"

Dunbakel stepped forward without even fully knowing what it was.

She wanted to join the escort request.

Enkrid nodded.

An assassin, or something else, would definitely move on this job.

Would it be dangerous?

Was the road ahead full of thorns?

Was it one of those jobs packed with nothing but danger?

Probably.

Even knowing that, Enkrid still felt half excited.

"Why do you look so happy?"

Maybe it showed on his face, because sharp-eyed Big Eyes asked.

Every time, Enkrid answered honestly.

"What kind of bastard do you think will come at us?"

Inside Kraiss's head, three or four assassin groups he knew flashed by.

He had started life in the back alleys.

He knew a lot.

No, now he knew even more.

Running the Gielpin Guild like an information guild had taught him plenty.

"Troublesome bastards?"

At Kraiss's words, Enkrid smiled so brightly it looked like spring sunlight, and Kraiss frowned.

"Is this something to smile about?"

"Then what, it isn't?"

Tap, tap.

Rem, who had been watching, knocked on Kraiss's head and said,

"If you understand what's in this guy's head, you'll turn into a lunatic too."

That comment annoyed Enkrid a little.

The craziest one here was calling him crazy.

Was this what they meant by a ghoul cursing out a man-faced hound?

'No, that's not it.'

That saying was for similar bastards insulting each other.

A different one fit here.

A dog covered in filth scolding a dog covered in dust, that was the right one.

"Fine. Come at me. Rem, I accept your duel request."

"...Where in what I said was a duel request?"

"In all of it."

"That just sounds like picking a fight."

To Kraiss, they looked equally matched.

Anyway, five full days passed in all kinds of ways.

"Things finished earlier than expected."

A formal request came from Marcus. A royal house was commissioning an escort job.

On the outside, it was escorting members of the house's trading company. Internally, it was escorting a royal bastard son. The periods would be set separately, and both would be treated as parts of the same commission.

From Border Guard to the kingdom's capital.

They were set to leave in two days. One more day passed, evening came, and they had just finished deciding who would go and who would stay.

"...For hell's sake. Like I'd expect anything else from a feral cat bastard, sneaking in without a sound?"

They were returning after gathering useful gear and buying seasoned jerky and the like.

Enkrid had picked up some brandy in one canteen too.

There might be a moment when he badly needed a few swallows.

Right as he stepped in, Rem saw the figure sitting in the barracks and spat that line.

"Sneaking in? You're just too dull to notice."

No one could touch that guy when it came to hiding his presence.

No lamp was lit. He sat there casually, looking like some still-life object merged with the cot.

"You're back?"

Enkrid said it while standing at the barracks entrance.

The returned Jaxon nodded.

"Yes, I'm back. But I think I need to head out again soon."

"Where to?"

"I have business in the capital."

"...By capital, you mean the place where the Naurillia royal palace is?"

At Enkrid's question, Jaxon blinked once in his chair, then answered.

"That's obvious."

Was it luck, or just perfect timing.

"We're headed there anyway."

Jaxon blinked again.

Headed where?

"Dead weight, dead weight. You're taking that with us?"

Rem cut in from the side, but Jaxon ignored him completely.

"You're going to the capital?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

Jaxon thought it was a strange coincidence.

He had been looking for an excuse to go to the capital, more precisely the royal palace.

The sooner the better, and now it was tomorrow.

So it really could not have been better.

= = =

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried