WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 448

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"It was a light Wave."

Those were Aoara's words when she returned from killing the Ghoula.

The wailing of Ghouls rising as if from underground.

A scale that would make anyone's head spin at first glance.

A Ghoula whose arms stretched endlessly.

Any ordinary person would have been right to panic, but Enkrid could not argue with what Aoara said.

Four squires, two junior knights, one knight.

That force had shown overwhelming combat power.

Enkrid had noticed something else, too. The shape of this city's tactics.

'They use the squires and junior knights as a wall, and the knight intercepts.'

Simple but efficient, with the roles of shield and spear clearly divided.

Every other soldier would focus entirely on ranged fire.

The soldiers on the walls all carried longbows, and the bows themselves were fine pieces made from ground Magic Beast bone.

Like a turtle poking its head out from behind its shell.

The turtle fires arrows instead of taking risks.

The knight handles the rest.

Had that not just been proven moments ago?

Aoara had killed the Ghoula with barely a single swing and walked back at her leisure. She had not bathed in black blood. On her way back through the battlefield, a few casual swipes had required over a dozen Ghouls to briefly part with their heads.

Of course, reattaching a severed head was a feat even a Troll could not manage, so not one Ghoul managed it.

"These little bastards, I'll kill every last one someday. Flatten the whole Cursed Ground and plant orange trees out there!"

Aoara said it with her upper teeth showing, cheeks lifted in a bright, cheerful grin.

Being able to smile like that while saying something like that was a talent in its own right.

'So the nickname Smiling Aoara is not undeserved.'

A soldier who had survived the Demon Creature charge dropped to his knees just inside the gate and roared.

"I'm alive!"

Aoara saw it and cackled. The four squires and two junior knights were the same. All of them wore laughter like a second skin.

Enkrid laughed too.

It was fun, and it left an impression.

"Interesting bunch of people."

Ruagarne's honest assessment.

"Well, they're decent to watch."

Rem's agreement.

"Don't they ever go home?"

Dunbakel's instinct to escape.

Enkrid heard all of it and never pulled his gaze from Aoara and the people standing around her.

Fwap.

A red cloak snapped in the wind.

Proof of a knight order.

Aoara, its core, felt his eyes on her and looked back at him. Standing into the wind, she spoke.

"Next time, let's fight together."

Enkrid nodded.

* * *

"Hey, the bread's burnt!"

Aoara was still cheerful and lively. She wandered through the market greeting people and eating slightly charred brownish bread.

"Is she an interesting person? I can't say. But one thing is certain, I can't get a read on her."

Eisia would drop by for no particular reason and say things like that.

"Want to spar?"

"Don't think I'm the same Eisia as before, or you'll regret it."

Enkrid had almost opened his mouth on reflex, the way he would with Rem, and stopped himself.

"Why? Did you have something to say?"

Eisia caught the look and asked.

"No."

Enkrid answered and raised his sword. An ordinary spar, a spar to take stock of what he had.

If he had managed to unify his senses into one, would other things not also become possible?

Heart of the Beast, Heart of Superhuman Strength, Giant-Splitting, a handful of breathing techniques.

What Rem had taught him was a mountain in itself.

Had Rem named each technique deliberately? Or had he done it for some other reason?

'To teach.'

That seemed possible.

Not confident in explanation, he had started by naming things and defining them.

Watching Rem, you could understand something fresh. Everything he had taught flowed naturally from the body. Skills and arts honed at the instinct level burst out on their own.

Enkrid had things that came out naturally, and things that did not.

Then all he had to do was start by making everything come out naturally.

"What're you staring at?"

The barbarian from the west, the kind that made you wonder whether he had been kicked out for going mad, only kept grinding his axe blade. He was already on his third whetstone.

'I just swing my sword.'

When strength was needed, he used strength.

When a moment called for boldness, that was what he did.

One by one, Enkrid gathered the things Aoara had told him to discard. That was how he spent his time.

"So you're going to walk your own path. That isn't bad either."

Aoara did not claim her words were the right answer.

When ten people gathered, each had a different color. A hundred was no different.

Would knights be any exception?

Ragna was different. The Mercenary King was different.

So Enkrid himself would be different too.

Time to refine what he had. Maybe something like this was exactly what had been needed.

It was before dawn. Uncharacteristically, Rem had come out before Enkrid.

Enkrid was on one side, turning over what he had grasped in review, going through each realization one by one, when Rem spoke.

"Not bad."

The hours before dawn break are always darkest. Everything around him was pitch black.

The air here was still sticky, probably because of the Cursed Ground, but the wind had grown noticeably colder than before.

Rem looked up at the dim sky, rested one hand on his hip, and watched the fading stars.

When the sun rose, the stars hid themselves. That was just how it was.

Naturally the two moons that had lit the night were the same.

"You remember Utkiora?"

Rem asked. Enkrid lowered his sword tip, nodded, and answered.

"The one that says the darkest part is just before dawn."

"Right. Turns out I need those words for myself too."

"What do you mean?"

"I need to go back west."

Was he going and then coming back?

Or was he going to find where he belonged?

Rem did not know either. Honestly, he felt like he would only know once he went. It was not as if he had left his homeland because of something grand. Sure, things had happened here and there, but it would be a lie to say there was nothing impulsive in it.

If he had to give a reason.

'It just wasn't any fun there.'

He had left looking for something to enjoy. That was about right.

But beside that crazy bastard of a captain, things were fun. That was still true now.

To Rem's eyes, this city was a candle sitting in the wind. One strong gust and it would collapse.

A knight was the one holding it together.

Why did that person go so far to protect a city? He did not especially want to ask that here.

Instead, Rem thought of the place where he was born and raised.

There would be people there protecting the things he had left behind.

He wanted to go back and ask them.

The bastard who couldn't find his way and the stray cat had given him a nudge, but separate from that, Rem knew the time had come for him too to look back at what he had set down.

Not his head, his chest told him so.

"Do what you want."

Enkrid answered flatly. He was never the type to hold someone back by force.

"Damn it, come at me. I'm in the mood. I'll give you a go today."

Rem broke into a wide grin and raised his freshly sharpened axe blade.

Even in the darkness before dawn, the blade shone with a quiet gleam.

"Did getting close to the Cursed Ground make you hurt worse? Then you need treatment."

Enkrid raised his sword as he answered.

Aker showed itself too, cutting through the pre-dawn dark.

Rem found Enkrid's provocation oddly warm.

"If we judged by how well a man ran his mouth, the captain would be the finest on the continent."

"Yeah. Let's treat that."

That treatment was similar to the kind of persuasion Enkrid usually applied.

Meaning a light touch would be needed. If necessary, a small nick with the blade to let a little blood, that could be part of the treatment too.

Just as you lanced flesh to drain a boil, Rem's head needed a small incision.

"I was saying watch your mouth, and you didn't catch it."

Rem said it as he moved. He was already in motion by the time the word "catch" left his lips.

To Enkrid's eyes, the axe vanished from in front of him and seemed to fall straight down from above his head.

Clang!

He blocked it, naturally.

It was a normal spar. But Enkrid looked like he had regressed compared to before.

He was in the middle of not using everything he had, but mixing it together and kneading it into one.

Just as proper bread needed time to ferment, Enkrid needed time too.

Rem knew that, but he drove him hard anyway.

It was only natural that skill grew when you felt your life on the line.

Even so, he really was slow.

"Damn, you're slow."

Rem complained exactly as he always had.

Enkrid spent a few more days with a similar routine, sparring in turns with Rem, Ruagarne, and Eisia.

Millio's dream had not changed, and he would occasionally come looking for Enkrid.

"Don't give up, soldier. No matter what anyone says."

"......Do I look that hopeless?"

Sometimes genuine encouragement earned a deflated look from Millio, but he did not know how to quit either.

Aoara was often out walking around the city.

In the meantime, Enkrid was also able to exchange a few rounds with Aoara's junior knights, not just Eisia.

"I don't do sparring."

The short blond said her techniques were not suited for it, so only the big man was left.

"This is for crushing and smashing."

He said it as he pulled out a gray blunt weapon. The grip was similar to a greatsword's, but thicker. Fittingly so.

His hands were that big.

His hands alone seemed to be larger than even Audin's.

"Seems like everyone here goes by a nickname?"

Enkrid gauged the distance and asked.

"Well, some of them the soldiers came up with to keep their spirits up. But you'd know well enough. Will is will. A nickname can also be a way to embody the mental image needed to call up that Will."

"Then what's yours?"

"People call me Romen the Crusher."

Enkrid ran through his own company members in his head and tried fitting them with nicknames.

Praying Audin.

Sneaky-Stabbing Jaxon.

Lost Ragna.

Raving Rem.

Fitting.

"All right, let's go."

In Romen's movements, Enkrid found something very unusual.

Every action was riddled with openings and rough edges. There were far too many gaps.

The combat style itself was built around the armor he wore, and it was specialized for fighting Demon Creatures at that.

Even so, there was plenty to criticize. It looked like a clean thrust would bring blood gushing out.

"I'll give you one real one, no holding back."

Near the end of the spar, Romen smiled, steadied his breath a few times, and brought his weapon straight down from above.

Whoosh.

The club was gone.

For a moment, Enkrid saw Ragna's Black Lightning, thought of the Mercenary King's Bull, and was reminded of the Azpen knight driving a blade toward his heart.

Last of all, even the moment Aoara had stepped forward and cut the Ghoula.

The downward strike Romen had just shown touched the realm of knights.

Enkrid concentrated, and concentrated again, and caught the trace of the club.

It was a speed that could not be followed unless you had been struck by Ragna's Black Lightning more times than you could count.

The gray blur faded and came flying at his shoulder.

Enkrid's sword moved.

Crash, grrrrrng!

He met it with Aker and braced with the Gladius while deflecting to the side, all at once, and still not everything went as intended.

Enkrid was pushed backward as he absorbed the remaining force.

"Well?"

Romen asked. His color as he asked was not good.

The strain was obvious.

"What did you do?"

Romen found the man in front of him more to his liking than expected. That he knew how to fight was good, but more than that, he was someone worthy of the spirit of Thousand Bricks.

Die smiling.

Train today even if you die tomorrow.

That kind of spirit.

That was why he had shown him this.

"I'm not telling you."

He could not exactly share his secret technique in detail.

Enkrid found Romen's reaction refreshing.

Up until now, everyone had been someone who taught him whatever he asked. Here was someone who looked at him as a rival.

He could also understand why the short blond would not fight him.

She had learned killing techniques, so in a spar, even if they fought ten times, she would lose all ten.

So it was that she did not want to lose.

"Is that so?"

Enkrid did not feel disappointed. It was the opposite. A faint smile rose to his face.

"You're a bit of a pervert."

Romen left with those words.

"He's not wrong."

Enkrid heard Ruagarne agreeing with that and let it go in one ear and out the other.

In pure baseline skill, mid-spar, Enkrid had won against Romen.

Not a total domination, and it was not a fight to the death, but in a real fight, being conservative about it, he could win seven or eight times out of ten.

But the downward strike Romen had shown at the end was on a different track entirely.

That had been similar to a knight's.

How was that possible?

It was worth thinking about.

The next morning when he opened his eyes, Enkrid's body felt unusually light.

He always monitored and maintained his physical condition, so eating well, sleeping well, and keeping himself in order was a matter of course.

Even so, some days his condition was just noticeably better than others.

Today was one of those days.

The sun was high, and the sticky air had cleared considerably, making it easy to breathe.

Air near the Cursed Ground tended to be heavy and uncomfortable, but today there was none of that.

A fresh breeze blew through.

Neither cold nor hot.

After washing up, training, and heading out hungry, a soldier baking bread happened to come from the other direction and held out a loaf.

"This is the best one I've baked in years."

It was white bread with warm steam curling off it.

Bread baked in the western style was yellow on the outside but white and chewy inside.

He broke it in half, put it in his mouth, and chewed. Savory and salty notes came together in harmony, and a faint richness made his head nod on its own.

"This really is well made."

"Didn't I say it was well made."

The soldier who had given him the bread was one he had grown friendly with lately. The soldier smiled calmly and walked away.

Millio was heading off to his post, it seemed. He came over carrying a spear, longbow, and quiver, and spoke.

"It's a fine day. Not a common sight in the city of bricks, so why not head to the western wall? You'll see something magnificent."

"Is that so?"

"You must go."

Enkrid set off after Millio said that and walked away. Dawn was breaking.

He went to the western wall, placed his hand on the railing where dust never seemed to settle, and climbed the steps.

The wall above had faces he knew and faces he did not. A soldier with a familiar face gave him a nod in greeting.

He nodded back and looked up at the sky.

Millio had been right.

From the wall, the sun rising in the east looked as if it were pushing back the ominous darkness the Cursed Ground had made.

The Cursed Ground at dawn threw up a thick gray mist, and sunlight broke through it, shattered it, crushed it as it pressed forward.

It was magnificent.

The wave of sunlight seemed to break apart the land the Cursed Ground had made.

You could not see it every day. Only around the time the season turned could you catch a glimpse.

One hell of a view.

He spent a brief moment taking in that strange shift in nature, then headed back.

On the way, Enkrid found a silver coin lying on the ground.

The food he ate that day was unusually delicious, and the beer was unusually cold and rich.

A great view, a silver coin, good food.

It was an enjoyable day, and every shift in his mood carried through into training.

Each swing of the sword brought something he could feel, and his sword went where he intended it to.

Full and satisfying in a way he had not felt before, a day with luck on its side. Today.

And after the evening glow faded, Aoara came to find him.

"You said before that your grandfather built the gates here?"

He had.

"Let's just talk. It's a good day, isn't it?"

Stories that might seem trivial one way, and might reveal something about each other another way.

That was what they were. Enkrid thought personally it was not a bad way to spend the time.

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