WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 405: Eye That Sees One Inch Ahead

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The Will of Refusal, awakened thanks to some mad shepherd's sword.

Then the Will of Acceleration, gained while pursuing speed.

Then the Will called the Crushing Sword, born from Pressure.

Enkrid had awakened Will on his own and kept moving forward.

As he did, he naturally looked back on the road he had walked and drew the road he would walk next.

The Crushing Sword belonged to Heavy Sword Style, and the sword of the moment belonged to Quick Sword Style.

The Will of Refusal was a way to steady his mind, and there was also a sword art closer to a counter technique that he shortened to Snake Sword, one with no Will in it, but one that proved a soft strike did not turn a blade into a lump of cotton.

And now, this moment had come.

He had seen the blade used by that flow-breaking bastard before, and he had faced it.

He had not fought drunk on exhilaration with his mind blank. He had seen everything there was to see. He had also endured it with his own body.

Reviewing the fight had taught him things too.

What was the secret of that flow-breaking swordsmanship?

The eyes.

That man's Will dwelled in his eyes.

He broke the opponent's flow by seeing, grasping, and judging.

So he could not break the flow of someone better than himself. It was close to a half-finished technique.

Enkrid had also seen the Iron Wall technique Rierbart used before he transformed.

Absolute defense through shield and armor.

It had to be viewed as a technique that wore the opponent down through a war of attrition.

What was the core that made that possible?

The stamina that built an iron wall? The centered strength trained to hold out? Sturdy legs?

One thing mattered most.

'Sustainability.'

A Will that continued.

It was fair to call it the technique among all he had seen that manifested Will for the longest time.

Iron Wall defense was a technique that endured by placing the force called Will at the center of the body.

Eyes and sustainability.

He understood, reviewed, and realized.

Now he mixed in Sense of Attack. He packed in the sharp sensitivity born from throwing open the Gate of the Sixth Sense.

What he truly wanted was to let Will seep into Correct Sword, into the sword that seized.

Why was that possible? The reason was clear.

He had already experienced it. He had done it before.

It was when he fought that centaur leader who swung a glaive.

His senses had run wild then, and from countless experiences, he had predicted the opponent's actions. His sharpened five senses had peeked into the future, letting him dodge and deflect.

It was the moment realization came after experience had piled up and piled up.

The moment resolve became will, shone, and touched reality.

The moment the formless power called Will manifested in the real world.

Enkrid's eyes watched his opponent's entire body. Muscle movement, finger shifts, foot direction, breathing changes, even the effect of drifting dust.

His five senses raged like madness. For a normal person, it would have been a flood of information enough to burst the skull.

Enkrid accepted only what he needed.

That was a skill made possible by the experience of death accumulated through today's repetitions.

Thanks to that stacked experience, his sense for judging what was needed and what was not had developed to an extreme degree.

The blade came flying in like a thread-thin line, and he had barely blocked it, which meant he could react.

Even so, it was clearly a dangerous, threatening moment, and because it was exactly this kind of situation, Enkrid gave a name to the technique built on Will.

By naming it, he could fully recognize it and use it properly.

Eye That Sees One Inch Ahead.

That was the name of the Will-based art. Enkrid saw his opponent's next move in advance.

He had said before that he had similar experiences, but this time it was several times clearer and sharper.

With a sword built from countless stacked experiences, he drew a line toward the future, toward tomorrow.

Ragna would have reached it in an instant, but Enkrid had walked in his own way and arrived, so he had no need to envy anyone else's talent.

That was exactly the decisive difference between the opponent before him and Enkrid.

He knew neither frustration nor despair, so he simply forgot envy and moved forward.

Whoosh.

For the first time, he dodged the sword that had turned into thread. Rierbart's blade sliced off part of the back of Enkrid's hair as it passed.

The cut strands burst and scattered in the air.

In that short opening, Enkrid thrust with the smallest possible movement.

In truth, it was the result of reading and rereading the opponent's options over and over.

He jabbed Spark to block with the seized sword, used the Crushing Sword, endured, then launched the strike.

The tip of the Gladius, shortened and roughened, stabbed into the opponent's chest.

Transforming into a Demon Creature would not have given him two hearts.

Thud!

The sensation of the blade biting through muscle traveled up through the grip.

The instant he thrust, Enkrid leaned his body backward. Rierbart's left fist passed through where Enkrid had been.

If that punch had landed cleanly, something would surely have broken.

Enkrid dodged as if falling backward, and even as his posture collapsed, he kicked the sword he had stabbed in with the sole of his foot.

Smack! Thruuust!

The sword tip punched out through the opponent's back.

"Kgh!"

Rierbart coughed blood. Dark red blood poured over Enkrid's face.

With the falling blood, Enkrid rolled backward, hid Whistle Dagger in his left hand, and gripped Silver with his right.

Dark red blood dripped along his jawline. Enkrid did not even blink. With one knee touching the ground, he raised his sword.

His eyes burned, and his head throbbed.

His raging senses, mixed with sixth sense, had predicted the opponent's movement. Of course his head hurt.

He probably could not use this against a real knight. But his opponent right now was not a knight.

He had fought him, so Enkrid felt that plainly.

"You damned god."

Looking at the sword stuck in his chest, Rierbart spoke. Soon blood began streaming from his eyes too.

His gaze did not reach Enkrid.

He looked at his own past life.

They had called him a genius. They had said he was a hero who would raise his family. After pushing forward and forward like that, what had ended up in his hands, what had he seen when he reached the end of the road?

Only a cliff with no end in sight.

Only darkness with no path ahead.

Only a wall that never allowed his hand to reach it.

"You dogshit god."

He resented the world.

He cursed it without end.

With his own hand, Rierbart pulled the metal from his chest.

Blood pulsed and spilled from the hole where the blade came out.

It was a fatal wound. Impossible to survive.

No, he might survive.

Rierbart knew the count's secret. So if he went to the count, that life might be stitched back on.

Was his body not already a chimera now?

So struggling to live longer here was not wrong.

But what could he do if he lived?

There was no road back now.

'Even like this, I still can't become a knight?'

Even after throwing everything away for that one thing?

Then this was the end.

His eyes turned to the bastard who had dragged out this reality.

Now that he had reached a world filled again with resentment, despair, and frustration, Rierbart hurled a curse at his opponent.

"You will end up the same way."

Like someone thrashing just to become a knight.

"You probably won't survive this place either."

It was a curse carrying the wish for him to die.

Of course, Enkrid did not listen at all. So he gave no answer either.

Rierbart collapsed like a puppet. He fell from his knees first, then toppled forward.

Dark red blood flowed from that fallen body and seeped into the ground.

Enkrid watched without expression and thought.

Blood, earth, death.

He still did not like it.

The battle was still going, but around Enkrid alone, there was silence.

No one cheered victory, and no one showed disappointment at defeat.

The aftermath of the fight Enkrid and Rierbart had shown was simply too great.

Far in the rear, an old commander of the kingdom army who had watched their fight clenched his fist and said,

"Have you ever seen a clash between knight orders? What I just saw was beyond that."

The commander muttered. His Lieutenant gave a slight nod. He agreed.

A shiver ran through the commander's whole body. As he kept watching the battlefield, Enkrid's voice rang out.

"This war ends here."

It sounded like he was telling them not to fight anymore.

"All of you, stop fighting. I'll end this damned war."

He said it again.

If you did not like it, you stopped.

Already started fighting, so how could anyone stop it?

If words did not work, you tore it apart by force and stopped it.

If someone kept pushing the fight in the middle of that, you smashed them across the nose.

He was already at the level of an old knight grandfather when it came to stopping fights while holding back Rem, Ragna, Jaxon, and Audin.

"So what, now we stop fighting?"

Rem said as he walked up.

And it was not just Rem.

"Then what do we do now?"

Ragna was there too.

"It wasn't bad."

Jaxon was there as well.

All three had cut down enemies. They had come this far while sensing Rierbart's transformation.

Ragna had come while cutting through a shield formation that blocked his way and newly gathering up his own art.

Rem had come after splitting the head of a bastard wildly swinging two hammers, and also splitting one elf from top to bottom.

Jaxon had killed all five aides of the Five Weapons hidden across the field.

From the start, the enemy had been at a level that could not match them.

The three of them could have entered Enkrid's fight, but they did not.

A sword changing right before their eyes. It would have been a lie to say they were not astonished.

So they did not interfere.

He would change, and his will to win was clear and vivid.

Rem, Ragna, and Jaxon admired him inwardly.

Now they really would not be able to handle him playfully anymore.

Even though Enkrid had stepped in and spoken, it was natural that the battle did not stop easily, but centered on where he stood, the fighting slowly began to halt.

"Pass it on, tell them to stop fighting."

Enkrid said with a deep sigh. It was not that he was not tired.

It was also not that he planned to repeat today. So he had to move forward.

Rem liked this kind of leader, honestly.

It was stupid as hell, yet that declaration that he would end the war, that arrogance, fit him perfectly.

He was not saying it because he could do it.

He was saying he would keep at it until he did.

Resolve. Will.

That was why Rem liked it.

"Anyone who keeps fighting dies by my axe! Everyone, stop your hands!"

What Enkrid had shown was brutal, but Rem also rampaged like a madman.

On top of that, he carried madness that said he would smash anyone, ally or enemy.

Rem let that madness show. His gleaming eyes and blood-soaked axe entered everyone's sight.

Of course they stopped moving.

"If you still want to fight, I'll take you on."

Ragna stepped forward too.

Jaxon cleverly turned his gaze to the rear.

He looked only at commanders.

It was a look forcing a choice. If they ordered more killing, he would pick them out and kill them. That murderous intent was in his eyes.

"Everyone stop!"

One of the commanders shouted at the top of his voice.

There were more than one or two commanders who had looked at Enkrid in admiration.

"Fall back! Fall back!"

"Unnecessary killing ends here!"

Each shouted their part.

From far behind, even Marcus beat the drum.

It was not a retreat signal, but a signal to stop the clash for now.

Boom boom!

Not everyone under the count was an idiot either. They knew about the Chimera Unit, and they respected the count's grand plan too.

'Is this right?'

To some of them, this felt less like a fight to win and more like a fight to die. Those people moved and stopped the battle.

"Enough, enough, fall back!"

Something happened that would have made even a bard standing right there stare in disbelief.

The fighting stopped.

Looking at the halted battlefield, Enkrid walked toward one side.

The sky was dim. Clouds covered the sunlight, so it was not bright even in broad daylight.

Even so, Enkrid's figure was burned into everyone's mind.

Rem, Ragna, and Jaxon followed behind him.

Finally, even Dunbakel joined, appearing from who knew where.

As they moved forward, the count came out to meet them with veins bulging.

Five guards stood there with sword, spear, and axe in hand.

Seeing those five, Enkrid thought he truly could not tell whether Rierbart was the idiot or the count was the son of a bitch. Those five also reeked of beast.

"That leopard bitch sure has some impudent tricks."

The count said it with a smile on his lips but veins raised on his forehead. His face looked split top and bottom, anger above, smiling below. Something clearly was not going his way.

"My tricks are even more impudent, want me to show you one?"

When Enkrid answered, a smile spread across the count's face. The corners of his mouth rose, and the teeth he showed looked strangely black.

"You think Rierbart was all I had?"

The count spoke and gestured with his hand. Even that gesture looked uncomfortable somehow.

Esther had clearly done something.

At the count's signal, the five armed guards stepped forward.

Crack, crack.

Every one of them twisted and swelled with muscle. Hair sprouted as their bodies transformed.

You could not even call them werewolves. Parts of Demon Creature bodies had been grafted into human flesh, mixing Demon Creature fur and muscle into human frames.

That was exactly what they looked like.

"They look disgusting."

Rem said with his axe resting on his shoulder.

Had Rierbart been called the completed version?

In contrast, these ones looked broken in small ways.

Leave aside the power imitating knights, their faces had swollen in places and formed bubble-like blisters, which was clearly not normal.

Still, five was a lot.

Inside, Enkrid weighed whether he could handle at least one, and whether he could keep fighting afterward.

He had pushed his body close to the limit against Rierbart.

Even so, he had not the slightest thought of stepping back.

"I'll end this war."

It was a declaration. A statement of will. So it became visible Pressure.

Enkrid stepped forward.

The five guards glared at Enkrid with eyes turned red.

"You doing it alone?"

Rem stood on his left.

"Two are mine."

Ragna stood on his right.

"You can just watch quietly."

Jaxon said from three steps off to the side.

Dunbakel also ground her teeth and stood beside Rem.

It was a knife-edge balance.

The count looked at them and said,

"Time is on my side."

Was it a trick to make them impatient?

With the standoff formed, taut tension filled the space between the two groups.

If a dry blade of grass fell, it felt like fire might break out at once.

Step, step.

In that situation, bold and calm footsteps sounded. They came from behind Enkrid. He could not turn his head, but he did not feel the need to.

"Brothers and sisters, please step back for a moment."

Reinforcements had arrived.

A man built like a bear walked up and stopped right behind Enkrid.

"Who messed with my fiance?"

And he was not alone. A different voice came with him too, thin but pleasant to hear.

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