WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 472: Rem Brought a Strange Guy

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The middle-aged woman's warning was that the spar would not be all that entertaining.

The concept of a warrior existed in the west too.

Rem was proof of that, and so was Arath.

They were fighters who carried axes, spears, or wide single-edged blades. Double-edged swords were rarely used out here. If you wanted a long weapon, a spear made more sense. If you wanted something short, an axe or a falchion-style single-edged blade was more practical.

Spears were useful for hunting too, and axes or curved blades were handy for felling trees and cutting brush.

A double-edged sword, though, was just inconvenient in every way. In an environment where you could not live by sword-work alone, that made sense.

And not all warriors were cut from the same cloth.

They shared the same spirit of not retreating in battle, but the way they fought could differ.

The twins standing before him were like that. These two were not battle fighters, they were hunters.

Enkrid did not know any of that, of course.

He only looked at the weapons in the twins' hands.

A spear, with a rod-like piece attached to the end of the handle.

Not something he was used to, but he recognized it. He had occasionally seen mercenaries carrying something like that.

An atlatl, was it?

A spear-thrower. A tool designed to transfer force more efficiently than simply throwing a spear by arm strength alone. Swing the atlatl attached to the end of the spear hard enough, and the force would send it flying.

Spears were larger and heavier than arrows by nature. A poorly made shield could be punched right through.

Three spears jutted up over each of their right shoulders.

Rem had said it, and the cigarette-smoking woman standing here had said it too, that it would not be much fun. But Enkrid found it enjoyable all the same.

Did something only count as entertainment if you came at each other with killing intent?

No. It did not.

So he told them he was ready to spar.

"Go on, then."

The middle-aged woman said it, and before the words had even finished leaving her mouth, the twins sprang backward. Their feet tapped the ground lightly, and their bodies moved with striking ease.

Enkrid watched in silence as they fell back and settled into their stances.

Falling back was not enough for them. They also shifted their weight onto their heels. A ready posture, set up to retreat or dodge at any moment.

His gaze left their weapons and traveled across their eyes, arms, and legs.

Good balance.

Through the gap in their short trousers, their split calf muscles looked dense as packed stone.

Those legs would fire in any direction their owner willed them.

Heart of Superhuman Strength? No, it was not that.

It was experience. They had fought this way many times before, combat where you used throwing weapons before the enemy could close in. Whether hunting or fighting, they had always done it more or less the same way.

So what would they do if the spear throw failed?

Wide falchion-style blades swayed at both their hips.

"If you can't dodge it, you die," the woman who had brought the twins said, smoke curling from her lips.

Enkrid could have closed the distance before they threw, stopping them from throwing at all. He could have tied up their hands and feet that way, and it would have worked well enough. But he chose not to.

That would not be much fun.

He waited out of pure curiosity.

This was a spar, not a fight to the death. A little patience felt fitting.

The twins bounced backward, kicking off the ground, it reminded him of grasshoppers. Quick and taut like hard insects, they hopped back and sank into low stances.

They were in one of the more isolated corners of the tent settlement, with no palisade in sight, so nothing would get in the way.

Although, if he dodged a throwing spear here, it would probably tear through a tent behind him.

That thought crossed his mind as he shifted sideways, stepping slowly, without hurry. The twins adjusted their distance to match.

Was that their maximum range? Or the distance where they could put the most force behind it? There had to be a range where lethality doubled. These two would know it by gut instinct, carved in through long experience.

He could sense it. That was why he said it.

"You're too far."

One of the twins frowned at that.

"Get any closer and you'll get hurt."

"You can come closer," Ruagarne said from behind. A Frog with the eye for reading talent was not easy to dismiss, but the twins did not move.

"Give him what he wants," the middle-aged woman said.

Only then did both twins step forward two paces.

Still a bit far. Well, once he stopped the first throw, they would rethink.

He ran through several possibilities, sketched out lines of action.

Naturally, the eye that sees one step ahead came alive on its own.

The position of their feet, the angle of their toes, their hands, the tension in their fingers, the half-bent angle of their knees.

He read everything, then predicted the move.

Dunbakel had her head poking out from inside a tent, watching with blank curiosity, when the twins moved.

They twisted the whole of their bodies and whipped the atlatls forward. Two spear-tips stretched out and came flying.

Left alone, the angle would have grazed his torso and buried the spears diagonally somewhere behind him.

A short moment. Enkrid read what the twins were thinking.

No intent to kill. It is a spar, so they would go through with it. But injury was still possible.

He swung his sword.

Crack, crack.

The twins could not even see the blade move.

The throwing spears did not break.

He had struck near the necks of the spears with the flat of the blade, not the edge, knocking them aside.

"Oh."

The middle-aged woman let out a sound of surprise.

The last echo of it had not even faded before the twins sprang backward in one motion. They cleared six full paces or more in an instant.

It was possible because they had kept all their weight pressed back on their heels.

Enkrid did not chase.

What would chasing accomplish?

They were not his match to begin with. Even so, their tactics and fighting style were fresh.

They only throw spears from a distance and never let you close in.

It would only work as a tactic if your legs were very fast.

Which meant these two were very fast.

Come to think of it, Rem was outrageously quick too. When he set his mind to moving, few people could even think about keeping up, short of Ragna, Jaxon, or Audin.

Is that all?

If that was everything, then yes, Enkrid could see why Rem had called it a little dull.

"All right, they're no ordinary pair. Call the Guardian Spirit."

The middle-aged woman puffed her usual smoke and spoke.

The twins closed their eyes and began to murmur something.

Enkrid waited again.

What are they going to show me this time?

Rise from the earth and rest upon the arm, descend from the sky and become wings.

That was what drifted into his ears as he listened to their low chant.

He could not make out every word. Local dialect mixed in throughout, blurring parts he could not follow.

When the murmuring stopped, something changed.

On the surface, they looked the same.

"Oh," Ruagarne said, impressed.

"Hm?" Dunbakel tilted her head.

Enkrid felt it through instinct too.

Something changed. What changed? Their eyes? Their presence?

Beyond eyes or presence, the strength in their forearms had changed.

"Ha!"

One of the twins moved with a sharp cry.

Focus Point activated on its own, and in Enkrid's eyes every movement slowed down.

One twin planted the left foot, twisted the whole body, and used the full frame like an atlatl. From ankle to knee to hip, the weight that had been behind came surging forward as the arm extended. The motion was the same as before, but the force behind it was not.

Ping.

A sound reached his ears, and he saw a point.

The distance was the same, but it was twice as fast as before. The spear-tip shrank to a dot and came straight for him.

He would have believed it if someone said a junior knight had thrown it.

He could not knock it aside as lightly as before. Force poured into Enkrid's arm.

Clang.

The throwing spear spun into the air. His forearm had taken real effort to swat the blade away.

In the gap that opened, another dot came flying.

The other twin.

This time it was not a throw. The twin had already closed in and drove the spear forward with both hands.

It might have landed clean, but Enkrid reached out with his left hand and caught the shaft.

Thwack.

The spear that had been rushing in ferociously lost all its momentum and stopped dead.

The instant the shaft was caught, the twin who had charged drew the blade at their hip.

Ting, ting. The blade was beginning to leave the scabbard.

Enkrid was not about to stand there and watch that.

He had already raised a foot and pressed down on the drawing hand.

Ting.

The half-drawn blade scraped against the iron band around the scabbard mouth and caught.

Enkrid let Aker go entirely, shot out his right hand, grabbed the charging twin by the collar, and shook.

Left, right, fast.

A fully grown man's body swayed like paper.

"Ugh."

A startled groan burst out.

When your body shook like that without warning, your brain shook with it.

The twin could not hold on.

The remaining twin had been circling wide to the side, but now angled in toward Enkrid. Enkrid smoothly moved the twin he was holding sideways, like a shield.

Throw a spear now and it would kill their own brother.

In a real fight, would they have done it anyway?

But this was a spar.

"We yield," said the twin poised to throw.

"Good god. Have you done nothing but fight your whole life? That is remarkable."

The middle-aged woman stared with wide eyes, the cigarette rod still in her mouth.

Only then did Enkrid loosen his grip on the collar. The twin dropped down and bent over coughing.

"Was that sorcery?" Enkrid asked.

He had been a little surprised.

And he had enjoyed it.

Sorcery was something he had heard about a few times through Rem.

"It was," the middle-aged woman said, nodding.

She had forgotten to draw on her cigarette and was simply watching Enkrid.

Rem had told her to come and knock the arrogance out of this one. But there was nothing arrogant about him, and he fought better than anyone she had seen in a long time.

Could he fight better than Rem?

She did not know.

Was this a sign of hope? A gift from the sky god? She turned it over for a moment, then decided not to jump to conclusions.

Whether this man would fight for them or simply move on, she could not know.

Everyone in the world valued their own life above a stranger's, and her people had nothing to offer an outsider. They had no Krona to spare, no treasure to give.

Should they offer people instead? A pretty young woman, perhaps?

That would never happen.

No westerner would hand over a person as payment.

Better to die with your dignity than throw it away. That was their pride.

The woman who smoked did not know it yet, but they did have something to give.

"One more?" Enkrid asked, his eyes lit with genuine anticipation.

What they could give was a sparring partner.

A man obsessed with fighting, his eyes gleaming.

A moment ago, facing the Guardian Spirit, the twins had shown strength he had not predicted. He had been watching carefully, and it had still exceeded common sense. It had leapt past every limit he could measure.

What the eye sees is not everything. That was what kept pulling at his interest.

The twins nodded.

They were not satisfied either.

"We'll go again," one of them said.

"Fine by me," the middle-aged woman said, nodding.

They sparred again. Same as before.

The twins kept retreating, kept their distance, kept fighting from afar.

"Again."

"One more."

"Come on, one more time."

"You can do it."

Every time a round ended, Enkrid cheered them on.

They went six more rounds without stopping.

By the end,

"We cannot go on."

"We'll die if we keep this up."

Both twins shook their heads. One of them had their tongue hanging out, sucking in air like a dog.

They had used so much sorcery that they could not move a single finger.

The middle-aged woman, the seer, let the hand holding the cigarette rod drop to her side.

She was so startled she had even forgotten to smoke.

Rem brought a lunatic.

A lunatic who was mad about fighting, no less.

Not that this was bad news.

Half a day? The sun had not even set yet, and the two strongest warriors she knew had been completely drained.

And the man they had been sparring looked fine.

Sweating a little, that was all.

Now he was busy chatting cheerfully with the Frog he had brought along.

She listened in, and it was quite something.

"The sorcery was interesting."

"Interesting, sure, but I doubt it was enough to satisfy you."

"It was fun, though. I wonder if there's anyone who fights like Rem."

"Do you think someone like that comes along often?"

"There might be one more out there somewhere."

"Dream big, why don't you."

"My dreams are always big."

As far as Enkrid was concerned, his own unit had three more people like Rem, that was the basis of his confidence. But the seer had no way of knowing that, so from a certain point the conversation stopped making sense to her.

"What is that smoke, anyway? What are they burning?"

While she stood there watching, the beastfolk came over and spoke up.

The woman, seer Hira, was also one of the healers of the current tribal coalition gathered here.

That made her one of the few people who knew more about that smoke than anyone else.

"It is for the dying."

"Who is dying?"

"A curse."

The work of corrupt sorcerers, the traitor faction of the west.

"It is a long story to explain. Would you like to see?"

Enkrid nodded at Hira's words without much thought.

He was here swinging a sword, but his curiosity about this strange nomadic settlement had not faded. Once Rem came back, he could look around more thoroughly, but there was nothing wrong with seeing part of the settlement through someone else's eyes first.

"That piques my curiosity as well," said the Frog, always drawn to the unknown.

"What do they keep burning," Dunbakel muttered, thinking only about the one thing on her mind, and fell in with the group.

"The father of those twins is there. He was once the greatest warrior under my tent."

"And now?"

"Now he is sick."

Enkrid was curious about the sick man too.

He only planned to take a look.

And so seer Hira led the three of them toward the place where the patients were gathered.

It was a tent set aside for those who had fallen under a curse.

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