A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 445

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 445

= = =

It was arm wrestling.

"Ruben, Ruben! You son of a bitch, Ruben, you bastard!"

A man named Ruben had lost. His wrist slammed backward with a thud.

Part of the group that had bet on him screamed his name like they were coughing up blood.

The arm wrestling was happening outside. The tavern owner had set a few tables in front of the place and, with a red nose, shouted out the result.

"James wins!"

The crowd got even louder.

"Hey, let me in!"

Aoara pushed her way through without any hesitation. Enkrid stood there blankly and turned to look at Eisia.

"She's always like this. Get used to it."

With that, Eisia headed toward the group as well.

She did not seem to mind moving along with everyone else.

Enkrid stepped toward the tavern too.

The owner was thoroughly drunk,so drunk it was hard to say whether his purpose was selling alcohol or drinking it himself,but he still recognized Aoara.

"That's not happening! That's cheating, Aoara!"

A knight earned everyone's respect, but that did not mean a knight would demand the same from friends.

Did being a knight mean having no friends?

The tavern owner looked like exactly that kind of person. A friend, an acquaintance, someone who knew Aoara.

He snorted as he spoke, and Aoara pushed back.

"What, why not!"

Seen only in that pouty moment, she looked like some mercenary who had done a bit of blade work, but this woman could have killed everyone here with a few clean slashes.

"Come on, how would that work? The bet wouldn't be fair."

James, the winner, spoke up. He ran a hand over his reddened head. He looked like an angry octopus,there was no clear border between his forehead and his scalp.

"Hey, you can still say that after seeing these delicate wrists?"

Aoara kicked the chair out from under James, climbed up onto it, and spoke from there.

The man rolled off and hit the ground, but he was back on his feet in no time.

"Hey, why are you kicking me?"

"Because you're annoying!"

At that blunt answer, the man nodded.

Was he actually convinced?

Enkrid asked himself that silently and just watched.

The tavern, freed from the drinking ban, gave off the exact opposite feeling from when he had first seen it.

Not quite a festival, but people were having fun and letting loose.

"Come on, say it,there's nobody brave enough to challenge these wrists? Really?"

"No one, sir!"

"Aoara, you're a knight. Did you forget?"

The tavern owner jumped in too. Aoara swept her gaze around the crowd, eyes like a hunter searching for someone who might say what she wanted to hear.

Among them was that familiar soldier carrying drinks.

The one who had been scraping by without a single Krona. He seemed to have been working at the inn and was now out on an errand here too.

"Hey, you. What do you think?"

Aoara singled him out. The soldier rolled his eyes a few times, then answered.

"No, ma'am. I believe we should respect the will of Knight Aoara."

He put on a shrewd front. From the outside, he looked sincere, like someone about to swear a heartfelt oath of loyalty.

Aoara, still wearing a smile, said, "Grab that little bastard and sit him down."

She gave a light hop and dropped back onto her chair with a thump.

At her words, the people nearby seized the soldier.

"Wait,why, why are you doing this?"

"Shut up and sit. You little bastard."

Aoara said it with a smile, and soon the soldier was seated across from her.

"This is a bet. Don't like it, walk away. If the person I pick wins, you get three gold coins. Everyone says it's shameless for me to do it myself, so I won't. If the person you pick wins, I'll give you three gold coins. But if my pick wins, you stand at the front line during the next Wave."

"...Excuse me?"

A Demon Creature Wave,standing at the front when Demon Creatures came pouring out of the Cursed Ground,could easily sound like being told to go die.

Everyone around burst out laughing at that.

The soldier felt a twinge of regret that he had not taken up Swordsman Jack's offer to go out together when it was made.

Of course, even if the offer came again, he would not take it.

He loved a woman who worked on the side in an alley, and he had a dream of getting out of here with her and getting married someday.

So what if she sold her body?

He knew she now let only him close.

"Hey, a man only dies once, not twice. And don't you want to marry Rowena? Aren't you always scraping by without Krona?"

Aoara spoke, and the shouts came from all around.

"Come on, just do it!"

"If you're scared of that, give up on Rowena!"

The soldier bristled.

"Would you all shut up!"

He called out, then turned cautious and asked, "Are you going to put up someone from the knight order?"

"No."

Aoara shook her head.

"And not Knight Aoara herself either?"

The soldier asked again.

"Absolutely not."

This time Aoara's head moved up and down.

The soldier was careful. No,he was pretending to be careful. Enkrid could already tell the man had made up his mind.

And yet he put on an act of being unsure, like someone wrestling with a hard choice. Some people were just built that way.

It did not make him look bad, exactly.

He was just, how to put it, a transparent sort. His thoughts were written all over his face.

Aoara sat with her arms crossed, grinning, and waited.

"I'll ask Oliver."

A few soldiers groaned and booed.

Enkrid spotted a man among them whose forearms were easily twice as thick as anyone else's.

Short, but built solid, with a heavy jaw.

Shorter than Aoara, but said to be the strongest person in all of Thousand Bricks right now,Squire Oliver, of the knight order.

"Is that alright?"

The soldier asked, glancing around nervously. He had just picked a squire after the rule about not using anyone from the knight order, so the question was fair enough.

Aoara shook her head.

"I accept that challenge. Now then, who do I put up?"

Aoara pretended to deliberate, mimicking the soldier's earlier performance.

The squire named Oliver placed a hand on the poor soldier's shoulder. The soldier stood, and Oliver sat down.

He looked like someone born with raw strength.

Aoara rested her chin in her hand, kept up the act of thinking, then looked at Oliver and asked, "Oliver, you don't mind losing, do you?"

"I won't lose."

Oliver answered immediately, and Aoara nodded as if she had made her decision.

"My champion is chosen. Come on out!"

Her finger pointed to the spot beside Eisia. Which meant Enkrid.

"Me?"

Enkrid, who had been watching, paused a beat before asking.

Aoara paid no attention to the odd break in the rhythm and said, "Should I send Eisia instead? Don't these delicate wrists mean anything to you?"

Bringing up delicate wrists seemed to be a habit of hers.

"You can step back if you're scared. You might get hurt."

Oliver said it. His opponent was a man with a fearsome reputation as a demon slayer, but when it came to strength, Oliver was not about to lose.

His eyes were full of that certainty.

Enkrid looked at him for a moment, then stepped forward.

Aoara smiled and moved aside.

Enkrid sat down and looked at Oliver.

"I don't think there's anything to worry about. Nobody's getting hurt here,well, not me anyway. I'm going easy."

"Going easy?"

Enkrid's light provocation made Oliver's expression go stiff.

"I meant I'd make sure you don't get hurt."

Enkrid said it again.

"Is that so?"

Oliver was not smiling even a little. A vein stood out on his forehead. His veins were impressively thick.

So were his forearms.

Enkrid rolled up his sleeve. The split muscle hidden beneath the thin shirt came into view.

His arm, hardened by the Isolation Technique, was not exactly thin, but it looked thinner than Oliver's.

The muscle was different in quality, though,compressed and wound tight through the Isolation Technique and Audin's teaching.

"Place your bets!"

Aoara called out. The crowd had doubled since before. People who had been training nearby, people who had been loafing around, people rolling dice in a corner,all of them crowded in.

"Still safer to bet on Oliver, right?"

"His opponent is a junior knight. The demon slayer, no less."

"You don't know what you're talking about. Even Aoara said she can't beat Oliver in raw strength!"

"So what? Oliver can crush a demon's hand in arm wrestling. You don't know Giant Forearm Oliver?"

The winning bets piled on Oliver. Enkrid did not care.

Someone set a mug of beer down beside the two of them. The pewter cup was full of golden liquid and foam.

Oliver drank it down in big gulps, let out a long breath, and planted his elbow on the table.

Thud.

Just looking at him, he could have been a stone golem some mad wizard had shaped into human form.

Enkrid drank his cup too. Bitter but rich, with a toasted, nutty smell. It was fresh as well.

After drinking, he put his hand up the same way and clasped Oliver's hand.

True to what he had seen and felt, it was like grabbing the arm of a stone golem. Absurdly hard and heavy.

Oliver met his eyes. Enkrid looked down.

He quietly turned his attention inward and focused.

Did he not mind losing because he lacked competitive drive? Because he was easygoing and without ambition?

It was the opposite.

Enkrid was the kind of person who kept biting down until he won.

Which meant he hated losing more than almost anything.

He simply channeled all that force, all that will, into winning the next time.

So right now, if he could win, he had not the slightest intention of losing.

As the noise around them settled, Aoara said, "Begin."

Oliver and Enkrid pushed at the same time.

Crack.

The table screamed but did not collapse.

Oliver was putting out what could only be called superhuman strength.

No wonder, really.

From grip strength alone, it was easy to believe the talk about him crushing a demon's hand.

Only the person sitting across from him had, through countless repetitions, learned the Isolation Technique from someone even more monstrous than Oliver.

Enkrid fired the Heart of Superhuman Strength and brought the Will into it as well.

Power exploded through every muscle in his body.

There had been few moments in his life where he had pushed this hard.

'A giant's blow.'

He pulled in even the techniques he had learned from sword work.

In Rem's terms, it was the last drop of strength a giant had sucked from its mother's milk.

"Ngh..."

A sound close to a groan escaped Oliver's mouth.

The table shuddered. Made from a solid piece of hardwood, it still cracked and splintered.

Oliver's arm tilted,just slightly,to the side.

Crack!

In the end, the table gave. The section supporting Oliver's elbow caved downward.

Part of it broke, and the table failed to do its job, but Oliver still tried to hold on.

"Is it a draw?"

One of the soldiers muttered.

Enkrid held still exactly where he was.

Oliver steadied his breathing. After holding on like that for a moment, he released the tension in his hand.

Enkrid let go too. The soldiers watched.

"I've lost."

Oliver announced it, and one soldier let out a wail.

"No!"

It was the man who wanted to marry Rowena.

The ones who had lost their bets actually burst out laughing. They cheered.

"Wow, that's some strength."

"Hey, are you that strong at night too?"

A few soldiers threw out the joke.

"Why ask if you can't find out?"

Someone else shot back.

"Soldier, I'll give you another chance. How about trying to beat him at drinking?"

Aoara extended a hand of salvation to the dejected soldier. The poor man could not tell whether that hand belonged to a demon or an angel.

"Let's do it."

The soldier fired himself up, and Enkrid looked at him and nodded.

He had agreed to join in, so going all the way was not a bad idea.

Hard liquor appeared.

Enkrid drank spirits he did not even know the name of.

On his fourth cup, the soldier's eyes went glassy. He shouted "I love you, Rowena!" and went down.

The soldiers watching laughed.

Enkrid gave a short laugh, set his cup down, and said, "Next."

He had no intention of losing at drinking either.

"I'll go."

Oliver stepped forward again. He went down after one cup. Enormous strength, no tolerance at all.

Aoara drank the hard liquor too, and Eisia had some light fruit wine.

Nearby, someone started a dice game. Someone else launched into dirty jokes.

Enkrid happened to overhear two women talking and quietly recoiled at how thick the humor was.

Rem joined in partway through.

"Why is everyone having fun without me?"

He mingled with the soldiers, roughly enough. Before long, Ruagarne and Dunbakel were part of it as well.

The area in front of the tavern turned into a free-for-all, like some kind of festival.

"I love this village."

Aoara said it, drunk. Enkrid, who had been there only a few days, agreed.

Deserters kept leaving, but the ones who stayed were the ones who truly loved this place.

"The last stronghold defending against the Cursed Ground. Doesn't that sound magnificent?"

They had pride.

"If we fall, the people living in the villages behind us all die. You know that? If the Cursed Ground expands any further, this whole area is finished."

They had a sense of duty.

"This is my job, so I do it. Any problem with that?"

They had a sense of responsibility.

The Cursed Ground borderlands always had a threat in plain sight, and only those strong enough survived.

That was not just about the body,it included the spirit too.

"Ah, this is good!"

Aoara shouted, and Enkrid, already feeling the drink, clinked cups with her.

That drunken night passed.

Enkrid went back to the lodgings and slept. Rem had joined in partway through and drunk his fill; he was already out.

Ruagarne had received a special dish made from insects and had drinks as well.

"That was incredible."

She was satisfied. Dunbakel was already curled up in a corner somewhere, making small snoring sounds as she slept.