WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 459: What I Want to Protect Is a Knight's Pride

= = =

Rem did not know why Enkrid had told him to cut through the Cursed Ground.

What did he sense? Or was it just a guess?

It did not matter either way.

He must have felt something ominous and asked for help. That was the whole of it.

Check it out, and if nothing is wrong, head back. Simple as that.

Except there was something to do. The reason Enkrid had sent him here was right in front of his face, reeking of blood.

Cut down the mass of Demon Creatures waiting inside the Cursed Ground.

Rem set his task, lifted his chin deliberately, and spread his gaze wide.

He could make out the general shapes around him even in the dark.

Everything he could see was a Demon Creature.

Clumped between the gray trees, they looked like an army drawn up in formation.

Two kinds: giant spiders and Owlbears.

Practicing drills, are you?

The idle thought came and went.

Rem let his axe hand hang loose and dropped into a low stance.

He pressed his chest nearly flat to the ground, arms trailing behind him, and ran. Like an eagle skimming the earth.

The axes were his wings.

Not that those wings would carry him into the sky.

What they could do was split and slice anything in his path.

A faint red light fell from overhead.

The Twin Red Moons had risen, the phenomenon people called the Red Moon. A night when Demon Creatures grew stronger. Rem paid it no mind.

He only focused on swinging his axes.

Running with his body lower than a crouch, sweeping the ground, Rem's axes moved.

He drew lines as he ran. Two arcs passed over the bodies of Demon Creatures bathed in red moonlight.

Shk. Shk.

Everything caught on the blades was severed with a clean sound.

Head, leg, torso, he did not pick.

Black fluid sprayed from the cut wounds, but not a drop reached Rem.

A gray line scattering its own light through the darkness moved among the Demon Creatures as fast as the axes swung.

Several spiders raised their legs and lifted their bodies.

Thunk. Shk. Crrrk!

Rem ran his axe over them and kept moving.

Crack, a leg snapped, but the spider had six legs holding its body up. Losing one did not kill it. Having the axe blade that grazed its leg bury itself in its head, though, that killed it.

Rem's axe grazed a spider leg, pushed forward as it cut, stopped at the moment the cut landed, reversed direction, and came back to strike the head.

The whole sequence was perfectly natural. Light, even, like a child playing with a loose spool of thread.

Thwk.

Another Demon Creature pressed its head to the ground.

Rem liked how the axes were going exactly where he intended.

Not bad.

Not an heirloom weapon, but for something you could actually find on the market, was this not about as good as it got?

It had to be. A solid steel axe forged from Lewes iron was not the kind of thing you stumbled across.

And without him behind them, no one else could even handle them properly.

The key was feeding or pulling back exactly the force he wanted, and the weapon had to withstand its owner's strength to manage that.

Given a weapon like that, feather-axe technique was possible.

Not using the weight loaded into the weapon, but controlling it purely through his own muscle, a trick of raw skill.

What did that allow? Changing direction without any recoil.

Like the reverse-strike just now. In other words, completely unpredictable axe work.

Rem kept swinging.

The axe blades scattered in all directions without recoil, like flinging them outward, and everything caught inside was cut apart.

Two lines that cut anything bent and swept all around him.

Screeeeee!

A Screaming Spider, its bottom half severed as it crawled on the ground, one that had survived only by luck of not losing its head, sent a warning cry to every Demon Creature in the area.

From that sound, Rem judged that something was controlling these creatures.

His five senses merged into a sixth, and it lit the way in the domain of instinct.

His gaze shifted to one side.

If someone had watched from above, they would have found it strange. They would have seen the Demon Creatures packed in a circle, centered on the open ground near the forest.

Rem could not survey the battlefield from overhead, of course. He found his path by feel. At the same moment, claws dropped toward him from behind.

No sound, no crack of displaced air.

Just monstrous strength coiled in those feathered forearms, enough to pare a human apart and leave them a blood-soaked lump of meat.

Rem twisted his waist and lashed out backward with one foot.

Left knee raised, right foot driving out with the torque of the twist.

Thwk!

The charging Owlbear's chest ran into that foot. Feathers that could have turned aside a decent sword strike sank inward.

Rem felt the creature's breastbone crunch under his sole.

The Owlbear took the kick and sailed backward, then rolled across the ground. Even with its chest caved in it tried to rise and find its balance, but an axe dropped down onto its head.

That was Rem, who had kicked it away and followed right after.

Shk!

The Demon Creature with its head split open lay flat on the ground. Black blood ran freely. It pooled in the hollow dent left in the earth.

"A sneaky barn cat was ten times nastier than you. Brat."

The black fluid dripped down the Lewes iron axe blade, sharpened past its limit, ground so fine it was thinner than a strand of hair.

Because of the Red Moon, the axe, his skin, and the black fluid all looked faintly red.

Well, whether it looked black or red, that was not what mattered.

Rem let both arms hang loose again.

And he had to admit, even if he hated admitting it, really hated admitting it, would never say it out loud,

They did help. You crazy bastards.

Rem acknowledged that his muscles had grown tougher than before.

That the force behind his axes had grown fiercer.

That his senses had grown sharper.

All of it came from running with those lunatics.

There had been a time he thought he had hit the ceiling for physical-based skill and technique. He had been wrong.

He had learned that from watching a man who did not know the word quit.

There is no limit. Nothing ever ends.

Because of that, Rem felt something like anticipation.

Compared to his former self, the gap in his skill was plain to see.

So what would happen if he layered Sorcery on top of that?

Even back when he had Sorcery, he had never thought those knight bastards were outpacing him.

"Hey. I'm busy. Come at me already."

Rem laughed and ran again, straight toward where the Demon Creatures were thickest.

While Rem swung his axes, Dunbakel split open an Owlbear's head with her curved blade after it lunged at her without warning, then leapt up into a tree.

Her night vision was far beyond that of ordinary Beastfolk. Her eyesight was sharp on top of that.

From there, she spotted a cluster of spiders at the rear of the Demon Creature pack, their arms bent into the shape of bows.

The moment she saw that cluster, she could already picture the damage they would deal.

She had no social instincts to speak of, but she was not a fool who could not read a battlefield. That much was obvious.

Arrows. Bows. Demon Creatures.

A threat she had not seen coming. An attack out of nowhere.

What had to be done to remove that threat?

A preemptive strike.

Dunbakel's survival instinct began moving in a different way. Through the pull of that gut feeling, she sharpened her sense of smell.

Why she could do this, Dunbakel herself did not know.

What she did know was that a different kind of scent lay beyond, and she could pick it up.

If a signal was being sent by smell, then something was receiving it and something was sending it.

That different scent, the one doing the sending, was nearby.

In other words, these were the ones commanding the others.

Her gaze went to the rampaging barbarian.

That bastard was alone, driving through the Demon Creatures, butchering them.

At the center of that too, there were Demon Creatures giving off a particular scent. Not just one, about five of them.

Those felt like a problem that had to be dealt with.

But somehow Rem already knew. He was cutting straight through the Demon Creatures, heading directly for them.

Watching that, Dunbakel listened to the voice coming from inside herself.

I can't.

Pushing into there is dangerous.

So what can I do?

Holding this position might get me killed.

So what, fight anyway? Is fighting the way to survive?

I could just run.

The warnings from instinct. Dunbakel's fur stood on end. At the same moment, she moved.

She ignored the flood of questions tormenting her. She had decided what to do.

Proof.

What was she standing here for?

Right now, that was clear.

To cut and slice and kill Demon Creatures.

For that, she drew her curved blade and ran.

Both feet kicked off the ground, her body splitting the moonlight as it moved, fur rising. White fur covered her face in moments.

The transformation her Beastfolk village had called a curse.

Her body changed and the quality of her muscles shifted. Power entered the feet striking the ground and she moved faster.

Dunbakel stepped lightly, killing the sound through her ankles and knees as she ran.

Pak, the sound of air tearing rang out, and a few Demon Creatures turned their heads, but Dunbakel was already sprinting past.

She ran all the way to the edge of the swamp. The poisonous fog tried to seep into her whole body. Dunbakel held her breath.

Then she charged straight through the toxic mist and plunged in.

What she was after was at the center of the swamp.

* * *

Admore came up near the battlefield and saw Rowena tied to a pole.

"Damn it. Rowena."

He bit down on his back teeth, went to her, cut the rope, and checked her injuries.

"How did you find me?"

Rowena blinked and asked. She had no serious wounds, but strips of underwear had been torn and wrapped tight around her thigh.

"Did Sir Aoara send you? Did Sir Romen come?"

"A barbarian and a Beastfolk showed up. Details later."

Admore drew his dagger, cut her bindings, and hoisted her onto his back.

Half her unit was dead. The other half had survived.

"I thought it was over," Rowena murmured.

"Where do you think you're going without me? What's over?"

Admore said it and wrapped a rope around himself and Rowena to keep her secure.

Alright, now what?

He had found his ally and saved her.

The immediate area was already full of nothing but Demon Creatures chopped apart by an axe.

Still, his guard did not drop. This place was still dangerous, threatening, and frightening.

Could they just go back?

He was thinking about what came next, trying to keep his guard sharp, when..."Come, ON!"

A figure was rampaging near the swamp, making a mockery of all that caution.

Whatever was in both hands traced lines through the air. He knew they were axes, but they looked like feathers.

Those feathers, though, were crushing and splitting everything they touched.

Admore stared blankly at Rem fighting for a brief moment.

Black fluid sprayed and stained the ground everywhere Rem had moved.

He could not afford to stand there gaping.

"Let's get out," he said.

He held his lover close and pulled back. Even retreating like that, nothing seemed interested in chasing him.

* * *

Aoara felt a sense of déjà vu.

Has something like this happened before?

It had not. She had never handed off a moment that was hers to fight to someone else.

Aoara watched Enkrid and Jerix fight.

Was this not the opponent she had named after her ex-husband, of all people?

So he was hers to cut down.

So why was she not stepping in?

The reason was right in front of her.

It was because of the man named Enkrid. The will he had shown was holding her back.

He is holding his own. Barely.

Seen from the side, it looked like one crisis after another.

Clang!

She saw Enkrid block Jerix's raking claw strike with the flat of his blade.

As he blocked, Enkrid hooked the Ghoul's foot. The Ghoul pulled its leg back before it could be tripped, brought its knee up, and aimed for Enkrid's groin.

Enkrid had either read it coming or moved first. He pulled his sword, which had been held level to the ground, and drove the pommel down toward the Ghoul's knee.

An instant before pommel met knee, the Ghoul fell back and straightened its leg.

Jerix's foot was still aimed at the same spot.

Just as Enkrid was about to lose what makes a man a man, he dropped his left forearm to block Jerix's shin.

Jerix's foot and Enkrid's forearm crossed at an angle.

Ching!

A ringing metallic clang burst out. The silver bracer wrapped around the back of Enkrid's left hand caught Jerix's instep exactly like that.

After an exchange that happened in an instant, the two put distance between them.

Aoara watched and thought.

Jerix would not stop.

But Jerix would not press for a decisive blow easily either.

The Ghoul was handling Enkrid while keeping her in check at the same time.

Getting stronger, Jerix, you bastard.

Should she just leave that alone? Left like this, it felt like Enkrid might actually die.

A waste. Both his face and his ability.

So she did not want to let him die.

But stepping in was not simple either.

Right beside her, Romen was fighting the spider swordsman while an Owlbear, strong enough to match a knight, was watching for an opening.

Aoara was the center of balance right now.

If she moved, she could kill one of the three for certain.

In exchange, the remaining two Demon Creatures would target one of her allies.

Could she stop that too?

That would be hard.

She decided to serve as the counterweight.

If someone here could just kill one of the three,

Then the next part is easy.

She might even be able to end this battle without losing anyone.

The situation was against them, of course. Time was on the enemy's side. The Demon Creatures did not tire, and her side looked like it was being pushed back bit by bit.

Even so, the sharp light in their eyes did not go out.

Their fight, their struggle, their Will set fire to the hearts of the soldiers behind her.

"Oa!"

From behind her, up on the wall, soldiers were shouting the cry.

"Die smiling!"

The shout of those who had resolved to die rang out.

Aoara did not want to tell anyone to die if she could help it.

So, for a moment, she held her decision in reserve.

* * *

"What rotten luck."

An Aoara who could not fight properly because of poison and died bitter about it.

"I hold the line to the end."

An Aoara who endured to the last and died holding on.

Aoara had never lost.

She had simply never had a chance to fight properly.

She had died without a single real opportunity.

At least, that was how it looked to Enkrid.

That thing, whatever it was, a fragment of a Balrok or something, had sent the Demon Creatures in first to drain Aoara's stamina and taken an easy win.

What if she had not been hit by the poison?

Then Aoara could have fought.

She cannot fight properly because of poison?

Then let her fight properly just once.

What Enkrid was trying to protect was the pride of Knight Aoara.

Enkrid's muscles ached from blocking the Ghoul's claws.

Because it was keeping Aoara in check from behind, the Ghoul had not been able to seize a clean chance to kill him.

He held on. And held on again.

He was at the end of what holding on could do.

"What's going on here too?" Rem said, arriving.

"There was something commanding the ones that shoot. I killed it."

Dunbakel came back too, limping on one leg, hungry for a compliment.

"You took your time, Rem."

Enkrid said.

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