WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 361: Where Are the Knights?

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"Will they try poison or some other trick?"

At dawn the next morning, Enkrid asked as soon as day broke.

Jaxon heard him and shook his head.

He was back to his usual self now.

Detached, bored, calm, with that same expression and bearing.

Only his tone carried a faint edge of killing intent.

"They won't pull the same stunt again."

When Jaxon said it, his voice was like a shard of ice hauled out of a glacier. Bitterly cold. There was mockery in it for the people who had come to play tricks while he was away.

Of course, that cold, murderous smile vanished as soon as it appeared.

His face returned to its usual proud indifference, like someone whose eyebrow would not twitch even if you pricked him with a needle.

"So you mean you'll make sure they can't."

Enkrid asked, and Jaxon gave a casual nod.

That was enough.

And as he said, nothing happened all day. The ones who had shown up claiming it was a warning did not appear again.

Maybe they would not come back after just one day.

No, maybe even after two or three days, they still would not come.

If they had only dared to come while he was alone in the first place, then they would not come when people were gathered.

Enkrid spent another day.

Without overthinking, he trained and drove Andrew and the five trainees hard.

"Please spare me."

One trainee muttered it before he even realized he was saying it.

"Good. One swing today will keep tomorrow's you alive."

Enkrid answered the complaint in complete sincerity, and Dunbakel clapped.

"That is a great quote."

"Not a quote. It's him saying he doesn't want to hear that crap. You dumb beast."

Rem snapped from the side.

Their exchange only reached Enkrid faintly.

The trainees probably could not hear it. Rem knew why Enkrid answered like that, so he had lowered his voice on purpose.

Begging to be spared at this level.

He could push them harder.

Enkrid wanted them to pour even the strength they needed for talking into their swords. More than giving them what they asked for, more than giving them what they wanted, he intended to keep them from dying if he could.

As far as Enkrid could see, the Gardner Family's fighting force was only seven people.

Andrew, Mack, and five trainees.

Andrew was usable, at least, but still.

Usable in a situation like this.

If something happened, they would just die. He knew Andrew, and he had no desire to stand there and watch him die.

At the same time, he could not trail them forever and guard them every second.

The best option was for them to protect themselves.

That was the purpose of this training, so it was right to put them through a rough stretch now.

In moments like this, it was easier to act like a wall that did not understand at all than to understand their words and bark at them.

People talk and try to communicate when they think the other side can understand.

With someone who cannot be reasoned with, they do not even try.

They just get busy doing what is in front of them.

That was what Enkrid wanted.

To make them focus like mad and struggle with everything they had on what they were doing now.

He had climbed up from rock bottom, so he knew what kind of mindset they needed.

"Ugh."

The trainee despaired, and Enkrid was satisfied.

Ragna watched and nodded. He gave his best in everything.

Just like the captain he knew.

Good.

Seeing that fired him up again.

The sword.

Ragna quickly sank into his own world.

Jaxon watched the same scene and said nothing. Over two days, the only thing he had said was that the enemy would not try the same thing again.

Nobody spoke to him either. Andrew found Jaxon hard to approach.

For Mack, Jaxon was not someone he could casually talk to in the first place.

The five trainees were busy trying to survive.

Rem and Ragna did not pick fights with him either. Each had work to do. When Enkrid stepped away, Rem occasionally filled in for him.

"Hit me even once and you get a break."

He showed the five trainees a different kind of hell. Rem enjoyed it quite a lot.

Ragna stood to one side, swinging his sword and sinking into thought.

Sometimes he muttered to himself, "light and fast and heavy," so it was clear he was working through swordsmanship.

In the middle of all that, Jaxon could think in silence.

At first, the thoughts were about his own business.

Hide-and-seek.

Based on what evidence he had, he had narrowed down more than one target for revenge.

Still, identifying them did not mean he could find them.

That alone was not enough. He needed to gather more information. Dig deeper. Uncover more.

After those practical thoughts, a more fundamental one surfaced.

Is this right?

The road he had chosen was not a road of help.

Which road was right, what the answer was, and why he had clung to revenge his whole life.

If revenge was the goal, was this still right?

"Stab."

Enkrid's words stayed in his head.

In Jaxon's view stood Enkrid, his forearms wrapped in layers of bandages.

Each day was warmer than the last, so sleeves kept getting shorter.

He had left the wounds closer to neglect than treatment, yet they had not worsened and were healing.

Marks made by Jaxon's own stiletto.

"Why are you worrying? Find that reason first. Think about why."

His teacher had said that.

So Jaxon did.

The reason for worry sat in the heart. A heart without direction gets shaken.

If you do not know, you get dragged along. If you know, you do not.

Even if he found the why, he did not need one perfect answer.

There were many roads.

Jaxon chose one of them.

Instead of forcing his heart into place, he let it run where it wanted.

Instead of asking, Is this okay, he would do it. Just do it. Move. Act. Step toward the result.

That was Enkrid's mindset.

It was something he had learned by watching him.

Again, he caught a glimpse of how remarkable the man in front of him was.

He did not give up because he lacked talent.

Instead of worrying, he thought.

If his head failed, he used his body.

And while using his body, he used his head too. He did whatever he could. A desperate struggle.

"You can't do it. With that level of skill? No chance."

Criticism and sneering came and went, but his heart did not waver. He moved forward anyway.

The complexity in Jaxon's mind soon turned into simplicity.

The tangled thread came loose and straightened.

So for now, he would follow where his heart led.

After that, Rem said he was bored and tormented the five trainees even more.

Dunbakel took the two curved blades Enkrid had given her and swung them for a long time to get used to them.

Later she even transformed into her beast form and asked Ragna for a spar, only to get beaten flat.

Ragna spent his time either swinging his sword in short bursts or lying on the grass beside the bedrolls and training ground.

If nobody rushed in asking for a spar, he looked idle.

Jaxon sometimes went outside with Enkrid, and often went out alone too.

When the two went together, it was usually for parties.

Enkrid brought Andrew along and went as his escort.

Once in a while, he even saw someone he knew. So many people had crowded into the capital, all of them circling for a seat, so this kind of thing was bound to happen.

"You."

"Long time."

The other side reacted first, and Enkrid answered right after.

It was an instructor from the last time he had come to the capital, one who used to teach swordsmanship.

Not exactly a quality person.

Now he was a proper noble's bodyguard.

Enkrid judged from everything, his clothes, his weapons, and the people around him.

"You were really that Enkrid?"

The former nonsense-specialist instructor said it.

Back then, Enkrid had judged him fairly skilled, but what about now.

Thinking that, Enkrid gave a nod.

"No way."

The man muttered and whispered with his companions.

From what Enkrid could catch, they seemed to be calling him a fraud.

He ignored them.

Andrew's brow tightened beside him.

"Are you letting that slide?"

Andrew looked ready to step in himself.

"Leave it."

Watching them, Enkrid saw no reason to pick a fight first.

The nonsense instructor looked at Enkrid and smiled too. A fishy smile, like it might smell of raw fish.

"Oh, right. See you again."

He snickered with his companions as he walked off. He was not even the leader among them.

Was there anyone there worth noting? Did not look like it.

Enkrid ignored it. Just another passing moment.

Only after a few more parties came and went did Enkrid finally meet Crang.

Crang said getting out of the royal palace itself was difficult.

"They all look ready to draw their swords at any moment."

"Count Molsen?"

Enkrid did not know the palace currents, so he named the most likely figure.

Wrong answer.

Crang smiled and replied.

"The one pressing a blade to my throat right now isn't a frontier noble. He's inside the palace."

Enkrid did not even ask who, but Crang continued anyway.

"A man called Viscount Mernes."

From what Crang said, Mernes had gathered palace factions and forged them into a single power bloc.

Given that he was competing with Viscount Bantara, he seemed separate from Count Molsen, a man pushing his own ambition.

"He's a serious nuisance. One of the Five Fingers."

As Crang spoke, he set his palm on the bench, straightened his back, and looked at the sky. Why did he look so relaxed while saying that?

The Five Fingers supporting the palace meant five families.

The thumb house, Marquis Bysar.

The index finger, the Lakhon Family, a military bloodline through generations.

The middle finger, the ruler of the frontier, Count Molsen.

The ring finger had managed the kingdom's finances for generations. Its current head was called the Marquis of Fertile Lands.

The final little-finger house was known as the family that guarded the palace, but its name was not publicly known.

And at present, among those five families, none supported the queen.

All of them were too busy feeding their own interests.

Crang did not explain all of this out loud. He probably did not need to.

He glanced at Enkrid's eyes. It did not seem like this was what Enkrid had really come to ask.

Then what had he come to ask?

At first, Andrew drew attention as a guest showing up without a party invitation.

Later, rumors shifted to the escort following him.

A hero born from the Border Guard.

In reality, a man built on an inflated false reputation.

Someone who knew Enkrid's past kept blabbing. The rumor said the real Enkrid had pitiful skill and lived drunk on fake glory while riding his subordinates' backs.

If they did not see it themselves, they could not accept it?

Was that arrogance? Conceit?

Or were they trying to protect the reputations they had built all their lives?

None of those.

Crang saw all of them as idiots.

If they did not trust the reputation, they could have pretended to be friendly and tested him.

If they did not want even that, then watching first was smarter.

Yet a few stupid, ignorant nobles stayed busy belittling and tearing Enkrid down.

Maybe they were just stupid.

How had heads like that become palace officials?

One of those people was the Palace Security Commissioner.

He was the superior over every guard captain and the man in charge of the palace guard force.

Should Crang be happy about this?

Should he be glad that someone he considered an enemy was stupid, or grieve that the palace he might have to rule was full of fools?

Or should he blame the queen for leading a country like this?

Then again, maybe he should sympathize with her.

Not all of this had to be something she had created.

Of course, Enkrid drew attention for more than skill.

"I want to see that face once."

"They say he's that handsome?"

"They say it's a feast for the eyes."

The curiosity of noblewomen.

Word spread that the two men who came as Andrew's escorts had devoured attention from outside the venue all the way into the party hall.

Naturally, those two were Enkrid and Jaxon.

No wonder jealous noble lords started spreading near-slander about Enkrid.

Few motives are stronger than jealousy.

Some nobles were actually desperate to kill Enkrid.

Including the commissioner.

If Enkrid drew his sword in the city, would the guard rush out immediately?

Thinking that, Crang spoke.

"Viscount Mernes is the son-in-law of Marquis Bysar, and he comes from the Lakhon Family."

He had the strongest backers in the current palace, and he had even brought private troops into the capital.

He had also put part of the Royal Guard under his command.

After Crang entered the capital, the man expanded his power at a brutal pace, and now he had even bound nearby factions together.

By danger level in the current situation, he was twice as dangerous as Count Molsen.

"There are also rumors that he's gathered a battalion-level private force and stationed it outside the capital. So, what are you actually curious about?"

Crang spoke in a rush, then stopped and asked. Enkrid had come here for a reason.

Enkrid had many things to ask, but what he truly wanted to know narrowed down to one thing.

One question that would clear up many others.

So Enkrid asked about the people he had expected to be there, the people who should have been there.

"Where are all the knights?"

If there had been even one knight in the palace,

if they had stood by the queen's side, then could this Mernes or Mornos bastard really have run wild like this?

An assassin group had delivered a warning in broad daylight.

At night, beast cries echoed, and each day fresh ghost stories spread through the capital.

If knights existed, if a knight order was moving, this should not happen, and must not happen.

So it was the core question that cut through everything.

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