WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 407: Watch. That's My Friend.

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Audin knew that in his current state, he could not deal with them through speed alone. He could tell just by watching them charge.

Most people did not realize it, but Enkrid and a few others knew Audin had a sharp eye and fought with his head.

On the surface, he looked like the type to solve everything with brute force, but that was not true.

‘Too fast.’

If he endured the pain and raised his divinity, he could catch them. Audin had no need to do that.

He calculated and moved. In a way, it was the style closest to the Correct Sword.

Two enemies rushed him. One held a trident, the other a long spear.

Both kept their distance, stabbing and pulling back over and over, annoyingly so.

Spearheads faster than bee stings tried to pierce and tear his skin.

Audin made up for his lack of speed by minimizing his movement. He built a tight defense by knocking spearheads aside with the back of his hand.

Flap-flap-flap.

The cloak draped loosely over his body whipped around wildly with each movement. It was closer to a rag than armor, so it offered little protection.

Every time a spearhead grazed it, another piece tore away.

Audin held on, then suddenly lowered his hips and burst forward. For that instant, he moved so fast his body almost seemed to stretch. If he committed everything to a single charge, he could match their speed for a moment.

“Hah!”

The one with the trident shouted.

Because Audin had lowered his stance so much, the blade scraped across his back.

It was a thrust backed by monstrous force, so even that graze split his ragged cloak in half and scratched his skin.

Yet no blood flowed. Audin’s skin was almost like plate armor. It was unlike normal human skin.

Audin crashed in and wrapped his arms around the enemy’s knee. The enemy might have been faster, but not stronger.

And the essence of body techniques was always close combat.

When Audin lifted while gripping the knee, the trident user’s feet left the ground.

“What the!”

The trident user shouted in shock. His trapped leg would not budge, like it was wedged between giant boulders.

He reflexively tried to wrench free, but it was useless. His whole body had been lifted, so of course he panicked.

Seeing that, the long-spear user drove his own spear in. Audin read the blade’s path from the shift in the air and only twisted his torso slightly.

Pik!

The spearhead slid along his body and peeled off to the side.

A torso slip.

Audin was the one who taught that technique to Enkrid. It was only natural that he did it better.

His body moved like a soft bundle of cotton, nothing like his size.

The spear struck his back, but only in a grazing pass.

Even then, the one caught by Audin was still hanging in the air.

The lifted enemy let go of his weapon and thrust out both hands.

His nails had grown long and tried to dig into Audin’s forearm. Audin ignored it and slammed him into the ground.

Boom! Craaack.

Naturally, he did not stop there.

After smashing him down, he grabbed both legs, rolled forward, and flipped those legs behind the enemy’s head.

He folded the enemy at the waist, then planted his right foot on the shoulder and ripped out the spine.

Craaack.

Blood-red bone met open air. Blood burst outward under that brutal strength.

Whether the enemy’s claws touched Audin’s shoulder or not did not matter. Everything happened in a blink.

The moment he finished one, the long-spear user flinched.

Even half out of his mind, he still thought, what is this?

“Monster?”

At that word from a monster’s mouth, Audin smiled.

“The Lord is waiting, Demon Creature brother.”

The rest of the fight was no different. The monster that two people could not handle kept deflecting spearheads and closing the distance.

Even Audin’s iron-like skin took scratches, and blood occasionally sprayed.

The enemies were no pushovers either.

Still, the distance closed.

Whoever Audin caught had arms torn off and waists broken.

At the end, he even showed a savage trick, pinching part of a cervical vertebra with his fingers and pulling it out.

Enkrid almost clapped.

Were the enemies overwhelming in martial power?

Yes.

And still this was the result.

At a glance, they only looked like knight-like chimera humans.

‘Still not knights.’

Even then, the count sitting on that unnaturally dense black chair did not move.

Jaxon had come up behind Enkrid at some point. He let out a light breath.

“A troublesome spellcaster.”

Hearing Jaxon’s assessment made it clear. This one was no easy opponent.

Enkrid looked at Count Molsen.

In the count’s bloodshot stare, murderous intent boiled so fiercely that “hostile” did not begin to cover it.

“I should have killed you from the start.”

The count truly regretted it. He had never imagined they would block his path this much.

No knight had even stepped in, and it had still come to this. It was infuriating.

That did not mean he had failed.

And had he not had a clear reason for keeping him alive?

He would plant a specter in him and make him one of his kin.

If he could not keep him as a human subordinate, then he would keep him in a non-human form.

“I cannot sleep with both legs stretched out unless I kill every one of you.”

“I’ll fold both your legs nicely so you can sleep in a coffin.”

Enkrid shot back smoothly.

It was a childish joke timed perfectly, saying he would not die, but the other side would end up folded.

Needless to say, that twisted the count’s insides.

If nothing else, that bastard’s tongue almost rivaled a knight’s sword.

Of course, now even the sword in his hand had become threatening.

“Yes, talk as much as you want. I will tear you to pieces and burn you alive. I will keep you alive and sane until then, so you can watch your own body being ripped and burned!”

Then he would take what remained of his soul and leave him unable to die or live.

When the count said, “I will,” two voices seemed to overlap inside it.

The ringing made Enkrid’s skull throb.

Strangely enough, as he listened to the count’s curse, Enkrid felt his vision widen.

It was the same sense he had gained when he was trapped in Abnair’s Touch.

A battlefield seen not through strategy and tactics, but through instinct.

The realm of intuition and sixth sense expanded, seeking the path to achieve what he wanted.

Not the domain of reason, but the domain of instinct.

Esther had said something similar before, so the realization came naturally.

‘This ends only when that one dies.’

His instinct told him the war would end with the count’s death.

Just as he was repeating that instinct to himself.

“You leaving that thing alone?”

Rem asked. Enkrid stared at his barbarian subordinate.

Behind him, he saw Ragna, Audin, and Jaxon as well.

All of them looked somewhat worn down, but none were the type to show it openly.

Audin seemed to have broken a finger. He snapped it back into place with a crack and smiled.

“Brother, I will add a prayer to the road you walk.”

It meant, let us fight together.

Enkrid looked over the four once, then turned back to the count.

He was stating his intent with his eyes.

“Together?”

At that short question, all four nodded naturally.

Rem stepped forward. Ragna followed behind him. Jaxon moved quietly to the side. Audin moved last, as if covering all of them.

“I thought he was a damned bastard from the start.”

Rem muttered.

“Agreed. We should kill that one.”

Jaxon answered.

“There is no need to look for a shortcut.”

Ragna said, staring at the clearly visible count.

“My Lord, my Father. I send up one more soul with a frail heart.”

Audin prayed.

Enkrid walked ahead of the four.

Sinar did not cut in among them. To be honest, she did not think she could help right now.

She had just cut down a transformed elf, but the enemy’s blade had split her thigh, making it hard to run properly.

Even while drawing in spring vitality and fighting, that enemy had not been easy.

She pulled out a bandage and wrapped her thigh tightly. Even if she could not help, she could not become a burden.

Dunbakel and Teresa did not even dare step in.

Enkrid had told them earlier to move to the rear.

It almost sounded like an excuse to leave, but they followed the order faithfully.

While Dunbakel and Teresa moved back, Enkrid and his group kept advancing.

In truth, Rem, Ragna, Audin, and Jaxon were all far from fresh.

Jaxon was in the best shape among them, but frontal breakthrough was not his specialty.

In pure swordsmanship, Enkrid could now be considered ahead of him.

Even so, the five moved forward.

Do what must be done.

That was how Enkrid had lived through every kind of day.

So he walked on to mark the end of the civil war.

Crang and Marcus, who joined late, saw it too.

“More than all the planning, worrying, and preparation I spent months on, it looks like one friend I met by chance is about to place a crown on my head.”

Crang said with a smile.

He did not look worried at all.

Marcus was amazed that Crang could smile so brightly in this situation.

“You can still smile?”

Their side, more precisely Enkrid, had shown overwhelming force, yet Count Molsen remained unchanged.

Without moving an inch, he gave off something black and grim.

It looked like he sat on a throne called death in the palace of the battlefield.

If someone said that chair’s real name was Death, it would be believable.

Eisia also led her knight order toward where Enkrid and his company stood.

Ropord, the squire under her, saw Enkrid and his group and spoke urgently.

“I will help!”

At some point, he had come to respect and follow Enkrid more than knights.

Who else could fight like that and step forward like that?

Ropord looked ready to charge out at once, but his orange-haired superior stopped him.

“Do not fool around.”

“Sir?”

“They stepped out after stopping the whole battlefield so they would not get someone like you killed. Just watch, and see how they fight.”

Even Eisia was dissatisfied.

‘You did not even ask me to come with you?’

She was a junior knight. She fought well. Yes, she had lost to Enkrid, but had not the people guarding his sides fought brutal battles already? They had to be injured.

Should he not have taken someone relatively fresh like her?

“So annoying.”

The urge to jump into their group surged in her chest.

She was a member of the Red Cloak Knights, a group unmatched by anything else inside Naurillia.

Yet right now, she wanted to stand at Enkrid’s side.

Whatever the price, she wanted that.

So what she said while stopping Ropord was the same thing she needed to tell herself.

The Shepherds of the Wilderness also began slipping out of the suddenly frozen battlefield, but Pel could not suppress his curiosity and approached under the excuse of escorting Crang.

‘Oh?’

It was a familiar face.

‘That moonlit night.’

Was that not the crazy bastard who got cut by Idolslayer and still asked to be cut again?

He had thought the man was no ordinary fighter.

‘Was he this strong?’

He could see his back. It was a back that had touched everything that happened on this battlefield, then stopped fighting and started walking forward.

‘Duty?’

Fight and protect?

As Pel was thinking, Crang’s eyes lit up and he said:

“Watch. That is my friend.”

A friend. So he was not bound by royal duty. And still he stepped forward.

For what?

Pel had heard the declaration to end the war. That meant he stepped out purely for that.

For a Shepherd who moved for practical gains and profit, it did not resonate easily.

“Pel. To lead a group, you cannot look at the world only through gains and losses.”

His father’s teaching came back to him. Pel gained a small realization.

Sometimes, you had to accept losses for an ideal.

At the same time, he made a decision.

He would leave the Shepherd group for a short while.

Not only because of those elders who did nothing but nag.

‘There will be much to learn.’

Pel sank into thought, Crang smiled and told everyone not to step in.

Only Marcus burned inside.

He knew it too. He could not stop Enkrid now. Even so, he wanted to use a dirty method.

Even if he was cursed for life, he wanted to fire an arrow at that count’s head right now.

Naturally, it would not work.

Still, he could not help feeling that way.

He wanted to stop Enkrid from walking into the arms of a bastard who was dangerous just to look at.

So he asked Crang, who was still smiling.

“It is honestly hard to believe you can still smile.”

“Commander Marcus. If not now, then when? If Enki dies, I think we all die too anyway.”

“…We still have the last resort.”

“I will not use it.”

“Why?”

“It is not a crown worth taking if I must let a friend die for it.”

Crang was still Crang. He was himself.

Marcus found that frustrating, yet that was also why he served this man.

Only then could Marcus finally relax.

He only had to bet everything on Enkrid.

“Then.”

Marcus laughed too, though his laugh was hollow.

* * *

The count was not looking at the ones approaching.

His eyes were fixed on the rear of the battlefield. The detached force he had sent to tear out that damned witch’s throat was now starting to hit the rear line.

‘Damned bitch.’

Inside his head, the count cursed Esther about a hundred times.

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