A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 375

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 375: Eisia

= = =

Why is Eisia here?

The moment he faced her, several facts came back to Enkrid. He did not even need to think hard. They surfaced on their own.

Palace Security Commissioner.

Why had that man come to him?

Jealousy was one reason, but he had also seen it as the right opportunity. He had decided Enkrid must be guilty of something.

That guilt was killing Viscount Bantara. But Squire Eisia could have testified about that incident. If she had stopped it, it might not have happened.

But it happened.

Eisia did not stop it.

A marquis had a hand in sending Eisia to him.

Then whose side was the Marquis of Okto on?

No, had the Knight Order turned?

Could that even happen?

A knightless Knight Order. How many squires had Eisia said were still left in the capital?

One tangled thought dragged in the next, knotting into a mess like a spool of thread children had played with.

Enkrid cut through all of it at once. He was not Kraiss, and he did not need to act like him.

The one who could answer him was right in front of him. He only had to ask.

"Why?"

His mouth opened. Short, but weighty.

Eisia raised her sword. The thin blade stood straight on the border between light and shadow. She answered.

"I said this is as far as you go. Turn back."

There was no emotion in her eyes. She looked like a lone sword standing before him.

The clash of metal and distant shouts outside seemed to fade away. The hallway became a stage, and two actors stood facing each other.

Enkrid drew Silver as well.

Shrring.

The sound of steel leaving the scabbard, reinforced with metal at the tip, rang out with chilling clarity. The silver longsword slid free as if showing off its body.

Enkrid gripped the hilt with both hands and steadied his breathing.

Sunlight filtered in from the window to his left and her right. The beam passing between them stretched into a long line that split Enkrid and Eisia apart.

"Step back."

Eisia said it again.

It sounded like a plea.

"Why."

He asked, and thought. Of course no answer came. He knew too little to figure anything out. Eisia did not look willing to explain either.

Without a hint of a smile, she only watched him.

Eisia showed neither bloodlust nor fighting spirit. She simply held her place like an inanimate object.

On one side of the corridor sat rare southern pottery. She looked no different from those pieces. Like a still life.

Enkrid adjusted his grip again.

Eisia saw it and spoke.

"So you drink liquor as punishment."

"It's a hobby."

Enkrid shot back out of habit.

Even then, her expression did not break. If anything, her presence changed. Pressure. The shift came in the same instant.

To Enkrid, it looked as if a wall had formed around Eisia and blocked the way ahead.

When that pressure took shape, it was not just the will to cut a throat. She was showing the will never to step back.

An unbreakably solid wall.

Too endless to clear, too hard as steel to smash.

Enkrid was exactly the sort of man who enjoyed vaulting over walls like that, or digging straight through them.

Ting.

He held his sword long to the side and measured the distance to the wall.

Silver's tip tapped the right wall. He drew it back, gripped the hilt with both hands, and raised it over his head.

The hallway was narrow, but there was enough height.

If they fought here, the paintings, southern ceramics, and expensive flower vases would be shattered.

But this was no time to care about that.

Enkrid settled his breathing once more.

His opponent was reading it.

Neither Eisia nor Enkrid swung first.

They read each other's breathing and measured the timing.

They had done this countless times. They had already sparred more than twenty times.

The line of light between them kept stretching.

On the right wall, near the center, three swords were mounted in a crossed display.

Above them sat a decorative shield shaped after a Sun Beast.

Of the three, the one in the exact center was mounted vertically, so its tip hung closest to the floor.

As the light line lengthened, sunlight passing through the window naturally touched the tip of that center blade. It was not sharp, but it had been polished well, and it reflected the light.

Flash.

The moment that glint appeared, Enkrid kicked off the ground.

Boom!

He could not hold back, and he had no room to.

He exploded forward with everything he had and brought his sword down.

The instant Enkrid closed in, Eisia reacted.

Her sword shot straight ahead, a thrust faster than any arrow.

Enkrid kept his downward cut. Eisia's blade met Enkrid's Silver.

Clang! Krrrk!

Enkrid tried to break the wall by hammering down with force, while Eisia twisted her wrist to deflect Silver's descending path.

Her fully refined redirection bled away Enkrid's power.

He could not let himself get carried away by it, so he drew one foot back and kept some strength in reserve. At the same time, he let his sword follow the flow.

He was ready to add force and counter again at any moment.

As a result, a long groove was carved beneath the left window.

It had been a lightning-like downswing, yet she still flowed it away.

Eisia immediately raised her thrusting sword. Then she lowered it slowly and aimed at Enkrid.

Sword-Tip Aim.

Her specialty and her greatest strength.

But this felt different from the version Enkrid knew.

Had Rem not already said it?

"That cannot be all."

He knew by instinct.

No, countless real battles and talent let you see other fragments of what your opponent holds.

This was still an area Enkrid could not see.

Would that be a problem?

Not at all.

The tip aimed at him. The world narrowed until only that tip and himself remained. That was Eisia's sword-tip aim.

Illusionary Sword, a deceptive blade.

Enkrid already knew how to beat that sword.

Of course he did. Ragna, Rem, and Jaxon had shown him the answer over and over right in front of him.

Rem fought by covering the sword tip aimed at him with his axe.

Ragna ignored the tip. Whatever stood in front of him, he cut it down.

Jaxon kept knocking the blade away before sword-tip aim could even begin.

All three were correct answers, but none of them fully belonged to Enkrid himself.

He had felt that since he carried part of Will in his body.

It only meant something if he solved it himself.

To move forward, he had to walk properly. He had to step onto a path and walk it. If he stepped on empty air, he could not walk. Lifting his feet in place was not moving forward.

Even the process had to become his own if he wanted true progress. That was the path, planting his feet on the road, trampling dirt, pushing through sand.

If Rem, Ragna, and Jaxon each had their own way, Enkrid had to find his own as well.

He never thought all of this would happen at once.

He was not a genius. He knew that clearly now.

"You're a genius."

A mercenary had told him that when he was young, but those words no longer stayed in his chest.

What remained was the sword. What remained was the dream. What had stitched that torn dream back together?

The sword.

Even when he regretted Eisia leaving before, he had only thought he wanted to spar with her two hundred more times.

Why was Eisia blocking his path? He did not know.

Did he know he could not waste time because he was on his way to save Crang? Yes.

Still, Enkrid felt no impatience.

If his heart had shaken over every little thing, he could never have endured this long with a sword in hand.

So he chose to do what he had to do now. No, he threw himself completely into this moment.

If she blocked him, he would get past her. If she stood in his way, he would break through.

In that brief instant, Enkrid thought, sorted, and reached his conclusion, then drew the blade called method.

There was something he had wanted to try if he ever crossed swords with Eisia again.

His own method.

Enkrid closed his eyes.

If seeing was the problem, then what if he did not see?

"...You really are insane."

Something like emotion slipped from Eisia's voice, a voice that had been as still as an object.

No one could see this and not be startled.

She had held out when he said drinking liquor as punishment was his hobby, but this was harder to endure.

Close his eyes?

He was saying he would charge with his eyes shut. Could any sane person do that?

Eisia had won even when he fought with his eyes open. Whether they wagered half a life or a whole life, their sparring results were always the same.

And now, because her sword tip blocked his sight, he closed his eyes?

"Are you looking down on me? Or did you train for this separately?"

Eisia fired question after question.

From those words, Enkrid felt she was not here by choice.

If she truly wanted to be here, she would have swung first, not talked.

That had always been how their sparring went.

Naturally, he did not care. Enkrid enjoyed the present. He savored this moment. So he smiled, excited simply to face Eisia.

Still smiling, he closed his eyes and listened. He used his ears instead of his eyes.

"If you hone sensory techniques, you can see without seeing."

Jaxon had said that countless times.

Men under Enkrid's command had shown tricks like that in practice.

Without looking, they could read the movements of someone behind them.

Audin said he could feel the waves in the air.

"You just know by instinct."

Rem spoke only of sixth sense.

Ragna had asked whether you really needed to know what someone behind you was doing.

Just swing and cut. That was his point.

Very Ragna.

And Jaxon, needless to say.

"Feel the air's vibrations with touch, and hear sound with your ears."

Distinguishing tiny sounds and reading them was the foundation of sensory techniques.

They were all similar. Only the words and the path to enlightenment differed.

By now, Enkrid had honed himself enough to gain the sixth-sense blade called Sense of Evasion.

Using that as a base, he moved with his eyes closed.

To put it simply, the smiling madman with his eyes shut even attacked first.

"You crazy bastard."

Eisia spat it out through her teeth. In her tone was not only criticism, but a trace of respect.

For his first strike, Enkrid relied on memory.

He remembered where Eisia stood, and he listened to her voice.

Then he activated a moment of Will.

Bang!

The ground split and burst under his feet. Stone dust exploded from beneath the carpet.

Enkrid swung with full power. He never held back just because the opponent was someone he knew.

* * *

Eisia could not let Enkrid pass. There was one biggest reason.

If you get past me, you die.

Letting him through would not save him.

So she would stop him here.

Whether she came by choice, by threat, or because she had no other option.

That was for later.

Right in front of her stood an opponent who came at her with full sincerity and full force.

Eyes closed, he split the instant and closed the distance. Enkrid's sword slammed down without hesitation.

Eisia met it at the same speed, without easing her pressure.

Somehow, his strikes looked twice as fast as when his eyes were open.

She raised her thin blade horizontally and struck upward. Twisting her ankle, she scattered the force. As before, she flowed the power from his sword along her thin rapier blade. If she simply received it, she would be too late. So she caught the exact instant of impact and twisted, breaking its structure.

Eisia did exactly that.

Her rapier moved like fluttering cloth.

Tiririring.

Compared to the force behind his downward strike, the sound was oddly soft. Enkrid's blade slipped aside.

Eisia loosened her grip for an instant, then tightened it again.

In that moment, the inner forearm muscles beneath her leather bracer tensed and added power. She gathered that reserve and thrust forward.

Whoong.

Not the sword, but the air reached him first. Momentum and pressure raised the fine hairs all over his body.

Enkrid had no time to recover his descending blade.

So he changed.

At some point, he was holding Silver with his left hand alone, while his right grabbed the sword at his right hip.

He drew it in reverse grip and blocked. The Gladius stopped Eisia's tip.