A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 474

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 474: Before a Malicious Mother

= = =

"Mama, am I going to die?"

The child asked.

"No, of course not. Sleep well for a few nights and you'll be fine."

The Mother answered.

"Okay."

The child's eyes were crusted over, too gummed shut to open properly.

A fever had refused to break for days, and now the child could barely see.

"Grgh."

In the early hours of the morning, watching the child foam at the mouth, the Mother felt her chest tear open.

One day, blue blotches had bloomed across the child's entire body. The veins in the limbs swelled and turned violet. The child had started to suffer.

I'll take the pain instead.

So please, Guardian Spirit, ancestor god, whatever you are, save my child.

The Mother set out before dawn, searching the ground for herbs that could ease the pain.

"It's dangerous to go out now," said the warrior standing watch near the tent.

Demon Creature sightings were noticeably rarer in the west than on the continent proper, but danger didn't just disappear. Bad luck killed you just as dead here as anywhere else.

"I'll be fine."

The urge to simply die surged up in her sometimes, sudden and unbidden. But she couldn't do that.

"Mama, mama."

The child was still calling for her. Still holding on.

Resentment took root. A heat that started at the soles of her feet rose all the way to her chest and burned there.

Why.

This isn't the natural order.

Anyone can die.

But it isn't her child's turn.

Why should such a small child suffer like this?

The Mother pulled out the short dagger she kept tucked inside her clothing. A gently curving blade, about a hand's length.

It was called a Karambit.

The blade was made of dull gray metal. The outer edge wasn't particularly sharp, but the inner edge had been honed very well.

Sharp enough to open the nape of a small child's neck.

Sharp enough that pressing it to her own throat and drawing it across would do the job.

How long, just how long did she have to watch her child drowning in a river of pain?

Death by the blade would hurt, but that moment wouldn't last long.

Even drowning wouldn't drag on the way this was.

"It won't be simple. Something larger than a spring, a lake. Something larger than a stream, a river. That much would be needed."

The elder Sorcerer, who had vowed to hold back the curse, spoke those words and closed his eyes.

That was the last thing he ever said. He never opened them again. He had collapsed in a praying posture and had not woken since.

The flame of hope went out. The world went dark.

Because the thing that was everything to the Mother was dying.

To have eyes and be unable to see light. To have ears and be unable to hear the birds.

The child suffered and was dying.

The Mother went out and gathered the herbs that could at least dull the pain, half risking her life to do it.

"This way, this way."

Wandering like that, she had once encountered a Demon Creature. It called to her in her child's voice.

The sound of a child in danger. That's what it had sounded like.

She turned her head toward the sound, her mind hazy after days without proper sleep.

Despair and exhaustion had been eating away at her body and spirit as well.

Maybe if I save that child, someone will save mine.

Hollow hope blurred her mind further and clouded her vision.

She was moving between rolling hills. She was about to step toward the sound when a hand caught her shoulder from behind.

"It's a Copycat. You had to know."

She turned and saw a man with a square jaw and cold, unfriendly eyes.

Five years had passed since the child's father died.

Naturally, talk of remarrying had come up.

And this man had been hovering around her since then.

He had seen her set out alone and followed.

"That was my child's voice," she said.

"You're leaving your kid behind and giving up on living? Then you just die and that's it. Is that what you want? To die before your child does? Don't go soft."

The man said it plainly. Something collapsed inside her, and tears streamed down her face.

He was right. A Copycat. A mimic-cat.

If the continent had the human-faced dog, the west had a Demon Creature that mimicked voices.

Any able-bodied adult, especially one at the warrior level, could handle such a creature without much trouble.

In a normal state, she wouldn't have been fooled either.

But in the state she was in now, the encounter would have been dangerous.

She was relatively weakened, but a Demon Creature was still a Demon Creature.

Its claws were more than capable of tearing through human flesh.

"Then do something about it."

The Mother said it. The man had nothing to say.

She would sell her soul if she had to. She would break a taboo if she had to. She would throw away her chastity if that was what was demanded.

Anything. Truly anything.

She would give her life too. Whatever anyone wanted, they could have it.

A demon would do. A Demon Creature would do. A Magic Beast would do. A cannibal would do.

Just save my child.

Do that, and I will do whatever you ask.

She prayed. No one heard.

The child's Mother met a wave of despair and fell to her knees.

There was no way left now.

The curse the Fortune-Teller Tribe had cast was going to kill her child.

Like all the others who had died before, her child would go the same way.

"Why."

The Mother asked the sky. Still no answer.

She had seen a man driven mad after losing his lover.

There had been a woman, too, blank and hollow after losing her partner.

The Tribal Chief had deliberately separated those affected by the curse from the rest of the tribe.

The curse wasn't a contagion, but some believed it could spread in small ways. He also didn't want the tribe sharing in their darkness.

The curse was still the problem of only a portion of the people.

Not something devouring hundreds, just tens.

A small number to the group. Just one individual to each person. That was the reality.

The curse gnawed at the western folk from the inside.

The Mother was one of those it had gnawed through.

If my child dies, I won't let anyone off.

A dark and vicious thought rose up fully inside her.

If the other side had broken a taboo, then so would they.

But the Tribal Chief only showed a lukewarm attitude.

She would not just stand by. She absolutely would not stand by.

In the mind of a Mother half gone mad, despair grew. And suffering. And resentment. And malice.

That was the real curse.

The Mother walked along carrying her herbs and spotted children playing.

A few days ago she would have watched them with only a downcast look, thinking of her own child. Now she was full of bitterness.

Why does it have to be my child.

Why are these children laughing and playing like nothing is wrong?

Why am I the only one in pain.

"Out of the way."

She said it to the children. She gathered what little self-control she had left and stepped into the cursed tent. She sat down beside her child.

Those children had done nothing wrong. She tried to steady herself.

Veins raised and dark violet. Blue blotches. Sleep crusted thick across half the child's face.

Was this really her child's face?

Was this really her child's body?

"Nnngh."

She clenched her back teeth and swallowed down the sob. Her child would probably never see clearly again.

And so.

Tribal Chief.

She had a question for him.

What was the right path?

Were they going to spend their lives just taking it?

Why were they doing nothing against the Fortune-Teller clan?

Fight back against this curse.

If this wasn't his responsibility, then whose was it?

Grief inside resentment.

Malice inside resentment.

That was what filled the entire tent. The kind of energy that made a stranger uneasy stepping in, and that someone who knew what it was would call dangerous.

* * *

Hira, the shaman, was sick with worry. The curse was eating through the tribe, and there seemed to be no end to the harm.

It was only this contained because the elder Sorcerer and the lead warrior had put their bodies on the line to hold it back. What would they do going forward?

Dunbakel stepped into the tent and frowned.

Ruagarne didn't think much of it.

Enkrid felt the malice snag on his instincts.

Why does the air in here feel like this?

That was the thought that came to him as he stepped through the entrance. Along with the stale smell, something unpleasant stung his nose.

Not surprising. They had a collection of people who hadn't been able to wash properly.

Moving further inside, near the entrance he spotted a child lying on a bed of layered cloth.

Why is there so much crust in those eyes? Someone should wipe that off.

He was looking when the child moved an arm. Not reaching out to hold his hand, just his passing close enough that their hands brushed.

He had no fear that the curse might affect him. If it spread by contact, they wouldn't have left things like this. It would have already run wild and turned everything to chaos.

For now it was still a problem affecting only a few, but it looked like a nasty one. That was all he thought.

Then the child's hand touched his, and he took it. Something about it reminded him, without reason, of old memories.

"There's nothing we can do."

That was what the mercenary captain had said, looking at the sick.

Just one of those things that can't be helped. The sword can't fix everything.

Without Krona, they couldn't get a Priest, let alone a healer. Those people had nothing.

Even then, Enkrid had done something insane.

There had been only one thing the sword could do at that moment, and Enkrid had done it.

"Have you lost your mind?"

That was what his companion said, the one who had told him they didn't have to come and then came anyway.

Enkrid hadn't answered. He just did what needed doing.

"Die here, or come with me. Your choice."

It was the house of the best healer in the area.

With no clean options left, he had slipped over the wall in the middle of the night.

He had said those words with a sword pressed to the healer's throat. Two choices, laid out plainly.

Die here, or follow.

"I'll follow!"

The greedy healer gave in to the blade.

"You're a mercenary, not a bandit."

His companion criticized him relentlessly.

He couldn't even explain why he'd done it.

Things stayed hectic after that anyway.

In any case, he had kidnapped a healer. That was the best the sword could manage.

It made him a fugitive for a while.

"You're really out of your mind."

The companion who sheltered him for a short time said so.

When they parted later, they told him why they had helped. Wiping at their nose with a hint of awkward embarrassment, they said something he still remembered.

"Looking at you, I kept thinking of my little brother back home."

A woman mercenary, at least ten years his senior.

"Don't take it the wrong way, kid."

A clean and simple goodbye.

After that he drifted around the continent for a while.

The face of a child he had kidnapped a healer for, and who had still died and been buried, surfaced in his mind.

The child whose hand he was holding now was alive.

Then there was nothing to give up on. Curse or whatever else, there had to be a way to save them.

Even if there wasn't, the right thing was to try everything until the very last.

That was the only way the ones who remained could keep living too.

Even when you had to let someone go, the fact that you had tried, that you had done something, was what kept the people left behind alive.

Tap, tap.

He held the child's hand and with his other hand lightly patted the back of it.

It meant things would be all right. He felt a faint pressure in the child's hand. It was trying to grip his, but the strength wasn't there. A weak, trembling squeeze.

Enkrid was careful not to hurt the child and gently returned the grip.

Ten years old at most, probably.

Beyond the child, the Mother came into view. She was the woman he had passed in the village clearing among the children earlier.

She had struck him as someone with a difficult temper. She hadn't burst out at the children, but there had been something like a raw killing edge in her eyes.

That woman was wiping the child's face with a damp cloth.

The crust around the child's eyes wiped away easily.

Why hadn't anyone done that sooner.

He was still looking when the child opened their eyes.

Hira cried out and the twins rushed over.

He stood there watching for a moment, and then Rem walked in.

With his wife at his side, as usual.

Juol was behind them, blinking.

"What did you do?" Rem asked.

Enkrid raised his hand and looked at it.

His left?

No. His right. He switched hands and looked back at Rem.

Enkrid's mind was working quickly.

The situation was falling into place.

His own hand had done this.

"I think I've awakened divine power," he whispered as Rem came closer.

He didn't actually believe that. It was just a throwaway joke in the elven style.

"Is there a curse on him too?"

Rem turned toward the back of the tent and asked in a serious tone.

"That's not how this curse works. You source of wickedness."

Rem's wife aimed the blade of her criticism without hesitation. Even so, her eyes didn't leave the child.

Arath looked surprised too.

Rem gave a "is that so" nod.

"Then what is it?" Rem asked.

"No idea."

Enkrid shrugged. He genuinely had no clue.

But someone in the tent right now didn't care about any of that.

Hira stared wide-eyed and fell into thought.

How is this even possible?

She had said something larger than a spring, a lake, would be needed.

Beside her stood the child's Mother, eyes open wide and shining like starlight.

The veins that had risen across the child's body had visibly faded. The blotches had grown lighter.

"You."

She called to Enkrid.

"Yes?"

Enkrid looked up. He honestly didn't know what he had done.

But looking at the situation, it seemed to have happened when his hand made contact. Whether that was coincidence or something more, he couldn't say, but from the outside, that was how it appeared.

The child's Mother seemed to understand it the same way.

She dropped to her knees, turned her palms face-up, and pressed her forehead to the ground.

The tent floor had a thick cloth laid over it, but it wasn't particularly clean.

The stains of blood, sweat, and pus were plain to see.

Even so, she knelt without hesitation and pressed her head to the ground.

"Whatever you wish, I will do it. Please, just stay near my child..."

The Mother couldn't even finish the words. She was trembling.

"The hell, what exactly did you do? Do you know what that means? That's her saying she'll give everything. Her body, whatever else you want."

Rem whispered urgently.

In plain terms, if Enkrid told this woman to come to his tent tonight with nothing on, she would come smiling.

That was what it meant.

Enkrid had no way of knowing that.

Then Hira lifted her head and looked Enkrid over slowly, from head to toe, but thoroughly.

Why had this happened? She didn't know.

But one thing was certain.

Hira was a shaman and a fortune-teller, but her main discipline was healing. Since most healing relied on sorcery as its foundation, she was skilled at undoing curses and the side effects of misused sorcery.

That sense of hers was telling her something now.

The curse the Fortune-Teller Tribe had thrown through their collective ritual had grown faint.

All of it was because of one man's arrival.

She couldn't say exactly why, but she had a rough guess at the principle.

This man dispelled curses around him.

Which meant.

"I want to make a request of you as well."

Hira said it quickly.

This curse was dangerous. She couldn't say it openly to all the tribe's people, but Hira had felt the end coming for the tribe.

That premonition had just been bent out of shape.

"Hold on, everyone stop for a moment."

Rem stepped in to mediate. Enkrid just stood there, looking blank.