A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 351

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 351: Assassins Dig Traps

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351. Assassins Dig Traps

Krrrroooar!

Along with Man-Faced Hounds and Ghouls, there were a few Drowners too.

Were those Drowners newly made?

If there were corpses from the torrential rain a few days ago, it was entirely possible.

For Demon Creatures, whether they were born an hour ago or a week ago made little difference.

Some became dangerous if they aged for a long time, sure, but none of them came out toddling around just because they were newborn. Fresh or not, that part did not matter.

What mattered was the number.

"That is a lot."

The Whip Escort said it. And yes, there were a lot.

The number was a problem, and so was the mix.

Among the three types of Demon Creatures ahead, there were Magic Beasts that looked far more dangerous than the rest.

Normally, Magic Beasts were less dangerous than Demon Creatures, but there were exceptions everywhere.

The easiest example was bear-type Magic Beasts.

Bears were dangerous even before becoming Magic Beasts.

Once that kind of bear was corrupted, it naturally became even more threatening.

That exact example raised two heads among the Demon Creatures. One was a full head bigger than the other.

Grrrrrrrrr.

A bear Magic Beast with red eyes and drool streaming from its mouth stood out immediately.

Rem looked at it and said, "That religious bastard has friends."

"Looks like it," Ragna said.

If Audin had heard that, he would probably have smiled his warm smile and asked whether they should stand beside his god, as always.

But this bear was not like Audin.

It did not smile.

KRAAAAH!

Instead, it pounded its chest and roared.

The sound vibrated through their whole bodies. It was the kind of roar that briefly froze prey in place.

It felt like a signal.

"They are coming," Dunbakel said. The Demon Creatures surged like a wave. They started charging.

Man-Faced Hounds kicked off the ground, smearing their bellies with mud.

Drowners flailed both arms as they ran. Ghouls thrust their claws forward as if showing them off, then tore at the ground as they lunged.

There were well over a hundred of them.

Whenever the Demon Creature pack rushed forward and the bear Magic Beasts moved, the ground boomed beneath them.

If the people here had been ordinary, this would have gone far beyond troublesome and into deadly.

The scene alone was enough to fill anyone with fear.

But the people gathered here had nothing to do with words like ordinary.

If they were prey, their bodies should have stiffened at the roar of a bear Magic Beast, but only people who moved with complete freedom stood here.

No one here would freeze at that kind of Magic Beast.

Whump, crack!

A streak of light slammed into the head of one charging bear Magic Beast. A throwing axe.

The beast that had been shrieking let out a hollow sound.

Its head snapped back, then swung forward again. Thick neck muscles kept it from tearing off, but that changed nothing.

A moment later, the bear with an axe ornament in its skull lost momentum and rolled forward onto the ground.

Several nearby Man-Faced Hounds were crushed under its body.

Kyaeek.

The Man-Faced Hounds screamed.

That was the end of it. Maybe only a Hydra could keep moving after its head got split open.

Because a Hydra had multiple heads.

Of course, Enkrid had never seen one in person either.

A bear Magic Beast with its head split vertically dying on the spot was only natural.

"Ah, that one was mine!" Dunbakel complained.

Kwoooaaar!

A Ghoul's signature scream rang out.

Ragna and Jaxon cut down Ghoul heads and limbs with the detached ease of pulling weeds.

Simple movements, one after another.

They kept their steps to a minimum and cut down everything that entered their reach.

Enkrid moved too.

Ordinarily, did it not take three trained long-spearmen to handle one Ghoul?

A properly trained soldier could still kill one alone.

Against enemies like these, Enkrid could survive even if a thousand came.

Keep repeating hit-and-run. That was enough.

If he was alone, that was all he needed. While escorting Crang? He could fight while carrying him and running.

But now he was not alone. He was with his company. There was no need to evade. He pressed in.

He struck, killed, and carved them down in an instant.

Black Demon Creature blood soaked the rain-wet ground.

"This is Monster Tossing," Jaxon said after the uproar ended.

Someone had driven monsters and thrown them this way.

Monster Tossing, push-off, pop-lift. It had many names, but it was a famous tactic.

"This is not the end of it."

Jaxon wiped his sword with a cloth, dropped the cloth on the ground, and kept speaking.

That was how it looked to him.

Ignoring monsters moving toward a territory, or luring them away, was one thing. Deliberately sending a pack like this took real skill. The people behind it would not give up.

"Tell them to send as many as they want."

Dunbakel puffed out her chest. Demon Creatures were no threat.

She even kicked the head off a Man-Faced Hound that had charged her and drooled all over Odd-Eye.

More than five cracked-headed Man-Faced Hounds were already sprawled around Odd-Eye.

Hiiing.

Odd-Eye shook its head and whinnied.

It sounded completely unconcerned.

"More filthy tricks are coming."

Jaxon kept talking. His tone was firm. It was a prediction, but also obvious.

He had done this kind of thing countless times.

Though from the attacking side, not the defending side.

So they gathered.

This was not one or two guilds moving. The scale was too large for that.

Naurillia naturally had assassin guilds too.

Had they all gathered and formed a united guild?

It was only a guess, but he felt sure.

A scale this large, and bold enough to target a royal of one nation.

No single guild could do that alone.

Why did they gather?

He ran through several possibilities and found an answer.

The client wanted a hunting dog, and the one chosen as that dog picked the path of eating together and surviving together instead of taking everything alone and dying.

Jaxon's guess was nearly perfect.

That was exactly how it had unfolded.

* * *

In Azpen, an assassin guild called Monterre's Swamp dominated most of that world, but Naurillia was different.

Its guilds competed and coexisted.

And there were many of them.

Domestic politics were complicated, and wars had broken out all over for years, so some nobles treated that as an opportunity and formed guilds.

Others used their talent for killing and took jobs from commoners.

After surviving in that ecosystem for a long time, twelve guilds remained.

Now the people who had each held out with their own guild gathered and formed a united guild called the Twelve Daggers.

"We hired dozens of mercenaries and sent our own people too, and all of them failed."

"Because the target was that Madman Company."

Assassin guilds were naturally sensitive to information. Of course they understood what happened the moment they were hit.

They were staying in the city closest to the capital, gathered together after renovating a mansion.

Naturally, security and defenses were tight.

"Are we letting this pass?"

"You all know what mission failure means."

Even within the Twelve Daggers, there was one guildmaster with the most influence. The woman who had held the largest power before the alliance spoke to everyone.

"We do everything we can."

Giving up meant death.

The client was inside the royal palace. Failure and surrender would lead to the same result.

To survive, they had only two choices.

Run, abandoning every foundation they had built.

Or succeed.

She and the other guildmasters naturally dreamed of the rewards that would come afterward too.

Abandon their base and run? Not a chance.

If that was the choice, better to force it through and complete the job.

The owner of a nation would be replaced.

Naturally, rewards would follow.

They had even thrown away their pride and banded tightly together so none of them could claim they had seen enough and walk away.

That was how all their hearts aligned.

The woman at the center spoke.

"Our enemies are people who made their names on battlefields. We are not beating them in open combat. We fight on our stage, in our way."

"Right."

The man who had become her lover answered first.

"Obviously."

Another guildmaster, jealous of her, nodded too.

So they moved in their own way. Their enemies could not possibly know every assassin method. They only needed one hit.

That would be the end.

Some among those people might have bounty-hunting experience, but who there could read every trap an assassin had carefully prepared in advance?

They were all people shaped by battlefield fighting.

Their judgment made sense.

* * *

"Please save me!"

They heard the voice while traveling along the main road.

A young man with a childish face was sprawled on the ground. He looked trapped.

As soon as he spotted Enkrid's group, he shouted desperately while bleeding over the dirt.

"Please save me! My father is a landlord with tenant farmers! I will repay you! I swear I will!"

He spoke through streaming tears.

"How did you get trapped?"

Jaxon asked first, before Enkrid could step in.

His tone was different from usual. It sounded like when he mimicked Kraiss.

Wearing fake kindness and warmth, he asked.

"I was on my way to sell wheat, and when I woke up..."

He said he did not even know what had happened.

"Are we helping him?" the Whip Escort asked. A strange unease made him want to pass by.

Enkrid looked at the trapped man. He seemed sincere.

"Please, please. Pleathe."

Tears and snot ran down his face as he begged.

He must have bitten his tongue on the last word, because the pronunciation slipped.

"It is a trap. Looks like they set traps around him."

Jaxon said it while scanning the area around the young man.

There was a collapsing ground trap, and a poisonous smell lightly tickled his nose.

"If we leave him, does he die?"

"He dies. That is exactly why they captured him and set this trap."

They could ignore this trap and move on, but that was exactly what the enemy wanted too.

"If we ignore it, they will frame us as the ones who killed him."

"So it is a double trap?"

Enkrid asked. Jaxon explained the next sequence as briefly as possible.

He was predicting what would happen in the city they would reach for supplies and rest.

It was a trap called an unavoidable choice.

If they tried to save him, they had to break through the traps.

If they ignored him, they would be dragged into trouble in the next city.

"The one who killed my son is right there!"

They would use someone good at acting, or hostages, threats, poison, anything, to make a landlord say those words at Enkrid's group.

Tangle their hands and feet in the city.

The moment they panicked, it was over. A dagger from behind.

They would have prepared a team for that too.

Sneaky bastards.

That was what Jaxon thought, and Enkrid made his decision.

"Dunbakel."

"Hm?"

"Go pick him up."

As they had seen in the previous battle, Dunbakel was quick and explosive.

At that level, she could ignore the trap layout and pull only that man out.

"Okay."

She did not ask why.

If Enkrid told her to do it, she did it. That was how Dunbakel worked.

The trap here was designed so that anyone approaching to rescue the man would trigger all kinds of buried devices.

Dunbakel made all of that useless with a running jump.

Boom!

The still-muddy ground exploded where she planted her foot with force.

She flew straight forward, reached the trap zone, and landed with a thud.

After clearing the trap in a long jump, she forced it open with raw strength.

The iron clamp crushing the man's ankle broke with a heavy crack and became useless.

The man clung to Dunbakel, crying and sniffling.

Holding the landlord's son in a princess carry, Dunbakel stepped back a few paces to make room, then leaped again and cleared the entire trap zone in one bound.

That was the kind of stunt beastfolk thigh strength could produce.

"Waaaah!"

Only the trapped man's scream lingered in the air.

The landlord's son became part of their traveling group.

After rescuing the hostage, Enkrid checked his wounds, sprinkled powdered medicine to stop the bleeding, and wrapped bandages around him.

"Th-thank you."

An ordinary person. A civilian. A hostage with no connection to assassins at all. His instincts told him that clearly.

Jaxon reached the same conclusion.

If they had left him, they would become killers who murdered the son of a powerful city figure.

If they saved him, they had to clear the trap. That was the second layer.

But all of it got crushed by beastfolk thigh strength and Jaxon's experience.

After that, the assassination attempts did not stop.

"Save us!"

This time it was a merchant group. They came closer bleeding from multiple places, saying Demon Creatures were chasing them. No, they were running straight at them.

Enkrid frowned as he watched them sprint over.

Are they really merchants?

Conceal yourself, hide your killing intent. Assassin basics. That was exactly what they were doing.

He suspected them, but did not have certainty.

Then he saw three or four Ghouls behind them. Evidence that gave weight to their story.

Even so, something in his mind snagged. A warning from instinct. Why?

The accelerated thinking he had built while training with the sword flared.

The injuries.

None of them had leg wounds. And for people supposedly fleeing in terror, their breathing was too even.

Everything was interpreted and organized in the realm of intuition.

"They are enemies."

That was his conclusion. Jaxon nodded in confirmation.