WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 359: Jaxon Bensino
= = =
“The biggest problem in the capital right now is still the factions, and the groups that were fighting faction wars are now preparing for actual war.”
Andrew spoke within the limits of what he knew, and Enkrid combined that with what Rem had said and pieced it together in his head.
“There is nothing worth buying. Hell, everyone is basically selling junk.”
That had been Rem’s verdict after looking around the capital market.
There were plenty of people and plenty of goods, but the moment you tried to buy something,
“No can do. This was ordered by someone from such-and-such family.”
It was treated like military supply stock.
Weapons and food were not circulating smoothly. What did that mean?
‘They have their own troops stationed around the capital.’
They were watching the situation inside, ready to call those forces in if things went bad.
The problem was that none of this was happening with the Queen’s approval.
“Even the Royal Guard has split into several factions now. That is why ridiculous things keep happening.”
“Ridiculous things?”
Enkrid had a habit of echoing back like that when he asked what someone meant.
It was his way of giving the speaker his full attention.
Andrew kept talking without pause.
“Yes, ridiculous. They assassinate each other, and some guy calling himself an Inquisitor drags off whoever he wants for heresy. Lately, strange animal cries ring out at night, and people disappear every few days.”
“This is the capital.”
“Yes, the capital. I know. It is a big city. Disappearances happen often in big cities. But this is too many, so many it feels wrong. And there is no commander to properly investigate assassinations or incidents. The gate garrison captains try to do something, but their hands are tied. What can they really do?”
Enkrid folded his arms.
Across the old table, Andrew’s face was flushed.
It was not the kind of topic anyone could discuss calmly.
Looking at that heated face, Enkrid asked, “And in the middle of this, one of the royal bloodlines came here?”
“It is like pouring fire on oil. Faction nobles who were just waiting and watching finally drew their swords. I am not saying I do not understand his goal. He said he came to the capital to end faction fighting.”
End the fighting? The obvious question came up.
“How?”
He just wanted to know the method.
Andrew raised both hands and shrugged.
“I do not know the method.”
Crang’s business was Crang’s business.
Then what should he do?
What had he looked forward to most before coming to the capital?
‘Am I really going back without meeting even one knight?’
He had wanted chances to fight, to train, to open his eyes. That was it.
As he listened quietly to Andrew, he figured the hidden fighters of each faction noble would start crawling out sooner or later.
They would come at him for a fight. They would fight with their lives on the line.
The thought made anticipation stretch awake.
Just like he had realized while teaching the trainees, there would be new chances if he entered the royal palace.
If overthinking got him nowhere, sometimes the right move was to follow his heart cleanly.
That was what Enkrid did.
Stand beside a friend he liked, and dance the sword once.
He decided that while keeping someone’s warning in mind.
Was this an impulsive decision?
“What are you thinking so hard about?”
Rem asked from beside him. He was the kind of guy who accepted whatever decision Enkrid made.
“I was thinking I might cut off the Queen’s head and become a faction noble myself.”
He threw out nonsense.
“What, you want to fight? Nice. I like it.”
This lunatic seemed to hear only one thing in that sentence, that they were going to fight.
Rem was Rem.
“Wh-what did you just say...?”
“Joke.”
He calmed the startled Andrew.
By the time he had roughly sorted out what to do next in his head, Enkrid felt something cold brush his back.
He turned naturally.
In a corner of the parlor, leaning against a pillar and half hidden in shadow, was Jaxon.
“Hey, want to take a walk?”
Those eyes looked like trouble would happen if he was left alone.
When had he seen that look before?
He had seen it when Rem and Jaxon’s tension had spiked to the edge, right before they were about to draw swords for real.
Meaning Jaxon now looked exactly like someone right before drawing steel.
Why all of a sudden? Had Jaxon been attacked too?
No, different reason.
He knew it by instinct.
‘He said we had to come to the royal palace.’
It was probably because of that.
“Sure.”
Jaxon answered and stepped outside. Was it just his imagination, or did it look like Jaxon was suppressing some urge?
“Did that guy take something?”
Rem muttered.
“I will be back.”
Enkrid followed after Jaxon.
They came out of the estate and walked through the shadows.
A gust of wind swept by and scattered their hair.
Soon they were walking side by side.
Looking at moonlight, starlight, and the brazier glow in the distance, Enkrid nodded once.
They were walking a dark path along the estate wall.
“There is something I absolutely have to do.”
Jaxon spoke first.
“Mm, right.”
Enkrid nodded.
Whatever it was, Jaxon would handle it himself.
“I need to do one thing for that, but it is troublesome enough that I have been thinking about it.”
“Thinking?”
It did not sound like a word that matched Jaxon much.
Enkrid thought for a moment. He had come out because it felt like Jaxon wanted to say something, but was there anything he could really do for him?
“It is about killing one person.”
Jaxon said it.
Right, yeah, that made sense.
With the way he looked now, it made even more sense. So what should he say?
After thinking, Enkrid opened his mouth.
“Hang in there.”
Jaxon was not the type to ask for help anyway, and he could handle most things alone.
So the answer was obvious.
Enkrid nodded and patted Jaxon’s shoulder.
Pat, pat, two taps. Thinking Jaxon’s eyes looked calmer than before, Enkrid turned around. He was about to head back in.
Seeing that, Jaxon stopped walking.
He looked at his captain’s back, moving forward through starlight and moonlight.
‘I knew he was not normal, but.’
The thought came to him again.
He was cheering him on here?
‘Because he trusts me?’
Was it trust? Faith? Was that why?
Conflict flickered in Jaxon’s eyes again. Enkrid kept walking and thought.
When Rem or Ragna caused trouble, it became public trouble right away. Jaxon was different.
There was a reason people called him a sly alley cat.
Jaxon would do what he had to do, quietly and secretly.
That was what Enkrid thought.
Toward that back turning away from him, Jaxon said, “It is about my nemesis, and revenge.”
The voice was just loud enough to reach Enkrid’s ears.
“What?”
Enkrid turned back. He was someone who listened well no matter what story it was. This time was no different.
He fully turned and set his posture, as if asking, are you really going to tell me now?
Jaxon only stared in silence, and Enkrid naturally moved toward two stones placed by the wall.
He sat there, pulled out seasoned jerky, and took out a canteen from his waist.
Was this careful preparation, or coincidence?
The canteen smelled of liquor. Not sweet apple cider, but strong brandy.
Jaxon took it and swallowed a mouthful.
The hot liquid went down, then surged back up from his stomach to his throat in a wave of heat.
High-proof alcohol.
Of course, Jaxon would not get drunk. Since childhood, he had chewed poisonous herbs to build resistance.
A body that endured poison did not get drunk from alcohol.
Suddenly, he remembered those days, chewing and swallowing toxic herbs and enduring through them.
What had driven him to withstand all of it?
It had begun with death.
His family, his parents, everyone he had known, all dead.
He saw death and made death his weapon.
That was the road he had lived.
Enkrid took the canteen back, drank once, and asked, “Who is your enemy?”
“There was a secret society called Black Lily.”
Jaxon began his story slowly.
It started simply, as if there were no sorrow in it at all.
* * *
His father was cruel, and his mother was merciless.
“If you must, stab even a friend in the back.”
Those were his father’s words. And they became his father’s last words.
After that, Jaxon lived by that will. If needed, he stabbed anyone in the back.
“You are one vicious bastard.”
Then he met his master.
Many things happened. Before he knew it, his position had changed.
He had lived by chewing poisonous herbs and carving knife scars all over his body.
The path Jaxon walked was soaked in blood. No, he cut the road itself out of blood and walked it.
He walked and walked.
Jaxon had been the son of a noble house.
Jaxon Bensino, that was his name.
The Bensino Family had been a fairly powerful noble house.
They made a huge success in trade, but his father wanted something bigger than that.
Was that the mistake?
He did not know.
Jaxon chose not to argue right or wrong. He set one simple, clear goal.
He would take revenge. He would kill everyone involved.
“Hey, you are going to die young like that.”
His master scolded him for it.
Jaxon did not listen. He walked one straight road.
“When is that one ever going to become human?”
“Should someone running an assassination guild be saying that?”
He remembered answering like that, and his master giving a short laugh.
“Yeah, get angry instead. You look better that way.”
Pointless talk.
His goal was clear. He gathered information and investigated.
His house fell. Was it just bad luck piling up?
Not even close.
Someone had worked it from behind.
Jaxon decided to hold that bastard responsible.
That was how he found the name.
Black Lily.
The society’s name. Why did they gather? They were people whose goal was to stuff their own pockets.
Some who worked under a vicious lord became bandits.
Some became nobles of another nation. Some vanished like smoke.
The first one Jaxon found was a man whose life had collapsed into a gutter after everything was ruined.
“Why did you do it?”
He wanted to know. They destroyed one noble house and swallowed several trading companies whole.
Many had died because of Black Lily.
There had to be a reason.
“The reason? Fucking reason.”
The fallen power broker snickered.
“Do you know how much you get by tearing apart the Bensino Family? Fucker. Everyone lives by screwing over someone else.”
The man who had given up everything did not value his own life either.
Would giving him death be kindness?
Would sending him to hell actually be something to thank him for?
If Jaxon just slit his throat and killed him cleanly, that would be a blessing.
He did not want that. Jaxon did not kill him with his own hands.
Instead, he cut the tendons in all four limbs and threw him into a beggar pit.
Four days later, the man was torn apart alive.
That year, the drought was so bad people killed over a handful of wheat.
In times when even one root mattered, no one would survive in a beggar pit.
The dead man’s last words rang in his ears.
Everyone lives by screwing over someone else.
That man had been a friend of his cruel father. Had been.
“Just keep your eyes forward. No need to look back.”
His merciless mother’s words stayed in his chest too.
If it was for the goal, was anything allowed?
If that was what had to be done, then he would do it.
He spent several more years looking for Black Lily’s mastermind, and in that time his master died.
He knew he would never understand his master’s last words, so he forgot them.
He did not recall them. He buried them.
“If you must, stab even a friend in the back.”
“Just keep your eyes forward.”
Instead, he repeated his father and mother’s words. Those two voices tangled and mixed in his head.
“Everyone lives by screwing over someone else.”
Then the dead man’s words mixed in too.
After that, he killed four Black Lily leaders.
Only when it was time to find the fifth did he learn that one of those leaders had personally targeted the Bensino Family.
Should he call that one the true nemesis?
No name, no identity.
After piling up clues and deductions, he reached Abnayer.
Abnayer told him to go to the Naurillia royal palace, and Jaxon came.
While Enkrid was being attacked and Rem, Dunbakel, and Ragna were roaming the market streets and complaining that only trash was for sale, Jaxon entered an estate in a residential district.
Old webs clung all over the place, and signs of habitation were faint.
There, he saw the one who had lured and summoned him.
A man with white hair and a monocle.
Thin body, but holding a cane sword, with narrow, small eyes too hard to read.
He knew at a glance.
Same kind, same trade.
“You are from Georg’s Dagger, right?”
The other man identified his background.
Naturally. Jaxon had leaked information on purpose to get this far.
Georg’s Dagger was the top assassination guild on the continent.
Even so, the other man showed no fear. Because he trusted his own skill? No, because he believed he had Jaxon’s weakness in hand.
“I know what you are looking for.”
The white-haired peer said.
“What?”
Jaxon asked. In the dark, his brown eyes, streaked with red, seemed to swallow the shadows.
“Are you not the legitimate son of the Bensino Family?”
Ah, yes, you should at least figure that much out.
“I will give you all the information you want. All of it, anything.”
Jaxon waited for the next line.
“In return, stab him.”
Who that him was needed no explanation. The owner of black hair and blue eyes, his unit commander.
“Stab Enkrid.”
It was a request to stab the man he called captain.
The price was the information he had searched for his entire life.
* * *
Enkrid sat quietly and stared at the moon. The canteen in his hand swayed, and the liquor sloshed inside.
Watching that, Jaxon spoke of revenge and enemies.
He spoke of how one of them was inside the royal palace, so they had to enter and find him directly.
He left out the part about meeting the white-haired man from the same trade.
“Yeah, let us find him.”
Enkrid said.
No smile. No joke. Sincere words, spoken calmly.
The intent to help showed clearly. A man like that would do it. If Jaxon did not refuse, he would help.
He would do his best.
Jaxon knew.
That was the kind of man he was.
Still, could effort alone find someone he had never been able to find no matter how long he wandered?
An easy road lay in front of Jaxon.
His father’s words, his mother’s words, and the words of the first enemy he killed crossed over each other.
“If you must, stab even a friend in the back.”
“Just keep your eyes forward. No need to look back.”
“Everyone lives by screwing over someone else.”
It was the road Jaxon had walked until now. A road drawn in blood, blades, and poison.
A road he only had to walk the same way once again.
= = =
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