A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 430

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 430: Squadmate, Fiancee, and Mage

= = =

How long had it been since the sword in his hand felt this heavy?

For about the first year after he first picked up a blade, swords had often felt heavy. After a few swings of that solid chunk of metal, his arm muscles would shake, and a sharp pain in the web between his thumb and index finger would linger all day.

Back when even a wooden sword felt heavy.

And now was several times worse than that.

'Heavy.'

It felt like dozens of iron weights were tied to the blade.

If he relaxed even a little, the sword would drop straight down and stab into the ground. Both arms trembled.

It was hard to believe. With Audin's training, there had rarely been a time he felt lacking in pure strength.

He had no room to think about that now.

All he could do was endure the weight of the sword. Nothing else could enter his mind.

'Heavy.'

It felt like he would lose his grip at any second. Lifting the tip even a little felt as hard as crossing a winter mountain with his bare body.

The rain that had soaked him earlier had evaporated in the heat of battle, but then sweat started pouring out, and Enkrid was drenched again in no time.

Sweat streamed down. Drops ran off his chin and fell to the ground without pause.

'Very heavy.'

At this rate, he would drop it sooner or later. It was a wonder he had kept fighting while holding something this heavy.

He had not even had time to catch his breath. His breathing was ragged, like he had been running all day without rest.

The sweat kept pouring and soaked his whole body. It felt like he had stepped out of a bathtub fully clothed.

Still, the hardest thing by far was the chunk of steel in his hand. The famed sword Aker had felt perfectly fitted to his grip when he first held it, but now it felt like a snake thrashing to break free.

'Why is it heavy?'

He did not know why. All he had done was knock away his opponent's spear tip.

Around then, as Enkrid burned stamina and mental strength just holding on, Anu stepped close and whispered.

The time Enkrid felt he had endured with the sword seemed long, but in reality it was brief.

Only long enough for a few words.

"Can you overcome the weight? Bull is the sort that likes to dump burdens onto others."

Enkrid could not grasp every meaning in those words, but he understood one thing.

"If you let go, that is your limit. Then even if you die, you will never reach what you want."

The mention of death meant this was only possible if he kept running with death beside him.

Even before hearing the king, Enkrid had already felt it.

He could not let go of what he held now.

Only one fact was clear.

He knew he might drop the sword, but he also knew he would not.

'If I were the kind to let go just because it's heavy.'

He would never have taken a step toward an impossible dream in the first place.

"Did you want to become a knight? Then see more, experience more, and accumulate more. All of it will help your path."

The king continued. The words were vague, at least to Enkrid right now. But Anu's tone held only goodwill.

"If you do not forget what is carried on your sword, your path will open."

Those short words stayed in Enkrid's mind, even as sweat poured and the sword tip wavered.

"I owe you."

The king patted his shoulder once and left.

Enkrid saw the tip of his sword dip slightly.

Refusal, Heart of Superhuman Strength, Heart of the Beast, Focus Point, sensory techniques, even the body he had forged through the Isolation Technique.

None of it helped him hold this sword right now.

The king's Bull made the weapon in his hand feel heavier than ever before.

It was a mystery wielded through Will.

Enkrid understood that, and still raised the sword tip in the end.

Just because everything he had learned failed did not mean the will he had built inside him would break.

If he had meant to give up, he would never have started.

The tip rose slowly. When Enkrid finally lifted the sword properly, he forgot its weight for a moment.

The extra burden Bull had placed on it vanished.

Only then, for the first time in a long while, did Enkrid realize his grip had split open. Red liquid streamed from the hand holding the sword.

The leather wrapped around Aker's hilt had darkened as it soaked up blood.

The wound came when Bull's horn caught and twisted Aker's blade, trying to wrench it from his hand, and he endured it.

It was the price of withstanding a knight's disarm.

As he recognized that, Enkrid staggered and collapsed.

"Fool."

Someone caught him as he fell and said it. It was Esther's voice.

That was the last thing Enkrid heard before he lost consciousness.

* * *

Enkrid dreamed. Maybe for the first time in a while.

It was a real dream, not one with the Boatman.

"So you plan to live by the sword? Quit. You'll die young."

"Even those called talented rarely make it to fifty as mercenaries."

This was before he could properly tell anyone his dream. These were the words of people who told him to throw away the little ferry he would need to sail the sea called dream.

That ferry had a hole in the bottom.

You cannot move forward.

Your oar is broken and rotten.

You still cannot move forward.

The boat you ride is made of fallen leaves. You want to go to sea on that? It would sink even on a lake or river.

So you cannot move forward.

Everyone said the same thing.

Enkrid saw that, aside from his unit members, only two people had listened seriously to his dream and responded.

Not Frog Ruagarne.

She had judged she would not make it, and then simply felt a strange wonder when she did.

'Crang.'

One was his friend seated on Naurillia's throne.

After hearing Enkrid's dream, he said he had found his own path.

The other was the King of the East.

Their time had been brief, but sparring with him let Enkrid refine what he had.

The strange thing was this. He had expected to hear, over and over, that he lacked talent. But the King of the East never said that.

Back when Enkrid did not yet have the skill to overwhelm others as he did now, more than half of those who came after hearing his dream judged his talent.

Now they could not, because Enkrid's swordsmanship stood above theirs.

But the king was someone with more than enough position and skill to call him talentless if he wanted.

He could have lamented Enkrid's lack of talent, or expressed surprise, but he remained calm.

Instead, before leaving, he said this.

"Do not forget what you carry on your sword, and keep moving forward. The path will open."

That was encouragement. That was faith.

Enkrid ignored every word from those who never even showed their faces beyond the curtain.

The ferry made of leaves and the oar made from rotten branches had, by now, become a caravel of treated oak that would not take on water, and that rotten-branch oar had become a sturdy one, carefully planed from solid wood.

With a ship and oar in hand, Enkrid saw markers and a path.

'What must I do to become a knight?'

Everything around him blurred, and the Azpen knight appeared.

"If you block even once, I'll let you live."

Had he said it exactly like that?

Probably not, but this was a dream. The exact words did not matter. The meaning did.

He only had to block once.

The Azpen knight swung.

A sword that was pure speed and strength.

Parrying was impossible, so Enkrid struck first instead.

The knight gave ground for his honor.

Using that strike as a benchmark, Enkrid practiced everything, downward cuts, thrusts, swings, all kinds of techniques.

After that, Enkrid also saw the various techniques shown by Anu's Bull.

The King of the East showed technique in using Will.

If he had wanted to, he might have killed Enkrid in an instant.

In the end, Enkrid would not have died easily while resisting, but reality was reality.

He had already forgotten that if he died, this day repeated.

Then.

"You bastard."

The Boatman tore through one side of the dream and barged in.

He too was part of the dream.

Ignoring the Boatman, Enkrid sank into thought and gained a small realization. It was a signpost that faintly showed him a path.

'Different.'

The King of the East and the Azpen knight had walked different roads, and the lines of their techniques were different.

The two were clearly different. Too different.

With that thought, Enkrid opened his eyes.

A dull ache spread through his entire body, and his grip throbbed.

He raised his hand and saw it wrapped in thick bandages.

He saw the dim darkness outside, lamp light, and someone seated in a chair right beside the bed.

"Sinar?"

"Now that you've said my name, all that's left is the ceremony."

An elf-style joke rang in his ears.

Instead of laughing, Enkrid asked. It was hard to laugh at elf jokes.

"What are you doing?"

"Admiring."

He did not need to ask what she was admiring.

She sat with one leg crossed, elbow resting on that leg, chin propped on her hand, watching him.

"You keep collapsing every time you fight."

Sinar said.

Enkrid shrugged as if it were nothing.

"If you get up, I can show you something interesting."

"What are you talking about?"

Still seated, Sinar showed a faint smile she never showed anyone else.

With that smile, she uncrossed her legs, lowered her arm, drew her sword, and thrust. The speed and angle were impossible to comprehend.

Naidhl pierced his heart outside Enkrid's perception.

He felt like coughing up blood. Every muscle in his body clenched, and for a moment he forgot the soreness.

Death was right in front of him.

Was he about to close his eyes and die like this? No.

"How is it?"

With Sinar's words, the sword piercing his heart vanished like grains of sand.

She had only been sitting there with her legs uncrossed and her arms loosely lowered.

It had all been an illusion. No, a possible reality shown by an opponent's pressure.

"This is?"

"Did you think I stayed away from your side that long for no reason?"

Even through the elf joke, Enkrid understood several things at once.

Because he had experienced a knight's martial force twice already, it was easier to grasp now.

What Sinar had just shown was a knight's martial force.

The panther that had been watching from one side walked over and slipped into Enkrid's arms.

It looked like she was protesting, telling Sinar to back off now.

"I'll wait until you recover."

Sinar said.

Enkrid's heart pounded. He wanted to ignore even the soreness shaking his whole body, get up, grab his sword, and test himself against Sinar's real blade.

Tap.

Esther smacked Enkrid's chest with her front paw.

As if telling him to hold back.

"I know."

Enkrid answered. He knew too. In this condition, he could not fight properly. Sparring was impossible.

So yes, he had to hold back.

Instead, he would focus on recovery, and once he could spring up and raise his sword, he would grab Sinar and cross blades with her.

"Well? Your fiancee."

At some point, Sinar had erased her smile and asked.

Enkrid had no choice but to answer.

"She's the best."

"Good. As long as you know."

The elf stood quietly. With that same faint, hard-to-sense movement, she stepped out of the tent.

The hinge shrieked with a creak, announcing her departure.

"Not sleeping? You pass out, wake up, and start causing a scene right away."

"Ugh, I finally get to sleep in the tent after a while, and this is what I get?"

"Pray. Recovery will be faster too."

"Snrrrk."

Rem, Kraiss, and Audin spoke, and last came Ragna's snoring.

Ragna was not someone who snored unless he was truly exhausted, but for some reason tonight he gave them snores instead of a lullaby.

"How long was I out?"

"Exactly half a day."

"Go back to sleep. You must not ignore the danger signals your body sends, brother. Sleep and let it settle."

Rem said it, and Audin backed him up.

Esther tapped his chest once more.

It meant rest. They were not wrong. Enkrid thought, then closed his eyes.

It felt like he could fall asleep right away. Drowsiness was already pressing in.

From one side, he sensed Jaxon, who had been silently watching, place a small jar of ointment beside the bed.

"Medicine."

Jaxon said, then returned to his place.

Enkrid thought that, for once, Jaxon had come back to the tent.

Dunbakel and Teresa, Pel and Ropord, had different lodgings, but the four of them stood in front of the tent like sentries on guard duty.

Without knowing even that much, Enkrid fell asleep again.

* * *

After Esther joined the Border Guard, she often left the tent.

If Enkrid had paid more attention, he might have noticed, but he was fully absorbed in swinging his sword.

As usual.

Esther walked along the Pen-Hanil River and through nearby lakes, mountains, and forests.

It was because she was restoring the World of Spells damaged while fighting the count.

And while she was at it, she also tuned up that Bonehead she had acquired earlier.

She even summoned a few spirits she had contracted in the past.

"You ghoul, do I look like your prey?"

At times, she ran into packs of ghouls.

The outpost network and local security measures Kraiss had pushed through had one drawback. They drove scattered demon creatures into clusters.

Small groups that moved alone could no longer survive, so naturally the ones with any survival instinct banded together.

This was one such ghoul pack.

Creatures that once would not have dared meet her eyes now bared ugly fangs without fear.

Even without learning Necromancy, it would not have been hard for Esther to make a few ghouls like these into familiars, but there was no need. If anything, it was close to something she should not do.

'That does not raise my level. It lowers it.'

The moment that thought crossed her mind, Esther flicked her hand and called up flames, roasting all six ghouls.

Grrraaah.

Burning from head to toe, the ghouls soon became reeking lumps of charred flesh.

'I really do work hard.'

Esther knew why she was like this.

The fool beside her kept struggling forward without stop. She had realized that standing beside someone like that was impossible with half-hearted resolve.

'If I stop at recovering my old strength, the name fighting witch will ring hollow.'

So she would move forward too. And she had a good opportunity.

If she roamed the inner Pen-Hanil Mountain Range searching for hidden ruins and monsters while honing what she had, she would gain insight.

If Ragna was a genius of the sword,

Esther was a genius of magic.

She knew the path she had to walk, and the moment she saw something, she could tell what she needed and what she did not.

She also knew that would let her go further.

'Ah, idiot.'

Seeing Enkrid collapse before that man called the King of the East flashed through Esther's mind, and she muttered inwardly.

He, Enkrid, would keep moving forward.

He was bound to keep getting tangled with half-baked demons and count-level mages.

That was the road he walked.

Before that road, she would clear away everything that tried to play tricks with magic.

By proving herself that way, Esther tried to satisfy her pride.

A fighting witch had entrusted herself to him, and yet she was no help at all?

'That is unacceptable.'

This was a question of her own worth.

At the same time, she was curious whether Enkrid could achieve what he wanted.

What kind of road would that man walk? Where would it end?

Things she had never wondered while looking at the King of the East.

So Esther crossed the mountain range again and again, trained her magic, and sorted through the six schools of magic she had learned in the tower as a child, keeping what was useful.

Then, on her way back to the unit, one soldier caught her eye.

She did not know his name. But while rolling dice, that soldier moved mana without realizing it.

Magic talent.

Esther was about to pass by without a thought, then changed her mind and approached him.

"You are coming with me."

Interest? No.

This was for herself.

'There are things you learn while teaching.'

Her master had said so, and her own experience said the same.

That was why.

The one on the receiving end, the soldier known as the Border Guard's best gambler, only blinked.

"Sorry?"