WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 377: Tip-to-Tip Meeting
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A violet lamp swayed over the surging black river. As the ferry rocked, his body swayed with it.
Enkrid sat quietly at the edge of the boat with his mouth shut, so the Boatman spoke again.
“There is a very easy path.”
Enkrid did not answer. The Boatman continued.
“Run away.”
His lips barely moved, and his voice lingered over the ferry like an echo.
“Run, and do not face your death. If you do, I will handle the rest myself.”
Instead of replying, Enkrid lowered his gaze at an angle. He looked like a man crowded with thoughts.
The Boatman opened his mouth again. The same faint lip movement, the same echoing voice drifting over the ferry.
“If you dislike running, then use your tongue. Persuade your opponent, then prepare for what comes after. If there are two of you, you can handle it.”
If Eisia and Enkrid joined forces, they could deal with the one who would appear afterward.
He knew the future because today repeated.
Not every today unfolded exactly the same, but the broad frame did not change.
Fighting Enkrid had drained Eisia’s stamina and left her injured. The same was true for Enkrid.
If both of them kept their stamina and stayed uninjured, they could handle that opponent. They might even take the win.
It was a fight with their lives on the line, and being on the same side would clearly be an advantage.
Of course, it would not be a guaranteed victory.
“Do you want to know exactly what the wall is?”
As always, there was no emotion in the Boatman’s words. He simply stated fact after fact, meaning without feeling.
Enkrid kept listening, but gave no answer.
Was he still chewing over his own thoughts?
The Boatman kicked the ferry floor with his toes.
The kick made the boat lurch hard. Seated, Enkrid had to brace himself with one hand to keep his balance. He raised his head in that posture.
A blank gaze, a face lost in thought, lips half open.
That was what the Boatman saw.
His eyes seemed to focus again, and then came the question.
“Huh?”
“What did I just say?”
The Boatman almost showed emotion, rare for him, but held it down and asked again.
Enkrid blinked twice and answered.
“Ah, I didn’t hear it.”
It was true. He had been too focused to hear. As always, Enkrid answered with complete sincerity.
“...Go.”
The Boatman’s mouth moved before he meant it to.
Not a word had gone into this bastard’s head. It was not that he heard with one ear and let it out the other. It was not defiance either. He just ignored it and swallowed it whole.
Even the Boatman could feel irritated.
“Huh?”
Enkrid’s baffled follow-up looked genuine, and that made it even more obnoxious.
At times, purity became a weapon that filled another person’s chest with frustration.
“I said go.”
The Boatman did not bother getting angry or arguing. Sending him off was enough. He had a reason too.
‘I will watch.’
Whatever he was thinking, whatever he planned to do, he would see soon enough.
“Ah, yes.”
Enkrid nodded, not even looking awkward.
Soon his figure blurred and vanished from the ferry. Left alone, the Boatman silently stared into the darkness.
He would probably repeat the same today again.
And he would face this same moment again. On this ferry, in the dark, he would meet himself. It was only natural.
The Boatman saw repeating today in advance.
What happens, happens.
What is set happens as set.
Of course, that Enkrid bastard had surprised him a few times, but only that much.
There was no wall one could cross in a single day.
Repeating today was pain, a chain of suffering. It could only be that way. That was the core of the curse.
But to one infected with madness, even pain became ecstasy.
‘Madman.’
The Boatman’s gaze blurred. Not over the black river, but toward Enkrid, the one forced to repeat his life.
Because of the curse, he could see him.
The Boatman watched.
He repeated the same day.
He woke before dawn and trained his body.
He replaced persuasion with a kick to the Security Commissioner.
He sent Ragna and the beastfolk Dunbakel against the group advancing from outside.
To the assassins, he said he was in pain, that yes, he really had been stabbed, and embarrassed the comrades standing beside him.
Then he went to the palace and cut down the old ill-fated tie that blocked his path without hesitation.
He cut and killed. There was no long conversation.
“You did rape the maid, right? Last time I cut you down without even asking.”
“What?”
He ignored the other man’s disbelief. No, he had no interest at all in the past standing in front of him.
He had nearly killed the owner of the curse, so resentment would have made sense, but none of that showed. It was probably not absent.
Still.
‘Right now, he was fixated on something else.’
Instead of the stunned man, Enkrid looked at the maid.
He asked with his eyes if it was true. The trembling maid nodded.
After that came a swing, a slash, and death.
Then he faced the wall again.
The orange-haired female knight.
“Stop there.”
She blocked his path. Enkrid raised his sword.
No questions. It would happen anyway, so there was no reason to ask.
No, that was not even how his mind was moving.
For a moment, the Boatman glimpsed part of Enkrid’s mind. It was full of anticipation.
‘That bastard.’
He was here because he wanted to test himself against the wall. He had run here to cross swords with that female knight.
The same today repeated.
The details were not perfectly identical, but the day stayed similar.
Of course, some things were different too. Before he got this far. Changes during training after waking in the morning.
“Rem, how did you do that?”
It was around the time the morning sun passed overhead. Even while the Security Commissioner came by and yapped, Enkrid kept talking to Rem.
“You bastard, this body came in person and you are making small talk?”
“Wait a moment.”
Enkrid said that and asked again.
The Commissioner stood there with his jaw hanging open in disbelief.
“Sword-Tip Aim. You blocked it with your axe edge.”
“It’s Axe-Edge Aim.”
Rem blinked and gave a short, blunt explanation.
“You just have to cover it well.”
In truth, he could not explain much more, and Enkrid judged there was nothing more worth hearing, so he turned away.
That was what differed in this repeated today.
“Yooou bastard!”
The man who got blatantly ignored exploded in anger.
That was all.
Afterward, before the wall named Eisia, Enkrid raised his sword, tried some trick, and met a similar result.
He was cut, stabbed, and defeated. He collapsed on the ground.
There was one more difference from the previous today. The Boatman already knew.
Enkrid did not.
His gaze swept behind Eisia.
The man she had called senior did not appear.
Instead.
“I’ll go check the rear.”
Eisia left, and that was the end of it. A little time passed, then darkness fell at once, and today ended again.
The Boatman looked to the opposite side of the ferry.
Fragments like grains of sand gathered and gathered. The specks slowly formed a human shape.
It was Enkrid.
The Boatman felt curiosity rise, and saw no need to hold it back, so he spoke.
“I will ask one thing.”
“Huh?”
Enkrid was there again, still wearing a blank stare.
“Earlier, you were thinking so hard you could not hear what I said in front of you, right?”
Enkrid answered readily. It was not something to hide, and there was nothing to hide.
He only wondered why he was being asked.
“I was thinking about how to block Sword-Tip Aim.”
Seeing the focus and heat in those eyes, the Boatman became certain.
This man Enkrid had focused on only one thing.
That was why he saw only the opponent holding a sword in front of him. Wall or no wall, he looked only at that, recognized only that, and poured all his attention into it.
The Boatman said something he did not need to say, but could say within his authority.
“You see that as a wall?”
“I don’t know.”
That was all.
The rest was left unsaid.
Who cares about that?
Is that important?
What matters to me is something else.
If you have nothing more to say, let me think.
The Boatman felt emotion. Bewilderment. He was thrown off by a purity with no visible intent, and the words he would have used to twist and toy with the other man crumbled into emptiness. They mixed into the dark and washed away.
“Then do as you please.”
The Boatman had read his thoughts and answered.
Fine. Do whatever you want. What you are seeing now is not the wall.
That was the meaning left unstated.
Enkrid vanished again. He blurred, scattered, and disappeared.
‘Foolish.’
Still, this was something the Boatman had wanted too, and even if Enkrid crossed this wall, it would leave a deep scar on him.
Heh heh.
The Boatman laughed.
If he could watch him suffer then, nothing would be more delightful.
If Enkrid crossed this wall, that alone would become a curse for him. The Boatman knew it.
* * *
‘I figured out one thing.’
It would be good to copy Rem’s method too.
Not just Rem’s. He should try everyone’s once.
Imitation was one of the fastest ways to understand what you were imitating.
‘My own method comes after that.’
When he saw a path, he walked it. That was how Enkrid was.
What was the wall, and where did it end?
If he asked the Boatman, it felt like he might answer. Today’s Boatman gave that impression. But it did not matter. He did not need to know.
So he did not ask. He thought instead.
“What are you thinking about from morning on?”
This was the third today. During dawn training, Enkrid suddenly stopped and sank into thought, and Rem, who had woken late and come out, asked him. Enkrid threw out the key question even earlier than in the second today.
“How did you do that Axe-Edge Aim?”
Even at the sudden question, Rem was not flustered. Enkrid had always been like this.
So the answer came right away.
“Eisia’s sword was aimed at me, right? I aimed at the opponent’s sword tip with my axe.”
The explanation still sounded like a stage wrecked by stray dogs. A complete mess. Difficult and tangled. But if Enkrid were the type to give up because of that, he would never have picked up a sword in the first place.
At least Rem knew his own explanation was hard to follow.
“Draw Spark and aim it.”
Rem said that as he pulled out his long-hafted axe.
He held it lightly, but it had a strange center of balance, and it was heavier than it looked.
Even so, just seeing it in Rem’s hand made it feel different.
Enkrid drew Spark.
Ting. With the blade out, he aimed forward. The thin, narrow blade pointed ahead.
Holding it like that, he thought the first step of imitation might be to copy Sword-Tip Aim itself.
‘Mix pressure with killing intent.’
In a way, it was the complete opposite of Jaxon’s Pierce Without Killing Strike.
This was a sword technique that deceived by applying pressure to the opponent.
Enkrid could not copy that immediately. Still, as he kept his sword aimed.
Thunk.
Rem struck the tip with his axe edge. More exactly, he hit the sharp point of the blade with the axe edge.
“Get it?”
Instead of replying, Enkrid sank into thought.
He replayed what Rem had just done.
An explanation shown through movement was twice as easy to understand as words. He thought it through on his own. Enkrid understood.
Rem had used the sharpest line of his axe edge to strike Spark’s point, the sword tip.
Edge and point met exactly.
That went beyond a trick. It was near the level of mastery.
Soon that action became a question.
Could he make sword tip and sword tip meet at normal speed and force?
“Ah.”
The sound slipped out.
“Try it. You’ll understand if you try.”
Rem stepped back, and Enkrid slowly split his grip between both hands. Spark and Gladius.
Making blade meet blade was easy.
But point and point?
Edge and point?
At low speed, it was possible.
If he reduced speed, it was hard but doable.
Tension naturally entered his muscles. That added unnecessary force and made the movement unnatural.
How could he make this natural?
What skill did he need for this?
“Right. You just need to be able to do that.”
Rem tucked his long-hafted axe at his waist and spoke.
He sounded like he had said all he needed to say.
Enkrid did not even nod. He quickly sank into his own world. Total immersion.
Rem watched him and thought he was a very strange man, then looked at Andrew, raised his index finger, and held it in front of his lips.
He made no shushing sound, but Andrew, who had been about to speak, closed his mouth.
After stepping back three paces at Rem’s gesture, Andrew spoke.
“What is this?”
“I shall personally train you today.”
“...It’s fine. I can do it alone.”
“No, it is not fine. I will carry on the captain’s will.”
“No, Captain Enkrid isn’t dead.”
“My continental language is still clumsy.”
What was he even talking about? He had never even used western speech.
That sentence, spoken through Andrew’s expression, was ignored.
Enkrid heard the sounds around him and sank back into his own thoughts. He settled inward and kept thinking.
= = =
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