WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 373: Ill Fates, One by One

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By the time the group led by Ropord reached the western side, Viscount Mernes's coalition had already sealed off the front gate.

So many.

Even at a glance, the enemy force was large. He could even spot siege engines.

Ten of them had stepped forward, staring up at the wall, and not one looked easy to handle.

Their equipment varied, but the pressure each one gave off was unmistakable.

One of them was even someone Ropord recognized.

"The deserter."

He was the bastard who had caused trouble in the knight order and fled.

The man looked up at the wall, spotted Ropord, and grinned.

"Idiot."

Ropord read it on his lips and felt a chill run through him.

That man had been his senior, and far stronger than he was.

Not quite at the level of a junior knight, but he used any means necessary to win, making him one of the most terrifying opponents in a kill-or-be-killed fight.

Then how dangerous were the other nine beside him?

And behind those nine stood one more figure, clearly someone of higher rank.

He wore a helmet with a single sharp horn.

Even his shoulder plates were fitted with horns. Skill aside, his taste was unusual.

The ten in front were threatening enough, but how were they supposed to stop the troops lined up behind them?

A sense of defeat seeped into his chest.

"Plenty of interesting ones here."

That was the Beastfolk's voice.

Then the swordsman who always got lost spoke right after.

"At least one looks worth fighting. The rest are nothing special."

Ropord was baffled. In this situation, neither of them showed even a trace of urgency.

"Open the gate. We are Viscount Mernes's forces, here to seize traitors."

The enemy commander shouted. Ropord did not recognize him. He was neat-looking, with his helmet tucked against his left side.

A sword hung at his waist, and he held a shield in one hand. Sunlight flashed off it so brightly it hurt the eyes.

The soldiers on the wall were all scared stiff.

If they gave ground here, they would lose before the battle even began.

Will.

Ropord recalled that realization again. They had walls. They had hearts. They wanted to protect this place.

He took a deep breath and stepped forward.

"Impossible! Her Majesty gave no such order!"

Hoping he would not look like a frightened dog, Ropord shouted.

"Not going to open it nicely?"

The deserter junior knight spoke with a nasty smile, like he saw no reason to hold his tongue.

As if to say, what are you going to do if we force our way in?

"...Withdraw."

Ropord said it and ground his teeth.

Now he had to stop them when they came.

There were only ten of them, but those ten alone had already shattered the morale of the soldiers on the wall.

And Ragna was not the kind of commander who held everything together with words.

He was more at ease with a sword than with his tongue.

So he chose the sword.

Dunbakel was the same.

He only tapped the curved blades resting at both hips.

Words were hard for both of them, so it was time to start talking another way.

* * *

Right after Ragna left, Enkrid spotted Odd-Eye.

It seemed to be looking inward because of the commotion.

Enkrid spoke without hesitation.

"Give me a ride."

Odd-Eye was his friend. Asking a favor like that was fine. Enkrid was already drawing the route to the royal palace in his head.

The fastest route to the palace.

He needed a horse. The quickest way was to sprint the same road he had once taken by carriage.

That was what he had in mind when he spoke to Odd-Eye.

Odd-Eye blinked once and turned slightly to one side.

Enkrid took it as permission and moved, when a bolt flew in with a sharp ping.

Enkrid snapped his head back. The short bolt passed right in front of his face.

Over the wall, familiar faces appeared.

The sun was still up, yet the group wore masks. There were over thirty of them.

He had met this type several times before. Same clothes, same air.

"Don't you people ever get tired of this?"

Enkrid asked. Why go this far? Because of a contract? No. No one staked everything on a job alone. You could tell just by looking.

He had already dealt with their mage and all kinds of assassins. Yet they still fielded this much force, meaning they had thrown in everything they had.

They looked ready to die here.

"If we're tired, do we stop working? We do what we must."

The man on Enkrid's far left said it.

His hanging arms looked almost twice as long as everyone else's.

But he was not limp. He just let them hang.

One of them was unmasked. He stood alone in the center of the wall.

The others were crouched or bent at the waist.

The man in the middle had white hair and a monocle. He alone was properly dressed in a shirt and jacket. Tapping the wall with his sword cane, he said,

"I told him to stab you, and he didn't listen. Does he take contracts for a joke?"

His gaze shifted behind Enkrid, toward Jaxon.

So this was the one who talked to Jaxon about the contract.

Enkrid did not bother turning around.

Not refusing on the spot was the same as accepting it.

But he broke it. He did not keep it. They had told him to kill, yet Enkrid was standing there perfectly fine.

"No, he kept his word. So you should tell us everything you know."

Enkrid stepped in for Jaxon, voice firm.

Jaxon lightly bit his lip and looked aside. He looked like he wanted out of this conversation. He did not want to hear it.

"What are you talking about? You're standing there alive."

The white-haired swordsman with the sword cane was one of the pillars of the Assassin Alliance.

It was effectively the whole alliance assembled.

The alliance leader hid her position, watching from one side as she steadied her breathing.

Disguising herself as an ordinary assassin before striking a fatal blow was her specialty.

"I stabbed him."

Enkrid answered without hesitation.

"What?"

"I said he stabbed me. Right here, poke. If you don't believe it, he can stab me again right now."

Enkrid said it while pointing to his left arm. The wound was already gone. A scar remained, but you had to get close to see it.

And that part was wrapped in a guard anyway. No way they could see it.

So what the hell was this bastard saying?

The female alliance leader thought it over, and a possibility came to mind.

Following the same thought process, the white-haired assassin asked,

"...You got stabbed?"

"You said stab him."

Enkrid answered without even pausing for breath.

A brief silence followed.

They said stab him, so he got stabbed, meaning the contract was fulfilled.

If he did not die, that was what it was. But he did get stabbed. For real.

Enkrid kept pointing at his left arm, repeating it with his expression.

It was so irritating that the white-haired assassin's cheek twitched.

Some of the alliance brass who understood Enkrid's meaning stared in disbelief. The rest surged with killing intent.

That bastard is mocking us.

Behind them, Jaxon let out a sigh too quiet to hear.

So he's really doing this.

"You said stab him. So he stabbed him."

"No, that's not what that means."

It was from their sparring conversation. Yes, this was not because he did not understand.

Enkrid had smiled and answered,

"Right, you said stab me."

He just repeated the same line, making it clear he would not listen to anything else. He was probably angry.

Because they had tried to play him?

He really was a strange man.

He sent that anger back in gentle, roundabout words.

"It hurt. I really got hurt."

When Enkrid continued, the other side reacted.

"This bastard really is insane."

The white-haired assassin clicked his tongue.

Jaxon felt a little embarrassed. Some things could be forced, and some could not.

Enkrid was ignoring the coded, implied meaning.

Of course, Enkrid was not truly trying to win an argument.

It was provocation, meant to grate on their nerves and show how annoyed he was.

And that created an opening.

As they listened, several assassins plainly faltered, as if thinking, what kind of nonsense is this?

Enkrid's hand moved faster than sight. The moment the other man said insane, Enkrid's hand shot forward.

As a result, the tail end of that word overlapped with a sharp whistle.

Enkrid threw both hands out. He had thrown two Whistle Daggers.

Both daggers buried themselves cleanly in two assassins' foreheads.

Thunk!

The two bodies toppled backward.

They fell off the wall, and a heavy thud followed.

Before the thud even landed, Enkrid and Jaxon moved.

"You can go first."

Jaxon said it, and Enkrid nodded. They split left and right. As Jaxon moved away, he pulled up his hooded robe and adjusted his belt, then threw himself into the shadows near the wall.

Enkrid glanced at him, drew a breath, and shouted.

"Come at me, all of you!"

At the same time, he stamped his left foot into the ground.

Boom!

Fueled by the Heart of Superhuman Strength, that stomp cracked the earth.

It was monstrous force.

No wonder every assassin was startled.

His forceful shout and stomp pulled every assassin holding position on the wall toward him.

His nonsense also helped gather their attention.

He had made them wonder what the hell he was even doing.

The assassins were not easily cowed by momentum.

Instead, one hotheaded one pulled out a bottle of poison called Ten Breaths.

It had been modified to burst into green gas, and one breath was enough to finish you.

It was called Ten Breaths because if you had time to take ten breaths, you were already dead.

As he drew his arm straight back,

Stab.

A burning heat flared in his throat. The heat spread through his body before pain could, and his eyes closed.

The world turned black, and he heard the rush of river water.

Then he died.

In the shadows, Jaxon erased his presence and muffled all sound.

The artifact helped a lot. It was one he had taken during the raid on the Black Blade bandits' village.

The robe blocked life force from leaking out, and the belt was enchanted to silence sound.

With his presence suppressed, he thrust his longsword up from directly below into the neck of the man who had pulled out the poison bottle.

The tip punched through the man's throat. Blood streamed onto the ground, and four nearby assassins reacted and opened distance.

At the same time, darts flew in, poisoned darts.

They struck where Jaxon had been. He had already moved. He pressed himself flat against the wall.

"Find him!"

The white-haired swordsman shouted. The man had vanished in an instant, too quickly for even his senses to catch.

Without revealing himself, Jaxon hugged the wall and threw three Silent Throwing Daggers.

Two flew without a sound and pierced two assassins through the throat. One was blocked.

The one who blocked it was the long-limbed assassin.

His eyes shone with an unnatural light. It was magic, an implanted prosthetic eye bearing a spell.

"There!"

He pointed out Jaxon running below the wall and shouted.

Masking your presence and sound did not hide your body. Jaxon was running beneath the wall, using a blind angle in their vision.

Exposed or not, Jaxon sprang lightly upward, raised his longsword, and swept it in a broad arc.

From the top of the wall, it would have felt like a guillotine blade flying up from below.

Whoosh, the vertical swing hooked the wrist of the assassin holding the modified crossbow.

Thwack!

He had not put full force into it, so he could not sever the wrist bone in one strike.

The blade sank halfway into the crossbow assassin's wrist.

When that sudden strike came, the man had been about to fire at Enkrid.

"Agh!"

A scream burst out.

"There!"

Another assassin shouted.

Then one more assassin flipped down from the wall and threw daggers.

Whiiik! Whiiik!

Whistle Daggers.

Jaxon stopped short and avoided them by freezing in place.

The daggers slammed into the stone wall with dull thuds.

Jaxon ran again, yanked the daggers from the wall, and threw one upward and one to the side.

The upward throw was dodged by a nimble assassin. The other was blocked by someone who produced a shield from somewhere.

What kind of assassin carried a shield? But preparing equipment for the target was basic assassin discipline.

Daggers won't land easily.

Thinking that, Jaxon climbed onto the stretch of wall the assassins had vacated.

One kick off the wall put him up there, his wall-climbing skill nearly on Esther's level.

Standing atop the wall, Jaxon scanned his surroundings once and said,

"If you don't want to die, don't chase me."

Then he dropped down and ran.

"If we let our guard down, we'll get taken."

"That's why we came together."

Two of the Assassin Alliance leaders exchanged those words.

Meanwhile, the long-armed assassin looked for Enkrid, but Enkrid was already gone. Fast bastard. Or maybe this had been planned from the start.

It was the latter. While Enkrid drew their attention, Jaxon hid. While Jaxon drew their attention again, Enkrid did what he needed to do.

The result had started coming together the moment Jaxon said, You can go first.

They trained and sparred side by side every day.

This level of coordination was easy for them.

"That one first."

The white-haired swordsman with the sword cane pointed in Jaxon's direction as he spoke. From the start, their objective had been to eliminate the assassin from Georg's Dagger.

More importantly, even if Enkrid made it to the royal palace, nothing would change.

That place was crawling with monsters far beyond their level.

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