A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 391

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 391: A Bastard with Nothing Likeable About Him

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“Win every minister to your side.”

That was the Queen’s condition for Crang. Do that first, then they would discuss the throne. The Queen said it, and Crang kept his word.

“Your Majesty.”

Crang looked at the Queen. The Queen looked back at Crang.

Enkrid did not know it, but the Queen had never coveted the throne. She did not want power either.

She wanted a quiet, peaceful life.

Her dream was to look at flowers in spring, cool off in the shade in summer while chatting, gather autumn leaves in fall, and drink warm tea in winter while watching snow outside the window.

If she had a good person beside her in all those moments, that would have been even better.

What she truly wanted was not a marriage chosen to protect the crown, but time with someone she genuinely loved.

For an ordinary commoner, that might have been an impossible dream. But she was the Queen of Naurillia, so it was a modest one.

As a person, the Queen did not suit the throne. She wanted something other than power.

Even so, she stayed.

She did not run from responsibility. She did what she could.

There was a time she wanted to divide authority among the great noble houses, including Baisar, and leave.

“If you do that now, Naurillia will split into at least three pieces. And all three will be swallowed by other countries or collapse. At best, maybe one survives as a city-state. So what exactly was your plan again?”

Those were Marquis Baisar’s words. He was the Queen’s teacher. He was right.

The Queen herself was like the final bulwark against the realm’s power players.

She could not leave.

And she certainly did not want to hand the throne to a bastard like Count Molsen.

‘Your Late Majesty.’

On nights like this, she sometimes missed her father.

Then a gift from the late king arrived.

“Kdianat Langdiers Nauril, that is what they told me my name was.”

Looking at him felt like seeing the late king in his youth. In many ways, he resembled her too.

Crang had sought the Queen out before any of this began.

He needed to see her. He needed to know whether Naurillia was truly a country worth protecting with his life.

If not, he should not begin at all.

“The late king was overflowing with love.”

That was the Queen’s first line when she met Crang. She meant it. The late king had many women. Even with a queen and concubines, he still wandered.

It was almost strange that he had only one illegitimate child.

The two of them talked. Crang left, returned, met the Queen again, and now they had reached this moment.

“Did you ask your questions?”

The Queen said there were still people left to ask the same question.

Whatever her personal dream was, she loved the kingdom where she was born and raised. That was why she did not turn away from responsibility.

There were three people she intended to ask.

The first was naturally Crang.

The second was Marquis Baisar.

At one point, she had even considered raising the marquis above a grand duke and slowly transferring the throne to him. But her teacher refused, so there was nothing she could do.

After that, she added the Marquis of Okto to the list, but Marquis Baisar opposed that too.

“No matter how you do it, it will fail.”

Marquis Baisar knew that to keep this country standing, it needed a center everyone would accept.

Last, the Queen had to ask Count Molsen.

If he truly cared for the kingdom, should she not be willing to transfer the throne even to a man like a ghoul’s tongue?

Doing what she hated had become one of her specialties.

But she could not even ask the question.

‘What a joke.’

Right before answering, that thought crossed her mind.

It really had turned ridiculous.

She had tried to ask her question, but now only one person remained to answer it.

The two men once called great nobles had already taken Crang’s side, and Count Molsen, the last possible candidate, had made himself a rebel. Count Molsen was a man worthy of being called a hero.

Even so.

‘That method cannot be called right.’

What he wanted was the throne, not the kingdom. The Queen could see it.

So only one choice remained.

“Was it intentional?”

The Queen asked.

Crang smiled with his eyes.

“I only thought that, in the end, only those who truly love and protect the kingdom would remain.”

In the end, this was the board Crang had built.

He had brought in the Marquis of Okto, and he had already finished talking with Marquis Baisar.

If he survived whatever came, they would stand behind him then.

Marquis Baisar bent one knee. His old knee thudded against the ground.

“May this old man say one thing?”

The Queen nodded.

With his head lowered, the marquis spoke.

“Please fulfill the Queen’s dream.”

He had spent more years with her than the late king had. It would not have been wrong to call him another father.

The Queen did not answer. She only looked at Crang with unreadable eyes.

Crang had proven himself. Beyond the cleverness of his methods, anyone could see that every minister still in the grand hall was on his side.

“Block foreign pressure and punish the rebels. Do that, and I will place the crown on your head myself.”

The Queen declared it.

Enkrid knew Crang had done all kinds of things to make this happen.

No other path would have produced that conclusion.

More than anything, he sensed that Crang and the Queen had already settled everything between them.

‘So he started all this after securing a promise of the throne.’

“Please take care.”

Crang said, then turned.

“I will. You do what you must.”

The Queen rose and called after him. Crang bowed and turned away. Marquis Baisar and the Marquis of Okto followed him.

Enkrid left with his own group as well. Just before he walked out, he looked back.

He saw the Queen reach a hand to the side, toward a woman who looked like a court mage.

It was a worried gesture, asking if she was all right. The mage waved it off.

Was it his imagination, or did their relationship look like more than a normal one?

It was none of Enkrid’s business.

“Where did you go?”

He asked Esther.

“Some bastard tried to talk me into joining his side.”

No need to ask who.

Count Molsen. Just as he had said, he was probably a mage.

Enkrid thought he could not have blamed Esther if she had left. But she stayed. Should he ask why? He doubted he would get a straight answer anyway.

Just because? Or because she felt like it?

Still, he wanted to ask.

“Why didn’t you go?”

Esther turned her head at that.

On the way back, she had burned two half-baked mages chanting scraps of spells into ash.

“I do not usually listen to other people.”

She said.

For someone like that, Enkrid thought she listened to his requests surprisingly well.

Crang walked on, talking with the two marquises.

Words like promise and condition went back and forth. They discussed predicting Count Molsen’s next move and reinforcing the capital’s defenses with the forces the two marquises held. Ingis was with them.

“Your Highness, I have forces that came with me.”

He said, and Crang answered without hesitation.

“I will provide several fine horses. Recover your strength briefly, then return.”

He said it with the same smile as ever.

Did he not find the count’s threat serious?

Ingis had come with clear military strength, yet Crang told them to go back.

Ingis paused, about to say something, but Crang spoke first.

“Block the threat in the south. That is your duty.”

Ingis agreed.

They had bought about three days, but if there was nothing to do here, they had to return.

Stop Count Molsen? Ingis did not think that was his job.

From Crang’s position, excluding a force like his must have required major resolve.

It had to.

And yet there was no hesitation.

Was this what people meant by caliber?

Master had said something similar.

“It would be a waste for that vessel to break here. Go help him.”

Was that not why he came all the way here?

From behind, Enkrid heard Crang’s words and felt a little regret. Still, it could not be helped.

‘What if I ask for one spar before leaving?’

No chance. Enkrid was not Rem. He knew when to press and when to hold back.

Ingis had ridden here from the southern battlefield without even cleaning the blood from his armor.

If you understood fatigue and hardship, you did not ask for that.

If someone heard Enkrid’s thoughts, they might tilt their head, but Enkrid knew when to step in and when to step out.

That was why, earlier, he had only listened until Crang spoke.

“Enki, I heard Border Guard is under threat. You can return at once too.”

Crang said from the front. Enkrid nodded.

“It should be fine even if I don’t go.”

Audin was at Border Guard. Kraiss was there too. If it were truly dangerous, they would have sent word already.

Even if all scouts were intercepted, would they really be too helpless to send even one message?

This was Kraiss they were talking about.

He had probably prepared dozens of escape routes for himself already.

More importantly, with Audin and Teresa there, even if that Flow-Breaking Junior Knight who blocked Enkrid appeared, there was little to worry about.

And how often did a junior knight of that level appear?

He was undeniably overwhelming.

The problem was that Ragna had shown up.

At Enkrid’s current level, if anyone could force a draw with Ragna, Audin was the most likely.

‘Worry about the ones who actually need worrying.’

And behind Audin stood Kraiss, always scheming.

After Enkrid answered, both marquises turned to look at him.

“Is something wrong?”

Enkrid asked calmly. He looked genuinely confused. The two marquises wore odd expressions. The Marquis of Okto blinked, and Marquis Baisar kept a straight face while the corner of his lips twitched.

It was because Enkrid had spoken casually.

Seeing that, Crang let out a small laugh.

“Leave it. I told you, he is my friend.”

“Your Highness, it may damage your dignity.”

“Others will watch and judge appearances.”

Both marquises had already chosen to serve Crang. What they said was reasonable. But this was Crang.

“If my dignity can be lowered by a few words from a friend I chose myself, then there is nothing I can do as a person from that point on.”

A king must guard his majesty.

A king must keep everyone beneath him.

A king must stand alone.

Did it really have to be that way to prove himself, to prove the king he was?

It sounded like a question thrown at the world. Even now, Crang showed his will in his words and revealed his caliber.

Different. Not like ordinary people. You could feel it in the weight of what he said.

The heavy mood vanished quickly.

“What if I scold Enki for what he just said, and he gets offended and switches to the enemy side?”

Crang said, full of mischief.

Both marquises’ faces twisted oddly. They knew Enkrid’s strength. They also knew the Madmen Company under him.

Without them, no one could predict how a battle against Count Molsen would go. And they could not call in the knight order either.

No, if they forced it, they could.

Sir Cyprus would probably come regardless of the south.

Crang knew that too. Even so, he had to stop Molsen without calling them.

What mattered was not only the immediate moment.

Preventing civil war was only a checkpoint.

For what came after taking the throne, Crang judged he had to do it this way.

First, because if they failed to block the southern great power Rihinshtetten and the Cursed Ground, the damage could not be repaired.

Second.

‘If I cannot keep even my own words, who will follow me?’

He had fought the count with words. When words could not decide victory, Enkrid had raised Crang’s hand.

It was almost absurd, but one thing was clear.

If words could not settle it, then action would.

So he had to stop this without the knight order.

Crang had to do it.

“You’ll help me, right?”

He said it jokingly, and Enkrid nodded.

Watching Enkrid and Crang together, the two marquises felt that their caliber was different.

Perhaps that was all there was to say.

At some point, the moon had risen high. Moonlight streamed through the windows as they moved out of the grand hall.

The fighting had ended, and cleanup seemed complete. The chaos had died down.

Part of the Royal Guard approached, then stopped.

A man in a dark gray helmet stood at the front.

“I pay my respects to Your Highness.”

He dropped to one knee. Crang nodded.

“You did well.”

“I will receive punishment later, and seek forgiveness after that.”

“I am not saying this because you joined my side. You did what you had to do.”

Crang said that and sent him away.

That was not the end of it.

More than half of those leaving were favorable toward Crang.

Enkrid thought this was Crang’s true strength.

Those who got to know him, spoke with him, and spent time with him all came to acknowledge the kind of man he was. He had a pull that drew in people’s hearts.

As they walked, Enkrid saw an orange-haired female knight clutching her stomach with one hand, her face oddly altered by a broken nose.

She limped, and she looked like a wreck.

She approached, then stopped and raised her head.

“Enkrid.”

Her eyes were fixed on Enkrid alone, not Crang.

A direct, unwavering gaze.

Enkrid realized she had survived.

At the same time, he realized the day had passed.

Had the Boatman said this would be fun?

He had to admit it.

He had saved the person he wanted to save.

That alone satisfied him. His chest felt itchy and alive. Eisia was over there, still breathing through her mouth because of her broken nose, still alive, still walking.

“Sleep well?”

He asked, putting all of that into those words. Eisia gave a short laugh, then grabbed her side. That was not an injury that healed in a day or two.

“You know each other?”

Crang asked from beside him.

Now was the time to explain that she had blocked him, stood on the enemy side, and still had her reasons. Enkrid opened his mouth.

“This junior knight fights well. A little worse than me.”

At that, Eisia’s eyes narrowed slightly, and that one line was enough for Crang.

“You should recover from your injuries first.”

“Yes?”

“Civil war is scheduled.”

Crang said with a smile.

He said it like everyday business, like suggesting a meal. There was no sign of urgency, but he was right.