WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 376: There Is No Next Time
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“Crazy bastard.”
Watching Enkrid smile, Eisia almost lost her composure, but she steadied herself.
If she was not going to kill him, then she had to stop him here.
Her younger sibling had been taken hostage.
Someone she never expected was standing behind her.
Layer upon layer of tangled thoughts piled up, then faded.
With that bastard smiling right in front of her, she had nothing left to say.
“You must have a reason to break through. I have a reason to stop you.”
The words came out on their own.
Why?
Why was she saying this to Enkrid?
She did not know. The atmosphere itself was pressing her into it.
That only made her harden her face more. She hid her expression and let her sword speak instead.
Sword-Tip Aim was not her only specialty.
She would never lose in technique. There was a gap between her and Enkrid that could not be closed in a short time.
She admitted he was stronger, but the technical gap would not be bridged so easily.
Enkrid was good at both raw strength and move-reading.
Still, no matter how good someone was at move-reading, if they kept losing the fine technical exchanges, there was no answer.
Enkrid closed his eyes again.
“You’ll die like that.”
She had no intention of killing him, but this was no situation for carelessness.
“Try it if you can.”
Enkrid did not back down. For a moment, Eisia found that frustrating.
“If you wait for next time instead of now, you won’t have to fight while taking this kind of risk.”
Even as she spoke, she already knew the answer. She knew exactly how Enkrid would respond.
She had not seen him for a few days, but she understood clearly what kind of person he was.
“If today doesn’t work, then tomorrow. If tomorrow doesn’t work, then the next day.”
Enkrid spoke with his eyes closed, sword aimed.
“If I had ever lived for some next time, I would never have been able to stand in front of you right now.”
Eisia clenched her teeth.
They fought again and again. In the end, Eisia punched two holes through Enkrid’s forearm.
She also left a deep wound in his thigh, deep enough for a finger joint to sink in.
In that same span, Enkrid lost Silver, and with Spark he gave Eisia a long slash across the cheek.
“If I had meant to kill you, this would have been easier.”
Eisia said as she caught her breath.
The sun had already tilted to one side.
The rebel blades that started in broad daylight had probably swept through the entire palace by now.
Right on cue.
“That’s enough.”
A voice came from behind Eisia, from a shadow untouched by light.
“Put that away.”
The voice spoke again.
Collapsed on the ground, Enkrid turned his gaze past Eisia. There was no light. He could not see clearly. Only a silhouette. Dark and dense.
Even standing in darkness, the man’s presence felt heavily colored.
Who was this now?
From the pressure he gave off and Eisia’s attitude, it was obvious. He stood above her.
The darkness came from unlit candle stands. A man stepped out from beyond it.
Color filled in the silhouette as he came forward. Watching him, Enkrid thought of an unstoppable boulder rolling in.
‘He’s not a knight.’
Instinct and experience told him. Had he not already crossed blades with one?
It was only one slash, but that had been enough to teach him what a knight was.
This man was not a knight.
With dull hair, a longsword at his waist, and a bloodied dagger in his hand, he walked out.
Eisia turned. She still had enough in her to strike Enkrid once more, yet she turned without hesitation.
Facing the man with her sword raised, she spoke.
“Sunbae, let’s stop here.”
Enkrid could see Eisia’s back and, beyond her, the front of the man whose presence overwhelmed even her.
The man with the dagger tilted his head. His dark brown wavy hair shifted with the motion.
“Eisia?”
“This is enough. What do you think you’re doing if Master comes back?”
Enkrid felt no conviction in Eisia’s words.
Even she did not believe what she was saying.
“If you can’t do it, I will.”
The man strode forward as he spoke, and Eisia released Pressure again.
A wall.
The wall that had blocked Enkrid had now turned the other way.
“You should stop,” Enkrid muttered.
It was hard to gauge the man’s skill. Was his own eye lacking?
He did not know.
It felt like looking at Ragna or Rem.
“You think all squires are the same?”
Eisia’s old words hit him again. Had she said that during their spar because of this man? Maybe.
The man ignored Eisia’s Pressure. His pace did not change.
“Eisia.”
Still seated, Enkrid called her name again. Eisia did not answer.
She raised her sword instead.
Sword-Tip Aim.
And once again, Enkrid saw the right answer to break it.
After Rem, Ragna, and Jaxon, this was the fourth.
The instant Eisia aimed her blade, the man took a long step in and slammed the flat with his dagger. She used Sword-Tip Aim, but it was useless.
In that instant, Enkrid understood what the man had done.
He had seen this answer four times now, so the realization came naturally.
‘Just because she aims it doesn’t mean the blade itself vanishes.’
The sword was still there. If you could knock it away with force, Sword-Tip Aim could be broken.
If Eisia swung first or blocked, the technique broke anyway.
So even if he stepped in and swung his dagger, she had no choice but to deflect or block.
Still, he had to strike in a way that prevented her from using a flowing deflection, and he had to cut off her room to counterattack, which meant many conditions had to line up first.
So how was that possible right now?
He saw the answer, but not every step that led to it.
‘Normally she’d deflect and hit back.’
Her flow had been cut.
Showing that kind of control with a single dagger meant he operated on another level.
Not all squires were the same.
That line sank deep into Enkrid’s chest.
Using his sword as a cane, Enkrid stood up. He could probably swing one or two more times.
If he just watched Eisia die, it would not end with a restless night.
From the moment he rose, Enkrid did not care whether his sword would work or not.
He did it because he could.
“Don’t be stupid.”
The dagger man spoke again. His gaze never once turned to Enkrid. It stayed on Eisia alone.
Eisia recovered the sword that had been knocked away and split her thrust into three branches.
A thrust like a trident. Was that technique called Trident?
She had said she came up with it while watching fishermen in a coastal village.
The man swished his dagger up and down.
Like stirring stew with a ladle.
That was how it looked to Enkrid.
Clang, clang, clang!
Three collisions rang out.
“Are you really doing this?”
The man spoke again. Eisia answered with her sword. She shifted her stance.
Sword-Tip Aim was not her only strength.
Enkrid knew that well.
She put power into her toes. She shifted her center of gravity. She never neglected strength training, but there were many people with far greater raw power than hers.
If she had not found ways around that, she could never have become a squire.
“Do you really want to die?”
The man’s tone had no rise or fall. No cadence. It was closer to listing facts.
Eisia’s sword flew several more times.
It bent, stabbed, and sprang upward. It was the same technique that had pierced Enkrid’s forearm.
Delicate and sharp. By speed alone, it rivaled Enkrid’s Will of “instant.”
It was fair to call it a decisive move.
Yet against every blade, the man merely tapped with his dagger and blocked.
At last, the tip brushed his cheek, but of course it was not fatal.
Blood sprayed. The man dropped his dagger. The short blade hit the ground.
At the same time, his hand gripped the hilt of the longsword at his waist.
Enkrid saw the pommel. Wolf-shaped.
He gripped and drew.
It was not blindingly fast. It carried no crushing weight.
It was simply drawn, then sent forward.
Yet the sword he swung rose at a strange angle and severed the flow of Eisia’s thrust.
He struck the middle of her blade. A hard clang rang out, and Eisia’s sword flew back.
‘How is that possible?’
He did not know. Not at all. Watching alone taught him nothing.
Eisia pulled her sword back to her chest. The flow had already been cut. Her momentum was dead, so no outgoing strike would land.
As the flow snapped, her steps tangled. As her steps tangled, her breathing locked up.
Eisia held her breath entirely. Ignoring all flow, she slashed instead of thrusting.
She cut top to bottom. The vertical downward slash was not as violent as lightning, but it was as fast as a ray of light. Like one of the irregular moves Enkrid sometimes showed with Spark.
As the blade came down, the man set his own blade against it and pushed.
Tidi-di-ding.
Steel collided and sparks burst. For a brief moment, their blades locked.
At that timing, Enkrid launched himself.
He could not reproduce the explosive charge he had used against Eisia.
But he could still deliver one proper strike.
He packed in momentary acceleration.
He rejected the Pressure pouring from the man.
He detonated Heart of Superhuman Strength and held Focus Point.
He drove Spark forward in his left hand. The thrust shot straight and imitated sunlight.
The sun, sunlight, the moment you felt it, it touched you. There was no way to dodge it.
It was a thrust that evoked exactly that.
Its technical completion was higher than ever, breath, steps, timing, muscle elasticity, the exact pressure of his grip on the hilt.
Everything aligned.
There was no room to feel thrill or anything else. It was a thrust that clicked perfectly into place.
Even so, the other man’s blade slipped into the gap.
How do you avoid sunlight? Stand in the shade.
The flow snapped. A blade cut in at the midpoint and flicked Spark’s center before the thrust fully formed.
The force was not violent, but the direction twisted. That twist ruined everything, the gathered burst from his feet through his whole body, his breathing, his footing.
Enkrid knew his strike had failed.
The result came immediately.
The sword in the man’s right hand had already split Eisia’s heart.
“Ghk.”
Bloody foam spilled from Eisia’s mouth. Even as the blade took her heart, she swung her rapier, but all strength had already drained away.
The man did not take even that hit. He caught the falling blade on his shoulder guard and let it slide aside.
His left arm was still extended, and now a shortsword sat in his left hand, its tip already stabbing into Enkrid’s chest.
Bandage Armor held for a moment, so the blade did not pierce his heart and slid off, but it drove in through his side and scraped his other organs.
The man’s eyes swept over Enkrid’s wound. Even then, he did not speak to him.
He looked like he was looking at a roadside stone.
Was it because of the skill gap? No, it was not that.
It was the look you gave someone or something that had nothing to do with you.
“There was no way to subdue you without killing you.”
He spoke only to Eisia.
“Sunbae.”
Eisia’s blood-foamed lips moved. Gathering her last strength, she opened her mouth once more.
“My younger sibling.”
“Don’t worry.”
The light in Eisia’s eyes faded. The burning pain digging into Enkrid’s organs did not blur his mind.
Repeating today was a curse, not a blessing that let him grow used to pain.
So the pain was the same now as when he repeated this day for the first time.
Even so, he could not take his eyes off Eisia.
Stopping him was one thing, fine.
But why did she turn around here?
Why did she stand in front of him?
He could tell without asking, just from how things had unfolded.
She could have looked away.
She could have turned around.
Then she would not have had to risk her life.
But she did not.
He did not need to ask why.
Just as he never put off today until tomorrow.
Eisia also had something she absolutely could not yield.
What she could not yield.
‘Not turning away from her heart.’
Why had she stood here in the first place?
To kill him?
No. She had not. If she had wanted to, she could have killed him anytime.
His squadmates had all said the same thing.
“If it turns into a fight to kill and be killed, victory can go either way. But that does not erase the truth that winning right now is still difficult.”
Rem had said that.
“If you fight her, you lose. Most of the time, you lose.”
Ragna had said that too.
As his thoughts continued, the man stopped in front of him. The man’s black boots entered his view.
When Enkrid lifted his gaze, only then did the man speak to him.
“She died because of you.”
His voice was numb, without a trace of emotion.
After that, the man’s sword struck Enkrid’s neck.
Pain rose from the back of his neck and shot into his brain. Burning pain, tearing flesh, blackout, darkness swallowing everything.
When he passed through that moment, he saw a surging river.
“Want me to show you the easy path?”
the boatman asked.
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