WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 484: The Chief Was Relieved

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Descent. It means summoning a god to this earth.

Say something like that on the continent, especially in a holy nation, and an inquisitor would be at your door before you could blink.

They would pull your teeth so you could never chew meat again, rip out your fingernails and toenails, and all the while demand that you admit it.

"Confess that you are a heretic."

From the perspective of certain fanatics, the west itself could be called a gathering ground of heresy.

If not for the Cursed Ground Holy Sect, the continent and the west might have been locked in war even now.

History recorded that the west and the continent had gone to war over ideological differences in ages past.

Religious conflict, linguistic conflict, people who viewed life differently tended to drive their will through fighting.

When the ruling class thought that way, such things happened easily enough.

Of course, those rulers might have used religion as a pretext to start wars for their own gain, but thankfully, this was not that era.

The Cursed Ground Holy Sect stood in plain sight. Punish the heretics of the west?

Anyone who tried would simply be called a madman.

No one would agree to it either.

Over long years, the west had come to be respected as a culture in its own right.

Heretic and savage were nothing more than slurs used to belittle them.

Geomnarae, for his part, did not care what anyone called him. He believed in his god, and that was enough.

"Bite. Tear. Rend."

Sorcery.

Black smoke rose from the charred piece of wood he held in his hand.

The smoke did not scatter. It gathered in front of him and took shape.

Ears stood sharp and pointed, white. Everything else was black.

Against the pitch-black smoke, those white ears caught the eye at once.

"Go."

His mouth hung open as he spoke, red inside. Blood trickled from the corner of his lips.

The moment the word left him, the legless wolf of smoke surged forward.

Its body rippled up and down as it moved, giving the impression of a creature running at full sprint despite having no legs.

Two white ears drew two white lines through the air.

Awoooooo!

A howl that shook the gut rang out. In the blink of an eye, the smoke wolf shot through the crowd of tribespeople and closed its jaws on a Giant's thigh, the one that had been quietly edging sideways, slipping out of Rem's axe range.

Even Rem was only one person. Without sorcery, no amount of physical ability alone could hold back dozens of Giants at once.

A few had been slowly backing away, and right at that moment the wolf appeared and sank its teeth into a thigh.

Fangs made of smoke drove through the Giant's thick hide.

It was a strange sight. Through the smoke, flesh being bitten and torn was clearly visible.

Crack!

Purple blood sprayed through the smoke.

Grawwk!

The Giant screamed and flailed its arm. The smoke scattered for a moment, then reformed.

Crunch. Crunch.

The wolf Geomnarae had called paid no mind to the Giant's swatting.

One bite, then two, then another, tearing without pause.

Flesh tore away and blood flew. The wolf buried its head into the shredded meat. The Giant's screaming grew twice as terrible as before.

Hraaaagh!

That was to be expected. Being bitten by an ordinary wolf would already hurt, but the Wolf God's fangs carried the Curse of Pain.

Getting bitten would hurt worse than having a needle driven under a fingernail.

Like having a finger jammed into a festering, burst wound and twisted around.

When the Giants had attacked before, the sorcery had been blocked, likely some trick of the Fortune-Teller Tribe, or the bastard who had come from the continent, the Sorcerer. But now there was nothing like that. No interference.

Geomnarae had prepared for interference, but if he had been on the enemy's side, even he would have let things go for a moment in a situation like this.

Who could possibly predict this and respond in time?

"You piece of, you, I..."

He could see the enemy commander, unable to get a word out because a sword kept swinging at their face without pause.

The commander's body kept blurring and deflecting the blade, but how long could that last?

The outsider called Enkrid showed no sign of tiring.

How could anyone swing a sword that calmly.

'Did I actually ask for a sparring match? Was that a mistake?'

Even a bold westerner had to admit, watching this, that it was a bit much.

"Urgh."

Despite his idle thoughts, Geomnarae could not stop himself from heaving and spitting blood.

It felt like someone had grabbed his stomach and was wringing it out.

He had pushed too hard calling on the Wolf God, and his insides had twisted for it.

Before, he would have strained even further trying to look fine. Now there was no need.

"Don't push yourself. You should have stayed back and watched, why'd you come out when you're still sick."

Rem's voice carried from ahead.

He was watching the blood, even in the middle of all that?

The words were rough and awkward to hear, but in a strange way they were also reassuring.

"Worry about yourself."

Geomnarae wiped the corner of his mouth and answered. Rem gave no sign of listening. He probably could not even hear it.

Geomnarae had come out here spitting blood. The tribal warriors raised their spears high.

"The earth trembles. The earth trembles. Mother of the earth, watch over us, watch over us."

Two sorcerers who saw this shook their rattles with a jingle jingle and murmured together.

The sound was like a child's toy.

To their allies, it was simply a pleasant sound, easy to ignore. To the Giants, it was not.

Grrrrrr.

The Giants shook their massive heads, eyes losing focus. A few staggered visibly.

Sorcery that concentrated sonic force into the skull.

The Wolf God, the rattles, and the brave warriors of the west charging in between. Fighting like this, the Giants were actually manageable.

Still, among them all, the most overwhelming presence was Rem.

"Don't go sticking your necks out and dying. Arath, take command."

He said it while swinging two axes without pause, standing in the middle of the Giant horde, unhurried.

"Dalae, Maru, Tamu, Altan, bullets. Rangge, Naran, Geut, Tan, Hun, Throwing Spears."

As it happened, Arath was also the commander of the western warriors.

When Geomnarae had collapsed, someone had to lead the warrior class.

That had been Arath.

She was one of the pillars that had kept the tribe from falling apart.

Everyone listened to her and shifted formation.

Those told to spread wide did so, and four of them drew out slings at the order to use bullets.

Two moved to the front, two to the rear, spacing themselves out, while the remaining four warriors raised spears with blackened tips.

Fitted at the end of sturdy wooden shafts, the spearheads were dark. Obsidian.

The durability was poor, but nothing was better for a single killing strike.

All of it was preparation for fighting Giants.

The western peoples were not fools. Everyone had come ready to fight.

They would have fought even without Rem. It would have been brutal, but they would have fought.

That same fight had now become something you could watch from a straw bed.

"Hah!"

The Beastfolk tearing through the fight on one side was no ordinary warrior either. Moving through the Giants, every motion looked touched by something divine.

Stepping off a Giant's thigh, shooting upward, grabbing a fistful of the Giant's greasy hair, driving an elbow straight down into the crown of the skull.

Crack!

The sound of a skull caving inward rang out. The Giant staggered and tried to hold itself up, but the Beastfolk followed the elbow with clawing fingers raking through the inside of the skull, then leapt clear to the side.

Grrggh.

With a strange groan, the Giant toppled sideways.

Blood and matter seeping from the crown made it plain that one would not be rising again.

* * *

The Tribal Chief had been about to rub his eyes, then thought that if this were a dream and rubbing them woke him, he would regret it.

It was not a dream, of course. He knew that. He knew it perfectly well.

He was not so far gone that he could not tell reality from a dream.

It just felt too unreal, that was all.

On one side, something kept shifting like smoke, constantly chased by a blade.

The owner of that blade was an outsider, a man who called himself Rem's companion.

"All Cultists are my enemies. I will beat every last one of them to death."

Frog fought with cheeks puffed out, muttering over and over like something had possessed her. Just hearing it carried a weight of killing intent.

And then there was a Beastfolk fighting Giants.

Right. Those three were outsiders. Even by the Tribal Chief's eye, it was hard to measure their skill.

But one of them was different.

The returned wanderer who had brought the outsiders. Rem.

The Tribal Chief's gaze stopped on one spot.

There, the prodigal son was chopping firewood.

"Axe."

Each time one broke, he called for a new one and went right back to splitting without pause.

The only difference was that what his axe was splitting was not fresh wood or dry timber, but Giants.

The cannibal Giants that had threatened his people were being split apart like logs, worse than firewood, and dying for it.

It would be a lie to say that did not feel good.

The Tribal Chief had been bleeding himself dry holding on all this time.

The pressure he had carried during that period was the kind that could wring a person hollow.

Sleep would not come. His chest felt tight. His heart pounded on its own at odd moments.

His anxiety had grown so severe that his appetite had vanished.

He had been growing thinner day by day, hollowing out by degrees. Without the markings painted on his face, the face of a sick man would have shown through plainly.

That was how it had been. That was how hard it had been.

The Tribal Chief had understood the reality better than anyone.

'This is the end.'

Dark clouds had settled over the west, blotting out the sun and covering the sky.

Whether there was anything he could do or not, he had tried everything, grabbing at whatever he could reach.

Seeking out the minor tribes? He had done that before looking for Rem.

There had simply been no one who responded.

He had even tried to secretly reach out to the Fortune-Teller Tribe.

To ask why they were doing this, to say that if they wanted to become a great tribe he would make it happen, that whatever they wanted he would give them, just come back, stop this, all of that was what he had meant to say.

They had not listened.

He had wondered whether he should seek help from the other continent beyond the frontier.

Of course, nothing had gone as he intended.

Help from outside the continent, finding the minor tribes, not a single thing had gone the way he planned.

The situation worsened day by day.

The curse settled in. The head sorcerer collapsed. The tribe's greatest warrior, Geomnarae, fell ill.

'What a disaster.'

The Tribal Chief knew that running was an option. It was one of the answers.

But how could he.

The west was the land where they were born and raised, the land where they would be buried when they died, the land they were meant to protect for the rest of their lives.

Low clouds, high clouds, sun-shading clouds, the great lake, the sand-blocking canyon, the Mir hills.

The Tribal Chief loved all of it.

If this was the end, he would bear it.

Despair had come in an instant and gnawed away at him from the inside, and when only a hollow shell was left and he had begun to wonder if all that remained was to wait for the day he died, that was when Rem returned.

When the curse was blocked. When two Giants were killed. He had found hope in each of those moments, but not as much as now.

The Tribal Chief felt peace.

He watched Rem kick a Giant in the ankle as that feeling settled over him.

Rem's frame was not even half the Giant's size. By all rights, a kick like that should not have made the Giant flinch.

But it did.

One kick from Rem and the Giant lost its balance. With a splitting crunch the ankle bone snapped through the hide, and as the Giant tilted sideways, an axe blade met its neck on the way down.

Thwack!

Purple blood gushed with a clean, crisp impact. Rem, soaked in blood, smiled.

"Hey. You've got less than half left now."

The prodigal son returned.

He was different from the Rem of before. He fought like this without any sorcery. He fought well without any inherited weapon granted to him. Fought incredibly, impossibly well.

The Tribal Chief felt relief.

This fight was won.

Tonight, it seemed, he would not be pissing blood.

His heart, which had lurched when the outsider called Enkrid had suddenly leapt forward, was now beating at its proper pace again.

The relief that calm and peace could bring.

Out there, blood was flying and bones were breaking and screams were tearing loose, and still the Tribal Chief was at peace.

Geomnarae had coughed up blood, but looking at him, a few days of rest would be enough.

The Tribal Chief murmured.

"We won."

Naturally, that was a premature judgment.

* * *

Ruagarne knew, even while hating Cultists with everything she had, that the end of her fights never felt entirely satisfying.

'Can I kill every last Cultist?'

No.

'Can I tear the Cult out by the roots?'

No.

After her second lover died, Ruagarne had spent a long stretch wandering, something close to drifting.

During that time she had no interest in anything except killing Cultists.

Separate from desire, she might have made killing them her goal, but she had not.

'Because it was a losing game.'

She knew that if she made it her goal, she could never achieve it.

So she turned her desire in another direction.

Chasing the unknown. Uncovering it. That fit her well.

It was enjoyable, and it felt right.

From the outside, it might look like the source of Frog's desire lay somewhere in instinct and some incomprehensible place, but what she actually felt was different.

'Where there is Will, desire follows.'

That was why the truest Frogs carved out their own desires. They could name what they wanted clearly, with clear reasons behind it. They did not let themselves be dragged by desire without cause.

'Ah.'

The realization came in an instant.

A nightmare reliving the worst moment.

The faint trace of the Cult, felt dimly.

In the end, she would have to face the enemies of her entire life.

Being at Enkrid's side was not unpleasant.

Walking toward the unknown was enjoyable too.

Someday she wanted to set foot in the east as well. She would draw the map that had been her former lover's dream.

Ruagarne watched Enkrid swinging his sword.

She had watched the rhythm of his days for quite some time now.

That daily rhythm she had observed for so long gave her something like understanding.

'Explore the unknown.'

And beat Cultists to death.

How?

Whether it ends or not, just do it earnestly, every time you see one.

Even if the end is unhappy, enjoying the process is enough.

There is someone who smiles while swinging a sword.

Someone who swings a sword without ever tiring of it.

Someone who wakes at the same time every day and trains.

Grrrrrk.

Separate from the anger she was expressing, Ruagarne laughed.

Of course, to the Cultists' eyes, there was no way to tell Frog's laughter from her fury.

"Crazy frog!"

"Crush her heart!"

"Bite out her heart!"

The savages, the Cannibals, kept screaming.

Respond to the word heart, that was the idea.

Ruagarne's mind was steady. She let the grating words pass through one ear and out the other.

One of them stomped a foot against the ground. Sorcerous power flowed out from the boots, and the figure shifted to her side.

An item enchanted with a high-speed movement spell.

She had seen it once before.

When was that, exactly.

The Gnoll Colony.

Enkrid had been with her then too.

As that moment surfaced, a battle cry tore itself free.

Grrrrk, grrrrrrk!

Frog's war cry.

At the same moment, her Loop Sword shot upward to the right, carving through the air, right where the Cannibal Sorcerer had been appearing.

Whooom!

The force of the blow made the Cannibal flinch back in alarm.

"Tch!"

The woman who appeared to be the leader of the Cannibal group made a gesture.

Around her, the enemy began to gather one by one.

In the gap, a one-eyed elf lunged in and bought time.

Not a difficult opponent. But not easy to put down in an instant. If the plan was to stall for time, it was a solid move.

"Warrior's Arm, come forth."

One of the Cannibals murmured and extended a hand forward. From the fingertips, a black droplet formed and fell toward the ground.

A single black droplet spread wider and wider into a black pool, and from beneath it, a dark hand shot out.

It was the Cult's sorcery.

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