WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 483: Reckless Calm

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The west was vast. Beyond the six tribes, there were those who kept to something called tradition, or maybe stubbornness, and lived by it.

The person the short blond had met in the City of Aoara was one of them.

Only one person, but Rem knew someone here too.

Someone who dealt in Sorcery Poison and had a wandering streak. That was the friend the short blond had mentioned.

"You said getting caught leaving traces everywhere would be a disaster, right? So why leave Sorcery Poison behind?"

He had gone picking flowers, tracking a Giant's trail, and along the way found a friend from a small tribe.

"How did you know?"

Black eyes asked the question. No wariness at all. Pure curiosity. That was just how this person had always been.

The hillside served as a boundary, with Rem below and the other above.

But shouldn't seeing him return to the west come as a surprise first?

Then again, this was not the kind of person to care about that.

She might not have even noticed he had left.

"Just happened to."

Rem answered without much thought.

The black eyes blinked a few times. Hard to know what was going on inside, but her personality and purpose in life had probably not changed.

She had said it was fun to step back like a ghost and watch people, observe how they lived.

Nothing was more interesting than watching people go about their lives, but getting involved was something she truly disliked.

Her long hair caught in the wind and streamed loose, and as if that annoyed her, she pulled out a cord and tied it back in a firm knot.

"There aren't many people who use Sorcery Poison. See someone using it and it's pretty obvious who it is."

It was the kind of thing that could only happen through overlapping coincidences.

This woman's tribe, like the other small tribes, wanted no contact with outsiders. They kept a tradition they believed was necessary to preserve some kind of energy within themselves.

Then a strange one was born among them.

Someone who had been watching the night sky, stumbled across another tribe by chance, and eventually wandered all the way to the frontier.

This woman believed her tribe could not go on living shut away like this.

There was a righteous cause in it, and her own desires mixed in too.

"Still water rots."

That was her argument. Behind it lay a heart full of wanting to watch people.

Rem had once dismissed whatever it was these people were protecting as nonsense.

They claimed that even talking to outsiders would corrupt the mind.

That mixing words and thoughts would cause one to lose sorcerous power, and that only a woman who had never once held a man's hand from birth could become a shaman.

All nonsense. Sorcery did not work that way.

On the other hand, a method like that could also make sorcery stronger.

They believed it and prayed because of it.

Rituals were performed on the foundation of that belief.

They all worshipped the sky god born from the birch tree, but their ways of living were utterly unlike everyone else's.

That was how they were.

Should they be criticized for it? Condemned? Told to change their way of life, cursed at, and dragged by force out into the wider world?

There was no reason for any of that.

They were not harming anyone. They just wanted to live quietly among themselves.

If anything, some tribes came after them coveting their energy, not the other way around. This tribe sought no contact with anyone, which meant they sought no conflict either.

Even the strange one said that if the tribe stayed locked away like this, they would eventually rot and wither. But she did not actually do much about it. She just went out to peek at the outside world every now and then.

"You came out far this time."

Rem asked again.

The black eyes, the one Rem privately called the strange one, opened her mouth without needing to think. This was no secret, and it was still an unresolved problem.

"Before three summers pass, some madman came after the tribe's offering. We lost part of it then, so I went to find it."

Those who dealt in Sorcery Poison were genuinely skilled.

Even Rem could not fight the whole tribe alone.

And what was an offering, anyway.

It was a part of the god they worshipped. In continental terms, it would not be wrong to call it a sacred object.

Whether it was tradition, energy, or spirit, touch that and even this tribe began to engage with the outside. The kind of engagement that came through combat.

But what kind of madman had gone after it?

The strange one was an observer looking at the world from the outside.

She would have seen things. Heard things. She might know more than Geomnarae or the other tribes who had taken direct hits.

He had not come to ask for help in a fight.

And yet here they were, sharpening their blades because they had suffered too.

No. This place was where it started.

They had been struck first.

"A foreigner from the continent. A Sorcerer / Mage."

Rem combined what he knew. He gathered the pieces drifting through his head and assembled them into a single picture. That was how he traced the source of what was happening.

Not that he had done it with any great effort.

It was closer to just being curious about which bastard had done this, since he had been hit and needed to get on with living.

He had a rough fix on the Sorcerer's location and a guess at the intent.

"Want to come beat up whoever took the offering?"

That was where that question came from.

"We know the location too. But if we fight, we lose."

They had already fought once, and the shaman had lost an arm because of it. That said everything.

In this tribe, the shaman was also the tribal chief and the eldest sorcerer.

"Finding the offering matters, but we cannot sacrifice the whole tribe for it."

She said it. A cold blue light rippled in her eyes.

Pay back what you receive. Most westerners were like that. The small tribes were no different.

If anything, they went further, not less.

"Fine. When we fight, come then. Take the offering back."

That was what had been said.

* * *

Rem held that thought as he knocked a club aside with the axe in his left hand and swept his right axe horizontally.

Thud. Crunch.

The left axe sent the Giant's club bouncing away, and the right axe cut through the middle of the Giant's shin, splitting flesh wide open as purple blood spurted out.

'Could have just found it and brought it back, I suppose.'

Rem thought that as he leaped sideways.

Boom.

The club came down. Chunks of rock flew. The ground in front of the canyon was covered in gravel, stone, and sand.

A Giant's strike into the earth left a dent.

Giants were strong. But strength meant nothing if you did not get hit.

Honestly, even taking it head-on would have been fine.

'Just redirect it.'

From the outside it looked like one crisis after another.

Charging alone into a cluster of Giants.

Even for Rem, even as a hero candidate, it seemed reckless beyond reason.

Like walking into a storm without bothering to put on a coat.

But Rem himself was calm.

This was easy compared to facing ten thousand wraiths.

Whoosh.

A Giant's club fell from above.

All the clubs were the same dark brown color, whoever had made them. Outfitting a group with matching weapons cost more Krona than most people expected.

Which meant someone had made those weapons for them.

Rem raised the axe in his left hand toward the falling club, bent his knees slightly, and lowered his upper body.

Clang.

A tremendous sound rang out. It looked like Rem would be crushed flat on the spot.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened.

The club the Giant swung down stopped cold.

Rem braced his left forearm, drawing on the Heart of Superhuman Strength, and held.

More precisely, he started from his knees and redirected the Giant's force through his whole body.

Receiving it softly, letting it flow down through the ground. That was how he did it.

Elbow, shoulder, waist, knees, ankles, supple and flexible muscles built up at each point distributed and scattered the force just right.

Before, he would have met it with pure strength alone. Not anymore.

He had grown seasoned. More skilled. His technique had clearly improved.

His mental framework had broadened too.

Either way, he was considerably stronger than when he had left the west.

Crack.

Centered on where the axe blade made contact, the club split lengthwise.

Rem ran forward from there.

Rattle, crack, crack.

Following the axe in his left hand, the club kept splitting apart. The Giant lurched back in surprise and tried to kick him.

Rem pressed the axe in his right hand outward like a buffer and moved into the next motion.

He shook off the club with his left hand, set the axe blade against an ankle that was, compared to Enkrid's sword, sluggishly slow, and pivoted in a full circle.

Grind.

A Giant's skin was tough enough that ordinary blade strikes barely left a mark, but Rem's axe cut through it cleanly.

Purple blood fountained up in a wet rush. The half-severed ankle flopped loose, the body fell with a heavy thud, and a pool of blood spread across the ground almost immediately.

A deep, animal bellow tore from the Giant's throat.

Even so, the eyes did not change. Pupils with no focus. They had been wrong from the start.

There was no thought behind a Giant's eyes. They looked like creatures drugged out of their senses.

Different from the ones he had faced when he first came into the west. Or maybe the same? Those ones had not seemed right in the head either. Not that it particularly mattered.

The Giant howled in pain and kept flailing its arm.

Rem knocked the hand reaching for him away again with the axe in his left.

Clang.

The axe blade could not hold and snapped. Rem let it go without a second thought and threw it like a Throwing Spear.

The break had sharpened the end to a point, but punching through a Giant's skin with that would be difficult.

The eye, though, was worth going for. So he aimed for the eye and threw.

The broken axe handle flew and drove into the Giant's eye.

Another bellow split the air.

Clear fluid mixed with purple blood scattered across the ground.

"Give me an axe."

Rem stretched his hand back and said it.

There was a warrior who had come along carrying axes all over their body for exactly this purpose.

By knight order standards, a Squire, the role that handled miscellaneous tasks and supported in combat.

Here they were called a small warrior.

The small warrior had wondered at first why they had been told to bring so many axes. Now it made sense.

Where would you find weapons sturdy enough to hold up under Rem's strength?

"Hup!"

The small warrior let out a sharp breath and threw.

The axe spun through the air and pulled itself into Rem's hand.

Thwack.

Axe in hand, Rem rolled his neck left and right.

"Keep your eyes open when you walk around."

None of the Giants answered him.

No fear, so no hesitation.

That was how the Giant pack was.

Round eyes in white, mostly dark brown irises, no focus. Hazy. Nothing showing but a blind drive to kill, pure killing intent in every gaze.

Looking directly into that could make a person's knees go weak. Not Rem.

His lips twisted.

"These bastards."

Rem lifted the axe up onto his shoulder.

Not a trace of urgency. Which meant there was plenty of room to breathe.

Meanwhile, Enkrid kept cutting at the Sorcerer. Over and over.

"You."

"You bas..."

"You lit..."

"You piece of..."

The enemy Sorcerer looked as though he had been cursed and could not finish a single word.

Enkrid paid it no attention and pursued relentlessly, keeping up constant pressure.

The blade work never let up. A persistence like Aoara's, strikes that never stopped.

When that happened, the others nearby tried to step in.

They clasped hands, preparing to perform a ritual.

Crack!

A whip came lashing down over their heads. Frog's.

"So you are all Cultists, then."

Frog's voice was flat, but cold fire burned inside it.

A quiet rage.

"Rtir, your enemies are gathered here in force."

Ruagarne murmured something no one else could understand, then took whip and sword in hand and threw herself into the crowd.

Rem read the situation even as he fought, sending quick glances in every direction.

He saw Ruagarne's fighting too.

Their faces were familiar.

A few elves mixed in among them, but the rest were mostly faces he recognized.

The ones with the insane tradition that eating human flesh passed the victim's strength into themselves. Cannibals.

The same ones whose skulls he had been happily splitting before he left.

They had gone over to the enemy's side, but that was not particularly surprising.

Honestly, they might not have had a choice.

A warrior who should have become a hero among the Cannibals had ended up with his skull caved in by Rem's axe.

After that they would have been knocked around from every direction, and if the Cultists had approached at exactly that moment?

So in a way, all of this might have been because of Rem.

Not that Rem felt any guilt over it.

Everything that happens in this world can have a reason attached to it. Conversely, saying things just happen without attaching a reason is equally possible.

It all depends on your mind. On how you think.

So there was no need to take responsibility for everything that unfolded.

It was a chaotic fight, and yet it was not.

The number of people involved in the chaos was small enough.

Ruagarne went after a handful of Cultists with her eyes half-rolled back, cheeks puffed, pure fury driving every strike.

To Rem's right, the beastfolk was running wild.

Dunbakel sliced at a Giant's wrist and forearm with her two Curved blades, then for whatever reason drove herself into the Giant's chest and split its chin vertically.

She swung and pulled back. In and out in a flash, slash and return.

A long trail of purple blood followed Dunbakel as she moved.

Her feet were noticeably faster than before.

"Cultists!"

Ruagarne's shout rang out.

"Now that I have seen clearly, I will kill them one by one as I swing my sword each day, and someday it will be done!"

The same cry, loaded with the intent of someone carrying a deep grudge.

Rem had no idea why Ruagarne had suddenly gone off like that.

Either way, fight well and that was enough.

Clang.

He knocked the two axe blades together, letting them ring. Rem had started to work himself up and then let it go.

Well. It would take something dangerous, something genuinely threatening, to make him fight like his life was on the line.

Even so, these were the ones who had threatened his wife and family.

If Arath had died, Rem would not have held back. He would have gone berserk.

"Not one gets past me."

He had been about to say that. Then he closed his mouth.

It was not really that kind of atmosphere.

The Giant pack had lost all reason. Normally they would need some kind of direction, but there was no one in a position to give it.

So the Giants only went after the one human and the one beastfolk who had come at them.

Geomnarae had just started to step forward when he stopped.

The way he saw it, the start had been sudden, and then after that, well, it had been calm.

He could not understand it, but there it was.

Reckless, but you could call it calm. The words did not fit together, but that was the truth of it.

The battlefield moved that way.

Enkrid facing the Sorcerer, Ruagarne running wild into the group gathered around him.

Rem's performance was astonishing just to watch.

He had known Rem could fight. He was a hero candidate, after all.

But had he always been this good?

Geomnarae was baffled.

Not that he could stand there doing nothing, so he raised his hand.

"Are you just going to watch?"

He called back to the tribal coalition standing behind him and pulled out his totem.

A carved wooden piece shaped like a wolf's head. Blackened all over from years of handling.

Geomnarae held it and prayed.

Wolf God, Wolf God.

Come down here and tear every last one of them to pieces.

White ears, black eyes, friend of the Dawn Bird.

Purple veins rose along Geomnarae's forearms.

Pain shot through his whole body. He bit down hard and bore it, then performed the ritual.

It was a technique called Divine Descent.

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