WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 380: [I Don't Want To.]

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380. I Don't Want To

The Boatman continued.

"You have to kill her with your own hands for this to end."

It meant this wall would never end unless he killed Eisia.

"Do I have to?"

Enkrid asked before he even realized it.

"I gave you clues from the start."

At the Boatman's words, Enkrid closed his eyes for a moment and sank into thought.

'What happened to Eisia beyond the corridor?'

She had probably died.

It was only a guess, but it felt close to certain.

Then did that mean Eisia's death itself was the trigger that made today repeat?

Enkrid recalled Eisia's death from the first today.

"That's right."

The Boatman answered as if he had read his mind.

Enkrid instinctively felt there was not a shred of falsehood in what the Boatman had just said.

The Boatman had never toyed with him through lies.

He had told him everything properly. Enkrid just had not taken it at face value.

"Kill her. Then you will cross."

With those words, his vision blurred.

Through the fading haze, he heard the Boatman's voice once more.

"Enjoy this as well."

There was expectation in that voice.

Enkrid opened his eyes. It was a new today.

'Do I have to kill her?'

The Boatman had said that was the wall, and he had to cross it.

It was dawn, before sunrise. Enkrid moved as usual. He went outside and worked his body. Isolation Technique. While doing that, he kept thinking.

When the body moved, the mind worked better too.

'Do I have to kill her?'

The same question circled in his chest.

He could not focus. He knew it himself, but he still could not help it.

'Why?'

He searched for a reason. An answer seemed close, then slipped away. The time spent brooding grew long.

Andrew came by halfway through and said something to him, but Enkrid answered roughly and continued his repetitive motions.

That was how today began, with distracting thoughts mixed in.

"You bastard!"

He met the commissioner, then repeated what he had repeated countless times in previous todays, as if following an old routine.

'If I kill her, I cross.'

The answer was set. It was clear. Then he only had to cross. How many people had already died by his hand?

In an age of war, killing could not even be called unusual.

Eisia blocked his way.

She was a knight order member and a junior knight. If she fought someone, she knew she could die. She had to be prepared for that much.

So he only needed to kill her.

"Kill her. Then you will cross."

He heard it like a hallucination. The Boatman's voice lingered in his ears and echoed.

So when he faced Eisia, he naturally did not get the same chances as before. Too many stray thoughts filled his mind. He could not crush her with raw skill.

"You're drained. If you don't want to fight, go back."

A junior-knight-level fighter used at least a fragment of Will. That was part of mental force. When someone's mind was tangled, their sword became messy too.

Eisia pointed that out.

"I don't want that."

He answered her bluntly, then drew his sword again. He endured with technique and swung by reflex. One today passed like that.

A day where he could not kill Eisia, but Eisia also could not kill Enkrid.

A day that felt meaningless.

The guilt that came from wasting time.

Those things filled his chest.

It was only once, but that was a today where he gave himself over to habit, not desperate struggle.

Then it felt like someone smashed the back of his head from behind.

No, someone really did smash it.

Smack!

"...I think this needs an explanation."

Enkrid asked without changing the pose he had been hit in, neck bent forward.

"One look told me a curse got planted in your head. Curses like that get cured by the medicine and holiness of my palm."

Rem raised his palm toward the sky as he spoke. Sunlight fell across that palm.

"Bless the holiness resting in this body's hand."

A mad bastard doing mad things.

"...Why does that thing even live."

Jaxon, rarely, threw in one line.

"If you want to die, come at me."

Ragna kindly informed everyone that he wanted to kill Rem.

"Shut up if you don't know anything."

Rem snapped back. Watching that, a thought rose in Enkrid's mind.

Should he just kill this bastard? If he had been told to kill Rem instead of Eisia, maybe he would have felt a little better.

Of course, Rem was not someone who would die just because you told him to.

And if someone really told him to kill Rem, Enkrid had no intention of following that either...

A bolt struck his head. The shock from the hit tore past his skull and churned through his brain.

"A curse?"

That was the line that came out.

"Means don't waste your head on useless thoughts."

Rem said it while miming little pokes at his own head with his index finger.

"What's there to make complicated?"

"Ah."

A gasp escaped him.

Why had he felt guilty after wasting a day?

Why had he failed to spend today with his best effort?

It felt like chains were tied around both arms and both legs.

Those chains began with the Boatman's words.

"If you kill her, you cross."

Because he did not like that proposition.

His heart would not move.

He knew he had to kill her, but he did not want to. He did not want to do it. So his heart would not rise.

This wall was not something he would clear by killing Eisia. That was what he decided.

Holding that feeling as it was, with calmness and sincerity, Enkrid opened his mouth.

"I don't want to."

Only three words.

They cut away everything before and after.

But they were sincere.

If words could hold power, that only happened when they came from someone who had proven them through action.

The days Enkrid had gone through, today, all of it gave strength to those words now.

So they resonated.

They rang out. Words spoken with a wholly united heart crossed his own chest and reached everyone around him.

Rem scratched his head with the same fingers that had been tapping it and said,

"Then keep going."

He had said he did not want to that strongly, so how could anyone stop him?

No one in this world was perfect. Even their captain would have moments where he needed this kind of conflict.

"Yeah. I don't want to."

Enkrid said it with a broad smile.

"Got it, I said."

"I don't want to."

He said it while grinning and meeting Rem's eyes.

"Ah, damn. I got it."

"I don't want to."

"No, I said I got it?"

"I don't want to."

"Got it, I was wrong. Hit me."

Rem stuck out the back of his head. Looking at that, Enkrid said,

"I don't want to."

"Fuck!"

Then he laughed.

It was not said to Rem. It had nothing to do with him.

Whether today repeated or not, what did Rem's misunderstanding matter?

He would forget soon anyway.

Today repeated again. Enkrid endured and endured the same way. This time too, he had chances to kill Eisia, but he let them go.

The Boatman appeared in his dream again. He spoke.

"That was said to me, right."

Nod.

Enkrid nodded.

"Then you'll be trapped in today. You think that's better? Just because your paths crossed, you'll give up your dream to save one person?"

The Boatman spoke of his dream.

His words were a sharp blade. A strike aimed at the heart.

But Enkrid's heart was wrapped in Frog's Heart Armor, so the blade was blocked.

"I'll subdue her completely and move on."

"What?"

Enkrid's dream was to be a knight.

A knight in that old-fashioned sense.

What he had learned about knights came from poems and songs.

That was his standard. His line. His conviction. A vow to protect the weak and his comrades.

Had he not told the marquis too?

"I came to reduce Demon Creatures and reduce Magic Beasts. I came to protect those who know how to care for their own people. I came to punish those who oppress others by force. I came because I want to protect the weak and protect the dreams of those who have dreams."

Eisia had her own circumstances. Through today's endless repetition, he had sensed that vaguely.

"I'll subdue her without killing her and move on."

"You think that's possible?"

Why would it be impossible?

Enkrid answered with his eyes, and the Boatman said no more.

He closed his eyes and opened them again. It was the same today, but his mindset had changed. More accurately, he now had a goal.

Not killing Eisia, subduing her. That was what he would do. That was what he decided.

He did not want to kill.

Mad bastard.

He heard the Boatman's voice like a hallucination again, but this time he ignored it.

And so he faced today again, the day that started with the commissioner and ended with Eisia.

Then another two hundred forty todays passed.

* * *

"What?"

Eisia reacted to what he had just said.

"I'm asking why. Why do you keep blocking me?"

He had felt it from the beginning. Was Eisia really here because she wanted to be?

'Half and half.'

If she had truly turned enemy, she could have just beaten him down and watched him die. But she did not. She blocked him again. She said there was no need to kill him, but she still staked her own life on it.

Before dying, she had once brought up her younger sibling. He remembered that.

More than anything, he felt things while trading swords.

The things he had seen, heard, and judged while repeating today.

Inside his head, Enkrid mixed all of it. Untangling the knot and lining everything up went on in silence.

As Kraiss always said, Enkrid had natural talent in the realm of intuition and sixth sense.

"Is your younger sibling being held hostage?"

Eisia's hand twitched. A junior knight, and one he had fought this many times. She was not someone who would sway from a few words or a bit of provocation.

Even so, that reaction was different. It had to mean her sibling mattered greatly to her.

The moment his words ended, something like killing intent flowed out from Eisia's body. It was far denser than anything she had shown so far. Pressure activated on its own and crushed down on him.

Naturally, the Refusal Will inside Enkrid activated.

He shook off the Pressure, opened his chest, and looked straight at her.

Then Eisia's momentum eased a little.

No, the momentum stayed, but the dense killing intent faded.

It was no longer the drive to kill. It shifted into battle spirit, the drive to fight.

"Yeah, I knew you couldn't have gotten mixed up with bastards like that. How did you figure it out?"

"Reading the room."

"...Your head really works, no matter what."

Eisia remembered that while staying at Andrew's estate, she had mentioned her sibling herself.

He must have guessed from that.

Of course, Enkrid had learned it relatively easily because today had repeated. There was no way Eisia could know that.

"That's half of it."

Eisia continued. Enkrid also thought she was not here over just one hostage.

She had other options.

Then why had she still blocked his way like this?

"And the other half?"

Eisia worked her mouth a few times, then exhaled and spoke.

It was a reaction more alive than in any other today.

"If you don't want to die, go back. That's all I have to say."

She spoke stiffly, as if forcibly crushing that liveliness down.

"Why? Because if I go, I'll just die?"

That was a guess too, and he got it right again.

"Did you learn mind reading or something? That'd be a problem."

"Nothing like that."

He only knew because today had repeated. Behind Eisia was someone who cut that flow off.

How strong? Around Rem and Ragna's level, probably. If not, even if she was exhausted, they could not have captured Eisia that easily. That was likely why she kept dying.

His first job was probably to reach that point.

Enkrid readjusted his grip on his sword. Seeing that, the flicker in Eisia's eyes stilled. She said,

"Just go back. Half of this is me asking."

Half again.

Thinking that, Enkrid looked straight into her eyes and asked,

"And the other half?"

"A threat."

Enkrid nodded.

"I respect your judgment, junior knight Eisia."

He was sincere. As always, calm sincerity filled his words.

And because he respected the other side's judgment, respected it more than enough,

Enkrid decided to go beyond it.

"Even if I send you, you'll die."

Eisia said it again as his momentum changed, but Enkrid did not listen.

Instead, he steadied his breathing and retied his sword belt. He changed stance and stored everything in sight in his memory.

He had repeated today more than three hundred times. Most places he remembered from a quick glance.

The decorative practice sword hanging to the side, the window, the vase, all of it.

"You can't stop me."

Enkrid, now in stance, said it.

Even if not today, then in another today, he would cross that way. So in the end, she could not stop him.

In Eisia's memory, Enkrid had always been someone who could not get past even her Sword-Tip Aim.

"Prove it."

A smile formed on her face before she noticed. Wasn't that confidence, that posture that never backed down, something good to see?

Becoming a junior knight in the knight order meant living with that kind of intensity.

More than anything, this man Enkrid carried a zeal that stirred everyone around him.

Naturally, that affected Eisia too.

She truly wished this man would not die here, so she would not send him. And she would not kill him either.

She extended her sword forward and aimed.

Sword-Tip Aim.

If he could not get past this, he could not even start the fight. Without realizing it, Eisia felt anticipation.

She thought he might break past her technique.

'Am I really thinking maybe?'

Was his momentum really that full of certainty?

He had shown that same side steadily during their sparring, so why did it feel new now?

She did not know.

It was just a feeling. A junior knight's instinct.

She focused harder than ever and drew up her Will.

She even gave up the Pressure that declared she would not back down, and poured her Will only into Sword-Tip Aim.

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