WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 477: Ayul Couldn't Help but Curse

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Arath had come to find him on the third day he'd been staying in the tent.

Dawn was just breaking. He was deep in the Isolation Technique, working his body through its paces in front of the tent, when she approached.

Sun-darkened brown skin, patterns drawn across her face, bright and alert eyes.

Her impression was different. Her expression had softened noticeably from before.

At least she didn't look like she was about to bury an axe in anyone's neck.

Her words matched.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Arath."

A completely different bearing from their first encounter. Calm.

So this was the western way, he supposed.

Enkrid felt he was beginning to understand how westerners operated.

They were direct. No pretense.

Same as Rem.

"Feels a bit late for introductions."

Enkrid said it idly while stretching, gripping the fingertips of his left hand with his right and pressing his arm back in a long, slow bend. He was working loose the muscles and tendons running from elbow to wrist.

Flexibility wasn't built overnight. It took daily effort.

Not that it was anything new for Enkrid. He'd been at this for years.

Arath watched him loosen up, her gaze passing briefly over his body.

For a frame that size, packed with muscle, it moved remarkably smoothly. Tough, dense, and supple all at once.

The kind of body that would make man-eaters shake their heads.

Those cannibalistic bastards had no taste for stringy, tough meat.

"That's true, but a proper greeting still matters."

She'd looked an unfamiliar man over closely, but there was nothing readable in her eyes. Arath was matter-of-fact about it.

"Sure, fair enough."

Enkrid gave a loose nod, and Arath asked, "Can we drop the formal speech?"

"Works for me. Prefer it, actually."

They sorted that out without fuss.

Arath did feel genuine gratitude toward Enkrid for having become the Human Totem. That was part of why she was here.

"I thought I'd show you around a bit."

She said it while calmly holding the hem of her colorful skirt.

Enkrid figured there were at least two long daggers strapped to her thighs beneath that skirt.

He didn't need to see them. Her walk and the way she moved her hands told him enough.

Her feet landed with different weights. The right foot was heavier. Something heavier was hidden on that side.

A woman who'd swung an axe at Rem the moment she laid eyes on him wasn't the type to wander around unarmed.

Arath was a warrior by any measure.

In looks and in manner.

And that loose, fluttering skirt was exactly the kind of thing made for hiding things.

Being Rem's wife, she might even use it to cut off an opponent's line of sight.

The man who instinctively converted every situation into a sparring match sized her up all over again.

Arath waited for his answer with the sun at her back. The first light of dawn was settling in, golden and low.

The dry air warmed fast under that sun. Moving your body here had its own particular pleasure.

Enkrid had just finished loosening up. He wiped the light sweat with a dry cloth, ducked into the tent, and asked Hira if it was alright to be away for a while.

"Could you be back before noon?"

Hira said it almost like a request. Three days without proper sleep, still doing whatever she was doing, he hoped she was holding up. Enkrid nodded.

A few of the people lying around the tent recognized him now and called out. By the third day, more were showing signs of improvement.

Among them was the child he'd met first.

"My name is Jiba. I'm thinking about marrying you when I grow up."

The child was bold.

Ruagarne, hearing that, went beyond puffing her cheeks, she stuck out her tongue and laughed.

"Get in line, little human."

"What?"

"There are plenty of rivals ahead of you."

Jiba sulked over that for a moment.

Her first words after getting out of bed had been about becoming his future bride. She really was something.

Mother had heard every word her child said and remained completely unbothered.

Shouldn't she step in?

Geomnarae still laughed his big, easy laugh, and the woman with no daughter had gone back to sleeping like a corpse.

Well. Things were things.

Jiba was still fast asleep now.

She'd kicked her thin blanket halfway off and was lying with her belly exposed.

Mother pulled the blanket back over the child and asked, "Should I come along?"

She meant she'd escort him if he needed someone.

Enkrid shook his head and stepped back outside.

"Let's go."

Arath said it, and Enkrid followed.

There was a man near the tent entrance who'd been watching him strangely for days, but Enkrid ignored him. A look of bitterness and gratitude all tangled together. A stranger. For a westerner, where feelings were usually simply liked or disliked, he was an odd one. He seemed close with Jiba's mother, so there was probably nothing particular behind it.

Arath led Enkrid out beyond the tents.

Sunlight fell between the rows of canvas, welcoming their steps.

"Did you cut Rem's neck?"

Enkrid extended his left foot, then widened his stride. A column of ants was crossing right where he'd been about to step.

A cluster of spiders scattered and fled at the sound of human footsteps.

Nearby, a dung beetle was rolling a ball of dung with great diligence.

Would Ruagarne eat that?

Probably not. She seemed selective about her insects, the same way humans picked their food.

"A person dies if you cut their neck."

Arath stated a fact.

A fact Enkrid already knew.

"Feels like he did something worth dying for."

Arath started to agree, then stopped herself.

Yesterday came back to her. The night Rem had slept at home.

* * *

"I want a child."

If you wanted something, you said it plainly. Wasn't that how it should be?

That was what Arath did.

The man who heard her was unmoved.

"Is that so?"

Same as always. The face of someone who seemed to care about nothing beyond axes, fighting, combat, and man-eaters.

He'd had his reckless phase, hadn't he. When had he become like this?

Arath let the thought go.

The wedding was a week away.

Rem threw himself into fighting and hunting.

Watching from the side, it looked like,

He's running away.

That was the feeling, anyway. The real Rem would never actually do that.

Arath rested her chin in her hand and watched him swing his axe. The question of whether he wanted to run nearly slipped out.

She caught herself. Saw her own dishonesty.

If Rem said he wanted to run, could she even handle hearing it?

She looked away.

It was the first time. The first time she'd hidden what she actually felt and said something else instead. And what she'd said was that she wanted a child.

Part of her hadn't believed it would come to that.

Rem was the next Tribal Chief, a man overflowing with talent, someone who would become a hero of these lands.

How many people in the western lands could be called a hero?

There was said to be one among the man-eating tribes.

So why would that Rem want to run away?

He loved this land. More than himself.

Arath liked that about him.

So it wasn't running. Her instinct must have been wrong.

And he proved it. He didn't run.

One week after the wedding.

He chose to sleep in the fields instead of at home, and he cut down the warrior called the hero of the man-eating tribe.

Beneath the low sky, the clouds spread wide like a white ceiling.

Blood dripping from his axe drew red lines across that white above.

"Aaaaaah!"

Her partner let out a roar that was almost a war cry. A shout of victory.

That was the last of his wild axe-swinging. Then Rem left.

Why? She didn't know. Not a single word.

At first, she was stunned.

What the hell is wrong with him?

Rem had said it. He'd never thought of anyone else as his partner.

They'd grown up together, so they moved with similar techniques, and their temperaments had grown to resemble each other.

"I don't doubt your mother, but you two are like you came from the same belly."

Her father, who wasn't yet Tribal Chief back then, used to say things like that.

"Really?"

Arath had liked hearing it.

Hadn't Rem?

Was her partner, the person meant to be her other half for life, actually different from her inside? Had their hearts not been pointed the same direction?

Was it only me?

Had she been the only one who felt that way.

Rem left.

A month passed, and instead of stunned, she was furious.

What kind of person left without even a letter?

"Forget him."

Her father, now Tribal Chief, said so. A great deal happened after that. Years passed. The fields held the marks of all four seasons.

Standing in a summer field with the wind moving through the grass, Arath made up her mind.

When he comes back, I'll cut his neck.

Past the shock and the rage, past even the worry that had crept in somewhere between, what was left was the desire to kill.

And Rem came back.

"You said you wanted a child."

He'd spent a few days carefully slipping away from her, and now, for whatever reason, he'd walked up and that was the first thing out of his mouth.

Rem's shadow stretched long in front of the tent.

Arath looked at that shadow and said, "Right now, I'd rather cut off a piece of you and hang it on the wall than have a child."

Poison. And the piece she was referring to wasn't an arm or a leg.

Something he had but hadn't had any use for lately.

Rem scratched his head. He could be shameless with everyone else, but not with her.

He'd abandoned his responsibilities. Thrown away his duties.

The worst of it was leaving his partner standing there with nothing.

Rem acknowledged his own failures.

That was why he could stand here now and say what he had to say.

"What kind of world should a child of ours grow up in?"

He'd once thought the west was a land that had stopped moving. That westerners were simply people who had lost the will to go forward.

Wouldn't even a reckless immortal be better than this?

No. That wasn't right.

Comparing himself to some lunatic who spat on the natural order and broke every taboo to keep on living, that was a stretch. But he'd been that frustrated.

He'd told himself he was leaving to claim something for himself. That wasn't true. It was an excuse. A justification.

Rem had only understood that after some time away from the west.

More precisely, after seeing the man named Enkrid.

There was something he'd once given up on and forgotten. He'd surrendered it before he even knew what it was.

I'll change this.

The will to change the west.

He'd thrown it away before he even recognized he had it. Forgotten it. Left it behind.

Rem had been a coward and a deserter.

He could admit that, which was exactly why he hadn't been able to accept the Sorcery.

The moment the divine spirit descended, he would die.

That would be the end of it.

Any chance to change things, any chance to keep living, would be gone.

He couldn't walk into a valley like that.

So Rem had become a deserter who lost himself in whatever pleasures the world still had to offer.

He couldn't face Arath anymore.

He couldn't show her this pathetic version of himself. And he couldn't ask her to spend her life as partner and closest companion to a man like that.

So he ran.

God, the embarrassment of it. Really.

Rem was ashamed, but he didn't run anymore.

Because he'd learned. Because now he knew.

How much of a wretch he'd been. And how he was supposed to live.

Running never solved anything.

Better to walk a path where he might die than to live as a hollow puppet dragging out a worthless life. So he would walk it.

That said, he didn't believe he was going to die.

He would shout into this unfair world.

That something like this is not a wall.

That if you want something, you go after it.

Enkrid had done that.

The first time he saw him, just another reckless man who'd probably be dead soon.

Later, a man worth watching.

After that, a man too good to waste on dying.

Memories came back in order, time moving forward one step at a time, and there was his commanding officer, still fighting with everything he had.

He'd said it all through his hands and feet, through his body.

He would not give up. He would not fall into despair.

Whatever blocked the path ahead, he would walk through it.

That was who he was.

Rem had learned from him. Been woken up. Looked back at his own life.

Thought about what he'd left behind.

Every excuse had been just that. An excuse.

The directionally-impaired bastard and the wildcat had only been the occasion.

Only then had Rem been able to turn his head and look west again. To face what he'd abandoned, what he'd given up on.

That was why he could say it now.

"It's embarrassing, but I ran."

Rem said it plainly, without dressing it up.

Quiet, but unbroken. The words came steadily.

He'd gotten better at talking over time, and he managed to say it in a way that held together.

The reason he'd run. And if a child of theirs was ever born, that he wanted the land that child grew up in to be different from what it was now.

That this had become his purpose.

Arath still looked at Rem's shadow.

Whether it was Rem speaking or Arath listening, neither showed much on their faces.

"Done. If you want anything cut off, I'll give it to you."

If that was what atonement looked like, he'd do it.

Rem said it, and Arath raised her eyes.

From shadow to toes, from shins to knees, from knees to waist, from waist to chest, from chest to face.

At the end of that climb, gray eyes.

Rem had been honest since they were children. Always with her.

Was this the moment she'd been waiting for?

It would have been better if he'd said it sooner, but hearing it now, even now, meant she didn't have to cut his neck just because it was late.

"It took too long. I'm sorry."

Rem said it.

Arath could not forgive the Rem of the past.

But the anguish her partner had carried reached her in the chest.

A single tear fell without her meaning it to. Dust must have gotten in her eye.

A perfectly clear day without a speck of dust in the air, but still.

Under the bright moonlight, Arath extended her hand.

"Take it."

Rem took her hand.

"I'll let you stay the night."

That was what she said. Though it probably wouldn't be just the one night going forward.

The two of them talked.

Rem put everything out in the open, and Arath let out everything she'd been carrying.

By the end of that conversation, Arath's insides had twisted a little.

"Ah, um, there's still something I need to do."

"So what you're saying is, you come back asking forgiveness and then you're leaving again the moment you get it? Just grabbing the Sorcery and going?"

What the hell is wrong with this guy?

Arath couldn't help but swear.

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