A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 403

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 403: Nothing Felt Right

= = =

For those who dealt with spells, an ominous feeling was never just a simple phrase.

It was foresight born from the senses.

Esther felt that something was happening on this land right now.

And it was tied to the World of Spells.

She had a gut feeling it could affect her directly, so she decided she could not let it pass without checking.

She had to confirm it at once. That was why Esther opened her mouth.

"Protect me."

Andrew, who had been about to jump into the battlefield, turned his head.

"Were you talking to me?"

"Should I call Enki back from the front, then?"

After that very kind and very long explanation, Esther closed her eyes.

She was in a hurry.

Andrew had been about to head out, but he slowed and stopped.

Where exactly did he stand right now?

Because he was moving with Enkrid, he had been accepted as part of their unit.

At the same time, his position was awkward for commanding troops as part of Baron Gardner's force.

He only had five men under him anyway.

Andrew looked over the battlefield.

It was not overwhelming, but the situation was at least moving somewhat the way their side intended.

He stopped. Right now, he felt it was right to honor the request of the mage Esther.

"Formation."

Andrew and the five trainees formed a circle around Esther.

She sat in the middle. Dirt ground or not, she did not care. This was not the time for that.

Her robe touched the earth and spread out.

Soon, Esther entered the World of Spells and searched for the trick the enemy mage had prepared.

No, she did not even need to search.

Instead of hiding it, he had displayed it openly.

By revealing it so boldly, he raised his own grandeur.

That vast grandeur became pressure and weighed on Esther's shoulders.

Still, she was no ordinary mage.

A witch who wielded the fire of the black world.

A witch who fought, struggled, and carved open the world.

A seeker who burned truth in flame and came to understand it.

She recited a spell to prove herself and raised her head.

Esther saw through what the enemy, more precisely Count Molsen the mage, had prepared.

Not every mage was mad, but people said truly excellent mages always nurtured madness.

Esther agreed.

The one pulling this filthy stunt right now proved it.

'He mixed sorcery and spells.'

Between streams of mana, traces of spirit energy flowed too. The power of invocation covered the area and revealed his will.

Darkness.

In a dark space, Count Molsen sat in a black chair that looked darker than darkness itself, wrapped in a soot-made cloak, holding a pitch-black staff the same color as the chair, and stared at her.

"You think you'll stop me?"

The count's will came through as words. Mockery was mixed into it. Go ahead and try.

Esther did not react to the mockery. She only observed, then observed again.

'A magic circle.'

He had turned the entire battlefield into one giant magic circle. A magic circle needed material to be drawn.

"You are brilliantly insane."

The moment she realized it, she said it out loud. The count, resting his chin on the hand that did not hold the staff, spoke.

"Do you think anything changes just because you figured it out?"

He had used the horrors of war, blood, and corpses as materials for the circle, then drew a sorcery-based spell through them.

What would that produce?

With half-lidded eyes, Esther predicted what would happen when the spell was completed.

She was one of the greatest geniuses in her own world. That was why she could do it.

Pitch-black darkness would overturn the whole battlefield. Once covered, the world would lose its light and be consumed by that dark will.

This was a disgusting madman's attempt to connect his World of Spells to reality.

That part disgusted her most. What was the World of Spells to a mage?

It was their private wound, their hidden space, something that must never be shown to others. It was taboo.

Count Molsen ignored that taboo.

'He will connect it and send specters.'

The magic circle would blot out light and spew darkness, and in the end it would tear off a piece of his World of Spells and manifest it here.

Esther's eyes also caught the black masses behind the chair where the count sat.

Specters. So many specters they could fill an entire World of Spells.

If that horde was unleashed onto the battlefield?

Specters could erode human minds. Someone would become a puppet. Someone else would lose the ability to tell friend from foe and start swinging a sword at everyone. Another would die on the spot after losing all reason.

Most would descend into madness.

That was the reality about to happen.

What would happen if everything went exactly as he intended.

This was what the count had aimed for.

Victory in war? He did not need it.

He only needed blood, corpses, and death.

Then he would rule the battlefield with his specters.

If Crang knew, he would have every right to explode in rage.

"Will you try to stop me?"

The count asked.

Esther could burn enemies with her own spell right now. But she could not stop the fighters already clashing out there.

No method came to mind.

The best she could do here was pull out only the people she could protect.

Should she do that?

The thought came suddenly, but she did not think Enkrid would want it.

Then what should she do?

'I'll ask him.'

Tell Enkrid everything. Ask him.

Anyone who knew Esther, especially those who handled spells, would have been shocked by that choice.

Esther turned part of her will into an ectoplasmic form and sent it flying toward Enkrid at the front line.

It was possible because they had stayed close and fought side by side for over a year.

To send will-bound ectoplasm to someone, that level of bond was required.

Thankfully, Esther's will reached Enkrid.

"I'll ask first."

Esther answered, and the count blinked.

He probably had no idea what she meant by asking.

* * *

The giant who used his body itself as a weapon.

That was Benukt's epithet.

With his hamstring cut, the giant had fallen. Enkrid pulled his sword out of the giant's skull.

He pressed down on the giant's shoulder with his right foot as he drew it out, and blood sprayed after it.

The giant's fighting spirit had been amazing and terrifying, but

'Compared to Audin.'

It was weak.

Benukt had struck Enkrid's side once and had even grabbed and twisted his ankle.

Enkrid tightened his core, endured the sweep to his side, and bled off the strike point.

When his ankle was caught, he lifted himself and spun in the same direction, making the giant's move useless.

After that, he fed him one blade at a time.

Slash and thrust, over and over.

The skill gap was obvious, so there was no need to rush. He cornered the giant with trapping swordwork.

Then he killed Benukt.

Enkrid looked around.

He saw a terrified soldier charging at him.

Instead of falling back after seeing the giant die, this one came forward.

It was not one or two. At least dozens.

'Why?'

He was puzzled. Their eyes were full of fear. Their legs shook. Enkrid was not even using Pressure.

Still, their eyes were full of terror. They looked like they were being shoved from behind.

That was exactly right.

They were sacrifices sent by the count to become blood and corpses.

To protect the people behind him meant becoming a demon to the people in front of him.

Enkrid knew that too.

Even so.

'I hate this.'

It gnawed at him hard enough to border on rage.

Enkrid slapped aside the shaking spear tip with the back of his hand, grabbed the shaft, and tore it away.

The other man looked barely twenty. The moment he lost his spear, he pitched forward.

He was so flustered he could not even break his fall. He hit chin first.

"Agh!"

A scream rang out.

Enkrid cut the next spear shaft with his sword, then kicked the jaw of the man behind it with his toe.

Crack.

It was a light kick, but the man's jaw snapped up, his eyes rolled back, and he dropped.

After Enkrid dropped more than ten of them like that, they finally stopped charging.

Eyes full of caution, eyes full of fear, both mixed together, pupils darting with tangled emotions.

Enkrid hated all of it.

The blood of the dying.

Their flesh and bones.

Death flowing across this land and staining it.

The disgust started in instinct and hardened into intuition.

'Why?'

This was a battlefield, and battlefields were familiar to him now.

He knew better than anyone that to protect those behind him, he had to become a demon to those in front.

As he scanned his surroundings, on guard, something like blue smoke came up behind him and touched his back.

It was an ectoplasm carrying Esther's will.

She passed on everything she had seen, heard, and understood.

It was a strange experience. Esther's voice felt like a whisper at his ear.

What she told him, the count's filthy scheme, was the source of his disgust.

He could not understand every detail about magic circles or exactly what the count planned to do, but stopping what a bastard like that wanted was only natural.

Hearing that he had turned the battlefield into his own tool made it worse.

Enkrid turned and drove into the enemy ranks, and enemy soldiers opened a path for him.

There were limits. Even if punitive rearguard officers stabbed at their backs, impossible was still impossible.

He had just killed a giant. To ordinary soldiers, that meant he had killed their commander, a red-blooded monster like a brutal demon beast.

He walked toward them.

At first glance he looked like an ordinary swordsman, but the force he had shown made that impossible to believe.

That was how the path opened.

On the far side of it, Rierbart stepped forward.

"So even Benukt wasn't enough for you."

"Didn't you send him knowing that?"

"I did."

"Then you should've stepped out sooner."

Enkrid rebuked Rierbart. He sounded like a teacher scolding a child. He was truly angry too.

It did not fit the battlefield at all, so it was clearly a provocation.

Even in a moment like this, Rierbart still got angry because he was a noble at heart.

Words were supposed to be his specialty, twisting the other side's insides inside out.

"That tongue of yours really..."

"Shut up. I won't listen to excuses."

Enkrid cut him off.

"You truly are a bastard."

Rierbart said without a hint of laughter, and Enkrid raised his sword.

It was clear. If he did not cross this line, he could not move forward.

Even then, Esther, still watching Enkrid through the ectoplasmic link, read his intent through their connection.

He had no thought of retreating.

It was will like an endless flame.

A will to stop it no matter what reached Esther unchanged.

After hearing it, she said,

"You cannot lose."

If he lost and fell back here, stopping the count would be impossible.

Enkrid raised his sword. He gripped Silver with both hands and looked at his opponent as if splitting him in half vertically along the blade.

The review of his previous fight began the moment it ended, and he had done it all day.

While chewing meat, while sleeping, after waking up, while fighting, he kept doing it.

He never got bored.

It was fun instead.

This was an opponent he had to overcome. That made it fun. Facing him meant a chance to move further ahead.

More than anything, he knew it by instinct.

'I can win.'

How many times had he ever been this sure of victory?

Especially against someone this skilled.

He had not fought today with repetition in mind.

Still, Enkrid believed there would be no repetition.

"I'm jealous."

Rierbart said those unreadable words and raised sword and shield.

He set the shield high, covering his mouth and showing only his eyes.

He was ready.

Anyone who had watched their previous fight thought this duel would follow the same pattern.

It did not.

Snap!

Enkrid suddenly put his sword away and sprinted forward.

Rierbart, holding a shield, shifted into a defensive stance at the unexpected move. He pulled the shield close to his body and even hid the hand holding his sword.

Enkrid stretched both hands forward.

The Whistle Dagger he had drawn screamed.

Piiiik!

Two streaks of light shot at Rierbart's exposed eyes.

Clang, clang!

Rierbart hurriedly lifted his shield and covered his eyes.

'Blocking his vision?'

Covering his eyes did not mean he could not read movement. A junior knight's senses were sharp too.

Rierbart's body turned back. Enkrid had already gone around to the side and threw his sword.

It was the trick called Sword Flicking Technique.

A Gladius spun in like a discus toward Rierbart's back.

Use the shield? Too late. Rierbart trusted the toughness of the armor wrapped around his body.

He twisted just his back a little and showed a martial feat.

A technique that bled off the strike point of a flying sword with armor.

A body-based redirection. It was akin to what Enkrid had learned from Audin.

Bang!

The second attack got knocked away too.

From there, Enkrid leaped up and chopped straight down.

Boom!

Rierbart blocked it with his shield, yet he still felt the shock run into his forearm.

His whole body felt like it sank.

Somehow, Enkrid felt even stronger than before.

Enkrid seized an opening with dagger throws, restricted his opponent's movement with the Gladius, then hammered him with Heavy Sword Style, Rotational Slash.

He did not stop there.

This was the No-Breath Tactic.

He had taken the upper hand once before, so he immediately dragged the fight into the battlefield shape most favorable to himself.

It worked.

Normally, Rierbart could have endured a full day, but after exchanging dozens of sword blows and focusing on defense, his breathing broke apart.

His opponent had far better stamina.

Enough to make anyone wonder what kind of hellish training had built that body.

In the gap that formed, Spark wormed in and tore through Rierbart's belly.

A thrust through the gap in his armor sliced part of his guts.

Rierbart immediately swung his shield and smashed Enkrid.

Enkrid had overextended for that thrust, so he could not evade.

Thud.