A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 388

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 388: The Heavens Are Not Fair

= = =

Shrrrack!

A net dropped over his head. Ragna lightly swung his sword straight down. It was neither fast nor slow, yet the blade suddenly seemed to narrow into a line, and that line cleanly sliced the net apart.

“What!”

The ally who had thrown the net shouted. Yon realized something was wrong, but there was no time to speak.

He shot his left hand forward, grabbed near the glaive blade, then knocked, thrust, and swung in one short chain.

Thud, clang!

He had to. The sword that had cut the net was already there, dropping from above.

Even after he flattened the glaive blade and knocked it aside, the sword clung to him and tried to cut the shaft. Yon yanked the glaive back, blocked again, then put strength into his arms and batted the blade upward. Just those three short moves made both his hands go numb.

“My hands are numb?”

Yon was an outstanding warrior too. He could handle Will.

Will was intent. He could not naturally draw it out and use it, but he knew how to wield it through technique.

He could do what a junior knight could do. He could.

Yet after a single clash, he felt the gap. There was no way he could win. The feeling was suffocating. Like being trapped in a sealed coffin, blocked on every side. Like someone was gripping his limbs and crushing them.

“Monster bastard?”

When they first fought, that man had been playing around. After he put his sword back in the scabbard and drew it again, he became a different person.

The man leaped back just as fast as he had come in and swung horizontally. Fast, but heavy. Too late to dodge. A mercenary who had thrown away his bow raised a round shield.

Even that deserved praise. At least he had tried to block.

Crack! Thud!

Ragna’s sword cut through shield and man together.

Then the man who had jumped back and swung was already running in a sideways arc. Yon’s eyes chased him too late. He saw the neck of the comrade who had thrown the net flying through the air. Blood sprayed in a long red stream.

The opponent did not stop. He dodged a spear aimed at his back, then swung again like nothing was wrong, as if muscle fatigue did not exist.

“Ghk!”

One spearman who had at least some skill tried to evade, and a long line opened below his Adam’s apple. A jet of blood shot up, and a split hole gaped wide.

Only then did Yon force his numb arms to move and strike sideways.

By then he saw the sword falling toward his own head.

He saw the opponent’s face too. Not impatient, not straining. Just a flat, indifferent expression, like he was doing a boring task.

“Uaaaah!”

Will flared through Yon’s body. He sent his intent through the glaive blade. It was a technique called “knock-away.”

A Will-infused art that blasted the enemy weapon so hard their grip almost slipped in an instant.

Against that, Ragna showed the Will of Severance.

The will to cut sliced through the will to knock away.

Ragna’s body brushed past Yon. Yon stopped where he stood.

A diagonal line appeared on his head, and blood began to ooze out between the split edges.

Crack.

His skull split along that line, from above the right eyebrow to below the left cheekbone. His mouth remained intact.

Yon opened that dying mouth.

“Udeudeudeu.”

It was just the rattle of his front teeth meeting. No meaning in it.

Even if it had meaning, the man in front of him would not have listened.

After splitting six men apart and killing them in one burst, Ragna turned. He did not look rushed, but his steps were fast.

As he moved toward the gate interior, he saw Andrew and five trainees panting after killing their opponents.

One enemy with a mace had collapsed with two swords in his stomach and an ankle bent backward.

Beside him lay another still gripping a sword, with a blade stuck through his heart.

Ragna saw it and passed by.

Far off, Dunbakel was still fighting, but that beastfolk would not die easily.

Staying alive had always been that man’s best talent.

Ragna was not moving from calculation or layered thoughts.

He had simply found his drive again.

He was only heading where he needed to be.

He went back through the gate and climbed onto the wall.

From the point where Ragna fought, the battle began to stop, spreading outward like spilled paint.

Nearby enemy soldiers froze after seeing him. The allies were in defensive positions unless attacked, so it was only natural.

In that strange standoff, Ragna climbed to the top of the gate.

“Is the royal palace really in danger?”

Junior Knight Ropord had calmed himself down, then gaped at Ragna’s fight all over again, and had only just shut his mouth.

“Ah, well.”

Ropord’s thoughts had already shifted in that short span. Of course they had. He was a man who had spent his life being swayed by other people’s opinions. Separate from his talent, that was his personality problem.

So he said:

“It might not be true, and I might be wrong...”

To Ragna, it sounded like, “It could be true,” and “That could happen.”

“I’ll go first.”

That was enough for him.

“Where are you going?”

For a brief moment, Ropord understood that the man in front of him was unbelievably bad at finding his way.

Not just bad. If you left him alone in a city, you could not even guess where he would end up.

“The royal palace.”

“Alone, finding the way...”

“I know a shortcut.”

Ragna understood what Ropord meant. Could Enkrid be in danger? Maybe not. Maybe there was no unforeseen danger at all. Or maybe the opposite.

Then he just had to go and see.

The threatening enemies beyond the gate had already become ghouls with missing limbs.

So he could leave this spot. Leaving only Dunbakel and Andrew should be enough.

That was why he would go alone. Even if some unexpected danger came here, those two could hold it.

“...Huh?”

Ropord did not know what was right. He did know he could not stop this man from leaving.

It was a clear, vivid expression of will.

“I’m going.”

Ragna said it and turned.

If Andrew had been here, he would have smacked his forehead and shaken his head.

No one was worse at finding routes than this man.

But Andrew was below the gate, catching his breath and replaying the fight he had just witnessed from Ragna.

It had been a shocking battle.

So no one stopped him.

Ragna turned his eyes toward the royal palace.

People naturally gathered and lived inside the city, so the city was large. The palace was only a faint shape in the distance.

Even if you rode hard on horseback, you still had to ride as long as a long candle burned.

It was not a half-day trip, but you could not call it close either.

And the roads were not neat or kind.

The outer road to the palace had been built along the city wall, so it was not a simple straight line.

If you did not know the route, it was hard to get there properly.

On roads like that, Ragna was basically in a maze.

Even so, he could see the palace. So yes, he did know a shortcut.

No matter how bad Ragna was, he was not so hopeless that he could not run straight toward something visible in the distance.

He jumped onto the rooftops. He ran above the city. He kept the palace in sight while he ran.

While moving, he spotted Jaxon traveling in a similar direction.

He also saw that barbarian bastard returning drenched in blood from head to toe, whatever he had been doing.

And far away, he saw a panther running over rooftops the same way.

They were only passing glimpses. Ragna ignored everything and kept running.

He got lost often, so he was used to walking and running.

Now he used all that talent to run faster.

Boom, boom! Crack, thud!

Roofs broke underfoot. He ran without caring.

“Ugh!”

“Was that thunder?”

“Ah! What was that!”

He did not care what shattered under his feet and kept sprinting, and a few citizens below cried out in shock.

Parts of eaves and roofs broke and fell. Ragna kept moving. His route really was a shortcut.

He cut straight through the city, ignored several soldiers slumped down in front of the palace, and passed by.

“Ah!”

Someone shouted after spotting Ragna. He ignored it.

He ran straight into the palace. Ragna was no hunter, and he had no talent for that.

He could not track someone by blood scent or traces.

But the instinct of a sword wielder was sharper than anyone’s.

He felt it. Momentum, killing intent, overwhelming force.

Ragna moved by instinct.

It was only natural, to a point, that he found his destination as soon as he arrived. The place where things had exploded in the palace, where the noise came from, where the fighting was fiercest, was too obvious.

Ragna ran there. Before he knew it, the falling sunlight was at his back. With sunset on his shoulders, he leaped upward. Through a broken window and half-shattered frame, he saw Enkrid. He also saw the back of the person blocking him.

Ragna kicked off roof and tree alike and launched himself.

Whoever had done it, the window was already shattered and cleared out neatly.

Ragna threw himself through the opening.

Thunk.

His sword caught on the window frame. The blade was long and thick. He ignored it and yanked.

Crash!

The wooden frame broke and splinters flew. Ragna pulled the sword free and advanced.

He gathered force from above and drove a vertical strike straight down.

A savage slash. Impossible to predict.

Even so, the opponent forcibly squeezed into the gap and thrust his sword.

It was a sword that cut flow.

Ragna dragged his descending sword lower.

He stayed true to a heavy, fast sword.

He added speed.

If the man in front thrust, Ragna’s belly would open too, but the other man’s body would split vertically.

Whoosh.

Ragna’s descending sword cut only air and stopped.

The opponent had retrieved his thrust and stepped back.

“...Who?”

The man who had retreated held his sword in both hands, set at a slanted vertical angle, and opened his mouth.

Ragna did not answer. There was no need.

His captain had almost died, so first he would kill this one, or beat him until he was right on the edge of death.

Every human had a personal hell. Ragna’s hell was a life of wandering while lost.

No one could touch the boredom piled up inside him.

In that wandering, one man had become his signpost.

And there was a bastard who had tried to kill that man.

Words were unnecessary.

He stepped in and started swinging.

The Heavy and Fierce Sword’s strength was heavy blows. You had to take proper wind-up motions to load force.

A fast sword was the opposite. Wind-up was not first. Extending your blade faster than the opponent’s reaction was first.

There was a reason thrusting symbolized quick sword style.

Ragna mixed both traits.

How was that possible?

Shrink the wind-up, then do the rest on your own.

“Do the rest on your own.”

Ragna had said the same thing while teaching Enkrid.

He had nothing else to add. If you set your intent, it happened. That was talent. That was where those words came from.

His sword scraped the wall. Krrrraack! Stone was cut, fragments flying. Before the pieces hit the floor, the blade that had skimmed the wall reached the opponent’s nose.

The opponent judged he could not block.

Step in and break that flow here?

No chance.

He had spent his whole life as a junior knight, but among the knight order he was still one of its best men.

His talent was real. That was why he had climbed this far.

Show him one thing, he could do three. Show him three, he could do more than ten.

Even so, among the order’s junior knights he had been second.

The junior knight swung repeatedly. More swings, more chances to cut the rhythm of incoming slashes. As the flow got clipped again and again, the momentum died quickly.

At last he knocked aside the approaching sword and pushed it away.

Clang!

Steel rang between them.

Heavy and Fierce Sword.

A heavy sword had to carry momentum and keep striking. If it failed that, it got pushed back. That meant he had the advantage.

He had been briefly startled by the sudden attack, but nothing changed.

“My talent is superior.”

That thought changed quickly.

Only ten exchanges in.

“...What are you doing?”

The man finally spoke.

Ragna still did not answer. He just watched the opponent’s sword and read it.

That was a pretty good technique.

In the eyes of a genius newly armed with drive, a sword art was being peeled apart.

“No way.”

The junior knight denied it. This was something even knights could not do.

“You must not dismiss what you do not understand. If you do, there is no next time.”

Why was he suddenly remembering the knight who had taught him that?

He swung, tearing through the sunset glow. He revealed his trump card.

He used Will. An unknown force rooted in intent.

Not only to break flow. In an instant, his arm and leg strength and reaction speed shattered their limits.

Every technique became faster and stronger. He accelerated and loaded power.

He thrust, cut, curved, and swung from outside the opponent’s sight.

Ragna angled his blade and blocked the thrust, caught the cutting strike on his own edge and flowed it away, then knocked back the sword that had suddenly sped up. In short, he broke every flow.

Ragna’s sword did not stop there. He wielded that long, massive blade like a thin tree branch, tapping, pulling, and shaking it.

To gain speed, you had to step in, and Ragna’s sword passed through that exact spot.

The man should have lifted his sword from low to high and forced Ragna back, but instead the opponent’s sword thrust forward first.

It was not an overwhelming blow, but his flow kept getting cut apart in sequence.

After forcing him back like that.

“So that’s how it works.”

Ragna spoke.

“You.”

Why had a man who lived by faith in his own talent come this far?

Just power? No.

Blood vessels burst in his eyes.

There had been someone above him in the knight order.