WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 384: Survived.

= = =

“Half a day. From the start, my plan was to buy only half a day.”

Right before the fight, Crang said that. It was the first time Matthew had heard it too.

The moment he heard it, Matthew looked outside. The sun still had not gone down. It was not even sunset yet.

‘Do we have to hold until evening?’

He knew it would not be easy.

Still.

Whoom.

With a slight twist of his wrist, the whip tip shot forward, dancing like it was alive.

The opponent did not even look at it. He struck not the tip, but the leather near it, with his elbow.

It was just a tap, but the force traveling through the whip was cut, scattered, and went slack. He had severed the exact point where the power transferred.

Matthew felt his rhythm snap, but he clenched his teeth and forced strength back in.

He swung his arm wide and fired the weighted tip again, like throwing it straight ahead.

Whoom.

The whip tore through the air.

At the same time, Enkrid swung his sword.

Top to bottom, a vertical lightning strike.

Even Matthew felt the force packed into it.

‘If he blocks that, an opening appears.’

Even a squire could not avoid that.

The opponent struck and shoved the blade just above Enkrid’s ricasso.

He was not meeting force with force. He used technique to flick the power aside.

Enkrid’s body tilted for an instant. He had committed fully, so his balance slipped.

Even off-balance, he spun in place, drew Spark, and thrust.

An irregular move, honed while breaking through Eisia.

It was the thrust called Momentary Will.

Whoom.

The opponent dodged with a simple twist of the waist, like avoiding a pebble thrown by a child.

He was so calm doing it that it looked natural.

After that, Enkrid sheathed Spark again, gripped Silver with both hands, then swung, thrust, cut, shifted his feet, and changed distance over and over.

Matthew kept cracking the whip too, even as his rhythm kept getting broken.

Their ally with the trident also stabbed in whenever she found a gap.

Even injured, she was no easy fighter.

But the opponent did not even properly dodge the trident.

Like swatting an annoying fly, he only turned it aside when it almost touched him, or knocked it off course with his sword before it landed.

Matthew’s whip was no great threat either.

At least Enkrid was holding on. Because he was, Matthew felt despair.

‘Against someone like this until evening?’

Impossible.

Enkrid could have collapsed any second and it would not have been strange.

A sword grazed his cheek.

A thin cut opened and blood scattered into the air. Enkrid ignored it, threw his body sideways, and slashed across.

Whoom.

The slash looked like it could split the air itself, yet the opponent only took one step back.

Enkrid’s blade passed through where he had been.

No sound of footsteps, just a clean evasion.

Watching that, emptiness filled Matthew’s chest.

A wall. A different kind of being. Different talent. Different from birth.

And they were supposed to hold against that.

‘No way.’

Despair and pain filled him. Strength started draining from the hand holding the whip.

He could not stop his heart from collapsing.

Each swing felt like striking a cliff face. He could hit it for a hundred years and it still would not crumble. Of course it would not.

How could a whip erase a cliff standing in front of him?

Then the ally with the trident took a critical hit.

Even with Enkrid there, charging and swinging so ferociously it was hard to believe he was breathing, it still happened.

The opponent threw a dagger backward. It tore through a gap in their breathing and ripped deep across their ally’s nape.

Even just throwing a dagger, his skill was enough to raise goosebumps.

Blood spurted and poured. Their ally clutched her neck. Crang, who had been watching, rushed over and wrapped it tightly with cloth.

Matthew faintly heard him say,

“Hold on.”

There was no time to look back. One thought had been tearing through his head for a while now.

‘Does this mean anything?’

If it saved Crang, then yes. If enduring for that had meaning, he would endure.

But he could not even do that.

They could not block any longer here, and Crang would die. Should they have let him run to the end?

No, Crang, his liege, had said that would make him a man dead inside first.

Just as black paint spread over his heart,

“Hah!”

Boom!

A shout and a blast erupted together. The sound rang hard enough to rattle his ears. Both the shout and the collision that followed were loud enough to tear at his eardrums.

The shout carried that much force, and the clash carried that much impact.

Bleeding from his side, Matthew looked at the man crossing blades.

He saw black hair from behind. A broad back. Someone whose momentum had not dropped in the slightest, unlike his own.

“Got you,” he said.

“You were allowed to,” the opponent replied.

The voice came from a man with curly brown hair hanging in clumps over his forehead.

Only then did Matthew properly see the enemy’s face.

“Let’s keep going.”

Then Enkrid spoke. Something trembled in that voice.

At some point their positions had switched. Enkrid had kept hammering forward without pause.

Because of that, Matthew could see Enkrid’s face, and when he did, his chest tightened.

From his toes upward, every hair on his body stood on end.

Matthew knew.

There was no way they could hold until evening.

He also knew Enkrid defeating this new opponent was a distant hope.

The proof was plain. Blood streamed from Enkrid’s side, his cheek was cut, and his left forearm guard hung in shreds.

Even so.

‘He’s smiling.’

Enkrid was smiling. Even while every exchange kept snapping his rhythm, he smiled.

The moment Matthew saw it, the despair painting his heart black began to fade.

Somewhere, sunlight broke through, and white light cut across the black paint.

Strength returned to Matthew’s arm.

He raised the whip and swung.

They traded several more rounds.

During that stretch, Matthew dodged three incoming daggers.

If luck had not helped all three times, he would not have dodged them. He admitted it.

Even those three daggers were this weak only because Enkrid interfered.

If Matthew had been alone, he never could have stopped them.

The fourth dagger he failed to dodge lodged in his thigh.

‘I thought he’d go for my neck right away.’

Against an enemy far weaker than himself, he sealed off mobility first.

‘No, that is because of Enkrid too.’

Because Enkrid was there, the dagger ended in his leg instead of his throat.

Matthew stepped back. Now he would only get in the way.

Crang, behind him, hooked an arm under his shoulder and supported him.

“You must not go closer.”

“I know that much. We’re losing, right?”

“We’re enduring.”

“Then why is he smiling?”

“...I don’t know.”

Crang said it, but his own eyes were shining too. Matthew barely held on because of whatever Enkrid had shown him.

Even then, it was still far too early for the sun to set.

“When is support coming?”

Matthew asked. Protecting Crang was his duty. But before that, above that, or in some other form, another wish rose on its own.

‘We can’t let that man die here.’

Enkrid had to live. Matthew was ready to throw himself in if he had to.

Why? He did not know. A fierce exhilaration filled his whole body.

Only one thought remained clear.

Enkrid was not someone meant to die here.

“If that bastard has any sense, he’ll come a little early.”

Crang said that, pulled over a chair, and sat Matthew down.

Then he checked the thigh wound.

Crang was no ordinary man either. Even in a situation like this, he tended wounds.

Matthew’s gaze naturally turned toward the ally with the fatal neck wound.

“She won’t die.”

Crang said it. If they endured this stretch, it would be true.

Both of them turned and looked in one direction.

A fight stood there that was hard to step into.

On one side, a doll with no emotion, cutting rhythm after rhythm with his blade.

On the other, a racing wild horse, exploding, charging, and holding nothing back.

* * *

His rhythm kept breaking. No matter what he did, the flow would not continue.

This was not just a level above Eisia. The man was clearly around Rem’s level.

No, maybe lower than Rem? He did not know. This was not the time for that thought.

He cut vertically, cut horizontally, thrust, twisted into strikes, and mixed in Vallen-style mercenary swordsmanship.

Feigning breath. He pretended to be winded and lured him in, and the opponent closed distance without hesitation.

Enkrid aimed for that instant and thrust Spark.

Momentary Will, the far edge of the technique refined through Eisia.

That thrust was lightning. In the instant he thrust, it reached the target point.

He mixed in everything, what he learned from the spearman in his first today, and everything he had learned about speed since then.

Still, it was blocked. Blocked by a move so simple it felt empty.

Ting. Tididing.

The man lifted a shortsword like he was toying with him and turned the flat. Spark’s tip slid along the blade face.

A kind of flowing sword style, executed with astonishing precision.

Enkrid let Spark go in midair and ran forward with Silver in hand. He turned his body into an arrow and shot in.

He surged forward just as fast as the opponent was closing space.

The distance vanished. He had entered close-quarters range.

But somehow the opponent had already retreated. He jumped back like he vanished in a gust.

The rhythm snapped clean.

Enkrid ignored it.

He stretched a leg back and kicked the middle of Spark’s falling blade up with his heel.

With a tung, the sword flew over his head. He snatched it from the air, then reached out and caught Silver in midair before it could fall.

The opponent was already close again and thrust.

He was specialized in piercing openings. He cut the flow and fought only at timings he chose.

Even so, Enkrid endured.

Most people would grow sick of a fight like this. They would call it unfair. They would spit out their suffering.

Enkrid did not.

‘First time seeing this.’

It was new. Different. To him, all of it was thrill and joy.

“I’ll kill you, then kill Eisia.”

The man said it like he was deciding dinner, mashed potatoes and roasted duck.

A flat tone. A list of facts.

If he killed Enkrid, today would repeat. But if only Eisia died...

Would today still repeat then?

“I don’t plan to move forward while losing more.”

No. Crang’s words had carried resolve too.

For the man who repeated today, was worry a reason to throw this moment away?

‘I don’t know.’

He did not want to know anything.

Right now, only one thing mattered. Swinging his sword.

That was enough.

“Huh-ah!”

A shout mixed with joy and ecstasy.

He fought in sheer enjoyment, and his mind filled with nothing but sword and self, opponent and sword, attack and defense, swordsmanship and bodywork, until joy swelled past the brim.

Enkrid felt the condensed experience from countless repeated todays fuse into one.

His body moved before thought.

As if a god had seized his limbs and moved them.

On top of that, he saw the opponent’s movement before it happened.

The opponent would raise his sword to the upper right of his head and take a thrusting stance. In fact, he was already gripping the hilt with both hands and lifting it.

Seeing that, Enkrid’s left foot stepped half a step forward. He pressed in and occupied space.

Twisting from the waist, Enkrid brought his sword down.

Not at the head, at the forearm.

It looked no different from before, but for the first time he stole the timing.

A slash half a beat faster.

Compared to moments ago, it could have been called ordinary speed and an ordinary line.

Even so, it landed.

Pak!

He split the opponent’s forearm guard. Blood sprayed.

The opponent thrust out his left arm and blocked by reflex, then stepped back.

“...Hm.”

He was surprised but did not make a scene. My arm got cut, I see. That kind of reaction.

Then he resumed the fight.

Enkrid had no time to feel excitement. The opponent was dry to the extreme, like unseasoned chicken breast.

Dry, rough, emotionless, and he used that as a weapon.

No thrill, no competitive fire, nothing.

So what?

He just swung his sword. Enkrid did exactly that.

If it worked once, it could work twice.

It just did not work right away.

That half-beat-faster slash succeeded only once.

In a fight, rhythm is always relative.

Cutting into the opponent’s beat had only been possible because his body moved first for one instant.

Could he not do it again? Fine.

Enkrid pretended to charge forward, then stepped not on the ground but on the wall.

He mimicked Eisia’s light movement.

As if waiting for it, the opponent swung. A diagonal blade that lunged and vanished in a rush.

It was exactly one and a half times faster than before.

Enkrid expected it, but in a gap hard to block, the blade forced toward his head.

He yanked back his extending sword and blocked in a hurry. If he missed this, he died.

Thud!

He blocked, but now his right wrist twisted completely.

He tried to roll the force off, but that failed too. The force in the blade launched him backward.

Enkrid hit the ground on his back with a thump, rolled, and got up.

“Urgh.”

Then blood spilled from his mouth. His organs had been damaged while blocking that strike.

It was a Will-infused slash.

Enkrid did not know it, but more precisely, it was a technique that sent impact through Will into the body of anyone who blocked it.

His legs shook, and his vision blurred.

A body beyond its limit stopped listening.

Enkrid blinked several times.

Then someone stepped in front of him.

“If you want to kill, kill me first. In exchange, spare the ones behind me. My life should be worth at least that much.”

It was Crang.

Enkrid tried to stand, then realized his ribs were broken.

“My liege!”

Matthew shouted.

Enkrid forced himself up anyway and said,

“By whose permission?”

The opponent had come here to kill Crang.

“So finish with me first, right?”

Enkrid braced for death again. He braced for today to repeat again.

Is this a wall too?

Then he would climb over it.

But it was not a wall. At least something had twisted and changed. This was clearly not the same today.

The opponent raised his sword without emotion. Crang, Enkrid, Matthew trying to cut in between them, he meant to keep cutting and cutting.

At that exact moment, a chilling sixth sense flared.

Behind them.

Something flew in fast.

Boom!

A blast rang out. A mass crashed through the broken window, smashing the frame itself as it came in.

In one rush, he closed the distance and sprang out in front of Enkrid.

Then he immediately brought something down at the Flow-Breaking Squire.

Through his dimming vision, Enkrid saw what the newcomer held.

A blade longer and thicker than a normal sword.

At some point sunset had begun, and orange light came through the window. He could see the back of the man who had smashed through it.

Enkrid knew who had arrived, and he said,

“We survived.”

= = =

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