WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 428: Dream and Dream

= = =

A knight's martial power often shattered what people thought was possible.

Like the knight of Azpen he had met before.

Enkrid held his sword and sank into thought.

"What if I had seen that knight's blade then? If I had predicted the attack?"

Even if he predicted it, could he have stopped it?

Moving the body mattered, but time spent in meditation mattered just as much.

He sank deeper into thought and formed an image.

The Azpen knight rose in his mind, and the path of that swinging sword became vivid.

"It was not amazing swordsmanship."

It was just a swing. It was simply too strong and too fast. So overwhelming that he could not even imagine blocking it.

Then was that what a knight's strike was?

A strike with such speed and force that you could not stop it even if you saw it?

Would seeing a real fight between true knights be shocking?

It was a pointless thought.

* * *

What was a knight.

A broad name for those who broke human limits.

The King of the East was not a knight, but he had martial power on the same level.

He showed that power without restraint.

Not everything he had, no, but if anyone watched from right beside him, it was enough to leave them stunned.

A troll swung a stone axe wrapped tightly to a tree trunk.

Too slow. The instant the troll's shoulder moved, the king had already thrust his spear.

Thud!

The spearhead did not just pierce the skull, it blew it apart. The thrust was driven by monstrous force.

After bursting one skull, the king's spear slid to the side.

With one thud after another, every troll head that caught on the shaft or blade shattered.

To kill a troll, you either burned the whole body or cut the neck.

Cutting the neck meant severing the connection between head and body.

Smashing the skull had a similar effect.

Anu's spear proved it.

Thrust, cut, strike, smash.

At first he moved like he was just loosening up, but after only one or two breaths in and out, his spear grew faster.

Even then, every strike flew straight for troll skulls.

It looked like a swift swallow snatching fish.

A swallow born for hunting.

Not one mistake, not one miss.

It was technique put on for Rem.

Anu killed roughly over twenty trolls, one per strike.

Black blood dotted his clothes, but for a slaughter of that scale, there was barely any trace left.

Rem, who had cracked three troll heads himself, stood there and stared at him.

King Anu pulled back his spear, looked at Rem, then tilted his head without realizing it.

Was this not where Rem was supposed to be impressed?

Usually that was how it went. People who saw his spearwork started in shock and ended in admiration.

But Rem's eyes shone with blatant disrespect. He looked full of complaints.

"Having fun doing it all by yourself?"

His tone matched.

The king blinked once.

"Seems that is the case, my lord."

Asaluhi, who had been watching, came close and whispered. He took the spear, wiped the head and shaft clean, then wrapped it well in cloth again.

The Lieutenant could roughly guess what the king had intended. He had wanted to show overwhelming skill and draw admiration from the other side.

Was that not why he had pulled out his second weapon against mere trolls.

Rem almost started grumbling, then stopped.

If someone wanted to show off, the best move was to let him.

"I am not fully warmed up yet, so I am staying out longer. We split up. Separate."

Rem said it and wandered off on his own, as if it did not matter that this was the Pen-Hanil mountain range.

For Rem, this reaction was natural.

He did not care whether the other side felt baffled.

If he found the sorcery he had left in the west, what the King of the East had just shown was something he could do too.

Nothing to envy.

People like knights used Will, and his own method was a bit different, but to Rem, it was all the same thing.

"I will ask one thing."

The king threw the question at Rem, who had turned away.

"Ask."

"Why are you here? Why are you stuck to that bastard's side? What do you want, staying in this city?"

Rem answered like it was not worth much thought.

"It's fun."

Why had he run out of the west in the first place?

To find enjoyment.

Right now, Rem's enjoyment was watching where Enkrid, who had clawed his way up from the bottom, was heading.

If he thought about it, it was not some grand reason.

He was saying he stayed because this was fun now, because he felt like it.

It also sounded like he would leave any time if he found something more fun.

After hearing that, the king nodded.

"I understand."

It was a clean response.

Rem headed deeper into the mountain range.

When the hunt ended and the king came back with only his Lieutenant, the big-eyed bastard greeted him in an irritating tone.

"Did you bury Rem out there? Then this might not be solvable with gold coins. At least gold bars would be needed..."

"He said he would play more on his own and return."

The king cut him off and strode inside.

Audin came into view.

"Was it Audin? Why are you staying here?"

"Lord Father told me to do so."

"Lord? Father?"

No long conversation was needed.

Asaluhi whispered to the king, careful not to be heard.

"Is he not a fanatic?"

The king had thought the same. No matter what he asked, every answer came back to following god's teachings and god's arrangement.

The king nodded and shifted his gaze.

He saw Ragna sleeping soundly, and then the half-giant passing in front of the barracks.

"Why do you remain here?"

The king asked.

"I owe a life debt."

Teresa answered in her uniquely metallic yet oddly pleasant voice.

Not a trace of playfulness.

A life debt, no one could repay that in your place.

"My desire is to explore the unknown. Look at him, what a fascinating human. And he is handsome. Nice to look at. But you are not, are you."

That was Frog Ruagarne's answer.

The King of the East took pride in his face, but since he knew Frog's aesthetics, he only said one thing.

"Did you hurt your eyes? Look at my face carefully once more, Frog with bad sight."

"Does the East not have mirrors?"

Ruagarne fired back without missing a beat.

Next was Dunbakel.

"If I pull back from here, I will probably spend my whole life running."

His offer to make her his daughter had been half a joke, half sincere.

If she came east, there was plenty he could give her, but she rejected every offer.

"You know I am Beastfolk too, right?"

The king asked.

"Anyone here who does not know that is probably only that idiot over there."

The idiot Dunbakel meant was Squire Ropord.

While he was at it, the king asked everyone he saw.

"I came here to set myself straight. Someone like me, where would I dare go?"

Ropord spoke with one eye swollen from getting hit by someone.

"I am one of the Shepherds of the Wilderness. I only came because I had a brief matter to handle."

Pel hid his true thoughts.

In Pel's eyes, the King of the East caught an unhideable fighting spirit.

The shepherd's eyes were aimed at Enkrid, not Ragna, not Rem.

That was unusual too, but not completely impossible to understand.

Enkrid had a nature that made anyone watching him want to cross blades at least once.

The king knew that as well.

The king also saw an elf named Sinar coming around.

So he asked her.

"We are promised to be engaged."

The elf answered.

"That is a joke."

Enkrid's voice came right after.

Enkrid added once more that the elf's jokes were hard to understand.

The king did not bother probing Sinar's heart. Even without naming a reason, it was clear enough that she would not follow him.

The king stayed for several days and met Jaxon too.

"I can roughly tell where you are from. And that skill, it would be fair to call it master level."

How many people could spot at a glance what he had hidden away?

Even so, Jaxon was not surprised.

If you stayed beside Enkrid, all kinds of things happened.

He himself was doing things he could never have imagined, was he not.

His lover had once said:

"I did not know you would change like this."

Those words made him look at himself again.

Have I changed?

He did not know. One thing was certain.

Jaxon had found where he belonged, and he liked it.

So when the king asked, Why are you here, his answer was very short.

"Because this is where I belong."

The king asked nothing more.

After asking everyone one by one, every answer was different.

Each had stayed for their own reason, yet those reasons all narrowed down to one person.

Then one morning, Ragna woke and came out. The bastard had done nothing but sleep for over three days.

The king turned his gaze.

Ragna walked with the same old steps, but the king could tell he had crossed a wall.

That did not mean he had become a knight immediately.

No one became a knight in one leap. Knights did not happen that way.

Heaven-given talent had to be layered with relentless effort.

A shift in momentum only he could recognize on this spot...

No, not only him.

Even after seeing the king show his own skill, Rem had not looked that surprised.

Rem had noticed first.

The man who had not been shocked by the king's skill clenched his molars hard. His face was full of irritation.

The one named Audin was similar.

He had endured even when the king quietly let out his presence, but once he saw the man who had just woken up, he fell into deep thought, then immediately started a silent prayer. Hands clasped, back turned, head bowed.

The king's eyes moved to Enkrid.

Sharp eyes.

That bastard noticed too.

For a moment, the king thought again that this was a very strange man.

No matter how many times you beat him down, he got up and charged again, like an unkillable skeleton soldier.

The king also knew it.

The man called Ragna had just gained new power, and he was dying to use it right now.

Because he could see all that, the king said:

"If you follow me, you will be able to use that power as much as you want."

The king cut everything else away and struck only the core. Words like a spearpoint piercing an enemy heart in one shot.

Words that would shake anyone.

If that person had just crossed a wall, those words would stir him for sure.

The king folded his arms and watched Ragna.

A natural aura and dignity spread out.

It was the presence only someone who was truly a king and had knight-level force could show.

"There are not many places where you can freely use your power. Come to a place where freedom and longing can be satisfied. This country will not be able to contain you."

He was telling him to seek a wider world, not stay trapped inside the frame of a knight order.

Enkrid, who had been swinging his sword nearby, was also watching the changed Ragna.

Rem was there, and so were Audin, Teresa, and Dunbakel.

Ropord and Pel were absent because of duty.

No matter why someone stayed here, mandatory work was still mandatory. That was Enkrid's will.

Anyway, everyone's eyes except those two were on Ragna.

Ragna squinted at the morning sunlight with a drowsy face and said:

"It's a hassle."

He had at least spoken politely, but unlike his tone, his words were not polite at all.

"...A hassle?"

The king forgot his dignity and asked back.

Many people had shown open hostility.

But this was his first time hearing someone say it was a hassle.

"Thinking about the road all the way to the East, it is a hassle."

Ragna made his meaning clear again. No matter how good he was at finding roads, it would still take over half a year.

Normally, with a fine horse and nonstop riding, it was a trip of around fifteen days.

The king let out an empty laugh once.

Lieutenant Asaluhi watched the king's reaction, worried he might be angry.

Thankfully, the king neither exploded nor looked like he was swallowing rage.

"A hassle."

He only muttered.

Ragna could not even be bothered to explain in detail.

He had gained realization, and after moving past simply reviewing it, his senses were out of alignment.

To correct that, he felt like he needed several days of sweating through training.

Most of all, Ragna had not the slightest intention of following the King of the East.

Hassle was not a lie either.

If he had to place one person above him and obey orders.

Should it not be the one who had led him this far.

Look at that madman over there, staring at him with heat in his eyes.

Without that man, he would never have found this drive.

Even now, everything felt annoying, but when he saw those eyes, his motivation surged.

After staying up for about three nights, swinging his sword to align his senses, he wanted to slam his blade against that famed sword, Aker.

The king watched Ragna, then turned away.

"We should return soon."

The Lieutenant said it, and the king nodded, but he did not look ready to leave at once.

Another day passed like that.

A little rain had fallen last night and in the morning, and now sunlight cut through the clouds.

The light was soft. The air was cool.

It was not like a usual summer day.

That rainy afternoon was neither humid nor hot. A cool and clear day.

On that day, the king was held by Enkrid until evening.

"Can we do one more?"

"You can."

Another spar, as if neither could get tired of it.

The king won by striking near his opponent's solar plexus with an elbow.

It was a fairly hard blow, but Enkrid's body was solid. He endured it.

After the spar ended, the king looked up at the sky.

At some point the sun had started to sink, and a world of twilight spread out.

Orange sunset filled the clouds and poured toward the ground.

Between that fading twilight glow, the king spoke.

"What do you think is in the East? Gold? Silver? Iron? Treasure? I do not know. No one knows what is there. That is what makes my heart race."

It was in a corner of the training ground where sunset haze settled.

The king spoke of his dream. Enkrid listened.

Goosebumps ran over Enkrid's whole body again and again.

Following the king's words, he could almost see a vision of unknown lands and ruins where no one knew what might jump out.

Like Crang, he spoke as if burning his soul.

"Conquering new land, that is my fight. That is my struggle. What do you think?"

Wrapped in heat, the king asked.

Anyone could have gotten drunk on that heat.

It was a speech that made you want to agree with him, respect his will, trust him, and follow him.

A speech delivered to only one listener.

The man called the King of the East poured out that heat.

Enkrid answered.

"Do you know the song, Knight of the End?"

Just as the other man spoke of his dream, Enkrid spoke of his own.

A dream that started from a common wandering song, faded and torn, yet patched and held together.

= = =

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