WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 410: He Should Have Fallen.

= = =

410. He Should Have Fallen

Dean Molsen. That was the count's name.

From childhood, Dean had been gifted beyond others.

“He has a talent for sensing mana.”

“He picks up swordsmanship quickly as well.”

“He is sharp enough to work as an administrator in the capital.”

Exceptional talent, a family that supported him, and excellent teachers.

That was how Dean grew up.

He lacked nothing. His world held magic, his father, and his mother, and almost nothing ever went against his will.

For a young man with extraordinary talent, the world was an easy place.

His twenties passed.

Then his thirties.

He killed the two uncles who had coveted the family headship.

Dean did it not with magic, but with a sword.

It was not even particularly remarkable, but his father admired him.

“You are my son, and yet truly incredible.”

After that, Dean learned that taking a human life was also very easy.

It was sometime in his thirties.

He inherited the headship.

His father often looked at him with fear in his eyes.

Why?

It began after Dean started involving himself in the family's affairs, both great and small. His father kept making bad choices in matters anyone could have handled with a little thought.

Dean corrected things behind the scenes. He spoke bluntly to his face. Sometimes he even showed something close to contempt.

At first, his father's eyes were proud. Then they slowly changed.

And when Dean openly refuted one of his father's decisions,

Dean knew he was right, but his father shouted in anger.

“It is for the dignity of the nobility!”

It was a crude excuse. A justification. Was he supposed to pretend he did not see through it? Dean did not.

“Disgusting.”

At that emotionless reply, his father gave up on the family.

His mother had never been affectionate to begin with.

That was how Dean became head of the house, and a few years later, his parents were caught in a neighboring lord's scheme and fell deep into debt in Krona.

His mother gambled, and his father drank.

Most nobles would have let that slide, but the neighboring lord did not.

He drove Dean's father to the edge of a cliff, and the man hanged himself.

His mother followed after him.

‘Was I too indifferent?’

Still, just because they were his parents did not mean affection had to exist.

Even so, should he not take revenge?

He decided he should.

Half a year was enough.

“Mercy.”

The neighboring lord dropped to his knees, but Dean cut off his head.

It was revenge without any sense of satisfaction.

That was when House Molsen, which had only been a middling family, began to grow.

Exactly three years later,

Dean saw people gathering beneath him.

Through what he had done, the count's military might and political power were expanding like never before.

Then a question rose.

‘Why should I stay trapped here?’

The moment the question appeared, so did the answer. There was no reason.

A bird had to break out of its egg to fly.

Dean decided to broaden his world. Out of the egg, into something wider.

‘The throne.’

That was the moment his hunger for power awakened. Everything in life had always been easy, so he assumed this would be easy too.

It was one easy stretch after another, at least until he broke through ten thousand specters and met the man who blocked his path.

* * *

“Fine.”

Enkrid had asked, “How?” so he answered flatly. His arm was shaking, but it could still move. That was enough.

“Hah.”

The count let out a sigh.

He saw the people standing behind Enkrid.

A soldier from the barbarian tribes watched quietly with an axe head resting on one shoulder.

A bored-eyed swordsman holding a sword broken in half shook blood from his hair.

Right beside him, a large soldier adjusted his twisted forearm with a gentle smile.

He kept smiling as he set the bone, as if it did not hurt at all.

And lastly, he saw the assassin who had targeted him before he summoned the specters.

The man held a short stiletto in his right hand.

It looked like he was asking, Are you ready to die?

The count raised one hand to his chin and looked them over again.

Were they not truly unexpected bastards?

If everything failed and he died, he had expected to die surrounded by maybe three knights.

And he had thought Naurillia would fall with him.

This was beyond anything he had predicted.

His panic lasted only a moment. Then the emptiness it left behind was filled with hollow disbelief, and laughter almost came naturally.

The count laughed out loud and asked,

“Is it not natural for the capable to stand at the highest place?”

It was a question asking why they were blocking his path.

“That is why I came.”

Enkrid answered.

At that line, the count wanted to grab Enkrid's tongue and yank it out long.

That bastard always spoke in clipped lines.

He was curious enough to wonder what would happen if he stretched that tongue by force.

“Fine. This was never going to be settled with words anyway.”

As he spoke, the count reached out his hand.

Black soot clumped in the air along his hand's path, then took the shape of a bird and flew forward.

It takes longer to explain than to happen. The instant he raised his hand, the bird appeared and lunged.

If Esther had been there, she would have recognized it as one of the necromancy summons, Sharlener's Life-Draining Crow, but no one present knew the spell's name.

Not knowing did not matter. They reacted. As the black bird shot toward Enkrid, a dagger flew and struck it.

Bang!

The bird exploded in midair. The thrown dagger also shattered into three pieces and bounced left and right.

The count frowned.

‘An artifact?’

No. What mad enchanter would carve that kind of spell into a throwing dagger?

That went past waste and into lunacy.

The dagger had simply been wrapped with a scroll and thrown.

It was a unique method. The one throwing them was obviously Jaxon. He had several similar daggers in hand.

“I will be the one who sits on the throne.”

Even in this situation, the count stayed firm. Even if they had broken through the specters, he was not about to simply let them kill him.

While firing Sharlener's Life-Draining Crows one after another, the count cast another spell.

Dark red clumps formed in midair, then became living blades.

They flew on their own and targeted Enkrid.

Someone built like a bear blocked them first.

“O pitiful soul who cannot even reach the Lord.”

He muttered as he moved his hands and feet. Despite his size, his movements were quick, and every dark red blade that struck him exploded in the air.

‘These bastards.’

The count reverted part of the specters.

Several Specter Soldiers that had been targeting the troops collapsed and vanished.

They popped out of existence like mist fading in the air.

“Rise, Specter General!”

It was a spell made by reverting specters and compressing them together. In front of the count, a mass holding a black greatsword appeared.

It was bigger than even Audin.

Ragna blocked it.

No one even noticed when he stepped out. Dragging his feet, Ragna looked up.

Holding his half-broken sword, he swung without a word.

Before the thing with the black greatsword could react, Ragna's blade slit its throat, split its chest, and cut its waist in half.

Enkrid nearly found himself stunned by Ragna's talent all over again.

What was that just now?

He swung three times in one breath, and though each slash went in a different direction, all three looked like one motion.

He had erased the draw-back and recovery phases. By calculating the path during the swing, he minimized movement enough to make that possible.

An upper horizontal slash flowing into a vertical downward cut, then a middle horizontal slash.

He packed all of them with the Will of Severance.

It looked like he had painted with a sword, but it was so fast and so bold that no one could even think of blocking it.

Even Enkrid thought he could not block that himself.

After swinging like that, Ragna took two steps back and dropped to the ground.

He had clearly collapsed, and yet,

“Whew, time to watch for a bit.”

He spoke calmly, as if he had sat down on purpose.

The count almost let his jaw drop.

What kind of bastard was this?

A Specter General that could have devoured most junior knights had died in a single exchange?

To the count, it had looked like one slash.

Something like danger filled his chest. He felt cornered, but forced himself to ignore it.

He still had methods left.

The count bit down on his tongue with his molars.

Crunch.

A fishy scent of blood rose from the tongue he had bitten through. The count opened his mouth.

Bright blood streamed from the corners of his lips.

He drew his left hand toward his chest. The blood flowing from his mouth did not fall, but gathered above his left palm.

“Come forth, Guardian Blood Mass.”

The count spoke as he swung his staff with his right hand.

At his call, the blood mass above his left hand began to squirm and grow.

In a blink, it became the size of a person, and arms and legs sprouted from it.

Once the shape was made, the summon had to be filled, and for that, the count had to revert even more Specter Soldiers from the battlefield.

Naturally, the battlefield grew emptier.

More soldiers who had nearly died barely survived.

Most troops possessed by specters also recovered.

In his urgency, the count was pouring everything into this spot and ignoring the rest of the battlefield.

Soon, a Blood Golem, blood-red from head to toe except for two eye sockets, stood before him.

“You packed this thing with sorcery tricks too? Looking at your little scheme, seems like you've been sleeping with the Undying Madman.”

That came from the barbarian warrior. The moment the count looked at him, the man was pulling something from his chest.

From behind the golem, the count watched what his opponent was doing.

It was not hard to guess. The barbarian had started spinning what he pulled out over his head.

He took out a sling, loaded a bead-shaped round, and spun it. He had started as soon as the golem appeared, and now the motion announced itself with sound.

Whoong, whoong, whoong, wiiiiiiiing.

Rem used the bead amulet, the last totem taken from the Undying Madman, as sling ammo.

He had never expected to use it as a projectile, but right now it was perfect.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

It was a sound cold enough to chill anyone's spine, friend or foe.

The noise of the sling cutting the air drew the golem's gaze.

Born from sorcery, the golem brought both hands together.

It was about to fire a stream of blood.

Watching it, Rem's arm moved.

Wiiiing, whoong!

The noise above Rem's head stopped in an instant. At the same time, another explosion rang out.

Bang!

From the Blood Golem's head.

Normally, physical impact alone should not have harmed a golem.

But the loaded projectile was too special.

It was like the crystallized sorcery the Undying Madman had collected for over ten years.

It exploded and took the golem's life force down with it.

That was why it blew apart.

“Urgh.”

The count clutched near his chest with his left hand and struck the ground with his staff in his right.

A sudden sense of loss and emptiness struck him, as if his heart had stopped.

The count knew the golem had died. Endless loss crashed over him and stirred up bleak emotion.

It was a summon woven from his own blood and heart.

By all rights, it should not have gone down this easily.

“You bastards!”

The count roared in anger, while Rem, after using his last sorcery tool, felt all strength draining from his body.

‘Am I going to die like this?’

Surely not.

Still, he felt weak enough for that thought to cross his mind.

The price of using an amulet filled with someone else's sorcery power had arrived.

Rem lost his balance and staggered backward. He dropped hard on his butt, then glanced at Ragna. By chance, he had ended up right beside him.

Rem looked at Ragna and said,

“Time to watch.”

Ragna nodded. Their eyes met. Neither had the energy to curse the other, and this was not the time to reject anyone.

For once, their minds seemed in sync.

Audin also could not simply erase the dark red blades, so he endured the Prohibition Seal for a moment and drew on holiness.

Compared to the Blood Golem, the flying blades were still no easy opponent.

In truth, they were magical lifeforms you would only expect to see in cursed lands, recreated through spellwork.

It was only right to call the count's ability monstrous.

There was no choice but to endure the pain from the Prohibition Seal now.

‘Father, forgive me.’

Audin drew up holiness for a moment.

Not to emit light, but to protect his body.

‘My left hand is a treasured sword, my right hand is steel.’

With bare hands, it was blade and stone.

With even a little holiness infused, it became treasured sword and iron.

The instant a flying blade touched Audin's left hand,

Clang!

The dark red blade that struck the treasured sword snapped. Then he smashed it with his right hand.

Boom!

The crushed dark red blade lost power, flew aside, and buried itself in the ground.

It bent at a right angle, and the specter inside it also lost strength and vanished, so the blade quickly turned to dust and crumbled away.

He shattered the dark red blades one by one, and pain from the Prohibition Seal surged through his entire body.

For a while, it felt like he would not be able to move at all.

Audin's limbs trembled violently. Soon his body stiffened like a log, and he had no choice but to stand there blankly.

“Tch.”

Watching that, Rem clicked his tongue.

Why was that one not dropping?

“Hm.”

Ragna glanced over too and frowned. It irritated him. That religious zealot should have fallen too.

= = =

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried