WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 492: When I Opened My Eyes Again

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"Father, I will take revenge for you."

The man who had once been his tribe's prodigy shaman declared it aloud, then cut off his own fingers and laid a curse on his own body. Every bit of it was preparation to kill one person.

When ordinary methods would not work, he would use every shortcut he could find, lean on luck if he had to. That was his resolve.

* * *

They passed through the Cursed Ground: Silence and swung south, and sparse grassland began appearing in patches. With it came demon creatures, plenty of them.

Two places in the western lands were off-limits to everyone: the Cursed Ground: Silence, and the River of Sand Without Return.

The grassland ahead had gone fallow thanks to that cursed ground called Silence. For the group now traveling through it, an abundance of demon creatures was no problem at all.

It was still little more than a picnic to them.

Even if a Ghoul that fought like a knight came at them, they could kill it without losing a single limb. With Rem alongside him, the Enkrid of today was capable of that.

Grooowl.

When a Ghoul showed up..."Hiyah."

Dunbakel shot forward to deal with it.

When they spotted a decent cluster of demon creatures while passing through an area, they sometimes changed course entirely just to meet them.

"Might as well stretch a little."

At times like that, Enkrid stepped up himself. Rem watched without doing much of anything.

He has come a long way.

No hesitation in his stride, no mercy in his swing.

A Ratman rushing in jabbed a stick it had picked up somewhere. Enkrid dodged without even looking and swept Aker clean through its neck.

Shhk.

The creature's tough flesh parted in an instant, and its head sailed into the air.

Black blood sprayed from the falling body. Another Ratman behind it dropped with a hole punched through its forehead.

Spark, drawn before anyone noticed, had done that.

A faint afterimage lingered where the second Ratman had been standing, the mirage left by Enkrid's body moving at speed. He had already shifted to another spot and was swinging his sword.

Relentless, clean strikes followed one after another.

A vertical slash, a thrust, a kick. Every motion fit inside a single breath. Three actions packed into a single tempo.

Not something easy to pull off, yet he did it without strain now.

By the time the first Ratman he had beheaded hit the ground, six more were already dead. Then something slid up from the soil, thick and sinuous like a serpent.

He had been sensing a faint tickle underfoot for a while. A sand worm had burst out.

The large ones that wandered the deep desert could raise whole dunes, but this region would never produce anything that massive.

Small by comparison, it was still as thick as a grown man's thigh, and its tail punched up through the earth trying to coil around Enkrid's ankle.

He leaped forward to clear the tail, and while his foot was still in the air, he caught his balance and drove Spark straight into the flat ground below him.

Right where the sand worm's head would be.

How did he know the weak point?

Rem turned it over privately. Sand worms fought by keeping their heads buried, and the head was their weak point. Enkrid had spotted that in an instant and driven the blade home.

Instinct, probably.

From a hunter's perspective, sand worms had a habit of hiding their vulnerable spot. That was why they only struck with the tail. Knowing that made it simple; not knowing made it brutal.

Enkrid had not known. He had done it anyway without a moment's hesitation.

Rem disliked admitting it, but that was the wildcat's doing. His own eye for talent never lied.

Enkrid probably knew where his enemies were even with both eyes closed. His Sensory Technique had grown sharper than before, sharp enough to tell him everything.

Fighting a Giant, killing a Sorcerer, then sparring with Rem on top of all that.

He had been noticing it lately: he trained the exact same way as always, yet something changed each day. The growth was clear enough that he could feel it.

The sword just keeps reaching.

Put plainly, his body was always at its peak.

Breathing came easy, his arms extended freely, and the next move surfaced naturally from whatever he was already doing.

When a Ratman raised its claws to stab, dozens of attack lines opened up at once: block, slash, dodge and thrust, split it before it reached him, or just kick it away. Enkrid picked one and moved.

The result matched what he had predicted.

The sand worm was the same. The moment the tail erupted, he felt roughly where the body was hiding and tested it. Black blood welled from the hole Spark made.

After clearing that group of demon creatures and walking back, Enkrid had nothing on him but a few dots of black blood.

He was not even breathing hard. Anyone watching would have assumed he had gone for a light stroll.

What's that on you?

Hm? Something get on me?

That was the kind of exchange anyone could have had with him, looking at how completely unmarked he came back, having killed over ten demon creatures including the Ratmen.

"Damn," Rem said, a laugh escaping before he could stop it.

He would need to shove medicinal herbs down the head sorcerer's throat and hurry him along on finding that sorcery the moment they returned.

Dunbakel's expression was odd. She watched Enkrid with a look that was strangely thoughtful, unlike her usual self. Ruagarne simply nodded.

"When you enjoy it, you forget your limits."

She seemed to have reached some conclusion of her own.

Either way, the group kept moving.

When they were not fighting, they mostly talked. Around the time Juol would sink deep into cooking, Arath would sit nearby and share something entertaining.

"Sometimes hunters from the continent settle in the northern part of the western lands for a spell. Out near the wastelands by the desert."

"I thought you can't come back once you go in."

They were talking about foreigners who lived near the desert.

"That's why they stay on the outskirts only."

"Greed brings trouble. Some fools crawl into the desert and come back out as skeleton soldiers, though that's quite far from here."

Rem added that from the side.

Juol seemed to know the subject well, stirring barley and oats and thin strips of salted meat in a large pot with oil as he spoke.

"Hunters come for the gem-tailed lizard and the gem-eared fox. Those creatures wander out to the desert's edge sometimes, and hunters wait around to catch them when they do."

Animals Enkrid had never heard of. The western lands were home to all sorts of unusual creatures, and these were no different.

From what the others said, these were animals with jewels growing on their bodies, lizards on the tail, foxes on the ears.

They ate sand, apparently, which was why they lived in the desert.

They would die if they touched water, or so people claimed, and yet each one supposedly had a kind of water phobia as well.

Vicious as they were, a single splash from a water flask would send them running even if a hunt had just gone wrong.

Succeed and you walked away with a few jewels. Fail and your life was almost never at risk.

So what did it take?

"Discipline. Not pushing deeper inside and just waiting it out."

"Luck has to be on your side too. Waiting doesn't guarantee you'll even see one."

"Luck has nothing to do with it. Understanding their habits comes first."

Rem, Juol, Arath, in that order, and each said something slightly different.

Still, the general picture was clear enough.

An intelligent, prepared hunter with patience. That was what it required. And luck played a role as well.

So of all the people who made it out to the western lands hunting gem-tailed lizards and gem-eared foxes, how many were actually skilled hunters?

Criminals, fugitives, deserters, men running from gambling debts.

A whole parade of types who decided to try their hand at it.

Naturally, the fools showed up with some regularity.

Juol mentioned that a mercenary company had come through once looking for foxes, and had apparently gone completely off the deep end, they swept all the way south into the western lands and attacked one of the tribes.

Shhh.

Juol shook the pot up and down. Properly cooked salted meat and grain kernels arced up in a smooth curve and fell back in. With each toss, a rich, fragrant smell rolled out around them.

Enkrid, a model audience, slipped in his reactions between Juol's movements.

"What happened after that? That smell is incredible."

"Good things ahead. Western specialty, roasted barley. What happened? Killed about half of them and the rest ran. The others probably ended up as feed for some demon creature."

Occasionally, very rarely, a capable hunter would wait it out, claim a few jewels, and head home. But it did not sound easy. And the jewels earned that way were apparently not the kind of windfall that changed a person's life.

Krais would hear this and immediately try to organize a company of hunters to go in.

Probably not, actually. Krais hated leaving anything to luck.

If he decided to go after the gem animals anyway, he would first study their habits, find a method, and then move while cutting luck out of the equation as much as possible.

And Enkrid himself?

He would not bother. Krona could be earned other ways.

It was just idle talk to pass the time.

Shhh.

Steam rose from the pot. The western specialty, roasted barley, was done.

Wild barley and oats with various dried vegetables, seasoned with finely chopped salted meat. The taste needed no explanation.

Enkrid scooped up a full mouthful. Barley bounced around between his teeth, rolling every which way. He caught a piece and chewed, and a deep nuttiness spread across his mouth, herb fragrance and saltiness coming together in a perfect balance.

He gave a thumbs-up without thinking.

"A masterpiece."

Juol smiled broadly, satisfaction written all over his face.

The group cleared demon creatures as they went and made their way back to the tribe.

"Welcome back."

The Tribal Chief was the first to greet them on their return.

They settled back into daily life after that, and two days later Rem came to find Enkrid.

"I'm heading out. Don't go causing trouble while I'm gone."

"Never thought I'd live to hear that from you."

"It'll be worth it when I get back."

Rem said it with a grin, then turned and left.

What exactly was sorcery? Nobody could say precisely. But one thing was certain.

Ragna had touched the territory of knighthood first, but Rem would reach somewhere close to that same level.

"I heard the chances of dying are real."

The more talented the person, the higher the chance of death. That was sorcery, or so he had been told.

Those words had come from Arath. Enkrid called after Rem's retreating back, and Rem turned only his head to answer.

"Do I look like I'm going to die?"

"No."

The answer came without hesitation.

Rem let out a low laugh and walked away. Enkrid smiled faintly and went back to what he had been doing, swinging his sword, moving his body, sparring when the chance came.

"Doesn't it get boring?"

One of the Twins spoke up beside him.

The other was out cold.

The two of them spoke a single sentence in turns, trading words back and forth, and Enkrid had wondered whether one being unconscious meant only half the sentence came out. Apparently not.

Enkrid looked at the one who had spoken.

"What does?"

"Training."

"Why would this be boring?"

An incomprehensible person to talk to. The Twin went quiet.

Enkrid let the question pass through one ear and out the other and savored the anticipation sitting in his chest.

Just as he had learned something from Ragna, he would learn something from Rem too. That thought alone made his heart beat a little faster.

Arath came by partway through and told him Rem would probably need about two weeks to emerge. Enkrid did not think of that as a particularly long time.

During that stretch, the fleeing Fortune-Teller Tribe was captured, and a young sorcerer rescued a miserable cripple from his own tribe, a man the cannibals had been dragging around as food.

His face was pocked with scars. His left hand had been cut down to only the thumb. His speech was slurred.

He had no notable talent for sorcery, but the care he gave to the sick was something else entirely.

Having a broken body of his own, he understood the pain of others in a way that showed.

The cripple who ended up sharing Enkrid's tent, watching over those still afflicted by the Violet Demon Lord's Curse, dragged himself everywhere on the ground and announced his presence with a peculiar sound.

Sssch. Ssssch. Sssssssch.

The scraping of two palms pressed flat against the earth.

It was the fifth day since Rem had left for the Sacred Ground. Enkrid had woken before dawn and was working through the Isolation Technique, earlier than usual. Too early for Ruagarne or Dunbakel to be up, so he was alone.

He moved through the motions with one thought turning in his head.

If curses are useless against me, does that mean my body resists sorcery entirely?

Would that mean he could afford to be careless against sorcerers? Probably not. But curses would not work on him, he had confirmed that. It had opened a small gap in his thinking.

"Curses don't work on you, do they."

The cripple spoke.

Enkrid had not been paying him close attention, but he noticed the change in the way the man talked. The slur was gone.

Aker hung at Enkrid's hip. Armor covered his body. He was fully equipped. Why? No particular reason.

Training could be done bare, but today he had done it this way. A thought had come to him in the morning.

Comfort is compromise. Consistent training and repetition are what carry you into tomorrow.

That included checking his equipment, so he had done that too. He was even wearing the bow he had been gifted and not yet properly used, hung from his belt because carrying it around unused seemed a waste.

For his opponent, that was misfortune.

It would have been bad enough unarmed. In full armor, it was worse.

Enkrid saw dozens of attack lines and confirmed the man's disability was genuine.

And the man was within his sword's reach. If he wanted to, he could cut him down in less time than a single breath.

"With curses not working, I thought there was no way."

A forced, ragged laugh underneath the words, and then the man continued.

"This is forbidden sorcery made from everything I had, my future, my soul, all of it."

Why was he suddenly thinking of the time back in Border Guard when the elf assassin had slipped through his guard?

He had not been careless then either, yet the knife had found a gap. This felt like that.

"I offer my past, my present, my future."

The man opened his mouth and stretched out his hand. Something thin as thread emerged from his fingertips and touched Enkrid's body. No threat, no killing intent. He could have ignored it, but Enkrid's sword moved by reflex.

Just as he had said: in less time than a single breath, the sword shot out and split the man's head open.

Crack.

The man's hand still extended, his skull cleaved straight down the middle. Blood, brain matter, and fragments of bone slid free, and then Enkrid's vision went black.

He kept his eyes open and held on, but the world started spinning. Sky and earth flipped upside down.

A floating sensation lifted through him. He had felt it when he took a hit and went airborne, but never any other time.

At the end of that floating, light burst apart in front of his eyes like something shattering, and he had no choice but to shut them.

The first thing he felt was heat.

Not the warmth of the City of Aoara's sun, not the gentle heat of the western lands. This was the kind that would cook flesh where it touched.

When he opened his eyes, the world was yellow. The sky was high and there was nothing around him but sand.

The only unusual thing: three dried-out corpses kneeling in the sand, arranged at three points around him.

He knew without looking closer. No life came from them. Already dead.

Enkrid's strength had always been reading a situation fast.

He turned it over in his mind.

How exactly did this happen?

One thing was certain.

He had learned something from this.

Never let his guard down, no matter what.

A sharp knife could punch through iron plate if it found the right spot.

That seemed to be what had just happened to him.

He looked around. Nothing beyond sand. Rippling sand, sand banked into dunes, sand shimmering with heat haze. One thing came to mind.

The River of Sand Without Return, was it?

A last resort.

Not a curse, forbidden sorcery. What the prodigy shaman had built by throwing away his own life and spending the lives of his companions alongside it.

Curses would not work, so he had sent Enkrid into the desert instead. Looking at the situation, that seemed to be exactly what had happened.

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