WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 454: Just Tell Me

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"Give up."

The Boatman said it.

He didn't even seem to be listening for whether the method would work.

"Is today's today painful? Another today awaits you. Go there and settle in, that is enough."

It was persuasion. The kind where even the one doing the persuading couldn't be bothered to mean it.

Naturally, it had no effect. He knew it wouldn't, which was why he couldn't even manage to sound sincere.

He said it because it was something to say, because it was what had to be said.

The Boatman had no need to put in real effort.

The lunatic in front of him had tossed despair and defeat to the neighbor's dog and was staring straight ahead.

He had been told to stay trapped in today, and all he did was look at tomorrow.

"Do as you will. What can you even do? I tried to give a mortal the blessing of escaping death, yet you keep repeating the same foolish act. Stop, sink into pleasure rather than suffering, and stay there. That is the path you should walk."

Still, the Boatman said what he had to say. It was his role. Enkrid did his part too.

"See you next time."

A farewell. He was saying he'd be going now. It almost sounded like he was asking to be sent off quickly.

Inside the Boatman, behind that archaic manner of speaking, a new self briefly opened its eyes.

Without realizing it, the Boatman's grip tightened on the oar. The urge surged to crack Enkrid over the head with the lamp and beat him with the oar afterward, but the archaic Boatman would not permit that.

"Writhe in pain once more."

Instead, he pressed his lips together and spoke.

"Thank you for the encouragement."

Enkrid, who had turned the Boatman's stomach right to the very end, greeted a new today.

Keeeeeeaaaaak!

The shriek of a Screaming Spider jolted him awake. Today, from midnight to dawn, had begun.

"Good morning."

Enkrid offered a crisp greeting, tightened his core, and sat up in one motion before climbing off the bunk.

Was it old habits from barracks life that made him clear out the reception room and turn it into sleeping quarters?

Maybe. Either way, it suited him.

What could be better than having a place to train the moment you stepped out the door?

"Tell me what's good about it."

Rem grumbled.

"Any morning you open your eyes is a good morning."

By the hour it was still night, and he had woken to a shriek, but Enkrid insisted on it anyway and gathered his gear.

While moving, he turned things over in his mind.

A review.

Reviews weren't only for after a fight. Sorting out what needed doing as he repeated today was the same thing.

More precisely, it was a review of everything, from his state of mind down to his tasks.

Knight Aoara had said she would protect the place she was born. It was her dream. Her goal. Her belief as a knight. Responsibility and duty. An oath. A vow.

Repeating today had taught him the vow Aoara had made as well.

To be surprised by nothing, and to meet even death with a smile.

That was Aoara's vow. That was why she smiled.

Lose the smile, and her sword lost its strength. What did she have to do to stop that from happening?

To end the repeating days, he had to protect the city.

He had to protect the smile on her face. That was also protecting her dream.

"I don't lose when I'm smiling."

Aoara, who had no intention of losing to anyone.

'If she gets to fight in one piece, she might actually pull it off.'

Nothing was certain, but he would try. Same as always, that was all.

Enkrid had grasped the full picture. He sorted and set his tasks by instinct.

He missed Krais for a moment, though not having him was fine.

If he wasn't here, then he worked without him.

"Let's go."

Enkrid said it, fully armed.

The resolve to go forward, fight, and protect rose on its own.

He had wanted to become a knight to protect everything behind him, and this was no different.

Did Aoara being a knight, or fighting better than him, mean she couldn't be someone worth protecting?

No.

Enkrid was arrogant about things like this. Deliberately so.

'I'll protect her.'

He would, because he respected what she wanted.

"Everyone fall back."

There was an Aoara who had told them she couldn't protect them and ordered a retreat.

There was an Aoara who had held on with a monster's arm-a fragment of Balrok, clenched between her teeth.

There was an Aoara who had fought Demon Creatures with nothing but her fists and feet after her smile broke and her laughter died.

The least he could do was let her fight to her heart's content.

Enkrid set himself a new goal.

"Think that'll work?"

It felt as if the Boatman were asking. He hadn't actually asked, but the same meaning had been threaded through everything the Boatman said.

It didn't matter. The persuasion didn't matter. It was meaningless echo.

He didn't need permission.

He never had.

The reason he spoke to the Boatman at all was close to just saying things aloud to sort them out.

The sorting was done.

They stepped out of the lodging and became part of the noisy city.

Walking, Enkrid opened his mouth.

"Rem."

"What?"

"Can someone learn to fight like a knight in a short time?"

Rem looked into those lunatic eyes.

Same as always, those eyes were dead serious.

This guy sometimes went properly, spectacularly mad.

Same this time. Whatever had shifted inside him, he had clearly come up with something crazy again.

"Think it's possible?"

He was asking while already knowing it wasn't. And yet those eyes were serious. Two blue flames drifted and burned.

"The concept of a knight here is..."

"Wave incoming."

Rem had just started speaking when a passing unit's commander called out. Enkrid gave a vague nod and kept moving.

He moved as though he knew exactly where he was going. The pace was quick, not quite a run, but a fast stride.

He was ahead of the unit calling out the Wave.

Rem matched his pace and continued.

"I'm talking about using Will. I can use Will too."

Will was willpower. Rem knew that. But Rem walked a different path.

"I'm just going in a different direction. And even if you went that way, short answer, what can't be done can't be done."

That was that. There was no way to imitate a knight's combat ability in a short time.

Enkrid's gaze shifted sideways. The next target of those blue flames was Frog.

"Rua."

"No."

Ruagarne's answer was even shorter. As far as she could see, Enkrid showed no trace of impatience.

"Why are you asking that?"

"No reason."

Enkrid's answer was plain. He had nothing worth saying even if she pressed.

Should he tell her he had a plan because he knew what was coming?

That he was trying to let Aoara fight properly, and what he needed to do for that was learn to fight like a knight in a short span?

Who would believe that.

Who would accept that.

Gather people with outstanding talent. Narrow them down again. Among those, only a rare few.

That was what a knight was.

No shortcuts. Of course there weren't.

But what if it came down to a single sword stroke?

Could one stroke change the tide?

"Let's run."

Enkrid said it and moved.

He had heard things, seen things, and learned things through the days he had repeated, and it showed.

"Romen!"

Reaching the gate, Enkrid looked for the junior knight with the great-sword club.

"...What?"

Romen, who had just driven a pommel into a spider Demon Creature's skull at the gate and kicked it aside, turned around.

Black fluid from the creature was pooling at his feet.

It had splattered across his face and clothes, making him look purely dangerous.

His rough features were almost like Rem's, but Enkrid saw something like hope in Romen.

"That strike you showed me, how do you do it?"

Romen blinked several times.

What the hell is this guy saying.

When it clicked, he opened his mouth.

"You want to ask me that right now?"

Romen asked it aloud, then asked it again with his eyes.

You really are out of your mind, aren't you.

Enkrid nodded.

"Yeah. I want to know."

"Master, this guy seems insane?"

Romen raised his voice.

Aoara, up on the wall, burst out laughing. Pahahahaha.

"Just go ahead and tell him."

"Why would I give away my own tricks!"

In the gap between all this, Enkrid drove Spark into a spider Magic Beast rushing at them.

Left foot extended forward, the blade that shot out could fairly be called a flash of light.

In an instant it punched through the spider's head and pulled back out.

He had fought them enough times by now that their patterns were etched into him.

They liked to surround a small group with many. Before that could happen, a handful of key ones led the charge.

Enkrid punched a hole through one head, then threw all three remaining Whistle Daggers.

Repeating today brought mastery of technique.

This time was no different.

Enkrid wasted none of the time he had.

Planning was planning, and training continued as always.

He combined actual combat, killing Demon Creatures, with his training.

The knives flew sharper than before and punched holes through spider Magic Beasts' heads.

He followed that with a Throwing Spear, and the momentum of the charging creatures tangled up.

The ones that had been moving with irritating unpredictability turned and started charging in a straight line.

"Hmph!"

The short blond picked up a comparatively thin, long spear and started thrusting.

The shaft bent and flexed as the spearhead seemed to multiply into dozens at once, stabbing indiscriminately at the bodies and heads of the incoming spiders.

A soundless shriek rang out. Black blood streamed from the mandibles, six strips of iron joined together and spread wide.

The effect of a poisoned blade.

Enkrid's eyes tracked her spear, her technique.

'Threatening against multiple opponents.'

A junior knight showing overwhelming force against weaker enemies.

He already knew this, so his gaze only swept over it and moved on.

"Looks like there's a bit of time now."

Enkrid said it once they had cut through a swarm of spiders.

"You want me to just lay bare my secrets, is that it?"

"You don't want to?"

"You really are out of your damn mind."

Romen said it and shook his head.

"Tell me a little."

Enkrid did not tire. If there had been time, he would have asked slowly, once or twice a day.

But the situation was different now.

Beyond the desire to learn and master something, a way to help Aoara's fight was right here in front of him. That was how he saw it.

There was no better option.

So he pestered.

"Come on, just tell me."

Asking while killing spiders.

"Someone get this guy away from me."

Romen snapped.

"He's not the type to go just because you tell him to."

Rem snickered. It looked like he was watching Enkrid go properly mad for the first time in a while.

There had been a time when Jaxon, specifically during the second today spent in the medical barracks, had simply handed over the Sensory Technique.

Jaxon had done it because he knew Enkrid wouldn't give up.

This man was tenacious, obsessive, and completely out of his mind.

"Would you get out of here?"

Romen snapped again.

He looked about ready to swing his weapon at Enkrid instead of the spider Demon Creatures.

Enkrid didn't care. He was like a solid rock, a rock, or steel, or the hardest iron, that would never wear through no matter how many times a drop of water fell on the same spot.

Will rising and hardening into stubbornness, made visible.

"Puhahahaha."

Watching it, Aoara clutched her stomach and laughed, and Rem cracked a spider's skull and snickered too.

Dunbakel watched and felt a little of the unease she had been carrying lift.

That lunatic was throwing a fit just to learn one technique, Wave or no Wave.

Truly a madman.

Romen held out through twelve refusals before conceding defeat.

"You crazy lunatic, even if I tell you, do you think you'll get it?"

"Probably not."

God damn it, why are you admitting that.

By this point Aoara could not even stay standing. She was rolling around on top of the wall, laughing until tears streamed down her face.

Rem was satisfied.

The people nearby, the soldiers watching, the archers on the wall.

They all understood now, didn't they.

This was a madman on a completely different level from anyone here.

"But you still want me to say it?"

"Let's hear it first."

"You think you've got a claim on me?"

"No."

"Don't agree with me, don't just immediately go along with it!"

Romen started explaining, exasperated.

"Hey. A knight's sword stroke has Will in it at a fundamental level."

Enkrid knew that much.

Romen went a step further.

Why was it that he couldn't block Aoara's sword?

He had asked, and Aoara had answered.

"She circulated her Will."

An abstract answer, but whether the goddess of fortune had helped at that moment, or whether it was understanding that arrived at the end of long thought, Romen himself didn't know.

What he knew was that he had found one direction and gone toward it.

"From fingertip to toe, when making a swing, I let Will inhabit the whole body."

It was not an easy explanation.

"Don't you already do that?"

Enkrid asked back. He used Will that way himself. When he thrust with full force, he poured a burst of acceleration into that single instant.

It was the same when he unleashed a white lightning strike, and the slash he had named the strike with the strength of a suckling giant was no different.

While Romen talked, Enkrid drove a fist into the head of a spider that had crept close.

Crack. One punch, and the skull burst.

He was a junior knight for good reason.

That was the signal, and from within the Cursed Ground the prepared Demon Creatures began to emerge.

Five Trolls, bipedal spiders, two Owlbears.

This time there was one additional Owlbear, and Trolls had appeared as well.

But the dizzying sense of crisis from before was noticeably less.

Strangely, Enkrid trying to learn something had lifted his allies' morale.

He hadn't intended that.

Because of it, the timing of the Demon Creatures' arrow fire was delayed as well.

Aoara came down from the wall and wiped the corners of her eyes with a finger.

"Ha. I nearly died laughing."

Not something a knight nicknamed the Smiling Blade should say.

"Is there anything else?"

Even as the air around them shifted, Enkrid asked right to the end, and Romen clicked his tongue.

"Do you use Will when you pick up a fork? When you draw your sword? When you take your stance?"

The point of what Romen was saying was simple.

'Control every movement, down to the smallest muscle.'

For what purpose?

Entirely for a single sword stroke.

Only then did Enkrid grasp what Romen was saying.

He spent one hundred and sixty-two more todays before reaching understanding.

That is to say, his mind knew it, but it would be more accurate to call it the territory where his body responded.

"Letting Will settle into every toe, every single finger. That's it, right?"

Asked by someone who already knew the answer, Romen's eyes went wide at the start of this new today.

"Geniuses."

He was mistaken.

Enkrid did not bother correcting it.

Now it was time to begin what he had been thinking over. The path shown by Azpen's knights, by Ragna, by the mercenary king, by Sinar, all of it had made one thing clear.

Every knight's sword was different. Every path was its own.

So it was not imitation he needed. He needed to find his own path and walk it.

This was the beginning.

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